Geeky Gifts for New Dads, The Goodfather

The Moose at Dr.MOZ writes "The Goodfather, 'for the baby he can't refuse.' The Goodfather is a custom-boxed CD-ROM that teaches new dads hundreds of baby skills and baby related definitions through a fun parody of a famous American gangster epic (The Godfather). The baby/parenting topics in The Goodfather CD-ROM were selected for men by experienced dads and grandfathers, and edited by licensed nurse-midwives to ensure the material is medically sound. In addition to the hundreds of baby skills lessons and definitions, The Goodfather also has a Baby Name Book with approximately 15,000 baby names and a Baby Card Maker which allows new dads to make and print their own baby cards. New dads choose from dozens of "new dad" card-types with provided art, or they are able to import JPGs to create their own customized baby cards! The Goodfather runs on both Windows® and Macintosh® systems and is proving to be the next 'must have' gift for the sometimes ignored new dad on the baby shower list."

Comments

Relevancy?

[saskboy]

How are babies related to Slashdot readers, you have to have sex to have a baby! Well I guess you could adopt, there's no law against a geek adopting right?

I think the most important thing for a Dad who knows nothing about kids is to learn more about their kids. Spend time with them every day, even if you don't do much. The kid will set the agenda and you can answer questions as they come up especially since you can use Wikipedia and Google.

How Did This Make Slashdot?

[shaneFalco]

How is this on Slashdot? This offers nothing new, nothing exciting. We have had CD-ROM's of videos coupled with card makers for years. This boils down to nothing more than an advertisement for the manufacters of the product. Even, the description the poster used is nothing more than an ad.

Are the moderaters THAT bad?

Re:How Did This Make Slashdot?

[lightknight]

Agreed. If the editors are going to post advertisements, could they at least post something that has a vague connection with the site's content? "It comes on a CD" does not cut it.

With the current singal-to-noise ratio, we are slowly coming closer to that of TV. The next step will actual posts being subsidized by advertisers.

"This post brought to you by Microsoft Windows Vista. Vista, for all your computing needs!"

Re:How Did This Make Slashdot?

[nacturation]

Possible responses:

1. You must be new around here.
2. "The Moose at Dr. Moz held a gun to his head, and assured Samzenpus, that either this useless marketing or his brains would be on the front page of Slashdot."
3. "Hey, listen, I want somebody good - and I mean very good - to plant that marketing piece. I don't want Samzenpus coming off of his shift with no CDROM in his hands, alright?"
4. "What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?" ... "You can start by posting this sales pitch on your website!"
5. "Samzenpus, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to hock my wares on the front page of your website. And may your first child be a masculine child."
6. [Slashdot readers] "What the hell is this?"
[CmdrTaco] "It's a marketing message. It means Samzenpus sleeps with the salesmen."
7. [Samzenpus] "Someday - and that day may never come - I'll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this front page posting as gift on my jumping the shark day."

Re:How Did This Make Slashdot?

[Evro]

If you look at the Amazon.com product info page for this thing:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 7O22WI

There's a "See more products by this manufacturer," and the manufacturer is "Dr. MOZ," so once again this is just a guy/corporation spamming Slashdot with his product as a way to line his own pocket. Additionally, Amazon lists this product as having been first released on January 29, 2005, nearly 10 months ago, so this isn't even a new product. I wonder how many times this guy has submitted this thing before it was finally accepted?

It would be great if the Slashdot admins would make some sort of statement about the clear increase in press release/marketing material that's wending its way into Slashdot as "Stuff that matters," because the last I heard about it was the supposed April Fools joke about Slashvertisements, but it seems to be happening for real more and more - yesterday's "story" about a "blazingly fast" USB thumb drive was almost sickening in that not only was it a crappy ad disguised as a pseudo-article, it was for a crappy product! This GoodFather thing is neither relevant nor new. I don't mind off-topic discussions (I'm really not a "THAT'S NOT NEWS FOR NERS!!!!!" type), but if you're going to be running ads as stories, at least follow Google's lead and make them targeted.

Tip #87

[nacturation]

When baby misbehaves, remember the horse's head we mentioned in Tip #51.

Re:Tip #87

[Megor1]

The most important tip is


ALWAYS SHAKE A BABY

Re:Tip #87

[Macphisto]

Shake shake shake! Shake that baby! C'mon now, get with it!

Shaking it up real nice now. Shaking so hard you can't shake no more. Keeping it loose and let me tell you, ain't gonna be no crying from no one no more, dig?

Shake it up real good now.

Re:Good for naming servers, I suppose

[WillerZ]

Help! Help! The ACs are spying on me!

Is nothing sacred?

[Attaturk]

This proud first-time father of a baby thought that the one place I was safe from new-Dad-targeting marketing arsehats was here on /.!

Where's /. and what have you done with him!?????

Less, not worse.

[Leroy_Brown242]

Does anyone remember the time when slow news days meant less posts, insteads of lower quality posts?

Re:Talk about misplaced advertising

[cuerty]

I believe that if God had wanted that geek has children it had given them abilities with opposite sex.

No fancy instructions needed

[Max Romantschuk]

Let's face it: You don't need a bunch of fancy instructions. The basics are really simple, and everything else you pick up as you go along. Parenting and raising kids may be a different issue, but you do not need a multimedia presentation on how to change a diaper. This is a waste of money.

Trust me, I know. As in my "firstborn were twins and we did just fine".

Re:No fancy instructions needed

[martinmcc]

I agree (I have 2 girls and a new baby, a boy I think, due in a few weeks). I find that pretty much everyone and their dog tries to tell you how to be a parent, and in my view this is a bad thing(tm).

We are biologically programmed to be parents, it is what we do. Certainly, some are better than others, and there are some that are just plain crap, but in my view the proclavity for telling parent what they should and shouldn't be doing (indeed, can and can't do) does more harm than good.

In my view, the most important thing to being a parent is being confident and relaxed. This is very hard if you are too wound up about making sure you are obeying all the rules in all the baby book, tv programs, news paper articles and government guidelines. This can make most people stressed, and stressed parents = bad parents.

Small kids don't understand the spoken word to well, but they are experts at empathy - if you are unsure they will know it, and they will take advantage of it. So long as you are confident in what you do, engage with them on their level, remain consitant (most of the time, we are not robots after all), and use some commen sence, everything else will fall into place. And yes, there are some ppl who just do not get parenting at all and do need some help, that is what families and socity are for, you cannot replace concerned human interaction with a CD-ROM or goverment issued pamphlet.

Re:No fancy instructions needed

[Anonymous Coward]

but these are infancy instructions

Re:No fancy instructions needed

[Max Romantschuk]

Mod Parent Up

Press release

[jobyl]

Best of all, this wasn't sent in by some enthusiastic customer, it was directly submitted by the people who sell this bizarre product. Next on Slashdot: Crazy Larry's got Low Low prices on Sofas, Hide-a-beds and lazy-boys. Act NOW!

Re:Press release

[theCoder]

I wish they'd just make a "Slashvertisement" topic. I probably wouldn't even block it, since I'm lazy and at least some of the products might be interesting. But to pass off ads as real stories is pretty sleazy. Especially when the product in question doesn't even run on Linux!

wow..

[Turn-X Alphonse]

So who copy and pasted this from the website? It not only reads like an advert it even includes the little trademark signs still.

Geeks don't procreate...

[merikari]

They clone themselves.

Re:Geeks don't procreate...

[One Childish N00b]

Geeks don't procreate...

they fork.

Put them to use: "Baby's First Debugger -- GDB"

[drgonzo59]

Even better than just spending time - put them to good use!

I can see the ads:

Teach your baby C++ in 21 days, let him debug that code for you, while you play Doom.

Or how about

"Database Administration for Babies" - put the pager in his crib and walk way to play D&D. Let your baby help you instead of just eating, crying and pooping all day.

15,000 names?!

[ratnerstar]

But I'm only planning on having 14,000 babies!

Insulting...

[ultranova]

a fun parody of a famous American gangster epic (The GodFather)

I don't know which is more annoying: that Slashdot publishes ads as stories, or that they have to be insulting about it. I mean, really, would it really be impossible to think that people are capable of making the giant leap of insight from "GoodFather" to "GodFather" without needing to spell it out ?

Call now, operators are standing by

[LodCrappo]

My god, WHAT THE HELL is going on here???? This is an advertisement and nothing more. This IS NOT NEWS. "news for nerds" implies that the articles will at least be news of some sort.

PS I have some products I would like to advertise on Slashdot as well, please contact me with pricing information.

This is important stuff

[joelsanda]

I've already seen the usual "This is news?" posts, so here's my experience. This matters because there are some nerds that meet a member of the opposite sex, score, and have a kid.

Something like this could have been handy when I was a new dad, seven plus years ago. As it was, I hit gold when I did a Yahoo search on "colic", which my kid had. Some enterprising geek dad came up with a series of rotating images that calmed kids down. So when 3am rolled around and it was my turn to console the unconsolable I would fire up that web page and ALT+TAB between that page and Baldur's Gate. I actually think Baldur's Gate had a more calming influence than the colic web page - what could be more soothing and calming than leading a party through kobold infested mines?

As for the advice about Baby Showers? If you're a man don't attend. Not all things are equal and I'd rather be knee deep in an imploded Diaper Genie than at another baby shower... It's pure humiliation to listen to what women talk about those things. It was probably a significant reason the standing army was invented.

My advice is buy yourself a BabyBjorn so you can do normal stuff without worrying about the baby crawling into an open pit or getting mauled by a household pet. These things let you hang the infant off the front or back. If it hangs in front with the little geek-to-be facing outwards they'll watch your computer screen for hours. It helps to have something other than /. up, like Baldur's Gate - a little bit more to watch. My kid particularly enjoyed it when the mage hit third level and started leveling the playing field with fireballs.

He'll grow up to be a geek yet ;-)

I'm Done.

[charyou-tree]

Goodbye /.

I just can't keep picking through the blatant ad stories, totally irrelevant junk, shockingly incompetent editing ...

World plug ever

[gnarlin]

I don't mind dupes. I don't mind flamebaits. I don't mind the unending flurry of bad memes, even come to aquire a taste for a few, but this must be the worst plug this website has ever seen, not to mention completely irrelivant to its very purpose.

Besides the fact that this has nothing to do with technology (and please don't point out that it is a multimedia-cd, that is hardly noteworthy) nor does it bring any relative news of any kind of social, legal or political struggle. This is the sort of plug that might appear on foxnews or somesuch. One can only wonder if the poster confused slashdot.org with loveourchildrenusa.org. This, surely, is the most antithesis to the website's slogan. Newsflash for editors, "stuffit!", say the commentators. Babysitting techniques indeed! Now all they need is our creditcard numbers and expiration dates.

Wow, ads you can't adblock!!!!111 that is news!:-)

[tod_miller]

I like it! :-) That is new. Before everyone compalins about this ad being submitted as news, don't be short-sighted!

The ad is news!

It is a subtle nudge at the future. You see, one day, as we type [buy nike] companies may be willing to pay, for esteemed [c1alis 4 u] writers, to have ads inserted directly into their writing. of course I have always liked [anal sex] the idea that ads should not interfere with the content, and just last night in bed I was thinking of [goatse premium, see beyong the bowels!] this.

Today however, you just need to post [your shit, we buy it] on slashdot, and your ad may appear as a legitimate .

Oh dear.

please type the word [extreme hentai goatse] in this image: uniforms random letters - if you are visually impaired, please email us at pater[is teh gay]@slashdot.org

Re:Stupid self help videos

[flyingsquid]

I'll either use the skills my parents taught me, or simply abandon my children and allow them to be raised by their elderly grandparents.

Wolves. I've heard that sometimes if you abandon your kids, wolves will adopt them and raise them as their own. Plus, that'd so be cool- like, maybe you'd be at this party, and this lady would be like, "MY son goes to Yale and he's going to be a high-powered lawyer. What does YOUR son do?", and you'd be like, "So freakin' what, lady? My son was raised by freakin' WOLVES. He can rip a moose's throat out with his bare teeth and he made alpha male at fifteen."

Leave the baby.

[rk]

Take the cannolis.

All I know about babies I learned from Star Trek..

[JumpingBull]

I am not kidding; really!
The episode I have in mind is where Spock is presented with a baby, which makes squalling noises until Dr. McCoy shows Spock how it is done.

- hold the baby so its' spine rests on the fore arm; left arm is preferred - the natural reflex is to hold the baby close to your chest; give in to it - your heartbeat is a reassuring sound to a newborn - newborns breath incredibly lightly, so the panic of "is s/he still breathing?" should be expected

There is nothing more profound and scary then being presented with a new life; especially one that is totally dependent on your care.

Here is a hint: pass the bad baggage back, pass the good stuff on
There is a lot of good stuff that a geek has to offer: playfulness, curiousity and a free spirit are but a few of the bonuses of a Geek parent.
But the greatest gift you can give to the new souls in your life, to everyone, actually, is just being yourself. Warts and all.

Filters Request

[Tom]

Instead of being able to filter by topic and author, could we get some baysian filtering for /. ?

I'd really, really appreciate if I could mark stories as "spam" and /. learns what I like and what I don't.

Since /. needs ad bucks to roll, think of the advantages here - self-selected target audiences, anyone? Also, if there's enough performance, it may be possible for the mods to see how many people will filter out the post before it's posted. They'd have to adapt and thus improve story quality.

Just an idea, you know...

WoW has made me a good father!

[t0qer]

My daughter was born November 14th this year (few days/weeks ago).

I work nights. My wow habits used to kind of make my wife worried, but now I just follow the routine.

Play wow for 2 hours.
Change diaper
Feed 2oz breastmilk
burp
Change diaper again if needed.

My wife think's i'm such a good father :)

--toqer

Geeky Gifts?

[Sodki]

The GoodFather runs on both Windows® and Macintosh® systems

What? It ain't that geeky if it doesn't run on Linux.

I actaully hope this gets duped....

[biglig2]

...as I believe that could create new levels of flamage, always entertaining on a slow posts day. People might even physically explode, and that's always fun to watch.

Just say no to this rubbish

[Flying pig]

I hate to tell you this (not at all, really) but geeks get married, have sex and have kids just like everybody else. It's just that, in my experience (and I'm over 50, so I have quite a lot of it) they tend to be more responsible than the average, marry later and stay married to the same person for longer. Female as well as male...

You may be aware that Scott Adams actually had hundreds of letters from women saying, in effect, that they were either married to a Dilbert or would like to marry one. Marrying a jock is fine till he (a) just starts playing around (b) has his mid-life crisis (c) the boiler fails and he's helpless while the geek just gets in there, criticises the design of the controller and the user interface and fixes it in thirty minutes.

Re:Just say no to this rubbish

[Grab]

"Criticises the design of the controller"?

You've got the wrong controller then. Go buy a proper geeky controller that'll let you set boiler on-off times for every day of the week. And I only bought one bcos the price came down and it was cheaper than building one myself...

Also on that theme, we're about to buy a UPS because our gas-fired central heating needs mains electricity to turn it on. If the electric craps out, the UPS will let us keep running the heating for a while. And of course there's also the fringe benefit for running the PC.

Grab.

Re:Just say no to this rubbish

[Txiasaeia]

"I was teasing about geeks not gettin' any. You must be new here, because it's one of those running Slashdot jokes that stories involving sex don't belong on Slashdot."

Huh? What do you mean? The story is about babies... I don't see the connection.

Re:Just say no to this rubbish

[Seumas]

Oh, by the way:

You may be aware that Scott Adams actually had hundreds of letters from women saying, in effect, that they were either married to a Dilbert or would like to marry one. Marrying a jock is fine till he (a) just starts playing around (b) has his mid-life crisis (c) the boiler fails and he's helpless while the geek just gets in there, criticises the design of the controller and the user interface and fixes it in thirty minutes.

What you've just stated is what I've said one thousand times.

Women want the pretty bad boy while they're young. They go out and party and spread their legs like the red sea. They wouldn't give YOU (yes you, reading this, poindexters!) the time of day other than perhaps as a free meal before they go out on a booty call with the guy they really want to hook up with later that night.

However, when she's ready to settle down, be more of a prude, stop being as fun and needs someone to care for her and have children with her and be responsible, reliable and secury, she'll settle for you (yes you, you boring geeky poindexters!).

So if you don't mind that the chick you're talking about above is only going for you because she's decided that Mr. Boring is okay in exchange for security, then go for it. If you don't mind that she was serving people like the golden arches for a decade while she was young and hot and only found you interesting after she put up the "one billion served" sign, go for it. If you don't mind being the runner up, go for it.

It again goes to prove my "geeks settle, because they don't know better and are desparate" theory.

Haynes Baby Manual

[ReVMD]

In the UK we've had the Haynes baby manual for a couple of years. Its brilliantly done and structured the exact same way they do their car manuals.

Geek has twins... stops gaming...

[dallask]

Or rather, starts gaming at 2,4,6 AM when the kids wake up for feedings....

Seriously, this would have been appreciated when they (www.lifewithtwins.com) were born... those first two weeks kicked our ass!