Saving games on something I don't control (and religiously backup) is not something I would do. I'm not putting any time into a game that my progress could be lost. Big companies don't back up like they should the Microsoft Sidekick fiasco was a perfect example of that. Plus Ubisoft has been known to release really buggy software so I don't have any faith that backups (or working backups) wouldn't be in their "fix later" file.
I've done volunteer work through the RedCross. http://www.redcross.org/ Like others have mentioned if you are just wanting to help a week at best you'll be digging ditches or sorting donations. Small things like sponsoring a blood drive or working the refreshment stands at a blood drive is very helpful and can be done short term.
They've got chapters all over the world so they may be able to hook you up with a foreign "office" for something short term. They are a great group to volunteer with year round and they give you a ton of options so you can find something that fits in your life.
You may also want to try http://www.volunteermatch.org/ I've never used them, but RedCross uses them as the backend for their volunteer search pages.
Our administrative staff actually love Firefox once we setup Forecastbar for them. Something about having the weather constantly displayed brings them inner joy and peace. Plus then they don't ask for Weatherbug which we have had problems with in the past.
Unfortunately noscript was too difficult for the majority of them to grasp. Once they realized how to allow everything that is what they did. Go to a page, it doesn't work, & click allow. So we compromised and use Adblock & Flashblock. Doesn't protect from nearly as much as noscript, but less confusing.
"Animals are NOT allowed on planes with the people"
At least in the US small animals are allowed on planes as long as they fit in an approved carry-on carrier, and service animals are allowed to sit with their owner even if they are a large dog or small pony.
So any flight you get on there may be pets like cats, dogs, or anything else small enough to fit in a carrier. I've taken pet rats on several occasions. Or there may be service animals like ponies, dogs, cats, monkeys, pigs and birds. http://www.guidehorse.org/news_minis_fly.htm
This is a good point. I had a college internship at a small zoo. There were several things we did to help reduce the chance of kids getting sick from E. coli at the petting zoo. We kept the grounds cleaned, kept the dust down, provided hand sanitizer at the exits, we wouldn't allow kids/adults to enter with food or gum, and a few other standard practices.
The most interesting thing we did was feed the animals a supplement that contained bacteria like Lactobacillus. They said it contained other natural rumen bacteria, but didn't specify what those were. I'm guessing one of those unnamed bacteria was a benign form of E. coli. Good E. coli can provide vitamin K2 to its host and prevent the dangerous varieties from growing.
The good: The multitouch worked very well. It was very responsive for scrolling and left & right clicking was a breeze. The special mutlitouch motions they included were fun and easy.
The bad: At this time the mouse doesn't support the pinch motion so no zooming in and out. NO MIDDLE CLICK!!! So if you use middle click to copy/paste into X11 apps this is gone. I did some googling, but I didn't have long with the mouse so I wanted to play as much as possible. I'd have to make sure I had a good solution for the middle click before buying though.
The other thing that was odd in the limited time I got to play, is that as you use the mouse it has a habit of twisting around on your mouse pad. I'd wonder why the mouse was going off at odd angles and then realize that my mouse was sideways again. I'm guessing that is something that would go away with some training and use.
Of course I'm still at risk for non-bacteria pneumonia, but I am protected from about 80 varieties of pneumococcus bacteria.
I am also still at risk from influenza, but since I'm healthy with a healthy immune system my Dr and I decided to do a one time vaccine that protects me from pneumonia rather than risk the side effects of a yearly shot.
Instead of doing a flu shot a few years back I got a pneumonia vaccine. Usually it is the pneumonia that kills you when you get the flu. It doesn't protect you against all forms of pneumonia, but as an added side affect if I get hospitalized for some other reason my chance of getting a secondary pneumonia infection is reduced.
The other bonus is you get one or two shots in your lifetime instead of having to get a shot every year. I guess I'm a bit more trusting of a vaccine that doesn't seem to revolve around a yearly profit cycle.
I've seen the same. Our old HP's (5+ y.o.) work like champs and you can't beat them into submission. Our new ones seem flimsy and fail too often. Also we've been getting more and more problems with ps/pdf files not printing correctly on the PCL based models. Even after updating the firmware to new PCL revs.
We've switched to Ricoh. Their printers feel a lot like the old HP's. The Ricoh's we buy weigh about 20 lbs heavier than their Xerox or HP counterpart. Some of the printer models are Mac & Windows only, but you can use the Mac PPD or get a custom PPD at linuxprinting.org.
So far I've been really happy with them. Plus you can manage them via https/ssh instead of http/telnet if you want.
Hey I'm offended by this remark. One of my friends told me this great secret about 2 days ago on how she is cheating on her husband with the Cowboy Cheerleaders (all of them) and I haven't told a soul.
This actually works really well in old tractors. Instead of fuses they use fusible link wire that does something similar, when to much current goes through a wire it melts away and breaks the connection. On my old '42 tractor every once in a while I'd burn a wire. It was a bit of a pain to find which one needed replacing, but you never needed a "specialty" part to fix it.
Are you kidding! In my mind Carter is the most remarkable & memorable president ever. Not only did he see a UFO, but he was attacked by a vicious rabbit that swam out to attack him while he was fishing.
As a president though you are right, Jimmy Carter is the meh of presidents.
The horse that is worst for spooking at danger signs (the alpha horse) is also the only one that could probably survive on his own. Most of the others wouldn't last the winter. I have one that used to winter in Flordia before I got him an he still hasn't learned that you can't drink ice and he bangs his face into frozen puddles when he wants to drink.
I think the other thing that is interested is that it isn't just "other birds". I have horses and I've always noticed that when a flock of birds take off normally that the horses won't even lift their heads from grazing. When the birds take off in a panic the horses heads come up and they scan looking for the predator and sometimes begin defensive measures (spooking or bolting).
When you spend a lot of time riding in fields on a spooky horse you get trained to the sound as well. Birds in a flock moving around no biggy; birds taking off in a panic though you better grab the reins and be ready because the horse under you may end up 15 feet to the side facing the opposite way before you even have a chance to realize what happened.
I think this is an excellent point. Many people raise their cats & dogs differently. They train their puppies and never bother to put that kind of time into their cats.
I spend a lot of time desensitizing and working with my cats when they are just tiny kittens and people always remark that they seem more like dogs. They come when they are called, some will play fetch, all will lay calmly when they get their teeth brushed or their nails clipped. They happily greet new comers into my house.
The thing I find with cats is that is very easy to teach them things, but hard to get them to not do things they want to do. At best I can get them to not jump up on the counters or table when I'm home. So maybe it isn't so much that they don't care about pleasing you as that they don't care about displeasing you.
I don't treat my cats any different than I do my dogs and behaviorally they are very similar. Now the adult cats I've adopted have been pretty hopeless and they seem to act like "normal" cats no matter how much time I work with them.
That is exactly what Rama did for me. It was an old Sierra game based on the Arthur C. Clarke. You learn two alien number systems which just happen to be octal and hexadecimal. I didn't realize until later how much I actually learned and remembered. Plus the puzzles were a blast.
I'm going to have to check that one out. Thanks for the link. I remember programming in turtle quite a bit from 2nd - 5th grade. When I got into "real" high school programming I was able to pick it up much quicker than most of the other kids because of all the time I wasted making programs with turtle.
I also played Project LRNJ: Slime Forest quite a bit to help me learn the Japanese Alphabet. They did a pretty good job of making the game fun though it did get a bit repetitive.
When I was in college there weren't computers in the library other than the electronic card catalog boxes, and it seemed like several times a month there would be an entry in the college news "crimes" section about someone being caught masturbating in the library. For some reason college age guys masturbate in libraries. I guess now they have something to look at.
Slashdot Mirror
Saving games on something I don't control (and religiously backup) is not something I would do. I'm not putting any time into a game that my progress could be lost. Big companies don't back up like they should the Microsoft Sidekick fiasco was a perfect example of that. Plus Ubisoft has been known to release really buggy software so I don't have any faith that backups (or working backups) wouldn't be in their "fix later" file.
I've done volunteer work through the RedCross. http://www.redcross.org/ Like others have mentioned if you are just wanting to help a week at best you'll be digging ditches or sorting donations. Small things like sponsoring a blood drive or working the refreshment stands at a blood drive is very helpful and can be done short term.
They've got chapters all over the world so they may be able to hook you up with a foreign "office" for something short term. They are a great group to volunteer with year round and they give you a ton of options so you can find something that fits in your life.
You may also want to try http://www.volunteermatch.org/ I've never used them, but RedCross uses them as the backend for their volunteer search pages.
Our administrative staff actually love Firefox once we setup Forecastbar for them. Something about having the weather constantly displayed brings them inner joy and peace. Plus then they don't ask for Weatherbug which we have had problems with in the past.
Unfortunately noscript was too difficult for the majority of them to grasp. Once they realized how to allow everything that is what they did. Go to a page, it doesn't work, & click allow. So we compromised and use Adblock & Flashblock. Doesn't protect from nearly as much as noscript, but less confusing.
"Animals are NOT allowed on planes with the people"
At least in the US small animals are allowed on planes as long as they fit in an approved carry-on carrier, and service animals are allowed to sit with their owner even if they are a large dog or small pony.
So any flight you get on there may be pets like cats, dogs, or anything else small enough to fit in a carrier. I've taken pet rats on several occasions. Or there may be service animals like ponies, dogs, cats, monkeys, pigs and birds. http://www.guidehorse.org/news_minis_fly.htm
This is a good point. I had a college internship at a small zoo. There were several things we did to help reduce the chance of kids getting sick from E. coli at the petting zoo. We kept the grounds cleaned, kept the dust down, provided hand sanitizer at the exits, we wouldn't allow kids/adults to enter with food or gum, and a few other standard practices.
The most interesting thing we did was feed the animals a supplement that contained bacteria like Lactobacillus. They said it contained other natural rumen bacteria, but didn't specify what those were. I'm guessing one of those unnamed bacteria was a benign form of E. coli. Good E. coli can provide vitamin K2 to its host and prevent the dangerous varieties from growing.
All I know is that after my friends watched me play Carmageddon they would never let me drive.
My favorite high alcohol beer is 307 ale. It is 153.5% alcohol, and a great drinking song.
http://www.tomsmithonline.com/lyrics/307_ale.htm
I live in one of the 4 states where you can hunt and be legally blind. (They must be accompanied by someone who can see).
http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10366_41825_51108-197553--,00.html
This doesn't scare me nearly as much. I'm guessing you are correct and he'll be hunting from a blind, but at least he isn't blind.
I gave one a try just a couple of days ago.
The good:
The multitouch worked very well. It was very responsive for scrolling and left & right clicking was a breeze. The special mutlitouch motions they included were fun and easy.
The bad:
At this time the mouse doesn't support the pinch motion so no zooming in and out. NO MIDDLE CLICK!!! So if you use middle click to copy/paste into X11 apps this is gone. I did some googling, but I didn't have long with the mouse so I wanted to play as much as possible. I'd have to make sure I had a good solution for the middle click before buying though.
The other thing that was odd in the limited time I got to play, is that as you use the mouse it has a habit of twisting around on your mouse pad. I'd wonder why the mouse was going off at odd angles and then realize that my mouse was sideways again. I'm guessing that is something that would go away with some training and use.
Here let me google it for you:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=pneumonia+vaccine
Of course I'm still at risk for non-bacteria pneumonia, but I am protected from about 80 varieties of pneumococcus bacteria.
I am also still at risk from influenza, but since I'm healthy with a healthy immune system my Dr and I decided to do a one time vaccine that protects me from pneumonia rather than risk the side effects of a yearly shot.
Instead of doing a flu shot a few years back I got a pneumonia vaccine. Usually it is the pneumonia that kills you when you get the flu. It doesn't protect you against all forms of pneumonia, but as an added side affect if I get hospitalized for some other reason my chance of getting a secondary pneumonia infection is reduced.
The other bonus is you get one or two shots in your lifetime instead of having to get a shot every year. I guess I'm a bit more trusting of a vaccine that doesn't seem to revolve around a yearly profit cycle.
I've seen the same. Our old HP's (5+ y.o.) work like champs and you can't beat them into submission. Our new ones seem flimsy and fail too often. Also we've been getting more and more problems with ps/pdf files not printing correctly on the PCL based models. Even after updating the firmware to new PCL revs.
We've switched to Ricoh. Their printers feel a lot like the old HP's. The Ricoh's we buy weigh about 20 lbs heavier than their Xerox or HP counterpart. Some of the printer models are Mac & Windows only, but you can use the Mac PPD or get a custom PPD at linuxprinting.org.
So far I've been really happy with them. Plus you can manage them via https/ssh instead of http/telnet if you want.
Hey I'm offended by this remark. One of my friends told me this great secret about 2 days ago on how she is cheating on her husband with the Cowboy Cheerleaders (all of them) and I haven't told a soul.
This actually works really well in old tractors. Instead of fuses they use fusible link wire that does something similar, when to much current goes through a wire it melts away and breaks the connection. On my old '42 tractor every once in a while I'd burn a wire. It was a bit of a pain to find which one needed replacing, but you never needed a "specialty" part to fix it.
Just more wire.
Are you kidding! In my mind Carter is the most remarkable & memorable president ever. Not only did he see a UFO, but he was attacked by a vicious rabbit that swam out to attack him while he was fishing.
As a president though you are right, Jimmy Carter is the meh of presidents.
I'd take drugs to cure my apathy but I just don't care.
The horse that is worst for spooking at danger signs (the alpha horse) is also the only one that could probably survive on his own. Most of the others wouldn't last the winter. I have one that used to winter in Flordia before I got him an he still hasn't learned that you can't drink ice and he bangs his face into frozen puddles when he wants to drink.
I think the other thing that is interested is that it isn't just "other birds". I have horses and I've always noticed that when a flock of birds take off normally that the horses won't even lift their heads from grazing. When the birds take off in a panic the horses heads come up and they scan looking for the predator and sometimes begin defensive measures (spooking or bolting).
When you spend a lot of time riding in fields on a spooky horse you get trained to the sound as well. Birds in a flock moving around no biggy; birds taking off in a panic though you better grab the reins and be ready because the horse under you may end up 15 feet to the side facing the opposite way before you even have a chance to realize what happened.
The wonders of "percussive maintenance". It is amazing how many things can be fixed with a good thwack.
That reminds me of one of the few cell phone commercials I've liked.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7x1aic74Mg
My cell phone comes with crime deterrent.
I think this is an excellent point. Many people raise their cats & dogs differently. They train their puppies and never bother to put that kind of time into their cats.
I spend a lot of time desensitizing and working with my cats when they are just tiny kittens and people always remark that they seem more like dogs. They come when they are called, some will play fetch, all will lay calmly when they get their teeth brushed or their nails clipped. They happily greet new comers into my house.
The thing I find with cats is that is very easy to teach them things, but hard to get them to not do things they want to do. At best I can get them to not jump up on the counters or table when I'm home. So maybe it isn't so much that they don't care about pleasing you as that they don't care about displeasing you.
I don't treat my cats any different than I do my dogs and behaviorally they are very similar. Now the adult cats I've adopted have been pretty hopeless and they seem to act like "normal" cats no matter how much time I work with them.
That is exactly what Rama did for me. It was an old Sierra game based on the Arthur C. Clarke. You learn two alien number systems which just happen to be octal and hexadecimal. I didn't realize until later how much I actually learned and remembered. Plus the puzzles were a blast.
I'm going to have to check that one out. Thanks for the link. I remember programming in turtle quite a bit from 2nd - 5th grade. When I got into "real" high school programming I was able to pick it up much quicker than most of the other kids because of all the time I wasted making programs with turtle.
I also played Project LRNJ: Slime Forest quite a bit to help me learn the Japanese Alphabet. They did a pretty good job of making the game fun though it did get a bit repetitive.
When I was in college there weren't computers in the library other than the electronic card catalog boxes, and it seemed like several times a month there would be an entry in the college news "crimes" section about someone being caught masturbating in the library. For some reason college age guys masturbate in libraries. I guess now they have something to look at.