My husband and I have played a lot of computer games together. We also have kids and like to play something casually for an hour or so after they have gone to bed. I would advise you to avoid 1st person shooters, real time strategy or anything that pits you against each other. I learned very quickly that I didn't like being "attacked" in games by my husband.
One of the first games we played was The Longest Journey. We sat next to each other and took turns controlling the mouse. It has a great plot and is an adventure / puzzle game, which might be a good introductory game.
Another really fun one for me was Terraria, which is sort of like a building game crossed with a side-scroller that allows for multiplayer.
My husband and I have been playing a lot of Torchlight II lately, which is an rpg that can be played cooperatively. You could also try Diablo 2, which is in the same vein, but I think Torchlight is more approachable.
Lastly, I really liked playing Civ IV cooperatively.
I grew up in KC, went to collage at RPI in New York and spent some time working in Boston. I've done a lot of traveling both inside and outside the U.S. and I think Kansas City gets a bum rap.
Many people from the coasts have such bias against KC (and all the other cities in "fly-over" country), but it is actually a pretty hip city. I've eaten some of the best food of my life here and here. The Chicago Tribune recently called Kansas City "America's Next Great Cocktail City. We have tons of fine art theaters, including the new Kauffman Center which is considered one of the most technically advanced performance halls in the nation. The lack of traffic and great roads make it easy to get around. I go out far on the town far more often than when I lived near Boston.
Kansas City also has one of the best academic medical centers in the country and is also one of the highest ranking cities for smart phone app creation. It is consistently ranked on of the most affordable places to live among .
Sure, the rural parts of Missouri and Kansas tend to be a bit bible-belt backward, as they are everywhere in the country, but Kansas City and it's surrounding suburbs are decidedly more liberal. It is great place to live and I'm tired of people who haven't lived here recently, much less visited saying otherwise. If you have a knee-jerk negative reaction when you hear the name Kansas City, then maybe you aren't as open minded as you could be.
And something must be wrong with his opponent because the race is very close..
His opponent is Claire McCaskill, who billed the state for some personal political trips she took and also didn't pay personal property tax on the airplane she was using for the trip. She says both things were just an oversight...
But the thing that is _really_ wrong with her is that she is running for election in Missouri, which leans Republican.
I do understand your point. I have a biochemistry background so I do understand antibiotic overuse is a problem. I didn't mean to "take you down a notch" so much alert you to the fact that there might be more to the story than you were thinking about.
I was on chemo and had a suppressed immune system for a couple of years. I slathered both myself and my toddler with antibacterial sanitizer every time we went in public. I got lots of disapproving looks from people who I know thought I was "needlessly" using it, but better that than catching the flu or pneumonia which my body wouldn't have been able to fight off.
_Lots_ of people have compromised immune systems for one reason or another. Please keep that in mind the next time you see someone using that hand gel. It is very likely that he or she has an incredibly good reason for doing so.
Still, I wish you good luck in solving your problem. I don't mean to seem disrespectful, but I am curious. . . Have you looked at the obvious stuff? --Like getting a job which you love, doing lots of exercise outdoors for the fun of it, eating properly and generally diving into the work of cleaning out all the false automatic crap from the machine of your mind?
-FL
This is one of the most offensive questions I have read in a long time. Wow. Have you considered what it must be like to live with a terrible illness?
I don't have RLS, but I can promise you that any person with a nasty chronic disease has devoted more time than you can imagine trying to figure out how to solve their problem. They probably spend most of their free time researching and coming up with ways to alleviate just a teeny tiny portion of the misery that they are experiencing. They have spent hours talking to doctors and all of their free time on message boards talking to other people in the same situation.
Before you give random medical advice to someone about a disease they have lived with for _years_, consider that their life probably revolves around it and if 'doing exercise outdoors' was a solution, they would certainly already be doing it.
The waiting time to see many specialists in the US (even with health insurance) is an extremly long one. In my major Mid-Western city, the average wait time to get into a rheumatologist is over 3 months and it took me over 4 months to get an initial visit with an endocrinologist. I should note that I have a very good insurance (PPO) plan. I have a grave chronic illness and spend a tremendous amount of time in hospitals and dealing with doctors. I almost died during the months I was waiting to see a doctor. When I hear someone talk about how long people have to wait to see a doctor in foreign countries, I know that they have either never been seriously ill in the USA or have been very lucky.
I wish I understand what it is that convinces US born women to not become programmers. I don't think it's a harassment issue. That's not something I've especially noticed. Though, since I'm a guy, it's possible it just passed me by.
I don't think that there is harassment, but I do think there are subtle factors that keep smart woman in other fields just because of the perception that they don't belong in computer science.
I attended an engineering school (RPI) and when I was selecting my major, my adviser told me that I should stick with biology instead of cs because "there is a lot less math involved". Since I didn't have any problem with math, his comment stunned me. Granted, I have never gotten good advice from any guidance counselor / adviser and maybe I am reading too much into it, but I can't imagine he would have said that that to a male student who had my grades.
Later, my mother said I should choose biology instead of cs because, "Computers are so lonely. You should do something more social." Again, I don't think a brother of mine would have ever heard that comment.
I ended up getting biochemistry degree with computer science minor, by the way.
You start your post with: "I love when people claim Fox News biased and then never cite examples..."
And yet you finish with: "Whether you like it or not, all the polls, studies, and research done has shown a left-of-center bias in the press." Yet, you don't site even one pole, study or a bit of research regarding this.
I would be amazed if _ALL_ studies showed a left-of-center bias in the ALL the press. In fact this study (the first one I could find) found that while most news organizations have left-leaning bias, Fox News and The Washington Times are both right-of-center.
I have a background in science and was awarded a teaching fellowship for science and math professionals that wanted to make a mid-life switch to teaching. School systems (especially in disadvantaged areas) are in desperate for math and science teachers. I am sure you could easily find a program that would allow you to quickly get certified while you taught.
That being said, teaching was the hardest job I have ever tried to do. Maybe if I hadn't been in a completely under-funded urban district or hadn't been teaching 5 different types of science classes it would have been different. As it was, to prevent the students from rioting you had to keep them engaged in something meaningful at all times. Since the district I was in had no resources, I was inventing my lessons as I went. For example, their were not enough text books for the students to each have one in a single class, much less take home to do homework out of. I didn't have teachers manuals. If I didn't create worksheets my students couldn't do homework. I got up at 5am and didn't make it back home till 7pm most nights. I would stay up till midnight creating my lesson plans for the next day while my husband helped me grade papers. I was so busy that I forgot to eat. I lost almost 15 pounds in the first 2 months.
I eventually quit because I had no home life and my husband couldn't really handle my zombie-like state all the time.
Don't get involved in teaching lightly, especially not in a program that places teachers in high needs areas. It is not an easy job.
I had never played a MMOG before DDO came out, but have played many tabletop D&D sessions along with some computer rpgs (FFVII, Neverwinter Night , nethack). Both my husband and I were super excited about DDO and bought it the day it came out (we didn't play during the preview period). After a weekend of playing, it is difficult to describe our disappointment with this game.
As the article said, the developers made some hideous design decisions; Having to wait around in a laggy tavern for a full minute or two as my character healed being one of the most annoying. Although the graphics were lovely, the actual game didn't feel interesting.
One of the most important aspects of an rpg (IMHO) is building your character's skills and equipment. It was an odd decision then to give your DDO character a reasonable weapon at the very start of the game. I usually like being able to say "Oh, if only I could afford this 1 gp long bow!" But no, the game gives you one right away so you don't have to work for it. Secondly, the ranks and level increases seemed very far between even for a starting character. Killing monsters in dungeons just for the heck of it isn't so fun to me. I want to be working for something.
In fact, the entire game just isn't fun. To mangle a quote, "I can't define fun, but I know it when I see it." And DD0 doesn't have any of it.
Another problem I had was picking a (not min/maxed) rogue for my first character. I ran through all the training quests and at this point the game still looked pretty awesome. I was quickly killed in the first real dungeon after using up all my healing potions (not surprising since I'm a pretty casual gamer) which shouldn't have been too much of a problem. However, there is essentially no way to get more healing potions until after you have finished the introductory quests and you _have_ to do the first quest solo. It took me about 10 more tries to get through the first dungeon as a rogue. I probably couldn't have finished it if I hadn't looked on the forums and gotten some tips. By this time, my husband' fighter had finished the next three quests and had gotten out of the intro area. I'm all for games being challenging, but shouldn't the intro areas let you get your bearings a bit? It was like no one had play tested a rogue (or as others in the forums complained, a wizard).
After playing through a few more quests, I decided to make a new character in a different race/class. Unfortunately, you _have_ to run through the exact same 5 intro quests with no changes every time you start a new character before you are allowed out in the "real world". This seems awfully tedious and strongly cuts down the replay value.
Several times over the next week, my husband and I would say, "Well, maybe it is a good game. Let's try it again." So we would play for another couple of hours before giving up in disgust. I could keep complaining, but upon hearing my description of DDO last week someone introduced me to this other MMOG called World of Warcraft...;)
I bought a cobalt flux in November. It works much better than the soft pads. My husband and I really debated getting it because it cost so much, but I am very happy we did 'cause we still use it almost every day. I love it!
DDR Freak has a nice forum about the pros and cons of the various metal pads.
Monopoly pales in comparison to the board games on this list.
I joined a weekly boardgame group at my local games and hobby store. I am amazed at the number of people who show up every Thursday night to learn and play obscure (but not always complicated) board games. Try calling your local comic book / d&d / hobby shop and see if they sponser some sort of 'Board Game Night'.
Also you can probably purchass all the games on the list at funagain.
Board Game Geek is a great site to read reviews and tips about all things board games.
If I could recommend one great introductory board game it would Settlers of Catan. Find 3 or 4 geeky friends and give it a try.
Go down every staircase as soon as you find it (and then come right back up). The 'up' staircase will then be 'lit' on the next level and you can find it easily if you fall through.
>>pissing off of shopkeepers
Stop stealing! Don't zap wands at them, and don't use their stuff if you can't pay for it.
>>getting poisoned by snakes
You shouldn't be drinking from a fountain unless you have poison resistance.
>>running out of food
Don't play a wizard (spell casting makes you hungry) until you have a better grasp of the game. Also, don't wear rings that aren't neccessary.
>>pissing off my god
Quit praying so often! Pay attention to how long it has been since you prayed the last time. A good rule of thumb is never to pray twice in the amount of time it takes to go from satiated to hungry.
>>getting turned into a were-something
Don't eat werewolf or wererat corpses. Run away from were-things unless you have holy water or a spring of wolfsbane. If all else fails, when you become a werething, use your special monster ability and call other wolves / rats to help you.
And the here's the tip that helped me ascend - Slow down. If you think that maybe you should head back up a few levels for any reason then do it! Don't go down further in the dungeon than your level (ie.. don't go down to dungeon level 2 until you are at experiance level 2) until you hit sokoban.
Good Luck. Serra the Samurai, bisected by Ashikaga
In a previous post, someone mentioned that if you are religious you should join a church. If you are not already a member of a organized religion, you might want to try finding a Unitarian Universalist church near your destination. They usually have lots of activities and sermons that are are not focused on a particular belief system. I know a lot of interesting and geeky people who are Unitarians.
...causes cancer in laboratory rats.
on
Psychotic Lab Mice
·
· Score: 5, Funny
There was a point in the article when it occured to me that the phrase, "Research causes cancer in laboratory rats." was not a joke.
Re:Sometimes /. editors make me wonder....
on
Psychotic Lab Mice
·
· Score: 2
How some stories can make past their rejection process....but anyways...
Perhaps the/. editors actually read the article before making a snap judgement about it. It was actually very interesting and contained a lot of other information supporting the argument that lab rats might be psychotic.
My mother once complained that her computer wouldn't boot anymore. Eventually, I discovered she had pluged the surge protector / powerstrip into itself instead of into the electrical socket on the wall.
"Uh, were you trying to surge protect the surge protector?"
Slashdot Mirror
My husband and I have played a lot of computer games together. We also have kids and like to play something casually for an hour or so after they have gone to bed. I would advise you to avoid 1st person shooters, real time strategy or anything that pits you against each other. I learned very quickly that I didn't like being "attacked" in games by my husband.
One of the first games we played was The Longest Journey. We sat next to each other and took turns controlling the mouse. It has a great plot and is an adventure / puzzle game, which might be a good introductory game.
Another really fun one for me was Terraria, which is sort of like a building game crossed with a side-scroller that allows for multiplayer.
My husband and I have been playing a lot of Torchlight II lately, which is an rpg that can be played cooperatively. You could also try Diablo 2, which is in the same vein, but I think Torchlight is more approachable.
Lastly, I really liked playing Civ IV cooperatively.
Good Luck!
I grew up in KC, went to collage at RPI in New York and spent some time working in Boston. I've done a lot of traveling both inside and outside the U.S. and I think Kansas City gets a bum rap.
Many people from the coasts have such bias against KC (and all the other cities in "fly-over" country), but it is actually a pretty hip city. I've eaten some of the best food of my life here and here. The Chicago Tribune recently called Kansas City "America's Next Great Cocktail City. We have tons of fine art theaters, including the new Kauffman Center which is considered one of the most technically advanced performance halls in the nation. The lack of traffic and great roads make it easy to get around. I go out far on the town far more often than when I lived near Boston.
Kansas City also has one of the best academic medical centers in the country and is also one of the highest ranking cities for smart phone app creation. It is consistently ranked on of the most affordable places to live among .
Sure, the rural parts of Missouri and Kansas tend to be a bit bible-belt backward, as they are everywhere in the country, but Kansas City and it's surrounding suburbs are decidedly more liberal. It is great place to live and I'm tired of people who haven't lived here recently, much less visited saying otherwise. If you have a knee-jerk negative reaction when you hear the name Kansas City, then maybe you aren't as open minded as you could be.
That is a good point. His opponent is Claire McCaskill and you can donate to her campaign here: http://clairemccaskill.com/
And something must be wrong with his opponent because the race is very close..
His opponent is Claire McCaskill, who billed the state for some personal political trips she took and also didn't pay personal property tax on the airplane she was using for the trip. She says both things were just an oversight...
But the thing that is _really_ wrong with her is that she is running for election in Missouri, which leans Republican.
I do understand your point. I have a biochemistry background so I do understand antibiotic overuse is a problem. I didn't mean to "take you down a notch" so much alert you to the fact that there might be more to the story than you were thinking about.
I was on chemo and had a suppressed immune system for a couple of years. I slathered both myself and my toddler with antibacterial sanitizer every time we went in public. I got lots of disapproving looks from people who I know thought I was "needlessly" using it, but better that than catching the flu or pneumonia which my body wouldn't have been able to fight off.
_Lots_ of people have compromised immune systems for one reason or another. Please keep that in mind the next time you see someone using that hand gel. It is very likely that he or she has an incredibly good reason for doing so.
Still, I wish you good luck in solving your problem. I don't mean to seem disrespectful, but I am curious. . . Have you looked at the obvious stuff? --Like getting a job which you love, doing lots of exercise outdoors for the fun of it, eating properly and generally diving into the work of cleaning out all the false automatic crap from the machine of your mind?
-FL
This is one of the most offensive questions I have read in a long time. Wow. Have you considered what it must be like to live with a terrible illness?
I don't have RLS, but I can promise you that any person with a nasty chronic disease has devoted more time than you can imagine trying to figure out how to solve their problem. They probably spend most of their free time researching and coming up with ways to alleviate just a teeny tiny portion of the misery that they are experiencing. They have spent hours talking to doctors and all of their free time on message boards talking to other people in the same situation.
Before you give random medical advice to someone about a disease they have lived with for _years_, consider that their life probably revolves around it and if 'doing exercise outdoors' was a solution, they would certainly already be doing it.
I have to wonder if the parents became more involved with their kids once money was brought into the picture.
I think another study needs to be done to see if there is a way to encourage parents to be good parents and if that affects kids' scores
Good thought. What about paying the parents if the their kid gets good grades?
The waiting time to see many specialists in the US (even with health insurance) is an extremly long one. In my major Mid-Western city, the average wait time to get into a rheumatologist is over 3 months and it took me over 4 months to get an initial visit with an endocrinologist. I should note that I have a very good insurance (PPO) plan. I have a grave chronic illness and spend a tremendous amount of time in hospitals and dealing with doctors. I almost died during the months I was waiting to see a doctor. When I hear someone talk about how long people have to wait to see a doctor in foreign countries, I know that they have either never been seriously ill in the USA or have been very lucky.
I don't think that there is harassment, but I do think there are subtle factors that keep smart woman in other fields just because of the perception that they don't belong in computer science.
I attended an engineering school (RPI) and when I was selecting my major, my adviser told me that I should stick with biology instead of cs because "there is a lot less math involved". Since I didn't have any problem with math, his comment stunned me. Granted, I have never gotten good advice from any guidance counselor / adviser and maybe I am reading too much into it, but I can't imagine he would have said that that to a male student who had my grades.
Later, my mother said I should choose biology instead of cs because, "Computers are so lonely. You should do something more social." Again, I don't think a brother of mine would have ever heard that comment.
I ended up getting biochemistry degree with computer science minor, by the way.
You start your post with: "I love when people claim Fox News biased and then never cite examples..."
And yet you finish with: "Whether you like it or not, all the polls, studies, and research done has shown a left-of-center bias in the press." Yet, you don't site even one pole, study or a bit of research regarding this.
I would be amazed if _ALL_ studies showed a left-of-center bias in the ALL the press. In fact this study (the first one I could find) found that while most news organizations have left-leaning bias, Fox News and The Washington Times are both right-of-center.
I have a background in science and was awarded a teaching fellowship for science and math professionals that wanted to make a mid-life switch to teaching. School systems (especially in disadvantaged areas) are in desperate for math and science teachers. I am sure you could easily find a program that would allow you to quickly get certified while you taught.
That being said, teaching was the hardest job I have ever tried to do. Maybe if I hadn't been in a completely under-funded urban district or hadn't been teaching 5 different types of science classes it would have been different. As it was, to prevent the students from rioting you had to keep them engaged in something meaningful at all times. Since the district I was in had no resources, I was inventing my lessons as I went. For example, their were not enough text books for the students to each have one in a single class, much less take home to do homework out of. I didn't have teachers manuals. If I didn't create worksheets my students couldn't do homework. I got up at 5am and didn't make it back home till 7pm most nights. I would stay up till midnight creating my lesson plans for the next day while my husband helped me grade papers. I was so busy that I forgot to eat. I lost almost 15 pounds in the first 2 months.
I eventually quit because I had no home life and my husband couldn't really handle my zombie-like state all the time.
Don't get involved in teaching lightly, especially not in a program that places teachers in high needs areas. It is not an easy job.
I had never played a MMOG before DDO came out, but have played many tabletop D&D sessions along with some computer rpgs (FFVII, Neverwinter Night , nethack). Both my husband and I were super excited about DDO and bought it the day it came out (we didn't play during the preview period). After a weekend of playing, it is difficult to describe our disappointment with this game.
;)
As the article said, the developers made some hideous design decisions; Having to wait around in a laggy tavern for a full minute or two as my character healed being one of the most annoying. Although the graphics were lovely, the actual game didn't feel interesting.
One of the most important aspects of an rpg (IMHO) is building your character's skills and equipment. It was an odd decision then to give your DDO character a reasonable weapon at the very start of the game. I usually like being able to say "Oh, if only I could afford this 1 gp long bow!" But no, the game gives you one right away so you don't have to work for it. Secondly, the ranks and level increases seemed very far between even for a starting character. Killing monsters in dungeons just for the heck of it isn't so fun to me. I want to be working for something.
In fact, the entire game just isn't fun. To mangle a quote, "I can't define fun, but I know it when I see it." And DD0 doesn't have any of it.
Another problem I had was picking a (not min/maxed) rogue for my first character. I ran through all the training quests and at this point the game still looked pretty awesome. I was quickly killed in the first real dungeon after using up all my healing potions (not surprising since I'm a pretty casual gamer) which shouldn't have been too much of a problem. However, there is essentially no way to get more healing potions until after you have finished the introductory quests and you _have_ to do the first quest solo. It took me about 10 more tries to get through the first dungeon as a rogue. I probably couldn't have finished it if I hadn't looked on the forums and gotten some tips. By this time, my husband' fighter had finished the next three quests and had gotten out of the intro area. I'm all for games being challenging, but shouldn't the intro areas let you get your bearings a bit? It was like no one had play tested a rogue (or as others in the forums complained, a wizard).
After playing through a few more quests, I decided to make a new character in a different race/class. Unfortunately, you _have_ to run through the exact same 5 intro quests with no changes every time you start a new character before you are allowed out in the "real world". This seems awfully tedious and strongly cuts down the replay value.
Several times over the next week, my husband and I would say, "Well, maybe it is a good game. Let's try it again." So we would play for another couple of hours before giving up in disgust. I could keep complaining, but upon hearing my description of DDO last week someone introduced me to this other MMOG called World of Warcraft...
Maybe these tiny people have some kind of sickness (or just look tiny), and were therefore exiled from the main (is)land?
Ever heard of Occam's Razor?
I bought a cobalt flux in November. It works much better than the soft pads. My husband and I really debated getting it because it cost so much, but I am very happy we did 'cause we still use it almost every day. I love it!
DDR Freak has a nice forum about the pros and cons of the various metal pads.
>zero of these games in the stores I visit
Monopoly pales in comparison to the board games on this list.
I joined a weekly boardgame group at my local games and hobby store. I am amazed at the number of people who show up every Thursday night to learn and play obscure (but not always complicated) board games. Try calling your local comic book / d&d / hobby shop and see if they sponser some sort of 'Board Game Night'.
Also you can probably purchass all the games on the list at funagain.
Board Game Geek is a great site to read reviews and tips about all things board games.
If I could recommend one great introductory board game it would Settlers of Catan. Find 3 or 4 geeky friends and give it a try.
>I'm always falling through the floor
Go down every staircase as soon as you find it (and then come right back up). The 'up' staircase will then be 'lit' on the next level and you can find it easily if you fall through.
>>pissing off of shopkeepers
Stop stealing! Don't zap wands at them, and don't use their stuff if you can't pay for it.
>>getting poisoned by snakes
You shouldn't be drinking from a fountain unless you have poison resistance.
>>running out of food
Don't play a wizard (spell casting makes you hungry) until you have a better grasp of the game. Also, don't wear rings that aren't neccessary.
>>pissing off my god
Quit praying so often! Pay attention to how long it has been since you prayed the last time.
A good rule of thumb is never to pray twice in the amount of time it takes to go from satiated to hungry.
>>getting turned into a were-something
Don't eat werewolf or wererat corpses. Run away from were-things unless you have holy water or a spring of wolfsbane. If all else fails, when you become a werething, use your special monster ability and call other wolves / rats to help you.
And the here's the tip that helped me ascend - Slow down. If you think that maybe you should head back up a few levels for any reason then do it! Don't go down further in the dungeon than your level (ie.. don't go down to dungeon level 2 until you are at experiance level 2) until you hit sokoban.
Good Luck.
Serra the Samurai, bisected by Ashikaga
In a previous post, someone mentioned that if you are religious you should join a church. If you are not already a member of a organized religion, you might want to try finding a Unitarian Universalist church near your destination. They usually have lots of activities and sermons that are are not focused on a particular belief system. I know a lot of interesting and geeky people who are Unitarians.
There was a point in the article when it occured to me that the phrase, "Research causes cancer in laboratory rats." was not a joke.
How some stories can make past their rejection process....but anyways...
/. editors actually read the article before making a snap judgement about it. It was actually very interesting and contained a lot of other information supporting the argument that lab rats might be psychotic.
Perhaps the
http://pbskids.org/zoom/sitemap/
Maybe those anti-war people are concerned with any civilian casualties - Iraqi or American.
Here is a link to a pretty good M.U.L.E. clone named Space HoRSE. Not quite the old version, but you can try the free demo for nostalgia's sake.
My mother once complained that her computer wouldn't boot anymore. Eventually, I discovered she had pluged the surge protector / powerstrip into itself instead of into the electrical socket on the wall.
"Uh, were you trying to surge protect the surge protector?"
It was the subject line "Yeah, smart..." that really gave it away.