I got my start in computers because of D&D and gaming in general (Car Wars and Traveller too). I saw the potential in 1980 or so with using a computer to manage my games, learned to program on my own. Saw that networks would be cool for gaming (I designed a table that used laptops connected to a table network and to the GM; used NetBIOS to send information to the group for notes and such), anyway and learned networking. I created several programs for use with BBS' and even wrote a Usenet Newsreader (Metal).
I also learned a lot about medieval stuff; how people lived back then and how "cities" were born so I could make my games more realistic. I constantly surprise my wife with my wide and varied knowledge of things which partly is because of gaming.
Oh, and I'm approaching my mid-50's and still game. I'm running Shadowrun both in person and using Google Wave, and using my programming skills to learn Javascript. See I'm taking my Computerized Dungeon Master concept that I started with the first computer (a Sinclair) and creating a game manager for Shadowrun. Using mysql, php, and Javascript.
Farcaster has an excellent gamer registry. Assuming you're not in an area with 5 people in it, there's a good chance there are a few folks local to you.
And of course, check out the local game shops. Here in the Denver area there are 11 that I'm aware of.
And of course, at least in the Denver area, our meetup group is up around 300 members and there are 5 gaming specific meetups for Denver (ours; Shadowrun, 2 D&D, a Cthulhu, and a Boardgame one).
Do you find yourself mysteriously waking up in a back alley more than once a week?
Do you find empty HTML pages littering your desktop and you have no idea where they came from?
Do you discover new directories on your computer?
Get the IE Patch!
It comes in 4 strengths so you can be gradually weaned from the habit.
Week 1. IE 6 Patch. Internet cravings are pretty intense the first week so the IE 6 Patch is there to help you learn how to just say "NO".
Week 2. IE 7 Patch. It's easier to avoid launching IE. You still need to check Amazon or e-Bay from time to time but the edge has been honed down a bit.
Week 3. IE 8 Patch. You find it a lot easier to avoid clicking on the 'e' although you still lapse when you aren't thinking.
Week 4. Firefox. You've mastered the addiction. You're free to browse the Internet worry free. Even looking at the 'e' makes you nauseous.
Congratulations on taking the first step to breaking the IE addiction.
The problem on her side is that I'm a bit on the large and long side. So it's painful for her. The few times that she wants to do it, I can see her wince just as I'm climaxing. And she complains if I go too deep.
So in trying to spare her pain, I don't pursue her as often as I'd like and leave the sex to her schedule. But since I like it a little more often (ok, a _lot_ more often:) ), I masturbate. Then I'm not causing her pain, I'm able to enjoy it guilt free, and cleaning out the pipes and prostate so I don't have problems later in life (well now actually as I'm almost 53).
Sorry, in my effort to be less crude, I came across as somewhat clinical.
Of course I feel like doing it. I don't have some sort of schedule where I check the clock and hobble off to whack off or anything. There are times that I go a week without feeling the desire to whack off. There are other times where I feel like it several times a day.
I do it because I like to do it. I justify it by claiming it's good for the prostate. Whether that's true or not makes no difference to me:D
Well, perhaps not as often. I'm married and I regularly masturbate to keep the pipes clear and get rid of idle sperm, much like you'd urinate or defecate. They're produced all the time and just sit in the gland waiting to be sent on their way. They are busy little guys though so the prostate needs to be emptied regularly. No point in having all those little guys causing trouble in the prostate.
Since the wife is not interested in sex any more (for various reasons), I have to do something with the sperm so out they go:)
Oh yea, we know that. My wife discovered her sinus issues over the years were caused by a slight allergy to corn. She cut out corn (gluten free) and for the past couple of years she's been lots happier.
I'm not in HR (I am in IT though) so we may not even get that far. HR, then our supervisor has to vet the candidate before he or she even gets to us. Now we might rib the candidate prior to meeting them and then over it in the post interview chat depending on how it goes.
I'm more interested in work history prior to the interview and then their replies during the interview. We've had some interesting answers to questions:)
I have 12 domains on one IP. Not to say that the different squatters aren't using a bunch though.
Better would be to pull back IPs from the folks who don't need them.
What about that block that the Ham Radio guys had out in San Francisco that was hijacked by the spammers? Or the companies and governments that have thousands of unused IPs? I used to work at one government place (contractor) and we had a large chunk for our site with about 2,000 employees.
Where I work, we have 1,200 people in the company and we use four NAT'd IP addresses. Since I have to add them to my server to allow admin access to my tools, I know which ones I use.
We get free sodas and the cafeteria only makes enough to pay the employees and costs. Coffee is through a local Starbucks in with the cafeteria so it has the same prices however there are regular coffee machines and individual cocoa packages in the snack areas. Insurance changed to a $5,000 deductible however you can put pre-tax salary into a medical fund to offset the deductible. No raise at all this year but we're (family) aren't hurting so I won't kick about it too much. They do want a yearly self assessment though as normal.
"I worked a lot this year."
Hey, you don't give me a raise, you don't get no self assessment:)
(it's a joke; I did mine this year, more for me than for them though.)
There's a difference between teaching that God created everything in 4000 BC (or thereabouts) and including the historical aspect of religion and how it affected Europe.
[John]
Re:Then Obama should knight William Shatner
on
Sir Patrick Stewart
·
· Score: 1
Shatner's Canadian so he can be knighted by the Queen as well.
My wife and I went to the watch it on the 24th. Pretty good movie. At the end, she said "thank you for taking me to a chick flick" and I said, ":drool: I want one of those monitors.":)
I've been doing something similar. When I had to go to the hardware store, I'd take a picture of the project and/or the problem and show it to the guy. The first few times, the guy was "wow, good idea taking a pic" but then more people started doing it and it's pretty common now.
Well, Shadowrun and it's not alphabetized, it's ordered by stock number. As are the Paranoia, Call of Cthulhu, and even the D&D (and AD&D for the grognards among us) and smaller sets of books on the shelves. Much easier to find and use the correct rules for the version of the game you're playing (smaller set to look at).
We moved earlier this year. At the old place (Comcast), we were able to plug the TV directly into the cable and get all the channels we wanted to watch. When we got the Bravia, we rescanned and were able to receive the high-def ones and didn't have to pay for a cable box. At the new house (again Comcast) we plugged the TV in and went through the channels. All our old channels were there and in high-def as expected, except for the Hallmark Channel which my wife watches fairly often. We had to pay extra for the Digital box so she could watch Hallmark, but the high-def channels went away. In order to watch high-def, we would have had to pay even more to have the box upgraded.
Slashdot Mirror
I got my start in computers because of D&D and gaming in general (Car Wars and Traveller too). I saw the potential in 1980 or so with using a computer to manage my games, learned to program on my own. Saw that networks would be cool for gaming (I designed a table that used laptops connected to a table network and to the GM; used NetBIOS to send information to the group for notes and such), anyway and learned networking. I created several programs for use with BBS' and even wrote a Usenet Newsreader (Metal).
I also learned a lot about medieval stuff; how people lived back then and how "cities" were born so I could make my games more realistic. I constantly surprise my wife with my wide and varied knowledge of things which partly is because of gaming.
Oh, and I'm approaching my mid-50's and still game. I'm running Shadowrun both in person and using Google Wave, and using my programming skills to learn Javascript. See I'm taking my Computerized Dungeon Master concept that I started with the first computer (a Sinclair) and creating a game manager for Shadowrun. Using mysql, php, and Javascript.
[John]
Well not D&D but you're welcome to lurk at our Google Wave Shadowrun game.
If you're actually looking for someone to game with (and there are a whole lot of us out here), check out
http://www.penandpapergames.com/
Farcaster has an excellent gamer registry. Assuming you're not in an area with 5 people in it, there's a good chance there are a few folks local to you.
And of course, check out the local game shops. Here in the Denver area there are 11 that I'm aware of.
http://www.yelp.com/list/denver-metro-gaming-stores-westminster
And of course, at least in the Denver area, our meetup group is up around 300 members and there are 5 gaming specific meetups for Denver (ours; Shadowrun, 2 D&D, a Cthulhu, and a Boardgame one).
http://shadowrun.meetup.com/79
Seriously. You just need to do a little hunting :)
[John]
Do you find yourself mysteriously waking up in a back alley more than once a week?
Do you find empty HTML pages littering your desktop and you have no idea where they came from?
Do you discover new directories on your computer?
Get the IE Patch!
It comes in 4 strengths so you can be gradually weaned from the habit.
Week 1. IE 6 Patch. Internet cravings are pretty intense the first week so the IE 6 Patch is there to help you learn how to just say "NO".
Week 2. IE 7 Patch. It's easier to avoid launching IE. You still need to check Amazon or e-Bay from time to time but the edge has been honed down a bit.
Week 3. IE 8 Patch. You find it a lot easier to avoid clicking on the 'e' although you still lapse when you aren't thinking.
Week 4. Firefox. You've mastered the addiction. You're free to browse the Internet worry free. Even looking at the 'e' makes you nauseous.
Congratulations on taking the first step to breaking the IE addiction.
[John]
Why not? They have non-U.S. citizens managing some TSA and IRS servers. Heck, we had to train them before we were cut loose.
[John]
Yep, it's the reason I whack off so often.
The problem on her side is that I'm a bit on the large and long side. So it's painful for her. The few times that she wants to do it, I can see her wince just as I'm climaxing. And she complains if I go too deep.
So in trying to spare her pain, I don't pursue her as often as I'd like and leave the sex to her schedule. But since I like it a little more often (ok, a _lot_ more often :) ), I masturbate. Then I'm not causing her pain, I'm able to enjoy it guilt free, and cleaning out the pipes and prostate so I don't have problems later in life (well now actually as I'm almost 53).
[John]
Sorry, in my effort to be less crude, I came across as somewhat clinical.
Of course I feel like doing it. I don't have some sort of schedule where I check the clock and hobble off to whack off or anything. There are times that I go a week without feeling the desire to whack off. There are other times where I feel like it several times a day.
I do it because I like to do it. I justify it by claiming it's good for the prostate. Whether that's true or not makes no difference to me :D
[John]
Well, perhaps not as often. I'm married and I regularly masturbate to keep the pipes clear and get rid of idle sperm, much like you'd urinate or defecate. They're produced all the time and just sit in the gland waiting to be sent on their way. They are busy little guys though so the prostate needs to be emptied regularly. No point in having all those little guys causing trouble in the prostate.
Since the wife is not interested in sex any more (for various reasons), I have to do something with the sperm so out they go :)
[John]
My wife's Dell laptop (running Vista) works fine on our wpa2-secured wireless connection.
Just a data point. I'm still running XP on my main computer :)
[John]
Oh yea, we know that. My wife discovered her sinus issues over the years were caused by a slight allergy to corn. She cut out corn (gluten free) and for the past couple of years she's been lots happier.
[John]
I'm not in HR (I am in IT though) so we may not even get that far. HR, then our supervisor has to vet the candidate before he or she even gets to us. Now we might rib the candidate prior to meeting them and then over it in the post interview chat depending on how it goes.
I'm more interested in work history prior to the interview and then their replies during the interview. We've had some interesting answers to questions :)
[John]
I have 12 domains on one IP. Not to say that the different squatters aren't using a bunch though.
Better would be to pull back IPs from the folks who don't need them.
What about that block that the Ham Radio guys had out in San Francisco that was hijacked by the spammers? Or the companies and governments that have thousands of unused IPs? I used to work at one government place (contractor) and we had a large chunk for our site with about 2,000 employees.
Where I work, we have 1,200 people in the company and we use four NAT'd IP addresses. Since I have to add them to my server to allow admin access to my tools, I know which ones I use.
[John]
We get free sodas and the cafeteria only makes enough to pay the employees and costs. Coffee is through a local Starbucks in with the cafeteria so it has the same prices however there are regular coffee machines and individual cocoa packages in the snack areas. Insurance changed to a $5,000 deductible however you can put pre-tax salary into a medical fund to offset the deductible. No raise at all this year but we're (family) aren't hurting so I won't kick about it too much. They do want a yearly self assessment though as normal.
"I worked a lot this year."
Hey, you don't give me a raise, you don't get no self assessment :)
(it's a joke; I did mine this year, more for me than for them though.)
[John]
There's a difference between teaching that God created everything in 4000 BC (or thereabouts) and including the historical aspect of religion and how it affected Europe.
[John]
Shatner's Canadian so he can be knighted by the Queen as well.
[John]
I think the reverse would be true. Sex and porn would be well known subjects. As we all know (sorry), Knowledge != Experience.
[John]
My wife and I went to the watch it on the 24th. Pretty good movie. At the end, she said "thank you for taking me to a chick flick" and I said, ":drool: I want one of those monitors." :)
[John]
Shit yea.
"You wanna go see Allah? Here, let me give you a fist." *whap* *whap* *whap*
[John]
The wind is in the buffalo.
[John]
I've been doing something similar. When I had to go to the hardware store, I'd take a picture of the project and/or the problem and show it to the guy. The first few times, the guy was "wow, good idea taking a pic" but then more people started doing it and it's pretty common now.
[John]
Actually they get their new stories via their Blackberry's.
[John]
Honestly. Didn't Comcast just buy NBC? They'll just cancel some show (what's on NBC anyway?) and that's that.
[John]
Well, Shadowrun and it's not alphabetized, it's ordered by stock number. As are the Paranoia, Call of Cthulhu, and even the D&D (and AD&D for the grognards among us) and smaller sets of books on the shelves. Much easier to find and use the correct rules for the version of the game you're playing (smaller set to look at).
[John]
At least if you learn German, you can visit oktoberfest 40 years from now, in theory.
I learned German, jeeze about 40 years ago + or - a year or two. I'd be pretty clueless at oktoberfest, "yah, ein beer bitte. Danke schoen fraulein".
I guess I wouldn't do all that bad :)
[John]
We moved earlier this year. At the old place (Comcast), we were able to plug the TV directly into the cable and get all the channels we wanted to watch. When we got the Bravia, we rescanned and were able to receive the high-def ones and didn't have to pay for a cable box. At the new house (again Comcast) we plugged the TV in and went through the channels. All our old channels were there and in high-def as expected, except for the Hallmark Channel which my wife watches fairly often. We had to pay extra for the Digital box so she could watch Hallmark, but the high-def channels went away. In order to watch high-def, we would have had to pay even more to have the box upgraded.
[John]
Or The Offspring's Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) (or Rabbi for the Weird Al fans :) ).
[John]