Duranis

So has anyone found any hidden gems yet? The mrs was out tonight so I have spent a thrilling evening looking for something that gets my attention but not found anything yet (I really need to re-evaluate my life ) . Really looking for a good management, sim or sandbox game that has a lot of depth to it but it all seems a bit meh. Starpoint Gemini 2 looks pretty interesting for £7 but then I could just get X3 gold edition which is the same thing but better for £12

Yay! time to buy a bunch more games to add to my library and never play Every time I say to myself that I will only buy games in the sale that are already on my wishlist. Every time I then say to myself "but its only a couple of quid and looks pretty fun".

"Where have you been, you was only supposed to be taking the dog for a walk and that was 6 hours ago?" "Well love, you wont believe it but I was just walking the dog and I saw a ghost! I was so scared I ran to the first safe place I could, which just happened to be a pub..."

Well... Last ever episode last night, hadn't seen that coming (I try not to read up on shows I like). Had anyone been watching this, whats your thoughts? Apparently it was the writers decision and the ending wasn't terrible, everyone got some kind of ending out of it. The writer did a good job over the season to really show how broken and tormented Vanessa was which fits well with the end. Did still feel a bit rushed though and I suspect that maybe the studio wasn't going to renew anyway. I don't see why they would introduce 3 new characters and spend the time developing them if they were just planning to end the story anyway. Shame it didn't get more viewers/higher ratings as I'm sure it would have run longer if it had. However at least it didn't just get cut off mid story, nothing worse than watching a program for a couple of years and then it just stops.

Indeed! S P O I L E R S P A C E That battle scene was amazing, so intense and really gave you that sense of confusion and suffocation. Also Daenerys finally getting to her full power with the ability to actually be a threat. She has no reason now to spend the whole of next season sitting around doing nothing The only bad thing is that I can't see how the next episode will be able to top that one and it is the last one this season so will be back to the long wait for next season to start.

Normally I get home about 4pm. If my youngest is entertaining himself (as he does most the time at his age) then "Me" time is from around 5 until the boy goes to bed around 8.30. This is the time when I normally play a game, read or doing some painting. I try not to play after that as me and the Mrs like to have at least a couple of hours together before she goes to bed. If there is a game we are playing together then I will play more and if there is a game I'm really enjoying or I really feel like playing she doesn't mind me being on it for longer. I try and be pretty mindful about how much time I spend gaming though as I have been really bad in the past (wake up, game until bed time, repeat). That was ok when I was single but not such a good idea now I have a family. I still occasionally have a few weeks like this (like when Fallout 4 came out) and the Mrs is pretty understanding but I try not to let it go on too long. As a family we do spend quite a bit of time gaming together. With an 11 year old and a 19 year old it is nice that gaming is something we can find that everyone enjoys doing. Even when we play single player games we often will all end up playing the good ones so we talk about it and watch each other play, etc. We very rarely watch TV and we do a lot of "offline" family stuff as well (crafts, boardgames, going out, etc) but if we didn't all game together then there would be few activities that we could find that both the boys would want to be part of. Most of the boardgames, etc the oldest isn't interested in and most of the stuff the 19 year old wants to do is not suitable for an 11 year. Gaming gives us a nice common ground we can all bond around.

I love KSP. Haven't played it for ages though (last time I really played it was before contracts and money was a thing). Had a quick go the other day and like the extra challenges. The modding community is amazing as well. Few lets play videos I made awhile ago on it:

I both love and hate the Dizzy games. I honestly don't think I have played them as an adult but I remember spending hours on them as a kid/teen trying to figure out how the hell to get past certain bits. I played 2 or 3 of the and don't think I ever completed any of them.

Curious as to why you feel that way? Is it that there is not enough to do with it or is it the technology itself you don't think works very well (or something else)? I really love the idea of VR but honestly I think if I got it I would use it for a few months then run out of things to do with it and get bored. We all the major consoles looking at supporting VR though maybe that will change as there will be more content.

Yeah I think one of the reasons Edugeek is so good is because for this type of job it is normal for us to be on the internet looking things up and using discussion forums to solve problems. I would say that due to the constantly changing nature of IT we are also much more likely to need resources (such as forums) which are regularly updated, as opposed to say a site manager who wont need to refresh their knowledge as often. The only site manager I know is the one that works here but other than his email (which I set up on his phone for him) he will use a computer only once or twice a month at most. I suspect that is the case for the majority of them as it is not really part of the job. Note: I'm not sure I'm wording this right. Reading it back to myself I feel like implying that IT people have a harder job or are smarter or something. This is definitely not the case, I'm just trying to say the requirements of the role doesn't really fit well with the need of a forum so would probably not be overly popular. Also my site manage here is awesome and way smarter than me Edit: Good link. I have passed that on to our site manager Edit 2: Also enjoying their forum, interesting prospective Edit 3: I think we should join with them, they share the same pain : http://www.thecaretakers.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=31920

Yeah I still play old games. Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced on the GBA (emulated on my DS and phone) is still one of my favorite games. My and my boys are currently playing through the original pokemon game as well (on phones). One of the summer holiday projects I want to do with my youngest is to set up a Pii 3 "emulator console" for our living room.

Actually I would second this. There are a bunch of really good authors of "young adult" books and as the books tend to be shorter a lot of people find them much more fun to read. One of the first books I really loved was called Z for Zachariah that I read in school. I read it again a few years back and despite it only take a few hours I still really enjoyed it.

In my experience freestanding/framed bags either have a massive, super heavy frame or they fall over. Been awhile since I was really into it though (like over 15 years) so might be that there is some good stuff out there now. Really though anything that is heavy enough to not move when you hit it is likely to be bulky. If you do get a freestanding one don't get one that fills with water. To have enough water to make it usable would make a massive mess if it ever got a hole in it. I always wanted one of those electronic ones that have light up targets built into them and measure your punching force, speed and accuracy. Don't know if they are any good but they always looked cool. Personally if it was me I would just drill the holes, if you move out that's what polyfiller is for Gloves are kind of personal preference and like a lot of things it depends on exactly what you want to use them for. If you are doing some heavy bag work (i.e. hitting it as hard as you can) then I would recommend a heavier glove (16oz) with a good bit of wrist support made out of a decent quality leather or heavy vinyl. You will want to have something that gives a lot of protection and support. If you are doing more speed/accuracy/technique then maybe a lighter pair would be better. Don't use anything lighter than 10oz and make sure your wrists are supported. I would also recommend taking it easy to start with and maybe going to your local boxing gym to get some pointers. You will be surprised how much damage you can do to your hands/wrists with poor quality gloves and bad technique. Edit: Patrick beat me too it with the warning. Honestly my hands are messed up from years of doing boxing/kickboxing when I was younger and not paying proper attention to using the right equipment.

lol, umm yes, that is actually a fairly accurate description of the plot . To be fair it is a little deeper than that, but yeah......... According to my kindle the average book takes by about 10-12 hours to read. I have major issues with going to sleep and found over the years that the best way for me to sleep is to read for a few hours before bed. Generally I finish a book a week but if its something I really enjoy I can finish it in a day or 2. The only book that really took me forever to read was LOTR but that is because Tolkien takes about 300 pages to describe a tree. I still regret leading out my special edition LOTR book which I never got back, it had all the paintings, back story, family tree's details on language and everything in it (as well as the story). If you don't get the thrill out of reading my first suggestion would be you just haven't found the right books for you yet I think I have all of the books from the Shannara Chronicles but haven't got round to reading them yet. Me and the Mrs watched the first season of the TV series based on them and it was actually pretty enjoyable for a typical "Americanized" show.

I'm currently re-reading The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. I have read the first 3 or 4 books a couple of times but at the time the rest hadn't been written. I bought the rest of them recently so started reading from the beginning again. Honestly it is pretty standard fantasy formula, normal person revealed to have special powers, massive evil badness that only that person can stop, must go on quest to unlock power and stop bad guy. There is a love story sub plot in there as well but the premise of that is honestly pretty shallow and should have been well and truly finished after the first 2 books (but instead is dragged on and on and on...). Not saying this is a bad thing as pretty much every fantasy book follows the same formula but the way it's done isn't amazing and it gets a bit stale after the first couple of books. That being said though apparently the later books are different. The series so far isn't terrible and is an easy read but I wouldn't say it was the best fantasy series ever. What I really want is JV Jones to pull her finger out and finish writing Endlords, been waiting 6 years for this.

I was discussing a similar thing the other day with someone I know who is fairly strictly Christian and doesn't have the same view of the whole gender debate as me (though not as homophobic as you might think). Part of it was how we would each support our children if they came out as trans gender/gay, etc. Their problem was that their own personal beliefs would make it extremely hard to support that lifestyle choice but at the same time it was their child that they loved so they would do everything they could to make sure they got that support from somewhere else. It was a more tolerant answer than I was expecting to be honest. Personally the only peoples sexuality/gender identification I really care about is mine and my partners, I'm quite happy for everyone else to do or be whatever makes them happy. However I have to admit I would be reluctant (at this point in time) to send my youngest boy (11) into school wearing a dress/skirt. If that is what he really wanted I would have zero issue with it outside of school but knowing how negatively it would effect him at that stage in his schooling were even the smallest of things can cause kids to be the target of bullying I don't think I could go along with it. Of course the problem of that is while it is still considered "different" it will always be a point of discussion/bullying and it will never not be "different" if people are too scared to just be themselves.

I really feel like I'm getting old as I honestly don't really care about any of it. DLC for Fallout 4 is the only thing I'm interested in. The rest looks mostly like sequels to games I didn't really care about or stuff about VR which I don't have the money to pay out for. Also agree about the multi-player and even when there is a "single player" part it normally sucks. Titanfall was a good example of that. I really wanted to enjoy it but I couldn't even unlock all the Titans as you had to do certain things online and whenever I tried it never worked (I can't remember exactly what the deal was now but I know it locked me out of a huge starting part of the game).

There is a (web?)series of Mortal Kombat that is available for free on Steam and is supposed to be pretty good, I haven't watched it yet. Also I don't know why you are all slating films based on games, the Super Mario Bro's film was one of the greatest pieces of cinematography of all time.........

I got overwatch for my boys at the weekend and finally got around to giving it a go myself last night. I was going to do a big write up but to make it short: Its a lot of fun. I feel it would be better with a little more depth, either skills you can level up over multiple games or skills/items/bonuses you can earn in each game to give you a bit more variety. I would even by happy to have some characters locked until a certain level. I have only played a few quick matches so not sure if there is a good ladder/ranking system but other than that there is no real reward for keeping playing. There are a bunch of cosmetic things to unlock but these are mostly made up of "spray tags" which feel like they were added at the last minute and poses for intro/victory screens which again seems like a move to "pad the rewards". The new skins are pretty cool and something you see while in game too but there are not that many of them. It is expensive for what is honestly a small amount of game. I paid over £50 because my boys wanted it and they have console sharing going so it kind of works out at £25 each. I wouldn't have bought it for myself though. It is a hell of a lot of fun. Really easy to pick up for 30 minutes, matches are fast and full of action. Would be a great game to play with friends.

I don't remember seeing that......... possibly feel quite stupid now

This is sadly what put me off Civ 5 and a lot of similar games. I love having a ton of options and ways to do things but Civ 5 did a terrible job of explaining what actual effect different things had. I.e. selecting this gives you +%5 fimbledinklers, nowhere does it tell you what the hell fimbledinklers are though. I'm sure it makes sense if you played previous games but as a newcomer to the series it did put me off. I played for about 20 hours (on my first game) and didn't really feel like I was getting anywhere or even figuring out what was going on. I will have to give it another go as I really, really want to like it.

Funny enough I have seen this done in jelly as well using almost exactly the same technique (using a needle instead of the drill ). https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=78bRHlmBEsk I don't know why but I love watching these kinds of videos. I ended up spending about 2 hours the other day watching some guys videos on wood turning. I have no interest in ever doing wood turning but watching someone take a block of firewood and in one case a stack of old CD's glued together and doing something creative with it just fascinates me.

That is amazing, brilliant concept and super simple to reproduce. Awesome bit of engineering! I think that they should still complete the patent though. Most (maybe all?) countries patent laws leave it down to the holder of the patent to raise a claim. If he holds the patent it will stop someone else from placing a patent on it and making it commercially but he could still license the concept out for "non-profit" use. Patents are pretty useless without the money to back them up in court and you need multiple ones in different countries to really cover yourself but if you can prove you had yours in first it can stop other companies from blocking you out of your own invention. I used to design stuff for mobile electronics (phones, tablets, Bluetooth devices, etc) and have a ton of patents. Most of them we would never have taken someone to court over using but it was just a CYA to make sure that nobody else patented it and then came after us for using it.

I had a look at someones iPhone 6 here yesterday that had problems since upgrading to 9.3.2. Wasn't freezing but is constantly running hot and battery life is apparently terrible (not even making it to mid afternoon when it isn't being used). I have read that after the previous update a lot of people had similar issues due to the phone reindexing files but I hadn't seen it reported for this update. Will see today how it has been running since restarting it, will ask her if it has been freezing up as well.

Sounds like the Clio just needs a decent auto electrician to take a look at it as all the problems you are describing sound like an electrical fault. Might be as simple as a worn cable or bad connection somewhere. Shame your not local as I know a really good auto electrician that basically rewired my BRM a few years ago and solved a bunch of issues that 2 other garages couldn't figure out. Personally I would pick a KA or Fiesta for something small and reliable, parts for them are super easy to get and they are pretty bulletproof. A mate of mine used to have a Corsa which gave him quite a bit of trouble but to be fair I think it was mostly because he drove like an idiot and never serviced it or got things sort properly.