Life is a Mind Bending Puzzle

  I had a life changing experience at a school retreat but not in the way you might think. This was many years ago when Ireland was a very religious country. Our retreat was led by an enthusiastic young priest who played the guitar and wanted to inspire us to change the world. He was actually a nice enough chap and he led us through a couple of days of prayer and soul searching. Then towards the end he put a challenge to us "Do you want to accept things the way they are like a humble mouse or do you want to go out there and make a difference like a a roaring lion". We were young and impressionable and most of us got caught up in the wave and said "Yes we want to change the world. That is what God wants us to do." There was one student though. He wasn't from a privileged background and he wasn't a star in class but he was the lone voice who spoke against the wave of enthusiasm that the rest of us got caught up in. "I don't agree." He said. ...

 Back in 2012 the brooding world of Dark Souls consumed me for several weeks . I bounced off several other FromSoft games but Elden Ring's more accessible approach  has sucked me back into the Souls world once again. I now have now spent over 200 hours in the game and it has become a compulsion. At this stage I am strongly considering taking a break.  Elden ring has taught me something about myself and about the way I approach games. I play very very slowly. How Long to Beat  suggests that the main storyline takes about 55 hours and that 100% completion takes around 130. After 200 hours my level 65 character is less than half way through the game (currently in Redmayne Castle preparing to take down Starscourge Radahn). When I realised how slowly I was progressing compared to others I initially blamed it on my lack of skill however on reflection I think it has more to do with the way I prefer to play. To give an example from yesterday: I spent four hours overcoming a ...

 Steam says I have played Elden Ring for 77 hours since installing the game 23 days ago. Some of that is undoubtedly idle time but I have probably clocked at least 50 hours of actual playtime and I am still very much a beginner.  Elden Ring is the 2022 mega hit game from From Software, creator of the hugely influential Demon souls / Dark Souls series. These games are notoriously hard core and make a virtue out of not hand holding players. Elden Ring remains true to the souls formula but in a bigger bolder and more accessible format. Elden Ring has been rewarded with huge sales and multiple critical accolades including several "Game of the Year" titles.  More accessible is a relative term. Unlike previous souls games Elden Ring does have a tutorial (if you can find it by jumping off a cliff) but it only teaches the very basics of melee combat. Most of the games many many complex systems are left for the player to figure out by themselves including things as fundamental as ...

 Copied from this Reddit comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/zf8x35/what_was_pc_building_like_25_years_ago/izdndkg/ I am late to the party but your question brings back some nostalgic memories I would like to share: I first built a PC in 2002 so only twenty years ago and not twenty five. In 2002 building your own PC was not as common as today but enough people were doing it that guides were readily available and specialised retailers sold components. The actual steps of the build itself were not too different but they probably took a bit longer especially installing windows and drivers. The main components were still CPU, GPU and RAM and you still had multiple choices: Intel or AMD for CPU, Nvidia, ATI and a few few others for GPU. There were a lot more ancillary parts however. You needed a sound card, you needed a hard disk, a floppy disk and a CD/DVD drive. You also needed a dial up modem to get 56kbit ! internet. You needed a wired keyboard and a wired mouse...

The original Call of Duty made a big splash when it came out on PC back in 2003. Call of Duty has since  become one of the biggest franchises in gaming. Even though most of the money is now earned from multiplayer and even though the series has long since moved on to modern day and futuristic settings it still visits World War 2 occasionally. I recently had the opportunity to play through most of the single player World War 2 Call of Duty games on veteran difficulty and I would like to share my thoughts and comparisons.  I have middle aged reflexes and I am far from a leet gamer but I chose veteran (the hardest) difficulty  because I have replayed these campaigns several times over the years and it makes sense for me to up the challenge. I also think that playing a 2003 game on a modern PC makes things easier. I remember jerky response times making it hard to aim and survive during the frenetic battles scenes way back in the day. A modern gaming PC can handle those early ...

 This post is about eating breakfast / lunch / any other snack safely at your desk while working. Lets get the elephant out of the room before we begin: Eating at your desk is a terrible habit that is bad for you both physically and mentally. If at all possible you should switch off the computer and go somewhere else to eat. However the sad reality is that many of us regularly do so. In my case my computer is an integral part of both my work and my leisure and eating at the desk is a common occurrence. In fact this became so common during the enforced covid lockdowns that I learned, through trial and error two tips for eating at a computer desk and it is these tips that I wish to pass on today.  Tip 1: Never place a beverage cup between you and your mouse.   I am right handed and the intuitive position for me to place a cup of coffee is slightly to my right about 20cm from the edge of my desk. Unfortunately this is also the default position of my mouse. My first reac...

  For some reason I am chief clothes ironer in this house and it annoys me how much harder my wife's things are to iron than my own. This is despite the fact that my clothes tend to be much bigger and have a lot more material to cover. Reason 1: My clothes are all made out of cotton that can be steam ironed at high temperature. My wife's clothes are made out of a variety of light materials that will melt at anything above luke warm. Reason 2: Male clothing tends to be made up of a number of large flat panels. You just lay each panel flat and iron it. Even sleeves and trouser legs can be laid flat. Women's clothing tends not to have flat panels. It is made up of irregularly shaped pieces of material which are sewn together in escheresque arrangements. It is literally impossible to lie them flat. Reason 3 accoutrements. My clothes are all fairly basic. The only accoutrements you need to watch our for are the occasional button. My wife's clothes almost always have some kin...