UnPassive

Been playing with my new FTO for a dew days - wasn't able to solve it without help. I went with the Bencisco method and it's a really fun solve. It did take a bit for me to fully grasp solving centers (it's like 4x4 Yau method, but with a restriction). And I still don't fully comprehend solving the last 3 triplets, but I can always get them.

Some of my favorite twisty puzzles are ones that don't take a lot of learning. Just intuitive moves if you have a method. So more like solving a puzzle than following a list of steps. The FTO is almost that. The few algorithms I had to learn are basically intuitive once you see them once.

I definitely see myself picking this cube up a lot to solve for fun. My main complaint is that sometimes the puzzle is just solved after solving the centers. I actually really like the last step, but often multiple steps get skipped at the end. But then that's just an excuse to scramble it up again!

Borrowed a canoe from a friend and canoed across a lake to camp. It was fun, hiked up to explore some more lakes from our camp. The dog didn't love the canoe, but did fine. The water was some of the clearest I've ever seen, will be returning to do some freediving. I do think I still prefer backpacking over canoe-camping. We rowed just over 2 miles to get to camp.

I actually bike to work also, but just got this under desk bike and am really liking it. Don't feel like its distance calculator is super accurate, but supposedly I biked 30 miles yesterday. Much better than nothing either way!

Did have to tighten the bolts on my desk chair and lube it to get it to stop squeaking though

There is a hill to the left so it's actually really hard to walk through. Don't wanna go in the parking lot cause of my dog. It's a great trail connecting 2 parks but the section by the mall is not respected by the snow plows.

Would be such a shame to have to keep their snow on a row of unused parking spots! (This is the back side of our mall so no cars almost ever)

Got this because I don't like carrying cash (weird because I'm pretty into privacy, but I have a minimal wallet and am scared to hold lines up at stores lol)

It actually has to be broken to open which I love. The "MTG Fund" part was a joke at first but it's been a while since I was excited for a set and actually wanted to spend money on it. Bloomburrow seems promising, loved Redwall as a kid.

Might just be product fatigue. I've been very into pauper commander lately which holds me over

Picked up the young adventurer books thinking that they had simpler kid rules, but I guess they have no rules (you're supposed to just be motivated to buy a starter set or something). So I played with my niece (8) and nephew (5) without any rules and they LOVED it. Right after our first short adventure they wanted to play again.

I basically just made them roll for anything they wanted to do in combat and took turns as usual. Let them roll to respond to any attack back at them. No HP, just descriptions of injuries.

They loved upgrading their swords into go-go-gadget everything weapons with buttons to shoot spikes, or light on fire - so I let them. Even the boat they needed had to become a sword upgrade magic inflatable raft haha.

Anyway, highly recommend for young players.

Edit: Picked up "A Canticle for Leibowitz" for him - if you know a good book he might enjoy though, feel free to leave a comment as I'll either pass a list along to him, or use the list for future gifts to him. And thanks everyone for the great recommendations!

Looking for a short-ish, wide-appeal sci-fi or fantasy novel to gift to my dad for Christmas, in the Portuguese language - hopefully without strong religious components (more context and details below)

So my dad and I read a lot, but very different genres. I read almost exclusively sci-fi and fantasy, he likes biographies, historical, and religious books. Most out there book I know of him reading was The Walking Drum by Louis L'Amour which he LOVED and talks about regularly, yet I don't think he's read any other historical fiction.

He regularly asks about what I'm reading and always says he doesn't understand why I like sci-fi/fantasy. He's never tried them though. I'm fairly confident he would enjoy the genres, he does fine with their movies.

Anyway, for Christmas I want to get him a book in Portuguese. He went to Brazil for 2 years on a mission for his church and he's still fairly fluent. My hope is he'll enjoy getting exposure to the language, while also getting to try a sci-fi/fantasy book.

There are some difficulties in picking a book for him though...

1. He is pretty religious and probably can't handle anything with atheist topics, maybe best to avoid fantasy with strong religious components as well
2. It probably should be on the shorter side - I haven't read many standalone novels so I'm not sure what's popular. I'm worried he'll lose interest in an epic fantasy novel, for example
3. He loves humor - I'm not a huge fan so another reason I'm asking for help

We did read Bad Omens, he liked it a lot, wasn't one that I see myself re-reading - but I guess some religious topics are fine?

I once tried to get him to read Ready Player One, thinking that it had wide appeal and having loved the story myself... I forgot about Wade's atheist rant in the beginning though. My dad returned the book and kinda started a fight with me on how I must have some plan to de-convert him - and he assured me the book was propaganda for Satan... So yeah, definitely sensitive to religious topics.

An obvious choice, I think, is Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. I may go with this if nothing else comes up. I don't love the book (not my favorite flavor of humor) but I think he'd enjoy it - I'm just hoping for something that might get him hooked on the genres.

Another serious contender is The First 15 Lives Of Harry August. I really liked this one, but I worry the themes of death and mental health might not be great for him.

Thanks for any suggestions! I know this is a bit specific

Has anyone been able to get consistent mouse input on black ops 1 zombies? Most maps feel okay, but I can't get Call of the Dead to a remotely playable state...

Tried lowering my mouse polling rate to 125Hz, raising my max framerate, disabling vsync and mouse acceleration. Still horrendous.

Not sure if this is Linux specific or if it's on Windows as well. I really wanna play Call of the Dead, but it's as if someone is adjusting my mouse sensitivity constantly while I play. The effect is not little.

Edit:

Using a controller works fine I just discovered, I definitely prefer mouse and keyboard, but at least I have an option!

Details of symptoms: It feels kind of like the framerate lowers significantly super frequently; during these moments my mouse acts like I cranked down the sensitivity as low as it'll go - to the point where I have to lift my mouse multiple times to turn 90 degrees, then things kick back in and I spin a 720 while readjusting to my normal sensitivity. Extremely disorienting.

I have fairly high end PC (especially for a game this old). Research I've done suggests that the mouse input is tied to the framerate; might just be an issue with the game then. Annoying that it works fine with a controller. Just hoping someone's got a fix!

Have to use Windows for work (I've asked), the ads have been getting worse and worse on my work laptop. Today got a game ad notification... That's clearly too far, right? Like I have to clear notifications, so I have to see it

I see lots of videos where people do this on switchbacks and such. I'm working on some skills and have tried doing this on grass and haven't been very sucessful...

Hoping to do some research on tips if I figure out what it's called

And with what player count?

I've been showing a few of my friends the Star Wars Deck Building Game and Star Realms quite a bit. Loving them. Most of the time I'm only playing two player games. Another that I replay a lot is Hive.

There's games I like more, but that I don't seem to get to play very often. Maybe I need to be proactive about setting up game nights!