I discovered this site named Lumosity (http://www.lumosity.com/). It is a web site dedicated to brain games and brain training. You'll quickly see that they...Lumos Labs...have observed that by age 30 "the human brain starts slowing down". Hey, I agree with that...how many of us as we are trying to get out the door in the morning forget where we last laid down our keys? Or when we are asked for math homework assistance our mind quickly deflates at the thought of trying to figure out at what point car A will pass car B if they leave 15 minutes apart and travel at 35 and 45 mph respectively (course given the traffic flow in the city I live in, your guess is as good as mine)?

Lumosity has some rather neat and simply architectured brain games. Unique and fun names such as "word bubbles", "chalkboard challenge", "lost in migration", "moneycomb" are all designed to challenge and increase your aptitude at mathematic reasoning, processing speed, spatial awareness/arrangement, cognitive control and reaction time.

This would be an excellent tool for moms who wish to help educate their children or give them something fun to do away from the brain-drain box (TV). The games are simple enough in design that a 6 year old can play, but complex enough that it can benefit a 60 year old. If you enjoy brain games and sharpening your "skillz" then this is a great playground. Give it a look-see and let your mind romp away. It is free to join, click on the "start training" button on the home page and set yourself up an account. My favorites are the one the ones that challenge your speed and cognitive awareness.

Lumosity

The link will open in a new window. Enjoy exercising the little gray cells!

~Kryptikos

Proverbs 1:5 "let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance-"

A point is chosen randomly inside a regular $latex n$-gon. What is the probability that it is closer to the center of the $latex n$-gon than it is to the periphery?

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The computer is a tool not a toy. If your child has any diagnosis in the autism spectrum you will want them to learn to type to communicate. No console has a keyboard they can learn to express themselves with. The earlier they start the better they will be at it. Schools would never use a console as a teaching item.

Many childrens shows have websites and your child will find enjoyment from visiting them with your supervision. My child has Aspergers and loves puzzles. We find many easily printed colouring pages and mazes for off line enjoyment. If the level of frustration gets too high we can switch to something else fairly easy.

Also look for games that offer more open range for them to explore and do small tasks. Not FPS or RPG just they won't understand them. Things with a fixed story or just idle combat won't help them or you.

As an aside you should see some of the rollercoasters my kid has designed in Tycoon. Amazing for a 5 year old!

Our most popular lines are silk flower arrangements (partly because many wards don’t permit fresh flowers) and of course cuddly toys, though we do have a wide range of stock that includes puzzles, toiletries and even chocolates.

Most of the feedback we get, which generally is very positive, is about two things: how good the basic idea of a hospital gifts website is, and the standard of the service we provide. 

But we’re also very interested in knowing our customers’ views on the types of gift we keep in stock.  So if you have any good ideas about what people in hospital would like to receive from their loved ones, we’d be very pleased to hear from you.

It's not your typical first person shooter - far from it. Instead, you're a test subject (think rat in a maze) trying out a device that punts a portal in space that you can step through. Need to get to that high ledge? Put an exit up on the ledge and then an entry on the wall in front of you and step through.

The game is a series of puzzles designed to test your lateral thinking skills. With limited information you slowly figure out how to open doors, move through mazes, activate levers and so on. It's really good.

All the while, the robot voice is telling you lies. You know they're lies - typically they're about how good it will be when you finish and they give you a cake - and they can be quite annoying but in a funny way.

But by far my favourite part of the game are the laser turrets that try to kill you. And while they're trying to kill you they chat away in a sing-song voice. It sounds like this:

and here's a clip from the demonstration they did at a games conference some years ago.

Enjoy.

Mario 2 was one of the first games to feature a REGULAR female "bad guy" or boss. It included 4 playable characters, all of which were good and bad at different skills (in Mario 3 for example: Mario and Luigi play exactly the same way). The game developed and featured all sorts of new and experimental weapons; obviously it was the first mainstream game to use veggies as weapons, but nobody remembers that timed bombs were not used before this game came out. Mario 2 has NO points system whatsoever, unlike the other titles. The entire sand-digging concept was very revolutionary. In many of the levels, especially castles, players need to go backwards through the levels to complete them (this of course was perfected by games like Metroid). It also was the first Mario game to have ridable enemies.

But the game's plot is vague and mysterious; not like simply rescuing the Princess. The end of the game does give us the "Mario was dreaming" explanation. But this doesn't make much sense in relation to the game's own summary of the plot. In it, Nintendo says that Mario has a dream of a foreign land call "Sub-Con" (short for subconscious), he then reports this to his friends and brother. Later that day, the four of them stumble upon a stairway, like Mario saw in his dream, which indeed leads them all to Sub-Con:

One evening, Mario had a strange dream. He dreamed of a long, long stairway leading up to a door. As soon as the door opened, he was confronted with a world he had never seen before, spreading out as far as his eyes could see. When he strained his ears to listen, he heard a faint voice saying "Welcome to Sub-Con, the land of dreams. We have been cursed by Wart and we are completely under his evil spell. We have been awaiting your arrival. Please defeat Wart and return Sub-Con to its natural state. The curse Wart has put on you in the real world will not have any effect upon you here. Remember, Wart hates vegetables. Please help us!"

At the same time this was heard, a bolt of lightning flashed before Mario's eyes. Stunned, Mario lost his footing and tumbled upside down. He awoke with a start to find himself sitting up in his bed. To clear his head, Mario talked to Luigi, Toad and the Princess about the strange dream he had. They decide to go to a nearby mountain for a picnic. After arriving at the picnic area and looking at the scenery, they see a small cave nearby. When they enter this cave, to their great surprise, there's a stairway leading up, up and up. It is exactly like the one Mario saw in his dream. They all walk together up the stairs and at the top, find a door just like the one in Mario's dream. When Mario and his friends, in fear, open the door, to their surprise, the world that he saw in his dream spreads out before them!

Perhaps the most mysterious part of the game is the bosses and bad guys/girls. Who are they? What do they want? What do they want with Sub-Con?  I used to have this conversation over and over again with a friend of mine.  If you look closely at the architecture of the end "castles" (they aren't really castles, more like government buildings), they have a distinct feel and design to them.  They're clean-cut, boring, and efficient.  This can particularly be noticed in the last world, World Seven.  Similar to how World 8 in Mario 3 is essentially King Koopa's home/base, the Seventh World in Mario 2 is Wart's, the Masks', Birdo's, etc home.  There are pillars everywhere.  Along with Greek styled pediments and capitals.  The bricks are layed out very orderly like.  This points to something along the lines of a bureaucratic system.

My friend and I always believed in the "bank theory".  The mastermind organization behind the bad guys/gals is a new national bank desperately trying to enslave Sub-Con to their lengthy lines, and unnecessary fees and fines.  The entire seventh World screams BANK.  Visually, like I said: efficient, timely, and clean with a touch of evil (that was NOT a purposeful Orson Wells reference).  It makes sense.  Think about how many times you see the female "Birdo"; every time you run into her it's a lead up to a final boss.  How much does a cute, egg spitting female dinosaur have in common with an everyday bank teller?  A lot more than meets the eye.  And what about how Mario and friends keep no points system at all?  This seems like a very anti-financial, anti-capitalist thing to do.  It seems like Mouser is dropping bombs on our heroes angrily because they're not participating in the stats/money/numbers game the Mastermind is purposing.  And what of these evil-grinned masks that chase us the entire game, who are they?  Some of the most faceless people in America are CEO's, unless of course they're in a scandal or Gates/Jobs.  These masks represent the men behind the curtains pulling the strings of the workers: Birdo/tellers, bosses/area and district managers.  Doesn't this just look like an intruder invading a board meeting to take the code to the vault?

I could be totally wrong.

-Sonny

¿Jacques de Molay? Aquel hombre había perdido el juicio. ¡El Gran Maestre de Molay fue ajusticiado en París el 18 de Marzo de 1314! Menudo pirado... empecé a cuestionarme si no sería preferible dejarle colgado...

- Señor, lamento decirle que eso que dice... es imposible. ¡Jacques de Molay murió hace casi 600 años! El papa lo quemó en Paris por...
- Es evidente, caballero... que no estoy muerto... no... todavía... pues estáis hablando conmigo. Tomad mi espada... usadla.

¿Que espada? ¿De qué demonios hablaba ese hombre? Aquello estaba vacío, no había ninguna maldita espada... pero sí, allí estaba, delante de mis narices. Debajo de la capa, oculto, reposaba en el suelo un largo mandoble, de hoja clara que brillaba a la luz de las antorchas. La larga empuñadura estaba ornada con multitud de detalles que, pese a la oscuridad, pude adivinar: la cruz templaria en la hoja, repetidas veces, y al final del mango... era una espada de más de 600 años... aquello era... absolutamente imposible. Parecía reciente, usada, pero no de más de 15 años. Me agaché a cogerla... y aquello fue lo último que vi.

It was a Friday night. It was in a residential complex. It was in an apartment building. The windows and doors were not opened but since I could hear my neighbors' footsteps, their neighbors probably heard us there then. Their neighbors should have at least asked us to stop before calling the police. Plus, don't we/they get the right to have a party in our/their very own house? once in a while?

This is not the first time foreigners get in trouble because of a party. This is probably the only party that did not stop, though. We left and moved to another apartment ^^. There are, I think, five apartment complexes in my small neighborhood. There were other apartments and neighbors.

The thing is the police here will not even blink if they see a man beating his kids or wife. Also, I used to live downtown where every night drunk people fight. My neighbors and I (all foreigners) were almost tempted to film a documentary ;p. I also used to live in another downtown were we got CCTV anywhere and police patrol every hour. BTW, I live in a very safe country. No guns. No drugs. We just got bitches and booze.

I had my very own house party here. My first ever. I'm a terrible host. It was in a building in an apartment complex. We were not playing loud music (My neighbors are used to my loud music). We weren't dancing or jumping around (My neighbors are used to me and my dog). I do think we were loud enough to be heard by the entire apartment complex, though. My neighbors are just more fun loving and very understanding.

I met a wonderful lady at that police-infested party. There were four! officers. The most numbers I've seen that is not in the riot squad or the drunk driving blockades. She went home before the police came. She actually told us that the police got in when she got off the elevator.

We had dinner for her the other day. She is going back home for a two-month vacation. I'm jealous. I'm envious. She gets to go shopping. I hope she and I could walk my dog together. She likes dogs. She lives in my apartment complex (in a much bigger apartment). I bet a party at her place would be great. I can't wait for her to come back.

Why am I blogging? I needed a break. I have been doing my glow-in-the-dark 1000 pcs puzzle. I cannot differentiate the yellows of the puzzle anymore. I started on Saturday, I think. It is a waterfall showing the fish underwater and the luscious greens and yellows around it.

Yeah, I was home, almost home, the entire weekend. I'm usually at my BF's apartment on Sundays (that's my 4th home). It's his turn to cook dinner ;p. We usually have dinner with his friends. He also starts work at 9am. I start work at 3pm. I have the time to drive or take the bus. I don't think anyone could pay me enough money to get up and go to work before lunchtime.

Anyway, I got another puzzle to do when my BF goes on vacation. It is again a glow-in-the-dark 1000pcs. It is the Hong Kong skyline. I'm excited. I started on the frame. My dog just walked all over it so I got to start all over again.

My BF is going back home for two weeks in two weeks. I already got another party for that weekend when he is not here. I'm also thinking of getting the day off to see him off seven hours away. Yup, the airport is that fooking far! I hope he does spend more time with his family than partying and meeting friends. I'd do the partying and meeting friends for him. So, I might meet my friends up north when he leaves. He leaves on a Saturday night. Another party waiting to happen.

I hope to finish both puzzles before he gets back.

I hope to meet friends and party while the BF is not here.

I hope to never meet any more of those party poopers for as long as I live ;p