Pot Luck: Child Nutrition Edition

Greetings! (4.00 / 3)

For any new members here who stumble along this post, Pot Lucks are open threads, posted nightly at 7 PM Pacific time.  Write about anything you want here in these posts, food-related or not!  These are for community.

Also, the daily (or mostly-daily, let's say at least 6 times a week...) mid-day-ish Sampler Platters may be used as Open Threads as well.

All are welcome to participate here at La Vida Locavore!

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 02:45:28 AM UTC

Anyone on facebook want to join farm town? (4.00 / 2)

It's a farming simulation game that is quite addictive.
here's my farm, I've got some grapes, tomatoes, potatoes, an orange tree and some strawberries growing right now.

If anyone is interested send me an email. Which is in my profile here. It's free and fun.

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by: Curtis Abbey @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 04:52:14 AM UTC

Oh wow! (4.00 / 2)

That looks like the original SimCity, which scares the crap out of me because these days I really shouldn't be wasting time like I used to on that any more...

Heh.

I'm definitely interested in the code (is that the right word?) behind that game and all, and what makes it tick.  What brings success in the game, etc...

I'll think about it tomorrow, and then I'll decide if I'll take the leap into it.  Thanks, though!  Looks awesome...

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 05:26:13 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

It is.. (4.00 / 2)

I'm harvesting some grapes in a little over an hour.. tomatoes in the morning.. then potatoes later in the day.  Then going to the store .. plowing some fields and replanting. Or maybe investing in an animal.. we'll see  the more friends I sign up the more coins I get to spend at da store. And also I can earn coins by weeding your farm and helping out in other ways. :)

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by: Curtis Abbey @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 05:58:52 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Nice! (4.00 / 2)

I'll look into it tomorrow, then.  About now, it's time I harvest some sleep.  Lol...

Good luck on the tomatoes, grapes, potatoes, etc!

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 07:02:09 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I love games like that (4.00 / 3)

I used to play a Roman-themed city building game called Ikariam. Trying not to get sucked in to any more time wasters at the moment, but I'll probably at least check it out.

I'm sure the farmers around here are vastly amused at the thought of some of us wanting to spend time pretending to plant and weed. :)

I wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
--"Blueberries" by Robert Frost

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by: wide eyed lib @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 13:26:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Lol, great point! (4.00 / 3)

I'm sure the farmers around here are vastly amused at the thought of some of us wanting to spend time pretending to plant and weed. :)

Heh.

Omg, I can't even begin to count how much of my life I've wasted spent on Sim games...

SimCity (in all of its incarnations), of course (Greatest. Game. Evah.); and then there's Sid Meier's "Civilization" (I count that as more of a sim than an Age Of Empires-type game) series, and SimEarth, and I used to spend hours and hours and hours at a time with my daughter playing Roller Coaster Tycoon...and then there's the railroad tycoon game, and the baseball / football historical team sims, and that "President Forever" game from a few years ago, and and and...

Haven't played any in probably 3 or 4 years now, and I probably shouldn't start again any time soon! :)

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 14:01:05 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

looks like SOMEBODY (4.00 / 3)

frittered away a good bit of their yout.

Rome:Total War addict here, lol. And all its iterations.

Yankee Frugality: use it up, wear it out, make it last, or do without.

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by: Anonymous Bosch @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 14:20:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Oooh, great game! (4.00 / 3)

I remember that one.

My favorite in the series was Shogun: Total War, though...

Damnit!  Now I have to dig through my old boxes, and find that game.  If I disappear for three weeks after today, you'll know why...

:)

I've been in this apartment for over 15 months now, and I still haven't unpacked about a dozen boxes.  Only computer games I have right here at My Station are "SimCity 4", "Rise of Nations" and "Age of Empires II: Age of Kings" (w/ "The Conquerors Expansion").

Heh, I did actually play the original "President Forever" (never got the updated US version for last year, nor the Canadian PM version, although the latter sounds really awesome) the other night (well, probably more like 6 weeks ago), though.  I created myself, and kicked Ronald Reagan's ass in 1980!  Heh, I changed history.  I also played as Howard Dean in 2004 against Dubya, and got like 400-some-odd electoral votes.

Now only if it was real...

:/

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 14:30:45 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

forgot about Shogun (4.00 / 3)

I skipped that one. But Railroad Tycoon was fun. Was there a RT2?

My Bro-I-L turned me on to Panzer General. Played that I got good enough to invade Washington. ...Then Allied General.

B-I-L is an absolute fanatic for board games and all the TW games, though he doesn't enjoy the FPSs. And I drew the ling at playing online FPSs.

No doubt you and your buds lost many hours' sleep playing RISK!

Yankee Frugality: use it up, wear it out, make it last, or do without.

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by: Anonymous Bosch @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 14:43:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

plant AND weed? (4.00 / 3)

That's two different things? Or a typo?

Yankee Frugality: use it up, wear it out, make it last, or do without.

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by: Anonymous Bosch @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 14:01:23 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I know I haven't gotten enough sleep this week (4.00 / 3)

but what on earth are you talking about? Those are both verbs in that sentence, not nouns.

I wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
--"Blueberries" by Robert Frost

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by: wide eyed lib @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 15:16:47 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Also... (4.00 / 3)

I have a great idea for a foraging sim game!  You'd have to be a design consultant (is that what they're called?), of course...

I can imagine some of the cut-scenes already -

Mmmmm, wintercress...

and -

You've found fiddleheads!

and -

Oh noez! You've sauteed poison ivy!

:)

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 14:12:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

don't forget rocks! (4.00 / 3)

People really do forage for rocks. They're called "rockhounds", but you probably knew that. ;-)

Yankee Frugality: use it up, wear it out, make it last, or do without.

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by: Anonymous Bosch @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 14:18:22 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Ha! (4.00 / 2)

Yeah, I could have at lot of fun designing a foraging game. It could actually be educational, too.

But my dream is to do a foraging app for the iPhone. Anyone know a programmer with app experience? :)

I wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
--"Blueberries" by Robert Frost

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by: wide eyed lib @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 15:30:20 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Combining games and ethics (4.00 / 2)

It's interesting that you would waver over the, (I presume,) ethics of hacking a spammer's diary. My own ethics are unmerciful when it comes to spammers. Disabling the link would at least spare the incautious from adding another hit to the fake website. But that's just me.

How does this tie in with games, you may wonder. Well, years ago after exhausting all the (dubious) value from the games I was then playing, and being a frequenter of Usenet's n.a.n.a (news.admin.net.abuse) newsgroup, along with alt.peeves (though not relevant,) I and others at nana used to amuse ourselves busting spammers.

That meant being on our toes when spam came into our mailboxes and firing off complaints to admin@ or abuse@, or if we knew who (the abuse admin,) to address the complaint to. Having a facility with whois and other tools made the investigations challenging and records lent weight to our complaints.

Various anti-spammer admins hung out at nana too. It was a big game and the admins were (unofficially?) in on it too.

Though the volume of spam even in those days was always increasing, it was our collective mission to rid the nets of the slag. A quickly assembled complaint, often with whois documentation, that reach the intended admin first would be rewarded with a personal reply from said admin. That counted as a kill. It was understood that later (duplicate) complaints were merely auto-replied.

Remember MMFs (Make Money Fast) chain letters? Those were almost always fairly easy kills, though they did count. I can still remember an investigation of a chain-letter ring I brought to SouthBell's attention that involved tracking down street addresses of the gang on the list. That was a coup. The documented complaint closed a half a dozen accounts in one swell foop.

Taking down a website was a really righteous kill. And the whole lot of us would compare notes at nana.

Then there were the "vendors" of email addresses, known as "chickenboners", (almost exclusively from AOL who had the benighted policy of posting new customers' addresses.) Talk about easy pickins' for spammers.

As a game, it was challenging to dig through records and track down who really owned a website and who hosted it and get the site or emailer's acc closed. As a crusade, it was eventually too frustrating to continue, like cleaning a sewer with a teaspoon.

Yankee Frugality: use it up, wear it out, make it last, or do without.

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by: Anonymous Bosch @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 16:09:57 PM UTC

RE: Jay sim game (4.00 / 2)

It's really not that time consuming. I check it a couple times a day and play for maybe five or ten minutes. Its not like sim city in that way. The plants mature slowly... grapes in 4 hours, potatoes take a day, strawberries a day, rice and tomatoes take two. Corn and sunflower take three. And its not advanced to the stage where there are insects or spraying.. so once you plant its just a waiting game.

For me the game was Warcraft II. I put thousands of hours into that one. I got to be one of the top ten to twenty players in the World. I never got into that final elite top 10 but I played with those guys. I'm still in touch with one of the best players. We were same age living 30 mins apart.

But that was back in the day when there were less people online. Maybe 10,000 total playing WCII. It seems harder nowadays to have that community where people know each other and the rankings matter.  

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by: Curtis Abbey @ Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 18:37:44 PM UTC