I had an HN-Christmas. I got stuff that I saw other HN'ers recommended over the last year.
First was the CDs. Arvo Part Fratres. Arvo Part Tabula Rasa, Gorecki' Symphony #3, and Steve Reich Music for 18 Musicians (These are REALLY GOOD) I am enjoying the heck of of them so far this morning.
Then, from another HN thread, the ultimate nerd game, Settlers of Catan. Can't wait to try it out later today.
Finally some custom teas. Good stuff! I'm drinking a double-spice chai with milk and Splenda. Delicious.
By the way, if you haven't figured it out yet, you can be bad and Santa still brings you cool stuff. I think this whole "making a list" stuff is just a big lie. If you ask me, the big fat man is a pushover.
Settlers is great. It has a bit of a learning curve, though, so if you have any friends who know how to play (and who would be okay with a few "open hand" rounds), you might invite them over. Have fun!
While Settlers is a nice gateway game, there's a fair amount of chance involved that can be frustrating. I'd highly recommend Puerto Rico, Tigris & Euphrates, and Caylus. Good games, although they're a bit more involved than Settlers.
Dominion is the best game I've played in a long time. Easy to learn, and incredibly addictive. I'd gotten bored with most strategy games, but we've been playing hours of Dominion a night for a month.
Puerto Rico is indeed amazingly chess-like; deterministic to a point where you start to pull your hair out because you didn't take the corn field in the beginning when you could. It also has the nice point that the situation can turn extremely quickly and your opponents start pulling their hair :)
I would also add Agricola which is similarly deterministic but notoriously diffucult to develop a strategy for!
I'd argue that Agricola isn't deterministic. The cards dealt out at the beginning are done so randomly and often lead to asymmetry. Beyond that, I don't recall any chance.
One feature of Agricola I don't like much is that it's difficult to assess another player's score at a glance. In Caylus, for example, it's quite clear how well another player is doing.
i have a logitech mouse waiting for me in the states, which is a present to myself (i have a glass desk and they just introduced a mouse that works on glass).
but what i received was a very nice black jacket kind of thing. not sure how to describe it - like a thin fleece, but not very fleecy. i am sure it's a horribly technical piece of clothing for climbing up mountains or something, but i will be using it when i go north next week (summer here in the source - just had a xmas day picnic!).
bought myself another 80GB X25-M SSD along with MCE optibay so I can RAID-0 them in my 17-in unibody macbook pro. Also a 32GB Class 10 SDHC card for my Kodak Zi8. And a UI stencil set for making website mockups http://www.uistencils.com/
I got my family a 23andme ancestry DNA test and they LOVED it. Gave bro-in-law & sister a Flip MinoHD for baby vids
Yup, that's the one. The only issue I ran into with install today was that in my unibody 17-inch (latest gen, got it just a few months ago), the bluetooth module does not screw into the optibay (it was originally screwed into the superdrive). There are holes in the optibay for it, but the screws don't fit. Not a big deal though, the module is very small and won't move if left by itself (attached to a larger display cable).
I got the skin of a leopard. Completely unasked for, totally illegal and now I'm feeling very guilty, but unsure what to do. It's not good to have naive family members go on safari.
It actually might not be illegal. I was on safari last year and I was told you could buy a license to hunt leopards, just they are very expensive. You can also hunt lions and other big game.
Depends on the country it was shot in, and if the animal was wild or not.
Wild Leopard is a CITES Appendix I species, meaning that it's pretty much illegal to trade in or to move across borders. It's possible to do it legally, but in order for that to be the case your family would have needed a special export permit from where they hunted it, and they would have had to get a similar permit from the Fish and Wildlife Service to bring it back into the US - and this is quite difficult.
If they can prove that it was bred in captivity, then it only requires a FWS import permit (since captive Leopards are CITES Appendix II), which is reasonably easy to get.
I say auction it off with the donation $ given to a fund that saves leopards...
* Some guy who wants one gets it without having to kill yet another.
* The charity will save more leopard lives.
* You get a tax deduction via charity donation receipt.
Even if owning it may not be illegal, I think trying to make a profit by selling it will surely end up with me posting an AskYC: How do I get out of jail?
Oh gawd. Please don't give it to PETA. I don't have any better ideas, but I wouldn't do anything to support PETA. They're reactionary, inflammatory, and probably do more harm than good for the cause they support.
It would be really smart if Apple picked up on this and created a campaign where folks could get a discount on the OS when showing a receipt from PETA for donating a leopard fur.
Since we are on tangents here, my downstairs neighbour owns a half-serval. It was illegally imported and abandoned: she takes care of it, together with another dozen of cats. When she has a litter, she needs to keep the serval away from the litter or it will kill the kittens.
This probably isn't a popular thing to say, but assuming it's legal, I'd keep it. Anything that rare and precious is worth cherishing for the rest of your life.
So he should cherish something just because it is rare and precious? It sounds like he couldn't care less and would probably store it somewhere in a closet. And good for him: we shouldn't care about what others think is valuable (except to prevent ourselves from needlessly offending them).
From my girlfriend: an Atari shirt (since I'm always lamenting that the one I have now is literally falling to pieces); a copy of The Bro Code; A bunch of amazingly delicious homemade chocolates; A stocking shaped like Kuribo's Shoe from Super Mario Bros 3 (http://bit.ly/kuribo).
From my mother, a $25 sbux gift card and chocolates.
Given that I don't actually celebrate christmas and didn't want gifts, it's a pretty good haul.
I also got my girlfriend a sock monkey patterned after Rorschach from Watchmen (http://bit.ly/5h0nfB), which she liked (huge Watchmen fan and loves sock monkeys).
The shop light was a good choice. I'm a little confused about the grease gun. I've worked on cars since I was really young, and honestly cannot remember pulling one out, except on farm equipment.
I'd recommend a set of wrenches, sockets, socket adapters (get EVERY combo you can here), and 2 really good socket wrenches. Don't skimp on the socket wrenches. Money well spent. Also, a hammer, (rubber mallet, and metallic kind). Last but not least, some sort of ginormous pry bar and a 2-3' section of 1/4" steel pipe, that fits snugly around your socket wrench. Trust me, you will understand why very soon.
Get those items, which shouldn't break the bank, and you are ready to tackle damn near everything, aside from a crankshaft replacement.
Samsung N130 Netbook, A $50 bond and a coffee mug. Oh, and a Rubik's cube that has been eating up far too much time.
For my Dad, I promised to pay for a golf club he has on backorder. For my girlfriend, I got a PS3 with MGS4 and Little Big Planet (which is really so I can play LBP). Still trying to get my Mom to tell me what to get her, sadly.
I have (though I bought it myself) a Carolco bond (which covered Terminator 2), and framed it, and I point at it and go "Without this paper, no Terminator 2!"
I am a huge fan of finance. I used to collect assets from other banks for accounts I opened, and I always loved looking at the old stock certificates. By far, the most amazing certificate I have ever seen is one from Disney. It's a piece of art.
I just got cash. I'm impossible to shop for, since I just buy whatever I want. So about 5 years back we just agreed that I just get cash, since that allows me to buy the stuff I really want, when I get the itch.
My rule is exactly the opposite - I have cash and I can buy anything I want basically, and I can always save for more expensive things.
So the rule is simply - I neither give nor receive cash or gift certificates. That way I get things I may not have known I wanted, or unexpected things. It also brings a lot more fun into unwrapping presents.
Socks are indeed an important business asset. We've always said that when our startup is actually profitable enough to have a proper office, it will include a dry-erase floor and a large supply of corporate socks... you know, for all the planning meetings and UI sketches and what not.
That is a brilliant idea. I've wanted some dry-erase wallpaper http://www.walltalkers.com/ since I worked in an office that had it, but the dry-erase floor is now on my list.
Hey, there are 12 days of Christmas, so I've got 11 more days to find out what I'm getting... ;-)
(Seriously, we celebrate most gift-giving on Epiphany, the traditional 12th day of Christmas, when the Magi brought their gifts to Bethlehem. Takes the "gift whammy" off Christmas itself, though we have a few minor gifts.)
Me too. It's my second one now. I already had one, so I'll use this one at the office. I think the Magic Mouse is the best mouse I have ever used. I love it!
Also got Fire Emblem DS and $100 check from my Grandpa.
176 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 188 ms ] threadAlso socks and some other stuff. But there are more presents to come tomorrow as we visit the in-laws.
First was the CDs. Arvo Part Fratres. Arvo Part Tabula Rasa, Gorecki' Symphony #3, and Steve Reich Music for 18 Musicians (These are REALLY GOOD) I am enjoying the heck of of them so far this morning.
Then, from another HN thread, the ultimate nerd game, Settlers of Catan. Can't wait to try it out later today.
Finally some custom teas. Good stuff! I'm drinking a double-spice chai with milk and Splenda. Delicious.
By the way, if you haven't figured it out yet, you can be bad and Santa still brings you cool stuff. I think this whole "making a list" stuff is just a big lie. If you ask me, the big fat man is a pushover.
While Settlers is a nice gateway game, there's a fair amount of chance involved that can be frustrating. I'd highly recommend Puerto Rico, Tigris & Euphrates, and Caylus. Good games, although they're a bit more involved than Settlers.
I would also add Agricola which is similarly deterministic but notoriously diffucult to develop a strategy for!
One feature of Agricola I don't like much is that it's difficult to assess another player's score at a glance. In Caylus, for example, it's quite clear how well another player is doing.
Environmental attributes in board games: http://www.cognitivesandbox.com/posts/board-games/
Yes.
but what i received was a very nice black jacket kind of thing. not sure how to describe it - like a thin fleece, but not very fleecy. i am sure it's a horribly technical piece of clothing for climbing up mountains or something, but i will be using it when i go north next week (summer here in the source - just had a xmas day picnic!).
http://www.amazon.com/Cuisinart-DFP-14BCN-Processor-Brushed-...
I got my family a 23andme ancestry DNA test and they LOVED it. Gave bro-in-law & sister a Flip MinoHD for baby vids
Wild Leopard is a CITES Appendix I species, meaning that it's pretty much illegal to trade in or to move across borders. It's possible to do it legally, but in order for that to be the case your family would have needed a special export permit from where they hunted it, and they would have had to get a similar permit from the Fish and Wildlife Service to bring it back into the US - and this is quite difficult.
If they can prove that it was bred in captivity, then it only requires a FWS import permit (since captive Leopards are CITES Appendix II), which is reasonably easy to get.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2003/mar/03/advertising.mark...
http://www.activistcash.com/organization_blackeye.cfm/oid/21
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/h/2628-hyperb...
http://www.petakillsanimals.com/
In what way is PETA reactionary?
http://www.hsus.org/furfree/campaigns/c4c/
It would be really smart if Apple picked up on this and created a campaign where folks could get a discount on the OS when showing a receipt from PETA for donating a leopard fur.
http://www.fugly.com/media/IMAGES/Strange/leopard_skin_sheet...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Serval_in_Tanzania.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serval
Servals are not endangered, does not mean I'll be making myself a cape out of it though!
From my mother, a $25 sbux gift card and chocolates.
Given that I don't actually celebrate christmas and didn't want gifts, it's a pretty good haul.
I also got my girlfriend a sock monkey patterned after Rorschach from Watchmen (http://bit.ly/5h0nfB), which she liked (huge Watchmen fan and loves sock monkeys).
I'd recommend a set of wrenches, sockets, socket adapters (get EVERY combo you can here), and 2 really good socket wrenches. Don't skimp on the socket wrenches. Money well spent. Also, a hammer, (rubber mallet, and metallic kind). Last but not least, some sort of ginormous pry bar and a 2-3' section of 1/4" steel pipe, that fits snugly around your socket wrench. Trust me, you will understand why very soon.
Get those items, which shouldn't break the bank, and you are ready to tackle damn near everything, aside from a crankshaft replacement.
For my Dad, I promised to pay for a golf club he has on backorder. For my girlfriend, I got a PS3 with MGS4 and Little Big Planet (which is really so I can play LBP). Still trying to get my Mom to tell me what to get her, sadly.
So the rule is simply - I neither give nor receive cash or gift certificates. That way I get things I may not have known I wanted, or unexpected things. It also brings a lot more fun into unwrapping presents.
(Seriously, we celebrate most gift-giving on Epiphany, the traditional 12th day of Christmas, when the Magi brought their gifts to Bethlehem. Takes the "gift whammy" off Christmas itself, though we have a few minor gifts.)
But so far, it seems like a keeper. And this comes from a guy who has never liked any of Apple's previous mice. (using a logitech until now)
Also got Fire Emblem DS and $100 check from my Grandpa.
I got my dad the Star Trek Blu-ray set.