My son wants to “game” like most other kids at his class. So I got an old laptop, installed linux mint on it with dosbox. He loves lemmings, the incredible machine 2 and rollercoaster tycoon
I fear that he won’t get many friends this way
Mainstream might be boring but it’s an easy way to connect with people
That’s the trouble with gamers these days, they’re only in it for the friendship. Fucking posers.
This was the argument I used in high school when I wanted an Xbox 360. My parents were super reluctant given the cost, and then I told them I have nothing to talk about with friends in the hallways and I’m left out of conversations (I was). They reconsidered and eventually folded, and I was very appreciative
Column A, Column B
The trick is to introduce your kid to your taste in gaming while they’re young
And then when they are in their tweens and want to game online with their mates, you set them up for it (with proper supervision and such, of course)
And they WILL develop their own taste in gaming – But they will have some common ground with you still.
… It worked for me and my dad (avid PC gamer, mostly plays strategy games and management sims though) anyway. Years later I convinced him to get Civ V and he completely destroyed me in it.
You have a diploma in personality development manipulation haha
I didn’t get many friends the old fashioned way and I turned out fine in the end.
maybe you could have had an even better life had it happened
Unlikely. The reason I didn’t have many friends is simply because I didn’t get along with them: my interests were not their interests. It’s much more fulfilling to find people who align with and elevate you than to seek popular approval.
If you had access to the same things as them you could have had the same interests?
No, because my interests were “reading books” and “knowing things” and I had very little patience for people who did not understand the basic rules to a game on first explanation, for example. That’s still true but it’s much easier to select your peer group as an adult.
alright
“reading books”
you weirdo :)
Omg the Incredible Machine!!! Where can I play it, its been so long!
I think the copyright expired and you can just download it for free, maybe its even on the internet archive. I got mine from abandonware or something like that.
Worms/Scorched Earth/Liero (pixel physics!)
That era had so many good Gorilla clones.
Somehow this unlocked a child memory, when I found out there was a plain text file with the “insults” and I added my own. I felt like a true hacker…
Gotta get Jill of the Jungle on that bad boy
you don’t need to try so hard, just don’t let him have weird ideas about gender and hope he befriends at least one girl. that’ll be enough. all these idiots need is a female friend going “don’t be an idiot that’s not how things work”.
Or a sister, or any woman who has the standing to tell you “your teeth are blotchy and your breath is bad, that’s why people won’t kiss you, go to the dentist”
I always wonder where are the mothers of these shitty young men?
Like.
If I even thought of going into a misogynistic phase during my younger years, my mother would have put me in my place, yanno?
Are anglo mothers less sprited than latin american mothers?
They’re at home, suffering their husbands abuse while their son learns to be just like Dad.
Oof. Hard to read/think about. But I’m pretty sure that’s what’s happening.
My kid won’t experience that (at least from their parents), thankfully. But we’re doing our best to instill an open mind and acceptance for our child.
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It’s easy to imagine them however you want. Truth is a lot of those incels probably come across as normal on the surface and have a normal life and are just depressed people looking for something to blame
We won the lottery on this. Had twins, 1 boy 1 girl at birth. They’re too young to know if they’re gonna be friends, enemies, (probably both?)
Gotta get two nintendo DS then.
Extinct??!?
We’re not dead yet, just old!
And the music of Weird Al
Throwing Discworld into the mix
Needs more BattleBots.
Robot Wars.
…grant imahara should’ve been cast as reed richards… =(
I’m not
deadextinct yet!I’m making a note here: Huge success
This is the ritual to create a Tom Scott.
It’s funny. I’m definitely a nerd and neuro-something-or-other, and I have really good friends who are into all this stuff, Linux, Terry Pratchett etc - all of it - but I absolutely bounced off this smug nerd culture and grind my teeth if a group all start yelling “Ni!” or make me listen to the “hilarious” Portal song. Possibly I’m just trying too hard to be an arch, diffident outsider, this is my tribe, and I’m just the tribe jerk.
I feel you. I often hate things because too many people annoy me by liking them too much but ya know that’s nebulous and stupid. As I’ve gotten older I’ve just kinda stopped letting that happen and try to give things a chance
I would recommend introducin the son to a literal lemon in real life prior to playing Portal 2.
… probably goes the same for a p0taTo.
That’s why you introduce LOTR before Portal 2 -
PO-TAY-TOES: Boil 'em, Mash 'em, Stick 'em in a stew.
Make sure it’s not a lemon party.
I dunno. I grew up on He-Man, Transformers and G.I. Joe, and I think I turned out OK. I suppose I also grew up on Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, and The Neverending Story, which may have been just as formative in my nerdiness and are leagues ahead of those first three in terms of quality.
I grew up on all of those exact same things and I’m not a nerd, so it’s basically a crapshoot anyhoot.
I don’t like being so seen.
This is what I mean when I say I’m teaching my kids Python
Good old times.
I could’ve created the parody OSS license “Programmers of Ni License”, nowadays some people would like to expand that word to the hard-R N-word, with an 80+% chance that those people’s account are littered with actual nazi shit, not just “liking edgy jokes”.
Click a picture of the little guy each and every day to show them later how things were when they were growing up. You can use something like DD-DigitalDiary Otherwise these memories will be lost forever. And it has better privacy than all other google slop
Also i would suggest Audiobooks. Lots o them available for Free. In Youtube or Pitrats software. To learn how to act and live in life