grams88 Blog

[grams88]

Thanks Mobius, We have a few more kids going to be joining the family, my cousins wife is due around November time, my other cousin's wife had a baby just this month. If I have that right I think that would be my second cousin myself to the baby. 

I have two challenges but the bad thing is you can only do one at a time sort of. You'll remember this game which is (Peg Solitaire) a game where you have to remove marbles by jumping over them. Now my challenge is either (one or two), Challenge one is to basically try to solve it without cheating and by seeing if you can make it to leaving just one marble left over. Challenge two is you cheat and solve it but wait to see in a years time if you can remember how you solved it. Usually after a year or two you tend to forget the solution so this is testing to see if you can remember the solution after so many years, that can be an interesting challenge itself, this might be testing our memory rather than skill maybe. I like to apply this logic, its like you remember a solution to something when you were a kid but you forget now. (You could apply lemmings to this).

https://www.webgamesonline.com/peg-solitaire/

You could apply the same to the rubix cube, you might want to have a look at the solution but then you try to test yourself a year or two and see if you can still remember what the solution is. This can be an interesting challenge itself.  I've ordered a rubix cube and I'm planing on doing a challenge two on it. I want to see if I can remember the solution for life so I can impress people, I like doing that sometimes. It makes life interesting I feel. It will be a very hard challenge as you do tend to forget solutions after so much time has passed. If you do forget the solution you are allowed to look it up on the youtube or wherever you can find a solution.

Hope everyone is doing okay today.

grams88

[Simon]

Challenge one is to basically try to solve it without cheating and by seeing if you can make it to leaving just one marble left over.

Peg solitaire is such a classic, I wouldn't search for a solution without sinking all teeth into it first. I've never attacked it seriously yet. Interesting idea.

After solving with one marble left, the harder task asks to finish with the lone marble in the center.

see in a years time if you can remember how you solved it. Usually after a year or two you tend to forget the solution so this is testing to see if you can remember the solution

We forget about solutions unless the puzzle is special:

• Both puzzle and solution come from your childhood, and leave a strong memory. Probably the solution is more memorable, easier, and our brains were softer.
• You routinely apply similar tricks to variants of the puzzle. This happens for contemporary Lemmings players, and for high school/early-university math students.
• You've endlessly ground it. Rubik's Cube is too hard without looking up solutions. During late high school in 2003 to 2005, I speed cubed with averages around 30 to 40 seconds, and learned the full Fridrich route. I forgot nearly everything for the later stages and would nowadays solve with beginner tech that has stuck to mind, and which is the core part of Fridrich.
• geoo will never forget the solution to Lemmings' Ark in Genesis Lemmings, and envies me because I either don't know it yet, or have forgotten it. (I don't even know which of these two.) I'd need a proper installation of vanilla Lemmix though to re-attempt. >_>

Anyway, the Cube is quality leisure time, and it's booming even more than 15 years ago when I learned it. Enjoy!

-- Simon

[grams88]

You make a good point there Simon with sinking all teeth into the peg solitaire before checking up a solution, it's quite a tricky one to solve on itself and even harder probably to get the marble finishing on the centre. There were some other websites such as the cool math website which has some peg solitaire puzzles, it had your standard one as well as other ones, some are easier and some are harder than the standard one.

You do tend to notice that you remember things or puzzles from your childhood especially it was something you really enjoyed as a child. I've never heard of the fridrich route  before but look forward to checking that one out, I wonder if that is one of the main solving methods. Even looking a solution very quickly just to get the feel of whats to come with the rubix cube. My rubix cube moves quite smoothly as I remember the old one I had felt as if it got stuck while moving it.  I liked shuffling this cube around it feel really cool, was randomly shuffling around and trying to make it hard for myself, I was probably mainly focusing on how flexible the cube seems at first then I will probably start to attempt to solve it while looking it up on the internet. Welldone Simon for solving the cube back in your high school years, 30 seconds is actually really good time.   

Recently I've just completed lemmings chronicles for the first time, a really good game and the puzzles are great I feel. I must say that you are committing a crime if you don't try lemmings chronicles. I might attempt lemmings revolution maybe next but I Do hear that it tends to be harder to install on a newer operating system. I might try to get round to lemmings 3d as well. I don't think I completed that one as a child. I might as well attempt to finish tomb raider anniversary, I'm on the second last level. I'm in a video game phase at the moment trying to complete games that I haven't done yet.

This is probably more a thought experiment but I was thinking that we could think about it a little bit, I might as well as I've been talking about video games above. An experiment now as I've been talking about video games, could you name most of the  video games you have completed through out your life time. I bet the list would never end, now I need to be strict for it to be mentioned like for example if you believe you completed the game that's evidence itself or if you have not quite 100% a game but you have completed it otherwise still counts. Thinking about that myself I know my list would be big me thinks. We could probably actually try this maybe one time and write all the games that come to mind that you have completed. We have to be strict with older games as a lot of them might rely on the one attempt or if the game has a password system.

I don't really anyone to attempt this for real unless you really want to.

For example think about all the lemmings games you have completed, that would get you off to a good start.

[namida]

geoo will never forget the solution to Lemmings' Ark in Genesis Lemmings, and envies me because I either don't know it yet, or have forgotten it. (I don't even know which of these two.) I'd need a proper installation of vanilla Lemmix though to re-attempt. >_>

https://www.neolemmix.com/?page=download_list&program=42

These are all just download-and-run (should work fine with WINE). Enter "CHEATCODES" as a password (or just change cheat mode to on in the INI file), then you can type eg. "GENESIS45" as a password (which I think is the actual position of Lemmings' Ark, though I could be wrong).

[grams88]

Hi everyone, hope we are all doing okay.

I noticed something kind of cool and it could come as a little helper in planning ahead for the event. I'm going back to birthdays, I like this topic as I'm usually not that bad at remembering peoples ages, mostly the older actors. I'm not too familiar with some of the younger actors that are coming through. Anyway back on topic, I noticed that you can share the same day as someones birthday, just to be clear any of the seven days of the week. I noticed my birthday will be on a Saturday because my mum's birthday is on Saturday, my mum's birthday is in March and mine's is in August, if I find out what day my mum's birthday is on my birthday will be on the same day and this is like this for the rest of our lives. I know automatically my birthday is going to be on a Saturday because my mum has a birthday on Saturday. Now be careful if you have a birthday before Fabruary 29th it will mess the days and won't be consistent because of the whole leap year thing.

Now this is me going right onto another topic completely, I like my prank calls so I decided to have a go at making up a soundboard, it was pre-made and I added a lot of voice recordings of my myself, it's nothing too perfect but I was hoping to maybe getting people who are interested using this as a prank soundboard. He's called the (Scottish Professor) who insults the ladies and is  very cheeky to lots of people. He mainly phones up shops as most of the recordings are to do with him asking for a product or saying something very strange. His name is Rod Morton, hope I have that spelling right. By the way if anyone is interested, have a shot of it yourself, by no means is this perfect as it still has some mistakes that I could probably get round to a bit later to fix them. Have a play around with it and see if you like the soundboard. It might inspire yourself to create a soundboard in the future. I thought I'll post here on the lemmings forum as I think a few of us are into our prank phone calls.

I might maybe make a seperate topic for the soundboard, just thought I'd post it here in the mean time.

[grams88]

Getting some bad news about my Great uncle, they might have to take him off the oxygen, a great uncle who we were quite close to. He got taken into hospital because he fractured his hip and caught the coronavirus while in the hospital. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for him but it's not looking good.

[grams88]

How are we doing guys?

I might have to do a disclaimer before I talk about the medical conditions.

(I'm not a doctor by any means, it's just a hobby of mine and a subject I find fascinating)

It was around 100 years ago the Spanish flu ended around this time. I know we should never compare the the covid19 with the Spanish flu as they were different. The Spanish flu sounded really nasty from what I hear, people were coughing up blood, I think blood would come through the ears as well which sounds scary. I always found medical stuff interesting and checking different conditions was fascinating.

Each country is going to handle things differently to how other countries. The coronavirus is a very major event and might take time before we start to see improvements. A lot of us are having to obey lockdown measures, might have to work from home as well. Remember to keep your mind busy and if make sure you are doing your social distancing if your country or government wants you to do that, it's very important from what I hear.

The conditions I was looking into recently was (rabies) or the condition known as hydrophobia which sort of means frightened of water. When you have rabies and starting to show symptoms, your body refuses to take water even when people are trying to give you water. You are so thirsty but you can't take the water, the body rejects it.  Imagine just feeling so uncomfortable with all those horrible symptoms. I think as soon as you start showing those symptoms it becomes a lot harder to save your life. It 
doesn't look too nice and can be scary for others to watch as the person is suffering. You can get rabies from a lot of different animals, I think the ones I hear about are from, dogs, bats. I think I remember someone who came back to the UK had rabies and they were put in a special place in the hospital, I think they referred to it as the tropical disease and sadly the lady passed on from what I remember. I think it was in London hospital.

You think the condition shingles sounds not that bad, it technically is not the nicest thing to have and there's a lot more to this condition than meets the eye. Herpes Zoster the virus is known as as well. You first get the virus when you are young, it becomes the chicken pox which is very itchy all over the place. You usually get this when you are younger, not everyone gets chicken pox but might get it later in life or just probably never get it at all. Now hears the interesting part, once you get chicken pox the virus stays in your body and will remain in your body. Most often the virus will do nothing and just lay there in the body but some unlucky people this virus will reactivate and cause you to have the very painful condition which is shingles. From what I hear shingles can be very dangerous especially if it is around the face area. The rash is very painful to touch but usually you get a lot of painful symptoms even before the actual rash appears. Usually shingles happens when you are a lot older and if your immune system is run down. If you remember having chicken pox, that virus will stay in the body and most often won't reactivate into the painful shingles. If you have had chickenpox before 18 months of age you have a greater risk of getting shingles in the future.

Mental health conditions has been an interesting subject to me as well. I have harm related ocd which is a nightmare to live with but you have to get on with life as best as you can. I'm making it my mission in life to spread as much information about this condition that will be one of my goals in life. In a way this condition has opened many avenues in the sense of getting people interested in hearing my story. I was very close to getting featured on a horizon program talking about ocd. I remember talking to the lady on the phone and she sounded very interested, it was good talking to the research team. Horizon is a really interesting show which explores many things, looks into things deeper. A monster in mind, if I have the right name for the show. The ocd condition affects me everyday and probably will most of my life. Anyone else have ocd on this forum?

Hope you found it interesting, I'm still learning myself.

[grams88]

I might share some bad news with you all in this one.

This has been a very bad year for things happening. We just our great uncle who was a very nice man, he liked to make models of train in a mechanical sense. He was in to all of that, he died too young at the age of 85, he was in a fit and healthy state but the coronavirus made things a lot worse and he ended up on a ventilator and passed on. Our next door neighbours mum got the coronavirus as well, she passed on at the age of 97 which is some going. My Gran just turned 97 the other day, she is very worried about the coronavirus but we are trying to keep her calm and making sure she stays in the house. My great auntie has also broken or fractured her hip the same as my great uncle. She's in a rehabilitation house from what I hear, maybe that's her back home.

One of my friend from school got the worse news you could ever imagine, her sister was found dead in the flat, they believe that she may of been murdered which was shocking to find out. They were asking lots of people around Scotland to leave a light on during the thursday clap for the NHS workers. I couldn't believe it was someone from school I knew really well has lost her sister to possibly murder. Scary stuff. A man has appeared in court to say what his name is and maybe the charges were getting read out to him.

We lost someone from our prank call community, he was in the hospital for his kidneys and went into a coma after some complications, might of suffered multiple strokes, which sounds horrible and he passed on. Must be at least ten years older than myself. Can't believe a man has lost his life like that, he was a great guy in the prank call community, very funny with his prank ideas.

Do stay safe people.

[Simon]

Sorry for your loss. Your great uncle must have been very bright even at 85, I'm sure it was enriching every time you've met with him.

Carry forward their spirit. We too can enrich others in turn with our passionate hobbies.

-- Simon

[grams88]

Thanks for your kind words Simon, he loved making things in the shed and was very close to my gran, they used to talk on the phone to each other most nights. I think he was always wanting to do something never one for sitting around, I heard that he fell off a ladder one time trying to complete a certain task.

[WillLem]

Thanks for your kind words Simon, he loved making things in the shed and was very close to my gran

The shed. Surely the ultimate man cave!

[grams88]

Definitely the ultimate man cave. A place for men to escape.

Crazy year this one.  I think they reckon it might of been murder in the case of my friend's sister who was found dead in the flat. Our local newspaper was mentioning about it and encouraging us to leave the light on during the night a while back. I knew my friend quite well from school and college, we used to get laughs. She's in a wheelchair and from what I  reading from the article was very close to her sister, her sister helped her with her disability. She's going to be very upset losing her sister in that way.

I wonder if I could get in contact with one of the big football teams in Scotland as I think they might of been big supporters, I can't be sure but I I'm thinking maybe her sister is a supporter of the team as well.

My dog is getting older, she is getting more deaf and can't really hear you when you mention her name unless you say it very loudly. She used to go nuts when someone came to the door but not now as she does not hear as well. Animals are very cute in their ways, I cut myself during the middle of the night, I still have no idea what happened as I was in a sleepy state. I cut my knee and it was bleeding so I put a plaster on it and my dog was licking the plaster. My mum was thinking it might be poisoned. I hope not but do dogs not notice things like that.  I had cuts all over my hand as well, on the knuckles part. I'm scared just in case it happens again as I don't know what happened. My mum was saying it was a loud bang during the middle of night.

In relation to criticism, I think constructive criticism is good as long as it has a few positive things. Otherwise it might lead to the person who put the work in deleting their content, there was a show we used to watch called (one foot in the grave) and the main character was writing up a screenplay and he showed his wife his screenplay. His wife was quite critical of it and it led to the main character throwing his work in the bin. He spent a while writing it up.

My grammar tends not to be the best, I've been criticised in a few of the reviews for my e-book I self published. Some of the reviews seem very harsh but that's that I suppose. My mental health e-book I got published might actually be doing okay. I think the money raised from it goes towards a charity or good causes. As a sufferer of ocd harm thoughts I thought I'd write about that and it got accepted for publication as the topic of it was probably quite an interesting.

[grams88]

Hi everyone

The last couple of years have been a bit slow due to the pandemic.

I'm hoping to get my first paperback book published. This one is about the mental health condition I have which is harm OCD. In this book, there are four characters who all suffer from harm OCD and they talk about what day-to-day life is like. Some of the things they describe can be horrible but that's what this condition is like it can be a horrible one to live with. Each character will talk about their day-to-day life and mention how the condition affects them. I'm hoping to get this one published so I can show the world what this condition is like. I have been in contact with someone who would publish it but I won't name any companies or charities here. My main idea was to get it published so it might appear in the (Barnes and noble) shores and other stores as well. Usually, when people think of OCD they tend to think of people who are washing or cleaning their hands a lot, OCD is a lot more than just that as there is a lot of suffering internally for the person.

If all goes well I hope to get the condition noticed a lot more. That would be my main goal. I'm getting a little article published in one of the ocd magazines as well. I'm hoping I could become a regular contributor but see what happens with that. I always think it is good to share your opinion on things.

This next thing I'm going to talk about might not be the most populist thing in the world but it's a goal for myself anyway. I remember watching a few documentaries to do with prisons in America and the way the inmates get treated can be so appalling. I know they committed horrible crimes but I felt that the guards took things too far. If you get the chance check the (Stanford Experiment) it was an experiment where they got a big group of volunteers and put them into two groups, one of them are the prisoners while the other group was the guards. It ended up the guards were treating the prisons in a terrible way. One film I remember watching the actual guard was peeing all over the prisoner, showing him no respect at all. (Thought that was terrible). Now going back to what I was saying, my goal is in support of prisoners getting the vote in the UK. At the moment they don't have the right to vote. I'm thinking of doing a campaign where I mention most of the benefits to prisoners getting the vote, I was maybe thinking of doing a debate with an MP or MSP who is against prisoners getting the right to vote. I really do think that it would be of benefit to give prisoners the right to vote even though it won't be the most popular thing with most people. I've always felt like prisoners need to be treated like human beings, not the other way round.

It has always been something I want to change for which are prisoners getting the right to vote in the UK. In some countries, the prisoners are able to vote which I think is the way forward. I want to be able to live in a society where people get treated with respect.

I'm hoping to get back into volunteering, I've been off since March last year due to the pandemic. I can understand when you are volunteering in the hospital shop it can be a lot of cause for concern due to the pandemic. Let us hope things do get better in relation to the covid.

[kaywhyn]

I'm hoping to get my first paperback book published. This one is about the mental health condition I have which is harm OCD. In this book, there are four characters who all suffer from harm OCD and they talk about what day-to-day life is like. Some of the things they describe can be horrible but that's what this condition is like it can be a horrible one to live with. Each character will talk about their day-to-day life and mention how the condition affects them. I'm hoping to get this one published so I can show the world what this condition is like. I have been in contact with someone who would publish it but I won't name any companies or charities here. My main idea was to get it published so it might appear in the (Barnes and noble) shores and other stores as well. Usually, when people think of OCD they tend to think of people who are washing or cleaning their hands a lot, OCD is a lot more than just that as there is a lot of suffering internally for the person.

Hi grams88,

I like how you're quite open with your struggles with OCD. Indeed, I think OCD people often portrayed on shows washing their hands repeatedly is a huge misconception. This is just one of many things that people with OCD can do, although not all do this. I'm going to guess that you have seen the TV show Glee? The school counselor suffers from OCD and she is often seen washing and rinsing. Instead, when describing OCD, it simply refers to the unhealthy practice of thoughts over things (the obsessive part of OCD) that otherwise aren't normally a huge deal and being compelled to do the same thing over and over (the compulsive part of OCD).

I've never been diagnosed or tested for OCD, and I'm pretty sure I don't have it, but I sometimes tell people that at times it can look like I display OCD-like symptoms, but only when it comes to doing things in a specific way. That's because I have extremely specific ways of doing many things, even if it comes off as strange to others. Like yes, I'm well aware that an LP AND very detailed feedback about levels in the level pack topics is overkill on my part, as I'm essentially doing double duty and giving the same info about the levels twice, but the thing is I don't mind doing so. In my opinion, the more places where the same thing is stated, the better. From the feedback I've been giving and how my posts tend to be quite long, it should be quite clear that I'm a very detail-oriented person. If I think of more examples later on, I'll gladly list them. I can't think of further ones right now

Also as you might have seen, I love making and maintaining lists. For example, my LPs list and the list of packs that I have solved, in the General Discussion and Lemmings Main, respectively.

If all goes well I hope to get the condition noticed a lot more. That would be my main goal. I always think it is good to share your opinion on things.

Absolutely! I think this is very important, not only so we know more about you, but also that others can be more aware of what OCD is in general and what daily life is like for a person who suffers from it. If you're especially fine with sharing info about yourself, all the better.  Indeed, given the diverse student population, in my profession I'm expected to have special needs students who I need to be able to provide accommodations/modifications to ensure he/she succeeds in the classroom. Although these students might be "different," they're still human like their non-handicapped peers. Also, these students can be just as capable and intelligent or even more. The important thing is that they simply "process information and learn differently," and by tailoring the lessons that uses methods that help them succeed, they will be able to do just as well as their abled peers. They can also bring unique viewpoints and raise interesting discussions during lessons that we can still learn a lot from them. Hence, I have the belief that all students are capable of succeeding in math, despite how it's not for everyone.

I'm hoping to get back into volunteering, I've been off since March last year due to the pandemic. I can understand when you are volunteering in the hospital shop it can be a lot of cause for concern due to the pandemic. Let us hope things do get better in relation to the covid.

I too have also been out of work since last March. Fortunately, I've been fully vaccinated since the beginning of April, meaning I've already gotten both Covid doses. Also, my entire state and economy will be fully reopening next month, so I will hopefully be able to get back into the workforce again soon. I'm just not one to sit around at home doing nothing, as I prefer to be at work. Even when I was a sub, even though I'm under no obligation to work every day, I'm extremely reluctant to take days off from work, and hence I ended up overworking myself. That's how much I love my job and how much I love working. 

[grams88]

Thanks Kaywhyn for your comments and kind words. Interesting what you were saying there. I do find that I take longer with tasks and notice people do these things a lot faster than myself. I usually take longer when I'm replying to an e-mail or replying to someone. I remember we were all filling out the application forms for (the samaritans) as I was wanting to become a listening volunteer. Everyone else finished filling out the forms and I was the last one to finish it as I was probably double-checking everything on the form making sure I was answering the questions correctly.  I have (autistic spectrum disorder) which I don't mind sharing here. I think I was always a bit slower with things, I remember taking a bit longer to understand a concept. You are right, we are all capable, I feel.

Are you the math teacher in School Kaywhyn? It's a very deep subject and it was something I did not too bad when I was at college and school, maybe I could have done better. I notice it is a very hard subject. I did take math up to a higher-level but I can't remember if I went any further than this. A great subject maths and probably one of the hardest subjects I would say in my opinion. I remember getting frustrated because I never understood something argggggggg

You might a few of your students might like the lemmings, you never know. Hope you get back to work soon as well.