Messages

26

Living Room / Re: I read an eReader

« on: December 16, 2012, 05:47 PM »

I have a kindle and I know I haven't read this much and so quickly in any other point in my life!! I love e-readers... 

27

Living Room / Re: Help me get my back back!!!

« on: November 26, 2012, 09:49 PM »

Thanks so much Mouser!! 

28

Living Room / Help me get my back back!!!

« on: November 26, 2012, 09:37 PM »

Hi everyone!!

Some of you know that I've been in massive pain for a long time and I can't walk much and I've been losing feeling in my legs. I'm doing an online fundraiser at http://www.gofundme.com/1kgcu4

Anything you can give -- DC credits work too -- would be greatly appreciated! And if you are on FB, you can add me as a friend (Michelle Hinn) and follow along as I update the fundraiser. Please share on your social networks if you can! I'd really, really appreciate it.

I'll be keeping a blog at http://spineadventures.com/ that will tell people all the details about back surgery and more! I just started it and my back is saying "are you crazy" right now so I must lie down for a while. But stay tuned!

Thanks!
VRGRRL/Charchu/Michelle

29

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« on: November 24, 2012, 07:04 PM »

That's good to know April about the skim milk -- I always use it anyway! No wonder I have fewer problems!

30

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« on: November 24, 2012, 05:15 PM »

I used to have that milk frother too!! But trust me...mine is much better!

31

Living Room / Re: Disaster Survival Kit

« on: November 24, 2012, 04:40 PM »

Don't forget duct tape -- during hurricane sandy we had a window bust and it would have been a LOT less messy had we taped the window before the storm when it was obvious something bad might happen. Then at least the glass would have stuck together more instead of tiny slivers everywhere...

32

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« on: November 24, 2012, 04:29 PM »

But to get the FULL espresso experience, you MUST also get yourself a milk frother! And Nespreso makes the one I love -- the Aeroccino!



Now I've owned espresso machines that have come with milk frothers but they always end up gunking up like mad and it's the first thing to go. So even if you have another machine, you might still want to get yourself a separate milk frother and this one is great! There are no hangdown pipe things to clean -- you just pour the milk in put the lid on and press the button. In one minute - perfectly frothed milk! And you can have it do hot or cold froth (depending on if you are making an iced drink or not). Easy to clean -- just wipe the botton with a towel to get off the milk residue and rinse with water. No scrubbing needed!

I think I'm more impressed by the frother than the espresso maker but together? A GREAT coffee set up!

http://www.nespresso-us.com/item_detail.cfm?product_ID=7&id=item_ID

33

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« on: November 24, 2012, 04:27 PM »

Now if you are looking for ESPRESSO machines...look no further than the Nespresso Pixie!!



This is not that amazingly different than your coffee pod machines but it is for espresso only and if you go with nespresso brand...wow! Good stuff! Chris just made some in fact and so now our apartment is filled with the smell of espresso coffee shop like goodness!

http://www.nespresso-us.com/item_detail.cfm?product_ID=2&id=item_ID

34

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« on: November 24, 2012, 04:08 PM »

Well, the Tassimo now looks very different than it did when first got one -- I had very early versions on it and the Nescafe machines and the coffee tasted like plastic. But it seems like at least the Tassimo now has pods that look more like the Keurig pods...and speaking of...

I love my Keurig coffee machine!



There are tons of K-Cup options (tea, coffee, hot chocolate) but you can also buy your own refillable pod and then make up your own recipes! So if you want to use some special imported coffee that they don't make K-cups for, you can put that coffee into the refillable pod...but more than that...you can make your own blend of coffee/tea/hot chocolate and it can be a fun game for guests to make their own special hot beverage blend. So if you want blueberry tea/coffee blend, just mix the two together and you have your own coffee invention! Keurig might not be the only single serve coffee company that allows this so take that as a fun tip for all you coffee pod machine owners!

The only issue I've learned after a few years of owning my Keurig is that after a while you do have a "priming" issue -- so you have to remove the water tank and put it back in to "reset" it -- it's not hard but a bit annoying. All these machines have issues with the mechanisms getting mucked up -- even regular coffee machines can get calcium build up issues so it's just a "thing" with coffee I suppose.

Hope the picture comes through!

http://www.keurig.com/accessories/platinum-brewing-system-bundle?cm_mmc=Google-_-QU_Keurig%20Brewers-_-ATH_Brewers%20-%20Products%20-%20B70%20/%2075%20/%2076%20Platinum-_-keurig%20b70%20platinum%20brewing%20system&gclid=CKyc46nK6LMCFcRa4Aodg1kArQ

35

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« on: November 24, 2012, 03:40 PM »

Re: Hurricane Gadgets -- I agree April -- we were out of power for a week and thank god we have gas stoves and pans or we'd have been dead. Chris was making coffee using our coffee pods from our Keurig using water heated from the stove -- all coffee pots are pretty useless in power outage so you need to at least have a French Press!

36

General Software Discussion / Re: Two classes of membership here?

« on: November 18, 2012, 01:30 PM »

Hear hear Mouser! 

37

General Software Discussion / Re: Two classes of membership here?

« on: November 17, 2012, 10:31 PM »

I don't know...yours sounds pretty reasonable to me! Well, written, etc.

38

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: NANY 2013 Withdrawn: Bead Designer

« on: November 17, 2012, 08:54 PM »

I love the idea of bead designer!! I'm a big crafter and if there's any way that I can help, I'd love to.

39

Living Room / Re: In honor of Veteran's Day 2012 - Thank You

« on: November 11, 2012, 04:17 PM »

And for our Canadian friends: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/11/11/remembrance-day-canada-services-2012_n_2112358.html

40

Living Room / Re: Hurricane Sandy Discussion Thread

« on: November 02, 2012, 10:13 PM »

We just went out of state to Michigan for the weekend -- we are still without power as of this morning. Our power company says that we *may* get power back by the 15th...or the 11th...or the 15th...we are in one of those little towns on the Hudson in the NYC suburbs that is likely last on the list of importance. I really don't want to go back to no power but I'm afraid that's what we're looking at...

41

Living Room / Re: Open Dyslexic Fonts

« on: October 08, 2012, 01:36 PM »

I've been doing work in accessibility (mostly videogames) for over a decade and very little has had potential impact on games and more. I'm dyslexic -- but I wasn't diagnosed until college. My brain had come up with tricks for me to get around it. It's such an individual thing -- some people will never learn to read and others (like me) will read like mad. I'm admittedly not a hyper quick reader but I enjoy it greatly.

Anyway, there are some other fonts that have been going around to help with dyslexia (I personally don't don't find OpenDyslexia helpful -- it's too much like reading Comic Sans for me. But I'm glad to see more work being done in this area! I imagine it will take a long while before this hits things like Kindles, etc, which I exclusively read books on because I can change the font size, the line spacing, etc.

Check out some of these other examples:

http://www.identifont.com/samples/fontsmith/Me.gif
http://www.identifont.com/samples/clubtype/SassoonPrimary.gif
http://luc.devroye.org/ChristiaanTheoBoer-Dyslexie-2008.png
http://www.robsfonts.com/examples/Resources/fig5.jpeg
http://www.bl.uk/learning/images/whywrite/RR-alphabet.jpg
http://www.biancoeneroedizioni.com/shop/public/biancoenero-sito-5.jpg

42

Living Room / Re: DC Sci Fi Book Club!

« on: October 07, 2012, 03:09 PM »

  Cool -- I'll look through that one but it seems oriented to everything!

This one is just for sci fi/steam punk though and not mouser's crazy books! Hehe. It's always a good day when you can tease mouser!

43

Living Room / Re: DC Sci Fi Book Club!

« on: October 07, 2012, 02:56 PM »

Excellent!!!

44

Living Room / DC Sci Fi Book Club!

« on: October 07, 2012, 02:31 PM »

Hi everyone!!

So I'm finishing Cloud Atlas (bought it for my Kindle and started it before I knew there was a movie version coming out in a few weeks!!) and I thought it might be fun to start a DC Sci Fi Book Club for those inclined to chat about their favorite sci fi books and discover new ones they haven't read before!

I cannot believe it took me so long but I just read Snow Crash and Diamond Age and loved them both. What are your favorite sci fi (particularly steam punk) books?

45

Living Room / Attention Writers! Camp NaNoWriMo Starts June 1st!

« on: May 28, 2012, 01:07 PM »

Hello DC Writers! Have you ever wanted to try your hand at writing a novel in a month during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) but find it hard to do in November? Well you are in luck! They have TWO camps this summer with the challenge of writing 50k words a month. The first one starts June 1st and the second August 1st!

Who's in with me? Note that during "camp" you can have virtual cabinmates to help cheer you on -- maybe we can have some DC cabins!

Here's the link to "Camp"!

http://www.campnanowrimo.org/

See you "there!"

46

Living Room / Re: National Novel Writing Month Has Started!

« on: November 04, 2011, 05:18 PM »

Good luck!!!

47

Living Room / Re: National Novel Writing Month Has Started!

« on: November 01, 2011, 09:45 PM »

I understand @Deozann -- it's not easy, that's for sure!

48

Living Room / Re: National Novel Writing Month Has Started!

« on: November 01, 2011, 09:07 PM »

Thanks @40hz! I'm working with telling the story with each "chapter" at a different point in time that (I hope) all end up coming together at the end! So far I've already hit 2k words so the muse is with me at the moment! 

49

Living Room / National Novel Writing Month Has Started!

« on: November 01, 2011, 08:34 PM »

Some of you might know already know about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) but for those that don't...it started today! The challenge? Write a 50k novel in 30 days! Find out more at http://www.nanowrimo.org

And if you'd like to read a snippet from the beginning of my novel this year, go to: http://vrgrrl.blogsp...imo-has-started.html

If you are participating this year let's all support each other on DC!

Michelle

50

Accessibility Game Contest / Re: --> Results of the Accessibility Game Programming Contest Are Now Posted !!!

« on: January 28, 2007, 05:29 PM »

This was such a fun and great contest that I'm excited to do this again next year -- this time mouser and I know what it takes to run a slightly alternative sort of contest and can better plan things out. So we appreciate everyone's patience with us!!

And an extra special welcome to the DC community to all our contest sponsors -- what generosity and support for accessible gaming. Enjoy all the winning games that your generous donations sponsored!!