Gerald and I got Breyana out of the house and set up her computer. Got her hooked up with her own steam and gmail accounts, installed malwarebytes, and got parental controls on the browsers, and then installed Stardew Valley.
She looks super excited and was very appreciative.
Wvng
You’re a good man, Mr. Cole.
Urza
Looks like a nice setup there.
Brachiator
Well done!
BlueGalangal
Awesome! Good for you — and good for Breyana!
Baud
I need to upgrade my system.
Betty
Awesome job. You’re not such a bad guy even if you are a little grumpy sometimes. Thanks for creating and maintaining this bit of sanity.
Lacuna Synecdoche
I need a new graphics card.
Baud
LOL.
Erin in Flagstaff
This is great! By the way, I decided to tip my toe into the world of PC gaming and Stardew Valley is my first game.
Ryan
Skyrim 10th anniversary. You get all of the Creation Club content. It’s another DLC but perhaps worth it?
Ryan
Is that a 27″ monitor? It looks so huge!
John Cole
@Ryan: It’s actually a 40 inch tv and the graphics look like shit but the monitor we had thought we were giving her didn’t work.
mrmoshpotato
How big is that monitor?! (Question answered above. ?)
Also, got some antivirus installed on that beast too?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I need to upgrade me.
invisibot
This makes me smile
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Billin 2.0?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Yeah, version 1.0 is on it’s last legs.
Another Scott
Excellent. Well done.
Cheers,
Scott.
CaseyL
So sweet! I hope she enjoys her New Computer System, even if the TV graphics are…subpar.
Steeplejack (phone)
@mrmoshpotato:
The Win10 built-in antivirus, Defender, is sufficient, I think. Of course, you have to use it.
schrodingers_cat
Search Craigslist for good monitors.
gratuitous
Sheesh. People are going to get the idea that Cole’s a nice guy. All his efforts to the contrary blown to bits in an afternoon. Let that be a lesson to the rest of us.
endaround
Epic is giving away a game daily on their store through the end of the year. Amazon has had Xbox controllers on sale for $25 off, currently only blue is left.
eversor
Nice. Though I’m all assuming the tower specs are good. The monitor is 144hz or higher and with adaptive sync of some sort. Also that the keyboard is mechanical and the mouse is optical instead of laser. Though I’m finicky and I grew up with competitive Quake 1 through Quake 3 and still only play the competitive league online (no filthy casuals) and take trips to competitive events like EVO for fighting games if only to hangout with the other old timers and get shit faced drunk and teach the youngs a thing or two about Street Fighter.
A few personal pieces of advise though you’re probably aware of them since you game. That chair and that table and that positioning. Not looking straight on is going to give you neck craps and quick so you need a massive and deep enough table to have everything head on. For the chair, man I assume there is another one there? I didn’t take them seriously for years and then I did and now my stupid chair is an Aeron because screw back problems.
Lastly I don’t see much of an audio setup. Gaming is mostly headset now blah blah blah. I don’t see one but curious about that. I use an external DAC (I know I know but it makes a huge difference in quality short of slapping a 300 buck soundcard into the tower) and swap out both open and closed backed headphones on it. I know the fight is “closed back better isolation, open back better sound stage” along with the whole argument about wireless. But as I know you have small animals have you tried open backed headphones? I found while it can screw up a match when they go at it and distract you it also can prevent you sad collisions between rolling chairs and cats.
Hope she enjoys it!
cain
I hope y’alls will get some good games for her. Left4Dead FTW!
cain
@Baud:
It’s better to do all that stuff from the router – not the browser.
Redshift
Nice. Chosen family are as good thing, in my experience. I have several “nieces” who are great.
SpaceUnit
What have you done? Computer games are the devil’s sandbox.
BC in Illinois
@SpaceUnit:
I think that I was told that computer games lead to Josh Hawley (R – MO [sic]).
PaulB
@endaround:
Steam winter sale also started today.
SpaceUnit
@BC in Illinois:
They’re the devil’s Keurig. Eternal damnation, one cup at a time.
Mike in NC
I haven’t done much gaming in a couple of years and should see what Steam has got to offer.
raven
not
a
clue
WereBear
Wonderful!
schrodingers_cat
@raven: Same here. I have used computers and written programs since the late 80s but never got into gaming.
different-church-lady
I’ve never had a computer larger than I was.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ryan:
Damn! There’s that number again!
Edmund Dantes
@mrmoshpotato: baseline Microsoft virus is plenty good these days and isn’t the resource drain a lot of the other ones are now.
Old Man Shadow
That’s nice. Acts of kindness are what I need to read about instead of the constant stream of doom.
Since there seem to be a lot of computer folks here, any recommendations on a gaming laptop that won’t set me back three grand? I don’t play online multiplayer stuff, just looking for something a lot faster than my current 10 year-old laptop.
Edmund Dantes
Also good on you John Cole
Edmund Dantes
@Old Man Shadow: are you a Costco member? 3 years ago I bought a legion gaming laptop from them for 800 bucks that played a decent amount of games without a problem as it had a 1080 ti card.
i assume they have similar again this year. I’ll look.
eclare
@raven:
Same. I saw your post about Artie and wanted to let you know the gentlest dog I ever had was an AmStaff. She terrified everyone else, about 80 pounds, but so sweet. She especially terrified moms with strollers at the park because she would make a beeline for them. She knew strollers were full of dropped food!
trollhattan
O/T Know who’s really good at politics? AOC. This video summing up 2021 is a master class on how to communicate. Don’t think anybody in congress does it better. h/t Digby’s site.
zhena gogolia
This is a nice friendship
raven
@eclare: A cool! She’s so good with kids, better than adults!
HeleninEire
@raven: Same.
Emma
Congrats to you all, Breyana will have so much fun! If she likes SV, then there’s Cozy Grove and Spiritfarer! (I myself didn’t enjoy Spiritfarer, but Abigail Nussbaum and a bunch of others at LGM love it. Speaking of which, Abigail’s video game post is another good place for recs)
prostratedragon
Nice box! B. is lucky in her uncles.
One suggestion is to look into a stand for the monitor. Make it easier to square up and to see the whole screen at times, with less real estate. I priced monitors a couple of months ago and decided in horror to stick with my 32 inch tv, so she might be using her 40 incher a while.
Speaking of horror, good luck to graphics card hunters.
Sebastian
I can highly recommend the XBOX Pass. She would probably only need the PC Pass, which costs less.
I found it to be very helpful to try out a bunch of games and then decide what I like or not. I am keeping the subscription for convenience but it’s not necessary.
Felanius Kootea
@trollhattan: That is amazing!
Jay
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/chalk-river-nuclear-accident-1.6293574
How a future U.S. president helped avert nuclear disaster near Canada’s capital
President Jimmie Carter of course.
M31
aww that is awesome!
next Balloon Juice fundraiser is Cole and Breyana gaming on Twitch, my $$ is on B
Old Man Shadow
@Edmund Dantes: I am. Cool. I’ll take a look for it.
JaySinWa
@Baud: First task will be to break through the parental controls, preferably without leaving tracks.
NotMax
So much for “Go to your room!”
Another child-rearing tradition bites the dust.
;)
eversor
@prostratedragon: Using TVs for gaming* is for the most part really badly advised. Most TVs have a large amount of processing resulting in very high input lag in addition to utterly crap refresh. 60hz and 12ms is considered utter crap for a PC gaming monitor (this is a regular monitor), but that’s actually better than what a TV will do. PC gaming monitors are generally 144hz 4ms at the lowest end all the way up to 360hz 1ms at the higher end. This actually makes a huge difference.
The difference is large enough that console gamers who play FPS or fighting games online either use PC gaming monitors even though they can’t take advantage of all the features or console monitors which can do about 120hz 2ms or so now.
I wouldn’t use a TV as a computer monitor for a lot of reasons. Even not gaming and doing professional work the color accuracy and other issues are enough to drive you away.
*LG has part of their OLED series dedicated to gaming where they hit 120hz and 4ms over HDMI 2.1 if you have the right graphics cards and also adaptive sync. But these are rather niche products in the TV land and specifically marketed for PC gaming. Also they do not come cheap.
prostratedragon
@eversor: Oh, I know. Not a gamer. Just checked back at my dealer’s site and saw that a significant boost in refresh is still around $400 at the size I want, even with year end sale prices. (Pushed wrong button) The tv works well enough for the functional graphics I do at least till sometime next year. Btw, I think fairly recent TVs are all at least 60 to 75 mHz.
stinger
Merry Christmas, Breyana! Not a gamer myself, so I can’t really “welcome” you to gaming, but I’m sure with JG as your guide, you’ll have a great time.
Motivated Seller
Steam seems to me to be a scammy kind of business model, but I see it being used more and more. Aside from playing the games that are not available on any other platform, what advantage is there?
BTW I am not trying to start a flame war, I just want to know if my suspicions are warranted.
Skepticat
I hope she gets at least a fraction of the enjoyment out of having this that you got from putting this together. Ya done good.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Kennedy Center Honors – tonight at 9 PM Eastern on CBS
Inductees: Bette Midler, Joni Mitchell, Berry Gordy, Lorne Michaels, and Justino Díaz
schrodingers_cat
OT but important.
The world needs to wake up to what is happening in India before it is too late. There have been open calls for genocide of the minorities, twice in this week alone.
lurker
sadly, the first thing I thought when I saw this was that you guys are such enablers…
it is a cool looking setup, even with the deceptively large tv – monitors can be surprisingly cheap, so might make for a good bday gift near term.
not much of a gamer, having figured out that I get overly wrapped up in them, but I can see where having a good setup helps with that the same way it does with other types of work (and really, grinding out levels … definitely some of that is work…)
Congrats to Breyonna (sp?) and to Gerald and John for getting all of the electronics to work together.
NYCMT
@SpaceUnit: I I’m going to agree with you because I have a 10-year-old and I am desperately trying to keep him out of computer gaming.
The phrase quote gaming is a toilet quote is a phrase that came out of my mouth when we had a discussion about Minecraft earlier this year. I want him reading books and engaging in physical activity.
LesGS
My now 30ish year old gaming daughters recommend that if Breyana starts playing online games with strangers, that she choose a non-obviously female handle and avatar. Reduces the chance of harassment.
NotMax
Only slightly critical thing would mention in passing is to not place the tower on a fabric-covered surface as it is now.
I realize you already had it as a spare (and reusing rather than gathering dust is a good thing) but this fuddy-duddy doesn’t get the appeal of towers with lighting. Electronic tits on a bull, IMHO.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: I don’t get it either. But I am not a boy or a middle aged man trying to relive my childhood. Its too blingy for my taste. Gaming laptops too have these weird lights.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I hear you. I just found out Baud 1.0 may need an upgrade.
prostratedragon
@NotMax:
@schrodingers_cat:
You guys! I had the same reaction during my recent shopping. Talk about shiny objects. Wound up with an opaque tower for other reasons, but you can peek through the vents and see the cards just glimmering away.
And Ill never lose my mouse. Guess we’re all geezers now.
SpaceUnit
@NYCMT:
I was mostly being tongue-in-cheek, although not entirely.
I think those games are okay in moderation, but a lot of people seem to get completely addicted to them. Would much rather see a young person get involved with sports, art, etc.
Others are of course free to disagree.
NotMax
Simply for the transitory grin, shall mention that the brand of one of the dual monitors sitting on the desk here is … AOC.
;)
(There’s also several pithy punch lines which could be crafted re: monitors/TVs about getting rid of CRT.)
M31
M31
Ella in New Mexico
Tell her Dad to watch out!
In my experience, Gamer Girls end up being smart, confident, science and computer geeks later on down the road who build their own complex, monstrous gaming systems that cost parents a whole lotta money because, well, it’s so cool to watch their brains at work :-)
She looks so happy, ENJOY!
Edmund Dantes
@Old Man Shadow: I don’t see legion (lenovo sub brand) this year. Maybe they have another brand. But they do have good deals usually on gaming laptops.
Edmund Dantes
@Motivated Seller: I tend to try to buy stuff on gog.com as much as possible as it is yours to download and own. I use Steam for stuff I know have a really big mod community if I am interested in the mods as they make adding mods super simple (and I don’t want to deal with all the side loading and stuff).
not sure what you mean by it being scammy though.
suilebhan
That is a wonderful gift. Scrooge, your reputation is taking a big hit.
Motivated Seller
@Edmund Dantes: it seems scammy that you “buy” games that can only be on Steam, which to feels to me a lot like renting the game. Am I way off base? Doesn’t Steam require a subscription? Or is it free like google products are “free.”
Nutmeg again
Yay! for terrific uncles, and happy nieces, too.
satby
Good on ya John! She’s so thrilled ?
Geoduck
I don’t want to be a pill in this happy moment, but.. she does know her picture is being posted online to be seen by a bunch of internet randos, right?
PaulB
@Motivated Seller: Steam is free, no subscription needed. Once you buy the game, I don’t think they take it away later (could be wrong on a fringe case). But gog.com is the best for no-DRM. Steam has the best store features (library sorting, reviews, mods, forums, etc).
Epic Game Store gives away one or more free games every week, and are in the middle of a game-a-day xmas binge. I tend to grab free games there and then download if I feel like playing later.
El-Man
Crikey, that’s a hefty old case. I’ll bet you’re so glad you chose not to wrap it. :D
Mj_Oregon
Good on you, John!! Now that she’s on Steam, you do know that their big winter sale started today, right?? And as for Stardew Valley, Nexus has the best mods for it and no, the developer doesn’t mind mods and even encourages them. The game is easier to play with a controller that can be set up in Steam. That said, if she gets stuck with something or has questions, I’m a long-time player and would be happy to give her some tips. Or she can watch WickedyChickady’s YouTube videos for help and inspiration. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-PhFNesHQQUYE56H0TQMDQ
Sherparick
Congratulations John, you are a good man.
Art
Go with what you know.
But, not while friends wait, check out Linux Mint. Cheap (free), highly virus resistant, auto-detects and loads drivers for all sorts of older equipment, is polite in updating, and is generally well behaved. I have a friend that assembles and gives away computers and Linux/ Mint/ Cinnamon is his go to OS.
Steam has many compatible games
TheronWare
Congrats on a job well done John Cole, cheers.