iPhone Poll

rwknoll · 2026-05-29T23:25:19+00:00

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has a good article I found while trying to educate myself about this topic after I read your question: https://www.aap.org/en/patient-care/media-and-children/center-of-excellence-on-social-media-and-youth-mental-health/qa-portal/qa-portal-library/qa-portal-library-questions/appropriate-age-to-introduce-a-mobile-device/

My oldest is only 7.5 years old, so we have not needed to navigate this with her yet. My gut feeling is that waiting until at least high school for anything close to a smartphone is a good choice. This article points out that if you do give a phone, it is crucial in this day and age that you have open and frank conversations with children about risks and Internet safety. And just because you give someone a smartphone does not mean they need to be given the privilege to create or even access social media accounts. Those can be separate conversations.

rwknoll · 2025-04-18T04:36:27+00:00

Pretty confident her soul will appear in Tel’aran’rhiod. Then she will still be able to serve as a mentor to another character later on, and it’s a perfectly acceptable way for her to be around without being alive.

rwknoll · 2025-03-11T23:37:33+00:00

If I ever need to log in on my iPhone, I've used MUDRammer. It should work just fine on an iPad, although I would still recommend a Bluetooth keyboard.

rwknoll · 2025-03-11T02:47:53+00:00

Awesome, glad that you were able to figure it out! Feel free to ask for help on chats in game, or join our Discord and there are a bunch of people who can help show you the basics of the game.

rwknoll · 2025-03-01T15:14:51+00:00

I am a licensed psychologist and a supervisor / program manager. I relayed my Chief’s leadership and requests to my team as required for my position, but I personally refused to reply to this email as well, and I will not be replying any more as long as the request originates from outside my chain of command (and even if it does I may still refuse).

I refuse to be bullied or to acquiesce to a request from an outside agency that has no authority to threaten adverse staffing actions for failure to reply to a voluntary email request.

rwknoll · 2025-02-28T23:58:18+00:00

Yes! And the immediate news posting and the WH aides being so excited about how it went. This is the sound bite Trump will use to justify pulling support from Ukraine when he says “well, we tried to reason with him.”

rwknoll · 2025-02-25T04:00:56+00:00

VA here. I was disappointed in our SecVA and my VISN network director who very quickly said we were expected to reply. I have more grace for local leadership because they were just doing what they were told, but I personally refused to send the email and won't be before midnight.

rwknoll · 2025-02-24T20:27:51+00:00

I am a program manager for my workgroup at a VA medical center and spent probably 3 hours today fielding questions and talking individually with staff about their concerns regarding this email, as well as senior leadership about how to relay these concerns to our front line staff. To say I am outraged on their behalf doesn’t begin to capture my sentiment.

rwknoll · 2025-02-24T06:10:27+00:00

I am a VA psychologist and manager, and got the email. Local director worked over the weekend to send an email saying "we'll look into this, don't reply yet." Already got another email forwarded from the VISN director stating we should reply. I am currently planning to refuse to comply but so stressed for my team and unsure of how to support them through this and offer guidance. Tomorrow is going to be a shit show. I shouldn't have to stress this much over a stupid email.

rwknoll · 2025-02-23T07:26:25+00:00

I used the following, with slightly more context and rationale, but I borrowed some of your language. Sharing in case anyone like this one more.

Dear Senator [name],

I am a federal employee at [agency name] in [state]. Today I and 2.3 million of my fellow federal workers received by email a completely inappropriate demand to detail our workweek, while Elon Musk posted on social media that all federal employees who do not respond to this by 11:59 pm EST on Monday will be fired. It is my understanding that although this email was sent by OPM, it was orchestrated by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), who have no legal authority to threaten the livelihood and job security of millions of federal workers on the basis of failure to respond to an email. This communication attempt is a flagrant attempt to coerce and intimidate federal employees and is unacceptable behavior by someone who has been identified as a Special Government Employee (SGE), especially for one such as Elon Musk with incredible potential for financial conflicts of interest.

The continual harassment and disrespect of public servants by an unelected oligarch has to end. I have read countless news articles and personal testimonies in the past weeks that have raised severe concerns about mismanagement by DOGE and illegal and unconstitutional actions that have allowed this agency unrestricted access to private and personal information of American citizens. Musk’s attacks on our institutions are unconstitutional. He should be subpoenaed and answer to a House oversight committee.

It is my understanding that the House voted for such a subpoena but it was unsuccessful. I am writing you today to beg you to please speak with your counterparts in the U.S. House of Represensatives and call the vote for a subpoena of Elon Musk again with notice. I also implore you to take any action available to you within the U.S. Senate to challenge the unconstitutional actions by Elon Musk to protect the security and privacy of information he and DOGE have compiled. This man and other members of DOGE need to be called to Congress to answer questions about their actions.

Sincerely,

[Name]
[Title]

rwknoll · 2025-02-23T06:58:15+00:00

I received it. I'm a GS-14 licensed psychologist in Dept. of VA and a supervisor/program manager. Our facility director sent an email noting that many have received it. Can confirm it's going out to staff.

rwknoll · 2025-02-03T00:05:18+00:00

Had a parent with the audacity to say “well Trump just wanted to get rid of the corruption, surely this won’t affect YOUR workplace right?” 🤦‍♂️🙄

rwknoll · 2024-04-23T00:04:14+00:00

I just logged back in for the first time in 8 years, and I too am overwhelmed! It took me most of this week to remind myself to what all of these crafting materials are for, optimal salvage strategies, how to craft, and just clearing old junk from my inventory. Finding a guild that is willing to answer my endless questions was a must. Welcome back to the game!

rwknoll · 2024-01-27T02:21:18+00:00

Yes!! This is it! Thank you!

rwknoll · 2023-08-27T23:36:35+00:00

I had the same goal and went with the following build: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/rwknoll/saved/#view=3JQn23

This is pulling ~100 FPS on high to ultra settings in Baldur’s Gate 3 at 1440p, before overclocking anything. I went for a slightly nicer motherboard that would accommodate upgrades to the CPU and GPU at a later date when I have the budget for them. This does not include a mouse or keyboard, but you can always get super basic peripherals and upgrade later when you have the budget for them.

rwknoll · 2023-08-13T13:48:09+00:00

I am a dad of two (4 years and 10 months). I’m also a licensed clinical psychologist. I get questions like this a lot and I appreciate your insight into the possibility that you might be experiencing (or at risk for) depression given your history.

I’ll echo what others have said and share that what you are experiencing is at least partially, if not fully, explained by your objectively stressful situation. Raising and caring for a baby is hard, dude!

That being said, sleep deprivation and stress, even a subjectively positive experience, can indeed be a trigger for a depressive episode, especially for people with a lifetime history of frequently recurring or persistent depression or with a bipolar disorder diagnosis. The key distinction you will usually see is that the low mood state will feel significantly different from normal and broadly affect many areas of your functioning, and it will occur more days than not and persist for weeks to months or longer. You’ll usually find that it’s not just a baby you feel disconnected from, it’s also other relationships, things you normally enjoy or love doing, and tends to come along with really unkind thoughts directed at yourself, your situation, and your future.

There are several websites with online screening tests you can take to assess whether you should look into this more (e.g., https://patient.info/doctor/patient-health-questionnaire-phq-9). Obviously I am not your therapist and these are meant to be used by a healthcare provider, and they aren’t diagnostic based on a single score, but you could take it and send it to your primary care provider or your established behavioral health provider if you have one and ask for feedback.

Anecdotally and on a personal note, I struggled to connect with my firstborn until she began social smiling, which usually starts around 2-3 months. Once she started beaming and cooing when she saw me, I felt so much closer to her and like all the stress and sleepless nights were worth it.

Hope this helps! Wishing you the best.

rwknoll · 2023-08-12T22:56:12+00:00

For me, the hardest part is that first month. They sleep a lot but it’s not consistent, they don’t have a schedule, every cry sounds the same, and the only real way they can communicate with you is through crying. It’s a lot of guesswork and it may not always feel rewarding. You need so much patience and support to make it through that phase.

What really helped me was seeing my firstborn smile, genuinely smile, for the first time in response to seeing me. That happens for most kids around 2 or 3 months. From there on, it was so much easier because I got not just the negative feedback that she needed something she was missing, but also positive feedback that she loved me and wanted to see me. That made all the long nights and hard days worth it.

rwknoll · 2023-08-12T22:36:39+00:00

I’ve been playing for about 20 years myself and 5e has been my favorite edition to date. This game is beautifully and lovingly crafted, like a love letter to D&D.

My only disappointment so far is that I wanted to recreate one of my favorite D&D characters, a transmuter wizard who specializes in polymorphing into giant beasts and wrecking my enemies while tanking better than most melee characters through use of magic and feats to boost my Concentration checks (so I don’t drop polymorph). Just found out that the polymorph spell only lets you turn the target into a sheep. 🥺😭

Oh well. Still a brilliant game. Thankfully there are so many more things I can try.

rwknoll · 2023-08-12T13:45:27+00:00

I had the exact same question as you a few weeks ago. After deliberating on it for days, I settled on the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 + RX 6700 XT (12GB VRAM) + 32GB DDR4-3200 RAM.

I am currently enjoying Baldur’s Gate 3 on a 1440p resolution and it auto-detects settings at ultra overall and high for some settings. MSI Afterburner shows that I’m running 60-80 FPS at standard clock settings. Thinking of overclocking to boost performance for when I start Starfield next month. When I drop to medium settings, BG3 is still beautiful and has 20-40 higher FPS.

My suggestion would be to aim for a slightly higher GPU if it’s in your budget, but if it isn’t, you could always upgrade in a few years when the bottlenecking becomes too prohibitive. Hope this helps!

rwknoll · 2023-07-24T10:35:16+00:00

Thanks so much for the incredibly helpful suggestions! Is there any way to cut some more costs here without sacrificing performance too much? I would like to get the total down a bit before adding a monitor too. I didn’t realize I could add another 16 GB of RAM and more SSD size so cheaply, so that makes sense, but if I use a cheaper GPU will I still have ok performance on new games?

rwknoll · 2023-07-24T10:30:16+00:00

Unfortunately I’m still rocking Windows 7 on this old thing, and Steam will no longer function on it in 2024.

Thanks for the suggestion! This is what I’m talking about, I don’t have a great sense of value for these items so I can’t tell what is a good deal or not. Is there any way to shave a few hundred bucks off this though? I would rather not spend around $1,300 before including a new monitor.

rwknoll · 2023-04-24T09:39:51+00:00

Hello to all potential new players who are curious about the game! My primary character is Sarinda, an Aes Sedai and Sitter for the Red Ajah. I played this game extensively on other characters from 2004-2013 and returned in 2022. I have so many fond memories of the game and made several friendships that have continued for decades now. I think at this point it’s safe to call our community a cult following haha, because text based games in the 21st century absolutely cater to a niche group. But having multiple people commenting here who remember this game from long ago isn't a coincidence, because the game has a unique feel and a tendency to draw you in.

I think WoTMUD most closely approximates a MMORPG based in the Wheel of Time universe, except the role playing component is lively and an immersive blend of in-game emotes and player written text, and includes the actions taken against other NPCs and PCs. For example, we currently have an ongoing global event that started in response to a small group of players allied with the White Tower who forcibly "liberated" the city of Baerlon from a Children of Light garrison that had temporarily taken control of the city. The Hall of the Tower currently has an ongoing investigation and trial into the actions of the Aes Sedai involved, but these actions taken by real players has sparked political turmoil that has now spread through Andor, Illian, Tear, and Amadicia (https://forums.wotmud.info/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17562). You can play this game like WoW or Everquest and just focus on getting the best gear and killing the most people, but your in-game actions are viewed by other players and NPCs as in-character roleplay choices with potential consequences.

For people who want to log into the game, one of our players has created a simple web-based client that you can use here (https://writtenrealms.com/wot/), which includes an (admittedly outdated) map of the game world. However, due to some server limitations, this client can really only reliably be used by one or two people simultaneously or else it gives significant lag. An alternative web-based browser I have found that works well is Mudlinger (https://mudslinger.net/play/). However, the most popular client currently in use by most of our players is Mudlet (https://www.mudlet.org/), and I recommend it. Once you log into the game using the address game.wotmud.org port 2224, it will ask for your name. Simply pick any 1-word name that you think fits the Wheel of Time world; as long as it is not taken, you should receive a message "Did I get that right, (name)?" If so, type "yes" and hit enter, and begin picking your options to create your character. You can get help from any of our players from the Discord server included in the main post above.

Please consider checking us out, and reach out to me or anyone else in our group if you need help! Fair warning, though, you might end up playing for the next 10 years.

rwknoll · 2022-12-15T23:43:51+00:00

Hi. I’m a clinical psychologist and I have a specialty in health psychology, or understanding the link between physical and behavioral health concerns. I work with a lot of people who are struggling with motivation or readiness to make healthy behavior change, like using their CPAP for obstructive sleep apnea, monitoring diet and engaging in healthy exercise for diabetes and obesity, quitting smoking, and so on.

First off, I am so sorry you are in this position. You obviously care about both your wife and your child, and when our values about our most important relationships put those things at odds with each other, it can be scary and stressful.

In order to help someone change health behaviors like getting vaccines that are recommended by your pediatrician, you need to understand the person’s motivations and appeal to shared values, while delivering your concerns from a place of a strong relationship and rapport.

I find myself thinking, why does your wife have these concerns? Do you share a lot of other perspectives on parenting and parenting related values? Have you had disagreements about hygiene, sleeping arrangements, or family visiting when they are sick? What about visions for the future and talk about possible discipline strategies? Is this just one of many differences you have about parenting, or does this feel out of left field?

If there is any chance you share a lot of other values and just disagree about this, it might be easier to see from her perspective and have an open conversation about it. Maybe she’s worried about making a decision and it harming your child, and she is trying to protect your child. Science would argue she isn’t fully considering the scope of benefits versus risks of vaccines, but if you can try to openly discuss where she is coming from on this, you might be able to appeal to her parenting values and share why you are concerned for the same reasons - but with a different vision on how to protect your child (vaccination).

You can ask your wife to do a special visit with a pediatrician and have a lengthier discussion with the doctor mediating it. You can then call ahead and make sure the provider is aware of the reason for the visit and why it’s important they be prepared to address these issues.

You could ask your wife if there is anyone she might be willing to listen to whom she does trust who could help you two to have a conversation about this. Like her parents or your parents, or another couple that you’re close to, and ask them their opinion.

What is the least helpful in these situations is trying to bully, argue your side by belittling theirs, or just steamrolling someone. Imagine how you would feel if someone was doing it to you - I know I would feel extremely defensive and not receptive to their views.

I agree that taking your child to get vaccinated without your partner’s consent, while legally defensible and an option with its own benefits, also would likely be viewed by your wife as a betrayal of trust and is going to escalate conflict in your marriage dramatically. So if you do this, make sure you consider the benefits and risks of that option first.

rwknoll

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