The hidden dangers of Minecraft (not what you think!)

There’s a pretty good chance that if you’re reading this, you own a computer, and as the saying goes, if you own a computer, eventually your child is going to bug the high holy bejezzus out of you to buy them Minecraft.

In it’s simplest form, Minecraft is a lot like virtual legos.

The only drawback is that virtual bricks have less defensive capabilities against nocturnal barefoot intruders

Where we get into trouble is that there’s more to Minecraft than just Minecraft.

By that I mean Minecraft mods.

Mod?

A “mod”, for the non-gamey types, is a home-grown “modification” to an existing program. The act of modding games has been around almost for as long as the games themselves, and some game companies have decided to build their games in such a way as to make this easier. This, by and large, is a good thing. Games get longer lifespans because fan communities find ways to extend the game, and generations of new programmers are born by creating the mods. So far, so good.

Minecraft has a large, devoted following, including many talented adults (and more than a few teens) who have lent their free time to developing mods. Some of these mods are very simple (like giving your in-game character a pet dragon), and some are very complex (adding new game modes like capture the flag that are not in the base game). Your child will hear about mods from a friend, because if you combine any group of pre-adolescent children together, they will talk about Minecraft eventually. Then your child will Google “minecraft mods”, and be completely and utterly entranced by having a pet dragon. They will download a mod.

And your computer will be well and truly hosed.

Like losing a knife fight to a leprechaun

Mods are hosted on aggregator sites, and those sites make their living off advertising. The number one kind of advertising on these sites are scummy adware downloader crap.

Yes, it improves your ability to download. Their crap.
Yes, it improves your ability to download. Their crap.

This is an actual screen grab of a download site. Now I am a fairly technically-savvy person, but I have to stare at this page for a few minutes before I realize I shouldn’t click a SINGLE DAMN THING on the page. Your average minecraft-addicted child? Not a chance. It’s like a sketchy van with a sign on it that says “Free candy”.

Before you know it, your computer has turned into a truck stop bathroom complete with glory holes and feces wallpaper.

Your pop-ups have pop-ups.

Then, to rub some salt into the already nicely lemoned wounds, the little ingrates complains that “The computer doesn’t work”.

STOP FORNICATING ANYTHING THAT BLINKS BOY! ANY GIRL THAT SAYS SHE’LL MAKE YOUR DOWNLOADS FASTER IS A WHORE!

What to do

If you haven’t already, install the ad-blocker extension for the browsers on the computer the kid uses. Your virus detection probably won’t help you much here.

With Ad-Blocker installed, the spammy stuff never loads and instead your child is presented with this:

This will not give you computer AIDS.
This will not give you computer Ebola.

Ad-blocker is a wonderful thing. Get it now.

The other thing you can do is make sure your child has their own account on the computer, and it’s set up for kids. Mac users have an advantage here over Windows, because Mac OS has much better user-level security controls than Windows. Even with Windows 8, which has the best family safety controls of any Windows version to date, it’s still very possible for a user to inadvertently install an application.

Here’s a good article for how to do this on a Mac.

Here’s a good article for how to do this on Windows 8.

If either of these articles are beyond your technical abilities, find yourselves a good high-school nerd and flash them some side boob/leave out some booze as appropriate.

With these measures in place, you are going to filter out a lot of the bad stuff before it ever gets to your computer. There are still bad guys taking advantage of Minecraft’s popularity to insert viruses into popular mods, but here your more old-fashioned virus protection stuff can help you. I prefer Kapersky, because the company was founded by an Ex-KGB spook, which is pretty badass.

Just keep digging…

As a parent and a gamer, I tried to get into Minecraft but I think the part of me that could build anything other than a house with four walls died somewhere around age 16 so I could never get too into it. All of my kids who are old enough to operate a mouse, however, love it, and it’s fascinating as a parent to watch how each child interacts with the game.

My 6 year old is constantly starting over- building from scratch is part of the fun for him. My 9 year old daughter is stereotypically obsessed with the virtual cats and dogs and horses that populate the game, and my 11 year old has figured out how to connect to other computers so he can swear at other people over the Internet in competitive Minecraft (sometimes called PVP, or player versus player). Overall, it’s been a net-positive for the kids.

There has been some coverage in the media about whether or not it’s an “addiction”, but these are the same old arguments that have been rehashed since I was a kid in the 80s and 60 minutes did a story on how Dungeons and Dragons would cause your kids to commit suicide, or some bullsh**. The world of children only occasionally intersects with reality, and that’s always hard for parents to deal with.  Video games are freaking awesome, and they’ve killed off a lot of competition in the entertainment universe.

Sorry puzzles, you're fucked.
Sorry puzzles, you’re hosed too.

Like anything else, it just comes down to good old fashioned, low-tech parenting. Turn off the screens, kick them outdoors, and ignore them to the best of your abilities. However, taking a few steps to bubble-wrap your kid’s adventures on the Internet will go a long way to cutting down the amount of PC repair you have to do and prevent any long term damage that might come up.

Shout-out to the Lunatic Autism Mom for the blog post inspiration!

5 New Parent Quote Gifts Unquote

In the history of cons, the baby product market is the greatest 67 Billion dollar con in the world. Any first-time parent with a household income above the “Pork and Beans” level is data-mined and then bombarded with inducements to buy the most amazingly worthless shit in your choice of either pastel or primary colors.

Exhibit A: Baby Bath Hats.

It's a hat. For the baby. In the bath.
It’s a hat. For the baby. In the bath.

A quick Google search reveals that this is, in fact, a real thing and not just one demented person’s “invention”.

There are multiple manufacturers of baby bath hats.

I will let this sink in a minute.

(I’ll be over here humming “God Bless America”, let me know when you’re done.)

I’m not even going to get into the whole “Starving Kids in Africa would like to eat your baby or their bath hat” thing.

In fact, there is just so much baby stuff out there, how are you supposed to know what you should buy for your exercise in chromosonal vanity what you absolutely need? Or, even better, how do you know what that family member who waited to have their first child and laughed at you while you raised yours will need? WHAT WILL BE THE PERFECT GIFT? I may also be nursing a grudge.

Fear not! I have successfully reproduced four times, and have representative children of each gender.

You Can Trust Me, I Have A Blog.

1. Anything that plays music

Via The Bump Blog

Gimme some sugar, I am your neighbor!
Gimme some sugar, I am your neighbor!

The first time I saw this, I clicked past it because it looks like ordinary primary color plastic drek. As the next page was loading, my eye caught on “Hey Ya”. Because Ludacris has not done enough harm to this world, now he has to molest the ears of newborns. As a new parent, you can’t go wrong with anything that makes music, because it helps muffle your quiet sobbing.

2. A Clock

Again, Via The Bump Blog. I can totally do this blogging thing.

Make sure your little superstar learns it’s never too early to be early, early.

For my children, all of the spots on the clock are numbered "NOW"
For my children, all of the spots on the clock are numbered “NOW”

If there’s one thing children immediately understand and value, it’s time. Snigger. For example, when you’re trying to leave the house, your toddler appreciates the time necessarily to take off the shoes you put on him because HE didn’t put them on ALL BY HIMSELF. Or that 4:30 AM is an inhuman time to be awake unless your name is preceded by “Sargent”. Kids totally get that. So get a clock to help them out.

 

3. A Shopping Cart Cover

via thisisnext.com

My mommy hates minorities!

If you ever see a woman with a child in one of these in a grocery store, I can tell you that it is safe to assume she’s horrible in bed (unless your idea of a good time is lots of Lysol and Latex).

You will never, ever see a man use this, unless his wife is standing right next to him. This has nothing to do with manliess and everything to do with evolution.

Going all the way back to our hunter-gather days, men filter out both colors and small things, because they’re not saber-tooth tigers. Sending your husband to the grocery store with a child and one of these fluffy things is a great way to make sure you end up  less children, and less sabertooth tigers, than you started with.

4. An espresso kitchen

Via yoyo.com

Mommy mommy! I made a Quinoa and organic arugula salad! Can we go back to Whole Foods today for my fair-trade alpaca cheese?

It is horribly unfair that her kitchen is both larger and nicer than mine (although her backsplash is from the Home Depot in-stock section and not special order or anything). Not that I’ve looked.

Also, I don’t see an espresso maker.

For reasons I cannot fathom, mommies all over still feel compelled to buy their little girls kitchen sets. Yes boys play with them too, but I double dog dare you to find me a mom who bought a mini kitchen for her firstborn son.

I think it’s safe to say that having a high-end replica kitchen says something about the family, and the mother, that purchases it. Such as, she’s never turned on her stove either.

5. Anything that says sensory

Via Teachersupply.com

This is almost, but not quite, brilliant. Putting the kid inside buys you just enough time to run to the can, squeeze out the poop you have been holding in all day, and running back in time to find little precious asphyxiating upside down and face first in the adjacent dog.

After four kids I have a great appreciation for baby-crap marketing speaking. It’s like Fine Art:

  • It evokes emotions in the audience (O cruel Fate, how I long for a Baby Bath Hat!)
  • The more money you have burning a hole in your pocket, the more of it you will collect

In this rarified atmosphere, the phrase “stimulates baby sensory development” is an Andy Wharhol-inspired pop commentary on the magnificent banality of parenting.

Look at my baby, drinking in colors and music like some sort of hippie cyborg baby Jesus on acid… and … what’s this? It seems to be a  miniature version of The Last Supper in his post 3rd nap diaper. Must be all of the stimulated sensory development! I am an amazing parent! When do I sign him up for Mandarin lessons?

In reality, the phrase “stimulates baby sensory development” means “This is a real thing, and not an imaginary thing.” If it exists, the baby will probably try to put some part of it in his little toothless mouth, thereby stimulating their sensory development.

Les Miserables

There is an astounding lack of common sense in this world today, and I am pretty sure the folks who possess it are (quite wisely) hoarding it from the rest of us. I do not know any of you well enough to confess to some of the inanery I have bought in my sleep-deprived new Dad coma– but I did tell my priest and that was a lot of Hail Mary’s thank you Jesus. Of all of the horrible things about being a new parent, this is the silver lining: everywhere you look, there are parents who have clearly screwed up far worse than you could ever imagine, so what’s the worst that could happen from putting little baby Miley into a shopping cart cover anyway?

On second thought…

Dads, Electric Bills, and Polar Vortexes

The Set-Up

I was recently anally violated with suprised by a $450 electric bill covering the period from roughly the middle of November to the middle of December. This was definitely NOT in the budget. So I did what any rational, sane father would do: ran around and turned off all of the lights, and then blame the children for yet again ruining my life.

You see a snack, I see the exterior siding on my house

We’ve tried hard to conserve energy. We keep the thermostat to 64 during the cool months, 74 during the warm months. There are 6 of us in a 1979, 2000 square foot colonial on a slab. True, the washer and dryer seem to run almost constantly, and maybe we could do less dishes, or take fewer showers… but I hardly feel we’re emblematic of American excess.

Unlike this guy, who is Ruining It For Us All

So I had to figure out a few things, like how much was I paying for electricity, anyway…Hold this thought, we’ll come back to it.

Polar What?

I am not normally a prepared person.

For anything really.

There are folks who come by it their preparedness naturally, because they had some especially prepared great-grandparents, who saw the wisdom in marrying likewise.

Then there are folks who are conditioned from a young age to a life of organization and preparedness. Perhaps your father was a Marine, for example.

Then there are people for whom finding their pants still on their lower 48 at the end of the day is a pleasant, if somewhat unexpected surprise.

I definitely fall into the latter group.

I am okay with this, because I am really, really good at Making Stuff Up As We Go Along. But basically, in a disaster/emergency scenario I am what you might refer to as “zombie fodder”.

This is about as prepared as I get

Fast forward to this week. The Polar Vortex strikes. My Father in Law (who only lives a few miles away) loses power. Somewhere, in the deepest recesses of my consciousness, I start to think…

Perhaps… perhaps we could lose power, too. In the winter. Man, that would be bad. The kids couldn’t play Minecraft. Nah that wouldn’t be so bad. Something else though… cold… we could be very cold. Perhaps someone should do something about that.

Crap, I’m someone.

A quick trip to Home Depot, and I am now the proud owner of one of these:

EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!
EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

Now we’re cooking with gas

All of my life I’ve been a Heat Pump kind of guy. I have never lived any further north than Maryland, so I’ve never really been in a climate where having an oil-burning furnace was a necessity. Heat pumps are pretty inefficient, and get even less efficient the colder it gets, so they are a horrible answer for any serious cold weather. By contrast, a Kerosene heater is remarkably efficient, if a little low-tech. It’s a fire in a can.

Setup and assembly was pretty easy, so I filled it with fuel to allow the wick to soak for a while, and then gave it a test fire in the garage. All went well, so I move it into the house and let it rip. When you were in the space adjacent to the heater, the sensation of warmth was just like a good fire. Because that’s what it was. In a can. What was more surprising was that it raised the temperature of the whole house by about 1 degree per hour. Given we had been living in the frozen food section the past few months, it was soon sweltering uncomfortably in the house and I had to turn the thing off. But I was intrigued… could this be our primary heat source? Was it really cheaper than our electric heat source?

Stand back, I’m going to try Science.

The Experiment

I just recently got a “smart meter”, which has a digital readout and looks very smart up against my house. This would give me a reasonably precise way to figure out how much electricity I was actually consuming (or at least being charged for) over any given period of time. I could take that info and compare it to my Kerosene costs.

Kerosene is $4 a gallon. I can run the heater for roughly 12 hours on a gallon. For the sake of simplicity, I am assuming I am just running it enough to make me warm, which is what I expect my thermostat to do automatically.

First, I needed to figure out what my baseline electric usage was. I set the thermostat to “off”, bundled up, and went to go stare at my meter to see how long it would take to roll over one Kilowatt-hour (Kwh), which is the standard unit of billing for electricity.

Step 1

I got lucky and caught the meter rolling over as soon as I got outside, which was good because it was 11 degrees outside, plus wind chill of -Whothefuckcaresmynadsarefreezing. I waited at least 13 minutes and didn’t watch it roll over, so I assumed about 15 minutes, which I am okay with because I went back outside sometime between 2-5 minutes later for Step 2 and it was on a different number.

Step 2

Turned the thermostat to “Emergency Heat” and set the desired temperature up by 10 degrees (wanted to simulate high usage). Went outside and watched the meter roll over to a new number, and then 3.15 minutes later it changed again.

Step 3

Turned the thermostat to “Heat”, which engaged the blower outside (Heat Pump) but not the Emergency Heat unit inside. This time, it took 2.83 minutes to consume 1 Kwh.

Then I went back inside, turned on the Kerosene heater, and thawed out.  With The Science over, it was time for The Maths.

You too, can take Math 011 and learn the secrets of the line chart
You too, can take Math 011 and learn the secrets of the line chart

At Baltimore Gas and Electric’s current rate (9.623 cents per Kwh), my heat pump costs me $2 for every hour it’s running. That is more than 6 times the cost of an hour of heat out of the Kerosene heater. As the rates go up, it just gets more absurd. I mean, no one would really be paying 17.5 cents per kwh, right? That’s almost double what BGE charges…

Supply and Demand

Well, I’m paying that, actually. Or I was up until I wrote this post.

Over the summer I had gone with one of the “deregulated” power suppliers (Energy Holdings, LLC if you’re curious). At the time I switched the rate was cheaper than what BGE was charging, and I was getting airline miles to boot. There’s practically no downside!

The downside is is that their rates change without warning, because Regulation Is Socialism, and the Free Market is Best, Always.

BG&E (which we all know is a bloated inefficient dinosaur with bad breath) is compelled by law to only change their rates gradually, and on a set schedule, with plenty of notice. Not so with these other guys! But that’s what capitalism is all about right? Free market, supply and demand, caveat emptor, etc?

In a normal market, I get to know what the price is before I buy something, and if I don’t like the price, I can –and this is a critical detail — not buy it. This is how the balancing act of supply and demand plays out. The problem, of course, is that while I have some control over my consumption, I have no control over the rate, and I don’t know what my rate is going to be NEXT period. I can’t opt out of my monthly bill with my electric supplier, and because I have already consumed the electricity, I am on the hook for whatever they decide to charge me.

I do not blame Energy Holdings in the slightest for marking up the cost of their product by almost 100%. It was clearly spelled out in my contract that the rates would change, but didn’t I want these sweet sweet airline miles? Of course I did. I just never envisioned that the more efficient de-regulated supplier would charge me double the going rate. Fortunately, one phone call later and I was connected with a very nice gentleman who offered to extend to me “commercial pricing”, which is supposedly closer to reality, and to send me a check for 50 bucks as a consolation prize.  Depending on how long it takes for the check to get here, we may or may not be customers for very long, and I’ll be slightly smarter and several hundred dollars poorer for it. On the plus side, with what they’ve overcharged me I now have enough frequent flyer miles to go to Australia.

I hear it’s warm.

So why doesn’t everyone use Kerosene?

Good question.

First, it’s messy and smelly. You have to refill the heater outside somewhere, because WHEN you spill (not if), the last thing you want is to be forced to inhale Kerosene vapors an arbitrarily long time. While I maintain that it’s no worse than inhaling a wood burning fire in a fireplace, there are smells involved on startup and shutdown.

Second, like many things from your grandparent’s generation (including your grandparents) it’s kind of a pain in the ass. You have to remember to turn it on, and then if it gets too hot you have to remember to turn it off. You have to refill it, etc. Wicks need cleaning, and eventually replacing.

Third, it’s a little scary. All combustion of carbon-based fuels (of which Kerosene is one) produces some amount of Carbon Monoxide as a byproduct. Kerosene tends to burn very cleanly, and we have it in the middle of our large, drafty house, but we’re not sleeping with it on. If we had to (like in a real emergency), I would only do it if I had a battery-powered carbon monoxide detector in every room and if I left a window open. I think it’s a low risk and safe enough while we’re keeping an eye on it and staying awake, but the CDC estimates that, on the low side, about 500 people die due to CO poisoning every year (although the Consumer Products Safety Commission is far more worried about indoor generator use).

Fourth- availability of quality Kerosene. I have a pretty reputable supplier nearby, but any variations in the quality of the Kerosene could have an immediate effect on the effectiveness of the heating strategy. Burning clean fuel creates very little soot– but any contamination in the system could change that pretty quickly. Not everyone has the same access.

We’ll keep the experiment going for a little while longer and see what the net impact is on our overall electric bill, but I am optimistic. At the very worst, I now have a feeling of rustic preparedness about me, and I have to say I like it.

Also, I am pleased to report that my pants are still where I left them. On me.

Always a pleasant surprise, that.