State of the Amy

This morning, Stella and I took Amy in to the pædiatrician for the U3 (third routine check-up), where she was weighed and measured and then examined to see whether she is developing normally.

She weighed 3960 g (8 lb 12 oz) and measured 54 cm (21¼ in): a bit on the small and light side but still well within the normal range.

The doctor then picked her up and held her in various positions from various limbs to see what she would do; Amy wasn't particularly happy at that ;) but she calmed down again afterwards.

Apparently, she has a slight asymmetry: the doctor saw that she lay "like a question mark" and asked whether she favoured any particular side to turn her head to, and Stella said her right side, which matches what the doctor thought. So she suggested that we simply try to get her to use her other side as well (e.g. by approaching her from that side or by putting her into her bed in such a way that the light is on that side); since she can turn her head to the other side fine, it's not very strong and getting her used to using both sides should clear things up without the need for special gymnastics.

The doctor asked us to get an appointment for inoculation, which they do at about ten weeks: three injections spaced at least four weeks apart, each containing inoculation against six diseases at once (thus reducing the amount of filler and preservatives etc. in the injections compared to six individual ones, which is a good thing for the body). Then another booster injection when she's a year old, at which point she'll also get the first of two injections for mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR).

So she's doing well, which is good to hear. The doctor noted down the asymmetry in the examination report in the little booklet Amy has for those check-ups but said it's just something to keep an eye on but not serious enough to worry about.

Article on ethics as an electronic mail postmaster

"Averting One's Eyes -- Ethical approaches to Postmastering"

Random thought

This morning in the bus I saw this image with an "80 m" sign underneath, and my first thought was "Lichtzeichenanlage in 80 m Entfernung".

My next thought was how much like a civil servant I was speaking—I don't think many Germans would say "Lichtzeichenanlage" (light signal installation) but would simply call the thing an "Ampel" (traffic light). "Lichtzeichenanlage", while being the formal name of the sign and, presumably, of the device, is "bureaucratese": a dialect marked especially by Germanisms rather than loanwords (another common one is "Fernsprecher" (far-speaker) instead of the more usual "Telefon").

AdventureQuest, aka BattleOn

The other day, I was looking through the archives of the Queen of Wands comic when a banner ad caught my eye—advertising an online role-playing game you play in your browser. It stuck in my mind enough for me to remember the URL and have another look at it later.

AdventureQuest is advertised as a "lunch-break sized" game; at first I was skeptical that it would work behind the firewall but since it runs in a Flash applet in the browser and not, say, through telnet, it works fine. And it's enjoyable enough, though so far I've only gone through random encounters and not gone on a quest or anything with a storyline.

Some elements are pretty typical: money is "gold", you have experience points and hit points and go up levels when you get enough XP; you also have mana points (MP) which you can use to cast spells (each spell costs a certain amount of mana and when your mana is used up, you can't cast any more spells). There are potions which give back hit points and mana and you can also be healed (HP and MP brought back up to full) between encounters. At first I thought there was a catch but there appears not to be one.

Money is needed to buy better weapons (you start off with one sword), armour (you get one suit), shields, spells, and pets. (You can't cast any spells at first—you have to buy them.) Some items are restricted to characters of a given level. Pets can fight alongside you and hurt enemies.

One thing I haven't seen elsewhere are the eight elements: fire and earth, light and darkness, water and energy, ice and wind. Various creatures are more susceptible to attacks by some elements than others (attacks with some elements may even heal them!) and so you have weapons for various elements, as well as shields and armour protecting against certain elements (and usually making you more vulnerable to the "opposite" of each element). So there's no such thing as "+2 chain mail"—nearly all armour provides element-specific protection. (But you can change armour during battle if you want; it's turn-based.)

So yeah. Kinda fun, and a little addictive :) But there are only 4000 free users allowed on the server at once, which can fill up occasionally. Also a way of encouraging users to become Guardians through a one-time donation of $14 (reminds me of Fastmail.FM Membership, which is $14.95, also one-time): they can always logon. They also get various in-game benefits.