After more than sixteen years at the ATLAS experiment it seems to be time for a change, and for me that change is going from quarks to qubits, and from a mix of fundamental research, teaching and science communication to a full-time job working on public engagement and didactics for the recently founded Munich Quantum Valley.
Over the past couple of months I have hosted a few online game nights via various video conferencing tools …
Here’s a few examples of online (video) platforms I have used ..
And here’s a few of the games we’ve played ..
Let me know if have tried any other (party) games playable with friends online (without everyone having to buy and install a game) …
“Locked Out” is the title for a piece I created in memory of the 19 hours we’ve been locked out of our apartment last week, due to a material defect in our apartment-door lock.
A broken piece inside the locking mechanism of the door caused the key to turn inside the lock cylinder without actually moving the bolt in the lock (obviously this we only learned after all the hassle). After informing the janitor at about 8pm, him calling two somewhat suspicious ‘locksmith’ services, quite a bit of waiting time and both failing on the door after trying out all their arsenal on the lock, we called it a night at about 12:30am and joined our kids at some friends’ place.
After sending the kids to school on borrowed clothes, food and school equipment, we got back to the action with another locksmith who at least didn’t even try and just recommended a dedicated expert. Around around lunch time the forth (well, maybe the first real) locksmith arrived and took about two more hours to open the door with heavy machinery (and brain).
In these special times during the COVID-19 pandemic and while staying at home and practicing social distancing day and night, I thought about having an online game night with friends and remembered the good old classic You Don’t Know Jack game I had on my PC ages ago.
Turns out, I actually bought a few Jackbox Party Packs and some other Jackbox Games via HumbleBundle over the years and I just completed my Steam collection via a special offer on Green Man Gaming.
So I wanted to give a quick run-down on which games there are, which one I/we like most and what worked well for us.
Jackbox Games actually released a tutorial page on how to play their games with remote friends. Somehow Twitch and Youtube don’t (yet) work well for me, but both Skype and Zoom did a fine job (despite the sound coming through the mic together with my speech).
Also they have some games on sale, or even for free, right now on Steam and elsewhere.
For all games you need one computer running the games and a (mobile) device with a browser for each player. That’s it. And while the number of players is limited, many of the games allow for an almost unlimited number of spectators (audience), which can still take part as an extended jury.
If you feel like playing a bit, just ping me directly on Steam or elsewhere ;)
Given the certainly very unique situation caused by the current corona pandemic, I decided to set up a little live blog to document the next couple of weeks representing a mixtures of home office, home schooling, home day care and whatever is yet to come …
First of all, for those of you that are still wondering about the why, here is two interesting reads: Tomas Pueyo at Medium.com and Harry Stevens at WashingtonPost.com.
In the following live life blog, I’ll focus on a few specific, mostly non-work, activities whenever something comes up …
