first aid
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Save a life with your iPhone or iPod touch
If you came upon someone who was injured or had suffered a medical emergency, would you know how to react? In the midst of a crisis situation, even citizens who have been trained in first aid sometimes forget what they need to do to help save a life. Several iPhone apps are now available to give you a hand. PhoneAid, First Aid, and 1st Reponse: Emergency Kit are all designed to be at your fingertips in the event of an emergency. Although it might be difficult or impossible to read an iPhone screen and perform CPR at the same time, the apps can help you or someone else give instructions in a panic situation.Entanke's PhoneAid (click opens iTunes) provides verbal prompts telling you how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation and the Heimlich Maneuver on adults and children. It also has a handy "First Aid A-Z" section covering medical emergencies from bee stings to strokes. PhoneAid, shown at right, is available in the App Store at no cost until October 26. After that time, the price will be US$2.99.
Ask a Beta Tester: It's all about the money
We have a lot of profession questions today, but also a few about Achievements, the Beast Mastery 51-point talent, and what happens when you push Death Knights off a cliff:Riley asks...How is the Shaman Hex ability working? Does the target still have control of movement and does the PvP trinket work against it?Hex is a the crowd-control spell for Shamans referenced by the devs at the class panel here, and it's been tinkered with a lot since we first heard about it. It was originally meant to be more of an emergency-only, short-duration CC. In its present form, Hex's duration has been increased to 30 seconds and it doesn't necessarily break on damage. However, in PvP the target can control where they go, the PvP trinket does work (you can also shapeshift out of it as a Druid), and it's considered a curse and can be dispelled by Mages, Druids, and restoration Shamans (who will have the ability do dispel curses with a 31-point talent Cleanse Spirit). Think of it as a somewhat odd combination of Counterspell, Fear, and Polymorph.
Promotional Consideration: Humanitarian aid crosses with the DS
Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.As we've discussed before, a company's logo or branding can be just as important as the commercials and ads used to promote a product. This week, we'll take a look at a print piece that combines our favorite handheld with one of the most recognizable emblems in the world. Join us past the post break!
Breakfast Topic: The bandages
This morning, while catching up on my weblog reading, I came across a post written by Kestrel pointing out that many players still have not trained first aid, and are not carrying, or using, bandages. Although this shouldn't have struck me as surprising, it did make me pause. Didn't everyone get the memo that post-expansion, bandages are integral? Hasn't everyone been bullied into training it? Are there really still players running around wiping more often simply because they won't carry a stack of bandages?Evidently. If you need convincing information as to why you should be carrying this item, posts like Kestrel's will walk you through some of the situations in which not doing so can be disastrous.As a last note on behalf of all hunters; please heal your pet in groups. Better yet, get a macro. %Poll-8524%
Player credits America's Army for mad first aid skillz
Video games are a detriment to society, haven't you heard? Apparently Paxton Galvanek didn't get the memo. As the first on the scene at a traffic accident last November, the 28-year old gamer helped two individuals out of an overturned SUV on a North Carolina interstate and began treatment on their wounds, which ranged from cuts and bruises on the passenger to the driver, who suffered head trauma as well as the loss of two fingers. Impressive, particularly since Galvanek credits the combat medic training he completed in America's Army for the PC for teaching him the skills needed to treat the victims.The America's Army team notes that it designed the game's training scenarios in order to help prepare young adults for similar real world events. We don't know how much stock we place in first responders whose skillset can be traced back to a first-person shooter, but in this case at least it all worked out famously. Now, we just wait for a situation when having an accomplished Javelin missile operator on the scene will produce similarly welcome results.
PTR Mystery: No more first aid quest?
Wowhead updated its database earlier today. While most of the new items were to be expected, (such as the new leatherworking bags, the new ammo and the quest items for the new daily heroic quests,) there was one that came as a surprise. Apparently, a new first aid book has been discovered in patch 2.3: Artisan First Aid - Heal Thyself.The appearance of this item creates a lot of questions. Does this mean that characters will no longer have to do a quest to earn artisan level first aid? Or will this book merely be a reward for the current quests? Will this book be sold, and if so, where?
Insider Trader: When good patterns go green
Insider Trader is your weekly inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.Nothing interrupts a peaceful night of crafting like a lunatic guildmate ranting about learning a coveted new pattern, only to find that it's already green in skill level – nothing, that is, except that sickening feeling in your stomach as you consider what you'll do when your favorite patterns go green. Skilling up a profession can be a rollercoaster ride, if you don't hit the right patterns at the right time. (Of course, all the professions have those infamous "dead zones," when skilling up seems to be based on either unfathomable luck or unfathomable finances – or maybe both. But we'll cover dead zones in another installment.)Skilling up in a profession can happen when you create an item that's listed in green, yellow or orange in your tradeskill window. Items listed in grey will not give you any skill points for creating them; red listings anywhere means you don't have the required skill level. Just as it does with creatures you fight, pattern color indicates difficulty and skill-up potential. Green items raise your skill occasionally, yellows about half the time and oranges every single time. (The exception to orange skill-ups occurs in skinning, in which successfully skinning an orange creature does not guarantee a skill-up.) As a burgeoning crafter, your goal is to find patterns that are relatively easy to get the materials to make while providing a solid shot at skilling up. While orange patterns offer a guaranteed chance of gaining a skill point, the best bang for the buck is often a yellow pattern.And that's where things start getting murky ...
