Five websites to refocus your mind

We all know what it’s like: you’re sitting at your desk, eyes unfocused, staring vaguely through your monitor, one hand resting languidly on your mouse.  You’ve been concentrating on a problem for so long that it no longer makes any sense and you’re experiencing disquieting visions of the future.

This is the time to refocus your mind!

The amount of time that we spend at work has been growing steadily and significantly for the last two decades. Alongside time that we’re physically spending at our desks, we’re also working harder. 

And there really is only so much Red Bull that a body can take.

So what’s the most effective way of clearing your mind to refocus on a problem? Simply put: doing something pointless and pleasant.

The following five websites all fall into that category, providing a series of brief distractions that require very little brain power. It’s like giving your grey cells a sit-down.

Of course, everything should be done in moderation and I need to make it clear (probably for some sort of legal reason) that you should only undertake these activities for a couple of minutes.

This is not an alternative to finalising the figures for the Johnson account.

1 Fly a Line
http://www.barcinski-jeanjean.com/entries/line3d/

There’s something weirdly captivating about Fly A Line. The little line follows your mouse as you move it around, enabling you to swoop it back and around itself in intricate spirals and knots. 

2 Pointer Pointerhttp://www.pointerpointer.com/

It’s the simplicity of this website that makes it so captivating. Leave your mouse in one position on the screen and the next image that comes up will feature someone pointing at your mouse. No no, this isn’t witchcraft, just a clever algorithm.  The real beauty of this site though is the choice of photos. Go on, give it a go.

3 Koalas to the max!http://www.koalastothemax.com/

If any of these selections have got an ‘objective’, then this is it. Move your cursor over each circle to make it ‘pop’ into four more.  That’s it, keep going…

4 Paint a Nebula
http://29a.ch/sandbox/2011/neonflames/

For the more creative amongst us who just can’t find a legitimate reason to bring in their canvas and oils.  Select a colour, drag your mouse across an area of the black screen in front of you and populate a multi-coloured nebula of your own creation.  It’s sort of Bob Ross meets Brian Cox.

5 Weave Silkhttp://weavesilk.com/

Perhaps my favourite and the most complicated, Weave Silk lets you create captivating geometric shapes and patterns from a wide selection of colours. Changing the settings for how many folds in a rotation, whether the pattern is mirrored across the centre or spirals outwards adds additional design dimensions.

It’s like your Spirograph went to Woodstock and never came back.

DISCLAIMER: Please remember that this is not intended to offer you an alternative to getting up from your desk and moving around. In fact, it is highly recommended that you spend some time away from your desk during the day!

Now get back to work!

Plague Inc. has completely infected me

It's no secret that I like games. I remember playing a lot of games in my (often misspent) childhood and so being essentially addicted to the iPhone, it's only natural that these two things come together in the form of what feels like several thousand pounds spent at the App Store.

It does, however, sometimes seem that like the iconographic trope of the snake eating its own tale, often the games industry will create an infinite loop of absurdity, generally through unnecessary money making spin-offs.

For instance, I have spent many, many hours competing on Words with Friends (to varying degrees of success), only to read recently that they are going to make a board game out of the app. Surely this is just Scrabble, no?

In order to avoid this cyclical nightmare (oh, another jumping game? Really?!) I'm always on the lookout for different, innovative ways of chipping away at my free time.

Most recently, this has manifested itself through Plague Inc., an indie game developed by one-man-band  Ndemic Creations.

OK, I'm a bit behind the times on this one as the game was initially released a year ago, has been downloaded over 10 million times, was a runner-up at the 2012 IGN Game of the Year Awards, but it's rare for a game to get under my skin (no pun intended) in the way that Plague Inc. has managed.

The main display: simple and intuitive, letting you get on with infection!

A global domination-style strategy game, Plague Inc. puts you in control of an infectious disease, with the overall objective of infecting and killing every person on the planet. Nice. You pick a starting country from which to infect your patient zero and then progress through the game by tweaking transmission methods, symptoms and special abilities, such as drug resistance or durability in hot/cold climates.

These abilities are upgraded through specific trees, with each level purchased through DNA Points, the in-game currency, which are earned by ensuring widespread infection.

The 'Transmission' tree: note the three bars at the bottom

As well as being frustratingly difficult at times, Plague Inc. offers an immense replay value, with each of the unlockable plague types - ranging from the humble starting Bacteria to a fully-fledge BioWeapon via Virus, Fungus, Parasite, Prion and NanoVirus-type infections.

New plague types are unlocked by eliminating humanity in the Normal or Brutal game types, while the sandbox-style Casual setting lets you infect a world where no one washes their hands, research doctors essentially sleep at their desk and 'sick people are given hugs' to really explore your plague potential.

Humans can, however, fight back against your plague: the more terrifying the disease, the faster the global scientific community will start to work on a cure. While this process can be delayed by spending precious DNA Points, success in anything except Causal mode will require the careful balancing of transmission, severity and lethality with each plague type affecting these modifiers in its own way.

Upgrade your plague's abilities, making it stronger and harder to eliminate

Development of different resistance and transmission-types can be amended throughout the game, depending on the region that you're trying to infect.

Basically, if you create a hemorrhagic monster that turns people inside out, you're going to generate a lot of attention, which means that the games version of the World Health Organisation is going to put you on the watch-list and start working on a cure almost immediately, further amping the game's difficulty.

As the goal of the game is to kill all humans, not just infect them, it can often be a race against time as you try to find ways of infecting the populations of countries that have sealed their borders before a cure can be delivered.

Checking on your disease's progress is assisted through a huge number of different charts and graphs, which can help you to understand how your plague is shaping up and where you need to focus your attention to secure maximum infection.

One of Plague Inc's many handy graphs!

Basically, Plague Inc. is like Risk, only you're microscopic and playing against the whole world.

Plague Inc. elevates itself above other, similar strategy games through its ingenious approach to the genre, with a dark and slightly silly sense of humour and real-life modelling of infection.

Now please wash your hands and download this game from the App Store.

You can name your plague! I called mine 'Shatner'.