Saturday, May 23, 2020
The B- minus (and easier) Soulless Horror GW2 strategy
Background: I've recently taken to raiding 1-2 times a week in GW2 as part of my goal of eventually acquiring a legendary for each gear slot. Something that's equal parts frustrating and puzzling is how GW2 players play: essentially, the wisdom of the internet (snow crows, meta battle) says "play a glass cannon, run as many dps as possible, and try not to die" This is terrible advice. Yes, it's true, higher DPS means faster clear times and potentially less time for a screw up. But 90% of the time, this requires really really really good technical timing from players. The GW2 community, as a whole, is terrible at replicating snow crows' results, especially when timing comes into play. I don't want to rag on them completely, their builds are good starting places, but the GW2 community needs to understand that they're making a lot of PVE content 100x harder than is necessary, because alot of them, whether they like it or not, are not as "l33t" as they believe they are, and if they can't replicate "l33t" players in a given circumstance, they're really just wiping more than they should.
Soulless horror strategy (modified from conventional wisdom):
3 healers: Note, it's best to have an alacrity renegade healer as one (this will make up for the chronos' changes below). I also highly recommend a tempest as another for condition cleansing, as this fight can get very condition damage (condi) heavy. This also makes your heal druid, if they're the pusher as well, have a much easier time as they can focus on push tormented dead off of the platform. This set up essentially makes your group much durable and your chrono tanks' lives much easier. What's normal is 2 healers, one is a pusher
Chronomancer (chrono) tanks don't continuum split (CS can easily kill you because of all the fatal mechanics, even if you cancel early) & run seize the moment -> Seize the moment will help make up for the fact that your chronos aren't using continuum split to double-well on your well boons. They should also take time warp for extra quickness. Basically just don't die and pay attention to wells. Obviously, spam your boon support abilities when off CD, but this makes things much easier as you can just focus on using your block ability and sword distort ability when there's an attack as you're tanking. As a chrono tank I also took well of eternity for extra condi cleansing and clutch healing.
Here is our DPS report:
https://dps.report/Jbns-20200523-042114_sh
If you actually do the math on our clear time & boss health, our group DPS was around ~95k. Good dps can pull 30-40K on their own. Given condition damage isn't properly recorded, we probably had 1 top tier DPS and the rest I would argue were average or even sub par. There is a boss timer, so you can't completely be lazy, but the community needs to understand what "good enough" in terms of DPS looks like and focus on survivability outside it. Snow crows and metabattle should try to advertise this as well. I believe our PVE could even get puggable on some level if they did that.
As a side note, what no one explained to me when I was chrono tank the first time was that standing in front of the boss when you don't have up taunt means you're taking more damage and can renew your stacks (making it so when you take agro again, you die), moving away from the front of the boss is crucial to staying alive.
Basically as long as your DPS and other players can interrupt the horror's fear, and correctly dodge mechanics, you should have no trouble with this boss. This boss (unlike harder ones like Largos twins) is not a DPS rush and if you take your time & make your life easy, it becomes a piece of cake when you have the right set up.
Also as a note on Meta-battle and snow crows builds: There are often runes and exotics with the same stat setups that you see on the site. It is not 100% necessary to have full ascended gear when raiding & there are often very close rune combinations that can be used instead of the ones on the site. Search for the most important stats that mimic the ones you see.
For chrono tank specifically, Maklains, even crafted exotics, are prohibitively expensive. Purchase giver's instead and run some Nomad's trinkets and/or back with some diviner's in the trinkets slot. This worked fine for me for both having the toughness, vitality, and boon duration needed. Also note that selectable stat exotics are earnable through strikes and visions of steel as well as ranked PVP. So even if you're not a crafter, you can get your armor that way. My chrono tank set up is Giver's: All armor & weapons, Maklain's from selectable stat exotic back from New Year's festival, crafted nomad's earrings and Diviner's neck & rings from my power boon support DPS build.
Saturday, May 4, 2019
Pagan Online: early access review/first impressions
Update: this post is old and the game has changed significantly since. I've been finding the game difficult to get back into, and I can definitively say it's not the same game I had been playing before. If this game is still as good as it was then, it becomes that way after a siginificant amount of play
To be very clear, I had no original intention of trying Pagan Online, but ended up being very glad I did, despite it being early access.
Why?
1) The gameplay. This is kind of big, so it's going to be divided up:
Characters. To summarize, I like the freedom of having a completely different playstyle available to me without all of the overhead of rerolling and/or farming for the new build you typically see in other aRPGs. I also like the depth each character has individually. Here's some more details. In Pagan Online, you're choosing between characters instead of a "build." Each character has a core mechanic, and then a set of abilities. Often there's explicit and implicit synergies between those abilities. So instead of "picking" a build, you're "learning" a character. To make up for the fact that playing one character could turn very repetitive, It's very easy to swap between characters: your lower level characters can wear gear crafted or found by your higher level ones as gear requirements are based on ACCOUNT level instead of character level. So you can hit the ground running as soon as you unlock a new character (they still get stronger as they level up, but they're still very playable with high level gear) Also, you can freely swap between characters at the main hub without logging out. So if you get bored, you just swap between your favorites. The fact that your inventory is shared makes this even easier. There's also another advantage to playing multiple characters: every time a character levels up, it contributes experience towards your account level and your account level increases experience gained by all heroes, so you're literally losing nothing when you swap between characters because it makes leveling your "main" easier.Also, as long as you have the mats for crafting and/or are collecting a few extra gear pieces, it's generally easy to gear up a new character: The only unique slot is the weapon slot. That doesn't mean that there aren't stats that are better for different characters. And most of the time you don't have an optimal build in the gear, but just being able to put really strong gear on a low level character off the bat makes it easy to switch between play styles.
Skills. In most ARPGs, you choose a "build" from a set of skills and you tend to spam certain "core" skills while using other skills as the situation demands it. In contrast in Pagan Online, your skills are fixed depending on your character and all of them are on a cooldown except your main attack. Also, monsters tend to have stronger mechanics as you progress through the game. So you're not really "spamming" anywhere near the amount you would in a traditional aRPG. You're playing against mechanics and trying to use your skills in a smart way. Here's an example: My main, Istok has a shield and it's my primary source of damage mitigation. I may want to kite and use another ability to Slow my attackers to keep them away when when my shield is on cooldown to avoid taking damage instead of just spamming my slow ability for extra damage while my shield is in use/off cooldown and spamming my auto attack after, depending on the monsters I'm fighting. Also, many characters have synergies between particular abilities, so you're balancing your character mechanics against cooldowns and the mechanics of the monsters you're fighting as well. Also, every character has a core mechanic that needs some learning. I find balancing my skills and class mechanics far more engaging than traditional aRPGs where I'm mostly spamming. The abilities themselves feel impactful enough that you don't feel underpowered despite the cooldowns. I understand though, that the bulk of people who like the aRPG genre are not used to this. I hope by explaining how the game works that they'll enjoy it more when they actually try it, instead of just canning it the moment it doesn't meet their expectations. I also hope that people who traditionally don't like aRPGs may notice that there's more to this game than they're used to and will be willing to try it out. It was really satisfying downing the boss that used to be Dagoba's champion: I had to time and land my skills really well to win. I died the first time i tried it because I was still learning my "main". That leads me into the next point:
Difficulty. Most games nowadays are not actually "hard." Generally they start out easy and 90% of the time when things get "hard" it's due to a "hard" counter or "medium" counter that requires you to integrate something "gimmicky" into your build like a resistance skill, or just another skill the monster in question isn't immune to. This keeps the gameplay pretty "flat" as in it hasn't actually gotten harder and is outright frustrating if you didn't put the right mitigation to the counter in your build. In contrast in Pagan Online, I find myself playing against the mechanics that the monsters have. There are some monsters that are very punishing to be close to while they use their special ability, this means if I'm playing a melee character, I need to be very conscious of when they use that ability and which abilites I don't have on cooldown to counter. It may mean that I wait a bit before using a cooldown and I use a different ability instead. The mechanics seem well thought out and I've died enough that the game is challenging, but not so much that it feels tedious/impossible.
Format. Every mission is instanced. This makes pacing my gameplay easier so I don't end up spending too much time on it. While in a mission, as you move through it, you are periodically trapped in rooms or areas and then monsters spawn. This makes combat more difficult and interesting than a lot of aRPGs where you can run really far away to be "safe" and start over again, because in Pagan online, I'm forced to deal with the problems I'm facing now in the moment.
Gear. There's definitely some random in the gear system. The nice part about it is you have some levers you can pull on the system. The most valuable pieces of gear come from crafting. Crafted gear has some guaranteed stats and some random. Once you craft something, you can "reroll" it during the process if you have extra crafting materials. This takes some of the edge off of the punishing RNG that's normally present in Arpgs: You can hand-pick some stats and reroll an item you know is going to be good/have higher stats at will as long as you have extra materials. That's way more forgiving than i'm used this. They probably made it this way so building multiple characters wouldn't be as difficult.
2) The art style. For the most part, I like the detail on the character models and casting animations. They were very well done, and far exceed my expectations. They are also very unique, making the game feel very fresh. Also characters have in-game earnable skins with a level of detail that you wouldn't see mixing and matching "transmogs" in other rpgs. Also, I know this may turn some people off, but there is no where near the amount of flying gore you see in other games of the same genre. It still has a dark feel you want to see in an aRPG, it's just not over the top.
I will say, however, that Anya is a *slight* turn off to me because I don't like hyper-sexualized females in video games in general, but the worst part of her is the selection screen when you pick your first hero and you never see that screen again. For some reason she's bending over at you. After that she doesn't seem anything near the jiggly bit women you would see in an Asian MMO (the worst offenders by far in the category). Afterwards, when you can pick a character, she still seems a little over the top but not that bad. I have not played her yet, I picked something else. I almost returned the game at the selection screen, but I'm glad I didn't.
3) The story is very charming and fresh. The lore of the game is very based in Slavic pre-Christian lore, making it very foreign and enjoyable for me to learn. I'm not super familiar with Slavic lore but am in general interested to hear the lore from a variety of peoples. Also, as you're fighting through the campaign there's a lot of books you can choose to interact with to get even more backstory. The developers did not pull punches trying to develop lore from a completely new game.
It's not all rainbows and sunshine though, the game still has some issues, that I hope the devs will work through:
1) It's not "online" yet: Multiplayer has yet to be implemented. They tried it but their servers couldn't take the load, so they're still working on it. You CAN see other players in the hub and there is a chat.
2) The guiding arrows screw up from time to time. Opening my map with "M" can usually help me know where exactly I should be going.
3) I've had some bosses on missions bug on me. It was really frustrating getting "stuck" because I couldn't kill a boss once. (the boss somehow moved out of the combat area
4) A quarter of the time when i log in, I get the error "cannot authenticate with steam" I've discovered this error seems both intermittent and constant depending on the root cause: If there's maintenance, it's constant. If there's not, generally logging in and out of steam fixes it faster than if I haven't. There are additional steps you can try, thankfully, I've never had to do a full re-install for this. It was really frustrating hitting this wall when i first installed. it did not leave a good impression. I failed to authenticate multiple times after the fresh install. I'm sure many people would have stopped and just asked for their money back.
5) The updates seem clunky. Even when there's a tiny update the update process takes a long time.
In summary I would say, if you're looking for a new aRPG, don't mind it being single player, can tolerate some bugs and the style sounds interesting, go ahead and try. If not, then wait for the game to fully release. As someone who works in tech, I can say that solutions to synchronization issues/efficient protocols can be tricky, so the devs have their work cut out for them, so I wouldn't recommend buying the game for a future guarantee of multiplayer because you don't know what their skill level is with those sorts of issues. I'm fairly certain there's solutions to them, but we'll learn the capabilities of these devs as we watch the early access move forward.I personally am enjoying this and have been off of guild wars 2 for a while in favor of it.
To be very clear, I had no original intention of trying Pagan Online, but ended up being very glad I did, despite it being early access.
Why?
1) The gameplay. This is kind of big, so it's going to be divided up:
Characters. To summarize, I like the freedom of having a completely different playstyle available to me without all of the overhead of rerolling and/or farming for the new build you typically see in other aRPGs. I also like the depth each character has individually. Here's some more details. In Pagan Online, you're choosing between characters instead of a "build." Each character has a core mechanic, and then a set of abilities. Often there's explicit and implicit synergies between those abilities. So instead of "picking" a build, you're "learning" a character. To make up for the fact that playing one character could turn very repetitive, It's very easy to swap between characters: your lower level characters can wear gear crafted or found by your higher level ones as gear requirements are based on ACCOUNT level instead of character level. So you can hit the ground running as soon as you unlock a new character (they still get stronger as they level up, but they're still very playable with high level gear) Also, you can freely swap between characters at the main hub without logging out. So if you get bored, you just swap between your favorites. The fact that your inventory is shared makes this even easier. There's also another advantage to playing multiple characters: every time a character levels up, it contributes experience towards your account level and your account level increases experience gained by all heroes, so you're literally losing nothing when you swap between characters because it makes leveling your "main" easier.Also, as long as you have the mats for crafting and/or are collecting a few extra gear pieces, it's generally easy to gear up a new character: The only unique slot is the weapon slot. That doesn't mean that there aren't stats that are better for different characters. And most of the time you don't have an optimal build in the gear, but just being able to put really strong gear on a low level character off the bat makes it easy to switch between play styles.
Skills. In most ARPGs, you choose a "build" from a set of skills and you tend to spam certain "core" skills while using other skills as the situation demands it. In contrast in Pagan Online, your skills are fixed depending on your character and all of them are on a cooldown except your main attack. Also, monsters tend to have stronger mechanics as you progress through the game. So you're not really "spamming" anywhere near the amount you would in a traditional aRPG. You're playing against mechanics and trying to use your skills in a smart way. Here's an example: My main, Istok has a shield and it's my primary source of damage mitigation. I may want to kite and use another ability to Slow my attackers to keep them away when when my shield is on cooldown to avoid taking damage instead of just spamming my slow ability for extra damage while my shield is in use/off cooldown and spamming my auto attack after, depending on the monsters I'm fighting. Also, many characters have synergies between particular abilities, so you're balancing your character mechanics against cooldowns and the mechanics of the monsters you're fighting as well. Also, every character has a core mechanic that needs some learning. I find balancing my skills and class mechanics far more engaging than traditional aRPGs where I'm mostly spamming. The abilities themselves feel impactful enough that you don't feel underpowered despite the cooldowns. I understand though, that the bulk of people who like the aRPG genre are not used to this. I hope by explaining how the game works that they'll enjoy it more when they actually try it, instead of just canning it the moment it doesn't meet their expectations. I also hope that people who traditionally don't like aRPGs may notice that there's more to this game than they're used to and will be willing to try it out. It was really satisfying downing the boss that used to be Dagoba's champion: I had to time and land my skills really well to win. I died the first time i tried it because I was still learning my "main". That leads me into the next point:
Difficulty. Most games nowadays are not actually "hard." Generally they start out easy and 90% of the time when things get "hard" it's due to a "hard" counter or "medium" counter that requires you to integrate something "gimmicky" into your build like a resistance skill, or just another skill the monster in question isn't immune to. This keeps the gameplay pretty "flat" as in it hasn't actually gotten harder and is outright frustrating if you didn't put the right mitigation to the counter in your build. In contrast in Pagan Online, I find myself playing against the mechanics that the monsters have. There are some monsters that are very punishing to be close to while they use their special ability, this means if I'm playing a melee character, I need to be very conscious of when they use that ability and which abilites I don't have on cooldown to counter. It may mean that I wait a bit before using a cooldown and I use a different ability instead. The mechanics seem well thought out and I've died enough that the game is challenging, but not so much that it feels tedious/impossible.
Format. Every mission is instanced. This makes pacing my gameplay easier so I don't end up spending too much time on it. While in a mission, as you move through it, you are periodically trapped in rooms or areas and then monsters spawn. This makes combat more difficult and interesting than a lot of aRPGs where you can run really far away to be "safe" and start over again, because in Pagan online, I'm forced to deal with the problems I'm facing now in the moment.
Gear. There's definitely some random in the gear system. The nice part about it is you have some levers you can pull on the system. The most valuable pieces of gear come from crafting. Crafted gear has some guaranteed stats and some random. Once you craft something, you can "reroll" it during the process if you have extra crafting materials. This takes some of the edge off of the punishing RNG that's normally present in Arpgs: You can hand-pick some stats and reroll an item you know is going to be good/have higher stats at will as long as you have extra materials. That's way more forgiving than i'm used this. They probably made it this way so building multiple characters wouldn't be as difficult.
2) The art style. For the most part, I like the detail on the character models and casting animations. They were very well done, and far exceed my expectations. They are also very unique, making the game feel very fresh. Also characters have in-game earnable skins with a level of detail that you wouldn't see mixing and matching "transmogs" in other rpgs. Also, I know this may turn some people off, but there is no where near the amount of flying gore you see in other games of the same genre. It still has a dark feel you want to see in an aRPG, it's just not over the top.
I will say, however, that Anya is a *slight* turn off to me because I don't like hyper-sexualized females in video games in general, but the worst part of her is the selection screen when you pick your first hero and you never see that screen again. For some reason she's bending over at you. After that she doesn't seem anything near the jiggly bit women you would see in an Asian MMO (the worst offenders by far in the category). Afterwards, when you can pick a character, she still seems a little over the top but not that bad. I have not played her yet, I picked something else. I almost returned the game at the selection screen, but I'm glad I didn't.
3) The story is very charming and fresh. The lore of the game is very based in Slavic pre-Christian lore, making it very foreign and enjoyable for me to learn. I'm not super familiar with Slavic lore but am in general interested to hear the lore from a variety of peoples. Also, as you're fighting through the campaign there's a lot of books you can choose to interact with to get even more backstory. The developers did not pull punches trying to develop lore from a completely new game.
It's not all rainbows and sunshine though, the game still has some issues, that I hope the devs will work through:
1) It's not "online" yet: Multiplayer has yet to be implemented. They tried it but their servers couldn't take the load, so they're still working on it. You CAN see other players in the hub and there is a chat.
2) The guiding arrows screw up from time to time. Opening my map with "M" can usually help me know where exactly I should be going.
3) I've had some bosses on missions bug on me. It was really frustrating getting "stuck" because I couldn't kill a boss once. (the boss somehow moved out of the combat area
4) A quarter of the time when i log in, I get the error "cannot authenticate with steam" I've discovered this error seems both intermittent and constant depending on the root cause: If there's maintenance, it's constant. If there's not, generally logging in and out of steam fixes it faster than if I haven't. There are additional steps you can try, thankfully, I've never had to do a full re-install for this. It was really frustrating hitting this wall when i first installed. it did not leave a good impression. I failed to authenticate multiple times after the fresh install. I'm sure many people would have stopped and just asked for their money back.
5) The updates seem clunky. Even when there's a tiny update the update process takes a long time.
In summary I would say, if you're looking for a new aRPG, don't mind it being single player, can tolerate some bugs and the style sounds interesting, go ahead and try. If not, then wait for the game to fully release. As someone who works in tech, I can say that solutions to synchronization issues/efficient protocols can be tricky, so the devs have their work cut out for them, so I wouldn't recommend buying the game for a future guarantee of multiplayer because you don't know what their skill level is with those sorts of issues. I'm fairly certain there's solutions to them, but we'll learn the capabilities of these devs as we watch the early access move forward.I personally am enjoying this and have been off of guild wars 2 for a while in favor of it.
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
Buyer Beware: Paid early access on steam
Paid early access games on steam are pretty predatory: the developer can literally pull the plug on their project and all the money you've invested on them is gone. This is actually quite common (or so I've read on steam forums), and steam doesn't let you return a game you've sunk more than 2 hours into. So basically the publisher and steam run off with the money you've paid and the publisher has no incentive to keep it going.
Thankfully, I didn't buy any of the more expensive founder's packs for the game I tested, but man I'm really feeling for the people who paid for the expensive ones. The game in question is Breach. It was basically supposed to be a dungeon crawler with match making where a player played as the villain (Veil Demon) and the other 4 players tried to beat the dungeon with the Veil Demon working against them.
Given what I've seen in paid early access on the games I've messed with, I wouldn't recommend touching it with a 10-ft pole: It really has only ever felt like an excuse to release an incomplete game, hoping to run off with the money users paid for it & shut it down. The developers never seem to listen to feedback & improve the game based on it. I've seen even these games listed in popular gaming news sites and some even come from reputable publishers. So really, nothing tells you whether or not these projects will succeed and I would say this: If you're willing to part with that money and expect it to literally mean nothing in 2-6 months, go ahead, buy into a paid early access game. But a real game, won't do that. They'll send out alpha and beta keys and do plenty of their own testing and feedback gathering before pushing a project. And if you think about it, this makes sense: You wouldn't just want anyone testing your game, first impressions mean a lot. You would want your game tested with lots of feedback under NDA so you can improve it without it leaking that it has huge issues, so when it IS ready for market, it has the "Wow!" factor that keeps gamers coming back for more.
Thankfully, I didn't buy any of the more expensive founder's packs for the game I tested, but man I'm really feeling for the people who paid for the expensive ones. The game in question is Breach. It was basically supposed to be a dungeon crawler with match making where a player played as the villain (Veil Demon) and the other 4 players tried to beat the dungeon with the Veil Demon working against them.
Given what I've seen in paid early access on the games I've messed with, I wouldn't recommend touching it with a 10-ft pole: It really has only ever felt like an excuse to release an incomplete game, hoping to run off with the money users paid for it & shut it down. The developers never seem to listen to feedback & improve the game based on it. I've seen even these games listed in popular gaming news sites and some even come from reputable publishers. So really, nothing tells you whether or not these projects will succeed and I would say this: If you're willing to part with that money and expect it to literally mean nothing in 2-6 months, go ahead, buy into a paid early access game. But a real game, won't do that. They'll send out alpha and beta keys and do plenty of their own testing and feedback gathering before pushing a project. And if you think about it, this makes sense: You wouldn't just want anyone testing your game, first impressions mean a lot. You would want your game tested with lots of feedback under NDA so you can improve it without it leaking that it has huge issues, so when it IS ready for market, it has the "Wow!" factor that keeps gamers coming back for more.
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
How to make your "afterlife" profitable: The rest of the internet is wrong. And it's hilarious.
TLDR: Hell's banks can be used like a 90s credit card scheme to finance everything.
If you nabbed "Afterlife" off of Good Old Games you may be wondering how to start out. It's very difficult to get out of the red before the 4 surfers of apocalypso come crashing on your door and literally destroy your paradise and/or perfect torture.
The wisdom of the internet says to only build heaven or hell (usually hell, which is actually even more wrong, I'll explain why later). This strategy only works on easy at best, the other game modes just don't have the cash to deal with the initial loss the player experiences as they're building their afterlives up. I found the solution. I will warn you though, it's a spoiler, because it's also a hilarious twist on this game's main point: mocking 90s pop culture and lifestyle.
So what is it? Well basically, the strategy is to use infinite cash to wait out the period where your afterlives are negative until you finally make them profitable. Infinite cash you say? From where? Turns out the banks in heaven and hell loan money markedly different: Heaven charges yearly interest, whereas hell DOESN'T. And if you don't pay the money off, the banks in hell nab souls from your afterlife (not sure if it's one or both heaven or hell, I'll do science and update later). BUT you can pay off the banks in hell early and prevent them from nabbing souls. You can also immediately pay off and then re-withdraw the amount you borrowed. See where I'm going here? The banks cost less to build than what they actually loan. So as long as you have enough cash to build a bank, you essentially can never go bankrupt: Just build enough banks to have enough cash to cover one loan. All you have to do is make sure you're holding enough cash for a single loan, and then cycle through all of your bank(s) in hell periodically paying off and re-withdrawing (I do like every 50 years). Why is this hilarious? The 90s were the heyday of credit card schemes. Balance transfer fees weren't really a thing then. So people would constantly cycle debt between multiple cards and sometimes even found ways to earn money in the process with various rewards. So it makes perfect sense that the creators, in an effort to mock 90s culture, would make it all but required to finance your afterlives this way. I was literally kicking myself after multiple failed attempts at a single afterlife on higher difficulties when I realized this. I could get the "just heaven or hell" strategy to work for "easy" difficulty but that was it. Given how badly you bleed cash at the beginning of this game, and how it's literally impossible to finance both afterlives simultaneously, even on the lowest difficulty, I'm 100% sure that this business model for the early game was intentional and the creators did their best to make you realize that by making you bleed so hard at the beginning of the game that you'd be desparate to look at your lending options. Like why wouldn't they want you building both? That's the point of the game. Unfortunately, I don't think the gaming community got the joke because the person who introduced me to this game told me that the game was nigh impossible. There's an advantage to building both afterlives simultaneously too: the total population of both is used to calculate the value of souls coming in. So in the long run, you're better off building both simultaneously if possible.
Profitability: As long as you can balance your vibes for heaven and hell and more souls are coming in, you will be profitable. The easiest way to control vibes is to build training centers interspersed throughout your afterlives. Be sure to turn them off often enough to be importing at least 10% of your workforce. Idle angels or demons will destroy the other afterlife. Also, in heaven, you want to mix the rewards as much as possible (group clusters that are unalike together). Hell does better with uniformity in its punishments.
Why is heaven better for the single afterlife strategy? Because souls more readily train to become angels than demons. Every time I've built both heaven and hell at the same time, heaven has broken even much faster because the number of angels that are self-trained goes up way faster than the number of self-trained demons in my hell. These "Natively" trained demons or angels are much cheaper than imported ones. There's a catch though: if you ever get idle natively trained demons or angels, they'll attack the opposing afterlife. For this reason, it's best to maintain at least a 10% imported workforce. As your afterlife becomes more populated, you can probably get away with even more imported angels/demons. That might be optimal because I don't know that the "Afterlife" arcology equivalent employs the same number of demons/angels as normal dwellings do in the end game.
EDIT: Looks like I found an outdated game FAQ dated from 1996 with this strategy explained, But it's just a detail amongst many others. I'm shocked it doesn't describe it in any sort of quick start guide :
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/196555-afterlife/faqs/2026
I also figured this out, all on my own.
If you nabbed "Afterlife" off of Good Old Games you may be wondering how to start out. It's very difficult to get out of the red before the 4 surfers of apocalypso come crashing on your door and literally destroy your paradise and/or perfect torture.
The wisdom of the internet says to only build heaven or hell (usually hell, which is actually even more wrong, I'll explain why later). This strategy only works on easy at best, the other game modes just don't have the cash to deal with the initial loss the player experiences as they're building their afterlives up. I found the solution. I will warn you though, it's a spoiler, because it's also a hilarious twist on this game's main point: mocking 90s pop culture and lifestyle.
So what is it? Well basically, the strategy is to use infinite cash to wait out the period where your afterlives are negative until you finally make them profitable. Infinite cash you say? From where? Turns out the banks in heaven and hell loan money markedly different: Heaven charges yearly interest, whereas hell DOESN'T. And if you don't pay the money off, the banks in hell nab souls from your afterlife (not sure if it's one or both heaven or hell, I'll do science and update later). BUT you can pay off the banks in hell early and prevent them from nabbing souls. You can also immediately pay off and then re-withdraw the amount you borrowed. See where I'm going here? The banks cost less to build than what they actually loan. So as long as you have enough cash to build a bank, you essentially can never go bankrupt: Just build enough banks to have enough cash to cover one loan. All you have to do is make sure you're holding enough cash for a single loan, and then cycle through all of your bank(s) in hell periodically paying off and re-withdrawing (I do like every 50 years). Why is this hilarious? The 90s were the heyday of credit card schemes. Balance transfer fees weren't really a thing then. So people would constantly cycle debt between multiple cards and sometimes even found ways to earn money in the process with various rewards. So it makes perfect sense that the creators, in an effort to mock 90s culture, would make it all but required to finance your afterlives this way. I was literally kicking myself after multiple failed attempts at a single afterlife on higher difficulties when I realized this. I could get the "just heaven or hell" strategy to work for "easy" difficulty but that was it. Given how badly you bleed cash at the beginning of this game, and how it's literally impossible to finance both afterlives simultaneously, even on the lowest difficulty, I'm 100% sure that this business model for the early game was intentional and the creators did their best to make you realize that by making you bleed so hard at the beginning of the game that you'd be desparate to look at your lending options. Like why wouldn't they want you building both? That's the point of the game. Unfortunately, I don't think the gaming community got the joke because the person who introduced me to this game told me that the game was nigh impossible. There's an advantage to building both afterlives simultaneously too: the total population of both is used to calculate the value of souls coming in. So in the long run, you're better off building both simultaneously if possible.
Profitability: As long as you can balance your vibes for heaven and hell and more souls are coming in, you will be profitable. The easiest way to control vibes is to build training centers interspersed throughout your afterlives. Be sure to turn them off often enough to be importing at least 10% of your workforce. Idle angels or demons will destroy the other afterlife. Also, in heaven, you want to mix the rewards as much as possible (group clusters that are unalike together). Hell does better with uniformity in its punishments.
Why is heaven better for the single afterlife strategy? Because souls more readily train to become angels than demons. Every time I've built both heaven and hell at the same time, heaven has broken even much faster because the number of angels that are self-trained goes up way faster than the number of self-trained demons in my hell. These "Natively" trained demons or angels are much cheaper than imported ones. There's a catch though: if you ever get idle natively trained demons or angels, they'll attack the opposing afterlife. For this reason, it's best to maintain at least a 10% imported workforce. As your afterlife becomes more populated, you can probably get away with even more imported angels/demons. That might be optimal because I don't know that the "Afterlife" arcology equivalent employs the same number of demons/angels as normal dwellings do in the end game.
EDIT: Looks like I found an outdated game FAQ dated from 1996 with this strategy explained, But it's just a detail amongst many others. I'm shocked it doesn't describe it in any sort of quick start guide :
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/196555-afterlife/faqs/2026
I also figured this out, all on my own.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
So life
I've been more or less inactive because I got married and started a job. Balancing that with my normal hobbies has left me little time for blogging.
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
How to completely unload a visa gift card into Rixty or to purchase Rift credits
How to purchase Rixty:
1) Activate your card
2) Go to the store and buy pre-loaded cards (Wal-mart, Kroger brand stores, 7-Eleven sell them). You can't buy Rixty online with a wells fargo visa gift card because the transaction comes from Ireland and out-of-US purchases are not allowed. BUT because the store is the one who pays Rixty for the cards, using your credit-card in store to buy rixty works because you're paying back the store. Confusing. But it works! I did it.
3) Cash them in on the Rixty site.
How to purchase Rift Credits
This is trickier because if you activate your card online, you can buy rift credits, but just not so much that it completely unloads the card. There is a way around this. You buy Rixty money as above and cash it in to buy credits.
I started off explaining the process it took me to learn all of this, but really, it's just a bunch of bureaucratic poo. In short, I did file a ticket with Trion to let them know about not being able to completely unload the card directly through them, and how crappy that was because I've been able to completely unload cards for Riot points.
1) Activate your card
2) Go to the store and buy pre-loaded cards (Wal-mart, Kroger brand stores, 7-Eleven sell them). You can't buy Rixty online with a wells fargo visa gift card because the transaction comes from Ireland and out-of-US purchases are not allowed. BUT because the store is the one who pays Rixty for the cards, using your credit-card in store to buy rixty works because you're paying back the store. Confusing. But it works! I did it.
3) Cash them in on the Rixty site.
How to purchase Rift Credits
This is trickier because if you activate your card online, you can buy rift credits, but just not so much that it completely unloads the card. There is a way around this. You buy Rixty money as above and cash it in to buy credits.
I started off explaining the process it took me to learn all of this, but really, it's just a bunch of bureaucratic poo. In short, I did file a ticket with Trion to let them know about not being able to completely unload the card directly through them, and how crappy that was because I've been able to completely unload cards for Riot points.
Friday, March 7, 2014
Sorry Random Brownie recipe
So sometimes I see a recipe and want to try it, but I'm afraid the link will break. Hopefully, one day I'll get to try these. The author said the brownies cook better when you take them out in the middle. I mean that's an easy trick to remember, but I've been dying to get my hands on a home made brownie recipe for a while now. My dad never gave me his (yes, you read that correctly, my DAD not my MOM. My mom can cook desserts, but it's the men that have the big guns when it comes to desserts in my family...)
FUDGY BROWNIE THINS WITH SEA SALT
Ingredients:
Ingredients:
- 6 ounces unsweetened chocolate (100 percent cacao), chopped
- 3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 3 cups sugar
- 6 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (any type, as long as it’s unsweetened)
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- Maldon sea salt, if desired
- EQUIPMENT: an 18- by 13-inch rimmed baking sheet (a.k.a. half-sheet pan)
Preparation:
FUDGY BROWNIE THINS WITH SEA SALT
Heat the oven to 325°F with the rack in the middle. Lightly grease or butter the pan and line it with parchment or foil.
Melt the chocolate with the butter in a large metal bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until smooth. Remove the bowl from the pan and whisk in the sugar.
Add the eggs, 1 at a time, whisking well after each addition, and whisk the mixture vigorously until it is smooth and cohesive. Whisk in the vanilla and salt. Sift the cocoa over the batter and stir with a whisk until it is incorporated and the batter is smooth. Sift the flour over the batter and stir with the whisk in the same manner until the batter is smooth.
Spread the batter evenly in the pan and, if desired, sprinkle the top lightly with flakes of Maldon sea salt. Bake 15 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven and let the brownies rest 15 minutes at room temperature. Return the brownies to the oven and continue to bake them until a wooden pick comes out clean, 17 to 20 minutes.
Cool the brownies completely in the pan on a rack. Cut the brownies into serving pieces.
Melt the chocolate with the butter in a large metal bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until smooth. Remove the bowl from the pan and whisk in the sugar.
Add the eggs, 1 at a time, whisking well after each addition, and whisk the mixture vigorously until it is smooth and cohesive. Whisk in the vanilla and salt. Sift the cocoa over the batter and stir with a whisk until it is incorporated and the batter is smooth. Sift the flour over the batter and stir with the whisk in the same manner until the batter is smooth.
Spread the batter evenly in the pan and, if desired, sprinkle the top lightly with flakes of Maldon sea salt. Bake 15 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven and let the brownies rest 15 minutes at room temperature. Return the brownies to the oven and continue to bake them until a wooden pick comes out clean, 17 to 20 minutes.
Cool the brownies completely in the pan on a rack. Cut the brownies into serving pieces.
Ingredients:
- 6 ounces unsweetened chocolate (100 percent cacao), chopped
- 3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 3 cups sugar
- 6 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (any type, as long as it’s unsweetened)
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- Maldon sea salt, if desired
- EQUIPMENT: an 18- by 13-inch rimmed baking sheet (a.k.a. half-sheet pan)
Preparation:
Heat the oven to 325°F with the rack in the middle. Lightly grease or butter the pan and line it with parchment or foil.
Melt the chocolate with the butter in a large metal bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until smooth. Remove the bowl from the pan and whisk in the sugar.
Add the eggs, 1 at a time, whisking well after each addition, and whisk the mixture vigorously until it is smooth and cohesive. Whisk in the vanilla and salt. Sift the cocoa over the batter and stir with a whisk until it is incorporated and the batter is smooth. Sift the flour over the batter and stir with the whisk in the same manner until the batter is smooth.
Spread the batter evenly in the pan and, if desired, sprinkle the top lightly with flakes of Maldon sea salt. Bake 15 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven and let the brownies rest 15 minutes at room temperature. Return the brownies to the oven and continue to bake them until a wooden pick comes out clean, 17 to 20 minutes.
Cool the brownies completely in the pan on a rack. Cut the brownies into serving pieces.
Melt the chocolate with the butter in a large metal bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until smooth. Remove the bowl from the pan and whisk in the sugar.
Add the eggs, 1 at a time, whisking well after each addition, and whisk the mixture vigorously until it is smooth and cohesive. Whisk in the vanilla and salt. Sift the cocoa over the batter and stir with a whisk until it is incorporated and the batter is smooth. Sift the flour over the batter and stir with the whisk in the same manner until the batter is smooth.
Spread the batter evenly in the pan and, if desired, sprinkle the top lightly with flakes of Maldon sea salt. Bake 15 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven and let the brownies rest 15 minutes at room temperature. Return the brownies to the oven and continue to bake them until a wooden pick comes out clean, 17 to 20 minutes.
Cool the brownies completely in the pan on a rack. Cut the brownies into serving pieces.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
The Pain He Wouldn't Let Me Feel
So I have a friend who is struggling with a pornography addiction. This friend is literally thousands of miles away from me in Belgium. I figured if he was coming to me under these circumstances, that he didn't really have many people who could come to for help fighting it. That makes me feel like I have a lot of responsibility for helping him. So I decided on the next time I would fast, I would fast specifically for him. I also wanted to make this fast special in that I wanted to show Heavenly Father how much it mattered to me. As part of that, I decided to eat a special meal just before I started it. This meal would blow quickly through my system, despite having enough calories. I wanted to make this fast hurt just to show Heavenly Father how invested I was in getting him to help my friend.
It seemed to work. Two hours after my meal, I already started feeling hungry. But then things got wierd. The closer it got to my dinner time, the more my hunger seemed to fade. Usually when I've tried fasting for a dinner, it just has been unbearable, but this time it worked. Not only that, but I slept fine, which is also weird, because the few times I've done an overnight fast, sleeping hasn't gone too well for me. In terms of hunger pangs, this has been my easiest fast, which is super weird, because everything about the way I set it up should have made it hurt.
Looking back I think that this was Christ trying to show me that he suffered for my friend. And because he did that, he didn't want me to suffer for him too, even if I was trying to. I guess I'm posting this to show the world that I know that Jesus Christ is real and he suffered for us so we don't have to. Because of this experience I've learned that he not only hears prayers, but wants us to be happy. And I'm grateful for that.
It seemed to work. Two hours after my meal, I already started feeling hungry. But then things got wierd. The closer it got to my dinner time, the more my hunger seemed to fade. Usually when I've tried fasting for a dinner, it just has been unbearable, but this time it worked. Not only that, but I slept fine, which is also weird, because the few times I've done an overnight fast, sleeping hasn't gone too well for me. In terms of hunger pangs, this has been my easiest fast, which is super weird, because everything about the way I set it up should have made it hurt.
Looking back I think that this was Christ trying to show me that he suffered for my friend. And because he did that, he didn't want me to suffer for him too, even if I was trying to. I guess I'm posting this to show the world that I know that Jesus Christ is real and he suffered for us so we don't have to. Because of this experience I've learned that he not only hears prayers, but wants us to be happy. And I'm grateful for that.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Oatmeal, the breakfast of champions (revisited)
I love oatmeal now, which is ironic because I hated it growing up. I thought it tasted bland and no matter how much brown sugar or fruit I added to it, that bland flavor of plain oats still grossed me out. Well, when I decided to switch to a low-fat diet (ish, I still have 1 low-carb meal a day, far after my blood sugars have dropped), I needed a simple breakfast idea, and I found one for oatmeal in a cookbook for athletes called The Feed Zone. I was skeptical about if I would be able to eat it, but it seemed the easiest meal to make given my schedule as a college student. I changed up the recipe a bit too, but I noticed that cooking oatmeal with the little bit of brown sugar, molasses and chunks of frozen fruit totally changed the quality of the oatmeal. You see, when my mom made oatmeal, she made it plain and it was my job to add in stuff after. When I'm cooking it, the stuff I want cooks into the oatmeal and consequently drastically changes the flavor. I guess the recipe I used also calls for cooking the oats in a little bit of milk later and that might be another factor, but my point is, oats aren't gross when other flavors are cooked into them, and if you haven't had oatmeal prepared in this way, you should give it a shot. My energy levels are so much higher after eating this kind of meal as opposed to my scrambled egg breakfasts.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Socialism of the worst kind: taking from the poor to benefit the rich
Lately I've been getting a lot of emails from moveon.org trying to get me to sign petitions to support Obamacare or things I should do to stop the program from failing. A lot of these emails have pointed out a certain fact: that Obamacare needs the young to enroll in order for the program to work.
The reason for this is most young people don't need healthcare or need less than they would actually pay in health care premiums, this extra money is then used to take care of the older portion of the population whose contribution to the insurance company is less than what the insurance company pays to take care of them.
The problem? According to this report, the young are actually the ones that don't have the money. In fact much of my generation is unemployed. Blame who you will, the fact of the matter is most people in my age group are either 1) not employed or 2) not making much money.
So basically, this program relies on wealth redistribution from the poor to the wealthier. This is a travesty augmented by the fact that the young are the ones who need to start families before their fertility drops. Right now, our birth rate is below replacement (and adoption ain't cheap folks). Just having bad population growth in and of itself bankrupts socialist programs that rely on the young to pay for the old. So the young need to have kids AND fork out extra money to insurance companies to pay for the old's healthcare. Obamacare is a poorly designed system and it isn't helping with some of the larger issues the USA is facing.
Don't get me wrong, I think reform needed to happen. But the problem with Obamacare is that it focused on the cost of healthcare from the standpoint of the insurance companies instead of from the standpoint of the actual cost. Right now, we have a shortage of doctors. Right now, most of our doctors leave med school in huge amounts of debt. Both of those facts drive up health care cost. Prescriptions for the elderly cost a ton and too many politicians in Washington are in bed with the pharmaceutical companies to stop them from price gouging. That's why we passed legislation to subsidize them for the elderly instead of finding a way to drive down the costs in the market. Reforming the way insurance companies do business does little to alleviate the problem when most of them are coming from the industry itself.
But as you can tell from my analysis, my will to support a poorly designed law and poorly designed form of socialism is near zero. So every time I get those emails, I chuckle a little wishing I cared and move on with life.
The reason for this is most young people don't need healthcare or need less than they would actually pay in health care premiums, this extra money is then used to take care of the older portion of the population whose contribution to the insurance company is less than what the insurance company pays to take care of them.
The problem? According to this report, the young are actually the ones that don't have the money. In fact much of my generation is unemployed. Blame who you will, the fact of the matter is most people in my age group are either 1) not employed or 2) not making much money.
So basically, this program relies on wealth redistribution from the poor to the wealthier. This is a travesty augmented by the fact that the young are the ones who need to start families before their fertility drops. Right now, our birth rate is below replacement (and adoption ain't cheap folks). Just having bad population growth in and of itself bankrupts socialist programs that rely on the young to pay for the old. So the young need to have kids AND fork out extra money to insurance companies to pay for the old's healthcare. Obamacare is a poorly designed system and it isn't helping with some of the larger issues the USA is facing.
Don't get me wrong, I think reform needed to happen. But the problem with Obamacare is that it focused on the cost of healthcare from the standpoint of the insurance companies instead of from the standpoint of the actual cost. Right now, we have a shortage of doctors. Right now, most of our doctors leave med school in huge amounts of debt. Both of those facts drive up health care cost. Prescriptions for the elderly cost a ton and too many politicians in Washington are in bed with the pharmaceutical companies to stop them from price gouging. That's why we passed legislation to subsidize them for the elderly instead of finding a way to drive down the costs in the market. Reforming the way insurance companies do business does little to alleviate the problem when most of them are coming from the industry itself.
But as you can tell from my analysis, my will to support a poorly designed law and poorly designed form of socialism is near zero. So every time I get those emails, I chuckle a little wishing I cared and move on with life.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
These aren't the leaders we want.
So I read something somewhere. Some people believe it's historical fact, others just a fable made up by someone, but I feel its message is definitely applicable to the current situation in Washington. The story goes like this: there's two military leaders who each control a portion of the same country. Each one believes they have the right to the whole country, and so naturally, a war breaks out between the two different factions. Well this carries on for a very long time, to the point at which everyone is involved in the conflict. At this point, the leaders of one of the factions sees how much destruction has been wrought and offers to surrender his portion of the country to the other military leader. The other military leader demands that the one who offered to surrender give up his life along with the rest of the country. Well, the one who surrendered looked around and realized everyone fighting for him was so embittered, that surrender would do no good, so they carried on the fight. Well, in the end, because neither side would budge, both factions and the country were destroyed.
The same thing is going on in Washington right now. The new Senate deal? It was pretty much the same thing Boehner proposed in the House. Compromise? Nope, all communication between the House and the White House is shut down. Obama actually almost folded (according to one story I read), but then Harry Reid egged him on saying that they wouldn't compromise and Obama not folding was justified. Basically, both sides seem so embittered that they don't want to surrender. What's at stake? Well only the lives of two little boys my former High School English teacher is trying to provide for off of her meager salary, the world's economy with the US dollar as its reserve currency and the entire economic well-being of the entire nation. Looking at the language between the two different parties, it seems to me like both want the default. I think both as self-assured the other will take the blame and it will cause people to give their party more power and influence.
Well here's my little message to America: we don't want leaders that are willing to sacrifice our well-being and our way of life for their own ends. Our history is playing out like the story, and leaders like that don't deserve to lead the world's most powerful economy or the world's most powerful democracy. We seriously need to start a 3rd party that is not unified within itself that everyone votes for instead of either party, so no one will ever be able to believe they can wrest the control of our country at the expense of everyone else and we as a people, show our leaders we will only support leaders worth supporting.
The same thing is going on in Washington right now. The new Senate deal? It was pretty much the same thing Boehner proposed in the House. Compromise? Nope, all communication between the House and the White House is shut down. Obama actually almost folded (according to one story I read), but then Harry Reid egged him on saying that they wouldn't compromise and Obama not folding was justified. Basically, both sides seem so embittered that they don't want to surrender. What's at stake? Well only the lives of two little boys my former High School English teacher is trying to provide for off of her meager salary, the world's economy with the US dollar as its reserve currency and the entire economic well-being of the entire nation. Looking at the language between the two different parties, it seems to me like both want the default. I think both as self-assured the other will take the blame and it will cause people to give their party more power and influence.
Well here's my little message to America: we don't want leaders that are willing to sacrifice our well-being and our way of life for their own ends. Our history is playing out like the story, and leaders like that don't deserve to lead the world's most powerful economy or the world's most powerful democracy. We seriously need to start a 3rd party that is not unified within itself that everyone votes for instead of either party, so no one will ever be able to believe they can wrest the control of our country at the expense of everyone else and we as a people, show our leaders we will only support leaders worth supporting.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
New Testament study: the Lord's prayer phrase and what does the truth mean to you?
The first part of this post talks about a difference in the Lord's prayer between the English version and the Dutch version. The second part talks
Background: So I was reading in the New Testament yesterday, and I've been reading it in Dutch actually. I'm doing everything I can to not lose it, so most of my scripture and Gospel study has been happening in Dutch. I hope I don't starve spiritually because of this decision, but I'm doing my best to make sure I understand everything. Google Translate is a great pseudo-dictionary.
Fun realization about the Lord's prayer: When I was reading this phrase in the Lord's prayer "En leid ons niet in verzoeking, maar verlos ons van den boze." Something caught my eye. Here, the verb leiden (English: to lead) is used with the preposition "in." (English: in) That's weird, because in modern Dutch, if you denote being led to something you say "Leid naar..." Now I understand this is older Dutch, so maybe I don't understand everything, so I did a little text search on the verb stem leid through different chapters, to see the other prepositions it was used with. I found this chapter, and in the beginning, it uses "leiden" with the preposition "tot" which can also mean "to, toward" in English, so my suspicion is correct, the phrase is not saying "And lead us not into temptation..." like in the English phrasing:"And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil." There's obviously a difference in meaning between the two translations. The Dutch one in my opinion is saying "And lead us not in temptation, but save us from evil." Which I take to mean that if you're being tempted by something, then the last part of the prayer is asking for help avoiding it, instead of it being allowed to continue with you while you're receiving Heavenly Father's help.
The most powerful lesson I learned: The thing that struck me the most about Luke Chapter 11 was the end of the chapter made it sound like Jesus drew the hatred and malice of the Pharisees and the scribes because he chastises them for corrupting their religion. He's not lying, but his words obviously stoke their hatred. What hit me really hard about these passages of scripture was the importance of self honesty and acceptance. The slaying of Jesus came about because some people weren't willing to accept the truth when they were being told it. Yes, it was negative what Jesus was saying, but it was not untrue. This just showed me that if we want help preparing ourselves to meet Heavenly Father again, we need to be able to accept some of the not so nice things about ourselves. Because if we can't recognize those things then we can't fix them.
There's a little passage from the Book of Mormon that goes directly with this realization:
I really like how strongly the Book of Mormon and Bible support each other and expound on each other when teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This passage does a good job of showing us that we don't have to be ashamed of our weaknesses, because we will be given the power to overcome them if we do what's right.
Background: So I was reading in the New Testament yesterday, and I've been reading it in Dutch actually. I'm doing everything I can to not lose it, so most of my scripture and Gospel study has been happening in Dutch. I hope I don't starve spiritually because of this decision, but I'm doing my best to make sure I understand everything. Google Translate is a great pseudo-dictionary.
Fun realization about the Lord's prayer: When I was reading this phrase in the Lord's prayer "En leid ons niet in verzoeking, maar verlos ons van den boze." Something caught my eye. Here, the verb leiden (English: to lead) is used with the preposition "in." (English: in) That's weird, because in modern Dutch, if you denote being led to something you say "Leid naar..." Now I understand this is older Dutch, so maybe I don't understand everything, so I did a little text search on the verb stem leid through different chapters, to see the other prepositions it was used with. I found this chapter, and in the beginning, it uses "leiden" with the preposition "tot" which can also mean "to, toward" in English, so my suspicion is correct, the phrase is not saying "And lead us not into temptation..." like in the English phrasing:"And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil." There's obviously a difference in meaning between the two translations. The Dutch one in my opinion is saying "And lead us not in temptation, but save us from evil." Which I take to mean that if you're being tempted by something, then the last part of the prayer is asking for help avoiding it, instead of it being allowed to continue with you while you're receiving Heavenly Father's help.
The most powerful lesson I learned: The thing that struck me the most about Luke Chapter 11 was the end of the chapter made it sound like Jesus drew the hatred and malice of the Pharisees and the scribes because he chastises them for corrupting their religion. He's not lying, but his words obviously stoke their hatred. What hit me really hard about these passages of scripture was the importance of self honesty and acceptance. The slaying of Jesus came about because some people weren't willing to accept the truth when they were being told it. Yes, it was negative what Jesus was saying, but it was not untrue. This just showed me that if we want help preparing ourselves to meet Heavenly Father again, we need to be able to accept some of the not so nice things about ourselves. Because if we can't recognize those things then we can't fix them.
There's a little passage from the Book of Mormon that goes directly with this realization:
"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."
- Ether 12:27
I really like how strongly the Book of Mormon and Bible support each other and expound on each other when teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This passage does a good job of showing us that we don't have to be ashamed of our weaknesses, because we will be given the power to overcome them if we do what's right.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
So I'm eating carbs again
I never told the world this, but I started eating low-carb after reading Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. He made a very compelling argument backed up by lots of research (some of it very old) showing that it's not just the "calories in, calories out" formula but triggers in our body that cause us to gain weight. He blames carbohydrates as the primary culprits for weight gain and explains the insulin cycle very well.
His short summary was that carbohydrates spike blood sugar which caused the body to release insulin, insulin causes the body's cells to absorb blood sugars and convert them to fat, therefore eating carbs is why we're fat. He also directly attacks the calories in, calories out theory citing studies showing people that are thinner eating the same amount as their thicker counterparts even in the presence of exercise and even goes on to show evidence that if you cut calories, more often than not your metabolic rate slows, the body doesn't usually use fat. I think there's exceptions to this rule when there's people that are food addicts, but for most people who have a little extra around the waist, I think this is true.
Gary then moves on to attack the notion that high blood cholesterol is caused by eating too much cholesterol. He shows examples from President Eisenhower's struggle to combat high cholesterol as evidence of the fallacy that eating too much cholesterol causes high cholesterol levels, but that they are actually caused by a high % body fat in most people (I have a cousin who has metabolic problems, so she actually does have to watch her blood cholesterol). But for normal people, Gary is right, the body absorbs cholesterol with respect to its % body fat and even creates it if the levels don't match what they should be according to your % body fat. Long story short: Lose fat if you want to lower cholesterol.
Anyway, long story short I read Gary's book just after gaining about 6% body fat. I was also eating pasta for dinner at the time I didn't eat more than 700-1000 calories and usually had less at another time of the day to make up for it and I would swim a lot too. Later, I went on to take Gary's suggestion and initially I lost about 4.5% body fat. But then after that initial loss, I started feeling really weird. Like I would be satiated (my stomach would feel fine, etc) but my body would feel starved. I ended up eating carbs on and off in order to feel better, but was still scared of them (for the most part, if I lost wieght, I'd eat more in a heartbeat).
Then I decided to do some research a few days ago that helped me understand carbohydrates better. First, you can spike your insulin levels with proteins and fats, it's just harder to. Glucose spikes insulin levels easier than proteins and fat. There are also things you can do to prevent carbohydrates from spiking your insulin levels. Eating protein and fiber with carbohydrates slows the rate of their absorption into the bloodstream. Also, most carbohydrates convert to glucose after being processed. Apparently it takes more effort for the body to store glucose as fat than fat or fructose. Fructose is wierd, it acts kind of like a fat with respect to insulin regulation, but is actually a carb. This article talks a little about this and shows how high fructose corn syrup has been linked to more weight problems here in the US.
Basically, I think Gary Taubes was right on a lot of fronts, but his demonization of carbohydrates is unnecessary. I've been feeling better since I started eating more carbs (but wisely) and think that there's a good plug to be put in for both exercise and blood sugar control.
His short summary was that carbohydrates spike blood sugar which caused the body to release insulin, insulin causes the body's cells to absorb blood sugars and convert them to fat, therefore eating carbs is why we're fat. He also directly attacks the calories in, calories out theory citing studies showing people that are thinner eating the same amount as their thicker counterparts even in the presence of exercise and even goes on to show evidence that if you cut calories, more often than not your metabolic rate slows, the body doesn't usually use fat. I think there's exceptions to this rule when there's people that are food addicts, but for most people who have a little extra around the waist, I think this is true.
Gary then moves on to attack the notion that high blood cholesterol is caused by eating too much cholesterol. He shows examples from President Eisenhower's struggle to combat high cholesterol as evidence of the fallacy that eating too much cholesterol causes high cholesterol levels, but that they are actually caused by a high % body fat in most people (I have a cousin who has metabolic problems, so she actually does have to watch her blood cholesterol). But for normal people, Gary is right, the body absorbs cholesterol with respect to its % body fat and even creates it if the levels don't match what they should be according to your % body fat. Long story short: Lose fat if you want to lower cholesterol.
Anyway, long story short I read Gary's book just after gaining about 6% body fat. I was also eating pasta for dinner at the time I didn't eat more than 700-1000 calories and usually had less at another time of the day to make up for it and I would swim a lot too. Later, I went on to take Gary's suggestion and initially I lost about 4.5% body fat. But then after that initial loss, I started feeling really weird. Like I would be satiated (my stomach would feel fine, etc) but my body would feel starved. I ended up eating carbs on and off in order to feel better, but was still scared of them (for the most part, if I lost wieght, I'd eat more in a heartbeat).
Then I decided to do some research a few days ago that helped me understand carbohydrates better. First, you can spike your insulin levels with proteins and fats, it's just harder to. Glucose spikes insulin levels easier than proteins and fat. There are also things you can do to prevent carbohydrates from spiking your insulin levels. Eating protein and fiber with carbohydrates slows the rate of their absorption into the bloodstream. Also, most carbohydrates convert to glucose after being processed. Apparently it takes more effort for the body to store glucose as fat than fat or fructose. Fructose is wierd, it acts kind of like a fat with respect to insulin regulation, but is actually a carb. This article talks a little about this and shows how high fructose corn syrup has been linked to more weight problems here in the US.
Basically, I think Gary Taubes was right on a lot of fronts, but his demonization of carbohydrates is unnecessary. I've been feeling better since I started eating more carbs (but wisely) and think that there's a good plug to be put in for both exercise and blood sugar control.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
A Stranger at a Mormon Wedding
Last week a friend invited me to go with her to a wedding in LA because she was heading over with an engaged couple and didn't want to be the third wheel. It was kind of an out of the blue invitation, but decided to go because when I prayed about it, I had a good feeling. So, I went on a weekend adventure to LA.
I actually ended up at the wedding ceremony itself (it's called a sealing when it's performed at our temple). Which is actually kind of a privilege and kind of unexpected. Sealings are performed in our temples and there isn't much room in the sealing rooms (kind of on purpose) so those attending are usually close friends and family. The biggest difference I would say between a mainstream Christianity wedding and an LDS wedding is that when a sealing is performed the ecclesiastical authority does it with the sealing power given to Peter in order for the marriage to last beyond the grave. This is because we don't believe Jesus was lying when he taught the Pharisees that people married by the priesthood held by the Levites don't keep their marriage after this life (Luke 20:27-35). But we also believe that Heavenly Father intended for the relationship between man and woman to extend beyond the grave if they are worthy (1 Corinthians 11:11) "Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord." In order to settle this seeming conflict in the Bible, we believe that the prophet Joseph Smith received revelation that instructed him that weddings performed by the sealing power given to Peter would extend beyond the grave.
I'm really grateful the family let me tag along for it. The sealer made special care to highlight certain aspects of the covenant made between the two spouses as well as the covenant they were making with the Lord. It gave me a deeper understanding of the sealing covenant. It was really cool for me at the end of the covenant as well, because after the two spouses accepted the covenant and the sealer pronounced them husband and wife, I felt a strong manifestation of the Holy Spirit. I was like "Wow, these two people are going to be together forever if they keep living the way they have."
After the wedding, I helped out with the reception. That was also a really cool experience for me because their family was really nice to me. I was a complete stranger but they treated me like I was one of them. I will probably never see them again, but I was really grateful for that experience.
I did a lot of other fun things, like hitting the beach and disneytown but I would have to say being at the sealing and helping out with the reception were the highlights of my LA trip.
I actually ended up at the wedding ceremony itself (it's called a sealing when it's performed at our temple). Which is actually kind of a privilege and kind of unexpected. Sealings are performed in our temples and there isn't much room in the sealing rooms (kind of on purpose) so those attending are usually close friends and family. The biggest difference I would say between a mainstream Christianity wedding and an LDS wedding is that when a sealing is performed the ecclesiastical authority does it with the sealing power given to Peter in order for the marriage to last beyond the grave. This is because we don't believe Jesus was lying when he taught the Pharisees that people married by the priesthood held by the Levites don't keep their marriage after this life (Luke 20:27-35). But we also believe that Heavenly Father intended for the relationship between man and woman to extend beyond the grave if they are worthy (1 Corinthians 11:11) "Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord." In order to settle this seeming conflict in the Bible, we believe that the prophet Joseph Smith received revelation that instructed him that weddings performed by the sealing power given to Peter would extend beyond the grave.
I'm really grateful the family let me tag along for it. The sealer made special care to highlight certain aspects of the covenant made between the two spouses as well as the covenant they were making with the Lord. It gave me a deeper understanding of the sealing covenant. It was really cool for me at the end of the covenant as well, because after the two spouses accepted the covenant and the sealer pronounced them husband and wife, I felt a strong manifestation of the Holy Spirit. I was like "Wow, these two people are going to be together forever if they keep living the way they have."
After the wedding, I helped out with the reception. That was also a really cool experience for me because their family was really nice to me. I was a complete stranger but they treated me like I was one of them. I will probably never see them again, but I was really grateful for that experience.
I did a lot of other fun things, like hitting the beach and disneytown but I would have to say being at the sealing and helping out with the reception were the highlights of my LA trip.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
The Ocarina
So I've been really busy lately, but I also realized that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Right now I've been focusing more on my Master's and trying to survive my only real class (Machine Learning). But I recently deleted my games. I realized video games are in no way healing or helpful, even when I need a break. They sort of help you if you have self-esteem issues (false sense of accomplishment) but give little outside that false feeling. So I've deleted mine, I don't need them any more. But what I DID do was buy an Ocarina. I'm hoping to use this as my sanity break from the world when I'm bored or feel overwhelmed.
I chose the Ocarina for a few reasons: The name sounds cool (and I was even more stoked when I found out it was real! Yes I did hear about it because of Zelda, but I am NOT an avid Zelda fan, The most I've done with the series personally was play Sheik on Smash Brother Melee on my roommate's game cube my freshman year of college, aeons ago). The Ocarina actually sounds kind of like a bird. The single-chamber ones with the largest range only have a range of an octave and a half. This seems large enough to play and learn a few interesting songs, while not being overbearing in terms of learning it. Also I played the clarinet in middle school, so I'm a little bit more at home using a wind instrument as opposed to others.
So my research has shown the cheaper ones come in plastic variety and more expensive ones are ceramic and sound better. The one I chose was this. I had seen youtube videos of people with ceramic focalink ocarinas playing Zelda themes and they souded really nice, so I decided to get it. I intentionally avoided a Zelda-style design because I didn't want it to look like I was getting the instrument because I was a Zelda fan. I DID buy the Zelda songbook, because it had a variety of songs of varying difficulty and Zelda themes don't sound too bad.
Also the 12-hole Ocarinas have two different types. One is higher, the other is lower. In my opinion Focalink's alto C is better than its Soprano G. The Soprano G goes kind of high and sounds shrill to me for that reason. It's interesting though because it's not a standardized instrument, so different companies will call the same instruments different things. STLOcarina calls Focalink's Alto C 12-hole a "Tenor 12-hole" I believe.
I really wanted to learn the "Song of the Sylph" on the Ocarina, but I guess that won't be a possibility, my sister was going to listen to it and get me the music, but she told me it doesn't have the range, she said she might be able to transpose it to a different key to get it to work. O well, I'll still have fun learning a new instrument, even if it doesn't work out. The "Song of the Sylph" is a relaxing tune. It was composed by Ben Houge and can be downloaded from his site at this link.
I chose the Ocarina for a few reasons: The name sounds cool (and I was even more stoked when I found out it was real! Yes I did hear about it because of Zelda, but I am NOT an avid Zelda fan, The most I've done with the series personally was play Sheik on Smash Brother Melee on my roommate's game cube my freshman year of college, aeons ago). The Ocarina actually sounds kind of like a bird. The single-chamber ones with the largest range only have a range of an octave and a half. This seems large enough to play and learn a few interesting songs, while not being overbearing in terms of learning it. Also I played the clarinet in middle school, so I'm a little bit more at home using a wind instrument as opposed to others.
So my research has shown the cheaper ones come in plastic variety and more expensive ones are ceramic and sound better. The one I chose was this. I had seen youtube videos of people with ceramic focalink ocarinas playing Zelda themes and they souded really nice, so I decided to get it. I intentionally avoided a Zelda-style design because I didn't want it to look like I was getting the instrument because I was a Zelda fan. I DID buy the Zelda songbook, because it had a variety of songs of varying difficulty and Zelda themes don't sound too bad.
Also the 12-hole Ocarinas have two different types. One is higher, the other is lower. In my opinion Focalink's alto C is better than its Soprano G. The Soprano G goes kind of high and sounds shrill to me for that reason. It's interesting though because it's not a standardized instrument, so different companies will call the same instruments different things. STLOcarina calls Focalink's Alto C 12-hole a "Tenor 12-hole" I believe.
I really wanted to learn the "Song of the Sylph" on the Ocarina, but I guess that won't be a possibility, my sister was going to listen to it and get me the music, but she told me it doesn't have the range, she said she might be able to transpose it to a different key to get it to work. O well, I'll still have fun learning a new instrument, even if it doesn't work out. The "Song of the Sylph" is a relaxing tune. It was composed by Ben Houge and can be downloaded from his site at this link.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Why I've been away
Well at the beginning of Fall semester, my Master's proposal got tanked and I had to change it. Basically, neither me or my advisor liked my project looking back at it. So I spent a lot of Fall semester rewriting a new proposal. The good news: It passed! I have permission to move on and do the new project. The bad news: I'm awfully behind. I'm trying to get enough done now so it won't be hard to finish it off when I get back from my internship at Google this summer. I guess maybe I should make some posts about Google along the way. I'm super excited because the project seems to be very useful for the people using the service (I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to disclose).
So long story short: Sorry I haven't been around much if you liked any of my posts.
The good news: I've been swimming still! In fact, I bought some hand paddles because I THINK I'm ready for them now! Also, I got my best time so far on 1600 yds today (28:41). I'd also like to put in a good word for Yoga. The yoga I've been doing every week appears to be paying off! I don't have as many shoulder problems during swimming as I did before I started yoga. I go to a yoga class once a week and I do some basic stretches/poses right before going to bed.
The only annoying thing about it, is I'm usually the only guy there. It's weird because in Seattle, usually at least 1/4th of the class was guys. Here in Utah, like 3% (me). I don't know why but I feel like in Utah, gender associations with certain activities are a lot stronger. Which is kind of weird to me because it's not like the LDS religion preaches yoga is only for girls. O well. I'll swallow my man pride in this case for the sake of health and performance
So long story short: Sorry I haven't been around much if you liked any of my posts.
The good news: I've been swimming still! In fact, I bought some hand paddles because I THINK I'm ready for them now! Also, I got my best time so far on 1600 yds today (28:41). I'd also like to put in a good word for Yoga. The yoga I've been doing every week appears to be paying off! I don't have as many shoulder problems during swimming as I did before I started yoga. I go to a yoga class once a week and I do some basic stretches/poses right before going to bed.
The only annoying thing about it, is I'm usually the only guy there. It's weird because in Seattle, usually at least 1/4th of the class was guys. Here in Utah, like 3% (me). I don't know why but I feel like in Utah, gender associations with certain activities are a lot stronger. Which is kind of weird to me because it's not like the LDS religion preaches yoga is only for girls. O well. I'll swallow my man pride in this case for the sake of health and performance
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Another Recipe
So world I'm really sorry I haven't been around much lately. It's kind of been one thing after another taking up my time. BUT here's another recipe, it's in Dutch, but the picture of it looked amazing!
Je hebt nodig:
- een biscuit van 20 cm (zelf bakken en sommige taartwinkels verkopen ze ook gewoon)
- 2 x grote reep melk chocola van 200 gr (mag gewoon Jumbo, AH merk zijn)
- bekertje (250 ml) slagroom
- vulling voor de taart naar keuze (bijv. een laagje jam/vlaaifruit en een laag banketbakkersroom, slagroom of botercreme.
- 3 x een five-pack KitKat
- 1 pakje (250 gr) lichtroze marsepein
- taartzaag of groot mes
- sate prikker (voor de oogjes vh varkentje)
- lint
- plat bord of plank om de taart op te zetten
Van te voren maak je alvast de varkentjes, hier is geen echte werkwijze voor...gewoon een beetje boetseren zoals op de lagere school vroeger ;)
Doe de slagroom in een pannetje en zet op laag vuur.
Blijven roeren tot het net niet kookt.
Ondertussen de reep chocola in blokjes breken.
Als de slagroom bijna kookt het vuur uit en in gedeeltes de blokjes chocola erdoor roeren.
Goed roeren tot je een gladde massa hebt.
Dit af laten koelen en dikker laten worden en af en toe roeren(duurt wel een poosje).
In de tussentijd je biscuit wat je al gebakken hebt in 2 lagen snijden, en je taart vullen met je vulling naar keuze.
Hou je taart voorlopig nog even op een broodplank of andere ondergrond wat je makkelijk kan ronddraaien want de zijkanten afsmeren wordt dalijk een lekkere kliederboel :)
Breek alvast de kitkats in 2-en en leg ze klaar.
Kijk hoe het is met het chocolademengsel, als hij ongeveer zo dik is als bijv. vla kun je de zijkanten gaan insmeren ermee.
Gebruik een spatel of gewoon de achterkant van een mes.
Als je de hele taart rondom hebt ingesmeerd ga je de kitkats er tegenaan plakken.
Dit is een lastig klusje, de kitkats blijven nog niet genoeg plakken dus vallen af en toe om.
Zet ze dan een heel klein beetje schuin zodat ze tegen je taart aan leunen.
Als ze er allemaal omheen zitten doe je er snel een lint omheen en zet je ze allemaal mooi recht.
Als de rest van het choco mengsel nog net vloeibaar is giet je dit bovenop de taart.
Let op, las het nog te dun is gaat het door de kitkats heen lopen!
Vervolgens zet je de varkentjes in de nog zachte chocolade en zet in de koelkast.
Na een uurtje kun je de taart op een mooi bord zetten en serveren, eet smakelijk!
Je hebt nodig:
- een biscuit van 20 cm (zelf bakken en sommige taartwinkels verkopen ze ook gewoon)
- 2 x grote reep melk chocola van 200 gr (mag gewoon Jumbo, AH merk zijn)
- bekertje (250 ml) slagroom
- vulling voor de taart naar keuze (bijv. een laagje jam/vlaaifruit en een laag banketbakkersroom, slagroom of botercreme.
- 3 x een five-pack KitKat
- 1 pakje (250 gr) lichtroze marsepein
- taartzaag of groot mes
- sate prikker (voor de oogjes vh varkentje)
- lint
- plat bord of plank om de taart op te zetten
Van te voren maak je alvast de varkentjes, hier is geen echte werkwijze voor...gewoon een beetje boetseren zoals op de lagere school vroeger ;)
Doe de slagroom in een pannetje en zet op laag vuur.
Blijven roeren tot het net niet kookt.
Ondertussen de reep chocola in blokjes breken.
Als de slagroom bijna kookt het vuur uit en in gedeeltes de blokjes chocola erdoor roeren.
Goed roeren tot je een gladde massa hebt.
Dit af laten koelen en dikker laten worden en af en toe roeren(duurt wel een poosje).
In de tussentijd je biscuit wat je al gebakken hebt in 2 lagen snijden, en je taart vullen met je vulling naar keuze.
Hou je taart voorlopig nog even op een broodplank of andere ondergrond wat je makkelijk kan ronddraaien want de zijkanten afsmeren wordt dalijk een lekkere kliederboel :)
Breek alvast de kitkats in 2-en en leg ze klaar.
Kijk hoe het is met het chocolademengsel, als hij ongeveer zo dik is als bijv. vla kun je de zijkanten gaan insmeren ermee.
Gebruik een spatel of gewoon de achterkant van een mes.
Als je de hele taart rondom hebt ingesmeerd ga je de kitkats er tegenaan plakken.
Dit is een lastig klusje, de kitkats blijven nog niet genoeg plakken dus vallen af en toe om.
Zet ze dan een heel klein beetje schuin zodat ze tegen je taart aan leunen.
Als ze er allemaal omheen zitten doe je er snel een lint omheen en zet je ze allemaal mooi recht.
Als de rest van het choco mengsel nog net vloeibaar is giet je dit bovenop de taart.
Let op, las het nog te dun is gaat het door de kitkats heen lopen!
Vervolgens zet je de varkentjes in de nog zachte chocolade en zet in de koelkast.
Na een uurtje kun je de taart op een mooi bord zetten en serveren, eet smakelijk!
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Best Cheesecake Ever!
My sister made an amazing cheesecake for New Year's. Here's a link to the original recipe.
Here's the recipe (just in case it vanishes. It's a recipe too good to lose!)
Here's the recipe (just in case it vanishes. It's a recipe too good to lose!)
Dark Chocolate Cheesecake with Chocolate Hazelnut Ganache, Toasted Hazelnuts, & Sea Salt
A rich, decadent cheesecake with dark chocolate
topped with a chocolate hazelnut butter ganache, toasted hazelnuts, and
sea salt. Chocolate heaven and mind-blowing.
Author: Monique of AmbitiousKitchen.com
Recipe type: Dessert, Cheesecake
Serves: 16
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup FAGE Total Greek Yogurt 2%
- 24 ounces cream cheese, softened at room temperature
- 3 large eggs
- 1 large egg yolk
- 10 ounces (1 1/4 cup) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (use dark cocoa for more intensity)
- 10 ounces 72% dark chocolate, chopped
- 25 chocolate sandwich cookies (Oreos are good)
- 1 cup hazelnuts
- 1/4 cup butter, melted
- Chocolate Hazelnut Ganache:
- 4 ounces (1/2 cup) chocolate hazelnut butter (Nutella)
- 4 ounces (1/2 cup) heavy cream
- 2 ounces 72% dark chocolate, chopped
- 1/4 cup toasted hazelnuts, chopped
- 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt, plus more if desired
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-inch springform pan.
- Place chocolate sandwich cookies and hazelnuts in a food processor and pulse until finely ground; add melted butter and process again until well combined and cookie crumbs resemble wet sand.
- Scrape into prepared pan and use fingers to press into the bottom and up the side of the pan, making sure the crust is even. Bake in oven for 10-12 minutes. Place on wire rack to cool. Keep oven temperature.
- Prepare cheesecake filling by placing 10 oz. of chopped chocolate in a double boiler until smooth and creamy. Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes.
- In an electric or stand mixer, beat cream cheese and FAGE Total 2% Greek Yogurt until smooth and fluffy. Add in sugar and cocoa powder and beat again until smooth, then add in eggs and egg yolks; blending until there is a silky consistency. Fold in melted chocolate until well combined.
- Pour chocolate cheesecake filling over the cooled crust and smooth the top with a spatula. Tap a few times to release any air in the batter.
- Bake until center is just set and just appears dry, about 1 hour and 15 minutes, but check at 1 hour. Do not worry if the cheesecake cracks while baking; this will be covered with ganache.
- Cool the cheesecake 10 minutes, then run a knife around the crust to loosen it. Chill the cheesecake a minimum of 4 hours in fridge, although overnight is best.
- To make the Chocolate Hazelnut Ganache:
- In a medium saucepan, heat cream over medium-low heat. Add chocolate hazelnut butter and stir until smooth. Add in 2 ounces of chopped dark chocolate and stir until melted. Pour or drizzle over the center of the chocolate cheesecake and spread to outer edges to help cover any cracks. Top with toasted hazelnuts and sprinkle with sea salt.
- Serve while ganache is warm or place in refrigerator to cool. Cut into 12-16 slices and enjoy!
Sunday, October 28, 2012
This week in review
Swimming:
We started working on the Butterfly. I've never felt so tired after a workout. Ever. But my abs seemed a little more tone than normal the next day, so much so I'm going to start taking a day to focus on the Butterfly once a week. Hopefully I'll be able to do it.
Software Development:
My brother gave me an idea for an Android app about a month ago, so right now I'm actively working on that. About 30 minutes a day. I don't think I have much time outside of that. I'm also working on reviewing questions for interviewing. That's for about 15 minutes a day. I'm also reviewing different programming strategies for about 15 minutes a day. Right now I'm focusing on a book called Design Patterns. Erich Gamma is one of the authors. I need to order some books on testing because I think that was a weakness of mine I picked up on during my Amazon internship. That's this week I'm going to do that.I feel like Amazon taught me you need to be consistently working on your skills and applying them on your own time in order to stay on top of the game. We'll see how I do at that ; ).
So my brother's idea included graphing data, but given the context of what the data is used for, I feel like a graph doesn't show the data accurately enough to be useful. I'm going to suggest to him a different data layout where the averages, highs and lows are shown for the statistics he wanted and have a way of accessing the actual data for more details, we'll see.
Spiritual Health:
So I've been rereading the Book of Mormon over the last 6 months or so. Something I think is really awesome is the feelings I get while reading. I don't get them all the time, but the peace and strength I feel when I read it parches a thirst of mine that's hard to describe in words. Next I'll read the New Testament. That's also a good place to read the scriptures and comes with the same sorts of awesome feelings. These sources show how little hate speech there is in religion and how much God loves us.
I believe the tone towards religion has gotten a lot more judgmental of late but I don't think people are remembering all the good things religion is trying to teach us just because they don't agree with a few points. Something that I find frustrating as a member of the LDS Church is people think we're anti-gay because of the whole Proposition 8 thing. What they don't know is that the LDS Church lobbied in favor of civil unions in Salt Lake City, they also lobbied in favor of non-discrimination of gays and lesbians in Salt Lake in opportunities of employment and housing (check it out here) . I think what people forget is that one of our core doctrines is the sacredness and power of the family unit, and how important it is (a good piece of literature on that is here). Prop 8 was about protecting the family, not about hate or restricting civil rights and the LDS Church's record attests to that. And I really wish there was better dialogue between both sides of this issue so a compromise was reached. I'm pretty sure if both sides talked more about what they wanted and what they needed, they could come up with an agreement and if everyone supports it, then it will become law. Look at how fast voting rights for 18-year-olds came in the 70s. The quicker everyone has the same idea, the easier it is to make it law.
We started working on the Butterfly. I've never felt so tired after a workout. Ever. But my abs seemed a little more tone than normal the next day, so much so I'm going to start taking a day to focus on the Butterfly once a week. Hopefully I'll be able to do it.
Software Development:
My brother gave me an idea for an Android app about a month ago, so right now I'm actively working on that. About 30 minutes a day. I don't think I have much time outside of that. I'm also working on reviewing questions for interviewing. That's for about 15 minutes a day. I'm also reviewing different programming strategies for about 15 minutes a day. Right now I'm focusing on a book called Design Patterns. Erich Gamma is one of the authors. I need to order some books on testing because I think that was a weakness of mine I picked up on during my Amazon internship. That's this week I'm going to do that.I feel like Amazon taught me you need to be consistently working on your skills and applying them on your own time in order to stay on top of the game. We'll see how I do at that ; ).
So my brother's idea included graphing data, but given the context of what the data is used for, I feel like a graph doesn't show the data accurately enough to be useful. I'm going to suggest to him a different data layout where the averages, highs and lows are shown for the statistics he wanted and have a way of accessing the actual data for more details, we'll see.
Spiritual Health:
So I've been rereading the Book of Mormon over the last 6 months or so. Something I think is really awesome is the feelings I get while reading. I don't get them all the time, but the peace and strength I feel when I read it parches a thirst of mine that's hard to describe in words. Next I'll read the New Testament. That's also a good place to read the scriptures and comes with the same sorts of awesome feelings. These sources show how little hate speech there is in religion and how much God loves us.
I believe the tone towards religion has gotten a lot more judgmental of late but I don't think people are remembering all the good things religion is trying to teach us just because they don't agree with a few points. Something that I find frustrating as a member of the LDS Church is people think we're anti-gay because of the whole Proposition 8 thing. What they don't know is that the LDS Church lobbied in favor of civil unions in Salt Lake City, they also lobbied in favor of non-discrimination of gays and lesbians in Salt Lake in opportunities of employment and housing (check it out here) . I think what people forget is that one of our core doctrines is the sacredness and power of the family unit, and how important it is (a good piece of literature on that is here). Prop 8 was about protecting the family, not about hate or restricting civil rights and the LDS Church's record attests to that. And I really wish there was better dialogue between both sides of this issue so a compromise was reached. I'm pretty sure if both sides talked more about what they wanted and what they needed, they could come up with an agreement and if everyone supports it, then it will become law. Look at how fast voting rights for 18-year-olds came in the 70s. The quicker everyone has the same idea, the easier it is to make it law.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
O Toto, we need to find a way back home... (part 2)
So I believe I've already made a blog post about this experience. It's the experience I had that led to me going on a mission, I'm making another post about it because it plays directly into what I have to do now as a temple preparation instructor.
So I remember I used to be really in love with this song called "When Things Go Wrong" by Airwave. The only place I could listen to it was in a video of some gameplay from a game I played. In the background there was a clip from the "Wizard of Oz" being replayed by actors.
One day when I was listening to this song, Dorothy's phrase "O Toto we need to find a way back home" started echoing in my mind. I can't explain why, or what was happening, but it started resonating inside my mind and soul. Suddenly, I remembered that I was a spirit child of my Heavenly Father and that I lived with him before I was born. At the time I had a horrible relationship with my own father, but somehow that memory was powerful enough to make me realize that my Heavenly Father still cared about and loved me, and that His home, the place I belonged was somewhere I wanted to be.
It was at that moment I realized I wasn't trying to go back home anymore and I needed to change that. When I was praying about what I needed to change in order to go back home, I got the answer that I should go on a mission. I didn't understand it then, but I realize now the reason why I was given that answer was our Heavenly Father wants everyone back home and He wanted me to try to help Him lead His children back home by teaching them how to build a relationship with Him and how to Follow Him.
The reason why this plays directly into my temple preparation class I have to teach is the first lesson I have to teach is on the Plan of Salvation, where I talk about where we were before this life and where we're going. I can't wait to tell my students about my experience! I'm planning on putting a lot of emphasis on the premortal life and Jesus Christ, because it's only through Him that we can make it back home to Our Heavenly Father.
I guess I have a strong conviction of that too, because I realized the more I've tried to follow Him, the closer I've felt to my Heavenly Father, so I know Jesus Christ is also real and his role is central to Heavenly Father's plan. I'm SO stoked for tomorrow (when I get to teach the lesson I just prepared).
As a side note, the guy who was in charge of calling instructors for classes in the group of members I meet with on Sundays said that he picked temple instructors first, and that my name came out on top. I don't think that's any sort of coincidence given my experience.
So I remember I used to be really in love with this song called "When Things Go Wrong" by Airwave. The only place I could listen to it was in a video of some gameplay from a game I played. In the background there was a clip from the "Wizard of Oz" being replayed by actors.
One day when I was listening to this song, Dorothy's phrase "O Toto we need to find a way back home" started echoing in my mind. I can't explain why, or what was happening, but it started resonating inside my mind and soul. Suddenly, I remembered that I was a spirit child of my Heavenly Father and that I lived with him before I was born. At the time I had a horrible relationship with my own father, but somehow that memory was powerful enough to make me realize that my Heavenly Father still cared about and loved me, and that His home, the place I belonged was somewhere I wanted to be.
It was at that moment I realized I wasn't trying to go back home anymore and I needed to change that. When I was praying about what I needed to change in order to go back home, I got the answer that I should go on a mission. I didn't understand it then, but I realize now the reason why I was given that answer was our Heavenly Father wants everyone back home and He wanted me to try to help Him lead His children back home by teaching them how to build a relationship with Him and how to Follow Him.
The reason why this plays directly into my temple preparation class I have to teach is the first lesson I have to teach is on the Plan of Salvation, where I talk about where we were before this life and where we're going. I can't wait to tell my students about my experience! I'm planning on putting a lot of emphasis on the premortal life and Jesus Christ, because it's only through Him that we can make it back home to Our Heavenly Father.
I guess I have a strong conviction of that too, because I realized the more I've tried to follow Him, the closer I've felt to my Heavenly Father, so I know Jesus Christ is also real and his role is central to Heavenly Father's plan. I'm SO stoked for tomorrow (when I get to teach the lesson I just prepared).
As a side note, the guy who was in charge of calling instructors for classes in the group of members I meet with on Sundays said that he picked temple instructors first, and that my name came out on top. I don't think that's any sort of coincidence given my experience.
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