Assassin's Creed 3

I play video games on a PlayStation 3. I really enjoy them. I play third person shooters. I like Open World best. A first person shooter is kind of like a cheap virtual reality. The game behaves as if the player is using the weapon. A third person shooter is where the player controls a character that is using weapons. They are called shooters, but, the weapon can be anything. In the game Infamous the weapon is electrical discharge. In the Uncharted series the weapon is usually a gun. In the Assassin's Creed series the weapon is usually a knife or sword.

I don't like the God of War series, or Devil May Cry, because I am not into chasing around the power-up jewels or beads that are bouncing around. I like Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, Battlefield, Call of Duty, The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption, even Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is okay.

Open world means the character can go anywhere in the game world. Closed world means the character has to follow a particular path.

I was just recently introduced to the Assassin's Creed series and I really liked it, until I got to AC3. What a crappy game. I played for a few days and somewhere in the 60% completed I asked myself why I was playing a game that just wasn't fun. I shut the game down, ejected the disk and I will return it to the person I borrowed it from. I have never done that, just quit playing a game.

Sure, I have set games aside for a week or even a month or two. Stuff happens, life happens, we run into game play that becomes frustrating. I would bet almost everyone has set aside a game or two for a while. That is not what I am doing with Assassin's Creed 3 (AC3). I doubt if I will play it ever again.

Game play can be difficult. Assassin's Creed took game development to a new level of stupidity.

Essentially, to complete any task in any video game, the user has to perform a series of button pushes in the correct order within a developer specified time limit. If the focus groups playing the Alpha versions and the Beta versions complain about the game play being too easy there are three ways to make it harder really cheaply. These are things the developers can do without delaying the game release date too much. Sometimes these are frustrating, but, they can also enhance game play when properly used. Improperly used they make games suck.

The first way is to over-ride the user set controls sensitivity setting. This makes the character suddenly more difficult to control. Making the time between button pushes really short is another function of this. The game becomes harder, but, not because the game is actually harder, because the developers mucked with the controls.

The second way is to change camera angle suddenly. Since character control is based on the view, changing the view makes the character more difficult to control. Again, the game is not more difficult, character control becomes more difficult.

The third way is to eliminate hints on what actions are required to achieve the developer set goals.

Here is an example of “hints”. In Assassin's Creed 3, there is a “lock picking” function. The user uses the left and right joy sticks to control the lock picking tools and then, when the tools are correct, the user presses the R1 button (on PlayStation) to pick the lock. Every time the user goes to pick a lock the screen provides hints on what controls combinations are required to pick a lock. It is always the same control combinations.

But, this is the exception in Assassin's Creed 3. Most of the time users are left to figure out what combination of buttons are required to achieve the developer set goals. That is frustrating enough, then add tons of weird camera angles, control sensitivity over-rides, ever shorter time limits on button events, software bugs galore and the game goes from being tolerable to the point where it just isn't fun to play.

There are other stupid things too. For example, I have every “Treasure Chest” in the game, except for one chest in Central Boston. People who have played the game know that this is because this chest isn't identified on the “Treasure Chest” map. This is caused by “removing hints”.

Then there are the software bugs. I cleared Fort Division 5 or 6 times before it actually worked. Don't get me started on every other bug I encountered. When I say cleared, I mean walking around in the fort after I had my character kill all the “bad guys”. I kept wandering around looking for more to kill even after I took the treasure.

The hunting stuff was a little bit of a pain to get at the beginning, but, at least they used button hints so that eventually I became really good at it. I was able to hunt bear, wolves, bobcat and cougar pretty easily, except, when they made it near impossible to react fast enough to the key hit prompts. I have arthritis so moving fast enough for the wolves on Oak Island was difficult. Oh, and find Captain Kidd's Treasure just to have it destroyed by the explosion used to clear away the entrance to the treasure. Dumb. Once I got the hang of it, making money by hunting down thirty or so bears, wolves bobcat or elk was easy. That is how a game should be, tough at first, then fairly easy when you get the hang of it.

In Uncharted the “Crushing” difficulty adds more bad guys and makes aiming a little more sensitive (I think). The enemies also seem to be slightly harder to kill. Not in AC3, enemies require weird and undocumented button combinations with weird timing.

The actual story history is pretty bad too. The history is from a typical grade school history book. Adding in some Howard Zinn, “A People's History” and information from a history book called “American Insurgents” by I forget who and maybe the history lesson in the game would have been okay. At least it would have been much more realistic.

Okay, so cheesy bad game development, poor overall history, poor story line, tons of bugs and the end result is a game I really wanted to enjoy and ended up hating.

Truthfully, it seems like the developers at Ubisoft took the best cool features from Uncharted, Red Dead Redemption and some other games by other developers, incorporated them into the Assassin's Creed series and then, at the last minute, tried to make the game more difficult by eliminating hints, screwing with control sensitivity. The changes probably created a ton of the bugs in the software. Stupid development.

There are things I did like about Assassin's Creed 3, the hunting, the lock picking, task lists. Red Dead Redemption needed better task lists to help users achieve 100% game play. I don't think I ever got to 100% on Red Dead, but, I did in the 90s somewhere. AC3 had good task lists. Like all the games there was a good way to earn money, although, in other games it was easier because there was less user involvement. The buying and selling goods worked well enough once the user has the hang of it. I liked that the apprentice assassins never died, they were just unavailable.

I liked Assassin's Creed 2. I even liked AC Brotherhood, even though I suddenly found myself in the end game with a world's crappiest weapon (The Apple of Eden) and armor that didn't work, well before I had acquired the best armor or weapons through game play. The game was fun, and the next time I play it I will avoid taking on the end game until I want to. Sure, I beat it first time through without dying, but, I would rather have gotten to that point after I had the right armor and weapons and all my assassins ready. Even if I can't use my assassins or weapons during the end game.

I am looking for someone to borrow Assassin's Creed 4 off of, since I don't want to spend money on a game after the disaster Assassin's Creed 3 was.

Assassin's Creed 3 will probably go down in history as the defining way “not to sequel a game”. Assassin's Creed 5 is coming out soon and that is a game I am not looking forward to. If someone I know buys it and loans it to me, okay, but, I am not buying it until after I play it.

Being someone whose lamp has enough oil

I used to study the Greek and Hebrew and commentaries and everything else around the Bible.  Then one day I was reading the parable of the Sower in Matthew 13 and I realized that all my study of what everyone else thought about the scripture and the definitions of words was pretty much a waste of time.  I realized that the reason I had to study was because I was not depending on God, rather I depended on my own understanding of what God had written, and this was a huge mistake that Christ warns us about.

"For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them."

Being saved I had become one of those who had a lamp and could await Christ, but, because I depended on my own understanding and the understanding of other people I was not one of those who would accompany Christ.  (This "not enough oil" reference is from Matthew 25, the parable of 10 Virgins with lamps waiting on the Bridegroom.  5 have enough oil and five think they are ready and are not.)

I started studying the Bible and praying and a whole new world opened up, a world of scripture that most people didn't see and couldn't hear.

I realized there were many more Apostles at the time of Christ than just the 12, I realized that in the parable of the Sower I was dirt with tares that required tilling and I had to allow God to till me to become good soil, I realized so many things, most of all I realized how people kept rejecting Christ and God's Prophets even though they studied the scripture constantly and lived according to their understanding of God's laws, I realized what the Bible meant when even the 12 did not understand the parable of the Sower and over the years I have heard so many people tell it wrong, even after Christ explains it.

One day in a Bible Study with people who had been studying the Bible for years, many who had studied it far longer than I had, I asked what people were in the parable of the Sower.  I was told people are the Sower and the Seed even though Christ explains quite well that we are the soil, the dirt.  People can read, listen and hear and never understand unless they open their heart to God and God opens their heart to God's Word.

For over 20 years now I have been telling people not to listen to me, or any other person, but, to listen to God and only God.  No one is perfect, but, we can focus on listening to God and learning from God or we can focus on listening to people and learning from people.  Do we seek the things of people or the things of God?  (John 5:44, Galatians 1:10, Colossians 3:1, Hebrew 11:6)

Romans 3 is popular, There is none righteous, it also tells us that there is none that understandeth and none that seeketh after God.  While we quote "there is none righteous" often, we rarely accept that God (through Paul) was talking about us as well when he wrote, "There is none that understands, none that seek God."

Truly no one seeks God perfectly, no one understands perfectly just as no one is perfectly righteous (save Christ).  So, do we depend on each other for understanding?  Do we depend on a sheep to lead sheep?  that depends on where someone places their Faith, in people (other sheep) or the Shepherd, Christ.

9 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.

These days I use Greek and Hebrew and other definitions of people to get people to think and, hopefully pray.  What usually happens is a person will go ask another person because their faith is in people and that is sad, but, come End Days Christ will be able to give people examples in their own lives about how they chose people over God.

Every once in a long while I am not ridiculed and a person will actually pray and begin to listen to God and that is a blessing.

Adjusting your Backpack

Yesterday I went for a hike on the Potowatomi at Pickney State Recreation Area in Michigan.  Great hike.  It was the 50th anniversary of the trail and I drove out expecting about a 5 mile hike.  When I arrived at park head quarters they were not sure where it started, after a while I was directed to the Boy Scout camp, Camp Munhacke.  Once there I registered and was told the walk was 8 miles.

I am not in great shape these days, so I was a little concerned.  I figured as long as I took my time I would be fine so I walked slow.  The hike ended up being 9.5 miles (about) and it took me 6.5 hours to complete it.  This is less than 1.5 mph, but, I did complete the hike without having a stroke, so I am pretty proud of myself.  When I first got sick, there was a time when I couldn't walk up three flights of stairs without resting on each landing.  Yes, this pace is about 1/2 of a normal 3mph pace, but, at least I can do it.

Along the route about 100 Boy Scouts and their leaders passed me because I was moving so slow.  Almost all of them had their back packs adjusted wrong.  How do I know?  There should be almost no weight on the shoulder straps.

Badly adjusted packs make a hike miserable.  It is important to learn how to adjust your pack.

Modern backpacks are designed with padded hip belts, but, even un-padded hip belts reduce the shoulder load.  I was wearing a hydration pack with lunch and a few emergency supplies in it.  I tightened the waist belt, loosened the shoulder straps and allowed my legs to carry the weight of the pack instead of my shoulders and back.

Here is how you adjust your pack.  You can do this loaded or unloaded, I actually suggest having about 20 pounds in the pack.

Hoist your pack onto your back.  If you don't know how, get someone to show you.  This involves lifting it up onto your knee and then kind of swinging it onto your back.

Now tighten the waist or hip belt slightly, making sure the belt is actually around your waist and the hip pads, if equipped, are on your hip bones.

If the pack has adjustable straps, the straps should attach to the pack slightly above your shoulders.

If the pack has adjustable attachment points for the hip belt, adjust the hip belt and the shoulder straps so that the pack sits as low on the hip belt as possible, with the hip belt tight on your hips and the top of the shoulder straps slightly above your shoulders.

If the pack can't be adjusted so that the shoulder straps, when the hip belt is tight around your waist, are slightly above your shoulders the pack is the wrong size.

Packs come in different sizes based on torso length, the distance from the top of the shoulders to the hips.  I need a big pack, about 25 inches.  My internal pack is 19 inches and my Jansport external pack, my favorite pack, is sized correctly.  I use my internal frame pack occasionally when I have light loads to carry.

When carrying your pack no weight should be resting on your shoulders.

There is a chest strap, commonly called a sternum strap.  That strap keeps the shoulder straps from falling off of your shoulders because there is no weight on your shoulders.

When there is weight on your shoulders, you will learn forward and this destroys your walking ergonomics.

Learn how to adjust your pack.  It will make your trip much more enjoyable.

Cost of LED Bulbs and Return on Investment

I like LED bulbs.  A while back I decided I should put together a spread sheet to figure out the return on investment on LED bulbs.

It isn't hard, put in the total amount of your electrical bill, enter the number of KWh you purchased for that amount of money and then divide the cost by the KWh, then divide KWh by 1,000 to get your actual cost of electricity per watt hour.  EC.

Now, we can enter some equations to calculate the total cost of each of the bulb styles, incandescent, fluorescent and LED.  These are not difficult calculations.  We need typical bulb life, bulb cost, electricity cost and bulb wattage.  Once we enter the formulas in a spread sheet we can change the values and see how things "compute".

EC = Electricity Cost
BL = Bulb Life
BW = Bulb Wattage
BC = Bulb Cost

Suppose we have an incandescent bulb and we enter 1,000 into a cell for Bulb Life.  In another cell we enter 25,000 for the LED bulb life.  For total bulb cost we divide LED BL (LED Bulb Life) by I BL (Incandescent Bulb Life) and then multiply that number by I BC (Incandescent Bulb Cost).  in this case it takes 25 incandescent bulbs to replace an LED bulb at a cost of $0.25 so the total cost for the Incandescent bulbs is $8.25.

(25,000 / 1000) * $0.25) = $8.25
(LED BL / I BL) * I BC =  Sub-Total I BC

Now we multiply the wattage of the bulb by the LED BL, (LED Bulb Life), by the EC (Electricity Cost) and add the cost of the bulb to determine Total Bulb Cost.

((LED BL * BW) * EC) + Sub-Total I BC) = Total I BC

Now we can change the bulb life times and the bulb costs to compare total costs.

Suppose we say a fluorescent bulb costs $0.50, lasts 6,000 hours, an LED bulb costs $7.50 and lasts 25,000 hours, the fluorescent bulb costs about $11.00 more over the life of the bulb.

The problem with LED bulbs is that they do not always last as long as advertised.

If the LED costs $20.00 and lasts 10,000 hours the LED bulb is about $10.00 more expensive than the fluorescent.  If the fluorescent lasts 12,500 hours the fluorescent is about $12.00 cheaper.  If the LED lasts 25,000 hours and costs $20, the fluorescent is about $3.00 cheaper over the life of the bulbs.  If the fluorescent lasts 6,000 hours the fluorescent is about $2.00 cheaper.

Plug in your own numbers, how much you pay for bulbs and electricity, what kinds of wattage you use and you will figure out what the costs are depending on bulb life and cost and electricity cost.

For me, after crunching the numbers, the break even is about $8.00 apiece for LED bulbs so if an LED bulb runs more than about $8.00 it isn't going to provide any savings for me over a fluorescent bulb.

You can crunch the numbers yourself and figure out what your specific numbers are.

Recently, in my area, Ikea lowered the cost of 60 watt equivalent bulbs to $7.50.  I figure someone ran the same numbers I did and came up with some numbers similar to mine.

On the other hand, LED bulbs at Home Depot are still too expensive, which means either other manufacturers or Home Depot are too stupid to set practical price points for bulbs.

EDIT:  Home Depot currently has Cree 60 watt equivalent LED bulbs for $7.97, which is my price point.  Check prices everywhere, you might find better deals.

Romans 1:27, examining the translation

Anyone interested in better understanding scripture is going to study the crap out of it with the Holy Spirit, so, my suggestion is to focus on the Holy Spirit and ignore what people, including me, have to say.

That said, most people are really twisted when they interpret what the Bible tells them.  In the first place, they hand defining the words they read over to people.  Does God define the word AND the same way people do?  The ways of God are not the ways of people, so, don't depend on what your second grade teacher taught you for your salvation.  Check everything with God.

Someone asked me about Romans 1:26-7,
²⁶ For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
²⁷ And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Romans 1:27

KJV word	Strongs	Greek Word	Word Translation
And	g5037	τέ	also
likewise	g3668	ὁμοίως	same
also	g2532	καί	and
the men,	g730	ἄρρην	masculine
leaving	g863	ἀφίημι	send away
the natural	g5446	φυσικός	natural
use	g5540	χρῆσις	useful
of the woman,	g2338	θῆλυς	female
burned	g1572	ἐκκαίω	inflame
in	g1722	ἐν	in
their	g846	αὐτός	this
lust	g3715	ὄρεξις	desire
one toward another;	g1519	εἰς	in
↑	g240	ἀλλήλων	each other
men	g730	ἄρρην	masculine
with	g1722	ἐν en	in
men	g730	ἄρρην	masculine
working	g2716	κατεργάζομαι	achieve through labor
that which is unseemly,	g808	ἀσχημοσύνη	nakedness, indecency
and	g2532	καί	also
receiving	g618	ἀπολαμβάνω	grasping
in	g1722	ἐν en	and
themselves	g1438	ἑαυτοῦ	himself or herself
that recompence	g489	ἀντιμισθία	compensation
of their	g846	αὐτός	this
error	g4106	πλάνη	straying
which	g3739	ὅς	who, which, that
was meet.	g1163	δεῖ	seen

Being the kind of guy I am, I do not take anyone's word, except the Holy Ghost, for anything.  I am not saying that the Holy Ghost gave me this specific interpretation, but, I am suggesting that not everything is translated exactly as God would have liked it to be.  If we look at the individual words we can see there was some interpretation of how the Greek was translated into English.  This is pretty common, and when we include how word definitions have changed since King James had the Bible translated it becomes even more important to pray for understanding over every single word of the Bible.

So 1:27 tells us mano-e-mano is a bad thing, right?  I don't think so.  In fact, I translate it (in context with 1:26) a little more like this:

"also Men misusing women, inflamed in lust, with (encouraging) each other to take them (women) immorally and straying from that which is (commonly) seen"

Huh?  What?  You mean, maybe Paul was continuing on with the previous passage and discussing how women are misused and wasn't discussing men misusing each other?  WTF?

Yep, I think this particular passage is mis-translated big time.  In Judaism a Rabbi would often suck the blood off an infant boy's penis during a circumcision.  With all the issues about transmittable diseases and gay politics that is frowned on these days, but, Rabbinical Scholars determined this kind of contact, non-lustful, was permissible and even required at times.

What about when we add in the lust stuff?  Yes and no, lot of disagreement among scholars every where.

I am no Greek scholar, but, I remember reading about this translation and controversy before.  I am not confident this passage is correctly translated. It is not as straight forward as some would make it appear. It is discussing unnatural lusts, and men working together to achieve unnatural lusts, but, I think the exact nature of the immorality is not as clear cut as it sounds.  Since the context of the previous passage seems to be about misusing women, in some vile and unnatural way I'm not sure how the translators jump to the conclusion that men are using each other unnaturally as opposed to encouraging each other to use women unnaturally. It may even be talking about "menage de trois".

Leviticus 18:22 is a better passage against men having intercourse.  The only contact strictly forbidden in the Bible, between males, is intercourse. Anyhow, in my opinion, this passage is not quite as clear cut as it appears.

For your own direction I would suggest prayer and listening to the Holy Ghost. Trusting our salvation to people is never a good idea, even trusting your salvation to me would be a bad idea. Prayer and focus on the Holy Spirit is the only way to Christ and Christ is the way.  :-)