Cav's Place

Last Thursday I went to have a look at a book fair, even if it was just to say that I did. Wouldn’t normally have anything to get from there anyway, and couldn’t have afforded it even if I’d have somehow found something, but usually have a look, so I did. Plus, wanted to go out one of those days to get that 50 RON bill I had set aside split into smaller ones to be able to buy a 30 RON ticket for Sunday at the charity festival organized to help the many injured in the Colectiv Club fire who still require treatment. After all, considering the dentist bills, there was no chance of being able to set aside money for a decent order of books by the end of the year, so that looked like a worthy way to spend a part of what I already had aside.
Since I had the metro card too, after leaving the fair I went to a hypermarket and bought just a few things, leaving myself with the money for the ticket and a little more for another I was, and perhaps to some extent still am, considering. And then I actually bought that 30 RON ticket from a machine, as that’s an option for one of the sites selling them, though if you use that method the tickets don’t seem to be added to your account even if you are required to put in e-mail and telephone number. Also, the machine doesn’t seem to be able to have multiple dates for an event, and since it was a three-day festival, starting Friday, and I got a one-day ticket, the receipt listed October 28 as the date. But I received an e-mail with a ticket to print which listed October 28-30, so I assumed it could be used for any one day and that proved to be the case.

Moving on to Sunday, I first attended the march organized to mark a year since the Colectiv Club fire. In fact three separate ones were announced, at first with somewhat different plans and start times, but eventually the times were settled to 1 PM to start gathering and 2 PM to start marching and the route was clarified since one of the organizers had obtained an approval to have traffic stopped so people will be able to march on the road with no problems. Another organizer continued to insist that those who’re there strictly to commemorate in a silent march should gather at the University Square fountain instead of the statues and wear white armbands, but only a small number of people tried to gather at the fountain and eventually at least most of them moved to the statues as well, before the march actually started at 2:10 PM.
Felt that it’d be rather inappropriate to look for good opportunities for pictures, but did take some, both on the way and after we gathered in front of the old factory where the club used to be, before leaving around 3:30 PM, to head to that concert, which was one of the three taking place that evening. A second one was also a charity event, but a single concert and with tickets costing as much as the three-day ones for that other one, so more than I had saved, plus that it was in a location that’d have been harder for me to get back from at a late hour, while the third was free and not meant to be a charity event in any way, but mainly to remember the dead and offer moral support to their loved ones and the injured survivors, so I didn’t think I’d belong there in any way, plus that I had no interest in any of the announced bands.

Before getting to the concert location though, I stopped at Unirii to go to the toilet, the problem being that there are just two toilets in that entire shopping center, and at least for men each one includes only one stall, two urinals and a single sink, which tends to lead to queues. But the matter was quite pressing, so I ended up using a urinal and then rushing to wash my hands without properly buttoning back my pants, so I won’t make the next person wait too long. As such, and since these old pants are somewhat hard to button properly, since at least one of the buttons tends to immediately get unbuttoned if not done last and carefully, I then moved over to the side of that area, faced a wall and struggled with it… Which must have looked somewhat suspicious to others who were there, possibly as if I was trying to pee there on the wall, as someone asked what the hell was I doing. Actually asked in English, so guess they were foreigners, but either way I just ended up turning towards them and showing my undone pants before finally managing to fix the issue while still facing them and walking out.

With that behind me, I reached the concert location just when it was listed that the doors will open and was one of the first few inside, so even if I had one of the cheaper tickets, for a seat to the side and not in front of the stage, and hadn’t made a reservation for a table, I was seated in a very good spot, having a barrel “table” all for myself on the first row to the side, so right next to the path to one of the doors, and at just the right distance from the front to get a good angle to see the stage without being too far. Or, to make it clearer, I can say that, while I did wander around a little for some, many of the pictures I took were right from my seat.
Quite sure that a couple of waiters frowned at me a few times as they were passing by though, because I didn’t order anything, but after one asked for my order a few minutes after I took my seat and I told him I have nothing to order, none asked again, nor did they stand around expectantly, and I wasn’t put in any situation requiring me to interact otherwise. So overall it was all right, and the music wasn’t bad either, though the sound left something to be desired, mainly because the vocals were below the instruments and the lyrics ended up sounding more like mumbling, most notably for the first two bands, who also asked more than once for the issue to be fixed, but not only for them. Ovidiu Anton either wasn’t affected by it or had a powerful enough voice to make it irrelevant though, and he got a standing ovation at the end, while the vocalist from Awake impressed despite the issues. Sadly, while I got 50 usable seconds of him, my attempts to film a bit of Awake and Gray Matters, just to record the sound issues and compare, failed due to the videos ending up corrupted after just a few seconds.
Unfortunately, while I did initially plan to stay to the end and then was hoping to catch a night bus back, at about 10:30 PM, so after the moment of silence for the victims and before Altar took the stage, I just got too scared of the prospect of having to walk for some two kilometers at night in an area I’m not exactly familiar with to reach the bus stop I needed and left to catch the metro, missing them and Trooper, and apparently also Statuar, who I see just took the stage at the end even though they weren’t on the schedule. Worse, I rather ran to the metro station and then ended up needing to wait seven minutes for the train, so I probably could have stayed to at least hear the short speech that the guys from Altar made before starting to sing, which I saw a post say was great but couldn’t actually find anywhere. In fact, so far found hardly anything posted from there at all, though I’m sure a fair amount was filmed.

What was rather unpleasant was that my throat was sore that day. Had started the day before, in a way that clearly indicated it wasn’t going to just pass quickly, and I actually took something for it Sunday even if I’d normally avoid doing so. Did that just that day, but have been taking some vitamin C that I found while looking through that drawer since, even if it says it expired in February of 2015, so not sure what that will do. At least the throat is much better now, had been since yesterday, but when I woke up yesterday I got a feeling that the cold may move on to a second stage and it sure did exactly that, as there’s just a nasty overall feeling now and my nose is runny and inflamed and there’s crap going down my throat. Admittedly, running yesterday definitely didn’t help my nose, and may in fact be partially to blame for this, but the weather seemed good enough and thought I was going to feel worse later this week, so had to take the opportunity.

Speaking of that run, I can probably say it was the most controlled one yet, even if it wasn’t exactly meant that way from the start. Did sort of think that maybe I should try to start slower and see what that will mean for the end, but at the same time the main goal was simply a pretty regular run, hoping just to not go over 35:30. But the actual time was 34:47, so the fifth best so far on this route, with sector times of 4:33, 5:27, 6:09, 4:34, 5:16, 5:57 and 2:51, making for lap times of 16:09 and 15:47. That makes this the first run since July with a second lap faster than the first and, even more notably, marks new sector records for the last two sectors. Beat the previous ones by a mere second in each case, but it counts, even if the overall time means it wasn’t exactly worth it.

Moving on to today, we finally have gas again. It had been cut Saturday, first with a note saying it’ll be off until 4 PM before it was announced that a leak was found in an apartment and the gas company came, turned off the gas for the whole building and simply instructed the administrator to choose a firm out of those they work with and contact them to come fix the issue on Monday. However, that wasn’t all, since an old law that had never been enforced and nobody exactly cared about until after the Colectiv Club fire was activated as a result of that and as of this year people are actually required to have gas detectors and electronic valves that automatically turn off gas if a leak is detected. According to some clarifications, buildings built before the law was originally passed and which do not have problems do not need this, even though there are reports of checks being made and people being fined large amounts anyway, but our building now had a problem, so the gas company could clearly state that they will not turn the gas back on not only until that one problem will be fixed, which did happen Monday, but until everyone in the building will sign that they agree to a check and to install detectors, the cost being split over a six-month period. And apparently that only happened this afternoon.

As for the first issue listed in this post’s title, went to that other dentist I was sent to on Monday and, while he initially said it may all be done that day, so including the reconstruction which he was also asked to do in the note I was sent there with, after being told it had already been worked on twice he said it may require two sessions, and then that wasn’t the case either, as he ended up doing only part of the job, and obviously not even getting to the reconstruction, and sending me back to this dentist here for the rest, because that root that is curved has apparently been pierced through and he can’t work on it that way. Said she should decide what to do about it, since there may be a way to try to fix something but it’s probably a matter of extracting just that, though I don’t quite see how, and letting the other two hold the tooth, which he said should work.
Needless to say, I’m unhappy with the fact that I went to have something fixed and apparently it was made worse, assuming this dentist here broke through that root before realizing she can’t handle it and sending me to this other one. Was somewhat under the impression that he was rather bothered by it as well, ending up with spoiled work which he was supposed to fix without even being told that was the case, but just passing me back to have her deal with it doesn’t exactly reflect well on him either in that case.
And one other thing that rather bothers me is how they insist on anesthetics, her with a regular shot the first time and now him with some serious stuff, like what’s used when extracting teeth, numbing that whole side for some three hours. Admittedly, he thought he’ll have much more to do at first, but since there’s no nerve there I don’t know what good it does, but I do know it hurts when I get the shots and then those spots in my gums keep hurting for the whole day after, and this time at least one of the spots, since he shot me in five different places, actually remained somewhat inflamed even yesterday.
Now I’m not sure what’s next, since I was supposed to get another appointment here to continue, or I guess first to decide what to do about that root and then to see how it can be continued, but dad was supposed to make it and he didn’t say anything yet. Also don’t know what this complication means for the costs, but I’m pretty sure it means it’ll be quite a bit more unpleasant for me if somebody’ll have to somehow extract a part of that tooth or something. Not sure who’ll do that though, if it’ll take even longer, since this dentist is heavily pregnant… Which of course means I’m in full mental attack mode while there and it’s a good thing she can’t hear my thoughts, but more relevant now is that she may go on maternity leave soon and in fact scolded the nurse for scheduling me with her when I first went there after the tooth broke and told her to not put any other long-term issues on her schedule.

According to yesterday’s announcement, on October 25 New Horizons finished returning all data gathered from the Pluto flyby. There will be one final verification, to make sure that everything really was received and without errors, but I’m not seeing anything to indicate any reason for concern. So, while it sure was a long wait and it must have been dreadful for the scientists to have to watch all that precious data ever so slowly trickle in, probably also worrying that something may go wrong at some point before this operation will be completed and something will be lost, it can now pretty much be said that the initial mission completed successfully. And it did so in the early part of the estimated window, as the timeline lists the end of data playback as being between October and December 2016.
According to that same announcement, once the verification will be completed and it’ll be confirmed that everything was received without errors, the recorders will be erased and the spacecraft should be ready to start gathering new data, first by observing distant Kuiper Belt objects. Then, assuming everything will keep going well until then, it should reach 2014 MU69 on January 1, 2019. Shouldn’t have nearly as much to do or see there and the body won’t exactly be interesting in itself, or at least not to those of us who aren’t experts in the field, but reaching a second object at all will be quite an achievement and very efficient use of the available resources.
Do find myself wondering what data rate it’ll achieve after it passes the second target and when should it finish returning the information gathered then as well, so if anyone somehow happens to read this and finds that information anywhere, could you please point me to it too? Thanks.

I’ll start this just hours after the previous personal post, when I entered some more of the codes on yogurts bought that are part of a contest and one of them won me one of the daily prizes worth 100 RON. It’s vouchers with that value, not the actual money, but while they’re presented as food vouchers, the contest’s claim being that they’re for a cake so you can add your celebration to theirs, they seem to be able to be used for a quite large number of things, or at least that’s what I gathered after receiving them today and looking up more information. Will probably end up using them for food anyway though, and if I do happen to pick up a few other things as well I’ll be prepared to pay for them separately in case the vouchers won’t cover them, but it should sure help these days.

And it’ll help even more because I’ll need to drop all plans that called for expenses for quite some time to come now, because Thursday a part of that tooth that had the most work done on it back in 2007 broke off. Then again, I’m sure it had broken off some time before and was just held there by something, because it snapped off while I was eating something that couldn’t possibly have broken anything. Either way, this means I now have to go have a lot of work done on it again, the roots apparently still being usable, but with little left even before and an entire side broken off now it means reconstruction and then a crown, and a total cost of over 1000 RON, maybe even over 1500.
Then again, that assumes everything will work out with the roots, as the dentist first said it broke off really nicely to still be salvageable but then, after spending an hour on it first Friday and then doing the same yesterday, she said she can’t get through whatever substance my previous dentist used there on the canals and the work doesn’t quite go all the way through, so she needs to fix it before moving on to the next part and can’t. As such, she now sent me somewhere else, to another dentist who used to work here as well, as the expert on such issues who came and brought his specialized equipment when they couldn’t handle something otherwise, but recently he said he’ll only come when it’s worth carrying all that equipment, as in there are several clients lined up one after the other for him, and since that’s not the case I’ll need to go halfway across the city and see if he can sort it out. Was told the price will pretty much be the same, and she didn’t charge me anything for what she did this second time, since supposedly he was going to be making the stuff that was to be put in there later anyway and the price is for the whole thing, including whatever else needs to be done to prepare the area.

Otherwise, last Monday I went to another “free shop”, which was the first one I noticed being announced since the previous one I went to, as the organizers had their headquarters in the same old factory that Colectiv club was in and didn’t return since the fire. This time the location was a bar owned by people who at least have similar ideas as the group that organized those previous ones as well, if not even some of the same people, and which is also the place where the event organized to support Polish women also ended, so I was there recently and knew just where it was. Just quickly went in and out though, only dropping off all the issues of National Geographic which had piled up since that previous time in the small area set aside for the few things that weren’t clothes, as that was even explicitly the focus now, the event text stating that any left at the end will be donated. Did see a guy have a look through the pile and seeming to consider taking at least one as I spent a few minutes reading the information about some LGBT rights activists posted on a wall, but that was about it, and there was nothing for me to even consider looking at.

Also last week, noticed an area on the right side of my monitor where the colors are lighter than they should be, though it also seems to depend on exactly what colors are there, at least to some extent. Now I’m not actually sure that’s something new, and I’m even less sure about the few dead pixels I spotted in the area being new, as they’re so close to the edge of the screen, but it’s giving me the impression that something’s peeling off. Unsurprisingly, since this monitor will be ten years old in February, but I sure was hoping it’ll last for quite some time yet, since I want to skip this entire 1920×1080 “era” and get right to 2560×1440 or 2560×1600 at 27″ or so, and those are outrageously expensive at the moment. So for now I’ll deal with it, and after panicking for one night I started looking through stores that sell refurbished or second hand monitors and found some apparently decent replacement options, as in the same size and resolution, not black, similar or lower power use and low enough prices, so there’s that possibility if it will actually fail, though any expenses will be quite a problem for quite some time to come, as I stated above.

As for running, last week’s run was Thursday and the time was 34:56, with sector times of 4:29, 5:20, 6:09, 4:36, 5:26, 6:01 and 2:55, making for lap times of 15:58 and 16:03. So another time under 35 minutes and the third fastest final sector ever on this route, as I gave it absolutely everything towards the end, starting with the second lap’s third sector. Not quite sure how I finished, in fact, since it was rather chilly and windy and my nostrils got stuck together on that final straight, so I stuck a finger up one to pull it open, then had to breathe in through my mouth once when I briefly took the finger out to try to do the same for the other one and ended up with both closed up right away, and then sort of fell forward more than downward for those last few steps, as I had to somehow get that hand on my stopwatch as well. But I somehow made it, and that’s good enough.
And then this week’s run was yesterday, just before the dentist appointment; just changed and went right there. That wasn’t the plan, but yesterday seemed to be the most reasonable day to run this week and the appointment was originally for today, but they called dad Monday evening to ask if I could come Tuesday afternoon instead and he said yes and then only remembered to also tell me about it after midnight. So I didn’t change my plan, but decided to take it just a little easier, not try to stay under 35 minutes, and the end result was 35:16, with sector times of 4:32, 5:23, 6:10, 4:39, 5:20, 6:10 and 3:02, making for lap times of 16:05 and 16:09.

Wasn’t sure whether to mention this on here these days or not, and if so exactly how to approach the matter, but the blog post by ESA Director General Jan Woerner was infuriating enough to make me make up my mind. I mean, seriously now? TGO needs to use aerobraking to settle into its long-term orbit and then has several years of planned mission ahead, while Schiaparelli was supposed to perform a semi-soft landing and then operate for a number of days on the surface, yet after just achieving orbit insertion with TGO and, according to them, receiving 80% of Schiaparelli’s descent data, the claim is that the TGO part of the mission is 100% successful and the Schiaparelli part 80% successful, making for a total success rate of 96%, since TGO is seen as having 80% of the importance.
That’s the sort of dreadful attempt at painting a failure in positive colors that makes it worse than simply keeping quiet and letting everyone think you’re to embarrassed to comment. Did he by any chance forget how many things can go wrong over all those years to prevent the orbiter mission from being 100% successful? Or that Schiaparelli was also supposed to send some information from the surface for a while? Or, you know, that the landing procedure was supposed to be a test for the one to be used for the future rover, yet it resulted in the lander likely smashing into the surface at over 300 km/h and possibly also exploding on impact? Does that sound, or look, since it would appear we have pictures as well, 80% successful to you?

Unless you count those few seconds of data returned by the Mars 3 lander, NASA remains the only space agency to have managed to operate spacecraft on the surface of Mars. And even if you do count them, it definitely remains the only one to have had successful surface missions on the red planet. Which, especially once you also remember that NASA was supposed to take part in this mission but had to pull out due to budget constraints, merely serves to once again make me ask why do we still have separate and at times still competing space agencies instead of pooling the resources and the expertise available everywhere and making this a true project of humankind, at the global scale, gathering personnel, discoveries, experience and technology from everywhere, sharing it all and funding this properly as a single program aimed at exploring and inspiring, looking up at the sky instead of staring at our feet as we stumble in the dirt, seeking to learn for the sake of knowledge itself and to reach ever more distant and more intriguing places merely because they exist.

I’ll say from the start that I’ll disagree with myself later over this rating, as it should most probably be three stars. Can’t bring myself to take away that fourth one at the moment though, mainly due to the concept of subspace energy entities pulled into real space and the way it was handled, and even more so the way the bond and the relationship between Seth and Khoe were handled. Some mental gymnastics may be required to grasp what that actually is and how it’d actually work, but makes perfect sense once you do. And bonus points for making it so that having one such entity tangle with a person with the right skills and contacts can reasonably be accepted as a plausible outcome of random chance.
The action and the setting may otherwise be considered rather typical for the genre, though the universe does hint at a reasonably promising complexity, which I hope is better explored in the other books that share it, as it’d be a pity if all would follow this one‘s pattern and focus almost exclusively on what’s relevant to the matter at hand. Not that there’s that much to really complain about when it comes to the action, but in itself, if you ignore these beings and the bond between Seth and Khoe, it definitely follows expected patterns and is also too rushed for my liking.

Rating: 4/5