Cav's Place

Seems that I stayed in the mood to see what games I have that I can actually finish even after finishing Torchlight, because Sunday I installed Driftmoon and I think I’m close to the end by now, and in fact I was there since Thursday night, since yesterday and so far today I didn’t play at all. And I’m guessing I’ll actually be trying to write a review for this one after I’ll finish it, so let’s see if I’ll manage that next week. Can say right now that it’ll include the words “they have the right to make a Christian game and I have the right to hold it against them”, but otherwise it is indeed charming and the other references make it interesting from another point of view as well.

Moving on, the permanent crown was put on my tooth Wednesday, and they actually made one fully coated in ceramic, and without charging more than for the partial one. As I was saying then, it was strange when I heard the dentist tell the assistant to request a partial one when she hadn’t even offered it as an option, but when I went there now I had this one put in and she said she felt sorry for me to be so young and have metal visible in my mouth already, and I was so easy to work with too, so she decided to make me a gift this way. Now if I think of the discounts I thought I should have gotten for the work done before this point and which weren’t applied, the difference comes to pretty much the same as the difference between what was paid and the discounted price for this crown, as she had listed it in the plan she sketched for me and dad at first, but it was a really nice thing to do nevertheless, and prevented me from feeling awfully rotten about it, as I was getting ready to.
But that somewhat positive feeling didn’t last long at all, as when I ate that night I felt pain in the lower right side, where the first dentist said she had seen something. Since this one didn’t mention it anymore, I assumed it had perhaps been some stain or something which had fooled the first one, but now that doesn’t seem likely. What’s much worse, however, is that the next night I also felt pain in the upper left side, so right where this tooth that had all the work done on it is. And it was a different sort of pain, sharper and deeper, rather like something’s touching something it shouldn’t touch, but still only triggered by cold, as eating something that’s not cold, even chewing toast or crackers, doesn’t hurt at all.
Considering that pierced root and the fact that they stressed they make no guarantees it won’t get infected and need either an operation that sounds awful or, if not caught quickly enough, removing the tooth and wasting all the work and money just spent on it, I just don’t even want to think of the possibility and keep looking for other explanations. And some are available, because at first that pain seemed to me to come from the tooth before that one, which isn’t that surprising in fact, since the work done in the area may have caused the filling in it to come loose or otherwise once again touch something in the way that made it hurt for months after the last time work was done on it, plus that the permanent crown leaves a bit more space between those teeth and therefore that filling may now move if that is the case. And it often still seems like that one is the cause, but I don’t know how much of that is wishful thinking and either way have been largely avoiding cold stuff since then, the one notable exception being when I took really cold water in my mouth after waking up yesterday and, strangely, felt no pain there at all, but instead on both lower right and lower left. And in the lower left I noticed something that seems to be a chipped tooth which may be caused by the crown, being harder and pressing onto it. But that sharper and deeper pain when eating something cold is definitely different and from the upper side… So at this point I’m rather waiting and hoping it’ll somehow sort itself out, because I don’t even want to think about it going so wrong right away.

Either way, getting back to Wednesday, after the tooth work was done, I went out to look for shoes and pants. The one pair of shoes I have other than the running shoes and the boots I’m wearing these days are just about falling apart and have been for years, and glue could only go so far, then one of the two pairs of regular pants I have are pretty much in a similar condition, so worn that in certain areas there are holes that would be difficult to fix, and perhaps impossible to do so properly, and the other pair of pants, purchased two years ago to at least have some sort of alternative to those other ones, is way too large, so I had to start wearing a belt to keep them on me and they sure look weird. So, as much as I dread new clothes and changing what I have, I eventually had to give in and had a look now that the discount period supposedly started. Not that it was the first time I looked, hardly, but now I was quite set on actually buying something and eventually I did, after checking several places and, after picking up a few other things as well, only getting back late in the evening and therefore also not knowing until then that there had been a quite significant protest that evening, though I was made aware that something may be happening when a guy asked me in another metro station whether it was true that there was a protest at Unirii.
But, back to the purchases, I’m of course feeling thoroughly rotten about it, highly uncertain about the shoes and worried both that my feet will smell in them and, more importantly, that they won’t last, even more so after my mother pointed out one area where they will very likely get quickly and visibly damaged when I showed them to her, and also wondering how I’ll feel in these pants, since they’re not the kind I’ve been wearing when going out for so many years, because I couldn’t find any quite like that and decided to go with something a fair bit different in other ways instead of something with just one notable difference I particularly wanted to avoid. Plus, the color sure seems to come out, and after being soaked for a while now there are some areas where it came out more, so they look unpleasant.
But I guess it is what it is now, and if I won’t actually be using the shoes for a while, the pants will replace those destroyed ones soon enough, when I’ll next have these large ones I’m wearing now washed. While I’m pretty sure the shoes were bought in late 2007, or at least no earlier than that, I’m even more certain I had these pants since before meeting Andra, possibly years before, and for most of that time they were actually the only ones I went out in, so I guess the poor things deserve a “retirement” by now… Even if I still hate it. Really, really hate it.

And yes, people have still been coming over, for the same reason. Twice again this week, Tuesday and yesterday, and dad didn’t even let me know in time about Tuesday, only leaving a note on the kitchen table that I found after I woke up that afternoon saying they’ll come in a few hours. So I stayed here then, hoping I won’t need to go to the bathroom before they’ll leave so I won’t risk bumping into anyone, but yesterday I went out again. Not for a walk, even if it is winter and it’s rather nice, but just took out the recyclables and then went to a nearby mall, spent time in two bookstores, then in two IT and electronics stores, then wandered around the hypermarket that’s also there, eventually picking up a few more things with what little money I had left on me.
Since he said they should leave at 8:30 PM, I said I’ll be out of there at that time in order to get back around 9 PM, hoping that will be safe, but he also sent me a message at 8:45 PM to let me know they left, so at least it worked out this time in that way. But the very fact that people keep coming over is awfully draining and I sure hope it’ll stop happening, and I did tell him how I feel because of it and he said something about having already started looking for other options for their rehearsals so they’ll only come here when they’ll really have to. No idea when those other places will start being used though, and them coming here at all is definitely not what I signed up for, if I may use the term. Even if I’ll feel even more rotten for wasting money in such a manner, when it next happens I may ask him for some to go get myself a pizza or watch a movie or both, see what happens then.

For those who had so far somehow managed to delude themselves that maybe it won’t really happen after all and those naive enough to still hold some hope that maybe it won’t be that bad, today must have marked quite a “well, shit, they weren’t kidding” moment. I mean, I’d think that even for the worst of them, the speech should have been more than enough to chase away any remaining traces of those fantasies, right?
Wouldn’t know what to link to at the moment and, to be honest, didn’t even read much in terms of opinions and analyses today, since nothing actually changed for those who weren’t deluding themselves so far. Still, did get one long, in-depth piece on my feed and I guess I’m going to share it here too, since it adds plenty of details and specifics and deals with the European Union, even if it’s heavily and, considering the source, understandably focused on Germany. One issue I have with that article is that it stresses the threat Trump is to the current economic model not necessarily because what he pushes for is worse, but because it’d be a good thing to preserve the current model in itself, which is most definitely not the case. The problem there is that, if some current European leaders strive to preserve the bad and Trump and others emboldened by him push for worse, those striving to change things for the better will have uphill battles to fight on even more fronts and against opponents with different strengths and weaknesses.
But that’s the case in pretty much every aspect. Trump’s victory may be the most notable, but it’s far, far from the only terrible sign of things to come, far from the only major defeat suffered by… Not sure what term to use actually. Progressives? Those on the right side of history? Either way, at a time when radical changes are immediately and desperately needed, quite a number of major battles have been thoroughly lost recently, not even leaving us with those clearly lesser evils which some had at least accumulated some experience in dealing with, which sadly tended to be the realistic alternatives. As for any victories, they were anything but decisive and in no way sufficient in terms of the advances required to reach any worthwhile goals.
So we need to get ready for difficult years ahead, but we definitely can’t give up. Quite the contrary; we need all hands on deck. We need to gear up, toughen up and fight even harder. And yes, we need to truly fight. We need to recognize that this is a war and we just lost some major battles without really winning any, not in the sense of managing to implement anything anywhere near the radical changes that are absolutely necessary, so in order to avoid a complete defeat we now need to use whatever means necessary to thoroughly destroy the other side. Or more exactly the other sides, as we’re talking of the establishment, this sort of anti-establishment that’s even worse and various other groups and ideologies that would steer the world in perhaps different but definitely still wrong directions.

I’ll start with last night, when one side of the temporary crown put back on my tooth Thursday broke off. I believe a tiny corner of it had broken off the night before as well, but I wasn’t sure then. Not that it’s unexpected, since I believe it first broke when the dentist put it back on Thursday, as I heard a crack and she had a little annoyed reaction and pulled it back out to work on it a little before putting it back in again, after which that side felt different than it had before. So I guess she tried to glue it back together, or simply make the parts stick to the tooth even if they’re no longer a single piece. But I’m guessing it’s not much of a problem right now, even if there was nobody there to ask now that it’s the weekend.

Still yesterday, but in the afternoon, I actually ran again. Was the one day when it was possible, sunny, basically no wind and reported highs only a couple of degrees below freezing among all the other days with even quite a lot of wind and much lower highs. Of course, there was still the matter of the snow, but the path around the lake was cleared quite well, with just a thin layer left, which was actually a good thing, as removing it all would have made a thin layer of ice likely to quickly form and be exposed, leading to a slippery path. As it was, it was fine, though the traction definitely was different, perhaps slightly more so because I used my old shoes, which have been pretty much falling apart for quite some time, as I didn’t want to possibly damage my running shoes. Had to learn how to step as I went along, slipping just a little, sticking just a little, making it harder, but I only really slipped once, when avoiding some other people, and managed not to fall even then. Plenty of people though, and a lot of children, plenty sliding down to the path, so there were places where you had to be careful to avoid them colliding with you.
The time was 38:25, with sector times of 5:04, 5:49, 6:41, 5:02, 5:45, 6:38 and 3:26, making for lap times of 17:34 and 17:25. Yes, that’s the slowest time yet on this route with the exception of the first roughly timed one and my ideal target was 10% slower than the record, so 37:10, but 38:30 is 10% slower than my regular target of 35:00, so I managed to stay within that time and can be quite pleased with it. I mean, while I was wondering whether to even attempt it, I was setting myself a conservative, worst-case target of 25% above the record, so 42:15, and as I started I was thinking I’ll do my best to at least stay under 40 minutes. But the weather was so nice, even feeling warmer than the previous few runs when the reported temperature was 5°C to 7°C, as then there were also some clouds and a bit of wind, so there were no problems from that point of view, I didn’t need to have my jacket on, forgot my gloves yet my hands didn’t freeze, and while climbing up that slope at the end with children sliding down it and then also going around the pavilion, where the snow hadn’t been cleared and I only had the footprints of others to help me make my way through, I managed. Only problem was something I noticed when I got back and saw that the corner of a toenail had dug into the toe next to it and there was plenty of blood, and that toe has actually been bothering me a fair bit since then.

And yes, that means we’ve finally been getting real winter around here, in the sense of plenty of snow and temperatures well below freezing, so weather that should be normal for probably two of the three months of calendar winter, and which used to be normal when I was little, but which has since become unusual, some past “winters” even completely lacking such periods. Of course, this leads to many people complaining about many things and many of them doing little else, as opposed to, say, getting to work to clear sidewalks and side roads and help those who have serious problems due to health reasons, but I definitely like it and consider the problems caused by it as entirely normal and something to accept and allow for during this time of year, the real problem being when winter isn’t really winter. Plus, it’s so pretty…

One problem I can’t quite deal with, on the other hand, is the fact that dad seems to now be using this place for his theater troupe’s rehearsals. Which is not to say that I have a problem with him getting involved in that, in fact quite the contrary, this being a very rare case of me actually appreciating something he does, since theater is something he’s been wanting to do pretty much all his life but, as far as I know, hadn’t since he was in college or doing military service or something like that. He did a little acting several years ago, a few advertisements and small episodic parts in, if I remember right, two television series, but theater was what he always wanted and it’s nice that he finally managed to get into this project and even end up leading one of the groups, especially since it really is something done out of passion and for its own sake, not for other benefits, of which, from what I know, there are none. It’s why people should be doing whatever it is they’re doing, and strikes me as even more interesting and beneficial when it’s someone usually reporting on and discussing economic and financial matters and with views shaped by that.
However, as I said, he recently started bringing the others here to rehearse in the living room. It happened when I went to pick up the new keyboard, LED fixture and light, and it was the reason why I went to all those different places on the same day, wanting to not be here while they were. Then it happened again last week, when I didn’t leave again, and then twice this week, Tuesday and Thursday. Should have been three times, but the plan for Wednesday got canceled as some said they couldn’t get here due to the weather. And now they didn’t even stick to the schedule, as Tuesday he said they should be leaving at 7:30 PM, I went out before they got here and did what I could to pretty much waste time while supposedly shopping, only getting a few things and otherwise wandering around a hypermarket and the surrounding stores to stay out as long as I could, got back at 8 PM and they were still here, and it was some time until they left.
Yes, they’re supposed to stay in the living room and the door is closed, but I’m very uncomfortable with people around either way it is, and there are plenty of them, he was saying up to about ten, and that makes for quite a number of trips to the bathroom, as I noticed when I was here, both last week and Thursday. And there are other things related to this that I may complain about as well, but this is the main one, that people, lots of people, now seem to keep coming over and I feel trapped and drained and panic because of it and need to make any schedule around that and apparently can’t even do that because they don’t even stick to the one he gives me, and even that maybe with barely even a day’s notice. And now, when I actually sort of like going out due to this weather, it may be marginally more manageable, but if it keeps happening it’ll only get worse and I just can’t deal with it, all right?

There would be more to say, but I’m also thinking of doing something else tomorrow and, since I’m quite obviously not going to manage to write a non-personal post this week, I’ll leave those parts for what will almost certainly be this week’s second personal post, which I just hope won’t become a Sunday update. So now I’m sticking to a quick one just mentioning the two things in the title, even if the tooth work isn’t actually finished, so I’ll only finally know how that actually turned out next week.

Went to the dentist both Monday and today, Monday to have that reconstructed tooth filed down, have the mold taken for the crown and have a temporary one put in, and today to have the metal crown tested and I guess another mold taken, before having the ceramic put on as well. Not that I had much of a clue what was happening or what will happen, and of course I didn’t ask or say anything really, and dad didn’t either, but what I heard and the price they told him makes it quite clear to me that the ceramic will be only partial, which I guess means I’ll end up with exposed metal in my mouth, which is what I specifically wanted to avoid.
What’s even stranger is that, while the first doctor advised doing it like this from the beginning, saying it’s not worth spending more on it though she didn’t at the time know it has other problems and may not last anyway, and trying to reassure me when I expressed my concerns about the exposed metal, this one who ended up actually doing the work didn’t even mention this cheaper option while she was explaining what was available after the pierced root will be handled one way or another, and dismissed the regular metal alloy as outdated and potentially risky, the cheapest option on her list being the one with a full ceramic coating. And then I heard the assistant mention requesting a partial one and she said that’s fine, and the price they told dad definitely reflects it.
I guess I’ll see on Wednesday, when the next appointment is, but I’m already very unhappy and depressed about the whole thing and can’t even actually say anything. Just can’t, so just writing here, and wondering how badly I’ll crash and exactly what form the crash will take after it’ll all be done. And that’s not even considering the other potential problems.

The other thing that happened today is that I finished Torchlight, so it took me a total of 12 days since installing it. Of course, by “finished” I mean I killed Ordrak, since the Shadow Vault that opens once you do that is infinite and I don’t care to go through even one level of it. Admittedly, the fact that it’s just a stupid thing that you just go through mindlessly meant I could finish it at this time, and so quickly too, so I can say I finished a game this year already, but it was starting to overstay its welcome about halfway through. It’s like somebody took something like one location from a poor free-to-play MMO and thought it’d make a good single-player game in itself.
Played it on normal difficulty. Didn’t buy any equipment except I believe a necklace offering +2% experience, since I was going for as much experience bonus as possible, preferring that at the expense of everything else. Didn’t enchant anything except at the free altars and didn’t fit anything in sockets at all, only hoarding ember for what proved to be no reason at all. Saved images with the character and information at the end.
As for the four deaths, they’re annoying because they were stupid. First two were by traps on the last map received as a reward from the ember quest guy, first spikes when enemies blocked the way forward and instead of either dashing into the room through them or even heading back through the spiked path to try again, I went back and forth and for some reason just stood on trapped tiles until the spikes shot up and killed me, and then opened a chest in the next room after clearing it without being hasted and the trap had those flaming arrows or whatever they are and that got me again. The other two were at the start and end of the area opened for the portal guy’s last side quest, when I basically just stood there, mind probably being too unplugged, as I once only ran in front of a dark zealot and basically didn’t do anything else until she got me, and the other time I literally stopped and waited for a poison attack from another to hit me, no idea why.

I’m quite sure I was 16 when I started to become aware of the overpopulation problem, which means I’ve been increasingly concerned about it and increasingly adamant about the need to solve it by restricting births any means necessary for half my life at this point. However, until recently I was only specifically advocating drastically limiting the number of births, first by only allowing a certain percentage of people to have children, then by having a certain fixed number of breeding licenses available each year, determined according to the number of deaths in the previous year, in order to meet the yearly population reduction target, and even more recently by having scientists determine the minimum number of births needed to avoid a genetic bottleneck for the human race and only allowing that many and no more.
There were, of course, problems with those approaches. The percentage one didn’t actually allow the progress to the population target to be tracked year after year and was likely to still allow too many births, while at the same time allowing for potential wild variations in the number of births per year, likely to cause problems for infrastructure and services. The fixed number according to the previous year’s deaths one solved those problems, but made it so those who for various reasons desire more births at all costs would see immediate benefits from increased mortality, which clashed with my desired approach of drastically reducing population without killing people or allowing them to die unnecessarily due to lack of access to needed resources or services. And the minimum necessary to avoid a genetic bottleneck one largely sorted that out as well, but made genetic diversity the only real criterion for selection, whether the traits are good or bad.
Between the three, the fixed number according to the previous year’s deaths approach is probably still the most appropriate, coupled with a system ensuring that efforts to reduce mortality will continue to be made and perhaps also with a certain cap which would ensure no benefits for pronatalists in case there will nevertheless be any increases in mortality. And this is also the most appropriate because, unlike the minimum necessary to avoid a genetic bottleneck approach, it’d definitely allow proper criteria for selection that could truly bring evolution back into the game, preserving diversity but not also negative aspects, clearly aiming to objectively improve the human race.

Now that I got to the issue of objectively improving the human race, that in itself leads to a particularly difficult problem, namely what those objective criteria may be, who will decide that and who will judge the applicants for a breeding license according to them. Considering certain ghosts from the past, the human race as a whole is likely even less willing to even discuss such matters than population control simply in terms of numbers, the general view being that the concept itself is necessarily evil or, at the very least, that it will unavoidably be misused in a similar or even worse manner despite any potential positive applications it may in itself have.
Needless to say, I completely disagree with that view and say that objective criteria can indeed be found, likely starting from proven resistance to various serious diseases, and obviously also no above average predisposition to any diseases or malformations, and then continuing with exhibiting extraordinary mental or physical abilities which are likely to be at least in large part genetically transmitted. And, while at first I was saying this would imply carefully analyzing the applicants’ family trees, developments in genetics make such analyses increasingly exact and less likely to rely on the subjective judgment of people, which will be replaced to an ever greater extent by hard data and computers.
Still, while I will always firmly state that there’s nothing inherently wrong or evil in the concept itself, I must admit a great risk of misuse does remain even under the best scenarios, humans being humans. And not only that, but coming up with such a system, ironing out the many kinks it’s certain to have at first and applying and enforcing it worldwide will take time, making a rapid switch to it impossible. And we definitely can no longer afford to allow things to continue as they are until something like this will be ready for implementation, especially since it’s obvious that the situation will worsen significantly if people will know breeding will be restricted several years before it’ll actually happen, not only because more will rush to have children during that time but also because the efforts will be hindered at every step by pronatalists.

Well, I can now say that shouldn’t be a problem anymore. The silver lining of how bad the situation is, considering the current population, the numbers which live in poverty and therefore need to be able to consume much more than they currently do, and the continued lack of any relevant efforts in the direction of actual population control done correctly, is that there’s simply no more room for any breeding if we’re to have any chance of getting back down to any even remotely acceptable population levels within any reasonable amount of time. All those discussions about who should be allowed to have children are no longer a relevant matter at the present time simply because the only answer that still makes any sense is that nobody should be having children right now and likely for decades to come.
Since the limitation tends to be the fertility of women, the human race will continue quite fine and completely naturally if such a moratorium will last 30 or 35 years, and perhaps even 40 years. With no more births for 30 years, there will be almost a billion women under 45, about two thirds of them under 40, when breeding will be allowed again, so even if only a small part of them will be allowed to have one child each at that time, the human race has no risk of going extinct. And, of course, genetic material can be preserved and children can be created artificially, which will only get easier with future developments, so even if the moratorium will last for a century or, depending on how much life will be extended by then, even more, it still seems unlikely that a new generation won’t be born when the time will be right and enough problems will be solved. In some ways, it may even be better to wait until the vast majority of those alive right now will die of natural causes, leaving a relatively small number to guide that new generation through its early years and then offering it a more or less fresh start, assuming they’ll learn the right lessons from the mistakes of the past.

But not even the amount of time such a moratorium should last is something which needs to be discussed at the moment, because it isn’t only a necessary measure in order to solve overpopulation without increasing mortality and also offer the time needed to implement a fair and objective system of selecting those who’ll eventually be allowed to breed again, but also a huge opportunity to fix the world, by which I mean both the environment and human society. When it comes to the environment, we have a lot of damage to fix, and we definitely also need to accept the responsibility for the well-being of the other species we share this planet with that comes with our position as the ones who can shape this world according to our will. As for human society, we must create one where all bar those proven guilty of serious crimes are guaranteed a decent standard of living as a basic right and also have enough true reasons for happiness to more than make up for any pain, suffering and sadness, be it caused by negative events that can’t be prevented or inherent to being alive as a thinking, feeling being.
Many social systems will get a break once existing children will become adults and no others will take their place, and the population dropping as fast as it possibly can without an increase in mortality will reduce the pressure on both the environment and human society, allowing changes and improvements which would be extraordinarily difficult or completely impossible otherwise. In other words, we have much to do and a moratorium on breeding will offer the opportunity to do it while also providing an incentive to get to work as soon and as hard as possible. It’ll be completely up to us, and anyone who actually wants the human race to continue to exist on this planet, as well as those who are young now and for some reason want children of their own, will need to make every effort to bring about those changes in the least amount of time. Under such a scenario, if we eventually will go extinct, it’ll only be because we didn’t deserve to remain on this world, since it’s no longer a matter of lacking the knowledge or the technology, but only one of lacking the will to do what’s right. And that’s inexcusable.