Cav's Place

I was saying we’re in that part of the year with miserable weather now and the forecast says it’ll last for quite some time. Cold and no heating yet, very high humidity that chills you to the bones even inside, if it doesn’t rain it at least slightly drizzles…
Now I like cloudy days and rain, but definitely not this sort of rain and the temperatures I’m comfortable at are in the high 20s at least when I’m inside, maybe mid-20s when it’s sunny and I’m going out. Low 20s are only all right while running or otherwise making a fair amount of physical effort. With highs around 15°C and lows below 10°C, even down to around 5°C, these days I’m pretty much wearing what are my winter clothes around the house, there’s just one thing I can change to make them even warmer, and I just want to be curled in a tight ball under the blanket, and did just that for quite some time last evening, but the cold also makes me need to pee very often. So, as I was saying, just one more reason to feel utterly miserable, and this is the “perfect” weather to get colds as well, so there may be yet another reason added because of it soon enough.

Otherwise, the new computer issues mentioned in the previous post have to do with Emsisoft again, since as of Monday I started noticing a2service.exe errors in the event logs. No description or ID that Windows can make anything out of, just that it’s a matter of some access being denied, and so far they happened when plugging in and unplugging my camera, when turning on and a varying amount of minutes after turning off the TV tuner’s software, after the system completed boot optimization, and when the shadow copy service attempted something that didn’t quite work, once resulting in the pretty common error saying it hit the size limit and another time in the access denied error that seems to be the rule when I update Paint.NET. So far it doesn’t seem to happen when Defrag runs normally, on partitions, and I’m not sure whether it would happen if those shadow copy operations complete without errors, but I’m going to assume there are quite a number of other things that may trigger it which just haven’t happened yet.
The thing is that, while I hadn’t plugged in my camera or updated Paint.NET since July, so since well before that forced Emsisoft update, the other things happen regularly, and I had even used the tuner’s software Sunday evening, and I definitely didn’t change any settings or install or update anything in between, and I actually checked what Emsisoft’s automatic updates installed and there were only definition files. Also, regardless of the trigger, the same address was listed for all such errors between Monday and Thursday afternoon, at which point they changed slightly, and also changed from a denied attempt to read to a denied attempt to write. They remained the same since, again regardless of trigger.
I have no clue what’s going on, and what’s worse is that their customer support doesn’t seem to either. The guy I’ve been talking to really seems to be going above and beyond the call of duty, and has put in an unbelievable amount of time and attention in the conversation with me, be it about this issue or any others, but unfortunately there are pretty much no actual results to show for it, again whether we’re talking about this issue or about the logging problems noticed ever since that forced update or about anything else really. For a while the logging seemed to work fine after I reset it all, but now I noticed a missing update entry from last evening, so they seem to be appearing again after less than a week. And otherwise he says he’s sending reports and requests to the developers, but so far getting nothing back, and that everybody’s focused on releasing the next version so it may be a while yet.

But now there’s a match at 7 PM, and watching it will normally trigger more of those errors, and I want to make myself some popcorn before it starts, so let me finish this by saying I still didn’t decide what I’m going to do tomorrow. I’m definitely getting up early to watch the race, but the Bucharest Marathon is also tomorrow morning and now that I know just how badly the lack of support is felt on that part of the route I meant to make a sign saying “Next bridge: Turn left. Reach 15.5 / 40 km. Come on, you can do it!” in both Romanian and English and position myself with it just after the last bridge before the one where the route crosses the river. However, I’ll be very sleepy and leaving after the race will mean that I’ll likely get there after the first runners will pass that point the first time, and that’s assuming dad won’t need the metro card. But such support is needed by those who’re struggling far more than by the leading pack, so if I’ll be able to take the metro I may just do it. Will need to decide this evening though, as I’ll need to actually make the sign first, and then also shave. But at least the forecast for tomorrow seems quite decent at the moment, in the sense that it at least shouldn’t rain…

I’ll start directly with last week’s run, which was Wednesday and marked a second successful attempt to get back under 35 minutes after those four failures. Slightly slower than the week before, the time being 34:56, but can’t say it hurt again after I was done, so there was a definite improvement from that point of view. The intermediate times were 4:31, 5:13, 6:03, 4:40, 5:16, 6:14 and 2:59, making for lap times of 15:47 and 16:10.
After that, I took a shower and went back out, rushing to make it in time for the viewing of a documentary that was part of a festival of Romanian documentaries. It was something of an excuse to get myself out there a little, but I left rather late and after walking about as fast as I could for almost two thirds of the way I realized I wasn’t going to make it in time for the scheduled start time, so I started running where possible, dropping back to that quick walk when I had to or started feeling too awkward about running. This got me inside, all sweaty and wondering why did I bother to shower first, only a minute after the scheduled start time… Only to have to wait another 15 minutes before it actually started, meaning I hurried for nothing.

But if then I covered a good 20 kilometers, more than eight, maybe close to nine, of them while running, Monday I covered over 22. Once again started with the run, but at least there was no more running later, and I also didn’t shower before leaving again, not that I’d have had time to do so. Either way, I once again failed to stay under 35 minutes, the time being 35:05, with sector times of 4:33, 5:24, 6:03, 4:36, 5:18, 6:09 and 3:02, making for lap times of 16:00 and 16:03. Gave it everything on that final sector, but what I had left was obviously less than the previous two times, and either way I guess I had lost too much on the first lap’s second sector to recover when I’m feeling like I am. Not that I know why I was so slow in that sector.
Anyway, after that I attended the event organized here to support Polish women protesting against the proposed almost complete ban on abortions, which would have worsened what is already one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe by eliminating even the existing exceptions, leaving only one, in case the mother’s life will be in imminent danger, while adding other insane restrictions as well. I mean, if something like this wouldn’t have dragged me back out to such an event, and also made me have some public activity on Facebook once again, nothing would have.
Dad didn’t need a metro card that day, but hadn’t bought one since the previous one expired either, so he just gave me an old two-trip one that still had one trip on it and I planned to use it on the way back to also go buy some things and not need to go out again for that this week. So I walked all the way to the meeting point, leaving early enough so I still arrived a good ten minutes early even if I had to keep holding myself back and slow down the last part of the way, and then sort of stood around as others gathered and we started walking. Later, when we were in front of the Theater and the group split, most staying behind in order to stage or watch a performance that the Polish organizers were adamant about giving up on when the ten minutes allowed by the gendarmes expired without anything happening, I left with them and a few others, getting to the bar the event was initially supposed to continue in. Didn’t stay long there either though, and when the organizer thanked me for taking pictures, few as they were, I got even more uncomfortable and slowly made my way out and away, even if I met with some of those who had stayed behind, which obviously meant they were about to finally gather there as well.
However, that’s when things got strange and it’d have been better not to have that metro card, since a train was just arriving when I got to University station and it was the one I usually take to get back after a protest, so I rushed to catch it, only later realizing I had to go in the opposite direction then, since I meant to buy something. So I hopped off at the next stop, meaning to change lines, but that’s a weird station and instead of taking the stairs that’d have allowed me to switch, I took the escalator and found myself outside. Expected turnstiles before the exit, as there are pretty much everywhere else, so I was completely surprised, but after briefly considering trying to get back down the escalators and hope nobody’ll challenge me, I just walked back the same way I got there, therefore wasting that trip only to have to walk even farther. Also didn’t go to the hypermarket I meant to go to, but did pick up a few things from a supermarket on the way.

In between, last Thursday I got a message that I can pick my computer back up, so Friday I went with dad to do that… Only to feel even more uneasy about it, since apparently all they had done was update the BIOS, which admittedly does appear to have fixed the issue that had made the fans no longer change speed according to temperature. Or at least they still seemed to work all right when I checked yesterday, but now I’m noticing other issues and didn’t even dare look at that again today. Even though checks otherwise seem fine, my confidence in this system working properly and also being free of malware is pretty much negative at the moment and only getting worse as more and more problems seem to keep piling up for no apparent reason and with no apparent solution.
Yes, that means they said they didn’t do anything about the possible issue with the network chipset, didn’t replace the CPU, which at least I’m perfectly fine with, and also didn’t even fix that headphones connector on the case’s front panel, saying all of these tested fine, though at least that connector obviously is not fine, in fact seeming worse now than before. But what really is even worse is that whoever put the system back together was either clueless or made a mess of it on purpose. The side panels were reversed, the one with the vents ending up on the back. The side fan which obviously couldn’t be installed on the side anymore was installed in a top vent, and with screws instead of those silicone things it had, one of those screws being apparently forced through it and now I can’t seem to use its system again, which leads to the side panel vibrating. While those silicone things were at least handed back to me in a bag, the SATA cable which used to go to the DVD drive and which I hadn’t taken out because it was tied to others and too hard to remove is missing, the external HDD connector, which wasn’t connected before, being connected to the motherboard in its slot. Neither the rear nor the side, or top according to how they had installed it, fan were connected to the motherboard. The front fan was connected to the power fan slot instead of its chassis fan one. The front panel USB 2.0 connector was connected to the PC speaker one. The RAM modules were back on the first and third slots even though this motherboard recommends using the second and fourth first. And if that’s what I noticed, I’m wondering what else is there that I missed.
At least I put everything I did notice right again, added the HDDs back, the TV tuner, the PC speaker which is in fact from the old computer as this didn’t have one, the DVD player as well, and also took the sole remaining SATA cable from the old computer to use for it, but the system doesn’t see it, so I’m wondering whether there’s a problem or I simply forgot to connect it, as I definitely didn’t feel like opening it up again to check. One other thing I did notice is that now the CPU fan speed is only sometimes listed, as I rebooted four times and could only see it in Open Hardware Monitor two of those times, the decision apparently also being made on reboot. Was missing this last reboot, so not seeing it now, but the percentage is listed and it’s correct, so leaving it as it is for the moment and don’t plan to take it back to them for anything. I would take a SATA cable if they’ll offer one, but I sent an e-mail to their complaints department Friday evening, describing the entire situation, and still didn’t get a reply.

There are some other, newer, issues as well, but I’m not getting into that now, so let me just move on to yesterday, when I had to wake up at 7:15 AM, so after maybe an hour and a half of sleep at best, and a total of some 16 hours over the past four days, always split in little bits. That was because I had an appointment to get blood drawn for tests, after the paperwork will be dealt with, and these appointments seem to always be early in the morning, which won’t even allow me to respect the requirements. Couldn’t exactly respect those for the urine sample either, but got one to take there anyway, since that was also included in what was needed. Think I was about ten the last time I had blood tests done, but let’s see what the results will be now.
After we got out of there, I asked dad if we can get cakes and a pizza and he bought the cakes. Could have gone for the pizza too, but I knew the place I meant to go to opened at 11 AM and it was barely 9 AM. Later noticed that now they actually open at 9 AM, but didn’t know that then, so he drove me back and left, but also left me a new metro card, as he had bought one. With that, I then went out, also taking out the recyclables, and reached the pizza place only to find a man standing in front of the door and no waitress or anyone else inside. When I walked in, he greeted me in Italian and just stared at me as I glanced over a menu to make sure the prices hadn’t changed, then continued to stare when I said what I wanted. After I repeated myself, he seemed to understand I wanted a pizza, but simply told me “no”, responding to my surprise with some explanation in Italian from which I gathered something wasn’t working and they couldn’t make any at the moment. So we shrugged at each other and I left. I’m guessing that was the owner, as I know he’s Italian.
Still, I did want a pizza and had a metro card, so I weighed my options for a moment and decided to give another chance to the place with the dog that drove me away the first time, apparently getting there ten or so minutes after they opened, as they open at noon. But I got a pizza, which was decent and quite cheap, but not as good and full of stuff as what that other place makes. And this place is also quite far, so even with the metro it took a while to get back, but I had a pizza and I could settle down for the day… As much as possible under these circumstances.

Spent some five hours in bed last evening, but only slept the first two of them, or in fact a little less than that. Then got perhaps five or so more hours this morning, split in three or so. And now I’m hoping I’ll manage to take a shower, or maybe even a bath, to warm myself a little, since we’re definitely in that nasty part of the year, far too cold for me but also far from winter, and heating not on yet, so just one more reason to be utterly miserable. Will have to see if the water’s not still too dirty though, since a pipe was apparently changed in the building’s basement today and after having no hot water for some hours, it keeps being brown even if it’s left to run for quite some time.

Sure, it’s barely about half the minimum size of a book I’d normally look at, the events depicted are indeed rushed, the characters not particularly developed and the otherwise potentially very interesting world shown in just a few glimpses, plus that there are a few places where it could use more editing. However, this book actually was written in a hurry, insanely so, and while that isn’t in itself an excuse, what is contained in it is quite nicely put together, the action carrying the reader from one scene to the next, even if it may require some suspension of disbelief.
Would the above be enough to not consider myself cheated if I’d have paid for it, or to not consider it barely worth a second thought before being dismissed if it’d have been the whole of the story? Highly unlikely. Yet Free-Wrench is given away for free and marks the start of a series which may allow the world and characters to develop more. Plus, it includes some very obvious references to things that are awfully wrong in our world and a pretty clear call to fight against them. And all of this does make me somewhat interested in the rest of the series… Though the next books in it, which aren’t free, also seem too short for me to feel they may be worth paying for.

Rating: 3/5

Last year I managed quite a post, but don’t expect anything of the sort again now. Not that there’s any point in it or anything, but I need to mark the moment, maintain whatever faint shreds of a connection I can still desperately grasp at. When there’s no present and no future other than despair and fear, what’s left but clinging on to memories of the one time when it seemed it may be different… And the fear that those fade and are lost as well.
Not that this is one of those good memories. But there is that final kiss, and her presence there until the moment she walked out the door, and the fact that there may have still been some hope at that time, definitely less fake and manufactured than in all the years since. Or, all right, there were a couple of later moments when that hope may have been ever so slightly justified, but just those moments, and not that much, and the last of them several years ago. And even without all of that, just remembering something that may mark the end of something means that something existed in the first place and I need these confirmations that I didn’t just imagine it all more and more. Have been needing them since shortly after I got thrown back here.
So here I am, writing this while feeling that even the suspended animation I was in before is now in suspended animation as well due to the current computer situation, since I’m still on the old one and on Mint. Yet another situation proving that things keep getting worse but that I’m starting to consider partially tolerable as long as I don’t really do anything, frozen between the desperate hope that it at least won’t get even worse yet again and the fear that it will, as it always happens.
And there’s also the fact that not even the night is in any way my time anymore for quite a while now, with dad staying up so late as well, a couple of times even going to bed after me, and at times hearing her talking on the phone very late as well… So much for what I was saying in the very first post I wrote when I decided to try to start to write something while living with Andra.
Thinking of that now gets me to a mental image of what was so common during our nights together, with me at the computer long after she went to sleep, but still so close since the bed was right behind me and I kept turning to look at her. And, yes, the other things mentioned in that post as well, the sounds of the night, glancing outside, now and then even going out on the balcony for a quick better look… None of that has been possible in so long, the part having to do with her not at all for all these eleven years and the rest not in anything even remotely resembling the same way since I got thrown back here, and lately even less than what it may have been so far, so pretty much not at all either.

After hiding from them all that time, having more and more that mental image from back when I was in school and not going because I was too scared and ending up pacing in front of the door, dressed to leave and with the keys in my pocket, and freezing whenever I heard those keys and thought they were dad’s and he was coming home and will be angry I didn’t go again and kept getting more and more terrified by both going and staying with every passing moment, ended up calling dad to my room last Wednesday evening, so not that long after posting the previous personal post, and ranted for over an hour about all sorts of stuff. And did that in front of the open window, didn’t really realize it, and some of that stuff sure wasn’t what you’d want all neighbors to hear. But the immediate result was a decision to go for an ultrasound the next morning, so with him, not with Ada, which felt even more rotten after all that mess and her offers and my quite senseless rant asking if she really meant it.
Can say it was a good doctor though, explaining and showing at length, even drawing a little, recommending tests and treatments and changes, not just doing her part and sending you away with only the results. She’s only there for two hours per day though, in which time I assume she can only fit two or three patients, and with this quality of work and the lack of appointments I’m surprised there’s no queue in front of her door, but it was just me and dad waiting for quite a long time for her to finish with the person who was already inside when we got there and then there didn’t seem to be anybody else after me. But she really doesn’t seem to have heard of the concept of doctor-patient confidentiality, since after explaining most things to me she asked me to call dad in and leave the door open, supposedly because it was hot, and then she also told him everything she had already told me and then continued from where she had left off for both of us. So she didn’t just specifically tell my dad everything, but also talked about my health and lifestyle and shit, literally, with the door wide open!
Either way, she didn’t see anything that bad, though the ultrasound is for organs, not intestines, and she did mention an endoscopy and/or colonoscopy a few times, but didn’t actually say it’s really needed and so I ignored that part. Found a few grains of sand in my right kidney and a fair amount in my left, but no stones. As for the issue that brought me there, she said she saw inflammation, a lot of fluid that seems to be stomach acid reaching even the duodenum, and microlesions on both my stomach and duodenum which, combined with what she assumes is chronic gastritis and the hyperacidity, may occasionally cause some blood vessels to rupture, causing that bleeding in my stomach which results in the black shit. Clear risk of duodenal ulcer, but there’s no such thing at the moment, nor anything else more concerning. Said a lazy gall bladder is also a possible cause for the hyperacidity, but at first she said it may just be a case of some bad days, stress, anger, anxiety, since we all get some of those from time to time, at which point I meant to tell her to try every single moment, all of it.
Did say I should have my crap tested, but while I assumed it will be tested more thoroughly, including to tell me how much blood really was in there and anything else they may figure out from it, she just wrote down to check for that bacterium that causes ulcer and that’s all they did, since the results I got on Tuesday said nothing except that said bacterium wasn’t present. So I guess next are the blood tests she recommended, but dad was told it will again be something limited and if I’ll get blood drawn again for the first time in many years I’m thinking I should at least have full tests done. And most preferably also make use of the fact that, since I show up as being employed, I have a right to such tests for free every so often and never made use of it, so it shouldn’t be paid either, even if that’ll mean going through a certain procedure I have no idea about and likely catching the brief window of time when funds are available to cover such tests at the start of each month.

The issue with that is that, while dad will definitely have to sort out anything that needs to be done before the actual tests, as I have absolutely no idea what to do or where and couldn’t handle any of it even if I did know, I really didn’t want to go with him there as well. Then again, even he said he just has an idea about who my doctor may be, assuming he signed me up for one when I got thrown back here ten and a half years ago, definitely not knowing for sure, and I definitely never went there, so it may be quite a mess anyway, but if he will figure it out and considering that offer and how messed up I am and that message I sent her and everything else, as insane as it is, I did rather want to go with Ada at least for this. I mean, I definitely don’t want to go at all, but if I must, then it seems the least terrible option, yet one that’s no longer on the table as things went sour starting last Friday and really crumbling for good over the weekend.
The reason was the usual one, my stance on breeding, but it struck unusually late, seeing as this tends to happen from the beginning when the issue comes up with someone I’m talking to and I’ve been talking to her for some time now and she actually messaged me first, so one’d assume she knew it all very well. But apparently not, and that seems to be the end of having anything to do with the only person I was talking to that I could and was also sort of thinking I actually wanted to meet since Jen cut me off completely several years ago. Sure, met Andreea a few times before that went sour, and twice more after, when we just happened to bump into each other while attending the same event, but when we met intentionally it was because she wanted to and I felt terribly awkward, so that doesn’t count. This time I was sort of starting to dare to hope I may have something of a friend around here, especially since, as I said, she was the one initiating contact, and so much for that… And I guess it serves me right for daring to think there may be anything to hope for.

As for the computer issues, a brief e-mail exchange with the support department of the store I got it from didn’t help, since they just said I should bring it in to have it checked out and that they can’t help me in any other way until I do. So, seeing how issues seemed to be piling up, I eventually gave in and did that on Monday, taking out the HDDs, DVD drive and TV tuner but leaving the two additional fans I had installed. Also wrote a note that filled an entire page at font size 9, mentioning the lack of the HDD and the addition of those two fans and explaining both the new and the old issues, including one that appeared at first but then seemed to just go away on its own, and asking for everything to be investigated and whatever the real problems and causes are to be sorted out, though in case of those CPU warnings I said I only want it replaced if they’re signs of an actual problem and the new one won’t be similar or worse, considering what I found about it being a known issue that can safely be ignored and others experiencing even hundreds of such warnings per day instead of the few I had.
Annoyed at myself that I forgot to take a screenshot of the mouse statistics just before turning it off then despite reminding myself several times to do that as the last thing, since these drivers keep track of clicks and scrolls and distance covered and I wanted to see the wear over time. Granted, I’ll have been missing this period now either way, seeing as I didn’t even dare to try to install those unofficial Linux drivers that exist, but if I can’t get back on that system without reinstalling Windows I’ll be losing all the time since the end of May 2015. And it is double clicking at least on some buttons, and now I’m seeing that the wheel also seems to tilt left if I scroll down hard, which wouldn’t normally result in any noticeable effect before and therefore I have absolutely no clue when it started happening, but which on Linux seems to return the window to its initial state, so if I scroll quickly down a page I end up thrown back to the homepage. Most notably, this means I try to avoid scrolling down whenever I’m writing something, in anything.
The bit about being unable to get back to that system without reinstalling is due to the fact that I think you need to reinstall Windows if the motherboard or CPU are changed, right? So if they do that, I’ll be forced to reinstall… And I have no idea how that will work, with how Microsoft is messing with older versions to force everyone on that fucking Windows 10, with updates taking a long time and recently seeing reports of being impossible to perform on new installs, and them only being available as a cumulative patch as of next month and with older ones about to be gradually added to said patch, making it impossible to avoid those you don’t want to install, whether because they break something or because they force “telemetry” or something about Windows 10 or who knows what else down your throat. So if I’ll need to reinstall, I fear I either won’t be able to anymore, in which case I have no idea what I’ll do, or that I’ll be forced to even take the bad updates I had avoided and hid. But this latter scenario is very likely from now on even without reinstalling, so no clue what to do about it. I just know the computer is the one thing I was still sort of controlling and doing anything with and now that’s also being taken away, at first because I literally had to give it away due to the problems but obviously even without that, due to what’s happening with software in recent years.

And yes, I mentioned Linux above, and that’s because I’m now back on the old computer and, while the old Windows install was untouched on one of the HDDs, I chose to throw Mint 18 (Xfce) on it, even if my only previous experience with Linux was about a decade or so ago, brief and leaving me feeling more clueless than I was when I first started using a computer. I mean, theoretically I could have just connected that HDD, but there was the updates issue to consider, seeing as it’ll have to recover all the time since May, if not even April, of 2015, and also that I’ll have the antivirus and firewall and a few other things to update as well and doing all of that without reinstalling may have even been more likely to cause problems, skipping ahead so much at once. So I just did this, installing Mint on the old IDE HDD left in this computer and not connecting the main ones at all, leaving them there in a corner so nothing that may happen on this system will affect that one once I’ll get it back. Copied what I also occasionally backup on the USB stick to this one, but keep my edits and changes to a minimum and plan to send myself an e-mail with them in plain text to just make them again, so there won’t even be a single file from this one moved and, normally, no chance of infection.
And that’s because, no matter how much people keep saying Linux is very safe, I feel very unsafe without a good antivirus and, perhaps even more importantly, a powerful, highly customizable and reasonably easy to use application-level firewall. And there sure seems to be a serious lack of this for Linux, and if there’s one main thing really making me once again pretty much completely turn my back on the idea of perhaps switching someday, preferably before the official support for Windows 7 will end or it’ll otherwise become unusable, it’s this. Few solutions seem available and having a look at how to install and use them makes me forget about even considering trying, and the community’s attitude whenever the issue seems brought up in the discussions I found, namely that such programs are not needed on Linux, gives me little hope of a change and just tells me I could never belong here, because for me they are absolutely mandatory, first for system monitoring and control, even before actual security.
But back to this old computer in itself, it started just fine after sitting in a corner since the end of May of 2015, even remembering BIOS settings and having the time exactly right, though I thought the BIOS battery was low even then and completely expected it to be dry by now. Don’t have the power saving software it ran all along and without which it quickly overheated, since that has no Linux version, but I installed BOINC anyway, even on the first day, when I just had the CPU fan, the two other old ones which had come with the case still being wherever dad had thrown them after asking me for them when I replaced them. That meant it really smelled like hot metal and burning dust and I could feel it heating up the room, and I had to increase the temperature it starts beeping at from my conservative level to a more normal one. Also meant the poor CPU fan was at the highest possible speed and particularly loud, so much so that I did have to turn it off when I went to bed Monday night.
Dad found those fans the next day though, and after fixing the rear one with just two screws, since I couldn’t find what I needed to hold the other two in place, I did something with the front one which I should have done all along. I mean, that serves quite little purpose in front, so instead of putting it back there, I placed it upright on the video card, so it helps cool both the CPU and the motherboard’s big heat sink. It’s held in place with two of those little plastic things for holding cables together, one hooked around what I think is some unused power cable and the other around the rear fan’s cable, plus its own cable pulled under others. It’s not pretty and not particularly safe, but shouldn’t normally fall, and after doing this and with the case open the temperatures are very fine despite the lack of power saving, and the CPU fan is also sticking to much more normal speeds, so not much noise either.
Otherwise, one obvious problem is that I can’t get my TV tuner to work on Linux. Didn’t expect it to work at all at first, but then I started looking around, found some potential solutions, tried one program, then some script which supposedly used the Windows drivers in some way, then another program which others said is the only one which works with this tuner, then editing some file others were saying should be edited, but I’m not getting anything. Yes, Zapping seems to see it just fine and it even detects the signal through it, as setting it to Romania and telling it to scan for channels finds 42 or 43, seeming to alternate there, so missing just a couple of the 45 I should have, and checking a few of the listed frequencies against the list on the provider’s site tells me it does find them correctly. However, I get absolutely nothing else. No picture, no sound, nothing. And since I’m not doing much of anything else here, nothing to try to play, not keen on seeing how to download something to watch, not editing files, rather staying away from even entering passwords in too many places and doing too much on various sites, I rather miss that option of maybe finding something to pass the time with…

But this sure was a long post again, so let me just finish it here by also saying that this week’s run was yesterday and I finally managed to get back under 35 minutes. Took pretty much everything and stuff in my abdomen hurt all day, only getting better at night, but the total time was 34:52, with sector times of 4:33, 5:17, 5:59, 4:35, 5:18, 6:10 and 3:00, making for lap times of 15:49 and 16:03.
Was also saying I’ll be going out more these days, since I’m doing even less than usual here, but the weather hasn’t been nice, autumn deciding to come very suddenly after we got over 30°C even last weekend. Pretty sure I won’t even attend the march I was considering to attend tomorrow. Still definitely not in any sort of state that would permit it, plus that it’s that one organized by and focusing on cyclists, and after an initial message also inviting pedestrians and stating that they should be able to keep up at a light jog, more recent posts only talk of cycling and other similar means of transportation.