Cav's Place

This will just be a quick personal update, and I’ll start it from Monday, when I went to leave another candle in front of the crumbling Communist-era factory where the club that burned a month before used to be, along with dozens of other businesses. That didn’t go so well because something got in my eye as I was about to cross the street to go to the metro station and focusing on trying to get it out made me take the train I’m used to taking when I go to University Square instead of the one I needed, going in the other direction. Didn’t even realize it when, still working on the eye and otherwise functioning on instinct, I stepped off at Victoriei, only noticing that I wasn’t at Unirii when, after finally managing to get the thing out of my eye, I went outside and had a look around, at which point I went back inside and took the train I needed, after which I headed to the Unirii shopping center to look for a toilet and try to wash my eye, since it definitely didn’t feel all right.
Strangely enough, though I seem to remember that there used to be one on each floor, once there I found that toilets were only on first and third, with no such signs on the ground floor and a handwritten one saying that’s not a toilet on the second floor door that’s in the same spot as the one leading to the toilets on the first and third. Also found that, being so few, at least the men’s only consisting of one toilet, one or two urinals and one sink, they were full and I had to wait my turn to wash, and even then I felt rushed by the others waiting. Used both of them, the third floor one first, but I didn’t really manage much, only seeing in the mirror that the eye looked bloodshot and angry, so I only washed properly after I eventually got back.

Otherwise, did manage to run this week as well, Tuesday, in spite of the wind and the fact that the park was rather crowded. Didn’t exactly feel like it either, so considering everything I was aiming for a time that was no more than 10% worse than the record, so 22:23. What I managed was exactly 5% worse, 21:22, and the intermediate times were 4:50, 10:15 and 16:33, respectively, so it went well enough.

Then, yesterday, I went to a debate about the recent protests and their results, which was preceded by a viewing of Everyday Rebellion. And now I’m following the live stream of another debate, this time the topic being next year’s local elections and a project to identify clean and competent candidates for them, so I’ll finish this here, since it’s quite hard to write one thing and listen to another. And then maybe I’ll get back to Tropico 4, because after finishing those first two missions relatively quickly, I didn’t do much anymore, so I’m still at the third ever since.

The date range in the title may start from November 16, but the first event I’m specifically aware of was another “Colectiv Unplugged” concert, on November 20. Same as the first time, it took place near the University Square fountain and those who gathered were given sheets of paper with the lyrics of the songs which were to be played, so they could take part as well. I didn’t attend myself, but those who did seemed to agree that about 200 people were present and several known activists were among them, some also giving some brief interviews to the reporters who showed up as well. Some of these brief interviews were broadcast during a television show that aired the next evening, when two known activists were invited and actually offered a reasonable opportunity to express their opinions and desires despite the fact that the television station in question is otherwise known as hostile.

Of course, the fact that I’m not specifically aware of what took place before November 20 doesn’t mean that nothing did, and it was actually mentioned during the meeting that once again took place in Izvor Park, on November 21, that people did continue to meet in small groups to discuss what to do next and organize. In addition, during that meeting it seemed to have been agreed that the next immediate goals should be to appeal to the Ombudsman in an attempt to persuade him to challenge the current electoral law, especially when it comes to the existence of an artificial electoral threshold, at the Constitutional Court, and to make a concerted effort to persuade Nicusor Dan to take on the role of leader of a real, non-Parliamentary political opposition before next year’s local elections, guarantee that he’ll stay away from the influence of existing parties or other interest groups and take the preparations for the coming campaign seriously, so he won’t miss this great opportunity to actually be elected Mayor of Bucharest.
These issues, though perhaps taken more generally, in the sense of changing the electoral law in every way needed to facilitate the access of truly new parties and real independents and of uniting under a single plan of action for next year’s local elections, seemed to have remained the main topics during the next meeting that was announced publicly as well, taking place on November 26, at the National Library. I kept debating whether I should try to attend or not and eventually ended up not going, so that’s pretty much all I know, however, and it comes from a post written by one person who was there.

Due to the bad weather, the next meeting in the park, initially scheduled for yesterday, obviously couldn’t take place anymore, and if it was replaced by some other meeting of a smaller group in some other location, it wasn’t announced publicly and I’m not aware of it. What did take place, on the other hand, was the “Colectiv Unplugged” concert scheduled the day before, this time in the University underground passage, since it was raining outside. I haven’t seen any known activists mention the event, however, and all I know comes from a couple of posts mentioning this change of location and a few pictures that seem to show about 50 people attending and, as before, gathering in a circle to either sing along with the few who had brought instruments or simply listen.

In between all of these, on November 25, a small number of known activists made a tour of the headquarters of the parties represented in the Parliament and also stopped by the Government, staging brief protests in each location due to the fact that the new Prime Minister removed the entire paragraph that had to do with changing the electoral laws and originally included agreeing with some of the protesters’ demands from his program, stating that there is no support in the Parliament for such changes. A few other known activists traveled to Cluj to stage a similar protest there as well.

As for today’s event, it was Bucharest’s tiny contribution to the Global Climate March, even though it wasn’t actually a march. One was planned and had been registered on Avaaz, being supposed to start in Constitution Square, but the person organizing it had some personal problems and was unable to do much, in the end announcing that the event in question was canceled and redirecting those who wanted to attend to another announced by some of the known activists. This event was to take place at the University Square fountain and was presented as a flash mob, though what was actually supposed to happen was very much unclear and, in part probably also due to the short notice, interest seemed low.
Still, about 40 people did attend, one bringing a larger banner, one a bag of paper Suns and green hearts that other participants could hold, another a number of cards for people to fill with messages to the new Minister of Environment, a few others some sheets of paper on which some messages were written on the spot, and one I believe also a small box of green earrings. And we sat around for about an hour, took some pictures, a few had some interesting conversations with the gendarme who had showed up, and who seemed to share at least some of our concerns and desires, and then, as some were already leaving, the group moved to the nearby Christmas market, where some had said from the beginning we should go, in order to make the issue known and talk to anyone who showed any interest.
I didn’t think that was a good idea though, and had said so from the beginning, as it seemed far more likely to simply generate conflict with people who were there for an entirely different purpose and perhaps give the gendarmes or local police reason to step in, so that was when I left and all I know at this point about what happened later comes from the last seconds of a short video which was already posted. But yes, I did take a few pictures as well this time, even though I haven’t otherwise been doing that this month.

Since this second trial of Emsisoft Anti-Malware finished Tuesday night, I’m now on the second day of the third trial of Kaspersky Anti-Virus, and it may actually not be an abuse because the first was on the old computer and the second, while started when I reinstalled Windows on the new one, was still of the 2015 version, so I didn’t go above a reasonable expectation of one trial period per version per computer. Either way, so far it seems to be going all right and the obvious changes compared to the previous version are minimal, though at the moment I do notice some detail missing from reports. It does, however, have a more significant impact on performance, and in fact it may be the most significant impact I’ve experienced throughout this year of testing, so I’ll have to see what that’s about, because it probably remains the most realistic option when it comes to deciding what I’ll stick to next year.

Emsisoft remains the other option, but while it seems to do well in tests I keep having this feeling that it’s less thorough than it should be. The worse problem, however, is the fact that there’s no separation between definition updates and program updates, so having it update automatically, which is pretty much needed for definitions, also implies forced automatic program updates that even include version changes, as during this trial I caught the launch of version 11 and it simply updated to it on its own and asked for a reboot when I definitely don’t think that major version changes should be automatic. Granted, version 11 has a “delayed” setting for program updates, which should help with this if it works as it should.
Still, without program updates set to “delayed”, suddenly getting the first update of the version 11 branch was quite an issue, and such a faulty update should never be served without explicit warnings and user confirmation, regardless of settings. Now I seem to have gotten through it better than others, as in my case everything was still in place once the image returned and it only caused BOINC to malfunction, which was fixed by turning that off and then back on, but others had far more serious problems. The major issue seemed to be that it logged off other user accounts, or at least shut down programs running on other accounts, when it updated, which is obviously something that may never be done without explicit user consent, plus that it would appear that the original release had a bug that caused it to turn off explorer.exe on Windows 7 when it was turned off and it needed to turn itself off to update, so everybody suddenly had their screen go black and then things may have looked weird when the image returned.
I do rather like Emsisoft in a number of ways, including the fact that support is received quickly on the forums, that it uses definitions from BitDefender, the news and alerts offered and the way in which it offers them, the fact that they seem to take privacy seriously, and even that it’s still a relatively small player on this market. For these reasons, I would be inclined to purchase it instead of Kaspersky, which also has the huge disadvantage, in my view, of being a Russian product, and even more so instead of ESET NOD32, which would be the third choice because I definitely liked the options offered and didn’t otherwise have problems with it but it always seems to be lagging in tests and that’s a serious problem. Still, I want some assurances about the updates, because I absolutely won’t have something like that happen again, plus that it can’t be purchased directly from here and I have no card, so I’ll have to look into the wire transfer option, though it’s a good thing that at least that’s also offered.

Otherwise, for some time I’ve been having issues with the blog, in the form of it consistently requiring just over 24 seconds to load the first time after I open the browser, so if anyone reading this experiences something similar, let me know. If I turn WP-SpamShield off, this doesn’t seem to happen anymore, but I’ve had a similar issue with some other part of the site and that can’t be caused by this. However, I checked with my host and they said they were unable to replicate the problem, also asked a friend and she said she doesn’t experience anything of the sort, and a long and thorough discussion with the author of WP-SpamShield would indicate that it’s nothing actually caused by that either. At the same time, the issue does appear on dad’s computer as well, and it is possible that it actually started when the network I’m in was taken over, or, as they put it, “entered a partnership” with another, so I wonder if it’s not something somehow caused by them. But why and how, I have no idea, the only thing I could figure out being that, for the blog, the problem appears when that plugin is active and the PHP session cookie is not set. Once it’s set, it works normally.

But I guess I’ll see what that’s all about, and if it actually doesn’t affect others as well it’s not necessarily that much of a problem, so let me finish this by saying that this week’s run was Monday and I truly pushed as hard as I possibly could. The result was records at every single point, so managing not only a total time of 20:21, beating the previous record by nine seconds, but also intermediate times of 4:18, 9:51 and 15:49, respectively, so beating the previous records at those points by 12, three and ten seconds, respectively.
That was the 35th proper run this year and it may well be the last, as temperatures are finally getting somewhat lower now and it’s raining a lot. In addition, the insole of one of my running shoes has been moving around as of a few weeks ago, and while fixing it with some glue would be very easy I’m thinking of taking them back to the shop I bought them from back in February in order to have them do it, since they were supposed to have a two-year warranty and this issue appeared after less than one year. I’m actually rather angry about it, though in a disappointed sort of way…

I have to start this with the fact that this Wednesday I was just given Tropico 4, including the Complete DLC Pack, on GOG.com. Seems that The Community Giveaway was “revived” and I got nominated to receive this, so I found myself simply staring at a message letting me know and including the code, not having any idea how to react. Seriously meant to refuse at first, especially since the user who nominated me had it on his wishlist as well, plus that I didn’t think I’ll be able to play it on this computer as it is, but eventually decided the nomination meant the one who made it for some reason actually wanted me to have it instead of himself or anyone else who may be interested and it’d be, in a way, rude not to accept.
Still felt terribly awkward, even more so since such a nomination is a sign of recognition of one’s contribution to the community that I don’t feel I deserve, my activity on the GOG.com forums being mostly limited to arguing and lashing out against regional pricing since it was introduced, and even that dropping down to little more than an occasional quick comment in recent months. And, to make matters worse, this game is regionally priced. But it had already been bought, somebody was going to receive it and one of those at the very top of any list of people truly deserving of all the recognition from that community wanted me to be that person, so after close to an hour of worrying over it and changing my mind several times I awkwardly replied to both the private message and the post containing the nomination and redeemed the game.
As for the concerns over my computer being able to run it when I’m only using a Pentium G3440‘s integrated graphics, I’m happy to report they were unfounded, so I dove right into it, thinking to only poke around a little Thursday evening, starting around 10:30 PM, and finding that it was 1:10 AM when I thought to at least check the time, and then 1:30 AM when I finished the first scenario and quit. Sure, if I turn everything up, which I did to take a few screenshots, it slows to a crawl, but there’s no reason to do that and I can play it perfectly fine on settings that are close to the minimum possible, with only the scene resolution, visibility distance and textures at medium and clouds on. In fact, I’m quite sure I could turn it up a little more, but I see no need to.

Speaking of Thursday, I started that day by waking up at 8 AM, so after only some two hours of sleep, to check out a few farmers’ markets. Dad was away most of the week, only returning today, and we were out of vegetables, so I actually thought I may try to buy some as well, but that definitely didn’t work, so all I did was visit four of them and write down prices for a few things, and also make a mental note that one is too small to bother with again and another seems suspicious when it comes to many of those selling, in the sense that they didn’t strike me as farmers. This one that’s relatively nearby remains an option, and it’s also the only such market that I bought something from once, though that left me completely shaken for days and saying I probably won’t do that again, which so far holds true. If I will, however, I may actually go to another one, which I actually visited twice in the attempt to persuade myself to actually buy something, because it’s quite big, diverse, cheap and right next to a metro station, plus that the very fact that it’s rather far away may actually help.

But this was supposed to be a quick post and I’ve already been struggling with it for almost an hour an a half, and it’ll be more than that by the time I’ll finish, so I’ll end it here, but not before mentioning that I managed to run last week and this one as well. This week the total time was 20:47, with intermediate times of 4:35, 9:59 and 16:10, respectively. Last week, on the other hand, it was 20:42 at the end, but the intermediate times were 4:30, 9:54 and 15:59, so matching the previous records for the first and third and improving by two seconds at the second, though I then ended up with the second best time at the end, 12 seconds slower than the record. Now it’s supposed to get colder and even trying to run again Monday may be a bit of a problem, but that’s the goal since it’ll make for 35 runs this year, so two thirds if I’m thinking of the number of weeks, though I’d actually do them in 34 since there was that week when I ran twice.
However, I must get back to last week’s run and note that those times were obtained even though a shoelace ended up untying itself again even before the first intermediate point, so I kept going like that in order to get one proper time and then stopped for 15 seconds to retie it, then unzipped the training shirt and moved the keys from its front pocket to the pocket of the pants as I approached the second intermediate point, and then I took the shirt off completely as I started the third section and held it in my hand until the end. This means I managed an amazing time on the second section if you deduct those 15 seconds, but I should also keep in mind that I may have actually lost slightly less than that, since it also meant I rested just a tiny bit. The shirt and keys, even if done while running, quite clearly lost me a few seconds though, so I wonder what I could have managed if I’d have tied my shoelaces properly before starting and gone out wearing only a t-shirt, as I was actually planning before the few drops of rain and overcast sky, which quickly started to clear once I started running, changed my mind.

A third open discussion was planned for Monday and, while the known activists had no part in it, one was attempted by someone who brought a speaker and a microphone. After only a few people, however, that small sound system seemed to run out of power and everything became a shouting match for a while, before those who had remained in that area gave up and scattered. Some activists did remain, meaning to restart the discussions the same way they had been done the previous two evenings, but only one seemed to have brought a loudspeaker and none wanted to take on the role of moderator, waiting for Vlad, who arrived late, was asked to give some interviews and then seemed to vanish.
During this time, we tried to gather and stay in one place, though a few still wandered around. As time passed and it was becoming increasingly obvious that nothing else will happen, even the known activists started leaving, some announcing it while others saying they’re going to look for Vlad or anyone else who may still be in the area and then likely deciding to leave after realizing that those they were searching for already had. As such, at one point that little group ended up being down to me, standing around awkwardly, and Claudiu, busy with his phone. When he looked up and realized everyone else had left, I did as well, at first to look for any others. When I returned to that spot, I didn’t find him anymore, but the last four others who were hoping for those discussions had returned as well and we briefly made for a strange little train, wandering around the area. They seemed to continue doing that when I broke away to listen to a song and then left.
There were under 1000 people even at the peak, and in fact it may be that a more accurate estimate would be around 500, so we obviously didn’t take to the street anymore. Still, that likely made it easier to notice the man with the guitar, apparently on his own, and the group that made use of the small sound system, while it worked, to announce there will be an unplugged concert in memory of the victims before moving to the other side of the fountain to start it. A small crowd was gathered around the lone guitarist and a somewhat larger one around the others, some from this second group also taking part in that improvised concert as I noticed that sheets of paper with the lyrics of the songs that were to be played had been passed around. It was here that I made that last brief stop before leaving.

I’m sure small numbers, probably mainly older people, continued to gather around the fountain, but the last time I had a look was Tuesday, when the peak was likely below 200 and I left after only some 25 minutes. The fountain was still “decorated” with many sheets of paper with demands or other messages written by people, some candles continued to burn there as well, other ideas and lists of demands were still strung around the area, but otherwise there was no reason to stay and quite a few to leave quickly, since even the few activists who were there seemed set on heckling anyone else who spoke, whether this was justified or not. I have no idea why that was, but those I recognized were some of the more troublesome ones, with the exception of one who started a chant and then seemed to leave even before I did, possibly for the same reason.
Otherwise, it would appear that at least some of the papers and candles remained on and around the fountain until Sunday, when I saw a video apparently showing someone cleaning up while a few others complained and argued. Also, another group that was gathering ideas and also asking people to answer their questionnaire seemed to continue to do so. The only other notable event taking place there last week, however, was Friday, when a small number of people, most either having already been or currently being in danger of being evacuated from their homes, gathered, apparently in front of the Theater, to make their plight known and also to commemorate two weeks since the fire, the connection being that a poor woman with five children, who was one of those usually cleaning the club, also died then after choosing to work that evening for a small amount of money even though it wasn’t her shift.

Moving away from the street must not mean that the efforts are over, however, and in fact it should be now that they truly start, though a few have been preparing the next steps for some time. I’m referring to the fact that, if we don’t want these past four years to have been wasted only on slightly improving our fitness and switching between one large and rotten group of politicians and another a couple of times, we must get into politics. Sadly, some keep saying they will remain only in the street, some perhaps also in NGOs, some rejecting even that option, most of them distrusting and rejecting any attempt to form a party and take part in elections, either out of a completely misguided notion that direct democracy can actually work on all levels or without having any real solution to offer and pretty much rejecting any that is presented.
In spite of that, some of the known activists are actually trying to create political parties and two such groups have already formed, though they’re not actually registered yet. One is the result of the work of some of the few known activists who had advocated for this solution all along, even while the vast majority vehemently opposed it, while the other seems to center around those who had joined Monica Macovei’s team for last year’s European Parliament elections, creating a huge amount of tension inside the movement and rifts that still haven’t fully closed and probably never will, before leaving some time later, probably after realizing how they had been used and what her true intentions were. Since now political parties can be created with only three members, it is expected that some others will form as well, and in fact I’m quite surprised that those who are somewhat loosely connected to this movement and first attempted this, obviously failing when the requirement was still of 25000 founding members, didn’t jump at the chance to try again already.
The second group I mentioned above, Initiativa Romania (The Romania Initiative), got a slight head start, having an official meeting where potential supporters were also invited while a significant number of people were still taking to the streets, while the first, Miscarea Uniti Realizam (United We Achieve Movement), had said first official open meeting yesterday, since I believe it was initially meant to take place around the start of the month and then was delayed due to current events. Don’t have details about what actually took place and when it comes to IR I can’t exactly say that I’m interested either, but personally I wish them and any others who may embark upon this journey lots of luck and hope to see them take part in next year’s elections, to offer people some real alternatives.

On that topic, while political parties can now be formed easily, the number of signatures required to take part in elections is still extremely high and the electoral thresholds didn’t decrease, so these new parties don’t stand a chance unless that changes and a ruling of the Constitutional Court states that such changes do not apply unless made at least a year before a round of elections. As such, there’s nothing to do about the local elections, which are next spring, but a very short window of opportunity remains when it comes to the Parliamentary ones, which should be next November, and one thing that did come out in part of the talks taking place between activists Monday evening was that a list of non-negotiable demands regarding the electoral law must be put forward immediately.
Sadly, when it comes to these issues we must work with others who have somewhat different ideas, and our best connection to that group is Claudiu, who tends to agree with them on certain issues that most other activists have a different view on. Because of that, when the list was made public on Wednesday, it started with the demand to reduce the electoral threshold from 5% to 2% instead of eliminating it completely, which is what most activists interested in the political solution want. It also includes a demand for a “none of the above” option, which obviously won’t be accepted but which, if it somehow would be, would only hurt these new initiatives anyway, so once again plenty of activists oppose it and one group even started gathering signatures separately, on a list of demands that doesn’t include this one. On top of this, and perhaps the worst problem, nothing about the huge number of signatures needed to run in the first place is to be found anywhere, under which circumstances it all seems quite theoretical, though it would appear that this may be a surprise for some, as two activists supporting this list as it is told me there is no signature requirement anymore when I brought the issue up on Saturday, though another had sent me the part of the law detailing the requirements a few days before.

And speaking of Saturday, that was when the next open discussion actually took place, in Izvor Park. It was supposed to start at 3 PM, but then a concert was announced as starting from 4 PM, all the money from ticket sales being donated to the victims of the fire, so the start time was moved to noon, since plenty were planning to attend the concert, and this likely had a major negative effect on the turnout. About 50 people did take part in the end, but it took a while for even those to gather, not even the gendarmes considering that they have any reason to show up until 1 PM, when some 20 of us were gathered in a circle and a few others were chatting separately nearby.
We did have a sound system and a generator this time around, though the small number of participants made some wonder whether there’s any point in using them. Still, since they were there and in order to make things more orderly, it was decided at that point to follow the original plan, so a number of people went forward to speak and present their ideas or, in some cases, what they had already done. The whole thing was also filmed and live streamed on-line, so those who couldn’t attend were able to follow, and it ended around 3 PM, when it seemed that nobody wanted to speak anymore, with the exception of one man who had already spoken twice until then and had bored just about everyone else each time, going well over the three minutes without saying anything worth listening to and complaining quite vehemently when asked to end his speech.
On the positive side, one person was part of the group of volunteers coordinating the grassroots efforts of helping the victims and the medical personnel struggling to save them, another had been working and continued to work on sites and other web tools meant to gather all these ideas and help those interested in moving beyond street protests organize, a few others were part of MUR or were otherwise interested in political solutions appearing and presented those views in particularly generic terms, since nothing that would be seen as campaigning was allowed, and when one asked for a vote, the vast majority showed support for getting into politics as the next step, only a few raising their hands against it. On the negative, there was that man I already mentioned and a few others with ideas that were too crazy or otherwise completely unfeasible and ill-advised, but that’s always the risk when anyone can come.

For that reason, there were less open discussions as well, the one I heard of taking place Thursday evening. However, the one who told me about it never gave me the address, despite saying I should come even though I told him, and he probably knew already anyway, that I can’t speak my mind face to face and I’d pretty much only be there to listen and could therefore be more useful by posting what I’d mean to say somewhere or sending it in a message. As a result, I couldn’t go and have no idea what happened there, but it would appear that it wasn’t the only such discussion taking place these days and there will definitely be more to come, among those who can agree on the next steps and can actually be useful for these efforts. And, if it works out, this may be the most important achievement at the moment.