Cav's Place

The break is over, the team took a little well-deserved vacation and also selected the spacecraft’s next destination, and now, as of today, New Horizons can resume transmitting the encounter data. So get ready, because 95% of what it recorded is yet to come and I’m quite sure they gave a higher priority to what the public is likely to be more interested in, so expect quite a few releases that will, or at least should, make quite an impact over the coming days and weeks.
Yes, patience will still be required, as the speed will be of a few kilobits per second at most and, while I assume New Horizons will have priority much of the time, DSN time is shared with all other active missions. In addition, those who want the lossless data will have to wait even longer, as that won’t even start being sent until the complete data set will be received in a more heavily compressed form, to ensure that less will be completely lost in case problems will appear later. But, as of today, information should keep coming and, depending on the rate at which they’ll process and release it to the public, something new should be available at the very least every week, and possibly even every day.

Definitely didn’t expect this, but I can quite safely say that this trial of Avira Antivirus Pro is the worst experience yet, and not only because of the deal breakers mentioned before or the quite noticeable performance impact. What definitely makes it the worst yet is the fact that it keeps switching me to the free version every day, and yesterday one of its components also crashed when that happened, requiring a reboot.
As I say in that post I linked to above, after initially following the advice I was given and reinstalling, I noticed there’s a license file which can be loaded in order to reactivate the Pro version if it’s saved somewhere else first, since every 24 hours it’ll otherwise replace it with one for the free version, so I didn’t have to reinstall again, but that wasn’t a proper solution. Then, two days ago, I also saw that it seemed to try to make the switch once again but then immediately reactivated itself as the full version, and the only thing that had changed was that the license file was invisible. Yesterday, when it switched again and then crashed, I had made it visible again, to try to see if the initial behavior returns. Today it was once again invisible, and so far it doesn’t seem to have even tried to switch again when 24 hours passed, but just that component which crashed yesterday made a connection not long after that time, and so far that component had never attempted to connect.
I guess that may be a sign that they actually fixed the problem that existed on their server, because after contacting support, as I was advised on that thread, I was told I didn’t have a valid purchased license on the account and given instructions about purchasing or installing an already purchased one, or sent back to the community in case my questions are about the free products. Of course, I replied to say that yes, I don’t have a purchased license, I have a trial one, as I kept saying, and added a screenshot of it showing up in my account on the site, and I guess it may be possible that they fixed whatever was wrong, though I received no other reply yet. Wouldn’t count on it though, and my confidence in the support they can offer or in the stability of the product is pretty much zero after all of this, plus that the program shouldn’t even be able to switch editions like this while the license is still valid. As such, Avira quickly went from one product I actually hoped may end up being a realistic option at the end of these tests to the first one I’m actually seriously considering abandoning well before the trial period ends.

Otherwise, Monday I again checked three different hypermarkets, visiting two of them twice, though I couldn’t also drop off the old UPS, which dad had kept around so far, at the one that collects them and also offers tickets for small discounts in return. The whole plan rather started from wanting to do that, but since it was clear I couldn’t go there first once I decided to check all of them, I first went to check prices, thinking I’ll come back later and bring it with me then, which was a good choice, as I noticed the system was out of order. So I pretty much spent the whole day, leaving around 1:20 PM and coming back the last time roughly around 10:45 PM, wandering around and all I had to show for it were savings of barely a few percent and picking up a couple of things not available in the place I usually go to. And it was a hot day…
Obviously, due to both the late hour I returned at and the fact that I had walked easily over 20 kilometers that day, Google Maps saying I had covered 16.7 kilometers on foot outdoors alone, I couldn’t also run then, but did that yesterday, the heat making me return to the evening hours. In fact, I think it was the latest run yet, finished just before 10 PM, but it was also the best time I managed during the evening, 21:43, 26 seconds slower than the current record on that route, which was when the area was clear, but 10 seconds better than the previous best time while it was crowded. And since I’m starting to make a mental note of these times as well, I’ll also add here that I crossed the bridge the second time after 10:36 and completed the full lap in 16:48, so the best “intermediate” times remain 10:01 and 16:21, respectively. Should probably find a good spot for an earlier intermediate time as well, however, as ten minutes without being able to accurately check my pace is likely too much.

Last night, I actually finished adding countries alongside the names in the list I keep of bands that catch my attention at some point and I’d like to look into more someday. Also added former names where there had been changes and I found this information, and notes to mention that in a few cases I’m not sure I correctly identified the band I had in mind when I added the name to the list, though I’m actually quite surprised there are so few of those and that only one of the no less than 229 entries remains completely unidentified, as I found a few different bands with that name but none seem to fit what I’d add there. Of course, I clearly should have added more identifying information than this, such as links, but I only thought of this as I was close to finishing, so I guess I’ll have to go through it all over again in order to do so.
That said, today is a good day to add a sixth entry to this series of posts. A year and nearly four months since the fifth, it was long past time for another either way, and I’m actually not sure why I waited so long. After all, it may take a while to decide what songs to link to, but all that really requires is listening to a number of them, which I tend to do anyway, plus that most of this problem would go away if I’d simply write such posts containing the songs that I just happened to get stuck on over a period of a few weeks or so.

I’m going to start with a band which is neither new nor lesser known among those interested in their genre, namely Powerwolf, as I listened to and actually liked their latest album after somebody mentioned getting an autograph from them at Summer Breeze. Had actually just happened to randomly end up listening to Amen & Attack on YouTube at some point in the past, but even though I liked that one I quickly lost interest after listening to a few other songs. However, as I was saying, quite liked this latest album, and from it I guess I’ll just put a link to Armata Strigoi here. May have preferred others, perhaps Sanctus Dominus, but it’s a recent release and other uploads seem to vanish quickly at the moment, so at least I know that this won’t have the same fate, being official.

Moving on to something entirely different, as I was working my way down the lower part of that list, I found myself getting quite stuck on Mourning Crimson‘s Alone and remembering having gotten just as stuck on it the first time as well. However, the band only had a few songs at that point, doesn’t even have an entry on Metal Archives and seems to have vanished completely shortly after that release, two and a half years ago, so I have no idea what their current status is. Still, if you’re interested, the discography page on their site offers download links.

Back to some actual new finds, Snow White Blood show some promise, though they only seem to have proper recordings of two songs at the moment and I likely wouldn’t have thought to include them if the admin of the Female Symphonic Metal group wouldn’t be actively promoting them at the moment. Either way, you can find those two songs on their SoundCloud page, plus a few live recordings, which include covers, on their YouTube channel.

One band I’m quite sure I considered including in the previous such post as well, on the other hand, is Selene. As I’m once again listening to their releases, which are available on their Bandcamp page, I can quite easily assume that the vocals were the reason why I changed my mind, as it’s quite obvious she can’t quite manage what plenty of the songs would require, and let’s not mention those male vocals heard at one point. However, it’d hardly be the first time I add a band I have such misgivings about and, either way, I absolutely must point out Ghost, considering how stuck I was on that song, more than once. Adding something from their second EP is more difficult, but I guess I’ll go with Still Dreaming.

But speaking of that previous post in this series, The Fallacy is a band I’m definitely not sure why I didn’t include there, seeing as I know I first saw them mentioned on the Power of Female Fronted Metal group about two months before writing it. So I’m going to fix that mistake now, because Love Division and Drops of Fire sound simply great. Admittedly, those are both off what is still their latest proper album, and quite clearly the best songs on it as well, but I’ll just focus on them at the moment, because they definitely show what they can do. If you’re interested in more, you can find all their releases on their Bandcamp page.

Once again, this took far too long, so I’ll stop after five bands, same as last time. Still, while writing it I actually discovered some new things, and unfortunately also confirmed one concern about a band I initially meant to add here and which I’m now considering removing from the list entirely as a result, so I definitely should do this more often. Who knows, someday I may actually look into most of those bands again, as the vast majority are still simply added to the list once and then never looked up again, unless perhaps I happen to stumble into a new track or album and find with varying amounts of surprise that I should have already known the band, yet I at best vaguely remember the name, and at times not even that… So how about I add that I plan to write the seventh post in this series by the end of the year and see if this helps me actually do so?

Posts where I mention switching the antivirus product I’m testing also tended to include finishing something or some other milestone, but this time I don’t have anything of the sort to add. So this will just be a short post where I’ll say that yes, last night I switched from Trend Micro Antivirus+ to Avira Antivirus Pro, and also took the opportunity to update Comodo Firewall to the latest version, released some three weeks ago. Wasn’t actually sure that I needed to switch last night, as it was unclear to me whether the last day of the Trend Micro trial was yesterday or today, but it worked out better this way, so didn’t wait to find out.
Unfortunately, just as it was with Trend Micro, I can say right away that Avira is not an option for the future, so now it’s just a matter of waiting out the month and hoping it won’t cause any actual problems during this time. There are things I like about it, definitely, but also deal breakers, as I can’t risk it when game mode can’t be turned off completely, so it will kick in under certain circumstances and decisions will be taken by the software while it’s on. Plus, having it always show an alert that I need to ignore implies the need to always ignore the fact that alerts exist, which will make me miss any others unless I specifically check. And while the performance impact on starting programs is clearly lower than that of Trend Micro, it’s clearly higher otherwise, such as while browsing or when the computer is otherwise idle and only running SETI@home tasks, which lose about a minute of processing time per hour of elapsed time, compared to around ten seconds per hour while testing some other products. Then again, this is also noticeable while the computer is in use, as updating fully uses one CPU core for up to a minute, during which time the system is obviously quite sluggish.

And that’s about it for the moment, though I guess I should also add that I ran again on Monday, also during the day, when the route was quite clear, and the time was 21:26. That’s nine seconds slower than last time, but the temperature was also higher and I didn’t particularly push. It should get hotter again now, however, so next week’s run will likely be in the evening again, though it may be the last time I’ll need to do that this year.

Did manage to run today, noticing it had stopped raining and rushing outside early enough to be sure I’ll also be back well before the qualifying for tomorrow’s race started. Of course, others had noticed that same good moment, so there were quite a few other runners taking advantage of it as well, but quite few people otherwise, so the route was pretty much clear. As such, though I was saying last week’s time should remain the record on that route for quite a while, now I ended up doing a stunning 21:17, so no less than 36 seconds better.
Sure, the lack of people meant I no longer had to weave, slow down or even briefly stop, as I kept needing to when the heat forced me to go during the evening, and the puddles weren’t significant, so those didn’t cause trouble either, while the actually slightly chilly weather and overcast sky helped as well. Plus that I didn’t have to lose a few seconds to retie my shoelaces again, though they did come untied almost immediately after finishing. But I still didn’t feel that I was making such a good time, especially not after the bridge, as until not long before crossing under it the second time, with a time that was four seconds better than my best for that portion of the route, I had been more or less following another runner who was obviously faster than me at a normal pace, but then I realized that was too much and slowed down, or at least I thought I did, as I allowed myself to drop back from him rather rapidly. But, either way, this was the result, and oddly enough I don’t feel as exhausted as I did last week, though I did feel that I was pushing slightly harder while running.

Otherwise, been watching Planet Earth these days, so I guess I’ll be finishing that next week. Nine years is quite some time for a nature documentary, as things and places can change, but it sure is stunning, enough to make me no longer question how come a documentary is second on IMDB‘s Top 250 TV. Should probably also get around to watching the episodes of the new Cosmos I didn’t already happen to catch on National Geographic, as seeing it sixth on the same list reminded me of it.

And since that other thing I mentioned at the end of the previous post still isn’t sorted out and also doesn’t actually affect me, having to do with dad’s computer, I’ll once again leave it for some other time and end this post by saying that I did convince myself to move on to the last chapter of Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark after getting through the siege a third time, and second after realizing that my initial character development plan was all wrong and I shouldn’t move on to its next step. There would perhaps still be a few hundred experience points to potentially gain during that battle, but I’m not sure how realistic it is to hope to actually manage it, so had set an initial target and managed to persuade myself to move on after hitting it, though I’ll have some angry words with myself if I’ll end up just shy of gaining another level just before the end, or before some other moment when I’ll want to change some spells, my character being a sorcerer.