Cav's Place

Had no plans to get anything this time around, neither from the fair nor from that little bookstore with books in English located relatively nearby but which only participated once, when I discovered them there, and has since decided to just have discounts for the duration of the fair without attending, but of course I was going to at least have a look at Bookfest, just out of curiosity. Also decided to try crossing Herastrau Park to get from the metro to the location of the fair instead of going around it as before, and I didn’t get lost, so that definitely went well enough.
The weather forecast was rather worrying, with showers during the day and storms later, so when I found myself waking up at 8:25 AM, after probably some two and a half hours of sleep, I stayed up. After eating something, checking everything a few more times and managing to get myself in a reasonable enough state for something like this, I left at 10:45 and, while the sky was overcast both on the way there and on the way back, it didn’t even rain. Better yet, though I was worried I’ll find myself in a storm, when I came back out of the metro and had some more to walk to buy a couple of things before making my way back, it was actually sunny. The storm only came around 8:45 PM, so well after I got back, which was at 4:35 PM, and I didn’t exactly notice rain before that either.

The bad news have to do with health issues, the first being that the atopic dermatitis that keeps pestering me seems to have decided to attack my face lately. It is known that it’s a frequently affected area, but I was lucky so far, as it had only appeared in the eyebrow area and in one rather hard to spot place under my chin, so at least it wasn’t exactly noticeable. However, now I first saw a quite visible spot around my chin and then an almost perfect circle on my left temple. Now that I think of it, I imagine it’s been there for quite a while, but whatever hair I have left had covered it sufficiently, so I imagine that either some of it fell off now as a result of it or it moved or advanced slightly, so now it’s very visible and this is making me feel even worse about going out.
The second issue has to do with a tooth, which seems decided to keep nudging me for the past few days. At first my whole jaw hurt due to my lower left wisdom tooth, which has been so lazy so far that it hasn’t poked out at all yet but which seemed to have decided to have a little go at it for a few days. Then that calmed down, but I noticed that I was left with an obvious dull pain, mainly during and for quite some time after eating, on the upper left side, and last night there were a few sharp jabs as well. I believe this is the second tooth there, which may well be chipped or have lost its small filling yet again, but what worries me is that it may be the third, which has had a fair amount of work done on it back in 2007 and which I was told back then will probably last for two more years like that, before something more complex will need to be done, so it’s definitely well beyond any “warranty” by now.

What makes this worse is that another protest is scheduled next Wednesday, on the World Environment Day, and I definitely mean to attend that as well, so at this point I sure hope neither the tooth nor the dermatitis will get any worse, because I really can’t see myself getting to a doctor, if not two, and then also to a protest in a few days. Then again, another problem with the protest is that the current forecast shows possible storms that day as well and the chosen area is completely in the open, so we’ll see what happens, because rain is one thing, but hail, lightning strikes or high winds that may cause trees or other things to collapse are something else entirely and being outside under such conditions would definitely be unwise.
I know I’ll probably need to at least take care of the tooth, and the sooner the better, especially since it may still be quite simple to fix at this point, but I hope it’ll at least allow me to wait until the week after that. And I also hope that what appeared on my face really is caused by that same old atopic dermatitis and not something else, seeing as the shape does make it quite suspicious, and that it’ll go away on its own after a while, since I quite clearly can’t use the cream I have for when it becomes unbearable on my face. I guess I could have it checked out if it gets worse, but it’d be quite pointless to have to see a doctor yet again for a problem I know I have, I know can’t be cured and which I have been managing reasonably well for so many years.

Otherwise, writing’s been going particularly badly lately and I haven’t exactly submitted anything on MobyGames since the start of the month, but something posted on that forum reminded me of Castle of the Winds, I tried playing it again and noticed that it worked. I remember playing the first part of this way back in the day and tried downloading it again a couple of years ago, but for some strange reason it wouldn’t work under Vista, so now I tried again, finished the first part yet again very quickly and now I guess I’ll try wasting a bit of time with the second. It doesn’t seem like I’m managing much else, so playing a game, even if such an old and basic one, would at least count as something.

I did take part in yesterday’s March Against Monsanto organized in Bucharest and stayed all the way to the end, but I certainly wanted to leave as soon as we started marching and really felt out of place there throughout. The problem, of course, was that the very first thing Alex said when we finally got going, more than 30 minutes late, had to do with the shrinking population of Romania and how it’s not just because of poverty, a bad welfare system and poor health care that makes people die sooner, but likely also because of eating food that causes infertility, which includes genetically modified organisms. Worse, that was followed by a chant that would translate as “Monsanto, if you want to know, will leave you without children”, which was also what was shouted most often during the march, inasmuch as anything was shouted at all, since most of the time we were just silent, and while you could take that as meaning that GMOs are more dangerous to children, which is in fact probably true, the context made it obvious that its intended meaning was another.
I clearly feared that this will happen, seeing as the two issues are very frequently related in the minds of those who consider that reducing the population would be a bad thing, which are the vast majority, and I know for a fact that at least some of the leading participants, including Alex, hold this opinion and are actively involved in that crap about fighting the “depopulation agenda”, so was extremely edgy about attending, but I did anyway and wanted to see what will happen. The plan was to simply leave if it will actually be brought up, or at least if it’ll be brought up in any other way than as simply one element of some random speech made by someone before or after the actual march, but since that’d have meant to not attend any part of the march whatsoever, I just glared at Alex while he made that little speech at the start and then just put down my sign, cursed mentally and tried to go more towards the edges of the group whenever they chanted that slogan again, plus that I also walked largely with the group that was taking the lead and frequently walking a bit too fast for the others, which tended to occasionally open gaps and make even this one chant, which was otherwise one of the only two that were picked up in earnest by the participants, not always carry through to them as well.

There were other issues as well, starting from the fact that only about 150 people attended, and even that may be a slightly generous assessment, and continuing with being spread thin due to being forced on the sidewalk and having to weave among parked cars, with the confusion about the starting point, with the scandal caused by some guy in the nearby spot where most people had gathered, even though it wasn’t the actual place that was finally chosen, and with the fact that the only one out of the known or potential leaders who acted as such was Alex, and even he was very late, finally arriving after 4 PM, when we should have started marching already. The usual problem is that there are too many people pulling in different directions and competing about whose is longer, thicker or harder, yet yesterday we just sort of stared at each other until Alex finally came and then it was all thrown on his shoulders when it was definitely too much for one person to handle, especially when we were spread so thin due to the lack of space on the sidewalk.
And then there was what Alex did say when he managed to get a few moments away from all the people trying to tell or ask him things during the march, after that brief speech at the start, which at the time certainly seemed to me to focus on the wrong things, as in those that I was saying in my previous post may be better to be avoided in order to focus on what can’t exactly be challenged by anyone. He made a far better speech at the end, touching on just what I was talking about in that post, and there was another person there who got a few words about a potential solution in when he asked if anyone else has anything to say, so at least that part made me feel slightly less “soiled” by attending the event, but it was too little to wash away how I felt up to that point.
Admittedly, when I posted a rant last night in which I also brought up the fact that he didn’t focus on what we should have been focusing on the most, he said he did touch on those issues during the march as well, but he was limited in how much he could say, so it’s entirely possible that those moments came when I was too far ahead and didn’t hear. Yet whether those topics were also brought up then or not, the fact that it started with a rant about population and that the chant referring to that was one of the only two that really caught on made me feel something like I’d imagine a gay nationalist would feel while attending a protest organized by right-wing extremists, and I do apologize for the comparison but I couldn’t think of a better one: What we agreed on may be important, but what we disagreed on defined me, so what the fuck was I doing there?

This isn’t to say that, for a start of a campaign that never got any real traction around here before, this didn’t actually go reasonably well. They managed to get something going on relatively short notice, those in charge aren’t exactly to blame for most problems with the exception of this focus on the impact on population, and it may just mark the start of a movement, especially since we certainly had pretty good media coverage and they also handed out plenty of fliers to people, but this is a personal post about how I felt, not an objective news piece, so I’ll say again that I felt that I really shouldn’t have been there… And the fact that a girl approached me while marching to ask what is this all about and I was likely too frightened by needing to talk to a stranger like that to make proper sense, leading her to say she didn’t understand a thing, certainly didn’t help with that feeling.
I should also mention that I did spell out exactly what bothered me so much in a message I sent Alex after he asked, in his reply to that rant I posted, what was I talking about when I said I heard exactly what I didn’t want to hear, so let’s see what the result of that will be. I didn’t post it in public because when I did get into discussing my stance on the population issue with someone I met at a protest I was told I should be executed for thinking this way, so while it’s easy enough for anyone to see what I think about it, I’d rather not directly provoke a reaction from people I’ll probably end up actually meeting again. I’m quite unsure whether I’ll be meeting them again when GMOs will be the issue, however, because yesterday’s experience is making me seriously consider sitting out any further events that have to do with this. The risk of the situation repeating itself is simply too great and unacceptable when reducing the population is my top priority.

As you should probably already know, tomorrow’s the international March Against Monsanto day. If you somehow didn’t already know it, you learned it now and can still look for an event to attend in your area, seeing as, at the moment I’m writing this sentence, the events page lists 424 events taking place in 58 countries and all of them definitely need the power of numbers if we want this to have an actual impact.

Besides making a last minute call for participation, however, what I mean to do with this post is point out that Monsanto is merely the most notable “face” of a greater problem, which has to do with food security, with the way modern humans obtain their food and with what impact this has on the environment. Even if we’ll someday be successful, merely taking action against a corporation, even one as large and as evil as Monsanto, won’t do much good if the structure and mindset that gave birth to it and continues to allow it to thrive will remain, and in order to change that we need to offer, promote and actively implement solutions for the core problems, not merely react against their manifestations, be they real or perceived.
When we do go on the offensive, however, it is important to focus on the paths of attack that are the least defensible. After all, if all you have is an old pistol and you’re being rushed by somebody in bullet-proof armor, you can desperately fire all your bullets at their chest or head hoping that it’ll be enough, you can start frantically searching for a rocket launcher, or you can notice that the armor only covers them from the waist up, smash their knees with a well-aimed shot and then finish them off once they’re down. The same principle applies here as well, so it may at times be wiser to partially or even completely ignore certain obvious facets of the problem, even if we’re talking about extremely important ones, in order to direct all energy towards those that the other side is least likely to be able to spin in their favor.
At the same time, while the scope of the message needs to expand to include the greater issue and a number of proposed solutions, it absolutely must not be stretched past that point. Mixing messages and lumping together different issues only causes confusion for any potential observers and greatly increases the risk of disagreements among the participants, because while everyone is expected to attend because they agree with the main topic, each person may have a different opinion when it comes to any others, even those that some may feel are closely related, and that’s entirely their right and perfectly fine. Thankfully, people only need to agree on one goal in order to be able to work together towards it, even if they disagree on all others, but they must be allowed to do so by ensuring that none of those other issues are brought up. There are few enough willing to act to risk any disagreements or to allow any efforts to be wasted due to lack of sufficient focus.

But the section above largely deals with general concepts when it comes to activism, so I want to point out that the least defensible path of attack when it comes to this particular issue is the economic and social one, followed by the environmental one. Yes, there is a lot to be said about the potential impact eating genetically modified organisms may have on health, the potentially lower nutritional value or the potentially lower productivity, both from the beginning and, more frequently, after a few years of unsustainably high yields deplete the soil, but GMO advocates are sufficiently prepared to answer such challenges in ways that will at the very least sow doubt in the minds of the uninformed and there are plenty of others who, for various reasons, will back their claims, so taking the fight there is exactly what they want and therefore exactly what we must avoid.
If we want to get through their rhetoric without playing on their terms, the first thing we must point out is that allowing corporations to get patents for edible plants, and even for livestock, and passing laws to protect their “rights” to take action against those who don’t respect their terms, means that we’re handing over the control of food. We all need to eat, but if we go down this path we’ll eventually only be able to eat what they want us to and only as long as we pay them whatever they want and give them whatever other rights and powers they wish for, and it means that this won’t happen at an individual level, but at the level of entire countries and continents, so once that ball gets rolling, it’ll be extremely difficult to stop.
The second aspect I mentioned, the environmental one, has to do with the fact that these new species are, by their own definition, more likely to thrive under the current conditions than existing, natural ones. As such, if they will spread into the environment, they will push out many other species and that will almost certainly have disastrous consequences, far worse than even those caused by current monocultures. Admittedly, pointing this out may offer them a way to justify certain decisions, such as the plants that don’t produce any seeds that may be replanted, but the matter is nevertheless one to tackle, both because that isn’t a guaranteed fix and because obviously worsening one problem to lower the risk of another that shouldn’t exist in the first place is hardly right.

Last but definitely not least, one topic that the vast majority involved in this particular battle should definitely stay well clear of is population. Even when GMO advocates will say, as they often tend to do, that traditional methods, not to mention organic ones, can’t even properly feed the existing population, much less a growing one, particularly without destroying the environment even more, they probably shouldn’t respond to the provocation, because any mention of the issue tends to make them react emotionally, get angry, start spewing forth all that crap about the “depopulation agenda” and generally make themselves unable to get back to thinking coherently when the topic will change and greatly reduce their own credibility in the eyes of those still capable of using their brains even when gonads come into play.
The proper response when the matter is brought up, and the one I obviously give when it comes to it, is to completely agree with the statement but add that this only means that we need to get the population back within sustainable limits, so anything that allows it to keep growing actually increases the harm. I’ll also say that we need to find ways to reduce population without killing anyone or allowing people to die unnecessarily, therefore throwing the argument right back at them while also touching on the economic and social aspect and giving all of those who believe those conspiracy theories a bone to chew on as well, but seeing as the vast majority won’t do or even think that, touching on the issue of population is pretty much the last thing we want to do when it comes to GMOs.

Not a bad edition, all told, though the final could have been better if not for certain particularly strange decisions made by the juries and the voters in the semifinals, as there were four or five good entries that didn’t make it. Still, it was definitely better than last year and, while the top pick has been obvious ever since the national finals, there were several other songs I wouldn’t have particularly minded to see as number one, in case the voting would have somehow gone against all predictions.
Unlike last year, I once again knew all the songs before the competition, though there were a few that I only listened to once and without even really paying attention and I didn’t bother with trying to watch images from the rehearsals or read articles describing the acts before the actual competition, so exactly what each participant did on stage wasn’t known to me ahead of time and that definitely allowed for a few nice surprises.

As I said, the fact that Denmark was the top pick was obvious ever since the songs became known and this was probably the clearest winner in a very long time, at least in terms of being known ahead of time and resulting from the performance itself and not from marketing, “political” votes or various other such processes. I wasn’t particularly happy with how it was sung during the competition, but thanks to an outstanding composition and a suitable show value, the overall package was good enough regardless.
Azerbaijan once again sent an excellent entry in terms of the overall package, the show value making up for a song that, while still among the better ones, wasn’t exactly one of the best in my opinion. If they keep this up, I’m sure it won’t be long before they’ll win a second time.
Ukraine had a good and also interesting song, with some sounds that will probably grow on me even more if I’ll listen to it a few more times, so I’m not complaining about it finishing third, despite the rather static performance after the moment at the beginning.
On the other hand, I’m quite bothered by Norway finishing so high, probably as a result of marketing, at least according to what I heard. I can’t say that the song itself isn’t decent, but it didn’t stand out to me and when you couple that with a largely static performance, I see no real reason for it to be above so many better acts.
The Russian song was nice in itself, but on top of that it also had a good message that also fit this edition’s theme, and the show value was definitely notable thanks to using the crowd properly, in a way that hasn’t been done before. As a result, the overall performance was great and it might have deserved to finish even higher.

My ranking system is still the same, giving one mark for song and another for show value, plus a positive, neutral or negative modifier, and ranking first according to the overall mark that is the result of averaging the song and show ones, then according to the song mark and then, if both marks are equal, according to the modifier. In case all three are equal, the ranking is the result of me trying to quickly compare the performances in question at the end, but that thankfully happens less often now that, since 2011, I have decided to allow half-point marks as well, although this now results in me giving 6.5 a whole lot.
Once again, still largely for my own use, I’ll list all the information here, with the first number being the position in my classification, the one between parentheses that follows it being the actual position, the first number that follows the country name being the overall mark, the second being the song mark and the modifier, if not neutral, being listed at the end. All links are from the official channel, so they shouldn’t vanish.

1. (1.) Denmark (7.25, 7.5)
2. (5.) Russia (7.25, 7, plus)
3. (15.) Georgia (7, 7.5)
4. (11.) Moldova (7, 7)
5. (2.) Azerbaijan (7, 6.5, plus)
6. (24.) Finland (7, 6.5)
7. (3.) Ukraine (6.75, 7, plus)
8. (16.) Belarus (6.75, 6.5, plus)
9. (13.) Romania (6.75, 6.5, plus)
10. (25.) Spain (6.75, 6.5)
11. (20.) Estonia (6.5, 7, minus)
12. (21.) Germany (6.5, 6.5, plus)
13. (8.) Malta (6.5, 6.5, plus)
14. (14.) Sweden (6.5, 6.5, plus)
15. (18.) Armenia (6.5, 6.5)
16. (26.) Ireland (6.5, 6.5)
17. (6.) Greece (6.5, 6.5, minus)
18. (19.) United Kingdom (6.5, 6)
19. (17.) Iceland (6.25, 7, plus)
20. (4.) Norway (6.25, 6.5, plus)
21. (12.) Belgium (6.25, 6, plus)
22. (9.) Netherlands (6, 6.5, plus)
23. (10.) Hungary (6, 6.5)
24. (22.) Lithuania (6, 6, plus)
25. (7.) Italy (5.75, 6, minus)
26. (23.) France (5.75, 6, minus)

I got Denmark and Sweden right, was one place off for United Kingdom, two places off for Iceland and Lithuania and three places off for Armenia, Azerbaijan, France and Russia. On the other end, I was at least ten places off for Finland, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway and Spain.
As for the semifinals, sticking to my system, from the first I’d have taken Austria, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia through instead of Belgium, Ireland, Lithuania and Netherlands, but I otherwise wanted Netherlands to go through and had little interest in seeing Slovenia or Austria make it, these two only being in the list because I had to pick ten. From the second, whether we’re talking of a purely personal opinion or of the results of applying my scoring system to the competition, I’d have very clearly taken Israel, San Marino and Switzerland through instead of Armenia, Greece and Hungary.

And now let me briefly explain my top ten picks, as I usually do.
There’s little left to say about Denmark other than the fact that, considering her performance during the national final, it could have sounded even better than it did during the actual competition. As I said, it was definitely still good enough to be the clear winner even so, but it could have been even better and she definitely has what it takes for it, so I wonder if she was simply too nervous or something else was going on.
Little left to say about Russia either. It was a good song with a nice message and an equally good show value relying on a new element. As an overall package, it was better than anything except Denmark.
I was uncertain about the Georgian entry all the way, but eventually decided to give it a high song mark despite noticing some issues with how the first part of it was sung. It is, in my opinion, an outstanding song, and those issues went away as the singers got into it, but it could have had a better show value.
Moldova had a good song, the singer had a great voice, despite appearing to have an issue or two at some point, and the show was interesting as well, despite being rather static. There may be a couple of slightly better songs ranked below it, but as an overall performance it was particularly solid.
Azerbaijan was boosted by the show value, the guy performing inside that glass cage offering an excellent and unique show of skill. As I said, the song was one of better ones as well, though not particularly one of the very best.
I put Finland so high due to the relevance of the performance under the current context. The song itself wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exactly one of the better ones either, so what made it particularly noteworthy was that it was something about marriage ending with a kiss between two women at a time when the issue of gay marriage is a hot topic in many parts of the world, so it’s a rather bold statement that, regardless of the exact reason why it was made, needs to be supported.
Ukraine had a very good song that, as I said before, will probably grow on me even more if I’ll listen to it a few more times, so I don’t mind that it ended up higher than it is in my classification. It would have helped if the performance would have been less static, however.
Belarus had a happy, “sunny” song that was performed well enough and also benefited from a reasonably good show value, which was good enough to set it above the others that follow it.
Not sure if I was biased in placing Romania higher than where it ended up finishing, I’m tempted to say I wasn’t, because the guy’s vocal qualities are unquestionable and the show value was quite decent as well. What’s unfortunate is that the composition itself didn’t rise to that same level, because I believe he could have done much better than that if given a song that’d have truly emphasized his particular abilities.
As for Spain, it simply struck me as an interesting performance. Place it later during the show or perhaps in another context and I might have ranked it lower, but ask me again and I’ll say that, in hindsight, I should have given Malta another half point for show value as well and therefore have it end up tenth instead, so I’ll stick with my initial assessment and say that, at that particular moment, it seemed quite good and I can’t recall being bothered by any element of it, which you see wasn’t the case even for some of my top picks, much less for any of those ranked below it.

Yesterday’s announcement has been expected for the past few months, ever since problems with a second reaction wheel were first detected, but that doesn’t make it any less unfortunate. It was well known that Kepler‘s days were numbered and the recent safe mode event taking place under such circumstances should have probably made everyone realize that we were truly looking at a matter of days, but I think most were still hoping that it’ll somehow continue to function and bring us new and interesting discoveries for at least a while longer, if not even until a successor will be launched to take its place.
Now that two of its four reaction wheels have failed, the spacecraft will need to resort to thrusters to stabilize itself, which in turn require fuel, making the solution temporary at best. According to the team, the fuel reserves could still power the thrusters for months, but in order to buy even more time to look for a solution, they have decided to switch the spacecraft to a fuel-saving behavior, allowing certain variations in position and obviously making any data collection completely impossible in order to ensure that the fuel will last for years, during which time they might either stumble upon some method to properly mitigate the effects of the existing problems or, failing that, find some other way in which Kepler may continue to be of use, possibly for other projects.
At the same time, the mission itself, which is funded all the way to 2016, will certainly not end here. It may have recently produced our best find yet, but it was known from the beginning that many, if not most, discoveries will be made after the spacecraft will cease to function and that is very likely to be the case, seeing as the team stated that they still have some two years of data not yet completely analyzed, not to mention that confirming planets requires even further observations once the candidates are clearly identified in the data from Kepler. After all, the number of confirmed planets currently stands at less than 5% of the number of planet candidates while it was estimated that a minimum of 80%, and probably 90% or more, of the identified planet candidates will be confirmed as planets once properly analyzed.

It needs to be remembered that we’re talking about a relatively low-cost mission, the spacecraft therefore never having been likely to continue operating long past the end of its primary mission, which was in November, and that there have been issues to mitigate even before that, in order to keep it operational even this long. But this is what science is facing these days, when it seems that preserving an outdated, failed and terribly harmful economic system is far more important, so all I can do is thank the team and all the others who were and will continue to be involved in the effort for their hard work and dedication and look towards the future, waiting for the next discoveries and developments.