Cav's Place

Maybe I’d have rushed to write a quick post between the sprint race and the main qualifying session, to also be able to post it before dad got back, but I ended up needing to unclog the toilet again, so I then fiddled with some more things on the new computer instead… And that’s because, yes, I’m finally using it, after switching the cases yesterday and just taking the plunge, even though I initially meant to at least get back to the old one last night, after making a sort of pizza, once again using one of those fluffy flatbreads as the base, wanting everything to be normal when I got back on-line, especially since it was 4:50 AM when I started eating that mixed lunch and dinner, which also included a slice of the cake, three more remaining in the freezer. But, as I said, I ended up just taking the plunge and staying on this one, poking around various things and even continuing to install what I’m used to having even if I’m yet to add security software, so it was 6:55 AM when I finally finished eating and 8:10 AM when I got in bed. And before that mixed lunch and dinner I had only eaten a few plums and a few biscuits after getting up, and hadn’t even brushed my teeth that day, so I only did so once, before getting in bed.
One thing that makes me need to open up the new computer again is that I accidentally connected the power LED as well, so there’s a blue light aimed at the bed. Then again, there’s a lot of disk activity, and it seems that this motherboard is making the HDD LED light up brightly as well, and those constant flashes may be more of a problem than a steady light, but I don’t want to disconnect that one as well. And last night the power LED was useful, since I had forgotten to set the computer to never go to sleep and I’d have really panicked if I’d have entered the room to find it apparently off instead of having that blinking LED to let me know what had likely happened right away.
Except that little issue, everything seems fine in terms of hardware, so I shouldn’t have had a reason to open it again until I’ll get that other NVMe SSD, assuming that I’ll stick to that decision. But one problem until then is that I only moved the SSD to this computer, meaning that I just have two drives and the data is split between them, so I don’t know how to set up the daily backup, because there isn’t much point in backing things up on the same drive. And things will get trickier if I will actually try Linux as well, since I’ll have to figure out a way to share the partition with the documents as well as the backup ones, and they’ll be on drives that are also used for some of the data that’s being backed up even when I’ll have three. But yes, that means that I’m now on Windows 10… Which also makes it a whole lot less likely that I will give Linux an honest chance, if I’ll even install it at all. But I really can’t stand how Windows 10 looks and “feels”, and the more important part which remains to be seen is how it’ll behave, so I’ll keep poking around, but it may push me to make that attempt after all, at least at some point.
One thing that I’m yet to even try is the TV tuner, since I tried to install its software yesterday but I couldn’t find the activation code, and while I found it listed after putting the old computer back together and in the other case, and then even found where I had placed the documentation as well, I didn’t try again today. And I’m also yet to connect the data cable of any UPS to this computer, or to try the new one again at all, so everything’s still plugged into the old one and its data cable is plugged into the old computer, so that one kept receiving the data when I turned it back on to check that it worked.
Speaking of the old computer, after initially trying to take everything out with the cables still connected, I had to disconnect the HDDs and even remove the back fan, and then I couldn’t remember which SATA ports the HDDs were plugged into and I ended up plugging them into different ones, so it needed to get its bearings again after I turned it back on, but I hope everything’s fine, because I mean to give it to dad but keep the existing Windows installation as it is, clearing my data and putting a password on my account, making another one for him, and I’d say also install Windows 10 alongside that Windows 7, since we purchased that second key for that purpose. But these keys may need to be activated quickly, quite some time already passed, I’d want to put it on the SSD from his old computer, and he said that he needs that one to work without having to worry about anything until at least December 14, so it remains to be seen what we’ll actually do. I could put it on the other HDD for the time being and see whether that activation key, assuming that it’d still work even now, would allow it to be reinstalled on the SSD later, or whether I could figure out how to clone that drive and move it to the SSD without reinstalling, or if not then just leave it on that noisy HDD, which will obviously also be noticeably slower than the SSD. But for now I’m turning it back on in order to post this from it, and also take what I forgot to copy on this SSD.
Then again, I’m not sure that there’s any difference between what’s there and what I had backed up the last time, and it’s actually a good thing that I kept the installed games on this SSD instead of deleting them in order to make room for the other things, because Siege of Avalon didn’t seem to work on Windows 10 at first, but after copying the saved games and siege.ini over, it now works. It’s in windowed mode and the compatibility mode is set to Windows 7, as anything else seemed to make it hang while in this case the problem seemed to be with the display, the window remaining black. It’s also set to disable fullscreen optimizations, but I’m not sure whether that helps and now that it’s working I’m not about to change anything. As for that file, I’m not entirely certain that I remembered everything correctly, but the differences between what it installs with and what I copied seem to be the “D3DVSync=1” line, which was missing, and the “[Character]” section, which contains “Resource=Player”. But, again, I’m not sure, and it is possible that a couple of the lines that come before that section were also new or changed.
Speaking of games, I also installed Bound By Flame, Lords of Xulima and Phoning Home again, and very quick tests show that they work, but there’s something definitely wrong with some colors in Bound By Flame, at least on the interface, some parts being just bright yellow, so I’ll see what can be done about that, if and when I’ll get back to it. But it’s clear that I won’t be finishing any other game this year, and I also won’t write reviews for those that I did finish, as in Diggles, the first Vampires Dawn and Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition, the main goal for December being to try to somehow reach my goal of reading 12 books this year when I’m only at eight so far. I definitely have to read The Dromost Gate and The Emerald Gate, to finish that series, but what the other two will be and whether I will manage to read them in such a short time remains to be seen.
There would be quite a few more things to write, but I don’t care to edit this post later and this is how far I can get and still post it, using the old computer, before midnight, so I’ll leave anything else for another time, when I’ll know more things as well. So no, I won’t turn this into a two-part post either, even though it would be a good way to have a second post of the week as well and I don’t really know what I will write tomorrow… But I did plant trees a week ago, so I’ll probably at least write a placeholder for the post about that and edit that later in order to add the rest.

At least the International Criminal Court finally did what it could and issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, which actually doesn’t put him on par with the leaders of terrorist organizations, as the critics like to claim, but with Putin, which is absolutely correct. And while I was saying that the arrest warrant for Putin’s largely symbolic, the one for Netanyahu appears to be far more relevant, considering where he may be likely to travel. But, of course, it also shows once again just how toothless international organizations are and how badly the system needs to be reformed, seeing as Israel’s biggest ally, the US, is free to ignore the ruling while continuing to prove that there are no limits to the atrocities committed by Israel that it’ll turn a blind eye to, and even states that should be bound to the ruling openly flaunt it… Not that you’d expect anything different from Hungary, but when there are questions about what other EU member states would actually do, you definitely see the problem.
But the main question is whether this will bring any sort of improvement for regular Palestinians, and for the chances of a free Palestinian state. And it isn’t just that the US isn’t changing its position, but under Trump it is in fact likely to throw even more of its weight behind Israel’s push to take over Palestine and basically wipe out its population, not to mention its culture and any other potential pillars of a state, so without international organizations, starting from the UN, whose special committee already, and obviously pointlessly, likened Israel’s policy in Gaza to genocide, that’s pretty much impossible. But how do you make these international organizations have the power to enforce their decisions on those who have power to force their will upon them? If and when we’ll answer that question, we may finally have the tools to solve many of this world’s problems…

Back in February, at the two-year mark, I was saying that the current stage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reaching 1000 days seemed to be the best possible outcome, the alternative being a negotiated settlement that would offer Russia all of the territories it wants as well as the time to prepare for the next attack. And at least 1000 days were reached without that happening. But, considering the recent developments and despite the brave face that Zelenskyy somehow still manages to put up, I’m reminded of an old joke from here that went like this:

A messenger rushes to Michael the Brave (or Stephen the Great, take your pick): “Your Highness, the Turks are coming!”
“How many?”
“200000!”
“And how many men do we have?”
“100000!”
“Bring me the blue cape! We ride to war!”
Soon after the battle is won, once again a messenger rushes in: “Your Highness, the Turks are coming again!”
“How many?”
“300000!”
“And how many men do we have?”
“What we were left with after the last battle, 80000!”
“Bring me the red cape! We ride to war!”
“Excuse me, Your Highness, but why the red cape?”
“So my men will not see when I’ll get wounded.”
Soon after that battle is won as well, yet again a messenger rushes in: “Your Highness, the Turks are coming yet again!”
“How many?”
“500000!”
“And how many men do we have?”
“What we were left with after the last battle, 50000!”
“Bring me the red cape… And the brown pants…”

With things looking as bad as they do for Ukrainians, with winter coming, which is terrible in itself, considering Russia’s attacks on the energy infrastructure, with more and more voices pushing for a settlement that would see Russia keep all of the territory it currently holds and Ukraine kept away from NATO membership for the foreseeable future in exchange for some other kind of security guarantees that would apparently include a heavily fortified border and boots from an European “coalition of the willing” on the ground to help hold it, with Putin feeling so optimistic that he rejected even those proposals as unacceptable, and, probably worst of all, with Trump back in the White House two months from now, I fear it may be time for the brown pants… And not just for Zelenskyy or Ukrainians in general, but for all of us, especially in this part of Europe, though not only.
I’m just going to repeat that NATO, the EU and whoever else counts as “the West” could and should have prevented this from ever happening by acting firmly against Russia first, preferably at least since the opportunity provided by Georgia in 2008, and since they failed to do that then at the very least they should have stepped in to defend Ukraine directly once this invasion began, and are responsible for the consequences of not doing so. But things are as they are and we can’t change the past, so the question now is how to make sure that Ukraine will regain the lost territory and rebuild and how Russia will pay for it all and be thoroughly defeated and prevented from ever becoming a threat again… And more words of support don’t count when it comes to that, and even Biden lifting some range restrictions, though apparently only to allow the use of US weapons in the Kursk region that Ukraine has occupied, and a similar decision which may be taken by the UK, are far too little, far too late, plus that others, like Germany, remain too afraid to do even that much even now.
Make no mistake, Putin’s regime will keep pushing forward as long as it’ll be allowed to, and Ukraine really is fighting for all of us. If Russia won’t be thoroughly defeated there, it will use the time offered by any negotiated settlements to regain its strength and prepare, and then it’ll move on to the next target. And any deal that won’t ensure that Ukraine will regain all of the territory lost since the start of this invasion and join NATO in the foreseeable future and that Russia will cover the costs of the reconstruction of Ukraine after the war and also pay, in international courts, for the war crimes committed during it is a victory for Putin’s regime and a defeat not just for Ukraine, but for “the West” as a whole, with consequences that will be felt in other parts of the world as well. And anything that might be in any way seen as a victory for Ukraine and a defeat for Putin’s regime would also require regaining all of Donetsk and Luhansk and most preferably also Crimea, at least as an autonomous region and removing Russian forces from the territory and the surrounding waters, measures that would severely cripple Russia’s military capabilities for the foreseeable future and ending any and all energy and fossil fuel imports from Russia. Not that even that would be any sort of guarantee, as long as Putin’s regime, which is obviously not limited solely to his person, isn’t removed from power, but it might just be enough to give the rest of us time to prepare for the next stage and put them on the defensive. Once again, anything short of that guarantees that the situation will continue to be the other way around and things will only get worse.

The beginning of this book was a pleasant surprise, seeming to mark a shift to epic fantasy, introducing new parts of the world, people, cultures, types of magic and even planes of existence. That didn’t last, however, and all too soon the action once again overshadowed any other elements, leaving the impression that the author got scared of widening the scope to such an extent. There is still more to Shadow of the Knight compared to the previous two books when it comes to worldbuilding, but those elements feel more like afterthoughts, squeezed, and sometimes forced, among the action.
On the other hand, other parts of that same beginning felt jarring due to the amount of time that passed since the end of Child of the Knight, and while that also allows for some character development, pretty much all of it took place during that period, “off camera”, little of it being present in the book itself and most characters being shallow, single-minded and fitting into a few clear archetypes. And the relentless action leaves little room for anything to feel like it actually has a lasting impact, whether on the characters or the reader, and that’s on top of how much all of the healing and the heaps of hero’s luck diminish the potential for long-term consequences, and I’d say also the suspense.
Overall, it’s still the action that makes the book a reasonably pleasant way to pass some time, but appearing to have so much more potential makes it even more disappointing that it wasn’t fulfilled. And I also noticed that the proofreading was worse for this book, which had more typos than the previous ones, and there was at least one place where something said in one chapter seemed to have been forgotten by the time it was repeated in the next. But that was in the final part, and the bigger problem with the final part, what comes after the battle, is that it’s really the beginning of the next part of the story, seeming particularly underwhelming after what should have been such momentous events.

Rating: 3/5

Nine and a half years after getting this computer, I finally got a new one! Then again, I had purchased the first internal component, the PSU, back in April, planning to put it in this computer first but delaying all this time, so it had been sitting on the floor ever since. But then I made use of the recent sales to buy the other components, so the CPU and NVMe SSD were delivered Tuesday and the following day the RAM and motherboard were ready to be picked up, so I did that. But I only got myself to put them together and do a first test today, with the motherboard and PSU on the floor and the old computer next to them, so I could connect its power, reset and disk activity connectors to the motherboard.

The new components are:
Motherboard: ASUS TUF GAMING B650-PLUS
CPU: AMD Ryzen 8700G (planning to use the 45W cTDP setting)
RAM: Kingston FURY Beast 64GB DDR5 (2×32 GB, 5200MT/s, 36-40-40 latency)
NVMe SSD: Samsung 990 PRO with Heatsink 1 TB
PSU: Seasonic PRIME TX-650
And what I’ll be keeping from this computer, assuming that there won’t be compatibility problems, is:
SATA SSD: Samsung 860 EVO 250 GB
DVD drive: Sony Optiarc AD-7261S DVD-RW (silver)
TV tuner: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-5525
Case: Cougar Volant White (including its 120 mm fan)
Case fans: Noctua NF-P12 PWM and Noctua NF-P12
And I’m also looking into adding 4 TB of additional storage, probably in the form of a second NVMe SSD, Kingston NV2 4 TB, but I’m still thinking it over.

So this also marks the moment when I did something that I was thinking, and saying, that I’ll never do, which is switch to AMD, since I want proper performance on all cores and better integrated graphics, because I don’t see myself as ever getting a dedicated graphics card again. But what may be even more notable is that I’ll be making another attempt at using Linux, so I put Linux Mint 22 Xfce on an USB stick and, after poking through the BIOS a little, I used that for the first attempt to actually boot the computer, just to see that it loaded.
Now, I also ordered two cheap Windows 10 Professional keys, since dad said that at that price he’d want one as well instead of “pirating” it if he’ll find himself forced to switch as well, but while they were supposed to be delivered yesterday, the delivery company seems to be moving them back and forth and processing them multiple times, the new estimated delivery date being Tuesday, so it remains to be seen what will happen with that, and whether they’ll even work, or for how long, seeing as they’re purchased from a reseller. That reseller seems to be regarded quite well and the purchase was made through the largest on-line store from here, and listed as being delivered by them, not directly by the seller, but on the seller’s site it’s stated that electronic keys should be activated right away, preferably within five days, to avoid potential problems. Then again, I initially ordered an installation kit from the same store that I bought this old computer, and the PSU for the new one, from, but when I realized that it was also produced by some third party and saw this much cheaper option, I gave up on that, though I still have until Monday to go and pick it up if I’ll change my mind before the order will get canceled. And, assuming that Windows 10 keys will still be available, they may get even cheaper as the end of support approaches. But, even though the main problem, the forced updates and the changes brought by them, is largely left behind now that it won’t be receiving feature updates anymore and will be completely left behind less than a year from now, when it’ll reach end of support, I still don’t want to be using any Windows past 7 if I can help it, so I’ll say again that I mean to give Linux a serious chance, with Windows 10 being there if needed… The problem being that, if it will be there, I’ll be tempted to try to make it work when I’ll have problems with Linux. But I guess I’ll see what happens in time.