Cav's Place

You’re used to Sunday rants, but this week I’ll make it a little early. Maybe I’ll manage to write a non-personal post as the second one, but I wrote three of those in a row so I guess I’m entitled to just rant a little more now. And I will even if I’m not anyway, because I feel like it. Or, more exactly, I don’t quite feel like anything else and if you’re going to more or less be curled up in a ball you may as well write about it, right? So that’s what I’m going to do, though it’ll be written in bits and pieces over the course of the day and you’ll just get the result when I decide it’s done.

What I should perhaps be doing right now is adding Portal 2 reviews to the MobyGames aggregator, since I’m sure there are lots and lots of them already published. In fact, there are a few other games that have recently been submitted that I should be submitting reviews for, but keep putting it off and I guess it’s only going to get worse. Not that the approvers seem particularly concerned with approving such additions, since I currently have 61 in queue, the oldest from April 8, despite slacking off lately. Then again, there were times when I had well over 100 in queue even though the approvers were getting to them rather quickly, so if you think of it like that it does show that I’ve been slacking off.
Otherwise, I should be playing Forsaken World. My characters are level 42 now and only Calad finished the whole main quest chain from the Sea of Oblivion area, though even he still has a few side quests to do there. Kalee is just starting the level 36 part of the main quest chain and has several more side quests left to do on top of that. Then again, it’s been far worse before, so I’m not particularly worried about that, but do want to explore the Lunagrant Woodland area before I completely lose my interest, because I want to submit two screenshots of landmarks from that region as well for the game’s entry on MobyGames. As for today in particular, really need to have Calad gather some plants and brew potions for the Rosemason Collection quest for both of them, since it requested something that I can do so there’s no reason not to. His alchemy needs any help it can get anyway, since I don’t use it for anything else, being as stingy with my potions as I am in any game. Actually even started to sell food and drinks that I got for free, from the daily Cooking Tutorial quest, because my inventory is just full of them and, as expected, I rarely use any.

So why am I not doing those things? Because I feel like crap, as expected. Also as frightened about the usual things as expected. Shouted for help a few times and got nothing in return, so I’ll just be here curled up in a ball and going crazy. Or more crazy than I already am, that is. Can’t get myself to even say anything to anyone, but it’s not like I have to anyway. A couple of details may be different, but the general idea is the same, so it’s known anyway. Basically haven’t even been checking my e-mail at all in a week, just logging on twice during this time to delete the messages I had no reason to fear reading… And I tend to fear pretty much anything these days.
What’s currently making all of that even worse is the drilling that once again started in the building as soon as it warmed up again outside. It was really bad a few days ago, when they went at it nearly the entire day, but now somebody started going at it again just as I wanted to take a nap, since I only slept for perhaps some five and a half hours. It feels like it turns my brain into minced meat! Not to mention the simple fact that it doesn’t let me sleep if it starts in the morning, as it did a few days ago, or in the evening, when I may want to nap, as is the case right now. If I’m at the computer I can put some music on and turn the headphones up to cover that dreadful sound, even though that’s not healthy either and implies that I can’t watch something or that it may be a little hard to play Forsaken World during that time, but at least it’s manageable. But if I’d like to sleep or perhaps to just sit and think, this makes it impossible!

If this is this week’s first post, the second should come before Sunday for once, because it seems very likely that I’ll be alone this Sunday and it’s therefore even less likely that I’ll manage to write something properly then, when I’ll try to make at least a little out of the time alone. At best, I could perhaps manage to write an environmental post tomorrow, for Earth Day, but that doesn’t seem likely right now. It may be a better idea to have my “monthly computer maintenance day” tomorrow, since it really should be this week and I keep putting it off, and then really struggle to cover one of the other issues that are currently swimming through my mind on Saturday.
Next week I should write another post about Forsaken World, trying to answer some more questions implied by the keywords people used to reach this site, but it will need to wait until then because I want to clear Sea of Oblivion with both characters first, which will take at least a couple more days. I mean, except the basic daily quests from Freedom Harbor and God’s Trial, I didn’t do anything at all today so far, so at this rate it’s not looking good at all. Either way, once I’ll do that I’ll start thinking about perhaps writing a review for it, since I don’t see myself hitting the level cap and can’t find myself caring for the “end game content” anyway.

One of the arguments those who oppose the concept that on-line content must be free most frequently make is that it costs more and more to deliver it because of all the multimedia elements in general and the video ones in particular that more and more sites rely on. Which, not counting the fact that many sites don’t have to and likely also shouldn’t make use of so much rich content, seems to be true. But what if it doesn’t need to be, or at least what if those costs could be significantly reduced in a pretty simple way, by storing such content in a single place?
This idea came to me while watching some game trailers. It’s true that lots of sites post their video content on YouTube and then embed it from there, washing their hands of all associated costs in a way that’s completely fair for those that obtain no revenue whatsoever as a result of the visits they receive but seems very wrong for those that have as much as a single advertisement on the page where such a video is embedded, but quite a few actually host even such generic content on their own servers. This of course also applies to all other sorts of trailers, music videos, newsworthy amateur footage, documentaries and pretty much any other type of multimedia content that’s likely to end up unaltered on a relatively large number of sites.

How would this work? Quite simple. There would be this company offering multimedia hosting to all such sites that use such content in order to generate income, including simply by having as much as one advertisement on the page it’s displayed on. Or, if you really want it done properly, it shouldn’t be a company, but a non-profit entity that would simply split its operating costs among its users according to the amount of bandwidth and services each made use of. Each piece of content would be available in the highest possible quality, and if someone submits the same piece in higher quality than what’s currently available the particular piece would be replaced with the new and better one, but also in all possible qualities below that. So you’d have video content available in anything from full HD or even better to the quality produced by early camera phones, audio content in anything from perfectly clear full surround to something barely suitable to play plain speech and so on, without allowing duplicates.
This company or organization should provide a basic open-source player that all sites that use its services would be able to embed on their pages, but also allow such sites to make their own players according to their own needs, as long as the method of accessing the content stored on its servers remains the same. The basic player should be quite like what YouTube currently uses, but allow each site to set a maximum quality it’s prepared to pay for, making only the options up to that point available for that site’s users. This way, each site would also be able to add its own captions to the content it displays even if it’d only use the basic player, while those that create their own custom players could perhaps add even more features, if they’d see any need for them. In addition, there would be an unified rating system, allowing users to rate the content, on an one to ten or perhaps one to one hundred scale, regardless of the site they view it on, resulting in an overall rating that sites would be able to display. Of course, adding this piece of code would be completely optional for each site.

This shouldn’t significantly affect the existing free video sharing services because it wouldn’t be addressing regular users, which are usually the primary target of these current services, instead only dealing with “official” content. In fact, regular users wouldn’t even be able to directly access the content hosted by this organization, as it would require a paid subscription. Or, more exactly, especially if we’re to go with the non-profit idea, anyone would be able to register and then search through the available content once it’d be confirmed that the information they provided is valid, but anything viewed or listened to would be considered as having been played on that person’s site and therefore the person would need to pay at the end of the month for the bandwidth they used, unless the owner of said content would pay for all such usage as a form of advertisement. This latter scenario could most likely be seen in the case of trailers, which are advertisements, meaning that some content could be available for free directly from the organization in question, but users should still need to register in order to access it in such a manner and there could perhaps be other methods of discouraging such behavior anyway, as this wouldn’t be the point of such a system.
The point of all of this is to reduce costs while also providing users with a potentially richer experience, without taking anything away from the sites that specialize in offering such content. In fact, it would help such sites, not only by reducing costs but also by guaranteeing access to the content, as this organization would use extremely reliable connections and equipment, with a high degree of redundancy. The total amount of bandwidth used wouldn’t decrease, and it could in fact even increase if site owners would notice that they could afford higher quality content thanks to the reduced costs, but we’d move from having the same piece of content stored in thousands of data centers paid for by thousands of site owners separately to gathering everything in a single place. That way, some site owners could get much cheaper hosting for their actual sites, as they would no longer have multimedia content on their own servers, while also paying less for said multimedia content but being assured of the highest levels of reliability and security. At the same time, users would be able to enjoy such content, perhaps in even greater quantity and quality than they’re currently used to, while staying on their favorite sites, likely reducing the need to search through various places.

As you should already know, today marks the 50th anniversary of the first manned space flight. As such, for some it may be a time to remember the past, but for most it should be a time to think of the future. After all, though currently we are the Earth’s and our own only realistic enemies, so many things can happen in a more or less distant future that’ll require us to go to the stars in order to have any future at all even if and when we will finally manage to get our own destructive nature under control.
For example, we know the Sun will start noticeably increasing its output in about one billion years, first turning Earth into an inhospitable wasteland and then, perhaps some three billion years from now, into a completely dead world, possibly even engulfing it entirely when it’ll turn into a red giant. Around that same time, Andromeda may collide with the Milky Way, which may or may not have any direct adverse effects on any specific solar system that a sentient race, including our own, may inhabit at the time. But the greater threats are those that may come far sooner than that and are far less predictable, such as anomalies that may cause the Sun to significantly change its output on short notice, runaway stars, planets or even black holes that may be heading our way, our own solar system ending up in a “bad neighborhood” of the galaxy, the Earth becoming geologically inactive and/or losing its magnetic field, as well as many others that we perhaps can’t even currently imagine.

Still, let’s not go quite so far into the future. What we should be thinking about now is what direction should space exploration take over the coming few decades and what part, if any, should human space travel play in it. That is because, while the first manned space flight and, only a little more than eight years later but more than three centuries after the first plans, the first Moon landing were momentous achievements for the entire human race, there currently seems to be little point in putting people past Earth orbit and almost none to get one past the Moon.
At least that’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it. Back then we needed to have people out there because we were not yet capable of creating machines to do the same kind of work, yet now our machines can do infinitely more than a human could ever do in any environment other than the nice, cozy and so terribly fragile one found on the surface of Earth. As such, if we also keep in mind that it’s so much more difficult to put a human out there and keep them alive and well than it is to put a machine out there and keep it functioning properly, it simply makes no practical sense to keep pursuing this goal at the present time. And, though this is the focus of most of those who oppose manned space flights, and perhaps space exploration and most other scientific endeavors in general, I’m not even taking the financial aspect into account when I say this, because money are purely a human invention and have absolutely no meaning and no value in realistic terms.
Quite simply, space exploration is extremely important and a huge amount of effort and resources should be put into it, but its purpose should be, in fact needs to be, solely to gain knowledge. It needs to be a scientific endeavor in the purest sense, not concerned with short-term practical applications or any direct relevance to our current life on Earth, and certainly in no way connected to any economic interests. And it’s just that scientific point of view that makes me say that, while there are still valid research goals to be met by putting humans in Earth orbit and likely even by building a permanent manned research facility on the Moon, it’s highly inefficient to use our ingenuity and limited resources to send manned missions to other planets when, with even less effort, we are currently capable of building machines that will gather so much more data with far greater speed, accuracy and efficiency.

In short, my opinion is that we have already reached the level of development currently required for any manned space missions that make scientific sense. In fact, seeing that the first Moon landing was achieved, nearly 42 years ago, with technology that was perhaps at a level found in today’s pocket calculators, I’m absolutely certain that we wouldn’t even need any significant new developments in order to also go back to the Moon and perform any research and experiments that actually require human beings to live in an environment so different from anything naturally found on Earth.
What’s more, focusing in the near future on the development of manned space travel in general and on plans of colonizing other planets in particular can actually be dangerous. I’m saying that because it could easily be seen as a potential easy way out of the grave we keep digging for ourselves here on Earth at least ever since the advent of civilization, and such an option must never become available! We need to be able to travel great distances through space and colonize other worlds in the future due to the reasons I mentioned in the first part of this post, which are completely out of our control, but we must not be allowed to get away with destroying a world and so many of the other species we currently share it with only to move on to another and, most likely, repeat the cycle all over again. If we as a species won’t decide to start living in harmony with the environment that currently shelters and nurtures us simply because it’s the right thing to do, that decision must be forced upon us, and what better way to do that than ensuring that our very survival depends solely on caring for this one planet, without any chance of moving elsewhere until we’ll learn to be stewards, guardians and nurturers instead of mere parasites, and dumb ones at that?

Perhaps, within the next 50 years, we will learn what we need to learn and start behaving as we should have behaved all along. And perhaps we’ll also learn our place and what we are. If that happens, we will be able to look towards other worlds for the right reasons and we will also be in a much better position to reach them, as we will have far fewer concerns here at home. Yet, until and unless that does happen, we should stick to sending machines out there, certainly putting far more effort and resources into it than we currently do, but not worry about following them ourselves. It simply makes no sense to put humans on another planet purely for research purposes and, even if we’d develop the technology to permit this, we’re far, far from being worthy of colonizing another world, not to mention making use of its resources in any way.

Considering how useless the United Nations Security Council often proves to be, particularly when it comes to events that require an immediate response, not to mention a forceful one, I really think that a new security organism needs to be set up, replacing all the others that currently exist. Yes, that means it’d also replace NATO and any other such organization currently in existence, as having any other such bodies would no longer serve any reasonable purpose. For lack of a better idea, I’ll call this new organization I’m proposing the United Earth Security Force, or UESF.

UESF’s role will be a very complex one, essentially handling anything and everything that could require military action. That means interventions if one of its member states is attacked, if a regime badly oppresses its subjects anywhere in the world, if a non-member state becomes a clear threat or if there’s a menace from space, which includes the hypothetical alien attack but mainly refers to the asteroids we know we’ll need to destroy or at least deflect sooner or later. It will also be the only body allowed to own or use weapons of mass destruction, so member states will need to hand over any such weapons they may have to the organization and non-member states will need to destroy any stocks they may have according to a certain schedule.
At the same time, though this may seem hard to believe, UESF’s primary role will be to maintain peace and promote, and even enforce, demilitarization. As such, on top of forbidding any other body from possessing or manufacturing anything that might be considered a weapon of mass destruction unless the UESF itself would commission said device, it will set limits, both directly and indirectly, on its member states’ military forces. It will do that by limiting the total military spending of its member states, demanding a certain portion of any such spending, hiring the best military personnel and likely also purchasing the best military technology and equipment available.

I’ll go into some details now, but the more specific parts should be seen more as just examples than proposals in themselves. A lot of work is required before such numbers will really make sense and achieve the desired results, not to mention that a lot of things may well happen during the decades this will take to fully implement, including events that could dramatically change the global state of affairs, requiring major changes in any such project as well. Note that I’m taking 2020 as the year when the UESF will be founded.
As stated before, member states must hand over anything that could be deemed a weapon of mass destruction, starting obviously from nuclear warheads, to the UESF. Countries that hid such weapons prior to joining UESF will not be sanctioned in any way if they hand over all the secret stocks within one year of joining. Stocks that were not secret must also be handed over, but the transfer may be gradual, completing up to five years after joining UESF or in the year 2040, whichever comes first. Countries found to still have secret stocks more than one year after joining, those that do not hand over all known stocks within five years of joining, as well as those found to still manufacture such weapons after joining without them being directly commissioned by the UESF, will be dealt with immediately and ruthlessly. At the same time, the UESF will analyze any such weapons it receives, safely destroying the stocks that exceed its potential needs or have no obvious use in case of a threat from space and are too terrible to use against other humans under any circumstances.
The UESF will also limit member states’ military spending, the total not being allowed to exceed 5% of each member state’s GDP in 2020 and that maximum being reduced by 0.1% every other year until 2040, when it will reach 4%, and then by 0.1% per year until 2050, when it will reach 3%. The 5% limit would currently rule out no more than ten countries, but then more and more would need to cut down on such spending in order to be accepted. Yet, considering the fact that the UESF will also require its member states to hand over a certain amount of their military budget to it, national security expenses will need to drop even more. This tax will start at 5% in 2020 and grow by 1% per year until 2040, when it’d reach 25%, 2% per year until 2045, reaching 35%, and 3% per year until 2050, reaching 50%. In effect, with a properly functioning UESF there will be little need for any member state to still have a national army, as any hostile action taken against a member state would immediately result in a lethal response from the entire Force, but I’ll leave it at an even split for now.

Any country that desires to join the UESF will need to prove that they are meeting all the criteria for three whole years before being accepted. Said criteria include, but are not limited to, no longer manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, not oppressing their population, permitting the UESF to use its military bases when requested to do so, maintaining their military spending within the limits currently set for UESF member states and not taking any hostile action against another country without the UESF’s approval. Countries that apply before 2020 may be able to join starting in 2020 even if less than three years have passed since their application was submitted and obviously will not need to have taken no hostile action without the UESF’s approval within the past three years as at that point there’d be no fully formed UESF to judge their actions. Additionally, countries that are involved in a war accepted as just by the UESF may not need to reduce their military expenses before being allowed to join, though they will need to do so immediately afterwards.
The UESF’s stance towards the countries that are not and express no desire to become members will be determined according to a clear set of criteria that evolve at certain set points in time. Any country that takes any hostile action against an UESF member state or the UESF itself, as well as any country that oppresses its population, will be considered an enemy and will be dealt with swiftly and harshly. Countries that respect all other criteria but set aside a too large portion of their GDP for military expenses without being involved in a war accepted as just by the UESF, as well as those that do not permit the UESF to use their military bases when requested to do so, will have a moderate amount of pressure applied on them to conform to these requirements, but will not be considered hostile before 2051 solely because of this. Up to and including the year 2030, a moderate amount of pressure will also be applied on countries that still possess, though they no longer manufacture, weapons of mass destruction. The pressure will be increased more and more as time passes past the year 2030, and the same increased pressure will be applied from the very moment the UESF is formed on countries that still do manufacture such weapons. Countries that still manufacture weapons of mass destruction in the year 2031, those that no longer manufacture but still possess any such weapons in the year 2041, as well as any country that’s still not an UESF member in the year 2051, will automatically be considered hostile, though they will not necessarily be attacked solely because of this.

The UESF will be a force completely independent from the governments of all existing countries, employing the best military personnel from all over the world, including from non-member states, and allowing all those who serve within its ranks, as well as their spouses or life partners and immediate families, to live within its own bases, built on land bought from its member states, and gain “international” citizenship, possibly also renouncing their former citizenship at any point during their service if they desire to do so. Still, when the UESF will take action against a country, none of those who are still citizens of said country will be sent on missions during the first 24 hours and they will have between 24 and 72 hours, depending on how swift the response needs to be, to completely opt out of participating in any part of said mission without fear of reprisals.
It will operate according to a very strict, clear and specific set of rules outlined from the beginning and only changed when strictly necessary and with great difficulty, so there will be little to no need for interpretation, debates or votes when it comes to deciding a course of action. This should serve to prevent having it turn from a guardian of peace and security into the ultimate tyrant, as would otherwise likely happen if people, instead of clear and strict rules, would be allowed to make such calls. It should also serve to ensure that it will respond swiftly whenever needed, that no country will be spared of its watchful eye and that various interests won’t come into play when it comes to making such decisions.
In the end, it will be the true and rightful “global cop” that the world apparently needs and has needed all along, though of course one only dealing with the major conflicts, those that generally affect entire nations. It will keep a close eye on its member states, offering complete protection to those who fully respect its rules and dealing swiftly and decisively with those who do not, while also being watchful at all times for situations that require its intervention in non-member states. World peace will be its ultimate goal, but it will act with the knowledge that peace may sometimes be just another word for surrender, in which case it often is only short-term peace, while long-term peace is often the result of victory over those who desire war.

When I went on LiveJournal yesterday to see if there were any new posts to read, I noticed this “writer’s block” question: “If you arrived at your front door and saw your first love standing there, what would you do or say?” Found it oddly fitting, because first loves somehow came up during a recent chat with Tiel and that made me try to glance at Rose’s profile on Facebook, only to see that she no longer showed up on a search. Wondered if she got married and changed her last name, so I searched for her e-mail, but still came up empty. Then I searched on Google and her Facebook profile was the first match, but when I clicked it I got a message saying the page doesn’t exist. At which point I figured out what happened, logged off Facebook and clicked that search result again. Sure enough, there was the profile. So, if that were to happen, I’d ask her why the hell did she put me on ignore. I mean, the last time I sent her something, and probably also the last time I looked her up, was on her birthday, last year, when I just sent her my usual birthday message. She just replied to say thanks and that was that. So I’m really curious now, wondering what exactly happened during these past several months to cause this to happen, since I’m quite sure I didn’t send her anything else since then.

Otherwise, people sure seem to be following the usual routine and no longer talking to me after a little while. Actually, in most cases it looks like it’s the more and more common routine of no longer even logging on anywhere, apparently due to being too busy with “real life” to make time for such things anymore. Andreea is, as usual, busy with school and, more recently, work as well, which is something I’d be at her throat over if I could actually get to talk to her, or talk to her more than once every other week or so, as it seems to be the case lately. The last time Shiri sent something was a month ago, saying that she’s terribly busy with school and can’t figure out how she’ll handle everything, and she hasn’t even logged on since, or at least she hasn’t logged on to OkCupid and I haven’t seen her on messenger. I haven’t seen Ria log on in two weeks, which is rather worrying since she was there on most days before and it seemed like we were actually starting to talk more, not to mention that I just checked her blog now and I see no new entries in over a month, which makes just these last two weeks be the problem because she seems to normally be averaging about one entry every other week. As for Alina, ever since switching our conversations from OkCupid to Yahoo! Messenger, we just chatted a few times, over a month ago, when she kept saying that she’s really busy and is trying to get herself organized and stop giving in to distractions, by which she mainly meant chatting and browsing, and the only thing I saw from her since was a brief message a few days ago, to say a joke I sent her was funny. And then you have that former classmate of mine who looked me up a while back, who at first seemed to make a fair bit of effort to keep talking to me and then all of a sudden gave up on that idea completely, but I don’t mind that since she’s just someone I don’t mind talking to, not someone I particularly care to keep in touch with, so if she no longer wants to talk that’s fine by me.
The only partial exception seems to be Tiel, who at least is frequently busy with pretty nice things, namely her boyfriend and gaming, which also make for interesting conversations when she is actually able to talk. Unfortunately, “real life” things pop up more and more frequently with her as well and I only see that getting much worse as time passes. And, either way, there’s still the really annoying fact that she’s on-line all the time, sometimes leaving it like that even while she’s sleeping or not at home, so I never know when she actually is available and when I’d be better off trying to strike up a conversation with a wall.

At least, between actually playing and keeping up with posting bug reports and suggestions, Forsaken World is still keeping me busy. Since I’m not a social creature, it’s getting more and more frustrating, but parts of it are still nice enough. Unfortunately, there are the other parts, such as the fact that you need to do certain instances in order to complete quests or, perhaps more importantly, obtain any decent gear for yourself. Since those instances are getting more and more complex, they require more and more knowledge and coordination, therefore resulting in lots of awkward issues.
Actually, just tried the second gear instance, Emperor’s Canyon, yesterday. Yes, my mage entered the instance meant for obtaining level 20 to 29 gear for the first time at level 37. My vampire, also level 37 right now and soon to be 38, didn’t even enter it yet. I mainly went there to complete the quests that sent me there and to get some achievements, though it’d be nice if I’d find a weapon as well, as it’d be better than what I currently have. I’ll need to go there five times on each character to get one achievement, for example, but this is a very scary prospect at the moment, considering how things went the first two times. But the next step is the Lost Lighthouse, which is known to be a quite difficult and long instance, so I really get cold feet at even the thought of trying that. Not to mention that I really should do Nightmare Carnival as well whenever possible, but never did so far because it can be quite tricky and people keep specifying that they only want those who know what they’re doing while searching for groups, which certainly rules me out.
I do feel significantly less awkward on my vampire, as she can actually be useful in several ways and, most importantly from my point of view, can hold her own and take care of herself if things go wrong, but that also means there are certain expectations when she ends up in a group and I’d rather first learn the ropes and get her in only once I know what to do. On the other hand, all the mage can do is basically sit there and hit stuff, hoping for a quick rescue if any enemy decides to target him, but that’s pretty much all anyone expects a mage to do, so nobody has any real reason to complain if I’m just sitting back and watching what everyone else is doing. Hence he gets sent in first, but that only makes me feel even more inadequate, knowing that I couldn’t do anything in there on my own.
I do my best to play my part and also plug any holes I see in the group, but that’s hard to do when I don’t know what part I’m supposed to be playing. Now I’m usually a very fast learner, but feel terribly awkward in a group, even a virtual one, and just sort of end up curled up in a ball and just wishing for it to end so I’ll be able to get back to doing stuff on my own and at my own pace, which sometimes prevents me from acting on what I’m learning and quite certainly prevents me from asking or saying anything. I mean, as soon as I figure out how things are supposed to be going, I have the whole strategy in my mind and keep meaning to spell it out when I see people not following it, but almost never say anything…