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.
This will be worse than yet another rushed post from this series, because I couldn’t stay on-line and pick an older song for one of the bands this evening, so I had to edit the post before going to bed in order to list that second pick, at which point I also added the brief comments. So I’ll start with that band, which is Seven Kingdoms and which I’ve known about for many years but never got around to including in one of these posts. But now they just released a new EP, and my first pick will be its title song, The Square. As for the older song, I’ll go with Empty Eyes. Since they’re improving with time, I was tempted to go with something newer, but this seems more appropriate. And I must say that I don’t like those long instrumental bridges, and the songs pretty much have the same structure, but I can’t deny the quality, and for several years the vocals have been particularly solid.
Next comes Poema, which is a band from Ukraine that I recently stumbled into, and one thing that’s notable in itself is the fact that they’re not only still active, but all of their songs seem to have been released since the start of the war. However, I don’t have any link that I’d normally care to include for them, since they don’t seem to be on Metal Archives yet and otherwise just have a YouTube channel where they posted less than you’d expect for a new band and an Instagram page that at the time I’m writing this gives an error. But they recently released an actual video, for Circus of Death, so that will be my first pick. As for the second one, I’ll go with The Void. And these songs show that I’m definitely not just including them as a tiny show of support for Ukrainians, because they sound quite nice, and at least these particular ones even seem more polished than you’d expect, considering the circumstances.
As for the third band, that’s Dawn of Destiny and they’re about to release an album later this month. But they have already released a few songs from it, including my first pick, which is Alive. As for the second pick, I initially wanted to make it easy for myself and only check the few other songs officially posted by their current label, but when I saw that just one, To Hell, seems to have been officially posted by a previous label, I changed my mind and modified what I initially posted minutes later, making that my second pick, because it actually seems different from those newer songs in the sense that it’s not just the chorus that stands out, being better than the other parts of the songs. But, even when it comes to those newer songs, there’s no question about them being good enough to include in such a post.
