@compfu are you in Munich?

Does anyone have any recommendations for #munich? I'm going to be there for a conference in November.

#germany

The unexpectedly wet indoor cat and other horror stories

This one is also really good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk2sWpHUFXE

Happy Friday!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ctjulrl6v8

July Talk are this awesome Canadian band I've been following for a while now -- they have two lead singers, a very high-pitched femme voice and a very low growly Tom Waits-y guy; their songs are all blues-rock duets / conversations between the two singers. A really unique style!

#music #bluesrock #blues #duet

When #cats are selecting a #laptop to purchase, do you think the spec they consider most important is "sharpness of screen corner edge for bumping purposes" or "foot-feel of the keys"?

Other ideas welcome.

Three achievements from the last 48 hours:

* Got to ascension 10 with all 5 characters in #STS2 .

* Learned that my thesis corrections have been accepted and I'm going to achieve my PhD.

* Managed to sit on the couch with one cat on each side of me and pet them both simultaneously for the first time.

Watch out everyone /s

(h/t @h4shBrpwnz)

The caption for that photo says:

"Leonhard Seppala with sled dogs from his kennel – Togo is at far left. Other dogs from left to right: Karinsky, Jafet, Pete, Zeus, Fritz"

How fucked up is to to make a dog named "Pete" stand next to a dog named after the father of all gods, Zeus.

In a conversation about the importance of vaccines to some friends I said, "Balto did not bust his ass schlepping across Alaska for this shit." and my dog-loving friend said "actually Togo did most of the work" so now I'm falling down an internet rabbit hole about the sled dogs that participated in the Noem vaccine run in 1925 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1925_serum_run_to_Nome) and the campaign to give Togo more of the credit!

Also look at this squad!

#vaccines #dogs

Update: he has started not returning with the spring but making the same sounds as when he did. Perhaps the spring was just a ruse and he was mostly interested in the head pats….

For scale, my hallway is no more than 15 feet long.

Update: I just learned that one of my #cats plays (cat) fetch.

He will bring me his little spring toy; I will pat him on the head, and throw it down hall. Between 1 and 4 hours later he will return with the spring.

Anyway, TL;DR I'm really enjoying the rewatch and I'd recommend the show for people with a bit of patience who want to immerse themselves in a complex political show with some incredible payoffs that, in terms of fascism, has sadly only become more relevant since it aired.

8/8

It is dense and intricate and has some of the best characters I've ever seen on a scifi show, achieving a lot of the moral complexity GoT (the show) was lauded for almost 20+ years later. Characters you love will do monstrous things and you will have to decide how you feel about that and if they can be redeemed.

7/?

The best thing about the show though is that it was conceived essentially as one 5 season long novel which meant that the whole story was mapped out ahead of time. This is almost totally unique for modern television goes; other shows (I'm looking at you Lost, BSG) had to keep coming up with twists and turns as they went, straining credulity as time went on. #B5 can make predictions about the future that DO come true, set things up and then catch them two seasons later.

6/?

The show is, of course,, Babylon 5. The things that are said about it are true -- its budget was small, its sets and costumes a bit rough in places, some of the acting is charitably pretty bad. But man does it have heart and soul and things to say about issues we talk about a lot here. I think when I was younger I was more drawn to the space opera plot arcs, but at it's core it's also very much a show about the creeping rise of fascism and the way people react to that.

5/?

#babylon5

But I'm sort of sad because I'm enjoying this show so much and I think it has so much to say about our current era -- about the rise of fascism, collaboration, community, tolerance, xenophobia, colonialism -- but also addiction, duty, redemption, and sacrifice. So I thought I thought I just say all of this into the fediverse in the hope that someone else might get something out of it too.

4/?

I shared that I was rewatching with a few friends many of whom had I think interacted with this show when they were teenagers and been totally turned off by it. No one seemed interested in giving it another chance. And -- I'm well beyond the point in my life where I want to get into fights about media.

3/?

When I get this impulse I'm often wary of it because much like meeting your heroes, rewatching things you remember through rose tinted lenses can often be very disappointing. But I decided to give this show a rewatch and I'm actually blown away by how well I think it's stood up or how much I'm engaging with different aspects of it now than I did as a teenager.

2/?