I strongly recommend the 2016 documentary titled 'Kedi', which is about the cats of Istanbul. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKq7UqplcL8
Bodega cats of New York
41–50 of 112 posts
Re: Bodega cats of New York
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's a big deal for some, but not for all individuals, is the point clearly made.
Well you wrote "Hyperbole and toxoplasmosis go well together". It's not "hyperbole" to care about others, however few they are, even though you yourself might not be at risk, right? But I don't mean to be confrontational. I understand that it is probably annoying to hear toxoplasmosis talked about like it is black death.
A third of the entire human population is infected with toxoplasmosis, in some places nearly every human.
If you put humans in a sterile bubble you get a different set of diseases, to a considerably greater degree because your immune system evolved in an environment where you actually got infections.
Re: Bodega cats of New York
#43I strongly recommend the 2016 documentary titled 'Kedi', which is about the cats of Istanbul. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKq7UqplcL8
Seconding this, it's what I immediately thought of. It's a really beautifully made movie. And yes cats are front and center, but it's also using them as a window on humanity, the city of Instanbul and its living history from a very different perspective. It's a very sober film as well, celebrating life but also not shying away from death and the passing of time. The "cat's eye view" is a more 3D sort of feel from a lot of the typical explorations of a city, going at ground level, up and down buildings in 3D etc.
It's become a family favorite film we tend to watch each winter now. All ages can take something from it.
Re: Bodega cats of New York
#44Re: Bodega cats of New York
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah this is why I dont find it endearing. It's just pointing to unsanitary conditions. It's ubiquitous in NYC which may have dulled some senses but it's not ubiquitous everywhere. Cat's themselves are not very sanitary. Better than rats, sure, but they are a source of toxoplasmosis which is very dangerous to pregnant women for example. Limiting exposure is manageable when keeping as a pet, but its a terrible baselin…
The vast majority of NYCs problem can be tied to their trash debacle, which is so outlandish it's hard for anyone not from there to believe is a real thing in 2206. It appears they finally discovered dumpsters recently: https://www.amny.com/news/curbside-empire-trash-bins-coming-... (Another crazy trash city was (is?) Seattle with their weird judgement causing everyone to compact their trash.)
I was baffled when I first moved to NYC and found out that people just throw their garbage onto the sidewalk.
I have the wheely bin now, which is good, but it's insane that it took until 2025 to actually require it. Probably the only good thing Eric Adams did.
Re: Bodega cats of New York
#46Is it just me or is it a huge letdown that the text is all AI-generated? Or at least, in the same kind of saccharine style? Are people not able to detect this?
Re: Bodega cats of New York
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about Seattle's trash was crazy? I've lived here for 14 years and never noticed anything weird about it compared to other places I've lived.
He's being overly dramatic, and it's not a "Judgment", it's simple economics. Seattle is basically out of landfill space, the Cedar Hills landfill is a 96.6% capacity, so all trash needs to be trucked out of state. To minimize the cost of doing that they encourage sending most of your waste stream to recycling or compost instead. Many of the local trash haul haulers provide nice large recycle and compost bins, but a…
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Re: Bodega cats of New York
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well you wrote "Hyperbole and toxoplasmosis go well together". It's not "hyperbole" to care about others, however few they are, even though you yourself might not be at risk, right? But I don't mean to be confrontational. I understand that it is probably annoying to hear toxoplasmosis talked about like it is black death.
A third of the entire human population is infected with toxoplasmosis, in some places nearly every human. If you put humans in a sterile bubble you get a different set of diseases, to a considerably greater degree because your immune system evolved in an environment where you actually got infections.
By that logic, we shouldn't be fighting malaria in Africa either.
Are there any benefits to toxoplasmosis besides some people finding the vector cute? The alternative isn't living in a sterile bubble.
Re: Bodega cats of New York
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience most people lovingly refer to their cats in negative-sounding ways. One of the terms of endearment we used for our most recent cat was "stinky little piss baby". I think most cat owners are well aware that they're unsanitary creatures.
If your housecat stinks, it's likely unhealthy or you're not providing it with a clean litterbox or you have insufficient litterboxes for the number of cats you have.
He got the nickname while he was dying of cancer. He had stopped grooming himself because of his medications.
So you aren't entirely wrong, but rest assured that we were agonizingly aware of the ways in which he was unhealthy.
Re: Bodega cats of New York
#50Is it just me or is it a huge letdown that the text is all AI-generated? Or at least, in the same kind of saccharine style? Are people not able to detect this?
Didn't seem AI-generated to me. Just the short, three-word-sentence pithy style that's become really popular these days that LLMs have learned to ape. But IMO it actually works well here, it reminds me of Peter Watts's very human style (cf. eg. https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=11546).