Werekat @werekat@mastodon.acc.sunet.se

Took apart two old machines yesterday - and I think they're both perfectly serviceable, at least outwards. No monitors, but otherwise two fully built computers in cases, one built about 6-8 years ago, the other 10-12 years ago. What would be a good use for these? Dedicated servers? Computing time donations? Decisions!

Oh, great. The infamous UK "Right Wing Signs and Symbols Aide" literally has the Ukrainian trident on it - in the tattoo section, last one.

This is literally our coat of arms. This thing is on our passports, on pins, badges, backpacks - and yes, tattoos. Thanks, Britain.

https://www.scribd.com/document/443276332/Symbols-guidance-document

Yesterday, tho. Doing a fairly easy exercise, form-wise, and finding it heavy with my usual normal weight. Companion goes: you're breaking form, watch your back! Me: keeps form and finds weight too heavy. Thinking that I must have been doing it wrong all along, I take off 5 kilos, and finish the exercise, lamenting my progress... And only then realize that I'd absentmindedly put on 10 kilos over my normal weight in the first place.

On lifting weights. When I started out, I thought I would be bored. But then I realized that, once you've got your legs under you, it's one of the ultimate "leave me alone" sports (probably on par with running). If you know what you're doing, there literally isn't more than one or two interactions with people per session unless you want 'em and go with a friend. Other than that - you go, you lift weights, your mind relaxes, because once the weights get heavy, you need to focus on form. Tranquil!

The reason apartments are fun: it's the luxury of living on a mountaintop, observing the valleys below, but with less need to walk down a kilometer to bring water. On a foggy day like this one, the resemblance is striking.

That plane - code name "Romeo" - was like 3 years old. And it was probably on a good number of my usual routes. It's a creepy and sad feeling that you probably did know the folk in the crew.

AFAIK a crash on takeoff usually is technical issues, but a) Iran's already said it's not planning on releasing the black boxes. b) the transponder was lost way before the crash. So keeping an eye out for now.

I would actually watch the heck out of a fable filmed by Abrams. Like an actual, bona-fide fable that doesn't pretend to be anything more than it is, and talks to the audience under the thinnest of narrative veneers, more an essay that liberally uses cinematography than anything else. Add his director's craft to that - and there might be something really cool there.

Maybe it's just temperature-induced musings, but there is one talent I think Abrams really has as a director, for all that I don't like his editing style.

It's talking to the audience on multiple levels simultaneously. From Ren's mask being taken off - and showing the audience a mirror, to "The Dead Speak!", "I'm only doing what you did", and "This will all have been for nothing."

There, the scary stuff is over now. XD Looking back, this song is incredibly emotional, even if one does not like it, - and I think a sizeable chunk of my distrust of grand narratives comes from this particular Grand Narrative.

I'm not gonna spoil the story here, I think, but it's an incredibly effective song. Both the text and the singing itself - I only hope I did it some justice.

If you’ve fought your way through
With your father’s own sword
If you’ve drunk your own tears
From their living source
If the ardor of battle has
Taught you something of price
Then you had the right books
When you were a child.

If you never ate meat
From the blade of your knife
If you sat with arms folded
And observed in your pride
If you never fought back
Against torturer scum
Then your life was empty.
There was. Nothing. Done.

Then a wounded friend
will crash down at your side
You will howl, overcome
By a first loss’s cry
Grief will strip you completely,
Leaving no skin
He was killed, you were not
And that’s all it has been.

Then you’ll know that you’ve learned
You’ve discerned, and you’ve found
That the scowl of the helm
Is Death’s very own scowl
Lies and evil – just hear!
How they rumble and growl
They’re unerringly followed
By coffins. And crows.

But one cannot escape
into dreams for all time.
The age of play is short;
Pain is always in sight.
And the fallen hold tight -
Try and unclench their fists
And take weapons of old
From their callused grips.

Go and learn, picking up
A sword that’s still warm,
And by donning your armor
Of the cost, of the cost!
Take stock of who you are
Are you craven or chosen?
Taste true battle and see
Will you move or be frozen.

In the boiling hot cauldrons
Of prior wars and strife
There was so much sustenance
For our tiny child minds!
Traitors, cowards, and Judases
All roles had their place
These we gave to our enemies
In our childhood games.

We never allowed
The villains’ trail to grow cold
We promised our love
To fair maidens untold
And we calmed down our friends
And our neighbors did love
For the roles of the heroes -
Those were always - for us.

Turning pages and sweating,
Tussled hair on our heads
Butterflies sweetly fluttered
From each word and each breath
Our heads veritably spun
As we scented struggle
Its whiff drifting to us
From old pages so fragile

So we tried comprehending,
With no knowledge of war
We, who heard anguished howls
And mistook them for roars,
The secret of “orders”
The sense of “attack”
The meaning of “borders”
And the chariots’ menacing
Clamor and clang.

Among candles half-melted
And prayers at night
Among trophies of war
And the camps of peacetime
There lived children of books
Who had never seen battle
But whose little catastrophes
Still left them rattled

Children are never pleased
With their age and their life
So we did fight to bruises
Unforgivable crimes
But our clothes were all mended
By our mothers in time
And we gulped down more books
And got drunk on their wine

The rest of the thread is going to be CW'd, because this song gets pretty damn dark. Keep in mind, if you do read, that a lot of kids grew up on this stuff.

One of the cultural artifacts that, I think, is absolutely integral to understanding how post-Soviet protest movements and war efforts unfold, and to how activists see themselves is Vladimir Vysotsky's "Ballad of Struggle".

I don't like this song, subjectively. But as far as artifacts go, well, this one is very difficult to leave by the wayside. Also, sometimes the translation muse strikes in really unexpected ways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fdg05yHhKk