Interesting Links for 14-01-2015

• 3 Dead After Cadbury’s Creme Egg Protest Turns Violent In Dublin
  (tags: chocolate satire funny )
• Charlize Theron Negotiates $10M Raise After Sony Hack Reveals Male Costar Was To Be Paid Millions More
  (tags: movies money sony hacking patriarchy women )
• The Apollo missions left 96 bags of bodily fluids on the moon
  (tags: moon space faeces urination )
• Dog! Confused! By! Egg!
  (tags: eggs dogs video )
• 101 Ways to Win an Election
  (tags: elections politics UK )
• The Rise and Fall of the Lone Game Developer
  (tags: games programming )
• Cops charged after police body cams capture them killing homeless man
  (tags: cameras transparentsociety police )
• 5 Everyday Groups of People Society Says It's OK to Mock
  (tags: bullying society )
• This Algorithm Knows You Better Than Your Facebook Friends Do
  (tags: psychology technology Facebook )
• ‘No Regrets’: Peter Jackson Says Goodbye to Middle-Earth (I hadn't realised TBOTFA got an R rating originally!)
  (tags: peterjackson lotr thehobbit movies )
• 45% of people believe anti-semitic statements
  (tags: jews racism )
• How Often You Really Need To Shower (According To Science)
  (tags: baths cleanliness science )
• West Hollywood Law Requiring Gender-Neutral Restrooms Goes Into Effect
  (tags: toilets USA gender )

The Excellence Of All Good Things...

I think it's taken us less than two weeks to watch the final season of TNG. And while it still has the occasional rubbish episode, in general it's been marvellous. The writers are clearly much more comfortable, the actors fit their characters like a glove, and we start seeing actual evolution of the setting and the relationships between them. Oh to have started the show like that, and not to have been trapped in the "Every episode must stand alone" mold*.

In any case, the final double-episode is a masterpiece, effortlessly moving over the whole length of the series and pressing all of the right buttons to both celebrate the show, and demonstrate why I loved the characters. Very few shows have had such good endings.

Next up: Deep Space Nine, which I believe I will have to largely suffer through the first couple of seasons, before it Gets Good. I managed that for B5, I can manage for this!

Coincidentally, I haven't read LJ at all this evening, so if something epic or appalling happened to you today I'll find out about it after I get home tomorrow (first meeting at 8:30, visiting a friend after work).


*That mold wouldn't be broken, of course, until Babylon 5 came along, at around the time that Trek was ending, and showed that you could have plots that lasted not just two episodes, but whole seasons, and more.