[CAT] Shakespeare, little ball of fur

[CAT] Five links about cats: Peter Watts and Minion, Toronto, Alberta, sea lions, Marrakech

• Author Peter Watts bids farewell to his noble companion cat, Minion.


• Narcity notes that Toronto Animal Services is offering cats (and dogs) at a discount.


• An Alberta organization aiming to rehouse cats from older owners has found itself overwhelmed. CBC reports.


• A parasite spread by housecats, Smithsonian reports, is responsible for mass deaths in sea lion colonies in California.


• The suffering of the stray cats of Marrakech, Morocco, prone to all sorts of illness and cruelty, sounds terrible. Morocco World News has it.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul reports on the critical walking tours of Istanbul offered by Nazlı Tümerdem.


• Centauri Dreams features a guest post from Alex Tolley considering the biotic potential of the subsurface ocean of Enceladus.


• The Crux reports on how paleontologist Susie Maidment tries to precisely date dinosaur sediments.


• D-Brief notes the success of a recent project aiming to map the far side of the Milky Way Galaxy.


• Cody Delistraty considers the relationship between the One Percent and magicians.


• Todd Schoepflin writes at the Everyday Sociology Blog about different sociological facts in time for the new school year.


• Gizmodo shares a lovely extended cartoon imagining what life on Europa, and other worlds with subsurface worlds, might look like.


• io9 features an interview with Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders on the intersection between science fiction writing and science writing.


• JSTOR Daily briefly considers the pros and cons of seabed mining.


• Marginal Revolution suggests that a stagnant economy could be seen as a sign of success, as the result of the exploitation of all potential for growth.


• The NYR Daily reports on the photographs of John Edmonds, a photographer specializing in images of queer black men.


• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps shares a map of murders in Denmark, and an analysis of the facts behind this crime there.


• Window on Eurasia reports on an anti-Putin shaman in Buryatia.


• Arnold Zwicky reports on dreams of going back to school, NSFW and otherwise.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Toronto Monopoly, signs, public art, Portlands, Union Station

• blogTO notes that there is, for a short while, a Toronto-themed version of Monopoly available for sale.


• The iconic Toronto sign in front of City Hall is set to be replaced with a more cost-effective one. The Toronto Star reports.


• I like the controversial statue of a man 25 feet tall placed in front of a new condo development on St. Clair Avenue West. The Toronto Star reports.


• The National Post reports in depth of the plans of Google's Sidewalk Labs to transform the Portlands.


• Sean Marshall looks at how the concrete barriers put up in front of Union Station disrupt, particularly, non-car traffic there.