[BLOG] Some Tuesday links
- At Antipope, Charlie Stross takes a look at the dystopian future we’ve created for ourselves with the help of Big Data.
- Kambiz Kamrani at Anthropology net notes the discovery of an Ancient Beringian population involved in the peopling of the Americas.
- Bad Astronomer Phil Plait considers the awesome possibility of life on pulsar planets, i.e. on planets that survived or were made by a supernova.
- Centauri Dreams suggests that dust, not ET artifacts, may explain the odd light coming from KIC 8462852, aka Boyajian’s Star.
- Crooked Timber considers the surprisingly mixed emotions of unions regarding the idea of a guaranteed minimum income.
- Far Outliers takes a look at the diverse non-German soldiers serving in occupied France in the Second World War.
- The Frailest Thing’s Michael Sacasas considers parallels between the mentality of Silicon Valley and totalitarianism.
- Hornet Stories considers the questionable idea of a “gold star” or “platinum star” gay person. What, exactly, is being celebrated?
- JSTOR Daily notes the gendered nature of the supermarket of mid-20th century North America.
- Language Hat celebrates the establishment of Hakka as an official language in Taiwan, as does Language Log.
- Lawyers, Guns and Money argues that the previous Oregon laws against self-service gas stations helped boost employment for the vulnerable.
- Lingua Franca considers the concept of “ghosting”, linguistically at otherwise.
- Marginal Revolution links to a paper examining how creativity has clustered in cities in the past.
- Out There shares the arguments of Charles Miller for infrastructure to support crewed expansion and settlement in space, starting with the Moon.
- Peter Rukavina talks about his last visit, with his son, to the Sears store in Charlottetown.
- Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that 2018 may be the year we finally take a picture of a black hole, Sagittarius A* in the heart of our galaxy.
- To what extent is history probabilistic? Understanding Society considers.
- Window on Eurasia notes controversy in Siberia over Chinese investors who come in and disregard local sensitivities and regulations.
Written by Randy McDonald
January 9, 2018 at 4:45 pm
Posted in Assorted, Canada, Demographics, Economics, History, Politics, Popular Culture, Science, Social Sciences
Tagged with artificial intelligence, astronomy, blogs, borders, charlottetown, china, chinese language, cities, creative class, economics, evolution, extraterrestrial life, first nations, former soviet union, france, futurology, germany, glbt issues, guaranteed minimum income, historiography, history, human beings, kic 8462852, language, links, migration, military, milky way galaxy, moon, philosophy, prince edward island, pulsar planets, russia, Sagittarius A*, sears, sears canada, second world war, sexuality, shopping, siberia, sociology, space colonies, space science, space travel, supernova, taiwan, united states