[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.

[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.

[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.

[CAT] Shakespeare, little ball of fur

[NEWS] Five links: gay genes, stone walls, US wealth, beaches, media

• That, as a new study suggests, there is no single gay gene, but rather multiple different originals for non-heterosexual sexual orientations and behaviours, makes intuitive sense to me. The Washington Post has one take.
• Atlas Obscura looks at the history behind the stone walls of New England.
• Justin Fox at Bloomberg examines how the once-commanding lead in incomes of the middle class of the United States over the middle classes of other countries is starting to fade.
• CityLab looks at how, too often by design, beaches in the United States are inaccessible to mass transit. (Toronto is lucky.)
• La Presse shares a proposal by Radio-Canada to move away from a media model of competing with other outlets towards one based on collaboration.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait shares a video of the expansion of supernova remnant Cas A.
• James Bow shares an alternate history Toronto transit map from his new novel The Night Girl.
• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber notes the Boris Johnson coup.
• The Crux notes a flawed study claiming that some plants had a recognizable intelligence.
• D-Brief notes the mysterious absorbers in the clouds of Venus. Are they life?
• Dangerous Minds shares, apropos of nothing, the Jah Wabbles song “A Very British Coup.”
• Cody Delistraty looks at bullfighting.
• Dead Things notes the discovery of stone tools sixteen thousand years old in Idaho which are evidence of the first humans in the Americas.
• io9 features an interview with authors Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz on worldbuilding.
• Joe. My. God. notes that a bill in Thailand to establish civil unions is nearing approval.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how using plastic in road construction can reduce pollution in oceans.
• Language Log looks to see if some police in Hong Kong are speaking Cantonese or Putonghua.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the perplexing ramblings and–generously–inaccuracy of Joe Biden.
• The LRB Blog asks why the United Kingdom is involved in the Yemen war, with Saudi Arabia.
• The Map Room Blog looks at the different efforts aiming to map the fires of Amazonia.
• Marginal Revolution reports on how some southern US communities, perhaps because they lack other sources of income, depend heavily on fines.
• The NYR Daily looks at the complex literary career of Louisa May Alcott, writing for all sorts of markets.
• Window on Eurasia reports on the apparently sincere belief of Stalin, based on new documents, that in 1934 he faced a threat from the Soviet army.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at fixings, or fixins, as the case may be.

[PHOTO] The C64 Mini, $C 59.99

The nostalgia I felt on seeing this device yesterday felt physical to me.

[PHOTO] “May the way forward be clear.”

Yesterday at Yonge-Dundas Square, just across from its flagship store in the Atrium on Bay, MUJI Canada was sponsoring an event, encouraging passers-by to create an ema bearing their wishes for the future. Why not, I thought?

[PHOTO] Me, mirrored at Muji

The temptation for a selfie was obvious.

[MUSIC] Five music links: Rouge, David Bowie, Taylor Swift, Dixie Chicks, maps

• Dangerous Minds looks/u> at obscure 1970s glam punk band Rouge, from Japan.
• Dangerous Minds points readers to the excellent David Bowie fan comic, the biographical “The Side Effects of the Cocaine”.
• Taylor Swift made a wonderful donation to the Regent Park School of Music.
• I do agree with Anne T. Donahue at CBC Arts Mthat country music needs more of the innovative challenges brought by the Dixie Chicks.
• CityLab shares a playlist of songs dealing, in one way or another, with maps.