[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Architectuul looks back at some highlights from 2019.
• Bad Astronomy looks at the gas cloud, red and green, of RCW 120.
• Crooked Timber looks at the dynamics of identity politics, here.
• Bruce Dorminey notes a NASA statement about the importance of understanding dust dynamics in other solar systems to find Earth analogues.
• Far Outliers looks at the problems pacifying the Chesapeake Bay area in 1813, here.
• Gizmodo looks at the most popular Wikipedia articles for the year 2019.
• io9 shares a video of images from a 1995 Akira cyberpunk computer game that never got finished.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how the United States tried to “civilize” the Inupiat of Alaska by giving them reindeer herds.
• Language Hat links to an online atlas of Scots dialects.
• Language Log reports on a 12th century Sanskrit inscription that testifies to the presence of Muslims in Bengal at that point.
• Marginal Revolution notes how much Tuvalu depends on revenue from its .tv Internet domain.
• Drew Rowsome looks at the Duncan Ralston horror novel Salvage, set in small-town Canada.
• The Russian Demographics Blog looks at the strong relationship between wealth and life expectancy in France.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that, in a hypothetical supernova, all life on an Earth-like planet would be boiled alive by neutrinos.
• Strange Maps links to a graphic interface that translates a word into all the languages of Europe.
• Understanding Society looks at the structures of high-reliability organizations.
• Window on Eurasia shares a suggestion that Homer Simpson is actually the US’ version of Russia’s Ivan the Fool.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Architectuul looks at the Portuguese architectural cooperative Ateliermob, here.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at how white dwarf WD J091405.30+191412.25 is literally vapourizing a planet in close orbit.
• Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog explains</a< to readers why you really do not want to have to look for parking in New York City.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the slowing of the solar wind far from the Sun.
• John Holbo at Crooked Timber considers the gap between ideals and actuals in the context of conspiracies and politics.
• The Dragon’s Tales reports on how the ESA is trying to solve a problem with the parachutes of the ExoMars probe.
• Far Outliers reports on what Harry Truman thought about politicians.
• Gizmodo reports on a new method for identifying potential Earth-like worlds.
• io9 pays tribute to legendary writer, of Star Trek and much else, D.C. Fontana.
• The Island Review reports on the football team of the Chagos Islands.
• Joe. My. God. reports that gay Olympian Gus Kenworthy will compete for the United Kingdom in 2020.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how early English imperialists saw America and empire through the lens of Ireland.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money does not like Pete Buttigieg.
• The LRB Blog looks at the London Bridge terrorist attack.
• The Map Room Blog shares a map of Prince William Sound, in Alaska, that is already out of date because of global warming.
• Marginal Revolution questions if Cebu, in the Philippines, is the most typical city in the world.
• The NYR Daily looks at gun violence among Arab Israelis.
• The Planetary Society Blog considers what needs to be researched next on Mars.
• Roads and Kingdoms tells the story of Sister Gracy, a Salesian nun at work in South Sudan.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper noting continued population growth expected in much of Europe, and the impact of this growth on the environment.
• Strange Maps shares a map of fried chicken restaurants in London.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why a 70 solar mass black hole is not unexpected.
• John Scalzi at Whatever gives</a his further thoughts on the Pixel 4.
• Window on Eurasia notes that, last year, 37 thousand Russians died of HIV/AIDS.
• Arnold Zwicky starts from a consideration of the 1948 film Kind Hearts and Coronets.

[AH] Six #alternatehistory maps from Reddit: Irish, Canada, Alaska, Russia, Prairies, South Africa

• This r/mapporn map shows the scale of the collapse of Irish as a spoken language across most of Ireland. Was this avoidable?
• This r/imaginarymaps map shows a Canada where the 1837 rebellions were successful, with an autonomous Upper Canada and a Lower Canada with a Patriote state. Doable?
• This r/imaginarymaps map depicts a common alternate history trope, that of an independent but culturally Russian Alaska. What would it take for this to happen?
• This r/imaginarymaps map depicts a world where Eurasia, from Germany to Korea, was dominated by a successfully industrializing Russian Empire. Was this common fear of the belle époque actually achievable?
• This r/mapporn map shows the different proposals for different territorial configurations of the Canadian Prairies. (I like the ones with north-south divisions.)
• Was a single South Africa covering most of British Southern Africa with relatively liberal racial policies, as Jan Smuts wanted, actually achievable? r/imaginarymaps hosts the map.

[URBAN NOTE] Five notes about cities: trains, climate change, allergies, India, fires, Midwest map

• MTL Blog looks at the proposal for a sleeper train connecting Montréal and New York City. (Can Toronto get one too, please?)
• Lauren Pelley reports for CBC about how climate change leads, through increased pollen production, to worse allergies for residents of cities in Canada.
• Guardian Cities reports that the fires in Alaska, too, outside of Anchorage, are things that dwellers of cities will have to get used to.
• The heat island effect, CityLab warns, will be a major threat to life in the cities of India.
• CityLab does an interesting crowdsourced map, tracing the boundaries of the American Midwest.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait reports on a dwarf galaxy collision with galaxy NGC 1232, producing waves of X-rays.
• The Toronto Library’s The Buzz highlights a collection of books on LGBTQ themes for Pride month.
• Centauri Dreams looks at studies of the circumstellar disk of HD 163296.
• D-Brief reports that plastic debris may have contributed to a die-off of puffins by the Bering Sea.
• Bruce Dorminey shares an image of a rich star-forming region in Cepheus taken by the Spitzer telescope.
• Imageo reports how smoke from wildfires in Canada have covered literally millions of square kilometres of North America in smoke.
• io9 notes how, in the limited series Doomsday Clock, Doctor Manhattan has come to a new realization about Superman and the DC multiverse.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how Luddites are now fashionable again, with their critiques of technology.
• Language Log reports on a unique whistled version of the Turkish language.
• Lawyers Guns and Money takes a look its different writers’ production over its 15 years.
• Emannuel Iduma writes at the NRY Daily about the young people, lives filled with promise, killed in the Biafran War.
• Corey S. Powell at Out There has an interesting idea: What items of food do the different planets of the solar system resemble?
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer looks at the many stupidities of the new Trump tariffs against Mexico.
• Peter Rukavina celebrates the 20th anniversary of his blog.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel reports on the exceptionally isolated galaxy MCG+01-02-015, in a void a hundred million light-years away from any other.
• Window on Eurasia looks at the changing politics and scholarship surrounding mass deaths in Soviet Kazakhstan in the 1930s. https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/05/debate-on-mass-deaths-in-kazakhstan.html
• Arnold Zwicky looks at flowers coloured magenta in his California.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, Hyder, Buenos Aires, New Orleans, Hong Kong

• HuffPostQuebec imagines what an Expo held in Montréal for 2030 would look like, and what effect it would have on the metropolis.
• The Alaska Life notes the near-ghost town of Hyder, a community most easily accessible from Canada.
• Guardian Cities reports on a recent expulsion of street traders from a district in Buenos Aires.
• CityLab notes the growing unacceptability of a group parading in blackface in Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
• Guardian Cities explains how through, among other things, canny property investments, mass transit in Hong Kong is self-supporting financially.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Architectuul looks at a new architecture project intent on the interface between land and sea.
• Bad Astronomy reports on the impact of a meteorite with a house in Uruguay.
• Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog writes about the importance of lightening the loads of others when one can.
• Centauri Dreams writes about how OSIRIS-REx is responding to unexpected conditions at Bennu like its relative rockiness. https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2019/03/21/working-with-the-unexpected-at-asteroid-bennu/
• The Crux considers the remarkable versatility of ketamine, as anesthetic and anti-depressant among other things.
• D-Brief notes a report that reveals universal patterns of app usage on cell phones by different people.
• Dangerous Minds shares some vintage R.E.M. performances from 1981.
• Earther notes that temperatures in parts of Alaska have just briefly peaked at 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Gizmodo notes the new accurate guide for walkers provided by a new Google Maps system making use of landmarks.
• Kieran Healy breaks down some data from the 2018 General Social Survey.
• Joe. My. God. notes that the Sylvester classic “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” has been selected for preservation by the National Registry of the Library of Congress.
• JSTOR Daily makes a case for treating the art of children not as mere scribblings but rather as art worthy of serious consideration.
• Language Hat notes the sensitive translation by one man of the Bible into the 20th century vernacular Arabic of Egypt.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the Mueller report, what is and is not likely to be in it, and how one should react to it.
• Marginal Revolution notes the extent to which the employment rates of women has been a driving factor in recent American economic history.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw celebrates his 13th anniversary of blogging.
• Roads and Kingdoms interviews Shannon Mustipher on Caribbean rum culture.
• Drew Rowsome takes a look at the new interactive theatre piece Amorous Playlist.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why quantum tunneling does not violate the speed of light.
• Towleroad notes that the André Aciman sequel to Call Me By Your Name, Find Me, is scheduled for an October release.
• The Volokh Conspiracy notes how the denaturalization by Italy of a man who committed terrible criminal acts sets a bad precedent for citizenship generally.
• Window on Eurasia lists five tactics that non-Russian republics in Russia could adopt to resist their abolition.
• Arnold Zwicky begins a meditation that starts with the sight of a vegetarian reuben sandwich.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Architectuul looks at the modernist works of Spanish Antonio Lamela, building after the Second World War under Franco.
• Centauri Dreams considers the possibility of life-supporting environments on Barnard’s Star b, a frozen super-Earth.
• The Crux takes a look at how, and when, human beings and their ancestors stopped being as furry as other primates.
• D-Brief notes the Russian startup that wants to put advertisements in Earth orbit.
• Drew Ex Machina takes a look at the Soyuz 4 and 5 missions, the first missions to see two crewed craft link up in space.
• Far Outliers notes</a the extent to which, before the Opium War, knowledge of Chinese language and culture was kept strictly secret from Westerners at Canton.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing notes the ironies of housing a state-of-the-art supercomputers in the deconsecrated Torre Girona Chapel in Barcelona.
• Gizmodo notes a new study claiming that the rings of Saturn may be less than a hundred million years old, product of some catastrophic obliteration of an ice moon perhaps.
• Joe. My. God. notes the death of Pulitzer-winning lesbian poet Mary Oliver.
• JSTOR Daily takes a look at the rising prominence of hoarding as a psychological disorder.
• Language Hat shares a manuscript more than a hundred pages long, reporting on terms relating to sea ice used in the Inupiaq language spoken by the Alaska community of Kifigin, or Wales.
• Language Log examines the etymology of “slave” and “Slav”. (Apparently “ciao” is also linked to these words.)
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that Buzzfeed was right to claim that Trump ordered his lawyer to lie to Congress about the Moscow Trump Tower project.
• Marginal Revolution notes a serious proposal in the Indian state of Sikkim to set up a guaranteed minimum income project.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps links to a map showing visitations of the Virgin Mary worldwide, both recognized and unrecognized by the Vatican.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes the continuing controversy over the identity of AT2018cow.
• Window on Eurasia suggests that Russians have more to fear from a Sino-Russian alliance than Americans, on account of the possibility of a Chinese takeover of Russia enabled by this alliance.

[ISL] Five islands links: Unalaska, Haida Gwaii, Taiwan and Polynesia, Greenland, Madagascar

• The BBC reports on the Alaskan island of Unalaska, part of the Aleutian chain and fought over during the Second World War.
• Airbnb and short-term stays are apparently contributing to a housing crisis on Haida Gwaii, also known as the Queen Charlotte Islands. Global News reports.
• Duncan De’Aeth at Taiwan News writes about the Hawaiki Project, an initiative to connect the indigenous tribes of the Pacific with the tribes of Taiwan, distant relatives on Austronesians’ island of origin.
• Though the shedding of icebergs from icecap in Greenland may attract tourists, it also endangers local communities. Wired reports.
• Marginal Revolution reports that, despite its deep poverty, Madagascar has some of the fastest broadband internet speeds on the planet.

[NEWS] Five First Nations links: Anishaabemowin, Mexico, Australia, Vanuatu, Tsimshian

• Journalist Duncan McCue writes about his efforts to learn the Anishaabemowin language of his ancestors, over at CBC.
• The Inter Press Service looks at indigenous language revival movements among in Mexico.
• The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports on the perhaps surprisingly intimate relationship over time between Indigenous Australians and Chinese migrants in Australia.
• Some Aborigines were deported to Vanuatu in the 19th century, part of the “repatriation” of the blackbirded. Some of their descendants have recently returned to Queensland to try to connect to their local kin. SBS reports.
• A Tsimshian woman from Alaska, active in the language revival movement among the Tsimshian of British Columbia, is fighting efforts to deport her from Canada–or, rather, from the Canadian portion of the Tsimshian homeland. The National Post reports.