[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer notes the circumstances of the discovery of a low-mass black hole, only 3.3 solar masses.
• Crooked Timber shares a photo of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.
• The Crux looks at Monte Verde, the site in Chile that has the evidence of the oldest human population known to have lived in South America.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that Russia may provide India with help in the design of its Gaganyaan manned capsule.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing talks of his work, including his upcoming conference and his newsletter, The Convivial Society. (Subscribe at the website.)
• Gizmodo shares the Voyager 2 report from the edges of interstellar space.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the East India Company and its corporate lobbying.
• Language Hat shares an account from Ken Liu of the challenges in translating The Three Body Problem, linguistic and otherwise.
• Language Log looks at the problems faced by the word “liberation” in Hong Kong.
• Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the implications of the surprising new relationship between Russia and the Philippines.
• Marginal Revolution seems to like Terminator: Dark Fate, as a revisiting of the series’ origins, with a Mesoamerican twist.
• Sean Marshall announces his attendance at a transit summit in Guelph on Saturday the 9th.
• Garry Wills writes at the NYR Daily about his experience as a man in the mid-20th century American higher education looking at the rise of women.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at the strangely faint distant young galaxy MACS2129-1.
• Window on Eurasia considers the possibility of Latvia developing a national Eastern Orthodox church of its own.

[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 city links: New York City, Los Angeles, Paris, Venice, Istanbul

• The OS/2 operating system is used in New York City to run that metropolis subway system. VICE reports.
• The problem of homelessness in Los Angeles, the Guardian reports, is shocking.
• CityLab reports on plans for new sorts of urban forests outside famous landmarks in Paris.
• DW reports on how people in Venice protest against the intrusions of huge cruise ships into their lagoon, threatening the delicate environment.
• Guardian Cities reports on how the hipster class in Istanbul has begun to migrate to the countryside, driven out of their city by real estate prices and by politics.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait looks at the extreme millisecond pulsar IGR J17062−6143.
• Centauri Dreams looks at a proposal to intercept objects of extrasolar origin like ‘Oumuamua.
• The Crux looks at how researchers are discovering traces of lost hominid populations in the DNA of contemporary humans.
• D-Brief notes a crowdsourcing of a search for intermediate-mass black holes.
• Gizmodo notes the impending production of a new working Commodore 64 clone.
• The Island Review notes people of the Norway island of Sommarøy wish to make their island, home to the midnight sun, a #TimeFreeZone.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the art that has been produced in the era of digital addiction.
• Language Log looks at how, in Iran, the word “Eastoxification” has entered into usage alongside the older “Westoxification.”
• Dave Brockington at Lawyers, Guns, and Money looks at the many likely failings of a Corbyn foreign policy for the United Kingdom.
• The LRB Blog notes that opposition candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu has been re-elected as mayor of Istanbul.
• The Map Room Blog links to various maps of the Moon.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper looking at markets in Lagos, suggesting they are self-regulating to some degree.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains when the earliest sunrise and latest sunset of the year is, and why.
• Towleroad shares an interview with Jack Baker and Mike McConnell, a same-sex couple married for nearly a half-century.
• Window on Eurasia notes how the open approach of the Russian Federation to Russian diasporids is not extended to diasporas of its minority groups, particularly to Muslim ones like Circassians and Tatars.
• Arnold Zwicky considers some Pride fashion, with and without rainbows.

[URBAN NOTE] Six city links: Montréal, New York City, Philadelphia, Istanbul, reserves, Wellington

• La Presse notes how Montréal is placing limits on new construction, and why.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how Basquiat interacted with his surroundings in New York City, using them for art.
• CityLab reports on a study of gentrification and displacement in Philadelphia.
• Guardian Cities reports on the remarkable speed with which Turkish Airlines shifted to a new airport in Istanbul.
• This article in The Conversation is entirely right about the importance of Indigenous urban reserves: Why cannot First Nations be as urbanized as other Canadians?
• Chris Fitch writes at CityLab about how, as part of a new policy, Maori placenames are being introduced (or reintroduced) into the New Zealand capital of Wellington.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, New York City, Seattle, Amsterdam, Istanbul

• A statue of Queen Victoria has been vandalized in Montréal, the act claimed by an anti-colonialist coalition. Global News reports.
• Guardian Cities profiled an Instagram account, thedoorsofnyc, concentrating on the unique doors of New York City.
• Billionaire urbanism is identified by this article at The Stranger as the downfall of the waterfront of Seattle.
• CityLab notes that the government of Amsterdam is now requiring owners of new homes to live in their property, limiting the ability to rent them out.
• The Atlantic notes the criticisms of many urbanists in Istanbul that restorations of the city’s ancient heritage are actually destroying them, at least as survivals from the past.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Hamilton, Calgary, Oakland, Tonantzintla, Istanbul

• Real estate prices in Hamilton continue to rise. This is unsurprising to me, given what I saw of that neighbour city last week. Global News reports.
• Guardian Cities takes a look at how Calgary came to embrace its Calatrava-designed Peace Bridge extending across the Peace River, despite some controversy.
• Gracie McKenzie at CityLab interviews author Tommy Orange about his representation of the California city of Oakland and urban Native Americans in his novel There, There.
• Guardian Cities notes how, and why, the people of the Mexican city of Santa Maria Tonantzintla resisted their community’s transformation into one of Mexico’s first smart cities.
• Ece Goksedef at Middle East Eye writes about the profound insecurity felt by Middle Eastern exiles in Istanbul after Khashoggi’s killing, since their countries have shown their willingness to murder even those people newly safe in Turkey.

[URBAN NOTE] Five cities links: Lac-Mégantic, Ruse, Lviv, Istanbul, Melilla

• Five years after the rail disaster, Lac-Mégantic continues to rebuild and to recover. CBC reports.
• Language Hat reports on the city of Ruse in the eastern Balkans, once a famously multilingual community.
• Marginal Revolution takes a quick look at the tumultuous ethnic history of what is now the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
• Roads and Kingdoms reported on Syrian refugees who set up new homes in Istanbul in an old Ottoman-era neighbourhood.
• The Spanish enclave of Melilla, located on the African coast surrounded by Morocco, faces terrible unemployment. The Irish Times reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, Wayne, Sydney, Istanbul, Irkutsk

• Controversy continues over the construction of a commuter rail link in Montréal’s West Island. Global News reports.
• The New Jersey town of Wayne is going to have to adjust to an economy without Toys R Us, based there. Bloomberg reports.
• Property prices have fallen in Sydney for the seventh month in a row, those prices outside Sydney are rising. Bloomberg reports.
• Plans to construct a new shipping canal through the Bosphorus, at Istanbul, may have negative effects for the strait and the city. National Geographic reports.
• The Guardian takes a look at the Siberian city of Irkutsk, a metropolis that apparently can lay claim to a long tradition of cultural and other dissent, here.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: New York City, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, Berlin, Amsterdam, Istanbul

• What does the impending demolition of the venerable Union Carbide tower, at 270 Park Avenue, to make way for a new ultratall skyscraper say about changing New York City? New York reports.
• The South China Morning Post observes how the cities of Shenzhen and Guangzhou, though still behind Hong Kong, are starting to advance past it as a result of these cities’ sustained investment in innovative technologies.
• Aldi in Berlin will apparently build affordable student housing on top of at least some of its new discount food stores in Berlin. Bloomberg reports.
• This VICE article looking at the lives of lonely people in Amsterdam, many newcomers, is affecting.
• The Crisis Group looks at how Syrian refugees, of diverse ethnicities and religions, are finding a new home in the multiethnic Istanbul neighbourhood of Sultangazi.