[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.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Fredericton, Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Riga

• The city of Fredericton hopes a new strategy to attracting international migration to the New Brunswick capital will help its grow its population by 25 thousand. Global News reports.
• Guardian Cities notes the controversy in Amsterdam as users of moped find themselves being pushed from using bike lanes.
• Guardian Cities looks at how many in Athens think the city might do well to unbury the rivers covered under concrete and construction in the second half of the 20th century.
• The Sagrada Familia, after more than 130 years of construction, has finally received a permit for construction from Barcelona city authorities. Global News reports.
• Evan Gershkovich at the Moscow Times reports on how the recent ousting of the mayor of the Latvian capital of Riga for corruption is also seem through a lens of ethnic conflict.

[DM] Some news links: public art, history, marriage, diaspora, assimilation

Some more population-related links popped up over the past week.

• CBC Toronto reported on this year’s iteration of Winter Stations. A public art festival held on the Lake Ontario shorefront in the east-end Toronto neighbourhood of The Beaches, Winter Stations this year will be based around the theme of migration.
• JSTOR Daily noted how the interracial marriages of serving members of the US military led to the liberalization of immigration law in the United States in the 1960s. With hundreds of thousands of interracial marriages of serving members of the American military to Asian women, there was simply no domestic constituency in the United States
• Ozy reported on how Dayton, Ohio, has managed to thrive in integrating its immigrant populations.
• Amro Ali, writing at Open Democracy, makes a case for the emergence of Berlin as a capital for Arab exiles fleeing the Middle East and North America in the aftermath of the failure of the Arab revolutions. The analogy he strikes to Paris in the 1970s, a city that offered similar shelter to Latin American refugees at that time, resonates.
• Alex Boyd at The Island Review details, with prose and photos, his visit to the isolated islands of St. Kilda, inhabited from prehistoric times but abandoned in 1930.
• VICE looks at the plight of people who, as convicted criminals, were deported to the Tonga where they held citizenship. How do they live in a homeland they may have no experience of? The relative lack of opportunity in Tonga that drove their family’s earlier migration in the first place is a major challenge.
• Window on Eurasia notes how, in many post-Soviet countries including the Baltic States and Ukraine, ethnic Russians are assimilating into local majority ethnic groups. (The examples of the industrial Donbas and Crimea, I would suggest, are exceptional. In the case of the Donbas, 2014 might well have been the latest point at which a pro-Russian separatist movement was possible.)

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Centauri Dreams looks at the genesis of ocean worlds. Having a nearly massive star producing lots of radioactive aluminum when it supernovas might be surprisingly important.
• The Crux takes a look at languages newly forming in the world around us, starting with the Australian language of Light Warlpiri. What does this say about humans and language?
• D-Brief notes that researchers have managed to create cyborg rats whose motions are controlled directly by human thought.
• Gizmodo reports on the abandonment by Amazon of its plan for a HQ2 campus in Queens.
• JSTOR Daily shares the perfectly believable argument that people with autism should not be viewed as people incapable of love.
• At Lawyers, Guns and Money, Simon Balto writes about how the Ryan Adams scandal demonstrates the male gatekeeper effect in popular music.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution comes up with a list of winners and losers of the Amazon decision not to set up HQ2 in Queens. (Myself, I am unconvinced New York City is a loser here.)
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains how, despite not interacting directly with normal matter, dark matter can still be heated up by the matter and energy we see around us.
• Window on Eurasia notes how, in many post-Soviet countries including the Baltic States and Ukraine, ethnic Russians are assimilating into local majority ethnic groups.

[NEWS] Five notes about migration: Albania, Venezuela, Latvia, Namibia and East Germany, Yunnan

• This report from the Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso noting the sheer scale of emigration in parts of rural Albania, proceeding to the point of depopulating entire territories, tells a remarkable story.
• This opinion suggesting that, due to the breakdown of the economy of Venezuela, we will soon see a refugee crisis rivaling Syria’s seems frighteningly plausible.
• Politico Europe notes that, in the case of Latvia, where emigration has helped bring the country’s population down below two million, there are serious concerns.
• OZY tells the unexpected story of hundreds of young Namibian children who, during apartheid, were raised in safety in Communist East Germany.
• Many Chinese are fleeing the pollution of Beijing and other major cities for new lives in the cleaner environments in the southern province of Yunnan. The Guardian reports.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• At Antipope, Charlie Stross wonders–among other things–what the Trump Administration is getting done behind its public scandals.
• blogTO notes a protest in Toronto aiming to get the HBC to drop Ivanka Trump’s line of fashion.
• Dangerous Minds reflects on a Talking Heads video compilation from the 1980s.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money reflects on a murderous attack against Indian immigrants in Kansas.
• The LRB Blog looks at “post-Internet art”.
• Lovesick Cyborg notes an attack by a suicide robot against a Saudi warship.
• Strange Maps links to a map of corruption reports in France.
• Torontoist reports on Winter Stations.
• Understanding Society engages in a sociological examination of American polarization, tracing it to divides in race and income.
• The Volokh Conspiracy notes the many good reasons behind the reluctance of cities around the world to host the Olympics.
• Window on Eurasia notes that where the Ingush have mourned their deportation under Stalin the unfree Chechens have not, reports that Latvians report their willingness to fight for their country, looks at what the spouses of the presidents of post-Soviet states are doing, and notes the widespread opposition in Belarus to paying a tax on “vagrancy.”
• Arnold Zwicky looks at the linguistic markers of the British class system.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• At Antipope, Charlie Stross writes about how colonizing even a nearby and Earth-like Proxima Centauri b would be far beyond our abilities.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly responds to Canada’s mourning of the Tragically Hip.
• Centauri Dreams considers the life that may exist in the oceans of Europa.
• D-Brief notes an Alaskan village that is being evacuated because of climate change-related erosion.
• The Dragon’s Gaze notes that Gliese 1132b is likely a Venus analog.
• The Dragon’s Tales wonders about Titan’s polar regions.
• False Steps considers the Soviet plans for a substantial lunar settlement.
• Far Outliers reports on the Czech and Slovak secret agents active in the United States during the First World War.
• Gizmodo notes the steady spread of lakes on the surface of East Antarctica.
• Language Hat examines the birth of the modern Uzbeks.
• Language Log shares bilingual Spanish-Chinese signage from Argentina.
• Marginal Revolution notes the arrival of tourists in Belgium seeking euthanasia.
• Maximos62 shares footage from Singapore’s Festival of the Hungry Ghost.
• Steve Munro notes the little publicity given to the 514 streetcar.
• Justin Petrone reflects on Estonian stereotypes of Latvia.
• pollotenchegg looks at the regional demographics of Ukraine.
• The Russian Demographics Blog notes the inclusion of Cossacks in the Russian census.
• Strange Maps shares a map of the actually-existing Middle East.
• Understanding Society examines the interwar ideology of Austrofascism.
• Window on Eurasia looks at what the Soviet coup attempt in 1991 did and did not do.

[NEWS] Some Wednesday links

• Bloomberg notes concerns over Northern Ireland’s frontiers, looks at how Japanese retailers are hoping to take advantage of Vietnam’s young consumers, examines the desperation of Venezuelans shopping in Colombia, looks at Sri Lankan interest in Chinese investment, suggests oil prices need to stay below 40 dollars US a barrel for Russia to reform, observes that Chinese companies are increasingly reluctant to invest, and suggests Frankfurt will gain after Brexit.
• Bloomberg View gives advice for the post-Brexit British economy, looks at how Chinese patterns in migration are harming young Chinese, suggests Hillary should follow Russian-Americans in not making much of Putin’s interference, and looks at the Israeli culture wars.
• CBC considers the decolonization of placenames in the Northwest Territories, notes Canada’s deployment to Latvia was prompted by French domestic security concerns, and looks at an ad promoting the Albertan oil sands that went badly wrong in trying to be anti-homophobic.
• The Inter Press Service considers the future of Turkey and looks at domestic slavery in Oman.
• MacLean’s looks at China’s nail house owners, resisting development.
• The National Post reports from the Colombia-Venezuela border.
• Open Democracy considers the nature of work culture in the austerity-era United Kingdom, looks at traditions of migration and slavery in northern Ghana, examines European bigotry against eastern Europeans, and examines the plight of sub-Saharan migrants stuck in Morocco.
• Universe Today notes two nearby potentially habitable rocky worlds, reports that the Moon’s Mare Imbrium may have been result of a hit by a dwarf planet, and reports on Ceres’ lack of large craters.

[NEWS] Some Wednesday links

• Bloomberg notes Twitter will stop counting photos and links against its 140-character limit, reports on the challenges of the new Taiwanese president, and reports on Japan’s efforts to boost its workforce.
• Bloomberg View argues European banks just aren’t good at investment banking, suggests austerity worked for Latvia, and argues an IMF suggestion of a debt holiday for Greece is impolitic.
• CBC notes J.K. Rowling’s defense of Donald Trump.
• Via The Dragon’s Gaze, I found this Eurekalert post noting a search for Earth-like worlds around highly evolved stars, like the red giants that our sun will evolve into.
• Gizmodo reports on how Sweden is moving the city of Kiruna to safer ground, and describes Amazon’s interest in opening more physical bookstores.
• The Inter Press Service wonders what will happen to Brazil now.
• The National Post notes the mysteries surrounding a secret American military spaceplane.
• Open Democracy looks at the human rights consequences of Mexico’s long-running drug war.
• TVO considers the impact of a long NDP leadership campaign on the party.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• blogTO notes the increasing unaffordability of real estate in Toronto.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly is quite right about the restorative power of a walk.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes China’s plans to launch its space station into orbit.
• The LRB Blog features an essay from a German Jewish cemetery in Berlin, reflecting on past and present migrations and refugees.
• Geocurrents notes the very sharp worldwide drop in fertility rates between 1950 and 2015.
• The NYRB Daily considers controversies over museums in Berlin.
• Peter Rukavina notes the very odd weather projected Thursday for Charlottetown.
• Torontoist examines how Ontario’s proposal for free tuition for student from low-income families would work.
• Window on Eurasia notes Russian interest in triggering Latgalian separatism to try to control Latvia.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the idea of the “greater West Coast.”