[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that Betelgeuse is very likely not on the verge of a supernova, here.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the mapping of asteroid Bennu.
• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber reposted, after the election, a 2013 essay looking at the changes in British society from the 1970s on.
• The Dragon’s Tales shares a collection of links about the Precambrian Earth, here.
• Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about fear in the context of natural disasters, here.
• Far Outliers reports on the problems of privateers versus regular naval units.
• Gizmodo looks at galaxy MAMBO-9, which formed a billion years after the Big Bang.
• io9 writes about the alternate history space race show For All Mankind.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the posters used in Ghana in the 1980s to help promote Hollywood movies.
• Language Hat links to a new book that examines obscenity and gender in 1920s Britain.
• Language Log looks at the terms used for the national language in Xinjiang.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money takes issue with Jeff Jacoby’s lack of sympathy towards people who suffer from growing inequality.
• Marginal Revolution suggests that urbanists should have an appreciation for Robert Moses.
• Sean Marshall writes, with photos, about his experiences riding a new Bolton bus.
• Caryl Philips at the NYR Daily writes about Rachmanism, a term wrongly applied to the idea of avaricious landlords like Peter Rachman, an immigrant who was a victim of the Profumo scandal.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper looking at the experience of aging among people without families.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why the empty space in an atom can never be removed.
• Strange Maps shares a festive map of London, a reindeer, biked by a cyclist.
• Window on Eurasia notes how Mongolia twice tried to become a Soviet republic.
• Arnold Zwicky considers different birds with names starting with x.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Charlie Stross at Antipope shares an essay he recently presented on artificial intelligence and its challenges for us.
• P. Kerim Friedman writes at {anthro}dendum about the birth of the tea ceremony in the Taiwan of the 1970s.
• Anthropology net reports on a cave painting nearly 44 thousand years old in Indonesia depicting a hunting story.
• Architectuul looks at some temporary community gardens in London.
• Bad Astronomy reports on the weird history of asteroid Ryugu.
• The Buzz talks about the most popular titles borrowed from the Toronto Public Library in 2019.
• Caitlin Kelly talks at the Broadside Blog about her particular love of radio.
• Centauri Dreams talks about the role of amateur astronomers in searching for exoplanets, starting with LHS 1140 b.
• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber looks at what is behind the rhetoric of “virtue signalling”.
• Dangerous Minds shares concert performance from Nirvana filmed the night before the release of Nevermind.
• Bruce Dorminey notes new evidence that, even before the Chixculub impact, the late Cretaceous Earth was staggering under environmental pressures.
• Myron Strong at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about how people of African descent in the US deal with the legacies of slavery in higher education.
• Far Outliers reports on the plans in 1945 for an invasion of Japan by the US.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing gathers together a collection of the author’s best writings there.
• Gizmodo notes the immensity of the supermassive black hole, some 40 billion solar masses, at the heart of galaxy Holm 15A 700 million light-years away.
• Russell Arben Fox at In Media Res writes about the issue of how Wichita is to organize its civic politics.
• io9 argues that the 2010s were a decade where the culture of the spoiler became key.
• The Island Review points readers to the podcast Mother’s Blood, Sister’s Songs, an exploration of the links between Ireland and Iceland.
• Joe. My. God. reports on the claim of the lawyer of the killer of a mob boss that the QAnon conspiracy inspired his actions. This strikes me as terribly dangerous.
• JSTOR Daily looks at a study examining scholarly retractions.
• Language Hat shares an amusing cartoon illustrating the relationships of the dialects of Arabic.
• Language Log lists ten top new words in the Japanese language.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the dissipation of American diplomacy by Trump.
• The LRB Blog looks at the many problems in Sparta, Greece, with accommodating refugees, for everyone concerned.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting the decline of the one-child policy in China has diminished child trafficking, among other crimes.
• Sean Marshall, looking at transit in Brampton, argues that transit users need more protection from road traffic.
• Russell Darnley shares excerpts from essays he wrote about the involvement of Australia in the Vietnam War.
• Peter Watts talks about his recent visit to a con in Sofia, Bulgaria, and about the apocalypse, here.
• The NYR Daily looks at the corporatization of the funeral industry, here.
• Diane Duane writes, from her own personal history with Star Trek, about how one can be a writer who ends up writing for a media franchise.
• Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections considers the job of tasting, and rating, different cuts of lamb.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at a nondescript observatory in the Mojave desert of California that maps the asteroids of the solar system.
• Roads and Kingdoms interviews Eduardo Chavarin about, among other things, Tijuana.
• Drew Rowsome loves the SpongeBob musical.
• Peter Rukavina announces that Charlottetown has its first public fast charger for electric vehicles.
• The Russian Demographics Blog considers the impact of space medicine, here.
• The Signal reports on how the Library of Congress is making its internet archives more readily available, here.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers how the incredibly isolated galaxy MCG+01-02-015 will decay almost to nothing over almost uncountable eons.
• Strange Company reports on the trial and execution of Christopher Slaughterford for murder. Was there even a crime?
• Strange Maps shares a Coudenhove-Kalergi map imagining the division of the world into five superstates.
• Understanding Society considers entertainment as a valuable thing, here.
• Denis Colombi at Une heure de peine announces his new book, Où va l’argent des pauvres?
• John Scalzi at Whatever looks at how some mailed bread triggered a security alert, here.
• Window on Eurasia reports on the massive amount of remittances sent to Tajikistan by migrant workers, here.
• Arnold Zwicky notes a bizarre no-penguins sign for sale on Amazon.

[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.

[URBAN NOTE] Ten city links: Laval, Calgary, Vancouver, Cleveland, Machu Picchu, London, Görlitz …

• The Québec city of Laval now has a cemetery where pets can be buried alongside their owners. CBC reports.
• Talk of Alberta separatism has already cost Calgary at least one high-profile non-oil investment, it seems. Global News reports.
• A new piece of public art in Vancouver, a spinning chandelier, has proven to be a lightning rod for controversy. CBC reports.
• Guardian Cities looks at the continuing fight against lead contamination in Cleveland.
• Machu Picchu was built in a high remote corner of the Andes for good reasons, it is being argued. The National Post reports.
• Wired looks at how rivals to Uber are currently fighting for dominance in London, here.
• Guardian Cities shares a cartoon history of the birth of Nairobi, here.
• The east German city of Gorlitz offered interested people one month’s free residence. The Guardian reports.
• JSTOR Daily notes that Hong Kong was born as a city from refugee migrations.
• Is Tokyo, despite tis size and wealth, too detached from Asia to take over from Hong Kong as a regional financial centre? Bloomberg View is not encouraging.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Architectuul looks at the winners of an architecture prize based in Piran, here.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes the wind emitted from one distant galaxy’s supermassive black hole is intense enough to trigger star formation in other galaxies.
• Maria Farrell at Crooked Timber pays tribute to Jack Merritt, a young victim of the London Bridge attack who was committed to the cause of prisoner rehabilitation.
• Dangerous Minds looks at the history of French pop group Les Rita Mitsouko.
• Bruce Dorminey reports on the European Space Agency’s belief Earth-observing spacecraft are needed to track ocean acidification.
• The Dragon’s Tales reports on the consensus of the Russian scientific community against human genetic engineering.
• Far Outliers reports on the first ambassador sent from the Barbary States to the United States.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the life of pioneering anthropologist Franz Boas.
• Language Log shares images of a bottle of Tibetan water, bought in Hong Kong, labeled in Tibetan script.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money rightly assigns responsibility for the terrible measles outbreak in Samoa to anti-vaxxers.
• The LRB Blog notes how tree planting is not apolitical, might even not be a good thing to do sometimes.
• Marginal Revolution reports on a paper suggesting that food tends to be better in restaurants located on streets in Manhattan, better than in restaurants located on avenues.
• Justin Petrone at north! shares an account of a trip across Estonia.
• The NYR Daily looks at the photography of Michael Jang.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw continues to report from Armidale, in Australia, shrouded in smoke from wildfires.
• The Planetary Society Blog reports on the early days of the Planetary Society, four decades ago.
• The Russian Demographics Blog looks at how centenarians in Sweden and in Denmark experience different trends in longevity.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel reports on the accidental discovery of the microwave background left by the Big Bang in 1964.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little looks at the increasingly poor treatment of workers by employers such as Amazon through the lens of primitive accumulation.
• Window on Eurasia looks at the small differences separating the Kazakhs from the Kyrgyz.
• Arnold Zwicky shares a dance routine, shown on television in France, against homophobia.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city notes: Montréal, Bronx, Nashville, Chicago, London

• People in Montréal will have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to walk over the Champlain Bridge, scheduled for demolition in the near future. Global News reports.
• The Conversation looks at the mass tourism, after Joker, directed towards a flight of stairs in The Bronx, and what this means for cities.
• CityLab notes the deep upset of the numerous and influential Kurds of Nashville with Trump.
• CityLab looks at how a Chicago magazine reflects the gentrification of large parts of that metropolis.
• Guardian Cities takes a look at what maps of Victorian London, mapping disparities of wealth and social dysfunction, reveal about the city now.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes how TESS detected a star being torn apart by a distant black hole.
• Centauri Dreams’ Paul Gilster looks at the past and future of the blog.
• Crooked Timber takes on the sensitive issue of private schools in the United Kingdom.
• The Crux considers the question of why women suffer from Alzheimer’s at a higher frequency than men.
• D-Brief notes a study suggesting that saving the oceans of the Earth could reduce the effects of global warming by 20%.
• Bruce Dorminey considers a paper suggesting that, if not for its volcanic resurfacing, Venus could have remained an Earth-like world to this day.
• The Dragon’s Tale notes that NASA will deploy a cubesat in the proposed orbit of the Lunar Gateway station to make sure it is a workable orbit.
• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina looks at Soyuz T-10a, the first crewed mission to abort on the launch pad.
• Gizmodo reports on a paper arguing that we should intentionally contaminate Mars (and other bodies?) with our world’s microbes.
• io9 looks at how Warner Brothers is trying to control, belatedly, the discourse around the new Joker movie.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how, in industrializing London, women kidnapped children off the streets.
• Language Hat links to a page examining the Arabic and Islamic elements in Dune.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at a new documentary examining the life of Trump mentor Roy Cohn.
• The LRB Blog looks at how BBC protocols are preventing full discussion of public racism.
• The Map Room Blog looks at different efforts to reimagining the subway map of New York City.
• Marginal Revolution shares a paper claiming that increased pressure on immigrants to assimilate in Italy had positive results.
• The NYR Daily looks at the background to George Washington’s statements about the rightful place of Jews in the United States.
• Casey Dreier at the Planetary Society Blog looks at the political explanation of the massive increase in the planetary defense budget of NASA.
• Drew Rowsome takes a look at the Rocky Horror Show, with its celebration of sexuality (among other things).
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers why there are so many unexpected black holes in the universe.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps examines why Google Street View is not present in Germany (and Austria).
• The Volokh Conspiracy reports on a ruling in a UK court that lying about a vasectomy negates a partner’s consent to sex.
• Window on Eurasia notes the controversy about some Buryat intellectuals about giving the different dialects of their language too much importance.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Ottawa, Montréal, London, Garges-lès-Gonesse, Venice

• The Ottawa Citizen looks at the problems of the Confederation Line in the evening, here.
• CBC Montreal takes a look at a 1930s tourist brochure from Montréal. The city was represented in interesting ways.
• Wired looks at how skyscraper designs in London are being changed for the benefit of cyclists.
• Guardian Cities reports on “Ma cité va briller”, the viral challenge from the Paris suburb of Garges-lès-Gonesse that inspired competition to clean up cities across the Francophone world.
• Atlas Obscura looks at how the Venetian Republic took great advantage of its expertise in cryptography in the Renaissance.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul shares photos from a bike tour of Berlin.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait reports on new evidence that exocomets are raining on star Beta Pictoris.
• Larry Klaes at Centauri Dreams reviews the two late 1970s SF films Alien and Star Trek I, products of the same era.
• D-Brief reports on Hubble studies of the star clusters of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
• Bruce Dorminey shares Gemini telescope images of interstellar comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov).
• The Dragon’s Tales shares video of Space X’s Starhopper test flight.
• Far Outliers notes the import of the 13th century Norman king of England calling himself Edward after an Anglo-Saxon king.
• Gizmodo notes that not only can rats learn to play hide and seek, they seem to enjoy it.
• io9 notes the fantastic high camp of Mister Sinister in the new Jonathan Hickman X-Men run, borrowing a note from Kieron Gillen’s portrayal of the character.
• Joe. My. God. notes that Guiliani’s soon-to-be ex-wife says he has descended from 911 hero to a liar.
• Language Log looks at the recent ridiculous suggestion that English, among other languages, descends from Chinese.
• The LRB Blog looks at the brief history of commemorating the V2 attacks on London.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the practice in Saskatchewan of sterilizing First Nations women against their consent.
• Marginal Revolution suggests that farmers in Brazil might be getting a partly unfair treatment. (Partly.)
• The Planetary Society Blog explains why C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) matters.
• Window on Eurasia notes that, for the first time, immigrants from Turkmenistan in Belarus outnumber immigrants from Ukraine.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul takes a look at different retrofuture imaginings from the 20th century of what architecture might look like in the 21st century.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the mysteries surrounding a sudden recent eruption of Sagittarius A*.
• Centauri Dreams considers what the James Webb Space Telescope might be able to pick up from TRAPPIST-1.
• Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber considers Ossian’s Ride, a SF novel by Fred Hoyle imagining a progressive Ireland leapfrogging ahead of Britain, and how this scenario is being realized now.
• D-Brief looks at what a glitch in the spin rate of the Vela pulsar reveals about these bodies.
• Dangerous Minds looks at how Rock Hudson came to star in the SF film Seconds.
• Bruce Dorminey notes a new NASA Kepler study suggesting (very) broadly Earth-like worlds might orbit as many as one in six Sun-like stars.
• Gizmodo links</u. to a study suggesting the oddly fuzzy core of Jupiter might be a consequences of an ancient collision with a massive protoplanet.
• Imageo notes that July broke all sorts of climate records.
• Joe. My. God. notes that the Trump administration has exempted Bibles from the new China tariffs.
• Language Hat considers, after the space of a decade, why people might say a language is so foreign as to be Greek.
• Robert Farley links at Lawyers, Guns and Money to an analysis of what major battle fleets around the world would have looked like in 1950 absent a Second World War.
• The LRB Blog notes how the UK Conservative government’s turn towards repressive law-and-order measures will please Faragists.
• The Map Room Blog shares maps indicating the scale of the American opioid crisis.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution links to one of his columns noting how two decades of nil economic growth has harmed Italy.
• Peter Watts at his blog has a critical take on the Chinese SF movie The Wandering Earth.
• The NYR Daily looks at how things are becoming quite bad for Kashmiris.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at how the OSIRIS-REx team is looking for sample sites on asteroid Bennu.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes the evidence from our solar system’s moons that two planets can indeed stably share the same orbit.
• Towleroad notes how a successful campaign has helped London fetish bar Backstreet survive gentrification.
• Arnold Zwicky shares some gorgeous blue and black flowers in the Gamble Garden of Palo Alto, and meditations on said.