[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul notes a bike tour of Bauhaus architecture in Berlin.
• Bad Astronomy Phil Plait notes the discovery of Beta Pictoris c, a second super-Jovian planet in that young system.
• Centauri Dreams notes that the NASA Europa Clipper is moving ahead.
• Crooked Timber shares a gorgeous night photo of San Giorgio Maggiore, in Venice.
• The Crux notes what we are learning about the Denisovans.
• D-Brief notes that Neanderthals were prone to swimmer’s ear.
• Dangerous Minds looks at some of the pop culture likes of Karl Marx.
• Drew Ex Machina’s Andrew LePage looks at the exoplanets of GJ 1061.
• Earther notes how Icelanders mourned the loss of a glacier in a ceremony.
• Whitney Kimball at Gizmodo looks at what the mass data loss of more than a decade’s worth of music at Myspace means for our Internet era.
• Imageo shares photos of spiraling cloud formations photographed at night from space.
• Ian Humberstone at The Island Review writes about his witnessing of the bonxies, birds of the Shetlands.
• Joe. My. God. notes a report suggesting Trump joked about swapping Greenland for Puerto Rico.
• JSTOR Daily notes how the rhythmic dancing of the Shakers in 18th century America marked that sect as different.
• Language Hat considers the humour of some philosophers.
• Language Log notes the oblique commentaries of Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing on his city-state’s protests.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the idiocy of the Trump fetish for Greenland.
• The Map Room Blog notes how astronomers have mapped the Local Void, of deep intergalactic space.
• Marginal Revolution wonders if the future of Venice might be found in its becoming a Chinese portal into Europe.
• Sean Marshall notes how the Ford government is undermining conservation in Ontario.
• The NYR Daily shares some of the New York City photography of Phil Penman.
• Starts With A Bang’s notes the immense storms of Saturn.
• Strange Company shares a weekend collection of links.
• Window on Eurasia looks at how Belarus plans on reorganizing its internal structures to try to minimize rural depopulation.
• Nick Rowe at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative talks about monetary policy in metaphors.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at some penguins from around the world.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Shir Lerman Ginzburg at anthro{dendum} writes about kintsugi in her own life.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait looks at the massive black hole, massing two billion suns, measured in the heart of NGC 3258.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly shares some photos from her Hudson River life.
• D-Brief notes how astronomers may be able to detect the radio signals emitted from the cores of planets orbiting dead stars.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the sociology of religion.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how Ferdinand Magellan acted in many ways like a pirate.
• Language Hat reports on the remarkable differences between the two dubbed French versions of The Simpsons, one in France and one in Québec.
• Language Log reports on the Chinese placename “Xinjiang Uygur.”
• Lawyers, Guns and Money makes the point that Joe Biden is too old, too set in his ways, to be president.
• Molly Crabapple writes at the NYR Daily about the nature and goals of the massive protest movement in Puerto Rico.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks even-handedly at the controversy surrounding the idea of building the Thirty Metre Telescope on top of sacred Mauna Kea.
• Window on Eurasia looks at controversy in Russia over the representation of different Tatar populations on the Russian 2020 census.
• Stephen Gordon at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative wonders why it was 1953 that, in Canada, saw the growth in women on the job market.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shows four different images of nearby stellar nursery NGC 1333.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the hot Saturn TOI-197, and the way it was detected.
• D-Brief notes how galaxy NGC-1052 DF2 has been confirmed as the second galaxy apparently lacking in dark matter.
• Gizmodo notes new confirmation, from an orbiting probe, that Curiosity detected methane emanating from Mars back in 2013.
• Hornet Stories tries to correct some misconceptions about the Burning Man festival.
• The Island Review links to a New York Times profile of post-Maria Puerto Rico.
• Joe. My. God. notes that Martin Shkreli has been tossed into solitary confinement.
• JSTOR Daily notes the work of psychologists in the 1930s US who profiled individuals who did not fit the gender binary. Would these people have identified themselves as trans or non-binary now?
• The LRB Blog notes the fondness of Jacob Rees-Mogg for extreme-right German politicians from the AfD.
• Language Log shares a written ad in Cantonese from Hong Kong.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money compares China now to the Untied States of the past, and finds interesting correspondences.
• Marginal Revolution notes the deep and significant commitment of China under Mao to providing foreign aid.
• The NYR Daily looks at the complex, once-overlooked, life and career of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, writer of “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
• Out There notes that, while dark matter is certainly real, “dark matter” is a poor name for this mysterious substance.
• Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog considers the challenges to be faced by Hayabusa 2 when it fires a sampling probe into asteroid Ryugu.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers how into the universe a spaceship could travel if it accelerated consistently at one gravity.
• Strange Company examines the life and adventures of Jeffrey Hudson, a royal dwarf in 17th century England.
• Daniel Little at Understanding Society builds on the work of V.K. Ramachandran in considering the ethics of development ethnography.
• Window on Eurasia notes the new identification of Azerbaijanis as victims of genocide by neighbours, and what this means for the relations of Azerbaijan.
• Arnold Zwicky has fun, in a NSFW fanfic way, with figures from comics contemporary and old.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city notes: Churchill, New York City, Stockbridge, Ponce, Ramallah

• MacLean’s looks at the long and sorry neglect of the Manitoba Arctic port of Churchill in its time of need by the Canadian federal government.
• Wired looks at the “pink tax” in New York City, the extra costs imposed on women who need to take private transit in order to avoid harassment in public spaces.
• Eater profiles the efforts of white neighborhoods in the Georgia city of Stockbridge to secede, something ostensibly presented as a desire to attract Cheesecake Factory and other restaurants to these areas.
• CityLab reports on a sensitive effort to restore an art deco building in the Puerto Rican city of Ponce.
• The Palestinian city of Ramallah, Guardian Cities reports, has its architectural heritage threatened by an unregulated construction boom.

[ISL] Five islands links: Shetlands, Isle-aux-Grues, Puerto Rico, Caribbean, Hong Kong

• The BBC notes new legislation in Scotland that would prevent mapmakers from displaying the distant Shetland Islands in a box on maps, despite their great distance from the Scottish mainland.
• Ecologically sensitive Isle-aux-Grues, in the lower Saint Lawrence east of Québec City, has received protected status. CBC reports.
• Bloomberg View notes the obvious fact that Puerto Rico needs a better debt deal if it is to begin to recover.
• Chinese immigrants are coming to the islands in the Caribbean in large numbers, providing vital resources for island economies, Ozy reports.
• Vice’s Motherboard reports that Hong Kong wants to deal with its housing crisis by building new homes for more than a million people on yet-to-be-built artificial islands off of the city-state’s south coast.

[ISL] Five islands links: Puerto Rico, Palau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Trinidad

GQ reports on how Puerto Rico has managed to become a favoured legal home for the super-rich via its tax codes, here.

The example of Palau, hit by a collapse in Chinese tourism after its government displeased Beijing, shows the problems of depending on China. Reuters reports.

The SCMP notes how the prime minister of Tonga has demanded more respect from Chinese for Pacific island nations, especially in connection to debts, here.

This photo essay in The Atlantic shows the impact of sea level change on fragile Tuvalu, barely above sea level even now.

The NYR Daily reports on the experiences and art of Chris Ofili now that he is based in Trinidad.

[ISL] Five island links: Ireland, Norse Greenland, Rapa Nui/Easter Island, Nauru, Puerto Rico

• JSTOR Daily notes how severe drought in Ireland is revealing, to aerial and other observers, the outlines of ancient ruins.
• D-Brief examines how the export from Norse Greenland to Europe of walrus ivory played a key role in these lost settlements’ economy.
• The people of Rapa Nui, Easter Island, have demanded a return of one of their moai statues from the British Museum, taken at their historical nadir.
• Asylum-seekers being held in detention by Australia on the island of Nauru have beseeched Canada, asking for refuge here. CBC reports.
• New York Magazine suggests that San Juan, capital of Puerto Rico, is despite recent horrors a good destination for tourists.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Kambiz Kamrani at Anthropology.net notes that the more Neanderthal DNA gets sequenced, the more we know of this population’s history.
• Anthro{dendum} takes a look at anthropologists who use their knowledge and their access to other cultures for purposes of espionage.
• Crooked Timber tackles the question of immigration from another angle: do states have the authority to control it, for starters?
• Dangerous Minds shares a fun video imagining Netflix as it might have existed in 1995.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog considers how the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico is an instance of American state failure.
• The Frailest Thing’s L.M. Sacasas considers is vows to abandon Facebook are akin to a modern-day vow of poverty.
• JSTOR Daily looks at Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and why it still matters.
• Language Log considers the naming practices of new elements like Nihonium.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money suggests that, based on the stagnation of average incomes in the US as GDP has growth, capitalism can be said to have failed.
• Lingua Franca considers the origin of the phrase “bad actor.”
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting that the American opioid epidemic is not simply driven by economic factors.
• The NYR Daily considers how Poland’s new history laws do poor service to a very complicated past.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw has an interesting post examining the settlement of Australisa’s inland “Channel Country” by cattle stations, chains to allow herds to migrate following the weather.
• The Planetary Science Blog’s Emily Lakdawalla takes a look at the latest science on famously volcanic Io.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel examines how the Milky Way Galaxy is slowly consuming its neighbours, the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds.

[ISL] Five notes on islands: Iceland, Puerto Rico, Prince Edward Island, Amherst Island, Ireland

• Artsy notes a study looking at the different factors explaining why Iceland’s population is so creative. Among other things, an educational system that encourages hands-on learning and experimentation and a relative lack of material insecurity help.
• Reddit’s mapporn forum shares a map showing where displaced Puerto Ricans are resettling. Florida is emerging as a particularly important destination.
• Charlottetown’s The Guardian reports on a recent presentation suggesting that, with sea level rise, Prince Edward Island could be divided into three islands. I wonder where the dividing points will be.
• Wind turbine construction on Amherst Island, near Kingston, has been delayed by weather and problems with roads. Global News reports.
• Ireland is now making a push to attract television stations from the United Kingdom post-Brexit, with the legal position of television networks with EU-wide audiences being uncertain after Brexit. The Guardian reports.

[ISL] Five notes about islands: Greenland, South China Sea, Bangladesh, Caribbean, Puerto Rico

• The slow melt of the Greenland icecap will eventually release a Cold War American military base into the open air. VICE reports.
• Robert Farley suggests at The National Interest that China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea would not be of much use in an actual conflict.
• Reuters notes that a mud island in the Bay of Bengal lucky not to be overwhelmed by high tides is being expanded into a compound to hold Rohingya refugees.
• A new study suggests that there was some genetic continuing between pre- and post-Columbian populations in the Caribbean, that as family and local histories suggest at least some Taino did survive the catastrophes of colonialism. National Geographic reports.
• This account from NACLA of Puerto Rico’s perennial problems with the American mainland and the history of migration, culminating in an ongoing disastrous mass emigration after Maria, is pro-independence. Might this viewpoint become more common among Puerto Ricans?