[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the findings that the LISA Pathfinder satellite was impacted by hypervelocity comet fragments.
• Centauri Dreams reports on what we have learned about interstellar comet Borisov.
• Bruce Dorminey notes the ESA’s Matisse instrument, capable of detecting nanodiamonds orbiting distant stars.
• Gizmodo reports a new study of the great auk, now extinct, suggesting that humans were wholly responsible for this extinction with their hunting.
• The Island Review links to articles noting the existential vulnerability of islands like Venice and Orkney to climate change.
• Joe. My. God. reports on the claim of Tucker Carlson–perhaps not believably retracted by him–to be supporting Russia versus Ukraine.
• Language Hat reports on the new Indigemoji, emoji created to reflect the culture and knowledge of Aboriginal groups in Australia.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes one of the sad consequences of the American president being a liar.
• James Butler at the LRB Blog writes about the optimism of the spending plans of Labour in the UK, a revived Keynesianism.
• Marginal Revolution notes the exceptional cost of apartments built for homeless people in San Francisco.
• Strange Maps looks at some remarkable gravity anomalies in parts of the US Midwest.
• Towleroad notes the support of Jamie Lee Curtis for outing LGBTQ people who are homophobic politicians.
• Understanding Society looks at organizations from the perspective of them as open systems.
• Whatever’s John Scalzi gives a generally positive review of the Pixel 4.
• Arnold Zwicky notes the irony of sex pills at an outpost of British discount chain Poundland.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer notes a new study explaining how climate change makes hurricanes more destructive.
• Centauri Dreams shares a mosaic photo of the sky with Alpha Centauri highlighted.
• The Crux shares a paper explaining why the bubonic plague rarely becomes mass epidemics like the Black Death of the 14th century.
• D-Brief notes the new ESA satellite ARIEL, which will be capable of determining of exoplanet skies are clear or not.
• Gizmodo consults different experts on the subject of smart drugs. Do they work?
• JSTOR Daily explains why Native Americans are so prominent in firefighting in the US Southwest.
• Language Log looks at evidence for the diffusion of “horse master” between speakers of ancient Indo-European and Sinitic languages.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the election of Chesa Boudin as San Francisco District Attorney.
• The LRB Blog considers the apparent pact between Farage and Johnson on Brexit.
• Marginal Revolution looks at a paper examining longer-run effects of the integration of the US military on racial lines in the Korean War.
• The NYR Daily looks at how Big Pharma in the US is trying to deal with the opioid epidemic.
• The Signal explains how the Library of Congress is expanding its collections of digital material.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains how future generations of telescopes will be able to directly measure the expansion of the universe.
• The Volokh Conspiracy explains why DACA, giving succor to Dreamers, is legal.
• Window on Eurasia notes that, after a century of tumult, the economy of Russia is back at the same relative ranking that it enjoyed a century ago.
• Arnold Zwicky reports on an old butch cookbook.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• The Crux looks at the australopiths, not-so-distant ancestors of modern humans.
• Bruce Dorminey notes the interest of NASA in exploring the lunar subsurface, including lava tubes.
• Far Outliers looks at the politicking of mid-19th century European explorers in the Sahel.
• io9 notes that the new Joker film is getting stellar reviews, aided by the performance of Joaquin Phoenix.
• JSTOR Daily explores how, to meet censors’ demands, Betty Boop was remade in the 1930s from sex symbol into housewife.
• Language Log reports on an utter failure in bilingual Irish/English signage.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money shows that a history of slavery in the US (Canada too, I would add) must not neglect the enslavement of indigenous peoples.
• Marginal Revolution notes a paper studying San Francisco looking at how rent control did not work.
• The NYR Daily considers growing protest against air travel for its impact on global climate.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the queer romance film Bathroom Stalls & Parking Lots.
• Window on Eurasia notes how the influence of Russia in the former Soviet Union is undone by Russian imperialism.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the striking imagery–originally religious–of “carnal weapons”.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Hamilton, Montréal, Ottawa, Québec City, Los Angeles

• Hamilton, Ontario, leads the country in reports of hate crimes. The National Post reports.
• Cyclists are 42 times as likely to be ticketed for traffic violations in Montréal than in Toronto. CTV News reports.
• CBC considers if the city of Ottawa loosened unduly its requirements for its new light rail networks.
• A new report suggests that economics of a central Canadian high-frequency rail route would work better if Québec City was not included. CTV reports.
• CityLab looks at nostalgia in Los Angeles for that city’s old comprehensive paper map, the Thomas Guide.

[PHOTO] Jack Fritscher, Some Dance to Remember

I was surprised to run across author Jack Fritscher‘s semi-autobiographical 1998 novel Some Dance to Remember at the Glad Day Bookshop earlier this week on that store’s used books shelves, and very happy to find it was still there yesterday for me to buy.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Architectuul looks at the history of brutalism in late 20th century Turkey.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the evidence for the Milky Way Galaxy having seen a great period of starburst two billion years ago, and notes how crowded the Milky Way Galaxy is in the direction of Sagittarius.
• Centauri Dreams considers if astrometry might start to become useful as a method for detecting planets, and considers what the New Horizons data, to Pluto and to Ultima Thule, will be known for.
• Belle Waring at Crooked Timber considers if talk of forgiveness is, among other things, sound.
• D-Brief considers the possibility that the differing natures of the faces of the Moon can be explained by an ancient dwarf planet impact, and shares images of dust-ringed galaxy NGC 4485.
• Dead Things notes the discovery of fossil fungi one billion years old in Nunavut.
• Far Outliers looks at how, over 1990, Russia became increasingly independent from the Soviet Union, and looks at the final day in office of Gorbachev.
• Gizmodo notes the discovery of literally frozen oceans of water beneath the north polar region of Mars, and looks at an unusual supernova, J005311 ten thousand light-years away in Cassiopeia, product of a collision between two white dwarfs.
• JSTOR Daily notes how the colour of navy blue is a direct consequence of slavery and militarism, and observes the historical influence, or lack thereof, of Chinese peasant agriculture on organic farming in the US.
• Language Log considers a Chinese-language text from San Francisco combining elements of Mandarin and Cantonese.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the terrible environmental consequences of the Vietnam War in Southeast Asia, and Shakezula at Lawyers, Guns and Money takes a look at how, and perhaps why, Sam Harris identifies milkshake-throwing at far-right people as a form of “mock assassination”.
• The Map Room Blog shares a personal take on mapmaking on the Moon during the Apollo era.
• Marginal Revolution observes a paper suggesting members of the Chinese communist party are more liberal than the general Chinese population. The blog also notes how Soviet quotas led to a senseless and useless mass slaughter of whales.
• Russell Darnley writes about the complex and tense relationship between Indonesia and Australia, each with their own preoccupations.
• Martin Filler writes at the NYR Daily about I.M. Pei as an architect specializing in an “establishment modernism”. The site also takes a look at Orientalism, as a phenomenon, as it exists in the post-9/11 era.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw reflects on the meaning of Australia’s New England.
• The Planetary Society Blog notes how Hayabusa 2 is having problems recovering a marker from asteroid Ryugu.
• Peter Rukavina reports on an outstanding Jane Siberry concert on the Island.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a map of homophobia in Europe.
• The Signal looks at how the Library of Congress makes use of wikidata.
• The Speed River Journal’s Van Waffle reports, with photos, from his latest walks this spring.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers what the Earth looked like when hominids emerged, and explains how amateur astronomers can capture remarkable images.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps shares a controversial map depicting the shift away from CNN towards Fox News across the United States.
• Daniel Little at Understanding Society examines the Boeing 737 MAX disaster as an organizational failure.
• Window on Eurasia looks why Turkey is backing away from supporting the Circassians, and suggests that the use of the Russian Orthodox Church by the Russian state as a tool of its rule might hurt the church badly.
• Arnold Zwicky takes apart, linguistically and otherwise, a comic playing on the trope of Lassie warning about something happening to Timmy. He also
  reports on a far-removed branch of the Zwicky family hailing from Belarus, as the Tsvikis.

[URBAN NOTE] Ten city links: Hamilton, Ottawa, Montréal, Kingston, Vancouver, Toledo, NYC, Bodie …

• CBC Hamilton reports on the options of the City of Hamilton faced with its having hired a prominent former white supremacist.
• CBC Ottawa reports that flood levels on the Ottawa River have reached record highs.
• The Montreal Gazette considers possible solutions to crowding on the Montréal subway, including new cars and special buses.
• Kingston is preparing for flooding, the city seeing a threat only in certain waterfront districts. Global News reports.
• Vancouver is applying a zoning freeze in a future mass transit corridor. Global News reports.
• CityLab looks at how the post-war dream of mass transit and densification for the Ohio city of Toledo never came about, and how it might now.
• Guardian Cities looks at construction proposals for New York City that never were.
• CityLab looks at how the California ghost town of Bodie is kept in good shape for tourists.
• Vox notes that just over one in ten thousand people in San Francisco is a billionaire.
• Leonid Bershidsky at Bloomberg considers why productivity in Berlin lags behind that in other European capital cities. Could it be that the young workers of Berlin are not devoted to earning income?

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul features a photo essay made by Evan Panagopoulos in the course of a hurried three-hour visit to the Socialist Modernist and modern highlights of 20th century Kiev architecture.
• Bad Astrronomer Phil Plait notes how the latest planet found in the Kepler-47 circumbinary system evokes Tatooine.
• Centauri Dreams looks at tide and radiation, and their impacts on potential habitability, in the TRAPPIST-1 system.
• Citizen Science Salon looks at how the TV show Cyberchase can help get young people interested in science and math.
• Crooked Timber mourns historian David Brion Davis.
• The Crux looks at how the HMS Challenger pioneered the study of the deeps of the oceans, with that ship’s survey of the Mariana Trench.
• D-Brief looks at how a snowball chamber using supercooled water can be used to hunt for dark matter.
• Earther shares photos of the heartbreaking and artificial devastation of the Amazonian rainforest of Brazil.
• Gizmodo shares a beautiful Hubble photograph of the southern Crab Nebula.
• Information is Beautiful shares a reworked version of the Julia Galef illustration of the San Francisco area meme space.
• io9 notes that, fresh from being Thor, Jane Foster is set to become a Valkyrie in a new comic.
• JSTOR Daily explains the Victorian fondness for leeches, in medicine and in popular culture.
• Language Hat links to an interview with linguist Amina Mettouchi, a specialist in Berber languages.
• Language Log shares the report of a one-time Jewish refugee on changing language use in Shanghai, in the 1940s and now.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money reports on the horror of self-appointed militias capturing supposed undocumented migrants in the southwestern US.
• Marginal Revolution reports on the circumstances in which volunteer militaries can outperform conscript militaries.
• At the NYR Daily, Christopher Benfey reports on the surprisingly intense connection between bees and mourning.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw, responding to Israel Folau, considers free expression and employment.
• The Planetary Society Blog shares a guest post from Barney Magrath on the surprisingly cheap adaptations needed to make an iPhone suitable for astrophotography.
• Peter Rukavina reports on the hotly-contested PEI provincial election of 1966.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains what the discovery of helium hydride actually means.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little praises the Jill Lepore US history These Truths for its comprehensiveness.
• Window on Eurasia reports on the growing divergences in demographics between different post-Soviet countries.
• Arnold Zwicky starts with another Peeps creation and moves on from there.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Ottawa, Montréal, Val d’Or, San Francisco, Tirana

• CBC notes that some hopeful owners of cannabis shops in Ottawa who went ahead in setting up their locations without securing a license are upset with their lost investments.
• A new urban regeneration program is afoot for an east-end Montréal neighbourhood, CTV notes.
• Labour shortages in Québec have reached the point that some immigrants are searching for jobs, and finding them, in the city of Val d’Or in the Abitibi region. CBC reports.
• A San Francisco contractor who leveled a historic home in that city, without seeking authorization, has been ordered to rebuild it exactly as it once was. BBC reports.
• CityLab notes the youthful energy, and youth-led planning, that pervades Tirana, the growing capital of Albania.

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: #ScienceDaddy, Tumblr, Pride Toronto, Canadian Pride Citation, SF leather

• them interviews</u. Troy Lee Hudson, the engineer working on NASA’s InSight Mars who has gone viral as #ScienceDaddy, letting him talk about Mars and about being an out scientist.
• Stefanie Duguay at The Conversation writes about how the new Tumblr ban on NSFW content will harm young LGBTQ people, by depriving them of community and information.
• Rinaldo Walcott at Daily Xtra makes the case for downsizing Pride Toronto to better fit community needs and desires.
• The Canadian federal government has created a new Canada Pride Citation, available to present and past LGBTQ employees of the federal government, including many who were persecuted for their sexual orientation. Global News reports.
• them reports on how gentrification in the leather community in San Francisco impacts the wider city.