[BLOG] Five Marginal Revolution links (@margrev)

• Marginal Revolution features a critical if friendly review of the new Emmanuel Todd book, Lineages of Modernity.
• Marginal Revolution considers the problems of excessive consumer activism, here.
• Marginal Revolution notes a new book looking at natural gas economics in Europe, here.
• Marginal Revolution notes new evidence that YouTube algorithms do not tend to radicalize users, here.
• Marginal Revolution notes the few countries where the average person was richer in 2009 than in 2019, notably Greece and Venezuela.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Architectuul looks back at some highlights from 2019.
• Bad Astronomy looks at the gas cloud, red and green, of RCW 120.
• Crooked Timber looks at the dynamics of identity politics, here.
• Bruce Dorminey notes a NASA statement about the importance of understanding dust dynamics in other solar systems to find Earth analogues.
• Far Outliers looks at the problems pacifying the Chesapeake Bay area in 1813, here.
• Gizmodo looks at the most popular Wikipedia articles for the year 2019.
• io9 shares a video of images from a 1995 Akira cyberpunk computer game that never got finished.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how the United States tried to “civilize” the Inupiat of Alaska by giving them reindeer herds.
• Language Hat links to an online atlas of Scots dialects.
• Language Log reports on a 12th century Sanskrit inscription that testifies to the presence of Muslims in Bengal at that point.
• Marginal Revolution notes how much Tuvalu depends on revenue from its .tv Internet domain.
• Drew Rowsome looks at the Duncan Ralston horror novel Salvage, set in small-town Canada.
• The Russian Demographics Blog looks at the strong relationship between wealth and life expectancy in France.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that, in a hypothetical supernova, all life on an Earth-like planet would be boiled alive by neutrinos.
• Strange Maps links to a graphic interface that translates a word into all the languages of Europe.
• Understanding Society looks at the structures of high-reliability organizations.
• Window on Eurasia shares a suggestion that Homer Simpson is actually the US’ version of Russia’s Ivan the Fool.

[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 Monday links

• Anthropology.net notes a remarkably thorough genetic analysis of a piece of chewing gum 5700 years old that reveals volumes of data about the girl who chew it.
• ‘Nathan Burgoine at Apostrophen writes an amazing review of Cats that actually does make me want to see it.
• Bad Astronomy reports on galaxy NGC 6240, a galaxy produced by a collision with three supermassive black holes.
• Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog writes about the mechanics of journalism.
• Centauri Dreams argues that the question of whether humans will walk on exoplanets is ultimately distracting to the study of these worlds.
• Crooked Timber shares a Sunday morning photo of Bristol.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that India has a launch date of December 2021 for its first mission in its Gaganyaan crewed space program.
• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina looks at the Saturn C-1 rocket.
• Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog considers if the vogue for minimalism meets the criteria to be considered a social movement.
• Far Outliers ?notes how, in the War of 1812, some in New England considered the possibility of seceding from the Union.
• Gizmodo looks at evidence of the last populations known of Homo erectus, on Java just over a hundred thousand years ago.
• Mark Graham links to a new paper co-authored by him looking at how African workers deal with the gig economy.
• io9 announces that the Michael Chabon novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, is set to become a television series.
• Joe. My. God. shares a report that Putin gave Trump anti-Ukrainian conspiracy theories.
• JSTOR Daily considers what a world with an economy no longer structured around oil could look like.
• Language Hat takes issue with the latest talk of the Icelandic language facing extinction.
• Language Log shares a multilingual sign photographed in Philadelphia’s Chinatown.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the document release revealing the futility of the war in Afghanistan.
• The LRB Blog looks at class identity and mass movements and social democracy.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution suggests that, even if the economy of China is larger than the United States, Chinese per capita poverty means China does not have the leading economy.
• Diane Duane at Out of Ambit writes about how she is writing a gay sex scene.
• Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections reflects on “OK Boomer”.
• Roads and Kingdoms interviews Mexican chef Ruffo Ibarra.
• Peter Rukavina shares his list of levees for New Year’s Day 2020 on PEI.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a map indicating fertility rates in the different regions of the European Union.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains how quantum physics are responsible for vast cosmic structures.
• Charles Soule at Whatever explains his reasoning behind his new body-swap novel.
• Window on Eurasia notes how the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Paris show the lack of meaningful pro-Russian sentiment there.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell talks about his lessons from working in the recent British election.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at a syncretic, Jewish-Jedi, holiday poster.

[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] Five Marginal Revolution links

• Marginal Revolution considers if the CFA franc system is dying out, here.
• Marginal Revolution shares a link to a paper quantifying the effects of the old boys club, here.
• Marginal Revolution contrasts and compares the old NAFTA and the new USMCA, here.
• Marginal Revolution notes how Germany has access to nuclear weapons, here.
• Marginal Revolution looks at the high rate of consainguineous marriage in Saudi Arabia, here.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer considers how a stellar-mass black hole of 70 solar masses got so unaccountably huge.
• Alex Tolley at Centauri Dreams considers the colours of photosynthesis, and how they might reveal the existence of life on exoplanets.
• The Dragon’s Tales shares some links on humans in the Paleolithic.
• Jonathan Wynn at the Everyday Sociology Blog considers the scripts of jokes.
• Gizmodo reports on the repurposed China-Netherlands radio telescope operating from an orbit above the far side of the Moon.
• JSTOR Daily considers the political rhetoric of declinism.
• Language Log considers the controversy over the future of the apostrophe.
• James Butler at the LRB Blog notes a YouGov prediction of a Conservative majority in the UK and how this prediction is not value-neutral.
• Marginal Revolution shares a paper from India noting how caste identities do affect the labour supply.
• Ursula Lindsay at the NYR Daily considers if the political crisis in Lebanon, a product of economic pressures and sectarianism, might lead to a revolutionary transformation of the country away from sectarian politics.
• Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections looks at some of the many complicated and intermingled issues of contemporary Australia.
• The Planetary Society Blog reports on the latest projects funded by the ESA.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel shares ten beautiful photos taken in 2019 by the Hubble.
• Strange Company reports on the strange unsolved disappearance of Lillian Richey from her Idaho home in 1964.
• Window on Eurasia shares a Russian criticism of the Ukrainian autocephalous church as a sort of papal Protestantism.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the positive potential of homoeros.

[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.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomy notes the very odd structure of galaxy NGC 2775.
• Dangerous Minds reports on the 1987 riot by punks that wrecked a Seattle ferry.
• Bruce Dorminey reports on a new suggestion from NASA that the massive dust towers of Mars have helped dry out that world over eons.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog looks at how changing technologies have led to younger people spending more social capital on maintaining relationships with friends over family.
• This forum hosted at Gizmodo considers the likely future causes of death of people in coming decades.
• In Media Res’ Russell Arben Fox reports on the debate in Wichita on what to do with the Century II performance space.
• Joe. My. God. reports on the decision of Hungary to drop out of Eurovision, apparently because of its leaders’ homophobia.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the debunking of the odd theory that the animals and people of the Americas were degenerate dwarfs.
• Language Hat reports on how the classics can be served by different sorts of translation.
• Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money considers how Trump’s liberation of war criminals relates to folk theories about just wars.
• The LRB Blog reports from the ground in the Scotland riding of East Dunbartonshire.
• Marginal Revolution shares a paper suggesting that, contrary to much opinion, social media might actually hinder the spread of right-wing populism.
• The NYR Daily looks at the nature of the proxy fighters in Syria of Turkey. Who are they?
• Drew Rowsome interviews Sensational Sugarbum, star of–among other things–the latest Ross Petty holiday farce.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why we still need to be able to conduct astronomy from the Earth.
• Strange Maps explains the odd division of Europe between east and west, as defined by different subspecies of mice.
• Window on Eurasia notes how Chinese apparently group Uighurs in together with other Central Asians of similar language and religion.
• Arnold Zwicky explores the concept of onomatomania.

[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.