[BLOG] Some Friday links

(A day late, I know; I crashed after work yesterday.)

• Antipope’s Charlie Stross has a thought experiment: If you were superwealthy and guaranteed to live a long health life, how would you try to deal with the consequence of economic inequality?
• Vikas Charma at Architectuul takes a look at the different factors that go into height in buildings.
• Bad Astronomy notes S5-HVS1, a star flung out of the Milky Way Galaxy by Sagittarius A* at 1755 kilometres per second.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly shares photos from two Manhattan walks of hers, taken in non-famous areas.
• Centauri Dreams looks at habitability for red dwarf exoplanets. Stellar activity matters.
• Maria Farrell at Crooked Timber shares words from a manifesto about data protection in the EU.
• Dangerous Minds shares photos from Los Angeles punks and mods and others in the 1980s.
• Bruce Dorminey notes a ESA report suggesting crew hibernation could make trips to Mars easier.
• Gizmodo notes that the Hayabusa2 probe of Japan is returning from asteroid Ryugu with a sample.
• Imageo shares photos of the disastrous fires in Australia from space.
• Information is Beautiful reports on winners of the Information is Beautiful Awards for 2019, for good infographics.
• JSTOR Daily explains how local television stations made the ironic viewing of bad movies a thing.
• Kotaku reports on the last days of Kawasaki Warehouse, an arcade in Japan patterned on the demolished Walled City of Kowloon.
• Language Hat notes how translation mistakes led to the star Beta Cygni gaining the Arabic name Albireo.
• Language Log reports on a unique Cantonese name of a restaurant in Hong Kong.
• Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money links to an analysis of his suggesting the military of India is increasingly hard-pressed to counterbalance China.
• The LRB Blog notes the catastrophe of Venice.
• Marginal Revolution notes a paper suggesting states would do well not to place their capitals too far away from major population centres.
• Justin Petrone at North! remarks on a set of old apple preserves.
• The NYR Daily looks at how the west and the east of the European Union are divided by different conceptions of national identity.
• Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections reports from his town of Armidale as the smoke from the Australian wildfires surrounds all. The photos are shocking.
• Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog lists some books about space suitable for children.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the Canadian film music Stand!, inspired by the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper noting that, in Switzerland, parenthood does not make people happy.
• The Signal notes that 1.7 million phone book pages have been scanned into the records of the Library of Congress.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains the concept of multi-messenger astronomy and why it points the way forward for studies of astrophysics.
• Strange Maps looks at how a majority of students in the United States attend diverse schools, and where.
• Strange Company explores the mysterious death of Marc-Antoine Calas, whose death triggered the persecution of Huguenots and resulted in the mobilization of Enlightenment figures like Voltaire against the state. What happened?
• Towleroad hosts a critical, perhaps disappointed, review of the major gay play The Inheritance.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little looks at the power of individual people in political hierarchies.
• Window on Eurasia shares an opinion piece noting how many threats to the Russian language have come from its association with unpopular actions by Russia.
• Arnold Zwicky explores queens as various as Elizabeth I and Adore Delano.

[CAT] Five #caturday links: maps, Grumpy Cat, Bangladesh, Swiss cat ladders, video

• I have no idea how accurate this r/mapporn map charting the changing ratio of cats to dogs across the United States is, but I love it anyway.
• This Wired obituary for Grumpy Cat, tracing in that feline’s death not only the death of a cute cat but the death of hope for the Internet as a source of fun, rings true to me.
• Atlas Obscura notes how Bangladesh has successfully reduced the poaching of tigers.
• Atlas Obscura takes a look at the many cat ladders of the Swiss city of Bern.
• David Grimm at Science Magazine reports on an innovative research project that attached video cameras to cats to see what they actually did.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Centauri Dreams links to a paper noting that the interiors of planets play a critical role in determining planetary habitability.
• Belle Waring writes at Crooked Timber about imaginative dream worlds, criticized by some as a sort of maladaptive daydreaming I don’t buy that; I am interested in what she says about hers.
• D-Brief notes the very recent discovery of a small tyrannosaur.
• Dead Things considers the possibility that a new South African hominin, Australopithecus sediba, might actually be the ancestor of Homo sapiens.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how one negative side-effect of the renewable energy boom is the mass mining of rare earth elements.
• Erik Loomis writes at Lawyers, Guns and Money about the way in which not just history but history fandoms are gendered, the interests of women being neglected or downplayed.
• Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen reports on how a new US-Chinese trade deal will not do much to deal with underlying issues.
• The New APPS Blog notes the great profits made by the gun industry in the United States and the great death toll, too, associated with the guns produced.
• The NYR Daily visits the Northern Ireland town of Carrickfergus, home to Louis MacNeice and made famous by violence as the whole province sits on the edge of something.
• Drew Rowsome takes a look at the queer horror film The Skin of The Teeth.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains what the technical limits of the Hubble Space Telescope are, and why it needs a replacement.
• Window on Eurasia notes changing patters of population change in the different regions of Russia.
• Arnold Zwicky shares some photos of notable public art in Switzerland, starting with The Caring Hand in his ancestral canton of Glarus.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Mississauga, Miami, Montréal, Jakarta, Lausanne

• Missisauga’s mayor Bonnie Crombie makes the case for her city’s independence from Peel Region, over at the Toronto Star.
• CityLab features a Richard Florida interview with sociologist Alejandro Portes on his new book examining the history and future of Miami.
• New maps showing flood risks are available to municipalities in the Montréal region, but for various reasons they are not using them yet. CBC reports.
• Guardian Cities reports on how the new president of Indonesia wants to move the country’s capital away from megacity Jakarta to a new location on the island of Borneo.
• CityLab reports on how the Swiss city of Lausanne is making use of innovative new community consultations to decide how to manage its Place de la Riponne.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer notes the possibility that red dwarf exoplanets might, as AU Microscopii suggests, be made deserts. Centauri Dreams also examines the possibility that red dwarf exoplanets might be starved of volatiles.
• The Crux notes the extent to which the formation of our solar system was marked by chaos, planets careening about, looking at other planetary systems for guidance.
• D-Brief takes a look at the latest from the endangered Ross Ice Shelf of Antarctica.
• Joe. My. God. notes that, in the home of the Danforth shooter in Toronto, DVDs from Alex Jones’ Infowars were found along with more guns and ammunition.
• JSTOR Daily links to a paper suggesting that organic agriculture contributes to a greater extent to climate change than regular agricultural systems.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money takes a look at the evolution of the Chinese air force.
• Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog notes that the Hayabusa2 probe is looking for touchdown sites on asteroid Ryugu for sampling.
• Roads and Kingdoms considers the humble sabich of Tel Aviv.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the Robert Leleux memoir The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy.
• Strange Company shares an old news clipping reporting on the murderous ghost that, in 1914, seems to have haunted the Croguennec family of Brittany.
• Window on Eurasia looks at the prospects for a hypothetical future Belarusian Orthodox Church.
• At Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, Nick Rowe takes a look at the relationship between inflation and the debt/GDP ratio.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at the picturesque community of Mollis, in mountainous central Switzerland.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul looks back at its work over 2018.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait reflects on an odd photo of the odd galaxy NGC 3981.
• The Crux tells the story of how the moons of Jupiter, currently enumerated at 79 and including many oddly-shaped objects in odd orbits, have been found.
• Gizmodo notes how some astronomers have begun to use the precise rotations of neutron stars to calibrate atomic clocks on Earth.
• Keiran Healy shares a literally beautiful chart depicting mortality rates in France over two centuries.
• Hornet Stories notes that, two years after his death, the estate of George Michael is still making donations to the singer’s favoured charities.
• At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox celebrates the Ramones song “I Wanna Be Sedated”.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how unauthorized migrants detained by the United States are being absorbed into the captive workforces of prisons.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution approves of the Museum of the Bible, in Washington D.C., as a tourist destination.
• The NYR Daily looks at soccer (or football) in Morocco, as a badge of identity and as a vehicle for the political discussions otherwise repressed by the Moroccan state.
• Roads and Kingdoms reports on the paiche, a fish that is endangered in Peru but is invasively successful in Bolivia.
• Peter Rukavina makes a good point about the joys of unexpected fun.
• The Signal reports on how the American Folklife Centre processes its audio recordings in archiving them.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel debunks some myths about black holes, notably that their gravity is any more irresistible than that of any other object of comparable mass.
• Strange Company shares the contemporary news report from 1878 of a British man who binge-drank himself across the Atlantic to the United States.
• Window on Eurasia reports on a proposal in the fast-depopulating Magadan oblast of Russia to extend to all long-term residents the subsidies extended to native peoples.
• Arnold Zwicky reports on another Switzerland-like landscape, this one the shoreline around Lake Sevan in Armenia.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Anthrodendum reviews the book Fistula Politics, the latest from the field of medical anthropology.
• Architectuul takes a look at post-war architecture in Germany, a country where the devastation of the war left clean slates for ambitious new designers and architects.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at newly discovered Kuiper Belt object 2008 VG 18.
• Laura Agustín at Border Thinking takes a look at the figure of the migrant sex worker.
• Centauri Dreams features an essay by Al Jackson celebrating the Apollo 8 moon mission.
• D-Brief notes how physicists manufactured a quark soup in a collider to study the early universe.
• Dangerous Minds shares some photos of a young David Bowie.
• Angelique Harris at the Everyday Sociology Blog takes a look at what the social sciences have to say about sexuality and dating among millennial Americans.
• Gizmodo notes the odd apparent smoothness of Ultima Thule, target of a very close flyby by New Horizons on New Year’s Day.
• Hornet Stories notes the censorship-challenging art by Slava Mogutin available from the Tom of Finland store.
• Imageo shares orbital imagery of the eruption of Anak Krakatau in Indonesia, trigger of a devastating volcanic tsunami.
• Nick Stewart at The Island Review writes beautifully about his experience crossing the Irish Sea on a ferry, from Liverpool to Belfast.
• Lyman Stone at In A State of Migration shares the story, with photos, of his recent whirlwind trip to Vietnam.
• JSTOR Daily considers whether or not fan fiction might be a useful tool to promote student literacy.
• Language Hat notes a contentious reconstruction of the sound system of obscure but fascinating Tocharian, an extinct Indo-European language from modern XInjiang.
• Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the irreversible damage being caused by the Trump Administration to the United States’ foreign policy.
• Marginal Revolution notes a paper suggesting users of Facebook would need a payment of at least one thousand dollars to abandon Facebook.
• Lisa Nandy at the NYR Daily argues that the citizens of the United Kingdom need desperately to engage with Brexit, to take back control, in order to escape catastrophic consequences from ill-thought policies.
• Marc Rayman at the Planetary Society Blog celebrates the life and achievements of the Dawn probe.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer notes that so many Venezuelans are fleeing their country because food is literally unavailable, what with a collapsing agricultural sector.
• The Russian Demographics Blog breaks down polling of nostalgia for the Soviet Union among Russians.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that simply finding oxygen in the atmosphere of an exoplanet is not by itself proof of life.
• Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy reports on how the United States is making progress towards ending exclusionary zoning.
• Whatever’s John Scalzi shares an interview with the lawyer of Santa Claus.
• Window on Eurasia reports on a fascinating paper, examining how some Russian immigrants in Germany use Udmurt as a family language.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at the lives of two notable members of the Swiss diaspora in Paris’ Montmartre.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• D-Brief suggests that, in an era of climate change, waves of simultaneous wildfires may be the new normal in California.
• The Dragon’s Tales shares some news items looking at the history of the Precambrian Earth and of ancient life.
• The Island Review shares some Greenland-themed poems by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how the introduced Callery pear tree has become invasive in North America.
• Language Log considers language as a self-regulating system.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw notes his new magpie friend. What name should he have?
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer notes that the democracy of Mexico is in such poor shape that, even now, the democracies of Poland and Hungary despite far-right subversion are better off.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the 1993 novel The Night of the Moonbow by Thomas Tryon.
• The Russian Demographics Blog notes the falling fertility rates in Syria, and takes issue with one statistical claim.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that gravitational waves are affected by gravity, and looks at what this implies for physics.
• Towleroad reports that Sarah Silverman has rethought her use of the word “gay” in her comedy routines.
• Vintage Space notes the evidence confirming that many–most, even–Apollo astronauts had tattoos.
• Window on Eurasia notes how the boundaries of the “Russian world” continue to contract, with the status of the Russian language receding in the education and the media and the public life of neighbouring countries.
• Arnold Zwicky considers which part of Europe Switzerland lies in. Is it central European, or western European?

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait, looking at the Moon, considers what a “small” crater is.
• Citizen Science Salon looks at Amino Labs, a start-up that aims to enable people–even children–to use simple kits to engage in bioengineering.
• Crooked Timber notes that the collapse in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies means good things for the global environment.
• The Crux considers the extent to which gender–gender identity, gendered roles–is unique to humans.
• A Fistful of Euros considers the generalized extremism of the “filets jaunes” of France and where this might lead that country.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing shares the skepticism of Jacques Ellul in a “technical” humanism, one that seeks to ameliorate the details of a dehumanizing life.
• Gizmodo considers how we can start preparing for the risks of powerful artificial intelligence to humans, even potentially existential ones.
• The Island Review interviews Nancy Campbell, a writer concerned with the islands and cultures of the Arctic like Greenland.
• Language Hat considers the idea of “efficient languages”. What does this idea even mean?
• Language Log considers the potential impact of making English an official language on Taiwan.
• The LRB Blog considers the political future of France.
• Window on Eurasia notes how many people in Kyrgzystan are becoming angered by China’s Xinjiang policies.
• Arnold Zwicky considers St. Bernard, in connection with dogs and otherwise.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait reports on the black hole collisions recently identified in a retrospective analysis of data from gravitational-wave detector LIGO, while Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel also writes about the LIGO black hole collision discoveries.
• Centauri Dreams suggests that a slowing rate of star formation might be necessary for a galaxy to support life like ours.
• Crooked Timber reports on the outcome of a sort of live-action philosophy experiment, recruiting people to decide on what would be a utopia.
• The Crux reports on the challenges facing developers of a HIV vaccine.
• D-Brief notes the circumstances in which men can pass on mitochondrial DNA to their children.
• Far Outliers notes the fates of some well-placed Korean-Japanese POWs in India.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing wonders if the existential questions about human life raised by genetic engineering can even be addressed by the liberal-democratic order.
• Joe. My. God. reports on the worrying possibility of a Bernie Sanders presidential run in 2020.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the art and the politics of Chinese provocateur Ai Weiwei.
• Language Hat looks at the smart ways in which the film adaptation of My Brilliant Friend has made use of Neapolitan dialect, as a marker of identity and more.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at what a new Chinese blockbuster film, Operation Red Sea, does and does not say about how Chinese think they could manage the international order.
• Geoffrey Pullum at Lingua Franca considers the logical paradox behind the idea of a webpage that has links to all other webpages which do not link to themselves.
• Anna Badhken at the NYR Daily uses Olga Tokarczuk’s new novel Flights and her own experience as an airline passenger to consider the perspectives offered and lost by lofty flight.
• The Planetary Society Blog’s Jason Davis notes the successful launch of a Soyuz spacecraft two months after October’s abort, carrying with it (among others) Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques.
• Strange Company notes the 1736 Porteous riot in Edinburgh, an event that began with a hanging of a smuggler and ended with a lynching.
• Towleroad notes that André Aciman is working on a sequel to his novel Call Me By Your Name.
• Daniel Little at Understanding Society takes a look at the organizational issues involved with governments exercising their will.
• Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy makes a good case as to why a second referendum on Brexit would be perfectly legitimate.
• Window on Eurasia suggests expanding Russian-language instruction in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan has more to deal with the needs of labour migrants.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell responds to Feng Jicai’s book on the Cultural Revolution, Ten Years of Madness.
• Arnold Zwicky reports on Swiss food, starting with the McRaclette.