[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

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait urges caution in identifying K2-18b, a mini-Neptune with water vapour in its atmosphere, as Earth-like.
• Centauri Dreams reports on the discovery of C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), a likely interstellar comet like ‘Oumuamua.
• The Crux reports on the orange roughy, a fish commonly caught as byproduct that can live up to 250 years.
• D-Brief looks at the harm that may be caused by some insecticides to songbirds, including anorexia and delayed migrations.
• Dangerous Minds considers if David Bowie actually did burn his 360-ton Glass Spider stage prop.
• Gizmodo notes the formidable, fanged marsupials once existing in Australia.
• Imageo notes signs that a dreaded blob of hot water, auguring climate change, might now be lurking in the Pacific Ocean.
• io9 notes that Ryan Murphy has shared the official title sequence for the 1984 season of American Horror Story.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the history, in popular culture and actual technology, of the artificial womb.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at how lightly the Sackler family got off for their involvement in triggering the opioid crisis with OxyContin.
• Marginal Revolution notes many companies are now seeking insurance to protect themselves in the US-China trade war.
• Tim Parks writes at the NYR Daily about how every era tends to have translations which fit its ethos.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper suggesting that immigration and immigrants do not have major effects on the overall fertility of highly-developed countries.
• Frank Jacobs notes a mysterious 1920s German map of South America that shows Brasilia, the Brazilian capital built only from 1956. What is up with this?
• Window on Eurasia reports on the negative effects of massive migration of workers from Tajikistan on the country’s women.

[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.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• The Crux compares the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the stories that they hold, to the sorts of oral histories that historians have traditionally been skeptical of. What, after all, is the difference?
• D-Brief notes a proposal by scientists to reengineer the world’s food system to support a larger population in a time of environmental stresses.
• Earther notes that Gallifrey, the homeworld of Doctor Who, would be a pretty uninviting Earth-like world.
• Peter Kaufman at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes a powerful sociological treatment of his impending death.
• Far Outliers considers the relative firepower of the Hatfields and the McCoys.
• JSTOR Daily links to a paper considering how, and why, different epidemics can be suitable (or not) for entertainment purposes.
• Language Hat looks at a remarkable new book, Robert Macfarlane’s Lost Words, drawing from the nature-related words dropped by the Oxford Junior Dictionary.
• Lingua Franca at the Chronicle notes how “du coup” has ascended to become a newly prominent expression in French.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper examining mechanisms explaining how Communism had a lasting negative effect towards immigration.
• Window on Eurasia notes that Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, poor and insecure, need Russian military bases in their countries more than Russia does.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Centauri Dreams reports on the work of the MASCOT rover on asteroid Ryugu.
• The Crux considers the critical role of the dolphin in the thinking of early SETI enthusiasts.
• D-Brief goes into more detail about the import of the Soyuz malfunction for the International Space Station.
• Dangerous Minds notes an artist who has made classic pop song lyrics, like Blue Monday, into pulp paperback covers.
• Earther is entirely correct about how humans will need to engage in geoengineering to keep the Earth habitable.
• David Finger at The Finger Post describes his visit to Accra, capital of Ghana.
• Gizmodo notes a new paper suggesting that, in some cases where massive moons orbit far from their parent planet, these moons can have their own moons.
• Hornet Stories shares the first look at Ruby Rose at Batwoman.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how the image of southern California and Los Angeles changed from a Mediterranean paradise with orange trees to a dystopic urban sprawl.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money imagines what might have happened to the navy of China had it not bought the Ukrainian aircraft carrier Varyag.
• Lingua Franca at the Chronicle reports on how the actual length of “minute”, as euphemism for a short period of time, can vary between cultures.
• The LRB Blog reports on the disaster in Sulawesi, noting particularly the vulnerability of colonial-era port settlements in Indonesia to earthquakes and tsunamis.
• The Map Room Blog shares Itchy Feet’s funny map of every European city.
• The New APPS Blog wonders if the tensions of capitalism are responsible for the high rate of neurological health issues.
• The NYR Daily considers what, exactly, it would take to abolish ICE.
• At the Planetary Society Weblog, Ian Regan talks about how he assembled a photoanimated flyover of Titan using probe data.
• Roads and Kingdoms explores some excellent pancakes in the Malaysian state of Sabah with unusual ingredients.
• Drew Rowsome raves over a new documentary looking at the life of opera star Maria Callas.
• Window on Eurasia notes the continued high rate of natural increase in Tajikistan.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• blogTO notes five interesting abandoned places to explore around Toronto.
• The Dragon’s Gaze considers how to map minute areas of the protoplanetary disks of young stars.
• Joe. My. God. notes ISIS’ claim of responsibility for the Orlando massacre.
• Language Log looks at the oddly misprinted signs in non-Latin scripts at an Austrian botanical garden.
• Speed River Journal’s Van Waffle turns to a nature walk yesterday.
• Towleroad notes the line-ups to donate blood at Orlando.
• The Volokh Conspiracy notes that knee-jerk reactions to tragedy are rarely good ones.
• Whatever’s John Scalzi expresses his grief and rage at mass shootings generally.
• The Financial Times‘ The World notes English and Russian hooliganism at Euro 2016.
• Window on Eurasia notes how experts in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan reject the idea that theirs are failed states, and looks at modern-day Russians’ awkwardness towards a holiday marking Russia’s declaration of sovereignty within the Soviet Union.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Centauri Dreams looks at the earliest mentions of Proxima Centauri in science fiction.
• D-Brief notes that early oceans could moderate chemical reactions that could lead to life.
• The Dragon’s Gaze notes that most super-Earths around red dwarfs may not be close enough to burn off their excess hydrogen/helium envelopes.
• The Dragon’s Tales looks at the continuing Russian war in Syria.
• Geocurrents notes, using the Philippines as an example, that sea can unite language communities more readily than otherwise.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer is wondering why Bloomberg would run for president.
• Torontoist enlists Steve Munro to see if John Tory’s new mass transit plan would work for Scarborough.
• The Volokh Conspiracy notes that Melissa Click, an American university professor who called–on video!–for some muscle to chase away student journalists from a protest, has been charged with assault.
• The Financial Times‘ The World notes that Russia’s economic troubles are, indirectly, promoting radical Islam in Central Asian countries dépendent on migrant workers.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• blogTO notes that Québec chain Simons will be opening up stories in Toronto and Mississauga in the coming years.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly notes that The Devil Wears Prada actually offers good advice to job-seekers.
• Centauri Dreams notes a search program for planets at Proxima Centauri and considers Proxima’s linkage to the Alpha Centauri A-B binary.
• The Dragon’s Gaze notes distant gas giant HD 106906b.
• Joe. My. God. notes that acceptance of gays is at an all-time high.
• The Map Room Blog links to an exhibition of colonial cartography of Algeria and points to an essay on critical cartography.
• Marginal Revolution notes high levels of female mortality in the US South.
• Savage Minds considers the question of how to exhibit physical artifacts in an era of 3-D printing.
• John Scalzi’s Whatever and Charlie Stross’ Antipope mourn the death of science fiction editor David Hartwell.
• Window on Eurasia notes Russia’s growing difficulties wth Chechen dictator Kadyrov, observes that most Tajiks recruited for ISIS are recruited as workers in Russia, suggests the annexation of Crimea helped bolster Russia’s ethnic Russian and Slavic populations, and notes hostility in Chuvashia towards Russian language policy in education.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• The Boston Globe‘s Big Picture reports on Olympics evictions in Brazil, compares school life in Boston and Haiti, and follows an elderly man climbing Mount Washington.
• blogTO suggests jets will not be coming to the Toronto Island airport and argues the city is unlikely to legalize Uber.
• The Broadside Blog examines the staggering level of income inequality in the United States.
• Centauri Dreams considers, in real-life and science fiction, the problems with maintaining artificial economies and notes the complexities of the Pluto system.
• Crooked Timber notes the problems of organized labour and Labour in the United Kingdom.
• The Dragon’s Gaze notes how atmospheric oxygen may not automatically point to the sign of life.
• The Dragon’s Tales maps volcanic heat flow on Io and wonders if that world has a subsurface magna ocean
• Far Outliers notes a popular thief in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan and looks at the politicization of the German military after the 1944 coup.
• Geocurrents calls for recognizing the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan and Somaliland and looks at the geography of American poverty.
• Language Log notes Sinified Japanese.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money examines the complexities of race and history in New Mexico.
• Marginal Revolution notes that India unlike China cannot sustain global growth, approves of Snyder’s Black Earth, and notes poor economic outcomes for graduates of some American universities.
• Otto Pohl is not optimistic about Ghana’s economic future.
• The Planetary Society Blog evaluates the latest images from Mars.
• pollotenchegg evaluates the 1931 Polish census in what is now western Ukraine.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer looks at why Syrian refugees will not be resettled in South America and observes that Mexico has birthright citizenship.
• Cheri Lucas Rowlands describes the negative relationship for her between blogging and writing.
• The Russian Demographics Blog examines rising mortality in Ukraine and notes changing ethnic compositions of Tajikistan’s populations.
• Savage Minds talks about the importance of teaching climate change in anthropology.
• Transit Toronto notes Toronto now has nine new streetcars.
• Whatever’s John Scalzi considers the situation of poor people who go to good schools.
• Window on Eurasia notes the lack of Russian nationalism in the Donbas, observes the scale of the refugee problem in Ukraine, and looks at Russian alienation of Moldova.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• The Big Picture shares photos relating to the restoration of Cuban-American relations.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly talks about why she uses Twitter.
• The Dragon’s Gaze links to a study noting the sulfur-rich environment of protostar HH 212.
• The Dragon’s Tales reports a Chinese plan to develop a mixed fission/fusion reactor.
• Language Log notes an example of Chinese writing in pinyin without accompanying script.
• Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen notes the importance of Kevin Kwan’s novels about Chinese socialites.
• Language Hat reports on an effort to save the Nuu language of South Africa.
• Languages of the World reports on Urum, the Turkic language of Pontic Greeks.
• Discover‘s Out There reports on the oddities of Pluto.
• The Planetary Society Blog’s Emily Lakdawalla explains why the New Horizons data from Pluto is still being processed.
• Spacing Toronto reports from a Vancouver porch competition.
• Towelroad notes a married gay man with a child denied Communion at his mother’s funeral.
• Window on Eurasia notes racism in Russia, looks at Tajikistan’s interest in the killing of its citizens in Russia, suggests Belarus is on the verge of an explosion, and examines Mongolian influence in Buryatia.