[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Architectuul looks at the Portuguese architectural cooperative Ateliermob, here.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at how white dwarf WD J091405.30+191412.25 is literally vapourizing a planet in close orbit.
• Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog explains</a< to readers why you really do not want to have to look for parking in New York City.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the slowing of the solar wind far from the Sun.
• John Holbo at Crooked Timber considers the gap between ideals and actuals in the context of conspiracies and politics.
• The Dragon’s Tales reports on how the ESA is trying to solve a problem with the parachutes of the ExoMars probe.
• Far Outliers reports on what Harry Truman thought about politicians.
• Gizmodo reports on a new method for identifying potential Earth-like worlds.
• io9 pays tribute to legendary writer, of Star Trek and much else, D.C. Fontana.
• The Island Review reports on the football team of the Chagos Islands.
• Joe. My. God. reports that gay Olympian Gus Kenworthy will compete for the United Kingdom in 2020.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how early English imperialists saw America and empire through the lens of Ireland.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money does not like Pete Buttigieg.
• The LRB Blog looks at the London Bridge terrorist attack.
• The Map Room Blog shares a map of Prince William Sound, in Alaska, that is already out of date because of global warming.
• Marginal Revolution questions if Cebu, in the Philippines, is the most typical city in the world.
• The NYR Daily looks at gun violence among Arab Israelis.
• The Planetary Society Blog considers what needs to be researched next on Mars.
• Roads and Kingdoms tells the story of Sister Gracy, a Salesian nun at work in South Sudan.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper noting continued population growth expected in much of Europe, and the impact of this growth on the environment.
• Strange Maps shares a map of fried chicken restaurants in London.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why a 70 solar mass black hole is not unexpected.
• John Scalzi at Whatever gives</a his further thoughts on the Pixel 4.
• Window on Eurasia notes that, last year, 37 thousand Russians died of HIV/AIDS.
• Arnold Zwicky starts from a consideration of the 1948 film Kind Hearts and Coronets.

[URBAN NOTE] Six Toronto links

• NOW Toronto reports on the long-time independent weekly’s sale to a venture capital firm, here.
• The Yonge-Eglinton Centre now hosts a venue where people can nap in peace. Toronto Life has photos, here.
• The family of North York van attack victim Anne-Marie D’Amico hopes to raise one million dollars for a women’s shelter. The National Post reports.
• Toronto Community Housing, after a terrible accident, has banned its tenants from having window air conditioners. Global News reports.
• blogTO reports on the ridiculous heights to which surge pricing took ride fares on Uber and Lyft during yesterday morning’s shutdown.
• blogTO notes that the Ontario government has provided funding to study the idea of extension of the Eglinton Crosstown west to Pearson Airport.

[URBAN NOTE] Six Toronto links

• The Pilot, in Yorkville, celebrates its 75th anniversary as a venue. Global News reports.
• Some immigrant businesspeople recently bought an old Toronto Hydro building in the north of the city as a shelter for immigrants. Global News reports.
• The backlash against the proposed condo tower at Yonge and Eglinton branded by Pharrell Williams has been swift. blogTO reports.
• Urban Toronto notes that a 13-story mixed-use building has been proposed for 888 Dupont Street, at the corner of Dupont and Ossington.
• A TV crew in North York last week cancelled its shoot in North York, near the site of last year’s ramming attack on Yonge Street. CTV News reports.
• A poster on r/Toronto noted last week the six-year anniversary of the admission of then-mayor Rob Ford that he smoked crack.

[URBAN NOTE] Six Toronto links

• Steve Munro looks at a recent examination by the Toronto auditor-general about the problems of Presto, here.
• blogTO notes that, on the weekend of the 22nd, the Toronto Reference Library will host another book sale.
• Spacing lets someone evicted for putting his apartment up for Airbnb tell his story.
• Global News tells the story of Charlie’s Friend Art Café in Bloordale, here.
• This Toronto Life account of the life and crimes of Alek Minassian remains authentically disturbing to me.
• The idea of a Toronto city charter, a constitution to protect the city’s prerogatives, does sound pretty good to me. CBC reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Ottawa, Moncton, New York City, Calgary, Richmond

• The Ottawa Citizen reports on the first week of the Confederation Line LRT.
• The New Brunswick city of Moncton now has new affordable housing–20 units–for vulnerable people. Global News reports.
• CityLab looks at one photographer’s perspective of the New York City skyline, changed by the 9/11 attacks.
• An alleyway in Calgary is being transformed by art. Global News reports.
• Birth tourism might become an election issue in the British Columbia city of Richmond. Global News reports.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomy notes the remarkably eccentric orbit of gas giant HR 5138b.
• Centauri Dreams notes the impact that large-scale collisions have on the evolution of planets.
• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber noted yesterday that babies born on September 11th in 2001 are now 18 years old, adults.
• The Crux notes that some of the hominins in the Sima de los Huesos site in Spain, ancestors to Neanderthals, may have been murdered.
• D-Brief reports on the cryodrakon, a pterosaur that roamed the skies above what is now Canada 77 million years ago.
• Dangerous Minds looks at the political artwork of Jan Pötter.
• Gizmodo notes a poll suggesting a majority of Britons would support actively seeking to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations.
• io9 has a loving critical review of the first Star Trek movie.
• JSTOR Daily shares, from April 1939, an essay by the anonymous head of British intelligence looking at the international context on the eve of the Second World War.
• Language Log notes a recent essay on the mysterious Voynich manuscript, one concluding that it is almost certainly a hoax of some kind.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the future of the labour movement in the United States.
• Marginal Revolution considers what sort of industrial policy would work for the United States.
• Yardena Schwartz writes at NYR Daily about the potential power of Arab voters in Israel.
• Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections explains why, despite interest, Australia did not launch a space program in the 1980s.
• Drew Rowsome provides a queer review of It: Chapter Two.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes how government censorship of science doomed the Soviet Union and could hurt the United States next.
• Window on Eurasia notes how, in the Volga republics, recent educational policy changes have marginalized non-Russian languages.
• Arnold Zwicky shares a glossy, fashion photography-style, reimagining of the central relationship in the James Baldwin classic Giovanni’s Room, arranged by Hilton Als.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Centauri Dreams notes a strange corridor of ice beneath the surface of Titan, a possible legacy of an active cryovolcanic past.
• D-Brief notes one study suggesting that, properly designed, air conditioners could convert carbon dioxide in the air into carbon fuels.
• Dead Things reports on the discovery of an unusual human skull three hundred thousand years old in China, at Hualongdong in the southeast.
• Gizmodo notes the identification of a jawbone 160 thousand years old, found in Tibet, with the Denisovans. That neatly explains why the Denisovans were adapted to Tibet-like environments.
• JSTOR Daily examines Ruth Page, a ballerina who integrated dance with poetry.
• Language Hat shares a critique of a John McWhorter comment about kidspeak.
• Victor Mair at Language Log shares a well-researched video on the Mongolian language of Genghis Khan.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how Donald Trump, in his defiance of investigative findings, is worse than Richard Nixon.
• James Butler at the LRB Blog writes about the bombing of London gay bar Admiral Duncan two decades ago, relating it movingly to wider alt-right movements and to his own early coming out.
• Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen notes a recent review article making the case for open borders, disproving many of the claims made by opponents.
• Paul Mason at the NYR Daily explains why the critique by Hannah Arendt of totalitarianism and fascism can fall short, not least in explaining our times.
• Corey S. Powell at Out There explains how, and why, the Moon is starting to get serious attention as a place for long-term settlement, even.
• Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog explores the fund that she had in helping design a set of scientifically-accurate building blocks inspired by the worlds of our solar system.
• Drew Rowsome reports on the new restaging of the classic queer drama Lilies at Buddies in Bad Times by Walter Borden, this one with a new racially sensitive casting.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the massive boom of diversity at the time of the Cambrian Explosion.
• Towleroad features the remarkable front cover of the new issue of Time, featuring Pete Buttigieg together with his husband Chasten.
• Window on Eurasia considers if the new Russian policy of handing out passports to residents of the Donbas republics is related to a policy of trying to bolster the population of Russia, whether fictively or actually.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the various flowers of May Day.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links: High Park, rent, Sri Lanka, vertical farm, Zizek vs Peterson

• The cherry blossoms of High Park are expected to start blooming earlier than expected, perhaps reaching peak bloom in a week’s time. blogTO reports.
• blogTO notes that someone was trying to rent out a bed in an occupied apartment for a rent of $C 600 a month.
• A Toronto Star investigation reveals the prominence of ghost hotels, enabled by Airbnb, in making the rental housing market that much more difficult.
• At NOW Toronto, Liam Barrington-Bush considers what renters in Toronto can learn from their activist counterparts in Berlin and Barcelona.
• Aparita Bhandari wrote at The Discourse about how Sri Lankans living in Scarborough responded to the recent terrible bombings.
• blogTO writes about the new vertical farm set to be built at University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus.
• The VICE account of the debate between Slavoj Zizek and Jordan Peterson reveals much.

[URBAN NOTE] Six Toronto links: terra cotta, racism, Grand Gerrard, CityPlace, Vision Zero, coffee

• I should have gone to see that house in the Junction with the terra cotta tiles before it was no longer. blogTO reports.
• White nationalists are putting up posters around the city. blogTO reports.
• The Grand Gerrard Theatre is set to re-open, continuing a century-long tradition. blogTO reports.
• Urban Toronto notes how construction continues for Canoe Landing Centre, at CityPlace down on the waterfront.
• Can the Vision Zero plan help protect public spaces in Toronto from terrorist attacks? CBC Toronto considers.
• Why, exactly, did a Starbucks in Cabbagetown close down? blogTO reports on the local confusion.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Liberty Market Tower, Canada goose, raccoons, van attack, Minassian

• Urban Toronto looks at the excavation site of Liberty Market Tower in Liberty Village.
• blogTO notes that the Canada Goose has returned to Toronto, and that some geese have begun to defend their reclaimed territories.
• This Heather Mallick column at the Toronto Star about her accidental (and unsuccessful) impromptu stabbing of an errant raccoon is just bizarre.
• Many of the witnesses of the Yonge Street van attack last year are still struggling. Global News reports.
• The Katherine Laidlaw profileat Toronto Life of Alek Minassian, perpetrator of last year’s van attack on Yonge Street, is timely. Still: How did he come to that point in his life where that atrocity made sense?