[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 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.

[NEWS] Six technology links

• Carl Newport at WIRED argues that past generations have never been as suspicious of technology as we now think, here.
• Anthropologist Darren Byler at The Conversation argues, based on his fieldwork in Xinjiang, how Uighurs became accustomed to the opportunities of new technologies until they were suddenly caught in a trap.
• James Verini at WIRED notes how the fighting around Mosul in the fall of ISIS could be called the first smartphone war.
• National Observer looks at how Québec is so far leading Canada in the development of clean technologies, including vehicles.
• VICE reports on how a Christian rock LP from the 1980s also hosted a Commodore 64 computer program.
• Megan Molteni at WIRED looks at a new, more precise, CRISPR technique that could be used to fix perhaps most genetic diseases.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Saira Mehmood blogs at {anthro}dendum about her experiences as an ethnographer in her New Orleans community.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait blogs about Supernova 2016iet, a rare example of a pair-instability supernova.
• At the Broadside Blog, Caitlin Kelly writes about the need of people to avoid isolation.
• Centauri Dreams notes that future astronomers might be able to detect the fluorescence of life on exoplanets during flares.
• Why, Crooked Timber asks, shouldn’t children be given the vote?
• D-Brief notes scientists have manufactured a ring of carbon atoms.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the complexities of #VanLife in the United States, at once a lifestyle choice in the US and a response to poverty.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money is decidedly unimpressed by the recent rewriting of the Statue of Liberty.
• Neuroskeptic looks at how neuroimaging studies study surprisingly few left-handers, and how this is a problem.
• The NYR Daily looks at how Big Data in China is enhancing state power, concentrating on the situation in Xinjiang.
• Drew Rowsome looks at a new documentary on the genesis of Fiddler on the Roof, Fiddler: Miracle of Miracles.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at how dark matter and black holes can interact.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at coded anti-black racism in the 1937 United States.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Shir Lerman Ginzburg at anthro{dendum} writes about kintsugi in her own life.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait looks at the massive black hole, massing two billion suns, measured in the heart of NGC 3258.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly shares some photos from her Hudson River life.
• D-Brief notes how astronomers may be able to detect the radio signals emitted from the cores of planets orbiting dead stars.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the sociology of religion.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how Ferdinand Magellan acted in many ways like a pirate.
• Language Hat reports on the remarkable differences between the two dubbed French versions of The Simpsons, one in France and one in Québec.
• Language Log reports on the Chinese placename “Xinjiang Uygur.”
• Lawyers, Guns and Money makes the point that Joe Biden is too old, too set in his ways, to be president.
• Molly Crabapple writes at the NYR Daily about the nature and goals of the massive protest movement in Puerto Rico.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks even-handedly at the controversy surrounding the idea of building the Thirty Metre Telescope on top of sacred Mauna Kea.
• Window on Eurasia looks at controversy in Russia over the representation of different Tatar populations on the Russian 2020 census.
• Stephen Gordon at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative wonders why it was 1953 that, in Canada, saw the growth in women on the job market.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Architectuul looks at some examples of endangered architecture in the world, in London and Pristina and elsewhere.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait examines a bizarre feature on the Moon’s Lacus Felicitatus.
• The Big Picture shares photos exploring the experience of one American, Marie Cajuste, navigating the health care system as she sought cancer treatment.
• Centauri Dreams looks at a new proposal for an interstellar craft making use of neutral particle beam-driven sails.
• Ingrid Robeyns at Crooked Timber writes about the question of what individual responsibility people today should take for carbon emissions.
• The Crux takes a look at what the earliest (surviving) texts say about the invention of writing.
• D-Brief notes an interesting proposal to re-use Christmas trees after they are tossed out.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that India has approved funding for crewed spaceflight in 2022, in the Gaganyaan program.
• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina takes a look at the Apollo 8 mission.
• Far Outliers looks at the experiences of British consuls in isolated Kashgar, in what is now Xinjiang.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing argues that it can take time to properly see things, that speed can undermine understanding.
• JSTOR Daily notes how people with depression use language, opting to use absolute words more often than the norm.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how the Bolsonario government in Brazil has set to attacking indigenous people.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper arguing that Greek life in the colleges of the United States, the fraternity system, has a negative impact on the grades of participants.
• George Hutchinson writes at the NYR Daily about how race, of subjects and of the other, complicates readings of Louisiana-born author Jean Toomey and his novel Cane, about life on sugar cane plantations in that state.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw reflects on his Christmas reading, including a new history of Scandinavia in the Viking age told from their perspective.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the Milky Way Galaxy in its formative years. What did it look like?
• Strange Company highlights its top 10 posts over the past year.
• Window on Eurasia wonders at reports the Uniate Catholics of Ukraine are seeking a closer alliance with the new Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
• Arnold Zwicky reports on the nearly iconic and ubiquitous phalluses of Bhutan, as revealed by a trip by Anthony Bourdain.

[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 Saturday links

• Charlie Stross at Antipope looks at the catastrophe that a United Kingdom bent on Brexit despite itself is heading for.
• Crooked Timber takes a look at the collapse in Bitcoin prices and sees what this might mean for financial markets and speculation more generally.
• D-Brief looks at the discovery of tools made by ancient humans in China.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing considers the consequences–the prices to be paid–as technology transforms the way we see the world, into a collection of manipulable entities.
• JSTOR Daily considers how the mutilated veterans of the First World War, and their masks, changed the culture of the post-war world.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money suggests trying to cater to white racism in the United States based on a misunderstanding of class structure is mistaken, in multiple ways.
• The Map Room Blog links to a site tracking in detail the many different wildfires of California.
• Marginal Revolution, looking at the remarkable power of artificial intelligence to discover unknown relationships, considers it as an alien intelligence. What might it do?
• The NYR Daily, inspired by the horrors in Xinjiang being inflicted on the Uighurs, looks at the relationship in China more generally between that country and Islam.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why quantum mechanics are necessary to explain the sun’s fusion.
• Arnold Zwicky, noting a recent news report mistakenly claiming the death of Spike Lee, examines the mechanics of misremembering names.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• The Buzz celebrates Esi Edugyan’s winning of the Giller Prize for the second time, for her amazing novel Washington Black.
• Centauri Dreams notes the unusual rings of outer-system body Chariklo.
• The Crux looks at the long history of unsuccessful planet-hunting at Barnard’s Star, concentrating on the disproved mid-20th century work of Peter Van De Kamp.
• D-Brief notes evidence that Mars knew catastrophic floods that radically reshaped its surface.
• Bruce Dorminey visits and explores Korea’s ancient Cheomseongdae Observatory.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog notes the death of long-time contributor Peter Kaufman.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing considers the things–quiet, even–that modernity can undermine before transforming into a commodity.
• Imageo notes that global warming has continued this American Thanksgiving.
• Joe. My. God. notes the sour grapes of the Family Research Council at the success of the moving film about “gay conversion therapy”, Boy Erased.
• JSTOR Daily links to a paper considering if the zeitgeist of the world is into major monuments.
• Language Log considers a news report of “arsehole” geese in Australia. As a Canadian, all I can say is that geese are birds that know they are dinosaurs.
• The LRB Blog reports from the scene of the recent unrecognized elections in the city of Donetsk, run by a pro-Russian regime.
• The Map Room Blog reports on how Atlas Obscura is exhibiting some amazing maps produced in Dungeons and Dragons campaigns.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper noting how black teachers can help boost achievements among black students.
• The New APPS Blog looks at how the political economy of our time combines with social media to atomize and fragment society.
• Nicholas Lezard at the NYR Daily talks about his experience of anti-Semitism, as a non-Jew, in the United Kingdom.
• Casey Dreier at the Planetary Society Blog suggests families would do better to talk about space at Thanksgiving than about politics, and shares a list of subjects.
• Drew Rowsome talks about the frustrations and the entertainment involved with Bohemian Rhapsody.
• Window on Eurasia notes that fifty thousand ethnic Kyrgyz are being held in the Xinjiang camps of China.
• Arnold Zwicky shares some Thanksgiving holiday cartoons by Roz Chast.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Centauri Dreams considers the concept of “arrival”, drawn from Naipaul, in connection with interstellar flight.
• The Crux takes a look at the investigation and treatment of the tumour-causing virus besetting Tasmanian devils, and its implications for us.
• D-Brief notes the strangeness of the supermassive black hole at the heart of ultra-compact dwarf galaxy Fornax UCD3, and notes a newly-theorized way that stellar-mass black holes can gain more mass, through the intake of gas while orbiting a supermassive black hole.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the concept of trial by combat, and the many crimes that this judicial concept enabled.
• Geoffrey Pullum at Lingua Franca looks at the obscure English grammar questions that are so prominent in English language learning in Japan.
• The LRB Blog notes the disappearance of apolitical Uighur academic Rahile Dawut from her home in Xinjiang, and what her disappearance signals.
• The NYR Daily considers the concept of deradicalization in connection with white people, with white nationalists inspired towards racial violence.
• Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy does not find originalist grounds on which to criticize the creation of a US Space Force.
• Window on Eurasia notes a tension in Russia between official government support for immigration, particularly from elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, and local resistance.
• Arnold Zwicky meditates on rainbows and sharks and gay dolphins.