[PHOTO] Dufferin station in the September evening

[LINK] "China Plans Lunar Far Side Landing by 2020"

Universe Today's Ken Kremer reports on China's plans.

China aims to land a science probe and research rover on the far side of the Moon by 2020, say Chinese officials.

Chinese scientists plan to carry out the highly complex lunar landing mission using a near identical back up to the nations highly successful Chang’e-3 rover and lander – which touched down in December 2013.

If successful, China would become the first country to accomplish the history making task of a Lunar far side landing.

“The mission will be carried out by Chang’e-4, a backup probe for Chang’e-3, and is slated to be launched before 2020,” said Zou Yongliao from the moon exploration department under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to a recent report in China’s government owned Xinhua news agency.

Zou made the remarks at a deep-space exploration forum in China.

“China will be the first to complete the task if it is successful,” said Zou.

[LINK] "Facebook’s dominance deepens"

Open Democracy's Digital Liberties project features an essay by Matthew Linares noting the implications of Facebook's increasing dominance of the Internet. The gated garden is impending.

Regulator Tom Wheeler noted the internet's status as a “core of free expression and democratic principles” as reason to uphold net neutrality; the fact that this idea determines legislative treatment colours the debate about what kind of beast Facebook has become. If it assumes so much control that it significantly alters who sees what and how, the effect on access to information will be similar to that of ISPs throttling content for cash, whilst possibly affecting a wider customer base. If the legislative problem is about a level playing field, the Facebook effect cannot prudently be ignored. Despite change rendering even web monoliths precarious, network effects make the biggest players something more than just another firm in a marketplace. Facebook may require us to rethink what sort of thing can be considered a public utility.

A recent product from Facebook, “Instant Articles” is an integration of full pieces from publishers directly inside of Facebook. A user can now click on an article in their news feed, and immediately see the full thing, rich and colourful in Facebook, without wasting 8 seconds to leave and load it at the publisher's website.

On one reading, this is a boon for all. Facebook's technical prowess makes news and media smoother and more enjoyable. That's what great firms do, bettering service both for publishers, advertisers and users.

However, this is also something like the ‘walled garden’ tendency common to commercial providers who seek to control users. Instant Articles reduce the reasons to leave Facebook. Users then spend longer within Facebook, consuming media as they socialise. Facebook continues to curate the user news feed that acts as an ever greater tributary of all internet content. This feature is visible elsewhere as publisher platforms become prevalent, but Facebook is the main contender.

[LINK] "Washington state and Native tribe strike deal on marijuana sales"

Al Jazeera America notes the marijuana pact in Washington State with the Suquamish.

Washington state and a Native American tribe have reached an agreement on the growth and sale of marijuana, a deal that will pave the way for the tribe to run a legal cannabis store and is the first agreement of its kind in the United States, the tribe and state officials said.

Under the pact, a tribal tax equivalent to the state excise tax will be applied to pot sales to non-tribal customers on Suquamish tribal lands.

Washington voters legalized the possession of marijuana and its regulated sale when they approved Initiative 502 in 2013, and the state’s first stores opened early this year.

“This agreement is an excellent model for future compacts,” said Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board chairman Jane Rushford, according to the Seattle Times.

Board officials said in a news release that the 10-year agreement signed Monday will govern the production, processing and sale of marijuana on the tribe's land located in Kitsap County, which is just a few miles west of Seattle.

[LINK] "Alan Poul To Helm ‘Dancer From The Dance’"

Towleroad notes that Andrew Holleran's novel Dancer from the Dance, a classic from pre-AIDS late 1970s New York City, is set to make it to film.

Director Alan Poul is teaming with Brazilian-based RT Features for a feature film based on Andrew Holleran’s cult novel Dancer From the Dance, considered a cornerstone of 1970’s gay literature. The book chronicles the search for love and pleasure in the mid-seventies dance-club subculture of New York, centering on the unlikely friendship between the charismatic and mysterious Anthony Malone and the wildly flamboyant Andrew Sutherland.

I've touched on Holleran before. I look forward to see what will come of this.

[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto councillors want legal Grenadier Pond skating"

The Toronto Star's David Rider reports on a push to make skating possible on High Park's Grenadier Pond.

Councillor Josh Matlow said a staff report recommending legal skating on the High Park pond only if the city launches a rigorous, expensive monitoring and safety program points to the need for a “rethink.”

“With the logic that has been followed on this, one could argue that we should have signs up saying you shouldn’t walk on our sidewalks because we don’t maintain our sidewalks perfectly ... so maybe somebody could have an accident, maybe we’ll be liable,” said Matlow, noting he skated on Grenadier as a kid.

[. . .]

The issue bubbled up last winter as many people skated and played shinny on thick Grenadier despite city signs warning them to keep off, and the threat of a ticket from a bylaw officer. The local councillor, Sarah Doucette, asked for a solution that allowed a safe reversal of the ban enacted in 2001 amid legal concerns.

The resulting report says converting part of the 14.2-hectare pond to a natural outdoor skating surface would cost the city $192,000 in one-time costs and $123,000 in annual operating costs.

That would fund “a team of experts to provide daily analysis and testing of ice, safety equipment, equipment for ice preparation such as a Zamboni and plow or snow blower, ice maintenance equipment and staff, skating area barriers, lighting, washrooms and first aid support.”

Staff also noted that stormwater flow inhibits ice formation, as does the pond’s salt content.

[LINK] "Schoolkids Don’t Just Need iPads. They Need Data Plans"

Wired's Issie Lapowsky reports on how some students in California, given iPads for class work, now also have data plans allowing them access from home. This is good, but I'm actually a bit shocked someone thought it a good idea to implement tablet-based education before ensuring everyone actually had Internet access.

On a cloudy Tuesday afternoon in San Marcos, California, Guadalupe Lopez is guiding me through Alvin Dunn Elementary’s concrete grid of a campus. Dressed in a black sweatshirt with Minnie Mouse ears on the hood, she’s striding along with the eager confidence of a soon-to-be 7th grader just weeks away from the first day of summer. And she has something special she wants to show me.

Charging several steps ahead, she leads me into the school’s cafeteria, where dozens of black and white photos of Alvin Dunn sixth graders cover the wall. The photos, Lopez explains, are part of a research project that she and a small group of her classmates recently completed on why American businesses and government agencies should invest in at-risk youth.

“They’re spending so much on prisons, but they’re leaving us behind,” Lopez tells me, sounding far more sophisticated than she should at 12. To illustrate their point, Lopez and her group took photos of each of their classmates and asked them all to write captions explaining why they’re worth the investment. “Some of them just touch your heart,” Lopez tells me, sincerity radiating from her big brown eyes.

During the month she spent researching both in and out of school, this topic has become deeply personal to Lopez, and as she stares up at the wall, it’s clear she is proud of her hard work—work that would have been a lot harder if not for the fact that a few months earlier, the school gave every sixth grader a Samsung tablet to take home with them.

That, in and of itself, wasn’t all that special. Alvin Dunn students had been using iPads in class for years. But what made a truly deep impact in Lopez’s life was the fact that the tablet had its own data plan. That meant she could actually take it home with her and use it. It was a tiny difference, but for Lopez, it changed everything. Like about 30 percent of American schoolchildren—and more than half the sixth grade class at Alvin Dunn—Lopez has no Internet access at home.

[URBAN NOTE] "The mysterious case of the grave of Stella Vanzant"

Spacing Toronto's Chris Bateman reports on the sad story of a young girl whose grave went missing in what is now the heart of the Financial District of Toronto.

When little Stella Vanzant died of causes unknown some time in the early 1800s, her bereaved father interred the girl’s young body in a six by four-foot grave in a quiet corner of the family property near King and Bay streets.

The future site of the Toronto financial district was still partially covered in groves of native trees. A few scattered wood cabins were placed at intervals along muddy tracks, and so John Vanzant might reasonably have assumed his daughter would rest in peace in perpetuity.

Unfortunately, things started to go wrong for the American-born business owner very quickly, and his actions that day sparked a mystery that remains unsolved to this day.

[ISL] "American Dream Relocates to Bermuda, Says Fishman, Blaming Taxes"

Bloomberg's Sonali Basak reports on the ongoing migration of American businesses to offshore financial centre Bermuda.

Can this go on indefinitely without provoking a reaction, I wonder?

Jay Fishman, who built New York-based Travelers Cos. into one of the world’s biggest insurers, lamented that disparities in tax rates are pushing established rivals and industry newcomers outside the U.S.

Over the past 15 years or so, “we’ve counted 10, 12, maybe even 15 Bermuda-based startups that ultimately became decent-size companies,” Fishman said Wednesday at a conference sponsored by Barclays Plc. “We can’t find one in the U.S.,” he added. “As an American citizen who’s benefited enormously from the American dream, I think that’s unfortunate. It’s a public-policy opportunity that should be addressed.”

U.S. money-management firms including Oaktree Capital Group LLC and BlackRock Inc. have worked with industry veterans to start insurers offshore in the past year. Goldman Sachs Group Inc.-backed mortgage guarantor Essent Group Ltd. and Dan Loeb’s Third Point Reinsurance Ltd. are among Bermuda-based firms that had initial public offerings in recent years.

Ace Ltd. began in Bermuda in the 1980s to provide excess liability coverage, and expanded through global acquisitions. The company moved to Zurich in 2008 and agreed in July to buy Warren, New Jersey-based Chubb Corp., one of Fishman’s largest competitors, for more than $28 billion.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• blogTO notes the report that the CBC might sell its holdings.


• Centauri Dreams observes another search for a Kardashev III civilization that ended in failure.


• Crooked Timber is fed up with Rod Dreher.


• The Dragon's Gaze and Centauri Dreams report on new orbital parameters for Beta Pictoris b.


• The Dragon's Tales reports the Permian extinction lasted sixty thousand years.
Marginal Revolution looks at the dynamics of British inequality.

• pollotenchegg maps Russification in Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s.


• The Russian Demographics Blog notes reports of a brain drain from Russia.


• Spacing Toronto looks at the iconography of city signage.


• Torontoist reports on a documentary regarding Toronto's gun culture.


• Window on Eurasia warns of a crackdown on Crimean Tatar institutions, notes the opening of a new mosque in Moscow, reports on inter-Muslim violence in Russia, and suggests Belarus now is in the position of the Baltic States in 1940.

[MUSIC] Deep Forest with Peter Gabriel, "While the Earth Sleeps"

"Don Valley Pkwy Evening Drive - While the Earth Sleeps (Peter Gabriel and Deep Forest)" (Watch on YouTube)

"While the Earth Sleeps", a collaboration of Peter Gabriel with Deep Forest, the latter group sampling Bulgarian folk singer Katya Petrova, is the terminal song on the soundtrack of the sadly underrated 1995 proto-cyberpunk movie Strange Days. This fan video is conveniently local, pairing footage of a trip down the Don Valley Parkway with the music.

Strongly recommended.