[PHOTO] Backyard snow at night, Dovercourt Village

At least we've gotten some snow in March.

[PHOTO] Four photos of Cleopatra's Needle, Central Park, one new and three old

Cleopatra's Needle continues to stand tall behind the Metropolitan Museum, to its west in Central Park.







I had taken a photo of this obelisk in 2012, as it turns out.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the unusual exoplanet HIP 65426 b, orbiting its parent star in a very distant orbit. Why is that?


• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly shares some photos from an evening spent at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.


• Centauri Dreams imagines what could have been if Voyager 1 had, as some hoped, gone on to Pluto. What discoveries would have been made, decades before New Horizons by a probe with less capable instrumentation?


• Dangerous Minds takes a look at David Bowie's mid-1970s nadir, caught up in an oddly vegetarianism-driven panic over psychic espionage.


• At In A State of Migration, Lyman Stone uses a variety of demographic, cultural, and economic markers to define the Rust Belt of the United States.


• JSTOR Daily notes that, at one point, American funerals included swag, nice gifts to mourners like sets of gloves.


• Language Hat notes a language of the Pakistani Himalayas, Badeshi, that turns out not to be quite completely extinct.


• Justin Petrone, at north!, celebrates his discovery of a familiar type, an Italian coffeeshop owner, in his adopted Estonia.


• Out There considers the remarkable potential of exploration and telescopic study at the edge of our solar system.


• The Planetary Society Blog's Emily Lakdawalla notes that the Japanese Hayabusa 2 probe has detected its target, asteroid Ryugu.


• Roads and Kingdoms reports on tuyo, a Filipino comfort food combining dried fish with chocolate-flavoured rice porridge.


• Peter Rukavina reports on an entertaining-sounding club meeting in Charlottetown, of Island subscribers to The New Yorker.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes how the new Great Magellan telescope will not have artificial spikes marring its field of vision.


• Towleroad notes< that CNN's Don Lemon is aware of Trump's nickname for him, "Sour Lemon".


• Window on Eurasia notes that Russia's working-age population is set to decline regardless of recent demographic initiatives.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Metrolinx, police and Pride, Freeman Formalwear,, BMO, Bentway

• Steve Munro reports on the latest report about upcoming Metrolinx stations.


• Understandably, the Church and Wellesley serial killer investigation is making the efforts of Toronto police to march in Pride problematic. (As it should.) The Globe and Mail reports.


• blogTO notes that the old Freeman Formalwear building on 556 Yonge, just below Wellesley, has been demolished following a fire.


• The Bank of Montreal is going to transform a huge chunk of the old Sears store in the Eaton Centre, southwest of Yonge and Dundas, into an urban campus employing thousands. The Toronto Star reports.


• The Bentway, underneath the Gardiner, is set to become a public art space. The Globe and Mail reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Canada city links: Saint John, Montréal, Hamilton, Calgary

• The rest of Saint John, New Brunswick, to have the provincial government authorize a study on municipal amalgamation has been turned down. Global News reports.
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• Some old cars from the Montréal Métro are going on display as part of two exhibits. Global News reports.


• Montréal ranks second in a ranking of the top cities for millennials, all things considered. (Toronto is in the top 10.) Global News reports.


• A crackdown on payday loan establishments in Hamilton has been followed by a request that banks and other traditional lenders please consider their payday clients. Global News reports.


• Quite honestly, the argument made here that Calgary is destined to host the 2026 Olympics is actually convincing. Global News reports.

[NEWS] Five sci-fi links: Annihilation, Blade Runner, The Telling, Sandman, Deep Space Nine

• If Annihilation is the start of a wave of interesting new sci-fi films, looking at the genre from new angles, this is good. I just hope distribution can be solved. Rolling Stone has it.


• This essay on the role of memory in the Blade Runner series, as a marker of identity and more, is superb.


• The Telling, last of Le Guin's Hainish novels, is set for a movie release. io9 reports.


• That Neil Gaiman has authorized DC Comics to release four comics set in the Sandman part of their universe is amazing. io9 reports.


• This extended take on how Deep Space Nine revolutionized the Trek format, looking at the universe from new and very creative angles, says what needs to be said. This is the reason it is my favourite Trek series. io9 has it.