[PHOTO] Balloon parrots in the window of The Monarch, Dovercourt Road

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Centauri Dreams notes the extent to which we have barely begun to seriously search for extraterrestrial intelligences.


• Over at Crooked Timber, Henry Farrell has demonstrated, via the submission of a bogus article to the American Economics Review, that the discipline of economics, too, has broken peer-review processes.


• D-Brief reports on scientists who have successfully introduced new songs to sparrows living in the wild.


• JSTOR Daily takes a look at the question of how to properly manage fisheries on the high seas in the face of global environmental challenges.


• Lingua Franca suggests that the word "selfie" is a good one with which to characterize the millennial generation.


• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution further reflects on the arguments of Henry Farrell.


• Roads and Kingdoms expands upon the joys of eating mozzarella balls in Rome.


• Drew Rowsome takes a look at a new documentary examining famed nightclub Studio 54.


• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps shares a map showing the different cities in Africa that are focuses of this continent's emerging wealthy economies, from Casablanca to Lagos to Addis Ababa.


• Nathaniel Rogers at Towleroad praises the new remake of A Star Is Born, with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.


• Window on Eurasia suggests that Russia's Roscosmos agency is no longer a major player in space exploration, thanks to a concentration on military issues.


• Arnold Zwicky shares this funny, widely-circulating cartoon, depicting Humpty Dumpty as he enjoys a great fall.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Yonge Street, rent-to-own, Gebrewihot, fare evasion, Faith Goldy

• Urban Toronto shares a photo of Yonge Street from only three years ago, one showing visibly fewer skyscrapers.


• The rent-to-own program being proposed by Jennifer Keesmat, aiming to help more people become property owners, sounds nice but also sounds like it would heighten housing market pressures. blogTO reports.


• 
  
• Toronto Life shares some remarkable photos by Anthony Gebrewihot of prominent Scarborough artists taken on the new subway extension.


• Tricia Wood at Spacing argues that arresting people for fare evasion reveals a degree of structural racism that Toronto, to name one city, should fight against.


• Michael Coren at NOW Toronto takes a very critical look on Faith Goldy, the most prominent personality on the alt-right here in Toronto.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, Chicago, London, Trieste, Bangkok

• La Presse notes that Montréal mayor Valérie Laplante faces significant challenges in dealing with the new Québec government.


• JSTOR Daily reports on a recent study tracing back large-scale police violence in Chicago back to the late 19th century.


• Feargus O'Sullivan at CityLab notes how, among other things, exceptionally high rents lead to much commercial space in London being vacant. Are there ways to deal with this?


• This Asia Times article takes a look at Chinese investments in the port of Trieste that might make this port a leading portal for Chinese trade, surpassing Greece's Piraeus.


• Jamie Fullerton at Guardian Cities <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/oct/03/as-bangkok-sinks-could-this-anti-flood-park-be-the-answer><U>considers</u></a> if increasing the amount of green space in low-lying Bangkok might help protect that city against sea level rise.</li> </ul>

[NEWS] Five future links: oceans, robots and jobs, mechanical telepathy, Africa, starships

• This Wired article suggests that judicious use of the oceans, including taking care of shorelines and using alternative energy but not including iron fertilization, could help save us all.


• Robots may take jobs, but Ramona Pringle suggests robots will also create jobs, too. It's just a matter of planning adequately for upskilling. CBC has it.


• Technology Review reports that scientists have developed a system allowing three different people to exchange thoughts, a sort of primitive mechanical telepathy.


• The West, this Bloomberg View article suggests, would be much better suited trying to join China in investing in Africa than in complaining about this Chinese investment. I agree.


• I approve entirely of the Robert Forward-inspired proposal to holographically encode data on interstellar probes launched via laser-launched light sails, as described at VICE's Motherboard here.