[PHOTO] Five photos of a front yard decorated for Christmas, Long Branch, Toronto

Two friends of mine, living in the southwesternmost Toronto neighbourhood of Long Branch hard by Mississauga and Lake Ontario, have done another brilliant job decorating their front yard for the Christmas season.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Anthro{dendum} considers ways to simulate urgency in simulations of climate change.


• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait considers what could possibly have led to a Mars crater near Biblis Patera, on Tharsis, having such a flat bottom.


• Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog gives readers some tips as to what they should see in New York City.


• Centauri Dreams notes some of the early returns sent back by the OSIRIS-REx probe from asteroid Bennu.


• The Crux notes the limits of genetic determinism in explaining human behaviour, given the huge influence of the environment on the expression of genes and more.


• D-Brief suggests that the rapid global dispersion of the domestic chicken, a bird visibly distinct from its wild counterparts, might make an excellent marker of the Anthropocene millions of years hence.


• Bruce Dorminey notes that Comet 46 P/Wirtanen is set to come within a bit more than eleven million kilometres of the Earth next week, and that astronomers are ready.


• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing suggests that the Internet, by exposing everything, makes actual innovation difficult.


• JSTOR Daily takes a look at the innovative art of early 20th century Expressionist Charlotte Salomon, a person not only groundbreaking with her autobiographical painting series but linked to a murder mystery, too.


• Anne Curzan writes at Lingua Franca about what she has learned in six years about blogging there abut language.


• Sara Jayyousi writes at the LRB Blog about her experiences over time with a father imprisoned for nearly a decade and a half on false charges of supporting terrorism.


• Marginal Revolution shares Tyler Cowen's argument that Macron's main problem is that he lacks new ideas, something to appeal to the masses.


• Sylvain Cypel at the NYR Daily argues that Macron, arguably never that popular, is facing a Marie Antoinette moment, the Yellow Jackets filling the place of the sans culottes.


• Drew Rowsome rightly laments the extent to which social media, including not just Facebook but even Tumblr, are currently waging a war against any visible sex in any context.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains how, in 2019, astronomers will finally have imaged the event horizon around the black hole Sagittarius A* at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy.


• Window on Eurasia reports on polls which suggest that young Belarusians are decidedly apolitical.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: mass transit, TTC, photos, Pearson, Scarborough strip mall

• Urban Toronto shares a photo of the Toronto skyline, taken from Etobicoke looking east along the Gardiner.


• Toronto City Council can do nothing if the provincial government of Ontario decides to take over the TTC, a secret report concludes. The Toronto Star reports.


• Jonathan English at Urban Toronto considers what scenarios could result from an Ontario takeover of the TTC. The example of London, in the United Kingdom, seems particularly relevant.


• Urban Toronto reports on plans to make the area around Pearson airport a second transit hub for the GTA, alongside Union Station.


• Aparita Bhandavi at The Discourse takes a look at the importance of the strip mall, as an architectural and retail form, in Scarborough.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Burlington, Hamilton, Montréal, Miami, Shenzhen

• The mayors of Hamilton and Burlington have announced their opposition to any changes to the Ontario Greenbelt legislation, the Toronto Star reports.


• CBC Hamilton reports that units in a prominent downtown apartment building has been converted to condos.


• National Observer looks at the threat that a new Université de Montréal campus in Montréal poses to the Park Extension neighbourhood.


• CityLab takes a look at how the construction of Interstate 95, in Miami, destroyed the black neighbourhood of Overtown.


• The Chinese city of Shenzhen has converted its bus fleet entirely over to electric units, Guardian Cities reports.

[NEWS] Some Canadian links: digital workers, VIA Rail, health robots, Syrians, Border Services TV

• The digital workers of Canada face many challenges in adapting to the new work environment, CBC reports.


• VIA Rail has placed an order of nearly $C1 billion in trains for its Windsor-Québec City route with Siemens, Bombardier having been beaten. CTV reports.


• Teleoperated robots are helping doctors save lives in the Canadian north, The Conversation notes.


• The first wave of Syrian refugees resettled in Canada are now eligible for, and getting, Canadian citizenship. CBC reports.


• Canada's Border Services agency wants to launch another reality television show, despite the legal scandal which ended their last show. CBC reports.

[MUSIC] Five music links: Elvis Costello, Soft Cell, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Pete Shelley, theft.

• Russell Arben Fox celebrates the Elvis Costello song "Radio Radio."


• Dangerous Minds celebrates Soft Cell through their new box set.


• NOW Toronto gives a glowing review to the new biography of Buffy Sainte-Marie.


• Noisey celebrates the solo career of the late great Pete Shelley.


• Alan Cross at Global News looks at the reasons why, in an age of streaming, music theft is still a thing.