[PHOTO] Inside the closing Galleria Mall

I dashed into the Galleria Mall last night to pick up some supplies, and saw, outside of the FreshCo grocery store and the Rexall and the Dollarama and then the Planet Fitness at the far end, little sign of life. All of the independent shops that once characterized this centre have left.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Architectuul looks at the modernist works of Spanish Antonio Lamela, building after the Second World War under Franco.


• Centauri Dreams considers the possibility of life-supporting environments on Barnard's Star b, a frozen super-Earth.


• The Crux takes a look at how, and when, human beings and their ancestors stopped being as furry as other primates.


• D-Brief notes the Russian startup that wants to put advertisements in Earth orbit.


• Drew Ex Machina takes a look at the Soyuz 4 and 5 missions, the first missions to see two crewed craft link up in space.


• Far Outliers notes
  
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing notes the ironies of housing a state-of-the-art supercomputers in the deconsecrated Torre Girona Chapel in Barcelona.


• Gizmodo notes a new study claiming that the rings of Saturn may be less than a hundred million years old, product of some catastrophic obliteration of an ice moon perhaps.


• Joe. My. God. notes the death of Pulitzer-winning lesbian poet Mary Oliver.


• JSTOR Daily takes a look at the rising prominence of hoarding as a psychological disorder.


• Language Hat shares a manuscript more than a hundred pages long, reporting on terms relating to sea ice used in the Inupiaq language spoken by the Alaska community of Kifigin, or Wales.


• Language Log examines the etymology of "slave" and "Slav". (Apparently "ciao" is also linked to these words.)


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that Buzzfeed was right to claim that Trump ordered his lawyer to lie to Congress about the Moscow Trump Tower project.


• Marginal Revolution notes a serious proposal in the Indian state of Sikkim to set up a guaranteed minimum income project.


• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps links to a map showing visitations of the Virgin Mary worldwide, both recognized and unrecognized by the Vatican.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes the continuing controversy over the identity of AT2018cow.


• Window on Eurasia suggests that Russians have more to fear from a Sino-Russian alliance than Americans, on account of the possibility of a Chinese takeover of Russia enabled by this alliance.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: TTC fare, Bathurst Street, express buses, murder, #FordNation

• The TTC would like to increase fares by 10 cents a ride in the coming year, to help finance basic repairs and services. CityNews reports.


• Facing public furor, Metrolinx has decided not to try to close off Bathurst Street at Eglinton for seven months to try to speed Eglinton Crosstown construction. Global News reports.


• Steve Munro is critical of the TTC's new express buses running on many major arteries, seeing them as mainly cosmetic in effect.


• Wendy Gillis at the Toronto Star writes about the reactions, one year later, to the murders committed by the Church and Wellesley killer.


• Richard Florida at CityLab summarizes the factors leading to the success of populist Ford Nation, first in Toronto and then in Ontario.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Raccoon City, Hamilton, Chicago, Milwaukee, Paris

• Mark Clapham at CityMetric takes an insightful look at the terrifying, dehumanizing, ways in which the fictional Raccoon City was designed.


• Alex Bozikovic writes in The Globe and Mail about the goals of the new chief planner of Hamilton, Jason Thorne, to help grow a dynamic and livable city.


• Guardian Cities looks at how many of the major streets of Chicago trace their ancestry to the trails of indigenous peoples.


• WUWM notes how Milwaukee has the largest concentration of Rohingya refugees in the United States.


• Mira Kamdar at the NYR Daily looks at the agricultural past--and potential future--of the Paris periphery, particularly but not only Seine-Saint-Denis.

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: crystal meth, aging with HIV, Drama, Into, Nézet-Séguin

• Rod Knight at The Conversation looks at the need of gay and bi men with crystal meth addictions to be able to access integrated care.


• This still-useful 2014 article from The Tyee by Emi Sasagawa looks at the issues of aging HIV-positive men, many who had not prepared for the aging process pre-HAART.


• Ottawa's English Catholic school board has returned the excellent Raina Telgemeier graphic novel Drama to school shelves, after pulling it due to parent homophobia, CBC reports.


• Daily Xtra notes what a shame that it is that Grindr has fired the editorial staff of its media arm Into.


• The New York Times has this lovely article looking at the relationship between opera director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and his partner Pierre Tourville.