[PHOTO] Looking north, Rosedale

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Architectuul takes a look at a new exhibition exploring women architects in Bauhaus.


• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares a photo of Chang'e-4 taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.


• Centauri Dreams notes the power of perspective, demonstrated by photos taken in space far from the Earth.


• Far Outliers notes the role of the Indian army, during the Raj, in engaging and mobilizing peasants while allowing recruits to maintain village traditions.


• Joe. My. God. notes a new study from the Netherlands suggesting the children of same-sex parents do better in school than children of opposite-sex parents.


• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the astonishing plagiarism and sloppy writing of former NYT editor Jill Abramson.


• Michael Hofman at the LRB Blog takes a look at the mindset producing the Brexit catastrophe.


• Marginal Revolution takes a look at the decline of the wealth tax in recent decades in high-income countries. Apparently the revenues collected were often not substantial enough.


• The Planetary Society Blog shares missions updates from Chang'e-4 on the Moon.


• Drew Rowsome reviews the Cirque Éloize show Hotel.


• Window on Eurasia notes one call for Tatarstan, and Tatar nationalists, to abandon a territorial model of identity focused on the republic, seeing as how so many Tatars live outside of Tatarstan.


• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at the play in language involved in a recent Bizarro comic.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Superlinx, housing, rooming houses, raccoons

• Urban Toronto takes a look at the revised Superlinx plan put forth by the Toronto Board of Trade for a GTA transit network.


• Lauren Pelley at CBC Toronto highlights a new report examining how the shortage of affordable housing has the potential to create catastrophe.


• Aparita Bhandari at The Discourse notes that, out of one Scarborough public discussion on the housing crisis, the idea of legalizing rooming houses kept coming up. I like this idea; I lived in one myself when I first moved here.


• May Warren at the Toronto Star notes that one-third of young adults in Toronto live with their parents, and that this response to housing costs makes perfect sense.


• Jamie Bradburn has announced that, happily, Thursday will be Trash Panda Thursday at his blog, featuring his explorations of the noble raccoon in the mass media past of Toronto.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Montréal links: Olympic Stadium, Grey Nuns, United Nations, Voir, REM

• Entire sheets of ice have been falling from the tower of the Olympic Stadium in Montréal. Global News reports.


• The Grey Nuns in Montréal hope to transform their historic mother house into a new sort of centre, with an expanding museum and with educational spaces. CTV reports.


• CBC Montreal notes that Montréal is in the running to host a cluster of agencies and offices of the United Nations.


• Le Devoir notes that Montréal free weekly Voir is ceasing print publication, remaining in print online.


• Martin Patriquin at the Montreal Gazette makes a case for parking lots not being a top priority at the REM stations being built around the city.

[URBAN NOTE] Five notes about cities: Airbnb, NIMBYism, sinking, soil, anti-tours and Jane's Walk

• This article at The Conversation examines the adverse effect of Airbnb on urban housing markets worldwide.


• CityLab looks at how NIMBYism advanced to the point of blocking progress in cities generally.


• JSTOR Daily looks at how many vulnerable cities, especially on shorelines, are at risk of sinking.


• Oliver Milman at Guardian Cities looks at how New York City, and other metropolises, are starting to study the soil they lie over. (I compost; at least I try to.)


• Oliver Balch at Guardian Cities takes a look at anti-tours, tours of cities which self-consciously consider elements and areas of urban life often overlooked by regular tourists. (I love the mention of Jane's Walk--I went to the very walk by Union Station mentioned in the article!)

[NEWS] Five D-Brief space links: 65803 Didymos, Mars, Charon, V883 Ori, LHA 120-N 180B

• D-Brief looks at the exciting Hera mission planned by the European Space Agency to binary asteroid 65803 Didymos in 2026, some years after a NASA experiment there.


• D-Brief notes that the CubeSats brought to Mars with the InSight mission have gone silent.


• Can features of the surface of Charon be explained by a subsurface ocean escaping and flooding? D-Brief considers.


• D-Brief reports that the ALMA radiotelescope has found clouds of organics around young star V883 Ori.


• D-Brief looks at the massive jet, dozens of light years long, issuing from a young star in the nebula LHA 120-N 180B in the Large Magellanic Cloud.