[PHOTO] Three graffitied walls: 2252, 2226, and 2113 Dundas Street West

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Centauri Dreams notes the possible discovery of Proxima Centauri c.


• D-Brief notes the discovery of a second circumbinary planet in the Kepler-47 system.


• Far Outliers notes the Union reaction to the civil war battle of Shiloh.
  
• Mark Graham shares a link to an article abstract examining the impact of call centres on social upgrading in South Africa.


• io9 notes plans for closer integration between the movie and television properties of the MCU.


• JSTOR Daily explains how Florida got its name.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the similarities between the Notre Dame fire and the destruction of the National Museum of Brazil last year.


• The LRB Blog notes the appeal of Gothic architecture.


• Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting that, in the United States, negative effects of the China Shock had concluded a decade ago.


• The NYR Daily looks at Trump's agitprop.


• Drew Rowsome interviews actor Nathaniel Bacon on the occasion of his appearance in a new Sky Gilbert show.


• Peter Rukavina shares a map of light pollution on PEI.


• Starts With A Bang shares a plan for reducing light pollution in an urbanizing world.


• Window on Eurasia complains of a creeping annexation of Belarus by Russia.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Galleria Mall, Ontario vs Toronto, Ontario Line, housing, theatre

• Urban Toronto shares a detailed plan for the Galleria Mall redevelopment.


• Jennifer Pagliaro at the Toronto Star shows how the Ontario government keeps undermining decisions made in Toronto, here.


• Actually building the Ontario Line, beneath Fort York and the Don River, will be a very tricky affair. The Toronto Star reports.


• This Toronto Star article describing how four young adults in their early 20s have to cram into a single apartment in order to live in Toronto is a terrible indictment of our housing policies.


• Rick Salutin at Rabble celebrates the achievements of Toronto's Theatre Passe Muraille.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Montréal links: Biosphere, streetcars, Mirabel, Mount Royal Park, churches

• The National Observer notes the challenges facing the iconic Biosphere of Montréal.


• La Presse reports on the last surviving traces of the old streetcar system of Montréal.


• HuffPostQuébec reports that, more than a half-century after the construction of the failed Mirabel airport, expropriated lands are being returned.


• CityLab reports on the reasons why a trial ban on road traffic through Mount Royal Park did not work out.


• How well-protected are the churches of Montréal against fire? CTV considers.

[ISL] Five #PEI links: MMP, election, Vaisakhi, apartments, cannonry

• In a guest opinion at The Guardian, Stephen DeGrace makes the argument for PEI to vote for a mixed-member proportional electoral system at the end of April.


• 14 thousand voters, 13% of the electorate, cast votes in the advance polling on PEI. CBC PEI reports.


• CBC PEI reports that the Sikh holiday of Vaisakhi was widely celebrated by the Island's growing Sikh community.


• The Guardian notes the creation by Charlottetown of a registry of secondary and garden suites, the better to grapple with the housing crisis.


• Peter Rukavina links to Harry Holman's blog post explaining why there is a cannon lodged in the sidewalk at Queen and Grafton.

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: George Daniell, Black Party, Troye Sivan, Natalie Wynn, Pete Buttigieg

• Queerty profiles the new permanent exhibition in Miami of mid-20th century photographer George Daniell, whose works often including queer subjects date back to the 1940s.


• Mike Miksche writes at Slate about the import of the Black Party in New York City in 1989, for partying gay and bi men in the era of AIDS.


• This extended interview with Troye Sivan at The Guardian exposes a lot of this out star.


• This VICE interview with Contrapoints star Natalie Wynn makes me want to start watching her, now, on YouTube.


• John Aravosis is quite right to argue, at The Daily Beast, that arguing Pete Buttigieg is not gay enough is ridiculous.

[NEWS] Five tech links: Apple, AI, Beresheet 2, agricultural robots, gene editing

• Wired notes that Apple is transforming itself into a luxury brand. Is this an unsustainable niche?


• Wired examines how Google's human AI experts are trying to train artificial intelligences to do their work.


• Universe Today notes that SpaceIL is planning to return to the Moon with a Beresheet 2 probe.


• The New Yorker looks at the progress made towards the roboticization of agriculture, looking at strawberry harvesting in particular. Can it be done?


• Stephen Buranyi writes at the NYR Daily about the impact of gene editing technologies on humanity. How will we manage them? Can we?