[PHOTO] Tulips, pink and red with green, Paul Kane House

[VIDEO] "Operation Jane Walk"

"Operation Jane Walk" (Watch on Vimeo)

Operation Jane Walk from Leonhard Müllner on Vimeo.

Via The Atlantic, I came across "Operation Jane Walk", a 2018 video by Leonhard Müllner and Robin Klengel that uses the setting of an apocalyptic Manhattan in the 2016 video game Tom Clancy's The Division to engage in a sort of Jane's Walk in a virtual city. Their narration does a cool job of exploring the urban history of 20th century New York, its evolution and change in the globalized world.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Centauri Dreams reports on how dataset mining of K2 data revealed 18 more Earth-sized planets.


• Crooked Timber speculates on how Clarence Thomas might rule on abortion given his public rulings.


• D-Brief observes that some corals in Hawaii appear to thrive in acidic waters. Is there hope yet for coral reefs?


• Karen Sternheimer writes at the Everyday Sociology Blog about how sociology and history overlap, in their subjects and in their methods.


• Far Outliers examines how the last remnants of Soviet power faded quickly around the world in 1991.


• Gizmodo looks at how an image of a rare albino panda has just been captured.


• Joe. My. God. notes how Christian fundamentalists want to make the east of Washington State into a 51st state run by Biblical law.


• JSTOR Daily notes how trees can minimize algae blooms in nearby water systems.


• Victor Mair at Language Log takes issue with problematic pop psychology regarding bilingualism in Singapore.


• Lawyers, Guns, and Money takes issue with trying to minimize court decisions like (for instance) a hypothetical overthrow of Miranda v. Arizona. (Roe v. Wade is what they are concerned with.)


• The NYR Daily looks at the short storied life of avant-garde filmmaker Barbara Rubin.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains why we can never learn everything about our universe.


• Towleroad notes that downloads of the relationship app Hinge have surged after Pete Buttigieg said he met his now-husband there.


• Window on Eurasia notes that Ukraine is seeking to have the Kerch Strait separating Crimea from adjacent Russia declared an international body of water.


• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at what famed gay writer John Rechy is doing these days.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: food, McDonald's, cell phones, cricket, renoviction

• NOW Toronto notes that poor and racialized people in Toronto find it difficult to access healthy food.


• blogTO observes that the McDonald's at King and Dufferin has installed blue lights in washrooms to try to discourage the shooting up there of heroin.


• The TTC is set to offer cell phone service in some downtown tunnels. blogTO reports.


• Perry King at Spacing reports on how Toronto needs to expand its facilities for the growing number of players of cricket.


• Samantha Edwards at NOW Toronto reports that the owner of 795 College has been fined $C 135 000 for the renoviction of prior tenants.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Kitchener-Waterloo, Bowmanville, Kingston, Laval, Québec City

• Grand River Transit, in Kitchener-Waterloo, is running a contest giving a winner a chance to ride the first Ion train. Global News reports.


• Can the eastern GTA city of Bowmanville get included in Metrolinx's plans for GO Transit expansion? Global News reports.


• Kingston, Ontario, is preparing for a new tourist season, capitalizing on its many museums and history sites. Global News reports.


• Le Devoir reports a new REM train station in Laval might be in a flood risk area.


• This year, Québec City is trying to balance the needs of tourists and residents in Vieux-Québec. CTV News reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five links on cities: housing, public space, Millennialks, mass transit, beauty

• Increasing the housing supply will not necessarily decrease inequality. CityLab reports.


• American cities need more public spaces, for the health and well-being of all. The Atlantic reports.


• Having large populations of educated Millennials is a good problem for cities. Bloomberg reports.


• Atlas Obscura profiles some cool systems of mass transit from around the world.


• CityLab observes how beauty in a city can boost its growth.

[NEWS] Five JSTOR Daily links: Blaschka glass, Priestley, crime, Humphrey, writing

• JSTOR Daily looks at the remarkable glasswork of the Blaschka Invertebrate Collection.


• JSTOR Daily looks at the political radicalism of inventor Joseph Priestley.


• JSTOR Daily looks at how Midwesterners responded to the 1930s craze of bank robberies with their own improvised systems in the face of police failures.


• JSTOR Daily explains why Hubert Humphrey, despite his conventional strengths, was not going to be a winning Democratic candidate for President.


• Austin Allen writes at JSTOR Daily about the complicated aesthetic and political radicalism of W.H. Auden, George Orwell, and James Baldwin.