[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Charlie Stross at Antipope shares an essay he recently presented on artificial intelligence and its challenges for us.


• P. Kerim Friedman writes at {anthro}dendum about the birth of the tea ceremony in the Taiwan of the 1970s.


• Anthropology net reports on a cave painting nearly 44 thousand years old in Indonesia depicting a hunting story.


• Architectuul looks at some temporary community gardens in London.


• Bad Astronomy reports on the weird history of asteroid Ryugu.


• The Buzz talks about the most popular titles borrowed from the Toronto Public Library in 2019.


• Caitlin Kelly talks at the Broadside Blog about her particular love of radio.


• Centauri Dreams talks about the role of amateur astronomers in searching for exoplanets, starting with LHS 1140 b.


• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber looks at what is behind the rhetoric of "virtue signalling".


• Dangerous Minds shares concert performance from Nirvana filmed the night before the release of Nevermind.


• Bruce Dorminey notes new evidence that, even before the Chixculub impact, the late Cretaceous Earth was staggering under environmental pressures.


• Myron Strong at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about how people of African descent in the US deal with the legacies of slavery in higher education.


• Far Outliers reports on the plans in 1945 for an invasion of Japan by the US.


• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing gathers together a collection of the author's best writings there.


• Gizmodo notes the immensity of the supermassive black hole, some 40 billion solar masses, at the heart of galaxy Holm 15A 700 million light-years away.


• Russell Arben Fox at In Media Res writes about the issue of how Wichita is to organize its civic politics.


• io9 argues that the 2010s were a decade where the culture of the spoiler became key.


• The Island Review points readers to the podcast Mother's Blood, Sister's Songs, an exploration of the links between Ireland and Iceland.


• Joe. My. God. reports on the claim of the lawyer of the killer of a mob boss that the QAnon conspiracy inspired his actions. This strikes me as terribly dangerous.


• JSTOR Daily looks at a study examining scholarly retractions.


• Language Hat shares an amusing cartoon illustrating the relationships of the dialects of Arabic.


• Language Log lists ten top new words in the Japanese language.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the dissipation of American diplomacy by Trump.


• The LRB Blog looks at the many problems in Sparta, Greece, with accommodating refugees, for everyone concerned.


• Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting the decline of the one-child policy in China has diminished child trafficking, among other crimes.


• Sean Marshall, looking at transit in Brampton, argues that transit users need more protection from road traffic.


• Russell Darnley shares excerpts from essays he wrote about the involvement of Australia in the Vietnam War.


• Peter Watts talks about his recent visit to a con in Sofia, Bulgaria, and about the apocalypse, here.


• The NYR Daily looks at the corporatization of the funeral industry, here.


• Diane Duane writes, from her own personal history with Star Trek, about how one can be a writer who ends up writing for a media franchise.


• Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections considers the job of tasting, and rating, different cuts of lamb.


• The Planetary Society Blog looks at a nondescript observatory in the Mojave desert of California that maps the asteroids of the solar system.


• Roads and Kingdoms interviews Eduardo Chavarin about, among other things, Tijuana.


• Drew Rowsome loves the SpongeBob musical.


• Peter Rukavina announces that Charlottetown has its first public fast charger for electric vehicles.


• The Russian Demographics Blog considers the impact of space medicine, here.


• The Signal reports on how the Library of Congress is making its internet archives more readily available, here.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel considers how the incredibly isolated galaxy MCG+01-02-015 will decay almost to nothing over almost uncountable eons.


• Strange Company reports on the trial and execution of Christopher Slaughterford for murder. Was there even a crime?


• Strange Maps shares a Coudenhove-Kalergi map imagining the division of the world into five superstates.


• Understanding Society considers entertainment as a valuable thing, here.


• Denis Colombi at Une heure de peine announces his new book, Où va l'argent des pauvres?


• John Scalzi at Whatever looks at how some mailed bread triggered a security alert, here.


• Window on Eurasia reports on the massive amount of remittances sent to Tajikistan by migrant workers, here.


• Arnold Zwicky notes a bizarre no-penguins sign for sale on Amazon.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links

• Some of the apartments hit by the Gosford apartment fire have been repaired and opened to their tenants again. Global News reports.


• Steve Munro maps the 70 O'Connor bus route in action as a case study, here.


• Condo developers have created the new neighbourhood of "West St. Clair West" out of, among other established neighbourhoods, Carleton Village. blogTO reports.


• The plans for the controversial new Pharrell Williams condo development at Yonge and Eglinton look interesting. blogTO shares.


• Should Toronto have free public mass transit? NOW Toronto makes the case.


• Brian Doucet at Spacing Toronto takes a look at the Toronto CLRV streetcars in their North American context, here.


• The repeated flooding of the Toronto Islands, as NOW Toronto points out, surely demonstrates the reality of climate change for Toronto.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven city links: Mississauga, Oshawa, Hamilton, London, Kingston, Montréal, Québec

• A historic bridge over the Credit River in Mississauga, happily, will not be demolished but instead will be repaired. CBC reports.


• Now that automobile production has stopped at the Oshawa General Motors plant, what will become of that city? CBC reports.


• The auditor-general of Ontario will investigate the claimed costs that led to the cancellation of the Hamilton LRT. Global News reports.


• A new bus route now connects London, Ontario, to Sarnia. Global News reports.


• Kingstonist reports that filming for the season finale of Star Trek: Discovery has just finished up in Kingston, at the pen.


• Joe Buongiorno writes at CBC Montreal at his, specifically Italian Canadian, experiences with the Jean Talon Market in Montréal.


• Le Devoir notes that many radio stations in Québec City are leading opposition to the proposed streetcar system.

[BLOG] Five Bad Astronomy links (@badastronomer)

• Bad Astronomy notes the remarkable burst of starbirth at the core of our galaxy one billion years ago, here.


• Bad Astronomy shares a flyby video of the Mars moon of Phobos.


• Bad Astronomer reports on a strange storm around the south pole of Jupiter, here.


• Bad Astronomer reports on an outburst following a debris impact seen by TESS on comet 47P/Wirtanen.


• Bad Astronomer notes the continuing debate over the dynamic nature of the spiral arms of galaxies.

[BLOG] Five LRB Blog links (#lrbblog)

• Daniel Trilling at the LRB Blog writes about a visit to the House of European History museum in Brussels.


• The LRB Blog explores Australia at a time of fire, here.


• What is going on, the LRB Blog considers, in Algeria?


• Giving birth in France at a time of mass strikes, the LRB Blog suggests, is certainly an interesting experience.


• James Butler writes at the LRB Blog about what Labour has to do after its stunning electoral defeat.

[BLOG] Five NYR Daily links (@nyrdaily)

• Claire Messud writes at the NYR Daily about two art exhibits concerned with borders.


• Caitlin Chandler writes at the NYR Daily about the state of the experiment of Germany with mass reception and integration of refugees.


• The NYR Daily explores the modern Russian history of state-sponsored murder outside of its frontiers.


• Moroccan writer Hisham Aldi writes at NYR Daily about his relationship with Paul Bowles.


• The NYR Daily reports on a remarkable exhibit at the Barbican in London of notable nightclubs in 20th century culture.

[NEWS] Fourteen links

• By at least one metric, New Brunswick now lags economically behind a more dynamic Prince Edward Island. CBC reports.


• NOW Toronto looks at toxic fandoms. ("Stanning" sounds really creepy to me.)


• This CityLab article looks at how the particular characteristics of Japan, including its high population density, helps keep alive there retail chains that have failed in the US.


• MacLean's looks at Kent Monkman, enjoying a new level of success with his diptych Mistikôsiwak at the Met in NYC.


• Can there be something that can be said for the idea of an Internet more strongly pillarized? Wired argues.


• I reject utterly the idea of meaningful similarities between Drake and Leonard Cohen. CBC did it.


• Toronto Life looks at the life of a Hamilton woman hurt badly by the cancellation of the basic income pilot, here.


• Inspired by the death of Gord Downie, Ontario now has the office of poet-laureate. CBC reports.


• Is Canada at risk, like Ireland, of experiencing two-tier health care? CBC considers.


• A French immigrant couple has brought the art of artisanal vinegar to ile d'Orléans. CBC reports.


• Shore erosion is complicating the lives of people along Lake Erie. CBC reports.


• MacLean's notes how Via Rail making it difficult for people without credit cards to buy anything on their trains, hurting many.


• Michelle Legro notes at Gen that the 2010s is the decade where conspiracy culture became mainstream.


• This essay by Robert Greene at his blog talking about what history, and historians, can do in our era is thought-provoking.