[BLOG] Some Friday links

[rfmcdonald]

• The Burgh Diaspora notes the two-way migration between Vancouver and Hong Kong.


• Centauri Dreams goes into detail about various data-mining exercises charged with detecting signs of extraterrestrial civilization from already-extant astronomical data.


• The Dragon's Tales notes a recent study conclusion that Homo floresiensis--the hobbits of eastern Indonesia--likely had larger brains than previously thought, suggesting that they may share a common ancestry with us.


• Geocurrents considers more map-based, Internet-based nationalist propaganda, this strain depicting a Greater Pakistan at the expense of India.


• Joe. My. God. observes that the Vietnamese deputy health minister called for same-sex marriage.


• At Lawyers, Guns and Money, Erik Loomis unpacks the background behind the weak zoning regulations in the United States, as evidenced by the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas in the middle of a residential area.


• Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen shares a picture taken by Chris Hadfield of Berlin at night. Even now, the two halves of the city look different from space, having different sorts of streetlights.


• Registan's Joshua Foust is concerned about a crackdown on civil society ongoing in Russia.


• Torontoist reports on the latest controversies over land use in Kensington Market and that neighbourhood's identity.