[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

[rfmcdonald]

• At Antipope, Charlie Stross takes a look at the dystopian future we've created for ourselves with the help of Big Data.


• Kambiz Kamrani at Anthropology net notes the discovery of an Ancient Beringian population involved in the peopling of the Americas.


• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait considers the awesome possibility of life on pulsar planets, i.e. on planets that survived or were made by a supernova.


• Centauri Dreams suggests that dust, not ET artifacts, may explain the odd light coming from KIC 8462852, aka Boyajian's Star.


• Crooked Timber considers the surprisingly mixed emotions of unions regarding the idea of a guaranteed minimum income.


• Far Outliers takes a look at the diverse non-German soldiers serving in occupied France in the Second World War.


• The Frailest Thing's Michael Sacasas considers parallels between the mentality of Silicon Valley and totalitarianism.


• Hornet Stories considers the questionable idea of a "gold star" or "platinum star" gay person. What, exactly, is being celebrated?


• JSTOR Daily notes the gendered nature of the supermarket of mid-20th century North America.


• Language Hat celebrates the establishment of Hakka as an official language in Taiwan, as does Language Log.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money argues that the previous Oregon laws against self-service gas stations helped boost employment for the vulnerable.


• Lingua Franca considers the concept of "ghosting", linguistically at otherwise.


• Marginal Revolution links to a paper examining how creativity has clustered in cities in the past.


• Out There shares the arguments of Charles Miller for infrastructure to support crewed expansion and settlement in space, starting with the Moon.


• Peter Rukavina talks about his last visit, with his son, to the Sears store in Charlottetown.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes that 2018 may be the year we finally take a picture of a black hole, Sagittarius A* in the heart of our galaxy.


• To what extent is history probabilistic? Understanding Society considers.


• Window on Eurasia notes controversy in Siberia over Chinese investors who come in and disregard local sensitivities and regulations.