[BLOG] Some Friday links

[rfmcdonald]

(A day late, I know; I crashed after work yesterday.)

• Antipope's Charlie Stross has a thought experiment: If you were superwealthy and guaranteed to live a long health life, how would you try to deal with the consequence of economic inequality?


• Vikas Charma at Architectuul takes a look at the different factors that go into height in buildings.


• Bad Astronomy notes S5-HVS1, a star flung out of the Milky Way Galaxy by Sagittarius A* at 1755 kilometres per second.


• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly shares photos from two Manhattan walks of hers, taken in non-famous areas.


• Centauri Dreams looks at habitability for red dwarf exoplanets. Stellar activity matters.


• Maria Farrell at Crooked Timber shares words from a manifesto about data protection in the EU.


• Dangerous Minds shares photos from Los Angeles punks and mods and others in the 1980s.


• Bruce Dorminey notes a ESA report suggesting crew hibernation could make trips to Mars easier.


• Gizmodo notes that the Hayabusa2 probe of Japan is returning from asteroid Ryugu with a sample.


• Imageo shares photos of the disastrous fires in Australia from space.


• Information is Beautiful reports on winners of the Information is Beautiful Awards for 2019, for good infographics.


• JSTOR Daily explains how local television stations made the ironic viewing of bad movies a thing.


• Kotaku reports on the last days of Kawasaki Warehouse, an arcade in Japan patterned on the demolished Walled City of Kowloon.


• Language Hat notes how translation mistakes led to the star Beta Cygni gaining the Arabic name Albireo.


• Language Log reports on a unique Cantonese name of a restaurant in Hong Kong.


• Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money links to an analysis of his suggesting the military of India is increasingly hard-pressed to counterbalance China.


• The LRB Blog notes the catastrophe of Venice.


• Marginal Revolution notes a paper suggesting states would do well not to place their capitals too far away from major population centres.


• Justin Petrone at North! remarks on a set of old apple preserves.


• The NYR Daily looks at how the west and the east of the European Union are divided by different conceptions of national identity.


• Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections reports from his town of Armidale as the smoke from the Australian wildfires surrounds all. The photos are shocking.


• Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog lists some books about space suitable for children.


• Drew Rowsome reviews the Canadian film music stand, inspired by the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike.


• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper noting that, in Switzerland, parenthood does not make people happy.


• The Signal notes that 1.7 million phone book pages have been scanned into the records of the Library of Congress.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains the concept of multi-messenger astronomy and why it points the way forward for studies of astrophysics.


• Strange Maps looks at how a majority of students in the United States attend diverse schools, and where.


• Strange Company explores the mysterious death of Marc-Antoine Calas, whose death triggered the persecution of Huguenots and resulted in the mobilization of Enlightenment figures like Voltaire against the state. What happened?


• Towleroad hosts a critical, perhaps disappointed, review of the major gay play The Inheritance.


• Understanding Society's Daniel Little looks at the power of individual people in political hierarchies.


• Window on Eurasia shares an opinion piece noting how many threats to the Russian language have come from its association with unpopular actions by Russia.


• Arnold Zwicky explores queens as various as Elizabeth I and Adore Delano.