![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
- Artsy notes a study looking at the different factors explaining why Iceland's population is so creative. Among other things, an educational system that encourages hands-on learning and experimentation and a relative lack of material insecurity help.
- Reddit's mapporn forum shares a map showing where displaced Puerto Ricans are resettling. Florida is emerging as a particularly important destination.
- Charlottetown's The Guardian reports on a recent presentation suggesting that, with sea level rise, Prince Edward Island could be divided into three islands. I wonder where the dividing points will be.
- Wind turbine construction on Amherst Island, near Kingston, has been delayed by weather and problems with roads. Global News reports.
- Ireland is now making a push to attract television stations from the United Kingdom post-Brexit, with the legal position of television networks with EU-wide audiences being uncertain after Brexit. The Guardian reports.
[BLOG] Some Tuesday links
Jan. 9th, 2018 04:23 pm- 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.
Tags:
- artificial intelligence,
- astronomy,
- blogs,
- borders,
- charlottetown,
- china,
- chinese language,
- cities,
- creative class,
- economics,
- evolution,
- extraterrestrial life,
- first nations,
- former soviet union,
- france,
- futurology,
- germany,
- glbt issues,
- historiography,
- history,
- human beings,
- language,
- links,
- migration,
- military,
- moon,
- philosophy,
- prince edward island,
- russia,
- second world war,
- sexuality,
- shopping,
- siberia,
- sociology,
- space colonies,
- space science,
- space travel,
- taiwan,
- united states
In a new post over at Demography Matters, I speculate that the recent surge of Polish emigrants to points in western Europe has been precipitated perhaps as much by the discontent of Poland's young generation with the populist conservatism of the Kaczynski government as by the gap between Polish and western Europe living standards. If your country (or region, or city) is competing for valuable workers, it's a very good idea indeed not to scare them away.
