rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Adam Fish at anthro{dendum} shares a new take on the atmosphere, as a common good.

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares a photo of Earth taken from a hundred million kilometres away by the OSIRIS-REx probe.

  • The Crux tells the story of how the first exoplanets were found.

  • D-Brief notes that life could be possible on a planet orbiting a supermassive black hole, assuming it could deal with the blueshifting.

  • io9 looks at the latest bold move of Archie Comics.

  • JSTOR Daily explores cleaning stations, where small fish clean larger ones.

  • Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the role China seeks to play in a remade international order.

  • The Map Room Blog looks at the new upcoming national atlas of Estonia.

  • Marginal Revolution touches on the great ambition of Louis XIV for a global empire.

  • Steve Baker of The Numerati shares photos from his recent trip to Spain.

  • Anya Schiffrin at the NRY Daily explains how American journalist Varian Fry helped her family, and others, escape the Nazis.

  • Drew Rowsome reviews the classic movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

  • Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps shares a map looking at the barriers put up by the high-income world to people moving from outside.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel answers the complex question of how, exactly, the density of a black hole can be measured.

  • John Scalzi at Whatever reviews Gemini Man. Was the high frame rate worth it?

  • Window on Eurasia notes the deep hostility of Tuvins towards a large Russian population in Tuva.

  • Arnold Zwicky considers the existential question of self-aware cartoon characters.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Dangerous Minds looks/u> at obscure 1970s glam punk band Rouge, from Japan.

  • Dangerous Minds points readers to the excellent David Bowie fan comic, the biographical "The Side Effects of the Cocaine".

  • Taylor Swift made a wonderful donation to the Regent Park School of Music.

  • I do agree with Anne T. Donahue at CBC Arts Mthat country music needs more of the innovative challenges brought by the Dixie Chicks.

  • CityLab shares a playlist of songs dealing, in one way or another, with maps.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • CBC Toronto bids farewell, fittingly at TCAF time, to the iconic Jason Loo Toronto comic series The Pitiful Human-Lizard.

  • At blogTO, Tanya Mok reports on the resistance of tenants at 54-56 Kensington Avenue to an illegal eviction order by their landlord.

  • The Toronto Star reports on a new matchmaking event intended to connect future roommates to each other.

  • Kevin Ritchie at NOW Toronto reports on how a new pricing scheme for the AGO, including a $35 annual pass for people over 25, reflects a push to try to get more people into museums.

  • Glenn Sumi writes at NOW Toronto about the increasingly steep price of ticket prices for live theatre in Toronto.

  • Toronto Life shares photos from an exhibit, by Patrick Cummins and Ivaan Kotulsky, of Queen Street West in the 1980s and 1990s.

  • Richard Longley writes at NOW Toronto about the emptying of an old warehouse of collectibles and oddities on Wabush, part of the decline of old storied Toronto.

  • Toronto Life shares more photos from outdoor market Stackt, at Front and Bathurst.

  • Steve Munro starts to analyse traffic patterns on the 501 Queen streetcar, looking first at the Neville Loop end.

  • NOW Toronto is one of a few news sources to report on Scarborough writer Téa Mutonji and her new short story collection Shut Up, You're Pretty.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Crooked Timber at John Quiggin takes issue with the idea that, now, there are many Republicans who accept Trump only conditionally, for what a Trump presidency could achieve.

  • D-Brief notes the XT2 signal, issue of a collision between two magnetars in a galaxy 6.6 billion light-years away.

  • Cody Delistraty reports on an exhibit at the Institut du monde arabe in Paris on the history of soccer in world politics.

  • Earther reports on a new satellite mission focused on studying solar-induced fluorescence, the glow of plants as they photosynthesize.

  • Far Outliers notes how U.S. Grant responded to slaves seeking freedom from the Union Army.

  • JSTOR Daily explores Lake Baikal.

  • Language Log reports on the multilingualism of Pete Buttigieg.

  • Abigail Nussbaum at Lawyers, Guns and Money gives deserved praise to the Jason Lutes graphic novel Berlin.

  • Marginal Revolution looks at the ways in which dense social networks can keep stroke victims from getting quick help.

  • The NYR Daily looks at the campaigns and ideas of anti-authoritarian Chinese professor and writer Xu Zhangrun.

  • Drew Rowsome gives a largely negative review to the 2014 Easter horror film The Beaster Bunny.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains why the singularities of black holes have spin.

  • Window on Eurasia notes on the report of a Muslim community leader in Norilsk that a quarter of the population of that Russian Arctic city is of Muslim background.

  • Arnold Zwicky considers the ways in which flowers and penguins and cuteness can interact, with photos.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Architectuul features a photo essay made by Evan Panagopoulos in the course of a hurried three-hour visit to the Socialist Modernist and modern highlights of 20th century Kiev architecture.

  • Bad Astrronomer Phil Plait notes how the latest planet found in the Kepler-47 circumbinary system evokes Tatooine.

  • Centauri Dreams looks at tide and radiation, and their impacts on potential habitability, in the TRAPPIST-1 system.

  • Citizen Science Salon looks at how the TV show Cyberchase can help get young people interested in science and math.

  • Crooked Timber mourns historian David Brion Davis.

  • The Crux looks at how the HMS Challenger pioneered the study of the deeps of the oceans, with that ship's survey of the Mariana Trench.

  • D-Brief looks at how a snowball chamber using supercooled water can be used to hunt for dark matter.

  • Earther shares photos of the heartbreaking and artificial devastation of the Amazonian rainforest of Brazil.

  • Gizmodo shares a beautiful Hubble photograph of the southern Crab Nebula.

  • Information is Beautiful shares a reworked version of the Julia Galef illustration of the San Francisco area meme space.

  • io9 notes that, fresh from being Thor, Jane Foster is set to become a Valkyrie in a new comic.

  • JSTOR Daily explains the Victorian fondness for leeches, in medicine and in popular culture.

  • Language Hat links to an interview with linguist Amina Mettouchi, a specialist in Berber languages.

  • Language Log shares the report of a one-time Jewish refugee on changing language use in Shanghai, in the 1940s and now.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money reports on the horror of self-appointed militias capturing supposed undocumented migrants in the southwestern US.

  • Marginal Revolution reports on the circumstances in which volunteer militaries can outperform conscript militaries.

  • At the NYR Daily, Christopher Benfey reports on the surprisingly intense connection between bees and mourning.

  • Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw, responding to Israel Folau, considers free expression and employment.

  • The Planetary Society Blog shares a guest post from Barney Magrath on the surprisingly cheap adaptations needed to make an iPhone suitable for astrophotography.

  • Peter Rukavina reports on the hotly-contested PEI provincial election of 1966.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains what the discovery of helium hydride actually means.

  • Understanding Society's Daniel Little praises the Jill Lepore US history These Truths for its comprehensiveness.

  • Window on Eurasia reports on the growing divergences in demographics between different post-Soviet countries.

  • Arnold Zwicky starts with another Peeps creation and moves on from there.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • The Guardian reports on the confidence of PEI Green Party leader Peter Bevan-Baker that the April election on PEI is for his party to win.

  • This guide to the wild orchids of PEI sounds very useful. CBC reports.

  • I wish the team at PEI comics group Sandstone Comics the best as they prepare their issues of original material. CBC reports.

  • The costs of anti-HIV drug regimen PrEP are now being covered on PEI for members of at-risk groups. CBC reports.

  • The Guardian features an interview with 80-year-old Charlottetown cobbler David Currie about his life and his career six decades long.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • A formal inquest into the stage collapse that killed one person at a Radiohead concert at Downsview Park in 2012 is only now taking off. CBC reports.

  • The May opening of a new exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe's work at the Olga Korper Gallery, reported by NOW Toronto, is very exciting.

  • blogTO notes a new graphic novel to be put out by Dirty Water Comics dealing with the anti-Semitic Christie Pits Riot of 1933.

  • Queen Video's last location, in the Annex, is finally closing, with plenty of its titles now available to be bought before it shutters its doors at the end of April. Global News reports.

  • NOW Toronto reports on Museum II, a show part of the Myseum Intersections Festival looking at the impact of war and trauma on spaces.

  • Karon Liu, writing at the Toronto Star, explores with WeChat influencer Joanna Luo a whole universe of Chinese restaurants and social networking that was almost unknown to many Torontonians like myself.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • JSTOR Daily examines the anthropology of the office E-mail.

  • VICE shares useful advice from a professor of rhetoric on how to engage in online discussions.

  • I agree entirely with the arguments of Darius Foroux on the benefits of a daily writing habit and how to establish one.

  • Patricia Wrede notes some circumstances, like erratic schedules, in which daily writing quotas might not work well.

  • Comics Beat reports on why award-winning British graphic novelist Hannah Berry has given up her craft: She just cannot support herself by it.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Architectuul looks at the divided cities of the divided island of Cyprus.

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares an image of a galaxy that actually has a tail.

  • Maria Farrell at Crooked Timber talks about her pain as an immigrant in the United Kingdom in the era of Brexit, her pain being but one of many different types created by this move.

  • The Crux talks about the rejected American proposal to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon, and the several times the United States did arrange for lesser noteworthy events there (collisions, for the record).

  • D-Brief notes how the innovative use of Curiosity instruments has explained more about the watery past of Gale Crater.

  • Bruce Dorminey notes one astronomer's theory that Venus tipped early into a greenhouse effect because of a surfeit of carbon relative to Earth.

  • Far Outliers looks at missionaries in China, and their Yangtze explorations, in the late 19th century.

  • Gizmodo notes evidence that Neanderthals and Denisovans cohabited in a cave for millennia.

  • At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox writes about his exploration of the solo music of Paul McCartney.

  • io9 looks at what is happening with Namor in the Marvel universe, with interesting echoes of recent Aquaman storylines.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at the Beothuk of Newfoundland and their sad fate.

  • Language Hat explores Patagonian Afrikaans.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money reports on how mindboggling it is to want to be a billionaire. What would you do with that wealth?

  • The Map Room Blog shares a visualization of the polar vortex.

  • Marginal Revolution reports on the career of a writer who writes stories intended to help people fall asleep.

  • The New APPS Blog reports on the power of biometric data and the threat of its misuse.

  • Neuroskeptic takes a look at neurogenesis in human beings.

  • Out There notes the import, in understanding our solar system, of the New Horizons photos of Ultima Thule.

  • Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog notes that OSIRIS-REx is in orbit of Bennu and preparing to take samples.

  • Roads and Kingdoms shares a list of 21 things that visitors to Kolkata should know.

  • Mark Simpson takes a critical look at the idea of toxic masculinity. Who benefits?

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains why global warming is responsible for the descent of the polar vortex.

  • Window on Eurasia notes how the pro-Russian Gagauz of Moldova are moving towards a break if the country at large becomes pro-Western.

  • Arnold Zwicky looks at the art of Finnish painter Hugo Simberg.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Ontario PCs have shamefully voted in favour of no longer recognizing gender identity. If this party, forming a government that has already invoked the notwithstanding clause, tries anything else against transgender people, let the fight start. Global News reports.

  • The essay of Peter Knegt at CBC Arts highlighting problems of queer representation in Bohemian Rhapsody needs to be read. Why is so much of the queer content fictionally represented as negative?

  • Peter Knegt at CBC Arts points out that Scott Thompson deserves to be recognized as a Canadian treasure.

  • This Jon Shadel essay at them exploring how the Internet opened up new channels for communication and self-identification as a queer person speaks deeply to me.

  • The Houston Chronicle explores Check Please, Ngozi Ukazu's fantastic queer hockey webcomic.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Centauri Dreams takes a look at the first generation of stars, starting with newly-discovered ancient 2MASS J18082002–5104378 B.
  • Crooked Timber takes a look at the political opinions of different generations in the United States. Is there a shift about to happen?

  • The Crux takes a look at the excavation of the floating pleasure palaces of Caligula in Italy's Lake Nemi, something showing the scope of Roman construction.

  • D-Brief notes how scientists managed to trigger limb regrowth in frogs, with obvious potential for humans.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at the many quiet ways in which the slaves of Arkansas resisted their domination by whites.

  • Lingua Franca takes a look at the strange linguistic crime of blasphemy in 21st century Europe.

  • At the NYR Daily, Nicole Rudick examines the early work of underground Montréal cartoonist Julie Doucet.

  • Window on Eurasia shares a warning that growing pressures on land could lead to ethnic conflict in the North Caucasus.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Jason Kehe at Wired suggests that now is the time of the science-fiction novella, not least because of their compact size.

  • Esquire links to a video in which Stanley Kubrick gives his definitive interpretation of the ending of the movie version of 2001.

  • Alex Cranz at io9 makes the argument that Supergirl, as an adult immigrant to Earth trying to find her way in an unknown world with great recent shows, resonates more deeply with the Super mythos than a more confused Superman.

  • Jessica Wong at CBC reports on how campaigns by devoted fans can save cult SF television shows like the Toronto-filmed Shadowhunters.

  • James Nicoll at Tor, looking back to the 1970s, uses a Judy-Lynn Del Rey anthology series of the era to highlight some noteworthy authors.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly talks about her experience at the NY Daily News after that newspaper halved its staff.

  • Hornet Stories talks about US Navy drag queen Harper Daniels.

  • io9 notes that Chelsea Cain is returning to Marvel to write for a new mini-series featuring the Vision.

  • JSTOR Daily
rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • At Anthropology.net, Kambiz Kamrani notes evidence that Australopithecus africanus suffered the same sorts of dental issues as modern humans.

  • Architectuul considers, in the specific context of Portugal, a project by architects seeking to create new vehicles and new designs to enable protest.

  • Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait looks at HD 34445, a Sun-like star somewhat older than our own that has two gas giants within its circumstellar habitable zone. Could these worlds have moons which could support life?

  • James Bow celebrates Osgoode as Gold, the next installment in the Toronto Comics anthology of local stories.

  • At Crooked Timber, Henry Farrell in the wake of Italian elections revisits the idea of post-democratic politics, of elections which cannot change things.

  • D-Brief notes that monkeys given ayahuasca seem to have been thereby cured of their depression. Are there implications for humans, here?

  • Dangerous Minds notes the facekini, apparently a popular accessory for Chinese beach-goers.

  • Imageo notes the shocking scale of snowpack decline in the western United States, something with long-term consequences for water supplies.

  • JSTOR Daily notes a paper suggesting that the cultivation of coffee does not harm--perhaps more accurately, need not harm--biodiversity.

  • Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the potential of the United States to start to extricate itself from the ongoing catastrophe in Yemen.

  • The NYR Daily features an interview with photographer Dominique Nabokov about her photos of living rooms.

  • Drew Rowsome writes a mostly-positive review of the new drama Rise, set around a high school performance of Spring Awakening. If only the lead, the drama teacher behind the production, was not straight-washed.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel makes the case that there are only three major types of planets, Terran and Neptunian and Jovian.

  • Towleroad notes the awkward coming out of actor Lee Pace.

  • Worthwhile Canadian Initiative suggests one way to try to limit the proliferation of guns would be to engineer in planned obsolescence, at least ensuring turnover.

  • Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell U>notes that one of his suggestions, ensuring that different national governments should have access to independent surveillance satellites allowing them to accurately evaluate situations on the ground, is in fact being taken up.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • If Annihilation is the start of a wave of interesting new sci-fi films, looking at the genre from new angles, this is good. I just hope distribution can be solved. Rolling Stone has it.

  • This essay on the role of memory in the Blade Runner series, as a marker of identity and more, is superb.

  • The Telling, last of Le Guin's Hainish novels, is set for a movie release. io9 reports.

  • That Neil Gaiman has authorized DC Comics to release four comics set in the Sandman part of their universe is amazing. io9 reports.

  • This extended take on how Deep Space Nine revolutionized the Trek format, looking at the universe from new and very creative angles, says what needs to be said. This is the reason it is my favourite Trek series. io9 has it.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • The Counterfactual History Review takes/u> a look at the plausibility of Wakanda, as a society, and finds it holds up. (There's something to be said about having the problems of one's own society being indigenous, not imposed by colonizers.)

  • This article takes a look at the interest of Lesotho, a mountainous kingdom of southern Africa that was never quite fully colonized, on the idea of Wakanda.

  • What is the relationship of Wakanda to Africa and the wider black diaspora? This article makes an argument. (Spoilers.)

  • Queer representation in Wakanda is a real thing. All the more frustrating, then, if it is not quite realized.

  • The Toronto Public Library's The Buzz points readers to more comics exploring Black Panther and Wakanda.

  • Vulture takes a look at Christopher Priest, the writer who helped make Black Panther the character he is today more than a decade ago but then disappeared.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares one picture of a vast galaxy cluster to underline how small our place in the universe is.

  • The Boston Globe's The Big Picture shares some photos of Syrian refugee families as they settle into the United States.

  • Centauri Dreams looks at the Dragonfly proposal for a Titan lander.

  • The Crux notes the exceptional vulnerability of the cultivated banana to an otherwise obscure fungus.

  • Bruce Dorminey notes NASA's preparation of the Clipper mission to investigate Europa.

  • The Frailest Thing's Michael Sacasas takes a look at the role of surveillance in the life of the modern student.

  • Hornet Stories has a nice interview of Sina Grace, author of Marvel's Iceman book.

  • Joe. My. God. reshared this holiday season a lovely anecdote, "Dance of the Sugar Plum Lesbians."

  • JSTOR Daily took a look at why Americans like dieting so much.

  • The LRB Blog considers the Thames Barrier, the meager protection of London against tides in a time of climate change.

  • The Map Room Blog notes the digitization of radar maps of Antarctica going back to the 1960s.

  • Marginal Revolution seems cautiously optimistic about the prospects of Morocco.
  • Russell Darnley at maximos62 is skeptical about the prospects of the forests of Indonesia's Riau province.

  • Stephanie Land at the NYR Daily talks about how she managed to combine becoming a writer with being a single mother of two young children.

  • Out There argues a lunar fuel depot could help support crewed interplanetary exploration.

  • Science Sushi notes genetic evidence the lionfish invasion of the North Atlantic off Florida began not with a single escape but with many.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel makes the argument an unmanned probe to Alpha Centauri could have significant technological spinoffs.

  • Supernova Condensate makes the point, apropos of nothing at all, that spaceship collisions can in fact unleash vast amounts of energy.

  • Window on Eurasia notes that, while Kazakhs see practical advantages to cooperation with Russia, they also see some problems.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares beautiful images of nebula Sharpless 2-29, brilliant and beautiful from the heart of our galaxy.

  • Centauri Dreams notes how New Horizons is maneuvering for its rendezvous with KBO MU69 on 1 January 2019.

  • Daily JSTOR notes how Indian schools were at once vehicles for the assimilation of American indigenous peoples and also sites for potential resistance.

  • Dangerous Minds shares the vintage Vampirella art of Enrique Torres-Prat.

  • From Tumblr, Explain It Like I'm Not From Lawrence looks at a very unusual tower in the downtown of that Kansas community.

  • Hornet Stories notes that PrEP is becoming available in Brazil, but only for a small subset of potential users.

  • Imageo notes a recent American study observing that the degree of Arctic heating is in at least two millennia.

  • Joe. My. God. notes that Bermuda has repealed marriage equality. I can't help but think this will not help the island's tourism.

  • Language Hat links to a new encyclopedia article examining the origins of the Japanese language. I'm surprised the article suggests there are no verifiable links to Korean, Paekche aside.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money has an after-action report on the Alabama senate election. I agree with most of the conclusions--certainly it shows a need to contest every election!

  • Allan Metcalf at Lingua Franca quite likes the term "fake news" for its specific power, claiming it as his word of 2017.

  • The NYR Daily reflects on an exhibition of the powerful works of Modigliani.

  • The Planetary Society Blog reports on some infrared images taken by Juno of Jupiter and volcanic Io.

  • Roads and Kingdoms shares 21 pieces of advice for people interested in visiting Iran as tourists.

  • Towleroad's list of the Top 10 albums of 2017 is worth paying attention to.

  • If this Window on Eurasia report is correct and HIV seroprevalence in Russia is twice the proportion officially claimed, 1.5% of the population ...

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares stunning images, from Jupiter, of the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, and analysis.

  • Hornet Stories notes that a reboot of 1980s animation classic She-Ra is coming to Netflix.

  • io9 carries reports suggesting that the new X-Men Dark Phoenix movie is going to have plenty of good female representation. Here's to hoping. It also notes that the seminal George Lucas short film "Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB" is viewable for free online, but only for a short while.

  • Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting that IQ score, more than education, is the single biggest factor explaining why a person might become an inventor.

  • The NYR Daily looks at the alliance rightfully called "unholy" between religious militants and the military in Pakistan.

  • The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer explains how the strong social networks of Italian migrants in Argentina a century ago helped them eventually do better than native-born Argentines (and Spanish immigrants, too).

  • Roads and Kingdoms notes the simple joys of pupusas, Salvadoran tortillas, on a rainy day in Vancouver.

  • Towleroad reports on interesting research suggesting that gay men are more likely to have older brothers, even suggesting a possible biological mechanism for this.

  • Window on Eurasia notes reports of fights between Russian and Muslim students at Russian centres of higher education.
rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • CBC Montreal notes how Andrée Archambault has been leaving books on the Montréal Metro for commuters to find.

  • CBC's Jonathan Ore notes the (perhaps surprisingly) innovative Transformers comics put out by IDW.

  • At The Conversation, Una McCormack writes about how the 13th Doctor being played by Jodie Whittaker fulfills her childhood dreams.

  • At The Globe and Mail, Russell Smith examines why the alt-right hates cultural experimentation and innovation so much.

Profile

rfmcdonald: (Default)rfmcdonald

February 2021

S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
212223242526 27
28      

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 18th, 2025 03:38 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios