rfmcdonald | Entries tagged with indonesia

You're viewing

rfmcdonald's journal
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: light

Anthropology.net notes a remarkably thorough genetic analysis of a piece of chewing gum 5700 years old that reveals volumes of data about the girl who chew it.

'Nathan Burgoine at Apostrophen writes an amazing review of Cats that actually does make me want to see it.

Bad Astronomy reports on galaxy NGC 6240, a galaxy produced by a collision with three supermassive black holes.

Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog writes about the mechanics of journalism.

Centauri Dreams argues that the question of whether humans will walk on exoplanets is ultimately distracting to the study of these worlds.

Crooked Timber shares a Sunday morning photo of Bristol.

The Dragon's Tales notes that India has a launch date of December 2021 for its first mission in its Gaganyaan crewed space program.

Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina looks at the Saturn C-1 rocket.

Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog considers if the vogue for minimalism meets the criteria to be considered a social movement.

Far Outliers ?notes how, in the War of 1812, some in New England considered the possibility of seceding from the Union.

Gizmodo looks at evidence of the last populations known of Homo erectus, on Java just over a hundred thousand years ago.

Mark Graham links to a new paper co-authored by him looking at how African workers deal with the gig economy.

io9 announces that the Michael Chabon novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, is set to become a television series.

Joe. My. God. shares a report that Putin gave Trump anti-Ukrainian conspiracy theories.

JSTOR Daily considers what a world with an economy no longer structured around oil could look like.

Language Hat takes issue with the latest talk of the Icelandic language facing extinction.

Language Log shares a multilingual sign photographed in Philadelphia's Chinatown.

Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the document release revealing the futility of the war in Afghanistan.

The LRB Blog looks at class identity and mass movements and social democracy.

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution suggests that, even if the economy of China is larger than the United States, Chinese per capita poverty means China does not have the leading economy.

Diane Duane at Out of Ambit writes about how she is writing a gay sex scene.

Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections reflects on "OK Boomer".

Roads and Kingdoms interviews Mexican chef Ruffo Ibarra.

Peter Rukavina shares his list of levees for New Year's Day 2020 on PEI.

The Russian Demographics Blog shares a map indicating fertility rates in the different regions of the European Union.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains how quantum physics are responsible for vast cosmic structures.

Charles Soule at Whatever explains his reasoning behind his new body-swap novel.

Window on Eurasia notes how the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Paris show the lack of meaningful pro-Russian sentiment there.

Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell talks about his lessons from working in the recent British election.

Arnold Zwicky looks at a syncretic, Jewish-Jedi, holiday poster.

Charlie Stross at Antipope shares an essay he recently presented on artificial intelligence and its challenges for us.

P. Kerim Friedman writes at {anthro}dendum about the birth of the tea ceremony in the Taiwan of the 1970s.

Anthropology net reports on a cave painting nearly 44 thousand years old in Indonesia depicting a hunting story.

Architectuul looks at some temporary community gardens in London.

Bad Astronomy reports on the weird history of asteroid Ryugu.

The Buzz talks about the most popular titles borrowed from the Toronto Public Library in 2019.

Caitlin Kelly talks at the Broadside Blog about her particular love of radio.

Centauri Dreams talks about the role of amateur astronomers in searching for exoplanets, starting with LHS 1140 b.

John Quiggin at Crooked Timber looks at what is behind the rhetoric of "virtue signalling".

Dangerous Minds shares concert performance from Nirvana filmed the night before the release of Nevermind.

Bruce Dorminey notes new evidence that, even before the Chixculub impact, the late Cretaceous Earth was staggering under environmental pressures.

Myron Strong at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about how people of African descent in the US deal with the legacies of slavery in higher education.

Far Outliers reports on the plans in 1945 for an invasion of Japan by the US.

L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing gathers together a collection of the author's best writings there.

Gizmodo notes the immensity of the supermassive black hole, some 40 billion solar masses, at the heart of galaxy Holm 15A 700 million light-years away.

Russell Arben Fox at In Media Res writes about the issue of how Wichita is to organize its civic politics.

io9 argues that the 2010s were a decade where the culture of the spoiler became key.

The Island Review points readers to the podcast Mother's Blood, Sister's Songs, an exploration of the links between Ireland and Iceland.

Joe. My. God. reports on the claim of the lawyer of the killer of a mob boss that the QAnon conspiracy inspired his actions. This strikes me as terribly dangerous.

JSTOR Daily looks at a study examining scholarly retractions.

Language Hat shares an amusing cartoon illustrating the relationships of the dialects of Arabic.

Language Log lists ten top new words in the Japanese language.

Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the dissipation of American diplomacy by Trump.

The LRB Blog looks at the many problems in Sparta, Greece, with accommodating refugees, for everyone concerned.

Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting the decline of the one-child policy in China has diminished child trafficking, among other crimes.

Sean Marshall, looking at transit in Brampton, argues that transit users need more protection from road traffic.

Russell Darnley shares excerpts from essays he wrote about the involvement of Australia in the Vietnam War.

Peter Watts talks about his recent visit to a con in Sofia, Bulgaria, and about the apocalypse, here.

The NYR Daily looks at the corporatization of the funeral industry, here.

Diane Duane writes, from her own personal history with Star Trek, about how one can be a writer who ends up writing for a media franchise.

Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections considers the job of tasting, and rating, different cuts of lamb.

The Planetary Society Blog looks at a nondescript observatory in the Mojave desert of California that maps the asteroids of the solar system.

Roads and Kingdoms interviews Eduardo Chavarin about, among other things, Tijuana.

Drew Rowsome loves the SpongeBob musical.

Peter Rukavina announces that Charlottetown has its first public fast charger for electric vehicles.

The Russian Demographics Blog considers the impact of space medicine, here.

The Signal reports on how the Library of Congress is making its internet archives more readily available, here.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel considers how the incredibly isolated galaxy MCG+01-02-015 will decay almost to nothing over almost uncountable eons.

Strange Company reports on the trial and execution of Christopher Slaughterford for murder. Was there even a crime?

Strange Maps shares a Coudenhove-Kalergi map imagining the division of the world into five superstates.

Understanding Society considers entertainment as a valuable thing, here.

Denis Colombi at Une heure de peine announces his new book, Où va l'argent des pauvres?

John Scalzi at Whatever looks at how some mailed bread triggered a security alert, here.

Window on Eurasia reports on the massive amount of remittances sent to Tajikistan by migrant workers, here.

Arnold Zwicky notes a bizarre no-penguins sign for sale on Amazon.

Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait shares images of Jupiter, imaged in infrared by ALMA.

Centauri Dreams looks at ocean upwelling on one class of super-habitable exoplanet.

D-Brief looks at how the Komodo dragon survived the threat of extinction.

Far Outliers reports on a mid-19th century slave raid in the Sahel.

Gizmodo notes that the secret US Air Force spaceplane, the X-37B, has spent two years in orbit. (Doing what?)

JSTOR Daily looks at the economic underpinnings of medieval convents.

Dave Brockington writes at Lawyers, Guns and Money about the continuing meltdown of the British political system in the era of Brexit, perhaps even of British democracy.

The LRB Blog looks at the impact of Brexit on the Common Travel Area.

Marginal Revolution reports on how Poland has tried to deter emigration by removing income taxes on young workers.

Carole Naggar writes at the NYR Daily about the photography of women photographers working for LIFE, sharing examples of their work.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains why time has to be a dimension of the universe, alongside the three of space.

Frank Jacobs of Strange Maps shares NASA images of the forest fires of Amazonia.

Window on Eurasia notes that many Russophones of Ukraine are actually strongly opposed to Russia, contrary Russian stereotypes of language determining politics.

Tensions between the LGBTQ communities of Hamilton and the police remain high. Global News reports.

The federal government will be providing funding for the new Great West Park of Montréal. CTV News reports.

CityLab looks at the hometown of Toni Morrison, the Ohio community of Lorain, here.

Guardian Cities looks at the question of how, or whether, a Buenos Aires slum should become an official neighbourhood, here.

Guardian Cities reports on a small neighbourhood, Cosmo Park, built on top of a shopping mall in Jakarta, here.

Missisauga's mayor Bonnie Crombie makes the case for her city's independence from Peel Region, over at the Toronto Star.

CityLab features a Richard Florida interview with sociologist Alejandro Portes on his new book examining the history and future of Miami.

New maps showing flood risks are available to municipalities in the Montréal region, but for various reasons they are not using them yet. CBC reports.

Guardian Cities reports on how the new president of Indonesia wants to move the country's capital away from megacity Jakarta to a new location on the island of Borneo.

CityLab reports on how the Swiss city of Lausanne is making use of innovative new community consultations to decide how to manage its Place de la Riponne.

This story about a genealogical mystery newly-found in the genetics of Newfoundland is fascinating. The National Post reports.

The island of Komodo has been closed to tourists to save the Komodo dragons from poachers. VICE reports.

China plans to build a city under its control among the islets of the South China Sea. Business Insider reports.

The Inter Press Service notes the spread of leprosy in Kiribati.

JSTOR Daily explains why, for one week, the Faroe Islands are closed to tourists to better enable cleaning and repairs.

D-Brief notes the discovery of a fossil of a four-limbed whale in Peru, dating 42.5 million years.

D-Brief looks at how the bacterium Enterococcus faecalis morphed from normal gut bacteria to potentially fatal hospital-borne infection.

D-Brief notes a proposal to build offshore platforms as habitat for fish and for birds.

D-Brief notes how the Falcon Heavy is proving itself a vanguard of progress in spaceflight.

D-Brief notes new evidence of there having been multiple regional populations of Denisovans, drawing from work in Indonesia.

Anthrodendum reviews the book Fistula Politics, the latest from the field of medical anthropology.

Architectuul takes a look at post-war architecture in Germany, a country where the devastation of the war left clean slates for ambitious new designers and architects.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at newly discovered Kuiper Belt object 2008 VG 18.

Laura Agustín at Border Thinking takes a look at the figure of the migrant sex worker.

Centauri Dreams features an essay by Al Jackson celebrating the Apollo 8 moon mission.

D-Brief notes how physicists manufactured a quark soup in a collider to study the early universe.

Dangerous Minds shares some photos of a young David Bowie.

Angelique Harris at the Everyday Sociology Blog takes a look at what the social sciences have to say about sexuality and dating among millennial Americans.

Gizmodo notes the odd apparent smoothness of Ultima Thule, target of a very close flyby by New Horizons on New Year's Day.

Hornet Stories notes the censorship-challenging art by Slava Mogutin available from the Tom of Finland store.

Imageo shares orbital imagery of the eruption of Anak Krakatau in Indonesia, trigger of a devastating volcanic tsunami.

Nick Stewart at The Island Review writes beautifully about his experience crossing the Irish Sea on a ferry, from Liverpool to Belfast.

Lyman Stone at In A State of Migration shares the story, with photos, of his recent whirlwind trip to Vietnam.

JSTOR Daily considers whether or not fan fiction might be a useful tool to promote student literacy.

Language Hat notes a contentious reconstruction of the sound system of obscure but fascinating Tocharian, an extinct Indo-European language from modern XInjiang.

Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the irreversible damage being caused by the Trump Administration to the United States' foreign policy.

Marginal Revolution notes a paper suggesting users of Facebook would need a payment of at least one thousand dollars to abandon Facebook.

Lisa Nandy at the NYR Daily argues that the citizens of the United Kingdom need desperately to engage with Brexit, to take back control, in order to escape catastrophic consequences from ill-thought policies.

Marc Rayman at the Planetary Society Blog celebrates the life and achievements of the Dawn probe.

The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer notes that so many Venezuelans are fleeing their country because food is literally unavailable, what with a collapsing agricultural sector.

The Russian Demographics Blog breaks down polling of nostalgia for the Soviet Union among Russians.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes that simply finding oxygen in the atmosphere of an exoplanet is not by itself proof of life.

Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy reports on how the United States is making progress towards ending exclusionary zoning.

Whatever's John Scalzi shares an interview with the lawyer of Santa Claus.

Window on Eurasia reports on a fascinating paper, examining how some Russian immigrants in Germany use Udmurt as a family language.

Arnold Zwicky takes a look at the lives of two notable members of the Swiss diaspora in Paris' Montmartre.

D-Brief notes the recent discovery of some ancient cave art in Borneo more than forty thousand years old.

Cody Delistraty profiles Sarah Reid, a Toronto developmental psychologist who can identify the work, even to some extent the identity, of serial killers.

Far Outliers looks at the people who would go on to found, under Meiji, the Nagasaki Naval Academy.

A Fistful of Euros wonders what will happen if the governing coalition in Germany breaks.

JSTOR Daily suggests that the challenges of second-wave feminism to traditional gender norms nearly killed off nursing as a profession.

Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that Jeff Session is ending his career as US Attorney-General on a racist note.

Lingua Franca notes the results of an online informal survey suggesting that people do not become less tolerant of language change as they age.

Marginal Revolution notes a paper suggesting that religion can have protective effects against depression. All I would add is that the issues of the teenager, and of the religion, clearly matters.

Aminatta Forma at the NYR Daily notes the distinctive experiences of the first generations of educated Africans, emerging from colonialism, using Barack Obama.

The Planetary Society Blog looks at the new private SpaceIL moon lander.

Drew Rowsome reviews the new Stephen King novel, Elevation.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes that trying to explain unusual 'Oumuamua by immediately assuming it to be an alien artifact is not good science.

Strange Company looks at the mysterious 1905 death of the wealthy Margaretta von Hoffman Todd.

Window on Eurasia notes the way in which the boundaries of the "Russian world" are contracting under Putin, notably in Ukraine.

Centauri Dreams reports on the work of the MASCOT rover on asteroid Ryugu.

The Crux considers the critical role of the dolphin in the thinking of early SETI enthusiasts.

D-Brief goes into more detail about the import of the Soyuz malfunction for the International Space Station.

Dangerous Minds notes an artist who has made classic pop song lyrics, like Blue Monday, into pulp paperback covers.

Earther is entirely correct about how humans will need to engage in geoengineering to keep the Earth habitable.

David Finger at The Finger Post describes his visit to Accra, capital of Ghana.

Gizmodo notes a new paper suggesting that, in some cases where massive moons orbit far from their parent planet, these moons can have their own moons.

Hornet Stories shares the first look at Ruby Rose at Batwoman.

JSTOR Daily looks at how the image of southern California and Los Angeles changed from a Mediterranean paradise with orange trees to a dystopic urban sprawl.

Lawyers, Guns and Money imagines what might have happened to the navy of China had it not bought the Ukrainian aircraft carrier Varyag.

Lingua Franca at the Chronicle reports on how the actual length of "minute", as euphemism for a short period of time, can vary between cultures.

The LRB Blog reports on the disaster in Sulawesi, noting particularly the vulnerability of colonial-era port settlements in Indonesia to earthquakes and tsunamis.

The Map Room Blog shares Itchy Feet's funny map of every European city.

The New APPS Blog wonders if the tensions of capitalism are responsible for the high rate of neurological health issues.

The NYR Daily considers what, exactly, it would take to abolish ICE.

At the Planetary Society Weblog, Ian Regan talks about how he assembled a photoanimated flyover of Titan using probe data.

Roads and Kingdoms explores some excellent pancakes in the Malaysian state of Sabah with unusual ingredients.

Drew Rowsome raves over a new documentary looking at the life of opera star Maria Callas.

Window on Eurasia notes the continued high rate of natural increase in Tajikistan.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the growing evidence for the detection of a Neptune-size exomoon, provisionally named Kepler-1625b I, as does Centauri Dreams, as does D-Brief.

D-Brief notes evidence that the songs of humpback whales last over generations.

JSTOR Daily considers the fascination of Mary Shelley with cemeteries.

Lingua Franca, at the Chronicle of Higher Education, considers an important question: "different from", or "different than"?

The Map Room Blog shares maps of the earthquake and tsunami in Sulawesi, and the relief effort.

Drew Rowsome takes a look at a new documentary examining the famed Studio 54.

Daniel Little, at Understanding Society, considers (after others) the idea of emotions as neurophysical phenomena.

Window on Eurasia suggests that Turkey's recent efforts to become a power in Central Asia are being aided by the way its efforts mesh with China's.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes how the recently-charted orbit of S2 around Sagittarius A* in the heart of our galaxy proves Einstein's theory of relativity right.

D-Brief notes a recent NASA study of Mars concluding that, because of the planet's shortfalls in conceivably extractable carbon dioxide, terraforming Mars is impossible with current technology.

Dead Things suggests that one key to the rise of Homo sapiens may be the fact that we are such good generalists, capable of adapting to different environments and challenges with speed even if we are not optimized for them. (Poor Neanderthals.)

At the Everyday Sociology Blog, Karen Sternheimer examines how individuals' identities shift as they engage, encountering new problems.

Hornet Stories notes that Thailand may well beat Taiwan in creating civil unions for same-sex couples.

JSTOR Daily examines the famed, nay iconic, baobab tree of Africa.

Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money wonders about how, as the centennial of the introduction of women's suffrage approaches, the white racism of many suffragettes will be dealt with.

The Map Room Blog reports on Michael Plichta's very impressed hand-crafted globe of the Moon.

Russell Darnley at Maximos' Blog reports on the massive forest fires in Indonesia's Jambi Province.

If an Australian cockatoo did appear on a 13th century European map, this hints at a history of medieval interaction with Australia as yet untold. The Guardian reports.

The effects of a powerful Indonesia--an Indonesia likely to emerge through decades of steady growth--on Australia, to say nothing of its Southeast Asian neighbours, seems to be systematically missed. ABC reports.

Mohammed Ben Jelloun's Open Democracy article, looking at the surprisingly close relationship of the Sherifian kingdom with the European Union and the impact on domestic dissent, is a must-read.

Canada, thankfully, is taking in hundreds of Syrian White Helmets and their families as refugees. CBC reports.

This r/mapporn post sharing a map depicting the different California locales used by Hollywood in the 1920s as stand-ins for foreign locations is classic.

Malta, it seems from this New Statesman take, is facing serious problems of corruption through its role in international finance.
The establishment of a new maritime border between Australia and East Timor threatens Australia's borders with adjacent Indonesia. ABC reports.

Ireland has established a scholarship program for Choctaw students as a sign of thanks for Choctaw aid during the Irish Potato Famine. The Irish Post reports.

This Slugger O'Toole article suggests that the disparity in living standards and income between the Republic and Northern Ireland is not nearly so vast as GDP would suggest.

The Map Room Blog shared this Ordinance Survey's April Fool's Day joke, of a fake but realistic island.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait suggests that strange markings in the upper atmosphere of Venus might well be evidence of life in that relatively Earth-like environment.

The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly raves over Babylon Berlin.

Centauri Dreams considers, fifty years after its publication, Clarke's 2001.

Crooked Timber considers Kevin Williamson in the context of conservative intellectual representation more generally.

D-Brief considers "digisexuality", the fusion of the digital world with sexuality. (I think we're quite some way off, myself.)

The Dragon's Tales considers evidence suggesting that the agricultural revolution in ancient Anatolia was achieved without population replacement from the Fertile Crescent.

Drew Ex Machina takes a look at the flight of Apollo 6, a flight that helped iron out problem with the Saturn V.

The Frailest Thing's Michael Sacasas is not impressed by the idea of the trolley problem, as something that allows for the displacement of responsibility.

Gizmodo explains why the faces of Neanderthals were so different from the faces of modern humans.

JSTOR Daily considers if volcano-driven climate change helped the rise of Christianity.

Language Log considers, after Spinoza, the idea that vowels are the souls of consonants.

Lawyers, Guns and Money engages in a bit of speculation: What would have happened had Clinton won? (Ideological gridlock, perhaps.)

Lovesick Cyborg explores how the advent of the cheap USB memory stick allowed North Koreans to start to enjoy K-Pop.

Russell Darnley considers the transformation of the forests of Indonesia's Riau forest from closed canopy forest to plantations.

The Map Room Blog shares some praise of inset maps.

Neuroskeptic considers how ketamine may work as an anti-depressant.

The NYR Daily considers student of death, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.

Justin Petrone of north! shares an anecdote from the Long Island coastal community of Greenport.

Personal Reflection's Jim Belshaw considers the iconic Benjamin Wolfe painting The Death of General Wolfe.

The Planetary Society Blog's Casey Dreier notes cost overruns for the James Webb Space Telescope.

pollotenchegg maps recent trends in natural increase and decrease in Ukraine.

Roads and Kingdoms talks about a special Hverabrauð in Iceland, baked in hot springs.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel shares his own proposal for a new Drake Equation, revised to take account of recent discoveries.

Vintage Space considers how the American government would have responded if John Glenn had died in the course of his 1962 voyage into space.

Window on Eurasia considers the belief among many Russians that had Beria, not Khrushchev, succeeded Stalin, the Soviet Union might have been more successful.

At Anthropology.net, Kamzib Kamrani looks at the Yamnaya horse culture of far eastern Europe and their connection to the spread of the Indo-Europeans.
Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the predicted collision of China's Tiangong-1 space station. Where will it fall?

James Bow notes a Kickstarter funding effort to revive classic Canadian science fiction magazine Amazing Stories.

Centauri Dreams notes the impending retirement of the pioneering Kepler telescope, and what's being done in the time before this retirement.

D-Brief notes how nanowires made of gold and titanium were used to restore the sight of blind mice.

Russell Darnley takes a look at the indigenous people of Riau province, the Siak, who have been marginalized by (among other things) the Indonesian policy of transmigration.

Dead Things reports on more evidence of Denisovan ancestry in East Asian populations, with the suggestion that the trace of Denisovan ancestry in East Asia came from a different Denisovan population than the stronger traces in Melanesia.

Hornet Stories paints a compelling portrait of the West Texas oasis-like community of Marfa.

JSTOR Daily notes how indigenous mythology about illness was used to solve a hantavirus outbreak in New Mexico in the 1990s.

Language Log praises the technical style of a Google Translate translation of a text from German to English.

Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that, under the Shah, Iran was interested in building nuclear plants. Iranian nuclear aspirations go back a long way.

The LRB Blog looks at the unsettling elements of the literary, and other, popularity of Jordan Peterson.

Marginal Revolution notes the continuing existence of a glass ceiling even in relatively egalitarian Iceland.

The NYR Daily looks at the unsettling elements behind the rise of Xi Jinping to unchecked power. Transitions from an oligarchy to one-man rule are never good for a country, never mind one as big as China.

Drew Rowsome writes about Love, Cecil, a new film biography of photographer Cecil Beaton.

Peter Rukavina celebrates the 25th anniversary of his move to Prince Edward Island. That province, my native one, is much the better for his having moved there. Congratulations!

Window on Eurasia looks at a strange story of Russian speculation about Kazakh pan-Turkic irredentism for Orenburg that can be traced back to one of its own posts.

At Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, Frances Woolley takes the time to determine that Canadian university professors tend to be more left-wing than the general Canadian population, and to ask why this is the case.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait tells us what tantalizing little is known about Proxima Centauri and its worlds.

Centauri Dreams imagines that, for advanced civilizations based on energy-intensive computing, their most comfortable homes may be in the cool dark of space, intergalactic space even.

D-Brief notes an effort to predict the evolution of stick insects that went in interesting, if substantially wrong, directions.

Mark Graham notes that, in the developing world, the supply of people willing to perform digital work far outweighs the actual availability of jobs.

Mathew Ingram announces that he is now chief digital writer for the Columbia Journalism Review.

JSTOR Daily explores how consumerism was used, by the United States, to sell democracy to post-war West Germany.

Language Hat explores the script of the Naxi, a group in the Chinese Himalayas.

Paul Campos considers at Lawyers, Guns and Money the importance of JK Galbraith's The Affluent Society. If we are richer than ever before and yet our living standards are disappointing, is this not the sort of political failure imagined?

Russell Darnley takes a look at how the death of a community's language can lead to the death of that community's ecosystem.

Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog considers the possibility of the ISS being replaced by privately-owned space stations.

Dmitry Ermakov at Roads and Kingdoms shares some photos from his ventures among the Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia.

Peter Rukavina shares a black-and-white photo of Charlottetown harbour covered in ice.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel makes the point that cancelling NASA's WFIRST telescope would kneecap NASA science.

Kambiz Kamrani at Anthropology.net notes that lidar scanning has revealed that the pre-Columbian city of Angamuco, in western Mexico, is much bigger than previously thought.

James Bow makes an excellent case for the revitalization of VIA Rail as a passenger service for longer-haul trips around Ontario.

D-Brief notes neurological evidence suggesting why people react so badly to perceived injustices.

The Dragon's Tales takes a look at the list of countries embracing thorough roboticization.

Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina takes a look at the most powerful launch vehicles, both Soviet and American, to date.

Far Outliers considers Safavid Iran as an imperfect gunpowder empire.

Despite the explanation, I fail to see how LGBTQ people could benefit from a cryptocurrency all our own. What would be the point, especially in homophobic environments where spending it would involve outing ourselves? Hornet Stories shares the idea.

Imageo notes that sea ice off Alaska has actually begun contracting this winter, not started growing.

JSTOR Daily notes how the production and consumption of lace, and lace products, was highly politicized for the Victorians.

Language Hat makes a case for the importance of translation as a political act, bridging boundaries.

Language Log takes a look at the pronunciation and mispronunciation of city names, starting with PyeongChang.

This critical Erik Loomis obituary of Billy Graham, noting the preacher's many faults, is what Graham deserves. From Lawyers, Guns and Money, here.

Bernard Porter at the LRB Blog is critical of the easy claims that Corbyn was a knowing agent of Communist Czechoslovakia.

The Map Room Blog shares this map from r/mapporn, imagining a United States organized into states as proportionally imbalanced in population as the provinces of Canada?

Marginal Revolution rightly fears a possible restart to the civil war in Congo.

Neuroskeptic reports on a controversial psychological study in Ghana that saw the investigation of "prayer camps", where mentally ill are kept chain, as a form of treatment.

The NYR Daily makes the case that the Congolese should be allowed to enjoy some measure of peace from foreign interference, whether from the West or from African neighbous (Rwanda, particularly).

At the Planetary Society Blog, Emily Lakdawalla looks at the many things that can go wrong with sample return missions.

Rocky Planet notes that the eruption of Indonesian volcano Sinabung can be easily seen from space.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes how the New Horizons Pluto photos show a world marked by its subsurface oceans.

Window on Eurasia notes that, although fertility rates among non-Russians have generally fallen to the level of Russians, demographic momentum and Russian emigration drive continue demographic shifts.

Livio Di Matteo at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative charts the balance of federal versus provincial government expenditure in Canada, finding a notable shift towards the provinces in recent decades.

Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell makes the case, through the example of the fire standards that led to Grenfell Tower, that John Major was more radical than Margaret Thatcher in allowing core functions of the state to be privatized.

Arnold Zwicky takes a look at some alcoholic drinks with outré names.

Craig Welch at National Geographic notes how scientists, by carefully decoding the songs of blue whales, are figuring out how they are leading their lives.

Sarah Gibbens at National Geographic notes a new study suggesting that, since 1999, hunting and environmental devastation has reduced the orangutan population of Borneo by almost half, by 150 thousand individuals. This sounds almost like genocide.

Universe Today notes evidence that 'Oumuamua had a very violent past.

Nadia Drake at National Geographic explores the recent study suggesting that, unless there were signs of menace, most people actually would react well to news of extraterrestrial life.

Vikram Zutshi at Open Democracy recently suggested that contact with extraterrestrial intelligence could be good for the Earth, might even help us save it. Certainly this civilization would have survived the Great Filter; certainly it's a corrective to lazy assumptions of automatic menace.

The school boards of London, it turns out, will now fund a play that features a gay student's struggle to bring his date to a prom. CBC reports.

A woman from Cameroon claims--credibly, I think--that she will face persecution on the grounds of her sexual orientation if she is deported back to her homeland from British Columbia. Global News reports.

VICE reports on how one man is now finding acceptance and even welcome for people of colour in the leather scene, looking at his experiences in the recent Mid-Atlantic Leather weekend.

Katya Myachina reports on one documentary photographer's efforts to document LGBTQ life in the Russian-dominated exclave of Transnistria, and the effect these photos and their display have had, over at Open Democracy.

The Jakarta Post notes that, while Indonesians are willing to accept their LGBTQ fellow citizens as citizens, they are strongly opposed to their exercise of civil and human rights.

Profile

rfmcdonald

Navigation

February 2021

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28

Syndicate

Page Summary

[BLOG] Some Monday links
[BLOG] Some Friday links
[BLOG] Some Wednesday links
[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Hamilton, Montréal, Lorain, Buenos Aires, Jakarta
[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Mississauga, Miami, Montréal, Jakarta, Lausanne
[ISL] Five #islands links: Newfoundland, Komodo, South China Sea, Kiribati, Faroe Islands
[NEWS] Five D-Brief links: whales, bacteria, offshore platforms, Falcon Heavy, Denisovans
[BLOG] Some Wednesday links
[BLOG] Some Monday links
[BLOG] Some Friday links
[BLOG] Some Thursday links
[BLOG] Some Tuesday links
[NEWS] Five mixed links: medieval cockatoos, Indonesia, Morocco and the EU, White Helmets, Hllywood
[ISL] Five islands links: Malta, East Timor, Choctaw, Ireland, April Fool's Day
[BLOG] Some Sunday links
[BLOG] Some Friday links
[BLOG] Some Friday links
[BLOG] Some Thursday links
[NEWS] Five links on life and intelligence both near and far: 'Oumuamua, ET, blue whales, orangutans
[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: London play, Cameroon refugee, leather, Transnistria, Indonesia

Style Credit

Base style: Librarian's Dream by branchandroot
Theme: Pigeon Blue by dancing_serpent

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Apr. 4th, 2026 10:19 pm

Powered by Dreamwidth Studios