rfmcdonald: (cats)

  • The rescue of cats from the Newfoundland outport of Little Bay Islands, now abandoned, was a success. Global News reports.

  • Cats in Australia may be in a position to ravage vulnerable survivors of the wildfires. Wired reports.

  • The Purrsong Pendant is a new fitness tracker for cats. CNET reports.

  • Humans do need to be able to read the body language of cats, and not only to figure out when they are in pain. CP24 reports.

  • Is anyone surprised cats might eat human corpses? Newsweek reports.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that Betelgeuse is very likely not on the verge of a supernova, here.

  • Centauri Dreams looks at the mapping of asteroid Bennu.

  • Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber reposted, after the election, a 2013 essay looking at the changes in British society from the 1970s on.

  • The Dragon's Tales shares a collection of links about the Precambrian Earth, here.

  • Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about fear in the context of natural disasters, here.

  • Far Outliers reports on the problems of privateers versus regular naval units.

  • Gizmodo looks at galaxy MAMBO-9, which formed a billion years after the Big Bang.

  • io9 writes about the alternate history space race show For All Mankind.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at the posters used in Ghana in the 1980s to help promote Hollywood movies.

  • Language Hat links to a new book that examines obscenity and gender in 1920s Britain.

  • Language Log looks at the terms used for the national language in Xinjiang.

  • Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money takes issue with Jeff Jacoby's lack of sympathy towards people who suffer from growing inequality.

  • Marginal Revolution suggests that urbanists should have an appreciation for Robert Moses.

  • Sean Marshall writes, with photos, about his experiences riding a new Bolton bus.

  • Caryl Philips at the NYR Daily writes about Rachmanism, a term wrongly applied to the idea of avaricious landlords like Peter Rachman, an immigrant who was a victim of the Profumo scandal.

  • The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper looking at the experience of aging among people without families.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains why the empty space in an atom can never be removed.

  • Strange Maps shares a festive map of London, a reindeer, biked by a cyclist.

  • Window on Eurasia notes how Mongolia twice tried to become a Soviet republic.

  • Arnold Zwicky considers different birds with names starting with x.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • 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.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Bad Astronomer considers how a stellar-mass black hole of 70 solar masses got so unaccountably huge.

  • Alex Tolley at Centauri Dreams considers the colours of photosynthesis, and how they might reveal the existence of life on exoplanets.

  • The Dragon's Tales shares some links on humans in the Paleolithic.

  • Jonathan Wynn at the Everyday Sociology Blog considers the scripts of jokes.

  • Gizmodo reports on the repurposed China-Netherlands radio telescope operating from an orbit above the far side of the Moon.

  • JSTOR Daily considers the political rhetoric of declinism.

  • Language Log considers the controversy over the future of the apostrophe.

  • James Butler at the LRB Blog notes a YouGov prediction of a Conservative majority in the UK and how this prediction is not value-neutral.

  • Marginal Revolution shares a paper from India noting how caste identities do affect the labour supply.

  • Ursula Lindsay at the NYR Daily considers if the political crisis in Lebanon, a product of economic pressures and sectarianism, might lead to a revolutionary transformation of the country away from sectarian politics.

  • Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections looks at some of the many complicated and intermingled issues of contemporary Australia.

  • The Planetary Society Blog reports on the latest projects funded by the ESA.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel shares ten beautiful photos taken in 2019 by the Hubble.

  • Strange Company reports on the strange unsolved disappearance of Lillian Richey from her Idaho home in 1964.

  • Window on Eurasia shares a Russian criticism of the Ukrainian autocephalous church as a sort of papal Protestantism.

  • Arnold Zwicky considers the positive potential of homoeros.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • blogTO notes the strange house, a fantasia inspired by Greece, at 1016 Shaw Street.

  • blogTO shares photos from inside Paradise Theatre on Bloor, reopened after 13 years.

  • blogTO notes that GO Transit will now be offering customers unlimited rides on Sundays for just $C 10.

  • Photos of infamous Toronto chair girl Marcella Zoia celebrating her 20th birthday are up at blogTO, here.

  • Many residents displaced by the Gosford fire in North York have been moved to hotels. Global News reports.

  • A TTC worker has launched a court case against the TTC and city of Toronto over issues of air quality. Global News reports.

  • Jamie Bradburn reports on how the Toronto press covered the opening of the Suez Canal, here.

  • Transit Toronto explains what, exactly, workers are building at Eglinton station and Yonge and Eglinton more generally.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the findings that the LISA Pathfinder satellite was impacted by hypervelocity comet fragments.

  • Centauri Dreams reports on what we have learned about interstellar comet Borisov.

  • Bruce Dorminey notes the ESA's Matisse instrument, capable of detecting nanodiamonds orbiting distant stars.

  • Gizmodo reports a new study of the great auk, now extinct, suggesting that humans were wholly responsible for this extinction with their hunting.

  • The Island Review links to articles noting the existential vulnerability of islands like Venice and Orkney to climate change.

  • Joe. My. God. reports on the claim of Tucker Carlson--perhaps not believably retracted by him--to be supporting Russia versus Ukraine.

  • Language Hat reports on the new Indigemoji, emoji created to reflect the culture and knowledge of Aboriginal groups in Australia.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money notes one of the sad consequences of the American president being a liar.

  • James Butler at the LRB Blog writes about the optimism of the spending plans of Labour in the UK, a revived Keynesianism.

  • Marginal Revolution notes the exceptional cost of apartments built for homeless people in San Francisco.

  • Strange Maps looks at some remarkable gravity anomalies in parts of the US Midwest.

  • Towleroad notes the support of Jamie Lee Curtis for outing LGBTQ people who are homophobic politicians.

  • Understanding Society looks at organizations from the perspective of them as open systems.

  • Whatever's John Scalzi gives a generally positive review of the Pixel 4.

  • Arnold Zwicky notes the irony of sex pills at an outpost of British discount chain Poundland.

rfmcdonald: (photo)
The juxtaposition of these two tapestry maps in adjacent storefront windows of a building apparently converted to residential uses, one a map of the Bermuda Triangle and a one of the map of the Junction Triangle neighbourhood where the building is located, is very funny.

Bermuda Triangle #toronto #junctiontriangle #dupontstreet #windowdisplay #tapestry #map #bermudatriangle


Junction Triangle #toronto #junctiontriangle #dupontstreet #windowdisplay #tapestry #map
rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Jamie Bradburn shares photos from his neighbourhood's East Lynn Pumpkin Parade, here.

  • Sidewalk Labs is going to release details of all the data it wants to collect. The Toronto Star reports.

  • NOW Toronto reports on the controversy in the NDP riding association for Parkdale-High Park over the nomination, here.

  • There is a napping studio in Toronto, offering people the chance to nap for 25 minutes at $10 per nap. The National Post reports.

  • CBC reports on a film about Little Jamaica, a neighbourhood along Eglinton Avenue West that might be transformed out of existence, here
  • Daily Xtra looks at the legacy of the Meghan Murphy visit to Toronto.

  • Spacing notes that the Toronto Reference Library has a large collection of Communist newspapers available for visitors.

  • The idea of Metrolinx paying for the repair of damaged Eglinton Avenue does make a lot of intuitive sense. CBC reports.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Bad Astronomy notes the mystery of distant active galaxy SDSS J163909+282447.1, with a supermassive black hole but few stars.

  • Centauri Dreams shares a proposal from Robert Buckalew for craft to engage in planned panspermia, seeding life across the galaxy.

  • The Crux looks at the theremin and the life of its creator, Leon Theremin.

  • D-Brief notes that termites cannibalize their dead, for the good of the community.

  • Dangerous Minds looks at William Burroughs' Blade Runner, an adaptation of a 1979 science fiction novel by Alan Nourse.

  • Bruce Dorminey notes a new study explaining how the Milky Way Galaxy, and the rest of the Local Group, was heavily influenced by its birth environment.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at why the Chernobyl control room is now open for tourists.

  • Dale Campos at Lawyers. Guns and Money looks at the effects of inequality on support for right-wing politics.

  • James Butler at the LRB Blog looks at the decay and transformation of British politics, with Keith Vaz and Brexit.

  • Marginal Revolution shares a paper explaining why queens are more warlike than kings.

  • Omar G. Encarnación at the NYR Daily looks at how Spain has made reparations to LGBTQ people for past homophobia. Why should the United States not do the same?

  • Corey S. Powell at Out There shares his interview with physicist Sean Carroll on the reality of the Many Worlds Theory. There may be endless copies of each of us out there. (Where?)

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains why 5G is almost certainly safe for humans.

  • Strange Company shares a newspaper clipping reporting on a haunting in Wales' Plas Mawr castle.

  • Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps looks at all the different names for Africa throughout the years.

  • The Volokh Conspiracy considers, in the case of the disposal of eastern Oklahoma, whether federal Indian law should be textualist. (They argue against.)

  • Window on Eurasia notes the interest of the government of Ukraine in supporting Ukrainians and other minorities in Russia.

  • Arnold Zwicky looks at syntax on signs for Sloppy Joe's.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • blogTO looks at the Toronto of the 1950s, when Highway 2--Lake Shore and Kingston Road--was the way into the city.

  • Jamie Bradburn takes a look at a 1950 tourist guide to Ontario, specifically focusing on its descriptions of Toronto.

  • Jamie Bradburn looks at how, in the post-war era, dining at the Coxwell Kresge in-house restaurant was a thing.

  • blogTO notes how many in Leslieville are unhappy with the idea of the Ontario Line being built above-ground.

  • Samantha Edwards at NOW Toronto notes that there is going to be a Pride rally outside of Palmerston library where Meghan Murphy will be speaking.

  • Spacing looks at the connections between Nuit Blanche and the Toronto Biennial, for Toronto as an artistic city.

  • NOW Toronto shares some photos of Honest Ed's in its dying days.

  • Toronto Life tells the story of Peperonata Lane, a west-end laneway that took its name from a popular neighbourhood pepper-roasting event.

  • blogTO notes a new movie being filmed in Regent Park, here.

  • blogTO shares photos of the new Garrison Crossing pedestrian bridge, here.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • D-Brief notes the glorious science produced by scientists who trained rats to drive miniature cars and found that, in so doing, the rats' stress was relieved.

  • D-Brief reports on how scientists used gravitational lensing to study a galaxy nine billion light-years away.

  • D-Brief explains how, in dwarf galaxies, supermassive black holes can stop star formation.

  • D-Brief looks at how scientists have found the giant Geode of Pulpi was created.

  • D-Brief notes how dark matter is making some spiral galaxies rotate at well over 500 kilometres a second.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes a study suggesting the Milky Way Galaxy took many of its current satellite galaxies from another, smaller one.

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly talks of the importance of having dreams.

  • Centauri Dreams shares a study explaining how the debris polluting the atmospheres of white dwarfs reveals much about exoplanet chemistry.

  • D-Brief notes that the intense radiation of Jupiter would not destroy potential traces of subsurface life on the surface of Europa.

  • Dangerous Minds looks at the strange musical career of Vader Abraham, fan of the Smurfs and of the Weepuls.

  • Aneesa Bodiat at JSTOR Daily writes about how the early Muslim woman of Haajar inspires her as a Muslim.

  • Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how an influx of American guns destabilizes Mexico.

  • The LRB Blog looks at the American abandonment of the Kurds of Syria.

  • Marginal Revolution notes how many mass protests are driven by consumer complaints.

  • The NYR Daily has an interview with EU chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, on the future of sovereignty.

  • Strange Company looks at the Dead Pig War between the US and the UK on San Juan Island in 1859.

  • Towleroad features the defense of Frank Ocean of his PrEP+ club night and the release of his new music.

  • Understanding Society looks at the sociology of norms.

  • Window on Eurasia suggests Russia and Ukraine each have an interest in the Donbass being a frozen conflict.

  • Arnold Zwicky looks at the weird masculinity of the pink jock.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes how a photo of the Large Magellanic Cloud makes him recognize it as an irregular spiral, not a blob.

  • Centauri Dreams celebrates the life of cosmonaut Alexei Leonov.

  • John Quiggin at Crooked Timber takes issue with one particular claim about the benefits of war and empire.

  • The Crux looks at fatal familial insomnia, a genetic disease that kills through inflicting sleeplessness on its victims.

  • D-Brief looks at suggestions that magnetars are formed by the collisions of stars.

  • Dangerous Minds introduces readers to the fantasy art of Arthur Rackham.

  • Cody Delistraty considers some evidence suggesting that plants have a particular kind of intelligence.

  • The Dragon's Tales notes the expansion by Russia of its airbase in Hneymim, Syria.

  • Karen Sternheimer writes at the Everyday Sociology Blog about the critical and changing position of libraries as public spaces in our cities.

  • Gizmodo looks at one marvelous way scientists have found to cheat quantum mechanics.

  • Information is Beautiful outlines a sensible proposal to state to cultivate seaweed a as source of food and fuel.

  • io9 notes that, in the exciting new X-Men relaunch, immortal Moira MacTaggart is getting her own solo book.

  • JSTOR Daily notes how the now-defunct Thomas Cook travel agency played a role in supporting British imperialism, back in the day.

  • Language Log notes that the Oxford English Dictionary is citing the blog on the use of "their" as a singular.

  • Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the grounds for impeaching Donald Trump.

  • The LRB Blog looks at the politics of Mozambique at the country approaches dangerous times.

  • Sean Marshall notes the southern Ontario roads that run to Paris and to London.

  • Neuroskeptic notes a problematic scientific study that tried to use rabbits to study the female human orgasm.

  • Steve Baker at The Numerati looks at a new book on journalism by veteran Peter Copeland.

  • The NYR Daily makes the point that depending on biomass as a green energy solution is foolish.

  • The Planetary Science Blog notes a 1983 letter by then-president Carl Sagan calling for a NASA mission to Saturn and Titan.

  • Roads and Kingdoms interviews photojournalist Eduardo Leal on his home city of Porto, particularly as transformed by tourism.

  • Drew Rowsome notes the book Dreamland, an examination of the early amusement park.

  • The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper considering, in broad detail, how the consequence of population aging could be mitigated in the labour market of the European Union.

  • Strange Company reports on a bizarre poltergeist in a British garden shed.

  • Window on Eurasia notes the new strength of a civic national identity in Kazakhstan, based on extensive polling.

  • Arnold Zwicky, surely as qualified a linguist as any, examines current verb of the American moment, "depose".

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)

  • Adam Fish at anthro{dendum} compares different sorts of public bathing around the world, from Native America to Norden to Japan.

  • Charlie Stross at Antipope is unimpressed by the person writing the script for our timeline.

  • Architectuul reports on an architectural conference in Lisbon.

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares stunning photos of the eruption of the Raikoke volcano in Kamchatka.

  • Centauri Dreams looks at what the Voyager spacecraft have returned about the edge of the solar system.

  • John Quiggin at Crooked Timber takes issue with the idea of bipartisanship if it means compromising on reality, allegorically.

  • The Crux counts the number of people who have died in outer space.

  • D-Brief notes that the Andromeda Galaxy has swallowed up multiple dwarf galaxies over the eons.

  • Dead Things notes the identification of the first raptor species from Southeast Asia, Siamraptor suwati.

  • The Dragon's Tales notes a paper tracing the origins of interstellar comet 2/Borisov from the general area of Kruger 60.

  • Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about the privilege allowing people access to affordable dental care.

  • Gizmodo tells how Alexei Leonov survived the first spacewalk.

  • io9 looks at the remarkable new status quo for the X-Men created by Jonathan Hickman.

  • Selma Franssen at the Island Review writes about the threats facing the seabirds of the Shetlands.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at what led Richard Nixon to make so many breaks from the American consensus on China in the Cold War.

  • Language Log notes an undergraduate course at Yale using the Voynich Manuscript as an aid in the study of language.

  • Abigail Nussbaum at Lawyers, Guns and Money explains her recent experience of the socialized health care system of Israel for Americans.

  • The LRB Blog looks at how badly the Fukuyama prediction of an end to history has aged.

  • The Map Room Blog shares a few maps of the new Ottawa LRT route.

  • Marginal Revolution notes a paper establishing a link between Chinese industries undermining their counterparts in Mexico and Mexican social ills including crime.

  • Sean Marshall reports from Ottawa about what the Confederation Line looks like.

  • Adam Shatz at the NYR Daily looks at the power of improvisation in music.

  • Roads and Kingdoms looks at South Williamsburg Jewish deli Gottlieb's.

  • Drew Rowsome reviews the new Patti Smith book, Year of the Monkey.

  • The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper looking as the factors leading into transnational movements.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel considers the question of the direction(s) in which order in the universe was generated.

  • Window on Eurasia shares a report noting the very minor flows of migration from China to Russia.

  • Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at the politics in the British riding of Keighley.

  • Arnold Zwicky looks at some penguin socks.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Bad Astronomer notes the latest news on interstellar comet 2/Borisov.

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly emphasizes how every writer does need an editor.

  • Centauri Dreams notes how the gas giant GJ 3512 b, half the mass of Jupiter orbiting a red dwarf star closely, is an oddly massive exoplanet.

  • Gina Schouten at Crooked Timber looks at inter-generational clashes on parenting styles.

  • D-Brief looks at the methods of agriculture that could conceivably sustain a populous human colony on Mars.

  • Bruce Dorminey argues that we on Earth need something like Starfleet Academy, to help us advance into space.

  • Colby King at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at how the socio-spatial perspective helps us understand the development of cities.

  • Russell Arben Fox at In Media Res listens to the Paul McCartney album Flaming Pie.
  • io9 looks at Proxima, a contemporary spaceflight film starring Eva Green.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at how the intense relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia began in, and reflected, the era of Jim Crow.

  • Language Hat notes a report suggesting that multilingualism helps ward off dementia.

  • Language Log takes issue with the names of the mascots of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the emergence of a ninth woman complaining about being harassed by Al Franken.

  • Marginal Revolution links to a new paper arguing that the Washington Consensus worked.

  • The NYR Daily shares an Aubrey Nolan cartoon illustrating the evacuation of war children in the United Kingdom during the Second World War.

  • At Out of Ambit, Diane Duane shares a nice collection of links for digital mapmakers.

  • The Planetary Society Blog looks at how the European Space Agency supports the cause of planetary defense.

  • Roads and Kingdoms interviews Kenyan writer Kevin Mwachiro at length.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel reports on how a mysterious fast radio burst helped illuminate an equally mysterious galactic halo.

  • Strange Company reports on the mysterious and unsolved death in 1936 of Canadian student Thomas Moss in an Oxfordshire hayrick.

  • Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps notes how Mount Etna is a surpassingly rare decipoint.

  • Understanding Society considers the thought of Kojève, after Hegel, on freedom.

  • Window on Eurasia looks at the falling numbers of Russians, and of state support for Russian language and culture, in independent Central Asia.

  • Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at how individual consumer responses are much less effective than concerted collective action in triggering change.

  • Arnold Zwicky reports on some transgender fashion models.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Oh, why not a fashion show organized around the theme of Cheetos? VICE reports.

  • A farmer in the Gaspé peninsula is trying to retrieve all of his missing yaks. CBC Montreal has it.

  • A Newfoundland researcher and artist is examining the relationship of the island with Atlantic slavery. Global News reports.

  • Atlas Obscura takes a look at the alternative comics scene in the Middle East, centered on Lebanon.

  • Vanity Fair shares an account of how Netflix tried to sell itself, and its model, to Blockbuster and failed.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • CBC Montreal notes how there is now a mural in memory of missing child Ariel Kouakou in a east-end Rosemont alley.

  • CultMTL takes a look at an odd convenience store hidden in the basement of an apartment block near McGill University, here.

  • CBC Montreal notes how mass transit is the top priority for mayor Valérie Plante, here.

  • An archeological dig near Pointe Claire is revealing ruins dating back to the time of New France. Global News reports.


  • CBC Montreal looks at the new campus of the Université de Montréal, and controversy over its transformation of neighbourhoods.

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • Architectuul profiles architectural photographer Lorenzo Zandri, here.

  • Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait notes a new study suggesting red dwarf stars, by far the most common stars in the universe, have plenty of planets.

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly shares 11 tips for interviewers, reminding me of what I did for anthropology fieldwork.

  • Centauri Dreams notes how water ice ejected from Enceladus makes the inner moons of Saturn brilliant.

  • The Crux looks at the increasingly complicated question of when the first humans reached North America.

  • D-Brief notes a new discovery suggesting the hearts of humans, unlike the hearts of other closely related primates, evolved to require endurance activities to remain healthy.

  • Dangerous Minds shares with its readers the overlooked 1969 satire Putney Swope.

  • The Dragon's Tales notes that the WFIRST infrared telescope has passed its first design review.

  • Gizmodo notes how drought in Spain has revealed the megalithic Dolmen of Guadalperal for the first time in six decades.

  • io9 looks at the amazing Jonathan Hickman run on the X-Men so far, one that has established the mutants as eye-catching and deeply alien.

  • Joe. My. God. notes that the Pentagon has admitted that 2017 UFO videos do, in fact, depict some unidentified objects in the air.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at the origin of the equestrian horseback statue in ancient Rome.

  • Language Log shares a bilingual English/German pun from Berlin.

  • Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money reflects on the legacy of Thomas Jefferson at Jefferson's grave.

  • Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution looks at a new book arguing, contra Pinker perhaps, that the modern era is one of heightened violence.

  • The New APPS Blog seeks to reconcile the philosophy of Hobbes with that of Foucault on biopower.

  • Strange Company shares news clippings from 1970s Ohio about a pesky UFO.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains why the idea of shooting garbage from Earth into the sun does not work.

  • Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps explains the appearance of Brasilia on a 1920s German map: It turns out the capital was nearly realized then.

  • Towleroad notes that Pete Buttigieg has taken to avoiding reading LGBTQ media because he dislikes their criticism of his gayness.

  • Arnold Zwicky looks at diners and changing menus and slavery.

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. 7th, 2025 04:58 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios