![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
- This Wired obituary for Lil Bub, arguing that the time for the Internet to be a place fo whimsy is over, does make me sad.
- Norwegian forest cats look amazing! The Dockyards has photos.
- The Pallas cats newly in the Calgary Zoo are, rightfully, becoming big hits. Cottage Life has more.
- Ottawa cat Smudge, already a meme hit, has become a celebrity. CBC Ottawa has more.
- Unsurprisingly, cats bond with their owners in the same sort of way as dogs and even human infants. More here.
- Happily, record numbers of cats are being adopted from shelters, given new homes. Global News reports.
- Some few people are apparently good are deciphering the expressions of cats, 15% of the total in one study sample. VICE reports.
- The Ottawa Citizen suggests a recent audit of OC Transpo should have offered warnings of the Confederation Line problems to come.
- A project office has been set up for the extension of the Yellow Line in Longueuil and elsewhere on the south shore. CTV News reports.
- La Presse looks at the concerns of some artists in Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie that they might be forced out by gentrification.
- That the Bay Building in downtown Winnipeg has been evaluated as being of little value offers an opening to Heritage Winnipeg. Global News reports.
- The New Brunswick government is forcing suburbs of Saint John to pay for city facilities that they also used. Global News reports.
- Short-term rentals are having a negative effect on real estate markets in Halifax. Global News reports.
- Downtown Lethbridge faces struggles to attract business. Global News reports.
- The mayor of Ottawa is suggesting freezing Confederation Line fare increases in light of the system's problems. Global News reports.
- La Presse looks at the problems faced by the Marché Jean-Talon, here.
- Greater Moncton, arguably the leading metropolis of New Brunswick, wants to double its intake of immigrants. Global News reports.
- Jamie Bradburn looks at Lafayette Park in Detroit, designed by Mies van der Rohe.
- Will Vancouver be connected to Washington State by a high-speed train route? Global News reports.
[BLOG] Some Saturday links
Oct. 12th, 2019 04:59 pm- 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.
Tags:
- anthropology,
- architecture,
- birds,
- blogs,
- book reviews,
- canada,
- china,
- clash of ideologies,
- comics,
- demographics,
- dinosaurs,
- economics,
- environment,
- fashion,
- finland,
- first nations,
- food,
- former soviet union,
- geopolitics,
- health,
- iceland,
- in memoriam,
- islands,
- israel,
- japan,
- judaism,
- language,
- links,
- mass transit,
- mexico,
- migration,
- new york,
- new york city,
- norden,
- oddities,
- ontario,
- ottawa,
- photos,
- physics,
- politics,
- popular music,
- russia,
- scotland,
- siberia,
- social sciences,
- sociology,
- solar system,
- southeast asia,
- space science,
- space travel,
- thailand,
- united kingdom,
- united states
[PHOTO] Planning for Ottawa and Gatineau
Oct. 9th, 2019 11:43 pmThe Guides Ulysse 2019 guide to Ottawa and Gatineau, the two cities of the National Capital Region, seemed a wise purchase tonight. I would be lying if I said that the new Confederation Line LRT was not making me think seriously of a visit north to the metropolis of the Ottawa Valley, but there are so many reasons for me to go north beyond the LRT, too!
- The Ottawa Citizen reports on the first week of the Confederation Line LRT.
- The New Brunswick city of Moncton now has new affordable housing--20 units--for vulnerable people. Global News reports.
- CityLab looks at one photographer's perspective of the New York City skyline, changed by the 9/11 attacks.
- An alleyway in Calgary is being transformed by art. Global News reports.
- Birth tourism might become an election issue in the British Columbia city of Richmond. Global News reports.
- The Ottawa Citizen looks at the problems of the Confederation Line in the evening, here.
- CBC Montreal takes a look at a 1930s tourist brochure from Montréal. The city was represented in interesting ways.
- Wired looks at how skyscraper designs in London are being changed for the benefit of cyclists.
- Guardian Cities reports on "Ma cité va briller", the viral challenge from the Paris suburb of Garges-lès-Gonesse that inspired competition to clean up cities across the Francophone world.
- Atlas Obscura looks at how the Venetian Republic took great advantage of its expertise in cryptography in the Renaissance.
Tags:
- Drag kings definitely deserve more attention. Global News reports.
- Lauren Strapagiel writes at Daily Xtra about her experiences looking at the decline of lesbian identity as a thing, under new social and political pressures.
- Gretel Kahn wrote at CBC Montreal about the pressures faced by the gay village in Montréal. (Toronto, it turns out, provides some useful models.)
- The brave coming-out of Ottawa mayor Jim Watson in the Ottawa Citizen deserves to be celebrated. His essay is here.
- Madeleine Holden writes at VICE about the code-switching that queer people have to practice.
- This Charles Dunst article at The Atlantic, on supporting queer people as children and to let them explore their identities, leaves me shaken. How might my own life have been changed, for the better?
Tags:
- Hamilton, Ontario, leads the country in reports of hate crimes. The National Post reports.
- Cyclists are 42 times as likely to be ticketed for traffic violations in Montréal than in Toronto. CTV News reports.
- CBC considers if the city of Ottawa loosened unduly its requirements for its new light rail networks.
- A new report suggests that economics of a central Canadian high-frequency rail route would work better if Québec City was not included. CTV reports.
- CityLab looks at nostalgia in Los Angeles for that city's old comprehensive paper map, the Thomas Guide.
Tags:
- Kingston, Ontario, is currently doing its best to cope with flood risk from the rising Lake Ontario. Global News reports.
- MacLean's reports on an appalling expansion of the iconic Chateau Laurier in Ottawa.
- CityLab reports on how Amsterdam is trying to avoid being overwhelmed by tourism.
- Guardian Cities reports on how the new government in Madrid plans to scrap a low-emissions zone because of a belief that congestion is a Madrid tradition.
- Roads and Kingdoms shares some tips for visitors to Yerevan.
Tags:
- CBC Hamilton reports on the options of the City of Hamilton faced with its having hired a prominent former white supremacist.
- CBC Ottawa reports that flood levels on the Ottawa River have reached record highs.
- The Montreal Gazette considers possible solutions to crowding on the Montréal subway, including new cars and special buses.
- Kingston is preparing for flooding, the city seeing a threat only in certain waterfront districts. Global News reports.
- Vancouver is applying a zoning freeze in a future mass transit corridor. Global News reports.
- CityLab looks at how the post-war dream of mass transit and densification for the Ohio city of Toledo never came about, and how it might now.
- Guardian Cities looks at construction proposals for New York City that never were.
- CityLab looks at how the California ghost town of Bodie is kept in good shape for tourists.
- Vox notes that just over one in ten thousand people in San Francisco is a billionaire.
- Leonid Bershidsky at Bloomberg considers why productivity in Berlin lags behind that in other European capital cities. Could it be that the young workers of Berlin are not devoted to earning income?
Tags:
- CBC Ottawa reports on the complaint of an Ottawa condo-owner that his tenant is renting the unit out via Airbnb.
- CBC Montreal notes that a rent advocacy agency in the neighbourhood of Saint-Henri is being driven out of its offices by rent increases.
- VICE reports on how a Miami trailer park and its residents are set to be driven out of their home by luxury housing.
- CityLab reports on a Mexico City market, the Sonora Market, specializing in goods for religious believers.
- Reuters notes a street protest by rent activists in Berlin calling for the nationalizing of the housing stock.
- Quite honestly, this CBC report about pet owners in Collingwood who are complaining that they cannot let their pets roam for fear of coyotes makes me feel sorry for the poor pets.
- CityLab reports on the problems that Ottawa has had in getting its light-rail transit network operational.
- CityLab reports on how Amazon may be distancing itself from Seattle, the better to not get caught up in big-city politics.
- The Guardian reports from the Castilian town of Sayatón, a disappearing town that has become a symbol of depopulating rural Spain. What, if anything, can be done to reverse these trends?
- Ozy reports on how Kathmandu is literally uncovering elements of its past as it continues its post-earthquake reconstruction.
Tags:
- The LeBreton Flats in Ottawa are now planned to experience a phased development. Global News reports.
- Kingston has recently celebrated the 175th anniversary of its brief history as capital of Canada (the Province of Canada, to be precise). Global News reports.
- The Independent reports on the comeback story of Winnipeg.
- Guardian Cities shares some of the different unfulfilled proposals for the development of the English city of Bristol.
- CityLab reports from Dessau, the eastern German city literally made by the Bauhaus school.
- CBC Ottawa reports on the impressive scope of the new light rail mass transit planned for the wider city of Ottawa.
- Richard Florida, writing at CityLab, notes a study tracing the second of two clusters of skyscrapers in Manhattan, in Midtown, to a late 19th century specialty in shopping.
- The Tyee notes how activist Yuly Chan helped mobilize people to protect Chinatown in Vancouver from gentrification.
- JSTOR Daily looks at the history of the free people of colour of New Orleans, a group established under the French period but who faced increasing pressures following Americanization.
- At Open Democracy, Christophe Solioz considers what is to be done to help protect the peace in Derry, second city of Northern Ireland, in the era of Brexit.
- CBC reports on how Ottawa is storing its ever-growing mountain of snow removed from its streets.
- The city of Kingston, Ontario, is facing a growing shortage of family doctors despite it being a regional hub. Global News reports.
- The centenary of anti-Chinese riots in Halifax has just passed. (Would you believe I never learned of these at school?) Global News reports.
- VICE tells the story of how most people can, or cannot, afford to live in an ever-pricier city of Chicago.
- The SCMP reports on the "Greater Bay Area" plan just announced by China, an integration of the Pearl River area into a single global powerhouse. How will Hong Kong fit into this?
- Rod Knight at The Conversation looks at the need of gay and bi men with crystal meth addictions to be able to access integrated care.
- This still-useful 2014 article from The Tyee by Emi Sasagawa looks at the issues of aging HIV-positive men, many who had not prepared for the aging process pre-HAART.
- Ottawa's English Catholic school board has returned the excellent Raina Telgemeier graphic novel Drama to school shelves, after pulling it due to parent homophobia, CBC reports.
- Daily Xtra notes what a shame that it is that Grindr has fired the editorial staff of its media arm Into.
- The New York Times has this lovely article looking at the relationship between opera director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and his partner Pierre Tourville.
Tags:
- The Hamilton Spectator reports that landlord applications for above-guideline increases in rent have been growing sharply in number, driven by growing demand and by the aging of the housing stock.
- CBC Ottawa shares seven maps of Ottawa and its area which trace the city's development over the previous century and a half and look towards the future.
- The Sun Life Building of Montréal recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. Global News reports.
- VICE shares photos taken by Jacob Fuglsang MIkkelsen in the early 1990s of the contemporary New York City nightclub scene.
- Guardian Cities reports on how the Greek capital of Athens is conducting a survey of its populations of ring-necked parakeets, to see how many of this newly-arrived species are present.
Tags:
- CBC notes that some hopeful owners of cannabis shops in Ottawa who went ahead in setting up their locations without securing a license are upset with their lost investments.
- A new urban regeneration program is afoot for an east-end Montréal neighbourhood, CTV notes.
- Labour shortages in Québec have reached the point that some immigrants are searching for jobs, and finding them, in the city of Val d'Or in the Abitibi region. CBC reports.
- A San Francisco contractor who leveled a historic home in that city, without seeking authorization, has been ordered to rebuild it exactly as it once was. BBC reports.
- CityLab notes the youthful energy, and youth-led planning, that pervades Tirana, the growing capital of Albania.
- The vacancy rate in Kingston is easily the lowest of any major Ontario city, even worse than Toronto. Global News reports.
- CBC notes that Ottawa is continuing to work on building a film centre in its Greenbelt.
- La Presse notes that residents of the neighbourhood of Glenmount, in the Montréal borough of Côte-des-Neiges, are threatening to separate from the city.
- Québec City has again been rejected by the NHL, the North American hockey league deciding not to situate a team in this pro-hockey town despite strong local support. CBC reports.
- After more than a year, regular passenger rail service has finally resumed between Winnipeg and Churchill. CBC reports.
