rfmcdonald | Entries tagged with writing

I've a post up at Demography Matters noting the all-encompassing impact of COVID-19 on the world and its demographics, and promising that Demography Matters will persist in some form to address the different changes this virus has imposed on us all.

JSTOR Daily provides advice for users of Zotero and Scrivener, here.

JSTOR Daily looks at instances where product placement in pop culture went badly, here.

JSTOR Daily considers the import of a pioneering study of vulgar language in the context of popular culture studies, here.

JSTOR Daily looks at the--frankly terrible--policies of managing rival heirs in the Ottoman dynasty, here.

JSTOR Daily looks at generational divides on religion in the England of the early Protestant Reformation, here.

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.

{anthro}dendum features a post by Kimberly J. Lewis about stategies for anthropologists to write, and be human, after trauma.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait reports on exoplanet LHC 3844b, a world that had its atmosphere burned away by its parent star.

Centauri Dreams looks at Neptune from the perspective of exoplanets discovered near snow lines.

D-Brief reports on the new Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, installed at Kitt Peak to help map galaxies and dark energy.

Gizmodo
looks at how Airbnb is dealing with party houses after a fatal mass shooting.

The Island Review shares some drawings by Charlotte Watson, inspired by the subantarctic Auckland Islands.

JSTOR Daily looks at the late 19th century hit novel Ramona, written by Helen Hunt Jackson to try to change American policy towards indigenous peoples.

Language Hat looks at how, until recently, the Faroese language had taboos requiring certain words not to be used at sea.

Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at a proposal to partially privatize American national parks.

The LRB Blog looks at what Nigel Farage will be doing next.

Marginal Revolution looks at a speculative theory on the origins of American individualism in agrarian diversity.

The NYR Daily looks at an exhibition of the artwork of John Ruskin.

Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw remarks on a connection between Arthur Ransome and his region of New England.

Drew Rowsome shares an interview with folk musician Michelle Shocked.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel emphasizes the importance of the dark energy mystery.

Towleroad notes a posthumous single release by George Michael.

Daniel Little at Understanding Society celebrates the 12th anniversary of his blog, and looks back at its history.

Window on Eurasia looks at Ingushetia after 1991.

Arnold Zwicky looks at All Saints Day.

Anthrodendum features a guest post from editors introducing a series on fieldwork and trauma.

Crooked Timber's John Quiggin takes a stab at trying to define neoliberalism as an ideology, not just a catch-all phrase.

The Crux looks at desalination, a difficult process that we may need to use regardless of its difficulty.

D-Brief notes that narcissism is linked to lower levels of stress and depression.

Jezebel notes the return and legacy of Bratz dolls.

Joe. My. God. shares the Sam Smith cover of the Donna Summer classic "I Feel Love", along with other versions of that song.

JSTOR Daily considers if graphene will ever become commercially usable.

Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money links to an analysis warning about commercial debt. Another 2008?

Marginal Revolution points to some papers suggesting that cannabis usage does not harm cognition, that the relationship is if anything reversed.

Daphne Merkin at the NYR Daily looks back at her literary life, noting people now gone.

Drew Rowsome reviews the new Daniel MacIvor play Let's Run Away.

The Volokh Conspiracy looks at how the Trump Administration lost two cases against sanctuary cities.

Window on Eurasia considers, briefly, the idea of Gorbachev giving to Germany Kaliningrad, last remnant of East Prussia.

Worthwhile Canadian Initiative looks at the rises in health spending directed towards young people. Is this a warning sign of poor health?

Arnold Zwicky looks at Gaysper, and then at other queer ghosts.

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.

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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.

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.

That, as a new study suggests, there is no single gay gene, but rather multiple different originals for non-heterosexual sexual orientations and behaviours, makes intuitive sense to me. The Washington Post has one take.

Atlas Obscura looks at the history behind the stone walls of New England.
Justin Fox at Bloomberg examines how the once-commanding lead in incomes of the middle class of the United States over the middle classes of other countries is starting to fade.

CityLab looks at how, too often by design, beaches in the United States are inaccessible to mass transit. (Toronto is lucky.)

La Presse shares a proposal by Radio-Canada to move away from a media model of competing with other outlets towards one based on collaboration.

Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait shares a video of the expansion of supernova remnant Cas A.

James Bow shares an alternate history Toronto transit map from his new novel The Night Girl.

Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber notes the Boris Johnson coup.

The Crux notes a flawed study claiming that some plants had a recognizable intelligence.

D-Brief notes the mysterious absorbers in the clouds of Venus. Are they life?

Dangerous Minds shares, apropos of nothing, the Jah Wabbles song "A Very British Coup."

Cody Delistraty looks at bullfighting.

Dead Things notes the discovery of stone tools sixteen thousand years old in Idaho which are evidence of the first humans in the Americas.

io9 features an interview with authors Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz on worldbuilding.

Joe. My. God. notes that a bill in Thailand to establish civil unions is nearing approval.

JSTOR Daily looks at how using plastic in road construction can reduce pollution in oceans.

Language Log looks to see if some police in Hong Kong are speaking Cantonese or Putonghua.

Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the perplexing ramblings and--generously--inaccuracy of Joe Biden.

The LRB Blog asks why the United Kingdom is involved in the Yemen war, with Saudi Arabia.

The Map Room Blog looks at the different efforts aiming to map the fires of Amazonia.

Marginal Revolution reports on how some southern US communities, perhaps because they lack other sources of income, depend heavily on fines.

The NYR Daily looks at the complex literary career of Louisa May Alcott, writing for all sorts of markets.

Window on Eurasia reports on the apparently sincere belief of Stalin, based on new documents, that in 1934 he faced a threat from the Soviet army.

Arnold Zwicky takes a look at fixings, or fixins, as the case may be.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares images of galaxy M61.

Centauri Dreams looks at a proposal for the Solar Cruiser probe, a NASA probe that would use a solar sail.

D-Brief notes the discovery of bacteria on coasts which manufacture dimethyl sulfide.

Bruce Dorminey writes about some facts about the NASA X-15 rocket plane.

The Dragon's Tales reports on the strange nuclear accident in Nyonoksa, Russia.

JSTOR Daily reports on the recent uncovering of the ancient Egyptian city of Heracleion, under the Mediterranean.

Language Hat looks at 19th century standards on ancient Greek language.

Language Log notes an ironically swapped newspaper article subhead.

Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the role of Tom Cotton in the recent Greenland scandal.

Marginal Revolution glances at the relationship between China and Singapore.

The NYR Daily looks at how the car ride played a role in the writing of Jacques Lacan.

The Russian Demographics Blog shares an index on state fragility around the world.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains why Jupiter suffers so many impacts from incoming bodies.

John Scalzi at Whatever reports on what seems to have been an enjoyable concert experience with Iron Maiden.

Window on Eurasia reports a claim that, with regards to a border dispute, Chechnya is much more unified than Dagestan.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the Elon Musk proposal to terraform Mars by dropping nuclear weapons on the planet's ice caps is a bad idea.

James Bow writes about how the introduction of faeries saved his novel The Night Girl.

Centauri Dreams looks at the storms of Jupiter.

The Crux explains the mystery of a village in Poland that has not seen the birth of a baby boy for nearly a decade.

D-Brief looks at the exoplanets of nearby red dwarf Gliese 1061.

Cody Delisraty talks of Renaissance painter Fra Angelico.

Drew Ex Machina commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Voyager 2 flyby of Neptune.

The Dragon's Tales shares links to some papers about the Paleolithic.

JSTOR Daily hosts an essay by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger suggesting that Internet rot might be good since it could let people start to forget the past and so move on.

Language Hat questions whether the phrase "free to all" has really fallen out of use.

Language Log takes a look about immigration to the United States and Emma Lazarus' famous poem.

Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money takes issue with the suggestion of, among other, Henry Farrell, that we are headed away from globalization towards fortress economies. Redundancy, he suggests, will be more important.

Marginal Revolution links to a disturbing paper suggesting users of opioids use them in part for social reasons.

The NYR Daily features an exchange on a new law in Singapore seeking to govern fake news.

The Power and the Money features a guest post from Leticia Arroyo Abad looking at Argentina before the elections.

Drew Rowsome takes a look at a new play by Raymond Helkio examining the life of out boxer Mark Leduc.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel considers if we can test gravitational waves for wave-particle duality.

Arnold Zwicky shares photos of the many flowers of Gamble Garden, in Palo Alto.

I had been passingly aware of Arthur C Clarke's 1986 book Arthur. C. Clarke's July 20, 2019: Life in the 21st Century for some time. This book was one of his many books in his later career where Clarke played the futurologist, pointing his audiences towards the possibilities of the future. It was only when I saw this winter a copy in near-mint condition in The Junction's Pandemonium that I took particular note: The date of the title was closing. Surely it merited some exploration. Sadly, when I popped into Pandemonium I was told that someone had bought that copy just a few minutes before my arrival. Off to Amazon I went.

Arthur C. Clarke's July 20, 2019: Life in the 21st Century #books #hardcover #arthurcclarke #sciencefiction #futurology #future #retrofuture

The significance of the title July 20, 2019 comes of course from this date being the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. It does indeed begin with an imagined address to the reader by the Arthur C. Clarke of 2019 himself, a resident of Clavius City, a base in the Moon's Clavius Crater home to a only a thousand people. From that lofty perspective, Clarke sets out from this lofty perspective the framework for these great changes in humanity. The subsequent chapters, written with a wide variety of collaborators, go on to look at different areas of the human future: education, health, robotics, space and transportation, sex and work, crime and war, all get explored in turn.

The one overriding theme that July 20, 2019 gets perfectly right is the extent to which what we in actual 2019 would call Big Data is transformative. The new generation of computers and associated technologies that were only beginning to emerge in 1986, capable not only of collecting vast amounts of data but of drawing meaningful conclusions from these, would make many things possible. It would become possible, for instance, for modern medicine to provide finely tailored recommendations as to what patients should do to enjoy the best possible health, to finally make psychiatry a science wit effective interventions to deal with the ills of the human mind.

It would allow people to become life-long students, to continue to expand their skills and to learn more about the world.

It would allow people to enjoy all kinds of popular culture, for sports enhanced by bioengineering to new distribution methods for shows and for altogether new cultural forms scarcely imagined.

More, this Big Data would enable all sorts of innovations in the physical sciences, in the manufacture of all sorts of robots capable of acts of great precision and in the development of new swift vehicles to travel the skies and the oceans and in new sorts of pleasure.

All of the chapters are informative, but not that many were outstanding. I did particularly like one built around a criminal investigation looking at the relationship of a smart home with its owner. (I, for one, take care to always be polite to my Google Home Minis.) I was also caught up by the drama of an imagined Third World War, fought almost bloodlessly with precise smart weapons along the inner German frontier, ending mildly enough with a loss by East Germany of Schwerin as West Germany gave up the Fulda Gap.

It is not that there were many things that were outright wrong. (I remain convinced that we were biased by the geopolitics-driven space race of the 1960s towards thinking crewed space travel would be easier and would come about earlier than we should have expected in the technologically primitive and poor world of the mid-20th century; the 2020s might well be a good time for a durable resurgence.) The overall contours of the world depicted, generally speaking, are ones that people in actual 2019 would be able to recognize as something mostly like their own.

The big problem with July 20, 2019 is that it does not quite take account of people. Who was it who said that science fiction was a literature of ideas if not a literature of literature, of heady concepts but not so much about people or societies? The geopolitics of this imagined Third World War are uninspiring, reflecting Clarke's 2001 or 2010, the colossi of the United States and the Soviet Union dominating to the exclusion of anyone else. We have fought multiple wars with smart weapons, and we know that even if these smart weapons actually are as good as we'd like them to be they are fired by governments acting with imperfect knowledge at targets in societies made up of innumerable human beings. This imagined near-total stability, in retrospect, is a failure.

Beyond this, I do not think that Clarke quite recognized how the impact of Big Data would change the quality of human lives. If people are to become life-long patients, life-long students, constantly being engaged in a stressful world full of challenges and stimuli barely imagined to the people of 1986, what would the impact of this be? Looking back, I think that we can see the people of Clarke's imagined 2019 would be desperately grinding, perhaps just as we are in our post-Cold War globalized era. Clarke, though, did not seem to get this.

July 20, 2019 is a good book. I quite enjoyed going through it, taking a look at what one of the great science fiction writers imagined our world might come to be. I just think that the gaps and failed predictions are as interesting as the successes. These all are the sorts of factors that people aspiring to predict the future should look to learn from.

JSTOR Daily looks at the remarkable glasswork of the Blaschka Invertebrate Collection.

JSTOR Daily looks at the political radicalism of inventor Joseph Priestley.

JSTOR Daily looks at how Midwesterners responded to the 1930s craze of bank robberies with their own improvised systems in the face of police failures.

JSTOR Daily explains why Hubert Humphrey, despite his conventional strengths, was not going to be a winning Democratic candidate for President.

Austin Allen writes at JSTOR Daily about the complicated aesthetic and political radicalism of W.H. Auden, George Orwell, and James Baldwin.

Bad Astronomy notes how, in galaxy 3XMM J150052.0+015452 1.8 billion light-years away, a black hole has been busily eating a star for a decade.

Centauri Dreams considers how relativistic probes might conduct astronomy. How would their measurements be changed by these high speeds?

The Crux reports on how scientists are trying to save the platypus in its native rivers of Australia.

D-Brief reports on the quiet past of Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule.

The Dragon's Tales reports on UAV news from around the world.

Joe. My. God. reports a statement by a Trump biography suggesting that the American president believes in not following laws because of his belief in his own "genetic superiority".

JSTOR Daily reports on the importance of the longleaf pine in the history of the United States.

Language Hat considers, in the case of Australia, the benefits of reviving indigenous languages.
Abigail Nussbaum at Lawyers, Guns and Money considers how the success of Israel in hosting Eurovision is a blow against the Netanyahu government.

James Butler at the LRB Blog looks at the peculiar position of private schools in the UK, and their intersection with public life.

Marginal Revolution looks at a paper analyzing two centuries of British writers noting that productivity was boosted for the least productive if they lived in London.

The NYR Daily notes the end of famed French periodical Les temps modernes.

Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog notes the expected crash of Chinese smallsat Longjiang-2 from its lunar orbit at the end of July.

Noel Maurer at The Power and the Money notes how ex-president of Argentina Cristina Fernández, running for election this year, was lucky in having the economic crash occur after the end of her presidency.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains the different reasons behind the blues of the sky and the ocean.

Window on Eurasia notes that three hundred thousand Russians have died of HIV/AIDS since the virus manifested on Soviet territory in the late 1980s, with more deaths to come thanks to mismanagement of the epidemic.

Centauri Dreams links to a paper noting that the interiors of planets play a critical role in determining planetary habitability.

Belle Waring writes at Crooked Timber about imaginative dream worlds, criticized by some as a sort of maladaptive daydreaming I don't buy that; I am interested in what she says about hers.

D-Brief notes the very recent discovery of a small tyrannosaur.

Dead Things considers the possibility that a new South African hominin, Australopithecus sediba, might actually be the ancestor of Homo sapiens.

JSTOR Daily looks at how one negative side-effect of the renewable energy boom is the mass mining of rare earth elements.

Erik Loomis writes at Lawyers, Guns and Money about the way in which not just history but history fandoms are gendered, the interests of women being neglected or downplayed.

Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen reports on how a new US-Chinese trade deal will not do much to deal with underlying issues.

The New APPS Blog notes the great profits made by the gun industry in the United States and the great death toll, too, associated with the guns produced.

The NYR Daily visits the Northern Ireland town of Carrickfergus, home to Louis MacNeice and made famous by violence as the whole province sits on the edge of something.

Drew Rowsome takes a look at the queer horror film The Skin of The Teeth.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains what the technical limits of the Hubble Space Telescope are, and why it needs a replacement.

Window on Eurasia notes changing patters of population change in the different regions of Russia.

Arnold Zwicky shares some photos of notable public art in Switzerland, starting with The Caring Hand in his ancestral canton of Glarus.

This blogTO video of a condo-dweller venturing onto a ledge to rescue his cat is still fresh one week later.

Australia seeking to remove millions of feral cats for the benefit of its indigenous ecosystem makes sense, sadly. The New York Daily News reports.

I agree entirely with the call in Wales to regulate cat breeders. BBC reports/u>.

I am very pleased to learn that Taylor Swift is a cat person, featuring them in her videos, even. E Online reports.

This essay by Tim Weed at Lithub examining the relationship between writers and cats is a gem.

That Microsoft's E-Book store is closing, depriving book owners of the their titles, is bad news for the online world. Global News reports.

Motherboard notes how the decline of local news sources is hurting smaller communities and their residents.

The Discourse explains how it, and other independent media, will be harmed by new government funding proposals.

Marginal Revolution looks at a new book reviewing how providing global news in the early 20th century was a major and competitive industry.

The Conversation sees some productive future approaches for science journalism, and perhaps journalism more generally.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait considers the possibility that interstellar objects like 'Oumuamua might help planets consdense in young systems.

The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly explains the genesis of news stories.

Centauri Dreams explores a remarkable thesis of somehow intelligent, living even, mobile stars.

Citizen Science Blog reports on an ingenious effort by scientists to make use of crowdsourcing to identify venerable trees in a forest.

The Crux takes a look at the idea of rewilding.

D-Brief takes a look at how active auroras can lead to satellite orbits decaying prematurely.

Bruce Dorminey reports on a new finding suggesting that the suspected exomoon given the name Kepler-162b I does not exist.

JSTOR Daily takes a look at the incident that led to the concept of Stockholm syndrome.

Language Log takes a look at the idea of someone having more than one native language. Is it even possible?

Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at how trade war with the EU is hurting the bourbon industry of the United States.

The LRB Blog reports on the aftermath in Peru of the startling suicide of former president Alan Garcia.

Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting that rising health care costs have hurt the American savings rate and the wider American economy.

Russell Darnley takes a look at the innovative fish weirs of the Aborigines on Australia's Darling River.

The NYR Daily takes a look at Russian Doll and the new era of television.

The Planetary Society Blog notes the formal end of the Mars rover expeditions. Spirit and Opportunity can rest easy.

Drew Rowsome praises Out, a one-man show at Buddies in Bad Times exploring what it was like to be out in the late 1970s.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes that a search for dark matter has revealed evidence of the radioactive decay of pretty but not perfectly stable isotope xenon-124.

Window on Eurasia considers the likely impact of new Ukrainian president Volodymir Zelensky on Ukrainian autocephaly.

Arnold Zwicky celebrated the penguin drawings of Sandra Boynton, starting from her World Penguin Day image from the 25th of April.

Charlie Stross hosts at Antipope another discussion thread examining Brexit.

Architectuul takes a look at five overlooked mid-20th century architects.

Bad Astronomy shares a satellite photo of auroras at night over the city lights of the Great Lakes basin and something else, too.

The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly writes about the directions love has taken her, and wonders where it might have taken her readers.

Centauri Dreams reports on the Hayabusa 2 impactor on asteroid Ryugu.

John Quiggin at Crooked Timber takes issue with the claims of Steven Pinker about nuclear power.

D-Brief notes the detection, in remarkable detail, of a brilliant exocomet at Beta Pictoris.

The Dragon's Tales considers the possibility that China might be building a military base in Cambodia.

Karen Sternheimer writes at the Everyday Sociology Blog about the importance of small social cues, easily overlookable tough they are.

Far Outliers notes the role of Japan's imperial couple, Akihito and Michiko, in post-war Japan.

L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing writes about the potential inadequacy of talking about values.

Gizmodo notes a new study suggesting the surprising and potentially dangerous diversity of bacteria present on the International Space Station.

Mark Graham shares a link to a paper, and its abstract, examining what might come of the creation of a planetary labour market through the gig economy.

Hornet Stories takes a look at Red Ribbon Blues, a 1995 AIDS-themed film starring RuPaul.

io9 notes that Guillermo del Toro and Cornelia Funke are co-writing a Pan's Labyrinth novel scheduled for release later this year.

Joe. My. God. notes a new study suggesting 20% of LGBTQ Americans live in rural areas.

JSTOR Daily takes a look at the Bluestockings, the grouping of 18th century women in England who were noteworthy scholars and writers.

Language Hat notes an ambitious new historical dictionary of the Arabic language being created by the emirate of Sharjah.

Language Log examines, in the aftermath of a discussion of trolls, different cultures' terms for different sorts of arguments.

Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how early forestry in the United States was inspired by socialist ideals.

The Map Room Blog links to a map showing the different national parks of the United Kingdom.

Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution, noting the new findings from the Chixculub impact, notes how monitoring asteroids to prevent like catastrophes in the future has to be a high priority.

The New APPS Blog explains how data, by its very nature, is so easily made into a commodity.

The NYR Daily considers the future of the humanities in a world where higher education is becoming preoccupied by STEM.

Corey S. Powell at Out There interviews Bear Grylls about the making of his new documentary series Hostile Planet.

Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw considers the pleasures of birds and of birdwatching.

Jason C. Davis at the Planetary Society Blog noted the arrival of the Beresheet probe in lunar orbit.

Drew Rowsome reviews the new amazing-sounding play Angelique at the Factory Theatre.

The Russian Demographics Blog notes a paper that makes the point of there being no automatic relationship between greater gender equality and increases in fertility.

The Signal looks at how the Library of Congress has made use of the BagIt programming language in its archiving of data.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel comes up with questions to ask plausible visitors from other universes.

Strange Company notes the mysterious deaths visited on three members of a British family in the early 20th century. Who was the murderer? Was there even a crime?

Towleroad notes the activists, including Canadian-born playwright Jordan Tannahill, who disrupted a high tea at the Dorchester Hotel in London over the homophobic law passed by its owner, the Sultan of Brunei.

Window on Eurasia notes rising instability in Ingushetia.

Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell notes that the British surveillance of Huawei is revealing the sorts of problems that must be present in scrutiny-less Facebook, too.

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[DM] "A brief note on the blog and on COVID-19"
[BLOG] Five JSTOR Daily links (@jstor_daily)
[BLOG] Some Monday links
[BLOG] Some Friday links
[BLOG] Some Wednesday links
[BLOG] Some Sunday links
[BLOG] Some Tuesday links
[BLOG] Some Friday links
[NEWS] Five links: gay genes, stone walls, US wealth, beaches, media
[BLOG] Some Friday links
[BLOG] Some Monday links
[BLOG] Some Sunday links
[REVIEW] Arthur. C. Clarke's July 20, 2019: Life in the 21st Century
[NEWS] Five JSTOR Daily links: Blaschka glass, Priestley, crime, Humphrey, writing
[BLOG] Some Wednesday links
[BLOG] Some Thursday links
[CAT] Five #caturday links: Toronto, Australia, cat breeders, Taylor Swift, writers
[NEWS] Five notes on journalism: E-books, communities, funding, history, future
[BLOG] Some Monday links
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Assorted Personal Notations, Essays, and Other Jottings

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[DM] "A brief note on the blog and on COVID-19"

[BLOG] Five JSTOR Daily links (@jstor_daily)

[BLOG] Some Monday links

[BLOG] Some Friday links

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

[BLOG] Some Friday links

[NEWS] Five links: gay genes, stone walls, US wealth, beaches, media

[BLOG] Some Friday links

[BLOG] Some Monday links

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

[REVIEW] Arthur. C. Clarke's July 20, 2019: Life in the 21st Century

[NEWS] Five JSTOR Daily links: Blaschka glass, Priestley, crime, Humphrey, writing

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

[CAT] Five #caturday links: Toronto, Australia, cat breeders, Taylor Swift, writers

[NEWS] Five notes on journalism: E-books, communities, funding, history, future

[BLOG] Some Monday links

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

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