The Globe and Mail's Eric Andrew-Gee explains Hollywood's fascination with Boston as a setting in terms of an interest in the idea of an American city bound by tradition.

Boston Magazine has suggested that generous tax credits lure studios to Massachusetts. But Boston movies are not just set in Boston; they’re about Boston, and what it does to you ( Read more... )

• Beyond the Beyond shares Yves Behar's thoughts on design in an age of artificial intelligence.
• blogTO makes the case for the east end of Toronto.
• The Big Picture shares photos of a family of Congolese refugees resettled in New England.
• Centauri Dreams hosts an essay looking at the prospects for off-world agriculture.
• Dangerous Minds shares photos of ( Read more... )

Via 3 Quarks Daily, I came across Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain's Vice article talking about one man's perspective on Provincetown in the 1970s, a New England beach resort that was briefly the centre of interesting happening in popular culture.

America used to have sanctuaries across the country where fuck-ups, weirdos and other "marginalized" ( Read more... )

• blogTO shares some photos of Toronto in colour from the 1950s.
• Centauri Dreams talks about SETI in the light of the Anthropocene era.
• Dangerous Minds notes that there is now a hipster nativity scene available for purchase.
• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper suggesting that tidal heating could explain the difference between super-Earths and mini- ( Read more... )

Rosita Boland's interview with some New England Irish-Americans leaves me hoping that these people are not representative of the wider Irish-American community in their knowledge of what Ireland actually is right now.

We in Ireland might think we know who Irish-Americans are. They’re the visitors who arrive each year before the swallows, to travel ( Read more... )

• The Boston Globe's Big Picture shares photos of Massachusetts' Mattapan trolley.
• Centauri Dreams looks at Planet Nine's effects and examines the weather of Titan.
• Both The Dragon's Tales and the Planetary Society Weblog react to the loss of the Schiaparelli lander.
• The Dragon's Gaze looks for brown dwarf exoplanets.
• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw ( Read more... )

• James Bow shares his photos from Airport Road.
• Centauri Dreams reports on a SETI candi9date signal form a nearby star in Hercules.
• Far Outliers reports on how the Japanese named ships.
• Joe. My. God. quotes one Trump backer, Roger Stone, about his desire to move to Costa Rica to escape Muslims if Hillary wins.
• Noel Maurer debunks the Maine governor's ( Read more... )

The NYR Daily's Christopher Benfey reports about the controversy surrounding the reintroduction of snakes to a Massachusetts island.

We were sitting, my wife and I, at a summer dinner party by the pool, in honor of a mother and her college-age daughter visiting from Chicago. Just for a moment, as night was coming on, the subject of rattlesnakes- ( Read more... )

• A BCer in Toronto Jeff Jedras describes a culinary event put on in Ottawa by Nova Scotia.
• James Bow examines Minneapolis-St. Paul's light rail network.
• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly writes about friendship.
• The Dragon's Gaze notes the discovery of comets around HD 181327.
• The Dragon's Tales notes reports of Russian nuclear missiles to be launched ( Read more... )

• The Boston Globe's The Big Picture shares photos from this year's Boston Marathon.
• blogTO reports on the proposal to make the lower Don valley a new park.
• D-Brief notes the impending emergence of cicadas.
• The Dragon's Gaze links to the potentially cataclysmic consequences of very large impacts on early Venus.
• The Map Room Blog considers the process of ( Read more... )