• blogTO identify five neighbourhoods in downtownish Toronto with cheap rent.
• The Dragon's Gaze notes one paper suggesting Earth-like worlds may need both ocean and rocky surfaces to be habitable.
• The Dragon's Tales reports that Pluto's Sputnik Planum is apparently less than ten million years old.
• Geocurrents begins an interesting regional schema of ( Read more... )

• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly makes the case that people need rest.
• The Dragon's Gaze wonders if a lithium-rich giant star KIC 9821622 ate its exoplanets.
• The Dragon's Tales writes about the Russian war in Syria.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog considers the sociology of holidays.
• A Geocurrents guest post looks at one mapping of ISIS.

• blogTO shares photos of Yonge and Dundas in the grimy 1970s.
• The Big Picture shares photos from a Tibetan Buddhist assembly.
• Crooked Timber shares a photo of Bristol's floating bridge.
• The Dragon's Gaze reports on an estimate of the number of extraterrestrial technological civilizations.
• The Dragon's Tales notes an atlas of drought in Europe.

• blogTO ranks Toronto's newest neighbourhoods from best to worst.
• The Dragon's Gaze suggests exoplanets which receive between 60 to 90% of the energy the Earth received are likely to be Earth-like.
• The Dragon's Tales links to a paper suggesting the solar system likely did not eject a fifth gas giant and looks at what happened to the very early crust ( Read more... )

• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper suggesting that stars commonly ingest hot Jupiters.
• The Dragon's Tales reports on the spread of robots.
• Far Outliers shares terms for making shoyu.
• Joe. My. God. notes that Ashley Madison nearly bought Grindr.
• Language Log notes the changing usage of "hemp" as a political term.

• Claus Vistesen of Alpha Sources notes that though the stock market might be peaking, we don't know when.
• blogTO warns that Toronto might consider a bid for the 2024 Olympics.
• James Bow thinks about Ex Machina.
• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly looks forward to her impending visit to Maine.
• Centauri Dreams features an essay by Michael A.G. Michaud ( Read more... )

A recent Slate article by Katy Waldmann pointed me towards Minae Mizumura's 2008 book The Fall of Language in the Age of English. She seems to make some interesting arguments about the position of the English language and the potential threat to the position of non-English languages.

Languages have materiality, Mizumura insists, and her personal ( Read more... )

• Antipope Charlie Stross describes why he's shifting from science fiction to fantasy: the latter better fits the black-box technological zeitgeist.
• blogTO recommends thinks to do in Kensington Market and Chinatown.
• Centauri Dreams looks at some proposals for interstellar drives.
• The Dragon's Tales notes Indonesia's participation in a South Korean ( Read more... )

• The Dragon's Gaze links to one paper examining the search for exomoons and links to another looking for very widely-separated exoplanets.
• Far Outliers' Joel shows some unusual Japanese words.
• The Financial Times' The World blog notes, in the context of recent riots, that Vietnam is an important player in global supply chains.
• Joe. My. God. notes the ( Read more... )

• Crooked Timber's Maria Farrell writes about Ireland's Magdalen Laundries, institutions she sees as product of Irish misogyny and Roman Catholicism.
• Daniel Drezner took note of the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and argues that the main people arguing about a currency war are (among others) developing countries and a Bundesbank that doesn't want to ( Read more... )