99 Percent Invisible: Shade

Shade can literally be a matter of life and death. Los Angeles, like most cities around the world, is heating up. And in dry, arid environments like LA, shade is perhaps the most important factor influencing human comfort, “even more than our temperature, more than humidity, more than wind speed,” says Bloch. Without shade, the chance of mortality, illness, and heatstroke can go way up. People become dizzy, disoriented, confused, lethargic, and dehydrated — and for the elderly or people with health issues, that can tip into more dangerous territory, like heart attacks or organ failure. Shade can literally save lives. [...]

But things changed drastically in LA after the advent of cheap electricity and the completion of the Hoover Dam. The city rebuilt itself around controlled air conditioning and car culture. Palm trees became an LA calling card. “As Mary Pickford said, [palm trees are] very good for window shopping from the seat of your car because the tree trunks aren’t that robust,” notes Bloch, but they’re also “as one essayist said, about as useful for shade as a telephone pole.” [...]

But the sidewalk isn’t the only place where LA has a shade problem. The public parks also provide very little refuge from the hot sun. Pershing Square, for example, used to be full of shade trees. But after a new underground parking structure destroyed the root system, the thick, dense tree canopy was replaced. Other parks lack trees because of a strategy Bloch has reported on called crime prevention through environmental design. In LA, there is an idea that increased visibility in public spaces will lead to higher levels of public safety. In several instances, it’s believed the LAPD has installed pole cameras in parks or in public housing projects and cut down mature trees to give the camera a clear sightline.

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VICE: Photos of the Most Egregious 'Anti-Homeless' Architecture

At its core, hostile or "defensive" architecture amounts to a forever campaign waged, consciously or otherwise, by designers, landlords, and developers to force people to use property in exactly one way. Sometimes, the end result isn't exactly a tragedy; skaters might have to go somewhere else, for instance. But in its most malignant form, hostile architecture can deter homeless folks from resting. In those cases, public or quasi-public spaces of cities—often defined by unequal access to transit, groceries, and other essentials—become a visceral extension of society's collective disregard for their fate. [...]

Previously, when asked about their strategy for managing public spaces, a spokesperson for the California Department of Transportation (DOT)—which had placed boulders where folks once camped in the Bay Area—said they "use fencing and landscaping elements to prevent and discourage.... illegal encampments." It’s worth noting that many people sleeping outdoors within U.S. city limits are doing so illegally, although due to the 2018 Martin v. Boise court decision, they might not be punished for doing so on public property unless the city in question provides adequate indoor space. It's still unclear what this decision will mean to the estimated 550,000 homeless people in the country, nor the growing population in the Bay Area, which has massively increased over the past two years. [...]

As "hostile architecture" posts have in the past, the story blew up for a few days on social media—until the Coalition deleted their original, having determined the restaurant was "a valued member" of the community and "supportive of its homeless neighbors." That may be true, as the business explicitly denied anti-homeless intent, pointing to the rock as part of a Japanese garden. And this isn't the place for a debate about whether or not businesses are in the right or wrong even if they do choose to shoo homeless people away. Because when it comes to hostile architecture, it's more important to realize the effects than the intent, whether aesthetic or otherwise. And you can't do that without knowing what it looks like.

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Politico: Bernie breaks out of the pack

While few expect that Sanders can carry more than a third of the vote in Nevada, nearly everyone believes that will be enough to win in a field where the moderate vote remains splintered. It is becoming a source of celebration for Sanders' supporters and an urgent problem for those who want to prevent him from claiming the nomination. [...]

Pete Buttigieg, who topped the field with Sanders in Iowa and finished less than 2 percentage points behind him in New Hampshire, is not polling well in Nevada or in the next voting state, South Carolina. Amy Klobuchar surged in New Hampshire but is starting from behind in Nevada. Biden is the opposite — humiliated in Iowa and New Hampshire but with better prospects here. [...]

The dim prospects of anyone beating Sanders in Nevada were laid bare last week, when the state’s powerful Culinary Workers Union elected not to endorse in the presidential primary. Despite its criticism of Sanders’ signature policy proposal, Medicare for All, the union was not convinced that any other Democrat could defeat Sanders, even with the union’s endorsement, according to a source familiar with the union’s deliberations.

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The Federal Trust: Brexit: The British government starts to recognise reality

Michael Gove’s acknowledgement that trade between the UK and the EU after 1st January 2021 will be far from frictionless is a watershed in the Brexit process. The claim that Brexit would not significantly impinge upon British trade with the European Union was central to the 2016 Leave campaign. So central indeed that government ministers spent the three years thereafter repeating this dishonest assurance in the face of ever-mounting evidence to the contrary. [...]

The enduring denial that Brexit would involve customs and other checks at the border(s) of the EU was not merely a political and rhetorical convenience. The equivocation about the objective implications of Brexit for cross-border trade reflected a continuing disagreement among Leave voters and later within government itself about different models for quitting the EU. Campaigners for a Leave vote knew that there is not and never has been a majority within the British electorate for any specific form of Brexit. Any serious discussion during the referendum campaign of realistic alternatives to current British EU membership would have risked splintering the Leave coalition. Post-2016 government ministers have been forced to realise that any concrete form of Brexit, be it “hard” or “soft,” brought with it highly unpalatable consequences which they have been reluctant to discuss honestly with the electorate. Until now. [...]

The governmental volte-face on frontier formalities will probably need to be followed in short order by similar reversals of tack on Ireland, fisheries, financial services, digital exchanges and trading arrangements with third countries. These reversals will be intensely embarrassing to Boris Johnson’s administration, and it may well be that he concludes his short-term political interest is better served by abandoning negotiation with the EU and simply proclaiming that after the transition period ends the UK will trade with the EU on “WTO terms.” No informed commentator is in any doubt that this will cause considerable damage and disruption to the British economy. It will also exacerbate political tensions within the United Kingdom, heightening discontent in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Such political and economic dislocation would be unlikely, however, to deter this hubristic government. Boris Johnson would reasonably hope to be able to count on support from important sections of the traditional mass media to justify his recklessness in pursuing a new “no deal Brexit” as an unavoidable response to the “intransigence” of the EU. Over the past three and a half years, these Eurosceptic media have had much practice in depicting as unreasonable the EU’s wholly understandable reluctance to accommodate the ever-varying demands from London that are, in truth, inimical to the EU’s interests.

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The Atlantic: ‘Pure Poison’ for a Scholarly Career

All we know for certain, through forensic testing, is that the manuscript likely dates to the 15th century, when books were still mostly handmade and rare. But its provenance and meaning are uncertain, making it virtually impossible to corroborate any claims about its contents against other historical materials. So why are so many scholars and scientists driven to solve the puzzle?

For many, it’s the ultimate opportunity to prove their analytical skills in their given field. For others, it’s a chance to test promising new digital technologies and artificial-intelligence advances. And for some, it’s simply the thrill of the hunt. [...]

“Everyone wants to be the one to prove it, to crack it, to prove your own abilities, to prove you’re smarter,” says Davis, the medieval scholar. One problem, she adds, especially with a complex medieval manuscript, is that researchers are specialists. “Hardly anyone out there understands all the different components” of the manuscript, she points out, referring not just to the illustrations but to things like the binding, the inks, and the handwriting. “It’s going to take a whole interdisciplinary team.” [...]

In the end, the manuscript may simply be an unsolvable mystery. Robert Richards, a historian of science at the University of Chicago, uses the codex to teach the concept of scientific paradigms, where a scientific theory comes to shape a field of research so strongly that scientists can’t always explain or identify anomalies outside of the theory.

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