Welcome back! I hope the last seven days have treated you well. There's a lot going on in the world, and I hope you're able to keep your heads above all of it.

With that out of the way, let's get Monday started with these links:

Why Was Tokyo Dubbed “Venice of the East”? — While there are still a number of waterways in the modern city, up until about a hundred years ago there were far more that were used for a range of purposes that supported everyday life in Tokyo.

From the article:

While many of the canals were filled in during the 20th century to make way for cars and trains, traces of Edo’s aquatic past remain. The Kanda, Meguro and Sumida Rivers still wind through the city, glimpses into its fluid heritage

ISS SOS: The plan to leave a doomed space station - quickly — No, it's not as simple as jumping into an escape pod, mashing down a big red button, and holding on for dear life. There are intricate, detailed procedures that must be followed to ensure the crew gets away safely.

From the article:

In practice that means reacting to the alarm, assessing what's gone wrong, following the checklist and dealing with the issue methodically as a team. A fire, for instance, would mean locating all the crew, putting on respirators, activating fire extinguishers and sealing-off modules.

The identity industrialists — A short, but hard hitting, piece that looks at a profound shift in the so-called creative industry, one which the masses enabled over the years by worshipping at the altar of celebrity and personality. And a shift with sinister undertones.

From the article:

The identity industrialists will shape the next decade of media, politics, advertising, and intimacy, not because their creations are lifelike (yet), but because their creations work and audiences respond. Because synthetic people are perfectly tuned to satisfy expectations, and humans rarely are, the market will reward anyone who can manufacture connection at scale.

How can we defend ourselves from the new plague of ‘human fracking’? — Yet another in the seemingly-endless line of articles and blog posts about regaining our eroding attention. This time 'round, though, the writer proposes a novel solution.

From the article:

The answer is clear: we, the actual people of this planet, must come together in decisive solidarity; we must say no to the human frackers, and do so by insisting, in new ways, that human attention is human, and it is ours, and we will use it to make the worlds in which we want to live. In other words, we need a movement.