Welcome to the Wednesday Walk Around the Web, where we weave & wind through weblinks weekly. Hopefully you will find the links on offer amusing, interesting, or, occasionally, profound. Views expressed in the Wednesday Walk do not necessarily reflect those of anyone but the writer. Do you have a link you want to see featured in next week’s Walk? Email Glenn!
- This Week in Space: the clown can stay, but the astronaut in the gorilla suit has to go!
- The MIT Technology Review’s list of breakthrough technologies for 2016 includes new feats of genetic engineering, reusable rockets(!), and instant messaging.
- Should a boss have a talk with an employee about social media use on sick days? My kneejerk reaction: hell to the no, you do not micromanage your employees’ goddamn internet use. A few things: 1) Ask a Manager’s answer is actually pretty good; b) a company has no right to dictate what employees do outside of their work hours, including and especially the paid time off they’re entitled to; iii) I personally wouldn’t do that kind of thing, but then again, I have an anxiety disorder and would probably spend more time hemming and hawing over what people will think of a photo than I’ve ever spent taking a photo. Aside perhaps from the time I’ve spent taking additional photos because I was holding the camera 1 millimeter too high.
- At the
White People’s Choice AwardsOscars, Vice President and the US’ Wacky Uncle Joe Biden entered to the strains of the Indiana Jones march, briefly discussed the importance of enthusiastic consent, and introduced Lady Gaga. I just wanted to type that out so I can remember that all of those things happened. Then, in another event that really happened in the reality we inhabit, Lady Gaga met C-3P0. - We need to do more to acknowledge the mastery of visual effects necessary for movies like Carol.
- Paul F. Tompkins explains the value of political correctness in comedy. Political correctness, of course, is a thing that people somehow manage to convince themselves means something other than “the least you can do in trying to be a decent human being,” usually something along the lines of “people are saying my bigoted jokes aren’t funny.” (Check out Tompkins’ Dead Authors podcast; it’s a treat.)
- Full House is back. Hey Arnold! is coming back. Pee-Wee is having another adventure. And now, it’s Legends of the Hidden Temple‘s turn.
- Without wool, there would’ve been no Vikings.
- Kesha seems to be shackled to her abuser by both court and contract. You’d think that’d be an unsafe working environment. Just shameful.
- Loving Vincent is an animated movie about Van Gogh in which the animation takes the form of 12 oil paintings per second by over a hundred artists.
- Huge cranes just keep falling down.
- If you push a door you’re supposed to pull, it’s probably not your fault; it’s probably bad design.
