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? Comment on the Walk post at the Place to Be Nation Facebook page, or find Glenn on the social media platform of your choice!
- I just got the biggest smile I’ve had all day watching a train pull into the station after last week’s snowstorm, sending all of the snow flying off of the track. I still regard snow the way a ten-year-old does, at any moment when I’m not actively shoveling. (Of course the best part is that it covers the accursed grass. Eight inches we got just one week ago, and the grass is back.)
- This Week in Self-Driving Cars: We’ve finally devised a trap to ensnare the driverless cars.
- It’s about time some election somewhere went well: In the Dutch elections last week the white supremacist party fell way behind in parliament, so for once the fascists didn’t win. Next up is France.
- A few weeks back, we reflected on PornHub’s unexpectedly socially-conscious approach to sex education. This time, PornHub decided to get some people plowed after last week’s snowstorm. That sits at just the right junction of puns and helpfulness, as an example for us all.
- PTBN Grand Poobah Brad Hindscrooge sends along word of my next pets, radioactive boars emanating from the Fukushima exclusion zone.
- When you have to mourn a beloved pet, do it in the Viking style.
- You know, I understand why someone would point out that the turkeys circling a dead cat weren’t actually performing a dark rite known only to the necromancers of the animal world, but really, isn’t that a lot less boring than reality?
- This Week in Intentional Accidental Music: Observe the triple concerto for faucet, water pipes, and fiddle.
- Every so often I think about putting a fire pit in my backyard — I have a big ol’ yard that could use some more interruptions & features, especially once I wait long enough for the one neighbor who hasn’t put up a fence yet to do it for me. If I ever do get that fire pit, I must absolutely look into populating it with skulls.
- Hey Kids, it’s Grammar Time! Once again, the Oxford comma saves the day.
- The internet is a wonderful thing. The rectangle in your pocket gives you access to the sum of all human knowledge, such as which Irish politicians are Beyoncé fans.
- YouTube’s equivalent of parental control is filtering out LGBTQIAP+ videos to protect folks from such family-unfriendly entries as “Asexual Awareness Week,” artists showing some doodles, and a video of a woman eating a piece of chicken.(Not to mention that if anyone’s using it as parental control, it’s liable to be parents who want to restrict LGBTQIAP+ content and therefore should not be able to actually do it. Meanwhile you can’t watch anything about video games without getting white supremacists in the recommendations.)
- This guide on how to prepare for a pandemic curiously leaves out the importance of playing with larger groups to maximize the number of different specialist skills you can take advantage of, as well as the value of building research centers around the globe so more people can discover cures.
- This Week in Covers: Telephone performed on a shakuhachi and koto might be my favorite traditional instrumental cover since Sweet Child o’ Mine on a guzheng.
- In 2012, four prison guards threw Darren Rainey into a shower, turned the heat up, and scalded him to death. In 2014 the Walk observed that the investigation was cursory at best. Now it’s official: the guards will face no charges for murdering a person.
- Time to close out with happy animal stuff. First, I think we can all acknowledge the busy to-do list held by any common bear.
- Sometimes animal fights can’t be broken up by people, especially when they’re fights between small modern dinosaurs. The best referee, sometimes, is another animal.
- Dogs want to be with us so much that they’ll play jumprope with our kids.