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!
- Last week I mentioned the potential for cyborg cockroaches to assist in search-and-rescue efforts after building collapses and sundry disasters. There’s another wave of innovation after that, of course, and now we could have robot snakes coming to find you in a pile of rubble. It’s terrifying enough being stuck in a pile of rubble, but all the things coming to find you are also terrifying. This is the world we made.
- How musicians die. Note that almost nobody appears to be murdering the country artists; this could be a significant growth market in the future. (Note: don’t murder anyone. Please.)
- This Week in YouTube Genres I Didn’t Know About Before: drivers escaping from tow trucks to escape their fines.
- It’s an exciting offseason for Bill Belichick.
- This Week in Cool-Looking Products for Rich Douches: 3D-printed ice.
- The NFL finally hired a woman as a referee. I shudder to think of how players will address her when they don’t like her calls, but hey, maybe she can throw them out for it.
- So, Indiana passed one of those bullshit “religious freedom” bills that’s just another excuse for some religious folks to be even bigger bigots. The sun rises, the sun sets, and the world turns. There’s a self-righteous Boycott Indiana movement afoot, not realizing that any attempt at economic reprisal hurts the untermenschen, many of whom are already affected by the bill or don’t support it anyway, long before it affects the legislators or the governor. It’s worth hearing from queer Hoosiers themselves here.
- One method of suspended animation is heading toward human trials.
- The physics of drying your hands. This, of course, says little about the ethics of drying your hands.
- April 9th is the 150th anniversary of the day that, in the US, treason in defense of slavery was at long last crushed. While the traitors reinstated large parts of their agenda in the following decades, that day should at least be acknowledged.
- If you ever wanted to see the Muppets perform The Humpty Dance, today is your lucky day.
- How do you bring a statue to life? Project a moving face onto it, of course!
- This is the best thing that can possibly happen when some cretins try to SWAT a woman for being so impudent as to exist on the internet.
- The “Perfect Workspace” includes lots of space and lots of light and lots of windows.
- In Germany, a nuclear reactor that was built but never used is now a theme park, including super-fun rides inside the cooling tower. Well done, Germans.
- The Large Quasar Group is the largest structure known to exist, clocking in at four billion light years across.
- Get a look at how hummingbirds hover in place so well, even in wind or rain, visible through the magic of high-speed cameras.
- The perfect wildlife photo takes a lot of work, with subjects that can be uncooperative.
- Put out your fires with sound, here in the future!
- We’re always inventing new treatments for hangovers. They say abstinence is the only trustworthy method of prevention.
- Coloring books aren’t just for kids. At least, that’s what we hear from coloring book sellers.
- When you discover that you can shatter CDs by rotating them too quickly, what do you do? Crack out the slow-motion camera, of course.
