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 Street Art: art that you can only see when it rains.
- Cuba is coming off of the list of state sponsors of terrorism as part of the effort to roll back the ludicrous crap the US has been doing with Cuba for generations.
- Someone at Lucasfilm (a wholly owned subsidiary of Ben Morse) really knows how to write a letter to a cute kid.
- If you’re looking to renovate your bathroom, add only the best decorations.
- In the 60s and 70s, scientists and doctors very nearly created Iron Cow, a nuclear-powered artificial cow heart.
- Sometimes, there are all sorts of awesome people who come out of the woodwork to help abused kids feel safe and confront their attackers. Including, apparently, a bunch of bikers that will stand guard at homes, schools, and courtrooms.
- An illustrated history of Tex-Mex food.
- In Texas, a girl got out of a citation for underage drinking by beating a cop at rock-paper-scissors. These are things white people get to do.
- Now that we have a Batman vs. Superman trailer, someone can make one featuring the best Superman and the best Batman.
- In the 19th-century United States, one tense issue was the precise location of Toledo.
- A thousand-year-old joke from an Irish monastery has survived in many different languages over the centuries, and is still funny.
- The FBI misled courts & juries for decades about forensic hair matching, leading to the conviction of who-knows-how-many people. “Whoopsidoodle,” reports the agency.
- Cosplay is a wonderful thing: you can take Ariel from The Little Mermaid and turn her into a warrior princess.
- Having babies in space probably isn’t going to work out any time soon.
- They say it’s always foolish to lead the cops on a high-speed chase because they’ll always catch you, but hey, this guy at least gave a bunch of people a story to tell when he drove right through their local mall.
- If you’ve ever wondered why violins have f-shaped holes, it turns out that that shape drives higher airflow, making violins more powerful.
- Hey now. Monsters have problems too, you know.
- Seating in the US Civil War is more fascinating than you ever would’ve thought. Goodness, it’s amazing to see people who’re knowledgeable and enthusiastic about niche subjects.
- Many animals have spiky penises, which invites the question, why don’t humans? I mean, thank goodness.
- This rope survived unbroken for 3200 years in Tutankhamun’s tomb thanks to dryness and oxygen deprivation. Until one of our modern-day grave robbers busted through it, of course.
- The Sidu River Bridge in China is the world’s tallest bridge, built off a pilot line that was connected from one end to the other via rocket. It’s the only bridge in the world tall enough that a person falling from it would achieve terminal velocity. These are things we do.
- You may have heard of the Trolley Problem, a thought experiment that highlights your ethical impulses. It turns out that we have some exciting variations now!
- There’s a problem on Mount Everest…a fecal problem.
