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 Horror: imagine waking up one day having forgotten everything that’s happened since you were 15, including the birth of your child. There are times when you can take advantage of rebooting your life, though.
- In more widespread horror, there’s the earthquake in Nepal.
- Good for them.
- NASA may have created something that sounds a hell of a lot like a warp field. Just make sure not to trap any astronauts inside a warp bubble. Meanwhile, the illustration of the NASA warp field almost literally has the Enterprise XCV-330 in it; I feel like these folks really get me, you know?
- Also in Star Trek technologies breaking into our world, we might have transparent aluminum now.
- The NFL is finally giving up the idea that it’s a nonprofit organization.
- Wildfire season may no longer be just a season for California. Good thing they have so much water available to dump on the fires!
- Happy 25th birthday to the Hubble Space Telescope!
- Behold the Darth Vader mask made of bugs. Whoooooooops, sorry for the Episode VII spoiler!
- This Week in Tense Sporting Finals: inside the crossword puzzle championships.
- By using virtual reality to render a person invisible, you can reduce symptoms of social anxiety. Apparently.
- RIP Freddie Gray, murdered by cops. RIP Terrence Kellum, murdered in his home by a cop who felt the need to shoot him ten times. RIP Mya Hill, murdered by cops (and deadnamed by journalists). RIP Felix David, murdered by a cop. RIP Dontrell Stephens, summarily executed by a cop in 2013 for the crime of using a cell phone (warning: autoplay execution video). RIP to this assuredly incomplete list of people murdered by cops in the last year and a half. Best wishes to Tania Harris, a child who was shot by cops who were called because other teens were going to jump her, and who is now being charged with assault while still in the hospital. Meanwhile, Eric Harris’ murderer gets to flee to the Bahamas for a tropical vacation; it’s okay, though, I bet he pinky-swore to come back, and he must be good for it.
- If you read about Baltimore, or see people talking about it, just remember that there is no violence in these situations that is not directly caused by cops and perpetuated by cops. You know what, just go read Coates.
- Back to some funnybusiness. Noise complaints in New York, specifically sex noise complaints, can be aggregated to get a rough sense of where the most loud sex is happening (though that’s got to be a small, erm, sample size). And you like your senses rough, don’t you.
- In the US, the FDA has approved a beautiful space tiara that prevents migraines.
- Learn a little more about the world we live in. Learn a little more about nature. Learn a little more about science. Learn about spider sex.
- Also in learning about the world we live in: some background on why Somali pirates turn to piracy.
- Also, learn a little about art history. Learn a little about how much of it has Mr. Bean in it.
- In at least one instance, the one-star Yelp reviewers got it right.
- This Week in Data I Didn’t Know We Had: a systematic study of trends in facial hair from 1842 to 1972.
- What to do, what to do, when you think your employees might have a sex club.
- Finally, in our PTBN Link of the Week (remember those?), if you didn’t read Tim’s piece on Bobby Drake, you really should. And that’s coming from me as someone who knows fuck-all about comics.