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!
- An epic landslide in California covered a large, beefy swath of highway 1 in fresh mountainside. The before-and-after slider sure is a sight.
- So there was a trailer for the new Star Trek series a couple of weeks ago. I almost always have low-key reactions to these things: righto then, hope the show’s good. After the multitudinous delays and staff shakeups that Discovery has been subject to, having an actual trailer feels reassurance that, yes, they’re still making a show and someday it will actually be broadcast. There’s some cool stuff, some stuff I don’t get (if they wanted those uniforms and new Klingons they didn’t need to make a prequel show, why is this a prequel show), but keep your eyes on the prize: they’re actually making a TV show. For a depressingly loud segment of fandom, of course, the main takeaway is the same takeaway depressingly numerous/loud fans always have: not enough white people, too many women.
- This Week in Things Republicans Don’t Want to Fund: Weather forecasting. Because it’s not like anyone wants better models for hurricanes or tornadoes.
- Please, please, please don’t share any stupid memes about how people used to talk to each other before they had smart phones or wev. There will always be stuff from earlier complaining about whatever your generation grew up with, because people have literally always engaged in Kids These Days bullshit. We have rectangles in our pockets that connect us to almost every other person, and the sum of human knowledge; that’s bloody amazing.
- I for one am kind of over the great sandwich debate, but courts and regulatory agencies keep wading into it.
- This Week in Time Travelers: A 10th-century burial was recently found complete with Adidads boots.
- An Open Letter to Everyone Who’s Just Barely Holding It Together.
- For a brief moment, this calligraphy video made me want to run screaming from my laptop.
- In much the same way that Mars needs moms, Japan needs ninjas. They’ve all gone off to do obstacle courses on TV, haven’t they?
- This Week in Contenders for Most Interesting Person in the World: Holly Maniatty, ASL interpreter for music festivals. Student of Killer Mike’s work? Signer for the Wu-Tang Clan? First-degree black belt in taekwondo? I’d say she deserves a nice relaxing Phish concert.
- There are big things popping on Uranus these days.
- So here’s something that’s fascinating: The history of humans interacting with fire is fantastically complex, has waxed and waned, and sometimes grows longer.