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!
- We are all citizens. In this one respect. Some bigots around the US will resist in the same way that some bigots at town and county offices, staunchly opposed to the rights and/or happiness of anyone not like them in every respect, have resisted in states that got here before the whole country did, but other than a few counties marriage rights are here. Onward and upward, as civil rights struggles must always go.
- But seriously, look at the first couples to get married in states where marriage was illegal a week ago. Just look at those beautiful, happy people. If you can look at them and still cling to the idea that their happiness somehow harms you or anyone else…bah, you’re probably not reading this. Toodles.
- When I was halfway home from the Pride parade on Sunday, a woman sat down opposite from me on the train, took a look at the beads and stickers one accumulates at this sort of thing, and said “So how was New York?” We talked for a few minutes, and she wondered out loud whether they have Pride celebrations in France that she might be able to go to once she goes back there. “I’m sure they do,” I said; “they have them everywhere. Even places where it’s dangerous to have them.” I mean, Pride marches in the US started as riots and protests, and there are activists continuing in that spirit. An important part of the celebration now that it’s a safer, more corporatized event (and boy howdy is it corporatized) is to serve as a signal to people who’d want to participate but can’t due to social pressures, family complications, religious or governmental institutions, whatever, that we are here and this is possible. Meanwhile, earlier on Sunday, Turkish cops broke up Istanbul Pride with pepper spray, plastic bullets, and water cannon. The participants — the ones who weren’t arrested — regrouped on another street. And it goes on.
- Meanwhile, in Mozambique, it’s legal to be LGB now.
- This Week in 3D Printing: turn any object into a Rubik’s cube-like puzzle.
- Also in 3D printing: How to 3D Print a Steel Bridge. Though perhaps “3D print” shouldn’t just be used as another way to say “build.”
- Hellman’s is improving the flow rate of its disgusting food-like goop, for those interested.
- If ever the US Constitution had something in need of repealing, it’s the second amendment — written to support slavery, and continuing to cost lives every day.
- In a landmark case, a jury has ruled against child torture.
- Everyone always hated clippy.
- Microsoft is ending its large-scale support for Windows XP, moving anyone still using it to a paid model for continued security updates and the like. Those people still using XP include, at some expense, the US Navy.
- The ice bucket challenge stuff from last summer raised 115 million dollars for ALS research & treatment, which, in somewhat of a surprise for a big-money charity windfall, seems to have been allocated well and done a lot of good already, including crucial patient care programs that still hadn’t recovered from the global economic collapse.
- Artificial legs for flamingos! Artificial legs for all!
- In Canada this past winter, a fire department was called about a local fire on the Makwa Sahgaiehacan First Nation and didn’t bother responding. Two children died in the fire.
- Following the murder of nine people at a black church in Charleston a couple weeks ago, there’s been a string of arsons at black churches, because of course there has.
- Bree Newsome is a damn hero.
- This is a fascinating look at what it’s like to be an eating disorder survivor during Ramadan.
- This has been a fairly heavy Walk. Let’s now consider an important question: which animals’ bellies need to be rubbed? Allllllll of them.
- Weather photography is some of the most breathtaking stuff.
- Also in weather: interpreting reports can be tricky, since so many of the terms are vague. Writing them can be tricky too, since so many of the terms are vague, or are precise calculations founded on vague terms. I tend to go easy on the weatherpeople, all things considered, since they’re trying to predict the ding-dang future.
- Last night featured a leap second in order to keep our mortal earthly timekeeping in line with the motion of our planet. Let’s hope we spent it well.
- Vernon Davis is not good at the Family Feud.
- In Germany, a sculpture was issued a parking ticket. Go ahead and put the boot on that thing.
- If you’re looking for a way to make your business cards a little more snazzy, consider the Magic: The Gathering aesthetic!
- This is an ad for a television, which I usually wouldn’t post given that neither I nor the proprietors of the Plane to Be Nation are being paid to advertise televisions, but before the corporate branding comes up it’s two minutes of colorful, mesmerizing glory as thousands of bouncy balls cascade down the hills and streets of San Francisco. Watch it in HD, breathe deeply, and be at peace for a while.
