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.
- The Academy says it’s adding a new category for the best “popular film” sometime in the near future. I wonder how movies will become eligible for this category…budget? Box office? Casting one or more of the Hollywood Chrises?
- Amazingly, when the ol’ Walk reported on a mass goat escape last week, what was missing was the other fleeting moment of freedom for a drove of goats, possibly aided in their struggle by a freedom fighter who’s been on the loose for more than a year.
- Also in daring escapes, two old men escaped their nursing home to head to a heavy metal festival. (It’s fine, they’re fine.) (Autoplay video)
- Sometimes my “strategy” of leaving articles in open tabs for days or weeks or months pays off when a story develops in an unexpected direction. The recent article about the cop who rigged the McDonald’s Monopoly promotion is true, but it’s also journalism qua movie pitch, now optioned by Ben Affleck’s production company.
- Whoooooooooooooooooops!
- Jennifer Garner recently avoided an unfortunate fate at sea, depriving the mighty Poseidon of his bounty.
- This Week in Superhero Analysis: Really the only way to explain Peter Parker is to think about his Jewish roots. The best heroes are the ones who feel a strong sense of tikkun olam.
- This Week in Historical Events I Completely Forgot: It’s been 15 years since the massive blackout in the northeast US and Canada.
- There are so many ways that our governments fail us. It almost seems in poor taste to point out that Baltimore cops, the gang that murdered Freddie Gray, keep their digital records in Lotus Notes databases, because apparently they think it’s worked well enough since the 90s.
- On the other hand, you also don’t want to charge into technological changes that completely undermine the voting process. Unless you aim to benefit from making voting more vulnerable.
- Also in IT policy, a cool thing companies do is offer you a way to supposedly turn off some elements of mobile phone surveillance, that actually don’t.
- From what little I’ve seen, Jimmy Buffet seems like a nice and wholesome person, so cheers for all the folks who want to join the Margaritaville retirement community. Should my generation actually make it to retirement age with the financial ability to retire, I can’t wait to hear about the Harry Potter-themed communities where we’ll drive our scooters up to the sorting hat to rent our condos.
- RIP Luigi Mario, turned by cruel fate into that which he hates and fears the most: a ghost.
- This Week in Video Games: If you’ve ever wondered how equal the distribution of pieces really is in Tetris — and I have — this chart suggests that while not exactly equal, it’s pretty damn close.
- This Week in Neural Net Processors, Learning Computers: Skynet has officially bested Where’s Waldo.
- This Week(?) in Cats: Cats have always been cats — barely if at all domesticated, willful, and prone to wander into the middle of whatever their humans are doing.