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.
- This past weekend saw a very special Armistice Day — the hundredth anniversary of the titular armistice, technically ending World War I and starting the churning phase of the unresolved conflicts and resentments that blew up into World War II. Amazingly, by using a visual record to recreate audio, we can hear the last minute of shelling, ending at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month (for the aesthetic, you know). I didn’t realize the artillery bombardment literally continued until the last moments before the armistice, which is just one more layer of stupid pointlessness slathered on top of a monumentally stupid, pointless war.
- This ranking of “I Voted” stickers from across the US gets it about right. Sadly my town has these vaguely sanctimonious stickers that read “I made democracy count” across the bottom.
- We all make mistakes, but I dare say not too many of us have made the world’s most perfect mistake.
- Meanwhile, in the great state of Connecticut, a would-be robber was foiled by some sick lucha libre moves. The report is pretty vague, so I’m going to go ahead and assume the victim subdued his attacker with a pescado off of a fire escape, followed by a huracánrana with a double leg cradle pin.
- The next Star Wars live-action series is going to be a spy thriller about Cassian Andor early in the rebellion. This one has serious potential.
- In a darker moment for franchises, it seems the ALF revival isn’t happening.
- This Week in Neural Net Processors, Learning Computers: Feed a neural network eight thousand CNN headlines and you get some bangers. “Why Apps in the Country” indeed.
- Out of all the things my generation is going to valorize forever because they happened to come out during our formative years, I think the Addams Family movies have the advantage of actually being good.
- A new study of Neanderthal teeth points at some fascinating things about their lead exposure, baby weaning, and environmental hardships.
- Teaching school children must be a wondrous experience. You train in pedagogical techniques, you’re loosed upon a classroom full of children, and then sometimes you wind up explaining to deaf students, at some length, that hearing people can often tell when you farted.
- Merriam-Webster’s Time Machine shows you the words that entered the dictionary in any year you choose, so you can see what was being codified or popularized at any time. For instance, the year I was born M-W first recognized DNA fingerprinting, the moonwalk, and bi-curiousness!
- Look, I know programmers have been working on the blowjob bot for a long, long (sorry) time, but I’ve got to think that as long as they use horrible porn blowjobs to train it, it’s going to give horrible porn blowjobs.
- In the US, Thanksgiving is coming up, and after that a smattering of other family-togetherness-times that can be stressful and dread-inducing. Just remember, friends, that you cannot quote-unquote ruin the holidays, so just try to take care of yourselves.
- This Week in Nazi Self-Owns: A dude who tried to knock over a statue commemorating an antifascist leader in Croatia did manage to knock it over…right onto his own leg. Aww.
- You know, you can try to be a good and helpful person, you can try to climb up to the top of a building to get a parrot that appears to be stuck there, but sometimes it’s just going to tell you to fuck off and then fly over to another roof. Such is the rich tapestry of life.
