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!
- The PTB’s very own JT Rozzero sends word of more great shots of Pluto, including a full rotation. We have such a rich library of images from one little ship that did one quick flyby.
- Two views on a study of color preference show the stark difference that interpretation of data can make.
- In a rarity, a terrorist/cop who murdered a black child in cold blood has actually been charged with his crime. This after at least four officially-licensed thugs were caught lying in order to advance their white supremacist agenda.
- If you’re making some mashed potatoes this week, just remember that you cannot add enough garlic. Keep that in mind for most other dishes too, but especially potatoes. Stock up on cheese and butter too.
- I may have posted this before, but it bears repeating: when wondering if a priest could bless an entire ocean and turn it into holy water, the question to ask isn’t whether one technically could, but whether one should. Alternatively, maybe that priest just wants to create a whole lot of sinners.
- Visit the Cemetery of Dead Science to see some spooooooooky ideas that were disproven by further analysis. I’m getting the shivers just thinking about the Pluto dead-enders.
- SunsetWX is a tool that forecasts the quality of the coming sunset. Check it out to see if you should be out snapping photos tonight.
- Binaries are things we make up and try to impose on the world, sometimes at great cost, so don’t try to jam everyone into two sexes. (While we’re at it, don’t necessarily assume genetics is the be-all end-all of determining someone’s sex. Actually, while we’re at it, don’t assume someone else’s sex is information you actually need unless you’re getting along pretty well.)
- Master of None is a really good watch (between that and Kimmy Schmidt, Netflix is quietly killing it on sitcoms this year), and one episode about the experience of being the children of immigrants has resonated with a lot of people.
- STD rates in the US are on the rise, particularly among men. Guys, seriously, use protection and get tested.
- Good news in the animal kingdom India has a lot more tigers than it used to.
- This Week in Background Noise Generators: cat purrs! Bring the wonderful sound of cats with you wheresoever you may be.
- One unexpected effect of a drought in Mexico is that dwindling water levels in one reservoir has revealed a 17th-century church.
- Learn a little bit about ancient Mesopotamian scribes.
- ICYMI, your ol’ Wednesday Walker has a podcast now, and the first episode is a four-hour deep dive into the Hunger Games series, with all the meditations on trauma, propaganda, and mental illness implied thereby. Look for episode two, an early holiday-season special, a little later today.
