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.
- We still need your advice questions for Steve Wille’s guest appearances on the ol’ Spectacular — big or small, we’ll consider them all! Email us or go to our Ask.fm page to send your questions today. (Your name won’t be read on the show without permission (so tell us what to call you if anything), and Ask.fm allows anonymous submissions.)
- The crew of the International Space Station will be watching the new Star War in orbit.
- Speaking of the new Star War, I hear there are several important petitions we have to sign regarding how terrible it is. Get to signing! (The Glenn Butler Podcast Hour Spectacular’s look at the film will be out later this week; other hosts on the PTBN Pop feed already have their episode up, if you’re feeling fancy.)
- This Week in Year-End Lists: Best Space Images is always a hotly-contested category.
- The poet Ovid was banished from Rome in 8 CE. Good news, though, he’s welcome there again! That timing really makes England’s apology to Alan Turing seem quick.
- Speaking of ancient Rome, you may know the story about the slave assigned to stand over the shoulder of a leader enjoying a triumphal parade, reminding him that all glory is fleeting, that he too is mortal. As with anything else, you can now have your phone do this for you.
- We’re firmly into the holiday season at this point, so it’s time to remember that friends don’t let friends donate to the Salvation Army.
- Speaking of holidays, I for one completely understand this cow’s desperation to escape Christmas.
- The ongoing monopolization of franchise content by Disney isn’t to be celebrated, even if there are some neat crossovers. Imagine the crossovers there would be if art entered the public domain after a period of time like it’s supposed to (and won’t be allowed to any more, thanks to Disney’s efforts to ensure they never ever have to share the mouse).
- This Week in Neural Net Processors, Learning Computers: The latest interest to get the neural network treatment is board games, and let me tell you, I can’t wait to get my hands on The Besterin Landing: Sentinels of the Alest Tente in the Dark.
- This Week in Comic Book Villains Brought to Life: From the same obsessive need to control outdoor spaces at all times that brought you gaps & spikes on benches (to make it impossible for your homeless neighbors to sleep on benches without doing anything to get them homes) comes spikes nailed to tree branches to prevent birds from coming anywhere near people’s precious precious cars. I appreciate a degree of alienation from nature — hooray for heated spaces and indoor plumbing! — but shutting birds out of their habitats because they’re inconvenient for some fancy cars is on another level. Basically, nature will bury you.
- Ask a Manager wants to know which horrifying boss story was the worst of 2017, and there are some real whoppers.
- Also in year-end lists, honestly, animals have been crushing it this year. Someone had to.
