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!
- This Week in Poetry: this is the first week of the new year, which means the old year has been burned away. I hope you rang in the new year performing a pagan dance around the flames of the old.
- This Week in Year-End Lists: the votes are in for the worst boss of 2015, and let me tell you, the list of contenders was strong.
- There are some interesting thoughts to be had on the Kilgrave fandom and how people relate to abusers in pop culture more genreally. (Jessica Jones spoilers, obvs. Are we still giving spoiler warnings more than a month after the series came out? Sure, why not.)
- This Week in Real Things That Happened in the World: when Public Enemy missed their cab and were at risk of missing a gig, they piled into a fan’s car and merrily belted “Bohemian Rhapsody.” How angry can one really be when our brave new world has such wonders in’t?
- Plenty angry: a group of white Christian militants has seized a federal building; compare & contrast the response & depiction to any number of brutal assaults by militarized cops against protesters over the last several years. Those among us less inclined toward kindness might wonder whether they’ll give up as soon as their power is cut off, or go full Donner Party.
- Despite continuing strife and countless assaults whether lethal or not, there are actually some things to celebrate about 2015. That’s important to remember too.
- Vincent the cat has titanium legs. Your argument is invalid.
- You know those algorithms that average photos of people to make procedurally generic faces? Someone applied one of them to objects people see faces in to create a picture of the ghostly figure who will now haunt your every living moment. Not stopping there, they then plugged in pictures of static to find the ghost in the machine. Happy new year!
- Alert, alert! Klaxon, klaxon! We have new elements, people. Or, rather, experimental confirmation of brief instances of laboratory-produced elements that were previously hypothesized; that’s just how we get new elements now that we’ve long since catalogued all the ones in your body.
- I just recently got around to listening to the latest episode of Hardcore History, about ancient empires (some semi-prehistoric) and the construction of historical narratives. It was predictably fascinating; the two Hardcore History series on the World Wars were very well done, but I love the ancient stories.
- Someone likely far more interested than I am in a) sports and 2) masculinity recently opined that the the Eagles were playing “like they were wearing tutus.” The Pennsylvania Ballet then painted a picture of what it might really look like if they were on the level of the ballet.
- Put the cover of a Quran onto a Christian Bible, read some select passages to folks on the street, and watch people’s biases come out to play.
- Some are now suggesting that hangovers are not caused by dehydration. So…what does that mean about all those times I’ve neglected to drink any water in the morning and started to feel hung over without even getting the benefit of a pleasant buzz the night before, and am then forced to feel both too adult and too childish for my own good? What does it meeeeeeeeean?
