Wednesday Walk Around the Web – 01/29/2014

grizzlyMRI

Welcome to the Wednesday Walk Around the Web, where we weave & wind through weblinks weekly. Here you may find some things that amuse, some that tittilate, and the occasional link that provokes. Do you have a link you want to see featured in next week’s Wednesday Walk? Email Glenn!

  • The cannibal rat ghost ship is real, and it’s coming for you. Some say there is no cannibal rat ghost ship; if you would like to make this assertion, my friend, may the burden of proof be on you.
  • Photographer Victoria Hill captured the stars of the Sundance Film Festival using 1860’s-era technology, with some great results. Bill Macy does his best Bill Sherman impression, Elijah Wood looks to be about Tad Lincoln’s age, and Willem DaFoe looks even more ghostly & spectral than usual.
  • Speaking of photos, check out a grizzly bear getting an MRI.
  • Warren Buffet is backing a buh-buh-buh-Billion-dollar prize for the perfect bracket in this year’s Madness. Looks like it’s time to make up 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 brackets!
  • Take THAT, Tom Hanks!
  • The underground in London has apparently been disrupted by accidental concrete. Whooooooooooooops!
  • You may believe some things about World War I that aren’t quite true, or nearly true. You and I probably believe a lot of things that aren’t quite true, or nearly true.
  • It’s getting to be the right time of year to remember great personalities of the Winter Olympics.
  • Alert, alert, klaxon, klaxon! We’re on EGOT Watch for this year’s Oscars!
  • Plague doctors had proto-hazmat suits & containment protocols, and all this centuries before the germ theory of medicine and the extensive controversies over whether doctors should wash their hands every so often. Medical history is fascinating. (Also: this is a really good example of something I see over and over again on Tumblr, when a photoset with the intention of “Wow this thing is [creepy|cool|ugly|interesting|x]” runs into people who drop some serious knowledge underneath.)
  • This video of someone dropping red-hot nickel into water reminds me of those behind-the-scenes vignettes about foley artists making sound effects by hitting steel poles with power lines and such.
  • If you’re a Sephardic Jew who can trace your genealogy back five hundred years, Spain will give you your citizenship. “Sorry for all that Inquisition pish-posh!” – Spain.
  • There are several theories and/or metaphors explaining why we don’t retain memories until about age three. I always assumed we all worked for intelligence agencies of various allegiances during that time and had our minds wiped.
  • Oral Histories of Everything: Baby Got Back.
  • 1345 would like to remind you that books are not tissues, and those dumb kids keep eating cheese while reading.
  • Finally, in our PTB Nation Link of the Week, Greg and Nick have your comics news, including the new adventures of Sinestro and the continuing adventures of Miles Morales, in The Rundown.