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.
- If the Wednesday Walk were to have a dedicated theme song, it would be this absolute masterpiece.
- If the Wednesday Walk were to have a dedicated pet, it would obviously be the noble housecat, and the much-celebrated Steve Wille brings word of a cat video film festival that’s taking the US by storm.
- Out-of-touch elitist archaeologists never let the people enjoy the benefits of the red sarcophagus juice, and it would be an absolute tragedy if the same fate befell the elixir of immortality uncovered in China.
- This Week in Remembering the Nineties: Software battles from the BBS era offer a sense of nostalgia that today’s software security nightmares slash corporate malfeasance just can’t equal.
- The weather brings out many heroes, whether or not they’re appreciated in their time.
- The upcoming Dune remake has cast Stellan Skarsgård as Baron Harkonnen; my first thought, as it probably would have been for any casting, was along the lines of “please don’t put Stellan Skarsgård in a fat suit, please don’t put Stellan Skarsgård in a fat suit, PLEASE don’t put Stellan Skarsgård in a fat suit.” There are many ways to handle the fat and queer-coding issues with the Baron, and it’d be severely disappointing if the makers of the new movie don’t put a little thought into it.
- This Week in Maps: Different map projections reveal all sorts of things; for instance, looking at a globe rather than a flat map reveals that you can sail or swim in a straight line from New Zealand to the UK. The conversion back to the flat Mercator peojection we’re used to reveals again how the round shape gets smashed into a flattened form.
- This Week in DRM Abuse: There’s DRM on ink cartridges now, and HP will cut off your supply if you don’t pay up.
- Traditional cheeses can be old, very very old, and more sensitive to national policy over decades and centuries than you may think.
- This Week in Military History: Had Germany won World War I, one of the plans they had on the horizon was a fleet of huge-ass ships.