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!
- Many of us could probably stand to be better kissers.
- Norway is paying tribute to the memory of those killed there for sorcery and witchcraft.
- In Florida, a woman being held hostage with her children used Pizza Hut’s app to summon help.
- A statistical analysis of Jeopardy! winners shows that Ken Jennings’ 74-game streak will almost certainly never be matched.
- The McPizza is still available in precisely two places.
- RIP Cameron Langrell, killed by bigotry. RIP Natasha McKenna, murdered by cops. RIP Grace Mann, literally murdered by a jock for being a feminist.
- There will never, ever be a shortage of funny/schadenfreude-inducing IT stories.
- The advice column was invented in the 1690’s, and started with a mix of questions, some quite like the personal tribulations we write to columns today and some much more contemplative.
- In California, a worker was fired for not wanting her employee to track her 24 hours a day.
- The football huddle was invented by deaf players.
- Orson Welles’ 100th birthday was last week. To celebrate, take in a classic story about his theatrical debut in Ireland, as a walk-on with no professional experience.
- Pro tip for anyone getting married: get edible skulls integrated into your wedding cake. Just do it.
- Daredevil is a fine show, but it sure does have a lot of torture.
- The first amazing thing about this thread is the loaf of bread that’s been preserved for millennia. The second is the lesson on the fascinating history of bread fraud.
- This Week in Heartwarming Videos: a 102-year-old woman gets to see films she danced in in the 40’s.
- Also in grand old ladies: a 92-year-old World War II pilot takes to the skies again in her old spitfire.
- This Week in Video Games: a study of camera work in 2D games.
- This Week in 90’s Music: “Linger,” seen through the lens of The Mickey Mouse Club.
- The measles vaccine, as it turns out, also reduces deaths from other infectious diseases by preventing the measles virus from making people susceptible to them.
- Because the moon is slowly moving away from the earth, eventually there will be no longer be solar sclipses because the moon will not be close enough to blot out the sun. That won’t be for at least 500 million years, though, so we have time to plan ways to periodically blot out the sun ourselves. Just as soon as we figure out a way to keep the moon from hatching.
- Sometimes the oncoming 3D printing revolution is pretty cool, like when we can make touchable ultrasounds for blind parents.