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. Do you have a link you want to see featured in next week’s Wednesday Walk? Email Glenn!
- Finally, we’ve solved the conundrum of self-sustaining awesomeness.
- Sally Ride was awesome, and smart, and brave, and is still missed. (“Is 100 the right number?” was a question from NASA engineers while preparing a supply of tampons for a one-week shuttle mission, because despite being actual real-life rocket scientists, they were still dudes.)
- [Warning: Buzzfeed] This is what the internet was made for: Shakespearean lines (mostly his fantastic insults) delivered by cats.
- Cliff Denton is a putter, for he is a putter-togetherer of scissors.
- Repeating something to yourself over and over again can inculcate it in your mind. Hell, it works for advertising slogans, and it’s the reason you shouldn’t follow any minor setback with a plaintive “I cannot do a single thing correctly on this blasted planet,” self. One man decided that as long as he has to keep entering (and changing) his password at work, he might as well use slogans to better his life. (Do excuse the inspirational-speaker tone.)
- We can make everything better, with technology. We can make a better oven.
- A new study suggests that what we thought were the top candidates for habitable planets in another solar system actually don’t quite exist. And science moves on.
- Aliens are pretty considerate — they wait until after work hours to drop in on us. Imagine that.
- Ancient humans were likely hunted by eagles that would pick them up by the eye sockets. Radiolab recently did a really engaging episode about this and the human skull at the center of the study.
- If you ever wanted to know information about the great nation of Canada that can be put on a map, Maclean’s has it for you.
- In Colombia, locals are having issues with Pablo Escobar’s wild hippos, which is one of those phrases you just wish you get to use seriously someday. Bless.
- Human beings are very, very bad at properly assessing risk. But that doesn’t help me figure out how to avoid getting caught in a bank robbery!
- A mall in Bangkok was shut down in 1997 due to various factors, including a fire that destroyed its roof. When rainwater filled the building, resulting in a massive mosquito infestation, what better (and cooler) option do you have than to fill the mall with fish to eat the mosquitoes?
- A shawarma place recently closed, because the owner needs to focus more on his aerospace engineering career. Priorities, you know.
- Some intrepid soul put together a history of those stupid “peeing Calvin” stickers.
- Warren G. Harding wrote some steamy, steamy letters when he was in the Senate. Also, if you want to know warren G. Harding’s nicknames for his and his mistress’ genitals, the Wednesday Walk is here for you, friend!
- If you’ve been to a fireworks display recently — no idea why you would — hopefully it was at least a big one.
- The Fukushima nuclear plant (damaged by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011, if you don’t recall) is still in a precarious state, and still kind of a disaster.
- The pinky is an under-appreciated finger. We use it mostly as a shelf, which isn’t all that far off from our ancient ancestors.
- A local TV station in Delaware has submitted to the FCC a list of programs that address issues of importance to the community, including Star Trek. I buy it. Their episode list isn’t bad, too, though it could use “Balance of Terror” and “The Devil in the Dark” for some bonus social responsibility.
- For hetero couples on a budget, take a moment to consider: vasectomies are way cheaper than tube-tying.
- Okay, I guess I should address the potato salad Kickstarter. It is a sci-fi villain. It is one face of cynical irony, wearing a grin. It is, much like the Penny Arcade Kickstarter, embarrassing for every actual cool and/or socially useful thing on the site, yet I almost wish I’d thought of it.
- According to the Indiana State Board of Health, we’re all in trouble.
