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.
- This Week in Art: When a conceptual artist has a baby, sometimes you get bold new projects like 63 Objects Taken from my Son’s Mouth. The parents out there can testify as to how closely she catches their experience.
- If you ever look at something you wrote and think it’s just not good enough, think about Jack Kennedy’s Harvard application essay. (Which actually is legit.) It really drives home how the ivy league was, to an even larger extent than it still is, just a place where rich folks sent their kids for a spell.
- Even aside from Facebook’s alarming tendency to tolerate bigotry on its platform, its algorithms can be downright cruel.
- India is sending people to space, much to the surprise of the Indian space agency. They’ll be fine though; I’m sure they’re very resourceful.
- Serena Williams, possibly the greatest living athlete, has to put up with mountains of abuse, including the banning of the suit that was specifically designed to limit life-threatening blood clots.
- (Warning: suicide, homophobia) RIP Jamel Myles, murdered by homophobic bullying. You know, I think about queer kids a lot — how we’re told It Gets Better, and while it really does in some important ways (AIDS is no longer an automatic death sentence, there are exponentially more ways to find communities and figure out one’s identity than there were when some of us were kids, there are tons of role models who show that it really is possible to be out and happy), the abuse and assault and murder keep on happening. We should still have Jamel Myles, and we should still have Leelah Alcorn, and we should still have all of the people who were told they shouldn’t be here. It does not have to be this way.
- It’s time for the traditional Wednesday Walk Hard Pivot. This time, let’s do it with twerking sausages.
- For geologists, licking rocks is often a useful diagnostic method. Sometimes, though, it’s very very important NOT to lick some rocks. Knowing the difference, I assume, is a requirement of any worthwhile degree program.
- This Week in Commodification of Internet Culture: Dril wrote a book. What a world.
- This Week in Generational Cluelessness: Procter & Gamble is trying to trademark “WTF” and “NBD” because they think TLAs are the way to market soap to young people. I can’t wait for the inevitable thinkpieces about how millennials are killing soap when we don’t fall for this.
- Much has been made of Representative Duncan Hunter’s indictment on charges of misusing campaign funds for clothing, vacations, video games, &c. He has a great tried-and-true explanation, though: It’s all his wife’s fault.
- This Week in Piracy: Soulseek has thus far maintained a user base that’s just the right size to maintain a healthy community without being so popular that the killjoys in the “intellectual property protection” scene get it in their crosshairs. Until Gizmodo started writing articles about it, at least. (Place to Be Nation doesn’t endorse piracy. Play nice. Only download open-source public-domain content.)
- This Week in Moral Quandaries: Does it count as stealing when you take something back that was stolen from you in the first place? How about if you take something that was stolen from your home long before you came around? How about if it manifests not so much as a Robin Hood-style caper but more as a sport for monied elites, however much it ties into well-founded grievances? Anyway, Chinese artifacts have been disappearing from European museums. How or why is a total mystery. It’s totally incomprehensible.
- This 14th-century French baby dragon is trying their best, and that’s got to count for something.
- This Week in Good Girls: Who’s a good girl? Who’s a good girl?? Kirk jumping for joy while watching a recording of herself winning a competition is a good girl.
