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? Comment on the Walk post at the Place to Be Nation Facebook page, or find Glenn on the social media platform of your choice!
- This Week in Rent Control: In England, an eight-hundred-year-old rental agreement nets the queen 61 sweet sweet nails every year.
- People really, really need to stop leaving condescending little notes in lieu of tips. Come on now, just leave some freakin’ money and get on with your day.
- Via The Roommate: I don’t care who you are, a kitten with a sloth’s face is just as cute.
- This Week in Unfortunate Turns of Phrase: saying that ancient humans migrated out of Africa implies that there was some sort of mass exodus when, you know, a lot of people never left Africa.
- We have found the mortal enemy of the domesticated dog, and it is the leaf blower.
- French right-winger wants to use the burka ban as precent for outlawing yarmulkes. Because of course.
- Tic-tac-toe robots have developed amazing new strategies.
- If you happen to be in China, by all means go see the Great Wall. Marvel at its length and heft and age. Just don’t sign it as if you’re important enough for ancient landmarks to bow to you, okay?
- Analysis of an ancient Roman burial site in England found people with Asian ancestry, because folks really have always gotten around. (Also, something to consider next time you see a movie set in History Times with an exclusively white cast.) (Warning: autoplay audio.)
- Tsunamis in confined spaces, like one bay in Alaska, can unleash truly awesome destructive power of vast quantities of water.
- This Week in Dinosaurs: It’s always nest when a dinosaur footprint is found, and instead of a paleontologist laying down a ruler to photograph for scale, a paleontologist just lays down next to the thing.
- I’m slightly surprised that there are still extant J.R.R. Tolkien writings that haven’t been published even at this late date, save perhaps for some grocery lists Christopher Tolkien is editing together, but 2017 will see a standalone volume of the Beren and Lúthien story. I just hope those crazy kids are happy together.
- Australia is drifting more quickly than almost any other land mass, and has to regularly correct GPS systems to account for it.
- Forebears will tell you the prominence of your last name around the world, and the meaning of many of them. I mean, mine is pretty obvious, but many aren’t!
- This Week in Linguistics: rare phonemes are so, so sexy.
- Much of film history is simply gone. It’s kind of wondrous that not all of it is gone, frankly.
- So, Jack Chick died. As always, I generally consider it a bad thing when anyone dies, even someone who despised as many aspects of my life (and so many others’) as Jack Chick did, mainly for two reasons: a) everyone has some sort of family or friends, and grief fucking sucks; 2) bigots ought to live long enough to understand the harm they’ve done and try to make some restitution. That goes double for professional bigots. Jack Chick never got to the place George Wallace or Robert Byrd did, so all we’re left with is a bunch of stupid, hateful little comic books that reflect an absurdly insular and easily-mocked ideology. Let the mocking continue.
- Okay, I can’t get out of this week’s edition without one legitimately terrifying thing, so consider for a moment the 2013 dental training dummy calendar. You’re welcome for not springing any of those months on you as the banner image up top. Now go celebrate Samhain in your own way.
- This Week in Leaving on a Calming Note: consider this baby elephant who has a great deal of difficulty getting into the bath.
