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.
- We still need your advice questions for Steve Wille’s guest appearances on the ol’ Spectacular — big or small, we’ll consider them all! Email us or go to our Ask.fm page to send your questions today. (Your name won’t be read on the show without permission (so tell us what to call you if anything), and Ask.fm allows anonymous submissions.)
- For instance, if you were to write in wondering whether you should take out a mortgage or extra credit cards to buy bitcoin, we could tell you pretty firmly NOT to do that. (Warning: Autoplay video)
- This Week in Good News: Australia legalized marriage! Congratulations, Australian friends! It’s certainly nice to see that follow pretty quickly after the plebiscite seemed to take forEVER.
- What could have been the largest recorded snowball fight was canceled on account of snow. (Warning: Autoplay video)
- This Week in What to Do When You Die, or More Appropriately, What to Ask Your Loved Ones to Do with Your Cold Corpse: Might I suggest open-air cremation?
- Given a growing number of cops filming themselves planting evidence (whoopsidoodle!), at what point can we just disregard any supposed evidence supplied by a cop?
- This Week in Gift Ideas: This holiday season, give your friends or family the gift of hundred-year-old chocolate dolls. Now with bonus hauntings!
- There are just a few polio survivors left in the US who rely on iron lungs, and they have some Opinions on the polio vaccine. Also, important connections to the few people left who can service and repair the devices they need to live after the original manufacturers abandoned them.
- A haircut can signify a lot of things, and those things can change over time. I’m just glad there are thoughtful, sensitive barbers and hair stylists who can help people walk the now-perilously-thin line between a stylish/queer/hipster undercut and the fascist haircut.
- They say you shouldn’t take tips on shortcuts or petty crimes from people who got caught, but using a potato chip bag as a makeshift Faraday cage to mask your phone’s GPS reporting is a fascinating way to keep from being traced.
- Hey, I don’t claim to be a particularly good person. When I read this article about childhood cruelty growing into adolescent psychopathy I thought, yes, I too watched the last season of Sherlock. (I’m not doing the article justice. It really is fascinating/harrowing.)
- This Week in Year-End Lists: 2017 saw its fair share of heists, from a humongous inflatable obstacle course to a swimming pool’s worth of vodka.
- If you live in Florida, or someone you know does, you/they can help restore voting rights to people who’ve had them ripped away.
- The Civilization games are great fun if you’re into that sort of thing. (I haven’t played one since IV, as I’m not sure I can afford the time sink.) There’s a lot to delve into in terms of who gets to count as “a civilization,” though, and how those choices change over time.
- This Week in Gift Ideas: Get that special someone in your life a motherboard cutting board this solstice-season. Just don’t use an actual motherboard; no amount of mineral oil is going to make it food-safe.
- This Week in Animals That Can Hopefully Make You Happy for One Single Solitary Second in This Broken Life: Watch this dog experience snow for the first time. Watch it as many times as you need to.
