Link About It: This Week’s Picks
Vale Gene Wilder, children discuss the election, a huge Hawaiian ocean reserve and more in our look at the web
1. Vale, Gene Wilder
No matter how old you are, chances you’ve seen and adored a Gene Wilder film. Sadly, the beloved actor passed away this week at 83 years old. Starring in movies since the ’60s, he played everything from Young Frankenstein to Sherlock Holmes’ “Smarter Brother,” and had roles in iconic films like “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Blazing Saddles.” Probably best known for bringing Roald Dahl’s character Willy Wonka to the screen, Wilder genuinely changed childhoods. His rendition of “Pure Imagination” epitomizes Willy Wonka: equal parts magic, glee, curiosity and melancholy. The song’s message was important then, and still is.
2. Charge Your Phone When it Hits 50%
So that your phone’s battery doesn’t drain super-fast, it’s best to keep it healthy. NY Mag has a few tips for keeping your phone happy, and one is to charge it once it dips to 50% in power. This is because if you always use up 100% before charging, the battery will “lose its ability to hold a charge after 300 to 500 cycles,” however the 50% trick means you’ll get more like 1,200 to 1,500 cycles. Head over to NY Mag to understand why.
3. Using Instagram Geotags as a Travel Guide
There’s no doubt that media has changed the way we travel—for many of us, it’s not necessarily for the best, with the same beautiful but predictable views of the same super-Instagrammable sites. However, there’s an incredibly useful way in which Instagram can be used to plan your own trips: the geotag. Jenna Wortham says, it’s not just about getting a vibe for the kinds of locations you can visit, but much more: “…in Morocco, a group of friends and I were unsure how best to dress when walking around a small town outside Tangier—we wanted to be especially respectful because we were visiting during Ramadan—so we browsed local Instagram posts until we had a sense of what was appropriate.” Read more at the NY Times.
4. Super-Rare Identical Twin Puppies
In an incredibly rare event, a vet in South Africa has delivered identical twin puppies. When performing a caesarean on an Irish wolfhound, Kurt de Cramer noticed two of the litter were “both attached with umbilical cords to the same placenta.” Seeing then that they were both the same gender and with very similar markings, de Cramer believed that they were twins—and he was right. This cute pair of pooches is the first “confirmed instance of genetically-identical twins.” Read more at the BBC.
5. A.P.C. + Outdoor Voices Collaboration Collection
After investing in NYC’s Outdoor Voices this year, A.P.C. founder Jean Touitou brought the two apparel brands together for a collaboration collection named A.P.C.O.V. Seamlessly blending their minimal, sophisticated styles, the range is made up of running shorts, anoraks, lounge pants and more—all in pale camo, heathered gray, navy blue and charcoal colorways. Read more at Field Mag.
6. Microsoft’s New Anti-Abuse Tools
Microsoft has announced it’s joining the fight against online harassment by launching two new tools: “one for reporting hate speech so that the company can take it down, and another for requesting that the company reinstate content once it comes down.” While most people tend to think of social media when it comes to internet bullying, Microsoft hopes that the new resources will make reporting and removing abusive content from Outlook, Skype, Xbox and more, faster and more efficient. Read more on Wired.
7. Eight-Year-Olds on the 2016 Election
Some cliches are cliches for a reason, and that certainly is the case with “kids say the darndest things.” Science of Us interviewed eight-year-olds from Brooklyn to Charlottesville, Seattle to Chicago about the upcoming election and the results are (unsurprisingly) hilarious, but also incredibly thoughtful. Our favorite is from Gibson, who says he wants Donald Trump’s hair, but “But my mom won’t let me get it.” Read more at Science of Us.
8. World’s Largest Ocean Reserve in Hawaii
Established in 2006, a remote Hawaiian ocean reserve called Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument covers 140,000 square miles and was protected in order to preserve wildlife and Hawaiian culture. Now, President Obama has more than quadrupled the reserve’s boundary, making it 582,578 square miles—the largest protected area on Earth. As well as being a sanctuary for “blue whales, short-tailed albatrosses, sea turtles, and the last Hawaiian monk seals,” Papahānaumokuākea has some of the healthiest coral reefs in the world. And this new decision from POTUS means it will hopefully remain that way. Read more on National Geographic.
Link About It is our filtered look at the web, shared daily in Link and on social media, and rounded up every Saturday morning.
