Captain's Blog 08 10 20

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👽 ‘Weekly World News’ Oral History | Mental Floss

Inspirational. Graffiti™ and The Blurb™ were both heavily influenced. We used to cut headlines out as ransom decorations on mail.

In 2000, longtime Weekly World News editor Eddie Clontz discussed the legendary tabloid newspaper’s standard of journalistic ethics with The Philadelphia Inquirer. “We don’t sit around and make [stories] up,” Clontz said, “but if we get a story about a guy who thinks he is a vampire, we will take him at his word.”

From 1979 to 2007, Weekly World News captured the attention of supermarket customers with its bombastic headlines about a world that seemed to mirror, but not quite reflect, our own. In this reality, Elvis was alive, alien visitors were common, weird science ruled, and a half-human, half-bat child named Bat Boy became a folk hero.

At the height of its popularity in the late 1980s, circulation reached 1.2 million copies per week. Headlines like “Bigfoot Kept Lumberjack as Love Slave” ruled its covers. A team of dedicated journalists filled its pages with satirical fiction. If fact happened to stumble its way inside, it would be adjusted to fit the paper’s mission statement. An undertaker arrested for selling body parts became “My Brain Is Missing!” A mild story from The Wall Street Journal about a small Australian town boasting of large earthworms became a histrionic, breathless tale of giant worms burrowing underground and creating ruptures in the ground that swallowed cattle whole.

As news outlets have increasingly become subject to controversy over what some label “fake news,” Weekly World News can lay a legitimate claim to having invented the genre. More than 40 years after it debuted, Mental Floss spoke with more than a dozen former editors, writers, and contributors about the paper’s origins, its process, and how it went on to influence the news satire of today, from The Onion to The Daily Show. Or, to borrow a cue from the paper: “Grifters Reveal How They Fooled World for Decades!”

👁‍🗨 DD8 Surveillance Ball

This robot surveillance ball can swim and roll on any terrain pic.twitter.com/J5x0V456PC

— Tech Insider (@TechInsider) August 10, 2020

🍔 WHATABURGER

Soon Missouri fans of San Antonio-based Whataburger won’t have to wait for a road trip to get their favorite Texas treat. In celebration of its 70th anniversary, legendary fast food chain Whataburger announced that it is expanding its market into Missouri, Kansas and Tennessee.

🌊 Drifts

🗺 SharedStreets

SharedStreets is a shared language for the world’s streets.

Maps today have trouble communicating precise, machine readable information. Our global referencing system, connects information about the street across jurisdictions, companies and governments. We build open source software, digital infrastructure, and governance frameworks to enable public-private collaboration and the seamless exchange of transport data.

https://www.sharedstreets.io/

🙉 OPEinion

I'm ready to go all Wyatt Earp in this town. Multiply criminal offenses by the number of bullets they were carrying and leave your guns at home.

— /🏴\ stLouIST (@stlouist) August 10, 2020