Link Love: 08.10.13

[print available here]

• Following up on my review of Homeward Bound, I found this great little interview with the author, Emily Matchar.
• If you spent the bulk of your childhood and adolescence in the '90s like me, then this rather thorough list of y/our childhood toys will make you rather nostalgic. 
• J.K. Rowling is a fabulous author and an even more amazing human. All of the royalties from her no-longer-secret novel, Cuckoo's Calling, will be donated to charity. Rock on.
• Book-inspired ice cream flavors. My favorite is the Clockwork Orange (duh!), but the Oliver Twist is pretty funny and that Whirled War Z is a brilliant play on words.
• Fellow Americans, you too can flex your patriotic muscles and help select the US Luge team's new outfits. Here's the direct link to the voting site. (I'm torn between "Silver Wave" and "Racer").
• In case you haven't seen this awesomeness yet: Concentric sphere cakes done up to look like planets. I'm not sure what's more mind blowing, the dedication to detail or the fact that there are perfectly round cakes inside of other perfectly round cakes.
• Who wants to try and make this DIY wrapped wire wall art with me?
• Gingers (or redheads if you refuse to indulge my faux-Britishness) might be going extinct. What!?
• I would be terrified to come across any of these in person, but I have to admit that these are some freaky-cool looking spiders.
• Meredith Bryan decided to try being nice instead of keeping her walls up and was surprised by the feedback. Turns out if you're nice people will reciprocate.
• Remember how so many ignorant people were all freaked out about having an interracial family in a Cheerios commercial? Well these kids' react just the way you'd expect to the controversial commercial: They don't understand what's different about the family at all. Kid brains are way better in a lot of ways.
• If you're not familiar with the Henrietta Lacks case, let me summarize: Her cancer cells were harvested and have been used for important and profitable research for years. Without her knowledge and without any sort of repayment. Her descendents weren't so happy about this and it went to court. Well now a compromise has been reached. 
• Meet Gabrielle Turnquest, the youngest person to pass the bar exam and become a barrister in the United Kingdom in several centuries. She's only 18 and an American to boot. So rad.
• Oh, and while were on the subject of exceptional young women, meet Thessalonika Arzu-Embry who is preparing to receive her bachelor's degree in psychology at the ripe old age of fourteen!
• I love Birmingham's (Alabama) solution to a outdated tunnel that was dark and consequently dangerous: They had a happy-inducing light installation installed. Now it's lit and artistic.
• Enjoy this mini Empire Records reunion.
• Finally, in sports news I really wish would happen: The MLB is considering a lifetime ban for A-Rod.