All Of February 2019 In One Big Post
The shortest month of the year had no shortage of weird stuff.
If you're reading this post, you're probably a Digg dot com reader, which means you probably generally keep up with What The Internet Is Talking About. But even the most astute news nerd can miss a major event or two. That's fine. It's good, actually. Especially if you went on a vacation or did a digital detox or something.
Still, it's important to keep up with The Story that is always unfolding in front of us, no matter how funny, exciting, depressing or infuriating it can be. Composed of some of the most trafficked, best-performing stories of the month, this One Big Post should catch you up, starting with…
February 4 — Crypto Exchange Says It Can't Repay $190 Million To Clients After Founder Dies With Only Password
Since the dawn of cryptocurrencies, tech media has routinely published two stories over and over again: that of the overnight crypto millionaire, and that of the almost-but-actually-not-at-all crypto millionaire.
This story is of the second variety, except 200 times over. The only man who knew the password to Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX, CEO Gerald Cotten, died unexpectedly (RIP), and along with him went the only way to access the funds belonging to as many as 115,000 users.
And the story is far from over. Unfortunately, Cotten's widow, Jennifer Robertson, has assumed the role of managing the failed exchange, and she's taking heat. Read more of this odd, sad story on the crypto news site CoinDesk.
February 7 — A Spectacular Time Lapse Of A Single Cell Morphing Into A Fully-Formed Organism
This video, from Aeon's collection of amazing science clips, is one of those things that's boring to read about and enthralling to watch. So I'll just let you do the latter right here:
February 11 — This Bulldog Crushing The Agility Course At The Westminster Dog Show Is Our New Hero
Rudy the bulldog has no business destroying the agility course at the Westminster dog show. And yet, here we are. Watch this lovable fella absolutely demolish the 16-inch category with a snaggletoothed swagger you might not have known was possible:
Oddly enough, on that same day the internet gifted us another excellent video…
February 11 — Guy Shoots A .500 Magnum At A Firing Range, Gets One Hell Of A Surprise
Yes, it's the other side of the viral video coin. This silly video of one of those once-in-a-lifetime freak occurrences at a gun range did phenomenally well on both Digg dot com and on Digg's Facebook page. And for good reason: reader, the gun explodes.
February 12 — Fyre Festival Was a Huge Scam. Is Netflix's Fyre Documentary A Scam, Too?
Netflix and Hulu's dueling Fyre Festival documentaries — "Fyre" and "Fyre Fraud," respectively — came out in January, but by mid-February it felt like the entire world had finally watched at least one of them. That's also when criticisms of both docs started to heat up, and Josephine Livingstone's explainer of what's wrong with Netflix's "Fyre" is a great place to start.
In short, Netflix's doc was given a "final cut" by Mick Purzycki. Purzycki is the CEO of FuckJerry, which was not only the targeted of an aggressive boycott spearheaded by a handful of popular comedians, but was also the company that helped originally market the Fyre Festival.
Though Purzycki's editing authority was later "superseded by the distribution agreement where the final cut was with the director," according to Netflix, the way the movie was produced suggests that FuckJerry used the film to launder the troubled company's reputation.
February 12 — The Official Fast Food French Fry Power Rankings
While your aunt was messaging you on Facebook to tell you about the absolutely crazy Fyre Fest documentary she watched, the other side of the internet was in uproar. LA Times food columnist Lucas Kwan Peterson had made his decree.
Peterson is an excellent food writer, known for his divisive rankings of popular foods over at Lucky Peach magazine, which are unfortunately no longer online. But if you need credentials, look no further than his reasoning for putting In-N-Out's fries dead last:
And bringing up the rear is In-N-Out. Before you tell me there's a way to "hack" these fries, or somehow make them better, either by loading them with American cheese and secret sauce, or by ordering them well-done, I will grant this: It certainly doesn't make the fries any worse. Just as dumping the fries into a dirt pile on the shoulder of a highway access road and running over that pile with my car would also probably not make the fries any worse.
*Chef's kiss*
Here's Peterson's taste-texture fry matrix:
February 15 — Trump Declares National Emergency For Wall Funding, Immediately Admits 'I Didn't Need To Do This'
You can say a lot of things about our president, but knowing what the word "emergency" means is not one of them. Roll tape:
God damn. At least the shutdown is over.
February 20 — This Breathtaking 80-Megapixel Image Of The Moon Was Made From 50,000 Photos
Despite the fact that the world is falling apart around us, I think it's really cool that Digg readers still love reading and seeing cool science. It's always been true and hopefully it'll always be true.
But it was definitely true this month, because Digg readers loved our post about this super-composite image of the moon. The Instagram below, while a good approximation, does not do our lonely satellite justice.
No, to get the full effect you need to visit this blog post about photographer Andrew McCarthy's phenomenal image.
February 25 — Jack Black Walks By Couple, Accidentally Turns Them Into A 'Distracted Boyfriend' Meme
All in all, this wasn't too bad of a month. Sure, a movie made by an unethical pervert won a bunch of Oscars and a football team owned by an unethical pervert won the Super Bowl. But also R Kelly, famed unethical pervert, officially faces charges of 10 counts of aggravated sexual assault. So that's relatively good news, right?
Perhaps to make up for all the… unpleasantness we face elsewhere, the internet gods handed us a beautiful thing: a perfect, impromptu recreation of one of our old favorite memes, this time staring Jack Black. Look at this image:
Sk'doosh.
Anyway, that was February. This was January. Here's to March <3
Did you like this One Big Post? Did you hate it? If you have criticisms, questions, concerns or queries shoot me an email at [email protected]. Make the subject line "February 2019 Post" so I know it's real.
