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A message from Drew Curtis:  
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Hey everyone, hope your week was well.  

The second week of February is always an interesting time.  My birthday's on 7th, which comes on the heels of dry January and for me is the gastronomic equivalent of going from zero to lightspeed.   I turned 50 this year, which is extra wild because Fark started this week back in 1999 just after I turned 26.  Fark is almost as old as I was when I started it.  

Fark is 24 years old this week.  I'm not sure on what day exactly - when I go to the Farkives to look at the earliest links from 1999, the closest actual date I can nail down is Feb 12th, the timestamp on the second link ever posted.  Fark didn't run on a database back then so we don't have full link data - in fact Fark didn't start running on a database until June of 2000, 18 months later.  I don't remember this clearly but I'm pretty sure I was updating Fark with three to five links per day back in the beginning, so odds are very good Fark's birthday is Feb 12th.    I wrote the html by hand on a Unix equivalent of notepad, which is why it looks like it does.  Not that other websites were much more complicated, check out spacejam.com for example.  They had better(?) graphics, not much else.  

Next year Fark turns 25 and I've got a few things planned for that.  In particular, I wrote a book during the pandemic about what a long strange journey it's been.  Fark's had a front row seat to the evolution of practically the entire known online ecosystem.  I do talk about what came before but there's not much of that left around anymore.  

Unrelated to all this, I got emailed by a Farker whose company had been experimenting with advertising on Reddit.  He figured that advertising on Fark would work at least as well, so they tried a couple sponsored links and were very happy with the results.  I'm not super surprised, Farkers have always been great about helping out fellow Farkers.  This week he suggested trying a sponsored email post.  We haven't done one of these in a long while, so long that I actually forgot we'd ever done one before. So I looked up the current basics of email advertising and wouldn't you know it, it's unnecessarily convoluted and overly complicated just like everything else.  So given that I'm totally unable to predict how this is going to go, I told him we'd try it this week and if it worked to their satisfaction they could pay us later.  

Faddom Hybrid Application Dependency Mapping free trial

So what is this product you may or may not ask?  Super specialized as it turns out. In fact, if you don't work in IT, good luck figuring out what this does.  If you -do- work in IT, and in particular if you're in charge of needing to figure out how the hell your company's current on-premises and cloud IT infrastructure is configured, Faddom is a hybrid application dependency mapping tool that has a free trial for a product that documents all your servers, applications, and their dependencies in a little as 60 minutes and updates it in real time.  Like I said, not something everyone would need.  Turns out though that for at least a few folks, it's something they very much need.  Do you happen to be in the same boat?  Come give it a shot.  These guys are helping us keep the lights on and the hamster fed.    

Thursday at 4 p.m. Eastern the Fark News Livestream returns!  However, I'm counting on the news cycle to come up with stuff other than balloons in the next 24 hours or we might have a half-hour show.  

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End Drew transmission
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Top Comments

Some of the top-voted smartest and funniest comments from the past week

Funny:
Shostie pretty accurately described what the Tesla Cybertruck looks like
brap shared an Anne Hathaway story
coffeetime attempted self expression through dance
duppy was inspired to make a change at work
Petite Mel pointed out a drawback to Hey Nurse!'s suggestion of a good place for a winter vacation
koder made a bad situation even worse
olorin604 let us know the best way to drive across flooded roads
weddingsinger knew what to do when it's minus-50 degrees Fahrenheit
Three Crooked Squirrels told us how to really enjoy the cold
I Have A Bo Burnham GIF For That found that watching "Friends" finally paid off

Smart:
jars.traptone figured that it's time for extraterrestrials to do us a favor
mrmopar5287 thought American police could use a strategy that less killy police use
gilgigamesh suggested listening to a particular podcast episode to learn how a scumbag gained his audience
foo monkey identified the person who got the most enjoyment out of an SNL State Farm commercial parody
Thingster explained why painting brick houses makes them less mighty
Uranus had a vacation idea for those cold winter months
RogermcAllen wasn't so impressed by "the quietest room in the world"
Wadded Beef shared a story that's somewhat related to Cindy Williams' death
Notabunny gave practical advice for the newly homeless
Outshined_One discussed a change in the demands of job candidates since the beginning of COVID-19

CSB Sunday Morning theme: The first book you read as a child
Smart: MrBallou still hasn't finished reading "Swiss Family Robinson"
Funny: Dear Jerk discovered a love of books

Politics Funny:
AirForceVet came up with a plan after learning about the unreasonable hospital bills people receive after giving birth
Exile On Beale Street considered Jim Jordan's role in Congress
scottydoesntknow was concerned when a Chinese spy balloon was shot down
This Is Bold Text named Donald Trump's portion of the Bible
Jeff5 thought about the F-22 that was flown in the mission to take down a surveillance balloon from China

Politics Smart:
thisispete listed some of the ways in which many countries provide support for new parents
NeoCortex42 had many questions about the anti-drag queen hysteria
hubiestubert discussed options for changes to the tax code
unixpro looked at what culture wars are doing to education in Florida
likefunbutnot pointed out that all of this has happened before


Top Contest Entries

Some of the top-voted contest entries from last week

Photoshops:
RedZoneTuba moved into a high-tech city
verchad showed off a snake of unusual size
whatsupchuck made a vodka machine
MathProf gave us an exciting new way to serve bass for dinner
Herb Utsmelz took revenge on this contraption
RedZoneTuba made a shiny, all-natural hose
RedZoneTuba discovered that the Soviet Union contributed to the Enterprise
Stephen_Falken just needed some mushrooms
RedZoneTuba redecorated the bar at the Overlook Hotel
samsquatch brought a famous cousin to the Hair Ball

Farktography theme: Simply Beautiful 3
This Farktography contest ended in a tie with Lovesandwich's nature walk and MorningBreath's washing machine


Fark Headlines of the Week

A selection of some of the top headlines from last week

France and Australia to supply Russia with several thousand 155mm artillery shells. They'll be sent via Ukraine, and arrive a few at a time

Phortunate Phrogger phinds Phoenix, phosters phun phinagling phreely phrom phast, phlustered phreeway phliers

Mod squab nabbed in Mad Square

Cowlision takes out Tesla. Cow was in self-driving mode. Tesla investigating because steaks are high

Pentagon tracking Chinese spy balloon over US, waiting for 98 more before they release the nukes

Man in black leaves jawbone with gunslingers, flees across desert

As he strikes the match, he casually glances out the gas station window. His eye twitches involuntarily

98 luftballons

Joe Manchin sees himself as a "shuttle diplomat" although most people on both sides wish he'd be more of a Challenger

The Netherlands and Germany are merging their armies into one big sleevie

Attorneys general from 20 slave states warn CVS and Walgreens about interfering with their property

Dead dog bites congressman

Gunn to use Batman

Philips screws 6,000 workers

Adira the red panda, a tree-dwelling species, shocks zookeepers with her daring escape in which she... climbs a tree


Fark Weird News Quiz (brought to you by ox45tallboy)

Another fun time on last week's Quiz, where I was sorely disappointed that the Chinese spy balloon was shot down before we could implement "Operation Make A Giant Sign That Says 'Xi Eats Boogers.'" Hopefully a camera survived the landing and the recovery team made funny faces at it before they disconnected it. On the Quiz itself, jurisenpai came out on top with 951, followed by Denjiro in second with 948 and No Catchy Nickname in third with 929. OtherLittleGuy made fourth with 922, and NM Volunteer rounds out the top five with 902.

The hardest question on last week's Hard Quiz was about a railroad worker named Richard Sears in 1886 and what he bought up and sold at a huge profit before moving to Minneapolis and meeting a guy named Alvah C. Roebuck. Only 21% of quiztakers knew that Sears instantly thought of his coworkers working on the railroads when he had the opportunity to buy a bunch of wristwatches on the cheap. In an industry so dominated by rigid adherence to schedules, the convenience of being able to see the current time without digging out your pocket watch was a boon. Roebuck was a maker of watches, and together they launched the first Sears & Roebuck mail-order catalog in 1888, featuring watches and other jewelry - small items that were cheaply transported by rail. 

The easiest question on last week's Hard Quiz was about which type of fitness class was created by Colombian dancer and choreographer Beto Pérez in 2001, 90% of quiztakers knew he was responsible for Zumba, the fitness class that teaches you how to dance like Ricky Martin. At least, that's what I'm told - we just now got Pilates in my neck of the woods, and I'm not sure if we're ready for "She Bangs."

The hardest question on last week's Easy Quiz was about musician Tom Verlaine and the band he fronted for the highly influential 1977 album "Marquee Moon." Only 60% of quiztakers recognized his band Television, who were one of those groups mainly listened to by other musicians and not really massively popular in mainstream culture. See, this was the 70s when a new TV cost about a month's salary and people didn't want to listen to television, they wanted to watch it. 

The easiest question on last week's Easy Quiz was about on which show the late Cindy Williams first appeared as Shirley Feeney before getting her own show Penny Marshall's Laverne DeFazio. 90% of quiztakers knew that "Laverne & Shirley" was yet another spin-off of "Happy Days," a show I'm sure they were glad they exited before any of that shark jumping business. Fun fact: "Mork & Mindy" was also a spin-off of "Happy Days." 

If you missed out last week, it's a great time to catch up on the Fark Weird News Quiz now that you know a few of the answers. Congratulations once again to the winners, and we'll do it all again on Friday.