5 Quick Bites 

1. The hair whips are the best part! I took ballroom dancing lessons for about a year when I was in my early 50s. I managed to get to the level where I knew the basic steps and could execute the basic turns. At weddings, if I drank a bit too much tequila, I was on the dance floor all night. My approach to dancing was border-line macho, like the young man in this clip, but I wasn’t nearly as good as he is. Notice his partner, though. She is three times better!

2. How NOT to end soft pieces on the piano. This has nothing to do with anything I’ve ever experienced. And yet, I thought it was not just important in some cosmic way, but also beautifully illustrated. Click here.

3. Can you do the math? It took me a moment to figure it out. At first, I thought 45. But since it was a brain teaser, I knew that was wrong. Then I got it: “Divide 50 by half.” Click here.

4. Elle Cordova: Another YouTube person I’ve been liking. Most of her material is science-related, cute and clever, like this bit.

She sings, too! Click here and here.

5. We’ve seen it before, but it still warms the heart. Click here.

Who Says Fat Guys Can’t Fight!

Roy Nelson is a big guy, but most of his weight is around his waist. When he began his career as an MMA contender, he came to the arena as a fat guy who had a powerful overhand right. But none of the experts thought he had a chance of surviving three five-minute rounds of fighting, let alone become one of the most dominant heavyweight champions in UFC history, knocking out or submitting at least a half-dozen of the all-time greatest UFC champions. Click here.

What Some College Administrators Understand That (a Lot of) Wonks Don’t 

Freddie deBoer (my favorite Communist influencer) on why some of the current thinking by college career advisors is wrong-headed. As always, I agree with 80% of what he says. Click here.

How English Became the Common Global Language

Today, 1.5 billion people speak English. But in the 12th century, the language was almost extinct. So, how did English survive and spread so widely? Is there something about the language itself that played a role in that?

In this clip, Lori Dorn gives a lecture on the fascinating history.

An Admirable Example of the Simple Life

SH sent in this piece about the Bruderhof (German for “Place of Brothers”), a small group of Christian pacifists that were expelled from Germany by the Nazis and migrated abroad.

“Ultimately,” SH says, “they settled in 26 communities on five continents. Today, about half of the roughly 3,000 Bruderhof scattered across the world live in six villages squirreled away in the hollows of the Hudson Valley. Fox Hill is in Walden, an hour and a half northwest of Manhattan. To outsiders, the Bruderhof share a passing resemblance to the Mennonites and the Amish. Like those groups, the Bruderhof see their communities as refuges from the materialism and inequities of the modern world. They live simply and share their wealth.”

More About the Connection Between Music and Numbers… and Just About Everything Else 

As I said on March 21, it’s well known that there is a relationship between music and numbers. So, I shouldn’t have been surprised to discover that many of the people I’ve known who think analytically (e.g., financial analysts) have had an unusually strong interest in music – all kinds of music.

After reading that, JM wrote in to recommend a book that goes much further into the deeper meanings and connections that thinkers throughout history have found in music: Music and the Idea of a World, by Peter Kalkavage. Based on the reviews I’ve read, it sounds fascinating. You can check it out here.

What’s Good About Menopause?

This is something that surprised me. Most mammals remain fertile throughout their lifespan, allowing them to maximize the number of their offspring. Only humans, chimpanzees, and five species of whales are known to experience menopause – the physiological process marking the end of a mammal’s ability to reproduce. And those five species of whales live longer, as much as 40 years longer, than whales that do not go through menopause. Click here and here for two scientific explanations.

566,000? 

566,000 is the number of immigrants that arrived in the 50 largest US metropolitan areas last year, up 15% from a year ago, according to a WSJ analysis of new figures from the Census Bureau. The analysis shows that immigration was the main factor in slowing or reversing population losses in large metro areas in the Northeast and Midwest after an exodus during the pandemic.

In case you’ve been wondering…

Smithsonian Magazine reports that the Pentagon has “no evidence” of alien technology in “most sightings” of “unidentified anomalous phenomena.” Click here.

Speaking of Fasting… 

Did you hear that several incredibly brave pro-Palestinian Harvard students went on a hunger strike to support some pro-Palestinian Brown students who went on a hunger strike the day before? The Brown students lasted 16 hours. The Harvard students’ hunger strike lasted 8 hours (the amount of time that 95% of the world goes without food every day of the year). Click here.

With my new one-hour, once-a-day eating plan (see my Journal article, above), I’m hunger-striking for 23 hours! I’ll have to decide which cause to devote that time to.

Another Fun List of Actual Bird Names

A few months ago, for your amusement, I provided this link to a list of real bird names that some people might consider to be offensive – e.g., the Blue-Footed Booby.

Here are 12 more from Merriam-Webster’s WordPlay: “Bird Names that Sound Like Insults (and Sometimes Are).”

Pictured below: the Twit-Twat

Ten Quick Bites 

1. Talk about curious! Woodworker Justin Davies, after learning that, in the 19th century, some bakers would put sawdust in their bread to cut costs, gave it a try. Click here for the results.

2. Boys will be boys. I have twin-girl granddaughters. They were a handful for their parents. Never for K and me. So, I was interested in watching this little video titled: Are your twin girls this wild? Answer: No.

3. From “The Paint Explainer”: An explanation of every known psychological effect over the course of 12 colorful minutes. Click here.

4. Duped again! Since I was a kid, I was told that the human temperature is the same for everybody: 98.6 degrees. It turns out that individual temperatures may vary and the average for all may be cooler than was thought. Click here.

5. An animated evolution of New York City (1524-2023). This is good fun. Especially if you are a New Yorker, as I am. Click here.

6. Kevin Bacon sings “My Sharona” to a reticent alpaca – named Sharona – on his farm. I know what this sounds like, but you may get a kick out of it, as I did. Click here.

7. This guy doesn’t look like he knows how to dance… but in his circle, he’s Fred Astaire to his Ginger Rogers. (Rule 1: Make your partner the star.)

8. Ever wonder what “The Simpsons” characters would look like as real people? Thanks to AI, wonder no more. Click here.

9. A record that you didn’t realize needed to be set: A Louisiana gardener just grew a 44-pound cabbage. Who would have thought? Click here.

10. Aw-shucks moment of the week: I can’t resist these, and I feel compelled to share them. Watch this Golden Retriever and parakeet frolicking. Click here.

Ten Life Hacks I Haven’t Tried Yet 

I came across this in a magazine someone left in an airport. It’s from Bruce Wilson, who self-identifies as a social researcher and world traveler. I thought it was pretty good and worth passing on to you.

1. Start every phone call with “My battery is almost dead.” That way you can hang up on them at any time.

2. Forward spam texts to 7726. Your carrier will respond and ask you what number it came from.

3. Hit the space bar twice for a full stop, and the next letter will be automatically capitalized too.

4. Instead of crossing words out with lines, cross them out with letters, so they won’t be legible.

5. If the person sitting in front of you on a flight reclines their seat all the way back and leaves you with no room, turn on the air con above you to full blast and point it at the top of their head.

6. The best way to charge your phone faster is by switching it to airplane mode before plugging it in.

7. Wet your nail clippers before using them. Your clippings won’t fly everywhere.

8. Boost the range of your key remote by holding it against your chin.

9. If you’d like to use emojis on your Mac desktop, simply press Control + Command + Spacebar to open the emoji menu.

10. To hit a perfect high-five, lock your eyes onto your recipient’s elbow.

Ten Quick Bites…

* Crazy: It costs about three cents to produce a single penny. And the US lost more than $93 million producing pennies in 2022 alone. Click here.

* Scary: Last week, I reported that 2023 was the hottest year on record. Now we have even worse news: January 2024 was the hottest month EVER. Globally, air temperatures averaged 13.14 degrees Celsius, breaking the previous record for a single month, set in 2020, by 0.12 degrees. Click here.

* Racism Reality Check: Remember Dave Chappelle’s bit on the Jussie Smollet “incident”? (If not, you can watch it here.) Now here’s Sunny Hostin talking about her “lived experience” watching her son being called the N word on a Florida beach… followed by The Officer Tatum’s take on it.

* Mind-blowing New Technology: The DJI FlyCart 30 is a rugged aerial delivery drone that can make safe deliveries to the most remote and harshest locations in the world. Watch it at work here.

* Fascinating: In this short video, an architect takes a deep dive into the math behind NYC’s iconic street grid. Click here.

* Remarkable: When I was a kid, I loved building miniature cities and landscapes. They were crude. But they were fun to make. I can’t imagine ever turning that sort of fun into this level of detail. This guy is an artist. A very painstaking artist. Click here.

* Athletes Thinking Outside the Box: A look at five of the world’s weirdest winter sports. Click here.

* Brilliant Toyota Ad: “It was a trap!” Click here.

* Sort of Funny: SNL has been bad, very bad, for ages, but this recent bit was clever.

* Amazing: Another animal/human story that you will not be able to resist being inspired by. Click here.

Quick Bites: Ka-Ching!… Pant! Pant!… Splish-Splash!… OMIGOD!

* Intriguing: First Costco… then Walmart. Why have these major retailers suddenly begun selling gold? Click here.

* Weird: It’s not your imagination. 2023 was the hottest year since scientists began tracking global temperatures 173 years ago. 2023 saw global average temperatures of 14.98 degrees Celsius (58.96 Fahrenheit). That is 0.6 degrees Celsius (2.6 Fahrenheit) warmer than the average global temperature over the last 30 years. It is also about 1.48 degrees Celsius (2.5 Fahrenheit) warmer than global averages in the 50 pre-industrial years prior to 1900.

* Adorable: Capybaras taking a relaxing bath at a Japanese zoo. Click here.

* Impressive: I know. You’ve seen clips like this from me before. You get it. And, yeah, they look staged. So why do I keep including them in my blog posts? I have no excuse except I’m thinking that if I can’t get enough of them some of my readers may feel the same way. So click here to watch a nine-year-old violinist blow everyone away.

Quick Bites: A Rabbit Hole You Probably Don’t Want to Go Down… A Survival Tactic You Probably Don’t Need to Know… Tap, Tap, Tappety-Tap! 
 
* A new YouTube rabbit hole: People recording themselves getting fired! Click here and here and here.

* How to safely survive falling into a frozen lake: Click here.

* Tap dancing is coming back!: Watch this!