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November 27, 1984, Dr. Merlin Tuttle shares bats on Late Night With David Letterman. This 10m15s clip features one of (for me) the most memorable soundbites/moments on Letterman back in the day. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:19 PM PST - 14 comments

The renowned Yiddish song collector and performer Ruth Rubin wrote in her notebooks “[The Yiddish folk saying] ‘Tsu zingen un tsu zogn’ [To sing and to say]…derives from the time when the Jewish ‘Spielmänner’ (the Jewish minstrels of the Middle Ages) would recite their bardic tales set to a chant. In the Yiddish vernacular, it has come to mean a person who has a lot to complain about.” 

In 1947, she began documenting traditional Yiddish singers primarily in New York City and Montreal. Switching to magnetic tape in the 1950s (which, in addition to improving  audio fidelity, did away with the time restrictions of recording to disc), Rubin eventually amassed a collection of over 2,500 Yiddish folk songs. The collection is now available through the Ruth Rubin Legacy online exhibition of the Max and Frieda Weinstein Archive of Sound Recordings at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 8:43 PM PST - 10 comments

"William Kurelek was an artist of extremes. As no Canadian artist before him or since, Kurelek attracted, through his at once sentimental and monstrous imagery, the attention of both popular audiences and seasoned critics."—Andrew Kear's William Kurelek: Life & Work is a wonderfully thorough exploration of an artist with many facets. Kurelek expressed his struggles with depression, schizophrenia, eye pain, and hospitalization in works like The Maze and I Spit on Life. He was devoted to Canadian subjects, often pastoral images of Ukrainian-Canadian culture, the prairies, and children (books like A Prairie Boy's Winter remain vivid to some of us). [more inside]
posted by sylvanshine at 7:53 PM PST - 10 comments

Before the advent of digital graphics, television and movie producers wanting high-tech animations had the option of using analog computers to process video signals. The characteristic look of 1970s and early 80s video graphics was primarily thanks to the Scanimate, a sophisticated analog computer which produced instantly-recognizable 3D animated text and colorful patterns. [more inside]
posted by biogeo at 7:12 PM PST - 22 comments

"Now, nobody can tell me when I’m done making up for lost time. Nobody can tell me how to spend my time. Nobody can tell me what I’m allowed to do inside my own skull." Taffy Brodesser-Akner on the opposite of mindfulness.
posted by Mchelly at 1:12 PM PST - 62 comments

What swimming taught me about happiness (SLNYT). “When I swim, I feel that I have all the time in the world, in part because much of what marks time — my everyday life — vanishes the moment I step in the water.” [more inside]
posted by adrianhon at 12:35 PM PST - 15 comments

“My grandparents’ unconditional love became abruptly very conditional when my grandfather and I had the biggest fight he’d ever had with anyone, on the birth of his great-grandchildren, my twin daughters.

I nearly got disowned over my decision not to pass on the family name.” Essay by Nato Green.
posted by Kattullus at 12:31 PM PST - 73 comments

When you build a turbine engine at home without CNC, you can put it on a beautiful 1:16 scale Eastern Lockheed L-1011 TriStar model, or you can put it on your bike.
posted by clawsoon at 11:35 AM PST - 36 comments

"I have no friends so I like to take famous dance scenes from movies and put songs that are the same tempo on top of them" — a thread — featuring Love Actually vs Billie Eilish, Napoleon Dynamite vs Cher, The Breakfast Club vs Shakin' Stevens, Titanic vs Arctic Monkeys, Mean Girls vs That's So Raven, Mr. Bean vs Ariana Grande, Ferris Bueller's Day Off vs Boney M. and lots more!
posted by bitteschoen at 9:51 AM PST - 45 comments

Everyone's hiring practices are broken, and yours aren't any better. I’m sure lots of people have very passionate opinions about the right and wrong way to hire. Quite frankly, I’ve lost all interest in hearing about people’s opinions and anecdotal experiences. Until and unless someone does a rigorous scientific study evaluating different interviewing techniques, preferably using a double-blind randomized trial, there’s no point in beating this dead horse further. Everyone’s hiring practices are broken, and yours aren’t any better.
posted by aleph at 9:17 AM PST - 65 comments

Chaser the border collie dies at 15 Chaser was a border collie trained to recognize 1000+ nouns has died at 15. He was trained by a psychology professor, John W. Pilley. [more inside]
posted by kathrynm at 8:39 AM PST - 30 comments

The New York Public Library blog presents the literary tattoos of NYPL staff. Featuring Roald Dahl's Matilda, a photorealistic depiction of Franz Kafka, Patience (or possibly Fortitude) the lion, and more.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:55 AM PST - 10 comments

Thomas Game Docs looks at the music that inspired Koji Kondo to create some of the most memorable music for the super mario bros and zelda games. *Bonus* The Nintendo Special Big Band performance at the 2017 Nintendo Switch Experience
posted by Dreamghost at 2:27 AM PST - 7 comments

What a sensational day to transport industrial equipment. These fellas on the boat are looking to borrow their neighbor's excavator.
Many more reviews in the same Australian style.
Previously (by me? - Can't find the link).
posted by growabrain at 12:51 AM PST - 18 comments