TIL West Side Story was originally called "East Side Story” and it focused on the animosity between Jews and Italian Catholics on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
https://jillianhess.substack.com/p/leonard-bernsteins-west-side-story

The Ferriss–UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship offers ten $10,000 reporting grants per year to journalists reporting in-depth print and audio stories on the science, policy, business, and culture of this new era of psychedelics. Apply by 1/31. https://fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/bcsp/

Heat your house with a mechanical windmill (2019) https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2019/02/heat-your-house-with-a-mechanical-windmill/

Mood
"Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari Fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv3t86imsDI

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Our next major emergence of the periodical cicadas will start in late April and early May 2024, when two different broods will emerge. The 17-year Brood XIII will emerge in Northern Illinois, while the 13-year Brood XIX will emerge in parts of Southeastern United States. It is not common to have a dual emergence between Broods XIII and XIX. They occur once every 221 years and the last time these two broods emerged together was in 1803. https://cicadasafari.org/

"Prison guards in Brazil’s northeast Alagoas state say they have foiled a jailbreak plot with a surprising accomplice: a black and white cat." (from 2013, but who cares, this happened!) https://www.cnn.com/2013/01/06/world/americas/brazil-jailbreak-cat/index.html

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If you've ever considered preparing escargots from scratch, this may dissuade you. It certainly talked ME out of it.

Delightful reading, though.
https://ediblesanfrancisco.com/recipes/how-to-prepare-and-cook-garden-snails-for-escargots/

The only way we can eat Greek food is if we cook it ourselves, because my husband is allergic to olives and olive oil. This cookbook makes it easy! #cookbooks https://amzn.to/3tKJdc9

In an unprecedented encounter, a research team successfully engaged in a "conversation" with a humpback whale named Twain. https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-have-20-minute-conversation-with-a-humpback-whale-named-twain/

"The Jewish Museum in Prague has launched an informative web site with online exhibits about the eclectic material discovered in genizas in a dozen synagogue buildings that have been researched in the country since the 1990s."
https://jewish-heritage-europe.eu/2023/06/01/czech-republic-geniza/

Despite all our efforts to make every software development project a success, some are cursed from the very start. Here are 26 early warning signs-all, alas, real-world experiences - that an enterprise software development project is headed for a death march. by me in 2008.
https://www2.cio.co.nz/article/469595/how_know_software_development_project_doomed/

Internet World magazine radio commercial https://archive.org/details/internet-world-commercial

Your awww-du-jour: "I think she’s lived so long from luck and because she has been loved by every owner she’s had." https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/05/experience-i-own-the-worlds-oldest-living-cat

"We want to part the noise," BetterBlends co-founder Michael Parlato told The San Francisco Standard upon the store's opening, in what can only be described as the most AI hype bro way to discuss frozen beverages imaginable. https://futurism.com/ai-powered-smoothie-shop

We are all nodding #caturday

"What will happen when the Dalai Lama leaves this world? As a spiritual adept who wishes to continue helping others achieve enlightenment, the Dalai Lama is believed by Tibetan Buddhists to have the ability to choose the body into which his soul transmigrates. The Chinese government, however, has other ideas." (requires free signup) https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/07/27/china-wants-to-choose-the-next-dalai-lama-he-has-other-plans

"Streaming anxiety" is causing some people to buy more DVDs, records – and even cassettes. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240102-oppenheimer-and-the-resurgence-of-blu-ray-and-dvds-were-now-in-the-age-of-streaming-anxiety