BEST HOSPITALS IN UNITED STATES

U.S. News & World Report has published its annual rankings of U.S. hospitals. The top three in the honor roll for outstanding performance over multiple areas of care are Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and Mass General.

The website is divided into adults' and children's hospitals. You can also check by specialties and by procedures. The hospital rankings for geriatric care are here.

U.S. News also has a doctor finder which, they say, covers nearly every physician in the United States.

25,000 SKYDIVE WITHOUT A PARACHUTE

When TGB reader Alan Goldsmith sent me this item, I hadn't heard about it yet. I soon did and by now, you can't possibly have missed it.

Luke Aikins jumped out of an airplane at 25,000 feet without a parachute and landed in a net the size of a football field. Not an easy target from five miles up. My favorite comment on the stunt (except for "He's a crazy person") came from late night talk show host, Jimmy Fallon:

“The jump was nothing new for Southwest Airlines. They just call it business class.”

Here's a video of the jump:

You can read more here and find out about the physics of the jump at wired.com.

A TINY-HOME HOMELESS VILLAGE IN SEATTLE

I am as fascinated with the tiny home movement as I am with miniatures like the ones I showed you last Saturday. Now, some people near Seattle have built a tiny home village for homeless people.

Take a look. This seems like a sensationally good idea to help the homeless get back on their feet and also help some young, not homeless people too.

OUR FELLOW AMERICANS.

A bunch of New York Times reporters have been following Donald Trump's campaign around the country and attending his speeches and rallies for more than year. They have witnessed

”...so many provocations and heated confrontations at them,” they write, “that the cumulative effect can be numbing: A sharp sting that quickly dulls from repetition.”

So they put together a video of epithets tossed around by Trump supporters at those rallies that they call, “Unfiltered: Voices from Trump's Crowds.” (NSFW)

Numbing indeed. You can read more about this at The Times.

JON STEWART HAS A NEW TV SHOW

Yep. That's right. It's true. The man who is brilliant in his own right and also brilliant enough to find John Oliver and give him a platform is returning to television soon.

The reports tell us that the show – no name yet - will begin airing on HBO in time for the November election. HBO programming president Casey Bloys says it is a multiplatform project:

"'The idea is it will be an animated parody of a cable news network with an Onion-like portal,' Bloys [told Variety]. The project will be structured to allow Stewart to release multiple pieces of short-form content—video and text—through HBO's digital platforms, but will also include a linear-television element, likely in the form of a half-hour series.

"'He is establishing an animation studio,' Bloys said of Stewart. He added that he is hoping that Stewart could begin releasing content as soon as September or October, though possibly not until later in the fall.”

Hurray. Hurray. You can read more here and here.

100 PERCENT RECYCLING IN A SMALL JAPANESE TOWN

As CityLab reports,

”At the waste collection center in Kamikatsu, Japan, there are separate bins for different types of paper products: Newspapers, magazines, cartons, flyers. Then there are separate ones for cans: Aluminum, spray, steel. There are even individual bins for plastic bottles and caps.

“But that’s only a handful of the 34 categories that Kamikatsu residents have to sort their trash into...”

It's an astonishing achievement. Take a look:

THE MIRROR DANCE

This video is from the Fox TV competition show titled So You Think You Can Dance. In it, J.T. And Robert dance to The Mirror by Alexandre Desplat.

As someone wrote at the Big Geek Daddy website where I found this:

”As I watched I was wondering if the little boy was seeing himself as a man or if the man was remembering himself as a little boy.”

Me too and probably you. This is lovely. Enchanting.

HOLLYWOOD STARS AT HOME FROM THE 1940S AND 1950S

Remember movie magazines when we were young? (Well, I think they're still with us; just called People now.) I particularly recall Modern Screen but there were plenty of others.

Someone at today's Vanity Fair magazine has been plowing through the archives of these old issues at the U.S. Library of Congress and put together a slide show of the movie star stories of that era.

Here's one with Gene Kelly, his wife and kids:

And another with Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh and their children:

You can go through a slide show of many more old-time pages here.

DEAD RINGER

As you will see, that headline is the most wonderful pun – certainly not my own – of this cinematic farewell to the New York City phone booth from The New Yorker magazine.

It's charming and sad and pretty damned close to being a perfect production.

Many of New York City's phone booths are being turned into WiFi hot spots. Read about it here.

Interesting Stuff is a weekly listing of short takes and links to web items that have caught my attention; some related to aging and some not, some useful and others just for fun.

You are all encouraged to submit items for inclusion. Just click “Contact” at the top of any Time Goes By page to send them. I'm sorry that I won't have time to acknowledge receipt and there is no guarantee of publication. But when I do include them, you will be credited and I will link to your blog IF you include the name of the blog and its URL.