Love that we have a member who's a traffic safety researcher commenting in the Speeding Ticket thread. TheKaijuCommuter talks about elements in the (US) built environment and issues that subconsciously trigger people to go faster.
Lada Niva by Hugo90- (cc by)
daniel_charms tells the story of how my father bought a car when he was a farm worker in the USSR, others share memories of their own Ladas, and languagehat offers some more detail on the process in the Soviet car-buying thread.
It's so hot the railroad tracks are buckling! But not everywhere... vacapinta asks, why are railroad tracks okay in the heat in some places but not others?
oog and others remember driving the Nullarbor Plain (including the longest straight road in Australia): "I did this mind-numbing drive in March of 2005, alone. ... I thought I was prepared..."
Saydee by Ranger Robb
Grab bag time!
Got a cold? Folk remedies from around the world.
What's that thing embedded in the street? Why, it's a recycled cotton gin part.
Thinking of buying a Gudetama, the egg with ennui? Be sure to check the butt.
Want an earworm? Comedy group All India Bakchod offers this song about social media creeps.
Want to be weepy for pets? Mefites share their old dog stories and old cat stories (comic by Mefi's own Narrative Priorities).
IMG_3477 by Micah Sittig (cc by)
In the wake of the NYC subway tragedy, MetaFilter members wondered why we couldn't have sealed subway platforms with trains stopping only at doors (like those pictured above, called platform edge doors - PEDs). Users sevenyearlurk breaks down the immense cost of retrofitting lines and garius explains the difficulties of getting them to work correctly:
Just to provide some kind of summary on the whole "platform doors" thing, it's always worth remembering that, when it comes to Metro systems, it's generally pretty easy (and cost effective) to do stuff as long as its done or planned for when the system is built. After that though you're pretty screwed.
MetaFilter started as a community weblog in 1999, later added question and answers, then music by members, jobs, projects by members, a podcast, and finally an area dedicated to meetups.
