Best Of MetaFilter

Dragon Scream by Brandon James Scott (cc by-nc-nd)

Want to hear Mefites hiss and spit over sins of omission (and inclusion!) in another "best books" thread, and pick up some great member reading recommendations along the way? Check out the thread on The 51 Best Fantasy Series Ever Written. (tip of the wizard hat to y2karl for the title)

In other news, Space Journey Walrus makes an entrance in a thread about some Very Serious Developments Indeed in the aftermath of "this year's kerpupple surrounding the Hugo awards," soon acquiring form (and fashion) and narrative arc. What strange new realms await our hero?

Apollo 12 Pacific Recovery by NASA Goddard Photo and Video (cc by)

In a thread about the wonderful "writes upside down" spacepen, member eriko explains why pencils in space can be quite deadly and unsafe:

Realize that a piece of graphite between two conductors with enough current behind them becomes a light bulb. Briefly. This isn't good in sea level atmosphere, in a pure oxygen atmosphere, this is deadly. Gemini used mechanical pencils, which got rid of the wood, but left the graphite, and graphite+oxygen+spark=fire. Bad.

Apollo 11 Bootprint by NASA on The Commons

On the occasion of Neil Armstrong's passing, MetaFilter member liza recounts how profound the moonwalk was to her and her family:

supposedly 500 million people saw that Lunar landing worldwide. beside the bouncing images of Armstrong on our little black & white TV, the most important memory i have of that day is that the sky, the Moon and space were only the limits to the opportunities i could have.

Everybody's been talking about the moon, but what about the Moon Patrol? They get up at noon!

If that's not enough goofy space-related music from mefite erikgrande (with some help from Uncle Jimmy), you might also check out the improvised and thoroughly ridiculous 9 minute Star Wars blues jam, Is Everything OK?