Best Of MetaFilter

Scene from The Black Gold Tapestry Come view this breathtakingly beautiful embroidered story of oil in human history, created by Sandra Sawatzky, in this great post by 'They sucked his brains out!'

A Cycle of Joy” (2023). All images © Thandiwe Muriu Heyho created a post that showcases Kenyan photographer Thandiwe Muriu and her work with wax fabrics common in Central and West Africa.

Screenshot showing animators Yuri Norstein and Francheska Yarbusova

"The Animators Who've Spent 40 Years on a Single Film": Rufous-headed Towhee heehee posts about the beautiful, unfinished stop-motion film that has taken the record for longest animation production of all time. (and trig links to the fantastic "Hedgehog in the Fog" by the same duo in the comments)

Didsbury Old Parsonage Sundial Panel Install 1 by Sundials by Carmichael (cc by)

zamboni posted Time in the Sun about the site "Stained Glass Sundials" featuring hundreds of amazing stained glass timepiece installations with sundial faces that allow you to tell the time from inside or outside.

MetaFilter member ' bouvin' posted about Pete Beard, who has just published his 100th episode of 'Unsung Heroes of Illustration', a series which covers illustrators born between 1850 and 1910.

"The real collection of patterns is the physical collection. Envelopes are individually sleeved and kept safe in 3-ring Binders. This web page, the digital images of the patterns, are put in place so other people can enjoy these wonderful patterns": cardioid has posted abstractcollage.com's amazing collection of over 500 security envelope patterns — designs printed on the inside of envelopes to obscure the contents of snail mail.

"The Maison du Pastel shop, off rue Rambuteau, opens only on Thursday afternoons. In this small window of time, Isabelle and Margaret serve their customers like they are selling elixirs for the soul."

... If you missed it, this post on La Maison du Pastel, the Parisian shop selling handmade pastels since the18th century, is -- like their wares -- just lovely.

Yesterday I spent 5 hours working in the cold garage, encountering much mouse poop, and finally 5 fat mice ... And that's how I came to make my very first MetaFilter post! — dorey_oh in her post thread on the Peptoc Hotline, offering pep-talks by kindergarteners.

photo via loc.gov

adamsc links to a super secret stash of cunningly hidden Library of Congress cultural treasure in the Lizzo LOC thread

Frame by seyed mostafa zamani (cc by)

RichardP posted Inside the Mind-Boggling World of the Antiquities Theft Task Force

Apocalyptic giant flying bioluminescent jellyfish destroying a city, digital art

Rhaomi entertained the Saturday night crowd in Metatalk by fulfilling requests for art by OpenAI's DALL-E 2

Photo by Wendy Laurel at Lomography Magazine

Film soup is an experimental analog photography technique where you soak a roll of film in different liquids to add fun, crazy colors and effects: oulipian's post Recipes for Rainbows from last month.

A robot draws itself, by OpenAI's DALL·E 2

Please do not miss Rhaomi's Opus DALL·E 2 on "the extraordinary new AI that creates anything you can imagine in a matter of seconds," including examples, explainers, demos, other projects and breakthroughs, fun stuff, deep fakes and more from the new age of synthetic media that will "hit you like a digital blitzkrieg."

cake house by masha_k_sh (cc by-nc-nd)

Oh, look, the new Mefi newsletter has a name! And a second edition! Whee! 📰

Also, the latest Metatalktail Hour asks members to tell the least plausible story about yourself, and it's so, so great. 🕴🏼

Also, also, don't forget, it's the second theme week of August fundraising month, and this time around, we want to see some sweet, sweet art (any interesting art find that you like, in any medium). Search tags for "sweetart" to see what people are posting, and/or tag your art-themed post with "sweetart." 🍭