Best Of MetaFilter

Close up of the Illustration by Hitomi Terasawa 1.3 human beings per square meter. That was the density of  Kowloon Walled City, an enclave of China that existed for most of the 1900s. Before the site was demolished, a beautiful architectural drawing was made of the city and that’s the main point of the post signsofrain created. Seriously, y’all have to see this to believe it!

Wartime portrait of Chiang Kai-shek, 1943

Would you know more about Chiang Kai-shek, his “lost” KMT army and modern Chinese history? If so, then kschang has got you very well covered in an informative post!

bq has posted "Hugo, we have a problem," outlining human rights issues and protests surrounding the 2023 World Science Fiction Convention's (Worldcon) Hugo Awards.

Project 365 #90: 310319 Fuzzy Logic by comedy_nose (cc by)

crosswords ↔️ cross words
typewriters ↔️ writer types
mail order ↔️ male order?
catalog ↔️ log a cat
flash fiction ↔️ fash friction

(ps: witness kurumi's cunning coup of cruciverbalist craft!)

Louis Renard fish illustrations

The Go-Go's: "a kinetic effervescence, with a pulse that shimmered and spangled"; Glorious psychedelic fish illustrations, many of actual fish; Remember those brights spots on the Dwarf Planet Ceres?; All of James Sowerby’s mineralogy compendium illustrations arranged by color; DIY hologram chocolate?; Resurrecting the art of China's dragon scale bookbinding

Photo by Dina Litovsky

The co-ordinates are: 53.136107, -0.222877 ♰; Where the Amish go on holiday ⛱; Life on the Slow Train: Views of a Vanishing China 🛤; The Castles of Wales 🏰

1960 Summer Paralympics by brizzle born and bred (cc by-nd)

There has been some good stuff around lately. Hope you didn't miss the inspiring ass-kicking Paralympic athletes...

...or the "spiritual black metal blues" of Zeal and Ardor...

...or this jewelbox of an animated video from the Israeli band Jane Bordeaux....

...or this essay about literature and magic realism in contemporary China...

...or the wide-ranging playlist of music from all over Africa from the 1930s to 1960s...

...or the influential landscapes by once-neglected but newly-renowned African-American painters from Florida.

WC [toilet facilities] by State Records NSW

History pals!

Enjoy some newly-animated historical city photos, plus barnacles on the history of Australian public bathrooms "in case you're the sort of person that wants to see 115-year old survey sketches of toilets and urinal blocks".

Or listen to the meticulously recreated ambient sounds of 1700s Paris.

How about Marie Duval, 19th century woman cartoonist called 'one of the forgotten wonders of nineteenth-century art .. the bizarre dreamlike distortions of her comic world look like some steampunk 21st-century version of Victorian London."

Or the re-discovered ancient Chinese texts that rewrite the early history of Taoism and Confucianism.

Speaking of, what are some examples of historical events that are commonly misunderstood?

Did you catch teponaztli transcribing some diary pages from 1799-1804 New York City? "The most I've seen her write about anything was how much she hates games, which I love for its being an angry rant from 200+ years ago."

Or enjoy the brief video on the baseball fan Wild Bill Hagy, which is a time capsule of 1979 Baltimore.

Harking back to 1979, share some sense-memories in what was it like when everybody smoked?

Or looking further back - what was sugar like in 1631?

Finally, what are the best history nerds on Youtube?

Copper engraving from 1755 shows Lisbon in ruins and in flames

Remembrances of things past via recent history posts on the blue:

More than 600 secret societies in the US, documented in 1899: here is "The Cyclopædia of Fraternities"; a compilation of existing authentic information and the results of original investigation

"Count Pier Francesco Orsini was a man much given to melancholy": Orsini's Sacro Busco, or the Park of Monsters

Ghosts at the Banquet: "Martin Gusinde documented the life and rituals of the Selk'nam people of Tierra del Fuego ... They had been nearly wiped out by a genocide led by Julius Popper, the Tyrant of Tierra del Fuego"

"In 1986, workers in Sichuan province in China were digging for clay for bricks when they stumbled onto an archaeological treasure: a major site for a Bronze Age civilization previously only guessed at"

Road tripping back in time on the Old Spanish Trail: "Today, you can still find remnants of that road, and there's a group of people who are trying to revive this historic highway."

"after the earthquake, King Joseph I was so afraid of buildings he moved out of Lisbon; his claustrophobia was so severe he lived in tents for the rest of his life. Artists depicted the chaos of the city in the aftermath of the disaster": The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755

Great Wall by michswiss

In a thread about "lost" or unrestored sections of the Great Wall of China, many members are sharing great stories of visiting relic sections of the Wall: story from awfurby, photos from michswiss, and lucy.jakobs' story and photos of an epic hike.