Best Of MetaFilter

When I was a student in the mid-90s, there was a cubicle in one of the University ladies’ toilets that was “the problem toilet.” It was like a problem page...

Great comment by penguin pie on wowenthusiast's question about pre-internet physical bulletin boards.

Image via Aeon Magazine

"For more than 200 years, children have been neglected by archaeologists. It was part of a disciplinary bias towards adult men in archaeological interpretations. This began to change in the 1970s and ’80s with the rise of feminist archaeology and the archaeology of gender..." cgc373 posted Aeon Magazine's article by April Nowell.

Fire dancing by Scrap Pile (cc by)

In Ask Metafilter: "It's one or three or ten centuries ago. Somebody's ancestors gather around a fire and pretty soon, spontaneous music breaks out, a few people start dancing, everybody winds up happy and breathless. But what I need to know is, if the songs aren't from the US, Canada, the UK or Ireland, or from Western Europe, what does the music sound like? I'm making a YouTube Music playlist to write a fun cozy fantasy novel to and I need help finding instrumental music from different traditions."

Wintersweet asks about antique party tunes outside the Anglosphere / Western Europe.

gingerbeer points out Richard Thompson's "1000 Years of Popular Music" in this week's free thread. "Playboy asked a select group of musicians to choose their ten favorite songs of the past millennium. Richard Thompson, believing what Playboy REALLY wanted were only songs from the last 20 years, took them literally. He gave Playboy EXACTLY what they asked for. He chose the best songs of the last 1000 years. Thompson never heard from them again."

In Ask Metafilter, Thorzdad wonders, Are there any accounts of how poor eyesight may have affected history? and asks for writings, studies, research or ancient documentation of world events affected by vision problems, pre-spectacles.

"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.

This is great: Uncovering Edinburgh’s forgotten lives, one stair at a time. "Each entry starts with a specific Edinburgh front door and takes us step by step through 200 years or so of the individuals who've lived there."

07 pole by london road (cc by)

A very interesting discussion of architecture, operational energy, design, density, carbon costs, and urban planning in this thread.

Excavating for a New York foundation, 1903

I feel like the lead character on a Hollywood Forensics show, able to produce amazing results from the other characters by saying "...Enhance." In Ask Metafilter theatro asks "Manhattan history detectives: what church is (was?) this?" and gets a great investigative analysis.

My Social Graph from facebook by paul_irish (cc by)

I'm aware that my saying all of this is like when Ollivander referred to Voldemort as "Terrible, but great." But I think it's important, on some level, to understand that Facebook wasn't a fluke: Metafilter member Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted on witnessing the rise of Facebook, its early underestimation by most tech folk, and why it "was a radically different beast than Livejournal, MySpace, and anything else remotely adjacent to the scene"

Mmm. Sweat. by BitBoy (cc by)

Interesting dip into the details and deeper history on the adoption of ORT (oral rehydration therapy) by biogeo in the Dr Dilip Mahalanabis thread.

Crepuscular rays at dawn over the Normandy coast by TeaMeister (cc by)

Eisenhower then makes the biggest call of his life and an example to leaders everywhere: He trusts the expert ... A really great analysis by garius of Blacksod, D-Day, the planning, the storm, the leaders, the meteorologists, the arguments and the massive intwining, nerve-shredding drama of it all.

Jump! by EoinGardiner (cc by)

ASF Tod und Schwerkraft has a bonkers-good comment explaining the evolution of Irish dance costuming in the thread on the Irish dance competition cheating scandal.

the Catherine Palace (35) by Dmitry Karyshev (cc by)

mumimor has some interesting thoughts about Eyebrows McGee's question on Decorating a Baroque palace

Dumplings, Steamed by iamNigelMorris (cc by)

"Map showing the spread of dumplings," "Stuffed boiled dumplings and the Mongol Empire, 1200–1350," "In the Beginning, There Were ... Dumplings?" and more in kliuless's delicious dumplingfest.