IO Graph Art by nathanmac87 (cc by)
With the end of 2013 behind us, we've just launched a mini-site called MeFi Labs featuring a year-end summary of statistics, top mentions of Amazon items from 2013, recent Amazon mentions, and recent YouTube mentions in posts and comments. We're also discussing it on MetaTalk.
This is the third week of results for our Mefites Choice contest.
Guess The Album Game by shrff (cc by)
1. mannequito made an epic post that serves as a history lesson and homage to the silent/hidden track on albums.
james tiptree award anthology 2 by cdrummbks (cc by)
2. filthy light thief furnishes us with a post covering the history of new wave Sci-Fi writer James Tiptree Jr., and the revelation that eventually came to light about the author.
Get Smart. by Baylee_Farris (cc by)
3. zarq drops a megapost about the comedy spy show Get Smart, featuring every episode on YouTube along with the movies and spin-offs that followed.
Emptily Nested by CarbonNYC (cc by)
In a thread about a famous Christmas cookie cookbook, MetaFilter member Elsa shares an amazing personal story about cookie cutters, stern family members, and giving thanks.
Most every December, MetaFilter throws a best post contest and this year is no different: The MeFites Choice Awards.
Week one has passed and the winners have been announced. Here are the top three posts to MetaFilter according to voting members of the site.
Where My Ladies At? is a post about sexism among scientists that includes this brilliant video response as well as a huge list of female STEM online educators. It was posted by Blasdelb.
A Star Trek video of Picard's crew singing "let it snow" by Gelatin came in second.
And last but not least, the man of twists and turns made a comprehensive post on the state of conspiracy theory culture in America, looking back over 50 years.
We'll continue to post weekly recaps of the winners throughout this month.
stars by davedehetre (cc by)
RedOrGreen talks about why measuring star positions is so complex.The key thing that Gaia will do is astrometry, where they measure the positions of a billion (many millions) of stars. And that stupidly simple-sounding thing turns out to be pretty profound...
The Crack of a Twig
The author of I Met A Convicted Serial Killer, And He Made Me Feel More Loved Than Anyone Else In My Life has showed up and is answering questions in the associated MeFi thread.
The whole thing made me look at adults in a different way. I learned they didn't all know everything and some might even be sorta dumb. I also learned that you couldn't always trust what they said or their judgement. My promise to not get plants lasted a whole two days. I became defiant and started to suck on hemlock needles just to spite them. These things could cure things like scurvy goddammit and they're making it out to be all scary and bad was part of my 11 year old justification for disobeying.
Jalliah talks about how she learned that adults don't always know everything.
Final Assembly of Aero Supersports by joncallas (cc by)
On the occasion of the Toyota company founder's death, MeFi member ceribus peribus reminisces about his father's time working for Toyota and how it was different than American car manufacturers:
My Dad worked in a very senior position at TMMC for over 16 years before his retirement, so I became familiar with The Toyota Way, the Toyota Production System (yes, TPS reports), kaizen, and kanban through discussions with him and from glancing through the written materials he brought home.
MeFite Zeamon: "Hi Everyone. I just wanted to check in and thank you all for the encouraging comments regarding my Orrery."
Cows cows cows by aWorldTourer (cc by)
Peemster--the author of a piece linked on MeFi--shares with us additional information from his source farmer Nate Wilson.
I would open by telling you quite frankly to be highly suspect of anyone that tells you they have accomplished a successful "cow-tipping" as they will almost certainly lie to you about more important things, as well. I am most comfortable stating unequivocally that "cow-tipping" is naught but a classic urban legend, promoted largely by juvenile minded, immature, inebriated young adult males attempting to embellish resumes otherwise lacking in noteworthy personal accomplishment. Kindly allow me to make my case...
"Wow, I love a lot of these. But as I was going through the reddit thread, I came across this picture. It isn't the most stunning example of colorization, but it was striking to me nonetheless. The person in the photo is my great uncle, Raymond Bowman..."
milkcrateman recognizes a relative.
But now I have to eat the damn things. I've eaten squid in about every form known to man, but this one is new to me. And I sure as hell am not going to embarrass myself in front of all the locals. Of course I know how to eat this, don't I? But do I just wolf it down? They're only about 3 or 4 inches long. And what's all this other stuff on the plate? I know it's not just for decoration.
charlie don't surf shares a story of how he learned to eat hotaru ika.
Ajinomoto by stu_wp (cc by-nc)
It is impossible to be allergic to either sodium or glutamic acid. Allergies are an autoimmune disorder where white blood cells attack substances that are generally not supposed to be attacked; if this was the case for either sodium or glutamic acid, the effects would be immediately fatal given the omni-presence of sodium and glutamic acid, their essential roles in the human body, and given how glutamic acid is naturally produced by the human body.
MeFite Conspire helps to dispel some misinformation in an MSG thread with SCIENCE.
robocop is bleeding envisions a Lois Lane centered superhero movie.
They each try to patch things up with Lois, but she tells them each off, pretty much inspiring their methodologies ("You need to think about the little people, Bruce. How many more kids in Gotham became orphans while you were palling around with Luthor?" - "Read this issue of Spider-Man, Superman, and look closely at the Power/Responsibility line."). The dudes take her message to heart and try to act the parts they should. She keeps telling them "nice start, but you need to do X, Y, and Z. And also you two should try to play nice with each other. Go have a meal together and meet me back here in the hotel bar afterwards."
2013-06-01 15.50.14 by ℤoḁsterboy (cc by)
Eyebrows McGee talks about listening to her great-grandmother's piano rolls.
My great-grandmother, under a false name, recorded several piano rolls during the Depression to help feed her family. This is one that she played, Never Again, that has been rereleased as a historically important recording and they're making new copies of the roll.
It makes me a little teary to be listening to my great-grandmother playing piano via the magic of the internet. The gentleman who collects, curates, and re-releases this got in touch with my family several years ago because he'd managed to track down my great-grandmother's real name, and wanted information to add to her biography, as she recorded a LOT of rolls and was fairly well-known for it. The curator was able to send us audio files of a bunch of her rolls playing on the roll piano, and my grandfather, who was quite elderly at the time, was able to hear his mother play piano again before he died last year. It meant an awful lot to him, and to us, and it makes me teary to be able to listen to this one on YouTube.
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.
