Best Of MetaFilter

There's a absolutely fantastic post from user 'dhruva', about photographer Fyodor Savintsev and his gorgeous photos of dachas, the Russian wooden houses built in the woods or countryside.

Maria Frostic - Main Iceberg Lagoon by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (cc by)

How fake is fake in nature documentaries? sciatrix on why scientists stage photos of their mice, and ChuraChura reveals that butterflies love pee.

What should I watch, from a huge archive of Russian films? gusottertrout recommends some movies: "One of the great pleasures of watching Soviet cinema is seeing the differences in attitude towards common film tropes."

The real work of fake tears - pseudostrabismus tells us what it takes to film a movie scene with two actors crying: "Frankly it's a wonder actors can cry at all."

Where do tv chyrons come from? Jahaza explains who decides which words appear on screen during news broadcasts.

Lada Niva by Hugo90- (cc by)

daniel_charms tells the story of how my father bought a car when he was a farm worker in the USSR, others share memories of their own Ladas, and languagehat offers some more detail on the process in the Soviet car-buying thread.

It's so hot the railroad tracks are buckling! But not everywhere... vacapinta asks, why are railroad tracks okay in the heat in some places but not others?

oog and others remember driving the Nullarbor Plain (including the longest straight road in Australia): "I did this mind-numbing drive in March of 2005, alone. ... I thought I was prepared..."