Best Of MetaFilter

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TimHare wants to hear about your favorite independent and/or college streaming radio stations.

The Making of Harry Potter by Dave Catchpole (cc by)

In Ask MetaFilter: I would like to read some books that are set in magical (or possibly science fictional) universities and colleges, or about magical or science fictional students and professors.

Cave Painting at the National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City by Artotem (cc by)

MeFi member ChuraChura talks about how she teaches anthropology while also carefully navigating existing student belief systems.

So with this as my student population, coming in and laughing at their silly beliefs would alienate a significant chunk of my students - which (as well as making for a semester of dread and aggression) would really impact my ability to teach anything! And it's an awesome class! I talk about primates for about 5 weeks! And they play with bones! And hear about genitals! And Alfred Russell-Wallace! Cool stuff!

MetaFilter member chambers recounts an amazing story of working at a college TV station and accidentally making Beavis the new face of C-SPAN for a weekend, long ago.

Famous fantasy author Neil Gaiman recently did a great commencement address at the University of the Arts (embedded above) and it is currently making the rounds. MeFi member Rory Marinich was in the audience and recounts the experience:

As great as I'm sure this speech is as standalone inspiration, for our graduating class everything Neil said really struck home. Art school is a weirdly draining and exhausting place, and I think that caught a lot of us off guard – definitely me; I'm just getting over a panic attack that hit in waves over the course of a very rough last week. The weirdness isn't that it's exhausting (I'm sure all colleges are like that), but that it comes from the same thing that also makes art school exhilarating: the freedom you have to pursue your own creative path, to be as strange and as personal as you can bear being.

Beef stew with small potato dumplings and carrots by vauvau (cc by)

In the thread about the six minutes of slow-mo stupidity, user Blasdelb remembers when a college friend tried to cook a can of beef stew on an electric cooktop like the video, and the aftermath:

Then the absolutely predictable happened. The can went off like a beef cannon, it detonated with aspects of the stew projectile breaking the sound barrier and everything.