Best Of MetaFilter

riviere_tick_tack_1881 by Art Gallery ErgsArt

What are some songs that tell a story?

What's the oldest painted portrait of a dog?

What did a floral anchor symbolize, in a book by L.M.Montgomery?

What are scientific results or inventions that were famously demonstrated?

When is this wallpaper from?

How can I stop farting so much?

mitred noro blanket by Alex "Skud" Bayley (cc by)

I need a new delightfully tedious hobby!

Can you help with this mystery photo of 1860s woman?

Live video translation by a random person, and telecom in the Faroe Islands

Cakes & Bakes: Bonnag by H is for Home (cc by-nc)

Jane the Brown has a fascinating comment on 19th century home bread making in ShooBoo's fresh, piping hot post "The Rise of Baking Powder"

courage dear heart by distelfliege (cc by)

We've borrowed the quidnunc kid's kind message of love and sharing to all of us to wrap up some touching, interesting, inspiring, educational, fun and/or funny posts to take our minds off certain recent events:

Dear hearts, I should write to you all and each only to say: you are dear, precious, lovely and great hearts. But my words are all worthless, and your honest hearts are greater than my useless words. Persist, I beg you; if we cry together maybe fate will let us halve our tears. But better that you have relief, if the Earth did not make hearts for only weeping.

dance by bambe1964 (cc by-nd)

Put your dancing shoes on and take a trip around the world, in gusandrews's fascinating comment on the myriad ways social dance changes and spreads.

Doroteo Arango II reflects on one night at a famous dance club in London. "In 2002 I made a literal last minute decision, standing at the check-in line at the airport after a visit to my sister, to stay in London and see how long and how far I could make it with 100 pounds and basic English..."

Did you catch the incredible historical find, re-created Afro-Caribbean dance music from the 1600s?

What are some of your favorite transcendent, gives-you-chills performances? (And how about most amazing heart-in-your-throat sports moments?)

Conspire describes how this dancer's sign-language performance modifies lyrics and mixes languages to better serve the intended viewer.

Uneasy Dreams by Celeste (cc by-nc)

Theodolite asks a fascinating question: who are some famous artists, writers, historical figures, etc. whose reputations were revived by a single person?

Okay, so I said I'd tell the full story of the perennially misbehaving student from the 18th-century. Here it is!

Catseye presents a provocative potboiler about a puckish pupil from the past.

My current job is reading novels and what's called "writing coverage" on them. (Coverage is the entertainment industry equivalent of a book report, wherein people like me read things so that more important people can pretend they read them.) I read 2-3 novels per week, mostly self-published genre novels.

Sara C. has an interesting job, and some good advice on context, details, sources and backgrounds for historical fiction, in answer to the question, "what were the details of everyday life in late 16th century Italy?"

All roads lead to Rome series by Nick Kenrick. (cc by)

But what's The Peutinger Map? Also known as Tabula Peutingeriana, it is a Medieval copy of highly stylized 4th Century map of the Roman road network, extending to India.

Kattullus invites us to explore the roads leading to Rome via "The Peutinger Map Reconsidered" with a variety of ways to view this ancient artifact, including overlays and lists of geographical features, while BWA offers What Latin Sounded Like and How We Know, and other linguistic treats from Nativlang.

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..."

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.

First NBL training run - Getting a feel for the suit. by AstroSamantha (cc by)

Did you enjoy last night's live thread watching the Jupiter mission?

Check out the big auction of space items like navigational globes -- alongside this video from (Mefi's own) engineerguy Bill Hammack on how some of that equipment worked. (Also don't miss his video series recreating Faraday's historical lectures on how a candle works.)

Flight history detectives: Who was the first child to fly in an airplane?

From backseatpilot and Eleven, some expert answers to that age-old question: Which has better aerodynamics, an X-Wing or a TIE fighter?

Bears and Codpieces by timkelley (cc by-nd)

Bits and bobs of recent-ish quirky questions on Ask MetaFilter:

What did historical laydeez think about those codpieces?

Films that occupy that "liminal space between being a bad movie and an art movie"?

Babushka lady behaviour? Examples, real or fictional, of people acting in noticeably strange or incongruous ways during important events or crowd scenes?

I vaaant to be alone! Temporarily deserted places that usually bustle during daylight hours?

No Chuck Tingle? What is the weirdest book in the history of English literature?

Not quite myself today. Is my body composed of a different set of atoms from when I was born?

Nathalia Holt's "Rise of the Rocket Girls"

Amaaaaazing post from filthy light thief on the women behind the Jet Propulsion Lab and NASA, and the book by Nathalia Holt that celebrates them. 🚀

Water drops by sama093 (cc by-nc)

We don't know for certain if the Gas! GAS! in Wilfred Owen's devastating poem was chlorine, but we do know that it can kill and maim in the way he described. But when his poem was written, chlorine had already begun to play a completely different, quietly heroic role, going on to save hundreds of millions of lives over the course of the 20th century.

Check out clawsoon's great, in-depth post "Chlorine probably saved your life today"