Best Of MetaFilter

Do you remember stacking cups in gym class? If so, come read the link that gottabefunky shared of how that came to be and meet the literal clown that got the craze started. Fastest to finish wins!

They are called P A Y P H O N E S

Are you ... how shall we say? Of a certain age? For the over 50s, what used to be but is no more? People are sharing all the things in Ask Metafilter!

Mk2010, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Come along as bunderful shares a bit of bean plating in a post. Legume of all your culinary fears as we look back on the history of this pantry mainstay before delving into a few recipes!

image via The Online Bicycle Museum

There was vitabellosi's first cousin 3X removed

... It’s remarkable how many woodchucks he killed. Was he eating them? vitabellosi has commented on a rather wonderful artifact — a 19th century diary belonging to their family and the stories just touched on here are pretty amazing! Posted on clavdivs' FPP, Kicking it with Napoleon, about Youtube channel "Life in the 1800s."

Death of Tiberius Gracchus at the hands of the mob via Wikimedia Commons

How much do you think about ... ROME? Senatus vs. Populusque Romanus, a magnificent multi-part megalicious magnus postus from Rhaomi. Veni, Vidi, Mefi!

Portrait of Michel de Montaigne, 1570s (cropped); unknown author

Gwint has posted the excellent, feature-rich Montaigne's Essays from Hyperessays.net, with 107 texts, including "On Cannibals," "On the Custom of Wearing Clothes," and "On Smells." What a good find!

If you're looking for something to sink your brain into during this final week of the year, then check out chavenet's post about the first 300 years of data visualization and information graphics. Gorgeous graphics mixed with interesting historical bits? YES, PLEASE!

nobody posted about IMG_0001, a time capsule cache of mostly unwatched direct-to-Youtube iPhone Photo uploads – 5 million of them, from between 2009 and 2012, ordered randomly.

Snotolf [Cyclopterus lumpus] MPM.HB.03961

Rumple has posted Antwerp's Plantin-Moretus Museum collection of 14,000 woodblock prints, now online as Public Domain / CC 0 high resolution TIFF images with tags and search capabilities. We stan the lumpy grumpy fish.

via Slate, Julia Child on the set of her television show, with her editor Judith Jones in the background. Courtesy of Knopf

"Tell me what you cook, and I will tell you what you are." Frayed Knot posted Slate's 25 Most Important Recipes of the Past 100 Years

18th Century portrait of Francis Williams in his study

like a real life version of a spy thriller (art & science history edition) — comment by Ausamor

Kattullus has posted about the mysteries of the portrait of Francis Williams, brilliant Black Jamaican polymath and member of the Newtonian inner circle ... and the painted clues that untangled his life story. Great art sleuthing, and a fascinating tale, then and now.

Mount Vesuvius by Carlo Raso (https://www.flickr.com/photos/70125105@N06/)

Mount Vesuvius didn't kill everyone, with refugees from Pompeii fleeing to nearby towns. This fascinating post by rory highlights how archaeologists are starting to understand how they rebuilt their lives.

detail of etching, Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho, G.G. & J.Robinson of London, 1794.

"She was all but forgotten. Now the 18th-century author's republished novels reveal why she made such an extraordinary contribution to literature." Kliuless posted about author Anne Radcliffe, credited with inventing the psychological novel of suspense (plus two more women in publishing who have virtually been written out of the popular genres they helped create).

In spamandkimchi's post on the shady history of the profit-motivated "baby pipeline" of South Korean infants for adoption in the West, mefi member i used to be someone else offers a very enlightening rejection of the idea of new radical feminism as the catalyst for the country's current low birthrate crisis and a clear disentangling of the historical, social, and economic forces that have shaped the present situation.

Bust of Euripedes

Kattullus posted about Euripides Unbound, the story of a recent discovery by archeologist Heba Adly of a papyrus containing 97 lines from Polyidus and Ino, lost plays by Euripides.