Best Of MetaFilter

Ceiling Cat Debit Card by Tony Webster (cc by)

Now looking back, some of this was my fault. I was stupid. One of my co-workers hammered in to me that I needed to get direct deposit ASAP, and yet between the stress of work and school I kept forgetting about it. I had no experience at the time setting up a bank account, or setting up direct deposit, and so these things that in retrospect weren't a big deal felt like insurmountable obstacles. And all the stress I was surrounded--a new job, working nights, a new school, a new apartment, new bills to pay, new classes, being broke, etc.-- made it that much easier to keep putting it off. Had I been more established, and less overworked, none of this would have been an issue. But because I was weak, precisely because I was weak and stupid and stressed, they preyed on me.

Self Portrait Reflected by rocket9.net

Due to the nature of pinball, the ball ends up in places where it's not supposed to be. What's awesome though is that there are machines that recognize when this has happened, and reward you for it.

JHarris explains a few nifty pinball hacks.

Sea of Cotton by subarcticmike (cc by)

My big thrill, enacted every time I brought my sack to the trailer, was to climb the ladder and dump my cotton, just like the grownups did. The field boss always seemed to take me seriously, and logged my meager tonnage in his book as if I were an adult. But he looked the other way when I climbed the ladder; sometimes I would "accidentally" fall off the plank onto the soft cotton.

Emergency Room / Health Care by Rosser321 (cc by)

When a paramedic gives tips on what to do when something is embedded in your body, you should file this away for later, just in case.

A Road Less Traveled by ~Pixelsmithy, used with permission

Tim Samaras is in the same class a volcanologists who race to a volcano when eruption is eminent, the same class as the astronauts who lost their life in the Space Shuttle, or in the Apollo III fire. You try to make things as safe as possible, but you still go to work knowing that there is a risk of something going wrong. On this day, it did.

This fragile card is the way refugees access non food items and multiple distributions of food.

Most of these people have been uprooted from years if not decades of living in Sudan. Their patience and grace in a very hot, dusty and challenging environment is impressive.

MeFite tarvuz talks a little about his blog featuring photos from South Sudan.

March of the Baby Turtles by Clearly Ambiguous (cc by)

MetaFilter member Muddler studied sea turtles and came away with some important lessons:

So, there is a balance that can be reached to help save the turtles, but it takes some creativity and understanding of the predicament of both the turtles and the people who live near their beaches. Thankfully, the Olive Ridley population is doing relatively well, no doubt in part to the efforts at Ostional.

Cockpit of lil plane, flying to Veiques by innuendo (cc by)

In response to a popular news story about a security researcher claiming he could crash a plane remotely via smartphone, MeFi member backseatpilot explains why concerns over this may be overblown:

The airplane is designed to remain safe and functional even if the FMSs fail. Again, multiply redundant systems. Multiple MFDs can fail, multiple autopilots can fail, you could have a total electrical failure and still fly the airplane. Even the Dreamliner, the most electric airplane in the world, is designed to fly with a total electrical failure.

Framed Embroidery Kidney Anatomy Art. Hand Embroidered. by Hey Paul Studios (cc by)

In a question about organ transplants and what life is like after, MeFi member k8lin gives us an insider's view of life after a transplant.

I am both a researcher of the psychosocial aspects of chronic kidney disease and a two-time kidney transplant recipient myself, so I can shed a bit of light on the kidney side of things.

NASCAR by Pranavian (cc by)

While discussing Danica Patrick qualifying first in the upcoming Daytona 500, member dejah420 recounts the demands of car racing and what it's like moving up in the racing world as a young woman:

I am a woman. I drove my first drag race when I was barely big enough to reach the pedals. I won. A lot. The majority of that because the powerhouse I was holding on to was so insanely good; not because I was a prodigy. Drag racing is all about holding on to your ride. By 16 or so, I could hold my own on dirt tracks, and won regularly enough that someone was willing to chance me driving oval.

GRCA 20819 Powell Expedition Journal by Grand Canyon NPS (cc by)

I am no longer simply the kid who wrote those things, did those things. I am that person with years, layers of experience and judgement added to the mix. Something like looking into the mirror, but your image doesn't behave the way you'd like it to behave. Anyhow, my memory needed to be tweaked, and I'm glad I did it.

Several things stand out. I was shocked to see things (written there) that I thought I'd never forget, but had. Also, some of the memories I carried never happened to me--they were things someone else told me, and I had internalized them. More subtle slippage, in that sometimes I wrote several page of bullshit--not lies, just circumscriptions, soldierly evasions, using standard war-story phrases--while trying to say something, and that something never quite made the trip from my mind to the paper. Yet thirty years later I could see between the lines. I know what I couldn't say then. It it truly wierd how we are able to store little packets of reality without knowing it, and when the right stimulus comes along, all the little itches and aromas, textures and sensations waft up to command the senses, like a fugue, if you please.

Mostly, though, when I read that journal I was surprised, as if I were seeing the kid who wrote it in person for the first time. All these years I'd thought him to be an asshole, but looking back at him now, he wasn't all that bad, just young, and without much of a perspective with which to deal with the impossible things he was witnessing. Doing. He was better at his job than I remember.

Apollo 12 Pacific Recovery by NASA Goddard Photo and Video (cc by)

In a thread about the wonderful "writes upside down" spacepen, member eriko explains why pencils in space can be quite deadly and unsafe:

Realize that a piece of graphite between two conductors with enough current behind them becomes a light bulb. Briefly. This isn't good in sea level atmosphere, in a pure oxygen atmosphere, this is deadly. Gemini used mechanical pencils, which got rid of the wood, but left the graphite, and graphite+oxygen+spark=fire. Bad.

My 6th Grade Teacher: Mrs Grace by dok1 (cc by)

Seattle area MeFite femmegrrr gives us the inside scoop on why a school's teachers are boycotting a standardized test

This is not about school testing. This about an expensive, useless, misused test originally purchased under unethical circumstances. And about fabulous, heroic teachers doing their jobs -- standing up for their students.

Army Photography Contest - 2007 - FMWRC - Arts and Crafts - Death Valley by familymwr (cc by)

"Death Valley" isn't just a cute nickname. It's called Death Valley for a damn good reason. It's not a joke.

MeFite loquacious and others discuss their experiences in and around Death Valley.