Best Of MetaFilter

IMG_1697 by FrancescaV.com (cc by)

Recently on Mefi, people and places around the world, enchanting, mysterious and magnetic:

40 years of Shenzhen, from market village to SEZ

Breaking the Ice, rare Icelandic funk- and soul-inspired music

Central Station, stories from cattle stations in the Australian outback

Georgia Has a Coast? Photos by drone of the Georgia coast that fills his soul

Women's Worlds in Qajar Iran: looking at the lives of women during the Qajar dynasty (1796-1925)

La Scarzuola: deep in Italy, one man’s surrealist mini-city sleeps

Arundhati Roy on the politics of language and translation in India

Beyond 'Florida Man': The problem with writing about Florida

Figures In The Stars: comparing 28 different sky cultures

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.

Seafloor Surveys After Katrina by NOAA Images

bassomatic says, "my dad and his team of underwater archaeologists were the first to find an ancient shipwreck using side-scan sonar..."

Scary stories and freaky facts about oxygen deprivation at altitude

How does a scuba diver smell shipwreck cheese underwater? And some other ancient foods, eaten in the name of science

AskMe offers some resources on cloudwatching for beginners

Moby Dick is fabulous - Mefites talk Melville and subtext, and what you thought of classic novels before you read them, and the linked writer drops by to respond

Submersible finds glowy purple orb in the depths

And finally, that pressing question, what if I fell out of an airplane in a tank full of water?