Best Of MetaFilter

Ancient Epidavros by AldoBergsma (cc by)

modernhypatia tells us how to approach ancient Greek theater and lysimache suggests how to get started learning ancient Greek to read the tragedies for yourself.

functionequalsform gives us the inside tips and tricks from a retail makeup artist.

none of these will bring disaster has the inside scoop on how local news programs get made.

Deoridhe offers a timeline of prominent women in science fiction to bust the myth that sci fi has always been for boys

On a post about Mefi's own Maciej Cegłowski's Antarctica essay, we hear from some Mefites who have lived at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. McMurdo not remote enough? How about a daring mid-winter rescue mission at the South Pole?

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. 🚀

17th Century commonplace book via themillions.com

Before Jezebel, The Toast, and Twitter there were wise and witty women handily perpetrating "epic feminist takedowns of the ages," as illustrated in yarntheory's interesting post about Mary Collier and her 18th century poem, "The Woman's Labour"

... and before Pinterest and Evernote and Tumblr, "there was the humble commonplace book, a space for gathering and reflecting on ideas, quotations, observations, lines from poems, and other information." MonkeyToes gives us a loving magpie's roundup of this "venerable tradition of idea curation."

Hard Hat Area by jasoneppink (cc by)

I've applied for, been accepted to, and am halfway finished with a pre-apprenticeship training program for women. And I'm doing pretty well. So the idea of my becoming a carpenter has gone from a total pipe dream to an actual possibility...

showbiz_liz asks about what to expect when moving from white collar to blue collar work as a woman.

Today we're kicking off #WomensMarch, the twice-makes-it-a-tradition followup to last year's excellent #JulyByWomen project. It's a month long project to encourage women in the Metafilter community to feel comfortable posting more often, or even for the first time, and if you'd like to participate, it's easy: just put together a post, and tag it with "WomensMarch" and "MonthByWomen".

And if you're a little nervous or just don't know where to start, don't worry: a bunch of generous folks have spoken up in the Metatalk thread to offer mentoring, collaboration, post ideas, and just general support for whoever wants it.

Last year's #JulyByWomen was a really positive, and really successful, community-organized initiative, and led to a huge variety of interesting posts and lots of first-time and haven't-in-a-while posters (and even some brand new members!) getting involved. We're happy it went so well, and we're excited to return to the idea this month and make #MonthByWomen a part of the Metafilter community tradition.

kimberly-ellen-hall nottene JULY calendar by brella (cc by-nc-sa)

Viggorlijah posts a Metatalk inviting women to participate in a July experiment to increase front page posts by women: "Women post to the front page proportionally less often, and I want to see if we can shift that. By my calculations ... only about 8% (lowballed because women don't identify themselves always on profiles) of FPPs are made by women. This is much lower than the number of self-reported women on Metafilter, and lower than the percentage of women commenting."