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mefi
Fantasy cartography
collects scans of maps and charts from video games, comics, and novels. Take a look at the doll-house like maps of the
Fantastic Four's Baxter Building from various comics (a Trophy Room and a "TV Sending Room"!), the Legend of Zelda's
Hyrule, Asimov's
Foundation galaxy, lots of
Lovecraft locations, the lands of the
Princess Bride, the
Discworld, and lots of
Star Trek maps and ship schematics. Also,
some thoughts on how "serious fiction" writers often start with maps, from Joyce's use of the ordinance maps of Dublin to Pychon's use of aerial photographs. More fantasy maps (many in German) are available from the
Fantasy Atlas. Also, from my
previous post on the subject of maps of fantasy worlds, see the extensive listings in the
Dictionary of Imaginary Places.
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 10:13 AM on July 25, 2008
(20 comments)
The editor of the New York Times Book Review asks
"do others have favorite signature passages in books they love — a sentence or two that seem to convey the essence of a complex, beautiful work?" after giving his own example from
To The Finland Station. Hundreds respond, often with some wonderful passages (as well as some not so wonderful ones). Any examples from the hive mind?
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 9:18 PM on March 9, 2008
(160 comments)
How would the military really kill a giant monster? The excellent Danger Room blog considers the problem in a
two part post. Of course, if you want to find out how giant your monster is first, you may want to consult
this discussion comparing monster heights.
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 7:59 AM on March 5, 2008
(36 comments)
The Falling Sand Game
is an engrossing but hard-to-describe online toy/game that lets you create environments using falling streams of sand, water, oil, and salt by adding fire, plants, clay, and other substances. Inspired by
The Falling Sand Game are a number of variations, such as
PyroSand, featuring many kinds of explosives, and
Hell of Sand, with little people who you can torture. One of the most interesting versions is
The Powder Game, which lets you paint with superballs, adjust air pressure, and build
very satisfying volcanoes and gardens. For even more,
WxSand [downloadable .exe] is a Windows version with lots more options and many
interesting mods.
[Games are Java applets and are incredibly addictive, especially The Powder Game]
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 11:38 AM on February 7, 2008
(26 comments)
OPENhulu
has copied many of the shows featured on
hulu, the NBC/Fox joint internet television service that is still in closed beta. While it lasts, watch all of
Firefly, the first seasons of
Buffy and
Arrested Development, and the second season of
Heroes. There are also several recent episodes of
The Office,
Family Guy,
House,
30 Rock,
The Simpsons, and more, plus new shows from hulu's list will apparently soon be added. For bonus points, compare the
original Battlestar Galactica to
the new series, or just watch every darn
first season A-Team episode.
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 9:55 PM on December 17, 2007
(26 comments)
The Enigma of Amigara Fault
is an absolutely compelling and terribly creepy short manga story by
Junji Ito about mysterious human-shaped holes exposed in a cliff by an earthquake, each perfectly matching the outline of someone who is then compelled to enter the confining, claustrophobic darkness. For more of Ito in English, there is
Falling. Make sure to read from right to left.
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 9:57 PM on December 10, 2007
(72 comments)
The Muppet Show featuring performances: by
Johnny Cash (and
two more),
Steve Martin on banjo,
Elton John (and
two more),
Alice Cooper (also
some skits),
Debbie Harry (and
another), Liza Manelli
singing Copa Cabana,
REM,
Dizzy Gillespie,
Buddy Rich vs. Animal,
Rita Moreno vs. Animal,
Harry Belafonte (
vs. Animal),
Julie Andrews and
more,
Mac Davis,
Nureyev singing and tap dancing,
Sandy Duncan,
John Denver,
Paul Simon (on
lute!), and a somewhat freaky version of
The Gambler.
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 11:56 PM on December 2, 2007
(49 comments)
Rails of War
is a terrific flash game, where you equip a train with ever-increasing combinations of weapons and guide it through various missions. It is a representative of the growing number of Defense-style flash strategy games started by
Tower Defense and friends, which we discussed before. Now you can try
Age of War, where you try to destroy an opponents base through five distinct eras;
Invasion Tactical Defense where you must manage a nuclear missile plant and its anti-aircraft defenses; the inevitable and
previously mentioned zombie defense games;
StarCraft FA5, where you are the Zerg defending your base; and the lovely and abstract
Red. These is a particularly addictive class of games, so be warned...
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 10:53 PM on November 29, 2007
(19 comments)
This
house at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn has been replicated around the world to odd architectural effect:
Montreal,
Sao Paulo,
New Jersey,
Buenos Aires,
Milan,
Tel Aviv, and
seven other locations. Why? Because it was
the home of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. This sort of geographic dislocation is not unique to 770 Eastern Parkway, however, as photographers Andrea Robbins and Max Becher show:
German buildings in Namibia, the
Old West in Almeria Spain, the last
French colony off Newfoundland, the
town in Washington that was transformed into Bavaria, and
others.
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 7:00 AM on November 15, 2007
(28 comments)
What happened to the future?
Forbes has a terrific special feature on the future that offers a smörgåsbord of cool things. In addition to the usual predictions and "
whither the videophone" discussions, there are also interviews with futurists such as
David Brin,
Robert Sawyer,
Stuart Brand, and
Nicholas Negroponte about their mistakes and surprises (as well as an
article on the value of futurists and one on why you don't want to
make futurists angry). On the fiction side, it features short stories by
Cory Doctorow,
Max Barry, and
Warren Ellis, all dealing with the American workplace in 2027 during a financial crisis, as well as a discussion of
nine great books about the future. It ends with a
quiz about your ability to predict what will happen next year - Forbes will send you your score in January 2009.
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 8:14 AM on October 24, 2007
(53 comments)
Stephen Barnwell makes meticulous bills for fictional worlds, such as the
Dream Dollars of a
lost Antarctic colony, complete with symbolism and backstories. He has introduced several new, more politically controversial fictional currencies for less ideal worlds: the
United States of Islam, the
State of War, and the
Empire of America. He is not the only artist who imagines currency, there are the
beautiful notes of
Kamberra and the strange work of
JSG Boggs [prev] who hand-draws almost real bills that
subvert the lines between money and art, occasionally running into issues with the
Secret Service on the way. On the borders between reality and fantasy is the new currency developed by foreign exchange specialists Travelex, the
Quasi Universal Intergalactic Denomination, introduced to solve some of the problems in money in space, and which
may actually be used by space tourists.
[prev.]
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 8:07 PM on October 16, 2007
(18 comments)
Why is there so much
Viking-
themed architecture in Boston? The answer lies in racism and baking powder.
Eben Horsfeld revolutionized bread-making in the 1890s when he developed
Rumford's Baking Powder. Inspired by a
Norwegian superstar and nationalist and a
mysterious stone, he became convinced that the Viking
Lief Ericson had
landed in Cambridge, which he called Norumbega, and funded monuments and research to that effect. The Boston elite, threatened by new Irish immigrants, quickly seized on this concept,
since it showed that the cleaned-up Viking, and not Catholic Columbus, that had first settled their sacred city. A century later, it was
discovered that the Vikings did reach America first, though never Boston.
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 7:12 AM on October 3, 2007
(34 comments)
An Israeli porn site is trying to promote peace through pornography, and has succeeded in
getting surfers from Arab countries that normally
block access to all Israeli sites. Specializing in pornography with political themes,
Ratuv is part of an industry that features
Jewish, Israeli Arab, and Druze actors and plenty of political tension. The most popular downloads from Arab countries
is apparently an X-rated parody of the kidnapping of nuclear scientist Mordechai Vanunu, though pictures of women of the IDF are also popular. Salman Rushdie has noted the power of pornography in the Muslim world,
arguing that pornography is vital to freedom in his essay,
The East is Blue.
[All links are worksafe to major mainstream news sources, except potentially the fourth link, which goes to Nerve].
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 6:31 PM on September 3, 2007
(53 comments)
Why stop at one great undiscovered site when you can have 100?
PC Magazine released its top 100 undiscovered websites for 2007 which you can view as a
slideshow or
download as bookmarks. There are some cool new sites that would be postworthy in themselves, such as:
Footnote, which has digitized millions of national archive documents;
WebsiteGrader, which automatically tells you how good your website is (MeFi gets a 98%);
Rentometer, which compares your rent to others in the neighborhood; and
Yapta, which lets you take advantage of airline policies that refund part of your ticket when prices drop. Many others have been covered on the blue, but are still worth revisiting such as
OldVersions.com for finding software before the bloat, the video how-to site
VideoJug, and
Zamzar for conversion between file formats. If you can't get enough, check out the
100 classic websites.
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 9:19 PM on August 30, 2007
(22 comments)
