Mr. Rogers Dead. Fred Rogers of "Mister Roger's Neighborhood" died of stomach cancer at age 74. To be honest, his was never my personal favorite PBS kid's show growing up (I preferred off-brand shows like "Zoom" and "3-2-1 Contact"). But my appreciation for him when I was an adult was pretty high. Anyway, it's a sad day in the neighborhood.
posted to MetaFilter by jscalzi at 2:17 AM on February 27, 2003 (130 comments)

The NYT has a new blog on aging and eldercare. Thanks to the marvels of medical science, our parents are living longer than ever before.The Gray Lady has started a blog catering to the sandwich generation, with topics, so far, ranging from when to take the car keys to personal accounts of eldercare crises. The 290 comments on this post in particular are eye opening and heartbreaking.
posted to MetaFilter by mygothlaundry at 1:34 PM on July 11, 2008 (20 comments)

The Fallacy of Examples, and the problems of extrapolating from media. [Via RConversation]
posted to MetaFilter by homunculus at 8:25 PM on July 7, 2008 (5 comments)

I would like to be the bright kid again, but I've just turned 30. What should I do?
posted to Ask Metafilter by dcrocha at 8:18 PM on May 17, 2008 (34 comments)

A good friend just received a brain cancer diagnosis with an estimated one year survival time. She wants to talk about death and time. She thinks I have something to teach or tell her worth hearing. I'd like to be helpful, but have no confidence in my ability to say or do anything meaningful. What I've said so far she appreciates. What can I read that might help me frame discussions. I don't need pop psychology stuff, or advice dealing with the health care system or funeral arrangements. I like the idea of Zen notions of letting go but am too ignorant to know what to say. Advice, experience, suggestions for gathering information please.
posted to Ask Metafilter by NorthCoastCafe at 3:12 PM on January 7, 2008 (65 comments)

What do you look at/notice, as you wander through the world, that I probably ignore?
posted to Ask Metafilter by wittgenstein at 12:15 PM on February 12, 2008 (130 comments)

Meditation - what is the point exactly?
posted to Ask Metafilter by stenoboy at 3:15 AM on February 5, 2008 (38 comments)

When it's been gray for days and it seems like spring will never come, making a terrarium (sometimes known as a Wardian case) is a good way to keep from going mad. Your own little ecosystem can be set up easily and cheaply in almost any clear-walled, enclosed container -- even a Mason jar or a two-liter Coke bottle. (Inspired by this.)
posted to MetaFilter by fiercecupcake at 8:43 AM on January 25, 2008 (21 comments)

The shadowy back alleys of MetaFilter...
posted to MetaTalk by carsonb at 6:21 AM on January 12, 2008 (125 comments)

Do you have an FBI file? Or do your grandpa and grandma? "Find out now by ordering a copy of their FBI files and learn a bit more about your family history. Best of all, it's free! (Well, except for the cost of a postage stamp.)" This web site helps you generate the letters you need to send to the FBI to get a copy of your own FBI file. While we're at it, we can generate request letters to some other Federal agencies besides the FBI that you may be interested in (or who may have been interested in you!).
posted to MetaFilter by nickyskye at 6:00 AM on November 2, 2007 (30 comments)

I have fallen in love with this recipe for No Knead Bread. What (and when) should add additional ingredients to the dough?
posted to Ask Metafilter by ShawnString at 10:11 AM on October 10, 2007 (15 comments)

Is the dancer spinning clockwise or counterclockwise? An optical illusion.
posted to MetaFilter by painquale at 8:00 PM on October 8, 2007 (133 comments)

"You're really smart!" Psychologist Carol Dweck says that praising a child for being smart only teaches the kid to avoid any effort that might fail. "When we praise children for their intelligence, we tell them that this is the name of the game: Look smart, don't risk making mistakes." Malcolm Gladwell chimes in with his thoughts on the importance of being a smart kid, "What a gifted child is, in many ways, is a gifted learner. And what a gifted adult is, is a gifted doer. And those are quite separate domains of achievement."
posted to MetaFilter by revgeorge at 7:15 AM on February 13, 2007 (218 comments)

A secret cabal of family members is having a rather big party this summer on the shores of Lake Huron. My mission: arrive in style a la James Bond. I've checked out their security, and although strong on three sides, they haven't guarded the lake. Fools. I would like to arrive via the lake. However, I'm having a tough time with what to wear. Preferably, I'd like to slip out of my wetsuit into a crisp, wrinkle free tuxedo. Is this possible?
posted to Ask Metafilter by maxpower at 6:39 AM on March 30, 2006 (93 comments)

What single book is the best introduction to your field (or specialization within your field) for laypeople?
posted to Ask Metafilter by limon at 5:40 PM on September 8, 2007 (240 comments)

Help, I can't swim the front crawl stroke without becoming completely exhausted in less then 20 seconds.
posted to Ask Metafilter by ShootTheMoon at 11:07 AM on August 31, 2007 (33 comments)

Borderline personality disorder described firsthand. A very personal look at BPD - including the implications of sharing the news in a public setting - his blog.
posted to MetaFilter by 2shay at 11:17 AM on August 6, 2007 (155 comments)

What is some of the best financial advice you have ever received?
posted to Ask Metafilter by elisynn at 12:15 AM on July 2, 2007 (55 comments)

How about recommending some songs like "Everybody's Talkin' at Me" from Midnight Cowboy? I explain more inside.
posted to Ask Metafilter by sneakin at 8:00 PM on April 22, 2007 (74 comments)

I've invented a complete imaginary world. Am I insane?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Anonymous at 3:25 PM on March 30, 2007 (83 comments)

So you wanna be a rock and roll star. Here's a place to start. GOSK, or the guitarist's online survival kit, is a very handy guide to both scales and modes as well as all chords in all positions on the neck. In order to put it all together, and map modes to chord progressions and really start jamming, this little php widget is pretty helpful. Though in all things, even if you want to learn from the masters, you should never forget the basics. However, if you decide that using these online utilities to improve your performance is too much, you can always go back to school, or else forego training entirely and emulate rock star attitude and style in real life situations.
posted to MetaFilter by psmealey at 5:15 AM on March 20, 2007 (18 comments)

I'm an expat who may be returning to the US after many years. What to expect?
posted to Ask Metafilter by FuManchu at 5:37 AM on March 15, 2007 (47 comments)

Dual monitors - working independent - on a laptop. (more inside)
posted to Ask Metafilter by bradth27 at 1:39 PM on February 22, 2007 (12 comments)

Jazztube.com has hundreds of great jazz performances in one place
posted to MetaFilter by petsounds at 7:12 AM on February 19, 2007 (9 comments)

How can I sync Yahoo and Outlook (and/or Yahoo and Thunderbird)?
posted to Ask Metafilter by SampleSize at 7:52 PM on February 17, 2007 (4 comments)

I need examples of bad design.
posted to Ask Metafilter by quadog at 11:51 AM on February 15, 2007 (66 comments)

In Midtown Manhattan, can you recommend a nearby and decent: 1) Indian restaurant; 2) Jewish or Italian deli; and 3) a place to get a good egg cream?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Karlos the Jackal at 12:59 PM on February 14, 2007 (36 comments)

How can I spend less time scrolling through endless feeds of news, where only some of them actually interest me?
posted to Ask Metafilter by irian at 9:58 AM on February 9, 2007 (27 comments)

An autistic woman "speaks" her language, then ours. (YouTube) "My language is not about designing words or even visual symbols for people to interpret. It is about being in a constant conversation with every aspect of my environment, reacting physically to all parts of my surroundings." [more inside]
posted to MetaFilter by maudlin at 9:13 AM on January 25, 2007 (171 comments)

What's the most compelling, narrative-driven (perhaps), "how to start your own business" book you've read?
posted to Ask Metafilter by c:\awesome at 9:33 PM on January 20, 2007 (11 comments)

Which AskMefi questions have elicited great responses or answers - the sort that just perfectly answer the question, or those where what seems like a long shot is serendipitously answered by the perfect person? Looking at the "metafilterhistory" tag, I found this and this, but are there others?
posted to MetaTalk by divabat at 2:11 AM on January 17, 2007 (50 comments)

Pho (pronounced fuh), Hanoi's signature beef broth scented with ginger and anise, is one of the world's great culinary glories. Turns out it's not an ancient dish, but a 1950s-era syncretic product of the French occupation of Vietnam, which introduced the notion of boiling beef in a pot au feu (which may be the origin of the name). The heady, fragrant noodle soup is a global hit, prompting an international pho conference, several good blogs, and a sensual national obsession: "When Vietnamese talk of pho they think of sex: 'We say that rice is a spouse, whereas pho is a lover.' " "Pho is life, love and all things that matter." Tips on eating and cooking pho - recipes and more inside.
posted to MetaFilter by CunningLinguist at 11:42 AM on January 10, 2007 (105 comments)

Finger tapping is a very fast guitar technique in which the picking hand is used to "tap" individual notes on the fretboard, while the fretting hand can either remain stationary or be used to do hammer-ons/pull-offs to create even faster playing. Popularized in rock music by Eddie van Halen (YT, great visual example) in the late 1970's, the technique has become almost essential for speed/metal guitar players. Although finger tapping has been dismissed as "wankery" by some, I think that the intense, jazzy stylings of Stanley Jordan prove them wrong. (here is Stanley playing two guitars!) For more tapping madness you can enjoy the furious, virtuous insanity of Dragonforce (full video), and be sure not to miss the speed genius of Mr. Batio. Tapping isn't just for metal though, you can do it on a bass or an acoustic (amazing video).

Want to learn how? This lesson should get you started.
posted to MetaFilter by baphomet at 3:25 PM on December 21, 2006 (117 comments)

Books/writing on death, loss and grief.
posted to Ask Metafilter by cosmonaught at 2:11 PM on December 19, 2006 (41 comments)

a list of 52 cool things you always wanted to learn but never got round to!
posted to Ask Metafilter by thegeezer3 at 11:48 AM on December 11, 2006 (34 comments)

How can I build a machine (PVR?) that downloads torrents automatically via RSS and allows me to access them in a Tivo/DVR/PVR like interface on my television?
posted to Ask Metafilter by blueplasticfish at 1:47 PM on August 17, 2006 (10 comments)

Full films for legal download: Archive.org has a large number of movies with expired copyrights for download. My favorite is 1936's Things To Come. Other nifty things include classic feature films like Battleship Potemkin and His Girl Friday, and shorts such as Max Fleicher's Superman, Three Stooges and Buster Keaton.
posted to MetaFilter by jiawen at 1:48 AM on August 5, 2006 (21 comments)

Crumbs is a music video to a song built from splicing together instructional tapes for drums, bass & jazz guitar, using loops & selective editing to build a song out of the three distinct elements. Link goes to embedded quicktime.
posted to MetaFilter by jonson at 7:18 AM on June 13, 2006 (31 comments)

I don't read French, so I can't tell you too much Musicovery, except that it is very pretty, very good and I am in love. (flash and obviously, music)
posted to MetaFilter by BrodieShadeTree at 10:34 PM on June 11, 2006 (30 comments)

Refi: Metafilter in Review I spend too much time on Metafilter (and especially Metatalk). I've had I-don't-know-how-many conversations about the site—what it is, what it was, what has[n't] changed, and such—and so I've decided to go spelunking. I'm going to go back and read Metafilter, and blog it. I'm planning to read every n-hundredth or so post, starting from the beginning, and I'll be trying to note various observable trends—users, memes, tone, conversational structure, etc. It won't be rigorously scientific, but hopefully it'll be reasonably objective. Specific analytical notions welcome. Likeminded co-author proposals welcome. Cash welcome.
posted to Projects by cortex at 11:01 AM on May 31, 2006

Simple pleasures in life?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jeremias at 4:55 AM on November 6, 2004 (58 comments)

Life-altering experiences. Can you point to a single experience in your life, as a child, which you can define as having contributed to the person you are today? (+)
posted to Ask Metafilter by jeremias at 4:41 AM on February 2, 2005 (216 comments)

Author Interviews from the Center for Book Culture. I particularly liked the interview/bout with David Foster Wallace. Also the only interview Gaddis has ever done stateside is here. Good times.
posted to MetaFilter by Mean Mr. Bucket at 1:07 PM on May 15, 2006 (9 comments)

The comment as short story? One of my favorite MeFi comment styles (when done well) is the mini-story. Examples here (...a revolution has closed the elevators and the escalators are plagued by snipers.) and here (My idea home would include a nice lawn complete with 25-foot tall stone titans frozen in endless vigilance over my lands). Any other examples of "MeFi short-short stories" spring to mind?
posted to MetaTalk by blahblahblah at 11:45 AM on May 16, 2006 (35 comments)

Chinese classics and translations. A collection of some of the greatest works of Chinese literature in the original chinese and translated in English and French. Every Chinese character is also a link to a chinese dictionary, allowing you to translate on the fly. Includes the Yi Jing The Book of Changes, Dao De Jing The Way and Its Power, The Analects of Confucius, Sun Tzu's Art of War and many more.
posted to MetaFilter by afu at 9:25 AM on May 14, 2006 (16 comments)

How have your life lessons/philosophies/epiphanies etc changed over the course of your life so far? What has changed now? What don't you believe in now that you did ten years ago? And vice versa.
posted to Ask Metafilter by twirlypen at 2:16 AM on May 10, 2006 (26 comments)