The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has put 675 reels of archival 16 mm film online via the Internet Archive. Most of the film is unedited, and stems either from Museum research, or was donated by interested amateurs. Much of it is silent, reflecting the technology of the day. One highlight are the four surviving reels of the long-running TV show 'What in the World" (look for the episode starring Vincent Price), but the archive is full of other hidden gems, such as the 1950s archaeological expedition to Tikal, a 1940 film "A 1000 Mile Road Trip Across America", and Glimpses of Life Among the Catawba and Cherokee Indians of the Carolinas (1927). The films are downloadable in various formats, including MPEG2, Ogg Video, and 512Kb MPEG4. Happy browsing! via.
posted to MetaFilter by Rumple at 1:28 PM on May 3, 2009 (12 comments)

Downloadable original logos and badges for restoring old woodworking machines. Via Old Woodworking Machines and the Draplin Design Co.
posted to MetaFilter by mattdidthat at 3:13 PM on April 22, 2009 (12 comments)

You can't buy a CycleKart and, even if you could, the racers wouldn't let you participate. You have to build your CycleKart. It's one of the many reasons this is a very cool hobby.
posted to MetaFilter by Tom-B at 6:43 AM on April 22, 2009 (35 comments)

I have a 100g+ and growing music collection that needs proper management. Currently I just dump it in to winamp and hit shuffle, but that doesn't help me tag or organize the stuff, and sometimes the transitions between songs are pretty jarring, e.g. it'll jump from Tortoise to Black Flag. I'm looking for software or winamp plugin(s) that can fix both these problems:
posted to Ask Metafilter by saysthis at 1:25 AM on April 11, 2009 (16 comments)

Hand signals are used to transmit instructions from a spotter on the ground to the crane operator high above. Here is a poster illustrating those hand signals, courtesy of the California Crane School. Feel free to post it at your job site, or to have any of the images tattooed onto your forearms.
posted to MetaFilter by mudpuppie at 9:43 AM on April 14, 2009 (30 comments)

Most history books seem to focus on one geographical location, and usually limit that focus to a narrow swath of time as well. I would like recommendations for books (or videos or anything else) that do neither of these things.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Nattie at 7:08 AM on April 12, 2009 (30 comments)

How can I get Firefox (3.0.1) to log my browsing history to plain text files (preferably XML, but any that isn't essential)? At a minimum I'd like the URL, page title, and a timestamp for when I loaded the page. It would be nice to have how the page was accessed (via a link? direct entry?) and how long was spent on it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by phrontist at 6:32 AM on April 13, 2009 (2 comments)

Taser use in law enforcement has been under increased scrutiny in recent years, especially following the death of Robert Dziekanski in a Vancouver airport last year after being Tasered by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (previously). Now the CBC and Canadian Press have sifted through over 5,000 incident reports to create a RCMP Taser use database, tracking use of tasers by Canada's federal law enforcement by province, incident, year or stuns used.
posted to MetaFilter by Shepherd at 6:11 AM on April 9, 2009 (36 comments)

Where can I find Szechuan/Sechuan/Sansho Buttons in Toronto? Apparently they make your tongue tingle like licking a 9-volt battery - and I want in.
posted to Ask Metafilter by JPDD at 8:26 AM on March 8, 2009 (4 comments)

Ivan Day is both chef and historian. Using old equipment and original research in primary sources for recipes and descriptions, he can "cook a meal from any time from the Battle of Agincourt to the First World War," recreating historic banquets and collations in full detail. Galleries of his food exhibitions show that he can back that claim up, and that rapid changes in culinary trends are not of recent vintage.
posted to MetaFilter by Miko at 10:19 PM on April 4, 2009 (25 comments)

The Belfer Cylinders Digital Connection is a collection of old cylinder records at Syracuse University. The library has started to digitize them, both in mp3 and wav format. They have only 293 online yet but aim to have 6000 cylinders digitized by the end of next year. It can be searched either by genre, keyword or Here are a few that I really like: Bedtime at the Zoo, That Syncopated Boogie-boo, Mary, You're a Little Bit Old Fashioned, Fifty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong, Phoebe Brown, Was zu Gott ist zu Gott und was zu leute ist zu leute, Aberystwyth, Glada na lusch, I Love a Lassie and Pussy's in the Well.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 6:58 PM on April 1, 2009 (22 comments)

After a long haul on a plane, I'm wanting to make my very own noise blocking in-ear headphones, as per here. The otherwise awesome directions call for using a relatively slow setting epoxy putty. I shudder at the idea of putting noxious putty in my ears for any time at all. Please suggest a better material thats easy to work with, is non toxic and sets in a reasonable amount of time.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fupped Duck at 7:40 AM on March 24, 2009 (14 comments)

Friday Flash Fun*: Конструктор: Engineer of the People, in which you are an engineer working in a top-secret semiconductor facility called H3, designing top-secret integrated circuits based on specifications provided to you. *For certain values of 'fun'
posted to MetaFilter by daniel_charms at 1:35 PM on March 27, 2009 (36 comments)

Friday Flash Fun: Music Catch 2, move your cursor around to collect objects. Yellow are good, Red are bad, and purple are special.
posted to MetaFilter by schyler523 at 7:47 AM on March 20, 2009 (11 comments)

1. Make a penny whistle from pvc or copper pipe. 2. Learn how to play it. 3. Away ye go! 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
posted to MetaFilter by bokeh at 10:20 AM on March 17, 2009 (8 comments)

My friends keep bees...they have a ton of beeswax lying around. How do you make candles out of raw beeswax?
posted to Ask Metafilter by QAF at 5:46 PM on March 13, 2009 (7 comments)

We're makin' root beer! (Help?)
posted to Ask Metafilter by serazin at 9:02 PM on March 13, 2009 (17 comments)

Help me be awesome and find this sci fi short story for my room mate. I have only my account of his account of the plot to go by.
posted to Ask Metafilter by pedmands at 10:02 AM on February 23, 2008 (15 comments)

I wash trucks and houses for my liveing, myproblem is i need a rain jacket that is waterproof and soap proof and very durable( and size 4 x or so) and preferably if possible acid proof i dont mean like hydrochloric acid.. something like you would use on a tractor trailor truck.
posted to Ask Metafilter by quseio at 9:23 PM on February 26, 2009 (12 comments)

Does anyone else remember this toy, an electronic set of building blocks, or is it just in my faulty memory? Who was the manufacturer? What was the trade name? (How do I search for it on eBay? :)
posted to Ask Metafilter by aurelian at 2:42 AM on February 24, 2009 (8 comments)

I'm a single user looking for an easier way to browse my photos. It looks like I need a photo management tool like iPhoto, F-Spot, et al. The catch: if possible, I would like whatever solution I end up with to be cross-platform and self-contained (because I'm scared of entering all of my information into a proprietary database that I can't get my data out of later).
posted to Ask Metafilter by pbh at 2:27 PM on February 24, 2009 (10 comments)

Suggestions for Photo Management Software Shared Over a Network?
posted to Ask Metafilter by macinchik at 11:46 AM on February 16, 2008 (1 comment)

You forgot all about Valentine’s Day and now must come up with an extra special momento to pacify your beloved. Or you are sitting home alone with no way to celebrate V-day. In either case, it’s crafting time! You can recycle things you probably already have to make Valentine’s Day trinkets. You can start by making a card with scrap yarn, or from wrapping paper. You can make gift bows or a heart-shaped candy basket from recycled magazines, and a gift bag from a newspaper. You can make a love letter box from an old box. The kids or the artist in your life might like to get heart-shaped crayons, made from stubby old crayons.
posted to MetaFilter by orange swan at 5:51 PM on February 14, 2009 (5 comments)

Do you have an "ecard" site you could recommend? You know--smart, edgy, slightly weird, funny, artful, PG to R rated,--not all Christian-y or sappy or cheesy or cutsie!
posted to Ask Metafilter by tarantula at 4:06 PM on February 20, 2009 (17 comments)

I am looking for information and references to a toy that was available during the 1960s. It was an electrically heated hand powered plastic injection toy.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Drasher at 4:22 PM on February 19, 2009 (9 comments)

You may owe your life to this man If it weren't for Stanislav Petrov, many or even most of us reading this might be dead now - or never born, for the teens among us. At least according to this article, and the other links above.
posted to MetaFilter by ramakrishna at 8:39 AM on September 5, 2004 (34 comments)

Roto-Spheres were dramatic animated neon signs, with 16 spikes projecting from a central ball; the left and right hemispheres rotated in opposite directions, and the whole thing rotated as well. Only 234 were made, and not many are still working, but despite their rarity, they are somehow instantly recognizable as the ultimate signs of the atomic age.
posted to MetaFilter by adamrice at 1:53 PM on February 6, 2009 (32 comments)

Help me learn piano on a budget. I have always wanted to learn, and now I am 31 and tired of just wishing! Problem is, money is tight, so I am looking for suggestions on how to teach myself on the cheap (if that's possible).
posted to Ask Metafilter by scarello at 4:21 PM on January 25, 2009 (8 comments)

MeFi Gardeners: The MetaFilter Seed Exchange is here!
posted to MetaTalk by Miko at 3:13 PM on January 4, 2009 (25 comments)

Light bulbs for public places like subways are designed with threads that run counter to ordinary light bulbs, so that the subway bulbs couldn't be stolen and used at home. I've been thinking about other examples of designing against standardization for a particular purpose (not necessarily preventing theft). Other examples might include clothes hangers in hotels, or the screws that hold together public restroom stalls. I'm trying to compile a collection of other examples. Any ideas?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Jeff Howard at 7:45 AM on March 23, 2005 (64 comments)

Luft '46 - WWII German aircraft projects A great resource for aviation enthusiasts and alternative historians. Aspects of some of these designs can be seen in the most modern planes, like the B-2 bomber or the Beechcraft Starship 2000.
posted to MetaFilter by lazy-ville at 1:33 PM on October 10, 2003 (5 comments)

I have a bunch (thousands) of JPEG pictures of my company's parts. The JPEG file names are the part numbers of the parts (eg. 1234.jpg is a picture of part number 1234. Here's the tricky part...
posted to Ask Metafilter by ZenMasterThis at 2:33 PM on November 25, 2008 (9 comments)

"You're a paper doll and you're confronted with a horde of hungry zombies. Whose weapon do you wish you had?" Pick your doll. Dress her up naughty or nice. Pick a pet. Stick around for Mermaid Monday, and have fun. My girlfriend says she'll wear this Cupcake Dress for me. Be sure to check out Hobbit Girl. Or the Original Silk Spectre (Sally Jupiter) from Watchmen and Rachel from Blade Runner. There's the obligatory wtf? And finally Sarah Palin. Sorry guys, she doesn't draw men (even if she likes all the same things you do).
posted to MetaFilter by cjorgensen at 7:31 PM on November 12, 2008 (9 comments)

The Online Annotated Power Moby-Dick explains the more obscure seafaring and whaling terms, 19th Century slang and topical jokes in Melville's epic. Hey, didja know there's a fart joke right there in Chapter 1?
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 8:29 AM on November 11, 2008 (50 comments)

100 Illustrated Horror Film Posters part 1 and 2
posted to MetaFilter by Mitheral at 9:05 AM on October 31, 2008 (27 comments)

Please recommend a wireless picture frame that I can load with pictures remotely (through an online service like Picasa, by emailing the device, etc). This is for my grandparents, so the frame should require minimal to no interaction once set up, and I would like to avoid subscription fees for the WiFi service. Decent picture quality and viewing angle would be nice too.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Krrrlson at 9:11 AM on October 28, 2008 (8 comments)

Physics Invader takes the classic Space Invaders idea and, as you might guess from the name, adds physics. Extra points awarded for pushing the heaps of Invader corpses off the edge of the screen! PEW PEW PEW!
posted to MetaFilter by 40 Watt at 9:11 AM on October 26, 2008 (19 comments)

Flash Friday! John Calhoun's classic mac game Glider Pro, now in flash form. [previously]
posted to MetaFilter by hellojed at 1:38 PM on October 24, 2008 (9 comments)

The 2008 Presidential Election as an AD&D campaign.
posted to MetaFilter by Afroblanco at 11:26 AM on October 23, 2008 (93 comments)

Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. There's a Murphy's Law for most fields of endeavor.
posted to MetaFilter by netbros at 7:29 AM on October 19, 2008 (24 comments)

Where can I find a new carbide bike lantern for cheap, or how hard would it be to build one?
posted to Ask Metafilter by The White Hat at 5:19 PM on October 15, 2008 (6 comments)

Apple picking filter: What are some delicious and healthy recipes that use apples?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Rudy Gerner at 12:36 PM on September 23, 2008 (18 comments)

How do I convert a car to electric?
posted to Ask Metafilter by photomusic86 at 5:48 AM on October 4, 2008 (5 comments)

U. S. Geological Survey Photographic Library
posted to MetaFilter by sleepy pete at 3:36 PM on October 9, 2008 (8 comments)

I have just finished setting up an XP-installation for my four year old boy. Now i need to set up some kind of internet filter.
posted to Ask Metafilter by FidelDonson at 11:23 AM on October 4, 2008 (9 comments)

The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich has some excellent online collections related to maritime history and technology, including telescopes, marine chronometers, sundials, and a whole lot more. Some stuff I've been looking at: John Harrison's chronometers (described in Dava Sobel's book Longitude), polyhedral sundials, and pocket globes.
posted to MetaFilter by carter at 10:25 AM on March 15, 2006 (4 comments)

We accidentally ended up with two opened, all-but-full bottles of molasses in the pantry. Anyone have good/interesting recipes featuring (or even just using) molasses to share?
posted to Ask Metafilter by leahwrenn at 12:53 PM on September 12, 2008 (30 comments)

Can you recommend an upconverting DVD player with component output that ignores region coding and allows me to perform any action at any time?
posted to Ask Metafilter by odinsdream at 7:54 PM on September 24, 2008 (10 comments)

I have found someone who can build me a mobile phone out of a rotary dial telephone. But Sparkfun doesn't really have a one-stop shopping list. Help me decipher exactly what parts from this article i will need and also please recommend a good antenna I can use that will give me the best reception but also be cell-phone-tiny.
posted to Ask Metafilter by parmanparman at 7:39 PM on September 24, 2008 (2 comments)

We put together Bringatrailer.com because finding great vintage cars online has become too much of a hassle. There is no need to keep sifting through hundreds of hopeless projects or overpriced dealer inventories to find that one car you’ve been looking for. We pick the winners and save you the trouble… the best bargains, the best dream cars, and the best rarities.
posted to MetaFilter by machaus at 10:24 AM on September 22, 2008 (27 comments)