Displaying post 1 to 50 of 305
Tropical fish in New York?
The Gulf Stream sweeps immature tropical fish up north, and aquariums scoop them up off Long Island. "Catching the fish up north is cheaper and less disruptive to ocean ecosystems than trapping them in the tropics. And the collections are rescue missions of a sort, because these Gulf Stream travelers are unlikely to survive the winter." (New York Times)
posted to MetaFilter by moonmilk
at 9:44 PM on August 4, 2008
(11 comments)
Where does the phrase "where the bee sups, there sups I" come from? I think that's a misquote because google fails me, and it's been bugging me.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grod
at 6:08 PM on July 30, 2008
(8 comments)
I've never really known what to make of Fortinbras in
Hamlet. Do you know of any good explanations of his purpose in the play?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Kattullus
at 11:42 AM on July 30, 2008
(16 comments)
ChildhoodMemoryFilter... I keep remembering a Laserdisc movie from way back that included a library, the dewey decimal system, and a force field...
posted to Ask Metafilter by tmcw
at 9:34 PM on February 5, 2007
(12 comments)
Help me discover some great new punk music that isn't for 16 years olds.
posted to Ask Metafilter by highfidelity
at 12:19 PM on July 24, 2008
(38 comments)
Brewster Khale over at Internet Archive just
announced they are working with NASA to make available the most comprehensive compilation ever of NASA's vast collection of photographs, historic film and video at
nasaimages.org. It combines for the first time 21 major NASA imagery collections into a single, searchable online resource.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach
at 6:58 PM on July 24, 2008
(20 comments)
In the summer of 1897, the Devil transported a
minor Decadent poet named Enoch Soames one hundred years into the future to see what posterity would make of
his work. The only witness to the affair was the parodist
Max Beerbohm, whose
account of Soames and his journey ensured that at 2:10 P.M. on June 7, 1997, some dozen pilgrims waited in the Round Reading Room of the British Museum
to see the poet appear...
posted to MetaFilter by Iridic
at 10:58 AM on July 22, 2008
(26 comments)
If the Tiber rises so high it floods the walls, or the Nile so low it doesn't flood the fields, if the earth opens, or the heavens don't, if there is famine, if there is plague, instantly the howl goes up, "The Christians to the lion!" What, all of them? To a single lion? So wrote
Tertullian. In the huge intellectual project that was the foundation of the Christian Church he was the great wit, most powerful rhetor and finest writer. Starting out as a pagan delighting in adultery and gladiator combat he became a great champion of martyrdom, defender of Christianity against its malefactors and heretics. His most famous contribution to our culture is undoubtedly the doctrine of the trinity. Towards the end of his life he threw his lot with a small group of hardcore ascetics called
Montanists and was denounced as a heretic. Ending his life among the defeated of ecclesiastical history he was forgotten for a millennium until
rediscovered during the Renaissance.
The Tertullian Project collects all his extant writing and information about his lost texts as well as biographical information,
selected quotations and much more.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus
at 9:58 PM on July 15, 2008
(15 comments)
Regular Floor Fan Filter: My wife swears that it's best to use a fan to "suck the hot air out of the room" first before turning the fan around to draw in the cooler evening air. I say the only hot air in the room is...well, help us figure this out!
posted to Ask Metafilter by Spyder's Game
at 11:11 AM on July 15, 2008
(27 comments)
Is there a place where people submit and keep track of marginalia and oddities in Google Book Search?
posted to Ask Metafilter by LarryC
at 9:08 AM on July 13, 2008
(2 comments)
WKRP In Cincinnati (Closing Theme). What the words to this? Are there any words? If they aren't words then what the hell are they, exactly? And what exactly is the story behind putting a song like that on a nationally broadcast sitcom? Anybody know the backstory?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jonmc
at 5:10 PM on July 13, 2008
(7 comments)
The Worlds Best Books (1909),
One Hundred Best Books (1916),
One Thousand Books for a Village Library (1895),
The Book Lover, a Guide to the Best Reading (1889),
The Choice of Books (1905),
A Thousand of the Best Novels (1919),
Comfort Found in Good Old Books (1911),
A Guide to the Best Historical Novels (1911),
A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914), and
lots more..
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach
at 7:12 PM on July 13, 2008
(15 comments)
In November 1943, the
village of Tyneham in Dorset, England, received an
unexpected letter from the War Department, informing residents that the area would soon be "cleared of all civilians" to make way for Army weapons training. A month later, the displaced villagers left a note on their church door:
Please treat the church and houses with care; we have given up our homes where many of us lived for generations to help win the war to keep men free. We shall return one day and thank you for treating the village kindly. Residents were told they would be allowed to reclaim their homes after the war, but that didn't happen, and Tyneham became a
ghost village. Though most of the cottages have been damaged or fallen into disrepair, the church and school have been preserved and restored. Photo galleries
1,
2,
3,
4. Panoramic
tour [Java required]. Video:
Death of a Village [YouTube, 9 mins.]
posted to MetaFilter by amyms
at 11:11 AM on July 10, 2008
(20 comments)
So, is Curious George really a monkey? Can you identify what species of monkey or ape he might be?
posted to Ask Metafilter by mausburger
at 5:25 PM on July 4, 2008
(29 comments)
ColoradoWildflowerFilter: Two guys, four days, a crapload of camera gear, last gasp before one guy gets married. We plan to be in Aspen first thing Friday morning, and need to leave the state by noon (preferably just after sunrise) on Monday. Where are the best stands of wildflowers *right*now*?
posted to Ask Metafilter by notsnot
at 12:28 PM on June 30, 2008
(2 comments)
Citations on the fly. WorldCat
previously, the world's online largest catalog of library holdings, got
its own Facebook page in early 2008. That was pretty cool, but now WorldCat has upped the ante again by introducing another Facebook app called
CiteMe. Using CiteMe, Facebook users can look up any item in WorldCat (there's over 1 billion of 'em) and get its properly-formatted citation (choose from APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA, or Turabian styles) instantly. For more than a few citations, you can still build a bibliography of any size in your favorite style,
directly on the WorldCat site.
posted to MetaFilter by Rykey
at 5:59 PM on June 25, 2008
(23 comments)
"For U.S. books published between 1923 and 1963, the rights holder needed to submit a form to the U.S. Copyright Office renewing the copyright 28 years after publication. In most cases, books that were never renewed are now in the public domain. Estimates of how many books were renewed vary, but everyone agrees that most books weren't renewed. If true, that means that
the majority of U.S. books published between 1923 and 1963 are freely usable." How do you know? The renewal copyright records have traditionally been scattered and hard to access, but Google - with the help of Project Gutenberg and the Distributed Proofreaders painstakingly typed in every word - has just released a single database as a
freely downloadable XML file.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach
at 8:23 AM on June 25, 2008
(55 comments)
"When my daughter Alison was born, in the tradition of a new parent, I began to photograph her, initially in a separate and private body of work. However, in the process of documenting Alison's growth, I developed a passionate interest in human relationships and capturing intimate moments in the lives of family and friends...." A haunting photographic essay from
Jack Radcliffe.
posted to MetaFilter by dersins
at 9:42 AM on June 24, 2008
(45 comments)
How do you let go of love?
posted to Ask Metafilter by MsMolly
at 8:37 AM on June 23, 2008
(32 comments)
Itès a mystery. I was typing comments into the MeFi text box, when all of a sudden every apostrophe turned into the letter e with a grave accent. What gives?
posted to Ask Metafilter by weapons-grade pandemonium
at 8:31 AM on June 20, 2008
(9 comments)
As the fourth "collectively-signed birthday card for a colleague" this week passed my desk today I realised that I just couldn't come up with anything clever, trite, humourous, etc. to say....
posted to Ask Metafilter by lazywhinerkid
at 6:48 AM on March 17, 2005
(22 comments)
What witty things can I write on co-workers cards?
posted to Ask Metafilter by KateHasQuestions
at 2:53 PM on June 19, 2008
(24 comments)
Have you ever seen a basement with a roof and no house?
posted to Ask Metafilter by moof
at 2:49 PM on June 19, 2008
(14 comments)
Which episode of WKRP in Cincinnati has Mr. Carlson accidently throwing a desk drawer out the office window?
posted to Ask Metafilter by JanetLand
at 10:28 AM on June 17, 2008
(3 comments)
Help me find real-world magic items.
posted to Ask Metafilter by MrVisible
at 12:34 PM on June 17, 2008
(47 comments)
Productions of
Hamlet in which an additional character dies unexpectedly? (spoilers for a 400-year-old play and modern productions)
posted to Ask Metafilter by booksandlibretti
at 12:57 PM on June 16, 2008
(9 comments)
Teach the Controversy.
Because we know that the earth sits on giant elephants which in turn ride an even gianter turtle.
posted to MetaFilter by cerebus19
at 11:25 AM on June 16, 2008
(74 comments)
Photographer Zaida Ben-Yusuf (1869-1933) was an important figure in the pictorialist photography movement in late 19th and early 20th century New York. The first woman to embark on building a "gallery of illustrious Americans," Ben-Yusuf attracted to her Fifth Avenue studio many of the most prominent artistic, literary, theatrical and political figures of her day. See the first
exhibit ever on her photography at the
National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC (through Sept. 1), view the
online exhibit or read the
book.
posted to MetaFilter by gudrun
at 9:32 AM on June 15, 2008
(3 comments)
