Papert, who was a professor of mathematics, education, and media technology at MIT, has devoted much of his career to learning: self-learning (he taught himself Russian) and learning about learning. He was one of the early pioneers of artificial intelligence, and he invented the computer language Logo to teach children about computers. Now he must learn something even more challenging - how to be Seymour Papert again.
posted to MetaFilter by Horace Rumpole at 5:33 PM on July 15, 2008 (18 comments)

Can anyone help me definitively identify this female vocalist? (link to MP3 provided)
posted to Ask Metafilter by crapples at 6:49 AM on July 14, 2008 (7 comments)

Bletchley Park: A WWII juggernaut. It decrypted German Enigma (try one!) and Japanese messages on an industrial scale in huts and blocks, had an outpost in Mombasa, and built one of the first modern computers (it helped that Alan Turing was on staff). Now a diverse museum with or without a funding problem, it generated yet more intrigue in 2000 when an Enigma was stolen, and hosts a rebuilt, working Colossus that launched a cipher challenge. Beating it wasn't easy!
posted to MetaFilter by jwells at 5:16 AM on June 5, 2008 (36 comments)

ITV Chart Show Indie Charts 1989-1994 on Youtube
posted to MetaFilter by srboisvert at 4:15 PM on August 20, 2007 (16 comments)

Pretend it's 1980. Let's also imagine that you are in Rome, and for whatever reason you have decided to go see this musical group called The Talking Heads.
At the concert, these are the songs that the band plays: Psycho Killer; Stay Hungry; Cities; I Zimbra; Drugs; Take Me to the River; Crosseyed and Painless; Life During Wartime; Houses in Motion; Born under Punches; and The Great Curve.
posted to MetaFilter by Meatbomb at 1:12 PM on July 21, 2007 (154 comments)

What healthy -- or at healthier -- alternatives do you eat to fulfill cravings for emphatically unhealthy food? Clarification and examples inside.
posted to Ask Metafilter by WCityMike at 2:04 PM on January 23, 2007 (73 comments)

I'd like some help finding a new weight loss community to join - one with a relatively intelligent / fun user base but that takes healthy weight loss seriously. Any suggestions?
posted to Ask Metafilter by catfood at 11:24 AM on June 29, 2007 (26 comments)

The Geograph British Isles project aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of the UK and the Republic of Ireland. It also tells you what's unique about Beast Cliff.
posted to MetaFilter by Abiezer at 12:27 AM on April 4, 2007 (20 comments)

Punk Love “If you weren’t up for being a quarterback or going to a Fleetwood Mac concert, then this was your alternative." A collection of images from the D.C. punk scene of the early '80s, captured by Susie J. Horgans, with commentary from Fugazi's Ian MacKaye and (former Häagen-Dazs manager) Henry Rollins.
posted to MetaFilter by grabbingsand at 8:07 AM on March 23, 2007 (27 comments)

Popular: It's Like That, Humble Neighborhood, Son of a Preacher Man, Beautiful, Barbi Girl, Truly Madly Deeply, I'm Alive
Indie: Blister in the Sun, Across the Sea, Tom's Diner, Zombie; Classics: The Rose (more, also without lyrics), Revolution, Hotel California
Rap/Hip Hop (some comedic): Baby Got Back, Ice Ice Baby, Music (more), Paul Revere, Grillz, White and Nerdy, Where'd You Go
Non-English songs: Film Dust, Comme Elle Vient; Pseudosign: Torn (again), Sweet Home Alabama
Instructions: general tips, religious songs, and how to sign "rock & roll"
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn at 9:58 PM on March 14, 2007 (27 comments)

Beatboxing in France? Who knew? (warning: lots of YouTube coming up.) The Art of Noise had their Beat Box (and live) . It's all good and well but maybe this beatbox is just a bit more interesting. There's even a very well documented history behind it. The Fat Boys did it, Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh did it and we've already seen Super Mario Beatboxed with a flute. Roxorloops takes another turn. And even more French beatboxing.
posted to MetaFilter by horseblind at 11:58 AM on March 13, 2007 (21 comments)

A three part biography of skateboarder Rodney Mullen. He invented more than 30 tricks, including the flatground ollie, the kickflip, and the heelflip. Despite being voted the most legendary "extreme sports" athlete of all time, the only extreme thing about him is his reclusive, geeky, devotion to practice.
posted to MetaFilter by roofus at 6:56 AM on March 11, 2007 (27 comments)

I have just run across several good comic book series, in particular Chadwick's Concrete , Azzarello's 100 Bullets and the Sin City graphic novels. Its an area that I am unfamiliar with, and there does seem to be a lot of literate writing out there. I would love to find a site that could help me separate the wheat from the chaff and that would keep me posted of new good material. Any suggestions?
posted to Ask Metafilter by UncleJoe at 7:32 AM on February 27, 2007 (19 comments)

Back in 1964, a documentary was commissioned by Granada Television called Seven Up!, which aimed to test the old Jesuit maxim “Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man” by studying the lives of a group of children from various backgrounds to see how their lives would develop. Every seven years thereafter, director Michael Apted has returned to see where their lives have taken them, in a series of films known as The Up Series. You can read a great overview of the series here. Some have followed the path expected of them. Others have moved halfway across the world. Some have even set up their own webpage! And others still, like Neil, have found that getting to what may be your calling in life often requires you to take a signifcant detour, as this video from the latest edition, 49 Up, shows.
posted to MetaFilter by Effigy2000 at 9:15 PM on February 1, 2007 (85 comments)

The I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Info Site. A huge collection of short transcripts and one-liners from the perennial antidote to panel games, organised by game and category -- including some never-before broadcast! Personal favourites are the One Song To The Tune Of Another introductions and the "while Samantha"s.
posted to MetaFilter by chrismear at 3:40 PM on January 23, 2007 (24 comments)

Grow your own. Furniture that is. Christopher Cattle has pictures and basic instructions on growing a three legged stool. Similiar previously here, here, and here.
posted to MetaFilter by Mitheral at 6:01 PM on December 10, 2006 (12 comments)

Silphium was the wonder plant of the ancient world. Originally identified by Greek colonists in North Africa, the plant - a species of Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) - grew only in a dimunitive area near the coast and could not be cultivated. Silphium was popular as a spice for cooking, but its notoriety stems from its alleged medicinal qualities, particularly its use as an herbal contraceptive (the "I love you" heart symbol may have originated from the shape of silphium's seed pods and its use in sex). So valuable was Silphium that it became an important component of the ancient world's economy and appears on coins. It's also among the first species recorded (by Pliny the Elder) as going extinct, probably by grazing sheep or uncontrolled harvesting. Or is it?
posted to MetaFilter by Chinese Jet Pilot at 5:09 PM on December 7, 2006 (21 comments)

"This was painted by a person with a rare and severe mental disorder. He was constantly seeing his own fantasies all around him. He also had a certain phobia..." (via Digg). The image is an imperfect reproduction of a particular postcard dated 1972. A blogger (in Russian) claims his psychiatry professor found one aspect of this eerie painting that reveals the patient's disorder. Allegedly, only one of his students in the past 15 years has figured it out. The psychoanalytic mystery has piqued the interest (in Russian) of the online community. A number of supplemental hints from the professor and thousands of guesses later, the case remains unsolved. Skeptics have already decried the mystery as a traffic-boosting hoax, but a few signs still point to its authenticity. Most notably, the artist's reproduction of another classic painting contains the following note: "transferred in 1990 from Moscow mental hospital."
posted to MetaFilter by themadjuggler at 2:49 AM on December 3, 2006 (113 comments)

OOBLECK!
posted to MetaFilter by Terminal Verbosity at 7:35 PM on November 16, 2006 (17 comments)

Mark E Smith reads the football results.
posted to MetaFilter by johnny novak at 9:57 AM on October 27, 2006 (30 comments)

Today is the 70th anniversary of the battle of Cable Street. On Sunday October 4th 1936, Oswald Moseley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, attempted to lead a march through Stepney, at that time a predominantly Jewish area. As the fascists met at Royal Mint Street, around 300,000 people barricaded the roads of the East End, chanting "No Pasaran" and "They Shall Not Pass". When the police attempted to break through the corden at Cable Street a riot ensued. The police were repelled and Moseley and his acolytes were forced to march in the opposite direction, into the empty streets of the City. With the Spanish Civil War at its peak, Cable Street saw communists, anarchists, Jews, dockers and many other ordinary eastenders fighting the fascists together and has a mythological place in East London folklore. Celebrations will be held this Sunday.
posted to MetaFilter by criticalbill at 11:00 PM on October 3, 2006 (26 comments)

Among his collected works, in the few, short years before mathematician Alan Turing was driven to suicide, he published "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis", theorizing how a standing wave-like distribution of "cannibal" and "missionary" chemicals might explain how plants and animals develop their shape and pigmentation. Blogger Jonathan Swinton focuses on this more obscure aspect of Turing's research, and reviews some of his posthumous and unpublished efforts — including one of the earliest known examples of digital computation applied to the field of biology.
posted to MetaFilter by Blazecock Pileon at 12:00 AM on August 7, 2006 (10 comments)

"Have entered industrial wasteland - unbelievable hell-hole. Clocked 4000miles! Border guards nicked our fizzy cola bottles! Gits! Roads r not good."

Two weeks ago 159 crap cars set off from London, England for Ulan Bataar, Mongolia. A journey spanning 8,000 miles, 2 deserts, 5 mountain ranges, on roads ranging from bad to non-existent. All this with no support crew and in a car you swapped for a bag of crisps. Stir in the odd party in far-flung parts of the globe, dodgy border crossings, and the occasional bribe and you have an inkling of the Mongol Rally.

Sound too safe for you? Maybe racing a rickshaw across the Indian subcontinent for a spot of tea is more your speed.
Two great charity events brought to you by the Institute of Adventure Research
posted to MetaFilter by woj at 10:12 PM on August 3, 2006 (38 comments)

A Thousand Faces Photographer Hal Satterthwaite photographed a thousand people in Walthamstow, which is in north-east London. It's a multi-racial, multi-cultural area, and the photographs reflect this beautifully. Related article from The Times.

I had intended to link to various pictures, but for me the delight was finding the faces I liked best by browsing the site. I even found a friend in there.
posted to MetaFilter by essexjan at 3:11 AM on August 2, 2006 (15 comments)

Starry Night a minimalist improvisation by:
mazen kerbaj / trumpet
the israeli air force / bombs
posted to MetaFilter by hototogisu at 1:58 AM on July 20, 2006 (12 comments)

i began cataloging the colors, and put the color list on the web. over time, the paint catalog turned into a web site.
posted to MetaFilter by ijoshua at 9:14 AM on June 27, 2006 (7 comments)

MetaFilter Writers Group The MetaFilter Writers Group, as suggested by grumblebee in this MetaTalk post, is open for business. The plan is for members to post short fiction—short as in 500 words—on a weekly theme. There's also a section where members can submit their other fiction work or poetry for the group to read and discuss. If you'd like to join in the fun, you can register here. The first weekly theme is announced here.
posted to Projects by jack_mo at 3:24 PM on June 9, 2006