How can I go about living in Mexico for 3-6 months?
posted to Ask Metafilter by zhivota at 3:09 PM on August 7, 2008 (11 comments)

Who is this Belgian man "fotoopa"? A nerd's nerd (and I say that with extreme admiration). Photopainting, Macro photography, 2004: Let's start with the simple stuff, moths (mostly at rest). Now, can you think of anything more difficult to photograph than insects in flight? 2005, 2006 (the 2006 equipment), 2008 (2008 equipment & more equipment). Images of the man working with the equipment. His Flickr photostream and new YouTube channel bears watching. (Previously)
posted to MetaFilter by spock at 11:18 PM on July 24, 2008 (13 comments)

Mundo Maya Online is chockfull of illustrated articles about various aspects of Mayan history and culture. Learn about the Mayan calendar, read Mayan legends, explore Mayan history, archaeology and the natural environment they thrived in. Mundo Maya also has articles about the daily life of the modern Mayans and the handicrafts they make.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:14 PM on July 24, 2008 (10 comments)

MeFi clustering analysis.
posted to MetaTalk by signal at 9:01 PM on July 22, 2008 (81 comments)

Type is art. Take little pieces of letterforms and make something new.
posted to MetaFilter by signal at 8:01 AM on July 18, 2008 (10 comments)

Anyone ever worked as an editor/proofreader for science and mathematics articles not written by native English speakers?
posted to Ask Metafilter by number9dream at 1:42 PM on July 20, 2008 (8 comments)

Tina Manthorpe's Flickr set of churces and church carvings has many lovely images of the kinds of things one isn't surprised to see in churches, trees of life, colorful roof bosses, misericords and many more such beauties. More shocking to modern sensibilities are the pictures in the set she calls exhibitionist church carvings, featuring such images as a protogoatse, Starbucksesque mermaids, autofellatio, free-hanging genitals and, uh... something involving thumb-sucking and snakes.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:26 PM on July 16, 2008 (16 comments)

10 Amazing Light Graffiti Artists and Photographers: From Light Writing to Extreme Exposures. [Possibly NSFW]
posted to MetaFilter by homunculus at 12:05 PM on July 15, 2008 (15 comments)

MeFi Gardeners: Save your Seeds!
posted to MetaTalk by Miko at 5:52 AM on July 9, 2008 (41 comments)

Saying His Peace: Rare Recording of Speech by Gandhi Landed in Safe, if Unknowing, Hands. [Via Linkfilter]
posted to MetaFilter by homunculus at 10:40 PM on July 1, 2008 (6 comments)

Earth is not a quiet planet. It transmits a rather hideous sound [flash] into space that is 10,000 times greater in strength than any man-made radio transmission. The Earth also quietly hums with seismic Love Waves (hear them), while the Magnetosphere is alive will all sorts of sounds (check out the creepy-sounding Chorus Emissions). Also, stars sing out in middle C before they explode as supernovae, and the Perseus Cluster black hole has droned a B-flat for the past 2.5 billion years.
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah at 7:51 AM on July 2, 2008 (36 comments)

Rare Kishore Kumar Songs is a website dedicated to the music of legendary Bollywood playback singer and comic actor Kishore Kumar. There are hundreds of songs, many with other Bollywood legends, such as Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar. There are also songs by Kishore's son Amit. All songs and videos are in Real Player format and in low quality.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 8:07 PM on June 16, 2008 (9 comments)

Looking for info about designing sidewalks by understanding human traffic patterns
posted to Ask Metafilter by horsemuth at 1:36 PM on May 14, 2007 (20 comments)

Ariana Page Russell: My own skin frequently blushes and swells. I have dermatographia, a condition in which one’s immune system exhibits hypersensitivity, via skin, that releases excessive amounts of histamine, causing capillaries to dilate and welts to appear (lasting about thirty minutes) when the skin’s surface is lightly scratched. This allows me to painlessly draw patterns and words on my skin, which I then photograph. Images (click skin one or skin two). Interview.
posted to MetaFilter by Brandon Blatcher at 4:45 PM on June 10, 2008 (33 comments)

Change Your Mind Day 2008
posted to MetaFilter by davar at 2:47 AM on June 8, 2008 (33 comments)

Horrible breakup. Looking for fun pop music / musik / musique in other languages to stimulate my ears without having to know what's being said.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Admiral Haddock at 1:54 PM on June 7, 2008 (43 comments)

The Morgan Museum currently have an exhibition featuring the 1517 Prayer Book of Claude de France, a gorgeous miniature (2.75 x 2 inches) illuminated manuscript, together with the Prayerbook of Claude's mother, Anne de Bretagne. [via]
posted to MetaFilter by peacay at 8:40 AM on June 5, 2008 (9 comments)

Polyhedral Maps is a website that explores unconventional methods of mapping the surface of the earth. The most famous of these unusual maps was Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion map, which used the net of an icosahedron. Da Vinci had experimented with this technique in his “Octant” map of 1514, which used Reuleaux triangles as map elements. This process is now being used by photographers and artists in manipulating panoramic images. A good example is Tom Lechner’s The Wild Highways of the Elongated Pentagonal Orthobicupola.
posted to MetaFilter by Tube at 10:33 AM on June 1, 2008 (23 comments)

Seb Przd's photos specialising in delightful and mind-bending spherical panoramas and conformal mappings.
posted to MetaFilter by MetaMonkey at 6:21 AM on February 15, 2007 (10 comments)

Claire and Merna Bagelman, better known as The Barry Sisters. Every Sunday from 1938 to 1955 on WHN in New York, they mashed Swing with Yiddish Folk as the main attraction on the radio program Yiddish Melodies in Swing.[via] "We take a tune that's sweet and low, and we rock it solid and make it gold." They are indeed a Hebrew National Kosher Classic. More Yiddish music webceptacles.
posted to MetaFilter by not_on_display at 6:52 PM on May 27, 2008 (8 comments)

Have you ever known someone with so much artistic potential, who does nothing with it?
posted to Ask Metafilter by self at 10:03 PM on May 25, 2008 (52 comments)

Kim Neely has enjoyed a very rich professional life already. A writer for Rolling Stone for fifteen years, she also penned the Pearl Jam biography. These days find Kim involved in an entirely different pursuit. Lampworking is a type of glass work that uses a gas fueled torch to melt rods and tubes of clear and colored glass. At her mom's unused workshop Kim created Bluff Road Art Glass.
posted to MetaFilter by netbros at 9:32 PM on May 15, 2008 (7 comments)

How do you develop focus, drive, and personal discipline?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Saxon Kane at 8:26 PM on May 11, 2008 (28 comments)

NYTimes Crossword Drawings. Emily Jo Cureton creates an illustration for every Times crossword, using a handful of clues to create odd little scenes. [via]
posted to MetaFilter by mediareport at 5:45 PM on May 6, 2008 (24 comments)

"And I Refuse To Forget," the three-minute sci-fi thriller from 21-year-old director Nuru Rimington-Mkali, has won the grand prize in the Filmaka feature film competition. Judges include Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Neil Labute and many others. For his efforts, Rimington-Mkali wins the director's chair of his first feature film, to be produced by Filmaka. (Lots of other great stuff on Filmaka, too.)
posted to MetaFilter by jbickers at 4:38 AM on April 30, 2008 (24 comments)

I often find myself with an open weekend and an urge to fly to no place in particular, just to go exploring. Whether it's Sioux City, Billings, or Biloxi, I figure I can entertain myself anywhere for a weekend. Are there websites that allow you to search for cheap, last minute flights from a given origin, irrespective of destination? Most sites require you to enter a destination, which makes the whole process a lot more difficult.
posted to Ask Metafilter by decoherence at 2:01 PM on April 24, 2008 (16 comments)

Traditional pyrographic, or “woodburning” tools use electricity to heat a stylus or wire. Solar pyrography uses sunlight focused through a magnifying glass to burn an image on wood. Artists who have mastered this technique include Bud Hnetka and Jonathan Beartusk. Videos demonstrating the process include the creation of an Art Blakey image, and the unusual “Durfsun”.
posted to MetaFilter by Tube at 12:18 AM on April 27, 2008 (16 comments)

Is it the fog from getting older, or is it something else? As I've gone through the years (late 30s), I can clearly feel myself getting less brainy... by that, I mean that I'm not putting together things as quickly as I once did. I'm also less creative, and overall, I feel less verbose and articulate. I've had some really stressful years, both workwise and otherwise. I don't *think* I'm depressed or overly anxious (in our 30s, we all have a bit of the anxiety, right?). So, is this normal? Do others have the same "brain fog?" If you do, shout it out. If you did, and you fixed it, I'd love to hear your secrets.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Anonymous at 5:47 AM on April 26, 2008 (34 comments)

"Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation" (PDF). A recent article in Trends in Cognitive Sciences on the neuroscience of meditation, focusing on how meditation alters and sharpens the brain's attention systems. The research is being done at the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior (previously), who have also recently published research on the "Regulation of the neural circuitry of emotion by compassion meditation" (PDF), which describes how meditation can cultivate compassion by physically affecting brain regions that play a role in empathy. They shared this research with the Dalai Lama at the recent Seeds of Compassion forum.
posted to MetaFilter by homunculus at 10:12 AM on April 27, 2008 (13 comments)

Two blogposts from Smashing Magazine: Breathtaking Typographic Posters and Typography in Motion. Some notables: Retro Artist Feature, Linocut Print of London, It's the Outsideness Flavour of It, Zeitgeist, Hier Vorne, 80 of 500 Handdrawn Posters and music video for Ya no sé qué hacer conmigo by Uruguayan band Cuarteto de Nos.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 9:04 PM on April 22, 2008 (7 comments)

I know there are paying content writing jobs on the internet because I've done some commissioned articles for eHow.com and I've applied to about.com. I'd love to find more sites like these to apply to, but it's tough, because searching for "online writing jobs" generally yields a bunch of spammy pyramid schemes and so on.
posted to Ask Metafilter by lgyre at 5:51 PM on April 15, 2008 (5 comments)

"Curse Tablets are small sheets of lead, inscribed with messages from individuals seeking to make gods and spirits act on their behalf and influence the behaviour of others against their will. The motives are usually malign and their expression violent, for example to wreck an opponent’s chariot in the circus, to compel a person to submit to sex or to take revenge on a thief. Letters and lines written back to front, magical ‘gibberish’ and arcane words and symbols often lend the texts additional power to persuade. In places where supernatural agents could be contacted, thrown into sacred pools at temples, interred with the dead or hidden by the turning post at the circus, these tablets have survived to be found by archaeologists."
posted to MetaFilter by amyms at 12:47 AM on April 12, 2008 (20 comments)

Help me compensate for backlight in my shots. I often have to shoot with the light directly in front of me, outside, in very, very strong sunlight. Up close, I can use fill flash, but I have massive silhouette-stylee problems if what I’m trying to shoot is far away. Help me learn to adjust the exposure so that you can at least see the subject in the foreground of the shot.
posted to Ask Metafilter by t0astie at 7:02 PM on April 10, 2008 (21 comments)

Architecture, Restoration, and Imaging of the Maya Cities of Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil, and Labná - a new extensive exhibition site from Reed College (with nice large images available). See: Contents. The site includes "19th and early 20th century drawings, prints, and photographs, showing the appearance of these four cities before the extensive restoration campaigns of the twentieth century [..and..] over 1000 recent photographs."
posted to MetaFilter by peacay at 9:11 PM on April 9, 2008 (4 comments)

What are those circular disc things that you rotate to look up information? Volvelles.
posted to MetaFilter by aeschenkarnos at 3:15 PM on April 8, 2008 (12 comments)

Edo Photo Generator. Use this ancient photo generator (in JP, but a cinch to use) to give your photos that certain Edo look. Via C. Buddha's Hasty Musings
posted to MetaFilter by KokuRyu at 9:32 PM on April 7, 2008 (36 comments)

Free Speculative Fiction Online is a database of free science fiction and fantasy stories online by published authors (no fan-fiction or stories by unpublished writers). Among the authors that FSFO links to are Paul Di Filippo (14 stories), James Tiptree, Jr. (4 stories), Connie Willis (3 stories), Eleanor Arnason (3 stories), Bruce Sterling (5 stories), Robert Heinlein (7 stories), Ursula K. LeGuin (3 stories), Jonathan Lethem (5 stories), Michael Moorcock (6 stories), Chine Miéville (2 stories), Samuel R. Delany (3 stories), Robert Sheckley (8 stories), MeFite Charles Stross (33 stories) and hundreds of other authors. If you don't know where to start, there's a list of recommended stories.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:52 PM on April 5, 2008 (34 comments)

Apa Tani bleeding tubes filmed by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf and Paro, Bhutan in 1936 from Frederick Williamson, are just two of the extraordinary offerings from the Digital Himalaya Project.
posted to MetaFilter by tellurian at 4:37 PM on April 3, 2008 (8 comments)

"Commonwealth of Diverse Cultures: Poland's Heritage is an international educational exhibition which presents the history of tolerance and cohabitation of various ethnic groups in the territory of Polish-Lithuanian Commowealth and is addressed primarily to foreigners all around the world". This is achieved via a very beautiful flash site.
posted to MetaFilter by peacay at 9:12 PM on March 25, 2008 (12 comments)

Imagine a guitar constructed from a country’s history. Recently named Voyageur, the Six String Nation guitar is just that: Canada’s Guitar.
posted to MetaFilter by valleys at 7:49 AM on March 25, 2008 (17 comments)

What are the best online and offline learning materials for Matlab?
posted to Ask Metafilter by fake at 8:31 AM on May 23, 2007 (9 comments)

I shot his plane down. First his fighter plane was just lost under unknown circumstances during WWII. People speculated on a possible suicide of the writer. Then his golden armband was found by a fisherman in the sea. Then the plane of well known french writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was found in the mediteranean. Now 88 year old journalist Horst Rippert, who was a fighter pilot during WWII, admits that he shot down Saint-Exupéry and that he regretted this his whole life.
posted to MetaFilter by jouke at 9:41 AM on March 17, 2008 (36 comments)

Queens of Carnatic singing: Nithyasree Mahadevan: 1, 2 and 3. Sudha Ragunathan: 1, 2, 3 and 4. And the legend of the legends, M.S. Subbulakshmi, in her film appearances from decades past: 1, 2 and 3, and as an elder stateswoman of Carnatic vocal artistry: 1, 2, 3 and 4.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 7:39 AM on March 15, 2008 (14 comments)

"On Web sites touting the mind-blowing powers of salvia divinorum, come-ons to buy the hallucinogenic herb are accompanied by warnings: 'Time is running out! ... stock up while you still can.' That's because salvia is being targeted by lawmakers concerned that the inexpensive and easy-to-obtain plant could become the next marijuana....Among those who believe the commotion over the drug is overblown is Rick Doblin of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit group that does research on psychedelic drugs and whose goal is to develop psychedelics and marijuana into prescription medication."* "Salvia Divinorum is a small leafy green plant found primarily in the Mazateca region of Mexico. Sometimes called 'diviner's sage' the plant was traditionally used by indigenous peoples as a healing and divinatory aid due to its unique properties when chewed or smoked. When consumed in this manner, the active ingredient, Salvinorin-A produces psychedelic effects in the body ranging from mild to extreme."* [previously - 1, 2]
posted to MetaFilter by ericb at 2:42 PM on March 11, 2008 (95 comments)

Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative Hypothesis. Psychology Professor Benny Shannon speculates that Moses may have been tripping when he saw God on Mount Sinai. [Via Mind Hacks.]
posted to MetaFilter by homunculus at 7:45 PM on March 7, 2008 (69 comments)

At the University of Texas, researchers have produced some amazing videos and photos of liquid bouncing on liquid. This was one of nature.com's Images of the Year for 2007 (picture number 6, in the upper-right corner). The project report, along with pictures and videos, is found on their bouncing jet page, and it's quite extraordinary both for the counter-intuitive nature of the phenomenon and the extremely low-tech production methods. You can even do it at home with little more than a lazy Susan and some silicone oil.
posted to MetaFilter by math at 5:57 PM on March 3, 2008 (12 comments)

A collection of comic books, Amar Chitra Katha is like the American Illustrated Classics, except that the stories are from Indian sacred texts, mythology, history, folktales and legends. It was conceived by Anant Pai. The series has sold over 86 million copies of about 440 titles.
posted to MetaFilter by nickyskye at 7:40 AM on March 3, 2008 (35 comments)

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Always wanted… but never actually worked towards it, so I have no writing-specific experience or training. I’d like to transition to a career that somehow involves writing, but I’m not sure how I can get my foot in the door.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Metroid Baby at 4:31 PM on February 29, 2008 (12 comments)

I have pretty much watched all of the videos on TED.com and I am looking for another source to waste time online - but at least feel smarter at the end.;) I am not looking so much for online classes/courses (MIT and other), but more "bit size" hour long or so talks/lectures. Thanks for your help!
posted to Ask Metafilter by aggienfo at 10:17 PM on February 24, 2008 (24 comments)

Sushi Science and Hamburger Science: I had always regarded science as universal and believed there are no differences in science at all between countries. But I was wrong. People with different cultures think in different ways, and therefore their science also may well be different. In this essay, I will describe differences I have observed between Western science and Eastern science. Let me start with a parable......
posted to MetaFilter by Rumple at 10:13 AM on February 24, 2008 (47 comments)