Displaying post 1 to 50 of 148
Fantasy cartography
collects scans of maps and charts from video games, comics, and novels. Take a look at the doll-house like maps of the
Fantastic Four's Baxter Building from various comics (a Trophy Room and a "TV Sending Room"!), the Legend of Zelda's
Hyrule, Asimov's
Foundation galaxy, lots of
Lovecraft locations, the lands of the
Princess Bride, the
Discworld, and lots of
Star Trek maps and ship schematics. Also,
some thoughts on how "serious fiction" writers often start with maps, from Joyce's use of the ordinance maps of Dublin to Pychon's use of aerial photographs. More fantasy maps (many in German) are available from the
Fantasy Atlas. Also, from my
previous post on the subject of maps of fantasy worlds, see the extensive listings in the
Dictionary of Imaginary Places.
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 10:13 AM on July 25, 2008
(20 comments)
For years,
Wired magazine has tapped a bevy of designers and artists in the tech field to craft detailed visions of futuristic objects for a monthly showcase at the close of each issue. Now, after
hinting as much in the July edition, it is clear that that the tradition of FOUND
has been brought to an end. What better way to say goodbye to this whimsical feature than by taking a look back at the full archived run of the series?
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi
at 5:42 PM on July 22, 2008
(29 comments)
What are the dimensions of the universe?
posted to Ask Metafilter by BirdD0g
at 10:09 AM on July 11, 2008
(47 comments)
(Spoilers in most links). So an SNL digital short,
Dear Sister spoofs the second season
finale of the OC. Now the internets just don't know when to stop, with parodies (of the parody) playing on everything from the obvious like
The Departed,
LOST,
Snatch,
The Matrix,
Reservoir Dogs, and
Predator to the not-so-obvious like
Lord of the Rings,
Raging Bull,
Monty Python,
Duck Hunt (my favorite),
Looney Toons,
LazyTown,
Smash Brothers,
Office Space, and
Bio-Ooze Super Soakers.
posted to MetaFilter by ztdavis
at 12:26 PM on April 28, 2007
(67 comments)
Can anyone give me any firsthand (or reliable secondhand) impressions of US (Amtrak) rail travel these days?
posted to Ask Metafilter by flapjax at midnite
at 5:09 PM on July 5, 2008
(46 comments)
The Book of Accidents: Designed for Young Children
(1831). "In presenting to his little readers
The Book of Accidents, the Author conceives he cannot render a more important service to the rising generation and to parents, than by furnishing them with an account of the accidents to which Children, from their inexperience or carelessness, are liable. If generally studied it will save the lives of thousands, and relieve many families from the long and unavailing misery attendant on such occurrences."
[Via]
posted to MetaFilter by homunculus
at 6:37 PM on July 3, 2008
(34 comments)
Batman and Robin De-Assified. So, some anonymous gentleman has apparently tried to make a Joel Schumacher motion picture watchable. Gotta love comic geeks.
posted to MetaFilter by converge
at 3:34 AM on July 2, 2008
(33 comments)
This meal wasn’t so much a lunch as an act of vengeance. The brave -- or perhaps just lazy -- souls at HeatEatReview sacrifice their tastebuds and stomachs so that cubicle dwellers like me can eat only the finest processed foods at our desks every day. Actually not like me, I'm having another damn salad.
posted to MetaFilter by sevenyearlurk
at 5:27 PM on March 4, 2008
(26 comments)
A few days ago a
post appeared on the Something Awful forums noting a curious website called
Notes to Mary. The notes are a series of threatening letters from a high schooler named Robert to his crush, Mary. The goons figured out pretty quickly that they had an
ARG on their hands and went to work on solving the puzzle.
Several other forums picked up on the game. Robert began interacting with players, sending them strange messages and several series of numbers that appeared to be some sort of code. A
Flickr pool was started. Players even created an IRC channel to swap clues and information in real time. The Notes to Mary site offered a link to a login. All effort was made to crack the user/pass combo. Finally, several days after the game began, users were finally able to log in. The game was solved. The players would be rewarded for their hard work. Where did the login lead?
Here.
posted to MetaFilter by lysistrata
at 4:07 PM on June 25, 2008
(36 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)
So the banner ad turned 10 a few days ago,
according to
dabitch, but what I find more fascinating is that its first use was in connection with all those AT&T "
You Will" television commercials from the early '90s. Here, collected on one page, for your consideration, are those ads. As
Frau Farbissina would screech: "Lies.
ALL LIES!" Well, perhaps AT&T didn't lie to us about
all their predictions, but I'm still waiting for my "intelligent assistant" who'll work on those playoff tickets for me. How many predictions did they make that came true can
you find here?
posted to MetaFilter by WolfDaddy
at 5:20 AM on October 31, 2004
(21 comments)
SimCity4 question: make my city a sandbox.
posted to Ask Metafilter by dirtynumbangelboy
at 6:32 AM on June 18, 2008
(7 comments)
Help me remember name of 1994 mainstream (super popular) dance track.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Frasermoo
at 7:32 PM on June 13, 2008
(14 comments)
Help me find a video I saw a couple of months ago: It's a clip of a foreign tv show where the host asks a bunch of random people to write their names, and afterwards he gives them each a private envelope that describes the that individual's personality. Everyone says that their envelope is amazingly accurate. In the end, he asks each person to switch envelopes with one another, and they all see that the same thing is written in every envelope.
posted to Ask Metafilter by carpyful
at 12:15 PM on June 13, 2008
(10 comments)
Do the producers of Wheel of Fortune purposely select contestants who are really bad at the game?
posted to Ask Metafilter by muddylemon
at 5:27 PM on June 13, 2008
(20 comments)
So I'm watching the new Nasa documentary on Discovery and it prompted me to renew my search for rocket art. The issue is that if there is such a thing its not easy to find. I'm looking for prints of old rockets/spacecraft in the vein of
this. Doesn't necessarily have to be photographic, but at least photo realistic. Anyone have any ideas of where to look?
Bonus points if anyone knows of small scale desktop models of the old school rockets (Atlas, Jupiter, Titan, Redstone).
posted to Ask Metafilter by wavering
at 7:26 PM on June 8, 2008
(3 comments)
Why is there no bat-acitor? (hybrid battery/capacity w/best of both) Is there some limitation in physics, chemistry, materials, etc. that prevents it, or has it just not been invented yet?
posted to Ask Metafilter by bartleby
at 1:02 PM on June 10, 2008
(24 comments)
How do I link a bunch of documents together into a binder which automatically updates when changes are made?
posted to Ask Metafilter by special-k
at 1:01 PM on June 11, 2008
(8 comments)
Why is Israel such a close ally to the U.S.?
posted to Ask Metafilter by willy_dilly
at 9:49 AM on June 6, 2008
(27 comments)
123 mm = 12 stacked CD cases. 6 miles = 30 Eiffel Towers. 5 acres = 11 ice hockey rinks.
Sensibleunits.com converts any length, area or mass into real objects.
posted to MetaFilter by gottabefunky
at 1:19 PM on June 5, 2008
(34 comments)
Later this year, geophysicist Dan Lathrop's
DIY Planet Earth will be filled with liquid sodium, weigh in at 26 tons, and will be spun-up to 80mph at its equator in an effort to discover how the earth's magnetic field is generated. Currently undergoing tests, even those can be
pretty impressive.
posted to MetaFilter by Kronos_to_Earth
at 4:42 PM on June 4, 2008
(34 comments)
What is the minimum amount of food intake you could live on
healthily?
posted to Ask Metafilter by viama
at 9:21 AM on October 9, 2005
(15 comments)
