Bogus! Why do fakes get made? Why do people fall for hoaxes? Greed, pride, revenge, nationalism, pranks, and gullibility mix in an archaeological setting. Archaeology Magazine examines eight classic cases, and more.
posted to MetaFilter by amyms at 9:25 PM on December 23, 2009 (5 comments)

What $10-$20 item improved your lifestyle?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by HeyAllie at 10:12 AM on December 1, 2009 (85 comments)

ZOMG! QUONSMUS!!!! ZOMG, THANK YOU!!!
posted to MetaTalk by grapefruitmoon at 5:21 PM on December 11, 2009 (230 comments)

What cookies should I bake for my family this year? What have been your most successful cookies and/or cake or other holiday sweet?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by SuzySmith at 6:13 PM on December 7, 2009 (38 comments)

Many ask.metafilter questions don't have an "end" to the story. Which questions are you most curious about how they ended?
posted to MetaTalk by bigmusic at 11:56 AM on December 2, 2009 (68 comments)

The Lost World of Old Europe: the Danube Valley, 5000-3500 B.C.
posted to MetaFilter by homunculus at 9:14 AM on December 1, 2009 (21 comments)

Can you recommend a good book about the WPA artists program, or a great book that came out of the Federal Writers' Program? Bonus points if you know of a fictional story that uses it as the main theme.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Anonymous at 11:29 AM on November 30, 2009 (12 comments)

Happy Bear's Day, a Saint Day on the Bulgarian Festival Calendar.
posted to MetaFilter by tellurian at 2:09 PM on November 29, 2009 (7 comments)

Where can I find Kinder Eggs in the Washington, D.C. area?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by zxcvz at 10:16 PM on November 25, 2009 (17 comments)

ReadMe is up to date.
posted to MetaTalk by shothotbot at 9:26 AM on November 23, 2009 (38 comments)

Secret Quonsar (/snowflake /schmoopy) signups end in one week. Here's the signup link.
posted to MetaTalk by IndigoRain at 1:04 PM on November 23, 2009 (112 comments)

Open Letter to the Sudoku community and the organizers of the Sudoku National Championship about the potential cheating of Eugene Varshavsky during this Saturday's tournament. An unknown "man in a hoodie" shows up late and unregistered to the 2009 Sudoku National Championship in Philadelphia, and wins third place despite skipping the first two rounds. Second-place finisher and 2007 World Champion Tom Snyder accuses him of having a radio transmitter concealed underneath the hood, feeding him computer-generated solutions. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Varshavsky, wearing a stocking cap, defeated a grandmaster in the 2006 World Open chess tournament. Has competitive puzzling lost its innocence?
posted to MetaFilter by escabeche at 6:36 PM on November 15, 2009 (94 comments)

In 1996, the Ocoee Whitewater Center challenged the paddlers in the '96 Olympics. The dam controlled Ocoee river remains popular with rafters, kayakers and leaf-lookers. Today, the mountain reclaimed a bit the Ocoee gorge.
posted to MetaFilter by I'm Doing the Dishes at 6:54 PM on November 10, 2009 (25 comments)

I, too, have reason to thank MeFi today: Back in January, peep posted to Metafilter about Mel Juffe and Edward Gorey's The Recently Deflowered Girl, which had been long out of print. Through a delightful stroke of luck, I have become the editor responsible for bringing the book back into print, and the mefi thread about the book was pretty darn helpful to that end.
posted to MetaTalk by ocherdraco at 8:54 PM on November 2, 2009 (54 comments)

Bank Notes - a collection of bank robbery notes, successful and otherwise.
posted to MetaFilter by nthdegx at 3:43 AM on November 2, 2009 (64 comments)

While some might believe that Walt Disney had the first feature-length animated film with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1937, the Disney film is the fourth animated feature-length film, and was two decades late for first place. The first two animated feature-length films were directed by an Italian in Argentia in 1917 and 1918, though all prints of those films are presumed lost or destroyed. The third animated full-length feature, Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed), came out the same year that the first two were lost to fire. This third animated film was a silhouette animation made by a German artist named Lotte Reiniger. The original negatives are considered lost, but a supposedly first-generation positive (from the camera negative) remains and the film has been restored from this stock (full film with limited subtitles, 5 minute preview with English subtitles and the full film viewable with Veoh plug-in). More information and videos inside.
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 1:02 PM on October 27, 2009 (15 comments)

The Mel Blanc Show ran on the CBS Radio Network from September 3, 1946, to June 24, 1947. In this show, Mel played himself, the hapless owner of a fix-it shop, as well as his young cousin Zookie. The plot for many episodes saw Mel "impersonating an exotic foreigner or other stranger in town" to either impress his girlfriend's father or, at the very least, avoid angering him. 40 episodes of The Mel Blanc Show can be found here in MP3 format for your listening pleasure.
posted to MetaFilter by Effigy2000 at 8:21 PM on September 25, 2009 (14 comments)

Sometimes called The Barnsley Nightingale, British folk singer Kate Rusby was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 1999, and has won four BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Her cover of The Kinks' "Village Green Preservation Society" is the theme song for the TV show "Jam & Jerusalem." The Daily Telegraph called her "England's answer to Dolly Parton. Not in terms of the wigs and the sequins, but in her quaveringly sincere ability to tell a simple, downhome story in a song and make your heart ache for it." BBC says she performs "folk music for people who don't like folk music."
posted to MetaFilter by jbickers at 8:59 AM on September 10, 2009 (23 comments)

Setting up a wifi network for parents - PC and Mac - need current router recommendations
posted to Ask MetaFilter by micawber at 5:59 PM on October 8, 2008 (8 comments)

What cooking secrets take your food to the almost-pro level?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by chalbe at 8:34 AM on August 24, 2009 (131 comments)

Old-time radio (often abbreviated as "OTR," also known as the Golden Age of Radio) refers to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the dominant home entertainment medium in the 1950s, with some programs continuing into the early 1960s. The origin of radio dramas in the United States is hard to pin down, but there is evidence of a remote broadcast of a play in 1914 at Normal College (now California State University at San José), and the first serial radio drama was an adaptation of a play by Eugene Walter, entitled "The Wolf," which aired in September 1922. Given the age of the programs and the fact that home reel-to-reel recording started in the 1950s (followed by Philips "compact cassettes" in 1963), it might be surprising that quite a few of these old shows have survived. Thanks in part to original radio station-sourced recordings made on aluminum discs, acetates, and glass recordings and other unnamed sources, many radio dramas and newscasts from decades past are available online, and more are being digitized and restored to this day.
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 12:47 PM on August 25, 2009 (53 comments)

Need a replacement for the now-rubbish Emusic - options bewildering me!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by smoke at 8:50 PM on July 10, 2009 (8 comments)

The pictures in this feature were removed after questions were raised about whether they had been digitally altered.
posted to MetaTalk by Civil_Disobedient at 7:16 PM on July 7, 2009 (455 comments)

Maybe you already know about film noir, how Italian-born French film critic Nino Frank coined the term in 1946, and that Dashiell Hammett's book The Maltese Falcon was adapted for film 3 times in 10 years. Or perhaps you've just browsed through the detailed Wikipedia page, and found the list of film noir series and films to be daunting, and IMDB search provides a list that is lacking. Either way, Noir of the Week has a wealth of information if you crave more details, but focuses on one film per week if long lists are daunting. Not interested in this week's film? They have over 240 movies covered to date.
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 1:07 PM on June 30, 2009 (20 comments)

Secret London has the story of a circulation promotion gimmick that runs awry.
posted to MetaFilter by tellurian at 4:59 PM on June 24, 2009 (19 comments)

The Folkways Collection is a downloadable, 24-part podcast series that "explores the remarkable collection of music, spoken word, and sound recordings that make up Folkways Records (now at the Smithsonian as Smithsonian Folkways Recordings)."
posted to MetaFilter by Miko at 9:06 AM on February 16, 2009 (27 comments)

Austenbook. It's trivial. It's silly. I grinned.
posted to MetaFilter by mojohand at 3:16 PM on December 9, 2008 (31 comments)

Would anyone be interested in starting an Etsy Team?
posted to MetaTalk by casarkos at 9:17 AM on October 30, 2008 (38 comments)

Where are the music/mp3 blogs for music spanning the 1920s-1960s?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Robot Johnny at 2:21 PM on January 8, 2008 (9 comments)

Is This Transparency? OP with very slim, one-year posting history asks a question about finding a good charity in AskMe, just prior to year-end tax-decision time. Newly registered responder posts a newly formed charity-aggregator/evaluator organization, without mentioning that he is, apparently, one of the two founders. Self-promotional setup leading to self-link? Or am I being too cynical?

[update, 1/3/08: a summary of events is being developed on the wiki. --cortex]
posted to MetaTalk by Miko at 10:44 AM on December 31, 2007 (1407 comments)

Many freeware games were released in 2007. How to seperate the crap from the good stuff? It can be a little hard admittedly but this thread on the Tigsource forums might help you. With around 30 categories (and a winner announced for each) ranging from 'Best Shooter' to 'Best Bosses,' there's probably something there to please just about anyone.
posted to MetaFilter by pancreas at 4:43 AM on January 4, 2008 (20 comments)

Mefi knitters! Do you guys want to start a group on Ravelry? The site's still in beta, hopefully going public soon, but if anyone was fortunate enough to get an account already you can find me under the username "mimsie". I also posted this topic in the Remnants forum if you'd like to respond there.
posted to MetaTalk by like_neon at 7:36 AM on July 16, 2007 (44 comments)

Cowgirl campfire song, lead-in to a solo CD I did in February. Thanks to Eideteker for the file conversion.
posted to MeFi Music by Miko at 7:23 PM on July 6, 2006 (21 comments)