Displaying post 1 to 50 of 71
Retro-diagnosis filter: Can the hive mind figure out what disease sent my mom to the hospital in the early 1960s and still affects her to this day?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Oriole Adams
at 2:01 PM on July 18, 2008
(8 comments)
In Parentheses
is a collection of many ancient, medieval and classic texts from all over the world, many of whom are hard to find anywhere, let alone on the internet. There are translations from
Greek,
Old Norse,
Medieval Irish,
Japanese,
Incan,
Old French,
Medieval Latin and many more! As well as all that they have
papers in medieval studies and
vaguely decadent and
orientalism series. Adding to that there's a
linguistics section with wordlists and language flash cards in languages such as
Icelandic,
Quechua,
Basque,
Classical Armenian and a whole bunch more.
[flashcard links go to pdf files]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus
at 12:19 PM on July 10, 2008
(18 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)
Anyone have any experience with
gdiapers vs. cloth diapers?
posted to Ask Metafilter by GardenGal
at 10:13 AM on May 30, 2008
(23 comments)
If you are an Event Planner/Wedding Planner, how did you get to be where you are? What would you recommend to gain experience in this field?
posted to Ask Metafilter by seiryuu
at 4:29 PM on May 11, 2008
(5 comments)
Stephen King has described The Dark Tower as his
"Jupiter." The epic series, inspired in part by Robert Browning's poem,
"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came", has spanned 22 years, 7 books and nearly 4000 pages. The first book in the series,
The Gunslinger, begins with a simple, memorable declaration, "The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."
posted to MetaFilter by kbanas
at 8:56 AM on April 18, 2008
(160 comments)
Excel 2007 - Is there a way to remove ONLY a duplicate row leaving the first unique entry?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Sandor Clegane
at 11:26 AM on April 16, 2008
(5 comments)
Looking for questions to ask my son 'through the years' (more inside).
posted to Ask Metafilter by Twicketface
at 10:46 AM on April 11, 2008
(24 comments)
Greetings from a neophyte mefite. I was wondering: is there a way to get versions of the RSS feeds which don't include front-page posts that have already been deleted? If not, it's a feature suggestion, so please discuss. Apologies if I'm being dumb and this is simply not possible using RSS.
(For a while I enjoyed the "guess if this post has been deleted" game, but it's getting old...)
posted to MetaTalk by pantufla_milagrosa
at 11:05 PM on April 10, 2008
(160 comments)
Lennon and McCartney's Studio Reunion. On March 28, 1974, John Lennon was in a Burbank studio producing Harry Nilsson's "Pussy Cats" album when Paul McCartney dropped in. The room froze and remained silent until John said, "Valiant Paul McCartney, I presume?" Paul responded: "Sir Jasper Lennon, I presume?" The tension broken, a
jam session [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] ensued featuring Lennon on guitar and vocals, McCartney on drums and vocals, Stevie Wonder on electric piano and vocals, Harry Nilsson on vocals, Jesse Ed Davis on guitar and Bobby Keys on saxophone. A
bootleg of the session has circulated under the title
"A Toot and a Snore in '74".
posted to MetaFilter by New Frontier
at 8:19 PM on March 30, 2008
(25 comments)
The University of South Carolina recently completed an
ambitious survey of all medieval texts in the state for an exhibit at the university library. All the works were scanned and archived electronically. However, not only can you
view the texts online, you can hear the university's chorus
sing (MP3) the musical manuscripts.
posted to MetaFilter by 1f2frfbf
at 11:54 AM on March 18, 2008
(8 comments)
The American Gallery of Juror Art.
Deliberations, a blog on juries and jury trials, solicits art made by folks while on jury duty. Some dude drew
a sweet bike.
Another had detailed notes on his fellow jurors, divided into "knuckleheads," "reasonable people," and "who knows." (Original
here.) It's a small collection at the moment, but hopefully more to come.
posted to MetaFilter by chinston
at 7:50 AM on February 19, 2008
(10 comments)
Lost cosmonauts is a site detailing the radio site at
Torre Bert, set up by Italian amateurs in 1959 to monitor the beginnings of the space race.
The Torre Bert station was regarded as a legitimate tracking station, however they then released recordings of
dying cosmonauts which were quickly denounced as
exaggerations, or
outright conspiracy. In 1991 Pravda admitted that Gagarin was not the first
cosmonaut .
posted to MetaFilter by scodger
at 10:17 PM on January 18, 2008
(40 comments)
The shadowy back alleys of MetaFilter...
posted to MetaTalk by carsonb
at 6:21 AM on January 12, 2008
(125 comments)
Very short, two sparse verses, some pickin'.
posted to MeFi Music by ORthey
at 10:27 AM on November 10, 2007
(11 comments)
My 6 yr. old son just lost his first tooth. He now expects a "tooth fairy" because his Brittish dad told him. I'm Dutch and have no idea. Help me out to answer some of his questions.
posted to Ask Metafilter by kudzu
at 11:25 AM on December 10, 2007
(67 comments)
John Tenniel and the American Civil War.
Best known for his illustrations for
Alice in Wonderland, John Tenniel also produced political cartoons for the British magazine
Punch. This sites collects 54 of Tenniel's cartoons dealing with the American Civil War. In addition to the cartoons themselves, the site gives an explanation of the symbols and props in each cartoon and places them context with then-current events and issues.
posted to MetaFilter by marxchivist
at 5:51 AM on December 3, 2007
(24 comments)
Is it a good idea to use a midwife instead of an OB/GYN?
posted to Ask Metafilter by christinetheslp
at 5:59 PM on September 20, 2007
(55 comments)
Blog spam question-- why would blog spammers only be posting on a single (months old) entry on my blog?
posted to Ask Metafilter by miss tea
at 11:56 AM on August 3, 2007
(12 comments)
" . . . every second was the narrow gate, through which the Messiah could enter."
There is a lot we do not know about September 27, 1940. On that day,
Walter Benjamin found out that he needed a visa to cross the border from France into Spain. By September 28, he was dead. Was it a suicide?
Was he murdered by Stalin? He carried trunks with his last works.
What was in them? These questions will never be answered, but Benjamin is not lost to us. He told us about
the culture of print and photograph. He probed
the metaphysics of hashish. Through
fashion,
feuilleton, and
flânerie, he traced the lineaments of the modern city. His task, as he saw it, was one of
reading and
critique, the
illumination of modernity.
posted to MetaFilter by nasreddin
at 11:01 AM on September 4, 2007
(17 comments)
DIY fantasy toys -- I've been playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii, and my 2-year-old loves to watch and play along, to the point of sticking a foam sword down the back of shirt and running around with a Nerf slingshot and fishing pole. He turns 3 in September and in addition to his "nutritional" presents, I thought I would also get/make him some fantasy-enabling stuff. What are some existing toys that do a good job of mimicking Zelda-esque accoutrements, and/or what should be avoided, and/or what's easiest to make myself? An even bigger issue is finding "safe" stuff for him to swing his sword at ... some kind of indoor/outdoor monsters that are at least a foot tall or so. I can see making something out of pillows, or lampshades, or even buying a cheap toy if it's properly durable. Any ideas?
posted to Ask Metafilter by blueshammer
at 8:14 AM on August 24, 2007
(22 comments)
On July 16th, 1918,
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia - along with his wife, their children, and a handful of retainers - was
assassinated by Bolsheviks in the basement of the
Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg. The bodies were split up and buried in different locations; it was not until 1989 that a mass grave was located and exhumed. In 1991, the found remains were
officially announced as belonging to the Romanovs...or at least, most of them. Conspicuously missing were the Tsarevich Alexei and one of his Grand Duchess sisters (likely Maria but most popularly believed to be Anastasia).
The report of primary executioner Yakov Yurovsky indicates that the assassins had wanted to complicate the discovery of the remains as much as possible in order to keep the "White Guards" from locating the bodies and exalting the murdered royals, thereby undermining support for the Bolshevik cause.
However this week it was announced that the missing remains
may have finally been located.
posted to MetaFilter by angeline
at 10:16 PM on August 23, 2007
(42 comments)
Of Muppets and Men.
[1 2 3 4 5 6] Excellent behind-the-scenes documentary showing the mental, verbal and physical athleticism of putting together
The Muppet Show.
Also, a TMBG video mashup with excerpts from the doc. [All YouTube, Previously]
posted to MetaFilter by McLir
at 12:02 AM on August 12, 2007
(55 comments)
The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash
may be the most elaborate parody of the Beatles ever constructed, including satirical tributes to the appearances on
the Ed Sullivan Show,
Yellow Submarine, and the
rooftop concert at Apple Records. Check out some other fine parodies who picked up where the Rutles left off:
The Mosquitoes on Gilligan's Island,
Chris and the Alphabeats on Sesame Street,
Letter B and
Hey Food by the Beetles, the
Be Sharps on the Simpsons,
A Hard Day's Night of the Living Dead by
the Zombeatles, Peter Cook & Dudley Moore's
L.S. Bumble Bee, the Powerpuff Girls Meet the Beat Alls (parts
1 and
2 with commentary by Mojo Jojo), Beatles spoofs in a
Polish sitcom and a
Bollywood musical, Beatallica sings
A Garage Dayz Nite, the Chasers'
I Am Thesaurus, and the Beatles
go bar mitzvah.
posted to MetaFilter by jonp72
at 3:45 PM on August 6, 2007
(45 comments)
Other Women's Voices:
"Below are links that will take you to passages from over 125 women writers. The entries are on women who produced a substantial amount of work before 1700, some or all of which has been translated into modern English. Each entry will tell you about the print sources from which the translated passages are taken; it will also tell you of useful secondary sources and Internet sites, when those are available." An amazing resource. (Via
wood s lot.)
posted to MetaFilter by languagehat
at 6:49 AM on July 26, 2007
(20 comments)
I am looking for examples of secret / esoteric information and facts that changed your perspective on the world or caused you to say 'Now that's interesting, I haven't heard that before!'. For example, this recent thread contained information about
ADM that opened my eyes to the subtleties of the sugar markets. A simpler example of the type of knowledge I am looking for are the
interesting things that grocery stores do to increase sales. Or the unsubstantiated claim that more people speak English in China that they do in America. I am looking for interesting tid-bits of knowledge that you might find in books like The Tipping Point and Freakanomics. Something your Oxford educated, weed-smoking Uncle might whip out during a random conversation at a cocktail party.
posted to Ask Metafilter by kaizen
at 12:09 PM on July 16, 2007
(63 comments)
Rob Rummel-Hudson is a likeable smartass, who's been blogging
forever. He and Julie have a
cute daughter,
Schuyler. One day, she was
diagnosed with a rare, serious neurological condition:
Bilateral Perisylvian Polymicrogyria or, as they have come to call it,
Schuyler's Monster. Rob continued his candid, passionate diary - at one point stirring the growing
group of
loyals to raise more than $10,000 dollars (in less than a
month!), endowing Schuyler with a
speech device (a.k.a.
Big Box of Words).
Slated for
publication in 2008, as
blogs-become-books go, this
father/
daughter story deserves a
closer look.
posted to MetaFilter by progosk
at 12:18 PM on July 11, 2007
(17 comments)
Photographs of the dancers, actresses, cafe-life figures and prostitutes who were the subjects of Toulouse Lautrec's paintings,
including such luminaries as
Sarah Bernhardt, "
La Goulue" (Louise Weber;
remember this?), and
Jane Avril, who was the model for
this last, iconic, Lautrec poster. View pages of the art matched up with photos,
here,
here, and
here, and
go to this page to rummage around in even more collections that include photos of Lautrec, his friends and family, street and location scenes, and lots of other tidbits.
[Spanish language site; NUDITY]
posted to MetaFilter by taz
at 6:42 AM on July 5, 2007
(10 comments)
May be relocating to north-central Massachusetts. Areas to avoid?
posted to Ask Metafilter by mr_crash_davis
at 7:43 AM on June 21, 2007
(19 comments)
Charles Evans (1850-1935) created his
American Bibliography as a labor of love. Evans, an orphan whose education ended at age fifteen, was fifty-one and unemployed when he began singlehandedly cataloging every printed document published in America between 1639 and 1820. At the time of his death thirty-four years later, he had set down 35,854 entries through 1799, twelve volumes totaling over 5,500 pages.
It took two decades (1950-1968) for a team of bibliographers to transfer the pamphlets he cited onto microfilm, and three more years (2002-2005) to digitize them. The result,
Evans Digital Edition, is a full-text searchable collection of 2.3 million pages of pamphlets. Some see it as
a revolutionary innovation that will democratize the historical profession, but others are
not so sure--the original cost $25 a volume, but Evans Digital Edition costs $20,000-$100,000 to subscribe.
posted to MetaFilter by nasreddin
at 8:14 AM on June 13, 2007
(11 comments)
How can I get my hands on a Vienna phonebook from circa 1938? I will be spending a weekend in Vienna next month, and I would love to see the apartment where my late grandfather lived before fleeing the Nazis. Unfortunately, nobody in the family knows the address, and there aren't any letters or other documents to provide it. Things are also complicated by the fact that I won't be visiting on a weekday, so any archives that might have this information will presumably be closed. Plus, I don't speak German. Am I out of luck, or is there any way to track this information down in the next few weeks?
posted to Ask Metafilter by yankeefog
at 7:22 AM on October 18, 2005
(39 comments)
