If you're a fan of Star Trek, you likely already know of The AV Club's reviews, currently focusing on Deep Space Nine. But perhaps you have missed, throughout the comment threads for each review, the poetic stylings of Rappin_Jake_Sisko. (Last link is an anthology, with annotations.)
posted to MetaFilter by meese at 7:59 PM on March 3, 2013 (22 comments)

Get Your Shit Together helps you do what it says on the tin. After her husband died in a 2009 bike accident, Chanel Reynolds created the site as a step-by-step toolkit to help keep track of important life documents and tasks. Four days after its launch, the New York Times got in on the action.
posted to MetaFilter by Madamina at 12:10 PM on February 6, 2013 (28 comments)

According to a study women talk more than men. Which study?
posted to Ask Metafilter by zinon at 7:12 AM on February 21, 2013 (7 comments)

My mortgage rate is 4.375%. I know that I should refinance because I can get a way better rate. I feel overwhelmed by the idea of figuring this out. Treat me like a small, small child and walk me through what to do?
posted to Ask Metafilter by corn_bread at 3:15 PM on February 2, 2013 (13 comments)

This ranks up there with "non-anonymous embarrassing questions." If you wanted to feel hipper than someone today, here's your big chance. The last time I really listened to newly-produced rock music of any kind was somewhere between Casey Kasem and Nine Inch Nails. I don't even own a radio right now. I have an iTunes account....I use for free podcasts.
posted to Ask Metafilter by availablelight at 6:06 AM on January 17, 2013 (47 comments)

It’s 20 or 30 years ago. You’re working on a videogame. You don’t get any credit for your work, blogs don’t exist, there’s no internet and no fanboys. It’s just you, a crusty old terminal, and got a few spare bytes left in the ROM. What now?
posted to MetaFilter by Chrysostom at 3:13 PM on January 15, 2013 (28 comments)

Courtesy of that saint of old school gaming and dark god of the underworld Jason Sholtis, who runs the awesome, previously-posted blog The Dungeon Dozen, it's a new adventure to run using the game system of your choice: THE SECRET PARTY-HOUSE OF THE HILL GIANT PLAYBOY (PDF viewer w/ available download). Looting, slaying, and party crashing beckon to the bold!
Also from Sholtis: the one-page dungeon FLESH FOR THE WITCH QUEEN. (PDF viewer with download)
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 5:45 PM on January 13, 2013 (12 comments)

Are there any really, really great RPGs/JRPGs for either the iPad or the Kindle Fire?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jbickers at 11:51 AM on January 5, 2013 (12 comments)

What do most people do with all the cards, letters, notes, trinkets and other crap that gets collected over the years?
posted to Ask Metafilter by thrasher at 11:25 AM on January 3, 2013 (52 comments)

Re-introduce me to hip-hop!
posted to Ask Metafilter by shotgunbooty at 3:07 PM on December 18, 2012 (36 comments)

What TV shows consumed your life?
posted to Ask Metafilter by frizzle at 8:52 PM on December 17, 2012 (144 comments)

Unable to visit the infamously badly reviewed Guy's American Kitchen & Bar? Never fear, for Metafilter's own mccarty.tim has you covered with a Guy Fieri Menu Item Generator.
posted to MetaFilter by The Whelk at 2:41 PM on December 16, 2012 (76 comments)

"Draw some random points on a piece of paper and join them up to make a random polygon. Find all the midpoints and connecting them up to give a new shape, and repeat. The resulting shape will get smaller and smaller, and will tend towards an ellipse!" [code to make this in Mathematica] [a version which allows you to watch the process step by step, with 10 vertices or 100]
posted to MetaFilter by ocherdraco at 2:09 PM on December 3, 2012 (65 comments)

Community/Star Trek TNG Mashup Tumblr. Starring Troy and Abed as Geordi and Data (obvs), Dean Pelton as Picard, Jeff Winger as Riker, Chang as Worf, Annie as Tasha Yar, Pierce as Q, and Evil Abed as Lore.
posted to MetaFilter by Cash4Lead at 6:44 AM on December 10, 2012 (24 comments)

My finacee and I like to play boardgames in the evenings in the cold months, but we need some fun, challenging games that don't take so long to play and that can be completed in an hour or two.
posted to Ask Metafilter by PuppetMcSockerson at 4:19 AM on November 5, 2012 (50 comments)

From thecatamites of Space Funeral and jchastain of MONSTER KILLERS fame comes Goblet Grotto, "Millionaire coolgame franchise and mystery pak" featuring "over 2000 hours of cave-based gameplay".
posted to MetaFilter by pravit at 9:05 PM on December 1, 2012 (8 comments)

I want some immersive, RPG-style games for Android or iOS. I'm taking a long flight on Friday and I want to sink myself into something fun. I was really hoping Baldur's Gate would be out for iPad before my flight, but it looks like it's been pushed back to next week. I'd like something in the same vein. Preferably something without cutesy, cartoony or 8-bit style graphics.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Cat Pie Hurts at 11:15 AM on November 28, 2012 (18 comments)

It's a cold, hard fact of life that when presented with a 10-lb bag of Russet potatoes for $.97, you can't NOT buy it. Please help -- need ideas for a more interesting baked potato (or other ways to eat Russets).
posted to Ask Metafilter by mudpuppie at 12:51 PM on January 4, 2010 (61 comments)

"The original Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 was quite the disaster and though it did sell a few million copies many would argue it was the beginning of Atari's end. And rightly so. Dennis Debro's brand new and properly indie Pac-Man 4k, on the other hand, hopes to make things right by cramming a way more faithful post of the original pill-chomper arcade game to the very same and now very retro machine." (via IndieGames)
posted to MetaFilter by Shadax at 11:24 PM on October 22, 2012 (55 comments)

I've recently been watching Twin Peaks again, and I've been wondering... to people who actually watched it air in its original run, what was it like seeing something like this on TV? Did you have watching parties that I've heard so much about? Was the reveal of the killer and the twists and turns along the way surprising? Did you watch until the end of the second season, and were you disappointed when it got the plug pulled on it?
posted to Ask Metafilter by codacorolla at 7:42 AM on August 3, 2012 (66 comments)

Tell me about the history of identity. Today it's pretty easy (though not foolproof) to find out if someone was who they said they were, or to verify a communication is from who it's claimed. But what about 200-2000 years ago?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Ookseer at 2:28 PM on September 8, 2012 (27 comments)

What are your favorite non-American radio stations? Bonus points for stations that are available online, and mostly play music that I am unlikely to hear on American radio.
posted to Ask Metafilter by ocherdraco at 3:14 PM on September 28, 2012 (44 comments)

I need help with sourcing unusual building materials for my DIY doghouse that looks like my ridiculous-looking house.
posted to Ask Metafilter by halogen at 1:18 PM on September 28, 2012 (21 comments)

Tool-assisted speedruns seek to create a perfect run by using tools such as slow motion, scripts and manipulation of random numbers. A few TASs have appeared on the blue before, but it's easy to get lost in the archives of TASvideos. The pages of popular videos and notable videos are useful here. You could browse by platform or use the tabs to sort the videos by various statistics. A good starting point might be Actraiser (yt), a hybrid of sidescroller and city simulation, which has been subtitled so that you can understand the choices made by the author (click on the 'closed captions' button). Some of the most impressive TASs take advantage of glitches: watch Link complete Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (yt - no cutscenes) by supersliding, bomb jumping, and eschewing boss keys or a long game like Super Mario 64 (yt) completed in 5 minutes in a no-stars run. However, sometimes watching a longer, competent run like Donkey Kong Country 2 (yt) 102% is just as fun. Here are some recommendations.
posted to MetaFilter by ersatz at 9:29 AM on September 21, 2012 (37 comments)

1. generate random polygons
2. feed them into a face detector
3. mutate to increase recognition confidence

posted to MetaFilter by griphus at 7:36 AM on August 5, 2012 (33 comments)

If you love malt whisky then you'll love Ralfy's YouTube channel.
posted to MetaFilter by veryape at 6:32 AM on August 15, 2012 (18 comments)

THE WUNNERFUL WOMEN OF THE LAWRENCE WELK SHOW
posted to MetaFilter by asockpuppet at 7:31 PM on August 7, 2012 (80 comments)

What's it like to have two eyes? In other words, can someone give an explanation or offer a resource that could help me see (pardon the pun) what it's like to have stereoscopic vision?
posted to Ask Metafilter by RapcityinBlue at 10:27 AM on July 16, 2012 (29 comments)

RRRRRRRROLL
posted to MetaFilter by fearfulsymmetry at 7:32 AM on July 12, 2012 (65 comments)

Scheduled, portion-controlled feeding is failing for my cats. One ravenous kitty versus one food-agnostic kitty equals lots of frustration for me. Can anyone share some tips for making this work?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Kitty Stardust at 8:31 AM on July 5, 2012 (17 comments)

John Carey uses an old Olympus 55mm 1.8 lens on his Canon 5D with beautiful results. Which other similar old lenses have you found great on a Canon EOS mount?
posted to Ask Metafilter by jgwong at 3:17 PM on June 7, 2012 (10 comments)

Made in one night and it probably shows. I liked the tacky sound so I kept it.
posted to MeFi Music by Khazk at 11:41 PM on April 3, 2012 (4 comments)

How do I get a bird to stop sitting on my side mirrors and shitting all over my car?
posted to Ask Metafilter by mathowie at 4:35 PM on April 6, 2006 (31 comments)

Context Free Patent Art
posted to MetaFilter by curse at 9:35 PM on April 22, 2012 (24 comments)

Monster's Den Chronicles is a turn-based Flash dungeon-crawler RPG with combat mechanics reminiscent of turn-based strategy game stalwart Disciples II.
posted to MetaFilter by whir at 9:27 AM on April 6, 2012 (16 comments)

How to Host a Dungeon is a solitaire pen-and-paper game in which you create an underground complex of rooms, populate them with various fantasy races and monsters, and simulate its history. At almost any time you can stop and have the basis for a D&D campaign. Here's a YouTube playthrough of a game: Part 1 - Part 2
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 9:44 PM on March 4, 2012 (53 comments)

Playfic is a community for writing, sharing, and playing interactive fiction games (aka “text adventures”) entirely from your browser.
posted to MetaFilter by muckster at 12:31 PM on February 15, 2012 (15 comments)

ALIEN age 11 - an adaptation created by an underage artist based on the Alan Dean Foster novelization and a few stills, without having seen the actual film.
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 6:06 PM on January 30, 2012 (23 comments)

TVTropes calls it a "Neo-Dada art form consisting of video remixes. . . to confuse, stun or entertain the viewer". A recent top ten list (more here) fills the gaps of that description with ample WTF, which is almost too appropriate for a video genre that first garnered attention as a misdirection troll.
posted to MetaFilter by I've wasted my life at 2:57 PM on January 26, 2012 (33 comments)

If you enjoy playing Dungeons & Dragons or similar fantasy RPGs, or if you just like reading in-depth analysis of fictional worlds, then the Tome of Awesome [pdf] is for you.
posted to MetaFilter by jedicus at 10:08 AM on January 12, 2012 (50 comments)

Morpion Solitaire is a very simple pencil-and-paper, line-drawing game for which the best possible score is not known! New records are still being set.
posted to MetaFilter by Wolfdog at 11:19 AM on January 8, 2012 (21 comments)

The Corpus of American Historical English is a searchable index of word usage in American printed material from 1810 to 2009. Powerful complex searches allow you to trace the appearance and evolution of words and phrases and even specific grammatical constructions, see trends in frequency, and plenty more. Start with the 5-Minute Tour.
posted to MetaFilter by Miko at 8:40 AM on January 7, 2012 (23 comments)

June 25th 1906, was the opening night of the musical revue Mamzelle Champagne on the roof of Madison Square Garden. In attendance were Stanford White, renowned architect (Washington Square Arch, Judson Memorial Church, Madison Square Garden itself), and Harry Kendall Thaw, eccentric coal and railroad scion. During the performance of the song I Could Love a Million Girls, Thaw "left his seat near the stage, passed between a number of tables, and, in full view of the players and of scores of persons, shot White through the head." (pdf) Standing over White’s body, Thaw said “You’ll never go out with that woman again.”
posted to MetaFilter by davidjmcgee at 12:01 PM on December 22, 2011 (14 comments)

New to Final Cut Pro X, need tips on how to organize content. So I've got hours of interviews in large file segments, how best to cut/edit/organize them in the newest version of Final Cut Pro X?
posted to Ask Metafilter by mathowie at 10:30 AM on December 14, 2011 (3 comments)

Just in time for Turkey Day.
Recently something unique came into my possession: the original 16mm work-print of Manos: The Hands of Fate. (made famous by these guys).
posted to MetaFilter by KevinSkomsvold at 10:36 PM on November 23, 2011 (34 comments)

The Music Ngram Viewer from Peachnote tracks appearances of any given note or chord sequence in a corpus of 60,000 optically scanned public-domain classical scores, ranging from the 17th century to the present -- a la what Google Ngram Viewer does for words and phrases. A fuller description with examples. And if you don't like the Google-esque GUI, you can download the raw data and mess with it yourself. (Via Music Hack Day Boston.)
posted to MetaFilter by escabeche at 5:34 AM on November 6, 2011 (10 comments)

So you want to try and remix someone else's songs, but all you have are a random collection of instrumentals and acapellas to work with. Fret not! First, you can find inspiration from the folks who share their reworkings at Tea's Björk Remixes, as there aren't many Björk acappelas to start with, but they still find a way. Then check out the Acapella Archives blog, for a lot of indie hip-hop acapellas and more vocal tracks. If you've browsed those archives, you might notice a link to Beastie Remixes, a community for remixers of Beastie Boys. They have an acapellas page which has more than just vocal tracks: there are also copies of show vinyl, with the tracks that the Boys have used to back up their live shows.
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 3:18 PM on October 22, 2011 (13 comments)

Dark Souls, the spiritual sequel to 2009's Demon's Souls (previously 1, 2) and heir to the King's Field series of games, is out in most of the world this week. Reviews have been excellent, sales have been surprisingly robust; Dark Souls was the top selling title in Japan last week, with 279,567 copies sold, compared to an estimated 40,000 for Demon's Souls first week of release. From Software has taken an interesting approach to players who somehow acquire the game early: rather than banning the player outright or limited online features, From Software is embracing Dark Souls' unique multiplayer model, sending super leveled invaders into player's games to hunt them mercilessly.
posted to MetaFilter by 2bucksplus at 1:01 PM on October 5, 2011 (51 comments)

The Doom Roguelike is really much better than it has any right to be, and has come a long way over the last four years of development. Its spacey sister is the Aliens Roguelike (previously). Here are some tutorial videos to get you started, and mefi's own JHarris' review of DoomRL from 2007.
posted to MetaFilter by kaibutsu at 1:04 PM on September 23, 2011 (11 comments)

Accuracy takes power: one man's 3GHz quest to build a perfect SNES emulator. The author of the SNES emulator bsnes talks about the difficulties in creating emulators that accurately simulate classic game consoles, and why it will take lifetimes to generate enough computer power to perfectly recreate the most modern consoles.
posted to MetaFilter by The Devil Tesla at 6:30 PM on August 9, 2011 (52 comments)