MetaFilter

This really amazing 7-minute Star Wars animated short, in the style of 1980s anime like Macross, shows a space battle where the Empire are the good guys taking on a squadron of dasterdly rebels. Enjoy missile trails, awesome sudden close-ups, totally radical explosions, split screens of attractive TIE fighter pilots, and a vaguely annoying anime-inspired soundtrack. This PDF shows how it was all made and introduces you to the characters, along with some neat concept sketches.
posted on Mar-24-15 at 10:59 AM

The 10 worst misconceptions about medieval life that you would get from fantasy books debunks a number of fantasy-novel myths, inspired by this terrific Reddit thread where historians discuss high fantasy novel tropes [prev]. Some of the greatest misconceptions were around combat in the Middle Ages, which apparently included exotic weapons - like the scorpion bombs used in ancient warfare. [pdf] Also see the Medieval People of Color site to see some other dimensions of Middle Ages diversity that are often missing from fantasy novels. And, of course, a tip of the hat to the venerable and hilarious Tough Guide to Fantasyland.
posted on Feb-19-15 at 12:04 PM

Amazon's Mechanical Turk has become an important tool for social science research, but a fascinating piece by PBS Newshour discusses why this might be a problem, with a great profile of professional survey takers, who average hundreds, even thousands of social science surveys each. This is not just idle speculation, recent research [PDF] shows that experienced Turkers no longer have typical "gut reactions" to social experiments, creating a struggle with how to deal with non-naivete [PDF]. Take a look at the questions that professional Tukers are asked the most, and be sure to take the survey in the middle of the first article!
posted on Feb-16-15 at 1:26 PM

Coming off a successful Kickstarter campaign, Innuendo Studios has released a really interesting piece of video game criticism, that is somewhat about Call of Duty, but also about the problems with reviewing video games; and it gets better as it goes on. Previously by Innuendo (and enjoyed by MeFi), an engaging meditation on Phil Fish, and the problems of internet fame.
posted on Feb-9-15 at 8:37 PM

Kayak has analyzed a billion travel searches to produce the Travel Hacker Guide, which includes the most up-and-coming beaches and destinations. For North Americans, they found that you want to book Caribbean trips 2-4 weeks ahead, and European trips 6 months ahead. There is also a nifty map showing you how much it costs to get to various destinations. The New York Times has an interview about the report. Another analysis of a different data set found that US domestic tickets are best bought 57 days out, and the best day to shop for fares is Sunday. Data outside the US is less available, but at least one paper has found that it is better to buy in the afternoon, and that 3-6 weeks is the right window.
posted on Feb-1-15 at 9:03 AM

A Gronking to Remember: Book One In the Rob Gronkowski Erotica Series is rather involved novella about one women's imagined relationship the Patriot's tight end by the Jacey Noonan, also author of I Don't Care if My Best Friend's Mom Is A Sasquatch, She's Hot and I'm Taking a Shower With Her ... Because It's the New Millennium (link, in case you need that one, too). The author gives a rather delightful interview to Slate, or you can just hear Gilbert Gottfried read you choice passages. [Links are SFW, subject is, well NSFW]
posted on Jan-7-15 at 10:26 AM

Ludum Dare is a 48-hour game design contest run several times a year, with each contest having its own theme. There are often thousands of participants, and the winners are almost always worth a couple minutes of your time. Many have turned into "real" games. The current theme is "The Entire Game in One Screen" and one of the entries will make your head explode. Inside, the playable winners of the last dozen or so contests....
posted on Dec-10-14 at 12:15 PM

Pyro fireshooter lets you shoot fireballs from your hand. It is hard to imagine a social or work situation this would not improve, from job interviews to meetings to dates. Make sure to watch the insane (in many ways) video.
posted on Dec-5-14 at 6:53 AM

Do you hate swallowing pills? Let NPR's Nina Totenberg show you how using animated GIFs. A new study shows that the pop bottle technique for tablets and the lean forward method for capsules improve pill swallowing for 60% of people who use the pop bottle and 90% of people who lean forward. For kids, there are extensive resources that teach them how to swallow pills. Why swallowing pills is hard is a subject of study, and is a big deal, since it causes around 40% of people to delay, skip, or avoid taking medicine.
posted on Nov-11-14 at 8:33 PM

Experience Windows93, the OS that never was and never should be. Managing to sit somewhere between nostalgia for 1990s-era Windows (is that a thing?) and an OS from an alternate timeline, Windows93 is... something. Enjoy the CRT graphics, watch the entire ASCII version of Star Wars (mentioned on MeFi in 2000!), play Windows Solitaire, and use a full fledged browser. Also, watch out for viruses and amazing 1990s easter eggs. I don't think there is anything NSFW, but there is so much here, a it is hard to know...
posted on Oct-27-14 at 7:05 PM

With thousands of reader suggestions, Kotaku has published a directory of "Classic PC games you must play". The most voted for free games [links go to places you can download games]: Star Control II, Tyrian, Zork, Battle Zone, Myth II, and Daggerfall. Some of the most votes for games that are available for $10 or less:Master of Orion ($5),Quest for Glory ($10), Planescape ($10), Total Annihilation ($6), Heroes of Might and Magic III ($9), Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis ($5), Little Big Adventures 2 ($5), Descent ($10), and Betrayal at Krondor ($6). More idiosyncratic than PC Games list of the top games, but the people have spoken...
posted on Oct-23-14 at 10:39 AM

“True, the Nazis were trying to find the Ark of the Covenant so they could destroy the world,” Canuto says. “But methodologically and legally they were in the right.” Why archeologists hate Indiana Jones. Also, why doctors don't like medical dramas; what is inaccurate about TV portrayals of lawyers and the legal process (PDF); and, finally, the terrific analysis of the portrayal of academics in children's books. When your profession is portrayed on TV, what do they get wrong?
posted on Sep-14-14 at 9:11 AM

What aren't you reading? By looking at the top 5 most highlighted passages via Kindle in each book, Jordan Ellenberg has figured out which books are most unread: Take the page numbers of a book's five top highlights, average them, and divide by the number of pages in the whole book. He calls the result the Hawking Index, after the much-unread Brief History of Time, though Piketty seems to have knocked Hawking off his throne (all five top highlights come in the first 26 pages, out of 700). Also, everyone finishes The Goldfinch. Previous attempts to figure out what is least finished have been conducted by Goodreads (#1: Catch-22), and by the Guardian in 2007 (which may explain why Vernon God Little is #1), which included helpful summaries. What have you not finished recently?
posted on Jul-6-14 at 8:13 PM

Next Time on Lonny is a very funny (but, warning, occasionally very offensive and/or violent) web series with a twist. The first season (first episode) was self-produced, but the second season (first episode of S2) has been produced by Ben Stiller (here, held hostage), and has higher production values and guest stars.
posted on Jun-23-14 at 8:31 AM

Michael Lewis's expose of high frequency trading, Flash Boys, has already been mentioned on the blue, but, unusually for a work of non-fiction it ends with a cliffhanger. At the end of the book, Lewis stares up at a microwave tower in central Pennsylvania that had created a new, faster link between financial markets in Chicago and the East Coast: "I noticed, before we left, a metal plate attached to the fence around the tower. On it was a Federal Communications Commission license number: 1215095. The number, along with an Internet connection, was enough to lead an inquisitive person to the story behind the tower. The application to use the tower to send a microwave signal had been filed in July 2012, and it had been filed by . . . well, it isn’t possible to keep any of this secret anymore. A day’s journey in cyberspace would lead anyone who wished to know it into another incredible but true Wall Street story, of hypocrisy and secrecy and the endless quest by human beings to gain a certain edge in an uncertain world. All that one needed to discover the truth about the tower was the desire to know it.” Now we know that truth.
posted on Jun-18-14 at 8:42 PM

Sub Commander is a free roguelike submarine simulator in the vein of FTL or Dwarf Fortress (but not as hard). You control the crew of a blocky nuclear attack submarine with an impressive number of onboard systems as you complete randomly generated missions. Everything from nuclear reactors to fire to ocean thermal layers to a world map complete with ports and realistic enemy ships is accurately modeled. Rock Paper Shotgun has two reviews, so far of this very playable work-in-progress. Currently only for Windows, but plays well with emulators. The learning curve is a bit steep, so some hints inside...
posted on Jun-16-14 at 4:09 PM

Every year, the Neural Correlates Association announces the world's three best optical illusions. Out of a number of finalists, the 2014 winners have been announced: 1) The Dynamic Ebbinghaus, 2) Flexible Colors, and 3) a Turn in the Road [animated gif version]. There are also a list of best illusions from all years, as well as winners from 2013, 2012, and previous posts. Of course, if there was a lifetime achievement award, it would need to go to Akiyoshi Kitaoka, inventor of some of the most amazing recent illusions: rotating snakes (seriously, this is amazing), possibly the best color illusion ever (with instructions on making them), and also Lady Gaga covers. Also, for no good reason, here are 20 more good ones.
posted on May-20-14 at 10:26 AM

Comedian Andy Daly is an expert at creating naive, offbeat characters with dark secrets. He has appeared in many places (and this AV Club article walks through them all in an interview with Daly), but now has his own show, Review on Comedy Central, in which his character, Forrest, reviews life experiences, from eating 30 pancakes to divorce to being Batman. All 8 of the episodes so far are now online, the funny/dark/uncomfortable parts really start with episode 3: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Andy Daly is also a comedy podcast regular, and ran a one-off series where he played a different character every week (the amazing one where he plays a German travel writer, with many other comedians as guests, is a good place to start).
posted on Apr-28-14 at 6:42 AM

For forty years around the turn of the 20th century, ostrich plumes were the height of fashion, and a major industry: at its peak, ostrich feathers were, ounce-for-ounce, nearly as valuable as diamonds, so much so that £20,000 of feathers went down with the Titanic. The market for feathers was, in large part, run by Jews: Sephardi Jews exported feathers, Jews in London and New York traded them, and Eastern European Jews left Russia and Lithuania in the thousands to farm feathers, flocking to Oudtshoorn "The Jerusalem of Africa." In 1914, the boom ended, leaving many destitute and leading to anti-semitic backlashes. A brief but entertaining history of the feather trade can be read in this PDF excerpt. Some of the beautiful "Feather Palaces" of Oudtshoorn still survive, as does a small Jewish community and some vintage fashion.
posted on Apr-8-14 at 11:37 AM

Beer labels can be an art, which is why the New York Times asked design god Milton Glaser to critique some. If you want much more, Oh Beautiful Beer offers a wonderful rundown of great graphic design in the world of beer, and Paste produced its own list of favorites, as has the community on Gizmodo. If this is all too crafty, there is a list of the best designs of bottom shelf beer as well. And that isn't even touching the best beer names (pun warning).
posted on Mar-28-14 at 12:37 PM

While you can still follow live events in the Ukraine, with either the compulsively complete live Reddit feed or the constantly updated BBC feed being good choices, there has been increasingly useful analyses of the history and politics of the situation. Yale Professor Timothy Snyder, an expert on the region, wrote a piece in the New York Review of Books describing the roots of the recent uprising, with a great overview of how "people associated with Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, Armenian, Polish, and Jewish culture have died in a revolution that was started by a Muslim." Other history is provided by a detailed explainer by the Guardian, in maps by National Geographic, and the dueling arguments about the roots of the conflict from the the semi-official Russia Today and the US State Department.
posted on Mar-6-14 at 7:37 PM

Jacques-André Istel is the father of American skydiving, Honorary Soviet Master of Sports and French Legionnaire, and the founder, mayor, and only resident (with his wife) of the desert town of Felicity, California. Felicity is a wondrous place. Inspired by a children's book he wrote, Istel managed to have the town officially designated as the Center of the World. It is also the home of the Museum of History in Granite, 431 carved panels of the history of the world, written by Istel and copy-edited by his wife with a modern Rosetta Stone to help people 4,000 years from now interpret it. Seriously, just look at the panel about the moon.
posted on Feb-21-14 at 12:25 PM

Clips from each of the visual effects winners at the Oscars since 1979. Worth comparing to this great feature from Empire where 15 leading special effects artists were each asked to pick a favorite effect (also with clips). It is probably not worth comparing to the 6 best special effects from Turkish knock-offs of American films.
posted on Jan-30-14 at 7:20 PM

The internet is full of mediocre, self-aggrandizing, or plain bad advice about how to found and manage a startup, but there some really useful collections out there. The annual collection of best links by Tom Eisenmann of Harvard (also: 2012, 2011, 2010) is very good, as is the 30 best posts by First Round Capital, and the many readings available in Stanford's E145 class. On an ongoing basis, the Startup Management blog is a good place to look, plus, inside, there are...
posted on Jan-6-14 at 11:46 AM

In 25 questions, it will tell you where you are from (in the US), using results from the Harvard Dialect Survey [prev, now closed]. Don't peek, but this is an answer key of sorts, showing the full results of the survey. Come for the highly accurate maps, stay for the interesting variations - apparently, over 6% of people call a sunshower "the devil is beating his wife," and a small group calls it a "fox's wedding."
posted on Dec-23-13 at 7:52 PM

An explanation of the most confusing car buttons and symbols is illuminating (what does the "Funk" button do?) but even better is this comment thread featuring an incredibly funny interpretation of some particular obscure symbols. If bad design has you down, look at some of the most amazing in-car graphics for contrast. Jalopnik has been compiling these lists for awhile, with the help of their readers. Some other favorites: the cheapest cars ever sold, the worst highway exits, worst taxi experiences, misleading car names, coolest non-US space projects, oldest military vehicles in service, best car print ads, coolest car keys, and, more practically - things you shouldn't ignore on your car if they go wrong and the 10 cars most recommended by readers.
posted on Dec-20-13 at 7:58 AM

531 of the most interesting articles on Wikipedia covering everything from the linguistic (self-contradicting words in English) to the philosophical (The Ultimate 747 Gambit); from the only German military landing in the Americas (Weather Station Kurt) to the world's only Bigfoot Trap; to oddities both geometric (Gömböc ) and mathematical (Tupper's self-referential formula); great lists of various things (Bible errata, unsolved problems, camouflage patterns, blurred spots on Google Maps, lost art, the last monarchs of the Americas) to things that will make great band names (Orbiting Frog Otolith). [prev, shorter lists]
posted on Dec-14-13 at 12:53 PM

The map of US military installations by artist Josh Begley uses the US military's list of bases (plus a few other sources) to provide satellite image maps of hundreds of military sites around the world. For similar efforts, see Radical Cartography and the always-amazing work of Trevor Paglen
posted on Dec-12-13 at 12:22 PM

7 Fantastic Ways To Distinguish Between Sense And Nonsense from the listicle kings at Buzzfeed.
posted on Nov-14-13 at 1:04 PM

The Digital Attack Map from Google and Arbor Networks gives you an amazing dynamic visualization of ongoing Distributed Denial of Service and other cyberattacks. You can also go back to see older attacks - like the 6-day long attack on the US in August, attacks on the anniversary of the Korean War, and others. Slate finds it a bit self-serving for Google, but the helpful video explaining DDoS is useful.
posted on Oct-21-13 at 2:45 PM

A wonderful animated state-by-state map of the most popular names for girls since 1960. Watch the Jennifer Takeover of 1970! Thrill to the doomed Appalachian Amanda Insurgency of the late 1970s! Cower before the great Jessica-Ashley Battles! Sigh with relief at the arrival of Emma, Isabella, and Sophia as we approach the world of today! Regret naming your child the same thing as everyone else! Bonus, also from Jezebel: How to pick a weird name for your kid
posted on Oct-19-13 at 10:26 PM

Takayo Kiyota turns rolled sushi into another kind of art. When cut, what looks at first like lumps of rice covered in seaweed becomes faces, fetuses (in different stages of development, depending on where you cut the roll), and iPhones . Also, blue poop with flies. The artist's page (in Japanese). [some sushi-rice based nudity, which is a sentence I never thought I would write].
posted on Sep-17-13 at 6:29 AM

What skill can learn right now in 10 minutes that will be useful for the rest of my life? Is a Quora thread that goes beyond the usual "life hacks" (though it has them, too) to include some neat skills [Quora requires registration, but links go to direct sites]. Learn to read Korean, eat a chicken wing properly, fold a t-shirt, become a better Google searcher, crack an egg with one hand, whistle with your fingers, learn to speed read (the most popular answer), use the peg system to remember things, and learn to change a tire.
posted on Sep-3-13 at 8:04 PM

The Encyclopedia of Ethical Failure [PDF, there is a Word file direct from the DoD] is 167 pages of stories of elaborate frauds, scams, and abuses of power in the US government. Interestingly, the sarcasm-filled document is also published by the US government, to help illustrate how government workers get in trouble. Freakonomics radio has a amusing and interesting discussion with the Encyclopedia's editor and founding editor [link goes to transcript].
posted on Jul-18-13 at 8:22 AM

There are 50 symbols currently allowed on the gravestones of US military personnel. The Wiccan pentacle was only approved in 2007 after a fight that invoked President George W Bush's views on the faith, though other symbols, such as Thor's Hammer, have been added with less of a fight. Most recently a Sandhill Crane was approved for the first same-sex spouse member buried in a military cemetery. Military gravestones are very light on symbolism, however, compared to older religious gravestones or, say, the Victorians.
posted on Jul-9-13 at 9:22 AM

What's the most intellectual joke you know? is Slate's summary of this Reddit thread (for once, the comments are worth it!), with more good comments in this Marginal Revolution discussion. Of course, we can do better...
posted on Jun-28-13 at 10:55 AM

You've played Pac-Man as a terrifying FPS game in 3-D (including ominous music), but Pac-Man is so much more: Pac-Man as a Match 3 game, as a math tutor, as a co-op game, as a 404 error page, as a side-scrolling shooter, as an endless runner, as a Google Doodle, and, finally Pac-Man as an 8-bit roguelike tower defense game. Also, a niceonline clone of the original, which famously caused a coin shortage in Japan when it was released. [some variations from here]
posted on Jun-26-13 at 8:40 AM

The 24 best Mr. Show sketches, in order (with video). The influential sketch comedy show is 20 years old this year, but has generally aged surprisingly well (and has been remarkably prescient about blowing up the moon). Topless Robot has a different top 10, so does Cracked. A great AV Club interview with David Cross, Scott Auckerman, and others details how one complex sketch came together.
posted on Jun-24-13 at 3:08 PM

Measure America offers a terrific tools for visualizations and charts of the Measure of America Project from the Social Science Research Council, which looks at the Human Development Index at a city and state level, with breakdowns by race as well. Among the general findings are that "Red States" rank lower, opportunity is increasing everywhere but Michigan, and Connecticut is the best state, Washington DC the best city..
posted on Jun-21-13 at 8:28 AM

The Boston Globe's map of Starbucks versus Dunkin Donuts locations is surprisingly beautiful. Other useful mapping views into dining and drinking: grocery stores versus bars (On, Wisconsin!), BBQ styles (more information on Serious Eats), and beautiful worldwide food maps from Food: An Atlas.
posted on Jun-3-13 at 1:17 PM

If product reviews annoy you with their lack of a definitive answer, you may already know electronics and gadget review site The Wirecutter, which tells you, definitively, what the best TV, office chair, smartphone, umbrella, and $100 earbuds are. Now there is The Sweethome, which does the same for home goods: ice cube trays, shower caddies, skillets, household drills, and the best toilet paper (unless you don't live near Walmart).
posted on May-28-13 at 2:08 PM

Behavioral Economics for Kids [pdf] is a free ebook from the Ivey School of Business that illustrates (to adults, really) the basic principles of behavioral economics, including the Endowment Effect (we value what we have more than what it is worth), Hyperbolic Discounting (the time we wait for rewards influences value in non-linear ways), the dishonesty of honest people, and Base Rate Neglect (why we make bad assumptions based on inherent biases). Though the findings are well-established, the labeling is subject to change, as many social psychologists argue, this is not behavioral economics, it is well-established psychology.
posted on May-16-13 at 9:13 PM

A gigantic list of browser-based emulators and classic game ports covers everything from the Amiga to the ZX-Spectrum. Some things not to miss for either the nostalgic or the lover of classic games: Play Dune 2 (the original RTS) in HTML 5; Command and Conquer; an authorized version of many Sierra adventures (works on iPads too); beautiful versions of the Nintendo Game and Watch games; a nice Apple //e emulator (Bard's Tale! Neuromancer! Karateka!); and, of course, every NES game [a few of these mentioned before]. All in your browser!
posted on May-15-13 at 7:42 PM

With the Terrafugia Transition flying car (or drivable plane) getting closer to production (though there are doubters), the company has released plans for the TF-X, which looks like the flying car of our dreams. The plans call for a hybrid electric fully-automated transforming car that can take-off and land vertically, travel 200 mph, and not require a pilots license. Flying cars are apparently hot again, with crowdfunded efforts, a mysterious Silicon Valley startup Zee.Aero, the UK's AugustWestland, and the AirMule getting into the game; all while Terrafugia is also developing a "flying humvee" for the military. Of course, we have seen this all before, including one of the first flying cars, which was built around a Ford Pinto and killed its inventors.
posted on May-6-13 at 2:01 PM

Trials by Ordeal were a method of determining guilt or innocence by putting the accused through various torturous experiences. Today these approaches are frequently-mocked and banned almost everywhere, though Sassywood remains common in Liberia. However, economist Peter Leeson argues that trial by ordeal may have been a very effective way of dispensing justice, especially when courts and juries were expensive or broken. According to the paper [PDF], a superstitious belief in iudicium Dei, or the justice of God, may have discouraged the guilty from ordeals, while tilting the scales in favor of the innocent - echoes of the practice persist today in swearing on a Bible. Even Sassywood [pdf] may be better than Liberia's broken justice system.
posted on Apr-30-13 at 7:55 PM

Nathan Fielder of Nathan For You (where he helps real businesses by doing things like developing unique froyo flavors and unlikey-to-be-redeemed rebates), has posted the results of two Twitter "experiments": Text your parents "got 2 grams for $40" then right after "Sorry ignore that txt. Not for you" and a second one about dollar store condoms.
posted on Apr-26-13 at 1:31 PM

The cool features on mechanical watches have the wonderful name of complications, of which the most common are the chronograph, perpetual calender, and tourbillon (originally used to improve accuracy, now it just looks very cool); but many others have been developed in the past centuries, and some are rather absurd. For a watch to be a grand complication, it must have at least three complications for timing, astronomical measurement, and striking. The world's current most complicated watch is the Franck Muller Aeternitas 4, which is just one of several "uber complicated" watches, like the iPhone-sized Zeit Device.
posted on Apr-25-13 at 10:40 AM

Graveyard of the Peaches An Army Ranger and Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations draws up a battle plan in light of Georgia's plan to attempt to claim part of Tennessee, in order to get access to vital water from the Tennessee River and undo a 1818 surveying error.
posted on Apr-2-13 at 11:49 AM

Music may be able to improve productivity at work, especially music without words. There are some services that stream music intended for work: Focus@Will (US Only) offers a wide range of choices, Groovesalad is more ambient, while Get Work Done is decidedly more fast tempo. If music is too distracting, you can use a white/pink/brown noise generator or Buddha Wall, which loops relaxing sounds. Other people prefer particular songs or albums, since researchers suggest you should listen to what you like.
posted on Feb-14-13 at 1:25 PM

Though it was discussed before in beta, If This Then That lets you do amazing things by connecting web services together. There is a good Lifehacker guide to getting started, but then you can create your own "recipes:" automate job searches, download torrents by sending emails from your phone, text to escape awkward situations and much more
posted on Feb-11-13 at 8:41 PM