Little Workshop is an award-winning French studio specializing in high-quality immersive 3D experiences for the web. Their portfolio contains many charming and fun projects you can try out yourself, including endless city generator Infinitown, cute procedural dungeon crawler Keep Out!, pulsing geometric music visualizer TRACK, and Arde Madrid, a multi-scene recreation of Ava Gardner's home in Francoist Spain. Their latest and most ambitious project: EQUINOX, a slick, stylized adventure game set in a failing starship in deep space, complete with a full soundtrack and voice acting in a mobile-friendly interface. Read the case study on their website, or check out their other projects (including the dearly-departed Mozilla MMORPG BrowserQuest).
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 9:57 AM on April 23, 2024 (5 comments)

Image without metaphor in Dune 2: Because in 2024, I don't find it hard to believe that people are incredibly excited by the vision of an anti-colonial guerilla movement driven by Islamic faith defeating a massive and technologically dominant empire... I do find it hard to believe that more people in 2024 aren't outraged that Dune Part Two literally features a talking embryo.

Civil War, a piece of radical-centrist, middle brow bothsideism is not only sure to be the most successful film he has made, it is also by some margin the worst. But to my pleasant surprise, it's not a completely terrible and evil film. It is just a deeply mediocre one.
posted to MetaFilter by spamandkimchi at 12:53 PM on April 21, 2024 (114 comments)

Enclosed within its rugged mud brick walls the temple precincts at Dendera seem to be an island left untouched by time. Particularly in the early hours of the morning, when foxes roam around the ruins of the birth house or venture down the steep stairs leading to the Sacred Lake. Stepping into the actual temple is like entering an ancient time machine, especially if you look up to the recently cleaned astronomical ceiling. This is a vast cosmos filled with stars, hour-goddesses and zodiac signs, many of which are personified by weird creatures like snakes walking on long legs and birds with human arms and jackal heads. On the columns just below the ceiling you encounter the mysterious gaze of the patron deity of the temple: Hathor.

It might not have the iconic status of Giza or the Valley of the Kings, but the Dendera temple complex north of Luxor boasts some of the most superbly-preserved ancient Egyptian art known, ranging from early Roman times back to the Middle Kingdom period over 4,000 years ago. Most breathtaking is the ceiling of the temple's grand pronaos, which is richly decorated with intricate astrological iconography. But you don't have to travel to Egypt to see it -- thanks to photographer and programmer José María Barrera [site], you can now peruse an ultra-HD scan of the fully-restored masterpiece in a slick zoomable scroller. Overwhelmed? See the captions in this gallery for a deep-dive into the symbolism, or click inside for even more.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 9:52 AM on April 21, 2024 (10 comments)

The Etak Navigator "Today, I’d like to tell you about the Etak Navigator, a truly revolutionary product and the world’s first practical vehicle navigation system."[via]
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 9:48 PM on April 15, 2024 (26 comments)

Pompeii: Breathtaking new paintings found at ancient city A wide residential and commercial block, known as "Region 9", is being cleared of several metres of overlying pumice and ash thrown out by Vesuvius almost 2,000 years ago.(Pompeii previously)
posted to MetaFilter by bq at 11:59 AM on April 11, 2024 (22 comments)

The 2024 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Malmö, Sweden this year after Loreen secured a second victory with her song Tattoo, last year in Liverpool. Sweden has won the Contest seven times, tied with Ireland for the most victories ever by a single country. Thirty-seven countries are competing in this 68th edition of Eurovision. This year, it consists of two semifinals on May 7th and 9th, with the Grand Final on May 11th. Get ready for an introduction of all the submissions from the Class of 2024!
posted to MetaFilter by PearlRose at 12:48 PM on April 3, 2024 (34 comments)

March 28, 1999: Futurama. It seems to go on and on forever. In fact, the pilot episode of the original run aired 25 years ago tonight, kicking off what would become one of the smartest and most hilarious comedies in TV history. So celebrate with an overview of character intros, ★ key scenes, clips, ♫ songs, and other links, why not?
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:59 AM on March 28, 2024 (49 comments)

What are the pros/cons of living on a floating house?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Eddie Mars at 11:42 AM on March 8, 2024 (12 comments)

Here's Jacques Brel on the Dutch television program Club Domino in the early Sixties. [50m] The songs are in French and the host speaks Dutch, but wow, he does a thing with his song delivery, reminds me a bit of Sinatra or Dylan with how he's living the moment.
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 2:42 PM on February 27, 2024 (11 comments)

The Martian helicopter completed its final flight on Valinor Hills. "yeah it really could be an ocean moon" - Let's check in on humanity's exploration of space in early 2024.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 8:18 AM on February 23, 2024 (13 comments)

untranslatable.co is a searchable database of slang from nearly 100 languages.
posted to MetaFilter by gwint at 8:45 AM on January 29, 2024 (17 comments)

What's inside this crater in Madagascar? Vox went to insane lengths to discover who lived in a remote village in a remote extinct volcano in Madagascar they discovered on Google Earth and satellite images.
posted to MetaFilter by peacay at 4:13 PM on January 26, 2024 (15 comments)

'Exhibiting Forgiveness', directed by artist Titus Kaphar, premiered at Sundance last weeekend (Variety review by Owen Gleiberman, Q&A at ABCNews by Lindsay Bahr). This is the artist's second film to appear at Sundance, after last year's documentary 'Shut Up And Paint' (Oscar Contender ‘Shut Up And Paint’ Reveals Dilemma Of Artist Titus Kaphar, Whose Work Is Valued, But His Message Not, Matthew Carey in Deadline).
posted to MetaFilter by bq at 9:18 AM on January 25, 2024 (5 comments)

A young woman's body is found frozen in a ditch. Through flashbacks and interviews, we see the events that led to her inevitable death.
posted to FanFare by Carillon at 4:33 PM on January 7, 2024 (2 comments)

It's that time of year again... the time I surface and look around with a sigh and a smile having spent 3 weeks immersed in the Best of 2023 lists from Headphone Commute. As resolutely restrained in its format and delivery (12 unranked lists, albums released in 2023 only, shared sporadically from the 1st January onwards) as it is particular in its choice of genre names, if you can get past the whimsical titles you'll find a treasure-trove of new pathways and inroads to stunning ambient / instrumental / experimental / electronic / modern-classical music.
posted to MetaFilter by protorp at 4:23 AM on January 21, 2024 (13 comments)

Hempuli, the brilliant designer behind the rule-modification puzzle game Baba Is You ($15 for Windows, Mac and Linux, previously, again), hasn't rested since that came out. (Everything mentioned is free and for Windows unless otherwise noted.) Baba Is You was so successful that now we have to help Baba File Taxes! Covemount (Web) is a simple Sokoban clone with an interesting numeric gimmick. Baba Is You XTREME adds an extra feature to Baba for reasons of "fun." And there's a collection of 16 Solitaire games! And a little Neko-like Baba friend/desktop toy! And... Mobile Suit Baba, a mashup of Baba Is You and Into The Breach?! ($4, Windows) There's lots more i left out only for brevity's sake: the rest is on Hempuli's itch.io page.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 2:15 AM on January 7, 2024 (16 comments)

Early studies of interactive fiction focused heavily on digital texts and paid little attention to gamebook series that had sold millions of copies and shaped the imagination of a generation
posted to MetaFilter by cupcakeninja at 5:08 AM on January 5, 2024 (29 comments)

My research has revealed that lowriding flourished in the southern California region—post WWII—and represents part of a larger movement characterized by individualized expression via car customization where returning veterans had more expendable income to personalize and modify their vehicles in unique ways .... Within the dominant mainstream culture, the practice of car modifications was embodied in high performance muscle cars best characterized as hotrods that are described as fast and mean. In contrast, Chicano car enthusiasts modified and customized their vehicle with a unique cultural aesthetic that honored ingenuity where vehicles came to be understood as artistic canvases on wheels and where the practice of car cruising down the boulevard brought forward a low and slow attitude bringing forth the creation of stylized and customized vehicles that shaped Chicana and Chicano culture. from The San Diego Lowrider Archival Project
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 1:15 AM on January 4, 2024 (12 comments)

December 2023 solstice from space. Let's check in on humanity's solar system exploration before 2024 kicks in.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 8:14 AM on December 21, 2023 (14 comments)

Canadian researcher cracks 135-year-old coded message stashed in silk dress
posted to MetaFilter by sardonyx at 9:21 PM on December 17, 2023 (15 comments)

"The aim of writing under the name of this nonexistent philosopher was, in Rorty’s words, ‘intellectual empathy’, understood as the attempt to enter into the mind of another thinker, a kind of exercise. This thinker, who does not exist, nevertheless takes up a particular perspective on the world, a perspective that rests on a different set of assumptions and preoccupations from the author’s." 'Forging Philosophy' [via: Arts & Letters Daily.]
posted to MetaFilter by clavdivs at 2:15 PM on December 16, 2023 (9 comments)

BFI: 101 Hidden Gems: The Greatest Films You’ve Never Seen. “Hailing from every continent but Antarctica and spanning more than 120 years, this selection is, in its way, as representative of the riches of cinema history as that other list we released at the end of last year. Fiction rubs shoulders with nonfiction, films made by collectives sit alongside hand-crafted animation, and a healthy dose of comedy sidles up to heartbreaking drama – and then there are the films that defy all categorisation.”
posted to MetaFilter by oulipian at 9:11 AM on December 7, 2023 (26 comments)

Alan "Draknek" Hazelden is an industrious creator of charming, handcrafted, fiendishly difficult puzzle games with a retro 8-bit feel (most using the open-source, HTML5-compliant Puzzlescript engine). Highlights: Sticky Candy Puzzle Saga - Spikes 'n' Stuff - Spooky Pumpkin Game - Boxes Love Boxing Gloves - Frog Wizard Gem Quest - Train Braining - A Sneeze a Day Keeps the Crates Away - Cyber-Lasso - Mirror Isles - Slime Swap - A Good Tunnel is Hard to Dig - Mouse Wants Cheese - You're Pulley-ing My Leg - I Have No Mouth, And I Must Create Blocks On All Sides Of Me - More? Check out a list of all games (older ones may break), all Puzzlescript games, iOS and Android games. Also check out the homepage for gamedev partnerships, contact info, and more commercial offerings.
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 7:46 PM on November 25, 2023 (8 comments)

This is Europe's JFK Mystery is a half-hour documentary by Harry Clennon and Philip Brain about the 1986 murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. It gives context for who Palme was, sets out the events as clearly as is possible, and presents the three leading theories for who killed him.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:54 AM on November 6, 2023 (11 comments)

As a fan of crunchy rawk, weird sci-fi and hideously cool haircuts, After Destruction, the newish music video by the Mexican band Descates a Kant, basically plunged a big hypodermic needle of joy directly into my black, shriveled heart. If there was an ass-kicking rock number in The Fifth Element, it would be this. The band's even newer follow-up, Raindrops of Poison, is only slightly less fantastic. Goodbye, User!
posted to MetaFilter by Ursula Hitler at 5:08 PM on October 10, 2023 (20 comments)

Proposition: We should consider lowering the waiting time for new posts on the blue from one day to 12 hours.
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 10:47 AM on October 10, 2023 (133 comments)

"There is a long inspiring pedagogical tradition in physics of putting everything into one log-log plot... We then make the most comprehensive pedagogical plot of the masses and sizes of all the objects in the Universe."
posted to MetaFilter by They sucked his brains out! at 3:12 AM on September 22, 2023 (20 comments)

Mixie and Munchie are 2girls1bottl3 on TikTok. The premise: Munchie has a snack while Mixie makes an elaborate boozy drink, which is then shared. Without a word of dialogue. In fact there is no monetization, no names, nothing more. Often the pair are wearing the fast food uniform, or glam, or not, and while the setting is usually just a booth at a fast food joint, the location is often completely different countries. After a viral tweet Nicolaia Rips attempts to get to the bottom of it all in The Face.
posted to MetaFilter by zenon at 4:02 PM on September 20, 2023 (87 comments)

A search index for the very-NSFW web comic Oglaf. On Mastodon, Esther talks about how she built it. [previousliest]
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn at 6:27 PM on September 18, 2023 (55 comments)

The origins of Granada's resplendent Mezquita Mayor. The Mezquita Mayor of the Spanish city of Granada traces its beginnings to a curious meeting on Portobello Road in London, on the very same day in 1975 that Francisco Franco died.
posted to MetaFilter by rabia.elizabeth at 10:08 AM on September 16, 2023 (5 comments)

There once was a band called XTC. This is their story. This Is Pop [1h13m, 2017].
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 6:53 AM on September 13, 2023 (41 comments)

Honeycomb Hotel (gameplay video) is a traditional logic puzzle: given a honeycomb of 7, 19, or 37 cells, determine which icon should appear in each cell, and which nonbranching path connects every cell. There are ~65000 different puzzles, each with only one right answer. Clues are simple ones like "Mouse is in the same diagonal as Tulip" or "there's a wall between Cherry and Cat," but graphical: from these individual clues you solve the entire puzzle. Solving shows a brief animation of bees flying around, like in Solitaire. No time limit, no storyline, no microtransactions, only pick-up-and-play logic puzzles by Everett Kaser, one of the nearly 40 different logic games he has made since 1991:
posted to MetaFilter by one for the books at 8:08 AM on September 12, 2023 (7 comments)

The Bees of Childeric I "The 27th May 1653 likely started as any other for mason Adrien Quinquin. A man working on a construction site in Tournai, modern-day Belgium, he was several feet under the ground swinging his pickaxe when he hit something unusual. A glint of gold shimmered up at him. After gathering the attention of nearby people, the rest of Quinquin’s hole was dug up. Inside was a real treasure trove: human bones, hundreds of silver coins, a highly decorated sword and scabbard, and many more gold items including buckles, rings and brooches. Key for us, there were also 300 little bees made from gold. " [via]
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 7:03 AM on September 11, 2023 (13 comments)

a 3D reconstruction of the capital of the Aztec Empire The year is 1518. Mexico-Tenochtitlan, once an unassuming settlement in the middle of Lake Texcoco, now a bustling metropolis. It is the capital of an empire ruling over, and receiving tribute from, more than 5 million people. Tenochtitlan is home to 200.000 farmers, artisans, merchants, soldiers, priests and aristocrats. At this time, it is one of the largest cities in the world. Today, we call this city Ciudad de Mexico - Mexico City. Not much is left of the old Aztec - or Mexica - capital Tenochtitlan. What did this city, raised from the lake bed by hand, look like? Using historical and archeological sources, and the expertise of many, I have tried to faithfully bring this iconic city to life.
posted to MetaFilter by aniola at 9:25 PM on September 3, 2023 (31 comments)

Apparently the "infectious" choreography for Jungle's "Back on 74" has been going viral on TikTok, with everyone from the international touring cast of West Side Story to Emily Ratajkowski getting in on the trend, but I learned about it from this LA Times interview with Shay Latukolan, the choreographer, who has previously lent his talents to videos for Rosalía's "SAOKO" and Stormzy's "Vossi Bop".
posted to MetaFilter by sigmagalator at 12:30 AM on August 31, 2023 (11 comments)

Maybe it started with this viral French telecom ad (you don't need the subtitles), but we're halfway through the World Cup going on in Australia and New Zealand. The group stage is over, and the round of 16 begins this weekend...
posted to MetaFilter by Superilla at 10:53 AM on August 4, 2023 (52 comments)

The Zenith Space Command , one of the first wireless television remotes ever to exist, is a monument to a time before we took the remote for granted. It also just so happened to contain one of the most influential and intriguing buttons in history.
posted to MetaFilter by brundlefly at 2:34 PM on July 30, 2023 (77 comments)

Vini Reilly on PTSD, life on the streets and the little girl who saved him. "Reilly is incredibly softly spoken. Despite my efforts to catch every word, sometimes the gentle gusts of wind whisk them away. At times he speaks so quietly, it’s as if he has swallowed his words before he can let them out. The twittering birds are louder than our conversation but it creates a moment of blissful synchronicity, recalling one of Reilly’s most beloved, enduring and songbird-punctuated pieces of music: Sketch for Summer. In his first interview in a decade, the Durutti Column’s hermit-like leader, once described as ‘the best guitarist in the world’, relives his extraordinary life from Manchester gangs to Factory Records."
posted to MetaFilter by Thella at 3:07 AM on July 25, 2023 (9 comments)

A parallel universe. South Texas. A third border wall might be erected between the United States and Mexico, narcotics are legal and there’s a new contraband on the market: filtered animals―species of animals brought back from extinction to amuse the very wealthy. Esteban Bellacosa has lived in the border town of MacArthur long enough to know to keep quiet and avoid the dangerous syndicates who make their money through trafficking. But his simple life gets complicated after a swashbuckling journalist invites him to an underground dinner at which filtered animals are served. Bellacosa soon finds himself in the middle of an increasingly perilous and surreal journey, in the course of which he encounters legends of the long-disappeared Aranaña Indian tribe and their object of worship: the mysterious Trufflepig, said to possess strange powers.
posted to FanFare by Literaryhero at 6:29 PM on July 19, 2023 (3 comments)

The human body has around 30 trillion cells. The vigintillion is a cardinal number represented in the US by 1 followed by 63 zeros, and in the UK by 1 followed by 120 zeros. Before this post, there were 325 (5x5x13) posts which contained 'potato' and 2522 (2x13x97) wich contained 'cat'. A bajillion is a huge number. Rayo's number was claimed to be the largest named number. If you could stack $44 billion in $100 bills, it'd be 30 miles high. Some populations are huge, but others less so. The Eddington number, the number of protons in the observable universe, is currently estimated to be 10 to the power of 80. Even 200,000 is a big number.
posted to MetaFilter by Wordshore at 8:46 AM on July 16, 2023 (44 comments)

Listen to live air traffic control radio mixed with lofi hip hop
posted to MetaFilter by thatwhichfalls at 11:07 AM on July 12, 2023 (27 comments)

Ancient giants "An epic quest to reach the tallest known tree in the Amazon"
posted to MetaFilter by dhruva at 9:33 AM on July 11, 2023 (3 comments)

Science nerds in the Netherlands have observed local corvids building bird nests out of anti-bird spikes [PDF], which creates extremely punk homes for their eggs out of the hostile architectural features that are also quite effective at deterring predators.
posted to MetaFilter by autopilot at 9:03 AM on July 11, 2023 (28 comments)

A digital archive of graphic design related items that are available on the Internet Archives This collection is compiled and curated by Valery Marier. It is a labour of love ran in her free time.
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 12:17 PM on June 27, 2023 (13 comments)

The 1970s Librarians Who Revolutionized the Challenge of Search
posted to MetaFilter by box at 10:28 AM on June 7, 2023 (7 comments)

i would like to respectfully ask the community to please consider placing some textual warnings in FPP text when linking directly to websites that will lead to interaction with chatGPT or similar machine-learning systems.
posted to MetaTalk by glonous keming at 6:15 AM on May 12, 2023 (195 comments)

What are the best resources to explain how these new language model AIs work? The intended audience (me!) has familiarity with computer science and programming, but no domain expertise in machine learning. Any materials for general audiences would also be appreciated.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by leotrotsky at 3:15 PM on May 5, 2023 (9 comments)

Going to Barcelona (yay!). Help me pre-game with novels, poetry, TV, movies, pop music, whatever in Catalan (in translation/subtitled).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by latkes at 9:59 AM on April 21, 2023 (6 comments)

An eclipse, the heart of a supernova, rockets up and down the gravity well, and more missions. Here's a snapshot of humanity's exploration of space in April 2023.
posted to MetaFilter by doctornemo at 1:33 PM on April 16, 2023 (23 comments)

Internet lore tells us the story of Cheapass Games, founded by prolific gamemaker James Ernest in 1996. Their gimmick was, they printed small and cheap games, sold in small folders, that came with rules and maybe a board and cards. You would then supply all the other parts yourself: tokens, dice, play money, playing cards and other commonly-available parts that you could scavenge from other board games you might have lying around. In 2020, Ernest reentered the publishing industry with Crab Fragment Labs, offering an array of both pay-what-you-want-to-print and paid-for-physical products: card games, board games, quick-playing and easy-to-learn pub games, solitaire games and a wide assortment of the best of the old Cheapass Games, in Cheapassic Park.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 3:47 AM on April 14, 2023 (20 comments)