What's old is new

June 10, 2012 6:36 PM

While cleaning out the attic today I came across a big stack of National Geographics. I was browsing through some of them and noticed this FPP was covered in 1988, and this FPP was covered in 1989.

Most of the pictures on Eric's site were included in the full article, one of them is on the cover. It was really cool to compare the high-quality internet versions of the '88 prints and read the accompanying story. Interestingly, nothing was mentioned about the sought-after intoxicating effects of the grayanotoxin in the honey. In fact, the article claimed that the hunters tested for tainted honey and discarded it, and it also had a bit about careless villagers being found dead from eating untested honey.

When I read the original FPP I didn't get the sense that the photos were that age, so it was particularly touching to read that the main subject was retiring from his lifelong job of collecting honey that very season, None of his sons were interested in learning the craft, and he suspected the art would be lost.

posted by odinsdream to MetaFilter-Related at 6:36 PM (17 comments total)

The "magic blue glitter" FPP was really superb, I thought.

The discussion was intensely interesting for its stories and links, and I remember wishing at the time that it had kept going.
posted by jamjam at 7:16 PM on June 10, 2012

I joined Metafilter in 1987, so I remember that those stories were actually posted back then, in the pre-Internet days. Back then, when you made a post, it would take several days before anybody would comment on it, because you had to submit comments by mail, or, if the comment was especially important, you could send it UPS. Occasionally somebody would submit a really offensive or inappropriate comment, and Jessamyn would delete it, a week or two later.
posted by twoleftfeet at 9:27 PM on June 10, 2012 [5 favorites]

Wasn't Metafilter, at one point, actually physically located on a real bulletin board, because you were all living in the dorms together?

It is pretty neat that you found these, odinsdream. I would like to have been able to find the original articles online, but I didn't dig deep enough. The photos do have that NatGeo quality I remember from the barbershop of my childhood.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:32 PM on June 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Wasn't Metafilter, at one point, actually physically located on a real bulletin board, because you were all living in the dorms together?

As I understand it, Metafilter began as a way for people who were living in the dormitories or fraternity houses to communicate with each and network. Matt actually invented Facebook. Unfortunately he was going to Portland Community College at the time, and some other guy at some other college ran away with his idea.
posted by twoleftfeet at 9:35 PM on June 10, 2012

And it was made into a movie called Weird Science.
posted by Brocktoon at 9:58 PM on June 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

And it was made into a movie called Weird Science.

AskMe: From my heart and from my hands why don't people understand my intentions?
posted by The Whelk at 10:14 PM on June 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Before the Internet, I used to participate in AskMe by writing down questions and answers to other people's hypothetical questions and then corking them up into bottles and floating them out into the Atlantic Ocean. It was a tedious process and this is much easier, but sometimes I really miss those old, involved days of AskMe.
posted by onlyconnect at 5:45 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Gah, unevolved, not involved!
posted by onlyconnect at 5:45 AM on June 11, 2012

Until now (thanks, wikipedia), I'd forgotten that Robert Downey Jr was one of the bullies in Weird Science. Tony Stark: the Wonder Years.
posted by octobersurprise at 5:58 AM on June 11, 2012

twoleftfeet: "I joined Metafilter in 1987, so I remember that those stories were actually posted back then, in the pre-Internet days. Back then, when you made a post, it would take several days before anybody would comment on it, because you had to submit comments by mail, or, if the comment was especially important, you could send it UPS. Occasionally somebody would submit a really offensive or inappropriate comment, and Jessamyn would delete it, a week or two later."

I was a so-called "5 Shilling Noub" back in 1687, when MetaFilter was operated out of a London cafe called Matthew Haughey's Coffee-House. The site was displayed on three massive chalkboards, with the day's posts listed at the top of the board and comments added by the moderators below. Back in those days, paper coffee filters were quite flimsy, so if you wanted to brew a really strong pot, you had to use a brass mesh filter -- which were kind of a pain to clean. If the comments were coming in fast and furious on a certain post or two, the proprietor knew that his patrons would be there long into the night, and so old Matt would call out to his brewmasters, "It's a metal filter day, chaps!" This was of course shortened to "Metal filter!" and then corrupted over the years to MetaFilter.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:15 AM on June 11, 2012 [12 favorites]

Matt actually invented Facebook. Unfortunately he was going to Portland Community College at the time, and some other guy at some other college ran away with his idea.

Similar story with pb's file sharing network (you've probably heard of it). Unfortunately, everything came to a head when he had a small run-in with the authorities.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 10:51 AM on June 11, 2012

Rock Steady:I was a so-called "5 Shilling Noub" back in 1687...

It's argued by some scholars that the filter of Metafilter actually refers to the way that the light passing through leaves and branches of the World Tree created an ever shifting and growing map of the entirety of knowledge in all of the worlds and the relationship of individual bits of information. There have been a few changes from the original, the most notable differences being: the raising of the price to join from one eye to five dollars and the addition of a water cooler in the staff break room to replace the original jug of skáldskapar mjaðar that was destroyed in the mid 1990s by a fire started by a disgruntled former employee of an insurance company that had offices in the same building.
posted by Gygesringtone at 3:49 PM on June 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

In the beginning, metafilter was separated from the void and born into existence when the plate of beans considered itself.
posted by The Whelk at 4:04 PM on June 11, 2012

"vasopressors and other agents are used to mitigate symptoms." It just got steam punk
posted by Brocktoon at 6:50 PM on June 11, 2012

twoleftfeet: "Occasionally somebody would submit a really offensive or inappropriate comment, and Jessamyn would delete it, a week or two later."

To be fair, it took so long because she had to visit every member's house and take back the comment physically.
posted by dg at 7:14 PM on June 11, 2012

It just got awkward.
posted by Brocktoon at 7:38 PM on June 11, 2012

Cool stuff is cool stuff. It tends to wander among media as new pockets of people discover and re-interpret it.
posted by Miko at 9:50 PM on June 11, 2012