https://projects.metafilter.com/ The past 20 posts to MeFi Projects Wed, 15 Jul 2026 14:03:57 GMT Wed, 15 Jul 2026 14:03:57 GMT en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60
Note for my fellow spreadsheet nerds: the drag handle on the current cell automatically fills down with relocalized formulas, but you can't drag/drop it, unfortunately. You can also use the ( and ) operators to stash stack values and restore them later (e.g., Grand total: ( A:A + ) . pushes "Grand" and "total:" onto the stack, stashes them for later, adds up all cells in column A, then restores the labels underneath the sum and prints the joined values to the cell).

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6505/Cell-Culture tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6505 Wed, 15 Jul 2026 14:03:57 GMT Four String Riot https://projects.metafilter.com/6505/Cell-Culture/rss
Our first idea was to mount a regular exterior screen door inside, but after further thought we realized it would be shredded by the cats. We also have an older house with odd door sizes so I would have had to build filler panels or something to use an off-the-shelf screen door anyway. I decided to build a basic frame out of butt-jointed 2X4s which were screwed and glued together in a rectangular frame. I then cut a sheet of cedar lattice to fit the inside of the frame and added little wooden cleats to secure the lattice to the frame. I'd strongly advise using 2X6es for the uprights rather than 2X4s, the 2X4s were too narrow to allow proper installation of a standard lock set. I made no attempt at fine carpentry here - this will hopefully be just a temporary installation until cat harmony rings throughout the land. Materials cost about $80. Also note- most of the available lattice was pressure treated wood which is toxic to animals. Only use cedar or untreated woods.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6504/Building-a-Cat-Integration-Door tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6504 Sat, 11 Jul 2026 02:16:04 GMT Larry David Syndrome https://projects.metafilter.com/6504/Building-a-Cat-Integration-Door/rss page: all it's doing is taking a password and then showing some text and images and some links to PDFs. What if I... took apart the app and made it into a static site generator? What if I used my reverse-engineering skills... to subvert "app culture", one app at a time?

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6503/I-got-so-sick-of-app-culture-that-I-subverted-it tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6503 Thu, 09 Jul 2026 21:21:18 GMT avapoet https://projects.metafilter.com/6503/I-got-so-sick-of-app-culture-that-I-subverted-it/rss
[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6502/rubber-duck tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6502 Thu, 09 Jul 2026 14:47:40 GMT vert canard https://projects.metafilter.com/6502/rubber-duck/rss "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?", a speech delivered by Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. Like the copy of Martin Luther King Jr's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" at LetterFromJail.com, this website acts a resource for accessing the direct text of a civil rights activist's words.

A lot of web design considerations came up while I was making this. I wanted the text to be complete and accurate, but also have pull quotes to break up the walls of text. I made a few corrections found in the multiple source texts I consulted. I've added several Wikipedia links to figures, events, and Bible passages mentioned in the speech. I wanted it to look good on desktop and mobile, and chose a sans serif font to give Douglass's words a modern look. I added social media share buttons and a link to a PDF version. The printer version of the site removes a lot of the unnecessary website cruft. The entire site fits on a single page, with an intro and FAQ at the top for SEO purposes. Each paragraph has a permalink for direct linking as well as a "Copy to Clipboard" button. The full speech can also be copied to the clipboard with a single click of the "Copy Speech to Clipboard" link. The two portrait images of Douglass are from Wikipedia, one from his younger years and the other from his senior years, and they've been shrunk and converted to webp to trim their file size. Alt tags have been added to the images. The entire site weight is 146kb. I create a sitemap.xml and robots.txt file to direct search engines to index the page, and a GitHub repo allows people to submit changes.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6501/WhatToTheSlaveIsThe4thOfJulycom tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6501 Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:57:56 GMT AlSweigart https://projects.metafilter.com/6501/WhatToTheSlaveIsThe4thOfJulycom/rss A Book Of Small Science Fiction is a little book that contains 181 short (often very short) science fiction stories, one written every day so far this year (up to June 30th). You can read a selection of them here, or download the book (as 50 page, 15000 word pdf) here.

I wrote these rather than keeping a diary this year, so there's no continuity between tales, no structural choices in the placement of the stories. They're all just presented in the order they were written, day after day after day. (Which means there's some slight repetitions here that could probably have been condensed into one, and couple of others that would probably have been better off left on the page of my notebook entirely, but I've included all of them as a commitment to the project). The second part, containing 184 small stories, will be released at the end of the year (if I manage to keep up writing one every day to an acceptable standard (which hopefully i will)).

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6500/A-Book-Of-Small-Science-Fiction tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6500 Sat, 04 Jul 2026 20:43:14 GMT dng https://projects.metafilter.com/6500/A-Book-Of-Small-Science-Fiction/rss
The index currently only contains 20 months of data, is not meant to keep up with the chain tip, as the classification algorithms take quit a bit of CPU time to run. I'm currently backfilling the data to The Merge.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6499/Browse-the-Ethereum-Blockchain-by-execution-structure tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6499 Tue, 30 Jun 2026 01:51:25 GMT Stu-Pendous https://projects.metafilter.com/6499/Browse-the-Ethereum-Blockchain-by-execution-structure/rss
[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6498/Babel-Nexus-A-public-domain-repository-for-books-with-reading-trails-and-hexagonal-galleries tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6498 Sun, 28 Jun 2026 03:25:01 GMT NishanStepak https://projects.metafilter.com/6498/Babel-Nexus-A-public-domain-repository-for-books-with-reading-trails-and-hexagonal-galleries/rss
By treating a cryptic poem on a 1614 tomb as a potential riddle, I followed a trail of clues that led to a nearby chapel, an obscure Kentish MP named Edward Master, and a web of unexpected literary connections. I've mapped out this archival detective story—including a side-by-side handwriting analysis using modern AI tools—and I'd love to hear what any history buffs, codebreakers, or genealogists think of the path I followed.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6497/I-Know-What-Happened-to-Christopher-Marlowe tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6497 Tue, 23 Jun 2026 15:15:27 GMT iotic https://projects.metafilter.com/6497/I-Know-What-Happened-to-Christopher-Marlowe/rss The Museum Of Everyday Items (to be renamed The Museum Of Obsolete Objects in 2066) is a small collection of common yet otherwise unremarkable artefacts from contemporary Britain. All items were collected on June 23rd, 2016, at the moment of their use. A diary of the day kept by the curator of the museum places the items in their appropriate historical context. There are 36 objects in The Museum Of Everyday Items. These items were kept in storage until June 2026, when they were photographed and catalogued for the opening of the museum on June 23rd, 2026. A handful of contemporary notes were added to each item which reflect the curator's current thoughts rather than those of the day in question. Further observations on the items will be recorded on June 23rd, 2036, and at ten year intervals ever after, or at least until the curator forgets and/or dies.

The primary purpose of The Museum of Everyday Items is simply to provide a permanent record of some the artefacts we use and encounter in a relatively normal day, and present them in a way which reflects their prevalence in everyday living. Of course even here, having collected items such as food packaging and receipts which would normally be discarded, there are still many omissions (clothes, crockery, cutlery, are all conspicuous by their absence). But still, I think keeping (and in displaying here, actually looking at) items such as cash machine receipts and carrier bags is interesting, at least on some level. A secondary idea behind this was the thought of telling the story of a day in its entirety. Even now in an environment of near ubiquitous social media coverage of every aspect of our lives, we pick out moments to share, shorn largely of context (or even, perhaps most often, with the context purposely obscured or misrepresented entirely). This museum therefore presents a day as a day, each artefact here presented as evidence of the reality of the attached narrative [#036]. Thirdly, I've always been interested in how, while the objects themselves don't change, our perceptions of them do. This is often clearest in old photos, where what was once the subject of the photo (the people in it, usually) becomes less interesting over time, while the background itself achieves the reverse and becomes endlessly fascinating. Old furniture, wallpaper, the clothes worn, technology, toys, shop signs, adverts. All the things that were transitory, momentary. So here we get a snapshot of 2016 where all the things are items from that periphery. Receipts from shops that no longer exist, items that have either become or are becoming obsolete through changing consumer habits (CDs, newspapers) or legislative changes (carrier bags) or simply the passing of time (actual paper £5 notes). And through it all still the reassuring ever unchanging presence of Tunnocks Tea Cakes.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6496/The-Museum-of-Everyday-Items tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6496 Tue, 23 Jun 2026 15:15:12 GMT dng https://projects.metafilter.com/6496/The-Museum-of-Everyday-Items/rss
I made a summary post that links to each of my more in-depth posts. I also provide a one-page summary PDF and an easy-to-share image to help people take the guide to the polls; I distributed a paper version at a weekly in-person outreach table I run. This is the third time I've written up local election recommendations (I did this for the primary and the general elections last year). For this election I expanded to covering some more kinds of races, and one of them -- State Senate District 13 -- is incredibly controversial, and I spent a lot of time trying to cover all the nuances. I don't think there's any other non-paywalled source that collates the New York City Bar Association, LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York, and Queens County Bar Association evaluations of the candidates in the Queens judicial election. I also met some of the candidates for several races and incorporated my impressions of them into my recommendations. In one case I even filed a Freedom of Information request to get more info about a candidate as part of my research. Overall I did significantly more research for this election than for previous ones.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6495/Hyperlocal-primary-election-recommendations-for-part-of-Queens-NYC tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6495 Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:43:22 GMT brainwane https://projects.metafilter.com/6495/Hyperlocal-primary-election-recommendations-for-part-of-Queens-NYC/rss kunstschule.wien, explores the tension between one's own perception of the body and how others see it.

My Body is a Foreign Object Photo credit for all photos: Simon Spitzer. This work, created for my diploma at kunstschule.wien, explores the tension between one's own perception of the body and how others see it. It consists of a life-size self-portrait set against a background that illustrates how I perceive my body. By using myself as a model and comparing myself, during the creative process, with the three-dimensional form I had created, I was forced to confront my own, divergent inner perception of my body. I realised just how alien my own body feels to me. The books incorporated into the background collage and the handmade paper of the top layer – the 'skin' – played a formative role in my youth: C. Ransmayr, Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis. Brandstätter, Vienna/Munich 1984; C. Ransmayr, Morbus Kitahara. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1995; G. García Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude, Aufbau-Verlag Berlin and Weimar, 1980; G. Heyer, Beauvallet, William Heinemann London, 1929; G. Heyer, Pistols for Two, William Heinemann, London, 1960 I selected the books for the inner, invisible layers of paper and the papier-mâché based on their technical properties: a high cellulose and lignin content, few to no additives; heavy paper, such as that used for book printing in the 1950s to 1970s. Diploma paper on the work

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6494/Mein-fremder-Krper-My-Body-is-a-Foreign-Object tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6494 Fri, 19 Jun 2026 19:39:19 GMT 15L06 https://projects.metafilter.com/6494/Mein-fremder-Krper-My-Body-is-a-Foreign-Object/rss
Frank Doyle was going places. As the only sophomore on his high school's varsity baseball team, he had it all—popularity, an all but certain scholarship, a future. He was somebody. Then he got marked, and lost it all. Sure, the mark gave him the power to teleport (sort of), but it meant he couldn't play baseball, or any other sport. It meant he didn't fit in. It meant he had to transfer to The School where he was just another kid with a power—a nobody. Now he's got no real friends and no real future, and for the last year and a half, he's been making that everyone else's problem. When a stunt gone wrong leaves him trapped in a form that he knows he should hate, his attempts to prove that he hasn't really changed leave him stranded with his worst enemy, far from home. Frank will have to choose between clinging to an identity that never really fit, or facing the consequences, and the future, as herself. Retconned is self-published and available as a paperback or ebook from multiple platforms.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6493/Just-Super-Retconned tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6493 Thu, 18 Jun 2026 01:17:00 GMT Tabitha Someday https://projects.metafilter.com/6493/Just-Super-Retconned/rss
[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6492/I-made-a-divorced-bird-universe tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6492 Thu, 18 Jun 2026 01:16:32 GMT poppypetalmask https://projects.metafilter.com/6492/I-made-a-divorced-bird-universe/rss Hub of Universe is a fish-eye circular map of the whole world with you in the middle. Pan/Zoom. Double click flies anywhere fast.

Fun webtoy I have been working on since I retired. Looks best on bigger screens. Uses the obscure logarithmic azimuthal projection. Source at https://github.com/bitslayer42/hub-of-universe

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6491/Yes-its-true-the-world-does-revolve-around-you tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6491 Wed, 17 Jun 2026 13:22:01 GMT bitslayer https://projects.metafilter.com/6491/Yes-its-true-the-world-does-revolve-around-you/rss
[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6490/Happy-Foot-Sad-Foot-sign-a-Wikipedia-article tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6490 Sat, 06 Jun 2026 05:10:54 GMT dreamyshade https://projects.metafilter.com/6490/Happy-Foot-Sad-Foot-sign-a-Wikipedia-article/rss
I was helping my friend Manuel with a short horror movie last year (about a haunted cassette deck, possessed by a 1960s psychadelic rock icon, who was in turn possessed by Satan). He submitted it to a few film festivals, then we decided to have our own. Details are all at the website, but in a nutshell, we've paid out of pocket to rent a theatre at the local indie cinema for six hours on Saturday, September 26. We're looking for short (ideally under 15 minutes), weird (the sky's the limit), cheap (made for couch change) things to screen. Selection will be lightly biased to people who might be able to make it to the festival to join in the fun, but we accept all comers. Also up at Film Freeway at https://filmfreeway.com/Attackofthe5dollarFilmFestival.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6489/Attack-of-the-5-Film-Festival-Submissions-open tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6489 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 13:56:30 GMT Shepherd https://projects.metafilter.com/6489/Attack-of-the-5-Film-Festival-Submissions-open/rss
A good tournament poster lets you easily see what's ahead and track the current standings. If you image search for "world cup poster" you'll see lots of loud/busy/confusing designs. This poster is meant to be easy to use and eye pleasing. It has a calendar for the group stage and a bracket for the knock-out rounds. Groups are color coded, and there are areas to record group round match results. The poster is big (24"x36" or A1), but that's what you get with a 48 team field. I've been able to print copies on self-serve large format printers for $20. Professional options cost a bit more. I've had good luck with the poster print services at FedEx and Staples. You can scale down to smaller paper, but it gets difficult to fill in. You can go straight to the PDF download page or the instructions or read about the design's history.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6488/A-Useful-Pleasant-Poster-for-Following-the-World-Cup tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6488 Mon, 01 Jun 2026 20:32:23 GMT bruceo https://projects.metafilter.com/6488/A-Useful-Pleasant-Poster-for-Following-the-World-Cup/rss
[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6487/No-Borders-Geography-Quiz tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6487 Wed, 27 May 2026 12:19:23 GMT AlSweigart https://projects.metafilter.com/6487/No-Borders-Geography-Quiz/rss
It started with an Andrew Weatherhead tweet about poetry as a list of horses. It grew into a creative writing project, a database, a tumblr account, and a series of increasingly advanced search tools. Now I am opening my little horse poetry project to the world. Current in open beta so bug reports and suggestions are welcome. The site is currently set to allow posting without admin review so please behave ;)

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6486/poethorse-a-horse-poetry-website tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6486 Mon, 25 May 2026 18:30:13 GMT metaphorever https://projects.metafilter.com/6486/poethorse-a-horse-poetry-website/rss