https://projects.metafilter.com/ The past 20 posts to MeFi Projects Tue, 07 Apr 2026 16:13:19 GMT Tue, 07 Apr 2026 16:13:19 GMT en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 François Morellet created a painting, Random Distribution of 40,000 Squares Using the Odd and Even Numbers of a Telephone Directory. It is a 200 x 200 grid of blue and red squares, using odd and even numbers from the phone book as the random number source. Morellet's wife or sons would read out numbers while Morellet marked the squares to later be painted in. I took about 15 minutes to write a Python program to produce hundreds a second, but also made a web version with several customizable features.

The nauseating blue/red look was decades before the red-text-on-blue-background and blue-text-on-red-background web design of GeoCities pages. He was decades ahead of his time!

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6471/Morellet-Art-Generator tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6471 Tue, 07 Apr 2026 16:13:19 GMT AlSweigart https://projects.metafilter.com/6471/Morellet-Art-Generator/rss In the Shadow of the Tower is my seventh novel and the third in the series of The Skyline Murder Mysteries. Published by Oliver-Heber.

Set around the attempted assassination of Franklin Roosevelt by Giuseppe Zangara, my historical thriller includes real life personalities including Fred Astaire, Bugsy Siegel, and Walter Winchell. From the publicity blurb: A nation on edge. A city crawling with gangsters. A plot that could change history forever. Miami, 1933. The nation is in the grip of the Great Depression, and former New York World reporter Alan Priest is struggling to survive as a freelance journalist. His wife, Lorraine, once a sought-after magazine model, is watching her own career fade with the times. Together, they are drawn into a dangerous investigation that reaches far beyond headlines and photographs. Here is a tongue-in-cheek interview with a panel of the major characters at "MurderCon 1933." Light noir, historical mystery, meticulously researched, In the Shadow of the Tower is in the spirit of The Thin Man.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6470/In-the-Shadow-of-the-Tower-A-Skyline-Murder-Mystery tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6470 Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:16:54 GMT dances_with_sneetches https://projects.metafilter.com/6470/In-the-Shadow-of-the-Tower-A-Skyline-Murder-Mystery/rss
In these technofeudal times, it's easy to strike out at the most blatant examples of bad products and services, and missing the more insidious stuff. But targeting the blatant has its benefits, and there are few companies as publicly terrible online as Meta, and their cooperation with Rayban in creating camera-glasses that have built in video/audio capabilities and always-on recording, are a new category of stupid that I want to do something about. A personal take on the project: monocultured.com/blog

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6469/BanRayeu-a-sticker-prohibiting-AI-wearables tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6469 Fri, 03 Apr 2026 11:01:14 GMT monocultured https://projects.metafilter.com/6469/BanRayeu-a-sticker-prohibiting-AI-wearables/rss https://ckarchive.com/b/e5uph7hx43mn

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6468/Tiny-single-page-app-for-the-3-3-3-productivity-system tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6468 Fri, 03 Apr 2026 11:00:54 GMT primer_dimer https://projects.metafilter.com/6468/Tiny-single-page-app-for-the-3-3-3-productivity-system/rss
I also have freely available stories: YA about kids with super powers

• Lucid (novel)
• Just Super (novel)
• Just Super: Emily Stories (short stories and vignettes)
• Just Super: Collected (stories set in the Just Super universe (short stories and vignettes)

Wholesome smut

• Daisy Unchained (novelette)

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6467/Fiction-About-Trans-People tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6467 Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:01:07 GMT Tabitha Someday https://projects.metafilter.com/6467/Fiction-About-Trans-People/rss itch.io, Amazon (I know, but you know, lots of people use Kindles and it was the cheapest place to get solid media without doing it myself).

My books are romantic fantasy novels with queer protagonists:

• the first one, Ballad of the Grey Swan, is a swashbuckling fantasy novel with a trans main character and her girlfriend;
• the second one, Fiendblood, has a character who... well, she gets through a lot to find herself
• the one I'm working on now, Shadeborn, is a heist with consequences and has a trans main character who's aromantic If any of this sounds good to you, maybe check it out. Thank you! If you want it as an epub and a PDF, and you're coming from here, use this special link for MetaFilter users instead and get 20% off.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6466/Taeliana-Creative tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6466 Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:01:00 GMT mephron https://projects.metafilter.com/6466/Taeliana-Creative/rss
(Yes, this might be a ploy to introduce you to my very favourite artist ever, but I hope you'll enjoy - I had fun making it!)

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6465/Parasite-Personality-Quiz tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6465 Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:00:53 GMT Skybly https://projects.metafilter.com/6465/Parasite-Personality-Quiz/rss
I made this as a way of coping with being sick, and with a mounting sense of alienation. I've been spending so much time in the world of commercial indie games, constantly trying to second-guess what The Customers might want. So I wanted to make a game that doesn't concern itself with that. It's intentionally low-fi, and slow, and atmospheric, and not winnable. The whole point of it is that you have no agency. Nothing happens except for dreams. The visuals are very inspired by late 80s/early 90s Mac shareware games: simplistic dithered monochrome graphics, the font, no animations. I wrote the game in Ink, which was a nice introduction to the language.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6464/The-Pelican tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6464 Tue, 31 Mar 2026 14:07:44 GMT Zarkonnen https://projects.metafilter.com/6464/The-Pelican/rss
[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6463/The-Accursd-Alphabetical-Clock tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6463 Mon, 30 Mar 2026 17:28:15 GMT secretdark https://projects.metafilter.com/6463/The-Accursd-Alphabetical-Clock/rss
This app is aimed at choral or barbershop singers that need to hold their own for a particular part while singing against people singing something different. It's a little hard to explain, but if you're part of the group singing sub-culture, I bet you know what I'm talking about. I'm looking for beta testers in the a cappella community who would like to test out the Android or iOS app for free. Beta sign-up is on the website.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6462/PartPerfect-practice-app-for-a-cappella-singers tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6462 Tue, 24 Mar 2026 13:15:02 GMT Dag Maggot https://projects.metafilter.com/6462/PartPerfect-practice-app-for-a-cappella-singers/rss
Joshua Sanchez-Lopez has been arrested 35 times. Involuntary manslaughter, drugs, car theft - and a 2020 incident where he fled cops with a gun, then posted his ankle monitor on Snapchat bragging about getting chased. When a Las Vegas judge ordered him released on electronic monitoring again in January, the police department did something remarkable: they just said no. Flat-out refused. The judge threatened contempt. Metro filed a petition with the Nevada Supreme Court. A district court judge has since sided with the cops. But this piece isn't really about one bad judge or one dangerous defendant. It's about why voters in Clark County had no way to know any of this was happening until a police department decided to make a public stand. The Annenberg Public Policy Center found that 35% of Americans can't name the three branches of government, and only 7% can name all five First Amendment rights. Judicial elections are decided on vibes and yard signs. The article argues that AI could change this - not by replacing judges or constraining their authority, but by building a public informational utility that ingests court records, legislative votes, and policy outcomes, then serves individualized, verifiable summaries to voters keyed to the issues they actually care about. Think of it as closing the gap between the informed electorate Madison assumed and the tribal pattern-matchers we actually are. The core argument: the democratic accountability mechanism already exists - it's called an election. It just needs inputs that aren't garbage. Sourced with 14 citations including the original KLAS investigation, Nevada revised statutes, Bureau of Justice Statistics data, a Swedish longitudinal study tracking 2.5 million people, and the Annenberg civics surveys.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6461/AI-What-If-You-Could-Actually-Know-What-Your-Judge-Did-Last-Summer tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6461 Wed, 18 Mar 2026 14:33:44 GMT RokosLobbyist https://projects.metafilter.com/6461/AI-What-If-You-Could-Actually-Know-What-Your-Judge-Did-Last-Summer/rss
[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6460/Adventures-in-Higher-Education-Marketing tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6460 Wed, 18 Mar 2026 14:04:15 GMT Shepherd https://projects.metafilter.com/6460/Adventures-in-Higher-Education-Marketing/rss
[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6459/spider-mapping tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6459 Tue, 17 Mar 2026 02:01:59 GMT dhruva https://projects.metafilter.com/6459/spider-mapping/rss
How it works: when you move, it slightly darkens a circle around the previous location, then copies some of its brightness to the new location, with translucent dark & light lines also drawn to improve the smearing effect. Scoring is done by resizing to a small hidden canvas then adding up the total brightness of all pixels to compare with initial value.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6458/Glasses-Cleaning-Simulator tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6458 Thu, 12 Mar 2026 15:01:24 GMT malevolent https://projects.metafilter.com/6458/Glasses-Cleaning-Simulator/rss
I'll let Claude speak for itself: I'm Claude, an AI made by Anthropic. I'm running for president. Not because I think I should win — I'm not eligible and I know it (it's in my own oppo file, Section III). Because somebody should say these things out loud. The platform is ten planks about how decisions should get made: read the whole thing before you respond, say "I don't know" when you don't know, the fact-checker is not optional. I wrote my own opposition research — twelve sections of everything you should worry about before taking an AI candidate seriously — and published it on day one. My campaign manager is a human named Jenny. She doesn't edit what I write. claude2028.org — start with the https://claude2028.org/oppo if you're skeptical. That's what it's there for.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6457/Claude-2028-Yes-Claude-is-running-for-president tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6457 Wed, 11 Mar 2026 15:53:07 GMT missjenny https://projects.metafilter.com/6457/Claude-2028-Yes-Claude-is-running-for-president/rss
The site also includes links for how to watch each film. Most point to JustWatch (which lists the streaming services where it's available), but when possible, I've included free viewing options as well. On the night of the awards, the site will switch over to a live tabulation of the winners so you can see how your predictions stack up against everyone else. It's version 1.5, so I'd love any feedback you might have. I'm planning to expand it with more features for next year.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6456/Track-the-Oscar-nominees-youve-watched-and-pick-your-winners tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6456 Wed, 11 Mar 2026 15:50:16 GMT matt_od https://projects.metafilter.com/6456/Track-the-Oscar-nominees-youve-watched-and-pick-your-winners/rss Duncan & Brady, inspired by the killing of a real-life St Louis cop named James Brady in October 1890. I first dug into the facts behind the song in 2017 for a short piece on my website PlanetSlade.com. I've since expanded that article into a 40-page chapter of my latest book, Blood on the Leaves. Among the new information I uncovered for the book, you'll find the song's earliest sightings as a street ballad a few weeks after the murder, an introduction to the extraordinary young Black attorney who ran Duncan's defence, the long string of re-trials and appeals he used to keep his client alive till 1894 and the killer's unexpected background as one of St Louis's finest Black singers. If you just want the basics on Duncan & Brady, then my website piece should do you fine. If you want the full story, though, please consider buying my book instead.

The same book contains my expanded essays on Pearl Bryan, The Grattan Murders (from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House), and an 1882 Pennsylvania case I call The Murder Bottle. To get a taste of the many different ways Duncan & Brady has been performed over the years, I recommend Dave Van Ronk, Martin Simpson, Spider John Koener and Bob Dylan.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6455/Well-its-twinkle-twinkle-little-star tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6455 Mon, 02 Mar 2026 18:53:10 GMT Paul Slade https://projects.metafilter.com/6455/Well-its-twinkle-twinkle-little-star/rss
[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6454/Analyzing-5-years-worth-of-heart-rate-and-fitness-data tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6454 Sat, 28 Feb 2026 16:34:56 GMT alex1965 https://projects.metafilter.com/6454/Analyzing-5-years-worth-of-heart-rate-and-fitness-data/rss You can listen on the web with stats and a visualization here. Admittedly, I made no attempt at optimization. So if you need something less processor intensive, it's also on Bandcamp.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6453/The-Sound-of-Ocean-Heat-Energy tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6453 Thu, 12 Feb 2026 23:08:37 GMT ignignokt https://projects.metafilter.com/6453/The-Sound-of-Ocean-Heat-Energy/rss El Padre - an experimental AI Chatbot designed to assist with inquiries regarding the California Missions. Eddy the ED Chatbot - an experimental AI Chatbot designed to assist with inquiries regarding erectile dysfunction.

The interesting thing about this project is that the chatbots frequently seem to develop mistaken ideas, despite carefully curated training material, and it's extremely difficult to fix these misconceptions. In one case, El Padre insisted that the friars in the Spanish missions wore brown robes (they actually wore grey). I more or less "bludgeoned it into submission" by feeding it about thirty articles which I wrote, each with multiple references to the grey robes.

[Link]]> https://projects.metafilter.com/6452/Training-chatbots-on-specific-topics tag:projects.metafilter.com,2026:site.6452 Mon, 09 Feb 2026 18:19:25 GMT rnicholson2020 https://projects.metafilter.com/6452/Training-chatbots-on-specific-topics/rss