Big Apple Ed
All sorts of stuff about New York City schools! Test scores, demographics, teacher turnover rates, top ten lists, and about a thousand other things. Search! Compare! Judge ruthlessly!
posted by soma lkzx at 7:55 AM on December 18, 2009 - 1 comment

When I Grow Up, iphone game for little ones
A follow up to our previous preschooler iPhone game. We got some great feedback from MeFi last time, so would love to see how this one goes over. Some thoughts on games for toddlers and some promo codes inside as well.
posted by malphigian at 8:27 AM on December 18, 2009 - 3 comments

Charles Bukowski Postage Stamp Petition
A proposal that the American novelist, poet and screenwriter Charles Bukowski be honored with a commemorative U.S. postal stamp to be issued on March 9, 2014, the twentieth anniversary of his death.
posted by Scram at 8:23 AM on December 10, 2009 - 2 comments

The Secret of Invisibility
My first middle grade novel has been published by Kansas City Star Books! It's the story of a boy who's never noticed by anyone—until a mysterious scroll in his new house leads to him discovering how to become literally invisible. I also illustrated it; some of the drawings are viewable here. THE SECRET OF INVISIBILITY can be purchased here on Amazon.com, or from the Kansas City Star Books website, where I get a slightly higher royalty. It's for kids, but adults will love it, too!
posted by interrobang at 8:40 AM on December 3, 2009 - 4 comments

Wallet Garden - simple protection from ID theft
A free (and kind of pretty) web app, with a really simple goal: help you out if you've lost your wallet. Before you lose your wallet (that's the key part!) you go to Wallet Garden and enter in the customer service phone numbers for the different credit cards in your wallet (or purse). Then, if you lose your wallet while traveling, you have an easy go-to place to find all the numbers you need to call. The holidays are coming up, and you'll probably be traveling. I hope you're able to keep your wallet in your pocket. But for all you perdedors, this will hopefully help you out if you find yourself in a bind.
posted by Alt F4 at 6:11 PM on November 24, 2009 - 8 comments

Seroquel hits the black market.
I've consistently expressed concerns in mental health threads on Mefi about the frequency with which the anti-psychotic medication Seroquel is prescribed off label for minor disorders like insomnia. Now, the drug is turning up on the streets in Philly.
posted by The Straightener at 3:51 PM on October 27, 2009 - 4 comments

"Lock & Key"
I recently completed work on a three-minute documentary for WGBH Lab's Open Call program. "Lock & Key" profiles three women -- poet/bookmaker Sarah Westbrook Binns, playwright and therapist Kelly Dumar, and burlesque poetess Jojo Lazar -- about their diurnal diary habits. I blogged about postproduction here and here. Please help me potentially get aired on WGBH by viewing and rating my video!
posted by pxe2000 at 2:15 PM on November 2, 2009

Put This On
Put This On is a new web series (and website) about men's style for men who want to dress like grownups. I'm the host/producer, Adam Lisagor (aka LonelySandwich) is the director/cinematographer/editor/producer as well as an on-camera contributor. We just finished our first episode, and are looking, eventually, to get some money together to make more.
posted by YoungAmerican at 2:15 PM on November 2, 2009 - 6 comments

Why "Balloon Boy" Never Could Have Been
I've written a very short paper which explains the physics behind helium lifting balloons and why nobody should ever have been worried about "Balloon Boy" Falcon Heene.
posted by alby at 1:17 AM on October 18, 2009 - 13 comments

App idea? There's a page for that. Presenting Notepods.
While working on a larger iPhone app project that will hopefully get posted here in a few months, we were frustrated that there wasn't a dead simple notepad to accurately sketch out an iPhone UI, so we went ahead and made one. Sure, it's not for everyone, but I hope some of you may like :)
posted by LongDrive at 7:36 PM on September 19, 2009 - 5 comments

Revolving Floor
A curated community of writers and artists, focused around creative nonfiction. Jessamyn and mdn are contributors. A different topic each month. Original cartoons from Liza Donnelly, who draws for the New Yorker, and other well-known cartoonists. Poetry and a little fiction too.
posted by bingo at 9:38 AM on August 22, 2009 - 5 comments

DASH Puzzle Hunt
I've put on a couple puzzle hunts before, but this is the first one that's less San Francisco centric and designed for people who aren't already hard-core puzzlers. The first event will run in San Francisco, Palo Alto, Seattle, Portland,Los Angeles, Boston, Houston, and Washington DC, on Sept 13.
posted by aubilenon at 9:02 AM on August 18, 2009 - 1 comment

DeathPanels.org: The Disturbing Details Behind Health Care Reform!!1!!
I wanted to make something you could e-mail to your crazy uncle to explain why 1) health reform is sorely, sorely needed in the US and 2) "health reform" isn't code for "gas chambers for the elderly." Here's my attempt.
posted by grrarrgh00 at 3:17 PM on August 13, 2009 - 7 comments

Quitter - A Quiet Little Twitter Client
Quitter is a feature-rich Twitter client that runs in a command window (or "DOS window").
posted by DWRoelands at 8:52 PM on August 5, 2009 - 7 comments

Janey Thomson's Marathon
"In 1984 NiNCOM released the arcade game Janey Thomson's Marathon to tie in with the promising US long distance runner's imminent appearance at the Los Angeles ... Now a copy secretly kept by an employee has come to light and via the magic of emulation we can bring this lost classic to a new generation." Inspired by fiendish classics such as Desert Bus and Takeshi's Challenge, I designed and coded this gruelling retro-style game with a marathon course that's nearly half a million pixels wide.
posted by malevolent at 9:00 AM on July 17, 2009 - 10 comments

Home Movie Reconstructions 1974 / 2004
A selection of videos reenacting original home movie footage from the 1970s, shot on location with members of the very same family after a passage of 30 years.
posted by dziga at 2:51 PM on July 9, 2009

SlickMap CSS
SlickMap CSS is a simple stylesheet that generates presentable sitemaps from HTML unordered list navigation. If you build web site for a living, it's pretty handy.
posted by BirdD0g at 12:52 PM on July 8, 2009 - 3 comments

There Are Cats in This Short Film
There Are Cats in This Book is a picture book by Viviane Schwarz. Recently the publisher, Walker Books, decided to make her reading it into a short YouTube movie. I got involved doing back-room things (mostly re-recording and editing Viv's narration, also adding the sound effects and the excellent music track by Matthew Robins, as well as a few small video edits and preparing the final cut).
posted by Grangousier at 3:22 PM on June 10, 2009 - 6 comments

Can I Marry Gay?
Gay marriage laws are getting complicated, so I created this site to help me keep track of it all. It simply looks up your location based on your IP address, and explains your local state laws related to gay marriage. Currently limited to the US.
posted by scottreynen at 8:11 AM on May 19, 2009 - 11 comments

Old Al's Cards
Before email, before Twitter and before telephones were common people used postcards to announce everything from the most mundane events to the death of a loved one. Costing only a penny to mail and often arriving the same day the picture postcard was hugely popular with countless cards being sent daily. The cards on this site were sent by members of my family between 1900 and 1917 while they were living in New York City and Eastern New Jersey.
posted by cedar at 10:26 AM on May 20, 2009 - 3 comments