Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with dot

What are these weird posts on the sidewalk in Manhattan?

dcjd — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:25:12 -0800

What are these weird posts on the sidewalk in Manhattan? I recently have seen rectangular posts installed on the sidewalk in lower Manhattan. (south of 14th street) They are painted gray, have two circular yellow barriers on the street side to prevent cars from hitting them, and have a scary sticker on the top warning of electrocution. Another hint: the wet paint sign on one says Department of Transportation on it.

Here are two pictures of what I am talking about:

Picture 1

Picture 2

How can I display colorful directed graphs on the web?

christonabike — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:52:17 -0800

How do I take a graph that looks like this and display it in a web friendly format? Oh, and there's 300,000 of them. The graph linked is a screenshot of a postscript file generated by the "dot" portion of Graphviz. Essentially, I have a bunch of flat text files describing directed graphs (i.e. which nodes are linked to which and what color the links/nodes should be). I need to display these directed graphs on the internet. The nodes on the graph need to be clickable, as well.

Ideally, the processing to turn the text file into the graph would also be done on the client side, but this isn't necessary. The graphs don't need to be capable of being manipulated, but that would be cool as well. The best idea I've got so far is to use Flash/ActionScript and do something similar to this, but I've never actually used flash so I have no idea if it will scale well or can even actually do what I want it to.

Genetic distance - Why angle rather than magnitude of difference?

PuGZ — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 21:18:57 -0800

Why is it that the genetic "distance" between two populations would be determined by the angle between their position vectors rather than the magnitude of their respective displacements? That must have been a mighty confusing question. Essentially, I've got a problem very similar to the one represented here and I'm wondering why is it that the angle has been chosen rather than the magnitude of the difference between the vectors?

This has been bugging me for ages and settling it in my mind will help me continue with this assignment. Thanks, mefi :-)

My own private Jupiter

bryon — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 08:43:33 -0800

I'm seeing red. Does anyone know why? Occasionally (like last night) I will suddenly see a bright red dot where there is no reason to see one. It looks like a red LED or a laser sight on a gun. I've seen them in full daylight and at night. I don't remember if I've seen the dots anywhere other than while at home.

The dot is never in the center of my vision, and it doesn't last long. Blinking usually makes it go away.

It doesn't happen often, so I haven't discovered a pattern to it. Last night I was in bed and it was dark, save for the moon. In the corner of one window I saw a bright red dot. It disappeared, then came back a few seconds later. It disappeared again and didn't return. I don't believe there's anything prismatic about the window. Any thoughts?

Dot-based "Fax Highlighter"? Am I insane?

clango — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 09:17:40 -0800

When I was a kid, I found a bizarre pen at my grandmother's house. It was a marker with a roller on the tip and it created a dot pattern similar to zip-a-tone when you wrote with it. The ink was a dull purple, like Spider-Man's webbing in a comic book. She called it a "fax highlighter," but I've never been able to find such a thing in office supply stores or on the internet. It sure would be cool to have one for shading and creating a unique look in quick sketches. Help?

Plugged milk duct? Bleb? This is messing up my symmetry!!

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 18:29:22 -0800

What is the white dot on my nipple? For as long as I can remember (since I was really young), I've had a white dot at the end of only one of my nipples. It's very small, and no one has ever seemed to notice it, though it's not something I've ever pointed out. I've searched google, but I can't figure out what it could be. The only thing that I can find that comes close to what I'm describing is a plugged milk duct or "bleb". It is right on the spot where one of these would be, and it looks somewhat like it. However, I have never been pregnant, breastfed, or otherwise lactated. It doesn't cause me any pain at all, and there is no "lump" underneath the nipple that seems to indicate plugged milk ducts from my research. I really can't figure this out.
To clarify, the dot is not on my areola, it is right on the nipple, I guess where milk would come out.
Also, if it's not obvious from the above, I am a female.
What is this? Can I get rid of it?

Wall Graphics

Sreiny — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 20:33:25 -0800

Converting an image to a simple dot-matrix pattern? A section of my wall is concrete and so I can't hang anything on it. I am planning on buying a few thousand color labels and creating an image in a dot-matrix style. This is a bad example
but kind of along the lines of what I'm thinking of doing, except with an image. Is there a program or application that I can download to convert an image to a dot matrix grid. Basically what I'll do is set up a grid in Illustrator to plan it out, and either there'll be a sticker there, or there won't.

To focus the answers a bit, this isn't a job for Rasterbator or photoshop halftone filter, it needs to be gridded with an "either there's a dot there or there isn't process." Thanks.

How to browse Listmania lists on Amazon?

wires — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 21:17:29 -0800

I can't figure out a way to browse Amazon via Listmania lists. Is there any way to do this? They show up on nearly every book page I visit, but I'd like to browse through them by user and topic.

Best use of a .Mac account?

airguitar — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 08:47:58 -0800

What is the best use you've seen made of a .Mac account? Or if you have an account yourself, what to you is most useful?