Source, output, data. More wyswig work.

I'd like to get into the habit of using this blog to write down responses and appreciations of things. So let's do that:

I've been listening to the "Moving Beyond Syntax" episode from Future of Coding over the past couple days. Overall I've just really been enjoying Future of Coding episodes as a break from AI hype. As a reminder of all the interesting things there are still to do in programming as programming.

I also think the addition of Lu has been great. Now (and especially in this episode) there are three distinct points of view from Lu, Ivan and Jimmy, that bounce off and contrast with each other. I think sometimes I get stuck wanting to know / cover everything, and listening and enjoying the back-and-forth is a good reminder that it's good to be coming from a perspective. That you're part of a larger conversation and you don't have to cover every angle yourself. A good thing for me to write about is what angle I am coming from these days.

Maybe: everything (source, layout, output) in one big image. WYSIWYG

Source on the left, output on the right, the beginning of data below

I have some image blending ideas.

Sloth overlap

Departure Mono font site

A great, free pixel font (packaged as vector). Probably too intense to use for a terminal font, but would be fun to try for some of my Linux system UI. Though at this point I have very little system UI to speak of... From https://departuremono.com/

A piece by Spacefiller from Fantasy Parameter Spaces Showing bold computational plants

Thinking about Spacefiller's work this morning. Specifically wondering how they're able to achieve such a feeling of solidity + presence for the plants. Part of it is the structure but I think a big part of it is the linework. There's no anti-aliasing and line's look like they're maybe four pixels wide (in visible world pixels, probably much higher in actual resolution).

I'm interested in creating digital spaces with a similar level of solidity. But I feel like introducing images often hurts the solidity - because the pixel pieces are too small to see. Obvious solution that I continue to experiment with is scale down the resolution and color of images, so that the pieces are more visible. That could hopefully make them feel more of a piece with a world like Spacefiller's. The dilemma is that often loses a lot of the semantic content (turns a face into a blob). This is part of why I'm interested in progressive pixelation that scales up or down in resolution depending on the content. Though my efforts there I think still lack the solid feel I'm after.

Progressively pixelate an image.

https://grain.constraint.systems

I turned off threads for now, the roll-ups were too much noise with all the new imported posts in here. I think maybe the right move is to have threads as an extra layer, so you can click through and see the thread page, but the index sticks to 'every post, reverse-chron'. Styling also plays a role here...

Incremental build all wired up. Trying building the last four posts and any threads they may be a part of. Maybe I'll also build a web UI for posting soon... but before that, time to import the rest of the writing posts and some posts from feed.

Testing incremental rebuild from the high line.

I think this is actually the 'right' progressive pixelation. Had to step away for a while and come back.

Pixelated sloth redux

Got month-based index pages working here. Along with infinite scroll loading. Still want to get incremental rebuild working. Then I'll feel better about doing lots of little posts here.

Finally wearing my AR glasses combo out on the commute. Made some decent progress trying to paginate this blog today. Pushed the scale up to 2x which is helping. Also think I've got a good base system set up (refined from reinstalling across a bunch of computers of all the time) and that's helping.

Ambient TV is on the wall now.

Flipping through channels on the ambient TV setup

First ambient TV prototype is put together. Laptop strapped to a monitor with a macropad control. One button for random shuffle. Currently featuring Terry B bike riding, Primitive Technology and Rambalac. More iterations to come.

Monitor showing ambient videos

Pixelation layers

Adjusting a pixelation layer on top of sloth image

Doing some real system config work for the first time in a while. Trying to approach that 'sitting down to an empty page of paper' feeling again for sitting down to the computer. It is hard work to make things simple though.

Progressive pixelation.

Sloth in layers of progressively smaller pixels

OKLCH sloth variations

Sloth hue winners in HSL and OKLCH

RGB winner versus RGB to HSL hue winner

Sloth color variations

Hue winner kinda looks like thermal camera.