Lu Wilson

TODEPOND TIMES: Dead Fish

Added 2023-01-26 22:28:27 +0000 UTC

It's time again! For the weekly...

🔎🐟 TODEPOND TIMES 🔎🐟

What's new this week?

Lab Lab

I've been making a new thing for the next video! It's called LabLab, and it's a simple tool for exploring fractals. Specifically, I've been exploring the Mandelbrot Set, which is a mind-bogglingly beautiful pattern.

To make it, I've been writing some shader code, which involves working in a very different way to usual. But without shaders, the engine would run too slowly!

I have written shaders before, but it's always been a bit of a battle for me. And I've always had a specific end-goal in mind.

This time, it's been great to take my time to explore what's possible - and to learn through experimentation.

I hope to incorporate shaders into more of my projects moving forwards! They really do bring about some wacky opportunities.

Dead Fish

I've been making *another* engine too! It's called FishLab, and I mentioned it a while back!

It's a little life simulation! I chose fish because they're funny-looking. But also because: I want to reference Bret Victor's famous "dead fish" talk.

In the talk, Bret makes the case that... when we make art on the computer, we shouldn't draw "dead fish". And by that, he means that the fish shouldn't be static. They should be dynamic, expressive, and they should take advantage of all the computer's interactivity.

Funnily enough, do you know who else is a mostly static animal?

Tode!

Is tode DEAD? (under that definition)
And are my fish dead too? (or are they alive)

(In the video, we'll explore this a bit further - and have some fun along the way)

To prepare, I've generated 1000 fish images!

Pipe Dream

This time next week, I'm doing a talk! As part of the Peckham Digital festival, I'm speaking for a bit about spatial programming.

Apparently, it might be livestreamed, so keep your eyes peeled for any links that they put out!

I did a similar talk before at a Future of Coding meetup, but this one has a slightly larger audience, so I'm a little bit nervous!

I will do my best to share the joy of spatial programming with the people there 🙌

So, thank you so much for supporting me, and allowing me to do that! None of this would be possible without you, and I appreciate all the help you give! Have a great week - see you next time 🤖🔎🐟

Days since tode fell asleep: 24