stewdio

Upon each completion of the song, a list of keyboard engagements will be displayed under “Receipt.” This includes both the activations scripted for the animation as well as your own keystrokes and pointer interactions. (You are part of the artwork.) Here is some sample output:

     .     .   .         .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .   w h a t w i l l g r o w c r o o k e d y o u c a n t m a k e s t r a i g h t i t s t h e p r i c e t h a t y o u g o t t a p a y   <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .   d o y o u r s e l f a f a v o u r a n d p a c k y o u r b a g s b u y a t i c k e t a n d g e t o n t h e t r a i n   <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   b u y a t i c k e t a n d g e t o n t h e t a r s d f t g y h u j i k o 5 l p 6 7 8 
 9 0 t ⌫ y u i o p 5 6 7 8 9 0 ⌫ t y u i o p 5 6 7 8 9 0 t ⌫ y u i o p 5 6 7 8 9 0 ⌫ t y u i o p a s d f g h j k l 
 n   <OPTION> µ . <SHIFT>   <OPTION> .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .     F U C K E D P U   <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .     F U C K E D P U   <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .     <SHIFT> P e o p l e g e t c r u s h e d l i k e b i s c u i t c r u m b s a n d l a i d d o w n i n t h e b i t u m e n   <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .     <SHIFT> Y o u h a v e t r i e d y o u r b e s t t o p l e a s e e v e r y o n e <SHIFT> B u t i t j u s t i s n t h a p p e n i n g   <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   <SHIFT> N o i t j u s t i s n t h a p e n i n g   <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .     F   U C   K . E   D   P .   .       U   .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .     F   U C   K . E   D   P .   .       U   .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .         .     .   .         .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .     O B V I O U S   <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .       <OPTION>   <OPTION> .     .   .     n o i t i s n t b u t i t i s n t b u t i t i s n t

This is a fan-made music video for Thom Yorke’s “Black Swan” (2006). This birthday well-wishing is composed of #HTML #CSS #JavaScript for fellow October chaps Thom and Stanley Donwood whom I’ve never met, but have long enjoyed their work. (With a bit of Saul Bass inspiration sprinkled on.) It’s best viewed on a laptop / desktop; may melt phones.

Here’s the “video”: https://stewartsmith.io/blackswan/

Here’s the source code: https://github.com/stewdio/blackswan/

And here’s the repo: https://github.com/stewdio/handy.js

Simple, heavily commented, and built on Three.js. Go forth and build fun hand-input-based things!

Thank you for the kind words. As I’m writing it I just keep thinking “How would I want to be taught this?” As another parallel rule of thumb I pretend that I’m writing to someone who is smarter than I’ll ever be but,

1. Doesn’t know anything about this particular subject yet.

2. Is probably very tired from whatever it is they’ve been doing. (Day job, raising kids, just general anxiety keeping them awake all night, etc.)

3. Might be drunk.

So I try to be plain in my language choices, calming when facing something with an aura of complexity (eg. “this thing that you heard is complex is really just a fancy name for these two simple elements combined”), consistent, and to present actual examples instead of everything just being an impenetrable brick of text.

(And then occasionally I break all my rules by throwing in hyperlinks to random tangents / hiding Missy Elliott lyrics in the code / whatevs.)

Woa—this is really beautiful! I need to give this some serious thought since I’ve gone heavy on the idea of not having dependencies, not using modules, not requiring Node, etc. You’ve definitely given me something to mull over here. Well done :)

For reference, here’s some of my original reasoning: https://quantumjavascript.app/contributing.html#JavaScript_s...

Good question! There’s a subtle underlying issue I need to address in order to get those working correctly: https://github.com/stewdio/q.js/issues/18

I have an idea of how to solve it while still keeping gate creation simple—I just need to find some downtime to investigate further :)

I entirely forgot to mention that TODAY is Q.js’ first birthday. And here’s a write-up of how I got started with it:

https://medium.com/@stew_rtsmith/quantum-javascript-d1effb84...

Wow—I didn’t even recognize my own code there with all the whitespace changed and semicolons inserted ;)

And yes—not having any dependencies or anything to install was one of my goals to help anyone get up and running with minimal fuss. I have more to say about that here: https://quantumjavascript.app/contributing.html#JavaScript_s...

You’re asking a really good question—I should probably write page on this to make it more clear; it definitely was NOT clear to me at first either! The short answer is “no.” What you’re seeing there is the Q.Circuit.prototype.try$ function which forces a circuit to choose one of its probable outcomes. I mostly added this in so users could write a simple coin-flip demo and get an actual heads or tails result—you know; feel good about making their first superposition and then collapsing it to a conclusion: Q`H`.try$() ? 'tails' : 'heads'

But it’s the management and redistribution of probabilities during the course of a circuit’s operation that is the real quantum magic—not choosing a series of random outcomes. In fact if you search the entire repo for “Math.random” you’ll see that this try$ function is the only “semi-meaningful” use of randomness. (The other calls to Math.random are either part of some included THREE.js bits for the Bloch Sphere visualizer, or for randomly tilting the click-and-draggable gate tiles in circuit palettes, or for choosing random color + animal names. Yes... Random color + animal names!) Q.getRandomName$()

The way we manage probabilities in a simulator is by representing qubits as a pair of numbers. This should give you a better idea of how that works—and what “superposition” means in this context: https://quantumjavascript.app/Q-Qubit.html

But the weirdest part for me to wrap my head around was that there is no answer until you’ve computed the ENTIRE answer. In a regular computer you can ask what the value of a particular bit is at anytime and that doesn’t effect any other piece of the circuit. But with quantum simulation like this you are mixing all of the ingredients together and it is impossible to pull one out, point to it and say “this particular qubit has this particular value!” Instead you can only know the total state of the system.

You’ve given me a lot to think about in terms of adding more content to Q :)

I need another coffee now...

Certainly :) You can add as many CNOT gates as you’d like.

There are a few ways to do this in code, so you can pick the style that feels right for you / your particular case: https://quantumjavascript.app/#Quantum_JavaScript

But it’s also easy to make CNOTs in the visual editor. Here’s an animated GIF demonstrating it: https://quantumjavascript.app/tutorials.html#Create_controll...

And for further clarity, here’s a description of the relevant steps in that animated GIF: 1. Drag an Identity gate (the circle) onto your circuit board. 2. Drag a Pauli X gate (the X) onto the same moment (column) of your circuit board. 3. Select both (by tapping on them). 4. Tap on the "C" button to join them into a controlled gate.

I’ve begun to put together useful resources for learning more here: https://quantumjavascript.app/resources.html

I’d like to really flesh out that page; I’ve now come across so many folks that are amazing at explaining this stuff... It’s just a time crunch to juggle all this as you might imagine ;)

These two videos in particular helped me get started:

1. What is a physical quantum computer? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWJCfOvochA

2. How might one compute using it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_Riqjdh2oM

Hi. Last year I launched Space Rocks, a WebXR demo that re-imagines Atari’s Asteroids as an immersive, Web-based, virtual reality experience. Alongside the site’s launch I also released my source code used to create it. This technical deep dive explains how I built this WebXR game—and how you can make one too: https://medium.com/@stew_rtsmith/space-rocks-technical-deep-...

Space Rocks demo (Requires a WebXR-capable browser and a 6DoF VR device): https://spacerocks.moar.io

Space Rocks source code repo: https://github.com/moar-tech/spacerocks

I’m working on a series of tiny WebVR experiences for kids that run on the HTC Vive. (Personal project.) It’s a work in progress, but thought I’d share this first one now that it’s functional; to prompt other WebVR enthusiast to share what they’re playing with, compare notes and so on.

I wrote a little more about Day & Night here, including links to downloads and instructions for getting WebVR for the Vive up and running: https://medium.com/@stew_rtsmith/day-and-night-f5f2a56112ea#...

Some of the ingredients in the kitchen: WebVR, THREE.js, WebGL, binary data in JS, CSS animation, SVG sprites ... And just beginning to sprinkle in some ES6 goodies.

Anyone else making ’lil WebVR experiments?

Jon McLoone really seems to be approaching this topic from a place of frustration—rather than from an overwhelming sense of beauty. I think both mathies and visual designers can agree that 12 is a very beautiful number. In fact the ONLY single thing that makes sense about the imperial system is the division of feet into 12 inches, something mirrored by picas and points in typography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pica_(typography)

This beautiful number is evenly divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and itself—a very high percentage (50%!) of the positive integers leading up to and including itself. (To be sure 60 is also a beautiful number but its ratio of factors to non-factors is of course lesser.) I can see you gearing up to argue that 6 is more beautiful, and I get that. I really do. But the ability to evenly divide into quarters is just so ... pleasant :)

Does the ability to divide evenly in several ways serve as a soapbox from which to argue that it is mathematically important to memorize the first 12 numbers of which 12 is a factor? I suppose not. But could we simply do 12 the honor of learning these two extra columns of the multiplication table because it is beautiful? (And really you’re just learning ONE extra column because 11 is such a simpleton. Silly 11.)

Of course dividing things into 12 units can SOUND pleasant as well. Western music is founded on dividing an octave into 12 units—though the exact method of division can take many forms. Here’s just a sample: https://github.com/stewdio/beep.js/blob/master/beep/Beep.Not...

So I love 12. Join me in loving 12. Together we can praise 12.

Full disclosure, I have been known to previously adore the number 12. On December 12, 2012 I proposed this “Cleaner Grid of Time” beginning with the months in a year: http://stewd.io/b/2012/12/12/twelve

I was just looking at Beep’s inbound traffic and saw this HN post in the list. Made me smile. Cheers, Trax.

To make better sense of what was going on I gave it a go myself: http://stewd.io/airborne

I left a lot of code commentary for anyone else trying to wrap their heads around this stuff: https://github.com/stewdio/airborne

Why did you change the link to the plain single-page version? The pacing and design of the original was very intentional. This is how it was meant to be experienced: http://www.internetisshit.org/

Also, for fun you ought to WHOIS the domain name. Here’s a sampling:

  Registrant Name: alain a-dale 
  Registrant Organization: iis 
  Registrant Street: Sherwood 
  Registrant Street: Forest 
  Registrant City: Nottingham 
  Registrant State/Province: State 
  Registrant Postal Code: 111111 
  Registrant Country: US

Built from the same Cuber framework. http://stewd.io/w/rubikscube ;)

If you’re into JavaScript pop open the browser console on this guy: http://iamthecu.be :)

Works best in Chrome / Safari / Opera.

(Also... Works best in Chrome, Safari, Opera. Less so in Firefox.)