London on a Chip « British chemists have found an elegant way to determine the shortest path from one point to another — interconnected tubes filled with heliem are used to represent the streets of London, and current applied to any two points illuminates the shortest path with a spark.

After making about a thousand differant kinds of trees, I was about to give up on the idea of using L-Systems to generate neat graphics. Today I stumbled upon this, which was generated by this fairly simple rule:
"Co(T,+,15){0}C[C{0}]".

View 20 specimens, 57k gif

Earlier this week I found a Luna Moth, about half of the size of this one. Definitely the most beautiful thing I've ever seen on the sidewalk of Han-Dee Mart.

Today I added L-System parsing to the SVG turtle I was working on two weeks ago:

I programmed my version in PHP, and intend to set up it up online as soon as it's secure. Unfortunately, the syntax is pretty obtuse; the tree on the left was generated by the command "{1}{2};o(l,=,64)o(L,=,64)o(t,=,90)o(T,=,90);F[{3}C{2}]o(T,=,-90)[{3}C{2}];o(T,*,.5)o(L,*,.85)o(l,*,.85)".

Fractalus has fantastic fractal art. [via Milov]

Well, I started and quit a job this past week. I'm finishing up some PHP/SQL work, and after that I'm done.

I'm leaning towards trying to make it through the summer without a steady job. I've got just enough saved that I don't need to worry about it for at least a month; and in case of emergency, I've got a lot of CDs and DVDs I wouldn't mind cashing in. Miscellaneous computer work is an option as well — possibly freelance design.

I've heard that taking a summer off before graduating can come back to haunt you during interviews for serious jobs, but I can't imagine that having some random retail job would be much better. Instead, I'd like to use the time to catch up on reading and a few projects. One major project: I'm working on 5 to 7 artworks, based on my work with DLA, osculatory packing, L-systems, and other neat computer topics. The spirographs I posted last week were tests of the graphics toolkit I'm writing for this project. I'd also like to start programming for the Palm, beginning with a simple Tron game. Not to mention that the 5k competition has relaunched. Overall, I feel like going on a learning spree.

I'll just tell the interviewer that I took the summer off to build the Brand of Myself.

I bought a Visor Deluxe handheld on eBay last week for $35 and spent an additional $50 for a new glasstop. I'm really happy with it, now that it's up and running; it's a perfect fit for me in terms of cost, power, and size. Eventually I need to sort out the details of programming for a Palm.

I've spend the last two weeks finishing up the semester and doing some PC repair work. Among other things (meals, sleep) I missed this site's first birthday on April 25th.

Today I wrote a C++ class that emulates a Logo-style turtle and outputs basic SVG files. It's part of a larger project, but I'm having fun with spirographs:

Movies I've recently seen and recommend:

The Second Civil War (1997)
Green Legend Ran (1992)
Better Off Dead (1985)