taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

U.N. Orders Wonka To Submit To Chocolate Factory Inspections:

UNITED NATIONS — Responding to pressure from the international community, the U.N. ordered enigmatic candy maker William ‘Willy’ Wonka to submit to chocolate-factory inspections Monday. ‘For years, Wonka has hidden the ominous doings of his research and development facility from the outside world,’ U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said. ‘Given the reports of child disappearances, technological advances in glass-elevator transport, and Wonka-run Oompa-Loompa forced-labor camps, the time has come to put an end to three decades of secrecy in the Wonka Empire.’

Tags: candy, chocolate, community, factory, inspections, maker, nations, submit, united, wonka

http://www.uncontrol.com/ — a flash applet which provides a good collection of nature-imitating mathematical eye candy. Number 16 is beautiful.

I used to write graphics demos on the C-64, which used a lot of this kind of stuff (although a hell of a lot simpler for obvious reasons). It occurs to me that Flash makes writing demos a lot easier; it provides a decent language (scripting as opposed to 6502 assembly), it gives you a good set of drawing tools (anti-aliasing, alpha blending, and 24-bit colour), the hardware no longer limits what you can do in 2-D graphics, and you can even buy software which takes care of the text effects like zooms, scrolling, bouncing etc. In other words, all the cool tricks are done for you ;)

I wonder what demo writers are doing nowadays, as a result? One side seems to be what these guys have done — actually go for really interesting, good-looking effects, rather than just the “how did they do that” factor. I would imagine the other side of the demo “bleeding edge” is doing a hell of a lot of 3-D stuff. (By hand. In assembler. ;)

Tags: applet, candy, collection, demo, eye, flash, hell, lot, side, stuff