Circle Grow
About a month ago I heard tell of a JavaScript Demoscene contest called JS1k. For those who haven’t heard of the Demoscene, it’s basically a sort of programming art-form that allows a programmer (or team of programmers) to show off their hacking skills. Originally due to the storage and processing limitations in the past, demo programmers would have to pull out all sorts of clever tricks or hacks to reduce the size of their program as well as make it run as efficient as possible. Nowadays, with our obscenely fast CPU’s and practically infinite storage capacity, those limitations are self-imposed – Demoscene contests will set a limit on the size of the code to make it challenging. In the case of JS1k, 1000 bytes of JavaScript is the maximum.
What makes this particular contest so exciting is that most modern browsers now have a cool new toy for JavaScript programmers to play with: the canvas object. The canvas object basically defines an area on a webpage where a developer can programmaticly draw images using JavaScript. For the first time, web developers can use an open-standard, non-proprietary technology to create dynamic and engaging rich media.
Inspired by JS1k (but by no means talented enough to compete), I decided to create my own JavaScript and canvas-powered demo. It’s extremely basic compared to the JS1k demos, but it did help me learn a lot more about canvas, and it was fun to program! So, without further ado – I present to you… Circle Grow!
SVC Wayzgoose Photos
Here are some great pics Matt F has taken of DC getting there print on at the SVC 9th annual Wayzgoose. Thanks to SVC for letting us participate in such a fun day. We look forward to getting our hands dirty next year and we were just wondering SVC next year can we drive the steamroller?
Cutting the Linoleum
We’re busy here (well… Matty is busy) getting our poster’s linoleum carved up for the big Steamroller Smackdown on Saturday (Aug 28th). We’ll be printing our poster from 1-2:15 at the School of Visual Concepts, 500 Aurora Ave. N. See Matty’s post for more details.
