~ thanks to → issue ~ weeewooo!

It's still pretty buggy and I don't know how exactly should the content of this website translate to the RSS.

For instance should I leave the videos and images in? I don't know... right now I just embed the entire post as CDATA (which allows you to embed html in the description) but some readers render the posts with video funny... so I added a style tag that limits the width of the video to 500px.

Anyways...

Feed Link

Will be posting some updates on whats been happening over the past two months because I wanna document it here.

Till then, here's a compiled video of all the books I've been making using the publication tools:

Things to add here...

• fold typeface

• physarium book

• edge printing on paragraph stepper and edgeprinted book

• Wood setup

• wood setup at home

• video with all the stuff

connected it to this typesetting tool that leaks words as the textboxes are moved around. The residue generates the quad trees.

Print out long strips of paper with measurements

Fold into letterform

Unfold

Enter fold lines into an interface

TADA!

Functions work now! This was a funky exercise to figure out how to make work. But they work now!

A function declaration node will follow all the nodes it connects to till it finds a return node. Then it will create a virtual system for all the tracked nodes and export it as a function closure. Whenever this function is applied, it will just use that function and see what data flows into the return node and just return that data.

Text updates when you change it :)

Here is how the variables work.

And you can still position stuff

What I think I need to work on now is making all the nodes visually different than one another so the navigability is easier and you can find what needs to be found.

I need to add a sidebar/property editor also, just so each node can expose more data that its tiny UI can show.

And finally searching through nodes and finding them in someway?

I will be posting on instagram, and I've mentioned some thoughts about that before over here . But finally what I've finally come to decide is to post monthly, so first week of every month, a recap of the previous month. And instead of fitting media to Instagram constraints, I will be posting screenshots and screen-recordings from elsewhere on the web. As if to say, "If you want the full picture get out of Instagram, look at stuff outside the platform". I would obviously prefer not to engage with it at all, but I feel like I need some exposure for my work on that platform, and without which I may struggle to find work. But I'm not sure if this is true, but again I would rather err on the safer side.

Anyways. My primary posting would be here on the feed, and for those interested can subscribe to the RSS.

physarum - Sage Jenson

So I implemented a basic low res version for it

Made it so it renders ascii chars instead of circles

Then constrained it into the walls of a letterform. The sad part now is that the organic forms that the physarium produces is completely hidden now since it doesn't have the room to move...

But the motion is pretty interesting and organic.

So I just iterated a bunch on this

And I think this form looks awesome!

Going to turn this into a screen print :)

Pointy thing

Made a Bone folder

Also made this bandsaw box!!

This is one way I'm thinking of setting it up. This may take place as a group looking thing. The group will be a node that outputs a function and can be referenced as a variable. The group will have inputPoint and an OutputPoint. The group will construct a function composition by traversing the nodes contained within it.

It will take the nodes that connect to inputPoint and follow them to each node that is connected to its ouput. While traversing, construct a transform function map. Once you make it to the output node, close the transform function map and export it as a function closure.

Some things to consider -> When does the function get recompiled ? (when any nodes inside emit a change... in a sense all of these nodes output to the group. Being in a group means to ouptut into it...)

So generally things are going well. Currently the base of the whole reactive graph system is working well. And adding new nodes isn't as hard, although in the future will definitely be moving transformation functions and render into one file and export as an object type thing.

Anyways, so whats to do now...

• a list view for selecting which node to add, maybe like a command bar. Maybe can also use this to compose node trees, for instance perhaps I can type—
  
  slider > *2 > {x} to make a slider thats connected to a multiplier node which exports as an x property. Instead of making 3 separate nodes and setting their values. So I get speed of typing code by the graphic qualities of canvas :)

• Make connections selectable, some easy way to mass manipulate them also... change which side it connects and stuff.

• I think its time to add deletability... delete nodes and edges

• copy multiple nodes with their edges intact. So if for instance I copy a set of nodes, then it will also go through all edges and see if the edges are connections between one of the selected nodes (crucial to check that both from and to are selected) and if they are, copy those edges with whatever new id you give the nodes.

• make a connection mode so can easily connect nodes, right now connecting nodes, you have to aim for the edge point (which also often interferes with draggin) and then connect to another edgepoint where you have to aim and stuff again, I wanna be able to just draw a line from one node to another and just connect that.

Revamped the graph system so its simpler to make new nodes and manage them. Still contemplating the validation system I have... that might need some clean up.

Also contemplating adding reverse flow. So basically the circle that gets outputted on canvas could be overlaid with a bounding box that I could drag.

Updates from the drag can be sent back in a reverse flow, essentially I would inform the circle element which in turn has to find what supplied it the x and y coordinates and propogate the flow to them.

This eventually would turn into sort of like a constraint solver. For instance what if the source leads to an add node or something. Which value do you propagate the change to? Maybe someway to choose? choose at random? ask / specify / lock icon... wont flow back unless all locks in place... if not will error out or smth?

Is this worth putting in the time and effort into?

Makes it easier to follow relationships :)

Normal lines

Proof of concept:

Essentially will have views for drawable tings, so here is a circle for example.

This circle can be connected to a canvas and it will show the circle.

Messages can be sent to the circle, such as x = 50, or y = 150, etc to set the properties of the circle by connecting nodes to the Circle obj.

when circle changes it propagates this change to the canvas.

Also taking a screen printing class... so expect to see more of this stuff!

I moved with ideas of extreme configurability and the awesomeness of Org mode. But I never got into Org mode (because of inferior portability compared to markdown) and I didn't get that into configuring emacs. I did some playing around, wrote some Elisp functions and had a nice workflow going, but I think its been pretty clunky. Things work but they're not as lighweight as nvim I'd say. And I don't think thats what emacs is, 'Emacs is an OS'.

So yeah, I think for now, I want something lighter. But I've learned a lot of things from emacs in terms of interaction possibilities. How you navigate through your system, how to spawn and keep servers running etc.

I think I wanna bring those things back and use TMUX + Nvim combo to sort of rebuild that. Keeping focus on simplicity so things are easy to change.

And maybe at some point I can also look at fennel, and possibly write my config in that?

We'll see...

Update Number #2 (JAN 17): since having started this post, I began a refactor and now the refactor is done... Fully rewrote the repo to make it more easier to work with and better organised and performance wise much better + added undo redo by using a reversible store object.

Whatup gang! Some updates on the Are.na Canvas. I'm making this entry on the canvas itself, I've been using it daily over the past few days and its been pretty great. Everything works and feels smooth!

Let me outline all the stuff I added!

Jump to blocks

Drag interactions

Making Block

Making Group

Multiselect

// add video

Editing blocks

Double click to edit...

Groups

Moving groups around

~~Open and edit in Obsidian~~

Had this in first version, haven't added back after refactor.

Copy paste blocks

// add video.

Copy a block link, and cmd+v will just add that block as a connection to the channel and show it on the canvas

Some other things~~

I added colors as well, and did some work on the ui

I made this space as the home page for the canvas, so new users can find all the info they need to use it. Not sure if it's sufficient and easy to navigate(?)

I still need to implement groups, and making new blocks. Maybe make the canvas infinite, like it can start of at a certain size and grow based on farthest away block or something.

Added mini-map and light mode

The minimap doesn't respond to scale change because the math for that is going to be funky and I dont care enough at this moment for that type of accuracy so I'm just going to let that be.

Found some other really cool Are.na Canvases

From this block -> BLOCK

@Justin Liang's Hypercanvas https://www.are.na/block/40838466 Also their friend @Connie ⛱'s link dump project.

@Nico Chilla linked @fergarram ☠︎ ’s previous project suna.garden which sent me on a rabbit hole to @fergrarram's journal which I thought was really cool cause it reminded me of this space :) And also rediscovered unit.software~~ got super excited, tried to use it a little but ultimately gave up because I couldn't find resources to guide me through its mechanics...

Blocks are resizable

Send values on connect

Nodes now send values on connection.

The fact that they send the value on connection. Making a connection can be like a button press.

Save values to a node

And then use that node as a bookmark for a location

Keypress to send value

Added this node that will hold a value in itself and then release and send the value forward on a keypress. So location bookmarks can be saved to a keypress.

OPEN IN OBSIDIAN

And the most rewarding part of using this open file format is that I can export and open this canvas directly in Obsidian. Make some edits in Obsidian and open it back into this Are.na Canvas. Which I think is so fucking cool!

I theory this would also work for all the other apps that import and export to this format. will have to test it out though.

I do wanna do a writeup for this... we'll see how that goes based on how much time I have in the coming days.

I need to add a search for channels, authentication and saving canvas data to channel to finish and publish this. Maybe clean up the UI and add some info too.

Using the new Are.na API for this.

Mostly things look same on the surface but the actual shape of the data is much different. Overall looks awesome! Super excited to make/re-make cool stuff with this. There's no write layer yet for the API so just going to use the older API to do writes for some time till they release the new version.

Found this excerpt from Tom Macwright's recent blog post

Making a post about this also over at research.if-m

wrapping_2025.html

It took me quite some time to figure this out. I had to go back to high school math, and re-learn all the stuff I slept through. Revised on how to find perpendicular lines, what the slope/gradient of a line is. The constructing triangles using perpendicular line, using triangles soh cah toa properties to calculate the reflected points, etc...

After bunch and bunch of failed attempts I got something like this working. Even after getting this working I had to tweak some stuff because it wouldn't work for all directions and what not.

Then once I had this working for a single fold, I was like cool, let me try for two folds!

And that worked by just incrementally reflecting all the points past a fold and iterating through them... Eventually made it so I can edit foldlines and have multiples.

And then finally, given a printed surface with say some image or graphic on it, how would the graphic look folded up given the fold lines. This one was more tough than I thought and it still break sometimes if the angle of rotation is more than 180 degrees, which I need to figure out how to fix. But still it looks so awesome and feels gratifying!

I find this video the coolest.

Although its funny cause when I print it out and fabricate it... it just feels like... oh cool you printed on a long piece of paper and folded it up :) I shall figure out some use case for this now that I've implemented it :P

There's also some new view options. There's a list option which will display only the first line of each block. And if you click it you can visit the block as a page. The block pages don't have any css as of yet but will add these soon.

Hopefully this will be useful if I wanna link specific posts...

Something I wanna add here is a way for people to let me know they were here :)

I don't wanna add tracking of any sort cuz that suckssss. But I wanna add like a hi - five emoji or smth where people can click it which would log a visit of some kind...

The easiest way would be to just create pages for categories/tags/projects. So each channel would just turn into a file, and then on the main feed I can visit these pages.

The other... actually I'm just going to stick to the easiest way. I have too much other stuff to do :)

About 8000+ words incoming and some images.

Thinking names for the tool.

Pagemaker (already taken,,, adobe will sue)

Bookmaker

So I've been thinking of alternative ways I could use it. One approach was Amir mentioning how he would have a system to only check and update it on one day in a month. So all stuff would get posted then. That I thought was interesting.

The one I just thought of was maybe, all the content and posts point outside of instagram. So for instance all of them are screenshots of my feed.a-p.space or website sketches. Or links to other peoples websites, etc. The whole point would be that these would all point outside of instagram. A link in bio interface that could open like instagram feed view and have links mentioned in each of the posts for easy access, so it is easy to get out of instagram as you enter it instead of being trapped in it.

This is an idea for an experiment. Perhaps I'll try it out.

It was super fun. Made some new friends who I'm hoping to work with and excited to talk to :)

The presentation site is visible here:

Home : Doesn't make a lot of sense without me talking over it and interacting with it though..

CCTO Nov '25: publication design tool (the parts) by Aaryan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNQdygRKfG8

Will have a definition tree that can manage scopes, variables and views for certain symbols. And will try to see whats possible with this stuff.

BLUE

BLACK

Loops^

The print:

Just realised there's a mistake in one of the pages... have to figure out how to fix this post fabrication on 40 menus now :)

Finally got it all to work together nicely and have a live feedback/ui to change these offsets and quickly test out different possible layouts.

Essentially the website is static site generated, same as jekyll or something. There is three parts to this process. HTML is written in input.html, the HTML in that file is embeded with javascript. Essentially this file is parsed and generates an output.js file that generates the index.html.

The syntax of input.html is as such:

This will need an import file that will supply it the data (foo and bar), in this branch its called import.js and knowing what variables to import, compiling this will output a js file that looks something like:

one thing to note here is compare the syntax for %%+foo%% vs %% for (let ... %% lines. The + in the %%+foo%% line marks that expression as variable to be added to html variable whereas not adding the + puts the expression as it is into the javascript file. If we added 'for (let i = 0 ...' to html like, 'html += for (let i = 0 ...', it would produce an error, hence the distinction is important.

Which will generate:

This is essentially it. If you know javascript, you already know this

Trying out a programming paradigm where I try to think of the most simple raw solutions, like just putting js inside html, that makes a js file that accumalates a string and performs conditionals and for loops. The cool part is I don't have to implement any of that, I can leverage javascript as it is into this. So I get functions, loops, conditionals, all of it for free!

+-> Templating also allows to template over js code :)

Also trying to do more things with css rather than js... here is a toggle that changes grid size based on html attribute, the js code here only toggles the attribute, everything else is css... Thought this was cool :)