v1.1 - Complexity, Art, Software

I did these a while ago just after I came back from Tokyo.

I was walking around, imagining a better system for finding my way to the right train. The English signage is pretty good but there are about 30 different subway lines run by different companies so you sometimes have to change stations get from one line to another. It’s very idiosyncratic and complicated. I was thinking about a system where fish matching the colour of the line you want are swimming along and you can follow them. The fish are travelling at the right speed to meet a train. If there’s a fish going really fast you know the train is coming very soon and that, to get it, you will need to run.

The idea is that you see a fish and tuck in behind it to follow. When the train comes, the fish swim onto the train. Maybe they disappear - or maybe, if you’ve specified a destination and need to change trains, the fish stay on the train and change colour to match the new line. They get off at the right station and you can follow them to the next train.

With help (thanks Adrian) I have been using Three.js to do a new version of Bubble-Sort (see the previous 2D version).

I’ve been drawing value streams using this water cycle image for a while. The idea is that value flows down and accumulates in the lake at the bottom, where it is measured. The measurement unlocks funding in the form of a “lean budget” (SAFe terminology) that replenishes the cycle.

I had the idea that it is possible to visualise a large, complex value stream using linked kanban boards, In a large kanban system, one team’s board is a card on someone else’s board. If you think of this from the perspective of control - or with a “cost accounting” mindset - then control (of budgets, decisions etc.) flows down from the top (portfolio level) to the bottom (teams delivering, say, software features).

However, if you think in terms of value, the flow is reversed. You could think of value as flowing _up_ but that would be unnecessary - why not simply flip the heirarchy so that the delivery teams are up the top and the value flows down like water. Then you have a version of the water cycle with kanban boards (as I drew above in Miro).

The last sketch I did in Procreate is a 3D conical formation of kanban boards that is designed to be navigated in AR - yes, like Minority Report.

I signed up for some online tutes from https://www.webxracademy.com/ because things have moved on in the last year since I did any coding - both with the WebXR API itself and with the way people are using it.

I’ve added a couple of WebXR endpoints to GoodThing that imports ThreeJS and some of the nice utilities that people are making to make WebXR easier:

https://goodthing.brokenbaysoftware.co/webxr-objects/
https://goodthing.brokenbaysoftware.co/webxr-gltf/

There’s this nice library called “Eruda” that adds a devtools UI as an overlay for mobile:

https://github.com/liriliri/eruda

There’s a good status module from Three.js:

https://unpkg.com/three@0.133.0/examples/jsm/libs/stats.module.js

I’m going to use WebXR to do an AR version of Bubble-Sort. I got ported it to GoodThing and got it working again.

http://bubble-sort-v3.brokenbaysoftware.co/

I did Selection-Sort at the same time:

http://selection-sort-v3.brokenbaysoftware.co/

I plugged in URL variables, like so:

https://selection-sort-v3.brokenbaysoftware.co/?fps=10&max_seconds_transition_interval=3&cols=10&rows=10&show_working=true&loop=false&reload_interval=5000&constant_transition_speed=false

My plan is to make it big and put it outside Google HQ in Pyrmont. It will have enough squares that it will take a long time to sort - like, thousands of years.

Great video from lady Ada about the latest news for the WebXR API:

https://youtu.be/t-uk8InHte4

From YouTube transcript (wrong): …he also saw it as new means of imminent resistance to captain’s described ian is quote a mechanic and makino sphere surrounding our wires fear not is a constraining yolk of an exterior animal that is an abstract machine an inflorescence exploring the future of humanity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NllCyKVw5Lg&t=1036s

A warning for new media artists - “I just bought it”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHoV12OpeXk&t=1588s

A new geneology of the readymade in WIP, and so, by extension, a new geneology of contemporary art. ‘Batine’ on aesthetics::

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHoV12OpeXk&t=1770s