Fun time-wasting toy

http://www.organichtml.com/ creates plantlike structures based on the URLs you plug in. (It takes 5-10 seconds to get started each time, so be patient.)

Annoyingly, the creator doesn't seem to've published the algorithm, so I haven't quite figured out how it works other than having flash animations translate to little flying critters. It does seem to pick up the palette from the "seed" URL, and there must be elements that correspond to links elseweb (in/out; live/dead?), and perhaps directory structures and file types/sizes? More speculative factors might include pop-ups, logins, and cookies-- still not sure how many fundamentally different elements there are; there seem to be several different types of fruits/flowers, frex.

Even the URL for a smallish isolated JPG creates a stem with some leafy sprigs, though not the fanned semicircle of sprouts (or lily-like basal leaves?) or the elaborate branching generated by some of the obvious portals like eBay or IMDB.

And yes, it will accept LJ (sub)URLs as seeds, with a somewhat mindboggling range of variation in the results.

bead geekage

I doubt this'll be of much interest to most of y'all; mostly I'm tired of chasing around the increasingly crumpled scrap of paper I've jotted these color-codes down onto, and figured I might as well copy them somewhere else I couldn't misplace. ( Read more... )