Living in the prairie, I like grasses. This weekend, I played around with code that generates a system of grass (or cords) bundles (like CAT5 cords). A sprig of grass usually joins an existing bundle, but with some very low probability will strike out on its own. Thick clumps have a higher probability of getting new sprigs than thin clumps: a rich-get-richer scheme. Sprigs that do not attract any friends get killed off by a periodic layer of transparency. The three images above represent 3 different experiments to distribute the clumps: dense noise, sparse randomness and dense randomness. No data…just something to do besides read research papers for a while.

screenshot of remodeled list of feeds

Google Reader is one of my favorite apps. My biggest complaint, however, is the waste of space in the list of feeds on the left side of the interface. This summer I toyed around with a Greasemonkey script that transforms the interface into a tag cloud. It’s not perfect, but I use it day to day. To use: install GreaseMonkey, then install the script (you only need to click the link — GreaseMonkey takes care of the rest).