Calvin 🕯 (@ProxyUniversal) header
Calvin 🕯 (@ProxyUniversal) profile picture

Product designer @SiftStack accelerating the hardware development lifecycle. Father. Husband of @jujubileen.

San Francisco, CA
Joined December 2015
Photo by Calvin 🕯 (@ProxyUniversal)Photo by Calvin 🕯 (@ProxyUniversal)Photo by Calvin 🕯 (@ProxyUniversal)Photo by Calvin 🕯 (@ProxyUniversal)Photo by Calvin 🕯 (@ProxyUniversal)Photo by Calvin 🕯 (@ProxyUniversal)Photo by Calvin 🕯 (@ProxyUniversal)Photo by Calvin 🕯 (@ProxyUniversal)Photo by Calvin 🕯 (@ProxyUniversal)Photo by Calvin 🕯 (@ProxyUniversal)
the moat is being pure of heart
76
219
37
1,489
42,062
Imagine if instead of static windows, content would abstract at the edges and progressively disclose details as you approach the center.
is your window manager too rectilinear? do you wish it had more curves? are you tired of the same old euclidean metric, day in and day out? do i have the tool for you! introducing, Horosphere WM: the first wayland compositor to use hyperbolic geometry to organize your workspace
2
105
A quick run down of how the generative borders work. The stack: using rust Rust and targeting the browser with wasm. Each border results from frame size, a random seed and a species file.
3
2
23
1,118
The skeleton of the border is one closed vine of S-curves running around the frame, with branching vines that pack the negative space. The space packing algorithm was the hardest part. I had been working on that for a while, but only came up with good results after having Fable work on the problem for a while. I honestly don't fully understand how this works.
1
11
190
The leaves, flowers, etc are vector traces from a variety of border sources which get placed along the vines. Currently I'm just placing these traced elements, but am working on consistently generating these flourishes so that in the future a border can be generated for any plant species.
1
1
13
155
One of my inspirations for this was visiting Delphi and seeing how the floral forms of the columns were the same forms as the wild flowers growing around the complex. The eventual goal is to generate borders based on any plant species.
Replying to @ProxyUniversal
oooooh, I love it! Can I adapt the same idea for my Iliad atlas? Something similar, but with an Ancient Greek aesthetic? iliadatlas.com/?view=reader&…
7
349
Generative border variations based on the Kelmscott Chaucer
2
6
1
185
3,449
Calvin 🕯 retweeted
My husband has used AI agents to revive old fonts, ornaments, & cuts from 19th century newspapers. The agents even built an editor where you can create your own invitations/pamphlets/cards using old cuts & fonts. Have been using it for @Quillette invitations already font-revival.com/
70
122
40
1,929
121,290
I’ve been working on animated and fully responsive floral borders. We’re close to having all the pieces needed to browse the web as an illuminated manuscript.
Dropping some caps- making a procedural system that creates and animates ornamental lettering
26
58
7
960
18,521
Strong plus one to this. But before we will be able to step into this new artistic mode we will first look backwards. I think it will be similar to how following the industrial revolution we had the arts and craft movement before we had bauhaus.
The stage is set for an artistic revolution to happen very soon. The main conditions are present: 1. A new technology or medium: generative AI 2. Exhaustion with the dominant aesthetic: postmodern & woke orthodoxy 3. A crisis of meaning The main thing holding back the revolution is talent. Rn genAI is mostly being used as a slop canon. Meanwhile, the people with taste are crucifying one another even for using it as a research tool. I recently went to an ART AND TECHNOLOGY panel at the New Museum and saying the letters “AI” was practically a thoughtcrime. Good time to be a nonconformist artist!
3
170
Our almost 3 year old has become very interested in “bad guys.” We had a talk about how there are real bad guys who want to hurt people and how we have to be brave and stop the bad guys. Now he wants to bring his imaginary gun everywhere so if we see a bad guy he can shoot them.
2
1
283
I feel a renaissance in the air
4
5
3
39
4,437
Lean into the LARP
1
136
I’m incredibly excited for this!
I have very exciting news. Thanks to a generous gift from @patrickc, the Cræft Prize is growing to £110,000. My March open call for artisan-innovators fusing the wisdom of craft with cutting-edge technology sparked a flood of excellent submissions. In early 2027, we will host an awards ceremony, exhibition, and conference exploring how craft can breathe soul and beauty into the machine. Read all about it 👇
3
160
Morris maxing generative floral borders
11
207
Taste is kind of like an aesthetic prediction market. The challenge is to draw a line in the sand before the position becomes obvious to others. Once an expression or story becomes widely validated the challenge of discovery is gone, along with the risk and glory. It switches from being elusive and intangible to becoming a known cultural substrate that composts into future taste making.
Counter argument: Not only is taste subjective, it's a moving target. As soon as [tasteful thing] becomes easily replicable, it stops being tasteful. Taste is a status game with a strong defensibility mechanism. That's why the term is so fuzzy and ill-defined. Vagueness is the whole point. It's meant to be hard to copy.
2
110
This is the moment to do the exact opposite and bolster access to tradition and craft. Husbandry, woodworking, stone masonry etc should increase in visibility. One should be able to traverse the tech stack as they move through the city. The way to gracefully step into the future is by holding the past.
The horse carriage industry is coming to an end in New York City. Our administration will make sure workers and owners are protected and the horses are safe.
88
Calvin 🕯 retweeted
"a rothko is like an emoji. they both contain one pure emotion" @ProxyUniversal
1
1
75
The type of institutions most equipped to steward models are likely churches, and I suspect we will see different schools of alignment emerge: Catholic alignment, Mormon alignment, etc.
Religion is an alignment technology. I unironically believe that there is a huge and urgent opportunity for divinity schools to invest in compute and forge research partnerships with their home institution's computer science departments.
2
100