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Jist is a new Javascript-based Lisp interpreter currently in development as a research project at Stewdio. With less than 24 hours behind it, Jist is in an “über alpha” stage—offering only minimal functionality and very little stability. The core of Jist is currently a cribbing of Joe Hanley’s JavaScript Lisp Interpreter. Stewdio is rebuilding this to favor lexical closures over dynamic scoping, and to add avenues for DOM manipulation.
Suggestions and code submissions welcome. See Jist at http://stewdio.org/jist/.
It’s just three steps: 1. Start with the chorus of a famous song. 2. Compress the lyrics to only 132 characters. 3. Add the tag “#chorus” and tweet it on Twitter. For example, here is the ultra-compressed chorus to David Bowie’s “Life on Mars?”
slrs ftg n dnc hl. o mn,lk@cv mn go! frekst sho. tk lk@lw mn btg up wrng g. o mn,wndr f hel vr no. hs n bst slg sho. s thr lf n mrs? #chorus
Yes, 132 characters and not 140 because you will need the remaining 8 slots to add a space and the “#chorus” tag at the end. Good luck deciphering.
Stewart’s article on the 1974 Arecibo Message (as it inspires Stewdio) will appear in the premiere print issue of design blog It’s Nice That this April. For more information on the journal’s format and contributers, or to pre-order the issue, see It’s Nice That (Publication).
Stewart is currently writing a short essay on Frank Drake’s Arecibo Message as it relates to Stewdio design ethos. In 1974 Drake broadcast a carefully crafted digital message into space from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. The contents were designed to be legible to intelligent extraterrestrial neighbors. So far . . . no response. Fermi’s paradox?
Arc is Paul Graham‘s new dialect of the Lisp programming language, originally designed by John McCarthy in 1958. Today Stewdio is adding Arc to our list of active languages and pursuing Web frameworks written in it. Could an Arc-based framework pull the rug from under Django (written in Python) and Rails (written in Ruby)? It’s going to need some evangelists to write those libraries and tutorials. Join in.
Stewdio has begun building an animation framework based on networked ‘nodes’ for Ear Studio. These nodes contain very simple behaviors that are geared to affect neighbors within the network in various ways. The framework is being written in the newly released (and first non-beta) Processing 1.0. Details on the intended use of this framework to be released in the future.
Today Stewdio is expanding its software development repertoire. We are adding Objective-C to our list of active programming languages and have begun scaffolding applications for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch devices. Stewdio is currently meeting with O R G regarding small softwares.
During the last two weeks Stewdio has invested a great deal of time and thought into the Ruby on Rails versus Python Django debate. We began using Rails roughly a year ago and this was our first exposure to Ruby. Conversely we dabbled in Python proper before investigating the Django framework. Our assessment? Ruby on Rails is currently a better solution for agile web development.
Python itself is a beautiful language and we are committed to using it in future projects (perhaps even via NodeBox). Unfortunately Django just isn’t what we’re looking for. Rails has a stronger development community with a sharper visual sense and a predilection for code elegance. David Heinemeier Hansson describes creating Rails as a quest for beauty. Something about that struck a chord with us. It’s the same gut feeling that causes us to prefer jQuery to Prototype. And it’s a shame that Processing has become the new lingua franca because Java is just . . . Python is to Saul Bass as Java is to Michael Bay.
Finally, the Rails and Django communities are not enemies as some suggest. They are the two brightest stars; enabling us to slowly navigate away from the graveyards of PHP, ASP, and ColdFusion.
Stewdio is temporarily relocating to Paris next week to conclude a five-month collaboration with Diller Scofidio + Renfro architects. (Stewdio phone and email will be redirected to Paris; meetings to be held via Skype.) The exhibition, Terre Natale, opens at the Fondation Cartier the evening of November 20th. It will be on view from the 21st until 15 March 2009. Our collaborative work, framed by French philosopher Paul Virilio, will appear on Cartier’s lower gallery under the title Terre Natale: Exits. It is divided into two works: Exits I, the larger open gallery piece designed by DS+R and Ear Studio; Exits II, the rotunda enclosure with immersive projection video designed by a team of collaborators including Stewdio.
Stewdio, in collaboration with Warning Office, has developed a lightweight animation framework written in Processing. The framework, dubbed Bronson, was created for Diller Scofidio + Renfro to drive a panoramic data visualization. Bronson is capable of generating lengthy movies by dynamically loading and unloading complex animation instructions. It was built from scratch to satisfy some abnormal project specifications: a movie resolution of 6,800 × 768 pixels running at 30 frames-per-second, divided across six projectors onto a curved target surface. (That’s over 150 million pixels per second.) Bronson outputs very large lossless movies that are then reformatted by a projection-curving and edge-blending system developed by ZKM. The fruits of Bronson’s toil will be on exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in Paris this November as part of an exhibition on contemporary human migration.
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