Recognizing Constraints An Article by Jeremy Wagner css-tricks.com Super Nintendo games were the flavor of the decade when I was younger, and there’s no better example of building incredible things within comparably meager constraints. Developers on SNES titles were limited to, among other things: 16-bit color. 8 channel stereo output. Cartridges with storage capacities measured in megabits, not megabytes. Limited 3D rendering capabilities on select titles which embedded a special chip in the cartridge. Despite these constraints, game developers cranked out incredible and memorable titles that will endure beyond our lifetimes. Yet, the constraints SNES developers faced were static. You had a single platform with a single set of capabilities. If you could stay within those capabilities and maximize their potential, your game could be played—and adored—by anyone with an SNES console. PC games, on the other hand, had to be developed within a more flexible set of constraints. I remember one of my first PC games had its range of system requirements displayed on the side of the box: Have at least a 386 processor—but Pentium is preferred. Ad Lib or PC speaker supported—but Sound Blaster is best. Show up to the party with at least 4 megabytes of RAM—but more is better. constraints
The Topography of Tears A Book by Rose-Lynn Fisher www.rose-lynnfisher.com Show image 0 Show image 1 The Topography of Tears is a visual investigation of tears photographed through an optical, standard light microscope, a vintage Zeiss from the late 1970's, mounted with a digital microscopy camera. Tears are the medium of our most primal language in moments as unrelenting as death, as basic as hunger, and as complex as a rite of passage. They are the evidence of our inner life overflowing its boundaries, spilling over into consciousness. Wordless and spontaneous, they release us to the possibility of realignment, reunion, catharsis, intractable resistance short-circuited. Shedding tears, shedding old skin. It’s as though each one of our tears carries a microcosm of the collective human experience, like one drop of an ocean. melancholyemotiontopologygeometry