Wed. 10 Jul 2013

Raptors in hats

Whether it’s a hack, an eccentric debug utility, or clever marketing—there are raptors in hats hiding on Vogue’s UK website. Load it up and then enter the fabled Konami code to manifest a strafing raptor wearing a random designer hat. That’s Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A.


Oddly there’s also a general debug console that can be called up by using the same sequence but switching the order of the last two taps to A B. For the code curious, the JavaScript to trigger this raptor rapture is contained here, just do a search for “konami”: http://d3u12z27ui3vom.cloudfront.net/Build-Vogue-master/1890-6c590b28810e/logic/site.v2.group.generated.js

If you open up your browser’s JavaScript console you can get the actual raptorization code by entering: $('body').raptorize

The analytics line of code in there makes me think it’s more of a clever marketing ploy than some hacker attack—as some supposed “news” outlets would have you believe. Ah, hype. I’ve posted the raptorize code after the jump in case it vanishes from Vogue’s site.

Update: This little easter egg appears to be inspired by a jQuery library called Raptorize created by Zurb in collaboration with Phil Coffman and Noah Stokes. More after the jump…


Tue. 02 Jul 2013

Roll It wins double FWA recognition

Creative Lab’s recent Chrome Experiment, Roll It, is today’s FWA Site of the Day and today’s FWA Mobile of the Day. Roll It is a classic boardwalk game played right in your desktop’s browser and uses your smartphone as a motion controller. Play now: g.co/rollit

Thu. 27 Jun 2013

Browser Pong on Hacker News

My old Browser Pong game (2009) is currently on the front page of Paul Graham’s Hacker News. It probably won’t stay there for long, so here’s the permalink: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5951285. Browser Pong was previously on Hacker News when it first launched in 2009. Odd, but flattering, to see a new conversation about it materialize.

Mon. 24 Jun 2013

Racer wins double FWA recognition

Creative Lab’s recent Chrome Experiment, Racer, is today’s FWA Site of the Day and today’s FWA Mobile of the Day. Racer is a multiplayer Chrome Experiment built for mobile browsers—a slot car game that unfolds across multiple device screens. Get out your smartphone or tablet and load up g.co/racer in your mobile browser to play now.

Mon. 03 Jun 2013

Racer—Cutting edge project of the week

Creative Lab’s recent Chrome Experiment, Racer, has been awarded Adobe’s Cutting Edge Project of the Week by the FWA. Racer is a multiplayer Chrome Experiment built for mobile browsers—a slot car game that unfolds across multiple device screens. Get out your smartphone or tablet and load up g.co/racer in your mobile browser to play now.

Sun. 05 May 2013
Tags. Apple, Google, talk

Apple store talk tomorrow, 6:30pm

I’m speaking about my work tomorrow evening—Monday, May 6th at 6:30pm—at the SoHo Apple store in Manhattan. This is part of the ADC’s Young Guns series of talks (see ADC blog entry). Should be fun. The store’s schedule says I have from 6:30 to 8pm—way too much time. Let’s keep it short and sweet (maybe 1/2 hour?) with some Q&A at the end if that seems worthwhile. The content shouldn’t be much of a surprise: some favorite project highlights, random rants, and so on. Just walk up the glass stairs to the second floor where you’ll find some theater-style seating and a big screen.


Monday, May 6th. 6:30pm
Apple Store SoHo
103 Prince Street
New York NY 10012

212 226 3126


Fri. 01 Mar 2013

ASCII lyric music videos

ASCII lyric vids are music videos made primarily of a song’s lyrics rendered as computer text and animated over time to pair with the vocals. [What is ASCII?] These pure lyric vids are distinct from representational ASCII art vids which use glyph shapes as abstract textural components, rather than as text meant to be read. These genres are not mutually exclusive, however. [What is ASCII art?] To celebrate being blown away by the new

Petula Clark video, here are a few notches in the genre listed in reverse-chronological order. If you know of more do mention it.


Petula Clark—Cut Copy Me (2013)


Portal 2—Want You Gone (2011). The not-so-surprising sequel.


The Chameleons – Up The Down Escalator (2010). A fan video by Mr. Nicky Ramone using my Jed source code as a base.


Portal—Still Alive (2007). Written by Jonathan Coulton for the ground-breaking game Portal.


Grandaddy—Jed’s Other Poem (2005). A fan vid made-good. By yours, truly.


Wed. 20 Feb 2013
Tags. AIGA, talk, teaching

AIGA BoNE Show 2013

I’m excited to be on the jury panel for this year’s AIGA Best of New England (BoNE) Show biennial design competition alongside Elliott Earls and Lucille Tenazas. The three of us will be milling about—drinks in hand?—for the casual Meet the Judges event this Friday evening. We’ll talk a bit and perhaps even have some fancy objects to share. (So do come down and say hello.) It’s the BoNE Show’s 10th anniversary, after all.

For an added slice of sunshine I’ll be at Boston University meeting with design students in some capacity for the majority of Friday morning and afternoon. You can hit me up with questions (or disenchanted meanderings) via Twitter: @stewd_io. Non sequiturs—if you were curious, this is what Google Glass feels like. And finally, today is Kurt Cobain’s 46th wouldn’t you know.