15

A CSS challenge: skewed highlight — Vadim Makeev

I did not know about box-decoration-break—sounds like a game-changer for text effects that wrap onto multiple lines.

CSS photo effects - a Collection by Lynn Fisher on CodePen

These wonderfully realistic photo effects from Lynn are quite lovely!

6, 95: Barrel aged

Human consciousness is the most astonishing thing, and most of it happened in deep time, beyond the reach of any writing and most legends. Human experience, in general, is prehistoric. And prehistoric experience was just as full as yours and mine: just as deeply felt, just as intelligent, just as real. What we know of it is mostly from durable artifacts and graves. I’m thinking of the woman found near the Snake River, buried at the end of the ice age with a perfectly crafted and unused stone knife tucked under her head. I’m thinking of the huge conical hats, beaten from single pieces of gold and inscribed with calendars, found north of the Alps. I’m thinking of Grave 8 at Vedbæk, where a woman held her premature baby on the spread wing of a swan. These are snapshot that experts can assemble into larger ideas, but what they tell all of us is that we’ve been people, not just humans, for a very long time.

JavaScript pedalboard

Effects pedals in the browser, using the Web Audio API. Very cool!

Be sure to read Trys’s write-up too.

Fading out siblings on hover in CSS | Trys Mudford

Well, the clever CSS techniques just keep on comin’ from Trys—I’m learning so much from him!

Carson: Textured fluid type - Steve Honeyman

I reckon it’s time for distressed type to make a comeback—CSS is ready for it.

Text Effects - a Collection by Mandy Michael on CodePen

Mandy’s experiments with text effects in CSS are kinda mindblowing—I can’t wait to see her at Ampersand at the end of the month!

The Eponymous Laws of Tech - daverupert.com

Dave has curated a handy list of eponymous laws.

Your Interactive Makes Me Sick - Features - Source: An OpenNews project

Browsers have had consistent scrolling behavior for years, even across vendors and platforms. There’s an established set of physics, and if you muck with the physics, you can assume you’re making some people sick.

Guidelines to consider before adding swooshy parallax effects:

1. Respect the Physics
2. Remember that We Call Them “Readers”
3. Ask for Consent

Given all the work that goes into a powerful piece of journalism—research, interviews, writing, fact-checking, editing, design, coding, testing—is it really in our best interests to end up with a finished product that some people literally can’t bear to scroll through?

Dwitter

A social network for snippets of JavaScript effects in canvas, written in 140 characters or fewer. Impressive!

JavaScript Systems Music

A massively in-depth study of boundary-breaking music, recreated through the web audio API.

1. Steve Reich - It’s Gonna Rain (1965)
2. Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music for Airports, 2/1 (1978)
3. Brian Eno - Discreet Music (1975)

You don’t have to be a musician or an expert in music theory to follow this guide. I’m neither of those things. I’m figuring things out as I go and it’s perfectly fine if you do too. I believe that this kind of stuff is well within reach for anyone who knows a bit of programming, and you can have a lot of fun with it even if you aren’t a musician.

One thing that definitely won’t hurt though is an interest in experimental music! This will get weird at times.

CanvasSwirl: An animated spirograph experiment in JavaScript and canvas by xhva.net

But, like, have you have ever really looked at your hand?

CSS element() function - Vincent De Oliveira

Fire up Firefox and try out these demos: the CSS element value is pretty impressive (although there are currently some serious performance issues).

To put it simply, this function renders any part of a website as a live image. A. Live. Image!

OriDomi - origami for the web

A fun little JavaScript library for folding the DOM like paper. The annotated source is really nicely documented.

Blade Runner: Hades Landscape | Douglas Trumbull - Immersive Media and Visual Effects

Douglas Trumbull reveals the secrets of the opening scene of Blade Runner.