Amit Patel

I've posted to Stack Overflow, Reddit, Twitter instead of Quora, Pinterest, Facebook, because my posts are readable by anyone, not only logged in users. As site rules change, it changes my motivation to post. Also: I blog at simblob.blogspot.com ; it has RSS too

I’ve noticed people who have good creative ideas usually know tons of things. Good researchers have read a lot of papers. Good musicians have listened to a lot of songs. Not only that, they generally have strong opinions about what’s good/bad out there. I wonder why? I…

Reappearing briefly from my Twitter hiatus to mention that there's a new post on the blog: "Automated Hachuring in QGIS." Many before me have digitally resurrected this old manual technique, and now it's my turn to give it a try. somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.com/2024/07/07/aut…

Emergent Microcosms 🌎💻 Time to think about snippets of computer code that can generate complex + delightful virtual worlds. This playful approach to emergence—algorithms that can unfurl entire virtual universes—are essentially “Emergent Microcosms” 🧵 1/

Excited to share Bluefish, a new JS library for making diagrams! Bluefish lets you code diagrams like they're UIs: using declarative components and reactivity. Check it out: bluefishjs.org github.com/bluefishjs/blu… discord.gg/RTKDYBBybB Quick backstory 🧵

correlation is correlated with causation, and causation causes correlation (usually)

Failed experiment in tectonic plate collision. I was trying to do something quick&easy but it didn't work as well as I had hoped. redblobgames.com/x/2319-mapgen4… If none of my experiments fail, I'm not being ambitious enough. So I'm ok with having many failures. :)

New longform @inkandswitch essay! 📜 Malleable Software by me, Josh Horowitz, @pvh and Todd Matthews. inkandswitch.com/essay/malleabl… It's about why people need agency over their software tools, and how to make that happen. Here's the quick tl;dr... 1/

This continues to be a most excellent blog series frozenfractal.com/blog/2025/6/6/…

Rim shaders are a simple way to outline 3D objects, by comparing normals to the view direction. Great for organic shapes, but flat surfaces need tweaks for consistent results Watch the full breakdown here: youtu.be/t0qkieYME6E?si… #shaders #gamedev #unity

Programmers often ask whether query optimizers are really worth it. Wouldn't it be better to just manually specify index order? The developer has so much more information, after all. I have wondered this myself! But when I do the thought experiment even on our little zbugs app…

Today, working on the Delaunator guide. 1. what it looks like now — point and triangle diagrams showing a *subset* of the data 2. new version — diagrams showing *complete* data including edge cases 3. complete example — code you can copy, numbers you can see in the diagram

We have two identical groups of 8 gauges with anomalous gauge at position (3,1). The degree of anomaly is identical in both groups ~ 8 deg. Humans have extreme hyperacuity with respect to detecting angular orientation of line segments—needle gauge is so much faster to read. The…

i'm getting back into interactive learning and bringing my website newt interactive back, starting with a new series on systems biology: newtinteractive.com/series/systems… i've been reading @UriAlonWeizmann's textbook and the analysis of how biological systems work is utterly fascinating..

I just found this nice Shunting-Yard algorithm animation made by Christian Lawson-Perfect:

2025 map of @github is live! 690K projects. 1,500 clusters. 500M stars. Every dot is a treasure waiting to be discovered! Explore and enjoy at anvaka.github.io/map-of-github