Time to catch up with too many links collected this past year. Today’s theme: interactive web pages. Plus, bonus nostalgia!

• Karl Sims’ Reaction Diffusion Tool. Play with the sliders, or just hit the Example button (up to 20 times) for some fantastic presets. If you’re old enough or nerdy enough, you’ll know Karl Sims from his SIGGRAPH papers in the early ’90s, such as this one. You’ll also then likely know of the two reaction-diffusion SIGGRAPH papers from 1991 (1, 2), based on Alan Turing’s paper in 1952. Now together, in one lovely web app.
• Recursive Game of Life. Use the mouse scroll to zoom in and out, left-drag to pan. In high school I used to hand-evolve Life patterns on graph paper, then later print out generations on green and white paper using the school’s administrative computer. This infinite recursive Life evolver would have fried my brain back then. Look closely and admire how cells get filled using glider guns and there’s some message passing between cells done with glider streams. (Follow-up: secrets revealed here. Thanks to Eran Guendelman for the tipoff.)
• Omio.io works. The recursive game of Life is the first one here, followed by many others. I’ve looked at only about half of these so far, as it’s like a box of delicious chocolates. You want to savor but one at a time, though maybe nibbling just one more would be OK… And each is a little puzzle: what’s this about? how do I interact? A few are just links to projects – consider these strawberry creams or coconut clusters from an interactivity standpoint, but they’re still interesting. There are earlier works (as GIFs) from the creator, who I now am most definitely following on Twitter (and thanks to Jacco Bikker for the tip-off).
• The Origami Simulator is misnamed, in that it simulates all sorts of papercraft patterns. Poke around under the Examples menu to see what I mean. While unlikely to help you make any of these, it’s fun to look at and drag the Fold Percent slider. For me, instant nostalgia: I attended the OrigaMIT convention last month, mostly admiring the amazing creations. Some pics, plus a NeRF I made of one display, and another NeRF.
• I mentioned Townscaper in the browser last year in a blog post around this time of year. It’s a lovely way to build a picturesque town, but what about destroying one? Behold Toy City. It takes a bit to load and initialize; you’re ready when the red ball (i.e., you) appears. Then WASD, arrow keys, and space bar your way to cute toppling. This was made with “Spline,” described as “A friendly 3d multiplayer design tool that runs in the browser.” I haven’t explored this app further yet…
• If you desperately need to visit another super-cute environment, see Choo-Choo World. Me, I can barely make a track loop, but it’s still tooth-achingly pretty. This one’s produced by Lusion, which is either a firm, “the place where all real-time magic begins,” or a dark entity from beyond the abyss, judging from the music that plays when you visit and then go to any other page of theirs (“contact” is great). In reality, the pages there are fun and point to a bunch of other projects to check out. It’s “interesting” to read about interactive story books (like this one) while listening to their music of doom.
• But, really, what we most need is a web page that finds our pointer. Done.

What’s really happening in a single cell in Life: