it seems that the random art generator is a big crowd pleaser, so i’m going to briefly explain a few things.

to begin, any color can be represented by different amounts of red, green and blue. the art generator graphs each of these three values determined by a randomly generated mathematical function inside of a bounded 2D plane.

sometimes math is boring, and sometimes it’s very interesting. this is reflected in the different kinds of pictures you’ll see. since the equations are generated completely randomly, there is no guarantee that an interesting picture will be created.

so what happens if you like an image? for starters, you can always save the link to the specific equation. underneath every picture is a url titled “here is the link to this equation”. all you have to do is right click on it and choose “copy shortcut” from the menu. then, paste the link into any text editor and save. there is also a huge button below each picture. if you click on this button and fill out the subsequent form, it will email me the equation. with this, i can either put your image in the online gallery, or i will upload it to my zazzle account (i’m wyv) so you can buy a poster.

it has also been suggested to me that i put in some sort of ‘history’ (i.e. save the last five or so viewed equations.) i guess some people are clicking too fast and realize that they want to save an equation once it’s too late. well, there are three reasons why i won’t do this: 1) people usually reload the page by clicking on the menu link on the left rather than on the “new equation” button below the pic. i won’t go into why this makes my life difficult, but it does. 2) when you click past a cool equation — losing a beautiful image for eternity — it elicits emotions like rage, anger, sadness and to some extent it makes you feel special (after all, you will be the only human to ever have seen that particular design.) 3) i’m lazy.

(note: the random art generator and gallery were dynamic php pages. they aren’t part of this static archive — only this writeup remains.)