sangsara.net

Category: Apps

  • Subconscious Samples

    Subconscious Samples

    Launch: subsamples.sangsara.net

    Subconscious Samples is a generative art tool that turns patterns in your photos into new, abstract compositions.

    The human brain notices and retains a lot of visual information — not just traumatic images from childhood or the great moments of your life (insert dead wife montage here), but all sorts of patterns you’re not even aware of. These interact with each other in the unknowable cauldron of your subconscious, and are synthesized into forms that affect your actual life: the doodles you draw as your teacher or managing director drones on and on, the paintings you buy because they just speak to you, the brilliant shower idea that saves your bacon the night before a deadline.

    Creative people draw on these inputs with varying degrees of control — connect the dots too well and it earns a name, plagiarism — but what about machines? We’ve been trying to give them artistic instructions for a long time. Harold Cohen spent decades building AARON, a program that drew and painted according to rules he wrote but couldn’t fully predict the output of. Vera Molnár was plotting geometric abstractions on a computer in the 1960s, before “generative art” was even a term.

    Well, generative AI is the greatest plagiarizer ever invented, and yes it was employed in the coding of this tool. But Subconscious Samples is not powered by any AI model; it uses only the images you supply, and gives a fair amount of visibility into how it produces new imagery from inspiration. In that sense, you get to direct and watch the process happen inside its transparent brain.

    Step 1: Deconstruction

    Feed it some pictures, and then supervise a process in which short sections of lines and contours are traced. Fill the waiting palette with as many ’tiles’ of these samples as you want, add up to three manually selected ‘cutout’ areas (think scissors and a magazine), and then it’s off to the races.

    Step 2: Reconstruction

    After you hit “Generate”, the system takes those lines and rearranges them into abstract compositions. Mostly random, but often with loose rules. For example, the Mona Lisa might be reduced to a handful of curvy lines, which then get drawn as a spaghetti monster in 3D space. Is the pastafarian blob the equal of Da Vinci’s masterpiece? Obviously not. But could you say it came from it? Hmm, maybe? In a manner of speaking?

    If the human brain is a supercomputer, then this program isn’t even an abacus. It’s possibly a pile of stones in a circle, drawn in sand. You could produce some interesting pictures with it, you might even use them as desktop wallpapers for a short time. But it’s no artist. Like AARON and those greater predecessors, it only exists to make you think about where our art comes from.

    Some recent 2D outputs from testing
    Launch

    Related: I made a series of 39 artworks called Subconscious Heirlooms in the summer of 2022, the hand-drawn precursor to this idea. You can read about them on this page about my NFT projects.

  • Island Solitaire

    Island Solitaire

    Play

    For many years, I’ve wanted to go back and replay this old freeware Windows PC game called High Seas Solitaire. It was there for me when I had hours to pass at my desk job in the military and then later in college, over two decades ago.

    The charm of HSS for me was its simple and relaxing gameplay, accompanied by a sparse soundtrack of wave sounds, bird calls, and the creaking of your wooden ship. Its variation on pyramid solitaire was also unique: matches are made up of cards with the same number, or numbers adding up to 14. I’ve never found a similar game mechanic since.

    It was supported by advertising, and is now considered abandonware. Its creator, ZapSpot, has long vanished. Even if any of the copies online were still working, they wouldn’t run on a Mac.

    Island Solitaire is my reimagining of this little-known gem.

    I decided not to recreate HSS’s presentation, but pay homage with a similar nautical and nature theme. Where HSS had a predetermined set of puzzles to clear, Island Solitaire randomly generates layouts each time, using a full deck of cards. You are given a draw pile of 26 extra cards to help you make matches.

    A concise “How to Play” panel can be found in the bottom-right corner, and I guarantee it will make perfect sense once you start. I hope this is half as fun for you as the original was for me in those simpler millennium days.

    Play
  • Chinese Era

    Chinese Era

    Begin your journey at chinese-era.sangsara.net

    Ancient Chinese poetry exists in a handful of books — a small number of landmark English translations that have defined how the Western world reads Eastern verse. Whereas classical Chinese paintings are scattered around the world: in the collections of private owners, but also museums like the Met, the Smithsonian, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Chinese Era brings them together into the same space, just to see what happens.

    Each pairing is a poem and a painting from the past, two treasures in conversation. The random engine produces combinations that no curator would make, creating associations that couldn’t be planned. You can inspect the full artwork, or turn on a live stream of traditional Chinese music — providing a third randomized vector for a truly unrepeatable experience. When you’re ready, hit the ‘next’ arrow for a fresh pairing. If you find one worth sharing, a custom URL can be produced to lock them in.

    The poems draw from four translated volumes — by Waley, Giles, Ayscough/Lowell, and Bynner — 631 in total, each translator bringing their own instincts about what Chinese poetry should sound like in English. The number of artworks on display currently runs into the thousands, for over two million possible combinations. It’s a novel way to enjoy these classic poems. If you’re new to these works, congratulations, this just might be the start of your Chinese era.

  • Shelf Expression

    Shelf Expression

    Find it on GitHub

    Shelf Expression is the system I use for bookshelf.sangsara.net. It produces a responsive microsite displaying a shelf of up to twenty books, with cover art and synopses automatically pulled from online sources. It supports linking out to Goodreads for more information. It offers a choice of two themes: Minimal, with a simple grid and subtle animations; and Vitsoe, with a skeuomorphic shelf and playful “pick up” animations.

    You can use it to add a curated page to your personal site — recommendations for visitors (like I’ve done), a personal bibliography, or maybe a book club’s seasonal reading list. It is ready to fork from GitHub; if you use an agentic coding tool, point it at the repo and have it adapt the header and navigation for your own site. There is also a built-in tool (Shift-Ctrl-U) for updating the book selection without having to write any code.

    You may optionally supply Google Books and Gemini API keys to prevent rate limiting and summarize retrieved synopses.

    Shelf Expression is free for non-commercial use. Credit is appreciated but not necessary, though I’d love to hear from anyone who uses it.

    Two themes: Minimal and a Vitsoe-inspired shelving system
    You can navigate books with buttons, arrow keys, and swipes.
    The hidden editor screen lets you easily update the shelf.
    • Release history is on GitHub
    • v1.0.0 to 1.0.6 — Bug fixes, switched from Gemini to OpenRouter for AI summaries, enhancements to asset loading/caching
    • v1.0.7 — Sharing feature added to admin tool, which creates social media-ready collages of up to 12 books.
  • Window Box

    Window Box

    Your browser window with a view.

    Open up at windowbox.sangsara.net

    Some apps demand your attention, but Window Box just sits in a corner, keeping you company.

    It simulates a flower planter box on a high-rise window sill, with a blurred city view behind it — the way your eyes naturally see when focusing on something close. The plants are procedurally generated, so no two are exactly alike. The weather is real. When it rains in Singapore, rain runs down the glass. As the sun sets in Honolulu, the light moves westward and the city outside drops into shadow while the flowers stay lit from the inside of your apartment.

    It is designed to live in your browser across a long work day, maybe on a second screen — something to glance at between tasks. Because most people like to work to a little music on the radio, a tuner with curated stations including Apple Music Radio and Monocle Radio is built in. For fuller immersion, turn up the audio generator for wind and rain sounds that match what’s happening on screen. It’s inadvertently a fantastic rainy mood machine.

    Two locations are available: Singapore and Honolulu. Each brings its own botanical palette and skyline. If you live in one of these cities, it functions as a virtual window. If you don’t, it’s a portal into a part of the world where it’s always warm.

    New! Added Tokyo, with winter effects and botanical changes (13/05/26)

    New! Added a Custom mode where you can supply your own YouTube URL and city name, so you can be anywhere on Earth a live cam is. (26/05/26)

    Related blog post: Week 19.26

  • Orchids, Once.

    Orchids, Once.

    A meditation on impermanence.

    View the digital artwork at https://orchidsonce.xyz

    Almost every orchid you’ve ever seen was intentionally bred — a slow accumulation of crossings, selections, and genetic accidents that produced something new. This is the same process, just digital. Every visit generates a unique specimen: structure, colors, and proportions assembled from code the way a real orchid is assembled from DNA. No two are ever alike.

    As it turns in the light, you’ll hear music shaped by the flower’s appearance — the soundtrack itself is a one-time miracle, as unique as the visuals on your screen. It completes the meditation.

    When you close the window, the orchid dies. There is no save state, no gallery, no record of what you saw. Each plant lives only as long as you stay. If you weren’t there, it wouldn’t exist at all.

    There is always another one waiting to grow — but not that one. That one’s gone.

    Disclaimer: I made Orchids, Once. with the help of Gemini and Claude LLMs, and take no responsibility for any allergies or other harms.

    Related blog post: Week 16.26

  • a maze, a maze, a maze…

    a maze, a maze, a maze…

    A new maze every day, for everyone.

    Play a maze, a maze, a maze… at amaze3.app

    Every day, a new maze appears. Everyone in the world gets the same one.

    There’s something cozy and comforting about knowing that right now, somewhere, another person is navigating the same corridors, hitting the same dead ends, and having the same moment of doubt about whether they just walked in a complete circle. Some days the maze is generous and you are out in twenty seconds. Other days it will make you work for it, and you will feel the exit before you see it.

    Each maze has a target time based on the shortest possible path. Finish close to it and you’ll earn an S-rank celebration and a shareable stats message. Go slower and you’ll land somewhere between a laudable A and a sad D.

    Three modes: Standard comes with breadcrumbs showing where you have been; Hard Mode removes them and trusts you to hold the map entirely in your head; Chill Mode turns the timer off for people who just want to wander. Themes range from an outdoor garden maze to a retro game dungeon, so you can get lost in a way that feels right for you.

    A new one tomorrow. And the day after. A maze, a maze, a maze.

    Disclaimer: I made a maze, a maze, a maze… with the help of Google’s Gemini 3 Pro LLM. No responsibility taken for wrong turns or damaged self-esteem.

    Related blog post: Week 15.26

  • Crumbs

    Crumbs

    A location journal that’s actually yours.

    Try it at crumbs.sangsara.net

    Most map apps are for navigation, not remembering. You know those sequences in old films like Indiana Jones where a dotted line traces across a map from city to city? That is what Crumbs does, except it is your life and the dots are places you actually went.

    Effortless location logging

    The idea is simple: press a button to log where you are, write a note if you feel like it, and watch your trail build across the map. No passive background tracking, no accounts, no selling your movements for ad targeting. Just the places you chose to remember, connected by a line, yours to keep.

    Most travel apps get this wrong in one direction or another. Google Maps’ Timeline tracks you constantly whether you want to remember or not. Swarm needs a business listing to exist before you can check in. Neither lets you draw a line across a whole week, or a custom trip length, and export it cleanly. Crumbs does all of that, and stores everything locally on your device.

    Do things with your data

    There is a list view that lays out your stops like a journal with timestamps, weather, and location metadata, exportable as a PDF keepsake. You can also save a clean image of your map at any point, ready for sharing or scrapbooking.

    Crumbs is a PWA (Progressive Web App) which means mobile operating systems may occasionally purge its local data if not used in awhile. However, connect your Dropbox account and we’ll sync with the cloud automatically, so you won’t lose a crumb. If Dropbox isn’t your thing, manual JSON export and import are available for backups. Either way, your data is yours to keep and use freely. Vibe code an app to generate custom posters, for example.

    If you want native background tracking that runs without you thinking about it, I recommend Where Now? — a free indie app by Scott Boms that also logs your location privately. Crumbs can import Where Now’s data exports so you get the map trails and other features. Best of both worlds.

    Other details:

    • Pins capture location, date/time, city/country, and current weather conditions from Open-Meteo.
    • Works offline: Pin your location while off the grid, and Crumbs will show it on the map when you’re back online.
    • Filter map and list views by Today, This Week, This Month, All Time, or a custom date range to see only specific trips.
    • Uses standard Plus Codes as a shorthand for geolocation, so PDF exports retain all relevant information in a human-friendly form.
    • Open any pin location in Google Maps for more detail on nearby places of interest that were involved in your moment.
    • Minimal, glassy UI that “puts the focus on your content™”.
    • Bread mode: replaces all red pushpins with baked goods.
    • Red string trails can be disabled in settings.
    • Pins can be moved via drag and drop if necessary.

    Disclaimer: I made Crumbs with the help of Google’s Antigravity and Gemini 3.1 Pro. Your location data stays on your device. I have no idea where you’ve been.

    Related blog post: Week 14.26