Tag Archives: design

If the moon were 1 pixel…

I’m not often a huge fan of computer-based demonstrations: if you’re going to show the reality of something, show it for real. However, when the thing you’re trying to show is abstract – like, for example, the immense scale of the solar system – then screen-based demos can make a lot of sense.

Take this fabulous side-scrolling solar system diagram, for example. It starts from the premise of the moon being 1 pixel high, and scales the rest of the solar system accordingly. Be warned: there’s a lot of scrolling involved.

lot of scrolling.

The journey’s kept amusing by odd little snippets spaced between the planets in neptune-sized text, and the minimal design is particularly lovely. Hey, if you’re going to use a screen-based demo, use a good one.

(via everyone, but particularly Metafilter, where the comments thread also points to the impressive-looking Universe Sandbox. “Collide galaxies for fun.”)

Preparation

We’ve been noodling away on ScienceDemo.org for several months, and I felt it was time to try something different with how the site looked and behaved. Big Things are coming (*cough*), and we want the site to do a better job of presenting them.

I also realised we’ve some great photography here, and that many of our posts revolve around video – by us and others. Time to make that more prominent, and see if a more magazine-like feel works… or not.

Oh, and next week it turns out there’s a server move scheduled, so doubtless things will go very pear-shaped and we’ll disappear for a few hours. Days. Whatever. But for the moment:

Hello. This is ScienceDemo.org. You’re looking almost as dashing as we are.