on digital textures · riki's house

hey! looks like you have JavaScript disabled.
I respect that decision, but you may find the experience of browsing the treehouse… not great.
for example, links to branches may not work properly. I cannot do anything about this; it's due to how the <details> element works.
(a <details> will not expand itself automatically to reveal the linked element to you.)
I did my best to at least keep the site readable in this state, but you can only do so much with plain HTML and CSS.

Pinky promise this website does not contain any malicious code such as trackers or cryptocurrency miners.
if you don't believe me, you're free to inspect the source yourself! all the scripts are written lovingly in vanilla JS (not minified!) by yours truly ❤️

and if this box is annoying, feel free to block it with uBlock Origin or something. I have no way of remembering you closed it, and don't wanna add a database to this website. simplicity rules!

this is not about textures in the graphics programming sort of way. this is about textures in the you can feel it under your fingers way
2024-02-22
I don’t know if it’s just some weird synaesthesia thing or not, but one interesting observation I’ve noticed is that various cursors seem to give off different textures. like you hover over something and you can digitally feel it under your fingers
2024-02-22
these textures just generally cause different pieces of software to give off different vibes; for example, based on texture alone it is possible to determine whether something runs on web technologies.
2024-02-22
- you can probably tell this blog is a website just by feeling how it behaves.
  2024-02-22
  - the cursors, where pointer is used for elements that are clickable, and a text cursor is used for text.
    2024-02-22
  - when you have an interactive element and it doesn’t have a pointer cursor on it, it feels almost wrong. eerie in a way. out of place.
    like have you noticed this branch is kind of really fucking weird with the default cursor?
    
    2024-02-22
    and this one is even weirder, with unselectable text! (sorry for this. I’m trying to make a point.)
    2024-02-22
  - the fact you can press Ctrl + A and it selects all text also gives off a texture typical of websites.
    2024-02-22
  - the common usage of hyperlinks over buttons is also typical of websites.
    2024-02-22
Git for Windows asks whether you want to use stock Windows cmd.exe or mintty. for as long as I can remember, mintty always felt wrong to me. like the experience was not Windowsy. simply because the terminal window is so tiny, the cursor is an I-beam, and the default font used is Lucida Console rather than Consolas.
2024-02-22
- synaesthetically, it feels to me as if cmd.exe is smooth, and mintty is rough. like with cmd.exe you’re touching matte plastic, an LCD display, and with mintty you’re touching a piece of paper or tree bark.
  2024-02-22