Chaos Page Updated

New background, scaled a bit large and messily from an actual product, plus a few links to photgraphy of my recent work with surrealist wax technique (four angles). More to come, with suggestions.

Here's a question, more on the geekly side than anything else: With the background, I used high JPEG compression in order to speed loading time. Would you rather see it at its currently-rather- lossy look at 25KB, or at a less-compressed, more- detailed, but 100+KB size? I'm trying to balance look with download speed, and I'm looking for

New background, scaled a bit large and messily from an actual product, plus a few links to photgraphy of my recent work with surrealist wax technique (four angles). More to come, with suggestions.

Here's a question, more on the geekly side than anything else: With the background, I used high JPEG compression in order to speed loading time. Would you rather see it at its currently-rather- lossy look at 25KB, or at a less-compressed, more- detailed, but 100+KB size? I'm trying to balance look with download speed, and I'm looking for

Why not do as most web sites do with images such as this and offer the viewer the option of 'clicking' on the image for an enlargement? On my site I offer ONLY thumbnails on the indexed pages, with enlargements of each image at the selection of the viewer.
www.zianet.com/jaxart

Yes - that means you've got to resize more than once and upload more than one size to your server, but it gives the viewer the option and it's their decision if they wait longer for the larger image to load.

Hey yeah, we heard you the first time JAcques.

If I were you, I might try blowing the background image up a bit - giving it a more pixelated effect. It should help with the rough chaotic edge you appear to be striving for.

'turning a corner slowly' wrote in message

Ah, well, I'd resent because the URL, www.treatmentlabs.com, was not present in the first message. Apparently, my news client did not kill the first article, like it was told to.

Well, that's actually the opposite of what I was asking; admittedly, I could increase the JPG compression and get exactly that, something with much rougher edges to it. So would spacially posterizing it, which is more what you are talking about.

Basically, I don't want the page to load too slowly for those people who are using a regular telephone-line connection, like I used to (up until last month). I was hoping for more of an idea from people on how much storage space an image should take up, and opinions on the trade- off between detail and image loading speed.

I wanted something unique for the background, something made through chaotic means. Doing a thumbnail would mean essentially making it something contained in another page or window, much like the wax items linked on that page.

Your idea of pixellating it is a good and useful one for another piece, though, and I do need to thank you sincerely for that. It gives me ideas for variants on some of my other projects.

'Mayo Florece' wrote

That will be good for when I link up the *original* clay piece, much like I did with the angles of the wax pieces linked in, but my main concern is about how quickly the background loads.

I suppose, restated, I should ask the following two questions:

1) In your opinion, what makes the best upper bound on the storage size of a background picture (in kilobytes)?

2) In order to keep within that upper bound, how much detail, in an arbitrary percent amount, would you be willing to lose in a background image on a web page?

OKAY! I misunderstood, obviously, your original post.

I looked at your 'heavenly' image on the opening page at www.treatment.com and it's only 13kb, and I have only a 56k connection and the image opens almost instantly at that resolution. My guess is that the background image should be no larger than most other images you post - no larger than 100k and preferrably in 50k range. Why not simply experiment?

As for the second question, that would depend on what I was using for the background. You can't have your cake and eat it too, I would guess. If you put a large image for a background, then you're going to have to use more compression. With the small image you are now using, it could be at minimal compression and still load in good time, I would guess. Once EVERYONE has hi-speed access, this will all become moot.

Hi Jacques: I think you are facing a contradiction. Chaos theory as I understand it means the time/ distance between repeat cycles is so wide that they cannot currently be calculated.

Anything you currently use to represent chaos will contain an obvious discoverable repeat. No matter which image you display to the human eye - because of its biological structure it will seek out connections within the visual field. Your problem is very similar to the question: is the resulting number generated by a random number generator a random number? Can I represent within a limited visual space using graphical elements based upon a repeat system to represent a non repeat - a patterns image?

You are back to metaphorical symbols and those that I have seen represent infinity not chaos.

Your problem is to create a pattern the structure of which cannot be discovered.

I love this apparently simple but really complicated stuff.

Time for my nap. take care: keith

P.S. suggestion: where to start looking for such a metaphor: devil's fork

'keith o'connor (tinmangallery.com) wrote ...

Actually, that's not quite how I understood it, given that certain chaotic processes are bound to real-but-not-rational numbers, such as e, pi, and so on, and those have been proven to have no periodicity. Rather, I understand chaos theory as revolving around processes or properties at a given locus whose results cannot be determined based upon those loci surrounding it. At this point, though, I think we may be 'splitting hairs.'

The background created, much like the wax object displayed on the site, were created by chance processes, based on surrealist games I'd read about. From my point of view, that is what makes it appropriate for the theme of the page.

It was either that, or a cheese danish, but then I'd have to go down to the local kosher bakery and buy one.

Entirely my fault, that; I should have been a bit more clear as to what I was asking.

In order to clear up some of the confusion about what chaos is (and isn't) here's a link to a reasonable introduction: http://www.mathjmendl.org/chaos/

It might also be worthwhile for those interested in chaos and chaos theory to follow up the links at the end of the page.

Chris