Back again. Same deal every other week: what happened in security without the jargon, one thing to learn if you're new, and one thing to make or break. Today we bend last issue's plasma into a mandala — but first, the news.
> this week in security
Three worth knowing. One of them is why the beginner's tip below matters.
153 million driving-licence scans turned up for sale. A firm that handles ID verification (IDScan) had a breach, and a dark-web service is now hawking scans of licences from across the US and Canada — names, licence numbers, the lot. This is the raw material for identity theft.
→ do this: if that could include you, freezing your credit with the big bureaus is the single strongest move — it's free and stops crooks opening accounts in your name. And be extra suspicious of "verify your identity" messages for a while. (source)
That "T-Mobile reward" text is a trap. A big phishing wave is using fake reward points and "they expire today!" pressure to get people tapping a dodgy link. Doesn't have to be T-Mobile — the trick is the same everywhere: a prize plus a deadline.
→ do this: never claim a reward from a link in a text. If you think it might be real, open the company's actual app and check there. (source)
The scams sound human now. AI is stripping the old giveaways out of scam messages — no more broken English or weird formatting — and even cloning voices from a few seconds of audio. "It sounded exactly like my daughter" is now a sentence real people say.
→ do this: agree a family "safe word" for genuine emergencies, and if a call asking for money or codes feels off, hang up and call the person back on their known number. (source)
> beginner's corner
Why do breaches like the one above hurt so much? Because most people reuse the same password everywhere — so one leaked password unlocks a dozen accounts. The fix is one habit.
Get a password manager. Bitwarden (free, open-source) or your phone's built-in one. It invents a long random password for every site and remembers them all, so you don't. You memorise one strong master password and nothing else.
Then turn on two-factor (2FA) for email and banking at least. Even if a password leaks, the attacker still can't get in. Prefer an app or a passkey over text-message codes.
Do those two things this week and you've closed the door that most break-ins walk through. That's the whole tip.
The project — fold the light
Last issue you made a plasma. Today we fold it into a kaleidoscope — and the whole trick is one line. Drag the petals.
Same plasma as issue #00 — just folded into wedges. Set petals to 3, then 12.
01The one idea
Take any messy pattern, fold it around the centre, and your eye reads order where there was
none. That's a kaleidoscope. The fold is literally one line — you convert each pixel to an angle
and mirror it into N wedges:
const seg = (Math.PI*2) / PETALS;
let ang = Math.atan2(dy, dx);
ang = Math.abs(((ang % seg) + seg) % seg - seg/2); // ← the whole trickEverything six wedges see is now the same folded angle, so the pattern reflects around
the circle. Change PETALS and you change the flower. Everything else — the plasma, the
colours — is just what you're folding.
02Now break it
Kill the spin for a still mandala. Warp the radius (Math.sqrt(rad)*0.3) and it feels
like falling in. Then the real prize: drive the petals or the speed from your microphone's volume
and it dances to music — a Virtual Light Machine in embryo, which is exactly where Jeff Minter took
this idea. That's your turn.
> your turn
Make it react to sound. Grab the mic with getUserMedia, read the volume with an
AnalyserNode, and feed the bass into petals or spin. Point
it at a track and film ten seconds — best one leads issue #02, with your name on it.
Stop scrolling. Start making.
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