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Zain Dana Harper Map

Elements Swatches Studies Plain index The map

Zain Dana Harper

I build tools that check AI work against its sources, and an engine that renders one idea in every medium.

The work

  1. THE FLYWHEELTHEFLYWHEELFlywheel 1.9.0

    Run any model, hosted or local, and check its answer against the source that decides it before the answer reaches your team. Every step is kept as a receipt you can recheck offline.

    pip install flywheel-verify, then flywheel up

    Verified 2 November 2026: version 1.9.0 is the latest GitHub release of HarperZ9/flywheel (15 October 2026) and the current PyPI version of flywheel-verify.

  2. THE COMMONSTHECMMNSCMMNS 3.9.1

    A browser extension that shows where a reply comes from, signs of coordination, how it argues, and whether a fact-checker has reviewed the claim. It runs in your browser on X, YouTube, Reddit, Bluesky and more.

    Download cmmns-chrome-3.9.1.zip, then Load unpacked

    Verified 2 November 2026: version 3.9.1 and its download names match the latest GitHub release of HarperZ9/cmmns (28 October 2026).

  3. THE PLAYGROUNDTHEPLYGRNDSuperframe 0.2.0

    Describe a piece in plain words and get it back from one seed as paint, living type, lines, carved material, sound and touch. The same words and seed give the same files, byte for byte.

    git clone https://github.com/HarperZ9/superframe, then npm run make (Node 24 or later)

    Verified 2 November 2026: version 0.2.0 is the latest GitHub release of HarperZ9/superframe (28 October 2026).

  4. ARTICULATEARTIQL8Articulate 0.17.1

    Checks prose on your own computer and names each writing pattern with the line it is on. Modes for docs, commits, essays and fiction, in a terminal, an editor or code review.

    pip install articulate-writing, then articulate check notes.md

    Verified 2 November 2026: version 0.17.1 is the latest GitHub release of HarperZ9/articulate and the current PyPI version of articulate-writing (both 2 November 2026).

  5. BUILDLANGBLDLNGBuildLang 1.10.0

    A compiled language where a function's type lists what it may touch, such as files, the network or C. It builds native binaries through C and emits HLSL and GLSL shaders.

    cargo install buildlang --version 1.10.0 --locked

    Verified 2 November 2026: version 1.10.0 is the latest GitHub release of HarperZ9/buildlang (23 October 2026) and the current crates.io version.

  6. RESEARCHRSRCHEssays and papers

    The study of mechanisms, interactions, relationships and patterns across nature, technology, humanity and the hypothetical, in physical and digital space, in every state. Essays, papers and dated briefings, and the experiments behind them, each written down before it ran.

Glass letters spelling light, standing in calm water at a low sun; the horizon bends through them.

Light and glass

  • Light bends at an interface by the ratio of refractive indices; from under water the sky shows as a window of half-angle 48.6 degrees.
  • A thin layer reflects colours that interfere constructively at its thickness; the hue walks with thickness and angle.
  • Light through a medium falls off exponentially with depth, red first in water.

Type and lettering

  • In intaglio, tone comes from line density and width under a raking light, never from flat fill; the edge exists where cuts end.
  • Erosion should follow local stroke width so thin parts of a letter survive.
  • Readability is king: contrast serves separation and the focal point before poetry.

Mosaic

  • Tesserae are laid in courses (andamento) that follow the form's contour, so the flow of the tiles describes the shape.
  • Art deco builds from a closed motif set (fan, feather, fountain, palm, peacock, scallop, sunburst, waves, volute, clouds, chevron, aircraft fin) stepped and mirrored about an axis, with light as a material (floodlit towers, the Chrysler crown).

Ink and water

  • A dye spreads with radius growing as the square root of time (r ~ t^0.5); a moving front grows linearly.
  • Evaporating liquid carries suspended pigment to the drying edge and leaves it there as a rim.
  • A yield-stress paint flows only where pushed past its yield value and holds ridges elsewhere.
Hum v4, the site's theme: 112 beats a minute, felt in half time.

Sound

  • The pad dips about 6 dB under each kick (5.9 dB on 92% of kicks in Stolie): separation by ducking.
  • Keep the third thin or absent; the minor colour comes from a fifth plus a flat sixth.
  • Make the flat sixth (bVI, or b6 over the pedal) the main colour move; lead cells repeat one colour tone (5, b6 or 9).
  • The room is a dark 1 to 2 s space with one wide return; harmony low-passed under about 1 kHz with slow attacks; drums carry the only brightness.
The reference library's concepts in seven translucent strata, from materials down to meaning.

Data and the visualizer

  • Perceived change follows the ratio, not the difference: each added transparent layer reads as a smaller step, so a fifth layer barely reads darker (Albers, Interaction of Color, plate XX-1).
  • A shape sets its resonances, but the resonances do not always fix the shape (Kac 1966; Gordon, Webb and Wolpert 1992).
  • Overlapping transparent inks multiply their transmissions; real inks absorb outside their band, so the ideal multiply misses hue.
Muybridge's horse in motion, plate 758, held as a living still.

Motion and film

  • Physical imperfection (ink spread, paper grain, registration error) makes motion feel alive.
  • A video's colour comes from the grade after shooting, not from the camera alone.
Goya's Nobody knows himself: masked figures, held as a living still.

The exhibit

  • Split an argument into premises, presuppositions and conclusions; read conjunctions as turns or continuations; mark the movements (chain, list, turn) so the whole can be rebuilt. The same decomposition the art studies use, applied to text.
  • Foreground frames, midground holds the character and focal point, background sets the scene; each plane has one job.