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Emoji are a great way to express yourself. Through Simulating the World, the latest interactive web toy by artist Nicky Case, they're more than just cute stickers. They become a tool for thinking about systems, illuminating how everything from forest fires to flu pandemics start, or spread out of control.
Simulating the World is a time-lapsed grid that is semi-randomly populated with whatever emoji you choose, according to certain user-defined rules: what happens when an emoji spawns to another emoji that is different, for example. It doesn't sound like much, but used intelligently, this emoji grid is enough to simulate, if not predict, how all sorts of systems work: how a bolt of lightning can decimate a forest during a drought year, for example, or how neighborhoods can desegregate over time....
How do neighborhoods become segregated, forest fires spread, and herd immunity work? Emoji can help explain it all. Cool design you'd never suspect.