Samuel Clay

2024

Samuel Clay
is looking directly at the sun.

@samuelclay

samuel@conesus.com

San Francisco, California
Shutesbury, Massachusetts

2022 - 2025
Sol Reader
Experience the next evolution in reading. Illuminate your mind.
2013 - 2025
Turn Touch
Beautiful control for your smart home. Small flowers crack concrete.
2009 - 2025
NewsBlur
A personal news reader that brings people together to talk about the world. A new sound of an old instrument.

2012 - 2025
Hacker Smacker
Browser extension used to friend and foe individual writers on Hacker News.
2007 - 2025
ofBrooklyn.com
A blog as a public record of my work.
2012 - 2025
Blurblog
My shared stories on NewsBlur.

2020

Comfort Maps
Comfort Maps make safer streets. Turn your two-wheeled commute into a call for action.
2020
WTF is CDA
An interactive explainer about the Communications Decency Act ("CDA 230") and one of the most powerful laws shaping the Internet as we know it today.
2018
Boston Bike Lanes
An interactive visualization of where Boston should build its next bike lanes, backed by data.
2018

Podlife
An augmented reality app that demoed a series of self-driving pods, part of a conceptual network envisioning the future of commuting.
2018

Kickpoint
A device that allows for governments to provide a temporary infrastructure for citizens to communicate with their loved ones after natural disasters.
2016
Grove
A second interactive biofeedback installation at Burning Man 2016.
2014
Pulse & Bloom
An interactive biofeedback installation at Burning Man 2014.
2014
Adventures in Wearable Electronics
Combining sewing and electronics to make a light up dress.
2011 - 2014
VisualSearch.js
A faceted search box for real data.
2013
Living Photo Frame
A photo frame that automatically downloads my latest Flickr and Instagram photos. Has a motion sensor for automatic shutoff when nobody's around. Amazingly has worked for years.
2012

DonationParty
Invite friends to donate a randomly selected amount (up to $10) to charity and one lucky winner will receive something awesome from Amazon.
2010 - 2012
New York Field Guide
A photoblog of New York City's 90 historic districts. Each photo taken using a Panasonic Lumix GF1 with a 20mm f/1.7 lens.
2010 - 2011
DocumentCloud
The future of journalism is transparency. Funded by the Knight Foundation. Contributor to Backbone.js, Underscore.js, and much open-source software.
2009
Raphaël Vector Library
A cross-browser JavaScript vector graphics library. I presented my minor contributions and the library with this paper and workshop at SVG Open 2009 at Google in California. Presentation and Paper (PDF).
2007 - 2008

SunRayLab
A CMS for projects. Originally built to connect creative people together to work on projects.
2006 - 2007

CaseLife
Student group communications systems built for campus groups in PHP.
2003 - 2007

Scheduler Jones
A graphical scheduling application for students to plan and share their next semester schedule, written with Microsoft Visual C++.
1999 - 2001

The Brain Explorer
In high school, I led an international team to build this educational site. Won as a semi-finalist in the ThinkQuest 2001 competition.

NewsBlur on GitHub 2009 - 2025
The Django/Python code that powers the intelligent visual feed reader.
Tiki v3 on GitHub 2025
Firmware for the Tiki v3 lights. Smiles, winks, fades, and syncs between devices.
Bike Swarm on GitHub 2020 - 2023
Firmware for the syncing bike lights.
Turn Touch remote on GitHub 2015 - 2018
Firmware and the custom circuit board for the four button Turn Touch remote.
Turn Touch CAD and CAM on GitHub 2015 - 2018
Models and CNC machining design files for the solid wood Turn Touch remote.
Grove on GitHub 2016
Firmware and three custom circuit boards for an interactive biofeedback installation at Burning Man. Measures breathing.
VisualSearch.js on GitHub 2011 - 2014
Creator of a JavaScript library that creates an auto-completing faceted search box.
Hacker Smacker on GitHub 2012 - 2014
Built this browser extension with Node.js and Redis for finding graph connections between comment authors (friend of a friend).
Pulse & Bloom on GitHub 2014
Firmware for an interactive biofeedback installation at Burning Man. Measures two heartbeats.
DonationParty on GitHub 2012 - 2013
A four-man team working over two hackathons to create this fun Django-based charity donation site.
The Do Club on GitHub 2013
A two-man team built this presentation and event system for hackers to showcase their work.
Backbone.js on GitHub 2010 - 2011
Contributor to this popular JavaScript library for creating model, view, collections, and tying them together with events.
Underscore.js on GitHub 2010 - 2011
Contributor to this popular JavaScript library used as a general toolkit. Based off of functional programming patterns.
Mongoengine on GitHub 2010 - 2011
Contributor to this popular Python framework/ORM for MongoDB.
DocumentViewer.js on GitHub 2010 - 2011
Major contributor to this JavaScript library used to embed PDFs as images on a website.
New York Field Guide on GitHub 2010
A stylish photoblog with annotations and per-photo commenting.
samuelclay.com on GitHub 2009 - 2010
The code that runs this site here.
Raphaël JavaScript Library on GitHub 2009
My minor contributions to the Raphaël library are found on GitHub.
Raphaël animation easing formulas on GitHub 2009
Additional formulas used in animation easing in Raphaël. Includes easeInOutQuad to easeInOutQuint, bounces, elastic, and even easeInOutCirc.

Recap and takeaways of the Micromobility panel at Moving the Future 2020 February 6th, 2020
The New Garden of the World — Review of The Machine in the Garden August 7th, 2019
Everything you need to build your own Turn Touch smart remote January 3rd, 2019
Building Grove — interactive trees that come alive to your breath at Burning Man 2016 March 31st, 2017
Open letter to my family in Ohio: I am still coming home for Thanksgiving this year November 21st, 2016
Building Pulse & Bloom - an interactive biofeedback installation at Burning Man 2014 September 6th, 2014
Adventures in Wearable Electronics - Making a Light-up Dress January 15th, 2014
Building a living photo frame with a Raspberry Pi and a motion detector January 2nd, 2014
Backbonification: migrating a large JavaScript project from DOM spaghetti to Backbone.js November 13th, 2012
For Good Reason, NewsBlur Will Not Compete With the Big Boys January 10th, 2011

Adafruit: Building Grove — interactive trees that come alive to your breath at Burning Man 2016 #ArtTuesday by Jessica Califano April 4th, 2017
Hack a Day: Biofeedback Flowers at Burning Man by Bryan Cockfield September 10th, 2014
Pulse & Bloom press roundup: The Guardian, The BBC, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic's Big Picture twice, CBS News, NBC News, and MSNBC.
September 6th, 2014
Hack a Day: A Light-Up Dress for a New Year's Dance Party by Josh Marsh January 15th, 2014
Lifehacker: Build a Smarter Digital Photo Frame with a Raspberry Pi by Thorin Klosowski January 6th, 2014
Hack a Day: Building a Raspberry PI Digital Photo Frame by Kevin Darrah January 4th, 2014
Adafruit: Building a living photo frame with a Raspberry Pi and a motion detector by Jessica Califano January 3rd, 2014
TechCrunch: The Best iOS And Android Apps Of 2013 - NewsBlur by Greg Kumparak December 31st, 2013
PCWorld: NewsBlur is a worthy, powerful Google Reader replacement by Erez Zukerman June 24th, 2013
The Verge: NewsBlur, flush with Google Reader refugees, rolls out redesign by Adrianne Jeffries May 21st, 2013
Wired: Scaling on a Shoestring, Lessons from NewsBlur by Scott Gilbertson March 20th, 2013
VentureBeat: NewsBlur launches iPad app, aims to compete with Google Reader (exclusive) by Christina Farr September 5th, 2012