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See The Simpsons Converted Into Computer Code

Programmer Chris Pattle imagines what The Simpsons look like (to your web browser).

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The Simpsons’ hometown of Springfield, USA— which lies right between the borders of Ohio, Nevada, Maine, and Kentucky—now exists within your web browser (and no, we don't mean via web streaming). Thanks to the fine work of web developer Chris Pattle, Simpsons fans the world over can now download most of the major Simpsons characters in CSS.

Hand-decoded in same programming language that tells most browsers how their content should look—the "scaffolding" of the Internet, if you will—the characters look just as real as if they had sprung from Matt Groening’s own pen tip. A simple breakdown shows how each character is actually composed of letters, numbers, and symbols cleverly arranged and manipulated into the familiar faces of our favorite dysfunctional family. Homer’s luscious locks, for instance, are made of an “M” and some ellipses. His ears? A rudimentary letter "G," (wink, wink).

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In order to create his custom codes, Pattle closely examined the The Simpsons and cross-reference his knowledge of CSS with the faces of Springfield’s animated residents. Once he’d figured out which CSS characters would fit the faces of which characters, he hand-composed the code, down to the most minute details. Each face, alone, consists of hundreds of lines of code. In total, Homer is almost 540 lines, Bart, almost 600, and Marge clocks in at nearly a thousand. If you ask us, we always knew she was a more complex character than Homer— but now we have proof. Pattle explained more about the creative process behind this project over on his blog.

Find more of Pattle’s work on his personal website, or view his code directly on his Github.

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