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@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ an interactive map-creation tool
 running
 -------
 
-bluerose is a standalone webapp written in vanilla js; as such, you should be able to just open `index.html` in a web browser and use it.
+bluerose is written in vanilla js and doesn't require any building. Simply spin up a web server (I recommend python3's `http.server`) and load `index.html`!
 
 To run the tests:
 
diff --git a/notes.md b/notes.md
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+> I have a programmer's superstitions about always using powers of 2, which are more 
+> pleasing to the spirit of the machine.
+-mewo2, whose sentiment I share
+
+
+grid generation
+---------------
+
+The basic sequence is:
+
+	- pick N random points
+	- relax them a lil
+	- generate their voronoi diagram
+
+Picking N random points it quite straightforward. For relaxation, I indent to just step 
+over MxM points, get the closest of the set of N, and compute the averages to get the 
+centroids. This, again, should be quite simple. Voronoi generation is then just a 
+matter of using rhill's library.
+
+
+terrain generation
+------------------
+
+mewo2 does this automatically; I'd like to do it interactively. Their primitives list 
+is helpful to me though! I'd like to have "brushes" for these things, so that you can 
+pick a radius and strength and then just go to town adding features.
+
+	- constant slope: not entirely sure how this would work (pick a point and make things 
+	  slope from there to the center?)
+	- cones: pretty solid imo
+	- round blobs: also pretty solid
+	- relax: lerp with the average of neighboring points, with the lerp strength relative 
+	  to brush strength and radius.
+	- round: same as relax, but lerp with a point's own square root.
+
+Normalization seems probably superfluous -- we'd like to be able to have really tall 
+mountains and stuff, and it could also make some of the other operations a bit weird 
+(like having stuff that was previously land disappear under water while building a 
+mountain).
+
+One thing to keep in mind is the effect of map scaling on brush radius size. I think I'd 
+like to have the visual radius stay the same size, and shrink the internal radius to 
+match it.
+
+Rivers and erosion are interesting -- I may want to have an "erosion" and "rain" brush 
+to generate these features.
+
+
+rendering
+---------
+
+tba, not sure what I want to do here
+
+
+additional features
+-------------------
+
+I want to take the same approach as OpenStreetMap and have all other features (and 
+possibly even some, like rivers) be *nodes*, that exist independently of the terrain 
+grid. These can be zero-, one-, or two-dimensional. Each node should exist on a *layer*,
+so that different layers can be viewed at any given time. Additionaly, nodes may be 
+assigned a relevance level, which corresponds to the scale required to view them. The 
+highest-level nodes are only visible when broadly zoomed out, and reflect things like 
+major cities, nations, and large-scale geographic features. The lowest-level nodes 
+would represent things like individual buildings and only be visible when highly zoomed in.
+
+Node should be able to indicate things like climate regions or land use patterns as well,
+and those kinds of nodes should be on their own layers, so that the user can view or 
+ignore relevant data at any time.