ChinatownJS: REAL Time
Welcome to REAL Time: Data streaming at the speed of thought, multiplayer worlds running at 60 FPS, and the fine line between smooth execution and total system collapse. At REAL Time, we’re cracking open the mechanics of immediacy: how JavaScript drives live interactions, syncs state across space, and occasionally melts your CPU.
This month’s lineup features devs who’ve stress-tested reality itself—whether by deploying crisis response tools overnight, pushing typography into augmented space, or wrangling WebSockets into submission for multiplayer mayhem.
Program
Johan Michalove
FireAid: Mapping Mutual Aid in LA
Join us as Johan shares the story of FireAid.info, a tool built during the 2025 Los Angeles fires that helped over 45,000 people find mutual aid resources in just 48 hours. Learn how modern JavaScript tools and rapid deployment enabled quick response to a community crisis, and explore the technical challenges of handling unexpected scale. This talk will cover practical insights about building with React, Google Sheets integration, and real-time data synchronization, while discussing the human impact of emergency response technology.
Hyning Gan
Augmenting Tradition: Bilingual Typography in the Digital Age
In this talk, I’ll explore the intersection of bilingual typography, augmented reality (AR), and cultural preservation, sharing insights from my recent project that brings Chinese and English type into an comprehensive print piece and an interactive AR experience. I'll discuss the creative and technical challenges I faced in balancing print and digital design, facilitating bilingual communication, and offer food for thought for the future of bringing cultural elements into the modern age. I figured this project would be perfect for the chinatown.js audience since the major source of my inspiration was the typography of signage of New York's Chinatown and it incorporates the use of js in a different way.
Elijah Kennedy
Welcome to the Socket-verse: What making a multiplayer game with ThreeJS taught me about memory optimization in the browser
I am here to open up a project and show you how synchronizing players in realtime 2D or 3D space at sixty frames per second can reveal the costs of some naive state-management patterns. I will also open up the profiler in Chrome and check out some memory leaks and expensive vs. cheap designs.
Submit a talk if you’d like to be featured at a later event!
Snacks & drinks will be served.
FAQs
Please visit chinatownjs.nyc for details about submitting a talk, speaking at ChinatownJS, and accessing the space.