Okay, me. We've done 27 posts. At the rate of 0.22 posts per day, in 12,444,777 years I'll reach a billion posts. Yay me!
Thought: What's the optimum guillotine (processing unit [PU]) usage for a summer concert season?
Since I have access to an LLM and I'm lazy, I'll have it figure things out and assume it's correct. Here's the chat that cost $0.04.
Please help with a calculation for optimal usage. I'm managing spectacle installations during this season's summer concert tours. I'd like to figure out how many processing units is optimal for the number of days and venues I have available. Here are my variables:
Processing Unit Optimization
To maximize PU usage, I need to make some assumptions about how the inputs flow through the system. Let me work through this:
Setup:
Distribution
frac{GU}{V} = frac{10{,}000}{1{,}000} = 10 text{ inputs per venue}frac{10}{50} = 0.2 text{ inputs per venue per day}The Optimization Question
PU = lceil 0.2 rceil = 1 text{ PU per venue}Caveat
Your question is a bit underspecified — I'd need to know:
Could you clarify the PU processing capacity and your optimization goal? That'll let me give you a precise answer.
Good questions. Here's what I can speculate:
Does that help provide enough detail?
Yes, that's much clearer! Let me work through it:
Updated Constraints
Capacity Math
PU times D = PU times 50 text{ inputs}V times PU times D = 1{,}000 times PU times 50 = 50{,}000 times PUUtilization at Each PU Level
| PUs/venue | Total capacity | Inputs used | Utilization |
|-----------+----------------+-------------+-------------|
| 3 | 150,000 | 10,000 | 6.67% |
| 4 | 200,000 | 10,000 | 5.00% |
| 5 | 250,000 | 10,000 | 4.00% |
Recommendation: 3 PUs per venue
With only 10,000 inputs across 50,000 possible "slots" (1,000 venues × 50 days), you have massive overcapacity. Fewer PUs = higher utilization %.
However, since you mentioned spectacle value matters and 3 is the minimum, this is the sweet spot:
Alternative Framing
If you instead want to maximize spectacle (throughput), go with 5 PUs/venue and concentrate inputs at fewer shows — e.g., 2,000 shows at full 5-PU capacity, leaving the rest dark or running fewer PUs.
Want me to model a hybrid distribution strategy?
I pass by a beautiful grazing pasture with a small river frequently and, ever since taking up art, have wanted to paint it. This is my third attempt. I still have a lot of practice to do. Back to the original, did I intend to paint this pasture with the forethought it'd go on this site and be related with a story about wealthy death? No. And that's okay, too; my site, my rules.
Sometimes I'll spy a weed growing out of the street and smile. That a seed found it's way to fertile ground and springs upward out of a concrete crack. Nature's rad. More rad than an expansive data center, even if its foundation contains a tomb.
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When I look at some of the "simpler" watercolor nature paintings, I think "that's not so hard." And then I try it. And realize that "simple" isn't easy. I knew this, though. It's the brush strokes, they look like something I can ape. Two different greens next to each other give depth to a patch of grass, yet I try and it gets muddy somehow. Technique. Don't have it yet.
Sometimes I get an idea in my head and I see it through despite the idea's shortcomings. Like these attempts at "The Shining" elevator without the blood. How hard can painting an interior setting be? Well, shit. Three tries and I gave up. Not that I want to throw any of these away, no. They're going to the island of misfit artworks, like so many others.
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I took advantage of extra free time over an Easter weekend to practice back-to-back watercolors of the same scene. Three versions. Three times the practice. These are done from a reference photo of a seaside scene from a book about Shetland knits. Yes, it would be way cooler to be en plein air at the scene. The source image was gloomy and gray, quite calm, actually. A fitting scene to imagine a story of a bloated billionaire's corpse gently bumped against shoreline rocks by calm waves.
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Oh the rush of group lawn darts. Stand in a circle facing outward and, at the same time, all yeet the jarts into the sky as high as possible. Then run to all corners of the compass. Fun. Almost dropping the cell phone in the toilette gets the heart up, but not like running from metal darts falling from the sky in unknown trajectories. Sometimes low tech is best tech.
How believable is it that, during a routine flyover inspection of a power plant in a helicopter, a passenger would fall out and drop straight down a smoke stack? Swish. It's not uncommon for people to fall out of helicopters in action movies, right? So a rich coal baron falling to his death down a smoke stack doesn't seem like too much of a stretch. Maybe my memory has a glitch, but wasn't the Salieri actor from Amadeus also dropped from a helicopter in Scarface? Maybe that's where I got this idea.
I miss the days of riding bikes and jumping rickety ramps made out of scrap wood. Would I have jumped a dead body with my buddies if we came across one? Probably not. Who knows about kids these days and the urge to post radical stuff to the socials. If I ever feel bad about the content I post to this site, I remind myself there's greedy people out there perfectly content with starving children as long as their profits go up. That's, like, one of the tamest examples I can think of. We're a sad species in many ways.
I found a reference photo from an old TV show that would be perfect for the diner who loves the lobster bisque. I'm still learning how to draw people. Obviously. There will be lots of uglies in the future. What I didn't realize, until a few weeks later when I watched the episode that the still came from, was that this Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode featured a secret restaurant of wealthy old men where the prized special entree wasn't a rare meat from the stepped of Africa. No. The meat in the special comes from one of their own ranks, selected by the matron at her discretion. Which I think is neat.
The 1980's buddy cop comedy Beverly Hills Cop has a scene that could be used for civil disobedience. Or teenagers who want to cause low-risk trouble. I used the memory of that scene to paint a still life of a rag and stick. I could have used a potato instead of a rag in remembrance of the potato I spied shoved up my truck's tail pipe as I walked to it one morning on my way to work (lucky eye spy). I didn't have a spud on hand, so an over-folded rag it is. Maybe after a lot more practice, next year's version will look like a rag and a stick.
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Ever wonder if an escort snaps and kills their client because of their dumb requests? Yeah, me neither. This isn't about that. It's about how I struggle to draw from a concept that isn't clear in my head. Thankfully, the Internet is a huge repository of things I can draw from for my own detestable creative desires. Mental note: subtle curves of the body are just as difficult as facial features. I can botch a line for a door frame and it will still look like a doorway. Get the arc wrong on a person's calf and it becomes a blemished focal point.
The thought of a religious pastor owning a private jet inspired me to draw a picture about it. Yes, I understand I'm going to hell for my hateful thoughts. Thanks. But really, though. Which way would his soul go? Does God dig prosperity teachings of wealthy pastors? I don't have any answers, much like I struggle with smudges on pieces like this. Again, practice. And pay attention to how different paper textures respond to pencil and smudging because there isn't enough things to remember.
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My first attempt at quick color studies after the initial sketch. Are they awesome? No. And that's okay. I found I enjoyed the low risk, quick exercise. Disconnect myself from expectation and play with swirling together colors and see what happens when applied to paper. That's a couple of steps out of the many that requires practice. Muscle memory. Oh, and don't forget the dude without the parachute because that's important. Death comes for us all. Especially for those who exit an airplane in flight without a parachute.
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I'm not a hardcore manga fan, though I do dig the style and the artists' ability to handle complex perspective. These are examples of how not to handle perspective. Unless the perspective is about what's more of a loss to the world: a beautiful musical instrument or a greedy dick head? Yes, murder is wrong. Except when the Grim Reaper or Fate does it like in those Final Destination flicks. That last one with the high restaurant had some neat perspective shots, maybe I should hunt down some stills.
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The sketch and article that inspired this silly site: a crude drawing of a head in a noose. And an article about a beheaded billionaire. But why? I don't know. Maybe the angst of growing older and things not getting better and I look around at the shitty things the wealthiest among us do for greed and... It's fucking frustrating. So I'll learn to draw and paint and other creative tasks away from the computer and post all the nonsense I want to post because I can.