I've done 30 posts. At the rate of 0.19 posts per day, in 14,409,741 years I'll reach a billion posts. Yay me!
I watched a tutorial that was supposed to transform my buildings from boring to better. It took a few tries and... slightly better? They're just boxes, how hard can this really be? It's wild how something that looks so easy requires a lot of practice when the easy doesn't come natural. Also, bulldozers are cool.
Discouragement. It sucks the motivation right out of me. These five attempts at an old seaside manor were tough to do because I kept doing things that didn't produce the results I wanted. That's part of learning, right? I need to try and fail a lot. Fail repeatedly and hopefully learn from the mistakes. Also, a human in charge of capital golfs no more.
It gets easier to give myself room to play and not expect too much from what I try. And I sometimes use movies as sources of inspiration on what to practice, especially with faces which will remain a challenge for the foreseeable future.
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.
A neighborhood lemonade stand manned by children who sell Molotov cocktails. That was the idea. I initially tried and failed because complex scenes are beyond me. And that's okay, because I'll try again. Such as with the watercolor of matches which are an integral part of arming any Molotov cocktail. Then, a couple of months later, some watercolor sketches of people holding flaming bottles. Are they awesome? No. That stroller in the new version is WAY better than the stroller in the original. And that I am happy about.
I guess this is more a practice of patience than anything interesting. The story was stuck in my head. I had to go with stairs at a gala type of event. And it's obvious from the noodly ascending lines for stairs there's room for improvement. Not that I want to draw technical stairs. There's visual tricks to make things in the distance a bit abstract, less defined, yet still obvious as to what it is. Things to learn.
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.
After a recent video watch of using a water brush with a mix of permanent and non-permanent fountain pen inks, and then another video demonstrating a water brush with a carbon pencil, I ended up with some sketches. And the charcoal tree looked like a whale tail. Naturally, I had to try to sketch a whale tail breaching the brine. And then came the inspiration about our oceanic mammalian brethren.
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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?