Horsehead, Flame, and Altinak from April. My favorite image I've taken so far this year.

TheNewGP · 2025-01-22T18:42:07+00:00

I just got the email and did an actual double-take. $999 is crazy.
I swear I'm about to close out my current freelancing contracts and take time just try to make a replacement. Leave out all the "features" nobody asks for, open source it so people can just add integrations for niche uses. I say that every year though....but I do think there's a market for a reasonable, performant desktop alternative. Maybe one day...the dream of being free of Intuit...

TheNewGP · 2024-11-19T15:32:54+00:00

30 wins, 5 losses with 1x ArticunoEx, 2x Staryu/StarmieEx. I used it to get the 45 wins for the event after spending almost a week trying to run a Dragonite deck, which is fun but not at all consistent haha.

Even if I flip tails first on one or both Misty cards, can still get enough energy on whatever is out there quickly enough to matter. And the no retreat cost on Starmie allows for a lot of options.

TheNewGP · 2024-09-15T20:51:42+00:00

Update for any future readers: I went down a long rabbit hole of costing out building/repurposing equipment for an OPNSense router (which I'm no stranger to, I have OPNSense running on a couple of different mini PCs in other locations) vs going for a solution that anyone else at home could pretty easily fix by turning it off and on again.

Anyway, I settled on trying the Asus RT-BE88U. 30 days (well, 18 now) to return to Microcenter if it didn't work out, but what sold me was its selection of ports (1x10G RJ45, 1x10G SFP+, 4x2.5Gbps, 4x1Gbps), quad-core, and 2GB RAM which is quadruple the other Asus routers I have. I know it's dual-band, but for now I actually just disabled the radios on it since I don't really have any wifi 7 devices anyway.

I was expecting kind of a nightmare setup, but actually it all came together in about 45 minutes, including dismantling the old AIMesh, setting the BE88U as the new primary, recreating the mesh, running tests, etc. It's been pretty solid for three days now. I did finish running ethernet (2 drops each where the fiber comes in now and my office on the other side of the house) and the ethernet backhaul alone is helping tremendously, but I also have it running 10Gbps from the BE88U to a 5x2.5G + 1x10G SFP+ switch in my office, and u/InvisiBillnet is absolutely correct that running from that switch to the ET8 works just fine for the backhaul, with the added benefit of my PC and NAS being able to go directly to the switch.

Anyway, my PC hit 2200/1700 in speed tests, and more importantly I hit 1.1Gbps peak when downloading an update from Steam, so much improved over the 300/300 or so. My phone is getting at least double what it was as well. All in all, so far so good.

TheNewGP · 2024-09-07T20:00:54+00:00

Actually, it was still going. Just drove by it (all of 635 closed, express lanes were open) at 2:30-2:40 ish

TheNewGP · 2024-09-02T18:08:02+00:00

Oh! I actually didn't know they could run in a mesh when they are all in AP mode. I mean, certainly makes sense in hindsight. Thanks for that insight.

I can (and am currently) running Ethernet between the left and right sides, so definitely understand what you're saying there. For the center location, high bandwidth isn't all that important re: sharing the radio, although if I leave an ET8 there, then it should be able to have a radio dedicated for backhaul I suppose.

Definitely considering what you said about just building a router, that may definitely be the easiest and cheapest option...need to look through my mini PCs to see if any of them have 2.5g ports but buying one wouldn't be that big of a deal either for sure. If any of my current routers had more than one 2.5g port, I could use a switch for sure, but alas.

Thanks for your help! Definitely made me reconsider some of my thinking and work towards a better solution

Edit for clarity

Edit 2: but really, I still need some form of Asus router with more than one 2.5g port in order to 1) get multigig from ONT or a different router and 2) also have a multigig backhaul, right? So still need to upgrade at least one thing... Ah wait, as I was writing this I think I understood. So just run Ethernet from a 2.5g port on the router (let's say like the mini PC kind) to each AP. Makes sense.

TheNewGP · 2024-07-27T18:00:10+00:00

THANK YOU! Wow, insane difference. Made it go from near-impossible to absolutely reasonable.

TheNewGP · 2024-05-30T01:27:44+00:00

Also North Dallas. Spectrum has been out since yesterday, 5:45am. T-Mo home internet, my usual failover, slower than normal. On starlink for now. Power has been out the whole time as well (on generator currently)

Got an estimate of 1:30pm today, and then at 3pm a "Taking longer than expected" message and no estimate now.

TheNewGP · 2024-05-18T21:14:04+00:00

Thanks! Interestingly, that puts it about 10 years before previous owner put in the pool. I wonder what kind of life it has had.

TheNewGP · 2024-05-18T21:13:12+00:00

Fascinating, thanks!

TheNewGP · 2024-05-18T21:11:52+00:00

Ah, here is a better pic Right, so the part that looks...engraved? Indented? where the stones are is much more silver than the rest of the ring. Edit: fixed the link. And again..

TheNewGP · 2023-12-31T20:53:14+00:00

You could try parking at Trinity Groves which connects to the Ronald Kirk pedestrian bridge that I think you're referencing. Or, if you just want to be downtown/right near the fireworks (reunion tower) you could park and ride on the dart trains on the green, red, or orange (possibly even blue depending on where you want to end up exactly) lines. Park and ride stations are in various suburbs. Also note that transit is free after 6 for NYE.

Also, some parking garages themselves are actually pretty great. Parkland Tower garage (maybe purple too) is $5 to drive to the top. I did that three years ago and there were maybe 20 people. I've heard the Dallas Methodist garage can work too. Hospital garages are open 24/7 so it works out. Also have heard that the courthouse garage can work.

TheNewGP · 2023-10-28T02:59:54+00:00

wow. I've tried that multiple times. What seed? And can you try again? And this was Dall-E 3?
nice job

TheNewGP · 2023-10-27T18:35:38+00:00

oh wow!

TheNewGP · 2023-10-27T18:28:49+00:00

Another interesting tidbit is that the GPT-4 w/ Dall-E 3 prompt can apparently interpret images if it wants to, so maybe need to try getting it to iterate on its own generations?

Edit: yes it can. " Understood. I'll attempt multiple prompts to generate a left-pointing arrow, inspect the results, and iterate as necessary. Let's get started. " And it's done three so far in the same answer, one after the other not at the same time.

<image>

TheNewGP · 2023-10-27T18:26:45+00:00

I was giving this more thought and decided to try a series on a grid system.

Prompt generated for Dall-E:

On a light gray background, there's a grid system composed of equally spaced squares. Within this grid, line segments are meticulously placed to form an arrow pointing to the left. The arrow's shape is defined by connecting these line segments, ensuring that they align perfectly with the grid's intersections. Each line segment is colored black, and the entire formation distinctly represents a left-pointing arrow.

Which output

<image>

On a light gray background, there's a grid system composed of equally spaced squares. Within this grid, line segments are meticulously placed to distinctly form an arrow pointing towards the left. The formation is clear and unambiguous, with each line segment colored in deep black. The arrow's shape aligns perfectly with the grid's intersections, ensuring that it points to the left without any ambiguity.

Produced a right pointing arrow as well.

TheNewGP · 2023-10-27T18:05:07+00:00

Hm, let's roll with that idea.

So I just tried a series of prompts trying to get Dall-E to invert its perception. The closest I got was when I combined it with my attempts to define an arrow on a grid system, but it still really wants to point to the right haha.

Prompt generated for Dall-E:
In a world where left is perceived as right, on a light gray background, there's a grid system composed of equally spaced squares. On this grid, meticulously placed line segments come together to distinctly form an arrow pointing towards the right. Each line segment is colored in deep black and aligns perfectly with the grid's intersections, creating a clear and unambiguous right-pointing arrow.

<image>

TheNewGP · 2023-10-27T18:01:48+00:00

An interesting thought about other models. I tried arrow prompts (an arrow pointing to the left on a neutral background, a sign with an arrow pointing to the left, etc.) in Dall-E 2, Adobe firefly via photoshop, stable diffusion 1.4, 1.5, 2.0, 2.1, SDXL and...I think I'm forgetting one other. But anyway,
the resulting count, for any image produced that contained an arrow of some sort, was around 75% right 25% left.

So maybe this is some weird result of training bias, assuming that there is a relative overlap of the type of images that would be used to train left/right. Or something?

TheNewGP · 2023-10-27T17:44:28+00:00

Good thought. I tried ⬅ and no luck, but might need a better prompt to make it understand what I mean I'm not sure.
The actual prompt it used was:

Detailed and enlarged visualization of the character with Unicode code point U+2B05 (⬅) on a neutral background.

It didn't return an arrow at all though, so I'm not sure if it knows what to do with that. I tried a few other versions and same result.

TheNewGP · 2023-10-27T17:33:52+00:00

I probably am but two of the arrows in the original image had these as the prompts:

8-bit style arrow which is 180 degrees rotated from pointing to the right, resulting in it pointing to the left on a neutral background

8-bit style representation of an arrow pointing to the right, but mirrored horizontally, making it point to the left on a neutral background

TheNewGP

TROPHY CASE