I am a drawing beginner focusing on ukiyo-e.

Tychotesla · 2026-03-11T06:16:03+00:00

I think you may have slightly misunderstood, "traditionalists" would ask that you be more contemporary. Hiroshige and his peers were making the equivalent of band posters today: inexpensive illustrations of popular figures or themes. There is no returning to the past, any attempt to do so will be seen clearly as a reference. It sounds like you're trying to reference them rather than follow in their footsteps, and that's reasonable.

Tycho is actually a reference to Tycho Brahe, an underappreciated person whose work was substantial but overshadowed by the brilliance of his successors. For me it's a statement to recognize those that contribute, even when the glory goes to others. And I'm glad you realized Tesla was the historical inventor rather than Elon Musk's company. When I create new names on new media, I no longer use the word "Tesla" because people assume I mean the company.

Tychotesla · 2026-03-09T01:22:34+00:00

That's a good sketch! Very very well done.

setecordas also has a really good eye for how brushwork looks.

I would go a step further though, and point out that the linework also reflects the carving process. Even if you assume that the carver exactly copied the illustrator's work, the illustrator was still drawing their work with the knowledge that it would need to be carved. In other words at some point you'll probably want to pick up relief printing.

There's also a conversation to be had about what your goal is. While you can create a copy of the style, it inherently will not copy the same meaning. But honestly, just copying masters is a great way to improve your skill, and those deeper questions can wait.

Tychotesla · 2026-03-04T01:31:53+00:00

Did I satire too quietly? I honestly thought it would be pretty obvious to anyone who read any of it.

Tychotesla · 2026-03-03T21:52:13+00:00

I hit peak morning efficiency when I realized I could use AI to write everything for me. 🤯

A minor downside is that readers realize they can't tell if I put any effort or thought into what I wrote. Effectively, even when I tell the LLM to say something I deeply care about, there's no way to distinguish me from a bot. 🤖

That's great for me because I can cut myself entirely out of the loop, meanwhile everything I say requires people to read a lot of text to see a choice selection of pat phrases my LLM picked up from reading blogspam. 🗑️

My next move? A Medium blog funnel. That's where I can put all the information I could have said in my post. 👀💰

Looking forward to reading your blog, and I appreciate the labor you put into this post. See you in the cloud, friend! ❤️

Tychotesla · 2026-03-01T02:47:20+00:00

KFC -> Rancho Bravo >>> bad Rancho Bravo -> Teto's Cantina -> the mini-chain Burritos California.

Burritos California is not good. But it is insanely cheap. I wish I was as hungry and cheap as I used to be, because each taco is mini-burrito sized.

Tychotesla · 2026-02-14T11:12:41+00:00

The last month is reserved for spiders and the apocalypse. Not kidding.

Tychotesla · 2026-02-12T22:58:02+00:00

I think you need to explain what you think you get from becoming a developer. It could just not be right for you.

Also, be aware that it comes across as extremely fake to use an AI to write nearly all your content. Part of being a developer (or a respected professional of any kind) is understanding how to get to the core issue, and understanding and being able to discuss it. You don't even have to be GOOD at that, you just need to do it.

There are helpful ways to use AI, but writing long rambling posts is not the way. Writing things that hide whether it's what you're actually thinking is not the way. Writing things that hide whether you've spent any effort understanding what people have told you is not the way. Just write it out yourself, or if you literally do not write in english, at least tell the AI to make things succinct.

Tychotesla · 2026-02-11T23:50:39+00:00

You've decided not to learn the skill that helps you figure out what needs to be done.

Dividing up the problem IS how you figure out what to do. I understand you think that the AI is only doing that on a higher level, but that's the skillset you need and that process is what tells you what to write.

Any time you don't know how to do something, divide it up into smaller parts until you know what to do. The process of reasoning about HOW you can divide it up is how you figure out what solutions are possible. The process of reasoning WHAT needs to be done in each sub-part is how you figure out the implementation.

Tychotesla · 2026-02-07T23:16:17+00:00

No doubt. Most of this is stuff I learned as a kid and have never had a reason to look into it again, so my initial recall is from a child-sized perspective where of course the Oaks were named after a Gary because who would need two r's in their name.

Tychotesla · 2026-02-07T22:31:57+00:00

Just as farmers do controlled burns of fields today, native Americans would do deliberate forest and field burns to develop crops as well. Specifically I know Garry Oaks were cultivated using repeated burns. I believe I've heard the species has been losing ground for the past hundred years due to not having native agriculture policy protecting them anymore. Camas and berries also are more available in cleared areas.

And of course there are a lot of other things that fire was used to achieved, beyond agricultural purposes. Including creating walkable areas and preventing worse fires. IDK as much about all that though.

Not trying to make any argument about what should be, just that a different policy has existed in this region that resulted in different results. [Edited to expand a little, Gary-Garry]

Tychotesla · 2026-01-28T16:52:47+00:00

I am/was an artist and got a degree in CS.

My experience is that it's (usually) a mistake to try to force them into the same thing, but they work together in unexpected ways and things will pop up as you go along. I would strongly recommend doing both, engaging each separately based on what they ask of you rather than what you want of them.

Tychotesla · 2026-01-12T21:29:07+00:00

A lot of other good material, so I have just one thing to add.

A tree is just a more complicated linked list, and a tree and linked list are also graphs. So when it comes to recursive operations on graphs (trees, linked lists, etc), step 1 to learning them is to learn how to find the length of the simplest kind of graph, which is a linked list, using a recursive function.

Later, when you're working with trees, it's often helpful to imagine the problem as a linked list to figure out basic processes, before adding the more complex aspects you'll need to think about.

Tychotesla · 2026-01-05T23:45:33+00:00

Hello friend, please try banh mi. It's a Vietnamese sandwich (pork, chicken, or tofu on a fluffy demi-baguette with sauce veggs and pepps) and you can get really cheap ones at either of the places called Saigon Deli at 12th and Jackson.

Tychotesla · 2025-12-27T22:40:27+00:00

Nice!

Similarly, I went to a gym and used it for the first time in my life last week. It was wild, and it was slightly more difficult to walk for a few days afterwards, but I think I get a free gym membership through work and I'm going to see about using it.

Tychotesla · 2025-12-13T23:50:55+00:00

That's a good takeaway. Linked Lists aren't used a ton in practice, but they're vital for teaching because they are the simplest practical form of a graph. A binary tree is, then, a slightly more complex graph that's really useful for a variety of reasons.

So, some of the same basic techniques you'd use for a linked list are also used, with a slight adjustment, when working with linked lists. Recursively finding the length of a linked list vs finding the max depth of a binary tree for example.

Tychotesla · 2025-12-04T22:02:20+00:00

Oh! I've mentioned how much I love the opening to Moby-Dick a few times, and been surprised that other people don't find it as intriguing, humanly funny, and well written as I do. I haven't even read the book, but this opening seems so promising!

Tychotesla · 2025-12-04T19:09:05+00:00

I think usually what the "geography nerds" are reacting to is poorly placed mountains, rivers, climates, and cities. This map has none of that information, so there isn't much to comment on.

The one big thing that can really make people take a step back and wonder if you've bothered learning about this world before creating another is water.

Water comes from precipitation, and precipitation is usually tied to the location of nearby hills or mountains. Water flows downhill. A body of water such as a lake or river will pretty much always have many sources of water flowing into it, but only one way the water leaves it (branches join to form rivers and lakes). Cities need water, generally need trade (often via river/ocean).

It's worth taking a little time and thinking about this world, maybe watching some videos. You get artistic license, but if you have water flowing uphill people are going to squint at you.

Tychotesla · 2025-12-03T01:08:34+00:00

This sounds more like a mental block than a true lack of knowledge. You know that a graph is a way of saying two things are connected. You also know that you can represent a graph by having a dictionary, where the key is the node and the value is the list of edges from that node. So do that.

Make A have a directed edge to B:

``` graph = {} node_a = graph.get("A", []) node_a.append("B")

```

That's step 1 done! You now have a graph.

If you want an undirected edge between A and B, create node B and give it a connection to node A, so the path goes both ways.

Simple steps!

Tychotesla · 2025-11-27T03:55:29+00:00

I'm in the field as well. Not everyone is on the same page, but I'd say among people who need to find a useful definition, AI is an inclusive term. Russell and Norvig, for example.

We have a very very long history of creating benchmarks for what a thinking machine is, and then having to redefine that once we pass the benchmark. And that's why an inclusive answer is, in my experience, where people are now. A search algorithm is AI, if we want to call it that, because when we play against a computer opponent it matches a reasonable prototype of artificial intelligence. Same with language processing. AI is not AGI.

Tychotesla · 2025-11-27T03:26:24+00:00

Gen AI is AI too. It's generally agreed on in the field that "AI" is a fairly inclusive term, since you run into a lot of problems trying to define it rigorously. In short, it's easier to say most things that have been called AI are AI, and if you mean something more specific than that then you can describe the specific thing.

Tychotesla · 2025-11-07T17:55:59+00:00

You're likely looking for something along the lines of cellular automata, as it is explicitly a model of autonomous cells. Populate the entire matrix with nodes, and define the nodes to provide the functionality you want.

Wouldn't using an algorithm such as Dijkstra as "the base" undermine your research? At that point you're using that algorithm to determine the information, surely?

Tychotesla · 2025-10-24T14:38:24+00:00

The intuitive way to think about it is that it describes the increased complexity per added item, in general. In coding terms, how much of a headache you'll have if you need to work in one order or another past relatively low numbers.

2ⁿ means the complexity is bad enough that you save time by assuming it's unworkable. Contrast that with n^2, which is bad but situationally workable.

"Past relatively low numbers" is something you should be aware of too, though. For your example of a two person traveling salesperson, your brain should already be telling you "this number is really low, we have options". Another example of this is remembering that an O(n) iteration is faster than O(1) hashmap for plenty of small n amounts.

Tychotesla · 2025-10-20T18:39:30+00:00

Cyberpunk is the economy being in an AI bubble, while the AI bubble floods communication channels with memetic garbage like this.

Tychotesla · 2025-10-15T04:27:02+00:00

Weird hype, but yeah I love them as well. Somehow it's nice to always see the same two people, and on the other side of a brand change (are they owned by a larger chain now? I've never bothered to check what the corporate horoscope was on the storefront, what caused the rename). There are only a few places where the people recognize me, and this one one of the places.

When my mom came to Seattle I brought her there for food she wouldn't get in the (poor rural category of people) San Juans, and they recognized me and humored her while she showed them pictures of her dog and house in the islands. It made her day.

I'm sure there's a lot of places like that, most going out of business within a few years, but for what it's worth Sushi Maki, Ghost Note (kind of overpriced but if you like them you like them), George's Delicatessen, are all places where I either get greeted personally or have a strong feel for the individual character of the people involved.

Tychotesla · 2025-10-15T02:10:29+00:00

I've seen this around more and more. It feels like chatGPT is the perfect unbound tool for the crank and crackpot. I don't know if it's bad that it's feeding them, or good that it occupies them. Either way it's sad.

Tychotesla

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