@TomLarrow@vis.social
@TomLarrow@vis.social avatar

TomLarrow

@TomLarrow@vis.social

Just a random person doing random things. Sometimes those things involve #DevOps #3DPrinting, #CreativeCoding, #VideoEditing, or #3DModeling. Sometimes they don't.

I never know what I'm doing, and occasionally I'm OK with that. I'll post about my struggles with #MentalHealth, #ImpostorSyndrome and #Burnout to try and reduce the stigma around them

Parent of a #T1D child, #Game on #Linux an enjoy following people who know cool things about #History #Science #Tech #Aviation and other things

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

TomLarrow, to random
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Dropping the kids off in the car line at school, and walking in front of us holding the hands of 2 little kids is a fairly well known TV and movie actor.

Not something we regularly see in the Midwest. Even though he was dressed similarly to the character he is best known for playing, he was definitely playing a much different role, that of loving dad

TomLarrow, to random
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Just a small moment of parental pride

I'm still not fully recovered from being sick, and now my wife is sick. Getting the kids out the door for school and I went to calculate the post-it note with food carb count we put in my third grader's lunchbox so that his teachers can make sure he gives the correct insulin dose

He had calculated everything properly himself, including the long division (showing his work) to divide by 3 and multiply by 2 as he gives 2/3rds dose before eating

TomLarrow,
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I still hate that he has to know all of this, but also amazed at his ability to do all it himself. I doubt in 3rd grade I could have known how to read a nutrition label, calculate serving sizes, weigh the food to figure out how much of that food I was eating and know the carb counts for it all

TomLarrow, to genart
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Home sick today, so did a little bit of in between naps. Tried to implement some hexagonal Truchet Tiling

I'm fighting issues w/ floating point rounding not causing the hexagons to line up, & some oddities in (more likely ) that is causing 2 lines with different stroke weights, both with the same length and square stroke caps to be slightly different lengths

I'll sort it out another day without cold medicine clouding my brain

Code: https://codeberg.org/TomLarrow/creative-coding-experiments/src/branch/main/x_0100/x_0101

A very thick dense pattern with a thick ribbon overlapping and running through itself. The hexagons that make this image up can be seen
Another very dense pattern of looping ribbon, this time blue.
A thin ribbon of yellow meanders through the screen. In this one it is possible to see that not all the lines line up.

TomLarrow,
@TomLarrow@vis.social avatar

@villares That's a good idea. Draw it massively to minimize the alignment errors, then scale it down

gamingonlinux, to unity
@gamingonlinux@mastodon.social avatar

Unity Considers Tentative Changes To Controversial Policies https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/09/unity-considers-tentative-changes-to-controversial-policies/

TomLarrow,
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@gamingonlinux Indie devs everywhere still consider tentative changes away from Unity due to controversial policies

TomLarrow, to genart
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New blog post in which I talk a bit about my journey

https://tomlarrow.com/blog/2023/09/16/creative_coding/

TomLarrow, to genart
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Had fun doing some in this afternoon. Lots of dots, sized and colored based on noise.

Enjoyed getting back at it after some time away

Code: https://codeberg.org/TomLarrow/creative-coding-experiments/src/branch/main/x_0100/x_0100

A rainbow colored blob surrounded by other dots that continue the coloring pattern
This is dominated by a large blue blob that has a red outline. My son says it looks like a mouse. There are other dots surrounding it
A noisy cloud of colors that fade into dots

TomLarrow, to random
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New blog post: High Score
https://tomlarrow.com/blog/2023/09/14/high_score/

TomLarrow, to random
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Lawn care crew hard at work this morning

Well... most of them

a mother deer looks at the person taking the picture, well her child looks for something to eat
a young deer still showing it's yearling spots looks off into the distance while it chews
a deer, sits lazily in a pile of leaves I have to be honest, I'm pretty jealous

TomLarrow, to random
@TomLarrow@vis.social avatar

Lawn care crew hard at work this morning

Well... most of them

a mother deer looks at the person taking the picture, well her child looks for something to eat
a young deer still showing it's yearling spots looks off into the distance while it chews
a deer, sits lazily in a pile of leaves I have to be honest, I'm pretty jealous

TomLarrow, to random
@TomLarrow@vis.social avatar

Found this data really interesting, a list of newspapers and other media outlets that are blocking OpenAI's bot. Good for them. The AI companies will never release the their output for free, so why should they get their inputs for free?

https://palewi.re/docs/news-homepages/openai-gptbot-robotstxt.html

TomLarrow, to random
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I'm working intently this morning and I get that feeling that I'm being watched... Look up, and I am being watched

TomLarrow, to random
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New blog post: Self-Hosting
https://tomlarrow.com/blog/2023/09/10/self_hosting/ which is of course self-hosted

TomLarrow, to random
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Wasn't totally thinking when I tried to hop to a new distro this morning, and I accidentally installed the new one over my Windows partition.

At least nothing of value was lost.

TomLarrow, to random
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After taking 8 days off, this is me opening my work email

a scene from the 1960s Star Trek of Captain Kirk standing under an open hatchway while an uncountable number of tribbles fall on his head. he has a look of exasperation on his face

kristinHenry, to art
@kristinHenry@vis.social avatar

Over the years, I've played with code and particle systems to create art. In the systems I develop, each particle has an atomic number and interacts with other particles based on their atomic numbers. In various ways, they 'draw' when they collide.

In this piece, I'm combining one of these particle systems with the Fibonacci system.

The end result? Looks a bit like a quilt, I think.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/painting-with-10690403

TomLarrow,
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@kristinHenry These are beautiful!

TomLarrow, to random
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Stepping away from most internet usage for a few weeks as I'm hosting a dozen friends for our yearly board game "convention." Finalizing preparations, playing taxi service to and from the airport, and 5 days of learning and playing new board games.

I enjoy hosting, but the introvert in me will sort of end up in a cocoon at the end of it and curl up with a book for a few days once it is all over. I'll be able to be back online after, but for now want to focus on friends and then silence

TomLarrow, to genart
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one last bit of to share before I log off for a few weeks. I've done this effect before of drawing straight lines between similar points on adjacent lines. But I had only done it with uniform squares. It was fun to see the output that increasing the randomness of the shapes brought.

Code: https://codeberg.org/TomLarrow/creative-coding-experiments/src/branch/main/x_0099

flowing abstract shapes formed by overlapping straight lines. This one has one that looks like a triangle that started to make itself into a star, and stopped halfway through. A rectangle that suddenly decided to become a mountain range, and 2 more shapes with many points and overlapping lines
flowing abstract shapes formed by overlapping straight lines. This one has one that looks like my original experiments with the square, how it has 2 ellipses that form an X shape, and one that looks sort of like a bow tie, and 2 other much busier shapes
flowing abstract shapes formed by overlapping straight lines. All 4 are pretty intricate. They are dark blue, red, pink, and green

TomLarrow,
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@villares Thanks!

TomLarrow, to genart
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One of the reasons I call my experiments instead of generative art, is that I almost never go into things with an expectation of what the output will be, and if I do have an idea the result rarely looks like what my original of it what it would look like.

Most of the time, they start off with a question like "what will it look like if I do..."

TomLarrow,
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This one especially started off as an exploration into the new command to_pil(). I've been struggling with how handles blending of low alpha colors. At an alpha of 1 of 255, blending colors ends up with things a shade of grey or red despite what the original colors start being set to.

TomLarrow,
@TomLarrow@vis.social avatar

I had hoped to use PIL and convert the colors to 32 bit and try blending it that way. Or even leverage the floating point color modes. But it seems that for the blending modes, PIL uses 8 bit colors, the same as Processing.

While I eventually was able to blend things with PIL, the color desaturation was even more pronounced than it was with Processing alone.

TomLarrow,
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But in the midst of trying to accomplish that, I messed up the alpha of the other anti-aliased pixels, and this generated cool Moiré patterns.

Sometimes I can be a perfectionist, and if I go into things with a "I'm going to make art" mindset, I would obsess about trying to make things look exactly as I expected when I started

With the mindset of "I'm going to experiment and see what things look like when I try..." I find I'm more open to finding unexpected things

Code: https://codeberg.org/TomLarrow/creative-coding-experiments/src/branch/main/x_0098

Curved and blended shapes made up of individual lines overlay each other to generate interesting patterns This one has bolder more vertically colored bands
Curved and blended shapes made up of individual lines overlay each other to generate interesting patterns
Curved and blended shapes made up of individual lines overlay each other to generate interesting patterns

TomLarrow,
@TomLarrow@vis.social avatar

@kristinHenry I learned to code by typing in games and applications from the back of magazines, using them briefly, and enjoyed changing them to learn how they worked

Somewhere along the way I lost the joy of coding because I needed to make the application do something specific, and looking for a specific outcome

By stating my intention to be unintentional up front, I'm enjoying the process again. I may end up with something artful at the end, but the joy is in the process not the destination

TomLarrow, to random
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New blog post in which I probably get more angry than necessary about a 2 line file. But it is the principle of the thing.

Opt In by Default
https://tomlarrow.com/blog/2023/08/25/opt_in_by_defaut/

TomLarrow, to random
@TomLarrow@vis.social avatar

Had a day where almost nothing went my way.

But it the end I was at peace with that.

I'm guessing part of the feeling stems from knowing tomorrow is my last day before a vacation

...but the majority of that OK feeling probably comes from taking a nap

TomLarrow, to random
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Life is too short to waste any of it reading AI generated content

TomLarrow, to random
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LinkedIn: "Hey remember that one guy you recruited, interviewed, and trained to be your replacement? Well he's now been at that job 20 years. Do you feel old yet?"

TomLarrow, to random
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Made an expensive mistake over the weekend.

The pool was over full from all the rain and I had been slowly dragging a submerged sump pump across the bottom removing some water and cleaning the bottom at the same time. I'm brilliant

Sudden downpour caused me to cut power to the pump and rush inside, so I could continue another day

I forgot physics exists and I had created a siphon. Pool continued to drain without power. When I checked it the next day I had lost 1/3 of the water in it

TomLarrow,
@TomLarrow@vis.social avatar

This is the type of thing that I would have been really hard on myself before in the past, focusing on the wasted resources, and the cost to refill the pool

For some reason this weekend I just found the mistake almost funny.

I forgot the laws of physics existed and they reminded me in a way that I'm unlikely to make that mistake again.

I saw it as the learning opportunity it was, not as a mistake to punish myself for.

Hope that line of thinking continues

TomLarrow, to random
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In the past month I read both "A Higher Call" by Adam Makos and Larry Alexander and "Lightning Down" by Tom Clavin

Both are great books, but I wish I had read Lighting Down first. It is the story of Joe Moser, a P-38 pilot shot down over France, and his many ordeals after capture by the SS held in both prisons and concentration camps, before being "liberated" by the Luftwaffe to a true POW camp, then forced marches from camp to camp to evade Russian forces

TomLarrow,
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"A Higher Call" meanwhile is mostly about Franz Stigler, a Luftwaffe ace and his career through the war. One of the main focuses of the book in an incident with the B 17 "Ye Olde Pub."

Seeing that the Pub was at low altitude, down 2 engines and with dead crewmen, Stigler flew alongside it so that the flak batteries would not shoot at it trying to get the plane to fly to Sweden where it could safely land

Charlie Brown flying the Pub didn't understand but still made it back to England

TomLarrow,
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But while that might have been the focal point of the story, Stigler later flew Me 262's. Many of the other pilots he flew with were part of the attempted overthrow of the Luftwaffe and Stigler himself worked to make sure captured Allied pilots were taken care of by the Luftwaffe and not the SS to avoid Joe Moser's fate

Having read it first, I didn't realize all the implications how important those actions were until I read Lightning Down

TomLarrow,
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Recommend both books, and reading them in rapid succession each made the other one's story more powerful.

There is a glimpse into the worst of humanity, and in the midst of it, an extraordinary act of kindness

TomLarrow, to random
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That feeling when you get inspired by something you find in the documentation, build a sketch around it only to find it isn't in the latest release

@py5coding if you need someone to test to_pil() I have an entire sketch built around it ;)

chris, to random
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    TomLarrow,
    @TomLarrow@vis.social avatar

    @chris can I also collaborate and listen?

    TomLarrow, to random
    @TomLarrow@vis.social avatar

    Seems like everyone else in the neighborhood has a crew to take care of their lawn for them

    My lawn care crew:

    TomLarrow, to random
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    typing in temporary admin password into new application I'm setting up on my home server

    Web Browser: "Oooh, a new password, can I have this one too?"

    Password Manager: "Give me this password I will hold it safe for you!"

    KDE Wallet "Let me guard this password for you"

    Reject each so that I can close all their popups and use the app, which of course requires changing the password

    Web Browser, Password Manager, and KDE Wallet excitedly in unison: "New Password!!!!"

    rasterweb, to random
    @rasterweb@mastodon.social avatar

    What is it like to just have one job and one hobby/interest outside of work? Is it magical? Are you chill? Is it the 1970s?

    (I do way too much and I can’t stop myself and sometimes it’s totally draining and I wish things were simpler.)

    TomLarrow,
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    @rasterweb I have 24 hours of hobbies I want to do each day. Silly work and sleep always seem to get in the way

    TomLarrow, to random
    @TomLarrow@vis.social avatar

    It is weird to think about your blind spots

    I can never look at myself in the mirror and say "I need a haircut today"

    I can look at myself in the mirror and say "I needed a haircut 2 months ago"

    TomLarrow, to random
    @TomLarrow@vis.social avatar

    Had an endocrinologist appointment a few weeks back, and mentioned to the doctor that we were struggling with my son having massive high blood sugar numbers in the middle of the night

    He took my son's phone and fingers flying just reprogrammed my son's insulin pump without telling us what he was changing

    Since then he's been a bit better at night, but every day we've been fighting lows after breakfast/lunch

    Really frustrated we weren't informed of what was changed

    TomLarrow,
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    I was able to go back and find old numbers, and compared them to what is in there.

    The tech in me has started putting these values in version control, so we can see, compare, and actually understand what these different values changing are doing

    TomLarrow,
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    It's like, you are literally reprogramming how my son's body works...

    I want to see the code

    TomLarrow, to random
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    The problem with running an IT system that could be considered middleware is that you are in the middle, and that means you can have fingers pointed at you from both directions, and have to defend yourself on both fronts

    You have to know both the programming languages the developers use so you can show them where their code is wrong, and you have to know the platforms so you can show the sysadmins where their servers are wrong

    ...and because you know both plus yours, you end up doing all 3jobs

    TomLarrow, to genart
    @TomLarrow@vis.social avatar

    Today's is actually yesterday's Creative Coding, but the first image here took nearly 24 hours to render, so I'm posting it tonight.

    Inset circle packing using the Shapely library to help determine the radius of each circle to draw in

    As fun as it was to wait in anticipation of the really detailed one, I prefer the simpler ones as you can see the pattern more clearly

    (these are hard to see the pattern until you zoom in)

    Code: https://codeberg.org/TomLarrow/creative-coding-experiments/src/branch/main/x_0096

    TomLarrow,
    @TomLarrow@vis.social avatar

    @ke8smq
    It is fun how simple the rules are:

    Pick a random point, look at the color, draw a circle as big as you can in the opposite color without touching anything

    Repeat until you fail to draw a circle x number of times in a row, where X 10 for the last image, and 30 for the first one

    TomLarrow, to random
    @TomLarrow@vis.social avatar

    After 18+ months on pre-order you would think I would be more excited to get the email that it is time to finish my Prusa XL order

    But a lot has changed in the past 18 months, both in my personal life and the industry

    Buying a new house then starting window and roof replacement on the new house sucked up all the budget that existed for high priced hobby toys

    At least I confirmed that I can hold my spot in queue while I make up my mind what to do

    TomLarrow,
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    So it's gone from something I wanted to do, do something that feels like an obligation.

    And I don't know if spending way too much on a third printer, is just going to ramp up that obligation feeling, as I will feel like I need to print with it, in order to justify what I spent on it

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