Favorite thing I learned recently was that instead of doing
one can just do
What’s the next cool thing I should know about f-strings?
Wow, didn't know this one (just added to my lecture notes!) thanks
Readit Newsjpm48 commented on Python built-ins worth learning (2019) treyhunner.com/2019/05/py... · Posted by u/type0
jpm48 commented on Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch? · Posted by u/autotune
Commercial artist for 45 years. Also a developer, FWIW, mostly graphics programming since the late 1970s.
_Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ is actually one of the best places to start. I know you said you tried it. But try it this way: Ignore all the theory and the stories the author tells. It’s mostly nonsense. But the exercises are actually very good. The trick is to not care about the result and about making progress. I know, that sounds crazy. But it’s true.
Just do it.
Go through reams of cheap paper. Happily throw most of the drawings away. Draw anything and everything. Fall in love with nothing. It’s like practicing scales for a musician. If you get a good drawing every now and then, then cool. If not, don’t worry about it.
It’s gonna take some time.
Be prepared to adjust your expectations as to what a good drawing is. It will change, drastically, over time. The way you draw will emerge rather than be something you develop or manage. Frustrating, I know. But the basics have to develop organically, like learning to talk.
Learning to draw is much more about learning to see than making marks. You think you can see things, but what you are really doing is recognizing things. Any normal adult has the motor skills to make a controlled mark. But we don’t know how to make a mark that the brain will read as something. If it was just a matter of reproducing something that’s in front of you, then tracing would work. But nearly all tracings suck as drawings.
Having said all that, start reading anything you can find on the subject. Be prepared to ignore most of it. You are finding your own path.
You can look through my history on ycombinator more discussion and to to see lists of books that are worth your time. But look on your own too. If you find anything new and different, please share.
As far as goals, they are great things to have. But expect them to change and evolve. Why shouldn’t they. As you get better, your tastes will change. Things you saw that seemed wonderful, may suddenly be full of flaws. Things you disdained may suddenly reveal their secret appeal.
It’s an adventure as well as a skill. And the learning never stops. I’m in my 60s and have been drawing seriously since my early teens.
I’m just getting started.
"Just getting started", I feel the same with the guitar. Been playing since I was 12, 40 years on with quite a few breaks still love it and having fun will never be a pro! I work with loads of great artists, I really can't draw (but am according to the deeds of my apprenticeship a qualified draftsman!) but still love to doodle and sketch. The awesome artists I teach and work with always amaze me, mostly the really good ones always have a sketch book with them and always doodle. This is the key, love it, practice it and enjoy :-)
jpm48 commented on Criterion: A cross-platform C and C++ unit testing framework github.com/Snaipe/Criteri... · Posted by u/cassepipe
A bit off topic - if I wanted to make a gif similar to the one in the README of this project, what tool would I need to use? The typing seems to be automated somehow to be at a constant rate.
Most likely a combination of asciinema https://asciinema.org/ and https://github.com/cirocosta/asciinema-edit (You can do it by hand as well, but the tools are easier). Use the Quantize and speed options
jpm48 commented on Fred's ImageMagick Scripts fmwconcepts.com/imagemagi... · Posted by u/beepbooptheory
I looked at both tools. They look very cool.
Neither seem able to decompose an input image into smaller "tile" images.
I have some very large TIFFs that I cannot work with (I can't even open them in some cases!) and I would like to run them through a mill that can "paginate" the larger image into a number of smaller ones.
Have a look at OpenImageIO it may help. The otool
can do lots, and if not you may be able to use the API's (C++ or Python) https://openimageio.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
This is going to be useful for many things in my teaching. I've just got my students to install Rich / textual for my python coding course as I've featured it as one of my Modules of the week. https://nccastaff.bournemouth.ac.uk/jmacey/msc/PipeLineAndTD... So this will come in handy. Great work.
Am I the only one who feel continually let down by the script writing in Netflix Originals? Not all of them, but many of them seem to have a budget that allows for “decent” special effects and scenery, but when it comes to actual writing, which in my mind is what carries or collapses a series to begin with, it sometimes feels like they just grabbed interns or whoever was available for the lowest cost.
The latest example of a promising series torpedoed by shoddy writing is in my opinion “The Defeated”. I mean, it’s about killing nazis in post war Berlin, how do you mess this up? And yet the characters are boring, cliché and the story is predictable to the point that it feels like a chore to watch.
Maybe I’m not the majority in this opinion but I really feel like Netflix could probably make better series if they spent less on production and more on writing, but now that I’m saying it out loud I guess I am the minority after all. Most people probably prefer a well produced series with a bad script over a well produced, pretentious indie movie or bottle episode.
I've watched several that i've thought have been written by AI / GPT.
jpm48 commented on $2,500 Ethernet Switch Effectively Isolates Audiophiles from Cash tomshardware.com/news/eth... · Posted by u/simonjgreen
Don't forget that default memcpy() produces a "hard edge", and if you change your audio player to C++ new it will sound better.
https://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/11/11997...
wow, this is amazing, I wonder if std::make_unique<audio> would be better as it aligns the bytes as well ;-)
It's completely unrelated? SeExpr is a language for generating pixels in interesting ways, originating with Disney. Generic scripting is provided through Python, but SeExpr is fun for fill/generator layers.
SeExpr is great and used a lot in animation / shader development in things like Renderman from Pixar, it was great to see it in Krita https://wdas.github.io/SeExpr/
I wonder if the dinosaurs would have developed intelligence and civilization by now, had it not been for the Chicxulub asteroid?
If you like SciFi this is a good take on that question. The Doors of Eden
by Adrian Tchaikovsky https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/48643567-the-doors-of...