Serentropic

"There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this: Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction."

My neighbors are making me proud lately.

Sending all my love, I'm really sorry. There's no worse feeling :(

I've killed a few trees since I've started #bonsai, but up until now they've mostly been younger trees that I worked very aggressively. This is the first time I've lost an older tree that I handled conservatively. I never got to styling it, but it had a ton of potential. Feels bad.

Any of y'all old folks on here remember when the internet had pages? I still miss pages.

The new greenhouse is nearly complete now. It still needs a door and (eventually) electrical, and then it will sit empty for the next few months... but I'm excited to join a few of my trees in here with a blanket and a book this winter.

#bonsai #garden #yardistry #greenhouse

One unintended perk of doing bonsai is that AI can't even try to replicate it. Bonsai photos, sure, but real trees? I do think AI gets there, eventually. But by the time AI has the knowledge and logistics to print living tissue in intentional patterns, I suspect humans are basically extinct anyway.

Spent today breaking ground on my new #bonsai #garden. A landscaping team leveled it and laid gravel recently. A cheap canopy is my construction site, and I'm starting the foundation pieces for the new 8x10 Yardistry #greenhouse. Benches going back in when that's done.

These young Dougs have had a couple rounds of root work now and are growing over felt discs. I've started delineating sacrificial leaders as well - letting leaders run long without shading the bonsai beneath.

One of my first #bonsai goals was to get good at growing Douglas Fir from seed, the same way species like Japanese Black Pine and Trident Maple commonly are. Douglas Fir doesn't "want to be bonsai" like some species, so it has been a learning curve.

#bonsai #douglasfir #pseudotsugamenziesii

One of my favorite things to do is wander the suburbs around here and find the quiet places behind and between them. These routes, carved by streams and power lines, have a liminal quality to them - people came here before me, but now I'm alone with the ghosts of stories I'll never know.

At some point I'm going to have to make a thread sharing my thoughts about AI, broadly speaking. But I'm still not certain what my thoughts are - besides a nebulous feeling of unease and uncertainty. I feel like any assessment I make about AI is doomed to be 1-2 years out of date.

Been restarting Vendaval from scratch basically every year or two, eventually one of these will be the map I commit to. Moving back away from procedural lately to hand-crafting, trying a technique of painting topographic layers first. Hard because I want to fit so much in. #CitiesSkylines

YouTube video by Rational Animations What happens if AI just keeps getting smarter?

Because I feel like there's always room to be more worried.

youtu.be/0bnxF9YfyFI?...

Shit's gotta be hella wack to get me out of the house but here we are

the shift from “I never thought leopards would eat MY face” to “eat my face harder leopard daddy” must be studied

Yo if anyone tell you bonsai is relaxing hell nah man this shit stressful af

I usually only watch videos this long for background ambiance; but Natalie has a way of striking the nerve that's the most raw at the moment, and I can never help but pay attention.

Revisiting my trees for #CitiesSkylines 1. Honestly the newer ones hold up better than I expected. I might try to carve out some time to do other PNW staples like Bigleaf Maple, Oregon White Oak, Sitka Spruce, Oregon Ash, and a redux Western Hemlock. I may genericize some of them.

Bald Cypress??🤔

More than ever before, I want the Democratic party to fight. And I haven't talked to a single person who feels otherwise. Please do not cede one inch of ground to these criminals.

As someone who has made one of these Content Creator Packs before, if this AI slop was used to promote the art assets I had poured my time and effort into creating, I'd be absolutely livid.

Completely unacceptable.

Worked on this Japanese Hornbeam #bonsai today. Fresh repot and some light pruning/wiring.

I've started poking around #CitiesSkylines2 again. I feel like I don't understand it well, yet, so I'm playing casually. In the meantime I'm also getting back into original Skylines, starting work on Brinevale-Vendaval from the ground up. Bespoke height map, theme, rocks, bridges, trees all planned.

A couple custom tokens I made for characters I currently have in #Pathfinder 2e campaigns. Yes I have a type.

Other upgrades notwithstanding, playing Skylines again convinced me to finally upgrade my hard drives. I'm... having a time.

I've started dabbling a bit in both Skylines 1 and Skylines 2 again. I'm still not sure where I want to devote my time. 2 would require a PC upgrade if I want to take it seriously, I expect.

Civ 7 comes out on February 11th 2025.

If they wanted to take over the country, they only had to wait like three weeks until every technocratic nerd was unreachably distracted.

They fundamentally do not understand us, and that is why they will lose.

I feel like most of my days right now are spent fixing past mistakes in service of a future that I don't really believe will come. It's really difficult to get excited about anything. I begin projects expecting disappointment.

Still fiddling with this. I've gotten faster at sketching but haven't overcome my overwhelming need to revise and edit so I still draw at snail pace. I'm still struggling to do get expressions looking right, too.

So this week has been challenging.

Anyway.

I got a smart watch to help me investigate some health issues. Confirmed I have a very slow heart. Watching it dip under 40 bpm in real time was... strange. I don't know if it actually explains anything, but it kind of feels right, you know? Slo Grace