After twelve years, finally retiring the cheese grater Mac Pro. With all the upgrades, I would have been happy continuing to use it indefinitely but the mounting lack of software support forced my hand.

#Apple really had a thing going here with the old Pros. I'm still dubious about whether I'll use the Studio replacement even half as long, but at least it draws a lot less power.

Background: building a #lego minifig scale model of HMS Surprise, from Patrick O'Brien's books. #modelshipbuilding

Been at it for nearly 10 yrs as a secondary hobby. Fwd progress gets stalled regularly as I do research or try to solve a construction problem.

Latest issue was masts curving or catastrophically breaking under rope strain. I already resorted to CA glue, wasn't enough. I broke down and bought aluminum CNC milled technic axles.

Finally have stable 4' main mast without scaffolding.

Reposting some old things from birdsite ashes:

#rendering equation, explained using only the thousand words people use most often, inspired by #xkcd. The mathematics behind physically based rendering. #eli5

Feel free to use, CC BY 4.0. If you want this in pdf form just ask.

Debugging GPU cloud renders, with suitable reference imagery just out the window. #rendering

(Terrible iPhone photo: really high dynamic ranges involved.)