Thursday Thoughts - 07/20/2023

Here are my Thursday Thoughts, a short list of the most interesting things that I’ve read, heard, and/or watched over the past week.

bear by Stable Diffusion Dream Studio

What I Read:

An NFL linebacker quit football to sell Pokémon cards, now he’s making millions

Blake Martinez’s story seems like a typical one during the COVID-19 pandemic. A millennial discovers that his old Pokemon collection could be worth thousands and get back into the hobby. However, Martinez had the means to take it the next level and generates millions of dollars of revenue.

This story hits a little close to home since I was like the typical millennial who opened and sold Pokemon cards during the pandemic.

What I Tried:

DiffusionBee

Following an excellent guide by Jon Stokes, I installed a local version of Stable Diffusion. Although it takes a little longer to run on my MacBook Air than Dream Studio does, DiffusionBee is free. This means I can experiment with images without worrying about exhausting all my credits.

This might be one of the few times in recent memory I wished I had a more powerful computer. I don’t play graphic intensive games anymore. So the M1 processor has more than met my needs. However, my setup feels underpowered when I’m waiting for DiffusionBee to spit out the images.

What I Watched:

The Bear - Season 2

“Season 2” of the Bear focuses on Carmy and the gang preparing for the opening of their new fine dining restaurant. Overall the episodes are not as hectic as the first season, however there are exceptions like episodes 6 and 10.

I enjoyed how to show dedicated an episode to each of the characters while still placing the focus on Carmy. Everything that the others did, he did on his journey to booming a celebrated chef.

Season two was excellent, and I can’t wait for the next one.

Tags: #tv #tech #pokemon cards