35 bucks for a DIY kit is way too much. I saw the same ones for 12 dollars on Amazon with hundreds of reviews showing the same blue sky results.

People don't think about the human cost behind these tools. Those artists spent years perfecting their style. Now their work gets scraped into a dataset without permission. That's theft, plain and simple. I quit using AI art altogether after learning that. Not worth the guilty feeling every time I hit generate.

Eight years without any reference marks... that's a lot of hard lessons learned the expensive way. @laura_wright brings up a good point about the caliper tip slipping too, that's another hidden cost of rushing. Did Grayzon actually stick with the sharpie trick long term though, or did he go back to eyeballing it once the sting of that $400 snap faded? I've seen guys go back to their old bad habits after a month or two of discipline.

Fell out of my chair" is right, that story made me spit out my drink. Bro, 5 hours at 160 sounds like the brisket was just asserting its dominance over you. At least Tim was there to remind you the beans were salvageable, right?

Weird how people trade big things like sleep for small things like money so often these days.