Hi, the images are generated using a combination of ChatGPT, a prompt to make the style consistent, and some post-processing using Gimp to clean up things, ensure the arrows point where they should, and fixing anything that is wrong.
Here is the specific prompt that I used:
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A hand-drawn technical diagram in a watercolor sketch style, isolated on a clean white background.
Art style: loose, hand-illustrated line art with visible pencil/ink sketch linework (slightly imperfect, organic lines rather than perfectly straight/geometric), filled with soft, flat watercolor washes in a muted pastel palette (dusty blue, soft yellow/gold, warm gray, occasional purple or teal accents). Boxes and 3D objects are drawn as simple isometric cubes/blocks with visible watercolor bleed and light paper texture, shaded on one face to suggest depth. Arrows connecting elements are hand-drawn, slightly curved or wobbly (not rigid vector lines), in thin colored strokes matching the elements they connect.
Text labels are set in a clean, rounded sans-serif font (not handwritten), placed directly beneath or beside each element. Code snippets or commands appear in a monospace font inside a light rounded rectangle container. Dashed rectangles are used to visually group related elements when needed.
Icons/logos representing tools or services are simplified, flat, sketch-style illustrations with the same watercolor fill treatment, not photorealistic.
Overall mood: friendly, approachable, whiteboard-explainer aesthetic — like an technical concept sketched by hand and lightly colored, not a corporate vector infographic.
Diagram content:
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Then I describe the diagram properly under that prompt, something like:
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A hand-drawn technical diagram in a watercolor sketch style, isolated on a clean white background.
Art style: loose, hand-illustrated line art with visible pencil/ink sketch linework (slightly imperfect, organic lines rather than perfectly straight/geometric), filled with soft, flat watercolor washes in a muted pastel palette (dusty blue, soft yellow/gold, warm gray, occasional purple or teal accents). Boxes and 3D objects are drawn as simple isometric cubes/blocks with visible watercolor bleed and light paper texture, shaded on one face to suggest depth. Arrows connecting elements are hand-drawn, slightly curved or wobbly (not rigid vector lines), in thin colored strokes matching the elements they connect.
Text labels are set in a clean, rounded sans-serif font (not handwritten), placed directly beneath or beside each element. Code snippets or commands appear in a monospace font inside a light rounded rectangle container. Dashed rectangles are used to visually group related elements when needed.
Icons/logos representing tools or services are simplified, flat, sketch-style illustrations with the same watercolor fill treatment, not photorealistic.
Overall mood: friendly, approachable, whiteboard-explainer aesthetic — like an technical concept sketched by hand and lightly colored, not a corporate vector infographic.
Diagram content:
A left-to-right pipeline diagram tracing a query. Start at a box containing the query text 'rate(http_requests_total{status="500"}[5m])'. First arrow to a box "query results cache", with two exits: "full hit -> answer immediately" going straight to the end, and "miss / partial -> compute only the missing slice" continuing down the pipeline. Next box: "inverted index", showing a posting list lookup 'http_requests_total + status="500" -> matching series IDs'. Next box: "segments covering the last 5 minutes", showing a small "table of contents" pointing at highlighted slices of the "timestamps file" and the "values file", labeled "read just those bytes". Next box: "decompress blocks — undo compression, delta encoding, decimal scaling", recovering "cumulative totals: 1027, 1189, 1527...". Final box: "rate() derives a per-second rate from the cumulative values", with an arrow out to "result rendered as a line on your dashboard".
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And with the result I go through manual editing for cleaning up things.
CC BY-NC-ND is what I'm also increasingly using (for non-code), though not always, and disheartenedly. (And as commented, the non-code context is different.)
I discussed NC in my other comment. But, yes, ND is arguably counter the whole remix culture that was supposedly part of the impetus for Creative Commons in the first place. I do kind of see the logic behind prohibiting, say, a remix of a video or photo in a way that misrepresents the subject. But I also don't particularly like it.
True enough; philosophically, I am still in the BY camp (a.k.a. BSD/MIT/etc.), and I do not particularly care about the NC part, but ND is increasingly important for non-code. But if they could do even the BY properly, it would be a step to the right direction (and, to some extent, I think they're doing that).
ND is important for those who do "authoritative writing" (for a lack of a better term); i.e., when you write with your real name, you do not want nonsense and disinformation associated with your name.
Yes, I think of it more in the context of photo and video integrity, but you can certainly imagine an unscrupulous individual rewriting something and changing the meaning. Of course, I doubt a license would stop that person.
Not really. You're supposed to attribute the original creator. And if I did make major changes/additions I'd find some way to flag that. But you don't have a Github-style change log.
As both a consumer and producer, NC makes it kind of a pointless untouchable dead end even if I never intend to make a business out of something.
A lot of unintended things could be argued as commecial and who wants to risk it? If I do something purely as ahobby, and along the way make a youtube video about it, and that video pays money, I suddenly become techically in violation of non-commercial. Or I use it in a class where I was paid to teach. Or any number of ordinary possible uses that along the way do involve an exchange of money.
Let alone the freedom to change my mind in 5 years and decide I do want to sell something I made that initially I didn't.
I don't know what I might want to do tomorrow, so best to just not invest any of my time or effort into anything that might bite me later.
ND is 100x worse. Why even bother publishing a design at all then? Just sell your commercial propeietary product, and any users who want the plans you can just sell them more service for support and customization instead.
So I only apply BY-SA to be as similar to classic GPL as possible, and it's no problem at all if there is a business that can't accept the SA terms. It doesn't prevent selling a product, it just prevents being a dick and a thief (well on paper anyway, of course they go ahead and steal anyway but that's a different problem).
If I ever had something where I didn't want anyone else to be able to sell it, I just wouldn't publish it at all in the first place.
I wouldn't use an NC photo on a big company stage or in a marketing campaign. But I sort of convinced myself I wasn't being directly paid for most of the presentations that I did and do, so it was OK enough. And I don't materially rework most photos or text.
I have been releasing books under Creative Commons for 20+ years. Share alike, no modifications, no commercial reuse. I sell my books via Leanpub (my books https://leanpub.com/u/markwatson) and they can all be read free online (recommended to see if you like them), and if purchased the price can be reset to free, zero cost.
I like CC because I like my books to be read and I still make money. When people choose to pay I use that as a signal for which topics to put future effort into.
My wife has been my editor for ever, so this is a family business.
EDIT: over 20 years ago, I was what I think was Larry Lessig’s second ‘Featured Commoner’ and that was fun because they interviewed me and posted the interview in the CC web site.
I recognize your nickname because I have always enjoyed your comments on Lisp on here, so I checked out the site and disappointingly because of topic and appearance, look like AI slop to me.
As there's no publication date listed, and I'm particularly intolerant to slop, can you recommend a book of yours published before Autumn 2022?
My older books have real photographs on them (e.g., https://leanpub.com/lovinglisp) and newer ones have AI generated covers and some have AI generated figures. Look for books with photos I have taken of nature - those are the old books (exception is Java AI book that is 90% very old material, but has a new AI generated cover).
In the last year I have started vibe coding a lot, but I still take personal ownership of my latest code examples because I set requirements and provide a design, and ask AI coding harnesses to let me run and test the code so I tweak it. Anyway, it still feels like mostly my code and I prefer the new AI + Mark code over what I used to produce.
This has been a strange ride! I learned to program in 1965 and have always loved coding, but it is a weird new world we live in, my friend.
I use no commercial reuse (NC) yet years ago a polite young man from China emailed me letting me know that he was translating my stuff to resell under his name for money. To be honest, I didn’t mind and it made a good story to tell friends and family.
I had something similar happen with a book I wrote through a publisher. I went radio silence on him. Would have required contacting my publisher and I didn't need the hassle.
That's one of the reasons that defining NC broke down in the latest round of CC license revisions. Sure, even in the US, define NC as a 501(c)(3) non-profit. But that doesn't mean some mom-and-pop charity you agree with. It can easily mean a non-profit with goals you totally disagree with. And how about 501(c)(6)s like the NFL? And that's just US tax law.
The problem is that not even Creative Commons was able to come up with a real definition for non-commercial when they last (I think) revised the license. Essentially it means trivial uses (a photo in a grade school assignment) or its contentious in a way that reasonable people can disagree about. What constitutes acceptable usage of a properly attributed photo? Personally, I just properly attribute and stopped worry about whether most presentations constituted commercial use or not.
Sometime ago I asked about the duplication detection at HN, and if I remember correctly, I was told that duplicates pass once enough time has passed. But certainly it does not apply here because:
A good read. Though, I've sometimes thought about the positive things with procrastination; depending on what you do, it may sometimes even be a good thing?
Great; it would be good to have a precedent. (The one you picked, [6], is indeed a blazing case.) And good luck with your business; it is very much welcomed!
Great suggestion, there is real value in these lists. Options are always good. I like the freshness transparency and that helps impart confidence going forward as it's easy to see when it was last updated but the suggested alternatives don't seem as deeply researched and subsequently there is less categories.
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