@cdarwin@c.im2025-11-30 21:56:24
Hi, it’s Al Franken.
I don’t usually send messages like this, so I’m hoping you’ll read to the end for a GREAT story.
Before that, though, I want to tell you about Peggy Flanagan.
She is unbelievably great and she’s running to keep Minnesota’s Senate seat blue.
Her end-of-month fundraising deadline is tonight so I’ll get to the point: Please donate now.
@portaloffreedom@social.linux.pizza2025-12-11 13:19:36
My controversial take on "AI" ray tracing helpers are that it's a really good idea.
First some background: keep in mind that machine learning tecnologies excell at tasks that have a high reward for success and a small cost for failure. In this case getting most of the rays right improve performance, at the cost of some few rays being shot in nothing.
Secondly, light rays are way too many in real life to be simulated in their entirety, so using some statistics to approximate the lighting model makes a lot of sense here. Plus at the lower quantum scale even phisicists use statistic to explain this stuff, so it's not that irrealistic either.
Finally the source data for this stuff is entirely other games, so ethically sourcing the training data set should not be a concern here.
Here, technology can be good or bad. It's not the tech, it's the use of the tech by the people (but that I mean oligarchic corporations) that makes them good or bad.
@grifferz@social.bitfolk.com2025-11-26 22:16:34
We joined with some friends this morning for a greyhound walk in Bedfont Lakes. I didn't have a hound to bring because the only one I can borrow now is Violet and she's too old to walk that distance. The three people we met up with had 5 dogs between them though, so Lynn let me keep hold of her boy Freddie.
I didn't take any photos because it was really cold and my hands were full! But here's a recent photo of Freddie.
