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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • Tensor cores have nothing to do with raytracing. They’re cut-down GPU cores specialising in tensor operations (hence the name) and nothing else. Raytracing is accelerated by RT cores, doing BVH traversal operations and ray intersections, the tensor cores are in there to run a denoiser to turn the noisy mess that real-time RT produces into something that’s, well, not messy. Upscaling, essentially, the only difference between denoising and upscaling is that in upscaling the noise is all square.

    And judging by how AMD has done this stuff before nope they won’t do separate cores, but make sure that the ordinary cores can do all that stuff well.



  • 5500 here. I can’t use any recent rocm version because the GFX override I use is for a card that apparently has a couple more instructions and the newer kernels instantly crash with an illegal operation exception.

    I found a build someone made buried in a docker image and it indeed does work, without override, for the 5500 but it’s using all generic code for the kernels and is like 4x slower than the ancient version.

    What’s ultimately the worst thing about this isn’t that AMD isn’t supporting all cards for rocm – it’s that the support is all or nothing. There’s no “we won’t be spending time on this but it passes automated tests so ship it” kind of thing. “oh the new kernels broke that old card tough luck you don’t get new kernels”.

    So in the meantime I’m living with the occasional (every couple of days?) freeze when using rocm because I can’t reasonably upgrade. Not just the driver crashes, the kernel tries to restart it, the whole card needs a reset before doing anything but display a vga console.



  • I’m sorry, but most people can go through puberty without masturbating in class

    What the fuck are you on about. Why are you bringing up random shit like that. That’s the sexual equivalent of smearing shit on the wall, likely due to severe personal trauma/neurosis, and definitely not something that can be addressed by internet role models. It’s a case for a psychologist. It also has nothing to do with dating advise.

    Andrew Tate and Trump are the exact opposites of being safe and having fun.

    I don’t think anyone in this whole thread disagrees. Certainly not me. What they do do though is telling you to grab em by the pussy, that’s absolutely terrible advise (unless you’re in an established relationship then YMMV), but it is advise and in the absence of good advise that’s what some kids will latch onto.

    They have desires, they have questions on how to go about fulfilling those. If they came to you and asked how to become a doctor, welder, or fashion designer, you’d probably be happy to oblige, but when it comes to finding a sexual partner? Generally, either crickets or terrible advise. From all directions. Most of my dates I got out of organically starting play fights during ordinary hanging out, and if you don’t have the attitude to pull it off naturally and without thinking with your dick when doing that that’s also terrible advise. But at least it’s not lying about the “be nice” / “she’s going to hook up with an asshole anyway” (apparent) paradox: There’s a difference between harmless and peaceful. Loom like a rollercoaster: Intimidating, yes, but not dangerous. If she wants a ride, she’ll get on. How did I learn that? Probably has something to do with my bigger sisters gang-tickling me.

    Which, actually, brings me to another structural problem: Kids have too few siblings nowadays and at least in many countries kindergarten, daycares etc. are terrible when it comes to fostering proper social development. In the US they probably arrest 3yolds for stealing scrunchies and sentence them as adults. You don’t learn conflict resolution if there’s no conflicts around, you don’t learn forgiveness if there’s nothing people can be sorry for because everything is wrapped in sterile bubble wrap. You also don’t learn it if an adult thinks forcing someone to say “sorry” is a resolution, ground zero for tokenism right there.

    but the best we can do is shut down and call Tate and co out for the absolute incels they are.

    Defeatist. Seriously. “The best we can do”? That attitude is toxic.





  • And why should a random snot-nosed kiddo do that while not having a role model to advise it. Sure, boys have no issue looking for role models when none are in their immediate surroundings – but then you also run the risk of them seeing “oh, people with money are respected” (after all, capitalism and everything) and “Oh, Tate has money and is confident and is talking to me”. The rest is tragedy.

    …kinda generational, btw: Reportedly Tate got the way he got by seeing some guy in a Lambo or something (literally or figuratively) spitting on a mechanic or something and saying to himself that he’s going to be the guy with the Lambo.




  • Cursive is fundamentally less legible and harder work for most students to learn.

    It’s way easier to read for dyslexics as q d b p all look actually different, not just flipped/rotated (which makes them the same thing, try it with a pair of scissors). I don’t know what they’re teaching in (I presume?) the US, but this is quite legible. There may be instances where it’s an undue burden, teachers here are trained to spot that and accommodate, just as they do with dyslexia where you’ll get two grades for spelling: One raw, and one with all the dyslexia-typical mistakes (but only those) calculated out.

    Pencils, as said, are a good thing: Makes sure that you’re not using too much force. Re-sharpening the thing from scratch every other word gets annoying fast. If there’s coordination issues then that may be a problem but ultimately it’s probably better to bite the bullet and focus on training to not break the lead than it is to hand the pupil a ball point pen because then they’re bound to cramp up.

    And just because you got me curious I tried to figure out what part of my body I’m writing with – and TBH aside form “right arm” I can’t really make it out because it’s all so interconnected and all over the place. I think up/down (the page) is mostly shoulder, and so is continuous left to right, while per-letter left-right and off/onto the page is a combination of underarm rotation and fingers. Never got taught explicitly how to do it, but I remember the primary school teacher occasionally telling kids how to not do it. There’s probably multiple ways to do it well.

    Oh, and apparently I was wrong: My state did get rid of cursive, then results tanked, now they’ve re-introduced it, but only from year two on, and the ministry is waiting on data to come in. My guess is that they’ll re-introduce cursive from year one. Somehow all the previous generations didn’t have an issue using two different fonts at the same time: It’s not like our books were written in cursive. I doubt Gen Alpha will have. They may be cringe, but they’re not stupid.


  • I’ve used cheap mechanical pencils before but not expensive ones. How much better are more expensive mechanical pencils?

    I’m not talking exclusive, here, koh-i-noor clutch pencils start at… wait no those are plastic ones and a ten set (30 Euro). Metal ones 4.50 Euros or such. Cheapest Staedler I’m seeing is 9 for metal, 5 for plastic. The real difference is the leads: No scratching, just pure smoothness, from either company. 2mm diameter x 12cm length, it’s a standard. Bought a handful for sketching purposes, you can actually use 6B leads in clutch pencils those would instantly break with modern mechanical pencils, and you can shape the tip, expose lots of lead to have lots of surface area, etc. I then went ahead and also used them for less artistic purposes. What you do have to get accustomed to is the lead falling straight down and out when you press the button if you don’t catch it with the table. Oh and bonus: Those 2mm leads also should fit your compass, just break off a piece and sharpen it.

    I’d say they’re more like better wood pencils than mechanical ones with thin leads, where you have the choice between constantly breaking leads or using 0.9mm leads which are less likely to break, but you’ll be stuck with producing thick lines as sharpening them really is silly.


  • Forcing children with disabilities to do it

    If we are making children do things we should be teaching them the correct way to do it, not half assing it.

    …which includes cursive. Also for disabled folks, as far as possible: At that point you’re teaching fine motor mechanics first and foremost, secondly writing. How quickly they write is of no great consequence (or we’d be teaching shorthand), how well their motor skills develop is. The usual approach here is that you get a set cursive with a couple of options and alternative glyph shapes for the first four years, then you can develop from there as you wish. Some kids arguably should get more hand-holding in the “develop for yourself” part.

    That you didn’t learn it the right way is a thing you can blame on your teachers, but not cursive. Like, I mentioned pencils and fountain pens, ball-point pens are outlawed in schools here: It’s so that kids don’t use pressure, which makes them not tense up and cramp, which makes developing proper technique way easier. Though if the coordination issues are sub-clinical they generally should be sorted out before primary school starts, that’s a job for the kindergarten, making sure that everyone has a proper baseline in physical, social, and language skills.


  • The trouble with fountain pens is that they don’t really expect you to not write for a month or two. The ones with built-in tank would be less annoying there as you can easily uncrust everything by pulling in some ink through the feather (is that what the tip is called in English? I have no idea), but their great downside is that when they make a mess, they make a real mess. Ink rollers you can put in a pocket without worrying and they don’t really dry out. Mostly though you don’t have to ram them into the paper to write.

    Also, clutch pencils. Those mechanical ones that take leads that are as thick as usual wood-encased ones, and that you sharpen. If you ever have like 10 bucks burning a hole in your pocket get yourself some koh-i-noor clutch pencils and collection of leads (usual is HB but I’d suggest trying out 2B for writing), suitable sharpener (pencils come with an emergency one but it’s not too nice), as well as two tombow erasers: The ordinary one, and the dust catch one. Life’s too precious to waste nerves on shoddy leads and erasers. Also a Faber-Castel kneadable eraser: Even if you don’t draw it’s occasionally useful to be able to have a fine eraser tip. koh-i-noor leads are reportedly good enough for both artists and engineers and, truth be told, what could be a more perfect combination of endorsements. And, as said, like 10 bucks total.