Ricky Flores

ambitious engineer passionate about art, helping others & learning.
Focused on computer graphics, machine learning & political-economy.
prev @ amazon

[Ricky Flores @liquidsentience]

Monte Carlo path tracing in shadertoy

Ray traces dynamic SDFs with physically-based materials (Lambertian, dielectric, metals), using ray marching and the probabilistic Monte Carlo integration of the rendering equation, all in one shader.

This is an old project + clean up

[Ricky Flores @liquidsentience]

@GergelyOrosz @VicVijayakumar The wording is good marketing, for vitality and for the AI labs who want to promote their work. it may have been intentional

[Ricky Flores @liquidsentience]

@kitvolta there always is. its always the only answer is to face the things we fear , and once we do we realize we could always overcome it. working out is a great healthy habit too 💪 keep it up

[Ricky Flores @liquidsentience]

@dinonuggetzz2 @Ar2Ax @paulxt anyone who has studied history or political science/economics knows that's such simplistic view of systems. if you want to get serious, the world is filled with nuances and government policy is complex.

capitalism doesn't promote competition and efficiency if monopolies exist

[Ricky Flores @liquidsentience]

@dinonuggetzz2 @Ar2Ax @paulxt I went from a poor immigrant family to upper class. I know more about wealth building than you.

the most productive members of society are those that work, at risk of death, inability to afford medical bills etc. all who are exploited by those like you with daddy's money.

[Ricky Flores @liquidsentience]

@dinonuggetzz2 @Ar2Ax @paulxt profit is fine if it would lead to more housing. the reality is that it is not. is is being used as asset increasing in value due to limited supply and artificially limited access to it. incentiving not building, but monopolizing.

im all for it being sustainable, its not atm

[Ricky Flores @liquidsentience]

@dinonuggetzz2 @MORALESSNC76851 @Ar2Ax @paulxt I dare you to find a solution to people cost of living crisis. why prioritize profit?

youre underselling just how much profit they make. the asset itself increases in value exponentially. owning the property litteraly catapult you to the next tier in this economic hierarchy.

[Ricky Flores @liquidsentience]

@GergelyOrosz its the leadership promoted. Boz was chosen as head of VR instead of the legendary Carmack & billion $ unicorn founder Luckey, then Boz was promoted to CTO. LeCun a key founding researcher of neural networks ousted for data labeling Wang. Zuck doesn't promote on merit.

[Ricky Flores @liquidsentience]

@pitdesi @GritGrowthCap the midterms are extremely consequential for trumps hold on power. adding legal roadblocks (passport delays, name change ambiguities) gives extreme political leverage for an admin that abuses those ambiguities to assert & overextend power. if it didnt trump wouldn't care so much

[Ricky Flores @liquidsentience]

@JohnSM_99 @MarkVillacampa its also pragmatic & important to be able to collaborate & get the blessing of stakeholders, I agree.

but as leadership, if someone creates immense value to the company and you punish that, you are actively making it harder to innovate & succeed as a company

[Ricky Flores @liquidsentience]

@JohnSM_99 @MarkVillacampa if you're pragmatic you would care more about results than internal politics.

Why would you punish efficient success.

want him to wade through 20 layers of corporate politicians that will steal the idea or deny it unless they get the credit or it never happens?

[Bojan Tunguz @tunguz]

Google was *literally* started by Larry and Sergey using Stanford resources without authorization. When Stanford found out what they were doing, they decided to figure out how to accommodate them without crashing internet traffic to the rest of the school. Then Stanford - amongst others - invested early into Google, and the rest is history. That kind of mindset created the Silicon Valley, but unfortunately is now all but extinct.

[Thierry from arvy 🇨🇭 @ThierryBorgeat]

Oh, I forgot the best part.

Months before the IPO, SpaceX took $17.5 billion of old junk debt from xAI and X and parked it on its own balance sheet through a $20 billion bridge loan.

The terms? Repaid within six months of listing.

So part of the $75 billion that retail and index funds just handed over is already spoken for. Not for Mars. Not for rockets. To clear debts piling up at Elon's other companies.

You bought the rocket ship.

You're on the hook for the loans.

BEST. ENGINEERING. EVER.

[Ricky Flores @liquidsentience]

@IJoukov @GergelyOrosz He was when he found it, he hasn't engineered much since. His CTO should make up for that but he falters. They had Carmack and Luckey, very pragmatic & famous engineers, leave because Boz out politiced him. Squandered all momentum in VR. metas good at hiring, not retaining.

[Ricky Flores @liquidsentience]

elon realized its easier to manipulate valuation than to create value. He changed the rules to force everyone to buy at a ridiculous valuation. Made up numbers and forced everyone to agree with it. all that just to be a raging narcissist that lobbies the gov to hate trans ppl

[Ricky Flores @liquidsentience]

@GergelyOrosz This AI hype has led to a lot of delusional management. The sycophancy of AI and the millions spent on marketing the hype has led to a lot of (especially non-technical) leadership who are prone to that to exaggerate their delusions. its happening in other companies right now too

[grant @grantbelden]

Elon’s about to be a trillionaire and his companies have negative lifetime profit

Get with the program

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

There’s a difference between companies where when someone does something stupid people who think it’s terrible for the business stay quiet vs taking on confrontation.

In 2026 any company having an internal public leaderboard maximizes tokenmaxxing and so it’s just so stupid

[Ricky Flores @liquidsentience]

@kitvolta This isnt easy at all. Though we're social animals, so we dont have to endure it alone. Reach out to those close to you, and it can help remind you that you are not alone, even though that feelings weight is very real.