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Simula One: an office-focused, standalone VR headset built on top of Linux

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Re: Simula One: an office-focused, standalone VR headset built on top of Linux

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that viability of an "option" is assumed. It's not viable in general today. I'd be surprised if there is even a single person that has actually fully replaced their conventional workspace with a VR desktop like this.

I think you missed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678041 from a few days ago... To each their own. You might not be on the left of the S curve for that technology, that's all :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_life_cycle

Color me surprised then! I'm still not sure I'd call it viable in general. But I've moved from "convinced" to "uncertain".

I'm at the tail of that S-curve for sure, so maybe I'm just get-off-my-lawning. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Simula One: an office-focused, standalone VR headset built on top of Linux

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haskell reduces the size of the developer pool, but increases their productivity (the Haskell ecosystem is enormous and astoundingly solid given the number of devs in that space), and also makes the docs a joy to read.

This. Im wondering how this is possible, high haskell reusability / easy to get familiar with codebases & extend them when familiar with hs or being a genius? I guess its the first

Strict static types reduce a giant class of errors (including most of the footguns I'm always triggering in my dayjob with Python). Purity reduces another giant class: It makes it easy (indeed kind of forces you) to restrict your IO to a thin, top-level error, hence keeping the vast majority of the code purely functional and thus easy to test.

Exactly how Haddock produces such wonderful automatic documentation, I don't know, but good God it does. The strict static types clearly help -- you can see exactly what every function inputs and outputs, what every data type needs, etc. And then you can jump to the definitions of any of those things, and if need be (almost never), the source code that defines them.

Re: Simula One: an office-focused, standalone VR headset built on top of Linux

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Im wondering how this is possible, high haskell reusability / easy to get familiar with codebases & extend them when familiar with hs or being a genius? I guess its the first

Strict static types reduce a giant class of errors (including most of the footguns I'm always triggering in my dayjob with Python). Purity reduces another giant class: It makes it easy (indeed kind of forces you) to restrict your IO to a thin, top-level error, hence keeping the vast majority of the code purely functional and thus easy to test. Exactly how Haddock produces such wonderful automatic documentation, I don…

And what if it was the other way round? A steeper learning curve means that only the brightest, more motivated individuals can enter the realm, and those individuals are capable of doing more than the average developer.

Re: Simula One: an office-focused, standalone VR headset built on top of Linux

#115

I'm very keen for this market to open up, but we need to talk about the quality of the desktop before moving on. On the website, the demo has the person drinking coffee, the youtube window is the wrong ratio, the text is too tall. For me, I really want picture perfect rendering before jumping. I don't want to look at badly rendered stuff, its part of the reason linux was so hard back in the day, getting your text to…

I think they'll get there. This is still early, they're probably focusing on the core rendering right now.

> If we are in VR, then we don't have to limit our selves to laying out windows on a single primitive. Where are the virtual shelves? where is the quick change, what about hotspots to bring groups of windows back into near field.

From playing VR games, actually the best implementation of this I've seen is to put them on a "belt" of sorts. Like an oversized toolbelt (so they're away from your body) so you can simply look down and grab stuff.

Spheres do work well, though. It keeps all the text at the same distance from you, so the edges aren't out of focus. I suspect it also makes zooming easier since you can just move the camera closer. If you have an actual 3D space, moving the camera can get weird, and the camera being weird in VR is really disorienting.

> (it looks like they don't have room tracking, so feels like they have limited 6dof source: coffee video, I'd expect much more sideways translation if they had proper headset tracking)

Not having room tracking doesn't prevent movement. You'd just move with wasd like before. Not having room tracking means you can move your chair 6 inches without all your windows getting shifted. Likewise, you can stand up in your standing desk without re-adjusting all the windows.

Plus I'm sure it'll help keep the cost down.

Re: Simula One: an office-focused, standalone VR headset built on top of Linux

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strict static types reduce a giant class of errors (including most of the footguns I'm always triggering in my dayjob with Python). Purity reduces another giant class: It makes it easy (indeed kind of forces you) to restrict your IO to a thin, top-level error, hence keeping the vast majority of the code purely functional and thus easy to test. Exactly how Haddock produces such wonderful automatic documentation, I don…

And what if it was the other way round? A steeper learning curve means that only the brightest, more motivated individuals can enter the realm, and those individuals are capable of doing more than the average developer.

You're right, that's clearly happening too.

Re: Simula One: an office-focused, standalone VR headset built on top of Linux

#117
I've tried VR with my phone and it looked promising to me WRT resolution and clarity. I like the idea of a camera to let me see my workspace and I suspect with a few iterations it'll be amazing.

Given what I do to my posture as a desk worker, I'm thinking a little extra weight on my head might do good things for my back tbh.

If the price is right, I'm down to try it anyway.

Re: Simula One: an office-focused, standalone VR headset built on top of Linux

#118
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

good question! depending on the project, it'll normally be browser for reference (or if its web based testing as well, but thats rare) then I have about between 1/2 and 2/3rds of the screen space left to have terminals in. I'll have one/two long terminals open with vim for the main file(s) I'm working on, then 1-4 smaller terminals for running the program/tests. if its a big project, then more terminals for reference…

Surely vim can manage its own display and you don't need multiple terminals each running their own instance?

Vim can, but why in the world would I have vim do that itself when that means I have to learn/use both vims windowing system and my window managers windowing system? What advantage does it give me...

Re: Simula One: an office-focused, standalone VR headset built on top of Linux

#120
post #53
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's important to remember that this is on the way to being an MVP. It's not a finished, polished product. This is HN. Don't we like people hacking on startups any more? It doesn't need to be a finished product. Just give FOSS developers something to work with, and the finished product will automatically emerge ;)

And to add to this: hardware without software is a feature, not a flaw.

Sometimes true, but sometimes not, it depends on how the hardware is designed to integrate with software. The Leap Motion failed miserably (my opinion) at this by expecting software to figure out where it fit as a human interface device rather than having a strong opinion based on software/reference drivers.
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