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The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned

ericlippert.com

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Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned

#201

Post by devwastaken »

dnissley wrote: post #140
rob74 wrote: post #91

> Speaking of cutting costs, the company is still pouring multiple billions of dollars into vaporware called “the metaverse”. News flash: no one wants to wear VR goggles to spend any time in a digital heaven where the role of God is played by Mark Zuckerberg and you can do anything you can imagine, including “work” and “shop”. You can somehow feel that he has been dying to say this for years, but couldn't while he wa…

> You can somehow feel that he has been dying to say this for years, but couldn't while he was still working for Meta... It's a pretty common sentiment in my experience here, de rigueur even. Expressing it in the way he does here is definitely frowned upon though -- one of the most interesting cultural traits I've noticed that Meta has fostered is an awareness and avoidance of cynicism. When people comment internally…

That's a form of thought policing. It's not cynical if it's a legitimate criticism. Ideas do not automatically deserve legitimacy, they must require reason first.

The metaverse is not real, it's not going to happen. The numbers are not there. All of those users are in vrchat, and when Facebook buys it and turns it into a hell scape of a child playground the community will yet again go elsewhere.

Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned

#202

Post by SkyBelow »

aerovistae wrote: post #161
defen wrote: post #153

> Then said Jesus unto him, "Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword". I'm a big fan of Eric Lippert's work, but this blog post comes across as whiny and evinces a completely unwarranted sense of entitlement. This is a person who voluntarily chose to get paid (I can only assume) a very large amount of money to work on something that he found to be exciting a…

This comment conveys to me Asperger's levels of superrational thinking and lack of empathy. "How could someone be resentful at losing their job to a nonsensical decision making process? How could someone possibly be frustrated to be shown zero gratitude for their very profitable work for someone else? I simply don't understand, on paper it is the logical outcome." Okay spock.

I think the distinction is between 'feels bad' and 'makes this post'. I totally get why someone would feel bad about this, even despite the upfront agreement and the paycheck. I don't really get the post, especially if this can impact future career prospects (I've seen people judged for less). I've had negative emotional reactions to things that were entirely my fault and acted irrationally to them, but only privately. I think the distinction here is not in his negative feelings, those are easily to empathize with, but in the post itself and how it publicly portrays those feelings.

Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned

#203

Post by treeman79 »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #18
apohn wrote: post #3

I work in the field of Data Science and one upsetting reality has started to sink into my mind over the last year. In a business there is top line and bottom line. There are a lot Statistics/ML/Data Science jobs that are about moving that bottom line. You build something to optimize something to reduce costs. The value provided by the bottom line people is less visible than the value of top line people. The easiest w…

Yeah I've worked in infrastructure through most of my career wherever such a distinction is available (or when it opens up), and this is a common complaint. Product folks get the most visibility and get kudos and parties for product launches. Meanwhile, the deployment infrastructure staying up is just expected, even though the engineers responsible for it are working hard to keep it up. It affects team morale (infras…

Hired into a company. First day on job I find that the entire infrastructure team had quit. It was in a failing state.

told them flat out that they are most likely going out of business, but I’ll get it a try.

Couple of times owner tried to Ask me when feature X would be delivered. Just told them no. Managers were wise enough to understand they were one pissed tech guy from failure.

3 years of endless late nights to get company back to a good spot with a rebuilt time, new infrastructure. Proper documentation, the works.

Finally left after being passed over for promotion to a guy that did nothing, but promised the world. (He never delivered)

Took me a couple years to recover from that job.

I don’t work late nights anymore. If company doesn’t care to invest in infra, I look elsewhere.

Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned

#204

Post by angry_octet »

kneebonian wrote: post #82
greesil wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that would lead to accountability...

This is the real problem. Visibility is to be abhorred at the top levels because viability brings accountability. How many Dilbert comics are there out there with the punchline being "I don't care what the real numbers are these are what I want the numbers to be" from the PHB There is a large swathe of middle and upper management that gets by due to continually making sure their actual impact is never measured, and t…

OMG the 'Technology Foresight' group, the 'Process Improved Team'. Cross functional synergy!

We all know what the problems are and where investment is needed, but management pretends that they don't know so they can have An Initiative to discover it, but not really address it (because e.g. the problem is one they caused with previous poor management).

Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned

#205

Post by beachy »

function_seven wrote: post #89
time_to_smile wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hard for a team at Meta to easily cost more than $10 million/year. Average TC for each IC could reasonably have been in the 500k/year area and that doesn't count other benefits/infra overhead. A few very senior people on the team could easily have pushed the average TC up quite a bit. So if the team was around 20 people that already doesn't make sense.

This post notes that the savings were net of cost. Maybe Eric is wrong, but assuming his math checks out, cutting a team that delivers net savings can’t be justified on the basis of cost-cutting.

> a team that delivers net savings can’t be justified on the basis of cost-cutting

..in theory not, but in practice cost-cutting is often less a scientific, data-based project and more a cataclysmic purgative process where factors such as speed of execution are important.

e.g. Elon has certainly lost many, many great people and teams who were net positive for Twitter's bottom line in his recent purges. But he probably thinks there is huge value in acting quickly and putting the aggressive cutting behind him and inserting his "hardcore" team. There would be a real cost to the Twitter shareholders in doing a slow and scientific analysis of who to cut - there's a case to be made that a ruthless tearing off of the bandaid would more quickly lead to a profitable place, even if there is collateral damage on the way.

Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned

#206

Post by mr_gibbins »

MattGaiser wrote: post #159
rob74 wrote: post #91

> Speaking of cutting costs, the company is still pouring multiple billions of dollars into vaporware called “the metaverse”. News flash: no one wants to wear VR goggles to spend any time in a digital heaven where the role of God is played by Mark Zuckerberg and you can do anything you can imagine, including “work” and “shop”. You can somehow feel that he has been dying to say this for years, but couldn't while he wa…

> no one wants to wear VR goggles I would be curious how many people are willing to wear VR goggles for any amount of time. I spend easily 10-12 hours a day at my computer. I am absolutely someone who is happy working, socializing, playing, and learning all at the same desk. But I can't wear those goggles for even 2 hours. Are there people who can wear them for 12?

I can manage 15 minutes or so on my aging Oculus Quest but that's about it. There's a Netflix option on there, I can relax in a virtual cinema with surround sound and a screen sized big enough to feel like a cinema screen and I've not been able to watch anything because of the vertigo.

I thought my kids would go crazy on it, perhaps I'm too old, out of touch etc. but they can do 15 mins max too. It's a novelty toy, quickly put away.

If Google Glasses had really taken off and I could have AR, not VR - overlays on ordinary vision - I'd be there. Handy for work, could do virtual meetings, notifications, all sorts. But as with most things Google it went the way of the dodo and I haven't heard of any replacement poised to take the world by storm.

Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned

#207

Post by astrange »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #185
TomSwirly wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people in the United States who can afford to buy and consume vitamins are almost certainly not people with a deficiency.

Most people in the US are vitamin D deficient, it's very cheap, yet it's rare for people to take supplements.

Yes, D+K is the best one to take. D only can lead to heart issues (atherosclerosis), and multivitamins don't really have enough to help here.

It doesn't replace getting real sunlight though. Or if you're an Inuit, eating polar bear livers.

Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned

#208

Post by [deleted] »

colineartheta wrote: post #60
georgeburdell wrote: post #26

I’m probably not as talented as the author, but I can’t relate to this feeling of giving up because some work won’t be used. I have been working for ten years post-PhD and every single product I’ve ever worked on has been canned, sometimes very circuitously via acquisitions. My work is trade secret so I’ve never filed a patent, written a publication, nor given a talk. I have zero outwardly observable accomplishments.…

How were you able to acquire a PhD without a publication?

[deleted]

Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned

#210

Post by bink »

luckylion wrote: post #192
MattGaiser wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no one wants to wear VR goggles I would be curious how many people are willing to wear VR goggles for any amount of time. I spend easily 10-12 hours a day at my computer. I am absolutely someone who is happy working, socializing, playing, and learning all at the same desk. But I can't wear those goggles for even 2 hours. Are there people who can wear them for 12?

I haven't used the new ones, but I have an Oculus Go. I think the most important part is fitting. I believe there are companies selling accessories to make it more comfortable to wear, and I'd totally invest in that if I planned to use it more, or in a different setting. I'm using it for porn (and it's amazing, VR porn is the most underrated thing imho, but maybe I'm just weird) and for movies (non-3d, having these s…

Watching movies seems like a different application of the tech. Doesn't that just simulate a movie screen several feet in front of you? That's probably not quite as sickness inducing as moving around a full VR environment.
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