The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by leksak » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 10:17 PM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #195

zwkrt wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too much cyncism in any person or organization will lead to gridlock and/or burnout as new ideas are immediately scrapped and morale tanks. Just ask anyone who has worked for 10+ years in government. However, for a private company that kind of critical thinking is often important to make sure that all the lemmings don't run off the cliff. It is interesting to me that cynicism is stifled at a cultural level at Meta. I…

I find too much cynicism off-putting. I'm at a Big Tech adjacent (or not depending) company and one reason (of many) I don't consider Google as a potential employer is because everyone I've met there is deeply cynical about the company. I've gone places in my life I never expected I'd end up in, my own brain is wired to filter out cynicism. If I had to deal with a company culture deeply cynical about everything they…

Too much cynisism certainly sounds bad, but cynisism in and of itself shouldn't necessarily be problematic. Eskewing it entirely to always opt for optimism is inherently dishonest and does not acknowledge that sometimes having a negative response is fair and justified. And not allowing that as part of company culture is stifling.

Do you think people's cynisism about Google has made you miss out on a positive opportunity or can their discontent have signaled actual organizational issues that'd have affected you in negatively?

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

#212

Post by jbullock35 » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 10:17 PM UTC

defen wrote: post #193

aerovistae wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He can feel however he likes; nothing compelled him to post it publicly for all the world to read and comment. > 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? He chose to work for Mark Zuckerberg. He wishes he could continue working for Mark Zuckerberg, in…

> He wishes he could continue working for Mark Zuckerberg, in order to make Mark Zuckerberg richer.

He never said that this is why he wants to continue working at Meta. People do have other reasons for wanting to work there.

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

#213

Post by yamtaddle » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 10:17 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #126

dathinab wrote: post #113

As someone not in the topic the metaverse seems even worse, i.e. it looks like Facebook spent 20 Billion and didn't manage to add anything to VR other small companies haven't added years earlier... I'm probably missing something, but it honestly looks worse then burning money, it looks like extremely inefficiently burning money. Anyway sounded like an interesting work before the team was dissolved.

In theory you're missing the network effect of everyone already being on Facebook. So they can quickly spin up a vast virtual world with all the people you know already in it. In practice, it hasn't happened, and nobody seems excited to do it. Whatever benefits they hope to get from the network effect seem unlikely thus far.

Facebook's popular and people use it a lot because you can use it on the shitter or in line at the grocery store or for five minutes in bed when you briefly wake up at 3AM or while feeding the baby or while not paying attention in a boring meeting or under your desk while you're pretending to work or on the subway.

No metaverse will be anywhere near as popular as Facebook proper if it can't match that feature. Even one that's built on Facebook. This entire sector is software R&D that's being done in anticipation of eventually hardware breakthroughs that'll make it not-suck—so right now, it kinda sucks, and there's no getting around that until the hardware gets a lot nicer.

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

#214

Post by layer8 » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 10:19 PM UTC

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.

Technically though, vitamin D is not a vitamin. ;)

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

#215

Post by s3000 » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 10:21 PM UTC

> We were almost ready to be spun off.

What was missing? If the team is that good, why don't they believe in themselves and offer their services?

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

#216

Post by dibt » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 10:22 PM UTC

> 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”.

I could say the same thing about TikTok, Twitch, Instagram, Whatsapp, Youtube, WeChat, etc.

I'm not bullish on the metaverse. I live simply, with less tech than the average person. I don't expect to participate. With that said, I don't doubt it will be more successful than what graybeards expect. More than what Meta is dumping into it? No idea.

There will be things in the future you will not want to participate in. That's ok.

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

#217

Post by mannykannot » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 10:23 PM UTC

TomSwirly wrote: post #176

mannykannot wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...unless you actually have a deficiency.

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

I happen to be one who does, and no, it's not a consequence of a bad diet or unhealthy lifestyle.

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

#218

Post by fxtentacle » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 10:25 PM UTC

matkoniecz wrote: post #130

zemvpferreira wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a trope with some truth to it, but it runs out of steam fairly quickly. Was original facebook a painkiller? Instagram? $1000 iPhone? Liver King? I find it's a useful framework for selling b2b. Even then, desire can win over pain many times. Fear and greed are the real big sellers in b2b anyway.

> Was original facebook a painkiller? Instagram? I would say that it was closer to a tasty pizza. It was definitely not fitting either "vitamin" (worth investing for future payoff) or painkiller (solving immediate and urgent need[1]) [1] I guess that hiding/temporary fix is not intended to be part of this allegory

At my university, Facebook was the painkiller for involuntary celibacy ;)

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

#219

Post by lmm » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 10:25 PM UTC

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #179

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…

Have you ever been laid off? Me neither until about a month ago. Let me tell you - it's awful. I've watched myself and many coworkers go through the process of emotionally accepting it. Some people want to know what algorithm or decision-making picked them for the chopping block. Some out of a desire to know that it wasn't performance-related, others to know the mechanics because maybe it feels like you'll be able to…

I've been laid off with a week's notice. 4 years of my work very likely thrown away (including the part that I'd always been told would be open-sourced Real Soon Now). Pretty sure I got less notice and less severance than this guy. I agree with GP that complaining about it publicly feels whiny and entitled.

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

#220

Post by jandrese » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 10:27 PM UTC

b112 wrote: post #167

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?

But I can't wear those goggles for even 2 hours. Are there people who can wear them for 12? As someone who has never seen or held a pair (I don't have a facebook account), what is the long term barrier? Weight? Size? Such as, if they were sunglass sized, would they be longer term wear? Or is it still the resolution/disconnected feeling/etc?

So the plural of anecdote isn't data, but I have a Quest 2 and the limiting factor on use for me is one of two things.

1. The battery runs out.

2. I get physically exhausted. Most of the VR stuff I do is fairly energetic so it's not the VR goggles that tire me out, it's the constant swinging of arms and jumping/crouching.

I've never had an issue with motion sickness and since I'm doing it in my home any worries about how dorky they look are silly. Comfort is mostly fine, although you do have to wash off the foam bits that touch your face regularly or they'll start to smell like old gym socks. Fogging of the lenses is also an annoying and regular issue that I've never fully solved, mostly just getting used to everything being soft looking. The final minor issue is that the lenses can get warm (like hardworking cell phone level warm) so if your room is already hot they would probably get fairly uncomfortable.

Thanks to the battery issue I've never used them for more than a couple of hours at a time however. I can't comment about the comfort after 12 hours. I imagine my arms would have fallen off long before I got to 12 hours of Dragon Fist, Ragnarock, or Beat Saber however.

To stay article relevant I will comment about Horizon Worlds: My overall impression after an hour of trying it out just to see was "What did they spend the billions of dollars on?" It's so corporate and empty and I have no idea where all of the money went. It looks like any old VR Chat clone, there are a handful of minigames, chatrooms, and "VR Experiences" which are just short looped videos. It's not like SecondLife where you could maybe build your own thing or might stumble upon some crazy weird thing at any point. It's just minimal effort everywhere you look. To hear that it is such a money pit makes me wonder if it's some kind of weird money laundering thing or if the developers are just watching YouTube all day for years?