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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

#361

Post by hnick »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #266

I don't know who needs to hear this, but the Metaverse is literally just The Sims with a helmet. The only reason FB cares about it is it's a place to sell advertising. But nobody wants it. We wanted Facebook because we could be voyeurs, shout into the void, and receive little hits of dopamine from "likes". But who wants to be a voyeur of virtual people ? People who play The Sims, that's who. I don't think The Sims wi…

I've heard people make the case that MMOs were VR and Social Media combined, before Facebook etc existed. And I think it's true. I would log on to chat (FFXI in my case) with friends. We would occupy a shared space. People still run nightclubs and do other roleplaying in virtual spaces in these games.

The only thing really missing is the helmet but as far as occupying a virtual world, it's closer than anything else has been in terms of providing what people actually want.

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

#362

Post by endtime »

paganel wrote: post #251
chubot wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Facebook doesn't have something like memegen? I worked at Google when it was created and "went viral". Before memegen there was a strain of what I would call inauthentic positivity I think memegen made it a lot more acceptable to be cynical, which was probably good, because the company was definitely drinking a lot of its own Kool-aid

> Before memegen there was a strain of what I would call inauthentic positivity Too lazy to check, but did memegen appear before or after the whole Google+ debacle? Because from the outside Google did seem to drink a lot of its own Kool-aid back then (before and during the first stages of the Google+ launch). In a way, the current discussions around VR remind me of those times, lots and lots of smart people refusing…

Before. I made a Memegen meme about ten years ago comparing the sign in with G+ buttons to the classic Wikipedia Jimmy Wales begging-for-donations banners, and for many years it was one of the top 100 Memegen memes ever.

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

#363

Post by whakim »

djur wrote: post #327
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VR goggles are going to continue getting lighter, smaller, and more comfortable to wear. Soon enough they will be more comparable to glasses than goggles and plenty of people wear glasses for 12-16 hours a day.

I see this a lot, and I'm not sure why people are so confident about it. Lighter, thinner, more durable materials are a huge upsell and focus of ongoing product development in eyeglasses, and that's to save 10 or 20 grams. The lightest VR headsets are still an order of magnitude heavier than eyeglasses. Closing that gap while also addressing the resolution and battery life issues with existing headsets is going to re…

I think it's inevitable in the long run, the question is just whether those breakthroughs come too late for Meta (my guess is they will). The salient point is that given enough time, hardware limitations won't be an obstacle to a metaverse-like something.

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

#365

Post by rrishi »

WorldMaker wrote: post #151
Kiro wrote: post #129

> 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'm sure no-one here likes the idea of the Metaverse but from Meta's perspective I definitely think it's the correct bet. This doesn't make it less dystopian but that's exactly the point. If they can pull it off the…

I haven't watched this particular video yet, but a similar explainer video that I came across this week has me feeling a lot like "Those who have forgotten Second Life seemed doomed to repeat it (badly)". I had a bit of a rough moment realizing that statistically most of the engineers at Meta are probably too young to remember Second Life. (And some of the ones that are old enough like Mark Zuckerberg were too busy i…

I wasn't exposed to Second Life. But I do feel that the alternative life within a metaverse isn't going to appeal to a lot of people.

What kind of socio-political lessons did you draw from Second Life? Would love to hear your take.

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

#366

Post by LeonB »

ericlippert wrote: post #248
WorldMaker wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how many greatly appreciated his blog and have been upset at the last few years of Facebook-encouraged radio silence (including myself, Eric Lippert has been a blogger I've looked forward to posts from), even if he were to just fall into the exciting "old" project of blogging regularly again (as his post teases at the bottom), I think that would be a great use of "his prime" and I wouldn't exactly call that a r…

That's all very kind of you to say, thank you. I have several times been offered the chance to teach a masters level course on compiler design but never had the time to develop it. After a bit of a break, maybe I'll give that more thought.

Yes please!

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

#367

Post by CamperBob2 »

defen wrote: post #354
ericlippert wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nor did anything compel you to read it, or post whiny comments here! I did choose to work for Facebook. The pitch I was given seven years ago was that (1) the mission of the company is to lower costs of building community and connecting people; running an ad-funded social media platform is the means to that end. That's not a mission that is super important to me, but I can respect it. And (2) FB is the company that i…

I don't think my comments are particularly whiny; that comes across as a "no, you" response. I'll accept callous but I don't wish you harm, in fact I hope you find success and fulfillment in your post-Facebook career. > Your statement that I wish I could continue to work for and enrich Zuck is false. I was regretted attrition. Perhaps you should make it more clear in the blog post that you left of your own accord. Pe…

Perhaps you should make it more clear in the blog post that you left of your own accord.

No kidding. I just spent 30 minutes reading both Eric's blog post and this HN thread with a (very) wrong idea in mind.

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

#368

Post by nradov »

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…

From taking privately to a few Google employees, part of what drives the cynicism is disagreement with the organization's progressive political bias. Those who are more politically conservative know that openly expressing their opinions will result in retaliation, so they just grit their teeth and stay silent in order to continue collecting their large paychecks.

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

#369

Post by jayd16 »

ericlippert wrote: post #239
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…

I see your point and don't mean to be argumentative, but a couple small corrections. First, the pivot to "meta" was just over a year ago, so it hasn't been quite years. Second, I haven't been shy about sharing my opinion internally, though I haven't been broadcasting it either. The first thing I said in our team group chat when we'd heard this announcement was (context, I am much older than most people on the team) "…

The laissez-faire economics run amok US was the dystopia. The metaverse as a virtual chatroom was well liked, in universe.

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

#370

Post by anonreeeeplor »

treeman79 wrote: post #203
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

These lessons are just brutal.

If you are high in EQ and vaguely likable you can substitute for technical skill or hard work.

I had a colleague who was like a golden retriever and lacking in all talent. Everyone loved him. He never got anything important done and always worked on superficial shiny objects.

He was basically untouchable. Being optimistic and having no talent is a huge advantage.

The hard working workhorse industrious person always griping about how broken everything is: Can’t wait to get rid of you.

Don’t do great work for morons.

All of the collective results of these brutal lessons for me has been to become ultra cautious about where and who I work for and to try to do a much better job reading the room and analyzing people.

If you are an Aspergers person, this is super hard. I now do my best to get multiple second opinions about the situation because I learned my personal judgement and evaluation was nearly always wrong.

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