Honestly between pouring money into competing with TikTok in an AI arms race to suck everyone’s attention into oblivion and the meta verse, I’d prefer them to explore VR and AR. There’s definitely something in the AR metaverse if the technology can get there, and I think that’s where they seem to be headed.
The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
381–390 of 482 posts
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#382I’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.…
You may not always feel that way. At some point you may start to wonder what your legacy on this planet is. At the very least: if you've made a good use of your limited time (and the scarce resource that is your labor). (Hard mode: if you've left the planet better off than you found it?) The last few years have pushed a lot of people's "burn out" buttons and the self-reflection of "what have I accomplished with my ti…
Ultimately everything will be destroyed anyway... "legacy" is an egotistical concept, if you think you're building anything but sandcastles you're deluding yourself.
Enjoy the process, admire your castle, but never forget the tide will have its day.
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if you cut costs in a (prospective or current) operating area from 120% of revenue to 90% of revenue, you've opened up an entire new operating area to profitably grow in. Developing the technology to do a thing profitably that previously could not be done profitably is the stuff unicorns are made of.
Absolutely! I hope my reply didn't imply that I thought there was no value in doing things more efficiently. There clearly is, and as consumers we love marginal gains in product quality, efficiency, and price. I'll nitpick a bit to ask, though, how many times has a new entrant to a market gotten a process/business/tool/etc from 120% operating to 90% through marginal gains? I'd wager almost never. Process improvement…
Competition in mature industries is all about processes costs becoming 110% or 90% of revenue, usually through a series of marginal changes.
That's not how unicorns are made, but it's how most of the economy operates.
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#384I am late to this thread, and I don't know if you'll see this eric, but you've been a sort of hero of mine for a long time and I'm sad both on your behalf and the worlds' that your work is being abandoned. I followed your blog waaay back in msft days, when I was just getting started, and you were a small part of why I applied to Microsoft, got into .net, and became the programmer I am. You've build a large number of…
Thank you, that's kind of you to say!
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#385> We foolishly thought that we would naturally be protected from any layoffs, being a team that reduced costs of any team we partnered with. In retrospect, that was a little naive. A team that reduces costs of other teams is not on anyone’s critical path. > The whole Probability division was laid off as a cost-cutting measure. I have no explanation for how this was justified and I note that if the company were actual…
You have accurately re-stated the situation, yes. I know for a fact that there are teams like that! And what are they going to do now that the scientists who could have helped them make those decisions in a principled way are scattered to different teams or companies? This is the very definition of penny-wise and pound-foolish.
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#386> News flash: no one wants to wear VR goggles
This to me sounds similar to "I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers" (https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=164a442a-1b90...). That was wrong
or "people don’t want to lug a computer with them to the beach or on a train to while away hours" (https://qz.com/593329/choice-quotes-from-a-1985-new-york-tim...). Looking around the beach and especially the train, everyone is lugging around a portable computer (phone)
I don't think today's VR/AR is "the thing" but I do think, in the same way people thought Palm Pilots and Windows CE devices were a small niche market for ~15 years and it wasn't until iPhone that the masses finally understood what a pocket device was good for VR/AR will eventually reach a version/device that will be more compelling than smartphones and similarly blow up
It might take until they get to a small dot like "Striking Vipers" but I'm glad at least one company, if not 5, are pushing forward.
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#387Earlier 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.
If you do end up thinking about this seriously, I think the world could absolutely use a course looking at how to build compilers like APIs and how to build compilers that put IDE experiences first. Just about every college course prepares students for how to build batch compilers that do one thing and quit, with zero extension points.
If there was a course structured so as to teach compiler principles in a Roslyn way, I’d enroll today.
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#388> News flash: no one wants to wear VR goggles This to me sounds similar to "I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers" ( https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=164a442a-1b90... ). That was wrong or "people don’t want to lug a computer with them to the beach or on a train to while away hours" ( https://qz.com/593329/choice-quotes-from-a-1985-new-york-tim... ). Looking around the beach and especiall…
Sounds just as much like what critics said about the Segway, which was supposed to revolutionize pedestrian movement, and which ... well, let's just say the critics turned out to be right.
Which is to say, I don't think you can tell much about the stickiness of a technology from what it's proponents say for or against it. History is full of well-hyped failures, and not a few overperforming fringe ideas.
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#389> News flash: no one wants to wear VR goggles This to me sounds similar to "I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers" ( https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=164a442a-1b90... ). That was wrong or "people don’t want to lug a computer with them to the beach or on a train to while away hours" ( https://qz.com/593329/choice-quotes-from-a-1985-new-york-tim... ). Looking around the beach and especiall…
The full line from the article appears to be more along the lines of (and I am paraphrasing here) "no one wants Mark Zuckerberg's cynical and unimaginative interpretation of VR" and not a dismissal of the technology itself.
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#390Sadly reminded of this: http://worrydream.com/Apple/