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

#171

Post by TomSwirly » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 9:45 PM UTC

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…

> his blog post comes across as whiny and evinces a completely unwarranted sense of entitlement.

You see, most of us actually care about our work and hate to see it thrown away.

> Instead of being "vexed" that he was fired instead of the people building toys for Mark Zuckerberg, perhaps he should be thankful for the two years he spent working on the PPL team.

Again, you don't understand how normal people work.

Normal people would be sad to see work they cared about passionately and had sunk thousands of hours into being thrown away, particularly when it's being done for no good reason.

---

Your post comes off as callous. You claim to be a "big fan" of this guy's work, and yet you mock him repeatedly for caring when that very same work is thrown into the garbage.

I suggest cultivating compassion for others, particularly people you are big fans of.

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

#172

Post by zwkrt » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

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…

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. It is some kind of low-level cult like behavior, to stifle internal criticism. It must also breed a kind of in-group/out-group mentality, as I don't know a single person IRL who has a positive view of the company, its products, or the metaverse.

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

#173

Post by TremendousJudge » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

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?

Well, not that I'm in favor of the idea, but probably if you're used to wearing VR goggles since childhood (the same way we are with regular screens) spending 12 hours a day with them on may be just fine.

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

#174

Post by chubot » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 9:47 PM UTC

kalkin wrote: post #104

"Everyone was kind, smart, dedicated, thoughtful, generous with their time and knowledge, and a genuine pleasure to work with." I know this is what everyone says after leaving a company if they don't want to burn bridges, and I bet it's even fairly true to Eric's experience. I'm also entirely sympathetic to his frustration with both the immediate experience of being laid off for any reason and the broader large-organ…

(story submitter here) This is true and should be acknowledged. To be honest, I submitted it because like many others I learned something from the author's blog, and followed it over the years

I also submitted it under a title involving "probabilistic programming languages", thinking "it's cool that you can get paid to work on such a thing"

Though it's also true that I don't use Facebook and would probably not want it to be optimized any more than it is :-/

I also worked in Big tech and there is a lot of genuinely useful knowledge and practice "locked up" there -- i.e. knowledge that is not in open source code. They have assembled a lot of expertise

The P programming language (for concurrency / state machines) is another example of that -- it's used inside Microsoft Windows and AWS, and is beyond the state of the art elsewhere.

I don't know what to do about that, but it should be acknowledged. We should also acknowledge that some big tech products are great and world changing in a largely positive way (even though in my personal opinion Facebook is the least of those, I can also see it argued the other way).

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

#175

Post by Gigachad » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 9:47 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?

I have a HTC vive original and I actually had a lot of fun with it, but I don’t use it anymore because it takes up a lot of space and the experience is still kind of clunky/low res.

For many people there is a physical discomfort side. From either the heavy device or motion sickness. I didn’t have much issue with this other than playing one time for most of the day and the weight on my face was a bit much.

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

#176

Post by TomSwirly » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 9:47 PM UTC

mannykannot wrote: post #154

astrange wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What actually happens with vitamins is people love taking them (because they’re colorful and some of them are food preservatives) but there’s like no evidence they have health benefits.

...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.

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

#177

Post by TremendousJudge » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 9:47 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?

For me personally, my eyes got very tired very fast, after an hour long session left me feeling as though I had been staring at a screen for 10 hours straight

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

#178

Post by mjevans » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 9:48 PM UTC

zemvpferreira wrote: post #120

a4isms wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the same thing as people say about fires. When you put out a fire you are a hero. When you prevent the fire in the first place, everybody thinks it's business as usual and nobody understands why you are needed. I got a dose of very cold water about this thirty years ago when I was building payware that improved developer productivity. I gave a presentation about its ROI, and afterwards, a developer walked up t…

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.

iPhone was / is a 'status symbol' and 'fashion accessory', which happened to be way better than the clunky, expensive, and poor UI mobile phones which came before, (aside from Blackberry, which was a corp status symbol, work / gov focused, not average consumer.)

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

#179

Post by atomicnumber3 » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 9:49 PM UTC

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 avoid it next time, or at least see it coming.

Some are just mad. Mad that their hard work went unappreciated, mad that their lives have been upended at the whims of a handful of rich people (who take full responsibility of course), mad that they have to change life plans and go through our industry's stupid interviewing process.

Some are very sad - it's deflating and depressing to be plugged into the fast-paced, high pressure environments these places cultivate and then just be told the next day you'll be doing... nothing. (Not here, anyway!) And pulling yourself out of the rut means going over the bed of nails that is job-seeking.

I was personally mostly in the first group. I think I'm mostly accepted it now. Except for while I'm in the shower - then I'm just mad at it all.

Anyway, my point is, everyone deserves the space to emotionally process this stuff, and I don't think you should look down on his own version of the process.

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

#180

Post by NikolaNovak » Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 9:50 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?

I use Ocullus quest 2 to play (and LOVE it!). Weight, head and neck strain / tightness are the first issue. Nausea is the follow up. Eye strain is the final. I never use it for more than 30min at the time.

I cannot imagine spending ANY work time in VR at this point in technology cycle, once you add resolution, accuracy, etc. I do not understand what problem it's solving - if you want to visually interact remotely, turn on your camera. If you don't, just talk and screenshare. I do not understand what virtual reality will add to my interactions and productivity.