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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

#321

Post by birdyrooster »

kelnos wrote: post #264
ericlippert wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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) "…

> Third, this opinion is indeed extremely common internally. It is intensely weird to me that people hold the opinion that their company is building something that is bad for the world, and yet they stay there and continue to help build it. I know that's easy to say as someone not in that situation, but not always easy to do for someone who is. I get that people don't always have a ton of choice about their employmen…

Humans are too easy to manipulate for "change things from within." We try to please people subconsciously and it causes us to betray ourselves. Some people have grown beyond this vulnerability, but for many of us its permanent.

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

#323

Post by Aeolun »

hobs wrote: post #229
madrox wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about cynicism and not criticism, correct? In my experience, cynicism is unproductive at best and anti-productive at worst. Criticism, of course, is valuable and healthy. Cynicism is a good and healthy thing to share with colleagues over a beer, but when you're on the clock will kill morale. Arguably dumping loads of money on a vaporware moonshot is also a morale killer, but sniping at it in meetings he…

Excessive cynicism in the face of actual positive change is bad, however when you have no power to change something, you resort to cynicism. If your employees feel no power to express themselves over your bad decisions, you've built a truly toxic system.

If people are cynical in the face of positive change then that’s only because they have experience with previous examples of ‘positive change’ that turned out to not be positive after all.

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

#324

Post by rurp »

mirker wrote: post #291
rurp wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I was surprised to learn that my vitamin D was quite low, and I get a fair amount of sunlight each week, probably more than a lot of office workers. Now that I take supplements though my levels have been fine. From what I have read, quite a few people fall into a similar bucket.

Do you feel different? There is a theory that vitamin D is merely correlated with a healthy body. Sunlight may be required.

Honestly no, but I believe there is some research showing potential long term health benefits of avoiding low vitamin D. It's totally possible I'm wasting my money, but I'm happy with the potential benefit/cost ratio. I would gladly pay the price of some vitamins for even a small chance of avoiding significant health problems.

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

#325

Post by acdha »

dathinab wrote: post #236
jfengel wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Through in my experience no one but old people is actually on facebook. (EDIT: In the country where I live.) A lot of middle aged people might still have an account because old people and aged contacts but don't really want to use it. And this scenario still requires most people to have a VR headset which doesn't make them sick and is comfortable and easy to use, which is not just technically still a bit off AFIK but…

I think you’re right. Facebook usage is way down for people who aren’t tracking retirement costs and a lot of that is quick tasks like getting rid of baby stuff on the local parents group: not without value but hard to base a world-changing valuation on. Getting rid of the noise would have helped but I don’t think they could now get trust back without a new CEO who vocally breaks with the past, and that’s going to really hurt when the proposition is “you should trust us with everything you see and hear”.

I’m curious what Apple’s play will be. They better positioned with best-in-class mobile devices and that could allow starting small to avoid needing to justify a $1+k purchase — arguably we’ve already seen that with AirPod-style AR, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the first devices was something like a sports accessory allowing you to race your friends (or personal best) or do something like an adventure run, where you completely punt on the uncanny valley of realistic people and needing the virtual content to be compelling enough on its own rather than enhancing an existing experience. VR sets the bar a lot higher than AR and Apple wouldn’t need to keep you in for hours to sell ads.

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

#326

Post by geph2021 »

8bitsrule wrote: post #317
geph2021 wrote: post #279

we were regularly putting models into production that on net reduced costs by millions of dollars a year over the cost of the work. ... The whole Probability division was laid off as a cost-cutting measure It's comical, I have to chuckle, even though deeper down I'm truly saddened. The short-sightedness and lack of understanding of upper management seems inevitable as companies grow.

Seems to me that a product/knowledge that can save that kind of money ought to be easily portable to places where it will be properly valued.

It sounds like that was perhaps the path:

  We were almost ready to be spun off.
Turning an internal tool (or what sounded like a customized process, for each internal team/group) into a portable product fit for a broader market can take considerable effort.

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

#327

Post by djur »

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #252
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?

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 require breakthroughs.

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

#328

Post by disqard »

cpsns wrote: post #74
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's a huge deal. What they're saying is that it happens. Constantly. Sometimes I even ponder if my decades-worth experience is not basically because I'm writing the same program over and over again, just for different companies...

> What they're saying is that it happens. Constantly. And I’m personally not okay with that when it comes to the work I do. It was a personally very eye opening experience to drive around with a guy who built homes. He'd point out every house he worked on, even ones 30 years ago and you could tell he was really, truly proud of his work and showing it off. I realised if someone asked to see my past work it simply does…

I've felt this same way for a while now.

What I find interesting (and hard to reconcile) is how society loves to reward the intangible, derivative, overcomplicated stuff, and ignores the foundational things. The overused (and valid) example is "compare swe to teacher compensation".

In truly fractal fashion, this is also true within our own industry:

Build an engine capable of running an ML model very fast? Meh.

Take that, and layer an API on top, and charge $$ per image-generating call? Shut up and take my money.

I don't have an insightful mental model for how to deal with this, except to note that this pattern is prevalent in all human occupations -- the "higher up" you are in the "value chain", the more derived/bullshit-y your fundamental contribution to society is, and simultaneously, the more $$ you can make off of it.

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

#329

Post by actionfromafar »

fallingknife wrote: post #298
kelnos wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but you trying to do that won't hurt anyone (well, aside from the bank account of the person paying you, but that's on them). Building a dystopian VR-based social network hurts a lot more people. I would hope we have better ethics than to work on things that harm others for truckloads of money. Then again, a lot of people still work for Meta (and Twitter, and...), so I guess ethics is pretty lacking.

How, exactly, does building a VR social network harm anyone?

You change the environment where people to some extent live their lives. Stripmalls never hurt anyone either by that token.

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

#330

Post by Eisenstein »

fallingknife wrote: post #298
kelnos wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but you trying to do that won't hurt anyone (well, aside from the bank account of the person paying you, but that's on them). Building a dystopian VR-based social network hurts a lot more people. I would hope we have better ethics than to work on things that harm others for truckloads of money. Then again, a lot of people still work for Meta (and Twitter, and...), so I guess ethics is pretty lacking.

How, exactly, does building a VR social network harm anyone?

I would argue that trying to force VR on consumers by over-promising it before it has a 'killer-app' is harmful to VR as a technology, and I think that VR is a potentially very important technology. However I can't argue against the Zuck giving Carmack 20 billion dollars to build awesome and affordable toys that I love using, especially when it has the potential to scare off his stockholders and make him even more of a laughing stock. I say it is a wash.
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