pharke

Currently re-implementing the Focus Sessions feature of the built in Windows clock app. I had been using the Windows version as a quick way to track time spent on a learning goal but found it buggy and lacking some features I wanted (like a pause button!) so I'm rewriting it as an Electron app. It's giving me a chance to write some plain JS for once and I've set a challenge of importing as few front-end libraries as possible (so far only react and immer). I'm excited that I have it at the point where I can dogfood it for tracking the time I spend on developing it.

I think the exception might prove the rule in this case. I still believe the majority of people require the presence of some body language in order to connect with others, if this weren't the case then we would have abandoned meeting in person altogether long ago with the invention of the telephone or even writing since we've been sending letters to each other for a long time as you mention. Since most people don't connect well empathetically with others through text or images alone, I think the best thing we can do is to bring more human presence to long distance communications. If you prefer to stick with text or voice alone then no one is going to stop you but lots of other people will flock to a system that provides a close facsimile of in person conversation.

I think the problem with this vision isn't that "people talking to each other won't prevent violence" it's that people posting text, images, and video is not the same as people talking to each other. Even a video call is not the same as talking to someone in person. It's hard to build empathy and connection with someone you can't make eye contact with.

If launches have nation state level prices then of course the only entities that could afford them would be nation states for the most part.

Right now I'm pretty sure Starlink is the biggest customer of a private space launch company. Yes I know it's pretty much the same company but look at the other satellite internet providers that are also using SpaceX: Viasat, Echostar (Hughesnet), Iridium, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Globalstar. That's most of the providers that are out there. This goes hand in hand with commercial space launch, as launches become cheaper and more available the share paid for by private business will increase. This is a good thing! Don't you want a college or even a high school to be able to afford to put a small satellite in orbit to do simple experiments? The only way people are going to get interested in space exploration again is if they themselves can actually do things in space, in person or remotely.

It'll remain expensive if only countries are launching things. If commercial space launches continue to pick up steam it will get cheaper.

Genuinely curious but how is this

> "the current rate of extinction is 10 to 100 times higher than in any of the previous mass extinctions in the history of Earth."

an accurate statement when there have been a few mass extinction events that were (apparently) caused by sudden changes?

Is this assuming that the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event was caused by gradual changes instead of an impact or volcanic event? Same for the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) extinction? I think there are also a number of extinction pulses in the record that could be attributed to sudden events although I'm unsure of how they compare in terms of the number of species affected.

> all over the world

> Lots of governments

It seems like you're misconstruing what the other person said to be a general statement about all governments when it is only applicable to democratically elected ones. Yes, you can disagree with the government but that doesn't mean they are in the wrong if they have the support of the majority of the population. If you don't like something about your government then vote, either with a ballot or with your feet.

> I think if VR is to draw people in, it's got to bring whole new games, experiences I can only live in VR

I believe the person you were replying to was just using those board games as an example to illustrate the silliness of reverting to 2d or pancake style interaction while immersed in a VR experience. There are certainly many VR games that give you experiences that are only possible in VR. One of the most popular is Beat Saber although you may take issue with that because there are rhythm games outside of VR. It's still a unique experience to have to use your whole body to play the game though. A better example of VR only may be Swarm[0] which is a game about swinging around a 3d arena using a grappling hook while shooting heat seeking missiles that are trying to hit you. I'm pretty sure there is no way you could play this with a normal computer interface and if you could it wouldn't be very fun.

[0] https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2236053486488156/

I agree. The first point in particular is a very selfish way to look at social interactions. I think most people would be uncomfortable knowing that there could be an unlimited number of invisible participants in a conversation especially if it was in a VR space where you feel much more present than in a chat. It's also not very pleasant to have someone who you didn't know was there to suddenly jump in on a topic unexpectedly. Having your avatar there as a placeholder that others can acknowledge is important for that reason, you aren't surprised when a quiet person chimes in on a conversation since you are aware that they have been listening and could speak at any time. An invisible ghost jumping in on a topic would be jarring to say the least.

As a socially awkward person, I understand their difficulty with being present and not speaking. The only advice I can offer is to learn to be comfortable with that discomfort, not very helpful I know. Most people are accepting of quiet people just hanging out and occasionally contributing, there's no need to hide.

Alternate input is tricky especially when we're talking about a multiplayer experience like Poker Stars VR. If they did allow you to interact solely with button pushes, what would the other participants see? Some default set of animations? A big part of the experience of that game is the social interactions around the table. Turning to speak to the person next to you, playing with all of the props provided in game, telling jokes or stories, etc. It's like a real poker game. The author seems to want a 2d experience instead so my question is why are they even bothering with VR? Why not just buy a headset that is designed as a heads up display and play regular pancake content?

I was just looking into this the other day. Nice to see someone do it. I wonder if making it more hackable by replacing the electronic guts with something like a ESP8266 would be worthwhile. I'd much rather be able to have a simple little server on this device that I can talk to over the network rather than having to go through some random company's servers. I imagine connecting it to the motor that turns the feeding mechanism wouldn't be too hard and the screen and buttons could simply be removed to prevent any, ahem, manual tampering. Adding some way to lock the food bin would also help with impulse control for those who need it.

Another upgrade would be to randomly reward the desired behavior instead of always rewarding it. This helps to both prevent gaming the system as well as keeping those dopamine spikes high when you unexpectedly get some candy. Using chocolate as a reward is perfect since it provides tryamine to help replenish your dopamine levels.

A key insight into agriculture is that the main reason we spread our farms out over massive areas of land is because it is simply more economical. If you think about it from first principles, farming outdoors has major flaws the biggest of which is seasonality. Most crops mature in a handful of months but must be grown only at specific times of the year in order to maximize yield. Doing this out in the open puts you at the mercy of nature. Besides the limited growing season you also have to deal with losses due to weather, pests, competing plants (weeds), and other local conditions like drought or soil quality. The only reason we do it is because it's cheap. It requires less initial cost to set up and less energy input.

If you were to redesign the process you could conceivably build massive greenhouses to control conditions. If you had surplus energy you could also actively heat, cool and light these greenhouses. From a quick look, greenhouse conditions can produce 15 times more yield per acre. They reduce wastage by a comparably large amount as well since half of produce is thrown away due to cosmetic blemishes. They would also drastically reduce the amount of fertilizer and pesticide needed. I think you could drive yields even higher with round the clock lighting, studies as well as practical experience from farmers in northern territories have shown that longer daylight hours allow plants to mature much more rapidly.

An ideal farming setup to me would look like hectares of greenhouses located next to a nuclear power plant that can provide heated water for keeping them warm and cheap power for cooling and lighting.

> there may be a greater intelligence at work in the Universe

He believed that there may be two greater intelligences diametrically opposed to each other and vying for control over the universe in order to remake it according to their own preferences. He expressed in his interview in Metz, France 1977[0] that he believes they are engaged in a constant struggle of programming and reprogramming the universe and history each trying to undo the others work. He connects this idea to his novels The Man In The High Castle and Flow My Tears The Policeman Said both of which involve alternate timelines. He even thought that he could retrieve memories of other timelines or other incarnations and that some of them were in worlds that were much more brutal than our own.

All this to say that his belief in a higher power certainly followed the same lines of thought that he explored in his novels.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkaQUZFbJjE

The hardware to create a convincing effect is simply too expensive at the moment to be mass market. You can produce collimated light with either a reflector or a lens but both have their issues. Reflectors will add required depth to the package although it can be minimized to some extent. This makes for a rather bulky install and isn't something you can just hang on the wall. Lenses allow the design to be flatter but the more easily produced fresnel variety won't have the same quality of light. You also have to balance whether to use a single point light source or multiple sources and reflectors/lenses. Cooling becomes a problem for light sources that are bright enough to mimic daylight, this would also add noise which would break the illusion of a window. You need a diffuser of some sort which adds more cost even if it is just a sheet of plastic.

All of that adds up to a fairly bulky and expensive piece of equipment which is why you only see a few high end companies producing them for a very niche market.

Hopefully this can be changed in the future by having the cost of high power LEDs come down even more. Maybe mass production of high quality lenses will be helped by developments in the VR field. There are some promising developments there with so called pancake lenses that could make things a lot smaller.

3 words, full color passthrough. Meta includes sample footage of this in their demos so it's definitely coming with Cambria. While it would be possible to use a standalone headset out in public, I don't think that's the main goal. The hardware belongs in a home or an office where you have a dedicated play space tailored to whatever your use case is. Asking for something that people can use on the train on their way to work is trying to run before we can walk. VR headsets will replace desktop displays first because why wouldn't you want a device that can emulate any size, shape, or number of displays instantly with no cable management or mounting hardware and allow those displays to be visible whether you're at your desk, on the couch, grabbing a fresh cup of coffee or doing some stretches on your yoga mat.

You're trying to compare Apples to Oranges here, VR is still pretty early on in its development. Like Motorola DynaTAC[0] early. The iPhone of VR is probably still 2 decades out. We're still figuring out our UI metaphors and trying to reach a critical mass of competent users where it's possible to just "call" someone up in VR without first asking if they have a headset, asking if they know how X app works, figure out where to meet etc. It's like trying to get someone to email you in the early 90s.

Trying to compare this nascent technology to the iPhone is really disingenuous, there are probably a billion iPhone users worldwide. I'd struggle to count on one hand branded devices that have the same number of users.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_DynaTAC

If you already have an Oculus Quest you should try hooking it up to your PC using Airlink or the link cable first. This allows you to use it with Steam VR or the desktop Oculus apps. As long as your PC can handle VR, you'll get better graphics and access to more VR titles. If you use Airlink you'll still have a completely wireless headset, a trick to reducing latency and avoiding problems with traffic spikes on your network is to get a wifi card for your PC and set it up as a hotspot so you can connect your Quest directly to the PC without going through the router.

Some good first time experiences for people are Space Pirate Trainer if they like shooters or I Expect You To Die if they're more of a puzzle game type and Beat Saber if they like rhythm games. These games don't involve thumbstick based movement so they probably won't make you feel sick. If you want something that's really chill and is just kind of pretty to look at and walk through then Walkabout Mini Golf is pretty good, it's not the most exciting game but it does have multiplayer and it's pretty relaxing to play a round and just admire the work they put into the courses.

I've heard that setting up a fan so it's blowing on you while you're playing VR is a good way to prevent motion sickness. I don't really get very motion sick though so I haven't had to try it.

Some very good games that will definitely make you motion sick are Pavlov and Bone Works. You will feel queasy after playing these for the first few times, have some Gravol on hand just in case.

For better screen quality you can either use a Quest 2 or the Valve Index, you'll be tethered to the PC with the Index though which for me is a deal breaker.

That's cool but try jumping in to Pavlov or VRChat on a Friday night and then tell me there isn't a thriving community. It's not mainstream but it definitely isn't dead.

There have been steady improvements but it is still very early on in the development of the technology. Michael Abrash gave a talk at OC6[0] that centered around the idea that we are currently somewhere around the 1980s level when compared to the development of the PC. This is very much the beginning of the next major platform, comparatively few people have these systems and fewer still use them for more than just fun or basic utility. There is a fledgling social scene but it is still very underground to the point where most people have never heard of it. I'll fully admit there's a long way to go before it really breaks out but it's not going away. I'm diving into it now because it feels like this is the next wave and I'd rather ride it than just wait for it to wash over me.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YIGT13bdXw

You can get prescription lenses for VR headsets, I see no reason why you wouldn't be able to do the same for AR headsets. AR is most likely going to be done via passthrough anyways so it's not like the lenses have to be some kind of special integrated device, just a lens that can be whatever prescription you need.

I have no problem using the desktop display mode on my Oculus Quest 1, it's sharp enough that I can comfortably browse the web or use other apps. It's not as clear as my main physical display so I don't use it exclusively. The displays on the Quest 2 are better and many people use Virtual Desktop with their Quest. I'm expecting Cambria to be yet another notch above that and if it's good enough and if they've really nailed the comfort and weight I'm going to ditch my monitor and switch over to Cambria + Airlink to my desktop. My point is, we're already there and companies like Meta are already targeting these devices as display killers and the next iteration of productivity platforms.

Sorry, those people aren't enthusiasts. There are people that spend 8 hours a day in VR. Hell, there are a lot of people that fall asleep in VR.

It's only insurmountable if you never try it again. There is a learning curve where some people feal quite sick at first and then slowly get used to it. You can mitigate this with "training wheels" settings in the experience like blinkers, cages, hiding the VR body, and alternate locomotion schemes like teleporting. Some people even swear by just setting up a fan to blow air on them while they're using VR.

I'm not so sure. I think they will deliver something but I have a feeling that Meta is going to beat them to the punch as far as a productivity focused device is concerned. Meta might wind up with most of the market share while Apple trails them although I'm sure that most people who own a MacBook Pro will buy an Apple headset as well. I think this is more of a PC vs Mac situation than it is Android vs iPhone.

Social experiences are the use case you're looking for. Multiplayer gaming is a lot more fun in VR, watching video together with people is great, even just hanging out and socializing is great and it beats video or voice hands down. You're right that it's currently in the dork stage of development, the internet went through that period as well. I'd enjoy it while it lasts though, I dread the day when it's fully monetized and mainstream.

Space isn't a constraint in VR, you could have an infinite number of displays that you could teleport between as quickly as your interface allows. The limiter on productivity increase probably has more to do with your ability to remember what each display is for and the ease of locating and switching to them.

I'd imagine it changing the way I work to be closer to what I do when working on a physical project. Like when building a book case I have various pieces laid out in different stages of completion. My context switching involves moving physically from one to the other which provides a physical reinforcement to the mental change I have to make. Just like I have all the shelves on one bench ready to be sanded and the trim on another being cut to length I could have my server side code on one wall and the client code on another. It'd probably be a lot better for my posture and fitness to physically move from one to the other rather than be glued to a chair for 8 hours.

Agree that keyboard shortcuts can't be topped for speed but a keyboard doesn't need to be a flat thing you keep on a desk. Mice on the other hand stand a good chance of being replaced by virtual laser pointers combined with a shift in how we do GUI layouts.

As someone who has been getting into CAD lately and has several years of experience working on 3D models in Blender, I would very much prefer to be able to walk around the model and make adjustments here and there rather than using keyboard shortcuts and the mouse. More display space in VR should have an emphasis on "space" rather than "display".

If we're talking about programming instead, an intuitive way to switch between modules when working on a large project would be to have their windows laid out before you on a virtual desk and you could switch between the active one displayed on a central virtual monitor by making a gesture (probably something like the Oculus pinch) towards the window you want to switch to. This would allow you to use your spatial reasoning to remember which windows you have open and would also allow you to group related windows. Additional displays could show console output from your development server, the GUI part of the app you're working on, a test runner, etc. positioned where you can glance at them easily.

That being said, I think the real killer app for the new "facetop" computing devices that are around the corner will be physical fitness and social interaction. If you think a standing desk was a big improvement for your health then you'll love being able to freely walk around your office and work from any position whether it's standing, sitting at a desk, perched by the window, lounging on the sofa, or even crouching while giving those legs a stretch. You can also kiss zoom meetings goodbye with the unnatural wall of faces almost but not quite making eye contact with you. You'll talk to an avatar, realistic or not, that has full eye, face and body tracking allowing you to tell if your interlocutor is paying attention or thinking about how long it is until lunch while checking the wait time at the nearest restaurants. It actually does feel like you're in the presence of another person and spending a few hours talking to people virtually will no longer leave you with a headache and eye-strain.

I'd also invest in learning how to use a one handed, portable chording keyboard, it'll probably be useful.

Where? Searching for 'peak' returns no results and going through the results for 'gas' doesn't turn up anything about peaker plants for nuclear.

The force of water capable of pushing such a large amount of rubble would have bulldozed the entire structure and there would be practically nothing left. Simply look at the pillars[0] that are being excavated, there is no way they could have survived such a force. The builders of this complex would have no technical problems with burying them, filling in a hole is much easier than carving and erecting hundreds of stone blocks, pillars and structures.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe#Architecture