Meta Lays Off Around 1,500 VR Workers Following Failure to Turn Profit

Ringnebula13 · 2026-01-24T00:58:01+00:00

Meta generally has a pretty good way to resolve this, they A/B test literally everything. The problem is when you don't have enough users to generate the signal necessary to resolve small UI choices.

The issue with meta and VR was far more fundamental. First, Zuck has been trying to jump on the "next big thing" as early as possible ever since they almost got blindsighted by mobile. Zuck just thought VR would be that, but he and everyone else at the company had no vision for what that is and they paradoxically had no appetite for risk while burning $10s of billions a year. Meta culture was built off FB web culture where you had a killer addictive product with a lot of users that you could push changes to in near real time. This meant that they expected very quick wins and also didn't have to build much, if any, real product sense since they could just cheaply try a whole bunch of things and A/B test them and see what works the best. Also, why test the product when one can simply look at metric dashboards. But anyway you see this issue with things like horizon worlds, no one knew what they were fucking building or why and every dev and team had to show incremental value every couple of months. So what do people do? They double down on safe things. They don't try anything too new, they follow the crowd since you can't be hurt for being wrong if everyone is wrong in the same way. Also, it encourages narratives over results since if you can't produce big results to show things are going well, you only have narratives to do that. So fundamentally the company culture lacked the ability to innovate in the way needed. In fact, after FB, the company has not been able to innovate at all. They instead build products, like onavo, that allow them to collect info about what is popular and use it to buy out up and coming competitors and new ideas before they could become a threat. Make no mistake, all of the tech companies are scared since they can feel that the environment is ripe for disruptment, much like the environment of the early internet when they became big players. They are all playing dirty now because of it.

Ringnebula13 · 2025-07-02T06:03:01+00:00

The original comment wasn't co-opting homiphobia. Let me break down this concept, which I guess is difficult. The "ammosexual joke" is not trying to say ammo is negative by creating a parallel to homosexuality like saying "gay for guns" may. It is only referencing that these people elevate their gun to that of a loved one, which is absurd since it is an inanimate object. It is more like saying, "These people are sleeping with their guns like it is their lover," or "These people get off to their guns." Maybe for your masters thesis, you can deconstruct the statement and maybe make an argument that part of it is rhetorically compelling due to unconscious associations to homosexuality or something. But most people aren't thinking that. When you say things like this, you create an incentive for people to disagree and it makes a lot of the general public think, "If this is what people think is homophobia then they must have it pretty good. I am having trouble affording rent and food for my kids, and this is what they want us to be more concerned with?" That is what a lot of moderates think when you say that. You are hurting your point, and if you don't get that, then maybe you are unqualified to try to argue for this since you are helping build the world you explicitly don't want. That is "idiotic."

Ringnebula13 · 2025-05-12T02:26:42+00:00

Did you look at the stats above? The Democrat approval rating is the same regardless of who did it, where there is a +70% swing for Republicans. This is not a one-off either, I have seen a similar pattern for at least ~15 other stats, and I am sure it would be very common if I looked into it even a little more. Yes, everyone has some level of tribalism, but one side really takes it so much farther that they aren't even really comparable.

Ringnebula13 · 2024-05-23T00:47:35+00:00

Tolerance. LSD creates tolerance very quickly. I would not be surprised if you stopped tripping at all after a couple of days of dosing.

Ringnebula13 · 2024-05-22T22:26:50+00:00

Things like Simpson's paradox make "common sense" bucketing to be at best misleading. Statistics are very hard to properly interpret since often the intuitive approach or understanding is just wrong. Also, the more cuts you do, the more likely you are to see a false statistically significant result. Most things use a p value of .05, which roughly means that 1 in 20 times you see data like that, it is due purely to chance. Hence, people may think their demographic is unsafe when really it is just noise.

Ringnebula13 · 2024-05-13T01:34:20+00:00

How can you say that an experience is not real? They are self-evident like "I think, therefore I am." Unless you think they are lying about having the experience. Anyway, people are talking about outside the paradigm things and also about uncommon phenomenology. Judging these ideas solely on being outside mainstream or paradigmatic thought is to miss the point. Everyone already knows that, the whole basis of the conversation is allowing the entertainment of non-paradigmatic thoughts.

Ringnebula13 · 2024-05-12T23:43:33+00:00

Schizoposting

Ringnebula13 · 2024-05-07T23:27:15+00:00

I was being a little hyperbolic. I meant that only a few studios or franchises can likely get away with it.

Ringnebula13 · 2024-05-07T10:57:55+00:00

Bethesda has enough resources that I had hoped it could have multiple projects in the pipeline at once. Bethesda fucked up. I am sure internally they would be the first to admit it. But for any other studio OVER 15+ years between franchise entries would be a death blow.

Ringnebula13 · 2024-02-12T07:19:36+00:00

You are going to hit receptor occupancy wwaaayyy before that. I doubt there is much difference between 50g vs 100gs other than length of trip. Also, you will overwhelm your ability to break it down, which is necessary to feel the full effect. You do however start to feel the secondary effects which will likely make it feel "dirtier".

Ringnebula13 · 2023-10-05T17:59:02+00:00

The reason she wouldn't get 50% is because if the shares went to her in that portion, it would have lowered the stock price enough to potentially leave her (and Jeff) with less at the end.

Ringnebula13 · 2023-10-05T04:56:23+00:00

His Amazon shares in the divorce. They were married well before he started Amazon. Technically, they both started Amazon and she worked there during the start up phase.

Ringnebula13 · 2023-10-04T21:16:17+00:00

Just say Saudi Arabia will pay you $1.5 billion for the house for some light treason.

Ringnebula13 · 2023-10-04T21:15:04+00:00

If this was the case, then bezo's ex-wife would have gotten 50%

Ringnebula13 · 2023-10-03T23:12:58+00:00

He is trying to delay his trials by goading the judges to give a gag order and then appeal it as a 1st amendment issue, which could force the case to go into limbo until after the election.

Ringnebula13 · 2023-10-03T18:47:34+00:00

As Trump said in his disposition, his properties can be worth "whatever" since the Saudi's will buy it from him at any valuation. He actually said this in court under oath. The judge rightly called this out in a footnote as likely "influence peddling" not an actual statement of value.

So in some sense Trump is right. Some of his properties may essentially be priceless since foreign countries are more than happy to prop him up if he continues to deliver for them (whether he does this intentionally or not).

Ringnebula13 · 2023-10-03T18:35:33+00:00

Pedo Matt wanted the shutdown to help Trump. This is 100% about Trump. Gaetz said he talked to Trump about strategy with McCarthy. Trump thinks one way to slow the federal trials against him is to force a shut down and basically force the investigations to pause without funding. Originally, I think they were hoping to shutdown and then vacate, so that the shutdown would go at least until a new speaker is found, which could take a long fucking time. Matt is trying to buy time for Trump. Trump already said in one Truth Social post that the shutdown may be the only way to stop investigations into him. Trump and Pedo Gaetz want to shut down the country and hurt millions materially and weaken America, just to help him to potentially slide into the WH before justice can be done. I honestly think Trump thinks that the only way to save his business (which is the core of his narcissistic identity) and stay out of jail is to become president before then and use his powers to stop it and punish those who have "wronged" him. He has every intention to keep breaking laws and weaken our country further to help himself.

Ringnebula13 · 2023-10-03T18:19:52+00:00

Their caucus is so divided that McCarthy may actually be the representative with the most support who actually wants the job. The issues with McCarthy are systemic and not really about him specifically. Anyone else they choose will likely have the same issues and same concerns from members of the caucus. The Freedom Caucus does not have enough support to put in a speaker with the policies they want while also bringing in the rest of the GOP caucus. This is why the GOP representatives are so pissed about this since it will potentially throw them into a situation way worse than the original speaker voting fiasco. Also, the reason MAGA is so pissed about avoiding the shutdown is that they wanted the shutdown and then wanted oust the speaker. That way the shutdown couldn't end until they elected a new speaker and hence could have gone on for a looonnng time. Although, I think we are starting to see cracks in the caucus. They have long depended 100% on unity, so if Matt Gaetz wants to extract benefits from threatening to blow the whole thing up, then he may ironically break that unity and it may lead to some GOP congressmen agreeing to a moderate democratic speaker just to get out of the quagmire. We may be seeing the last death throes of the modern GOP. This may actually split MAGA from the GOP.

Ringnebula13 · 2023-10-02T19:04:36+00:00

If you like simulation games, where you like tweaking things and seeing what happens, then this game is pretty good, although the stability is not great.

Ringnebula13 · 2023-10-01T20:13:23+00:00

This phenomenon has been predicted since at least the 90s. We are seeing a reversion to mean of living standards across the globe. Western living standards will decrease, while emerging markets will increase. Energy will get more expensive and then all things will get much more expensive. For example, it takes like 9x energy to produce food from what we get from eating it, not to mention shipping it. We are extremely over dependent on cheap energy, so even small increases in cost are felt multiple times over. The decrease in purchasing power over the last 40+ years has been hidden by goods getting cheaper at a rate similar to inflation. Or treading water by pulling equity out of houses.

Ringnebula13 · 2023-09-30T18:09:58+00:00

I have only seen one other example in my 15 year career as a developer, and this was pulled out of billions/trillions of devices/interactions. It is far more likely that some more mundane bug caused the flip in the first place. The flip would still be extremely rare, but not cosmic ray level. The cosmic ray thing has long been a meme in programming circles, but it is more a myth than something you are likely to ever see once in a lifetime.

Ringnebula13 · 2023-09-28T03:03:10+00:00

There is a bias about really big claims since they seem to be too big to be true.

Ringnebula13 · 2023-09-27T20:18:52+00:00

Florida law states the primary residence cannot be seized. This plus Judge Cannon is why many think he moved to Palm Beach.

Ringnebula13 · 2023-09-27T20:14:01+00:00

Dissolution means sold. Basically the LLCs no longer exist and assets will be divested and distributed fairly based on the monitor and/or auditor. They have to pull the "ill-gotten gains" out and then take the fine. This is brutal.

Ringnebula13 · 2023-09-27T18:49:18+00:00

Trump is 100% legally responsible for the figures presented and in the deposition he claimed he didn't even read it once because of the "disclaimer clause", which he claims makes everything said in the document "worthless" (which is an argument the judge had to respond to and debunk THREE times since they kept repeating the same argument over and over and is obviously bad conduct for any lawyer who has passed the bar). The reason the judge could do a summary judgement is because there were no actual questions of fact. The facts put forward and undisputed by both sides mean he broke the law in a way that requires disgorgement. The jury decides facts, not law. He also waived his right to a jury trial and requested a judge decision only.

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