Linked List: October 14, 2022

Friday, 14 October 2022

‘Donald Trump, January 6th, and the Elusive Search for Accountability’ ★

Susan Glasser, writing at The New Yorker:

Cheney was clear in her remarks on Thursday that she believed Trump deserved not just public excoriation but also criminal sanction. “Our nation cannot only punish the foot soldiers who stormed our Capitol,” Cheney said, and yet so far that is all that has happened. The Justice Department has charged some nine hundred people with participating in the January 6th insurrection — but not a single person close to Trump, who summoned the mob that rampaged in his name and on his behalf, has been indicted. “Without accountability, it all becomes normal, and it will recur,” she warned.

Arrest him, try to put him in prison where he belongs, and let the cards fall where they may.

Where’s the VR Beef? ★

Nick Heer, writing at Pixel Envy:

Are businesses chomping at the bit to have staff sit in a virtual board room instead of just on a call? Is this solving a meaningful problem for them?

Zuckerberg preemptively responded to criticisms like these by reminding everyone that this category is just getting started. But that is a bit of misdirection. Oculus, the virtual reality hardware company Meta bought, was founded in 2012; Meta bought it in 2014. On a technical level, Meta can point to plenty of improvements. But it is much more difficult for anyone to point to clarifications in the concept and purpose of virtual reality. Again, I would be an idiot to argue there are none at all, but this week’s keynote would have been a great time for Meta to illustrate something new and enrich the story. So far, it does not have legs.

I quipped to my Dithering cohost Ben Thompson a few days ago that it sort of feels like Facebook is building the BlackBerry of VR. The obvious low-hanging fruit platform, just waiting to be disrupted by some actual breakthrough platform — by Apple, perhaps, again — at some point in the future. But the more I think about it, I think that’s unfair to BlackBerry. BlackBerry was, for its time, a sensation. It wasn’t a mainstream hit, but the people who used BlackBerrys loved their BlackBerrys. They called them “CrackBerrys”.

I don’t see anyone saying “I wouldn’t want to go back to life without it” regarding their Quest headsets.