Linked List: December 16, 2022

Friday, 16 December 2022

Ryan Mac and David McCabe, reporting for The New York Times:

John Carmack, a pioneer of virtual reality technology, is leaving Meta after more than eight years at the company, according to an internal post reviewed by The New York Times.

When I linked to Carmack’s self-described “grumpy” keynote talk at the virtual Meta Connect conference two months ago, I thought to myself that he didn’t sound like a guy who was happy where he was or felt like he had much influence.

Update: Carmack, on Twitter:

I resigned from Meta, and my internal post got leaked to the press, resulting in some fragmented quotes. Here is the full thing:

“The full thing”, alas, requires a Facebook account to see. But I’ve put a copy here for posterity. Carmack writes:

We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort. There is no way to sugar coat this; I think our organization is operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy. Some may scoff and contend we are doing just fine, but others will laugh and say “Half? Ha! I’m at quarter efficiency!”

It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I’m evidently not persuasive enough. A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. I think my influence at the margins has been positive, but it has never been a prime mover.

Mark Zuckerberg should be embarassed that Carmack is this frustrated and disappointed, and prepared for Facebook to get its ass handed to it in this market, probably next year.

Donald Trump Teased a ‘Major Announcement’ That Turned Out to Be Just an NFT Scam ★

Molly White:

Trump supporters got all excited when Trump posted on social media to tease a “major announcement”. Was he going to run for speaker of the House? Return to Twitter? Unveil a presidential running mate?

His supporters were surprised — and not exactly thrilled — when the announcement turned out to be a collection of 45,000 NFTs (sorry, “digital trading cards”) featuring artwork of himself in heroic outfits and poses. The NFTs are “just” $99 apiece, and money goes to Trump, not his campaign.

Even some of his strongest supporters were nonplussed. Steve Bannon said, “I can’t do this anymore,” and opined that he should fire whoever advised him to make the collection.

The speaker of the House theory is based on the little-known fact that the Constitution does not require the speaker to be a sitting member of the House of Representatives. But, to date, every speaker has been. But Trump supporters got excited by his hyped “major announcement”, jumped the conclusion that he’d announce a bid to serve as speaker, and once speaker, would like shut down the whole federal government and lead impeachment hearings against, presumably, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and then, as speaker, he’d become president again. Or something like.

But instead, it was just an NFT scam for a collection of comic-book-style illustrations of Trump himself in various roles like superhero, astronaut, firefighter, cowboy, quarterback, etc. Imagine the Village People where everyone in the band is a slim, young, steroidally muscular Donald Trump. $99 a pop, and of course his idiot supporters bought them up.

Presidential!

The ‘Barbie’ Trailer Is, Like, Really Good ★

Words I didn’t expect to write today: the new teaser trailer for Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is outstanding. If you do something like this, it only works if you do it right, and this is just exquisitely well-done. And it warms my heart that they think the Barbie target demographic will get the reference. Trust me, watch this one.