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Today I woke up wondering why hands always look so weird in AI-generated images. Hands also tend to look weird in dreams, and are a well-known way to notice that you're dreaming. Just look at your hands. They're also often all twisted in VR games. Only *this* waking simulation seems to have hands figured out. Why is this the case?

Four of our last seven days were all time records for growth.

Pretty direct connection between growth and redoing our recommendation system to focus on substance.

It's been a nice validation that there are people that will pay for substance over attention.

Notable, the key to the new recommendation system was putting more humans in the loop.

We're going to stick with this pro-human approach no matter how off trend it is.

I’m been a pretty solid VR enthusiast/geek since the DK1 Kickstarter a decade ago. Going into the WWDC event I was sure I’d be spending $3K to buy whatever Apple announced, but surprisingly, I ended up being pretty unenthused by what was shown - I’ll definitely be trying to demo one when I get a chance, and I still might grab one just because, but having slept on it, some initial thoughts:

Pros:

  • Apple has thrown their hat in the ring, which means that the race is now on. This is fantastic news for anyone that cares about XR and is sure to drive competition/race dynamics/scaling that Meta has not been able to do by itself.
  • Spatial computing (unlimited workspace, positional workspaces) is something that I, and many other nerds have wanted forever, so this is exciting, and this is basically the only thing (besides googly eyes) that they’re showing off. Hopefully it’s good?
  • This is an extremely polished looking product. While there are some iffy choices (no replaceable facial interfaces? heavy metal and glass on the face? It looks like there’s a lot of thought and consideration that went into various aspects of the product, so I’m truly curious on what the UX actually feels like and what details really work.
  • The external display is actually pretty neat, both idea and execution (eg, the modes and transitions).
  • Iris scanning for auth is pretty great. Along those lines, the focus on privacy, both for biometrics, gaze, etc is quite refreshing.

Cons:

  • So, one is a bit conditional - Apple threw around a lot of superlatives on their visual experience of course, but as there are no actual specs or in-eye views, we’ll just have to see how good it actually is. They are reportedly using Sony’s 4K Micro OLED panels for each eye so angular resolution (PPD) is almost certainly not Retina (60PPD at the minimun, 120PPD for nyquist). They claimed <12ms latency, which sounds great, but just translates to 1 frame at 90Hz. There was no mention on refresh rate, dynamic range, FOV, VAC, depth correction, etc. They obviously have the resources and budget to make something best in class, but we’ll just have to see.
  • My biggest takeaway from the presentation (besides zomg, how pointless and boring self-parodying Apple keynotes have become, breathlessly introducing minor software features as miracles), the one thing the left me cold and honestly a bit stunned, was the complete lack of any “killer app,” or even any immersive or 3D content (we’re going to ignore where they seriously proposed you capture janky 3D video of important life events by wearing a headset and not ever directly experiencing it in the first place). No AR standbys like contextual info popups/callouts, mapping, objects fixed in 3D spaces (maybe not possible with their privacy restrictions?). No 3D Facetime or embodied teleconferencing (which would have by itself justified a $3K price tag IMO). No NeRFs or 3D environment overlays (was there any 3D environment mapping at all)? No shared spaces, no virtual pets. Obviously no games, because Apple’s too good for that. Their big selling point seems to be watching a really big TV in an HMD (with a 2h battery life, natch). Who are they targeting this device for. Boomers? (I mean realistically, yes. Specifically jet-setting business and media execs.)

To me, it’s been clear for most of a decade that the next evolution in computing UX is embodied and spatial. To me, what’s most surprising about today’s announcements is just how unambitious Apple’s “vision” is in this regard. As goofy as Zuck’s presentation was, I’d highly recommend giving that 2021 presentation a re-watch and compare what they’re trying to build vs what Apple is doing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvufun6xer8 (or for a bit more polish, their more recent Metaverse Impact clips https://about.meta.com/metaverse/impact).

Half-baked theory: UFOs are the new QAnon. I’ve been curious what the new season of conspiracy theories would be this election season to get people riled up about nonsense and feel like this is the best candidate so far.

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Fun fact: the celestial North Pole rotates slightly in the night sky because the Earth wobbles a bit on its axis. According to the circle shown in the center, the full wobble takes 25,771 years, or about 1 degree every 71 years. This clock tracks that precession and updates every minute, just for fun. This is now a clock that will be relevant and accurate for 25,771 years!

Just scrolled Twitter looking for the first person I liked with a blue check mark and… wow… 0 hits after at least 15 minutes. Well-played, friends.

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Pre-AI-like-this I could be reasonably sure that nobody, including myself, would ever read the vast majority of the things I write in my journal ever again. Now I'm not so sure that is the case, when I can get summaries by week/month, and also ask questions about the stuff that was written.

Now that I'm playing around with on 750 Words, it's occurring to me that I might write in my journal differently if I know that an AI will be reading and parsing it. I'm not yet sure if it makes me filter more or less though. Will see what happens this next week or so. I need for the novelty to wear off so my entries aren't just about implementing this.

Gonna play around with the API on new.750words.com as a possible opt-in feature if you would like to get weekly or monthly summaries of things you wrote. Testing it out now and it's pretty impressive. What other things should I try out?

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It looks extra cool on the 5” round display. I think next up is to somehow make it obvious that the horizon crosses the middle of the circle. And to find a way to represent seasons. And to maybe make the stars disappear during the day.