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georgespencer commented on What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)   futureforum.com/2022/07/1... · Posted by u/taubek
georgespencer · a year ago
I think either Adam Bryant (organizational psychology at Wharton) or Erin Meyer (same at INSEAD) turned me on to this idea. I think it's generally a good one to (very slightly) accelerate new working relationships to a place of trust, and the emotional pearl-clutching in this thread is interesting to observe.

The best examples I've seen of such manuals (and the best working relationships that have been informed by them) share a common thread: sharing about ourselves where useful,[^1] in order to help others know us better,[^2] and not to control or compel them to do any specific behavioral thing.

So, far from an "instructions [to follow]" (@phoenixy1) or "a one-size-fits-all approach to how different people should act with an individual" (@ralferoo), I think many people intend that the document simply share context in order that you can understand them better, and do whatever you like with the information.

There seems to also be a suggestion that producing such a document is in and of itself a burden to others (@jasoncartwright is very upset about the "arrogance" of even writing one, let alone "expect[ing]" someone to read it, @phoenixy considers them to be a "pretty unreasonable burden"). I can understand the reaction, but I think provided there is no expectation that anyone read it, or that it be a means of controlling or compelling someone to behave a certain way, it's pretty benign overall. (Like, I think everyone would at least once or twice in their careers have access to such a document about some colleague or another, if they thought it were relatively sincere? If so, I say go forth and self-document, just don't have any expectations.)

Here are the sections in mine:

1. Why I have this thing

2. The success criteria for my role, and some general ways I try to achieve them

3. Some general patterns of working (one-on-one cadence, skip mtgs, whatever)

4. Blind spots I have that others have experienced (all verbatim, sought from a mix of new/old colleagues, a few new ones added each year)

5. A few situations where those same people would encourage others to specifically seek me out in a jam (as before, all verbatim yada yada - not necessarily work-related)

6. Work things I love doing / work things that I find stressful (drawn from scenarios the reader will likely encounter)

Of these, 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 contain precisely zero information relating to my preferences or instructions on "how to" do something. I'm simply providing what I hope to be useful context about me and my role at work. (Assuming you take me at my word that I am not sharing the things I love / things I find stressful for any reason other than you knowing me better.)

The general patterns of working at 3 contains some preferences relating to out of hours contact (along lines of "I don't check my emails or Slack outside of office hours, so you should call or text me if there is an emergency or if a few minutes of my time can save you several hours on something"). Maybe that's somehow outdated now? It's the sort of thing I like to know before I reach out to someone out of hours – a bit like I know some people who appreciate a heads up when visiting a "shoes off" household, so they can wear socks or clip their toenails.

tl;dr I think if you are clear that you have no expectation that anyone even read it, and share relevant, practical context on working together -- with a significant portion sincerely sought from a mixture of people, rather than your own navel-gazing -- these kinds of manuals can be a good shout.

I like reading them, and I like understanding my colleagues better. So I'll tell you that I would enjoy reading yours, and if you ever write one please share it, and that I hope you read mine. That's pretty much it!

[^1]: What constitutes " useful" is of course my determination to make, just as it's your determination to decide that what I shared wasn't useful, and tell me as much.

[^2]: I guess this is predicated on the axiom that understanding your colleagues better is useful. I suspect it is useful -- I think if I had to bet on whether or not any person is more effective in collaborative tasks with a stranger, or with someone they have worked professionally with in any field for several years, I would pick the latter -- although this is uninformed.

georgespencer commented on Apple Reportedly Suspends Work on Vision Pro 2   macrumors.com/2024/06/18/... · Posted by u/marban
cglan · a year ago
k
georgespencer · a year ago
Happy to skinny my reply down to simpler words for you, just in case you're genuinely here to join substantive discussion of technical topics, and simply suck at it:

1. Why do you think Vision Pro is a COVID product?

2. Why do you think your friends' usage patterns for legacy AR/VR devices is a useful indicator of the eventual popularity of this product category?

3. Do you have any data to substantiate your claim that people are cutting down on screen time to the detriment of shipping hardware SKUs?

georgespencer commented on Apple Reportedly Suspends Work on Vision Pro 2   macrumors.com/2024/06/18/... · Posted by u/marban
quacker · a year ago
This is an unnecessarily derisive comment.

I know if I like the taste of a new dish without being a great chef. And so can people know if they (and their friends) will buy and use a $3k - or $1.5k - VR headset.

georgespencer · a year ago
> And so can people know if they (and their friends) will buy and use a $3k - or $1.5k - VR headset.

This is not the claim being made by the parent I responded to. Right out of the gate, OP said:

> I told my friends that the vision pro was unlikely to succeed or at least succeed culturally.

I.e. OP is specifically making a general claim about this product category, based on the usage habits of friends who are all - I would wager - using hokey Oculus/Vive-type hardware, and not Vision Pro.

It's the same rhetoric people were probably saying on alt.hackers in 1995 about paper film vs. digital cameras, and it's specious reasoning.

georgespencer commented on Apple Reportedly Suspends Work on Vision Pro 2   macrumors.com/2024/06/18/... · Posted by u/marban
cglan · a year ago
I felt like I was committing heresy when I told my friends that the vision pro was unlikely to succeed or at least succeed culturally. I'm sure it will pick up some niches just like the meta headset.

The reality is, this is a covid product and covid is over. Regardless of price (outside being extremely cheap) I don't see people even dropping $1500 on this thing. I don't have a single person in my life that has used a VR headset for anything more than beatsaber and the occasional movie. They're sweaty, heavy, and they're just isolating to wear for long periods of time, along with various other edge cases like glasses and eye strain.

There's already a pretty big movement to limit screen time and cut down on technology, and focus on fitness. I think that's why the apple watch is doing so well. I could see something like the ray ban meta glasses taking off, especially with an enhanced siri and some AR. But the vision pro and VR in general feels like a form of nerd sniping that the general public literally doesn't care about other than randomly using it at parties.

georgespencer · a year ago
It's unclear whether you are misusing Vision Pro to mean the entire category of AR/VR headsets, or the specific model Apple launched this year.

> unlikely to succeed or at least succeed culturally

I think by success you mean "be a $10bn business" (a quarter as big as Apple's wearables business today), and for Apple, success might mean something very different.

> The reality is, this is a covid product and covid is over.

What do you mean by this? Certainly you can't mean that Apple mistakenly designed this product for the COVID era, given its history?

Apple acquired Peter Meier's AR company in 2015, and recruited Mike Rockwell from Dolby in the same year to lead the group working on the headset.[^1] In 2017 they recruited the head of AR from NASA's Jet Propulsion lab.[^2]

Apple in fact appears to have delayed the project in 2019[^3] because Jony Ive pushed Rockwell and his team to build a standalone device, not one with compute offloaded to an external processing unit.

This product had been under active development for nearly three years by the time COVID hit (Fletcher Rothkopf appears to have started on the project in January 2016 according to his LinkedIn), so what functionality do you think is linked to COVID? Literally everything shipping in VisionOS is standard ecosystem stuff for Apple.

> Regardless of price (outside being extremely cheap) I don't see people even dropping $1500 on this thing.

You mean this specific device? Or the category in general?

> I don't have a single person in my life that has used a VR headset for anything more than beatsaber and the occasional movie.

Laaaadiesssss annddddd gentleeeeeemennnnnnnn

In the red corner, doing what they do best… Apple Inc.! Hits selected from their homepage's top-level navigation… Macintosh ($bn business)! iPad ($bn business)! iPhone ($bn business)! Watch ($bn business)! AirPods ($bn business)! TV & Home ($bn business)!

And in the blue corner, enabling a hasty generalization about the future of a product category based on usage of present day technology … "everyone cglan knows!" Track record of predicting $bn businesses through word or deed… [TBD]!

> They're sweaty, heavy, and they're just isolating to wear for long periods of time, along with various other edge cases like glasses and eye strain.

Literally none of this is grounds to dismiss an entire product category (especially given that Apple has largely solved the "glasses" edge case).

> There's already a pretty big movement to limit screen time and cut down on technology

I must not have noticed that trend in the quarterly results of any consumer electronics company I track. (I did, however, notice the screenless Humane Pin thing self-destruct.) Do you believe that this trend you have noticed is a) likely to constrain the sales of a $3,500 "Pro" device, b) likely to overall dampen enthusiasm for the category over the course of the next decade, and finally c) any more worthwhile to talk about than the inane claptrap about your friends and family being oracles of a new market?

> I could see something like the ray ban meta glasses taking off, especially with an enhanced siri and some AR.

Wait so you are dismissing the entire category based on your friends not using AR/VR? Christ. Good thing Apple, Meta, Sony, and the other manufacturers shipping millions of a nascent product category can just copy your winning combination of "something like the ray ban meta glasses" with "an enhanced siri" (?) and "some AR" (???). Coming right up!

> But the vision pro and VR in general feels like a form of nerd sniping that the general public literally doesn't care about other than randomly using it at parties.

I have used a lot of AR and VR devices, including Vision Pro. I do not use any devices regularly (more than once per month), but it is completely self-evident that such devices have the potential to be UX breakthroughs of similar ilk to modern smartphone / tablets.

I would be betting on Apple, Meta, and all the other hardware manufacturers here – not your friends.

[^1]: https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/dolby-vp-mike-rockwe...

[^2]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-24/apple-hir...

[^3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230509141145/https://www.thein...

georgespencer commented on Ask HN: Are you still using your Vision Pro?    · Posted by u/dgellow
gtvwill · a year ago
You just listed the shovels. It's all just vr. That's the shiz, the shovel is the specs. The end use though is the same shiz between them with the same goal, the goal is to provide vr.
georgespencer · a year ago
It's all just car. Goal is provide driving. It doesn't matter whether it's a Ford Model T or a Honda Civid. Goal is driving. Car go drive.

It's all just phonecall. Goal is provide phonecalling. It no matter whether it iPhone or landline phone. Goal is talky talk. Phone go talky talk.

georgespencer commented on Ask HN: Are you still using your Vision Pro?    · Posted by u/dgellow
bungeonsBaggins · a year ago
> You seem legitimately offended that this guy has preferences and opinions

No, I am not offended that anyone has preferences or opinions. What I am responding to is this language:

> Neither a Vision Pro owner nor much of a hog cranker

> native applications designed to aid manipulating oneself

> dead-eyed men and women rutting on camera

...which is intended to indicate disdain towards people who produce or consume pornographic material. I think that this person is going out of their way to be an unkind contrarian regarding porn, and in my opinion that deserves a little light ridicule!

georgespencer · a year ago
> ...which is intended to indicate disdain towards people who produce or consume pornographic material.

The only intention was to rejoin OP's "hog cranking" euphemism with some fun ones from the English lexicon. (That it appears to have caused you to make a spectacle of yourself for no reason whatsoever is a bit of a bonus, though.)

georgespencer commented on Ask HN: Are you still using your Vision Pro?    · Posted by u/dgellow
MaxikCZ · a year ago
Putting aside the enormous hardware difference between the two, even if they were "the same shiz" spec-wise, Id still not comment on Vision Pro over Quest - the reason being I have Macook Air. Spec-wise, that laptop is almost identical to any other laptop, but the level of refinement is on another planet. Its tousands little things that make using Air a joy, while dealing with my work HP Zbook is a pain in every way.

For that same reason, I dont dare to compare Vision to any other VR (and I tried a few, not Vision Pro tho).

georgespencer · a year ago
> Spec-wise, that laptop is almost identical to any other laptop

Post-M series I hear this from time to time and always ask people to show me something in the same weight class with equivalent battery life, performance, and screen quality.

Has the market finally caught up to the point where your statement is true? (Not asking you to research, just curious if any spring to mind from any pre-purchase research you did.)

> Putting aside the enormous hardware difference between the two

I think this is far too charitable.

1. We are a largely technical audience.

2. We are discussing a product category where, per the last ten years of discussion about early hardware drawbacks (and the critical consensus on Vision Pro), the screen inescapably defines the experience.

Anyone on HN describing Vision Pro's screen as "the same shiz" as Quest 3 must either be a troll or operating with a knowledge gap so vast as to make meaningful discussion very, very difficult.

Like, if you don't understand the math, read the reviews and trust that this is not a global cabal of Apple apologists making shit up. Occam's Razor: this is a $3500 device where 35% of the BOM is the screens ($550-ish), compared to a $500 device where ~19% of the BOM is screens ($80). Of course they aren't in the same league.

georgespencer commented on Ask HN: Are you still using your Vision Pro?    · Posted by u/dgellow
throwawaytissue · a year ago
I own a AVP, hog cranking is its killer use case. Porn on the AVP exists today whether Apple likes it or not.

Passing app review doesnt matter, there are a number of subscription websites (sexlikereal, wankz, czechvr etc) which offer UHD uncompressed 8K MP4 videos for download. It is entirely possible (and quite easy) to download these UHD videos to a Mac, mount the folder containing the goon material on the Mac as a drive on the Vision Pro (local network drive), and stream the video to the AVP using a 3rd party 3d video player; Moonplayer is the pick of the bunch at the moment.

I must say the experience is pretty damn good. I can see people getting addicted to it an unhealthy way. The sites mentioned above are only producing 8K at the moment, I think the AVP can handle more pixels, and there are new cameras coming on to the market (https://x.com/Blackmagic_News/status/1800273164867658228) which will really crank things up a notch.

There is a tremedous market oppurtunity available here, its niche at the moment, but once you experience good quality VR porn its hard to go back to the flat stuff.

I should probably get a GF.... sigh.

georgespencer · a year ago
Truly a golden era for fast-forwarding through videos of dead-eyed men and women rutting on camera. (Thank you – I genuinely learned a lot from your reply.)
georgespencer commented on Ask HN: Are you still using your Vision Pro?    · Posted by u/dgellow
gtvwill · a year ago
No it's not. When tossing up a vr purchase it's Vision pro, quest 3 or big screen beyond. Price points all vary but they are literally all the same shiz just served on a different shovel.

Each have their pros, each have their cons (well the mvp has mostly cons being the worst of the 3 but hey its having a crack).

georgespencer · a year ago
> they are literally all the same shiz

Oculus Quest 3 screens: LCD displays with a per-eye resolution of 2064×2208p (4.56 million pixels per eye)

Apple Vision Pro screens: micro-OLED displays with a per-eye resolution of 3,680x3,140 (11.5 million pixels per eye)

Disproof by counterexample. Perhaps you could refine your theory?

georgespencer commented on Twenty, a modern CRM alternative to Salesforce   twenty.com... · Posted by u/client4
pembrook · a year ago
Among the modern CRM players like Attio, Folk, Clay, etc. how does this compare?

Anybody tried all of them? It’s impossible to get impartial info on software these days due to all the scummy affiliate marketing/paid-influencer/“Top 10 Best” crap that has taken over Saas.

georgespencer · a year ago
Have spent extended periods in the last 12 months with Pipedrive, Attio, Salesforce, and Hubspot, if this helps:

Pipedrive - simultaneously lightweight and no-frills whilst impossibly slow and antiquated. The simple act of navigating through records and performing actions is laborious. The price is extraordinarily high relative to the UX and functionality (same ballpark as Attio, the clear leader IMO). Same category as Gem (ATS) to me – I'm sure lots of people are working on it, but with a slightly resigned air as they see Ashby building a way more performant and capable product.

Salesforce – not as slow as I recalled it being in ~2015, but still pretty "heavy" feeling. Commercial terms are as unpleasant as ever,[^1] and the professional services + 'does anything you need' angle is IMO designed to bamboozle non-technical stakeholders into outsourcing significant portions of sales and operations engineering to Salesforce Ecosystem® Trusted Partners® or whatever they're called. Unlike Attio (which embraces the fact that yes, this is just a fucking database with useful workflows on top), Salesforce seems to do what it can to prevent you from feeling like you're interacting with a database (right up to and including making it less convenient to use than, say, psql).

Hubspot – It's not a huge N, but of the half-a-dozen occasions I've spent time with companies using HubSpot, at least half the time people hated it because it had been misconfigured or inexpertly set up. The CRM side is, I think, relatively benign, but attribution modeling and campaign tracking is a poor UX in my opinion, and I found myself exporting giant .CSVs to analyze with Excel and Python. (Saving grace: Dan Lyons didn't enjoy working there, which suggests that they might be doing something right culturally[^2])

Attio – It isn't perfect, but it's the first CRM product I've used to be just good software, without the "for CRM" qualifier. Model is that it ingests all email traffic and calendar appointments from registered seats, offers rich support for creating data models and relationships (e.g. we have objects representing Deals, Contracts, and Invoices and the associated attributes in Attio – making it a general purpose "Customer OS" for us), has the right mix of powerful but not overwhelming tools for reporting, batch emailing, etc. Has its quirks (floats are limited to four decimal places, you have to create new lists before you select the objects you want to store in it, etc.) but it's outstanding software, trivial to integrate without writing too much code, and by leaning into the idea that yes, this is a database, so yes, feel free to define models and relationships and attributes, it is rapidly integrated into the workflows of technical users.

HTH!

[^1]: In 2015 or so, I had a "friend" who found that his colleague forgot to set a reminder for the renewal/break period in a 24 month Salesforce contract, belatedly tried to activate it, and was told that the contract had automatically extended for a further 24 months. Said "friend" created a fake General Counsel on LinkedIn with a real company email address, created a reasonably convincing email thread between themselves and the fake GC (FW: Salesforce Renewal "Is this legal?" RE: FW: Salesforce Renewal [Hastily googled legal perspectives ending in an admonishment that GC was bored and would love to sink their teeth into this dispute) which they "accidentally" forwarded back to Salesforce (even going so far as to do one of those silly honor system Outlook email recalls). The renewal was rescinded pretty quickly!

[^2]: https://fortune.com/longform/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-start...

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KarmaCake day3754August 30, 2011
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