LCDninja

Seriously!

I can’t even install 10.13.1 on my Mac Pro 2013 - computer acts like its bricked until rebooted a number of times (and when it finally boots we’re back at 10.13).

This also means I can’t install the latest security update that fixes the root problem (and yes, i’ve changed the root password to mitigate).

OSX is becoming more like Windows every day.

Use your skills to contribute to the renewable energy industry.

> Unfortunately, there's no real place in the world for a highly technical business leader.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. As I understand it, the history of Silicon Valley was written by highly technical business leaders. They might not be writing code, but they're sure providing technical guidance - sometimes on a highly granular level...(e.g. famously Bill Gates micromanaging date/time storage in new language development when MS was a billion dollar company).

I contest that if you're highly technical, it's very difficult to step away from that knowledge (especially when you're seeing things going wrong). Not a bad thing?

Also - congratulations on becoming a founder! Best of success to you!

Well put! - in my line of work it's a conflict between producing something impresses the majority, while at the same time prevents the minority from vomiting on the gear (touch-wood, hasn't happened yet).

>As to his anecdote - I stuck dozens of people in my dk2 and many were nauseous, myself included.

It's all about the software. I've been developing DK2 based experiences for trade shows and have seen thousands of people try VR for the first time. Perhaps 1 in 100 suffer from simulation sickness, but this highly depends on the application. E.g. One of my first prototypes made everyone that tried it very sick - including myself (this due to a single camera movement mid-experience - flying over a rail & then spiralling up a staircase).

Unfortunately, beyond the scarce info on the subject of sim-sickness - my experience has been derived completely from trial & error.

I'd like to see more specific information shared on the subject of simulation sickness.

What does your consulting business specialise in?

I accidentally euthanised my father because I misunderstood the conversation I was having with a nurse. He had a stroke and was in intensive care, we were told he probably wouldn't live - and if he did - he'd require care for the rest of his life. He had fallen into a coma when the nurse kept asking me if I thought he was in pain and needed more morphine. She kept giving him more, returning to ask the same question and doing it over and over. I can't remember how many times. He began Cheyne–Stokes breathing, and eventually died.

I remember feeling strange about the situation, and years later I connected the dots between the amount of morphine given, the breathing (symptomatic of morphine overdose), and his subsequent death. Understanding that I was responsible was something that took a long time to cope with.

My mother faced terminal cancer a few years ago, and I found myself in exactly the same situation. Thankfully I understood what was happening. The decision to take her off fluids and to "help her along," was made by a team of medical staff with myself deeply involved in the discussion (which looking back, was a desperate attempt for me to negotiate any way I could for her life). At least Mum understood she was going to die, and I'm glad my eyes were open to what was happening.

I feel that the economics of hospital beds have a lot to do with this. Beds in the oncology ward are in demand, as of those in intensive care. I've seen all of my families previous generation die of cancer in either in the same way - in hospital, in oncology or intensive care, always assisted death.

It makes me think that if I ever go down that road I don't want to be anywhere near the medical industrial complex.

IMHO Markus Persson wasn't a "bedroom programmer" in the pejorative sense, he programmed as a professional for King.Com for four years before venturing into the land of indy dev.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Persson

Got an original Broad arrow to trade? ;-)

> If they had been assembled under license by a little-known NASA contracted-company in Illinois, would you still be as keen on it?

Yes, the brand doesn't hold a lot of meaning for me - in any case (no pun intended) it's not just Omega. Arguably one of the most important parts - he movement itself, wasn't actually designed by Omega. It's a Lemania Calibre 1873 (Omega branded this as Calibre 861).

Extreme temperatures, vibration, pressure, acceleration, shock and so on; the 1873 enclosed within an Omega case survived all of this with +- 5 seconds per day accuracy. Moreover, it outperformed the qualification conditions against other well-funded, experienced watch makers. For me, this is impressive.

If the same watch was built by a little-known company out of Illinois, I'd be even more impressed!

P.S. Thanks very much for the information on Soviet watches, I'm really interested to learn more about these models. Thanks again!

>I've never understood why someone would buy a "watch" that doesn't display the time at all times.

Neither did I, however I found over time I got used to it.

p.s. Your photo looks awesome - is the screen really that bright?

> nobody needs expensive watches, but the communicate that you have disposable income

I respectfully disagree.

Like all objects, watches hold different meanings to different people. For you, it sounds like they are a social signalling mechanism - but not for everyone. For example, if you collect watches you'll appreciate many aspects of these wonderful objects. Take the Omega Speedmaster 105.003 - it's vintage, it's probably expensive, and it looks like your grandfathers watch. I could care less what it signals to others, for me - it's the watch NASA sent to the moon. It's mechanical. It's an object that I love! I wear it because it pleases me to look at it.

However, having said that - I now wear an Apple watch for a completely different reason - it's functional. It's more useful than the Omega.

Wearing a watch is not about social signalling for everyone. Some people just like watches :-)

I bought the Apple watch to experiment with WatchOS - however, now I find myself promoting / apologising to my friends that also have a keen interest in watches. It's all I wear these days.

If Apple can displace the swiss watch I used to wear from my wrist, they're moving in the right direction in my opinion.

The question is - does anyone really need a watch when they have a phone in their pocket? No.

However, do I feel properly dressed if I go out without a watch? No.

A friend watched "That Sugar Film" and it had a profound effect - I'm told that it's very difficult to avoid sugar these days in processed food (especially in fat-free products). I was blown away to learn that even low fat milk from the supermarket contains sugar.

This is very cool... nice work! (p.s. to get the sword, just go into the black opening above your character at the beginning... I wasted way too much time to discover this)

Many VR developers were alarmed by the Facebook purchase of Oculus for this very reason. Although, I can see from Facebooks perspective how tempting an always-on desktop service would be. It's just unfortunate that VR is now being tied to the privacy issues of social networking.

I wonder if the "privacy advocate" demographic is large enough to impact VR adoption in a significant way? Does a large amount of software innovation come from this demographic? Will the Facebook angle affect business adoption of VR applications?

As a side note - I'm seeing an increasingly large amount of negative news regarding the Oculus release over the last few days from Google alerts. It seems like the latest round of VR tech has been quite polarising in terms of public opinion.

Ugh. Prerequisites exclude EU developers.

- You are a developer in the United States or Canada where the Development Edition will first be available.

Thanks for the heads up - I'll check it out!

In contrast to Vive, Gear & Oculus - I'm wondering if this might be an opportunity for business VR application developers? Depending on the capabilities of the device, there might be opportunities to develop operational, health & safety and operational training solutions.

Is anyone out there experimenting with HoloLens development?

Nice!

If you're interested in this kind of thing - this site: http://www.computerarcheology.com has a detailed disassembly of arcade Space Invaders(http://www.computerarcheology.com/Arcade/SpaceInvaders/). The site also contains partial disassembly of many other games e.g. Asteroids, Defender, Frogger, Galaga & Robotron.

"Pacman Dossier" had a great disassembly of Pac Man arcade, however rumour has it that Namco took it down.

Additionally, a little bit of Google-fu will also find you the commented disassembly of Donkey Kong arcade.

I can't help to be fascinated by the innovation shown in some of these early games.

A few years ago someone on the Mame forums released the full 68k source to Art of Fighting. Apparently the Neo Geo source code was hidden in a PC-Engine conversion of the game. Since then members of the community have re-assembled the game & it's proven to work.

Morbidly fascinating.... The reference to experimenting with "putting ads into the start menu" makes me wonder what the consumer business model for Windows 10 looks like?

I had the same problem today - what a mess! Likely good business if you're a browser app vendor. I tried several browsers I'd never heard of - Puffin worked.

Hi Matt, thanks very much! I'll shoot you an email.

Nausea is not the problem from my perspective.

At present I have my own small business creating VR experiences, I've managed to do about Euro 80k in business in the last six months. I have three large clients and have probably personally ushered more that 2,000 people through the Oculus based experiences at trade shows. Perhaps 1 in 100 people "bug-out" of the experience within the first 30 seconds. One executive I work with won't put the Oculus on anymore to approve work, he instead gets colleagues to try it and gauges their opinion.

However, it's been a learning curve avoiding 100% nausea inducing experiences. Certain camera moves and experiments have made me so ill I had to sleep it off for a few hours. So in my opinion, it's not the display tech, it's up to the experience of the application developer to know what works - and what will make you seriously ill. It's a strange job actually, programming that will make you sick if you get it wrong. :-)

At present, the big problem as a developer with a business like my own is that we can't get headsets. There is no VAR program. I feel that Oculus & HTC doesn't take developers of business applications seriously, or at least, I don't have any contacts there.

I've been involved with VR since the VRML hype of the dot com boom and the technology has come so incredibly far - my sense it that it will continue to progress and become a new display technology that's pretty much on everyones desk.

I'm also surprised that IRC & instant messengers weren't mentioned... the dot com boom had a wonderful moment where the concept of "presence" was introduced by instant messengers. AOL instant messenger, MSN Messenger, ICQ vs. Jabber etc. Fun times!

This is fantastic! Thank you very much for creating this!

I appreciate your dedication to delivering value, however it's also worth considering the emotional connection people make with your product. A logo is essentially a mental shortcut to your offering, your story, and your value proposition. A distinct logo compresses all the meaning behind what you do into a simple reminder, a mental shortcut. Great logos are unique and memorable.

Your pitch is important, and tone of your copy is important in framing and expressing this. For example, if you're asking me to download an executable you need to gain a certain degree of trust on behalf of the user. Trust is an emotion. Good art & copy can go a long way to building trust.

Branding is really the emotional connection you make with your user base, and emotional connections aren't rational things. This is why excellent products sometimes lose to less functionally valuable products - because we've distilled the rational meaning down to something which is irrational.

To "like" Apples products, for example, is not rational - it's emotional. The meaning behind Apples brand is more than the functional value of it's products. It represents something different to each of us, even though we're all using the same product. For some people, Apples brand represents a part of their own identity - this is about as emotional as it gets. Apples brand communication has touched these people in a strong way. Do you think Apple could have built such a loyal following with a MS Paint logo and terrible copy?

To put it another way, branding could also be thought of as packaging - and it's well known that packaging is extremely important to product success.