Glad to hear that! All the best to you in your new job!
Yeah, felt pretty bad, because the 4th interview overlapped with me already accepting a job offer from business number 3.
Which sucked, but the compensation and benefits were both much better, so I couldn’t turn it down. I am glad I have never had to break up with anyone, because I am really bad at not making people happy.
It is moving out of research though… and more into regulatory product data management.
Just an FYI, research pays crap. Getting married in May, and we want a house too. I love research, but it doesn’t pay the bills.
Congrats Jon on both counts. If here was any justice in this nation the abysmal pay and lack of opportunities in research would be fixed.
Alice Cooper confirmed guest at MegaCon!!! I am not worthy!
So we are closing our flexible office space for Moms. Turns out there just aren’t enough women out there who need an office space with a playroom in Orange County. If it doesn’t work here, I doubt it will work elsewhere. Everyone said it was a fantastic idea and every customer (we had about 50) said they loved it, but they only came once or twice and we couldn’t get a viable amount to see profitability anytime soon. It really seems like there is no middle class anymore and no way to get ahead for people. Either you are really rich and just have a nanny and staff or you’re stuck in your house trying to make ends meet and can’t afford even cheap office space.
Ah well. Onto the next thing. Just have to sell all the office furniture now. Kinda bummed.
That’s a shame, since it did seem like a neat idea. I know my sister in law works from home and could have benefited from such a thing. But, like you said, if it couldn’t work in Orange County, there probably is nowhere it could.
One thing it did was give me a peek into a world I haven’t had to experience in years. We have customers waiting on tax refunds just to be able to afford a few hours time. Its like the rich have vaccumed up all the money and play in their spheres while the rest of the population just struggles from job to job, paycheck to paycheck. It’s really annoying to have to interact with the first set. I’m becoming someone who wants to eat the rich.
I may be projecting, of course, but I hate feeling like there is no middle class anymore and everyone is struggling. This Universal Income thing looks better and better every year. I just want to know what all these people do with their idle time. I start businesses and try to employ people. What do the unemployed do all day? The whole system is frustrating.
As you’ve seen, you are absolutely correct and this is the sad reality. Unless this country wakes up it will continue to get worse with further outsourcing and job automation. We desperately need a social safety net, and the only people who can truly afford to help create/maintain it right now are the ones who keep getting themselves tax cuts and using loopholes.
I’m sorry you have to close that down. That would have been amazing if we did have more of a middle class to use it.
So, I’m thinking about a vacation for my family, just a quick one, and I know a fair bunch of you folks live in SoCal and a bunch of others have spent some time there, so just trolling for opinions. I want to take my family down to LEGOLAND for a few days, maybe a long weekend in the next couple months probably. I’ve never been but myself and my son (age 5) and daughter (age 2 1/2) are huge fans. We’ll be staying nearby, but not at the hotel onsite, just a bit too expensive. But is there enough stuff going on there that we could spend two days? Considering my kids are small, would be we well served just taking our time or is one day enough to see what’s there? Appreciate any feedback you can throw my way.
I’ve never been, but I’ve also been looking into Legoland and everything I’ve read says it’s pretty hard to get more than one day out of it. Especially with smaller kids where some of the larger rides will be off-limits.
We go a few times a year, little guy is 5 now.
There is the water park, aquarium, and legoland itself all right there. The aquarium is a quarter day at the most - you can whip through it in 15 minutes really. It’s no Long Beach aquarium, that’s for sure.
Its possible Legoland itself is might be heavily height gated at 5. If he is 42" i think he can do quite a bit, less than that and you will get bored after a full day, as long as the lines are short. Ignoring your own entertainment, then my little guy could spend hours standing around looking at the model cities they have. Which is fine with me, but drives the wife up the wall.
You also have a nifty little museum in Carlsbad based around model engines, cars, and planes. Good for an hour and it’s free/donation.
Good info, thanks! So are there lots of rides at Legoland? I’ve never been and I am assuming that’s what the height restrictions are for?
Legoland was depressingly aged when we went there last Fall. Cobwebs on a lot of the Lego models, etc. We drove over after work on Thursday, stayed at a hotel nearby, and spent maybe 4 or 5 hours there before heading home. A good chunk of it was spent with our 5yo running around in the playground area and in her bathing suit in one of the fountain areas. She liked most of the rides we tried, including the dragon coaster.
I decided last year that VR was so cool and had so many future applications that I just had to work in VR. And so, I got a gig working at Oculus last September, writing docs and tutorials to get more developers dabbling in VR.
Had to move from Austin to Menlo Park for it, but hey, if I do my job right, location may not matter so much in a few years time. Your real estate prices are whack, btw.
Now that I’m in California for a bit, I took the race car down to Laguna Seca for a track day and checked that off my bucket list. They have a sound restriction of 92 dB there, so I was purposefully driving off-throttle in places so as to not be too loud for California.
But at the end of the day I said YOLO and began driving at full clip. After just 3 laps, I got a black flag and got presented with a warning for exceeding noise limits. 98.2 dB. :)
Oh, before that, a couple years ago I married the girl I had a crush on in high school 25 years ago but was too shy to ever talk to or ask out. As it turns out, she felt the same way. Facebook one day listed her profile to me as “People you may know”. It’s scary good, that algorithm.
And that is what’s happened to me recently that’s interesting.
Damn, dude, that’s a lot for one post! Congratulations!
I suppose you guys hear back from Oculus developers quite a bit - how’s the depth of the ecosystem? That’s always been one of my big questions about VR rigs, how many people are actually working on making them useful.
@Roger_Wong congratulations! You look really good in that picture. I’d like that kind of study confidence when having my picture taken.
Congrats, Roger. I remember you from the old Command and Conquer days. Wasn’t it “Command and Conquer for the Hardcore Gamer”? That was a nice guide.
Thanks, guys!
There are thousands of hardware and software devs improving VR everyday in every aspect and from every direction. It’s not going away. Your choice as a consumer will be to decide when you want to hop on.
Ok, I’ll bite, my friend. Write me a sonnet about VR. Or at least tell me why people will use it.
It’s an empathy machine. You want to know what it’s like to do XXX or be XXX, we can develop an experience that gives you that. Sooner or later, something will come a long that will make every person say “Okay, now this is worth it.” For some, that may be a few years in the future. But it’s going to come.
After all, I now know exactly what it was like being you with your hot tub and two attractive friends. high five