VR, Revisited

Recently, I’ve rented Oculus Quest 3 – the newest version of VR goggles from Meta/Facebook. I took them through the paces, and the experience was much better than 2 years ago, when I rented Quest 2.

I know Apple Vision Pro gets a lot of the spotlight now, but I’m really interested in 2 use cases:

1. I want to simulate a private office and block out distractions. My wife keeps mocking me that I have to turn every place into a workplace, and Metaverse is no different.
2. I want a really good cardio workout that gets me excited and doesn’t feel like a chore.

According to people as deranged as me, the productivity use case is lacking. From Ben Thompson:

The Productivity Disappointment

visionOS suffers from a similar combination of shortcomings. First off, the user interface is exceptionally difficult to manage once you have multiple windows on the screen, particularly when windows are arranged on the z-axis (i.e. nearer or closer to you in 3-D space); one gets the sense that the usability of iOS-based operating systems are inversely correlated to their screen size. Second, while the eye tracking is an incredible feat of engineering, it is not nearly as precise as it needs to be for productive window management.

The biggest limitation, though, is hardware: the Vision Pro field of view is very narrow, in a way I didn’t fully appreciate while only using one app in that demo

Apple Vision Pro weighs about 30% more than the Oculus Quest 3, has worse weight distribution, and has an external battery attached to a cord. This makes it more problematic during workouts.

It’s also 10x more expensive here in Poland.

I’m sure the displays, latency, and user experience are much much better, but it kinda sounds like Quest 3 is a better choice for me. If I’m still using the headset in 10 days when I’m supposed to return it, I am definitely buying one. So far:

1. I managed to write a couple of blog posts while looking at Giant Sequoias
2. I had kickass workouts in Supernatural and Bodycombat VR
3. I even managed to get my weird keyboard setup working on the goggles

Workouts were amazing, and the screen resolution was no issue at all. When it came to writing/office emulation, I could use more pixels, but it was surprisingly workable.

I had some software issues with my keyboard sometimes being rendered and sometimes not, but it was much easier for me to get into the flow of writing without additional distractions.

A few things I’ve read

Don’t Try to Be Interesting. DO Interesting.

I always loved the premise of the “most interesting man in the world” from Dos Equis campaigns. In the Don’t Try to Be Interesting. DO Interesting Russel Davies presents a sort of a manual to becoming that interesting person.

The answer is, unsurprisingly, curiosity. It’s not about chasing the interesting-thing-of-the-moment, but exploring deep enough that you stumble upon the interesting in seemingly boring:

the best people at that job are always the ones that can get interested in any problem, no matter how tedious it seems on the surface. They don’t get drawn to the obviously cool problems — sport, tech, fashion, purpose — they get stuck into things that seem a bit boring — insurance, infrastructure, finance, logistics — and they find what’s interesting about them.

(…)

It’s not about making yourself interesting. It’s about making the world interesting. And that means developing skills and habits around ideas, creativity and communication.

The Cost of Traveling Around the World for a Year

In the Cost of Travelling around a world for a year, Hatta shares why he walked away from multiple financial opportunities and spent additional money to travel around the world with his family.

In Die with Zero by Bill Perkins, the author introduces the concept of “memory dividends” to reshape our perspective on wealth and life. Perkins suggests trading money for experiences that generate lasting and cherished memories, especially when those experiences cannot be fully enjoyed at a later point in life

Big Sandwich Day

I love the idea of introducing new traditions. In a since-deleted tweet, I’ve read about a particularly interesting idea:

“when i was a child my dad made up a fake holiday called big sandwich night the weekend after thanksgiving, during which we got the longest bread we could find and built a big sandwich together and then cut it up and ate it. we got really fancy ingredients and each built our own..

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