News items and research

[gerv]

I count myself as a friend of the show, and one thing friends do is they give honest feedback

A couple of times recently, you have discussed a news item where it’s quite clear that none of you have significantly researched the item or know exactly what’s going on with it. The most recent time I noticed it (call me biased) was in Extra Meaty Skid (incidentally, boy, do I dislike that particular episode name - a horrible image!) when you discussed the Mozilla VR thing, but there was definitely one in the previous show as well. I don’t actually understand the Mozilla VR thing either (but note https://blog.gerv.net/2018/02/going-home/ , which is one reason why) and when you mentioned it I was looking forward to learning more about why they did it and what they hope to achieve. But sadly, I was disappointed.

The show is at its best when at least two of you have different yet thought-through opinions on a topic and you air them and offer them up for criticism and scrutiny by the other team members and the community. The show is significantly less good when you mention something which has happened, all confess general ignorance, and say “well, what does everyone else think?”

As you have noted on multiple occasions that the news section is getting quite large, perhaps a way of shrinking it a bit would be to make sure, before you begin, that at least one team member has reasonable knowledge of what’s going on with each topic?

Love you guys

[WarrenHill]

A couple of times recently, you have discussed a news item where it’s quite clear that none of you have significantly researched the item or know exactly what’s going on with it.

Perhaps a good compromise would be to add a section in the show notes saying we also noticed these stories:

Provide links so the more careful readers amongst us can examine the detail and discuss it, where it feels relevant. We have to be clear I love all three of you, and I still love Bryan, but we have to ask why.

I don’t always agree with your opinions but I respect them and the chemical interplay is great to see. However I have to agree with @gerv here. Can we have news at least one of you knows more about than a title and a link?

That last comment is probably too strong but I hope you see the sentiment behind it is to keep this podcast the best on the planet.

[neuro]

A couple of times recently, you have discussed a news item where it’s quite clear that none of you have significantly researched the item or know exactly what’s going on with it.

Wait, you’re only noticing this now?!

[gerv]

Well, it has happened before, but it was two shows on the trot, and I thought perhaps the moment had come to say something, particularly as there has also been comment about the bumper size of the news section which might crowd out other features.

[sil]

The most recent time I noticed it (call me biased) was in Extra Meaty Skid (incidentally, boy, do I dislike that particular episode name - a horrible image!)

That one’s my fault. It was meant to be called “Extra Meaty Skid Row”, and I typed it wrong. Changing it afterwards breaks various things. Mea culpa.

when you discussed the Mozilla VR thing, but there was definitely one in the previous show as well. I don’t actually understand the Mozilla VR thing either and when you mentioned it I was looking forward to learning more about why they did it and what they hope to achieve. But sadly, I was disappointed.

Now. I’m not sure I agree with you here. I do not necessarily think that what the goals for the project are are necessarily relevant to what it actually does. I specifically looked into Mozilla VR precisely because I thought it would be some interesting thing that I hadn’t anticipated or predicted, and… it was a Firefox window, hanging in mid-air. That’s literally all it is. I’m sure there was a bunch of complex technology required to make that possible, and to provide a “pointer” so you can interact with that hovering Firefox window, but it’s a hovering Firefox window.

There may be larger plans for this, and maybe it’ll enable some larger cooler things that I still haven’t anticipated or predicted, and that’ll be interesting when it happens, but right now… it’s a hovering Firefox window in VR space, and that’s what it is. Shipping is what’s important, if you’re looking to grab attention. Shipping an unexciting thing which has lots of potential to be something amazing in the future doesn’t really excite me much any more; there have been so, so many of them. And, frankly, Mozilla don’t get as much of the benefit of the doubt here as they may have done ten years ago, and we did in fact discuss precisely that; is this a bold new valuable direction for Mozilla to take in embracing a new platform? Or is it merely having some vague presence everywhere as part of a scattershot lack of direction? Don’t know. But Mozilla VR is not in itself a thing, in my personal opinion, worthy of discussion in itself because it’s not exciting enough; it is, however, a springboard into discussing Mozilla’s direction and strategy. But we’ve talked about that before, and continually going on about it may bore people who don’t care…