Notices by Zeh Fernando (zeh@mastodon.gamedev.place)

@dalias @carnage4life I think it's a problem that is prominent not just in the company depicted but almost everywhere in big tech. After a certain size, things stop making sense, everyone is doing bullshit work. They can't derive value from what they're making it building, so they do that from their paycheck and title.

Related: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

@dalias @carnage4life In "Big Tech", higher financial compensation and bigger titles is seen as the end game. That's how they value themselves and others, sometimes right out of college.

People burn themselves chasing that carrot. This also creates a weird social dynamic where, if you're not chasing a promotion, you're "slacking off". Sometimes that comes from the top chain: you need to be moving up, or you're out.

"I'm happy at my current level" is taboo that cannot be spoken out loud.

@sinbad @djlink @on_code I've seen the referenced to as the "passion tax". People in the games industry put up with a lot more

@sinbad I'm a bit of the same. I tend to think that my brain mostly stores an index, not the information itself.

Like, I know X is possible, and that's enough. I usually have an idea of where to find it, often my own code in some forgotten repository, or some refresher reference.

But the concrete solution itself? I don't need that space anymore, so I evict it. Knowing it exists elsewhere is enough.

I still make the mistake of browsing LinkedIn from time to time, and it feels to me like the amount of garbage - snake oil selling, idiotic leadership "influencing", and overall hogwash peddling - has exploded over the past few months. 9 out of every 10 posts is some insufferable waste by someone who doesn't produce anything of value, but who acts like they're an expert. Is it just me? Am I getting old?

I'll blame AI, since the vast majority of the nonsense I see is AI-related. But not always.

@sinbad Agreed, it's tightly made.

This WonderMark hits hard in the creative feels https://wondermark.com/c/1548/

@drahardja I've seen plenty of corporate dysfunction from the inside to know people are dumb at scale, but Google's issues with naming and re-releasing shit is still so bad it's inexplicable to me.

It can't just be "people want to get promoted" or whatever has been the ongoing narrative. It needs to be deeper. At this point, it HAS to be intentional in some baffling way. No sane leadership should approve this sort of move over and over.

I just wanted to visualize a waveform, randomly searched for "audacity like online", not expecting much... and by god, they did it. The maniacs.

https://wavacity.com/

Some disclaimers:

- In the above video it works super duper fast because removing an audio track is basically just a copy. Other things usually take longer.
- Files are not uploaded anywhere. Your content NEVER leaves your computer. It's all processed on the client side.
- There's no user tracking, scripts, Google fonts, etc. A bunch of JS, but mostly local; the only exception is the FFmpeg wasm, which comes from unpkg.com (it's 31mb, too scary to host myself).
- No AI! (that's a feature)

Aaand it's minimally working, so: https://ffmpeg.app is now live!

Use FFmpeg recipes without fiddling with the command line!

Consider this an early beta. There's still a ton missing:

- Ability to tweak the command line (i.e. hand editing, or selectors)
- Proper mobile styles
- About, disclaimers, etc
- Many more command recipes
- Better accessibility
- "Bug fixes and performance improvements"

But, it's doing the thing!

#ffmpeg #video