Earthquakes
Word of the Day: Anagnorisis
And then that happened
The world changes and we have a choice:
• Fight hard to keep it the way it was.
• Notice what happened and then decide to do something with that insight.
Thirty years ago, AOL was my company’s biggest client. They charged users $3 an hour to use their precursor to the internet, and paid content providers a royalty based on time spent on their ‘site.’
We invented a breakthrough game that was played in a chat room. Our testing showed that people (millions of people, probably) would play it for hours at a time. We developed a series of games with AOL that were fun and engaging, and were a few weeks from launch. It was certainly the most profitable project I had worked on to date.
And then AOL changed to flat rate monthly pricing. And the royalties went to zero.
“Well, that happened.”
The sunk costs were real, but the sunk costs didn’t matter. What mattered was that our project was built on a foundation that had disappeared. In less than an hour, we walked away from all of it, which enabled us to build the tools and products we needed.
The world is changing faster than ever. Sometimes for the better. Always giving us a choice to react or respond.
Stowe Boyd 2023-02-05 18:35:02
“What’s next?”
The way we think about our priorities makes a huge difference.
Leaders of every stripe make one thing more than any other: decisions.
In any environment with constraints (which is, actually, any environment), the decisions about time and resources–about what to do next–change everything.
How do we decide what’s next? Is it based on urgency, proximity or values? First in/first out is not a strategy, it’s an excuse. Even worse is the one about the squeaky wheels.
HP Elitebook 840 G6 & Lenovo T480s
Earlier last month, I upgraded my two Win10/Linux computers from 6th gen intel CPUs to 8th gen intel CPUs, and the reason I am mentioning this is because I used to be a Dell fanboy, but have since switched to HP and Lenovo.
My two beloved 14″ Dell Latitude E5470 and E7470 business laptops (that ran on their docking stations, connected to an external 27″ Dell U2722DE 2K monitor and managed via the highly recommendable Logitech MX Keys keyboard) were fully equipped – even with LTE-modems/WWAN – but had reached a point where I was longing for a bit more CPU power.
The initial plan was to upgrade to a recent laptop (2022/23) or mini (desktop) pc with a much faster Ryzen CPU. My two favorite Win laptops at the moment are the Lenovo T14s G3 and HP Elitebook 845 G9, alas way too expensive for me and maybe something weaker will also do? And why no other Dell?
No more Dell for now
All other Dells after mine don’t come with traditional docking stations, but a cable connection to an external dock. It is the norm today and I need to get used to it. So with Dell, their 6th intel generation marked the end of that (thus dropping the “E” in the name, e.g. E5470 => 5480, 5490). But on HP and Lenovo, this only ended with their 8th gen intel CPU devices!
And another reason for this change was the touchpad. The touchpad on most Dell Latitudes is too rough. Too sticky for dry fingers like mine (unless it is worn out like the one pictured above). Especially when your other laptop is a MacBook Air M1, the touchpad on your Windows/Linux machine has to be a bit better. That’s what I had come to realize after working on my Air M1 for some time.
Of all things on a laptop, the keyboard, touchpad and display are THE most important things to me, as they represent the interface between man and machine. They have to be excellent.
I remembered the excellent touchpad (clickpad, actually) on an HP Elitebook 840 G5 (not G1-G4!) that I had set up for a client some years ago. Not the best laptop, but a very sleek silver body, a glass touchpad and a decent keyboard. The touchpad on that 840 G5 was my first good experience with Windows touchpads. My next machine needed to have a better touchpad than the one on my Dell Latitude.
So I went out looking for an affordable HP Elitebook 840 and found a G6 version for a very good price. The display had some scratches, but I have since replaced it with an N140HC-GQ2 display which comes with 400 instead of only 250nits and an ever lower power consumption.
Speaking of power consumption: This setup here with the HP Elitebook 840 G6 connected to a 27″ Dell monitor only consumes about 40W.
40 Watts! With the Dell E5470 I was looking at 55W. And with a mini pc and and second external monitor (Dell U2415h) instead of the internal one on a laptop, it had risen up to 80W. So with this new setup, the energy consumption could be reduced even further. 1 kW/h currently cost 0,429 EUR. And this computer runs 16-18h every day.
HP Elitebook 840 G6
So my “new” HP laptop is great and an improvement with its 4 instead of only 2 cores.
However, it still has some flaws that I want to mention here:
- The keyboard layout is really strange. A row of unnecessary keys on the right side of the enter key and no “INSERT” key. Sure, you can remap keys via software, but seriously the setup is so strange that HP changed it on later Elitebooks.
- The Bluetooth range is shitty. The HP comes with an intel AX200 card which provides fast Wifi 6. But the Bluetooth part of it is so bad. I think it is because of the positioning of the antenas on the lower part of the screen, in between the two hinges. I also checked all cables and reseated them. But it remains poor. What a bummer as I use BT for my headsets. The AX200 is Bluetooth 5.1.
- The small battery is a joke. Serioulsy, HP, so much space inside this laptop and you equip it with such a small battery? Battery runtime isn’t that good.
- 4 cores instead of 2 cores also means that the fan is audible and turns up more often. This may be related to the CPU generation as my other (same gen) laptop also does this.
- There is an issue with some Fibocom GL-850 WWAN cards which has been documented here on reddit. Mine showed the same problems: It appears and disappears every couple of seconds. I’ve meanwhile bought two other cards to test this, so until then there’s no WWAN available.
That’s it. The HP Elitebook 840 G6 is a great laptop and light enough to take it anywhere but also suitable for a desktop use where it sits on a docking station and doesn’t overcharge the battery. Which is exactly why I went for this 300 EUR laptop instead of buying a 600-800 EUR Lenovo Yoga Slim Pro 7 machine (which is my favourity consumer laptop atm) or 1400 EUR or more on a recenty HP/Lenovo machine with 2022 hardware. Business laptops that are meant to run every day and on a desk and are permanently connected to a power source. I also like real docking stations that lift the laptop from the table and improve air circulation for the fan to cool the CPU.
Lenovo T480s
So, after a week of using the HP Elitebook 840 G6, I realized that I should also update my second Win10/Linux machine from a Dell E7470 to something better. Maybe a Lenovo this time?
Sure enough, I quickly found a very cheap Lenovo T480s with an even worse display than the one on the HP. But another 100€ investment solved this problem (again, same N140HCG-GQ2 display) and now I have to admit that this sleek Lenovo T480s is probably the sexiest laptop in the Windows world for old people like me.
Yes, a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 consumer laptop may be even slimmer and faster, and the T480s isn’t slimmer than the HP Elitebook 840 G6 (both have the same CPU, btw). But there’s something to the T480s that attracts me. Despite the akward positioning of the Fn/Ctrl-keys (which I instantly changed), my typing experience on the T480s keyboard is excellent. I love typing on it and Linux command line input is a breeze. It just feels natural. My keyboard isn’t even illuminated, but it’s like my fingers have never typed on anything else than the (slightly worn out) keyboard on the Lenovo T480s. Which is very strange because I used to dislike previous Lenovo laptops.
I also like that both laptops come with a real ethernet port.
4 cores instead of 2 also means that the fan is much more active on both laptops. I had to reinstall Win10 once again on the T480s because something had caused it to run high while being charged. But this time I didn’t install any additional drivers from their website and this obvisouly helped. Still, Lenovo Vantage is bloatware in most parts.
Another thing that makes this Lenovo so attractive is the way it is built. It usually didn’t take much time to swap keyboards on either HP, Dell or Lenovo laptops… in the pas0t! This was changed with HP 840 G7 which now requires a complete swapping of the top cover. Same with Dell Latitudes on 7th gen intel CPUs onwards: swap the top cover. I don’t know about Lenovo T490s and T14s, but on this T480s it just takes two screws underneath the touchpad buttons and you can easily swap it out. Or the touchpad? Just for screws below the battery. Neat.
Anything else to mention? Yes. The websites. I really like Dell, HP and Lenovo business devices, recommend them as refurbished devices to friends and clients and frequently surf on their websites to check for driver updates and other helpful information. However, the most helpful information in 2023 is sadly found on Reddit or via search engines. There’s still so much room for improvement, and HP’s driver support website is too complicated to use.
While shopping for used laptops, it may be helpful to enter the serial number on their website and see what the device initially came with. On the Dell website, you just check the warranty information and it will list everything.
With HP, you will need to use their partsurfer search engine and enter the serial number of your device. I sometimes wonder if they have us humans in mind when they design their websites. Probably not.
Why does it matter? Well, many of these laptops were only equipped with average (= 220-250 nits), too dark displays. Or with no LTE-modem inside. A search via the serial number will reveal the truth. Also, many refurbishers don’t actually check each model, just copy & paste the description for their products.
I am curious how long these laptops will last with me this time. The Dell E5470 had been with me for four years and I would still recommend it to anyone who just wants to surf the web and write a letter. It comes with a brilliant and bright FHD display and has a very good keyboard. And 3 USB-A ports! Oh, and did I mention the docking station? :-)
OLD
NEW
tl;dr
- s/Dell Latitude @ i5-6300U/HP & Lenovo @ i5-8365U
- slimmer, lighter, faster, hotter, better
- 260 EUR (HP) + 216 EUR (Lenovo) + 2x 100 EUR N140HCG-GQ = 676 EUR ==> still cheaper than buying one new 2022 laptop
- intel 12th gen or 2022/23 Ryzen CPU next time
- HP 840 G6: super great clickpad
- Lenovo T480s: good machine for the road
Oh, and I really appreciate it that I can charge both laptops via USB-C.
mapsontheweb: Indigenous territories in Brazil
Stowe Boyd 2023-02-04 20:05:19
“No photos”
That’s what it said at the florist shop.
I’m guessing because ‘taking’ a photo sometimes feels like a taking. The creativity, skill and effort that goes into making a distinctive arrangement might feel uncompensated when someone simply takes the work and posts it.
This misses the real point, though.
Once you’ve made something worth photographing, having the idea captured and spread helps you, it doesn’t hurt. More than ever, people are paying for famous, even if it’s as prosaic as a famous bouquet, produced by the originator of the design.
The hard part is making something worthy, not protecting it from cameras.
Confusion about performance
The thing that your product or service delivers could be called performance, and it’s made of two components:
–The story and expectations and cultural impact of what you do (the story).
–The deliverables that are objectively measured (the spec).
It helps to have both.
Many hard-working freelancers are confused about their story. Either they insist that their work is even better than it is, and they’re frustrated when others don’t embrace it, or they undersell the value of their presence, professionalism and effort.
And many institutions, particularly those that measure the wrong things, put an enormous effort into what the lab specs show, but forget to invest in a narrative that encourages consumers to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Size Comparisons
Stowe Boyd 2023-02-02 14:33:29
Stowe Boyd 2023-02-02 14:32:32
Reimagining cities in a few simple questions
What would happen if public transportation were free?
What if it were paid for by congestion pricing, digitally implemented?
What if public toilets were safe, beautiful, well-appointed and consistently maintained?
What if there were a tax on empty storefronts, payable after three months of vacancy?
Shortly after the invention of the car, society made many decisions about how cities should work. These choices led to parking lots, suburbs and a definition of what a normal city was supposed to be like. Robert Moses and others pushed for a specific sort of urban environment.
It’s surprising how quickly and inexpensively that could begin to change.
Doing the same thing since the dawn of the expressway, year after year, without seeing the pattern, is a little Groundhog’s Dayish.
It helps to see it and then to talk about it.
Climate change | Africa in 2023 | Finance and energy access come first
Eritrea | Russia | Welcoming Russia’s Lavrov, President Issayas boosts his regional role
Russia | Africa | President Putin’s Africa summit in July will be key diplomatic test
Burkina Faso | Mali | Ecowas | West Africa’s juntas look east
Uganda | MPs expose airline fiasco
Somalia | Somaliland | Clashes damage recognition campaign
International Monetary Fund | Africa | Back into the Fund’s embrace
South Africa | Can Ramaphosa get the lights back on?
Nigeria | Economic woes test voter loyalties
Kenya | Electoral Commission goes on trial again
Uganda | Speaker accused of undermining parliament
Don’t know, don’t care
Clients and customers can be frustrating.
Perhaps they don’t know what you know.
Perhaps they don’t care.
It’s possible to educate and inspire.
It might be more productive to find the few that want to go where you do.
Bursa of Fabricius
joel-miller:The Last of Us (2023): “Infected”
filmouts: Congratulations for EEAAO for their Oscars 2023…
Stowe Boyd 2023-01-31 12:53:53
datarep: How news stories evolve in the news cycleby…
Get/Want/Have To
Get to, want to and have to are an endless braid.
How much of our time do we spend on each?
Have to is often up to someone else. The things we’re required to do by the system or the people in it.
Get to is a matter of perspective. Trust and health and leverage and privilege allow us to do certain things that others might not.
And want to is a choice, and is often squandered. When our day is drawing to a close and we’ve done everything we have to, the choice of how to spend/invest/waste the next few minutes often ends up with mindless stalling or entertainment.
The magic trick begins with realizing that the get to tasks are priceless want to moments if we choose. And, if we’re careful and plan ahead, we can get to the point where the have to agenda is something we can eagerly look forward to.
When all three are in sync, things get better.
Population and big innovations
It’s tempting to embrace the meme that the best way for humans to solve the big problems in front of us is to increase the population, perhaps dramatically. The thinking goes that people are the ones who can solve problems, and more people give us more problem-solvers.
This doesn’t hold up to a reductio ad absurdum analysis: clearly, a population of 10 people isn’t as good at solving problems as one with a billion, but at the same time, if there were a trillion people on Earth, that wouldn’t last long. There must be a number that’s optimal, but it’s probably not the biggest number we can possibly create.
And reviewing the data on Nobel prizes per capita, or patents per capita, we see that there isn’t a correlation between population density and productive breakthrough innovation. It looks like innovations are more likely the result of a civil society, sufficient resources, enough productivity to enable spending on R&D and a culture of research and engineering.
We also see geographic hotbeds of innovation over time (physics in Germany a hundred years ago, or network innovations in Silicon Valley a decade ago) that are the result of information exchange and cultural expectations, not population density.
We don’t get these results by stretching the carrying capacity of our one and only planet. We can’t shrink our way to possibility, but we probably can’t get there via exponential expansion either.
K-Means Clustering
The coming ubiquity
The fuss about AI might be mis-focused.
It’s easy to point to a computer-created essay, song or illustration and find the defects or errors. Given hard work by 1,000 trained people, it’s likely that a human could make something more useful or inspired than a computer could.
But the real impact of AI isn’t going to be that it regularly and consistently does far better than the best human effort.
The impact will be that it is widespread, cheap and always there.
Search for anything and the Wikipedia page will ‘write itself’ just for you.
Brainstorm 12 variations of a solution to any problem you’re thinking about. Have a Rogerian therapist and idea coach on call at all times.
Press a button on your fridge and see a dozen recipes that use what’s in the produce drawer, and just that.
Everywhere, all the time.
Ubiquity is the quiet change we rarely see coming.
New ways to codify purpose
And then what happens?
Many small businesses start with generosity and good intent at their core. But it’s a rough ride, and especially when outside funding is involved, it’s easy to get seduced by the bright lights of Milton Friedman and an obsession with short-term profits.
Over time, purpose starts to fade. The urgencies and demands of quarterly results, the opportunities for growth followed by more growth make it ever more difficult to stick with what we set out to do in the first place.
This post from Ari Weinzweig highlights a different way to stay on track, adding a level of structure to the good intent. It takes the sometimes mushy language of a B Corp and makes it legally and permanently part of the deal.
By codifying the structure from the start, we’re creating organizations that have boundaries. Boundaries aren’t necessarily a defect–they can be a feature. A boundary gives us something to lean against (leverage) and it also communicates to our constituents exactly what we’re here to do.
For a long time, we’ve been evolving in only one direction–companies that seek nothing but short-term investor returns, but do a lot of hand-waving along the way.
In a post-industrial business environment where people are more important than machines and where the consequence of our work are more vivid, it makes sense to bring intent to the forefront and keep it there.
Hobson’s choice
…is no choice at all.
The stable owner gets to pick which horse you get. Take it or leave it.
Some people prefer this. It means that we’re off the hook and not responsible. It relieves us of the emotional labor of choice. Let someone else worry about it…
And so we give up our agency and our freedom, simply to avoid responsibility.
The thing is, there is still a choice: The choice of whether or not to go into the stable in the first place.
Every time we choose a job, cast a ballot (or choose not to), or select a path, we’re making a choice. What happens after that is still our responsibility.
—Why?
—
Why?
Pay what you want
It’s a fascinating payment model. For digital goods and other transactions where the marginal cost of one more sale approaches zero, “pay what you want” exposes how complicated the story we tell about money can be. When we add in the charity component, it becomes even more layered.
The Best of Akimbo (volume 1) is now available as a pay-what-you-want download. 100% of what you pay is a donation that goes directly to charity: water. The details are all here.
There are more than five years worth of weekly episodes of my Akimbo podcast now available, and my producer Alex DiPalma and I have put together a five-episode best of. No ads, of course, no QA, just some culture-gazing you can dive into and even share. Other episodes are available wherever you get your podcasts.
To date, readers of this blog have helped 34,000 people get a reliable source of clean water, with more than a million dollars donated so far. It’s hard to imagine something more generous, more life-changing or more urgent than bringing water to someone who needs it. Thank you.
Code Lifespan
Grandiosity as a form of hiding
A business that says its mission is to, “reinvent local commerce to better serve our customers and neighborhoods,” can spend a lot of time doing not much of anything before they realize that they’re not actually creating value.
A non-profit that seeks to create “fairness and equity” can also fall into a non-specific trap.
Far more useful to say, “we sell a good cup of coffee at a fair price,” and see if you can pull that off first.
Google claims they want to organize the world’s information. But they began by simply building a search engine that people would switch to.
We need a goal. But the more specific and measurable, the better.
“What do you do around here?”
There are lots of useful, honest answers. Some might include:
I do what I’m told
I challenge the status quo
I show up on time
I solve complicate problems
I absorb nonsense and create calm for others
I raise our standards
I help people feel seen
I’m steady
I don’t cause trouble
I bring energy
I lead the way
I turn mountains into molehills
People like me
The ones that aren’t helpful are things like:
I’m just passing through
I give people a hard time
I’m a bully
I make mountains out of molehills