I use the LG Ultrafine 5K every day. I bought it about four and a half years ago for $750 (and I bought a second one that Elsa now uses for $650 off of Woot). At the time, I couldn’t believe it sold for $999 new and yet, there seem to be no reasonable competition.

Years later, and I have two problems: horrible image retention and the monitor market has only gotten worse.

Every computer screen I look at has been high DPI for 5 years. Every mobile screen for even longer. It’s just shocking to me that the whole market has decided that high DPI doesn’t matter. I can’t imagine going backwards.

But here I am, with my LG monitor, with image retention bugging me daily, and what are the options?

Drop twice was much money as I spent the first time for a monitor no one seems to care about and never got better? I get that gamers are driving the market today, but I’ve never been more convinced Apple was wrong to get out of this market.

Looking at some real data¹ in Allocate, Allovue’s tool for resource allocation modeling. Two different funding formulas, with a total cost with in 0.5% of each other. Look at the swings on a per-school basis.

Without reviewing results, both models seem like reasonable choices. The variance is astonishing.

It’s amazing how major transit agencies seem to have either missed or have chosen to ignore that the FRA changed regulations on rolling stock so that cheaper, far better trains could be purchased.

It seems pretty obvious to me that the social benefits in France, Germany, and Australia, at least, are worth the slight decline in personal income. And there’s actually a wage premium in Canada! Of course, this is important to look at disaggregated for your current income.

There’s three styles of YouTube video editing:

Gen X I am an auteur filmmaker.
Millennial I am recreating VH1’s Pop Up Videos Gen Z erratic, anime-inspired Adult Swim-style hard cut random

The last few weeks I have been experimenting with a new focus mode setting. I call it Down Time, and I now have it turned on most of the time when I am not working or in Sleep.

The only notifications I receive are messages from Elsa. I have no apps on the Home Screens for Down Time. All widgets, except for my home row.

I originally let a few other people and apps “through” my notifications. Turns out, there’s really no app that deserves to break through. Maybe something like Flighty when traveling. And the people? I pretty quickly realized that no one I talk to had any expectation of immediate responses always. They sure don’t respond right away most of the time. So it turns out letting them notify me was more like feeling good someone “liked” my post on social media. It was about a little endorphin hit because someone was thinking of me. Those hits are hollow though, and the addiction is shockingly easy to break.

Overall, the feeling is one of just a little more quiet. I like that in focus modes I can still see there are non-Elsa notifications when/if I want to look. I check my phone often enough that I don’t really miss anything— sometimes there’s a message that’s been sitting around for 10-30 minutes. I never miss anything critical, and I check my phone often enough that nothing sits for hours unless I let it intentionally. Maybe this is more extreme than how you want to spend your weekends, but I would strongly recommend zero-basing your phone and only adding back what you miss. It will probably be less than you think.

What is even the point of using less than a head of garlic in your recipe?

Forgot to take a picture of the mac and cheese.

I had no idea, but I have THREE new The Invisible Library books to read this month. 😱

If you write an article about rising home prices and displacement of people of color in a city and don’t dedicate the text to the restrictions on constructing new homes where middle class and up white people live, you have failed.

Tonight begins my annual, “Do I have candles? Do the stores in my neighborhood know they should have candles?” panic. !חַג שָׂמֵחַ

I am fairly convinced 50 minutes is the right length for a lecture or podcast that is asking you to think deeply or learn about a thing.

I guess she had too much to eat this holiday.

Never heard of Begin Again, but enjoyed it. Guess I’m just a sucker for a music movie, even if a lot of details annoyed me.

My opinion on Thanksgiving food is turkey is delicious. People just suck at roasting, because they don’t do it often and don’t use thermometers.

I will often tell people asking me for advice to “just go to The Wirecutter”. Not this weekend. The staff is on strike, and you should avoid The Wirecutter entirely for now.

Home again

I am the worst kind of tired. I read two pages and feel like I’m falling asleep. I close my book and my eyes, and within thirty seconds I’m wide awake.

The most therapeutic thing I’ve done lately is watch a lot of trash tv. Lucifer is a hell of a guilty pleasure.

Much of Alon’s latest post on how procurement practices increase rail construction costs could be applied to government software projects as well. In software, the result is costs or risk of total failure (or both) are astronomical.

Elsa: Did you put the rice away? </ br> Me: I only took my soda out. </ br> Elsa: Well, I didn’t put the rice away. I don’t put stuff away.

Just revealed to Elsa that I watched Dune twice more without her.

Can’t stop thinking about how the weird shit hasn’t even happened yet in Dune.