Igor's Computer Blog

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Optimaling vs Maximizing

September 16, 2017

Copied from Seth Godin as I've always tried to articulate this, but was never able to so I'll copy swaths of his post: I can run a comfortable 6 miles per hour, but I can also run 10 miles an hour at full speed. But, turns out I can only run 10 miles an hour for 5 minutes, while I can run 6 miles per hour for hours. Ten miles an hour is maximum speed, but it isn't optimum. Systems have an optimum level of performance. It's the output that permits the elements (including the humans) to do their best work, to persist at it, to avoid disasters, bad decisions and burnout. One definition of maximization is: A short-term output level of high stress, where parts degrade but short-term performance is high. Capitalism sometimes seeks competitive maximization instead. Who cares if you burn out, I'll just replace the part... That's not a good way to treat people we care about, or systems that we rely on. As a valuable contributor seeking to build a career,

It's all about the 43" 4K Monitor

September 16, 2017

You might say I have a monitor obsession. I'd not disagree, but I would argue I spend 8 hours a day on my monitor, so having the best monitor I can is worth it. I'd also argue, monitors last forever, so you might as well get them as soon as they meet your needs. Speaking of, I now have a 43" 3840x2160 monitor. It lows my 34" ultra wide out of the water, and I'm now getting rid of my 27" and 30" monitors. There's a few things you'll need to know when getting this monitor. 1) T he left and rightmost 1/2" are in shadow when you're close. This is a weird effect, described here . According to the author of the review it happens on all the current 43" monitors. When you move your head to see the left most edge, you can't see the right edge because it's in shadow, and vice versa. Most windows have a margin so you won't notice. The place I have noticed it is in terminals (conemu and iterm). 2) Not everything can dr

StartupVille: Not a unicorn? Consider being a zebra!

March 12, 2017

When I worked on Smile, I struggled because I wasn't interested in profit, but interested in making the world a better place. To achieve this, I'd need a sustainable business, not an exponential one. However, investors want exponential, not sustainable businesses. This table comparnies unicorns and Zebras is from a great article on the topic.

I love my 34" ultra wide monitor

October 30, 2016

I love monitors. I already have a 27" monitor and a 30" monitors , and now I've added t he dell 34" . It's huge, elegant, and has all the ports a geek could dream of. Ultra wide are sold as being amazing for productivity and movie watching. I don't disagree, but there are a few gotchas you should know about. For productivity ultra wides are extolled as the equivalent of two monitors side by side. For me, the width of the ultra wide is a bit shy of what I'd like for two windows side by side. Don't get me wrong, it's doable, but with my old eyes and jacked up font sized, half a 34" monitor wide is too skinny a window. I usually end up make one window take up 2/3s of the screen and another window take up 1/3. It's too bad the windows snap feature doesn't allow you to do this automatically. If you have a good software solution for this holler. For movies, especially ones available in 21:9 the 34" ultra wid

Emotional Intelligence, Strategy, and how Igor Ticks @ idvorkin.github.io

February 10, 2016

If you're interested in learning more about How Igor ticks, Emotional Intelligence and Strategy, check out my alpha "blog" @ idvorkin.github.io It's currently very rough but has a few interesting properties: From a content perspective, it's focused on less technical topics - book reviews, strategy, emotional intelligence, and my own self discovery. From a technical perspective, it's a jekyll static markdown blog, something I've always wanted to try because I can use powerful editing tools, keep the content under source control , and never need to worry about being at the mercy of my service provider.

Cool Tools: Remote Tech Support

December 01, 2015

We all have to support our friends and families on their broken computers. Recently I was introduced to teamviewer . It's a remote support application that free for non commercial use, and works perfectly. May your next "mom's computer doesn't work" incident be less stressful.

Monitor Sizes And Ratios

November 29, 2015

Computer folks spend LOTS of time on monitors, so getting the right ones matters . Monitor dimensions are incredibly important, so here's the dimension table for the high resolution monitors Diagonal Ratio Size 27" (2560x1440) 1.77 (13.2, 23.4) 30" (2560x1600) 1.6 (15.8, 23.7) 34" (3440x1440) 2.3 (13.5, 31.1) In case I need to do this again, here's the computation in R

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