This week I’ve had a massive technology upgrade. I’ve moved from a 2013 MacBook Pro (the generation of MacBooks which had great keyboards), to a 2019 27" iMac. I had been deferring this computer upgrade for ages, as I dithered between getting a new MacBook (and which variant?), an iMac or even a mac mini. I was hoping the iMac would gain the T2 security chip and possibly a new display with reduced bezels. I was waiting for Apple to return to manufacturing laptops with scissor mechanisms in their keyboards. By the end of October, none of those had come to pass. All the while I was becoming more frustrated with the slowness of my MacBook Pro.
I bit the bullet and bought the iMac. I’ve had a 27" Apple Cinema Display for years, so I’m used to a big screen. Yet this is the first time I’ve had retina resolution at this size. For my ageing eyes it is incredible. In use the iMac feels much faster with my old machine. I know it’s not near the processing grunt of an iMac Pro - but I don’t do video, podcasting or programming. For my productivity app usage and a bit of photo editing (and less than I used to do) this is plenty powerful enough for me.
A quick run of Geekbench on this Mac, compared with what I found in the Geekbench browser for my old laptop, highlights the difference:
iMac
MacBook Pro
Single Core
1053
710
Multi Core
4875
1565
It’s not all speeds and feeds, though. This new iMac feels nicer, supports newer features such as Sidecar, and has cleared clutter on my desk!
Technology upgrade cycle
All technology needs a regular upgrade cycle. Technology ages out and the industry moves forward. Inevitably devices need to be changed out. Obsolescence generally occurs before devices fail.
Over my most recent technology cycle, I’ve been depreciating my devices over a longer period. I’ve accepted not having the latest and greatest and have upgraded only when there has been a compelling reason.
For interest’s sake I maintain a spreadsheet to track how long I’ve owned major technology assets, and compute ‘life of service’ and ‘cost per week’. Two of our TVs, however, pre-date this spreadsheet, so they are definitely ready for replacement!
Letting the equipment age was fine in itself. Now though, we have a backlog of technology all set for replacement at the same time. The problem is I haven’t been reserving cash to replace the depreciated items. I responsibly saved up for the iMac, but other technology has not had a regular savings pattern applied to it.
Writing this post has prompted me to create a new line item for technology upgrades in my YNAB budget. I’ve set a monthly savings goal. This way I’ll be able to build my savings to facilitate a household technology refresh. I will keep ploughing money into this category on a monthly basis so that when the next device needs replacing, I’ll have the money sitting there waiting to be used. That beats going into debt - and don’t even get me started on the scourge of Afterpay! That’s a post for another day.
I’ve excluded the brand-new iMac from this calculation. ↩︎
Kids cricket is winding down as the sun sets. Yay summer! 🏏
Microblogvember: A pet peeve of mine is when people describe an asterisk as either an asterix or a star.
Watched Episode 1 of For All Mankind and enjoyed it. It brings to mind how fragile the success of the Apollo missions were, despite how much we take it for granted now. 📺
Over the last 24 hours I’ve been running on a brand new 27" iMac 3.1GHz 6-core i5. Compared with my old 2013 MacBook Pro this thing screams. I know it’s not an iMac Pro but this is plenty enough for my needs. Also glad that I swapped out the default Fusion drive for SSD only.
All in all I have a pretty great job. I’ve been doing it for long enough that I feel I have well and truly mastered the fundamentals.
With my interest in personal productivity I have constructed a range of efficiencies into my process flow to make things easier for me. This enables me to increase my overall productivity, do more with no more effort.
Despite all of this I am still working with people, and they can’t be automated, and the margin for error is greater than that of machines and systems. As a result, sometimes I have days where I turn up for a scheduled meeting only to find out that they are no longer available or that there was a ‘diary mix-up’.
When this happens, I don’t get upset. I see it as an opportunity to either recover some bonus free time, or it unlocks the ability to get ahead on some other piece of work.
I enjoy the responsibility of self-management like this. I think I would struggle having to return to a job that was micro-managed, or doing something that was a small cog in a larger wheel. I like owning the process soup to nuts, and making things work the way I think is best.
Microblogvember: We tend to think that we always have complete agency over our lives. If you stop and think how much is actually left to random chance, it can be a bit frightening.
Adobe Technical Support chat was so slow in linking me with somebody, that I was able to trawl forums and test random solutions. Just when somebody got to me, I had solved the problem. Great work, Adobe. 🤔
Microblogvember: I take my kids to the park and inevitably they find a stick to play with. Trees make the most versatile toys ever known to man. A stick can be a proxy for any number of imaginary things.
I am most comfortable within a nuclear family. I grew up in a family with my Mom and 3 siblings. We had a few extended family members, but most lived in different parts of the country or overseas.
As an adult the nuclear family is again the structure we are living in, except now I’m the Dad. My two sisters live in the same city, while my brother has recently moved to Switzerland. There’s no animosity between any of us, but we simply don’t see each other that much.
My wife has some family on her side, and those are the people we see the most.
In reality, we live our life as a small nuclear family of four. This is generally fine, except for when we would like to have a grown-up night out, or have some respite from children. Without the babysitting potential that comes from an extended family, we have to go to the open market and find a babysitter. That added cost and inconvenience does mean that we don’t get out as much as we might like.
While that’s not ideal, I also know that we are creating a strong and safe environment for our kids. They don’t have any fears of violence, abuse, drunkenness or any of the other things that occur behind closed doors that can lead to the destruction of a loving and peaceful childhood. That is a wonderful gift we are giving them, and I’m sure, as adults, they will appreciate that more than not having enough uncles and aunties to visit.
At the checkout of the IGA grocery store three employees and I each claimed our childhood James Bond. We had Brosnan, Moore and Connery. Plus one, “no idea”. Friendly staff for the win!
Right now in Perth we are in the perfect time of the year to enjoy nature. We are moving into nice spring sunshine with temperatures in the mid-twenties. This is a time to enjoy, before the Perth furnace gets cranking for summertime and I can’t step outside without getting burnt. The grass is still green from winter, before it browns off over the summer months.
I visited Queens Gardens in East Perth. Nature was in full bloom. Multiple groups of ducklings were running after their mothers. A group of cygnets were sitting under the shade of a tree. The cygnets were a grey colour, before they grow their unique black feathers; black swans - a feature of Perth’s naturescape.
There is a downside to Perth nature, and that is the flies. A few years I have a recollection of our then State government cutting the amount of funding dedicated to fly management by dung beetles. Over the last few years I am convinced that we have more bush flies than we used to. It’s frustrating, but if I want to take the good of nature I suppose I have to accept the bad.
You do get used to doing the what I know as the Aussie wave.
I’ve bought an annual subscription to Harmonizely as my replacement for WhenWorks, which is shutting down at the end of 2019.
Microblogvember: When I was a kid my friends and I would typically play sport on the street. Cricket and tennis were the two typical games. I don’t see kids doing that anymore.
Over the past year I’ve been enjoying food a bit too much. Concurrently I’ve stopped playing sport. This has led to an imbalance in the food in/energy out equation.
In turn, I’ve seen the growth of a generous belly for the first time in my life. I’m not particularly pleased about this. My kid calling me ‘fat Dad’, is jesting that cuts a little too close to the bone!
I’ve been trying to do a little more exercise but time is a constant challenge. Plus, if the exercise in question doesn’t involve a ball, I have a hard time maintaining interest. While I’ve done gym work plenty in the past, I’ve never loved it and have a hard time sticking with it.
What I can do instantly is reduce the input side of the equation by changing (and reducing) what I eat. So I’ve put myself on a diet. I’ve turned to the service of Lite n' Easy to deliver portion controlled, dietician planned meals. The food is okay, albeit somewhat repetitive.
I miss the more flavoursome fattening food but hopefully the changed diet will pay off over the next few months. I reckon I need to lose about 10kg. That will get me back to what I consider my ‘standard’ weight. I don’t need to lose it all in the next month, but I need to lose it over this next year.
Catalina has filled my drive with hundreds of wifi diagnostic files for no apparent reason. Cool.
Microblogvember: If you want to be arithmetically precise, don’t say average; instead say mean.
