{ "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1", "title": "Jake LaCaze", "icon": "https://micro.blog/jakelacaze/avatar.jpg", "home_page_url": "https://jakelacaze.com/", "feed_url": "https://jakelacaze.com/feed.json", "items": [ { "id": "http://jakelacaze.micro.blog/2024/03/25/it-really-irks.html", "content_html": "
It really irks me when a company has a blog with no RSS feed or email signup.
\nI want to pay attention to your brand. Make it easy for me!
\nMaybe this is the company’s way of saying they see content only as SEO fodder and that people shouldn’t follow along.
\n", "date_published": "2024-03-25T10:39:13-05:00", "url": "https://jakelacaze.com/2024/03/25/it-really-irks.html", "tags": ["Marketing"] }, { "id": "http://jakelacaze.micro.blog/2024/03/21/starting-thursday-with.html", "content_html": "Starting Thursday with a win
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-21T08:24:20-05:00", "url": "https://jakelacaze.com/2024/03/21/starting-thursday-with.html" }, { "id": "http://jakelacaze.micro.blog/2024/03/17/it-took-reinstalling.html", "content_html": "It took reinstalling Linux (Solus) for me to realize I can install Syncthing on my MobiScribe Wave for easier file syncing. The Wave is an Android tablet–it should have been so obvious.
\n", "date_published": "2024-03-17T15:41:34-05:00", "url": "https://jakelacaze.com/2024/03/17/it-took-reinstalling.html" }, { "id": "http://jakelacaze.micro.blog/2024/03/16/this-new-yorker.html", "content_html": "This New Yorker cartoonist must have just moved to Dallas-Fort Worth.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-16T20:06:22-05:00", "url": "https://jakelacaze.com/2024/03/16/this-new-yorker.html" }, { "id": "http://jakelacaze.micro.blog/2024/03/16/creating-in-the.html", "title": "Creating in the time of AI", "content_html": "Why should we create in the age of AI? How can we compete?
\nThis post from LMNT puts a different perspective on things:
\n\n\nI take a little comfort in knowing that it will be impossible for “AI” tools—here on out—to differentiate between human-made and machine-generated content, thereby inevitably feeding on their own regurgitations. It’s already happening, of course.
\nOver the next few years, while these “AI” companies try to sort that out (and fail), and search engines try to index only the sites that are what any reasonable person would consider genuine (and fail), the best thing we can all do is just create what we want while ignoring their problems, because they’re not our problems.
\nWe have limited time and energy. Why spend it lacing our art with poison for AI scrapers? Why spend it focusing on how to stand out on platforms that can’t differentiate human-made from AI-generated? Why spend it publishing our new creations alongside AI-generated content? Don’t spend time on these things. These are all just busywork tasks that slow us down from doing what we really want to do: create.
\n
Depending on what you’re creating, rather than worrying about AI, you might be better off asking, So what?
\nSo what if AI is trained on my creations? Sure, I don’t like the idea of it, but what’s the real point of creating? On one hand, the act of creation is for me. For an example of what I mean, look no further than the audio I’ve started adding to my recent blog posts. The point is not to start a ‘podcast’. The point is to make myself read my posts. When you read your posts, sometimes you realize your writing sounds strange. Also, I like to think that it’s a way to dip my toes into public speaking, a skill I want to improve on.
\nSure, AI can copy my voice and my writing and steal some of my fire online. But that doesn’t affect me as a person offline.
\nOnline is a part of my life. But it’s not my whole life.
\nAnd I agree with Louie Mantia (LMNT) that AI will soon start cannibalizing its own content, greatly hurting future quality. This is a concern I addressed on another version of my blog. It seems that generative AI is destined to best itself. So let’s stop worrying about it and instead focus on creating.
\n\nJake LaCaze wonders if generative AI might actually put a premium on human experience and creation in the end.\n
\n", "date_published": "2024-03-16T10:04:47-05:00", "url": "https://jakelacaze.com/2024/03/16/creating-in-the.html", "tags": ["Technocriticism","AI"] }, { "id": "http://jakelacaze.micro.blog/2024/03/15/i-joke-about.html", "content_html": "I joke about this a lot, but for real:
\nI owe so much of my career development to flowcharts.
\nSometimes good fundamentals can take you far.
\n", "date_published": "2024-03-15T11:35:58-05:00", "url": "https://jakelacaze.com/2024/03/15/i-joke-about.html" }, { "id": "http://jakelacaze.micro.blog/2024/03/15/is-artificial-general.html", "title": "Is artificial general intelligence the real benchmark for AI?", "content_html": "\nToday’s target for artificial intelligence (AI) seems to be artificial general intelligence (AGI), a technology that is competent in many areas, like humans. AI is most often highly-specialized, focusing on one area with a narrow set of tasks. This sort of AI is best-suited for specialized audiences needing specialized tasks. But with AGI, the prophets of AI can achieve their dream: AI for everyone, everywhere.
\nOr so the prophecy claims.
\nWe very well may achieve AGI, but I’m skeptical we’ll get there in the next decade (which, compared to the estimates from the prophets of AI, is an eternity). The simple truth is that we still know so little about how the human brain works. Regardless of how some may feel about humans, our brains are complex machines, calculating far more than given credit.
\nThe developers of AGI seem hellbent on replicating and/or replacing humans. But can you replicate or replace what you don’t fully understand? Supplementing and improving upon human intelligence seems a far better goal. This is why I prefer the concept of augmented intelligence over AGI1.
\nAnyone familiar with SMART goals knows that goals should be attainable—that’s the ‘A’ in ‘SMART’, after all. And I’m not convinced that replicating or replacing human thought and processing will be attainable in the near future.
\nIf Gary Marcus is right—if the hype seems to be dying and the return on investment just isn’t there2—then it feels as if AGI will be attainable much, much later than the prophets of AI would have us believe.
\n\nJake LaCaze still believes in the potential of humans.\n
\nAI Should Augment Human Intelligence, Not Replace It from Harvard Business Review ↩︎
\nThe ROI on GenAI might not be so great, after all by Gary Marcus ↩︎
\nThe simplest things make life interesting.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-10T11:51:14-05:00", "url": "https://jakelacaze.com/2024/03/10/the-simplest-things.html" }, { "id": "http://jakelacaze.micro.blog/2024/03/09/leadership-means-scaling.html", "title": "Leadership means scaling impact", "content_html": "\nSome people want to be left alone to do their own work and go home and call it a day. There’s nothing wrong with that—I support your right to curate your own experience. But by working in such fashion, there’s only so much you can do.
\nThere are only so many hours in a day, you have only so much energy, there are only so many tasks you can give your attention to.
\nAt some point, you as an individual hit a wall. You’ve largely gotten as good as you’re going to get. Any improvements will likely be incremental and lower in impact than previous improvements.
\nIf you find yourself in this position, maybe it’s time to start looking beyond yourself. Maybe it’s time to see if you can help others within your team—however you define that term—improve in the areas that hold them back.
\nMaybe it’s time to mentor. To scale your impact and elevate those around you.
\nMaybe it’s time to lead.
\n\nJake LaCaze sometimes likes to change things up with shorter essays.\n
\n", "date_published": "2024-03-09T17:02:23-05:00", "url": "https://jakelacaze.com/2024/03/09/leadership-means-scaling.html" }, { "id": "http://jakelacaze.micro.blog/2024/03/02/spring-has-sprung.html", "content_html": "Spring has sprung.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-02T15:30:35-05:00", "url": "https://jakelacaze.com/2024/03/02/spring-has-sprung.html" }, { "id": "http://jakelacaze.micro.blog/2024/02/29/any-time-i.html", "content_html": "Any time I can start and finish a crossword puzzle on my Wave during my morning train ride, I know it’s going to be a great day.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-02-29T09:13:37-05:00", "url": "https://jakelacaze.com/2024/02/29/any-time-i.html" }, { "id": "http://jakelacaze.micro.blog/2024/02/26/the-prophets-of.html", "content_html": "The prophets of AI: ‘You’ll get better results with LLMs when you learn how to prompt.’
\nMeanwhile:
\n\nI’m sure nothing will go wrong with military use of generative AI. /s
\nOh, the word I was looking for was:
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-02-26T08:56:10-05:00", "url": "https://jakelacaze.com/2024/02/26/the-prophets-of.html", "tags": ["Technocriticism","AI"] }, { "id": "http://jakelacaze.micro.blog/2024/02/25/molly-white-just.html", "content_html": "Molly White just talked me into creating a Wikipedia account to start contributing.
\nHere’s to hoping no one yells at me for my edits. 🤞
\n", "date_published": "2024-02-25T20:08:48-05:00", "url": "https://jakelacaze.com/2024/02/25/molly-white-just.html" }, { "id": "http://jakelacaze.micro.blog/2024/02/25/microblog-premium-is.html", "title": "micro.blog Premium is a crazy value", "content_html": "Only a few days ago, Manton Reece dropped a bomb on the micro.blog community: Subscribers of micro.blog Premium would continue to enjoy the perks they’ve come to know and love for not just one blog—and not two or three or four blogs—but for five blogs1.
\nThis pricing change is a rare example of a top-tier service getting better and offering even more value to its customers.
\nLet’s dig a bit more into the value of micro.blog Premium, both in what it offers and what it doesn’t offer.
\nmicro.blog Premium was a great deal before the change. But now we can argue it’s one of the best values on the whole of the internet.
\nmicro.blog Premium features include but are not limited to:
\nNow multiply that times five.
\nBut not the price. The price stays the same at $10 a month2. Pretty awesome.
\nmicro.blog is a unique platform in that what it doesn’t offer may be just as valuable as what it does offer.
\nBelow are some things intentionally missing from micro.blog:
\nSocial media engagement algorithms have made it hard to keep up with content and sources we really care about. Likes and follower counts have skewed our perception of what’s worth sharing.
\nBut you won’t find these features (or bugs?) on micro.blog. You can follow other users, but they won’t really know unless you tell them. The same goes for any of their posts you like—you’ll have to actually tell them you like their posts, in your own words. The act takes a little bit of work, but it really goes a long way.
\nWith micro.blog, your personal domain is your home on the internet. And with generous pricing, they’re giving users more reason to upgrade to Premium.
\nJake LaCaze loves praising tech companies for doing things right. Unfortunately, the opportunities to do seem to be so few these days.
\nI could try to tell you what exactly Douglas Rushkoff’s Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires 1 is about via a traditional book review, or I could hope that an inspired rant might give you a better idea. If you haven’t already figured it out, I’m choosing the latter route.
\nThe tech billionaires have one simple goal: to shelter themselves from the world they’ve shaped with their outsized wealth, power, and influence. Undoing all they’ve done in the name of making true positive change via small incremental improvements that risk going unrecognised is beyond them. Simply having the option to escape this world via one avenue or another shows that the tech billionaires already live in a reality far different from the one most of us inhabit.
\nRushkoff starts by describing the struggles of those tech billionaires outfitting their doomsday bunkers for the coming apocalypse2. A lot of thought goes into such preparation. Location, supplies, air filtration. The tech billionaires are also looking into how to motivate their security to protect them when the markets collapse and currency is worthless.
\nOthers hope to one day leave the earth behind. They plan to colonize Mars and start over new, where they’ll stand to gain even more as the early adopters of a fresh society.
\nBut what about those tech billionaires who can’t escape in these ways? What if they have no choice but to stay on this boring earth, and what if everything doesn’t go to absolute hell and they can’t justify running away to their bunkers in Hawaii or New Zealand?
\nThat’s where digital escapes like the Metaverse come into play. Who needs Mars or a doomsday bunker when they can build a digital world to replace the physical. You can always buy digital real estate and rent it out to supplement any losses realised from your real estate in the unplugged world3. Some might call this strategy ‘diversification.’
\nCan you be tied to the world around you if your mind is set on escaping? Are you invested in the slightest? If the answer is no, then why do we let these select few build a world we’ll be stuck with when they flee the first chance they get? If you already have one foot out the door because you’re convinced that to stay is hopeless, then at what point is reality a foreign concept? And if you’re so sure that a certain outcome is inevitable, when does everything begin to look like a prophecy? And when do you decide that resistance is futile? You might as well get what you can while you can. Just make sure you get enough to help you get away at a later date.
\nPerhaps we can’t blame the tech billionaires for looking forward to their own big exit, when their investors expect their own such exit, usually in the form of an IPO or flipping the company at some multiple of their original investment.
\nMany in tech have long adopted Mark Zuckerberg’s mantra to ‘Move fast and break things.’4 But tech’s secondary mantra appears inspired by Matthew Good5:
\n\n\nWe’ll stick to the plan:
\nThe fall of man
\n
The tech billionaires aren’t worried though, because as man falls, they will rise, whether to Mars, the Metaverse, or to the safety of their underground bunkers.
\nNo big deal though. I’m sure they’ll wave bye and give a heartfelt thanks for all we’ve done to enable them to get the hell out of Dodge as they leave us to our fates6.
\n\nJake LaCaze really doesn’t like being so sour about tech. But he’s finding it hard not to be.\n
\n\n \n Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires \n \n\n on Bookshop.org (Affiliate link) ↩︎
\n‘Why is Mark Zuckerberg building a private apocalypse bunker in Hawaii?’ on The Guardian ↩︎
\n‘Inside the lucrative business of a metaverse landlord, where monthly rent can hit $60,000 per property’ on Fast Company ↩︎
\n‘The problem with “Move fast and break things”—Tech needs a better guiding principle’ on jakelacaze.com ↩︎
\n‘The Fall of Man’ by Matthew Good Band on YouTube ↩︎
\n‘Jeff Bezos thanks Amazon customers and employees who “paid for all this”’ on CNN ↩︎
\nYesterday I had an idea for a mock LinkedIn influencer. He’d be a tech bro dubbed the SaaShole, who would serve as a blueprint for how not to do tech marketing.
\nThe character would be a mix of Dexter Guff, from the satirical podcast Dexter Guff is Smarter Than You (And You Can Be Too)1, and Dom Mazzetti, from the BroScience YouTube channel2.
\n\nOr, if someone wanted to take a more sincere approach, they could call the program Don’t Be a SaaShole and share examples of how not to be a SaaShole.
\nUnfortunately, a quick Google search killed my ambitions, as I discovered the SaaSholes podcast3.
\nI would define a SaaShole as a tech bro (or sis) who talks only in tech jargon to make him-or-herself sound smart rather than focus on solving a customer’s problems.
\nThe SaaShole wants to sell his solution to make a quick buck, not to make anyone else’s life easier. Whatever your industry, you’re in business to serve your customers or clients. If you’re not doing that, then why the hell should you expect to stay in business? Why should anyone continue to give you their money if they’re not really getting anything back in return?
\nThe SaaShole is a mindset. Despite its specific name, the SaaShole mindset doesn’t apply only to those in SaaS. It applies to tech all the way up and down the industry.
\nOften, tech companies are selling tech solutions to non-tech people—people who don’t identify as working in the tech industry. So tech bros (and sisses) are often better off assuming their customers know little about tech beyond how to check their email on their smartphone, because these customers aren’t concerned about the tech—they’re concerned about solving an issue and completing a task that they don’t view through the lens of technology. If tech can help them, great—they’re all for the help.
\nBut for them, tech is a means to an end, not the end itself. (The good news is that if you’re wrong in assuming that your customers know next to nothing about tech, you can always deepen the technical explanations to meet them where they are. Starting with the default assumption your customers don’t know much about tech and then ramping up seems a better strategy than bombarding them with more they can handle and then trying to bring it down to their level.)
\nI’ve previously written about how I think tech suffers from a lack of philosophy beyond ‘Move fast and break things’4. Consider this post an addendum.
\nAnd lastly, if you work in tech, please don't be a SaaShole. Actually help people.
\nJake LaCaze often has great ideas that other people have already had.
\nThis post is not a straight-up ‘MobiScribe Wave vs. Kindle Scribe’ kind of post because I can’t compare the devices themselves. As I said in my MobiScribe perspective post 1, I’ve only demoed the Kindle Scribe at my local Best Buy. But, as someone who’s used numerous Kindle e-ink readers over the years, I can speak to the advantages of the MobiScribe Wave over the Kindle ecosystem.
\nAnd with that said, let’s get to it.
\nWith the Kindle Scribe—like any other Kindle e-ink device—you are not buying a device that opens the door to other platforms; you are instead buying into a limited ecosystem.
\nOut of the box (and hacking solutions aside), you can’t download other apps for reading content outside of purchases made directly from Kindle.
\nApple often gets flak for the walled garden aspects of its own ecosystem, especially on iPhone and iPad devices. But to Apple’s credit, at least they do let you download apps outside their ecosystem, though to be fair, those same apps may not be the easiest to use, as is the case with apps that can sync to Apple’s mobile devices only via iCloud. (Obsidian comes to mind2. To sync Obsidian with mobile devices, you have only two options: iCloud and Obsidian Sync. At a cost of $8 per month, Obsidian Sync isn’t a great alternative for everyone.) The point is that Apple’s ecosystem has its issues, but it’s nothing compared to Kindle’s.
\nIn terms of apps and functionality, if you go with the Kindle Scribe, you better be completely satisfied with the Kindle ecosystem because the Kindle e-ink devices are basically gateways only to Amazon content. By default—again assuming you haven’t hacked the device—all your content comes from the Kindle Store. You do have the option to transfer ebooks from your computer, which would most likely require stripping the DRM, unless you got the books already DRM-free. But most normies aren’t going to go that route.
\nNote: Fortunately, you can still save money on ebooks via the Kindle if your library offers access to the Libby app3.
\nAndroid tablets, including the MobiScribe Wave, give you plenty options for downloading other apps for reading various written content.
\nWith the Wave, as is the case with other Android tablets, the Kindle Store is simply another option. The device comes with the option to easily download the Kindle app via the MobiStore. But you can also enable Google Play and download other apps, which may save you some money.
\nAs a personal example, I recently figured out how to read current issues of The Economist via the Houston Public Library 4 and the PressReader5 app available from Google Play, saving me over $200 a year. With the Kindle, I can read ebooks and publications only if I can purchase or subscribe to them via the Kindle store. Because The Economist recently cut off access via the Kindle store, I have no option to read the magazine on the Kindle, no matter how much I’m willing to pay.
\nThe Wave also lets me download RSS apps and read-it latter apps so that I can keep up with my digital sources, if I so choose. Kindle devices provide no such option, a limitation which keeps them from being the ultimate reading devices.
\nPerhaps the Kindle Scribe is fine if you plan to use it only as it is often promoted: A device first for reading Kindle books and second for some basic writing capabilities. Even though the MobiScribe Wave is, for me, first and foremost an e-ink writing tablet, I still appreciate the reading options it gives me. Having the option to download and read from an app other than Kindle makes the MobiScribe Wave a more capable reading device.
\nWhen I’m ready to upgrade my e-ink writing tablet, I’ll likely look again to MobiScribe (maybe the soon-to-be-released MobiScribe Wave Color Kaleido 36), or one of the many e-ink tablets offered by Boox7.
\nJake LaCaze is totally an e-ink stan.
\nMobiScribe Wave B&W - More perspective than review on jakelacaze.com ↩︎
\nSync your notes across devices on Obsidian Help ↩︎
\nAll Texas residents are eligible for a Houston Public Library digital card. Non-Texas residents may purchase a one-year membership. Sign up for a Houston Public Library card. ↩︎
\nCompanies want customers to be passionate about their products and services. And they want employees to give everything to their daily labor. Companies want everyone else around them to be inspired, yet so many companies follow the industrial model in a race to the bottom, doing as little as possible to actually inspire. But inspiration doesn’t just happen. It’s hard to come by. It often takes work.
\nSeth Godin has long been the voice against corporate conformity. And Godin continues his crusade in The Song of Significance, in which he reminds us that business doesn’t need to be only transactional. Good business goes beyond the simple exchange of cash for goods and services. Good business is an exchange you wouldn’t mind doing again—one you might even look forward to.
\nGood business inspires, much like art. For many of us, our day jobs—where we spend a great deal of our waking hours—is the best chance we have to be artists.
\nThese points have long been part of Godin’s message. In many ways, the contents of The Song of Significance are nothing new. The book’s central message will be familiar to any fans of Godin’s previous work:
\n\n\nThe race to the bottom is hard to win. And winning it rarely leads to positive outcomes.
\n
Sometimes we need to be reminded of our values—that we’re not alone—especially when the rest of the business world seems to go in the other direction.
\nThroughout the book, Godin reminds us that humans are the entire focus of business:
\n\n\nHumans are not a resource. We are not a tool. Humans are the point.
\n
Godin acknowledges that industrialism isn’t going away. But industrialism isn’t the only option. Workers and customers alike want something different. Something more. Something of significance. Businesses win big when they stop holding workers and customers hostage and instead create something both parties want to be part of:
\n\n\nIn a field where skills are valuable and switching jobs is possible, the employees you need the most have options. That’s why creating a culture of fear and compliance is a dead end. Great work creates more value than compliant work.
\n. . .
\nA significant organization can please its customers and make a profit as well. But it begins by earning enrollment and then doing the work to make change happen.
\n
Like Godin’s other books (and his blog posts1), The Song of Significance is not a how-to guide. It is instead a call to action. A call to action for us to pick ourselves and do work that matters.
\n\n\nJake LaCaze is sad to know there are still marketers out there who don't know about Seth Godin.\n
\nThe best part about the internet is sharing. And sharing is caring.
\nIf you enjoy this blog, maybe you’ll also enjoy the content that informs and influences it. You can obviously find such pieces in the sources I link to in the footnotes of my posts. But those links show only the most obvious influences. Sometimes something we read or watch or listen to plants a seed that germinates for a long time, meaning we forget where it all started.
\nThe sharing of ideas and perspectives has always been my favourite part of the internet. I’ve always seen the Internet as my gateway to thinkers and thoughts I’d otherwise not have access to. And as long as I’ve been on the internet, I’ve enjoyed sharing the interesting things I find as well.
\nUnfortunately, social media is no longer an ideal place for sharing, as the platforms make it harder to share content that diverts eyeballs from their own domains, because they want to keep users glued to their services as long as possible.
\nThis weekend I migrated my RSS feeds from Miniflux1 to Newsblur2.
\n(Note: At $15 a year, Miniflux is a great option if you want a barebones RSS feed manager. My migration back to Newsblur was more a product of my own restlessness than anything Miniflux did or did not do.)
\nAside from managing RSS feeds as you’d expect, a premium subscription to Newsblur ($36 a year) gives you a ‘Blurblog’ (their version of a linklog3), a simple site where you can share posts from your RSS feeds.
\nI’ve thought about adding a microblog to my site, but adding new content via Hugo is annoying for that use case. I’d have to create a .md file for each entry and push to GitHub for every single microblog post.
\nEven though I’m trying to run lean these days by hosting my site on GitHub Pages, I feel the inclusion of the Blurblog/linklog helps justify the extra cost of Newsblur vs. Miniflux.
\nIf you’re interested in my Blurblog linklog, check out the options below:
\n\n\nJake LaCaze thinks one of the most interesting parts of the internet is seeing just how far your small efforts can reach.\n
\nWhen all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
\nThe tech industry is sthe ultimate hammer in that it thinks tech is the best\nsolution for every problem1.
\nAnd many businesses buy into the tech industry’s thinking, as they scramble for that Holy Grail,\nthat one SaaS solution to rule them all and bring order to the chaos.\nSo they run out and sign a contract and spend months and years importing\ntheir data and working with their vendors to make templates and custom\nreports that fall short of what the nice salesman promised them. The\nluster wears off and the company concludes they adopted the wrong system,\nso they start the process over again.
\nFast forward a couple years and they’re back at the beginning of the loop,\nresuming the search for that one perfect solution.
\nWhat if the problem lies not in the tech but in what the tech is being\ntasked with—AKA the processes?
\nHow much of what the tech is doing actually needs to be done? How many\nof those tasks could be removed?
\nTech can work only if your processes and workflows are in order. By\ngetting a hold of your processes and workflows, maybe you’ll reduce the\nneed for tech in the first place.
\nAnd by removing steps—by practicing addition by subtraction—maybe you\nstrike a better balance.
\nIn terms of productivity and efficiency, we’re often too easily tempted\nto do more. American hustle culture gravitates toward the logic that\nmore activity is the ideal solution. But sometimes the secret to doing\nmore starts with doing less, or at least being mindful about what we’re\ndoing and should be doing.
\nAnd we can often practice such mindfulness no matter what’s in our tech\nstack.
\nI don’t know what’s ahead for tech in 2024. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be thinking about it.
\nA career in the volatile oil and gas industry has cured me of any thoughts on making bold predictions. So instead I’ll look at what may happen (instead of what I think will happen) and what I’d like to happen for tech in 2024.
\nIt’s too hard to say if the generative AI bubble will burst in 2024. But I certainly hope it will. My reasons have been well-documented on this site. For one, I fear the developers of generative AI are too busy trying to sell their non-human-focused solutions rather than solving problems that could help real people1.
\nIf a career in oil and gas has taught me one thing, it’s that ‘boom’ is often another word for ‘bubble.’ And bubbles burst eventually. 2023 brought a great boom for generative AI. Might 2024 bring the bust?
\nFingers crossed.
\nLet’s say the bubble does burst. What follows?
\nWhat will the shakeout look like? What developments will stick around?
\nThe internet didn’t go away when the dotcom bubble burst in the early 2000s. The internet itself wasn’t a total waste; there was just a lot of fat that needed to be trimmed so that we could focus on the useful parts.
\nThe same logic applies to AI.
\nI’m sure many of us can get behind the thought of AI having an impact beyond the burst of the bubble. But as Chuck Klosterman pointed out in But What If We’re Wrong?2, we run into problems when we try to get more specific with such prediction.
\nWith the rise of social media, personal homepages became less important.
\nBut now with the chaos of Twitter/X, many people are re-thinking their stances on owning their digital home spaces. Many of those same people don’t want to trade one dumpster fire for another by leaning on Meta-owned platforms. So they’re looking for niche, sometimes indie, solutions.
\nMany are opting to invest in homepages again.
\nI spent the last quarter of 2023 setting up my own digital home at jakelacaze.com. 2024 is the year I’ll settle in and hopefully more consistently blog (and maybe include other types of content).
\nI don’t know if I’ll ever abandon social media. LinkedIn helps with finding new jobs. And experimenting with platforms like Bluesky adds variety to the online experience. But I know my own webpage should remain my digital focus and that I should use other tools only insofar as they don’t distract me from my own platform.
\nI hope more people will join along so that we can make the web weird–and therefore, fun–again.
\nI’ve given Obsidian many tries over the years, but for some reason, it never quite stuck for me.
\nIn December I tried Logseq and am so far loving it3.
\nLogseq and Obsidian largely do the same thing: They both act as a ‘second brain’ where you can dump information so that you can use your limited brain power on the hard stuff.
\nWhile Obsidian is designed around individual pages, Logseq instead focuses on bullet points. Perhaps because I once tried the bullet journal method4, thinking and organising information in terms of bullet points makes sense to me.
\nI hope Logseq can prove to be a tool worth the time.
\nThe tech industry has a habit of making us bend to the tech they build.
\nI urge you to instead look at how you can bend tech to work around you. Maybe that requires rethinking how you use tech. Maybe it requires simplifying usage. Or maybe you’ve already got everything perfectly figured out.
\nEither way, I see little harm in our being more thoughtful about the digital tools we use on a daily basis.
\n\nJake LaCaze wishes you a happy near year in tech and beyond.\n
\nIs AI just a solution looking for a problem? on jakelacaze.com ↩︎
\n\n \n But What If We're Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman\n \n\n on Bookshop.org (Affiliate link) ↩︎
\nHow to Bullet Journal on YouTube ↩︎
\nIf you move fast and break things, do you ever come back to clean up your mess? Or do you just look for the next thing to smash?
\nThe October 2023 cover of Wired magazine irked me the moment I saw it.
\n\nOn one hand, the cover irked me because it seemed to be saying that we, the commoners, are at the mercy of the lords of AI (let’s just scratch out ‘overlords’ for the sake of accuracy). And it bothered me, on the other hand, because there seems to be truth in the sentiment.
\nWhy shouldn’t the lords of AI mold our future, since the tech industry has had its way so far in the 21st century?
\nBut don’t we have enough evidence of why it’s a bad idea to let tech call all the shots?
\nWe’ve already seen what happens when AI has free rein. All we have to do is look at the algorithmic wasteland that is now social media. Tech moved fast and broke a lot as it formed social media. But tech has yet to go back and fix the mess it created along the way.
\nAnd why should they? What’s their incentive? Companies exist to make money. Tech companies are no different. Nor should they be. But when you consider the reach of the industry’s influence (empowered by a hands-off approach from regulators), is it wrong to ask tech to be a better steward?
\nLeaning on AI in the form of algorithms has seen the internet flooded with example after example of misinformation and disinformation, making respectable journalism even harder to find in the 21st century. And as a recent lawsuit from The New York Times brings to light, the tech industry is at risk of doubling down on its prior negligence1. But, as is the case with social media, it’s not worth their time to go back and pick up the pieces. So, they never will.
\nTech needs a better guiding principle than ‘Move fast and break things’, one that recognizes the responsibility that comes with disruption.
\nRemember when your elders told you to leave things better than you found them? Why shouldn’t that wisdom apply to tech as well? Or when your mother said told you it’s not what you say, but how you say it?
\nThe mantra ‘Move fast and break things’ has horrible implications. Why not focus on fixing things, a far more constructive act? Breaking for breaking’s sake doesn’t serve anyone, especially if we’re never coming back to build something better.
\nSo many of tech’s problems seem to come down to matters of philosophy, in that the tech industry doesn’t properly value people beyond their potential to become customers who buy tech’s ‘solutions’ that may or may not actually solve a problem2.
\nIt’s easy for tech to adopt the philosophy of moving fast and breaking things when the results will benefit them. The tech industry is like a toddler who runs around smashing vases and busting windows, with a parent trailing close behind to clean up and apologize for the mess. Who wouldn’t love to operate in such a fashion?
\nAI in particular could benefit from adopting the simple philosophy below:
\nHelping humans > replacing humans
\nWhen we talk about creating or improving company cultures, many of us will utter the phrase ‘It starts at the top,’ meaning it starts with the people in charge. But I’d argue that truly great companies go one step further and start with a company’s ideals, which have the potential to stick around longer than any human employee can. And everyone who joins that company should be expected to adopt those ideals, because the ideals themselves, not who’s in charge, are the focus.
\nTech needs better philosophy. Stoicism is great, but it’s not enough.
\nThe New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement on The Verge ↩︎
\nIs AI just a solution looking for a problem? on jakelacaze.com ↩︎
\nI recently sold a couple laptops (Microsoft Surface Pro 4 and Lenovo ThinkPad X270), so I was looking for another laptop to take to the coffee shop or on those rare occasions I go out of town. I didn’t want to break the bank, and while I was looking into how cheap/old of a MacBook I could make do with, I impulsively bought a 2012 MacBook Air 5,2.
\nSo now I’ll definitely get some hipster cred while I’m sipping my mocha at the local cafe. But how well will the laptop serve me?
\nI’ve wanted an Apple laptop for a while, but I couldn’t justify the cost. Then I decided to take a chance with this old MacBook. Worst case scenario, I’d have a fun device for running Linux.
\nSo I ended up with this MacBook Air from eBay for ~$106, after shipping and tax.
\n\nMy purchase was a bit hasty, and I’m sure I could have found a better deal if I’d taken my time. But oh well, here we are, so let’s focus on what we’ve got and not what could have been.
\nI considered a Chromebook but wasn’t sure if I really wanted to move into that ecosystem, especially because I’m already partially in the Apple ecosystem. Chromebooks regularly come with only 4GB RAM and low-powered CPUs, and chances are they’ll still cost you at least $200.
\nI also considered getting an iPad, but the cheapest new iPad was ~$250 this holiday season. If I’d gone that route, I most likely would have bought a keyboard case to go with it, likely pushing me past $300 total.
\nI could have come up with the money for something I truly needed. But this was more of a toy purchase. I had some money burning a hole in my pocket after I sold my Nintendo 2DS, so I was happy to pull the trigger if I could basically break even. But I didn’t want to spend much more than what I’d made by letting go of a device I rarely used.
\nSo let’s see what I got.
\nIt ain’t got the shiniest features, but it’s got most (if not all) I need.
\nMany newer computers save space by abandoning USB 3.0 ports and using only USB-C ports. But I was surprised at just how sleek this pre-USB-C laptop still feels as we’re leaning into 2024.
\nYou get what you pay for. So surely this thing must be falling apart, right? Not quite.
\nI have a hard time believing this MacBook Air is over 10 years old. I have to look hard to find the scuffs and scratches on the outer shell.
\nI can see a dent with the lid closed.
\n\nBut not bad for a laptop over a decade old that’s had a few miles put on it.
\nOtherwise, I can’t complain about the cosmetics of this laptop.
\nI should have asked the seller about the condition of the battery. (And I wish the seller had disclosed that it needed replacing.) But I found a replacement battery for ~$30 on eBay. Replacing the battery was a breeze and probably took about 15 minutes. So all in all, not too shabby.
\nI seem to be getting around three hours of battery life between charges. That sounds weak when compared to newer laptops that routinely get well over 10 hours of battery life. But it’s way better than what I was getting with the old battery (I might have been lucky to have gotten an hour).
\nBut I’m rarely in a situation in which I absolutely must go more than three hours without charging. And if I’m in such a situation, keeping my computer running is probably not high on my list of priorities.
\nWhen people talk about old MacBooks, they often want to know whether the keyboard features butterfly switches or scissor switches. But when it comes to this keyboard, I instead find myself thinking about how I overlooked the fact that this keyboard doesn’t feature the standard American layout.
\n\nI bought some keyboard stickers for ~$6 on Amazon to help me out. And I’m adjusting to the small, oddly-shaped Enter key.
\nIt’s not perfect, but it’s nothing I can’t adapt to.
\nThis MacBook Air is officially supported only up to MacOS 10.15.7 (Catalina), which received its last update back in July 2022.
\nFor a while, I experimented with a few flavours of Linux. Solus OS was beautiful and smooth. But I got tired of dealing with the usual Linux issues. Certain apps aren’t available. I thought I could overcome the lack of iCloud support with the help of Syncthing, but every file change seemed to bring a wave of sync conflicts. I don’t want to put a ton of work into making Linux work for me on my personal desktop. I instead want to focus on writing and creating.
\nSo I settled on MacOS. Thanks to OpenCore Legacy Patcher, I was able to update to MacOS 12.7.2 (Monterey)1. I could have tried upgrading to Sonoma, but I decided to hold back to the oldest officially updated MacOS because this laptop has only 4GB RAM.
\nI’m quite impressed with the ease of installing an unsupported OS with OpenCore Legacy. So far, I have no issues to report. And it’s breathing new life into a perfectly capable device that Apple deems no longer worth updating.
\nThis laptop has some limitations, perhaps most notably the 4GB RAM.
\n4GB RAM may be fine for a Chromebook, but for most other computers, you really want at least 8GB. But if I’m honest about my needs, I could likely get by on 4GB RAM for a while yet.
\nThe duo-core CPU is also a bit of a concern.
\nUnfortunately, the RAM is soldered, so I can’t replace it. And replacing a CPU on a laptop is often equally hopeless. So I’m stuck with these limitations as long as I keep the laptop.
\nThe good news is that I’d wager I spend 80% of my computer time:
\nSo it’s not as if I need a beast of a machine for my daily use. Sure, it’d be nice to have more power. But I think I’ll get by just fine. If I do need a more capable computer, I’m lucky to have a newer Mac mini available.
\nI expect this laptop to serve me well as a secondary mobile machine for at least a couple extra years, at which point maybe I’ll replace it with a machine from 2015. Maybe 2016 if I really feel like splurging.
\n\nJake LaCaze really likes the idea of thrifting as he gets older.\n
\nThere’s no such thing as the average person, or so the wisdom goes.
\nThe logic says that if you were to create a profile of the average man or woman through a variety of factors—height, weight, income, weight, tolerance for Taylor Swift, etc.—you wouldn’t be able to find the real-live version of that person. (So, the next time your friend says they just wanna be average, let them know that they’re chasing one of the least attainable goals of all time.)
\nIf the average human ideal doesn’t exist in flesh, might it exist digitally? This idea has stuck with me since I heard Dennis Yi Tenen make the following point about generative AI—more specifically, large language models (LLMs)—on episode 265 of Douglas Ruskhoff’s Team Human podcast1:
\n\n\nIn a way, you’re having a conversation with an average . . . Imagine having a conversation with a thousand—or a hundred thousand—people, and I’m going to kind of average out the answer.
\n
AI is math. A lot of math done really fast. But it’s math. While LLMs appear to be capable of thinking, they’re in fact just guessing with math. When answering a prompt, LLMs try to predict the best answer based on the most probable outcomes based on its training data.
\nSo it appears that the developers of generative AI and LLMs have made average more accessible and more affordable, more quickly. And companies investing heavily into incorporating this technology into their everyday business may very well be investing a lot of time and money, and taking a lot of risk, for average.
\nAverage is not smart. Average doesn’t stand out. So, average is bad business. Might that same money be better spent on something that makes the business special and more competitive?
\nWith the help of LLMs, we’re one step closer to codifying average. In a matter of seconds after prompting, we can see what the average answer looks like for anything we’re curious about. If you need help just getting by, then average may be fine. But innovation and insight don’t emerge from average. Any Seth Godin2 fan knows that average is death for a business. Average means you can be easily swapped for another business.
\nMaybe average is fine for certain tasks that people are using LLMs for. But businesses should be sure that using generative AI helps them add real value elsewhere. Or, when all these businesses are using the same generative AI from the same small handful of vendors, they’ll most likely sound like every business in their niche.
\nWith the help of generative AI, it’s becoming easier to bring average to the masses. And if that’s all the AI community is doing, then how long until the bubble bursts and the industry falls back down to a healthier average in terms of valuation?
\n\nJake LaCaze is embarrassed to admit he's a middle-aged man who finds himself bouncing to Olivia Rodrigo tunes. 'vampire' is a banger, as the kids these days say. But it's also quite human.
\nIntegrating LLMs into your business may not be a quick fix.
\nLarge language models (LLMs) seem to be expensive, energy-hogging toys at this point. Some companies—most notably Microsoft—think integrating LLMs like ChatGPT into everyday business is a great idea. But I’m not so sure.
\nBelow are some concerns I have for businesses going all in on LLMs.
\nIt’s well known that LLMs make stuff up (AKA they hallucinate).
\nWhat’s the root of these hallucinations? Will an LLM hallucinate with your business' proprietary data? Does the amount of data processed by the LLM affect its likelihood to hallucinate? If so, what is that threshold? How much time do you expect employees to spend validating the LLMs claims? Is that cheaper than having a human do the work in the first place? Who, outside of AI developers, wants to babysit an LLM all day?
\nMost business reports are math heavy. People use Micorosft Excel almost exclusively for calculations. But LLMs struggle with basic math. (I shared a simple example on LinkedIn recently.(1)
\nHow can anyone trust an LLM to create crucial reports that may heavily rely on math? How can we know that the LLM understands these numbers?
\nLLMs are kind of like supercharged search engines. You put in a prompt (kind of like a search term) and you get a well-written answer. But what you get isn’t perfect, even if it’s 100% accurate.
\nLLMs tend to be verbiose and give way more information than needed (which also makes their claims harder to validate).
\nEvery industry has its jargon, and individual companies may even have unique jargon.
\nHow do these non-AI companies train LLMs for their needs and wants? How expensive is this training? How much time will it take?
\n\nJake LaCaze doesn't hate the idea of using AI where it works and is appropriate. But a career in oil and gas with a brief stint in marketing has made him wary of any hype.
\nAn example of Google Bard struggling with math (LinkedIn) ↩︎
\n