simonheb

Finding a topic/scope

• Consider starting from a topic you really care about, even if it doesn't strike you as "econ". Most socially/politically relevant topics can be studied from an econ perspecitve, and you'll enjoy the thesis more if you actually care.
• Do not aim too high. Find a topic that allows you to show the skills you acquired using a relevant research question. Conclusively closing a literature gap is an unrealistic expectation.
• Finding a research questions is hard. It's a major part of doing research. How hard the rest is depends entirely on how good a research question you have.
• For empirical theses, it helps to start from existing papers and expand their analyses with different data, alternative estimators, ...
• There are thousands of public data sets. E.g., DHS micro survey data, "Data is Plural" archive, [the world bank microdata catalog (e.g., arabbarometer

simonheb

Get a 5.12 Linux kernel with support for newer Intel hardware (e.g., Intel Iris Xe for Thinkpad X1 Titanium Yoga) on Ubuntu/Debian/Pop!_OS

Prologue: Do I need this?

I recently got a Thinkpad sporting an Intel® Core™ i5-1140G7 Processor 11. gen (1,80 GHz, Turbo Boost, 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 8 MB Cache with an Integrated Intel® Iris® Xe. Sadly graphics drivers did not work out-of-the-box and also not with the latets 5.12 kernel from xenmod. You can tell it's not working when graphics are slow, backlight adjustment buttons don't work and this is the output of inxi -G (you might need to sudo apt install inxi):

simon@pop-os:~$ inxi -G
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel driver: N/A 
  Device-2: IMC Networks Integrated Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: fbdev unloaded: modesetting,vesa 
 resolution: 2256x1504~95Hz