I think the beautiful realization these

days is that you're allowed more than

one computer.

You don't have to have a single machine.

And in fact, this is what the whole open

claw phenomenon has spurred on that a

bunch of people just went out and bought

a Mac Mini because they specifically

wanted to run their claw on that Mac

Mini. You could do the same thing as a

Linux developer. That's certainly what I

do. I have more computers than I care to

count. Some of them are still Macs. It's

wild because this there's I think

there's a mental block. I used to buy or

get through my my

my company or or buy for myself every

two or three years a new laptop. And I

just look back. I have a Mac like a

MacBook Air

that is in 2020, that's 6 years ago. And

it works great. Yes. And I walked into

the Mac store the other day and I

thought, huh, there's this new computer

like oh no I

immediately my first thought was I

shouldn't get it because it works.

Right.

>> But when I did the maths of how much

this thing costs and you know like my

hourly rate as as a dev, it's such a

no-brainer. And there's still this

mental block and I was thinking of you

know trying out Windows or or Linux and

I think there's a mental mental but I'm

not sure if I'm alone with this but I'm

not used to my laptop not being

utilized. I think I've been conditioned

for this for so long. So maybe it's

something we need to let go a little

bit. We do need to let go of that. In

many ways, it's an I'm not just going to

push it to the point for the comedic

effect but it's a poverty mindset. It's

a poverty mindset to think I am only

allotted the one CPU and that's all I'm

allowed to use which is of course

nonsense because if you are developers

certainly one working with the web,

you're already using a million CPUs. All

these computers are already working for

you whether you're in chat GPT on the

web or you're running some other web

app. Like that's not magic. That's

computers. And you have a slice of that

so you are allowed more than one

computer in the home. The other thing I

find is computers are just fun and you

should have a variety of them. If you

care about them. Like I like watches and

if I thought that I was only permitted a

single watch, that hobby would be a

little boring. You could find the

perfect watch and you could be happy

with that watch but it's a little more

fun if you're allowed a degree of

variety. And I think

that's what I actually had to escape the

Apple walled garden to realize because

I'd been inside the Apple

bubble for so long that I'd kind of

forgotten that different kinds of

computers existed that I could own and

use. So when 2 years ago or so,

the final straw finally broke the

camel's back on my relationship with

Apple, it was just like the doors had

been opened to a much broader world. And

at first the sun was a little bright

like I was stepping out of some dungeon

and I realized, oh my gosh, there's all

these different things. And just as a

fan of technology to realize for

example, you can have a big screen that

runs at 240 hertz. Like that technology

does not exist in the Mac world. Apple

does not offer a product that has 240

hertz. So if you like competitive

gaming, seeing that sort of for the

first time is a little startling because

you are under this or I was certainly

under this illusion that I well Apple,

if they don't have it right now, they'll

eventually get to it and if they don't

get to it, it's probably not worth

having at all. Which really is a very

deprived mindset where you fall in love

with the cave you're in. That's not to

say that Apple doesn't make cool stuff.

Like I loved the announcement they did

with the MacBook Neo.

I love when companies are pushing

certain angles to the point that all

their competitors get a little worried.

And the Neo to me, this really cheap Mac

that's still quite good is a wonderful

entrant into the party.

By the same token, I've been so excited

about the comeback of Intel that

Gelsinger's 5-year plan to get to 18A,

their new production node just so that

they could produce a competitive chip

with what Apple is doing with Panther

Lake is really inspiring to see. And

it's actually a bit sad I find that when

I talk about this on X,

the partisanship is so close to the

surface that if you like Apple products,

it's almost like you have to hate a PC.

You have to poo-poo on Panther Lake for

example, even though it's a major

achievement for a proud American

institution like Apple. They built the

chips in Arizona. Like we should all be

cheering for the success of what they've

accomplished regardless of whether we're

going to run it or not. But it's funny

because it's also one of those things

like the the bike shed where when the

stakes are the lowest, we argue the most

fierce. And the stakes are very low when

you have an Apple computer and you don't

want to think about whether there's a

better alternative for you or even other

people and then you just go like, let me

just close my eyes and say

Apple can't be beat. Again, I say that

as someone who has tremendous respect

for what that company has built even if

I don't have so much respect for how

they conduct themselves as a business

today when it comes to gatekeeping and

the app stores and all the other

nonsense. But just as a technical

achievement, I was the biggest

cheerleader for the M chips because they

completely reset the board of what was

possible in a mobile computer. Yep. And

we should all be excited about that. If

you love computers, you should love

CPUs. You should love CPU progress. I

find the same thing now with Qualcomm.

For some reason, again, an American

company doing amazing things powering

the bulk of computers in the world if

you just count the fact that Android is

the dominant It is. platform on mobile

computers, on pocket computers,

then why are we not excited about that?

Again, what? Because you see some petty

rivalry with your favorite brand? That

just seems stupid to me. And the X 2

Elite is another chip that's caught up

even more actually than Panther Lake is

on an ARM architecture with Apple's

offerings. And shouldn't we be excited?

Even if you don't want any of the stuff,

you should love competition because

competition makes things better and

cheaper. So Apple feeling a little bit

of a heat that the rest of the industry

after five meager years finally starts

giving them some challenge is something

we should all celebrate. But we don't. A

lot of us don't. A lot of people don't.

I try to do. I try to

have some metacognition going whenever I

have a reaction to something one way or

the other and go like, is that just

because it's my team doing this or is it

because I genuinely dislike what's going

on? And then often times I'll catch

myself in the same kind of partisanship

that's playing out here and go, you know

what?

No. I am not going to fall into that

trap.

I'm going to revert to my base model

here. My base model is I love computers.

I love playing with computers. I love

having fun with computers. I love being

productive with computers. I love

wasting time on computers. Just sitting

in front of that deliciously

creamy thocky mechanical keyboard in the

morning

is a joy. And we should be eternally

grateful that this is still a thing

we're able to do.

Which may come to an end in a few years

that like that's just not the form

factor anymore. We look at these

pictures of old monkeys typing at the

typewriter and go like, remember when

computing used to be like that? I'm

going to enjoy every last moment we have

of it. One thing that we might be just

you know it's popular to hate on other

computers that you don't use because we

don't use them. So what are some

computers that you found laptops or or

other other ones that you like that you

know just give us some ideas like if if

if you want to go around shopping either

for something for gaming to have fun to

see to see that it's not just the

console that you can do it or for work?

The computers I've had a lot of fun with

recently has been laptops. When I first

got into Linux, I had a Framework Laptop

13. It's great machine.

>> where you can assemble it, right?

>> assemble it. You actually have to

assemble it. Most of the offerings you

buy is a GUI package and you have to put

it together yourself. So it's a little

bit like a Lego kit. It only takes about

5 minutes but there's a sense of

ownership and a sense of IKEA effect.

Did you like this computer a little more

because you put it together yourself?

And I think it's still a great machine

but it's not the only great machine that

you can run Linux on. And in the last

few months, I've tried a bunch. And

partly because I've been really excited

about some new technology. One of those

things which is actually not that new

but again, to a person who'd been using

first Macs for a long time and then that

Framework computer for a long time, all

have either IPS or microLED panels,

seeing an OLED screen for the first time

to me was astounding. I did not even

realize that colors for games could look

that good. Which is a little weird

because I have an OLED TV. And OLED TVs

look great but you sit quite far from

them.

The

vivid nature of sitting, I don't know,

30 centimeters from a OLED display and

playing Fortnite or playing Arc Raiders

or playing one of these other games.

Actually, I would call out Fortnite

here. I've been a mega fan of Fortnite

for a long time. I've played literally

hundreds of hours with my kids squads

but now I even just play by myself even

without the kids. It's just such a vivid

game. It is such a beautiful test case

for OLED. So I got first the ASUS

Zephyrus G14 which is a beautiful laptop

in all the ways that

the Framework feels more like a home

built shed which is adorable, right?

Like I put this shed together myself.

It's really nice. I can appreciate it.

Great machine especially for

productivity. I like the 3.2 aspect

ratio and all that stuff just for code.

But when it comes to games, it's not the

greatest machine. It's not meant for

that. They have another offering, not

the biggest fan of the 16 they have, but

for that Zephyrus, with that OLED

display, with that beautiful case, with

that sort of gamer aesthetic without

going overboard, which is a very fine

line. There's a lot of gaming machines

where all the lights are just constantly

pulsating and you're like, "Am I

tripping or is this just a machine?"

But,

ASUS really have found a nice way to tow

that line. They have this uh they're

called the slash on the back of it,

which is this LED strip that you can

program to have different patterns. I'm

like, "That's pretty cool." And then it

does have the LED

or RGB keyboard backlighting, which you

can sync with other things. So, I

actually built it in after I got that

machine,

I built it into Amachi. Then when you

change your theme, the keyboard

backlighting will change with it. So,

you change to Tokyo night and it's a

nice sort of purple background. You take

change to Nord and it's a light, cool,

gray and blue.

So, that's been a lot of fun. It's been

a great machine. And then just very

recently, I had the good um

pleasure of uh bothering Michael Dell

because I got connected with him when we

did our big cloud exit a few years ago.

We've been a Dell shop on the server

side for you bought Dell servers. Yes.

And then when we moved out of the cloud,

we bought like two pallets worth of Dell

servers to run everything ourselves. And

I was quite public about our cloud exit

and it got a lot of attention at the

time and

not surprisingly, Michael Dell also

thought that was a great idea to buy a

bunch of servers and stick them in your

data center. So, we struck up a

conversation and now that I saw their

latest line of laptops, the XPS, with

those Panther Lake chips, with the new

tandem OLED screen technology, I just

completely shamelessly reached out on an

old conversation from back at the cloud

exit thing like, "Hey Michael,

could you send me one? Could I get one?

I really want to try this new setup

because I'm excited about that Intel

chip as we talked about, but also just

really excited about the tandem OLED

screens given the fact I'd had that

great experience with the ASUS. So,

that's been the machine I've been

running for the last couple of weeks.

It's still a pre-production unit. Not

all the compatibility's there, but it's

also fun to be part of that process. In

a way I could never dream of having a

relationship like that with Apple.

Apple,

to all their credit, is very much the

ivory tower, right? Like they're locked

in there. They don't really collaborate

with others in this way. They're just

themselves. And that's great. That's

wonderful we have that

gleaming tower on the hill over there. I

wish their behavior in other matters

would be a little more admirable and we

could, without reservation, just have

admiration for that customer for that

company. Now it has quite a lot of

asterisks next to it.

But either way,

with Dell, they just immediately like,

"Hey, yeah. Here's Here's a machine.

Here's an engineer who's currently

working on Linux compatibility. Do you

want to help?" And

of course I want to help. So, I'm

instantly diving in. How do we diagnose

this? How do we make it work with the

Linux kernel? What do we have to do to

get all the different things working

just right? This is still frontier stuff

in terms of driver compatibility and so

forth. It's just been a blast. And then

the machine is just amazing. It's a

16-in that XPS that weighs 1.6 kilos. No

way. It feels like it's funny because I

still have a MacBook Pro 16 in as well,

which is well over 2 kilos. You hold

these two things next to each other and

you get this appreciation for weight.

That is quite funny because you think in

your head like, "400 g, how much is

that? 500 g, 600 g." It's like, "That's

not a big deal. This is a computer." Uh

no, it's a big deal. The difference

between that it just feels like they're

different categories of devices.

And it's funny to me because um this is

what Jonathan Ive was always all about.

He was about thinness, he was about

lightness.

And he probably pushed it a little too

far.

That

butterfly keyboard debacle that plagued

the MacBooks for literally 5 years with

an incredible failure rate that came out

of that was a

reflection of that maniacal

optimization. Can we shave a millimeter?

And in technical circles, that has been

universally panned, right? Like, "Just

give me something that's twice as heavy

and twice as fat if you can give me a

bigger battery or a bigger CPU."

Shut up, nerd. Like there are other

things that matter. And I say that to

myself as much as anyone, right? Because

I could hear myself say that like, "Why

did you put in such a

crappy keyboard

to just shave off 2 mm?"

And you realize it's actually the wrong

question to pose. The right question is,

"No, no. Please keep shaving off every

millimeter because it really does

matter. Every 100 g really does matter.

But, do it while you keep a functional

keyboard, please. Thank you." XPS with

Dell's new tech you're seeing much

closer to that. I still don't 100% love

that keyboard. It's It's flush with the

board. I should actually have brought it

so you could see it. So, it's flush with

the panel. The keys go straight across.

So,

if you turned off the lights and ran

your finger across, you wouldn't be able

to tell.

Which is a little odd. It has a

surprising amount of satisfying travel,

but it's a little strange getting used

to your fingers laying on a almost like

a table and then you're pushing down

into the table rather than slightly

raised. I thought I was going to hate

it. To be perfectly honest, when I first

saw it, I thought like, "Ugh."

And then I realized, "Oh, I don't." It's

not my favorite keyboard, but I don't

hate it and uh it was just a

illustration that

having a goal like getting the keyboard

or getting the computer to be lighter

and slimmer,

that's not the problem. It's all in the

execution. So, I actually

want to commend Ive for being so focused

on it. Yeah, there were some misses

along the way. So freaking what? Now

we're here today and these computers

exist. And now the weird thing is that

for me, the MacBook is the bulky one.

Like it was always the inverse.