These are cool laptops. But, after getting a decent config (32gb ram, 1tb ssd, 7 series chip), the price is ~$2300. At that point, a MacBook Pro seems like a better choice. I'd not want to develop on anything less than that config. The selling point seems to be the Linux + Framework brand + highly customizable machine you can actually own
I've always wondered if these laptops can scale beyond the enthusiast group. If so, how?
I am sure many will jump in here to talk about the upgradability story, but for me personally I do not think of Macbooks as a serious alternative either way. Even if I could get over not being able to replace my hard drive or RAM, I would still have to be OK using a proprietary OS I can't control, designed by people who just want to keep extracting my money ultimately.
Having something called an "App Store" on my personal laptop I can't remove.. I'd deal with having 4gb of RAM before I lived that reality.
So I got a 13" MacBook Air recently. It didn't require me to log into iCloud, but I did cause I wanted some things synced, which is free cause I'm not uploading photos. I don't buy anything from the Mac App Store cause why. The OS lets me run anything I want on it. The hardware technically doesn't care what OS it runs, though nothing else really works unless you count Asahi. In what way am I locked into generating them more money?
This is the current building being built that I talk about. Notice (1) the two layers of paint, and (2) bolts being used instead of welds compared to the steel structure photos in the essay
I went down memory lane. In 2020, I dropped out of Dartmouth, flew back to Nepal on the second flight after borders reopened, and spent a year doing things I never expected.
One of them: building one of the first three-story I-beam steel structures in Far West Nepal. No local expertise. No supply chain. A crew that had never done it before. We figured it out anyway.
a catalog for all deliverables ever made by consultants so that they can search semantically among slides from differnt projects and more effectively reuse their previous slides in new projects
It has an ingestion layer where we break apart a project, it's deck and it's slides into relationships like frameworks/visual archetypes, and then save that in a graph database plus a vector database. The user can then query "find me work we've done on geology research that might be relevant to industrial mining"
At our apartment in the South End in Boston (2023-2024), we had a nice backyard where me and my roommate would host a lot of parties. Some were more successful than others. In particular, one event (dubbed 727 for being on 7-27) was particularly unsuccessful. My good friend and DJ came to visit and we did a B2B backyard sesh. The music was amazing, vibes immaculate but we lacked the crowd. Looking back, our biggest mistakes were:
1. asking people to come at 2 PM on a weekend and saying party will go till 7 PM. There is a limit to expectations, as I have learned
2. not using Partiful or Luma (Apple Invites wasn't a thing back then) so we could never really remind people or confirm people. Plus, many flaked (~40%) or arrived very late (~70%)
3. not making the party interesting enough for 22-24 year olds - many flaked :(
4. not following rules 8 and 9 as mentioned here (whom to or not to invite given a group)
Some tips that worked for us in other parties:
1) Be very generous with drinks, make good ones and buy good beer/wine, avoid temptation to venmo request afterwards (please don't). atithi devo bhava
2) Have something to do. For us it was Dartmouth pong in our backyard lol
3) Have a good vibe
One major pro tip not mentioned: if inviting a girl you want to impress, learn to mix drinks and songs ;)
A good shake goes a long way...
It is not a question of what, but a question of why.
Why do autocrats rise to power? Why are far-right parties rising in power in Germany, France, Spain and Portugal?
I've come to see this as a fundamental human nature one can't go against. Some people are, just evil. Humans will always love self more than others. This love of self can turn into a hatred of others, or easily be turned into a hatred of others.
Acceptance that evil forces and opportunitists and populists will always be around us is the first step in asnwering what is to be done
If the closest you can get to understanding populists is “some humans are just evil and selfish”, a large part of humanity will remain mysterious and unreachable to you.
I think everyone understands tribalism to some extent. You would probably expend more effort to protect your child than you would a stranger. Populism just turns up the knob on this instinct.
Calling people who hold beliefs you find wrong "evil" is, IMO, counter-productive and will lead not only to conflict but to worse outcomes for yourself (even if your side "wins"). The root of cultural differences (both within and between societies and sub-cultures) are differing beliefs of what is right and wrong; what is morally good and morally bad.
What you view as hateful, others will view as loving. And what you view as loving, others can view as hateful. Painting the opposition in simplistic terms like "evil" and refusing to even try to see why they feel they way they feel solves nothing and empowers extremists. And when groups led by such people "win", the majority still lose.
IMO, any side of any belief, be it individualism vs collectivism, atheism vs religion, sexual openness vs sexual restraint, free speech vs censorship, capitalism vs socialism, etc, etc. can easily morph into something harmful. You may have discovered "evil", but after many decades, I've come to see that most people's hearts are in the right place. But there are always a significant fraction on any side of any issue that, for whatever reason, cannot regulate their emotions and seem to need to strive for the extremes.
Compromise can happen if you reject extremists. Solutions can be found if you understand that the extremists on your own side are as much the opposition as the other side of an issue. Purity of belief always seems attractive on the surface. But moderation is not a cop out, it's pragmatism. Moderation is the practical philosophy through which solutions can be found. Fundamentalism, extremism, dogmatism, are approaches that lead to worse outcomes. Moderation leads to better outcomes. History has shown this again and again.
I've always wondered if these laptops can scale beyond the enthusiast group. If so, how?