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I thought this would be about laptops. The laptops I use for work and personal stuff cost around $100 and are effectively disposable. They are not great for i

I thought this would be about laptops. The laptops I use for work and personal stuff cost around $100 and are effectively disposable. They are not great for intense use, but the vast majority of tasks go just fine. And when developing any serious slowdown shows up right away so my work ends up being usable on low end hardware with janky connections. When one of these laptops got stolen recently I just got another one, provisioned it using some scripts, restored my personal data, and that was that. Total loss was a little over a hundred dollars and a half day of work.

Nextgrid 4y ago
Same reason why I would never go for anything beyond the base model Macs. Losing/damaging the base model (~$1k) is something I can live with, less so to the fully-specced out $4k+ one. Not to mention that those aren't super reliable to begin with and given their anti-repair stance there is no cost-effective way to repair any eventual failures the way you can do on a PC.
a2800276 4y ago
I came here expecting the same :) Though I prefer used Thinkpads. There's a plentiful supply of leased machines. Instead of disposable, they are excellent quality & nicely repairable and upgradeable in nearly all aspects. (Screen resolution compared to macs has been annoying me, ....) And I get to be smug about using the more sustainability focused option :)
nickpeterson 4y ago
I’ve recently been trying a bit of an odd setup. I use an iPad on a stand with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and use blink shell to mosh to vultr openbsd hosts. It’s kind of nice in the sense that you have an iPad for when you need really mainstream support for something, and I’m thinking about switching to one with 5G for mobile work. I like the focus of having a terminal style device for hobby stuff.
Dalewyn 4y ago
>And when developing any serious slowdown shows up right away so my work ends up being usable on low end hardware with janky connections. A lot of modern software problems stem from developers having a powerfully detached understanding of reality.
- bayindirh 4y ago
  This is why I like "resource constrained programming" and demoscene. If I can make this work (fast) on a Raspberry Pi 3 or on older hardware, will work nicely on production systems.
- Syonyk 4y ago
  > A lot of modern software problems stem from developers having a powerfully detached understanding of reality. The best thing we could do for the internet is have developers at Google, Meta, etc, use a Raspberry Pi 4 or similar "gutless wonder ARM box" for one day a week. So often, I run into things they've written that, for no coherent reason, just run horribly on low end hardware. It was obviously written and toyed with on a Xeon workstation with multiple large 4k monitors, and, who would possibly use less? The Blogger rewrite rather irritates me, because it went from an old, usable, performant interface that ran totally fine on ancient netbooks to this weird, "mobile first" interface (for a blogging platform) that choked out even on high end hardware when you had a lot of photos in a post. Clearly, nobody who worked on it ever actually loaded it up, or used it on old hardware, and never actually talked to anyone who used it to blog, because it was filled with tons of "modern" UI crap that was objectively worse than the old interface for every conceivable task one might do when writing and editing blog posts. Kicked me off Blogger and onto my personally hosted Jekyll stuff, though, so I guess working as intended.
bluedino 4y ago
I like having a couple "junk" Thinkpads around, but I'm spoiled my "junk" Macbook's screen (older Retina model).
AlfredBarnes 4y ago
What laptops are you using that are only $100?
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  If I had to guess, various used laptops from a decade or so ago. For most practical applications, computing performance plateaued around 2011. Just look at how many people can't/won't use Windows 11 just because their ancient relic otherwise still works perfectly fine. And if you want a source, anecdata is I'm posting this from an i7 2700K (aka Sandy Bridge) machine.
  - AlfredBarnes 4y ago
    Thanks, time to look into older machines.
    - yourusername 4y ago
      Look into business laptops by HP/Dell/Lenovo. You can still easily get parts for them (keyboards/batteries/chargers) they are well built, have easy to find driverpacks from the OEM and were more the most part lightly used and only retired because the lease is up or the latest version of windows doesn't officially support it. You can get very good condition 4th/5th gen intel core laptops for around $150.
  - swilliamsio 4y ago
    If you want a source, Steam Hardware Survey[0] somewhat agrees with what you're saying, especially when taking in to account that gamers would have better specs than average. [0] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...
- mdbauman 4y ago
  Chromebooks that are a couple years old seem to run pretty cheap, especially refurbished. Installing Linux is simple enough, although some (all?) have non-standard key layouts which can require some additional setup to get working comfortably. I've had a few of these over the years that I take to coffee shops/bars to work. It's nice not to feel nervous about a $1000+ investment just because the server is coming around to refresh my water.
numpad0 4y ago
Why is it assumed that software developer can identify and solve problems only by artificially forced to experience it firsthand and be personally frustrated - why modern software stacks keep getting buried into layers of convenience wrappers and no one cares? What would be the steps to solve it? I don't think Moore's law is solely to the blame. Incentives are lacking, spoken languages and software development methodologies are still too primitive to describe and define temporal behaviors, and, I suspect there are also disincentives to solve it - slower software seems to be preferred for the mass, and so each times significant speedups are achieved, a correctional force could be emerging and applying over it.
cyrialize 4y ago
My main laptop used to be a Thinkpad T530 from 2012 that I bought used off of eBay. I ran Linux. I never worried about it at all. There's holes in the keyboard and through the laptop to deal with liquid spills. The case was a nice hard plastic with enough flex to prevent breaking. Honestly, if I dropped it on the floor - I'd check the floor first for any damage. Taking it apart was straightforward, albeit a bit frustrating. I found the MBP mid-2012 unibodys much, much easier to take apart and clean. I recently decided to upgrade and bought a M1 MBP Pro off of a college kid wanting to get a gaming laptop. It's a huge upgrade and I actually find myself loving MacOS. Everything feels so nice and looks so nice. But now I am just terrified for this laptop. It has a hard case. I'm meticulous about a clean keyboard and screen (fingerprint magnet). I keep any and all liquids very, very far away. I never place it anywhere where there may be dust. I sometimes wonder if the stress is worth it. I'm tempted to buy myself an X220 or something else in the X series since the T530 was heavy to lug around.
- tiledjinn 4y ago
  i've been using an x230 for _years_ for light work and side projects. you can mod an x220 keyboard in it if that's your thing. pretty sure it uses the same dock as the t530 haven't really found a need or desire to upgrade beyond maxing the ram and shoving an ssd in it.
- alexjplant 4y ago
  I've had Thinkpads for the last 20 years of my life. I presently have an M1 Air for music production and a used T480 - great combo. I've found the MacBook to be fairly durable in spite of all the horror stories that I've heard over the years about cracked screens and so forth, so my plan is to buy an M3 Pro when they come out and throw Asahi on my M1. Unfortunately new Thinkpads just aren't what they used to be given the compelling value prop of Apple silicon but I'll happily continue buying used ones for $150 a pop.
- gigaflop 4y ago
  I have similar feelings whenever I get something that's 'nice, new, shiny'. I feel an urge to protect/preserve it as best as possible, and worry more than I should. One time, I bought a fancy wallet made of stainless steel (threads, woven into thin sheets, backed by plastic). For MONTHS, I was paranoid about leaving any scratches or blemishes on such a pristine, shiny thing. Years later, it's still my wallet, and has enough blemishes and scratches for me to not care as much. One new scratch or blemish would be unnoticeable among the others. It still holds itself together just fine, and it still has the 'slippery' in-pocket texture that I like. Point being, as long as you take decent care of Your Precious, it'll be fine with the exterior wear and tear. I've also got a $4k-ish ring made with white gold, and it came with a fucking mirror-like polish. Tiny scratches or dings were 'End of the world", until I was able to identify "inside" and "outside" orientation via a small blemish on one side.
sergiotapia 4y ago
I'm using an M2 macbook pro and our typescript project is slow to start, slow to restart after a code change. It routinely leaves orphaned node processes running at 100% CPU. I shudder to think what it would do to a $100 notebook. It would probably explode hahaha But for Elixir yes, I could definitely use a cheap laptop.
lufte 4y ago
I like Drew's take on this https://drewdevault.com/2019/01/23/Why-I-use-old-hardware.html https://drewdevault.com/2019/01/23/Why-I-use-old-hardware.ht...

Nextgrid 4y ago

Same reason why I would never go for anything beyond the base model Macs. Losing/damaging the base model (~$1k) is something I can live with, less so to the fully-specced out $4k+ one. Not to mention that those aren't super reliable to begin with and given their anti-repair stance there is no cost-effective way to repair any eventual failures the way you can do on a PC.

a2800276 4y ago

I came here expecting the same :) Though I prefer used Thinkpads. There's a plentiful supply of leased machines. Instead of disposable, they are excellent quality & nicely repairable and upgradeable in nearly all aspects. (Screen resolution compared to macs has been annoying me, ....) And I get to be smug about using the more sustainability focused option :)

nickpeterson 4y ago

I’ve recently been trying a bit of an odd setup. I use an iPad on a stand with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and use blink shell to mosh to vultr openbsd hosts. It’s kind of nice in the sense that you have an iPad for when you need really mainstream support for something, and I’m thinking about switching to one with 5G for mobile work. I like the focus of having a terminal style device for hobby stuff.

Dalewyn 4y ago

>And when developing any serious slowdown shows up right away so my work ends up being usable on low end hardware with janky connections. A lot of modern software problems stem from developers having a powerfully detached understanding of reality.

bayindirh 4y ago
This is why I like "resource constrained programming" and demoscene. If I can make this work (fast) on a Raspberry Pi 3 or on older hardware, will work nicely on production systems.
Syonyk 4y ago
> A lot of modern software problems stem from developers having a powerfully detached understanding of reality. The best thing we could do for the internet is have developers at Google, Meta, etc, use a Raspberry Pi 4 or similar "gutless wonder ARM box" for one day a week. So often, I run into things they've written that, for no coherent reason, just run horribly on low end hardware. It was obviously written and toyed with on a Xeon workstation with multiple large 4k monitors, and, who would possibly use less? The Blogger rewrite rather irritates me, because it went from an old, usable, performant interface that ran totally fine on ancient netbooks to this weird, "mobile first" interface (for a blogging platform) that choked out even on high end hardware when you had a lot of photos in a post. Clearly, nobody who worked on it ever actually loaded it up, or used it on old hardware, and never actually talked to anyone who used it to blog, because it was filled with tons of "modern" UI crap that was objectively worse than the old interface for every conceivable task one might do when writing and editing blog posts. Kicked me off Blogger and onto my personally hosted Jekyll stuff, though, so I guess working as intended.

bluedino 4y ago

I like having a couple "junk" Thinkpads around, but I'm spoiled my "junk" Macbook's screen (older Retina model).

AlfredBarnes 4y ago

What laptops are you using that are only $100?

Dalewyn 4y ago
If I had to guess, various used laptops from a decade or so ago. For most practical applications, computing performance plateaued around 2011. Just look at how many people can't/won't use Windows 11 just because their ancient relic otherwise still works perfectly fine. And if you want a source, anecdata is I'm posting this from an i7 2700K (aka Sandy Bridge) machine.
- AlfredBarnes 4y ago
  Thanks, time to look into older machines.
  - yourusername 4y ago
    Look into business laptops by HP/Dell/Lenovo. You can still easily get parts for them (keyboards/batteries/chargers) they are well built, have easy to find driverpacks from the OEM and were more the most part lightly used and only retired because the lease is up or the latest version of windows doesn't officially support it. You can get very good condition 4th/5th gen intel core laptops for around $150.
- swilliamsio 4y ago
  If you want a source, Steam Hardware Survey[0] somewhat agrees with what you're saying, especially when taking in to account that gamers would have better specs than average. [0] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...
mdbauman 4y ago
Chromebooks that are a couple years old seem to run pretty cheap, especially refurbished. Installing Linux is simple enough, although some (all?) have non-standard key layouts which can require some additional setup to get working comfortably. I've had a few of these over the years that I take to coffee shops/bars to work. It's nice not to feel nervous about a $1000+ investment just because the server is coming around to refresh my water.

numpad0 4y ago

Why is it assumed that software developer can identify and solve problems only by artificially forced to experience it firsthand and be personally frustrated - why modern software stacks keep getting buried into layers of convenience wrappers and no one cares? What would be the steps to solve it? I don't think Moore's law is solely to the blame. Incentives are lacking, spoken languages and software development methodologies are still too primitive to describe and define temporal behaviors, and, I suspect there are also disincentives to solve it - slower software seems to be preferred for the mass, and so each times significant speedups are achieved, a correctional force could be emerging and applying over it.

cyrialize 4y ago

My main laptop used to be a Thinkpad T530 from 2012 that I bought used off of eBay. I ran Linux. I never worried about it at all. There's holes in the keyboard and through the laptop to deal with liquid spills. The case was a nice hard plastic with enough flex to prevent breaking. Honestly, if I dropped it on the floor - I'd check the floor first for any damage. Taking it apart was straightforward, albeit a bit frustrating. I found the MBP mid-2012 unibodys much, much easier to take apart and clean. I recently decided to upgrade and bought a M1 MBP Pro off of a college kid wanting to get a gaming laptop. It's a huge upgrade and I actually find myself loving MacOS. Everything feels so nice and looks so nice. But now I am just terrified for this laptop. It has a hard case. I'm meticulous about a clean keyboard and screen (fingerprint magnet). I keep any and all liquids very, very far away. I never place it anywhere where there may be dust. I sometimes wonder if the stress is worth it. I'm tempted to buy myself an X220 or something else in the X series since the T530 was heavy to lug around.

tiledjinn 4y ago
i've been using an x230 for _years_ for light work and side projects. you can mod an x220 keyboard in it if that's your thing. pretty sure it uses the same dock as the t530 haven't really found a need or desire to upgrade beyond maxing the ram and shoving an ssd in it.
alexjplant 4y ago
I've had Thinkpads for the last 20 years of my life. I presently have an M1 Air for music production and a used T480 - great combo. I've found the MacBook to be fairly durable in spite of all the horror stories that I've heard over the years about cracked screens and so forth, so my plan is to buy an M3 Pro when they come out and throw Asahi on my M1. Unfortunately new Thinkpads just aren't what they used to be given the compelling value prop of Apple silicon but I'll happily continue buying used ones for $150 a pop.
gigaflop 4y ago
I have similar feelings whenever I get something that's 'nice, new, shiny'. I feel an urge to protect/preserve it as best as possible, and worry more than I should. One time, I bought a fancy wallet made of stainless steel (threads, woven into thin sheets, backed by plastic). For MONTHS, I was paranoid about leaving any scratches or blemishes on such a pristine, shiny thing. Years later, it's still my wallet, and has enough blemishes and scratches for me to not care as much. One new scratch or blemish would be unnoticeable among the others. It still holds itself together just fine, and it still has the 'slippery' in-pocket texture that I like. Point being, as long as you take decent care of Your Precious, it'll be fine with the exterior wear and tear. I've also got a $4k-ish ring made with white gold, and it came with a fucking mirror-like polish. Tiny scratches or dings were 'End of the world", until I was able to identify "inside" and "outside" orientation via a small blemish on one side.

sergiotapia 4y ago

I'm using an M2 macbook pro and our typescript project is slow to start, slow to restart after a code change. It routinely leaves orphaned node processes running at 100% CPU. I shudder to think what it would do to a $100 notebook. It would probably explode hahaha But for Elixir yes, I could definitely use a cheap laptop.

lufte 4y ago

I like Drew's take on this https://drewdevault.com/2019/01/23/Why-I-use-old-hardware.html https://drewdevault.com/2019/01/23/Why-I-use-old-hardware.ht...