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The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer
- rilut 3y agoDoes anybody have experience with printers with Windows on ARM? How are the drivers situation?
- tracker1 3y agoGood question... personally I've been using hp laser printers over network for years and they work with everything I've used. Windows, Mac, Linux, Android phones and tablets without issue.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoWill these things boot to Linux?
- jeroenhd 3y agoLinux 6.0 and higher supposedly support the device. The system boots using EFI so as long as you can get a compatible kernel and the right firmware, it should work. Based on this: https://blog.rymcg.tech/blog/linux/thinkpad-x13s/ https://blog.rymcg.tech/blog/linux/thinkpad-x13s/ GPU support seems to have issues, which is a shame. That was written a few months ago, though.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoYeah, tough. I will wait to see if somebody more explicitly Linux-friendly makes a good workstation class ARM (or better, RISC-V even) laptop, because I've had nothing but problems with my Thinkpad Z13 Gen 1 Radeon/Ryzen and Lenovo is in my bad books. I had a M2 MBP issued for work by my previous job and it really was excellent; performance and battery life. But I'd have a hard time giving up Linux, and I'd worry about installation of Linux on hardware like that always being second-class.
- tracker1 3y agoFor me, don't mind mac so much as do wish I could stick to the linux/windows keyboard bindings I'm used to. Rosetta2 and docker have come a long way since i got my m1 as well.
- sys_64738 3y agoCan you use WSL2?
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y agoThere's two groups wanting Linux: One wants access to Linux tooling and will almost certainly have a good experience with WSL/2. The other group wants to not run Windows, so WSL in any form is mostly useless.
- jeroenhd 3y ago> Other tools, such as MySQL, node, git, etc. have no issue when running under emulation, at least in the context of development I'm surprised the author is using these under emulation. Surely they'd run at completely native performance if you just rub the through WSL2? Linux distributions have had ARM based distributions for ages.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoIt may be because he couldn't get IntelliJ to work native in a way that let him access WSL, ("It also wasn't able to access WSL, meaning I was locked out of using Linux tooling all together.") So that tooling was awkward. If he was stuck using windows, maybe best bet would have been to run an X server and run IntelliJ etc inside WSL itself.
- dantaro 3y agoHi, author here, you are correct! WSL tooling was locked out for a long time due to IntelliJ not being able to access WSL until the native build came down. Unfortunately, WSL on ARM still has some bugs around the VM hard locking itself when waking from sleep. It's frustrating, because when it does work it's fantastic.
- jeroenhd 3y agoHave you tried a standard VM? It sucks that WSL2 isn't working right yet, but IntelliJ has some pretty extensive tooling for working over a (virtual) network. It's possible that the sleep issue plagues normal VMs as well, but maybe it's worth a shot? You'd lose out on things like hardware accelerated graphics but reading your description it sounds like that's not really something you rely on anyway.
- dantaro 3y agoI do run ubuntu 22.04 in a VM, it works fine for things that aren't graphical and it has the usual performance penalties that come with connecting via a RDP connection, but it's a nice alternative when I need it. I haven't tried IntelliJ via virtual network to the VM though, that's a novel idea, I'll give it a go!
- rhamzeh 3y agoI'd be much more interested in the Linux situation on this laptop. Most of the UI applications I use casually or CLI apps are available on ARM (I have them running fine on a Pinephone, so the experience on a laptop will only be better). But not sure how the dev workflow would be: Podman, IntelliJ, Sublime Text, etc.. And some casual stuff like Calibre, Thunderbird, Joplin. Oh and how much would the battery life improvement be. I already get 4~5+ hours on my 5 year old Thinkpad, so an improvement to 6 hours is not really worth it. How is the BIOS and openness on these systems? I always heard the arm laptops are way more locked down than the x86 ones.
- nirui 3y agoSame where wondering if it performs the same/better under Linux. I imagine the battery life could be better under Linux based on my experience with Windows 11 on my own laptop, I mean, the fans don't even spin up that often under Linux unlike the near constant fan chorus Windows gives me. Also, a computer without a single fan so I can comfortably use it on my bed? With possibility to replace it's SSD? It sounded a lot like my next laptop.
- gyulai 3y ago> performs the same/better under Linux ...yeah, I was wondering that too. This seems like a job for a Gentoo system, compiled from the ground up with "-march=native". Would love to know how that would turn out performance-wise, in comparison to Windows.
- LoganDark 3y agoThere's also KISS Linux, which I find quite approachable compared to Gentoo. I know, sounds totally backwards, but I think it's really cool how simple it is to manage your repositories and make your own packages. And yes, you recompile the whole system with `-march=native` during the install process :) GKISS if you want glibc.
- jklinger410 3y ago> imagine the battery life could be better under Linux based on my experience with Windows 11 on my own laptop God, I have experienced the exact opposite with Linux on laptops. Battery management is so bad I am considering moving to a Macbook.
- jimaek 3y agoI can't wait for proper high end ARM laptops with Microsoft's backing and support. I'm like the author, I consider the M MacBooks very impressive but I dislike the OS itself. And it was very unexpected that Chrome underperform so much, without it it's a complete deal breaker for me.
- throwaway2990 3y agoWhy? Chrome is such a terrible browser to begin with. How is it a deal breaker?
- kybernetikos 3y agoI can't speak to the GPs reasons, but Chrome has a large enough user-base that anyone building for the web is going to want to at least test their work in it.
- jasaldivara 3y agoIn my own experience, Chromium browser (which is the base for Google Chrome) works much better (faster) than Firefox on my Pinebook Pro (ARM, Linux). But I think the author is using Chrome under emulation, so bad performance is expected.
- dantaro 3y agoCorrect, I didn't grab the ARM Chromium build, only Chrome. If you want to avoid using Edge then Chromium or Firefox is the way to go.
- pzautke 3y agoNot a developer but have found the T14s AMD Gen 3 to have significantly better real world (i.e. browsing) battery life than my X13s had.
- wyldfire 3y ago> Chrome is slow and frustrating to use, with delayed animations and noticeable input lag, it's such a frustration that I entirely gave up on Chrome in favor of Edge which runs natively I use native Chromium on my Windows-on-ARM laptop (a couple of generations older than the one reviewed). It runs really well and the only drawback is missing DRM stuff so some videos won't play. YouTube almost always works, but most other non-youtube videos don't. For those I can fall back to Edge. I'm looking forward to Google releasing a native build of Chrome.
- jillesvangurp 3y agoLike the author, I also do a lot of Kotlin development and use intellij and pycharm a lot. This sounds like an awful laptop to do that on. Kotlin is great but it's compiler is rather slow and you end up waiting for that a lot. So, faster is better. I noticed about a 2.5x build speed improvements when I upgraded my cheap Samsung i5 laptop (a temporary thing I used for a while) to the M1 14" Mac Book Pro. On a typical day, I run full builds quite often so this really matters to me. The difference between waiting 5 minutes or 1.5 is really important to me. During this build, 250 integration tests run with 20 threaads maxing out all of the cpu cores. This windows laptop is being described as a lack luster i5 sounds like it would be a hard no for me. That and all the other issues (the usual meh touchpad, the underwhelming GPU, etc.) makes for an overpriced laptop that just isn't worth having. You can probably get something way nicer for the money. Including a mac.
- NikolaNovak 3y agoSilly question ; am I the only person who still uses a desktop / tower machine? Feels like I'm a huge minority these days, but when it comes to needing processing power and juice it still feels it provides budget and upgrade flexibility no laptop can match.
- sharikous 3y agoI notice a lot of people using desktop in the office an having a personal laptop. But also there has been a shift to cloud instances that provide the flexibility you say at the price of renouncing ownership of the machine. Especially for GPU-based computations.
- goodoldneon 3y agoI’d love the power of a desktop but I can’t leave my house with it
- cbsks 3y agoWireguard+SSH+VNC works wonders for me.
- justsomehnguy 3y ago> Luckily (or perhaps shadily), you will rarely ever pay the full price for the Thinkpad x13s. As is tradition, Lenovo seems to be perpetually running deals, taking up to 40% off (at time of writing, 45% time of purchase), bringing the laptop to a much more reasonable $1479.60. If something has a $2500 price tag but always has a deal where you can take it only for $1500 then the real price is $1500, not $2500.
- adrian_b 3y agoLenovo is not the only vendor who uses these tricks. I have not looked recently at the Dell site, but in previous years, for many years, every time when I have looked at Dell Precision mobile workstations, they always claimed that the price that what listed at that moment was more than one thousand dollars less than the "normal" price.
- nikanj 3y agoThey cost the normal amount when the government is buying them
- kamma4434 3y agoIf the author works with Kotlin, and for that price tag…. Get a mac!
- csdvrx 3y agoSome of us (me included) just refuse to use a Mac. If I couldn't find a good Thinkpad, I would get a Surface.
- soulbadguy 3y agoMay i ask why ? I don't use Macs because my day to day requires X86 and linux. But pounds for pounds if someone doesn't mind MacOs. The new Mx series of macs is just a better value than most high-end laptop theses days
- shortrounddev2 3y agoI hate Apple, its products, and its ecosystem. The developer tools suck and macOS provides no advantage over windows other than an annoying user interface (if you're into that sort of thing)
- csdvrx 3y agoIt might be controversial, but I agree. The battery life can smooth out the issues for some people, but I have a plug everywhere I need.
- tracker1 3y agoI don't think the UI is annoying so much as different from what you may be used to. For me the annoyance is a few different key bindings. I like some parts of Windows, Linux (Gnome, KDE) and Mac... I have my Budgie desktop setup with a mix of the three.
- hospitalJail 3y ago>The new Mx series of macs is just a better value than most high-end laptop theses days ? I just recently bought a laptop and when I was comparing benchmarks, I didn't see Apple anywhere near the top of the list for CPU single or multithreaded. Not that I remotely care about CPU speeds, my number 1 focus was VRAM. Made it an easy decision since you basically pick something with Nvidia and high VRAM.
- WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago> Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 Slower than a 3 years old M1... It's 2023 people..
- thinkpad13 3y agohow about intel mobile gen 13 is it any faster than m2 pro 10 cpu?
- justinclift 3y agoThe 14-inch MacBook Pro pricing quoted in the article seems wrong. Looking at the US Apple Store right now, it has the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro (10-core) cpu + 32GB ram and 1TB storage as US$2599, rather an US$3099. Seems outright cheaper than the Thinkpad x13s.
- dantaro 3y agoInteresting, when I wrote the article the prices were what I could generate on the Apple website, but you are correct that they are not the same now. I should have taken screenshots! Thanks for the heads up, I'll update the article to reflect that :)
- justinclift 3y agoCool. :)
- tracker1 3y agoYeah, after I kitted things out with full upgrades, the macbook does seem to be the better option, especially if you like macos. The rosetta 2 support and docker have come a long way and most of what I use at least now has aarch64 support.
- pmontra 3y agoWhat's all the fuss about glass vs plastic touchpad in the article? I never had a glass touchpad on my laptops but I had glass touchpads on all my smartphones (the screen.) I see why the screen of the phone can't be plastic (colors, scratches, more?) but I never felt that the plastic touchpads of my laptops did not do their job as nicely as the screens of my phones.
- faster_harder 3y agoIt reminds me of the glass vs plastic phone backside arguments. Glass is more fragile than plastic and will not absorb shocks. It is also heavier and harder to replace (most plastic backsides can be removed with a guitar pick). But glass is considered premium.
- ChainOfFools 3y agoI was astonished at the amount of ink, or pixels wasted by this ridiculous and completely manufactured distinction on the part of inept tech "journalists" and bloggers who had to find something non-technical to identify a pecking order among phones in order to attract readership who didn't understand the more subtle distinctions between features that affect actual usage of the phone. The only other ridiculous argument that had an even worse effect on the net usability of phones, as well as the indistinguishable limited variety that we have today, is the ridiculous obsession with thinness. And then everyone puts a case on it anyway. Thin, thin, thin, and a glass back on top of that. I'm not usually sympathetic to conspiracies but it sure seems like the interests of phone manufacturers ( especially one in particular) who want to sell a new throaway device every year were suspiciously well served by both of these absurd abitrary obsessions of the tech press.
- LoganDark 3y agoI hate thin and light so, so much. People say "vote with your feet" and "just don't buy the stuff you don't like", but you can't exactly buy nothing when there are no options you like, because what if you need a laptop anyway? So you end up having to buy something "thin and light" which is a signal to the OEM that people want more thin and light even if all they wanted was a laptop.
- gyulai 3y agoI'm going to assume that, not being an Intel processor, it won't have Intel Management Engine. So where does this device land privacy-wise? Can this device safely be recommended for highly privacy-focused people who might otherwise choose "respects your freedom certified" [1] legacy hardware? Or does it have something similar to IME with similarly negative privacy implications? [1] https://ryf.fsf.org/ https://ryf.fsf.org/
- DaSHacka 3y agoGiven that this is a Lenovo laptop, one who is truly concerned about privacy may want to avoid it regardless [0]. Not to mention none of it is open source, from the firmware to the hardware, so I hardly see this as a suitable replacement for people looking to run FSF-approved computers. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Security_and_privacy_incidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Security_and_privacy_...
- sspiff 3y agoI find that battery life extremely uninspiring. I wonder if that's because of Windows, JetBrains or a combination of both. I run a x86-64 laptop with Linux AND decicated graphics (Ryzen 6850u and Radeon 6800S) and get 6-10 hours of battery life while developing. Granted, that's after quite a bit of tweaking - I've configured my monitor to go to 60hz, limit the CPU to only 4 cores/8 threads and 2200MHz while on battery. I write Rust with rust-analyzer so the CPU is constantly in use, and my browser of choice (Firefox) is far less optimized for battery life than any chrome-based browser is on Windows. This gives me a laptop with no concessions with regards to compatibility and it's probably running loops around this ARM based chip, even when running at my tuned-down power settings. I'd love to have a Linux compatible ARM laptop, but if they don't give you real world double digit battery life, why bother?
- hospitalJail 3y agoMeanwhile I've had my laptops plugged in for 99.999% of their life. Sometimes I'll unplug to bring it to an overnight christmas party or camping to watch a movie at night. Then I'll probably end up plugging it in when I arrive. Just remembered, one time I brought my laptop to a real estate meeting, and it was so boring I did work during it. But the meeting was over in an hour. I'm sure some people like having their computer not plugged in, but a docked laptop is so nice.
- solarkraft 3y agoMy laptop is plugged in 95% of the time. In the 5% of cases not having to worry about plugging in is great.
- hospitalJail 3y agoEven then, I've never ran out of battery. Do we really need more than 6 hours of never being plugged in? I've heard of a usecase, bus trips with buses that don't have 120V outlets... Its pretty niche.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- soulbadguy 3y ago"high-end" arm windows machines never made much sense to me. It seems that the main appeal is longer battery life, but looking at the recent CPU from AMD, and the rumors of the next CPU from intel.It's seem clear to me that x86 is making more progress in reducing power consumption than arm is making in performance. And i wouldn't be surprise that in a couple of year we get very efficient x86 cpu's from both AMD and intel.
- tracker1 3y agoAMD is getting here, certainly... the latest 7430HS mini PCs still use 6-8W at idle though, which is quite a bit more than ARM still. I've been using an m1 air as a personall laptop and when traveling rarely even think about having to plug it in... for my limited use with the screen around 60% brightness, I can use it all day and then some. Mostly text/email or remote editing (wireguard, ssh, vs code).
- soulbadguy 3y agoI agree, Mx laptop are still miles ahead in term of performance per what. But i would venture to suggest that a lot of it is more about the platform (OS, BIOS,chipset etc... etc...) then the CPU per-say.
- CameronNemo 3y agoIsn't 7430HS a Zen3 chip? Presumably Zen4 will be better. Remains to he seen, though.
- tracker1 3y agoWas supposed to be 7840hs,sorry.
- bpye 3y agoFull disclosure - I do work at Microsoft on Windows. One of the work devices I have is a Surface Pro X - and it has been generally a good experience. I don’t really write code on the device (I work on Hyper-V), but for browsing, Office, Remote Desktop, WPA etc it’s good. My biggest annoyance is that Motu don’t have ARM64 drivers for their audio interfaces, so I can’t use the one I have for microphone input. I’ve tried asking - but it doesn’t seem like it’s even on their roadmap, which is unfortunate. I’m pretty sure they license the Thesycon driver which does now support ARM64 [0] - but I guess they need to either update or just build the ARM64 version… The inbox class driver doesn’t work because Motu use implicit feedback. [0] - https://www.thesycon.de/eng/usb_audiodriver.shtml https://www.thesycon.de/eng/usb_audiodriver.shtml
- hospitalJail 3y agoIts 2023 and I still don't understand the point of CPU speeds, even as a dev doing both single and multithreading. AI is continuing to put priority on GPUs. In the worst case, I wait an extra fraction of a second with a bad CPU. With a bad GPU, you are basically excluded from the latest technology. I'm sure ARM really wants to advertise that CPU is relevant, but it continues to be nearly irrelevant when you buy something a laptop with a dedicated GPU. (Its good enough)
- oneplane 3y agoI suppose it depends on what performance bracket you are targeting. Scripting and interpreted languages, JIT next and VM after that (i.e. JVM, CLR), native code after that and optimised low-level code after that would all have very different reactions to 'good CPU' vs. 'bad CPU'. A 'slow' process (±10s) taking 1 second longer won't seem that much slower, but a fast process (±100ms) taking ten times as long does definitely become problematic. As for AI, it's mostly irrelevant what your local machines does, unless you are an end-user (i.e. you are running a model from a vendor on a local accelerator for local processing instead of remote processing). Development happens on remote farms and on-line usage also happens on remote farms.
- hospitalJail 3y agoI need to do everything locally. Air gapped computer with confidential stuff.
- oneplane 3y agoI that case your situation is likely irrelevant for the masses. It also still matters what performance bracket you're targeting.
- hospitalJail 3y agoMaybe. I can picture wanting to do nsfw stuff locally... But also this is a fortune 100 company that has the airgapped computer with the confidential stuff. Its big bucks.
- einpoklum 3y agoFor a developer, this laptop sucks. ... but, why would I use such harsh rhetoric? That's ecause the most important component of a laptop is not its CPU; it is the --==[[ keyboard ]]==--. A laptop without a keyboard with decent key travel and tactile feedback simply deters you from using it. People who do not write much (code, documents, etc.) - can perhaps make do with point-and-click-oriented laptops. We cannot. That's why are currently condemned to choose between 10-year-old CPUs and I/O ports, but with decent keyboards; and fancy modern CPUs in laptops that are inconvenient to use. Now look at this laptop's keyboard: https://p3-ofp.static.pub/fes/cms/2022/03/03/ww9s3cycoxj6gbsdwga5jg0921usul660309.jpg https://p3-ofp.static.pub/fes/cms/2022/03/03/ww9s3cycoxj6gbs... they keys barely even protrude from the surrounding surface!
- soulbadguy 3y agoYeah i have to call BS on this narrative that somewhat the keyboard is the most important thing for developer. Writing code is not writing documentation or writing books : Most of time spent not on typing letter... Debugging, reading code, thinking about a code etc... are more important. I have yet to see a case where typing speed is a limiting factor for coding. Loads of non-dev information workers type way more than dev...
- einpoklum 3y agoIt's true that if a laptop doesn't have a monitor, you can't use it to read code. But - you don't need an ultra-perfect color reproduction, super-low refresh rate etc. on your monitor to read code. So if your laptop has a TN rather than IPS panel - that might be consideration but nothing like decent keyboard or not. And debugging we do with our brains mostly :-)
- callalex 3y agoPlease keep in mind that humans have a huge variety of anatomy, movement, and strength. While I don’t doubt that high travel keyboards are more comfortable and painless for YOU specifically, I can assure you that your experience does not speak for everyone. Extrapolating your keyboard preferences to every body shape is like expecting an Olympic gymnast to be comfortable in a pregnant baryatric person’s pants. Please consider that most people don’t care about long key travel, and that some people such as myself actually strongly prefer short key travel as it reduces pain for me. Also, have you used this keyboard or are you judging it based on one zoomed out marketing image?
- oneplane 3y agoWith the current specs, pricing and usefulness this actually seems like a bad deal. Not a useless deal, and in the Windows space perhaps the only real deal, but a bad deal nonetheless. What it can be is a good starting point for the industry to get moving. Not sure if this runs SystemReady firmware or if this is using Microsoft's UEFI stack, but either way it could finally get vendorland moving.
- einpoklum 3y ago"You're a software engineer who loves Windows... you COULD switch to a Mac... looking around... Microsoft's own Surface Laptop" What kind of person is writing that article? Sounds like someone who's identity is first and foremost a rich guy from the US.
- soulbadguy 3y agoMost of us on here are ... what's your point ?
- einpoklum 3y ago> Most of us on here are ... I hope that's not the case... as most developers are not USers, and while they may make a decent living, I doubt most developers would consider blowing thousands of dollars on a Mac (regardless of whether they like it SW/HW-wise). And who buys Microsoft laptops? That's weird.
- soulbadguy 3y ago> as most developers are not USers Yes, but this a english speaking forum, from a mainly US based incubator, so the audience is self-selecte... Nothing against dev from other part of the world. > I doubt most developers would consider blowing thousands of dollars on a Mac Mac are consistently the most selling laptop... so clearly someone is buying them. > And who buys Microsoft laptops? That's weird. Agree. Big mistake, but this one is on me :)
- deng 3y agoPeople forget that it is not just the processor that consumes power. The reason the new MacBooks are so efficient is not just because they are ARM-based, it is also because they have incredibly energy efficient screens, WiFi, RAM, SSDs, etc. They can achieve this through their sophisticated manufacturing process, with highly integrated components directly soldered onto the board, a fact that is widely (and correctly) criticized for making repairs and expansion nigh impossible, but it is also true that this is much more power efficient than what you can achieve with a more modular design. I have a Thinkpad L14 AMD, it consumes well below 10W for casual browsing/reading mails under Linux. I would wager that maybe 1/3 of that is consumed by the CPU. So even if you had a CPU with 0W consumption, I would just increase my battery life by a third, at least for that kind of usage.
- LoganDark 3y agoIs it really that hard to design sockets that don't waste such a significant amount of energy? Honest question. Do you really save so much by soldering something without any type of ribbon, socket, or other removable connector in between?
- deng 3y agoFor RAM, yes. Soldering it down right next to the CPU allows for lower voltages and faster bus speeds. For SSDs, it's more difficult. It surely makes no difference for standard PCIe, there's really no excuse to solder that one to the board. I'm actually not sure how exactly SSDs work in a MacBook M1/M2. I think it's plain NAND storage soldered directly onto the board, with the controller in the M1/M2. I have no idea about power savings here, but it sure is fast...
- LoganDark 3y agoFor RAM I think even the trace length on the motherboard matters but this is just a reason for why the sockets are usually near the CPU, not a reason why you would have to eschew sockets altogether.
- rsynnott 3y ago
- rsynnott 3y ago> Chrome is slow and frustrating to use, with delayed animations and noticeable input lag, it's such a frustration that I entirely gave up on Chrome in favor of Edge which runs natively. This is kind of surprising, because Windows for ARM has been around for _7 years_ (I'm ignoring ye olde Windows RT here, because everyone else did). I got an ARM Mac Mini a couple of months after they launched; at that point, while there was still a good bit of stuff with poor or no native support (most annoying: IntelliJ; don't think it got native support for about six months), native Chrome was already available. I suppose the difference is that third parties don't see Windows for ARM as a serious product, but there's a definite chicken and egg problem there.
- piaste 3y ago> There are some Asus laptops that seem like they'd fit the bill, but they're just so clunky and large, which gets in the way of the portable dream. Does anyone know which laptops Devin is referring to? I'm one of those odd guys who love big laptops (I've used 17” models for over a decade now) and I don't care about the weight at all. But I'd love it if I could trade some of those models' performance for more battery life (a reliable 8 hours would be sufficient), and they're never designed for that.
- dantaro 3y agoHey there! I don't remember what laptop I was specifically thinking of when I wrote that (Apologies, I started writing this back in February and got distracted for a number of months) but there is a non-zero chance I was thinking about the Asus ZenBook Pro Duo. Sorry I can't be more specific about past me's thought process :(
- 0xakhil 3y agoFor anyone wondering about Linux support, here is a video of thinkpad 13s running GTA V on Linux at 30fps using Fex-emu: https://youtube.com/watch?v=WBOjioe8-8Y&feature=sharec https://youtube.com/watch?v=WBOjioe8-8Y&feature=sharec