They invented a product that has no possible cost control: you don't know how much you've used until you've used it. And then we somehow made it a virtue to use as much as possible. I can't think of a more effective money printing factory.

I wonder when we'll see our first "My startup went bankrupt on AI use" post. Amazon is being dumb but at least they can afford it.

Macbook Neo is amazing, so impressed what Apple can deliver for so little.

That said, my sister this morning asked if she should buy a Macbook Neo. I pointed her to a refurb M2 Macbook Air with 16GB of RAM for the same price. I feel like that's the right call? Slower single-core performance but better multi-core and I think for 90% of normal people use cases the RAM is the limit before the CPU.

Are others making the same calculation?

I think I would cut the line at M3 or above. I think M2 uses an older architecture and it doesn't have WiFi 6E in it, and of course single core is a bit lower. Also M2 batteries are about maybe halfway done already unless the refurb replaced the battery.

> Also M2 batteries are about maybe halfway done already unless the refurb replaced the battery.

My mom still uses a 2019 Macbook Air with 8GB of RAM. The battery requires servicing, but she's unaware and still using it just fine. I asked her to go to the Apple Store and get the battery replaced along with her iPhone 12 Pro Max battery, and she'll easily get 10 years out of each device.

It depends on the benchmark/workload. There isn't much of a difference per core between the M1 (3.7k) and A18 pro (4k) based on passmark, but I'm sure the A18 does much better in AI/similar stuff.

If the used ones are out there the more RAM is probably the way to go - but colors!

The reality is nobody is noticing differences between the M1 and anything afterwards, really - those that do will know enough to pick their laptop.

M2 Air with 16GB is the logical choice, especially if she doesn't have a habit of breaking/dropping laptops because probably she won't get apple care with a user air.

Magsafe is a also massive help in avoiding fragility. I think older ones lacked that for some reason.

So I can't browse the web with just one device? Forget which device they want me to have or any other of the million absurd insults of this plan, I feel like the most insane part is expecting everyone to have two devices with battery and internet at all times.

Can you ELI5 why this is so slow for local inference but so fast for using hosted models?

Same. Zed is so fast it's shocking. But it was using 2-3x as much RAM as VSCode or Cursor with TypeScript and the language server crashed a lot. Given that work is a TypeScript monorepo, that was a dealbreaker for me.

When people talk about AI replacing jobs, this is what it will look like. Companies that care about quality will use AI to make humans more productive and enhance their overall offering. Companies that only care about profit (read: most) will fire people, add in AI, and ship garbage. Other CEOs will see the results (read: profits) and copy this. We'll end up with shittier products and services than before and not much else.

I bought a teddy bear from them in 2014 and another in 2025. It's night and day. The earlier one is really high quality, the newer one feels like I won it from a claw machine.

Yo, Teddy bear from a claw machine at the end of the 90’s were high quality btw

There does seem to be like a 1% chance (maybe 0.5%) that this turns into a WeWork situation. It's a product that users love, but the company leadership is so used to lying and deceiving and being loose with numbers that the IPO filing could be a pretty big shock. Either they'll have to tell the truth, which will be much less rosy than the lies, or they'll lie and turn everyone off.

Probably won't happen. But not definitely.

I went to Spain as a teenager and saw Guernica in person. It was the first painting to ever really have an effect on me. It's stunning. A perfect example of how art can transmit a message between people across time and space, I just knew that I was feeling how Picasso wanted me to feel.

If you have the chance to see this painting you should, no website can do it justice (although this is a very nice try).

I have been to a bunch of galleries and seeing a painting in person doesn't usually make a difference for me compared to seeing it in a book.

Guernica is one of the few that did. Perhaps because it's massive compared to other well known paintings.

So, I just want to say, I second your recommendation for seeing it in person.

One of the things that made seeing this painting a valuable experience for me was the plentiful background material it was shown next to… drawings, paintings, sketches etc. it showed the depth of creative process that Picasso employed.

One thing I have not seen discussed here is the fact that this painting was commissioned by the (Spanish) Republican government. Effectively, there is a degree of propaganda to the painting. No shade on the guy… my other favorite war crime painting is the executions of the third of may by Goya, and it was also a political commission.

I had the same feeling when I saw it years ago. Dread, sadness, and a sinking stomach.

A few weeks ago I was vacationing in the Basque country, and realized Guernica (the town) was a mere half hour drive away. So we went. Although none of the town in any way reminds you of the depictions of the painting (save for some memorials), I kept feeling the same eerie dread even as I walked through a perfectly normal, pleasant sleepy town.

Every time I'm in Madrid I get up early (and since in Spain you eat at like 11pm that's not easy) and go to the museum the moment it opens just to get to Guernica and get as much time with it by myself as I can.

That early, before the tour groups have made it that far into the museum, you can actually get the entire space to yourself for >30 minutes and it's never left me not weeping.

It is stunning, particularly so if you read up on the history beforehand and then see all the elements in the painting. It’s the first time I was able to appreciate a Picasso for all the complexity he put into his paintings.

I was similarly stunned by one of the Anselm Kiefers at the Bilbao Guggenheim. Some paintings can only be appreciated in person.

This is true but also not as new as the author claims. There have been various ways to abuse Google API keys in the past (at least to abuse them financially) and it’s always been very confusing for developers.