jasoneckert

When I was evaluating ways to add comments to my blog on GitHub Pages, I quickly passed by Disqus because it was a 3rd party service that I didn't trust for reasons like this.

Instead, I went with a tight solution that minimized 3rd party interaction: GitHub Discussions leveraged using the Giscus app (https://jasoneckert.github.io/myblog/github-discussions-blog...). You have to have a GitHub account to post comments using this method, which I like because my blog is geared to those that would have that.

If you read anything online, you'll realize that the battery life 'is' great. For example, LTT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFMTJm3vmh0

Have I had any app compatibility issues? To quote Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3, Line 87: "No."

The Prism binary emulation for x86 apps that don't have an ARM equivalent has been stellar with near-native performance (better than Rosetta in macOS). And I've tried some really obscure stuff!

As someone who has used the Snapdragon X Elite (12 core Oryon) Dev Kit as a daily driver for the past year, I find this exciting. The X Elite performance still blows my mind today - so the new X2 Elite with 18 cores is likely going to be even more impressive from a performance perspective!

I can't speak to the battery life, however, since it is dismal on my Dev Kit ;-)

The same points made about battery life with Apple Silicon in this blog post equally apply to Snapdragon Elite X laptops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFMTJm3vmh0

SGI hardware was the sexiest hardware of the 1990s, and IRIX was the sexiest UNIX OS of the same period. They were the desire of nearly every UNIX nerd back then.

Remember "Erwin", the SGI O2 in the userfriendly.org comic? https://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1065/737/1600/user%20fri...

The comic is now dead, but it had a long and amazing run.

I still keep an SGI O2, Octane, and Fuel around for nostalgia hits nowadays, and they never disappoint:

https://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/trios/SGI_Fuel_Blen...

https://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/trios/SGI_Fuel.jpg

Thanks for the reply — I really appreciate how I missed the distinction between individual choice and systemic expectation. I was speaking more to personal situations (like artists or self-employed folks), but I see how referencing “996 culture” more broadly brings in serious issues of exploitation and exclusion. Your points about how this affects people at different life stages and the long-term costs gives me more to think about.

These are sage points that make sense to me - I can see how it might have come across as tone-deaf or misaligned with deeper values some people hold. Likewise, I've also noticed the same regarding left-leaning here on HN (and when it comes to tech, Apple-leaning too). I'm a generally left-leaning person myself, but my flexible 996 job (of which I have complete control over) affords me a view on it that others won't appreciate. Thanks for sharing!

A note of caution: everything is relative, and details are important.

If you love what you do (artist, self-employed, etc.) a 996 culture can be considered a good thing as a certain amount of "good" stress allows us to feel self-actualized.

As is a 996 culture that provides for work-life balance. For example, working from home with flex time for 12 hours where you get to take long breaks whenever you feel like it to run, walk the dog, eat, get coffee, etc., is quite enjoyable as well. Who cares if you're still replying to emails at 7pm if you can do this, right?

Added note: I find it very interesting that this was immediately downvoted. I'm interested in understanding why for those who wish to share their rationale and perspective.

My personal website breaks this each time (jasoneckert.github.io), which is both a letdown and a pleasant surprise.

Ah, yet another brave soul seeks to gamify the ancient art of Vim. Admirable.

But Vim is not merely a tool... it's a discipline. A lifestyle. It is not learned in an afternoon, nor in a weekend sprint of neon-highlighted tutorials. No, Vim is best learned like one reads a long, weathered tome: slowly, reverently, one page at a time.

It begins humbly: i to whisper your intentions. <Esc> :wq to seal your work with a sacred rite. Then, perhaps days or weeks later, a revelation: "Wait… I can delete four lines with 4dd?!"

You do not master Vim. You grow into it. Each new keystroke discovered is like finding a hidden passage in a familiar castle. What begins as a cryptic incantation eventually becomes second nature... muscle memory and magic intertwined.

So yes, make it a game. But know that Vim is not beaten. It is befriended over years, not minutes.

This is an incredible achievement... not just for the technical depth, but for what it represents. Alyssa's work is nothing short of inspiring. The way she combined deep technical insight with years of dedication has not only brought open-source graphics to Apple Silicon, but also lit a fire under reverse engineers and open-source developers.

She has shown a whole new generation that curiosity and persistence can break barriers. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the developments these past several years. Massive respect to her and everyone who made this possible, and kudos on her new position at Intel.

"One of the things it means to be Canadian is to honour the rights and wishes of other people. That’s part of what makes it a wonderful place to live: most people genuinely believe in equality and respect for others, including people who don’t look like them."

In my opinion, this drives the narrative in this article, and is at the root of why there is little stigma in Canada surrounding MAID.

I think the biggest takeaway from this blog post is that developers and other professionals should take more note of the tiling window managers available on Linux like Sway and Hyprland - they are insanely fast and customizable to exactly what we need to be more productive.

I'm a Sway user (ironically on Fedora Asahi Remix on a Mac) and I won't have it any other sway... er... I mean way.

I think the reason why so many of us look up to the Woz in the tech world is that he is genuine, in an industry where we see so much of the opposite regularly - and we want to be the same.

The best part of April Fools jokes are that they capture the spirit of the time.

I remember the Thinkgeek PC EZ-Bake Oven that fit into a 5.25" bay in your PC - fitting for 2004! https://hoaxes.org/af_database/permalink/pc_ez-bake_oven

And my favourite: Microsoft's Alpine Legend for Xbox 360 in 2009 that caused a stir because so many people actually wanted that game to be real. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUBQknWUEYU

I used to demo this for my IT class back in the early 2000s and it blew their minds that a GUI-based OS - with apps! - could run from such a small footprint.

There's something thrilling about spinning up an old machine... it's like resurrecting a digital dinosaur. You're back in a time when systems felt strange and commands were different (especially on older UNIX). Everything was slower, but somehow more intentional. It's like stepping into Jurassic Park: you're not just using old tech, you're interacting with a living fossil. It's a glimpse into the DNA of modern computing, and it's a lot of fun!

I still fire up my old SPARCbook 3000ST (Solaris 2.5.1) in case I need a hit of Sun UNIX nostalgia from back in the day.

And whenever I give a presentation at a venue that has a projector with VGA input, I'll do the presentation from the same SPARCbook.

While Ozzy had nothing to do with the tech world directly, many of us leveraged his music to create our code and keep our sanity.

I'd love to see a black bar on HN to celebrate the Prince of Darkness!

The gap is widening largely because the maintainer left the project due to the Linux kernel rust drama. But there is still plenty of very talented contributors who have taken over. That, combined with a rapidly growing interest to run Linux on Apple Silicon instead of macOS, will likely result in faster development over the next few years.

But for me, the long term momentum of new platforms as they release doesn't matter - what IS supported is excellent (including the brilliant GPU driver).

My Mac Studio M1 Ultra runs Fedora Asahi Remix perfectly with full support and is exactly what I need. So those who are looking for a fast Apple Silicon system that can run Linux natively will save $$ and buy a used M1/M2 from Apple or otherwise.

Yes - it's a developer workstation and I run a few different staging environments on it, including a K3s cluster and a big FreeBSD VM - both of which are lightening fast. But what always surprises me is how fast it is at compiling anything.

For the same reasons, I prefer Linux - but also like Apple Silicon platform. As a result, I use Fedora Asahi Remix natively on the hardware. It's a few generations behind in support (M1- and M2-based systems right now), but I can't tell you how good it feels to be able to use Linux natively on Apple Silicon hardware. In my workflow, Fedora Asahi Remix runs at least twice as fast as macOS on the same hardware for any task (and 4-6 times faster for heavier tasks).

This begs the question: At what threshold would we consider it 'the year of Linux on the desktop'?

5% seems too low. Would it be 30%? Or 51%?

Answering that question in the public sphere may quell many of the "Is ___ going to the year of the Linux desktop?" posts we get each year.

I still have a C64 in my basement in case I need a nostalgia kick. A few years ago I set it all up and loaded a game. I was surprised at how slow it is and how bad the game was compared to how I remember it - so I boxed it up again and have no intention of setting it up again to keep my fond memories intact.

I have a feeling many who buy this product will ultimately do the same.

I'm somewhat disappointed that the 'Copyright © 2025 Red Hat, Inc.' line at the top didn't read 'Copyleft 2025 Red Hat, Inc.'

Most of the work that goes into chip design isn't related to the ISA per se. So, it's entirely plausible that some talented chip engineers could design something that implements RISC-V in a way that is quite powerful, much like how Apple did with ARM.

The biggest roadblock would be lack of support on the software side.

I'd argue that this hobby computer culture is still alive in well, but in a different form: the large number of vintage computing hobbyist groups that work to restore, understand, and make new hardware for the simplistic systems that formed the early days of computing. They enjoy the same optimism that drove the early hobby culture, but from a different vantage point - one of research and understanding - but the enjoyment and excitement are still there.

I provisioned, administered, and used so many Sun systems. I loved them so much that I still keep many Sun workstations and servers in my basement in case I need a nostalgia kick. I tried to use Marie Kondo's KonMari method to get rid of them, but it just didn't work... they all SPARC joy.

After watching the Qualcomm-ARM lawsuit in December, I have very little respect for ARM's relentless pursuit of profit for profit's sake:

https://www.tantraanalyst.com/ta/qualcomm-vs-arm-trial-day-1...

https://www.tantraanalyst.com/ta/qualcomm-vs-arm-trial-day-2...

https://www.tantraanalyst.com/ta/qualcomm-vs-arm-trial-day-3...