Top all-time · #1914
Mark O'Connor
Personal blog · yieldthought.com · on HN as moconnorprogrammingai
Mark O'Connor writes Tumblr, a personal blog at yieldthought.com about programming and ai. Since 2010, 38 different Hacker News readers have linked it 74 times, most often “I swapped my MacBook for an iPad+Linode”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-10, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 8 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Mark O'Connor's 2012-2013 series on replacing a MacBook with an iPad and a Linode server, cited as the reference for iPad-based remote development and as a long-term follow-up.
- Recommended for · 8 comments
- Called "really interesting" and a "nice article"; "explains the reasons pretty well"; a series worth reading; re-read every few months; a pioneer in iPad-based
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Mark O’Connor is a programmer, irregular writer and AI researcher. He believes in dynamic typing, first-class functions, working in the cloud and the immortal essence of the human soul. He also likes...
Most-linked posts?
- I swapped my MacBook for an iPad+Linode17 people · 23 mentions · first linked 2011-11-02
- iPad and Linode: 1 Year Later12 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2012-09-19
- /post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad2 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2019-06-14
- Embarrassing Flaws That Made My ‘Weekend’ App Possible2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-10-20
- iPad and Linode, 1 Year Later (2012)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-07-28
- /post/170830096265/when-are-neural-networks-overkill2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-02-13
- Working in the Cloud2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-02-10
What Hacker News says?
Here's a really interesting post about that: http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-...
Comment linking /post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad
on “Atom”Submitted I swapped my MacBook for an iPad+Linode as a story · 634 points
HN discussion>Yes you can customize it as you wish but I dont want to This was a big moment for me. I was a huge anti-Apple guy, I had built my own laptops and used Android and everything had to be open and hackable. Until one day I just realized it wasn't fun anymore. I would have to stop what I was doing to fix some broken (virtual or real) duct tape that held everything together. I bought my first Mac the month I replaced the…
Comment linking /post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad
on “Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel”Submitted Embarrassing Flaws That Made My ‘Weekend’ App Possible as a story · 279 points
HN discussionThere really is no excuse for the lack of "real" software on the iPad (using "real" as in desktop quality). Only a small amount can be blamed on the system itself, appealing to a very niche audience (like XCode). Arbitrary Javascript code written on the iPad can run, as evidenced by Play.js. Arbitrary Python code written on the iPad can run as evidenced by Pythonista. Arbitrary Swift code can run as evidenced by Swi…
Comment linking /post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad
on “Secret iPad”Submitted iPad and Linode: 1 Year Later as a story · 262 points
HN discussionThe neural network is not for measuring how far off the time is, it’s for guessing where different trendlines in the charts should start and end. You could say it’s overkill, but as I mention in the article I wasn’t happy with the results I got using simpler math. Also I’m pretty honest about the fact that I used a neural network because I felt like it. :) Check out this response for a different take on this: http:/…
Comment linking /post/170830096265/when-are-neural-networks-overkill
on “Shipping a Neural Network on iOS with CoreML, PyTorch, and React Native”Submitted Work is Fascinating: The Metagame as a story · 114 points
HN discussionOverkill is a point of view here. Training and deploying neural networks is becoming easier than ever. In my group at Arm there's a solid expectation that we'll see neural networks integrated into every part of a running application, and whether they execute on special NN processors or the general-purpose CPU will largely depend on where the data is needed. I cut a very long comment short and wrote the rest of this…
Comment linking /post/170830096265/when-are-neural-networks-overkill
on “Shipping a Neural Network on iOS with CoreML, PyTorch, and React Native”Submitted Profit from frontpaging HN and Reddit - what now? as a story · 41 points
HN discussionA lot of people have used an SSH client on a tablet for development on a VPS or other server. There is a blog about it here: http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-...
Comment linking /post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad
on “Nexus 9”Submitted Microsoft Surface vs. iPad and Linode as a story · 36 points
HN discussionIt's not impossible to remain a creator while using an iPad (or other tablet) - at least not when it comes to development. There are certainly people who are happily developing on an iPad (albeit with a more powerful remote backend)[1]. I think we are likely to see even more of a shift in this direction as these devices become even more capable. [1] http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-...
Comment linking /post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad
on “Coding Horror - Welcome to the Post PC Era”Submitted Machine Learning Teaches Me How to Write Better AI as a story · 24 points
HN discussionThis made the rounds somewhere a while back, but I didn't see a link to a discussion on HN when I searched http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-...
Comment linking /post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad
on “Vim ported to iOS”Submitted What, more tests are always the best way to improve my product? as a story · 24 points
HN discussionThat reminds me of the trend of switching from a laptop to a tablet. cf: http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/six-weeks-working-android/ http://yieldthought.com/post/31857050698/ipad-linode-1-year-... I know some of these people switched back to a laptop. And I wonder why they did.
Comment linking /post/31857050698/ipad-linode-1-year-later
on “Why the MacBook Pro Is Limited to 16GB of RAM”Submitted Single- vs Co-Founders: it's like Star Wars as a story · 14 points
HN discussionAt least one developer dumped his MacBook and switched to an iPad + Linode server for at least a year: http://yieldthought.com/post/31857050698/ipad-linode-1-year-...
Comment linking /post/31857050698/ipad-linode-1-year-later
on “Ask HN: Idea Sunday”Submitted Metagame Productivity Boost: Stats and Charts as a story · 10 points
HN discussionI have some datapoints here. Twice in the last five years I have spent a year working half time (German parental leave is incredible). I noticed spending a higher proportion of my time on 'overhead' - emails, code reviews etc, but my overall productivity did not drop. I measured the bugs fixed over time, commits made, lines and files changed, emails sent, all proxies for activity. Some results are shown in this othe…
Comment linking /post/6070927890/metagame-productivity-boost-stats-and-charts
on “We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor”Submitted Working in the Cloud as a story · 4 points
HN discussioniSSH & VIM should be pretty sound. I don't know about Emacs, there may be more difficulties since it Vim doesn't use the command and meta keys so much. This guy does all his coding from Vim in iSSH: http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-... I understand your point about the small market, but if the target audience is developers, then I think that VIM or Emacs compatible keybindings (if only a s…
Comment linking /post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad
on “Show HN: My 1-year project, iPad IDE with GitHub and Heroku integration”Submitted Users who can't buy; customers who don't use as a story · 4 points
HN discussionIs this the article? https://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook... I remember when it came out and a few coworkers at the time had seriously considered swapping to an iPad because of it, but ended up getting MacBook Airs instead. It’s surprising how 7 years has gone by and using an iPad for development is still facing the same problems.
Comment linking /post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad
on “LaTeX Workflow on iPad”Submitted Reality doesn't care about your opinion as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHere's an old post about an experiment along those lines. http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-...
Comment linking /post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad
on “The Secret of iOS 7”Submitted I swapped my MacBook for an iPad+Linode (2011) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHe explains the reasons pretty well in the original blog post http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-...
Comment linking /post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad
on “The Last PC Laptop”Submitted I made $37.91 from frontpaging HN; what now? as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
