Have you thought about doing the opposite of whatever you're doing or considering? It's a really helpful way to test your assumptions and your values. What does the opposite look like, how would it work? It's so easy to get stuck in a groove of what works, what you believe to be right. But helpful assumptions have a half-life, just like facts. And it's ever so easy to miss the shift when circumstances change, if you're not regularly stress-testing your core beliefs. That doesn't mean you're just a flag in the wind, blowing whichever way. But it does mean having enough intellectual humility and creative flexibility to consider that what you believe to be true about your business, about your team, about your technology might not be so. We did this a while back with full-time managers. We'd been working for nearly two decades without any, but exactly because it'd been so long, we were drawn to try the opposite, just to see what we might have missed. So we did. Hired a few full-time managers to help us test that assumption for a few years. In the end, we decided that our managers-of-one culture worked better, but it wasn't a given at the outset. To try the opposite, you really have to believe that you might have been wrong. Because you're wrong about something. I guarantee it. We all are.

For the past week, I've been working off the Minisforum UM870. A tiny mini PC with an 8-core/16-thread AMD 8745H CPU, which retails for $343 (or €379) as a bare-bone unit, and stays below $550, even after adding 48GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. I'm shocked to report that I really don't need more than this! I mean, I knew that Apple's Mac Mini, which is equally petite to the Minisforum, had plenty of power for macOS. But somehow I thought Apple had some special sauce that made this possible, and that PCs were forever condemned to be bigger, louder, and slower. How 2020 of me. The UM870 is a little beast. It runs our full HEY test suite in just 2m28s. In comparison, it takes a 14-core M4 Pro 2m49s, and such an Apple costs $2,199, once you've given it 48GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. Now, that M4 Mac Mini can probably do things with, say, 8K video editing that the UM870 can't touch. But on the other hand, the UM870 can play the latest video games. Everything from Fortnite to Cyberpunk 2077 to Forza Horizon. It won't trouble a modern, dedicated Nvidia card for max FPS, but it's perfectly playable at 1080p at medium settings in a ton of games. In raw CPU power, the AMD 8745H will match a regular M4 in multi-core. They both clock in right around 13,000 points on Geekbench 6. Though the M4 is a fair bit quicker in single-core. The AMD is also far behind an M4 Pro in raw multi-core power (13K vs 22K), but at less than a quarter the cost, it's hard to complain. But as with the example of video games, it's often deceiving just to compare the Geekbench numbers, because it all depends on what you're doing. If you're really into video games, it's no use to have extra grunt, if your favorite games won't run. The same is true if you're a developer working with Docker containers and a Linux toolchain. As quoted above, the UM870 handily defeats the M4 Pro in our all-cores-buzzing HEY test suite. That's partly because we run databases and accessories, like MySQL, Redis, and ElasticSearch, in Docker containers. Even though we run the Ruby code natively on both platforms, the Docker dependencies put the Mac further behind than it otherwise would have been, because Linux runs Docker natively, and the Mac has to deal with the file-system tax and other drawbacks. The irony is that it was partly Apple's volume with and investment in TSMC that got us these incredible AMD chips, as they're riding the same improvements in TSMC manufacturing prowess as Apple's M chips. The Zen 4 cores in the 8745H are all forged on the same 5nm process as the M2, so it's no surprise that the AMD cores are dead-on-the-money for Apple's in Geekbench single-core performance. And Zen 4 is even the last generation! The insane new (and insanely named) AMD Ryzen AI Max 395+ chip that's used in the upcoming Framework Desktop runs on Zen 5 cores. And with 16 of those, the 395+ is faster in Geekbench multi-core than an M4 Pro, and only ever so slightly behind the M4 Max. On my HEY test suite, it completes the run in an insane 1m21s — more than twice as fast as the 14-core M4 Pro! But I digress. The 395+ chip isn't cheap, even if it's still a great deal. The Framework Desktop with 64GB/1TB, which is twice as fast as the M4 Pro with our HEY tests, is $1,744. That's still less than the $2,199 Mac Mini, which only has 48GB of RAM. But obviously way more than a $550 Minisforum! And while it's quite small, it's not tiny, like the UM870. Regardless, this is what I love about technology. I love when our assumptions are tested: just how small and cheap can an awesome developer machine become? I love that open-source Linux is able to run laps around Apple in the workloads that many developers need (like working with Docker containers). I love that this tiny little silent $550 mini PC on my desk is capable of putting out computing power that only a decade ago would have been reserved to loud, honking metal in a data center. Mini PCs have gotten really good. AMD is on a roll. Linux is a blast. These are my conclusions. Check out the Minisforum UM870 or the Beelink SER8. Anything with an AMD 7745H and up to an 8945HS should be a great deal. If you want to splurge (yet still get a bargain compared to the macs), you could have a look at the new HX370 in the Beelink SER9 or Minisforum X1, but I'd save my money, buy a Lofree Flow84 keyboard to go with the new mini rig, and put the rest of the money towards a KEF LSX II savings fund!

The appeal of "vibe coding" — where programmers lean back and prompt their way through an entire project with AI — appears partly to be based on the fact that so many development environments are deeply unpleasant to work with. So it's no wonder that all these programmers stuck working with cumbersome languages and frameworks can't wait to give up on the coding part of software development. If I found writing code a chore, I'd be looking for retirement too. But I don't. I mean, I used to! When I started programming, it was purely because I wanted programs. Learning to code was a necessary but inconvenient step toward bringing systems to life. That all changed when I learned Ruby and built Rails. Ruby's entire premise is "programmer happiness": that writing code should be a joy. And historically, the language was willing to trade run-time performance, memory usage, and other machine sympathies against the pursuit of said programmer happiness. These days, it seems like you can eat your cake and have it too, though. Ruby, after thirty years of constant improvement, is now incredibly fast and efficient, yet remains a delight to work with. That ethos couldn't shine brighter now. Disgruntled programmers have finally realized that an escape from nasty syntax, boilerplate galore, and ecosystem hyper-churn is possible. That's the appeal of AI: having it hide away all that unpleasantness. Only it's like cleaning your room by stuffing the mess under the bed — it doesn't make it go away! But the instinct is correct: Programming should be a vibe! It should be fun! It should resemble English closely enough that line noise doesn't obscure the underlying ideas and decisions. It should allow a richness of expression that serves the human reader instead of favoring the strictness preferred by the computer. Ruby does. And given that, I have no interest in giving up writing code. That's not the unpleasant part that I want AI to take off my hands. Just so I can — what? — become a project manager for a murder of AI crows? I've had the option to retreat up the manager ladder for most of my career, but I've steadily refused, because I really like writing Ruby! It's the most enjoyable part of the job! That doesn't mean AI doesn't have a role to play when writing Ruby. I'm conversing and collaborating with LLMs all day long — looking up APIs, clarifying concepts, and asking stupid questions. AI is a superb pair programmer, but I'd retire before permanently handing it the keyboard to drive the code. Maybe one day, wanting to write code will be a quaint concept. Like tending to horses for transportation in the modern world — done as a hobby but devoid of any economic value. I don't think anyone knows just how far we can push the intelligence and creativity of these insatiable token munchers. And I wouldn't bet against their advance, but it's clear to me that a big part of their appeal to programmers is the wisdom that Ruby was founded on: Programming should favor and flatter the human.

The web will be far worse off if Google is forced to sell Chrome, even if it's to atone for legitimate ad-market monopoly abuses. Which mean we'll all be worse off as the web would lose ground to actual monopoly platforms, like the iOS App Store and Google's own Play Store. First, Chrome won the browser war fair and square by building a better surfboard for the internet. This wasn't some opportune acquisition. This was the result of grand investments, great technical prowess, and markets doing what they're supposed to do: rewarding the best. Besides, we have a million alternatives. Firefox still exists, so does Safari,  so does the billion Chromium-based browsers like Brave and Edge. And we finally even have new engines on the way with the Ladybird browser.  Look, Google's trillion-dollar business depends on a thriving web that can be searched by Google.com, that can be plastered in AdSense, and that now can feed the wisdom of AI. Thus, Google's incredible work to further the web isn't an act of charity, it's of economic self-interest, and that's why it works. Capitalism doesn't run on benevolence, but incentives. We want an 800-pound gorilla in the web's corner! Because Apple would love nothing better (despite the admirable work to keep up with Chrome by Team Safari) to see the web's capacity as an application platform diminished. As would every other owner of a proprietary application platform. Microsoft fought the web tooth and nail back in the 90s because they knew that a free, open application platform would undermine lock-in — and it did! But the vitality of that free and open application platform depends on constant development. If the web stagnates, other platforms will gain. But with Team Chrome pushing the web forward in a million ways — be it import maps, nested CSS, web push, etc. — is therefore essential. This is a classic wealth vs. riches mistake. Lawyers see Chrome as valuable in a moment's snapshot, but the value is all in the wealth that continued investment brings. A Chrome left to languish with half the investment will evaporate as quickly as a lottery winner's riches. Wealth requires maintenance to endure. Google should not get away with rigging the online ad market, but forcing it to sell Chrome will do great damage to the web.