MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

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Update, May 14th, 2026 with additional benchmarks and GPU benchmarks link New CPU benchmarks added covering: compression, crypto, integer kernels, matrix math, video transcode, and sustained thermal behavior. The short version is unchanged: at $599, the Neo is VERY fast for bursty everyday use and limited for sustained, memory-heavy, or pro workloads. GPU performance is not great. Updated: May 8th, 2026 with pricing and availability update.  Preface: I’m not really a Mac guy. But I have deep respect for what

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Best Computer for Claude Code in 2026

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Updated May 11th, 2026. Originally published February 6, 2026. TL;DR: If you are looking for the best computer for Claude Code in 2026, my short answer is the MacBook Air M5 (currently $150 off on Amazon). Most people do not need a monster workstation. The AI heavy lifting runs in the cloud. Your machine handles file I/O, builds, test suites, and your dev environment. Cheapest Mac that works: the $599 MacBook Neo. Windows: a ThinkPad with 32GB of RAM. Desktop

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Codex CLI feature protip /statusline

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TL;DR: There are a few ways to check your ChatGPT Codex usage, including: the web analytics page (covered in yesterday’s post) and the Codex CLI’s own status line, which can put live 5-hour and weekly percentages right at the bottom of your terminal session. The CLI method is easy to miss if you don’t have it enabled, thankfully it is super easy and configurable with the slash command /statusline. Codex CLI’s /statusline menu. Toggle the items you want, then press

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How to Check Your Codex Usage on ChatGPT (Plus and Pro)

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TL;DR: ChatGPT’s Codex has its own usage analytics page at https://chatgpt.com/codex/cloud/settings/analytics, separate from the main ChatGPT settings. You need to be logged into your ChatGPT account first. The page splits your Codex usage into three meters: a 5-hour rolling limit, a weekly limit, and pay-as-you-go credits. Here is an example screenshot: Where EXACTLY Do I Find My Codex Usage on ChatGPT? You have to be logged into your ChatGPT account first. Then paste this URL into your browser: https://chatgpt.com/codex/cloud/settings/analytics Two

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MacBook Neo GPU Compared: A18 Pro vs Snapdragon X2, Radeon, Arc, and RTX 5060

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The MacBook Neo is Apple’s $599 fanless entry Mac, built around the binned 5-core-GPU variant of the A18 Pro. I covered its CPU, thermal behavior, silicon economics, and 8 GB RAM tradeoff in the main MacBook Neo benchmarks article. This post is the GPU companion to that piece, and it exists for a specific reason. Why this post exists This post puts the MacBook Neo’s A18 Pro 5-core GPU against Snapdragon X1 and X2, AMD Radeon iGPUs, Intel Arc, and

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The History of ThinkPad: From IBM’s Bento Box to Lenovo’s AI Workstations

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A hand reaching across the keyboard of a ThinkPad X220, with the index finger near the T and 5 keys and the red TrackPoint pointing-stick nub visible just below between the G, H, and B keys. Lenovo logo on the left of the palm rest, ThinkPad logo on the right, X220 model name on the bezel.

Note: this post is published but still in progress. Spot something missing or amiss? Comment at the end 👍. TL;DR: ThinkPad has shipped continuously since October 1992 under two corporate owners (IBM 1992 to 2005, Lenovo 2005 to present), making it among the longest-running commercial laptop families on the market and unusually visually continuous from the 1992 700C to the 2026 P14s Gen 6. The 2005 IBM-to-Lenovo handoff did not rupture the brand the way skeptics expected: IBM’s ThinkPad engineering

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Codex /goal feature (TESTED)

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Summary: Codex’s new /goal mode lets you hand it a long-running task and walk away. From there it loops plan → act → test → review until your stop condition is met, or your weekly quota taps out. Currently it takes a two-line config edit to enable, then prefix your prompt with /goal. This is very much in line with what the reddit crowd does with a lot of their homebrew scripts and it opens some fun possibilities! Worth turning

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The BeBox: Inside One of the Most Beautifully Overbuilt Computer of the 1990s

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Late 2000. There is a grey and blue tower PC on my dorm-room desk like nothing anybody who walks into the room has ever seen. The Be logo on the front, a 3.5″ floppy peeking out the bottom of the drive bays, and the vertical grille that hides two columns of green LEDs (blinkenlights) dancing with the CPU load.  I paid $400 for it in two installments of $200 to a guy named Danan, about $745 inflation-adjusted to 2026. That

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“Unable to Load Usage Limits” on claude.ai? Use /usage in Claude Code

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TL;DR: I went to claude.ai/settings/usage this morning to check my Claude Max (5x) plan limits and got a red error box: “Unable to load usage limits. Please try again later.” Anthropic’s status page banner read All Systems Operational, but Settings > Usage was still erroring for me at 7:44 AM Central. The workaround that did work: run /usage inside Claude Code. The session and weekly meters loaded immediately. claude.ai/settings/usage on the morning of April 30, 2026. The Plan usage limits

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The Mother-In-Law Method for Claude or ChatGPT

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Screenshot of the original Mother-In-Law Method post on r/ClaudeAI by u/Ancient_Perception_6

A Reddit post called “The Mother-In-Law Method” is making the rounds in r/ClaudeAI right now. The pitch from u/Ancient_Perception_6: prompt Claude to review your code as if it were written by your mother-in-law, the one who insulted your cooking and your “weird-looking feet.” Find revenge in the diff. Claude obliged, spawned four parallel “hostile reviewers” with distinct beats (money math, tenancy, API contracts, tests), and 31 minutes later returned 27 issues plus nits. Funny post. Funnier thread. It’s tagged as

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