frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Ask HN: Laptop or Desktop?

6•Gecko4072•12h ago
What portion of you all use a laptop versus a desktop and why? Ever since I got a laptop I've had recurring neck pain and issues from not being strict with desk setups and using laptops here and there instead of at a table. There is no good way to use a laptop without a stand and external peripherals. It makes sense for students and traveling professionals but not really for most people I think. Thinking I will go back to a full desktop now. Bonus: Mac or PC or GNU/Linux or BSD.

Comments

drop_star•12h ago
My compilers prof said #1 thing about this career. Take care of your back. He messed his up from years of poor posture hunched over looking at screens.
dataflow•12h ago
I don't really understand the choices. Is a laptop that is normally docked on a desk considered a desktop for the purposes of your question?
kingkongjaffa•12h ago
For work I use a work provided laptop, mostly folded on my desk with an external monitor and keyboard and mouse.

At home I use a Macbook Pro.

Because of the RAM cost rises and desire to run LLMs locally, I have considered a mac mini or some other desktop mac instead of upgrading my macbook pro. (Since loading it with 64GB of Ram now has a purpose is probably didn't for me before.)

The most important thing for posture is to have a good office chair (herman miller Aerons are cheap used) and lift weights at the gym. A regular deadlifting (once per week) builds a strong back and core and keeps your posture in check.

ElijahLynn•3h ago
I used to have lots of neck pain and back pain. Tried all sorts of things from standing desks to Aeron ergonomic chairs.

Now I strictly use a laptop, no more multi-monitor setup, no ergonomic keyboard, no standing desk, I have poor posture, and, I have no more back and neck pain.

Turns out that my anxiety was wiring my pain neurons together with certain pressures. Basically I was scared, and at some point the neurons that fired together wired together. It's a similar mechanism in the brain as somebody that has phantom limb pain.

What really helped me with this was the Boulder back pain study, which studied people using functional MRI machines and analyzing the pain region of people's brains. And using Pain Reprocessing Therapy and then analyzing with the functional MRI scans again. And many of the people who had a level 4 or higher pain for 5 years or more, got down to a zero or one. So I read that study, and I read the book on the study which is called The Way Out, and there's a film on the study as well called Pain Brain Film, and there's a podcast called Tell Me About Your Pain. I basically binge watched, listened and read all of this stuff and eventually unlearned my pain.

And now I have wonderful freedom with a laptop anywhere in the world! I can sit on a park bench or a s*** chair, or on a comfortable couch, I still have poor posture. I don't try to sit up straight anymore. And I don't have any chronic back pain or neck pain anymore.

Ask HN: Who is using MCP in production?

34•sukit•17h ago•41 comments

Ask HN: Why were OpenAI, Claude, and Grok simultaneously down?

355•halcdev•14h ago•532 comments

Ask HN: Are others seeing Google's reCAPTCHA rejecting Firefox users?

48•Animats•9h ago•13 comments

Tell HN: NVIDIA's Acquisition of HuggingFace was for $HuggingFace

24•MontagFTB•7h ago•4 comments

Ask HN: 30, burnt out, with 6-10 months of runway. What would you do?

17•throwaway_30yo•1d ago•11 comments

Ask HN: Who is using FPGA for ML inference?

7•softwarewright•6h ago•10 comments

Tell HN: Both recent GCP outages caused by fiber optic maintenance

8•fastest963•7h ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Why do many websites use a sign-in code instead of a password?

5•bariumbitmap•1h ago•2 comments

Ask HN: What is the ideal email domain setup?

2•bix6•5h ago•1 comments

Ask HN: How do you market Open Source Software?

5•Daniel-Pan•2h ago•4 comments

Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2026)

242•whoishiring•2d ago•318 comments

Ask HN: Founders that raised funding and shutdown, did you raise again?

17•asim•15h ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (September 2026)

107•whoishiring•2d ago•423 comments

Ask HN: Laptop or Desktop?

6•Gecko4072•12h ago•4 comments

Ask HN: How do you guys keep up with the most cost-effective AI models?

4•solomonmwalker•14h ago•4 comments

Tell HN: The Thoughts and Woes of a Full-Time Founder Part 1

3•lcampbellsoup•5h ago•0 comments

Ask HN: How do we build a team? (bootstrapped B2B startup)

3•theonlinx•8h ago•0 comments

Ask HN: iPhone Camera on indicator

2•zahirbmirza•7h ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Is there a test for measuring cognitive affects from LLM usage?

5•niwrad•7h ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Could AI eventually build god?

5•olirex99•7h ago•8 comments

Ask HN: Are technical blogs dead?

11•quaintdev•20h ago•19 comments

One-person startup: a Cornell postdoc wants to put AI in everyone's hands

2•modelslive•8h ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Accountants working with ecommerce

3•vasyl_kyryliuk•11h ago•0 comments

Ask HN: How do you gate an autonomous coding agent's shell access?

2•alanfuNZ•8h ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Why does free time become another thing you have to use correctly?

2•nullifypreset•10h ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Are guardrails being baked into models, or enforced outside them?

2•arkj•10h ago•0 comments

Tell HN: Xbox Game Pass now limits the amount of hours each month

7•nodesocket•4h ago•3 comments

Beware: Malicious Profiles on YC Co-Founder Matching

5•pain_perdu•13h ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Can we classify AI as: subhuman, quasihuman, human, superhumam?

3•aunekiaru•13h ago•5 comments

Resources to Get Good at Soldering?

9•tosmatos•1d ago•9 comments