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I also filed the corners off my MacBook
- spoctrial 2mo agoThere's a spelling mistake in the first paragraph. The expression is "lo and behold", and not "low and behold". Lo is an old English interjection for expressing surprise.
- tokarev 2mo agoAmusingly, I've come to appreciate grammar and spelling mistakes in blog posts, as they hint the text wasn't written with AI
- spoctrial 2mo agoYeah, next generation of SOTA models will probably come with a misspelling mode, marketed as "inspired by artisanal human misspellings".
- maxbrt 2mo agoOh interesting, thanks!
- plorg 2mo agoAlso somewhere they used "along" where it should be "a long". Always nice to see that a person wrote it.
- anthonyko 2mo agoanother example: https://bsky.app/profile/s.ly/post/3mlo7ajrqdk2o https://bsky.app/profile/s.ly/post/3mlo7ajrqdk2o Jesse Vincent used a deburring tool.
- shmeeed 2mo agoI gotta admit, that's a good clean job.
- carodgers 2mo agoI would just like to say that with this page open I have ~15% utilization on my GPU. XD
- latable 2mo agoI use a low-power sff pc with a i5-9500T for everyday tasks and it uses 50% cpu and 100% gpu ! The background is nice indeed but it makes the website sluggish.
- trvz 2mo agoI checked, too, after your comment. It's ~50% on an M2 (with 10 GPU cores) according to iStat Menus.
- maxbrt 2mo agoI know I know :D I have not done any optimization yet. Maybe I should also add some toggle to disable it or reduce the number of particles
- ROllerozxa 2mo agoTrying to even open the page in Chrome on my phone freezes the tab with rapid flickering and makes every other tab I switch to or open completely blank until I restart the browser... That effect sure is something.
- dmaa 2mo agoGreat article and happy to see that I'm not alone. I don't get why on such a well thought-out and built device as this, the corners are so sharp. From how I use the trackpad, the bottom of my thumb always feels sore-ish after a day's work and it took me a while to trace this to the sharp cornern of my macbook.
- jimnotgym 2mo ago>I don't get why on such a well thought-out and built device as this, the corners are so sharp. Because macs have 3 big markets 1) graphic designers/ photo editors 2) web developers 3) people who value looks above other considerations Number 3 buy more macs, so square corners it is
- dmaa 2mo agoI am in neither of these and nor is any of the many people I know with macbooks. I honestly do not understand why any average person would buy anything else than a macbook today.
- gonzalohm 2mo agoOne reason is because MacOs sucks
- Dansvidania 2mo agocan you go into more detail? what am I missing, I am assuming by not switching back to linux?
- skydhash 2mo agoThe unix subtrate of macos is fine for daily usage. It’s the administration side that suffers. Package management, service management,…
- mixmastamyk 2mo ago
- wodenokoto 2mo agoMaybe I drank the cool-aid, but I like the corners on my Mac, and it took a lot of empathy from me to accept “the other” authors filing job, but this looks beautiful. Thanks to both authors for sharing the work!
- vortegne 2mo agolooks great! not shade to the other guy, but your job is so much nicer looking
- maxbrt 2mo agoThank you!
- akhil08agrawal 2mo agoNever knew that there are more people like me who get irked at such things. But yeah, I do not have the heart to do this to my laptop, so I end up using my laptop on a solid surface xD
- kqr 2mo agoOn a similar note, people are way too precious about their dead-tree books. Feel free to chuck them in bags, make notes in the margins, fold pages, underline, and strike through text in them. It's yours. Make it yours! Your scribblings don't detract from what's in there – they elevate it to something unique. (This is particularly true if it's a book that's still in print, or was in large enough print runs it's easy to buy another second-hand copy when the one you have falls apart. It's still somewhat true even when that's not the case.)
- jimnotgym 2mo agoThere is only one way to damage a book, and that is to not read it
- ta8903 2mo agoI was riding my motorcycle in heavy rains and had a book in my work bag which, as I later found out, doesn't resist water at all, and the book got soaked. Half the pages puffed up, and I hated myself for it at first, but after a while I realized I like it even better since it feels like the book has been through something with me and I will always remember that incident whenever I think about the book. Though admittedly, caring about this is even more vapid than caring about my books being pristine.
- maxbrt 2mo agoThanks for sharing that story! That is a nice way to think about it.
- ozyschmozy 2mo agoI'm like this for everything _except_ paper books. I grew up sharing books a lot, books I finished would go to younger kids in my extended family or my mom's students, and I got a bunch of books like that as well. So we took a lot of care keeping books in good condition. I don't buy many paper books anymore, and ones I do buy tend to be new and stay with me, but folding pages or breaking the spines still feels wrong to me
- 4ggr0 2mo ago
- rob74 2mo agoNitpick: those are (sharp) edges, not corners. Maybe the next generation of MacBooks will also actually have exactly 90° non-rounded corners? I guess that's the next logical step... Also, TIL that Bosch also makes files. I was under the impression that they only made powertools (or electronic measuring devices, or other things with a battery or power cord).
- Cthulhu_ 2mo agoTheir main bread and butter is components for cars and ebikes, their (power) tools / DIY stuff is like 22% of their business. Or so I learned just now.
- dijit 2mo agoas an aside, I have a shimano e-bike and a bosch one, and the bosch one is leagues superior. Which feels weird when you consider the pedigree of shimano, but it makes sense when you think what kind of internals an ebike motor would need.. I guess.
- fhub 2mo agoI have two Bosch powered e-bikes (gazelle Modeo and Turn GSD) and one DJI Avinox (Amflow PL carbon) A few years between each bike and very different bikes. But Avinox feels like it has come from nowhere to be on par or superior to Bosch. The charging plug egonicis is 100x better too.
- lmm 2mo agoShimano is famously a company that people in about four seemingly random/unrelated fields/hobbies think of as a specialist brand in that hobby (e.g. fishing). (They are or at least were originally a bearings company, specialising in things that need to spin with very low friction, and all their seemingly unrelated businesses started from that)
- serf 2mo agoI don't know about the other industries, but within old cycling circles they're also just seen as the group that was first to make good counterfeit goods that were actually high enough quality to use, and their entrance to the market was aided by the fact that existing players, campagnolo and schwinn mostly, were producing junk from junk proprietary alloys in order to compete with 'overseas' components at truly exorbitant costs. that was 40-50 years ago, so who cares, but Shimano is truly interesting for cultivating so many different opinions.
- timvdalen 2mo agoThat looks so much better than that other post!
- noufalibrahim 2mo agoI did this with my first (and only Macbook) in 2014. Did it with a pocket file. I never thought about blogging about it though. Perhaps something to consider.
- asimovDev 2mo agoI hate the vents on my work macbook, when I rest it on my lap, the edges dig into my thighs and leave imprints. One time after getting in the flow, I didn't notice how it was cutting into my flesh and ended up with a bruise
- Xenoamorphous 2mo agoI’ve literally calluses on my wrists from those edges.
- amelius 2mo agoI'm sure Apple would prevent users from doing this if they could. Next version: edge sharpness detectors. Or body resistance measurements.
- musha68k 2mo agoI've been using Macs for decades and never had these issues personally. It seems like some people do literally rest their hands / arms on desk / notebook body while typing. The "sharp edge syndrome" here to me seems to be a good thing then as it acts as a reminder for proper ergonomics / posture. First Google AI search result on the topic: "Never rest your wrists on your MacBook while typing. Instead, let your palms rest gently on the laptop body only when you pause. Hover your hands as you type. This prevents you from bending your wrists and protects the nerves in your carpal tunnel." That also pretty much exactly mirrors the way we learned typing / posture at school in Austria.
- redsocksfan45 2mo ago[dead]
- alexdbird 2mo agoI've always wondered if this was the secret motivation behind it. I hated this bit of design when I switched from a smooth edged Thinkpad ~15 years ago. But I changed my typing posture for the better and it became a non-issue.
- gib444 2mo agoAgreed. The sharp edges are like a Victorian teacher whipping you for slouching They could have put sensors on the body and made it alert you in MacOS, but you know, it is what it is
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- maxbrt 2mo agoI get the point there and it does make sense, however I think there are certain limits to where it applies. I use it on the go a lot, crammed in small seats in the train for example. In those cases, it's just not always possible to have proper ergonomics and IMO this should be kept in mind when designing a laptop.
- 2mo ago
- njsubedi 2mo agoUsed just 3 things - 1 debur tool, a 600 grit sandpaper & another 2000 grit sandpaper while still reading this thread. Totally worth it, and instant improvement in my quality of life. And it took me less than 5 minutes. Thank you!
- maxbrt 2mo agoI think I'd also go with the debur tool next time, glad it worked well for you!
- ZephyrCannon 2mo agoI couldn't do this. I know some like to customize their tools, but I like my stuff vanilla.
- giamma 2mo agoIt's always entertaining for me to realize that there are people who find very annoying things that I don't even notice.
- xbas 2mo ago[dead]
- rasz 2mo agoLike that dead pixel on your screen, or video tearing when you scroll, or game running at 20 fps
- giamma 2mo agoKind of, for example I play games with motion blur activated, but my son switches it off.
- Sohcahtoa82 2mo agoMotion blur is great when done right, but most games do it wrong, so it gets a bad rap. The two sins are: 1. Blurring things that shouldn't be blurred. 2. Blurring too much. Racing games are notoriously guilty of #1. If you're in a third person view, your car should basically never have any motion blur. Likewise, a car driving the same speed as you right next to you shouldn't get blurred. You should only see blur in the road and scenery that is close to you. Instead, the devs will just apply a post-processed radial blur that blurs the entire scene, which just turns the entire screen into a blurry mess. The width of the blur should at most be the delta between frames, and ideally, just half that, really. But a lot of devs seem to have this idea of "Motion blur is a neat effect! We should emphasize it!" and the blur will cover an area covered by multiple video frames. A motion blur that is more subtle can actually look amazing. It doesn't look blurry, and instead, just makes animations look more fluid. Motion blur is why movies can be 24 fps and look fine, but a game at 24 fps typically looks incredibly choppy.
- AngryData 2mo agoMotion blur bothers me so much. Much more using a monitor with the backlight frame strobe.
- FredrikSE 2mo agoI didn't have the heart to make something like this on my M2 Air so I did a new edge to 3D-print and attach to the edge. Works really well and have lasted more than 3 years to this date. https://makerworld.com/models/1356464 https://makerworld.com/models/1356464
- challenger-derp 2mo agoThat's kinda clever, and possibly something to consider for users who prefer an alternative to filing.
- maxbrt 2mo agoThat's a very creative approach. How does it attach?
- kristianp 2mo agoIt says double-sided tape.
- hoppp 2mo agoYou should never use a mac on your lap if you are male because you can burn your balls. You can end up shooting blanks, these laptops can do heat castraton.
- tiborsaas 2mo agoIt can also make you waste a lot of time and not do anything productive with your day which is worse than shooting blanks.
- ButlerianJihad 2mo agoLong ago in retirement, my father adopted the habit of sitting in his easy chair, with a view of the television set, with his laptop in his lap, clicking away at the Internet and whatever he did there. Sometimes the cat would stroll across his keyboard. But he ran into a real problem: his computer began locking up. No warning, no prior glitches, just a hard lockup, and only a power-cycle could get it going again. And I took one look at his setup and I said, "Dad, you need to ventilate that thing at the bottom. I bet your CPU is suffering an overheat condition." And so Dad went out and he purchased a little laptop stand for the laptop, that contained fans in the base, and he set the laptop stand across his lap and put the laptop on the laptop stand. And he didn't even need to actively run the fans, but just the extra height and bottom ventilation did the trick, and his laptop never locked-up again, and he was overjoyed, along with the cat, and Mom as well. And they lived happily ever after.
- maxbrt 2mo agoThat reminds me, I should have mentioned an even more backwards design which is that of the vent placement on my older Thinkpad X1. It has the air intake vents on the bottom, they relied on the little rubber feets to lift it up for correct airflow. I pretty much could not use it on my lap because of that, it got too hot even during smaller tasks. But to be fair, I've noticed similar placement on several HP/Dell laptops (or notebooks?) that I had at work too.
- dmaa 2mo agoDoes anybody have experience with filing just the 'trackpad corners' on a dark-colored macbook?
- tiborsaas 2mo agoI like pushing my fingers at those sharp edges and then feel the short lasting indent with my other finger. We are not the same :)
- gocolin 2mo agoOh my, I finally found out why I can only last 3 seconds..
- tosh 2mo agoI know, not the main purpose of it but what's the reduced weight in grams?
- maxbrt 2mo agoSo I've weighed it with my cheap kitchen scale, that says it weighs 1222g now. Sadly I did not weigh it before. I did look online and saw 1240g for the same model/specs. Take of that what you will, but I can't imagine that I filed off that much. I'm assuming my kitchen scale is just not well calibrated
- rbanffy 2mo agoOne thing I'd love to see is a polished MacBook. I'll probably have to buy a dead one for experimentation.
- deadbabe 2mo agoAnywhere you could take this to have it professionally done? I like the idea but would never do it myself.
- lokimedes 2mo agoThe meeting between my magnetic Apple Watch strap and the edge of the MacBook did the same for me, involuntarily. Apparently the magnets in these straps are quite abrasive.
- kdavis 2mo agoTrephination! :-) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanning
- citrus1330 2mo agoWow never realized people cared about this. I think it looks better with sharp edges and haven't had any problems with ergonomics.
- alexious-sh 2mo agoIt hurts even looking on it through the monitor.
- t1234s 2mo agoSharp edges/corners are an interesting design choice for a product in which you interact with your bare skin. Google Pixel 7/8 have sharp edges on their camera bump on the back.
- proee 2mo agoThe first gen unibody macbooks had seriously sharp edges, enough to grate a block of parmesan cheese. I suspect Sir Johny Ive is behind this madness. The latest apple watch ultras also seem quiet aggressive, so much so that I am having to sport the lame looking normal apple watch.
- unsupp0rted 2mo agoIn 2019 I put my MacBook Pro in my bag and sliced my fingers open on the edging around the exhaust
- bmitc 2mo agoI've never understood why Apple had and leaves these things in their computers.
- asdff 2mo agoThis has to be a "you are holding it wrong" situation. I use my macbook on the desk, on my lap, on my chest laying on my back, and have never once gotten to thinking parts of it should be filed down.
- necovek 2mo agoPeople are different: my hands are big and on my preferred laptop sizes (13-14"), laptop edges cut into my palms when my fingers are on the home row. Others' anatomy might be different in other ways. Perhaps you could claim I should be using larger laptops ad part of the "holding it wrong"), but then my preferred Thinkpad X1 Carbons do not cause the same issue for me. (Nor the screen reflections, or mushy keyboards of my work Macs)
- asdff 2mo agoI still don't see it. I am replying to this after scrolling with my laptop halfway up my belly and my palm rest directly on this supposedly too sharp edge. I just don't see what people are doing to induce pain and cuts.
- lofaszvanitt 2mo agoFor godsakes. Buy a 3000-6000 grit sandpaper, put it on an orbital sander and touch it on the edges delicately. Check, redo until edges are ok. Problem solved.
- maxbrt 2mo agoFor anyone interested in the background, I've written a detailed post about it as well as provided the code: https://www.brt.fyi/posts/prime-flow-field/ https://www.brt.fyi/posts/prime-flow-field/
- wolvoleo 2mo agoYeah the sharp edges have bothered me since they started with the unibody. Luckily I'm completely off Mac these days. But really the last mac I enjoyed using was my powerbook. It had really nice plastic gaskets for the edges, a keyboard with really good travel and cupped keys, it was wonderful. I got a plastic MacBook eventually which I filed down too because the edges were really sharp there. And plastic is easy to file. Also replaced the screen with a matte version, on the plastic MacBook that was also easy because the screens were readily available and there was no glass overlay. Then I had a unibody MBP 15" matte. Less sharp and with off factory matte display. Not great keyboard though. The current MBP I find abhorrent. Even after they switched from the horrible butterfly mistake the travel is still way too shallow. I just can't work with that anymore. These days I just don't buy laptops anymore. Only desk PCs.
- zaptrem 2mo agoThis is my number one complaint about the M-series MBP line. Especially true of the cutout in the middle that has points so sharp they can cut you if you accidentally scrape it with your hand.
- BenFranklin100 2mo agoGet one of these: https://www.andar.com/products/the-helm?variant=39792498049106 https://www.andar.com/products/the-helm?variant=397924980491... Pricey, but the lip covers the edge. My current one is 4 years old and lasted a couple of generations of Macbooks.
- npunt 2mo agoThe Helm is great. I'm not sure it really solves the wrists problem, at least for me since for how I use it the height of the laptop makes a huge difference in ergonomics. The MacBook Pro is already tall, and the Helm makes it taller, creating pressure on the wrists. Meanwhile I don't have this problem on my carry everywhere MacBook Air since it's so thin.
- Neywiny 2mo agoGood to see a recognition that power tools are powerful. Too many amateur videos of people experimenting without nearly enough control and messing up projects
- JSR_FDED 2mo agoBrave to do this on a blue color MacBook - curious how the filed area will look compared to the rest of the body after some time.
- gnabgib 2mo agoRelated: Filing the corners off my MacBooks (1406 points, 3mos ago, 678 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47724352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47724352
- IshKebab 2mo agoYeah but this guy did it carefully. That one looks like he took a powerfile to it.
- baldeagle 2mo agohttps://a.co/d/0hXtPRfC https://a.co/d/0hXtPRfC Amazon link to a debuting tool. It uses sharp harder metal to cut off sharp metal edges.
- shmeeed 2mo agoI strongly recommend against using a deburring tool on a Macbook. IMO OP has picked their tools with perfect consideration. These tools are made to remove burrs resulting from machining processes. They are very useful for quick&dirty jobs on bore holes or rough edges where optics don't matter, but they lack the precision for sensitive work. Anybody who's not very well versed in using a deburring tool is just about guaranteed to produce a terrible result that will only take longer to sand out than approching the task with files and sandpaper from the start.
- edot 2mo agoAgreed. Deburring tools also frequently “catch” and dig in if you’re not careful. Especially on soft aluminum. Use a file if you’re going to do this.
- shmeeed 2mo agoThis was posted in another comment: https://bsky.app/profile/s.ly/post/3mlo7ajrqdk2o https://bsky.app/profile/s.ly/post/3mlo7ajrqdk2o Not as bad as I would have thought, but I would still go OP's way if I wanted to do this.
- lrvick 2mo agoNow try modifying the software that Apple sold you with it.
- bpye 2mo agoThey don't document the hardware, but it is possible to run unsigned code on the SoC - that's how the Asahi Linux project is able to exist.
- maxbrt 2mo agoYeah that's been a major headache. I ssh into my server/desktop most of the time anyways, so there is no friction there. Then also I was surprised by how well VMs with OrbStack on Mac run. With yabai and skhd I've gotten it pretty closely to where I previously was with i3. Even still, I'm looking forward to the day where I can run Asahi on this
- Hammershaft 2mo agoIf you struggle with Yabai I'll reccomend Aerospace, which I think is more performant & reliable.
- lrvick 2mo agoThree employers in a row insisted on handing me a macbook, and three times in a row I ported Gentoo to it out of pure spite and disdain for third parties trying to control the binaries I use to do my job. At the time they called this crazy and unproductive, but those obsessions with control of my tools built the foundational skillsets that drove my career.
- bofadeez 2mo ago"The moment I am too scared to do something because I might damage the tool, it stops being a tool" That's just not the definition of the word "tool" at all but okay... whatever
- dlcarrier 2mo agoIt implies that it stops being a usable tool. It's still the same item, but it isn't able to be used as such.
- benj111 2mo agoA tool is meant to do something, not look pretty. If your primary concern is something looking pretty, it is no longer primarily a tool. Probably loose wording as damage can mean break something or make it look less pretty. I think the intent is clear though.
- maxbrt 2mo agoSorry you did not like that part! All I was trying to express was that even though this thing is nice and shiny, it is a tool in the end so if modifying it would make it serve that purpose better, one should not be scared to do so. I wasn't trying to give a definition, but perhaps I should rephrase that. Thanks!
- dlcarrier 2mo agoIt made sense to me. If you're to scared to use it without limits, then it is not useful for the scope of its intended purpose.
- hinata08 2mo agoCalling it a tool is fine. Some people would like to pretend means of production are holy assets you're supposed to value and trade (INVEST!!! making value is for losers and _these_ workers), when it's just a consummable that should serve a purpose right now. A computer is a tool and customizing the case is not unheard of. Thank you for desmystifying the Mac. Users know best.
- zecg 2mo ago> The moment I am too scared to do something because I might damage the tool, it stops being a tool. What? You can damage even the most robust and simple tool by using it wrongly or inattentively.
- maxbrt 2mo agoYou are correct, that was phrased badly. I've tried to update it, thanks for the comment.
- HugoTea 2mo agoI love the animation on the background of your website. And I totally understand what you mean about using a tool, if it's too delicate to do the job, then it's not doing its job. Imagine buying a hammer and trying to keep it clear of scuffs, it's obviously going to impede your work.
- alanwreath 2mo agoyes I want a post about that background, its pretty awesome how it gradually and seemingly randomly builds itself.
- ferranconde 2mo agoAt the bottom of the post there's a link to an explainer post about the background: https://brt.fyi/posts/prime-flow-field/ https://brt.fyi/posts/prime-flow-field/
- maxbrt 2mo agoThat contains mostly placeholder stuff from Wikipedia and does not go much into detail, I didn't get around to finishing it yet. I'll try to write it up in more detail
- maxbrt 2mo agoHello, I've written a more detailed post about it https://www.brt.fyi/posts/prime-flow-field/ https://www.brt.fyi/posts/prime-flow-field/ and also put the code in a public repo for anyone to use https://github.com/brtmax/prime-flow-field https://github.com/brtmax/prime-flow-field
- eru 2mo agoSee https://www.brt.fyi/posts/prime-flow-field/ https://www.brt.fyi/posts/prime-flow-field/ about the background.
- jiehong 2mo agoIt’s true in general, but not always. Some tools do not work if you don’t treat them with utmost care (like an optical system that might need a clean room to work, or that gets damaged by a small bump, or whatever)
- Tylast 2mo agoI'm glad I'm not the only one. I do this to ALL my MBPs. Makes a tremendous difference. With all the rounded corners that Apple forces on their customers, I find it insane that they haven't rounded the one that actually causes user physical pain.