Repairability and cost are key for the education market. Apple sold iPads into this space for awhile but there's been pushback and talk of going to chromebooks. Seems like they are positioning Neo for this segment as well.
Can we bring computer labs back into education, instead of K-12 all having their own laptops?!? Why does a primary schooler need to "access an online assignment portal" to turn in his assignment?!? You can make a good argument (perhaps) for high schoolers having access to personal laptops, but this shouldn't be allowed on the whim of all classroom hours.
We are failing our next generation, massively — it's already washing out in Gen Alpha's testscores/employability.
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background: attended college on a teaching scholarship, twenty years ago; immediately left heartbreak of education, breaking repayment contract, to attend grad school; still jaded from that uncredentialed five-figure expense
yes. I think EdTech can be helpful for learning; but having immediate access to the rest of the internet at the same time negated whatever benefit EdTech would have had. I think that's why all the data from the EdTech companies shows a benefit in controlled studies of just their product, but the rest of our overall academic achievement data shows a net decline ever since portable screens were introduced into life and education.
Most of my peers/brothers met their wives IRL, pre-Tinder. They only realize how bad portable screens have become watching their/others' children fumble through normal developmental milestones.
Across the age spectrum I've challenged many to just not use their phone for one day [0] — and this often provokes intense defensiveness/anxiety. I'm personally back exploring new working jurisdictions, and the criteria of "Right to Disconnect" is a major influencer (i.e. cannot contact me during non-work hours).
"know the role and place your software fits in" yes! Probably one of the most important lessons of my career. As a junior dev starting out, I had no idea how my software fit into the company's product let alone into the entire ecosystem of what was already available and open source. Now as a senior, I see juniors making the same mistake that naturally arises out of this: needlessly doing things that have already been done or re-inventing the wheel. And now that coding ability is a cheap commodity, product development, and knowing where you fit into the ecosystem becomes the main skillset.
Substack has been a welcome alternative in this space as well. It reminds me of my experience on web blogs back in the 2000s. A real sense of community and substance.
Most parents I've met understand the internet can be a dangerous place for children but aren't sure what to do about it. Some avoid it altogether, but most give up and resign themselves to whatever happens.
What I wanted most was just to have some visibility into what my kids were experiencing, so I built LivingRoom App for iPhone and iPad. It sends occasional screenshots to parents. My hope is that when we shine a light on the online world, we will be free to use the internet as a tool for learning, creativity and connection. https://livingroomapp.com/
Does that course cover "It's not a good idea to forcibly add gay people to groups and then publically post it to their timeline, outing them"? Or perhaps the photo tags that get added of them (sometimes automatically) at the gay club
(I use the second one as an example, without reference to anything specific, but the first one really did happen. Jason Calacanis talks about it in his interview on Lex Fridman)
Hang in there. Yes it is possible; I do it every day.
I also do iOS and my current setup is: Cursor + Claude Opus 4.5.
You still need to think about how you would solve the problem as an engineer and break down the task into a right-sized chunk of work. i.e. If 4 things need to change, start with the most fundamental change which has no other dependencies.
Also it is important to manage the context window. For a new task, start a new "chat" (new agent). Stay on topic. You'll be limited to about five back-and-forths before performance starts to suffer. (cursor shows a visual indicator of this in the for of the circle/wheel icon)
For larger tasks, tap the Plan button first, and guide it to the correct architecture you are looking for. Then hit build. Review what it did. If a section of code isn't high-quality, tell Claude how to change it. If it fails, then reject the change.
It's a tool that can make you 2 - 10x more productive if you learn to use it well.
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