The End of Localhost

As a computational physics graduate student, I found multiple factor is bringing my localhost experience to an end already. I am moving the part of localhost computing to a self-hosted PC (I got a 8th gen intel with 32G ram, which is $300 from ebay) at home. The factors includes:

* Tailscale makes virtual networking available and very convenient. * VSCode, then its derivative, code-server, make development (coding and terminal) from browser a reality for everyone. See https://chazeon.com/notes/software/code-server-over-ssh/, it also give me an interface to the HPCs. * Jupyter, similar to above. * My all-day battery from M1 Pro MacBook allows me to code anytime, moving local part of the computing to remote also contribute to a better battery life. * Caddy etc. makes HTTPS certificates easy to get.

Right now my computing environment is then 3-layer structure:

[Laptop] == [PC] == [HPC]

I also want to add Ben Thompson's article "Thin Platforms" a helpful summary of Microsoft's view of edge computing strategy, and similarly end up that "localhost" is about to end: https://stratechery.com/2022/thin-platforms/

I am just not too sure about the AWS part, it is still way too expensive for computing expensive jobs for individuals, for corporates, they are probably okay.

> Fast gigabit internet is cheap and everywhere (5G or mesh wifi)

Dev machines (laptops, tablets, VR) are cheap and have multiday battery life

Your apps build in a second regardless of scale, with tests and staging

... and pigs fly.

Sorry, but I don't want to be tethered to SaaS solutions or the problems with latency. You can't have cheap, reliable internet over the entire Earth (at least not yet) and low enough ping to work efficiently. Satellite is a no-go for latency, it's primarily an emergency solution dwarfed by the speed, low latency, and bandwidth (speed and bandwidth aren't the same.. channel capacity) of fibre. It's simple physics.

I've recently started using devcontainers for some of my projects. VSCode makes using them pretty seamless and convenient. I'd be shocked if Codespaces on Github didn't have first class support for devcontainers by the time it becomes available for individual users. It seems like a logical extention of their utility.

> But I Need To Code on a Plane?

I flew across the US two weeks ago, and every flight I was on had WiFi. It wasn't free, but it was available.

But I mostly agree with the author anyways. Just take a break. We don't need to be working 24/7.

A few years back I used to take an Amazon Fire Tablet with a cheap Bluetooth mouse, keyboard and stand when I went to hackathons. Typically I would fire up a cloud server and either log into it with ssh or with RDP.

If the internet was good where I was going this was a good kit and from the viewpoint of vanity it's not often that you have a kit that costs 10% of what a macbook costs but looks so sleek that the the macbook looks shabby in comparison.

Funnily, the YC startup mentioned abandoned their idea (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jagathv_launch-hn-gallery-yc-...).