I find macOS to be a superior OS for doing computer work to all the alternatives. It still sucks for a lot of reasons, but to my taste it generally sucks less. I’m a web dev, so I host a lot of crap in Linux, and I’m pretty confident in using it as a desktop. But the general day to day experience I find macOS superior.

There’s plenty of people in similar boats, and this is the most affordable machine (new, not used) that lets someone get to use macOS.

For a lot of people with budget limits I’d point them to used MacBook Air models rather than the Neo, but having this as a new model is a really nice option for some people.

Also you can call the Neo CPU slow but its benchmarks run circles around anything you find at its price range. Those machines have more RAM and storage, but the Neo will likely provide a more responsive experience than anything in its price range.

> Alternatively, users can also choose to purchase the Mac versions of Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage individually as a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store.

I think this is incorrect. Specifically the Windows ARM support. Official hardware support page indicates that the Windows version requires x64. I unfortunately don’t have the hardware to confirm for myself. But Blizzard is the kind of company that would have made a blog post about that.

https://us.support.blizzard.com/en/article/76459

This is neat, and exciting that Windows emulation tooling is progressing! It seems like there’s a lot of work hardware vendors would need to do in order to make Win/Arm viable for game devs. I really wonder if that’s ever going to happen.

For web dev specific guidance it's hard to beat ASP.NET Core in Action by Andrew Lock. Check out Lock's blog too at https://andrewlock.net, it's a great source of new features happening in ASP.NET. He does go into publishing an app on both Windows and Linux, with a decent guide to both. But you'll probably want to read through MSDN docs on that as well, I don't think there's a book that goes in very deep on that.

For generally writing modern C# using .NET, I like Code like a Pro in C# by Jort Rodenburg.

For a quick tour of modern C# features C# 12 in a Nutshell by Albahari is basically the reference guide. 12 is the latest, grab any of them from probably 7 up for a decently modern take.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY

  WARNING: UEFI capsule updates not available or enabled in firmware setup
  See https://github.com/fwupd/fwupd/wiki/PluginFlag:capsules-unsupported for more information.
  Host Security ID: HSI:0! (v2.0.8)
  
  HSI-1
   csme override:                 Locked
   csme v0:16.50.15.1515:         Valid
   Platform debugging:            Disabled
   SPI write:                     Disabled
   Supported CPU:                 Valid
   TPM empty PCRs:                Valid
   TPM v2.0:                      Found
   UEFI bootservice variables:    Locked
   UEFI secure boot:              Enabled
   BIOS firmware updates:         Disabled
   csme manufacturing mode:       Unlocked
   SPI lock:                      Disabled
   SPI BIOS region:               Unlocked
   UEFI platform key:             Invalid
  
  HSI-2
   Intel BootGuard:               Enabled
   IOMMU:                         Enabled
   Platform debugging:            Locked
   TPM PCR0 reconstruction:       Valid
   Intel BootGuard ACM protected: Invalid
   Intel BootGuard OTP fuse:      Invalid
   Intel BootGuard verified boot: Invalid
  
  HSI-3
   CET Platform:                  Supported
   Intel BootGuard error policy:  Invalid
   Pre-boot DMA protection:       Disabled
   Suspend-to-idle:               Disabled
   Suspend-to-ram:                Enabled
  
  HSI-4
   SMAP:                          Enabled
   Encrypted RAM:                 Not supported
  
  Runtime Suffix -!
   fwupd plugins:                 Untainted
   Linux kernel lockdown:         Enabled
   Linux kernel:                  Untainted
   CET OS Support:                Not supported
   Linux swap:                    Unencrypted
   UEFI db:                       Invalid
  
  This system has a low HSI security level.
   » https://fwupd.github.io/hsi.html#low-security-level
  
  This system has HSI runtime issues.
   » https://fwupd.github.io/hsi.html#hsi-runtime-suffix

A person with broader shoulders would probably have a different experience, but a full keyboard makes me feel like my mouse is either too close to the keyboard or too far to rest my shoulder.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_music_(disambiguat...

It’s not music from the classical period. Indeed, it’s from the baroque period. But in my decades of talking about and performing classical music, the term has never led to confusion.

> "If you're wondering why we're [not implementing this on other platforms right now] [...]"

In the US we don't have a standard form of national ID.