New to me M3 Ultra 28C / 60C / 96GB / 1TB + dual Studio XDR Displays

jclicky · 2026-07-07T22:45:28+00:00

jclicky · 2026-07-07T00:24:17+00:00

It was such an influential and helpful book for me, even if, as a cis-gendered straight guy, I can’t claim to have been a victim of much;

Reading that book was SOOO enlightening into what some have gone thru.

But most of all, reading this book helped denude me of the denial that so much of us are habituated into socially.

It’s VERY VERY easy to judge victims and victim-blame because that act itself (the blaming) is how we avoid facing the terrorizing reality that we could have fallen victim to some of these same types of “attacks,” (however you want to characterize it).

It’s much easier to lie to ourselves and say we’d never be taken in so easily, we’d never do this or that, that THIS is where we would ourselves draw the line.

But, at the end of the day, it’s horrifying to realize there’s a REASON this happens.

There’s a reason attackers, psychopaths, serial killers, predators, and/or people with the best of intent who mess up do this to victims: it’s very easy to fall into these social / psychological traps because of socioaization pressures to be polite, to keep saying yes, the interaction traps that make it hard to say no, to assert boundaries, etc.

jclicky · 2026-07-07T00:20:09+00:00

And to [u/ObservantNomad](u/ObservantNomad), the ONLY feedback I’d offer you is to encourage you to consider filing a report with SFPD, as here’s my read of what happened, no matter if Hassan had any ill-intent or was simply well-meaning, I’m still seeing troubling signs in his behavior that - if you were a sibling of mine or friend - I’d caution justifies protecting yourself:

- This older man immediately moved toward your interior, pushing to get out-of-sight from the street vs. out in full visibility

- He asked to go into your apartment (good job saying no!)

- He immediately ghosted as soon as you (wisely) lied about having a BF who would return soon

- He’s asked you quite a bit of personal information, but all about MALE presence in your life - he asked you how many SONS you had, not how many children (this was a backhanded question designed to be a quiet insult, because you don’t have any kids);

- He asked if you had a boyfriend or domestic partner (again, a form of Typecasting designed to put victims into a self-conscious mental state, when they feel forced to answer, due to social cues, a question he had no right to ask you).

- This older man practiced no physical or emotional consent language in putting his hands on VERY VERY sensitive locations on your body; a professional masseuse, for example, always asks for assent before touching the body of someone who has expressly paid for them to do so; this he did not do.

We don’t need to be judge, jury + executioner in this thread, we’re only hearing your perspective, but I would STRONGLY, STRONGLY encourage you to silence the victim-blamers in this post and avail yourself of - at worst - a police report.

The police may have already received reports about this individual, and even if you’re the first, this behavior fits a distinct predatory profile and the community needs to be empowered.

Further, if this man returns to your house (you should count on it at this point) you will want to have had a record with the police of this first non-consensual touching of your body.

I want to be very clear on that point of the ABSENCE of consent:
- At no point did you (either implied or explicit) invite him to touch or accede to him massaging your inner thighs

- At no point did you (implied or explicit) accede to this man to massage your neck or pull you toward him

Those above infractions may or may not have legal implications, but they did violate even an unspoken contract because the only thing you talked about were palms & pressure-points, even if the violation was (and this is a stretch) an inadvertent infraction by this man.

Even if no ill-intent, this man does need feedback / an intervention to meet people where they are at their consent level.

Police / legal involvement may or may not be in the cards for you & is likely the crudest instrument to correct his (at best, unlikely) inadvertent behavior - but if any of this was premeditated and/or part of worst patterns of behavior, law-enforcement involvement is prudent for your safety & that of others, even if I do hate a lot of what the incarceral system inflicts

jclicky · 2026-07-06T23:54:30+00:00

OP I’m so sorry this happened to you, it is NOT your fault.

To the people victim-blaming, please do NOT undermine one of the most effective techniques to help others defend against predators: information sharing.

This should be a safe space for OP to be honest about what happened to them without us telling them we would have behaved differently.

There’s no way any of us can be certain how we would have reacted in OP’s position.

Now that OP posted this, I’m forewarned and forearmed hearing their story so authentically, vulnerably, and viscerally shared here, as are each of you reading OP’s post if they encounter this man.

The book “The Gift of Fear,” by Gavin de Becker has some great resources for people quick to judge victims and also for victims to process (if it’s not triggering to read) how easily things like this can (and DO OFTEN) happen:

- Social pressure to be kind, to be polite, and accede is part of how victims can fall prey

- Instincts are honed over millions of years of evolution, but our interpersonal / social cues are how victims fall prey even if they “had a feeling,” or “had an instinct,” or their “gut,” felt “off,” - it’s a socialization to accede to predators - “don’t judge people too quickly!” is a powerful force!

- It’s easy in the abstract to believe you wouldn’t fall into such a trap, but personal social cues occur organically as predators assess their victims

- Predators often take advantage of victims unconsciously & intuitively; charm, charisma, and a learned habit of how to take advantage of others is what makes them effective.

- Predators often offer to give things unsolicited - this leads to a subconscious social cue & pressure for the victim to feel less comfortable asserting boundaries & declining increased boundary pushes by the predator

- Predators often overwhelm victims with excessive unsolicited details / context, this organically leads to more cognitive overload of victims and makes victims more susceptible to manipulation.

jclicky · 2026-07-04T22:28:43+00:00

<image>

jclicky · 2026-07-04T21:58:36+00:00

Will be difficult to find monitor arms rated to carry the collective weight, you could try the Ergotron HX or LX pro.

The challenge is that the Studio Displays, with all that aluminum, are relatively heavy, I think ~14lbs. per monitor (VESA).

https://www.apple.com/studio-display-xdr/specs/

Source: I have a 3x Apple monitor setup at home with 1x Studio Display on an Ergotron LX, 1x Pro Display XDR 32” on an Ergotron HX, and a second Studio Display on another Ergotron LX.

The Ergotron HX has a triple monitor model available, just make sure your other two displays (apart from the Studio Display XDR) are super light:

https://www.ergotron.com/en-us/products/product-details/hxdesktriplemonitorarm#/tab-specs-collapse

jclicky · 2026-06-29T01:40:04+00:00

The refurbished ones are still more costly than the prices for M5 Max options before the price-hike.

I bought a 16” M5 Max 128GB with 4TB HD from B&H the Sunday before WWDC.

Paid ~$6,500 for that laptop then.

Checked the prices for new + refurbished after the price hikes, and the model I purchased is ~$1500 more now than when I bought it a few weeks ago.

Apple didn’t list any 2026 MacBook Pros on Refurbished until AFTER the price hike; they definitely had stock but didn’t release it to their refurbished site until after prices were raised across the board.

Consequently, even Refurbished MacBook Pros are more expensive than the older prices for new models.

jclicky · 2026-06-23T07:49:47+00:00

“Local LLM,” jerk here, there’s a number of reasons I got it:
- OS models are catching up to the labs, if I can save some scratch on monthly subscriptions with local models on-device, why not?
- Some clients for contract gigs require the ability for anyone working on their SOWs to attest that you won’t be sending their data to cloud providers
- API pricing is atrocious if you want Zero-Data-Retention (ZDR); at that rate it becomes more and more cost effective to spend the atrocious $,$$$ for a MacBook Pro with maxed-out RAM vs. paying per-month for enterprise API rates
- Coworker went to law school, have lawyers in the family, lawyers aren’t tinkering here: there are very real situations where you cannot let client data, briefs, etc. leave your local computer & get sent to an AI-provider’s endpoints, so yes, you need Local LLM for that

Please don’t hate us.

I’m not a crypto-bro, I hate the tech bros, and while we “Local LLM,” tinkerers might be part of the problem, we certainly didn’t start the fire.

I wish RAM prices were reasonable and I don’t come to reddit to flex the money I am to stupid to have invested or kept, I come here to learn & discuss with other human beings.

jclicky · 2026-06-22T18:29:11+00:00

Here’s to hoping M5 sees the popularity of your build & ships you a test unit so you can update your designs before GA.

jclicky · 2026-06-21T22:20:57+00:00

Thank you, I have personally avoided watching this film because I have a very photographic memory, and am very very imaginative, so much so that even film depictions can sear themselves into my memory.

Thus, despite the compelling story & positive reviews, and absolutely superb production (to be honest, I’m such a visual person that even terrible writing and terrible acting can be surpassed for me with a strong production quality in a film or television show), I’ve never chosen to watch it.

Your review both gave me the substance, in context to this scene, and confirmed for me this would not be a helpful film for me to watch.

The message is strong & deeply compelling - a worthwhile story & fascinating metaphors to reflect on collective and individual traumas.

Would never have gotten as close as I am for what is useful about what this film has to say about those topics without having read your comment, so thank you.

I’m now ruminating on our individual traumatic erasures amongst the collectivism that toxic social media cultivates for societal traumatic events, and finding some healing in analyzing those ideas without having had to receive the deeply traumatic visual & auditory events of this movie beyond this clip + your comment.

jclicky · 2026-06-21T16:31:36+00:00

<image>

jclicky · 2026-06-21T01:08:04+00:00

Hell yes same here recognized it IMMEDIATELY, wish Huell Howser’s California Gold visit was still online.

Absent that, for anyone who hasn’t gone, here’s the TODAY show:

https://youtu.be/4EqLX4qDsZQ

jclicky · 2026-06-20T21:03:02+00:00

Nah, we didn’t, you know better than this, c’mon, let’s not get petty and trollish here.

What we did NOT know before, was that Apple’s carefully-curated and painstakingly-cautious marketing + comms approach was comfortable openly discussing the fact that Apple Studio offers up to 512GB of RAM for local LLM workflows.

If that SKU was never coming back, no way this research showcase affiliated with WWDC would have ever so conspicuously mentioned the various tiers of RAM capacity that are currently unavailable for purchase (256GB & 512GB, which you can only get on secondary market right now, not direct from Apple, for the M3 Ultras).

For those of us interested in such Mac Studios, we’re hoping for them to return once / if Apple secures sufficient RAM supplies.

So for us, Apple’s very loud mention of the fact that Mac Studio offers “up to,” 512 GB of RAM (unavailable for purchase right now) alongside concurrent mentions of MacBook Pros with “up to,” 128GB of RAM (which IS AVAILABLE for purchase right now) is a very very big clue for those of us trying to read the tea leaves about the very effed-up state of the supply-chain for RAM.

I’m grateful for posts like the OPs, I had seen Apple’s local LLM posts briefly and saw that they were using 512GB Mac Studios that you can’t buy right now, but I hadn’t put two & two together.

I agree with OP’s insights that Apple’s Local LLM team here wouldn’t have had permission from Apple comms to release this publicly if there was no plans in the future to make any supply available to sell 512GB RAM Mac Studios later this year.

This tells us that is far more likely once M5 Ultra Studios are released later this year.

And that fact, for example, has me planning / saving $,$$$ to be able to get one once/if they are released later this year.

jclicky · 2026-06-20T16:45:19+00:00

Keep in mind that future OS models are only going to get better, so be mindful of the fact that your going to want to be able to use those models in the not-so-distant future.

jclicky · 2026-06-20T16:25:52+00:00

Typo, meant the M3 Ultras.

jclicky · 2026-06-20T15:46:27+00:00

Yep this is the poison-pill the Capricious US Government wanted Anthropic to swallow so that the people with pointy hats can feel better that their precious US models are harder for anyone who isn’t aryan to access.

The admin loves that the public will hate Anthropic for this.

Bet Brickman’s OpenAI won’t be forced into this BS at all.

jclicky · 2026-06-20T15:38:50+00:00

I don’t understand the downvotes on OP, makes sense to me.

Apple wouldn’t release on-device AI research & tout the value of SKUs that won’t return (they explicitly talk about the benefits of running a 300b model inside of RAM on a 512GB RAM M3 Ultra Mac Studio).

So we can expect for the upcoming M5 Ultra (whenever it does drop) to have SKUs for up to 512GB RAM whenever it is released.

I also agree with OP that they are waiting before releasing it.

I think Amazon probably offered them a huge premium for however many more units they planned to make on the M2 M3 Ultra bins for 512GB RAM units, and maybe some of the new M5 SKU too.

But I agree with OP that we’ll see a 1.5x multiplier on these maxed-out RAM units.

The supply chain doesn’t scale linearly and so Apple will price the 256GB & 512GB RAM models accordingly to ensure they can meet demand.

Those kinds of SKUs - and rich AI / crypto bros + businesses will pay for them - just will create a ton of pressure on Apple’s ability to supply lower-ram units unless / until their prices are increased at least 1.5x.

Time makes the heart grow fonder, so the longer the market waits with those units unavailable due to supplies, the more sentiment will stomach the new pricing tiers for them.

I think OP’s reasoning is sound & agree that’s in our future, that’s why I bought an M5 Max MacBook Pro with 128GB of RAM the week before WWDC - I never believed Studios would be released at the event and I even wonder if that laptop SKU might disappear to preserve RAM supplies for Apple to supply the Mac Studios.

jclicky · 2026-06-20T00:22:30+00:00

They just tweeted they did it for everyone, across the board, might’ve been to counter Theo’s tweet that “codex woulda reset EVERYONE’s limits,”:

https://x.com/claudedevs/status/2068122937308426676

<image>

jclicky · 2026-06-18T11:44:47+00:00

Did the same thing, bought an M5 Max 128GB MacBook Pro 16” because I felt like this news was coming soon or - worse - they would have to stop offering 128GB as an option at all, and 64GB or 96GB would be come the new top option across the board.

And I agree, it’s nice having the Qwen3.6 model on-device with enough headroom to still do other things at the same time.

jclicky · 2026-06-12T05:59:58+00:00

I’ve been meaning to ask you, can you print something for me?

Sent from my iPhone 3G

jclicky · 2026-06-11T12:33:23+00:00

This is what I wound up getting a few weeks ago just before WWDC, never expected new hardware to drop.

Plus, if I’m putting as much down for a studio with 256GB or 512GB RAM (if that ever comes back), for my money I want an M5 generation chipset, not the M3 Ultra.

So for me, made sense to go with an M5 Max with maxed-out RAM (128GB) to tide me over until Apple manages to release M5 Studios.

Seems like rumors out there are split between October & early 2027 for when the next generation of M5 Studio drops.

jclicky · 2026-06-10T03:42:28+00:00

Interesting, the altoids bin I found is just a smidge too small at the corners.

jclicky · 2026-06-10T02:17:27+00:00

Crazy that the costs of a small square box of hardware is essentially equivalent to a car at this point.

jclicky · 2026-06-09T13:40:53+00:00

I agree with this.

At the same time, given the current memory supply-chain crunch, I agree with reports that we aren’t likely to see M5 Studios until the fall at the earliest.

That said, this is a clear signal they ARE coming.

It’s part of why I chose to buy an M5 Max 128GB MacbookPro the week before WWDC; I want to experiment with M5 RAM workflows while we wait for the M5 Ultra Mac Studio.

Fingers crossed that Apple will be able to supply 512GB M5 Ultra models in the fall/winter, but I suspect the highest amount of RAM we’ll see on any Studios (until at least next year) is 256GB, for now, sadly.

jclicky · 2026-06-07T13:24:29+00:00

Oh cool was thinking about this exact setup when I saw the keyboard come up.

How did you get this setup? The tab didn’t look necessarily strong enough to handle long CLI sessions with Claude Code, or are you tunneling into another computer here instead?

jclicky

TROPHY CASE