Graham42

Binomial has been working on a universal compressed texture format and is partnering with Google to open source it as a Khronos standard.

Quote

The Basis Universal texture format is 6-8 times smaller than JPEG on the GPU, yet is a similar storage size as JPEG

Having a universal standard is a huge boon to developers because they can take advantage of GPU performance without the overhead of all the different GPU formats. Adopting the format should help with mobile game performance, but is also applicable to other platforms too.

Honestly I don't understand enough of it but it looks like this is possibly the successor to JPEG down the road.

Sources: 
Binomial Twitter - Lots of news posts related to the release being reshared here

Google Open Source Blog Post

Hacker news comment on the benefits of compressed textures

Update: Here's a video dives in and explains this better than what I originally understood. 

You don't want to use Uber. They treat their employees like trash. Source: https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber

I would want the New Razor Blade, to use for developing games /other coding projects on the go.

I'm running a GTX 970 but trying to drive a 4k monitor and it suffers in games. Frame rates are usually around 40-50 

The dbrand link is broken

Excalibur v2 keyboard

I really want to upgrade to a mechanical keyboard and Linus mentioned brown switches, so bonus!

An SSD is an absolute must for a laptop. Besides the awesome speed increase, it reduces weight, and reduces chance of bad things happening to the drive if you pick up an move the laptop while it's running. Drives spinning at 5400+ RPM don't like being moved around / turned every which way. I won't ever let anyone in my family buy a new laptop without an SSD.

I'd start out by trying to run Steam OS on it! seems like a perfect living room machine.

The Dell P2715Q certainly looks like it might work. But, should I be concerned that it's 6 months old? I know the monitor market seems to be moving pretty fast the last couple years.

So I'm looking for desktop monitor recommendations. My current laptop has 170 DPI screen which I have fell in love with. However, that's a bit high for a desktop so I'd probably like to get something around 150 DPI. I'll be using it as a single monitor for software dev, movie watching, and occasionally playing Eve Online.

Must have VESA mount 100mm x 100mm

Must be IPS (or sub-category thereof)

Any help is appreciated.

That headset looks beautiful! Would have to pick it as the favorite. And with the included adapter I could use it on my electric piano as well as my desktop!

I think my favorite would have to be the CPU cooler with it's temperature controller LED, because functional lights are cool but at the same time are actually useful!

Linus you should try an adjustable standing desk with a mid range chair. I'm a computer programmer so I spend ~8 hours a day in chair. When I come home I use a standing desk for additional programming and it's a great change. I do still sit for watching a movie and for some computer games. Sitting all the time, is not great for you, but standing all the time, doesn't work for all kinds of computer use and can be difficult if you're not used to it. Having an adjustable desk and switching presets throughout the day gets you moving and you will find you're even more efficient.

If you want to try out a standing desk without committing to the adjustable right away try this $22 IKEA hack http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk-for-22-dollars.html

(Or if you need extra space this guy tweaked it and it ended up at $31 http://www.theimaginaryzebra.com/my-diy-standing-desk-the-2231-ikea-hack/)

You can have the best chair in the world, but you'll still be sitting!

I've been thinking of upgrading for a while now, might be the right choice. Thanks for the great review as always!