Stacked Laptop Monitor Update

July 15th, 2024
tech, wrists
In the spirit of coming back to things once I have more experience with them, I've continued to be very happy with my stacked laptop monitor. I just got back from a week of touring and then vacation with Julia's family, and I used it almost every day. Being able to use my laptop comfortably nearly anywhere is pretty great.

One thing I did realize is that just using a regular USB-C cable is risky:

While I haven't had any accidents this way, it would be pretty easy for someone to get caught on the cord and knock it all down. I got an 18" dual right angle cable, and it works great:

Another thing I've noticed is that the velcro gets harder to peel apart the longer the monitor has been attached to the back of the laptop screen. As long as I take it off after each use it's fine, but at one point I left it together for maybe a week: when I tried to separate it I was worried I would ruin my screen, until I remembered my screen was already ruined. But I would be nervous about so much strong velcro on a laptop with a still-functioning screen.

I've also mostly stopped using the bit of wood that keeps it from collapsing, even when using this on my lap. Instead I just sit very still and try not to knock it over. This is kind of silly, but I'm too lazy to get out the piece of wood when this actually seems to work fine.

I noted last time that it was too tall for meetings, but didn't say what I do about that: I just put the monitor in front of the regular screen, without stacking it. It stays put well enough, and I don't mind the angle when glancing down every so often in a meeting. I also used to sometimes pick up the screen like a tablet and hold it some other way, but with the shorter cable this now offers fewer options.

Referenced in: Less Laptop Velcro

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, mastodon, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Thing of Things AI use policy

dynomight recently wrote an article calling for bloggers to state publicly whether and how they use AI

via Thing of Things July 6, 2026

Agentic test processes, LLM benchmarks, and other notes on agentic coding from Galapagos Island

I've been using AI fairly heavily since last November and the whole thing is a funny experience. An agent will do something that, if a human did it, you'd immediately fire them. My reaction, of course, is to act as if this is great and spin up a t…

via Posts on July 3, 2026

Variable fonts aren't universally supported

I make a lot of webpages. I also use Lockdown Mode on iOS and MacOS for a bit of extra security. Sometimes I realize that I forgot to test on Safari and it looks like crap, or I test and don’t notice that there’s been a problem for months (as was the case…

via Home June 27, 2026

more     (via openring)