My RTX Spark laptop review with a bonkers AI coding test, a new preview video

Plus, my local AI coding project, Patrick Stewart tributes, why your gutters leak, and something cool coming on Tuesday.

Nov 02, 2026

I’m David Gewirtz. Welcome to this week’s Advanced Geekery newsletter. It’s been an exciting week. Let’s dive in.

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My latest preview video

If you’ve been following my ZDNET articles, you know I’ve been working on a filament management tool called My Filament Stash. Here’s a look at how to add and remove 3D printers in the upcoming release of the product. It’s being built for the Apple ecosystem and will run on iPhone, iPad, Watch, and Mac.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

I put Lenovo’s RTX Spark laptop through a completely bonkers AI coding test - and it passed: Forget ordinary laptop benchmarks - I tested the $4,000 Lenovo RTX Spark with real local AI coding and a brutal battery workload.

Just one article went up last week. I’m working on some pretty cool projects for the coming week including my latest look at the top programming languages, and whether that’s even a relevant question anymore, along with other topics.

Upcoming video release Tuesday 6am PT

Remember this teaser from a few weeks ago? All will be revealed on the Advanced Geekery YouTube channel Tuesday morning at 6am PT.

Project of the week

As many of you know, I’ve been working on a bunch of agentic coding projects with Claude Code and OpenAI Codex. In fact, another feature preview from one of those projects is spotlighted at the top of this newsletter.

But while the commercial fee-paid agentic tools are great, what if you want to code locally, using open source tools, and avoid paying the AI token or subscription tax? During my review of the Lenovo Spark-based machine (also above), I found I was able to generate some limited code entirely on-machine.

For the past week, I’ve been trying to formalize that process. I’m looking for the best models, harnesses, and engines to be able to fairly reliably build real apps entirely locally. So far, I’m having mixed results, but I’ll keep looking.

If you’ve managed to set up an entirely local agentic coding environment, and it works, please reach out to me either in the comments below or directly. I’d love to know how you’re doing it.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

The Band of the Grenadier Guards performs the iconic Star Trek theme at Buckingham Palace in honor of Sir Patrick Stewart, following the sad news of his passing. Oddly enough, the theme they mostly play is from the original series.
Jonathan Frakes (he played Will Riker) and Brent Spiner (who played Data) have a podcast called Dropping Names. This time, they talk about Sir Patrick.
Interesting This Old House video on why your gutters might be leaking.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth checking out.

EA has apparently nuked Bioware. Does that mean no more Mass Effect games?
Apparently, turning on Background Sounds on your iPhone might help you sleep.
Kerry Wan has ZDNET’s official iPhone Duo review.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.