North Meets South Web Podcast

In this episode, Jake and Michael catch up on the final preparations for Laracon AU, using AI to build and rehearse conference presentations, and the tools and workflows making their lives easier.

Michael shares how smooth his custom-built conference ops tool has made organising Laracon and walks through his AI-assisted presentation workflow, using Claude, Keynote, and recorded rehearsals to refine his script, animations, delivery, and timing.

Jake shares his own approach to preparing presentations by recording stream-of-consciousness voice memos, turning them into structured outlines, and iterating with AI while preserving his natural speaking style.

The conversation also explores smart home technology, the challenges of mentoring junior developers, and how experience shapes the decisions developers make when planning and delivering projects.

Show links

• Laracon AU
• Road to Laracon
• Claude
• Stagetimer
• Rundown Studio
• Lemonnade

In this episode, Jake and Michael discuss the value of consistency, the final preparations for Laracon AU, and how AI is changing the economics of building software.

Michael shares how his custom-built conference operations platform is simplifying everything from attendee registration and dietary requirements to merchandise, QR codes, and venue deliveries. This leads to a broader conversation about highly specialised software, declining costs of building apps, and whether traditional SaaS subscriptions still make sense.

The conversation turns to AI-generated tests, where Michael explains how he's using lessons from Mostly Technical to identify and remove unnecessary tests in his Laravel projects. Jake shares his experience using an AI agent to monitor Facebook Marketplace for a car, and the pair discuss the benefits and privacy implications of increasingly autonomous AI tools.

Show links

• Laracon AU
• Quiz Meisters
• Tuple
• Paperform
• Typeform
• SignUpGenius
• Cloudflare Workers
• Puzzle Party
• Mostly Technical: Feel the AGI
• Meta Muse

Michael and Jake celebrate episode 200 in the most outlandish way possible: with no special plan whatsoever.

Michael shares an update on his home renovation, including construction progress, verandah engineering, outdoor kitchen plans, landscaping, structured cabling, smoke alarms, CCTV, and the ever-growing list of "small" additions that come with a major building project.

They then discuss home networking, with Michael planning a mostly Ubiquiti, while Jake compares notes on his own home network, including reusing old whole-house vacuum pipes as ethernet conduit and planning better Wi-Fi coverage throughout the house.

Later, the conversation shifts to software development and AI-assisted coding. Michael describes what he calls - rightly or wrongly - a "software factory" that uses Amp as an orchestrator, GLM 5.3 agents for implementation, spec-driven development, automated code review, browser testing, and overnight agent workflows.

The episode wraps with a broader discussion about what AI means for software development, how it enables software for an audience of one, and whether Michael should buy the 24-port PoE switch after all.

Jake and Michael are joined by TJ Miller, David Hemphill, and Chris Gmyr to talk about the realities of working with non-technical stakeholders that are now empowered to deliver software through AI.

Show links

• TJ Miller
• David Hemphill
• Chris Gmyr
• KFC's Picklecore Menu
• Luma Brighter Learning
• Zillow
• Rula Health
• Laravel Nova
• Lovable
• Laravel AI
• Refactoring to Collections
• Rector
• PHPStan

In this episode, Michael and Jake recap Laracon US Boston, from Malaysian food and an undefeated dodgeball run to Laraprom, the great nachos-with-rice debate, conference logistics, Aaron Francis stepping into Laravel’s VP of Marketing and Community role, and a reminder to make room for silly software.

Jake shares his work rebuilding Boom Party, the fast-paced Bomberman clone his team used to play after stand-up, along with hosting decisions and a creative workflow involving Claude, Gemini, and Suno.

Michael closes things out with what was supposed to be an easy Pest 5 upgrade but turned into a much bigger test-suite adventure: converting old PHPUnit-style tests, untangling inheritance, tracking down mysterious parallel test failures, discovering the pain of stray exit statements, and ultimately getting repeat runs across an approximately 18,000-test suite down to just eight seconds.

Show links

• Pomplamoose
• Spindrift
• IZZE
• Laracon US
• Aaron Francis
• Sidecar
• Whimsy-driven development by Christina Martinez
• Boom Party
• Fly.io

Michael and Jake catch up ahead of Laracon in Boston, beginning with Michael's increasingly complicated home extension. Jake shares a family trip to Cedar Point, then the conversation moves to how a Laravel Cloud weekend challenge inspired Michael to build Fitrack, a personal app for coordinating training around a single fitness goal. 

We then move on to home network and security upgrades, including a larger rack cabinet, a new NAS, locally accessible alarms and CCTV, Power over Ethernet cameras, Home Assistant, HomeKit, RTSP feeds, and using Claude to handle unfamiliar smart-home configuration. We also discuss Kitze hacking his NordicTrack treadmill and Michael’s experience connecting his own treadmill with Apple Fitness.

Finally, Michael and Jake look ahead to Laracon, discuss conference merchandise and accommodation in Boston, and finish with a conversation about donuts, candy, and the lengths parents go to when quietly disposing of their children’s leftover sweets.

Show links

• Cedar Point
• Laravel Cloud
• Taylor’s Laravel Cloud weekend shipping challenge
• Edwin’s Google Meet alternative
• Fitrack
• David Hemphill
• Home Assistant
• Aqara cameras
• Kitze's treadmill hack
• Caleb Porzio on code imprinting on our brains
• Laracon US
• Moxy Boston Downtown

Jake shares lessons from rebuilding a permissions system around flexible roles, temporary permission leases, and delegated user management. He also discusses adding Apple Pay and Google Pay, plus designing automated text-message payment flows that use numbered choices instead of complicated keywords.

Michael talks about building lender integrations, the importance of adding real context to API documentation, and using Claude to turn JSON specifications into PHP DTOs and enums. He also reflects on his team’s new helpdesk rotation, where direct exposure to users has uncovered long-standing bugs, inefficient manual processes, and opportunities for developers to better understand the people using their software.

They finish with the challenges of parenting teenagers, preparations for Laracon US in Boston, including a search for coffee, donuts, bagels, and cannoli.

• (00:00) - Club World Cup surprises and sports talk

In this milestone 10-year anniversary episode of North Meets South, Michael and Jake reflect on a decade of podcasting, from their first awkward recordings and early Laravel community connections to the friendships, conferences, and recurring topics that have shaped the show over nearly 200 episodes. 

A large part of the episode focuses on Michael's work-in-progress event ticketing platform inspired by the challenges of running Laracon AU. He explains the limitations of existing conference ticketing systems, the difficulties of collecting attendee information for multiple conference-adjacent events, and his vision for a more attendee-centric system that manages profiles, dietary requirements, event registrations, and conference networks across multiple Laravel events. 

To wrap up, Michael and Jake discuss giving developers direct database access, the security implications of SSH access, database permissions, and Laravel filesystem configuration, including why enabling exception throwing for filesystem operations can help avoid silent failures.

Show links

• Laracon AU
• Laracon US 
• TicketTailor 
• Transistor 
• Laravel News Podcast
• No Plans to Merge 
• Notes on Work
• Talking Businessly
• Larabelles 
• LaraProm 
• WalletWallet
• Laravel filesystem throw on fail

Michael and Jake are joined by Jason "JMac" McCreary to talk the impact of AI on Laravel Shift and modern upgrade workflows, and his latest Fast Laravel course focused on edge caching and application performance.

Jason shares how Laravel Shift has evolved alongside AI-assisted development, why recent Laravel releases have changed the upgrade landscape, and why he still believes there's value in keeping applications aligned with the latest framework conventions rather than simply running composer update. The conversation explores how AI tools are influencing developer workflows, the future of upgrade automation, and new ways Shift is integrating with agentic coding tools. 

The second half of the episode dives deep into Fast Laravel, Jason's course on making Laravel applications dramatically faster using Cloudflare edge caching. Drawing on decades of web development experience, he explains why page caching remains one of the most effective performance techniques available, how Laravel's default stateful behaviour can prevent effective caching, and the practical steps required to achieve cache rates approaching 99% on real-world applications.

Show Links

• Laravel Shift
• Shift AI Skills
• Fast Laravel
• Separate `static` middleware
• Managed queues on Laravel Cloud
• Laravel Cloud

Michael shares a behind-the-scenes look at organising Laracon AU 2026, including the new committee-based CFP review process, the tooling built to manage the talk submissions, and how AI-assisted workflows helped shape the final conference schedule. The conversation dives into balancing technical depth with audience engagement, designing conference cadence to avoid cognitive overload, and why advanced technical talks are so difficult to execute well.

Jake and Michael also discuss the realities of crafting technical presentations, from simplifying code examples and avoiding "proof of expertise" syndrome, to using AI tools as collaborative thought partners when preparing talks. Along the way, they explore how conference organisers think about audience fit, production experience, practical takeaways, and keeping attendees engaged during deeply technical sessions.

Show links

• Laracon AU
• Model Context Protocol (MCP)
• Riff & Refine: Trust the Process