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By Christina Warren, Jeff Severns Guntzel, and Brett Terpstra
4.8
106106 ratings
The podcast currently has 227 episodes available.
On this episode of Overtired, Brett, Christina, and Jeff dive into the nuances of recording at offbeat hours, battle through heavy metal noise and prescription pill bottle museums, and share laugh-worthy tales of mental health mishaps and medication struggles. Copilot’s magic, ChatGPT’s native Mac app, and a Sinatra of everyday cheat sheets make the tech cut, while Jeff chases elusive cinematic experiences with Repo Man, Ridgemont High, and classic noir flicks. You don’t got the butts to miss this episode.
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Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter.
You Don’t Have the Butts
[00:00:00] Introduction and Greetings
[00:00:00]
[00:00:03] Brett: Hey, you’re listening to Overtired. I am Brett Terpstra. I am here with Christina Warren and Jeff Severins Gunsel. Welcome to the show, guys.
[00:00:13] Jeff: Oh, thank you.
[00:00:15] Brett: It’s good to have you here.
[00:00:17] Christina: It’s good to be
[00:00:18] Jeff: be here.
[00:00:19] Late Recording and Drinks
[00:00:19] Jeff: We don’t normally record at this. It’s, it’s 5 p. m. here. It’s 3 p. m. for Christina, but actually, like, I feel more ready than I usually do. Whereas normally, if I were ending my day, I would feel very dead inside. Um, and so thank you for, uh, for giving me a different kind of ending of my day.
[00:00:37] Brett: Why would you feel dead inside at the end of a day?
[00:00:40] Jeff: Oh, sometimes it’s just, you’re tired. You go, you know, it’s like, you’re not interacting with people. You’re just ending and then you’re interacting. And so it’s nice. This is like a nice landing. It’s a
[00:00:49] Brett: yeah. So
[00:00:50] Jeff: One might say happy ending.
[00:00:52] Brett: I call that like, vegging out time, which is 100 percent where I’m at right now. Um, I made a too stiff [00:01:00] screwdriver to celebrate our late recording time. Um, I, there is, there is a line where a screwdriver becomes just, there’s just too much vodka, too much vodka.
[00:01:12] Christina: It’s true. It’s true. Right. Right. But sometimes, you know, that happens. Like, you just get a little bit too much and you’re like, actually
[00:01:19] Brett: Wow, this tastes like grain alcohol all of a sudden.
[00:01:22] Christina: Exactly. You’re like, you’re like, I could have had a little more juice with this. Yeah.
[00:01:27] Jeff: All right.
[00:01:28] Mental Health Corner: Jeff’s Journey
[00:01:28] Brett: uh, let’s, let’s kick it off with a contained mental health corner. Um, who wants to go first? Is it going to be me?
[00:01:37] Jeff: I can make a, I can do, I have kind of a quick one. I was cleaning out a sort of catch all room in our house in the basement and, um, came across this bag of like, But it was mostly empty prescription pill bottles, but it had like, uh, it was also a little museum with some leftover pills of all of the medications that I’ve [00:02:00] taken over the last few years.
[00:02:01] Jeff: And, and, and that includes, you know, a period where I was over medicated, um, a period where we were just trying things. And, um, and, and that was a, those were a hard couple periods and it was, And I’m very much on the other side of that, and so it was like, at first, Almost a little chilling to look at all the medication names again and even to like rattle the bottles because there were still pills in there.
[00:02:26] Jeff: I need to get rid of them. I don’t want to
[00:02:28] Brett: Why do you save
[00:02:29] Jeff: I didn’t save them. No, no. I honestly, like when I would change medication, I’d be like, okay, fuck this. I’m putting this in a drawer. I’m not, because I wasn’t sure at that moment, right, that I wasn’t going back to it, but I would just like squirrel it away.
[00:02:43] Jeff: And it, um, it just ended up there, but anyhow, um, it, it, it just, it served as, many kinds of reminders. One is that you can come on the other side of being over medicated, having your medication poorly managed, [00:03:00] um, and even when it is well managed, the sort of stabbing in the dark period. And the other is that those things exist.
[00:03:07] Jeff: And I, um, and I, I just say that for anybody out there who is, um, Currently kind of trying to dial it in, uh, that I see you and that it’s hard and that, um, had I not had some support just like in my own home and with my therapist who was different from my medication manager, uh, sort of witnessing from the outside.
[00:03:30] Jeff: I don’t think I could have ever gotten out of that hole. Um, and, and so just putting that out there, it was like a, it was an intense thing to sort of interact with. And I’m so. Grateful to be on the other side of it, um, and have been on the other side of it for months now, and maybe more than a year. So that’s
[00:03:48] Brett: That’s awesome.
[00:03:49] Christina: That’s really great.
[00:03:50] Jeff: And I got to get rid of those pills, but like, I don’t want to throw them in the garbage, and I don’t want to throw them in the toilet, and I know there’s places that recycle
[00:03:55] Brett: pharmacies do, like, once a year they have, like, [00:04:00] med disposal
[00:04:01] Jeff: is it like a gun buyback
[00:04:02] Brett: Yeah, it is. It is. And you, you can bring any, any medications, no questions asked, and they will safely dispose of them for you. And you know there’s some kid just, like, going through the bottles, pocketing what he can get, but, you know.
[00:04:16] Jeff: That’s why I wanted to mix them all up and just put them into it, you know,
[00:04:20] Brett: If my therapists were also my medication manager, I would either be on way more drugs or no drugs.
[00:04:29] Jeff: tough to say.
[00:04:31] Brett: I don’t know which way it would turn, but
[00:04:34] Jeff: Well, that’s, that’s me.
[00:04:35] Christina: I was going to say, that’s me. I’m, I’m on, my, my therapist is my, also my prescriber. So yeah, it, it works out most of the time, but it does have me like in a weird thing because like, he is going to Retire or
[00:04:49] Brett: Yep,
[00:04:50] Christina: He, his age is at that point where I’m like, this, this will not be a forever thing. So I’m like, okay, then what the fuck am I going to do?
[00:04:56] Jeff: And that’s like, that’s like a version of institutional memory, [00:05:00] right? Like, he knows not only what you’ve done, gone into, out of, but why he decided to help you with that particular medication.
[00:05:07] Christina: No, exactly. And it’s like, I’m sure that, you know, he has notes and stuff and things that, you know, to be passed on and whatnot. But like, I, he’s been my person for like, I don’t know, like, like, like 24 years. Like,
[00:05:19] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:05:19] Christina: you know, so, um, it’s so long. Yeah. So
[00:05:25] Brett: My current psychiatrist I’ve had for I’ve had it for like eight years now.
[00:05:30] Christina: That’s a long time.
[00:05:32] Brett: I’ve had my therapist for like six months, but I’ve been going through therapists.
[00:05:37] Jeff: Burnin through him.
[00:05:39] Brett: How many do I have right now? I have just two. I’m down to two therapists.
[00:05:44] Jeff: That’s like me, that’s like me when I’m down to two medications.
[00:05:47] Christina: Well, no, right?
[00:05:48] Jeff: count, if you don’t count the old man medications,
[00:05:50] Christina: right, right. Which, which, which, which we don’t, right? Like that, that’s
[00:05:53] Jeff: going to count those.
[00:05:54] Christina: no, no, no, no, no.
[00:05:57] Mental Health Corner: Christina’s Experience
[00:05:57] Brett: All right, Christina, do you have a mental health check [00:06:00] in?
[00:06:00] Jeff: too.
[00:06:00] Christina: mine can be pretty, um, I mean, uh, just, um, pretty minor cause I don’t really have anything to add. Although like that does have me thinking. So I’ve now been at this point, I guess I haven’t been on any antidepressant or anything. And, and we’re, we’re getting into probably like a, a 9 or 10 month period now, which, um, I think has been good.
[00:06:20] Christina: Um, I’m not going to say my depression is completely gone because it’s not, but where I was when I think about where I was like a year ago this time versus where I am now, like I’m definitely in a much better place. And, and that actually just kind of reminded me of what you were saying, Jeff, like. I was in a really bad place a year ago trying to manage a new medication and trying to like come off an old one and try a new one and, and figure things out.
[00:06:44] Christina: And it was not good and it was not a good scenario. And, um, uh, to just kind of plus one, what you said in terms of, you know, seeing people and, and, uh, and, uh, you know, rooting for them. Like I will also say, and I [00:07:00] know that this isn’t always possible, but the one thing that I fucked up on. Big time was that, um, I should have absolutely like taken time off work.
[00:07:12] Christina: Like I should have done like a disability thing to manage that because in my scenario it was, it was bad enough that it was, I, I kind of, you know, fucked up, um, some work stuff and, and some other, you know, things for a little bit. I was able to rectify things and things are completely fine now, but it, it was not, um, Without consequences.
[00:07:31] Christina: And if I, the one thing I would say to do it again, like, and I, I hadn’t, cause I hadn’t gone through a medication switch since I was really, really young. And it was one of those things that I’d been putting off specifically for this problem. And then I thought, Oh, well, you know, you’ve done some stupid stuff before.
[00:07:44] Christina: You can just kind of, you know, like grin and bear it and get through it. And it’s like, no, sometimes you can’t. And, and there are, you know, the, the side effects and the things you go through, like with all those things can be major. And yeah, that’s why like leave. [00:08:00] exists, right? Like, even when it’s an opportunity and whatnot, and I recognize not everybody has that ability, but there are things that are like, at a certain level, like, like federally or state sanctioned.
[00:08:11] Christina: And in my case, even if it hadn’t been like, I hadn’t taken the full thing, even if I’d only taken a couple of weeks, I think it would have changed things significantly. And I wouldn’t have had to like, go through that thing where I’m like going through all this fucked up, like, Stuff in addition to anything that might be, you know, happening with my mental health, it’s like the side effects and other stuff.
[00:08:31] Christina: I wouldn’t have had to do that while trying to pretend to be okay. And, which, like, you’re not okay. And, uh, and so I, um, you know, don’t, don’t try to be a hero. Don’t be like me, is the other thing I
[00:08:44] Jeff: That’s a great point. And that’s a hard in the moment, that’s a really hard thing to. Do or to have clarity about like, I mean, I should have gone on, I should have gone on a, but I, like, I should have gone on a walkabout, you know, like I should have like gotten in the car and just gone [00:09:00] on like a cross country road trip or something and just gotten out of my life entirely in some of that period.
[00:09:05] Jeff: But like that, I’m You’re saying that and I’m just like, God, yes. I, I, I relate to that so much and like, I don’t know even how to advise myself next time to know, to know, you know,
[00:09:16] Christina: the, yeah, the only thing I’ve said, whether I would need it or not, and like my, the way I kind of look at it is like, if it’s not a necessary thing, then you come back right away. But I, I’ve, I’ve kind of committed to myself, I’m like, I will never do this, like, again without, you know, whether I’m taking sick leave or, you know, taking like, you know, longer term disability or whatever the case may be.
[00:09:38] Christina: I am never doing this. again, where I am just gonna pretend like everything’s okay. Like, hopefully everything will be, but I’m never entering that scenario again, um, like, because I just, no, for me anyway, and like I said, like, maybe, hopefully it would be a scenario where it wouldn’t matter, but like, in the event that it would be anything like what I went through before. I’m just [00:10:00] like, nope. I know the consequences could be really, could be way worse than they were. And they weren’t great. And so, you know, and, and I think, but, but to your point, yeah, it can be hard to kind of know how to, how you would say that to yourself. I’ve just, I’ve just kind of like, there are certain things I know I’m like, okay, can’t do this ever again.
[00:10:18] Christina: Right. Cause this is what will happen.
[00:10:20] Jeff: Yeah. You know. Yeah.
[00:10:26] Brett’s Sleep Struggles and Vegas Trip
[00:10:26] Brett: So the question, the question everyone’s been asking lately is, are you better off today than you were four years ago? Um, So, yeah, I am going through another period of poor sleep, and So I, I spent a couple, a few days in Vegas and I slept great while I was there. Um, I think it was exhaustion combined with, and I’m just realizing this now, but I didn’t bring like a personal [00:11:00] laptop and I had no way to like hack on my personal projects.
[00:11:05] Brett: So when I woke up at three in the morning, I wasn’t like, Well, I’m up. I might as well go hack on something. Um, I, like, had no choice. It was either stumble down to the casino or go back to sleep. And the casinos aren’t that interesting, so I would go back to sleep. And I think, maybe, I need to like cut off my computer time.
[00:11:31] Brett: I don’t know. Um, these are things to experiment with, but um, I can segue, that’s it for my mental health corner. I’m not sleeping and I can’t think of everything else I should talk about. Um, I, I
[00:11:47] Christina: except, except maybe you should like shut off your like computer time, or at least maybe not allow yourself to have like, maybe not have it like in the bedroom or something.
[00:11:55] Brett: I don’t have it in the bedroom. I have to walk down a whole flight of stairs [00:12:00] and boot it up and I just, knowing it’s in the house, Is it’s like a drug for me and I’m drawn to it and I have like so little self control when it comes to, well, I’m up, might as well be hacking. Um,
[00:12:18] Christina: My, my friend sent me this thing earlier today, which she’s absolutely not going to use. And is, I absolutely have zero, uh, trust in the fact that she will, will do it. But she was like, I just bought this thing to, um, um, you know, lock my, my, my phone in a box. And she was like, I’m genuinely just too ADHD to have access to my phone.
[00:12:38] Christina: I was like, okay, see you tomorrow. Um, like, like, like this is not going to be a thing, but I’m like looking at this and like, I don’t know exactly how it works, but it’s like a, it’s like a, a sort of thing. I guess it has like a kind of a timer or something like on the lock and like it won’t let you inside.
[00:12:51] Christina: So maybe you could set yours up so that you just lock your laptop inside and you’re like, okay, between the hours of this and this, I just don’t have access to it.
[00:12:59] Brett: if, [00:13:00] if I set it up, I will know how to break it.
[00:13:03] Christina: Yeah. I mean, this is the problem I go through too. And I’m not sure how this works. Like I, I said to
[00:13:08] Brett: Cause then that, then that’s a whole new puzzle to hack on. How do I get back into my computer?
[00:13:13] Christina: thing? Well, no, and I had the same thought. I was, I was, I was like, Oh, I was like, I was like, I wouldn’t even, I was like, I wouldn’t even try stuff like this.
[00:13:21] Christina: Cause I know myself too well. Cause I do the same thing, but I, um, it doesn’t work the same way, but I do find like, if I have my phone like on a stand and not like right next to me when I wake up in the middle of the night, like that is easier for me to not go to the place where I’m just going to be on my phone for like, Four hours, when I have Insomnia.
[00:13:45] Brett: I assume the answer to this question will be obviously not, but have either of you seen BrettTerpstra. com this week?
[00:13:53] Jeff: I’ve seen it this week. Well, no, I saw it last week.
[00:13:57] Brett: I. One of my early morning [00:14:00] hacking sessions was a complete redesign of bretterpstra. com, which was heavily inspired by the IA writer blog.
[00:14:09] Christina: Uh huh.
[00:14:10] Brett: I looked at it and I was like, that’s, that’s something I would like to figure out how to do with Jekyll. And, and I did, I made it my own. It’s not a complete ripoff, but, um, yeah, I, I dig it.
[00:14:23] Brett: It was so much hacking to get, it was so much Jekyll hacking.
[00:14:28] Christina: was gonna say, like, like, like, how, how, because Jekyll at this point, like, I’m sure you’re using, like, whatever, like, the, you know, I don’t even, like, know what the modern version is anymore, but, like, it’s not, it hasn’t been, uh, updated, or, you know, it’s, it’s not a, it’s not an upca Right, that’s what I’m saying, right?
[00:14:43] Christina: This is not, this
[00:14:43] Brett: it’s officially abandoned at this point.
[00:14:46] Christina: I was going to say, I think, like, I think GitHub for Pages, like, we, like, I have some sort of, you know, like, basic thing that we do, but even for our stuff, we’re like, yeah, bring
[00:14:54] Brett: yeah, GitHub, GitHub froze Jekyll at like a three [00:15:00] dot something version and Jekyll four came out. Uh, but GitHub played it smart and just froze
[00:15:06] Christina: right. But we were, we, we, we were like, yeah, we don’t think that this is gonna be a thing. Um.
[00:15:13] Brett: Um, and, and they were right. Um, but anyway, so, so I was in Vegas for work and, um, despite, so. I don’t know whether to tell you the good stuff or the bad stuff first. Um, it went really well. Um, I learned a lot. I also felt way more, um, comfortable in my job than I had previously. This is my first conference with Oracle and I was feeling like.
[00:15:48] Brett: Total imposter and then I got there and realized, hey, I kind of do know what I’m talking about to some extent. I still had a lot to learn, but, um, helped out with a talk or two [00:16:00] and didn’t have to speak after all. Um, weaseled my way out of speaking, but having helped out with talks, I now have a better feel for what it would be like to actually give one.
[00:16:13] Brett: So maybe next time. Um, and. Uh, I got real bad plantar fasciitis while I was there, and it was, it took me half an hour to walk from the show floor in the Venetian to my hotel in the goddamn Flamingo, which, holy shit, that’s a bad hotel.
[00:16:36] Christina: yes, I stayed there. I stayed at the Flamingo, um, when I was there like a month ago. And, um, I’d never, I’d never been there before. And yeah, I mean, you understand the price. We got a suite because we needed to do like a video setup thing. It was fine for what we needed. It was, and it was close enough to, you know, Where we needed to be, but the Venetian and the Flamingo are very far apart.
[00:16:57] Christina: That is a long, that is a long ass walk. They’re [00:17:00] literally, they’re not completely opposite sides of the strip, but like, the, the Flamingo is across from Caesar’s, and the Venetian is next to the, um, to the Wynn and the Encore, so it’s like, it’s, it’s, it’s a good walk.
[00:17:13] Brett: it’s a trek and I did that multiple times a day with plantar fasciitis and just like hobbling my way. So by the time evening rolled around, I was just exhausted and we would have like team dinner or whatever and then I would just immediately go to bed and just crash out and wake up at 6 30 the next morning.
[00:17:34] Brett: 6 30 Vegas time, which is like 8 30 for me, but you know, it’s, it’s I went to bed two hours later too, so, um, and then be back on the show floor and it was, it was good though. I didn’t, honestly, like, I know this is stupid and obvious, but I didn’t realize how big Oracle was until I saw this conference.
[00:17:57] Christina: And you’re like, oh,
[00:17:59] Brett: head, I’m like, [00:18:00] in my head, I’m like, Who would show up? Who’s gonna, who’s going to come to an Oracle conference? And holy shit, there were so many people, so many vendors, so many attendees. It was a huge show floor, just
[00:18:14] Christina: it’s almost like Oracle’s a database leader or something, I don’t know.
[00:18:19] Brett: It’s almost like Oracle’s in the big tech,
[00:18:22] Christina: Yeah.
[00:18:23] Brett: five tech companies, huh? Um, um, speaking of my, My RSUs, my Restricted Stock Units Fest on Friday, um, and I doubt I’ll get a bonus this year, but Oracle’s stock is up and my 330 shares are going to be pretty, pretty good. I’m looking forward to Friday.
[00:18:47] Brett: They’ve already, like, they’ve already sold the shares, so I know exactly how much it’s going to be worth, uh, but they don’t roll over into my account until Friday, so.
[00:18:57] Jeff: Follow up question. Can I have some [00:19:00] cash?
[00:19:00] Brett: Yeah, dude. Okay. So here’s, here’s the other good news.
[00:19:03] Christina: I was gonna say you, you, you had some winnings.
[00:19:07] Brett: I did.
[00:19:07] Vegas Winnings and Flamingo Hotel Review
[00:19:07] Brett: So at the airport leaving Vegas, I had, I had like, while waiting for Victor in, like, he’d go up to his room, I’d be in the hotel lobby, I’d slip some dollars into the slot machines. And all told, between like, just playing for five minutes here, five minutes there, I was up about 50. And, um, I get to the airport.
[00:19:29] Brett: I have, I go early because I just can’t find any reason to wait around and there’s little enough time that walking that half hour to the Venetian just so I could be on the show floor for 30 minutes didn’t seem worthwhile. So I go to the airport real early and I got about three hours before my flight.
[00:19:47] Brett: And I’m up 50 and I think I’m just gonna put 20 into a slot machine. I hit, I set an 8 bet on one of those big video slot machines with like [00:20:00] flying dragons and shit and I hit the button one time and it comes up and it says like full screen, luck is with you and it starts. It starts counting up and I, I usually cash out when I double my money, so I get to 40 and I’m trying to hit the cash out button and it keeps going and it keeps going and it got,
[00:20:21] Jeff: off?
[00:20:22] Brett: I, I just, I didn’t, so I don’t, I don’t understand the machines enough to know what’s real and what is just fucking with me to get me to gamble more.
[00:20:30] Brett: So I’m like, I got, I got what I needed, I’m ready to walk away. It’s up to about 400 and then it comes up with this screen that’s like bonus round, um, try to fill these 15 slots and there’s no strategy, you just hit the button over and over but it’s not costing me anything, uh, they’re like free bonus spins, um, so soon that ends and it goes up to like 900 and I’m like this can’t be real, this is, they’re fucking with me [00:21:00] now.
[00:21:00] Brett: And then, uh, the dragons start flying around again and They’re picking up bonus things from around the screen, and pretty soon the total is at 1, 400. And I’m about to hit the cash out button, because for fucking real, like, if this is real, I want that money. And before I can hit that cash out button, an error screen pops up on the video machine that says, Hand payout required.
[00:21:27] Brett: Contact attendant. Um, so then the, there’s a woman behind me, she’s like, yeah, I thought that was going to happen. Um. And they took all my tax, my payer ID, cause they had to file taxes on winnings over whatever dollar amount. So it took about 20 minutes of me sitting there in front of this big screen with my winnings on it while everyone around is like watching me fill out the paperwork and everything.
[00:21:53] Brett: It was very uncomfortable. And then they paid me in cash. I thought this is the kind of thing you read a [00:22:00] cashier’s check for, but they
[00:22:01] Christina: what I would think.
[00:22:02] Brett: they sit down and they just start dropping a hundred dollar
[00:22:05] Christina: Oh, a hundred dollar bills. Okay. That’s at least
[00:22:06] Jeff: While everyone’s watching you, you’re like, could you
[00:22:08] Brett: yeah.
[00:22:09] Jeff: please? Nothing discreet about this.
[00:22:12] Christina: See. Okay, I always just go to the Centurion Lounge at the Vegas airport. I, I, I’ve never once played a slot machine there. Or maybe I have, but it’s probably been a decade or more.
[00:22:23] Christina: Damn, Brett.
[00:22:24] Brett: here’s the thing is to the best of my knowledge Airport slots at an international airport are under international gaming rules, which have looser slots and higher payouts It’s the same reason it pays to gamble on a cruise ship
[00:22:41] Christina: I was gonna say, that’s the only time I’ve ever won on slots. Yeah.
[00:22:45] Jeff: Also, why you only murder on a cruise ship. Know
[00:22:48] Brett: So, all told, I came home from Vegas about 1, 600 richer than I started, and I didn’t have to give up a kidney.
[00:22:57] Brett: Um, and yeah, [00:23:00] it was, it, that made it a good trip. And I lost, and I lost five pounds, and I got some sleep.
[00:23:06] Christina: I mean, sounds like a win. I mean, I’m sorry that you had to stay at the, at the Flamingo because
[00:23:10] Brett: my god, no coffee maker,
[00:23:13] Christina: yeah, it is not a good, I mean,
[00:23:15] Brett: rough sheets, pourable temperature control, the shower doesn’t drain right, there’s no tub, which I don’t really care about because I don’t need to sit in someone else’s bathtub, like the shower wouldn’t drain so there’s water all over the bathroom floor. It was like, It was like staying at a shitty motel.
[00:23:35] Christina: no, I mean, and you can tell kind of by the clientele that, like, stays there because it’s a cheap place and, like, that’s fine. People are going, I’m not trying to be, like, well, no, but I am. I am who I am. I’m gonna absolutely judge. Um, we stayed there just because I think that we, we needed a suite and I’m assuming they ran the numbers.
[00:23:51] Christina: We didn’t book it and we got there and we were like, well, this is, you know, Not
[00:23:57] Brett: Yeah, they offered to upgrade my room to a suite for [00:24:00] 250. So a suite must’ve been pretty affordable.
[00:24:03] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I’m sure it was. Yeah. And the way this was, it was like, it was like a very large, like a, a really large room. And there were two bathrooms. There was like a one, you know, like bathroom, like in the main, like suite bar, like, and then there was, you know, the bedroom and, and, and bathroom area. And there was like a little kitchenette, but it was, we were doing, um, we were filming, you know, video stuff.
[00:24:22] Christina: And so we, we needed, you know, that kind of space. Um, and it was. I mean, it was a very large, like, living room area, but, um, yeah, um, I’d never been there before and I was like, like, they have like the wallpaper and everything is like all like reckoning back to like the old days of Vegas. And I’m like, maybe don’t let people know, like, call it to attention that this has been around this long because,
[00:24:44] Brett: Well, they had to open the link, I think, to, uh, to make any money. Um, I, what was I going to say? Oh, I lost it. There was Oh, no, I fucking lost it. Never [00:25:00] mind. Let’s move along. Um,
[00:25:03] Apple Event Reactions
[00:25:03] Jeff: It’s like talking to my
[00:25:04] Christina: are you going to buy an iPhone with, with, with your earnings?
[00:25:07] Brett: no. I didn’t see the I didn’t see the I didn’t Everyone seemed disappointed. I didn’t I didn’t watch it yet.
[00:25:15] Christina: Yeah. I mean,
[00:25:15] Brett: is everyone disappointed?
[00:25:17] Christina: they
[00:25:18] Jeff: wasn’t disappointed. And he’s always disappointed.
[00:25:23] Christina: I mean, they spent the whole presentation basically talking about stuff that’s not even shipping. We don’t know when the Apple Intelligent stuff is going to ship. So that’s kind of to me is like where it’s a failure. Like it’s fine. The devices are a very incremental upgrade.
[00:25:36] Christina: If you’re on the pros for the regular ones, I think it’s actually a better phone than they’ve had in a long time. Like there’s a significant RAM improvement. The chips are better. There’s some camera things. The colors are fun. So for people on like the regular iPhone, I think actually probably a pretty good one, especially if you’re on like an iPhone 12 or iPhone 13.
[00:25:54] Christina: Um, but if you’re on like a Pro Max. Well, A, let’s be fucking for real, you [00:26:00] probably are going to buy the new one every time anyway, or, right, which is, you’re like me, like, I have the upgrade plan, so like, I’m not gonna keep, like, my monthly price is the same whether I get the new one or the old one, you know what I’m saying?
[00:26:13] Christina: Like, it, so, so for me, like, there’s zero incentive for me to, um, Not go ahead and get the new one, but like if you pay cash for something or if you were like, oh, I got, you know, a phone last year, should I do a trade in or whatever? Under no circumstances, like the software stuff that they showed off and spent a lot of time with without really saying anything about, it’ll be like, Later, like this fall and next year, like we don’t even fucking know when it will be out or how good it will be.
[00:26:39] Christina: Like it’s all like just kind of up in the air. The watches look fine. Um, the um, uh, the Airpods, the new Airpods 4 look really good. Um, the Airpods Max are a shit show but I bought them anyway because I’m dumb. But yeah, I mean, just, you
[00:26:55] Jeff: We don’t talk like that about ourselves.
[00:26:57] Christina: I mean, I do. Like, I’m absolutely a fucking [00:27:00] idiot for buying those things, but I have a
[00:27:02] Jeff: that way about myself all
[00:27:03] Christina: And, and I’m like, people are like, oh, should I buy them too? I’m like, under no circumstances. You should absolutely not buy the new AirPods Max. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances.
[00:27:13] Brett: Speaking of, I took my Sonos Ace on this trip,
[00:27:17] Christina: Yeah. How are they?
[00:27:19] Brett: And I, like, I don’t have AirPods Max, AirPod Maxi, um, what’s the, I don’t know the plural, but I
[00:27:26] Christina: Maxes? I don’t know. Yeah.
[00:27:28] Brett: of course, Yeah, I don’t have a comparison I can make, but holy shit, like, screaming kids, airport chatter, announcements, I could just put them on, hit the noise cancel button, and like, play some, like, tribe call quest, and everything would just disappear.
[00:27:48] Brett: And then like, doubly so, in the Admiral’s Lounge, um, Like the American Airlines, um,
[00:27:57] Jeff: let a second Lieutenant into the [00:28:00] Admiral’s
[00:28:00] Christina: ha ha ha.
[00:28:03] Brett: Like in there, it was already pretty quiet. So like I used them, I listened to Aaron Dawson’s new album, which is Fucking great. Um, I should link that in the show notes. Uh, Genital Shame has a new EP out. It is fantastic. Even if you don’t, even if you don’t consider yourself a black metal fan, if you are moved by sound in any way, you should check it out.
[00:28:28] Brett: Um, but yeah, those Sonos Aces. Um, were, were basically what kept me sane when I wasn’t in the lounge.
[00:28:37] Christina: Mm hmm. No, they’re really good. And one thing I’ll say about them that is definitely like, uh, a big improvement over the, I think that the new AirPods Max, because I think they removed this feature, we’re not sure yet. The old ones, you could spend 30 and buy a, Lightning to 3. 5 millimeter cable if you needed to use it with something that had a 3.
[00:28:55] Christina: 5 millimeter jack like a, um, in flight entertainment thing if you’re not on an [00:29:00] international or business class flight, um, where you will then need a 2. 5 millimeter adapter or not 2. 5 millimeter, but a two prong adapter. Um, and I mean, you could use like a, um, uh, an iFly from, um, uh, 12 South, but you know, that’s a whole other thing.
[00:29:14] Christina: Um, but the Sonos come with the USB C to 3. 5 millimeter, uh, thing. Included. You don’t have to spend extra. And Apple apparently, I mean, support has been telling people that they’re basically dropping the feature to be able to listen to music, like, or listen to three and a half millimeter sources from the new one.
[00:29:31] Christina: There might be some sort of patent thing that people are thinking. I don’t know, but like 550 headphones that literally the only difference from the ones from four years ago, literally the only difference is that it has a USB C port. Oh, and it took like something away. So. Yeah, honestly. Cannot recommend, will not recommend.
[00:29:48] Christina: Bought them, but that’s, don’t, don’t be like me. Like, don’t, don’t be like me.
[00:29:54] Debates and Political Commentary
[00:29:54] Brett: So speaking of disappointing media events, um, did you guys see the debates?[00:30:00]
[00:30:00] Christina: Oh yeah.
[00:30:01] Brett: They were super disappointing for Trump fans.
[00:30:04] Christina: I was going to say I was super excited. Like I thought it was like, I haven’t had that much fun online in a really long time.
[00:30:12] Brett: I, I appreciate the strategy of, let’s just push some buttons and let him go off the rails. Like that was, I mean, that was really the only way to debate Trump is to get him riled up enough to start saying crazy shit.
[00:30:31] Christina: And did he ever, right? And I mean, I didn’t, I, um, I was. At a conference when the Biden Trump debate happened and then I had to watch the highlights and I felt sick to my stomach because it was awful and it made me feel terrible about humanity and I was
[00:30:43] Brett: Everyone had, everyone had can’t watch parties. Yeah.
[00:30:46] Christina: Basically, right?
[00:30:47] Christina: Because it was like one of the worst things I’ve ever seen in my life and then this was like such like a 180 and I’m just was like, holy shit, man. Like, I am so glad that we didn’t, I mean, because I, [00:31:00] She just, she played him so well. She just literally just pushed his buttons like you said, and then he just, I mean, when he was sort of going on about the dogs and the cats, you know, they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats, I was just like, oh my god.
[00:31:11] Christina: You know, and then he’s like, one point he’s talking about something, he’s, you know, he’s shitting on her for, for some sort of energy policy. She’s like, and I love solar, as he’s like, insulting solar. And, and, and it’s, it’s,
[00:31:22] Brett: is destroying everything. Don’t get me wrong. I
[00:31:24] Christina: I love solar, but, and it’s like, you fucking, and then, then like, of, of, of all like that, when, when he, when he started, like, when he called out what’s his face, the, the dictator from, from Hungary, you know, it’s like, well, he thinks, yeah, Orman, yeah, where he’s like, oh, he, Viktor Orman thinks I’m great.
[00:31:39] Christina: And I’m like, Okay. First of all, you’re citing Viktor Orman, which is in and of itself, like, okay, cool. We love to cite dictators here, but you couldn’t even pick a dictator from a country that matters. It’s hungry.
[00:31:52] Jeff: cool sunglasses.
[00:31:53] Christina: Right. I’m like, I’m like Kim Jong Il, like, at least would be like, okay. I mean, he’s crazy and awful,
[00:31:58] Jeff: uniform. Yeah.
[00:31:59] Christina: [00:32:00] but, but, but like, but like he, you know, at least, you know, is it kind of scary?
[00:32:04] Christina: Like Viktor Orman is like, bro, like, You’re lucky you’re in the EU and that they’re gonna like save your asses if anything happens, but genuinely, not to say that it’s good for us to have dictators anywhere, but you’re like the most ineffectual and, and, and useless one of all of them. Like,
[00:32:21] Jeff: Trump’s a man of the time because like, I, there used to be this amazing museum in Baghdad, the museum, like to Saddam Hussein, and you could go into it. And there was like a room of, of mostly gold plated guns gifted to Saddam Hussein. Um, there was actually some gold spurs, uh, from Ronald Reagan. Um, and, uh, but like back in the day you could give a.
[00:32:43] Jeff: dictator something cool like a gold plated gun and they would put it on display and you could have your relationship that way. Um, and, and that’s, I mean, he just would have loved that. I mean, the gold guns, he would have loved
[00:32:53] Christina: He would have loved it. He would, he would have loved to have had all those gifts from all the terrible people, like for his own little museum or [00:33:00] Mar a Lago. And, and then, um, we don’t even have to get into the Laura Loomer of it all, but that’s been a very fun, um, uh, uh, additional thing. Yeah. It’s just been, it’s, I, I, I, I have hope for the first time in like years.
[00:33:13] Brett: didn’t, uh, Harris get some like celebrity endorsement? What was that
[00:33:18] Christina: Yeah. I was going to say, I think that we do a podcast about her. I think, I think, I think we’ve covered her on this podcast once or twice. What’s her name? No, I think, I think it’s Taylor Swift. That’s right. That’s right.
[00:33:31] Brett: Tay, Tay?
[00:33:33] Christina: Tay. Yeah.
[00:33:34] Jeff: He’s writing
[00:33:35] Brett: And then, so, okay. So the, in general, like the typical Republican response to that would be, we don’t care what celebrities say. Um, like. Celebrities should, should stick to their music and stay out of politics, right? But Trump has been trying to rack up so many celebrity endorsements. I mean, he got fucking Hulk Hogan, right?[00:34:00]
[00:34:00] Brett: Um, and Kid Rock, and like, who’s he to, who’s he to cast aspersions? So, J. D. Vance goes on, uh, I think Meet the Press, and says that Americans are, aren’t interested in what an out of touch billionaire has to say. We’re just, so, stop telling on yourself.
[00:34:23] Christina: It is. And it’s like, you’re not wrong, except, you know, like, yeah. And that’s why, that’s why, you know, your, your candidate is, is not, uh, is not good. Um, It was also, people are just so weird about her right now, the people who just need to freaking like calm themselves over Taylor Swift.
[00:34:43] Christina: Like people were ridiculous about whether she was getting endorsed or not. I’m like,
[00:34:47] Jeff: Yeah. Although there was an amazing, I’m sorry, I have an unrelated Taylor Swift question I need to ask you, but also there was this amazing fuddy duddy New York times op ed. I can’t remember by who, maybe it’s a columnist actually, not an op ed who was [00:35:00] like talking about this, this, you know, like, will she, will she endorse?
[00:35:04] Jeff: Will she endorse? And he was, he was reviewing like. Ways in which celebrity endorsements haven’t mattered.
[00:35:09] Killer Mike and Bernie Sanders
[00:35:09] Jeff: And one of the examples he gave was Killer Mike, who I love, endorsing Bernie Sanders. And I was like, wait, what are we talking about?
[00:35:19] Christina: Exactly.
[00:35:20] Jeff: Mike would walk into this room and be like, that’s weird.
[00:35:22] Jeff: You should cut that from the article.
[00:35:24] Taylor Swift’s Concert Rituals
[00:35:24] Jeff: Um, Anyway, uh, okay, so here’s my, here’s my Taylor Swift. And I was just listening to Killer Mike, just saw him with my son. Actually, my son’s first, uh, first Avenue show was, was Killer Mike. It was unbelievable. Um, so TikTok will forever show me these videos cause I will always watch them.
[00:35:40] Jeff: It’s, it’s when Taylor Swift in, I think she’s singing 22 goes to the edge of the stage and hugs some kid. Right? Like every, every night, every show. How are these kids, at first I saw there was like a kid that had cancer, a kid, whatever, but now I can’t tell. How are they suggested, I’ll watch it every time, how are they picked?
[00:35:55] Jeff: How does that work?
[00:35:56] Christina: So I think it’s her mom or her like [00:36:00] people who probably in advance So like yeah, I think they know people who are gonna be there at the concert They kind of you know They stalk people on social media if you’re Kobe Bryant’s daughter then like you’re gonna get the the hat like that was one I think they
[00:36:13] Jeff: That’s right, she comes, we can describe it, she comes to the edge of the
[00:36:15] Christina: She comes to the end of the stage.
[00:36:17] Jeff: a kid waiting there.
[00:36:18] Christina: kid waiting there, she, she, she passes off the hat as almost always a kid. Um, and, and I, yeah, and, and I think that they, yeah, like her, her people are freaking ridiculously good, like, and they’ve done this for decades at this point where like, you know, they, what kind of, I think before they would kind of walk around like the, the stadiums or the arenas and, Look for people with certain signage and certain things and like, give them certain, you know, tickets and passes.
[00:36:43] Christina: Be like, Oh, it’s clear you came a really long way. Like, we’re gonna give you, you’re gonna get a meet and greet after the show or whatever. And she doesn’t do, she doesn’t do meet and greets anymore. Um, but she, um, uh,
[00:36:55] Jeff: God, I can imagine why.
[00:36:56] Christina: Well, yeah, I mean, I think originally it was COVID and then I think [00:37:00] now it’s probably a bunch of things, but um, yeah, but you know, I think that they also probably stalk on social media and are like, okay, who are the, the people who have like really good stories or whatnot.
[00:37:11] Christina: And so, yeah, somebody in her team picks them out and like puts them there. It’s like a chosen thing and like, you’re not like, this is not a, not one of those things where people can like, like in a baseball game, you know, where somebody, you know, an old guy like swoops in and, and steals like the, the ball from like the kid, you know, the foul ball.
[00:37:28] Christina: It’s not one of those situations.
[00:37:29] Jeff: Oh, yeah, there should be an old guy taking the hat. That’s mine, kid!
[00:37:32] Christina: I mean, they would. They would. It’s funny, um, Swifty Discourse, they’re so insane, and I’m one of them, but I don’t claim these people as my own, like, they will get into, like, arguments about, like, it’s not fair that, like, the kids get the hat, and I’m like,
[00:37:45] Jeff: yeah, yeah, yeah, I can totally see it. I can totally see it. I can totally see it. No hat for you. Uh, that’s awesome. Okay. Thanks for answering that. It’s been bugging me. And, and
[00:37:54] Brett: should we do a, should we do our sponsor break, uh, before we talk about [00:38:00] RepoMan, I guess?
[00:38:01] The Art of Blogging with Pika
[00:38:01] Brett: Alright, so I’ve always found blogging to be a great creative outlet, both for sharing my coding stuff and for more personal stuff, it’s a great use of the internet, way better than spewing your thoughts on social media where big companies own everything you say.
[00:38:18] Brett: Blogging makes your thoughts yours, and it’s a nice, calm way to share with others. Well, it can be calm. Or you can scream into your keyboard. Whatever floats your boat. It’s your blog. So, if you want to start a blog quickly and easily, you have to check out Pika. Pika makes it simple to start your own blog and take control of your place online.
[00:38:37] Brett: Blogging is a way to connect with others over your thoughts, and you can be significantly more eloquent than you can with snippets on social media. Pika helps you share your thoughts easily and beautifully at your own online address. Here’s what you get. A blog complete with a guestbook. A great writing experience in their beautiful editor, simple theme and customization tools, and a [00:39:00] site at yoursite.
[00:39:01] Brett: pika. page. And if you upgrade to the Pro Plan, you get unlimited posts, pages, and guestbook entries, you can bring your own domain, and you can add your own analytics. Visit pika. page slash overtired to give Pika a try. Your new blog is just a few clicks away. It’s loads simpler than WordPress and way less expensive than Squarespace.
[00:39:24] Brett: In fact, your first 50 blog posts are free. And Pika is made by a team of five real people who care and actually answer your questions when you email them. That’s pika. page slash overtired. And I didn’t cover it in this read, um, but they are absolutely aware of and supporters of micro. blog, uh, and they’re not looking to eat micro.
[00:39:48] Brett: blog’s lunch. Um, they are positioning themselves as the blogging service for people for whom the federation and nerdier [00:40:00] aspects of, uh, of, um, micro. blog might be deterrents. So.
[00:40:07] Jeff: Okay, well I’ll stop being mad.
[00:40:09] Brett: this guy. He he’s pretty fun. Uh, one of the developers, one of the original brains behind Pica. Uh, pretty, pretty good people.
[00:40:19] Jeff: Nice.
[00:40:20] Christina: Very cool. Mm
[00:40:21] Repo Man: A Surprising Discovery
[00:40:21] Brett: So Jeff, have you seen Repo Man?
[00:40:25] Jeff: Okay, look, here’s why I want to talk about, I don’t even want to talk about Ripple Man exactly, but I recently decided I was going to watch movies, not TV, because there are all these movies that I’m behind on and I find it very difficult, maybe it’s dopamine, uh, deficiency, to get excited about a movie when I could continue binging a TV show.
[00:40:45] Jeff: Nothing wrong with that, no judgment of myself or anybody else. In fact, I just started watching. The Old Man Season 2, which is so good. Anyway, so I’m like working my way through, let’s face it a little bit, the dude canon, like a little [00:41:00] bit. Um, uh, and, and I’m like, okay, fuck it. Repo Man. Um, and so I go to watch Repo Man and here’s the thing.
[00:41:07] Jeff: Have you both seen Repo Man?
[00:41:08] Brett: Oh yeah.
[00:41:09] Christina: Um, no.
[00:41:11] Brett: would know, you would remember.
[00:41:14] Jeff: Okay, so here’s,
[00:41:15] Christina: right?
[00:41:16] Brett: Was it?
[00:41:17] Jeff: no, I don’t think, yeah.
[00:41:19] Brett: let me, uh, let me,
[00:41:20] Jeff: Okay. While you look, I’m going to say the thing. Okay. Cause it’s, I’m going to like abstract this in a second. So I don’t mind ruining this cause it seems like, oh yeah, that’s right. It’s Alex Cox. That’s right. Like a different Alex Cox. Um, okay. So I thought, and I look, I was a punk rock kid.
[00:41:38] Jeff: I knew the soundtrack. I, I I’ve known the poster forever and all my life. All my life, I just assumed it was a movie about repo men. It was a movie where you follow men around like a 70s cop movie who fucking repossess cars. I had no idea and I’m not blowing anything because you learn it in like the first five [00:42:00] minutes when they’re like, A police officer pulls over a car, opens up the trunk, and then in like, Bugs Bunny electric shock fashion, uh, is shocked and you see his skeleton.
[00:42:12] Jeff: And then there’s a glowy, glowy thing in the trunk. And from there on out, it’s just fucking bananas. And, and it’s like an alien movie. And it’s a Repo Man movie. And I had no idea. And I thought, my God, how Is it possible that a movie this, this deep in like my culture, especially like, I mean, I’m 49, uh, I, I, like, I should have known this.
[00:42:35] Jeff: I don’t know anybody that’s like, it comes from my world, like an age that hasn’t seen Repo Man, right? And, and, and how did it, so kind of like when I read, I read Moby Dick a few years ago, Yes, I did. Uh, and, and I didn’t know how it ended. And I didn’t know what happened to the whale, uh, or what happened to Ahab.
[00:42:54] Jeff: I just didn’t know for sure. Right. And I had to constantly tell people, don’t spoil it. And they would just laugh at me. Like, [00:43:00] and, and I was like, I don’t fucking know. I don’t know. I have assumptions, but I don’t know. And so don’t spoil Moby Dick. Don’t spoil Repo Man. I don’t know how it is. I’m a curious person.
[00:43:09] Jeff: I have taken in so much media. Yeah. I watch a lot of YouTube, which gives you a lot of shortcuts to things that you ought to have known if you didn’t know them already. And here I was watching Reaperman going, Jesus Christ, I had no idea this was like an alien movie. I had no idea. Uh, and, and I don’t know, I wanted to bring it up because it’s something that I have been experiencing more and more, which is not something I ever thought would happen at my age as I approach.
[00:43:36] Jeff: 50. Um, and, and so anyway, so I’m having fun. I’m like going through these movies that like I’ve heard about for years. I just watched Double Indemnity, which is like a great
[00:43:45] Christina: that’s great. That
[00:43:46] Jeff: Oh my God. What a good movie. Um, uh, well, that one’s like fucking, uh, that one’s Billy Wilder.
[00:43:54] Christina: Yeah,
[00:43:56] Jeff: Like, I mean, Billy Wilder, the director, like I, here’s the thing, [00:44:00] Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder.
[00:44:01] Jeff: There’s a handful of these directors that were doing the noir movies and I didn’t have them sorted. I did not have them sorted. And Fritz Lang who did Metropolis? Anyway, I’m
[00:44:08] Christina: you’re right. And I had it confused with something else, but I saw it in college when I did my noir thing. So I saw like that
[00:44:15] Jeff: Did you ever confused with every other movie that was like, well, hey, sir, well, ho, now,
[00:44:20] Christina: no, no, it was just of the noir things. But like, I just, I just had the, I had the directors confused because I saw like that and I saw another one with, um, um, What’s His Face, um, um, at the same time.
[00:44:32] Christina: But yeah. Um,
[00:44:34] Brett: uh, I saw a Philip Glass show in college, and
[00:44:38] Christina: oh yeah.
[00:44:40] Brett: I’m trying to piece this together in my, in my adult memory, but, um, I believe the orchestra that was playing at that show let us know that they were doing a showing of Metropolis the next night.
[00:44:56] Christina: Oh, cool.
[00:44:56] Brett: So we showed up and watched Metropolis with a [00:45:00] live orchestra.
[00:45:01] Christina: That’s so cool.
[00:45:03] Brett: It was pretty cool. Yeah. Did you see it at like the Orpheum or the Ordway or
[00:45:07] Jeff: Uh, it was one of those places, but this was actually last year.
[00:45:10] Brett: Oh, okay.
[00:45:11] Jeff: this is a different,
[00:45:12] Brett: This wasn’t in the late 90s?
[00:45:14] Jeff: yeah. But yeah, I mean, it’s not, it’s not much to say just that, I mean, I guess I didn’t expect this would be my conclusion even here, but like, In watching all these movies that I’ve been meaning to watch forever, I was like, Oh, shit, I can still like, I can still enjoy, like discovering, um, you know, and it’s not too late to discover these things that
[00:45:33] Christina: No.
[00:45:33] Jeff: I just kind of felt like, you know, I went too long.
[00:45:35] Jeff: Maybe I will watch Fast Times at Ridgemont High, you
[00:45:37] Christina: Okay, you
[00:45:38] Jeff: Um,
[00:45:39] Fast Times at Ridgemont High
[00:45:39] Christina: Have you, have you seriously never seen it?
[00:45:41] Jeff: I haven’t seen it. I mean, for God’s
[00:45:43] Brett: it is a touchpoint.
[00:45:44] Christina: No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, because again, this is not my generation, right? Like, like RepoMan, it’s understandable that I haven’t seen. I saw Videodrome, and that’s what I kind of got it confused with, and they’re kind of similar aesthetically. But like, um, RepoMan, I, I’m not, I, I’ve never seen, but I, I, I know of.
[00:45:58] Christina: FastTimes. com. [00:46:00] Amy Heckerling, who directed Clueless, directed it, and it was Cameron Crowe’s first, like, screenplay, and it’s, it’s kind of a coming of age thing. It’s actually based on a book that he wrote, um, uh, that, that was like a real life experiment where, like, he was, like, in his 20s and he, like, went to a high school, like, undercover as, like, a high school student to, like, kind of write, like, what the high school experience was like, I guess circa, you know, the, the 80s or whatever.
[00:46:23] Christina: Um, It’s great. It’s like, genuinely, the music is fantastic, like, great soundtrack, um, which, you know, is, is, uh, is always awesome. Spicoli,
[00:46:32] Brett: as Repo, man.
[00:46:33] Jeff: And Spicoli! Spicoli, is that
[00:46:35] Christina: Spicoli is in there, yeah, um, Sean Penn, um, in, uh, one of his first roles, and, and, uh, um, um, uh, Phoebe Cates, um, and, uh, Jennifer Jason Lee, and, um, uh, Judd, uh, Judd, uh, Judd Reinhardt are, um, um, so it’s, um, it’s like kind of a It’s genuinely, I saw it actually like, uh, at a, I guess, like, gosh, I guess seven years ago now, they had some sort of anniversary screening [00:47:00] and I, I saw it in the theater, but I’d seen it many times before that.
[00:47:03] Christina: And like, it holds up really well there. I actually don’t think that they could make it today because one of the main characters, Stacey, Jennifer Jason Leigh, has sex with like an older guy and he’s much older and it’s kind of gross, but it is what it is. And there’s like a Jackson Brown song and the soundtrack and everything like, um, um, She, he kind of goes to her and she gets pregnant.
[00:47:25] Christina: Oh no, he doesn’t knock her up. This other guy that she, she, she sleeps with knocks her up and she is like 15 and she’s like, well, I’m going to get an abortion. So like he gives her like part of the money and like her brother like takes her and she gets an abortion and there’s no angst about it. There’s no like, oh, my life is over.
[00:47:43] Christina: There’s no like any judgment from anyone. It’s just a thing that happens. And then she and this kind of like versional, like nerdy kid, like kind of like go off and be like nerds together. And like, it’s very sweet, but there’s genuinely like, it’s just, it happens in such a matter of fact. And [00:48:00] like, In my opinion, like, really, like, uh, progressive way that when I saw, you know, 20 years later when I was watching high school movies like, like American Pie, like, you would never in a million years see them even attempt to have an abortion without the girl feeling shame, first of all, if they would do it at all.
[00:48:20] Christina: And even now, like, 40 years later, like, I don’t think that they would, I don’t think that they would have the, I don’t think they would have the guts to do that in a mainstream, like, You know, studio film, to have, like, one of the lead characters have an abortion without any, you know, shame or, or, or discourse or, or anything.
[00:48:38] Christina: Like, I, I just don’t think that would be part of the conversation, which is kind of amazing that in 1980, like, it did.
[00:48:45] Jeff: yeah, I wonder what the first few films to even have, like, overtly have abortion in them were. That has to be
[00:48:51] Christina: Well, I know the first TV show was Maude, but, um, uh, with, with, um, um, um, what’s her face? Bea Arthur. But, [00:49:00] um, yeah.
[00:49:01] Brett: course you know that, that is exactly information you would have, like, on the tip of your tongue. Um, there was a moment where you said, I don’t think they’d have, and you were gonna say balls, but you switched it to guts and you almost said butts, and I was gonna laugh so hard.
[00:49:18] Jeff: You don’t got the
[00:49:19] Christina: You don’t got the butts.
[00:49:20] Jeff: heh
[00:49:21] Brett: so just, if I
[00:49:23] Jeff: man, can that be the show title? You don’t got the butts?
[00:49:25] Brett: Yeah, I was gonna go with Moby Dick spoilers, but you don’t got the butts.
[00:49:31] Jeff: Dick’s
[00:49:31] Brett: How about you don’t have the butts? So I was just gonna say the Repo Man soundtrack for anybody listening who hasn’t seen it and didn’t grow up with the soundtrack includes Repo Man, which was written by Iggy Pop and performed by Iggy Pop and Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols, among others.
[00:49:53] Brett: Uh, Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies, Circle Jerks, The Plugs have three songs on the [00:50:00] soundtrack. And Burning Sensations and Fear. Uh, like, it is, it’s a who’s who of 80s punk rock. Um, totally, if, even if you don’t go find the movie, which, I don’t, where did you see it, Jeff? Is it streaming anywhere? I
[00:50:17] Jeff: ship,
[00:50:18] Christina: I was gonna say,
[00:50:19] Brett: was gonna say, we used to have to, we
[00:50:20] Christina: on a megavideo.
[00:50:22] Brett: we used to have to buy the VHS tape and
[00:50:25] Jeff: rhymes with hound load pation,
[00:50:28] Christina: Hahaha.
[00:50:29] Brett: really? Okay. I should find that.
[00:50:32] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:50:33] Brett: I haven’t seen it in years, but anyway. Okay.
[00:50:36] Music for Cats
[00:50:36] Brett: So before we jump into a quick round of Grapptitude, I just want to say, so I, I, I’ve noticed that my dog doesn’t react when I play loud, heavy metal music. Um, like no signs of anxiety, just acts like nothing’s happening, which makes me wonder if maybe she is getting a little deaf.
[00:50:57] Brett: She’s like 13 years old and, [00:51:00] and maybe she just can’t hear like Sepultura in all its glory. Um, so I did some Googling about like, Is loud music bad for dogs? Why isn’t my dog responding to music? Etc. Etc. And in the process, I found this guy, uh, who goes by the name Music4Cats. as his artist name, and he’s on Spotify, he’s on Apple Music, and I paid for, uh, an album, Volume 2 of Music for Cats, and he’s this composer who writes songs and Tones that are pleasing to cats, including like bass purrs and treble muses and like, it’s not like actual cat sounds, but like it’s music that, and like, I found out about it because like Newsweek did an article on like how cats were responding to kind of scientifically [00:52:00] proven audio enrichment.
[00:52:03] Brett: And so I was like, yep, absolutely. My cats have to have that. So I’m saying this while I have at least one cat hair stuck in the back of my throat, which is why I keep muting so I can try to hack it
[00:52:15] Jeff: cat hair stuck in the back of my head.
[00:52:17] Brett: Oh, have you ever had that?
[00:52:18] Jeff: No! Never! I try not to inhale my cats,
[00:52:22] Brett: It’s all over, it’s all over my mic. My cat rubs up against my mic and then I like, I get all, I get all sexy voice with my mic.
[00:52:30] Brett: I get it right in here. And I swallow the hair. Yeah. Anyway, there is, there is a thing out there called music for cats. I will, I will link this, uh, the guy’s got like four albums, so,
[00:52:43] Christina: I bet, I bet that does well. Like that seems like the sort of Spotify, like sort of search term, like
[00:52:48] Brett: No, he has like a hundred and seventy thousand listens on his like most popular track.
[00:52:53] Christina: oh damn, okay, well I mean still, okay, but you know what? Still good for him.
[00:52:59] Brett: [00:53:00] Genital Shame is probably more popular than
[00:53:03] Christina: mean as they should, I mean as they should be, but like, you know,
[00:53:08] Brett: Jeff’s seen Genital Shame live. Jeff knows what I’m talking
[00:53:12] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:53:13] Brett: All right, you guys ready for some GrAPPtitude?
[00:53:16] Christina: let’s do it.
[00:53:18] GrAPPtitude: Favorite Apps and Tools
[00:53:18] Brett: I’m gonna, I’m gonna. Oh, so last week I picked VS Code because, um, long time listener, first time caller, like I finally got into it. And part of the reason that I’m so hooked, even though like there are some things about it, like sometimes it’s not super responsive.
[00:53:36] Brett: Sometimes my favorite shortcut keys don’t work and I spend a lot of time like reconfiguring things. Um, But the thing that really sold me was GitHub’s Copilot. Um, so I’m making, I mentioned it last week, but I’m making my official pick this week. Copilot is, it’s just insane to me how it figures out exactly what I [00:54:00] want to type next and like, just does it.
[00:54:04] Brett: And every once in a while I have to go in and like, uh, it wrote a line for me that was like, uh, um, what’s it called? Oh, I forgot the word for like, when you have a statement and then a question mark and like, uh, I’m forgetting the, I’m, I’m, I’m not speaking like a programmer, but it wrote out this statement for me.
[00:54:27] Brett: And the only thing I had to change was it negated the state. Statement with an exclamation point. And when I took that out, it was perfect. It was exactly what I would have written. And all I had to do was hit tab. Um, and it is, it is written entire methods for me working in, um, SAS when I’m writing style sheets, um, it figures out, it knows all of the color variables in my file.
[00:54:52] Brett: It knows exactly like it can track. I can be deeply nested in like a SAS. [00:55:00] Selector series, and it’ll figure out just exactly what I want and how to phrase it so that it fits in at that level of nesting and just nuts. I’m so blown away.
[00:55:12] Jeff: That’s awesome. That’s like week three of you freaking out about Copilot in one way or another.
[00:55:19] Christina: Which I love. Hell
[00:55:20] Jeff: Or three episodes streak. Is it three weeks too? Have we done three weeks in a row? Cause it was you and me, then it was you and me and Christina. And now look at that.
[00:55:28] Christina: Hey, look at us
[00:55:29] Jeff: Hey. Hey.
[00:55:30] Christina: Hell yeah!
[00:55:33] Brett: I hate to tell you guys, but we have a sponsor next week, so we have to do next week, too.
[00:55:37] Jeff: Well, I’m doing, uh, we can use my, my, the episode I’m doing
[00:55:41] Christina: Yeah, that’ll actually be better.
[00:55:42] Brett: an extra special. There’s a, there’s an after school special episode coming up.
[00:55:47] Christina: I was gonna say, there is an After School Special episode, but I think everybody’s gonna enjoy that also, even kind of relates a little bit to, to what Brad was just talking about.
[00:55:55] Jeff: That’s true. Merlin man.
[00:55:57] Brett: Oh, you’re gonna give it away.
[00:55:59] Jeff: Well, I don’t know. I [00:56:00] thought, I didn’t know if you were setting me up for it or what. I mean, we can edit it out.
[00:56:03] Brett: No. No, I didn’t know if you, it felt like you were being coy.
[00:56:07] Christina: That’s what I
[00:56:07] Jeff: I’m gonna talk to, I’m gonna talk to Merlin about, uh, chat, GPT and related, uh, items, um, because uh, it’s something that he goes into a lot on Mastodon a little bit on his other podcast. We talked about it when we had him on, and I have a, um, a, a deep calling to go into the weeds on, on this topic with Merlin.
[00:56:29] Jeff: And so we’re recording next week and we’ll, it’ll be the next episode, which is super exciting. And we can do the sp I can do the sponsor read no problem.
[00:56:36] Brett: I’ll get you, I think it’s one password. I’ll, uh, I’ll get you some copy.
[00:56:40] Christina: Amazing.
[00:56:41] Jeff: copy. I’ll get you some copy. You don’t got the butts.
[00:56:44] Christina: You don’t get the butts. You don’t get the butts to do this. 1Password has the butts, though, and Pika has the butts, but
[00:56:50] Jeff: They got the butts. I just set, well, I can save it for next week, but I just set my, my son’s off at college. I just set him up with, uh, One Password. It was his, it was his introduction to it. It was very exciting [00:57:00] to be able to, uh, show him the magic.
[00:57:03] Christina: Very good. Very good. Um, well on that note, Brett, speaking of Copilot, speaking of ChatGPT and whatnot, I, I actually, the ChatGPT Mac app is going to be my, my pick of the week, uh, my GrAPPtitude. Um, I am, I’ve been using this a little bit because one of the, they just, the, the new O1 preview model came out
[00:57:23] Jeff: so good.
[00:57:24] Christina: stuff and it is actually really interesting.
[00:57:26] Christina: I was able to rickroll it, which was pretty cool.
[00:57:28] Jeff: nice.
[00:57:29] Christina: I, I created a, uh, I said this to you guys, but I created a Cypher using regular chat GPT. And then I, I asked the, the O1 model to, uh, to, you know, um, uh, figure out the Cypher for me. And, uh, and, and it was able to, and then it also even figured out what the, what the lyrics were from.
[00:57:47] Christina: So I was, I was proud of that. But the, the app, which, which is not it. So you have to have Apple Silicon. That’s the only thing right now. Um, and I don’t know if it’s been rolled out to everyone. I think most users have access to it now, but it’s pretty cool because, um, [00:58:00] it’s more than just like the website.
[00:58:01] Christina: Like they’ve actually worked pretty hard from what I understand and making it like a native app. Like there’s kind of like a, um, you know, kind of like an Alfred style, uh, you know, um, um, Quicksilver style kind of shortcut command thing if you want to talk to it anywhere. Um, you can attach files or give it access to like your, your camera and ask questions about things that you upload or images that you do.
[00:58:22] Christina: Um, you can take screenshots with it and then talk about like things that are inside those screenshots and ask questions about it. Um, and then like search for conversations. It’s pretty cool. It’s, I have to say you can even,
[00:58:34] Jeff: It’s great.
[00:58:35] Christina: yeah, you can talk to it with, with, with your natural language too. So yeah, I’m, I’m a big fan.
[00:58:40] Jeff: It’s great. And like I, so I use Mac GPT at your recommendation, Christina, a long time ago, and I don’t like using it for the chat GPT website. You can switch back and forth between interacting with the API and then interacting with the website. And so this is nice because I can do the website there and I can then [00:59:00] do the API and that’s how I’ve traditionally managed the limits of chat GPT, like proper. It is to just be like, I’ll have them both open. If I’m working on something and be like, okay, I don’t need to waste, uh, my, my questions on the mountaintop, uh, for this one. So I’m going to do it in MacGPT with the API. So it’s, yeah, it’s a great, I love the app so far.
[00:59:21] Christina: Yeah, it’s really cool. Sorry, go
[00:59:24] Brett: they show, they show uploading like a bunch of class syllabi PDFs and asking it for like all of your, uh, due dates across all your classes. That’s, that’s pretty cool.
[00:59:36] Christina: It is. It is. I mean, that’s the sort of thing, right? It’s like, you could have just done this, like, in a pretty, you know, lazy way where, um,
[00:59:44] Brett: Where it’s just a website
[00:59:45] Christina: Right, right. You know, and, and, Bing. Um, but, they didn’t, right? Like, they actually, like, you can upload things, you can talk to it, it’s got, you know, like, search history and other stuff, and, like, that’s pretty cool, and, like, that’s stuff that, because Mac [01:00:00] GPT, I think, is really cool, and it is a cool way to kind of use the API, and it can be cheaper and do some other stuff, but, like, this is actually, does some things where, you know, you can kind of, um, interact with things in a, in a smarter way, um, and I, I think it’s pretty cool.
[01:00:14] Jeff: yeah, it’s great. Okay, mine is an app, it’s like a Mac, it’s like a desktop, phone, watch app called CheatSheet. Um, and so I’ve used drafts forever, I use drafts and I often use drafts for like quick reference stuff, like as an example. I can never remember, like, the grocery co op we’re at. We have like a member number.
[01:00:39] Jeff: I can never remember it in the right order. And so I always have to look it up in drafts, but I always wanted something where I could just pull up a list. And it was just like a list of the numbers that I always fucking can’t remember or need and cheat sheets. Really amazing app where like, you can just enter in all these little pieces of information.
[01:00:56] Jeff: I’ll tell you how to use in a second. And then you can actually make it like a [01:01:00] widget on your phone that just lists those four things that you always forget. Right. Or you can be on your watch or whatever. Um,
[01:01:06] Christina: This is nice.
[01:01:07] Jeff: yeah. And then also it’s like a little menu bar dropdown as well. Um, which is great. And so like I have some of the things I have in it now, I have the license plate numbers of our two cars.
[01:01:16] Jeff: Cause how many times you’ve been checking into like a hotel or something, let’s say motel in this case.
[01:01:20] Brett: And then you got
[01:01:21] Jeff: what’s your license plate? And you’re like, Oh, Jesus Christ. Like, are you going to like, look for the photo you took the last time you were in a hotel? Um, I have my, my, uh, Seward Co op, I’ll name check it, uh, ID over here.
[01:01:32] Jeff: I’ve got my public library pickup ID in it, which is, Just amazing. Um, and then like my son’s high school student ID, cause that comes up all the time. What’s his ID anyway. So it’s like an awesome place to just have like a very simple list of the numbers. You always want to remember, I don’t have to organize them.
[01:01:48] Jeff: I’m not tagging them. I just know when I look at this list of like 15 or 20 things, I know what I’m looking for and it’s always going to be there. And so I have an,
[01:01:56] Brett: passcode in there?
[01:01:58] Jeff: yeah, my iPhone passcode in there. It’s [01:02:00] great.
[01:02:00] Christina: I love it.
[01:02:01] Brett: And it shows up on my lock
[01:02:02] Jeff: I got my, I got my birthday in there.
[01:02:05] Christina: so security number, everything. No, no, this looks cool. I, I, I use a similar app called tt, um, from Icon Factory that I like a lot. That’s a menu bar, kind of, just kind of a, a junk drawer, kind of like, you know, like notes thing. But what I like about this, I think I’m gonna buy this, is that like, you can make it a widget.
[01:02:22] Christina: on your
[01:02:23] Jeff: Oh yeah. The widget thing. And you can actually, if you have sort of folders, you can have a widget that’s just stuff from that folder. So you could have a few widgets. So I have like a family folder and I have like a whatever.
[01:02:33] Christina: Because like, because the thing is, is that I have a number of different tools that I could use for things like this. Like 1Password has a lot of that sort of thing stored for me because I use that as kind of, you know, management for whatnot and like, you know, some like my passport and, and all that is, is there.
[01:02:47] Christina: But like, there are some things that I’m like, okay, I don’t use this frequently enough or need this permanently enough. And Taut is great, like I said, just kind of as a, a, a dump, you know, like, like paste, like, you know, [01:03:00] pasteboard sort of thing. But, this having the, the ability to have like, I’m just looking at the website right now, like being able to have like, just the widget, frankly, and even like the watch stuff, like this is like really useful.
[01:03:12] Christina: Yes.
[01:03:13] Jeff: It’s great. It’s great. And I keep putting in, I have like, you know, the journalism thing of putting TK when you don’t have the information. So I have a bunch of things that are like TKs because they’re things that I want to go put in there. So my license plates were TKs until I remembered to actually look at my license plate.
[01:03:28] Jeff: Um, so I’m just like, I’m obsessed with it. It’s like I have always specifically pined for something like this. So
[01:03:36] Brett: In the screenshots, they have a note that says TK421. What do you think that is?
[01:03:43] Jeff: yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s the TK. They’ve also got a cheat code thing in there for a video game
[01:03:49] Christina: Yeah, yeah, the Konami code, up, up, down, down, left, right,
[01:03:51] Jeff: pretty genius. Yeah, yeah, pretty great. Yeah. Anyway, so I love it. I recommend it.
[01:03:58] Brett: Awesome. All right, [01:04:00] you guys, we did it. We got out of
[01:04:01] Jeff: don’t got the
[01:04:02] Brett: an hour.
[01:04:03] Jeff: God, I can’t stop saying it.
[01:04:05] Brett: Yeah, I’ll make it the show title, but it won’t make any sense.
[01:04:10] Jeff: You don’t got the butts.
[01:04:11] Brett: will have to listen to the episode.
[01:04:13] Jeff: I’m watching so many noir movies that it’s
[01:04:15] Christina: No, it does, honestly, it does seem like a very, very, very big nut, nut sort of thing.
[01:04:21] Jeff: Uh, all right. Sure. As you could get a dollar for 10 dimes, anyway,
[01:04:28] Brett: Do, do, say get some sleep in that voice.
[01:04:31] Jeff: get some sleep. You don’t got that butts. Sorry.
[01:04:35] Christina: Get some sleep.
[01:04:38] Jeff: Get some sleep, Johnny.
Christina, Jeff, and Brett dive into a rollercoaster episode packed with wild travel tales, parenting epiphanies, and tech geekery. Christina shares her whirlwind trip to San Francisco, while Jeff reminisces about meth-centric band auditions. Brett navigates an Accidental Vyvanse Overdose and a transition to VS Code, with plenty of geek love for GitHub extensions and markdown editors. They debate light themes, licensing chaos, and the quirks of macro automation tools.
1Password Extended Access Management solves the problems traditional IAM and MDM can’t . It’s security for the way we work today, and it’s now generally available to companies with Okta and Microsoft Entra, and in beta for Google Workspace customers.
Check it out at 1password.com/overtired.
You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network
BackBeat Media Podcast Network
Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter.
Accidental Meth
[00:00:00] Introduction and Podcast Updates
[00:00:00]
[00:00:02] Christina: What? The feed’s been updated? You’re listening to Overtired. I’m Christina Warren, joined as always by Jeff Severinskenzel and Brett Terpstra. Guys, hello.
[00:00:14] Brett: As, as always, sometimes, as sometimes, all three of us are here.
[00:00:18] Christina: Well, look, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s like, let’s just, let’s just focus on the fact that again, like I said, the feed’s been updated. Like we’ve got a new episode out.
[00:00:28] Brett: Um, yeah, and I, the plan is to have new episodes for a few weeks in a row here, if we, if we stick to plan. We have sponsors, and It would be more trouble to not do the episode than to do the episode. So yeah.
[00:00:46] Christina’s Exhausting Trip
[00:00:46] Brett: Christina, how are you?
[00:00:48] Christina: Pretty good. Pretty good. Um, I, um, had kind of, I, well, I mean, I’m, I’m fine now. I slept a lot, which was good, but yesterday, which was, we’re recording this on a Saturday. Um, I, on [00:01:00] a Friday, which was our normal record date, I would have been a lot more tired if we recorded then because I was in, um, San Francisco as an in and out, like on Thursday, like I flew in, uh, in the morning and then flew out in the afternoon.
[00:01:15] Christina: And, um, I don’t know, uh, be, like spending more time in airports than you spend in the city that you’re visiting
[00:01:21] Jeff: That’s the worst.
[00:01:22] Christina: That kind of sucks, to be honest. So
[00:01:24] Jeff: sucks.
[00:01:25] Christina: it was a great trip and I’m really glad that I did it and it wasn’t like that bad, but it’s also one of those things where it’s like, it’s just a not a long enough flight for the whole thing to just be like, okay, in the future, if I can, I mean, in their instance, this was one of them were like, you have to do that.
[00:01:41] Christina: And, and I’m, I’m glad that I was at least close enough to do it, but you’re also kind of like, yeah, this, this sucks. Like I’m now more tired than I would have been if I had just, you know, gone someplace and stayed the night and flown back.
[00:01:53] Jeff: Right, right. I know I hate that. I hate that, uh, I’m always wrong when I make the calls. [00:02:00] I don’t like traveling anymore, though, is my problem. That much. I like traveling, uh, on a vacation. I do not like traveling for work anymore.
[00:02:09] Travel and Mental Health
[00:02:09] Brett: Which I think is a great segue into a mental health corner.
[00:02:12] Christina: Yeah, I think so.
[00:02:14] Brett: travel and mental health. I um, tomorrow, or Monday I leave as this podcast is released.
[00:02:22] Brett’s Upcoming Vegas Trip
[00:02:22] Brett: I will be on a plane to Las Vegas. And it’s the first time I’ve traveled. I, we did a road trip this summer, but it’s the first time I’ve like flown for work anywhere in years and Vegas is not my first choice for places to be.
[00:02:43] Brett: Um, but I will be flying in for a few days in Las Vegas for Oracle CloudWorld. Um,
[00:02:50] Christina: World? Hell yeah.
[00:02:51] Brett: and I’m presenting on topics that. I only know about because I researched them last week. Um, [00:03:00] and I have to give, well, actually like I kinda, I got out of doing most of the, like leading the presentations, but I have to be there for support and live lab instruction and everything, which is a little stressful.
[00:03:14] Brett: I’m a little stressed out and like.
[00:03:17] Brett’s Sleep Struggles
[00:03:17] Brett: This week I stopped sleeping again. Um, not on purpose. I, I might be manic. Hard to say because like during the day I’m pretty level headed. Um, but I do tend to get up at four in the morning and start like working on code, which is kind of manic behavior for me. Um, but I figured out.
[00:03:39] Brett: So like I take Three 600 milligram pills of gabapentin every night, and it’s the only way that I sleep. But then even with that, I started waking up at 2 a. m. every morning, which is, you know, not, not great, and I couldn’t fall back asleep. So what I figured out [00:04:00] was I could take Two of those pills at bedtime because I don’t generally have trouble falling asleep.
[00:04:05] Brett: I have trouble staying asleep. So I take two of those pills and that gets me through till 2 a. m. Then I take the third pill at 2 a. m. which gets me through until like 5 a. m. which is a reasonable time to get up because I’ve been going to bed at like 8 30. Oh, which is going to suck in Vegas because my flight gets in at like 11 p.
[00:04:24] Brett: m. on Monday. And then all of our, all of our team meals and everything are like 9 45 PM. Um, Vegas time, which I think is West
[00:04:38] Christina: hours behind.
[00:04:39] Brett: yeah.
[00:04:39] Christina: two hours behind you. So, so, um, like, whatever, like, so if you, uh, land, so it’ll be the equivalent of like 11pm for you.
[00:04:47] Brett: Yeah. That’s nuts. I, I can’t, I can’t function that late. Um, but I guess I’ll have to, I guess this is a good time to get back into like crystal meth. Um,[00:05:00]
[00:05:00] Jeff: I mean, yeah, that’s an individual decision.
[00:05:05] Brett: consult your doctor. Um,
[00:05:08] Jeff: Oh man, that reminds me, I’m gonna flag something, I’m gonna flag something for after the corner, uh, a meth story.
[00:05:15] Brett: Well, that’s, that’s my corner. I’m, I’m stressed about travel. It’s not going to be a big deal. I always pull this shit off, no problem. Um, but,
[00:05:25] Vegas Experiences and Shows
[00:05:25] Jeff: I wanna, I wanna jump onto one thing you, one part of a sentence you said, which is, um, dot dot, which, no, which is dot dot dot, it’s gonna suck in Vegas. Everything sucks in Vegas.
[00:05:35] Christina: Yeah.
[00:05:36] Jeff: Except, you know what, except, and I, I resisted this so hard when my mother in law booked us to do this, except Blue Man Group.
[00:05:44] Brett: Yeah, no, I love the Blue Man
[00:05:46] Jeff: Kind of great.
[00:05:47] Christina: Uh,
[00:05:48] Brett: too.
[00:05:49] Christina: I was gonna say if you can do the shows, right? Like I had a, I had an amazing time when I took my mom to Vegas. Like I had like
[00:05:56] Brett: and Teller?
[00:05:57] Christina: um,
[00:05:58] Brett: didn’t you see like
[00:05:59] Christina: saw, we saw,
[00:05:59] Brett: [00:06:00] in Vegas?
[00:06:00] Christina: no, no, we saw Taylor Swift in Atlanta, but no, we saw Adele in Vegas. We saw Adele at, at, at, at, at Caesars. And we saw, um, uh, the, uh, the Beatles, uh, Cirque show, now that they’ve raised, um, the, um, um, That, that, um, um, hotel, um, because it’s going to become like the hard rock or whatever.
[00:06:18] Christina: Like that’s, that’s probably not ever coming back. So I was really glad we got to see that. But we, we like went shopping, like we, it’s, Vegas doesn’t suck unless you’re there for work. When you’re there for work, it sucks, right? Like, but, but, but, but that’s how most of us go at this point. And
[00:06:36] Brett: it was, it’s like CES with like the Engadget crew was always fun. Like we had
[00:06:43] Christina: for you, for
[00:06:44] Brett: you know, karaoke
[00:06:45] Christina: Well, for you,
[00:06:46] Brett: and yeah.
[00:06:48] Christina: you, if you were a reporter at Engadget, it was not fun, I guarantee you.
[00:06:54] Brett: Um, okay. I’ll take your
[00:06:55] Christina: I, I will guarantee you it’s not fun because you literally have to be on, [00:07:00] like, the entire time. You have to wake up at 6am to go to press conferences, and you have to also go to dinners with people.
[00:07:06] Christina: And yes, you have time to do team excursions, but that also means that you again have to then go out to like parties that companies are having in schmooze and then get up at 6am and you have to blog five or six things a day. Like it sucks. Like you’re, like,
[00:07:19] Jeff: five or six things
[00:07:20] Christina: and while you’re
[00:07:21] Jeff: I hated the early 2000s.
[00:07:23] Christina: while you’re walking around the entire convention center and then at CES at that point was so big that it was too big for the convention center.
[00:07:30] Christina: So you’d have to go from like one thing to another, like, um, It’s maybe fun once, but if you’re actually going to those things to work it like as a writer, no, CES
[00:07:42] Journalism and Blogging Challenges
[00:07:42] Jeff: still, here’s a question, and Christina, you might have the best sense of this. Are there still jobs in journalism where you are expected, like real jobs in journalism, where you’re expected to blog five or six times a day?
[00:07:56] Christina: That much probably not, um,
[00:07:58] Jeff: that nice? I[00:08:00]
[00:08:00] Christina: yeah, it is, it is, except, but it’s funny because like the one exception are like the big event days, right? So like things like CES, or Mobile World Congress, or the Apple, you know, news days. That’s an all hands on deck thing to this day where you will have multiple people who will be contributing.
[00:08:16] Christina: It’s And, um, yeah, I mean, but no, it’s no longer the, even the business insiders of the world and whatnot like that, like they’re not asking people to blog that much. Um, I think that it’s, it’s probably, uh, more, um, reasonably, um, gone to like a, a file once a day thing, which is much better. Um, and, and, and with BuzzFeed and all those things being gone, like you don’t even have like the quick, like listicle sort of shit.
[00:08:42] Christina: Um, like the closest thing, you know, to that that’s still around, I guess, like I said, would be like Business Insider. And I think they’re probably, even for their interns, they’re probably only like at a file once a day place. So that’s good. At the same time, I will say as like bad as that was, that was like the best bootcamp I ever had as a [00:09:00] writer
[00:09:00] Jeff: Mm.
[00:09:01] Christina: was, was having to file a lot.
[00:09:05] Christina: About a lot of different things. I mean, like you get burnout for fucking real, but you also get fast. And when there’s breaking news, like no one is faster than a blogger.
[00:09:16] Jeff: What I always liked, I liked a version of this, which is, I’m thinking, so I covered the RNC when it was here in St. Paul, it was the McCain Palin RNC for this really cool site at the time called the Minnesota Independent, which is just a good kind of, it’s a good progressive journalism site. And, and I had just.
[00:09:36] Jeff: Quit my job at a, at an alt weekly and needed something to do. And they, they brought me on and I, this is what I love. So I went every day to that convention. There’s tons of protests. So sometimes I would just follow the police around because that was a way to write about what was happening. I found my way into the convention hall at one point, whatever.
[00:09:57] Jeff: It was just like adventures every day for a few days. And [00:10:00] I loved having an intense day and then sitting down at like 7 PM and having to write. 2000 words about that day. Um, because it wasn’t like, um, it wasn’t like I interviewed a bunch of people and I have to like write a kind of straight thing, like, but I love writing a good sort of very, like, meaty, not trite narrative piece, uh, at the end of a, at the end of a hard day.
[00:10:27] Christina: No, and I think that can be great, right? And there’s nothing wrong with that. Like it’s just, but it’s hard when like, I don’t know. Um, and I always, I never minded doing like live vlogs. Like that, you know, I
[00:10:38] Jeff: love live vlogs.
[00:10:39] Christina: vlogs I always enjoyed. Um, and, and like, and like if somebody asked me like, can you do a live vlog right now?
[00:10:44] Christina: I haven’t done one in like six years and I would be like, yeah, fucking put me in. Um, that’s a, that’s a muscle that like wouldn’t go away.
[00:10:51] Brett: I think you were, so last time I was at CES, we were developing the new live blog software, uh, for Blogsmith [00:11:00] and it was me and Joe Bartlett and we were coding like non stop during the days because like they were live blogging CES and it was brand new software and we were bug fixing in
[00:11:13] Christina: Oh, damn. That would be, that would be really hard.
[00:11:16] Brett: yeah, it was, but like, I think it’s different.
[00:11:20] Brett: Because we had one thing to work on and we were like heads down on that one thing and we weren’t like popping from event to event and switching gears constantly.
[00:11:29] Christina: That’s what I’m saying. That, that, I, I totally think, like, like, it could still be stressful, but that would be fine. Like, but when you’re, like, as, cause I, cause I used to have to go to, like, Vegas twice a year. I would go in January for CES and then I’d go in April for NAB, which is like the, um, uh, National Association of Broadcasters, um, which is a smaller event, but a similar type of thing.
[00:11:46] Christina: And I would have to, you know, like, go, yeah, from like thing to thing. And then you’re trying to do like your little write ups and trying to get like the news out. And like, in some cases you’ve been able to do it in advance because you’ve already been pre briefed on stuff and you can just hit [00:12:00] publish.
[00:12:00] Christina: But in other cases, yeah, they’re like announcing things live. And so you’re having to figure out like what’s good live, like what’s worthwhile. And then you’re like walking the show floor and being like, Oh, okay, well, should I write about this or should I write about that? And, you know, want to make sure that I’m showing enough, you know, value for me being here.
[00:12:16] Christina: Um, and I don’t know, uh, I’d be curious The big, the big conferences in that way, like for the blogs and the people who do go, I mean, it’s a lot of video people now more than websites, um, which is its own other nightmare. I was on camera, but I didn’t have to do the edits, but trying to edit videos, you know, to go up while you’re at those events, it’s another kind of, uh, version of hell because, you know, people want to see it as soon as possible.
[00:12:44] Christina: But if it’s going to be good, it’s going to take more time to, you know, cut the whatnot. So you have some people who just live stream and like, great. But, you know, if you want it to actually look fully produced and that takes a lot of time and effort, and you’re also dealing with, you know, um, everybody else trying to [00:13:00] saturate the, the internet that you’re on.
[00:13:02] Christina: Um, even if you bring in your own hotspots or pay for your own. Um, Wireless, or, or, or, Wired, Lines, or whatever. But, um, yeah, um,
[00:13:13] Conference Stories and Intersections
[00:13:13] Brett: I don’t remember which year it was but, um, CES one year coincided with the Adult Video Network Awards
[00:13:21] Christina: Yeah, they did that for a number of years. They were the same week. Um,
[00:13:24] Brett: gotta tell you live blogging that was actually pretty fun. The AVN awards, I mean, not, not CES.
[00:13:31] Christina: right. Um, yeah, I, uh, I, I never went to any of that. Instead, what would happen, it would be, You would always have, and they would always be disgusting looking and, and acting men who would see a woman and be like, Oh, are you here for CES? Are you here for the AVGN awards or whatever? And it’s like, or AVN like, go fuck yourself.
[00:13:49] Christina: I’m not fucking you regardless. Like genuinely, like, like, like fucking kill yourself. Um, you know, like that, uh, and, and the CES, like, I don’t remember who it was who [00:14:00] made them move it, but like, there were enough complaints about that overlap that like, they had to be moved
[00:14:06] Brett: Yeah. I bet. I don’t doubt that. I don’t doubt that.
[00:14:10] Christina: Yeah, because I think, because I think what would happen is I think that the adult actor, film actresses, I think they would get harassed too. I think they would have like people, especially people who are from other countries who don’t, who have like different social norms and don’t know how to act around people, would like just blatantly sexually harass them.
[00:14:26] Brett: Yeah. Well, I imagine, I imagine that’s true for adult film actresses, just about everywhere they go.
[00:14:33] Christina: For sure, but like there, but if you have people who are coming for a specific event from your industry, you might still have people who are gross, but you know, are going to maybe have a certain kind of, you know, decorum. And then you have people who are like, again, like from parts of the world where they just don’t respect women in any regard and really think that like, it’s okay to just, you know, Reach out and touch people or to say things, um, even in the best of times.
[00:14:58] Christina: And, uh, and then you have like, [00:15:00] you know, like adult film actresses and it’s like, huh, yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe don’t have these two things the same week. I don’t know.
[00:15:09] Jeff: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Although, conferences and conference groups intersecting is one of my favorite things about going to conferences. That one’s just a little messy.
[00:15:19] Christina: No, no, totally. No, look, look, if everybody can act like an adult, I’m in full agreement. I was actually, I was actually in, I was actually in Vegas, um, I guess like three weeks ago, four weeks ago. Um, yeah, a month ago, I guess. Um, for, it was, again, it was supposed to be like a 24 hour thing. I wound up in that case, actually being smarter and staying a second night.
[00:15:38] Christina: So like I got in at like 7 p. m. and And we shot on the whole next day, and I thought that I was going to be leaving at like 7pm the following night, and we had the hotel suite for another night, and I was like, well if we have this, this is dumb, I will just stay the night and then leave at like 10 or 11am the next day, which is what I wound up [00:16:00] doing.
[00:16:00] Christina: Um, and so I was there for like, 36 hours. Um, but, um, it was, it was fun because we were, uh, it was during def, um, uh, Blackhat and Defcon. And so, um, and I was interviewing some of our security researchers and I didn’t go to any of the events and I, I wasn’t able to go to any of the parties, which that’s okay.
[00:16:17] Christina: Um, I didn’t want to get COVID or anything, so I was, that was fine. But we, um, me and like, um, the, the guys on our, our films team were fantastic. Like we hung out, we, did Topgolf and things like that. But like we went to this restaurant when we first got in and there was like this white party happening and we, we didn’t know like what it was for.
[00:16:35] Christina: And, and, um, like even like the, um, waitress, she was like, I’m not sure what they’re all lined up for in this casino. And I was like asking, I was like, so, What are you here for? They’re like, Oh, it’s just a corporate company, white party. And I was like, trying to find out like what company they worked for and they wouldn’t like tell me.
[00:16:47] Christina: And I was like, okay. So we were all like, okay, yeah, they must work at a cult. But that was kind of a fun thing to see because obviously there were all the security professionals there, but there were people who were in town for other things too. And seeing like, like, [00:17:00] like to your point, Jeff, like seeing those different types of groups intersecting, um, was, was pretty funny.
[00:17:06] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, I had one. I was in Omaha once and, uh, at the hotel. I wasn’t there for a conference, I was there for a project, but at the hotel it was like, I forget what the group was, but it was all, um, elderly women in, um, dresses made of sequins and hats with sequins. And then it was a, it was a bodybuilder conference.
[00:17:25] Jeff: I’m sorry, a body, a bodybuilder competition. Um, and so the whole, the whole, like three days I was there, these were the groups that were like intersecting in the lobby and stuff. And it was just the best. It’s like a world I want to live in.
[00:17:38] Christina: That’s amazing. I was at one in, in June for the AI Engineer World’s Fair. Um, was, was at a, um, uh, the Marriott Marquis in San Francisco. Um, but the other event that was there was, I think I took a photo of it, but it was like some sewing convention.
[00:17:54] Jeff: Nice. Oh, that must’ve been gentle, gentle people.
[00:17:57] Christina: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so it was, it was like this very weird [00:18:00] thing. Like they had like, they have like the signs like showing like, This direction for the AI Engineer World’s Fair, this direction for like the big sewing convention. And like, you could not have like a more different demographic of people. Like one is like, like almost entirely men, like in probably like their, their, you know, 20s and 30s, um, talking, you know, like AI nerds.
[00:18:17] Christina: And then the other is like, I would say the median age is probably 55 and, and all women. That was pretty funny.
[00:18:24] Jeff: Yeah. Oh man. Awesome. Awesome. Traveling, live blogging. Weightlifters.
[00:18:32] Christina: Weightlifter.
[00:18:32] Brett: your mental health, Jeff?
[00:18:34] Jeff: Pretty good. Good. I’ve, uh,
[00:18:37] Brett: I’m
[00:18:38] Jeff’s Parenting Reflections
[00:18:38] Jeff: I just, I can just say, I mean, what, what I can say in, in short, cause I’ve, I’ve talked about it in the last episode and, and definitely a few episodes ago as I anticipated it or approached it, but like, um, dropping my oldest off at college and then returning to a life where he is not a physical presence every day.
[00:18:56] Jeff: Um, one of the, like, just really [00:19:00] kind of amazing experiences for me, like as a parent. especially recently, is like, I didn’t really anticipate how, um, parenting him would be different. Uh, because, so really he’s a great communicator and it’s very easy to talk. And I’ve said before, just like kind of like a great roommate basically, but also just like a really, really good kid.
[00:19:24] Jeff: And, uh, and, And the way that you interact with your kids normally is like you catch them at the right moment. Maybe you have a nice conversation. They’re on the couch, you’re on the couch, you’re driving them somewhere, they’re driving you somewhere. Um, and a lot of, a lot of interaction, whether it’s like, uh, transactional or supportive or, or just, you know, like really connecting happens that way.
[00:19:46] Jeff: Like just kind of ships passing in, uh, the day and night. Um, but when you’re, when you’re separate. It’s phone calls and, and there’s just a different, um, it’s a different experience, a different way of like [00:20:00] receiving him and being present to him and, and kind of a learning curve, not in a bad way at all, but just like trying to like figure out what is different?
[00:20:09] Jeff: Why does this feel different? How, how, how can I be the same kind of present or like whatever this new present I need to be? Um, and And you know, first few weeks of college are hard. And so it’s been, you know, like a lot of sort of trying to be present and supportive and listening or whatever. And it’s been really awesome.
[00:20:28] Jeff: I had this kind of weird realization, which is like, well, first of all, when I turned 40, I’m 49 now, when I turned 40, I literally remember I was walking in Omaha, probably that same trip. And I remember thinking, well, I’m about to turn 40. That’s probably it for new phases of my life. I don’t think it’s probably going to be too many big new initiatives.
[00:20:46] Jeff: I don’t know why I was thinking that, but I really felt like it was, I didn’t feel
[00:20:49] Christina: was over for
[00:20:50] Jeff: was over, but yeah, but I just felt like, well, you know, the thing where I jumped from thing to thing or whatever, and maybe there’s a big left turn, whatever. I was like, Oh, it’s probably done. Um, totally not done.
[00:20:59] Jeff: [00:21:00] And, and I also kind of like, I was thinking on that and then I was thinking about how like, What I’m experiencing now feels like a new developmental stage. Like, in terms of the sort of challenges it provides and like the, the sometimes like the struggles to recognize like, Oh, I’m in a new developmental stage.
[00:21:18] Jeff: Like I am developing new ways of being in the world. And I realized that I actually have always loved entering those stages, even when they’re super, super hard. And, uh, and this one isn’t super, super hard, but it’s. It’s loaded with a lot of emotion and, and, and a lot of like wanting to, you know, maintain a connection at a time when, when your child is like in maximum new independence mode.
[00:21:44] Jeff: Um, and so just figuring out like, it’s a change of identity and I, and so far, I really like it. And, and I was, did not expect that. I like the change in identity. I’d love to have them back more. I’d love to have them closer, not 11 hours away, but, um, anyway, so that it’s just, [00:22:00] I don’t know, but I think because that’s on my mind all the time, I think that’s the best kind of mental health check in.
[00:22:06] Jeff: And also just that it’s hard when, when, when your, your kid is like, you know, on the like, rollercoaster of the first, I didn’t go to college, but from what I understand, that first semester can be hard.
[00:22:16] Christina: It can
[00:22:17] Jeff: as can the first
[00:22:18] Christina: of changes.
[00:22:19] Jeff: Yeah. It’s so many
[00:22:20] Christina: you’re away, yeah, you’re away from home for the first time. Um, for, for, for most people, I mean, some people have had other experiences, but for a lot of people, you’re away from home for the first time. You have that first real sense of independence where there are consequences for, you know, like no one’s going to wake you up and make you go to class.
[00:22:33] Christina: And you’re meeting all kinds of new people who are going through the same things and, um, getting really close to people really fast, um, because you spend so much time together and trying to figure out who you are and. Getting to reinvent yourself to some degree, you know, because It, you know, again, like it’s not the same for everybody, but depending on where you go, like, you might not have many of the same people from your high school there.
[00:22:55] Christina: And so, you know, you kind of get to try on new, you know, like [00:23:00] personalities and, and other things and be like, okay, well, I don’t want to be like this anymore. I can be like this. And, and then, yeah, you know, if you, especially if you were close with your parents, like trying to figure out like, okay, well, how am I still going to see them and, you know, maintain those things.
[00:23:15] Christina: Um, where’s he in school?
[00:23:17] Jeff: he’s at, he’s at, well, he’s just, he’s at a college in Indiana. I don’t know why would I feel weird saying the name of the school. Um, but he’s at a college in Indiana and it’s, it’s where his mom went and, and, um, and it’s, it’s a great, it’s a great place, great campus. He’s very happy with all of that.
[00:23:33] Jeff: But like, have you all ever been in a long distance relationship?
[00:23:36] Christina: Yes.
[00:23:36] Brett: Um, kinda. Yeah,
[00:23:39] Jeff: Like, you know that thing where, if something’s, you’re talking to someone and you’re kind of stuck with whatever the last impression you had was on the phone, right, like pre text or whatever, or like
[00:23:50] Brett: even when your partner is traveling.
[00:23:52] Jeff: Yeah, same, same. I was gonna say, it’s like when you’re traveling where like, if it’s, if you have a, if you leave a call with a sense of [00:24:00] like, I don’t know what, like longing or sadness or, or if it’s happiness or whatever, you sort of keep that and realize only later that like, that didn’t freeze for that person, but it
[00:24:09] Brett: happened in between.
[00:24:11] Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:24:12] Christina: more things happened since then. Yeah. I have to, I, I’m curious, you know, because like when I went to college and, and I didn’t go very far from home, so it was very different in a lot of regards, but you know, um, but I did have the long distance relationships and stuff, but like, It was harder to keep in touch with people, you know, like we had cell phones, but we weren’t texting all the time and, and you couldn’t FaceTime with people, you know, and, and that kind of thing.
[00:24:37] Christina: Um, do you think that, like, are you able to be more connected through like other ways? Are you finding that?
[00:24:43] Jeff: Yeah. And, and also with that, like trying not to overdo it myself, you know, cause I could ask a question or check in every five minutes. Um, and so I’ve been, that’s the other thing I’ve been trying to negotiate in my head, which is like, okay, what do I, Right now, what do I need? And what I need [00:25:00] right now is some kind of contact, whether it was with me even briefly, Hey, I want to send you some, some slippers, you need slippers with your shoe size.
[00:25:07] Jeff: And it’s like, tells me the shoe size, like, that’s it. Like, that’s the minimum I need. Um, And, and, but otherwise, yeah, it’s nice. Cause every once in a while, it’s just a loose text. It’s just a, like, kind of like, Hey, have you heard this album or whatever? I’ll get that or yeah, proof of life. And, and, and so, yes, it is easier to stay in touch because you don’t have to, it doesn’t have to be a call.
[00:25:27] Jeff: And I think, I think, especially when as a parent thinking of the two of us here, like when you’re anxious, like one of the things I was really trying to do, we would only talk like every couple of days or do only talk every couple of days, but I was like, I don’t want to. I don’t want to burden him in any way with any of my anxiety.
[00:25:46] Jeff: Um, if he’s describing something and it makes me worried or I project or whatever, like, and so if you’re, if you’re doing more texting and phone calling, it’s a little easier to control that, to like, just, just be really like. [00:26:00] Mindful of like, I don’t, we’re both going through our own very different thing and I want us to both know that we miss each other and all that stuff.
[00:26:08] Jeff: But like, I don’t want to put my like, grown up ass dad anxieties onto his just freed himself into the world, you know, feelings.
[00:26:19] Brett: I did not have to deal with this at all. I, I went to the U of M, so I was only a couple hours away from my folks, but I was so happy to get to know them. Get out of town. Um, I had like almost no contact with my parents for that first year of college and my roommate, my dorm mate was my best friend from high school and really the only friend that I cared to keep in touch with.
[00:26:44] Brett: Uh, so I lived with him. My girlfriend had gone to the U of M the year before. Um, so I was basically getting out of a long term relationship by going to college. And like everyone I needed to communicate with was there in [00:27:00] my life and I had like no anxiety. It was, it was so exciting to be on my own and away from what I considered a pretty oppressive environment.
[00:27:11] Brett: And yeah, it was, it was different than what you’re describing.
[00:27:16] Jeff: Well, and that thing too. Oh, go ahead,
[00:27:18] Christina: No, I was just going to say, but you know, it, but it’s also like your, it’s your parents react, you know, um, experience. I’m sure it was also different from Jeff’s, but like, it was different from what you were going through too. Right. Like, I’m sure, however they felt about you being gone and how you felt about being gone.
[00:27:32] Christina: Like, you know,
[00:27:33] Brett: think it was a huge relief that I was gone.
[00:27:36] Christina: yeah, there might’ve been that, right. But it’s just like, but it just, you know, we remember like our perspectives. Like I, I’ve, I’m going to be honest until these conversations, I’ve never even really thought about like what it was like for my parents. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:27:48] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:27:49] Christina: Honestly, like it’s never even really even occurred to me to be thinking about like, oh, well, how do they feel about, you know, us being gone?
[00:27:55] Christina: We weren’t that far. Like my sister was home more often than I was, but I, [00:28:00] you know, it was 30 minutes away and still came home some weekends to, to work, um, and, and do laundry. Um, but, and, and that happened less and less. That was really only the first year. And then after that, yeah, I was like half an hour away.
[00:28:12] Christina: Um, and so it wasn’t, I don’t know. I never even really kind of like anticipated like, what’s it like for them to not have us there? Um, I, I imagined that it was relief, but, but it never really occurred to me, you know what I mean? Like, it wasn’t one of those, one of those things that was kind of like, top of mind at all.
[00:28:32] Christina: Um, which is interesting to kind of like, you know, think about, be like, oh, yeah, no. What were they, you know, going through? Now when I moved to New York, that might have been different. But I’ll also kind of admit at that point, like, I was older and whatnot, and I, you know, haven’t ever, like, thought too intensely about like, oh, you know, how does this make my mom feel, you know?
[00:28:54] Jeff: When there’s, I think, yeah, right, right. And I know I, and I didn’t think about it just because I didn’t go to college. Like [00:29:00] I, I moved out, moved into Minneapolis from the suburbs and, and was here for a long time. Then I started going to like scary places at a young age. And I don’t know how the fuck they dealt with that.
[00:29:09] Jeff: But like, uh, but I, the other big thing, right? Like for both parents and the individual is like, did you launch or did you escape? Right? Like, and I escaped, uh, not escaped like the clutches of my mother, but like escaped. My life as a kid in school. And as a kid in the suburbs and all that stuff, I escaped and I, I, I’ll leave it to my son to tell to, to know whether he launched or escaped.
[00:29:35] Jeff: It feels like a launch from my end.
[00:29:37] Christina: Yeah.
[00:29:39] Jeff: Yeah. Ah, yeah. Well, thanks. I thought that would be quick, but man, it’s, it’s definitely like the thing that’s always on my mind. It’s such a new, it’s new. Like I it’s, I he’s 18, right? It’s 18 years. He’s been in my house. I see him every day. I say good night to him. I say, good morning to him.
[00:29:54] Jeff: Like, you know, like
[00:29:56] Christina: You’re close and you have a, and you have a good relationship, which is also, [00:30:00] which is also like different, right? Like that’s not everyone’s situation. Like, like, um, you know, um,
[00:30:04] Brett: that’s actually a rarity.
[00:30:06] Christina: I think so. I mean, well, for both ends, right? Both for parents and for the kids, right? Well, especially when, um, and I would say, cause I definitely have like some friends who are close with their kids, but like, um, one of my friends, like his son is a senior in high school and is going to be going to school, not that far from him, like, you know, um, in the same state, you know, a couple hours.
[00:30:26] Christina: Right. And so I don’t know, What their situation is going to be like, but they also, um, uh, he’s divorced. And so he doesn’t, he’s not with, you know, his kids full time all the time. So I, I don’t know like how much of their day to day will change, but if you’re close, you know, like that’s, that’s, that, that’s a, that’s a different dynamic.
[00:30:44] Christina: Like I was close. I’m closer with my mom now, but like, I was close with my parents or I guess close to my mom. Like, I wasn’t really close with my dad, but wasn’t not close, but also I wasn’t 11 hours away. Right. Like I try to imagine like, what would have been like, like if I had gone to New York for college, um, right [00:31:00] away.
[00:31:00] Christina: Right. Like, and, and have that sort of experience. Um, I will say it was interesting because there were definitely, especially once like the, my, my second year when I moved into my first apartment. And I wasn’t ever coming home to, to work or, or, or anything, um, because I had a, a job, um, uh, at a different location and, um, didn’t need to do that, like, you know, I, I would talk to my mom like less and less.
[00:31:26] Christina: Like it was, it was funny. It was like, okay, we were half an hour away, but we might only talk, you know, every other week or something, you know, it just kind of depends. Um, and, uh, you know, so, so proximity didn’t play as much of a role there, but yeah, you know, cause you start to realize like, like you’re live.
[00:31:41] Christina: Your life like evolves and, and, and launches off, but like your parents lives, like they go on too, right? Like that’s, that’s the thing is that everybody’s, everybody moves on. Um, and you just have to navigate, okay, well, how much, you know, how do we stay in contact and, and whatnot. And that’s not just like parental relationships.
[00:31:59] Christina: That’s [00:32:00] like any sort of relationship. Like I had some friends and, and frankly, most of the relationships didn’t last, but like friends who didn’t maybe go to college or, or, you know, kind of stuck, you know, more closer to like my hometown and whatnot. Like, okay, well, how often are you keeping in contact with people or even friends who went to other colleges?
[00:32:16] Christina: And, you know, it’s just like, okay, well, how, how, how are we all keeping in touch? You know, are we IMing one another? Are we, you know, emailing, you know, we making phone calls? Like what’s, what’s the deal? And like, you realize, okay, if you want to maintain these things, you have to put work into it. It won’t just sustain itself.
[00:32:31] Jeff: Yeah, that’s another one. Right. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And then that thing of like, I mean, this, I can stop after this, but the, the thing that I’m sure both of you relate to as people who went to college. Um, I mean, I certainly relate to it in my own way, obviously. Is that thing of like, there’s still so much you’re doing for the first time.
[00:32:51] Jeff: It’s like your first day every day to, to. Borrow from John Roderick. It’s like your first day, like every single day. Like, um, and that’s really, that’s [00:33:00] something I remember loving that. I just, I loved everything. I, everything I ran into, I’m like, I don’t really actually know how to buy laundry soap. I love that shit, loved it.
[00:33:09] Jeff: But anyway. Uh, so, Christina, you wanna?
[00:33:13] Christina’s Family Visit
[00:33:13] Christina: Yeah, I mean, I’m, I’m fine. I’ve been, um, like I said, I just got back from a day trip. I was off before that. Like I was back for a week, but I was, um, it took like two weeks ish off. Um, I went to, um, to Atlanta to visit my family. Um, and, uh, I got to see my nephew go to his first day of preschool. Speaking of first, he’s three years old now and, and that, that’s wild, right?
[00:33:36] Christina: Like just to
[00:33:37] Jeff: Super wild.
[00:33:38] Christina: just to see how quickly stuff passes, right? And, um, And my sister has been sending me photos and stuff. So, uh, so that’s been good, but uh, no COVID, um, knock on wood. Um, I had to do the thing where, because I went to Las Vegas for, like I said, for that day trip, I knew that, you know, cases were really high and I was concerned about, you Getting my parents sick.
[00:33:59] Christina: I didn’t [00:34:00] really give a shit about if I got, you know, sick, um, because I’ve had COVID a few times. And at this point, um, I don’t think that would be negatively impacted or whatever, but I didn’t want to get anybody else sick, but it was like the worst. And I got my original booster of like in October of last year.
[00:34:15] Christina: And I was like, I know this is the worst possible time to get a booster. Cause the new ones are about to come out and it’s like August 1st, but. I’m going to go ahead and get one anyway. So I got a boost for August 1st. And maybe that, while it being okay, it sucked because then like the new ones came out like August like 26th or something.
[00:34:33] Christina: So I was like, well, now I have to wait, you know, two months before I can get One of the new shots, but, um, I did not get COVID and one of our video guys did. He thinks he got it on the plane and he was only maybe knocked down for like a day or so, but that was good. But yeah, it was one of those things I was like, okay, I was traveling.
[00:34:50] Christina: Um, and then I went to XOXO in Portland and then went back to, um, uh, you know, Seattle, um, and, uh, you know, kind of, you know, [00:35:00] Reconvened work. And then I, like I said, had a day trip this week. So I’ve just been kind of traveling a lot, but, um, but mental health has been pretty good. Um, no, no, no real complaints about anything other than, um, yeah, weirdly.
[00:35:14] Christina: And, and just hearing you talk about like your experiences with your son and stuff too, like watching my nephew, you know, he’s three, he’s only three years old, but still like seeing these kinds of moments, like it makes you kind of, I don’t know. I think about like my own, like, Not mortality, but you do think about just the passage of time in different ways, you know?
[00:35:32] Christina: And that’s, yeah,
[00:35:34] Jeff: Oh man, I’m gonna be 50 in January, and I realize, like, 20 years ago I was 30. In 20 years I’ll be 70. And that sentence that I just spoke out loud goes through my head daily. Like, what the fuck? Yeah, for sure.
[00:35:52] Sponsor Break
[00:35:52] Brett: So, um, should we take a sponsor break?
[00:35:55] Jeff: Yeah, then can I tell my meth story?
[00:35:57] Christina: Yes.
[00:35:58] Jeff: Okay.
[00:35:59] Christina: We’ll do, we’ll, we’ll [00:36:00] do sponsors first, meth, meth after the
[00:36:02] Jeff: It’s not, it doesn’t actually involve actual meth, but It’s, it involves the topic.
[00:36:06] Christina: Okay. I mean, I have actual meth stories, but we don’t, we don’t have to share those now.
[00:36:10] Brett: As do I, but that’s a horrible segue. So, um, a lot of people don’t know this, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret. In my free time, I actually run a fairly large corporation, uh, somewhat shadowy, uh, with a bunch of shady contractors. And one of the things that really gets under my skin is how many of those contractors use devices and apps on my network that I can’t control.
[00:36:37] Brett: And that’s where this week’s sponsor really saves my butt. Imagine your company’s security like the quad of a college campus. Speaking of college, that would have been a good segue.
[00:36:48] Jeff: Meth was less of a good segue.
[00:36:50] Brett: there are,
[00:36:51] Jeff: the nature of your shadowy corporation. I don’t know if 1Password
[00:36:54] Brett: I’m not allowed to,
[00:36:55] Jeff: the space between meth and their
[00:36:58] Brett: On the down low, I can’t talk [00:37:00] about exactly what my corporation does, um, for legal
[00:37:04] Jeff: Sorry for getting you back in it
[00:37:06] Brett: So, so, so, you got your, your company’s security quad of a college campus and there are nice brick paths between the buildings.
[00:37:14] Brett: Those are the company owned devices, IT approved apps, and managed employee identities. And then there are the paths that people actually use. The shortcuts worn through the grass that are the actual straightest line from point A to point B. Those are your unmanaged devices, shadow IT apps, and non employee identities like contractors.
[00:37:37] Brett: Shady, shady contractors. Most security tools only work on those happy brick paths, but a lot of security problems take place on the shortcuts. 1Password Extended Access Management is the first security solution that brings all of these unmanaged devices, apps, and identities under your control. It ensures that every user [00:38:00] credential is strong and protected, every device is known and healthy, and every app is visible.
[00:38:06] Brett: 1Password Extended Access Management solves the problems that traditional IAM and MDM can’t. It’s security for the way we work today and it’s now generally available to companies with Okta and Microsoft Entra and in beta for Google Workspace customers. Check it out at 1password. com slash overtired.
[00:38:27] Brett: That’s right, we got a custom URL. That’s 1password. com slash overtired.
[00:38:35] Jeff: All right. Nice work.
[00:38:37] Brett: Thank you. That was one take. Uh, there were, for anyone listening, there were no edits in that. I’m, except for the part where Jeff started talking about meth in the middle of the ad read, but I think they’ll, they said to make it our own.
[00:38:51] Jeff: Hey,
[00:38:53] Christina: I mean, look, look, look, look. If shadowy business stuff, [00:39:00] how can we not make Breaking Bad references?
[00:39:03] Jeff: I’m
[00:39:03] Brett: Right on.
[00:39:04] Christina: I’m just saying.
[00:39:05] Jeff: yeah,
[00:39:06] Jeff’s Meth Story
[00:39:06] Christina: All right, tell us your, tell, tell, all right, now, now that we’ve done the sponsor read, um, uh, Jeff, please tell us the, your, your meth story.
[00:39:12] Jeff: Do you have a friend or are you the friend who has, um, this sounds like another ad read actually,
[00:39:17] Brett: really does.
[00:39:19] Jeff: who is the person that retains the memories? Uh, I have a, I have, I have a
[00:39:24] Christina: Oh yeah,
[00:39:24] Jeff: friends who, yeah, that’s you. I believe that I was, I would have guessed that. I have friends who remember everything. Um, Uh, name check, Danny Glamour.
[00:39:34] Jeff: I see you. My friend, Joe, who’s been my, my friend since, um, eighth grade. He remembers we were in bands together. We toured together. He remembers everything. And, um, and, and he told me a story back to me recently that was incredible, which is that we were, uh, we w we had like a, like a 16 year olds as 16 year olds, we had like a heavy metal band.
[00:39:53] Jeff: We were pretty good. And we even made like a demo. We had no singer. And, and we made this demo and. [00:40:00] And the guy who recorded it was also my drum teacher and kind of like a mentor to us. He had been in metal bands for a very long time in the region, basically. And, and we needed a singer and we weren’t ready to get out there into the world.
[00:40:12] Jeff: I’m telling you, there were good songs. Okay. I still, I just recently listened to that. It was good songs for 16 year olds. Um, so we wanted a singer. We decided to put an ad in the Alt Weekly here in City Pages. Which is now long gone. And, uh, and, and all I remember about, and all Joe remembered about what we said, besides that we were looking for singers, was that we said we were young.
[00:40:31] Jeff: We didn’t say we were 16 and that we were, you were going to meet at my mom’s house. Um, and, and we said that we had a label ready demo. That was our, that was the advice from our mentor. And, um, and, and I think about this in life so hard because we probably did. Seven auditions. It started with like a phone call.
[00:40:48] Jeff: Um, and then, and then some fucking dude with like a mullet, um, and, and, you know, any number of like what it was like acid wash jeans, uh, any number of kind of looks were present. They’d show [00:41:00] up to, to jam with us. and would find out when they got there that they were grown men and we were 16. And, and a couple of us were very awkward.
[00:41:09] Jeff: Um, and, and, uh, anyway, so like, they would say things like, well, I got to say, I mean, you said you were young in the end. I didn’t realize you were this young. Um, there was a guy who was so nervous to sing that he asked if he could take the microphone all the way into another room separate from us. So we’re like, dude, this is not a good start.
[00:41:27] Jeff: We’re trying to get out there. Um, and, but anyway,
[00:41:31] Brett: live gigs.
[00:41:32] A Strange Encounter: Learning About Meth
[00:41:32] Jeff: But there was this one dude who just wanted to hang out. And so we did like, we played and then we went upstairs into the living room. Uh, my mom was not there and we hung out on the couch and the guy, the guy told us at length, how you make meth. And like, there’s like, it’s just like, he’s preaching, doing like a sort of tutorial to these 16 year olds.
[00:41:53] Jeff: None of them did meth. There was a lot of, there was a lot of pot. among us. Not me, but like among us. There’s a lot of acid among us, but um, no [00:42:00] meth. Uh, and, and this guy just went on and on at length about how he and how we also could make meth. And I,
[00:42:08] Brett: that’s the story of how, how you found your singer.
[00:42:11] Jeff: yeah, that’s how we found our singer, man. Yeah, I know that was a good band.
[00:42:14] Jeff: Super jacked up.
[00:42:16] Oasis: The Meth Incident and Live Performances
[00:42:16] Jeff: Um, Also to say that I didn’t know the story about Oasis accidentally taking meth and then playing a show, but you can watch it on YouTube. Um,
[00:42:24] Christina: What, what show was that? Cause that could be,
[00:42:25] Jeff: it was here. I think it was in the States. I think it was in the States at a club.
[00:42:29] Christina: okay, okay. All right. I, that, that, that tracks cause, um, I have seen the documentary about like their Wembley show, which was like one of their worst live gigs
[00:42:37] Jeff: just watched it
[00:42:38] Christina: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, which I actually, I think I have like, I have like the live, and then they had to make that a live recording,
[00:42:44] Jeff: It’s so painful to watch.
[00:42:46] Christina: is so painful to watch.
[00:42:47] Christina: But like, to see like how they were able to kind of cobble together the audio to make something somewhat passable to sell. And then you look back and you’re like, wow. And I, and now, now I’m going to be a really bad OASIS fan. I can’t remember which one fucked up. I think it was, [00:43:00] I think it was Liam who, who fucked up,
[00:43:03] Jeff: Liam, I mean, the thing that you can watch on YouTube, which is like a bunch of cuts is, is, and I was never an Oasis fan. I honestly got obsessed with footage for some reason after they announced they were going to reunite, but it’s because it’s everywhere in my algorithm. But now I’m just like, I’m transfixed.
[00:43:17] Jeff: I’m not even that big of a fan of the music still, but I’m transfixed. And it’s the one that I’m thinking of at one point is like, Liam Gallagher is singing. Not the real lyrics to the
[00:43:27] Christina: Yes, yes,
[00:43:28] Jeff: pausing to say things like, does anybody want some lasagna? Uh,
[00:43:33] Christina: Exactly,
[00:43:34] Jeff: fucking Wembley. It’s incredible.
[00:43:37] Christina: he was like, purposely like drunk and angry, like they’d gotten in a fight. And, and like the second night he knew that this, that, you know, they were going to have to be making like, it, it, they had all the recording stuff there, like they knew this was gonna be the live album.
[00:43:48] Christina: And, and he’s just like, fuck it, let’s do it. And like, in retro, and, and years later, I think he’d apologized, but Noel was just like. Beside himself, he’s just like, okay, I’m ready to go, right? I’m [00:44:00] ready to leave. And Liam’s like, oh, what do you mean we’re leaving now? And it’s like, Noel is just like, done, you know?
[00:44:05] Jeff: it’s at Wembley. Yeah, no, it’s amazing. I have to say, like, I am transfixed by those two. I think I, so I’m confused. Christina, are you a good person to ask some OASIS questions? I can be brief. Until two weeks ago, I didn’t give a shit about OASIS, but all of a sudden I’m obsessed.
[00:44:21] Oasis Reunion Tour: Hopes and Realities
[00:44:21] Jeff: I was under the impression that Liam was the asshole, the bigger asshole, but now I’m starting to understand that maybe Noel is the bigger asshole?
[00:44:28] Jeff: Or are they both just big assholes?
[00:44:30] Christina: are, they are. That, that would
[00:44:31] Jeff: In ways that are kind of delightful.
[00:44:32] Christina: Yes, 1000%. I mean, which is why I’m going to spend so much money. I tried to get tickets for the reunion tour and, um, failed. And I’m going to spend so much money, like, it’ll, it’ll still be less than Taylor Swift money. Let’s be fucking for real. But like, I’m going to spend so much money on trying to get Oasis, um, uh, tickets.
[00:44:50] Christina: Because the thing is, is like, I feel like I have to go to like one of the first shows in the UK because I have, it, it’d be like buying, uh, tickets to, um, you know, the Fuji’s [00:45:00] reunion, which they’ve canceled. Right? Like, you, you can’t buy tickets to any Lauryn Hill concert and expect to actually be able to go to that concert.
[00:45:07] Christina: Like, that’s not happening. Like, there’s a 95 percent chance, probably actually a 99 percent chance that Lauryn Hill will not show up. Like, that’s just how it works. And I
[00:45:16] Jeff: That sounds like the Oasis show a little
[00:45:17] Christina: And that I was going to say, Oasis to me, like, feels similar. It’s like, okay, you have to like buy these tickets, like with the assumption, like even with, you know, getting them from Scalpers or whatnot, which is like, you’re just going to have to go to London for a completely different, you know, go to the UK for a completely different purpose and be okay with it because there’s a very, very good chance that that these two brothers will just absolutely refuse to go on stage with one another.
[00:45:39] Jeff: Or that show might be five minutes long.
[00:45:41] Christina: Right. But well, that, that I think would be less likely. I think that like, if they’re going to actually get on there, like they even did the full, you know, Familiars to Millions, uh, show. That was that, that Wembley thing. Like they, you know, did the full show, both dates. Um, like it was bad and they had to do a lot of overdubbing, but like they did the full thing.
[00:45:58] Christina: Um, and [00:46:00] honestly, If you were there in the year 2000, you probably would have been pissed off, but in retrospect, you’d probably be like, fuck yeah, I got to witness that shit show like in person. Um, I’ve only
[00:46:09] Jeff: It’s super 90s. I don’t even know if that was in the
[00:46:12] Christina: It was, it was, it wasn’t it? It, it was, it was, it was in, um, 2000, which actually I saw that tour.
[00:46:19] Christina: Um, I saw them at Music Midtown in Atlanta, uh, I guess in like, may of 2000. And I was, I mean, I, I liked Oasis, like everybody liked Oasis. Um, you know, like definitely, at least like where I grew up,
[00:46:32] Jeff: Brett’s shaking his head. I was indifferent.
[00:46:35] Christina: well, well, I just mean like in my group of people, right? Like I was definitely like where I grew up, we were
[00:46:41] Jeff: Everybody liked Oasis, that’s a fair statement.
[00:46:43] Christina: you know what I mean?
[00:46:44] Christina: Like everybody, everybody had, you know, What’s the Story, Mori Glory. Like everyone had that album. Like the Blur vs. Oasis, like fan wars, at least in like the South, at least where I grew up, it was not even a competition. It was like Blur had one song and like everybody knew like
[00:46:58] Jeff: Pock life.[00:47:00]
[00:47:00] Christina: Yeah, and, and so, um, I mean, I liked Radiohead best out of all of them, but like, you know, I was definitely Team Oasis versus Team Blur.
[00:47:08] Christina: But the thing that shaped it for me, and like, the reason that, um, was I saw them perform, like I said, at Music Midtown, like they ended like night one, and I was kind of indifferent about even sticking around to see them. Like, I was there for like, the bands that I was really into at the time, like, terrible in comparison bands to be completely candid with you, like, like Collective Soul.
[00:47:27] Christina: And I’m like 16 years old. And, and, and I saw, and I saw Oasis do their live set. And it was to this day, like, here we are, like, almost 25 years later, like one of the best things I’ve ever seen. Like, and I don’t know, and I know that tour was hard for them, So I don’t even, I don’t know what their, you know, situation was with one another.
[00:47:52] Christina: And they were, you know, performing at like this festival in fucking Atlanta, like downtown Atlanta. And they like, or Midtown really, and like [00:48:00] killed it. Were so incredibly good that I was like, well, fuck, I guess I’m, I guess I’m an Oasis fan now, right? Like I had, I had, I had a
[00:48:09] Jeff: what’s happening to me. Yeah. That’s happening to me through YouTube now, except I still can’t listen to an album. I don’t know what the deal is, but I could watch that guy press his upper lip to that sure beta 58 all day long.
[00:48:22] Brett: So as a segue into, um, First, I want to give Christina a heads up that I did actually talk about yours last week, but you’re welcome to repeat it if, if you think you have new things to say.
[00:48:37] Christina: Oh, no. Okay. Well, if you talk about mine, then, then I will just once again, say Moom 4. Great. But that’s, uh, I’ll find another
[00:48:43] Brett: I preempted you, I’m sorry.
[00:48:45] Accidental Meth and Concert Expenses
[00:48:45] Brett: Um, but speaking of accidentally doing meth, um, I am realizing in real time that I accidentally did meth. took a double dose of Vyvanse today,
[00:48:56] Jeff: Oh, God, I’ve been
[00:48:58] Brett: me, which has me pretty [00:49:00] fucking edgy right now.
[00:49:01] Jeff: Yes,
[00:49:02] Brett: It’s not a good feeling. Like, I have, I have abused plenty of drugs in my life, but I am, I am way past
[00:49:10] Jeff: I’m sorry, Brett. I’ve done that, and it was not okay
[00:49:13] Brett: It’s not okay.
[00:49:14] Christina: yeah, I,
[00:49:15] Brett: cool.
[00:49:16] Christina: yeah, I’ve definitely, yeah, people don’t realize, yeah, the on, sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt, go on.
[00:49:20] Brett: No, it’s okay. Uh, my, my other thing was like, Christina spends exorbitant amounts on getting to cool concerts and like, that’s, that’s important to her. And I want to admit that I spent a crazy amount of money upgrading my flights to Vegas to first class, um, because a three hour flight in, in, in what now passes for economy, where my knees touched the seat in front of me, um, just is so much hell to me that it’s worth a fuck.
[00:49:52] Brett: Fair sum of money to fly first class. So on my way home, I could not get the [00:50:00] upgrade for the three hour part of the trip. Um, and so I am going to spend three hours in economy and it’s going to be a shitty way to end the trip, but the, the rest of my flights, four, four other flights are all,
[00:50:15] Christina: So you’re not able, so you’re not able to do a direct, you can’t go Minneapolis to Vegas?
[00:50:20] Brett: No. Um, I go lacrosse to Chicago to Vegas, and then Vegas to La Chicago to lacrosse. And I, I have three hour overlays at O’Hare, uh, which isn’t so bad. Um, I have, I have day passes to like the American Airlines, what do they call it, Lin Embassy? No. Admirals. Admiral Lounge.
[00:50:46] Christina: Lounge. Yeah.
[00:50:47] Jeff: Like, we’ve talked about lounges. Changed my life.
[00:50:49] Christina: Oh, yeah. No, this is the greatest thing ever. Like, I have to like the Platinum American Express card, like specifically for that reason. Um, if you can find like places to have Centurion lounges, that’s great. But [00:51:00] even just like priority pass stuff,
[00:51:02] Brett: what lounges?
[00:51:03] Christina: the, uh, the, the American Express Centurion lounges, they’re not at every airport, but the ones they are at, they’re incredibly
[00:51:10] Jeff: You know what else the metal American Express cards are great for? This is more for Brett and me, probably, is ice scraping your window. I keep an expired one
[00:51:19] Christina: Oh yeah. No, that I’ve heard. I’ve heard that from people. Yeah. That is definitely like a thing. Like we do not have that in, in, um,
[00:51:25] Jeff: You don’t
[00:51:25] Christina: state.
[00:51:26] Jeff: need to take advantage of that.
[00:51:27] Christina: Not at all, but I have actually seen people like on like the Amex like subreddit like do that sort of thing with the metal cards, which is funny. Yeah.
[00:51:36] Jeff: love it.
[00:51:37] Brett: All right, um, I’ll kick off the Grapptitude because this one has been a long time coming.
[00:51:44] Switching to VS Code: A Developer’s Journey
[00:51:44] Brett: Um, I, as of, as of this week, have made the switch from Sublime Text to VS Code.
[00:51:52] Christina: fuck. Fuck yes, finally.
[00:51:54] Brett: VS Code is so much better than I thought it was.
[00:51:58] Christina: it is.
[00:51:59] Brett: [00:52:00] Especially with Copilot. Copilot fucking blows me away. Like, I type the first two letters of, like, a comment for a function, and it, like, knows exactly, and it, it does everything.
[00:52:14] Brett: It’s, and it’s almost always right. Like, I’m like, I’m working on some sass for a redesign of my website and I type a dollar sign and it knows what variable I want to fill in. Uh, I, I put in like a font face definition and then I move down a line and type in that symbol and it just figures out what font files are in my folder and creates all the font face definitions for all of them.
[00:52:42] Brett: I can turn a Ruby comment. I can just write a comment about what I want a function to do. And it’ll write a perfect, and, and not just a function based on an LLM, it’s a function based on all of the other files in my project. Um, and it can reference [00:53:00] variables and methods from other files and it’s just shit Sublime will never do.
[00:53:05] Brett: Um, and it is, and it’s taken a little bit of getting used to with, uh, setting up key combinations and everything. Um, and there’s some frustration around keyboard shortcuts. Uh, especially when they overlap and, uh, but I’m figuring it out and the configuration is pretty easy compared to Sublime, like the, like the graphical interface for, because you can view your, your config as JSON or as, An interface and, and sometimes you have to open up JSON to add custom features and whatnot.
[00:53:43] Brett: But all that said, um, it is a really solid editor and I am really enjoying it.
[00:53:51] Christina: I’m so glad to hear that you finally like moved because I know because it’s one of those things like it’s hard to make the move like I, um, I did it because I, I, I worked at Microsoft at the time and, [00:54:00] and, um, know and still know frankly a lot of people who work on that team and, and I know a lot of people who work on the Copilot extension so I’m very glad to hear your feedback on that.
[00:54:07] Christina: If you have other feedback, positive or negative, please let me know and I can get that to the right folks.
[00:54:13] Brett: zero negative feedback. I am just constantly blown away by how good it is a
[00:54:17] Christina: No, they do such a good job, and, and, and really, like, keep making that so much better, um, with so many constraints, and, um, extensions, which are in, um, uh, preview right now, but will be coming later, um, although, well, there are two types of extensions, but there are co pilot extensions, um, that can exist in VS Code, so that certain, you know, you can use the, um, the agents feature to basically ask an extension in chat, um, Various things that powered by Copilot.
[00:54:43] Christina: I don’t know if you’ve played around with that or not, like some of the built in ones are like at Workspace and at Terminal and at VS Code, but other extensions can add those things too, which is really cool because then in your chat interface, you can just ask specific things about a certain extension, um, or service, um, as the case may be, which is [00:55:00] really fucking useful.
[00:55:01] Christina: But like, no, I know how hard it is to go from like, you know, one editor to another, even if you know there are a lot of advantages around. And even if you know, like. You know, in my case, it was Textmate, and it was like, this is never getting updated again, like, this is, this is dead in the water. But it’s hard to, like, move editors.
[00:55:16] Christina: And, uh, but, but, I, I’m, I’m glad to hear that you’re enjoying VS Code. Um, if you come up with, like, uh, I would be interested to see at some point, like, your, your, um, keybindings and, and settings files. That’s one of the things they’ve improved a lot over the last few years. Like, at first, you used to have to only, you could only edit settings in the, And then they started adding the graphical interface, and most things are there, but not everything is.
[00:55:41] Christina: Um,
[00:55:42] Jeff: to keep his key bindings to himself.
[00:55:45] Christina: well, I would just like
[00:55:46] Jeff: I take that back. I take that back. He wrote War and Peace, but it was key bindings.
[00:55:50] Christina: Right, exactly,
[00:55:51] Jeff: ahead, Christina.
[00:55:52] Christina: No, no, I was going to say that one of the things that, and this is improved over the years, but I remember when they introduced this, I don’t know, probably four years ago, maybe longer than that at this point, [00:56:00] but the, the concept of having like profiles that you can sync and different types of profiles and, and like pre kind of defined environment setups, I love.
[00:56:09] Christina: Because I can have, I have like a, I have one that I have just for writing, but I also have one that is basically like for demos or for workshops or whatnot that won’t have any of my pre configured stuff that’s, you know, basically kind of as close to like an out of the box experience as possible. Um,
[00:56:24] Brett: set up a profile just for like testing extensions because my first time I tried VS code, I just installed like everything that looked
[00:56:34] Jeff: Classic. Yeah,
[00:56:35] Brett: pretty soon I
[00:56:36] Christina: And it’s like a web
[00:56:36] Brett: what was doing what and it was a huge mess. So now I have a profile just for fucking around with
[00:56:43] Christina: Exactly.
[00:56:44] Jeff: the, it’s like the raiding the store in Red Dawn. Uh, it’s just like, I’ll take a sleeping bag. I’ll take six arrows. I’ll take that bullet.
[00:56:51] Brett: The only complaint I’ve run into is the Markdown, uh, packages that are available are not up to snuff for me.
[00:56:59] Jeff: [00:57:00] Well,
[00:57:00] Christina: Yeah. I have, I, I have some, I have some issues with that too. And so,
[00:57:03] Brett: to, I want to port Markdown editing, which is a package I built for Sublime and then it switched to another maintainer who continued to extend it. And it’s all in Python and I’ve never written an extension for VS code, but I am interested in porting Markdown.
[00:57:21] Brett: Cause it’s pretty, it’s pretty basic text editing stuff that just makes markdown life easier.
[00:57:27] Jeff: this so much,
[00:57:28] Christina: I would too. I would too. Cause,
[00:57:29] Brett: magic links and magic footnotes I miss,
[00:57:32] Christina: yeah, like that I would love. Cause like, cause that’s the thing, like there’s like the Markdown all in one package. There’s some other things like some, some, um, people have even put together some like collections of, um, uh, You know, extensions that you could not install altogether.
[00:57:45] Christina: Like some of the GitHub documentation, people have done that. And some of that’s good. But yeah, I run into some things there too. So selfishly, this excites me that you are interested. Because if you’re able to work on porting, I’m sure we can find people to help with that and whatnot. [00:58:00] But, um, also writing extensions for VS Code is pretty, um, Straightforward.
[00:58:05] Christina: And they, you know, um, borrowed a lot of things from Sublime and TextMate in the early days, which have still kind of continued onward. So,
[00:58:14] Brett: there’s a Yeoman generator for making extensions and it is, it’s, it’s, that’s something that Sublime has never had and like something to like, uh, scaffold out a plugin. That’s pretty cool.
[00:58:30] Christina: Yeah. They did that early on. I think that’s one of the reasons to be candid, like why, like it took off the way that it did was that they really put a lot into, from the very beginning, mean like, okay, we know this is only going to work if the extension community shows
[00:58:43] Brett: Right. Well, yeah, and we’ve talked before about how vital, um, Uh, a community is to an app, um, and if you want an app to reach any level of general acceptance, at least in the nerd world, [00:59:00] like you need to some extent extensibility, but more importantly, you need a community. And that’s something like Obsidian has done really well.
[00:59:09] Christina: done so well.
[00:59:10] Brett: Code, TextMate did, like TextMate was to me, the gold standard for like. Building out a community and showing what, what an app could do
[00:59:21] Christina: Yeah.
[00:59:21] Brett: had a community.
[00:59:23] Christina: And that was really impressive because that was really before GitHub, like obviously GitHub happened when TextMate was still, you know, popular, but like the early stuff didn’t even have GitHub yet, right? Like people were, you know, sourcing, were hosting things other ways and like people built, you know, kind of like ways to view extensions, if I recall correctly, there were like Plugins that you could install so you could view other extensions from other places, right?
[00:59:45] Christina: Like, you know, kind of bringing it into their own app stores and whatnot, and like that, I think kind of set like the tone where you’re like, okay, if anybody else is going to, this is table stakes now, right? And I think Sublime did an okay job at first, and then I really just think that they just dropped [01:00:00] the ball.
[01:00:00] Christina: Um, that’s one of the reasons why I
[01:00:02] Brett: it’s just seemed kind of stagnant for a while
[01:00:04] Christina: It has, right?
[01:00:05] Brett: the, the package control ecosystem that was built for Sublime, um, was, it was great. Like for finding extensions, for sharing extensions, like it was great, but I just, Like I have an RSS feed from package control and mostly what’s coming through now is just new themes.
[01:00:26] Brett: And honestly, there only need to be so many text editor themes. I mean, you’re basically working essentially with 16 colors. I mean, you can make a
[01:00:37] Christina: There are only so many
[01:00:38] Brett: color scheme. Yeah. Like you’ve got, you’ve got your, your Solarize combinations. You got your base 16 combinations and you got like, um, Uh, like the monokai variations.
[01:00:51] Brett: And after that, like, what are you even doing?
[01:00:55] Christina: No, it’s true. It’s true. What’s actually really funny is that still to this day, like the, the [01:01:00] GitHub repo that I have that has like the most like stars and other things from it is a, a, a TextMate theme repo. Um, that’s like, that I created like in like
[01:01:10] Brett: Oh, and Twilight from text me. You need
[01:01:12] Christina: You need Twilight. Yeah. And so, and people still download this and stuff.
[01:01:16] Christina: And it’s like, you know, close to 15 years old, um, that,
[01:01:19] Brett: cause TM theme, TM theme files work on every
[01:01:23] Christina: Well, I was gonna say, that’s the thing. It became the, like, just kind of generic, uh, format, which is fantastic. Um, and people have made better ones since then, but it was funny. I created, like, this repo. I think I did it for a Mashable article, and I’d had a GitHub account, but I hadn’t done anything with it.
[01:01:39] Christina: And I was like, well, I just need a way to distribute and show off these themes. And I even, like, people have asked me over the years, they’re like, can you put licensing in this? I’m like, sure can’t, because I don’t know where a lot of this stuff came from. Because I just found things from various servers and other things, like many of them, it’s funny, it’s like added from slash user slash Christina slash textmate dash themes, right?
[01:01:57] Christina: Like a lot of these things were like, [01:02:00] you know,
[01:02:00] Brett: and none of these are mine, so I can’t license
[01:02:03] Christina: I can’t license them for you, right? I was like, I was like, I can, I can do all kinds of other, you know, I can, if there’s anything in the readme file on that thing, you know, that points to a person, I can give them credit. But like, I was very explicit. I was like, a collection of textmate themes I’ve gathered over the years, and people were like, what’s the license?
[01:02:19] Christina: So I’m like. Good luck, right? Like this is, this is just kind of a, uh, you know, share and, and, and do go with God sort of thing, but don’t use this. I’m not telling anybody to use this commercially because I think some people, it’s funny, people have created like, um, TM theme, like editors and many of them, they pull in frankly from this repo, you know, it’s kind of like the kind of default themes to play with and modify.
[01:02:42] Christina: And so for something like that, I could understand. We were like, Oh, it would be good to have a license around this. And I’m like, yeah, I’m, I’m definitely not. Good luck. I don’t think it’ll be a problem, but I wouldn’t use this commercially. Yes.
[01:02:55] Brett: note, I, a while back, I decided to start using light [01:03:00] themes in my text editor, and I’m still dark theme and terminal. Um, but I almost can’t edit code. Have you ever tried switching from light to dark themes? Like, it, whatever you’re used to at the time, it’s really hard to see it anymore. Inverted.
[01:03:16] Brett: Um, so for a long time, every time I looked at a light theme, it just looked wrong, um, and I decided for the sake of my eyes to force myself to make the switch, and I made my own light theme called Lucky Charms that I installed in, like, uh, in Vim and in, uh, Sublime and now in VS Code. And I’ve actually gotten bored with it.
[01:03:42] Brett: And the snazzy light
[01:03:44] Christina: Snazzy Lite is really
[01:03:45] Brett: that comes with VS code is, is what I’m using right now. Um, but like, it’s weird to me that people default to editing in dark mode. Um, I find that so [01:04:00] strenuous on my eyes. Um, and if I’m looking at pages and pages of code, I absolutely, I’m a light theme guy now.
[01:04:08] Christina: Yeah, I go back and forth. Sometimes I am lite. I’ve been, um, kind of probably a variant of a dark theme for most of my, you know, time in text editors, but I sometimes will use the lite. I will say the one time I always use the lite and snazzy lite is good. The github lite is another good one. Um, is, uh, when I’m presenting because, um, dark themes, um, when you’re using any sort of like, like projector, uh, system, you know, or, or whatnot, like to, to large audiences, oftentimes the, the, the bulbs and those things aren’t, uh, like frankly bright enough to really illuminate dark, um, uh, backgrounds.
[01:04:44] Christina: And people don’t think about that when they give presentations, but if you, especially if you’re like in a big crowd, depending on, you know, just like quality of the screen that you’re on and, and, and all kinds of other things, like it can be really hard to see the text on screen. And so, um, I, that was like, uh, feedback that was given to [01:05:00] me, like, Years and years ago, uh, when I first started doing, um, conference talks and they’re like, no, use like, it was almost like a rule.
[01:05:07] Christina: Like we use, you know, light themed for, you know, uh, text in, in our presentations. And I was like, okay, with that, I like how dark looks better. And then you realize, oh, okay. But inside a room, especially with various lighting things and whatnot, actually light is a lot better for that. And so, um, that’s made me more open to, Just depends, right?
[01:05:29] Christina: Like, my eyes don’t bother me using dark things for the most part, but sometimes, sometimes it can. But I do draw the line, like, again, unless I’m in a presentation and then I might switch it. I can’t use a light editor for a terminal. I just can’t. Like, it, it, it, like, it feels
[01:05:44] Brett: weird. It’s weird how different that is. Um, and I don’t know what the distinction is, but I’ve tried light themes in Terminal,
[01:05:51] Jeff: we’ve been looking at dark terminals since Wargames.
[01:05:54] Brett: maybe
[01:05:55] Christina: I will say this though, like, especially depending on, like, what machine I’m on. So, like, [01:06:00] when I’m on my, um, like, iMac or, like, my 27 inch, um, uh, studio display, like, My terminal, um, text size is a lot larger than the text size is on my text editor. And I don’t know if that has anything to do with it, right?
[01:06:14] Christina: Like,
[01:06:15] Brett: I use, I use uncommonly large text sizes too. And it’s not just for my eyes. My brain just works better. Maybe seeing less on the screen at once, uh, which is the side effect of using a larger font,
[01:06:30] Christina: yeah, no, I
[01:06:30] Brett: like 14, I use like 14 point fonts in Terminal.
[01:06:34] Christina: Yeah, I use, I use 16, um, for, uh, for terminal and I probably use like, you know, 12, um, on, um,
[01:06:41] Brett: I do the inverse. I use 16 in my text editor and 14, 12 in, er, 14 in Terminal, I guess. Yeah. Anyway, uh, so that’s my pick for the week. I just used up like 20 minutes.
[01:06:54] Christina: No, that’s great, though. VS Code. And, um, do you have any plans, like, as you start to play around with it [01:07:00] more, do you think you might, you know, dip into wanting to either share, like, your config files or extensions or anything like that?
[01:07:06] Brett: Oh, absolutely. I, I, I intend to get into writing extensions. Um, yeah, I, my last couple, uh, forays, I wrote an Obsidian extension and tried to get it submitted to the repo. And it was a pretty basic extension. And they, I did, I made all the changes they requested on the PR And then they let it die and they kept sending me emails.
[01:07:33] Brett: If this doesn’t get, uh, if, if this, if there’s no activity on this PR for the next 30 days, we’re going to close it out. And I, I kept bumping it. I’m like, it’s done. Could you, you know, merge the PR and they just, they never responded and it died. Um, so I’m hoping if I get into developing extensions for
[01:07:57] Christina: VSCode is not that way. It will. It will. I [01:08:00] mean, at that point, like, I think it is literally just something like to get listed like in the marketplace is a very simple thing. Like, I don’t even know what the approval process is. Extensively, there’s one, but I don’t think it’s super strict. Um, and, uh, and you know, you can just, there’s a way to do it directly from, from GitHub.
[01:08:19] Christina: Um, because on those pages, they go to like, you know, usually the source link is a GitHub link. And so yeah, it’s, it’s a relatively easy process. And that also makes it easy to push out updates and stuff too, because then the release notes, like anything in your readme from your GitHub, like kind of shows up, um, as, as the release notes or other things in the extensions.
[01:08:37] Christina: So yeah.
[01:08:40] Jeff: Awesome. I got one.
[01:08:43] Christina: Yeah.
[01:08:43] Brett: for it.
[01:08:44] Jeff: All right, here’s the scenario. Every day I, I open up Firefox, I use containers, uh, and because I, for many reasons, but I have to open up four different Google accounts for work, like my personal account, my personal work account, our admin account, and [01:09:00] then another, just account related to the business.
[01:09:03] Jeff: And, um, and every day I, I, I mean, not every day, I can, they can save, but I actually don’t like seeing these tabs when I’m not working. So I tend to even if, you know, like I pin them and then I kill them. But, uh, Basically, like, every day I, like, open up, I have a keyboard shortcut, open up my container for personal, open up my container for work, for admin, and then I open up two of those windows and I hit drive in one and gmail in the other so that, like, by the time I’m done, I’ve got drive for each of those accounts open, I’ve got gmail open, and, and it’s so fucking tedious and it seems crazy that I can’t automate that better.
[01:09:33] Automation Tools: Keysmith and Default Folder X
[01:09:33] Jeff: Um, But I, I was on setup. Sometimes I go on setup and I browse, which isn’t always a great experience because there are just some stinkers on there and some stuff that just hasn’t been updated in a while and it’s not, you can tell when you, you can go and look, but it’s not immediately obvious. Um, and, uh, so anyway, I, I stumbled into this thing called keysmith, which is just, it just records macros of what you’re doing on your screen.
[01:09:56] Jeff: It’s similar to something keyboard. Maestro can do, except that [01:10:00] going into keyboard maestro is like going into an art museum where everything’s eight and a half by 11 and all frames are touching. Um, and, and it was beautiful. So I just like, I instantly opened up this app and I had it record doing this thing where I opened these different containers, enter Gmail, enter drive.
[01:10:17] Jeff: It did it beautifully, added a keyboard shortcut. It was, it took me about, I Three minutes. I had to do just a little bit. You can go in and correct your macros like anything else that has a macro. Took him about three minutes. So elegant. So great. Uh, and, and I love it. And, and the app is like, um, and it can do a lot more than that, but that’s how I’m using it.
[01:10:36] Jeff: It, the app was like a COVID baby, uh, came out in like August, 2020. It’s kind of adorable. It’s by two friends. They’re both named Daniel and they’ve been friends since kindergarten. Um, and it hasn’t had like a serious update since like maybe 2021, but they, they keep it like lightly updated. You know, when there’s a new OS, there’s a new version.
[01:10:55] Jeff: Um, and there’s, you know, occasional bug fixes. Like they seem to be paying attention to it. Uh, [01:11:00] and it hasn’t been buggy for me at all. And I love it. It’s like, uh, it’s if you get it on setup, you just get it on setup. If you purchase it, you can do like a free license where you get like up to five macros or you can, um, you can purchase like a single license for 54 bucks.
[01:11:14] Jeff: It actually looks like it’s just a permanent, like a forever license. Um, anyway, I was like so delighted to find this cause there are various things I do over the course of the day, various admin things with just like a lot of times with just shitty apps that. You know, you should not have to click this much and they’re not easy to automate.
[01:11:30] Jeff: You could do it in Keyboard Maestro, but again, I love Keyboard Maestro. God, I sound like Trump. I love Keyboard Maestro, um, but uh, but
[01:11:39] Brett: A lot of people are saying
[01:11:41] Christina: lot of people are saying, a lot of people are saying it’s too much.
[01:11:44] Jeff: lot, a lot of people are saying, um, yeah. That’s my first attempt at a Trump impression. Not, not great. Uh, that’s right. I did the hands. You can’t see it, but I did the hands. Okay. Like the accordion. Um, anyway, so
[01:11:55] Brett: the, the Obama speech at the DNC.[01:12:00]
[01:12:00] Jeff: So anyway, that was, uh, that, that’s mine and I’m, I’m so excited about it and I only discovered it yesterday.
[01:12:06] Jeff: And so I’m going to play a bunch.
[01:12:08] Brett: Yeah, I’ve actually played with that before. Um, it felt like adding one more thing to an already crowded automation setup for me. Um, but it was, it was. Uh, I think I, I think I passed on it because it was, um, simpler, um, conceptually than Keyboard Maestro and it felt redundant. Um, not that I was doing a lot of macro recording in Keyboard Maestro.
[01:12:36] Brett: It just felt like if I was going to get into that, I already own Keyboard Maestro. And, but no,
[01:12:43] Jeff: My,
[01:12:44] Brett: that review is, is tempting.
[01:12:47] Jeff: my, my issue with going into keyboard maestro, and this is not a problem. This is actually the, the great thing about keyboard maestro, but like, I totally go into Terpstra mode where it’s like, well, I could do this, but I could also do this. And if I’m doing this, I [01:13:00] could also do this.
[01:13:00] Jeff: And then I’m pretty soon. It’s like, well, fuck, uh, I, I had a deadline an hour ago. Um, and, and so with this one, it’s, I always need like, I need the like automation app, like Keyboard Meister, where you could just like go in and you could go deep. And then I need the thing that’s like, I’m panicking. I can’t think straight.
[01:13:18] Jeff: I’m having a nervous reaction to having to do this thing over and over. I need to fix it quick. And this is the, is a great little thing in the toolbox for that.
[01:13:25] Brett: Did you ever see my Markdown document linker for Keyboard Maestro? That was the result of going into Keyboard My Shoe and just realizing I could do something, and
[01:13:36] Christina: Yeah. I remember
[01:13:37] Brett: two hours doing something. Like,
[01:13:39] Jeff: Yeah, yeah,
[01:13:40] Brett: give it, you give it like a root directory for like a Jekyll site, for example. Um, and as you’re writing, you can just type lnk.
[01:13:50] Brett: And it’ll pop up like a Quicksilver style menu of all of the documents in your markdown directory. And you can use [01:14:00] fuzzy search to find one and it’ll insert like a liquid format or markdown format link to that document for like intro document linking.
[01:14:09] Jeff: You know what? You know what just occurred to me? I bet you, I bet you sound like that when you talk in your sleep, what you just did. Parklife.
[01:14:19] Brett: I laugh in my sleep. I sing in my sleep. Um, Elle finds it very endearing because They don’t have to share a bed with me,
[01:14:28] Christina: Okay.
[01:14:28] Brett: separate bedrooms. So just occasionally she’ll hear like singing coming and laughing. I’ll wake myself up laughing regularly. But anyway, Christina, would you, uh, would you land on
[01:14:44] Christina: Okay. So since Brett mentioned Moom last week, and I’m sorry that I missed that one, but uh, uh, I will just co sign that. Um, and, uh, I, I upgraded, um, that, um, recently and I was super excited about it. I’d missed the announcement and I, I saw it, I think maybe like the [01:15:00] day before, but, uh, I had the upgrade price like change, but that was fine with me.
[01:15:03] Christina: I’m still happy to upgrade. It’s a really good app. Um, speaking of kind of apps where there are some things that, um, you could do with other apps, including, um, things like LaunchBar or Alfred or whatnot. But, um, there are other things that I think are just really unique to this. Uh, we’ve talked about this one before, but a new 6.
[01:15:21] Christina: 1 version, uh, just came out and adding Sequoia compatibility. Uh, and this is a default folder X. This is also available. on, um, uh, Setapp. Although I’ve also, this is one of those ones that I’ve like purchased, like a direct license. And then I use the Setapp version because, Brett, you’ve said, you’ve indicated before that, that like it, it helps out the developer more.
[01:15:42] Christina: Um, if you use the Setapp version, um, frequently, then they’ll get a higher payment. But it was also one of these apps that is important enough to me that I’ve gotten enough value out of over the years that I was like, I’m going to buy it. Um, And use it as part of my subscription. To be clear, I don’t think, I’m not saying that that’s something that everybody needs to do.
[01:15:58] Christina: Like, that’s a, [01:16:00] you know, Christina quirk. But default Flutter access is one of my favorite apps. If you’ve never used it, it kind of takes over the, you know, save as, I guess, screen on your Mac. And yeah, the dialogue, thank you. And adds in additional Chrome where you can Access more features like, you know, a specific set of folders or, or, um, favorite folders, or you can automatically say, you know, for this type of recent, yeah, for this, for this type of, you know, file in this application, I always want it to go here, regardless of what the most recent thing was, like this is where I always want it to open.
[01:16:39] Christina: Um, I also have like, um, uh, keyboard, short, uh, uh, uh, uh, key bindings, um, within Finder where I can hit a certain combination and it’ll take me. immediately to a certain folder. And I know I could do that in any number of apps, but I use it with default folder X because I have some folders that are just always a favor that I always want easy access to.
[01:16:59] Christina: And [01:17:00] they’ve, um, they’ve also just released a kind of a new feature to be able to do, um, I guess like a quick, uh, quick access, um, to, to files like across apps, something you could do in Alfredo launch bar, or if you want to access, you know, certain, uh, URLs or certain, um, um, Other, uh, stuff you can do that from kind of a quick link, um, uh, key binding shortcut.
[01:17:25] Brett: Oh, cause they have, there’s like a quick search where it pops up like a, um, like a launch bar style window. And I’ve never used that.
[01:17:34] Christina: I’ve used it a little bit and they just, they added some, some new things with that. Like, so, um, you can, um, now I guess one of the new things is that QuickSearch can be used to open, like, web URLs that are saved in your favorites. So that is kind of interesting. Yeah. Like, if you have another solution for that, like, I’m not saying that, that you necessarily need to use, uh, default folder Xs, um, in, in it.
[01:17:57] Christina: in replacement of that, but there are some things that you can do that [01:18:00] are cool. And if you don’t have an app kind of set to do those things, I think it’s a, it’s a, it’s a nice little variant. But just, just for me, like, this is just a, um, the, the version six came out. I’m not sure when, um, it was either, uh, earlier this year, sometime last year, but it’s good.
[01:18:15] Christina: But 6. 1 is going, you know, came out with Sequoia support and some other things. And I don’t know, um, it’s a really, really good app, really, really good developer. And so, uh, big
[01:18:26] Brett: I’ve, uh, I’ve said this before, but, and I use default folder all the time. But my favorite feature is when you’re in an open or save dialogue and you open up the parent folder,
[01:18:41] Christina: Mm hmm.
[01:18:42] Brett: it adds arrows. And you can jump quickly to subfolders and parent folders, um, just from one simple tree and you don’t have to navigate folder to folder.
[01:18:54] Brett: You can just jump around and you can jump up to parent directories and into a subdirectory [01:19:00] of a parent directory all without, with just one click and, you know, some hovering, but, um, I, I absolutely adore that feature. Can I tell you how I actually navigate directories now?
[01:19:14] Christina: Yes, please.
[01:19:15] Brett: So. In my terminal, I use a variation of something that used to be called bashmarks.
[01:19:22] Brett: Um, and the way that mine functions is I have a folder called dotmarks and it creates symlinks. to anything that I bookmark. So all of my frequently used folders bookmarks and I can type because I’ve, I’ve written my own cd command. But I type cd and then any part of a bookmark name hit tab and it jumps to that folder.
[01:19:47] Brett: And then I have an alias cdf that opens the current terminal folder in Finder. So when I want to navigate into like the image directory for my blog, I type [01:20:00] cd Oh, which is for some reason, the shortcut for my blog, CDO. And then I just type images and it will find that subdirectory of the parent bookmark, and then I just type CDF and I’m, and I have it in fine.
[01:20:14] Jeff: Nice.
[01:20:15] Christina: That’s awesome.
[01:20:16] Brett: I it’s so like, it’s so easy to add new bookmarks and to navigate subdirectories of those bookmarks using my fuzzy CD command that really there’s Default folder X even. It’s just, it’s so easy
[01:20:33] Jeff: Hey, do you use the, do you ever use the terminal in VS Code? Now that you’re using
[01:20:37] Brett: I do. Yeah, I have.
[01:20:38] Jeff: really like that.
[01:20:39] Brett: I also enjoy the SSH remote config. Um, and I can, I can load up an Oracle cloud. Uh, I can load up a GitHub repository connected to an Oracle cloud instance, all in one term, VS code window and edit files remotely in a cloud [01:21:00] machine. And execute cloud platform, um, apps like spin up Pulumi and everything inside of a VS code window.
[01:21:11] Brett: And it’s so integrated. It’s super nice.
[01:21:16] Jeff: Awesome.
[01:21:18] Brett: All right.
[01:21:19] Concluding Thoughts and Personal Updates
[01:21:19] Brett: We did it. I have to go pick up Elle. So we should wrap up.
[01:21:26] Jeff: All right.
[01:21:26] Brett: We’re like an hour and 20 in.
[01:21:28] Christina: Hey, look, it’s been a while since we’ve all been together, so
[01:21:32] Brett: alright, well, we all seem to be sleeping okay at least as of last night, um, but I think we could all use
[01:21:40] Christina: we could use more for sure. And, and, and I hope you figure out, uh, things, uh, Brett, whether you’re going manic or not. I know we didn’t have a lot of time to talk about that, but it’s because it’s been a while since you’ve had a manic episode, hasn’t it?
[01:21:51] Brett: Um, it’s, this might be a topic for next
[01:21:55] Christina: Yeah, we, we, yeah,
[01:21:56] Brett: like, I think I think my definition of manic [01:22:00] episode might be changing.
[01:22:01] Jeff: Ah, super
[01:22:03] Brett: no longer like five days with no sleep. Now it’s like three months with like less sleep and, and like less obsession, but still like from my normal elevated mood, I guess. But anyway, well,
[01:22:20] Jeff: like, it sounds like the common thread is, I bet that it’s evident in your GitHub action.
[01:22:24] Christina: Yeah.
[01:22:26] Jeff: yeah, if we, we can go, we can go track that. Um, all right. Get some sleep.
[01:22:32] Christina: Get some sleep.
A Brett and Jeff episode! The co-hosts discuss Jeff’s recovery from COVID, including musings on mask-wearing fatigue. Jeff opens up about the emotional experience of dropping his son off at college, while both share their struggles with being increasingly moved to tears by everyday events (like TV commercials). The duo also dives into their longtime fondness for apps like Noteplan and DevonThink, Brett’s rewrite of his tool Planter, and the newfound allure of VS Code over Sublime.
1Password Extended Access Management solves the problems traditional IAM and MDM can’t . It’s security for the way we work today, and it’s now generally available to companies with Okta and Microsoft Entra, and in beta for Google Workspace customers.
Check it out at 1password.com/product/xam.
You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network
BackBeat Media Podcast Network
Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter.
Making the Best of Goat Castration
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Brett and Jeff Show
[00:00:00] Brett: Welcome back to Overtired. Um, I want, uh, to have special theme music when it’s just a Brett and Jeff episode. It’s a Brett and Jeff episode! Brett and Jeff episode! Womp womp. Yeah, that works. Um,
[00:00:21] Jeff: fair enough.
[00:00:22] Brett: Well, it’s me, Brett Terpstra, here with Jeff Severins Gunthal. How you doing, Jeff?
[00:00:26] Jeff: I’m,
[00:00:28] Brett: Yep, there you go.
[00:00:29] Jeff’s COVID Experience
[00:00:29] Jeff: I’m, I’m getting over Covid. Uh, and I’m good. And I’m good.
[00:00:33] Brett: was so well timed.
[00:00:35] Jeff: Yeah, I
[00:00:35] Brett: not even, I’m not even gonna edit out the cough. That was just
[00:00:38] Jeff: No, it’s fine. It’s, it’s true. What’s true is what’s true, is true. You know, can’t hide the truth.
[00:00:44] Brett: So, how did you get COVID?
[00:00:46] Jeff: I don’t know. Transmission, uh,
[00:00:49] Brett: Aerosols.
[00:00:51] Jeff: aerosols, who knows? My groceries. Probably it was my groceries. I stopped wiping them off and I knew I shouldn’t stop wiping ’em off. Um, I [00:01:00] don’t know. I was traveling.
[00:01:01] Jeff: I don’t know.
[00:01:01] Brett: Yeah, traveling.
[00:01:03] Jeff: Yeah, I don’t know.
[00:01:04] Jeff: I was, I mean, I helped my, helped my, uh, firstborn move into his dorm. So I was around a lot of, a lot of people
[00:01:12] Jeff: that weekend. That might’ve been it.
[00:01:14] Jeff: That might’ve been it.
[00:01:15] Brett: I got home from Maxstock and got an email that someone at Maxstock reported being, testing positive for COVID.
[00:01:24] Jeff: It’s really, I mean, from what I understand, this strain is super contagious. Like so many people I know have It
[00:01:30] Jeff: It can, it really can still kick your
[00:01:32] Brett: yeah, totally.
[00:01:33] Masking and Public Perception
[00:01:33] Brett: And, and we’ve kind of, we’ve stopped taking precautions. Like even liberals have mostly stopped wearing masks except for people who are immunocompromised and are mad at everyone else for not wearing masks. But, um, yeah, it’s kind of, I don’t, I get it. I don’t want to wear a mask anymore.
[00:01:56] Brett: Like I want it to just be over, but it’s really not.
[00:01:59] Jeff: I, [00:02:00] for me, when I put them on, like, I, um, it just triggers so many fucking bad memories. And, and so I, I, as soon as I feel the heat of my breath in a mask, I’m just like, God damn it. I mean, I was a masked person to the end and, and M, I mean, I masked, I had to go one place and it was a big box store. I mean, it was better than a big box store.
[00:02:19] Jeff: It was Fleet Farm, but I, and that place is always like, A, empty and gigantic. And I was, I think on the end of my I think I was, I probably was past being contagious, but anyway, I was careful. I wore a mask.
[00:02:32] Fleet Farm Adventures
[00:02:32] Jeff: But because I was at Fleet Farm, which is like, it’s a demographic. I mean, I’m part of the demographic
[00:02:38] Jeff: for sure.
[00:02:39] Brett: they are big Trump supporters. it’s a
[00:02:41] Jeff: yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, and yeah, lots of bubble trucks in the, in the, uh, in the parking lot. But I knew, cause I,
[00:02:48] Jeff: I,
[00:02:49] Brett: of camo
[00:02:49] Jeff: I remember wearing, um, I remember wearing a mask early days to Fleet Farm, because I am part of the Fleet Farm demographic. My son actually made a Fleet Farm out of clay [00:03:00] in eighth grade. Um, but like, I, I remember going into Fleet Farm early days before everyone was wearing masks, but when like, when the liberals were wearing masks.
[00:03:10] Jeff: And I, I, I remember just walking in feeling like I was ready to fight. I was just like, I was feeling defensive. I was like, why are you fucking looking at me? I’m wearing a mask, motherfucker. And I went in, I went in this time, no reason to believe that’s, that people were thinking anything about me wearing a mask, but I went in the same way.
[00:03:27] Jeff: I’m like, you want me to fucking cough on you? Like, I literally had like an attitude
[00:03:31] Brett: No, I, I have, I have, I have literally done that exact same thing at the exact same store.
[00:03:37] Jeff: yeah, yeah,
[00:03:38] Jeff: yeah, you gotta have, I bet you have a great fleet farm in
[00:03:40] Jeff: Winona,
[00:03:40] Brett: a fleet farm. I could walk to my fleet farm. It’s so
[00:03:44] Jeff: Oh, that’s like, let’s live in a dream.
[00:03:47] Brett: um, the, uh, the big, big news about our local fleet farm was Ivanka Trump showed up to pretend like she was of the people
[00:03:59] Jeff: she there to buy [00:04:00] horse hairspray? Because
[00:04:00] Jeff: that’s something you can buy there.
[00:04:02] Brett: had, like, a photo op with, like, some stuffed animals or
[00:04:05] Jeff: I remember this, actually. I remember this. Yeah,
[00:04:08] Brett: It was.
[00:04:09] Jeff: Stuffed animal. I mean, if you’re going to do a photo op of Fleet Farm, you have so many options. Like, there is a whole, there’s a whole horse section where you
[00:04:15] Jeff: can get horse, you can get horse toys,
[00:04:17] Jeff: you can get horse hairspray. There’s a
[00:04:19] Jeff: section in my hometown where we have not Fleet Farm.
[00:04:23] Jeff: But, Farm and Fleet.
[00:04:25] Jeff: Um,
[00:04:25] Brett: Wisconsin thing, isn’t it?
[00:04:27] Jeff: that was Iowa, too.
[00:04:28] Jeff: It’s Blaine’s or Blair’s, I forget, which I always get that wrong, even though I’ve been going since I was a kid. But you can get like, um, a bag of 100, 150, uh, goat, um, castration bands, which, Which look like the kinds of rubber bands you use for braces, which is terrible, because
[00:04:44] Jeff: they’re that small.
[00:04:45] Brett: holy shit.
[00:04:46] Jeff: But what’s funny is my son and I, my youngest and I were there and we were, I like to, when I go to a new fleet farm or farm and fleet, I walk it because it, it all is a little different. If you’re in a, a more rural area. So my hometown is like a farming community slash [00:05:00] factory community. You’re going to get a lot more like proper farm stuff than maybe like in just.
[00:05:04] Jeff: The immediate suburb of Minneapolis. So I walk every aisle, any fleet farm or farmer fleet I go into, cause I just love seeing what’s there. So we see these like goat castration bands. My, my partner’s like, you’re not buying those. I was like, they’re a buck 50. Like you never know when you’re going to need a small rubber band.
[00:05:20] Jeff: And then, and then my son notices right after I say, you never know. Cause it’s some things you look at and you’re like, I can use that for problem solving down the road. You know, not just for, not just for goat castration. And, and all of a sudden my son notices that they’re using the goat castration bands to hold price tags onto all of the little price tag holders.
[00:05:40] Jeff: And I was like, see, see, but I haven’t been back without her yet. And I mean, whenever I do go back without her, I’m buying my, I asked for him for a stocking, stocking stuffer this year. So we’ll see. But
[00:05:51] Brett: Yeah.
[00:05:52] Jeff: you know, I love a good, You know, something you can look at and go, I can problem solve with that.
[00:05:56] Brett: It might be the only gift you get.
[00:05:59] Jeff: That’s fine.
[00:05:59] Jeff: I [00:06:00] really want them. I can’t stop thinking about them. It’s like when someone mentioned some like shitty food that you shouldn’t eat that, that, you know, you know, the second they mentioned it, all you’re going to think about till you actually get it is that thing, Fruity Pebbles are like that. Fuck. I did it. for me. But anyway, but yeah, so I, yeah, I had COVID, I was traveling.
[00:06:18] Parenting and College Drop-Off
[00:06:18] Jeff: I dropped my, my, um, oldest off at a, at a college far away and, and that was a life experience. And now I’m on the other side of that and COVID.
[00:06:27] Brett: Well, welcome back to, I guess, normal existence. Minus one sun.
[00:06:33] Jeff: Yeah. Minus one, one son. It’s pretty wild,
[00:06:37] Jeff: but I was able to sleep in his room while I had COVID. That was a bonus. I met, I called him and I was like, your bed is super comfortable. And he goes, thanks.
[00:06:48] Brett: Did you, did you spend more on his mattress than on your own?
[00:06:52] Jeff: No, his mattress is like the one we had back when we lived in New York when he was like a little baby. Um, and it’s still super comfortable. So, [00:07:00] mission accomplished? I don’t know.
[00:07:02] Brett: I still have, I still sleep on a, on a, Oh God, I don’t even remember. I think it’s purple. I got, I, over the years I’ve gotten two mattresses, uh, from people that sponsored our shows, um.
[00:07:17] Jeff: Casper.
[00:07:18] Brett: Casper was the first one, which now Elle has. And then the second one, whatever it was, is the one I still sleep on. And they’re, they’re very comfortable.
[00:07:29] Brett: You know, the ones that show up in like a two foot by four foot box and like you unroll them. Um,
[00:07:37] Jeff: like back in the Halcyon days when every podcaster had a Casper, a Synology, and a Sonos system?
[00:07:44] Brett: Synology sent out, Oh, I would
[00:07:46] Jeff: Well, they would have sent, probably to the ATP guys. Maybe That’s
[00:07:49] Jeff: separate. That’s probably its own thing. You could send them things and it’ll really be worth it.
[00:07:55] Brett: Um, I, speaking, let’s do a [00:08:00] mental health corner.
[00:08:01] Mental Health Corner
[00:08:01] Brett: We’re kind of already, we’re kind of already in it as is the way our show
[00:08:05] Jeff: We’re already, we’re already in the corner.
[00:08:08] Brett: Um, the only thing I have to report, I’ve been taking a break from therapy, not intentionally, just scheduling over the summer. Um, and I’ve gotten really bad about like doing parts work on my own.
[00:08:21] Brett: Like I just, I just would rather go to
[00:08:24] Jeff: we have therapists.
[00:08:25] Brett: Yeah. Um, and. I did make the mistake. So I’ve been taking, in order to fall asleep these days, I need, I think I’ve talked about this, an excessive amount of gabapentin. Um, I’ve tried like all kinds of FDA approved sleeping, uh, medicines and none of them did anything and I was still not sleeping.
[00:08:47] Brett: So gabapentin was the answer. I take the maximum allowable amount, 1800 milligrams of
[00:08:55] Jeff: It’s like one, one bottle.[00:09:00]
[00:09:00] Brett: It’s three 600 milligram tablets, um,
[00:09:03] Jeff: I haven’t, I don’t know what to compare. Like what’s a, so what would a, like, I’m just starting out a dose
[00:09:09] Brett: 300 milligrams.
[00:09:10] Jeff: okay. Got it. Ugh.
[00:09:12] Brett: Um, it, I think is the normal, like, we’ll try this first and see how it goes. So I went from 300 to 600 to 1200 to 1800 and 1800 works. I stay asleep most of the night. I still, I get up around five after six to seven hours of sleep. Uh, I went to a sleep study, uh,
[00:09:33] Jeff: When?
[00:09:33] Brett: I went to sleep medicine, um,
[00:09:36] Jeff: Oh, not like an overnight,
[00:09:37] Brett: it, well, they, it was a home, they, they sent me home with this thing that you wear a wristband, a chest monitor, like sticks to your chest, and then it has like audio.
[00:09:50] Brett: It can detect you snoring. It detects you breathing. It detects your oxygen and pulse. And, and I just wore that overnight at [00:10:00] home. Um, and they diagnosed me with minor sleep apnea, like 3%, which was so low that. My local vendors wouldn’t supply me with a CPAP. Um, so I had to drive to La Crosse, Wisconsin or, or La Crosse, uh, La Crosse, La Crosse, Wisconsin.
[00:10:23] Brett: And, and I got, I got my CPAP and I’m trying so hard to get used to it. And I don’t think it makes any difference in how I sleep. And so the next step with that is like CBT, uh, for sleep, which.
[00:10:41] Jeff: behavioral therapy. Oh,
[00:10:44] Brett: Um, so I, I’m going to keep trying the CPAP for a while, but anyway, all this is to say, so I’m taking all this gabapentin and just for shits and giggles, one night, L and I made root beer floats [00:11:00] with, um,
[00:11:00] Jeff: did it. Now I got to have one of those.
[00:11:02] Brett: with, with THC laden root beer,
[00:11:07] Jeff: The, the whole cereal. Okay. Got it. I don’t
[00:11:11] Jeff: know what that is. THC. What’s that? Oh, but it’s
[00:11:13] Brett: Uh, sure, yeah, Delta 9 THC, which has
[00:11:18] Jeff: Delta variant.
[00:11:21] Brett: it has very minimal effect on me and I didn’t even, I felt a little bit relaxed, but then I took my gabapentin and there was an interaction and I conked out, slept through the night, woke up like at like 8am, tried to stand up, got so dizzy, I just.
[00:11:41] Brett: Passed out back in bed and the effects didn’t wear off for like 24 hours.
[00:11:48] Jeff: I know, because I sat in this lonely, lonely room waiting for you to come on to record and I was like, this is not like Brett, except for the one time, I think, that you were totally crashed out at recording time. Long time ago.[00:12:00]
[00:12:00] Brett: Yeah, well, this was
[00:12:01] Jeff: Normally, you’re the guy that’s like, hey, everybody on? Alright, ten minutes, let’s go.
[00:12:05] Brett: Yep, yep, I’m usually first one at the party, last to leave. Um, yeah, yesterday was rough and I tried to like, work, but I was just so, um, dazed and like everything I said came out like monotone. I was just very low affect and it was, so I’m, until I stopped taking gabapentin, no more THC for
[00:12:31] Jeff: like a, there’s a interaction, that’s a serious interaction,
[00:12:34] Brett: Yeah, I looked it up, and, like, they talk about, uh, interactions with alcohol and with THC, and it’s not, like, highly studied, but multiple studies have shown, um, they actually use gabapentin in the treatment of THC addiction.
[00:12:52] Jeff: Oh, really?
[00:12:53] Jeff: Like to make it almost like when you make the thing, like when a
[00:12:56] Jeff: dog gets an ointment so that when they lick it, it hurts,
[00:12:59] Brett: Right, [00:13:00] or those, there’s like treatments for alcoholics that make you violently ill whenever you drink. Um, and I, I think that might, I don’t know anything beyond the fact that they verified that there were interactions with THC and gabapentin. But anyway, how are you?
[00:13:19] Jeff: I’m good, but, uh, CPAP, I just have to say one thing about CPAP. Did you ever see the person who made an Alien Facehugger cover for their CPAP?
[00:13:29] Brett: No.
[00:13:29] Jeff: Well, it’s going in the show notes, baby, right now. It’s amazing. Um, and terrifying looking, actually.
[00:13:37] Jeff: Uh,
[00:13:37] Brett: Do not think I could sleep with that. Mine just goes over my nose.
[00:13:41] Jeff: oh, okay, not a full, like, uh, whatever,
[00:13:43] Brett: It’s not a full mask. It like, it works with a beard and it’s pretty, it’s pretty small. I have trouble breathing out through it though. Like I get
[00:13:54] Jeff: ugh, that sounds, that made me feel a tightness in my chest as he’s saying
[00:13:59] Brett: Yeah, that [00:14:00] big breath in is no problem because it’s assisted and then you try to breathe out and it’s like pushing against, well, resistance and, um, it does cause feelings of panic.
[00:14:14] Brett: Um, and it’s really hard to fall asleep when you’re panicking on a regular
[00:14:18] Jeff: you got a new problem.
[00:14:20] Brett: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[00:14:24] Jeff: doing good. I, you know, um, I don’t want to.
[00:14:28] Emotional Reflections
[00:14:28] Jeff: I know doing parent stuff when you’re not a couple of parents can be tedious or if you’re listening or whatever, but I do want to say that it was complete and utter agony leading up to dropping my son off at college. I mean, agony, like, I know that it is not a death and I don’t mean to minimize the experience of people dying.
[00:14:49] Jeff: I wouldn’t minimize it just based on my own terrible experiences with it. But one thing. that I experienced in like the morning of especially was like, it was like [00:15:00] almost like a natural causes death where like, You can’t be mad at anybody? You can’t turn it around? You almost can’t understand it? Like, how the fuck did we get to this point?
[00:15:10] Jeff: Like, I you were just this little thing, you know? And now you’re this, like, grown ass man who’s going to college? Uh, you know, and if you were just looking at Me, it’d be a first generation college student. Uh, but my wife has two master’s degrees. So he, I always knew he could choose. He was like, Oh God, don’t follow me.
[00:15:31] Jeff: Um, but it was, I mean, it was, it was awful. And, and I was just, and I don’t. I don’t cry easy, and this is not a point of pride, um, actually I, I cry so easily in movies or shows or if I hear a sad radio
[00:15:44] Jeff: story, but um, but in, in other parts of life when it would be good to cry, uh, not, not so easy, and I was just on and off, I was like low grade crying for like two days, like I was sniffling, like anything, I couldn’t say words related to him leaving, [00:16:00] in even like the most logistical way without like choking up.
[00:16:03] Jeff: Um. But I realized something that was pretty important. I should say that like after dropping him off, it was really lovely. I mean, like, I felt really proud and excited and kind of in awe of him. And that quickly replaced the agony. And that’s more like me. I’m not Someone to like, overly grieve something that isn’t real.
[00:16:28] Jeff: Um, I might do it in a flash. I might think about how, when I think about the fact that my wife or I will die before the other, most likely, uh, and when we don’t know which one that is, there are times when I think of that and it gives my heart a stop, a start, whatever. I guess it doesn’t stop or start because it’s already going.
[00:16:45] Jeff: Um, but like overall, I don’t. And. And I had to stop myself like, uh, months ago, last summer, actually, when I realized it was the last summer with him, everything we did that was a normal summer thing, it was like, the last time we would do it. And it was killing me. [00:17:00] And I had to decide, and I probably discussed it in a mental health corner on this show, like, I can’t spend this year grieving something that’s not even here yet.
[00:17:08] Jeff: Like, I will be able to grieve it when it happens. And that helped for a while. And then I had the agony. And I actually, like, one of those days when I was sort of like, just Low grade crying. I was like, okay, this is awful. And I realized that like, I wasn’t crying through it. I was crying at it. Like I wasn’t moving through it.
[00:17:30] Jeff: I was moving at it. The thing,
[00:17:32] Jeff: right? Like the transition, the move. Like I was, I was just like, I was approaching it. Like it was a wall I had to slam into. And, and then like what helped me a little bit for those couple of days, but really, really helped me when I had a felt sense of it afterwards. It’s like, no, it’s just move through this.
[00:17:47] Jeff: Don’t. Don’t charge it, don’t move at it. Like this is something that’s, it’s inevitable. It’s just happening. You can’t stop it. And it’s beautiful. And it’s, it’s hard. And it’s, it’s all those things at once. That helped me a lot [00:18:00] in that last day, but it didn’t, it didn’t mean I didn’t experience agony. Anyway, in the days since, like.
[00:18:06] Jeff: It’s been a little over a week, like, I can’t believe, because I tell people he is like, um, a great roommate. We don’t have, we have a great relationship. He has a great relationship with my wife. He has a great relationship with his brother. Um, they’ve never fought, like, that I can remember, except when they were little kids and they would have little, whatever, stupid baby fights.
[00:18:26] Jeff: But like, um, I love having him around. And, and so that, that is strange, but it’s, Yeah, I’m so relieved that I, that I hold it as something really sweet and
[00:18:41] Jeff: beautiful, and I hope the best for him. He said, you know, we were talking, he’s like, it’s pretty cool to make my own decisions every minute of the day. that is pretty cool.
[00:18:50] Jeff: Like, you’ll lose that. You’ll lose
[00:18:51] Jeff: that. You’ll, you’ll have it for the next like five, maybe 10 years. Then you’ll lose it. I didn’t say that. I don’t say shit like that. I don’t say shit like that. Uh, [00:19:00] cause I think that’s just not Awesome stuff to say as a parent. Just let him, let him have it. Anyway, so like, I’m feeling really good and that, and that’s a, that is a mental health thing.
[00:19:11] Jeff: Like I, I worried I’d just be like curled up in a ball for a week or two, but it’s been really nice.
[00:19:17] Jeff: So, and it helps that he texts me back mostly. Um, but yeah, so anyway.
[00:19:22] Brett: So this, uh, this crying on a hair trigger. Did you always have that or did that develop later in life?
[00:19:30] Jeff: definitely developed later in life.
[00:19:31] Jeff: I’ve had it, I’ve had it for probably like a few years that I can remember. It definitely increased after I became a parent. I just became more emotional,
[00:19:40] Brett: didn’t become a parent. I just suddenly, like a commercial could. And not outright. Not like tears running down my face, but like choked up, can’t talk. Like eyes, eyes watering a little bit. And. And like, I just choose not to say anything in those times so it doesn’t come out all choked up,[00:20:00]
[00:20:00] Jeff: yeah, right.
[00:20:01] Brett: like anything even remotely emotional or about like someone with, in like pain or someone who’s experiencing like hope.
[00:20:12] Brett: Um, and like anything that causes an emotional reaction, I react to, and I don’t know if it’s like medication changes or just aging or, you know, I, I don’t know, but like something, something happened and now I tear up, uh, it’s stupid.
[00:20:31] Jeff: Yeah,
[00:20:31] Brett: not stupid,
[00:20:32] Jeff: no, but like,
[00:20:34] Brett: I’m easily emotionally manipulated and I hate that when something, when it feels like I just teared up over something that was designed to be a tearjerker.
[00:20:45] Brett: Um, and then I get mad at the thing. Um,
[00:20:49] Jeff: I think it’s funny because I definitely do it and I do it very secretly. Like I, if somebody is, or it’s really would only be watching TV with my partner, but like, um, I just have a little [00:21:00] heave in my
[00:21:00] Jeff: chest. When something happens,
[00:21:02] Jeff: but like, it’s, it is a little out of control. Cause like I was listening to a baseball game, not even a huge baseball fan, but I do like listening to games.
[00:21:10] Jeff: I was listening to a game and the beginning famous Minnesota twin, Joe Maurer was, was inducted into the baseball hall of fame. I don’t give a shit about Joe Maurer. I don’t give a shit about the baseball hall of But he was giving a speech. And by the way, the baseball player giving a speech, uh, you know, to the, to the fans about, you know, thank you for all the years, whatever it, baseball players do not give emotional speeches.
[00:21:31] Jeff: And this was not one, but just in him expressing all the years he spent and all that it meant to him to have crowd this big. You know, to be able to do this thing. I did the thing. And I was like, damn it.
[00:21:46] Brett: Right.
[00:21:46] Jeff: a shit about Joe Maurer. Like, he seems like a super nice guy. But like, that’s fine.
[00:21:52] Jeff: There’s lots of nice guys. Um, so yeah, it’s out of control. It’s out of hand.
[00:21:57] Brett: Yep. All right. Uh, where are we? [00:22:00] 21 minutes in.
[00:22:01] Sponsor Break: 1Password
[00:22:01] Brett: Let’s do our sponsor break. And then I have a couple, I have a couple of things to share. Um. We’re gonna, we’re gonna talk about one password this week, sponsor. Um, they want a, uh, a customized read, but nobody on this show has used the feature that they’re focusing on.
[00:22:24] Brett: So I’m going to read the copy as is, and then I’m gonna tell you. Why I
[00:22:30] Jeff: Oh, you’re going to do like the Elvis Costello on Saturday Night Live thing.
[00:22:34] Brett: I don’t know what you’re
[00:22:35] Jeff: He starts playing the hit because the record label told him he had to. And then he does this dramatic, like, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. And then he goes into the song you wanted to play. I’ll put it in the
[00:22:44] Jeff: show notes, but you’re doing a nice job,
[00:22:46] Brett: Imagine your company’s security like the quad of a college campus. There are nice brick paths between the buildings. Those are the company owned devices, IT approved apps, and managed employee identities. And then there are the paths [00:23:00] that people actually use, the shortcuts worn through the grass that are the actual straightest line from point A to B.
[00:23:07] Brett: Those are the unmanaged devices, shadow IT apps, and non employee identities like contractors. Most security tools only work on those happy brick paths, but a lot of security problems take place on those shortcuts. 1Password Extended Access Management is the first security solution that brings all these unmanaged devices, apps, and identities under your control.
[00:23:30] Brett: It ensures that Every user credential is strong and protected, every device is known and healthy, and every app is visible. 1Password Extended Access Management solves the problem traditional IAM and MDM can’t. It’s security for the way we work today. And it’s now generally available to companies with Okta and Microsoft Entra, and in beta for Google Workspace customers.
[00:23:56] Brett: Check it out at onepassword. com [00:24:00] slash product slash xam. That’s onepassword. com slash product slash xam. And now, hit I wanted to play. I love One Password. I was on a Zoom call with somebody yesterday. And I had to log into Oracle’s cloud, interface there, ue. And um, I just quick hit my keyboard, shortcut it, it loaded up.
[00:24:29] Brett: ’cause they have a PAs key login for Oracle now. So it, I loaded up, uh, the little thing comes up, I sign it with my passkey. Uh, it also requires a password that , because Oracle is. Logins suck. Um, but 1Password filled that in for me automatically, and, and my coworker was very impressed. I guess they have not been using password managers, which seems odd in this day and age, [00:25:00] but,
[00:25:01] Jeff: Why do that when you’ve got a Google Doc? Called Passwords.
[00:25:04] Brett: right.
[00:25:05] Brett: Um, yeah, but like the Passkey, uh, integration, I started using it with SSH credentials, uh, which is cool. But here’s the problem I ran into. And I want to talk to 1Password about this, but, um,
[00:25:21] Jeff: this is where you go to camera one and you talk to one
[00:25:23] Brett: yeah, 1Password, uh, can’t meet me at, meet me at camera too. Um, I. So it’s great to have logins from Terminal pop up and I can just authenticate with like my watch or whatever.
[00:25:37] Brett: But if I am logged in over, say, an SSH session, or I’m using TMUX, then I don’t get the pop up. Uh, because it pops up on a remote machine, and then my process hangs, and I need a way to force the identification when there’s an [00:26:00] SSH session to use my, like, uh, private keys in my ssh folder instead of the 1Password identity management.
[00:26:11] Jeff: Okay, Mr. Terpstra, I’m gonna put you on hold and try to get a manager for you.
[00:26:16] Brett: But anyway, yeah, 1Password. I’ve been using it for, Jesus, like a decade or more. And I’ve been using it since it was called 1Pissword.
[00:26:28] Jeff: What? That’s a thing?
[00:26:31] Brett: The original name was 1Pissword. SSWD.
[00:26:37] Jeff: Oh yeah, back in the fuckavowel days.
[00:26:41] Brett: back in the Flickr days. Um, yeah, so I’ve been using it since before they rebranded. That’s all, like, that’s all I know. I lose track of time, but I’m a die hard user. I’ve actually worked for the company in the past, but I wasn’t good. They fired me.
[00:26:59] Jeff: You weren’t good. [00:27:00] Did you compromise security?
[00:27:02] Brett: No, I just failed.
[00:27:04] Customer Support Onboarding Challenges
[00:27:04] Brett: So when you first start, everyone, no matter what your position is, is required to do customer support. Um, and like, that’s how they kind of onboard you is by throwing you in and
[00:27:18] Jeff: It’s like being an apprentice at a machine shop. Alright, you’re sweeping up the shavings.
[00:27:23] Brett: and, and I did not do well with that. And so I felt like I never really integrated into the team. And then I, I had like some ADHD procrastination going on and I was working two jobs and I just kind of failed at being a strong employee for
[00:27:44] Jeff: And now you won’t even read the fucking ad read in Leave It Be.
[00:27:50] Brett: No,
[00:27:50] Jeff: changed! Nothing’s changed, Brad!
[00:27:52] Brett: I love them. I feel bad, but. Yeah.
[00:27:56] Jeff: Well, anything, you know, loving and feeling bad, they’re interchangeable. [00:28:00] Um,
[00:28:02] Brett: Like love and hate, uh, two sides of the same coin. I get that. But
[00:28:07] Jeff: yeah?
[00:28:08] Brett: loving and feeling bad, that just seems dark.
[00:28:11] Jeff: Hm.
[00:28:13] Mental Health and Emotional Struggles
[00:28:13] Jeff: Back to mental Meet me back in the mental health corner.
[00:28:17] Jeff: Alright, you got business.
[00:28:18] Brett: yeah.
[00:28:19] Political Commentary and YouTube Recommendations
[00:28:19] Brett: So speaking of Minneapolis, have you ever heard of Leija Miller?
[00:28:23] Jeff: No.
[00:28:24] Brett: She’s a lawyer out of Minneapolis who has a YouTube channel where she talks about Um, mostly politics. Um, her last video was about why the left is so bad at organizing. Um,
[00:28:40] Jeff: a favorite, a favorite talking point of people.
[00:28:45] Brett: she digs into, like, how, like, unionization is at an all time low and how the right, um, has very, kind of, they have history on their side, um, like the country [00:29:00] had, like, misogyny and, uh, racism built in from the beginning, and so a party that Feeds on those things has a built in advantage and, uh, people can be, um, the, the, the right, the conservatives have one, one difference, and that is that they see the world as a hierarchy.
[00:29:25] Brett: Uh, everything is hierarchical. You
[00:29:28] Jeff: Whereas the liberals play out the world as a hierarchy and pretend there isn’t one. Yeah, exactly. I
[00:29:35] Jeff: got it. I see you, Nancy Pelosi.
[00:29:37] Brett: But yeah, yeah, God, Neolibs and yeah, like I’m, I’m talking more about progressives than I’m talking about liberals, but like for conservatives, like the idea that there are winners and there are losers, um, erases their need to try to level the playing field through government [00:30:00] intervention, uh, whereas progressives see.
[00:30:03] Brett: More of the gray area and why they want, they want to remove things like racist policies, um, that. that don’t, that, that make the playing field so unlevel and conservatives just outright don’t want to do that. And so it’s really easy to message to conservatives. But anyway, I’m, I’m just, I’m, I just want to recommend the YouTube channel, Legion Miller.
[00:30:30] Brett: Um, I’ll link it in the show notes. And I just, I, I was curious because she is from Minneapolis, so I didn’t
[00:30:36] Activism and Personal Experiences
[00:30:36] Jeff: Back in, in my Iraq activism days, I, uh, I would do just about anything up to risking my life, but I would not carry a fucking sign. And that is why progressives can’t organize. It’s just, there’s too much room for that kind of bullshit.
[00:30:53] Brett: Yeah,
[00:30:53] Jeff: Carry a sign, guy. Chant out loud, guy. No, I won’t do it, man.
[00:30:58] Jeff: There’s too much nuance.
[00:30:59] Brett: I [00:31:00] did the Black Block when I was
[00:31:02] Jeff: Yeah, which is like, Which is like, put a fucking bandana on your fucking face and what? And get drunk.
[00:31:11] Jeff: I’m not gonna lie.
[00:31:12] Brett: it’s
[00:31:13] Jeff: And and if you’re lucky, cash your trust fund check. That’s that’s 70 percent of Black Block. I know that. I’ve done the research, but not you. It’s not you, my man.
[00:31:22] Brett: Um, that was not my experience with Black Block. It was mostly gutter punks and, um, people who, I guess, yeah, could afford to be activists, which is kind of a privileged
[00:31:36] Jeff: No, but that’s okay. I’m not actually dissing on that. I just, Black Block guys, it’s too easy for the law enforcement to pretend they are them. That’s one of my problems.
[00:31:47] Brett: Impersonation.
[00:31:48] Jeff: Yeah, I’ve also, I’ve also never lied. I mean, in terms of the bandana thing, I’ve always been super against hiding your face and your identity and your intentions, even though it makes total sense.
[00:31:59] Jeff: Uh, [00:32:00] but it, but it doesn’t make sense if you’re not actually working towards something meaningful, which for me, The Black Block folks were like chaos agents and they were young.
[00:32:08] Jeff: and and to me, it’s like, you’re not even working towards something. If you were Daniel Berrigan, uh, who, this Catholic priest during the Vietnam War, who with his brother made their own napalm, broke into a draft center, pulled out all the draft cards and burned them in the street with homemade napalm.
[00:32:23] Jeff: And then he went undercover. I mean, they went, sorry, he went on the lam and he was in hiding. That’s when you wear a fucking mask.
[00:32:30] Brett: Right. Yeah. I, I showed up for a couple of, um, Palestine protests and they wanted to hand me signs and I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t want to sign. I, I believe in the cause. Um, I wanted to be there as a body, um, for numbers. But I just, I don’t have it in me to hold a slogan.
[00:32:55] Jeff: the same. I’m the same. I’m the same.
[00:32:59] Brett: we’re a couple of [00:33:00] easily emotionally triggered
[00:33:02] Jeff: Like by showing up, by showing up, you are a walking, breathing slogan, but like, I will not hold that side.
[00:33:09] Brett: Yep. Um,
[00:33:11] Jeff: That’s awesome.
[00:33:12] T-Shirt Store Relaunch Announcement
[00:33:12] Brett: I also wanted to use this huge platform we have to announce that I have relaunched my t shirt stores. Um, the lab store has like my. My for, for my blog, it’s called the lab ratter.com. Um, so there’s, there’s some merchandise around that. There’s also some, some markdown jokes. I, I got this mug.
[00:33:41] Jeff: Oh yeah.
[00:33:42] Brett: It’s,
[00:33:43] Jeff: asterisk, asterisk, strong, asterisk, asterisk,
[00:33:46] Brett: the original, the original version, which is still available. Said asterisk. Asterisk, bold, asterisk. Asterisk. Um, and. That was pretty popular, and then John Gruber saw someone [00:34:00] wearing it and said, That’s incorrect. That sh that should be STRONG.
[00:34:05] Jeff: And this is why the progressives can’t organize.
[00:34:09] Brett: ha! So, in the interest of pedantry and semantic correctness, I have released the STRONG version.
[00:34:17] Brett: Um, the, the BOLD one actually, it did good numbers because Gruber tweeted about it. Um, with his like tacit approval of it. And then, and then word got back to me.
[00:34:32] Jeff: He’s the, he’s the Nancy Pelosi of, of Markdown users. I realized he’s also the creator, but. He’s the Nancy Pelosi. He can fuck you up or he can give you, you know, he can open the door.
[00:34:42] Brett: Yep. Um, and so the other store is called Rock Scissors and it is all typographic, um, rock and roll t shirts. And I don’t know if you’ve seen these, but. The newest one, [00:35:00] it just says, pleased to meet you with a little devil horn coming off of the U, um, as a, as a stones reference. Um, there’s a, my favorite is the I wanna be t shirt where the I is a black flag logo, and then it says wanna be, and then underneath there are two checkboxes for anarchy and sedated.
[00:35:22] Brett: So you’ve got black flag, you got, you got the pistols and you got the Ramones all in one shirt.
[00:35:27] Jeff: Also why the progressives can’t organize.
[00:35:30] Brett: the most popular one based on sales is the, is there anybody in their shirt where the in and the there echo the way that it did on the Pink Floyd recording?
[00:35:43] Jeff: Is there a name? Can we come up with a word for that mixes entrepreneur and dad joke? Cause that’s, that’s what you are.
[00:35:54] Brett: Yep. I guess so.
[00:35:57] Jeff: That’s
[00:35:57] Brett: Um, so anyway, yeah, if you’re [00:36:00] interested, the links will be in the show notes. Um, so yesterday when I missed our recording time.
[00:36:08] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:36:09] Brett: I thought it was 9 30 because I was, you know,
[00:36:13] Jeff: In the morning,
[00:36:13] Brett: extremely stoned. Yes,
[00:36:15] Jeff: it was, uh, noon 30.
[00:36:17] Brett: it was, yes, it was 12 40. When I saw your messages saying, Hey, you come, you come into our 12 AM or 12 PM recording time.
[00:36:28] Brett: Uh, but what I was seeing. What I was lost in was Planter. Um, I released
[00:36:34] Planter Tool and Project Management
[00:36:34] Jeff: Speaking of the labs.
[00:36:36] Brett: Yeah. I released a tool years ago called Planter that let you create, you could write, you make a text file and, and use a tab indentation to define a directory hierarchy, and then you could include. Template files in folders by indenting ones further.
[00:36:56] Brett: And it was cool. Um, I used it for a while. [00:37:00] Um, I decided to completely rewrite it. Um, so I have, it’s not quite finished yet, but,
[00:37:08] Jeff: Tell me, tell me all about it.
[00:37:09] Brett: it’s, it’s now a gem and it, it, I don’t think it’ll integrate well with like Alfred and, LaunchBar. And I know, uh,
[00:37:18] Jeff: don’t need it to.
[00:37:20] Brett: I, yeah, I know Jay Miller was working on kind of a version that I think was Alfred compatible, but this is just command line.
[00:37:28] Brett: And instead of like indentated, indented, indentated, indented, like config files, it uses a YAML config file and template directories where you build out the directory with all of the files and subfolders that you want, and then you just run plant, and and then the name of the template and it duplicates that directory into your current directory and anything with a template placeholder it’ll prompt you for variables on the command line or [00:38:00] you can pass them as arguments and it will update the templates, uh, with, you know, like class names or titles or like, uh, project names.
[00:38:11] Brett: And, um, and you can do in your config, you can have regex replacements and you can define a GitHub repo instead of a folder. So if there’s a GitHub repo you have, that’s a good Base for your project. You can set up a Git pull and then, um, have it do a regex replace for like every instance of the name of the project and, and update all of the files and the readme and everything.
[00:38:40] Brett: Um, and it’s working, it’s working really well. I’m really digging it. It was a weekend project that spilled over into my week. Um, But, uh, watch for an announcement on the blog sometime in the next couple weeks.
[00:38:54] Jeff: What do you that’s awesome and exciting, I like Planter a lot. Um, [00:39:00] what do you imagine so you’ve got, you’ve got your labs, and you’ve got your like, active projects, and your sort of like, inactive projects that are in there, and they’re sort of sorted, right? Um, Is there something you have not tou you’ve touched a lot of your shit.
[00:39:13] Jeff: Well, that sounds funny, but you’ve touched, you’ve touched a lot of this stuff over the last, probably five years, I would say. And, and when I first started talking to you, maybe it hasn’t been five years. Yeah, just about. There were certain things that you kind of felt like you were done with, but then all of a sudden you were like, And I’m curious if there’s anything out there, any of your tools that you haven’t touched in three or four or five years that you sometimes think, Oh, you know what?
[00:39:40] Jeff: If I had a weekend,
[00:39:42] Reviving Old Projects and Tools
[00:39:42] Brett: Yeah, Slogger.
[00:39:43] Jeff: Slugger.
[00:39:44] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:39:45] Brett: the unfortunately named Slogger, um, is a project that I have long, it, it, the thing was, so Slogger, it stands for social, it’s, Portmanteau, Social, and Logger, um, and [00:40:00] it would pull in like all of your Twitter, your Last. fm, your Facebook, your, um, uh, someone integrated it with like various health apps.
[00:40:11] Brett: It was all plugin based. So people could write plugins for whatever service they wanted. And it would pull it all into like day one entries or markdown files. Um, every day and it would run automatically and just like keep a log of your presence on the internet in one place where you could tag and review and have a calendar output of like, what, what was this day like?
[00:40:36] Brett: And instead of like journaling, you could just rely on. All the shit you posted everywhere. Um, but the problem was APIs got harder to, uh, work with and places like Twitter basically walled off any API access and
[00:40:58] Jeff: up not mattering in the end [00:41:00] anyhow. Dead.
[00:41:01] Brett: Yeah, it did, uh, but everything kind of one piece at a time kept breaking and it was hard to maintain and keep up with, but I really, like, I look back at all of my old Slugger entries and like in day one, it’ll be like, you had 23 entries on this day, you know, eight years ago, and I’ll go back and review them and they’re fun to read and it’s, it’s a really good kind of archive.
[00:41:26] Brett: It tells you exactly what was going on for you. And like it integrated with Flickr. So there were like images in my post that it was, it was cool. And I would, I would like to revive it at some point
[00:41:38] Jeff: That sounds so fun. Like there’s, there’s, um, there’s that tool dataset, which allows you to just sort of like work with SQL databases, but also there are some like utilities to turn your Facebook archive into a SQL but some of those things. But like, I have not found anything that like recursively.
[00:41:58] Jeff: Um, we’ll do the work [00:42:00] I needed, but I keep my archives updated of Facebook. I did have Twitter when it, when it existed.
[00:42:05] Jeff: Um, yeah, any, anything where I’m, uh, there’s any data, uh, you know, like Google takeout, anything like I, I keep updating it because I know that one day. Probably not too far in the distance.
[00:42:17] Jeff: I’ll be able to use a tool that sort of gathers all that stuff up and tells me something meaningful. Um, I can already do it. I could already like load my Facebook shit into like chat GPT, but I’m not quite there yet. Um, it just feels like you’re double, you know, you got the Facebook problem already. Now you’re putting it into the AI people.
[00:42:36] Jeff: It’s too much. Um, but it’s probably there already. So anyway, that’s really cool. That’s, that would be a fun one to redo. I still haven’t found, I don’t find, cause I don’t use dash otherwise. Like you had created, um, what was it called? It was like the cheat sheets, cheaters. Um, right. Was it called cheaters?
[00:42:54] Jeff: Cheater, where you could just make your own custom sort of like, these are my keyboard shortcuts, this is the, you know, whatever, [00:43:00] um, still love that. Don’t use it anymore. And at times you’ve been like, yeah, just use Dash. I find Dash a very unsatisfying experience. Yeah. And, and a part of that, Brett, is that I’m not a developer and so I’m not using it anyhow.
[00:43:12] Jeff: And so I find that when I go to use it, I don’t find it to be. As quick as I need it to be. Um, whereas your cheater was like, holy shit, you can just whip that thing up in no time.
[00:43:24] Jeff: Um, but anyway,
[00:43:25] Brett: but it relied on things like, what was that app called that created single site browsers?
[00:43:33] Jeff: Oh, Dropler. No,
[00:43:35] Jeff: not, sorry, not Dropler. That’s not what I meant. Um, uh,
[00:43:38] Jeff: which you can kind of, Fluid,
[00:43:40] Jeff: which you can kind of do now with Safari in a weird way, which is nice,
[00:43:42] Brett: And you can, there are, there are newer ones like Unity and CoherenceX, but Fluid was the best one for making like
[00:43:50] Jeff: Fluid was
[00:43:50] Brett: Pinned, like pinned in your menu bar and you could trigger it with a hotkey. And like, that was ideal for Cheater, which is essentially just a, like an [00:44:00] HTML and JavaScript framework.
[00:44:02] Brett: Um, and it could load like Markdown. You could write your, your shortcuts down in Markdown and display them in Cheaters and full keyboard navigation and everything. Yeah, it was cool project. Um, but with the death of Fluid, um,
[00:44:18] Jeff: was great.
[00:44:18] Brett: And my, my lack of desire to write my own kind of app, uh, shell for Cheater. Um, oh, it was called Cheaters.
[00:44:29] Brett: It was plural. You’re right.
[00:44:31] Jeff: Hey, look, I wasn’t going to challenge you on that.
[00:44:35] Jeff: It’s your baby.
[00:44:35] Brett: the icon was, uh, an Ace of Spades. Um, yeah.
[00:44:42] Jeff: That’s cool. That was a good one.
[00:44:45] Brett: Should we do a grAPPtitude?
[00:44:47] Jeff: Yeah, we just did. We just did a bunch of, we got Fluid, we got, we got Cheaters. Yeah, let’s
[00:44:53] Brett: Oh, we’re talking about all dead projects. That’s, this is a dead project grAPPtitude.
[00:44:58] Jeff: yeah, why not?
[00:44:59] Window Management with Moom 4
[00:44:59] Brett: Um, [00:45:00] my pick for this week is Moom 4, which just came out. Yeah. Holy cow. Um, so Moom is a tool for window management, um, that can do everything For example, I can hit my hyper key and down and the current window will center to a specific grid location on my screen.
[00:45:22] Brett: But, I can also hover over the green button in the stop lights, or the traffic lights on a window, and I get a grid of ways I can reposition the window. Um, to like left half, right half, um, I can have like four, four front most, most recent windows organized themselves into a grid. Um, like, and it now has, you can now, that grid that I’m talking about, now you can expand it.
[00:45:54] Brett: Banned to 61 presets. Um, and you can have, you can [00:46:00] organize your presets by folders. So should, for some reason, 61 presets not be enough for you, you can have sub folders of presets, um, which I just can’t imagine ever knitting, but they added drop zones, which are similar to, uh, snap areas in better touch tool.
[00:46:20] Brett: Uh, but they like, you drag a window to the edge of the screen and these. Drop zones appear on your screen. You can drag a window to a drop zone and it’ll reposition to that drop zone. Um, yeah, it, I’ll, I’ll
[00:46:34] Jeff: You can customize the little palette now. Like if you hover over the, in Moom, yeah,
[00:46:39] Jeff: in Moom, if you hover over the green. Oh,
[00:46:41] Brett: just said
[00:46:42] Jeff: you just said customize the palette. You know why, you know why I didn’t hear that, everybody?
[00:46:45] Brett: You were, you were reading through it.
[00:46:47] Jeff: I know here’s the thing. Every once in a while, there’s an app update where the changelog comes up and, and it’s so much that I leave it open.
[00:46:54] Jeff: The Moom changelog has been open Ever since it first popped up, which is about a week ago, [00:47:00] and, and so I’ve already had it open because I won’t close it because I want to read everything. And so while you were talking, I was like, Oh, what am I most excited about? Palette. But you already heard that from Brett, everybody.
[00:47:11] Brett: Yeah, no, it’s an extensive changelog. Um, that’s what I’ll link, uh, if you go to the show notes. But the, the amazing, and I don’t know if I consider it reasonable or not, but for Moom 3 users, you can upgrade for like six bucks.
[00:47:28] Jeff: Six bucks.
[00:47:29] Brett: a new license is only 10 bucks. And honestly, this app is worth more than that.
[00:47:33] Jeff: Everybody, since I have the change, uh, the changelog open six bucks through September 4th, after that eight bucks. So they’re really going to jack it. So get in there before they come for your money.
[00:47:43] Brett: and it’s a, a permal license, no subscription. It’s, it’s just dirt cheap. And they, I just want them to charge more. Um, like he offered me a free license cause he’s doing a giveaway on, uh, brettsherpstra. com and. [00:48:00] I was like, six, no, I’ll, I’ll pay the six bucks. Um, I accepted, I accepted a free license for a 90 app recently.
[00:48:11] Brett: Um, yeah, that was, that, that was an app that I thought was fairly priced and I was planning to buy it and he was like, Oh, don’t buy it. Here’s a license. And I was like, I’ll take it. I’ll take it. I’ll save a hundred bucks. But, uh, but six bucks? Yeah, I’m paying that.
[00:48:29] Jeff: I, um, I think I use Moom in all kinds of ways, but the most important service it provides for me is what I call the panic button, which is like, I start my day organized. I got my windows where I want them, whatever, right? But then my brain starts going off in 50 directions.
[00:48:46] Jeff: I have three monitors, And my laptop monitor, and shit’s everywhere, and I can’t think, and all of a sudden I can’t even do the thing I knew I had to do.
[00:48:55] Jeff: I hit the panic button, just keyboard shortcut, and uh, and all of the main [00:49:00] important Apps snap into place in which browser they should be. And I can just go, okay, let’s do it again. And that, cause you can make these snapshots. You can say, you can say like, not only can you say, take a snapshot of all the windows as they are, you can choose to have it also snapshot the windows that are inactive, that are behind the windows and, and have those be where they are.
[00:49:21] Jeff: And so it is just, if you, it’s worth that money just for that. Like it’s an amazing feature.
[00:49:26] Brett: And you can call snapshots with AppleScript so you can integrate it with, like, a bunch.
[00:49:33] Jeff: can. I have, I have is
[00:49:34] Brett: Yeah, I do as well. Like, my podcasting bunch pops open all the necessary windows and then Moom puts them into a grid for me.
[00:49:45] Jeff: Amazing.
[00:49:46] Brett: Yep. Highly recommended. What do you got?
[00:49:48] Jeff: Well, I got kind of a, it’s a bit boring because they’re both things. So I’ve talked about both of them before, but I’ve legitimately like, they’re the, you know, you have these old apps where like, you’ve, you’ve found other things [00:50:00] to, to solve those problems, but then things get tight. Things get tense and, and you need something right then.
[00:50:07] Jeff: And the thing you’re doing that you replaced it with, isn’t doing the job. So you go back to it.
[00:50:11] Noteplan and DevonThink for Organization
[00:50:11] Jeff: And, uh, for me, there’s two things that I do that with Noteplan and Devinthink.
[00:50:16] Jeff: I mean, I have Devinthink databases that are just evergreen and they’re there forever and whatever, but like, I don’t often use Devinthink to open a new project and, and with Noteplan, as we’ve talked about on the show, uh, I think more than twice, like, I don’t know.
[00:50:30] Jeff: Noteplan is amazing. Um, it’s always more amazing when I come back to it. I do not usually last with it. Um, and I can’t actually put my finger on why. I don’t actually think it’s the fault of the app. Um, I think it’s just the way my brain works, but every time I go back to it, it has more features.
[00:50:45] Jeff: It’s been loved. It’s been loved.
[00:50:47] Jeff: up a little more and I stay a little longer. And so I’m back in Noteplan, which is fantastic. Um, if only because I can have, Noteplan is like a note taking, Kind of like a note taking app, but it’s really like an organizer shit. It’s marked [00:51:00] down and like, what’s amazing is that you can have a little calendar on the right or pulls in your calendar.
[00:51:05] Jeff: And if I click on one of the calendar events, it’ll just automatically click or create a note, uh, a notes thing for that. It could do it based on a template. So if it’s a meeting and I click on it, I can have it create a template for that meeting for that project and put it in that project folder. And so like I can have different meeting templates for different projects and all I have to do is click on that calendar event and it’s going It’s going to pull it up.
[00:51:26] Jeff: It’s going to pull it up. If it’s a week early, it’s going to pull it up if it’s a week later. Um, and I found that just an amazing way, way to, to handle that stuff. Cause sometimes I need to be forced to take notes in meetings. People are always doing it in like Google docs, but that doesn’t help me reference down the road.
[00:51:43] Jeff: Um, and then the other thing that I love about it is like, you can have like daily notes. You can have notes in your projects, any kind of note, but if you put tasks in one of those notes, it doesn’t matter if you have tasks, like one task in one note, 50 in another, over the course of a year or 10 years, if you [00:52:00] just click tasks, it’ll show you all of your tasks from all of your notes.
[00:52:04] Jeff: And so, and I have a problem of creating task lists. In whatever document I’m in that day. And so it, it really like, it helps me to be a more organized person. Um, and then Devon, I think it’s just, it’s still amazing. It’s so powerful. I deal with so many documents. I deal with such a need to like capture web pages or capture information for research projects.
[00:52:25] Jeff: Like, and there’s nothing that’s ever replaced it in terms of ability to just. Quickly store searchability, like flexibility in searchability is, it’s just an incredible, it’s an incredible place. I actually have a full email archive in one of my Devon
[00:52:42] Jeff: think, um,
[00:52:43] Brett: that is to me that is one like so I did a presentation at MacSAC about how email is timeless and Like every five years people come up with a new way to collaborate and [00:53:00] it dies and everyone But email is like forever but Like, email searching is a pain in the ass, uh, like, unless you’re using Gmail in the web interface, which does an amazing job of searching, um, any other app you’re using, search sucks, and the best way to deal with that is to export archives, um, of all your messages into something like Dev Think, uh, which will cross index, correlate, Um, make it just infinitely searchable, and it is the ultimate way to maintain a database of a lifetime of emails.
[00:53:41] Jeff: Yeah. And that, and for me, that, that involves like. My Yahoo account is in there. My, I wish my Hotmail account was in there, but that got nuked. But, um, like when I’ve had, when I’ve worked for organizations and I’ve had to be on their email, I always export my email. So like from different organizations, like that archive is everything.
[00:53:59] Jeff: And, [00:54:00] um, and it’s incredible. Yeah. And I’ve been using Dev and Think, I don’t know how long, I want to say I’ve been using it for 20 years. I don’t know that that can be true, but I’ve been using it. Yeah, I’ve been using it since I lived in New York when my son was
[00:54:12] Brett: Yeah, no, I, I remember,
[00:54:14] Jeff: years
[00:54:15] Brett: I remember, uh, 2004. I definitely was actually at that point I was using, what was their like light version? It was like a search crawler.
[00:54:25] Jeff: with Devon Agent,
[00:54:26] Jeff: but that is still a thing.
[00:54:28] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:54:29] Brett: Yeah. I, I, in 2004, I was definitely using Devon Agent. I don’t think I had sprung for Devon Think yet. But I eventually did, and it’s, it’s amazing.
[00:54:39] Brett: On Noteplant, like, I’m the same way. Um, like, I follow his release notes pretty religiously, um, because it’s just amazing how, how, how much he adds that isn’t, um, Um, Bloat, um, it’s just better ways to work with like calendar [00:55:00] pickers for your tasks and, and UE, uh, niceties that like, like you said, it’s Markdown.
[00:55:07] Brett: And if all it did was the things you described, uh, where you can like write a task list inside of your meeting notes and have it show up in a unified way, um, and like reschedule tasks and add due dates. And like, when, uh, when you look at a day’s. Like your planner for a day and all your previous tasks have like moved the ones that had the overdue tasks have moved into your new one.
[00:55:32] Brett: You can reschedule them with, uh, with plain text syntax. Um, like it’s amazing, but it’s never, it’s not my daily driver. I still use OmniFocus and I still use NVUltra for all my notes. And, um, it’s just, it’s hard to tear
[00:55:49] Jeff: well, you can’t, yeah, it’s not a, it’s not a notes manager replacement for me. And that’s where I get stuck. Um, it probably is where it gets stuck actually, even though I could [00:56:00] merge those folders. And I certainly can, I mean, I edit those notes in Sublime or I can have them in NVUltra or whatever, but like, that probably is the thing.
[00:56:07] Jeff: It’s like, it just can’t be a notes repository the way an NVUltra can.
[00:56:13] Brett: Yeah, it’s one it’s not designed
[00:56:15] Jeff: And it’s not designed to be, no, no, totally.
[00:56:17] Jeff: But then, but once I have things.
[00:56:19] Brett: if he if he tried to be
[00:56:21] Jeff: Yeah,
[00:56:22] Jeff: my problem is once I have a category of things in more than one place, that’s the recipe for One of those tools to fall off. Um, and so I guess actually that’s helpful.
[00:56:33] Jeff: Cause that may be part of it. And cause the crazy thing is what you and I have described, we’ve described three to four features and, and the amount of shit it can do is like obsidian level, but it’s like, it’s way more, I mean, obsidian’s elegant, but it’s like, it’s unstoppably elegant. Like, it just seems like, it’s kind of like when you make changes to your shit.
[00:56:51] Jeff: It’s just like, How did, how did he pick just the right things and, and execute them? Well, you know, like,
[00:56:59] Jeff: yeah,
[00:56:59] Brett: It’s, [00:57:00] opinionated without being limiting.
[00:57:02] Jeff: that’s a nice way to put it. Yeah.
[00:57:03] Switching to VS Code
[00:57:03] Brett: Um, speaking of Sublime, I think I just decided this today, but I think I’m finally switching to VS Code.
[00:57:12] Jeff: Oh, says me every three months.
[00:57:15] Brett: I, I, I
[00:57:16] Jeff: Why? What happened?
[00:57:18] Brett: just the, I opened up a planter that I’m, I’ve been working on in, in VS Code. I don’t remember why. Suddenly it was like offering to. Write the Yard documentation for a function or, or refactor my code or, and it was doing an amazing job, like I could hover over a method call and it would show me the Yard documentation in a popover from another file in the project, which I, which Sublime is supposed to be able to do and I’ve never gotten it working, but like out of the box VS code was.
[00:57:58] Brett: And showing me all the [00:58:00] parameters, all the types, like everything I needed to know. Um, and the autocomplete is eerily good. Like I, yeah, I type like variable equals and then it pops in exactly what it should have been and like, like something I would have had to go look up and like, okay, this is, here’s what I need.
[00:58:21] Brett: And it just suggested it and I hit tab and it was, it was correct. Like, it is just. It’s light years ahead of Sublime when it comes to code completion, artificial intelligence, um, just, like, it commented code and, like, described it better than I could have, uh, like, I opened up functions, I forgot what they even do, and it would like, dissect them, and this is with uh, Copilot, and, and it would literally like, put a, put a line comment on every line saying what that line was doing, and then [00:59:00] put a comment at the top of the method describing exactly what the method did, what parameters it, oh, it’s so good.
[00:59:06] Jeff: almost like it’s resourced to the level of a small nation. That’s awesome.
[00:59:12] Brett: Yep, yep, the config, once you have enough extensions loaded, the configuration is unwieldy, but their UE version is pretty damn good. So many settings though.
[00:59:28] Jeff: So many settings, which is not bad. It’s just,
[00:59:31] Brett: At least, at least you can sync your settings,
[00:59:33] Jeff: Yeah, exactly.
[00:59:35] Brett: Anyway, all right.
[00:59:37] Conclusion and Final Thoughts
[00:59:37] Brett: I feel like, I feel like that was, that was a Brett and Jeff episode for sure.
[00:59:41] Jeff: It’s great. Yeah, it’s nice to talk to you too. It’s been a long time.
[00:59:44] Brett: Maybe, maybe before, no I don’t have time. I was gonna say maybe I’ll write that theme song before we publish, but needs to go out today, so probably
[00:59:54] Jeff: one of those where you just pound on the keyboard with your fist. It could be your fist wrist down. It could be your fist like, [01:00:00] you know, just you choose. It’s your artistic, uh, license.
[01:00:04] Brett: All right, well good talking to you, Jeff.
[01:00:06] Jeff: You too, Brett.
[01:00:07] Brett: Get some sleep.
[01:00:08] Jeff: You get some sleep.
It’s Brett’s 46th birthday bash, and he’s celebrating in style with Jeff and Christina. Expect gifts like Cooks Illustrated and flood detectors, riveting overflowing toilet tales, and sampling fun with Koala. Dive into comedy insights with an ‘Elf’ story featuring James Caan, and honor Bob Newhart’s 1961 Grammy win. Plus, a TUAW domain kerfuffle and Macstock marvels. Laugh, learn, and maybe even fix your toilet seat!
1Password Extended Access Management solves the problems traditional IAM and MDM can’t touch. It’s security for the way we work today, and it’s available now to companies with Okta, and coming later this year to Google Workspace and Microsoft Entra. Check it out at 1Password.com/product/XAM.
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Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter.
Jammin’ on the One
[00:00:00] Introduction and Birthday Celebrations
[00:00:00]
[00:00:03] Brett: Hey, happy birthday. It’s my birthday. It’s Overtired. Um, we’re all here this week. It’s Jeff Severance Gunsel, Christina Warren, and myself, Brett Terpstra. Uh, how are you guys?
[00:00:16] Christina: Not too bad. Go on, go on, Jeff. Yeah, exactly. I was gonna say pretty birth I was gonna say happy birthday. I was like, not as good as you, birthday boy, but you know,
[00:00:24] Brett: I’m 46 today
[00:00:26] Jeff: Forty six.
[00:00:28] Brett: I’m not lying about my age like some people do. Um,
[00:00:33] Christina: It might be, it might be your birthday, but I’ll still tell you to fuck off. I can lie about my age as long as I want.
[00:00:37] Brett: I wasn’t singling you out. I just said some people.
[00:00:41] Jeff: Some people.
[00:00:43] Christina: Some
[00:00:43] Gifts and Subscriptions
[00:00:43] Brett: Um, yeah, I, uh, I’ve had a really good birthday. Elle, Elle knows how much I love getting gifts and I’m too old for most people to give me so they take it upon themselves to shower me. With gifts every year. [00:01:00] Um, and this year they got me a bunch of cool stuff, including a subscription to Cooks Illustrated and, uh, the book Vegetables Illustrated from Cooks Illustrated, which I’m very excited.
[00:01:11] Jeff: Print subscription? What a beautiful is this still beautiful? It’s been a long time. I don’t know if it got eaten by okay,
[00:01:17] Brett: I was picking them up at the co-op and just like, well actually, uh, one of the, one of the families that EL was house sitting for had them laying out. And I had forgotten how much I loved that magazine. Even like, even as a pescatarian who can’t eat half the recipes in there, they’re still so beautifully illustrated and beautifully written.
[00:01:39] Brett: And it’s just, it’s a fun read. It’s food, it’s food porn.
[00:01:43] Jeff: in an era yeah, but with line art. But in a in an era of like, um, the horrible, awful, terrible, evil, fascist food blog, where it’s like, let me just push all this shit away to get to a very simple recipe.
[00:01:59] Brett: [00:02:00] huh.
[00:02:00] Jeff: How amazing that all of the extra verbiage in Cook’s Illustrated is just towards you learning.
[00:02:07] Jeff: Uh, I think it’s amazing. It was like in the day, maybe it sounds like it’s the same, it was like McSweeney’s level design attention, but like even beyond that somehow. Yeah. That’s awesome.
[00:02:18] Brett: That’s exciting. Um, yeah, she also got me the book, um, Hip Hop is History by Questlove,
[00:02:26] Jeff: Oh, nice.
[00:02:27] Brett: cause they heard a, an interview and they’re like, Oh, this is all Brett. This is great. So they got me the book. So anyway, it’s been a great birthday.
[00:02:37] Home Improvement and Plumbing Stories
[00:02:37] Brett: My parents got me a flood sensor, which at first blush is ridiculous because we live high on a hill.
[00:02:45] Brett: Uh, on a bluff or like on next to a bluff, but like, there’s no chance of our house flooding, but I have done things like missing, poorly install a bidet and not [00:03:00] realize that I’m flooding the basement
[00:03:02] Jeff: Yeah, those are great for the basements.
[00:03:04] Brett: Yeah. So, so having some, some, uh, moisture sensors around the house could be. Could be truly valuable.
[00:03:13] Brett: My dad got it for me because he had recently discovered that a 30 year old toilet had begun slowly leaking into the foundation.
[00:03:23] Jeff: Oh man.
[00:03:24] Brett: so he’s like, everybody gets flood detectors now.
[00:03:28] Jeff: That’s amazing. I bet it wasn’t the toilets fault though.
[00:03:32] Brett: Well,
[00:03:32] Jeff: just like a seal or something? Cause the amazing thing about toilets is they can go forever. There’s such simple machines.
[00:03:37] Brett: just solid pieces of porcelain. Yeah. It would have been like a seal or something. Um,
[00:03:44] Jeff: Fascinating content. Hey
[00:03:46] Brett: Yeah, yeah, subscribe, subscribe for more home improvement. Um,
[00:03:50] Christina: Okay. Speaking of
[00:03:51] Jeff: about it all day.
[00:03:53] The Best Toilet Seat Ever
[00:03:53] Christina: of toilets, someone showed me, no, no, genuinely, somebody showed me the best toilet seat I’ve ever seen the other day. [00:04:00] Um, it’s, it’s, it’s from like this, this, um, LA based artist who’s pretty awesome. And she, she basically took a bunch of old smartphones and made like a toilet seat out of them.
[00:04:10] Christina: Um, let me, let me find the link that I, that I can give you guys. Um, it’s really good. It’s the only problem is, and the only reason I’m not going to have it is that it’s. Is 1, 250. So, um, you know, that, that, that, that unfortunately, um, prices me out just a little bit. Yeah. The woman’s name is, uh, is Bailey, um, Hikawa and her stuff is incredible here.
[00:04:31] Christina: I’m putting this link in our chat here
[00:04:35] Jeff: Do you ever have to tighten your toilet seat?
[00:04:37] Brett: oh yeah,
[00:04:37] Jeff: Man.
[00:04:38] Brett: when you sit down and it wiggles off
[00:04:40] Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I find that to be probably the most disgusting of toilet related maintenance because you have to get your hands around there and get your hand under there on the nut. Uh, just very terrible and preventable. I’m sure,
[00:04:55] Brett: we have one of those like bolt on bidets and in order to [00:05:00] properly clean our toilet, you have to fully remove the toilet seat and the bidet. So about once a week I do that and I’ve gotten really good at it, but I’ve also stripped out the screws by using a drill on the plastic screw.
[00:05:13] Jeff: oh no, you should have called
[00:05:15] Brett: the chances of ever tightening it enough that that little slip doesn’t happen when you sit down, that’s going to require
[00:05:22] Jeff: Wait, let’s make this the whole podcast. I have a couple of questions. Are those screws embedded or can you replace them? Cause they,
[00:05:27] Brett: Oh, they’re totally replaceable.
[00:05:28] Jeff: Okay, okay. Good to know.
[00:05:30] Brett: I have replaced them multiple times. I even tried replacing them with metal screws once, but that was, uh,
[00:05:35] Jeff: But you only really think about it when you’re on the shitter. Yeah, that’s a problem because you can’t do anything from there. Maybe Amazon.
[00:05:41] Brett: How much, how long do you think we could talk about toilets? Because
[00:05:44] Jeff: I’ll tell you what.
[00:05:46] Brett: haven’t even gotten into the talking toilets with the built in bidets. I,
[00:05:52] Plumbing Mishaps and Family History
[00:05:52] Jeff: One, my entire line of, of Gunsels, uh, in America, up until my dad [00:06:00] became a teacher, was plumbers. Gunsel Plumbing and Heating ruled the North Side. Uh, and, and so that’s one thing. Two, the reason my name is Jeff and not John, is because is because my dad was worried that coming from a plumbing fact, uh, family, I would be ridiculed for having a name that is also what you call a bathroom. So I can talk about this all day, uh, but we should probably stop for the sake of our, our,
[00:06:25] Brett: No, I’m, I’m digging this. It’s my birthday and I want to talk about toilets. I actually worked as a,
[00:06:31] Jeff: what you wish for.
[00:06:32] Brett: I worked as an apprentice plumber in, uh, in college and have installed my fair share of toilets. I enjoy everything from the wax ring up. Um, that’s, that’s actually
[00:06:45] Jeff: The wax ring is fascinating. For people that don’t know, the seal that keeps your toilet from doing what Brett’s dad’s toilet did, for the most part, is a fucking wax ring to this day.
[00:06:57] Brett: And it’s soft. It’s, it’s a soft wax ring. [00:07:00] Um, but yeah, and clearing out, um, toilets that people flush tampons down out in on campus. That was fun.
[00:07:11] Jeff: I am the family’s plunger.
[00:07:13] Brett: Hairballs were, I never, I never got used to hairballs. Yeah, I own my own snake. I can do all that stuff.
[00:07:21] Jeff: I remember a friend of the show, Danny Glamour, telling me about his time working in a nursing home and how he at least once had to go into a bathroom and break up a poop with a screwdriver to make something work. Christina, how are you with all this? I don’t know. I have a feeling you’re either like, yeah, I’ll just listen.
[00:07:40] Jeff: Or you’re like fucking stop.
[00:07:42] Christina: No, I mean, I’ll
[00:07:42] Brett: For all we know, she also worked as a plumber.
[00:07:45] Jeff: know.
[00:07:46] Christina: no. Uh, no. I’m the one who calls the plumber. Please, like, I’m the one who, like, does something dumb that requires the plumber to be called because, you know, yeah, you’re flushing the tampons down the toilet or whatever. Uh, no, I have [00:08:00] no opinions on any of this, but it’s interesting.
[00:08:03] Brett: Can I tell you? Oh, go ahead.
[00:08:04] Jeff: we’re both just ready to keep going.
[00:08:06] Brett: We got stories, man.
[00:08:07] Jeff: Uh, you go, I’ll go, and then maybe we can,
[00:08:10] Brett: So my, the most recent time I had to call a plumber was our, our kitchen sink and the dishwasher weren’t draining. Um, and I had snaked down, my snake goes 50 feet and I had not been able to clear the issue. Uh, but I found, you know, the access valve in the downspout of the sink.
[00:08:31] Brett: I’m, I’m, I’m fucking up technical terms here,
[00:08:33] Jeff: Yeah, but your hand gestures are getting us there.
[00:08:35] Brett: If I unscrewed it, it would drain. So there was something, I could not figure out why that worked, but like it was, it was baffling, so we brought in a plumber and he snakes like a hundred feet in, he can’t find anything wrong. Like he gets all the way to the wall in the basement, nothing clogging it, no problem.
[00:08:56] Brett: The problem ends up being this little valve. It’s like a, [00:09:00] uh, I can’t remember what they call it. It’s just this tiny little part. It costs 15 to replace, but it costs us 200 in time for him to realize that the problem was right at the, at the faucet. Um, I couldn’t figure it out. I’ll, I’ll give him, I’m, yeah, they shouldn’t have charged me.
[00:09:21] Brett: That’s the thing. If he, if he did all that and then realized that he missed an obvious thing he should have checked first, I shouldn’t have been charged 200.
[00:09:29] Jeff: Ah, this is the this is the forever problem. Yeah. I don’t feel like we’ve ever had a contractor where it doesn’t end with, like, Uh, wait a minute, hold on. Ha ha ha ha ha!
[00:09:39] Christina: you for what now?
[00:09:40] Jeff: Yeah, exactly.
[00:09:41] Christina: that you messed up first? Yeah. Which, uh Which I think, which uh, we’re recording this on, on, on CrowdStrike day, so I think that’s something that even people not dealing with plumbing can relate to.
[00:09:54] Jeff: Yes. Yes.
[00:09:55] Brett: we move on to
[00:09:56] Jeff: Uh, after this one piece, um, so my grandfather, [00:10:00] my grandfather was the final plumber in the line, and I used to be at their home when he would get home from work. Man, they had an amazing little like Dodge white van that said Gunsel Plumbing and Heating. I’d kill for that van. Um, but I do have a giant framed Gunsel Plumbing and Heating poster from the 30s that is really awesome.
[00:10:16] Jeff: But anyway, he would come home and he would go down to the basement and he would wash his hands for so long. long and I would sit there and talk to him and it was just like he’d go to the laundry, uh, to the laundry sink and just soap and fucking go and soap and go that like lava soap that like
[00:10:32] Brett: Oh, I was going to ask if it was the orange stuff.
[00:10:34] Jeff: I don’t think that was around yet because that’s sort of in the 80s like uh early or mid 80s and um but then today to this day I am always happy when I my hands have become dirty enough like I was out working on this like, ancient tool and my hands were just filled with grease.
[00:10:51] Jeff: I don’t wear gloves. And I, and I am so thrilled when I have to come in and I just have to scrub and scrub and scrub and scrub because it just like, it feels like, feels like [00:11:00] Gramps. Uh,
[00:11:01] Brett: your kids sit and talk to you while you do
[00:11:02] Jeff: no, nobody talks to me while I do it. Nobody. Zero people. All right. That’s all I had to get out.
[00:11:10] Birthday Party Plans
[00:11:10] Brett: Oh, I was going to tell you guys about my birthday party before we move
[00:11:14] Christina: Yeah, please
[00:11:14] Jeff: Well, please, we asked before and that was what triggered us ending the pre show and starting the
[00:11:20] Brett: I always hope that someone will throw me a cool birthday party. And I had, um, put together rough plans back in 2020 something, um, for, for my birthday. 42nd birthday party, which would have been four years ago. Yeah. So like 2020 and I was going to have a big hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy theme party.
[00:11:44] Brett: And I was, I had plans for like a plaster. Head, like second head. So it could be, what’s it, Zaphod. Um, that all fell through thanks COVID and thanks Obama. And, um, and so I haven’t had a birthday party since [00:12:00] then. So this year I took it upon myself and I got, I sent out a Facebook invite to like 50 people, including Jeff, who doesn’t check Facebook.
[00:12:10] Christina: Right. Because who, who, who, because who checks Facebook genuinely?
[00:12:14] Brett: I do. Um,
[00:12:15] Jeff: But you gotta, but text me, then I feel like I’m really invited.
[00:12:18] Brett: Sure, sure. It’s just, I had a lot, I had a lot of moving parts. Um, but I put together a party at, uh, it’s called Suncrest Garden Pizza Farm. And it’s like big outdoor, they have a big barn with a wood fire, uh, wood Yeah, wood fire oven and they make pizzas to order and they do a vegan gluten free pizza and with your choice of toppings and then you eat outdoor.
[00:12:44] Brett: There’s some picnic tables but most people bring a blanket and just like sit around and there’s live music. Huge craft beer selection and yeah so I organized my own birthday party and I’m pretty excited. I got like 20 people coming that’s not bad.[00:13:00]
[00:13:01] Christina: pretty great,
[00:13:01] Jeff: That’s awesome, man. That sounds amazing. I’ve always wanted to go to one of those. And I wish I was going to yours. I really do. And I’m looking up on Facebook now, the invite, just so I can at least enjoy it and acknowledge it. I really truly did not see it. And I’m sorry about that.
[00:13:18] Brett: Yeah, I, I did, I did manually invite a few people. I assumed you wouldn’t be able to make it. So you’re lower on my list of people to like force invites upon,
[00:13:29] Jeff: Yeah, but I agreed to a hour plus call with you today.
[00:13:35] Christina: It’s true.
[00:13:36] Brett: without, without travel time.
[00:13:38] Jeff: But without travel time, that’s right.
[00:13:39] Brett: yeah. All right.
[00:13:40] CrowdStrike Incident
[00:13:40] Brett: We should talk about CrowdStrike, um, that I don’t know how pressing it will be on Monday when this comes out, but for today,
[00:13:48] Christina: for today,
[00:13:50] Brett: It’s a hell of a thing to have happen on your birthday,
[00:13:53] Christina: I mean, I’m, I’m glad that you’re not a Windows admin and, um,
[00:13:57] Brett: right? Oh
[00:13:57] Christina: genuinely that’d be the worst. No. So for [00:14:00] anybody who is not aware, um, three days ago, as you were listening to this, like the world woke up and everything was broken because CrowdStrike issued a driver update to tens of thousands of machines that Blue screen of death, everything.
[00:14:16] Brett: planes, planes weren’t taking off. Online banking wasn’t working. Health providers were failing. Yeah,
[00:14:23] Jeff: Oh, I couldn’t deposit checks at my bank today.
[00:14:26] Christina: Oh yeah, no, ATMs are down. Like a friend of mine, um, is an ER doc at like one of the biggest hospitals in, in Washington. And, and like, uh, he sent me, you know, info. He was like, yeah, they just told us to bring our own laptops in today. And then he sent me like, like a, like the part of an email that like showed all the systems that are down.
[00:14:44] Christina: I was like, holy shit. Now most of the main systems, I think like the really, really like important ones are back up already, but
[00:14:51] Brett: they said. They said most, most users that could just reboot
[00:14:57] Christina: Yes,
[00:14:57] Brett: would come up fine. The [00:15:00] problem was automated systems that can’t be cycled in that way.
[00:15:05] Christina: Right, yeah, so this is the funny thing, like the best solution to this is literally to restart it between 3 and 15 times.
[00:15:15] Brett: you tried turning it off and turning it back on 15
[00:15:18] Christina: And yet that is actually one of the solutions, yeah, so I mean, people are working on some automated ways for this to work, but honestly, like, bad day for CrowdStrike, although, you know what, these are fucking McAfee people, so I don’t know why we expected more from them.
[00:15:31] Jeff: Yeah,
[00:15:32] Christina: Genuinely.
[00:15:33] Brett: I like how ground news in their summary of this story. Uh, the third point was Crouch, CrowdStrike shares are down. And their competitor’s shares are up. Well, no shit.
[00:15:47] Christina: Yeah. I mean, as they freaking should be. Um, cause they, this is a company that, uh, like has lobbied the hell out of various governments to basically mandate that anybody who does any sort of, you know, [00:16:00] government or, or, uh, public issued thing, they’re like, Oh no, you have to, um, use, um, us. There’s, there’s no way you’ll be protected and secure without us.
[00:16:09] Christina: Please let us have control over all of your systems. And, um, And people, I guess, believe them. And, uh, yeah. This is a
[00:16:19] Brett: many people do you think are getting fired?
[00:16:21] Christina: I mean, a lot, I hope. Because if a lot aren’t, then what is this for, right? Like, honestly, like, I’m not usually, like, a big proponent of fire, you know, people who make fuckups. But in a case like this, like, literally your job is to You know what I mean?
[00:16:34] Christina: Like, like, literally your job is, is you, you are saying to people, trust us for all of your security updates and for your antivirus and ransomware and whatnot, and trust us to protect your systems. And then you push out an update that is either not tested well, or something went wrong, and it breaks, like, half the free world.
[00:16:51] Christina: Yeah, a lot of people
[00:16:52] Brett: I was gonna say, so you got, you got like, you got a coder, and then you have hopefully like a peer review, and then you have [00:17:00] quality control, and there should have been at least two levels of testing on a, an update with this ram, with these ramifications, if not more. But, so that’s, that’s three, that’s three people slash teams that shouldn’t have a job.
[00:17:17] Christina: right. Yeah. I mean, and their bosses, whatever their, whatever their process is, because this had to be a breakdown in process, right? Like, obviously they have processes to, to test, um, but clearly they’re not good enough. It was interesting. Um, I, I was able to find some proof that like, obviously people are, are understandably like taking digs at Windows right now.
[00:17:37] Christina: The truth is this could have happened with any platform that CrowdStrike supports. It didn’t, but it could have. And in fact, I found evidence that in April and May, there were massive, like, kernel panics that happened on both Debian and Red Hat because of CrowdStrike. But I guess, you know, they just don’t have the same, um, like,
[00:17:56] Brett: really, maybe it’s not a matter of people getting fired. Maybe it’s a [00:18:00] matter of CrowdStrike going bankrupt.
[00:18:02] Christina: I mean, yeah, maybe. The CEO, his initial response, he didn’t even apologize. He was just like, Oh, we had an issue. Blah, blah, blah. And he didn’t even bother to say sorry. MoFo, read the room. Like, airports and hospitals and 911 systems are down.
[00:18:19] Jeff: 911 systems, you know, when you fucking apologize is when hospitals and 911
[00:18:23] Christina: Exactly. Exactly.
[00:18:25] Jeff: definitely a time to apologize no matter what your lawyer says.
[00:18:28] Christina: Right, exactly. And then, exactly. Fuck your lawyer. Oh, we can’t show, you know, responsibility. You are responsible, motherfucker. You are responsible, like, literally. And also, again, you’re the people who have lobbied, you know, like, governments and institutions and been like, oh, you have to use us if you want to be safe and secure, right?
[00:18:44] Christina: So if you’re telling people you’re good enough to be in those spaces, well then, fuck you. Buck stops with you, asshole. Um, he finally like released a slightly better statement, slightly, where he did put in an apology, but like, it’s still so minor and it’s still so like, [00:19:00] trying to just be like, Oh, this wasn’t a security incident.
[00:19:03] Christina: Fuck off. Like, I don’t think people care about the nuances
[00:19:07] Jeff: it is now.
[00:19:08] Christina: Yeah.
[00:19:09] Sponsor: 1Password
[00:19:09] Brett: You, you would not believe how well I can segue this from here to our sponsor for today and then into our next topic. Man, I, my brain’s working on like, it’s like 40 chests
[00:19:22] Jeff: what that is right now? That’s birthday
[00:19:24] Christina: I was going to say, this is birthday brain. Hell yeah.
[00:19:26] Brett: yes. So, speaking of safety and security, our sponsor today is 1Password, which we are huge fans of, and we will admit at the top that none of us have used it for IAM and MDM, so we can’t personally vouch for this aspect of 1Password.
[00:19:46] Brett: But given my absolute faith in 1Password, I guarantee you it’s a great solution. So, listen up. Imagine your company’s security like the quad of a college campus. There are nice brick paths in between the [00:20:00] buildings. Those are the company owned devices, IT approved apps, and managed employee identities. And then there are the paths that people actually use, the shortcuts worn through the grass that are the actual straightest line from point A to point B.
[00:20:13] Brett: Those are unmanaged devices, shadow IT apps, and non employee identities like contractors. Most security tools only work on those happy brick paths, but a lot of security problems take place on the shortcuts. 1Password Extended Access Management is the first security solution that brings all of these unmanaged devices, apps, and identities under your control.
[00:20:37] Brett: It ensures that every user credential is strong and protected, every device is known and healthy, and every app is visible. 1Password Extended Access Management solves the problems traditional IAM and MDM can’t touch. It’s security for the way we work today, and it’s available now to companies with Okta, and coming later this year to Google [00:21:00] Workspace and Microsoft Office.
[00:21:01] Brett: Entra? Entra? Christina?
[00:21:04] Christina: Intra. It used to be Azure AD. It used to be Active Directory, but yeah,
[00:21:08] Brett: There you go. Check it out at 1password. com slash product slash xam. That’s 1password. com slash product slash xam.
[00:21:20] Sponsor bonus content
[00:21:20] Brett: And then just to tag onto this, uh, there was a big hullabaloo around 1Password becoming an Electron app. But honestly, I haven’t even noticed. Uh, it’s been, it’s, the system integration is still so tight.
[00:21:36] Brett: I just, I don’t care. It’s an Electron app done right.
[00:21:40] Christina: Yeah, I fully agree.
[00:21:42] Jeff: and if that read didn’t touch you, I just hear, I mean, I, one password is such, maybe as much an important part of my life as one or two of Brett’s creations, um, in terms of just how much I access it and use it every single day. And I have [00:22:00] never, ever had a problem. They only get. Better, they added the SSH business not long ago.
[00:22:05] Jeff: I mean, maybe a year ago now, but like, they just. It’s incredible. And I don’t even know, like, I don’t even know what life is without it, even though there are other options. And also I’m in the process of doing some like business operations stuff for our company and, and realize that a number of our employees may or may not, don’t listen hackers, be using 1Password as directed.
[00:22:27] Jeff: And so I’m also in the midst of like, writing sort of like a memo that’s like, here’s why you have to do it. Here’s how you use it. And here’s, um, and here’s, You know, here’s what will happen to you if you don’t. And just like having to kind of look into the features and, and the way this thing works today in order to write that.
[00:22:44] Jeff: So I can help people get set up. That’s like, this fucking thing is amazing. It’s amazing. Thank you. 1Password. Also, I finally stopped about three years ago, uh, uh, using the same password for everything. It was one thing that 1Password was telling me not to do forever, but I was like, I can’t listen, [00:23:00] but now I do.
[00:23:00] Jeff: So fuck you hackers.
[00:23:01] Brett: every time you open it up into like an edit window, it’ll tell you, a watch tower will tell you if the site. Uh, had experienced a breach and B, it will tell you if 2FA is available and you haven’t set it up and it will tell you if, uh, passkeys are available and you haven’t set it up, um, which is super handy when you have, as most people on the internet these days do, you know, a hundred, some different logins for a hundred different sites, uh, and you want to use a different password on everyone.
[00:23:34] Brett: You want everything to be as secure as possible. Yeah. And. And, uh, to the best of my knowledge, 1Password is one of the few password apps that have never experienced, uh, a major breach. Um, uh, uh, unlike LastPass, for example.
[00:23:53] Christina: Yeah, yeah. I, I’ve been, like, I don’t know what my passwords are and I haven’t for, I guess, going on, going on 18 years [00:24:00] because I,
[00:24:00] Brett: couldn’t possibly, yeah.
[00:24:01] Christina: because I’ve been using one password, I guess, since probably 2007, so I guess 17 years. And I, I don’t know my passwords. I don’t know them. And, uh, and
[00:24:08] Brett: all my passwords are random 20 character strings. There’s no way I could know my password.
[00:24:14] Christina: Uh, and, and, and I will just give a little bit of love to the, like, the passkey, um, support. Like, I, I know that there are, are some things that are, you know, just because passkeys, there’s some stuff that isn’t figured out, like, exporting and whatnot. But, like, if you use passkeys on multiple devices, that, especially if they’re not all Apple devices, 1Password, in my opinion, is the best solution because it does, it’ll sync everywhere.
[00:24:35] Christina: So a passkey that I have, you know, on like, uh, uh, you know, will work on Linux or on Windows or on my Mac or my iPhone or on whatever, which is really, really great. So,
[00:24:46] Jeff: Yeah. Christina loves it on Arch Linux. Big. Big fan. She built, she built that from the ground. I mean, I have to,
[00:24:52] Christina: I, I, yeah, yeah, I, I, I did. And because I’m going to tell everybody, you know, that I use Arch. But no, they, I, they do actually have a Linux client.
[00:24:58] Christina: So, good [00:25:00] stuff.
[00:25:00] Jeff: because this is almost as fun as toilets. Um, I just, a couple of things I want to add. One is that one thing I’ve started using more and more is in one password. You can send somebody a password, login information, and you can choose that it only goes that person. You can say it can only be used once. You can say it can be used for seven days.
[00:25:15] Jeff: I use that all the time. And that became like, The importance of that became really incredible when I found an onboarding document in our, in our files that had, it was like a Google doc with all of our key passwords in it, despite the fact that we have one password. The other thing I want to say is that there is nothing more fun.
[00:25:29] Jeff: Literally you could pass time doing this. If you were ever just kind of like bored, you were waiting at the doctor’s office. Just start generate, generating three word passwords. I’m going to do a few right now in one password. Okay. Here’s one, Kate. Pasty, Punt. That’s fun. Okay, here’s another one. Here’s another one.
[00:25:44] Jeff: Imply, Soften, Eclat, Perplex, Kohlrabi, Posit. I mean, come on, this is a great time.
[00:25:51] Brett: So, yeah, the space is a valid character in passwords. And once I realized that, uh, it increased my [00:26:00] usage of random three or four word, just random combinations of words, which on their own, uh, it becomes, uh, Not as unguessable as a 20 character random string with symbols, but, uh, but kind of on par. So like, um, Weasel, Monkey, Buttstuff can be a great password.
[00:26:25] Jeff: Totally. Yeah. And by the way, everybody, when you make your O’s, zeros, it’s not helping you.
[00:26:30] Brett: Yeah, right.
[00:26:31] Jeff: but that’s, that’s another story
[00:26:33] Brett: When you do, when you use leet speak, that’s, uh, that’s in most dictionaries.
[00:26:37] Jeff: when you
[00:26:37] Christina: Yeah, it is at this
[00:26:38] Jeff: not helping you.
[00:26:40] Christina: Unfortunately, we’ve all used, you know, whatever, like, the password, like, with one on the end. Like, we’ve all done that enough times that everybody knows. And the elite speak is unfortunately now in the dictionaries because, yeah, we’ve, enough breaches have happened and, uh, everyone knows our, uh, our [00:27:00] tells.
[00:27:00] Jeff: But yeah, we reviewed one of those annual reports of most commonly used passwords once on this podcast. That is a really good time as well. It’s, it’s also humbling.
[00:27:09] Christina: it really is humbling. You’re like, yeah, and this is why I don’t want to know what any of them are. Like, genuinely, like, I don’t
[00:27:13] Jeff: Yeah, you do not want to know what any of them are. Cause you know what doesn’t come up? Zero, A, two, asterisk, four, three, A, B, capital C. Never comes up in the top used passwords.
[00:27:24] Christina: No. No. And it’s great, too. Sorry, go on.
[00:27:28] Brett: no, I was about to change topics, but you got more to say? Go for
[00:27:31] Christina: No, I’m done. I’m done.
[00:27:33] Reviving TUAW: A Controversial Story
[00:27:33] Brett: So one of the people affected by the CrowdStrike problem, uh, was Tim Stevens, who could not board a flight and got stuck. And you may remember Tim Stevens as the editor of Engadget. Which, for years now, has hosted the archives of a little blog called the Unofficial Apple Web Blog.
[00:27:58] Brett: Um, which was, [00:28:00] which was dead. You go to tua. com and it would redirect you to mGadget. But, Um, Yahoo, which now owns the 2R domain, or owned, past tense, sold it to a holding company which pulled some shenanigans. You want to tell us about
[00:28:19] Jeff: This story, I’m just going to spoil it. The story is insane. And also I want to come back to your pronunciation of Yahoo later.
[00:28:25] Christina: Yahoo!
[00:28:28] Jeff: Yahoo!
[00:28:30] Brett: I’m sorry, I just can’t do the inflection right.
[00:28:32] Christina: Well, no, I think, I think we all just watched the, the ads so many times. Yahoo!
[00:28:38] Jeff: Yahoo!
[00:28:38] Christina: yeah. Um, anyway, yeah. Okay, so, this goes back about, um, two weeks now, as, as you’ll hear this. I was sick, actually. And I think this is important to know, because I, I, I, I’m very proud of myself for accomplishing what I accomplished while I had the stomach flu.
[00:28:54] Christina: And John Gruber sent me a link to tuaw. com and it [00:29:00] had my byline on it. And I was like, laughing. I was like, okay, what is this? And then it turned out, I looked at it and I was like, why is this site still alive? Because as Brett mentioned, the site had been dead for close to 10 years. Well, it had been dead for, for close to close to 10, because it shut down in 2015.
[00:29:17] Christina: And, um, It was just redirecting to engadget. com, not even redirecting to the article links, just a full on redirect. And I was like, okay, why is this here? And then I look at this face and I see this face that is not mine, but I see, you know, byline Christina Warren, and I’m seeing articles written. And I was, at first I’d assumed that maybe somebody had bought the domain and they were like trying to backfill some of the past articles.
[00:29:39] Christina: I was like, okay, what is this? And then I looked a little closer and I realized, no, the site is back and they’re publishing new articles. Um, which, you know, look, that’s a thing. If Yahoo, the current owners of the AOL brands, Apollo Global, whatever, if they want to sell, uh, you know, an old domain because they think they can make a few dollars off of it, fine.
[00:29:59] Christina: If someone wants to try to [00:30:00] revive the brand, fine. But what was odd to me is that My name looked like I was still publishing new articles in July 2024. I’m like, okay, what is this? Right. And so I look further into it and I look at the about page and all of the author names are historical old school authors of TUAW.
[00:30:19] Christina: And so Brett’s name is there. Uh, uh, Victor’s name is there. Mike Rose’s name is there. Like everybody that we used to work with back in the day is there, but the photos are. AI generated. No, no. I mean, and this honestly pissed me off. I was like, could you at least have made me hotter? Like, genuinely, like that, that was like the biggest insult and injury.
[00:30:39] Christina: So what they did, um, according to their own about page, they said that they acquired the domain only and not the content, but that they quote, meticulously rewrote the content using archive.
[00:30:54] Jeff: Meticulously rewrote.
[00:30:55] Christina: yeah, yeah, they said that they meticulously rewrote the content, um, [00:31:00] using stuff that was on archive.
[00:31:01] Christina: org and, um, uh, to, to, to match, uh, current standards, which, okay. Um, and, and then they were publishing these things that way. So I, of course, immediately am mad and I’m sick, right? So I,
[00:31:15] Jeff: Oh my god, I would have been sick if I weren’t sick
[00:31:18] Christina: totally, totally.
[00:31:19] Jeff: mean, that is awful.
[00:31:20] Christina: I mean, cause, cause here’s the thing, like, we’ve seen this happen before. The hairpin is, is one recent example where like domains expire and somebody buys it and then they go through the archives to try to recreate the backlinks and, and sometimes the, you know, they’re somewhat adjusted, but whatnot, and, and we see that sort of thing before.
[00:31:36] Christina: Um, it’s happened for years. It’s gross, but it’s a thing. What I, what I did not expect genuinely was for someone to try to revive a site and then start publishing new content. under the names of the people who used to work there. And then what got even worse is I realized that the articles that were like the past backlinks were not the same.
[00:31:56] Christina: The slugs were the same. The articles had slightly, [00:32:00] sometimes the same headlines, sometimes slightly different, um, different authors attached. And then the content had been rewritten because what they did is they just, used AI to rewrite the content they found on archive. org, thinking I guess that somehow that would get them around the plagiarism issues, the copyright infringement issues, which it doesn’t.
[00:32:17] Christina: Um, so I was big mad. And so I posted about it on Twitter and on threads and at Mastodon, and then I sent a strongly worded email to the email address that was on this site saying, take my name down. I’m immediately, or else I will contact, you know, I will get lawyers involved. You know, I’m, I’m a public figure.
[00:32:36] Christina: This is going to harm, you know, my professional prospects. I don’t want any association with you. This is not my work. Fuck off. I didn’t use the fuck off part, but I was just like, take it, take it down immediately. And I didn’t expect anything. I didn’t expect them to respond, um, because I was like, I don’t know where they’re based, you know, I don’t know what my legal options are.
[00:32:53] Christina: I was like, I will, in my mind, I was like, okay, I will contact a lawyer and send a cease and desist, but whatever. Um, [00:33:00] and then much to my surprise and delight, the tech press saw my posts and Engadget, 404 Media, uh, Jason Snell at Six Colors, uh, The Verge, and then later on, uh, people like Ars Technica and other places wrote about it too, all wrote about this.
[00:33:18] Christina: And um, Ernie Smith from TDM was able to find out who is behind this shady company. And it’s this guy who um, he also did something similar to iLounge, although it seems like he might have officially bought that from the old iLounge owner. But like, they’ve done this before where like, you know, just buys like old kind of dead brands and, and then starts pumping out what looks like plagiarized content.
[00:33:42] Christina: Um, You know, full of probably, you know, who even knows if they have affiliate links, but you know, just, I don’t know what their business model is, but he’s just been doing this stuff.
[00:33:53] Brett: is what’s the fucking point?
[00:33:55] Christina: Yeah, exactly. have no idea. I don’t, I don’t get it.
[00:33:59] AI Articles and Identity Theft
[00:33:59] Brett: [00:34:00] the end game of
[00:34:01] Christina: I don’t either, because this is such a weird, like many years old strategy, you know, of trying to do something like Google doesn’t rank these things well anymore.
[00:34:08] Christina: So I don’t even understand why this is here. Um,
[00:34:11] Brett: if most of it was done with AI, like it’s still a lot of effort to put into what end, like, and like you said, this, like, I didn’t want these AI regurgitated articles coming up in Google searches for my name,
[00:34:26] Christina: right. I mean, that, that was my primary concern, right? Was, I was like, I don’t want people, because for better or worse, like you’re the same way, Brett, like people associate us with TUAW and I don’t want people seeing things coming up and thinking, Oh, Christina’s writing for this site again, or Christina wrote this, right?
[00:34:40] Christina: I’m like, absolutely not. So fortunately, um, after the first, um, Press came out, they started to change the names. Like first my byline was changed from Christina to Christina Warren to Christina, which I thought was funny. And then it was changed to Mary Brown and then they started to change everyone else’s bylines.
[00:34:57] Christina: Now the past links that they’ve recreated, [00:35:00] like I don’t think there’s a whole lot we can do about that, but at least they don’t have our names associated with it. So that at least started within like The first six hours.
[00:35:08] The Resurrection of Old Content
[00:35:08] Christina: But then, and then more people wrote about it and it became kind of a second day story, which, which I didn’t expect.
[00:35:14] Christina: Um, but um, like I said, what’s funny though is that because people figure out who this guy was, he then started to try to delete himself off the internet, which was really funny. Like, he started to try to, like, he started to try to hide, like, like, taking away articles that he’d clearly, like, self written about himself to make him seem like he was, like, this big shot.
[00:35:34] Christina: Um, and, and, you know, removing his name from some other pages. And I was like, oh, okay, yeah, you, you think you can hide, now you’re just making this more interesting. Now we just really want to track down. Who you are, motherfucker. But yeah, what a,
[00:35:46] Jeff: yeah. Now it’s a game.
[00:35:48] Reflecting on Past Work
[00:35:48] Christina: yeah, but, but what a, what a weird thing to like find a site you wrote for in college, you know, like resuscitated from the dead with a photo that’s not yours, but your byline.[00:36:00]
[00:36:00] Jeff: Yeah, for Ichi, when was your last actual byline for I
[00:36:04] Christina: Uh, for me, it was 2009. Brett, you worked there a lot longer. Cause I know you, you went on to work at AOL proper.
[00:36:09] Brett: Right, that’s the thing is I kind of, I slowed down my blogging onto uh, when I started working for, as you call it, AOL Proper.
[00:36:18] Jeff: like that, it’s like L. A. proper.
[00:36:20] Brett: so I don’t remember what the last article I wrote was, but it would be prior to 2009 probably.
[00:36:29] Christina: No, I think you were probably after that. I think you were after that. Yeah, but
[00:36:32] Brett: wrote a couple here and there. Um, sometimes just to test new integrations I was building into Blogsmith.
[00:36:40] Christina: yeah, because I don’t, I, I, I think, I think you started working for them like after I left, but I could be wrong. But regardless, it’s been a very long time for both of us. And so it was a weird thing to see it. And then like, again, this is a site that’s been dead for 10 years. So, you know, um, uh, Steve Sandy, I saw a comment that he made on Apple Insider that [00:37:00] showed that like, I guess Yahoo had approached him two weeks before all this was discovered, offering like him to buy the domain because he’d started like a, a similar site to Chua after the fact.
[00:37:12] Christina: Um, but, but he’s retired and, and, and super into Jesus now. So he was not interested, but, um,
[00:37:19] Brett: I feel like he always was, he just knew enough to keep his mouth shut. In polite company.
[00:37:24] Christina: right, right. Well now that seems like
[00:37:26] Jeff: What’s that, what’s that skill like? I don’t have that muscle.
[00:37:29] Christina: But, uh, but, but he, he was not interested. And so, you know, it seems like, I guess they were looking at their assets. We’re like, Oh, well, maybe we can sell this cause it’s a four letter domain name and we can get value out of it. I don’t know.
[00:37:40] The Sale of Content Rights
[00:37:40] Christina: I just, what, what, what annoys me?
[00:37:42] Christina: Like, I’m annoyed with a few things. Like, obviously my, my main annoyance is with like the, you know, grifter assholes who did this and tried to steal our identities. Um, but I’m also pissed off at like Yahoo, Apollo Global, whatever for selling this stuff. Just so haphazardly because it’s like it’s like[00:38:00]
[00:38:00] Brett: could not, it couldn’t have been that profitable.
[00:38:02] Christina: what I’m saying like the 15 grand you got No, that’s what I’m saying because they couldn’t right it turned out Mike Schramm looked back through his or instead of Brad Linder, Brad Linder looked back through his contract and found like and I went back and Found mine too like we owned The rights to our content, um, uh, AOL, Weblogs, Inc.,
[00:38:20] Christina: whatever, had a perpetual license to, a non exclusive perpetual license to, you know, uh, republish it, but we owned our content, so they couldn’t sell the content. But like, yeah, it had to be like between five and 15 grand. I’m sure it was a cheap sale. You’re Apollo Global. What are you getting out of this?
[00:38:38] Christina: Like, somebody felt, somebody felt like, Oh, we’re, we’re doing super well here, guys. Yeah. Well, I hope that the bad publicity You know, shamed you of that, like, notion, but yeah, very frustrating, but very funny. I, I, I changed my avatar at Work Slack to the AI avatar, and then someone said, you should do that on all of your [00:39:00] socials, and I did that for a few days.
[00:39:01] Christina: Um, and, uh, I have a blue check because, um, Elon gave me one, and because of that, like, I had to wait a few more days before I could change it back to my normal face again, which was pretty funny. So
[00:39:13] Brett: changed, they changed my, they gave most people full name changes. That’s it.
[00:39:17] Christina: they only made yours, like, the, the first
[00:39:19] Brett: I’m, I’m Paul Terpstra now,
[00:39:22] Christina: Yeah,
[00:39:23] Brett: is how I, which is how I almost introduced myself at MacStack when I
[00:39:27] Christina: you should have. You should have. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, honestly, like, I think if you wanted to, you could probably send an email and be like, you need to make this even more distinctive. I don’t want any Terpstra association, you know, with this, with this site. But
[00:39:40] Brett: Yeah, no, I probably should. And they probably, I mean, given how fast they changed all those
[00:39:45] Christina: yeah, no, I think they would. I think they would because I think,
[00:39:48] Jeff: There’s a potential,
[00:39:49] Christina: know.
[00:39:50] Jeff: there’s a potential upside that hadn’t occurred to me until just now, because I only saw downside, which is that all of us have posts online. Probably that we’re just like, maybe it’s just like, I have some blog [00:40:00] posts, like from my journalism days where I’m like, Oh, stupid. I was just on, I had a quota and I wrote this thing and I really embarrassed that’s even there.
[00:40:07] Jeff: If it gets flooded with fake stuff, then it can be like, I don’t know, is that real or fake? And then nobody can judge you. If I, when I meet people and describe my work or something, and then I imagine them going and Googling me and finding some city pages, which was like a village voice media, all. Alt, you know, weekly thing, post from like 2007.
[00:40:26] Jeff: I’m like, Oh God, anything I said is a lie. Anyway, I’m sorry that happened. What a mess.
[00:40:33] Christina: Yeah.
[00:40:33] Jeff: future.
[00:40:34] Christina: I mean, look, thank you, John Gruber for like finding this. He, he was trying to find out why something wasn’t working on his system and he did a search result and it came up in Google. So apparently, you know, because I guess if the, the, the, the domain, because of the number of backlinks I’m, I’m assuming, um, and I guess this is why they did buy the site and why they recreated the backlinks.
[00:40:53] Christina: They were able to still rank in Google News. Now that to me is a fundamental Google problem. Like you should look at a site like this. This should [00:41:00] never be allowed to be indexed and be part of. You know, your stuff and to be serving stuff, um, but it was already getting served there. And so he was surprised.
[00:41:07] Christina: And at first, like I said, like, I didn’t even know what I was looking at at first. And then I looked closer and I was like, wait a minute, they’re publishing new content. Okay. Absolutely not. Like,
[00:41:16] Brett: well, so my first thought was they, they bought it all and like recreated it and then just didn’t bother to, because like you said, the slugs didn’t change and the slugs contained the date, uh, which, which always disagreed with the published date. In the article itself, and I thought that was just laziness, but then I started reading my so called posts and did not, A, half the time, I didn’t remember writing about half the topics I was, had a byline on, and the ones that I did, the ones that I did remember, I’m like, that doesn’t sound like me.
[00:41:51] Brett: I, I would have, I would have written that more tongue in cheek. I, I know myself better than that.
[00:41:56] Christina: know, and you did, it was funny because, uh, The Verge did a, did a [00:42:00] comparison between like the same post with the, with different, with the same link, like from an art, one from archive and one, the rewritten one to show like what the differences were. And, um, uh, Jason from 404 Media, um, who, who was great, who I talked to at length about, um, uh, for the story and who was very kind and quoted me a lot.
[00:42:17] Christina: Um, he, um, did the same thing. Like, I was on the phone with him talking to him about it. And we were both going through things together and like finding like the differences in how the rewrites had happened. And then there were certain things that we would just like cut off. Like it’s like the archive didn’t grab the full thing of the page.
[00:42:33] Christina: And so it would just like sentences would like just cut off mid sentence in certain posts, just the laziest implementation.
[00:42:39] Brett: Yeah, if you, if you read that 404 article, you would think Christina was the only writer at 2A.
[00:42:46] Christina: Well, I’m sorry, but I, I, but also, never,
[00:42:50] Brett: he, uh, he asked me for a comment and I just wrote back, this is terrible. I hope we can find some recourse. That was like, at which I think he did quote,
[00:42:59] Christina: did quote, he [00:43:00] quoted you in SRAM and I was just, I was willing to get on the phone because here’s the thing about me, I will never, um, like, take, you know, like, lose the opportunity to, you know, take a bad situation and turn it into good publicity. Like, you know what I mean? Like,
[00:43:15] Jeff: Can we just say 404 Media, it is, it feels like a death wish to name your, your organization this, and I’m referring to all the times I go to my old stories and get a 404 error. Uh, it’s a little bit of a, you know, you don’t want that to be a self fulfilling prophecy.
[00:43:32] Brett: Right.
[00:43:32] Christina: Uh, they’re a great site, though. Uh, they’re, they’re, um, a, um, a, um, like, um, author owned site, kind of like Defector. It’s a bunch of people who used
[00:43:39] Brett: They’re, they’re new, right?
[00:43:40] Christina: yeah, used to be the motherboard team, and they’ve started it. They’re really, really good. Um, I, I pay for them. They do really great work. Um, they’re gonna be at XOXO, and so I’m looking forward to seeing them, um, there.
[00:43:51] Christina: But yeah, they’re, they’re really good people. So,
[00:43:54] Jeff: I feel like used to be advised has to be asterisks like the good ones.
[00:43:57] Christina: Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, no, but this is, this is, [00:44:00] this is, this is, this is, uh, uh, Jason Peebler and, and, and Joseph Cox and, um,
[00:44:04] Jeff: Yeah, the good ones. So
[00:44:06] Christina: uh, um, Sam Cole, um, and, um, Emmanuel Myberg. So yeah, really good people, uh, basically like the tech version of Defector. So, uh, happy, happy for them. Um, but yeah, it was, uh, it was very weird, very weird thing that happened to us last week, Brett.
[00:44:23] Christina: Like, it was nice though. It Well, it was weird, too, because, like, we got, I got an email, I, I saw, like, Mike Schramm’s email about the 404 request before I even saw Jason’s email in my inbox. And I was like, you know, it was funny because we got, like, this, this kind of group email from people, you know, some people you have, I haven’t talked to in, like, 15
[00:44:40] Brett: Right. It
[00:44:41] Christina: was kind of nice. It was. It was, it was, it was really, in a really terrible way, but it was also, like, glad everybody’s doing well, you know?
[00:44:48] Jeff: Yeah, nice way to check in.
[00:44:50] Macstock Reunion
[00:44:50] Brett: of reunions, uh, last weekend was Macstock, um,
[00:44:55] Christina: Tell us about that.
[00:44:56] Brett: was not heavily attended, [00:45:00] um, but the people that were there were so great to connect with. Um, I actually had a really good connection with Dave Hamilton from our network, Backbeat Media. Um, I have a little Queerclick. Um, of like two gay guys and, uh, various other just like trans and queer people.
[00:45:23] Brett: And I don’t, it wasn’t ever intentionally a queer click. Um, it just kind of, you know, you attract a certain type of person and you become. Um, but that’s super fun. And then like all the podcasters, uh, that I like were there and I gave a talk and right before my talk, like I had peppered some dad jokes into my talk as I am want to do, um, and right before my talk, Elle text me a real bad one.
[00:45:55] Brett: So I decided to open with it before I said anything I said, [00:46:00] and I got full crowd participation on this. I said, knock, knock.
[00:46:04] Christina: Who’s there?
[00:46:06] Brett: Yoda Lady.
[00:46:07] Christina: Yoda lady who? That’s funny.
[00:46:10] Brett: and it, like, everyone did it. And then I just paused. And then there was great laughter. I was, I was amazed how well it went over. Um, my other ones were, uh, Where Do Bad Rainbows Go?
[00:46:25] Brett: To Prism. It’s a, it’s a light, no, it’s a light sentence, but it gives them time to reflect. Um, and This Morning I Tried To Catch Fog, But I Missed.
[00:46:37] Jeff: Oh man,
[00:46:39] Brett: And then, you know, just a slight pause and then you just move on with your talk. It works well. It’s my, it’s my formula.
[00:46:46] Christina: It’s your, it’s your dad, it’s your dad joke formula.
[00:46:48] Brett: yeah, I have a dad joke formula. My first year, I actually had a slide that just said, um, pause for laughter after one of those jokes.
[00:46:58] Brett: And then I just like moved on to the [00:47:00] next slide. Um, I, I, I do, I do funny presentations. I’m pretty good at funny. I also think like I covered a lot of stuff. My, my focus was smart mailboxes. Which, as usual, like the first year I did something kind of out there was I just did a deep dive on Spotlight. And I couldn’t believe the number of people who A, hadn’t used Spotlight, or B, didn’t realize like how powerful it was.
[00:47:26] Brett: And this is five operating systems ago. And then I did one on tagging and nobody Nobody had, this is right after Finder tags, like after they Sherlocked OpenMeta. Um, I guess, is it Sherlocking if it was free software? Um,
[00:47:46] Christina: absolutely.
[00:47:47] Brett: yeah, so, so I did tagging and nobody, nobody had been using tagging. Um, and I still get people at MaxSoc coming up to me asking me questions about tags because they started using them after [00:48:00] my talk.
[00:48:01] Brett: Um, yeah, it’s, it’s a blast. I, I love MaxSac. Like I said, I think there were a total of 150 people dead this
[00:48:08] Christina: I mean, I still
[00:48:08] Brett: but every Every one of them was super cool. We had so much fun. Um, the power went out in the hotel when we were all hanging out at the bar. Um, so it’s pitch black and I’m just walking around gently touching people’s butts so they think they’re being pickpocketed. Good times. It was just good times.
[00:48:29] Christina: That’s cool. That’s awesome. I love that.
[00:48:36] Brett: Yeah,
[00:48:36] Jeff: the mall,
[00:48:37] Brett: one of these years I’ll get, I’ll get one or both of you to come. Um, it’s not, it’s not a prestigious event like Christina is used to going
[00:48:47] Christina: Oh, come on. It’s not a matter of that. It’s really more of a time of, like, finding, like, making sure I can, like, make the, like,
[00:48:52] Brett: Yeah, it’s a longer trip for you than it is for us. Um, which I understand. Uh, and I brought Erin there [00:49:00] last year, two years ago. Um, my coworker Erin and she gave a talk and I felt bad for bringing her. Um,
[00:49:10] Jeff: she should have been on the stage, like the show you and I saw two weeks ago.
[00:49:15] Brett: right, oh my God. But the audience at MaxDocSkews, um, Like 70 year old white guy, um, which is not the demographic for a young trans woman to give a talk on, uh, logic.
[00:49:31] Jeff: the demographic for your
[00:49:33] Christina: What is her band? Isn’t her band called Genital Shame?
[00:49:36] Jeff: Genital Shame. Yeah, did you talk Brett and I went to see Genital Shame.
[00:49:40] Brett: I think we talked about it a bit last time, but yeah, it was outstanding. I, yeah, I’m a huge genital shame fan now, which is a weird sentence to say without context. Which I feel is the point of the band name, just to make it, uh, not [00:50:00] blatantly offensive, but awkward. It’s an awkward, it’s an awkward thing to
[00:50:04] Jeff: Yeah, totally. It’s great.
[00:50:06] Brett: Yeah. All right.
[00:50:09] GrAPPtitude: App Recommendations
[00:50:09] Brett: Um, should we get to GrAPPtitude?
[00:50:11] Jeff: wa.
[00:50:12] Christina: let’s do it.
[00:50:13] Brett: Um, I’ll kick it off cause I have a, I have a new one. I learned about this app from Mike Schmitz at MacStack.
[00:50:20] Christina: Nice.
[00:50:22] Brett: I have not used it extensively yet, but I’ve used it enough that dropping the 80 for an individual license was kind of a no brainer. So it’s called ScreenStudio.
[00:50:34] Brett: I’m sorry. I don’t have notifications turned off. Um, I had, it’s called, it’s from Dave Hamilton. Um, and I can only read the preview of it and I don’t know where it goes, but, um, so ScreenStudio is kind of like ScreenFlow automated. So all this stuff, so ScreenFlow is a screen recording app that can do, uh, full screen recordings and then you can [00:51:00] add callouts and focus windows and all that fun stuff to make it a fun, watchable video.
[00:51:07] Brett: But, ScreenStudio can automate the whole idea of like focusing where you’re clicking, panning to it, making your mouse cursor bigger, and you can just kind of record your screen and it will automate the process of creating a truly informative screen recording out of it. And 100 percent worth 80 bucks. I mean, I think ScreenFlow costs 99
[00:51:37] Jeff: about every year, practically.
[00:51:39] Christina: Yeah. I mean, I mean, that’s basically how it works. Yeah. I’ve, um, I haven’t bought ScreenStudio yet, but I have a lot of friends who have, and it’s, um, uh, people have talked about how great it is. So yeah, it, it,
[00:51:48] Brett: much, it’s much bandied about.
[00:51:50] Jeff: Much bandied about. I’m going to try this. That’s really awesome.
[00:51:54] Christina: cause it really helps you do.
[00:51:55] Brett: trial. You can give it a shot.
[00:51:57] Christina: Yeah. Cause I think the thing that’s really nice about it is like, it makes it really [00:52:00] easy to do like the kind of the, the zooming effects and, and things like that, like to make it look really slick and, and the editing from what I understand is a lot faster. So a lot of my, a lot of my colleagues are really like it.
[00:52:10] Brett: you don’t get all the multi track, uh, kind of power of Screen Studio or ScreenFlow. I love editing in ScreenFlow. Um, I will load in, if I just need to do cuts and fades on something rather than dealing with like DaVinci Resolve or. or Final Cut. I’ll just load it in ScreenFlow and do my quick edits and I have all the shortcuts set up on my, um, between my Stream Deck and my Shuttle Express.
[00:52:42] Brett: I can flip through editing in seconds. Um, but, You do have decent editing and faster editing in ScreenStudio. And like you said, like, to add, uh, to make your cursor bigger in ScreenFlow, it’s a matter of selecting the [00:53:00] clip, um, and it doesn’t, if you’ve split the clip at any point, now you have to join clips, and then you add a callout, and then you set the settings for the cursor, blow it up to the size you want, add builds, add inouts, and by the time you’re done, it looks great, but you just spent.
[00:53:17] Brett: Uh, three, four minutes blowing up your mouse
[00:53:20] Jeff: It sounds like, okay, so let’s, let’s imagine a sort of flow chart here. So in a way it’s like you start with CleanShot to meet your initial screen, you know, screencast needs, right? Then maybe it’s, it’s the ScreenStudio, which is somewhere between ScreenShot And ScreenFlow. So you can, I can imagine the use for all of them
[00:53:39] Brett: When you say screen, do you mean clean shot?
[00:53:41] Jeff: CleanShot. Did I say ScreenShot?
[00:53:42] Brett: You said screenshot,
[00:53:44] Christina: But I understood what you were saying as, I understood what you were
[00:53:46] Jeff: CleanShot, everybody. Yeah, that’s all I got.
[00:53:51] Brett: clean shot to screen studio. Yeah. We could make one of those, which OS is best for you
[00:53:56] Jeff: Yeah, exactly.
[00:53:57] Christina: No, I mean, I think that, I think that’s exactly right. And I think for a lot of [00:54:00] people, like, I think like, again, like if you’re making a course, if you’re doing something where what is, what’s being published, you know, you need to really have like the power, like you said, the multi tracks and stuff, like something like ScreenFlow or Camtasia or frankly, even DaVinci Resolve or, or, you know, Final Cut or whatever is going to be better for you.
[00:54:15] Christina: But, um, yeah. But, um, based on what my colleagues have said, like, ScreenStudio is really, really good. And I think it’s also nice, like, you can set, like, what the background of your stuff looks like. And I think just, like, it’s just, it’s, it’s been, you know, defined in a much more modern way. Which I
[00:54:31] Brett: Yeah. And you can, you can save, you can save presets for doing like backgrounds on, uh, isolated windows or even like iPhone recordings and yeah. Um, Yeah, it
[00:54:45] Jeff: I tell you a cautionary auto zoom story?
[00:54:48] Brett: yes.
[00:54:49] Jeff: So I was meeting with a client once and she was at her desk and they had, uh, they had one of those situations where you had like a camera that would auto zoom to you or whatever. And it was like a little [00:55:00] bit above her head, probably like eight or 10 inches.
[00:55:03] Jeff: And it kept zooming in tight on her cleavage. And then zooming back. And I was, I had to turn off the video. I had to turn off the video. Cause I was like, I’m not going to say anything, but your cleavage has given off face vibes to your camera. I don’t know what, I don’t know what that means even, but you should know, but I’m not going to tell you.
[00:55:21] Jeff: Uh, it was the most awkward, and it happened like five times in like 15 minutes. It just kept going. Anyway.
[00:55:29] Brett: believe the correct sound effect is Awooga.
[00:55:34] Jeff: Anyway.
[00:55:35] Brett: Alright, who’s next?
[00:55:37] Christina: Um, I’ll go. Um, so my pick is, uh, Kaleidoscope 5 and, uh, cause that just came out this week. And, uh, Kaleidoscope we’ve talked about before, um, is, uh, it’s a longtime Mac app, a diff app, a diff tool, uh, that has, uh, changed, um, ownership hands a number of times, but the current owners who bought it, I think probably two years ago have done a really, really good job, [00:56:00] I think, with like, uh, Like, like they not only did completely rewrite the app and, and kind of bring back like all the good things that with it, but they’ve improved it so much.
[00:56:10] Brett: many of these apps change hands and then wither. And Kaleidoscope is, in the two years, I think they’ve been through two major version
[00:56:19] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. They, they did move to a subscription model, but they’ve been adding things to it all the time, which I think is really great. And so Kaleidoscope 5 came out. Um, one of the main new features, which I really like is that they’ve integrated Git. They’d started doing that in, in the last month.
[00:56:32] Christina: Releases, uh, with, with, with a, in and the for, uh, branch, but now it’s actually like built into kaleidoscope. So you can basically just like add in what gi repos you want and basically like as, as your, you know, as you can compare files that are in your, like your working directory. So you can compare like, okay, what are, you know, um, I, how can I compare the different, um, things between my working copy and this one, which I think is a really nice visual way of, of looking at stuff, um, and, and really, really good.
[00:56:59] Christina: [00:57:00] Um, they’ve also had, um, you know, uh. Like they have like a change set feature, which is, which is like, um, connected, um, to, to the Git stuff. And so you can kind of like view your change set and your file history of things. Um, and they even have that like as, you know, integrated in with the other apps they integrate with, but yeah, they have integration with Xcode and with VS code and, and JetBrains and, and things like that.
[00:57:24] Christina: And
[00:57:24] Brett: they, they do all that integration with a service. I mean, like, so they’ve always had some kind of Xcode and even like Safari debugger and integration, but what they added was a service where you can just select a hash for a commit and load up, um, Kaleidoscope, you know, with a right click services or assign a keyboard shortcut to it.
[00:57:47] Brett: And so any app that can display a hash for Any commit, uh, you can load that commit automatically in, uh, Kaleidoscope. And like you said, there’s like a full [00:58:00] repo browser, basically. You can, like, compare between branches, compare bet compare between commits. Um, it is, so I use Tower for most of my, uh, graphical Git management.
[00:58:14] Brett: And And it does a decent job of branch comparisons, but it also integrates with Kaleidoscope. So I do most of that in Kaleidoscope. I do all of my Git merge conflicts in Kaleidoscope. It’s brilliant for that. But yeah, I love
[00:58:31] Jeff: I love Kaleidoscope.
[00:58:33] Christina: yeah, really good app. So yeah, version five just came out and I’m, I’m really happy, um, uh, for them. Like, like, again, like most, like Brett said, most apps, when they change hands, like it’s kind of a death spiral. And that certainly was the case with Kaleidoscope, which has changed hands a number of times.
[00:58:47] Christina: Like it, you know, it had been like kind of this brilliant diff app. And like, I still like had it, but I was like,
[00:58:52] Brett: Yeah, we were all still promoting it, but we’re like, eh, we don’t know its future.
[00:58:56] Christina: Exactly. It’s like, this hasn’t been touched in a long time. We don’t know what’s going on. And like, they came [00:59:00] in and they, they did the really, really hard work of reviving it and making it better. And, um, um, so yeah, just huge, uh, huge fan.
[00:59:11] Brett: Nice. What you got, Jeff?
[00:59:13] Jeff: So I had a, we had someone over for dinner the other night. I’d never met him, him and his wife, and he’s a, he’s a singer and kind of a sound artist. And, um, he was telling me about a project he was working on. It’s really amazing, which is like, he was explaining how like robins, the birds, robins have like a vocabulary and, and they have their own kind of vocabulary that is different from other robins.
[00:59:34] Jeff: And, and up to like, I think 30 or 40 individual sort of Let’s say words. And, and he was describing, he’s been recording them with a shotgun mic and, and sampling them. And he pulls up his phone to show me the, the, um, the samples. And it’s just this nice little, you know, soundboard, like nine buttons. And, and he’s, he’s pushing them, showing them, he set it to like half speed, whatever, and it was the most elegant.
[00:59:58] Jeff: thing. And I was like, what app is this? [01:00:00] And it was this app called Koala, which is like a sampling app, like just super elegant, super low, like super quick, like, uh, learning curve. And so incredibly fun. And you can just start sampling your voice if you want. And, and this, so this. It gets me to a quiz. I have an 80s quiz for you because this happened to him and I, uh, we, we connected on something really special.
[01:00:25] Jeff: I don’t, but here’s the thing. Did you ever watch, let’s call it the Huxtable show,
[01:00:29] Christina: Yeah,
[01:00:30] Jeff: Cosby show. Okay. So do you happen to remember the episode where the family visits Stevie Wonder in the studio?
[01:00:37] Christina: Yeah, one of the best episodes ever. Yeah.
[01:00:39] Jeff: Yeah, so basically there’s this moment, it’s iconic in my life and among my friend group and my bands.
[01:00:46] Jeff: We’re all the same age and we all watched this episode when it aired in 1984, um, where Theo Huxtable, Stevie Wonder calls him over, Stevie Wonder invites him into the studio so he can show him all the cool shit he does. And it’s an amazing episode, it’s like as good as like a Mr. [01:01:00] Rogers episode basically because you actually learn and I actually learned I’d never heard of a sampler.
[01:01:04] Jeff: And so he says to Theo Huxtable. Say something like, what would you say at a party? And Theo goes, jammin on the one. And then it’s instantly a sample, and Stevie Wonder’s on his keyboard going, jammin on the one, jammin on the one, right? Okay, so put that aside. I have never heard that in the wild in my life.
[01:01:20] Jeff: So this guy has his sampler app in front of me, and I ask what it is, and he’s like, oh, let me show you how it works. He hits the thing, and we basically both go jammin on the one. And it was the most amazing thing. And what was just really super cool about it was that like for him, um, that was also his first time seeing into a studio and his first time seeing a sampler.
[01:01:39] Jeff: And he’s someone who does sample stuff all the time now. So I just want to like shout out to the Huxtable show. Um, for just like creating that opportunity and, and actually I can only imagine that there are many, many people out there for whom this was also like a, uh, just like a sort of portal opening moment.
[01:01:57] Jeff: So anyway, Koala is the, is the app. It’s [01:02:00] super awesome. Um, I’m working on pulling samples that I want to put into it now. Uh, and, and I, I love it so much. I already sampled some Mike Watt, uh, bass thumps with his voice, um, especially his song, Big Train. And that was thrilling.
[01:02:16] Brett: Nice.
[01:02:17] Jeff: So yeah, that’s what I got.
[01:02:18] Brett: Cool. I should, I should play with this. I used to be, I used to own like hardware samplers. Um, I had so much fun, like walking around with a field recorder. I
[01:02:28] Christina: Oh yeah, I bet.
[01:02:30] Brett: music, Nits, Nitsareb kind of stuff. And like recording like grocery carts, smashing together and turning, turning it into a crash cymbal.
[01:02:39] Jeff: And you can thousand percent do that here, right? Like it’s just anywhere you are, you just hit the button. It samples from your, from your mic. It’s fricking awesome.
[01:02:46] Christina: That’s so
[01:02:46] Brett: Love it. I’ll be playing with that. It’s been a long time.
[01:02:50] Jeff: Jamming on the one.
[01:02:52] Christina: Jammin on
[01:02:52] Brett: Jamming on the one. Is that the episode title?
[01:02:55] Jeff: the episode title it’s season two episode. I’ll put the link in right now. [01:03:00] Um,
[01:03:00] Brett: I was talking about our episode,
[01:03:01] Christina: the one. Yeah, I think
[01:03:03] Brett: on right
[01:03:03] Jeff: episode jamming on the one. Yeah, please.
[01:03:05] Christina: on the one. Yeah, I
[01:03:06] Brett: Unless it’s about toilets.
[01:03:08] Christina: Is that her birthday brain? But I think Jammin on the One.
[01:03:12] Jeff: Yeah,
[01:03:12] Brett: I like it.
[01:03:13] Jeff: I like
[01:03:13] Brett: And people will listen all the way through
[01:03:16] Jeff: And I’m putting that’s right,
[01:03:18] Brett: one hour mark to
[01:03:19] Jeff: come from? I’m gonna put the episode clip, the Stevie Wonder
[01:03:23] Christina: Yes, please
[01:03:24] Jeff: show notes now.
[01:03:25] Christina: No, that, that episode is so funny. Uh, like, I think because, because they ran and rerun so much. So I was not really cognizant, like, when it first aired, but it was in, you know, syndication for so long. Like, that’s such a good episode of TV. And
[01:03:37] Jeff: Oh, it’s amazing.
[01:03:39] Christina: just, like, the, the, the kids, like, the, the, the kid actors, like, genuinely glee that you can see of them being with Stevie, you know,
[01:03:46] Jeff: Yeah, like the actors themselves,
[01:03:48] Christina: like Lisa Bonet and Malcolm Schmall Warner, like, you can tell they are just, like, besides themselves, because, I mean, which, who wouldn’t be, right?
[01:03:56] Christina: But, yeah.
[01:03:57] Jeff: Yep. Completely. Yeah. Totally amazing. I [01:04:00] loved that show so, so very much.
[01:04:03] Christina: Yeah, it was a great show. It’s very disappointing that we have to, like, view it in a different context. Um, and, and I’ve, I’ve long been, like, a Lisa Bonet, like, wha So, I’ve, like, since probably 2005 or something, like, had, like, complicated feelings about the Cosby show even before all of his other stuff was more known.
[01:04:21] Christina: Just because I was like, just because I was like, it was fucked up what you did to, like, the best character on the show, like, you, you guys did Denise Dirty, fuck off. But like, the show itself, like, I, I can separate those things, um, and, uh, yeah. Very, very good TV. And like, that’s just, that’s one of those great sitcom episodes.
[01:04:38] Remembering Bob Newhart
[01:04:38] Christina: Um, speaking of good sitcoms, and actually from people who are not problematic, um, Bob Newhart died, um,
[01:04:45] Jeff: I know. Hi, Bob. I pulled up some Bob Newhart on YouTube
[01:04:50] Brett: how, how many years did he make it without becoming problematic?
[01:04:53] Jeff: I mean, 94. Yeah.
[01:04:56] Brett: that’s a good
[01:04:57] Jeff: And my brother, Daryl is my other brother, Daryl.
[01:04:59] Brett: [01:05:00] And even had like a recurring and adorable part on the Big Bang
[01:05:05] Christina: Yeah,
[01:05:05] Jeff: Oh, I never saw him on that. I only see that show in the hotels.
[01:05:08] Christina: And, and he was in Elf. And like, like, it’s funny, like, that’s
[01:05:11] Jeff: Oh yeah. No. Incredible in
[01:05:13] Christina: so good at Elf. Well, I mean, it was funny. Go
[01:05:16] Jeff: Go ahead. No, no, you, you.
[01:05:17] Christina: No, I was saying, I was having, I was explaining him to some, um, somebody yesterday who I was like, no, you know, if you saw him, you would know who he was. I’m like, I’m not saying that he invented deadpan humor, but I’m not not saying it either.
[01:05:28] Jeff: Yeah, yeah. No, for sure. So, uh, can I just share, can we go out on an elf story? Um, so, uh, as my, as my wife said when she posted, uh, about this, like, there are two kinds of people in the world, those who think elf is hilarious and those who don’t. Um, and so she had just read an article and the article was like about the filming of the movie and of course James Caan’s in it.
[01:05:53] Jeff: God, what an amazing person and what a bizarre place for him to be, but also
[01:05:57] Christina: so good in it too.
[01:05:58] Jeff: And, and the [01:06:00] bit was that, I don’t know who was, I don’t know if he was telling the story or Will Ferrell or someone else, but apparently in the, in the shooting of that movie, at some point he said to Will Ferrell, I just don’t think you’re funny.
[01:06:09] Jeff: Like, I don’t get you. And, and like the end of it is great because apparently like while he was shooting it, he just could not figure out why this is funny, but saw the movie and realized this is incredible. And I think that the fact that that’s how he felt about Will Ferrell in that movie must contribute to how amazing he is as that father in
[01:06:28] Christina: Absolutely. No, without a doubt, without a doubt. Um, also, fun fact about Bob Newhart, he won the Grammy in 1961 for Best New Artist and Best Album of the Year.
[01:06:40] Jeff: Hell yeah. Go get him, Bobby.
[01:06:43] Brett: he had an album.
[01:06:44] Christina: we had a number of comedy albums, right? Like, so it was for a
[01:06:46] Brett: Oh, sure, sure. Okay.
[01:06:48] Christina: he also won, like, Best Comedy Performance Spoken, but like, that’s how crazy, like, that’s, that’s nuts to think about. Like, the Album of the Year in 1961 was not, like, Uh, a rock record or, you know, like jazz or anything else.
[01:06:59] Christina: [01:07:00] It was fucking Bob Newhart. The button down mind of Bob Newhart, one album of the year, which is amazing. Yeah, no, they were very
[01:07:08] Brett: that up. I’ve never heard his, his, I’ve never heard his recorded
[01:07:12] Christina: I
[01:07:12] Jeff: So, Deadpan
[01:07:14] Brett: him from TV and that’s about it.
[01:07:17] Jeff: and Elf.
[01:07:17] Christina: And Elf. Elf. Elf. We love Elf.
[01:07:20] Jeff: Well, I’m not going to get any sleep now because all I’m going to think about is Bob Newhart. I might have to watch a few, a few episodes tonight.
[01:07:25] Christina: Yeah.
[01:07:27] Brett: All right. I love you guys.
[01:07:28] Jeff: Hey, love you back. Happy birthday, brother. Get some birthday sleep.
[01:07:31] Christina: Get some sleep.
After a brief hiatus, Brett and Christina are back, juggling life’s chaos from sciatica distress and political uproar to mouthwatering taco discoveries and tech marvels. They dissect mental health struggles, modern politics, and the power of local action. Brett spills on his heartwarming mushroom taco experience and flaunts his shiny new iPhone 15 and Sonos Ace headphones, while Christina geeks out over iTerm2’s latest update. With witty banter and unfiltered thoughts, they tackle the iTerm2 AI drama, share their love for the open-source Home Assistant, and more. Plug in your earbuds for a rollercoaster of emotions, tech talk, and foodie fantasies.
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00:00 Introduction and Jeff’s Absence
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Politics, Money, and Tacos
[00:00:00] Introduction and Jeff’s Absence
[00:00:00]
[00:00:03] Brett: Welcome back to Overtired, couple weeks off, uh, it’s gonna be a little sporadic through the summer, but, uh, I’m Bret Terpstra, I am here with Christina Warren, Jeff is out this week, right before we recorded, he tweaked his back and now he is laying down and does not want to podcast laying down, uh, I guess, I get that.
[00:00:26] Brett: Um, Christina, how are you?
[00:00:29] Christina: I’m good. I’m good. I’m, I’m very, I, I feel for Jeff. Cause like, I know like back pain is like one of the worst things ever. So, um, and, and you know that, um, very well too. So, um, I, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m fine, but I’m, I am, uh, worried about our comrade.
[00:00:46] Discussing Back Pain and Sciatica
[00:00:46] Brett: Have you ever had sciatica?
[00:00:49] Christina: yes, I have, but usually what I get, um, cause I have, I have scoliosis, so my back pain is usually different, but I have had sciatica before. Not often though.
[00:00:58] Brett: Yeah, I have [00:01:00] minor scoliosis. I always hated those checks in gym class. But, um, yes, sciatica wrecked me for like two weeks the first time I had it. Um, and I thought it was just lower back pain, but it’s actually in my, in your like upper thigh. Um, and the solution was massage. I went to like a sports therapist who massaged And it took 15 minutes and she basically fixed my sciatica with like a deep tissue massage.
[00:01:33] Brett: But that’s, that’s, that’s irrelevant because that’s probably not what Jeff did in his paddle boat, uh, over the weekend. Um, happy 4th of July. I guess, happy treason day.
[00:01:47] Christina: God, I don’t even know, man. Like I, I’m so, okay.
[00:01:52] Political Anxiety and Mental Health
[00:01:52] Christina: So we’re not even getting into the mental health corner yet, and this isn’t even really a mental health corner thing, but it’s kind of a, [00:02:00] except it kind of is. So I feel kind of like an asshole for saying this, but at the same time, this is genuinely like a protective thing that I need to do, like for my mental health and for other things.
[00:02:12] Christina: But I, I can’t be bothered to be upset or care or get too like mad about this election that Biden is absolutely going to lose. Like, I’m, I’m so, I’m, I’m, I’m so upset by the prospect of another four years of Trump, don’t get me wrong, but like, I just don’t have the energy to either, to, to be engaged, outraged, or like, even like, I don’t even want to think about it.
[00:02:40] Christina: You know what I mean? Right.
[00:02:41] Brett: Yeah, I do. I know exactly what you mean. Um, like I have already lost hope and project 2025 is scary as shit. Um, and I can’t spend all day thinking about it. Um, what I have done is focus more [00:03:00] on local, um, politics and grassroots efforts, um, that really have nothing to do with. The presidential election, because like you said, it’s almost a lock.
[00:03:12] Brett: Um, I, I, I will not go so far as to make a prediction, but in my, in my opinion, it is, it’s a lock for Trump and, and we are fucked and the Supreme Court is just, you know, Decision after decision that are, it’s the most activist court in history and I just can’t spend all day thinking about this. I limit myself to like 20 minutes of like news slash outrage a day and then I just move on.
[00:03:43] Brett: Focus on things I can actually control and change and not lose hope. Because there’s no hope out there right now. It’s fucking, it’s fucked up.
[00:03:55] Christina: No, that, that, that’s totally, I’m, I’m, I’m in a very similar thing because, [00:04:00] yeah, it’s, it’s so upsetting to think about, um, on so many levels. And it’s not that I’m wanting to be like, head in the sand, I don’t care. It’s, it’s almost kind of the inverse. It’s like, no, I care so much, but I know there’s nothing that I can do.
[00:04:12] Christina: And, That’s exactly what it is. That’s exactly what it is. And, and honestly, it’s one of those things where I, you know, um, it, I don’t know if this is, if this is how people become apathetic, maybe it is. I, it feels different. It feels like usually people don’t go through the sorts of trauma that we as a society collectively have gone through since 2016, right?
[00:04:32] Christina: With, you know, first Trump thing and then pandemic and everything else. But, um, because we were just so polarized because things are so bad because it’s just. Thing on top of thing on top of thing, the Supreme Court. You know, you think about like, when you think about like the ultimate like bad decisions, I mean, obviously, you know, people can be understandably upset about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and saying she should have left before she did, which maybe is true.
[00:04:57] Christina: But at the same time, even if she had like [00:05:00] left with plenty of time, I, I don’t, I’m not convinced that, that Obama ever would have been able to get. The, um, you know, confirmation at the time, right? Like, I think that we were just kind of fucked because they weren’t playing hardball enough. Like, everybody just assumed, okay, well, 2016’s a lock, so we don’t have to push and, and have these Supreme Court appointments when they needed to really have them, you know, in, in 2016 when there was plenty of time, right?
[00:05:24] Christina: When you would still potentially have a fucked court, but it wouldn’t be to the level that it is now. And it’s just like, that more than. Even like the election and other things are the things that are going to have these, you know, like carry on ramifications that are so upsetting. Exactly. Right. Because that’s the real thing.
[00:05:41] Christina: Like, like the, the, the Supreme court stuff that, you know, like the, you know, the stuff that they, you know, keep rolling back. Um, and not even just on women’s rights, but on, on so many other levels, like it’s so disturbing and it’s so upsetting on so many, you know, issues that it’s like, that’s the thing that, you know, Yeah, we’ll have 30 plus [00:06:00] that, that we can’t unravel, right?
[00:06:01] Christina: That even if we had a good candidate to run right now, which we don’t, um, like what’s going to happen, right? Because the, the, unfortunately the age of the justices that you need to get out, um, are, it doesn’t align, right?
[00:06:16] Brett: I mean, there’s the option to expand the Supreme Court,
[00:06:20] Christina: yeah, but not
[00:06:21] Brett: its own lasting repercussions,
[00:06:23] Christina: totally, but, but, but that’s not going to happen when we, when there’s, unless you have a super majority. in both houses. You won’t ever get that pass. And even then, that’s not even a guarantee, because there’s, that’s a risk, right? Like, so, okay, we, we, we expand the court for three more seats.
[00:06:38] Christina: Great. Um, what does that mean, like, when powers shift again? Like, there’s, there’s very valid reasons why, why that sort of thing has not happened before. And it’s, I don’t know. Yeah. Um, yeah, but yeah,
[00:06:55] Brett: absolutely a mental health corner. We have begun the mental health
[00:06:59] Christina: We’ve begun the mental [00:07:00] health corner. Yeah. So that’s, I’ll just kind of start and kind of finish.
[00:07:02] Christina: Like I I’m, I’m doing okay. Um, I had some stressful stuff, um, uh, last week, um, uh, work related, um, that I was able to get through, but it was, it was, it was a lot.
[00:07:13] Conference Experiences and AI
[00:07:13] Christina: I went to a conference in San Francisco. It was a really good event, but the lead up to the event, there was just a lot of stuff that was involved with it that came in, um, pretty hot, even hotter than usual.
[00:07:22] Christina: And as, as. Um, much as like, ADHD is a superpower for, um, like tight deadlines, um, there are some things that, like, there just aren’t enough man, man hours for, and that, you know, can just be too much, but, but things, things went well, but, um, I was, uh, it was like the, the event ended on, um, Thursday, like the day of the debate, and I was, I was in a bar, I was in the hotel bar, like, all day.
[00:07:49] Christina: While the debate was happening and like they, they had it on one of the TVs, but not even all of them and just watching, just even silence, like with, you know, without even any captions or [00:08:00] anything on, I was just like, filled with dread and I was like, okay, you know what? Executive decision. I’m not fucking with this.
[00:08:06] Christina: I’m not opening Twitter. I’m not engaging. I caught up the next day and it was exactly as bad as I, I anticipated it would be. But I’m very glad I didn’t watch it in real time. Go on.
[00:08:16] Brett: I’m just going to interject this. Um, in a poll, only 65 percent of respondents thought that Trump won the debate. I don’t understand how anyone doesn’t think Trump won the debate.
[00:08:30] Christina: No, this is a Nixon Kennedy situation, right?
[00:08:34] Brett: fact checking aside, but
[00:08:36] Christina: Right, but, but who cared? Well, that was, that was the interesting thing from the polls, right? Was that I think anybody with eyes knew that, that, uh, you know, or, or any, so any level of cognition, um, greater than Joe Biden’s, which would, you know, I’m sorry that’s, but I had to, it’s right there.
[00:08:53] Christina: But like anybody with like, uh, you know, just like a monochrome of any sort of cognition or, or any ability, I think knew he [00:09:00] won, but. Like the, the big thing is like that it didn’t, at least from what the initial polls I saw was, it was like, it didn’t change anybody’s opinions. Right. Like undecideds were still undecided.
[00:09:11] Christina: And, and it’s so partisan at this point. Right. But, but the problem is, is that it’s, you know, and this is why there’s so many calls from inside the house being like, we got to replace them. And it’s like, it’s too late guys. Like that, that, that ship sailed. And a lot of people were trying to call for that months ago when they were, you know, pilloried and, and, and really attacked, um, by the establishment, by the way.
[00:09:32] Christina: Some of the same people who are now like, man, we got to fix this. It’s like, yeah, kind of fucked. Um, but like, the, the, the worry is, is that people just aren’t going to show up to vote because,
[00:09:44] Brett: because who gives a fuck anymore?
[00:09:46] Christina: right. And also, what is it like?
[00:09:50] Brett: That said, that said, I will absolutely show up to vote, and I will vote blue all the way down the ticket. Um, like, that’s [00:10:00] just, I think, I honestly think a majority in Congress would be More effective than like it, like they could stop Trump from causing some damage, although project 2025, basically. Gives all power to the executive branch and Congress can’t really stop basically populating all of government with, um, sycophants.
[00:10:31] Brett: Yeah. It’s going to be a mess. Sorry. I didn’t mean to derail your,
[00:10:35] Christina: No, it’s okay.
[00:10:36] Brett: conferences have you been to this year?
[00:10:38] Christina: A bunch, but this was just this, yeah, but this was just like a, a last minute kind of ask. And, um, but it was good. It was, it was, it was an AI conference. Um, the AI Engineer World’s Fair, it was kind of a crappy name, but actually a really good event. And, um, uh, I think it was a good mix of people, um, who, you know, varying levels of, of how much [00:11:00] they have awareness about, you know, what’s happening with generative AI and, and, you know, All those things.
[00:11:04] Christina: Um, you know, some people are really actively involved. Some people, you know, are more, you know, peripheral. Some people kind of in between. Um, I, despite not having any sort of like CS, you know, like a traditional CS background and certainly not in, into the level of stuff that, you know, like the really good AI people are, are there for, like, I can’t do the low level shit, but I’ve been getting more and more into, you know, various APIs and, and playing with various models and stuff over the last, you know, couple of years.
[00:11:33] Christina: And,
[00:11:33] Brett: Has there been any good, has there been any good hackathon around, Generative AI. I haven’t seen news about one.
[00:11:44] Christina: That I don’t know. Um, but that’s a good question. I bet there probably have been some, but I don’t know. But yeah, cause that would be a
[00:11:50] Brett: could be pretty cool to see. Um, we at Oracle are, my team is doing a huge push on this AI hub [00:12:00] where we’re interfacing with all of the other teams at Oracle that are working with AI and they’re Well, like Oracle has its own, like, kind of LLM and, and generative AI service that obviously is inferior because it’s Oracle.
[00:12:16] Brett: Um, but the teams that are making use of it are doing some really cool shit. Like, um, there’s one that uses drones to examine, um, construction projects. And reports failures. Uh, um, what are they called? Uh, potential failures. Like it can analyze, like say a beam is rusting, like it can pick that up and it can process the data and give you a full report on like, how many years will this last?
[00:12:52] Brett: What is the extent of the damage? And it all, it uses AI. To process all of the images from the drone and it’s [00:13:00] cool and there’s there’s yeah I’ve done I’ve done five or six myself now and every time I’m like man, this is actually a Reason I give people a lot of shit about generative AI for the average person Who’s sending me emails written by AI that drive me nuts.
[00:13:23] Brett: Um, I don’t know, people, people don’t give the second prompt to like make this sound, make this sound less like AI. Um, but when it comes to like industry and practical uses, it, it blows my mind and I would love to see a hackathon around it.
[00:13:45] Christina: Yeah. I think that like when I was doing some kind of cursory searches while you were saying that, I think like some individual companies have been kind of doing things, but I don’t know of any like big ones, like more broader, like kind of community things. But, [00:14:00] um,
[00:14:01] Brett: I should push for an Oracle. Hackathon, that could be really good on my, my yearly review.
[00:14:08] Christina: Yeah, no, that’s, that’s how you get a promotion or like a raise or whatever. That’s how you show value. Try to get that off the ground and then, you know, write that up in your, in your,
[00:14:17] Brett: Oracle doesn’t give raises anymore. I’m, I’m convin I won’t know what compensation I get until September, but I guarantee you there will be no raise. Which means, basically, our Pay is decreasing because it’s not keeping up with costs of living and
[00:14:37] Christina: Right.
[00:14:38] Brett: so they’re basically paying us less every year by not giving us even, like, a 5 percent raise.
[00:14:46] Brett: They give me, like, a bonus that amounts to, like, 1%. of my yearly salary and it, it means nothing. It literally means nothing. Um, no, what’s [00:15:00] going to save me is my first year at Oracle. My bonus was, uh, 100, 000
[00:15:10] Christina: RSUs.
[00:15:10] Brett: RSUs. And they vest yearly. So this year I’ll get a quarter of that. And Oracle stock is great right now. Um, and you know, I’ll take it.
[00:15:22] Christina: Mm hmm.
[00:15:23] Brett: That’s a good bonus. That’s like a four year bonus they gave me.
[00:15:27] Christina: No, I mean, that’s amazing. No, when I joined Microsoft, um, my sign on amount of stock was, was actually really insulting in retrospect, but I didn’t know that and I didn’t know what to ask for and, and all of that. But because when I joined the company, the stock was like 65 at the time or something.
[00:15:45] Christina: By the time, like the initial, I think it was a four year period or whatever, by the time it all vested, like, because it was one of those things where like, you know, annually, That the stock at that point had like 4X’d, so it wound up being like the total value that [00:16:00] I got out of it, you know, wound up being still not enough, but, um, but, but, but a lot better, you know, and, and I had,
[00:16:08] Brett: Not as insulting as it was initially.
[00:16:10] Christina: Exactly. And I’ve had a couple of special stock awards, um, that, you know, things they try to give you for retention and, and stuff like that in, in addition to like whatever, you know, I get as part of like my yearly compensation. Um, and one year, um, when they issued it, the, the stock was like 256 or something like that.
[00:16:29] Christina: Which at the time was kind of like a high. And so I was like, okay, well, I don’t know if this is going to be like a thing that pays off or not. And at some point, like there were certain best periods where like, I, I would like be underwater, you know, with, with that amount.
[00:16:39] Christina: But now, because the stock is like 460 or something like that, like even that, like the, the hard thing is going to be, and this is why I think like a lot of people like calling like for like, they really like employees especially, but like, I think a lot of people like they want the stock to split because it’s like getting close.
[00:16:55] Christina: Yeah. Like as we’re recording this,
[00:16:56] Brett: 460 a share?
[00:16:58] Christina: 468. [00:17:00] Yeah. 468. Yeah. And when I got in,
[00:17:03] Brett: need a new job.
[00:17:04] Christina: yeah, when I, well, I wish that we could split because if they split the stock, it would still
[00:17:09] Brett: that mean? What does that mean?
[00:17:11] Christina: okay, so a stock split basically means that they will, um, uh, divide the number of available shares, um, in, in half. And so if you owned, so basically, um, to, to have a bigger offering so that you could have bring more people into it.
[00:17:26] Christina: But what it also essentially does is that if you bought in, so like, let’s say like you bought in at 65, um, And now it is 468. If the stocks split and, and it became 234 a share, um, your number of, of outstanding shares would be doubled, but your cost average, if you, if you bought in like at 65 or whatever, would still potentially have more room for a run up.
[00:17:54] Christina: See what I’m saying?
[00:17:55] Brett: I, I don’t because I’m really bad at this kind of thing. I’m gonna [00:18:00] take your word for it.
[00:18:01] Christina: Okay, so the idea would just be your total number of shares would double, so your value would be the same. But at that point, you have
[00:18:08] Brett: Gotcha. Okay.
[00:18:09] Christina: another run up, right? So whereas, you know, so, so, okay, so usually what happens, like, like Nvidia split a few weeks ago and, um, and, and so Nvidia had been, uh, and they’re one of the most valuable companies in the world right now, but like their stock had gone super, super high and it split a few weeks ago.
[00:18:26] Christina: So what that does is that A allows. people who would otherwise not be able to buy in because it was too high to get in. But B, it means that there’s another opportunity, like if there’s another run up, right? So if it’s 127 right now, but let’s say it has like another rally and it goes to like 175 by the end of the year, then that means that people who, you know, owned it earlier could potentially like double their, their returns or not double, but like have, have, have higher returns.
[00:18:56] Christina: Because they’re, they’re, the number of shares would be higher.
[00:18:59] Brett: That, [00:19:00] okay. You’re making sense to me. I get this. I get this. I get this one concept. Um, this is now a money corner.
[00:19:10] Financial Talk and 401k Loans
[00:19:10] Brett: Um, so I just this week, um, took out a loan against my 401k. And I did a bunch of research before I did this, but I was able to take out enough money to pay off all my outstanding loans. Um, and at, uh, about 10%, Uh, interest rate, but on a 401k loan, you pay the interest to yourself because it’s your money.
[00:19:41] Brett: Um, and so that sounds great to me. You’re not earning interest on all of the money you’ve withdrawn. But when I did, when I did my own number crunching to see like what I was going to lose in interest versus what I was [00:20:00] going to. Gain in the, in the total based on the extra interest I was paying in. Um, it, it just, it made good sense to me.
[00:20:10] Brett: So I paid off all my other loans and came out with enough money for home improvement projects. Um, and now, and now my only loan is paid back to myself. So do you know, what do you know about 401k loans? I’m just kind of putting it out there.
[00:20:28] Christina: I don’t know a lot about them except that I know that there are sometimes like penalties that can be involved. Um, like, like you can take them off for certain purposes and you can get them back for certain things. Like, so I know that there are ways that you can do it that could be more beneficial. I think usually, because I think usually the problem is like, like, because the interest rate, like the 10 percent or whatever, like that’s not that much, like that’s better than a credit card.
[00:20:51] Christina: That’s, that’s probably going to be about the same.
[00:20:53] Brett: was better than, it was, it was, uh, point, point three better [00:21:00] than my, my lowest interest rate. So it is my lowest interest rate loan. And you’re right. If you wanted to take out I think it’s 50 percent of your, of the value of your 401k. Then there are penalties unless it meets certain criteria. Um, it has, it’s like, I think it’s called a hardship loan and you have to provide paperwork that there is like you lost your job, whatever.
[00:21:26] Brett: Um, but for the amount I took out, there are no tax penalties. There are no. Additional deductions made. Uh, so I took out basically the smallest amount you can take out without penalties. Which honestly, like I didn’t start building a, I had, when I left AOL, I had like, I think 30k in my retirement fund and I rolled it over and then over the [00:22:00] course of seven years as an in, as an unsuccessful indie developer, um, I basically withdrew most of it with penalties and paid all the tax penalties on it and by the end I had like in it, which I rolled over into, um, Oracle.
[00:22:20] Brett: And since then I have been putting in like 15 percent of my paycheck and 6 percent of that is matched and add in my RSU value. And I actually. It’s not a great retirement fund. Like, honestly, and I’ve said this before, but I could afford a pretty nice car to live in at this point. Um, except I think San Francisco outlawed living in cars.
[00:22:49] Brett: Um, but where I live, you could still live in a car and that’s my retirement plan. Me, me and Al living in, I don’t know, like, uh, it would probably [00:23:00] be a Nissan, like a higher end Nissan, nothing fancy, nothing fancy. Anyway, anyway,
[00:23:08] Christina: I mean, look, you at least have a house. Like that’s the, that’s the real thing. Like you have like, at least like, you
[00:23:14] Brett: L has a
[00:23:15] Christina: well, L has a house, but you know, but like one of you has a house,
[00:23:18] Brett: right? Right. Yeah. Even though, even though I basically pay the mortgage on it, my name is not on it at this point. Maybe I should change that. Maybe I would be more comfortable. Like right now I invest all the money for home improvement projects comes from me. But, if we broke up, there’s no legal reason she would have to,
[00:23:44] Christina: Right. I
[00:23:45] Brett: like, we have, we have agreements, about, like, if, if worse comes to worse, uh, uh, upon the sale of this house, you will be compensated for the investments you made in it.
[00:23:56] Brett: But it’s not illegally binding. [00:24:00] Like, I trust El. I love El to death. Um, but I have no, like, legally binding, um, stake in, in this property.
[00:24:09] Christina: mean, maybe that, maybe that should change, right? And it’s not because, like you said, like you don’t, there’s lack of trust or lack of love with them or anything, right? But it might make you feel more comfortable about how you go about things and, and also feel like, you know, like makes the investment feel maybe even like more real.
[00:24:27] Christina: You know what I mean?
[00:24:28] Brett: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Like, I get a little queasy dropping ten grand on new windows. Um, Like watching my, like, I have, I have my own savings and I like to keep it at a certain point. Like I feel like it gives me a sense of like wellbeing and comfort to have at X number of dollars in my savings account.
[00:24:51] Brett: And in this case, in my Apple savings account, because holy shit, that is the best return rate out there right now. Um, but, [00:25:00] uh, anytime that gets, uh, like you take 10 grand out of it, And feel less mentally okay. Okay. It’s a mental health corner again. Money is mental health. Like, this is all mental health. Um, uh, comfort and, uh, stability and all of these things are heavily related to money, which is heavily related to privilege, obviously.
[00:25:27] Brett: But, um, yeah, money is mental health.
[00:25:32] Christina: I, yes,
[00:25:33] Brett: And, and I have been broke. I have been destitute. I’ve been homeless. Like, I understand the psychological ramifications of not knowing if you can afford groceries. Um, and that is a place I never want to be again. Um, I want to hedge my bets all the time. I want a job at GitHub, but, um, I, [00:26:00] I don’t trust that I, I don’t trust that my job at Oracle will last forever.
[00:26:06] Brett: But anyway, yep, this is still mental health. I feel like, I feel like I’ve done my mental health corner.
[00:26:12] Christina: this is a weird one, but I feel like we both were able to get like our mental health corner like out of the way. It was kind of like a good like joint one. Like that was, that was, that was kind of weird. Like we’ve been doing this podcast for so long that we were able to do. Kind of a, a back and forth, like kind of, kind of shared like mental health corner, all about like politics and money.
[00:26:31] Christina: The, the two things that everybody wants to think about, but that genuinely are mental health, right? They genuinely are. These are things that, at least for me, those are definitely two things that
[00:26:39] Brett: The highest, the highest source of conflict in couples, politics and money.
[00:26:45] Christina: totally. Totally.
[00:26:47] Brett: Um, are we a couple? We’re kind of a couple. We’re a podcast. We’re like podcast couple.
[00:26:53] Christina: totally. You’re, you’re, you’re definitely like my, my, my pod spouse for sure.
[00:26:56] Brett: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So do you want [00:27:00] to do a quick sponsor break and then move on?
[00:27:03] Christina: Yeah. Let’s do that. All right.
[00:27:06] ExpressVPN Sponsorship
[00:27:06] Christina: This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. All right, going online without ExpressVPN is like leaving your laptop unattended at the coffee shop while you run to the bathroom. Most of the time, in fact, almost all the time, you’re probably going to be fine. But what if one day you come out of the bathroom and your laptop is gone?
[00:27:24] Christina: Side note, this happened to me once, although not at a coffee shop. It was, I left my laptop. At my office and I came back in the next day and it was gone and it was a pretty terrible feeling. So even though 99 percent of the time you’re going to be fine, ExpressVPN is a great thing to add to your arsenal, uh, when you’re going online because everybody does need a VPN of some sort.
[00:27:47] Christina: When I’m at a hotel, for instance, having a VPN is a really good thing to have in your arsenal, whether you’re using it because you want to protect yourself. Um, if you’re, on weird wifi networks, say you’re in an airport or you’re at a hotel, or maybe you’re on some sort [00:28:00] of like, you know, like conference wifi, that’s a little bit sketch and you’re like, Hey, um, I know that most of the websites that I visit are encrypted, and that’s great.
[00:28:07] Christina: So I’m not really worried about sending my passwords across, you know, in plain text. But I don’t know if I really like the fact that somebody is going to be logging everything that I’m doing while I’m on this network. A VPN, especially if you’re using a service like ExpressVPN where they don’t log, is really good because You’re not going to, A, have your information sold by data brokers, but B, um, you don’t need to worry about kind of people spying on what sort of activities or what sort of traffic is taking place on your network, because they’re not able to see it.
[00:28:37] Christina: So, I think that ExpressVPN is a great VPN. I’ve used it for a really long time. One, um, it is very secure, so it would take a A hacker with a supercomputer over a billion years to get past ExpressVPN’s encryption. So it is encrypted in addition to, various other, uh, provisions they have placed.
[00:28:55] Christina: Um, the other thing is that it’s really, really easy to use. You can get it, [00:29:00] um, up and running with just a click of a button to get protected. But the thing that I really appreciate about it is that it works. on all sorts of devices. So phones, laptops, tablets, you can even get it running on like a fire TV sticks and things like that.
[00:29:14] Christina: So this is one of those services where a lot of times, some VPN services work better than others on multiple types of devices. ExpressVPN works everywhere. Really big fan of that. Um, I actually was at a hotel a few weeks ago that was being weird. Um, about the fact that I was running a BitTorrent daemon in the background and it didn’t want me to connect on their network.
[00:29:35] Christina: So basically I had to stop the daemon, connect to the network, connect to ExpressVPN, and then I was able to load, you know, my protocol again and the the hotel Wi Fi couldn’t tell me what to do with it. With my information because it couldn’t see it, which is pretty great. So big fan of using VPNs for lots of reasons, including getting around onerous hotel wifi restrictions.
[00:29:58] Christina: Secure your online data [00:30:00] today by visiting expressvpn. com slash Overtired. That’s E X P R E S S VPN. com slash Overtired. And you can get an extra three months free. That is expressvpn. com slash Overtired.
[00:30:16] A Little More About VPNs
[00:30:16] Brett: Nice job, Christina. So, side note, like, they made this, the notes for the read were all about online security, which Like, as you cleverly worked into the read, is not the primary use of VPNs anymore. Like, so much of the web is encrypted
[00:30:41] Christina: All of it is.
[00:30:43] Brett: and VPN, if you’re worried about your passwords, don’t. Like, just, it’s, most, I think all browsers will warn you now before entering a password on a non SSL encrypted site.[00:31:00]
[00:31:00] Brett: Like, every, every browser has something in place, whether it’s a little lock bar or an actual pop up that says, Hey,
[00:31:07] Christina: Yeah. No.
[00:31:07] Brett: want to think twice about this.
[00:31:09] Christina: Exactly. They’re like, are you really, really sure? Are you positive? And people who, cause there’s still a contingent of people who are like, very much, I will never encrypt my, my website. And this is just a scam from the certificate authorities. And it’s like, no, there, there’s nothing wrong with SSL, but that isn’t the only reason why you use a VPN because
[00:31:25] Brett: Right, exactly. Exactly. And, and I, I like what, I like where you took that read. I appreciate that.
[00:31:32] Reviewing Sonos Ace Headphones
[00:31:32] Brett: Let’s talk about the Sonos Ace headphones.
[00:31:36] Christina: Yeah. Because we both got them.
[00:31:38] Brett: Our, our friend of the show, Brian Guffey got us a great deal on, on some Sonos Ace headphones, and I jumped on it because I am always looking for comfortable over the ear headphones. My ear canals just do not work for. I have bought multiple [00:32:00] iterations of, uh, AirPods that sound okay, but don’t fit my ears.
[00:32:07] Brett: Or like, the one in my right ear always falls out no matter what cup size I choose for it. Um, so over the years, like, the only way to go for me. And Like, these headphones we’re using for these Sonys we use for the podcast, they’re comfy. I can wear them for, uh, two hours about before my ears start hurting.
[00:32:29] Brett: I wanted a really good pair for, uh, watching TV, watching movies, and music listening. And so I jumped on this deal, and honestly, at the price you and I paid, they are fantastic headphones.
[00:32:45] Christina: there, there are no brainers. They’re, they’re fantastic. Where it gets hard is that the MSRP is 450, which granted, it, it’s not that difficult for people to, you know, find certain sales or get discount codes if you, a lot of corporations [00:33:00] even will have some sort of, you know, like, like Sonos, you know, discount, um, uh, like, like, I know that, that.
[00:33:06] Christina: Microsoft sends it by extension, GitHub does. But 450 is a lot of money for a pair of headphones. Um, and so at that price point you’re going up against, uh, Bose, Sony, and Apple, uh, the the Apple, um, the AirPods Max are 550. Um, I, you know, I don’t recommend anybody buy those right now because, unless the, the sale is really good because the, um, the rumors are that a new version with, with the USB C will be coming out.
[00:33:34] Christina: Apparently they’re not going to be making many other changes, but, but that will be coming out. But the thing is, is that if you already have AirPods Max, I don’t, even if you were very deeply embedded in the Sonos ecosystem, I don’t think that you need to buy these headphones. If you are somebody who is looking for a pair, like you, like, like you are Brett, of like good over ear, um, you know, noise canceling headphones.
[00:33:58] Christina: They are very, very comfortable. [00:34:00] They
[00:34:00] Brett: The noise canceling, the noise canceling is insanely good.
[00:34:04] Christina: It’s very good. It’s very, very good. Um, I used them last week on a plane and so I was able to give them like a real test. Like I actually left my AirPods at home and I just took the Sonos with me, which I thought was like a really good travel test to kind of compare, like, okay, how do these compare against these things that I’ve, I’ve worn?
[00:34:20] Christina: Um, and, um, and really, really well, like the, I would say that the noise canceling is, is right up there, um, against, you know, uh, you know, Sony and Bose, who are kind of like the leader in that and then the transparency mode, um, where you can kind of hear background things coming in to, it’s pretty good, it’s not as good as on the AirPods Max, but it’s, it’s, or, or even the AirPods Pro 2, but it’s really, really solid, um, but the big thing for me is like, I, I don’t know what your experience has been like.
[00:34:51] Christina: Incredibly comfortable. Like
[00:34:53] Brett: Incredibly comfortable. And the, like, I don’t, I don’t have like the Sony or the AirPods [00:35:00] max to compare to, but the audio quality is the best I have in, and I own eight pairs of over the ear headphones of in various price ranges. Um, and the Sonos Ace. Trumps them all. Uh, they, it, it’s a, it’s a really good pair of headphones.
[00:35:24] Brett: Like you said, like it’s a competitive market and I’m sure it depends. Like, like I said at the beginning, at the price you and
[00:35:34] Christina: at the price that we got them at, it’s, it’s a no brainer. It’s amazing. It’s, it’s harder at MSRP. And the only reason I say that is that I feel like if you already have things in the Sonos ecosystem, because right now how I think that a lot of people envisioned how these would work would be that you would be able to wirelessly tune into any of your, your Sonos.
[00:35:56] Christina: Speaker zones that are happening throughout your house. And if [00:36:00] that were the case at this price point at 450, that would be, I think, for a lot of people, like a kind of a no brainer, right? Because like, okay, I could, I could tune into, you know, this room where this thing is happening, or maybe this room where I have my turntable connected or something else.
[00:36:13] Christina: Um, but that’s not the case. How it works right now is that they only work with. The Sonos ARC soundbar, although it apparently is going to be coming to some of the less expensive soundbars later this year. Um, and so anything that’s connected to that soundbar, so anything that’s connected to your TV, your video game consoles, you know, if you have, if you had a turntable connected to that or whatever, like that would all work, um, over, over Bluetooth and not over wireless, but that’s the only one that has the, the audio switching feature with right now.
[00:36:42] Christina: Um, and so for, for the Sonos aspect of it, like. It’s hard for me to kind of say it. I guess it depends on how deeply embedded into the ecosystem you are. But I think that the real thing is that it’s like, if you’re, if you’re in that market for like a premium pair of noise [00:37:00] canceling headphones for travel and you take the Sonos part out of it, I think they’re really good.
[00:37:05] Christina: But as you said, it is a competitive space. Um, I, I think Apple, if you’re in the Apple ecosystem, there are some things about AirPods that are just. better just because of the things they do with the H1 chip. I don’t think that the headphones are better overall. In fact, I’m annoyed by many aspects of things with AirPods Max, but the things that it does really well, like, you know, seamlessly switching between devices and, and some of the, the other stuff.
[00:37:29] Christina: is just, no one matches that. So if you have a lot of things in the Apple ecosystem, and you already have AirPods Max, I don’t think you need to look at these. But for most people who aren’t in that class, I definitely think they’re worth looking into, especially if you can get them on sale. But I will say the hard thing is the Sony’s, I haven’t used the Lea’s Bose, although they’re apparently incredible, but like the Sony’s XM5s are very frequently on sale.
[00:37:53] Christina: And so it’s hard to Kind of pit the two against one another, just MSRP. [00:38:00] Having said that, yeah, I mean, for a first round of headphones, I think they’ve done a really, really good job. And certainly, if you can get like a good deal on them, they’re really, really good.
[00:38:09] Brett: So I can tie this into a secondary topic, but it fascinates me that headphones are not. A quote unquote mature tech where, uh, where like new iterations are actually significantly better.
[00:38:29] New iPhone 15 and Switching Carriers
[00:38:29] Brett: Um, if you look at iPhones, like, okay, so I just yesterday, Got an iPhone 15 Max Pro, and that was an upgrade from the iPhone 12 that I used for years, and I just never saw a reason to upgrade.
[00:38:49] Brett: Uh, the cameras got better over time, uh, some features got better over time, but not enough to be like, I’m gonna trash this iPhone 12 that I already [00:39:00] have paid off and it’s been a trusty companion. Um, finally. Uh, I don’t even, like the buttons got less responsive, uh, battery life wore down, uh, so I finally upgraded to an iPhone 15 and switched my cell service from Verizon to Visible and now I pay a total.
[00:39:27] Brett: Of 250 a year for using Verizon Towers. And yeah, it’s insanely cheap. And, and I pay 40 a month as part of a loan for this new iPhone. But I was paying 120 a month to Verizon after paying off my phone. And like that, the cost differences. I, I’m getting a whole year for what I would pay Verizon in two months.
[00:39:56] Brett: Um, so anyway, like, I hope [00:40:00] someday again, Mint will sponsor this show. Uh, but basically any of those little, I don’t know what they’re called, baby bells. Um, That, that use, you know, T Mobile or Verizon towers and give you the same coverage, uh, for a fraction of the price. But anyway, the point of this is the iPhone 15, uh, is impressive.
[00:40:28] Brett: I love that I can shoot any photo and it takes depth information.
[00:40:34] Exploring iPhone Camera Features
[00:40:34] Brett: In every, I mean, you can turn this off, but in every photo and you can turn any regular photo into a portrait and like, and fuzz the background, uh, or change the focus of any portrait mode. Like that’s cool. That’s, that’s not worth a thousand dollars, but it’s cool.
[00:40:58] Brett: I, I dig, I dig that. I [00:41:00] dig. There are a few. The camera is very cool.
[00:41:04] Christina: Yeah. The camera’s really good. And, and the, the Apple, the Apple intelligence stuff, um, is
[00:41:10] Brett: Oh, I haven’t used that at
[00:41:11] Christina: well, they don’t, it’s not available for anybody yet,
[00:41:13] Brett: Is it in the Oh, it’s not in the beta?
[00:41:15] Christina: No. But when it does come out, they’ve said that like basically the lowest level of phones that will be able to support it will be like the 15 and, and uh, like the 15 pro.
[00:41:26] Christina: So, um, so you’ll actually be able to, to use that stuff.
[00:41:32] The Evolution of iPhones
[00:41:32] Brett: People on Macedon were razzing me about not waiting for the announcement. Um, but honestly, like I am always two or three, even four years behind, like I used to always have to have the new phone. I would be at this store the day it came out and I always had to have the latest thing. And I got on like the Verizon edge plan.
[00:41:56] Brett: So I could always trade in my phone at any time. [00:42:00] And I just. I don’t, I think iPhones became mature tech and
[00:42:06] Christina: agree with that.
[00:42:07] Brett: the benefits, the improvements were incremental enough. I mean, Apple, all companies right now in the mobile phone industry are struggling to give people a reason to discard their old phone.
[00:42:24] Brett: They’re no longer as discardable as they used to be. Uh, we’ve hit like, uh, A point where an iPhone 12 is still good in 2024. It’s a great phone.
[00:42:38] Christina: It is a great phone. I, I still have an iPhone 12 that I use, um, uh, sometimes as like a continuity camera thing, like that, that I, that I just use, you know, as, as a webcam instead of using something else. Um, and, and it’s great for that, but yeah, you’re right. Like we’ve kind of reached that point where like phones are for a lot of people, even enthusiasts good enough.
[00:42:56] Christina: Like I still buy one every year. I think the only year I didn’t [00:43:00] get a new phone in. 15 years or so it was, was the iPhone, um, 13. And that was because it was going to take them a long time to get it to me in the color I wanted. And by the time that happened, I was like, I don’t actually want the phone because there aren’t any real changes and, and I, I don’t need it.
[00:43:16] Christina: Um, uh, and, and honestly, I could probably wait longer than that with other things, but I’m part of like, like you, I was either part of like the Verizon, like, like edge upgrade program, or I do like the Apple, you know, early upgrade thing and whatnot, but yeah, you’re not wrong. It’s pretty mature tech.
[00:43:31] Bluetooth and Headphone Technology
[00:43:31] Christina: And the thing is, headphones, a lot of it is mature, but what’s gotten better, especially if you haven’t been in the game for a long time, is that the noise cancelling has significantly improved, even in the last five or six years.
[00:43:44] Christina: Like, it’s really, really good now. Um, there are still, you know, issues around Bluetooth, but like, they’re, they’re still able to do things, you know, with
[00:43:54] Brett: But is that, is that a Bluetooth problem or is it a headphone hardware problem? [00:44:00] Like
[00:44:00] Christina: both, but, but it is a Bluetooth
[00:44:01] Brett: just seems a little buggy.
[00:44:03] Christina: Yeah, it is. It is. I mean, it’s both, right? Like it’s, it’s a Bluetooth problem insofar as, um, the, the Bluetooth standard remains buggy and a problem and, and, you know, an issue when you’re trying to do certain things. And so the solution is either to fortify the standard and make Bluetooth better for everybody, uh, which, you know, is complicated and takes a long time or to do things like what Apple did, which is basically just creating their own custom chips to offload some of the things that the Bluetooth, you know, can’t do.
[00:44:32] Christina: Um, Or, you know, like, and I think Sonos, um, people were expecting them to use like, why just have like, like Wi Fi, like wireless headphones? Like why, why can’t I just connect them, you know, to my existing speaker sets? The issue with that is actually a power one. Um, the, the processor power, uh, Um, I think it was the CEO of Sonos, but I’m not sure it was.
[00:44:54] Christina: Someone high up said to the Verge, you know the basically the, the power that, um, even [00:45:00] in the latest headphones that are put out, like the, you know, the chips that are in them are not as powerful as what they’ve got on their speakers. And, um, Not to mention, you know, the, the fact that you still have to struggle with, okay, well, like, how do we balance, you know, like good battery life and battery sizes with making sure that these things are going to be lightweight on your head and like, won’t, you know, be too heavy and, and make that whole part of it bad.
[00:45:19] Christina: It’s like, there are a lot of things you have to balance. Um, but, um, And you, there, there are like ebbs and flows where there are some years where it’s like, yeah, there really haven’t been any, there have not been any improvements. And then you have eras where you’re like, Oh, actually things have improved a whole lot.
[00:45:36] Christina: So, um, yeah, but I’m, but I’m, but, but I totally understand what you’re saying. Sorry, go on.
[00:45:42] Bone Conductor Headphones
[00:45:42] Brett: no, the other solution I have for, um, my ear canals not working for earbuds is bone conductor headphones.
[00:45:50] Christina: Yeah. How, yeah. How do you like this?
[00:45:51] Brett: Oh my God. They’re. Amazing. Like it doesn’t have the richness of sound that a good, like a high [00:46:00] quality over the ear headphone has, but for like watching TV, watching movies, um, so Elle, my big, like, even my 32 inch TV is overwhelming, um, for, uh, over stimulating for them.
[00:46:18] Brett: And I generally, we watch, if we’re watching together, we watch on an iPad. Um, it’s a small enough screen that it doesn’t, of course, they’re usually knitting. Anyway, and they just look up when, when there’s no vocals, but there’s audio that clearly indicates something’s happening visually. That’s when they look up to keep track.
[00:46:42] Brett: Um, it always impresses me how they can do both at once, but when, when I’m watching alone, I usually need to keep it quiet. Um, and so I have a pair of Bluetooth bone conductor headphones that connect to my TV [00:47:00] and. I can’t believe, like, I’ll ask Elle, can you hear what’s happening right now? Because they feel like they’re like open back headphones.
[00:47:12] Brett: And it’s, it fascinates me that I can have volume up and Elle can’t hear a thing. Like, it’s just conducting through my jaw and sounding really good. Um, I take them on walks. I have them connected to multiple devices, but the reason I bring it up is because Interestingly, they connect to every device they’ve ever connected to.
[00:47:35] Brett: When I turn them on, I hear connected, connected, connected, and like it’s connecting to all these devices and whatever device is playing, they switch to. Um, it gets, it’s buggy as hell, because I’ll be watching TV and it’ll say, Disconnected. But the TV, like the sound doesn’t stop, so it disconnected from some [00:48:00] other device, and it’s, it’s disconcerting, like it works, but honestly, Bluetooth is just weird to me.
[00:48:09] Brett: Uh, it seems, it honestly seems like we could have, like we could do better. I
[00:48:15] Christina: Yeah, we could, I think the problem is, is it’s like, how do you make a standard? Right. Cause that’s, cause the thing is like, Bluetooth sucks, but. At the same time, like, it’s backward compatible with a lot of things, like, even if things, like, you know, like, multipoint, you know, only work for certain versions and, like, they’ve got to support, you know, a whole range of, of devices, you know, from, like, you know, old video game consoles to cars that people own.
[00:48:37] Christina: You know, we’ll not be able to in many cases ever update anything with Bluetooth in, you know, to, you know, older phones, to all kinds of other devices. Like it’s, it’s a hard thing to make a standard like Bluetooth, um, that’s been around for as many years as it has and improve it. Um, but I agree with you.
[00:48:54] Christina: We could have something better.
[00:48:55] Brett: mean, USB, USB finally is good. [00:49:00] Like, by, USB C is a great protocol. It’s a great physical adapter.
[00:49:05] Christina: Yeah. But it’s also really confusing. It’s, it’s finally good, but it’s also like, what, what, what version of US, what USB C cable do you need? Right? Like there’s like, that’s still kind of a cluster.
[00:49:16] Brett: Yeah. I, the iPhone 15 has a USB C charger, um, which means that all of my little charging stations around the house, which are all lightning, um, all, all USB A to lightning setups. Now I need, um, Either USB A to USB C cables, or I need to replace the hubs with USB C hubs. So that’s going to take a little getting used to, but honestly, I mean, it’s the same when we went from 32 pin connectors, like everyone complained cause they had to replace all their, all their, um, adapters and everything.
[00:49:56] Christina: this is much easier because we already have a bunch of USB C things, right? Like, at this [00:50:00] point, like, I, I even, like, when I got my iPhone 15, um, Pro Max or whatever, um, in September, I also bought, even though I didn’t need them, because I literally just bought them. Bought a second pair because I lost one pair, um, left them in a hotel and they were taken, which fine, my bad on that.
[00:50:18] Christina: But I’d lost a pair of Airpods, um, Pro 2s, which are really, really good. And I had to buy a replacement pair because I needed them. And I was like, I can’t go This long without them. I didn’t know that they were going to come out with the USB C version. Um, like a month and a half later. And so I was able to rationalize buying them for myself by, uh, giving them to, uh, my colleague and friend who I was on a trip with.
[00:50:43] Christina: And I was like, Erin doesn’t have AirPods and she needs AirPods. And, and, and I also, they were like 50 off, um, uh, through Amazon. Um, like the first, Week that they were like out, but one of the
[00:50:56] Brett: very generous of you.
[00:50:57] Christina: yes, but my, my, my [00:51:00] real selfish aspect of that was a, I do genuinely like to just like gift people things, you know, and, and so giving Aaron the, the, um, AirPods was great, but the bigger thing I was like, this will make the transition that much easier for me because now the only lightning thing that I use with any regularity.
[00:51:18] Christina: Other than my, you know, um, Apple mouse and, and uh, Magic, you know, keyboard and Magic trackpad, or whatever, which, you know, I, I, I don’t, um, travel with those, so that’s not a big deal, will be my AirPods Max. That will be the only lightning thing that I really have. Everything else will be USB C. So I was, you know, uh, You know, incrementally I’d already kind of upgraded and switched a lot of things over.
[00:51:39] Christina: So you’ll probably find that too. Um, I know for my parents, my mom has the iPhone 15 Pro Max, but my dad has an iPhone 14 plus. And so they are split. And so each of their cars I have, you know, kind of set things up. A, I’ve tried to get them more into using wireless charging since they both can. And [00:52:00] B, so I bought a number of, uh, the Belkin MagSafe 2, Um, uh, uh, pads, because they’re cheaper than, um, the, um, uh, Apple ones, but they are the exact same.
[00:52:11] Christina: They’re the same, you know, charging speed or whatever. Um, and then, um, making sure that each of their cars, like, has, like, a lightning and a USB C. But then, you know, I try to switch my mom over to kind of, like, teachers, like, okay, this is, you know, it’s going to be a little bit annoying, but Two of your, you know, two pairs of your AirPods use one, you know, way to charge.
[00:52:30] Christina: One, one of them uses another, but it’s the same as your phone. It’s going to be a few years until everybody’s switched over, but it’ll be nice. Like in, in a couple of years, everything will switch over.
[00:52:41] Brett: there are cables that have, they’re USB C cables, but attached to the end is a little dongle, you can slip over it to make it lightning. Um, which, so basically you have one cable that can do both, and that’s, cause L’s on an iPhone [00:53:00] 13, uh, which is still lightning. So yeah, we have this, I have this little, um, charging station that like, I snaked a cable under our couch and brought it out to this just little, um, hub so that we don’t have cables running across, across the floor and we can charge all our devices from the couch.
[00:53:19] Brett: Um, and having, now we have to have both USB C and, Lightning cables in what is a very small hub. Uh, but it is doable, but I like this idea of a cable that one cable that can do both cause we rarely need to charge at the same time. Okay. So we’re at an hour approximately. How much do you have a, an extra 20 minutes?
[00:53:45] Christina: I do.
[00:53:46] Brett: Okay, because I have two more topics I want to hit before we get to Graptitude.
[00:53:51] Christina: got it.
[00:53:53] A Memorable Trip to Minneapolis
[00:53:53] Brett: first of all, and I should have mentioned this earlier, I saw Jeff this last weekend and together we [00:54:00] went to Palmers, uh, in Minneapolis and saw Erin Dawson, friend of the show, previous guest, co worker of mine, we saw her Black Metal Band play and I I had heard some of her solo recordings before, and I had told her, this is good, it’s just, it’s not my, it’s not my thing.
[00:54:23] Brett: But when I saw, her band is called Genital Shame, and when I saw them play, I was blown away. It was so good, and she is a Fucking goddess of like metal guitar and it was, I was ecstatic. I, I loved it so much. It was so good. Um, and I, I bought a t shirt. I have a genital shame, shame t shirt. I will be supporting and her, her, her band, cause she’s, she is genital shame and she plays with A backing band.
[00:54:57] Brett: Um, and the backing band [00:55:00] is actually another band in their own right, I think in Milwaukee. Um, but I got to meet all of them and they were super cool, uh, the drummer especially was obviously ADHD as well. 90 percent of drummers seem to be. Um, and like we, we clicked and we had so much fun and it was such a great night.
[00:55:24] Brett: It was such a great trip. And on that trip, I went to this place called Awamni. And if you’re in Minneapolis for any reason, get a reservation and go to Awamni. It’s not expensive. Um, it’s, uh, uh, it’s native. Uh, Cuisine. So, it’s run by Native peoples, like First Nation peoples, and, um, and they only serve, they only use ingredients that are native to the area.
[00:55:55] Brett: So, there’s no beef, there’s no wheat. Uh, it’s basically a [00:56:00] gluten free menu. Um, the meat they serve is like bison and duck. Uh, and, uh, Elk maybe? Um, I don’t eat meat, so I just had a mushroom taco on a corn tortilla that blew my fucking mind. Like, I cr I was crying at the table. I had a corn, uh, taco, and a mushroom taco, and it, like I, and a, a stout beer, and I got out of there for like a total of 40, and I’m sitting at the table, I went by myself, I couldn’t find anyone to have dinner with, so I went by myself, I’m alone at a table, tearing up, because I am so blown away, it was so, like, I was thinking lately, um, about happiness, about am I happy, and I feel like everyone does this, but Pretty regularly, but I was like, when am I happiest?
[00:56:59] Brett: And [00:57:00] it’s always around food. I think, I think I might be a foodie because like this, this meal was just pure joy for me. And I swear, I, I have no hesitation saying anyone living or visiting Minneapolis really needs to go to a Omni. It’s so good.
[00:57:22] Christina: Okay. Well, I, I, I put that on the list if I ever, um, go to Minneapolis. Um, but that’s really, really great to know. And also, um, uh, I’m glad that you were able to see Erin’s band and, uh, or Erin, you know, and her backing band, um, and, and see her, her rock so hard. Um, I sent, Sent, we were talking about, about drums I sent you, um, in our group chat, um, uh, videos.
[00:57:46] Christina: But I, I hope both you and Jeff could watch, so we can talk about them in future, uh, episodes. For whatever reason, the YouTube algorithm served me this thing, which was mega death, uh, drummer playing. Uh, I’ve never heard Mr. [00:58:00] Brightside playing that for the same time. And, and, um, and, and is this guy, Dirk? He’s, he’s young, right?
[00:58:06] Christina: So he like, he’s like one of the, the current mega death drummers. He’s not like going way back and whatnot, but he’s very, very good. And he somehow never heard Mr. Brightside. I don’t know how, but never heard that. He
[00:58:17] Brett: great song. Great
[00:58:19] Christina: amazing song, right? And it’s weird because he’s like, he’s like, I think he might even be younger than me.
[00:58:23] Christina: I don’t even know. So like, I don’t know how he missed Mr. Brightside. The song, but he did, he missed it. Um, he’d also never heard, um, um, uh, Paramore, um, uh, Misery Business. And, um, they did a follow up with, with, with him on that, but, uh, this, I guess this drum, you know, online service or whatever, like they have a really good YouTube channel and I don’t know anything about drumming and whatnot, but the, basically how, what they do is they, they play.
[00:58:47] Christina: People like a song they’ve never heard for the first time, but the song, the version that he hears doesn’t have the drum parts in it. All of that has been silenced. So he has to come up on the spot, like, okay, how would I play the drums in this? So he’s writing out, as [00:59:00] he’s listening to the song, he’s writing out like the song structure.
[00:59:02] Christina: And then he can take as much time as he wants. And he’s a pro. So he usually like a real pro, like he, you know, we’ll usually just like jump in like after he’s heard it once and like, you know, put in the drums as, as. He kind of wrote out and then we’ll listen to the final version and it was really, really interesting to see like what he did, um, on, on both of those songs.
[00:59:23] Christina: Um, and, uh, like just as somebody who is not a musician in that way, um, has never played the drums and wouldn’t be able to do that, like, but just watching, like his whole process, freaking Awesome. Like, incredibly cool. Like, incredibly cool. Like, I have to give, like, this, this Dromeo company or whatever, like, kudos.
[00:59:42] Christina: Like, they figured out a really good genres of content for people and they probably do a good job pushing people to using, you know, their, their services or whatever it is that they’re, you know, trying to, trying to, like, shill for. But, um, uh, really cool concept. So, um, I think, I think that you’ll, um, [01:00:00] You’ll like that.
[01:00:01] Brett: I’m looking forward to that. Uh, what was, oh, the other thing I wanted to talk about was, so I’m giving a talk at Backstock.
[01:00:09] The Future of iThoughts
[01:00:09] Brett: Uh, sign up using code ttscoff if you haven’t gotten tickets yet. Um, I’m I wrote my, as I always do, I wrote my whole presentation in a mind map, um, which is just, it’s how I think, it’s how I organize, and I wrote it in iThoughts, which is now discontinued, and that’s very sad, but I think it’ll work for a few years.
[01:00:33] Brett: One of the features it has is Presentation Mode, and you can select nodes, in the map and add a slide for that node. And you can like, you can create, um, basically, builds, like one step at a time, like selecting each node off of a parent and like creating a slide for it. And [01:01:00] then when you go into presentation mode, you go full screen, you dim all non focused.
[01:01:06] Brett: Um, Nodes, and then it like pans around the map and like zooms in on whatever you saved as a slide. And, It is, it’s way cooler than what I would have built in like Keynote. Um, with the right, uh, style for your map, which I have heavily customized, it is just amazing presentation software. Um, if, if you think in mind maps and you just want to go straight from mind map to presentation, uh, I thought can export into, um, PowerPoint format.
[01:01:45] Brett: But it, it kind of sucks at it, um, it doesn’t make anything beautiful or usable out of it. Um, but this presentation mode, uh, slides focusing on specific nodes, so good, [01:02:00] and no other MindMap software that I know of can do this. And I sent an email to Craig yesterday, um, asking if he had considered handing off the code base to anyone else.
[01:02:19] Brett: And I volunteered. To,
[01:02:22] Christina: take it
[01:02:23] Brett: to keep, to take. Yeah. Um, uh, Luke from Hook, mark asked me if I wanted to take over, uh, hook, hook mark, um, as he wanted to retire, and I gave that a lot of thought and decided it wasn’t. Uh, it’s a great app and I use it all the time, but I didn’t want to be responsible for the customer support on something that most people find very confusing.
[01:02:54] Brett: Um, so, so I, I kind of passed on that, but I [01:03:00] thoughts. Dude, if you, if I could be like, I’m Brett Terpstra, I develop Marked, Envy Ultra, and iThoughts. If that came, if all of those came to fruition, I would, I would, I would, I would be a developer to contend with. But anywho, that was, that was a long spiel about iThoughts.
[01:03:20] Brett: I’m sorry. Um,
[01:03:22] Christina: No, I think that’s great. And I mean, honestly, like, if there’s a way, like, I don’t know how much it would cost for you to like, take it on. Like, I don’t know what, you know, like both to, you know, take it onward and also like, what would the cost would be, you know, to, you know, maintain it and all that stuff.
[01:03:38] Christina: But that, that, that could be really cool.
[01:03:43] Brett: I don’t, I don’t know what his current income off it is. It’s probably not selling a lot direct, but like transferring it to a subscription model, you would lose customers.
[01:03:58] Christina: But I mean,
[01:03:59] Brett: would [01:04:00] also get recurring income. And I, I offered him like percentage of future income, uh, uh, versus like buying the code base off him.
[01:04:11] Brett: Um, I don’t have the liquid cash to buy what I think it’s worth. Anyhow, we’ll see what he says. I have no idea. Um, it would be, it would be cool. It would be fun. Do you remember tags? The app?
[01:04:24] Christina: I do remember tags. I loved tags, as I recall.
[01:04:28] Brett: I did inherit that app. Uh, at the time it was right when, um, Apple basically, uh, Sherlocked Open Meta
[01:04:39] Christina: Yeah.
[01:04:40] Brett: and, and made Finder Tags a thing.
[01:04:44] Brett: And the developers of Tags wanted Tags to work with, uh, Apple’s implementation of K, KM user tags, whatever, which was an easy fix. Like, [01:05:00] they gave me the codebase, like, for free, and, um, I was supposed to keep it alive, but at the same time there was an OS upgrade that broke all of the Quartz graphic, uh, uh, API that they were using. Not like rewriting it from, from using open meta tags to finder tags. That’s like a 15 minute job. No problem. Rewriting all of the GUI that, that got real sticky for me. And it kind of, the app died in my hands. Like I watched like a heart slowly beating to death in my hands and I felt pretty bad about that.
[01:05:50] Brett: Um, yeah, back to mental health corner, back to things I feel guilty and sad about.
[01:05:58] Christina: Well, I mean, you did your best. I mean, that’s the thing is, [01:06:00] is that it’s, you know, you, okay. One thing was an easy fix, right? Okay. To get it, get it compatible with this new tagging system that, you know, was, was also kind of obsoleting aspects of the app. But then the other thing is that if there’s this, you know, significant OS update, that’s going to require a bunch of other things going on.
[01:06:17] Christina: And like, sometimes that’s That’s not what you signed up for, right? Like, you’re like, okay, I can inherit this and do this one thing and I can have the best intentions. But, you know, you didn’t sign up to do a full app rewrite and
[01:06:30] Brett: didn’t. I really didn’t. Um, it would be cool to try to revive it, but I, I really just want to get Envy Ultra out the door, and I had a Zoom with Fletcher yesterday, and we actually, the thing that’s been holding us up has been, uh, some store kit issues. Um, there have been like, Minor bugs that we fixed in, well, Fletcher has fixed in the [01:07:00] app itself.
[01:07:01] Brett: But the biggest thing was we just, we couldn’t get it to work, uh, with the subscription model on the app store. Uh, and we’re still on StorKit V1 because we want to be compatible back to pre OS 13. Operating systems. Um, that’s important to Fletcher, less important to me. Uh, but I mean, Fletcher runs old enough hardware that up until like last week when he finally got a new MacBook, like he, he couldn’t even test on the latest version of Xcode, um, cause his machines were so outdated.
[01:07:38] Brett: So it’s important to him to support older operating systems because I think he projects. His unwillingness to upgrade his hardware onto the general Mac community. Whereas like I get the analytics and
[01:07:53] Christina: you’re able to see X number of people are already
[01:07:56] Brett: OS 12, OS 12 is 1%. [01:08:00] Of my user base for Mark. Like it just isn’t like, it’s not worth supporting.
[01:08:05] Brett: Um, and, and so I don’t, I support two operating systems in the rear view mirror, um, and then anything before that, sorry, no longer compatible. I provide older versions for them,
[01:08:18] Christina: No, totally. Which, which, which is great. And, but, but it, but it’s hard and it’s, it’s great to do that. Like when you have an existing product that says, Hey, I’ll, I’ll provide an older version, not gonna get buck ’cause it’s not gonna get the latest updates, but you can still use this version of Mark back to whatever.
[01:08:32] Christina: It’s harder when, I guess when you have a net new thing coming out and you’re, you’re looking at, okay, well how far back do we wanna go versus, you know, what do we not wanna do? Like, I, I like, you know, um. A number of apps, I mean, not, not, not, not a ton of them have made this decision, but an increasing number of apps are even making the decision, like, we’re not going to compile for Intel, right?
[01:08:54] Christina: Like, even if we’re not using anything that would Make the, even if there’s nothing [01:09:00] about this app that
[01:09:01] Brett: that’s, that would be ARM specific.
[01:09:03] Christina: right, right. We’re just not going to bother with it because the latest, you know, APIs and other things, it’s not worth it. And it’s just, you know, an additional maintenance challenge. Right. And so I could see like, if I were building like a brand new app today, um, depending on who my target audience was, I might just be like, fuck it.
[01:09:20] Christina: I’m not bothering with Intel. Um, I think for an app like, um, Um, uh, you know, Envy Ultra, I don’t think that’s, uh, something you can do, right? Because a lot of, a lot of your core base are going to be people who are going to still have older machines. Um, but how far back you want to go also, you know, is, is, is an open question.
[01:09:41] Brett: I mean, we, we started NB Ultra so many years ago that it’s still in Objective C. So trying to incorporate, uh, new Swift libraries into it takes, it takes some extra work. Um, it is, um, It, the code [01:10:00] base is already outdated is what I’m saying. Um, so we have, we have, we have plans for a rewrite for a V2, um, but we are selling on subscription, which means we don’t have to go through the whole rigmarole of releasing a new version and demanding upgrade pricing and everything.
[01:10:18] Brett: Um, yeah, so anyhow, anyhow, anyhow. Okay. That was a fun, I am talking so much.
[01:10:26] Grapptitude: iTerm2 and Home Assistant
[01:10:26] Brett: Let’s do Graptitude and let, let’s you start.
[01:10:29] Christina: Sure. Okay. So, my Graptitude this week is iTerm2, um, which is, uh, an app I’m sure we’ve mentioned on previous Graptitudes, but this is one that, despite the fact that this has been my, you know, uh, basically default, like, terminal emulator for, I don’t even know how long, right? Like, I, I don’t even know. I have it in my dock on all of my machines.
[01:10:51] Christina: It is one of the very first things I install on any new Mac. There’s nothing wrong with Terminal. app at all, but like iTerm2 is just fucking better.
[01:10:59] Brett: and [01:11:00] Warp. Warp is a good app, but it’s really just trying to keep up with iTerm.
[01:11:06] Christina: Yeah.
[01:11:07] Brett: And iTerm is free.
[01:11:10] Christina: iTerm is free in every sense of the word, right? Like it’s actually, um, Like, completely open source, like, I think, like, uh, GPL, like, V3, I think, even, like, and it’s
[01:11:21] Brett: vibrant, with a vibrant community around it.
[01:11:25] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is actually kind of one of the reasons that I, that I wanted to, to, uh, bring it up. So, um, about a month ago, um, uh, I turned to introduce like a pretty big update, um, that had been in the works for, like, Some of the features have been in the works for years, but basically version 3. 5 came out and the one of the, I guess, kind of main, like, kind of like headline features was the fact that as an option, there was a new AI feature that was not enabled by default.
[01:11:52] Christina: That if you wanted to go into your settings, you could add in, um, an open AI key, yeah, an open AI API key. And you could [01:12:00] basically, um, use, um, uh, Basically, like, kind of have kind of like a way to chat with your terminals. So, to bring in some features that are very similar, um, to some of the things that, um, you can do with, with Warp
[01:12:12] Christina: so, so like there’s, there’s a fig which basically had like, you know, kind of like a, you know, generative AI kind of terminal, you know, Uh, you know, um, uh, command line thing.
[01:12:21] Christina: There, there’s warp there. Like a lot of these tools that are adding these things in, um, so that, uh, the GitHub CLI, um, uh, has a, has a co pilot component. Um, it, it built into that now, um, that started out as a different extension. So you can basically use natural language in your terminal and, and get really good things back.
[01:12:38] Christina: And this is a useful, uh, like case for, uh, for generative AI because like, Terminal man pages are really, really great with this. Like, like, I don’t have to think about like what, how, what’s the process of writing an FFmpeg script to do this or to do something else or use ImageMagick. Like, there are a lot of services that are really great just to be able to talk to your, um, [01:13:00] terminal about that.
[01:13:00] Christina: And, um, so iTerm2 introduced this feature. I thought they did it in a pretty great way. It was certainly not installed by default and, and, you know, nothing was, was at risk. Um, Some very vocal members of the community, who I don’t even know how much these people actually used the application, to be honest, looking at some of the things, lost their shit.
[01:13:22] Christina: Like, when, like, I, I, I get it. Maybe you don’t like AI stuff. Fine. That’s, that, that’s fine. Keep in mind, this is free software in every sense of the word. It is both open source and it is actually free as in gratis. That, you know, the, the, this guy who’s built this app that so many of us rely on, like.
[01:13:36] Christina: Doesn’t, like, make direct money off of, um, you know, basically, you know, gets support contracts, or, you know, it’s from people like Brett and myself who are, uh, now donating, um, to, uh, to the cause. But people lost their fucking shit and were really gross and were saying, like, really negative things about the dev.
[01:13:56] Christina: And, and it was ridiculous. And, and he was like, look, These [01:14:00] issues have been here, like I’ve been working on some of these features for like over two years, like this isn’t, wasn’t hidden from anybody, like You know, people were going to these ridiculous like links to the agreements. Oh, you’re in the inshittification of everything I’m like, you don’t even fucking know what the word means Like I get that everybody wants to say that everything’s been inshittified and I’m like, this is not an example of that, right?
[01:14:19] Christina: Like Cory Dockrow would not agree with that. It’s really not. Um,
[01:14:23] Brett: Or, or, uh, what’s his name with the Rot Economy? Uh, Edzeetron. Like, this does not apply. None of this applies.
[01:14:30] Christina: not, not even remotely. Um, so what, what the developer did because of the backlash came forward and was like, fine, I’ll rip the feature out. I will release it as a separate plugin that you can install and enable. And once you have it installed and you put in your open AI, you know, API key, um, then you can, you know, put in kind of your prompt and, and you can, you know, choose your model and, and that’s fine.
[01:14:53] Christina: Um, I actually think the feature is pretty cool. And it’s, it’s one of those things where you can write in natural language, but you can also kind [01:15:00] of have a preview of like what things would look like if you wanted your terminal to do it, um, you know, for you, which obviously most people aren’t going to trust, but it’s, you know, it’ll show you what needs to happen and, and you can talk in like natural language through a chat menu, like with, with your terminal, which I think is pretty fucking cool.
[01:15:19] Christina: Um, but even, even without the AI stuff, um, I just, uh, what, what that whole drama kind of, um, highlighted for me, I was like, Oh, I get a tremendous amount of value from this app and I don’t pay for it. So I do now. I’m, I’m one of his GitHub sponsors. Um, and so I’m, I’m in the, the credits, um, of the app when you go to, you know, the about page.
[01:15:45] Christina: Um, and, uh,
[01:15:46] Brett: You can see both Christina and my name and a small screenshot of the, of the about page. I, I can’t believe there are only enough sponsors that can fit on an about[01:16:00]
[01:16:00] Christina: I agree.
[01:16:01] Brett: Like so many, so many more people. Yeah. So many more people should be paying for this. Um, have you seen what Warp did with AI? I’m going to drop a link.
[01:16:11] Brett: Um, it like, It’s, it’s very similar, but it’s literally on the command line. It will recognize whether you’re typing a command or you’re typing in natural language. And you can just at the command line, ask it. You know, I want to see a Git log sorted in this way with these, um, these fields, and it will write the prompt for you, or yeah, it’ll write the command for you.
[01:16:40] Brett: And it’s, I think it’s really well done, but I do appreciate, um, the kind of chat dialogue version that, that iTerm has, where you can kind of, and you can, if it gives you a command, like you said, you have the option to insert it directly into your terminal. Or you have the option to edit [01:17:00] it in place, and yeah.
[01:17:02] Brett: Anyhow, good choice, good pick.
[01:17:06] Christina: hmm It’s a great app and honestly like I’m giving a 10 a month like kind of recurring donation right now But and and I don’t know how long I’ll continue to do that But like I figure I do at least for a while because I’ve gotten tons of value of this app, you know for free over However long I’ve been using it
[01:17:24] Brett: 10 bucks for about a year now. So I’ve, I’ve, I’ve donated over a hundred dollars to this term. I mean, it’s where I live.
[01:17:34] Christina: Yeah, I was going to say, I was going to say, I increasingly do, and like, this is, like, I know that there’s some terminal apps, like Alacrity is apparently like a little bit faster at certain things, and Kiting and other things, and like, that’s great, but like, iTerm2 is like a fucking great Mac app, and it is, like, I think like, is the gold standard that everybody else holds themselves to.
[01:17:51] Brett: well, everyone, like I said, everyone’s just trying to catch up. It’s like I term the, every version that comes out [01:18:00] new features that everyone else is eventually going to try to copy.
[01:18:04] Christina: Totally, totally. They have it first. And I mean, um, I will say, um, I feel like this is okay to share, um, because it’s been several years. Well, it’s been a number of years, probably five years now since this has been the case. But, you know, Windows Terminal, which is one of my favorite apps on Windows, um, for a lot of reasons.
[01:18:22] Christina: I love the people who work on that and it’s open source and it’s one of my favorite projects from people at Microsoft. But I talked to that team when Windows Terminal launched and like they told me very clearly their kind of bellwether of like what they want to, you know, achieve was iTerm2.
[01:18:37] Christina: And that to me, like that’s how, that’s why I knew I was like, okay, this is why this is like, these are cool ass people. And like, why this is a project to pay attention to, because if that’s what they’re looking at, you know, it’s going to get as inspiration. Like to me, that’s That’s the right way to do it, right?
[01:18:53] Christina: Like, you know, like maybe have more, be like, okay, the people who are going to be building this thing are, are people who will [01:19:00] understand why, you know, a well designed terminal is important. So yeah. Um,
[01:19:05] Brett: I’m sure you’ve noticed this. Have you seen that you can focus the output of any command just by clicking it with the mouse?
[01:19:13] Christina: Yes.
[01:19:14] Brett: Like it used to be, you could hit command, shift A and select the full output output of the last command. Now you can scroll through your unlimited history, click any output, and it will focus it and, and like dim everything else and you can copy and re and reproduce commands and edit previous commands.
[01:19:35] Brett: It’s so good. Anyhow, yes, I term, I term two, which is on version 3.
[01:19:41] Christina: Yes, exactly.
[01:19:43] Brett: I term two 3. 5. Um, my pick is, and I’ve been a home assistant. Like I want to talk about home assistant. Um, I’ve been using Indigo for Years, a decade, um, to work with all of my [01:20:00] Insteon and ZigBee and Z Wave devices. Um, and, and I, I like Insta, uh, I like Indigo.
[01:20:07] Brett: Um, the web interface and the Python interface are pretty fantastic, but. I wanted to integrate better with things like Hue, um, and, and all of the other more Apple focused devices I have around my house that Indigo can’t. Uh, like my Govee lighting, um, which is You know, you can use it with Alexa, but there’s no way you’re going to get it to work with the Home app.
[01:20:37] Brett: Um, so I’ve been meaning to install Home Assistant. I, I was going to do it on Raspberry Pi that I still haven’t even unpacked. And then I noticed that there was a Synology package. For Home Assistant Core. And so I installed that and the setup was so good. Uh, it detected all of the devices on my [01:21:00] network and I could just click it.
[01:21:02] Brett: Uh, added a few options for each kind of device, assign it to a room. It’s Apple TV setup was fantastic. And
[01:21:10] Christina: Home Assistant’s
[01:21:11] Brett: can control, control my Apple TV through home control. Um, I’m very impressed with it as a free project. Again, I feel like we’re on an open source kick today, but Home Assistant, I don’t know if it’s full OSS, uh, but it is, it is free and it’s, it’s pretty fucking good.
[01:21:33] Christina: And they’ve got a really, really, really vibrant community. Um, they have like, almost 70, 000 stars on GitHub, and they’re very active, um, with a lot of, with lots of people. Um, uh, we, um, they’re, they’re part of our maintainer program, and they’ve been, you know, part of, um, some of the, you know, various events and things that we’ve had.
[01:21:51] Christina: So I’ve been able to interact with some members of their core team over the years, and they’re really, really great. Like, I, I think that just what, what Home [01:22:00] Assistant is doing, you know, um, is fantastic because it’s making it easy for all of these different things to work together. Um, like, these standards that we claim, you know, that for the better, for more than a decade at this point, like we’ve been promised like, oh, this stuff will make sense.
[01:22:16] Christina: And, and they’re now like matter has been supposed to be the savior, you know, for the last few years. But like the matter support is, is garbage and, and getting things to work across different things is kind of annoying. And like, yeah, there’ve been things like Homebridge and other stuff, which is, which is great.
[01:22:32] Christina: But no, but like Home Assistant is
[01:22:33] Brett: Great, great, but flaky
[01:22:35] Christina: but very flaky, to be
[01:22:37] Brett: And I had such high hopes for Matter, and they’re not panning out, and yeah.
[01:22:42] Christina: Totally. Uh, but I don’t even fuck with it. Like for my limited, um, smart home stuff in it, I don’t have a ton of it, but the stuff that I do have, I’ve been using similar to you, like Home Assistant running on a Synology package. Um, but then also just knowing that like, you can like run them on basically any type of [01:23:00] device that’s out there.
[01:23:01] Christina: Um, and, and the community is really, really good.
[01:23:05] Brett: All right. That was a fun Graptitude.
[01:23:08] Christina: it was.
[01:23:09] Brett: I wonder what Jeff would have picked. Um, anyhow, we’re at, we’re at almost an hour thirty, minus edits. Um, Christina, it’s been a lot of fun.
[01:23:22] Christina: It’s been a great time, Brett. Get some sleep.
[01:23:24] Brett: Get some sleep.
Overtired Goes Overtime with Sports, PTSD, and Coffee Controversies
In this episode of Overtired, Brett and Christina are joined by guest Jay Miller for an impromptu sports-centric discussion that spans the globe from baseball to European soccer. Along the way, they dive into the logistics of crazy travel schedules, the trials of corporate events, and the importance of happy birthday attention. They also discuss the latest in Mac tools, including Launch Control, Ecamm Live, and the rising star, Mise. All this while periodically engaging in sidebar rants about loud tech conferences and the struggles of navigating evolving relationships during Father’s Day. Grab your AeroPress, sit back, and enjoy the tangents.
Travel better with better coffee. Head to aeropress.com/OVERTIRED and save 20% off your
You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network
BackBeat Media Podcast Network
Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter.
Weirdly, A Sports Episode
[00:00:00] Introduction and Host Welcome
[00:00:00]
[00:00:02] Brett: Hey, you’re listening to Overtired. I am Brett Terpstra. I am here with Christina Warren. Jeff is out this week, but filling in, we have Jay Miller. Welcome to the show, Jay.
[00:00:15] Jay: What’s up? It’s always good to be here. Also, sorry if I sound not like me. I’ve been, I’ve been conferencing a lot lately. So,
[00:00:24] Christina: The voice, the voice goes out a little
[00:00:25] Brett: good. You sound good.
[00:00:27] Jay: the voice is always low.
[00:00:29] Christina’s California Adventures
[00:00:29] Brett: And Christina just got back from California.
[00:00:32] Christina: I did. I did. And I’ll be back in California in a week.
[00:00:37] Brett: That’s a lot of California.
[00:00:38] Jay: That sounds like my July.
[00:00:41] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. Um, this, this was not like an intended thing. Like, Christina thought that she was going to be in California. Last week, and then was asked to, well, thought that the ask was to be in California for maybe a day or two next week.
[00:00:56] Christina: Turns out, no, I misinterpreted some things, or maybe some things are [00:01:00] misinterpreted to me. Regardless, I’ll be in San Francisco the week of the 24th through the 28th, so
[00:01:07] Brett: started that in the third person and finished in the first person. That was a,
[00:01:11] Jay: I love it.
[00:01:12] Brett: that was a cool transition.
[00:01:14] Jay: I, um, I made the, the concerted commitment with the job that I’m at to not travel a lot. And then after.
[00:01:21] Travel Plans and Pet Dilemmas
[00:01:21] Jay: Uh, my wife and my daughter are planning a month long trip, um, also to California and I’m staying home to do work. It was like, well, I could probably travel a little bit more. So the, the week of like July 8th, I’m going from New York, from New York to Toronto.
[00:01:43] Jay: I’m back home for two days, then I fly back to New York, and then I’m there for another four more days. I get back, I’m back for a week, and then I fly to London for the Relay event. And I was just like, I did not realize how stupid I was in all of my [00:02:00] bookings.
[00:02:00] Christina: right, right. Yeah, it totally, if you thought about that more, like, you probably would not have, like, gone back and forth between, like, Toronto and and home just to come back to New York,
[00:02:11] Jay: Well, it’s like I have to, I would have to pay And like, our, our company was like, we’ll pay for the event plus a day before and after. So I was like, okay, that’s awesome. But that also means that I like fly home for three days and do nothing. And then like, do I even get my dogs out of like the pet hotel at that point?
[00:02:34] Jay: Or like, do I just leave them in?
[00:02:35] Brett: Of course you do. You gotta see your dogs.
[00:02:39] Jay: I mean, they’re kind of dumb. I love them, but they’re kind of dumb.
[00:02:44] Christina: Well, no, but that is like a hard thing to figure out like yeah Cuz you’re there like just long enough where you’re like, okay It does make sense for me to pick them up, but I’m gonna have to drop them back off Anyway, probably the day before I leave depending on when I’m leaving. So you’re like, okay So is it worth it for 24 [00:03:00] hours, right?
[00:03:00] Christina: Like is it like yeah, that that that That’s a hard calculus.
[00:03:04] Brett: I think it would take me like two weeks to miss my dog. Um, like she’s lovable in short bursts, but Man, like, give me a week away and I’m like, oh, man, I don’t miss that dog.
[00:03:18] Jay: I feel like it’d be cool if I could just do visitation rights. Just like, Hey, can I just go to the pet hotel and be like, Hey, I see you.
[00:03:24] Brett: There you go.
[00:03:25] Jay: look
[00:03:25] Christina: I mean, honestly, I mean, honestly, that would be the best thing. You’d be like, look, I’m going to continue to pay you continuously. But like, I would love to take, can I take the dog out? Can I take him out for a walk?
[00:03:34] Brett: Yeah. You get all, you get all the fun, the visitation. You’re like the, the divorced dad who, who gets to like spoil his kids on weekends and then doesn’t have to do childcare the rest of the week.
[00:03:49] Christina: Mom is so pissed. Mom in this case is, is, is, is the pet hotel. Although the pet hotel is getting
[00:03:54] Jay: they’re getting paid. You’re getting, you’re getting dog support. Like, I feel like
[00:03:57] Christina: to say
[00:03:58] Brett: like alimony. [00:04:00] I’ve never been, I’ve never had kids. I don’t know what I’m talking about.
[00:04:04] Christina: Yeah, I, same, but, but I was gonna say this is, this is gonna be like double alimony, right? This is like double child support.
[00:04:09] Christina: You’re like, oh, mom, you get, you get this and the kids get stuff. So like, actually don’t be as much of a bitch about this, because I promise.
[00:04:16] Jay: of a broken home, it tracks.
[00:04:19] Brett: Oh, wow. I wonder how many people we just offended. Or, or hurt. Happy Father’s Day!
[00:04:26] Christina: Yeah.
[00:04:26] Jay: Yeah.
[00:04:30] Christina: Oh my god. I have to, I have to call, I have to call my dad,
[00:04:33] Brett: Yeah, I remembered, I remembered like an hour before this, I sent my dad a Amazon gift card. Um, which is what I do on stupid holidays like Father’s Day and Mother’s Day. I’ll show up for a birthday.
[00:04:46] Jay: They called me, so I feel like, I feel like that was their hand of like, Oh, I should probably tell them Happy Father’s Day. I
[00:04:54] MHC: Family Visits and Birthday Plans
[00:04:54] Brett: Um, So yeah, if I could start a mental health corner, it’s actually kind of [00:05:00] related. Um, I went to breakfast with my parents, which I haven’t done for like a year because of the whole like religious trauma, complex PTSD thing, and I showed up and they had hidden all of their religious stuff. Uh, they took down like God is love stuff off the wall.
[00:05:21] Brett: They took all the like, uh, they had like Newsmax magazines and stuff. Last time I visited and all of that was hidden. Everything that could trigger me was hidden away and it felt super respectful. And the conversation stayed on like family and work and. Nothing triggering, and it was actually a pretty good visit.
[00:05:42] Brett: We decided we’ll try to do it monthly moving forward instead of weekly. But yeah, I was impressed. Yeah. Um,
[00:05:51] Jay: feel like quarterly would have been my goal. Like, I, I, I love, like, Seeing my parents and then [00:06:00] having that space, like, I mean, this whole move out east was to be like in between my parents and my grandparents. And it was like, great, Thanksgiving comes around, Christmas comes around, birthdays, like
[00:06:13] Brett: you have to, do they show up at your place in between? Do you have to host them?
[00:06:18] Jay: Yeah, which I don’t mind, like, I mean, we have the space now. And like, honestly, the kitchen that we we grabbed, like, the big selling point was the double ovens. So that like, Cooking and doing the big, the big family get togethers is, it’s like, kind of like, you can do it. Um, and then they’ll bring stuff, so that’s always nice.
[00:06:39] Jay: But yeah, instead of people complaining that, oh, it’s a five hour drive, or it’s a flight, it’s like, well, now it’s a two hour drive. And, um, Yeah, and I’ll make that like, I’ll go visit my mom for Mother’s Day or whatever, and then I’ll go up and visit my grandparents for their birthdays, and then, you know, at that point, I’m seeing someone once a quarter, and I’m like, this is good.
[00:06:59] Jay: This [00:07:00] is, this is just enough
[00:07:01] Brett: Yep. That sounds about right. Someday I’m going to get a real house that I can like host people in. Um, I don’t, I would have like a two day limit on anyone visiting. Um, back when I had a house with Aditi, like her parents would come for like a week and that it’s just too much time to share a house with your parents.
[00:07:23] Brett: Um, So like two day, two day, maybe three days on special occasions. But like, I have a birthday coming up in July and I’m trying to organize a birthday party and we can comfortably host like four people at my house and I haven’t had a birthday party in, Um, I was supposed to do a hitchhiker’s themed party for my 42nd, but then COVID happened.
[00:07:50] Brett: And so I just, I haven’t had a party and I really like my birthday. Like, uh, if. If I don’t get enough happy birthday [00:08:00] attention, I get depressed about it. Like, I crave that, like, it’s my special day and I’m not a guy who’s going to be like, it’s my birthday week and everyone has to celebrate me for a whole week, but for one day, one day show up, just say happy birthday.
[00:08:15] Brett: Um, and, and I’m happy. I don’t need gifts. I don’t need any of that. I just need attention. So I’m throwing a party and I’ve invited 25 people. Six of them have confirmed that they are coming, and two maybes, and maybe the rest of my friends just don’t check Facebook that often, or they’re ignoring me, which I get, I get.
[00:08:36] Brett: I invited some people that I know peripherally.
[00:08:39] Christina: No,
[00:08:39] Brett: Yeah, you think so?
[00:08:40] Christina: I think, I think it’s the Facebook thing. You might need to find like an alternate way of inviting them.
[00:08:45] Brett: It’s just the easiest way to put an event together,
[00:08:48] Christina: You’re not wrong. You’re not wrong, but people don’t use Facebook anymore.
[00:08:52] Brett: Yeah,
[00:08:52] Jay: I’m, I’m just incredibly impressed that you have, like, friends that you didn’t meet on the internet.
[00:08:58] Brett: I do. I have [00:09:00] like, I have like 25 people right here in, in town.
[00:09:04] Christina: Yeah, that’s amazing. I have, I, I have 25 people I could invite to my birthday. They are not in Seattle.
[00:09:10] Jay: Yeah, like,
[00:09:12] Brett: I
[00:09:12] Jay: my friends that are local I met on the internet.
[00:09:15] Brett: I considered inviting people from Minneapolis, but I just don’t feel like my birthday is important enough to make that two and a half hour drive. So, you know. Okay, I’m gonna shut up. I, I watched, uh, uh, a guy, a city planner who reviews cities did a thing on YouTube about Minneapolis, and he was really impressed with like the neighborhoods, Dinky Town, Uptown, Sewer, uh, not sewer.
[00:09:46] Brett: What is it called?
[00:09:47] Jay: That’s a lovely
[00:09:48] Brett: it sounds like soot, soot, sewer. Wow, I forgot the name of it. But anyway, um, he was really impressed with that. But downtown, because it’s, because it’s Minnesota, downtown is [00:10:00] all skyways. Um, like you can walk from like downtown to like Target State, Target. Stadium all in Skyways and you can navigate the whole city and never see street level.
[00:10:15] Brett: So a lot of businesses are up on like the second story and it’s like one big strip mall and there’s really no like downtown walkable. It’s kind of a desolate lot of cars. I mean, there’s some bike paths, but anyway, I digress.
[00:10:32] MHC: Jay’s PTSD and Conference Experiences
[00:10:32] Brett: So Jay, how are you doing?
[00:10:34] Jay: Um, I’m, I’m doing better. Um, I had to go back and figure out when was the last time I was here and it was in January. So I was like, okay, what’s happened since January? PTSD is what has happened since January. I’ve had a corporate offsite in Spain, which was great, except for it wasn’t because we were stuck on a like hotel, basically like the [00:11:00] hotel attached to an amusement park.
[00:11:01] Jay: But if like the amusement park was like a discount Six Flags,
[00:11:07] Brett: Okay.
[00:11:07] Jay: And the actual event was planned by the amusement park staff, so they really didn’t want you leaving.
[00:11:15] Christina: Oh no. So you, you, you’re instead of being like at a Disney resort, which could be annoying and frustrating, but at least it’d be a Disney resort. You’re at not even a Six Flags.
[00:11:25] Jay: yeah, I was at like four flags. It was, it was great. Um, but eventually I just said screw that and then I snuck out and then actually went into like Tarragona, Spain and had an amazing time. Um, but the event was You know, your normal startup, corporate, you know, all hands get together. Flashing lights, loud noises, no visual sensitivity or photosensitivity warnings anywhere, the same food for five days.
[00:11:57] Jay: You know, it’s, it’s what you expect. [00:12:00] Um, and yeah, since then I’ve been having these weird like anxiety attacks following like loud noises. And I, I got diagnosed with PTSD a while back, but I. Felt like it was more tied to like trauma and not like tied to bangs or anything. Like I’ve never, I’ve never been in a combat zone.
[00:12:21] Jay: So like, it doesn’t make sense to, to have that. But there, there’s like a level of like, I don’t feel safe here, including with loud noises that have been triggering like really bad panic attacks. And, um, Yeah, that happened this past week at Render. Um, for those that don’t know who are listening, Render Atlanta is like this conference that I think was supposed to be one thing at one point, and then when they learned we can make a ton of money off of this, so now it’s slowly evolved into like South by Southeast.
[00:12:54] Christina: They’re trying.
[00:12:55] Jay: Yeah, that’s how they promote it. So
[00:12:58] Christina: I’m curious what your [00:13:00] take was from the event, because I’ve been the last two or three years, I wasn’t able to be there this year, and yeah, I’m bothered by their attempt to call it a South by Southeast thing, because I’m like, you’re not South by Southwest, you don’t want to draw those comparisons right now, like, you’re not ready for that, like, which,
[00:13:17] Jay: also don’t want to go to South by Southwest.
[00:13:19] Christina: there’s that, but it’s also like, for me, like, it’s just, I’m kind of like, you had this really good thing.
[00:13:24] Christina: You’re not actually ready to be in the conversation of a South by Southwest. You’re not actually there yet as, as an event. People will have, people will have expectations for, for what an event will be, and it’s not that.
[00:13:36] Brett: our, our tourist center tried to make our town slogan keep it weird.
[00:13:41] Christina: Oh
[00:13:41] Brett: I was like, you, you can’t, you, we’re a, we’re a town of
[00:13:45] Jay: It’s already taken.
[00:13:46] Brett: Yeah. It’s a, it’s not, it’s not a comparison that we are, um, safe drawing.
[00:13:52] Jay: Yeah. So like, the, the really good of Render is that everybody that I want to see except for Christina, who wasn’t there [00:14:00] this year, like, is there. Like, it, You have YouTubers, like someone, someone introduced themselves as like, Hi, I am a social media influencer on Instagram. Can I take a picture of your outfit?
[00:14:13] Jay: And I was literally wearing like a company t shirt and like some cargo pants and like some clean, like brand new Adidas. And I was like, I mean, I guess. Like, I don’t, I didn’t, I didn’t think that I dressed up for this, but sure.
[00:14:30] Brett: I would have said Define Influencer.
[00:14:32] Jay: I mean, it’s, whatever.
[00:14:34] Christina: trying to be nice.
[00:14:35] Jay: yeah, if the company is happy and they want to keep paying for me to go to places, then like, you know, as long as it’s on, I have some say in it, then cool.
[00:14:44] Jay: Um, but yeah, no, that was great. Like, I mean, Ashley was there, um, Emily Freeman. Like if you’re in the DevRel space, like all of the major people in DevRel were there, like across all
[00:14:59] Christina: there. [00:15:00] I think like all my, all my friends were there and, and I was with my other friends who were in, you know, San Jose. It was like, it was very hard for me. I was like, I wanna be with all my friends at once. Why do they have to be the same week anyway?
[00:15:12] Jay: and I, and I, I got to, I mean, I had several conversations with like Kelsey Hightower and like so many folks and I, it was, it was one of those things where a lot of people that I have spoken with online and that I look up to and that I talk to on a regular as like in kind of a mentor, mentee relationship with me being the mentee were like there, I got to, I got to let Ashley win her own, like her first pie raffle.
[00:15:39] Jay: So I went to Pie Bar. Um, for those that don’t know, uh, Ashley Willis McNamara. Um, I can never remember which
[00:15:47] Christina: It’s, it’s Will, will, will. Willis. Is Willis. Willis, but it used to be back in America, but Yes, but it’s Willis and she’s the
[00:15:53] Jay: Um, but yeah, she would award, she would like, I think once a month or something, buy a [00:16:00] pie for a random, uh, one of her, her employees. And. Ashley and Christina were two of the people who interviewed me for my role at Microsoft.
[00:16:12] Jay: And I, I had heard about this and one of the interview questions that when she’s like, Oh, do you have any questions for me? I was like, yeah, what pie do you like? Because I had seen this and I had heard about this. So like, you know, we had that conversation. So the last day of render, like I stopped at pie bar in Marietta on the way and like bought her a whole pie.
[00:16:33] Jay: It was like, here. I was like, where are you? And she’s like, Oh, I’m outside the expo. I was like, all right, I’ll be right there. And I show up with like this, like grub hub order. And she’s like, Oh my God, is that a pie? And I was like, it is. It’s a pie.
[00:16:45] Brett: we’re talking about actual edible
[00:16:47] Christina: yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:16:48] Brett: I just assumed, I just assumed we were talking about raspberry
[00:16:51] Christina: No, no, no, no, no. Although
[00:16:53] Jay: this is a physical
[00:16:54] Christina: although Ashley would also love raspberry pies to be clear. She would love those. She has them all over her office, but no,
[00:16:59] Brett: ever buy like [00:17:00] gluten free pies for people?
[00:17:01] Christina: would buy whatever pie they want.
[00:17:03] Brett: Wow.
[00:17:04] Christina: Like, like, I got, like, I got an amazing cherry pie or an apple pie or something, but it was freaking great.
[00:17:08] Christina: Like, she’d get you whatever type you want.
[00:17:10] Brett: That’s awesome.
[00:17:11] Jay: but, but the, you know, the downside of that is this event is incredibly loud. It’s very well marketed and in my opinion, very poorly organized. And that is, that is just someone who spent several years trying to figure out how to put on my own conference and interacting with probably over a hundred conference organizers at this point across multiple like communities.
[00:17:37] Jay: I think all of them would say that this was a poorly organized event. There were like six tracks with five other associative things going on all at the same time. There were talks during lunch, so like people have to choose, am I going to go to this talk or am I going to eat? And Basically, at the end, they were like, well, we [00:18:00] hired really big names to come and give like the closing key, like Shannon Sharp gave the closing keynote.
[00:18:04] Jay: And I like, I was like, this is kind of cool. It also probably costs a ton of money. The speakers didn’t have a green room. The speakers didn’t have water, which I was like, that’s wild. Like the VIP, like they had like a VIP area, which they upcharged for people to be able to go to unless you were a speaker.
[00:18:25] Jay: They were literally just tables. Like there was no, like no drinks, no snacks, like nothing. And I was just like,
[00:18:33] Brett: What were the tables for?
[00:18:35] Jay: I guess if people wanted to like get away and that’s what it seemed like is that you were paying for privacy. And I was like, this feels weird. Um, I don’t, I kind of don’t like that, but at the end I bumped into a friend who’s Dominican and I was like, yo, this is going to sound like kind of racist, but do you love baseball?
[00:18:54] Jay: And he goes, why, because I’m Dominican? And I was like, yes. And he’s like, yes, I absolutely love baseball. [00:19:00] And I was like, how about we blow the keynote and just go to a Braves game instead? And then I proceeded to have like, one of my friends who I’ve known for years, which is why I was okay asking if they like baseball, even though I knew they were Dominican, they probably like baseball.
[00:19:13] Jay: Um, but we went to like, probably one of the best games I’ve been to. And I’ve been to like 15 games in the last. So like, it felt absolutely amazing, and I know that that event was the reason that that happened, but at the same time, like, the event itself just put me in such a bad place, and I had like, I had a couple of PTSD events while I was there, which is like tying it all together.
[00:19:41] Jay: Um, So yeah, like I’m better now now that the events over like me and my daughter hanging out this week we’re just like we’re just chillin my wife is away and Yeah, like I’m in a good spot now, but jeez last last week was It’s horrible.[00:20:00]
[00:20:00] Christina: I’m so sorry to hear that and like and it sucks. I think you’re right Like I I’ve always really enjoyed render, but I felt the same way in terms of the organization to me It’s been one of those things where I’m like, I’m gonna put up with like the lack of Organizing stuff like because the the hallway track and stuff is so important and is so good that like that’s fine for me, but I’m glad to get your experience on that, but also that’s just like, that sucks, especially with your PTSD, you know, getting like triggered and
[00:20:35] Brett: Not feeling safe.
[00:20:36] Christina: not feeling good and not having, not having, you know, like not having like adequate rooms for speakers.
[00:20:42] Christina: Right. Like that to me is, is like a, I can forgive a lot of stuff, but the thing is, is like Shannon Sharpe. You know that he had water, you know what I mean? You know that they, they, they, like, had, like, proper arrangements for him. Um, as they should, to be very clear. Like, he’s, he should absolutely [00:21:00] be given, like, all the things.
[00:21:01] Christina: But, like, you, I don’t know, if you’re going to have a speaker like that there, you’re going to have, like, you need to have a decent VIP experience for all of your speakers,
[00:21:12] Jay: And, and that was kind of like my biggest upset, like upset about the entire just situation was again, having talked to so many organizers, like we’ve had so many conferences in the Python ecosystem that are, that have shut down since COVID. Like, and a lot of it is just due to lack of sponsorship. And it’s not like people are asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars, like, Pi Ohio is a free event that’s like, one day, and it was held at, at Ohio State, now they’re having, they’re having to actually have it in like a different venue.
[00:21:45] Jay: And like, 15, 000 is enough to probably fully fund that event. To like cover its operating costs, and they can’t find sponsors. Like, no one will sponsor, and this event’s been going on for almost a decade. So it’s just [00:22:00] like, It’s wild that, you know, PyCon US struggled with sponsors. You know, PyOhio and these small regional conferences are struggling with sponsors and events like PyTennessee and PyCarolinas and PyColorado have just shut down.
[00:22:14] Jay: And, you know, I’m doing what I can to sponsor some of these events with, you know, Black Python devs and stuff now that we’re a non profit. But, I mean, we have a total operating budget of 20, 000. So like, we would go bankrupt sponsoring like one of these events outside of like what we’re like, what we’re promising them, which is like 600, 700.
[00:22:37] Jay: But even then, like that is going miles for some of these organizers. And then when we look at like, What was the marketing budget for Render? I would have loved for Render to be able to like just sponsor some of these conferences out of their marketing budget and be like, Hey, come to Atlanta. And it would, it would do the thing that these conferences always promised to do, which is like [00:23:00] build the community, build up a healthy ecosystem of diverse developers all over the, you know, all over the U.
[00:23:06] Jay: S. And It’s like, it’s, it’s really, it’s just a money making thing. And that’s where like, to me, I’m okay. I’m okay with them calling themselves, you know, South by Southeast or whatever, because what I think that’ll do is that will remove the idea of this is a technical conference for like developers. And it’s more of, this is an influencer event.
[00:23:28] Christina: Yeah, I mean, if that’s what they want to do, I guess that’s what they need to do. I still feel like, um, I, and maybe it was different this year, but I know like last year, like, and they, and they, even the year before that, like, they’ve tried multiple times to like have additional music and other sorts of content alongside it.
[00:23:41] Christina: And it’s, it has flopped. It has not been good. And so that’s part of the thing where I’m like. You can’t call yourself like this Omni Conference if you’re not like it’s a great meetup time and it’s a great space for people, you know, to get together and like, yeah, if you want to call it an influencer thing, that’s fine.
[00:23:57] Christina: I just feel like you’ve got to be careful. Like South by Southwest [00:24:00] like has like a very like is an actual music festival is an actual film festival is an act, you know what I mean? Like has actual stuff for that. Like, Render does not. So if they want to be on that level and get the money that can go along with that, like, you know, to your, like, I think that they’ve been able to be really successful getting money because it’s been, you know, kind of a, a good place for, for a lot of like, uh, you know, tech people to come and, and, and tech companies to, to come and feel like they can, you know, hopefully, um, You know, like engage with like a community that frankly a lot of tech companies don’t engage with and, and, and all that stuff.
[00:24:39] Christina: Um, but if you’re going to go like into this Omni thing, yeah, if it’s really going to bring in a lot of people. Um, I think you’re right. I think the organization in general probably just has to step up. But I’ve always had a really good time, but the people there are why you go. Um, you know, the, the event itself.
[00:24:56] Christina: Maybe not so much, but it, but it’s disappointing that they didn’t have their shit [00:25:00] together, especially for, for speakers, you know, and that they didn’t have things like quiet spaces and stuff like that, like basic things that conferences who were way smaller do have their shit together on that. Like, that’s always, that, that, that’s always disappointing when there’s
[00:25:14] Jay: that’s it for me.
[00:25:15] Christina: Yeah,
[00:25:17] MHC: Christina’s Week at DubDub and Pixar Visit
[00:25:17] Brett: All right, Christina, how you doing?
[00:25:19] Christina: I’m doing okay. Um, I was in San Jose this week, which was, which was great. So I was at DubDub while I was quote at, I wasn’t really, like, I didn’t get to go to the keynote. Um, but, um, I, I watched that with, with, um, some community members, but I did go to the talk show and I went to a bunch of other, um, kind of evening events and got to meet up with people who I haven’t seen in years and years, which was fantastic.
[00:25:40] Christina: I also got to, um, uh, shout out to Colin Allen who invited me, Command Tab on, um, the various platforms who invited me over to Pixar on Friday. And so I, I went over to Emeryville and I got to see Pixar, um, which I’ve never been to before. And then I actually really coolly, I got to go see Inside Out 2 with, um, the Pixar systems
[00:25:59] Brett: to see that. Don’t [00:26:00] don’t spoil it for
[00:26:01] Christina: no, I’m not
[00:26:01] Brett: but I’m so excited for that movie.
[00:26:03] Christina: I’m not going to spoil anything except to say out there, it’s really, really good. Like, Pixar has needed a hit for a lot of reasons, and I haven’t really liked a lot of the last few Pixar films, if I’m being completely candid. Um, I hadn’t, I hadn’t kept up with anything on Inside Out 2 before I saw it.
[00:26:18] Christina: It’s great. It’s really, really
[00:26:20] Brett: I loved Inside Out 1, and I’m told Inside Out 2 is great for people with anxiety.
[00:26:26] Christina: It definitely is. It definitely is. And I would say it like definitely like you’re not gonna cry the same way you would with like the the first one because it doesn’t have that like little kid kind of thing, but it it um, Uh, the only i’m not spoiling anything, but yeah, it’s great for people. The anxiety thing is a really good.
[00:26:40] Christina: Um, uh, Kind of description of what that stuff is. Um, if you have been a teenage girl before, you are going to have some secondhand embarrassment in moments of it. That’s just a, that’s just a preparation thing. That’s not a spoiler. Um, but no, it’s, it’s, it was really, really good. And it was really cool to watch that with The [00:27:00] Pixar folks, but only enough, Jay, you’ll, you’ll appreciate this.
[00:27:03] Christina: So I’m in Emeryville. I like, we walked from the Pixar campus to the AMC movie theater. I’m, um, a bunch of Pixar people, you know, got tickets and stuff for us. And I was, it was so kind of them to invite me along, like genuinely, like that was one of the highlights, like of my life to like watch a movie with like, a, you know, Theater full of Pixar people.
[00:27:23] Christina: But in that theater, a guy walks up to me and taps me on the shoulder and says, Hey, how are you? And it was Brian Douglas.
[00:27:30] Jay: Oh,
[00:27:31] Christina: Brian Douglas happens, happens to live in the area and happened to be there with his kids. Um, they were in the show. It was, he’s the guy who, um, used to be my boss at GitHub and, and runs Open Sauce.
[00:27:41] Christina: Fantastic guy, but, but, um, but Jay knows him as well.
[00:27:43] Jay: I’ve known Brian for, I’ve known Brian as long as I’ve been in tech.
[00:27:48] Christina: Brian’s fantastic, but it was just the smallest world ever. I’m like, I’m in Emeryville, like of all the places to be, like where I would run into somebody that I know. Yeah, I do too. I do too. It genuinely was like [00:28:00] freaking amazing because I was like, it was this very odd thing. I was explaining to like the, some of my new Pixar friends.
[00:28:05] Christina: I was like, Oh yeah, no, I used, he used to be my boss. Like he, he has his own startup, um, you know, he’s doing great, but it was just a very funny small world. Um, so
[00:28:16] Jay: for that opportunity to surprise Brett, just some random like encounter, like, Hey, I didn’t know that you were in the third floor of somewhere in Minneapolis today.
[00:28:28] Christina: yeah, no, I would love that.
[00:28:30] Brett: I will be, I will be in Minneapolis at a hotel for Aaron’s Black Metal show on the 29th. If you, if you are traveling through Minneapolis, look me up. Or if you live in
[00:28:45] Jay: if the twins are playing. Maybe I’ll like, I’ll go to a baseball
[00:28:49] Brett: after, after Christina is done and we have done a sponsor read, I really want to talk about sports, which is weird for me.
[00:28:58] Christina: no, no, no. [00:29:00] No, I’m just going to finish up. So I had a great week with people. Um, it was really, really great to see folks. I am a little bit stressed about work right now because I have a bunch of stuff that I have to get done in a week. Um, that, um, is, is a whole lot. So I’m about to be under, like, it’s going to be one of those big tests for my ADHD to be like, okay, all right.
[00:29:22] Christina: All right. Hyper focus skill, like come in handy, like save me. Um, So I’m a little bit stressed about that. Um, but, uh, and, and I’m, uh, not super enthused to be leaving town in a week from now for another week, but it, it, it’s okay. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll make it work. But, um, but no, overall, my mental health was good.
[00:29:41] Christina: It was really nice to be around people.
[00:29:43] Balancing Work and Personal Events
[00:29:43] Christina: Like, um, It was, I was able to, unlike being at, I missed being at Render, but unlike being at Render, because I was working during the day, it was one of those nice things where I kind of had like a good separation, you know, between how much you have to be on and whatnot.
[00:29:59] Christina: And I also have to [00:30:00] say selfishly, like, It was really nice being at an event that is not my event because then like the expectations that are on you are different,
[00:30:08] Brett: would be way less stress, I
[00:30:10] Christina: right? Well, and then also that, you know, that I’m not speaking at to that point too, right? And so it kind of reminds me why I do try to put at least one of those things on my calendar a year where it’s like, this is just a thing I’m doing for me that I’m not speaking at, that I don’t have a work obligation to like XOXO will be my next one.
[00:30:27] Christina: And that’s going to be the last XOXO. Um, but like, it’s, it’s nice to just have those things Where you can be around people, but like, there’s not a work obligation. There’s not a speaking obligation. This isn’t a thing that I have to, you know, be on all the time for that. I can just go and enjoy people with, which, um, you know, it’s how normal people attend conferences, but that’s not how, um, you know, uh, we, we attend conferences.
[00:30:51] Christina: So
[00:30:53] Upcoming Speaking Engagements
[00:30:53] Brett: Speaking of, um, I will be speaking at Macstock, a much smaller conference this year, [00:31:00] um, which has an illustrious panel of previous speakers, including Jay Miller. Um, I, uh, I, if you want to go, it’s July 12th through 14th. And if you use the code TTSCOFF, uh, when you buy your tickets, you get like 30 bucks off.
[00:31:19] Brett: Um, which is the, the major cost of MACSOC is the hotel. Um, so if you can get an Airbnb cheap, then go for it, but
[00:31:30] Jay: Like that and maybe a rental car. If you’re Like flying in.
[00:31:35] Brett: yeah. Or taking a train in, which I’m considering doing.
[00:31:39] Sponsor: AeroPress Go Plus
[00:31:39] Brett: But yeah, so anyway, uh, quick sponsor read, uh, as usual, I’m very excited about this sponsor, so I will take it. Um, I don’t travel a ton, unlike my co hosts, but when I do, it seems like everywhere I go, the coffee is terrible. And when I’m attending conferences, going on vacations, et cetera, I’ve tried bringing [00:32:00] portable coffee makers or even fancy instant coffee with me, but they never taste great and they don’t travel well.
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[00:33:57] Brett: I think it should be done. Like, you should [00:34:00] format it as a spelling bee. And one, one host should say, your word is aeropress. com slash overtired. And I would say aeropress. com slash overtired, A E. And I would spell it out. And I would finish by saying the word again. Problem solved. You’ve said it three times and you spelled it out.
[00:34:17] Brett: And it’s kind of funny.
[00:34:20] The Art of Coaching in Sports
[00:34:20] Brett: Um, so next time maybe, but, um, can I, Can I just say real quick, and I want Jay’s input on this, um, so I’ve been watching Welcome to Wrexham, and like, I enjoy watching soccer, but I’ve never really seen the behind the scenes, the locker room stuff, uh, which you do in Welcome to Wrexham, and it’s made me realize that coaching soccer Is just a matter of telling your players to play harder.
[00:34:48] Brett: There’s no strategy. There’s no like formations. It’s just like, you guys got to kick the ball more and, and like that’s coaching. And then you look at sports like baseball. [00:35:00] Where the only real strategy, as far as I can tell, is the pitching and maybe to some extent the batting. Otherwise, everyone’s doing the same thing all the time.
[00:35:10] Brett: And then football, you have the strategy of like formations and plays and like, that’s a real, it’s more of a chess game than soccer is to me. Um, what do you like about baseball, Jay?
[00:35:24] Jay: Baseball.
[00:35:26] The Fascination with Baseball Stats
[00:35:26] Jay: The way I explain it to non sports people who are in tech is baseball is an Excel spreadsheet done perfectly. Like when, when you are looking at baseball, like the biggest, the biggest thing, the biggest draw to baseball for the longest time was just the amount of like copious record keeping that ever existed.
[00:35:46] Jay: And also shout out to the MLB for incorporating the Negro League stats, which the Negro Leagues were baseball for non white people until about the 1950s, [00:36:00] I believe, um, when they integrated with Jackie Robinson, crossing the color barrier and that. So, um, now that, now that the Negro League stats have been included, there are a lot of major league records that have changed hands.
[00:36:15] Jay: And it’s wild because you see, like, the Atlanta great is Hank Aaron, all time home run, like career home runs,
[00:36:23] Christina: my parents were at that game.
[00:36:25] Jay: Oh, that’s amazing. Uh, that would be like fantastic. Um, I think the thing with baseball and now with the Statcast era since 2009, um, you can track how far the ball has moved both vertically and horizontally on every single pitch.
[00:36:47] Jay: The record keepers. Like, record the escape velocity of every single ball that’s hit, as well as the launch angle to predict how far the ball [00:37:00] would have traveled.
[00:37:00] Brett: So you like stats. That’s what you like about it. It’s stats. Okay.
[00:37:04] Jay: but it’s like, it’s like an absurd amount of stats, like you’ll hear, an announcer will be like, Oh, this batter after May 30th for the past seven seasons, whenever batting against a left handed pitcher with two, like with one eye closed who blinks twice, like has an OPS of like 850.
[00:37:26] Jay: And it’s just like, why, why do you have that? Hold on one second.
[00:37:31] Brett: The Rexim team, um, incorporated these bras that the whole team wears and, and they track like how far a player moves, when a player moves, where the ball is. And like, they never show us what they do with that data though. Like I don’t, I don’t know.
[00:37:48] Christina: mean, it’s probably for training
[00:37:50] Brett: Well, sure. I, like, I assume that they’re doing.
[00:37:53] Brett: Something strategy wise with that data, like maybe choosing what players to put in first, I [00:38:00] don’t know, but it’s, it’s nothing like baseball.
[00:38:03] Christina: No, I mean, that is interesting though, um, what Jay’s talking about with the, all the record keeping with baseball. I hadn’t even thought about that, but I like, I do like statistics. I don’t know if that’s ever been why I like baseball. Uh, certainly like it, it definitely makes, I think it easier to jump in to learning things about it.
[00:38:21] Brett: Well, it’s a simpler game than football,
[00:38:23] Christina: it is. I mean, football is good with stats too, but football, they haven’t been as good of record keepers to Jay’s point. Um, but it definitely is an easier game and they don’t make this same number of rule changes. Like football will make rule changes like every few years. And you’re like, wait, what is this thing?
[00:38:37] Christina: Yeah, because I’m, I’m not a big NFL person, but I did watch this past season because of the Taylor Swift of it all. And, um, I’ll admit it. And, and got like, there were things where I was like, Oh, I didn’t know about this rule. And then I would like learn. I’m like, I’m like, how, how out of this am I? Like, I thought that I, you know, as like a good, you know, raised in the South person who was forced to watch [00:39:00] football all the time.
[00:39:00] Christina: Like I figured I knew Most of the rules of the game. And they’re like, no, this is a rule within like the last five years. So I’m like, the
[00:39:06] Brett: Give me an, give me an example of like a new rule.
[00:39:10] Christina: I’m too fried from from being out for too long, but there’s a certain thing where like if you’re like one if you were a couple of um, I guess um yards away from uh From making the touchdown and you and you were not able to get it on the completion play Like then basically like you’re not going to be able to kind of get the turnover um When, when things, there’s some sort of turnover rule, um, that, that’s happened where, where basically, like, it looks like if it had been a setup and it had been a few years ago, then, um, you could have, basically it’s preventing people from doing certain gamification things, I guess, to, to, to make it easier for them to
[00:39:44] Jay: push from happening.
[00:39:46] Christina: Essentially, yes. And, and there’s like a rule involved. Yes. And there’s a rule involved in that. I can’t remember what it’s called, but it like was introduced a couple of years ago. And like, I had no idea what it was until it happened in a Chiefs game. And then like the, the, the [00:40:00] very, uh, weirdly, um, not at all autistic Taylor Swift fangirls who’ve learned all the rules of football, uh, within 72 hours of her dating a football player.
[00:40:10] Christina: Like, all were on it. No, I mean, genuinely, it was the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen, the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen in your life. Like, people who genuinely, like, don’t know anything about football, like, over the course of a few weeks, like, learning not only, like, the entire history of the game and all the rules, but also, like, all the stats for all the players that, uh, that Travis Kelsey will come into contact with.
[00:40:30] Brett: I feel like my understanding of football is pretty rudimentary, and now I’m realizing it’s probably 20 years out of date.
[00:40:36] Christina: Yeah, yeah, I can understand the stats appeal of something like baseball because it can make it easy for people to get sucked into it. Like, if you’re new to a team or new to a game, like, you have all the stats from all of history there that you can just kind of, you know, refer to.
[00:40:52] Jay: It allows you to easily build like a reference point. And I think the second thing that, to me, that makes baseball so [00:41:00] compelling is that, and this is very much like soccer, um, at least soccer in the rest of the world.
[00:41:05] The Journey of Baseball Players
[00:41:05] Jay: I don’t think the U. S. has kind of the same setup, but they have like, there’s a farm system.
[00:41:10] Jay: So in baseball, you get drafted. Sometimes like when you’re in high school, like you’ll be like 18, you’ll be drafted right out of high school. But that doesn’t mean that you go play in the majors that day. You go play rookie ball, and rookie ball is against all the other 18 year olds and you’re probably making 15, 000 a year.
[00:41:28] Christina: that, yeah.
[00:41:30] Jay: And, You get a, you’ll get like a big signing bonus, like if you actually go on, but that’ll be like hundreds of thousands of dollars. Or if you’re like drafted in the top five, like I think the top five rounds, you can get up to like a million, I think if it’s like the first or second round. Um, but then they’re most of most professional players don’t ever make it.
[00:41:51] Jay: into the major league system because there’s somewhere between Ricky Ball, Hi A, Single A, Double A, [00:42:00] Triple A, and then you go, or sorry, Double A, and then you go to the majors.
[00:42:04] Christina: then you go to the majors. Yeah, no, and then you even have people who will make it onto the majors and will be sent back down to, to, you know, the, um, the farm teams. You know, you’ll go back to minor league if you haven’t performed.
[00:42:17] Jay: yeah, so contracts are incredibly like, it’s weird because like the, your, the team will basically control your contract for like the first seven years that you’re drafted, but that means that like if you were drafted at 17, You may not get to the majors until you’re like 22, 23. And you’ve been playing in this farm system making nothing.
[00:42:37] Jay: And I think that that to me is kind of the thing that I forgive. I do think that some of the contracts like Shohei Ohtani making 600 million and the Dodgers pulling tax magic, like he’s, he’s deferred 97 percent of his contract until like his last few years so that they can like basically bring in a ton of really good people, win a champ, win like [00:43:00] two or three championships really quickly, and then figure out all the.
[00:43:03] Jay: Tax implications down the road, but like a lot of players are hoping for that. Meanwhile, they’re working like doing Grubhub wherever they’re at while they’re traveling, playing like single A ball.
[00:43:20] The Culture of Baseball and Minor Leagues
[00:43:20] Jay: And it’s, it’s kind of cool because I think about that in terms of most careers, you know, especially in DevRel.
[00:43:29] Jay: Like I know plenty of DevRel, like folks who are making three, 400, 000 a year. Most of us are not, um, and most people in tech are not. And there is like this level of Hey, where, where am I in the, the farm system of developer advocacy? Like I went from a company like Elastic, which was like a tech company, small tech company, and then all the way up to like Microsoft.
[00:43:57] Jay: And then I opted to go to like the smaller [00:44:00] company that paid better. So like almost like going to play in like the Japanese league, um, where like the pay isn’t as good, but the fans absolutely love you and like they will, they celebrate their baseball players. Like they were like military heroes, um, the same for like Korean baseball, the same thing in like the Dominican.
[00:44:17] Jay: And like baseball is a culture in a lot of these places where every game is like the most important game. And, and when you go to those games, it feels like that. I mean, like I said, the game that I went to two days ago was probably the best game that I went to, that I’ve been to probably in my entire life.
[00:44:33] Jay: And it meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. It was the Braves versus the Tampa Bay Rays. And like, the game meant nothing, but I caught, like, they do, like, when they’re doing their warm ups in between innings, like, they’ll throw the ball out into the stands, and I caught one of the balls. And like, there was like, this little, like, five year old kid that, like, had this saddest look on his face, like, right down the aisle, and I just tossed him the ball.
[00:44:56] Christina: Oh, good,
[00:44:57] Jay: in that moment, like, you’re making [00:45:00] this kid’s, like, entire week.
[00:45:02] Christina: No, you’re more than that, more than that. Like he’s going to remember that he like got a ball from like a Braves game. Like I would have at that age, like, um, I have to admit, I have not been to the new Braves stadium because I have many, many, many, many, many problems with the fact that the Atlanta Braves are no longer in Atlanta, like it pisses me the fuck off.
[00:45:18] Christina: Like I’m not, I can’t, I can’t with it, but I have so many fond memories of being a child. Little, little kid, um, at Braves games, and when they were terrible, and then also when they were good, like my mom, like, checked us out of school to go downtown, actual downtown, for real downtown, to, to the Braves parade the first year that they, um, well, they, they lost against Minnesota, they lost to the World Series against, uh, the Twins, but the Braves have been terrible, and, and that 91 was the start of their, like, Assent for the next decade of being, like, the best team in the league.
[00:45:52] Christina: Like, the Yankees won more, but, like, the Braves were, like, in the, um, um, National League, anyway, were, like, the best team [00:46:00] for, like, a solid decade. So, I, good on you for giving that kid that ball, because he’s going to remember that. Like, that’s going to be one of those things. Like, that’s so cool.
[00:46:09] Brett: I won’t belabor this, but like, what you’re describing about culture and farming and all of this is true for soccer, or football,
[00:46:18] Christina: Yeah, well, that’s what Jay
[00:46:19] Brett: In, in, in Europe and in like South America, like you have all the teams, all the leagues and there’s relegation and promotion and players, players get called up between leagues based on like, you know, skill and affordability, um, for the, for the lower leagues before you get to like premier league, but yeah, like I, I can understand.
[00:46:42] Brett: You have made baseball more interesting to me in the course of this conversation, and maybe, maybe I should be an American and get into baseball.
[00:46:50] Christina: Well, just find a team. I mean, like I hadn’t been into it for a long time. And when the, um, when the Cubs won the World Series in [00:47:00] 2016, like I actually, like I watched almost every single post season game, like at a bar that year, like I was like, got really into it. And like, I don’t know, I mean, Jay might have different advice than me, but like, that’s if you’re interested in, this is with any sport I find, cause I’m not a huge sports person, but until I find a narrative, once I find a narrative that I can get into.
[00:47:19] Christina: And, and for some people it might be stats, right? That might be the way that you get into it. For me, it’s usually like more like storyline driven. Like, you know, how long has it been since they’ve won? And like, what’s the story behind these players? And like, how much are they put upon? Like I need that sort of thing.
[00:47:32] Christina: And, um, like you just, just find a team and like find the story and that, that’s how you can get into it if you want to like that. But that’s the only way I’ve ever gotten into any sport in my life.
[00:47:43] Brett: I have an ex girlfriend who, with zero background with basketball, just suddenly found that storyline with like, uh, the, whatever the Minnesota team is. And now she finds herself at, like, games all the time, because she, like, latched onto this storyline and [00:48:00] Like, found out with, like, out of the blue, like, not a girl who’s into sports in general, um, suddenly, like, loving, like, the stadium atmosphere and the crowds and, and the game itself, and that was interesting to me, but yeah.
[00:48:18] Jay: I thought I muted my, I like tried to mute my mic before I coughed. Um, I, I would say don’t even start at the major league level, start at the minor leagues, find a minor league team. I mean like the St. Paul Saints, like one, the tickets are going to be like 20 bucks
[00:48:37] Christina: yeah. They’d be so
[00:48:38] Jay: for like right at the baseline.
[00:48:40] Jay: Um, again, you have people who are playing that are like trying to get into the major league. So they’re having like. They’re like playing their butts off. But then also the tickets are, like I said, the tickets are so cheap that you can go and there’s not going to be a ton of people there, but people are still going to be cheering.
[00:48:58] Jay: People are still going to be excited. Every [00:49:00] time the ball gets hit, people are going to cheer when amazing catches happen. Like you have to, you almost have to like. Love that moment of a great thing happening. And like, it doesn’t take the balls in the air, the person caught it. Like, that’s amazing. The person dove and like barely caught it.
[00:49:17] Jay: Like, Oh, that’s really cool. Um, the game that I went to, someone saved a home run ball while like, like scaling the wall and like catching it off the wall. Like that’s, that’s like an amazing thing that happens. Um, Someone calling the shot, like in the, in the stands, being like, oh, this next pitch is going to, it’s gonna be a home run.
[00:49:36] Jay: And watching a ball go, like flying over your head and just being like, well, we called that. Like, you know, like obviously you had zero control in that happening. But like the, the magic that comes from doing these kinds of things and, and getting, and again, like the game coming down to like a single pitch and.
[00:49:55] Jay: Like an amazing save that saved the game. Uh, and you know, and then your home [00:50:00] team, your team wins and everybody’s excited, everybody’s cheering. And I think that’s, what’s, that’s, what’s kind of cool. Like, especially in the South where like college sports are probably more popular. Like everybody is divided.
[00:50:11] Jay: Like, you know, whether you have UGA folks or Georgia tech folks, like I’m from Knoxville, so I’m a UT person. Like when, when you go to the Braves, like they call it Braves country. And it’s like four states worth of people, people driving in from Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, parts of Florida, Alabama, like they all come in and everybody is cheering for the Braves.
[00:50:36] Jay: And you just, you get like consumed by it, but you can get that same feeling on a smaller scale by going to a minor league game and like, Also, if you do go to a major league game, two choices, get nosebleed tickets, go to the bar, hang out at the bar, like you don’t even have to drink, like you can get a mocktail and just like watch from the bar, because it’s probably a better view, and your tickets are like 10 if they’re in like the [00:51:00] nosebleed sections, um, or you I like to get outfield seats because you can see everything happening.
[00:51:06] Jay: You can see the entire game as it’s happening and you can like watch the balls flying out and you can start to like get a feel of you see a ball hit and you’re like, ah, that’s too short. Cause like you hear everybody cheer, the ball gets hit and everybody screams. It’s because it’s like coming from in front of them.
[00:51:23] Jay: So they can’t. see how far the ball is actually going. But from the outfield, you actually have a perspective of like, if, if it was a good hit or not, and you know, we’ve, we almost sit in the exact same section. Every game we go to, except for the game I went to in Toronto. And then we got like third base, we got seats right above the dugout.
[00:51:44] Jay: And like, that was just amazing. Like you can literally like. See how tall players are. Like, there are baseball players that I’m taller than and I’m like, that’s kind of weird But like you expect like athletes to be like these like adonises of people, but like no, it’s like five foot nine [00:52:00] guy like 215 pounds kind of stocky like goes up hits a home run everybody cheers And he takes him 45 seconds to like walk around the bases
[00:52:11] Brett: That’s um, it, this is weirdly a sports episode. I think that’s the title. Weirdly a sports
[00:52:17] Christina: a sports episode. Yeah. No, I agree with that. No and no and you’re right though about like Well, it depends on the stadium like where you want to sit But yeah, if you’re like a more modern stadium like like the the new brave stadium I assume yeah Like getting you know Like nosebleeds and then like hanging out some of those other areas because they make they’ve put money into making these stadiums really nice So, you know there are there it’s hard to find a bad seat Like if you’re willing to you know You know, just kind of hang out and, um, you know, the, the various viewing areas and stuff that they have.
[00:52:46] Christina: I went to a Nationals, Nationals versus Braves game in, um, September, um, last year with a, with a girlfriend of mine. Um, she was cheering for the Nationals. I was cheering for the Braves, the Braves won. So I felt like pretty good about that. Um, and, and likewise, [00:53:00] like you can just, I don’t know, base, there’s something really fun about a, about, about a baseball game.
[00:53:04] Christina: Um, and that I assume is, is similar to like European soccer games. Um, You know, where, yeah, you just, you have a lot of people who are just really committed to the, to the team. It’s, yeah.
[00:53:17] Brett: All right. Well, thank you both of you for enlightening me. Um, I’ve always, I’ve always, Had a peripheral interest in sports, more about what you’re talking about, Jay. Like the idea of like being in the crowd and seeing something amazing happen. Uh, which is part of why I’ve always enjoyed soccer is it’s so fucking long between goals when it happens, the eruption of the crowd, even, even if they get in the box, there’s the cross and they miss the eruption of getting close.
[00:53:49] Brett: It’s almost like, um, Tantric sex, where like, you finally, you finally get there, um, or you edge for a whole game and it’s a draw, [00:54:00] but, um, anyway, should we, should we Graptitude before we close out here?
[00:54:05] Christina: Yeah, let’s gratitude.
[00:54:06] Brett: Jay, I know you have something to say.
[00:54:10] grAPPtitude: Exploring Live Streaming Tools
[00:54:10] Jay: shout out to So this is an app that I used they’ve sponsored Terpstra I don’t know if they’ve sponsored Overtired or not, um, but it’s Ecamm live. Um, I have, I’ve been like teasing the idea of doing regular streams and it’s, it’s not even like because I want to be a streamer. It’s just because whenever I need to actually do like a coding project, um, If I have the camera watching me, I will sit down and do it versus like getting distracted and walking around and like not doing what I’m supposed to do.
[00:54:45] Jay: Um, so I like, streamed a few times and in, even in like, not like non streaming situations, like if I’m doing, I do a meetup every Friday with black Python devs, and it’s more of just like a [00:55:00] check in with folks, but it’s so easy for someone to like, ask a question. And they’d be like, hey, I have a career question.
[00:55:07] Jay: I’m like, okay, you know what? I’m going to record this really quick. So then I just like open Ecamm live. And it has like a really simple setup to where if I want a certain window, I just drag that window in and then like, boom, now that window is the main focus. My camera’s down at the bottom. I have like 8, 000 cameras so I can quickly switch between which camera I want pointed.
[00:55:27] Jay: But they also added, uh, they just recently added like zoom support. So like you can do a lot of the, you know, super dynamic stuff within zoom.
[00:55:37] Brett: Oh, that’s
[00:55:38] Jay: But it also, like, if you’re live streaming a Zoom call, like, you know, some people do that, some meetups do that, you can, it integrates the Zoom chat with the actual chat of your, like, live stream.
[00:55:52] Jay: So, like, people who are watching on YouTube have just as much, like, integration with the folks who are, like, in the Zoom [00:56:00] call. And as, like, messages that are public for everyone, like, those will, those can get pushed up. And you can even, like, Pull them up on the screen. Oh, this person asked this question and then have it like load up on your screen and everything.
[00:56:11] Jay: So like, if it, if you’re familiar with StreamYard, it’s very similar to what StreamYard does, but it’s like on your system, so it can integrate with the application and the tools that you have on your system. And in my opinion, it’s. It’s just easier to use than StreamYard, but I definitely would look at it from like the I’m going to record a video or I’m going to do a live stream, uh, type thing.
[00:56:34] Christina: Yeah,
[00:56:35] Brett: be mistaken, but I think that’s who Doc Rock is
[00:56:38] Jay: That is who DocRock
[00:56:39] Christina: It is who Doc rocks with. Um, yeah, they do great stuff. It’s, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s very similar to OBS, frankly, but it’s much better optimized for a Mac. So like if you, if you wanted to do OBS type of stuff, but like, because it’s Mac support is, I mean, it’s not primarily Mac application. Like I think that the, and I actually give money to the OBS developer every month because I
[00:56:57] Brett: Yeah. I love OBS, but I’ve never [00:57:00] tried Ecamm.
[00:57:00] Christina: Yeah. It’s good. They’ve had it for a long time, um, and, and they’ve kind of adopted, uh, adapted it over the years, but it, it, it’s good. I haven’t used it as much as, as Jay has, but, um, it’s, it’s good. It’s good stuff for sure.
[00:57:13] Jay: Yeah. I think if you, if you’ve tempted, if you’re tempted to like try OBS and you like get to those screens and you’re like, I don’t know what to do now, or like, I don’t want to spend a bunch of time configuring them. And then you like go to StreamYard and you’re like, StreamYard’s kind of cool too, but I like a
[00:57:29] Christina: Very cool. But yeah. Mm hmm.
[00:57:31] Jay: Like Ecamm is that like perfect balance between not giving you every single configurable option like OBS does, but giving you a lot of them, but then also having some of the really nice features of like allowing guests to come in on a call if you pay for like a certain amount. Like that’s probably the one downside is that it is like a subscription based product, but.
[00:57:51] Jay: I mean, I think, I think it was like a hundred dollars for the year. Um, and I get all the features except for the ability to bring [00:58:00] like people into the call, which now with zoom integration, like I don’t even need that, like I can just bring them into a zoom call and then do all the same things anyway. Um, but yeah, it’s, it’s like that perfect balance of more, more flexibility than StreamYard, but easier to use than like OBS on the Mac.
[00:58:20] Jay: And all the other OBS forks just don’t work on Macs. Like, they never work on Macs. It’s always embarrassing how bad they are on a Mac.
[00:58:29] Brett: All right. Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Christina, do you have one you want to talk
[00:58:34] Christina: I do.
[00:58:35] grAPPtitude: Managing Development Environments
[00:58:35] Christina: So, okay, I’ve been having to do some demo projects for, um, a thing that I’m going to have to do in, um, uh, eight days, and, um, I’ve been having to kind of, like, mess with my, like, uh, version, um, manager setup for a bunch of different tools, so things like Node, Python, stuff like that, and I’ve used various Node managers over the years.
[00:58:55] Christina: Volta was what I was using for a long time as kind of, like, my in VM, um, Um, uh, [00:59:00] alternative, um, just as an easy way to quickly install or pin a version of Node or NPM, um, globally or per project. But, um, I needed something that could also work with Python. And I know that there are, and Jay can correct me about like all the many different like Python version manager things that are out there.
[00:59:19] Christina: Um, but I was struggling and so I decided to try out an app called MISE, um, or I think it’s pronounced MISE, M I S E. It’s similar to ASDF, which is also kind of like
[00:59:30] Brett: Yeah, I love ASDF.
[00:59:31] Christina: MyEyes is like that and it’s compatible with, with ASDF plugins, but I like it a little bit better. Um, and so it, it has plugins. It’ll work with ASDF plugins out of the box, but it has support for more types of things too.
[00:59:45] Christina: And I, and I just kind of like how it’s laid out a little bit more so, um, um, oh, and it’s Mee’s. I’m sorry. So
[00:59:52] Jay: Yeah, it’s like mise en place,
[00:59:54] Christina: Mise en place. Yes. Mise en
[00:59:56] Jay: everything. Like, it’s a cooking thing where you get all your ingredients [01:00:00] out.
[01:00:00] Christina: No, that makes sense. And because mise en scene, which is, which is the French cinema term. Um, okay. So mise, uh, apologies for saying that wrong, is, is my pick.
[01:00:10] Christina: Um, yeah, like you can use like ASDF, like on the backend, if you want to use ASDF plugins, but it also works with, with, um, with Rust, uh, for Cargo and Go and, and NPM and things like that. And, um, it also works with, um, um, Uh, uh, uh, direct nev, uh, for, for, um, Python stuff. So, um, if you’ve, if you’ve struggled with managing, you know, versions for your dev tools, um, and, and you haven’t jumped on the A SDF bandwagon, or even if you have, if you’re interested in looking at something else, me is, uh, is my pick.
[01:00:47] Brett: I’m watching the 30 second demo. I like the, uh, the very natural language subcommands it uses.
[01:00:54] Christina: Yeah. I like that a lot too. Yeah.
[01:00:55] Brett: I, yeah, I’m going to try this out, especially if it works with all my ASDF [01:01:00] plugins.
[01:01:00] Christina: yeah. I mean, the developer is very, very active. Like, he’s, he’s great. And, um, like, that was one of the other things that kind of, like, Made me feel good about it because some of these tools, like, will start out really strong, like Volta is a great example, and then just kind of die, and then they don’t have any, you know, updates, and like, that can be okay, but like, then you’re like, okay, but I want Bund support, or I want Deno support, or whatever, and like, they never, people make patches, but they never get them, and so, um, I, I really, uh, I’m appreciative of, of this.
[01:01:29] Christina: So, so Mise is my
[01:01:30] Brett: Nice. I am, I am waffling on my pick. Um, I was going to talk about Affinity Tools, but I’m so concerned they’re going subscription after a recent acquisition. Um,
[01:01:44] Christina: they say. Yeah. I don’t believe them.
[01:01:46] Brett: Yeah. And then I was going to talk about my tool. How’s it probably repeated. Um, because it has been my most used, like I can go into any of my [01:02:00] project directories of which I have easily a hundred and I can just type, how’s it minus R deploy and no matter what the project is, whether it’s an Xcode project or a Ruby gem or a Python app that I’m working on, like it will Build and deploy that project.
[01:02:19] grAPPtitude: Launch Control for Mac
[01:02:19] Brett: And I don’t have to remember commands for everything, but what I actually want to talk about is this app called Launch Control for Mac, um, that gives you a very good graphical user interface. AKA GUI, um, to work with LaunchD on your Mac. Um, and if you’re not familiar with LaunchD, think about it as Cron for like sane people.
[01:02:48] Brett: Um, and it offers all kinds of, it’s all done in a plist and you have all kinds of keys for like repeating a task. How often it repeats, whether it repeats after a [01:03:00] shutdown, like if it catches up after a system shutdown, um. You can do calendar timing, you can do interval timing, um, you can do, uh, you, you have, um, uh, process helpers so you can run as root.
[01:03:15] Brett: And all of this in Launch Control is just drag and drop and you can build these LaunchD files and it gives you a, an overview of everything you have in your global daemons, daemons, uh, your, like, user, uh, specific. LaunchD Tasks. It’s awesome and it’s like I think nine bucks still and it is still being updated after years of existing and I,
[01:03:44] Christina: now, but still, but, but, but that’s still a great, that’s still a great price. But yeah, but, but, but it’s, oh no, sorry. It might be less than that. It is, um, 18 was for Ammonite. For Launch Control 2, it is 21 for the personal license and then 15 if you needed to update, [01:04:00] but yeah,
[01:04:00] Brett: I don’t know if Lingen, Lingen was kind of what I used before Launch Control and I think Lingen still exists, but it hasn’t been up active for a while. I don’t think. Um, but Launch Control is, I just got an update yesterday. It’s still It’s still improving. Love it.
[01:04:18] Christina: Fantastic.
[01:04:20] Jay: I
[01:04:20] Brett: All right.
[01:04:21] Concluding Thoughts and Future Topics
[01:04:21] Brett: Well, thanks for the sports episode.
[01:04:23] Brett: We were going to talk about Apple and AI. We were going to talk about, I was going to talk about record, uh, like Windows recording, everything you do and how I actually, Don’t, I don’t hate the idea of local recordings. There’s apps called Rewind and Limitless from the same dev that actually intrigue me, like they can give you, they can listen to your, your Zoom meetings and give you like meeting notes automatically.
[01:04:51] Brett: And they even have like a dongle
[01:04:53] Christina: Yeah, they have a pin now. Yeah,
[01:04:54] Brett: record your conversations with other people and get like AI summaries. [01:05:00] And it’s intriguing to me. Um, I have, I don’t talk about confidential information and like the idea. Anyway, that’s, we’ll do that next
[01:05:09] Christina: You do it and yeah, we’ll do it. We’ll do it next week because, uh, yeah, because they, they delayed recall. So, you know, they listened to the, to the massive shitstorm. Um, yeah, like they’re like, like, long story short, just my personal opinion, not representative of, uh, Microsoft or a Microsoft subsidiary. I think that this was This was a, an own goal, this was a failure of marketing and of, uh, of messaging, not, not a product, uh, or design failure to be completely honest.
[01:05:37] Christina: I think this is, this is completely a, a you’ve told this story and what this is doing the wrong way thing.
[01:05:42] Jay: This is, this is the, the kickstart of the, like, Metro Boomin future, we don’t trust you, like, rap beef to Drake and Microsoft is Drake in this instance.
[01:05:54] Christina: Absolutely. And, and like, you don’t want to be Drake right now, right? Like, like, that, that’s, that’s like, that’s like a hard place to [01:06:00] be because like, everybody wanted to be Drake and now you’re like, oh no, oh no, what’s coming, right? Like, you, it, please, please do what Drake didn’t do and shut the fuck up because you don’t need like the, the, the, the three Kendrick, you know, um, uh, tracks in one weekend coming out.
[01:06:16] Christina: Like, you really don’t need that.
[01:06:19] Brett: All right. Well, thanks for being here, Jay.
[01:06:23] Jay: Absolutely. Anytime.
[01:06:25] Christina: We love you. Get some sleep, guys.
[01:06:27] Jay: Get some sleep.
Geeky Giggles, Merch Madness, and Taco Tech Tips: The Overtired Trio
Brace yourself for some uproarious fun as Brett Terpstra, Christina Warren, and Jeff Severins Gunsel hit a two-week reunion record! Dive into the madness with Brett unveiling the show’s new must-have merch—’Get Some Sleep’ totes and, wait for it, ‘Overtired’ thongs. The trio delves into a rollercoaster of mental health updates: Brett reminisces about manic creativity, Jeff raves about mid-day naps, and Christina juggles workshop anxiety with WWDC excitement. In the mix, Brett questions Christina on her bizarre hotel misadventures, and they hash out the chaos of project management, with throwbacks to ‘The Mythical Man Month,’ NVAlt, and nvUltra. Christina drops some tech love for Carbon Copy Cloner 7 and open-source stand-ins for Bartender, now cloaked in corporate mystery. Don’t miss their foodie detour into the hilarious Taco Fancy GitHub project and snag some savvy coding tips along the way. Your ultimate guide to tech, tacos, thongs, and more!
Incognito mode doesn’t stop your network provider from seeing where you visit, but ExpressVPN does. Visit expressvpn.com/overtired to get an extra 3 months free.
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Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter.
Bad At Being Good At Computers
[00:00:00]
[00:00:03] Welcome and Introductions
[00:00:03] Brett: Hey, it’s Overtired. You’re here. It’s like two weeks in a row for us. That’s, that’s a, that’s a record as of recently. I’m Brett Terpstra. I’m here with Christina Warren and Jeff Severins Gunsel. Welcome to the show, guys.
[00:00:19] Jeff: Thank you! It’s really great to be here. Thank you for having me.
[00:00:22] Brett: Yeah, yeah, welcome. Welcome.
[00:00:25] Merchandise Announcement
[00:00:25] Brett: Um, so right off the bat, I want to mention because I’ve forgotten for the last two episodes that we now have merch. And Uh, it’s sel it’s sold through Sellfy and the easiest way to get there is to go to bit. ly slash ot merch. Um, that’s a special short URL I made just for you.
[00:00:50] Brett: Uh, there will be a link in the show notes. Uh, you can get a A Get Some Sleep Jeff tote, you can get an overtired pillow, [00:01:00] you can buy all the t shirts, there’s a, there’s a university, an overtired university logo, um, it, it, take a look, it’s fun, it’s fun stuff, you can get any of the designs, which there are only a few right now, and I made them, uh, Kind of all on one day.
[00:01:17] Brett: Uh, so I need to, I need to revisit, come up with some better designs, but like the straight up logo,
[00:01:24] Jeff: It’s fun.
[00:01:25] Brett: um, all of the, all of the, uh, weird, weird patterns I’ve made, you can get them on t shirts. Um, Baseball shirts, hoodies, tank tops, pillows, coffee mugs, uh, tote bags.
[00:01:41] Jeff: There’s a thong, but the print is so small that you can’t quite read it, but
[00:01:45] Brett: There’s a thong. I didn’t even realize there was a thong. I, I should probably remove that because none of our designs would fit on a thong.
[00:01:52] Jeff: yeah, no, I thought the font was way
[00:01:54] Brett: Also, I wouldn’t want to see that.
[00:01:56] Christina: Yeah, I wouldn’t either, although
[00:01:58] Jeff: would not get some [00:02:00] sleep.
[00:02:00] Christina: so no, somebody did want to send me, I don’t remember what this was now, because it was gross. It was creepy. Somebody sent me something that was printed on a thong from one of these sites for, for some random thing. And so I, I received it in the mail and I was like, This is underwear I’m never gonna wear.
[00:02:14] Christina: I, I, I know, like, I, I, I know the intention behind this or whatever it was. It was that you thought this was funny and you thought that, like, I’d be the type of person who would, like, not be offended by it. And I wasn’t offended by it, to be clear, but I was still, like, I’m still not putting this on my body.
[00:02:29] Christina: I’m still not putting this, you know, up my ass. Like, this is not happening.
[00:02:33] Brett: How many times have I said
[00:02:35] Jeff: Yeah,
[00:02:36] Christina: I mean, I was gonna
[00:02:37] Jeff: how I judge all objects.
[00:02:39] Christina: Right.
[00:02:39] Brett: I put this up my
[00:02:40] Jeff: put that up my ass.
[00:02:43] Christina: This episode is sponsored today. Bye.
[00:02:45] Brett: the Tesla truck. I would not put that up my ass.
[00:02:48] Jeff: We both went for Tesla right away. How did we get so
[00:02:50] Christina: That’s so funny. That’s hysterical.
[00:02:54] Brett: Um.
[00:02:55] Mental Health Corner
[00:02:55] Brett: Yeah, so, uh, quick, uh, mental health check [00:03:00] in, um, I guess I always kick it off these days. Um, mine’s pretty short, I, I miss Manic Episodes, I have been stable for, Jesus, like a year now, and And I kind of missed the rush of like creativity and productivity I get with a manic episode. But that being said, I’ve created some stuff in the last year that is pretty, um, creative.
[00:03:32] Brett: And I, I think I write better code when I’m stable and well, it’s weird because when I’m manic, I’ll like find a new design pattern for like, for, for code and I will be like, all right, I’m going to learn this new pattern by writing an entire app using it and, and I’ll just do it and like, I learned stuff really fast that way, but when I’m stable, I work with patterns I know well.
[00:03:59] Brett: [00:04:00] And. And I write solid code that’s easily maintainable and, uh, probably better. I think I mostly miss the general, uh, feeling like I’m always on cocaine. Feeling that I get from a manic episode, but I consider changing my meds to like back to like Focalin, which always triggered manic episodes for me. Um, but I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t know how to explain that to my psychiatrist.
[00:04:32] Brett: I would, I would like to be less stable,
[00:04:34] Christina: Hi, I would like to be high, please. I would like, I would like, I would like to, I would like to trigger manic episode. I don’t think there’s a way you can, you can, like, stay, No, I, I don’t think there’s way you can be honest and say like, what you want there without him, like very understandably being like, absolutely not.
[00:04:51] Christina: Um, yeah,
[00:04:52] Brett: Yeah. I
[00:04:53] Jeff: I mean, you could do the Sunday morning coming down version, where you also get the medications you need to shut it off, which don’t [00:05:00] exist.
[00:05:00] Brett: Um, yeah. So anyway, that’s my mental health check in. Otherwise I’m good.
[00:05:05] Jeff: Nice. Uh, I can go. I don’t, I also have, I’m not, yeah, I’m not even sure what, what. To say, I’ve actually, I’ve just been kind of, things have been moving so fast that I, when I stopped to think about what I’d say, I was like, I don’t even know. I’m doing fine making it, but it’s like a lot happening. So probably I’m lacking a little bit of spaciousness.
[00:05:26] Jeff: Although I have to say, I have to say, I, I have, I have returned to something that I stopped for a long time, which is very short. Naps in the middle of the day. So just before recording, I’ve been working all morning and in meetings and stuff, and it was just like, Oh God. And so I went down with like 20 minutes left before we started recording.
[00:05:45] Jeff: And for 15 minutes, I I’m capable of just like falling almost immediately into a sleep and like just getting the chemicals released and getting calm. And so if I do 15 or 20 minutes and I get up, it is. Such an improvement in my, [00:06:00] um, mental state. And so maybe that’s my check in is I did one of those before coming in here and I think I am a totally different presence because of it.
[00:06:07] Brett: I slept, I slept 20 minutes. I got up five minutes before I logged into Riverside. I do that. I, I, I think I’ve always done that
[00:06:16] Jeff: Yeah. I used to, I did it.
[00:06:17] Brett: when I’m manic and I just can’t sleep.
[00:06:19] Jeff: I it’s only in the last year that I stopped doing it. I’ve done it forever. Um, so it’s just nice to return to that and be like, Oh, I love that. Uh, so yeah, that’s me, I guess.
[00:06:29] Brett: very refreshing. How you doing Christina?
[00:06:34] WWDC Plans and Reflections
[00:06:34] Christina: I’m doing good. Um, I’m gonna be going to ww DC next week. Um, well, okay. I’m not, like, apple did not give me a, a ticket. Um, they, they will not allow me. Um, I’m, yeah. At the spaceship. Um, I, uh, I guess I’m not, um, on their influencer list anymore. Uh, no. I, I, I wouldn’t expect to be. It’s fine. Um, but, um. A lot of other people are going to be in town, and so I’m going to be just uh, staying with them, a friend, [00:07:00] and then just kind of hanging out, um, and seeing people.
[00:07:02] Christina: And so I’m really excited about that, because this is like one of the times of years where we get to see all of our people, whether you’re
[00:07:08] Brett: that’s what we used to do it with 2L. We used to go and we, we didn’t have, we, we couldn’t get in. We, do you remember the keynote before they started way before, like the days of streaming and we would send. A bug, like inside and we would sit outside with a pair of headphones and like, and like live blog the keynote
[00:07:32] Christina: Yep.
[00:07:32] Brett: and it was, and the wifi was shit.
[00:07:35] Brett: So
[00:07:35] Christina: The Wi Fi was
[00:07:36] Brett: dropping out.
[00:07:37] Christina: God, I remember, I remember at one event that I was at one year, I think it was the iPhone 4 event. I don’t remember what it was, but I remember Steve Jobs screaming at everyone to turn off their Wi Fi because it was messing up with the demos. And I, I did not turn my Wi Fi
[00:07:52] Jeff: We don’t work for you, motherfucker.
[00:07:54] Christina: no, that’s how I was.
[00:07:55] Christina: I was like, I was like, thank you for inviting me, Apple, and thanks for making this a [00:08:00] thing. I am absolutely not turning my Wi Fi off under no circumstances. I was like, I’m live blogging because that’s the only reason I’m able to be here, is because I think it was at Mashable at the time, but I’ll never forget that I’m like yelling at everybody to like turn their Wi Fi off, and I was like, yeah, I get it.
[00:08:14] Christina: Um, No.
[00:08:16] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:08:17] Brett: Moscone just did not have the capacity for that, for an, for an event of that caliber, uh, with that many nerds, everyone with a laptop. Everyone, you know, trying to like manically blog about what was happening.
[00:08:35] Christina: in fairness to Moscone, I mean, like, literally, Twitter didn’t have the capacity. Like, Twitter used to go down during WWDC things. Like, Twitter would go down, like, reliably. Um, to the point that, like, we would always have, like, a post prepared. And so, uh, it was one of those things where I was just like, I was like, yeah, no, I, I, I understand.
[00:08:55] Christina: This is not going to be a thing that, uh, um, you [00:09:00] Anyway, um, memories. But yeah, so I’ll be at DubDub, which will be really fun. But, um, I won’t be at DubDub, but I’ll, but I’ll, but I’ll be in the area. So that’s, that’s kind of my, my heads up.
[00:09:10] Workshop Preparation Stress
[00:09:10] Christina: Um, I, I, with, I was informed, I will also, this is the only thing that’s a little annoying.
[00:09:15] Christina: So I’ll be in San Jose for like a week and that’ll be great. And then I’ll be back home for like a week and then I have to go back to San Francisco for like a week. Um, because I thought, I thought, I thought that I was going for, well, it’s just. I thought I was going to be going in for like one or two days, um, for, for an event.
[00:09:36] Christina: And then it turned out to be a much bigger thing. Um, the, the, the, the team that asked me, like it, it winds up being a much, much bigger thing than it was. And so I also have to come up with potentially three hours. I’m hoping that it’s only 90 minutes, but it’s potentially three hours of workshop content for something that’ll be happening in two and a half weeks.
[00:09:57] Christina: So wish me luck on that.
[00:09:59] Jeff: [00:10:00] Wow, yeah, good luck.
[00:10:01] Brett: Oracle always asks me if I want to do workshops, but no, I. I have avoided it thus far. I bet you’re better at it than I am.
[00:10:12] Christina: I’m not, I mean, I don’t, I don’t mind doing them. The thing here is I’m like, I don’t know if I have enough content. Like when they first told me, they’re like, Oh, well you can break it to power where you want. And I was like, yeah, I’m going to have to, cause I don’t have a three hour workshop in me. Like I’m not a teacher, you know what I mean?
[00:10:24] Christina: Like, that’s, that’s a lot. And honestly, that’s, that’s a lot even for the audience, right? Like, I don’t know anybody who really wants to be in there for that long. Like. I certainly don’t. So I’m splitting this up with some, uh, with a guy and we have some other content, but no, but this has just been a thing where I’m like, I’m like, how much content do I have?
[00:10:40] Christina: Right. And then you always have to think about like, okay, well how much is this is going to be like set up on the, you know, the getting started aspect and the troubleshooting and the other aspect, you know? So there’s. There’s stuff you have to build into that too. That’s always the hard thing about these events.
[00:10:53] Christina: Like it’s one thing if you can kind of set the expectation that everybody is going to come and they’re going to have like a GitHub account that is not [00:11:00] brand new. When it is, that can cause problems. And then I have to escalate things and I can, but you know, that is an issue. And then, you know, having to get coupons for things to work and then just making sure like, okay, but then how much content do we really have?
[00:11:12] Christina: And, and are the demos all going to work? And I don’t know, I’m stressing out about that a little bit, to be honest. So my mental health corner. I’m excited about, uh, seeing people next week and hanging out. And I’m also a little bit stressed about the thing that I have coming up on the 25th because, um, you know, it’s just, again, stuff that was sort of dropped in my, my lap and I’m like, I’m going to be able to be good and it’s going to be good and I’m happy to do it.
[00:11:37] Christina: Um, it’s just, uh, it’s just more than, um, I was expecting and, and frankly, what I was like initially told, and that’s not my team’s fault at all. Like they’re amazing. This kind of caught everybody off guard. Um, but those are the things that happen sometimes and these are the only areas just to, I guess, take it back to Mental Health Corner for a little bit and kind of our show, like I, I think a lot about the fact that. [00:12:00] Okay, how do I frame this? I, I think I oftentimes think about my ADHD and my depression and like my other, you know, like, uh, uh, neurodivergent, uh, features. And, and I think about like the negative impact that it has had on my life. Uh, and, and there are definitely, Many, many negative aspects and I, and I wouldn’t, um, ever say like, Oh, it’s my secret weapon or this or that.
[00:12:25] Christina: Cause like, fuck you. If I had the ability to just be completely normal, like have my brain work as it’s supposed to, I would take that in a second. Right. Maybe I wouldn’t be as creative. Maybe I would lose some other je stuff. Who’s to say, but I would absolutely prefer to not be ADHD.
[00:12:40] ADHD and Deadline Management
[00:12:40] Christina: Having said that, the only way that I think that I can cope with things like finding out that something that you thought was going to be a 15 minute talk and maybe some booth duties turning into something that might be three hours long about, you know, uh, topics that you have, how well versed I am in them, I’ll, I’ll be ready in, in two [00:13:00] weeks, but like, we’re not there yet is I think like, Being ADHD.
[00:13:04] Christina: Like, I, I think that is definitely a, an area where I can 100 percent say that if I was somebody who did not have my brain, I’d be way more stressed about this. But this is kind of, if anything, like the time when like, to your point about manic episodes brought, like, I certainly, I’ve never had a manic episode and I don’t know what that would be like, but there is like a certain high that I can get when like, okay, it’s crunch time.
[00:13:24] Christina: Like, I have like deadline, you know, high, you know what I mean? When you’re like, okay, we have to make this work. It’s everybody, everything’s coming together really hot and we got to
[00:13:32] Brett: ADHD time to shine.
[00:13:35] Christina: Totally, totally. And it is. And so that’s, that’s kind of a, it’s a good reminder in some cases. We’re like, yeah, this is a debilitating thing and it’s not great.
[00:13:44] Christina: A lot of the times, um, Um, and we make it work and we have to make things work around ourselves and find ways to do things, but there are times, like you said, like the ADHD time to shine and, you know, deadlines were like that, you know, journalism in general was like that, but also things like finding out, [00:14:00] okay, you know, Can you just pull a three hour workshop out of your ass? Yes. Yes, I can. You know?
[00:14:08] Brett: My, uh, my performance review is next week. And when I was going through the like goal system where you have to like input your goals and everything, um, I realized that all of my accomplishments for the last quarter were assignments that were given to me with like a two hour, They’re like, Hey, we need you to fix this.
[00:14:31] Brett: Hey, here’s, uh, here’s 10 minutes of shitty video. Can you turn this into a polished two minute, uh, presentation, like with exciting video and, and that, yeah, that’s my time to shine. I’ve got two hours and I’ve got a bunch of just crap to work with and I have to make it. I had to make it pretty and make it fun and make it exciting.
[00:14:53] Brett: And yeah, um, you give me a, I had to write a four part [00:15:00] series on the command line interface for OCI. And I worked on it for like two months because there was no deadline. They’re just like, we think this would be a cool article. And I just kept like, kind of plugging away at it. But if someone had been like, we need this tomorrow, shit, I’d have been done.
[00:15:18] Brett: Yeah.
[00:15:18] Christina: Well, no, it’s funny. I have to tell people that all the time. And like, and in terms of like, how to work with me. And in some cases I feel bad because You know, um, I, I can’t be more responsible and adult and, and have better time management and whatnot. But I, I am always pretty strict with people.
[00:15:35] Christina: I’m like, no, you need to give me a hard deadline. Like we need to, or we need to schedule time to do stuff. And it can’t be soft because if it’s soft, I will push. I know I can, and I will. I will never have anything done two weeks in advance ever. That’s just not, um, how, uh, my, my brain works, at least not, not at this stage of my life.
[00:15:51] Christina: Before, like before I became ADHD, and I’ve talked about this before, I really do feel like there was like a. Genuine, something happened where my brain [00:16:00] swaps. I was actually usually fairly proactive, but even then I wasn’t one of those things where I was like done way in advance. But now like I’ve gotten pretty good to the point where it’s like, no, it’s going to be right up to the deadline.
[00:16:11] Christina: So if you give me any opportunity to push, like if you make it open ended, it’s not going to get done is actually the real thing that’s going to happen. It’s not going to get done. So I have to be pretty direct with people for my own expectations and for theirs to be like, okay, even if we need to move it.
[00:16:27] Christina: Pass this, like you have to give me an actual deadline, um, and it has to be like consequences. It can’t be one of those things like, oh, it’d be great if I had it on Thursday. Okay, well, then that could be Friday, right? Like that’s how I read that, right? When I say it would be really great if I could have this Thursday, I’m going, cool, so I can get this to you on Friday and it won’t be a problem.
[00:16:45] Christina: But if you’re like, no, I need to have this Tuesday or else, okay, you’re, you’re going to get it probably a minute before the due date, but like, that’s when you’ll get it.
[00:16:53] Brett: Yeah, I have always, I pre, up until this year, I have always said arbitrary deadlines. Like if [00:17:00] someone gives me a hard deadline and I know it’s bullshit,
[00:17:02] Christina: Mm hmm,
[00:17:03] Brett: I know that they’re like in the, like the whole startup mentality is all about, like, we need this in two weeks, but there’s no, there’s no damage to the company.
[00:17:13] Brett: There’s no. They just made up a deadline to apply pressure and my brain rebels against that. But in the last year, I’ve gotten better about setting my own deadlines and adding a sense of urgency to it. And I usually set my personal deadline two days before whatever deadline I’m given. Um, and, and that never used to work for me.
[00:17:38] Brett: That never used to work. I
[00:17:40] Christina: was going to say, did you do anything different to change that? Cause I do struggle with that. Like I can set my own deadline too, but, but it’s much, it’s usually much more realistic. Like it’s, it’s almost never early.
[00:17:50] Brett: I gamified it to some extent, like if I get this done two days early, I get to do X, you know, for the next two days. [00:18:00] Um, because, and I won’t turn the project in until it’s actually due. Um, and I’ll take that time to fuck off and do whatever I want. Um, so there’s kind of a reward, I gamify it, but other than that, no, I just suddenly
[00:18:14] Christina: You
[00:18:14] Brett: Was able to like, was able to like, accept my own arbitrary deadlines.
[00:18:20] Christina: No, that’s good. Yeah. I, I usually, I wish I could, I wish I could set my own arbitrary deadlines like earlier than they need to be. Cause in what really happens is that like, although you know what I have, I think I’ve gotten better with that. Um, in terms of waking up for certain things, like I’ve gotten much better at least on, um, timelines.
[00:18:36] Christina: Like I’m. I’m never, I’m rarely early. Um, and, and if I am early is usually, um, uh, because of, of luck. But I, I have gotten better about becoming more on time, at least for some things. And again, it’s one of those things, if I know I can be late to something, I will be. But if you tell me, and this is why I always tell people, I’m like, no, if you have a hard deadline on something, like you need to let me know, because if I’m just open to be like, Oh, we have this hour [00:19:00] long window, But I’m thinking like, it’s, you know, we can go 15 minutes afterwards if that’s, you know, what happens, then like, I’m going to come in kind of my normal time.
[00:19:08] Christina: But if you’ve got other things going on, I know I should respect your time more, but I don’t, I wish that I did, but I don’t. So like, I need to like be told, but if I know like, okay. But I’ve gotten better, like uh, Microsoft Build stuff was actually a good experience because I was on, other than the first day for rehearsals where I was five or six minutes late and that was not even my fault, like all the other days I was there, if not exactly on time, like five minutes early and I was like, shit, like you actually left your house exactly when you needed to leave your house, uh, which almost never happens.
[00:19:39] Christina: So I don’t know.
[00:19:40] Brett: I am, I am like, it’s super important to me to be on time for things to the extent that for like the hour before I have to leave, all I think about is I have to leave by this time if I want to get there five minutes early and I am, I am crazy punctual for an [00:20:00] ADHD person. Um, like it’s just. I don’t know why it’s so important to me, but a chiropractor appointment, uh, uh, uh, coffee with a friend, like whatever it is, like I’m always five minutes early.
[00:20:16] Brett: I get the table, you know, I check in, whatever. And I’m, I’m just my whole life. I’ve been bizarrely punctual.
[00:20:24] Christina: That’s, that’s great. I, I’ve always been like, now my sister, we call it Kelly time and we know that she runs at a completely different time zone and like, and hers is probably a little bit ADHD, but mostly it’s narcissism. And, um, and so we, we know that like her thing is just like you, she will tell you a certain time and you need to expect about an hour and a half to two hours beyond that.
[00:20:45] Christina: So you even have to give her a different time. Um, because she will, And, and I don’t know if she does the thing where, like, I don’t know if she, like, cogently knows, like, what the actual time is, and then gives herself that buffer, like, I don’t know if she, she reverse engineers it, or not. I, I [00:21:00] tend to think not, but like, we, we have learned, like, Especially if, like, if we’re meeting someplace at a restaurant, she’s usually okay, although not always.
[00:21:09] Christina: Um, but, like, if she’s coming over to my parents house or something, like, we know we have to give, like, a different expectation of, of when timing is. Um, with me, I’m never that late because it, it will be, like, an hour and a half or two hours. Like, it’s, it’s not a, you know, five or, or a 15 minute thing, but I’m usually habitually about five minutes late, um, to things, you know?
[00:21:28] Brett: Um, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
[00:21:31] PSA and Upcoming Events
[00:21:31] Brett: So, um, I would like to make a PSA. Before we move on, um,
[00:21:37] Jeff: Okay.
[00:21:38] Brett: of the show, Aaron Dawson has, has a band called Genital Shame and,
[00:21:45] Christina: great name.
[00:21:46] Brett: and they will be playing at, um, it’s called A Queer Ritual, Palmers Pride Party 2024. It is Saturday, June 29th in Minneapolis. I don’t know if there are other [00:22:00] shows related to this, but in Minneapolis on June 29th at 4 p.
[00:22:04] Brett: m. at Palmers. Bar patio if you’re in the area. Um, I will be at that show. Jeff might even be at that show. Um, and if not Jeff, then some metalhead friend I can find. This will be all experimental metal and industrial and they’re like eight bands on the ticket, um, including one called. Abscheid, that is a sub genre less metal ensemble that creates sounds to connect your head to your gut, which out of all of these descriptions is one of my favorites.
[00:22:43] Brett: Genital Shame is also good. But, um, there’s one that’s a five piece extreme metal band. And I don’t, I assume that’s two guitars and a separate vocalist, but I have no idea what all the, what the five pieces are. That’s a [00:23:00] lot. That’s a lot of pieces for a metal band.
[00:23:03] Christina: is, but I love this. And also like General Shame is such a great name. I wish that if I wasn’t in genuinely, I mean, that’s like, if I, if I’d known, like, if I wasn’t going to be like, uh, in San Francisco, literally right then, um, I, I would have loved to have like, come to Minneapolis for, for, and seen this, that would have been cool.
[00:23:21] Brett: We would have welcomed you to Minneapolis some other time then.
[00:23:24] Christina: Some other time.
[00:23:27] Brett: And it will be an outdoor show for the most part, a little bit indoors, but yeah, I’m excited to go. I’m going to spend the night in Minneapolis, see how many people I can see in a 24 hour period.
[00:23:41] Christina: I love it. I love it.
[00:23:42] Keyboard Talk
[00:23:42] Christina: Um, when you said you were going to do a PSA, I thought that you were going to talk to, uh, give us a PSA about like why, um, you shouldn’t buy 58 key keyboards. Um, Uh, which,
[00:23:53] Brett: That could be our, that can be our next topic.
[00:23:55] Christina: I was gonna say, maybe it should be, cause, cause, uh, cause we were talking a little bit about some of your, your, um, your [00:24:00] keyboard, um, uh, entrees, uh, last episode.
[00:24:05] Brett: so I finished putting together a lily58 keyboard and as I put it together I realized things like the single quote and double quote key don’t fit on the main layout and so you have to create a layer with, you know, like a key to trigger the layer and then uh, You have to have a, you have to have shift assigned on that layer so you can get both single quote and double quote out of it, unless you want to assign those to separate keys, but then you have to learn the, you have to like learn the muscle memory for the separate keys.
[00:24:42] Brett: And it is, I, the, the keyboard I’m using, the controllers I have use a variant of like QMK, uh, key, key mapping. And, uh, it’s, yeah, it’s through, uh, I’m using an app called [00:25:00] Vial, V I A L,
[00:25:02] Christina: Yeah. So, so, so, uh, I know the girl who makes Via, which is what Vial is based on.
[00:25:06] Brett: Yeah, that’s cool. It is very, it’s very complex compared to like the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard Agent which is much easier to configure and now has, you know, eight layers just like this does. We’re gonna see, I’m gonna see what I can do. They make, they make, um, Uh, what do you call it? Um, shit. They make keys, key switches and keycaps that give you a curve upwards.
[00:25:42] Brett: on the keyboard and there’s a word for this and I can’t remember but I’m considering because right now I just have a flat ortholinear layout and it would be cool if it was a little bit more ergonomic for my fingers. Um, I don’t know if [00:26:00] this is going to become my new keyboard. Using it makes me Always wish I was using my ultimate hacking keyboard, uh, which now is almost complete with cool key caps, but, um, yeah.
[00:26:14] Brett: So anyway, key mapping a 58 key keyboard is, is weird.
[00:26:21] Jeff: How many keys are on a normal keyboard if you have a number pad?
[00:26:26] Brett: A hundred and four,
[00:26:29] Jeff: Jesus Christ.
[00:26:30] Christina: Yeah. And then I usually use like a 75 key, uh, layout. Um, or a 65. And so the 75 key is, is like what the, the standard would be like on your, um, MacBook keyboard, or if you got like a, um, apple, um, normal, uh, wireless keyboard. It doesn’t have the NU Pad or the um. Uh, like the, um, Home and PageUp and PageDown keys.
[00:26:53] Christina: Um, so like that’s, that’s a, that’s a pretty common layout. Uh, 58, and 60 is, is, and 65 [00:27:00] percent are, are common too. Those usually lack, lack the function row. Um, and you can, like, remap those. But 58, I’m looking at what this literally 58 is now. That’s a weird one, yeah. Cause even so, If you had 60, like you can do more there, although like 65 would be better, but like that’s just that those seven key differences, that is interesting how you then have to go into like a different layer philosophy and figure out like, okay, how’s my muscle memory going to work and how I
[00:27:26] Brett: Yeah. Right.
[00:27:27] Christina: like that, that, that
[00:27:28] Brett: then you can have layers trigger other layers with key combinations. And it’s cool because you can make, like, you can build a hyper key.
[00:27:38] Christina: Yes.
[00:27:39] Brett: no additional software. You can say, if I tap this key, do this. If I hold this key and hit another key, do this. If I tap this key twice, then like permanently switch
[00:27:50] Jeff: Wait, you can do that how? Just with this keyboard and its firmware?
[00:27:53] Brett: Yeah, exactly.
[00:27:56] Christina: Yeah, exactly. Which is really cool. Um, you should check out Viya, um, [00:28:00] uh, which is a web version, uh, that, that might have a better interface for you, Brett. Use Viya. app. Um, uh, we’ll do it that way. I also put the link in the, in the show notes. Um, but like, um, if, if you’re having, if you’re not liking some of the stuff with, with Viya, um, uh, check out Viya.
[00:28:16] Christina: It might be better. Cause it’s all, all of these are just basically different front ends for QMK. Um, but, but, but, but I, I think that, um, um, Viya or Via, um, that, um, my friend, um, Olivia, uh, does
[00:28:30] Brett: Cool. Yeah. I will check that
[00:28:32] Jeff: You should, you know, I bet there’s a way to do this, maybe it would require scripting or more than this allows you to do, but where if you, um, just palm down on the whole right half of the keyboard so that, like, it’s just looking for enough of the keys to be hit That it’s actually a, you know, like a, uh, it performs an action or like, I was gonna say fisting, putting your fist down on it.
[00:28:58] Jeff: That’d be fun. [00:29:00] You should try that.
[00:29:01] Brett: I’m not sure how to, uh, from a technical perspective, I’m not sure how it would
[00:29:05] Jeff: I already have it laid out in my brain, but I just don’t know if the software can catch up with my brain. You said I was bad at computers earlier. I want to revise that. I’m bad at computers for somebody who’s good at computers.
[00:29:19] Brett: I didn’t mean it. I
[00:29:20] Jeff: no, no, but I actually was thinking about that. And I’m like, no, I am like under pressure.
[00:29:25] Jeff: I’m bad at computers where I’m just like, I have to do a thing. And I was like, and just in my own systems, like I have all of these pieces. I’m like good at computers, but I’m bad at being good at computers. That’s how I actually like this. I’m not, this isn’t defensive. I was like, no, you really helped me get somewhere.
[00:29:42] Jeff: Uh, anyway.
[00:29:44] Brett: I’m titling this show, Bad at Being Good at Computers.
[00:29:49] Jeff: I like that. And so one of the reasons I’m always silent in these keyboard conversations is I feel fucking so left out because I can’t fucking type without looking at the keyboard. [00:30:00] And I don’t even, and even when I’m looking, obviously, that means I’m not using all my fingers. And I want that to
[00:30:05] Brett: don’t want my keyboard
[00:30:06] Jeff: I want that to be different. I want to know, I want to know a second language, which I don’t, I know a little bit, I know enough Arabic to not get beat up in a five minute span. Um, and, and I know what
[00:30:17] Christina: That’s way more than me.
[00:30:19] Jeff: Uh, but I am talking about limited and, and I love other languages and then I wish I could type.
[00:30:25] Jeff: And if I could just change anything about myself, those are the
[00:30:27] Brett: What, so there, there are
[00:30:29] Jeff: Little shorter.
[00:30:30] Brett: touch typing tutors. Why, why have
[00:30:33] Jeff: know there are No, we go through this all the time because there’s a fucking million things to do in my life every day. And so I can stop and learn how to type, or I can do one of the million other things
[00:30:44] Christina: Other things that you need to do. What was interesting to me, I, I kind of, so I took like a typing class when I was like in fifth grade or something. Um, and it was dumb. It was, it was a waste of time. Like my mom like paid money for me to go to like some community college thing and like take a typing [00:31:00] class because in her mind, like you still needed to like, that’s how you needed to learn to type.
[00:31:04] Christina: And, and, um, you know, yeah, I learned the homeroom, homeroom and all that stuff, but frankly it was just Mavis Beacon, but with like an instructor, it was stupid. But, but like, How I really learned to touch type, frankly, was just, I don’t even know. Like, I, I think I’m, I’m surprised that you don’t touch type genuinely because of all the, uh, how, um, how well you write and how much you write.
[00:31:24] Christina: Because for me, it was just like kind of an, I mean, like, and, and I don’t mean this like in, in, in a derogatory way
[00:31:29] Jeff: No, no, I don’t take it that way.
[00:31:31] Christina: cause there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Like, I also wish I could learn other languages and you know, more Arabic and Japanese than I ever will. And I’m envious of that, but like, it’s weird.
[00:31:39] Christina: Cause for whatever reason, like. I, I didn’t really pay attention that much in that, in that typing class when I was like in fourth or fifth grade, but I naturally just like figured out how to type correctly and to touch type, just because I guess I was just on the internet all the time. Um, I was just never not, um, you know, connected and I was just like, [00:32:00] okay, well, this is, you know.
[00:32:01] Christina: How I, how it, how I do this now. Right. Like it got to the point where I was like, I, you know, you start out, you’re looking at it and then it just became, it wasn’t even like I tried, I don’t even think to, to not look down at it. That being said, I did try to switch to a different keyboard layout once. And that I, you know.
[00:32:17] Christina: No, right? Like that, which is why I think like looking at that lovely 58 Brett, like that’s a really interesting looking keyboard, but there are enough like, um, things that are not there where I would be like, I w I would really have to, to your point, Jeff, like I would have to like switch. I would have to like take time out of my day and be like, okay, I need to practice on this and like put time into this.
[00:32:39] Christina: I don’t think it’s something that I could just, you know, pick up overnight. Um, and there might be better things to do, but I am a little surprised that like you didn’t just through osmosis get. Touch
[00:32:48] Jeff: Yeah. It’s weird because the one thing I discovered a few years ago is the thing I can do is if I am typing, and then I just look up and keep [00:33:00] typing, it’s like there’s a little bit of lag. It’s kind of like my wife killed a centipede this morning and not killed, she actually removed it, dropped it in the driveway, but the legs that were left were still moving.
[00:33:11] Jeff: It’s like, so if I look up, it’s a little bit of that, like I can still, I’m hitting the right one. Keys for just a minute, and then it’s like, my brain just goes, Oh fuck, we’re not looking! And it’s over. It’s very strange.
[00:33:23] Brett: It’s like training wheels. Like,
[00:33:26] Jeff: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
[00:33:29] Sponsor: ExpressVPN
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[00:35:23] Hotel Woes and Travel Reflections
[00:35:23] Jeff: I was just in a hotel. I just traveled for work for the first time since before the pandemic. And, uh, we’ve traveled a lot since then, but not for work and not alone. And, um, hotels, I’m so over them when I’m alone. I find it all I can do is really feel a little lonely and fall asleep. Um, and maybe watch a movie with The Rock in it if it’s on, because that’s usually what’s on in the hotels.
[00:35:46] Jeff: If that’s on, then I’ll watch the movie. Um, but, uh, just a free association.
[00:35:52] The Fascination with Hidden Information
[00:35:52] Jeff: I found that even being away from hotels that long, my ability to, one, fail the book until the last minute, and two, no matter how good [00:36:00] Perfectly decent, the place looks, to find a room that has bloodstains in it is really fucking remarkable and I even started with my family just for shits and giggles, I bring a little like UV light so we can look at the floor of the hotel, which like some, some of my family refuses, but my youngest is like, yeah, oh fuck, right?
[00:36:18] Jeff: Like, uh, cause I love it. I love, I love invisible information. I just love the idea that there’s information around us all the time, like radio waves, like whatever. So I love to be able to reveal the stuff that’s not seen, right? Like,
[00:36:32] Brett: that’s disturbing.
[00:36:35] Jeff: but anyway, I, it was amazing.
[00:36:36] A Rough Hotel Experience
[00:36:36] Jeff: So this place, it’s basically, it was a halfway house. Like I, I, I walk in and there’s a dude. Coming out of the elevator with like a BMX and he’s like BMX bike is like neck tattoos the whole thing when I’m waiting for the for the guy at the counter there’s just like a this doesn’t sound like much but there’s just like a loose it was a loose cigarette on the floor at the counter I’m like you know what that’s nothing it’s nothing to see a cigarette but I can tell what [00:37:00] this place is now because there’s a cigarette on the floor because when do you ever see a whole cigarette on the floor anywhere anymore and And then I went down to like breakfast the next morning, literally every person in there was, I would say mid fifties, super like tattooed and weathered, right?
[00:37:18] Jeff: Like I have spent a lot of time outside. I’ve been drunk, passed out in the sun a thousand times in my life. I’ve been through it. I literally was looking around and this is not meant pejoratively. I was like, this looks like a fucking halfway house. Like, how do I, and here’s the thing. I always end up by the freeway and I always end up in a situation where in order to walk to where I’m going, I have to walk under the freeway.
[00:37:39] Jeff: And that’s its own thing. You just know, if you’re walking under a freeway, you’re in the wrong part. Like, and I used to love that. I used to be like, yeah, fuck it. You know, I was on tour. I lived in a van, whatever. I used to sort of like, not like exactly take pride, but just be like, yeah, this is the kind of place I go.
[00:37:54] Jeff: I actually like being in nice hotels. I love it. I just can’t make it happen for myself.
[00:37:59] Christina: [00:38:00] Right. I was gonna say our, I was gonna say our hotel experiences are so different. Um, but I’m not like, like at all, like I don’t have those experiences at all. But at the same time, I’m a little, I’m not envious because I, I’m going to be real. I prefer the nicer hotels, but there is some sort of like good people watching shit.
[00:38:16] Christina: You know what I
[00:38:17] Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I do. I do appreciate that. And again, I don’t mind. I’ve been in some very nice hotel rooms. I am very comfortable in a nice hotel room in first class on a plane. We can get it with points. I am super comfortable. But for whatever reason, if I’m taking care of myself, it just it’s a little peek into what I would have been like without a wife.
[00:38:35] Jeff: I think it’s just like, I told her the other day, I’m like, if you were to pass, Tomorrow. I think it’d be about six months before I had like a, um, the shell of a pontoon in the backyard. So I could just be making some kind of fucked up boat and a monkey. Like, I just feel like that’s, that’s like, I’m just, you know, I need, I need someone.
[00:38:58] Jeff: Anyway, that was a major [00:39:00] diversion. Sorry.
[00:39:02] Brett: So, did you want to talk about this mythical man month?
[00:39:05] The Mythical Man-Month Discussion
[00:39:05] Jeff: Well, yeah, I wanted to ask you, I wanted to bring something up by way of the book, the 1975 software engineering book of essays and, and, and essays about how to kind of manage and not manage, um, software development and other development projects by
[00:39:22] Christina: It’s a great book.
[00:39:23] Jeff: Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. Also known as Fred Brooks. Uh, I appreciate that he put that much as he goes by Fred Brooks, but man, on the book, it’s Frederick P.
[00:39:32] Jeff: Brooks, Jr. Um,
[00:39:34] Christina: this is peak wasp stuff, right? Like
[00:39:36] Jeff: Yeah,
[00:39:36] Christina: the, the waspiest of like wasp time. This is like the 70s.
[00:39:40] Jeff: Yeah, it’s 1975 and like, there’s fucking, it’s like a prehistoric bears drawing on the car. Anyway, it’s called Mythical Man Month, let’s be honest. It probably used to be called Mythical White Man Month. Forget that, it’s just man, right? Like, there’s like a lot of things about this.
[00:39:57] Jeff: I read it, I read it, [00:40:00] um, I think two months ago when I was on vacation, it’s like, it’s a fast read. Um, and I was partly interested in it because I had just done the closest thing to sort of, uh, it wasn’t software designed at all, but I had to do, you know, like a complex sort of, it involved a lot of coding and involved a lot of custom, you know, database creation and all of this stuff for a project.
[00:40:22] Jeff: And I, and it was the kind of thing where it’s like, I roughly knew how I wanted to end, but I, I didn’t know how to get there. And so in other words, it was a creative act. It’s the kind of thing that people who code all the time go through. Right. And then the creative act, you can’t actually reliably set out the steps because you don’t know what they are.
[00:40:39] Jeff: Right. Like, so I was planning to build a deck this summer. It’s not happening. And someone asked me like, you know how to build the deck? And I was like, I will when I’m done.
[00:40:47] Software Development Challenges
[00:40:47] Jeff: Um, and so anyway, um, it would, because kind of a project management hell on our team, because nobody on my team. knew how to do this stuff or knew what I was doing or had my skill set, even my [00:41:00] like edge skill set that I was, you know, able to utilize chat GPT to like really multiply.
[00:41:06] Jeff: Right. Um, and so nobody knew how to think about what I was doing. I didn’t have a partner to talk with and say, this is what I’m doing. What the fuck am I doing wrong? Or like, how should we think about how to plan this? And I, and I kept thinking it was just causing a lot, it was taking longer than it should, whatever, but like the end product was really good.
[00:41:23] Jeff: Like I, it’s the first time in a long time that I’ve had a big idea and then executed it in a actually very reasonable points. Like I landed it. Like I was, I don’t land planes. That’s like, I’m like fucking Al Qaeda. Like I don’t, I don’t land planes. Right. Like, um, and, and so this thing
[00:41:40] Brett: Too soon.
[00:41:41] Jeff: This thing worked so fucking well, and it just, it happened, but I was left with a terrible feeling, because I had just frustrated everybody on my team, and especially our project manager, who came from the corporate world and never dealt with software or anything, right?
[00:41:58] Jeff: And it’s great, but like, just didn’t, you know, [00:42:00] didn’t have the frame for it. And I, and so when it was all done, it was like, I was really proud of it. Our client was like, we’ve never had anything like this, a big client. And they’re just like, nobody’s ever, they used to fucking hire Rand. And they’re like, nobody’s ever created something quite like this for us.
[00:42:13] Jeff: Not that it was the quality of what a defense contractor would give them. But, um, so anyway, like, I was like, why do I just feel shitty? Why do I just feel bad now that it’s done? And it’s like, I’m pretty sure. And it was hard to say it at the time because people were just bummed out by how the process went.
[00:42:28] Jeff: But I was like, I’m pretty sure that our framework was all wrong. And, and that, that is a huge piece of this problem. So reading this book was amazing. Cause it’s a lot about managing. I think there’s a quote in here. That’s like, um, how does a software project, uh, get to be one year late one day at a time?
[00:42:46] Jeff: It’s like really great. But the reason I’m talking about all of this, have either of you like either read or had this book in your hands?
[00:42:54] Christina: Yes, I have. I have it because I’m a huge fan of it actually.
[00:42:57] Jeff: did you how did it come to you?
[00:42:59] Christina: [00:43:00] I read something about it. Probably, I probably read somebody commenting on, um, it’s philosophy ones, probably, um, on, on a forum or a message board or something. And the idea immediately resonated with me. And this was before I even went into software development.
[00:43:13] Christina: So this was like when I was a journalist and the idea was like really resonant with me. And I’d heard like that one and like the innovators dilemma, uh, by Clayton Christensen were often. Mentioned and are often mentioned as like important and kind of like seminal, like software books. And, uh, the Innovator’s Dilemma is great because, uh, it’s from a guy, he died a couple of years ago, but he, um, uh, wrote a bunch of papers, kind of like his, his, Principle, his theories on disruption, like not all of them have necessarily worked out exactly, but like he kind of came up with like the notion of for, you know, market leaders, if they want to, um, uh, prevent being disrupted, they have to disrupt themselves because of how a lot of times like bottom up disruption happens and whatnot.
[00:43:55] Christina: It’s a really interesting book, but um, The Mythical Man was one of those [00:44:00] like kind of like Always on those lists of like important, you know, books to read about software development and other things. And, and it really made a lot of sense to me when I was covering software, um, uh, before even doing it at it, where it makes even more sense.
[00:44:12] Christina: It was like a good understanding of how like projects can run off course.
[00:44:19] Jeff: hmm. Mm
[00:44:20] Christina: know, so like, you know, because, because like one of the, one of the challenges when you write about software, if you’re not a developer, is that you don’t know all the intricacies and the things that go into how a project is managed and how something is done.
[00:44:32] Christina: And so what can seem like a small thing to you, like, well, how, how, how much of a problem could this be and whatnot, um, becomes, um, Um, and so when like, you know, you hear kind of the idea that it’s like hiring, you know, at a certain point, hiring more bodies doesn’t give you more productivity. And like, that’s been proven, like that instinctually makes sense.
[00:44:51] Christina: And if you’ve worked on large teams, whether you’re making software or not, like, you know, that that’s how it works. Like there are some things where just throwing people at the problem can, um, you know, make [00:45:00] you know, speed things up. Construction is one of those areas, um, although even that has its, has its upper limits, right?
[00:45:05] Christina: Like at a certain point, you know, just because you have a, you know, a, a, a million people working on a task doesn’t mean that it’s going to necessarily come together anymore. Um, but yeah, I, I came across the book, um, I, I probably just through, um, you know, hearing people talk about it. And then when I read it, I was like, Oh no, this, Is really smart and really changed kind of like how I both understood Like how people build things and also how things get off track and then also in some ways thinking about my own things like okay you know, you can understand the impetus for for feature creep and for a 2.
[00:45:36] Christina: 0 version and you can see like, oh no, this is You know, this is why oftentimes those things go off the rails. Like somebody creates something that’s really perfect and it’s just, you know, Oh, well, the next version, I’m just going to do a small refactor. And I’m just going to add a couple more features. And then the next thing, you know, that becomes bigger and bigger and bigger.
[00:45:54] Christina: And it’s, you know, takes six years for it to come out, you
[00:45:58] The Second System Effect
[00:45:58] Jeff: Which is, which [00:46:00] is a perfect segue, because like, the thing that I had in my mind coming in was this idea that, I think he names this in the book, I think it’s his bit, is the second system effect. And the way he puts it is he’s like, and I’m just gonna do, when I say he, just put like the bracket, sick bracket in your brain when I say it, because it’s easier than me translating in real time, you know, it’s like, uh, it’s.
[00:46:21] Jeff: Talking about, um, like the first, the first work is frill after frill and embellishment after embellishment occurs to you, right? And it’s going to be used the next time, right? So then when you get your first piece done, or maybe like you ship your beta or whatever, like the next version, the temptation is to throw everything in because now you’ve like, you finally got the space to make it what you want.
[00:46:41] Jeff: And then any number of fucking things happen, right? Like as you just And, and I’ve found, I’ve found this applicable in my work. Um, in the way we think about our projects and the way we think about deliverables for clients and the way we run our business, like I see it happening. It’s, it’s definitely, I see like the temptation towards it [00:47:00] in so many contexts, but it made me think of you, Brett, because one of the things that’s like such a marker of how you, how you are as a developer, um, it’s like, you are so amazing at being like, I made this thing.
[00:47:13] Jeff: And then. A month later, six months later, four years later, you’re like, I just made this thing better with like 16 things. Oh, and by the way, the next day I made this other thing. And you do this for like a few days and then you stop. Right. And it’s not exactly like, you know, I made version one, I made version two.
[00:47:30] Managing Software Projects
[00:47:30] Jeff: It’s very different, but I’m super curious how like hearing and thinking about this idea of the second system effect, like where that resonates in your world and philosophy and approach, or if it does.
[00:47:42] Brett: Well, yeah, so like Mark has been out for over a decade now. Um, and Mark one was out for about, I wanna say three years, uh, before Mark two came out. [00:48:00] And then seven plus years later, it’s still Mark two, it’s Mark 2.5, point 22, I think. Um, and. Like I got into this groove where instead of trying to make a 3. 0, um, that had all of these ideas, I just focused on one feature at a time.
[00:48:24] Brett: And some of those features would take six months and some of them would go six months and then I would Discard them. I would, I would shuffle them off into a branch in the Git repo and say someday if I’m still able to merge this a year later, you know, I’ll, I’ll tackle this again, but like it became like one feature at a time.
[00:48:47] Brett: And I think that is kind of the benefit of the more modern software development cycle, where things are subscription based and you’re not, you’re, you’re not trying to hit a goal of like a, [00:49:00] a major release every year and then charging upgrade prices instead. You’re just continually developing. Yeah. And you’re, you’re improving and you’re, you’re adding features without the need to make.
[00:49:14] Brett: Okay. This is going to be 2. 0. Here’s all the things we want to add. Um, when I am in that kind of more archaic, uh, development mode, I’m very careful. I use like Trello boards or like Kanban, Kanban boards. Um, and like a list, like this is 2. 0, this is 2. 1, this is 2. 2, this is 3. 0. And like every feature that comes up, especially if it’s on a team where I’m collaborating.
[00:49:45] Brett: Like, we all, we all decide together. This is, This is not a feature that needs to be 2. 0. We’re going to shuffle it off to three and then deal it, deal with that when we get there. Um, and then [00:50:00] like when we’re on 1. 0 and we’re planning 2. 0 features, we plan point releases like this. These are easy gets, these are easy, uh, Easy tasks, this will be 2.
[00:50:10] Brett: 0. Um, this one’s going to take a couple months of development. That’s a 2. 1. Um, and try to organize those up front and yeah, every once in a while you, you get stuck on a feature that you really want. For your next release, and it takes way longer than you think. It takes a year and then your whole release schedule is, is messed up.
[00:50:34] Brett: And I don’t necessarily have a where on that other than saying, if a feature takes me three months and I think it’s important for the next release, I’ll, I’ll cancel that feature. Um, I’ll shuffle it off to 3. 0.
[00:50:47] Jeff: it’s, is it easy for you to stop to just say, I’m done here? Uh, or yeah, that’s
[00:50:51] Brett: Yeah, well, that’s what I love about Git is I never have to like completely give up on anything. Like most of my projects [00:51:00] have 12 to 15 branches in the feature branch that are things that I’m playing with, that I was working on, that I decided not to merge. But I, like, I have bookmarks, basically. I can always load it up and be like, here are the 12 to 15 unfinished ideas that I had that they didn’t disappear.
[00:51:23] Brett: I didn’t permanently give up on them. Like all the code is still there for them. Um, I just decided not to integrate it at this time. And usually I have another feature that I’m interested in working on and it’s easy to be like, all right, this is too frustrating. I’m, I’m going to switch to something because this one looks like fun right now.
[00:51:47] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.
[00:51:50] Christina: No, I mean, that has to be such a challenge too, like, cause there are certain, like, do you, do you run into the problem, like, like, like talking about like Envy Ultra, like that’s been, and I know that part of that like has been like in [00:52:00] stasis for a lot of reasons, but like, do you think that that’s like a, is that been like a process of like feature creep?
[00:52:04] Christina: Is that just a lot of things? Because.
[00:52:08] Brett: no, We’ve been very good about like, we, we have that Kanban board I was talking about, um, and, and we have it, we’re on feature freeze for 1. 0 right now. Um, any, any feature requests that come in are shuffled off to the two, maybe a 1. 2 release. Um, but 1. 0 is on feature freeze and no, we’re just waiting for Fletcher to work out a couple of bugs
[00:52:34] Jeff: want to point out that at the beginning of this answer, Brett, um, put his hand under his glasses and rubbed his eyes for a minute, just to give that, that visual, you ever thought what, what would happen, Brett? I’m not trying, I don’t want this to be a painful question. Um, but I was thinking about it the other day, cause I was like, sometimes I just download NvAlt for the fuck of it, cause it just brings back good memories.
[00:52:55] Jeff: Cause I, as a journalist, especially, I relied on it so much. Um, do you ever think [00:53:00] like, fuck it, I’m waiting too long. I’m going to spend two long nights. I’m going to update NvAlt just to make it basically functional and here it goes. And then I’m going to blow up the whole relationship.
[00:53:10] Brett: The thought has crossed my mind. Like the whole point of Envy Ultra was because I was putting so much time into Envy Alt and not getting paid for it. Like, Envy Alt has like 500, 000 users,
[00:53:24] Jeff: Still. And how about now? Do you have any idea? Like
[00:53:26] Brett: I don’t. I don’t have any metrics on that. I just know like total downloads on the last release were hundreds of thousands of people.
[00:53:34] Brett: Um, it is a high, a very popular fork of notational velocity. Um, and it’s, it’s dying. Like it’s, I would, I would bet nobody will be able to run it by the next OS release. Um, and the code is archaic enough that updating it is kind of. It’s a rewrite, and [00:54:00] honestly, I don’t know if you guys have seen the archive, but Christian Tietz did a great job of completely
[00:54:06] Jeff: use the archive sometimes. Yeah.
[00:54:08] Brett: yeah, completely replicating NVL, and there’s no point in, and FS Notes is actually really good too, and that’s a far more modern code base, and that one’s, that one’s free.
[00:54:20] Jeff: somebody were literally, and I use NvAltra just to be clear, but if somebody were really looking for like, I want exactly the feel of NvAlt, but not NvAlt, the archive by Christian Tietz is totally that thing. Cause I, I go back and forth. It’s nice thing about having a markdown folder of notes, right?
[00:54:35] Jeff: You can just be like, now I’m using this notes app. He did an amazing job with that.
[00:54:40] Brett: Yeah, he did.
[00:54:41] Jeff: Table flip too. That was at him. I
[00:54:44] Brett: I think,
[00:54:45] Jeff: think that was him. I love table flip.
[00:54:47] Brett: TableFlip,
[00:54:47] Jeff: is this Graptitude?
[00:54:50] Brett: TableFlip hasn’t gotten an update for a long
[00:54:52] Jeff: I still use it. I use it all the time.
[00:54:54] Brett: it’s so
[00:54:55] Jeff: I use it all the
[00:54:56] Brett: for, for anyone who’s never heard of it, uh, TableFlip, uh, if [00:55:00] you’ve ever made a multi markdown table with all of the colons and pipes and, and all of the columns and pipes, and all the columns and pipes Trying to deal with that formatting without, there’s a good Sublime Text plugin for editing tables and various, uh, markups.
[00:55:16] Jeff: fine. It’s nothing like using table flip.
[00:55:18] Brett: yeah, TableFlip gives you a very spreadsheet like graphical interface for Moving, moving rows and columns and cells around, and then you can load it on any Markdown document that contains tables. You can open it in TableFlip, and any changes you make in TableFlip are reflected in your Markdown document, and vice versa.
[00:55:40] Brett: It’s a, it’s
[00:55:42] Jeff: It’s very Brett Terpstra.
[00:55:43] Brett: yeah, it really, it feels like something I should have written, but it’s really,
[00:55:48] Jeff: like very, it’s very Christian Tietz’s design aesthetic, but it’s like functionally very Brett Terpstra. The way I use, let’s just call this Graftitude, but I do have my own. Um, the way I use TableFlip [00:56:00] is like, you know how in MindMap, sometimes you need to open up a MindMap and think in a MindMap.
[00:56:03] Jeff: You just know sometimes like the thing I’m trying to figure out, I need to think in a MindMap. I do like to think in, in spreadsheets, but I don’t like to think in Excel and I don’t like to think in Airtable and I don’t like to think in Google drive. I love to think in TableFlip. Like, I just find it very elegant, very easy, uh, very just sort of like, straight from brain to thing, um, beautiful. Nice job, Christian Tietz. You got yourself a bonus graftitude.
[00:56:31] Brett: Bonus caps. Should we, should we.
[00:56:34] Gratitude Picks: Software Tools and Apps
[00:56:34] Brett: We’re almost at an hour, we should probably do Gravtitude,
[00:56:37] Jeff: it. Let’s do it.
[00:56:38] Christina: yeah, I have, I have things.
[00:56:40] Brett: Okay, you want Sarcrasino?
[00:56:42] Christina: Yeah, I will. Okay, so the first one I want to, I have two actually. The first I wanted to talk about is Carbon Copy Cloner 7, uh, which I missed. I didn’t realize that 7, um, uh, came out a couple weeks ago. Um, this is the, the app that I have used. I, I used to either use this or SuperDuper, but I’ve been using Carbon Copy Cloner [00:57:00] as kind of my backup app, um, for Mac OS.
[00:57:03] Christina: For, uh, at least a decade at this point. And, um, uh, Carbon Copy Cloner 6 came out, I think about two years ago. Um, I’d have to look and see, um, when, when the update was, but, um, this is, um, uh, the interface is the same as Carbon Copy, uh, Cloner 6. Um, and if, uh, one of the nice things about how they’ve done the upgrade, the upgrade, I think is 25 bucks for, um, for existing, um, uh, owners.
[00:57:28] Christina: And I think it’s like 50 now for, for new, um, um, uh, licenses. One of the nice things about how I like the um, the way that the new version trial works out is you can try the new version, but if you don’t want to buy it, if you don’t want to keep it, you can just immediately go back to, to version six. Um, it, it won’t mess anything up, um, for you that way.
[00:57:49] Christina: Uh, but one of the things that this has added is it’s added a feature, um, that I haven’t used cause I don’t know how useful it would be for me, but it has like a, a, iOS devices [00:58:00] on your Mac. And, um, it, it also, um, you know, has now, um, uh, more, uh, more snapshot, uh, abilities in terms of, uh, for, for, for local snapshot management.
[00:58:11] Christina: Um, and so, um, I don’t like Time Machine and I’ve, I’ve had problems with Time Machine over the years and also Time Machine just isn’t always, like, doesn’t fit my, my mental model well. Like, I feel like if I’m doing network backups, I use Synology’s stuff for that. Like I, I, I don’t You know, Time Machine is just, also if you enable it, then like if the local things are turned on, then those can take up tons of hard drive space, and, and macOS is not good with caching, period.
[00:58:38] Christina: So that is really not a good thing. They’re
[00:58:41] Brett: I’m a SuperDuper guy. Um, have been for years. Why, why would I switch to Carbon Copy Cloner?
[00:58:48] Christina: If I can be completely candid, it’s because it’s more updated. It’s, it’s, they, they are much better about updating things and like working around weird stuff that happens and with like the file
[00:58:57] Brett: do they do AFPS [00:59:00] snapshots?
[00:59:00] Christina: Oh yeah, yeah,
[00:59:02] Brett: is one of the things I love about newer versions of SuperDuper. is snapshots. Um, like I use a combination of SuperDuper, Backblaze, um, uh, Time Machine and Synology Drive. Um, and between those four, I can use, unless, every once in a while, I’ll accidentally delete. It happened one time, I downloaded our, um, podcast episode Didn’t download it.
[00:59:34] Brett: We were recording with like, uh, Audio Hijack, I think I was using and I accidentally deleted. The files permanently. And it was too soon for any of my backup systems to have picked it up and, and backed it up. And I, if I felt very impotent, having four different backups running and still having lost an hour worth of audio.[01:00:00]
[01:00:00] Brett: Um, but in general, I never lose anything that is more than half an hour old. I definitely have versions and backups of.
[01:00:10] Christina: Yeah, I’m not that good. But like I, I, I typically use, I don’t use Time machine, but I, I typically use the other things. I would say this, if Super Duper works for you, there’s no reason for you to use something else. But I know that Super Duper has been, uh, slower to update to the latest Maca West versions and that they had some, some, um, more difficulties.
[01:00:28] Christina: Both, both of these companies, ’cause both of the developers I think, you know, are friendly with one another and work together. Like they, there were some changes to how file system handling worked. Um. For me, it really just came down to like when I, cause I, I’ve used them both. It just came down to when I was looking at which one to invest in, it was like, whenever I made the decision, however long ago it was, um, uh, Carbon Copy Cloner seemed to have a little bit more robust and a little more frequent, um, dev cycle, but you know, but, but if it works for you, it works for you, but yeah, um, but it does do all the, the, um, you know, [01:01:00] APFS snapshot stuff and it not, it does it for, for, for backup versioning as well.
[01:01:04] Christina: Um, and, um, Uh, I don’t know. I, I, I like it. It’s just one of those things that I, I have, you know, license to that I keep, like when I had to use, um, when I had to do that ridiculous backup of my mom’s computer, um, a few months ago, like carbon copy cloner was the thing that came in clutch for that. Um, but the second app I wanna talk about, this is a bigger thing when we talk kind of about like, you know, like the importance of Indy software and keeping things up.
[01:01:29] Christina: An app that I’ve used for a really long time as bartender, I know we’ve, it’s probably been a gratitude pick that we’ve done before. Bartender, which is a, an app to man, uh, to manage the, the macOS menu bar, which can become unwieldy and which if you’ve got like a, a newer MacBook with a notch on it, especially if you’ve got a smaller size one, like frankly, there are instances where the built in management system, you will literally run out of room.
[01:01:52] Christina: And so, uh, why Apple doesn’t have a built in way of hiding and accessing menu bars? I don’t know, but they don’t. Um, so I, you [01:02:00] know, menu bar is a thing that I’ve used for years. It was sold. And this was not disclosed to anyone. Uh, it was sold to some Chinese company, nothing wrong with that. But, um, the only reason it came through was because it
[01:02:13] Jeff: my best friends are Chinese
[01:02:14] Christina: Well, I mean, I don’t know.
[01:02:15] Christina: I’m just I’m just saying like I’m not I’m not I’m not saying that just the fact
[01:02:18] Jeff: Yeah, yeah,
[01:02:19] Christina: company on its own is a bad thing. The sketchy part is that no one knew but the Certificate had changed in Mac updater. And so somebody reached out and realized oh This has a new owner and they put like a weird help document on their website Which did not explain why you would need to run certain commands to basically reauthorize Um, uh, the, the, the system and update that for the, for the new, um, you know, um, uh, security certificate.
[01:02:47] Christina: Um, and until somebody on Reddit basically, they, they acknowledged, Oh yeah, this has been sold. We’ve, we’ve owned this for a couple of months now. After kind of the uproar, uh, the original developer of, um, uh, Bartender released a [01:03:00] statement on his website and the main website that said, Hey, I sold this a few months ago because support burden was too much.
[01:03:05] Christina: And I wanted to go on and do other things with my life. Hey, great, no problem, but like all that felt like a little bit too little too late for me, and I don’t know anything about this new company. They’re not being forthcoming at all about, um, you know, what, what kind of their plans are. I think that, you know, they want to add some widgets.
[01:03:23] Christina: into the, the system, um, it looks like the, the company that bought it, they buy primarily iOS apps and, um, you know, uh, probably turn them into subscription products. So who knows what’s going to happen with Bartender? I know people, I think they’re being ridiculous about like some of the security concerns.
[01:03:40] Christina: They’re like, oh, well, you know, the accessibility concerns this happens has always been a, Question for me and blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, fuck off. Like, I genuinely think you’re overthinking this. So many good apps have to enable weird settings, um, to work. Having said that, I do fully understand people feeling weirded out by the app now.
[01:03:59] Christina: [01:04:00] And so, um, there’s an app called, there are a couple of apps, uh, there’s, that are open source, um, and available. One is called Hidden, um, and it’s in the Mac App Store. Um, it’s also on GitHub, but that hasn’t been updated in years. So the one that I’ve been playing with is called Ice. It’s open source. Um, it’s, it’s on GitHub.
[01:04:17] Christina: Um, although, uh, people should definitely sponsor the developer if you get value out of it. And it’s not as good as menu bar was in terms of like every little feature that it had, there were still some things on its roadmap, like dragging and dropping, you know, the interface to rearrange individual items and searching menu bar items.
[01:04:36] Christina: And, and some, um, other stuff, um, and displaying hidden items in a separate bar. Um, those are all on the roadmap, but it has the basic stuff, um, there and it has a pretty good, um, uh, user interface and the, and the development is active. So, um, uh, ICE is, uh, is one of my gratitude picks for people who might be, uh, looking for a bartender alternative now that, you know, we don’t really know [01:05:00] whether we can or can’t trust these new
[01:05:02] Brett: Yeah, so do you, do you know, I’m using the set app version of Bartender. Um, has that been, has that been updated with the new,
[01:05:12] Christina: As far as I can tell, no. As far as I can tell, they’ve updated, like, who the, the maker is in the app, but it has not updated the app version itself, and let me look at it. Um, so, like, if you’re running the setup version, I think you’re actually fine, but who knows when they might, You know, push that out. And even so, like, I, I also trust that, like, the setup folks are gonna, you know, do the, the vetting that they need to do and whatnot.
[01:05:35] Christina: Like, I’m not concerned from a security perspective. I really don’t think anybody else should be either. Although people are, you know, pulling up a little snitch to show, oh, it’s phoning home, it’s doing this and that. I’m like, okay, genuinely, you need to chill because basically everything you use, you know, calls back to something.
[01:05:52] Christina: I, I, but I don’t think
[01:05:53] Jeff: get little stitches.
[01:05:54] Christina: Right. But like, you know, I’m just saying like, that’s good. That’s good. [01:06:00] Um, but I think that the, I think that the version on Setapp, yeah, let me see. Um, yeah, the version here is still from, um, uh, December, which was, um, before it was sold. So they’ve updated
[01:06:12] Brett: I’ve got a little time, but I, Ice looks really good. I’m going to check that
[01:06:16] Jeff: Yeah, it does. Mine is simple. This is probably the only time either, either of us have, have, uh, suggested a GitHub repo that hasn’t been updated in seven years, but I’m going to do exactly that. Um, and it’s a project actually from, from many years ago called Taco Fancy. And it’s a, it’s a GitHub repo that a bunch of journalists started by this journalist, Dan Sinker at the time we used to run Punk Planet Magazine.
[01:06:42] Jeff: And, um, and he was working for this kind of interesting, um, Journalism, sort of organization called Source at the time. And, and a whole bunch of journalists from like major media organizations, other people that were doing like hacker journalism or like, you know, nerd teams that at the Washington Post or NPR or whatever [01:07:00] at that time, like they had a real like energy together.
[01:07:02] Jeff: And so when someone came up with a stupid project, it just went crazy with people who were incredibly competent. And this one was like, I want. taco recipes. I’m tired of what I, what I normally have. And so it’s a GitHub repo where everyone could just upload not only like full taco recipes, but like how to make your favorite condiments for tacos, mixins, seasonings, shells, and my favorite, uh, a whole section just called like tacos.
[01:07:26] Jeff: Um, and at the time, what was really fun, there’s a lot of stuff that either was in development by just people out in the world, like somebody made an API for it, which is awesome. Somebody was working on a Twitter bot that would just like do random. Taco recipes. Someone had a taco randomizer up. It’s hosted on Heroku.
[01:07:43] Jeff: It’s not there anymore. Um, but I, so I both suggest it as an amazing taco cookbook. If you go to like the full index link inside of the repo. Um, but also it’s just like a, a, a reminder of how fun, um, Like collaborative repos can be. Um, and, and this [01:08:00] was just a great little spirited thing that I still, sometimes I went to it recently, which is why I’m bringing it up to, uh, to, to make something.
[01:08:07] Jeff: So for instance, uh, in the like tacos category, there’s something called a sad Mexican grilled cheese. So it’s also very funny at times. So anyway, I recommend it. It’s a good time. And it’s actually, it was made in part, uh, it was. It, it, there’s a whole piece of like, if you’re new to GitHub, here’s how to learn GitHub through Taco Fancy.
[01:08:26] Jeff: So just kinda like served a lot of, yeah. Served a lot of cool functions while also just being an awesome little cookbook.
[01:08:33] Brett: That’s very cool. I know you’ve shown this to me
[01:08:35] Jeff: I, you know what, the last time I was on systematic, which I think was the last systematic episode, it was my pick one of my picks.
[01:08:44] Brett: All right. Um, I’m going this week with Tower, which I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, but it is, it has been, uh, a powerhouse for me lately. Um, they’ve actually asked me to do like, uh, they have a [01:09:00] series of developers using Tower profiles that I’m gonna do an interview for, but, um, like things like, So you can look at your, it’s for Git, for anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about, it’s a, it’s a GUI for Git.
[01:09:17] Brett: Um,
[01:09:17] Jeff: I’m gooey. Forget
[01:09:19] Brett: and there’s a, there’s a lot of stuff I just do on the command line. Your, your typical, like what I’m committing, uh, add and commit, I just do on the command line. But if you want to do a complex merge fix, if you want to do a fix up or a squash on your commits, uh, why wouldn’t you use. a graphical interface.
[01:09:42] Brett: Like, why would you sit there and figure out hash, hashes for which, which commit to go back to, which commits to squash? Uh, like, it’s so much easier when you have a graphical interface and you can just select, you can select two commits, hold down option, [01:10:00] drag them onto another one, and then turn them into fix ups for that commit, which is, like, being able to do that was why I mentioned it, because that, That blew me away.
[01:10:08] Brett: They also have a command Z, um, which can undo almost any Git operation, which is like, if, if you make an errant, uh, you, you commit and you push, and then you want to redo the commit, um, after you’ve pushed, like these are not, these are complex Git command line tasks to accomplish and, you know, And, uh, and Tower literally added Command Z, which lets you do just about anything in the reflog you can undo, which is awesome.
[01:10:49] Brett: So, uh, if you use Git, if you do any development, I know there are authors that use Git for writing, which is really cool. Um, [01:11:00] so limited, limited application. I feel like a lot of our audience will know what I’m talking about. Um, Tower is. I mean, you’ve got, you got GitKraken, you got, um, some semi graphical interfaces that work in, in the command line.
[01:11:17] Brett: You have options, but Tower
[01:11:19] Jeff: got VS. Codes. Nice little functionality, but nothing like
[01:11:22] Christina: is actually great, um,
[01:11:23] Jeff: I
[01:11:24] Christina: lot of
[01:11:24] Jeff: it.
[01:11:25] Brett: Agreed. And, uh, Git Sav Git I think it’s Git Savvy in Sublime Text is, uh, really good, but yeah, again, not nothing compared to Tower. Tower is sweet.
[01:11:37] Jeff: Awesome. Awesome.
[01:11:38] Brett: And Tower has GitHub integrations, as of, like, last year, so you can do, like, pull request management. And commenting and everything right inside of Tower, which is slick.
[01:11:51] Christina: It’s very good
[01:11:52] Farewell and Final Thoughts
[01:11:52] Brett: All right, uh, we did not get to talk about the Kat Katizen, Katzen Coffee Bar.
[01:11:58] Jeff: yeah, we’ll talk about it. It’s [01:12:00] evergreen.
[01:12:00] Brett: we’ll save that. And, uh, yeah, thanks you guys.
[01:12:05] Jeff: All right,
[01:12:06] Brett: I will see, I will see at least one of you next week. I don’t remember.
[01:12:11] Christina: going to be me. It’s going to be me. And, uh, have a great, uh, coming up week, Jeff, with the family and everything.
[01:12:17] Jeff: thank you. Thank you. All right everybody, get some sleep.
[01:12:21] Brett: get some sleep.
In this episode of Overtired, hosts Jeff, Brett, and Christina discuss a variety of topics ranging from outdoor experiences with mosquitoes and birds to in-depth health conversations involving weight loss drugs and mental health updates. They also delve into issues with Spotify, the challenges of managing subscriptions and permissions, and explore new technologies and apps, such as Kino and Fish Shell. The episode wraps up with a discussion on entertainment preferences and grAPPtitude shoutouts.
You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network
BackBeat Media Podcast Network
Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter.
It’s Not Escapism, It’s Rest
[00:00:00] Introduction and Bird Talk
[00:00:00] Jeff: Hey everybody, this is the Overtired podcast. Hopefully you already know that because you clicked to listen and it’s not on some sort of like autoplay situation, but if it is, hi, surprise, it’s me, I’m Jeff. Uh, I’m here with, with Christina Warren and I’m here with Brett Terpstra and I also have a lot of birds outside my window and I refuse to take measures To block them out, because I think we all, we all need it.
[00:00:31] Jeff: I’m coming with the birds. I
[00:00:33] Brett: not hearing any birds,
[00:00:34] Jeff: Oh, damn. I hear him through my microphone. It’s lovely.
[00:00:37] Brett: that, you got that very directional mic, I uh, I
[00:00:41] Mosquitoes and Immunity
[00:00:41] Jeff: Can you hear the, can you hear the mosquitoes? Cause holy shit. Uh, anyway, yeah, really bad up here. I don’t know why,
[00:00:47] Brett: Yeah, it’s not bad. I live in the same state as Jeff, uh, in far, like two hours south of Jeff. And I gotta say, like, I was just thinking yesterday, there are surprisingly few mosquitoes here.[00:01:00]
[00:01:00] Brett: They all went north.
[00:01:01] Jeff: Brett Terpstra lives in amazing, in a region that has the best name ever. I think you live in the Driftless region, right? And, and isn’t the Driftless region known for a lack of mosquitoes?
[00:01:12] Brett: I actually don’t know if that’s true or false.
[00:01:15] Jeff: mostly just known
[00:01:16] Brett: neither confirm nor deny.
[00:01:18] Jeff: Okay, fine. Fine.
[00:01:20] Brett: So, uh, there, the weird thing is there was a period of about five years where I was immune to mosquitoes. I would, I would be at like a, an outdoor gathering and everyone would be complaining about mosquitoes and zero of them would even land on me.
[00:01:37] Brett: And if they did, they wouldn’t bite.
[00:01:39] Jeff: Okay, I’m gonna make
[00:01:40] Brett: I was just impervious,
[00:01:42] Jeff: gonna make light of something that I am against making light of, but I have a feeling in this friendship in this podcast that’ll work. Was it because you were sweating heroin?
[00:01:49] Brett: no. No, I’m not I can’t rem there was something going on in my life. There was, like, I was eating something regularly, and I can’t remember what I [00:02:00] decided the, the, the X factor was on that. Um, it was during a period of sobriety. It was neither alcohol nor heroin.
[00:02:10] Jeff: it was because of whatever you were detoxing.
[00:02:12] Brett: Yeah, maybe, who knows. It, it ended though. I get mosquito bites now.
[00:02:17] Jeff: Wait, hold on. What if DEET is short for detox?
[00:02:22] Brett: I think it’s short for delirium tremors. Delir yeah,
[00:02:27] Jeff: All right.
[00:02:28] Christina: I’m sorry that you lost your mosquito immunity because I, I definitely, uh, I’m very allergic to so many bugs and, and, um, also pollen and also like the sun and, uh, like every type of like tree and grass blade and whatnot, but mosquitoes. really, really like me. They always have bugs in general. So if there’s anything out there, like with some sort of stinger, like it will find me and, and it will, it will bite me.
[00:02:55] Christina: Um, I got bit by something in New York once on [00:03:00] my, um, I was, I was wearing the jeans that had holes in them and I was at, at, um, uh, dinner with, with a friend of mine and, We were, you know, outdoors, but there were like mosquito lamps and whatnot, and she wasn’t bit. And I was, not only was I bit like through my, um, jeans, like, so like my knee wound up swelling up, but I got bit like on my ring finger and they almost had to cut my rings off.
[00:03:22] Christina: Um, they fortunately didn’t. They were able to give me like a shot of something so they could get my rings off. But like, it was one of those things where like, I had to like, get like a pretty serious antibiotic because they were like, yeah, we’re worried about how infected this could potentially be. And it’s only been like.
[00:03:36] Christina: Twelve hours since you were bit, um. And like, you’re, you’re, you’re, yeah,
[00:03:41] Indoor Cat Life
[00:03:41] Brett: should go outside.
[00:03:43] Christina: you’re not wrong. I mean, this is what I’ve been, I’ve been arguing that for
[00:03:46] Brett: you’re an indoor cat.
[00:03:48] Christina: I am absolutely an indoor cat. 1000%, 1000%.
[00:03:52] Jeff: even one that paws at the windows.
[00:03:54] Christina: No, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, it’s like, you know, give me like the, you know, the blue light therapy stuff to simulate, [00:04:00] um, you know, sunlight, um, But yeah, uh, I’m, I’m definitely an indoor cat.
[00:04:06] Christina: Um, I, I mean, I usually would call myself an indoor kid because that was, you know, uh, a, a joke on, on reality. But honestly, I like indoor cat better. I’m, I’m going to call my, that’s when we call myself now. I’m like, Oh no, I’m an indoor cat. We don’t, we don’t do that.
[00:04:19] Brett: We don’t get tics. I hate tics.
[00:04:23] Mental Health Corner
[00:04:23] Brett: Anyway, let’s do, uh, let’s do a, a constrained mental health corner.
[00:04:28] Christina: sounds good.
[00:04:29] Brett: I can kick off. I, uh, I’m sleeping well. Um, I got, I got the, I got the gabapentin up to like, what is it? 1, 800 milligrams? Um, which is like max dose, but it works. I sleep well. I wake up refreshed. Um, and it’s not making me drowsy all day.
[00:04:51] Brett: And I, I get in for a sleep study in July.
[00:04:56] Christina: Nice.
[00:04:57] Brett: So maybe I can find a way [00:05:00] to sleep without a huge dose of nerve blocking drugs.
[00:05:05] Weight Loss and Medication
[00:05:05] Brett: But I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but I started Wagovi. It’s like Ozempac. It’s like, it’s a different, it’s a very similar drug to Ozempac for weight loss. Yes.
[00:05:20] Christina: Now, I have a question for you. Does Oracle’s health insurance cover this? Okay, that’s really good to know because Apple and Microsoft and also GitHub do not. Unless you have, unless you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, like, and have been issued it, they don’t cover any of those drugs. And it’s frustrating because They claim both companies, because I’ve talked to people, um, the reason I know about this is because somebody, um, at Apple, um, mentioned this to me and then I looked into it at Microsoft slash GitHub, even though we have different insurance policies, the same is for this.
[00:05:55] Christina: And I found out that even they’re claiming, Oh, well, the science just [00:06:00] isn’t there yet, which fuck you. Yes, it is. It’s been there for like a decade. It’s been there for a very long time. And when you think about like, it’s just that they don’t want to pay 25 grand a year or whatever it is. for everybody to get them.
[00:06:11] Christina: But I’m like, think about how much more money you would save if people who could benefit from this stuff significantly have like lower cholesterol and like better heart. Um, you know, um, uh, you know, like, like, um, lower blood pressure and like their, their hearts are healthier and all kinds of other benefits that come from some of this stuff.
[00:06:31] Christina: So that’s really good to know that, that Oracle covers it because that I can use. In my potentially, my potential crusade that me as a person who will likely never have to be on these drugs, I almost feel like that makes me the perfect person to be like the public face, like to yell at HR and, and like, be like, no, why is this not covered?
[00:06:54] Christina: You know? My health insurance. Sorry, go on.
[00:06:57] Brett: I want to be careful because, [00:07:00] like, health and obesity are, um, widely misunderstood, even in the medical community. There are plenty of people who are obese and have diabetes. Yeah. Yeah. Great health. Um, it’s just
[00:07:14] Christina: and they’re playing at people who don’t.
[00:07:16] Brett: sure, sure. Um,
[00:07:18] Jeff: obese who have
[00:07:19] Christina: Agreed.
[00:07:20] Jeff: I’m not, I’m not
[00:07:21] Christina: no, I know, but, but, but I’m just saying like, like, look, like, like putting, put, put, putting like the, the, the, the political aspect of it aside, there are very real health benefits that some people, not everyone, but some people can benefit from if they reduce their weight. Like it’s, it, it, that, that’s not, that’s not a controversial thing.
[00:07:37] Christina: That’s actually fact.
[00:07:38] Brett: so I’m gonna, I’m not gonna argue this. Um, I have, my weight has really affected my mental health. Um, and so my doctor agreed to put me on it. And I have, I’ve been on it for three months now. It costs me 25 bucks a month. Um, which is considering [00:08:00] like without insurance, it’s a couple grand a month.
[00:08:03] Christina: like, it’s like, it’s like 2000 at
[00:08:05] Brett: Yeah, um, so I’ve been on it for three or four months now, and you slowly up your dosage, and I haven’t seen any weight loss yet, but here’s the interesting thing, and this is, this is a known side effect, uh, it reduces impulsive and compulsive behaviors.
[00:08:27] Jeff: ha!
[00:08:28] Brett: And I, for a long time, have had a wee bit of a drinking problem. Uh, for a couple of years now, I’ve been, I’ve been drinking a bit much. And, um, and like my desire to drink is pretty much gone. Gone at this point. Like I, I can enjoy, I can enjoy like a glass of wine with dinner. That’s nice. But
[00:08:51] Christina: But you, but you
[00:08:52] Brett: whiskey, whiskey in the afternoon, which was like a favorite thing of mine.
[00:08:57] Brett: Um, not a favorite thing, but it [00:09:00] was a habit. Um, it’s like, I just, I don’t. I don’t do it anymore. And I don’t even think about it until like evening rolls around. I’m like, Hey, wow. I haven’t drank any whiskey today. So at for 25 bucks a month, even if that’s the only benefit I get from it, I’m, I’m pretty happy.
[00:09:20] Brett: I would love to lose a little weight. That would, that would be good for me, but also I’m working on just kind of accepting that this is what my, I, I get exercise. I eat very healthy. Um, my doctor looked at my diet and the only thing he could think to change was to like reduce oil. Like I use like a tablespoon of olive oil to cook some potatoes, you know?
[00:09:46] Brett: Um, I’m vegan otherwise. Uh, I mean, that is vegan. It’s just. I don’t
[00:09:54] Jeff: now I need an education.
[00:09:55] Brett: I don’t use dairy based oils and I don’t want to cook [00:10:00] without oil. I know it’s a thing. Like there’s a whole, there’s a whole mood. Well, it’s, and it’s hard, like everything sticks to your pan. Nothing cooks evenly without a little bit of fat.
[00:10:11] Brett: And I also, I don’t believe that fat in a diet is. is unhealthy. Like, you need fat. You, your body, your brain works on fat. Like fat, fat and salt, like we were raised to believe these were horrible health, health affecting, uh, uh, elements, and they’re really not. And so I, I disregarded my doctor on the oil thing.
[00:10:39] Brett: It’s not like I’m drinking bottles of oil or anything, so Anyway,
[00:10:44] Christina: well, and, and no, and the thing is though, like, honestly, I would think that probably based on what you’ve said, like the, what your diet is, there’s either like a metabolic reason, like why maybe you’ve had a hard time losing weight or whatnot, or honestly, and here’s the real thing, it is the [00:11:00] alcohol, right?
[00:11:00] Christina: Like that’s actually
[00:11:01] Brett: not, it’s not, I’ve quit for two years and not lost a pound.
[00:11:05] Christina: huh.
[00:11:06] Brett: It, alcohol, just quitting alcohol has no effect on my weight. This is, my, my body went from 180 to 230 in a, like a, uh, one to two month period. Like it just, it just changed. With no changes in my lifestyle, it just changed. It went back to what it was 10 years prior before I lost weight.
[00:11:31] Christina: Right. Before you got into yoga and everything.
[00:11:34] Brett: like even that, like I got into yoga because I lost weight and had more energy. I didn’t really do anything to lose the weight. I started walking a couple miles a day, uh, but like as I lost weight, I had more energy and so I started running and then I kept losing weight, but like my body just changes.
[00:11:57] Brett: It’s kind of like stasis weight. And right [00:12:00] now, at the weight I’m at, I can, for a week, I can not exercise, I can eat shitty, and I don’t gain weight. I, I just, this is just the weight it wants to be. And I’m hoping the W’Gobi will get me to a place where I’m more, you know, Like, I don’t even like to go out. I feel very self conscious, like just, uh, just hanging out.
[00:12:22] Brett: There’s no way, like, I go to queer dance night and there’s no way I’m getting on the dance floor. I feel like such a, like, weirdo with a, cause all my weight is in my belly. Um, like I don’t gain, like, I have a great ass. My legs look amazing. Um, I just have
[00:12:41] Jeff: actually, he’s showing us his ass
[00:12:42] Christina: We are,
[00:12:43] Jeff: right. It’s really, it’s just nice is what I would say.
[00:12:46] Christina: I was gonna say, I was gonna say the queer dance night crew like really needs to see Bratz Ass.
[00:12:52] Jeff: Yeah. You think about chaps? You ever think about chaps?
[00:12:57] Brett: If you had to, in two words, [00:13:00] how would you describe my ass as you look at it?
[00:13:02] Jeff: Oh, right now? Um, I would describe it as, uh, well, it’s funny because the word bodacious comes to mind, but I think I’m looking for a different
[00:13:11] Christina: well, Bootylicious
[00:13:13] Jeff: Bootylicious, that’s it. It’s my brain was just, yeah, bootylicious was what I
[00:13:18] Brett: that. Thank you. I’ll put, I’ll put, I’ll put my pants back up now. Um, so that’s, that’s kind of my mental health corner. I will, I will hand it off now.
[00:13:26] Jeff: Mental Health Corner ends with you
[00:13:27] Christina: keep us posted on, keep us posted on this, because I’m interested in how it works for you. Because I know that for a lot of people, like, as much, I think some of the discourse, like, I understand if the discourse around these drugs is to be used in any way to shame people who don’t want to take them for whatever reasons, or whatnot, like, how that can be negative.
[00:13:48] Christina: But, I’m interested in it. I, I think that some of the discourse has been really overblown and is, it really overlooks the, the very real, um, uh, medical benefits, again, not just, you know, like physical well [00:14:00] being, uh, but from a mental health perspective, like, you know, you, your things can be, can, whether they should be or shouldn’t be is important.
[00:14:08] Christina: To me, completely beside the point, like how we look and how it has a direct, like, correlation with how we feel. So, um, keep us posted on this cause I’m, I’m, I’m happy, um, to, I’m happy for you. I hope that this, this, um, you know, can be, um, encouraging. Um, and, and I think if the, Interesting thing there is that if it also helps with some of like the more addictive tendencies, um, or compulsive tendencies, like that’s actually an interesting potential augmentation, you know, like for these sorts of drugs, if you think about it, right?
[00:14:39] Christina: Like,
[00:14:39] Brett: The problem is as soon as you stop taking it, All of those behaviors come back, like, and, and same with weight loss. Like as soon as you, if you ever, if your insurance changes and they won’t cover it anymore and you can’t afford a couple grand out of pocket, which who can like, that’s, that’s nuts.
[00:14:57] Christina: No, it is
[00:14:58] Brett: and then everything comes [00:15:00] back.
[00:15:00] Brett: So it’s, it’s an experiment while it lasts,
[00:15:03] Christina: totally. Although I will say, like, I think that the more, um, that people start to, you know, go on these drugs more because they’re, again, like the, it’s what annoys me about like my company’s response is that they’re like, Oh, well we, you know, don’t have, you know, the, the, the data.
[00:15:18] Christina: And I’m like, no, the science is actually incredibly solid here. It’s like 20 years worth. Like it’s, it’s actually, it’s, it’s incredibly solid. And so this is one of those things that, look, maybe not everybody needs to take this. Forever. And maybe that, you know, there can be changes at some point where that’s not possible, but plenty of people have to take supplements or have to take, you know, heart pills or, you know, antidepressants or other things all the time.
[00:15:40] Christina: I’m just hopeful that as more and more of this becomes like more, um, destigmatized, which it is. is a good thing that I’ve noticed even in the last year, like the stigma around this has gone down. Um, although it still exists in some places, which is why I’m probably gonna have to be the vocal person to speak up in like my company matters, even though [00:16:00] like I’m probably never going to be someone who takes a drug like this.
[00:16:04] Christina: Um, I’m hoping as it becomes more destigmatized and whatnot, that it is just going to become one of those things where like the prices will come down. Um, regardless
[00:16:14] Brett: generics will
[00:16:15] Christina: generics, precise, precisely, right? Yeah. So, you know, hopefully it won’t be a bad thing.
[00:16:21] Cat Update
[00:16:21] Brett: can I give you a quick cat update before I end my mental health corner?
[00:16:24] Christina: Yes, of course.
[00:16:25] Brett: Um, so my, my cat, nobody, which we’ve had for a few years now, she will jump up on my desk and very carefully walk around my cords and wires every once in a while, she decides to nest into like a bundle of cables and she’ll unplug some shit, but Generally, as long as she’s, as long, she will occasionally like look for things on my desk that move and then like slowly push them to the edge until they fall off.
[00:16:57] Brett: Um, but that’s like the extent of trouble she [00:17:00] causes. Our new cats, Richard and Morris. Richard has taken to hanging out on my desk, but he is not a cat. Just a bulldozer, like, to get on my desk, he hits the trackpad and the keyboard, has sent multiple messages to people by doing so, just bulldozes my desk, knocks, he’s broken multiple coffee mugs, he is a terror, and I’m not a fan of Richard, that’s my update.
[00:17:30] Jeff: Put him on. Put Richard on. Let’s, let’s see what’s going on with Richard. Let’s have a couple,
[00:17:34] Brett: Richard is absent,
[00:17:36] Jeff: Is that because I saw Richard run off a minute ago?
[00:17:40] Brett: Bod’s right here. You can’t see her, but anyway. Alright, who’s up?
[00:17:49] Jeff: Christina, you ready?
[00:17:50] Christina: Yeah, I’ll go.
[00:17:51] Christina’s Busy Week
[00:17:51] Christina: Um, so I had a, I had a really insanely busy week last week, which is why we didn’t have a show. Um, because I was doing Microsoft build [00:18:00] stuff, uh, and I, including talking to a few people from Oracle, uh, who I’m sure Brett doesn’t know, um, all about, uh, the various partnership between, uh, Azure and, and, um, uh, Oracle, uh,
[00:18:12] Brett: Oh, I didn’t even know we had that.
[00:18:14] Christina: Yeah, apparently some partnership launched like in October where you can now run like Oracle, Oracle ACI. Is that what it’s called?
[00:18:23] Brett: OCI?
[00:18:23] Christina: OCI, um, on Azure. Um, and so I, I talked to some people about that. Um, uh, contact your account managers is, was the real takeaway if you wanted to be part of that, um, which, which is hysterical that, that, that was, I think the, the hardest part of the partnership from what I understood was like getting all the, the, the, the account managers and things like that, like on the same.
[00:18:44] Christina: Page because the idea is basically that if you have like a, an Oracle database, but you also are using multi cloud or want to use Azure for some stuff, you can now have it hosted. I think either on some Oracle servers or Azure servers, but yet you can run Azure services on top of it. I don’t know. [00:19:00] Anyway, I talked to Oracle people.
[00:19:01] Christina: That, that’s, that’s a, and I was like, I know someone at Oracle.
[00:19:04] Jeff: health check in.
[00:19:04] Christina: That is my, I talked to someone at Oracle. No, my mental health check in was just like, I had like an insanely, insanely busy week. Um, and I’m, I’ve kind of recovered from that. But, um, that is, as much as I’m like a extrovert, like there’s still something incredibly draining about like being on for, or two.
[00:19:23] Christina: I don’t know, I had like five 13 hour days, 13 hour plus days, like 13 hours of like the minimum in a row. And that was just like, that was a lot. So, but I survived. I
[00:19:36] Brett: anything go terribly wrong? That’s what I’m curious about.
[00:19:39] Christina: No, not at all. Not at all. Um, you
[00:19:41] Brett: you’re a trooper. You get shit done.
[00:19:45] Christina: I’m gonna try. Um, but, uh, yeah, no. So just, uh, that’s my, my kind of general update. I’m still, I, I’m envious of your sleeping ability cause I am definitely struggling sleeping.
[00:19:59] Christina: Like I [00:20:00] went to bed, I think at, at 5 a. m. this morning and, uh, 5 or 6, and then I was up by Like 8. 45 or 9. 15. So
[00:20:11] Brett: enough sleep.
[00:20:12] Christina: it’s not, it’s not. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some more this weekend, but we’ll, we’ll see.
[00:20:16] Brett: get, do you get a little break now after that hellish, grueling week?
[00:20:21] Christina: uh, kind of, but now like it’s summer dev conference season. So, um, like, uh, WWDC is in two weeks now. I’m going to be in San Jose for that. Um, just hanging out with some folks. And then I’m going to be ironically back in San Francisco, like a week after that, like at the end of June. Um, for, uh, for a workshop, um, at, at some AI conference that I, I found out about, um, this week.
[00:20:49] Christina: I was asked to do it and I, I’m now, I’ve, the problem is I’m happy to do the workshop, but it’s like three hours. Huh. Um, I don’t think I have to do the whole three hours. I think that somebody else can do like an hour and a [00:21:00] half and I can do an hour and a half, but now I have to come up with, an hour and a half workshop.
[00:21:05] Christina: And that’s, that’s going to take, um, a lot of time.
[00:21:09] Brett: yeah. Jeez.
[00:21:12] Jeff: Woof.
[00:21:13] Christina: So yeah. So that’s me. Yeah. But things are up, but things are going up. Things are certainly better than like where I was a year ago. So, um, that, that, that, that’s good. So, um, I keep like reminding myself that it was like a year ago, like you were like actively not wanting to exist anymore and about to embark on the medication from hell, like.
[00:21:35] Christina: So, you know, small victories. Um,
[00:21:39] Jeff: Small, small, big victories.
[00:21:41] Christina: big victories. Yeah, so, um, I, I, um, uh, this really doesn’t fit into the mental health corner, but just as a brief follow up. Um, uh, I, I fucked up by buying the laptop that I bought when I bought it. Just back to Microsoft Build, because the new ARM Uh, machines that, that are new Qualcomm, like, [00:22:00] processor stuff that it was announced last week.
[00:22:02] Christina: These Copilot Plus PCs, um, they look really, really good. Like, I’m gonna obviously wait for the final, like, reviews and stuff to come out, but they look really, really good. And I’m like, damn it. Why did I buy the laptop that I bought? Um, too late now, but, uh, I mean, I might wind up selling it or something, but who knows?
[00:22:21] Christina: But like, uh, uh, That’s just a little bit of follow up for anybody who cares about Christina’s alternative, um, device slash operating system saga. Um, Qualcomm does have a, Qualcomm does have a dev kit though, actually, which is similar to like a Mac Mini. It’s 800 bucks or 900 bucks, I think it’s 900, but it comes with 32 gigs of RAM and like a super fast processor and, um, good storage and then a lot of connectivity and it looks like a Mac Mini.
[00:22:47] Christina: So, that’s it. actually a fairly reasonable, um, solution for people who might want to do like on, on device AI stuff, um, or, or Windows on ARM stuff. So I might pick one of those, but we’ll see. But [00:23:00] anyway, that’s it. I’m, I’m done.
[00:23:02] Jeff: Awesome.
[00:23:04] TV Shows and CGI Rants
[00:23:04] Jeff: I, it’s funny, I’m like, trying to figure out, I, I don’t feel like, I feel like I have like, um, heavy stuff, not heavy, like hard stuff, but just like, and, and then light stuff and I think I’m gonna go with the light stuff, which is that, I have, I don’t even know if this is, this has its shadow side, I’m, I, I know, but, um, I’ve been just like, Taking like, uh, like my kind of lunch break in the middle of the day or in the afternoon or late at night and watching, just going through like mostly limited series TV shows.
[00:23:38] Jeff: And, um, God, it’s been a right, it’s been the right time in my life to just get lost in stories. And, uh, and it’s been lovely. And even like we’ve had a lot of rain, so I can kind of lay on this couch we have that I love. And, uh, and just like, there’s a breeze and it’s raining and watching my stories. And, uh, it’s the most lovely thing.
[00:23:55] Jeff: It’s great. Oh man, I’ve blown through so much. Like, it’s not even [00:24:00] stuff I loved, all of it, but I watched The Regime, which I loved, with Kate Winslet. It’s fucking insane. I really recommend that to see her performance, because it’s basically like, it’s got a real veep quality to it. Like, there’s a point at which she’s like, Oh God, it smells like a pig’s urethra in here.
[00:24:15] Jeff: Um, I guess a lot of that kind of,
[00:24:17] Christina: that wasn’t, that was actually a pretty good impression.
[00:24:20] Jeff: a point at which she’s like, off you fuck. And there’s like some great. Like, she’s amazing. It’s a totally fucked up show. I watched that. I watched Masters of the Air, which like, I didn’t love as a character show, but I just found it fascinating to kind of like, imagine my way into being a kid who’s flying a bomber in World War II.
[00:24:37] Jeff: And you have like, you know, whatever crazy ass chance of surviving any given mission, not to mention the fact that we shouldn’t have been, uh, bombing in those, the ways that we were most of the time, uh, it’s a separate, separate issue. But the problem is who played Elvis in the Elvis movie? Um,
[00:24:52] Christina: Um, uh, Austin, uh, uh, Austin, um, was his face. Yeah.
[00:24:57] Jeff: So he’s, he plays like the main character, but [00:25:00] it’s, I don’t know if he was fucking filming Elvis as he filmed this, but I could not stay in the movie because every time he’d come on he was like, yeah, no, we’re going to find it, it’s going to be fine, we’re going to fly this mission and we’re all just going to be fine.
[00:25:11] Jeff: And it was like so incredible how he did not shed Elvis, either that or he just is that person. Um, what else? I’m watching Dark Matter. Dark Matter. Uh, on, on Apple TV, and, and I love that, and then I finished one other one, I can’t remember even the name, but uh, anyway, just going through them, and like, I kind of love limited series, they aren’t all limited series, most of those are.
[00:25:31] Jeff: Um, I just love that feeling like when it’s over, you’re not like, Oh fuck, I gotta wait two years. It’s just a nice satisfying feeling like when you close the book at the end of reading. Um, so yeah, that’s been, that’s been nice to do. Uh, it relates,
[00:25:45] Christina: Unless it’s big Little lies and then they’re like, oh, it’s limited series. Oh
[00:25:48] Jeff: I never watched. Yeah.
[00:25:49] Christina: The first season is actually incredible. The second season, not as good, um, even though they had Meryl Streep. Honestly, because, like, the author of the book had to, like, write the script.
[00:25:59] Christina: Like, [00:26:00] no one was expecting to do it again. It’s just, it was such a huge success. They were like, oh, we have to make more of this. Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off.
[00:26:06] Jeff: No. Oh, and the other one I watched, what is it called? It’s the Apple TV show with Colin Farrell. that takes a really ridiculous turn in the last three episodes, but he’s basically like a, uh, like L. A. noir type character. And I loved, I love watching detectives more than I love watching journalists in movies, but I like it for the same reason.
[00:26:26] Jeff: Um, and he is, I loved his style of being a detective. It was like, I loved it almost like close to how much I loved Columbo, but I wouldn’t compare the two because Columbo is just a massive, incredible thing that, that was created,
[00:26:41] Brett: what was the Colin Farrell one called?
[00:26:43] Jeff: what’s it called? It’s recent, uh, it’s, Colin Farrell, and also the woman that was in The Wire, who was a cop in The Wire for a season out on the, out on the docks.
[00:26:55] Jeff: I hope somebody’s searching it because I’m being
[00:26:57] Brett: I’m looking right now.
[00:26:59] Jeff: But first of all, Colin [00:27:00] Farrell, um, Sugar, yeah. Yeah, I loved it. I hated the turn it took, but I loved it. Um, and Colin Farrell also just has features that are like my brother. And so I, I like watching him, but anyway, that’s all.
[00:27:13] Jeff: That was nice. But it leads me to on our, on our sort of agenda here in our, in our show notes, uh, I had one really stupid thing I wanted to say, and it fits right in with this. And I just seem to say it out loud. Cause my kids are just tired of hearing me observe shit like this. I fucking hate CGI headlights So like I’m picturing, I was watching the regime and it happened in Masters of the Year too, where it’s like an overhead shot and there are cars driving, but like the headlights are obviously CGI and, and it looks so dumb. It almost looks half the time, like they’re disconnected and it’s making you guys, making me crazy, pulls me outta the story.
[00:27:48] Jeff: I’ll tell you what it does.
[00:27:49] Brett: I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never noticed this before.
[00:27:53] Jeff: You know what you want to talk about, Christina? Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, it’s just fucking, I can’t stop seeing it. And it’s probably not even always real, [00:28:00] but it makes me crazy. That’s all. I really,
[00:28:03] Brett: now I’m going to
[00:28:04] Jeff: I felt like this was a safe space and I
[00:28:05] Christina: No, it totally is. I, it doesn’t, those don’t bother me as much, but there are some things like that that have the same effect where like
[00:28:11] Jeff: smoke, breath,
[00:28:13] Christina: Smoke
[00:28:13] Jeff: all of that too.
[00:28:14] Christina: is one of those that, that bothers me. Breath, breath, um, you don’t see as much. Um, although when you see it, it’s almost always like painted in, um,
[00:28:23] Jeff: And it’s like the mouth is here, but why is it
[00:28:25] Christina: Right. Totally. And you’re like, you’re like, I understand that.
[00:28:29] Jeff: a Minnesotan.
[00:28:30] Christina: Well, I was gonna say, I was like, I understand that you’re filming this in Atlanta where it is never cold enough to actually capture someone’s breath. However, you know, you’re trying to like look like you’re, you know, so much, so much colder, but, um, I, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it on this show or not, but, uh, it’s not a limited series, although, um, I guess it’ll come back next year, um, who knows how long you’ll have to wait, but I think it still fits kind of that vibe or whatnot.
[00:28:56] Raving About Fallout on Amazon
[00:28:56] Christina: Fallout on Amazon, absolutely,
[00:28:58] Jeff: next for me.
[00:28:59] Christina: absolutely the [00:29:00] best show I’ve seen this year, probably like in a couple years. Like, even if you’ve never played the games, um, I think that you’ll like it, but like, I, I loved the games and I was really concerned that they were going to fuck up the tone of that show, uh, because the, the tone is crucial to the whole
[00:29:13] Jeff: Oh my
[00:29:14] Christina: not.
[00:29:14] Christina: And they nailed it on every fucking level. The casting is fantastic. They, they kind of, to your point about the CGI stuff, like they used some of that, but a lot of what they did was actually like practical effects.
[00:29:26] Jeff: Yeah, that’s great.
[00:29:27] Christina: like they, they went to certain locations, you know, to get some of the expansive, like they went to Nairobi or something, I think, to, to shoot.
[00:29:35] Christina: Some of the stuff to kind of like look like like the the wasteland and kind of like, you know a desert and You know, they did more practical effects For other things too. So I I think you’ll like it. It’s really really good.
[00:29:50] Jeff: Awesome. That’s great. I want to, I want to watch it so bad. I have an ambient experience of Fallout because both of my boys played it a ton, and I just loved hearing it being played. [00:30:00] Obviously the music, but also just everything. The music’s unbelievable. It’s just,
[00:30:04] Christina: hmm. And yeah, and they nailed it. It was one of those things I was really, I was optimistic, especially when I saw their installation at South by Southwest, which was a really, really good installation. Like they recreated like the wasteland and they kind of had like a carnival sort of experience and they had actors hired to kind of play, you know, denizens, um, you know, in, in, in the TV show, um, and, uh, kind of, kind of world.
[00:30:27] Christina: And, um, I, I was impressed enough with how that was because it was a really, clearly a very expensive installation and it was something that, that worked really well, but I was like, okay, if they put enough into this, the thought, the thought just for this, I’m hopeful, especially, you know, after we’ve seen some of the previews that the show will be good, but then Amazon did stupid shit.
[00:30:47] Christina: Like they kept changing the release date. They wound up, you know, moving it up a few days. And then they released all the episodes at once. And so that makes you think, okay, well, are they trying to burn this off? And no, they weren’t. The reviews were universally [00:31:00] like incredibly positive. Um, and then which, which like, you know, people were comparing it, you know, to, to the Last of Us.
[00:31:06] Christina: And I
[00:31:08] Jeff: God, which I haven’t watched.
[00:31:10] Christina: is great and and but that’s a much easier thing to adapt in my opinion because that has that was a that was a Game that was basically designed like a prestige TV series. Whereas Fallout because it’s self determined They had to create whole new characters But to still live kind of in that universe and so and then you have to nail the tone The tone is a much harder thing to nail in Fallout.
[00:31:29] Christina: And so the stakes in my opinion were a lot higher But I was hopeful I was like, okay Well, the Westworld people are behind this and and like, you know You Um, the, the actors they got involved were good and I was hopeful, but you never know, right? Like video game adaptations are usually awful.
[00:31:44] Jeff: Or, you know, you know that it’s a good chance it’s going to suck.
[00:31:48] Christina: And, and in this case, and then when they drop it all at once, you’re like, okay, well, do you not believe in this?
[00:31:52] Christina: And then no, it was fantastic. And it’s like broken all kinds of Amazon records and they’ve already renewed it for a second season. But I, the only thing [00:32:00] I think that Amazon fucked up with that was they’d released it like week to week. Like, I think that a lot more conversation would have built about it.
[00:32:07] Christina: So anyway.
[00:32:09] Jeff: Yeah. Oh, which,
[00:32:11] Brett: That’s Richard. He’s knocking shit over.
[00:32:14] Jeff: Awesome. Yeah.
[00:32:16] Brett: not hang up this call.
[00:32:17] The Magic of TV Shows and Audiobooks
[00:32:17] Jeff: So much TV. I love it. I, it really relaxes me. I mean, when it, when it does, when it does
[00:32:23] Brett: I like, yeah, the, so the idea of like, rain and stories, like that is, that’s a, that’s a real happy place for me. I open
[00:32:32] Christina: Yeah, I love that.
[00:32:33] Brett: listen to a soft rain while I get, uh, uh, lost, I guess is, I think the word you use, just to get lost in a story. And, and, and those limited run TV series tend to be really well written and like a well written
[00:32:52] Jeff: They’re the ones you want to go on.
[00:32:54] Brett: Yeah, well, it’s like I get part of me is like the film critic [00:33:00] appreciating like, oh, that was really well written and part of me is just like Enveloped in this story and I love that.
[00:33:07] Jeff: Especially from the, to wrap the mental health part of that up, uh, especially when you’re stuck in your own stories. To like, get into somebody else’s is a huge relief.
[00:33:17] Christina: Yes.
[00:33:17] Brett: I fall asleep at night listening to audiobooks, and it usually involves a lot of reading. It, it, well, I like it. I like
[00:33:26] Christina: mean, I like it too. I’m saying, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but go on.
[00:33:29] Brett: Well, I’m really into this author Jeremy Robinson right now, and I have literally read, uh, 20 to 30 of his books. The dude writes a book, like, every three months.
[00:33:41] Brett: And he is ADHD and his, he comes up with fucking stories and premises that I find myself trying to explain what’s happening in a story to Elle and just realizing how absolutely bonkers it is. Um, and I love the [00:34:00] way the guy’s brain works. So I fall asleep listening to his stories. It leads to fuck up fucked up dreams, but it gets me out of my own head.
[00:34:09] Brett: Um, just like. And, and I rewind, like every morning I rewind to the point where I fell asleep because I don’t want to miss anything. Um, but yeah, like stories get me out of my own stories.
[00:34:21] Jeff: in the, and in the right context, it’s not escapism, it’s rest, you know? Like, for me at least.
[00:34:27] Christina: No, I, I totally agree because like, all of us on this pod, I mean, this was one of kind of the genesis for, for the original iteration of Overtired a decade ago, um, was, uh, which I think actually happened like in June of 2014, if I recall correctly, Brett.
[00:34:46] Brett: I don’t do dates.
[00:34:48] Christina: well, yeah. ’cause we were at WDC, but anyway, um, um, but like, it is that like our brains don’t shut off.
[00:34:56] Christina: At least mine doesn’t. And so getting lost in someone else’s [00:35:00] story, to your point, like I, I, I kind of love that, like, is kind of a way in some ways of, of, at least for me anyway, like shutting off my brain, right? I can focus on this. You know, fictional story or a historical novel or whatever, I can focus on this other thing and not have to think about all the other stuff, um, that, that my brain won’t shut up about.
[00:35:20] Christina: Um, I mean, honestly, that’s probably now, now that I’m verbalizing this, that was probably part of my, um, uh, Attraction to journalism to a certain extent, in addition to it being very good for, like, an ADHD person, it’s also one of those things where you can compartmentalize and can kind of, you know, focus on this thing that, like, doesn’t directly, sometimes it does directly affect you, but many times, like, it doesn’t, right?
[00:35:40] Christina: So it’s like, okay, I can, I can be in this world, you know, reading about this stuff or listen, you know, listening to an audiobook or watching a TV show, and I can get lost in that instead of All the, the, the, you know, nascent, like, the never ending discussion of my brain.
[00:35:56] Jeff: For sure. For sure.
[00:35:58] Brett: I, uh, I, I put a [00:36:00] link to Jeremy Robinson’s, uh, kind of, Website, Beware of Monsters. So if you’re looking, if you’re looking for bonkers, sci fi, bonkers, fantasy, uh, he’s all over Audible. Like you’ll never run out of stories if you just want some crazy shit to fall asleep to. Um, Okay, okay. Alright, we are, what, halfway through?
[00:36:25] GitHub Repo Frustrations at Oracle
[00:36:25] Brett: Um, I got one stupid thing I want to bitch about.
[00:36:28] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:36:29] Christina: Yeah,
[00:36:29] Brett: So, so I run the GitHub organization for DevRel at Oracle, and we have always, we, like, we fought long and hard to get a, a relaxed security license. For our DevRel repos so that every repo didn’t have to go through a whole, a whole list of like legal and corp arch and approvals left and right, which you do need to get onto the [00:37:00] main Oracle.
[00:37:01] Brett: If you want to build a repo, but our repos were just, they’re like sample code, they’re examples, they’re short, Like some of them are just readme files that they want to publish without going through like a content management system. Um, so we tried to keep it super lightweight. Uh, we have a whole securities procedure called OSSA Lite.
[00:37:21] Brett: Um, and it was working great. Until, uh, this week we got assigned, we now have to go through this Jira ticket. You have to clone this Jira ticket to request a new repo. And this Jira ticket has 13 sub tickets, including Legal Authorization, Corp Arch Approval, Export Compliance Approval. And like everyone who wants to request a repo, it used to be a 15 minute process.
[00:37:54] Brett: Um, I would ask them a series of questions to ensure that they fit our [00:38:00] requirements for a Category 3 repo. I would make the repo, assign them as maintainers, done. Now, it is a 1 2 week process. From 15 minutes to two weeks to get a new repo. And it, it sucks. Uh, I hate it, but also it turns out like Corp Arch was considering shutting us down because we were operating as like a rogue, a rogue GitHub organization within Oracle.
[00:38:29] Brett: So this was, this was a necessary step to, to maintain our, to maintain our like independent. Yeah.
[00:38:37] Christina: Right. Like, and for you to be able to not be shut down, but man, what a pain in the ass.
[00:38:42] Brett: My manager, not my manager, but my like, my M6, like my manager’s manager, um, asked me to research what companies like Microsoft have as far as like, repo creation requirements, and I don’t, I, [00:39:00] that’s not your area, Christina,
[00:39:01] Christina: It’s not, but I can, I can find out. I don’t know what all is public. Um, let me find out actually what is public in terms of the Microsoft stuff. For GitHub, it’s, it’s, it’s, Look, it’s GitHub, so it’s the, the requirements are going to be different than other
[00:39:14] Brett: yeah, I want
[00:39:15] Christina: um, we, there is a process, but I think it comes through the open source programs office.
[00:39:20] Christina: I, let me see how much is public, so what I can share with you, um, because there is a process, um, and, and I, they built some actually pretty good automated tooling around some of that stuff too, because Microsoft, um, and this predates the GitHub acquisition by like years and years. There are still a couple of, um, things that might be in, in some other places, but for the most part, like most of the company code is on GitHub.
[00:39:44] Christina: And so they have fairly automated like processes in terms of, and obviously lots of
[00:39:50] Brett: it made total sense when Microsoft bought GitHub. I’m like, they’re, they’re good citizens of GitHub. I had high hopes and it, it, they haven’t failed me yet.
[00:39:59] Christina: [00:40:00] Knock on wood, man. Knock on
[00:40:01] Brett: All right. That was my one stupid thing. What do you guys want to talk about?
[00:40:05] Spotify’s Car Thing Controversy
[00:40:05] Christina: Can I bitch about something real quick? Okay, so,
[00:40:09] Jeff: thing corner.
[00:40:10] Christina: okay, so, so, months, months and months ago, we talked about how I bought the, the car thing from Spotify. Um, which, uh, is, was this, uh, thing that they, at one point they sold it for 90. I think I got it for 20 or 30, um, when they discontinued it. Um, And basically it was just this, uh, this thing that you could connect to your car or, um, I used it connected to a computer through like a USB C cable, but it also had like a mounting system and basically would pair to your phone and act as like a, a controller for, um, Spotify.
[00:40:43] Christina: Um, and it was pretty cool. Designed for cars that, that didn’t have, you know, like in car systems and whatnot, and it didn’t have a touchscreen, but like the, the display was really, um, high quality and it had a really nice little kind of, uh, scroll, um, wheel where you could kind of, uh, control, you know, volume and, and change playlists and things like that.
[00:40:59] Christina: [00:41:00] Really great design. Anyway, um, they discontinued it and I got mine cheap and I was like, Oh, I can, I’ll connect this to my desk. And, and granted there are other apps I can use as a Spotify controller. It’s super fluid in some ways, but it was a fun little toy. Well, Spotify has decided that they are going to, um, end of life at in December, and they’re not going to open source anything with it.
[00:41:20] Christina: They’re just going to break everybody’s devices. They’re just gonna break, they’re just gonna break everybody’s devices and now there’s been enough, there’s been enough of an outcry that, um, I guess some people can get refunds if they email them or whatever, um, and there might even be a class action suit around it.
[00:41:36] Christina: But it’s just so frustrating because There’s, they’re claiming, Spotify’s claiming, Oh, we want, you know, to cut, I guess, our support burden or whatnot. But I’m like, A, you didn’t sell that many of these things to the point that you had to close them out for a third of the price. And most people who bought these things were enthusiasts.
[00:41:53] Christina: And I understand that open sourcing things is, uh, you know, uh, a difficult task. And like, I’m not saying that, like, [00:42:00] I necessarily even expect it. Expect them to do that. Although it would certainly be nice. Um, but um, I think and I don’t have any proof of this. This is just my own like Independent conspiracy theory.
[00:42:13] Christina: I think I know why they’re doing this. And, and, and if this is the reason, this makes me even more angry. So Spotify recently introduced a new font. Um, it’s very similar to the font that they were paying for
[00:42:24] Jeff: expect it to go there. Okay.
[00:42:25] Christina: Okay. No, no, well, hear me out. Well, hear me out. Okay. So they, they, they introduced a new, a new font that they own.
[00:42:31] Christina: They previously had been licensing a font that someone else made. And because of, uh, all the places they exist on web and other stuff, their licensing fees, I bet were. Extraordinary because I don’t think they had a perpetual agreement. I think that it was one of those things where they were probably having to pay like per device, per API, whatever.
[00:42:47] Christina: Anyway, they, they designed and they, they said as much like when they did their big outline document of like why they created their own typeface. I think because this thing, you know, is older, um, because it’s from a couple of years ago, [00:43:00] they don’t want to obviously introduce the engineering resources to like issue an update to, you know, update like the, the firmware or anything else on it.
[00:43:08] Christina: So, but they also probably don’t want to have to pay the licensing. For any of these things that are still in use. So my theory is, and again, this is unproven. I could be completely full of shit. And if you work at Spotify and know, please let me know, um, on Macedon, or you can email me, Christina at Christina.
[00:43:23] Christina: is. I will keep it confidential. Um, uh, like, unless you say that. You know, sources close to the situation can say. Anyway, I’m just curious. If I’m wrong, though, I’m happy to correct the record. But I have a feeling that they’re doing this just because they don’t want to pay some font licensing bullshit and like, fuck you, Spotify.
[00:43:39] Christina: Like, genuinely, like, this was a fun little toy and for the people who actually do use it in their cars, which is not me, you’ve now, like, made their listening experience significantly worse. Um, they, uh, yeah, they sent me an email last week that says, we’re reaching out to get, um, uh, out to you, giving your use of our Carthing product.
[00:43:58] Christina: As we shared, Spotify has made the [00:44:00] difficult decision to discontinue Carthing on December 9th, 2024. This was not a decision we made lightly, and we want to ensure that you have the right place to reach out if you have any questions, our customer support team can reach through the link below, and if I contact them, apparently I can get my 30 back, but like, fuck off,
[00:44:17] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:44:18] Christina: like what a shitty move.
[00:44:20] Christina: Anyway, that’s my bitching. Uh
[00:44:22] Brett: I,
[00:44:23] Jeff: this conspiracy theory. I’m putting, I put links to both Circular, their old font, which they were licensing, and their new font, which has the really stupid name Spotify Mix.
[00:44:32] Christina: Yes. Yes!
[00:44:34] Jeff: not what you call a font. That’s what you call a Spotify Mix.
[00:44:37] Brett: um, my, I, I’m going to renew my, my Spotify, bitch. Um,
[00:44:43] Jeff: Hey, you know what we’re doing? InGraftitude.
[00:44:46] Brett: yeah, yes, yes. So I don’t, I, there is a long thread on the Spotify support site about this. Um, and I’ve talked about it before.
[00:44:57] Christina: b b b but you’re a, you’re a crashing thing, right?[00:45:00]
[00:45:00] Brett: Well, it’s not crashing. It just, if I play Spotify from my Mac on Sonoma about every 15 seconds, it drops out audio for about four seconds. Um, five seconds since we’re, since we’re, we’re estimating here, but like it makes it impossible to listen through Spotify on my
[00:45:22] Jeff: Oh, same. I have the same problem and on the HomePod.
[00:45:25] Brett: And what I end up doing is I play Spotify on my phone and then I set the speaker to my Mac and it works fine. And then I can control Spotify from my Mac, but it’s playing via my phone. And it is, it is a workaround. It’s a pain in the ass. Um, sometimes I just use Bluetooth connectivity because I get a better audio signal that way.
[00:45:48] Brett: Um, But, and sometimes I push it to the echo that’s connected to my, uh, max sound system through a, uh, complete, [00:46:00] complete six. Anyway, I have a lot of options. I will say, um, I recently added a. Klipsch, uh, R 100 SW 10 inch subwoofer to my max audio, and you combine that with all of my dancing lights and it is the perfect, um, uh, overstimulation.
[00:46:26] Brett: When, when my ADHD is craving stimulation, I now can like, vibrate the room while all of the lights in the room dance to the music and it is fuckin nuts.
[00:46:39] Jeff: Nice.
[00:46:39] Christina: it.
[00:46:41] Brett: But I can’t do it with Spotify on my Mac. I gotta do it from my phone. And Spotify is not responding. This thread has been going since early 2020, or late 2023.
[00:46:54] Brett: And they have not responded. They have not Uh, Offered, Any Solutions.[00:47:00]
[00:47:00] Jeff: Dude, they were working on that font.
[00:47:01] Brett: Sure, sure, you got, you got priorities, right? But, I’m, I’m not alone. This is happening to multiple people. I’ve done all the things. Uninstall, reinstall, clear caches, lower bit rates. Like, I’ve done everything. And, it’s just, it’s so fucking
[00:47:19] Jeff: It just needs a wash.
[00:47:21] Brett: Maybe, I should try it on my, um, laptop.
[00:47:26] Jeff: Can I, um, can I make a proposal? My proposal without you voting is, um, is that I do an ingraftitude, which bridges into graftitude.
[00:47:34] Brett: Sure, sure,
[00:47:36] Jeff: Okay, here comes my ingraftitude. So, uh, for the, the business, I’m part of the collaborative. We have like all of the software, obviously we’re a business, um, that we use and all of these subscriptions and apps and services, and I’ve been going through all of them, um, to just kind of audit our permissions and, and just kind of look at logs and see how we’re using them or if we’re using them, but also make sure that it’s like, we’re [00:48:00] using it the right way.
[00:48:00] Jeff: And, and maybe we want like the higher plan or whatever it is. Right. I. This work is so slow because nobody has figured out a good way to handle user permissions, moving to two factor authentication, or any kind of PASCY or anything like that. It’s the wild fucking West, because obviously. And I just wish someone out there had some best practices.
[00:48:25] Jeff: I don’t know how you create them, but I. God damn, have not found a single interface where I’m like, well, that’s well laid out. I, I feel like I’ve, I know I’ve done all the right things right now and I can move on. It’s more like, well, let me fucking click here. It’s like when you, every time I get a new iPhone, I just click through every single setting and, and realize, holy fuck, look at all this shit you can do.
[00:48:47] Jeff: But it’s like 20. Fucking clicks in. It was like that for every one of these. It took me so many hours. I’m not done. It’s like, it’s insane. So anyway, that’s my ingraftitude that no one’s getting that right.
[00:48:58] Brett: my favorite thing about [00:49:00] iOS settings is that Apple looked at that fucking mess and said, let’s bring that to the Mac. And in Sonoma, they made the settings as convoluted as they are on iOS. And yeah, that’s,
[00:49:14] Jeff: And they change. I think they changed some of the, like the way the global prefs are written. So it’s even harder to do some of the things that you used to be able to do from the command line to kind of set your global preferences. I think some of that changed because when I was setting up a computer a few months ago, I found some of those things that had always worked don’t work anymore.
[00:49:32] Jeff: Is that true?
[00:49:33] Brett: in the process of developing Bunch, it used to be a simple Boolean to turn notifications or like, um, do not disturb on and off. It was a simple Boolean, uh, defaults command. Now you have to read a dictionary, a binary dictionary from preferences, decode it, change a flag, recode it and apply it, uh, like three levels [00:50:00] deep.
[00:50:00] Brett: Okay. in a preference setting, in like a preference dictionary, and it is, um, super hacky to do something that used to be like one simple terminal command. Um, and now, and part of it’s because they added all of the, what are they called, the different do not disturb modes. Um,
[00:50:20] Jeff: are awesome.
[00:50:21] Brett: yeah, they’re cool. Uh,
[00:50:23] Jeff: I have an amazing one that just lets in my family when I want. I love that.
[00:50:27] Brett: it had to get more complex, but now the, the real way to do that is using shortcuts instead of terminal commands and shortcuts, shortcuts is cool.
[00:50:39] Brett: No complaints.
[00:50:40] Jeff: Yeah, I have a complaint. I mean, shortcuts is, it’s like, okay, now I’m fucking bloop bloop, rather than shook a dook a dook a.
[00:50:48] Brett: Yeah, I mean, I, I recently made a shortcut for converting NB Alt RTF files into Markdown for [00:51:00] importing into something like NB Ultra or Obsidian, um, because NB Alt is dying. Uh, there are a lot of people who can no longer run it and, and vUltra is still in fucking beta. Um, private beta, no less. I, we really should just make it public.
[00:51:16] Brett: But, um, anyway, so I wrote this to, to help save, you know, some, some older users notes. And it made me realize shortcuts is. If you want to do anything more complex than like turn on this do not disturb mode, what are they called? There’s a, I’m forgetting the word for like the profiles in there, but, um, but yeah, like Shortcuts is not easy to work with.
[00:51:44] Brett: Um, I don’t, I honestly, Automator, I just, I only ever used it to run shell scripts. Um, and that was, it was great for that. And, and shortcuts can do that, uh, even better.
[00:51:58] Jeff: Shortcuts are amazing. [00:52:00] And for me, it feels like the difference between, uh, working with a static site or trying to put something good in Squarespace. That’s like how, you know, like that’s kind of how it feels. And I just get annoyed
[00:52:10] Brett: Oh, that’s actually, that’s a perfect analogy.
[00:52:13] Jeff: yeah, yeah.
[00:52:15] Brett: Okay.
[00:52:15] Graptitude: Celebrating Tech Tools
[00:52:15] Brett: So we gotta, we gotta do Graptitude. Jeff has to take off in seven minutes.
[00:52:19] Christina: Great. I’ve got one. Um, we, we, okay. So mine is, uh, is, is Kino, which is, uh, a new, uh, video app from the, uh, Halide. I think that’s how you say it, folks, uh, Ben and Sebastian, um, who, uh, who make, uh, Halide is one of the best, um, uh, camera apps for iOS
[00:52:36] Brett: I’m going to go with Halide.
[00:52:38] Christina: Halide. Okay. I have no idea. And I’ve said it wrong before.
[00:52:41] Christina: I, I, I thought that it was pronounced a different way and I was trying to remember how Ben pronounced it. So we’ll say that Halide. Um, but anyway, uh, if you go to, uh, lux. camera, I think already the price has gone up to 20. Um, it was 10 for its first couple of days in release, but it’s a, it’s a one off purchase, but [00:53:00] basically they, um, it’s a, if you do any sort of like pro video stuff, basically lets you.
[00:53:07] Christina: It’s very similar in some ways to the Blackmagic app, uh, Blackmagic camera app, except this has a lot of pre built in like filters for, for color grading and things like that so that you don’t have to be a pro to do it. You can do it kind of in camera, so you can record things in Apple log. I’ve got some of the newer. It has all and apply certain effects automatically and instantly grade things. Um, and it also has a bunch of other really great, um, features and, and like, you can open various LUT files and things like that. Um, so, uh, it, it has a feature called, um, um, um, It’s an auto motion where it’ll basically choose the best, the best exposure setting, like for whatever motion blur, um, it’s, it’s accomplishing and it’s doing that, uh, without using AI or computational photography, um, uh, uh, they, they say on their, on their site, like it’s a practical [00:54:00] effect, which, which I appreciate, but, um, anyway, it’s, I haven’t had a chance to really go in depth with it, uh, but especially if you have one of the newer iPhones.
[00:54:10] Christina: Um, and, and you’re interested in, in like a pro app, especially since like Filmic, when Filmic died and did its, you know, uh, well, yeah, it died cause it sold to that company that bought Evernote and, and buys things just to, to ruin it. Um, Filmic was a really great app for many, many, many years. And, um, now, uh, Kino is an option and, uh, I, I, I don’t know, uh, Seb and, and Ben are fantastic people.
[00:54:36] Christina: And, um, I’m, uh, love to support indie devs and, um, as a 1. 0, like, I know that they had to rush to get this out and stuff, but, um, and, and it’s hard as hell for them to do a lot of the things that they do because of how the camera APIs work and because of the various Different cameras across different devices.
[00:54:55] Christina: So even if you don’t have one of the newer phones, um, you can still use this app. But [00:55:00] obviously the, the newer phones can take advantage of some of the features even better. But, uh, yeah, Keno is my pick. I, I, I’m, uh, it’s like we talk a lot and joke a lot about like pro apps, you know, for like iOS or iPadOS.
[00:55:13] Christina: This is actually one of those apps is actually like a fucking pro app for, for your phone. So,
[00:55:17] Brett: looks very cool.
[00:55:18] Christina: yeah.
[00:55:19] Brett: All right. Um, my pick, I’m going to keep it short, is Fish, the friendly interactive shell. Um, I switched, I was a long time Bash user. When macOS switched to Zshell, Zsh as its, uh, default. Um, shell, I, I tried getting into z She and Z Shell is very cool. There’s a lot you can do, but at the same time, I started hearing about Phish.
[00:55:45] Brett: So I gave it a shot. It was a bit of a, um,
[00:55:50] Christina: Learning curve?
[00:55:51] Brett: yeah, there was a, there was a, a shock to it. Um, but once you get used to it, like the scripting is. So much easier and [00:56:00] smarter than Bash or z Shell scripting, um, a more natural language and less symbolic. Um, the completions are fucking
[00:56:11] Christina: completions are great.
[00:56:13] Brett: It tell, it, it remembers completions per directory.
[00:56:16] Brett: So when you change into a project and you type the first letter of a command, you usually run on that project, it’ll offer you a completion for that project, not your last command that started with that letter. Um, and you can. You can just hit the right arrow and accept a command and, uh, the syntax highlighting of your, your, your command line is like, as you type, uh, if it’s a valid command, it turns green and then it, it syntax highlights all of your options and everything.
[00:56:46] Brett: The completions are like auto generated from man pages. It can complete. Just about any command and like I type ssh and it will complete anything in my config file [00:57:00] any uh alias that I’ve set up and Yeah, it’s it’s awesome and I recommend it um That’s my that’s my gratitude.
[00:57:11] Jeff: Awesome.
[00:57:12] Christina: That’s great. Um, I’ve tried Fish. It’s been a while, but, but I, I remember liking it. Now, um, I think you might’ve told me how I could do this, but remind me, like if I, if I need to run a Bash script or,
[00:57:23] Brett: Oh, yeah you as long as
[00:57:25] Christina: that.
[00:57:26] Brett: As long as it has a hashbang at the top, it’ll just load it in that shell. Like, I run bash scripts in Phish all the time.
[00:57:33] Christina: Okay.
[00:57:35] Jeff: Awesome. I know. I remember when you really got into Phish and you were just writing shit for it all the fucking time. I was like, I want to do Phish. And I’m like, you know, I’ve, I’ve tried to follow Brett in the past down these threads and I find I should just maybe pause. Uh, cause I’m not Brett.
[00:57:51] Christina: will say, um, I, I’m looking at their, their homepage now, um, for the first time in a long time and I don’t know if it’s always been this way. Uh, maybe it has, but, um, the fact that they use Comic [00:58:00] Sans as the
[00:58:00] Brett: I know, I know.
[00:58:02] Christina: Honestly, it’s actually great.
[00:58:06] Brett: Yo, um, Yeah, their documentation is amazing. Uh, they have, if you run the help command, it’ll load up, uh, the documentation in your web browser. Um, you can also add it as a dash doc set. Um, yeah, it’s their documentation is great. Their homepage is fucking ridiculous, but.
[00:58:29] Jeff: is ridiculous. Brett, did you ever, tell me you wrote some things somehow for, for making it easy to create custom dash doc sets.
[00:58:38] Brett: yeah, I made
[00:58:39] Jeff: did? I knew it. I just did one for the first time and I was like, this is insane, Brett has to have fixed
[00:58:45] Brett: yeah, you can just, I, you can just write DocSets in Markdown.
[00:58:50] Jeff: That’s your deal?
[00:58:51] Brett: yeah, and my tool, well, it uses a gem that was published by Capelli or whatever. [00:59:00] Um, he, he made a, a gem that, uh, creates DocSets from a Uh, basically a Ruby document. Uh, it’s, uh, uh, what do you call it? When you write your own language, an ASDSL, domain specific language.
[00:59:17] Brett: Um, so it’s a very simple syntax, but I made one that converts from Markdown to that simple syntax and then uses the gem to create a
[00:59:27] Jeff: I didn’t even want to search it because I wanted to ask you here. I love that. So my graftitude, well, one is just that when you said Kino, I initially, I immediately thought of Kinopio, which is the, it’s the most delightful little, uh, browser based mind mapping app. It’s adorable and, and it’s wonderful. And I just want to just remind the whole world that it exists.
[00:59:48] Jeff: Um, and then, uh, and then the other piece is like, so this is so silly, like my link in the show notes is to a thing from 2006, but it’s a feature in Firefox. That I’ve never actually encountered [01:00:00] or noticed, which is that when you create a bookmark and you go in to edit it, you can create a keyword that just calls that bookmark in the address line.
[01:00:07] Jeff: I never fucking saw it until this week and I was just like, my whole life has changed.
[01:00:13] Brett: and for sites you go to regularly, you can make your keyword just one letter. So if I type O and hit enter, it goes to overtiredpod. com.
[01:00:23] Jeff: great. Great.
[01:00:25] Brett: if I type C and hit enter, it loads up my, uh, local, uh, Synology, uh, admin. Yeah.
[01:00:34] Jeff: I love it. Yeah. So anyway, that’s like, it’s such a stupid little thing, but it’s funny how features can escape you or me, maybe at least for ever. Cause again, I just linked to something from 2006. That’s like, how cool are custom keywords? Anyway, always
[01:00:51] Brett: right. Jeff, we’re getting you out of here on time, more or less.
[01:00:55] Jeff: Yeah. Great.
[01:00:56] Brett: I love
[01:00:56] Jeff: great to talk to y’all. Yeah. I’ll be
[01:00:58] Brett: some sleep.
[01:00:59] Christina: Get some sleep [01:01:00] everybody.
[01:01:00] Jeff: Get some sleep. Bye.
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Brett and Christina discuss their recent experiences and upcoming busy schedules. Brett talks about his vacation in Asheville and Christina talks about her involvement in Microsoft Build. They also discuss the challenges of managing work and personal devices, as well as the benefits of using passkeys for authentication. Google’s vision of AI search and its potential impact on web traffic and advertising revenue. The introduction of Text Blaze as an alternative to TextExpander for text expansion. They also talk about their experiences with different web browsers, including Arc, and Christina shares her recent purchase of a new Windows laptop. They briefly mention the Rabbit R1 device and its sketchy nature.
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Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter.
Sketch as F@ck
[00:00:00] Brett: Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Lately Sporadic Overtired podcast. Um, Jeff is out this week. I’m Brett Terpstra. I am here with Christina Warren. Christina, how
[00:00:14] Brett: are you?
[00:00:14] Christina: I’m pretty good. I’m tired because, and I’m, and I’m just getting started this weekend. It’s going to be so, so busy, but no, I’m tired because I’ve, I’ve had kind of like a crazy last week or so. And it’s, it’s, it’s just going to get busier. I’m, I’m, I’m good. How about you? Uh,
[00:00:31] Brett: Um, I also am tired. Um, I had, I ran out of My sleep meds one night and then I got them and slept really well the next night. And then last night, even with the sleep meds, uh, after 2 a. m. I was up like every half an hour. So I’m dragging and I also had a crazy work week. Um, crazy for me, probably not as crazy as yours, but
[00:00:57] Mental Health Corner
[00:00:57] Brett: I, uh, I did this [00:01:00] project before I left on vacation.
[00:01:01] Brett: I went, I went to Asheville. I don’t, we haven’t talked since then, but have we? Um, I, uh, I, I worked really hard to get two projects in the can before I left on vacation and then made the mistake of checking Slack while on vacation and. and found out that both of the projects I had completed required revisions for asinine reasons um that I started to argue in slack halfway through my vacation and then I was like dude you’re totally harshing my buzz here so I’m just gonna I’ll talk to you when I get home.
[00:01:42] Brett: Um, and then I saw Victor and Victor kind of talked me down and, and I got back and like, it was no big deal, but then yesterday I get this frantic Slack message from someone I had never heard of who wanted to know who [00:02:00] greenlit the. Demo video that I published because that entire project apparently was confidential and like I worked directly with the team and the team didn’t know their project was confidential.
[00:02:15] Brett: They were as shocked as I was so there is some kind of failure of communication
[00:02:19] Brett: here.
[00:02:19] Christina: And a failure I should add that is in no way yours.
[00:02:22] Brett: Huh, I just followed
[00:02:23] Brett: orders. They
[00:02:24] Christina: what I’m saying. That’s what I’m saying. You had, you, you had zero.
[00:02:29] Brett: So I got, I got together all the stakeholders. I said, you guys sort this out. It’s Friday afternoon. I’m out. Have fun.
[00:02:37] Christina: Yeah, no, sounds fair, sounds fair. Um, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll talk more in depth, um, uh, off mic, but, um, I’m actually going to be talking to a couple of Oracle people at, uh, Microsoft Build, but I don’t know if you know any of them or not, but
[00:02:53] Brett: We’ll, we’ll think, we’ll find
[00:02:55] Christina: we’ll
[00:02:55] Christina: find out. You probably don’t cause it’s a big company, but yeah.
[00:02:59] Brett: yeah, [00:03:00] no, I, I meet new people every day. Um, so, uh,
[00:03:05] Mental Health Corner
[00:03:05] Brett: I think we’ve kind of started the mental health
[00:03:07] Christina: yeah, I was gonna say that. That sounds, that sounds good. So, so how, but, but let’s, uh, let’s, let’s go more into that. You can take it away. Like how, how is Asheville? How’s life?
[00:03:16] Brett: yeah, Asheville was awesome. Um, it was my second time going there and I loved it so much the first time I had to go back again. Um, have you ever
[00:03:26] Brett: been?
[00:03:27] Christina: I never have. I, um, I, I’ve, uh, but I’ve heard good things and I’ve heard it’s like a, a good place.
[00:03:34] Brett: It’s a, it’s, there’s Raleigh and there’s Asheville, the only blue spots in what is otherwise a
[00:03:41] Brett: deep red
[00:03:42] Christina: Yeah. I’ve been to
[00:03:43] Brett: Um, and yeah, Asheville is like, it’s kind of hippie meets yuppie meets, Like, just your average, like, West Coast liberal kind of sensibility, and, [00:04:00] um, and like, you’ll get into an Uber, and they’ll ask you where you’re from, and if, if they, if you’re from, like, a blue state, they’ll be like, oh, you’ll feel right at home here, and half the people there have relocated, so, like, my accent didn’t stick out.
[00:04:14] Brett: Um, no one really questioned whether I was from Asheville or not. I had to tell them I was just visiting. Um, but yeah, we did shopping. We, we hiked, we swam in waterfalls. We, uh, we ate a lot of really good food. They have a ton of like vegan gluten free food for us. And there’s this restaurant called Plant that it’s a vegan restaurant.
[00:04:40] Brett: And honestly. It’s the best vegan food I’ve ever had. I would take any meat eater there and just be like, enjoy. And it was half price wine, bottle of wine night. So we got a bottle of red wine, drank half of it with dinner. And then they sent us home. [00:05:00] They corked the bottle and gave us. I mean, we paid for it, but we got a pint of vegan ice cream, went back to our tiny home, which was awesome.
[00:05:09] Brett: We Airbnb’d a tiny home, and we sat and had a pint of ice cream and half a bottle of wine before going to bed in probably the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in. So overall, the vacation was pretty
[00:05:23] Brett: magical. Um, And then I came home and went right back into work. Um, which I don’t know. I was pretty refreshed.
[00:05:32] Brett: It’s like the first vacation in a long time that actually felt refreshing instead of stressful. Um, even though we drove from Minnesota to North Carolina, um, it, and I did most of the driving, but I, I’m a trooper. I can drive for hours. I don’t want to, but I can. Anyhow, that’s kind of, that’s, that’s my update.
[00:05:56] Christina: That’s good. That’s good. Well, I’m glad you had a good time. I wanna hear more about this [00:06:00] tiny home shit.
[00:06:01] Brett: Oh yeah, it was in this guy’s backyard. They built a tiny home that it had running water, it had electricity, it had wi fi, um, it had like a great shower with great water pressure, super comfortable bed, but the whole thing was maybe like 80 square feet. It had a decent sized refrigerator and a microwave and a toaster oven and a big sink and like just soup, all brand new, like all like recently built, everything was in top notch shape and.
[00:06:41] Brett: I sent a link out. I posted pictures of it and people who visit Asheville were like, I need to know where this is so I can link it in the show notes too. If you’re headed to Asheville, I highly recommend. And it was 80 a night.
[00:06:55] Christina: Damn.
[00:06:56] Brett: know, you can’t, it’ll only hold two
[00:06:58] Brett: people, but 80 bucks a [00:07:00] night. Yeah, that’s like a, that’s like motel
[00:07:02] Brett: prices.
[00:07:03] Christina: going to say, I don’t, I don’t think I’ve ever in my life ever
[00:07:08] Brett: it was, it was way under priced for what it was. I would have, I would have expected it to be more like 250
[00:07:15] Brett: and,
[00:07:16] Christina: I would expect that too. Yeah.
[00:07:18] Brett: completely, completely private. We met the owner one time in passing in his backyard, but otherwise it’s like keypad entry, never see anybody, completely secluded in like the backyard is a forest and it’s, it’s like surrounded by trees and it was so cool.
[00:07:38] Brett: It was awesome.
[00:07:39] Christina: That’s
[00:07:40] Brett: It’s worth going to Asheville just to stay in this tiny home.
[00:07:43] Christina: Yeah. No, the tiny home movement is so interesting to me. Um, uh, you know what I mean? Like it, it, it doesn’t, um, negate like a lot, many of the, the real problems, which are like, okay, well, where do you get space for a tiny home? But, uh, you know, like, like where, where do you get land for those things? But,
[00:07:58] Brett: Yeah, [00:08:00] no, but yeah, I love the, uh, I love the idea of a maximal, maximally livable space in a minimal area. Um, and that is like, I, I love it as an engineering problem. I don’t want to live in one like
[00:08:16] Brett: permanently, but like for a couple of nights, it’s awesome.
[00:08:21] Christina: That’s, that’s
[00:08:22] Brett: So how are you?
[00:08:23] Christina: pretty good. I, like I said, I’ve been busy. So last week, so Microsoft Build, uh, is, is happening, um, it’ll be Tuesday, the 21st, uh, the 22nd, the 23rd, so Wednesday, the 22nd, uh, or, um, and Thursday, the 23rd. And so, um, I’m, I’m involved in that this year. I’m not like as heavily involved as some years, but I am one of the hosts and so I’m still doing.
[00:08:47] Christina: by not heavily involved. I think that only means I’m doing like, like 15 interviews instead of like 30. So, um, so stuff that’s been coming in hot and then, you know, there’ve been like parts of my day job and stuff too. And then I went out of [00:09:00] town beforehand to Atlanta for Mother’s Day and, um, I, uh, went to a concert in Portland this week, which in retrospect, not the best decision.
[00:09:12] Christina: Like, if I could do it all over again, as much as great of a time as I had at the concert and as great as it was to be in Portland for like a day and a half, I, I would not. have, I’ve gotten out of town, um, before all of this, just because I had a ton of meetings. I was like, I like, I like took a, I took a meeting like on an airplane, like as we were boarding, right?
[00:09:32] Christina: Like it was one of those things I was, they were like, Oh, you have to go. I’m like, no, no, no, no, no. I’m going to be completely that asshole who, you know, sits in the front of the plane and is on the phone, um, while everyone is, is boarding. But, um, it was a small commuter jet cause it was for like an hour long flight.
[00:09:47] Christina: So, but it was, it was a really busy week and then the weekend is going to be really busy. Like, we’re recording this on a Saturday. I have an appointment this afternoon to get my eyebrows waxed and then. My call time tomorrow is like 8 a. m. for [00:10:00] rehearsals and prerecords. And then similar on Monday.
[00:10:03] Christina: So it’s like eight to six Sunday and Monday. And then my call time Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is 6 a. m. And it will go until like 6 p. m. So, yeah, so it’s, it’s, it’s going to be like a long week. So, um,
[00:10:15] Brett: usually, I usually say it sarcastically, but that is why you get paid the big bucks.
[00:10:22] Christina: I don’t know
[00:10:22] Brett: usually if I say that to someone, it’s with this knowing smile, like, I know they don’t get paid the big bucks, but yeah, you deserve what you
[00:10:31] Christina: I mean, I, I get the moderately by tech standards bucks, right? Yeah. Um, no, this is definitely one of those weeks where I’m like, yeah, I’m, I’m doing a lot. Like yesterday I was trying to manage five million different things and I was like, I’m very sorry. I was like, things are coming in hot on this. And then I was, people were like, oh yeah, well, what are you doing with build?
[00:10:49] Christina: And then I was like telling them a little bit of my schedule, just like I did with you. I’m like, yeah. So I’ve got like two, you know, all day, like pre record and rehearsal days. And then like my call time’s at 6am for three days and it’s, you know, going to be there [00:11:00] All day and all night. Oh, and I’ll have community events at night too.
[00:11:02] Christina: Like, let’s not forget about that. Um, and they were like, and I haven’t even told that to people. I’ve just figured that the 6am call time was enough to kind of get it. But, um, no, I’ll have, I’ll have evening events as well. So yes, this is one of those weeks where I’m like,
[00:11:19] Brett: are, how are you gonna take care of yourself? Like, what do you do to make it possible to get through that many long
[00:11:26] Brett: days?
[00:11:27] Christina: I mean, you just do it. And then you collapse after.
[00:11:31] Brett: in the
[00:11:31] Brett: evenings?
[00:11:32] Christina: No, usually not. Usually not.
[00:11:34] Brett: I wouldn’t either. I wouldn’t either.
[00:11:37] Christina: If I were 10 years younger, if I were actually 29, sure. Um, but, but no, um, at my actual age, um, no, I don’t drink. Just because you can’t. Like, at least I can’t. Like, yeah.
[00:11:54] Brett: when you have to get up at 6 in the morning
[00:11:56] Brett: and be
[00:11:56] Christina: And beyond.
[00:11:57] Brett: like you just have to show up. Like, you gotta
[00:11:59] Brett: [00:12:00] be
[00:12:00] Christina: no, you gotta be on, you have to look good, right? Like, yeah, you’ve got to be, you know, energetic and doing all those things and yeah.
[00:12:07] Managing work and personal devices
[00:12:07] Christina: The only thing I’m, I’m, I’m weirdly anxious about at this point, this matters to no one, um, but I’ll just say it anyway cause fuck it. Um, I refuse to do what is required on my personal cell phone to be able to have access to Microsoft. Like chat stuff,
[00:12:28] Brett: Same, but with
[00:12:28] Brett: Oracle for
[00:12:29] Christina: right? Because GitHub doesn’t make us put any sort of MDM on our, on our phones.
[00:12:34] Christina: And so I have no problem getting Slack or email or Zoom or basically anything. Um, and, um, like I could, I can use a YubiKey if I need to for certain things, but now actually we can use with Okta, um, as, Basically a YubiKey. So, like, I, there’s nothing, I mean, there are like a handful of resources that require that I actually be on like a GitHub owned and operated machine, and in that case I wouldn’t be able to [00:13:00] access it on a phone anyway because we don’t have phone management stuff.
[00:13:03] Christina: Um, but Microsoft is different. And, When I worked at Microsoft, it was one thing for me to like put the Intune stuff on my phone because that way I could access email and teams and whatnot and and it was a trade off and for the most part for it was it was fine because What they have access to and what they can see at least on the iPhone is less than what they can on Android and like I Didn’t care, but then they started putting this antivirus Windows Defender stuff on
[00:13:28] Brett: yep.
[00:13:30] Christina: And that impacts your battery life in a not insignificant way.
[00:13:35] Christina: And the thing is, is that if it’s part of my job and part of my day thing, fine, I can, I can consider the trade off. Right. Um, but this isn’t part of my job and my day to day, like I don’t have to use their tools except for like one or two weeks out of the year for things like this, because this is like. [00:14:00] I know that they are going to be sending updates to Teams that I’m not going to be able to see.
[00:14:04] Christina: And Like, as much as I would like for them to just be like, just text me, I, I also am recognizing that that’s probably not going to be a thing. And so I’m gonna, I’m, I’m, there’s, I’m like half considering in tuning my phone for the week only because I broke my phone last Saturday when I was getting my haircut and, or maybe it was last Friday.
[00:14:30] Christina: And, um, I had to order like an express replacement and it arrived and I, it arrived on Wednesday, so I got it Thursday. So I have like 10 days to send it back to them. So, um, What I’m thinking is, is that I can take my broken phone, and what broke by the way was just like the back glass and the front glass a little bit, and it wasn’t that bad, but I didn’t have time to go to an Apple store and pay them 50 to deal with it, so I was just like, did the, pay them 100 and they’ll mail me a, [00:15:00] a, a refurb but new phone thing. This is the second time now that I’ve broken my iPhone 15 Pro Max, um, since, um, I got it in September. So great for me. Um, you would think, Christina, just buy a case. Well, I did buy a case, but I hated the case. And so here we are. Anyway, I’m thinking, I don’t know what your thoughts are on this. I’m like, maybe I just in tune my phone that I know I’m going to wipe anyway. And then just set up the new phone as a new phone and don’t bother with any of the, you know, like transfer over.
[00:15:31] Brett: I haven’t, so Oracle has MDM stuff and they will pay for my phone. If I, you know, run it as if it’s Oracle property, like they would, they would pay my cell bill and everything. Um, And if, if I saw a need for it, I would take them up on that and just have a separate number for work. Um, but like I can run Outlook on my phone, no problem getting my [00:16:00] emails.
[00:16:00] Brett: I can use Zoom with SSO on my phone, no problem getting meetings. And my, uh, like Apple calendar works with their. Office 365, uh, implementation of scheduling software, so I have no reason to let Oracle own my phone. Um, does Microsoft, will they pay, will they, can you just get a second phone for this two
[00:16:28] Brett: weeks out of the
[00:16:29] Christina: No, unfortunately that’s the thing, right? Like, so GitHub will pay as part of our, some of our benefits. Like I can have my, my. My phone bill, um, um, expensed, um, and, and even my cell phone is part of that, right? So like, if you do like the pay, like the monthly, you know, fee, like $50 a month or whatever, like the, you know, every two years or whatever, um, or if you are part of the Apple upgrade program, you know, like, every year you can get a new phone, right?
[00:16:52] Christina: Like I can expense that, Which is great, but that’s like a benefit, but I could also use that for money for other things too. So I guess [00:17:00] technically I could get a second phone and just have that paid for as my get up phone and then have my personal phone that I’m not, you know, expensing anything on and then use that for the two months out of the year or two weeks out of the year.
[00:17:10] Christina: I guess I could do that. I do have an iPhone 12, um, Pro Max, um, that’s still around. My thought has actually been over for a while has been to use that as like my, you know, Microsoft Teams phone if I need it, um, and, and also use it as a, uh, webcam replacement, um, instead of using the, the studio display’s, uh, garbage fucking camera, which I still have people on Mastodon and Threads, but mostly Threads, who will, like, argue with me about that, and I’m like, if you’re happy with a really shitty camera that’s, like, worse than, like, an iPad camera, in a 600 display, that’s great.
[00:17:48] Christina: I’m happy for you. However, most of us who spend 1, 600 on a display are also the sorts of assholes who will then spend more money on a better webcam because the [00:18:00] webcam that comes with it is hot garbage. And if, and if you want to be, live in delusional town and think that it’s not happy for you. Love that for you.
[00:18:08] Christina: However, most of us who are, like, dumb enough to spend this much money on this type of display because it’s the only display we can use because it is a waste of, it is overpriced and it is not worth the money, except it is. Like, there’s no alternative. So, I just spend more. Anyway, um, I’ve been thinking about using that, that, um, phone also as like a webcam.
[00:18:30] Hanging on to old tech… because it works
[00:18:30] Christina: you know, cause it’s now, you know, three years out of date and it’ll be almost four years out of date, but it’s still, it’s still perfectly, you know, serviceable, so I don’t
[00:18:38] Brett: Can I admit, I, I have never upgraded from my 12 Pro Max. Um, it is, I’ve, I’ve never broken it. It has never been slow. The battery life three years, four years later is still solid. Like I, like most of the iPhones I’ve had after a few years, like the battery life, you have to start charging it twice a day.[00:19:00]
[00:19:00] Brett: You have to like charge midday and that sucks. I, that’s why I usually upgrade. Um, This one, I, it, it runs for a day and a half about before it needs a charge, um, unless I’m playing a lot of Super Monsters Date My Condo, which I think I mentioned last time, but has just come out for Apple Arcade and I’m way back into it.
[00:19:22] Brett: But anyway, yeah, I still run a 12 Pro Max and I, I think every once in a while about going for a 15. I just, I love this phone. It’s I’ve never cracked it. There’s no chips on it. There’s, I just don’t have a reason to. My, my case is smashed to hell. Um, I’m going to hold this up so you can see, but like, the case is falling apart from all the times it’s protected my phone.
[00:19:50] Brett: It’s not in great shape. I should get a new case if I’m not going to get a new phone. And that’s what happens is I’m like, I should order a new case. Then I’m like, I should just go down to the Verizon store and [00:20:00] just finally get a new phone and then get a case for that. But. I have not.
[00:20:04] 1Password and Passkeys
[00:20:04] Brett: Um, couple questions, first of all, how much do you love passkeys?
[00:20:10] Christina: love Pasceys. They’re the greatest thing in the whole world.
[00:20:13] Brett: Like, when I, I used to be, cause I do a lot of, I do the GitHub, um, organization management for my, my organization. Um, for the entire DevRel, uh, part of Oracle. And. I used to have to, every time you, you can be logged in, but if you want to change the collaborators on a repo, it’ll ask you to do a 2FA login again.
[00:20:43] Brett: And it used to always be. Either I had to pull up the GitHub mobile app and punch in the two digit code, or I’d have to get a text message and punch in a 2FA code. And on my Mac, that’s a pain in the ass. Um, and now I have [00:21:00] passkeys and I can always just click the use passkey and then unlock one password, click a button, done.
[00:21:05] Brett: It’s so much faster. I use it for Google, GitHub, um, My, uh, health, my health insurance com lets me use passkeys. Yeah, I, I think it’s the
[00:21:16] Brett: future. It’s
[00:21:17] Christina: No, it’s so great. And the way that 1Password does it is especially really nice because, you know, like, um, nothing against like, like the other implementations, but like, it is sort of annoying on a desktop to have to hold up your phone and scan a QR code and then authenticate your face.
[00:21:35] Brett: 1Password can actually do a screen capture.
[00:21:38] Brett: Yeah,
[00:21:39] Christina: so, so what,
[00:21:39] Brett: no that’s
[00:21:40] Christina: so with what one Password is doing is that when you have a pass key that’s saved in one password, if you’re authenticated through one password, then the, then the pass key authenticates in your browser.
[00:21:49] Christina: So I’m not having to touch a UB key. I’m not having to authenticate with my, you know, face ID with a QR code and whatnot. So, for where it becomes really useful for me, and I think this would be useful [00:22:00] for you as well, like you can use a keyboard that has a fingerprint sensor with your, um, um, Mac Studio, but I don’t know if you.
[00:22:07] Christina: Do, because we’re going to talk about keyboards in a little bit, right? But you probably don’t, right? But like I have an Intel iMac and I, it has a T2 display or T2 chip. So it, it is like secure in that respect, but Apple refuses to let you use, um, biometric login with it. Like I can’t use one of their biometric keyboards on it, even though it’s secure enough, because.
[00:22:31] Brett: On
[00:22:31] Brett: 1Password.
[00:22:33] Christina: no, with, with, with, with macOS. So um, this is why 1Password is great. So like, one of the, like, which means like, cause, cause for instance, you could use pass keys on like Safari or, or some other things like using um, fingerprint sensor, um, without having to, to authenticate, like without having to do the, hold up your phone and, and scan the QR code and, and then [00:23:00] face authent, uh, face authenticate.
[00:23:00] Christina: Authenticate thing. Um, but what I like about 1Password is that, um, and, and so this is one of the reasons why I have like a YubiKey like hanging off the back of my iMac, uh, which, no, it’s not secure. No one’s in my house. Fuck off. You know what I mean? Like, it’s one of those things. Like, like, I, I, I’m anticipating all the well actually people, um, who are, Never going to listen to this, but, but I’m, I’m, I hear you anyway, and I’m, I’m anticipating your, your objections and I’m telling you, I understand and I don’t care.
[00:23:28] Christina: Um, but, um, what, uh, what’s great about 1Password is that because like, I, I can, you know, once, once I authenticate, you know, to get into that, like all my passkeys work without me having to touch a YubiKey or log in with another biometric means, which on this current machine I don’t have, like, um, Okta desktop won’t work on my iMac because it doesn’t have.
[00:23:52] Christina: Um, a biometric sensor. So, um, but yet pass keys for Okta work through one password. So [00:24:00]
[00:24:00] Brett: Have you, have you ever used, um, so you, you know how you can have authenticator apps like Google has one, Oracle has one, Microsoft has one, um, and they give you your six digit, your 2FA code. Um, and I hate. Like, I’ll be logging into, like, Oracle, and it’ll ask me to pull up my phone, open the Authenticator app, copy the, er, like, memorize the code, and then type it in, and that’s, that’s a pain in the butt.
[00:24:32] Brett: Um, if you can Set up one password as your
[00:24:36] Brett: authenticator app, which works most places. Yeah. It just auto fills your, your 2FA code every time. So I’ve been trying to port everything over to that. It has not worked. Oracle for some reason demands that you use
[00:24:50] Brett: their,
[00:24:50] Christina: Yeah. Microsoft does too for logging into Microsoft things. And they do it in a weird way where like, they send me a thing where they’re like, type in this code in [00:25:00] this app. so, it’s not the same TOT, like you can use the Microsoft Authenticator app as a TOTP provider.
[00:25:06] Christina: And for non corporate accounts, Microsoft Authenticator. You could actually, I’m pretty sure you could probably set up, um, um, Google Authenticator or Authy or 1Password or another, you know, T O T P provider to be the person who would provide you, like, that code, like, for, like, your consumer Xbox account or consumer Outlook account or whatever.
[00:25:23] Christina: However, with, I think it’s now called Intra, Which is such a fucking bad name, but it used to be Azure Active Directory, but now it’s, or Azure AD, now it’s Intra, but for that, you have to, with an E, yeah, it’s a fucking weird name, I’m like, I’m like, Intra is really close to Encarta, if you think about it, and, and, That’s weird because I bet the people who came up with the name don’t even remember Rincarda But I do because I was a child and I loved it.
[00:25:52] Christina: Anyway, Intra, you know that app like makes you log in with your face or some other way [00:26:00] and then type in Like the characters that it will show you on your screen
[00:26:05] Brett: the way, like, that’s the way GitHub, uh, the GitHub mobile app authentication, if you choose to use, yeah, you have to load up GitHub mobile and then type in the code, which is honestly easier to me than looking at my phone and copying by hand a
[00:26:22] Brett: six digit
[00:26:22] Christina: No, totally. I mean, and I agree with that. I actually prefer, like, tell me what to type into my phone rather than the other way around. I’m with you. But, like, the best thing is just, like, autofill it for me. Um, or, or in the case, or in the case of GitHub, use a passkey, right? Because you can use passkeys with GitHub.
[00:26:38] Christina: And then that’s great. And what’s great about 1Password, um, What I like, like, so passkeys right now aren’t fully, like, exportable, um, although apparently that’s going to be coming to the spec. But, you know, I will save the same passkey or, you know, maybe two different passkeys, but it will both be authenticated the same way, both, like, in my, you know, phone’s, um, password.
[00:26:59] Christina: [00:27:00] You know, manager folder as well as on one password. And then I can select like on my phone, like, where do you want what passkey? Where do you want to use it from? And I’m like, great. And, um, the only annoying thing about like Google’s passkey implementation is that it doesn’t sync. So you have to have like a different passkey.
[00:27:15] Christina: Like you have, like, if you have a passkey set up for Chrome, for instance, you need to do that, like on every device that you’ve got Chrome installed on. And it’s, it’s great. Um, and for most people who don’t have four, how many computers do I have? Four or five. Yeah, I’m literally counting. I’m literally counting in my head because I’m like, hmm, I mean, it’s four that I use heavily and then like, um, and that doesn’t count the iPhone and iPad. And then like, I have a fifth. So yeah, um, technically a sixth, but yeah, but I don’t do other stuff on that one.
[00:27:48] Christina: So yeah, most people don’t have that situation, but like for someone like me, I’m like, I appreciate how 1Password does it because I just need to install 1Password everywhere and then my passkeys are working like [00:28:00] on every platform.
[00:28:03] Sponsor: AeroPress
[00:28:03] Brett: I’m gonna stick a sponsor read in here. I’m actually pretty excited to have these guys as a sponsor. So, um, we’re gonna talk about Aeropress. Aeropress combines the best qualities of a few coffee brewing methods into one cup. A little French press, a little pour over, and a little espresso all in one cup.
[00:28:23] Brett: It’s the best cup of classic coffee you’ll ever drink. AeroPress is incredibly versatile, giving you full control over all brewing variables like temperature, time, grind size. So unlike other brewers, you can make countless recipes. I have my own favorites, but I love to experiment and get different cups of coffee from the same beans.
[00:28:45] Brett: And it’s the fastest single cup coffee maker out there. Two minutes to brew and clean. I have a Zojirushi water heater so I can We have boiling water in about a minute, um, and have my cup of coffee two minutes later. [00:29:00] AeroPress just released a new set of clear colors, blue, green, purple, red, and more, so you can add a touch of color and personality to your brew wherever you are.
[00:29:09] Brett: I’m rocking a red one right now and I love it, but I am tempted by blue too. I only need one AeroPress, but we have three in the house, uh, you know, just in case three people want a cup of coffee at the same time, I guess. Um, AeroPress is shockingly affordable, less than 50, and we’ve got an incredible offer for our listeners.
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[00:29:56] Brett: AeroPress ships to the USA and over 60 countries [00:30:00] around the world. And we thank AeroPress for sponsoring our show.
[00:30:05] Sponsor: ExpressVPN
[00:30:05] So, how do you feel about
[00:30:07] Brett: ExpressVPN?
[00:30:07] Christina: I mean, okay, genuinely, um, they are also a sponsor, this week and we appreciate them very much. I pay for ExpressVPN and, uh, I, like, I don’t get this for free from them for them providing, uh, a sponsorship for us. Although that would be nice. Uh, I actually pay for it. So, When you think about like how you choose like your internet service provider and who to use, what’s, what’s funny is in the United States anyway, don’t have a choice in most cases.
[00:30:33] Christina: It’s just like, This is your ISP. And if you want to get it from someone else, then you have to, you know, pay for like a, a cellular, carrier and, and in on that, which may or may not be better, than, than what your options are, but your, your options are limited.
[00:30:48] Christina: And so, this allows, you know, basically these companies going to have the monopoly and then they can determine not just, what types of, service they offer you, but because net neutrality law is being recalled, [00:31:00] they can determine like how fast or how slow certain types of, of content you have access to is.
[00:31:04] Christina: And then in addition to that, this is also a thing, again, net neutrality laws, uh, uh, being repealed, um, allowed this to happen. Like they can sell your data, like they can log and sell all the, Different sites that you visit and access and, um, and that’s allowed. Thanks Ajit Pai for all of that.
[00:31:21] Christina: So, um It is, in some ways, a good idea to use a VPN, like ExpressVPN, to maybe hide your traffic from your ISP, if you want. Like, if you don’t want, like, what you’re doing being sold to other people. It’s a VPN, so it’s going to be encrypting network traffic and tunneling it through their secure server so that your ISP can’t see any of your activity.
[00:31:42] Christina: ( ) And that’s not a bad idea. It’s also a good idea to use something like that if you’re on a network that you don’t have a lot of information about. Um, because even though most web traffic these days is encrypted, um, you know, HTTPS, um, you don’t necessarily want the people, you know, at the Marriott to, again, be able to kind [00:32:00] of, like, control what sorts of content you can and can’t access.
[00:32:02] Christina: I’ve actually run into this before, where I’ve been using, like, a perfectly valid, Um, thing like a, like a, like a torrent client. And I’ve been at a hotel and they’ve been like, no, because this daemon is running on your machine, you’re not even actively like running a torrent right now. But because you have this like background daemon, like we’re not letting you access our network.
[00:32:21] Christina: Like that’s the real thing that’s happened to me. So you can use ExpressVPN. And then the main network can’t, can’t see that. That was what’s your, what you’re doing and you know, Bob’s your uncle. So big fan of express VPN. Um, you know, also use it if you want to watch Canadian Netflix, it’s good stuff.
[00:32:36] Christina: Uh, so I, I recommend it as a way to, you know, hide your online activity from the Marriott or your own ISP or to. Access Netflix in another country so stop handing your personal data to ISPs and other tech giants who mine your activity and sell off your information. Protect yourself with the VPN that I trust to keep me private online.
[00:32:54] Christina: You can visit expressvpn. com slash overtired. That’s e x p r [00:33:00] e s s v p n dot com slash overtired to get three extra months for free. Expressvpn. com slash overtired right now to learn more.
[00:33:11] None.com
[00:33:11] Brett: Yup. Alright. Uh, side note, like, all of these, uh, VPN ads used to be about, um, well, for a while they were all about, like, co location or whatever you want to, geolocation, um, which, which is valid, but it used, before that it was all about security, but you’re right, like, everything is SSL encrypted now. So it’s kind of, that’s a moot point.
[00:33:39] Brett: So these, these new talking points
[00:33:41] Brett: are far
[00:33:42] Christina: yeah, exactly. Yeah, they’ve had to shift around that because it’s like, yeah, everything is SSL encrypted, so it’s just, it’s not like the same thing like, oh, the Wi Fi at the airport is going to snoop your data. No, it’s not. It’s just they might sell your data, right? Like, especially if you log in with an actual email address. which don’t ever do. Just do none at none. [00:34:00] com for the airport wifi. I promise you, because they don’t make, because there’s, because if you think about it, there’s no way for you to check, to click on an email link at the airport when they ask you for it. So they’re just asking you for an email. So just none at none.
[00:34:13] Christina: com. I have no idea what, who owns that domain or, or, or anything. And I hope to God there’s not a mailbox attached to it because, you know, I bet that there are millions and millions of people who every day are just like, This, this is my random email.
[00:34:27] Brett: I use example. com
[00:34:29] Brett: just
[00:34:30] Christina: Yeah, it makes sense.
[00:34:31] Brett: like, it’s a force of habit because when you’re writing for the web, if you want to use a dummy URL, you can’t just make shit up because then people can buy that domain and hijack any traffic that does anyone who doesn’t realize it’s a dummy URL and they click it and yeah.
[00:34:47] Brett: Yeah. So I always use example. com cause that’s a protected, I, I
[00:34:52] Brett: can
[00:34:53] Christina: Correct. Which is good. Yeah, the reason I do none is just because it’s fewer characters to type. [00:35:00] But you’re right. When you’re like writing things, it’s better. But like when I’m like on my phone, I’m like, I don’t have time to do the ex. Like I’m just now, I’m just, you know.
[00:35:11] Google AI and the death of web traffic
[00:35:11] Brett: So can we talk a little bit about Google’s vision of the
[00:35:15] Christina: Yes, please. Let’s talk about it. How many times are we going to say AI in this conversation? And can we use Google?
[00:35:21] Christina: And can we use Gemini or whatever to tell us? Anyway. Sorry. Yes.
[00:35:27] Brett: um, so Google IO happened recently and. Uh, one of their major focuses was AI search, um, AI in general, they, they demoed, uh, an improved version of AI from the last Google I O round. Um, but like they’re talking about basically revamping their search results page to provide answers directly on the page, re reducing the need to click into [00:36:00] websites, which.
[00:36:02] Brett: Okay, A, that’s like for us old school web people, like getting Google traffic was a major source of traffic to our website, um, which leads to the ability to have advertisers, the ability to build a name, to build a reputation. Um, if they were to. Scrape my data and just give it directly to people without sending them to my site?
[00:36:28] Brett: That seems like, that seems like a betrayal of the web. But also, they run
[00:36:34] Brett: most of the
[00:36:35] Christina: Well, I was going to say, this is, this is a, this is like a, a big, I have to feel like this is like a big existential crisis internally for them because
[00:36:46] Brett: Yeah, it’s a, it’s a
[00:36:47] Brett: caveat for
[00:36:48] Christina: because, yeah, because, you know, okay. So I think when I think of like greatest acquisitions in history, like in business and like in computing history, right?
[00:36:58] Christina: Like, obviously you have, you [00:37:00] know, Apple acquiring Next, right? Which, which brought back Steve Jobs, which was most important and also gave them the underpinnings for, you know, Mac OS X, which. Thinned is the underpinnings for everything they have. I also think of Apple’s acquisition of, um, um, um, uh, PaSemi and, and getting, um, into being able to, to manufacture their own chips, right?
[00:37:20] Christina: And, um, and then the PaSemi acquisition, which was, a fairly small acquisition, let them do that. But then I also think like for the web, like, and then you also think like, you know, like, like Facebook buying Instagram, things like that. One of the ones that has to be like in the top three, if not the top two is, is Google buying DoubleClick.
[00:37:41] Christina: So when Google bought DoubleClick, which was, you know, the big ad serving thing, they were able to do exactly what you said. Like, Page rank already existed and people were wanting to rank highly on Google, you know, because people were using Google as a search engine to drive traffic to their sites. And then they were able to sell ads on it.
[00:37:56] Christina: But then Google was like, well, we’re going to buy DoubleClick and we’re going to sell you [00:38:00] the ads that are on your site. And we’re going to app, we’re going to do it in a programmatic way. And we’re going to let you just insert a snippet of code. And then we will show you contextual ads, you know, on your site and make it very easy for people to do that.
[00:38:11] Christina: And, and Google and Facebook are. I think they’re like 80 something percent of the ad market, right? All of, all of that comes through them. And Google is by far the largest. So it is interesting. A, like you said, it feels like a betrayal for people who are like, Hey, we gave you access to our sites. We let you, you know, search them and whatnot.
[00:38:29] Christina: And we played by your rules, even sometimes to our detriment about changing how our sites were coded and how information was presented so that you would rank us well, so that people would click through to us. Now you’re going to. Upend that and not show us, you know, like not take people to our site, you know, scrape our, you’re already kind of taking some of our data and putting it into data boxes and, and other things on the site.
[00:38:53] Christina: And there were, there’ve been lawsuits about that, but now you’re not even pretending that the goal is to send people to our sites. [00:39:00] You’re just flat out going to take it. But, you know, the, the, the weird caveat is, is that by not sending people to our sites, that also means that people are not going to see the ads that you provide.
[00:39:11] Christina: So how is Google going to make money from search?
[00:39:15] Brett: Yeah, no, I think something’s got to give there either. They need to walk back their obvious plan for, uh, basically a bot
[00:39:27] Christina: Mm hmm.
[00:39:27] Brett: that answers any and all questions instead of directing traffic around the web. They’re, they’re either going to have to walk that back or they’re going to have to find a new revenue stream because I have to imagine ad revenue is not an insignificant part of
[00:39:41] Brett: Google’s annual.
[00:39:43] Christina: it is. I mean, it’s, it’s how they make money. Like it is, it is how they make money. So you can’t just get rid of that. And, and it is, and the hard thing is, is that, you know, people do use, increasingly use, you know, chat GPT and, and other, um, services like that to do web searching and [00:40:00] to get answers to questions and.
[00:40:01] Christina: Yes, that does have an impact on what websites people will visit. But the thing is, is that that’s not real time. Like, as much as Bing is trying to make it more real time, and as much as, you know, OpenAI is trying to, you know, um, add in stuff to make it more real time, like, it’s not quite there yet. So, for, like, Depending on what you’re searching for, you might not get those results.
[00:40:26] Christina: You might still need to like, have a traditional Google or, or, you know. Uh, I’ve been using Kegi, actually. I’ve been paying for Kegi. I guess that’s how it’s pronounced. It’s K A G I, and so,
[00:40:38] Brett: Oh, like the old,
[00:40:39] Christina: yes.
[00:40:40] Brett: to be a software licensing company called
[00:40:43] Christina: and, and, and, and, it, yeah, Kaji or Kegi, I have no idea how it’s pronounced, um, uh, I say Kegi, but, uh, please correct me if I’m wrong on this, um, yeah, they, they, uh, they bought the domain from them, but it’s not affiliated with that in any way, um, the, the people who are behind this [00:41:00] I don’t know how the guy got rich, um, but he got rich and then decided to start building the Orion web browser that I think we’ve talked about, which is, which is, um, WebKit based, but it supports, um, web extensions.
[00:41:14] Christina: And so, um, it’s pretty cool. And, um, but it turns out that, that Orion was, was always kind of created in some ways. It’s, it’s kind of like a way to kind of show off the search engine. And so Keiki is, it costs money. It’s like, um, I’m on a family plan or duo plan with, with my friend Justin. So we pay like, 14 a month, um, with, with, with tax, um, or I guess annually, I guess we pay 151 a year.
[00:41:42] Christina: So 1260 a month in tax. So I paid Justin 75 cause he already had the plan. Um, and, um, we, um, basically, um, you get unlimited search, um, from unlimited devices and they bring stuff in from a number of different sources, [00:42:00] some their own, some that they’ve, you know, worked with other people. So like, I think BraveSearch is one of their sources and, um, you know, Bing and, and, you know, DECA Go and things like that, as well as some other things.
[00:42:11] Christina: And then they have some AI summarization tools that you can use with some of their things. And they have like a, I guess like a partnership with, with, with Wolfram Alpha, but the main thing I use it for is just honestly, just straight up search. And I found the search to be really, really good. Um, I was like, not sure if I needed to pay for a search engine and I’ve got so frustrated with Google search that I started paying for.
[00:42:35] Christina: For, um, uh, Kegi or Kaji or however the hell you pronounce it. Yeah.
[00:42:41] Brett: yeah, no, it’s, I guess my, it’s a lesser concern, but the other thing about like actually linking people to a webpage is you have, you can get a pretty good sense as to
[00:42:53] Brett: how
[00:42:54] Christina: Oh, 1000%.
[00:42:55] Brett: a source of information is by visiting the webpage. You do not get that [00:43:00] opportunity when a bot is just telling you, this is the answer you, you, then you have to do a search to verify
[00:43:07] Brett: your
[00:43:07] Christina: Well, no, that’s the thing, right? And, and, and what’s frustrating is, is like, even when you have an, and I, you know, what they were kind of showing off, it’s like, um, I was watching IO from a plane, so correct me if I’m wrong on this, but it didn’t seem like they were showing a list of sources of where they were getting that information, right?
[00:43:24] Christina: So, which means that I then have to, like, I would like to ask myself the question, like, how credible am I finding this? And, where is this coming from? And, like, can I find a way to get this information? You know, like, can I figure out, like, where they got this information so I can then vet it? You’re right, right?
[00:43:40] Christina: Like, it would, it would at least be better if they, um, Like would show you a source list. don’t know. Maybe they do. Again, I was, I was on a plane when I was watching IO, so I have no idea.
[00:43:53] Brett: I didn’t notice, I mean, to me, that seems like minimum viable product [00:44:00] would require a source list and, and links to the sources we scrape this information from, not just to be polite, but for exactly, uh, to avoid hallucinations, to allow people to, and that’s the problem is most people won’t. Most like if AI starts hallucinating or starts cannibalizing itself in any way, then most people are just going to accept what Google tells them.
[00:44:31] Brett: And, and Google itself could become a source of misinformation.
[00:44:37] Christina: I’m sure that it will be. I’m sure that it will be. No. And then it, and it’s just, I don’t know, like I, I understand what they’re trying to do because they are seeing themselves getting disrupted out of this market and they need to disrupt themselves. And I fully understand that, but like, I don’t know if the vision that they’ve shown off is like a good vision of,
[00:44:58] Brett: Yeah, I, I [00:45:00] kind of don’t think it is. And for like obvious reasons that we’ve talked about now,
[00:45:04] Grapptitude
[00:45:04] Brett: but anyhow, how would you feel about a, uh, What’s it called? A Graptitude.
[00:45:13] Christina: yeah. I love
[00:45:14] Brett: I can go first because I don’t know if you’re
[00:45:16] Brett: prepared
[00:45:16] Christina: I’m not prepared, um, but I need to look
[00:45:19] Brett: you’ll figure it out. I recently Okay, so let me start by saying TextExpander has been a long time supporter of my work and um, I have devoted a lot of time to building cool TextExpander snippets.
[00:45:37] Brett: But TextExpander is not really innovating anymore. There is a new text expansion tool that is doing some very cool things called TextBlaze. And I talked to, I got a, I got a demo from, um, a guy that actually used to work at TextExpander who now does sales [00:46:00] for, Um, Text Blaze, and he gave me like a full tour, and if you go, I’ll link the,
[00:46:08] Brett: it’s,
[00:46:08] Christina: Blaze. today?
[00:46:10] Brett: yeah, Blaze.
[00:46:11] Brett: today, and if you go there, it looks like it’s just the Chrome extension, and you have to scroll all the way to the bottom to see the macOS app, um, and it syncs between platforms, so you can run the Chrome extension, and the macOS app, and the Windows app, And all of your snippets sync and it has, it does not have script snippets, which was one of the big things that I used TextExpander for.
[00:46:37] Brett: But what it does have is like this command palette and some that has commands like URL load and it will pull in a JSON response from an API, and then , you can write a JavaScript function to, um, parse and output, you know, any part [00:47:00] of that JSON response, um, which actually solves, I mean, half of the shell script snippets that I have in TextExpander are really just Curling and API and, and, and those don’t work on iOS.
[00:47:15] Brett: So they were kind of like, they’re outdated at this point. And having this built in ability to, to pull in, an external data source is brilliant and you can do if then scripting and they have all the fill ins for like text fields and dropdowns. And. I’m having a lot of fun, like, kind of porting all my stuff over to it.
[00:47:37] Brett: The one thing that’s killing me is, In TextExpander, I always set it to expand after whitespace. So I would have to type the snippet and then the spacebar. And TextBlaze cannot do that. And you cannot include a space in a shortcut. So, I mean, I can get used to that. That’s fine. But I, [00:48:00] I naturally hit a space after I type a shortcut.
[00:48:04] Brett: Like it’s ingrained muscle memory. So I keep ending up with like, I have one that just writes, thanks Brett, at the end of an email. Dash equals, writes, thanks. No, comma TX writes, thanks Brett, um, to sign off on emails. And I always hit the space, comma TX space. So then I get a space right before the T in.
[00:48:27] Brett: And then I have to backspace and that does not save me any time. I could have typed it faster at that point. Um, so I, that’s going to take some getting used to. I’m getting there. I’m basically using, instead of comma comma, which is my kind of standard prefix for, TextExpander. I’m using forward slash, um, so that my brain can start new muscle memory on these.
[00:48:53] Brett: Um, but yeah, no, it’s super cool, super fun to play with. They do have clients for [00:49:00] various operating systems, all in beta right now, so, for anyone who is a long time TextExpander user who wants to try something new, it’s, uh, it’s worth
[00:49:11] Brett: checking out.
[00:49:12] Christina: Yeah, I’m looking at the site now and so, and it looks like, yeah, like it’s in free, it’s free forever. They’ve got like a free forever plan. And then they, it looks like they have like a pro plan, which is 3 a month, which that’s about the same price as text expander, I think. Um.
[00:49:28] Christina: They have a free account, but then if you want to do certain things, like, for instance, if you want to add in, so, and, and the free plan might be good enough, but I can’t tell from the free plan, is it that, like, they have these, um, looks like they have, like, these, these snippet packs or command packs or what?
[00:49:45] Brett: command packs that are very much geared, like most of those only work in Chrome and they’re designed for automating like Gmail tasks and, and there’s AI, uh, writing built in, like it’ll [00:50:00] write, you know, You can basically use AI to generate a pleasant intro to an email to X customer and then save that as a snippet.
[00:50:10] Brett: Um, and I, I don’t, I haven’t differentiated between what’s available in my business
[00:50:15] Brett: plan.
[00:50:16] Christina: what I can’t
[00:50:16] Brett: what’s available in
[00:50:17] Brett: the free
[00:50:18] Christina: what I was thinking is, because I didn’t know this, like, is if any of the, like, some of the API stuff, like, obviously, yeah, those command packs have been pre created for things, but they also have, like, these connected snippets and then these dynamic commands where, like, you can basically have, like, a, you know, a function that’ll, you know, for things like a clipboard or click or whatnot, which might be useful and might be a way potentially to get around the lack of AppleScript support.
[00:50:42] Christina: So, that, that I don’t
[00:50:44] Brett: Check this out. Check this out though. They have a discourse, forum and they’ve built a, like, shortcode for embedding snippets. And it will actually display the snippet. Like it’s, [00:51:00] it’s cool. You can type out like in curly brackets, you can type in your own commands. And then when you double click them, they turn into tokenized bubbles.
[00:51:08] Brett: And then you can click on that bubble and you get like a whole info palette where you can edit all of its parameters and everything on the side. They built that into their discourse forum. So you get a JavaScript version of your snippet. That you can preview. You can, you can click a button to import it to your
[00:51:26] Brett: own text
[00:51:26] Christina: Oh, that’s
[00:51:27] Brett: And, and it, yeah, it looks exactly like it does in the app. I, it’s super cool. I love
[00:51:33] Brett: it.
[00:51:33] Christina: That’s very cool. No, I’ll check this out. Um, I’ve been using, what’s the, um,
[00:51:37] Christina: I’m trying to think who it’s from, I think it might be from, but I, because I, I have, I pay for TechMate or not, not Te TechMate, um, um, uh, text Expander. Um, I would pay for TechMate if TechMate we’re still in, development. Um, but on, on some machines, like it just doesn’t make sense for me to always like, have. TextExpander running. Um, [00:52:00] and, and I think I also was just like wanting to look at like what like alternatives might have been. So I, I’ve, um, I’ve played with some alternatives, um, that, that have been good and that, that it can, you know, uh, take TextExpander inputs. Um, the, the big thing that I run into, like, like you said, is the, the lack of white space thing.
[00:52:22] Christina: Like, that’s a, that’s a thing that for me can, can really kind of ruin things. But no, but this looks great. This looks really, really cool. Um, a typinator, that’s, that’s the app. That’s the
[00:52:31] Brett: Type in
[00:52:32] Christina: Typinator. Um, I, I’ve paid for that, um, and um, because, I, I don’t know, like a one time thing versus a, you know, ongoing subscription.
[00:52:42] Christina: There’s appeal in that, depending on how much you use, you know, your, your tools. Um, I, I haven’t had a problem paying for TextExpander, but at the same time, I don’t know, I like to, I like to try things out. So, uh, TextBlaze, I’ll give that a shot. Um, that’s cool,
[00:52:55] Brett: I want, I want the code for that discourse plugin so that I [00:53:00] can embed text play snippets on my blog and make them look as cool as they do in discourse. Um, I don’t know if they’re gonna
[00:53:09] Brett: open that up
[00:53:10] Christina: I mean, they should. I mean, honestly, here’s the thing, like, the community of people who care about sharing Expander snippets for any tax expander service is it’s like 10 people, right? Like the community people who care about that is like really small and you’re part of that.
[00:53:27] Christina: So if you are wanting people to adopt your tool, like, I think that it would make sense for them to, to make that sort of thing open.
[00:53:34] Brett: they do, they do have some sharing, uh, features that I think they’re going to improve on, uh, much like TextExpander finally, after like 10 years, started offering like web based snippet sharing, um, long after I had built my own like snippet, snippet group generator. Um, but yeah,
[00:53:57] Christina: no, that’s great. Um, okay. So my [00:54:00] pick is, and this kind of goes into a topic that we didn’t talk about, but, um, I can talk about a little bit here. So I bought a new Windows laptop. So, um, I last bought a Windows laptop about three years ago and I got the, uh, one from Framework, um, a company that, that I, I like a lot who makes, sustainable, like modular, upgradable laptops.
[00:54:22] Christina: And I really liked my Framework laptop, um, except it was an 11th Gen Intel processor and this was better than some of the Intel generations, but like not the best in terms of like battery life performance, like certainly nothing close to like what Apple Silicon was giving you, right? Um, and um, They do have an AMD variant available now that I looked at buying.
[00:54:43] Christina: The only reason I didn’t was because it was a little expensive considering I already, like if I were buying a brand new laptop and I didn’t already have like a framework, like it would have been a no brainer. But since I didn’t, since I already had a framework laptop and I was like, it’s the same screen, it’s the same [00:55:00] keyboard, it’s just, you know, a different processor and new RAM and stuff.
[00:55:04] Christina: Like I didn’t know if I wanted to go through the process of upgrading everything over or if I wanted to. Like, I don’t know. It just, it felt, I felt like I kind of maybe just wanted something a little bit different. So I bought, um, HP had a sale and then American Express had 150 off offer. So it was like, if you bought something for a thousand dollars or more, you got 150 off and then HP had a sale.
[00:55:27] Christina: And so a laptop that Best Buy was selling for basically the equivalent of the Best Buy, like their price, their MSRP was like 1, 900. I wound up getting four. Um, I think like 12. 56 before tax and before the, you know, discount. Um, and so it was like 13 something, um, uh, after tax. And then, so, you know, minus 150, basically 1, 200.
[00:55:51] Christina: I got, um, a core, 7, I think that’s what they call it, 155H, I don’t know, Intel has a new [00:56:00] naming scheme. With 32 gigs of RAM and a 1 terabyte SSD, um, and it’s a touch screen, um, convertible, so like it’ll, it’s, the x360 part of it is that, you know, you can turn it all around, you can draw on it with like, like a tablet.
[00:56:13] Christina: Um, basically cheaper than an iPad Pro, uh, but actually you can use it as a computer. Um. Bye. Yes, that is a dig, and I have an iPad Pro, and I might be buying the new iPad Pro. I don’t know yet. If I do, it’s just so I can give my iPad Pro to my mom, because it would be cheaper to give her that iPad Pro than, like, the amount of money that Apple will give me for buyback, like, is less than what a 10th gen iPad would cost.
[00:56:38] Christina: It’s, it’s dumb. Anyway, um, I’m rambling here, but I got a new Windows laptop. And so I, I’ve been playing with, with Windows a little bit more because this laptop is, is faster and is more efficient than like my three year old one, which I’ve, I haven’t fucked with in a long time and I still have many complaints about Windows, especially with the setup process and and definitely I’m looking forward to seeing I [00:57:00] think there’s going to be like a Qualcomm announcement, um, in the next few weeks about, um, um, Apparently Windows on arm is finally gonna get good.
[00:57:09] Christina: And, and we’ll, and we’ll see if, if that, if that actually happens. But in the interim, um, I have been playing, you know, on, on this new laptop that I’ve had for about a week and a half now. And, and I, I like a lot of things about it. Uh, I like the ole screen, I like the, the refresh rate, but my gude pick. And this was my, I’m very sorry.
[00:57:28] Christina: This is my long way of getting into this. I’m, I’m long wind, I’m long-winded because I’m tired. Um. is Arc, the web browser we were talking about, like web browsers, Arc is now available for Windows.
[00:57:38] Brett: Nice. Yeah. I remember Brian Guffey was talking about that. They were totally sold on that browser a long time ago. Um, but at that point I think
[00:57:48] Brett: it was
[00:57:49] Christina: Yeah, and it’s, it’s been not going to land. So a couple of weeks ago, um, ARC became available for Windows. And what’s interesting about it, I believe, is that they built it using like Swift still for [00:58:00] Windows. Um, they, they released this a year ago. There was a video, um, it says how we’re building the ARC, um, browser Windows app with Swift. So they’re actually. Doing like Swift under the hood, which is pretty interesting. So instead, um, yeah, so this was from, um, I guess their CEO, this was back in November of 2022.
[00:58:19] Christina: So 18 months ago, he says, Arc is coming to Windows in 2023. Okay. You were off there, buddy. But although I think it was available in preview, but I didn’t, um, use the preview. With a twist, instead of using C sharp, Arc for Windows will be built using Swift. This is at browser company’s biggest R& D yet. Um, and, and then they have a whole video about, like, why we need to do those things.
[00:58:42] Christina: And I’m assuming it’s just because it was just easier for them for, for whatever they’re trying to do. I will actually want to go watch that, that full video because I have questions about why you would, why you would choose this when you’re rendering
[00:58:54] Christina: engine is Chromium.
[00:58:56] Brett: if, you can have, uh, two codebases that [00:59:00] more or less align, it would save you, in the long run, it would save you a lot of development
[00:59:06] Brett: time.
[00:59:07] Christina: Yeah,
[00:59:08] Brett: So I have to assume, I have to assume it’s so that they can port code back and forth. Although I’ve tried porting. Swift code to like Linux machines and run into like the frameworks are different and the APIs are different and it still takes a lot of, uh, manipulation, especially for something as complex as like the Arc browser.
[00:59:32] Brett: So it is an interesting
[00:59:33] Brett: choice.
[00:59:34] Christina: Well, yeah, no, totally. I mean, I understand, I think, kind of the decision there because, like you said, the, you know, less maintenance, but then at the same time, I’m like, but your underlying, like, rendering engine is chromium. Um, I don’t know, like, wouldn’t C just be your better option? Like, honestly?
[00:59:52] Brett: I hate
[00:59:52] Brett: writing in
[00:59:53] Christina: I know I understand that, but I’m saying if you’re a browser company, if your company name literally is The Browser [01:00:00] Company, which is their name, which is great. But if your company name is The Browser Company, it make more sense to use something like C as your language on all of your platforms from the beginning, rather than trying to scaffold Swift into working on Windows? That, that’s all I’m saying. So, I will drop the video in show notes cause, cause I, cause I wanna, um, I, I have, I have questions about this, but, at the same time, I don’t care, um, in terms of like, like, what decisions you made, hey, maybe you just wanted to nerd snipe, like, maybe you just really, you know what I mean?
[01:00:33] Christina: Like, I’m, I’m like, I’m a big fan, like, whatever you wanna do, guys, um, anyway, I like the browser a lot, um, I actually like, um, We were talking about AI stuff. I actually like how ARC has, gives you the option if you want to enable some AI tools for doing some summarization and some search stuff. They use Perplexity AI under the hood, which is a service that I now get for free, pro for free, because I bought that stupid Rabbit R1 device.
[01:00:59] Christina: [01:01:00] Um, and I got it and it’s dumb as hell and the company is sketchy as fuck and I, I’m not recommend,
[01:01:05] Brett: but then they basically released a non functional
[01:01:09] Brett: Android phone.
[01:01:10] Christina: Well, yeah, which, which of course they did. Of course it was going to be based on AOSP. For me, the thing that I was actually more pissed about was the fact that like, when you log into the services, they’re like, Oh, you need to use a computer. You can’t use your phone or your browser or, or, or an iPad.
[01:01:25] Christina: I’m like, okay, that’s weird. And then on my computer, I was like, this doesn’t look retina. And I realized that what you’re doing is you’re, you’re logging into a, um, a VM. Um, controlled by like, um, tiny VNC or something. And so, but they’re hiding it. And so they’re making it look like you’re logging into an official login thing.
[01:01:43] Christina: Then the way I realized, A, was that stuff wasn’t writing that. And B, I was like, why is my password manager not auto filling? And then I realized what was happening. And there was, and they have like this fucking copy button where you can like pay, pay something from your clipboard and then like, send it to.
[01:01:58] Christina: Um, the password [01:02:00] field. And I was like, okay, so this is sketch as fuck, right? Like, I, I, I, rather than using OAuth, which is what you should be doing, they’re like, oh, well, we don’t need to use any official APIs because we’re just using playwright scripts to, you know, do our functions. I’m like, I get it. I get, I get that, like, you know, you might be violating Spotify’s You know, uh, partner terms or whatever.
[01:02:21] Christina: Although Spotify makes a very, like, they have a hardware program that this company could definitely has the money for and could definitely, like, you know, qualify for. Like, there’s no reason for, like, maybe for, like, Uber or DoorDash, you would need to, to do what they’re doing. But for Spotify, like, there, there’s a valid way you could have an integration set in.
[01:02:41] Christina: Regardless, anyway, Ravida’s sketch as fuck. The reason I don’t regret it is A, 200, who cares? B, um, I’m very privileged, blah, blah, blah. B, but, but, but let’s be real. If you’ve listened to this podcast or any of my, my other podcasts, you know that I’ve wasted 200 on so many dumber things than this. Like it’s not even, this doesn’t even [01:03:00] rank, like it’s not even in the top 100.
[01:03:02] Christina: But I got a year of Perplexity Pro for free, which is also 200. So, Um, I enjoy Proplexity Pro quite a bit. Um, it’s, um, it’s basically kind of like ChatGPT but you can also choose between, um, Claude and, um, the, the Mistral models and, and some of the other models too. So it’s, it’s pretty cool, but they also have stuff with Arc for summarizing.
[01:03:23] Christina: And asking some AI related stuff, so you don’t have to use that stuff. You can turn all those things off, but I like the ARC browser a lot. I like how its tabs work. I like, um, uh, it’s opinionated and what it’s doing. And so, um, and then now there’s a Windows version and, um, and I enjoy it on Windows too. So anyway,
[01:03:40] Brett: I get the, I get the ARC newsletter and I see all of their, every time they have a new feature, I read about it. Um, I have it installed. I’ve never kind of pretty sold on Firefox right now, so I haven’t been looking for a new browser, but they are doing some very cool things that I think ultimately [01:04:00] may convince me
[01:04:00] Brett: to switch.
[01:04:01] Christina: I mean, the thing that is for me, like that prevents me from Firefox is the same thing that kind of prevents me from Safari, but, uh, it’s, it’s Safari has, it’s more, it’s that there are certain apps, and I, I’ve run into less of this, to be clear, but there are certain apps that will, that are, that are designed for
[01:04:17] Christina: Chromium.
[01:04:17] Brett: like, Riverside here right now, anything that’s recording video, anything pretty much that uses video, is going to prefer Chrome, uh, or a Chromium browser. Um, so that makes perfect sense. And, and honestly, I, I have to load up Chrome to, to record our podcast, so I’m not purely a
[01:04:36] Brett: Firefox
[01:04:37] Christina: Right, right.
[01:04:37] Brett: But Firefox Developer Edition, um, I can’t remember what they call it, Web Developer Edition or whatever, uh, with the blue Firefox logo, the, the inspector palette in that is
[01:04:50] Brett: crazy cool.
[01:04:52] Christina: I like that a lot. I actually recently, it’s funny, um, I, um, yeah, I like the Firefox Developer Edition and then, um, they have a, they have a VS Code plugin [01:05:00] too, which is really great. Um, cause that’s actually one of my things that, like, I really liked about Edge when it first came out. Like, cause the Edge DevTools are really good and I, and I still stand by that.
[01:05:11] Christina: Like, I, I prefer the Edge DevTools to the, um, Chrome, um, DevTools. They are actually. Fairly significantly different, and um, I like that like you, I can use those in VS Code. But yeah, the Firefox ones are really good now too, and I, and they have a, they have a, um, a VS Code extension. So yeah, big fan of that.
[01:05:28] Brett: All right. So next time we’re going to talk about all of my recent keyboard purchases and how I’m building keyboards from scratch now, because I’ve gone down a rabbit hole and it’s costing me a lot of money. And someone told me, at least you didn’t go down an espresso rabbit hole, because that gets way more expensive, but I’m like, I’m buying keycaps for like 30 dollars a piece, so it’s gonna, it’s gonna,
[01:05:55] Christina: No, it is. No, that’s so funny. So like, like, like, like, like 30 per key?[01:06:00]
[01:06:00] Brett: You, uh,
[01:06:01] Brett: just for
[01:06:01] Christina: Oh, just for artisans. Okay.
[01:06:03] Brett: my, yeah, my resin
[01:06:04] Brett: coin
[01:06:05] Christina: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just, just for your
[01:06:07] Brett: I have, I’ve tried, I’ve tried like a dozen different keys, different resin keys, and finally found one that works well with backlighting and that I really like, so now I have to replace all of the tab, caps lock, shift control, um, so that they’re uniform and my keyboard looks right and my whole bottom row.
[01:06:28] Brett: Uh, like function control option command is going to be these glowing yellow Manta keys. They’re like amber colored. It’s going to be a cool keyboard, this ultimate hacking keyboard. But then, then I bought more
[01:06:42] Brett: that we’ll
[01:06:42] Christina: Yeah, we’ll talk more. I want to hear about it. I want to hear about like, like, what type of boards are you doing and like, because, because I, I went down this rabbit hole and I didn’t like do the full soldering thing because I was like, I don’t want to solder that much. Um, But I did that like a couple years ago, and I’ve definitely spent [01:07:00] my fair amount of money like on keycaps and shit, but yeah, I’m very interested in hearing, um, and I still watch a lot of the key, like, video, like, well not keycap, but like keyboard YouTube content.
[01:07:11] Brett: I thought I, I won’t go into depth, but I thought I knew what switches I wanted for this one. I’m building this Sophie that I’m building, and then when I got into going to purchase them, I realized there were like a dozen that I had never even heard of, new ones from like Gator on, and so I ordered a 100 switch tester, um, that comes with like, uh, double shot key caps and everything. So you can really test how things are going to sound. Um, so I’m waiting until I get that before I decide how to finish this keyboard.
[01:07:48] Christina: Yeah, yeah, I definitely want to talk to you about that next time and I want to link to what keycap or what switch tester you got because I have, I have like, this is where I kind of run into things because I kind of know like what switches I know [01:08:00] I like and I kind of stick with them and then new ones come out and I’m like, How do I even test this?
[01:08:08] Christina: So, and how do I, like, yeah. It’d be nice if somebody would just, maybe this is what you got, if somebody was just like, hey, here, here are, is a tester that’s pre installed with what we think are like the best switches. Go nuts.
[01:08:22] Brett: should be able to order like, Going into it, you know you want clicky, or you know you want silent, or you know you want linear. Like, those are like some basic. So you should be able to order a switch tester that’s just clicky, or just silent, and, and just test out, you know, the clickiest of clicky, um, keys.
[01:08:44] Brett: That would, that would save me some time. I wouldn’t have needed a hundred switch
[01:08:47] Brett: tester if
[01:08:48] Christina: exactly. Yeah, no, that would be nice. And the thing is too, I’m surprised that like that hasn’t been a thing because like in the hobby as it’s known, because like it takes time to get these things and, and [01:09:00] it would be better if like you did just sell like a, a, you know, a cookie switch tester, uh, you know, a silent one and whatnot, because then like, You know, you’d be much more like, like, this could be like a DIY thing.
[01:09:11] Christina: That’s one of the, you know, companies, you know, like put together because then like, if you have them, then great, guess where you’re going to go. You’re going to go back to that same place that you bought your, your, you know, um, uh, switch tester from and buy switches from them. Like,
[01:09:23] Brett: Yeah, yeah, well, and also they should have different levels of lube on the switches that you can test before you go and lube 50 some switches, uh, because someone told you you should lube your switches.
[01:09:39] Christina: cause some are pre looped.
[01:09:40] Brett: like a
[01:09:40] Brett: lot of work
[01:09:41] Christina: It is a lot of work
[01:09:42] Brett: some are pre lubed and you can get them lightly lubed or heavily lubed and this feels dirty all of a sudden, I’m sorry. Anyhow, that’ll
[01:09:50] Brett: be, we’ll
[01:09:51] Christina: we’ll wait for Jeff. Yeah, I wouldn’t. Yeah. I’m sure he’ll have questions too, but no, I, I look forward to going down the keyboard rabbit hole with you.
[01:09:58] Brett: alright. [01:10:00] Well, Christina, you got a big week
[01:10:01] Brett: ahead, get some
[01:10:02] Christina: Thank you, Brett. You too. Get some sleep.
Our hosts talk about hating the city you live in, which muppets would be the best cellmates, anarchy, and Taylor Swift.
In this episode, the hosts catch up after a few weeks apart and discuss the possibility of starting a Patreon for their podcast. They also share personal updates and experiences, including losing and finding wallets, dealing with frustrations, and contemplating living in a city they dislike. The conversation takes a humorous turn as they compare themselves to characters from The Muppet Caper and discuss their preferences for jail cell companions. The conversation covers various topics, including the Muppets, space exploration, and anarchism. The hosts discuss which Muppet characters would be best suited for a jailbreak, with Kermit and Fozzie being the top contenders. They also delve into the complexities of Kermit and Miss Piggy’s relationship. The conversation then shifts to the Challenger space shuttle disaster and the flaws in the US space program. They express their preference for funding projects like the James Webb telescope over returning to the moon. The hosts also touch on the concept of anarchy and its potential benefits if people had high morals. The conversation concludes with a discussion about Taylor Swift and the media’s coverage of her. In this part of the conversation, Christina Warren discusses Taylor Swift’s new album and her personal interpretation of the songs. She highlights the anger and unhinged nature of the lyrics, as well as the transparency in Taylor’s storytelling. The conversation also touches on the idea of therapy and how Taylor’s music serves as a form of therapy for her. Brett then shares information about his project called Conductor, which allows users to customize the processing of Markdown files based on specific criteria. In this part of the conversation, Christina Warren discusses the limitations of the Twitter API and wonders if there is a way to automate certain actions, such as launching a browser window in the background to send tweets. Brett and Jeff discuss the challenges of automating actions on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, and the limited access to their APIs. They also talk about other tools and APIs, such as Textra for OCR and transcription, and Texts for managing messages from various platforms. They also mention CurlyQ, a web scraping tool with JavaScript execution capabilities, and SwinSeaN, an alternative to Apple Music for Mac.
You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network
BackBeat Media Podcast Network
Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter.
I Hate This City
[00:00:00] Welcome Back to Overtired!
[00:00:00]
[00:00:01] Christina: You’re listening to Overtired, a sometimes monthly podcast. I’m Kristina Warren, joined as always by Jeff Severance Gunzel and Brett Terpstra. Hey guys, long time no talk!
[00:00:16] Jeff: Hello!
[00:00:17] The Time Warp: How Long Has It Been?
[00:00:17] Brett: How long has it been? We’ve been off for two weeks,
[00:00:20] Christina: No, like,
[00:00:20] Jeff: think I’ve been off longer though.
[00:00:22] Christina: Yeah, it’s been three or four.
[00:00:25] Brett: I have no sense of time.
[00:00:28] Jeff: I have
[00:00:28] Brett: isn’t, time isn’t real. Time is a construct. I live in the fifth dimension.
[00:00:33] Jeff: Okay, that’s fine. That’s fine. Um, mute him.
[00:00:43] Brett: That’s rude.
[00:00:44] Jeff: I was just kidding.
[00:00:46] Brett: Rude.
[00:00:47] Diving Into Mental Health and Podcast Sustainability
[00:00:47] Brett: Um, so should we start with a, a brief, a contained mental health corner?
[00:00:55] Christina: Yeah, it’s been a while. I’d love to like hear from everybody, see how everybody’s doing. Cause um, [00:01:00] uh, just, uh, we’ve all had stuff going on. Um, and also the podcast market is kind of trash right now, but mostly we’ve all had stuff going on. So we haven’t talked to one another in a while. I would
[00:01:11] Exploring Patreon and Merch Ideas
[00:01:11] Brett: really, we should test the waters with a Patreon and just see if our listeners want to support the show. Um, if you’re listening and you would be willing to pay a Small monthly fee, uh, to support the show, please write in, let us know, um, contact us on any of the various social media services, um, uh, because it would be a far more sustainable, uh, source of income than the fucking ad world right now.
[00:01:43] Brett: Well,
[00:01:45] Christina: I think, for, well, no, not I think, I know, there’s no I think about it. Like, if we’re taking money from anybody, we’re, like, at least, speaking for myself,
[00:01:53] Brett: with Patreon you can also, you can also set it up so that people pay when you publish. [00:02:00] Uh, so like, uh, like Amanda Palmer does it, like you only, if you’re on her Patreon you can only pay when she releases a song. Uh, which she does regularly. Um, but we could just charge people when we release a podcast, which would still give us the ability to take a week off if we needed to, uh, without feeling, um, like we were screwing people over.
[00:02:24] Brett: So yeah, we’ll look into it. Also, I am, I forgot to show you guys this, but, uh, we are going to launch some merch on Key Public. Um, I have some designs done, but I. I don’t know if you guys will love them or not. I might have to try again. I’ll show you them after the show. Um, if, if we get the go ahead from all three co hosts, um, check, uh, check the show notes for a merch link.
[00:02:53] Brett: Anyway, should I kick off the mental health
[00:02:55] A Light-Hearted Take on Money Laundering
[00:02:55] Jeff: hold on, I have a, I have a question. If we start doing [00:03:00] Patreon, is that an opportunity for me to launder some of my extra money?
[00:03:03] Christina: Yes.
[00:03:04] Jeff: Like the way they did in Breaking Bad to, you know, for Walt’s donation website. Okay, cool.
[00:03:10] Christina: 100%. No, I mean, like, I mean, I will say that we should probably, if we do decide to do this and you decide to do that, that we’re going to need to go back and edit this episode so that, like, any comments about the money laundering are gone. Which means, like, if you’re listening right now to this, you are hearing something that potentially might be deleted later.
[00:03:28] Christina: So, you know, save on, save, save, save
[00:03:32] Jeff: but I gotta clean my money. Somehow. I gotta clean it. I’m just sittin on it, it’s, this Zoom background is fake, it’s, if you actually were looking at my background, it’s just stacks of cash. With like a single sheet over it.
[00:03:47] Christina: Stacks on stacks on
[00:03:48] Jeff: Well, I’ll look into that some more. Do you think anybody does launder money through Patreon?
[00:03:52] Christina: Oh, most definitely.
[00:03:54] Jeff: Oh. I’m upset my family’s so tired of me talking about money laundering. I’m obsessed by all the ways [00:04:00] that people launder money.
[00:04:01] Christina: Yeah. I mean, I mean, look, look, they do it through gift cards. They do it through, I mean, you know, Bitcoin, whatever you have to do. I have to think that like Patreon and things like that are, are a source, right? It just depends.
[00:04:11] Jeff: chips. I see you, Donald Trump.
[00:04:15] Christina: probably just has to depend on like, okay, like the only thing with something like Patreon is You’re, you’re giving up like whatever fee you’re giving up to like launder the money and then you’re also paying the Patreon fees.
[00:04:27] Christina: So I guess you just need to like, you’d probably need to have like a high volume, um, to be able to like make it work. Otherwise there are probably better ways, ways to launder money. Um, she says as if she’s some sort of money laundering expert. I’m not. I’ve just
[00:04:41] Jeff: We’ve all seen Ozark.
[00:04:42] Christina: I was going to say, I’ve seen Ozark.
[00:04:44] Christina: I’ve, I’ve, you know, seen a bunch of other heists types of things. Watch Breaking
[00:04:48] Jeff: Ozark, which has, which has the most amazing, uh, like quick brief on money laundering that he gives, I think to his kid maybe, or maybe no, no, he’s just narrating it. [00:05:00] It’s early on. And it’s like the, the, the footage you’re seeing is like actual money and actual laundry machine, which is actually part of his process to sort of age the money.
[00:05:10] Jeff: Anyway, um, that’s not my mental health check in. It’s definitely not yours, Brett. Uh, so, um, yeah. See you in jail.
[00:05:19] Mental Health Corner: Road Rage and Wallet Woes
[00:05:19] Brett: I gotta tell you, so this is officially mental health corner now, but, um, I think it was last week, like I said, no sense of time, but, um, Elle and I got up early to go for a walk in the, uh, wildlife refuge, not too far away from us, um, but it was early, and I’ve been sleeping until like eight lately, which is, uh, Weird for me, but if I get up before then, I, I am crabby.
[00:05:48] Brett: Uh, and I got up before them on this fateful day. Um, and, uh, I was driving us to, we were just leaving our little neighborhood, uh, [00:06:00] which is on a two lane street. And someone came up hot on my six. Um, just riding my ass, which was annoying, but. I intentionally went exactly the speed limit, kind of to piss them off.
[00:06:14] Brett: Um, and, uh, then they, it’s a double yellow line, uh, at a blind curve, and they try to pass me. And my brain’s like, oh fuck no, so I gun it. And we’re like racing down this two lane road into a blind curve and they give up and they pull back in behind me. And I roll my window down so I can more easily flip them off when, uh, when they do eventually pass.
[00:06:44] Brett: Uh, which happens and we flip each other off and like, my adrenaline’s up but I calm down, like, I let that kind of thing go very quickly, it’s like, fun in the moment, uh, but, in the meantime, Elle is scared shitless, um,
[00:06:59] Jeff: Elle’s in [00:07:00] the car for this?
[00:07:01] Brett: yeah. L’s in the car for this, which normally, you know, for this kind of thing, I’m driving alone.
[00:07:07] Brett: But L is in the car, and they’re scared shitless. Um, and, and they’re screaming at me, Brett, no! What are you doing? What the fuck? No! And I’m not listening, I’m just saying. And so anyway, it takes, it takes them a long time to calm down, which involves like shaking and tears and like, I really upset both their nervous system and just their emotional state of being.
[00:07:35] Brett: Um, and I was so, I felt so stupid because it would have been so easy to just be like, Hey, look at this fucker. And let it happen, uh, but instead I, I had to escalate. Um, so I did some parts work after that to, to use IFS speak. Um, and realized there’s this part of me that I’ve always thought was a pretty good part.
[00:07:58] Brett: Um, that [00:08:00] believes that society functions better with rules. Um, And it’s often kept me from making some very bad decisions. It also violently reacts to other people breaking social norms and, and laws. Um, like I’m, I’m bizarrely rule based for someone who considers
[00:08:23] Christina: I was gonna say, I was gonna say, that’s like, that’s like an interesting, um, thing there.
[00:08:28] Brett: but like that, that’s the, that’s the thing is if a rule is in place, like A law in general, whatever. But a rule like, don’t pass on a blind curve, like that’s just for everyone’s safety, that’s for the good of society, and that to me is a rule that should be followed. Um, that is not to say what I did was excusable, um, it
[00:08:53] Christina: No, what you did was immature.
[00:08:55] Brett: I published, I published a DIMMspiration the same day that [00:09:00] says, I don’t believe I’m a maniac, but then sometimes I do things that only a maniac would do, which is kind of a glaring hole in my theory.
[00:09:08] Brett: Um, so anyway, like I, I found that part and I, I talked to it and I’m going to work to kind of let it, Exists without being so reactionary. Um, because I feel like it’s, it’s not a bad part. It just, uh, these firefighters come up. I’m using IFS speak. Anyone who’s doing IFS will know what I’m talking about.
[00:09:35] Brett: Everyone else is like, what the fuck? But anyway, a couple other points I want to hit.
[00:09:41] The Great Wallet Saga: A Tale of Loss and Recovery
[00:09:41] Brett: Um, I lost my wallet a week ago, and for a week I have been just stressed. Even when I wasn’t thinking about it, I realized I was carrying all this stress, uh, because we’re about to leave on vacation, and I don’t have a valid driver’s license, I don’t have any of my credit cards, [00:10:00] um, I don’t even have a health insurance card, and so I’m freaking out a little bit.
[00:10:04] Brett: Um, and today was the day. That I was going to start the process of applying for a new driver’s license and hopefully get a temporary one, and then just rely on all of my Apple wallet so I could pay with my phone wherever possible. But I, I, as a last ditch. I retraced my steps one more time, which I had already done once, but I ended up at Walgreens asking the guy behind the counter if they had a loss in found and he like calls to the manager and um, I forgot what my wallet looked like.
[00:10:43] Brett: Um, I was thinking of, uh, my previous wallet, which was tan leather. Um, so I described it as a flat tan leather wallet and they’re like, eh, what’s the name on the ID? And I’m like, well, this is hopeful. And I give him my name [00:11:00] and he’s like, just a sec. And he comes out with my. Black wallet and it has my ID in it and looking into it It’s very clearly all the credit cards have been pulled out and it’s got like compartments for each card And all of the cards had clearly been pulled out and shoved back into one compartment.
[00:11:24] Brett: Uh, which is weird because the ID is like, clearly visible on the outside. But, all the cards are there, even my, like, uh, gift cards for like, local restaurants. Which could easily have been used by anybody. And I had such a sense of relief. Um,
[00:11:44] Jeff: Ehhh.
[00:11:45] Brett: like, I didn’t realize until that moment exactly how much stress I was carrying over this, but like, it felt like, it felt like, uh, I’m gonna say like a hit of cocaine.
[00:11:58] Brett: Like, just this [00:12:00] like, elation in my body that almost tingled. Um, it was cool. It was very nice.
[00:12:06] Navigating Life’s Challenges: From Medication to Moving
[00:12:06] Brett: Um, so it, and I’m getting ready for this vacation, so I’m dealing with like meds that would have a refill date right in the middle of my vacation, which makes it like too early to refill before the vacation, and I got to figure out if I can get like a special exception, uh, On a couple of these, including my Vyvanse, uh, which is a super sticky one to get an early refill on.
[00:12:34] Brett: Um, so I emailed my doctor, but, uh, she takes Fridays off and. I might not know until Monday, but I don’t leave until next
[00:12:44] Christina: that’s, that’s good at least. Um, so, um, I’m really glad you found your wallet. Um, I, I’m also glad that like, you, you realize like what your wallet looks like,
[00:12:58] Brett: right? [00:13:00] This whole time I’ve been trashing my house and my car looking for it, because I keep it in this secret pocket on my jeans that’s right above my knee and has a zipper on it. Well, at least on the jeans I was wearing that day. And when I realized it was missing, I realized that zipper was down, which in my head only happens when I take the wallet out.
[00:13:25] Brett: And so, so I must’ve left it. Like I went to the drive thru pharmacy and I never would’ve passed my wallet to them. So I figured it had to have been on the car, seat of my car. So I trashed my car looking for it. And, uh, I could have been at my. Desk, uh, and needed to like check my health insurance card or something.
[00:13:45] Brett: So I trashed my office looking for it and I, apparently I just left the zipper down and it like fell out at Walgreens,
[00:13:55] Jeff: Man, if
[00:13:55] Brett: Just so weird.
[00:13:56] Jeff: that line was out of context.[00:14:00]
[00:14:02] Brett: Left my zipper down and it fell out at Walgreens. Um,
[00:14:10] Jeff: So
[00:14:12] Brett: but yeah, I, I don’t know. Cause I paid with my phone at Walgreens. So I don’t, I, yeah, I got lucky. I’m, I’m so glad to have it, but thank you.
[00:14:22] Jeff: yeah, it’s a little piece of us we carry with us that we forget how destabilizing it is when you lose it.
[00:14:29] Brett: Oh my, I’ve never lost my wallet
[00:14:30] Jeff: That’s actually what I’m hearing from you. So for me, I lost my wallet. I misplaced my wallet in the house, like, a week ago. And for me, what happens is I just go a little crazy because I lost something.
[00:14:43] Jeff: You know? I’m like, I should know where this is. It’s crazy I don’t know where this is.
[00:14:48] Brett: my phone, my wallet, and my keys, I never lose. Like, they’re three things that I’m always conscious of. I, like, every time I stand up, I check my left pocket where my phone is, check my right [00:15:00] pocket where my keys and my wallet are. And they never leave my person, and I just It’s, yeah, I felt really, um, destabilized for having lost
[00:15:12] Christina: Yeah.
[00:15:13] Brett: Uh,
[00:15:14] Christina: Well, yeah. I mean, that’s the thing. Yeah. I, I always had like this mantra that I, that I stole from, um, the TV show Broad City, um, that I think, I think how Lincoln says it is slightly different, but in my mind, I always say like phone, wallet, keys, because that would be like a thing that he would always like tell like Ilana to, to check before she would leave.
[00:15:31] Christina: And so I always have them like, okay, phone, wallet, keys, phone, wallet, keys. And then sometimes I’ll add in, like, if I’m going on a trip, like Phone, wallet, keys, pills, right? Make sure, like, before I leave, like on a trip, that I’ve got, like, my meds, that I’ve got, like, my phone, my wallet, you know, whatnot. Um, no, I lose sunglasses. with surprising frequency. And, and I’m not talking like cheap sunglasses. I’m talking like, like 200, 250 sunglasses. I once lost like three pairs of Ray Bans in like a six week period. It was obscene. It was dumb. And [00:16:00] like at that point, um, and, and I’d had such a good streak up at that point, I think it’d been years.
[00:16:05] Christina: And, and since I’d lost a pair of Ray Bans and then, um, No, I, I, to my knowledge, I’ve never lost my wallet. I’ve lost parts of things before, like I lost my passport card, not my passport. I did, I didn’t bother getting it replaced because it was just the passport card and I was like, fuck it, whatever.
[00:16:23] Brett: What’s a
[00:16:24] Christina: that is, it looks like a, um, uh, ID, like just looks like a driver’s license and you,
[00:16:30] Jeff: Like a global
[00:16:31] Christina: Kind of, except it only works in Canada and the U.
[00:16:33] Christina: S., so it’s also sort of pointless. But I had it for a while because I didn’t have like a state ID, and so my state ID was expired because it was from a state that I didn’t live in anymore, and so until I got like my ID ID, I would use, I would carry my passport around, but like that’s kind of annoying, so I would carry my passport card.
[00:16:51] Christina: I did lose that in 2019, and um, God, passport renewals right now are such a pain in the ass. I’m [00:17:00] still waiting on mine. I, like, sent in for it forever ago. Digress.
[00:17:04] Brett: You probably paid for expedited
[00:17:06] Christina: I did. I did.
[00:17:07] Brett: Expedited is still like a
[00:17:08] Christina: It’s more than a month. And the thing is, is that it’s like, I would pay, like, Do I have to fucking go to San Francisco to go to the fucking consulate to get, like, a same day thing?
[00:17:16] Christina: Because in New York, at least I could do that. I could pay, like, 600 bucks and, like, get it, like, The next day if you needed to, um, because somebody would actually like hand walk it to the embassy and like, you know, get your docs back. But the thing is, is that like Seattle doesn’t have an embassy. So the closest consulate is fucking San Francisco.
[00:17:32] Christina: So anyway, I hate this. I fucking hate this state. I hate this town. I hate everything about it. Anyway, I digress. But I mean, I do. I fucking, I fucking hate living here. I do.
[00:17:41] The Seattle Rant: Love, Hate, and Everything In-Between
[00:17:41] Christina: Um, that’s my mental health corner. I fucking hate Seattle. Um,
[00:17:45] Jeff: You’re like, the Pearl Jam albums aren’t even
[00:17:46] Brett: I, I did not know that. I thought, I thought you enjoyed
[00:17:50] Christina: no, I don’t. No, I’ve tried. I’ve like, I’ve like kept it in. I’ve like tried for seven years and I fucking hate it. It’s a shitty, shitty, shitty state. It’s a shitty, shitty, shitty [00:18:00] city
[00:18:00] Jeff: Why did you, why
[00:18:01] Christina: because I got a job.
[00:18:02] Jeff: you end up there? Seven
[00:18:03] Christina: I got a job.
[00:18:04] Jeff: had the job. Okay, got it.
[00:18:06] Brett: so, so what’s the plan then? It’s not, it can’t, it can’t be mentally healthy to live somewhere you
[00:18:12] Christina: No, but like,
[00:18:13] Brett: to use your words. Yeah. Oh, that’s rough. I feel for you.
[00:18:20] Jeff: Extracting yourself from a city. It’s not so easy. Unless you’re like 29.
[00:18:26] Christina: So, but it’s just, it’s just as expensive.
[00:18:29] Brett: they won’t
[00:18:29] Christina: No, they would, but I mean, it’s not just, it’s not just about me. Like I have other, anyway, I, I, I can’t, I don’t want to get into all that, but like, it’s, it’s not just, um, my decision. So.
[00:18:40] Brett: hate
[00:18:41] Christina: Yeah, no, but it’s a shitty, shitty, shitty city. It’s a shitty city full of shitty people with shitty weather, um, and, um, expensive as fuck, um, for not a good city.
[00:18:51] Christina: Like, you don’t have the amenities of an actual city, but you pay actual city prices. It’s a fucking shitty place. Seattle fucking sucks.
[00:18:59] Jeff: [00:19:00] I think you should take, I think you should take all this to the Chamber of Commerce, because it’s, if they start putting that up on
[00:19:04] Christina: Oh, the Chamber of Commerce doesn’t give a fuck. In fact, the Chamber of Commerce, or not the Chamber of Commerce, the, the fucking City Council, the fucking City Council is like so anti anybody who actually gives them money, they’re like, oh no, let’s, let’s, let’s, um, Ray, let’s, let’s create a fucking Uber tax so that every single delivery service has an Uh, has to pay an average of 25 an hour for delivery drivers.
[00:19:28] Christina: Which, look, I’m all for fair wages, and I’m all for like, if you want to set the minimum wage a certain thing, fine. I think it’s kind of fucked up that people who dr who like, deliver for DoorDash are getting paid more than like, people who like, work. Like, in, you know, as like, uh, it, it, you know, a lot of people have like, actual jobs, you know, who work in like medicine and, and things like that and, and are, are doing things that frankly, like, take a lot more skill than, um, doing a poor job delivering food.
[00:19:56] Christina: Like, so anyway, the, and the net [00:20:00] result is nobody orders delivery anymore because the, the prices are so insane. Um, not to mention the sales tax, not to mention the fact that they, like the, the city sucks. Like they, they just got rid of the gifted program because of equity. Um, which all that means is that all the smart kids who are mostly, you know, uh, white or Asian or whatever, you know, people have money.
[00:20:19] Christina: Like the, the, the families that have money are just going to put their kids in private school. And the smart kids who don’t have. Parents who can send them to private school are, like, those kids are fucked. So, anyway, this city sucks. That’s, that’s my mental health corner. Sorry, didn’t mean to take yours over, Brett.
[00:20:34] Brett: No, that’s, that’s,
[00:20:36] Jeff: segue.
[00:20:37] Brett: yeah, I, uh, I, I definitely with your permission, am titling this episode, like why Seattle sucks, um, or fuck Seattle.
[00:20:50] Jeff: You just generalize, this city sucks. Then everybody, then everybody comes in wanting to know which city.
[00:20:56] Brett: There you go.
[00:20:57] Jeff: Minneapolis, Seattle.
[00:20:59] Brett: for sure. [00:21:00] But Minneapolis, I love. Do you love Minneapolis, Jeff?
[00:21:07] Jeff: I love Minneapolis. Our mayor’s a twerp, but I love Minneapolis.
[00:21:10] Brett: I love, I love Minnesota. I love my city. I love my little town. I, it, it hurts my heart to hear that someone has spent seven years living somewhere that they hate so much.
[00:21:22] Christina: Well, I didn’t, I didn’t always hate it. And like I said, I’ve like, I’ve like tried, right? Like I’ve tried to like make it better, but it’s just, it’s just shitty place. Um,
[00:21:31] Jeff: Where would you, what, where would you live if you had had a choice? New York, yeah, that’s easy. I still have dreams that I live in New York again, but the dreams are just that I’m standing on a sidewalk in New York and I’m the happiest person in the world.
[00:21:46] Brett: I’ve only ever,
[00:21:47] Jeff: sidewalk.
[00:21:48] Brett: I’ve only ever been homeless in New York, but it was still a great city. It was still like one of the best places I’ve been homeless compared to like Baltimore. New York is amazing [00:22:00] for homeless
[00:22:00] Jeff: competition in Baltimore. You got, it’s a little more like, uh, you got a lot more space in New York to be homeless. You can find your, your little communer people, or space.
[00:22:10] Brett: Well, I, I was fortunate enough to be like part of kind of a punk world that Everyone couch surf like half the kids there were homeless and you could find a couch to sleep on in the summer You could find rooftops that people would let you throw a sleeping bag down and all the bars Offer like free food, even if you’re not buying drinks, not all the bars But if you know where to go
[00:22:35] Jeff: Mm hmm.
[00:22:36] Brett: It’s actually a pretty easy place to be.
[00:22:38] Brett: For me, for me, a white male, it was a pretty easy place to be homeless.
[00:22:44] Jeff: always find a stinky couch. Yeah.
[00:22:48] Brett: Anyhow. Yeah. Okay. Do you have anything, anything else you want to add to your mental health corner? Christina
[00:22:56] Christina: well, the fact that I just went on that unplanned, like, unhinged, like, [00:23:00] rant about how much I fucking hate this city, uh, probably means that I need to talk about. Some of my rage issues with my, uh, with my therapist, um, and it’s not even rage issues. It’s just, I think I’ve probably been bottling stuff up, um, frustrations for various things.
[00:23:19] Brett: Yeah. Well, like it’s so fascinating to me that I had no idea you didn’t like Seattle, which means you have bottled that up for a long time. . All right. All right. Jeff
[00:23:37] Jeff: Uh, Jeff, well, I added to our, um, show notes to, uh, follow up on anarchy after we’re done with this. I just have a couple of, uh, good bits, good bits from my life about anarchy. Um, very short. Uh, uh, but, um, yeah, I, I’ve embarked on a writing project and, um, kind of a [00:24:00] comprehensive writing project. And, uh, and as a start for that, I kind of started gathering all of my writing over the years, uh, that even have anything related to this topic.
[00:24:13] Jeff: And it’s like things I’ve published, things I’ve written and not published, journal entries, like transcripts of interviews I’ve done over 15 years and 20 years, maybe, uh, trainings I’ve given, all this stuff. And, um, and I just, I had it all transcribed. I mean, just did AI transcription. Um, and it was super interesting.
[00:24:35] Jeff: Cause like, I basically realized that everything I want to say Or that I think I want to address has been, I have said or written in ways that every time I encounter it, I’m like, Oh, that’s a good point. I agree with that. Oh, I like how he said that. And so, uh, it was really just fun to kind of go through all these years of writing and speaking, um, and just see what has changed and [00:25:00] what threads are like common throughout.
[00:25:02] Jeff: Um, Like I actually took, I took whole chunks of stuff from different years and put it through three AIs, through Claude, through, uh, through Gemini and through ChatGPT, just to say like, do a thematic analysis. It’s so interesting to see not just the difference between the three of them, but obviously the similarities, but then also the similarities across years.
[00:25:24] Jeff: I was like, okay, I’ve been on this trip for a long time. And, uh, so anyway, it’s just really, that’s been really fun. And, and just a nice way to, I always like my life feels so scattered and my career feels so scattered and, uh, higgledy piggledy as they say somewhere. Um, then anytime I have like a opportunity where I can actually see kind of a straight line through it, even if it’s a curvy thing, um, like a sine wave, you put, uh, that always feels really good.
[00:25:52] Jeff: And, um, makes me feel a little more whole. Uh, and so that’s been really nice and really fun. [00:26:00] Um, and, uh, and just, yeah, just an unusual experience. And, and part of how it came to be is that I ended up with a gap in contracts. I am a, we’ve talked about this before, but like I’m a member owner of a collaborative research and evaluation collaborative until last year, I always had these huge contracts for like five years, really great budgets, a lot of Create new things and new ways of handling things.
[00:26:24] Jeff: And, uh, then that ended last year and I was in the world of small contracts and that’s just not, it’s not my gift to manage those things properly, to manage the scope of my efforts inside of them. I invariably burn through my budget when the work’s still not done and then I’m working for free, um, just to complete it.
[00:26:43] Jeff: But basically I ended up with that, through, what is it? Six pay period gap where I’m making a sixth my normal income, which is not good. Um, I’ve been able to claw back some of it by going out for some new [00:27:00] contracts, but even that, what was cool about this is that, well, one, I reframed it right away. My wife and I had like a meeting where we’re like, okay, so that’s this number of dollars that I have to kind of figure out how to fill because we’re already like, things are tight and we’ve got a kid going to college and we’re paying some of that.
[00:27:14] Jeff: And, um, And, and we were, had this meeting where like, I just created this like narrative of like exactly how much money I’m missing per week and what I need to make up and all this stuff. And, uh, and at some point in the like depths of it, where I’m like, okay, when we come out of this right now, we’re just doing the logistics and we come out of this, it’s gonna, it’s gonna sting when the reality hits.
[00:27:36] Jeff: But then instead of that, I was like, you know what, this is. It’s a muppet caper. It’s like, they’re gonna close the theater down if we don’t raise 15, 000. Well, let’s go! Woo! And like, someone ends up in jail, but like, Yul Brynner’s the jailer, you know, and like, and, and so once I framed it that way, both of us.
[00:27:56] Jeff: And my wife has, tends to be way more, she can get way more kind of anxious [00:28:00] about money than I can for better and for worse. Um, all of a sudden we were like, Oh, that’s great. This is delightful. And, and I went about the work of like finding new stuff. What was great about the opportunity in the end. I mean, I’m in it very much in it is like, it allowed me to shake loose from really what was kind of a work rut.
[00:28:18] Jeff: Um, and like, I got really burned out on my Juvenile justice. And then I just took a lot of contracts that were just doing the kind of work that like, wasn’t that exciting to me. There was no room. I really liked to create and there was just no room to create. It was just like, get it done. And, um, and I was like, I don’t want to die like this.
[00:28:37] Jeff: Like I’m 49. I’ve, I’ve like managed to stay in a place where like, I’m. I’m basically doing something I really care about and I’m passionate about with a team of people. We talked about this a couple episodes ago, but like with a team of people, I really just like feel a, a sort of like soldier’s bond with.
[00:28:57] Jeff: Um, and, and so all of a sudden that was [00:29:00] over and I was like, Oh, this is great. I can just sit here and think about the things that I like to do, the things that I’m good at, and get out of this thing where I’m saying yes to things I’m good at, but don’t like doing. And it’s a huge privilege to be in that situation, but I will mind, mind you, I’m on unemployment.
[00:29:16] Jeff: So like, it’s a, it’s a qualified privilege. Right. Um, but it really opened me up. And one of the things was just wanting to do. Some writing, and so now, finally, I’m kind of like, doing that. So it’s like a blessing, the Muppet Caper’s a little bit of a blessing, but I haven’t ended up in jail yet, so
[00:29:31] Christina: Well, that’s good. That, that, that’s like an, that, I mean, you know, cause like that’s, that’s the one part of the Muppet caper that like, you know, when, when Fozzie and, uh, and Kermit wind up in jail, uh, you know, like that’s, that’s always one of those moments, you’re like, Oh God, you know, who’s going to have to bail them out
[00:29:46] Muppet Jailbreak: A Hypothetical Dilemma
[00:29:46] Jeff: Who, I think I know the answer for all of you, but who would you rather be in jail with, Fozzie or Kermit?
[00:29:52] Christina: probably I don’t know. I, I don’t know. Cause yeah, Fawzi probably, cause Kermit would be super anxious. Kermit would be [00:30:00] super anxious and that would make me anxious and, and you don’t, like, that’s just not good. But, but Fawzi could be kind of annoying.
[00:30:08] Jeff: But I am
[00:30:09] Brett: Fa Fa Yeah, me too. Fa
[00:30:11] Jeff: That’s what I realized. I thought I was going to choose Fozzie. It was like, I fucking am Fozzie. We’re never getting out of there.
[00:30:15] Brett: Fozzy is clearly ADD. Um, and like, I, the way I relate, the way, like, especially in a, um, captive situation, um, I relate best to people that think quickly over, like, the surface without diving deep, and Kermit would want
[00:30:35] Christina: would want to dive deep. I, yeah. Now I’m, I’m going to tell you, I don’t know who I’d pick between them. I’d tell you who I would really want. I’d want to be there with Gonzo. Gonzo,
[00:30:45] Jeff: Hell yeah.
[00:30:46] Brett: Also
[00:30:46] Christina: Yes, but he’s like the good A DH adhd, like Fozzie is like, like he’s the a DH adhd, which would be useful in jail.
[00:30:52] Christina: Like Fozzie Iss. Fozzie is the type who’s gonna make the joke at the wrong person, like, like the wrong Muppet. He, he’s gonna make the joke to the wrong Muppet [00:31:00] and it’s gonna become a whole thing. Um, whereas, whereas Gonzo is gonna have some good awareness, he’s gonna know the lay of the land. He’s gonna maybe be able to have a scheme of things.
[00:31:09] Christina: Gonzo’s, who you want? Kermit, I think. Yeah. Kermit is Kermit’s too anxious. Kermit’s gonna, to your point.
[00:31:16] Jeff: But here’s my argument. If we’re only choosing Toon my argument for Kermit is that there’s a show title in here somewhere. My, my argument for Kermit is that, um, you need someone, A, that’s small enough that you can, you know, Push him through the bars, if you have a plan, uh, or the little hole you’re able to dig.
[00:31:34] Jeff: But also Kermit is, you never suspect Kermit, right? Like if you could get Kermit on board with some kind of scheme, he could
[00:31:42] Christina: no, this is correct. Here’s, here’s my follow up question for you. Do you realistically think that you could convince Kermit to like go along with your scheme? Because that’s my big thing. Like, it’s like, you’re, you’re right on all of that. If you can convince him to go along with you, no one’s going to suspect him.
[00:31:57] Christina: He’s going to be able to get through the bars. He’s going to be meek. He’ll be a great [00:32:00] patsy. Can you actually convince him to do that?
[00:32:02] Brett: one, no one will suspect him because no one would believe that Kermit would be willing to break the law or do a
[00:32:11] Jeff: Here’s the scenario where that works. You’re like a year in, which you don’t want, never happens in the movies. My version of this is it’s just overnight, you know? But if you’re in for a year, you could definitely at some point be like, yo, dude, you know, we could get out of this and Kermit would be like, I’m
[00:32:27] Brett: So the argument would be you could do more for society. Um, if you weren’t in this prison, like you could.
[00:32:37] Jeff: Piggy has to be in there, too, as a
[00:32:39] Christina: Yeah. I mean, well, is she a parent or is she a deterrent? Like, like what, what, like, like how do they feel? Because like, I’ve actually. So
[00:32:49] Jeff: can’t he’s smothered by
[00:32:51] Christina: I had this realization with a friend, we were talking, I’m not even shitting you, we were genuinely talking about Miss Piggy and Kermit like five days ago. And, [00:33:00] um, uh, I, I think the context was, was, was Taylor Swift.
[00:33:03] Christina: I’m not gonna lie. But, um, oh yeah, it was because somebody on TikTok did some sort of Muppet thing. And then I realized, I was like, we were all as kids, like, taught to believe that she sucks and she’s the worst. And now I look back and I’m like, he’s such a fucking asshole. He hates her, he doesn’t want to be with her, he leads her on, she loves him so much, and he’s a fucking coward.
[00:33:26] Christina: Like, fuck Kermit, honestly.
[00:33:28] Jeff: You belong in jail, Kermit.
[00:33:30] Brett: I would put coward before
[00:33:32] Christina: both, right?
[00:33:33] Brett: he, okay, but he gets like railroaded and he doesn’t have the balls to, to make
[00:33:41] Christina: to just be honest.
[00:33:42] Brett: doesn’t have the balls to just say, yeah, that’s what I
[00:33:45] Christina: but I think make her stop, I don’t like that framing, because I think that it like
[00:33:49] Brett: Okay, so I believe, I think we’re saying the same thing, but like, if he was clear, if he was honest with her in a way that he’s too scared to be, [00:34:00] if he were honest, she could make the decision to
[00:34:05] Christina: Right, or,
[00:34:07] Brett: And that’s
[00:34:07] Christina: I agree, but I also think it’s an asshole ish thing to say you know someone’s so into you and you’re a coward and you won’t do it and you lead them on and you don’t, like, that’s an asshole thing to do. You know someone’s, like, desperately in love with you and you’re too much of a chicken shit to step up and do it.
[00:34:22] Christina: You’re a fucking piece of shit if you do that. Like, genuinely, like, like, fine, be scared or whatnot, but, like, that’s the most selfish, self centered thing you can do. If you know someone feels about you. a way that you don’t feel about them and you refuse to tell them that because of your own cowardice, you’re a fucking dick, like, male or woman.
[00:34:43] Christina: We are, I just, the only, my only quibble was make her stop, because I don’t think that it’s on her to stop, I think it’s on him to make it clear I’m not into you, right? Like, she’s, she’s only doing what, like, you know, she’s doing what she’s doing, but like, she’s, like, [00:35:00] he’s making the decision to continue to go out with her and to be with her.
[00:35:03] Christina: So,
[00:35:04] Jeff: You know what this is? Wait, wait, you know what this is? This is, this is, I’m just picturing this awesome thing where it’s Christina and Kermit are in jail together, and you’re just giving him this lecture. You know? Like, I love that so much. And by the way, here’s the thing we’re not factoring in. I was thinking limited, like, it’s just Fozzie and Kermit, or it’s us, or one of them.
[00:35:24] Jeff: But then you gotta remember that over at the jailer’s desk are all the other Muppets. Right? Like, and that’s a beautiful feeling. And that kind of is why the Muppet Caper felt good in general. It’s like, no matter how crazy everybody is, you’ve
[00:35:36] Christina: They’re all gonna show up, they’re all gonna show up, but like an E.
[00:35:39] Jeff: They’re all going to show up.
[00:35:41] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:35:41] Brett: And Jeff, you’re, if, if we have more options than just Kermit, Kermit and Fozzie, Jeff, you are Gonzo, not Fozzie.
[00:35:50] Jeff: No, I mean, if I had, I’m saying of the two of them, I’m fuzzy, but I’m definitely, definitely Gonzo. Yeah. I love Gonzo so much. I mean, it’s probably why.
[00:35:58] Brett: given all the
[00:35:59] Jeff: [00:36:00] Gunsel, Gonzo, Gunsel.
[00:36:01] Brett: right? Given all the options, I still think I’m probably Fozzie. Um, I, I’m the guy who makes, who loves stupid jokes, who makes them at inappropriate
[00:36:12] Jeff: true. That’s a good point. That is you, you’re fozzy. Christina, what are you?
[00:36:17] Muppet Character Comparisons and Memories
[00:36:17] Jeff: Like, if you had to self identify as any Muppet.
[00:36:22] Christina: I’m trying to think.
[00:36:24] Brett: Who’s the stoner chick?
[00:36:26] Christina: Yeah, exactly, I was gonna say, yeah, with the braids, I was gonna say, yeah, that, that, that I kind of began to, yeah, I, I, yeah, exactly, that’s, that, that, that’s probably, yeah.
[00:36:36] Jeff: Amazing. Amazing.
[00:36:38] Brett: Her, her name, I don’t, I don’t remember ever even hearing her name. She was just
[00:36:43] Jeff: She hangs out with the saxophone dude.
[00:36:45] Christina: she’s, she’s the groupie. She’s great. Um, or, um,
[00:36:49] Jeff: Saxophone dude would know all the
[00:36:51] Christina: no, I was trying to think like, just like, uh, I, I knew like, uh, um, uh, who, who are the, the, so now I’m just thinking Muppet babies. Who are the twins? I [00:37:00] don’t even remember if they were like actual, like the Muppet characters.
[00:37:03] Christina: Um,
[00:37:05] Jeff: Muppet babe.
[00:37:05] Christina: uh, there was like, there was like Scooter and, um, and, and, and he had a sister. Um, But, but she might have only been created for, um, Janice is, is, is who we were thinking of. Yeah.
[00:37:20] Brett: I, I, now that you say it, I absolutely have heard her name. Yes. Skeeter.
[00:37:26] Jeff: you know what else you need is the Rolodex of Saxophone Guy. Not that he has a Rolodex, he’s got a big old, like, bunch of papers spilling out of his wallet with the names of exactly the kind of people you need to get out of jail. Skeeter. Scooter
[00:37:42] Brett: twin sister is
[00:37:43] Christina: Okay. And, um, I, uh, okay. Yeah. Now I would also say Scooter kind of has a thing too, because doesn’t he heckle? I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m one of the hecklers. Like,
[00:37:56] Jeff: You know what, you’re in the peanut gallery? I love those two. God, I love those two. [00:38:00] Oh, they’re the best.
[00:38:02] Brett: oh, I can’t remember their names. Um, Statler and Waldorf.
[00:38:06] Christina: Yeah.
[00:38:08] Jeff: Is that their name? You know what’s funny? I don’t think I ever realized their names and I was in love with them. I mean, it was just, well, think about that, what that layer of the show gives you, right? They’re also like, what did people say about Han Solo? Like he’s the character in Star Wars that’s looking at the whole movie and he’s a stand in for you going like, when it’s stupid, you’re like, he’s like, this is stupid.
[00:38:26] Jeff: And I feel like those guys are the ones that allow you to pull out of just the wackadoodle world of the Muppets and be like, no, actually this is crazy. I love
[00:38:34] The Legacy of Jim Henson and the Muppets
[00:38:34] Brett: Did I ever, have I ever told you, like, I grew up in a house, we were only allowed to listen to classical music. Um, and then my parents let me get a little, like, record player, suitcase record player. And, and I got a Muppet Baby’s Rocket to the Moon record. And that was, that was the first time I had heard
[00:38:56] Christina: my god,
[00:38:56] Jeff: That’s the
[00:38:57] Brett: Um, I’m like, I’m like, [00:39:00] Maybe five years old and had never heard just like a backbeat before. And all of a sudden I hear Rocket to the Moon and it opened my eyes to all of the music that I love today is, is, was inspired by Muppet Baby’s
[00:39:19] Christina: amazing. I mean, honestly, like, Jim, Jim Henson, I, I am so mad that, like, he didn’t just fucking go to the doctor for his, um, pneumonia and that he died so young because, like, between,
[00:39:31] Jeff: Oh, is that why he died?
[00:39:32] Christina: he had, um, he was sick and, like, if he’d gone to the fucking doctor, like, they would have been able to, like, because he was sick for, like, a while, like, like, a week or two, and, like, if he’d gone to the fucking doctor, like, it became a bacterial infection and killed him, and if he’d gone to the fucking doctor, like, he would have been fine, but he didn’t.
[00:39:46] Christina: So it was like really sad. Um, that was like my first like celebrity death. I was like five or six and um, I like had the people magazine that he was on the cover of with Kermit like for, for like my whole life. And, but, but that was [00:40:00] like devastating for me because Sesame Street was like my first fandom and um, and, and by extension the rest of like the, the, the, you know, extended Muppet universe.
[00:40:10] Christina: Um, but, uh, Yeah, like, they did great shit. Like, they were really genuinely punk in a way that was fun and like, it was
[00:40:19] Jeff: Ugh. They were
[00:40:20] Christina: so good. And then you had like the the mishmash between like the genuine like children’s television workshop stuff, which was about like teaching preschoolers, but then you have like the adult oriented but still safe for all ages like Muppet Show and and kind of you know the mishmash in between and like you have like these genuinely like hippie kind of like punk guys, you know, like being fucking puppeteers.
[00:40:42] Christina: And, and, but, but so cool. And genuinely,
[00:40:47] Jeff: And what’s, like, the amazing universal truth you learn from the Muppets in 5 minutes is everybody’s messy.
[00:40:54] Christina: yeah, everybody’s messy. Everybody’s a little bit of a monster. Like, it’s, it’s, it’s great. Um, I have to say, [00:41:00] like, the, the highlight, like, of my, like, life was, um, I got to meet Carol Spinney, who is, who is Big Bird and, and, and Oscar. And, um, and, and I, um, Got to like, basically like, I had just come off of a red eye plane, so I like, literally like, I’d flown from San Francisco to New York, and then I didn’t even go home.
[00:41:17] Christina: Like, I went straight to the office, and they had a closed set because he was there, and they were kind enough to let me come and meet him, and I sobbed like a freaking baby. baby with that man. I was like, thank you for my childhood. I also met the guy who played, um, Bert, um, at a different occasion. I had like a similar experience.
[00:41:34] Christina: I didn’t cry quite as hard. And he wasn’t even my Bert. Like he, he, he was, he was like, he, he,
[00:41:39] Jeff: That’s He’s not my
[00:41:41] Christina: but he, um,
[00:41:42] Jeff: So many
[00:41:43] Christina: Right? He, uh, he, um, he was like kind of a, I think like an assistant for, um, for, you know, the, my Bert, um, but he took over the role like in, in the, um, uh, mid 90s and, um, nicest guy, like nicest, nicest guy.[00:42:00]
[00:42:00] Christina: Uh, everybody I’d met associated with Sesame Street was great. And, and obviously the Muppet crew is very closely related to all of that. So, you know.
[00:42:11] The Tragic Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster and Its Impact
[00:42:11] Jeff: Do you know that Big Bird was supposed to be on the Challenger, uh, space shuttle that exploded?
[00:42:17] Brett: What?
[00:42:18] Jeff: put a link in the show notes. I only learned this, I learned this from watching, uh, uh, For All Mankind, the Apple TV show, but I just, I looked it up and the thing that, this is what’s so goofy. So the thing that saved them was that the costume is too big, but here’s two things about that.
[00:42:33] Jeff: One, did Spinney? Like, I feel like, I mean, I. It makes sense, but like, but then also you can’t just like find someone who has a smaller kid. The point was the symbol of Big Bird, but Jesus, I, there’s no thank God
[00:42:46] Christina: Right. Right. Wish it was a t shirt.
[00:42:48] Jeff: there’s no thank
[00:42:49] Christina: No, but, but like, but it would have,
[00:42:51] Jeff: can, but just imagine this alternate history where Big Bird, actual Carol Spinney Big
[00:42:56] Brett: but for those of us who are like in second grade,
[00:42:59] Jeff: [00:43:00] was in
[00:43:00] Brett: At the time. Um, yeah, that makes sense. Uh, like I was, I was, it was surreal to me. Like our class had it running. We had the TV in the classroom and like the tragedy happens and it was surreal. If you had said that Big Bird had also died in that, it would have
[00:43:22] Christina: I was gonna say. I was going to say it’s already one of the most tragic things. I was, I was too little. I was two when that happened. And so, um, I don’t have any memory of it. Um, what is fucked up is that when they had another, like the, the next space shuttle launch or whatever, which, which took place, I think in like 89 or something, um, they showed that in school, which in retrospect, I’m like, why would you do this a second time?
[00:43:47] Christina: Right? Like you already knew what happened. Cause like the thing that’s heartbreaking about. Like what you have, what happened with you, Brett, and it happened with my sister too. Like she was, they all watched it in school. Like the whole thing is they sent a teacher to space and she went through the training program and all of that.[00:44:00]
[00:44:00] Christina: And the woman who was her alternate actually then went through the full, full, full space program and like became an actual astronaut and actually, and actually did orbit, um, and, and go on, um, you know, um, uh, a number of missions. Um, and she was inspired to do that because of, What had happened and she’d been also a teacher.
[00:44:17] Christina: Um, but like, because they’d had a teacher in space, like that’s why it was a thing where like everybody was watching, you know, not just the family, but like her, her class, like all little kids, like they, cause the whole thing, I mean, that was also sort of the tragedy. They pushed for them to go when the conditions weren’t good and the rocket boosters were frozen because of all the fucking publicity.
[00:44:39] Christina: Because they were like, we, we, we can’t lose this again, we already had to cancel once, we can’t do this again, it’s too important, we got, we gotta go. And like, nobody fucking cared about the fact that like, you know, okay, cause, cause it’s one thing when, not to say that it’s ever, um, okay when, when there are space disasters, but like, it’s, it’s, it’s a little bit different when it’s a civilian involved, [00:45:00] right?
[00:45:00] Christina: Like I think that it’s like a, it’s a,
[00:45:01] Jeff: Yeah, you came up through the military otherwise, you’re like, you’re deep into,
[00:45:05] Christina: you, you know that there’s a, you know that there is a big risk, right? You know that this is not like getting on an airplane. Um, but that’s, that’s not how they sold it to civilians or to the public. And then they didn’t do the work. Um, there’s a, there are two great things on that.
[00:45:20] Christina: There’s the, the Netflix, like there’s like a three part documentary on the Challenger thing, but there was, um, a made for TV movie that the BBC and I think, The Discovery Channel, like, joint ventured, um, called, uh, let me find this. Uh, it was, it was a narrative thing. The Challenger disaster, um, that, uh, goes into a lot of the details with that.
[00:45:44] Christina: And, uh, cause Richard Feynman like led the, um, the board that did the investigation that basically, you know, Castigated them and called them into account. And it turned out, this only came out after she died, but Sally Ride had been one of, um, the informants, um, that [00:46:00] got, like, um, him a lot of, like, the inside papers about how many things NASA, like, rejected and, and whatnot.
[00:46:07] Christina: And it’s one of those things where, like, it’s not a conspiracy. Like, there’s actual, like, documented stuff of all the fucked up shit they did. No, but the reason I say not a conspiracy is because some of the stuff that you see, you know, that the government did, like, it, it does almost speak to it. seem like fake.
[00:46:22] Christina: You’re like, there’s no way that they would, they would make these decisions. Oh no, they did.
[00:46:26] Critique of the US Space Program and the Value of Space Exploration
[00:46:26] Christina: Um, and, and it’s, it’s, this is one of the reasons why I kind of have a hard time I guess, like, defending the US space program. Like, I’m fine if, if, honestly, I’m okay if private companies want to do space exploration.
[00:46:41] Christina: Um, but I’m kind of like, like, I don’t know if I, people are like, oh, we need to give NASA all this funding. And I’m like, do we? Do we? Because honestly, like, as an organization between that and Columbia, like, there’s a, there are, you know, massive histories of them just not doing due diligence or giving a fuck or doing the right things.
[00:46:58] Christina: And yet they’ve been given, you [00:47:00] know, trillions of dollars to do this. Over, you know, uh, 60 years. So, like, I don’t know, like, do we actually need to, uh, pur pursue, like, you know, space stuff? Like, it’s great, and it’s a great scientific thing, but I’m kind of, I’m also kind of like, the government really has fucked up a lot, so.
[00:47:18] Brett: So, I think, I think things like the James Webb Telescope are more important than going back to the moon. Like, We’re not, I don’t know what we gain. I’m sure there are reasons that they want to get back to the moon, but I don’t know them. All I know is like James Webb telescope, I guess, like what we’re reliving the
[00:47:42] Christina: so.
[00:47:43] Brett: race again,
[00:47:44] Christina: No, I agree with you.
[00:47:45] Brett: Like, the James Webb Telescope is providing so much more interesting and useful, like, in the field of astrophysics, the amount of information we’re gathering about the beginning of the fucking universe, um, [00:48:00] is more important to me
[00:48:01] Christina: No, I completely agree. And that, like, I think is where the funding should go. And I guess maybe, probably, to go back on what I was just arguing, there’s probably an argument to make that you can’t get the funding for that unless you have, like, the pomp and circumstance of the space stuff. Which, fair. But, I also still feel like, you know, I, like, I
[00:48:20] Brett: What if, though, what if it were a mission to Mars? Would you be interested in
[00:48:26] Christina: Yes, but, but again, like, I think that’s, that’s a completely different thing, right? And, and I think that’s one of those things where, you know, now that the technology is what it is, like, it would be such a long time before we would do a manned mission. Like, we would be doing unmanned things and whatnot, right?
[00:48:41] Christina: Um, versus, you know, Like, when they’d sent, you know, the Challenger, you know, in, in, um, you know, 86 or whatever to, to go, like, what, what we were doing, we, the only reason they did it was because they wanted to send civilians into space. Like, there was, there was nothing they were getting of [00:49:00] value out of that mission.
[00:49:01] Christina: And, and the, the, the shuttle was already not, you You know, it was already kind of like not doing super well and they, there were some problems with, with how it was designed, but like, yeah, no, I think, uh, um, eventually a man’s, you know, mission to Mars, 1000 percent would be in favor of looking at that. But like, I, I’m not as anti private companies getting into some of this because I’m like, A, let them pay for some of it and do some of the, take on some of the risk and whatnot.
[00:49:27] Christina: Uh, and B, I’m just kind of like, I’m with you. Like I’d rather. spend our budgets on telescopes and, and, you know, rovers,
[00:49:36] Brett: If. If,
[00:49:37] Christina: oh, we’ve got to go back to the moon. Fuck off.
[00:49:41] Brett: Musk and Jeff Bezos want to, tomorrow, launch themselves on a manned mission to Mars, I’m all in. Fucking go for it. It’ll be, what was that
[00:49:52] Christina: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:49:54] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:49:55] Christina: um, the, the, um, except it wouldn’t be because they would be Sadly, I think [00:50:00] they’d be smarter than that, right? Like, the submersible thing, what we wound up learning, was that the foremost expert in that entire field, like, in the entire world, is James fucking Cameron.
[00:50:13] Brett: Ha ha
[00:50:14] Christina: Like, genuinely, like, that man knew more than anybody else, like, and he was smart enough to not, to not. Well, not smart enough. I mean, I’m sure they were legal and other requirements, but like, he didn’t talk about it until they, uh, officially confirmed that it had exploded underwater. And that, that was the sounds they were hearing were not people knocking, but, but, you know, they had already perished and he’d already known that.
[00:50:34] Christina: And so he then like got a hotel room and like just did a media blitz, like talking to every single like television outlet and newspaper and explaining how all this works. And, and you realize, oh, okay, this is a rich guy. But he’s actually also genuinely the foremost expert in how these things work. And, and when he outlined just like how badly that whole thing was from the get go, you’re just like, holy shit.
[00:50:59] Christina: Like [00:51:00] this is, this is dumb.
[00:51:02] Jeff: He’s like, I watched Leo die.
[00:51:04] Christina: Exactly.
[00:51:05] Brett: ha ha.
[00:51:06] Jeff: just a quick thing, cause I know we gotta get Taylor, uh, and I just want to say two greatest songs about the space program, Whitey on the Moon by Gil Scott Heron, The Commander Thinks Aloud by The Long Winters, which is a song that still makes me. Oh, so before you, I mean, listen to it, but if you want, listen to the song Exploder first because it’s an unbelievable introduction to that song.
[00:51:29] Jeff: I put it in already and I put the
[00:51:31] Brett: Oh, okay.
[00:51:32] Jeff: But the song is truly a song that I get goosebumps and tears every time I hear it. Um, incredible. Whereas Whitey on the Moon, I’m just like, mm hmm, mm hmm, mm hmm.
[00:51:41] Exploring Anarchy, Personal Security, and Societal Issues
[00:51:41] Brett: Do you wanna, do you wanna quick hit your Anarchy follow up before, uh, before we do this fuckin Taylor?
[00:51:49] Jeff: just, I was just, I was reminded of a quote from a believer article I read like 15 years ago and I went and looked it up and it’s this guy in a pacifist commune in like Denmark and he says, [00:52:00] Anarchy is a beautiful thing if people have very fucking high morals. Um, and then the other, the other bit is like, I sometimes think, I’m not an anarchist, but I definitely, uh, like modeling ways that, uh, where we don’t have to rely on the authorities that, uh, that our, our lack of high fucking morals make possible.
[00:52:21] Jeff: I mean, it’s so much more complex than that. Right. But like, I have this thing where like, if I, if there are kids walking down the street at night, trying doors on our cars. First of all, I. I generally believe that it’s like an unwritten contract. If you leave your door unlocked, it might get messed with. I know that’s a very controversial feeling.
[00:52:38] Jeff: Um, but, uh, last night, so I usually go to the window and I just whistle happy sounds and then they, they run off cause they’re very confused. But last night I woke up and I could have sworn I was hearing someone downstairs like banging around or something. And, you know, and maybe I’m just, Too old at this point to grab whatever highly insufficient weapon is nearby and like charge down the stairs.
[00:52:59] Jeff: And so instead [00:53:00] I put my iPhone, I put Welcome to the Jungle on as loud as possible on the kitchen, uh, home pod.
[00:53:06] Brett: ha.
[00:53:08] Jeff: Cause I just felt like if that came on and I was breaking into a house, I would get the fuck out of there. Cause I don’t know, is this like the, you know, like a WWF, like walk up music, like what’s happening?
[00:53:17] Jeff: Right. Uh, so I put it really loud. And then after a little bit, I just backed it down real slow. And then I watched my ring camera to see if I flushed anyone out. But it was the wind.
[00:53:26] Brett: So, I will say that with age, a lot of my anarchist ideals have, um, tarnished, faded, um, but I do believe that a lot of crime would be solved by giving people a Basic, um, things like healthcare, a universal living wage. Um, it just reduced the poverty level. Um, a lot of the things that people are like, Oh, people are awful.
[00:53:55] Brett: And, and, and no one like we could never sustain this [00:54:00] if. Everyone were comfortable. I think it’s a slightly different story. I don’t want to get into it. I
[00:54:07] Jeff: Yeah, yeah. No, yeah. Yeah.
[00:54:08] Brett: Um, but, uh, but yeah, okay. Let’s, let’s hear about Taylor News.
[00:54:14] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:54:14] Taylor Swift’s Latest Album: A Deep Dive into Heartbreak and Anger
[00:54:14] Jeff: Walk us through what this means to you. We know it’s like a cultural thing. Cause it’s, it’s, she’s a cultural thing. Holy shit. Still happening. Now we’re getting the saturation articles. You knew it was coming. Uh, it’s the, the, the laziest, the laziest kind of journalism. Um,
[00:54:29] Christina: When the New York Times is literally
[00:54:30] Jeff: but you,
[00:54:31] Christina: and TikToks, like, in their article about Is she Is she overexposed? I’m like I’m like I’m like, really? Really? Um, okay. So So
[00:54:39] Jeff: Okay. So you, but you’ve been waiting on this thing. It lands. Tell us about it. Your relationship to this thing.
[00:54:45] Christina: Girl needs to go to therapy, but I am so fucking glad she doesn’t. Like, she, she famously, like, told the new, well, not maybe famously, but like, she, she told Rolling Stone, and, and last time she did an interview with him, that she’s like, no, I’ve never done therapy, and like, I don’t need to, or maybe she didn’t say I don’t need to, but she was like, I,
[00:54:59] Jeff: It’s like, I’ve gotten [00:55:00] really rich
[00:55:00] Christina: well, I mean, maybe that’s, like, you know, I, I don’t think it’s that, No, I, oh, I, oh, I know, I know, I know.
[00:55:05] Christina: Although it was funny because I made a joke on Twitter about that and I had people who totally didn’t understand the joke and people were like, no, everyone needs therapy no matter how, no matter who they are. And I’m like, you completely missed the point. And then you had other people who was like, well, she’s clearly doing it because she makes money off of it.
[00:55:19] Christina: I’m like, fuck off. I’m not saying that. I’m saying like, if you look at the lyrics on this album, like it is unhinged, like, like she is like unhinged on main, like, like she is like sharing shit that like you should never share in public about the things that she’s feeling.
[00:55:33] Jeff: if I’m not mistaken, she had basically already decided not to release this or she just, you know, she had a chance. It was back in the queue, right? Like, is this
[00:55:40] Christina: No, no, no, no, no. This
[00:55:42] Jeff: okay. Sorry.
[00:55:44] Christina: but she’s a liar. She claims she’s been working on this for two years, and I don’t know, maybe, maybe like, maybe instrumentals and things have been already percolating. I think most, based on the subject matter, most of this came together between August and, um, you [00:56:00] know, when, when this album was released.
[00:56:01] Christina: So, um, because, because almost all the songs, like, It’s, okay, so, a few things. First, she announces the album, and it’s a surprise, and we’re all like, what? And she’s like, it’s called the Tortured Poets Department, and we’re like, Oh, is that a dig at your ex boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, who, um, you know, was, was part of a group chat that was called like the, the, the Tortured Men’s, you know, Department or something?
[00:56:24] Christina: No,
[00:56:24] Jeff: Nah, no relationship.
[00:56:25] Christina: it actually turns out not, not so much. Yeah, actually kind of, because it turns out, I think he gets one, maybe two songs, um, on the album, which, oh, also, it, there are 31 songs. She released one album, um, at, you know, midnight Eastern time. Um, and, and then there was like. Four different bonus tracks on different vinyl variants because she does that insanity, um, and greed, which I participate in, so I’m guilty of it, but it is too much Taylor.
[00:56:54] Christina: Like, honestly, you need to stop. Um, but then at, then at 2 a. m. she [00:57:00] announces 11 p. m. my time. She’s like, oh, by the way, I actually made this a double album. Here are 15 more tracks.
[00:57:07] Jeff: So it’s like a two hour
[00:57:09] Christina: Yeah, but the whole thing is 31 songs in two hours and five minutes. It is, it is a lot of Taylor. Um,
[00:57:16] Brett: So, so before anyone even had a chance to finish
[00:57:19] Christina: you, you, you, you. You’d listen to it and you, you, you’re absorbing it. You’re trying to figure out what this is about, right? Because you’re still absorbing it, but you’ve got, it’s been an hour between maybe if you, you know, started listening and stopped. You’ve had like an hour, but you’re still absorbing it.
[00:57:36] Christina: You still don’t know exactly what you heard. Plenty of people have gone to bed, which fair, right? And then she’s just like, no, here’s 50 more songs. Um, insanity. But the thing is, and this is. Why I kind of love this record. It’s really, it’s received, I would say, it’s been polarizing, um, the, the reception. I actually really like it.
[00:57:57] Christina: I, for a lot of reasons, I think that, [00:58:00] um, sonically, uh, it’s very much in the vein of evermore and folklore with some of the, um, kind of sensibilities from Midnight’s. I didn’t really like Midnight’s as a record, her last record. Um, I liked, um, the 3am tracks, um, and I liked, um, uh, like the, the lead single Antihero.
[00:58:17] Christina: Um, and I liked the song Mastermind, but a lot of the songs, I just, it didn’t connect with me because it didn’t totally feel authentic. It felt like, and now I think it comes through, that’s probably exactly what it was, but it felt like I was like, I don’t know, man, like this, this just feels like she’s Holding something back, she’s not maybe being like the, the, the Taylor we, we know and love.
[00:58:37] Christina: This is much more A, in my Sonic Wheel game, because it is again, very much like Vocalore and Evermore, which I, which I love and, and read. It’s a heartbreak album, it’s an angry album. She’s fucking awesome. Pissed. She’s so mad on so many of the songs, which is great. But again, it’s like the unhinged mental illness.
[00:58:53] Christina: Like she’s just not even holding back, which is kind of remarkable because like, just as an artistic statement, [00:59:00] you have the most famous person in the entire world, who’s yes, known for diaristic content and whatnot. And, and she’s obviously played into this, but like everybody’s for, for years, try to figure out like, who are these songs about?
[00:59:10] Christina: And then she plays coy, which is bullshit because she feeds into it too. But like, you know, she’s trying to kind of be like, Oh, I’m not going to tell you who it’s about, or I’m going to try to limit this. And then she even released some albums, which she claimed were, you know, largely fictional. In this album,
[00:59:24] Jeff: and the poor, and the poor three candidates who it is not about when she doesn’t say what it’s about. They’re like, I don’t think this is Travis Kelce. He’s like, everything’s fine.
[00:59:32] Christina: In this case though, there’s really no question. The majority of the songs are about Maddie Healy from the 1975, who she was in a relationship with for like, a month. Um, but apparently, based on the text, uh, and by this case I mean, you know, the, the, the lyrics and whatnot, that’s how I’m referring to the text, the text implies they’d been, Well, we all knew that they fucked in 2014.
[00:59:55] Christina: We all knew that. But it seems they probably were [01:00:00] texting and friendly and like, had a flirtation while she was still with this other guy. Um, and then by the time she broke up with that guy and she got together with Mattie Healy, like, he, like, Went full on where he was like, oh, I’m so into you. I love you.
[01:00:13] Christina: This is great and whatnot And then he just kind of got canceled while he was with her. She didn’t care Uh, what she says as much like literally in the lyrics. She’s like fuck all of you fans who are telling me uh who to date like there’s a line where she says, you know, like, um, uh, like, uh My name is mine to destroy or something like that.
[01:00:32] Christina: Um, I need to, I need to find it. Um, uh, but, but, uh, um, the, the, the lyrics on this, um, some of them, uh, probably like the New York Times says she needs an editor. That’s, that’s not wrong at the same time.
[01:00:45] Jeff: It also means nothing coming
[01:00:47] Christina: true, but also, I, I, I love that she didn’t have an editor because genuinely, like, I, this is, in some ways, what’s kind of remarkable, like I said, is she’s not being coy at all.
[01:00:59] Christina: Like, [01:01:00] everything is incredibly, incredibly, um, like, transparent about, like, what this stuff is about. And, um, She just goes off, like she admits she was like, you know, like, um, I, I, you know, made me want to die. Like I, I, I wanted to, to kill myself because, uh, like for, you know, because of what you did to me.
[01:01:21] Christina: Like, it’s just like, it’s, it’s a lot. It’s, it’s really, Really, um, I love it for, for just that alone.
[01:01:32] Jeff: a question it raises for me. If you, if you inspire two hours of hateful verses, are you still a muse? Do muses, do muses, is that, does that count as a muse? Like, could he say like, I’m her muse? I am right now her muse.
[01:01:49] Brett: I believe, I believe the
[01:01:50] Christina: Okay, this, this is, this, this, this was the lyric I wanted to say. I’ll tell you something right now. I’d rather burn my whole life down than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning. [01:02:00] I’ll tell you something about my good name. It’s mine alone to disgrace. I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in empath’s clothing. And then she does, she has a song that is very clearly about Mattie Healy called, um, uh, The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, which is the angriest song she’s ever put out. Like it’s, it’s way worse than Dear John, which I didn’t think was possible. Um, let me just find this. Were you sent by someone who wanted me dead?
[01:02:30] Christina: Did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed? Were you writing a book? Were you a sleeper cell spy? In 50 years, will this all be declassified? And you’ll confess why you did it and I’ll say good riddance. Because it wasn’t sexy once it wasn’t forbidden. I would have died for your sins, instead I just died inside.
[01:02:47] Christina: And you deserve prison, but you won’t get time. You’ll slide into inboxes and slip through the bars. You crashed my party in your rental car. You said nor Yeah, you said normal girls were [01:03:00] boring and you were gone by the morning, you kicked out the stage lights, but you’re still performing, but, but like I would have died for your sins instead I just died inside and you just, and you deserve prison, but you won’t get time.
[01:03:13] Christina: Like holy fucking shit.
[01:03:15] Jeff: Jeez. Uh, what is the great Nico Case line, The next time you say forever I will punch you in your face? I feel like we’re in that
[01:03:25] Christina: completely are. Like, it’s just, it’s like, it is basically, we all thought it was going to be, fuck Joe Alwyn, the album. No, it’s not. Like, he, I think, gets two tracks and it’s relatively private as their relationship was. And most of this is just, she got taken for a ride. She even says in one of the things, like, I, you know, I should have seen this coming, you know, I should have known better.
[01:03:50] Christina: But like, girl went through it and then just decided. Yeah, fuck it. Again, rather than go to therapy, I’m just going to release a two hour and five minute album and get [01:04:00] it all out on main and make no pretenses about who this is about. Like, I have no idea how she’s going to, like, incorporate some of this into her tour.
[01:04:07] Brett: So, what, what do you think the album about Travis will be like?
[01:04:13] Christina: So he did get,
[01:04:16] Brett: I mean, he’s obviously gonna hurt her.
[01:04:17] Christina: probably going to get hurt him
[01:04:19] Brett: she seems to
[01:04:20] Jeff: sports metaphors are so, so
[01:04:23] Christina: and her, okay, and she already has a few. So she has a song about him called So High School, which is sort of sweet, but the lyrics are not some of the best. Um,
[01:04:34] Jeff: It’s a warning shot to him, it’s just like a
[01:04:36] Christina: no, it’s not. It’s not. It’s a sweet.
[01:04:38] Jeff: I don’t even hate you
[01:04:39] Christina: no, it’s a sweet song. Here’s the thing. I think Travis Kelce, I think she’s gonna hurt him. Uh, I, I think that, I think he’s gonna be a Taylor Lautner who gets like a, a, a back to December style song.
[01:04:49] Christina: Cause the thing is, she, she has terrible taste in men. She likes assholes. She really, really likes assholes.
[01:04:55] Brett: I didn’t, I thought, I thought you would fight me on that if I said it. [01:05:00] Um, like, just, it seems to me, like, I don’t know anything about Travis. Kelsey, is it?
[01:05:07] Jeff: Oh, I saw him drunk after the Super Bowl. The second you saw him drunk at that, like, trophy ceremony, I was like, Oh, this guy’s a fucking problem.
[01:05:15] Brett: But I know from her history that she chooses It’s almost like she chooses guys she will eventually write songs about. Um,
[01:05:25] Christina: she’s just attracted to a certain type of guy, like, Who, I, you know, is probably not gonna be into her the same way that they’re, you know, that she’s into them, to be honest. This is kind of how I read it. But anyway, like,
[01:05:40] Jeff: it, could it be that she’s a super intense partner?
[01:05:42] Brett: ha
[01:05:43] Christina: is my point. This is my point. I think you’re absolutely right. I think that she’s a whole fucking lot.
[01:05:47] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:05:48] Christina: like on, on this, on this album. So one of the, one of my favorite tracks on the album is the second track is the title track, The Tortured Poets Department. And it’s kind of, you know, thinking about like talking about kind [01:06:00] of like the early days of their relationship and whatnot.
[01:06:02] Christina: And, um, but also a little bit I think kind of written like after it was over. Um, and um, The Bridge is really great. Um, sometimes I wonder if you’re going to screw this up with me, but you told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave. And I had said that to Jack about you so I felt seen. Everyone we know understands why it’s meant to be.
[01:06:23] Christina: Because we’re crazy.
[01:06:26] Jeff: she get ahold of my
[01:06:27] Christina: Right? Totally. Totally. Like,
[01:06:31] Jeff: That’s mine.
[01:06:31] Christina: totally, you know, but like, but even put that out there that it’s like, no, no, no, I felt seen, because I too would kill myself without you, and you’re like, oh my god, girl, girl, chill, but also thank you for not, like, thank you so much for never going to therapy, thank you so much for giving us this very public dissection of a relationship that the public hated, and she basically tells them, we hate you, or not, not that we hate you, but I hate you for
[01:06:55] Jeff: she goes, if she goes to therapy, if she goes to therapy, it’s going to be like Bob Dylan’s [01:07:00] Evangelical
[01:07:00] Christina: fuck no. Yeah, Taylor, stay away. Never go to therapy. Never do it.
[01:07:04] Brett: I, I don’t know. I don’t, like, listening to that stuff, all I can think is, she could solve this with a little therapy, with a little internal work, like, and that, that makes it hard for me to listen to it when all I can think of is
[01:07:21] Christina: No, and you’re not wrong. Um, and, and that might not be for you. I think that, like, sonically, like, some of the, I think, again, I think you would actually like the album because you liked Folklore and Evermore, and Aaron Desner does a lot of the tracks. Um, I would say the back half especially is, is gonna be more your bag.
[01:07:36] Christina: Um, although I do like some of the Jack Antonoff songs. Um, There is this song that she has called I Can Do It With a Broken Heart that is kind of upbeat, but it’s, um, it’s going to become a, it’s, if they release a single, it’s going to be a hit. We’re all going to hear it everywhere. But, um, I relate to it very, very much.
[01:07:53] Christina: Like, the, the whole conceit of the song is that she’s listening to stuff inside her ear as she’s performing on the heiress [01:08:00] tour. And the whole thing is, is basically, like, I can do my job, I can do this whole Taylor Swift thing, even when I’m suffering, even when, like, I’m in pain, even when I want to die.
[01:08:09] Christina: Okay. I can still make it look like everything is fine. And, um, like the, the, the pre chorus, uh, is, um, um, like, uh, cause I’m a real tough kid. I can handle my shit. They said, baby, you got to fake it till you make it. And I did. Lights, camera, bitch, smile, even when you want to die. He said he’d love me for all his life.
[01:08:32] Christina: Um, and, and then, um, it goes on from there, but then the chorus is, I’m so depressed. I act like it’s my birthday. Every day. I’m so obsessed with him, but he avoids me. Like the plague. I cry a lot, but I am so productive. It’s an art. You know you’re good when you can even do it with a broken heart. And I, as,
[01:08:52] Jeff: I was really hoping fart
[01:08:53] Christina: right?
[01:08:54] Christina: That would have been great. That would have been good. But no, I pers
[01:08:58] Jeff: could, she could pull that
[01:08:59] Christina: [01:09:00] But I personally, like, as somebody who is incredibly good at appearing fine when I’m absolutely not, I’m like, oh no, this is going to be like my new, like, Go to, like, before you go do something and you feel like you want to die song.
[01:09:13] Christina: Um, not healthy.
[01:09:15] Jeff: Yeah. I’m sorry. Actually, I’m sorry. I stepped on that. Cause you were landing the thing that you’re saying is like, you’re
[01:09:21] Christina: I, I,
[01:09:22] Jeff: fart in there, which is,
[01:09:24] Christina: no, but, like, you’ve been taking, like, broken heart part. Like, no, but, like, but, like, the, the line, like, I, I, I’m so depressed that I act like it’s my birthday every day. I’m like, that’s That’s so, that’s so relatable. But yeah, no, I mean, but I, I hear you, Brett. She could solve so many things with therapy, but I’m personally glad for the art that she doesn’t.
[01:09:43] Christina: Um, also she has enough resources. Well, I mean, I have a feeling the reason she probably doesn’t have a therapist is she’s like, can I trust anyone? And it’s like, girl, just pay someone a million dollars a year to be your therapist and your therapist only.
[01:09:58] Brett: I mean, to be [01:10:00] honest, putting out the song she puts out is therapeutic on its own. And I have a feeling, I have a feeling she works through a lot of problems. It’s just that she goes and repeats them.
[01:10:15] Christina: that’s the thing, right? I mean, and she even says, like, she said, I think, so the final song is called, um, on this very long album, it’s called The Manuscript, and it’s actually a great song. Um, and, and one of the, um, the, the final things is, um, um, The only thing that’s left is the manuscript.
[01:10:35] Reflecting on Artistic Ownership and Evolution
[01:10:35] Christina: One last souvenir from my trip to your sh uh, from my trip to your shoes.
[01:10:40] Christina: Now and then I reread the manuscript, but the story isn’t mine anymore. And like, that’s kind of like what she’s always said, is that like, the songs start out as hers, and then when she performs them and puts them into the world, they become everyone else’s. And then other people can interpret them.
[01:10:54] The Emotional Journey of Taylor Swift’s Performances
[01:10:54] Christina: So I think you’re right, like she works through this stuff and like, you know, she used to, she used to cry performing All [01:11:00] Too Well live, like during the Red Tour.
[01:11:02] Christina: Now she does a 10 minute version of that like every night and like the entire crowd screams this very, very sad, like torturing, amazing, like her best song ever, Far and Away. I think the, the five minute version is better than the 10 minute, but regardless, like it’s her best work. And like the whole crowd literally screams for 10 minutes.
[01:11:21] Christina: Every single lyric, and like, everybody in the audience is feeling it, and it’s an amazing experience. But like, at this point, there’s no way she thinks about Jake Gyllenhaal when she sings that, right? Like, she’s, you know, thinking about the audience, and
[01:11:33] Brett: Yeah.
[01:11:34] Christina: it’s not her song anymore.
[01:11:34] Brett: not
[01:11:35] Christina: And everybody relates to it so much because it’s like this perfect, perfect, perfect song about like, being 21 and having your heart broken, like, devastatingly for the first time.
[01:11:44] Anticipating Future Performances and Album Tours
[01:11:44] Christina: Um, but, um, it will be interesting to see how she performs these. It’s too long, she couldn’t do a tour just to this album. It’s also too depressing, and it’s too angry, but I’m curious to see like, what song she does perform. [01:12:00] You know, if she brings this set into the Ares Tour, I have a feeling she will. But, um, yeah.
[01:12:06] Christina: I do feel like she
[01:12:08] Jeff: All the lights go out and it’s just a single red
[01:12:09] Christina: Yeah, I mean, or just like, because again, like the anger in some of these songs is just like, so, like, stark.
[01:12:17] Critiquing and Appreciating Taylor Swift’s Anger in Music
[01:12:17] Christina: Like, there’s another song called, like, Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me, where she goes after her, her favorite, um, villain, where, well, she does her favorite thing where she’s Taylor Swift the victim.
[01:12:25] Christina: I’m rolling my eyes, but, but it is what she does. Um, and then she goes after the media. Which is like, okay, I get it, but also, you know, but I, but I love her, but I love her, but she, she, it’s this fucking angry. It’s so angry. And it’s like, it’s, it’s, again, it’s, it’s unhinged. Um, it’s, it’s great. So I, anyway, I, I’ve talked enough about this.
[01:12:51] Personal Recommendations and Creating Playlists
[01:12:51] Christina: I do actually think, um, you’ll, you’ll like, uh, especially like if you listen, like I say, like track, like, uh, uh, [01:13:00] 9 through, like, 24, Brett, I think. Um, no, the whole, because the whole thing is 31 songs, so if you just go, like, Or, I might, I might even just, I might even, like, make you a playlist, like, of songs I think Brett will like.
[01:13:15] Jeff: Oh, yeah.
[01:13:16] Brett: Okay. I would
[01:13:17] Christina: I’ll, I’ll do that too.
[01:13:18] Brett: I’ll do it. I’ll do it.
[01:13:21] Jeff: Awesome.
[01:13:22] Transition to Tech Talk: Introducing Conductor
[01:13:22] Brett: Do we have time for Graptitude or does everyone need to get going?
[01:13:26] Jeff: I’m okay, but I
[01:13:27] Christina: No, go on, go
[01:13:27] Jeff: Oh, go ahead, Christina. Do you have time? Uh, I would love Brett for just a quick bit on Conductor, before we
[01:13:33] Brett: Oh, sure. I’d love to.
[01:13:36] Deep Dive into Conductor’s Features and Capabilities
[01:13:36] Brett: Um, I published a project on Thursday. Um, that is, so my, my app Mark, which is for previewing Markdown files and it updates every time you save, et cetera, et cetera. Um, it has the ability to handle custom processors. Um, and. That makes it possible to, instead of it’s [01:14:00] built in, uh, it has multi markdown and discount built in.
[01:14:04] Brett: But if you wanted to use, say, Pandoc or Cramdown, you can do that with the custom
[01:14:09] Jeff: Wait, has that always been true with the Pandoc thing? Or is that That’s not what, uh, Conductor Fuck me. Okay.
[01:14:14] Brett: So, so, um, like you’ve always been able to specify one custom preprocessor that happens before the Markdown conversion, where you can like mock, like, for example, Wikilinks, you could turn Wikilinks into links back to whatever application you’re creating them in. And then the processor, which would Markdown or.
[01:14:39] Brett: Whatever, ASCII doc, whatever you needed into HTML. Um, but you were only allowed one. And if you wanted multiples, you would have to keep changing your custom pre slash processor. So I built this thing called conductor, which serves as. You just set your custom processor to [01:15:00] conductor and then with a yaml file you can create conditions like text contains this string, or text contains this regex, or extension is this, or path contains this, it even has tree contains which Uh, you can use to search for the existence of a subdirectory or file in any, any parent directory of the current file, which for like, for testing, if you’re in an Obsidian vault, Obsidian puts a dot Obsidian folder in the root of the vault.
[01:15:33] Brett: So if you put tree contains dot Obsidian, it will find that in the, in any parent directory, no matter, No matter how many subdirectories deep you are, it’ll find the obsidian directory and let you know that you’re in an obsidian vault. And then I recently did a pull request side note, um, that got accepted to a Full on Obsidian to Marked [01:16:00] preprocessor.
[01:16:01] Brett: Um, and now it can create like links. Uh, it can turn your wiki links into links back to Obsidian documents and it can handle tags and everything. So anyway, Conductor makes it easy to branch. It’s a train conductor. The idea is like a train conductor, uh, and, and the, they’re called tracks and you can set up tracks and you can nest tracks and you can use Booleans and you can create basically a hundred different processors based on.
[01:16:33] Brett: The content that Mark is loading. Um, and it will, it will always use the correct processor if you write your predicates well. Um, and yeah, uh, it solves, like I’ve always meant to add like a whole Xcode style, multiple, you know, Processors with predicates and everything, but I get bogged down every time every time I try to implement it So this [01:17:00] is this is my alternative and you don’t have to know Scripting you could just have if this file exists in this folder then run it Through Pandoc with these arguments.
[01:17:12] Brett: Or if this file contains YAML that has comments are true, then run it through Cramdown. Um, you don’t have to write a single script. All you have to do is edit a YAML in natural language. So that’s
[01:17:26] Christina: That’s so cool.
[01:17:27] Exploring the Potential of Custom Processors and Community Contributions
[01:17:27] Christina: So do you have like in, in your repo anywhere, do you have any place, um, where either you have any like set, you know, uh, YAML files or where other people can have their own to contribute?
[01:17:39] Brett: Yeah. I, not yet. Um, I am publishing, I will be publishing my, uh, my tracks. yaml file, uh, in the repo. Um, I’m still kind of refining it, like. I, my, I had a custom processor for Mark that forked on all of these different, [01:18:00] because Mark sets environment variables for like extension and stuff. So my very long Custom processor forked on at least 10 different, um, uh, kind of criteria and ran different processors.
[01:18:15] Brett: So right now I’m splitting that up and like, I have, I have like, if it’s, if it’s a readme. md file, Run GitHub, pre-processor and then run GitHub processor. If it’s from Bear run this processor, if it’s from obsidian, run this process. So I’m, I’m building that out right now, and once I have it finished, I will publish it.
[01:18:37] Brett: And all of the pre and post pros processor scripts, um, it’s, I don’t have like a plugin architecture built, so it doesn’t make sense to have
[01:18:46] Christina: No, that makes sense. That makes sense. But yeah, I was just.
[01:18:48] Brett: But, but I, I, I will make a directory. People can pull requests, uh, anything
[01:18:53] Christina: awesome. Yeah, I know. Cause I was just thinking, I was like, cause I’ve always, um, I knew about the custom processor part of Marked. I never [01:19:00] used it in part because, um, of what you said, like you can only kind of have one and, and it’d be one of those things like, okay, well then I got to have to like maintain all these things, you know, and it’s just like, okay, I’m in more, most, and the thing is, is that in most cases, um, what you have built in is, is fine.
[01:19:19] Christina: So, um, Like, unless it was kind of like a very specific one off thing, uh, like, I don’t think I’ve ever touched it. Um, but this having like, basically having variables that can say, okay, if it has this or, or whatnot, then, you know, it, it’ll depend, like, cause that would be great. Cause like, for me, Like a, a frequent thing is like, I obviously, um, write a lot of things for GitHub and, and, you know, in GitHub flavor markdown, but I also write things that aren’t necessarily going to be published in that style.
[01:19:47] Christina: And so that can have like different rules and whatnot. And so, yeah, like, like you said, like having like their read me thing, like that’s, that’s awesome. This is so smart.
[01:19:56] Brett: Yeah, I, I think I’ve added, I think I’ve added all the [01:20:00] criteria that you could possibly need to determine whether you were working on a GitHub flavored markdown file for work, or whether you were writing for your blog, for instance. Um, And I think it’s super natural language now, you don’t have to know how to script at all.
[01:20:17] Brett: Um, and you can install it as a gem, you just run gem install mark conductor and then, uh, set it up as a custom processor. And I think it’s, I think it will be useful to scripters and non scripters alike.
[01:20:35] Jeff: I’m super distracted by two things. One is that you just fucked my afternoon. And the other one is that going back to even something that’s existed, which is the ability to use Pandoc because it wasn’t like named in there. And I never really needed it. I only actually just started. My need for that came up two weeks ago and it wouldn’t have occurred to me to try to figure out how to, you know, have Mark
[01:20:55] Brett: Yeah, one of the, one of the most common things I deal with in [01:21:00] Mark support is people who want to use Pandoc with bibliography and
[01:21:04] Christina: was going to say that would make sense.
[01:21:05] Brett: Um, which, which is possible. Like you could always do that with Mark and I’ve worked with a lot of people to make that, uh, function. This will make that process like you could have multiple citations and bibliographies depending on what project you’re working on.
[01:21:24] Christina: No, that’s great. No, and that’s so cool too.
[01:21:26] Jeff: Brett Terpstra strikes again!
[01:21:28] Christina: really cool. Um, and it obviously has like a, a niche kind of, uh, audience, but we are all part of that niche. And like I said, like once you have that repo where people can do PRs or whatever, like I think that’s where we’ll become really useful so that like people can just be like, okay, I can install this if I need to make some modifications I can.
[01:21:46] Christina: Um, but it’ll automatically determine,
[01:21:50] Brett: So with stuff like this, like I would love for people to contribute, but it’s stuff like this is tends to be so, uh, personalized and not generalized. [01:22:00] Um, I, I have built, like I have a repo for sharing, um, custom styles from art. I have repos for, um, doing plugins and they get actually very little usage because everyone is designing things that they don’t think.
[01:22:19] Brett: Everybody needs. And, and that’s like, for me, like, as, as I got into development, uh, starting in like the year 2000, um, I started learning how to take something that was a hack to, to make something work for me. And through the process of mood blast, actually, I learned how to make personal things generally useful.
[01:22:46] Brett: Um,
[01:22:46] Jeff: What the hell is
[01:22:47] The Evolution of Brett Terpstra’s Developer Journey
[01:22:47] Christina: Oh, move last was his, that was OG Brett. No, no, tell him, tell him.
[01:22:52] Brett: Yeah, that’s, that’s my, that’s my developer origin story. I wrote a,
[01:22:57] Jeff: what, I didn’t come online with you until about [01:23:00] 2008. BADAM!
[01:23:02] Brett: app in like, uh, Cocoa and Apple script that could update Facebook and Jaiku and, Twitter, and Addium, and like all of the places you would have a social status at the time. Uh, and, and like half the things that could update are gone now, but, uh, there were a total of 12 different services at its peak that it could update with.
[01:23:31] Brett: You could just type in your status and, uh, And hit a button and it would update everything all at once. And
[01:23:40] Jeff: looks amazing! It makes me so sad for the way that landscape has changed.
[01:23:45] Brett: to, to avoid like repeating yourself, there were all this, there was all this like syntax you could use that would be like, post this to Twitter and post this to Jaiku.
[01:23:55] Jeff: Things we Things we know without knowing about the features of something you’ve created.[01:24:00]
[01:24:01] Brett: and, um, and that got picked up by David Chartier
[01:24:06] Jeff: Yeah, I was just running into that. There’s a lot of Ars Technica stuff around, like, version 2 and 3.
[01:24:11] Brett: Yep. And, and he got me my job writing for 2AW and Mood Blast got me into, uh, publicly releasing software. And it was absolutely my origin
[01:24:24] Jeff: I love it, and I can’t believe it’s totally alien to
[01:24:28] Christina: it was great. Yeah. Cause, cause, um, cause I was already at two, uh, um, but I hadn’t been there very long when Brett joined and, um, but yeah, I knew, um, uh, uh, Mood Blast cause I think 2. 0 would just come out when you, uh, or
[01:24:43] Brett: Well, David, David wrote about like, Every
[01:24:46] Jeff: Yeah, it really
[01:24:47] Brett: I would get a, I would get a two hour article. And every time I published an update, my blog readership, like my traffic would go up and like, it just kept growing. And so I just kept updating cause I had that [01:25:00] like positive feedback loop going
[01:25:02] Christina: it was great. It was great. I wish that, okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna take us on a detour. I do have gratitude picks, but like, I know that the way that the Twitter API now works means that there wouldn’t be easy ways to do this. Do you think there would be a way to trick something through like, I don’t know, with some sort of, Um, uh, like screen, uh, background, like, kind of process to automate something like this, like, where you could potentially, like, launch in the background, like, a browser window and go into, you know, a, um, the, the status box and enter in the text and, and do something like that, like, do you think there’s any way, I’m not saying you, but I’m saying, like, someone in general could, could create something like that, because I, I, I wish that I had something like this for threads and Twitter and Mastodon.
[01:25:49] Brett: yeah. Yeah, well, Threads has always promised to implement,
[01:25:54] Christina: Yeah, yeah,
[01:25:56] Brett: uh, Pub, uh, whatever,
[01:25:58] Christina: are, they are syndicating now.[01:26:00]
[01:26:00] Brett: um, Twitter, it, are
[01:26:04] Christina: on.
[01:26:05] Brett: Okay, Twitter, Twitter’s a black box, um, I, I don’t know if it would be feasible to do, like, a scripted, um, Like Chrome browser that would do it. I, I don’t know, it would be so much hackery to be fair.
[01:26:22] Brett: Like at the time Mood Blast
[01:26:24] Christina: Right, right, yeah.
[01:26:25] Brett: didn’t have an API. Um, and, and it did really hacky curl calls, uh, to kind of like, I hacked, I hacked their submit forms in a way that would let me post, um, now they have a public API, but you can only use it for pages. Or, um, I think it’s only for pages actually.
[01:26:50] Brett: And, and Instagram, Instagram only allows posting if you have like, uh, business account, business level account. And all of these [01:27:00] APIs are pretty closed off to the average user, um, in a way that makes it even more difficult than it
[01:27:07] Christina: Yes. Yeah. No, I, well,
[01:27:08] Brett: era. Um, I would think, I would think if it were possible,
[01:27:13] Christina: mean, so I don’t know. Cause I, the reason I ask is, so I use this, um, I use this NPM extension called, um, um, SnapTweet, which will basically take like a screenshot of your, um, uh, tweets. Um, and so what you do is it’s a CLI tool and, um, you enter in, uh, like, you know, SnapDashTweet and put in, um, uh, The URL, um, I actually probably should submit a pull request to, uh, include the x.
[01:27:45] Christina: com URLs because right now it’s set up to do, um, it for Twitter. And then what it does behind the scenes, and it’s worked for a long time and he hasn’t updated it in, in years. So it’s, it’s still working is that it basically, you know, launches like a, a puppeteer instance because you already have to [01:28:00] have Chrome installed.
[01:28:01] Christina: Um, and then basically, um, we’ll. You know, select in the CSS things, you know, kind of like in the background very quickly. Okay, I’m going to, I’m going to capture, um, this, uh, bit of, of logic and then style it in some ways. And you can, you know, um, with various parameters, you can set it to like, make the width, uh, different and you can make it dark mode or light mode or whatever.
[01:28:23] Christina: And then you can also choose like if you, uh, want to do multiple at once and you can even do threads. It’s, it’s very cool. It’s a very, very cool tool. Um, and, and I’ve used it for, um, a long time, um, but like, I’m thinking, okay, if you can do something like that, in theory, and I don’t know, and again, I’m not asking you to do this, but I’m just kind of thinking out loud, like, there might be a thing where, if you already had a, a cookie, Installed or whatever, where you might be able to, you know, uh, program in, okay, this is where the, the tweet box is, and this is where the, the send thing is.
[01:28:55] Christina: And so I can go ahead and just, you know, programmatically put in the text and then [01:29:00] send,
[01:29:00] Brett: Have we,
[01:29:01] Christina: it out. I
[01:29:03] Brett: we, uh, remind me, have we talked about CurlyQ? So, I have a side project, another side project called CurlyQ.
[01:29:15] Christina: yeah. We have talked
[01:29:16] Brett: web scraping
[01:29:17] Christina: tell us more.
[01:29:18] Brett: Um, yeah. And, well, in a recent update, I added JavaScript execution
[01:29:25] Christina: that’s what it’s using. It’s not using puppeteer. It’s using Selenium. Sorry. Go on.
[01:29:28] Brett: So, Yeah, so you can target like a CSS query selector and execute JavaScript on the page, um, from a curly queue call. Um, I don’t know.
[01:29:44] Brett: I mean, it’s, it’s just a, it’s a layer above Selenium. So, yeah, I, I’d be curious. Can you, can, will, will Twitter handle, A JavaScript submission. I feel like [01:30:00] if they knew what they were doing, they would deny that
[01:30:03] Christina: Totally. However, I also don’t think they have a lot of people who are like, like, who are watching, right? Cause that’s, that’s the thing, like, cause, cause the snap tweet thing, right? Like, and obviously I know it’s different and that’s a much easier thing to do, but it makes me think, but there are some other tools, like, I can’t think of the name of it right now, but there’s like an archive, I think it’s archive box.
[01:30:22] Christina: There are some tools that still, even without the API things can scrape tons of tweets and even get like the, you know, the, the text from them and whatnot and, and do it like. Fairly well. And I think that it’s one of those things that’s like, it obviously goes against what Elon is trying to accomplish when he cut off the API, but I also think he just doesn’t fucking know what he’s doing.
[01:30:45] Brett: wait, hold up one sec. Wasn’t the, they closed the API.
[01:30:50] Christina: Well, they limited aspects of it, but then, but you, but you could still do things. So for instance, you could still have like, you know, Twitterific could work. And the thing is, is that if you were an [01:31:00] individual, like, like, and if you were an individual, You could sign up for one and you could build like, you could have built something like Mood Blast and you could have said okay, as a user you need to enter in your own API key, right?
[01:31:13] Christina: You know, you would say I’m not going to do this but you as a user can enter in your own API key, I’ll show you how to set up an app, whatever, fine. Um, When they removed, when they started adding kind of restrictions on that and were like, no, you can only do like a thousand calls or a hundred calls or whatever it is, you know, for, for the lowest tier, like that kind of kill back.
[01:31:29] Christina: Cause there was like a cross posting tool for Mastodon on Twitter that, that, um, lived in, it was even a web hosted, uh, there was a hosted version and I even like self hosted my own and I looked at like, well, what would it take to like. Continue to maintain this and people just didn’t want to, um, continue doing it, which is fair.
[01:31:46] Christina: Um, but, um, that was what he did is he, he changed it from, okay, like anybody can, you know, still create these things and have like a, a valid free tier to know. Now the minimum amount of money you’d have to spend [01:32:00] would be like a hundred dollars to do anything basically. And, uh, if you wanted to, you know, do something even for the public, um, to be more like.
[01:32:10] Christina: It’s going to cost you, you know, enterprise money. So,
[01:32:16] Brett: speaking of APIs, did you know that Google has a search API now? Like this was something that was always missing in all of the old, like my, the text, the text mate, uh, The blogging bundle, the blogs, no, it actually used Google, but it would scrape the page for the results and Google made that impossible.
[01:32:42] Brett: But I just discovered while working on SearchLink, another one of my projects, um, that Google has an API and I’m doing the thing you said where people, if they want to use my Google integration with SearchLink, which typically uses, um, [01:33:00] Uh, duck, duck go. Um, if you wanna use the Google integration, you have to get your own API key.
[01:33:06] Brett: Uh, but if you enter an API key in the config, it can do an actual, like legit API Google search, um, which avoids like paid, uh, or you can avoid, uh, like sponsored links and everything. Um, which is
[01:33:25] Christina: think I actually,
[01:33:26] Brett: It’s tits as like as the
[01:33:28] Christina: I actually did know this only because, so I’ve used We’ve talked about it before. I think it was one of my picks of the week or maybe it was yours Brett, but like, um, because it’s on, um, a setup. It’s called TypingMind. And it’s like, uh, uh, uh, OpenAI or another model kind of front end for stuff.
[01:33:45] Christina: And they have extensions now. And one of the extensions is like a web search type of thing or like web scraping thing. And to get that working, you have to set up an API, um, thing in your Google account, [01:34:00] which, um, I went through the process of doing and like, I hadn’t known that like that was going to be, um, yeah, plugins is what they’re called.
[01:34:07] Christina: Yeah. So they have like a, um, a web search thing. And to get that working, you need a search API key. And I went and I, I created that and it turned out that I already had something for some reason. So I guess I did know this, but I didn’t. Um, and, but they, they do the same thing that you were talking about where they’re like, this plugin allows the AI assistant to search for information from the internet in real time using Google search, search API key needed.
[01:34:28] Christina: So I did know this, but I only learned this like a month ago.
[01:34:35] Brett: Nice. Um, okay.
[01:34:41] Jeff: Great.
[01:34:42] Brett: I think we’re done. I think we’re done with my
[01:34:44] Jeff: Gravitude, Lightning Round.
[01:34:46] Brett: Yeah.
[01:34:46] Jeff: All right. You only say like three sentences or something. I’m just kidding. You can do whatever you need to do. I can’t say three sentences about anything. That was not a real,
[01:34:59] Brett: All right. I can [01:35:00] start, I can make it, I can make it real fucking short.
[01:35:02] Graptitude Picks: From Tech Tools to Music Apps
[01:35:02] Brett: Um, I’m going to pick Textra, um, which I don’t think I’ve picked before, but I, uh, I have a, such a short memory, but it’s a command line utility written in Swift, uh, that interfaces with. Mac OS’s built in OCR and transcription capabilities.
[01:35:25] Brett: And, uh, you can basically run Textra on any image and it will spit out the Like ASCII text for whatever text exists in that image. And it is real damn good, um, for something that’s, you know, just built into the operating system, uh, but gives you command line access and it can also like trans, uh, transcribe like MP3s.
[01:35:53] Brett: Um, it doesn’t do as good a job with MP3s as like Whisper. Does, um, but it [01:36:00] does a perfectly passable job. And I use Textra every time I publish a DIMMspiration, Textra generates alt tags for the DIMMspirations automatically. And it is, I would say 90 percent accurate, uh, depending on what font I use. If I use a crazy font or I like make it like slightly invisible at the background, um, which I am want to do.
[01:36:25] Brett: But, uh, Uh, it will do an amazing job of, of picking up the text and writing my alt tags for me. It’s free. It’s free. Even if it sucks on some stuff, it’s, it’s, it’s worth checking out.
[01:36:43] Jeff: I played with that a long time ago. And also on the GitHub repo page, their example is, is using it on the Mueller report, is like, made me feel old. All of a sudden also made me check the change log. [01:37:00] It’s like, um, Well, I can go quick. Mine is this, I actually just changed it to this because of our conversation is texts, uh, which is a app that like, it’s
[01:37:10] Christina: it is ADM. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:37:13] Jeff: Audium, how’d you say?
[01:37:13] Jeff: Yeah. It’s like, I, I’ve got my, I’ve got all my messages from LinkedIn, Twitter, uh, Instagram, WhatsApp, and you can do Apple messages. It makes me a little nervous. Um, you can do signal. Yeah, but you can, I don’t know. I don’t understand. I heard about this from,
[01:37:30] Christina: Um, there, there’s some ways. Yes, it was.
[01:37:33] Brett: that’s what Beeper was doing
[01:37:34] Jeff: and they got whooshed.
[01:37:35] Christina: was the old model was doing exactly what text. com does. And then for they, they started doing something a little bit different for their, um, uh, Android version. Um, when, when the kid reverse engineered the thing is slightly different.
[01:37:49] Christina: Um, and interestingly, Automatic who owns text. com bought Beeper and, and, and Eric,
[01:37:56] Jeff: Bought the yeah, yeah.
[01:37:57] Christina: running the whole [01:38:00] thing. So he’s going to be like text and Beeper basically are eventually going to merge.
[01:38:06] Brett: Okay.
[01:38:07] Jeff: and it’s amazing because, I mean, like, come on, the LinkedIn messages, like, I don’t want to see them really, but I also don’t want to miss the one or two that I wanted to see.
[01:38:16] Brett: I, I check, I check LinkedIn like once a month and, and there will be messages that I missed a month ago, um, that are no longer relevant and would have been nice to see in the moment. Uh, but I never remembered to check
[01:38:32] Jeff: I also would have missed this one from Instagram. Hi, I’m Hannah, a girl who believes in fate and the soulmate whom I have been seeking for years, but I didn’t get to meet the right person yet, sad emoji. So I have been thinking this would be fun to send a message. To you, like spinning a wheel of fortune and telling you, I mean, I missed that.
[01:38:46] Jeff: Damn it. It came in like two weeks ago. She’s found someone by now. Uh, and also the second I loaded all this stuff in, I had all of my messages going back 17 years for these services. And, uh, and, and it’s, [01:39:00] it’s.
[01:39:00] Brett: the search?
[01:39:01] Jeff: I haven’t even tried the search because I just needed to make sure I didn’t miss people. Hold on.
[01:39:05] Jeff: Let’s
[01:39:05] Brett: I would be, I would be, it would be infinitely useful if you could search all of those platforms at the same time with any kind of accuracy.
[01:39:18] Jeff: It’s interesting. I have to play with it more. I’m doing it right now. Um, but yeah, so anyway, it’s great. And even the kind of cute thing is even through change logs, they become their own inbox message in the midst of all this stuff. So along with Riley, who’s looking for a soulmate, I’ve got, um, their latest, uh, you know, change log message.
[01:39:34] Jeff: So anyway, it’s super cool and you can add signal and stuff, but again, I don’t really understand, well, Brett, you just
[01:39:41] Christina: your, uh,
[01:39:41] Jeff: old VCR. Error. Video.
[01:39:44] Christina: That’s very, very
[01:39:45] Jeff: That was amazing.
[01:39:47] Brett: I look fine to me, so I don’t know what you guys are
[01:39:50] Christina: Um, yeah, no, um, uh, I haven’t used text. com, but I have used beeper for years and it’s the same, well, and it’s soon going to literally become the same thing. So plus one on this, um, [01:40:00] some of the services, uh, uh, the way at least beeper worked, I don’t know if text is the same as that it was using matrix under the hood.
[01:40:06] Christina: And so there were some bridges that people made and that’s how signal and other stuff worked. Um, uh, a lot of that stuff is, was, um, Open sourced, and um, uh, I expect that with Automatic being the, the joint owner, um, those things will continue to be, assuming they’re open, will be open. Um, okay, so, but yeah, no, great stuff, and like, I miss ADM every day.
[01:40:28] Christina: And I miss OpenAPI’s every day.
[01:40:30] Jeff: Oh my god. I missed that cute little frickin, uh, oh god, adorable. That one, if you had that in Cyberduck open, it was like,
[01:40:38] Brett: right?
[01:40:39] Jeff: like
[01:40:39] Christina: It really
[01:40:39] Jeff: at a Scottish Fold
[01:40:40] Christina: was. Okay, so, so, no, no, you’re great. So my pick, so I was bitching on Threads, which is a terrible platform, I should add. Threads is, Threads is the worst. It’s normies.
[01:40:50] Brett: Agreed.
[01:40:51] Christina: It’s terrible. It’s normies. So you see like two day old hot takes and like others.
[01:40:56] Christina: People are like, well, you just, I, I, I, I don’t see two day old stuff. You’re just not using [01:41:00] enough this and that. I’m like, fuck you, honestly. Um, you have people who’ve never grown up on the internet who then just like, you know, Feel like they should just be responding to, to Rando’s comments and I’m like, this isn’t Twitter and you weren’t raised here and you don’t know the culture and you’re just being dicks for no reason.
[01:41:15] Christina: Case in point, I was Sorry, go on.
[01:41:17] Brett: Can I? Oh, I was just going to interject. The thing that kills me about Threads is I don’t see the people I follow. It just shows me queer people looking for followers because apparently it’s pegged me as a queer person and all it shows me are people I’ve never heard of, never followed, and,
[01:41:40] Christina: No, I agree. The following
[01:41:43] Brett: no
[01:41:43] Christina: tap on the thing so that you can see like your following thing, like that’s better, but it’s still, but it defaults every single time to, um, to their attempt to, you know, be TikTok, but they’re not as good as TikTok. And also it’s not real time like Twitter is, like even Twitter’s For You page, like it’s, it’s, [01:42:00] It might not be the latest thing, but it’s more relevant.
[01:42:02] Christina: Like, Threads, literally, it’s two day old shit that you see. Um, it sucks. Threads, Threads is, is not a great place. But I, but, but, I will say this, uh, the one good thing about Threads is I was I was harassed by a bunch of dickheads who were defending Apple Music, um, on the Mac. Uh, because I, I, look, and I didn’t even say what I really wanted to say.
[01:42:24] Christina: What I really wanted to say is that Apple Music for Mac is an abortion of an application. Um, that, that could be a show title. Um, uh, it probably shouldn’t be, but, but that is actually what I wanted to say.
[01:42:35] Jeff: But we have
[01:42:36] Christina: But Apple Music for Mac is genuinely one of the worst applications that exists on the planet.
[01:42:41] Christina: It is a bad application. It makes a mid range service that has good audio quality. Look, I, I, I pay for Apple Music and I use it on, um, my phone, but it’s, it’s terrible on the Mac. Like it is literally, it is fucking awful, especially if you have a decent library size. So, um, Somebody was asking, well, if I want a [01:43:00] local music playback, like what should I use?
[01:43:02] Christina: And I had like, um, a couple of suggestions that I was going to give them. And then somebody, I, um, I did some research. I was like, is there anything I’m missing? And I came across an app that I think I checked out a while ago, but I hadn’t checked out in a long call, a long time. It’s called Swensian. And it is basically what iTunes was.
[01:43:20] Christina: Before the Apple Music integration, but more modernized and also plays back FLAC and, um, and other types of, you know, files that iTunes never did.
[01:43:30] Jeff: Cause Jesus
[01:43:31] Christina: and so it’s, it’s 25 as a one time purchase. If you download the version that’s on their website, that’s like a version 2, it, it doesn’t have dark mode support, but if you then press the option key and do check for updates, you can get the beta, um, of version 3, which is updated fairly frequently and like the most recent version I think came out like a couple of weeks ago.
[01:43:51] Christina: Um, and that supports dark mode and stuff. It is still a Rosetta app, um, but I haven’t noticed any performance things. So, you know, if you’re a purist for some [01:44:00] reason, like I’m just pointing that out, but it’s, it’s really good. Like if you’re somebody who wants a local music playback for whatever reason, because maybe you’re like me.
[01:44:08] Jeff: Flack. I
[01:44:09] Christina: that’s what I, that’s what I want. Cause I have, I’m not joking. I have like 80 something gigabytes of, of downloaded, like FLAC files. And so, and I would like to get a Rune, but Exactly. Exactly. And I, and I would like to get a rune or something, but that, that’s expensive. It’s 15 a month. And I might do that eventually, but I’m, but I’m not there yet.
[01:44:27] Christina: So in this circumstance, I’m like, okay, actually, um, this is, this is a good, a good thing. So, so Swensian is, is my, um, Graftitude.
[01:44:39] Jeff: Awesome.
[01:44:40] Brett: Yeah, I’m gonna check that out.
[01:44:42] Jeff: ruin.
[01:44:44] Brett: I don’t have, as, I don’t have nearly as many local files as you do. I rely mostly on
[01:44:49] Christina: but I like having, I’m a
[01:44:51] Brett: I, I’m still having, I’m still having that, I’m still having that problem. I, on my Mac, where Spotify, if [01:45:00] I play songs with Spotify on my Mac every 10 seconds, the playback cuts out
[01:45:07] Jeff: Oh yeah! I’ve been having that problem too.
[01:45:08] Brett: I, I am, I am not the only
[01:45:10] Jeff: the problem on my hump pod.
[01:45:12] Brett: I’ve been on the forums and Like a bunch and Spotify has like no response to this. Um, it is apparently pretty common, so I can’t use, but what I can do is with my whole loopback setup and everything, I can just, I will stream from my phone or I can have Alexa, sorry, shut up, Alexa. Um, I can have her play.
[01:45:39] Brett: Um, using Spotify and it pipes through my computer. And then once a song is playing, Spotify has such good sync between platforms. I can use the desktop app to fast forward and rewind, but the playback is actually coming from my.
[01:45:56] Jeff: And the mere fact that that Rube Goldberg bullshit setup [01:46:00] is what you have to do proves Christina’s initial point. Cause this should be really
[01:46:04] Christina: Yeah, well, he’s using Spotify, but still, yeah. But
[01:46:08] Jeff: I know, no I know, but I do that
[01:46:10] Christina: No, no, you’re not wrong. Right? You
[01:46:12] Jeff: Apple Music. I go through all this weird shit.
[01:46:14] Christina: It is such hot garbage that I’m like, do I wanna launch this on my Mac? Fuck no. Are you kidding me? Somebody was like, I’ve never had any problems. And I have a really large library.
[01:46:22] Christina: I have 12,000 tracks and, and dozens of playlists. And I was like, that’s what I
[01:46:27] Jeff: Sit down, child.
[01:46:28] Christina: dozens of
[01:46:29] Jeff: Dozens of playlists? Jesus Christ, how old are you?
[01:46:32] Christina: files. And I was like, I was like, that’s cute. I was like. I had more than that on my iPod 20 years ago.
[01:46:42] Jeff: I had dozens of quote unquote playlists by the time I was
[01:46:46] Christina: to me, I was just, I was like, okay, right. But I was like, congratulations. I was like, that’s not a large library. Oh, I think it’s a large library. It’s actually not. Um, and people were like, well, well, how do you listen to 100, 000 tracks? I’m like, you don’t. But if the whole idea is you [01:47:00] can be a music library, then let me have a fucking music library.
[01:47:03] Christina: Don’t make me have to go through.
[01:47:05] Jeff: Also, it’s called being a music fan, Sonny Boy Williamson.
[01:47:10] Christina: the,
[01:47:10] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Can I just say my, my new favorite kind of playlist is I go back on that,
[01:47:16] Christina: yeah, yeah, setlist,
[01:47:17] Jeff: database site is, which I’m forgetting right now. Yeah. Setlist. And I make playlists that are the songs
[01:47:23] Christina: there, there are a couple of apps, there are a couple of apps that actually will do that for iOS, yeah, they
[01:47:29] Jeff: Oh yeah. Cause they have an API and they’ll, yeah, yeah. That’s right. That’s right.
[01:47:32] Christina: no, totally, I, I used to do it artisanally, but like, when I realized that there was actually like, iOS apps, I
[01:47:38] Jeff: No, but why? Yeah.
[01:47:40] Christina: so,
[01:47:42] Jeff: Yeah, for sure. That’s great. Thanks for that tip. Awesome.
[01:47:47] Brett: All right. Wow. We did another two
[01:47:49] Jeff: Yeah, but we did it without a guest, and, and with a very contained
[01:47:54] Christina: and we hadn’t had an episode in like, a month, so,
[01:47:58] Jeff: Yeah, it was a lot. The pipes were [01:48:00] clogged.
[01:48:01] Brett: Bring it on. All right. Thanks you
[01:48:04] Jeff: Thank you. Get some sleep.
[01:48:06] Brett: Get some sleep.
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