Overtired 274

[00:00:00] Christina: You are listening to overtired. I am here today with a I’m Christina Warren, by the way. Uh, and, uh, I’m here. Hey, Hey, Brett. Um, so this is, uh, is our second, uh, episode that we’re doing with, uh, Jeff Severns and we’re so excited. We had such a great time talking with him, um, for both the last episode and, and, and our episode last week that we had to continue this conversation.

[00:00:29] So Jeff, Brett, how are you both

[00:00:32] Jeff: good?

[00:00:33] Brett: I am good. Jeff. So your, your last name is hyphenated, right?

[00:00:38] Jeff: Yeah, without a hyphen. I

[00:00:39] Brett: Without it’s like two,

[00:00:41] Christina: see, and I, and I miss the Jeff Severns console. I’m sorry. I only saw the first half of that. I’m.

[00:00:45] Brett: totally fine. I’ve just always wondered. Which one of those is your birth name?

[00:00:50] Jeff: Uh, Gunzel and, and the weird thing is like, I often get emails addressed to Steven that are definitely, to me, they’re from people that I’ve like just met or something. And I don’t know [00:01:00] if they see the Severns and they decide I’m Steven. That’s totally what it is. Is it? Yeah, it’s so weird.

[00:01:05] Brett: I called you Stephen for years. Let’s talk about Jeff for a second. Jeff, who are you?

[00:01:11] Jeff: Um, I, I, I, uh, let’s start with the most immediate, um, sitting in my home office in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Um, I was a reporter for about 25 years or so, um, and then switched to something. I call investigative research. So I focus right now on the juvenile justice system in, uh, one particular county in the U S and am working to develop ways to see inside the system so that you can see.

[00:01:43] No, what questions to ask the premise being that there’s so much sort of opaqueness in the, in the juvenile justice system. Of course, that’s really important in many ways and for many reasons, but that when you start doing a work of an investigative nature, the first thing you realize [00:02:00] very, very quickly is that that opaqueness is also protecting people who are doing harm to kids in the system.

[00:02:08] And, and unlike, you know, if you’re covering adult prison or something, that’s still can be hard or people or adults in the criminal justice system, it could still be difficult, but like there’s a lot, there are a lot more inroads. There are a lot more windows to peer through to kind of understand, you know, what’s going on here.

[00:02:23] What might be patterns of harm here and with the juvenile justice system, it’s just so difficult. And so I, I work with some programmers and I, I work with some qualitative data people and, and our work is, is sort of. Part of our work is sort of, um, focused on creating tools for seeing into the system that can be used, um, more broadly than just in one county

[00:02:45] Brett: If you want a, if you want a more in-depth look at what Jeff does. Uh, he was on one of the last episodes of systematic before. Possibly permanent [00:03:00] hiatus, maybe. I don’t know. But, uh, back in June of 2021, he was on episode 2 60, 1 of systematic. And we talked about, uh, his investigative research and his 20 years of journalism and definitely worth checking out.

[00:03:16] Jeff: and Brett Brett, does that work with me now a little bit, which is really amazing.

[00:03:20] Brett: I help with automation, which is, you know, my way, it’s my way. Like we’ve often talked about Ella and I talk about how, uh, when, when push comes to shove, we, we have very specific roles we can play in, in a crisis. And like, I’m not great at any kind of like, I don’t show up for a protest in the street, but I will 100% be the guy that like goes in buys, um, materials, uh, gallons of milk and like hands them out.

[00:03:55] Like that’s, I’m, I’m a, I’m a behind the scenes guy. And if I can help with [00:04:00] automation in an important project, like what Jeff is doing, I’m happy.

[00:04:04] Jeff: Well, and now it’s, it’s more than just automation. Like certainly that’s what you do. And that’s, you know, what you do really incredibly, but it’s, it’s about, um, just as we’re creating a model for being able to look into the system, we’re also trying to create essentially a tool set so that doesn’t require a staff of five to try to do something and especially so that when you’re doing work, that is really trauma facing.

[00:04:27] Right. And a lot of people that do trauma facing work. Uh, kind of out of their own trauma, right. That can actually get in the way of your productivity. And so what Brett helps so much with is just making sure, Hey, there’s some important steps you have to take every time you interview somebody with every kind of data you bring in, whatever.

[00:04:45] And, and this tool is going to make sure that you do it right without having to really think about it too hard, because we can all get so paralyzed by like, oh crap, I have to take these six tedious steps. So it is automation and it is automation for the reason that people do automation. But, [00:05:00] but I also, I think it’s bigger than that in breaths really like created, um, some spaciousness for me doing the work with some of the way that he, um, builds tools.

[00:05:10] So, and that was true. That was, and that was true before we should finish that shit. And that was true before, uh, we worked together. That was it’s using your stuff forever. So anyway,

[00:05:18] Brett: Um, all right. So last episode, we’re going to have a mental health corner. After I promise these two, we could talk about the real-world, which is not going to involve me much at all. Um, but you too, I’ll let you.

[00:05:33] do your own lead-in and everything. Let’s get back to pop culture for a sec.

[00:05:39] Christina: Yes. Okay. So I kind of wanted to close out like our, we talked all about the nineties last episode, but what we didn’t get into when we both wanted to, as Jeff put this on our list and I was very excited because I know that Brett doesn’t care, but I do. And I feel like I’m the only one who does, um, it’s in my mind, one of the most important television shows of the nineties was the real [00:06:00] world.

[00:06:00] And, uh, for. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for so many horses. And, uh, and, and, uh, I, uh, they brought it back last year. They now had two seasons and a third one’s coming aware. Uh, basically last year it took place like during the pandemic. Um, they rented for a couple of weeks, the original loft that the first season of the real world in New York state and back when no one knew what it was going to be.

[00:06:28] And they got the, all of the original cast members back together, except for Eric niece who was stuck in a hotel because he had COVID. Um, and, uh, It was a very interesting reunion in a very interesting kind of documentary project of like bringing these people who changed television kind of back together, uh, you know, 30 years later.

[00:06:47] Um, and, uh, and then they redid, uh, Los Angeles has a true stowaway, uh, season.

[00:06:54] Jeff: I’m doing season two.

[00:06:55] Christina: Aren’t I, when I do that, yeah, she was the LA. And then, uh, I think the next one’s going to [00:07:00] be, uh, from like, uh, one of the more popular areas. Like it was. A completely different show at that point. What was new Orleans?

[00:07:06] So, anyway, let’s talk about this. Jeff, have, have you been watching them? Which one have you watched, or have you watched them

[00:07:11] Jeff: both? I’m particularly interested in, um, the New York, uh, group. Um, and what happened was I watched the first, probably 15 minutes of the first episode and realized that I really wanted to go revisit the original, which for me, I watched in real time, I was absolutely fixated.

[00:07:32] I, I, there, you know, I, it was that I was at an age, like, what was it like 92, I think. Right. Um, so I was going to graduate, well, I didn’t graduate, but I was supposed to graduate from high school in a year. And, um, and I was. Really wondering, constantly circling. What does it mean to be an adult out in the world?

[00:07:51] What does it mean to be out there? What does it look like? How did people talk to each other? Like, I was a pretty, like, I had a group of friends, which was my band for most of my time in high school, but I [00:08:00] was really, I really kept to myself. I just, you know, one of those kids that didn’t feel like I related to anybody.

[00:08:05] And so I just kept to myself and had this like really intense, like life in my mind. And, and I just felt like this whole minimum security prison thing called the high school. Like the second I get out, I’m just going to live a real life. And this for me was like the was like such an interesting window.

[00:08:25] You know, as overly produced and sort of dishonest as, uh, as a reality TV show can be, we now know, right. It doesn’t matter because what I did see, just what I got was more, it was less about is this interaction true? And it was more about what that person is saying right now, or how they’re expressing that emotion and how these people are handing things to handling things like racial tension and sexual attention and everything.

[00:08:47] Like, I didn’t have anybody modeling that for me. I mean, I just, I lived, I was an only child and live with my mom and like, so for me it was. It was huge and it just made me want to be an adult so goddamn bad. And [00:09:00] sometimes that made me want to be an adult so bad because I was like, ah, I wouldn’t have had that problem in there.

[00:09:04] Christina: Totally, totally. Or you’re like, I want to hang out with Julia and

[00:09:08] Jeff: Julie’s almost exactly a year older than me. And so, so she, this that really felt close,

[00:09:14] Christina: you know? Right, right. Um, so, so for, for, for listeners who might not be aware, so the first season of the real world, and I actually think that in terms of homecoming, it is far and away, like the two seasons that it did have errors as far as it is definitely the better of the two that the second one, which makes sense, um, is much more like more of the traditional kind of reality thing we’ve known, which also makes sense.

[00:09:35] But what was so interesting about the first season of the real world was that they didn’t, no one knew what they were getting into and no one knew what they were doing. So even though there are production elements to it, and it’s not a true verite documentary thing, it is much, much closer to that. Then what happened.

[00:09:52] Even the next season, because at that point it had been on television and people understood what the reach could be and what the potential could be and started to [00:10:00] change how they acted. Whereas with the first season, no one knew that it was going to become this phenomenon and that MTV would re aired over and over and over and over and over again, you know, I was like seven and I watched it all the time and, and I would watch, I don’t know if I watched it in real time or if I started watching it that the second year, but I definitely saw the first season and definitely have seen every episode of probably the first, you know, five or six seasons probably actually going all the way through.

[00:10:25] I don’t know. Seattle. I, I washed a lot too. I mean, and I, I watched the, the one subsequent to that, but like, there was an error in my life, especially when I was like in elementary and middle school where I would just spend my weekends just watching MTV and watching world marathons. So I’ve seen some of these episodes, like, it feels like hundreds of times it hasn’t been bad, but it feels like I’ve seen these episodes like so many times.

[00:10:48] Oh, sorry. No, no, no. I was just going to say though, but what’s so interesting about that first season is that no one knew. And so I think that what you see with it, especially like from that your perspective of you being that perfect [00:11:00] age for the audience was you got to kind of see these possibilities and these different interactions and conversations that just weren’t happening on telephone.

[00:11:09] Jeff: Yeah. Like not at all. And also like I am I correct that this is considered like what’s considered like the first reality TV show

[00:11:16] Christina: is. Okay. So the first one would be, there was one in the seventies that was like a PBS thing, kind of like the family, but this is honestly like the birth of it as we know it.

[00:11:25] Yeah. I thought

[00:11:26] Jeff: because I had never seen anything like that. And all I did was watch TV. I mean, like I watched six to 10 hours a night after school every day. And like, I imagined that if, if I had to sell this to somebody, why would you go back and watch this right now? Right? Like. You would watch it because it’s the only opportunity you have to watch a reality TV show where no one, including the producers knew what a reality TV show.

[00:11:50] Christina: Right, right, right. Because, because I think up until then, so, so the very first one, the one that most people point to, I think there’ve been some other things was there was a PBS series in 1973 [00:12:00] called an American family. And, um, and then there was like, um, like kind of a UK version that kind of came from that, but that’s PBS.

[00:12:10] Right. And that’s definitely done as like more of a documentary style thing. Whereas the real world was. You know, they had like the music, because it was MTV. They had music rights to be able to use all the, like the best music of that era, like in the, in the quick cuts. And, and you had, you know, the, the, you know, confessional footage and you had like other stuff, you know, and it was just, I don’t know, stylistically, it’s just very different from anything that we’d seen until then.

[00:12:38] And at that point, even though like MTB had a distinct style, like that was to my knowledge, I think they’d had some game shows, but that was like, MTV’s first. Into, like there was MTV news, but in, into programming.

[00:12:52] Jeff: Yeah, totally. And like I, so I started watching MTV the year it came out and I remember in like [00:13:00] 1984, my brother and I had this game where the credits for the video would come on.

[00:13:06] I think two seconds after the Vizio video started maybe four and you would see the name of the artist, the song, the album director, all this stuff. And we had this game where we had to try to get all of those credits out of our mouth before it came on. And like, it was so about music and so about that.

[00:13:23] And, and like, knowing who’s doing what videos and you know, what album that’s from, like it was this, it was this awesome enhancement for, for fans. Like all of a sudden you had a little more data to take in and you were a little more consistently exposed to it. And so I loved it just for music forever and ever, and ever, like, I still have VHS recordings of most of the video music awards from

[00:13:44] Christina: those days.

[00:13:44] Right? Oh yeah. Yeah, no, they were huge. And, and I mean, that’s another thing too, you know, 92, like that the, the show comes out and like, No one who was in it knew that it was going to become this phenomenon. And you know, it, it starts airing not long after they, um, um, stopped filming. [00:14:00] I think they might’ve even had them like doing some of the photo shoot stuff at the very last things they were, you know, um, like episodes and then it, it becomes just this, this phenomenon.

[00:14:10] And they wind up at the, at the VMs and are like bigger stars in some cases than, you know, the, the actual musicians. And that makes the homecoming thing, I think really interesting because you see all of them reunited and where they are in their lives and how they’re still grappling in some cases with, with what happened, you know, 30 years previous.

[00:14:30] And like,

[00:14:31] Jeff: I got to thinking about, you know, cause like any reality TV show, there are all these sort of blow ups and there are some like legitimate, like sort of really difficult conversations that happen. We don’t really know how they were handled because it’s edited. Right. But we know that, like we know that there were real tears.

[00:14:46] We know that there was real screaming and we know that that was the tears and the screaming were coming from people who had no idea what reality TV was or how it would look how, and when it cared. And so I was thinking a lot about, so like I’m again, like, I mean, [00:15:00] Exactly. You’re younger than, than Julie, who I think was the

[00:15:02] Christina: youngest.

[00:15:03] She was the youngest and she was sort of the, the protagonist, like, I mean, they were all kind of, you know, in that thing, but like, she was the one who I have to think that when they found her like the casting people, cause it was a casting process and most of the people were, were artists and she was a dancer.

[00:15:15] But I have to think that when they found her that the, even, even if you’re new to the genre of television in that genre was brand new. But even if you’re like new to that, like you see someone like her. And I would just think even from like a documentary perspective, like you would just light up.

[00:15:30] Jeff: Holy shit.

[00:15:31] Totally. Yeah. And like, so then she comes out of, I think Birmingham, she had never left and she goes to New York and, and like, you could, you could feel that, you know what I mean? Like as a white kid in the suburbs, like I could feel that totally.

[00:15:44] Christina: And in what was, and what was interesting about her is that, and this is different than when they would kind of do the fish out of water thing.

[00:15:49] The other stuff is that it would be easy to put her in a boat of, okay, well, she’s just like, uh, uh, you know, a hillbilly, you know, whatever, but, but she, she was [00:16:00] really open to new experiences and, and, and obviously, you know, the most famous thing from that season was, is the, the fight between her and Kevin Powell, um, about, about race who’s black, uh, about race.

[00:16:13] And they deal with that a lot in, in the, the homecoming show. Um, but even like, If you go back and watch the rest of the series, which I know you’re doing, like, it is interesting to see, you know, she hadn’t been exposed to a lot of these other things and certainly she was wrong in that argument. Although I think that, you know, you have to put it with the perspective of like she’s 19 years old and, you know, didn’t realize, you know, all these things would wind up, you know, living on forever.

[00:16:37] Um, but, but she wasn’t like this minded person. Right. Which, which, which I think made it, which I’m not sure if they knew right. We tried, which I think made it that much more interesting for the audience, because she was in many cases, the, the stand-in for the audience at home of the suburban white kids who were watching this.

[00:16:55] And most of us, I mean, I was, I certainly had never been exposed to [00:17:00] people like Kevin or Norman, you know, were, are, or, or even, you know, um, uh, Eric, you know what I mean? Like there were just people like you, you didn’t know that, that. Supermodel remodel. Exactly. MTV’s Eric. Nice. Uh, from the grind. Um, yeah, like you didn’t know, you know, these types of people and, um, and she didn’t really seem to shy away from that.

[00:17:22] Like, she actually understood that when she went anywhere, the cameras would follow her. Like went in like wanted to highlight homelessness because she’s. savvy actually. Yeah,

[00:17:34] Jeff: totally. And, and like I was thinking about, I was so as I watched the really just like the beginning, like the montage beginning, where they kind of juxtapose now, and then, and everything I was realizing like, man, I, again, they’re, they’re in this brand new situation because they, they all have, they all have like, uh, let’s just say, I mean, there’s no doubt, gotta be some level of traumas from that experience, whether it’s related to celebrity [00:18:00] related to things that actually happened in that loft or whatever it is.

[00:18:02] Right. And then they all went their separate ways. And like, I know that for me, um, there are people from high school that like, uh, you know, I could probably imagine somebody saying you should get together and work this out with them. I wouldn’t want to do it again in the cafeteria all these years later.

[00:18:20] But I think for them, I can’t imagine there’s any other way they can. Reconnect and reconcile and whatever they need to do to put, to put some of those things, you know, properly away in the drawer for the rest of their life. How do they do it without going back into the

[00:18:34] Christina: exactly. Exactly. No, I mean, and we’ll stop here because I know bread is, is, is dying, but

[00:18:39] Brett: even get to talking about the homecoming yet?

[00:18:42] Jeff: well, no, cause we are,

[00:18:43] Christina: cause that’s what we talking about.

[00:18:44] Like

[00:18:44] Brett: Okay. Like I know I left. I just got back. I’m just checking

[00:18:48] Christina: We’re we’re we’re but, but, but, but I was going to say like, um, and, and if you need to cut this down, you can bread, but like, um, w what.

[00:18:56] Brett: edit.

[00:18:57] Christina: What watch watch the homecoming. Jeff, I [00:19:00] think you’ll really like it. It’s very interesting to see how everyone is turned out.

[00:19:03] And it’s very interesting to see what people didn’t evolve in, in ways that you, that you thought they might. Um, uh, I will just do a spoiler because I think it’s very cool, like, especially because, and they do focus a lot on, um, um, uh, you know, uh, Kevin and Julie’s fight and they deal with that like very head-on, um, and in both of their traumas from that, you know, and, and, and she, you know, had, um, had a very different like, uh, perspective, but like, what she does now is she works with like getting, um, you know, um, lower income and, and disadvantage, like, like kids in, like, she works with them, getting them into colleges and stuff, and, and, um, and her daughter is like, who’s, you know, like 17 years old is like a massive, like, like civil rights activist and.

[00:19:49] You know, so, and Kevin was right. Everything that he said in that argument, people weren’t ready to hear in 92. And I think he, he gets his comeuppance not come up, but like he gets his, his credit. He gets [00:20:00] his dues for that because he was correct. Um, and, but, but it is interesting to see, like you see who’s evolved and who hasn’t.

[00:20:07] And, um, and, and it’s really, really interesting, but I, but I think, uh, because she was the protagonist of the, of the show, it is interesting, like to, I still really like her a lot and it, and it’s kind of heartwarming in a sense to kind of see like, How her life has, has changed in how she’s evolved and in it.

[00:20:26] And it makes you hope, you know, because again, she was kind of like the, the standard for the audience. Um, and this is too helpful, but like you think like, okay, well maybe the audiences has evolved and changed and grown to in that.

[00:20:38] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and just one last thing, what you just said, something that’s really important, which is that like, in that, without recapping the conversation or the, the really the like argument and discourse that Kevin and Julie were having, like, he was fucking right.

[00:20:52] And also what I, what I, and I was coming at it, you know, I spent a good chunk of my childhood and I half black half white household. And so, like, [00:21:00] I was feeling some of that in that sense too, but I was definitely feeling Julie more than anything. Cause obviously I’m the white guy and I like, right. We have some programming.

[00:21:08] Um, but like what I didn’t realize until we were just talking is that that whole series, that whole season was shot over the time that, uh, Rodney king. So it’s like February to may and March Rodney king is beaten.

[00:21:20] Christina: And that was exactly.

[00:21:23] Jeff: Yeah. And here they are. And here they are just about, you know, I guess now a couple years past George Floyd’s murder, but it’s just interesting that there’s this kind of connection to those two events.

[00:21:33] I don’t remember the king. Uh, beading being brought up in that season.

[00:21:38] Christina: They, I don’t know if they brought it up or not. There are, there’s some footage in the homecoming thing where I think they show some stuff that wasn’t, um, filmed or it wasn’t shown on air where it is addressed. Um, and, and I know in, I know in the Los Angeles season, I think the trial happened and they talked about it, but you have to remember, I mean, this is what was weird.

[00:21:54] They, they wound up instituting different rules, but they initially, you know, like [00:22:00] later on you weren’t allowed to have television or anything. And so they, they did have TV then, you know, they were allowed to watch news and he came and went. Yeah. I mean, later on it became much more of a, like,

[00:22:10] Jeff: we don’t really want race coming in like

[00:22:12] Christina: this again.

[00:22:13] Well, it was more or less. We don’t really want, like, we, we want to control the complete, like, you know, narrative of all this stuff. And, and we want to, we’re making this a social experiment of as much, as much as anything else, you know what I mean? Um, so, um, I feel like, uh, but like, um, Yeah, they talk about that.

[00:22:31] And then they also talk about the George Floyd stuff. So I think, I think you’ll like it, and now we, now we can be, we can be done.

[00:22:37] Jeff: I can’t wait. Thank you.

[00:22:38] Brett: you.

[00:22:38] know what I need a doctor after all that. Um,

[00:22:41] Jeff: W what kind of doctor?

[00:22:43] Brett: I’ll tell you, what kind of doctor?

[00:22:44] Christina do you want to tell us about Zoc doc

[00:22:47] Jeff: I definitely

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[00:24:27] Brett: Ah,

[00:24:27] Christina: you see, we see what they did. They they’re.

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[00:24:49] Brett: it’s so easy.

[00:24:52] Christina: It is all right,

[00:24:54] Jeff: so it’s easy.

[00:24:56] Clean Installs and Mental Health

[00:24:56] Brett: so so Jeff added like Jeff put, [00:25:00] pitched a bunch of really good ideas for, um, this, this episode. Well, the last episode, but we kind of screwed them on less episode and just talked about the nineties.

[00:25:10] the whole time, but one of his topics, and I will read this verbatim your mental health ain’t right. Colon one Mac users, early warning system.

[00:25:20] And I feel like that’s a perfect way to get in our mental health corner because for everyone else it’s been a week, but for us, like literally nothing in our mental health has changed because it’s, we just hit a mental health corner an hour ago.

[00:25:35] Christina: Exactly. So, so, so yeah. Yeah. So Jeff, tell us about your system.

[00:25:39] Jeff: Um, okay. So this here’s, here’s what this is about. Um, I, I have this, this problem and it’s like sort of an addiction or something and it’s, it’s addictive behavior. I cleaned install my Mac operating system and everything else. Sometimes multiple times a year.[00:26:00]

[00:26:00] And I have long been a little bit ashamed of that because I lose a lot of time. And I recently was kind of like reassessing my general behavior in light of my mental health and some recent diagnoses. And, and I realized that if I’m clean, installing my Mac or even thinking about it, I am on the verge of.

[00:26:26] Imbalanced mental health. And, and I’m trying to, I’m trying to gain some sort of control over what feels very chaotic. And so for me, the work I do, uh, involves so much context shifting so much context, shifting that everything can just feel so scattered. And if you, if you ma, if I match that feeling of feeling scattered with a feeling of just being desperate, to have some sense of control over my, my kind of work-life my, you know what I mean?

[00:26:58] I, what I will do [00:27:00] is, and I’m not saying this makes sense, again, this is a mental health, like it’s a, it’s a warning, right? Is I will completely clean install. I love a fresh install. And then I will just consider all of my apps again and bring them in. And then I will, you know, decide what notes to bring in.

[00:27:17] And what this has done actually is horrible because it’s created for me a digital archive of. Oh, it’s awful. It’s such a mess. Like I have some times, you know, if you figure that I’m like throwing everything onto an external drive, right. Or I’m, I’m pulling a cloud backup down when I like clean, you know, completely erase the computer.

[00:27:36] Like if I don’t finish that process, which I never fully finished a clean install, then I’ve just, I’m like going to end up with basically like duplicate documents. Right? So like, if my, if my envy alt now envy ultra archive is like in several folders and I don’t bring them all in. Some they’re going to sit out there and then sometime they’re going to join up with some [00:28:00] duplicates when I do this again, and pretty soon, I’m going to have 60 copies of like one, one, you know, text document of meeting notes.

[00:28:07] This also, if this, if this hold on, if this all sounds crazy, it’s because it is. But what I just realized in this last week was that I can actually go back and look at the times that I’ve done a clean install and it actually matches up with times that I was not right in other ways in my, in my life. And so it’s not just, it’s clearly to me, not just that I need to get control of my work life.

[00:28:33] As I used to think, even though I knew it tended to create more chaos than it did calm, um, what it is in fact is something I can trust that if I am starting to think I want to do a clean install, I may need to find some spaciousness and figure out what’s going on with me inside.

[00:28:51] Brett: so multiple clean installs a year, and your system’s actually messier than if you hadn’t done it at all. Does that seem.

[00:28:59] Jeff: [00:29:00] Oh, yeah, way messier way messier. So, uh, so I mean like a pattern for me in my life. So first of all, when I was a kid, I moved like 36 times. Wow. And, and so part of what I, what I have traditionally kind of, um, attach this to, cause I’ll, I’ll do the same thing with like my office or something. Like I’ll just like pull everything up, undo all the cables, make a map and redo all the cables.

[00:29:25] And then if there’s something that, that feels comforting in doing that, and I have such distinct memories of like setting up my room in an apartment, building my posters, just right. Um, my, you know, my treasured, you know, items just right. Really loving the feeling in that room. And then in six months having to like take it all down and then move to a new room where it was a completely blank slate.

[00:29:50] That was frustrating as hell, but it also became something. I liked, it was like, cool, let’s start over. You know, I know I have friends and maybe one of you, or [00:30:00] both of you are like this. I have friends who still have their, their room from childhood. Exactly. As it was mine changed constantly. And, and I have a feeling that something was written into my brain from that experience, uh, repeated experience and it, and it sort of plays out in my adult life where, when I need to feel like I need to start over.

[00:30:21] Part of that is literally just cleaning every single. You know, and, and, and the really like, kind of really sad part about it is that it creates a lot of additional mess because redoing a computer system when you’re like a quote unquote power user, um, and especially the way I do it, which is I tend to want to kind of like build it all up from scratch.

[00:30:41] You can never finish that. Like you’re never going to get fully finished and what’s going to happen is someone’s going to need a document or they’re going to need you to do something. And you realize, oh, I haven’t linked those two things yet. And that’s the only reason I can’t answer this person right now.

[00:30:53] So I understand I’m describing something that’s very extreme. Right. But it makes me wonder for you all. Is there a [00:31:00] way in the way that you manage your computer or some other thing that’s kind of a non-traditional early warning system. Do you have those.

[00:31:10] Brett: for me, it’s my RSS feed like you and my GitHub commits. Well, okay. So maybe not as an early warning system, but as documentation of my, my bipolar episodes, like I can look at, you know, that graph that get hub gives you showing activity on a repository. I can look at my overall, get commits and see exactly where I was manic.

[00:31:37] Like it’s, it’s a perfect match. I can also, I have like, you know, sleep apps that tell me where I wasn’t sleeping too, but, uh, get commits and, and RSS feeds, I guess, really the early warning system is, am I making more than to get hub, like pushes to get in a day, then I might be manic. [00:32:00]

[00:32:01] Jeff: Wow.

[00:32:04] Christina: I hadn’t ever thought about this, but I have a feeling so like you, I, I don’t think it for me, the clean install thing is maybe like, uh, uh, uh, uh, um, I don’t know if it’s a early warning sign, although I do like to do it, if anything, sometimes it’s, it’s a way I kind of come out of stuff, but for me it is definitely, I don’t know if it’s computer wise.

[00:32:24] Um, I’m trying to think maybe, maybe if notes are disorganized or maybe again, like if I’m not, if I haven’t access that, that I’m usually actually. Frequently. If I looked at it, if I looked into the data, I bet that would probably tell me that that is like, Hey, this isn’t common, right? Like you’re not, you’re not using something that you usually use.

[00:32:42] And that means that you were depressed. Like I have a feeling you’re very common. And

[00:32:45] Jeff: do you mean when you say that, do you mean like a workflow you usually use or do you mean?

[00:32:50] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I mean like a workflow or even just nap. I like write like, but if there’s a workload like that is me, like when I’m in my kind of, you know, more like not depressed and like kind of [00:33:00] happy space versus actually, you know what I know exactly a great one.

[00:33:04] And, and right now, ironically, it is garbage, which is kind of accurate when my email is completely out of control. That is a sign that I’m depressed because I don’t want to go to my email. So I don’t want to look at what’s being sent to me. So it’s, it’s completely out of control. So when my, my email is never in a great place, but when it is one of those things where people send me messages and I just don’t see them, it is because I’m not opening it because I mentally can’t even go there.

[00:33:27] And so that to me,

[00:33:29] Brett: go ahead.

[00:33:31] Christina: No, I was going to say so, so that, that I think is a, is a big indicator for me when I’m depressed is it might, if people say, Hey, I sent you a, met a mail and I have no concept of it because I genuinely like cannot like mentally open

[00:33:45] Jeff and Christina: my

[00:33:45] Jeff: mail. There are other ways that you sort of disappear when you’re in that, that kind of depressive space

[00:33:51] Christina: or is that there definitely can be that’s that there definitely can be.

[00:33:54] I think email is one of the ones where I feel like I can almost like hide it [00:34:00] the best. Yeah. It makes sense. Yeah. Cause, cause for me, with my depression, I never want people to know I’m depressed. And then that’s a common thing with most people who are depressed. Like you don’t want

[00:34:07] Brett: That’s like a symptom of depression.

[00:34:09] Christina: Exactly.

[00:34:10] Like you don’t want anybody to know. And so you’re trying to keep on like the, like the, the big face of like, everything is okay. Um, but for me, I definitely, uh, there are things also like, like text conversations will be less, you know, I won’t comment with people as much and, and whatnot. So that is definitely a thing.

[00:34:24] But I think email, I hadn’t even thought about it until this conversation. I think when my email is neglected and where it’s that thing where I’m not even opening it. So it’s not even so much that I haven’t necessarily replied or what level, but I don’t even open it because I just don’t like, I, it just gives me anxiety and I just, you know, don’t feel like I can, that, that is definitely a

[00:34:41] Jeff: symptom.

[00:34:42] Yeah. Yeah. It’s so weird. Right? Cause like, I think we’re, we’re all saying is that to the extent that we share with anybody else, either in our life or in our wider community, that we’re depressed, our computer knows and it doesn’t know, it doesn’t know. Cause we’re opening up a text [00:35:00] file and journaling, it knows does have this or that.

[00:35:03] Yeah. I have long had this, this wondering that I don’t want to call it a theory because I think it’s, it’s a little too forward, but I’ve always had this wondering, you know, as I, as I’ve listened to the like power user community over the years, um, like how I would love to just have a way a language around assessing the connection of like mental health to the need, to do certain things, to have that kind of control.

[00:35:33] Like we all can easily say automations are to make things a little easier for us. We like being efficient. Maybe some people will say, oh, I’m OCD or whatever. And like the sort of lowercase OCD. Right. Um, but like when I hear people talk about, um, some of this stuff without ever talking about what happens when it all falls apart and why does it all fall apart?

[00:35:54] I always kind of just suspect I’m like, I feel like there’s a mental health conversation we’re not having. [00:36:00]

[00:36:00] Christina: Yeah, no, I think

[00:36:01] Jeff and Christina: you’re

[00:36:01] Jeff: right. Anyway anyway, but I’m so glad for that because it is, I mean, the thing about stuff, like what you do bread is that like, You know, like for instance, there’s a, there’s a bunch of file I use when I’m going to be updating my project’s website.

[00:36:16] And I am someone who just for my own like brain chemistry reasons. Like I struggled like how with context switching so much so that I can get completely paralyzed and like put off something that’s actually quite simple for quite a long time. But when I wrote a bunch file, You know, tells my computer to basically set up my three screens for, for working on the website.

[00:36:40] All of a sudden I was working on the website so much more, or like Brett laughs at me because on my, on my, um, Synology, despite the fact that I’ve used Alfred and Quicksilver before that, uh, my Synology, I have a whole page of just apps because something about my brain, there’s something that happens between I need to open one password and me opening one [00:37:00] password.

[00:37:00] And sometimes that small moment is just enough spaciousness for me to get distracted. And so like, if I can literally just press a physical button and launch it, I don’t lose track.

[00:37:12] Brett: Yeah. Yeah. Um, man. Okay. I’m only half tracking what’s going on right now. Um, so, so, okay. Here’s the story is we’re recording a marathon and at this point, as you’re listening to it, it was last week. Uh, we’re trying to make up for our disastrous loss of two and a half hours of golden footage, um, by recording all at once.

[00:37:40] But because the first half of this needs to come out on the same day it’s being recorded, I’m like editing and trying to podcast at the same time. And that’s

[00:37:49] Jeff: Totally

[00:37:50] Brett: total Dick move. Total Dick move. Like w what we’re talking about right now should be like what I’m most excited about, and I’m distracted and I’m sorry.

[00:37:59] Jeff: you’re just [00:38:00] the friend texting in the corner. Cause you’re not able to be quite there yet.

[00:38:03] Brett: Oh,

[00:38:03] Christina: Totally. Although I’m a friend, although I’m a friend who texts in the corner, but it’s also listening. Like I’m actively like, like ADHD. I have to explain to people I’m like, no, no, no. I know it looks like I am not paying attention to you.

[00:38:14] Trust me what I am doing, which seems so rude is actually how I’m able to pay attention to you. So,

[00:38:19] Jeff: yes,

[00:38:20] Brett: Right. The

[00:38:21] Jeff: like

[00:38:21] Brett: fidgeting.

[00:38:22] Christina: I have that conversation with people and people don’t believe me. No, I look, if I could take this away, I would. But even my, my psychiatrist is like, Nope, that’s actually a very good coping mechanism.

[00:38:32] Like, thank you. Right? Like, like, like I’m like, I will literally zone out and not be focused if I don’t have something else going on in my hind brain, but depressed. But Brett, this is a different thing. Like you’re trying to edit, you’re trying to actually do something. So the two of us

[00:38:46] could just go back to talking about the real world and you wouldn’t

[00:38:48] Jeff: know.

[00:38:49] I have no idea.

[00:38:51] Christina: Um,

[00:38:52] The Perfect Night Stand

[00:38:52] Christina: okay. You, you have some really good things here. I want to go into to one thing. Uh, is there such a thing as a perfect [00:39:00] nightstand? Talk to me about

[00:39:01] Jeff: this.

[00:39:03] Uh, okay. So like,

[00:39:06] Um, I have struggled to have a nightstand that I really appreciate and use, and I’m glad to sleep next to for a very long time.

[00:39:14] Like I flipped things out all the time and, and granted I’m part of the problem is I’m not willing to spend a lot of money and it’s not that I’m not willing. It’s that like,

[00:39:23] Christina: you know, if you don’t value the nightstand standards, like where you should be putting your

[00:39:27] Jeff: well, not even that, like, actually I would be happy to do that.

[00:39:31] If I didn’t have the guard rails of a partner, who’s more fiscally responsible, but like, I, for me, it’s like, I just don’t know if I can ever define the perfect nightstand and I want help with that because what I always do is I always just get a flat surface. So as an example, my nightstand right now is, is a, um, it’s a college, a V card from a dumpster.

[00:39:53] Um, Just the height of my bed and it’s like pink for Micah and I love it and it’s on fucking wheels. Right. And as [00:40:00] long as its own little outlet or whatever, but like at the end of the day, it’s just a surface to throw shit on. And the more I get old and I’m medicated, it’s like, literally looks like I’m in assisted living.

[00:40:10] It’s just like

[00:40:11] Christina: tissues. I was going to say, I was going to say, this is very far right. Because, because it’s got, it’s got the wheels and you can put your stuff on it. I hadn’t even thought about that. But I’m like, yeah, that is totally like assisted living. They’re like, yes, let me push, push the medicine card.

[00:40:24] And the thing with all the other. Totally. And

[00:40:27] Jeff: on top of that, it’s like, because it’s a college for Micah AAV thing, it’s institutional, right. Like I thought it was just adorable as shit when I got it. But, and it was more just, it was the perfect height, but like, what I don’t want to do is get like a S I mean, this is for lack of a better term, like a smart nightstand, where I’ve got like a wireless charger and, and stuff.

[00:40:47] That all would be nice, but I want one, that’s going to grow old with me. And so what the fuck do I need to be happy with it? So it’s not just collecting bullshit. The only thing I have an answer for is I know I needed to.[00:41:00]

[00:41:00] Christina: Right. I mean, I, look, I, why are you attracted to this caught topic? I don’t know, because I’d never thought about this topic and, and I don’t particularly like either of my nightstands. Um, but I now I’m like actually interested in like going to like CB two or, um, you know, something in like in like actually looking like I’m actually excited about, about potentially, potentially doing that.

[00:41:21] But like

[00:41:22] Jeff: what CBT is going to give you is welded quarter, inch or half inch steel, you know, square tubing frame, lightweight with like, uh, maybe a drawer and a top. I feel like the more I look, the more I realize, like you can either have really beautiful minimal, which is totally CB too. I love that place.

[00:41:40] Yeah. Or you can have like gimmicky. Like, you know, you know, here’s a place for your pen and your highlighter, you know? And it’s like, fuck, I just, I don’t know what I need, but I need something better.

[00:41:52] Brett: So.

[00:41:53] Jeff: I just want to lay down in bed and feel like I got what I need. And I’ll talk about a house person a second.

[00:41:58] Go ahead,

[00:41:58] Brett: I kept, I [00:42:00] kept jumping in with clever things to say over the last five minutes. And you guys kept like talking over me and I was really confused cause I check my mic and it was on somehow, somehow Skype muted, my mic. So like the weird thing is that shit’s going to show up because I’m recording

[00:42:19] my local Mike, Skype.

[00:42:23] So I’m going to have to go through and edit out all the parts where I tried to interrupt you guys and just got trampled on.

[00:42:31] Jeff: Is this all in the nightstand conversation?

[00:42:33] Brett: Well, okay. So how many drawers do you need in your nightstand? Is it just

[00:42:38] Jeff: ne I should not have more than one.

[00:42:41] Brett: Yeah, I feel the same way.

[00:42:43] Jeff: But it needs to be, it needs to be, you know, at least I’d say four to six inches deep,

[00:42:49] Brett: Yeah, like I need one drawer. That’s four books, uh, medications that I take at night, things like that. If there’s another drawer, [00:43:00] it’s basically just going to be sex toys Um, and well, and you you need a drawer for that. You do like that shit

[00:43:06] Christina: do you

[00:43:07] do I don’t know. I, it does. I don’t know. Like if it, I mean, it could be your nightstand, right? I think it just depends like on, on your, your layout, right? Yeah.

[00:43:14] Jeff: But now you’re definitely talking either one very big drawer where your sex toys and your books are mixed up, which is super fucking weird.

[00:43:20] Or you’re talking

[00:43:21] about two drawers.

[00:43:23] Brett: I currently

[00:43:24] Christina: yeah. I was gonna say,

[00:43:25] Brett: for every.

[00:43:26] Christina: yeah yeah See, I would, I would definitely be like, I think that if, if you’re not going to, if you’re not going to have the sex toys, like in a, um, like a Rubbermaid, like Ben, like under the bed or something, then you need to have like a separate drawer on the right.

[00:43:39] Jeff: Yeah, I think, yeah, you got to it’s like business and pleasure. You got to separate that shit unless it’s a mullet, but even there you’re separating

[00:43:46] Brett: Should you have a nice center in each set? Oh, share a bed with your partner?

[00:43:51] Is that too personal? A question. Um, so you each have your own nightstand?

[00:43:58] Yeah. Well [00:44:00] obviously she doesn’t have

[00:44:03] an AAV cart

[00:44:05] Jeff: I didn’t even think about that one. I said,

[00:44:08] Christina: yeah, I actually was curious about that too. I was like, do you have two of them? Like, is it one of those things? Like, we’re like, like, like your, your, your partner’s like really into like the, the, um, like kind of kitsch value to that now. Like it was kitsch when you got it and now you’re like, oh, now I’m now, now it makes it look like the old folks.

[00:44:23] So maybe,

[00:44:24] Jeff: yeah, no. So yes. I only have the one. Um, I only have the one nightstand to work. And, but can I tell you that a solution that I’m hoping is working me towards, it’s really an experiment that’s working me towards, what do I need at bed, which is something I call my house purse and it’s actually like, it’s, I’ll put a link in the show notes, but it’s, it’s made by Husky, which is like a brand that makes, you know, tools and whatnot at home Depot.

[00:44:51] And it’s like an open tool bag with like all of these. And this is where I feel like I’m such a fucking Tim Allen home-improvement asshole for even [00:45:00] having this as what I call my house purse, but it’s got like everything I would possibly need in it. And I always end up moving shit downstairs when I get up down to the basement, if I’m going to watch TV.

[00:45:11] So I’ve made, I can’t believe I’m making this public. I made a house purse, which I call it. My family can only refer to it by the house purse. And it has, let me just pull it out. Thanks for asking. Um, right now, Right now, what I’ve got in there is I’ve got my meds. I’ve got one. That’s just for trash. That’s key.

[00:45:30] Uh, I’ve got some cables in one. I’ve got different kinds of headphones. Cause you never know, you know how the spirit will move, you know, sex toys. I’ve got, uh, markers and pens and a reporter’s notebook

[00:45:42] Brett: toys.

[00:45:43] Jeff: in here. I mean, I

[00:45:45] Brett: if there were I feel like you wouldn’t explicitly point out that there weren’t sex toys. You would’ve just glossed over it. So I believe you.

[00:45:53] Jeff: Okay. And then I got a, I got a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, but like I also like I’ll put anything. I feel like my [00:46:00] iPad, my, my laptop fits in there and I’ve been starting to wonder first. This was like, Hey, let’s see what I really need by my bedside. That is, that moves around during the day. But now I’m like maybe the house purses, the solution.

[00:46:13] Christina: Yeah. I mean, Probably not a bad idea.

[00:46:20] Jeff: Thanks for entertaining. This. I really

[00:46:21] Christina: took this in a weird direction. No, but I mean, I, I never thought about that. It’s funny. My, my husband, he has like, his like purse is basically one of my Dell, like one of my, um, uh, Delta, little to me, like, um, amenity kit, like holder things to have, like, I have like dozens of them.

[00:46:35] Yeah. He has like some of those and he’s like puts like kids, you know, stuff in it and whatnot, and kind of carries. Uh, that, that kind of around, which is

[00:46:43] Jeff: nice. Well, and it actually has like this other purpose. So now let’s just switch into, um, promoting the idea of a house purse. Okay. Forget nightstands.

[00:46:51] But we can return to that, like this morning at S uh, one 30 in the morning, my mom texted me and said, I’m having kidney pain. [00:47:00] It’s not an emergency yet. She has a really rough history. I found her almost dead in her apartment a couple of years back. And she was in a coma for weeks and all this stuff. And so I lived in the ICU, which does talk about needing to like, have certain things on hand.

[00:47:14] You’re just like helpless. If you get to the ICU and your phone’s dead, right. Like it’s just the worst. And so I, I generally keep the stuff around in case I have to rush out for her. The house purse in a bind. I can just grab it and go, and pretty much trust I have what I need, because if I’m going to spend the night at the hospital, it’s a go-bag, but it doesn’t, there are no zippers.

[00:47:35] This is really important. There are no zippers, it’s all open pockets, all around it. And the main thing. So it’s like, you can see what’s in there. Nothing gets lost.

[00:47:43] Brett: Why is that important? Just for visibility.

[00:47:45] Jeff: You zip it up. And now you’re, you know, is it in this pocket, this bag of this bag? And I can look down at my house purse and I can see everything.

[00:47:53] Brett: I have had very few backpacks in my life that have had the exact right number of pockets, because if [00:48:00] there’s one too many pockets, it takes, it’s like us plugging in a USB cord. It’s always, it’s always going to be in the like third pocket you check. But if you have the exact right number of pockets, it becomes like intuitive.

[00:48:12] You just know where shit is. And that I get that. I get planning around that.

[00:48:18] Jeff: Brett TURPs, Joe.

[00:48:19] Brett: Thank you. Thank you. My valuable insight.

[00:48:23] Jeff: And I wish you hadn’t introduced me at all because I’m realizing that without an introduction, it’s just like, who is this fucking nut?

[00:48:29] Christina: Which, um, I mean, honestly, it was great, but no, I’m glad that we have the introduction, but no, I’ve never thought about the task force idea, but this is, this is an interesting thing too, to just kind of have like, you know, kind of like a nice, like soft like bag to kind of the pockets and store things.

[00:48:44] I, I liked this idea actually,

[00:48:45] Jeff: plus plus it holds a water bottle. So I, that actually solves one of the nightstand problems, which is, do I leave a water bottle,

[00:48:52] Christina: a water bottle up

[00:48:53] Jeff: there, six glasses here, because it’s the last six nights of bringing

[00:48:56] Christina: water up. Exactly,

[00:48:58] Brett: have, I have at least six [00:49:00] glasses on by my bed right now.

[00:49:01] Christina: same I have, and I had just had bottles.

[00:49:03] I usually just like, I’m one of the terrible people who just like drinks out of the, you know, drinks, plastic, water bottles. Um, I’m not as terrible person. I, I totally, um, I, well, okay. Did you guys see the tick talk of the, the guy who was attempting to be a water.

[00:49:16] No.

[00:49:17] Okay. Okay. So there’s this, guy’s the most cringe thing ever.

[00:49:20] And it’s crunch for many reasons. I was personally offended for really bad reasons, but there’s this, there’s this guy on Tik TOK, who is flexing about spending $2,000 on boss water a month where he has, he has like four fridges and he like fills them up with his, like frickin a glass, you know, a water, Stephanie he’s like, I just can’t drink, tap water.

[00:49:43] I just can’t do this in that keep in mind, boss is actually like, well water from like Switzerland or splinter. So they claimed so, so he’s drinking, tap water. Um, he was like, I used to have the, the, the used to get Fiji, but I just really felt bad about all the plastic in Boston is, is glass and so much better.

[00:49:59] It’s like, right. So [00:50:00] you’re importing, you know, $2,000 worth of this water a month and then putting it in fridges, even when you don’t need to use it. The Tik TOK is the most crunch thing I’ve ever seen. Uh, I’ll find it,

[00:50:11] Brett: only Tik TOK I’ve ever seen is tick docs that get put on YouTube. I’ve never been to tick-tock.

[00:50:19] Jeff: oh, what a wonderful place. It is truly a wonderful.

[00:50:22] Brett: I hear that a lot.

[00:50:24] Jeff: I don’t know. I don’t know where I’d be without it including like, I, you know, like as an example, there’s like, there’s an amazing sort of mental health tech talk out there for like, whatever diagnosis you either may have, or be kind of wondering about, it’s not people telling you how to fix it.

[00:50:43] It’s a million people saying, this is what it is for me. Yeah. And

[00:50:47] Christina: it, but it’s also people who create completely like creative, mental illnesses that they completely don’t have.

[00:50:52] Jeff: Oh yeah. That’s all right. There’s that too. But for my, in my case, it worked,

[00:50:56] Christina: I was going to say, it can be useful. It can be useful, but I do [00:51:00] like the mental health to talk kind of freaks me out a little bit because you have like people who go from being very helpful and they get a lot of views.

[00:51:06] And then you see like people who are like, oh, well I want to be. Yes, you just, you just

[00:51:11] Jeff: reminded me that at the end of the day, it is the internet. And I just, oh, go ahead.

[00:51:16] Christina: Go ahead. No, I was just going to say, I put in the link in, in, in our, in our chat. If you want to view this, this tick tock,

[00:51:24] Jeff: I watch it

[00:51:24] Brett: Take up Tik TOK break. Is that

[00:51:26] Christina: Yeah a tick-tock break Yeah,

[00:51:28] we’re taking a psychotic break

[00:51:29] Brett: happening

[00:51:29] Christina: to watch this so I can, so I can rant

[00:51:31] Jeff: about this.

[00:51:32] Brett: Alright. So I want to play a sound effect while this happens, but I just realized after we finished the last episode that my sound effects, aren’t recording the silence. the tracks don’t match up. So I basically, came out with a track that just had two sound effects on it. Nothing else, no space between them.

[00:51:50] And I thought I had it set to insert silence, but apparently once again, sound effects failed me.

[00:51:57] Jeff: Um, uh, hold on. I got to just [00:52:00] stop playing. Stop

[00:52:02] Marker

[00:52:02] Jeff: Holy shit. What is.

[00:52:05] Tell me what you know about this man. Do you know anything outside of what you’ve seen on? No,

[00:52:09] Christina: I don’t accept that as Taylor runs rightly pointed out, she was like, everyone’s going to drag him. And then in a month he’s going to come up with his own water brand. And I was like, yep, absolutely. Yeah. The only thing, the only thing that got me, um, and we’ll have the link I’m, I’m putting this in our equip, uh, notes.

[00:52:22] Uh, the only thing that got me about this and, and, and this was a total tangent from our better discussion about like our, our water glasses on our nightstands, um, is that this guy, like, he’s trying to flex and like, be like, oh, I’m so rich. I’ve got all this money. I spend $2,000 a month on, on water. You know, I do this and that.

[00:52:40] And then he has a fricking fake Sub-Zero fridge. Like he’s got like the knockoff, like Frigidaire version. And I’m like, and I’m like, okay. And I’m like, I’m like, first of all, Is it 2006? Are we really like thinking that Voss water is like the end all be all was like, okay. Cause people with real money, I have a feeling like have high [00:53:00] infiltration systems in their house and aren’t getting, you know, $2,000 worth of like glass, water bottles delivered.

[00:53:05] They’re like, no, I, I have like, uh, you know, filtration system. And then I have like on tap in every room of my house. Right. Um, but, but beyond that, like it’s, it’s the fake Sub-Zero fridge thing that just made me, that just was the most. That was the thing that to me, I just went, I hate everything about who you are.

[00:53:23] Jeff: Yeah, man. What a jackass I,

[00:53:26] Brett: whole part out.

[00:53:27] Jeff: fine

[00:53:27] Brett: guys

[00:53:29] Jeff: whole

[00:53:30] Brett: I didn’t, I

[00:53:30] Jeff: just say.

[00:53:31] Brett: watch it.

[00:53:33] Jeff: Hold on. Hold on. If you didn’t watch it, you don’t have to talk about it. Give me a second. Here’s the, here’s what I recommend doing on Tik TOK. This is one of my new favorite things. So I’m a big fan of scroll on the lives and it’s, you know, at its best, it’s an amazing, just like montage of humanity, right?

[00:53:55] Like some of it’s depressing, some of it’s super fucking problematic. Some of it’s like a guy [00:54:00] working at a fishery. Um, and, and lately what I’ve been trying is I just scroll the lives on mute and it’s fucking incredible. Like, I honestly do that and think about my youth and I think, oh my God, What I have access to here.

[00:54:18] I’m seeing every corner. It feels like a world. Like there’s the Russian guy. Who’s, who’s like literally live broadcasting from, uh, you know, inside, uh, you know, he cut a hole in the ice and dove in and he’s barbecuing from the water and, and yelling basically. Right. And then the next one is this, this dude is like burned all over his body and, and he’s, uh, he’s just there talking and, uh, and, and doing like duets with people where you bring someone on or whatever next one’s a guy deejaying from his hospital bed.

[00:54:54] Right. And then of course there are 4,000 white women, um, doing literally [00:55:00] exactly the same body movements to, to talk to you and communicate anyway, that’s you can cut that out to Brett, but I highly recommend scrolling your

[00:55:09] mute.

[00:55:09] Brett: it up. I’m betting that I didn’t at the point, people are listening to this. I didn’t keep the like 45 second pause while everyone went to watch the tic-tac video, but all the rest of it, the rest of it, I’m keeping it. I got to tell you about hunter Douglas before we get any further.

[00:55:26] Um,

[00:55:27] Christina: well, actually, which is a great segue from our decor conversation.

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[00:56:49] Keep your mouth SHUT

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[00:57:37] I don’t have that in my living room right now. It’s too dark there. My girlfriend is working on a sweater and I didn’t want to tell her that I thought that color was only mediocre. And like it’s it’s okay. But at best it was okay. And then I visited her, visited her at the yarn shop where she works and she had it there and she was working on it and I saw it under their [00:58:00] lighting.

[00:58:00] And I

[00:58:01] like,

[00:58:01] holy shit. That is a, you picked an amazing color. And of course she knew that she picked it out at the yarn store. Uh, she, she knew what she was doing, but it was, uh, it was, uh, it dawned on me that we need new lights in her living room.

[00:58:16] Christina: yeah. And I, I would say that’s like a good example of, of like you’re needing, uh, knowing that, but also well done Brett on like, knowing not to share with her. I think it’s a mediocre color, like a good job. Like, like clearly

[00:58:29] Jeff: like,

[00:58:29] Brett: wouldn’t, I wouldn’t lie. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t like, oh, that’s amazing.

[00:58:33] Jeff: I know, I know,

[00:58:34] Brett: you picked such a good color. I wouldn’t lie, but I do know when to maybe not

[00:58:39] Christina: when

[00:58:39] to not.

[00:58:40] Brett: honest.

[00:58:40] Christina: Well, well, it’s not that you’re being totally honest. It’s just like, you’re not sharing. Like, it’s kind of like, I I’ve been trying this thing on Twitter. I’ve had like moderate success with it where I’m like, kind of, I’m trying to take my own advice and like, you don’t always have to share your opinion on everything.

[00:58:55] Like, you know, and that’s, that’s a new thing I’ve been trying. [00:59:00] I still shit post of course, but I’ve been like trying this new thing where I’m like, you know what? I don’t have to comment on everything. Like don’t, uh, don’t have to, I don’t have to get into the Kanye, uh, Kim Kardashians, uh, discourse. I can actually, I can actually keep my

[00:59:13] Jeff: mouth shut.

[00:59:14] Brett: is that why we haven’t had, uh, who Christina pissed off on the internet corner for the last few weeks?

[00:59:19] Christina: And this is

[00:59:20] Brett: the for

[00:59:21] Christina: I was, I was kind of hoping I made a, a joke yesterday that I was kinda hoping would, would piss people off, but it didn’t. Um, I tweeted, uh, trying to decide if pages, people or LIBOR office people or worse Libra office people ruin the formatting, no matter what they do, but pages people somehow think it’s acceptable to send a dot pages file to anyone ever.

[00:59:41] Jeff: Yes, that’s a problem. It is.

[00:59:44] Brett: Wait say, say

[00:59:45] again

[00:59:47] Christina: Okay. Trying to decide a pages, people or LIBOR office, people are worse. Libra office people ruin the formatting no matter what they do, but pages people somehow think it is acceptable to send a dot pages file to anyone ever.[01:00:00]

[01:00:00] Brett: Okay. So, okay. But it’s okay to send a doc X file to anyone ever.

[01:00:05] Christina: Yeah Cause everything can open it

[01:00:07] Brett: I hate doc X so much. I

[01:00:09] Christina: That’s fine, but, but I mean, PDF is

[01:00:12] Brett: yes, absolutely.

[01:00:14] Christina: but, but

[01:00:15] Jeff: I’m like, fuck, I got to download pages. I got like, it’s just like,

[01:00:18] Brett: Yeah, I would never send a pages file, but anyone who sends me a doc X file is getting opened and pages, and it’s getting exported to doc X and I, you can’t, you,

[01:00:30] Christina: do you lose

[01:00:33] Brett: but I I’m grateful every time, every time someone sends me a PDF, I, I thank them sometimes out loud, but usually silently thank them.

[01:00:42] Christina: Yeah, my follow-up tweet was honestly, if you can’t be bothered with the dot Docker dot doc X, send me a PDF or even a freaking Google, Google docs link, at least then I can export that to a format that will be usable. Um, and, and look, I agree with you. I think PDF is the best thing. And like me personally, I would rather have a markdown file.

[01:00:58] Right. Or even [01:01:00] latex or something like, like that would be, or pan doc, like, that’d be better.

[01:01:02] Brett: at, at work right now, I have the pleasure of most of the things that require group edits being done in markdown through GitHub. And that is so nice.

[01:01:14] Christina: That is really, really, really great. I, um, that that’s, I I’m jealous of that because I obviously have to use word for a lot of things and I don’t hate word. I’ve always liked word better than, um, Uh, Google docs, always. Um, and, uh, you know, pages, uh, I hear from people that like, when you, you know, export as PDF like that, the printing, like, however, the kerning stuff is better than other things.

[01:01:37] I believe that, but, but pages is one of those things. It’s like, okay, you might have some pretty templates, but literally if I get a dot pages file from someone I’m like, I’m like, what, what am I doing with this? And I use a Mac 99.9% of the time. But like you said, I don’t want to download and deal with pages.

[01:01:54] Like I don’t want to,

[01:01:56] Jeff: what problem did pages solve? I don’t, I have no idea. [01:02:00] What hole, what like niche.

[01:02:02] Christina: Exactly. Well, it gave them a new Claris works, I guess, like, honestly,

[01:02:06] Brett: God compared to word, I love pages. I don’t understand the pages hate here.

[01:02:12] Jeff: I mean I don’t know, I’ve just, haven’t had it, but I’m

[01:02:14] Christina: saying, yeah, I’d never had a reason for it. I also feel like collaborating with people which, you know, uh, apple pretends that they can do that, but they really can’t like if you ever have to collaborate with someone in a word processor, obviously Google docs is going to be fastest and, and in some ways like better, but at least you can add comments and you can do other stuff.

[01:02:33] Um, uh, track changes and whatnot and word like pages is bullshit at all that like, it just is like, I would never want to work. I would never want to do a multi edit stuff with someone and pages

[01:02:44] Brett: Like simultaneous edits

[01:02:46] Christina: or even passing back and forth. I would never want to do that.

[01:02:49] Brett: I would much rather share a file with iCloud. See someone’s changes happen with change history instead of emailing a doc X file back and forth and [01:03:00] expecting change tracking.

[01:03:02] Christina: I don’t know. I mean, I think if with office 365 and I guess I’m like spoiled in this case, People will have the document open multiple places, whether it’s in the browser or I almost always use the native app and I can literally see the edits as they’re happening. And I can also see

[01:03:16] Brett: I should, I should clarify that I’ve made every not to use word for the like 10

[01:03:21] years.

[01:03:23] Jeff: Like, I, I don’t, I never go straight into a word processor, but obviously like when you’re working with people, you get word files all the time or you need to work in word files. And like, honestly, like the last time I opened word to have to start from scratch from scratch, I was like, let’s just got pretty awesome.

[01:03:39] And like, I, I haven’t had the experience of like, I’ve been spending 30 fucking minutes trying to make these separate lines.

[01:03:47] Christina: Right, right. Yeah. That’s exactly kind of where I’m at, right? Like, like, like, like I think we can all agree. Keynote is the best. Um, although, although we’ve talked about how, how, um, PowerPoint has gotten better, but keynote is the best, [01:04:00] uh, numbers makes pretty charts and it’s fine.

[01:04:02] I think if you just want a form entry thing, but my God.

[01:04:05] Brett: for someone who doesn’t know shit about spreadsheets, works great for me, but like, I wouldn’t missing. what’s

[01:04:13] Christina: for, basic stuff, that’s fine. But, but like, that’s one of those things where like anybody who does any sort of big data thing, like you are going to be using Excel that you don’t have an option. Um, eh, like, like Google sheets is an embarrassment of a product.

[01:04:26] Um, like, you know, like it it’s, it’s, it’s not even like in the same like realm, like Excel is good, but like, like numbers, um, is fine for basic stuff. Um, but I think even numbers like enthusiastic would know better than sending someone a numbers file, um, pages though. I’m just like, I’m like, what the hell?

[01:04:45] But, but Libra office, I will ruin the formatting for everything. Like

[01:04:49] Jeff: no matter

[01:04:49] Brett: Like that that’s I don’t think anyone disagrees with that. Who’s sending LIBOR office.

[01:04:55] Christina: Lennox

[01:04:55] Jeff: people I

[01:04:56] was

[01:04:56] going

[01:04:56] Brett: say it’s a much of like gray

[01:04:58] Jeff: friend. [01:05:00]

[01:05:00] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. That was kind of where, where that came from was, was that.

[01:05:05] Brett: yeah.

[01:05:06] DOTBOT

[01:05:06] Jeff: this is a non-sequitur kind of, but I realized there was something important. I wanted to mention in my, I imagine when I was describing the clean install, there are people out there who, first of all, that just hurts their head because it’s like saying, I don’t know what I like to go shower in the snow.

[01:05:22] Um, but like I did find a way to make the whole process less painful while still allowing me to do it, which has dot files. And so for it to anybody who was shouting dot files, you psychopath, uh, dot files have, have come to the rescue and now I can clean install all I want. And I’m back in running

[01:05:42] Brett: I want to talk, I want to talk about dat files a little bit. you also use mock-up?

[01:05:49] Yeah.

[01:05:49] Jeff: dot files with DAPA and then I, I have not done anything because mock-up will like sync your stuff in Dropbox, right? Yeah. And I, I want to do that, but I just haven’t gotten.

[01:05:58] Brett: Yeah. So I [01:06:00] will, I will say this with like Mack up is great because all of your like preference files, all of your, um, I don’t even remember what all it sinks, but like basically it just, doesn’t automatic job of sinking everything that is, uh, related to preferences on any app on your system. But if you mix it with.bot and you mix it with anything in your like, uh, local dot config or dot local folders, you will, you will, it will bite you.

[01:06:34] Jeff: right Yeah.

[01:06:35] Christina: I, I, and I’ve run into that and I think that’s why I haven’t used mock-up in a while. Cause mock-up is great. Like you said, for backing up all the preferences stuff, I wish there was a way to kind of get those things to work more better lately. Like better together, like where.

[01:06:47] Brett: like after the last time, it bit me, I’m a lot more careful about what I think using.bot. Like I made the mistake of my dot local file. I had specific [01:07:00] files within the folder, SIM linked, uh, via.bot, completely forgetting that the dot local folder itself was actually a SIM like from Dropbox. And that was where bit myself,

[01:07:15] I

[01:07:15] if you’re, if you’re not stupid enough to do that, uh, either solution is amazing together they could probably be great.

[01:07:26] Jeff: version, which I’m not exactly a purist, but it’s like, so I sync my dot files with get hub, like so many people. Um, but if I’m doing that, all that work and sinking, all that stuff, get hub, then moving to anything that interfaces with Dropbox just feels like so strange. Like I’ve just basically taken this nice efficient thing and added this sort of somewhat unknowable ecosystem, right?

[01:07:50] Like to the mix a little bit.

[01:07:52] Brett: I, uh, for four people, I think we’ve actually talked about dot, on the show before. Cause I did a.

[01:07:58] dot

[01:07:58] Jeff: you about dot bought on [01:08:00] systematic and Patrick. McDonald’s amazing. Uh, you to me or Udemy, uh, tutorial.

[01:08:06] Brett: Yeah. Okay. I’m going to find me a link to the tutorial I linked dot bought for anyone who is new to this.bot, lets you create all of your configuration files for like command line utilities and uh, do, is it, do you have dot files for anything? That’s not a You should let.

[01:08:26] Jeff: No, I don’t think

[01:08:27] Brett: Yeah. so.

[01:08:28] So, it’s all of

[01:08:29] Jeff: have.

[01:08:30] Brett: like dot RC files in your, in your user directory, you move them into, uh, a directory that you can sync via, get hub or your own private gets server on your Synology like I do. And then it’s an automated way to SIM link those back to your home directory in one step. So when you’re on a new computer, you just, you, you set up get, and you set up SSH and you pull down your dot files, directory, you run the script and all of your [01:09:00] preferences are automatically there.

[01:09:01] And it’s perfect for starting new systems. You can even use it for like, if you SSH into hosts and you want to be able to set up your environment and one step it’s awesome Mac up on the other hand, SIM links basically. Files from your user library preferences into Dropbox so that when you run it on a new machine and you have Dropbox sinked already, all of your preferences sync up together, they make a perfect way to be able to do a clean install.

[01:09:34] Like Jeff says, without the like year it takes to get your system back the way it

[01:09:40] of work

[01:09:40] Jeff: Yes. Yeah. And like, I’ll just, I can get for anybody. Who’s kind of interested in this, but it’s still a little confused. I’ll give a really simple example. First thing I do when I do a clean install is I make sure that all my highlights in my whole system are orange and I, so I go into system preferences and you know, you go to the track pad, you go wherever else.

[01:09:57] Right? Like you can, you can do all [01:10:00] that stuff with configure config files that are, that are part of your whole dot files setup. So like the first 20 minutes I usually spend on my Mac after a clean install are. Kind of dot files or.bot ecosystem now.

[01:10:15] Brett: I spend the first 20 minutes trying to use my computer. And I’m taking note of all the things that are clearly missing that I can’t live without like, last week sponsor, text expander, and one password and all these things. I forget. Although brew, have you ever done a brew?

[01:10:32] Jeff: Brew bundle is amazing. It’s so

[01:10:35] Brett: And if you install your Mac apps, wherever possible, via cask, like a brew cask brew bundle and your Mac app store stuff to brew, bundle can in one, in one command stall most of your apps you again.

[01:10:52] for

[01:10:52] Jeff: line interface for the Mac app store.

[01:10:56] Christina: Yeah. And, and you have to, obviously, you know, is [01:11:00] like probably the first thing I installed, like on a new machine. Yeah.

[01:11:04] Yeah, that’s one of the first things. And so

[01:11:07] Jeff: with brew bundle, like it’s like you, you basically create something called a brew file. It creates it. And it lists all of the things that you, um, have installed via Homebrew and kind of organizes them. But there’s like a verbose version that will basically give a little, like one line synopsis of each app that I find like incredibly helpful.

[01:11:27] And,

[01:11:28] Brett: Especially going to go in and manually edit the brew file. Yeah.

[01:11:32] Jeff: because I never know if I’m, if a clean install is going to hit and I’m not always quite right in the head when it is, I’m a little manic. The best thing I did ever was create an alias called rebundle, which basically just creates that like verbose brew file pretty constantly so that I will always know that whatever I had created, you know, via like brew bundle is going to be able to just be like instantly downloaded when I clean install.

[01:11:59] Christina: That’s so [01:12:00] interesting. Well, it’s funny. Cause I was, I was thinking about this and actually I think it’s what became brew bundle, but do you guys remember boxing? No. Boxing was like a thing that GitHub had that was basically like, it was, they’d kind of created their own, you know, kind of, you know, infrastructure’s code thing for setting up new machines and redoing stuff.

[01:12:15] And then that basically they ended up deprecating it and basically building that into, into, into, um, um, the group bundle. Oh,

[01:12:22] Jeff: interesting. Huh? I think I’m right about this. I mean, there’s a lot of people that don’t like package managers, right. For security reasons, whatever, but like not whatever, but a Homebrew had a problem.

[01:12:33] I think a year ago, two years ago, there were a handful of packages that, that made it onto the system that’s that were written enough, like other popular packages that people were accidentally going for them. And so that kind of security aspect of having a brew file, which lists everything and tells your new system just download that is like, you know, it’s all typed.

[01:12:53] Right. Right.

[01:12:55] Christina: Well, that’s exactly it. Right. And, and, and, um, yeah. And, and like, NPM has been going through [01:13:00] some of these challenges to speak in a package managers,

[01:13:02] Brett: just got my notification that I still haven’t set up to FAA on NPM.

[01:13:07] Christina: yeah. Yeah. They’re, they’re going to make everybody do it, which is good. Um, because you know, there’s like a.

[01:13:12] Brett: Why haven’t I done

[01:13:14] Christina: There’ve been kerfuffles, there’ve been things that have been happening, you know, within that. But, but yeah, I mean, uh, I, I understand the, the security, I guess, questions about package managers. I’m also one of those people who’s like, you will take a package manager from my cold dead hands.

[01:13:27] Like, you know what I mean? I’m like, I understand what the risks can be. And it may in fact bite me in the ass some day. Having said that like every security is all about risk mitigation and, and, and, and risk assessment. And for me, I’m like, I actually think it’s a much higher like, assessment that I will do something dumb if I don’t have those things then than if I, that if I do.

[01:13:48] But yeah, that’s a great point with the, with the, um, um, the, you know, um, um, bundle files is like, yeah, like you can have everything typed out and you’re not having to worry about, like, it might [01:14:00] accidentally have the, have the wrong thing.

[01:14:02] Jeff: Yeah. Hello package you too. I also feel like for anybody wanting to dip their toe in the world of package managers and their Mac users, Homebrew is such, and that was my introduction really.

[01:14:14] Um, and, and I just, it’s, it’s an amazing new life once you, you know,

[01:14:20] Christina: turn that it really is. I think I was using, I was using Mac force and I was using Fink before. Um, like when I, when I seem like a hardcore Mac user, I was like, I was, you know, there, there, there was pink. And then there was like Mac ports and there was Darwin ports and then I think they merged or something.

[01:14:35] And then, and then I think, think actually became part of Mac ports if I recall correctly, but I don’t remember the rationale now. And, um, and then brew came out and brew was just like a revelation. And it was just like, it was like, okay, this is better. Right. Like, it was just really, really, uh,

[01:14:49] Brett: there was one other one that I use instead of ports. I can’t remember.

[01:14:54] Jeff: was it think, cause that’s what I did.

[01:14:56] Brett: I

[01:14:56] like it. It doesn’t sound right to me. Like I remember the existence of Frank [01:15:00] and I remember starting with Mac ports, but finding something else, but you’re right. Once home brew came along, there was no reason for of that other stuff to exist.

[01:15:11] Christina: And apparently the think project is still around, so good for good for them. Um, I think that what I confused was that the knock ports and Darwin ports, I think

[01:15:21] Jeff: merged,

[01:15:24] Christina: um, yeah. Uh, but yeah, there might’ve been something else, but yeah. But when the homework came out, I was just like, yeah, this is, this is better.

[01:15:30] And I’m working on being kind of like reticent at first. I was like, but I already have Mac board. So what do I need this for? And then, oh, and I was like, oh no, this is actually, yeah,

[01:15:39] Brett: Well, and it’s so universe, like when I write an article and I talk about a tool like FC. To be able to just say and assume that it will work for like the majority of people I can just say to get this brew, install, FCF. And, and if I need to, I can link to home brews. So people, because you can install it [01:16:00] with one command and it’s just this universal Wade.

[01:16:03] Like I don’t have to tell people, go to this GitHub, download this, make this executable, install this. It’s just, I can just be like, yeah, here, brew, install, FCF. And you’re good.

[01:16:14] Jeff: Yeah.

[01:16:14] Yeah.

[01:16:15] Christina: Um, I, I have to say like, I, I was impressed with them. Uh, you know, I, when I use windows and I do have to say like that there is now a first party windows package manager, when get, which is very similar in a lot of ways, um, to Homebrew and, and it’s, it’s cool because it’s not only tied to the Microsoft store.

[01:16:34] Um, you can have other things are packaged for it too, but basically you can use it completely as a CLI front-end to the Microsoft store, which is really nice. Oh, that’s awesome. Um, so, so like it’s, it’s actually like the, um, You know, when get is actually one of my favorite things and it’s free and open source, but they clearly took a lot of inspiration from, um, you know, uh, Homebrew and, and, uh, and you know, Linux brew, or I guess they merged.

[01:16:57] So I guess it’s just Humber, but you know, a lot of, a lot of, uh, [01:17:00] things meant there was also, um, chocolatey and scoop. There were some other package managers for, um, windows beforehand, but it’s, uh, I do have to say, like, I appreciate that that is actually now an actual official, like supported project for the operating system.

[01:17:16] Um, you know, whereas Homebrew, like obviously apple works with them, but like that’s, that’s no sponsored by GitHub and, um, you know, like they have close relationships with apple, but it’s, you know, they’re obviously if apple makes fundamental changes to stuff like, you know, they have to kind of scurry and work around it, you know?

[01:17:38] Brett: Speaking of package managers. I, uh, so I use. The shell fit shell. Um, and you’re familiar with all my Z shell

[01:17:48] Jeff: Yes.

[01:17:49] Christina: Yes. Oh my gosh. I think it’s

[01:17:50] Brett: or

[01:17:51] Oh my God. Um, I’m not, I’m not as, I’m not as guy. Anyway, I use fish and there’s a, uh, [01:18:00] there’s an, oh my fish package manager. Um, there’s also a fish, there’s one called Fisher that you basically have to give it like a GitHub URL.

[01:18:09] It, it will install from a good hub URL, but OMF on my fish keeps a central package repository. So you can search for packages, just like with brew. So I had this, I had this tool called fuzzy CD that I made for fish that combined. Uh, jump auto, jump FISD and FCF CD command. So you can pretty just type CD anything.

[01:18:34] And if it’s a like junk uses, it’s like bash marks, I’m sure there’s an equivalent for Zetia. Um, so you can like bookmark directories get back to them with just like jump and then the bookmark name. So I incorporated that. So if your first argument to CD is any, if it fuzzy mattress, any existing bookmark, it will jump to that.

[01:18:55] And then all following arguments are fuzzy searched [01:19:00] up to two levels, deep, uh, sub-directory names. So I can type CD D O V 2 6 8. And that will jump me to my, uh, desktop folder podcasts folder, overtired folder, episode 2 68. And. And it’s all built in and it still works as CD. If you type in an actual path name, it’ll just CD to that.

[01:19:26] And if you type CD dot.dot that moves up to directories dot, dot, dot, dot, and then up, like it’s all this just the CD commits. So anyway, I built that night, publish it for Fisher, but over the last weekend, I made my first on my fish package. And, um, I’m linking it in the show notes.

[01:19:47] If, if you use vision, this sounds intriguing, check it out. Uh, the

[01:19:51] Christina: I don’t use fish, but like you keep making me like excited to want to use it. My big thing is, and we’ve talked about those before, but I want to ask again, like, [01:20:00] how do you deal with the fact that so many things and so many scripts that are out there are, you know, for basher or Zetia,

[01:20:06] Brett: you can run them like you. If it has a hash bang of bachelor Z show, it’ll still execute it with that shell. So all of my bass work. don’t have to think twice about.

[01:20:18] just

[01:20:19] Christina: sorry. No, that was going to say so it’ll still execute in, in NZ shell or bash as long as it’s got that. Got the bang,

[01:20:26] Brett: It’s like as a sub show. I mean, that’s when you execute a Z shell script in Z show, it’s still executing within a subs shell. So it’s exact same thing.

[01:20:36] the

[01:20:37] Jeff: trust, I trust you so much. Um, tell me, tell me why to go and play and have fun with fish. All my.

[01:20:46] Brett: The, for me, the way, just the feel of using on the command line, where, and, and Zetia is actually cut up with a lot of this. But if I start typing a command, the letters are red until a [01:21:00] command that’s valid. So if I type, if I type, um, DOI, uh, that’s red, but as soon as I type D O I N G it turns green, and now it autogenerates completions for any app, any program on your system that has a man page it’ll auto generate tab completions for it.

[01:21:23] Uh, it’s really easy to add your own completions and, uh, as you start typing. So if I’m in a folder that I have been in before, so I typed CDD over. And I go to my overtired folder. If I type CD, it will start, it will, auto-complete in like faded out texts. The last, last time I executed that command in that directory.

[01:21:48] So whatever I’m most often executing that directory will auto complete, can hit the right key to confirm it, or just start typing something new. And it’ll, auto-complete based on history, [01:22:00] like stuff like that. Like there there’s a bunch of cool stuff about it, but that’s once I started doing that, I missed those features.

[01:22:08] Anytime I switched back to bash, is what I used previously.

[01:22:13] Jeff: Nice. Um, I, you just reminded me of something that I think is really important. This is my small soap box. Um, despite the fact that, you know, like I’m, I’m used to man, and it means manual my first like unit Unix interaction, I was probably like seven in my mom’s like room-sized computer at her work, but like, I fucking hate the term man page.

[01:22:36] And so I wrote an alias that I just say show and it means, man, so that I’m not ever just like, dude, man, man, it’s like, fuck this, I’m tired of this.

[01:22:47] Brett: my, my alias is help. H a L P.

[01:22:51] Jeff: Oh, I like that.

[01:22:52] Christina: I actually, actually, I think that’s probably my help. I like that.

[01:22:55] Brett: w well, so help, help is not just an alias. It actually [01:23:00] first checks with man and men dash K to see if it’s a valid man page. If it isn’t, it resorts to the actual help command. And if that fails, it checks with, uh, I think I used to have it checked with, uh, TLDR or bro. Um, now it uses, uh, how do I, uh, to get like, whatever reference it can find.

[01:23:24] So basically it’s my all purpose, help command, help.

[01:23:27] Jeff: The thing I love so much about what you do, but as you are the ultimate, yes. And

[01:23:32] Brett: Yeah.

[01:23:33] Jeff: 100%.

[01:23:34] Brett: it’s so here. Okay. So tangential not even related, but what I’ve realized working with Fletcher and be ultra is like this total difference in communication styles, where I’ll pitch an idea, which is like a sensibly that’s my job is to be the, like, here’s a cool thing we could do in his job is to like vet my crazy ideas.

[01:23:57] But the way he responds is always [01:24:00] no, and here’s why it won’t work. And like, I know like Ella and I figured out how to communicate. I need everything couched. Like when, if I’m low energy, I need everything couched in a compliment. I need the responses. That’s a great idea, but I think we might run into problems with this, and then I’m in brainstorming mode, then I’m in problem solving mode.

[01:24:22] But when the response is immediately a negative, all I hear is I hate your idea. No, we’re not even going to talk about this. And I stopped by Um,

[01:24:33] shut down

[01:24:38] I’m a yes. And guy, I, I need the, I need people to take my idea and sure. It might not work out, but at least like, acknowledge that it’s a cool idea. And the only reason you’re finding problems with it is because you think it could be better, which is how Fletcher explained to me, what I mean is actually, this could be cool, but it needs refinement.

[01:24:58] And yeah, I [01:25:00] just like, I have this when I’m high energy, I can translate it. But when I’m like, if I’ve been manic for five days and I’m like having these, all these ideas, but I don’t have the energy to translate the way other people talk. And when Ellis high energy, she translates for me and like speaks to me the way I need to hear it.

[01:25:19] But when we’re both low energy and we can’t translate on either end that’s when ugly.

[01:25:26] things get

[01:25:27] Christina: totally. Um, I was just curious, uh, th this is also tangental, but we were talking about configuration stuff earlier. Did you both see a it’s part of a one password eight, so which I’m not running yet, but did you see that, that the,

[01:25:39] Jeff: the

[01:25:40] Brett: yeah. actually sent that to me yesterday.

[01:25:42] Jeff: Oh

[01:25:44] Brett: I haven’t tried it. I’m not

[01:25:45] Jeff: you

[01:25:45] Brett: the

[01:25:45] Jeff: it?

[01:25:47] Brett: I was curious, but I immediately said you need to install the beta. And I went to install the beta and it said, if you want a stable experience me think really don’t want to fuck this up right now.

[01:25:57] Christina: yeah, so I’m not using it on, on, [01:26:00] on like my main machines, but because I am running one password eight on windows, I did go ahead and try it on that. And it was very cool.

[01:26:07] Jeff: That’s so exciting.

[01:26:10] Christina: And then it got me excited because that has been like one of like the, my, my frustrations is like, you know, trying to sync, you know, your SSH credentials, like together and whatnot and across machines and whatnot.

[01:26:20] And I realized, and it might not be you, you can quibble about like the, the security practices, this or that. But like, I keep this stuff in, in one password anyway. So I would much rather be using one password as my SSH agent than, uh, then you know, something else. Is it for, for, for listeners? Um, one password has a new feature in their beta where basically they’ve created like, uh, their own, like, as I say, it’s H like replacement tool, like for, for the agent or key chain or whatever, so that it will basically let you access your various, you know, machines and

[01:26:56] Brett: So, so it it track of your, your keys, like.[01:27:00]

[01:27:00] So I don’t use one. I don’t use passwords with SSH at all. Like I always generate a key and turn off password, uh, authentication. Like the only way you get into one of my SSH accounts is with a key and I have my keys. I’ve never lost a key. Like I, I sync them via a private, um, uh, Synology get repo and I’ve, I’ve never lost one, but I’d be curious about maybe more secure possibilities.

[01:27:33] Christina: Yeah. I mean, that’s the thing is that you, you, it also has like a, a generate key, like features, so you can like generate keys. You can also import them. Um, uh, and, um, you know, basically, uh it’ll then, you know, like you like kind of, you know, share, you know, the public key, if you want to do that, um, it supports a bunch of different types.

[01:27:52] It’ll also do auto-filling of your public keys, like when you’re on, like, you know, your, like when you’re on get hub or something, which is really nice,[01:28:00]

[01:28:00] like,

[01:28:00] Brett: it Can it install keys on servers for you?

[01:28:03] Jeff: Yeah.

[01:28:05] Brett: Nice.

[01:28:05] Christina: Uh, so, so I’m, I mean, I’m pretty sure. So, yeah, so I mean, basically what it’s doing is it’s replacing like the, the SSH agent.

[01:28:12] Um, uh, and, um, if, if you did want to like, do other stuff, like they have more advanced configuration models and whatnot, um, if you didn’t want to, uh, completely like rely on, on their thing, but it’s basically like a replacement for us as agent it’s. I don’t know. I think this is something I’ve been like wanting for a long time, have wanted an easier way of managing my SSH keys and because I don’t do what you do Brett.

[01:28:38] So, so if you already have a system in place or like a YubiKey or something, this might not be a

[01:28:43] Brett: Yeah, but I’m

[01:28:44] Christina: people like me,

[01:28:45] Brett: I’m also like all in, the one password

[01:28:48] Jeff: at with it

[01:28:49] Brett: So I have no qualms with, uh, with making this one password controlled thing

[01:28:56] Jeff: Yeah.

[01:28:56] Christina: I also just really liked the idea of being able to generate a [01:29:00] key directly in one password.

[01:29:01] Brett: without going the command line.

[01:29:03] Christina: Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, yeah, I mean, but you could do it from the CLI too. I assume so. But like, what I mean is like I could, you know, create it for a service or something and then I don’t have to worry about then having to copy it into one password.

[01:29:13] So when I want to access that service again, I have, you know what I mean?

[01:29:16] Brett: Yeah. Yeah. So, so what’s your, what’s your take on, should I try out the one password eight beta on my main machine or not?

[01:29:26] Christina: I haven’t done it yet. Like I said, I only enabled this on the one password eight that is already running on windows. So I’ve, I haven’t been able to actually appreciate the full breadth of what this feature is. I’m getting close to being there on my main machine, but I’m not there yet. I’m with you. I’m kind of like, I’m, I’m kinda like I’m just waiting, you know, like I’m not even mad about the electron thing anymore.

[01:29:47] It like, look the web one. This is the fact that we’ve had this discussion. I just want like, like you, I want the stability, so I’m not quite there yet, but I’m like, this is a feature where I’m like, [01:30:00] okay, this, you know, it might be one of those things. Like if I were going to be doing a clean install, which I actually haven’t thinking about, even though this machine is not old, but, but I have been thinking about, but if I were going to be setting up a brand new machine, like tomorrow, I would probably install the beta I’m at that’s where I’m at.

[01:30:19] Brett: I, uh, I’m seriously considering it, but I saw something. Let’s see if I followed the beta link, they talk about how much they love Mac. And, uh, I guess they released the beta for windows first. So they’re excited to do it for Mac and they don’t talk at all about how left behind like cocoa.

[01:30:44] they

[01:30:44] love, they love max.

[01:30:46] So here’s an electronic app, but I want to try it. I do. I just don’t want to it and then realize I can’t go back. If it’s unsafe.

[01:30:53] Christina: mean, exactly. Right. And so with windows and I don’t even think it’s beta anymore. I think that it is just like, actually like the version that it is there. [01:31:00] So, you know, and, and the, the native windows app was fine. I think that the electron app is better. I mean, it was interesting to read their teams kind of like explanation of why they had to go electron that they’d tried at kit first and that it, it didn’t do what it needed them to do.

[01:31:15] And to me, like that is a failure on Apple’s part. Right. Like

[01:31:19] Brett: How would electron have more access to the kind of stuff a security app would want to do then the native API, SDK and API APIs?

[01:31:28] Jeff: I don’t

[01:31:29] Christina: remember now, but there were some things with applicate cause cause you app UI kit aren’t done yet.

[01:31:34] Brett: Yeah.

[01:31:35] Christina: So, um, I, um, let me find the link. Um, But there was, there was like a whole thread lengthy. They, they, um, they, they talked about it. They were pretty transparent about it. And, and to me, it, it was kind of like a, um, I think it was a couple of things.

[01:31:56] I think one, it was that they don’t want to have [01:32:00] different code bases if they can help it, because it is difficult for them to have to maintain, you know, the same, like the backend would be one thing, but they, they were fine with, I guess maybe doing like, like native frontends and whatnot. But I think that the age of brands would place where the performance and some of the other things, they just couldn’t achieve what they wanted to do, um, with, uh, with app kit.

[01:32:20] Um, so I mean, especially since so much of what they do now is, uh, a web app, right? Like so much of this as a service, it’s not. A local thing anymore. So I can, I can understand the constraints they have. And of course there, you’re always going to have people who are like, well, you have all this money you can’t, you know, um, dedicated to, to having like a native thing.

[01:32:40] And it’s like, well, if the tooling isn’t there and if the performance is not going to be the best and if your backend, because at this point it is a web service and it’s not a local app anymore. Like I understand that they’re kind of, you know, between a rock and a hard place, especially if they don’t want the, the features and the experience is to, to, you know, like [01:33:00] diverge.

[01:33:01] Brett: So I know, I know this has gotten super nerdy and I know we’ve gone really long, but can I tell you about one other cool thing? I did.

[01:33:08] Jeff: You absolutely can Yes you can

[01:33:10] Brett: You guys are familiar with my obsession with keyboard shortcuts, correct.

[01:33:14] Jeff: Yes

[01:33:15] Brett: Um, and have either of you ever seen my default key bindings dot Dick file?

[01:33:20] Jeff: yes

[01:33:21] Brett: It’s it’s a

[01:33:22] Jeff: Not in a long time.

[01:33:24] Brett: You haven’t my in a long time.

[01:33:27] seen Dick

[01:33:28] So, if you’re not familiar, , you can change. You can add and modify keyboard shortcuts using a P list file in a default key bindings folder in your, in your home folder. And it affects everywhere that the keyboard can type it affects it. So it’s adding universal shortcut. So I got crazy with that. I made a key bindings file that probably has maybe 80 different key bindings, more than you’ll ever need, but I set it up so that I just add a [01:34:00] comment before each key binding definition.

[01:34:02] And then it’s self-documenting and cannot put like a markdown table of all the and they

[01:34:11] what do

[01:34:12] I, I used to use it with wrote an app called cheaters.

[01:34:17] Jeff: However, cheaters.

[01:34:18] Yeah,

[01:34:18] Brett: was like cheat sheets. It had full keyboard navigation and it worked well when fluid could make a menu bar, a little apps, but fluid is kind of dead and nothing has replaced the features that cheaters needs to So I’ve been using dash a lot.

[01:34:37] And dash has, there’s a gem called cheat set that you can feed, uh, R oh, a formatted, a Ruby file. And it’ll generate a cheat sheet for dash. So I modified myself documenting system per the key bindings to output a dash cheat sheet. And I published the script because nobody should be using [01:35:00] my entire key bindings file, which means that any cheat sheet I made for it would just contain a lot of shit you don’t need.

[01:35:06] So now you can edit the key binding file, just remove all the stuff you don’t need, change the shortcuts anywhere you want. Then run the script and you’ll get a dash cheat sheet of your personal key binding settings. And you can update it any time. Anytime you make a change, you just run the script and it’s done.

[01:35:26] And it’s, it’s perfect because I have so many keyboard shortcuts that I will, if I don’t use something often enough, forget what I said it to.

[01:35:36] And with like, you know, I can just pop up dash type in it’s fully searchable type in what I wanted. You get the key binding and then I’ll remember it. And if I continue to use it, then it’s muscle memory.

[01:35:48] But the cheat sheet is important. If you’re as nuts about keyboard shortcuts as I am.

[01:35:54] Jeff: Yes. Comma and

[01:35:58] Christina: comma and the Bret TURPs, a [01:36:00] story that is actually going, that should be the title of your book,

[01:36:03] Jeff: honestly.

[01:36:03] Brett: That’s the title of the episode

[01:36:05] for sure

[01:36:06] Jeff: Oh,

[01:36:06] Christina: 100% 100%

[01:36:09] Brett: Let me, let me add that to my notes. Actually, I’m going to spell out comma. Is that okay? Yes. Comma and the Brett Terpstra story.

[01:36:22] Christina: It reminds me of the, the best, um, um, like, uh, I guess slogan I’ve ever come up for, for, for a company. So my friend, um, Pershant works at a time-based, which is a, uh, um, um, time series, database, uh, uh, company. And, um, they, um, um, or not, not, uh, not timescale, uh, um, are they timescale? Yeah, timescale. Sorry. Um, and, uh, but, but they use time series databases.

[01:36:49] Timescales is a company. Anyway, the, the slogan, I, I told them that they could use, they haven’t, but that I hope they do some day was that their, their slogan should be no comma SQL.

[01:36:58] Jeff: That’s [01:37:00]

[01:37:01] Brett: Steve comma from college. Oh, a callback to a previous episode. All right, we’ve gone. I think, I think we’re at an

[01:37:10] Jeff: Bruce

[01:37:11] Brett: like hour and 40

[01:37:12] and didn’t have, we didn’t have any clean break point. This all getting published as one episode.

[01:37:17] Christina: I love it.

[01:37:18] Brett: is

[01:37:18] Christina: it’s a boat. It’s a, it’s a happy like bonus thing for, for, for the listeners. You can just, you can enjoy like a 25 minute discussion about the real world, but if you’re not into that, you just skip into the nerdy stuff. Maybe we should just make that clear in the show notes where people like, if you don’t want to hear a 25 minute like, discussion about the real world, we do actually talk about, um, nerd stuff, too.

[01:37:40] Jeff: Awesome.

[01:37:41] Brett: uh, I will, I will add markers. So in de script, if you add markers in while you’re editing, it will automatically turn those into you export, which is Yeah, it is. Um, I really don’t know why [01:38:00] they don’t sponsor us. I have actually pitched it to them and they’re like, yeah, we’ll think about it.

[01:38:07] And then never hear from them again.

[01:38:11] Anyway. Hey you guys, thanks for a marathon recording today. People aren’t even, and you know, they listened to this over two weeks. They’re not aware of kind of effort we put episodes.

[01:38:26] I even have the show notes for next week already done, but now I have to go and publish the first half of this. Uh, I have to go publish last week’s episode here at the end of episode.

[01:38:39] There’s

[01:38:40] Christina: the sausage is made folks. This is how the sausage is made. Yep,

[01:38:43] Brett: I love you guys.

[01:38:45] Jeff: man. Thank you so much. It’s been a real pleasure talking with you guys.

[01:38:48] Brett: It’s always a

[01:38:49] Jeff: you.

[01:38:50] Christina: Thanks for being on with us, Jeff. This has been really fun.

[01:38:52] Jeff: My pleasure.

[01:38:54] Brett: And there you have it two weeks with Jeff Severns Gunzel tune in next time [01:39:00] you know, it’ll be Um, Hey

[01:39:03] Christina: same overtired place, same overtired channel

[01:39:04] Brett: get some sleep.

[01:39:06] Christina: and get some sleep.

[01:39:07] Jeff: Get some sleep by.