Christina returns from her Vegas adventure; more and more and more tech layoffs; and Jeff gets his Chromium questins answered.
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Calm The Bleep Down
Our days are busy and with so much going on, it can be hard to stay stress-free and balanced. That’s why there is Calm The Bleep Down. Calm the Bleep Down is a podcast to help you get back to feeling refreshed and relaxed, so you can navigate the chaos of regular life with some balance and perspective.
Each week, host Michael Bekemeyer (pronounced Beck-uh-meyer) releases two free, guided meditations. They’re low-key, relaxed, and simple. With each meditation lasting 15–20 minutes, it’s not a huge commitment and the benefits make it well worth your time. You don’t even need to know how to do it. Anyone can meditate. All you have to do is close your eyes and breathe for a few moments.
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Show Links
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Transcript
Tweetbot Sleeps with Angels
[00:00:00]
[00:00:04] Jeffrey: Hello everybody. This is the Overtired Podcast. I am one of your hosts, uh, Jeff Severance Gunzel, and I’m here with your other two hosts. They are yours. We are all yours. Um, Christina Warren. Hi Christina. Hello. And Brett Terpstra. Hello Brett. Oh, hey, I didn’t see you come in. Oh yeah, no, I Did you, are you here for the podcast or
[00:00:30] Hi everybody. I wanna say there’s something I can see that nobody can ever see, which is that Brett and Christina have matching headphones which have little blue foamy parts. Every time I see that, I think I need to get mine. Cause I think we’re all using the same headphones.
[00:00:42] Yeah,
[00:00:42] Brett: we are. Same headphones. Yeah. We just went to the extra trouble to put the like microfiber ear cups on it.
[00:00:49] Jeffrey: That’s right,
[00:00:50] Christina: that’s right. In my case, I’ll be honest with you, it was because the original, um, ones on, on that pair, cause I have three or four pairs of these headphones. We’re all using Sony, um, MDR 75 0 6 s, which are like the standard, um, headphones for, for people in production.
[00:01:07] And um, cuz they’re cheap and they last forever. But, um, my, my ear caps. Um, tour, um, and, uh, and I ordered these. I think that now Brett, did you get yours after I got mine? Or did you get yours for Yeah.
[00:01:21] Brett: Okay. Yeah, I got right. Got yours. I got mine Because you got yours. That’s right. You
[00:01:24] Christina: recommended them to me.
[00:01:25] Yes, that’s right. Yeah. Cause they’re really good. So Yeah. Brainwaves I think is what is who makes them I forget something. Yeah,
[00:01:32] Jeffrey: all I’m gonna order mine. Cool. I, I just gotta, I’m tired of standing out. Is the, they
[00:01:36] Brett: only, they only come in this blue. So you will match us if you get some,
[00:01:40] Jeffrey: that’s great. Maybe we can have a listener giveaway.
[00:01:42] You just get, even if you don’t have the headphones, you just get the blue foam. . Lay your head on it at night. Uh, hi everybody.
[00:01:51] Brett: Hi Jeff. Hey Jeff. Um, what do you wanna do first, Jeff?
[00:01:55] Jeffrey: Well, I wanna say we have, there’s one of us, only one of the three of us is just back from Vegas, and I’d like to hear, I’d like to hear all about it.
[00:02:04] How was it
“Vegas. That’s my mental health check-in”
[00:02:04] Christina: Christina? Oh my God. Um, it was amazing. I had such a great time with my mom. Um, this was her first trip to Vegas, which I think I mentioned before. And so, uh, I’ve been many times, but I haven’t been like, on a non-work trip in probably since college. And so I was really excited. This was, you know, big 75th birthday Thing is, you know, originally when I bought the tickets for her, it was before her 75th birthday.
[00:02:30] And so originally we were supposed to go like six months before her birthday, and now we want wound up going five months after. But it was, it was an amazing, amazing trip. We, um, had just a great experience. Um, Adele was phenomenal. Like, uh, it, it, a lot of it was up on my Instagram stories and, um, I, I might archive them into some sort of archive if you wanna see, but the show was unreal.
[00:02:56] Our receipts as I knew they would be for what I paid not. No, but I would’ve won mm-hmm. , um, if I paid, um, okay. Like I paid $3,800 for these tickets, which is insane. Yeah. Hey, I would go way higher , which I now regret not doing, to be honest with you. Um, mm-hmm. When I got outta the show, I said, my only regret was, and I know that there’s no way I can say this without ma making me sound like an asshole, but I wish I had just paid $10,000 for floor seats, um, and, or, or over closer seats.
[00:03:27] Um, I could’ve paid. And here’s also what killed me because she rescheduled and because of all that mess, the, the price that I paid could’ve gotten me tickets on the floor. I’m, or, or maybe a little bit more, but I probably could have had tickets on the floor for that price once the, the rescheduling happened because a lot of people.
[00:03:48] you know, we’re like, got refunds and we’re like, I’m out. And then, you know, um, some of the pricing came down on the resale tickets, although not as much as you would think, but certainly they came down. Yeah. Um, if I paid like anything, even double like face value, I would’ve been ecstatic. It was just, The amount that I paid.
[00:04:09] But even, even from like the nosebleeds, it was a great show. She’s incredible. The, the interesting things that she did on the staging was really phenomenal. She had these things behind her that were visible. Only some of the times there was like these screens that kept going back and forth, and the way that they had, um, her, you know, blown up on, on, on the side, like l e d screens and the way that it would focus in on her face and that it would have things like in black and white certain points was really cool.
[00:04:35] But also the way that the stage screens that made like a red a and how that would, um, go back and reveal things was great. But behind her, in addition to having like a piano on stage and like her, her, um, backup singers, she had people playing like, like cellos and stuff, but they were, it looked like it was on like two, it was on like a two story risers where they were in these like little cubes and.
[00:05:01] they were sometimes obscured and sometimes visible. So it was like you had this massive thing behind her where you see these people full size, like playing, like the orchestra playing that was sometimes visible depending on, um, you know, what, what the setup was, which was really, really cool. And then sometimes they had other things playing on that screen.
[00:05:20] So, um, absolutely incredible show. I really hope she releases a DVD or a streaming thing, I guess is what they would do. Now, they wouldn’t do a dvd, but I, but I hope she releases like a, a, a streaming version of this show. Uh, she was lovely. The rest of the trip was fantastic. Um, we, um, we stated that at the Venetian or the, the Plateau, which.
[00:05:40] In my opinion is the best overall value for a place in Vegas. You can find hotels that are going to be nicer and fancier if you, if you pay more money and get like suites. But in terms of a standard room, I really do think that that place is, is the best overall value. And uh, it was a great location for us cuz it was close to, um, the Mirage where we saw the Beatles, um, uh, se show love, which is incredible.
[00:06:05] Nice. And as right next door to the win in the Encore, um, I took her to dinner at the Bellagio on Sunday night so that she could see the fountains and we had dinner at Lago there. Um, we also, uh, you know, uh, Adele was at Caesar’s, so I was able to basically take her to. Every casino on the strip that I would’ve wanted to show her except for the, um, cosmopolitan.
[00:06:27] Um, but, um, we had incredible service. It was a trip of a lifetime, like she said, like, it’s gonna make me cry, but she was like, it was my best birthday ever. And so I like mission accomplished. I, I’m so, so glad that at this time in my life I had like the ability and the means to really do this right for my mom because yeah, you know, she’s, um, she’s never been.
[00:06:50] And, and I wanted everything to be perfect and I was a little bit concerned. I was like, Man, given how the service industry has been, you know, I don’t know what the service is gonna be like and if people are gonna be nice or if people are gonna be, you know, whatever. And like, I would be understanding if people weren’t, cuz Vegas can be hit or miss anyway.
[00:07:06] Like it usually people are pretty nice, but you know, it, there’s a lot going on and, and I get it, we had such incredible service everywhere we went. When we got to the hotel, we got in at like 11 15, 11 30, and we tried to get early check-in and try to pay for it. And they were like, oh, you’re a decline. And we’re like, all right, well, we’ll just, you know, leave our bags, the luggage thing and, and bum around for, you know, four hours.
[00:07:29] Um, no, we were able to check in early and then the girl was nice enough to like have us check out late, um, for free. So we didn’t have to pay. So we had like the first day it almost felt like a, like a free day because we had like, you know, an extra four and a half hours, um, of, of not having, you know, um, to be like, Feeling weird about like, okay, well what are we gonna do?
[00:07:52] We don’t feel refreshed if you wanna shower, if you wanna do other stuff. So yeah, it, it, it couldn’t have been better. Um, just, just a really, really great trip. And I’m just, like I said, I’m just so grateful that I had the ex, the ability to share this with my mom and to take my mom to this because she deserves it.
[00:08:08] She’s the best. And, and it was just, you know, something that neither of us will ever.
[00:08:13] Brett: I’m really awesome, happy. I’m really happy you got to do that. I cannot get over how much tickets cost. Mm-hmm. , like I still, for me, $80 is too much to pay to go see a live show, um, to pay three plus thousand dollars for, uh, one night show.
[00:08:30] Like I just put all new windows in my house and it costs, you’re not my brand. And that’s, that’s insane to me, like to do that for when entertainment is nuts. No, I’m not, I’m not judging you. I’m just saying, oh, I know you’re not. It’s that, that’s what it costs now.
[00:08:44] Christina: No. And, and to be, and also to be fair, if I had not been insistent on getting the tickets when I got them, if I had waited until it was closer to the show, which would’ve been smarter in retrospect because she wound up, you know, uh, rescheduling, uh, no way to know.
[00:09:02] Right. There is no way to know. And now this was also the thing, I think the reason that I did. A, I kind of got caught up in the hype to be a little bit honest. I was like, I need to get these tickets, I need to do this for her birthday. I had a certain budget and I just did it because I was like, I don’t know if these are gonna get better or not.
[00:09:17] Um, and because this is a, you know, she’s probably, Adele said that she really only wants to do these types of residencies in the future. What I think that she’ll probably do is that she will do really big international shows, like She’ll do Wimbly in the UK and maybe she’ll do some like shows in South America or Australia.
[00:09:36] But she will primarily do kind of what Celine did. But unlike Celine who had a residency for on and off, I think for like 14 years, um, like, cuz one of her residencies I think was like, uh, four years. And I think one of them was like seven or eight. Like this was, she added a co she added two more shows.
[00:09:57] But this was. A 40 show or 38 show engagement. And so, and, and last time with El to was 2016. And, and we saw her then. So I was just like, you know, this is, this is, this is like Springsteen on, on Broadway where incidentally Yeah, my tickets were less than this. So you’re not wrong, Brad, that the prices are insane.
[00:10:16] Oh, you saw that show? I did awesome. And that was un awesome. That was unreal. But I also got lucky with that. Like, I’m sure plenty of people paid more than I paid for Adele, for Springsteen and Broadway and, but, but I, I got lucky and, and knew someone who, who had tickets, but, um, yeah, you’re not, you’re not wrong about any of the, the pricing meeting saying, but I was looking at it as like, okay, I have a budget.
[00:10:39] This is, this is, I wanna do this for my mom, like, money be damned. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, it was about, it was about, it was about the whole thing. Not just Adele per se. Like honestly, she loved Adele and had no complaints. But like, she even said that if all we had done was was see the Beatles CRC show.
[00:10:56] She that would’ve been worth a trip. You’re like, don’t say that. Don’t say that. Don’t say that exactly. I was like, right. Totally, totally. But, but, but here’s the thing. I don’t know if I could’ve gotten her to Vegas for just that. Right? Yeah. So,
[00:11:08] Jeffrey: um, yeah. That doesn’t, that doesn’t sound like nearly as awesome of a trip,
[00:11:12] Christina: No. Well, what was funny is my dad I’d originally. When I looked at booking the tickets the first time, cuz we were supposed to go in March of, of 2022. Um, and, and then it was rescheduled for January. So not as great weather, but whatever I’d originally, like my parents' 50th wedding anniversary was last April.
[00:11:31] And so I had said, I was like, look, I know dad doesn’t like Adele for whatever reason, but I, um, which given his tasty music, I still don’t understand. Um, but it’s the hard, it’s the hard one not to like . It really is. It’s just, and, and, and, and he likes Celine a lot. Like it, there’s, there are thing it does, I don’t get it, but it is what it is.
[00:11:51] But, um, I was like, well dad, you know, you can come to Vegas too. You don’t have to go to Adele, but like, I would love to take you both to Vegas for your 50th anniversary. And he was like, no, no, no, I don’t wanna go to Vegas. You, you girls go, it’s a girls trip. And then he started doing what he does now because he’s an old man.
[00:12:05] And, um, uh, , which is, he looks up everything on YouTube. Um, he also watches like the celebrity gossip explainer YouTube stuff like nonstop, like, like, like the Nicki Swift stuff, like why this celebrity has fallen off. Like it’s, it’s really funny and I learned somehow, man, he watches, he’s, he’s like really into, it’s funny, that’s called the School of
[00:12:23] Jeffrey: Hard Knocks,
[00:12:24] Christina: ain’t it?
[00:12:25] it totally, no, but, but he started looking up the resort and he started seeing the videos of all this stuff and he was like, I wanna go. I was like, I told you, I told you you could have gone with us. He was, he’s like, I didn’t know Vegas was like this. And I’m like, oh my God. Like my parents had apparently missed out on the entire, like two thousands, like rebrand of Vegas as like a family friendly luxury vacation thing.
[00:12:48] Like they, they just totally, totally missed out on that. And we’re still under the impression that it was like, Like 1970s or 19. There are whole blocks. Can’t
[00:12:59] Jeffrey: get heroin. .
[00:13:01] Christina: Yeah. You gotta go to downtown. You gotta go to downtown Vegas for the heroin. Right. Which is like, which we did not do, like, we did not leave the strip.
[00:13:08] Right. So, so we were like, not in real Vegas. I’m, I’m, I’m aware. But yeah. You know, like, they totally missed out.
[00:13:16] Brett: It’s bizarre. Going, going off the strip or even going to the old strip, like, it’s such a trip. How, how different the world is over like a four block radius there. Um, like once you leave the strip.
[00:13:28] Yeah. I, I went to, I went to multiple NA meetings last time I was in Vegas, uh, which were not on the strip. They were, you know, in like suburban Las Vegas. And it’s a different world. It’s.
[00:13:44] Jeffrey: Yeah. Um, so I wanna say something very quaint. What is, what now seems very quaint and actually seemed that at the time, but about ticket prices, which is not at all about, um, what anybody’s paying now because that, that’s just what people are paying.
[00:13:59] I mean, that’s just, that’s the world we live in, right? , like, um, I was, I was thinking the other day about, um, this band Fugazi, who always insisted that their tickets, yes, $5, their tickets be $5. But there was one exception and I was there and they had to play First Avenue, and it was on probably one of their, like it was 98, 99 probably.
[00:14:23] They were doing two nights, I think two shows. Two nights. No, it was their, um, second to last album actually, I think. Oh. anyway, they, they, for reasons I don’t remember, they had to charge more than $5. I think they had to charge, like I have the ticket stuff somewhere. They had to charge like 5 75 . And the reason, the way that they agreed to do that was if they could print the breakdown of every cent over $5 on the fucking ticket
[00:14:54] Um, and so I have that ticket, it just says in like 5 75 or whatever, and then it’s like every little tax or whatever that’s
[00:15:00] Brett: on there, I was like, Fu Fugazi, Fugazi, the hard hardcore band that didn’t allow people to mosh at their shows.
[00:15:08] Jeffrey: That’s right. That’s right. I mean they were, they were hyper controlled, right?
[00:15:12] Yes.
[00:15:12] Brett: Like absolutely straight edge to the, to the
[00:15:15] Jeffrey: max. And that was, whoa, there goes my microphone. But I thought that that was kind of adorable and in the face of how, where ticket prices went in our world, it’s like Yeah. Beyond quaint, right? Because even then I was like, I’m not paying 35 fucking dollars to go to Target
[00:15:30] Brett: and see Neil Young paid, I paid like $20 to see Iggy Pop and that was just, yeah.
[00:15:34] Yeah. That seemed insane to me. Oh my God. Anyway,
[00:15:38] Christina: which is amazing. See, by the time I started going to concerts Yeah. Unless you were going to a really small show, like those, those days were not there. Or you knew the band or something. Right. Which is why most of the concerts I went to, like in high school, um, were festival.
[00:15:56] because Yeah, right. You know, you, you, because you know, okay, you pay your 50 bucks or 60 bucks or whatever it is, your a hundred bucks. If you’re doing a three day pass and, and you see you’ve got like a hundred bands there, right? Like, so that was how I saw most bands. If they weren’t, you know, really small.
[00:16:10] Um, because everybody else, cuz it’s the fees. Well, even for me, the tickets I think were like, 1100 a piece. And then what happened was StubHub fees were like 50%. Oh, Fred Dell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so again, if I had been able to like, find somebody to do it one to one with, and there were some various like, uh, ticket platforms that are apparently, you know, more safe and whatnot, I could have done that for this show.
[00:16:38] I was absolutely not risking anything. Yeah, you didn’t get it.
[00:16:42] Brett: Definitely. Definitely keeps the rabble out of the show. If you’re in a show and you know that everyone there paid at least a thousand dollars to be there. Right. You’re, I don’t know. I bet you’re among a, a certain class of people at that point.
[00:16:56] You still gotta deal with some
[00:16:58] Jeffrey: boomer shenanigans.
[00:16:59] Christina: Yeah. Well, or not, well, not, not, not zoomer shenanigans. Actually. Zoomer shenanigans. . Because honestly, cuz at that point then you have like really entitled like either influencers or like rich. Mm-hmm. Like kids who don’t understand. Yeah. Unfortunately, no amount of money will ever have people act Right.
[00:17:14] If that, if, if that were the case, then everybody in business class wouldn’t act like fools. And there are plenty of examples of that , you know.
[00:17:23] Brett: Well, I do,
[00:17:24] Jeffrey: I will say I love a good residency. I love feeling like, I love how you can feel the way the artist has obviously not just spent the last two days traveling and schlepping and whatever.
[00:17:34] Totally. And that they’re just walking comfortably into the building and up on the stage that like, uh, I’m sure it’s wonderful for them, but I always feel like it’s wonderful as an audience member too. So relaxed.
[00:17:44] Christina: Totally. Totally. No, and it’s so funny because honestly, Celine really did like, completely change it from modern artists.
[00:17:49] Like nobody who was a current act did it to my knowledge. So it was
[00:17:53] Jeffrey: her really got
[00:17:54] Christina: that going. Yeah. So they built the coliseum for her, which is where Adele was at Caesar’s. They built that for her. Um, and, and that opened in like 2002 or 2003. And that was like, if you think about it, that. A that was peek Celine, like, well, okay.
[00:18:10] Peek Celine was probably 98 with my heart Will go on. But like she’d had so many big hits. Like she was definitely a big star, right? So she could have done international tours in massive stadiums. Um, but you know, she had the geriatric husband and um, and I, and the kids I think. And so she was like, oh, I’m gonna do Vegas.
[00:18:29] And at that point, to my knowledge, correct me if I’m wrong listeners, but I, I think my history on this is right, is it was mostly legacy acts and then she was the first. Modern, kind of like Hot Act, who did it. And like U2 is doing a residency this year. They’re gonna be at, at the, at the Venetian, I think.
[00:18:46] Um, and
[00:18:47] Brett: they could be
[00:18:48] Christina: considered Legacy, couldn’t they? They are, but my point being like, of course they are, but I’m just saying like, like, but, but, but I say this U Two’s last tour, which was a decade ago, and I know it’s a decade, but, so U Two’s last tour is still to this day, the best selling, like the highest grossing tour of all time.
[00:19:04] Huh? Like, so, and, and, and that was a hundred plus shows where they were playing in the, the 360 stadiums, you know, a hundred thousand plus people. So, you know, um, even when even those big rock acts like, you know, Uh, are are doing residencies, but yet you see everybody doing it. You know, Britney obviously had a, had a residency and, and um, Katie Perry has one there right now, but, um, you know, uh, it’s usually not like top of their game artists though.
[00:19:34] So that is still, I think, a little bit unique to Adele and, and a little bit like Celine cuz like Katie Perry is, is not selling records like she used to, whereas Adele is still selling. Yeah. You know, like Mil, she’s still selling millions and millions of albums. So, um, but, but you’re right. It’s great. It’s great for the artist and, and for the fans.
[00:19:52] Like you said Jeff,
[00:19:54] Brett: so like 20 minutes to talk about Vegas. That was uh, that was a good intro salad.
[00:19:59] Christina: It was solid. Sorry about that. And that’s also my mental health update,
Sponser: ZocDoc
[00:20:01] Brett: so everything else. No apologies. Yeah. That’s awesome. . Uh, Christina, do you want to do the Zoc read this
[00:20:08] Christina: week? Yes, absolutely. This episode is brought to you by Zoc.
[00:20:15] All right, so you’re trying to find a cause for your symptoms and you know, maybe you’ve got like a cough cuz you were just in Las Vegas and you’re around a bunch of people and you’re like, oh my God, do I have an ear infection? Do I have like sore throat? Do I have covid going on? , exactly. Like what do I have?
[00:20:31] Anyway, you stumbled down a TikTok rabbit hole full of questionable advice from so-called experts. Do not take. , like the, the dewormer. That’s all I’m gonna say. But there are better ways to get the answers that you want and the care that you deserve from trusted professionals and, you know, not randos on the internet.
[00:20:48] Don’t trust the randos on the internet. Reddit is not medical advice. Uh, neither is WebMD, frankly. Doc, doc helps you find expert doctors and medical professionals that specialize in the care that you need and deliver the type of experience that you want. Zocdoc is the. Free app that lets you find and book doctors who are patient reviewed, take your insurance, are available when you need them, and treat almost every condition under the sun.
[00:21:17] So when you’re not feeling your best and you’re just trying to hold it together, finding great care shouldn’t take up all your energy. And honestly, like that’s true. That can take up a lot of your energy when you just feel sick. And this is where Zoc Dot comes in using their free app that millions of users rely on.
[00:21:32] You can find the right doctor that meets your needs and fits your schedule. You can put good appointments, uh, with just a couple of taps in the app and start feeling better faster with Zoc. So go to zoc.com/ Overtired and download the zoc app for free. Then you can find and book top-rated doctors today.
[00:21:53] Many are available within 24 hours. That’s zoc Do c.com/ Overtired zoc.com/ Overtired. I’ve
[00:22:05] Brett: probably told you this before, but there was one time I was in Vegas and apparently there’s some kind of desert pollen that causes, uh, like flu leg symptoms. Yeah. And I had like an allergic reaction, completely lost my voice and stuff.
[00:22:20] He knows. It was like, I thought I had left Minnesota behind, but all of a sudden I had this just horrible, like head cold and laryngitis and it was awful. Yeah. I spent, I spent my entire four days in Vegas, just unable to talk, unable to breathe. It was awful. Um, wow. And, and WebMD told me I had cancer, so I could have used Doc.
[00:22:45] Um, that’s a, that’s a web, that’s a web md Well, desert cancer.
[00:22:50] Christina: Um, desert cancer in biggest cancer.
Podcast Swap: Calm the Bleep Down
[00:22:52] Brett: Our, our podcast. Our podcast swap this week comes from the Calm, the Bleep Down podcast. Our days are busy, and with so much going on, it can be hard to say stress free and balanced. That’s why there is. Calm the bleep down.
[00:23:07] Calm the bleep down as a podcast to help you get back to feeling refreshed and relaxed so you can navigate the chaos of regular life with some balance and perspective.
[00:23:17] Each week host Michael Beckermeyer releases two free guided meditations. They’re low key, relaxed, and simple. With each meditation lasting 15 to 20 minutes. It’s not a huge commitment, and the benefits can make it well worth your time. You don’t even need to know how to do it.
[00:23:34] Anyone can meditate. All you have to do is close your eyes and breathe for a few moments. Maybe like so many others, you have a really busy mind and you’re convinced you can’t meditate. Or maybe it’s been a while and you wanna get back into the habit. Search for a calm the bleep down in the Apple Podcast app or wherever you listen to podcast and come meditate with us or them, depending on whose voice this this read is written in.
[00:24:02] Christina
Mental Health Corner
[00:24:03] Brett: says she’s already done her mental health check-in.
[00:24:05] Um, yep. I’ll give you my quick update. I, uh, so I missed a week of the podcast cuz I was sick and then immediately went into like a hypomanic phase where I was still sleeping like six to eight hours a night. , but definitely like had my, uh, obsession, my coding. Like I just wanted to be in my office coding all the time, uh, which I enjoy.
[00:24:29] It’s great. I I get a lot done. Um, it lasted, uh, I, I, yesterday I decided I was gonna stop taking my h d meds, cuz I needed to kind of get off this, uh, very long hypomanic phase. Um, so today I’m, I am without medication and, uh, a little bit, uh, scattered. Feeling a little calmer, but not much. Like I honestly, I, I’m, I’m in the middle of what could be a very long, hypomanic phase.
[00:25:02] Um, I don’t hate it. My girlfriend tells me I’ve been distant. Um, I don’t know exactly what that means, but she’s like, not emotionally distant. Like, I feel like you’re here, but then I don’t, I don’t know. I guess I’m not, I’m not the greatest partner when I’m mad, like I know that. But, um, I thought I was holding it together pretty well this time, but, Um, yeah, so I’m trying to, I’m trying to kind of end it, get back to stable, uh, hopefully without a lot of depression.
[00:25:31] But, um, it’s been, it’s been over a week that I’ve been just slightly elevated, which, uh, at first I was like, holy shit, did I find the new stable? Did I find like the perfect stable where I’m like productive and like, and focused and, and happy and, uh, but it got old after a little bit. So still haven’t, still haven’t found that sweet spot
[00:25:58] Jeffrey: That sounds like a sweet spot.
[00:26:02] Um, I’m, uh, I’m, I’ve. I’ve been thinking, or sorry, I’ve been observing myself. Like, I don’t know if it’s that I’m moving too fast or that my, my brain is impacted by certain medications or what, but I’ve been kind of just making little mistakes that are making me crazy and that aren’t, I mean, some of these are in publishing the podcasts and Brett will be like, it’s not that, not that big of a deal.
[00:26:29] And I’m like, ah, fuck Gabby.
[00:26:31] Brett: I don’t, again,
[00:26:32] Jeffrey: don’t give up on me. Ah. Um, and uh, so let’s just talk about a lot of little things like that, that are, it just when they add up like that they can be kind of stressful. And I, I realized I was kind of looking for a reason and I realized that like, , you know, in a couple months.
[00:26:47] My, the project I’ve been doing for five years ends and it’s my only source of income. Um, and I am looking at what the hell to do next. And I think for me, when I’m in that position, I go through a whole swirl of like, I have moments where I feel confident and I’m, I, I feel like, yeah, no, I’ve, I can, I can definitely build off of what I’ve done in the past and I’m really proud of that, whatever, into like imposter syndrome where it’s like, oh well it’s all a fucking house of cards and , you know, like whatever.
[00:27:17] And um, so I’ve been kind of cycling with that and, and realizing like, oh, I wonder if that’s actually impacting my, like, overall sort of, um, cognitive abilities. Cuz it takes up like way more space than I, I think it will or think it does. Um, so I’m just trying to like, I’m just trying to continually slow myself down a little bit.
[00:27:41] Um, part of part of the way I’m doing that is like if I’ve, if I’m in the middle of trying to do something and I’m moving kind of fast, I’ll just stop and try to like write out what it is I’m doing and I’m going to do next it, when that’s useful. I don’t, I wouldn’t do if it wasn’t useful. Um, but just trying to kind of like stop myself and slow down a little bit and gi give myself a little spaciousness.
[00:28:02] Cause I don’t think I need a ton of spaciousness. I can need just a little, and I need many little bits of spaciousness through the day. Um, so, and I need to not be in a situation where I’m, where I have no choice but to rush, which is a situation I put myself in all the time, . Um, so I’m trying to kind of deal with that rather than being like, what’s wrong with my brain?
[00:28:23] Um, I’m, I’m like, well here, it’s what’s obviously wrong with your brain and can be solved with behavioral changes, . So anyhow, it’s my. . All right. But it’s a lot. Like I, I have, you know, I have a wife of two kids and I’m, I, I’m a, I’m a breadwinner in this house. Mm-hmm. . So it’s just like, shit, I gotta get this.
[00:28:45] Right.
[00:28:46] Christina: Right. You gotta get shit done for sure. Yeah, exactly. .
[00:28:51] Jeffrey: So anyhow, that’s my deal. Yeah.
Ugh. Tech layoffs
[00:28:53] Brett: What do we, my, uh, the tech world is facing massive layoffs, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. . Um, and nobody working in tech is feeling perfectly secure. Um, I don’t care how untouched your team seems right now, there’s like, yeah, there’s a.
[00:29:10] What was it? Google employees were fired by email and they found out, a lot of them found out they were, they had been laid off when their key cards didn’t let them into the building the next day. Oh, that’s funny. So rough. There’s no, there’s no guarantee that, uh, tech jobs are safe, which is probably true across the economy.
[00:29:31] I’m just mostly involved. Well, it’s a lot, a lot of those tech moves, but I spend a lot of time thinking, holy shit, what do I do? If, if I get laid off in the middle of a tech recession and nobody’s hiring, like, what happens to me? What happens to, to my family? Yeah. Uh, like me and my partner and my, I guess, yeah.
[00:29:51] But that’s a family. Um,
[00:29:53] Christina: well, I, I think so. If, if, if, if it makes you feel any better, Brett, like, I think that you a, I think you’re in a better position than a lot of other people because you have a lot of skills, so you can be slotted into a lot of things. Um, I, I have a very um, , I have a much, uh, smaller set of skills, shall we say.
[00:30:13] Uh, so, um, I, I worry someone, but I’m also, I have to just be confident that if something happens, I’ll find something. But I think you have a very broad skillset where you could be s slotted into a lot of things. The only thing I’ll say, and I also worried about the, the, the tech recession and and whatnot, is that even though all these layoffs are happening, if you look like even in the United States at the number of like engineers that we need, we still don’t have enough.
[00:30:41] So even if like the, the, the scary thing with the big companies doing the layoffs is that you might find another job, but it might not pay as well. And depending on your budget, and if you’re like really reliant on like that, you know, like mid six figure salary, like, uh, you know, for your mortgage and all these other things like that could really fuck you.
[00:31:01] I’m not like discounting that, but, If, if this is more like a, like a, you know, early two thousands kind of tech bubble thing and, and, and we don’t know yet. Like there are still like startups. I, I know for a fact are still hiring and so you’re sort of in this weird place where, yeah, okay, you might lose your job at Google and, and I’m not in any way discounting how horrible and like awful and stressful that would be, but there are other places hiring.
[00:31:27] It’s not like, you know, some industries that I’ve worked in where like then no one is hiring and you know, you wouldn’t even be able to find anything comparable to live off of. So I hope that can give you a little bit of. It, it, it’s not gonna give you reassurance, but just, just, just to say like, I’m just looking at it.
[00:31:46] There are still jobs, they’re just maybe different, right? Like we just, I think the, the interesting thing is Brett and I were talking about this before the podcast started. There’s this entire generation of people who, um, have never been through layoffs or recession before. Mm. And, and that’s weird for me because I used to work in journalism, which obviously had lots of that.
[00:32:09] Right. Even after like, the boom years of digital, which was the only part of journalism I worked in, there were all kinds of layoffs. But, you know, I also graduated from college in 2008, so like my entire, like worldview was shaped by that. And, uh, but there’s a whole generation of people who’ve literally never seen it.
[00:32:26] And so, uh, I totally understand the, the anxiety because I have questions too. I’m also the breadwinner in my house, so I definitely have, I’m definitely there with you where. You know, I have decent savings and, and I’d be okay. Um, but you know, like yeah, you know, you’re definitely have like those questions.
[00:32:43] It’s
[00:32:43] Brett: amazing how fast savings can disappear when you have no other source of income. Like, I have decent savings right now too. Um, probably, probably not as decent as yours cuz I’ve only been back in the job world for Right. A little over a year now. Um, but like I could survive six months, like if I lost my job and had no, like unemployment or anything, I could survive six months, um, comfortably at my current lifestyle.
[00:33:12] Um, yeah. But, but then, right. If it took me longer than that to find a job, I’d be in trouble.
[00:33:18] Christina: Yeah. I could do a year right now, um, at, at, at my current stuff and, and probably extend that. That’s great. If, if I cut things down. Um, but you know, I definitely don’t want to do that. Right. Yeah. And that would, and, and, and to be clear that’s, that, that’s before going into the 401k.
[00:33:33] Right. Yeah, exactly. Other stuff the same, which, which I wouldn’t wanna touch. Um, so I, I have a year, but yeah, I obviously don’t, you know, yeah. My,
[00:33:41] Brett: you know, my 401k, I lost half, I lost half of my 401k from the first half of my career. When I got divorced, I just, uh, without really even being asked, I just was like, you deserve half of this.
[00:33:54] And I just signed over half my 401k. Um, and then didn’t, didn’t have a job for the next, like seven years. Cause obviously no
[00:34:03] Jeffrey: lawyers involved ,
[00:34:05] Brett: which is better many times. Yeah, I know it’s way there. And my divorce was super easy. It was, it, it, it went fine. Um. . I think I did, I think I did right by her. Um, at the time we got divorced, she was making more than I was anyway, so mm-hmm.
[00:34:21] um, it, it, that wasn’t too hard, but I didn’t start Redding to my 401K until last year. Um, so basically I have the 401k of like a 21 year old right now. Um, yeah. It’s not, it’s in a similar, it’s not significant . Yeah,
[00:34:39] Jeffrey: yeah. Yeah. That’s scary. Yeah.
[00:34:43] Christina: And mine is mostly my, I mean, I have my mind, my 401k is definitely not what it should be because I saved a whole lot less than, than um, you know, you were suggested to.
[00:34:50] Cuz I lived in New York City and I was like, What do you mean? I’m supposed to say this amount of Yeah, yeah. . Fuck you. Um, but, but a lot of my stuff has been, uh, it has been caught up in stock, stock that I didn’t sell dumbly. Um, and the stock has, has, you know, gone down significantly and the last year. So that’s been fun to just see a third of that disappear.
[00:35:13] But, you know,
[00:35:14] Jeffrey: Yeah.
[00:35:16] Christina: Yeah. But also I, I work in an industry that gives me stock so that there’s, that I, I, I’ve
[00:35:20] Brett: restricted stock units that if I stick around long enough, they’ll, they’ll vest and I’ll be able to take them out. But I, I have another six months before the first quarter of my last bonus, actually vests and I can touch it.
[00:35:34] Okay. Uh, so hopefully, hopefully I can stick around that
[00:35:37] Christina: long. We’ll see. Yeah. My, my, my mine, mine vests quarterly, but I, I don’t do the thing that you can do with after,
[00:35:43] Brett: after a year. I learned this about GitHub, uh, invest quarterly after a year. But your first year you can’t,
[00:35:50] Christina: well, no. Well, well, that, that’s, that’s for your signing, uh, amount.
[00:35:54] Um, because I was joining from Microsoft. Oh, okay. All my stock already transferred over, and then my, my bonus that I got at GitHub is quarterly, so I was already on like a Microsoft vest. So, but yeah. Um, so most of them, most of them, the, the, the first amount that they give you will vest. Yeah. Um, At least the signing amount will, will vest, um, after a year.
[00:36:16] But, but, um, your first bonus, even if you get that in under a year, usually quarterly. Nice.
King of the Hill Corner
[00:36:22] Brett: Um, I know we have a, we have a few topics to cover. I, uh, the week I was gone, you guys mentioned King of the Hill and it’s come up a few times, . Um, it’s a great show. Uh, last time Christina mentioned it was about the, uh, Y2K episode.
[00:36:39] Yeah. And, uh, so I, I was like, all right, Christina seems very gung-ho on King of the Hill. Like she brings it up all the time. And I trust Christina. I trust Christina’s like media chaps. And I had seen, I had watched it when it was on and I enjoyed it. It was a good show. I had, I had warm feelings about it, but I had just watched all of future drama and been disappointed.
[00:37:04] Um, and Christina said, you know, king of the Hill is better. And so I went back and I started from the beginning. I’m on season. Nine now. Mm-hmm. , um, I’ve been watching it. Uh, we have, we have learned that El is her at her best, if she has some time to, uh, with, with autism and, and recovery times needed from social interactions, if she has an hour to two hours of just her time, um, like close the door, read, write, do all of those things.
[00:37:39] So I’m left in the living room, uh, and I watch King of the Hill every night now. . Um, and it is really good. Yeah. Like the way that they have it set up. So you have like an uptight, Christian, patriotic Texas family, uh, dealing with the problems that arise from having a slightly, a different kid, like he’s a good kid.
[00:38:03] Mm-hmm. , but, uh, but, but he maybe is a little more effeminate than, than the, the, the dad would like, maybe he’s a little puer than his parents expected him to be. Like all of these little things that they have to deal with and they have to deal with all of the things that Bobby brings into their lives.
[00:38:23] And it deals with it in a way that even my ultra right wing religious parents could watch and understand the progression that Hank goes through every week as he learns to deal with these new things. And they do it in a way that is. Not offensive, like it’s not in your face. They tackle these issues in a way that’s like, yeah, it’s, it’s okay to be offended by this at first, but here’s why.
[00:38:51] Here’s why you will eventually come around and still love your son. Despite your misgivings at first, and I think it’s a brilliant show. It’s really good.
[00:39:01] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I, I totally thank you for saying that. Um, I, this is, this is Grant’s favorite show, and, and he always calls himself like, like he was Bobby Hill as a kid, , and, and, and that’s how he really related to it.
[00:39:15] And yeah, the, the show, and even, you know, you, when you get into the later seasons, it does fall off the rails a little bit more, although there’s still some gyms, but like, it, it’s, um, I think it’s a really great just kind of representation of a lot of the characters. Like Hank, who’s this conservative kind of guy.
[00:39:32] Like he could have been an archetype that would’ve been really one-dimensional, and he is not a one-dimensional character. Yeah. You know, he really feels like a real person. He’s not Archie Bunker. Yeah. No. And he really does evolve and he really does grow. Right. And, uh, there’s, there’s this great episode, um, that happened I guess in 2000 when George W.
[00:39:50] Bush was running for president, where he met him at, um, at like a fair or something. And then he had a weekend shake. And then he has this crisis of conscience about who he is gonna vote for . Um, and, uh, it, it, it, it’s very, very funny. Um, there was this great thing that I saw, um, over Christmas, uh, I’m gonna blink it in our, our show notes.
[00:40:09] It’s called Priests React to King of the Hill, and it’s these two, um, priests and they do these react videos. They’re these two like, like Catholic priests, these two friars I guess who, uh, react to, um, Various, uh, pop culture media, and they talk about the one where the episode that they react to is the one where, uh, Hank, um, leaves his church mm-hmm.
[00:40:31] because they give up his seats to someone else and, and then they go to the megachurch and mm-hmm. and kind of the whole thing there. And it’s actually, it’s like, it’s, it’s a really interesting thing to watch, to get that perspective from, you know, even if you’re someone like me who, who doesn’t appreciate or doesn’t, it’s not that I don’t appreciate, but who doesn’t really jive with organized religion.
[00:40:51] Um, it was actually, I even had Grant watch and he really liked the reaction and he’s even more anti-religion than I am. Um, he who really, really liked, um, their response to it. And, and it was really interesting because. The priest is, is younger and it’s clearly showing the older one this media, but they, they, they walk away with it like very impressed and thinking, oh no, they got the, got the message right.
[00:41:13] Um, Greg Daniels, who was one of the co-creators, went on to create the office and, and I think that you, you can see a lot of like the humanity and things that you later saw in the office. You can see it in King of the Hill. So I’m glad, I’m glad you’ve been enjoying it because I really do think it’s one of those like special shows I think
[00:41:31] Brett: of you a lot.
[00:41:32] When I watch it, I’m like, oh, Christina would’ve loved those .
Explain Things to Jeff Corner
[00:41:36] Jeffrey: That’s awesome. Uh, can I ask you guys to explain something to me like I was five? Yes. Okay. Why is it that there are so many things that only work in Chrome? , even though chromium
[00:41:49] Brett: is everywhere. In my experience, if something says it will work in chro, it’ll work in a chromium browser.
[00:41:56] Um mm-hmm. They’re not gonna, they’re, most places aren’t gonna be like, this also works in brave, they’re just gonna say ch because it has so much market share. Yeah. Um, but for the most part, like Riverside, which we’re using to record this, for example. Yeah. Uh, it, it works fine and, and brave or edge.
[00:42:14] Christina: Yeah.
[00:42:15] Okay. Now if you’re talking about chromium, the open source Google thing, is that what you’re talking about? Um, yeah. Jeff. Okay. That lacks a couple libraries that, um, some websites call on. So it’s, um, D r m is one of the big ones. So Wild Vine, which is like the, the d R m that, uh, YouTube, uh, actually I don’t think YouTube uses it, but Netflix and, and Hulu and a bunch of other services rely on, um, is, is bundled into Chrome official and it’s actually bundled into Firefox, which was very controversial, but.
[00:42:50] that was the correct move. I’m sorry. For the, for the, you know, open source purist or free software purist, excuse me. Free software purist. Yeah, yeah. Don’t, don’t, don’t wanna mislabel anyone. Um, but, but that was the right decision. Um, but there are a couple of, there are a couple of specific things that Google does in Chrome, which then is by the most part adopted in brave and in opera and in edge and other things that, for whatever reason, are not in the pure open source builds of chromium.
[00:43:19] Um, but it’s usually D R M related. And, and I don’t know why I would say, and, and Brett tell me your thoughts on this, but I mean, at this point, a lot of it is, it is like Internet Explorer all over again where a lot of developers just don’t even bother to test in desktop safari. They will test in, in mobile safari cuz they have to, but they don’t even bother to test.
[00:43:41] in Firefox, right? Like, and there’s certainly, you know, WebKit they’re not going to use. And so it’s one of those things that if there are flags, um, that, that might be off on chromium and I don’t know what they might be for some reason, the, that the site is using one of those things maybe. Maybe that’s why it breaks.
[00:43:59] Jeffrey: Tell me, uh, describe and, uh, tell me this, like, I’m five, what is
[00:44:03] Christina: chromium? Okay, so Chromium is the pure open source implementation of the Chrome browser. So it is, um, taking all the Google bits out of it. So Google would have their server for some of the extensions and for maybe some of the stuff that they would do for YouTube, you know, or, or d r m as I said.
[00:44:23] And, and this is what they’re basically kind of giving out to the community and, and frankly Linux users to be like, look, you wanted something that, that is unencumbered and that is deco. Here you go. It’s not gonna have all the niceties that we have and it’s not going to have like all the bells and whistles and polish, but this will, this will work.
[00:44:43] Um, and, and you can, uh, be assured that it is purely, uh, open source or free software.
[00:44:49] Jeffrey: Yeah. Okay. So what is built on chromium or out of chromium ?
[00:44:55] Christina: Um, well, it ver it, it, it depends again, like Microsoft Edge is technically based on chromium, but they use a lot of things from the Chrome project too. And then Microsoft is obviously gonna add in the D r M component and, and the other things.
[00:45:08] And they’re gonna adhere really strictly to the Chrome release schedule to try to make sure that if it works in Chrome, it’ll work in edge. Um, but if you, for instance, wanted to build a brand new web browser that had the, the, the Chrome engine, so you would have the JavaScript engine and you would also have like the, the rendering engine blink.
[00:45:26] Um, and you would have the ability to use the extension format. Um, you could just use the chromium base and then add or remove whatever, whatever, you know, kind of googly bits you wanted. But like, the idea would be, for instance, like a lot the. You know, brave kind of started and, and edge to, to a certain degree too.
[00:45:43] Like, they don’t have all of like the, the, the really high Google optimized things, right? Which, which are really dedicated for, you know, around Google search and, and the other Google services. Like, that’s not part of Chromium. So, so the idea of chromium is, is basically like you can take our JavaScript, um, um, engine engine and our, and our, and our, you know, renderer.
[00:46:05] Um, but there are other things that the Google builds that, that they are like, Hey, this is ours and I, and if you wanna use them and, and like the dev tools for instance, are, I, I believe for the most part, open source, but some people build on them. Like, I actually think that the edge, uh, dev tools are better now, um, which I know is an anthem, but I actually think they are.
[00:46:24] But if you wanted to, you know, make changes, Uh, to, to remove certain things, which usually people do for privacy reasons, where they’re like, we don’t want all of our searches and all of our pages and everything that we’re doing necessarily be tracked by Google or whoever, you know? Yeah. We’ll, we’ll do our own thing.
[00:46:40] Or if you are a, a company who’s like, I don’t like manifest v3, which is gonna be the thing that, that Google is supposed to, uh, finally force everyone on and the next couple of months, which will make ad blocking as we’ve done traditionally, much more difficult. Mm-hmm. In theory, somebody could fork, you know, um, uh, or one of the forks like, like, like, like brave or, or, or chrome, uh, or not Chrome Edge.
[00:47:04] Edge isn’t gonna do it, but, but Brave could. They could be like, Hey, actually we wanna still support the old, um, e extension manifest. Um, and, and, and continue to upkeep the fork, if that makes any sense. Okay.
[00:47:18] Jeffrey: Okay. So really when I, I was kind of thinking about it wrong, um, it’s really that where Chromium exists, there’s a whole lot more built on top that is proprietary to the new or
[00:47:31] Brett: Chrome or the new ARC browser that, uh, Bryant and Quinn, you guys weren’t here for that episode, but it’s great track browser talking about arc, and it has, it adds a lot of, uh, rather ingenious developments, but it’s chromium based and mm-hmm.
[00:47:46] and I don’t think that browser could exist if they didn’t have chromium to build off of.
[00:47:50] Christina: No. Yeah. Cause they’d have to do the entire thing from scratch. Same, same thing even with, with Brave Right. Or even frankly, like, like Microsoft Edge, Microsoft. The old Edge, like was its own rendering engine and JavaScript thing, Trident and, and like it evolved from Internet Explorer and then they had it.
[00:48:06] Adoption wasn’t there, development was slow, couldn’t get extension developers. And so that team made what I think was the right choice, but it was definitely a hard one. And it was definitely a contentious one where they said, okay, we are going to scrap all the original work that we’ve spent years and years on and had a ton of engineers doing.
[00:48:22] And instead we are going to rease off of Chromium. Um, but we’re going to work upstream as much as we can with Google, but we are going to make our own optimizations so that things like have better battery life and maybe it’ll be more integrated with certain Windows things. And, you know, uh, we will default to Bing in, in instead of Google, although that is always the very first thing that I change.
[00:48:45] Right? , they have their own extension store, um, you know, for, for Edge, but you can also go to the Chrome store and install any extension, which is the same thing you can do on, on Arc or on, um, , but you know, on, on, on, on Brave or whatever. So,
[00:49:00] Jeffrey: okay. So then, oh, go ahead Brett. I just gotta
[00:49:02] Brett: say like, Bing is the last search engine to offer an api.
[00:49:08] Mm-hmm. , uh, they charge for it. Like, you have to, you have to subscribe and pay to use the Bing search api. But as someone who puts a backend, a search backend into multiple projects, um, I greatly appreciate everyone else has pulled what little APIs they had to begin with. Even Duck Duck Go has pulled their api,
[00:49:30] Christina: which is funny because they’re based on Bing,
[00:49:32] Brett: right?
[00:49:33] Yeah. So, I mean, they,
[00:49:35] Jeffrey: duck Go is based on Bing,
[00:49:37] Christina: a lot of it. Yeah. They have, they source,
[00:49:39] Brett: they source from multiple engines, but yeah, Bing is a big, it’s
[00:49:43] Christina: a big source. Yeah. It’s not a, it used to be their primary one, but, but, um, now they have like their own crawlers too. Yeah, they source from multiple places, but, but at least historically, Bing has always been their largest.
[00:49:53] Jeffrey: Yeah. Why is it good that they’re. These people are pulling their APIs. It’s not, it’s not good. Oh, I thought you said it was okay. It it, you, you state it in a way they had me thinking you were like, no,
[00:50:03] Brett: I mean basically it all comes down to ad money. Yeah. And being, and being able to control what people see.
[00:50:10] And if you bingo, just expose this huge, this huge trolling database you have of search results, uh, you can’t make money off of that. Yep. So, yep. So Bing charges for access to the search api and I, I’ve never paid for it, so I don’t know if it’s if you get the exact same results as you would in the browser or not.
[00:50:33] Uh, but I do know that Google has made it nearly impossible to even scrape results. And Duck dot go does not make it simple. Um, duck dot go. It’s easy to work around and get like the one top result from Duck dot go. Hmm. Um, but anything else to actually get like search results from anything, it’s no longer even feasible.
[00:50:54] Yeah.
[00:50:56] Christina: Hmm. And, and Bing is, is, um, apparently they’re gonna be building chat g p t into it. Right. So, which is cool. Yeah. 10
[00:51:02] Brett: billion investment.
[00:51:03] Christina: Sure. Absolutely. And, uh, and, and that was even
[00:51:07] Brett: before, but Google supposed, Google supposedly has, um, something that, like their AI supposedly is already at the same level as chat, G P T.
[00:51:17] Mm-hmm. . So this, this purchase, this, this investment, uh, brings Microsoft closer to, uh, what Google already has in-house.
[00:51:27] Christina: Totally. Well, yeah, but but you’re not wrong. I mean, and I don’t know how, I don’t know. I, I don’t, I don’t work at Google obviously, so I don’t know what their, um, capabilities are. And, and Microsoft had a lot of capabilities even before the open ai, open AI partnership.
[00:51:42] Um, however, like, and, and this is, I think what, what the ultimate question will be with how these things work out is it’s like, Who can, who can execute the best, right? Because there are countless examples of people of better technology or as good technology, but can’t execute as well. And Google has had arguably, I would say like a, a, a decade head start on everybody else in ai.
[00:52:04] But they haven’t done anything that is. Like worked. I mean, other than the Google Photos stuff, which is amazing, but people don’t think about as, as AI in the same way. They haven’t done anything that is so far that is, you know, captured kind of like the mainstream public. Yeah. You know, where like as chat g p
[00:52:22] Brett: t, you mix, you mix chat, g p t level AI into like a home assistant or into fucking clippy for that matter.
[00:52:31] Yep. Um, and you have some tools that are seriously useful. Yep. Um, that, that are like, it’s the fu the future is now, like this stuff is about to start happening, so, oh,
[00:52:42] Christina: no, I totally agree. I, and, and, and, and I’m not like, I, I don’t think that like it’s a, it’s a given that, that, that open AI will be the winner.
[00:52:48] I have no idea who will win. Yeah. But I, I, I, I do think that there’s something to be said with like, well, Google, Google has had this capability for a long time. For whatever reason, they, they didn’t execute, you know,
[00:52:57] Brett: despite these huge investments, open AI is basically operating as a nonprofit. Uh, capped, capped, uh, For profit.
[00:53:07] Yeah. Meaning like they, it’s a hundred
[00:53:08] Christina: limit. Yeah. It, it’s a hundred times the investment amount. So,
[00:53:13] Brett: so they’re not in it to get rich. They’re in it to keep the servers running. Right. Um, which in, you know, we live in a capitalist society and whoever makes the most money is going to have the most dominant technology.
[00:53:27] Um, so it’ll be interesting to see where it goes from.
[00:53:30] Christina: Totally. A lot, a lot of the investment from Microsoft has historically gone, just frankly, towards compute stuff because all of it runs on Azure and it’s expensive. Well, it’s expensive, yeah, for sure. Because almost everything they’re doing is, is GPU bound, and that is really expensive.
[00:53:42] And so, mm-hmm. , you know, um, uh, like Azure’s gonna have to buy a whole lot. And I know they’ve been working on this for a while because obviously like I, you know, work on some things that are adjacent to this. But, you know, I’ve been trying to, to get way more GPUs, you know, for the data centers where, um, it’s sort of an interesting place where I think, like, I think we talked about this before, like data centers are really moving less from being like processor based because you kind of reached a point where you can even do arm, um, uh, you know, stuff and save money for, for, for your data centers, for some of your compute.
[00:54:15] But when you’re talking about ai, it is all G p U bound
[00:54:19] Brett: and I don’t even, I don’t even want to know what the ecological impact of something like open AI
[00:54:23] Christina: is. Yeah. I don’t know. Like it’s, it’s. It’s better than Bitcoin though. Cause I mean at the least, you know what I mean? Like at the very least it’s actually being used for something like great, you know what I mean?
[00:54:34] Actually had
[00:54:34] Brett: some productive use in society. Well,
[00:54:36] Jeffrey: maybe as it comes up and Bitcoin goes down
[00:54:39] Christina: it all. Yeah. Well and, and then I think that the hope is obviously is that these GPUs will over time become more and more power efficient and you know, Things will, as models get better, you will be less maybe bound on those ends, but Yeah, we’ll see.
[00:54:54] But you’re not wrong. I mean, those are definitely things to think about, like long-term, like what is the, what is the impact of this stuff, because it’s not nothing, but it is, uh, given like the ecological impact of what we used to be using GPUs for, which was literally just to create fake money, you know?
[00:55:10] Right. like, yeah. At least we get something out of it.
[00:55:13] Brett: All right.
[00:55:14] Jeffrey: So you’re not, you didn’t, you’re not wrong, Jeff. You’re not wrong. Would be the great, a great name for a podcast, not an episode, but just like, welcome to You’re Not
[00:55:22] Brett: Wrong. The, the opposing view to You’re wrong About, which is great podcast by the way.
[00:55:27] We should do a swap with you wrong about . Um, We didn’t get to. No, sir. I, I’m going to do a little more research on it. I think it will be a topic along with talking about Mastodon, um, and maybe we revisit in the future, uh, the travesty. That is the Elon Musk Twitter. But for this week, we should get to gratitude.
Grapptitude
[00:55:49] Brett: Um, who wants to kick off? I can, if nobody’s up for it.
[00:55:55] Jeffrey: Hmm. I’m fine whenever. Go for it, Jeff. Um, okay. So my pick this week is, um, the Read Wise Reader, uh, read Wise is a service I’ve used for a long time, really just as a pipeline for all of my highlights from Apple Books and, um, Insta Paper and everything to pump them into my, well, back in the day, we called it a second brain. I kind of dump it into obsidian, or I was playing with Rome before that, and even before that it was just text files, right? So it just like does a nice job of almost creating like an API of all my, um, highlights. But I. Regarded it as just a pass through kind of situation. Um, just this week I saw that they have a beta for something called the Read Wise Reader, and it blew my mind.
[00:56:41] Um, so basically you can picture, um, Insta paper, uh, where you can read your articles in a nice, you know, readable format. You can highlight, um, you can look at just your highlights, that kind of thing. So at its base, it’s kind of an insta paper like service, but it takes in, um, eub. Twitter threads, YouTube videos, r s s feeds, email newsletters, whatever.
[00:57:05] Like it takes in just about anything and, and handles everything like with a kind of grace and just that I did not expect, um, from such a service that even allows you to, um, watch YouTube videos with the transcript going. Um, and you can highlight in the transcript. Um, so anyhow, it captures all kinds of stuff.
[00:57:23] It presents, its beautifully. There’s a, there’s a, a, a right, uh, sidebar and a left sidebar, and then down the middle is your article. Um, and it has the most amazing keyboard shortcuts. There’s so simple. Nice. So like, if I’m looking at an article, there’s gonna be like a focus indicator on the left side of a line or a paragraph, and I can just, you know, use the arrows to kind of navigate down.
[00:57:45] And then when I wanna highlight, I just hit H and it highlights that work or that paragraph. And then in your right sidebar, it shows up as a highlight. Nice. and you can highlight fucking images and they’ll show up in there. Um, and then, you know, you, if you want to like write a note and highlight it, you, you just type N and all of a sudden the highlight is in the sidebar and you’ve got a, a prompt, uh, to type your note into.
[00:58:09] It’s just like, nice. It is so, um, elegant and it’s even got this really crazy, uh, feature where it uses G P T three, um, it’s called Ghost Reader. So you, there’s a keyboard, um, shortcut to invoke ghost reader, at which point you can ask the document a question, summarize the document, generate q and a pairs using your highlights, , and then using the, I don’t know much about the ginger.
[00:58:37] Templating language, but apparently you can use that to make custom queries of the, of the article, um, and . And that’s not all. Um, it also is a web highlighter. So I can be on any webpage in the whole wide world and I can highlight something and write, click and say either save just this highlight to my read wise or save this article with this highlight to my read wise.
[00:59:02] And so like, this is something I’ve dreamt of for a really long time. Yeah. To be able to really just interact like elegantly, um, and powerfully with any kind of content, um, and then be able to export it into something. And so they’ve, there’s all kinds of stuff they’re still going to be adding. Um, but I was actually, surprisingly, Impressed with the generating of q and a pairs.
[00:59:27] I didn’t think I cared . Um, but when I read them I was super interested and then like generate thought provoking questions. I actually found it an interesting way to review. I won’t do it, but it was interesting. Um, so anyway, uh, I think it’s free right now or it is free right now. It’s in beta. I’m sure it’ll cost something at some point, but it’s sounds like it should.
[00:59:46] Incredible service. Yeah. Yeah. I should, I hope it costs something at some point.
[00:59:50] Christina: Okay. So I actually have a couple. So I’ve been playing with Mastodon a little bit more over the last, uh, couple of days.
[00:59:57] Um, because not only has Twitter, uh, killed the third party clients, as we discussed last episode, um, but my experience on Twitter has become degraded, uh, as it has for a lot of other people. I, there’s, there’s, um, a, a thread, um, that, uh, I will link to, um, from, from like a former engineer that is, uh, kind of, um, opining about like why this might be because of various things.
[01:00:23] Um, you know, being shut down with the service, with the server. Basically the website can’t keep up with, um, with, with what’s going on. Um, and, uh, and so, um, , it’s, uh, it’s not great. Um, so I’ve been playing a little bit more with Mastodon finally, and that’s because there’s finally some decent clients for Mastodon.
[01:00:47] So the first one is an iOS client. They’re two iOS clients. First one is called Ice Cubes and it is open source. Um, and it’s available in the app store. Um, and it is a really, really good, um, iOS client. It’s free, uh, but you can, uh, tip the, the creator, which I absolutely have. Uh, this was for some reason banned from the app store for a number of, uh, days.
[01:01:13] It was the whole proof aha, but, but it is, um, now available. It was unfortunately only on, on, um, you know, iOS, it doesn’t work on, um, Mac os. Uh, but, but it’s great. And, uh, ivory is also, um, now available from the, the Tap Bots team. So the team behind, um, Tweet bot, tweet bot now make a, make a client called Ivory, which launched, uh, yesterday as we’re recording this.
[01:01:39] Yay. Um, it is, uh, it’s, it’s $2 a month or, or, or $15 a year. So, you know, um, it’s, it’s a little more expensive than it was before, but I’d love to be able to support, uh, good devs and then some people were recommending this to me. There is, um, a web app called elk.zone. This is also on GitHub. That is, um, in my opinion, a much, much better web interface for Mastodon.
[01:02:04] It is much more similar when the way you look at it to what, like the old Twitter interface was back when, like Twitter had a decent web interface. So this is now becoming my, my primary way of wanting to, uh, to interact with Macedon on. The desktop. Uh, I’m still looking for like a Good Mac clients. There have apparently been some good ones that people have mentioned.
[01:02:25] I think one is called Mona, but I haven’t tried that out yet. And so, uh, yeah, mass Don apps are, are finally kind of coming into their own, um, which is interesting. You know, it, it, it, uh, lagged a little bit longer than, um, well actually a lot longer. You, it says something that it took this many years, uh, for Macedon to exist for, for really good clients to come out.
[01:02:49] Yeah. But I do think it, that it, it is because, uh, of the decisions that Twitter has made, not just with the third party stuff, but with degrading the overall experience where you now finally have people who are actually really talented both with, with, um, you know, design and with, with, um, programming finally coming together to, to make things.
[01:03:07] So, so the Macedon stuff is my stuff and, and I’m at film underscore girl at, uh, Macedon uh, dot social.
[01:03:17] Brett: I, uh, awesome. I use, I use Toot with an exclamation point on iOS. Uh, it’s been around for quite a while. I, uh, I do quite well with it, but I’m definitely gonna check out Ivory that, uh, anything from tap bots gets my vote.
[01:03:32] So
[01:03:32] Christina: for sure. One, one of the nice things about ice cubes I will say that I hope other clients adopt is that it has a stability for you to bring in a remote, local instance. And what that means is that you can bring in basically a timeline from, um, like other, uh, um, instances that you’re not part of, and you can like, browse, like whatever their public things are.
[01:03:52] So this is a really good way for discovery. So, like, for me, one of my problems there are services like Move to Shadan and other things where they’ll find your followers on. Um, platforms and, and bring them in for you. But one of the things is that sometimes, you know, like, because it’s decentralized, you don’t see all the, the, the content other people are, are putting on.
[01:04:11] And so I have some friends who are on Hacky Derm and I have some friends who are on infosec.exchange and I have some friends that are on other instances. And, um, it’s annoying to have to like try to bring up like a, if you’re on the desktop, I guess you could just like browse that. But it’s, it’s annoying to try to do that.
[01:04:25] And so one of the nice things I like about Ice Cube is that you can bring in like a remote local instance where you can browse those kind of like main timelines and then that way you could interact or follow people from that. Yeah. Which I think is a really, really good thing. I hope that, I hope that other clients adopt that feature cuz I think that’s a really, really good solution to trying to figure out like, where is everybody at?
[01:04:46] Because I’m like on like the default instance, but there are a lot of people who are on other more specialized ones and, and even though people tell you what instance you’re on, doesn’t matter, it kind of does when you’re kind of getting your feet wet and trying to kind of. , discover where all your people are.
[01:05:02] Brett: So I, uh, Elon Musk tweeted out a tweet that just had, uh, two shield icons in, in between it, it said Veritas and three spaced out syllables, uh, to which I wrote back, uh, two Shields with oh fuck off . And, uh, and that got me so many responses from Elon. Fanboys. . Yeah. And even, even fan girls. I, I, oh yeah. But then, Right in the middle of that us, like, not as a reply to Elon, I just wrote the Twitter client on Max Sucks.
[01:05:39] Fuck you, Elon Musk for taking away, taking Tweetbot away. This piece of shit can’t even complete a username from the keyboard. It requires a mouse click. And I loathe having to reach for the mouse just to click your stupid stupid name. Um, which got me banned from Twitter for 10 hours. Oh my God. But it was 10 hours.
[01:05:59] I didn’t have to read hateful replies from fucking Musk fan boys.
[01:06:06] Christina: My, my, my, my jaws like literally dropped though. Like that. Got you banned for 10 hours.
[01:06:11] Brett: Yeah. Yes. It said, uh, you may not engage in tar in the targeted harassment of someone even though it’s totally punching up. And even though it was entirely justified anger.
[01:06:22] Uh, yeah. Uh, or incite other people to do so. This includes wishing or hoping that someone experiences physical harm. All I said was, fuck you, Elon Musk. Yeah, that was my targeted harassment.
[01:06:36] Christina: Okay. There’s a certain irony in this because like, that used to be the shit that, like the, the people on that Elon used to like get mad about.
[01:06:44] Yeah. Because look, Twitter, Twitter did used to do some of this shit. Twitter did used to do a thing where like if you told like Mike Pence to go fuck himself, like they would like maybe like, like, like, you know, quarantine your account or whatnot. And, and I’m of the opinion, I know some people will, will, um, uh, disagree with me.
[01:06:58] I don’t actually think that saying kill yourself to someone I is impolite. I don’t actually think that’s a death threat. I’m sorry. I don’t. Mm-hmm. And, and, and I don’t think telling someone to go fuck themselves is, is a threat of violence. Right. Like, I’ve had actual rape and death threats come to like my inbox and things to the point where because of, not because I have any trust in the police, but because of like corporate policies and whatnot, I’ve had to report them.
[01:07:23] And, and the police don’t give a shit. Um, so like, you’re a public figure, who cares? But like mm-hmm. , it’s different, like when people send you like a very detailed thing, like, I’m going to do X, Y, and Z to you. Like, that’s very different than someone being like, kill yourself. Which again, not nice. Also not a death threat at all.
[01:07:42] At all. So like, you know, he used to rail against that sort of stuff and now mm-hmm. because it’s against him. Oh, that’s a, that’s a violation of a harassment policy because you told him to go fuck himself. Yeah. What a, what a little
[01:07:55] Brett: bitch. Yeah. So anyway, on that bright note, I will say my actual pick for the week is hook mark.
[01:08:02] Uh, which according to our master master list, I somehow haven’t mentioned before. Um, but it is a, a Mac utility that lets you create links between any two objects on your system, whether it’s a, an OmniFocus task or a PDF or an envy ultra note, or an email or a specific line in a document. You can copy a link to it that you can then, Attached to another object or drop into like your markdown notes or an email and, and provide links to things that you don’t normally think of being linkable.
[01:08:45] Um, and when it comes to, like if I’m working on a project, I link together like a task paper document and like the main source code and, uh, my ENV Ultra notes in any mine maps I’ve created, and I can jump from any of those individual objects. I can jump to the other parts of the project even though they’re in completely disparate parts of the system.
[01:09:07] Um, and it, it’s way faster than spotlight searching, uh, because you are very. Um, intentionally creating these links between objects and it, uh, it’s a game changing utility that’s hard to describe. Uh, but once you, once you get into it and start using it and the links are sturdy, like you can change a file name or move the file and the link to it in hook mark will still work like, it, it, it uses basic file system bookmarking rather than like a directory location or a file name or, or things like that.
[01:09:46] Uh, so in general they are very robust, sturdy links and it’s very nice.
[01:09:51] Jeffrey: I have a question. So this used to be called Hook, right? Yeah. Um, and I know it’s on Set App now. Yeah. As, as hook mark. It was never there as Hook, I don’t think.
[01:10:00] Brett: No. Um, uh, 4.0 they rebranded as Hook Mark because they wanted to clear, clean up the language, uh, between a hook, which is what it creates, and the app itself, which they rebranded as Hook Mart.
[01:10:13] And
[01:10:14] Jeffrey: were there other major. Changes or anything? No. Significant, uh,
[01:10:17] Brett: 4.0 did not have any major under the hood changes. It was mostly a rebranding.
[01:10:23] Jeffrey: My, my fear was always I was creating some kind of invisible croft that, that wouldn’t travel with the file in the first place, and no. Would look like a mystery to me 10 years down the line.
[01:10:33] But you’re saying it, that is not a problem with hook mark. Well, I, I
[01:10:36] Brett: mean, no one can predict what your data system will look like in 10 years. Yeah.
[01:10:41] Jeffrey: take away the
[01:10:41] Brett: 10 year forecast. But, but the hooks the, no, the hooks are robust and, and, uh, there’s a free version of Hook mark, uh, that even if you were to stop paying the subscription fee for Hook Mark, you would still be able to access all of your
[01:10:55] Jeffrey: links.
[01:10:56] I see. Okay. Cool. I might play with it. It’s been a while. I played with it early on.
[01:11:01] Brett: Cool. We did it. Awesome.
[01:11:05] Jeffrey: We did the podcast. We did it again. Yeah. Hey, show up. This is been fun. Can I say, can I say that? Um, on the Tap Bots page, there’s something very sad. It lists their four apps with their icons, and the Tweetbot Bird has a halo now, and it just says, oh, the button says memorial.
[01:11:24] And if you click it, it’s amazing. Sad. It’s an elephant. It’s, it’s an elephant for their mastodon, uh, app. Looking at Tweet bot’s. Um, gravestone. . Oh, it’s the, it’s the saddest thing in the world. That’s so sad. Maybe you could find a show Art in that . Maybe. Maybe. Anyway, I loved that app so much.
[01:11:48] Brett: Well, is it, is it time to say Get some sleep?
[01:11:51] Get
[01:11:51] Jeffrey: some sleep.
[01:11:53] Christina: Get some sleep.
[01:11:54] Jeffrey: Boys. Sleep with the Angels. Tweet bot.