Making the Best of Goat Castration

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Brett and Jeff Show

[00:00:00] Brett: Welcome back to Overtired. Um, I want, uh, to have special theme music when it’s just a Brett and Jeff episode. It’s a Brett and Jeff episode! Brett and Jeff episode! Womp womp. Yeah, that works. Um,

[00:00:21] Jeff: fair enough.

[00:00:22] Brett: Well, it’s me, Brett Terpstra, here with Jeff Severins Gunthal. How you doing, Jeff?

[00:00:26] Jeff: I’m,

[00:00:28] Brett: Yep, there you go.

[00:00:29] Jeff’s COVID Experience

[00:00:29] Jeff: I’m, I’m getting over Covid. Uh, and I’m good. And I’m good.

[00:00:33] Brett: was so well timed.

[00:00:35] Jeff: Yeah, I

[00:00:35] Brett: not even, I’m not even gonna edit out the cough. That was just

[00:00:38] Jeff: No, it’s fine. It’s, it’s true. What’s true is what’s true, is true. You know, can’t hide the truth.

[00:00:44] Brett: So, how did you get COVID?

[00:00:46] Jeff: I don’t know. Transmission, uh,

[00:00:49] Brett: Aerosols.

[00:00:51] Jeff: aerosols, who knows? My groceries. Probably it was my groceries. I stopped wiping them off and I knew I shouldn’t stop wiping 'em off. Um, I [00:01:00] don’t know. I was traveling.

[00:01:01] Jeff: I don’t know.

[00:01:01] Brett: Yeah, traveling.

[00:01:03] Jeff: Yeah, I don’t know.

[00:01:04] Jeff: I was, I mean, I helped my, helped my, uh, firstborn move into his dorm. So I was around a lot of, a lot of people

[00:01:12] Jeff: that weekend. That might’ve been it.

[00:01:14] Jeff: That might’ve been it.

[00:01:15] Brett: I got home from Maxstock and got an email that someone at Maxstock reported being, testing positive for COVID.

[00:01:24] Jeff: It’s really, I mean, from what I understand, this strain is super contagious. Like so many people I know have It

[00:01:30] Jeff: It can, it really can still kick your

[00:01:32] Brett: yeah, totally.

[00:01:33] Masking and Public Perception

[00:01:33] Brett: And, and we’ve kind of, we’ve stopped taking precautions. Like even liberals have mostly stopped wearing masks except for people who are immunocompromised and are mad at everyone else for not wearing masks. But, um, yeah, it’s kind of, I don’t, I get it. I don’t want to wear a mask anymore.

[00:01:56] Brett: Like I want it to just be over, but it’s really not.

[00:01:59] Jeff: I, [00:02:00] for me, when I put them on, like, I, um, it just triggers so many fucking bad memories. And, and so I, I, as soon as I feel the heat of my breath in a mask, I’m just like, God damn it. I mean, I was a masked person to the end and, and M, I mean, I masked, I had to go one place and it was a big box store. I mean, it was better than a big box store.

[00:02:19] Jeff: It was Fleet Farm, but I, and that place is always like, A, empty and gigantic. And I was, I think on the end of my I think I was, I probably was past being contagious, but anyway, I was careful. I wore a mask.

[00:02:32] Fleet Farm Adventures

[00:02:32] Jeff: But because I was at Fleet Farm, which is like, it’s a demographic. I mean, I’m part of the demographic

[00:02:38] Jeff: for sure.

[00:02:39] Brett: they are big Trump supporters. it’s a

[00:02:41] Jeff: yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, and yeah, lots of bubble trucks in the, in the, uh, in the parking lot. But I knew, cause I,

[00:02:48] Jeff: I,

[00:02:49] Brett: of camo

[00:02:49] Jeff: I remember wearing, um, I remember wearing a mask early days to Fleet Farm, because I am part of the Fleet Farm demographic. My son actually made a Fleet Farm out of clay [00:03:00] in eighth grade. Um, but like, I, I remember going into Fleet Farm early days before everyone was wearing masks, but when like, when the liberals were wearing masks.

[00:03:10] Jeff: And I, I, I remember just walking in feeling like I was ready to fight. I was just like, I was feeling defensive. I was like, why are you fucking looking at me? I’m wearing a mask, motherfucker. And I went in, I went in this time, no reason to believe that’s, that people were thinking anything about me wearing a mask, but I went in the same way.

[00:03:27] Jeff: I’m like, you want me to fucking cough on you? Like, I literally had like an attitude

[00:03:31] Brett: No, I, I have, I have, I have literally done that exact same thing at the exact same store.

[00:03:37] Jeff: yeah, yeah,

[00:03:38] Jeff: yeah, you gotta have, I bet you have a great fleet farm in

[00:03:40] Jeff: Winona,

[00:03:40] Brett: a fleet farm. I could walk to my fleet farm. It’s so

[00:03:44] Jeff: Oh, that’s like, let’s live in a dream.

[00:03:47] Brett: um, the, uh, the big, big news about our local fleet farm was Ivanka Trump showed up to pretend like she was of the people

[00:03:59] Jeff: she there to buy [00:04:00] horse hairspray? Because

[00:04:00] Jeff: that’s something you can buy there.

[00:04:02] Brett: had, like, a photo op with, like, some stuffed animals or

[00:04:05] Jeff: I remember this, actually. I remember this. Yeah,

[00:04:08] Brett: It was.

[00:04:09] Jeff: Stuffed animal. I mean, if you’re going to do a photo op of Fleet Farm, you have so many options. Like, there is a whole, there’s a whole horse section where you

[00:04:15] Jeff: can get horse, you can get horse toys,

[00:04:17] Jeff: you can get horse hairspray. There’s a

[00:04:19] Jeff: section in my hometown where we have not Fleet Farm.

[00:04:23] Jeff: But, Farm and Fleet.

[00:04:25] Jeff: Um,

[00:04:25] Brett: Wisconsin thing, isn’t it?

[00:04:27] Jeff: that was Iowa, too.

[00:04:28] Jeff: It’s Blaine’s or Blair’s, I forget, which I always get that wrong, even though I’ve been going since I was a kid. But you can get like, um, a bag of 100, 150, uh, goat, um, castration bands, which, Which look like the kinds of rubber bands you use for braces, which is terrible, because

[00:04:44] Jeff: they’re that small.

[00:04:45] Brett: holy shit.

[00:04:46] Jeff: But what’s funny is my son and I, my youngest and I were there and we were, I like to, when I go to a new fleet farm or farm and fleet, I walk it because it, it all is a little different. If you’re in a, a more rural area. So my hometown is like a farming community slash [00:05:00] factory community. You’re going to get a lot more like proper farm stuff than maybe like in just.

[00:05:04] Jeff: The immediate suburb of Minneapolis. So I walk every aisle, any fleet farm or farmer fleet I go into, cause I just love seeing what’s there. So we see these like goat castration bands. My, my partner’s like, you’re not buying those. I was like, they’re a buck 50. Like you never know when you’re going to need a small rubber band.

[00:05:20] Jeff: And then, and then my son notices right after I say, you never know. Cause it’s some things you look at and you’re like, I can use that for problem solving down the road. You know, not just for, not just for goat castration. And, and all of a sudden my son notices that they’re using the goat castration bands to hold price tags onto all of the little price tag holders.

[00:05:40] Jeff: And I was like, see, see, but I haven’t been back without her yet. And I mean, whenever I do go back without her, I’m buying my, I asked for him for a stocking, stocking stuffer this year. So we’ll see. But

[00:05:51] Brett: Yeah.

[00:05:52] Jeff: you know, I love a good, You know, something you can look at and go, I can problem solve with that.

[00:05:56] Brett: It might be the only gift you get.

[00:05:59] Jeff: That’s fine.

[00:05:59] Jeff: I [00:06:00] really want them. I can’t stop thinking about them. It’s like when someone mentioned some like shitty food that you shouldn’t eat that, that, you know, you know, the second they mentioned it, all you’re going to think about till you actually get it is that thing, Fruity Pebbles are like that. Fuck. I did it. for me. But anyway, but yeah, so I, yeah, I had COVID, I was traveling.

[00:06:18] Parenting and College Drop-Off

[00:06:18] Jeff: I dropped my, my, um, oldest off at a, at a college far away and, and that was a life experience. And now I’m on the other side of that and COVID.

[00:06:27] Brett: Well, welcome back to, I guess, normal existence. Minus one sun.

[00:06:33] Jeff: Yeah. Minus one, one son. It’s pretty wild,

[00:06:37] Jeff: but I was able to sleep in his room while I had COVID. That was a bonus. I met, I called him and I was like, your bed is super comfortable. And he goes, thanks.

[00:06:48] Brett: Did you, did you spend more on his mattress than on your own?

[00:06:52] Jeff: No, his mattress is like the one we had back when we lived in New York when he was like a little baby. Um, and it’s still super comfortable. So, [00:07:00] mission accomplished? I don’t know.

[00:07:02] Brett: I still have, I still sleep on a, on a, Oh God, I don’t even remember. I think it’s purple. I got, I, over the years I’ve gotten two mattresses, uh, from people that sponsored our shows, um.

[00:07:17] Jeff: Casper.

[00:07:18] Brett: Casper was the first one, which now Elle has. And then the second one, whatever it was, is the one I still sleep on. And they’re, they’re very comfortable.

[00:07:29] Brett: You know, the ones that show up in like a two foot by four foot box and like you unroll them. Um,

[00:07:37] Jeff: like back in the Halcyon days when every podcaster had a Casper, a Synology, and a Sonos system?

[00:07:44] Brett: Synology sent out, Oh, I would

[00:07:46] Jeff: Well, they would have sent, probably to the ATP guys. Maybe That’s

[00:07:49] Jeff: separate. That’s probably its own thing. You could send them things and it’ll really be worth it.

[00:07:55] Brett: Um, I, speaking, let’s do a [00:08:00] mental health corner.

[00:08:01] Mental Health Corner

[00:08:01] Brett: We’re kind of already, we’re kind of already in it as is the way our show

[00:08:05] Jeff: We’re already, we’re already in the corner.

[00:08:08] Brett: Um, the only thing I have to report, I’ve been taking a break from therapy, not intentionally, just scheduling over the summer. Um, and I’ve gotten really bad about like doing parts work on my own.

[00:08:21] Brett: Like I just, I just would rather go to

[00:08:24] Jeff: we have therapists.

[00:08:25] Brett: Yeah. Um, and. I did make the mistake. So I’ve been taking, in order to fall asleep these days, I need, I think I’ve talked about this, an excessive amount of gabapentin. Um, I’ve tried like all kinds of FDA approved sleeping, uh, medicines and none of them did anything and I was still not sleeping.

[00:08:47] Brett: So gabapentin was the answer. I take the maximum allowable amount, 1800 milligrams of

[00:08:55] Jeff: It’s like one, one bottle.[00:09:00]

[00:09:00] Brett: It’s three 600 milligram tablets, um,

[00:09:03] Jeff: I haven’t, I don’t know what to compare. Like what’s a, so what would a, like, I’m just starting out a dose

[00:09:09] Brett: 300 milligrams.

[00:09:10] Jeff: okay. Got it. Ugh.

[00:09:12] Brett: Um, it, I think is the normal, like, we’ll try this first and see how it goes. So I went from 300 to 600 to 1200 to 1800 and 1800 works. I stay asleep most of the night. I still, I get up around five after six to seven hours of sleep. Uh, I went to a sleep study, uh,

[00:09:33] Jeff: When?

[00:09:33] Brett: I went to sleep medicine, um,

[00:09:36] Jeff: Oh, not like an overnight,

[00:09:37] Brett: it, well, they, it was a home, they, they sent me home with this thing that you wear a wristband, a chest monitor, like sticks to your chest, and then it has like audio.

[00:09:50] Brett: It can detect you snoring. It detects you breathing. It detects your oxygen and pulse. And, and I just wore that overnight at [00:10:00] home. Um, and they diagnosed me with minor sleep apnea, like 3%, which was so low that. My local vendors wouldn’t supply me with a CPAP. Um, so I had to drive to La Crosse, Wisconsin or, or La Crosse, uh, La Crosse, La Crosse, Wisconsin.

[00:10:23] Brett: And, and I got, I got my CPAP and I’m trying so hard to get used to it. And I don’t think it makes any difference in how I sleep. And so the next step with that is like CBT, uh, for sleep, which.

[00:10:41] Jeff: behavioral therapy. Oh,

[00:10:44] Brett: Um, so I, I’m going to keep trying the CPAP for a while, but anyway, all this is to say, so I’m taking all this gabapentin and just for shits and giggles, one night, L and I made root beer floats [00:11:00] with, um,

[00:11:00] Jeff: did it. Now I got to have one of those.

[00:11:02] Brett: with, with THC laden root beer,

[00:11:07] Jeff: The, the whole cereal. Okay. Got it. I don’t

[00:11:11] Jeff: know what that is. THC. What’s that? Oh, but it’s

[00:11:13] Brett: Uh, sure, yeah, Delta 9 THC, which has

[00:11:18] Jeff: Delta variant.

[00:11:21] Brett: it has very minimal effect on me and I didn’t even, I felt a little bit relaxed, but then I took my gabapentin and there was an interaction and I conked out, slept through the night, woke up like at like 8am, tried to stand up, got so dizzy, I just.

[00:11:41] Brett: Passed out back in bed and the effects didn’t wear off for like 24 hours.

[00:11:48] Jeff: I know, because I sat in this lonely, lonely room waiting for you to come on to record and I was like, this is not like Brett, except for the one time, I think, that you were totally crashed out at recording time. Long time ago.[00:12:00]

[00:12:00] Brett: Yeah, well, this was

[00:12:01] Jeff: Normally, you’re the guy that’s like, hey, everybody on? Alright, ten minutes, let’s go.

[00:12:05] Brett: Yep, yep, I’m usually first one at the party, last to leave. Um, yeah, yesterday was rough and I tried to like, work, but I was just so, um, dazed and like everything I said came out like monotone. I was just very low affect and it was, so I’m, until I stopped taking gabapentin, no more THC for

[00:12:31] Jeff: like a, there’s a interaction, that’s a serious interaction,

[00:12:34] Brett: Yeah, I looked it up, and, like, they talk about, uh, interactions with alcohol and with THC, and it’s not, like, highly studied, but multiple studies have shown, um, they actually use gabapentin in the treatment of THC addiction.

[00:12:52] Jeff: Oh, really?

[00:12:53] Jeff: Like to make it almost like when you make the thing, like when a

[00:12:56] Jeff: dog gets an ointment so that when they lick it, it hurts,

[00:12:59] Brett: Right, [00:13:00] or those, there’s like treatments for alcoholics that make you violently ill whenever you drink. Um, and I, I think that might, I don’t know anything beyond the fact that they verified that there were interactions with THC and gabapentin. But anyway, how are you?

[00:13:19] Jeff: I’m good, but, uh, CPAP, I just have to say one thing about CPAP. Did you ever see the person who made an Alien Facehugger cover for their CPAP?

[00:13:29] Brett: No.

[00:13:29] Jeff: Well, it’s going in the show notes, baby, right now. It’s amazing. Um, and terrifying looking, actually.

[00:13:37] Jeff: Uh,

[00:13:37] Brett: Do not think I could sleep with that. Mine just goes over my nose.

[00:13:41] Jeff: oh, okay, not a full, like, uh, whatever,

[00:13:43] Brett: It’s not a full mask. It like, it works with a beard and it’s pretty, it’s pretty small. I have trouble breathing out through it though. Like I get

[00:13:54] Jeff: ugh, that sounds, that made me feel a tightness in my chest as he’s saying

[00:13:59] Brett: Yeah, that [00:14:00] big breath in is no problem because it’s assisted and then you try to breathe out and it’s like pushing against, well, resistance and, um, it does cause feelings of panic.

[00:14:14] Brett: Um, and it’s really hard to fall asleep when you’re panicking on a regular

[00:14:18] Jeff: you got a new problem.

[00:14:20] Brett: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[00:14:24] Jeff: doing good. I, you know, um, I don’t want to.

[00:14:28] Emotional Reflections

[00:14:28] Jeff: I know doing parent stuff when you’re not a couple of parents can be tedious or if you’re listening or whatever, but I do want to say that it was complete and utter agony leading up to dropping my son off at college. I mean, agony, like, I know that it is not a death and I don’t mean to minimize the experience of people dying.

[00:14:49] Jeff: I wouldn’t minimize it just based on my own terrible experiences with it. But one thing. that I experienced in like the morning of especially was like, it was like [00:15:00] almost like a natural causes death where like, You can’t be mad at anybody? You can’t turn it around? You almost can’t understand it? Like, how the fuck did we get to this point?

[00:15:10] Jeff: Like, I you were just this little thing, you know? And now you’re this, like, grown ass man who’s going to college? Uh, you know, and if you were just looking at Me, it’d be a first generation college student. Uh, but my wife has two master’s degrees. So he, I always knew he could choose. He was like, Oh God, don’t follow me.

[00:15:31] Jeff: Um, but it was, I mean, it was, it was awful. And, and I was just, and I don’t. I don’t cry easy, and this is not a point of pride, um, actually I, I cry so easily in movies or shows or if I hear a sad radio

[00:15:44] Jeff: story, but um, but in, in other parts of life when it would be good to cry, uh, not, not so easy, and I was just on and off, I was like low grade crying for like two days, like I was sniffling, like anything, I couldn’t say words related to him leaving, [00:16:00] in even like the most logistical way without like choking up.

[00:16:03] Jeff: Um. But I realized something that was pretty important. I should say that like after dropping him off, it was really lovely. I mean, like, I felt really proud and excited and kind of in awe of him. And that quickly replaced the agony. And that’s more like me. I’m not Someone to like, overly grieve something that isn’t real.

[00:16:28] Jeff: Um, I might do it in a flash. I might think about how, when I think about the fact that my wife or I will die before the other, most likely, uh, and when we don’t know which one that is, there are times when I think of that and it gives my heart a stop, a start, whatever. I guess it doesn’t stop or start because it’s already going.

[00:16:45] Jeff: Um, but like overall, I don’t. And. And I had to stop myself like, uh, months ago, last summer, actually, when I realized it was the last summer with him, everything we did that was a normal summer thing, it was like, the last time we would do it. And it was killing me. [00:17:00] And I had to decide, and I probably discussed it in a mental health corner on this show, like, I can’t spend this year grieving something that’s not even here yet.

[00:17:08] Jeff: Like, I will be able to grieve it when it happens. And that helped for a while. And then I had the agony. And I actually, like, one of those days when I was sort of like, just Low grade crying. I was like, okay, this is awful. And I realized that like, I wasn’t crying through it. I was crying at it. Like I wasn’t moving through it.

[00:17:30] Jeff: I was moving at it. The thing,

[00:17:32] Jeff: right? Like the transition, the move. Like I was, I was just like, I was approaching it. Like it was a wall I had to slam into. And, and then like what helped me a little bit for those couple of days, but really, really helped me when I had a felt sense of it afterwards. It’s like, no, it’s just move through this.

[00:17:47] Jeff: Don’t. Don’t charge it, don’t move at it. Like this is something that’s, it’s inevitable. It’s just happening. You can’t stop it. And it’s beautiful. And it’s, it’s hard. And it’s, it’s all those things at once. That helped me a lot [00:18:00] in that last day, but it didn’t, it didn’t mean I didn’t experience agony. Anyway, in the days since, like.

[00:18:06] Jeff: It’s been a little over a week, like, I can’t believe, because I tell people he is like, um, a great roommate. We don’t have, we have a great relationship. He has a great relationship with my wife. He has a great relationship with his brother. Um, they’ve never fought, like, that I can remember, except when they were little kids and they would have little, whatever, stupid baby fights.

[00:18:26] Jeff: But like, um, I love having him around. And, and so that, that is strange, but it’s, Yeah, I’m so relieved that I, that I hold it as something really sweet and

[00:18:41] Jeff: beautiful, and I hope the best for him. He said, you know, we were talking, he’s like, it’s pretty cool to make my own decisions every minute of the day. that is pretty cool.

[00:18:50] Jeff: Like, you’ll lose that. You’ll lose

[00:18:51] Jeff: that. You’ll, you’ll have it for the next like five, maybe 10 years. Then you’ll lose it. I didn’t say that. I don’t say shit like that. I don’t say shit like that. Uh, [00:19:00] cause I think that’s just not Awesome stuff to say as a parent. Just let him, let him have it. Anyway, so like, I’m feeling really good and that, and that’s a, that is a mental health thing.

[00:19:11] Jeff: Like I, I worried I’d just be like curled up in a ball for a week or two, but it’s been really nice.

[00:19:17] Jeff: So, and it helps that he texts me back mostly. Um, but yeah, so anyway.

[00:19:22] Brett: So this, uh, this crying on a hair trigger. Did you always have that or did that develop later in life?

[00:19:30] Jeff: definitely developed later in life.

[00:19:31] Jeff: I’ve had it, I’ve had it for probably like a few years that I can remember. It definitely increased after I became a parent. I just became more emotional,

[00:19:40] Brett: didn’t become a parent. I just suddenly, like a commercial could. And not outright. Not like tears running down my face, but like choked up, can’t talk. Like eyes, eyes watering a little bit. And. And like, I just choose not to say anything in those times so it doesn’t come out all choked up,[00:20:00]

[00:20:00] Jeff: yeah, right.

[00:20:01] Brett: like anything even remotely emotional or about like someone with, in like pain or someone who’s experiencing like hope.

[00:20:12] Brett: Um, and like anything that causes an emotional reaction, I react to, and I don’t know if it’s like medication changes or just aging or, you know, I, I don’t know, but like something, something happened and now I tear up, uh, it’s stupid.

[00:20:31] Jeff: Yeah,

[00:20:31] Brett: not stupid,

[00:20:32] Jeff: no, but like,

[00:20:34] Brett: I’m easily emotionally manipulated and I hate that when something, when it feels like I just teared up over something that was designed to be a tearjerker.

[00:20:45] Brett: Um, and then I get mad at the thing. Um,

[00:20:49] Jeff: I think it’s funny because I definitely do it and I do it very secretly. Like I, if somebody is, or it’s really would only be watching TV with my partner, but like, um, I just have a little [00:21:00] heave in my

[00:21:00] Jeff: chest. When something happens,

[00:21:02] Jeff: but like, it’s, it is a little out of control. Cause like I was listening to a baseball game, not even a huge baseball fan, but I do like listening to games.

[00:21:10] Jeff: I was listening to a game and the beginning famous Minnesota twin, Joe Maurer was, was inducted into the baseball hall of fame. I don’t give a shit about Joe Maurer. I don’t give a shit about the baseball hall of But he was giving a speech. And by the way, the baseball player giving a speech, uh, you know, to the, to the fans about, you know, thank you for all the years, whatever it, baseball players do not give emotional speeches.

[00:21:31] Jeff: And this was not one, but just in him expressing all the years he spent and all that it meant to him to have crowd this big. You know, to be able to do this thing. I did the thing. And I was like, damn it.

[00:21:46] Brett: Right.

[00:21:46] Jeff: a shit about Joe Maurer. Like, he seems like a super nice guy. But like, that’s fine.

[00:21:52] Jeff: There’s lots of nice guys. Um, so yeah, it’s out of control. It’s out of hand.

[00:21:57] Brett: Yep. All right. Uh, where are we? [00:22:00] 21 minutes in.

[00:22:01] Sponsor Break: 1Password

[00:22:01] Brett: Let’s do our sponsor break. And then I have a couple, I have a couple of things to share. Um. We’re gonna, we’re gonna talk about one password this week, sponsor. Um, they want a, uh, a customized read, but nobody on this show has used the feature that they’re focusing on.

[00:22:24] Brett: So I’m going to read the copy as is, and then I’m gonna tell you. Why I

[00:22:30] Jeff: Oh, you’re going to do like the Elvis Costello on Saturday Night Live thing.

[00:22:34] Brett: I don’t know what you’re

[00:22:35] Jeff: He starts playing the hit because the record label told him he had to. And then he does this dramatic, like, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. And then he goes into the song you wanted to play. I’ll put it in the

[00:22:44] Jeff: show notes, but you’re doing a nice job,

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[00:23:07] Brett: Those are the unmanaged devices, shadow IT apps, and non employee identities like contractors. Most security tools only work on those happy brick paths, but a lot of security problems take place on those shortcuts. 1Password Extended Access Management is the first security solution that brings all these unmanaged devices, apps, and identities under your control.

[00:23:30] Brett: It ensures that Every user credential is strong and protected, every device is known and healthy, and every app is visible. 1Password Extended Access Management solves the problem traditional IAM and MDM can’t. It’s security for the way we work today. And it’s now generally available to companies with Okta and Microsoft Entra, and in beta for Google Workspace customers.

[00:23:56] Brett: Check it out at onepassword. com [00:24:00] slash product slash xam. That’s onepassword. com slash product slash xam. And now, hit I wanted to play. I love One Password. I was on a Zoom call with somebody yesterday. And I had to log into Oracle’s cloud, interface there, ue. And um, I just quick hit my keyboard, shortcut it, it loaded up.

[00:24:29] Brett: 'cause they have a PAs key login for Oracle now. So it, I loaded up, uh, the little thing comes up, I sign it with my passkey. Uh, it also requires a password that , because Oracle is. Logins suck. Um, but 1Password filled that in for me automatically, and, and my coworker was very impressed. I guess they have not been using password managers, which seems odd in this day and age, [00:25:00] but,

[00:25:01] Jeff: Why do that when you’ve got a Google Doc? Called Passwords.

[00:25:04] Brett: right.

[00:25:05] Brett: Um, yeah, but like the Passkey, uh, integration, I started using it with SSH credentials, uh, which is cool. But here’s the problem I ran into. And I want to talk to 1Password about this, but, um,

[00:25:21] Jeff: this is where you go to camera one and you talk to one

[00:25:23] Brett: yeah, 1Password, uh, can’t meet me at, meet me at camera too. Um, I. So it’s great to have logins from Terminal pop up and I can just authenticate with like my watch or whatever.

[00:25:37] Brett: But if I am logged in over, say, an SSH session, or I’m using TMUX, then I don’t get the pop up. Uh, because it pops up on a remote machine, and then my process hangs, and I need a way to force the identification when there’s an [00:26:00] SSH session to use my, like, uh, private keys in my ssh folder instead of the 1Password identity management.

[00:26:11] Jeff: Okay, Mr. Terpstra, I’m gonna put you on hold and try to get a manager for you.

[00:26:16] Brett: But anyway, yeah, 1Password. I’ve been using it for, Jesus, like a decade or more. And I’ve been using it since it was called 1Pissword.

[00:26:28] Jeff: What? That’s a thing?

[00:26:31] Brett: The original name was 1Pissword. SSWD.

[00:26:37] Jeff: Oh yeah, back in the fuckavowel days.

[00:26:41] Brett: back in the Flickr days. Um, yeah, so I’ve been using it since before they rebranded. That’s all, like, that’s all I know. I lose track of time, but I’m a die hard user. I’ve actually worked for the company in the past, but I wasn’t good. They fired me.

[00:26:59] Jeff: You weren’t good. [00:27:00] Did you compromise security?

[00:27:02] Brett: No, I just failed.

[00:27:04] Customer Support Onboarding Challenges

[00:27:04] Brett: So when you first start, everyone, no matter what your position is, is required to do customer support. Um, and like, that’s how they kind of onboard you is by throwing you in and

[00:27:18] Jeff: It’s like being an apprentice at a machine shop. Alright, you’re sweeping up the shavings.

[00:27:23] Brett: and, and I did not do well with that. And so I felt like I never really integrated into the team. And then I, I had like some ADHD procrastination going on and I was working two jobs and I just kind of failed at being a strong employee for

[00:27:44] Jeff: And now you won’t even read the fucking ad read in Leave It Be.

[00:27:50] Brett: No,

[00:27:50] Jeff: changed! Nothing’s changed, Brad!

[00:27:52] Brett: I love them. I feel bad, but. Yeah.

[00:27:56] Jeff: Well, anything, you know, loving and feeling bad, they’re interchangeable. [00:28:00] Um,

[00:28:02] Brett: Like love and hate, uh, two sides of the same coin. I get that. But

[00:28:07] Jeff: yeah?

[00:28:08] Brett: loving and feeling bad, that just seems dark.

[00:28:11] Jeff: Hm.

[00:28:13] Mental Health and Emotional Struggles

[00:28:13] Jeff: Back to mental Meet me back in the mental health corner.

[00:28:17] Jeff: Alright, you got business.

[00:28:18] Brett: yeah.

[00:28:19] Political Commentary and YouTube Recommendations

[00:28:19] Brett: So speaking of Minneapolis, have you ever heard of Leija Miller?

[00:28:23] Jeff: No.

[00:28:24] Brett: She’s a lawyer out of Minneapolis who has a YouTube channel where she talks about Um, mostly politics. Um, her last video was about why the left is so bad at organizing. Um,

[00:28:40] Jeff: a favorite, a favorite talking point of people.

[00:28:45] Brett: she digs into, like, how, like, unionization is at an all time low and how the right, um, has very, kind of, they have history on their side, um, like the country [00:29:00] had, like, misogyny and, uh, racism built in from the beginning, and so a party that Feeds on those things has a built in advantage and, uh, people can be, um, the, the, the right, the conservatives have one, one difference, and that is that they see the world as a hierarchy.

[00:29:25] Brett: Uh, everything is hierarchical. You

[00:29:28] Jeff: Whereas the liberals play out the world as a hierarchy and pretend there isn’t one. Yeah, exactly. I

[00:29:35] Jeff: got it. I see you, Nancy Pelosi.

[00:29:37] Brett: But yeah, yeah, God, Neolibs and yeah, like I’m, I’m talking more about progressives than I’m talking about liberals, but like for conservatives, like the idea that there are winners and there are losers, um, erases their need to try to level the playing field through government [00:30:00] intervention, uh, whereas progressives see.

[00:30:03] Brett: More of the gray area and why they want, they want to remove things like racist policies, um, that. that don’t, that, that make the playing field so unlevel and conservatives just outright don’t want to do that. And so it’s really easy to message to conservatives. But anyway, I’m, I’m just, I’m, I just want to recommend the YouTube channel, Legion Miller.

[00:30:30] Brett: Um, I’ll link it in the show notes. And I just, I, I was curious because she is from Minneapolis, so I didn’t

[00:30:36] Activism and Personal Experiences

[00:30:36] Jeff: Back in, in my Iraq activism days, I, uh, I would do just about anything up to risking my life, but I would not carry a fucking sign. And that is why progressives can’t organize. It’s just, there’s too much room for that kind of bullshit.

[00:30:53] Brett: Yeah,

[00:30:53] Jeff: Carry a sign, guy. Chant out loud, guy. No, I won’t do it, man.

[00:30:58] Jeff: There’s too much nuance.

[00:30:59] Brett: I [00:31:00] did the Black Block when I was

[00:31:02] Jeff: Yeah, which is like, Which is like, put a fucking bandana on your fucking face and what? And get drunk.

[00:31:11] Jeff: I’m not gonna lie.

[00:31:12] Brett: it’s

[00:31:13] Jeff: And and if you’re lucky, cash your trust fund check. That’s that’s 70 percent of Black Block. I know that. I’ve done the research, but not you. It’s not you, my man.

[00:31:22] Brett: Um, that was not my experience with Black Block. It was mostly gutter punks and, um, people who, I guess, yeah, could afford to be activists, which is kind of a privileged

[00:31:36] Jeff: No, but that’s okay. I’m not actually dissing on that. I just, Black Block guys, it’s too easy for the law enforcement to pretend they are them. That’s one of my problems.

[00:31:47] Brett: Impersonation.

[00:31:48] Jeff: Yeah, I’ve also, I’ve also never lied. I mean, in terms of the bandana thing, I’ve always been super against hiding your face and your identity and your intentions, even though it makes total sense.

[00:31:59] Jeff: Uh, [00:32:00] but it, but it doesn’t make sense if you’re not actually working towards something meaningful, which for me, The Black Block folks were like chaos agents and they were young.

[00:32:08] Jeff: and and to me, it’s like, you’re not even working towards something. If you were Daniel Berrigan, uh, who, this Catholic priest during the Vietnam War, who with his brother made their own napalm, broke into a draft center, pulled out all the draft cards and burned them in the street with homemade napalm.

[00:32:23] Jeff: And then he went undercover. I mean, they went, sorry, he went on the lam and he was in hiding. That’s when you wear a fucking mask.

[00:32:30] Brett: Right. Yeah. I, I showed up for a couple of, um, Palestine protests and they wanted to hand me signs and I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t want to sign. I, I believe in the cause. Um, I wanted to be there as a body, um, for numbers. But I just, I don’t have it in me to hold a slogan.

[00:32:55] Jeff: the same. I’m the same. I’m the same.

[00:32:59] Brett: we’re a couple of [00:33:00] easily emotionally triggered

[00:33:02] Jeff: Like by showing up, by showing up, you are a walking, breathing slogan, but like, I will not hold that side.

[00:33:09] Brett: Yep. Um,

[00:33:11] Jeff: That’s awesome.

[00:33:12] T-Shirt Store Relaunch Announcement

[00:33:12] Brett: I also wanted to use this huge platform we have to announce that I have relaunched my t shirt stores. Um, the lab store has like my. My for, for my blog, it’s called the lab ratter.com. Um, so there’s, there’s some merchandise around that. There’s also some, some markdown jokes. I, I got this mug.

[00:33:41] Jeff: Oh yeah.

[00:33:42] Brett: It’s,

[00:33:43] Jeff: asterisk, asterisk, strong, asterisk, asterisk,

[00:33:46] Brett: the original, the original version, which is still available. Said asterisk. Asterisk, bold, asterisk. Asterisk. Um, and. That was pretty popular, and then John Gruber saw someone [00:34:00] wearing it and said, That’s incorrect. That sh that should be STRONG.

[00:34:05] Jeff: And this is why the progressives can’t organize.

[00:34:09] Brett: ha! So, in the interest of pedantry and semantic correctness, I have released the STRONG version.

[00:34:17] Brett: Um, the, the BOLD one actually, it did good numbers because Gruber tweeted about it. Um, with his like tacit approval of it. And then, and then word got back to me.

[00:34:32] Jeff: He’s the, he’s the Nancy Pelosi of, of Markdown users. I realized he’s also the creator, but. He’s the Nancy Pelosi. He can fuck you up or he can give you, you know, he can open the door.

[00:34:42] Brett: Yep. Um, and so the other store is called Rock Scissors and it is all typographic, um, rock and roll t shirts. And I don’t know if you’ve seen these, but. The newest one, [00:35:00] it just says, pleased to meet you with a little devil horn coming off of the U, um, as a, as a stones reference. Um, there’s a, my favorite is the I wanna be t shirt where the I is a black flag logo, and then it says wanna be, and then underneath there are two checkboxes for anarchy and sedated.

[00:35:22] Brett: So you’ve got black flag, you got, you got the pistols and you got the Ramones all in one shirt.

[00:35:27] Jeff: Also why the progressives can’t organize.

[00:35:30] Brett: the most popular one based on sales is the, is there anybody in their shirt where the in and the there echo the way that it did on the Pink Floyd recording?

[00:35:43] Jeff: Is there a name? Can we come up with a word for that mixes entrepreneur and dad joke? Cause that’s, that’s what you are.

[00:35:54] Brett: Yep. I guess so.

[00:35:57] Jeff: That’s

[00:35:57] Brett: Um, so anyway, yeah, if you’re [00:36:00] interested, the links will be in the show notes. Um, so yesterday when I missed our recording time.

[00:36:08] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:36:09] Brett: I thought it was 9 30 because I was, you know,

[00:36:13] Jeff: In the morning,

[00:36:13] Brett: extremely stoned. Yes,

[00:36:15] Jeff: it was, uh, noon 30.

[00:36:17] Brett: it was, yes, it was 12 40. When I saw your messages saying, Hey, you come, you come into our 12 AM or 12 PM recording time.

[00:36:28] Brett: Uh, but what I was seeing. What I was lost in was Planter. Um, I released

[00:36:34] Planter Tool and Project Management

[00:36:34] Jeff: Speaking of the labs.

[00:36:36] Brett: Yeah. I released a tool years ago called Planter that let you create, you could write, you make a text file and, and use a tab indentation to define a directory hierarchy, and then you could include. Template files in folders by indenting ones further.

[00:36:56] Brett: And it was cool. Um, I used it for a while. [00:37:00] Um, I decided to completely rewrite it. Um, so I have, it’s not quite finished yet, but,

[00:37:08] Jeff: Tell me, tell me all about it.

[00:37:09] Brett: it’s, it’s now a gem and it, it, I don’t think it’ll integrate well with like Alfred and, LaunchBar. And I know, uh,

[00:37:18] Jeff: don’t need it to.

[00:37:20] Brett: I, yeah, I know Jay Miller was working on kind of a version that I think was Alfred compatible, but this is just command line.

[00:37:28] Brett: And instead of like indentated, indented, indentated, indented, like config files, it uses a YAML config file and template directories where you build out the directory with all of the files and subfolders that you want, and then you just run plant, and and then the name of the template and it duplicates that directory into your current directory and anything with a template placeholder it’ll prompt you for variables on the command line or [00:38:00] you can pass them as arguments and it will update the templates, uh, with, you know, like class names or titles or like, uh, project names.

[00:38:11] Brett: And, um, and you can do in your config, you can have regex replacements and you can define a GitHub repo instead of a folder. So if there’s a GitHub repo you have, that’s a good Base for your project. You can set up a Git pull and then, um, have it do a regex replace for like every instance of the name of the project and, and update all of the files and the readme and everything.

[00:38:40] Brett: Um, and it’s working, it’s working really well. I’m really digging it. It was a weekend project that spilled over into my week. Um, But, uh, watch for an announcement on the blog sometime in the next couple weeks.

[00:38:54] Jeff: What do you that’s awesome and exciting, I like Planter a lot. Um, [00:39:00] what do you imagine so you’ve got, you’ve got your labs, and you’ve got your like, active projects, and your sort of like, inactive projects that are in there, and they’re sort of sorted, right? Um, Is there something you have not tou you’ve touched a lot of your shit.

[00:39:13] Jeff: Well, that sounds funny, but you’ve touched, you’ve touched a lot of this stuff over the last, probably five years, I would say. And, and when I first started talking to you, maybe it hasn’t been five years. Yeah, just about. There were certain things that you kind of felt like you were done with, but then all of a sudden you were like, And I’m curious if there’s anything out there, any of your tools that you haven’t touched in three or four or five years that you sometimes think, Oh, you know what?

[00:39:40] Jeff: If I had a weekend,

[00:39:42] Reviving Old Projects and Tools

[00:39:42] Brett: Yeah, Slogger.

[00:39:43] Jeff: Slugger.

[00:39:44] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:39:45] Brett: the unfortunately named Slogger, um, is a project that I have long, it, it, the thing was, so Slogger, it stands for social, it’s, Portmanteau, Social, and Logger, um, and [00:40:00] it would pull in like all of your Twitter, your Last. fm, your Facebook, your, um, uh, someone integrated it with like various health apps.

[00:40:11] Brett: It was all plugin based. So people could write plugins for whatever service they wanted. And it would pull it all into like day one entries or markdown files. Um, every day and it would run automatically and just like keep a log of your presence on the internet in one place where you could tag and review and have a calendar output of like, what, what was this day like?

[00:40:36] Brett: And instead of like journaling, you could just rely on. All the shit you posted everywhere. Um, but the problem was APIs got harder to, uh, work with and places like Twitter basically walled off any API access and

[00:40:58] Jeff: up not mattering in the end [00:41:00] anyhow. Dead.

[00:41:01] Brett: Yeah, it did, uh, but everything kind of one piece at a time kept breaking and it was hard to maintain and keep up with, but I really, like, I look back at all of my old Slugger entries and like in day one, it’ll be like, you had 23 entries on this day, you know, eight years ago, and I’ll go back and review them and they’re fun to read and it’s, it’s a really good kind of archive.

[00:41:26] Brett: It tells you exactly what was going on for you. And like it integrated with Flickr. So there were like images in my post that it was, it was cool. And I would, I would like to revive it at some point

[00:41:38] Jeff: That sounds so fun. Like there’s, there’s, um, there’s that tool dataset, which allows you to just sort of like work with SQL databases, but also there are some like utilities to turn your Facebook archive into a SQL but some of those things. But like, I have not found anything that like recursively.

[00:41:58] Jeff: Um, we’ll do the work [00:42:00] I needed, but I keep my archives updated of Facebook. I did have Twitter when it, when it existed.

[00:42:05] Jeff: Um, yeah, any, anything where I’m, uh, there’s any data, uh, you know, like Google takeout, anything like I, I keep updating it because I know that one day. Probably not too far in the distance.

[00:42:17] Jeff: I’ll be able to use a tool that sort of gathers all that stuff up and tells me something meaningful. Um, I can already do it. I could already like load my Facebook shit into like chat GPT, but I’m not quite there yet. Um, it just feels like you’re double, you know, you got the Facebook problem already. Now you’re putting it into the AI people.

[00:42:36] Jeff: It’s too much. Um, but it’s probably there already. So anyway, that’s really cool. That’s, that would be a fun one to redo. I still haven’t found, I don’t find, cause I don’t use dash otherwise. Like you had created, um, what was it called? It was like the cheat sheets, cheaters. Um, right. Was it called cheaters?

[00:42:54] Jeff: Cheater, where you could just make your own custom sort of like, these are my keyboard shortcuts, this is the, you know, whatever, [00:43:00] um, still love that. Don’t use it anymore. And at times you’ve been like, yeah, just use Dash. I find Dash a very unsatisfying experience. Yeah. And, and a part of that, Brett, is that I’m not a developer and so I’m not using it anyhow.

[00:43:12] Jeff: And so I find that when I go to use it, I don’t find it to be. As quick as I need it to be. Um, whereas your cheater was like, holy shit, you can just whip that thing up in no time.

[00:43:24] Jeff: Um, but anyway,

[00:43:25] Brett: but it relied on things like, what was that app called that created single site browsers?

[00:43:33] Jeff: Oh, Dropler. No,

[00:43:35] Jeff: not, sorry, not Dropler. That’s not what I meant. Um, uh,

[00:43:38] Jeff: which you can kind of, Fluid,

[00:43:40] Jeff: which you can kind of do now with Safari in a weird way, which is nice,

[00:43:42] Brett: And you can, there are, there are newer ones like Unity and CoherenceX, but Fluid was the best one for making like

[00:43:50] Jeff: Fluid was

[00:43:50] Brett: Pinned, like pinned in your menu bar and you could trigger it with a hotkey. And like, that was ideal for Cheater, which is essentially just a, like an [00:44:00] HTML and JavaScript framework.

[00:44:02] Brett: Um, and it could load like Markdown. You could write your, your shortcuts down in Markdown and display them in Cheaters and full keyboard navigation and everything. Yeah, it was cool project. Um, but with the death of Fluid, um,

[00:44:18] Jeff: was great.

[00:44:18] Brett: And my, my lack of desire to write my own kind of app, uh, shell for Cheater. Um, oh, it was called Cheaters.

[00:44:29] Brett: It was plural. You’re right.

[00:44:31] Jeff: Hey, look, I wasn’t going to challenge you on that.

[00:44:35] Jeff: It’s your baby.

[00:44:35] Brett: the icon was, uh, an Ace of Spades. Um, yeah.

[00:44:42] Jeff: That’s cool. That was a good one.

[00:44:45] Brett: Should we do a grAPPtitude?

[00:44:47] Jeff: Yeah, we just did. We just did a bunch of, we got Fluid, we got, we got Cheaters. Yeah, let’s

[00:44:53] Brett: Oh, we’re talking about all dead projects. That’s, this is a dead project grAPPtitude.

[00:44:58] Jeff: yeah, why not?

[00:44:59] Window Management with Moom 4

[00:44:59] Brett: Um, [00:45:00] my pick for this week is Moom 4, which just came out. Yeah. Holy cow. Um, so Moom is a tool for window management, um, that can do everything For example, I can hit my hyper key and down and the current window will center to a specific grid location on my screen.

[00:45:22] Brett: But, I can also hover over the green button in the stop lights, or the traffic lights on a window, and I get a grid of ways I can reposition the window. Um, to like left half, right half, um, I can have like four, four front most, most recent windows organized themselves into a grid. Um, like, and it now has, you can now, that grid that I’m talking about, now you can expand it.

[00:45:54] Brett: Banned to 61 presets. Um, and you can have, you can [00:46:00] organize your presets by folders. So should, for some reason, 61 presets not be enough for you, you can have sub folders of presets, um, which I just can’t imagine ever knitting, but they added drop zones, which are similar to, uh, snap areas in better touch tool.

[00:46:20] Brett: Uh, but they like, you drag a window to the edge of the screen and these. Drop zones appear on your screen. You can drag a window to a drop zone and it’ll reposition to that drop zone. Um, yeah, it, I’ll, I’ll

[00:46:34] Jeff: You can customize the little palette now. Like if you hover over the, in Moom, yeah,

[00:46:39] Jeff: in Moom, if you hover over the green. Oh,

[00:46:41] Brett: just said

[00:46:42] Jeff: you just said customize the palette. You know why, you know why I didn’t hear that, everybody?

[00:46:45] Brett: You were, you were reading through it.

[00:46:47] Jeff: I know here’s the thing. Every once in a while, there’s an app update where the changelog comes up and, and it’s so much that I leave it open.

[00:46:54] Jeff: The Moom changelog has been open Ever since it first popped up, which is about a week ago, [00:47:00] and, and so I’ve already had it open because I won’t close it because I want to read everything. And so while you were talking, I was like, Oh, what am I most excited about? Palette. But you already heard that from Brett, everybody.

[00:47:11] Brett: Yeah, no, it’s an extensive changelog. Um, that’s what I’ll link, uh, if you go to the show notes. But the, the amazing, and I don’t know if I consider it reasonable or not, but for Moom 3 users, you can upgrade for like six bucks.

[00:47:28] Jeff: Six bucks.

[00:47:29] Brett: a new license is only 10 bucks. And honestly, this app is worth more than that.

[00:47:33] Jeff: Everybody, since I have the change, uh, the changelog open six bucks through September 4th, after that eight bucks. So they’re really going to jack it. So get in there before they come for your money.

[00:47:43] Brett: and it’s a, a permal license, no subscription. It’s, it’s just dirt cheap. And they, I just want them to charge more. Um, like he offered me a free license cause he’s doing a giveaway on, uh, brettsherpstra. com and. [00:48:00] I was like, six, no, I’ll, I’ll pay the six bucks. Um, I accepted, I accepted a free license for a 90 app recently.

[00:48:11] Brett: Um, yeah, that was, that, that was an app that I thought was fairly priced and I was planning to buy it and he was like, Oh, don’t buy it. Here’s a license. And I was like, I’ll take it. I’ll take it. I’ll save a hundred bucks. But, uh, but six bucks? Yeah, I’m paying that.

[00:48:29] Jeff: I, um, I think I use Moom in all kinds of ways, but the most important service it provides for me is what I call the panic button, which is like, I start my day organized. I got my windows where I want them, whatever, right? But then my brain starts going off in 50 directions.

[00:48:46] Jeff: I have three monitors, And my laptop monitor, and shit’s everywhere, and I can’t think, and all of a sudden I can’t even do the thing I knew I had to do.

[00:48:55] Jeff: I hit the panic button, just keyboard shortcut, and uh, and all of the main [00:49:00] important Apps snap into place in which browser they should be. And I can just go, okay, let’s do it again. And that, cause you can make these snapshots. You can say, you can say like, not only can you say, take a snapshot of all the windows as they are, you can choose to have it also snapshot the windows that are inactive, that are behind the windows and, and have those be where they are.

[00:49:21] Jeff: And so it is just, if you, it’s worth that money just for that. Like it’s an amazing feature.

[00:49:26] Brett: And you can call snapshots with AppleScript so you can integrate it with, like, a bunch.

[00:49:33] Jeff: can. I have, I have is

[00:49:34] Brett: Yeah, I do as well. Like, my podcasting bunch pops open all the necessary windows and then Moom puts them into a grid for me.

[00:49:45] Jeff: Amazing.

[00:49:46] Brett: Yep. Highly recommended. What do you got?

[00:49:48] Jeff: Well, I got kind of a, it’s a bit boring because they’re both things. So I’ve talked about both of them before, but I’ve legitimately like, they’re the, you know, you have these old apps where like, you’ve, you’ve found other things [00:50:00] to, to solve those problems, but then things get tight. Things get tense and, and you need something right then.

[00:50:07] Jeff: And the thing you’re doing that you replaced it with, isn’t doing the job. So you go back to it.

[00:50:11] Noteplan and DevonThink for Organization

[00:50:11] Jeff: And, uh, for me, there’s two things that I do that with Noteplan and Devinthink.

[00:50:16] Jeff: I mean, I have Devinthink databases that are just evergreen and they’re there forever and whatever, but like, I don’t often use Devinthink to open a new project and, and with Noteplan, as we’ve talked about on the show, uh, I think more than twice, like, I don’t know.

[00:50:30] Jeff: Noteplan is amazing. Um, it’s always more amazing when I come back to it. I do not usually last with it. Um, and I can’t actually put my finger on why. I don’t actually think it’s the fault of the app. Um, I think it’s just the way my brain works, but every time I go back to it, it has more features.

[00:50:45] Jeff: It’s been loved. It’s been loved.

[00:50:47] Jeff: up a little more and I stay a little longer. And so I’m back in Noteplan, which is fantastic. Um, if only because I can have, Noteplan is like a note taking, Kind of like a note taking app, but it’s really like an organizer shit. It’s marked [00:51:00] down and like, what’s amazing is that you can have a little calendar on the right or pulls in your calendar.

[00:51:05] Jeff: And if I click on one of the calendar events, it’ll just automatically click or create a note, uh, a notes thing for that. It could do it based on a template. So if it’s a meeting and I click on it, I can have it create a template for that meeting for that project and put it in that project folder. And so like I can have different meeting templates for different projects and all I have to do is click on that calendar event and it’s going It’s going to pull it up.

[00:51:26] Jeff: It’s going to pull it up. If it’s a week early, it’s going to pull it up if it’s a week later. Um, and I found that just an amazing way, way to, to handle that stuff. Cause sometimes I need to be forced to take notes in meetings. People are always doing it in like Google docs, but that doesn’t help me reference down the road.

[00:51:43] Jeff: Um, and then the other thing that I love about it is like, you can have like daily notes. You can have notes in your projects, any kind of note, but if you put tasks in one of those notes, it doesn’t matter if you have tasks, like one task in one note, 50 in another, over the course of a year or 10 years, if you [00:52:00] just click tasks, it’ll show you all of your tasks from all of your notes.

[00:52:04] Jeff: And so, and I have a problem of creating task lists. In whatever document I’m in that day. And so it, it really like, it helps me to be a more organized person. Um, and then Devon, I think it’s just, it’s still amazing. It’s so powerful. I deal with so many documents. I deal with such a need to like capture web pages or capture information for research projects.

[00:52:25] Jeff: Like, and there’s nothing that’s ever replaced it in terms of ability to just. Quickly store searchability, like flexibility in searchability is, it’s just an incredible, it’s an incredible place. I actually have a full email archive in one of my Devon

[00:52:42] Jeff: think, um,

[00:52:43] Brett: that is to me that is one like so I did a presentation at MacSAC about how email is timeless and Like every five years people come up with a new way to collaborate and [00:53:00] it dies and everyone But email is like forever but Like, email searching is a pain in the ass, uh, like, unless you’re using Gmail in the web interface, which does an amazing job of searching, um, any other app you’re using, search sucks, and the best way to deal with that is to export archives, um, of all your messages into something like Dev Think, uh, which will cross index, correlate, Um, make it just infinitely searchable, and it is the ultimate way to maintain a database of a lifetime of emails.

[00:53:41] Jeff: Yeah. And that, and for me, that, that involves like. My Yahoo account is in there. My, I wish my Hotmail account was in there, but that got nuked. But, um, like when I’ve had, when I’ve worked for organizations and I’ve had to be on their email, I always export my email. So like from different organizations, like that archive is everything.

[00:53:59] Jeff: And, [00:54:00] um, and it’s incredible. Yeah. And I’ve been using Dev and Think, I don’t know how long, I want to say I’ve been using it for 20 years. I don’t know that that can be true, but I’ve been using it. Yeah, I’ve been using it since I lived in New York when my son was

[00:54:12] Brett: Yeah, no, I, I remember,

[00:54:14] Jeff: years

[00:54:15] Brett: I remember, uh, 2004. I definitely was actually at that point I was using, what was their like light version? It was like a search crawler.

[00:54:25] Jeff: with Devon Agent,

[00:54:26] Jeff: but that is still a thing.

[00:54:28] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:54:29] Brett: Yeah. I, I, in 2004, I was definitely using Devon Agent. I don’t think I had sprung for Devon Think yet. But I eventually did, and it’s, it’s amazing.

[00:54:39] Brett: On Noteplant, like, I’m the same way. Um, like, I follow his release notes pretty religiously, um, because it’s just amazing how, how, how much he adds that isn’t, um, Um, Bloat, um, it’s just better ways to work with like calendar [00:55:00] pickers for your tasks and, and UE, uh, niceties that like, like you said, it’s Markdown.

[00:55:07] Brett: And if all it did was the things you described, uh, where you can like write a task list inside of your meeting notes and have it show up in a unified way, um, and like reschedule tasks and add due dates. And like, when, uh, when you look at a day’s. Like your planner for a day and all your previous tasks have like moved the ones that had the overdue tasks have moved into your new one.

[00:55:32] Brett: You can reschedule them with, uh, with plain text syntax. Um, like it’s amazing, but it’s never, it’s not my daily driver. I still use OmniFocus and I still use NVUltra for all my notes. And, um, it’s just, it’s hard to tear

[00:55:49] Jeff: well, you can’t, yeah, it’s not a, it’s not a notes manager replacement for me. And that’s where I get stuck. Um, it probably is where it gets stuck actually, even though I could [00:56:00] merge those folders. And I certainly can, I mean, I edit those notes in Sublime or I can have them in NVUltra or whatever, but like, that probably is the thing.

[00:56:07] Jeff: It’s like, it just can’t be a notes repository the way an NVUltra can.

[00:56:13] Brett: Yeah, it’s one it’s not designed

[00:56:15] Jeff: And it’s not designed to be, no, no, totally.

[00:56:17] Jeff: But then, but once I have things.

[00:56:19] Brett: if he if he tried to be

[00:56:21] Jeff: Yeah,

[00:56:22] Jeff: my problem is once I have a category of things in more than one place, that’s the recipe for One of those tools to fall off. Um, and so I guess actually that’s helpful.

[00:56:33] Jeff: Cause that may be part of it. And cause the crazy thing is what you and I have described, we’ve described three to four features and, and the amount of shit it can do is like obsidian level, but it’s like, it’s way more, I mean, obsidian’s elegant, but it’s like, it’s unstoppably elegant. Like, it just seems like, it’s kind of like when you make changes to your shit.

[00:56:51] Jeff: It’s just like, How did, how did he pick just the right things and, and execute them? Well, you know, like,

[00:56:59] Jeff: yeah,

[00:56:59] Brett: It’s, [00:57:00] opinionated without being limiting.

[00:57:02] Jeff: that’s a nice way to put it. Yeah.

[00:57:03] Switching to VS Code

[00:57:03] Brett: Um, speaking of Sublime, I think I just decided this today, but I think I’m finally switching to VS Code.

[00:57:12] Jeff: Oh, says me every three months.

[00:57:15] Brett: I, I, I

[00:57:16] Jeff: Why? What happened?

[00:57:18] Brett: just the, I opened up a planter that I’m, I’ve been working on in, in VS Code. I don’t remember why. Suddenly it was like offering to. Write the Yard documentation for a function or, or refactor my code or, and it was doing an amazing job, like I could hover over a method call and it would show me the Yard documentation in a popover from another file in the project, which I, which Sublime is supposed to be able to do and I’ve never gotten it working, but like out of the box VS code was.

[00:57:58] Brett: And showing me all the [00:58:00] parameters, all the types, like everything I needed to know. Um, and the autocomplete is eerily good. Like I, yeah, I type like variable equals and then it pops in exactly what it should have been and like, like something I would have had to go look up and like, okay, this is, here’s what I need.

[00:58:21] Brett: And it just suggested it and I hit tab and it was, it was correct. Like, it is just. It’s light years ahead of Sublime when it comes to code completion, artificial intelligence, um, just, like, it commented code and, like, described it better than I could have, uh, like, I opened up functions, I forgot what they even do, and it would like, dissect them, and this is with uh, Copilot, and, and it would literally like, put a, put a line comment on every line saying what that line was doing, and then [00:59:00] put a comment at the top of the method describing exactly what the method did, what parameters it, oh, it’s so good.

[00:59:06] Jeff: almost like it’s resourced to the level of a small nation. That’s awesome.

[00:59:12] Brett: Yep, yep, the config, once you have enough extensions loaded, the configuration is unwieldy, but their UE version is pretty damn good. So many settings though.

[00:59:28] Jeff: So many settings, which is not bad. It’s just,

[00:59:31] Brett: At least, at least you can sync your settings,

[00:59:33] Jeff: Yeah, exactly.

[00:59:35] Brett: Anyway, all right.

[00:59:37] Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[00:59:37] Brett: I feel like, I feel like that was, that was a Brett and Jeff episode for sure.

[00:59:41] Jeff: It’s great. Yeah, it’s nice to talk to you too. It’s been a long time.

[00:59:44] Brett: Maybe, maybe before, no I don’t have time. I was gonna say maybe I’ll write that theme song before we publish, but needs to go out today, so probably

[00:59:54] Jeff: one of those where you just pound on the keyboard with your fist. It could be your fist wrist down. It could be your fist like, [01:00:00] you know, just you choose. It’s your artistic, uh, license.

[01:00:04] Brett: All right, well good talking to you, Jeff.

[01:00:06] Jeff: You too, Brett.

[01:00:07] Brett: Get some sleep.

[01:00:08] Jeff: You get some sleep.