The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► How's your week? Oh my god. Oh

00:00:02 ◼   ► Geez why did I why did I launch an app? I

00:00:09 ◼   ► Forgot how much work this is

00:00:12 ◼   ► It's been a while since I've had an app in the store and the last app that was in the store was the magazine

00:00:15 ◼   ► Which wasn't very popular and didn't require tech support

00:00:18 ◼   ► Man what was I thinking?

00:00:21 ◼   ► What what's gone wrong?

00:00:27 ◼   ► It's it's mostly the funny thing is it's been a very successful launch overall like there have been very few

00:00:32 ◼   ► Real major problems there have been a few minor bugs

00:00:38 ◼   ► many of which I've been able to fix server-side just like you know sub certain podcast feeds weren't being crawled right or something, but

00:00:45 ◼   ► Overall the launch have been really good

00:00:49 ◼   ► The problem is I've gotten nothing done since yesterday when I launched it because I've been trying to keep up with all the tweet responses

00:00:56 ◼   ► trying to read all the reviews, trying to,

00:00:59 ◼   ► and recently started to try to answer all these emails.

00:01:02 ◼   ► - Yeah. - I currently have 1,099

00:01:06 ◼   ► unread emails on my inbox.

00:01:08 ◼   ► I just finally started tackling them tonight

00:01:10 ◼   ► after making a bunch of text spender snippets

00:01:13 ◼   ► for all the common responses.

00:01:14 ◼   ► - The worst part is, the worst part is

00:01:16 ◼   ► that's over 100 higher than the number you quoted me

00:01:19 ◼   ► about six or seven hours ago when I checked

00:01:22 ◼   ► to see if you wanted to be on the show.

00:01:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I just responded to like 150 of them.

00:01:27 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:28 ◼   ► They're coming in faster than I can respond.

00:01:30 ◼   ► - You were at like 900 around noon or so.

00:01:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean--

00:01:35 ◼   ► - So I guess that was nine hours ago, so that's not that much.

00:01:37 ◼   ► - To give you some idea,

00:01:38 ◼   ► the total downloads of the entire app,

00:01:41 ◼   ► like the number of people who've even downloaded it,

00:01:43 ◼   ► not even the people who've made an account,

00:01:45 ◼   ► just people who've downloaded the app at all,

00:01:47 ◼   ► is roughly 35 to 40,000.

00:01:49 ◼   ► I don't know, I haven't gotten today's stats yet,

00:01:50 ◼   ► so I'm estimating a little bit,

00:01:51 ◼   ► but roughly 35 or 40,000.

00:01:54 ◼   ► - Wow, that's impressive. - And I've gotten,

00:01:56 ◼   ► I mean, and that's a fantastic launch,

00:01:57 ◼   ► I'm very happy with that, but out of those,

00:02:00 ◼   ► at least 1,500 of them have emailed me.

00:02:04 ◼   ► - Oh my God. - That seems like

00:02:05 ◼   ► a kind of high ratio to me, I don't know.

00:02:07 ◼   ► That kind of seems too high.

00:02:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, that does seem high.

00:02:10 ◼   ► But I think it's also the nature, though,

00:02:13 ◼   ► the weird dual nature, and you know, I'm in the same boat,

00:02:17 ◼   ► but we're media personalities, you know,

00:02:20 ◼   ► people read our sites we're sort of have a columnist style and we do podcasts of

00:02:25 ◼   ► course obviously I think we do I think that encourages a sort of wanting to

00:02:35 ◼   ► give feedback you know what I mean like yeah and I don't think and again I yeah

00:02:40 ◼   ► I'll bet you'll agree with me I will bet you will agree with me with this that

00:02:42 ◼   ► even though you're complaining about being swamped but you're it's a

00:02:46 ◼   ► privilege and a thrill that people want to do that and say nice things about

00:02:49 ◼   ► about your app or ask questions and stuff.

00:02:51 ◼   ► I don't begrudge it.

00:02:53 ◼   ► - Oh, definitely.

00:02:54 ◼   ► I mean, I really want to do as much

00:02:57 ◼   ► of the support of this myself.

00:03:00 ◼   ► And I probably will forget saying that.

00:03:03 ◼   ► - Oh, God bless you.

00:03:04 ◼   ► - Well, but what I've done instead is I've tried

00:03:06 ◼   ► to ridiculously minimize the number

00:03:08 ◼   ► of support emails I actually get.

00:03:10 ◼   ► So I can actually treat them like a human being

00:03:13 ◼   ► or at least hire somebody to do it

00:03:15 ◼   ► and keep an eye on it very closely.

00:03:17 ◼   ► Whereas with Instapaper, I was never able to do that.

00:03:19 ◼   ► there was too much support. And that's sort of a virtuous circle where you

00:03:24 ◼   ► being motivated to minimize support issues design and development wise

00:03:30 ◼   ► because you know you're gonna have to deal with them yourself means that if

00:03:33 ◼   ► you succeed it works and you have less time doing support and vice versa you

00:03:37 ◼   ► know whereas if you had somebody doing support you may not maybe you wouldn't

00:03:40 ◼   ► be as you wouldn't care quite as much. Right this is something that you know a

00:03:44 ◼   ► friend of the universe, Daniel Jalkut, has always said

00:03:47 ◼   ► that he, I believe this is still the case,

00:03:49 ◼   ► that he always answers all of his own support email

00:03:52 ◼   ► so that he is both on top of issues as they arise

00:03:55 ◼   ► and aware of what people are asking for

00:03:58 ◼   ► and so that he is motivated to fix problems in the app

00:04:02 ◼   ► that cause a lot of support issues

00:04:04 ◼   ► so that people don't even have to email him.

00:04:06 ◼   ► So everyone wins there.

00:04:08 ◼   ► So I'm trying it out, I'll see.

00:04:09 ◼   ► I mean, I don't have any idea what the stable,

00:04:14 ◼   ► email rate will be, five weeks from now on a Tuesday,

00:04:19 ◼   ► what's gonna be the email rate that day, I don't know.

00:04:24 ◼   ► So I'll see if I can still handle it myself.

00:04:27 ◼   ► I would like to do as much about myself

00:04:29 ◼   ► in the early days as possible though.

00:04:30 ◼   ► Like this initial batch of, oh now it's 1100, got one more.

00:04:34 ◼   ► This initial batch of 1100 plus emails,

00:04:37 ◼   ► I would like to go through myself,

00:04:39 ◼   ► just so I have some idea, like what are people asking for?

00:04:42 ◼   ► what should I be doing differently?

00:04:45 ◼   ► What is confusing people about the app

00:04:47 ◼   ► that I should think about rearranging

00:04:50 ◼   ► or relabeling or rethinking?

00:04:52 ◼   ► - I know Cable Sasser does the same thing

00:04:54 ◼   ► with major releases.

00:04:56 ◼   ► I don't know if he does it with every major release,

00:04:59 ◼   ► but I know that he's done that.

00:05:01 ◼   ► And I don't think he hesitates to dive into the support

00:05:03 ◼   ► on a regular basis, but when they launch Coda,

00:05:06 ◼   ► I don't know, 4.0, whatever the next version is,

00:05:09 ◼   ► he'll spend like that that like thirty six hour manic period of okay it is out

00:05:15 ◼   ► uh...

00:05:16 ◼   ► and on the front lines of the support you

00:05:18 ◼   ► you know working through it because he wants that

00:05:21 ◼   ► experience he wants to see that you know

00:05:24 ◼   ► initial feedback

00:05:25 ◼   ► and it's true valuable

00:05:27 ◼   ► there's there's like an endorphin high of

00:05:29 ◼   ► of a big release like this that

00:05:31 ◼   ► and it to me it it's

00:05:34 ◼   ► in hindsight you look back and say this is a great week

00:05:38 ◼   ► if it's, you know, as long as the launch is successful

00:05:40 ◼   ► and it's not something like, holy crap,

00:05:42 ◼   ► the server actually can't take more than 100 users.

00:05:47 ◼   ► - And I lucked out big time with that,

00:05:49 ◼   ► 'cause that's what I was most worried about.

00:05:51 ◼   ► I had forgotten about the concept of support email.

00:05:53 ◼   ► I was much more worried about the servers holding up.

00:05:56 ◼   ► And 'cause I didn't really, I couldn't really predict

00:06:00 ◼   ► how heavy the load would be on the server.

00:06:02 ◼   ► So I went to Linode where all my stuff is

00:06:05 ◼   ► a couple days ago, and I just added like eight new servers.

00:06:08 ◼   ► Just because you can add or destroy them whenever you want,

00:06:11 ◼   ► they're built hourly.

00:06:12 ◼   ► So I was just like, you know, let me just add

00:06:13 ◼   ► way more capacity than I think I will need,

00:06:17 ◼   ► and make a way that I can easily clone them

00:06:18 ◼   ► if I need even more than that.

00:06:20 ◼   ► And then I can always take them all down next week.

00:06:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, and you have the advantage where you've done

00:06:26 ◼   ► large scale things before.

00:06:28 ◼   ► Instapaper had a ton of users, and you know,

00:06:32 ◼   ► a lot like Overcast is largely, you know,

00:06:36 ◼   ► it's the whole thing is,

00:06:37 ◼   ► the whole premise is built on the server.

00:06:39 ◼   ► Tumblr, obviously, I think has a fair number of users.

00:06:43 ◼   ► - Little bit, yeah.

00:06:47 ◼   ► - And even, you know, however much smaller they were

00:06:49 ◼   ► when you left Tumblr,

00:06:51 ◼   ► Tumblr was a big ass website when you left.

00:06:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, when I left, if I screwed up,

00:06:56 ◼   ► I would serve about 1200 error pages per second.

00:06:58 ◼   ► - Right, well, there you go, that's, yeah.

00:07:00 ◼   ► - Which is kind of pressuring.

00:07:01 ◼   ► But the thing, and so Brent Simmons was in the same boat,

00:07:04 ◼   ► and I will return to this,

00:07:05 ◼   ► 'cause one of the reasons I'm so interested by Overcast

00:07:08 ◼   ► is I do see some fair number of similarities

00:07:12 ◼   ► situation-wise with Vesper, and design-wise even.

00:07:16 ◼   ► But one of the things was that Brent has built

00:07:19 ◼   ► large-scale online things.

00:07:21 ◼   ► There's net news, wire syncing,

00:07:24 ◼   ► some of the other stuff he did at NewsGator.

00:07:27 ◼   ► So I felt really good being,

00:07:29 ◼   ► having nothing to do with writing the code.

00:07:31 ◼   ► betting on Brent Simmons and it did work out. We had a great launch. The sync all went fine.

00:07:36 ◼   ► And I would have been just as happy betting on, you know, Overcast and Marco Arment having a good thing.

00:07:42 ◼   ► Because experience really matters. But on the other hand, and Brent, you know, had a couple of these things in mind,

00:07:49 ◼   ► especially for online stuff, every couple of years the state of the art changes and there's little things that are new and different, right?

00:07:56 ◼   ► It didn't used to be that you could go to line ode and say you know what give me a couple of extra database servers

00:08:01 ◼   ► You couldn't do that. Oh, yeah, right and so in in in the large part

00:08:07 ◼   ► And I think the reason by both of those launches went well those things work really well

00:08:10 ◼   ► But you just never know because there might be something there might be something that you overlook because that's what bugs are bugs are always

00:08:17 ◼   ► things that you overlook and you can say here's all that here's the seven things that have bit me before scaling wise and I'm gonna

00:08:23 ◼   ► Make sure all seven of these I've handled

00:08:24 ◼   ► well. There might be a new one, an eighth one that you don't know about. And then all of a sudden,

00:08:29 ◼   ► you've got a big launch, all these websites are writing about you, you're on the front page of

00:08:34 ◼   ► this website, that website, all sorts of Twitter's going nuts, people talking about it, and your

00:08:39 ◼   ► server is down. And yeah, it would, you know, you probably would be a much less happy Marco.

00:08:46 ◼   ► Oh, yeah. And you know, because the difference like, I mean, I did a beta test with about 40

00:08:51 ◼   ► for about two months and 40 people,

00:08:53 ◼   ► 'cause Apple has not, as far as I know,

00:08:55 ◼   ► rolled out that new testing thing yet

00:08:57 ◼   ► that they made test flight into.

00:08:58 ◼   ► - No.

00:08:59 ◼   ► - So you're still limited to 100 device slots.

00:09:01 ◼   ► So 40 people, if you wanna leave any room

00:09:03 ◼   ► for anyone to get new phones in the fall

00:09:04 ◼   ► or anyone to have an iPad,

00:09:06 ◼   ► that's about as big of a group as you can do.

00:09:08 ◼   ► And this was the biggest beta I've ever done by a long shot,

00:09:13 ◼   ► the longest beta I've ever done.

00:09:15 ◼   ► And the beta did uncover tons of issues

00:09:17 ◼   ► and which I'm very thankful for.

00:09:20 ◼   ► And yet there are still bugs that none of us found

00:09:24 ◼   ► because the difference between 40 people

00:09:27 ◼   ► and 30,000 people is substantial.

00:09:31 ◼   ► And out of the 40, it was mostly people I know,

00:09:36 ◼   ► like you, and other tech people.

00:09:37 ◼   ► So it wasn't a very diverse group.

00:09:39 ◼   ► And so certain things we just never ran into

00:09:42 ◼   ► because that isn't how we use the podcast app.

00:09:45 ◼   ► Whereas a lot of people do run into that.

00:09:47 ◼   ► - Any good examples?

00:09:48 ◼   ► - That's part of the problem of--

00:09:49 ◼   ► I'd love to hear an example of that.

00:09:51 ◼   ► If you can think of one that's like,

00:09:52 ◼   ► if there's like already like a frequently run into--

00:09:57 ◼   ► - Oh yeah. - Sharp edge

00:09:58 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:09:59 ◼   ► - What do you think the average number of podcasts is

00:10:04 ◼   ► that somebody subscribes to?

00:10:06 ◼   ► - Three.

00:10:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, right, I mean, you're ruling out anyone

00:10:10 ◼   ► who does zero, you know, obviously.

00:10:12 ◼   ► - Right.

00:10:13 ◼   ► - So I don't have that number available for Overcast yet.

00:10:17 ◼   ► However, I have heard from many people,

00:10:20 ◼   ► apparently my OPML importer is having problems

00:10:24 ◼   ► for people who have OPML files

00:10:26 ◼   ► that have like 100 feeds in them.

00:10:28 ◼   ► And there's a lot of these people who keep telling me this.

00:10:31 ◼   ► - I can believe that.

00:10:32 ◼   ► - I listened to, my feed list is about 35 or 40 long,

00:10:37 ◼   ► 'cause a lot of those are shows that are retired

00:10:39 ◼   ► or on hiatus, or a lot of them are shows

00:10:41 ◼   ► that I had one episode of,

00:10:42 ◼   ► but I didn't subscribe to the whole show,

00:10:44 ◼   ► and they're still on my list 'cause I haven't deleted them.

00:10:47 ◼   ► And so the number of podcasts I listen to actively

00:10:51 ◼   ► that actually produce new episodes every week

00:10:54 ◼   ► is probably about 10 maybe.

00:10:56 ◼   ► And I consider myself a heavy podcast listener.

00:10:59 ◼   ► But compared to the general public,

00:11:03 ◼   ► there are these edge cases out there.

00:11:05 ◼   ► There are these people who listen to over 100.

00:11:07 ◼   ► One guy complained that his had over 150

00:11:09 ◼   ► and I couldn't import it properly.

00:11:12 ◼   ► And I just never considered,

00:11:14 ◼   ► and that also creates problems.

00:11:16 ◼   ► The problem with OPML is that there's no way

00:11:21 ◼   ► to specify episodes.

00:11:23 ◼   ► You can only say which podcast you subscribe to.

00:11:26 ◼   ► - It's in other words, it's the URL of the podcast feed,

00:11:30 ◼   ► not the URL of the episode.

00:11:33 ◼   ► - Correct, and that's it.

00:11:34 ◼   ► And so the OPML standard cannot communicate between apps

00:11:39 ◼   ► whether you've heard all the episodes or not,

00:11:41 ◼   ► which ones are unplayed, how far you've gotten in them.

00:11:44 ◼   ► It only knows which podcasts you subscribe to, period.

00:11:47 ◼   ► That's it.

00:11:48 ◼   ► - Well, that's not, and to be pedantic here,

00:11:50 ◼   ► I'll fill in for Sir Kusa.

00:11:52 ◼   ► It's not really a limit of OPML in general,

00:11:55 ◼   ► 'cause I believe OPML is a general purpose

00:11:57 ◼   ► outliner file format.

00:11:59 ◼   ► It's the specific flavor of OPML that is widely understood

00:12:03 ◼   ► as the lingua franca, how do you say that, lingua franca?

00:12:08 ◼   ► - I think so.

00:12:09 ◼   ► - Of sharing-- - You're a wrong person.

00:12:10 ◼   ► of sharing a list of feeds that you subscribe to.

00:12:14 ◼   ► And that's true for RSS readers too.

00:12:17 ◼   ► It's probably the exact same format.

00:12:18 ◼   ► - And there's actually a very good reason why

00:12:21 ◼   ► nobody's implemented episode exporting and importing.

00:12:24 ◼   ► It's mostly because there is no good way

00:12:27 ◼   ► to uniquely identify the episodes.

00:12:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would imagine so.

00:12:30 ◼   ► - Because GUIDs are not required in the standards.

00:12:33 ◼   ► And there's a lot of feeds that do GUIDs wrong anyway.

00:12:38 ◼   ► - And aren't there some feeds that,

00:12:39 ◼   ► you couldn't even use the URL for the audio file

00:12:42 ◼   ► 'cause there's some, aren't there some shows

00:12:44 ◼   ► where they'll give it and they'll put two in

00:12:46 ◼   ► and they'll say like here's two different formats,

00:12:48 ◼   ► MP3 and M4A.

00:12:50 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

00:12:51 ◼   ► There's even still some people who put in Ogg Vorbis

00:12:53 ◼   ► and then there's a new format called Ogg Opus, I think.

00:12:56 ◼   ► I didn't even hear of until yesterday.

00:12:58 ◼   ► I don't know how popular it is,

00:13:00 ◼   ► but yeah, just to give you some idea of what I'm dealing with.

00:13:02 ◼   ► - I think that tells you how popular it is.

00:13:04 ◼   ► - Probably.

00:13:05 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:13:06 ◼   ► But yeah, and so like there's,

00:13:07 ◼   ► And now I'm dealing with broken feeds,

00:13:10 ◼   ► feeds that have clearly broken markup,

00:13:13 ◼   ► but that people are angry about that I don't support

00:13:16 ◼   ► and so I have to figure out how to support them

00:13:17 ◼   ► and it's a mess.

00:13:19 ◼   ► But anyway, so one of the biggest complaints I've gotten

00:13:22 ◼   ► is from people who subscribe to a lot of shows.

00:13:25 ◼   ► My default behavior when importing OPML is,

00:13:29 ◼   ► I will assume that you want the one most recent episode

00:13:32 ◼   ► in every one of those feeds listed.

00:13:34 ◼   ► That is a bad assumption, it turns out.

00:13:36 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:13:37 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:13:38 ◼   ► - And so when you have 150 feeds,

00:13:40 ◼   ► I try to immediately download 150 episodes.

00:13:43 ◼   ► - Right.

00:13:44 ◼   ► - And people are complaining that I'm filling up

00:13:45 ◼   ► their phones 'cause all of a sudden they have three gigs

00:13:47 ◼   ► of podcast downloaded after their import

00:13:49 ◼   ► and I don't have like a bulk cancel operation.

00:13:53 ◼   ► And again, this is something that,

00:13:55 ◼   ► that is a valid problem.

00:13:57 ◼   ► I didn't think of it, it never came up in beta.

00:14:00 ◼   ► I have to figure out some good way to solve that now.

00:14:02 ◼   ► But that is very much a valid problem.

00:14:06 ◼   ► Yeah, and I was a bad tester for that because I don't keep like an archive of old shows.

00:14:14 ◼   ► I don't want, I don't have a subscription to Hypercritical anymore just because I want

00:14:18 ◼   ► to go back and listen to it.

00:14:20 ◼   ► If I do, it might strike me my fancy someday, but then I wouldn't think I want to have subscription

00:14:25 ◼   ► to it.

00:14:26 ◼   ► I would think I'll go into a directory, find it, find the episode I want and play and then

00:14:32 ◼   ► add it there.

00:14:33 ◼   ► think I want to even though I understand the mindset that someone would want to

00:14:36 ◼   ► do that here's the hundred and fifty podcasts I've ever been interested in

00:14:40 ◼   ► and I want to move this file around from app to app my mind that that seems crazy

00:14:44 ◼   ► to me a new I kind of like the idea of switching and trying a new podcast app

00:14:49 ◼   ► every once in a while just to start clean and say here let me find two or

00:14:54 ◼   ► three shows I want to listen to I've got a long drive ahead of me right and I

00:14:57 ◼   ► think it's easier because you know despite those outliers you know like RSS

00:15:01 ◼   ► has always had that problem where usually people listen,

00:15:04 ◼   ► or people subscribe to usually a pretty good number

00:15:07 ◼   ► of RSS feeds if they use it at all.

00:15:09 ◼   ► Like I subscribe to probably 200 RSS feeds.

00:15:11 ◼   ► And again, most of them don't update every day,

00:15:12 ◼   ► so it's easy to follow.

00:15:14 ◼   ► But podcasts, you know, there's a limit

00:15:18 ◼   ► on how many podcasts you can listen to on a regular basis.

00:15:21 ◼   ► And so I always assume the numbers

00:15:23 ◼   ► would be substantially lower for your number

00:15:25 ◼   ► of podcast feeds that most people would be subscribed to.

00:15:27 ◼   ► I assume that would be a very low number.

00:15:30 ◼   ► And yeah, turns out not necessarily a safe assumption.

00:15:33 ◼   ► - So what they want is they wanna be able

00:15:35 ◼   ► to maybe even default to zero downloads per podcast

00:15:40 ◼   ► and then go through and then change it from there.

00:15:43 ◼   ► - Right, and I think honestly, I mean,

00:15:45 ◼   ► a safe default might be zero

00:15:48 ◼   ► and just make people pick one from everything.

00:15:51 ◼   ► I think my assumption that you want the latest one

00:15:53 ◼   ► from everything is probably problematic enough

00:15:56 ◼   ► that I should probably change it,

00:15:57 ◼   ► which is good 'cause I can change that one server side.

00:15:59 ◼   ► Maybe that's a good one that you'd want to do if I add just a single new subscription

00:16:04 ◼   ► in the app.

00:16:06 ◼   ► Maybe assume I want to get the most recent episode, but if I'm importing an OPML file,

00:16:10 ◼   ► don't assume I want any of the episodes.

00:16:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean that is certainly, well, actually no.

00:16:15 ◼   ► I think my default behavior now is that if you tap subscribe on a new show, I download

00:16:20 ◼   ► the latest episode.

00:16:21 ◼   ► If you add it from the directory, which, so I think that is a safe assumption.

00:16:24 ◼   ► But yeah, I think you're right with OPML.

00:16:26 ◼   ► I think it isn't.

00:16:27 ◼   ► I think maybe I'll change that later tonight after I'm done with you.

00:16:29 ◼   ► Yeah. Don't let me hold you. That leads directly to another question I've had, and I've seen it,

00:16:36 ◼   ► and I'm not even following anywhere nearly as religiously as I'm sure you are on Twitter,

00:16:41 ◼   ► the day one commentary about it, but I've seen a lot of people remark about the lack of streaming.

00:16:46 ◼   ► Yes, that is a big one.

00:16:50 ◼   ► And again, I never really noticed.

00:16:54 ◼   ► I guess I have, because I guess there have been times,

00:16:57 ◼   ► like I've been trying to run on a more regular basis,

00:17:02 ◼   ► and that's one of the times where I do listen to podcasts,

00:17:06 ◼   ► and it'll be like, hey, I know that there's gotta be

00:17:08 ◼   ► a new ATP out, let me go look.

00:17:12 ◼   ► And there it is, and I do, I have to wait

00:17:16 ◼   ► until I get the whole thing before I go out,

00:17:17 ◼   ► but I don't have to wait that long

00:17:19 ◼   ► that it would ever even have occurred to me to, you know,

00:17:23 ◼   ► write in as a suggestion that I would like

00:17:25 ◼   ► to just leave the house and have it stream over LTE

00:17:27 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:17:28 ◼   ► 'Cause it doesn't take that long for, you know,

00:17:31 ◼   ► a hundred and some megabyte file.

00:17:35 ◼   ► But it seems like lots of people want that.

00:17:36 ◼   ► What they want is they want it to start downloading

00:17:40 ◼   ► and playing at the same time.

00:17:42 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, and streaming, it's, you know,

00:17:44 ◼   ► it isn't there because it's hard to do

00:17:46 ◼   ► and I didn't have time to do it

00:17:47 ◼   ► and it's going to take months to do it right.

00:17:49 ◼   ► That's why it's not there.

00:17:51 ◼   ► A lot of people assume that I just forgot to add it,

00:17:53 ◼   ► it's just some oversight.

00:17:54 ◼   ► - Right, just start praying.

00:17:56 ◼   ► - Right.

00:17:57 ◼   ► - That's what I figured. - I did check that checkbox.

00:18:00 ◼   ► - That's what I figured the answer was.

00:18:01 ◼   ► The answer is that it's not,

00:18:03 ◼   ► it's like a lot of these things, it's not easy.

00:18:05 ◼   ► - It's really hard.

00:18:06 ◼   ► And it's harder for me because of my audio engine.

00:18:09 ◼   ► Like it's easier for the other players

00:18:11 ◼   ► that don't use the low level stuff that I do

00:18:13 ◼   ► to do my audio effects.

00:18:15 ◼   ► It's easier for them, but it's a lot easier for them.

00:18:17 ◼   ► the way I'm gonna have to do it is gonna be more manual.

00:18:20 ◼   ► Like I'm gonna have to build more

00:18:20 ◼   ► of those parts from scratch.

00:18:22 ◼   ► But the main argument for it,

00:18:25 ◼   ► and first of all, I think the need for it

00:18:28 ◼   ► is exaggerated on day one,

00:18:30 ◼   ► because so many people wanna just jump in

00:18:33 ◼   ► and try playing it,

00:18:34 ◼   ► and they have to wait for their files to download.

00:18:36 ◼   ► Whereas if you just use the app regularly,

00:18:38 ◼   ► most new episodes you'll get,

00:18:40 ◼   ► we push to you in the background,

00:18:41 ◼   ► and you won't even notice them downloading.

00:18:42 ◼   ► By the time you launch the app next, they're just there.

00:18:45 ◼   ► So, you know, background download,

00:18:47 ◼   ► I think removes much of the need,

00:18:48 ◼   ► but there are still situations where you need,

00:18:51 ◼   ► or where streaming is very nice to have.

00:18:54 ◼   ► The big two are immediate feedback.

00:18:57 ◼   ► Like if you just wanted to add an episode

00:18:58 ◼   ► and listen to it right now,

00:19:00 ◼   ► like right as you add it, then you wanna hear it,

00:19:02 ◼   ► you can start playing it immediately.

00:19:03 ◼   ► And then the second big one is if you,

00:19:06 ◼   ► like a lot of the clients offer a streaming only mode

00:19:10 ◼   ► where nothing is ever downloaded.

00:19:12 ◼   ► You only ever stream things,

00:19:13 ◼   ► and that way you don't use any disk space.

00:19:16 ◼   ► that would never even occur to me.

00:19:18 ◼   ► - And it's a really good idea.

00:19:20 ◼   ► And like, you know, if you think about,

00:19:21 ◼   ► you know, for me, I would never use it

00:19:22 ◼   ► because I, you know, I have,

00:19:24 ◼   ► I live in an area that has spotty reception

00:19:26 ◼   ► and I often, you know, travel and go upstate

00:19:28 ◼   ► or on a plane or something.

00:19:29 ◼   ► And so I want everything to be just downloaded

00:19:32 ◼   ► and there and ready.

00:19:33 ◼   ► But a lot of people don't work that way.

00:19:36 ◼   ► A lot of people want everything to always only be streamed

00:19:40 ◼   ► and leave all the space for you on their phone.

00:19:42 ◼   ► And we'll see what happens like with iOS 8,

00:19:44 ◼   ► with the new photo management thing.

00:19:46 ◼   ► Maybe there won't be as much of a space crunch

00:19:50 ◼   ► on iOS devices as there used to be, who knows?

00:19:53 ◼   ► But either way, I am gonna add streaming,

00:19:55 ◼   ► it's just a matter of doing it,

00:19:57 ◼   ► which is probably gonna take a few months.

00:19:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, it seems like that's actually sort of

00:20:01 ◼   ► under the radar, like one of the big priorities of iOS 8

00:20:06 ◼   ► is space management, because they're doing,

00:20:09 ◼   ► it's a similar thing they're doing with messages,

00:20:14 ◼   ► where it's defaulting to not keeping

00:20:17 ◼   ► the images and other attachments that you've been sent and i think

00:20:22 ◼   ► part of that is a sort of trend towards privacy

00:20:26 ◼   ► in general

00:20:27 ◼   ► and you know things like snapchat and stuff like that where it works like that

00:20:30 ◼   ► and people seem to like it

00:20:32 ◼   ► and maybe it just never occurred to them before but i think another big part of

00:20:35 ◼   ► it is that you know even for me it was not like a super heavy texture but

00:20:40 ◼   ► Whiskas and I communicate a lot about Vesper.

00:20:43 ◼   ► I've got tons of screenshots in my iMessages with him.

00:20:46 ◼   ► If I look in the usage, I do have a couple of gigabytes,

00:20:51 ◼   ► I don't know, four or five gigabytes in messages,

00:20:54 ◼   ► and there's no way to get them out.

00:20:57 ◼   ► I mean, I think you can go through one by one,

00:20:59 ◼   ► but that way lies madness.

00:21:01 ◼   ► - Right, or you can delete the entire conversation

00:21:04 ◼   ► with Dave Whiskas and lose that entire history.

00:21:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, which I don't wanna do.

00:21:07 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's also the weird way iMessage works where I've actually got like seven conversations

00:21:14 ◼   ► with Whiskus.

00:21:15 ◼   ► I don't know if they're based on different, you know, like his phone number to my Apple

00:21:19 ◼   ► ID, my Apple ID to his Apple ID.

00:21:22 ◼   ► I don't know quite how that counts, but everyone, you know, that would be less.

00:21:26 ◼   ► I would probably be easier to delete seven conversations with him, but, you know, who

00:21:31 ◼   ► knows how much of those gigabytes is all sorts of other people too, and I'd have to keep

00:21:34 ◼   ► deleting all those things.

00:21:35 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:21:36 ◼   ► I don't know and I would love to know the answer to maybe somebody who's upgraded their regular phone to iOS 8 betas would know whether

00:21:42 ◼   ► That applies to your old messages

00:21:46 ◼   ► like if you upgrade your phone to iOS 8

00:21:48 ◼   ► Well that that new world only apply to new messages as they come in or is

00:21:54 ◼   ► IOS 8 going to do something smart about your archive of

00:21:58 ◼   ► old images

00:21:59 ◼   ► That's a tough one because you certainly you could see the other problem is like, you know, if if they just default to

00:22:05 ◼   ► alright we're just gonna stop keeping all old stuff by default then as soon as

00:22:09 ◼   ► you upgrade to iOS 8 all your old messages get deleted and that's that's

00:22:14 ◼   ► kind of bad so I can see the problem there right it's one thing if new

00:22:19 ◼   ► messages start coming in with that little keep button and you you know even

00:22:23 ◼   ► if you don't quite notice it right away well it was there and you had the

00:22:26 ◼   ► opportunity to press keep it's another thing to say yeah all those messages

00:22:30 ◼   ► you got over the last three years that you never even had to worry about

00:22:34 ◼   ► about whether they were gonna be kept or not,

00:22:36 ◼   ► you knew they were gonna be kept.

00:22:37 ◼   ► Yeah, we did you a favor and deleted them.

00:22:39 ◼   ► - Right, I mean, I think what would probably make more sense

00:22:43 ◼   ► would be to treat those attachments just like entries

00:22:47 ◼   ► in your photos library where they are all kept on iCloud

00:22:51 ◼   ► and then they can just be pulled down on demand.

00:22:53 ◼   ► If you actually scroll up and go like, you know,

00:22:55 ◼   ► three years back in history,

00:22:57 ◼   ► they can be pulled off the network.

00:22:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

00:23:00 ◼   ► - And just have it use your storage.

00:23:01 ◼   ► But unfortunately, with some people

00:23:02 ◼   ► that might use a ton of storage, who knows?

00:23:04 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, I was just about to say it.

00:23:06 ◼   ► The problem is that it, for a lot of people,

00:23:08 ◼   ► a couple of gigs of iMessage images

00:23:11 ◼   ► is probably pretty close to the number of gigs they have

00:23:14 ◼   ► in their iCloud storage.

00:23:15 ◼   ► - Right, exactly.

00:23:17 ◼   ► And there's also a lot of duplication, I think.

00:23:19 ◼   ► Like if you send a picture to somebody,

00:23:22 ◼   ► do you now have two copies of that in your storage?

00:23:25 ◼   ► Like the one in your camera roll

00:23:26 ◼   ► and the one you sent them?

00:23:27 ◼   ► I don't know, like I don't know how that works.

00:23:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, I do think that, oh, that's a good question.

00:23:32 ◼   ► I think you might, because it might also, I don't even know, I actually never even checked

00:23:39 ◼   ► whether they like shrink them at all or anything.

00:23:41 ◼   ► I don't think they do.

00:23:43 ◼   ► But I don't know, that's a good question.

00:23:45 ◼   ► And when you do get a copy, like when you, you definitely get a dupe when you take the

00:23:49 ◼   ► photo with your phone and then you switch to your iPad or your Mac or something and

00:23:54 ◼   ► the conversation is over there too, that's obviously a copy of the image.

00:23:58 ◼   ► Right, exactly.

00:23:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

00:24:00 ◼   ► I don't know. It's a good question. Obviously something you have to concern yourself about

00:24:05 ◼   ► though. That's one area where overcast, I think it's in a unique situation where some

00:24:14 ◼   ► users might reasonably want overcast to literally take up a majority of the storage on their

00:24:20 ◼   ► device. Somebody with a 64 gigabyte iPhone might actually want a podcast app that stores

00:24:28 ◼   ► about 40 gigabytes of podcasts.

00:24:30 ◼   ► - Right, especially if you're going on a trip or something

00:24:32 ◼   ► and you're gonna be without coverage

00:24:34 ◼   ► or you're going international,

00:24:35 ◼   ► you don't wanna use data roaming,

00:24:36 ◼   ► or you're just going out for a while

00:24:38 ◼   ► and you're in a country where cell coverage

00:24:41 ◼   ► or cell data is very expensive.

00:24:43 ◼   ► Either way, there are so many reasons

00:24:46 ◼   ► why you want it downloaded

00:24:48 ◼   ► and why you want it to be taking up space in your phone

00:24:50 ◼   ► rather than requiring it to be streamed constantly.

00:24:53 ◼   ► But the other side of that is probably just as frequent

00:24:56 ◼   ► which is you have a 16 gig device and it's full

00:24:59 ◼   ► and you wanna download to podcast

00:25:01 ◼   ► and you don't have enough space.

00:25:02 ◼   ► That sucks.

00:25:03 ◼   ► And so I can see both sides of the argument,

00:25:06 ◼   ► but there's also a problem in having the app offer

00:25:11 ◼   ► a very healthy blend of those two things

00:25:13 ◼   ► 'cause then everything becomes way more complicated,

00:25:16 ◼   ► both the code and the interface.

00:25:19 ◼   ► 'Cause then you have to manage these states

00:25:21 ◼   ► and offer ways for people to transform a stream

00:25:23 ◼   ► into a download or delete something,

00:25:26 ◼   ► but leave it streamable and all these things

00:25:28 ◼   ► that really complicate the interface and the data model

00:25:31 ◼   ► and even the mental model of the user to know,

00:25:35 ◼   ► like do I have this thing or not?

00:25:37 ◼   ► I'm trying to keep it very simple

00:25:40 ◼   ► so that people can know what's happening.

00:25:43 ◼   ► They can know what they have by looking at it.

00:25:46 ◼   ► They can see it, they can tell, okay, I have this file.

00:25:48 ◼   ► And they can be kind of assured of that

00:25:50 ◼   ► and they can depend on that, you know?

00:25:51 ◼   ► But it's hard.

00:25:53 ◼   ► And this is why podcast apps are so challenging to make,

00:25:55 ◼   ► I think because it's one of those categories like to-do lists where like it seems simple

00:26:00 ◼   ► at first and then you start getting requests from people and you start realizing, wait

00:26:03 ◼   ► a minute, there is not only is there no way to satisfy all of them, like any change you

00:26:08 ◼   ► make is going to satisfy this group but anger this other group, but also that the problem

00:26:14 ◼   ► space is so complicated of what somebody might want and exactly how they might want it that

00:26:20 ◼   ► is infinite potential for improvement for every person. No one is ever 100%

00:26:26 ◼   ► satisfied with their podcast app. Everyone's always like 60% satisfied. And

00:26:30 ◼   ► I'm you know so I made one that satisfies my 60%. I'm very happy with it

00:26:37 ◼   ► but it's it's never gonna appeal to everyone and it's not even close.

00:26:43 ◼   ► I think that's another it's one of the broad areas where I see it as similar to

00:26:46 ◼   ► Vesper in that there's a ton of notes apps including one that ships with the

00:26:53 ◼   ► system from Apple that's not horrible you know and and it is there it's you

00:26:59 ◼   ► know it's it's at least you know one of the things I like about it though is at

00:27:03 ◼   ► least you see where Apple's coming from with it so you don't have to worry like

00:27:06 ◼   ► it's more worrisome if Apple doesn't have an app in your category right like

00:27:10 ◼   ► then you're always wondering like either why isn't there an app in my category

00:27:15 ◼   ► or does my category suck that badly?

00:27:17 ◼   ► Or what will happen if they make one?

00:27:20 ◼   ► Then they'll crush us all, you know?

00:27:21 ◼   ► - And even if it ends up not being crushing,

00:27:24 ◼   ► it's stressful.

00:27:25 ◼   ► Like you must have gone through that with the reading list.

00:27:27 ◼   ► 'Cause you start hearing about it before it comes out.

00:27:30 ◼   ► Then they announce it and then you have to worry,

00:27:32 ◼   ► well, how popular is it going to be?

00:27:33 ◼   ► It's coming out in three months when the beta is over.

00:27:36 ◼   ► And it's stressful.

00:27:39 ◼   ► I mean, it's better to know that,

00:27:42 ◼   ► wow, here's Apple's podcast app

00:27:44 ◼   ► and here's all the reasons I don't like it

00:27:46 ◼   ► and I know that there's a lot of other people

00:27:47 ◼   ► who don't like it.

00:27:48 ◼   ► And they're probably not going to wipe it out

00:27:52 ◼   ► and start over, I don't think.

00:27:54 ◼   ► - Well, and there are things about Apple's podcast app

00:27:58 ◼   ► that are the way they are

00:28:00 ◼   ► because that's how Apple does things

00:28:02 ◼   ► or because there's a strategy tax in place.

00:28:04 ◼   ► Like there's a certain amount of cludginess in the app

00:28:09 ◼   ► that is entirely because it has to use

00:28:12 ◼   ► the iTunes podcast directory.

00:28:14 ◼   ► - Right.

00:28:15 ◼   ► - And it has to be tied so firmly to that.

00:28:18 ◼   ► And so like they can't do anything that like breaks that.

00:28:22 ◼   ► - It has to cater to a casual,

00:28:24 ◼   ► I don't even know what a podcast is yet person

00:28:27 ◼   ► in certain ways. - Correct.

00:28:29 ◼   ► And it also, it has to cater to every territory

00:28:32 ◼   ► in the world, every language in the world,

00:28:34 ◼   ► every genre of podcasts in the world.

00:28:37 ◼   ► And like, you know, think about like whenever

00:28:41 ◼   ► the podcast app team wants to get something changed

00:28:45 ◼   ► or improved about the API to the store,

00:28:48 ◼   ► how likely is that to really happen?

00:28:50 ◼   ► You know, like inside Apple,

00:28:51 ◼   ► you know, the iTunes store team has enough to do.

00:28:54 ◼   ► Do you think if the podcast app on iOS team

00:28:58 ◼   ► makes a request, how high a priority is that really

00:29:02 ◼   ► to the iTunes store team?

00:29:03 ◼   ► That's all this other stuff to do with, you know,

00:29:06 ◼   ► the more high profile things like the app store

00:29:08 ◼   ► and the music store, you know?

00:29:09 ◼   ► And so the Apple Podcast app is always gonna be limited

00:29:13 ◼   ► by that, plus it's limited by Apple's 80% strategy.

00:29:16 ◼   ► - Yeah. - You know,

00:29:17 ◼   ► they're never going to do features that are as nerdy

00:29:22 ◼   ► as my playlists.

00:29:23 ◼   ► Like the way I do playlists is so crazy

00:29:25 ◼   ► with all these filters and everything.

00:29:26 ◼   ► And it's a playlist system for nerds.

00:29:30 ◼   ► And Apple's never gonna do one like that

00:29:32 ◼   ► because that's not the way they do things.

00:29:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't think so either.

00:29:34 ◼   ► And in fact, it might even be problematic for them in the way

00:29:40 ◼   ► that their podcast app for iOS has this weird relationship

00:29:48 ◼   ► with iTunes on Mac and Windows, which

00:29:50 ◼   ► is Apple's solution for how you listen

00:29:53 ◼   ► to podcasts on your Mac or PC, where playlist

00:29:56 ◼   ► has a very different word.

00:29:58 ◼   ► I mean, maybe they could just add--

00:30:00 ◼   ► I guess they could maybe piggyback

00:30:02 ◼   ► on playlists that include audio files,

00:30:04 ◼   ► regular audio files from your library or whatever,

00:30:06 ◼   ► but that just turns it into more of a mess in my mind.

00:30:10 ◼   ► - Right, and that's why when the Apple Podcast app

00:30:13 ◼   ► added something, I believe they call it channels,

00:30:16 ◼   ► which is basically a smart playlist.

00:30:17 ◼   ► You can just select which feeds go into this,

00:30:20 ◼   ► and that's your playlist.

00:30:22 ◼   ► And they added that to the podcast app,

00:30:24 ◼   ► and I think the reason they had to call it channels

00:30:26 ◼   ► was because playlists mean something else in iTunes land.

00:30:28 ◼   ► - I never thought about that.

00:30:30 ◼   ► I was always confused as hell by their channels.

00:30:32 ◼   ► I thought their channels were a little bit more like

00:30:35 ◼   ► categories in the store,

00:30:36 ◼   ► and I think that's why I found it so confusing

00:30:39 ◼   ► is that they're not really categories in the store.

00:30:41 ◼   ► They are probably more,

00:30:42 ◼   ► like it would have made more sense to me

00:30:44 ◼   ► if they called them channels,

00:30:45 ◼   ► and then in parentheses, playlists.

00:30:47 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, smart playlists, that's what they are.

00:30:49 ◼   ► They're smart playlists.

00:30:50 ◼   ► - For podcasts.

00:30:51 ◼   ► - Has there ever been anything in the history of technology

00:30:55 ◼   ► after the television where the word channels was used

00:30:59 ◼   ► for something that ended up being a success?

00:31:01 ◼   ► - Ooh, that's an excellent question.

00:31:03 ◼   ► - 'Cause it's been used in a bunch of like half-assed,

00:31:05 ◼   ► terrible things, like the Windows 98 channels bar

00:31:08 ◼   ► on active desktop.

00:31:09 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:31:10 ◼   ► - Anybody who's listening to the show

00:31:11 ◼   ► actually remembers that.

00:31:12 ◼   ► You don't, 'cause you were a Mac person.

00:31:13 ◼   ► You probably never saw it.

00:31:14 ◼   ► - No, never saw it. - You were very lucky.

00:31:15 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:31:16 ◼   ► Imagine, imagine Microsoft at its worst,

00:31:20 ◼   ► at a time when PC hardware was at its worst,

00:31:23 ◼   ► where the software was trying to do way too much,

00:31:27 ◼   ► web technologies were brand new,

00:31:30 ◼   ► and this is when Microsoft tried to integrate IE

00:31:32 ◼   ► into the desktop so that the desktop

00:31:34 ◼   ► was basically a giant web view.

00:31:36 ◼   ► On hardware that was like a Pentium 90 with 16 megs of RAM.

00:31:41 ◼   ► Like, it was an awful time to be a PC user.

00:31:46 ◼   ► And there are many awful times to be a PC user,

00:31:48 ◼   ► but I think like 1997 was a particularly awful one.

00:31:53 ◼   ► - That's pretty bad for being a Mac user too.

00:31:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, fair point.

00:31:56 ◼   ► - Just a bad year for computers.

00:31:57 ◼   ► Steve Jobs called it in the interview in the interview with cringey a dark ages

00:32:01 ◼   ► of computing exactly yeah he was not that far off about that yeah it was bad

00:32:06 ◼   ► for everybody you know next had like three developers like really cool system

00:32:11 ◼   ► in like six apps and they were super expensive you know the the machines that

00:32:16 ◼   ► could run it maybe by 97 I guess they ran on PCs it was net next step or open

00:32:23 ◼   ► but like no market whatsoever.

00:32:26 ◼   ► Max were part of a company that was dying

00:32:30 ◼   ► and had no real operating system,

00:32:33 ◼   ► no modern operating system.

00:32:36 ◼   ► And then Microsoft was so powerful.

00:32:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, and they shipped Windows 98.

00:32:42 ◼   ► - They just gave in to all of their worst impulses.

00:32:45 ◼   ► - So bad, it was so, so bad.

00:32:48 ◼   ► And the internet was, you know,

00:32:50 ◼   ► the internet was so new in '97

00:32:52 ◼   ► that everyone was, like the most used application

00:32:54 ◼   ► on your computer started to become the web browser.

00:32:57 ◼   ► But web browsers were so bad,

00:32:58 ◼   ► and the hardware was so primitive,

00:33:00 ◼   ► and there was no RAM, so just 1997 just sounds

00:33:03 ◼   ► like hard drives grinding,

00:33:04 ◼   ► as everything just swaps constantly.

00:33:07 ◼   ► That's the entire year,

00:33:08 ◼   ► everything was just swapping for a year.

00:33:09 ◼   ► - And waiting for dial-up.

00:33:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly, that too, yep.

00:33:13 ◼   ► - Oh my God, things that you just could not even imagine

00:33:19 ◼   ► explaining to your kids today would be the dial-up.

00:33:23 ◼   ► Dial-up is impossible.

00:33:25 ◼   ► You can explain slow internet,

00:33:26 ◼   ► but dial-up was so much worse than being slow.

00:33:28 ◼   ► 'Cause I remember being,

00:33:30 ◼   ► I can't remember when I eventually,

00:33:33 ◼   ► I think we eventually, Amy and I eventually broke down

00:33:35 ◼   ► and bought a second phone line,

00:33:37 ◼   ► got a second number just for internet.

00:33:39 ◼   ► But I remember, it just, you know,

00:33:42 ◼   ► and I understand this stuff,

00:33:44 ◼   ► and I was able to set up a thing.

00:33:46 ◼   ► Oh, I'm gonna draw a blank on the software,

00:33:49 ◼   ► But it was by a great indie Mac developer named Peter Sitchill

00:33:53 ◼   ► I'm gonna have to take a moment here and Google this and look him up

00:33:56 ◼   ► But he had this great Mac utility that would let you share a dial-up with multiple Macs on your local network

00:34:03 ◼   ► So Amy and I could both get on the internet at the same time and she could just she didn't have the modem hooked up

00:34:09 ◼   ► The whole modem was hooked up to my machine, but she could just get on the internet

00:34:12 ◼   ► Go check email and then you know wait the 90 seconds for the whole thing

00:34:17 ◼   ► But then she'd have internet, you know with just one modem shared between us and we could both be on at the same time

00:34:22 ◼   ► Yeah, that was unheard of back then. Oh

00:34:24 ◼   ► Game changer. It was awesome

00:34:27 ◼   ► This is where I need I need the forum that you guys have the live audience because somebody would yeah the chair I

00:34:34 ◼   ► Don't know. This is pretty obscure even our chat. I'm not yeah, but I just feel like Peter Sitchill S I ch el sustainable softworks

00:34:42 ◼   ► Let me see what?

00:34:44 ◼   ► Well, I don't remember the name of it, but I'll give you a shout out to it

00:34:48 ◼   ► He's still got his URL sustworks.com

00:34:53 ◼   ► I used to have to I we only had one phone line on my house and I was I was like in seventh grade in

00:35:00 ◼   ► 1997 so it was a little bit different. I couldn't just buy another phone line

00:35:04 ◼   ► we only had one phone line and my mom had a lot of friends who would call her all the time and

00:35:09 ◼   ► And so I was not allowed to disable call waiting

00:35:13 ◼   ► on the modem. - Oh my God.

00:35:16 ◼   ► - I had to, and it was an external modem.

00:35:18 ◼   ► - So anybody calls your house.

00:35:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I had to listen, I had to leave the,

00:35:22 ◼   ► you could configure the modem in its string

00:35:24 ◼   ► to leave the speaker on all the time

00:35:26 ◼   ► instead of turning off after it connects.

00:35:28 ◼   ► So the whole time I was just sitting there

00:35:30 ◼   ► listening to static, like shh.

00:35:33 ◼   ► And then you could hear beep if a call waiting came in.

00:35:36 ◼   ► And I had to listen for that, and if I heard a beep,

00:35:38 ◼   ► I had to flick the modem off so it would hang up immediately

00:35:41 ◼   ► and let the phone ring and pick it up and, you know,

00:35:43 ◼   ► then just not be on the internet for the next 20 minutes

00:35:45 ◼   ► during this phone call.

00:35:46 ◼   ► - I've got it here.

00:35:49 ◼   ► It's IP net router.

00:35:50 ◼   ► It's a complete IP router and firewall solution,

00:35:52 ◼   ► including a built-in DHCP server,

00:35:55 ◼   ► NAT with inbound port mapping and IP filtering

00:35:58 ◼   ► to set up your own firewall.

00:35:59 ◼   ► I think it costs like 40 bucks.

00:36:01 ◼   ► May I, what was it here?

00:36:02 ◼   ► Here's a comment from, so it was 89 bucks.

00:36:05 ◼   ► It was a steal.

00:36:06 ◼   ► It was 89 bucks and you had superpowers.

00:36:11 ◼   ► but that's a pretty advanced functionality and like a pretty

00:36:13 ◼   ► immense network stack for that time. Well that was it was built on I'm going way

00:36:19 ◼   ► out in the weeds here but at Mac OS 9 for as crazy convoluted you know a

00:36:26 ◼   ► terrible bag of wires it was in some areas under the hood had some amazing

00:36:31 ◼   ► stuff it was called open transport was the networking stack so he didn't

00:36:36 ◼   ► necessarily write the whole networking stack all the way to the bottom it was

00:36:40 ◼   ► built on open transport but his stuff was almost like like the flagship of why

00:36:47 ◼   ► open transport was great and why a lot of Mac developers were beside themselves

00:36:54 ◼   ► when Mac OS X went with the you know the Unix networking I forget that there was

00:37:03 ◼   ► a whole controversy in that you know there were all these many there are

00:37:05 ◼   ► thousands of these little mini converse controversies between classic the which

00:37:10 ◼   ► parts of the classic Mac OS would stay in which pad parts of next step would

00:37:14 ◼   ► stay and that was one of them I kind of feel very lucky that I didn't even come

00:37:20 ◼   ► to the Mac until 10/4 in 2004 and I bought an aluminum power book so like I

00:37:28 ◼   ► didn't come to the Mac until it was awesome yeah that's actually a good

00:37:31 ◼   ► point because they're like it's like somebody coming to the iPhone with the

00:37:34 ◼   ► 5s yeah it's like you've missed this whole history of like a little bit of

00:37:39 ◼   ► rough patches here and there although the iPhone was way easier I think than

00:37:42 ◼   ► being a Mac owner in the 90s yeah there were a couple of years in there where it

00:37:47 ◼   ► was and it really that was the early years of daring fireball exactly around

00:37:51 ◼   ► 2002 2003 that's when I started but maybe even count 2001 where Mac OS 9 was

00:38:00 ◼   ► half awesome and half terrible and Mac OS X was half terrible and half awesome

00:38:07 ◼   ► and you know maybe those percentages were 60/40 40/60 and then they got 50/50

00:38:11 ◼   ► and they you know they shifted over time but it took years for Mac OS X to really

00:38:16 ◼   ► be overwhelmingly yeah you know what I just want to use it all all the time

00:38:20 ◼   ► clearly and so it was you know switching I remember for a while I had two

00:38:25 ◼   ► machines at my desk I had a forget what it was running Mac OS X I think it was a

00:38:30 ◼   ► PowerBook running Mac OS X and an old, really old PowerMac running Mac OS 9.

00:38:37 ◼   ► And the older machine running Mac OS 9 of course felt way faster.

00:38:40 ◼   ► Oh yeah, because it was doing way less.

00:38:42 ◼   ► Right.

00:38:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, and Microsoft to their credit, like the 90s, they had a similar scale of

00:38:48 ◼   ► transit, well not similar, they had a much easier transition, but it was still a pretty

00:38:51 ◼   ► substantial transition between the Windows 95, 98, ME kernel and the NT kernel that powered

00:38:58 ◼   ► and then XP and everything after XP.

00:39:01 ◼   ► And that, I was using it heavily during that transition

00:39:05 ◼   ► and I was like, I would be using the beta of Windows 2000

00:39:08 ◼   ► and it was way more stable than Windows 98.

00:39:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I remember that.

00:39:12 ◼   ► - Even the very first beta of it in February 1999

00:39:16 ◼   ► was way, way more stable than Windows 98.

00:39:19 ◼   ► But it was easier back then to go through that transition

00:39:23 ◼   ► because Microsoft stuff was always mediocre.

00:39:25 ◼   ► It was, to give the, to their credit,

00:39:28 ◼   ► they were consistent.

00:39:30 ◼   ► Whereas Apple, it sounds like they would have

00:39:32 ◼   ► some amazing times and then some terrible times,

00:39:33 ◼   ► whereas Microsoft was always impressively mediocre.

00:39:36 ◼   ► It was like you could count on the mediocrity.

00:39:38 ◼   ► It was the Starbucks and McDonald's

00:39:40 ◼   ► of computer operating systems,

00:39:42 ◼   ► and I would argue probably still is.

00:39:45 ◼   ► And that's actually kind of valuable for a lot of people,

00:39:48 ◼   ► to know what you're gonna get.

00:39:49 ◼   ► It's dependable.

00:39:51 ◼   ► And the transition from '98 to 2000

00:39:55 ◼   ► was not that bad unless you had to scan or print anything

00:40:00 ◼   ► and there were no drivers.

00:40:01 ◼   ► But besides that, as long as you didn't have to scan

00:40:04 ◼   ► or print, it was actually a really easy transition.

00:40:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that was the basic idea

00:40:08 ◼   ► of why they didn't go to NT even earlier.

00:40:09 ◼   ► 'Cause I actually had to use Windows in some ways,

00:40:13 ◼   ► like in college when I had jobs and stuff

00:40:15 ◼   ► where that's what people used.

00:40:17 ◼   ► And I remember the first time I saw Windows NT,

00:40:21 ◼   ► I don't even know what the version number was,

00:40:22 ◼   ► but it was before 2000,

00:40:23 ◼   ► but it was probably like NT4 or three,

00:40:27 ◼   ► I think 'cause they numbered it.

00:40:28 ◼   ► - 3.5 probably.

00:40:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause they numbered it to match Windows 3.

00:40:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, NT4 I believe, or was NT4 2000 or was that NT5?

00:40:35 ◼   ► It doesn't matter.

00:40:36 ◼   ► - And I remember asking like the guys who knew a lot more,

00:40:39 ◼   ► we're into the PC side, I was like,

00:40:41 ◼   ► why isn't everybody using this?

00:40:42 ◼   ► This is actually like, you know.

00:40:44 ◼   ► - It was NT5.

00:40:44 ◼   ► - It's still, yeah, that was it, that was it.

00:40:47 ◼   ► - NT5 was 2000.

00:40:48 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:40:49 ◼   ► - NT4 was the one that looked like Windows 95.

00:40:52 ◼   ► Yeah, it was NT4 that I had seen and used and had some experience with.

00:40:56 ◼   ► And I was like, this is--

00:40:58 ◼   ► I still think it's kind of gross design-wise,

00:41:00 ◼   ► but technically this is so far superior.

00:41:01 ◼   ► Why isn't everybody using this?

00:41:03 ◼   ► And then they were like, duh, there's no drivers for it.

00:41:05 ◼   ► And I was like, well, don't you say there's an easy way to solve this.

00:41:08 ◼   ► Shouldn't everybody just switch to this, and then everybody

00:41:12 ◼   ► will write drivers for it?

00:41:14 ◼   ► I mean, transitions are hard.

00:41:16 ◼   ► I know it's not.

00:41:16 ◼   ► But it just seemed crazy to me that they were in active development

00:41:19 ◼   ► for so many years.

00:41:20 ◼   ► And the PC world is, I mean, I don't know,

00:41:22 ◼   ► it's probably better now.

00:41:23 ◼   ► I'm actually not sure, I've been out of it too long,

00:41:25 ◼   ► but you actually couldn't count on new drivers

00:41:28 ◼   ► for almost anything.

00:41:29 ◼   ► Like if you upgraded your version of Windows,

00:41:32 ◼   ► you would probably, almost certainly,

00:41:34 ◼   ► you'd have to get a new scanner at least.

00:41:35 ◼   ► Like some of your hardware would just stop working reliably

00:41:38 ◼   ► or at all because they wouldn't put out a new driver

00:41:41 ◼   ► or they would put out a new beta driver

00:41:43 ◼   ► and then go out of business or something.

00:41:45 ◼   ► And like scanners and printers were some of the worst.

00:41:49 ◼   ► And then like the more specialized

00:41:53 ◼   ► your hardware peripherals were, the worse they would be.

00:41:56 ◼   ► So like I had a couple of game pads

00:41:58 ◼   ► 'cause I wanted to like play emulators.

00:42:00 ◼   ► And so I bought these game pads

00:42:02 ◼   ► and they were always the absolute worst.

00:42:05 ◼   ► And so you could almost be sure that any hardware

00:42:07 ◼   ► or anytime you upgraded your Windows OS,

00:42:10 ◼   ► you'd have to also spend maybe 200 bucks

00:42:13 ◼   ► upgrading some of your hardware

00:42:15 ◼   ► because just because of driver issues,

00:42:17 ◼   ► you'd have to replace perfectly working hardware

00:42:19 ◼   ► just because there wouldn't be drivers anymore

00:42:21 ◼   ► or they wouldn't be workable drivers anymore.

00:42:23 ◼   ► - Crazy, dark days.

00:42:25 ◼   ► - And that's one of the reasons why Microsoft

00:42:27 ◼   ► had to jump through hoops for backwards compatibility

00:42:29 ◼   ► and all that crap, because that was the world

00:42:31 ◼   ► they were operating in.

00:42:31 ◼   ► That was like the hardware environment

00:42:33 ◼   ► they were operating in, where they couldn't

00:42:35 ◼   ► just dictate to people, you know what,

00:42:36 ◼   ► everyone's now using this, so you have to catch up.

00:42:38 ◼   ► The way Apple does that today,

00:42:40 ◼   ► Microsoft could not do that in the 90s,

00:42:42 ◼   ► and I don't even know if they can do it today.

00:42:44 ◼   ► They probably still can't do it.

00:42:47 ◼   ► Alright, let me jump in here in the early minutes of the show with our first sponsor

00:42:51 ◼   ► break and remind everybody about our good friends at Connected Data, makers of File

00:42:59 ◼   ► Transporter.

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00:43:04 ◼   ► It's like your own private Dropbox.

00:43:06 ◼   ► You buy a device or you buy multiple devices.

00:43:10 ◼   ► They come to your house, they have hard drives in them or you hook hard drives up to them.

00:43:14 ◼   ► You put them on your local network.

00:43:15 ◼   ► right there in your house in your office wherever you want them to be but they're

00:43:20 ◼   ► in your control and then you install the software on your Mac and you get a

00:43:24 ◼   ► little folder on your Mac like Dropbox and it sinks and where are those files

00:43:28 ◼   ► in the folder they are stored on your transporter device and you can share it

00:43:34 ◼   ► between multiple people you can share between multiple devices multiple places

00:43:38 ◼   ► you can hook more than one of them up but the basic idea is you have sync

00:43:44 ◼   ► between computers through the cloud but not stored on servers in the cloud

00:43:50 ◼   ► they're stored on devices that you own and control maybe that's just for your

00:43:55 ◼   ► own peace of mind because you're interested in the privacy implications

00:43:58 ◼   ► of that maybe it's because you have legal reasons that you actually can't

00:44:02 ◼   ► store things on devices that you don't control for HIPAA or things like that

00:44:07 ◼   ► they have an iOS app and this is new fairly new iOS app for the iPhone and

00:44:12 ◼   ► iPad's been updated that has a pretty cool feature where it does things like

00:44:15 ◼   ► upload all your photos and videos from your camera roll right to a special

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00:44:26 ◼   ► things you really want to do is have a cloud-based effectively cloud-based

00:44:31 ◼   ► backup automatically of your photos so that if something happens to your phone

00:44:35 ◼   ► you know you've got them automatically somewhere else but you don't want that

00:44:40 ◼   ► that somewhere else to be a server in california or who knows where controlled by some big

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00:45:28 ◼   ► Or if you want to buy the little thing, the little thing that's like the puck is the transporter

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00:46:09 ◼   ► dot-com so what are we talking about we were talking about overcast before

00:46:14 ◼   ► before the detour into old windows of Mac yeah horrible days of the late 90s of

00:46:20 ◼   ► using computers god I don't know how that happened that was terrible all

00:46:23 ◼   ► right that was not the entire computer industry was in middle school yeah

00:46:25 ◼   ► middle school always sucks for everybody and it sucks for the computer industry

00:46:29 ◼   ► And that was it. That's a pretty good analogy. It really was and you're the worst of your personality comes out

00:46:34 ◼   ► Right Apple Apple went pie in the sky

00:46:39 ◼   ► You know off smoking pot thinking they were gonna write a universal

00:46:44 ◼   ► I just linked that up today the Taligent thing with IBM

00:46:47 ◼   ► Like I Apple had had was writing multiple operating systems that never actually came to exist, you know, and there was Copeland

00:46:56 ◼   ► And they did the whole Newton thing which wasn't a failure wasn't a bus but obviously, you know wasn't a hit and therefore didn't

00:47:03 ◼   ► You know, they took their eyes off the ball and left the thing that was actually keeping the company around

00:47:08 ◼   ► they let it languish and

00:47:11 ◼   ► Then Microsoft man, it's just it really got they got bad. But anyway, that's enough of that

00:47:16 ◼   ► I do think it's amusing that that like the biggest Apple news this week is probably the IBM thing and

00:47:22 ◼   ► You choose to have me on I am probably the least qualified person in the world to comment on that in any fashion whatsoever

00:47:29 ◼   ► Well, maybe next to me

00:47:31 ◼   ► Let's get well, let's save it. Let's go. Let's do news at the end of the week. Let's keep going on overcast

00:47:35 ◼   ► I had a couple more programming questions. So

00:47:38 ◼   ► Brent wanted me to ask this when I told him you were gonna be on the show

00:47:41 ◼   ► He wanted to know how hard the audio programming was because he said it sounds like it would be hard

00:47:47 ◼   ► it sounds like it would be hard for him and knowing just some of the

00:47:51 ◼   ► trickery that you're implementing, that it's even harder. So that's, that's a question, how hard was

00:47:57 ◼   ► audio programming, and you had no background in audio programming before you got into this, correct?

00:48:01 ◼   ► Well, it's not entirely true. I did a project in college where I was, I was trying to make

00:48:07 ◼   ► a better lossless compression algorithm like flack. And you know, those those kind of lossless ones.

00:48:12 ◼   ► My project in college failed, because the compression that I wrote,

00:48:17 ◼   ► took like 10 hours to compress one file and the resulting file was actually larger than the input

00:48:22 ◼   ► file. So it was not a success. My idea for for how I can lossily compress them was not a good idea.

00:48:32 ◼   ► Turns out, I remember when I was in college and I was taking computer science courses,

00:48:38 ◼   ► this is mid 90s. I was, you know, 91 to 96. Everybody was writing ray tracers,

00:48:46 ◼   ► ray tracers were like maybe they're still a common thing but man and i i was nowhere near good enough

00:48:52 ◼   ► to even try but i remember that there are some some kids i knew who wrote one and they they were

00:48:58 ◼   ► getting like like one frame a day i mean this just unbelievably slow and it just had no idea how to

00:49:06 ◼   ► improve it and just like despondent it was like we're it's so slow that we can't even figure out

00:49:13 ◼   ► why it's slow. Well when I was writing this thing in 2003, about the same number

00:49:20 ◼   ► of people cared then as now about lossless audio encoding which was about

00:49:24 ◼   ► five and I don't even use like I'm an audio file I love high quality audio I

00:49:31 ◼   ► have all sorts of ridiculous equipment to listen to high quality audio but I

00:49:36 ◼   ► don't even use lossless audio files like even if that doesn't even make sense for

00:49:40 ◼   ► me to have those giant files sitting there when like a 256K MP3 well-encoded

00:49:44 ◼   ► sounds just as good to me I can't tell the difference so it was it was a

00:49:48 ◼   ► ridiculous background anyway compression in general compression in general though

00:49:53 ◼   ► is hard whether it's lossy or lossless because you're still focused on quality

00:49:57 ◼   ► I mean you know even if you're writing lossy compression you know JPEG or

00:50:02 ◼   ► something like that you still you don't it's not it's not like you can

00:50:05 ◼   ► disregard quality. Right. And it's just mathematically it's just it's really

00:50:10 ◼   ► mind-bending. I mean that to me at least. Oh yeah I mean like that once you get

00:50:14 ◼   ► past very elementary forms of compression the met it's all math and

00:50:19 ◼   ► it's all like very complicated difficult to understand math that is far beyond my

00:50:24 ◼   ► comprehension most of the time or like I might understand the general concept but

00:50:28 ◼   ► I certainly couldn't implement it or do it myself. Right there's like a one a one

00:50:32 ◼   ► level deep of compression that anybody can understand and it's like well if

00:50:35 ◼   ► there's like what zip does yeah if there's if there's 16 ones in a row you

00:50:40 ◼   ► could just write it down as six you know say that there's 16 ones and that takes

00:50:44 ◼   ► fewer space than this 16 actual ones oh yeah well guess what that doesn't get

00:50:49 ◼   ► you very far yeah exactly that's that's called RLE and that was in Windows 3.1

00:50:54 ◼   ► you know 15 20 years ago there's these very obvious repeated patterns that's

00:50:59 ◼   ► how gif works actually yeah but that's gif as well that's why gif has such

00:51:03 ◼   ► wonderful compression that Twitter reimplemented this is the movie files

00:51:08 ◼   ► right before living exactly see the cat pictures I saw people because that's I

00:51:15 ◼   ► don't know if anybody doesn't know that the Twitter added quote unquote added

00:51:20 ◼   ► support for animated gifs a couple of weeks ago and then somebody figured out

00:51:24 ◼   ► that they're not actually animated GIFs, they're sending out h.264 video. And then

00:51:30 ◼   ► I saw people who were upset about this, and it's like, well, there's a reason they

00:51:34 ◼   ► did it. The h.264 video files are like 10 times smaller than the GIFs.

00:51:39 ◼   ► Oh yeah, I mean like I wrote the GIF processor in Tumblr. It's dealing with

00:51:44 ◼   ► GIFs is a ridiculous pain in the ass. It's a terrible format, for so

00:51:49 ◼   ► many reasons, and you know, not least of which is that it isn't very efficient at

00:51:53 ◼   ► compression but it for so many other reasons like it has the fixed 256 color

00:51:59 ◼   ► palette right which is really limiting oh it's soul-crushing it's like that's

00:52:05 ◼   ► and and those colors I don't think those colors can change between frames of an

00:52:09 ◼   ► event animation about that oh I'm almost certain that I don't think so I don't

00:52:13 ◼   ► think between frames yeah I I would be very surprised if that were true I

00:52:17 ◼   ► remember can't change anyway yeah it's a terrible format it's terrible well you

00:52:22 ◼   ► know, right back to the 90s, you know, but there was that whole debate when when was

00:52:26 ◼   ► it unisys started trying to enforce the patent on gif. It was like they had it patented,

00:52:32 ◼   ► and didn't do anything with it. And while they didn't do anything with it, you know,

00:52:36 ◼   ► the world the World Wide Web grew up with tons and tons of gif files. And then all of

00:52:40 ◼   ► a sudden, somebody unisys was like, well, we have a patent on that. Yeah, it was a submarine

00:52:44 ◼   ► patent. It's like the canonical example of, of, like a submarine patent, I think. Yeah,

00:52:52 ◼   ► Yeah, right why you should never trust a company that says hey just use our stuff. We're never gonna enforce it

00:52:57 ◼   ► Yeah, but I remember that that the subcurrent of the whole argument about what we should replace it with and what are we gonna do

00:53:03 ◼   ► And blah blah blah was we're doing all this to replace an awful truly awful file format

00:53:09 ◼   ► And you can find people who complain about JPEG and that other there were other formats at the time for photographs

00:53:16 ◼   ► You know with you know

00:53:17 ◼   ► The role that JPEG plays that that there were better alternatives and stuff like that

00:53:22 ◼   ► They could have been done better in certain ways, but nobody really says JPEG is terrible

00:53:26 ◼   ► I mean JPEG is JPEG right, you know pretty good and served. Yeah, I mean JPEG like it and similar mp3

00:53:32 ◼   ► MP3 is a very old format

00:53:35 ◼   ► What people don't realize it stands for mpeg1 layer 3 right like mpeg1 files are I believe from the late 80s

00:53:44 ◼   ► I mean, it was a while before they were commonplace,

00:53:47 ◼   ► but late 80s or early 90s, I believe,

00:53:49 ◼   ► is when MPEG-1 became a standard and became playable.

00:53:54 ◼   ► And that is when the MP3 format, it's from that era.

00:53:58 ◼   ► JPEG is not from that much later than that.

00:54:00 ◼   ► I think it's also from the very early 90s.

00:54:03 ◼   ► And it was a while before it was fast enough

00:54:06 ◼   ► that computers could display them very quickly.

00:54:09 ◼   ► But now, and there are better formats.

00:54:11 ◼   ► There was a format called JPEG 2000

00:54:13 ◼   ► that no one ever uses.

00:54:15 ◼   ► And I believe there were some patent issues with it,

00:54:17 ◼   ► which is one of the reasons why,

00:54:18 ◼   ► but JPEG is good enough.

00:54:22 ◼   ► - GIF is a horrible, just a horrible format.

00:54:24 ◼   ► But yet it was, there were billions,

00:54:26 ◼   ► I forget the estimates for how many GIF files there were

00:54:29 ◼   ► on the early internet, but it quickly went

00:54:31 ◼   ► from hundreds to billions.

00:54:33 ◼   ► - Well, and they're back now.

00:54:34 ◼   ► I feel like this is our bell-bottoms moment.

00:54:36 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:54:37 ◼   ► - Where this thing that was a weird fad

00:54:41 ◼   ► 15 years ago, 20 years ago, mostly 15 years ago,

00:54:45 ◼   ► that this thing was a weird fad back then,

00:54:48 ◼   ► now it's back and all of us who were around back then

00:54:50 ◼   ► are like, why is this back?

00:54:51 ◼   ► This is terrible.

00:54:53 ◼   ► It's the fashion that's come back around.

00:54:56 ◼   ► These are definitely our bell bottoms.

00:54:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, but it's used in a way that is,

00:55:02 ◼   ► there's a little bit of retro to it,

00:55:03 ◼   ► but then in most ways there's not

00:55:05 ◼   ► because the GIFs that people post now,

00:55:07 ◼   ► these huge animated ones with lots of frames

00:55:09 ◼   ► from video and TV and stuff like that,

00:55:11 ◼   ► are so humongous that computers in the mid 90s

00:55:16 ◼   ► and internet connections in the mid 90s

00:55:17 ◼   ► couldn't have even handled one of them.

00:55:19 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, they're like three megs.

00:55:21 ◼   ► I mean, you gotta figure,

00:55:22 ◼   ► imagine the concept of a three meg GIF in 1997.

00:55:27 ◼   ► - Right, we used to try to make,

00:55:29 ◼   ► I forget the target for our web pages,

00:55:31 ◼   ► but a lot of times,

00:55:33 ◼   ► part of your project specs for building websites

00:55:36 ◼   ► were what was the target size for the web page,

00:55:39 ◼   ► and it was always measured in kilobytes, you know.

00:55:41 ◼   ► - Right, like how many seconds would it take

00:55:43 ◼   ► to load over a 56K modem?

00:55:45 ◼   ► - Right, it was, you know, somewhere between,

00:55:46 ◼   ► for most projects that I worked on,

00:55:48 ◼   ► it was usually like 10, 20 kilobytes

00:55:49 ◼   ► for the whole page, all assets.

00:55:51 ◼   ► - Right, 'cause that would take a few seconds to load.

00:55:54 ◼   ► - It would take forever to load, it was horrible.

00:55:57 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:55:59 ◼   ► - So to answer your actual question.

00:56:00 ◼   ► - But a three megabyte GIF file

00:56:03 ◼   ► in the middle of the page would be terrible.

00:56:05 ◼   ► - Right, I mean, if it could even load

00:56:07 ◼   ► without something running out of memory

00:56:09 ◼   ► and crashing while decoding it, which is unlikely.

00:56:11 ◼   ► But if it could even load,

00:56:12 ◼   ► it would have taken 45 minutes to load.

00:56:14 ◼   ► - Right.

00:56:15 ◼   ► I also think if I'm remembering correctly,

00:56:18 ◼   ► then this I hear I could be way off my rocker,

00:56:21 ◼   ► but I seem to recall that like early hosting accounts,

00:56:26 ◼   ► like if you were hosting a website somewhere,

00:56:29 ◼   ► like storage and bandwidth were measured in megabytes.

00:56:33 ◼   ► Like I don't know how many megabytes,

00:56:35 ◼   ► but like, you know, you just, you couldn't serve up

00:56:39 ◼   ► a couple hundred copies of a three megabyte file.

00:56:42 ◼   ► You just couldn't do it. - Oh, definitely not.

00:56:44 ◼   ► - Oh, God, and now people just crap them out every day.

00:56:48 ◼   ► - Well, 'cause now you can host them for free

00:56:49 ◼   ► in a million different services that all want your privacy.

00:56:52 ◼   ► - All right, back to audio programming.

00:56:53 ◼   ► So you did have some experience in college.

00:56:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I've like toyed with it here and there.

00:56:59 ◼   ► - Which was a complete failure.

00:57:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, my college experience was awful.

00:57:04 ◼   ► But you know, I got the basic concept of, you know,

00:57:06 ◼   ► the samples and the frames and the formats and everything.

00:57:09 ◼   ► So, you know, and I've always been an audio nerd.

00:57:13 ◼   ► So I've always been familiar with editing audio

00:57:16 ◼   ► in basic forms, playing with it, you know,

00:57:19 ◼   ► I've, music and talk radio have always been

00:57:23 ◼   ► very important to me.

00:57:25 ◼   ► And so I've always kind of been in this.

00:57:27 ◼   ► Anyway, so the audio programming in Overcast

00:57:31 ◼   ► was by far my favorite part.

00:57:34 ◼   ► And it was ridiculously hard.

00:57:36 ◼   ► But it was the kind of good hard for a programmer,

00:57:40 ◼   ► which is like, it's very intellectually stimulating.

00:57:43 ◼   ► And so it's exactly what I love to do,

00:57:45 ◼   ► which is working at a very low level C code,

00:57:48 ◼   ► doing stuff that you don't think will be possible

00:57:51 ◼   ► to do quickly.

00:57:52 ◼   ► And you know, like it's questionable

00:57:54 ◼   ► whether it will run on an iPhone at reasonable speed

00:57:57 ◼   ► and at reasonable battery drain.

00:57:58 ◼   ► You know, doing very low level stuff like that,

00:58:02 ◼   ► using things that, you know,

00:58:02 ◼   ► try to make it even more efficient,

00:58:04 ◼   ► try to take an even better trick to get this way,

00:58:06 ◼   ► throw in some of the vector algorithms and stuff like that.

00:58:09 ◼   ► That, it was a very, very fun hard, if that makes sense.

00:58:15 ◼   ► And it didn't take that much time,

00:58:18 ◼   ► relative to the entire rest of the app,

00:58:20 ◼   ► the audio engine, it's actually easier in many ways

00:58:25 ◼   ► because it is self-contained and what it's doing,

00:58:29 ◼   ► it's a relatively simple task, it's easy to test,

00:58:32 ◼   ► it's easy to benchmark, it's easy to find bugs

00:58:36 ◼   ► and fix them.

00:58:37 ◼   ► Whereas if you compare that to like UI programming

00:58:41 ◼   ► or sync logic to the server,

00:58:43 ◼   ► like those things are much higher level code.

00:58:46 ◼   ► There's much more code to do that sort of stuff,

00:58:50 ◼   ► you know, in total for the whole app.

00:58:52 ◼   ► And it's much harder to test,

00:58:54 ◼   ► there's all these weird edge cases.

00:58:56 ◼   ► You know, the audio code really was, it isn't that way.

00:58:58 ◼   ► You have a stream of numbers coming in

00:59:01 ◼   ► and you gotta put out a stream of numbers,

00:59:02 ◼   ► and there's some buffering issues you gotta take care of,

00:59:04 ◼   ► and some performance issues you gotta take care of,

00:59:06 ◼   ► and some edge cases here or there,

00:59:09 ◼   ► but it's nowhere near the level of possibility complexity

00:59:14 ◼   ► that programming an interface is.

00:59:17 ◼   ► - I think it helps that you're an audio file.

00:59:20 ◼   ► In fact, I don't know that it would've worked

00:59:22 ◼   ► that way otherwise, 'cause I'm not.

00:59:23 ◼   ► I'm a complete anti audio file.

00:59:26 ◼   ► I just wanna, yeah, I don't know.

00:59:29 ◼   ► I shouldn't say anti, because I do care about quality,

00:59:31 ◼   ► but my threshold for what sounds good seems a lot lower than people who, you know, like

00:59:36 ◼   ► you who are really into headphones and stuff like that. Like my, you know, line up 20 pairs

00:59:42 ◼   ► of headphones and I'm going to say there's a decent chance I might find that they all

00:59:46 ◼   ► sound pretty good. If, you know, they're all cost, I don't know, 60, 70, 80 bucks or above.

00:59:53 ◼   ► And I would have a harder time talking about the differences. If I did hear a difference

00:59:57 ◼   ► between the two, I'd have a harder time describing it.

01:00:00 ◼   ► Right?

01:00:01 ◼   ► Right.

01:00:02 ◼   ► And I think that helps.

01:00:03 ◼   ► Because I would think most people, and I wondered, you know, maybe you know this, maybe you can

01:00:06 ◼   ► even tell, like, if I were going to write a podcast app, or I were going to be part

01:00:11 ◼   ► of a team that was writing one, my idea would be, well, I would just let the system, I'd

01:00:16 ◼   ► let iOS handle all the audio playback.

01:00:18 ◼   ► We get that, there's a part we get for free.

01:00:20 ◼   ► We give the system an audio format that Core Audio knows how to play, and then it'll play

01:00:26 ◼   ► and we don't have to worry about that.

01:00:28 ◼   ► And then start from there.

01:00:29 ◼   ► And I think that, you know,

01:00:32 ◼   ► clearly that would rule out a whole bunch of the features

01:00:35 ◼   ► that are in Overcast.

01:00:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, the biggest one,

01:00:39 ◼   ► like you can do voice boost using the simpler APIs.

01:00:44 ◼   ► It is not, you can't do it very well, but you can do it.

01:00:48 ◼   ► There's just a few little downsides,

01:00:49 ◼   ► but most people wouldn't notice it'd be fine.

01:00:51 ◼   ► You definitely cannot do smart speed

01:00:55 ◼   ► in any reasonable approachable way.

01:00:57 ◼   ► And so I had to do this if I wanted smart speed.

01:01:02 ◼   ► And it was an important enough feature for me

01:01:04 ◼   ► that I said it was worth it.

01:01:06 ◼   ► And the reality is, as I said,

01:01:09 ◼   ► like the audio engine was very, very hard

01:01:12 ◼   ► for about a few weeks or a month maybe,

01:01:14 ◼   ► and then it was done.

01:01:15 ◼   ► And then the rest of the app

01:01:16 ◼   ► was the rest of the development time.

01:01:19 ◼   ► I haven't touched the audio processing code in months

01:01:22 ◼   ► because it's fine.

01:01:23 ◼   ► Like I made it over the course,

01:01:25 ◼   ► I'd go in every once in a while and make a little tweak

01:01:27 ◼   ► to how something was dealt with,

01:01:29 ◼   ► or the levels or the EQ, stuff like that.

01:01:32 ◼   ► But for the most part, it has barely changed

01:01:36 ◼   ► in almost two years since I wrote it.

01:01:38 ◼   ► - So those are the two magic,

01:01:41 ◼   ► here, just make this better,

01:01:43 ◼   ► features in Overcast.

01:01:46 ◼   ► Smart Speed and Voice Boost.

01:01:49 ◼   ► And I think of them as the audio equivalent

01:01:51 ◼   ► of that magic wand thing in the Photos app.

01:01:54 ◼   ► - Exactly. - Right?

01:01:55 ◼   ► And you say, just make it better.

01:01:56 ◼   ► And a lot of times for me,

01:01:58 ◼   ► that button makes the photo better.

01:02:00 ◼   ► And then every once in a while, it doesn't,

01:02:02 ◼   ► and then you can tap it again and it goes away.

01:02:04 ◼   ► And it's just like that with podcasts,

01:02:06 ◼   ► where you can say, turn on Smart Speed.

01:02:08 ◼   ► And if you think this is better,

01:02:09 ◼   ► this is an easier way to listen to the show, keep it on.

01:02:12 ◼   ► If not, turn it off.

01:02:14 ◼   ► - Exactly, and there are some shows

01:02:16 ◼   ► where one or both of those options

01:02:18 ◼   ► will actually make it sound worse.

01:02:19 ◼   ► And that's why there's buttons for those,

01:02:20 ◼   ► instead of just being on all the time.

01:02:23 ◼   ► But I found in the majority of shows I listened to,

01:02:25 ◼   ► the combination of both of them

01:02:28 ◼   ► usually make it sound better.

01:02:30 ◼   ► - What was the deal, I remember this,

01:02:31 ◼   ► there was a really interesting thread

01:02:33 ◼   ► on the beta glassboard about the names of those features.

01:02:38 ◼   ► And early on, I hope I'm not talking--

01:02:41 ◼   ► - No, no, good. - Behind the scenes,

01:02:42 ◼   ► but the voice boost had a different name, right?

01:02:45 ◼   ► I think it just said boost? - Yeah.

01:02:47 ◼   ► Early on, voice boost was not on or off.

01:02:50 ◼   ► there were three modes to it.

01:02:54 ◼   ► There was, there were four modes.

01:02:56 ◼   ► There was off, where it didn't process anything.

01:02:58 ◼   ► There was enhance, and then boost, and then also reduce.

01:03:03 ◼   ► - Yeah. - And reduce was a mode

01:03:05 ◼   ► that would actually cut off the spectrum

01:03:07 ◼   ► on the extreme highs and extreme lows.

01:03:09 ◼   ► So it would, like if somebody,

01:03:11 ◼   ► sometimes you have a podcast where it's like

01:03:12 ◼   ► way too much bass, and if you play it

01:03:15 ◼   ► like in a bathroom or something,

01:03:16 ◼   ► like it sounds really echoey and horrible

01:03:19 ◼   ► and it's hard to listen to.

01:03:20 ◼   ► Some of them also will leave in

01:03:23 ◼   ► like very, very high pitched wines

01:03:25 ◼   ► as an artifact of some part of their processing.

01:03:28 ◼   ► And I never quite figured out what causes that,

01:03:30 ◼   ► but some podcasts will have that occasionally.

01:03:32 ◼   ► And this has been true for years, way before Overcast.

01:03:34 ◼   ► And so reduce mode would cut those ends off.

01:03:37 ◼   ► And then enhance and boost both did the same thing.

01:03:42 ◼   ► Just boost did it more severely.

01:03:45 ◼   ► Boost was like a larger boost basically.

01:03:48 ◼   ► And so I had this slider, reduce off enhanced boost.

01:03:52 ◼   ► And that was true for about half of the beta, really.

01:03:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was always confused as hell by the whole thing.

01:03:59 ◼   ► I kinda just wanted, I really just wanted,

01:04:03 ◼   ► Marco, just make it sound better for me.

01:04:05 ◼   ► - Right, and that was a common request, actually.

01:04:08 ◼   ► And what I eventually found, what I realized is that

01:04:12 ◼   ► even myself, I was just leaving everything

01:04:14 ◼   ► on boost all the time.

01:04:16 ◼   ► Like I wasn't using any of the other settings.

01:04:17 ◼   ► I thought I would when I made them, and then it turns out I was not using them at all.

01:04:22 ◼   ► And so that's when I redesigned that screen to just be just a button. Is this on or off?

01:04:27 ◼   ► Yeah. And it sounds like it's also a real interesting difference between where you listen

01:04:33 ◼   ► to podcasts. And it's like it seems like this feature, the voice booster in particular,

01:04:37 ◼   ► really comes in handy to people who listen in their car.

01:04:39 ◼   ► Yes, definitely. That's why I made it, because I listen all the time in my car. I got a new

01:04:45 ◼   ► car a couple years ago and it came with a serious radio and probably like you

01:04:49 ◼   ► know a six-month trials description I never activated it I'm only listening to

01:04:53 ◼   ► podcasts now I used to listen to satellite radio before that I would

01:04:57 ◼   ► listen to like mp3s and CDs and everything now in my car I'm always

01:05:01 ◼   ► listening to either either nothing like if I'm talking to TIFF or if I'm

01:05:05 ◼   ► writing alone usually it's always podcasts that's it and yeah voice boost

01:05:10 ◼   ► makes a massive difference in the car right because noisy environment and you

01:05:13 ◼   ► yeah, it's a noisy environment. So the baseline for where you need the quietest voice on the show

01:05:18 ◼   ► to be audible is potentially dangerously high for like a burst of laughter or somebody else who's

01:05:26 ◼   ► who was recorded at a higher level. Right, you know, if you have somebody who's very, you know,

01:05:30 ◼   ► polite and soft spoken, like Brent, you know, I used his old show as an example, the what was

01:05:37 ◼   ► that show called with the calendar guy? Oh, the Simmons, the Simmons brothers.

01:05:42 ◼   ► - I don't have cousins, yeah.

01:05:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I use that show as one of the test files.

01:05:46 ◼   ► - Oh, that's good, 'cause Michael Simmons is so loud.

01:05:50 ◼   ► - He was like a loud, boisterous voice,

01:05:51 ◼   ► and Brent was soft-spoken.

01:05:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a perfect example.

01:05:54 ◼   ► - And they didn't level it very well at first,

01:05:55 ◼   ► 'cause they were, when they first started the show,

01:05:57 ◼   ► they weren't that experienced producing podcasts,

01:05:59 ◼   ► and they got better at it afterwards.

01:06:00 ◼   ► But I used the earlier episodes as a test for this feature,

01:06:05 ◼   ► because it was the perfect case,

01:06:06 ◼   ► where I wanted to hear what Brent was saying

01:06:08 ◼   ► without having my ears blown out when Michael would talk.

01:06:11 ◼   ► And so it was exactly the situation

01:06:15 ◼   ► where voice boost is necessary.

01:06:16 ◼   ► So voice boost is, it's a combination of an EQ

01:06:20 ◼   ► and a compressor.

01:06:21 ◼   ► And the compressor, and it looks at the files

01:06:23 ◼   ► in a couple other ways, but for the most part,

01:06:25 ◼   ► it's a compressor.

01:06:26 ◼   ► That's most of what you're hearing is the compressor.

01:06:28 ◼   ► And that was exactly what it's for,

01:06:32 ◼   ► which is make Brent loud enough

01:06:34 ◼   ► so I can hear him in the car

01:06:36 ◼   ► without blowing out my ears when anyone else talks.

01:06:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, and there's like an old record producer

01:06:41 ◼   ► adage that you know you don't you don't optimize a music album for high-quality

01:06:49 ◼   ► studio headphones you optimize it for the actual way that people in real world

01:06:53 ◼   ► are gonna listen to this music which might be you know 10 20 years ago you

01:06:58 ◼   ► know a piece of crap portable radio you want to make sure it sounds good on that

01:07:02 ◼   ► because that's where you know that if it doesn't sound good on that you're never

01:07:05 ◼   ► gonna have a hit song no matter how good it sounds on your you know thousand

01:07:09 ◼   ► studio headphones. Exactly. Yeah, got it optimized for the real world. Yeah, and

01:07:13 ◼   ► that's true, it's true. Web design, app design, it's true of everything. Yeah. One more

01:07:18 ◼   ► question I had, I'm surprised Brent didn't ask, is feed parsing a

01:07:23 ◼   ► nightmare for podcasts? Is it just like RSS? It's not as bad as RSS, because, you know, first

01:07:30 ◼   ► of all, podcasts are just simpler than the entirety of RSS feeds, because, you

01:07:35 ◼   ► You know the entire RSS feeds first of all includes Adam and four different versions

01:07:39 ◼   ► of RSS and the use cases for RSS feeds are very varied.

01:07:46 ◼   ► There's all sorts of things like it isn't just a site like Engadget posting news headlines.

01:07:51 ◼   ► There's all sorts of things that publish RSS feeds that any feed parser has to handle.

01:07:57 ◼   ► Podcasts have two things going for them.

01:07:59 ◼   ► Not only is the scope of what they cover much smaller than that because for the most part

01:08:04 ◼   ► It's audio shows that are produced once a day, once a week,

01:08:09 ◼   ► maybe the most extreme ones might be published once an hour

01:08:11 ◼   ► if it's like a dump from a radio station.

01:08:13 ◼   ► But there's not much more than that.

01:08:15 ◼   ► And usually it's pretty well formed for the most part.

01:08:20 ◼   ► And the second big thing is that

01:08:22 ◼   ► for all of the medium's history,

01:08:24 ◼   ► iTunes has been the dominant player.

01:08:26 ◼   ► And historically, iTunes is less picky now.

01:08:30 ◼   ► But before, in previous years,

01:08:32 ◼   ► iTunes used to be very picky about what kind of feeds it would accept. If your

01:08:36 ◼   ► feed was malformed at all, iTunes wouldn't take it. And so it kind of

01:08:41 ◼   ► enforced a level of consistency and quality, even a format. iTunes, for

01:08:46 ◼   ► the longest time, only supported RSS. It didn't even support Adam.

01:08:49 ◼   ► And it still doesn't support it that well. Right, yeah, exactly. Today it does

01:08:54 ◼   ► support Adam, but not well. Because I looked into that when I had to take over

01:08:57 ◼   ► over the feed for this show.

01:08:58 ◼   ► And my backend publishing stuff is all set up for Adam,

01:09:03 ◼   ► or at least it would work better with Adam in theory.

01:09:07 ◼   ► And the bottom line was you could, but you don't want to.

01:09:10 ◼   ► If you really want, you really want your podcast

01:09:12 ◼   ► to be RSS.

01:09:14 ◼   ► - Exactly. - Actual RSS,

01:09:16 ◼   ► not RSS as a catch-all term that includes Adam,

01:09:19 ◼   ► which is confusing. - Right.

01:09:21 ◼   ► And Adam, I know this is like,

01:09:24 ◼   ► this is like a holy war of 2003.

01:09:26 ◼   ► but I really don't like Atom as a format.

01:09:30 ◼   ► RSS was clearly designed to be pragmatic

01:09:35 ◼   ► and Atom was designed to be the standard

01:09:38 ◼   ► that ends all standards and can reproduce anything.

01:09:40 ◼   ► - Yeah. - And it shows.

01:09:42 ◼   ► It shows in the complexity of these two formats

01:09:44 ◼   ► and Atom has a lot of ambiguity in like,

01:09:48 ◼   ► okay, well, there are 17 different ways

01:09:49 ◼   ► to represent the date and you need to support all of these

01:09:52 ◼   ► 'cause some people might use this one

01:09:53 ◼   ► and then what the heck is an author?

01:09:54 ◼   ► Does everything have an author?

01:09:56 ◼   ► how is this author relevant to this other author?

01:09:58 ◼   ► And there's like, everything in Atom is, well, it depends.

01:10:03 ◼   ► You know, and there's like 17 different ways to do it.

01:10:06 ◼   ► And in RSS, you know, it isn't a perfect format.

01:10:08 ◼   ► There are some ambiguities built into the format

01:10:11 ◼   ► that are kind of annoying,

01:10:11 ◼   ► like the lack of required GUIDs, for instance.

01:10:14 ◼   ► But for the most part, RSS, you know,

01:10:19 ◼   ► as its name states, is way simpler.

01:10:22 ◼   ► And just to deal with, to publish and to consume,

01:10:25 ◼   ► it is so much simpler because the format

01:10:27 ◼   ► just can't represent all the little tiny nuances

01:10:30 ◼   ► that Adam can, and Adam sees that as a flaw.

01:10:33 ◼   ► I see that as a feature.

01:10:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I totally agree, in hindsight.

01:10:37 ◼   ► And who knows, maybe someday I'll just change everything

01:10:39 ◼   ► at during fireball to go RSS instead of Adam.

01:10:42 ◼   ► But for some reason, I picked the wrong side back then,

01:10:45 ◼   ► and I somehow convinced myself that, I don't know,

01:10:48 ◼   ► I think I kind of bought into the,

01:10:53 ◼   ► the

01:10:54 ◼   ► That does sound good arguments behind the Adam people

01:10:58 ◼   ► I mean, I never got involved in it and wasn't really active but you know

01:11:01 ◼   ► Rick reading Mark pilgrims blog back then and a couple other people who were involved it it all made a lot of sense to me

01:11:07 ◼   ► And there were certain aspects of it that if you if you rendered a very simple feed in Adam

01:11:13 ◼   ► It looked better to me than RSS and still does in a way

01:11:16 ◼   ► Like I'm not thinking about it from the perspective of someone writing a parser and you have to handle everything

01:11:20 ◼   ► I was thinking of it in terms of what would make my the daring fireball feed look better

01:11:27 ◼   ► If you just looked at it, and I still think Adam is better

01:11:30 ◼   ► In that regard but that's a stupid thing to make the judgment on I think I think

01:11:35 ◼   ► the smarter way to look at it is just to say RSS is super pragmatic and it is

01:11:41 ◼   ► Designed from the get-go for doing exactly and only what I was doing which was here's a bunch of articles

01:11:48 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:11:49 ◼   ► - Right, as opposed to like here,

01:11:50 ◼   ► we have to design an overarching standard

01:11:52 ◼   ► that will encompass every possible thing

01:11:54 ◼   ► everyone will ever want to do again.

01:11:55 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:11:56 ◼   ► - You know, and Atom was also, you know,

01:11:58 ◼   ► a lot more strict with certain things,

01:11:59 ◼   ► and it's almost, there's almost a parallel

01:12:01 ◼   ► between XHTML being Atom.

01:12:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think so.

01:12:05 ◼   ► - And like HTML5 or even old HTML being RSS.

01:12:08 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:12:09 ◼   ► - Where it's just like, you know,

01:12:10 ◼   ► it was more structured, more defined,

01:12:12 ◼   ► but way more complex.

01:12:14 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:12:14 ◼   ► - And it sounded good in theory,

01:12:16 ◼   ► that in practice it just doesn't really work that well.

01:12:19 ◼   ► And it's actually more complicated to deal with in practice.

01:12:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, and the RSS thing went by really quickly

01:12:24 ◼   ► in just a handful of years,

01:12:25 ◼   ► whereas the HTML thing played out over almost 20 years.

01:12:29 ◼   ► But I think it is pretty,

01:12:32 ◼   ► I think that's a pretty decent high-level analogy.

01:12:34 ◼   ► And in that analogy, I think RSS 2.0 is HTML5,

01:12:38 ◼   ► which is, yeah, yeah, yeah, the RSS,

01:12:40 ◼   ► and it had weird numbers.

01:12:41 ◼   ► It was like 0.9 and 0.91 and 0.92.

01:12:45 ◼   ► And the weird thing was that like .91 was from Netscape and Dave Weiner had nothing

01:12:51 ◼   ► to do with it and .92 went back to Dave Weiner and ignored everything that was in .91.

01:12:56 ◼   ► It was really a sequel to .90.

01:12:58 ◼   ► I know I'm getting these version numbers wrong, but it doesn't matter.

01:13:01 ◼   ► It doesn't matter that I'm getting the exact version numbers wrong.

01:13:04 ◼   ► It's – yeah, Brent was literally at ground zero for all of that because he was like writing

01:13:09 ◼   ► all the parsers and generators for all of these things.

01:13:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:13:12 ◼   ► And to be clear, when I'm talking about RSS, I'm talking about RSS too.

01:13:14 ◼   ► Earlier ones. Yeah, like the RDF based ones that disaster, but we went but that was the battle though, right?

01:13:20 ◼   ► That was you know, and that's why were they X X HTML never really was pitted against HTML 4

01:13:25 ◼   ► It was really pitted against a you know, it's tml5

01:13:28 ◼   ► I mean even though the time, you know, they weren't at the same time effectively

01:13:31 ◼   ► it was well the world's gonna move off HTML for eventually and

01:13:35 ◼   ► you know the standards people, you know really thought it was

01:13:43 ◼   ► Gonna be X HTML because my god, it's gonna be great

01:13:46 ◼   ► It'll enforce that all of your web pages are XML compliant because if it's not it won't render, right?

01:13:51 ◼   ► Yeah, everything everything was like structure

01:13:53 ◼   ► This is a battle that you know computing has gone back and forth in this in cycles for decades

01:13:58 ◼   ► It was a battle for like structure and definitions and schemas and well-defined everything and extremely unforgiving

01:14:06 ◼   ► implementations

01:14:08 ◼   ► versus forgiving flexible, just kind of spew something out

01:14:12 ◼   ► and we'll try to figure out what it is.

01:14:13 ◼   ► And the same thing is happening now

01:14:16 ◼   ► with Objective-C versus Swift even.

01:14:18 ◼   ► I mean, we keep having the same battle over and over again

01:14:22 ◼   ► where somebody will want,

01:14:23 ◼   ► there'll be some kind of class of problems

01:14:28 ◼   ► that academic people will think needs to be solved.

01:14:33 ◼   ► And the way to solve it is to require standards.

01:14:35 ◼   ► So everything can be strictly typed

01:14:37 ◼   ► and we can validate everything

01:14:41 ◼   ► and everything has to be defined in a file

01:14:43 ◼   ► and we're gonna write everything in Java

01:14:44 ◼   ► with 10 class deep hierarchies of every model.

01:14:48 ◼   ► This isn't just a person.

01:14:49 ◼   ► We need to have a person factory constructor

01:14:51 ◼   ► to construct the factory that builds people.

01:14:53 ◼   ► And like all this, like there's levels and levels

01:14:56 ◼   ► of complexity and structure

01:14:58 ◼   ► to combat the freeform wild west of dirty data.

01:15:03 ◼   ► And then the dirty data people come in

01:15:04 ◼   ► and do everything faster and everything just works anyway.

01:15:06 ◼   ► then and then the cycle repeats again it's yeah I'm I think we're gonna always

01:15:11 ◼   ► see this cycle just go back and forth I don't even know I was not going to get

01:15:15 ◼   ► into this and this could be this could absolutely sink the entire you might as

01:15:21 ◼   ► well now I mean have you seen this thing where there's this group that wants to

01:15:25 ◼   ► turn markdown into an I ETF standard no it let me guess Jeff Atwood I I don't

01:15:31 ◼   ► even know. You know what? It broke last weekend. I was out of town with Amy and I wasn't paying

01:15:38 ◼   ► attention and I've been busy this week on other stuff. I haven't even paid attention

01:15:42 ◼   ► to it. But I don't know if it's associated with Atwood's Crusade or not. And there's

01:15:49 ◼   ► talk from some people. And the funny thing is they're doing it on a mailing list that

01:15:53 ◼   ► I still host and I haven't participated on in years. And I don't know why I haven't pulled

01:15:58 ◼   ► the plug on the damn mailing list. But I still host the Markdown discuss mailing list and

01:16:03 ◼   ► there's people saying that they should just take the name Markdown from me because I've

01:16:08 ◼   ► been such a lousy steward of it, of it and whatever. Meanwhile, you know, there's the

01:16:14 ◼   ► web pages on my site for Markdown with describing the syntax and everything are more popular

01:16:20 ◼   ► every single day. It's more popular. The mark I could actually I've thought about selling

01:16:25 ◼   ► sponsorship just for markdown alone because it's more popular the markdown

01:16:29 ◼   ► pages on during fireball get more traffic than during fireball did as a

01:16:33 ◼   ► whole when I went professional with daring fireball and you can even you

01:16:38 ◼   ► could get like you know web development kind of advertisements for that too like

01:16:42 ◼   ► it's a different market right that's what I've that's exactly why I thought

01:16:45 ◼   ► that I could do it job board just on that page although I do actually think a

01:16:49 ◼   ► lot of the traffic is not coming from web developers it's coming from people

01:16:53 ◼   ► who are using a site that is switched to Markdown as the format, you know, for their comments

01:17:01 ◼   ► or whatever.

01:17:02 ◼   ► But anyway, long story…

01:17:03 ◼   ► I mean, I could go on forever about this, but to me, Markdown's not successful despite

01:17:08 ◼   ► not being a standard and etc. etc. and all that would entail.

01:17:15 ◼   ► But because of that…

01:17:16 ◼   ► Now, it's possible that it would be better off if there were some kind of spec that could,

01:17:21 ◼   ► you know if there were a spec that implementers could implement for some things and you know

01:17:29 ◼   ► maybe I'll do either I don't want to get too deep in this but there's some ideas and some

01:17:33 ◼   ► work that some people have done that's really interesting in that regard because ninety

01:17:37 ◼   ► nine point nine nine nine percent of people wouldn't have to worry about it and it wouldn't

01:17:41 ◼   ► change things but some of the things that people see as a problem like the fact that

01:17:46 ◼   ► different markdown implementations are slightly different is not a problem it's

01:17:50 ◼   ► actually you know that's actually a good thing because then github which has to

01:17:55 ◼   ► my opinion a great flavor of markdown they even call it and they have a great

01:17:58 ◼   ► name for it perfect name it's called github flavored markdown and it is

01:18:02 ◼   ► exactly suited for github users and it does code a little differently because

01:18:07 ◼   ► no shit github users are writing a lot of you know code blocks right and it

01:18:15 ◼   ► would nuttin and almost none of their changes would make sense for markdown

01:18:19 ◼   ► everywhere so you know it's great yeah I don't people see the world is broken

01:18:25 ◼   ► regarding markdown because there's not one true markdown and meanwhile in the

01:18:30 ◼   ► real world everybody's happy writing markdown yeah I think you're right it

01:18:35 ◼   ► doesn't it doesn't seem like it's a problem that needs to really be solved

01:18:39 ◼   ► exactly and you know it's I think I think there's this temp there's a

01:18:43 ◼   ► a tendency for programmers to want to clean up standards

01:18:48 ◼   ► and formalize things like that.

01:18:50 ◼   ► And in many cases that is warranted.

01:18:53 ◼   ► But I think saying that everything has to be a standard

01:18:57 ◼   ► is like saying open always wins.

01:18:58 ◼   ► - Exactly, yeah.

01:18:59 ◼   ► - Like, you know, that is true sometimes,

01:19:02 ◼   ► but it is not a generalization that holds all the time.

01:19:05 ◼   ► And I don't know, I mean, maybe there are things

01:19:09 ◼   ► that should be standardized, but it seems like Markdown

01:19:11 ◼   ► has gotten along just fine without that.

01:19:13 ◼   ► and it's moving along fine.

01:19:14 ◼   ► And you're right that different implementations

01:19:17 ◼   ► will have different needs.

01:19:18 ◼   ► And it is not wise to try to cram all these specialty needs

01:19:23 ◼   ► into one standard that everybody must follow.

01:19:26 ◼   ► And then everything gets versioned,

01:19:28 ◼   ► then you have to be like, oh, well,

01:19:29 ◼   ► does this support markdown 2.0 or not?

01:19:31 ◼   ► And it's kind of a mess.

01:19:33 ◼   ► I don't know, it's a hard problem to solve.

01:19:35 ◼   ► But I wouldn't assume that a standard's body

01:19:38 ◼   ► is necessarily the right solution to this problem.

01:19:41 ◼   ► I would almost certainly say it is absolutely not.

01:19:46 ◼   ► - Well, of course you would say that

01:19:47 ◼   ► 'cause they're basically trying to fire you.

01:19:49 ◼   ► - Right.

01:19:50 ◼   ► - But I don't know.

01:19:51 ◼   ► I think that the success of Markdown,

01:19:55 ◼   ► despite not having a standards body behind it all this time

01:19:59 ◼   ► is the biggest evidence why it probably doesn't need one.

01:20:02 ◼   ► - Right, exactly.

01:20:03 ◼   ► And part of what it meant lets it get by without a spec

01:20:07 ◼   ► and I feel like it would be better in some ways.

01:20:11 ◼   ► There are things that could be clarified.

01:20:13 ◼   ► And there's things that make Markdown very hard, for example,

01:20:15 ◼   ► to write a syntax coloring description for because of ambiguities.

01:20:20 ◼   ► There's things-- the general assumption with Markdown, the thing that--

01:20:24 ◼   ► the reason why it doesn't have a spec and why I think it probably shouldn't

01:20:27 ◼   ► is the general assumption is that whoever is writing it

01:20:29 ◼   ► knows what they're doing and isn't going to put input random gibberish.

01:20:34 ◼   ► And there's all sorts of-- the problems that people are talking about is, well,

01:20:36 ◼   ► what if you put seven asterisks in a row what does that generate well don't do

01:20:42 ◼   ► that that's my answer I don't know what it generates is a generate a bunch of

01:20:46 ◼   ► empty m tags or strong tags I don't know it just seems like just why would you do

01:20:52 ◼   ► that you know check what it looks like before you publish it and if you see oh

01:20:57 ◼   ► I forgot that if I put a bunch of asterisks there that means something at

01:21:00 ◼   ► markdown I should backslash escape them just you know take a look at it it could

01:21:07 ◼   ► be better I'm not trying to brush aside all criticism of it and say that there's

01:21:11 ◼   ► nothing I could do better there's maybe I should wait take a couple of weeks and

01:21:15 ◼   ► wait back in and clean up some things but I think what markdown needs from me

01:21:19 ◼   ► would be like a version I don't even know what the official version but like

01:21:23 ◼   ► if it's at 1.0 1 I should do like a 1.0 - right or at most like a 1.1 yeah maybe

01:21:32 ◼   ► at 1.1 there's no need for a markdown 2.0 and there's no need for a standard or

01:21:37 ◼   ► respect but people get really worked up about it what if they just make their

01:21:41 ◼   ► own thing and give it another name and see if it catches on exactly that's I've

01:21:45 ◼   ► said that that's like I probably should set up a text expander snippet for that

01:21:49 ◼   ► make up your own thing and see if it catches on yeah cuz it might and then

01:21:53 ◼   ► then find a problem solved then you have your own thing that you control it has

01:21:57 ◼   ► it has a different name and fine you got it right I don't know we'll see how that

01:22:01 ◼   ► goes it's it's either gonna Peter out or it's going to be a thing that I'm going

01:22:06 ◼   ► to have to take a little more public and then you know and be like no you cannot

01:22:11 ◼   ► take the name mark down and I I do have a nice soapbox for that and I have a lot

01:22:15 ◼   ► of people who are probably gonna be on my side of this and then everybody's

01:22:18 ◼   ► gonna be like oh my god I remember him talking to Marco about that on his

01:22:21 ◼   ► podcast a couple weeks ago you even trademark it maybe yeah well and

01:22:25 ◼   ► probably isn't worth it I mean I don't know I probably should try I don't know

01:22:29 ◼   ► it's probably it probably is not worth it on maybe harder because it's a general

01:22:33 ◼   ► it's a you know getting a regular word even though the pun involved in the name

01:22:38 ◼   ► I think is I still think it's rather clever but I don't know it might be hard

01:22:42 ◼   ► because it's a dictionary word I'm not a trademark lawyer however I filed for a

01:22:46 ◼   ► a number of trademarks now,

01:22:48 ◼   ► so I'm familiar with the process.

01:22:49 ◼   ► And from what I understand,

01:22:52 ◼   ► you could almost definitely trademark it.

01:22:56 ◼   ► It doesn't matter that you haven't yet,

01:22:58 ◼   ► it doesn't matter that it's out there.

01:23:00 ◼   ► The fact is it's still your thing, your project.

01:23:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm not asking for the word.

01:23:03 ◼   ► - It has not become a generic term

01:23:05 ◼   ► that describes all things like this.

01:23:07 ◼   ► It is still a specific thing that you made.

01:23:10 ◼   ► And you could just make the,

01:23:13 ◼   ► 'cause you know, this is a very common thing,

01:23:14 ◼   ► I hear people talking incorrectly about on podcasts

01:23:17 ◼   ► all the time, they assume that a trademark

01:23:19 ◼   ► is like a universally unique name.

01:23:22 ◼   ► - Right.

01:23:23 ◼   ► - When in fact, when you file for a trademark,

01:23:24 ◼   ► you have to file for it in certain

01:23:27 ◼   ► relatively narrow categories.

01:23:29 ◼   ► And the more broadly you want that trademark to apply,

01:23:32 ◼   ► the harder it is to get.

01:23:33 ◼   ► And sometimes it is possible to get it more broadly.

01:23:37 ◼   ► There might be someone else that's too close to you.

01:23:38 ◼   ► So like, I have to file for Overcast's trademark

01:23:44 ◼   ► within the parameters of a website

01:23:47 ◼   ► that lets people search and find and play podcasts,

01:23:51 ◼   ► and also a mobile application that lets people search

01:23:53 ◼   ► and find and play podcasts and audio files,

01:23:55 ◼   ► and you have to be that specific.

01:23:57 ◼   ► And overcast is a word, it's an English dictionary word,

01:24:04 ◼   ► but I still have a trademark pending on it

01:24:05 ◼   ► that looks like it's gonna go through just fine.

01:24:08 ◼   ► And there are other trademarks for the word

01:24:10 ◼   ► that are in different industries, and that's fine too.

01:24:12 ◼   ► And so yeah, trademarks are limited to a certain scope.

01:24:17 ◼   ► And if you make that scope narrow enough,

01:24:18 ◼   ► you can trademark almost anything.

01:24:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's not like getting the Twitter account name.

01:24:23 ◼   ► - That's impossible, yeah.

01:24:24 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:24:25 ◼   ► Every time it comes up where someone's like,

01:24:27 ◼   ► oh yeah, I wanna recover this abandoned name on Twitter.

01:24:30 ◼   ► Every time this comes up, there's like three people

01:24:32 ◼   ► who are like, oh, I know a guy, I can get it done.

01:24:34 ◼   ► Or oh yeah, you could just email this person.

01:24:37 ◼   ► And every time, if anyone else does it,

01:24:39 ◼   ► they can't do it anymore.

01:24:40 ◼   ► The process has now changed, it is now more strict.

01:24:42 ◼   ► No, sorry, I can't do it. Yeah, I think there might have been some loosey-goosey early days where you could get

01:24:47 ◼   ► You know like in 2009 you could still get a claimed but vacant Twitter name

01:24:55 ◼   ► But it's it's I don't know I think for obvious reasons that it's gotten harder. I have at markdown

01:25:01 ◼   ► I don't think I've ever even posted from it, but I do have that do you know this?

01:25:05 ◼   ► I think I talked about this on the show, but it was years ago

01:25:08 ◼   ► Do you know who wanted to buy it from me?

01:25:12 ◼   ► Matt Mullenweg, nope Glenn Beck

01:25:14 ◼   ► What talk show right-wing talk show personality Glenn Beck? Does he have like a show with that name or something?

01:25:22 ◼   ► Yeah, he started he got involved in some kind of

01:25:25 ◼   ► Like an overstock comm

01:25:31 ◼   ► competitor

01:25:34 ◼   ► Okay, so it's like price mark down either yeah, or maybe it was like Groupon or something

01:25:38 ◼   ► I went and looked at it and tried to figure out what the hell it was and I was just like no so and I just

01:25:43 ◼   ► I got emails from them that they wanted to make a very serious offer about the Twitter account and I

01:25:48 ◼   ► Just never answered him that that is that is really truly someone I just couldn't live with myself

01:25:55 ◼   ► I didn't want to hear the number

01:25:57 ◼   ► Because I don't think it would have been that big anyway. I really don't yeah, I doubt it

01:26:01 ◼   ► I don't think it would have been an offer that I couldn't refuse but I was afraid that it would be an offer

01:26:06 ◼   ► I couldn't refuse

01:26:08 ◼   ► So on the other hand, it would be nice to take a whole lot of Glenn Beck's money. I don't know

01:26:12 ◼   ► There's something about that it

01:26:14 ◼   ► There's yeah, I thought of that too that wouldn't it be nice to you know, buy a new car with Glenn Beck's money

01:26:20 ◼   ► but then I don't know there's something about taking his money that

01:26:22 ◼   ► And I don't know but anyway he wanted to buy it but I think his whole thing fell apart

01:26:26 ◼   ► anyway, now that his markdown is is

01:26:28 ◼   ► Not even remembered. I don't think anybody remembered it

01:26:32 ◼   ► They remember him. I

01:26:35 ◼   ► I don't know because he's not on TV anymore.

01:26:37 ◼   ► I still, he pops up on the politics sites I read every once in a while.

01:26:41 ◼   ► You can actually, you actually read politics?

01:26:43 ◼   ► I can, I, like politics make me so angry, like every, every political news thing I've

01:26:47 ◼   ► ever read has just made me angry.

01:26:49 ◼   ► So I just try to avoid it as much as I can.

01:26:50 ◼   ► I used to be really into it when I, another enormous digression, but circa 2002 when I

01:26:56 ◼   ► thought, you know what, I've got to start a blog.

01:26:59 ◼   ► And it was, maybe it wasn't quite 50/50.

01:27:02 ◼   ► And I know in hindsight everybody's going to say, come on, it couldn't have been.

01:27:04 ◼   ► But it felt closer to 50/50 me whether I would write about tech and etc. or politics and

01:27:12 ◼   ► etc.

01:27:13 ◼   ► And then I thought, "Well, maybe I'll start the Daring Fireball one first," which I always

01:27:17 ◼   ► knew would be the name of this one.

01:27:21 ◼   ► And I thought, "Maybe I'll start a second blog."

01:27:23 ◼   ► I even have a name for it, but I can't say what it is, where I would write about politics.

01:27:29 ◼   ► But it's just, to me, it's not that it makes me angry anymore.

01:27:32 ◼   ► It just bores me.

01:27:33 ◼   ► It bores me to death.

01:27:34 ◼   ► Because it's the same story all the time, you know, everyone's getting screwed.

01:27:39 ◼   ► These people are, you know, being bribed or being bought by lobbyists and, you know, those

01:27:44 ◼   ► common people are getting screwed even further and everything just sucks and there's no hope

01:27:47 ◼   ► in sight.

01:27:48 ◼   ► Like that's basically it.

01:27:49 ◼   ► Like if you boil it down, that's basically what every political story is.

01:27:54 ◼   ► And it's just awful.

01:27:55 ◼   ► I think if I had been alive, if I had been born a few decades earlier and had been like

01:28:01 ◼   ► a same to like a columnist typewriter in the 70s or 80s I think it would have

01:28:05 ◼   ► been about politics because I think it was so much more interesting then and I

01:28:09 ◼   ► know there's a lot of a lot of that some of the problems are exactly the same in

01:28:12 ◼   ► a partisanship and stuff but it wasn't the money wasn't as as corrosive it

01:28:18 ◼   ► wasn't so much that it was really all just about business you know it was it

01:28:22 ◼   ► was more you know the partisanship was actually interesting and kind of fun to

01:28:26 ◼   ► write about I just think it's funny also that you know you and I have a

01:28:30 ◼   ► a similar problem, you have it to a larger scale,

01:28:33 ◼   ► because your audience is much larger than mine.

01:28:36 ◼   ► We have a similar problem in that we say things

01:28:39 ◼   ► that are opinionated about topics

01:28:41 ◼   ► that shouldn't be emotionally charged,

01:28:44 ◼   ► but for many people they are.

01:28:46 ◼   ► And we get a lot of crap from people

01:28:50 ◼   ► who are like unreasonably, surprisingly angry

01:28:54 ◼   ► about some statement we make about like a phone.

01:28:57 ◼   ► I can't even imagine what it would take in your mind to think that it would be a good

01:29:01 ◼   ► idea to enter political writing as an additional thing that you did from that point of view.

01:29:07 ◼   ► Yeah, and when I've dabbled in it on Daring Fireball, it's, you know, I don't mind the

01:29:13 ◼   ► criticism but it was enormous.

01:29:15 ◼   ► It peaked in 2008 with the Sarah Palin thing because I couldn't not hold my tongue.

01:29:20 ◼   ► I was so clear that the woman was, you know, borderline mentally disabled.

01:29:26 ◼   ► I mean, you know, a real, real, real problem.

01:29:31 ◼   ► And she was--

01:29:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, that was a scary time.

01:29:32 ◼   ► - Right.

01:29:33 ◼   ► - When it appeared that like, there was a very good chance,

01:29:36 ◼   ► like most people today who weren't voting

01:29:38 ◼   ► or paying attention in 2008, don't realize that like,

01:29:42 ◼   ► there was a very good chance Sarah Palin

01:29:44 ◼   ► was going to be president.

01:29:45 ◼   ► - Right.

01:29:46 ◼   ► - 'Cause you know, McCain, yeah, McCain's still around now,

01:29:47 ◼   ► but at the time everyone's looking at McCain

01:29:49 ◼   ► saying he's not in great health, he's pretty old.

01:29:51 ◼   ► He was like one of the oldest people

01:29:53 ◼   ► to run for president in his life.

01:29:54 ◼   ► - Well, and there was a tremendous,

01:29:56 ◼   ► And I think well-grounded fear that the polling numbers might be severely off

01:30:00 ◼   ► because there were an awful lot of people who wouldn't want to tell a pollster that

01:30:04 ◼   ► they wouldn't vote for the black guy.

01:30:06 ◼   ► But when they go in the privacy of the voting booth, would.

01:30:10 ◼   ► Right. There was a very real chance

01:30:12 ◼   ► that McCain and Palin were going to win.

01:30:14 ◼   ► And because of McCain's age and health,

01:30:18 ◼   ► there was a good chance he might not make it for a full eight years and that she

01:30:21 ◼   ► might become president. Like these were really like non-trivial possibilities.

01:30:25 ◼   ► And when I'd write about her, man, people would just, a certain subset of people

01:30:29 ◼   ► would just go nuts. And it was funny because some of them were clearly

01:30:32 ◼   ► themselves very low IQ, but others were not. Others were, you know, but that, you

01:30:37 ◼   ► know, they're, because that's their side. And they'd say, you know, if she was

01:30:42 ◼   ► a Democrat you'd love her. It's like, no, if she was, if, I'm not that partisan. It's

01:30:45 ◼   ► It's like, my politics are certainly not conservative, but I'm not, you know, if a true moron ran

01:30:53 ◼   ► on a Democratic ticket, I would do the same thing.

01:30:57 ◼   ► Like it's way more dangerous, way more dangerous.

01:31:00 ◼   ► I prefer to have a Democrat in the White House than a Republican.

01:31:03 ◼   ► I do.

01:31:04 ◼   ► But I would much rather have any Republican of reasonable intelligence than a moron who's

01:31:11 ◼   ► a Democrat.

01:31:12 ◼   ► I think that's terrifying.

01:31:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean. - It's terrifying.

01:31:14 ◼   ► - Like, you know, 'cause when the Democrats

01:31:16 ◼   ► sell out the public, they at least try to do it quietly

01:31:19 ◼   ► and in more subtle ways that are less likely

01:31:23 ◼   ► to be traced back to them.

01:31:24 ◼   ► The Republicans have learned that they can sell out

01:31:27 ◼   ► the public in public.

01:31:29 ◼   ► Like, you know, brashly, they can just,

01:31:33 ◼   ► they can do things that seem ridiculous

01:31:36 ◼   ► to thinking people, but they can get away with it

01:31:40 ◼   ► because no one cares.

01:31:42 ◼   ► And like, they just, the public does not give a crap.

01:31:46 ◼   ► And so, they just, they can do whatever they want.

01:31:49 ◼   ► At least the Democrats give us the illusion that they are, that they have us in mind.

01:31:54 ◼   ► Which of course they don't.

01:31:55 ◼   ► But at least they give us that illusion.

01:31:58 ◼   ► And here's Marco, proving in the email I'll get in the coming seven days exactly why I

01:32:03 ◼   ► made the right choice in 2002.

01:32:06 ◼   ► Totally.

01:32:07 ◼   ► And I think it's best for you and I to keep doing

01:32:12 ◼   ► what we already do with this issue,

01:32:13 ◼   ► which is like, for truly important issues,

01:32:17 ◼   ► blog about them on our tech blogs.

01:32:19 ◼   ► Because if either of us had a political blog,

01:32:23 ◼   ► the only people who would read it

01:32:25 ◼   ► were people who agree with us.

01:32:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's true. - Basically.

01:32:28 ◼   ► And there'd be occasional drive-by trolls

01:32:30 ◼   ► who wanted to yell at us,

01:32:31 ◼   ► but that doesn't really do anything.

01:32:33 ◼   ► And so I think you could make more of a difference

01:32:37 ◼   ► for a cause you care about by not usually being political

01:32:41 ◼   ► and choosing occasional times where it's worth it to be.

01:32:44 ◼   ► And then you kind of trick some people

01:32:46 ◼   ► who don't agree with you into seeing that opinion.

01:32:48 ◼   ► - Here's the thing I keep thinking about.

01:32:50 ◼   ► When I look back at it, I think that I wish

01:32:52 ◼   ► that our system were set up in a way

01:32:54 ◼   ► that it would be a lot easier for whoever won

01:32:56 ◼   ► the last election to get whatever shit done that they want.

01:33:00 ◼   ► And if it turns out to be unpopular,

01:33:03 ◼   ► they're gonna get voted out and whoever comes in next

01:33:05 ◼   ► can undo it.

01:33:06 ◼   ► I think there should be a lot more of that.

01:33:11 ◼   ► Whereas we've got a system now where it's like

01:33:13 ◼   ► nothing happens, right?

01:33:14 ◼   ► Like one major, I know I'm exaggerating to some extent,

01:33:19 ◼   ► but really only one major thing has happened since Obama

01:33:23 ◼   ► was elected president, which is the healthcare reform.

01:33:26 ◼   ► - Right, and look at how well that,

01:33:27 ◼   ► like everyone keeps trying to repeal that somehow,

01:33:29 ◼   ► which is comical, you know, but.

01:33:31 ◼   ► And that's one thing, right?

01:33:33 ◼   ► And--

01:33:34 ◼   ► - It's a big thing, but still, like that's--

01:33:35 ◼   ► - Somebody's gonna say, you know, it's because, you know,

01:33:38 ◼   ► that people are gonna email me and say,

01:33:39 ◼   ► it's 'cause Obama is a terrible president and a bad leader,

01:33:41 ◼   ► blah, blah, blah, but it's not.

01:33:43 ◼   ► It's because it's so, the system is set up in a way

01:33:45 ◼   ► that nobody can get anything done.

01:33:46 ◼   ► Bush didn't get much done other than start the wars

01:33:49 ◼   ► in terms of major accomplishments,

01:33:51 ◼   ► because it was like this thing that both sides could somehow

01:33:54 ◼   ► for a few brief years, it was like everybody felt

01:33:58 ◼   ► like we had to get behind them.

01:34:01 ◼   ► I'm not saying I was behind it, but I'm just saying that Democrats who were in the Senate

01:34:04 ◼   ► and House also voted for it.

01:34:06 ◼   ► It was something that...

01:34:07 ◼   ► But other than that, not much...

01:34:09 ◼   ► Nobody passes anything.

01:34:10 ◼   ► I think it would be so much better.

01:34:11 ◼   ► And I say this knowing that in my lifetime, there will be Republican presidents and Republicans

01:34:17 ◼   ► control of the House and Senate and all those things have been flow.

01:34:20 ◼   ► I'd rather see even the Republicans get to get more of their stuff done while they're

01:34:25 ◼   ► winning and vice versa than the current system, which seems to be set up basically around

01:34:31 ◼   ► any idea of let's try to make sure nobody can do anything.

01:34:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, it seems like there are some like security holes

01:34:37 ◼   ► in the procedures in Congress where like, you know,

01:34:41 ◼   ► it's very easy for a party to block everything ever,

01:34:45 ◼   ► even when they're not really in power,

01:34:47 ◼   ► like the whole filibuster thing and certain majority rules.

01:34:49 ◼   ► Like there are certain things where like, it's just,

01:34:52 ◼   ► it seems like when these rules were considered

01:34:55 ◼   ► or made or implemented, it was not really a thought

01:34:58 ◼   ► into it that what if one party or the other just decides to block everything for a decade?

01:35:05 ◼   ► Like just says no to everything the party ever does for a decade and no one ever compromised

01:35:08 ◼   ► on it now on anything.

01:35:09 ◼   ► Like I think that thought never crossed anyone's mind before because it never really happened

01:35:12 ◼   ► before.

01:35:13 ◼   ► And now we're being shown, oh, this is kind of a problem because we can't get anything

01:35:19 ◼   ► done even things that are fairly moderate.

01:35:22 ◼   ► Like we can't even get moderate things passed.

01:35:25 ◼   ► So yeah, it could use some rethought,

01:35:27 ◼   ► like some rule changes in Congress,

01:35:30 ◼   ► just to make it so that it's possible

01:35:32 ◼   ► to get something through for whoever

01:35:36 ◼   ► has the technical majority.

01:35:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think in terms of looking at a career

01:35:41 ◼   ► as a podcasting host and a columnist on a blog,

01:35:46 ◼   ► that's what I mean when I say it to me,

01:35:48 ◼   ► it would be too boring.

01:35:51 ◼   ► I think I might have burned down on it,

01:35:53 ◼   ► not because I would have worked harder at it

01:35:55 ◼   ► that it would have been more stressful, I think I would have burned out from boredom.

01:35:59 ◼   ► I think what makes what we talk about in general interesting is how quickly things can change.

01:36:04 ◼   ► Just look at the phones alone that we've gone from a world where the iPhone didn't exist

01:36:11 ◼   ► seven years ago or I guess it had just come out a couple weeks ago, seven years ago, to

01:36:17 ◼   ► a world where IBM and Apple are selling iPhones together to corporate customers.

01:36:21 ◼   ► It's crazy.

01:36:22 ◼   ► Yeah, that's pretty nuts.

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01:38:57 ◼   ► Speaking of commercials, you know what I saw the other day?

01:39:00 ◼   ► Blew me away.

01:39:01 ◼   ► I'm in a bar

01:39:03 ◼   ► With Amy having a drink and on the TV behind the bar. It's showing ESPN and

01:39:09 ◼   ► You know, I see a TV. I'm gonna pay attention to it and all of a sudden Adam Lisa Gore is on TV

01:39:15 ◼   ► Oh, yeah for what?

01:39:17 ◼   ► That there's a commercial that he shot a sandwich video for a company called true car

01:39:22 ◼   ► T R U E C a R. It's the future of car buying. I actually haven't watched the whole thing

01:39:28 ◼   ► I was in a bar. I couldn't hear it. All I did was see him

01:39:31 ◼   ► Now his videos have gone on real TV like national TV

01:39:35 ◼   ► That's gotta be like that's definitely a strange thing to see like your friend all of a sudden appear on TV. I went nuts

01:39:41 ◼   ► I think I'm usually a pretty you know, I was like that. I know that guy. That's my he's been on my show

01:39:46 ◼   ► Right my guy and there he is up there. It's in it's just a classic sandwich video there. He and he's the spokesman

01:39:53 ◼   ► He's he's in it. He's all you know, that's awesome

01:39:57 ◼   ► I'm so happy for him for everything he's like I remember back when he was you know before he started sandwich video

01:40:03 ◼   ► He was just doing like video work for people and he didn't seem like he was that happy doing it

01:40:07 ◼   ► I don't want to you know

01:40:08 ◼   ► I don't want to put words in his mouth, but it seemed like he was he was not incredibly happy with his previous jobs and

01:40:14 ◼   ► he

01:40:15 ◼   ► He did this thing on his own and it's just exploded

01:40:18 ◼   ► He is because like now everyone sees how cool he is like how his his style how?

01:40:25 ◼   ► talented he is and how good his work is and and his unique like style and voice

01:40:30 ◼   ► that he puts into these things that are so appealing to so many people like it's

01:40:34 ◼   ► so great to see your friends have that kind of success and he's like the nicest

01:40:38 ◼   ► guy in the world you know it couldn't happen a better guy no he's such a

01:40:41 ◼   ► thrill but it's so it's so because - it's like who would have thought that he you

01:40:50 ◼   ► know he just doesn't look like what you think of as celebrity pitchman right

01:40:53 ◼   ► He's and he's like deadpan and like so like muted right and and it works and it works really well

01:40:58 ◼   ► I mean we oh we you know

01:40:59 ◼   ► We all thought that you know like internet nerds because we would see his videos previous videos and love them

01:41:03 ◼   ► But yeah, I think it's it's a surprise in a very good way that Wow. Everyone else feels this way, too

01:41:11 ◼   ► it's it's like like

01:41:13 ◼   ► Nerdy smart stuff like what we so often like around these parts is now popular everywhere

01:41:20 ◼   ► it was so funny like I was making the directory in overcast and I had like whipped together directory a few days ago and and

01:41:25 ◼   ► Jason Snell suggested this category titled pop culture and

01:41:30 ◼   ► almost everything in it is about geek culture and

01:41:34 ◼   ► Part of that's because Jason Snell is a geek like us

01:41:37 ◼   ► But part of it's also because geek culture now is pop culture and that was a very strange thing to realize, right?

01:41:45 ◼   ► Yeah, like the thing the other day where that turned out that turns out the next Thor is a woman and

01:41:52 ◼   ► It was like I couldn't like it was on every site

01:41:55 ◼   ► It didn't matter whether it was a geek site or like a mainstream site. It was covered with equal, you know

01:42:01 ◼   ► Excitement and you know

01:42:05 ◼   ► The it was a perfect example to me because I remember growing up

01:42:09 ◼   ► What happened in comic books would be like something like the other kids in fifth grade

01:42:15 ◼   ► We're talking about you couldn't turn on TV and find out about the new spider-man outfit. You know what I mean?

01:42:21 ◼   ► Yeah, well because they weren't making movies that made billions of dollars with it

01:42:25 ◼   ► But it's just funny how it's crossed over and I but that's the thing though

01:42:30 ◼   ► Is that it's I think it's highly doubtful that that the you know

01:42:35 ◼   ► all sorts of stuff that happens in the comic books doesn't necessarily mean

01:42:38 ◼   ► it's gonna happen in the movies you know so it it's it's only in the comic books

01:42:43 ◼   ► where there's gonna be a where Thor is now a woman I mean I guess it could

01:42:49 ◼   ► eventually be turned into a movie I don't know but I love that you've had me

01:42:53 ◼   ► on here to talk about IBM TV and comics comics I'm like so incredibly unc

01:43:00 ◼   ► I don't read comic books.

01:43:02 ◼   ► It's for babies.

01:43:03 ◼   ► I just think it's an interesting example

01:43:06 ◼   ► of what you were talking about.

01:43:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:43:09 ◼   ► I think it's more like,

01:43:10 ◼   ► a lot of people know one or two nerds who,

01:43:15 ◼   ► or maybe you are one of these nerds,

01:43:17 ◼   ► who you were a nerd socially growing up,

01:43:20 ◼   ► it did not serve you well,

01:43:22 ◼   ► and then you got a job that paid you good money,

01:43:24 ◼   ► and then all of a sudden people are interested in you.

01:43:26 ◼   ► I feel like that has happened

01:43:28 ◼   ► to the entire nerd industry,

01:43:30 ◼   ► like the whole nerd and the whole geeky category of things.