0:00:00oh my goodness, his sausages are wonderful.
0:00:05(electronic beeping)
0:00:06If I gave you a playlist of MP3s
0:00:09and it lasted, say, half an hour to 45 minutes,
0:00:13would you play that instead of that god-awful crap
0:00:16that you make everyone listen to every week?
0:00:18- Probably not, but I would at least be willing
0:00:20to consider it.
0:00:21- Your honesty is both annoying and appreciated
0:00:23all at the same time.
0:00:25- Yeah, I mean, chances are not great, I'll tell you that.
0:00:28But I would consider it.
0:00:31- Fair enough.
0:00:32- Why is everyone in the chat room thanking Casey?
0:00:34You don't know what the music is yet.
0:00:35(laughing)
0:00:37- Yeah, that's a good point.
0:00:38I mean, what if it's just like a bunch of Dave Matthews band?
0:00:40Like, is that really an improvement?
0:00:41I would argue not.
0:00:42- It honestly would not be a bunch of Dave Matthews.
0:00:45The only reason I would play a bunch of Dave Matthews
0:00:48is if A, I had absolute control of the live stream,
0:00:52which would never happen,
0:00:53and B, I did it just to troll Marco,
0:00:56which I don't think I care enough.
0:00:58So I would like to offer my services as unofficial official DJ or official unofficial DJ, if
0:01:05you will, if you ever find the need arising.
0:01:08I'm actually curious, Jon, what would be on your playlist?
0:01:11I don't know.
0:01:13I'd probably throw in some video game soundtracks, some mashups that I like, weird things I would
0:01:20probably do because I'm not going to play songs that everyone's heard before because
0:01:23that's boring.
0:01:24Well, that's why I play fish because no one listens to it except me.
0:01:27I will say that I did find out, I don't remember if it was you John that told me,
0:01:34but somebody pointed out to me that the Journey soundtrack was available on iTunes and it
0:01:38was like five or ten bucks and I pretty much insta-bought that.
0:01:42That was me of course.
0:01:43Okay, I thought it might have been you but I wasn't sure.
0:01:45And it is excellent.
0:01:47Do you remember the Transport Tycoon soundtrack was like really snazzy and snappy jazz?
0:01:52Yeah, yeah, it was actually pretty good.
0:01:54It was pretty good.
0:01:55eventually made MP3s of—because it was all MIDI, I believe, just in a different file
0:02:00extension—but really it was just MIDI. And somebody took the MIDIs and sampled them or
0:02:06recorded them—I don't know what the correct term is—but did something with them to create
0:02:10really good sounding MP3s. And at one point or another I had it, and I've long since
0:02:16lost it.
0:02:17I'm sure that the community of Transport Tycoon revivalists, which is quite large actually,
0:02:25and has, I mean, because you know, if anyone out there is a fan of Transport Tycoon and
0:02:30you don't know about OpenTTD, let me tell you about OpenTTD.
0:02:35Fans have basically rewritten the entire engine of the game and it runs on everything.
0:02:38It runs on Macs, Linux, Windows.
0:02:41A couple people even ported it to iPad here and there, although the iPad ports are terrible.
0:02:45It mainly runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux,
0:02:46and it is so good, and they've added features to the game,
0:02:50and they've improved things,
0:02:51like they've improved the pathfinding of the trains
0:02:53and everything, and they've added different features
0:02:55that have this whole new signal type
0:02:56that makes signals more useful.
0:02:58It's fantastic.
0:02:59Oh man, if you ever played "Transport Tycoon,"
0:03:04or even "SimCity 2000," and you're into trains at all,
0:03:08you're gonna love OpenTTD, and it's free.
0:03:10- Yeah, it's really fantastic.
0:03:11In fact, I think we've mentioned this on the show
0:03:13some point or another, but Transport Tycoon and Visual Basic 1 were pretty much how you
0:03:17and I became friends.
0:03:18That's right, yeah.
0:03:19The combination of those two. That and an utter fear of the outdoors.
0:03:24Yeah, that probably contributed more. I mean, we would have found something else to do inside
0:03:28on your computer if we didn't have those two things.
0:03:30This is true.
0:03:31The only time I've ever seen OS/2 warp.
0:03:34Those were the days. Hi, Guy English. I feel like OS/2 needs, like, a Guy English bell,
0:03:39just like File Systems and HFS+ is John's bell.
0:03:42Yeah, it needs to be some kind of like dull thunk.
0:03:46Like yeah, OS2 warp!
0:03:49Woo!
0:03:50Oh goodness.
0:03:51All right, what's going on?
0:03:54Any follow up?
0:03:55Yeah, I put one item in because follow up was feeling lonely.
0:03:57I can't believe you just put the transport tycoon stuff in a follow up.
0:04:00I don't know if that qualifies as a follow up.
0:04:01It was the beginning of the show.
0:04:02I just knew that when I'm going to do show notes, if this makes it into the show, that
0:04:07I would want to look at it there.
0:04:09So it's not strictly follow up.
0:04:10I'm sorry for tainting the sanctity of your follow-up.
0:04:13We're talking about Apple Mail in Mavericks and the Gmail-related bugs and how the public
0:04:18beta program for Yosemite might help Apple catch those type of bugs.
0:04:23Michael Tsai—I really hope I'm pronouncing his last name correctly—tweeted or emailed
0:04:29one or the other.
0:04:30The other alternate theory for the Gmail bug was not so much that Apple didn't catch
0:04:35it in Mavericks, it's just that it was difficult to figure out how to fix in time for the ship
0:04:40date and they just shipped knowing that there were bugs and knowing they planned to fix them and were
0:04:44working on the fix long before maverick shipped and shipped the fix as soon as they got it fixed.
0:04:48Considering there's a second party involved here, considering like Gmail's on the other end over
0:04:52there, it may be a bug that involves Google and also involves Apple. It's plausible theory and
0:04:59we didn't mention it on the last show so I thought I would just mention it now.
0:05:03I also think it's worth mentioning, so in the context of this we were talking about the Gmail
0:05:07bug in mavericks point 0 and and you know gmail's various incentives and everything
0:05:13and I believe John I believe you had asserted that certainly some people in Google use Apple
0:05:20mail and there and there's enough of them that it'd be worth them making sure it works
0:05:23and I said I'd be pretty surprised if there were any significant portion of people who
0:05:28work for Google using using Apple mail and I asked if anybody knew this they could write
0:05:33in. And we heard from a few people who work at Google who said universally, they all said
0:05:40nobody there uses Apple Mail or effectively nobody. But they all said they've never seen
0:05:45anyone use it and pretty much everyone uses Gmail because the workflows that are built
0:05:49around it and everything, it's like Apple Mail's presence among Google employees is
0:05:54apparently nearly zero, which does not surprise me.
0:05:57It makes me wonder what kind of workflows, because they're like, one guy was like, "Oh,
0:06:00I tried to use Apple Mail.
0:06:01They all said that Macs are very prevalent there,
0:06:03which we already knew, right?
0:06:04So they said everyone's got Macs,
0:06:05and one of the persons was like,
0:06:06when I came I tried using Apple Mail,
0:06:07but it was not the thing to do.
0:06:09Everyone was using Gmail,
0:06:11and I'm wondering if they have some kind of plugins
0:06:14or Gmail Labs things.
0:06:16What is it about the web interface
0:06:18that kind of makes it so that Apple Mail isn't viable?
0:06:20If you're just doing mail stuff, fine.
0:06:22But what is the, is it just peer pressure
0:06:25that everybody is using mail?
0:06:26Is it, I guess maybe integration
0:06:28with Google Calendar or something?
0:06:29I don't know.
0:06:31But anyway, yeah, I guess they're not motivated
0:06:34to make it work with Apple Mail.
0:06:36But it's interesting to me that there is that,
0:06:38that at least that one person felt like there was,
0:06:42that it was not even a viable thing to do,
0:06:44not just like personal preference,
0:06:45but just like once you're in Google,
0:06:48you're gonna use Gmail 'cause that's the way it's done.
0:06:50- Right, yeah, like it would be difficult
0:06:52for you to use Apple Mail, was the gist of it.
0:06:54And whether that was technical, political, or both,
0:06:58I think it was kind of left to the imagination,
0:07:00but I'm guessing it's probably some of both.
0:07:03- The weird thing about the political angle is like,
0:07:05oh, you know, well, it's like dog food.
0:07:06Like why wouldn't, if you're not using
0:07:08your own mail client, obviously,
0:07:09then your own mail client sucks,
0:07:10and you know, like you should use your own,
0:07:12your own thing should be good enough for you to use.
0:07:14But like I said, and wasn't contradicted
0:07:17by any of the emails, Macs are all over the place in Google,
0:07:20and how is that not a contradiction, you know,
0:07:22in terms of like why are Chromebooks
0:07:24not good enough for everybody?
0:07:25I mean, I guess Google doesn't really make
0:07:27sort of full-fledged computer but for developers or whatever but they're you know arch rival Apple
0:07:33they're using all their hardware inside I mean they're not using the phones I assume but for
0:07:38the laptops they're all Mac so it makes me wonder if like is Google motivated to make a sort of
0:07:43non-chromebook full-fledged laptop I don't know what the hell OS it would run I mean certainly
0:07:47not Windows so there it seems like they're internally conflicted no matter what. Well and
0:07:53And there is a whole, I mean, I think a lot of this is kind of company culture as well.
0:07:57Like, there's a whole lot of people out there who use a Mac as their computing platform,
0:08:04but aren't all in on Apple's other stuff.
0:08:06You know, they use Chrome as the browser, they probably use Gmail in a web window or
0:08:10something as their mail client.
0:08:11Like, there's a whole lot of people out there who function that way just fine willingly
0:08:16and happily because that's just their preference.
0:08:18And I would imagine those people are more likely to want to work for Google than somebody
0:08:24who's all in the hall of Apple stuff.
0:08:26So probably among their employees, it's kind of self-selecting where their employees
0:08:30probably just want to use Google stuff in its native interface because that's just
0:08:34their preference, and that's one of the reasons they work there.
0:08:36Well, you've got Chrome as your browser, and then you have a bunch of terminal windows
0:08:40in which you run Emacs or something, or maybe you have a favorite text editor.
0:08:44And that's the whole experience.
0:08:45But then it's like, why do you need Apple hardware?
0:08:47Why can't you get by with the Chromebook?
0:08:48Is it, you know, are you locally compiling things in Go and C++?
0:08:53Is that why you need to have a better CPU than the Chromebooks?
0:08:55Do you just want nicer hardware?
0:08:57Like I don't know if there's much soul searching about this because they're probably like,
0:09:01"I'm just going to get Apple hardware and then when I use it, I'm using all Google services
0:09:04and I'm using whatever weird version of TextMate that I've kept left over or I'm using VI or
0:09:09Emacs or whatever."
0:09:11So I don't think there's much of an Apple in their faceness, but they're still using
0:09:16Apple hardware.
0:09:17to think that if Google continues this kind of Microsoft-like march towards "there is
0:09:22no market we don't want, there is no thing we can't do, there is no reason we should
0:09:27rely on everybody," like Google has really crept up on that.
0:09:30They didn't start off that way, but now it just seems like the old thing with Microsoft
0:09:34was like, "Is there any business they don't want?
0:09:36Is there anything having to do with personal computers that they don't want?"
0:09:39You're like, "Well, they make applications, but they don't make dev tools.
0:09:43Well, they make a compiler, but they don't really make an ID.
0:09:45Well, can they make an ID?
0:09:46Well, they didn't make all the applications. They just do you know basic office. Okay? Well now they have a paint application like you know
0:09:51Well, they don't make games. We're okay. They have flight simulator
0:09:53Oh, well, they don't make game consoles not have the Xbox like it was like at Microsoft wanted to do everything and Google is slowly
0:09:59Going towards it so far Google doesn't want to do
0:10:01PC hardware like the Chromebook is close kind of they go on a supersede PC hardware with something
0:10:07That's not as problematic as a PC and maybe they'll succeed in that someday
0:10:09but I
0:10:11Have my eye on Google's megalomania
0:10:14Certainly the Apple we just discussed last week about the Apple IBM thing
0:10:17There's plenty of things that Apple doesn't want to do like it still doesn't really want to touch enterprise with 10-foot pole
0:10:22Which is why it's having a 10-foot pole named IBM touch it for them
0:10:25Is there anywhere to go from here other than some something awesome oh actually before we do that
0:10:33Speaking of follow-up. I love that
0:10:36You've had like follow-up withdrawal like you had you get you were holding it for this like two weeks
0:10:39You know you have to get some kind of follow-up out well
0:10:43So the Apple IBM thing, we got some feedback from people
0:10:46who are like, you're too down on Apple about the enterprise.
0:10:48They actually do a lot of enterprise things.
0:10:50I tried to express that in the last show
0:10:51to say that it's not like Apple really ignores it.
0:10:54They do do a lot of things for the enterprise.
0:10:56They have come a long way.
0:10:57But the question is always, are they willing to commit?
0:11:00Are they willing to go to the lengths
0:11:02that other enterprise companies go to?
0:11:03So the two kinds of feedback we got were one,
0:11:05from the people saying Apple is really doing much better
0:11:08in the enterprise that are not nearly as bad
0:11:10as you think they are.
0:11:10And the other is from people saying,
0:11:12as far as Apple has come, they're still bad for reasons X, Y, and Z.
0:11:16So both of those are true.
0:11:18They're not both seeing a different Apple.
0:11:20They're seeing the same Apple, just looking at it from two different
0:11:22perspectives.
0:11:22One, that they've come such a long way and are so much better now than they
0:11:25used to be.
0:11:25And the other is that compared to the companies that build themselves around
0:11:29serving the enterprise, Apple is still not willing to do all the things the
0:11:33enterprise wants out of them.
0:11:34And that's the impasse they've been at forever.
0:11:37And the question, like I said last show, was always, what's Apple going to do
0:11:40about that?
0:11:41They're gonna continue to act this way,
0:11:42to kind of turn their nose up at it,
0:11:44but do enough to sort of get a little bit of the business,
0:11:46or do they feel like they want more of the business?
0:11:48And I think they feel like they do want more of the business
0:11:50but they don't want to change them.
0:11:52They don't want to change their own behavior
0:11:53to get more of that business.
0:11:54They just want to have someone else
0:11:55augment their existing infrastructure and support
0:11:58to get more of the business indirectly.
0:12:01- We are sponsored this week, once again,
0:12:03by our friend Matt Alexander at Need.
0:12:06Need is a refined retailer and lifestyle magazine for men.
0:12:10and it kind of came out of the Bionic podcast in a way.
0:12:13And so you figure it has to be pretty interesting
0:12:15if it came out of that, right?
0:12:17Each month, Need curates and sells a limited quantity
0:12:20of exclusive products from the world's top men's brands.
0:12:24These collections are presented in the form
0:12:25of a monthly editorial built around a certain theme
0:12:28and are shot by local independent photographers.
0:12:30And if I may say so myself,
0:12:31they all look really stylish and awesome.
0:12:33Beyond clothing, which they have a lot of,
0:12:35they also sell coffee, literature, furniture,
0:12:37and lots of other cool stuff.
0:12:39"Need is also expanding. Soon they will localize to certain cities around the world,
0:12:43the first of which will be London."
0:12:45And I'm guessing that's London, England, or the UK, England? I never know. Great Britain,
0:12:51oh boy. I'm pretty sure London at least is in England. I don't know how to refer
0:12:55to the rest of it.
0:12:56It's in England.
0:12:57Sorry if I offended the entire UK, England, Great Britain, continent, subcontinent, island.
0:13:02Okay, so, "Need is only eight months old, but they will already be one of the primary
0:13:07sponsors of New York Fashion Week. Now I actually know what this is because my
0:13:11wife watches Project Runway. Do you guys actually know what Fashion Week is?
0:13:15It's something in New York City where a bunch of fashionable people descend upon
0:13:20New York and make everyone else feel poor. It's a really good idea to
0:13:27sponsor this if you're a clothing company and needs already doing it
0:13:29because Fashion Week is huge. It is like New York has all these stupid things
0:13:33like they have like internet week and all this crap that they try to boost other industries
0:13:38and make them make make these like events all trying to mimic fashion week poorly. Fashion
0:13:44week is the real thing. It's what everyone else is trying to be. It's such a huge deal
0:13:47in New York. Need is sponsoring fashion week. They'll be bringing along small independent
0:13:52brands to show off the company and its aspirations in the midst of the world of high fashion.
0:13:57In other words, in their words, they're going to tell everyone about starting up working
0:14:00independently and telling great stories in a traditional world of exclusivity and brands."
0:14:05Anyway, go to neededition.com, and that's not the math, it's the "E" edition, neededition.com,
0:14:13check out their collection, and it changes every month. Seriously, add this to your RSS
0:14:18reader, it's one post a month, I mean, come on. If you still use RSS, we'll get to that,
0:14:22but I still use RSS and I have it in my RSS reader. Anyone who places an order with need
0:14:27and was sent from ATP can send an email afterwards to hello@neededition.com with the subject
0:14:34line "New York Fashion Week."
0:14:36To commemorate the special occasion, they will then throw in a bunch of extras with
0:14:39those orders before they ship things like magazines, field nose, socks, scarves, etc.
0:14:44And then you'll be put in a list to get 25% off your next order.
0:14:47Now they've been doing this offer for a couple of weeks now.
0:14:50ATP listeners, if you have multiple orders where you've emailed them and gotten the
0:14:5425% off the next order thing, you can stack that,
0:14:57so you can collect two of them and then get 50% off
0:14:59an order after that.
0:15:00So just for ATP listeners, they're being really nice to us.
0:15:04And most of all though, the first five orders
0:15:07will receive one of five limited edition,
0:15:09never to be publicly sold, Neid branded hats.
0:15:13Now I don't have a lot of hair, so hats are very useful.
0:15:17Neid produced a Neid-Ebbets Field collaboration hat.
0:15:21Ebbets Field is the company that created
0:15:23original baseball cap apparently. These hats are gonna be worth about $50 if
0:15:27they were sold at retail but they're not going to be. There's a
0:15:30five limited edition hats and let me see I believe you get it for free right yeah
0:15:36they will just toss us in so the first five orders that email them with this
0:15:40email hello@neededition.com after you hear this with the subject line New York
0:15:43Fashion Week after you place an order. This is a great deal I might do this I
0:15:48I'm gonna take one of these.
0:15:49(laughing)
0:15:50Quick, before the delay on the live stream.
0:15:52(laughing)
0:15:53- Nice. - Anyway, thank you,
0:15:54thank you very much to Need.
0:15:56Go to neededition.com to check it out.
0:15:58- I have a request.
0:16:01For that ad read, can you put in like ragtime bionic music?
0:16:05You know what I'm talking about?
0:16:06- See, I love, I love when Need sponsors
0:16:08because I can totally mess up the entire read
0:16:11and put all sorts of my own personal crap into it.
0:16:14And it doesn't matter because Matt is like a friend of ours
0:16:16so he doesn't really mind, and it still works,
0:16:19'cause people keep ordering stuff.
0:16:21So it's both a great thing that Matt is doing for us,
0:16:24and a great thing that our listeners are doing for Matt
0:16:26and for us indirectly, by buying stuff from his company
0:16:29anyway, even when I fumble through the read like that.
0:16:31- Right, so I told you I had a piece of follow-up that I,
0:16:36oh, that's what it was, I was stalling, so I could remember.
0:16:39John, how's the review?
0:16:41- That's your follow-up?
0:16:42- Yes. - I thought you were gonna
0:16:43talk about Apple IBM stuff, input from your dad, but--
0:16:46Nope, I asked and he had nothing.
0:16:49- No, reviews just going slowly.
0:16:51It's terrible.
0:16:53I don't know.
0:16:54- Good, eh?
0:16:56- It's like a dark cloud over my life.
0:16:59And I just feel like it's never gonna get done.
0:17:01I don't have to end up taking off time from work to get done.
0:17:04And then they keep changing things and things don't work.
0:17:07And you're trying to review anything
0:17:08that has to do with the network
0:17:09and like the seeds are coming out the like,
0:17:10oh, this functionality still doesn't quite work yet.
0:17:12And then all this stuff they don't mention
0:17:14and you try it and it doesn't work.
0:17:15and they're like, well, does it not work 'cause it's broken
0:17:17or does it not work 'cause it's still like month
0:17:19from release and I can't really write about it?
0:17:22And then I'm going back through stuff I've already written
0:17:24and changing it because I have this big paragraph
0:17:26complaining about this, but then they change that,
0:17:28so I don't have the complaint anymore.
0:17:30Like, yeah, I have notes in my thing of like,
0:17:34remember to talk about this, and then I have to go back
0:17:37two weeks later and remove that note,
0:17:39because oh, actually now that's changed,
0:17:40so you don't have to remember, I'm not making progress.
0:17:42I need to plow bravely forward
0:17:45and just get something written
0:17:47and then go back and change it even though it keeps,
0:17:49it's, I don't know.
0:17:50I don't know if they're changing more things than usual
0:17:52or if I'm writing too early about things
0:17:55that I have complaints about, I don't know.
0:17:57It's going slowly, it's depressing.
0:17:59- So semi-related, you had tweeted earlier today
0:18:03that you had something to the order
0:18:05of four or five machines on your desk
0:18:07and anytime you did anything,
0:18:09you were inevitably using the wrong keyboard and mouse.
0:18:13And I had suggested, and from your snarky reply,
0:18:16I assume many had suggested that you should use,
0:18:20what is it, Synergy, is that right?
0:18:22- Yeah, well see, other people, fine,
0:18:24people don't know what I know,
0:18:25but you of all people should know
0:18:27that I know what Synergy is.
0:18:28- I was encouraging you to better yourself
0:18:30by using Synergy. (laughs)
0:18:31- I know all about Synergy.
0:18:33I don't want it, I don't need it for this,
0:18:36like it's just a temporary situation.
0:18:38I'm not trying to create a setup
0:18:41where I have a system where I can use five computers
0:18:43once I just have to do it remote desktop is the worst because you can kind of keep it straight if you're like
0:18:49It's like laptops and my desktop you kind of keep it straight if things are physically separated
0:18:54But once you bring a remote desktop into the mix
0:18:56then it's game over because now like you have the same screen three times because I you know
0:18:59I've got the original screen and then the remote screen and then my regular screen that it's in and then if
0:19:04The remote desktop is at the front or then it gets all your keyboard focus
0:19:08So you're like quicksilver shortcut goes to the remote desktop not to the thing over there, but it's just
0:19:12It's madness. I could I just quitting apps and closing the wrong windows just for hours at a time slowly going mad
0:19:19But synergy would fix this for you my friend, and it doesn't take them. No it would not it would not
0:19:25No, I mean synergy has downsides as well, and it's it's just another layer of stuff
0:19:31It's the same reason. I don't you screen your team ox right like I know I recognize all the benefits
0:19:35I've experimented with them, but you know it's always something like you know the screen you're like
0:19:40"I don't want you taking over control A."
0:19:42Well, you can remap that.
0:19:43Well, I don't want it to have any of my keystrokes.
0:19:44And you know, like it was Synergy doing weird things
0:19:47with making using your regular computer feel strange
0:19:50and doing weird things with the command key.
0:19:52It's just, it's not, I'm not gonna try to,
0:19:55plus that's a, not really yak shaving,
0:19:57but it's a diversion.
0:19:59Like I don't need to be, what I should be doing
0:20:02is making forward progress in a review,
0:20:04not trying to tweak my setup that helps me do the review.
0:20:07It's like I do enough of that of just sitting here
0:20:08using Yosemite and doing experiments to try to figure out
0:20:13how I can accurately write a single sentence.
0:20:15I've spent like 45 minutes, an hour,
0:20:17experimenting with the thing to say,
0:20:18"What can I say about this?
0:20:20"What is the truth of this thing?"
0:20:21And then it's like, "Well, I wrote one sentence tonight
0:20:23"and I spent an hour and a half
0:20:24"and now I'm tired and need to go to bed.
0:20:26"At this rate, it'll be done in 10 years."
0:20:28(laughing)
0:20:30- So the review is going excellently is what I'm hearing.
0:20:33- Mm-hmm.
0:20:34(laughing)
0:20:36- Awesome.
0:20:37(laughs)
0:20:39- Well since I've asked, what's going on with Overcast?
0:20:42- I'm fixing bugs basically.
0:20:44Yeah, that's about it really.
0:20:46I'm fixing lots of bugs.
0:20:47The sales are going pretty well still.
0:20:49Obviously it's down substantially from the first few days
0:20:53but it seems to be leveling off now which is nice
0:20:56because now I'm able to predict roughly what it will be
0:20:59in next month and so far I'm very happy with it.
0:21:03- Have you cranked back on the initial server build out
0:21:07farm, whatever you want to call it.
0:21:09- I actually haven't.
0:21:11So far I'm keeping all eight of the webheads
0:21:13and the reason why is, so as, so before,
0:21:18you know, I have one feed crawling server
0:21:22that its entire purpose is to crawl the feeds
0:21:25and it can be maxed out, you know,
0:21:27it can be like hammered at CPUs because it doesn't matter
0:21:31because that's its only job.
0:21:33And so what I have going at launch,
0:21:36I had these eight web servers up front
0:21:38to help take web requests.
0:21:41And then very quickly after launch,
0:21:43my feed server got overwhelmed with just the queue
0:21:45was backing up because so many people were adding more feeds
0:21:48and I was already crawling a lot,
0:21:49but people added a lot more than I expected.
0:21:51So I started, I ran additional crawling processes
0:21:55under nice on the web servers.
0:21:57And so in theory, what I think this will do
0:21:59and what it is doing so far is all the web servers,
0:22:02I have now burst capacity.
0:22:05So when a popular show, like right now,
0:22:08I mean our show is one of the top shows in Overcast.
0:22:11There's something, I think there's like 20,000 people
0:22:13or something who subscribe to it in Overcast.
0:22:14So when a new episode of this show is published,
0:22:17I send 20,000 push notifications
0:22:19within the span of a few seconds.
0:22:21And any of those devices that are connected to the internet
0:22:24will immediately try to fetch,
0:22:27try to perform a sync request basically.
0:22:29And so you might have 20,000 devices all performing syncs
0:22:32within the first few seconds of that request going out.
0:22:36And so I need some kind of burst capacity
0:22:38for when that happens.
0:22:40So what I'm doing now is I have all these web servers
0:22:43and I'm keeping the additional crawlers running on nice,
0:22:47so what I think should happen is I'll have
0:22:49that burst capacity when I need it,
0:22:50when a new episode of Something Popular comes out,
0:22:52and all the rest of it, and when that happens,
0:22:54all of those processes that are nice will deprioritize
0:22:57and maybe the queue for crawling other things
0:22:59will slow down for a minute or two.
0:23:01And then the rest of the time,
0:23:03I have all this additional feed capacity.
0:23:05So I think this is, and my original plan was
0:23:09that the feed crawling on those web servers
0:23:11was gonna be temporary and that once everything calmed down,
0:23:14I would eliminate half of them maybe
0:23:16and then set up a dedicated feed server
0:23:19to crawl more feeds that way.
0:23:21But I think I'm actually gonna keep it the way it is
0:23:23because it gives me this nice balance
0:23:24of a lot less wasted capacity.
0:23:27- And you had said in the past
0:23:29that whatever the sum total of the monthly cost
0:23:32for these 810 servers is considerably less
0:23:35than what you had last paid for Instapaper, is that correct?
0:23:38- Yeah, yeah, I'd originally said it was like 540.
0:23:41I had to upgrade my backup server,
0:23:42I ran out of space on it,
0:23:43so now it's gonna be more like 600,
0:23:45but still, yeah, 600 bucks a month
0:23:47for a lot of line of instances,
0:23:51providing a lot of power, a lot of computational power.
0:23:53That I don't think is a bad deal at all.
0:23:56- Nice.
0:23:57- Anyway, that's how Evercast is going.
0:23:59It's going very well and I'm very happy.
0:24:01I'm fixing a lot of bugs.
0:24:03There still are some annoying ones,
0:24:04but I think I actually got two of the biggest ones
0:24:07in this update, so we'll see.
0:24:09I'm still working on the update,
0:24:10but I'll submit it probably in a few days.
0:24:12- So do you feel like you're working just as hard
0:24:15as you were pre-launch and post-launch,
0:24:18or have you kind of settled into a rhythm at this point
0:24:21and you're able to breathe?
0:24:22- I am able to breathe, but it is still a lot of work.
0:24:26Email, I'm still keeping up with email.
0:24:29I did hit bottom of the first batch.
0:24:33What's interesting is what people are requesting now.
0:24:37So I'm still getting about 100 emails a day.
0:24:39And many of them I don't respond to.
0:24:43I promised in the feedback form that I would read everything
0:24:47but I won't guarantee a response to everything.
0:24:49And I'm keeping that promise so far.
0:24:51I am reading everything and I'm not responding to everything
0:24:54'cause I can't.
0:24:55Even reading 100 emails a day takes a long time.
0:24:57(laughs)
0:25:00And a lot of them don't even need a response.
0:25:01A lot of them even say as much, no response necessary,
0:25:03and so I take them up on that offer usually.
0:25:06But what's interesting is that what people are asking for now
0:25:11is different from what people asked for on day one,
0:25:13even though the main feature set has not changed since then.
0:25:17I'm getting a couple bug reports, certainly,
0:25:20here and there, 'cause there are still some bugs
0:25:21that are affecting a lot of people,
0:25:22which I'm very annoyed by,
0:25:24and I'm trying to fix as quickly as I can.
0:25:26But for example, day one had tons of requests
0:25:30for the two big things I don't support, streaming and video.
0:25:33It also had lots of requests for smaller features
0:25:37and preferences and behavioral preferences people wanted.
0:25:40Different ways they wanted episode management to be,
0:25:42push notification options, things like that.
0:25:44All sorts of different, more granular options
0:25:47or different modes episodes could be in.
0:25:49Like one of the more common ones on day one,
0:25:52which I mentioned before, was a lot of people
0:25:54want an episode to be new but not downloaded.
0:25:57And a lot of people want deleted episodes
0:26:00to also show whether they have been played
0:26:02or whether they were never played.
0:26:05So people requesting these different states things
0:26:07can be in, and of course all the management of the interface
0:26:10and the code that would go with that would be a lot.
0:26:13All that was really on day one.
0:26:15And what I'm hearing from people now
0:26:16is substantially less of those requests.
0:26:20And the requests I'm getting now are much nicer and more
0:26:23like, "You know, it would be nice if someday maybe you added this," not like, "I can't
0:26:27use a podcast app that doesn't have this," or "I don't believe you shipped 1.0 without
0:26:31this," which a lot of the day one stuff was that.
0:26:34And so, and I think, I mean, my theory on this was pretty obvious, really.
0:26:37You know, I think day one, everyone tried it who was into podcast apps, who heard about
0:26:44it.
0:26:45Like, there was this big rush of people who tried it and, you know, probably necessarily
0:26:49didn't want to like it maybe on some level because nobody wants to change their workflow
0:26:54if they're established. And also people who really do find those features like deal
0:26:59killers. Anything that I don't do or that I do differently from what they want to do,
0:27:03that actually is a deal killer for them. So all of them I heard from on day one, and then
0:27:07I stopped hearing from them because they stopped looking at the app. So now what I'm hearing
0:27:11from, who I'm hearing from are the people who are actually using the app for the most
0:27:15part. I mean, there are new people discovering it every day, but not nearly in the numbers
0:27:19as the first two days.
0:27:21So the emails I'm getting now are actually--
0:27:24on some level, I think they're actually
0:27:25more important to pay attention to,
0:27:27because most of those people who I heard from on day one,
0:27:31I'll probably never win them over.
0:27:33It's probably not worth a lot of effort to try to win them over.
0:27:38And there's a lot of people who use the app for whom it could
0:27:40be a little bit better with what might be a small change.
0:27:44And by catering to those people, I build Goodwill,
0:27:48I build fans, I build loyal customers,
0:27:51and those people are the ones who will spread the app
0:27:54to their friends.
0:27:55And so I think it's more important to make a smaller group
0:27:59more fanatically happy about your app
0:28:02than to try to address the entire world with it.
0:28:05- So John, tell us about Arm-based Max.
0:28:10- Let me talk about this.
0:28:12So many past shows, it seems like.
0:28:14I don't know why it's coming up again.
0:28:15I guess Jean-Louis Gasset wrote about it
0:28:18on his Monday Note blog, and then a bunch of people
0:28:21linked it, including Gruber, and people
0:28:23were talking about it again.
0:28:25I guess we'll talk about it again, too.
0:28:26I feel like we had this exact same discussion.
0:28:28I pulled these exact same numbers last time,
0:28:30but I mean, I don't know.
0:28:32I guess we'll talk about it again.
0:28:34- I don't think it was a very good article,
0:28:36because it was based on a lot of assumptions
0:28:39about the relative chip pros and cons between
0:28:43ARM and Intel that aren't necessarily true,
0:28:47or at least partially misinformed.
0:28:48- You're not looking at the notes file either, I guess?
0:28:51- No.
0:28:52- Yeah, anyway, so here are the stats I put in the notes file
0:28:54probably the same exact stats I had last time.
0:28:56So the whole idea was should Apple not use Intel CPUs
0:29:00in its Macs anymore, but instead use ARM CPUs,
0:29:02presumably of their own design.
0:29:05And everyone suggesting that has their reasons
0:29:08for suggesting it.
0:29:09One of the reasons that comes up very often
0:29:10is that if they did that, ARM CPUs are more power
0:29:15efficient than x86.
0:29:16And the second reason is that Apple
0:29:18would be master of its own destiny because Apple really
0:29:20wants to own and control all the important technologies that
0:29:23go into their devices, witness their design of the A7
0:29:26and their deep involvement in the manufacturing process.
0:29:29And of course, they do all the software as well.
0:29:31They make the OS.
0:29:32They make the applications and blah, blah, blah.
0:29:34And originally, if you want to go back really far,
0:29:36they investigated--
0:29:39My understanding is that they investigated for the iPhone project or for an Apple phone
0:29:43project.
0:29:44Can we make a phone and not do a deal with a wireless carrier?
0:29:47Is it feasible to do it on Wi-Fi?
0:29:49Can we be our own — what is that acronym, Casey?
0:29:52MVNO, something like that?
0:29:55They looked into all that.
0:29:56It turned out not to be feasible, but the whole fact that they were looking into it
0:29:58was like, "Can we do this without being beholden to somebody else?"
0:30:01And it turns out the answer was no.
0:30:03So a bummer for them.
0:30:04So anyway, this is along the same vein.
0:30:06On the tech front, though, and the power thing, every time I think about the power thing,
0:30:09I think about, you know, just how far Intel has come
0:30:13in terms of power efficiency.
0:30:16So we'll look at here, I have stats for the current
0:30:1813 inch MacBook Air, which is kind of my sort of
0:30:20standard bearer for Apple's middle of the road laptop.
0:30:24It does not have a gigantic battery.
0:30:26It's pretty slim, but on the other hand,
0:30:27it is a full-fledged laptop and the performance
0:30:29is actually pretty good.
0:30:30So the current Gen 13 inch MacBook Air
0:30:33is a 54 watt hour battery and Apple says it gets
0:30:36about 12 hours battery life.
0:30:37Now in my own testing when I was doing Mavericks battery testing,
0:30:40I found that number can get even bigger
0:30:41if you use it very lightly.
0:30:43Like you really are just doing like light web browsing.
0:30:45And my battery test was very light in Mavericks.
0:30:48It was like automated, basically like going
0:30:50to a bunch of web pages, switching tabs,
0:30:52reloading web pages, going to a text editor,
0:30:55typing some random text, saving the text document,
0:30:57going-- it was like that's the type of stuff it was doing.
0:30:59Very light.
0:31:00And I was getting 15 hours out of it.
0:31:02But anyway, 12 hours is what Apple says.
0:31:04The iPad Air, which is my standard bearer for the iOS,
0:31:07ARM device, it's got the biggest, fastest ARM CPU in it,
0:31:11it's got a pretty darn big battery
0:31:12'cause the iPad Air is their biggest iPad.
0:31:15It is a, I guess, what is this number wrong in here?
0:31:1732.4 watt hour battery, let me check.
0:31:2232.4 watt hour battery, I just have a typo in the notes.
0:31:25And Apple claims this is good for 10 hours of battery life,
0:31:28although they say nine hours if you use cellular data.
0:31:30So if you do the math on that,
0:31:33it ends up that the iPad Air is about 40%
0:31:35more energy efficient than the MacBook Air in terms of how many watt hours gives you
0:31:40how many hours of usage out of it.
0:31:43And who knows if Apple's usage things are comparable?
0:31:46Like, how are they coming up with the 12-hour number of the MacBook Air and what kind of
0:31:50activity they're coming up with with the iPad Air 10-hour battery life?
0:31:54But still, the iPad Air wins by like 40%.
0:31:57The iPad Air wins by 25% if you include cellular data, but the MacBook Air doesn't even have
0:32:02that option.
0:32:03So whatever.
0:32:04better energy efficiency.
0:32:06But then you look at, you have to have some proxy for,
0:32:08okay, it's 40% more energy efficient,
0:32:10but how fast is the CPU?
0:32:11How does the A7 CPU compare to the MacBook Air CPU?
0:32:14And CPU benchmarking is a pain.
0:32:16I just did Geekbench because that's what everybody does,
0:32:19whatever.
0:32:19This is just ballpark, right?
0:32:21So the MacBook Air Geekbench,
0:32:22compared to the iPad Air Geekbench,
0:32:26the MacBook Air is 230% faster in single core
0:32:30and 250% faster in multi-core.
0:32:31So in exchange for 40% more energy efficiency,
0:32:36it gives up 2X performance or 2.5X performance.
0:32:40And so that's quite a gap to make up.
0:32:43So you could say, oh, the ARM processors
0:32:45are more energy efficient.
0:32:47They're not more energy efficient when doing the same thing.
0:32:49The conjecture of Apple switching to ARM
0:32:52is that they could switch to ARM CPUs,
0:32:53ignoring the chipset, ignoring Thunderbolt,
0:32:55ignoring all the other technical
0:32:57and intellectual property issues
0:32:58that may prevent them from having this be feasible.
0:33:00Just the CPU, can Apple take an ARM chip
0:33:05and make it 250% faster while maintaining
0:33:10its 40% energy efficiency advantage, right?
0:33:13It's because as you make the CPU more performant,
0:33:17you're gonna lose that energy efficiency, right?
0:33:19It's not like the iPad Air is 40% more energy efficient
0:33:22doing the same thing, it's way slower.
0:33:23It's two times slower at least.
0:33:25And this doesn't even get into like the relative comparisons
0:33:29of the embedded GPUs and forget about a discrete GPU
0:33:32and the MacBook Pros and again, the Mac Pro,
0:33:35who knows what you would do with that.
0:33:36So there are a lot of just unanswered
0:33:39technical performance questions in terms of like,
0:33:42what would be, putting aside the being master
0:33:45of your own destiny, what would be the advantage
0:33:49for Apple to switch to ARM, technically speaking?
0:33:52Would you get a Mac that lasts longer battery wise?
0:33:55Would you get a Mac that performs as at least as well
0:33:58is the existing Macs, would you get Macs to perform better?
0:34:00These are all unanswered questions, we don't know.
0:34:02I'm saying that the gap right now,
0:34:04it does not make it seem like Apple,
0:34:06like it's a gimme for Apple to say,
0:34:07oh, Apple could totally make a CPU that is exactly as fast
0:34:10as the current MacBook Air is,
0:34:11but is more energy efficient.
0:34:12I don't see that in the numbers.
0:34:14I'm not saying it's impossible,
0:34:15but nothing Apple has ever done so far
0:34:17has shown that it could do that.
0:34:20And the second aspect of this is everyone complaining
0:34:22about the Broadwell delay,
0:34:23it's like Broadwell being delayed into next year,
0:34:24which is why Apple had to rev its laptop line
0:34:27and just say, well, okay, we'll give you more RAM,
0:34:28which is nice by the way,
0:34:29give you more RAM and lower the prices
0:34:31'cause we're not gonna have new laptops
0:34:32until we can get the new CPUs.
0:34:34And so it's a bummer, like, oh, well, see if Apple,
0:34:36you know, if Apple made its own ARM chips,
0:34:38they wouldn't have this problem
0:34:39because they wouldn't be reliant on Intel
0:34:42and these delays wouldn't affect them
0:34:44because they would be, you know,
0:34:44getting masters of their own destiny.
0:34:47I don't much see that because in the race to say,
0:34:51can we make an ARM chip that's as good,
0:34:53that has the same performance per watt as Intel things?
0:34:56If you're gonna have any shot at that,
0:34:59you have to be using the same process size as Intel.
0:35:02And the only person who can do the same process size
0:35:04as Intel is Intel.
0:35:05So you'd still be relying on Intel
0:35:07to fab your 14 nanometer ARM chips.
0:35:09And if Intel can't get its 14 nanometer x86 chips
0:35:13out the door, chances of it being able to get your ARM
0:35:1614 nanometer chips out the door
0:35:17before it puts this x86 ones out the door are very slim.
0:35:20You'd have to get Intel to agree to fab them
0:35:22in the first place, then you'd have to get them
0:35:24to agree to give you priority.
0:35:25And then you'd have to say that the thing that's stopping Intel from making the x86 chips at 14 nanometers is just like laziness or something
0:35:31And if only you know, if only Apple was whipping them along and say well see if Apple was master of its own destiny
0:35:35You would have 14 nanometer ARM CPUs for its next generation of MacBook Airs that have more performance per watt than the Intel ones and just
0:35:42Technically speaking. I don't see it now
0:35:44It doesn't mean they're not gonna do it or they would do it and just make some excuses and eventually catch up because
0:35:49That's kind of an Apple's mo. It's like like with the Maps thing
0:35:52Well, we just can't have Google Maps anymore and our new maps are gonna be worse and they're gonna be worse for a long time
0:35:57Possibly forever, but we just have to do it. That's always an option
0:36:00So I'm not saying Apple will never do this but on paper
0:36:02It does not look like a compelling change for me
0:36:05And this is even ignoring like the Mac Pro and all my sad x86 games and the ability to run windows and all that
0:36:11Yeah, the ability run windows. I wonder how much that matters
0:36:15My my feeling is that it probably matters a good amount still and I'm sure it's going down every year with how much that matters
0:36:21but I bet there's still a lot of people who run like the Windows version of Microsoft Office in virtualization at least.
0:36:28Ahem.
0:36:29Right.
0:36:30Yeah, that's exactly true. And actually I recorded an episode of Mac Power Users last night,
0:36:35and one of the things we very briefly talked about is what happens if, you know, Macs go ARM, or if they certainly if they weren't Intel.
0:36:42And that would be a showstopper for me.
0:36:45Additionally, if there was an Intel Mac and an ARM Mac, let's say they were both brand
0:36:52new, you know, Broadwell comes out, but simultaneously there's an ARM-based Mac, I would absolutely
0:36:57choose the Intel-based Mac for work at least because I live in Windows at work.
0:37:04I don't use Bootcamp.
0:37:06Is Bootcamp even still a thing?
0:37:07Yeah, it's still there.
0:37:08Okay.
0:37:09Well, anyway, so I don't use Bootcamp, I use VMware Fusion, but my point is that I pretty
0:37:15much live in VMware Fusion at work.
0:37:16And so for me to have really bad and crummy virtualization
0:37:21would be a showstopper.
0:37:23I would have to use one of those Dell behemoths
0:37:25if I didn't have an Intel Mac.
0:37:28And that's just a terrible life that nobody wants to leave.
0:37:31- Yeah, I mean, I think, you know,
0:37:34to do an architecture transition again
0:37:37would have to come with major gains.
0:37:40And I think, you know, John, everything you said is right,
0:37:42and, you know, looking at what they would lose
0:37:44with Windows compatibility and the cost of having all developers have to recompile, because
0:37:50as we said last time we talked about this, or as I said at least, going from PowerPC
0:37:56to Intel, they used Rosetta to try to help transition along and emulate the old stuff,
0:38:01but that also worked primarily because the Intel chips were so much faster. There was
0:38:05a huge performance jump when they made that transition. And here there probably wouldn't
0:38:10that same performance jump, in fact it might even get slower.
0:38:15It would not be an easy transition.
0:38:17It would be possible, you know, they could do it,
0:38:19it's a different environment now,
0:38:21Windows isn't as important, developers in the Mac App Store,
0:38:24they're using Apple's Xcode toolkits and everything,
0:38:28so Apple could just ship a cross compiler
0:38:31and make universal binaries again.
0:38:33They could do it if they wanted to,
0:38:35but it would not be a cheap or easy transition to make.
0:38:38make. And so the question is whether it would be worth it. And I've been looking at these
0:38:43numbers and thinking about, you know, john, you're right, thinking about like the fab
0:38:46capacity issue, and I don't see it really being worth it.
0:38:49See, I think they could actually make a pretty darn high performance ARM chip, mostly because
0:38:55like with their integration, like the fact that they control the compiler, they control
0:38:58the language, they, they control the micro architecture of the chip, you can really get
0:39:02some impressive gains out of that. But you still are always in the end faced with the
0:39:06the problem of who the hell is gonna fab this chip?
0:39:07And if the answer isn't Intel using their best process
0:39:10before at the same time as they do their own flagship chips,
0:39:13then your answer is, well,
0:39:14it doesn't matter how great your chip is.
0:39:15If you have to fab at a size,
0:39:17a generation behind what Intel does,
0:39:19how the hell are you gonna compete
0:39:20on price performance with them?
0:39:21Like it is just a huge advantage to say,
0:39:23you're at 22 nanometers and we're at 14.
0:39:25It's like, you know,
0:39:27like everyone likes to bring up the x86 tax.
0:39:29Like all these crazy instructions,
0:39:31like the x86 tax has been going down, you know,
0:39:34for, it just always keeps going down and down
0:39:37because as the number of transistors in the chip
0:39:38goes up and up, and even if you exclude cache,
0:39:41which is a huge part of it,
0:39:42or even if you exclude the GPU,
0:39:44like the percentage of transistors you have to spend
0:39:47that x86 is so small that it's not even a factor.
0:39:50Like it's a factor, you know, in terms of elegance
0:39:53and it's just disgusting to think about those things
0:39:54being there and it would be nice if more of them
0:39:56get phased out, but at this point it's like,
0:39:58x86-64 isn't as gross.
0:40:01You can implement the old like 16-bit instructions
0:40:03crazy ass crap that's never gonna get called
0:40:05as slow as you want with as few transistors as you want.
0:40:07It's just, it's a tiny blip, it's not the kind of blip
0:40:10that you can build a sustainable performance advantage on.
0:40:14You know, like process and manufacturing
0:40:16is just such a huge part of this.
0:40:18And so Intel has to be a huge part.
0:40:20And I don't know the ins and outs of the details
0:40:21that people have been talking about this,
0:40:22but like CPU is one thing, but you've got chipset,
0:40:25you've got Thunderbolt, you've got whatever
0:40:26the current version of PCI expresses and all that stuff.
0:40:29And a lot of that stuff is tied up with either patents
0:40:31or actual intellectual property that involves Intel.
0:40:33So I don't think you're gonna get away from Intel
0:40:36unless you're gonna do something like an iOS device
0:40:40where it's like, oh, no Thunderbolt over here,
0:40:42we don't even have USB.
0:40:43It's our own little widget,
0:40:44it's got our own port on the side of it,
0:40:47and we control everything,
0:40:48but you can't quite do that with Macs yet.
0:40:50- We are also sponsored this week by a new sponsor.
0:40:54It is TopBrewer.
0:40:56Go to topbrewerusa.com.
0:40:59It's from a company called Scanomat.
0:41:01This is interesting.
0:41:02So Top Brewer is a revolutionary coffee system
0:41:05that dispenses espresso, coffee, cappuccino, lattes,
0:41:09filtered sparkling water, cold and hot filtered water,
0:41:11and other drinks on demand via a Bluetooth connection
0:41:14with just a tap on your iOS or Android device.
0:41:18Top Brewer is designed and manufactured in Denmark.
0:41:21A lot of things that are awesome come from Denmark
0:41:22that are difficult to pronounce, such as Jorg Jensen.
0:41:26Is that the Jensen Electronics brand, I assume?
0:41:28- Is this one of those electronic brands
0:41:30that no one's ever heard of except for you.
0:41:31- No, gents, they've been around forever.
0:41:33They've been around since the 80s at least, right?
0:41:35Also Bang & Olufsen, which you've probably heard of them
0:41:38at least, they're in the Apple stores and everything.
0:41:39And of course Lego, which is singular and plural
0:41:43at the same time, it is not Legos.
0:41:45It is Lego trademark brand bricks or something, right?
0:41:48So anyway, Lego comes from Denmark too.
0:41:50Great design and great coffee
0:41:51are also part of Denmark's culture.
0:41:53Now with Tott Brewer, drinks are customizable
0:41:56and can be saved as favorites.
0:41:57You can have this thing if you prefer 9.5 grams
0:42:01of espresso beans in your espresso, over 8.5 grams.
0:42:04You can save your preference as a favorite
0:42:06and your favorite drink as a tap away.
0:42:08You can save whether you like more or less foam
0:42:11in your cappuccino, all this stuff.
0:42:13Now what's cool with Top Brewer,
0:42:14you probably saw this circulate around,
0:42:17look at these cool gadget kind of sites about a year ago
0:42:19when they first announced it and showed it off.
0:42:21It looks just like a big,
0:42:24one of those big U-shaped kitchen taps.
0:42:27It just looks like a tap on a flat counter.
0:42:30And all the machinery and reservoirs and everything for it
0:42:33are hidden in the countertop.
0:42:35It is the coolest, cleanest, most modern looking thing
0:42:39I've seen in a long time.
0:42:41It's all, you know, all the machinery's hidden away
0:42:43and you can see this beautifully designed silver tap
0:42:46and it's really cool.
0:42:48And these are commercial grade components in the top brewer.
0:42:50Now, they target both home installations
0:42:53as well as small offices and commercial settings.
0:42:55It includes a burr grinder for the coffee,
0:42:58which is made of, even the burr grinder
0:43:00is made of cast aluminum, and it alone is 13 pounds
0:43:04and is really high quality stuff in here.
0:43:07So Top Brewer is the perfect marriage
0:43:08of beautiful design, exquisite coffee,
0:43:10and so here's what you do.
0:43:12You find one of these things or install it in your home.
0:43:15But at first, if you wanna go try it, go find one.
0:43:17They have them installed at various places
0:43:19around a lot of cities these days,
0:43:20and they're expanding very soon.
0:43:23So go find one of these.
0:43:24you install their app and then you just order from the app.
0:43:27You just walk up to the thing
0:43:28and order it right from the app.
0:43:29And then it makes your drink right there.
0:43:31You don't have to interact with anybody.
0:43:32So maybe the baristas might have a problem with this,
0:43:34I don't know.
0:43:35But you don't have to interact with anybody
0:43:36or give your name so they can misspell it on the cup
0:43:38or anything like that.
0:43:40You just walk up to this thing with the app
0:43:42and it makes your preferred drink.
0:43:44And you can walk up to any of these things,
0:43:45anywhere that you find one, in any city,
0:43:48any stores that have them,
0:43:49or you can install one right in your home or office.
0:43:52So anyway, go to topbrewerusa.com.
0:43:56That is topbrewerusa.com.
0:43:59Check it out, it's really interesting,
0:44:00and I think these are probably gonna be big pretty soon.
0:44:03- All right.
0:44:04So the other thing that's been going around the internet
0:44:06over the last week to week and a half, maybe two weeks,
0:44:10is whether or not anyone can make money
0:44:12in the iOS App Store.
0:44:14Marco, are you making any money in the iOS App Store?
0:44:18- Well, I am right now.
0:44:19Ask me again in three months.
0:44:21- Fair enough.
0:44:21- That's fine for Marco, that's the other thing
0:44:23that's going on. (laughing)
0:44:24- Yeah, right.
0:44:25- The actual full version of that is,
0:44:28is it possible for anyone to make money in the App Store
0:44:30besides Marco?
0:44:32That's basically the meme.
0:44:33- That's true. - Besides Marco
0:44:34and like three other people that they list.
0:44:36- That's true.
0:44:37- I mean, there's two problems really that people face.
0:44:39Problem number one is getting noticed at all
0:44:43and ever having strong sales.
0:44:45So that's like, my reputation and existing audience
0:44:49gives me that kind of for free.
0:44:51Not entirely free, but close.
0:44:53But then problem number two affects me
0:44:56as much as anybody else, which is once you've found
0:45:00and saturated the number of people
0:45:02who are going to ever buy your app,
0:45:04what happens to your sales curve?
0:45:07And how do you get more people to buy it
0:45:10who are not finding it, or who are choosing not to buy it,
0:45:14or who are looking at the category
0:45:17and choosing one of your competitors instead?
0:45:20And that's a much harder problem.
0:45:22And I don't have any benefits there
0:45:25over anyone else really.
0:45:26And it's a hard problem to solve.
0:45:28And so the first problem you can kind of address
0:45:33by doing things like picking a category
0:45:40where there's less competition but there is still a market.
0:45:42That's really hard to find though.
0:45:44A lot of times there's no competition
0:45:45'cause it isn't very useful.
0:45:48Or it's a problem that it's very useful
0:45:50like 10 people in the world and you're one of them.
0:45:52So congratulations, but it's gonna be hard to sell it.
0:45:55And a lot of things are just like,
0:45:57you know, it's kinda cool, but who's gonna pay for it?
0:46:00And if it isn't that compelling to pay for,
0:46:03even if it's kinda cool,
0:46:05it's hard to get a lot of sales there.
0:46:07So we've seen a lot of these blog posts
0:46:11over the last couple of weeks
0:46:14on the problems in the App Store
0:46:15and how hard it is for developers
0:46:17to make a good living there.
0:46:19And a lot of developers have shared numbers,
0:46:22like actual numbers, here's what we made,
0:46:24which is unusual.
0:46:25In most places, talking about your salary is taboo,
0:46:29and that's a whole other discussion
0:46:32about whether that should be that way.
0:46:33There's actually a really good Planet Money episode
0:46:35about that recently that you can find.
0:46:37It's interesting though to see,
0:46:39'cause what most of these people are revealing
0:46:42is that they're making a lot less money
0:46:44than people might have assumed,
0:46:45and that a lot less money then is worth continuing
0:46:48to work on it basically.
0:46:50And so this was started out by Jared Sinclair
0:46:54and his post about Unread, which is an RSS reader,
0:46:58and it ends up it's made, I forget the exact number,
0:47:01it was like $30,000 over its lifetime of over a year,
0:47:04right, something like that?
0:47:06- I thought it was like 40-ish, but the point is,
0:47:08it was in the 30 to 50 range, let's say.
0:47:12- Right, yeah.
0:47:13So, and so it was below his expectations
0:47:16and makes it hard to justify full-time work on it.
0:47:20If you're a programmer in the United States
0:47:23paying for United States health insurance and everything
0:47:25and rent or a mortgage and everything else,
0:47:28it's pretty expensive to live here.
0:47:30And if you're making 30,000 a year,
0:47:34when you have a skill that you could make easily twice that,
0:47:37probably more so, depending on the area that you live in,
0:47:41working for anybody else, that's kinda hard to justify.
0:47:44So I don't know, Casey, I mean, what do you think about this?
0:47:45'cause you're a normal person.
0:47:47I'm apparently, people get mad when I talk about this
0:47:51because anything I say, people say,
0:47:53"Oh, well, this doesn't apply to you.
0:47:55"You can't say that.
0:47:56"Oh, this works for Marco."
0:47:57People get very mad at me when I talk about this.
0:47:59So Casey, you are more normal than I am
0:48:02and people tend to like you a lot more.
0:48:04So what do you think of this?
0:48:05(laughing)
0:48:07- Right, so I think it's a tough thing
0:48:11and there's been a bunch of things that,
0:48:14friend of the show _DavidSmith has posted both in text form and in audible form about this.
0:48:20I think he is a good counterpoint to yours insofar as he is also successful, but he does it by way
0:48:29of diversification, whereas you do it by way of really dumping all of your time into one app. And
0:48:35both of those are perfectly valid ways of going about it. For me, I don't think I'm going to ever
0:48:42post this in a blog post or anything, but I was looking at fast text numbers and
0:48:46in brief the first check I got from Apple was
0:48:51the end of September in 2010 and it was $43 and I was
0:48:58unbelievably excited about that because I had actually earned some modicum of money on the App Store.
0:49:04I didn't earn a lot and if we care I could go in the blow-by-blow of how much I earned but suffice to say it wasn't
0:49:11until sometime during ATP's run that I finally cracked into profit for fast text.
0:49:20And I was just adding up all the numbers, and if I added things correctly, I am $143
0:49:28in the black.
0:49:29That counts for all the money I've made, which is about $650, minus five years in the app
0:49:37which is about a hundred bucks a pop, minus the $40 I spent on Opacity Express to make
0:49:43the world's worst icon with feet. You're welcome, Jon.
0:49:47[laughter]
0:49:47I liked it.
0:49:49Well, you're not subtracting on WWDC tickets or travel to WWDC or the price you paid for the
0:49:55inferior footless icon that replaced the real icon?
0:49:58Well, I have not... My friend, Jacob Swydek, actually did not charge me for that icon. He
0:50:06He did it out of the goodness of his heart because he's awesome.
0:50:08And I don't know if he's doing contract work anymore,
0:50:10but if you want a good icon, talk to him.
0:50:12Anyway--
0:50:13But WWDC, you don't count.
0:50:14And that wipes out all your profit.
0:50:16Well, yes and no.
0:50:17Of the four years I've been to WWDC,
0:50:20I think work paid for three of them, if I'm not mistaken.
0:50:23So you could argue that that one year would put me heavily
0:50:29in the red.
0:50:30But I consider that slightly ancillary.
0:50:34And we can get into a whole debate as to whether or not that's reasonable, but
0:50:37let's take WWDC as completely unrelated.
0:50:40Let's assume I've never been to WWDC still over five years because, uh,
0:50:45fast text last, or excuse me, launched shortly after iOS four came out.
0:50:50Um, and so in the five or so years that it's been out, I've earned $143.
0:50:57Now I've done nothing to promote it other than occasionally mentioning it here.
0:51:01And that's about it.
0:51:04And to be honest, especially now, it's getting a little old,
0:51:07getting a little long in the tooth.
0:51:09I need to find some time to work on it.
0:51:13- I can't believe I beat you.
0:51:14- I know.
0:51:15- I can't believe overcast shit before your iOS 7 update.
0:51:18- The really embarrassing thing is that
0:51:19iOS 8 is gonna beat me too.
0:51:21I did work on it briefly two weeks ago.
0:51:24And I, what was it that you had said?
0:51:27The, shoot, the top--
0:51:29- The top layout guide.
0:51:29- Yes, that got me halfway there,
0:51:31but I'm not quite through yet.
0:51:33And because I'm too damn stubborn to use springs and struts,
0:51:36I still haven't updated it.
0:51:38But anyway, but yeah, so over the course of five years,
0:51:43having done no real marketing whatsoever,
0:51:47I've earned $143.
0:51:50And I'm happy with that.
0:51:51I mean, I'm certainly not complaining about it,
0:51:54but I certainly wouldn't be leaving my job
0:51:56for $143 over five years.
0:51:59I mean, that's like one nice meal, if by nice you mean Panera Bread, every half year to
0:52:06a year.
0:52:07You know what I mean?
0:52:08So it's hard.
0:52:09And Justin Williams has been talking in his snarky way, which I love, but he's been talking
0:52:17on and off about that, "You know what?
0:52:19Business is just hard.
0:52:22Business is hard."
0:52:24And that's the thing is that you got to be a businessman or woman before you're
0:52:32a developer in a lot of cases.
0:52:34And I think Marco, you've done pretty well with that by finding a niche, niche, niche,
0:52:40whatever, finding a cubby that's not terribly well served up until Overcast.
0:52:47And in the case of Overcast, finding a way to make it something unique.
0:52:53And we'll see over time, or you'll see over time, whether or not that's sustainable.
0:52:58But _DavidSmith, by comparison, has his hands in a lot of different pots.
0:53:05And that's what keeps him profitable and able to be independent.
0:53:10And somebody mentioned in the chat a moment ago, "Well, yeah, you say you didn't do any
0:53:14real marketing, but, well, you mentioned it on ATP and that's marketing."
0:53:18And that's a fair point.
0:53:19That's an absolutely fair point.
0:53:20"Okay, let's assume that that's quote-unquote real marketing. I still have only earned 150 bucks over five years."
0:53:27You know, so if that's real marketing, that means it's even more depressing than we originally thought.
0:53:32So...
0:53:33This episode is also sponsored by Fast Text.
0:53:35Right? You know, so...
0:53:37I don't know. It's...
0:53:39I long so much. I long so much to be able to go independent and do my own thing and not work for the man.
0:53:47And I love my job, I truly do.
0:53:49But it would be so neat to be like you or underscore and be able to be my own person,
0:53:55if you will, in mega air quotes.
0:53:58But in the end of the day, I don't really have a terribly stressful job.
0:54:03And as long as I show up and do decent work, I'm going to maintain that not terribly stressful
0:54:10job.
0:54:11And there's a lot to be said for that.
0:54:13And I think, as always, the grass is greener on the other side.
0:54:18And I have it pretty easy, all told.
0:54:22So young and foolish.
0:54:23"If I just show up every day and do good work, I'll keep my job."
0:54:26And I tell you about that right after my first child was born, that I lost my job.
0:54:31Anyway, that's lots of fun.
0:54:33What job number is this for you, Casey?
0:54:34Is it number three or something?
0:54:36This is four.
0:54:38And did you voluntarily leave all the previous jobs?
0:54:41Thus far, yes.
0:54:42you're a quitter. What I'm saying is chances are good that you're going to have more jobs
0:54:48in your life. And I think it's a reasonable chance that some of those transitions will
0:54:54happen not by your choice. It is certainly possible. I tend to try to
0:55:00pick a company that from everything I can tell is stable and to the best of my ability
0:55:08I am certainly not the most important person there, but I am not the low-hanging fruit,
0:55:14if you will.
0:55:16But you're right.
0:55:17I mean, the company that I work for, it could fold tomorrow, and I could be none the wiser.
0:55:22Well, let's not turn this into an episode of quit.
0:55:25But the whole thing of the illusion of stability versus the panic that you feel and the stress
0:55:33that you feel about, "Oh, I'm doing my own thing, but that means it's all on me,"
0:55:36where it's like, well now I'm not doing my own thing,
0:55:39it's not all on me, but at least I have security.
0:55:40Well you really don't have security,
0:55:42but it kind of feels like you do.
0:55:43So the reality is that depending on your personality trait,
0:55:47the bottom line is, do you feel more stressed?
0:55:49Are you more stressed in situation A versus situation B?
0:55:52Regardless of whether situation A and B
0:55:55are actually comparable in any way.
0:55:57Because like, just because you feel safer in a job
0:55:59doesn't mean a job is safer,
0:56:00but feeling safer is like 90% of the battle anyway.
0:56:03Like if you have a personality
0:56:05where if you were to go off on your own,
0:56:07all you would do is stress all the time.
0:56:09- Yep.
0:56:10- That wouldn't be a good thing for you,
0:56:12even if it was exactly comparable risk-wise in reality.
0:56:15It just matters how you feel.
0:56:16But like all this stuff on the web,
0:56:18going around about the App Store viability,
0:56:21I have to think that it's motivated by,
0:56:25like there's no point in writing about this
0:56:28if there's not an angle.
0:56:30And the angle I see a lot is someone who's not me
0:56:35is to blame for my difficulties.
0:56:39Not in a bad way, 'cause everyone kind of thinks that,
0:56:40but it's like, if it was just on you, you're like,
0:56:43well, I mean, kind of like Casey's thing,
0:56:44he's not writing posts complaining about how hard it is
0:56:46to make money out of FastX.
0:56:47Whose fault is it that, you know, FastX?
0:56:49Well, is FastX a awesome super duper app?
0:56:52No, it's not. - No, it is not.
0:56:54- Has it been updated religiously
0:56:56to keep up with the latest tech?
0:56:57No, it has not.
0:56:58- You're a jerk.
0:56:59- Is it, you know, it's not like you're searching for like,
0:57:02why couldn't I make money off,
0:57:03you know why you couldn't make money off FastX,
0:57:05You know what I mean?
0:57:06- Absolutely.
0:57:06- And that's why you're not writing blog posts about it.
0:57:08Whereas other people like Jared,
0:57:09they'd say like, "I made a great app.
0:57:11I love it.
0:57:12It embodies my own ideals.
0:57:14I think the interface is great.
0:57:15I think it does something useful.
0:57:16I really like the way it works.
0:57:17I worked hard on it.
0:57:18It's bug free.
0:57:19I've kept it updated.
0:57:20I use latest technologies."
0:57:22And then, "Why aren't I successful?"
0:57:27And you're not gonna turn that on yourself
0:57:29because you're like, "Look, I made an awesome app.
0:57:30I did a good job with this.
0:57:31I look at all the other apps that are out there.
0:57:32Mine is at least as good as them, if not better.
0:57:35So you're gonna immediately be looking for
0:57:37some reason why you didn't succeed
0:57:39that doesn't have to do with your own personal failings.
0:57:41And in most cases, it's not really your fault.
0:57:43Like you did do a good job on the things that you care about.
0:57:46Like you did make an ICUI.
0:57:48It is a good app, it is bug-free, it does do something useful
0:57:50but then you get into all the things
0:57:52the market was talking about.
0:57:52All right, well then whose fault is it?
0:57:54What am I gonna write about?
0:57:54Well, maybe you wrote an app
0:57:56that has a potential customer base of 10 people
0:57:59and they all bought it already, right?
0:58:00Maybe your taste doesn't match other people's tastes.
0:58:03Like if you have a beautiful bug free,
0:58:05nice interface application for like, you know,
0:58:09counting oranges, how many people in the world
0:58:11need to count oranges?
0:58:12Maybe it's just a hobby of yours or like train spotting
0:58:14or some other strength.
0:58:15Like you have, there's so much more to it
0:58:17and that's where the end of the business is.
0:58:18Maybe you picked a good audience,
0:58:19maybe it's already crowded, so on and so forth.
0:58:21And that's kind of boring too.
0:58:23That's where a lot of these things get to is like,
0:58:24oh, just business is hard or whatever.
0:58:26But everyone is looking for something more interesting
0:58:29than that because just saying business is hard,
0:58:30Like that post has to come after everyone else's post comes
0:58:33to be kind of like the, you know,
0:58:34let me just say the obvious thing to get us back to sanity.
0:58:37The previous ones are like, what is Apple doing?
0:58:40What is the app, is the app store environment getting worse?
0:58:43Is Apple not doing things that may,
0:58:45it used to be easier to make money,
0:58:46but now it's not as easy.
0:58:47And I blame Apple for that
0:58:49because they control the ecosystem.
0:58:50And on iOS, there is an angle to that
0:58:52because it's like, if you want to make an iOS app,
0:58:55the app store is the only game in town.
0:58:57Like unless you want to, you know,
0:58:58sell them one of those weird jailbreak stores or something,
0:58:59which usually people don't want to do,
0:59:01Apple controls everything.
0:59:03And so unless Apple is perfect, you're gonna say,
0:59:06I made a good app, I think I picked a reasonable category,
0:59:09but the App Store is harder to make money in now
0:59:12than it used to be.
0:59:13And whenever I see posts like that, I think, well, yeah,
0:59:17like people know about it now.
0:59:19Like it's not, you know, getting in early,
0:59:21the gold rush is over.
0:59:22The gold rush didn't end because Apple did something bad.
0:59:25The gold rush ended because everyone came to California.
0:59:28Like, and now everyone's here now.
0:59:29Like the gold has been dug out of the ground.
0:59:32When you're the first app on the App Store on day one,
0:59:34everyone buys you because there's nothing for them to buy.
0:59:36If you were the first Read Later app,
0:59:39then you would get a lot more customers
0:59:40than if you're the 17th Read Later app, right?
0:59:42That's just, the gold rush means everyone rushed in
0:59:44and the market was filled.
0:59:45And so now of course it's harder to make money,
0:59:47but it kind of gets, like what I kind of get back to is the,
0:59:50I see this a lot in writers complaining,
0:59:53I guess developers too, like writers, developers,
0:59:57anybody who does anything creative fields
0:59:59in development, they're like, don't work for free.
1:00:02We've all heard that before,
1:00:02and I think I've done this complaint
1:00:04about the same thing on the podcast.
1:00:05But don't work for free because it devalues the work.
1:00:08So when you work for free and I tell somebody
1:00:10that I wanna get paid, they're like,
1:00:11well, I'll just take this guy, he works for free.
1:00:13And don't do that because you're making the thing
1:00:16that we do less valuable by being willing to do it for free.
1:00:20And that is 100% true.
1:00:22If the market is full of people like,
1:00:23I will write your application for free,
1:00:25or I will write your blog post for free,
1:00:27I will do this logo design for you for free it makes it harder for you to
1:00:31Charge money for any of those services because if the guy doing it for free is just as good or God forbid better than you
1:00:37You've got you know it's very difficult to charge money, and so you if you are talking to your peers
1:00:42Hey, everybody who does whatever everybody who paints paintings everyone who writes articles everyone who develops software
1:00:46Don't do your thing for free or don't give your thing away because that makes it harder for all of us to make money
1:00:51and
1:00:53That is true. But the problem with that is what if the thing that you're doing is really fun
1:00:58What if it's really cool? What if it's really fun to make apps? What if it's really fun to do paintings?
1:01:03What if logo design is really fun? What if you can do it in your spare time like while having a regular job?
1:01:09What if college students really like to do it and they're really smart and talented and don't really need to have a job
1:01:14Those are unfortunate facts of life about many endeavors and making apps is kind of fun
1:01:19I guess and working for yourself is also fun all these things that make it attractive to people like Casey and me and you know
1:01:25it's like
1:01:25That makes it attractive to everybody. Everybody wants to do that. Everybody wants to lead the good life. Everyone wants to do something cool and
1:01:32all the people who are able to do that something cool because they don't need to have a job or because they're in college or
1:01:39Because they're just young and foolish or whatever and like their reward is the fun of it
1:01:43They make it hard for everyone else to make money
1:01:46That's like I don't know it's like that's not I don't I don't think you can blame anybody in that the people saying that that
1:01:52It's made it's harder
1:01:53It is harder, but I don't really blame the people doing it for free or for the fun of it
1:01:56because they're getting their own reward out of it and like that's
1:02:00I'm not gonna say that this you know people who've run these blog posts are not entitled
1:02:05But like I'm I'm making it statement independent of that thing of saying there is no entitlement
1:02:09To be able to make a good living doing something awesome that you love right think of all the people who are in actual
1:02:16creative fields like, you know, people who want to be singer-songwriters or like painters or poets.
1:02:23You can be like, "Boy, wouldn't it be great if I could make six figures a year writing poetry?"
1:02:28Yes, that would be great. Good luck with that, right? Like, the more people want to do it,
1:02:32the more awesome it seems. Of course, the harder it's going to be to do that. And
1:02:36writing applications is much more viable skill in terms of making money than poetry. But it's
1:02:43It's a continuum, and writing applications
1:02:45that you feel like writing when you feel like writing them
1:02:48is farther towards the poetry end of the spectrum
1:02:50than doing what Casey or I do,
1:02:53which is doing something that an established company
1:02:56needs you to do for money in a business
1:02:58that they've already proven is a viable business.
1:03:01Is that too depressing?
1:03:02I don't know.
1:03:03- Do you, Jon, at all aspire to be independent,
1:03:08be that an independent consultant
1:03:09or perhaps an independent product guy?
1:03:12Is there any part of you that desires for that?
1:03:15- Oh, I aspire to be retired.
1:03:17(laughing)
1:03:19- That's a wonderfully John Syracuse answer.
1:03:21- Oh, that's fantastic.
1:03:23- I aspired not to have to work.
1:03:24I aspired to be independently wealthy.
1:03:26All these are reasons why I will never have these things,
1:03:28but if you're just asking what I want,
1:03:29yep, that's what I want.
1:03:30I want to not have to work.
1:03:31And who doesn't want to not have to work?
1:03:33Like seriously, like exactly.
1:03:34- So accepting that working in some capacity
1:03:38is a fact of life at the age in which we all are,
1:03:42Would you, in a perfect world,
1:03:44do you think you would prefer to be independent,
1:03:45or do you think you would prefer to be working for the man
1:03:48and have that either perceived or perhaps actual stability?
1:03:53- Well, I'm just doing what everyone else does,
1:03:55which is you kind of like,
1:03:56you do the thing that causes the least pain, essentially.
1:04:01- Right. - So for me,
1:04:03I would be incredibly stressed out
1:04:05if I was in any of these situations
1:04:07these indie developers are in.
1:04:08- Oh, amen, absolutely. - It just is not compatible
1:04:11with my personality, right?
1:04:13So the only way, like, it's very attractive,
1:04:15but the only way I could do it is if I could say,
1:04:17well, I don't have to worry about money,
1:04:20so, like, that's, the thing of it is,
1:04:22like, if you just dump the bucket of money on me,
1:04:24and say, here you go, you never have to worry
1:04:25about money again, what I would end up doing
1:04:27would look a lot like what an indie developer ends up,
1:04:29is doing, but the only reason I'd be able to do it
1:04:31is because I would have no pressure to be successful.
1:04:34Like, I could do whatever the hell I wanted,
1:04:36and it doesn't matter if it's a seizure or fails,
1:04:38and that's the only way I could do that
1:04:40without stressing myself to death.
1:04:42- Yeah, but you'd find other things to stress about.
1:04:44- No, I wouldn't though.
1:04:45This is like the remaining,
1:04:48well, I guess I would probably stress
1:04:49about health and stuff eventually.
1:04:50I get old and stress about my kids and all that stuff.
1:04:52But there's always something.
1:04:53But in terms of work, the only thing I would do,
1:04:57the only way I would ever do the indie lifestyle
1:04:59is if it didn't count,
1:05:01like if it didn't matter whether I succeeded or failed.
1:05:03So because I just wouldn't,
1:05:05the kind of life that Marco leads,
1:05:07or any of these indie developers were like,
1:05:09or even, I mean, well, I don't know.
1:05:12If your livelihood depends on you being successful
1:05:16by doing something that you wanna do
1:05:18with the skill that you have,
1:05:20whether it be writing an application
1:05:21or even like writing a novel or running your own website
1:05:25or anything like that where it's just you, nobody else,
1:05:27no support, so like basically entrepreneurial spirit.
1:05:30I do not have that because there would just be
1:05:33too much stress and I would be miserable.
1:05:34And so I have chosen a life that avoids that stress
1:05:37by saying someone else worry about that.
1:05:39I will develop my skills, become a valuable worker
1:05:42for someone else to pay, and that to me feels more secure.
1:05:46And I don't know what number job I'm on,
1:05:47like six, seven, something like that.
1:05:49I don't like that experience either,
1:05:51having to go from job to job, but the gaps are longer,
1:05:55and in between I feel like I have more stability
1:05:57than I would know those things,
1:05:58which is why neither one of us to this point,
1:06:00Casey or I, are Marco, and Marco is Marco,
1:06:03because he did things that we were not willing to do.
1:06:06- Well, hold on though.
1:06:08There's a big asterisk here though,
1:06:10what a lot of people don't know or have forgotten,
1:06:14is that I didn't take Indeed development full-time
1:06:16until after it was successful.
1:06:19- Yes, and that's true, but I've thought about this
1:06:22on and off a fair bit.
1:06:24You did answer a Craigslist ad for a job posting
1:06:29that had, for a company of one employee,
1:06:32which is something that I can't speak for Jon,
1:06:35but there's no frickin' way I would ever do that
1:06:37because at that point, all of the stability I'm seeking,
1:06:41it's not there, because it's just one guy.
1:06:42How could one guy possibly do anything right?
1:06:45- But he was young, though.
1:06:47Like, I might do that if I was young.
1:06:48- Well, no, that was a concern.
1:06:50That was definitely a concern,
1:06:51because of how expensive New York is to live in,
1:06:54I was concerned that, well, if this company goes under
1:06:56and I stop getting paid, it takes like one and a half months
1:06:59for me to have no savings left, and that's it.
1:07:02So I was concerned, but I mean, the main reason I did that
1:07:04was not because I was some forward-thinking maverick
1:07:09or something, it was because I only had two offers
1:07:12that were at all even reasonable,
1:07:14and I really didn't wanna take the other one.
1:07:18The other one would've made me miserable, and I knew that,
1:07:20and David let me work on a Mac, so I took that one.
1:07:23That was it, that was the factors that went into it.
1:07:26- Right, and all of that makes sense,
1:07:27but the thing of it is is that you took what to John or I,
1:07:30or I shouldn't speak for John, but what to me
1:07:33was a tremendously risky offer. Even though in a lot of ways it was better, it was still
1:07:38riskier and I am so risk adverse that I really admire the fact that you took that job offer
1:07:45at Davidville which led to all of these other things. If I was in the same position, I would
1:07:54have gone to whatever that financial services firm or whatever it was that you were also
1:07:58flirting with. That's where I would be and I would be freaking miserable right now.
1:08:01Well, see, I would have taken that job.
1:08:03My first job out of school was in a five-person startup.
1:08:06It was like the dot-com days, like 1997.
1:08:09So that's what you did then.
1:08:11And it's your first job, and you don't have any responsibilities.
1:08:14And you figure-- I did take that job.
1:08:17It's just that my company didn't turn out to be Tumblr,
1:08:20like almost everyone else's.
1:08:21You know what I mean?
1:08:22So it's almost just luck of the draw.
1:08:23But the thing about Marco saying,
1:08:24well, I didn't leave my job until I was making
1:08:26good money with Instapaper.
1:08:28Like, yeah, that's the typical nerd way to do it.
1:08:30But even at that point, I would be saying,
1:08:33well, I did this app in my spare time.
1:08:36It's popular.
1:08:36People like it.
1:08:37I'm making good money off of it.
1:08:39Now I can quit my job.
1:08:40And I would never get to that leap point,
1:08:41because I would say, you can't quit your job, because yeah,
1:08:44you're making money off of an app, but what about next year?
1:08:45And the year after that, and the year after that.
1:08:47And you have to have some confidence,
1:08:48like this is a thing that I can do, that I can sustain this,
1:08:51that I'm going to have to write a second app and a third app,
1:08:53and I'm going to have to find ways to make money,
1:08:55and whatever.
1:08:55And I would never have confidence that I could do that.
1:08:56And what I would feel like I was doing
1:08:58if I take the time off, I'm derailing from a career path elsewhere.
1:09:02And if I go off and Instapaper goes for a few years and then it kind of fizzles out,
1:09:05I'm like, "Oh, now what do I do?
1:09:07I got to go back into the job market and I would be afraid that I can't get back into
1:09:11the job train."
1:09:12Now, that is not a really irrational fear because if you wrote Instapaper and it fizzled
1:09:16after a few years but did really well in between, it would be no problem for you finding a job
1:09:20doing iOS contracting.
1:09:22It wouldn't actually be a problem.
1:09:24But I mean, I wasn't looking at the App Store
1:09:26at the time, so I was in 1997.
1:09:28There was no App Store or anything like that.
1:09:29But that's the kind of feeling that,
1:09:31even if you are doing a side project,
1:09:33and even if the side project becomes successful and
1:09:36lucrative, the truly person who's
1:09:40afraid about his financial security like I am
1:09:42and probably like Casey is, would be like, oh, that's fine.
1:09:45But you can't quit your job, because what are you
1:09:47going to do next year, or the year after that,
1:09:48or 10 years from now, or 15 years, or 20 years from now?
1:09:51Or do you think this is a sustainable thing
1:09:53that you can do in your entire career?
1:09:55Or do you think this is something that might go well
1:09:57for a couple years, then you're gonna have to get
1:09:59a real job again anyway.
1:10:00And if you had to get a real job again anyway,
1:10:01why not just keep the real job you have now
1:10:03because it'll be harder to come, you know.
1:10:05That's the kind of little voice in the back of my head
1:10:08that's preventing me from ever doing anything independent.
1:10:12- Yep.
1:10:13- Well, but you know, the trick there,
1:10:14I mean, but this really is quit.
1:10:16The flaw in that thinking is in assuming
1:10:20that jobs are stable.
1:10:21And the reality is like they're not at all.
1:10:25- Yeah, I made the same point before.
1:10:26And I've been through seven jobs anyway.
1:10:27I'm just saying like people do essentially
1:10:29what makes them feel comfortable
1:10:31within the bounds of their values or whatever.
1:10:33And within the bounds of my values,
1:10:35having a regular salary job makes the rest of my life
1:10:38less stressful.
1:10:40As you get closer to retirement,
1:10:43maybe that changes, but it's like,
1:10:44well, you know, maybe I go independent now
1:10:46because it's not like I have 20 years of career
1:10:47ahead of me anyway.
1:10:48So if I end up doing something outside of my job
1:10:50that becomes vaguely successful,
1:10:51I can't jump ship and do that because if it fizzles out after a few years
1:10:54Then I'm actually really I'm gonna retire with all the money
1:10:56I saved for my salary job during those other years anyway
1:10:58So I think all these indie developers talking to each other on these blogs and amongst each other is
1:11:04just kind of a way of each person coming to terms with their own sort of values like
1:11:09It takes a certain amount of guts to leap into that lifestyle and it takes a certain sort of
1:11:15Temperament and mindset to keep at it like underscore definitely has the mindset
1:11:20He has the mindset to jump into it and he has the head for keeping doing it
1:11:23He's just gonna do what it takes and he's like, you know
1:11:26The the full spectrum kind of business thing and you to Margo for this but you know
1:11:29Like you may like set one aspect more than another but you realize there is a spectrum of things that you have to do
1:11:35there's the business side the marketing side choosing what you're gonna do the technical side and
1:11:38You have your favorites and nobody likes all of it, but you realize it's sort of a you know
1:11:42instead of like a full-stack web developer
1:11:45you have to be a full-stack business person,
1:11:47and you have to be able to tolerate
1:11:48the lifestyle that comes with that.
1:11:50Obviously, success makes it more tolerable,
1:11:52but some people jump into it
1:11:54liking only one aspect of it,
1:11:56and realize that all that other stuff is just necessary.
1:11:59And that's the problem with the gold brushes.
1:12:00You could jump into it just being into the one aspect of it,
1:12:03and just be like, "I really like development,
1:12:04"and I made an app,
1:12:05"and it's one of the only three of its kind
1:12:07"in the app store, and I'm making money for three years."
1:12:10And then all of a sudden, all these competitors come in,
1:12:12and it becomes a more competitive market space,
1:12:13and you're like, well, I really don't like doing any
1:12:15of the parts except for the cool part where you write the app
1:12:18and if I don't do those things, I can't really compete
1:12:22and App Store, you've changed, man.
1:12:24It's like, well, maybe you just weren't cut out for that.
1:12:28Just like the environment has changed
1:12:30and the things that you like to do and don't like to do
1:12:33no longer make so, are no longer a fit for success
1:12:37in this environment, right?
1:12:38And so as the environment changes,
1:12:39the things that it selects for success change as well
1:12:42I don't like we all have complaints about the App Store and what Apple does and those are all legitimate complaints
1:12:47but most of this sort of talking about the App Store I think has to do with
1:12:51people coming to terms with their own tolerance for what the current App Store environment is like and then
1:12:56Because some people like well, I had to stop being independent
1:12:59I had a job and other people like I'm gonna stick it out no matter what and like what you don't hear about
1:13:03All these things is like well, here's my sales numbers, but like does your spouse work during that time?
1:13:08Are you still living with your parents? Are you independently wealthy?
1:13:11So it doesn't matter what happens here anyway, because you have a trust fund like you never know what they're actual
1:13:15Do you live in Kansas where your rent is really low or like you never know what the actual situation is?
1:13:20Like how do you live? How do you live on that little money?
1:13:22Are you going to stick it out or you're not going to those are more like personal decisions that have to do with your current
1:13:27Living situation and your tolerance for risk and stress
1:13:30And that I think is the bulk of the discussion which is a good discussion to have
1:13:34The these tiny sliver of the discussion is are there things that Apple is doing or not doing?
1:13:40that make it better or worse for everybody or better or worse for a particular type of developer and that I think is the
1:13:45Thing I took away from this is like not so much. What is Apple doing to the App Store?
1:13:50that makes it a more hostile or friendly environment for developers, but
1:13:54What kind of people are they selecting for and obviously the people having this discussion thinks if Apple is not selecting for me
1:14:01That's bad because I'm awesome, which is good. You should think that but
1:14:03The other side of the coin Apple might be thinking oh, yeah
1:14:08We want to select those apps that win Apple design awards
1:14:10But not as much as you might think like we just need enough to have Apple design awards, but in reality
1:14:16We're also kind of okay with EA being in the store
1:14:20Even though EA is never gonna win an Apple design award
1:14:22Right and so like what the kind of store that we wish it was all filled with beautiful handcrafted artisanal
1:14:28applications made by passionate people with attention to detail like you can't make a full store of that or
1:14:34If you can maybe that's not the store that Apple wants you you do need like
1:14:38Yeah, you need EA in there. I guess I mean and even even things like Tokuboko which are great applications
1:14:43That's obviously that's like a full-fledged business
1:14:46It's not like two people working out of a garage right even if it may have started that way and maybe even need Angry Birds
1:14:51Which again started as two people and becomes this big thing so?
1:14:53So I think it was an interesting discussion. I enjoyed spectating it from the sidelines, but I don't think there's any one clear like
1:15:02Mission or like sign we can all hold over our head to say do X now or else it's just more like this is life
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1:18:17fractureme.com.
1:18:20So we should also point out with regard to people opening the kimono or whatever the phrase is.
1:18:26That's such a gross phrase.
1:18:27Well, sorry.
1:18:29Revealing their numbers, which also, okay, sharing their number, whatever.
1:18:33Anyway, the point is somebody, Jazzy Chad, I don't know who exactly that is, but Jazzy Chad put up a post,
1:18:43which we'll put in the show notes, about what it's like for game developers.
1:18:47because the assumption is the game developers make all the money in the app store.
1:18:51And as it turns out, this person who has a day job at Twitter, which allows him,
1:18:56I'm assuming it's a him, allows him to make these things in his spare time
1:19:02and not have to worry about making a living off of it.
1:19:04He wrote three or four games, some of which looked really nice.
1:19:08I've not played any of them, but nevertheless, he wrote a few games.
1:19:12And for three games, even in some of which he spent a lot of time
1:19:17trying to market, he basically ended up a little bit in the red because of the marketing
1:19:23he paid for in order to try to make some money on these games.
1:19:29So even for game developers, all is not rosy in the app store anymore.
1:19:32Well, you don't have to say even for, because what's more fun than writing a cool iOS application?
1:19:38Writing an iOS game.
1:19:40It's a reasonable yardstick to say, "How much fun is it to do this thing?"
1:19:45And then how many people can do it at all?
1:19:48All development has a good number in the how many people can do it at all because only
1:19:54certain people have the desire or tolerance to learn all the SOTR crap you have to learn
1:19:58to be a programmer, right?
1:19:59So people just aren't into it, like, "That's great, that's good for us, right?
1:20:02It helps us make more money because most people don't want to learn this crap."
1:20:07But game development of all the kinds of programs you're going to write, writing a game, like
1:20:12if you talk to any programmer, a lot of the first programming experiences is, I wanted
1:20:16to write a game.
1:20:17Because people who like to program maybe also like computer games, and I would like to write
1:20:20one of those.
1:20:21And even if you don't end up as a game programmer, how many of us, I know certainly my first
1:20:24programs I ever wrote were game programs, and I certainly didn't end up as a game programmer.
1:20:28Game programming is fun, so if it's fun, it's not looking good for what are my chances of
1:20:33making a lot of money doing this.
1:20:35In fact, it starts to become more like, what are my chances of making a hit movie or a
1:20:39best-selling novel.
1:20:41Games are kind of like that.
1:20:42It is a creative field, you need all sorts of skills that don't have anything to do with
1:20:46technical skills, and you need technical skills on top of that, which is like, "Oh, now it's
1:20:49really hard to find this one or two people who can do this," right?
1:20:52And also it's kind of a hit-driven culture where you have to have the right game at the
1:20:56right time, and boy, that's tough.
1:20:59I would not be surprised to see that it is much harder to make a living selling games
1:21:03in the App Store than it is selling a to-do list application or a podcast application
1:21:08or anything else.
1:21:09games are a tough market because there is infinite competition. There are so many games.
1:21:17Games are also competing for attention with other things that you do to kill some time sometimes
1:21:24and have some fun sometimes. That includes things like social networking and movies and music.
1:21:29No one listens to music except me anymore. Other people watch movies and browse Twitter and
1:21:36and Facebook and post stupid stuff and like all of that is competing for time and attention
1:21:42with games. And so, and you know games have these immense price pressures are squeezed
1:21:47from all sides plus they have the problem of like you know if you make if you make an
1:21:52RSS reader you can ship a 1.0 that isn't very good that didn't take you very long
1:21:56to make and you can add to it over time. Games don't really work that way at least not
1:22:01most of the time that you know usually with a game you pretty much have to do all of it
1:22:05up front before you know whether anybody will buy it.
1:22:08And so it's just a really tough market.
1:22:10Unless you license IP and then you can do episodic content because you have a known
1:22:14property, you know, like it's just, it's much more like games are almost nothing like the
1:22:19application market and almost everything like the market for all their entertainment, whether
1:22:23it be television shows or movies or music or anything like that.
1:22:27There's a technical aspect to it and there's all sorts of those details that you have to
1:22:30know but that's just the kind of like adds a degree of difficulty to what is basically
1:22:34can you make a good game?
1:22:35Can you even think of a good game that's fun?
1:22:38And then can you implement that well?
1:22:40And then can you put it out into an extremely crowded market in a way that people even see
1:22:45it?
1:22:46It's really hard to do.
1:22:48Because there's no utility value.
1:22:50Like a podcast app, this helps me do a thing I like to do.
1:22:53It's like, it's different between, well, like I say, a podcast app helps you sort of play,
1:22:59do something you want to do, which is listen to podcasts.
1:23:01I'm trying to think of a game equivalent.
1:23:03I don't know if there is one.
1:23:04helps you manage your games, I don't know.
1:23:06But games are just like the thing that you do that's fun.
1:23:09It's like podcasts are the thing that you do that's fun.
1:23:12- Right, and games do have a few advantages
1:23:14over other app types.
1:23:16One of them being, for example, that they don't really
1:23:21compete directly as much as you might think
1:23:24in the way that people usually only use
1:23:27like one RSS reader at a time.
1:23:30And they might only ever buy one or two RSS readers.
1:23:33- Yeah, games are consumables, right?
1:23:34- Exactly, like games, like you download,
1:23:36you play it for a little while,
1:23:38and then you move on and you buy more games.
1:23:40And so it's not like, it's easier for multiple games
1:23:43to reach the same customer.
1:23:45Whereas if you're in a category of competing similar apps,
1:23:48chances are most people are just gonna pick one of those.
1:23:51- Or like email apps, like people aren't switching,
1:23:53a small group of nerds is even looking
1:23:55for alternative email apps.
1:23:56Most people have an email app,
1:23:57they're gonna stick with it or whatever,
1:23:58but games are consumable.
1:24:00That's actually a better fit for the App Store
1:24:02in that respect, I guess,
1:24:03It's like what do I do for upgrade?
1:24:04But you don't you just make another game or you make game version two and you know
1:24:08Make it a sequel and it's a separate app because everyone like no one has a problem with that
1:24:12Yeah, well somebody does but you know, yeah, but it's the same thing. It's like well then how do you know?
1:24:16It's just everyone wants to make a game and making a good game is really hard because it's just not technical
1:24:22It's not really UI. Although you might have to do some UI but it is really hard to make a good game
1:24:26I think though to end this on a positive note
1:24:31You know when when the when all these posts first came out like two weeks ago whenever whenever Jared started it
1:24:36When these first came out it looked pretty grim for the first few days
1:24:40in the last few days, I've seen a lot of posts from people who are making it work and
1:24:47They're they're they're inspirational in a way, you know, they're they're motivational at least where?
1:24:53You can make this work
1:24:56But you have to both
1:24:58do it intelligently in a way that will succeed and have
1:25:01reasonable expectations on how much you're going to make and you know base your decisions on that so
1:25:07For instance, you know and John you were saying earlier like a lot of people want to be app developers
1:25:13So therefore there are a lot of app developers and a lot of people doing it for very little money
1:25:16Because a lot of people do it on the side. There's nothing wrong with that. That's how I started
1:25:20Casey you're a side app developer John you would be if you could write apps in Perl
1:25:25This is how lots of people start.
1:25:27Like, and that's, and a lot of people never
1:25:30take it full time.
1:25:31That's what they always, they always do part time,
1:25:34side projects, mostly as hobbies that might bring in
1:25:37a little money here and there.
1:25:39And there's nothing wrong with that.
1:25:41You should probably start with that
1:25:43if you're interested in doing this at all.
1:25:45Don't quit your job and have this romantic notion
1:25:47of sitting in a coffee shop and writing apps all day
1:25:49and collecting a bunch of money.
1:25:50Like, it's harder than that.
1:25:52And it's gonna take longer than that
1:25:53before you reach that point.
1:25:55Like in the past year that I've been working on Overcast,
1:25:58it really hasn't been full time.
1:26:01I've had this show and I've had my blog.
1:26:04Those both bring in money, they both take time and work,
1:26:08and so I didn't have zero income for the last year.
1:26:12I had income from those two things.
1:26:14I don't think I would have done Overcast
1:26:16if I had zero income for a year.
1:26:18I think I would have tried to find some way
1:26:20to continue having money come in every month.
1:26:23And we all start from a very small amount.
1:26:26Like, you look at apps today,
1:26:28it's similar to putting AdSense on a blog in 2006.
1:26:33Like, I had AdSense on my blog in 2006,
1:26:35and I was extremely happy.
1:26:37I was getting like fast text numbers at most.
1:26:40And Google had like a minimum
1:26:43where they wouldn't even send you a check
1:26:44until you had at least, I think it was 100 bucks.
1:26:47It was like 50 or 100 bucks,
1:26:48and I only hit that twice in the entire time I ran ads.
1:26:51So I made a total of like 200 bucks maybe in like five years.
1:26:56You were my ad sense on my blog.
1:26:58It was miserable.
1:26:59And I was working on that frequently.
1:27:01I was writing like probably once a week at least.
1:27:04The problem is like the amount of effort
1:27:07you put into something does not correlate directly
1:27:10to how much other people are willing to pay for it.
1:27:13And so you have to have reasonable expectations
1:27:16of no matter how much effort you put into an app of type X,
1:27:21whatever it is you want to make,
1:27:23you're probably not going to earn more than
1:27:27a few thousand bucks in the best case scenario.
1:27:29Rather than bemoan that and complain
1:27:32and say it's Apple's fault,
1:27:33'cause you know, there are things Apple can do to improve,
1:27:36but this is mostly not Apple's problem.
1:27:38I think if you look at what something
1:27:39like _DavidSmith is doing,
1:27:42he makes many apps.
1:27:43He tries things all the time.
1:27:46He said on one of his shows recently,
1:27:47I think he's made like a couple hundred apps,
1:27:50And they aren't all still in existence in the store,
1:27:52but he's created something like a couple hundred apps.
1:27:56And he sees what works.
1:27:57He doesn't put a ton of time into version one
1:27:59if he can help it.
1:28:00He sees what works.
1:28:02And in the ones that work, he puts the time in
1:28:04that they earn, basically, from their sales.
1:28:07Proportionally, if something sells well,
1:28:09he'll give it the attention, more attention to succeed more.
1:28:12And if something doesn't sell that well,
1:28:14he's going to, he discontinues it and moves on.
1:28:17That's a really smart approach.
1:28:19It's a very pragmatic approach,
1:28:20it's a very effective approach,
1:28:22and it's very realistic of what the store actually is.
1:28:25I saw another post from a guy who said,
1:28:27I'll try to find these in the show notes, I'm sorry.
1:28:30I don't remember the names offhand,
1:28:31but I saw another post from a guy who said,
1:28:34he develops apps on the side, or as most of his income,
1:28:38but he lives a really inexpensive lifestyle,
1:28:40and he can go skiing with his family
1:28:42and be present for his kids,
1:28:43and he just lowers his expectations
1:28:46and lowers his expenses,
1:28:47and he can do what he wants.
1:28:50That's great.
1:28:51If you go into it with reasonable expectations,
1:28:55you can succeed, but you have to know what the market is
1:28:59and know what you're likely to get out of it.
1:29:02And I saw also, like Justin Williams had a post
1:29:04saying that he doesn't think you should spend
1:29:06any more than 90 days building version 1.0.
1:29:09'Cause that way, you know, you get it out there quickly
1:29:11and if it's gonna be a flop, you can move on quickly.
1:29:13And if it's gonna be a hit, then you can know that
1:29:15and you can choose how much you invest in it in the future.
1:29:18That again, greater device.
1:29:20This is all about, and I know I just violated all this
1:29:23with Overcast, but you know, keep in mind,
1:29:25as I said, that was not full-time work.
1:29:27It's all about limiting your risk
1:29:32and lowering your expectations,
1:29:34and then adapting to the conditions
1:29:36that actually happen once you put it out there.
1:29:38There was also, oh man, what's, I forget the name,
1:29:41what's the guy who's running the four-part experiment
1:29:43who had an app and he made it free
1:29:44They made an in-app purchase.
1:29:46An app store experiment, Stuart Hall.
1:29:47All right, now I know.
1:29:48Okay, so it's Stuart Hall.
1:29:50We'll into it in the show notes.
1:29:51It's called an app store experiment,
1:29:52and there's like five or so parts.
1:29:55And it's really good.
1:29:57It's a really good read.
1:29:58So he started out, he made an app
1:29:59called the 7 Minute Workout.
1:30:01It does something relatively simple,
1:30:03but there is a market for it,
1:30:04but it's a relatively simple app.
1:30:06And he started out with it being a paid app,
1:30:10and then it went in-app purchase, free app,
1:30:12and he's trying all these additional things,
1:30:15and he's showing the results,
1:30:16he's showing all the actual numbers the whole time
1:30:18of like, you know, here's, like, every,
1:30:19I think like every six months or so,
1:30:20he posts a new thing saying,
1:30:22here's what I've done in the last six months,
1:30:23here's the results that it has had and everything.
1:30:26This is the way to do the App Store.
1:30:28You take an approach like this,
1:30:30or an approach like _DavidSmith's,
1:30:31where he makes a lot of small apps first,
1:30:33and then decides what to work on, you know,
1:30:35or what to give more time to afterwards,
1:30:37that is how you succeed.
1:30:39- See, I think this blog discussion,
1:30:41as it's spread out from our circle,
1:30:42we start to get into things that are different.
1:30:44Because in our circle,
1:30:45this is the people who want to sort of live the life
1:30:47where you want to make an application
1:30:49that you think is cool,
1:30:50that does something that you're interested in,
1:30:52and you want to make it the way you want to make it,
1:30:54and then you hope people will pay for that.
1:30:55And that is kind of the central core
1:30:56of our little circle of people, right?
1:30:58- Right.
1:30:59- And as this discussion has spread out,
1:31:00you start getting into the people,
1:31:02and I think underscores at the fringes of our circle,
1:31:04because he has kind of the same values as us,
1:31:06but a lot of the people closer into this central heart
1:31:09of the indie lifestyle would say,
1:31:11"Yeah, but I don't wanna make 100 apps
1:31:13"'cause I probably wouldn't be into a lot of those apps
1:31:14"or whatever."
1:31:15And underscore and like,
1:31:17is there a person, Stewart, I already forgot his name.
1:31:20- Stewart Hall. - Who's doing this app.
1:31:21One of the things that they're into
1:31:23is the business part of it, the gaming part of it,
1:31:27figuring out what do I do to my business
1:31:29to like, I'm turning dials here.
1:31:31Some of those dials have to do with writing code,
1:31:32but a lot of the dials have to do with things like pricing
1:31:34or which app should I make or what should I, you know,
1:31:37that's the thing that they're into.
1:31:38And as you go farther and farther out from that circle,
1:31:40you'll find some guy who's making like an iOS application
1:31:43that helps the reception desk at a dental office.
1:31:45And he's making a living doing that,
1:31:46but he's so far outside our circle,
1:31:47he's never seen any of these blog posts, right?
1:31:49But he's happily making a living doing that,
1:31:51and you're like, but I don't wanna make a dental app.
1:31:53It's not interesting to me.
1:31:54It's like, oh, something is not as fun anymore, right?
1:31:56You know, as you move away from the center of,
1:31:58I wanna do exactly what I want, when I want,
1:32:00I wanna do an awesome job on it, and I wanna get paid.
1:32:02Like, yeah, everybody wants that.
1:32:04And if your skills and interests
1:32:06and what you do happens to coincide with the way they make money, that's great, but as
1:32:10you spread out, people have different interests.
1:32:11Maybe someone is super into making applications for a dentist's office, right?
1:32:16And that's what he wants to do.
1:32:18Maybe he wouldn't be in our circles, or maybe he's just like, "Well, I'll do this because
1:32:21this makes money."
1:32:22Like, it's the desire, the center of the thing is like this sort of selfish desire to just
1:32:28be happy doing what you want to do and be successful.
1:32:30And as you tell people, actually you have to be farther away from the thing you like.
1:32:34you have to be more like underscore big is and it's like but that's not fun to me it's obviously fun for underscore
1:32:38So he's doing it right? He's actually interested in that but you said but that's not fun for me
1:32:40What I want to make is a whatever app and or I want to make games
1:32:44That's all I want to make and it's like well
1:32:46you know good luck like
1:32:48It's not everyone can do exactly what they want to do
1:32:52Some people are willing to get off of like I mean, it's we should have under score on the show
1:32:56I said like would you prefer to just make one beautiful application that you're really into or
1:33:00Do you actually like this part of it where you try to make lots of like is that actually interesting to you?
1:33:04And it seems like he's always blogging about it everything seems like that that aspect of it is interesting to him
1:33:08And it's just he's lucky in that
1:33:10That interests him and he's good at it
1:33:12And it meshes with this skill set and that allows him to be successful and all these people who are having small success
1:33:18They were doing what they wanted to and they were doing it the best they could it just turns out that that is
1:33:22Not a formula for making money at this particular time
1:33:26And there are many things they can do to change their behavior to make more money
1:33:30but the question for them is do those changes make me less happy and
1:33:34Is it worth it for me or is there something else I could do that's radically different like say get it do iOS
1:33:40contracting or just get a regular job or you know
1:33:43Get a job in totally unrelated field and continue to do this on the side that would give me an overall happier life again
1:33:49it's back to like, you know, essentially trying to do what's going to make you the happiest and
1:33:54Picking an arbitrary goal like I want to be a successful indie developer
1:33:57If that's not actually gonna make you happy because of what it takes to be an indie developer. You should do something else, you know
1:34:02So in summary despite what we thought the forecast isn't as overcast as we initially believed
1:34:10Thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week need top brewer and
1:34:22fracture and we will see you next week.
1:34:25Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin
1:34:32'Cause it was accidental (accidental)
1:34:35Oh, it was accidental (accidental)
1:34:38John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him
1:34:43'Cause it was accidental (accidental)
1:34:46It was accidental (accidental)
1:34:48And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm
1:34:53And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them
1:34:58@C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S
1:35:03So that's Casey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M
1:35:07E-N-T Marco Arment S-I-R-A-C
1:35:12U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A
1:35:15It's accidental (It's accidental)
1:35:18♪ They didn't mean to ♪
1:35:20♪ Accidental ♪
1:35:21♪ Accidental ♪
1:35:23♪ Tech podcast ♪
1:35:25♪ So long ♪
1:35:27- You spent a long time workshopping that
1:35:29while we were talking?
1:35:30- Wow.
1:35:31- It's been a while since I've had an extremely cheesy joke
1:35:34to end the show.
1:35:35- It's been like two weeks.
1:35:36- Oh, shut up.
1:35:37- How is your show bot doing?
1:35:39Is it up?
1:35:40- Yeah, and actually somebody whose name
1:35:42I don't have in front of me,
1:35:44me, no, not the person, Robbie McKenny.
1:35:47McKinney?
1:35:48I don't know-- made a really good poll request,
1:35:52which I have a couple of minor quibbles with.
1:35:54So I didn't-- hey, I'm calling it like I see it.
1:35:58Anyway, I'm assuming this is a he.
1:36:01Made a poll request so it will periodically back itself up
1:36:05to pastebin.
1:36:06Wow.
1:36:07Which I thought was a very clever idea.
1:36:10It's complicated.
1:36:11It's not the solution.
1:36:12Yeah, it's like the Rube Goldberg machine
1:36:14to persistence.
1:36:15Oh, whatever.
1:36:16every three seconds it prints out a little piece of paper then ties itself to the leg of a bird and
1:36:20the bird flies off to a random direction. Why are you so mean to me? Why are you so mean? Anyway,
1:36:3010 foot pole named IBM don't like it. It was like two seconds of the show. I aspire to be retired.
1:36:37I actually was going to petition for my own title, but that is pretty good.
1:36:40Yeah, that's my pick from what I've seen so far.
1:36:44Who doesn't aspire to be retired? I mean, you aspire to be retired, do you not, Casey?
1:36:48Oh, I absolutely—I aspire to—
1:36:50It's not like full-fledged, like, John Roderick, like, "I have to be a retired CAA director."
1:36:54I just—just retired is fine.
1:36:56I don't aspire to be retired.
1:36:57You are retired.
1:36:59[laughter]
1:37:00But retirement, like, to me, the idea of not working is really boring.
1:37:05But, like, it's not not working. Retired means you no longer have your job.
1:37:09You still do the things that you like doing, it's just that you don't—you're not doing them because
1:37:13someone is telling you to.
1:37:15And that's your life almost all the time.
1:37:17It's kind of a blurry line, though.
1:37:18Like I said, if I was retired, my life
1:37:20would look a lot more like Marco's.
1:37:22I would still probably do tech-related things.
1:37:24It's just that I'm not doing them because someone is telling
1:37:27me to or because someone is paying me to.
1:37:28I'm just doing them because it's what I feel like doing.
1:37:30Well, as an example, if I was quote unquote "retired,"
1:37:33I would absolutely still write for my blog
1:37:36that not that many people read.
1:37:38I would still do the show.
1:37:40Because those are the things that I, 99% of the time,
1:37:43enjoy doing.
1:37:45I told you earlier, I really like my job,
1:37:47but I don't enjoy my job 99% of the time.
1:37:51Got to be in the parking lot sometime.
1:37:53Exactly.
1:37:54The title of mine that I was going to petition for,
1:37:56but I think the other one is better,
1:37:58was Full Stack Business Person, which I think John said.
1:38:02But I aspire to be retired is also pretty awesome.
1:38:06I like Full Stack Business Person better than that.
1:38:08And I think it's more at the heart of what
1:38:10discussing about having to do all the aspects of being
1:38:15successful, not just the ones that you like.
1:38:17I mean, in that respect, I guess that's
1:38:19the part of Marco's life that feels like working.
1:38:22I'm sure you enjoy the development part way more
1:38:24than the other parts, right?
1:38:25But you got to do the other parts.
1:38:27That's your version of-- that's your boss, basically.
1:38:30You know that you have to do the parts of maintaining
1:38:33your business and dealing with all that crap,
1:38:35because you know that's just part of it.
1:38:36And you hate managing people more
1:38:39Then you hate doing it yourself, so you're just gonna do it or just you know deal with it
1:38:43Right that that is essentially your boss
1:38:45But the thing is if I you know being retired is like well
1:38:48Whatever depending on the hobby that you pick there's probably some aspect of that too like for example say I'm retired
1:38:53I would probably still like to write things and maybe I would still write like big
1:38:55You know OS 10 reviews for our aesthetic and there's aspects of the writing process that I don't like too, but overall
1:39:02It's still worth it, so I would do the parts that I don't like
1:39:05Because overall I still like it and I would still feel like I'm retired and I don't have a boss telling me what to do
1:39:09But I'm still doing activities that have aspects of it that feel like drudgery because the overall I like this
1:39:15So it'd be like you wrote a show bot and then had everyone you knew and didn't know tear it apart
1:39:21No, that's not there's no you liked every part of that. I did
1:39:25Well, I got frustrated but I did like it overall but it's all the fun part like it's all development
1:39:30You're not like sure, you know like out there, you know trying to negotiate for a trademark
1:39:35mark on the name for your show bot or filling out paperwork for taxes for New York State
1:39:39like no no no no no no nothing like that I do not underestimate the is that that's another
1:39:44aspect we're gonna talk about this another aspect of the independent lifestyle like I
1:39:47think I dislike the business part of it even more than Marco does but you're saying something
1:39:51I think well it doesn't honestly it isn't that much work well as you've done it and
1:39:56you get used to it it's kind of becomes more routine but I right especially like once you
1:39:59cross the point where you're you're finally willing to hire an accountant it makes things
1:40:03so much easier for not that much money.
1:40:05And yeah, any business people who don't have an accountant,
1:40:09hire an accountant.
1:40:10- All the things that you've learned
1:40:11over your years of doing this,
1:40:13like that process of learning that, I would hate.
1:40:15Like you've already done it.
1:40:16You've learned it, you've set it up,
1:40:17you've like, but that was work to do that.
1:40:19Maybe you enjoyed it more than you've let on,
1:40:22but I definitely just not want it,
1:40:24like I have just no interest in that.
1:40:25I don't want to deal with it, don't want to learn it,
1:40:27don't want to get good at it, don't, ugh.
1:40:29- Well, but you know, there's also,
1:40:31there's like entire types of things
1:40:35that you have to deal with
1:40:36when working for someone else as well.
1:40:37Things like commuting, finding the business,
1:40:42dealing with the office and how things are done
1:40:43and how to file for vacation days and how to file--
1:40:45- You kinda train for those by going to school though
1:40:48because school and going to college kinda trains you
1:40:50on how to commute, how to live on your own,
1:40:52how to deal with bureaucracy, how to follow rules,
1:40:54how to show up places on time.
1:40:55All the things that part of the working life school
1:40:57essentially trains you for anyway.
1:40:58It's like by the time I'm done with school and ready to get a job, I already know how to do this.
1:41:02I already know how to commute. I already know how to use public transportation.
1:41:04I already know how to show up places on time and do assignments and you know like that and in that respect school is a preparation
1:41:10for the drudgery of
1:41:12Life, but all this business stuff of being an entrepreneur. It's like nothing prepares you for like
1:41:16Well, depending on what your major is
1:41:18I guess like starting your own business and dealing with like, you know
1:41:21All the incorporation and tax codes or like the part that you don't have to deal with having like lots of employees saying
1:41:27you're actually gonna start a real company
1:41:28with like 50 or 100 employees.
1:41:29There's a whole bunch of stuff about that
1:41:30that you don't know and that you would have to find out
1:41:32if you decided to do that, but you hate that so much
1:41:34you're just never gonna do it.
1:41:35- Right, well 'cause I did briefly have a full-time employee
1:41:39and it was awful, paperwork-wise, and so I stopped doing it.
1:41:42Even though awful just meant like I got an envelope
1:41:45from Paychex every two weeks 'cause I was paying them
1:41:48like 50 bucks a month to handle it all for me.
1:41:50And even that stressed me out
1:41:53'cause I didn't understand it fully
1:41:55and that bothered me.
1:41:58- Forget about HR issues, like if you have a big company
1:42:01where you're hiring 50 or 100 people, that's just, you know.
1:42:04- I'm not saying that running a company with employees
1:42:07is easier than going to work with somebody,
1:42:09but working for yourself as a self-prior,
1:42:12or like a one-person LLC, is pretty simple.
1:42:15And I would say it's simpler than most people
1:42:19who haven't done it probably think.
1:42:20Especially, please, for the love of God, hire an accountant.
1:42:23as long as you have an accountant
1:42:25and have a lawyer do the LLC papers.
1:42:28You'll be out of there for less than 2000 bucks probably
1:42:32for everything to be set up.
1:42:34The hardest part of working for yourself is the work.
1:42:38It's making the money.
1:42:40All this other stuff is very minor by comparison
1:42:43for most businesses that we would start.
1:42:44We're lucky, we're not trying to make stuff.
1:42:47We don't need to hire 10 people
1:42:49and have malpractice liability kind of insurances.
1:42:54We're not gonna make a product that kills somebody
1:42:57and then we get sued over it.
1:42:59We're not trying to sell somebody some appliance
1:43:02that they're gonna plug into their house
1:43:03and it's gonna set their house on fire.
1:43:04- It's much harder to start a restaurant, for example.
1:43:07- Oh yeah.
1:43:08- Then you have to have all this money up front,
1:43:09you have to take all this risk,
1:43:10you have to put your life savings into it,
1:43:12you have to get business loans,
1:43:12you have to hit up everyone you know for money,
1:43:14and you have a 90% chance of failure.
1:43:16- Yeah, exactly.
1:43:17kind of businesses we start are very, very easy to start and run by comparison.
1:43:23**Matt Stauffer:** Yeah. I mean, again, that's why it's like,
1:43:25how fun is it? And that's another aspect, how little risk is there involved? Can you do it
1:43:30in your spare time and do a lot of people think it's really cool? Starting a restaurant, just
1:43:34a lot of people think that's really cool, but you cannot do that in your spare time while you hold
1:43:38down a regular job very easily. Like physical businesses, starting a retail store or starting
1:43:43and stuff like that are much worse,
1:43:45which is why, you know, it's so many people writing apps.
1:43:49- Yeah, 'cause it only takes like 100 bucks
1:43:52and a few hours of time, and you have an app in the store.
1:43:55That's like, it takes so little.
1:43:58- Right, Casey?
1:43:59(laughing)
1:44:01- Well, that would be true if I had already known
1:44:03iOS development when I wrote Fast Text,
1:44:05and I know you were being silly,
1:44:07but if I were to write Fast Text again today,
1:44:10In fact, I have considered rewriting it in Swift.
1:44:13- That may be the fastest path to an iOS 8 compatible
1:44:18version, so just start over.
1:44:19- Honestly, that often is the answer to it.
1:44:21Whenever Apple changes stuff dramatically,
1:44:23iOS 8 dramatically changes all the auto-rotation stuff,
1:44:26and they replaced all of it basically.
1:44:29Starting over with a brand new app is definitely easier
1:44:35in some cases, especially if the app is relatively simple,
1:44:38like FastText is, it's definitely easier to start fresh
1:44:41than to try to carry forward this iOS 4 code base
1:44:45for five years.
1:44:47- Yeah, you're absolutely right.
1:44:49On a very random note, John, I'm a little disappointed
1:44:51in you because I ate fast food Italian last weekend
1:44:56and you did not berate me at all.
1:44:58- I saw you posted a picture of something.
1:45:00I didn't know what that was.
1:45:02- You've not been to Fazoli's?
1:45:04Oh, so good.
1:45:05- I did not recognize that.
1:45:06I mean it looked like you know the typical Olive Garden like hot dog buns with grease sprayed on
1:45:11People think that people think our breadsticks, but I thought maybe it was like like you had gone back to like
1:45:18Virginia Tech and like an old like you know like a place a place on campus that you were into I'm like well
1:45:24Whatever like maybe it's I don't know. I just know Italian food in Virginia anyway, so come on. Oh listen to this guy
1:45:30yes, you're right there's certainly no Italians in the entire Commonwealth of Virginia and
1:45:35Certainly none of them refugees
1:45:37Fazoli's is fast-food Italian. That is not a joke. It is like a fast casual
1:45:44I think it's what they call like a Panera Bread sort of thing and when you're in Fazoli's and you're dining in you get unlimited
1:45:50What did you call them grease sprayed hot dog buns?
1:45:54Yeah, more or less and and there there is a further was I don't know if there still is a Fazoli's
1:45:59in the town next to where Virginia Tech is and I used to love going there and
1:46:05and I haven't been to one in years
1:46:08and we were on our way back from the beach
1:46:10and I thought, you know, I think there's a fizzoli
1:46:14somewhere in Virginia Beach.
1:46:16And sure enough, we looked and there was one
1:46:18and I begged Erin, would it be okay if we stopped?
1:46:20And she said, absolutely.
1:46:22And it was delicious.
1:46:24- I'm looking through this menu here
1:46:26and I'm betting all of this is microwaved.
1:46:28- Probably.
1:46:30- Everything I've found so far could be easily microwaved.
1:46:32'Cause like, here's, so like I used to work
1:46:34an Italian restaurant, it was one of my BS jobs
1:46:35in high school, and I learned very quickly
1:46:38that you shouldn't order things like lasagna
1:46:41in an Italian restaurant. - Oh, I had that.
1:46:42- Because you're not gonna make somebody
1:46:46a single serving cube of lasagna when they order it.
1:46:49That doesn't make sense, it's impractical,
1:46:50it's probably impossible without taking a ton of time.
1:46:54Lasagna is made ahead of time and put in the fridge
1:46:56or frozen, and then when you order it,
1:46:58they microwave it and serve it to you on a plate.
1:47:00And looking at these kind of entrees they have here,
1:47:04I'm looking at all the same,
1:47:05like this probably all worked that way.
1:47:06They probably all are just like pre-made,
1:47:08in the freezer, waiting to be microwaved.
1:47:11Oh God.
1:47:12- The particular dish I had was the ultimate sampler,
1:47:15which I did not consume all of
1:47:18because I didn't have the room.
1:47:20But it is fettuccine alfredo, meat lasagna,
1:47:22spaghetti, and penne with meat sauce.
1:47:25- So starch, butter, butter, starch,
1:47:27beef, butter, and starch.
1:47:28- Oh, this is so good.
1:47:29What's the problem with fast food Italian?
1:47:32Fast food in terms of you walk up to someone, tell them what you want, and you keep standing
1:47:35there until you get the food.
1:47:36No, it was not that bad.
1:47:37Even if you take a little number, if you wait a couple minutes.
1:47:40It takes minimum three, four, five minutes to cook pasta, but the fast food Italian place
1:47:46is like, "Well, they have to have the pasta already ready, and they just dunk it into
1:47:48hot water."
1:47:49And it's like, "That's no good."
1:47:50It's like immediately just forget it.
1:47:53I would rather have a microwave thing of lasagna than some pasta that's been sitting around
1:47:57waiting for me to show up and they just dunk it in hot water
1:47:59and say, "Oh, here you go."
1:48:00Like, no, you can't have,
1:48:02there's no such thing as fast food pasta.
1:48:04Now other kinds of Italian food,
1:48:06I mean, the big restaurants make a bunch of lasagna anyway
1:48:08and cut up for you, but they make it that day.
1:48:10- Not always.
1:48:11- Well, you know, good Italian restaurant.
1:48:13- The place I worked at, they wouldn't even,
1:48:16this bothered the crap out of me.
1:48:18The bread they serve was frozen, you know, bought in,
1:48:22and we just like baked it for like 10 minutes,
1:48:24and it was all premature for warming it up though.
1:48:26the butter, they would have me take the butter cups
1:48:30from the tables that were half used
1:48:32and just top them off and send them back out.
1:48:35- That's probably illegal.
1:48:36- Yeah, and I resisted.
1:48:38Whenever I would not do that, they would yell at me
1:48:41and they would make me do it and oh man, it was--
1:48:45- Yeah, now fast food Italian should not be a thing.
1:48:49I guess I suppose pizza is kind of fast food Italian,
1:48:52but even a pizza takes a little while to cook and prepare.
1:48:55I don't know.
1:48:56I'm not into these places, Casey.
1:48:57I'm glad you enjoyed your terrible fast food Italian.
1:49:00You know where else I ate was at a Sonic Drive-In, which
1:49:03is also amazing.
1:49:04And I don't think you guys have that in the Northeast, because--
1:49:07Is this like a tour of the worst fast food
1:49:08restaurants in the country?
1:49:10Oh, it's so delicious.
1:49:11You know what it's like?
1:49:12You listening to me talk about how much I love fizzolis
1:49:15in Sonic is like the entire rest of the friggin' world,
1:49:18listening to you talk about fish.
1:49:19Cheesy bread hot dogs?
1:49:21I did not have that.
1:49:22I had just a cheeseburger.
1:49:24What color is that drink?
1:49:26What, is this made from food?
1:49:28- Which drink?
1:49:30- Any of them.
1:49:31(laughing)
1:49:31All of them that are shown on the website.
1:49:33They're all these like neon colors.
1:49:35(laughing)
1:49:36This is bright blue, it's like a pure cyan,
1:49:39like a bright cyan.
1:49:40(laughing)
1:49:42And then there's the hot dog that's in this cheese bun
1:49:44with cheese and bacon on top of the hot dog
1:49:46with cheese wrapped around it and cheese on top.
1:49:48Like, oh my God.
1:49:49- It's only 1,100 calories for one of these burgers.
1:49:52That's pretty low for fast food.
1:49:55- How much is one of these cheesy hot dogs?
1:49:57Let's see, the one they're showing on the front page,
1:50:00the Ultimate Cheese and Bacon Cheesy Bread dog.
1:50:02(laughing)
1:50:03What a name.
1:50:04Where do you find, where'd he get the info?
1:50:06Oh, your nutrition.
1:50:07I love, it's only 550 calories.
1:50:09That's not as much as I would've thought from,
1:50:11although it's only one hot dog.
1:50:13Presumably you'd probably order two of them, but.
1:50:16(laughing)
1:50:17Yeah, wow.
1:50:19- Ultimate Cheese and Bacon Cheesy Bread dog.
1:50:22still only 550 calories.
1:50:24- The teal, cyan drink I was seeing on the home screen
1:50:28is apparently Powerade brand Mountain Blast Slush,
1:50:32which tastes like mountain blasts, I guess.
1:50:35Only 150 calories for that.
1:50:38- See?
1:50:39- Oh wait, that's a wacky pack.
1:50:41What is a wacky pack?
1:50:42See, this is one of those sites where like every other word
1:50:45has the registered trademark symbol after it.
1:50:47(laughing)
1:50:48'Cause like none of this is actually food.
1:50:50It's all just like concepts and marketing trends
1:50:53they've invented.
1:50:54- Somehow fast food burgers and hot dogs don't bother me
1:50:57as much as like fast food Italian, quote unquote.
1:50:59- It's because you're Italian, that's why.
1:51:01- I don't know, I don't know if it's like the,
1:51:02I guess the like burgers and hot dogs
1:51:04were always kind of fast food and there's not.
1:51:06- They're mostly soy protein anyway.
1:51:08- Yeah, I mean we have Shake Shack here now, I like that.
1:51:11- I've never had Shake Shack but I'd really love to.
1:51:14I've heard it's excellent.
1:51:15- Shake Shack is very good.
1:51:16There is usually a big line at the ones in New York,
1:51:18I don't know how the ones everywhere else are.
1:51:20But it is very good.
1:51:22I mean, it's greasy, but it's like greasy fast food
1:51:26done by foodies.
1:51:28So it is a high quality implementation of greasy fast food.
1:51:33- Do you guys have Five Guys burgers and fries
1:51:36up where you are?
1:51:37- Yeah, we have them too.
1:51:37And comparing them, they're different.
1:51:39I think Shake Shack feels a little bit more like,
1:51:44it feels like it's worse for you when you're eating it,
1:51:46which can be good and bad.
1:51:47I I don't think there's any real like health or calorie difference between them like five guys feels more like
1:51:55It was made by
1:51:57You in your house or backyard and Shake Shack feels more like it was made in a restaurant because I mean they use the potato
1:52:03Bun which maybe you wouldn't use at home and their burgers are a little different. I like them both. I think
1:52:08Five guys fries are better and five guys has more variety in their menu
1:52:13But like I stopped going to you know McDonald's and Burger King or whatever
1:52:16I guess after I graduated college
1:52:18And I think only reason I went to them there is because they were like in the food court
1:52:21And I could buy them with my little you know points card thing
1:52:23But I don't really go to those anymore, but shake when Shake Shack came
1:52:27I started going to that and I realized this is like
1:52:29Making up for all those years that I never went to McDonald's Burger King or Wendy or any other fast-food place because now I can go
1:52:34to
1:52:35Shake Shack and pay way more money and wait on a humongous line or have my poor wife wait on a humongous line rather
1:52:40and
1:52:42And get burgers again. I mean we make burgers at home and stuff too, but
1:52:45Shave Shack ones are better than the ones I make at home and probably much worse for me
1:52:49See this this is a totally southern thing, but we have a thing in North Carolina and Virginia called cookout and
1:52:54they you can get like 44 pounds of food for five bucks or something like that, but um, but it is
1:53:02Just like you were at a cookout in your backyard. It is
1:53:07Eerie how similar the burgers taste but my backyard cookouts aren't that good though. I want better for them
1:53:13Why wouldn't you just have a cookout cookout is not that hard to have and I'm not I'm no good
1:53:18I'm no good at making burgers to home. Not that I've really tried to do anything special. We make them at home
1:53:23they're alright, but I
1:53:25Recently decided that it's not really worth grilling burgers most of the time I can like grilling hot dogs
1:53:31It's so much easier because they're pre-cooked. So you can't really overcook them and they're very
1:53:36it's very obvious like when they're done and you're like it's just so much you
1:53:41and then you can have two of them or you can do different things like you don't
1:53:44you don't get all full from having one and the hot dogs are slightly worse for
1:53:48you probably than burgers slightly but you know the ones that are all beef it's
1:53:52mostly just you know it's just beef and nitrites so yeah well they have a low
1:53:57nitride nitrate the ones that taste bad yeah the whole ever I got a whole foods
1:54:03hot dogs once like they have they I think they have like the no nitrides
1:54:06bacon and Whole Foods. They have all sorts of like healthier equivalents of healthy food.
1:54:09Oh yeah, and they're all awful.
1:54:10They're just terrible.
1:54:11Yeah, no, I actually, this is so sad. I recently discovered there's, I don't know what the brand
1:54:18name is, but there's this brand of like hipster Brooklyn hot dogs. They're actually made in
1:54:22Brooklyn and it's like $8 for six of them. But they're really good. They're like super
1:54:29footlong thin, they have the natural casing and they're all beef.
1:54:31Yeah, if you want that there's a commercial option, which is also really expensive,
1:54:35but this is basically the hot dogs I buy as I figure out if I'm gonna have something terrible for me it better taste damn good.
1:54:39The terrible thing.
1:54:42Boar's Head natural casing footlong hot dog.
1:54:46Yeah, it's very similar to those like the I because I my store has those too. I almost got those
1:54:50Yeah, they're very similar. Those are like seven dollars for a pack or something like that. Yeah, they're they're good though
1:54:55Like well the ones I had that were just similar
1:54:56they're they're good because it only has like four ingredients and you know, it's mostly beef salt and a casing and
1:55:03They're right and you know given how rarely I actually eat hot dogs
1:55:06I'm willing to spend a dollar 25 on each one if I if I have to because they're it's they are really good
1:55:13Should look that up good deal for said down where you're a Casey
1:55:15Absolutely. Yeah, you should try those everyone in this podcast should try those particular hot dogs
1:55:21because I think most people don't buy them because they look weird and
1:55:23People are afraid of them because they say natural casing try it
1:55:26I like them so much better than every other hot dog
1:55:29In fact, we don't buy anything except Boris Head hot dogs,
1:55:32'cause I won't eat anything else at this point.
1:55:34And then you have the regular choice,
1:55:35Boris Head hot dogs, and the footlong ones.
1:55:37And yeah, they're expensive or whatever,
1:55:39but it's worth trying once to see if you care
1:55:41about the difference.
1:55:42- Yeah, there's a hot dog shop very, very near to,
1:55:45actually across the street from where I work,
1:55:47and don't be creepy, and it is really awesome,
1:55:52in part because the casing has that really awesome snap
1:55:57to it, and oh, that's the best.
1:55:58- Yeah, that's natural casing, yeah.
1:56:00Yeah, and Pan in the chat mentions Nathan's
1:56:04with the natural casing.
1:56:05Those are hard to find around here,
1:56:07but I think they're the best tasting ones I've had,
1:56:10that the Nathan's natural casing footlongs.
1:56:12But yeah, my regular store doesn't even have them,
1:56:15and yeah, they're a little hard to find.
1:56:17But yeah, I figure too, like if you're eating hot dogs
1:56:20so often that paying about 75 cents to a dollar per hot dog
1:56:27is a big problem for you,
1:56:29I think you're eating too many hot dogs.
1:56:31- That's probably true.
1:56:33Or you may be a picky toddler.
1:56:36- That's, yeah, that's fair.
1:56:37- Lots of kids will only eat hot dogs.
1:56:39- Yes, yeah, this rule exempts anyone under the age of 17.
1:56:42Otherwise, you're eating too many.
1:56:43If you're an adult and eating too many hot dogs,
1:56:46then yeah, that's a problem.
1:56:47And if you're not eating that many hot dogs
1:56:49and you can afford a dollar per dog or whatever,
1:56:52yeah, get these good ones 'cause they really are better.
1:56:55- What you really need to find though,
1:56:56And my friend Phil, he has found up in the DC area,
1:57:01this guy, what is the name of the business?
1:57:05I don't remember, but it's a guy who makes sausages.
1:57:09His name is Lothar.
1:57:10He's like 6'3" and 300 pounds, and he's from Hamburg.
1:57:15And-- - Perfect.
1:57:16- Or something like that.
1:57:17I forget, somewhere in Germany.
1:57:18And oh my goodness, his sausages are wonderful.
1:57:23And that is a terrible poll quote
1:57:25that I'm gonna pay for later in life.
1:57:27(laughing)
1:57:28But nevertheless, - That's going
1:57:29to the front of the show.
1:57:29- I am now committed.
1:57:31But yes, the sausages that Lothar makes are excellent.
1:57:36And I should just stop talking now.
1:57:39Can we be done?
1:57:40(laughing)
1:57:41- This is turning into a crazy food podcast.
1:57:42Marco wanted to cut most of this out.
1:57:44- Yeah, definitely.
1:57:44Except for Casey's sausage love.
1:57:46- Yeah, great.
1:57:47Thanks for that.
1:57:49Oh, God.
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