Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:03 ◼   ► From Relay, this is Connected, episode 535.

00:00:11 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and NetSuite.

00:00:14 ◼   ► I'm your annual chairman, Federico Vittucci,

00:00:16 ◼   ► and it's my pleasure to introduce Mr. Steven Hackett

00:00:19 ◼   ► to the show.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Hello, Steven.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Man, I don't have a title.

00:00:22 ◼   ► It's bumming me out.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Well--

00:00:25 ◼   ► Do better, right?

00:00:25 ◼   ► Just get good.

00:00:26 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:00:29 ◼   ► You got to get good.

00:00:31 ◼   ► Make better guesses.

00:00:32 ◼   ► I am joined by our keynote chairman, Mr. Mike Hurley.

00:00:37 ◼   ► Still feels good to have a name.

00:00:38 ◼   ► A name, yeah.

00:00:40 ◼   ► I'm happy to still have something

00:00:42 ◼   ► to hold on to for a while.

00:00:44 ◼   ► That's good.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Hey, speaking of holding on to things,

00:00:49 ◼   ► we need to make something right.

00:00:52 ◼   ► In September, during the podcastathon,

00:00:54 ◼   ► we had a segment in which we taught Jason how to coin flip.

00:00:59 ◼   ► And he graduated coin flip university.

00:01:04 ◼   ► So we need to update the bill of Rickies.

00:01:09 ◼   ► I still think we can use dice by p-calc, but in person,

00:01:13 ◼   ► I think Jason could be allowed to make coin flips again.

00:01:19 ◼   ► So I think we just take out the lifetime ban bullet point.

00:01:22 ◼   ► Oh, my-- oh, my god.

00:01:24 ◼   ► We're doing it?

00:01:25 ◼   ► We're doing it.

00:01:25 ◼   ► He successfully flipped a coin multiple times.

00:01:29 ◼   ► It was-- it was--

00:01:30 ◼   ► Federico was weird.

00:01:31 ◼   ► I was there, and I don't really believe it.

00:01:33 ◼   ► The man knows how to do it now.

00:01:35 ◼   ► So it isn't fair to uphold the ban.

00:01:38 ◼   ► It's like watching somebody learning, I don't know,

00:01:41 ◼   ► how to smoke or whatever.

00:01:43 ◼   ► Like, he's doing it now.

00:01:44 ◼   ► I mean, or just flip a coin, which is what he did then.

00:01:48 ◼   ► Or whistling, you know?

00:01:49 ◼   ► Like, as he continued to whistle.

00:01:51 ◼   ► What I'll say is, because we've got to observe the rules,

00:01:54 ◼   ► let's just make a mark on the bill of Rickies.

00:01:56 ◼   ► We will need to come back to this when the time is right,

00:01:59 ◼   ► and we will adjust the wording.

00:02:01 ◼   ► OK.

00:02:02 ◼   ► I will do a comment.

00:02:03 ◼   ► For context, I will say, whenever we do it,

00:02:07 ◼   ► I would still like to maintain in the written form the fact

00:02:13 ◼   ► that Jason was bad at it before and then got good.

00:02:20 ◼   ► It's like Jason Snell previously had a lifetime ban

00:02:23 ◼   ► on flipping coins in relation to the Rickies.

00:02:26 ◼   ► However.

00:02:27 ◼   ► However, yes.

00:02:28 ◼   ► And there needs to be the word "however" at some point

00:02:31 ◼   ► in the phrasing.

00:02:32 ◼   ► OK.

00:02:33 ◼   ► All right.

00:02:33 ◼   ► OK.

00:02:34 ◼   ► I'm making a comment on the page in Notion.

00:02:36 ◼   ► So next time we play a game, we will look at this.

00:02:39 ◼   ► And I will also just state for the record, based on--

00:02:42 ◼   ► it's not in my power to summarize

00:02:44 ◼   ► the amount of feedback that we have received

00:02:46 ◼   ► about the previous games.

00:02:48 ◼   ► Let's just say, like, we're all aware

00:02:49 ◼   ► that there could be some potential issues

00:02:51 ◼   ► with the new Bill of Rickies, but the fun will

00:02:53 ◼   ► be finding that out together.

00:02:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:56 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:02:57 ◼   ► It's basically what I'm going to say is, we'll see how it goes.

00:03:00 ◼   ► And we're all going to go on this world of adventure

00:03:03 ◼   ► together as we score this throughout the year.

00:03:05 ◼   ► Something that I thought about, like,

00:03:06 ◼   ► is if there is an Apple event during my parental leave,

00:03:13 ◼   ► there's going to be some interesting--

00:03:16 ◼   ► because obviously, I will nominate somebody, right,

00:03:18 ◼   ► to play the game.

00:03:19 ◼   ► It's just like when I was gone in October.

00:03:21 ◼   ► No big deal.

00:03:22 ◼   ► Sure.

00:03:22 ◼   ► But you had nothing to lose.

00:03:24 ◼   ► So if that person loses for me, then--

00:03:27 ◼   ► Then they lose.

00:03:28 ◼   ► --then I don't know.

00:03:28 ◼   ► Then I don't know.

00:03:29 ◼   ► No, no.

00:03:30 ◼   ► I will have to contest it.

00:03:31 ◼   ► You make them your stand-in.

00:03:33 ◼   ► I'll have to contest it, because I don't know about you,

00:03:36 ◼   ► but I know the Bill of Rickies, and there's

00:03:38 ◼   ► nothing in the Bill of Rickies that talks about this.

00:03:40 ◼   ► Well, you should have thought that before you had a kid.

00:03:43 ◼   ► That's why I had my children before the Bill of Rickies,

00:03:46 ◼   ► to avoid this.

00:03:47 ◼   ► That is not why that happened.

00:03:49 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:03:49 ◼   ► What I'm saying is, I'm sure it will be fine,

00:03:52 ◼   ► but we'll see, you know?

00:03:54 ◼   ► You got to pick somebody good.

00:03:55 ◼   ► True champion or not.

00:03:57 ◼   ► Maybe I'll pick one of you.

00:03:59 ◼   ► That would be complicated.

00:04:02 ◼   ► You thought about that?

00:04:03 ◼   ► You know, who knows what's going to happen.

00:04:05 ◼   ► We'll find out.

00:04:05 ◼   ► Maybe Federico and I play against ChatGBT, you know?

00:04:09 ◼   ► No, we did that once, didn't we?

00:04:11 ◼   ► We played with ChatGBT once, and the people

00:04:14 ◼   ► who make the Rickies websites were very upset with us.

00:04:17 ◼   ► They were upset.

00:04:18 ◼   ► It's true.

00:04:19 ◼   ► The eternal struggle.

00:04:20 ◼   ► That's the eternal struggle.

00:04:21 ◼   ► It's true.

00:04:22 ◼   ► We'll see what happens.

00:04:22 ◼   ► I don't think it's something I need to worry about,

00:04:24 ◼   ► because I don't think there's going

00:04:25 ◼   ► to be an Apple event before WWDC, but you can never know.

00:04:29 ◼   ► No, I think there'll be some new products,

00:04:31 ◼   ► potentially, when you're out, but I think

00:04:32 ◼   ► it's all press release stuff.

00:04:33 ◼   ► You're not going to have a video for an M4 iPad Air or an M4

00:04:38 ◼   ► MacBook Air.

00:04:40 ◼   ► Well, lots of people will tell you that the iPhone SE is

00:04:42 ◼   ► the most important phone that Apple makes,

00:04:44 ◼   ► so they'll do an event for that, but I

00:04:46 ◼   ► don't think that that's the case by any stretch.

00:04:50 ◼   ► Follow up.

00:04:52 ◼   ► Speaking of devices that people think

00:04:53 ◼   ► are more important than they actually are--

00:04:54 ◼   ► Oh my gosh.

00:04:56 ◼   ► Wow, OK.

00:04:57 ◼   ► Let's talk about the big iPad Air.

00:04:59 ◼   ► Stephen, what did people write in to tell us about?

00:05:01 ◼   ► So many people wrote in to tell us

00:05:03 ◼   ► that they love the big iPad Air.

00:05:04 ◼   ► So listener Robbie wrote in.

00:05:08 ◼   ► This is Robbie.

00:05:08 ◼   ► "I'm a musician and teacher and know many professionals

00:05:11 ◼   ► who only buy the Pro model iPad to use

00:05:15 ◼   ► the app Four Score to read sheet music at a legible size."

00:05:20 ◼   ► Four Score has come up before on Mac power users.

00:05:22 ◼   ► When we interview musicians, it's very popular.

00:05:25 ◼   ► But it's not-- go back to Robbie-- it's not power hungry.

00:05:28 ◼   ► You don't need an iPad Pro to run it.

00:05:29 ◼   ► People just want the big screen.

00:05:31 ◼   ► "Many of my peers were pleased at the announcement

00:05:33 ◼   ► of a more affordable large iPad and will likely

00:05:36 ◼   ► update to the large Air next cycle using it

00:05:40 ◼   ► only for live performances."

00:05:42 ◼   ► And Robbie has a link.

00:05:44 ◼   ► We'll put it in the show notes talking

00:05:46 ◼   ► about their rehearsal tech setup, which

00:05:48 ◼   ► I found really interesting.

00:05:49 ◼   ► So good use there, I think.

00:05:53 ◼   ► And then listener Duncan wrote in.

00:05:55 ◼   ► "Another reason that the 13-inch iPad Air exists

00:05:58 ◼   ► is for businesses.

00:05:59 ◼   ► I have multiple local restaurants

00:06:01 ◼   ► in my city that have a 13-inch iPad Pro at the host stand

00:06:05 ◼   ► to run the seating application."

00:06:07 ◼   ► So like, you know, these booths are taken.

00:06:10 ◼   ► These are waiting, that sort of thing.

00:06:12 ◼   ► This is obviously overkill for the powerful iPad Pro.

00:06:15 ◼   ► I'm sure there are other business applications that

00:06:18 ◼   ► would be a better fit for the 13-inch iPad Air.

00:06:21 ◼   ► A lower cost is a win for these small businesses.

00:06:25 ◼   ► Also good.

00:06:27 ◼   ► Also good.

00:06:28 ◼   ► So yeah, people are excited about it, you know?

00:06:31 ◼   ► As they should be.

00:06:32 ◼   ► But it doesn't sound like any of these people

00:06:34 ◼   ► have actually bought one.

00:06:37 ◼   ► Well, I mean, Robbie sounds like he's going to.

00:06:39 ◼   ► Yeah, but he hasn't.

00:06:40 ◼   ► So he might change his mind when the time comes.

00:06:43 ◼   ► What if they made a bigger iPad Mini, like a 13-inch iPad Mini?

00:06:46 ◼   ► Yeah, what if, you know?

00:06:50 ◼   ► You know?

00:06:51 ◼   ► We want Apple to get weird.

00:06:53 ◼   ► Let's do it.

00:06:53 ◼   ► Come on, Apple, think about it.

00:06:55 ◼   ► Think about it.

00:06:55 ◼   ► iPad Mini Plus.

00:06:57 ◼   ► iPad Mini Max.

00:07:00 ◼   ► Uh-huh.

00:07:01 ◼   ► See, they need you in these rooms, Steven.

00:07:03 ◼   ► You know, Apple really went downhill after I quit, you know?

00:07:07 ◼   ► Yes, that's true.

00:07:09 ◼   ► I forget that when you said that,

00:07:10 ◼   ► forgot that you worked at Apple.

00:07:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I was a genius, you know?

00:07:15 ◼   ► Conflict of interest right there, you know?

00:07:17 ◼   ► Wow.

00:07:18 ◼   ► I never worked at Apple.

00:07:19 ◼   ► I never worked at Apple.

00:07:20 ◼   ► Federico, you ever worked at Apple?

00:07:22 ◼   ► Never.

00:07:24 ◼   ► Can Steven be trusted, really?

00:07:25 ◼   ► Like, if you think about it?

00:07:26 ◼   ► I'm not sure.

00:07:28 ◼   ► Oh, I don't trust anyone.

00:07:30 ◼   ► That's how you get around it.

00:07:31 ◼   ► That's the way to do it.

00:07:32 ◼   ► Can't have a conflict of interest

00:07:34 ◼   ► if there's no interest, you know?

00:07:37 ◼   ► And if I'm always conflicting, you know?

00:07:40 ◼   ► Constant conflict, zero interest.

00:07:42 ◼   ► Please, conflict is my father.

00:07:45 ◼   ► Steven, you wrote an article about your UniFi setup.

00:07:47 ◼   ► Oh, I did.

00:07:49 ◼   ► In the middle of that article,

00:07:51 ◼   ► there is some follow-up for this show.

00:07:53 ◼   ► There is.

00:07:53 ◼   ► You brought to the show a while back

00:07:55 ◼   ► that you were having issues with battery drain

00:07:58 ◼   ► on your Apple watches, and you weren't sure what it was,

00:08:01 ◼   ► and then you kind of came to the conclusion

00:08:03 ◼   ► that you thought it was your new Wi-Fi setup.

00:08:06 ◼   ► And in this article, you referenced this

00:08:07 ◼   ► and how you fixed it,

00:08:08 ◼   ► so I want you to talk about that on the show.

00:08:10 ◼   ► Yeah, so I switched over to Fiverr in October.

00:08:14 ◼   ► It was finally available on my side of the street.

00:08:17 ◼   ► You can read a lengthy explanation of that

00:08:18 ◼   ► in the footnote of this article.

00:08:20 ◼   ► Big footnote, big footnote.

00:08:22 ◼   ► Yeah, it's almost its own article.

00:08:24 ◼   ► Yeah, there are a couple examples of 512

00:08:27 ◼   ► with a link list thing where I write one sentence

00:08:30 ◼   ► but then two paragraphs in the footnote.

00:08:31 ◼   ► Sometimes it's just fun, you know?

00:08:33 ◼   ► Get weird.

00:08:35 ◼   ► I think Federico does a really good job of that

00:08:36 ◼   ► in his reviews.

00:08:37 ◼   ► The footnotes are some of the best parts.

00:08:40 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, thank you.

00:08:42 ◼   ► You can't really footnote a podcast.

00:08:44 ◼   ► I mean, we tried with the B-sides feature in our CMS,

00:08:48 ◼   ► but no one uses it, so.

00:08:50 ◼   ► It's not really a footnote so much, you know?

00:08:52 ◼   ► That would be weird, wouldn't it,

00:08:53 ◼   ► if you actually did do that anyway.

00:08:55 ◼   ► A footnote.

00:08:56 ◼   ► That's when you write something on your toes.

00:08:58 ◼   ► It's a footnote.

00:08:59 ◼   ► Hello?

00:09:02 ◼   ► Hello?

00:09:04 ◼   ► Anyways.

00:09:04 ◼   ► We're done now, bye.

00:09:06 ◼   ► Switched to Fyber.

00:09:07 ◼   ► That kicked off, as you can imagine,

00:09:09 ◼   ► a nerd project to update my wifi.

00:09:11 ◼   ► And I ordered the U7 Pros,

00:09:14 ◼   ► which is a line of wifi seven access points from Ubiquiti.

00:09:18 ◼   ► And it seems like the U7 line in general

00:09:21 ◼   ► maybe isn't ready for prime time.

00:09:24 ◼   ► I had a lot of issues with IoT devices

00:09:27 ◼   ► and the Apple watches in my household,

00:09:30 ◼   ► dropping off the wifi, struggling to stay connected.

00:09:33 ◼   ► And like, I'm sure you've experienced this,

00:09:35 ◼   ► like if you go hiking or something

00:09:36 ◼   ► and your phone drops out of cellular range, it gets hot,

00:09:38 ◼   ► because it's like cranking up the radios

00:09:41 ◼   ► to connect to something.

00:09:42 ◼   ► And did some reading.

00:09:45 ◼   ► Not everyone has this problem, let me say first of all,

00:09:48 ◼   ► but some people seem to.

00:09:50 ◼   ► So I swapped out the U7s for a U6 product

00:09:53 ◼   ► called the U6 Mesh, which instead of being wall-mounted

00:09:58 ◼   ► or like hanging on the ceiling,

00:09:59 ◼   ► they're like standalone, like tubes, basically,

00:10:02 ◼   ► you can just, I did that 'cause it was actually better

00:10:05 ◼   ► for me to be able to sit them where I needed them.

00:10:08 ◼   ► And that has solved the issue.

00:10:11 ◼   ► So everything has been good.

00:10:13 ◼   ► It does sort of negate my original goal

00:10:15 ◼   ► of like I want faster wifi, 'cause these are just wifi six

00:10:18 ◼   ► and that's what I had.

00:10:20 ◼   ► But I'm hopeful the U7 line gets drained out

00:10:23 ◼   ► and in the future I could upgrade to it.

00:10:25 ◼   ► But in the meantime, I have enjoyed other benefits

00:10:29 ◼   ► of being in the Unifi ecosystem.

00:10:32 ◼   ► I for years had trouble because I was using

00:10:35 ◼   ► just kind of cheap gigabit switches.

00:10:37 ◼   ► I mean, I guess I could have bought something nicer,

00:10:39 ◼   ► but every two or three years I would have like a Netgear

00:10:42 ◼   ► or a Linksys, whatever gigabit switch just die.

00:10:45 ◼   ► And I have one in the house and one in the office.

00:10:48 ◼   ► The two buildings are connected by outdoor rated ethernet

00:10:51 ◼   ► that is run between the buildings.

00:10:54 ◼   ► And I just, things were always kind of flaky.

00:10:58 ◼   ► I also had an issue where when you have an Eero set up,

00:11:01 ◼   ► you have an Eero at the top of your network.

00:11:03 ◼   ► So you have your cable modem or fiber modem or whatever,

00:11:06 ◼   ► and then you have an Eero

00:11:07 ◼   ► and that's where all the routing is handled.

00:11:09 ◼   ► And for years across multiple Eeros,

00:11:13 ◼   ► I would have that Eero drop its wired connection

00:11:15 ◼   ► from gigabit to 100 megabit.

00:11:18 ◼   ► And that was fine when I had slow internet,

00:11:21 ◼   ► not fine when I had fast internet.

00:11:23 ◼   ► And so I would be uploading a show,

00:11:26 ◼   ► it's like, why is this taking so long?

00:11:27 ◼   ► And my whole network was like capped at 100 meg

00:11:30 ◼   ► because that head Eero would lower its connection speed.

00:11:35 ◼   ► I was never able to fix that.

00:11:37 ◼   ► And so that is fixed.

00:11:39 ◼   ► I've got reliable switches and yes,

00:11:42 ◼   ► the wifi is not as fast as I want it to be,

00:11:44 ◼   ► but again, I could fix that in the future.

00:11:46 ◼   ► I will say I was, I should have expected it.

00:11:51 ◼   ► I was unaware.

00:11:52 ◼   ► The UniFi community is a very particular group of people.

00:12:00 ◼   ► Oh, that's one way to say it.

00:12:01 ◼   ► Okay.

00:12:02 ◼   ► So I had somebody like,

00:12:04 ◼   ► someone was like, oh, how are you racking your gateway?

00:12:08 ◼   ► 'Cause the gateway have is like really small.

00:12:10 ◼   ► It's basically the size of like a sandwich.

00:12:12 ◼   ► I was like, I'm not, it's just like on a shelf

00:12:13 ◼   ► in my kid's closet where the rest of my network stuff is.

00:12:16 ◼   ► Like, it's fine.

00:12:18 ◼   ► So it was like, why don't you running fiber

00:12:19 ◼   ► between your house and your studio?

00:12:21 ◼   ► It's like, 'cause I just have ethernet run.

00:12:23 ◼   ► Like, it's fine.

00:12:25 ◼   ► It's fine.

00:12:27 ◼   ► So I may not write about UniFi very much in the future

00:12:29 ◼   ► to save my inbox.

00:12:31 ◼   ► Why don't you just put a satellite dish

00:12:33 ◼   ► on the side of your house and aim it at the pod cabin?

00:12:36 ◼   ► I know.

00:12:37 ◼   ► Like that's what you should be doing instead.

00:12:38 ◼   ► I know.

00:12:39 ◼   ► Do I want to run fiber between the house and the studio?

00:12:42 ◼   ► Yeah, kind of, but there's no need to.

00:12:44 ◼   ► 'Cause everything I did is gigabit.

00:12:46 ◼   ► So I didn't go to 2.5 gig.

00:12:48 ◼   ► There's no real benefit for me to do that

00:12:51 ◼   ► even internally on my network.

00:12:53 ◼   ► So yeah, seems to be fixed.

00:12:58 ◼   ► Wi-Fi is not faster, but I got fancy network equipment.

00:13:00 ◼   ► That's fun.

00:13:01 ◼   ► I feel like there should be a phrase,

00:13:05 ◼   ► like a term for this though, where like,

00:13:07 ◼   ► it's not like a zero sum game or something.

00:13:12 ◼   ► Like, they're not too far from it.

00:13:14 ◼   ► Where you made a nerd change

00:13:17 ◼   ► because of a specific thing you were looking for,

00:13:20 ◼   ► but you actually didn't get that in the end.

00:13:23 ◼   ► Right?

00:13:24 ◼   ► Where you wanted faster internet to take,

00:13:28 ◼   ► get the most benefit out of your fiber connection,

00:13:33 ◼   ► but you haven't gotten that.

00:13:35 ◼   ► You're back to the same thing, but you're so far in now

00:13:39 ◼   ► that now you're like, well, I'm in this now.

00:13:42 ◼   ► So I'll get the most that I can out of it.

00:13:44 ◼   ► Where maybe if you'd gone for a Wi-Fi seven hero system,

00:13:49 ◼   ► you may have actually gotten what you wanted

00:13:53 ◼   ► instead of like going to unify

00:13:55 ◼   ► and like changing everything out.

00:13:56 ◼   ► And like, yes, you've got another benefits,

00:13:58 ◼   ► but like the original reason for changing

00:14:01 ◼   ► was more getting the faster speed

00:14:03 ◼   ► that you can't get yet, right?

00:14:05 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:14:06 ◼   ► It's almost as if you left one social media network

00:14:10 ◼   ► 'cause you didn't like the way it was run.

00:14:13 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:14:14 ◼   ► - It is like that.

00:14:14 ◼   ► - And you went to a different one

00:14:16 ◼   ► that you thought was gonna be better,

00:14:17 ◼   ► but turns out just as bad.

00:14:19 ◼   ► What do you do?

00:14:20 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:14:21 ◼   ► - Hypothetically.

00:14:22 ◼   ► - Well, I don't know.

00:14:23 ◼   ► I think from what you're saying,

00:14:24 ◼   ► you invest deeper into the new one, I think,

00:14:27 ◼   ► based on what you're saying.

00:14:29 ◼   ► - Maybe you should go outside and look up into the blue sky.

00:14:34 ◼   ► - Just use Wi-Fi and not fiber.

00:14:36 ◼   ► I think that's what you're saying.

00:14:37 ◼   ► - This episode of Connected is made possible by Squarespace,

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00:16:07 ◼   ► I've been building a Squarespace basically forever.

00:16:10 ◼   ► Just recently working on my brother's site.

00:16:12 ◼   ► He has a nonprofit.

00:16:12 ◼   ► We built the site on Squarespace, of course.

00:16:14 ◼   ► It looks awesome.

00:16:16 ◼   ► But we had some content we needed to change

00:16:17 ◼   ► and lay out stuff we wanted to tweak.

00:16:20 ◼   ► And it was really easy to do.

00:16:21 ◼   ► And this site's been around for a while.

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00:16:29 ◼   ► So go check it out.

00:16:30 ◼   ► You wanna go to squarespace.com/connected

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00:16:54 ◼   ► - Mastodon, the social platform, is becoming a nonprofit.

00:17:01 ◼   ► So they're creating a European nonprofit entity

00:17:04 ◼   ► that will be responsible for Mastodon ecosystem

00:17:08 ◼   ► and platform components.

00:17:10 ◼   ► Basically, Eugene Rochko,

00:17:12 ◼   ► who is the founder, lead developer, creator of Mastodon,

00:17:17 ◼   ► will no longer be solely responsible

00:17:19 ◼   ► for the management and focus of the Mastodon product.

00:17:23 ◼   ► And the nonprofit, we'll call it Mastodon nonprofit,

00:17:27 ◼   ► will own the for-profit entity that currently exists.

00:17:30 ◼   ► This has been reported in a bunch of places.

00:17:33 ◼   ► TechCrunch had a good article about this,

00:17:37 ◼   ► where I got this information from.

00:17:39 ◼   ► One of the things in there was 835,000 monthly active users

00:17:42 ◼   ► use Mastodon, which is really small.

00:17:45 ◼   ► It's a big number, but for a social media network,

00:17:49 ◼   ► that is small.

00:17:51 ◼   ► I think it says something for what Mastodon is,

00:17:54 ◼   ► where it is essentially, it's people like us, right?

00:17:57 ◼   ► It's nerds.

00:17:58 ◼   ► And I think at this point,

00:18:02 ◼   ► that number to me was interesting

00:18:03 ◼   ► because it signals to me that I don't consider it likely

00:18:07 ◼   ► that this will grow significantly.

00:18:09 ◼   ► I mean, what is, blue sky is like 20 million now

00:18:12 ◼   ► or something like that, right?

00:18:13 ◼   ► So, and you know, threads and Twitter are in the millions,

00:18:18 ◼   ► I think a hundred million or something like that.

00:18:20 ◼   ► I'm not particularly surprised by that number,

00:18:22 ◼   ► but it's just interesting to see.

00:18:24 ◼   ► You can make a very good business

00:18:26 ◼   ► on 835,000 monthly active users though, I'm sure.

00:18:30 ◼   ► But I think that is also seemingly

00:18:32 ◼   ► not what they care about now.

00:18:34 ◼   ► It just kind of making it sustainable and, you know,

00:18:39 ◼   ► available and kind of like more political.

00:18:43 ◼   ► - How many users do you say Mastodon has?

00:18:46 ◼   ► - 835,000 monthly active users.

00:18:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, so it looks like blue sky is 26 million.

00:18:53 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:18:54 ◼   ► - Which is wild.

00:18:56 ◼   ► - I found this interesting.

00:18:57 ◼   ► It's interesting that they're doing this.

00:18:58 ◼   ► It's a thing that really, it seems like

00:19:00 ◼   ► they have announced that they're doing it,

00:19:01 ◼   ► but we don't really know a lot of what the detail

00:19:04 ◼   ► of what this is gonna be.

00:19:05 ◼   ► The thing that immediately jumped to my mind is like,

00:19:09 ◼   ► I would be interested to understand how in the longterm

00:19:14 ◼   ► is a WordPress scenario avoided here.

00:19:16 ◼   ► Like my original thought was like,

00:19:18 ◼   ► how much control will Rojco continue to have?

00:19:22 ◼   ► And so I give a couple of quotes from the TechCrunch article

00:19:25 ◼   ► that are from Mastodon.

00:19:27 ◼   ► Throughout, we will focus on establishing

00:19:29 ◼   ► the appropriate governance and leadership frameworks

00:19:31 ◼   ► that reflect the nature and purpose of Mastodon as a whole

00:19:34 ◼   ► and responsibly serve the community.

00:19:36 ◼   ► Mastodon is trying to avoid situations

00:19:38 ◼   ► where only one person has decision-making powers

00:19:41 ◼   ► with today's new structure.

00:19:43 ◼   ► So it's interesting, but I think this,

00:19:47 ◼   ► I'm not, I don't know.

00:19:50 ◼   ► I don't know what I, like,

00:19:52 ◼   ► I don't know if nonprofit entities and for-profit entities

00:19:55 ◼   ► being owned by one another is really like a thing

00:19:58 ◼   ► that works in the longterm.

00:20:00 ◼   ► - I mean, just ask OpenAI, am I right?

00:20:01 ◼   ► - Maybe I just don't know enough about this.

00:20:03 ◼   ► Well, that's what I'm thinking of as well, right?

00:20:05 ◼   ► Like if Mastodon, there remains a for-profit entity,

00:20:10 ◼   ► they're currently just making money from Patreon

00:20:12 ◼   ► and grants and merchandise.

00:20:14 ◼   ► So it's not like, you know, whatever.

00:20:16 ◼   ► But they might one day say like, all right,

00:20:18 ◼   ► you have to pay to use Mastodon now.

00:20:20 ◼   ► And like, then what happens, right?

00:20:22 ◼   ► Like, how does that change the way

00:20:25 ◼   ► that the for-profit entity considers itself?

00:20:27 ◼   ► And then how does that change the nonprofit entity

00:20:30 ◼   ► that owns the for-profit, it's very confusing, right?

00:20:32 ◼   ► And like, I don't see a scenario where something

00:20:34 ◼   ► that this isn't at least a little bit complicated.

00:20:37 ◼   ► - Oh, it's absolutely complicated.

00:20:40 ◼   ► I think any governance of a platform this big,

00:20:45 ◼   ► you know, even 835,000 or whatever it is,

00:20:49 ◼   ► it's bigger than anything we're doing.

00:20:51 ◼   ► That's a complicated thing.

00:20:54 ◼   ► And like the nonprofit thing is fine.

00:20:56 ◼   ► But like what I wrote in my link to it was,

00:20:58 ◼   ► what matters is like the people running the nonprofit, right?

00:21:02 ◼   ► At the end of the day, it is still a series of decisions

00:21:04 ◼   ► that has to be made.

00:21:06 ◼   ► Is it better that it's gonna be some sort of board of people

00:21:08 ◼   ► as opposed to one dude?

00:21:10 ◼   ► Like probably, but it's not a fail safe.

00:21:13 ◼   ► - We don't, it's not, these things are not inherently good

00:21:18 ◼   ► because of the fact of what they are, right?

00:21:20 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:21:21 ◼   ► - Nonprofit and charity and like group of people or what,

00:21:27 ◼   ► they're not inherently good just because,

00:21:29 ◼   ► or even open source, right?

00:21:30 ◼   ► That's the other thing I was looking for.

00:21:32 ◼   ► None of these things are inherently good

00:21:33 ◼   ► just because of the way that they're set up.

00:21:36 ◼   ► Like it still requires people making the right decisions,

00:21:41 ◼   ► which they definitely won't do all the time.

00:21:44 ◼   ► Federico, what do you think about this?

00:21:48 ◼   ► - This is one of those things where I wish I had thoughts,

00:21:53 ◼   ► but I really don't.

00:21:55 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:21:56 ◼   ► - Probably because I am, I don't know,

00:21:59 ◼   ► maybe I'm not mature enough.

00:22:01 ◼   ► I don't know, I just, I would like to say something

00:22:05 ◼   ► that doesn't make me sound like an idiot.

00:22:09 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:22:09 ◼   ► - And there's probably no other way to see it, so whatever.

00:22:13 ◼   ► Why can people like not be weird psychopaths on the internet?

00:22:20 ◼   ► Like, why do we, like you ask,

00:22:24 ◼   ► how do we avoid the WordPress situation?

00:22:29 ◼   ► Like, not that I'm like accusing anybody

00:22:32 ◼   ► of being a weird psychopath, but just broadly speaking-

00:22:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:22:36 ◼   ► - These are two- - Please don't sue me.

00:22:37 ◼   ► - Unconnected scenarios.

00:22:39 ◼   ► - Just like, I honestly don't know what to say.

00:22:44 ◼   ► Like, okay, now it's gonna be a nonprofit,

00:22:46 ◼   ► but like, what if the nonprofit is managed

00:22:50 ◼   ► by a bunch of weird psychopaths?

00:22:52 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:22:53 ◼   ► - Like, what?

00:22:54 ◼   ► You know?

00:22:55 ◼   ► Like, I just think whatever is gonna be Eugene Rochko

00:23:00 ◼   ► or the nonprofit, whatever person or organization

00:23:05 ◼   ► is behind Mastodon, if at some point they come out

00:23:09 ◼   ► and be like, "Uh, guys, we like Nazis now."

00:23:14 ◼   ► Like, no matter who's behind it,

00:23:17 ◼   ► it's gonna turn the whole thing sour.

00:23:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's kind of what I'm saying.

00:23:21 ◼   ► Like, these things, they sound nice, right?

00:23:23 ◼   ► And that is interesting. - Yeah, sure.

00:23:25 ◼   ► - And there's probably a lot of niceness in it,

00:23:27 ◼   ► but none of these things give any kind of certainty

00:23:32 ◼   ► to anything, is kind of what I'm getting at.

00:23:34 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:23:35 ◼   ► Like, there's like, sure, there's more governance.

00:23:38 ◼   ► Now everybody likes to use this word.

00:23:39 ◼   ► This is like when everybody started using the word

00:23:41 ◼   ► colorways last year.

00:23:43 ◼   ► Now everybody's using governance.

00:23:44 ◼   ► Okay, so now there's proper governance behind this.

00:23:47 ◼   ► - Governance is the word of the year.

00:23:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:23:50 ◼   ► Cool, okay.

00:23:51 ◼   ► So there's proper governance.

00:23:52 ◼   ► All right, what happens if two years from now,

00:23:55 ◼   ► turns out there's one real nasty weirdo in that nonprofit?

00:24:00 ◼   ► Do we like Macedon now?

00:24:02 ◼   ► - Like, the governance could slow Macedon down.

00:24:05 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:24:06 ◼   ► - Right, like, there are still things

00:24:08 ◼   ► that Macedon does not have that people want it to have,

00:24:11 ◼   ► and there's like a roadmap, right?

00:24:13 ◼   ► What if now the implementation of new features

00:24:17 ◼   ► require the governance structure to approve,

00:24:19 ◼   ► and that is a six month process, right?

00:24:21 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:24:21 ◼   ► - So it's like, it's like,

00:24:22 ◼   ► it's like slowing down further.

00:24:23 ◼   ► It's like, all of these things are just different ways

00:24:25 ◼   ► of doing things.

00:24:26 ◼   ► It's not inherently good or bad.

00:24:28 ◼   ► And the reason I mention this is I've seen a lot of people

00:24:30 ◼   ► being like, oh, this is incredible, like, da da da.

00:24:33 ◼   ► I am sure there are things about this that are better.

00:24:35 ◼   ► And like, and you can look at this and be like,

00:24:37 ◼   ► I would prefer this to threads.

00:24:41 ◼   ► And like, and I understand that, right?

00:24:43 ◼   ► Like, I get that.

00:24:45 ◼   ► But it's, none of these things are good inherently,

00:24:49 ◼   ► because they're still made up of people

00:24:50 ◼   ► who are complicated.

00:24:52 ◼   ► And like, you're saying about like the psychopath thing.

00:24:54 ◼   ► I think anybody that wants to run anything of scale

00:24:59 ◼   ► has something in their brain

00:25:03 ◼   ► that makes them want to do that.

00:25:05 ◼   ► That goes for me.

00:25:07 ◼   ► I am including myself.

00:25:09 ◼   ► Anyone that wants to run their own business

00:25:12 ◼   ► has a thing in their brain that makes them want to do that.

00:25:16 ◼   ► 'Cause it's not, it is, you have,

00:25:19 ◼   ► it goes for all of us, I think.

00:25:20 ◼   ► Like, you have in you something which means

00:25:24 ◼   ► you are willing to make decisions

00:25:26 ◼   ► that impact other people.

00:25:27 ◼   ► Like, you are willing to do that.

00:25:29 ◼   ► That is a thing.

00:25:30 ◼   ► And like, at a scale that is larger than just my own family.

00:25:34 ◼   ► And like, not everybody is willing to do that or wants that.

00:25:38 ◼   ► And that grows all the way up to,

00:25:40 ◼   ► I want to leave my country, right?

00:25:41 ◼   ► Like, there is a scale between business owner,

00:25:45 ◼   ► this is a Mike Hurley thought,

00:25:46 ◼   ► a business owner and president.

00:25:49 ◼   ► And there is like a scale of like where you are on that.

00:25:52 ◼   ► Because, and that is about how much power you want

00:25:54 ◼   ► in your life, how much control you want in your life.

00:25:56 ◼   ► And that there is a scale and a spectrum

00:25:58 ◼   ► between these things.

00:26:00 ◼   ► And like, the bigger the thing it is

00:26:02 ◼   ► that you're trying to run,

00:26:03 ◼   ► the more willing you are to make these kinds

00:26:05 ◼   ► of decisions and choices.

00:26:07 ◼   ► And that doesn't mean you're good,

00:26:09 ◼   ► it doesn't mean you're bad.

00:26:10 ◼   ► It just means that like, there is a level of detachment

00:26:13 ◼   ► that you are willing for yourself to go through.

00:26:17 ◼   ► And yeah, anyway.

00:26:18 ◼   ► - Mike.

00:26:19 ◼   ► - And just, yes.

00:26:20 ◼   ► - You're getting ready to be a dad.

00:26:22 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:26:23 ◼   ► - What if you form a nonprofit to raise your child?

00:26:27 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:26:28 ◼   ► - It's a governance structure.

00:26:30 ◼   ► She needs to be feeding.

00:26:32 ◼   ► I think, well, I mean,

00:26:36 ◼   ► it feels like there is a governance structure already.

00:26:38 ◼   ► Which includes everybody else in my family, but like.

00:26:43 ◼   ► - That's complicated.

00:26:44 ◼   ► We can talk about that online.

00:26:45 ◼   ► - There already is a governance.

00:26:46 ◼   ► It really feels like there is a governance structure

00:26:49 ◼   ► that's gonna own the internal structure of my own family

00:26:53 ◼   ► inside of its family.

00:26:54 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:26:55 ◼   ► - But yeah, that's kind of my,

00:26:56 ◼   ► I don't know why I decided today I wanted to share this,

00:26:58 ◼   ► like, thing that I consider to be a fundamental truth,

00:27:01 ◼   ► but that is it.

00:27:02 ◼   ► Just like, everybody and people, people make decisions.

00:27:05 ◼   ► Those decisions aren't always good,

00:27:07 ◼   ► and that is just kind of the way it goes.

00:27:09 ◼   ► And no structure can guarantee good.

00:27:12 ◼   ► Because the structure's also changed.

00:27:14 ◼   ► Because you look at open AI, it's like,

00:27:16 ◼   ► oh yeah, nonprofit, that's good.

00:27:18 ◼   ► Until they decide they don't wanna be that anymore.

00:27:21 ◼   ► And now, well, now all the bets are off, right?

00:27:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:27:25 ◼   ► I think, I think especially with these things,

00:27:27 ◼   ► especially with like technology products,

00:27:30 ◼   ► there's the type of nerd,

00:27:33 ◼   ► and I'm saying that in a lovingly affectionate way,

00:27:37 ◼   ► nerds tend to seek consistency and rigidity,

00:27:43 ◼   ► and something that is predictable.

00:27:46 ◼   ► So like, oh, Mastodon announced a nonprofit,

00:27:48 ◼   ► that means it's always gonna be good,

00:27:50 ◼   ► because we like nonprofits, right?

00:27:51 ◼   ► But like you said, like, people change their minds,

00:27:55 ◼   ► people change their nature, people are, guess what?

00:28:00 ◼   ► Inherently opportunistic.

00:28:02 ◼   ► There is something that I fundamentally believe,

00:28:05 ◼   ► and you will not, nobody can change my mind about this.

00:28:08 ◼   ► This may be the most obvious, silly thing

00:28:13 ◼   ► I've ever said on the show, everybody has a price.

00:28:16 ◼   ► Literally everyone on planet earth has a price.

00:28:19 ◼   ► There is a monetary amount that hypothetically

00:28:24 ◼   ► I could give to Eugene Rojko and be like,

00:28:28 ◼   ► hey, I want you to become real nasty on Mastodon

00:28:31 ◼   ► after I write you this check.

00:28:34 ◼   ► There is that amount, there's a number,

00:28:39 ◼   ► there's a number that hypothetically

00:28:42 ◼   ► I could put on that check, right?

00:28:44 ◼   ► And so that kind of utopian like scenario where,

00:28:49 ◼   ► oh, everything is always gonna be the same.

00:28:54 ◼   ► Like I could potentially, I could name one technology

00:28:59 ◼   ► that was released, never touched again,

00:29:02 ◼   ► and it always stayed the same, and it's RSS.

00:29:09 ◼   ► It was literally created, released on the web,

00:29:12 ◼   ► and they never got weird.

00:29:14 ◼   ► In fact, it's so awesome.

00:29:15 ◼   ► - That's only because nobody owns it.

00:29:16 ◼   ► - Exactly, because nobody,

00:29:18 ◼   ► the moment that a person owns anything,

00:29:21 ◼   ► there is the potential to be used for good,

00:29:25 ◼   ► but also to be used for evil and nasty things.

00:29:28 ◼   ► And there's never gonna be consistency.

00:29:28 ◼   ► - RSS is used for nasty things.

00:29:31 ◼   ► - Sure, do you subscribe to any?

00:29:32 ◼   ► - Well, no, it's like, it can be used for ill, right?

00:29:37 ◼   ► 'Cause it is just,

00:29:38 ◼   ► the same as like I am convinced there is hate on Mastodon.

00:29:43 ◼   ► I know it's there, I just haven't found it as such.

00:29:47 ◼   ► - Right about ubiquity.

00:29:48 ◼   ► - See, there you go.

00:29:51 ◼   ► But there are definitely communities on Mastodon

00:29:53 ◼   ► that aren't good, right?

00:29:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:29:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause ultimately, like Federico said,

00:29:59 ◼   ► people are opportunistic, I can't say it.

00:30:03 ◼   ► - You got there, but you got there.

00:30:05 ◼   ► - But also like all of these platforms

00:30:09 ◼   ► have the same inherent problem

00:30:11 ◼   ► that short form text-based social media is just problematic.

00:30:16 ◼   ► And when you can hide behind an anonymous face,

00:30:20 ◼   ► or even if you're required to use your own name and face,

00:30:22 ◼   ► people are ugly on the internet,

00:30:24 ◼   ► and that's just how things are.

00:30:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, it doesn't matter.

00:30:28 ◼   ► - No.

00:30:29 ◼   ► - So basically within you, there are two wolves.

00:30:32 ◼   ► One is good wolf and the other is bad wolf,

00:30:35 ◼   ► and try not to succumb to the bad wolf, if you can.

00:30:40 ◼   ► That's basically the gist of it.

00:30:43 ◼   ► - I will sum this up by saying,

00:30:45 ◼   ► I think that it is very good

00:30:47 ◼   ► that the people who run Mastodon are trying their best.

00:30:51 ◼   ► Right? - Yes.

00:30:52 ◼   ► - That they want to do things the right way,

00:30:54 ◼   ► and I think that is good.

00:30:57 ◼   ► I have been especially reminded of that

00:30:59 ◼   ► over the last couple of weeks,

00:31:01 ◼   ► that it's like, oh, they're trying, you know,

00:31:03 ◼   ► like they're trying out here.

00:31:05 ◼   ► But my point is like, I am intrigued about it.

00:31:08 ◼   ► I want more information,

00:31:09 ◼   ► 'cause I don't really feel like

00:31:10 ◼   ► they've given a lot of it yet,

00:31:11 ◼   ► 'cause it feels like they're very much working it out,

00:31:13 ◼   ► and they just wanted to announce that they were doing it,

00:31:15 ◼   ► and they definitely chose a right time for that.

00:31:17 ◼   ► I think from a PR perspective,

00:31:18 ◼   ► they chose a right time for that.

00:31:19 ◼   ► I don't know if that was their consideration,

00:31:21 ◼   ► but they did anyway.

00:31:22 ◼   ► And I am intrigued to see where they go with it.

00:31:25 ◼   ► I want to see them do good stuff with it.

00:31:28 ◼   ► I believe in Mastodon now more than maybe I have in a while.

00:31:32 ◼   ► But it's just like, just to remember,

00:31:37 ◼   ► so we don't get disappointed,

00:31:39 ◼   ► potentially get disappointed later on,

00:31:41 ◼   ► none of these things give perfect outcomes.

00:31:44 ◼   ► And I think we would all be happier

00:31:46 ◼   ► if we stopped looking for them.

00:31:47 ◼   ► It's like, you also don't have to delete

00:31:51 ◼   ► your WordPress blog.

00:31:52 ◼   ► Like, you don't have to do that.

00:31:53 ◼   ► Like, you know, like all of these things,

00:31:55 ◼   ► like you gotta find what works for you.

00:31:58 ◼   ► You find your own way of drawing the circles

00:32:02 ◼   ► you need to draw.

00:32:03 ◼   ► Like, but we can't get along forever

00:32:07 ◼   ► hoping that everything will be perfect forever,

00:32:09 ◼   ► 'cause otherwise, really the only thing you can do

00:32:12 ◼   ► is just not use the internet.

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00:33:51 ◼   ► (silence)

00:33:53 ◼   ► - So switching gears to something hopefully more fun

00:33:57 ◼   ► and less, I don't know, maybe we were not pessimistic,

00:34:00 ◼   ► we were realistic, but in any case, a very different topic.

00:34:02 ◼   ► I had an idea.

00:34:03 ◼   ► It's a new year.

00:34:06 ◼   ► Mike is gonna be a dad in this new year.

00:34:09 ◼   ► So I thought,

00:34:11 ◼   ► I wanted to take a look at what are some of the apps,

00:34:17 ◼   ► some of the services, some of the maybe changes

00:34:21 ◼   ► in our typical workflows that at some point this year,

00:34:26 ◼   ► we think we would like to try.

00:34:28 ◼   ► Like what are things,

00:34:30 ◼   ► usually I have these thoughts over the holiday break.

00:34:34 ◼   ► I'm like, what do I wanna try in the new year?

00:34:36 ◼   ► Like, is there anything new that I wanna try?

00:34:38 ◼   ► New apps, new web services?

00:34:41 ◼   ► Is there a particular change about the way I work

00:34:44 ◼   ► that I wanna try next year?

00:34:45 ◼   ► So I thought, let's think about these things

00:34:48 ◼   ► and I think we can round robin them.

00:34:50 ◼   ► Although I think Steven, until a few minutes ago,

00:34:53 ◼   ► only had one kind of menacing item in his notes.

00:34:57 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:34:58 ◼   ► - I do like the idea of round robin though.

00:35:00 ◼   ► I do like that.

00:35:01 ◼   ► Maybe Steven sometimes would just have to say same.

00:35:04 ◼   ► - It's gonna be lumpy.

00:35:05 ◼   ► Mike has like six things in here.

00:35:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, you know,

00:35:08 ◼   ► I can just like round robin at the end to myself.

00:35:10 ◼   ► We'll find out.

00:35:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I ain't gonna go first.

00:35:13 ◼   ► I'm gonna just try rip the bandaid off

00:35:15 ◼   ► because--

00:35:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, you are with this first one, my friend.

00:35:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fine.

00:35:20 ◼   ► You know me, I don't care about people's judgment

00:35:23 ◼   ► except for my girlfriend and my dogs,

00:35:27 ◼   ► although they're not strictly speaking people.

00:35:30 ◼   ► - Do they have thoughts about email?

00:35:31 ◼   ► - Well, I'm sure they have thoughts

00:35:34 ◼   ► about the computers I use.

00:35:36 ◼   ► In any case, I am trying Superhuman as my email client.

00:35:45 ◼   ► And here's the best part.

00:35:46 ◼   ► Yes, it's very expensive.

00:35:48 ◼   ► - I was gonna say like talking about like

00:35:50 ◼   ► everyone has a price.

00:35:51 ◼   ► Puerto Rico's is pretty high.

00:35:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, because I gotta pay for Superhuman, man.

00:35:59 ◼   ► Come on.

00:36:00 ◼   ► I need that nasty check.

00:36:03 ◼   ► Come on.

00:36:04 ◼   ► It's surprisingly good.

00:36:08 ◼   ► That's the thing that surprised me the most.

00:36:11 ◼   ► Like I don't hate it.

00:36:13 ◼   ► In fact, I kinda really like it.

00:36:17 ◼   ► - Tell me why.

00:36:18 ◼   ► Tell me why.

00:36:19 ◼   ► - This is more expensive than I thought it was, Federico.

00:36:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, because they added AI and they raised the prices.

00:36:25 ◼   ► - So did, I got an email today, Mike,

00:36:28 ◼   ► I should tell you this.

00:36:29 ◼   ► Our Google Workspace bill is gonna go up

00:36:31 ◼   ► because they decided everyone should pay for Google Gemini.

00:36:34 ◼   ► - But what if we don't use it?

00:36:36 ◼   ► - Too bad.

00:36:37 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:36:38 ◼   ► Well, I'm pleased that I actually started using it.

00:36:40 ◼   ► I upgraded the one that I have for Cortex brand

00:36:43 ◼   ► 'cause I'm using Notebook LM very slowly.

00:36:48 ◼   ► So I had already done it.

00:36:49 ◼   ► So I guess now I won't feel that too much

00:36:51 ◼   ► 'cause I'm already using Gemini.

00:36:53 ◼   ► - So I like it for a bunch of reasons.

00:36:57 ◼   ► I try not, I mean, obviously the price is a concern.

00:37:02 ◼   ► The thing is like between like regular emails

00:37:06 ◼   ► like from developers, like discovering apps,

00:37:10 ◼   ► working with developers for betas and stuff,

00:37:13 ◼   ► working with PR people, and also like using email

00:37:16 ◼   ► because of Club Maxory support.

00:37:18 ◼   ► Like it is a core part of my business

00:37:22 ◼   ► and I spend a lot of time in email.

00:37:24 ◼   ► Like it's what I do.

00:37:25 ◼   ► And so I'm not saying that the price is justified

00:37:29 ◼   ► because I don't think it is,

00:37:30 ◼   ► but I don't feel awfully terrible about it.

00:37:34 ◼   ► - You feel like you're getting something

00:37:35 ◼   ► for the money you're putting in.

00:37:36 ◼   ► - I am, I am.

00:37:37 ◼   ► So it is surprisingly fast.

00:37:40 ◼   ► And it's, I think, the best search,

00:37:43 ◼   ► the fastest search I've ever tried in an email client.

00:37:47 ◼   ► I think it's faster on desktop devices.

00:37:51 ◼   ► It's a very much like a keyboard-driven email client.

00:37:55 ◼   ► On desktop, it's very impressive how fast it is.

00:38:00 ◼   ► I'm using it primarily on iPhone and on the iPad.

00:38:02 ◼   ► And so while the interactions are still fast

00:38:05 ◼   ► on iOS and iPadOS, they're not as fast as on macOS.

00:38:10 ◼   ► And I have to imagine, I think they are on Windows too.

00:38:14 ◼   ► Still, there are a lot of keyboard shortcuts

00:38:17 ◼   ► and I really appreciate the keyboard navigation

00:38:19 ◼   ► that is also supported on iPad,

00:38:21 ◼   ► where you have like things that you, like hotkeys,

00:38:24 ◼   ► where you don't have to use the command key.

00:38:26 ◼   ► Like for example, I'm looking at an email.

00:38:29 ◼   ► I can just press the letter E, like on Gmail desktop,

00:38:33 ◼   ► to instantly archive that message.

00:38:35 ◼   ► And there are plenty of those similar keyboard shortcuts.

00:38:38 ◼   ► The main thing for me is the,

00:38:42 ◼   ► they're called split inbox approach

00:38:45 ◼   ► and notifications based on each split.

00:38:49 ◼   ► So a split would be like a view.

00:38:51 ◼   ► It's basically like you can create multiple custom views

00:38:55 ◼   ► for a particular subset of senders.

00:38:59 ◼   ► You have your default important split.

00:39:02 ◼   ► So a split like, they call it split

00:39:04 ◼   ► because they literally split the screen in multiple tabs.

00:39:07 ◼   ► You can call them tabs, you can call them views.

00:39:09 ◼   ► The idea is the same.

00:39:10 ◼   ► You create multiple views for different types of senders.

00:39:14 ◼   ► I have my PR view, where all the people from Apple PR go.

00:39:18 ◼   ► And you can do that by literally like creating a filter

00:39:21 ◼   ► and adding contacts via their email addresses to that view.

00:39:25 ◼   ► I have a purchases view, where I created like emails

00:39:30 ◼   ► that I get from PayPal, from Amazon, from eBay,

00:39:32 ◼   ► like all the places that I used to buy stuff online.

00:39:35 ◼   ► I created a split called internal,

00:39:39 ◼   ► where I keep track of email communications,

00:39:41 ◼   ► starting from the Mac storage team.

00:39:44 ◼   ► So threads that I share with John, with Rob,

00:39:48 ◼   ► with Alex and so forth.

00:39:49 ◼   ► You may say, well, don't you wanna use AI products

00:39:53 ◼   ► that categorize emails for you?

00:39:55 ◼   ► Yes, I would like to, but the thing is,

00:39:57 ◼   ► they don't do a good enough job,

00:39:58 ◼   ► and I am too particular about my email

00:40:01 ◼   ► to fully trust those implementations.

00:40:03 ◼   ► So I very much like this idea of like,

00:40:05 ◼   ► I'm gonna create my own splits.

00:40:07 ◼   ► I'm gonna take like an hour of my time

00:40:09 ◼   ► to do some organization,

00:40:10 ◼   ► but then I know that those things are gonna work forever.

00:40:14 ◼   ► And for each split, you can configure notifications.

00:40:17 ◼   ► So for example, I don't wanna be notified

00:40:20 ◼   ► when I get like a newsletter,

00:40:23 ◼   ► but I wanna get notified if something hits my PR

00:40:26 ◼   ► or my important split.

00:40:29 ◼   ► So that granular control really works for me.

00:40:31 ◼   ► Search is great, regular search,

00:40:37 ◼   ► but I was also surprised by their new Ask AI feature.

00:40:41 ◼   ► Now, sure, this feature is not for everybody

00:40:45 ◼   ► because it's kind of creepy.

00:40:46 ◼   ► Obviously, superhuman is storing the contents of your emails

00:40:49 ◼   ► and there's an AI looking at those,

00:40:51 ◼   ► but like after 15 years of trying multiple email clients,

00:40:55 ◼   ► signing up for a whole bunch of apps and services,

00:40:57 ◼   ► I'm past the point of creepy.

00:41:00 ◼   ► Now, if anybody wants to read my email,

00:41:02 ◼   ► because they're shady and they're running a shady business,

00:41:05 ◼   ► like I'm well past, like that ship sailed many years ago.

00:41:09 ◼   ► So whatever, the Ask AI is great.

00:41:13 ◼   ► Not perfect, but more than good, I would say.

00:41:16 ◼   ► Like you can ask a question like,

00:41:19 ◼   ► hey, for example, yesterday I was like,

00:41:22 ◼   ► when did I buy the anti-glare Steam.co.led?

00:41:27 ◼   ► And it says, "Analyzing your email."

00:41:29 ◼   ► And like 15 seconds later it was like,

00:41:32 ◼   ► I found your confirmation received

00:41:34 ◼   ► from the Steam.co.led anti-glare last year

00:41:37 ◼   ► on such and such day.

00:41:39 ◼   ► Like great.

00:41:40 ◼   ► Like, and over the past few days,

00:41:41 ◼   ► I've had plenty of similar natural language queries

00:41:44 ◼   ► about my emails where I remembered one or two details,

00:41:48 ◼   ► but like if I wanted to use regular search,

00:41:51 ◼   ► it would have taken me five minutes

00:41:53 ◼   ► to maybe find that exact message.

00:41:55 ◼   ► Here, I can just write down a sentence

00:41:57 ◼   ► and it's gonna use my data.

00:41:59 ◼   ► It's gonna look into my data to find me the result.

00:42:03 ◼   ► Now I understand some people are not okay with that.

00:42:06 ◼   ► I am okay with AI helping me with my stuff, with my consent,

00:42:11 ◼   ► because I get hundreds of emails every day.

00:42:13 ◼   ► Nobody's got the time for that.

00:42:15 ◼   ► I need to be efficient.

00:42:16 ◼   ► I need to be fast.

00:42:18 ◼   ► And so anything that helps me find the stuff I'm looking for

00:42:21 ◼   ► and be faster is good enough for me.

00:42:24 ◼   ► So yeah.

00:42:25 ◼   ► I like, look, it's expensive, but I'm gonna keep using it.

00:42:32 ◼   ► - Do they have team?

00:42:33 ◼   ► They're like, is there like team sharing?

00:42:35 ◼   ► Like can you and Jon both use superhuman and have a chat?

00:42:37 ◼   ► - I think they do,

00:42:39 ◼   ► but I think Jon fundamentally hates superhuman.

00:42:43 ◼   ► So I haven't even pitched it.

00:42:44 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:42:46 ◼   ► - Oh, Paul, I feel, you know what?

00:42:48 ◼   ► I already see where this is going and I feel bad for Jon.

00:42:51 ◼   ► - Where it's going is Jon's gonna turn max stories over

00:42:54 ◼   ► to a nonprofit to run.

00:42:56 ◼   ► Take Federico's decision making away.

00:42:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:42:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:43:00 ◼   ► So yeah, it's-

00:43:02 ◼   ► - So really your main use case,

00:43:06 ◼   ► your main kind of like set of features

00:43:08 ◼   ► that you're benefiting from is the way it integrates with AI

00:43:12 ◼   ► and also the way in which you can kind of create

00:43:14 ◼   ► custom saved filters.

00:43:16 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yes.

00:43:18 ◼   ► You have other features.

00:43:20 ◼   ► I just sort of took them for granted.

00:43:22 ◼   ► Like you can snooze emails.

00:43:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, it's got all the basics.

00:43:26 ◼   ► I'm just wondering like, what is it about superhuman

00:43:29 ◼   ► that is better than like Spark and yeah.

00:43:31 ◼   ► I mean, Spark, Spark, bless them.

00:43:33 ◼   ► Bless them, they're trying with AI, but it's yeah.

00:43:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, it's not good.

00:43:37 ◼   ► I also wanted to mention like, yes,

00:43:39 ◼   ► it was the splits, AI, the notifications.

00:43:42 ◼   ► I also love, like really love, especially on iPad,

00:43:47 ◼   ► Command + K opens the command bar

00:43:50 ◼   ► that is kind of like Raycast

00:43:52 ◼   ► or kind of like the Obsidian command palette,

00:43:55 ◼   ► but for email.

00:43:57 ◼   ► Like you just entered the name of your command,

00:43:59 ◼   ► like block or spam or undo, like whatever.

00:44:02 ◼   ► Like you can, yeah, it's very nice.

00:44:04 ◼   ► - All right.

00:44:07 ◼   ► Anything more on superhuman?

00:44:09 ◼   ► - No, I think that's about it.

00:44:11 ◼   ► Feel free to make fun of me.

00:44:12 ◼   ► I can take it.

00:44:13 ◼   ► I've been around, so.

00:44:15 ◼   ► - I think all of mine are baby related.

00:44:19 ◼   ► Oh, I'm not next anyway, so Steven, you're going first.

00:44:21 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:44:22 ◼   ► - Steven is up next with the real menacing entry.

00:44:24 ◼   ► - The real menacing one is file storage upheaval.

00:44:27 ◼   ► - Oof, okay.

00:44:29 ◼   ► - It deleted everything.

00:44:30 ◼   ► - I think it's menacing because coming from you,

00:44:32 ◼   ► a data folder. - It's eight terabytes.

00:44:34 ◼   ► - Yes, it's concerning.

00:44:36 ◼   ► - So two things have happened in the last little while.

00:44:41 ◼   ► The first one is, okay, so I will admit

00:44:44 ◼   ► that I got the one terabyte iPhone this time around

00:44:49 ◼   ► because I lack having my photo library locally on my device.

00:44:52 ◼   ► - You did it the last time around too.

00:44:54 ◼   ► - I've done it a couple of times, yeah.

00:44:56 ◼   ► - And the reason I know that is because we both agreed

00:44:57 ◼   ► that our company was buying us five 12 gigabyte iPhones

00:45:00 ◼   ► and then you decided you were gonna get

00:45:01 ◼   ► a one terabyte iPhone for yourself.

00:45:03 ◼   ► That's how I know it happened last time too.

00:45:05 ◼   ► - You know, there's perks of holding the debit card.

00:45:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, turns out.

00:45:09 ◼   ► - I thought you did it for the PDFs, man, not for the photos.

00:45:12 ◼   ► - That's right. - Turns out you, okay.

00:45:14 ◼   ► - I was gonna have my Dev and Think database

00:45:15 ◼   ► locally on my phone in case I'm on a subway

00:45:18 ◼   ► and I need to look up something about the email.

00:45:20 ◼   ► - You're joking, you're joking, you're joking,

00:45:22 ◼   ► but I know that you've thought about it.

00:45:24 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:45:26 ◼   ► - So I got the dreaded message that your iPhone is full

00:45:30 ◼   ► and looking through the storage screen on the phone,

00:45:35 ◼   ► which is way slower than it should be still,

00:45:37 ◼   ► even with all these things.

00:45:39 ◼   ► You know what, give up on Apple intelligence

00:45:41 ◼   ► and make that screen faster, Apple, you know?

00:45:44 ◼   ► That's what I'm saying.

00:45:45 ◼   ► And the only solution was to, on my phone,

00:45:49 ◼   ► have my photo library do the thing

00:45:52 ◼   ► where it's mostly in the cloud.

00:45:54 ◼   ► I now have 850 gigabytes free on my phone.

00:45:58 ◼   ► So not gonna be buying a one terabyte phone anymore.

00:46:03 ◼   ► I will go, I will go smaller for sure.

00:46:07 ◼   ► So this happened, but when I was looking at my storage,

00:46:11 ◼   ► I realized that my iCloud family plan,

00:46:13 ◼   ► which is four terabytes, we have less than a terabyte free.

00:46:18 ◼   ► I think it's like 500 gigs free,

00:46:22 ◼   ► 'cause that has our shared photo library

00:46:24 ◼   ► between Mary and I, but two of my children have phones

00:46:29 ◼   ► and they got backups and their own,

00:46:31 ◼   ► my daughter in particular, growing photo library.

00:46:35 ◼   ► - That still feels like a lot though.

00:46:37 ◼   ► - It is a lot, it is a lot.

00:46:39 ◼   ► - Are you sure there's not things

00:46:40 ◼   ► that can be removed from there,

00:46:41 ◼   ► like old devices that are backed up?

00:46:43 ◼   ► - I did look through the backups.

00:46:45 ◼   ► I had one old iPhone that was taking up some backup space,

00:46:50 ◼   ► so I got rid of it and on Mary, she had an old iPad,

00:46:53 ◼   ► but that wasn't like a terabyte data, right?

00:46:57 ◼   ► So it's mostly photos, which I believe.

00:47:00 ◼   ► So I'm also going to be running into soon

00:47:04 ◼   ► having to jump up in iCloud space

00:47:06 ◼   ► unless I can do something.

00:47:07 ◼   ► And honestly, I don't know what to do about that.

00:47:09 ◼   ► So that's thing one, iCloud photo library, all that.

00:47:14 ◼   ► I like iCloud photo library, I don't wanna change it.

00:47:16 ◼   ► I like the family sharing.

00:47:18 ◼   ► I'm probably just gonna have to pony up

00:47:19 ◼   ► for the six gigabyte plan, which is the next one up.

00:47:22 ◼   ► - How have you found so far not having--

00:47:23 ◼   ► - I said four terabyte, by the way,

00:47:25 ◼   ► we're on the two terabyte plan.

00:47:26 ◼   ► There's not a four terabyte, you go from two to six.

00:47:29 ◼   ► So forgive me.

00:47:31 ◼   ► - Okay, how so far have you found

00:47:33 ◼   ► not having your photos locally on your device?

00:47:36 ◼   ► - Just today I wanted something and I tapped on it

00:47:38 ◼   ► and it was like downloading from iCloud

00:47:40 ◼   ► and it just on my fast fiber just spun for like 10 seconds.

00:47:45 ◼   ► I was like, oh, come on.

00:47:47 ◼   ► So anyway, but I gotta do it.

00:47:49 ◼   ► Like we have 90,000 things

00:47:53 ◼   ► in our shared photo library at this point.

00:47:54 ◼   ► So I just have to live with it.

00:47:58 ◼   ► - If they bring it to terabyte iPhone next year,

00:48:00 ◼   ► will you just get a two terabyte iPhone

00:48:02 ◼   ► and re-enable it again?

00:48:03 ◼   ► - I mean, we'll see what the nonprofits do.

00:48:06 ◼   ► - No, you'll do it.

00:48:08 ◼   ► We know you'll do it, don't even.

00:48:10 ◼   ► Although I predict you'll buy two iPhones next year.

00:48:12 ◼   ► So I predict it'll be great.

00:48:13 ◼   ► I also predict it for you, Federico.

00:48:15 ◼   ► I don't know if you've heard it yet either.

00:48:17 ◼   ► - Oh, I heard it.

00:48:19 ◼   ► - My prediction that I share here

00:48:20 ◼   ► is that both of you will buy the slim iPhone

00:48:22 ◼   ► and then change to another iPhone before the end of the year.

00:48:24 ◼   ► - Oh no, I don't think I'll buy it at all.

00:48:28 ◼   ► - I want it so bad.

00:48:30 ◼   ► - I know myself, I'll just get the Pro Max.

00:48:32 ◼   ► - We'll see is what I'm saying.

00:48:36 ◼   ► - It's been a while since I swapped phones mid-cycle.

00:48:40 ◼   ► - Has it?

00:48:43 ◼   ► - Can't say that about Federico.

00:48:45 ◼   ► - I don't know, no, you say it's been a while.

00:48:47 ◼   ► I don't know if that's true for you.

00:48:48 ◼   ► - No, it is true.

00:48:49 ◼   ► - You just said that, but I'm not sure that that's true.

00:48:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's been years.

00:48:52 ◼   ► - What you just said.

00:48:53 ◼   ► I don't know if that's accurate.

00:48:55 ◼   ► - It is.

00:48:56 ◼   ► - Someone will correct us if it is,

00:48:57 ◼   ► but I'm not sure that that's accurate.

00:48:59 ◼   ► - It's also been a while since I broke a phone.

00:49:02 ◼   ► - Didn't you recently buy a phone and then change it

00:49:05 ◼   ► 'cause of the color?

00:49:06 ◼   ► - No.

00:49:07 ◼   ► I'm using my pink desert titanium phone with no case.

00:49:13 ◼   ► Living my life.

00:49:13 ◼   ► - Good.

00:49:15 ◼   ► - So that's thing one, I gotta contend with all that.

00:49:18 ◼   ► Thing two is I switched, I became a UniFi person.

00:49:23 ◼   ► I've been ubiquity pilled.

00:49:24 ◼   ► UniFi sells a relatively inexpensive NAS.

00:49:31 ◼   ► - There we go.

00:49:32 ◼   ► - And I saw a friend of mine about this.

00:49:35 ◼   ► Doing the NAS and filling it with hard drives

00:49:40 ◼   ► and moving stuff off my laptop

00:49:43 ◼   ► that I don't actually need on my laptop,

00:49:45 ◼   ► I could do that several times

00:49:48 ◼   ► before paying for the eight terabyte again.

00:49:50 ◼   ► Now I did just buy a new laptop at the end of the year,

00:49:53 ◼   ► but I'm kind of thinking for the future.

00:49:56 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:49:59 ◼   ► - Why do you wanna do this?

00:50:01 ◼   ► The whole point of that spending the $4 million

00:50:05 ◼   ► for an eight terabyte SSD is because you say,

00:50:08 ◼   ► I want it all on the computer.

00:50:10 ◼   ► What if you move it off the computer,

00:50:11 ◼   ► it's not there anymore.

00:50:13 ◼   ► So why do you wanna do this?

00:50:15 ◼   ► You just constantly move things around.

00:50:18 ◼   ► All you ever wanna do is move things.

00:50:20 ◼   ► - It's upheaval.

00:50:21 ◼   ► I really like copying stuff in Finder I guess.

00:50:24 ◼   ► I think I'm gonna have to do it.

00:50:27 ◼   ► I think maybe after having three kids,

00:50:32 ◼   ► now you are substituting that feeling

00:50:36 ◼   ► with sort of birthing archives and hard drives instead.

00:50:41 ◼   ► - Wow.

00:50:43 ◼   ► - You need that thrill in your life.

00:50:45 ◼   ► And I understand it, I understand it.

00:50:47 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:50:48 ◼   ► - But there's gotta be a cheaper way to do it, man.

00:50:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, tattoos would be a cheaper way of doing it.

00:50:52 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:50:54 ◼   ► - Here's what's gonna happen if you do this.

00:50:57 ◼   ► You're gonna keep everything on your laptop

00:51:00 ◼   ► and then also store it on a NAS.

00:51:01 ◼   ► That is what will happen.

00:51:03 ◼   ► And at that point, why?

00:51:04 ◼   ► - Why is none?

00:51:05 ◼   ► - No, because then you'll get the NAS,

00:51:09 ◼   ► then you'll back up the NAS.

00:51:11 ◼   ► So then everything will be 12 places instead of seven

00:51:15 ◼   ► or wherever it is right now.

00:51:16 ◼   ► Do whatever makes you happy ultimately,

00:51:21 ◼   ► but just understand that you will wanna keep it locally.

00:51:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, upheaval.

00:51:28 ◼   ► So I'm just gonna spend some time this year

00:51:29 ◼   ► just evaluating my storage stuff.

00:51:33 ◼   ► - It's a new thing for you, it's a new thing.

00:51:35 ◼   ► - It's not new, but here I am.

00:51:37 ◼   ► Tell us about yours.

00:51:40 ◼   ► - All of my things are baby related.

00:51:43 ◼   ► So obviously I'm gonna be taking a lot of photos,

00:51:47 ◼   ► more photos than ever.

00:51:48 ◼   ► Maybe I will need to move to iCloud Photo Library

00:51:53 ◼   ► at some point in the future.

00:51:53 ◼   ► Although I feel like my timeframe on that

00:51:55 ◼   ► is a little bit further out.

00:51:57 ◼   ► My photos are, I don't know, like 700 megabytes

00:52:02 ◼   ► or something like that right now,

00:52:04 ◼   ► but I know it's gonna increase.

00:52:05 ◼   ► I mean, one of the ways that I know it's gonna increase

00:52:07 ◼   ► is because one of the things I wanna do

00:52:09 ◼   ► is not just take photos, it's actually to take more video.

00:52:11 ◼   ► I'm not much of a taking video person,

00:52:15 ◼   ► but I know that I will want to do more of that

00:52:19 ◼   ► because there's a lot of that.

00:52:21 ◼   ► And somebody wrote in, made a specific suggestion,

00:52:24 ◼   ► which is the main thing that I'm recommending,

00:52:26 ◼   ► is to use an app called One Second Every Day.

00:52:29 ◼   ► 'Cause it's one of these apps that's like,

00:52:32 ◼   ► hey, take a second of video

00:52:33 ◼   ► and basically to take one second of video

00:52:35 ◼   ► of my child every day.

00:52:37 ◼   ► - Yeah. - It's really cool.

00:52:38 ◼   ► - It's amazing looking back on video,

00:52:40 ◼   ► just your kids, the way they talk and their voices change.

00:52:44 ◼   ► It's really good, that's good advice.

00:52:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I wanna have video as well as photos.

00:52:50 ◼   ► And I also like the idea of this,

00:52:52 ◼   ► like if I do it, like we all used to do this, right?

00:52:56 ◼   ► Like there was that photo a day thing,

00:52:58 ◼   ► like a long time ago, like early on in the iPhone.

00:53:01 ◼   ► Do you remember this?

00:53:02 ◼   ► Take one picture of yourself every day.

00:53:05 ◼   ► And it was like an app that you could line up your face

00:53:08 ◼   ► from the previous day.

00:53:09 ◼   ► - Oh yeah. - Oh yeah.

00:53:11 ◼   ► - And it was based on a guy,

00:53:13 ◼   ► the guy who made the app had done that himself

00:53:15 ◼   ► for a long time, I think still does,

00:53:18 ◼   ► but was doing it with like a DSLR camera.

00:53:20 ◼   ► And then he made an app to do it.

00:53:22 ◼   ► And it was a thing that lots of people did.

00:53:24 ◼   ► I did that and then like you would share it every year,

00:53:26 ◼   ► like lots of people would do that.

00:53:28 ◼   ► Like you'd share it at the end of the year,

00:53:29 ◼   ► kind of how we do our Instagram top nine,

00:53:30 ◼   ► but like that all went away.

00:53:32 ◼   ► But the idea of doing it in video,

00:53:34 ◼   ► I just think is really fun.

00:53:35 ◼   ► So I'm gonna try this app out.

00:53:38 ◼   ► I've downloaded it and this is gonna be one

00:53:39 ◼   ► that I'm gonna wanna have set up when the baby comes.

00:53:42 ◼   ► - All right, Mike, you have plenty of pics.

00:53:46 ◼   ► Go grab another one.

00:53:48 ◼   ► - Okay, similarly, photo sharing with family

00:53:53 ◼   ► is obviously a thing that I'm gonna need to do now

00:53:55 ◼   ► more than I've ever done before.

00:53:57 ◼   ► In fact, I've never done before

00:53:58 ◼   ► and typically don't like that experience,

00:54:00 ◼   ► but I know that it's something that I will wanna do

00:54:03 ◼   ► and like the rest of my family will wanna do.

00:54:05 ◼   ► So I'm assuming I will just use iCloud photo library

00:54:08 ◼   ► for this, like I know that there are apps that exist

00:54:12 ◼   ► that serve these functions,

00:54:14 ◼   ► but everybody that I would be sharing these images with

00:54:16 ◼   ► has an iPhone and I don't wanna use another thing.

00:54:21 ◼   ► And like me and Adina have actually started

00:54:23 ◼   ► a specific shared album for just the two of us

00:54:26 ◼   ► for like through this process of like photos

00:54:29 ◼   ► of how she's been growing and photos of scans

00:54:31 ◼   ► and stuff like that, that will continue to be mine and hers.

00:54:34 ◼   ► So we have like a shared album,

00:54:35 ◼   ► even though we also have a shared library,

00:54:38 ◼   ► but like there's, just so we can look through these

00:54:40 ◼   ► like specific photos we've curated

00:54:42 ◼   ► and then we will eventually have an album

00:54:45 ◼   ► that is shared more widely, right?

00:54:47 ◼   ► Like we have family and friends,

00:54:49 ◼   ► if they want it kind of thing of pictures of the baby.

00:54:52 ◼   ► So I guess I'm opting for iCloud photos for this.

00:54:56 ◼   ► I've already had a few people recommend apps for it,

00:54:59 ◼   ► but I don't think I need anything other than this.

00:55:04 ◼   ► Unless there's something that I'm not thinking about.

00:55:08 ◼   ► - Okay, the second item in my list of three items

00:55:12 ◼   ► is continuing to go even more all in once again with Obsidian

00:55:17 ◼   ► because I am fully back after a couple of years

00:55:23 ◼   ► of trying a whole bunch of things.

00:55:25 ◼   ► I realize Obsidian is my first love.

00:55:26 ◼   ► My, Obsidian is, Obsidian is my second love actually in life.

00:55:31 ◼   ► As an editorial widow myself,

00:55:42 ◼   ► I found love again with Obsidian after editorial went away.

00:55:46 ◼   ► And I know that I will never love Obsidian

00:55:48 ◼   ► as much as I love the editorial,

00:55:50 ◼   ► but it's a different type of love.

00:55:52 ◼   ► And I truly do my best work, I think, and my best research.

00:55:57 ◼   ► Like I really, really like working in this app

00:56:01 ◼   ► and I've been making good progress

00:56:03 ◼   ► in reapproaching Obsidian.

00:56:07 ◼   ► I, much to my surprise, I started using daily notes.

00:56:11 ◼   ► I have become a daily notes person

00:56:13 ◼   ► and have been for nearly two months at this point.

00:56:17 ◼   ► Once I understood that I didn't have to be

00:56:21 ◼   ► the kind of person who has meetings every day

00:56:23 ◼   ► to use daily notes, that's when it clicked for me.

00:56:25 ◼   ► I'm just using daily notes to write down

00:56:28 ◼   ► what I'm doing every day and then when I'm done,

00:56:30 ◼   ► I just cross those items off.

00:56:32 ◼   ► Or maybe I leave them there for future reference, who knows?

00:56:35 ◼   ► I created this nice looking template for my daily notes

00:56:39 ◼   ► that I'm gonna share at some point with people

00:56:41 ◼   ► and it's been going really nicely.

00:56:44 ◼   ► And I will continue to integrate Obsidian

00:56:48 ◼   ► more and more with Todoist.

00:56:51 ◼   ► I am now also back and have been back

00:56:54 ◼   ► for the past couple of months on Todoist.

00:56:56 ◼   ► I'm using both Reminders and Todoist.

00:56:59 ◼   ► I understood that for personal Reminders,

00:57:01 ◼   ► like medications and stuff, or family and shopping lists,

00:57:05 ◼   ► I'm using Reminders.

00:57:08 ◼   ► And it's okay, it's great at that,

00:57:10 ◼   ► but for work stuff and especially for automation stuff,

00:57:15 ◼   ► I just needed a higher flexibility of Todoist.

00:57:20 ◼   ► And I have a couple of things that I'm using

00:57:25 ◼   ► to integrate Todoist with Obsidian

00:57:27 ◼   ► and I think I will continue to try

00:57:30 ◼   ► and put together additional shortcuts,

00:57:32 ◼   ► that sort of stuff, to have even tighter communication

00:57:36 ◼   ► between the two.

00:57:38 ◼   ► I'm very excited about finally having a proper structure

00:57:43 ◼   ► for my notes, which is something that I've felt

00:57:49 ◼   ► for the past couple of years.

00:57:51 ◼   ► And the thing is, I really consider the article

00:57:58 ◼   ► that I published last month about the iPad

00:58:03 ◼   ► the culmination of this two-year journey,

00:58:06 ◼   ► where I tried everything under the sun

00:58:11 ◼   ► that I could possibly try.

00:58:13 ◼   ► And if I finally came to a decision

00:58:18 ◼   ► and it's like that sort of domino effect

00:58:21 ◼   ► of once I made that decision, everything fell into place.

00:58:25 ◼   ► And so to people, it may look like

00:58:27 ◼   ► I'm constantly switching between things

00:58:31 ◼   ► that to an extent I am, because it's my job to try stuff.

00:58:35 ◼   ► But I know because I feel it,

00:58:39 ◼   ► that I am now sticking with a particular set of tools.

00:58:44 ◼   ► And so this combination of iPad, Obsidian, Todoist,

00:58:48 ◼   ► reminders and Apple Notes for personal and family stuff.

00:58:52 ◼   ► Like I know that everything is finally clicking into place

00:58:55 ◼   ► after two years and I feel incredibly good about it.

00:59:01 ◼   ► In a way that I haven't felt for the past two years,

00:59:03 ◼   ► where I always felt, when it came to my workflow,

00:59:08 ◼   ► I always felt sort of confused and unsure

00:59:12 ◼   ► what I was gonna do.

00:59:13 ◼   ► I mean, heck, for six months, I used the Surface

00:59:17 ◼   ► two years ago and I never told you guys about it.

00:59:19 ◼   ► That's how bad it got at one point.

00:59:23 ◼   ► So when I say that I feel very good about my decision,

00:59:27 ◼   ► I mean it.

00:59:29 ◼   ► - What goes in your daily notes?

00:59:33 ◼   ► Like what is that for?

00:59:34 ◼   ► - Okay, let's see.

00:59:35 ◼   ► Let me open my daily notes.

00:59:37 ◼   ► All right, so first of all, I made it easy for myself.

00:59:41 ◼   ► So that I created this template where there's a big giant

00:59:45 ◼   ► toggle at the top that says, is this day done?

00:59:48 ◼   ► And it's an iOS style on and off switch.

00:59:52 ◼   ► And when I consider the day done, I flip it

00:59:55 ◼   ► and it turns green and it gets archived.

00:59:58 ◼   ► Yesterday, I still gotta do a couple of things.

01:00:02 ◼   ► There's a link to a Reddit thread

01:00:04 ◼   ► about an Obsidian plugin that I wanna check out.

01:00:09 ◼   ► And there's a link to another Obsidian note.

01:00:13 ◼   ► So it's an internal link to action items

01:00:17 ◼   ► from a quarterly call that I had with John

01:00:22 ◼   ► about Mac stories.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Two days ago, let's see.

01:00:28 ◼   ► I had, I was making a list of games that were being mentioned

01:00:33 ◼   ► on the Game of the Year episode of Into the Aether,

01:00:40 ◼   ► one of my favorite with the games podcasts.

01:00:42 ◼   ► Another day I had, this is a shortcut idea.

01:00:47 ◼   ► And it says, can I recreate the Obsidian web clipper

01:00:53 ◼   ► using shortcuts and the summarization features

01:00:56 ◼   ► of the Kagi search engine or Kagi, whatever it's called.

01:01:00 ◼   ► So like, it's basically like, I'm using the daily note

01:01:04 ◼   ► as a fast way to open a place in Obsidian

01:01:09 ◼   ► that is tied to the current day where I can just type

01:01:15 ◼   ► anything or paste anything so that I can worry

01:01:20 ◼   ► about it later.

01:01:21 ◼   ► - The expectation is that everything that goes in there,

01:01:24 ◼   ► something is gonna be done with it?

01:01:26 ◼   ► - Yes, yes.

01:01:28 ◼   ► But I don't wanna have, like, it's like a limbo space.

01:01:33 ◼   ► Here's the way I think about it.

01:01:38 ◼   ► It's a transient place between my brain

01:01:43 ◼   ► and my task manager.

01:01:45 ◼   ► I know that this is gonna be something,

01:01:49 ◼   ► but I don't know yet to what extent.

01:01:52 ◼   ► I don't know yet when.

01:01:54 ◼   ► So I don't have a due date and I don't have yet a project.

01:01:58 ◼   ► I know I'm gonna do something with it

01:02:00 ◼   ► and the something may be, I'm gonna look at it

01:02:03 ◼   ► and I'm gonna ignore it or I'm not gonna like it.

01:02:06 ◼   ► But like, it's basically an inbox.

01:02:08 ◼   ► It's basically a daily based inbox where I put stuff

01:02:13 ◼   ► and eventually I remove stuff.

01:02:17 ◼   ► So it's just my way of using daily notes.

01:02:20 ◼   ► I know that other people use them as a journal.

01:02:23 ◼   ► Some people use them as a log of everything they do.

01:02:27 ◼   ► The thing is, and I think I mentioned this before,

01:02:29 ◼   ► everything I do eventually becomes public.

01:02:33 ◼   ► Like I have a website, I have podcasts, now I have videos.

01:02:36 ◼   ► So I don't need that type of stuff

01:02:42 ◼   ► as much as I need a place where I can put temporary things

01:02:45 ◼   ► or some things I may choose to keep in Obsidian.

01:02:49 ◼   ► Like for example, last week I was ripping

01:02:53 ◼   ► PlayStation 2 games and I needed to figure out

01:02:56 ◼   ► how do I rip PlayStation 2 games on a Mac?

01:02:59 ◼   ► Because apparently you cannot do it on an iPad.

01:03:01 ◼   ► So I had to use Sylvia's MacBook Pro.

01:03:04 ◼   ► And I entered in my daily notes, how do I rip PS2 games?

01:03:10 ◼   ► That was the sentence that I wrote down.

01:03:12 ◼   ► Later that evening, I reopened Obsidian,

01:03:15 ◼   ► I was like, oh yeah, I need to rip the PS2 games.

01:03:17 ◼   ► I turned that line into a separate note.

01:03:23 ◼   ► I did some Googling, found the terminal commands,

01:03:26 ◼   ► pasted them in Obsidian.

01:03:28 ◼   ► And so that note is gonna live in Obsidian

01:03:30 ◼   ► as a reference for the future.

01:03:32 ◼   ► Whenever I get another PS2 game that I need to rip,

01:03:35 ◼   ► I'm gonna look it up in Obsidian.

01:03:36 ◼   ► - Okay, you're also using it as a inbox of sorts, right?

01:03:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:03:43 ◼   ► - Little things go in there and the idea is

01:03:45 ◼   ► you're risk maybe gonna become a task

01:03:47 ◼   ► or it's gonna become its own project

01:03:49 ◼   ► which has its own set of notes.

01:03:50 ◼   ► Okay, that's cool.

01:03:51 ◼   ► - Yes, yes, yes.

01:03:53 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:03:54 ◼   ► - Steven, you're up.

01:03:57 ◼   ► - It's me, your friendly neighborhood podcaster.

01:04:02 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:04:04 ◼   ► Focus modes, something I wanna spend some time on.

01:04:06 ◼   ► This is mostly because David Sparks,

01:04:09 ◼   ► I don't wanna say berated me,

01:04:11 ◼   ► but got onto me about my lack of focus modes

01:04:14 ◼   ► on an upcoming episode of MPU.

01:04:16 ◼   ► So I want to find ways to turn work off my game.

01:04:21 ◼   ► Work off more effectively on my phone when I'm not at work.

01:04:25 ◼   ► I've got a focus mode now that turns off notifications

01:04:30 ◼   ► from several work apps and disables my work email

01:04:34 ◼   ► after hours, but I feel like I wanna go further.

01:04:37 ◼   ► Not really sure what that looks like,

01:04:39 ◼   ► but it's something that I wanna spend some time on this year.

01:04:42 ◼   ► Like having my devices, mostly my phone,

01:04:44 ◼   ► being more different than my phone.

01:04:50 ◼   ► Different during the work day and not during the work day.

01:04:54 ◼   ► - I have a podcast to recommend to you

01:04:57 ◼   ► that likes to talk about their focus modes.

01:04:59 ◼   ► - Thoroughly considered.

01:05:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, very thorough, very considered focus modes.

01:05:03 ◼   ► That's what that show's all about.

01:05:04 ◼   ► You can go find them out there.

01:05:05 ◼   ► Focus modes are very powerful,

01:05:07 ◼   ► but I think it's best not to overdo it.

01:05:11 ◼   ► That's my personal favorite.

01:05:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, really it's just taking my home focus mode

01:05:16 ◼   ► and just beefing it up, I think is more

01:05:20 ◼   ► what I want because I think I talked about this.

01:05:23 ◼   ► One idea that floated through my head on my sabbatical

01:05:25 ◼   ► was like, should I be a person who has a work phone

01:05:27 ◼   ► and a personal phone?

01:05:28 ◼   ► And I very quickly decided that was a terrible idea,

01:05:31 ◼   ► but something there is interesting, so we'll see.

01:05:35 ◼   ► - It's easier than ever to make those two things

01:05:38 ◼   ► the same thing.

01:05:39 ◼   ► One something, I don't know if you're doing this right now.

01:05:43 ◼   ► I don't know if you just mentioned this.

01:05:44 ◼   ► I don't think you do.

01:05:44 ◼   ► If you're changing your home screens.

01:05:46 ◼   ► - I'm not, that's basically the top bullet point.

01:05:49 ◼   ► That is a very powerful thing when it comes to focus modes

01:05:53 ◼   ► is being able to actually change how your phone looks.

01:05:56 ◼   ► It's also like, not only are you surfacing the apps

01:05:59 ◼   ► that are most relevant for the thing that you're in,

01:06:02 ◼   ► I find it as a benefit, like a beneficial thing

01:06:05 ◼   ► of making me realize that I am supposed to be doing

01:06:08 ◼   ► different things.

01:06:09 ◼   ► Of like, if I open my phone and it doesn't look the same

01:06:13 ◼   ► and what I would recommend to you is,

01:06:15 ◼   ► have a different widget arrangement

01:06:17 ◼   ► as well as different apps.

01:06:18 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:06:20 ◼   ► - Maybe use different lock screens and home screens too.

01:06:22 ◼   ► - I know a lot about widgets.

01:06:24 ◼   ► - There you go.

01:06:25 ◼   ► - Thanks for that.

01:06:26 ◼   ► - You could have widgets, Smith widgets that are like,

01:06:28 ◼   ► even indicative of what the focus mode is.

01:06:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's just a text widget and is like,

01:06:36 ◼   ► you're not at work, dummy.

01:06:38 ◼   ► - Just a stop.

01:06:38 ◼   ► - Stop.

01:06:39 ◼   ► - You can have one that says stop and it's red

01:06:41 ◼   ► and then one that says go and it's green.

01:06:42 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:06:43 ◼   ► - And for working on that.

01:06:44 ◼   ► - So we'll see.

01:06:46 ◼   ► - I have historically like,

01:06:51 ◼   ► just kind of let those lines blur more than I want

01:06:55 ◼   ► to have them blurred moving forward.

01:06:57 ◼   ► For instance, like one thing I did,

01:07:00 ◼   ► maybe out of the sabbatical beforehand was like,

01:07:03 ◼   ► turn off notifications in Slack, like in Slack,

01:07:06 ◼   ► you know, they have their own scheduling thing.

01:07:09 ◼   ► But I ran into a problem where the guy who works in our CMS,

01:07:12 ◼   ► our freelance developer,

01:07:14 ◼   ► he can only work for us during the evenings.

01:07:16 ◼   ► And I would miss, he'd like, oh, hey, you around?

01:07:19 ◼   ► Can we do this thing?

01:07:20 ◼   ► And I didn't see it.

01:07:20 ◼   ► And so I talked to him, I was like, look,

01:07:23 ◼   ► we can move into Slack, but after hours,

01:07:26 ◼   ► like iMessage is going to be the way to get ahold of me.

01:07:29 ◼   ► 'Cause I'm not getting notified from Slack after hours,

01:07:32 ◼   ► but then we can, you know, you're like, hey, I'm around,

01:07:34 ◼   ► can we do this thing?

01:07:35 ◼   ► And then we can move the conversation into Slack.

01:07:37 ◼   ► And so some of it's like human stuff,

01:07:40 ◼   ► but the technology can obviously be very helpful.

01:07:42 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm gonna explore that.

01:07:45 ◼   ► - Why don't you just tell him to like,

01:07:47 ◼   ► do the Slack thing, which I like,

01:07:49 ◼   ► where it can push it through.

01:07:51 ◼   ► - Well, so I ran into a conflict

01:07:53 ◼   ► because I also had my focus mode

01:07:56 ◼   ► disabling Slack notifications.

01:07:57 ◼   ► And so I need to, like, that's a conflict right now.

01:08:01 ◼   ► So I don't know.

01:08:02 ◼   ► - Oh, you don't need it though.

01:08:03 ◼   ► Like if you're now using Slack's ones,

01:08:05 ◼   ► then you doesn't need to be in the focus mode.

01:08:07 ◼   ► - That's why it's a work in progress.

01:08:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm helping you, I'm helping you.

01:08:11 ◼   ► - No, I know.

01:08:12 ◼   ► What I'm trying to do is take work out of iMessage as well.

01:08:15 ◼   ► Don't put it there.

01:08:17 ◼   ► That place.

01:08:17 ◼   ► - Focus, turn, I'm changing that right now.

01:08:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, change your layouts,

01:08:23 ◼   ► like your home screens and your widgets and stuff.

01:08:25 ◼   ► Like that's really helpful.

01:08:27 ◼   ► And then kind of like, do you have a mercy adapted.

01:08:31 ◼   ► Focus modes have gotten so much better over time.

01:08:33 ◼   ► If you're a done,

01:08:36 ◼   ► I actually also want to talk about focus modes.

01:08:38 ◼   ► - I am a done.

01:08:40 ◼   ► So I obviously want to use my phone less, right?

01:08:42 ◼   ► Like who doesn't?

01:08:43 ◼   ► But like, I will want to use my phone differently

01:08:47 ◼   ► than the way that I currently use it when I have a child.

01:08:50 ◼   ► Because I, you know, I'm like, you know,

01:08:52 ◼   ► I'm like a phone gremlin like everyone else,

01:08:54 ◼   ► but I also don't want to be like that.

01:08:57 ◼   ► And I don't want to, you know,

01:09:00 ◼   ► I have imagination to like,

01:09:01 ◼   ► how would I like my child to use technology?

01:09:04 ◼   ► And that does not match with how I use technology.

01:09:08 ◼   ► And so that has to change if I want to give,

01:09:11 ◼   ► be a good kind of role model, right?

01:09:14 ◼   ► So really specifically,

01:09:17 ◼   ► it's about using my phone more intentionally

01:09:20 ◼   ► and like being intentional with it.

01:09:21 ◼   ► And I want to use focus modes.

01:09:24 ◼   ► I use focus modes a lot,

01:09:25 ◼   ► but I want to create a specific focus mode

01:09:28 ◼   ► for like at home with baby, right?

01:09:32 ◼   ► So like, and then with child.

01:09:34 ◼   ► And so like, I'm thinking about what that might look like.

01:09:37 ◼   ► And something I found out today

01:09:38 ◼   ► while I was digging around in focus modes

01:09:40 ◼   ► that I didn't know is the system

01:09:43 ◼   ► that reduce interruptions uses can be used

01:09:46 ◼   ► on any focus mode.

01:09:48 ◼   ► It's a toggle inside of focus modes.

01:09:50 ◼   ► I was like, aha, that is good.

01:09:53 ◼   ► - It is good.

01:09:54 ◼   ► - So I'm going to try that.

01:09:55 ◼   ► So like, I'm going to set up a baby focus mode.

01:09:57 ◼   ► I don't know exactly know what that's going to include yet,

01:10:00 ◼   ► but I'm going to try the Apple intelligence

01:10:02 ◼   ► reduce interruptions feature inside of that focus mode.

01:10:07 ◼   ► Did you know that that was a thing for Erika?

01:10:09 ◼   ► - No.

01:10:10 ◼   ► - Because there's a toggle.

01:10:12 ◼   ► So inside, because obviously reduce interruptions exists,

01:10:14 ◼   ► right?

01:10:15 ◼   ► And reduce interruptions in focus modes

01:10:18 ◼   ► has the same toggle, but you can't turn it off.

01:10:22 ◼   ► It's called intelligent breakthrough and silencing.

01:10:25 ◼   ► And this wasn't in focus modes before.

01:10:27 ◼   ► And this can now be turned on in any focus mode.

01:10:29 ◼   ► And it says, while this focus is active,

01:10:31 ◼   ► intelligently allow important notifications to interrupt you

01:10:35 ◼   ► and silence notifications determined not to be important.

01:10:38 ◼   ► Any notification specifically allowed or silenced

01:10:41 ◼   ► will always be allowed or silenced.

01:10:43 ◼   ► So I'm going to try that.

01:10:45 ◼   ► - Interesting.

01:10:46 ◼   ► I've never been like, I use focus modes

01:10:49 ◼   ► only for the home screen automation changes.

01:10:52 ◼   ► I've never really particularly cared about notifications.

01:10:57 ◼   ► - Sure.

01:10:58 ◼   ► - I think I have a really strong sense of self,

01:11:02 ◼   ► if you couldn't tell after all these years on the show.

01:11:05 ◼   ► Interruptions on, like I cannot be interrupted.

01:11:09 ◼   ► Notifications cannot interrupt me.

01:11:11 ◼   ► Like if I'm doing something and I get something,

01:11:13 ◼   ► like unless it's like Sylvia texting me,

01:11:16 ◼   ► help me, my car is on fire.

01:11:19 ◼   ► Like, I don't care.

01:11:20 ◼   ► I see notifications come by like, cool.

01:11:22 ◼   ► I'll get to them later.

01:11:24 ◼   ► Like I've never, I never had that compulsion to like,

01:11:27 ◼   ► oh, I've been interrupted, you know?

01:11:30 ◼   ► Nah, I don't care.

01:11:32 ◼   ► - Okay. - Yeah.

01:11:33 ◼   ► - Well, I've created my baby focus.

01:11:36 ◼   ► - Nice.

01:11:37 ◼   ► - Doesn't do anything yet, but I'll think about that one.

01:11:40 ◼   ► 'Cause I'll create like home screens and stuff like that.

01:11:44 ◼   ► - Nice.

01:11:45 ◼   ► I have a last item on my list.

01:11:49 ◼   ► And that is, keep doing the research

01:11:53 ◼   ► to incorporate more like assistive AI stuff into what I do.

01:11:58 ◼   ► I hate wasting time on boring, busy work.

01:12:05 ◼   ► I think everybody can relate to this.

01:12:10 ◼   ► So whether it's gonna be, like I mentioned the AI in email,

01:12:15 ◼   ► that's something that I've already started doing.

01:12:18 ◼   ► I wanna look into this new generation of services

01:12:21 ◼   ► that transcribe meetings for you

01:12:25 ◼   ► and give you like a list of actionable items

01:12:29 ◼   ► at the end of the meeting.

01:12:31 ◼   ► I know that Jon really likes to use Granola on the Mac.

01:12:34 ◼   ► - That's funny, I've never heard of it.

01:12:36 ◼   ► I love that there are so many of these things

01:12:38 ◼   ► you just never hear of them.

01:12:39 ◼   ► - Oh, Granola is super good.

01:12:40 ◼   ► Like since I'm not using a Mac and Granola is not on the iPad

01:12:45 ◼   ► he's sending me these transcripts put together by Granola

01:12:48 ◼   ► at the end of a Zoom call.

01:12:49 ◼   ► They are really, really well done.

01:12:52 ◼   ► But I would like to find something that is web-based

01:12:54 ◼   ► or something that is native to the iPad

01:12:57 ◼   ► so that I can also have something like this.

01:12:59 ◼   ► I've been playing around with voice-based,

01:13:04 ◼   ► AI-powered, not taking tools.

01:13:09 ◼   ► Something that I realized I've been doing lately

01:13:13 ◼   ► is I like to talk to myself

01:13:18 ◼   ► when I'm driving.

01:13:19 ◼   ► - What about?

01:13:21 ◼   ► - Making a list of things that I gotta do.

01:13:24 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:13:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, out loud for whatever reason in English.

01:13:28 ◼   ► Like it's totally, my brain is all kinds of fried

01:13:32 ◼   ► at this point between languages.

01:13:35 ◼   ► I did it like a few months ago,

01:13:40 ◼   ► like without thinking about it.

01:13:42 ◼   ► And then after 10 minutes that I was talking to myself,

01:13:45 ◼   ► like I was like, "What am I gonna do?

01:13:47 ◼   ► And then I realized, am I crazy?

01:13:51 ◼   ► Or like, is this actually useful?"

01:13:54 ◼   ► So I started looking into like,

01:13:57 ◼   ► are there other people on the internet

01:14:00 ◼   ► sort of doing the same thing?

01:14:02 ◼   ► And so I found this app called,

01:14:05 ◼   ► let me give you the name, Super Notes, Super Whisper.

01:14:08 ◼   ► Super Whisper.

01:14:09 ◼   ► It's using, I think, the Whisper model for transcriptions.

01:14:13 ◼   ► But what it's interesting

01:14:16 ◼   ► is that you can give the app multiple modes.

01:14:19 ◼   ► In the settings, you can create multiple modes.

01:14:22 ◼   ► And so for example,

01:14:23 ◼   ► I created one mode called Note Taking.

01:14:27 ◼   ► And the prompt, like you can give,

01:14:29 ◼   ► each mode you can give an instruction prompt.

01:14:32 ◼   ► This prompt, I said, reformat the following text.

01:14:35 ◼   ► Structure it for effective note taking

01:14:37 ◼   ► using a combination of markdown,

01:14:38 ◼   ► bulleted lists, and numbered lists.

01:14:41 ◼   ► Ensure that key points ideas or action items

01:14:44 ◼   ► are clearly highlighted.

01:14:45 ◼   ► Check for correct grammar and punctuation.

01:14:48 ◼   ► Do not change the tone.

01:14:49 ◼   ► Use as much of the original text as possible.

01:14:52 ◼   ► When you think you heard max stories,

01:14:55 ◼   ► I actually mean max stories.

01:14:57 ◼   ► That is my prompt for this note taking mode.

01:15:01 ◼   ► It's using my OpenAI API key.

01:15:04 ◼   ► - I love the, you know, the level, I get it,

01:15:06 ◼   ► but like the level you have to go to, you know,

01:15:08 ◼   ► it's just like, I want, I just,

01:15:10 ◼   ► all I want is for it to do it correctly.

01:15:12 ◼   ► - Yes, yes.

01:15:14 ◼   ► And basically I put this thing on my iPhone when I'm driving.

01:15:18 ◼   ► Say I'm gonna, you know, pick up Sylvia

01:15:20 ◼   ► or I'm going to the supermarket or whatever.

01:15:22 ◼   ► Like I'm driving for 10 minutes.

01:15:24 ◼   ► I put this on, I start talking,

01:15:28 ◼   ► and I leave it on for like 10 minutes.

01:15:30 ◼   ► And then I press done, wait for like 30 seconds.

01:15:33 ◼   ► It does its thing in the cloud.

01:15:35 ◼   ► And it gives me back a markdown formatted log

01:15:39 ◼   ► of the things that I reasoned out loud by myself.

01:15:44 ◼   ► And I can see it in Obsidian.

01:15:46 ◼   ► Look, I am fully aware of the fact

01:15:48 ◼   ► that it sounds ridiculous and I look ridiculous doing it.

01:15:51 ◼   ► But once again, I don't care.

01:15:53 ◼   ► There's something to the fact of like thinking out loud.

01:15:57 ◼   ► Yeah, it's weird, but it kind of works for me.

01:16:03 ◼   ► So, and lastly, eventually I would like to find something

01:16:09 ◼   ► that works with Todoist and AI together.

01:16:14 ◼   ► I tried, Todoist has like an AI mode.

01:16:19 ◼   ► It seems to me to be pretty useless

01:16:22 ◼   ► because it's not like actually querying your Todoist.

01:16:25 ◼   ► It's like suggesting tasks for you.

01:16:27 ◼   ► And that is like not the thing I want.

01:16:29 ◼   ► - I couldn't imagine the worst thing.

01:16:30 ◼   ► - No, no, thank you, no, thank you.

01:16:32 ◼   ► - Give me more to do.

01:16:35 ◼   ► - I used to be able to use this external chat GPT integration

01:16:40 ◼   ► like a custom GPT located at the website todoistgpt.com.

01:16:46 ◼   ► A few days ago, it stopped working

01:16:50 ◼   ► and the website doesn't exist anymore.

01:16:52 ◼   ► So I hope at some point to find,

01:16:56 ◼   ► like I just want to be able to talk to my task manager

01:16:58 ◼   ► in retro language and manage my tasks via voice

01:17:04 ◼   ► or via text with like short or long prompts

01:17:09 ◼   ► in a way that works.

01:17:11 ◼   ► So hopefully at some point in 2025,

01:17:13 ◼   ► either Todoist will do it natively

01:17:15 ◼   ► or there'll be some other kind of integration.

01:17:18 ◼   ► Maybe Apple intelligence will let me do it

01:17:21 ◼   ► with the app intents at some point, who knows?

01:17:24 ◼   ► But yeah, finding a way to integrate my task manager

01:17:27 ◼   ► with AI would be nice at some point.

01:17:31 ◼   ► - Did you see like a sort of today that chat GPT

01:17:35 ◼   ► is adding tasks?

01:17:36 ◼   ► - Oh yes, and I have tried them and I have thoughts.

01:17:39 ◼   ► I tried it with one very simple prompt last night.

01:17:45 ◼   ► I said, remind me at 11 p.m.

01:17:49 ◼   ► to review my task manager inbox.

01:17:52 ◼   ► And sure enough, at 11 p.m. I got a notification saying,

01:17:55 ◼   ► review your task manager inbox, good.

01:17:59 ◼   ► Today I was like, okay, now let me see

01:18:01 ◼   ► what you can do if I give you a more,

01:18:05 ◼   ► slightly more complex prompt.

01:18:08 ◼   ► I asked, and I think I still have it here.

01:18:12 ◼   ► I was like, let's do one of those like common things

01:18:16 ◼   ► that people do.

01:18:17 ◼   ► Search for an inspirational quote about art or productivity

01:18:21 ◼   ► or a mix of the two from real famous creative people.

01:18:24 ◼   ► Include the full sentence in double quotes,

01:18:27 ◼   ► followed by the name of the author, the year

01:18:29 ◼   ► and the source, like the title of a book or an interview,

01:18:31 ◼   ► et cetera, and send me these every day at 5 p.m.

01:18:35 ◼   ► Every time this thing tries to run, it says,

01:18:39 ◼   ► I ran into an error, I cannot complete the task for you.

01:18:43 ◼   ► So that's the thoughts that I have about chat GPT tasks.

01:18:47 ◼   ► - It's going great, it's going great.

01:18:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:18:49 ◼   ► - Steven, do you have any more?

01:18:53 ◼   ► - I'm sure something will come along,

01:18:55 ◼   ► but those two were the top of mind today.

01:18:58 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:18:59 ◼   ► For me, when thinking of apps, like Federica mentioned,

01:19:03 ◼   ► I will be using a baby tracking app,

01:19:06 ◼   ► and this is to kind of track all of the things

01:19:09 ◼   ► that babies do and don't do.

01:19:10 ◼   ► And there's the app that I've found

01:19:12 ◼   ► and has been recommended to me,

01:19:13 ◼   ► and the one that I've checked out and I'm gonna use

01:19:15 ◼   ► is called Mango Baby.

01:19:17 ◼   ► I kind of look at it and think like,

01:19:19 ◼   ► this is the time-ery of baby tracking.

01:19:21 ◼   ► It is made by a single developer.

01:19:23 ◼   ► It integrates all of the features and the OS features

01:19:26 ◼   ► that you might expect and would want,

01:19:29 ◼   ► like widgets and live activities and everything.

01:19:32 ◼   ► And one of my very favorite things,

01:19:34 ◼   ► like just thinking about this app conceptually,

01:19:37 ◼   ► like they have a free mode and they have a pro subscription

01:19:40 ◼   ► that has more features and the pro subscription

01:19:42 ◼   ► is a family sharing subscription.

01:19:44 ◼   ► And it's like, that's good.

01:19:46 ◼   ► 'Cause you don't have to do that.

01:19:47 ◼   ► Like it would actually, you'd probably make more money

01:19:49 ◼   ► if you didn't do that because, you know,

01:19:51 ◼   ► a lot of these apps that you can share everything,

01:19:53 ◼   ► you can share all the data.

01:19:56 ◼   ► And I just think that that's really cool that they offer

01:19:59 ◼   ► like a family sharing purchase for their subscription.

01:20:02 ◼   ► I just think that's really nice.

01:20:04 ◼   ► This also goes hand in hand with my beloved iPad mini

01:20:08 ◼   ► is gonna be repurposed to be in the nursery

01:20:12 ◼   ► and it's gonna be for a bunch of things

01:20:13 ◼   ► and it's gonna be focused around parents, right, at first.

01:20:17 ◼   ► So it will have all of the,

01:20:20 ◼   ► like a probably a bunch of widgets on it and stuff

01:20:22 ◼   ► for doing some of this tracking stuff.

01:20:23 ◼   ► So it's around and easy if we need it.

01:20:26 ◼   ► But I also figure it could be used for watching videos

01:20:30 ◼   ► and stuff if we're at late night feeding.

01:20:32 ◼   ► I got a 12 South hover bar tower as a thing to hold.

01:20:36 ◼   ► I saw someone I follow online was using like an iPad stand

01:20:40 ◼   ► next to the nursing chair.

01:20:41 ◼   ► And I was like, aha, there must be a good one.

01:20:43 ◼   ► And I found the good one.

01:20:44 ◼   ► So the 12 South hover bar tower.

01:20:46 ◼   ► So you can kind of just have the iPad just sitting there

01:20:48 ◼   ► and you get to sit and watch Netflix at four o'clock

01:20:51 ◼   ► in the morning when you're trying to get the baby

01:20:53 ◼   ► to go to sleep.

01:20:54 ◼   ► White noise machine, all that kind of stuff.

01:20:56 ◼   ► I figured that would probably be a pretty good use

01:20:58 ◼   ► of this iPad in its little tiny form.

01:21:01 ◼   ► So that's the end of my little workflow changes.

01:21:06 ◼   ► - Okay, that's also the end of this topic.

01:21:10 ◼   ► Lots of changes, you know.

01:21:13 ◼   ► - Before we finish today,

01:21:15 ◼   ► I would like to provide some real time follow up

01:21:17 ◼   ► provided in the Discord by Spol who said,

01:21:19 ◼   ► Stephen switched from an iPhone 14 Pro to 14 Pro Max

01:21:23 ◼   ► mid cycle roughly in March of '23

01:21:25 ◼   ► as revealed in connected 441.

01:21:28 ◼   ► So that was pretty recent.

01:21:29 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:21:30 ◼   ► - Wouldn't you agree?

01:21:32 ◼   ► Pretty recent?

01:21:33 ◼   ► - It's hard.

01:21:35 ◼   ► - Year and a half ago.

01:21:36 ◼   ► - It's hard to say really.

01:21:39 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:21:40 ◼   ► - No, it's not, it's really not.

01:21:42 ◼   ► - I actually already said it.

01:21:44 ◼   ► So it's been said.

01:21:45 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:21:46 ◼   ► We had a lot of feedback about Federico's closing

01:21:50 ◼   ► of the show last week.

01:21:51 ◼   ► - We loved it Federico.

01:21:53 ◼   ► - See, I knew it.

01:21:55 ◼   ► - So do you wanna do it again?

01:21:56 ◼   ► - You might give yourself a new job, so.

01:21:58 ◼   ► - I can do it again.

01:22:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, do it again.

01:22:01 ◼   ► - Can I do it again now?

01:22:02 ◼   ► - Please.

01:22:03 ◼   ► - Well, this has been episode of connected 535.

01:22:07 ◼   ► It was recorded on Wednesday, January 15th of 2025.

01:22:11 ◼   ► Keep in mind the date in case, you know,

01:22:13 ◼   ► you listen to this in the future, you're like,

01:22:15 ◼   ► what are these folks talking about?

01:22:17 ◼   ► The United States don't exist anymore.

01:22:19 ◼   ► Well, now you know why, because today they exist.

01:22:22 ◼   ► - Because in the pro show, which is amazing,

01:22:24 ◼   ► we spoke about the Nintendo switch,

01:22:26 ◼   ► which may or may not have been revealed at this point.

01:22:28 ◼   ► - No, it will never be revealed.

01:22:29 ◼   ► - The pro show is one of the many excellent features

01:22:33 ◼   ► of connected.

01:22:34 ◼   ► In this case, it's part of connected pro,

01:22:35 ◼   ► which you can get by signing up

01:22:36 ◼   ► for a connected pro membership.

01:22:39 ◼   ► You will be supporting us directly.

01:22:41 ◼   ► You will also be supporting the relay FM network,

01:22:43 ◼   ► which is a fine company, if I do say so myself.

01:22:48 ◼   ► I wanna thank today's sponsors, Squarespace and NetSuite.

01:22:52 ◼   ► Now there's a whole thing to be said

01:22:54 ◼   ► about like wrapping up an episode and being like,

01:22:57 ◼   ► oh, you gotta point people to social media.

01:22:59 ◼   ► Now we're not doing that anymore.

01:23:01 ◼   ► In the sense that if you wanna find us, you'll find us.

01:23:04 ◼   ► Like you're gonna type my name,

01:23:06 ◼   ► you're gonna type Mike's name or Steven's name

01:23:08 ◼   ► in a search box, something will come up.

01:23:11 ◼   ► It may be a fake profile, it may be not.

01:23:14 ◼   ► So use your best judgment.

01:23:16 ◼   ► Here's the thing, like I could do a whole long list

01:23:20 ◼   ► of URLs, I am not, because I don't have the patience

01:23:23 ◼   ► to do it, so use your best, I believe in you,

01:23:27 ◼   ► if you wanna find us on social media, whatever it is.

01:23:30 ◼   ► I write at macstories.net, that's the one link

01:23:32 ◼   ► I will give you.

01:23:33 ◼   ► Mike hosts many shows on relay.

01:23:36 ◼   ► He also does excellent work at Cortex brand,

01:23:39 ◼   ► and he's going to be a dad soon.

01:23:43 ◼   ► So keep that in mind when your finger hovers

01:23:48 ◼   ► over that connected pro membership button.

01:23:52 ◼   ► I'm just saying, he's gonna have a daughter soon.

01:23:56 ◼   ► So use your best judgment.

01:23:59 ◼   ► And Steven writes at 512 pixels,

01:24:03 ◼   ► co-host of the Mac power users here on relay,

01:24:06 ◼   ► another excellent show.

01:24:08 ◼   ► And that's about it.

01:24:09 ◼   ► Like you can now mark this episode as done,

01:24:13 ◼   ► or you could wait 15 more seconds for us to say goodbye.

01:24:17 ◼   ► Say goodbye, guys.

01:24:19 ◼   ► Cheerio.

01:24:21 ◼   ► - Bye y'all.

01:24:21 ◼   ► - Arrivederci.

01:24:23 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:24:25 ◼   ► - The only thing I don't like about the Federico outro

01:24:28 ◼   ► is the order of the goodbyes.

01:24:30 ◼   ► - You gotta get used to it.

01:24:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, I guess so.

01:24:33 ◼   ► - We're doing things different now, so.

01:24:36 ◼   ► - Yep, yep.

01:24:37 ◼   ► Whole new world.

01:24:39 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]