Podcasts about HTML

When it comes to links on webpages and HTML email, what you see is not always where you go. Hovering over a link is an important technique to look before you leap.

Document editors take center stage as Mikah and Rosemary show viewers the best apps for editing PDFs and plain text files on iOS devices. The hosts emphasize practical solutions for common document editing needs while showcasing both free built-in tools and premium third-party options for power users. Built-in PDF tool in Notes - Demonstrates how to attach PDFs to Notes documents, use Quick Look for basic annotation, highlighting, and form filling, plus collaborative editing features PDF Expert - Rosemary showcases advanced PDF editing capabilities including text editing, image replacement, adding clickable links to table of contents, redaction tools, and custom stamps Documents - Mikah highlights the comprehensive file management app with PDF tools, conversion options, page management, form filling, and multi-cloud storage integration Textastic - Rosemary gets technical with this specialized plain text editor supporting syntax highlighting for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, and other programming languages, plus SSH terminal access and live preview features News WWDC 2025 announcement - Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference runs June 9-13, with keynote streaming available and exclusive Club TWiT live coverage planned for members Shortcuts Corner Follow-up from episode 751 - Dave from Ohio shares success creating an Apple TV remote shortcut button for his iPhone home screen using Rosemary's previous tutorial App Caps Wipr 2 - Simple, effective Safari content blocker that blocks ads and trackers without overwhelming features, created by solo developer Kaylee Calderolla Tatami - Addictive number puzzle game where players connect numbered blocks in lines and rectangles, free to play with $4.99 unlock option, also by developer Kaylee Calderolla Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard Contact iOS Today at iOSToday@twit.tv. Download or subscribe to iOS Today at https://twit.tv/shows/ios-today Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Document editors take center stage as Mikah and Rosemary show viewers the best apps for editing PDFs and plain text files on iOS devices. The hosts emphasize practical solutions for common document editing needs while showcasing both free built-in tools and premium third-party options for power users. Built-in PDF tool in Notes - Demonstrates how to attach PDFs to Notes documents, use Quick Look for basic annotation, highlighting, and form filling, plus collaborative editing features PDF Expert - Rosemary showcases advanced PDF editing capabilities including text editing, image replacement, adding clickable links to table of contents, redaction tools, and custom stamps Documents - Mikah highlights the comprehensive file management app with PDF tools, conversion options, page management, form filling, and multi-cloud storage integration Textastic - Rosemary gets technical with this specialized plain text editor supporting syntax highlighting for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, and other programming languages, plus SSH terminal access and live preview features News WWDC 2025 announcement - Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference runs June 9-13, with keynote streaming available and exclusive Club TWiT live coverage planned for members Shortcuts Corner Follow-up from episode 751 - Dave from Ohio shares success creating an Apple TV remote shortcut button for his iPhone home screen using Rosemary's previous tutorial App Caps Wipr 2 - Simple, effective Safari content blocker that blocks ads and trackers without overwhelming features, created by solo developer Kaylee Calderolla Tatami - Addictive number puzzle game where players connect numbered blocks in lines and rectangles, free to play with $4.99 unlock option, also by developer Kaylee Calderolla Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard Contact iOS Today at iOSToday@twit.tv. Download or subscribe to iOS Today at https://twit.tv/shows/ios-today Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Document editors take center stage as Mikah and Rosemary show viewers the best apps for editing PDFs and plain text files on iOS devices. The hosts emphasize practical solutions for common document editing needs while showcasing both free built-in tools and premium third-party options for power users. Built-in PDF tool in Notes - Demonstrates how to attach PDFs to Notes documents, use Quick Look for basic annotation, highlighting, and form filling, plus collaborative editing features PDF Expert - Rosemary showcases advanced PDF editing capabilities including text editing, image replacement, adding clickable links to table of contents, redaction tools, and custom stamps Documents - Mikah highlights the comprehensive file management app with PDF tools, conversion options, page management, form filling, and multi-cloud storage integration Textastic - Rosemary gets technical with this specialized plain text editor supporting syntax highlighting for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, and other programming languages, plus SSH terminal access and live preview features News WWDC 2025 announcement - Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference runs June 9-13, with keynote streaming available and exclusive Club TWiT live coverage planned for members Shortcuts Corner Follow-up from episode 751 - Dave from Ohio shares success creating an Apple TV remote shortcut button for his iPhone home screen using Rosemary's previous tutorial App Caps Wipr 2 - Simple, effective Safari content blocker that blocks ads and trackers without overwhelming features, created by solo developer Kaylee Calderolla Tatami - Addictive number puzzle game where players connect numbered blocks in lines and rectangles, free to play with $4.99 unlock option, also by developer Kaylee Calderolla Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard Contact iOS Today at iOSToday@twit.tv. Download or subscribe to iOS Today at https://twit.tv/shows/ios-today Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Document editors take center stage as Mikah and Rosemary show viewers the best apps for editing PDFs and plain text files on iOS devices. The hosts emphasize practical solutions for common document editing needs while showcasing both free built-in tools and premium third-party options for power users. Built-in PDF tool in Notes - Demonstrates how to attach PDFs to Notes documents, use Quick Look for basic annotation, highlighting, and form filling, plus collaborative editing features PDF Expert - Rosemary showcases advanced PDF editing capabilities including text editing, image replacement, adding clickable links to table of contents, redaction tools, and custom stamps Documents - Mikah highlights the comprehensive file management app with PDF tools, conversion options, page management, form filling, and multi-cloud storage integration Textastic - Rosemary gets technical with this specialized plain text editor supporting syntax highlighting for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, and other programming languages, plus SSH terminal access and live preview features News WWDC 2025 announcement - Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference runs June 9-13, with keynote streaming available and exclusive Club TWiT live coverage planned for members Shortcuts Corner Follow-up from episode 751 - Dave from Ohio shares success creating an Apple TV remote shortcut button for his iPhone home screen using Rosemary's previous tutorial App Caps Wipr 2 - Simple, effective Safari content blocker that blocks ads and trackers without overwhelming features, created by solo developer Kaylee Calderolla Tatami - Addictive number puzzle game where players connect numbered blocks in lines and rectangles, free to play with $4.99 unlock option, also by developer Kaylee Calderolla Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard Contact iOS Today at iOSToday@twit.tv. Download or subscribe to iOS Today at https://twit.tv/shows/ios-today Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT Digichief has been helping digital signage and DOOH network operators feed the so-called content beast for a bunch of years. While the Kentucky-based company started up in 2007, its roots go back another decade to a tech start-up that did similar graphics-driven content work for broadcast TV. I've known co-founder Gene Hamm forever, but this podcast was the first time we had a detailed chat about what Digichief does and offers. We get into a bunch of things, including what's widely used and what seems like perfect contextual content, but hasn't caught on. We talk in detail, as well, about more customized content, and about a new service called Mercury that Digichief spent more than a year developing and recently rolled out. If you hear thumping sounds in the background on my end, that's the roofers. It wasn't until the morning we recorded this that I remembered about the racket they'd be making. Big job. Big bill. Subscribe from wherever you pick up new podcasts. TRANSCRIPT Gene Hamm, thank you for joining me. For those people who don't know much about Digichief, could you gimme the elevator pitch on what you guys do?  Gene Hamm: Absolutely. Thanks Dave. Long-time listener, first-time caller. Am I the first one to say that?  Probably not, among the first.  Gene Hamm: My kids always say I've got a lot of dad jokes, so I oh, no, I won't bore with that. But thanks for having me today. I'm Gene Hamm, one of the founders of Digichief.  In a nutshell we're a content solutions provider. Basically, a one-source solution for all things content. We work in a number of capacities. We have a white labeled solution for data feeds for those clients who want to control the designs themselves. Or we can provide an integrated solution with HTML5, our widgets for clients that don't want to do the heavy lifting on the design. We already have it baked into our APIs, and so we've built up a library of content over the years. All the staples, weather news, sports info, that sort of thing. We also have some short-form, video series, and some other products that we work as distribution partners, with digital art, things like that. But in a nutshell, we aggregate, we curate, and we create content for you, and we provide it in a consistent manner. We take care of the licensing, and we keep up with the inevitable changes in the source, data feeds, and put it out in a highly scalable, cloud infrastructure. So I would say in the early days or earlier days of digital signage, a lot of companies, I shouldn't say a lot because there weren't many, and there still aren't that many, but the companies that were doing the sort of work that you do, I would describe as aggregators that they were collecting and harmonizing data feeds from news gathering organizations, government organizations like National Weather Service and so on, and getting in a format that's structured, reliable and all those sorts of things so that CMS companies or end users could tap into your feeds and have something that's reliable, organized, and curated to some degree. Is that a fair way of describing things?  Gene Hamm: That is a fair assessment, and I think it's evolved over time. I think early on, it was basically, just kind of an aggregation model. We actually started the company, it's an offshoot of another company we'd started back in the 90s where we worked in the broadcast television space, where we were doing lower third tickers, turnkey systems.  So kinda like Chiron?  Gene Hamm: Yeah, we were third-party developers for Chiron. So we worked a lot with Chiron early on, but a lot of the stuff you saw on the lower thirds and newscasts around the country was our stuff.  The dreaded tickers.  Gene Hamm: The dreaded tickers that kind of blew up in the 90s, yeah. We did news headlines, we were doing integrations with AP Weather. We actually ended up doing elections, school closings, and internet chat. We were all over the board on that.  So that's how we got our feet wet on integrating and aggregating content. In the mid 2000s, we saw the digital signage kind of take off, and we said, look, we've already got these connections with these sources, so why don't we just license these and license this vertical? So that's kind of how it started, but it's evolved over time. We certainly still do that and provide those in a consistent format, but then it's also moved into kind of bespoke projects where people will say, we've got this data, we've got, we want this, maybe we have to go out and do research on specific topics for “Cold weather starting tips for Automotive Dealerships”, things like that. So there's really a research arm to it that we can go out and create stuff for custom projects.  So if you had to give a percentage of from a third party versus what you guys are developing internally, what roughly would that be?  Gene Hamm: I would say about 60 to 70% of it is aggregating. All the staples, traffic, transit, flight data, news headlines, sports scores, the stuff that people want to display most often. So yeah, I would say roughly 60 to 70% of it, and then the other stuff is, a lot of stuff on the infotainment route is data-based that we've created over time and this could be for like “This day in history” trivia, fun facts, jokes, clean jokes of the day, holidays, whimsical, eye-catching things to get eyeballs up on the screen.  The challenge I've always seen with using third-party sources for things like tickers and full-screen presentations, whether it's from the AP, Canadian Press, or Reuters, is that they typically don't write headlines for digital signage or digital at home or anything else, and they don't even really do it in a lot of cases online. So what you end up with are headlines that don't really say anything. It'll say, “This week's top news is this…” and that'll show up on screens. I see it on broadcast still, and I'm going, why are you even using this? Why don't you curate stuff that you know has fully formed thoughts and says in a headline what you need to know versus kind of a teaser?  Have you guys struggled with that, or has it gotten better?  Gene Hamm: We've absolutely run into that. You're speaking to the choir here. We've knocked our head against the wall so many times, and I just think that for these news organizations, digital signage is an afterthought. Believe me, over the last 20 years, we've seen so many stories come out that we just scratch our heads, and I've had conversations with the editors to try to plead my case, and it just goes on deaf ears.  So basically what we have to do with our news, we have two formats. We have one that's filtered, and we've got lookups and intelligence written in where if something comes out misformed or certain key phrases, we just kick them out. And then we have basically a curated version where we actually go in and manually approve and post. We look at the image, we look at the images is another problem with it, but we look at the story, and we say, this doesn't make sense, or maybe we change a few words around to make it flow better and fit into a kind of concise title and description. So yeah, it's been a big problem and honestly it hasn't gotten any better in my viewpoint. Does AI present an opportunity to clean things up? Because I will take the odd story that I write and dump it into Claude and just say, “Give me 10 suggested headlines” and it'll knock out ten headline headlines in 15 seconds, and I'll look at it and go, oh, that one's pretty good and I'll take that one and maybe massage it a little bit. But it does a pretty good job with that sort of thing.  Gene Hamm: It absolutely will be a tool that we can utilize, and we're certainly looking into it right now to try to inject on our backend tools that you can request a specific, character-limited title that makes sense. One of the nuances to AI, which I know you're aware of, is that it's all in the phrasing of how you ask the question for the format that you wanted back in.  Prompt engineering.  Gene Hamm: Yeah. It's an art in itself, and what we see is that we think that AI can help this curation service to look at the headlines that we're getting and spit them out in more of a usable, readable, concise form.  But it's not gonna be autonomous anytime soon.  Gene Hamm: We'll see.  Yeah, not reliably autonomous, it's still gonna give you some weird headlines and all that, but then again, you could hire somebody and they'll give you weird headlines.  Gene Hamm: That's true. That's absolutely true. We try to say that our Soft News, which is our curated version, and we try to bill it as G-rated content that's not going to tick somebody off, but that's next to impossible these days because whatever you think is G-rated and is not going to satisfy everyone. We try to stay away from the political end of it, but there's always gonna be somebody that's offended. Yeah. I've talked to a few people who just said, you know what, we don't even do politics on our feeds anymore, or what we show on our screens, because somebody's gonna be irritated, somebody's gonna complain, and it's just not worth it.  Gene Hamm: Oh, the stories I can tell. It's funny. We have a custom bad word filter for stuff that we don't want to come across in the AP and so we've built that over time, and I could never let that see the light of day that the things that we've seen come across the wire that we now omit. Even the images as well. There are a lot of times we'll get images that don't really explain the story, it doesn't make sense, maybe they aren't centered on the right focal point of the image, and we think maybe AI could definitely benefit, maybe being able to zone in on what the main cue is of the image that we get with the AP stories or any of the news images.  Have the demands and the uses, usage trends evolved through the years, like when I got into digital, more than 25 years ago now, there weren't really even smartphones, and the internet was still fairly new-ish, and you could have public screens in elevators or walkways or shopping malls or whatever that were running news and weather on there, and those would be a primary source for that information, you fast forward to now, and you can't get away from news, you can't get away from weather data, that sort of thing.  I've always wondered, do those things need to be on screens anymore?  Gene Hamm: That's definitely a good debatable topic. There are so many of these black screens in our hands that fight for attention. We work in the automotive space in dealer showrooms and you walk into the showroom there and people are in the waiting area, and they've got screens up with content on it, news headlines, weather, things like that, and everybody is looking at their phone. So you're always thinking how do we compete with getting eyeballs up on the screen to get the messaging and whatnot for the client, as opposed to the ubiquitous news headlines and things like that. So yeah, it's something that our clients definitely have to deal with. Is that something you coach to, to tell both your resellers and your end users, that it's important to really think through what you're using in terms of content feeds or your content mix so that it's hyper relevant and contextual to where you are versus just “We need stuff to run on this lower third” or “We need stuff to run in between our dealer promotional messages” or whatever it may be, whatever the venue is. Gene Hamm: Absolutely. As you said, it's all in the content mix. If you're trying to get eyeballs up there on the screen, you gotta have relevant hyper-local content, whether that be local traffic maps or local sports scores or things like that for the market.  But yeah, the dwell time and how long the content is on the screen, you want to get the eyeballs up there and then move on to what your marketing message is. So it's definitely a delicate balance between, you can't just inundate someone with all the news, all weather. You definitely have to make it in short, concise forms because people's attention spans go elsewhere. They go back to their phone or something else.  A few months ago, you announced a partnership with a company called Stream, and I've done a podcast with those folks and laid out what they do and all that.  How do you work with them, and could you kinda run down what they do and how that's resonating with your user base? Gene Hamm: Yeah, so we met Anthony Nerantzis at one of the trade shows, and he came by and explained his interest. He's kind of a broadcaster, newsroom journalist. So basically, what it is they do is a presenter-led, concise, short-form video of bespoke custom news, right? And it can be catered to the industry.  So if it's medical, financial, or automotive, or what have you. They can go back, write the scripts, and of course, Anthony can describe this company better than I can, so hopefully he's not gonna be mad at me for giving this kind of dissertation. But yeah, I just thought it brought to the table something that we could really customize for our clients, and it's very professional, the workflow is great, you can provide some of the background, what you know the company's looking to do, what type of information they're trying to get across, their team can go back and write a script that's engaging and they can automate the product to put it out on whatever the interval you need, whether it be weekly or monthly.  Originally, when they came out, it was a closed caption type thing with lower third supers on the bottom of the screen and I had mentioned to them, “Hey, there are too many graphics on the screen. Maybe, you might wanna streamline that a little bit.” They did that because they're very good about taking feedback, and now they've moved in. It was more of a no-volume type environment product, and now they've, they're able to do audio voiceover as well from the on-air talent actually speaking and you can actually hear it.  Now they're getting into kind of the marketing communication end of it where, let's say it's a pharmaceutical company or something that wants to talk about things that like the president or the CEO wants to talk about certain things to their employees that they have going on, his team's able to go out and produce that and deliver that information and they can get eyeballs up on the screen, educate and inform the client. It's been very well received and we're also looking to work with them on some of our feeds, whether it's health-related type content, maybe we can work in some of the real, day-to-day, hyper-local information on the tail end of the video segment. Say if it's a medical facility and they're talking about medical health tips, things like that, maybe it comes in and we can integrate with one of our APIs and follow the levels of the flu levels there are for the specific area, so we can really hyper-localize it.  So in a lot of respects, it's a variation on the sort of work that you've been doing, particularly on the custom side of it. But instead of it just being text and visuals, they can do a full video with on-air talent and they do that by green screening, on-air hosts, and then mashing that up with AI so that it's a human talking to you and doing a custom presentation as opposed to an anime avatar look that I think looks ghastly in most cases? Gene Hamm: Absolutely. I think going to the presenter-led approach is advantageous and some of the early ones, like you said, that we've seen are just creepy. But I think what they're doing with their technology is amazing. I think it looks spot on.  Yeah, I've looked at it a couple of times for extended periods, just paying attention to see if it's glitchy at all, and it's very smooth, and if you didn't know, you'd be hard pressed to know, this is AI-generated, but it's absolutely human. But the movements and lips and all that stuff are being massaged through AI.  Gene Hamm: Yeah, and the neat thing about it, too, is just it's so scalable and they can automate it, and they can really like its bespoke content, so they can create the script, have it produce it in very short order. So more recently, you've announced something else called Mercury. Can you walk through what that is?  Gene Hamm: Mercury was created basically to give our users a more robust way to onboard our HTML content. We were getting requests for more of a web portal that gives more granular design choices such as colors, backgrounds, logos, the transitions. They can go in and micromanage the news they wanna see, or the sports they want to see, the duration that it's on the screen, and then, they can compile that into a playlist and then output it to a URL and that URL can be scheduled. It's quite a long time coming. We certainly had HTML55 widgets before, but this just gives people a little bit more granular decisions and a web portal, and then we also thought it was a good way to showcase our widget library. We built up these designs over time. Many of the products that we have, there's multiple designs, and so for, we think it might be a growth area for new prospects, that it lowers the barrier of entry to go out and actually, sign up for a free trial, take a look at, it's an all you can eat type model where we've got all the staples, the news, the weather, the sports, the stocks, the infotainment and we're adding new designs and widgets all the time. I think it's intuitive where we spent well over a year designing the system, and I think it really gives people a way to sample our products and see how it works with their systems.  Could you give an example of how a typical client would use it and what they do? Gene Hamm: Yeah, so they sign up for the product. It's a subscription service, with volume discounts that they can go in, and we've got a kind of smorgasbord of content, a widget library and it's all categorized by, like I said, news, weather, things like that, and they can pick and choose what content they wanna build into a playlist? Now that could be just a single piece of content, whether, say, weather, and they've got a bunch of different designs, whether they wanna do a 5K five-day forecast, if they wanna do a full-screen weather map, they can choose their locations, and then they can output it as a URL that URL can be a plugged into a playlist and that pluglist can have their content or they can massage their own local content, through their own platform, so it just gives them the ability to do this kind of infotainment type stuff in between their other messaging.  But yeah, they can build a playlist with a single asset, or they can build a playlist with 30 and build a longer duration, say, a 20-minute loop if they want. So yeah, that's the typical workflow.  So more normally or in the past, if I were a corporate entity and I had a corporate campus in three cities in South Carolina. If I were buying that from a typical subscription content service or weather provider, it's going to have a certain look and color schemes, everything else, and you can't really deviate from that, versus with Mercury, you can choose your fonts, choose your background, colors, everything else, and tweak it so it fits the way you want, maybe has the company's corporate colors and or just fits in with the overall look of the network.  Is that a clear way of saying this? Gene Hamm: Yeah. To make it very granular, the layout of, let's say, a five-day forecast, the data itself is set on the screen, but all the other elements around it like if they wanted to upload their own. company logo, if they wanna match their corporate colors, they can choose certain fonts that may match what you know they're using. So yeah, they can make different transitions to it, so they can really make granular choices with it to fall in line with what they're looking for, but be on the same thing across the same board. We have stocks, if they wanna put their own company stock up there, they can do that. If they wanna do infotainment like trivia or whatnot, we have a number of different trivia categories that they can choose. So yeah, they can really hyper-localize.  Do you put guardrails in terms of design choices that can be made? Like thinking particularly of font choices and Lord knows we've all seen online, particularly, and less so on digital signage, here somebody decides I'm going to use this font, and it's just the wrong choice.  Gene Hamm: We have chosen a list of fonts that we have in a dropdown box that they can choose from. As you can imagine, this was our initial decision when we debuted this release system a few months ago, and our thought is that we wanna give them these options to an extent, right? So we have several fonts that we think we deem look good, and we certainly can add additional fonts as we go. But yes, I agree there's some god awful fonts up there that we don't think would at the end of the day look great on particular design.  Is this the way to deal with the demand that can scale up so that if you were just doing this through managed services, where you would have companies come to you and say, “Hey, we would like a live custom feed that presents ou  weather and other information in these fonts, this background and everything else.” That's hard to do and hard to charge because if it's a one-off, you gotta charge a lot more for it, versus a service where you log in and you do it yourself, by and large, that makes it possible to do more.  Gene Hamm: Yeah, I think so. I think with the pricing model, how we have it, they can use everything. It's all you can eat, in terms of all these different designs and content categories that they can go in and it's not gonna cost them anymore if they put the news or the weather up there. I think the value proposition to Mercury is that we're doing the heavy lifting on the backend, and that these local networks don't have to go out and find different sources, and like you mentioned, the National Weather Service.  Early on, we were integrating with the National Weather Service and that got to be just an overwhelming task because of stages and formats, and changes in the designs and things like that. It just made more sense for us to go out and get an aggregated list. Actually, we have a couple of different aggregated services. So, like a lot of our staples, we have a primary source and a backup source. So if one goes inevitably, these sources have issues, and if one goes down. It really streamlines the whole process.  Has the whole business of getting data from different sources improved? Have they started to, or maybe not started, but long since understood that you can't keep changing the structure. You've gotta stick to something.  Gene Hamm: Yes and no. With sports specifically, they're good about giving us a heads up when things are gonna change. In the olden days, we would find out about it after it happened. So I think a lot of the source APIs that we have do a good job of giving us kind of a change. But there's repercussions. If they do a full change of their structure, we have to integrate that, and if it has any changes to how we do content, we have to let our clients know, and we have to make sure the widgets are changed. We have to make sure they know that the structure's changed.  During the pandemic, we really moved our cloud infrastructure from one cloud service to another. We added a lot of data points to our structure, and so that was really an uphill battle in terms of having to communicate to our current client base that had already done the design work and had already integrated with our APIs to let them know that's coming. So we don't take these things lightly and we've communicated to our sources over time about the repercussions to this. You can't just pull the trigger and give us a two-week notice.  What about social media? If I go back 10-15 years, there were a lot of subscription content providers and CMS companies developing widgets so that you could display Twitter (now X) or Facebook post or whatever maybe on screens and I think over time people realize, oh boy, that's a dangerous thing to do unless you've got somebody sitting right on top of it all the time.  Gene Hamm: It's absolutely the case. In fact, we were one of the ones early on that were doing native integrations with the APIs from Twitter and Facebook and whatnot, and it got to be a full-time job for our developers, changing not only the licensing, but the structure, and we finally threw in the towel on it and outsourced it to a company where that's all they do, and so we work with this particular company, and they take care of it. They've got a team of developers that don't do anything else, and they keep up on all the backend changes, the licensing, and so we're able to not only provide Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or X, LinkedIn, all this as a concise data feed with different data points and assets, and then we also have an HTML version that integrates with it.  So yeah, we've definitely gone the route of outsourcing that to someone who could keep up with it. Is there a most popular resource and one that you thought would have traction and that just never worked out, and you've since dropped or rarely see sold? Gene Hamm: About a year ago, we started with a health API, so seasonal and patient level data, and by seasonal, we mean pollen which is a big one and we have multiple sources for that. But, RSV levels, COVID-19 numbers, cold and cough, and flu. And then we can even get granular with patients. We can go and say a zip code in the United States, and say, what are the ten highest levels of obesity? And they can customize a message or an ad campaign towards that. Those particular zip codes we thought would take off at least the patient-level stuff and it was just really slow out of the gate. We've had a lot of interest and we've made a lot of presentations, but I think there are a lot of these companies that are still trying to figure out how they might use it. Flight data is one that we work with, and we have some clients using it.  There are certain sources that are very expensive to keep up with. That's something that we thought would be selling more than it does. A lot of times, the people that you know that put the flight data up are probably going directly to the source as opposed to going through somebody like us.  Is there one that everybody uses, or almost everybody?  Gene Hamm: Everybody uses weather, of course, that's the big one. Everybody uses sports scores, and everybody uses news. That's news, weather, sports are the big dogs.  Just a couple of final questions. Where are you guys based, and how big is your company? I'm thinking you don't have that big of a headcount because you don't need to, because you're using external resources. Gene Hamm: Yeah, so we're based in Lexington, Kentucky. We also have partners spread across the world. But I got a partner in California. There are a few of us here, and then we've got a couple in Ukraine. So we've been working with a couple of developers who are now employees in Ukraine, well before the war. So it's been interesting seeing that side of it from an employee.  It gives you a perspective on a drone flying over, and bombings and things like that. So there are five of us. We run a small operation, but like you said, we don't really need an extensive team. We certainly have worked with or contracted out some design work in terms of the graphical design. We've worked with the same designers for well over a decade. All right, so thank you. If people wanna find out more, it's just Digichief.com, right?  Gene Hamm: Yeah, Digichief.com, and then if someone wants to sample Mercury for a free trial, there's a Mercury link on there that they can go and sign up for, and give it a whirl.  Gene, thank you. Gene Hamm: Thank you, Dave. I appreciate your time.

I interviewed Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott about the future of agents and software engineering for another special edition of AI & I. With 41 years of programming behind him, Kevin has lived through nearly every big shift in modern software development. Here's his clear-eyed take on what's changing with AI, and how we can navigate what's next:The real breakthrough for the agentic web is better plumbing. Kevin thinks agents won't be useful until they can take action on your behalf by using tools and fetching data. To do this, agents need access across your systems—and Microsoft's answer is adopting Model Context Protocol, or “MCP,” that allows an agent to access tools and fresh data beyond its knowledge base, as their standard protocol for agents to move through contexts and get things done.How the agentic web echoes the early internet. Just as protocols like HTTP and HTML gave the web a shared language, Kevin believes the  agentic web needs its own infrastructure—the first glimpses of this include MCP (the HTTP of agents) and NLWeb, Microsoft's push to make websites legible to agents (similar to what HTML did for browsers).Open ecosystems can coexist with strong security systems. Kevin argues that the “tradeoff” between ecosystems that allow “permissionless” innovation and robust security is a false dichotomy. With AI agents that understand your personal risk preferences—and know your communication habits across email, text, and other channels—they could detect when something suspicious is happening and act on your behalf. The craftsman's dilemma in the age of agents. Kevin is a lifelong maker—of software, ceramics, even handmade bags—and he cares deeply about how things are made. Because this can feel at odds with coding with AI agents, Kevin's approach is to notice where the process matters most to him, and where it's okay to optimize for outcomes. After four decades of seeing breakthrough technologies, his advice is simple: be curious, try stuff, and use it if it works for you.The future of software engineering agents is plural. Kevin believes the future of software engineering agents will be diverse because developers who enjoy the freedom of playing with different tools is one of the most consistent patterns he's seen in his decades in tech. What will drive this diversity, he says, is builders who deeply understand specific problems and tailor agents to solve them exceptionally well.How agentic workflows will evolve. Kevin sees a shift from short back-and-forth interactions with agents to longer, async feedback loops. As the agentic web matures and model reasoning improves, people will start handing off bigger, more ambitious tasks and letting agents run with them.Timestamps:Introduction: 00:01:44The race to close the “capability overhang”: 00:02:49How agents will evolve into practical, useful tools: 00:04:31The role Kevin sees Microsoft playing in the agent ecosystem: 00:06:48How robust security measures can coexist with open ecosystems: 00:12:05Kevin's philosophy on being a craftsman in the age of agents: 00:15:39How the landscape of software development agents will evolve: 00:20:52The future of agentic workflows: 00:25:33

Microsoft finally opens the source of WSL, Paolo Scanferla describes an inherent trade-off in TypeScript's type system, Alberto Fortin is taking a step back from heavy LLM use while coding, a pseudonymous hacker spent two weeks coding from their Android phone, and NLWeb might become the HTML of the open agentic web.

Microsoft finally opens the source of WSL, Paolo Scanferla describes an inherent trade-off in TypeScript's type system, Alberto Fortin is taking a step back from heavy LLM use while coding, a pseudonymous hacker spent two weeks coding from their Android phone, and NLWeb might become the HTML of the open agentic web.

Python has many string formatting styles which have been added to the language over the years. Early Python used the % operator to injected formatted values into strings. And we have string.format() which offers several powerful styles. Both were verbose and indirect, so f-strings were added in Python 3.6. But these f-strings lacked security features (think little bobby tables) and they manifested as fully-formed strings to runtime code. Today we talk about the next evolution of Python string formatting for advanced use-cases (SQL, HTML, DSLs, etc): t-strings. We have Paul Everitt, David Peck, and Jim Baker on the show to introduce this upcoming new language feature. Episode sponsors Posit Auth0 Talk Python Courses Links from the show Guests: Paul on X: @paulweveritt Paul on Mastodon: @pauleveritt@fosstodon.org Dave Peck on Github: github.com Jim Baker: github.com PEP 750 – Template Strings: peps.python.org tdom - Placeholder for future library on PyPI using PEP 750 t-strings: github.com PEP 750: Tag Strings For Writing Domain-Specific Languages: discuss.python.org How To Teach This: peps.python.org PEP 501 – General purpose template literal strings: peps.python.org Python's new t-strings: davepeck.org PyFormat: Using % and .format() for great good!: pyformat.info flynt: A tool to automatically convert old string literal formatting to f-strings: github.com Examples of using t-strings as defined in PEP 750: github.com htm.py issue: github.com Exploits of a Mom: xkcd.com pyparsing: github.com Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com Episode transcripts: talkpython.fm --- Stay in touch with us --- Subscribe to Talk Python on YouTube: youtube.com Talk Python on Bluesky: @talkpython.fm at bsky.app Talk Python on Mastodon: talkpython Michael on Bluesky: @mkennedy.codes at bsky.app Michael on Mastodon: mkennedy

Aprende Grafana y domina el monitoreo de datos en tiempo real

Gros épisode qui couvre un large spectre de sujets : Java, Scala, Micronaut, NodeJS, l'IA et la compétence des développeurs, le sampling dans les LLMs, les DTO, le vibe coding, les changements chez Broadcom et Red Hat ainsi que plusieurs nouvelles sur les licences open source. Enregistré le 7 mai 2025 Téléchargement de l'épisode LesCastCodeurs-Episode-325.mp3 ou en vidéo sur YouTube. News Langages A l'occasion de JavaOne et du lancement de Java 24, Oracle lance un nouveau site avec des ressources vidéo pour apprendre le langage https://learn.java/ site plutôt à destination des débutants et des enseignants couvre la syntaxe aussi, y compris les ajouts plus récents comme les records ou le pattern matching c'est pas le site le plus trendy du monde. Martin Odersky partage un long article sur l'état de l'écosystème Scala et les évolutions du language https://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2025/03/24/evolving-scala.html Stabilité et besoin d'évolution : Scala maintient sa position (~14ème mondial) avec des bases techniques solides, mais doit évoluer face à la concurrence pour rester pertinent. Axes prioritaires : L'évolution se concentre sur l'amélioration du duo sécurité/convivialité, le polissage du langage (suppression des “rugosités”) et la simplification pour les débutants. Innovation continue : Geler les fonctionnalités est exclu ; l'innovation est clé pour la valeur de Scala. Le langage doit rester généraliste et ne pas se lier à un framework spécifique. Défis et progrès : L'outillage (IDE, outils de build comme sbt, scala-cli, Mill) et la facilité d'apprentissage de l'écosystème sont des points d'attention, avec des améliorations en cours (partenariat pédagogique, plateformes simples). Des strings encore plus rapides ! https://inside.java/2025/05/01/strings-just-got-faster/ Dans JDK 25, la performance de la fonction String::hashCode a été améliorée pour être principalement constant foldable. Cela signifie que si les chaînes de caractères sont utilisées comme clés dans une Map statique et immuable, des gains de performance significatifs sont probables. L'amélioration repose sur l'annotation interne @Stable appliquée au champ privé String.hash. Cette annotation permet à la machine virtuelle de lire la valeur du hash une seule fois et de la considérer comme constante si elle n'est pas la valeur par défaut (zéro). Par conséquent, l'opération String::hashCode peut être remplacée par la valeur de hash connue, optimisant ainsi les lookups dans les Map immuables. Un cas limite est celui où le code de hachage de la chaîne est zéro, auquel cas l'optimisation ne fonctionne pas (par exemple, pour la chaîne vide “”). Bien que l'annotation @Stable soit interne au JDK, un nouveau JEP (JEP 502: Stable Values (Preview)) est en cours de développement pour permettre aux utilisateurs de bénéficier indirectement de fonctionnalités similaires. AtomicHash, une implémentation Java d'une HashMap qui est thread-safe, atomique et non-bloquante https://github.com/arxila/atomichash implémenté sous forme de version immutable de Concurrent Hash Trie Librairies Sortie de Micronaut 4.8.0 https://micronaut.io/2025/04/01/micronaut-framework-4-8-0-released/ Mise à jour de la BOM (Bill of Materials) : La version 4.8.0 met à jour la BOM de la plateforme Micronaut. Améliorations de Micronaut Core : Intégration de Micronaut SourceGen pour la génération interne de métadonnées et d'expressions bytecode. Nombreuses améliorations dans Micronaut SourceGen. Ajout du traçage de l'injection de dépendances pour faciliter le débogage au démarrage et à la création des beans. Nouveau membre definitionType dans l'annotation @Client pour faciliter le partage d'interfaces entre client et serveur. Support de la fusion dans les Bean Mappers via l'annotation @Mapping. Nouvelle liveness probe détectant les threads bloqués (deadlocked) via ThreadMXBean. Intégration Kubernetes améliorée : Mise à jour du client Java Kubernetes vers la version 22.0.1. Ajout du module Micronaut Kubernetes Client OpenAPI, offrant une alternative au client officiel avec moins de dépendances, une configuration unifiée, le support des filtres et la compatibilité Native Image. Introduction d'un nouveau runtime serveur basé sur le serveur HTTP intégré de Java, permettant de créer des applications sans dépendances serveur externes. Ajout dans Micronaut Micrometer d'un module pour instrumenter les sources de données (traces et métriques). Ajout de la condition condition dans l'annotation @MetricOptions pour contrôler l'activation des métriques via une expression. Support des Consul watches dans Micronaut Discovery Client pour détecter les changements de configuration distribuée. Possibilité de générer du code source à partir d'un schéma JSON via les plugins de build (Gradle et Maven). Web Node v24.0.0 passe en version Current: https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v24.0.0 Mise à jour du moteur V8 vers la version 13.6 : intégration de nouvelles fonctionnalités JavaScript telles que Float16Array, la gestion explicite des ressources (using), RegExp.escape, WebAssembly Memory64 et Error.isError. npm 11 inclus : améliorations en termes de performance, de sécurité et de compatibilité avec les packages JavaScript modernes. Changement de compilateur pour Windows : abandon de MSVC au profit de ClangCL pour la compilation de Node.js sur Windows. AsyncLocalStorage utilise désormais AsyncContextFrame par défaut : offrant une gestion plus efficace du contexte asynchrone. URLPattern disponible globalement : plus besoin d'importer explicitement cette API pour effectuer des correspondances d'URL. Améliorations du modèle de permissions : le flag expérimental --experimental-permission devient --permission, signalant une stabilité accrue de cette fonctionnalité. Améliorations du test runner : les sous-tests sont désormais attendus automatiquement, simplifiant l'écriture des tests et réduisant les erreurs liées aux promesses non gérées. Intégration d'Undici 7 : amélioration des capacités du client HTTP avec de meilleures performances et un support étendu des fonctionnalités HTTP modernes. Dépréciations et suppressions : Dépréciation de url.parse() au profit de l'API WHATWG URL. Suppression de tls.createSecurePair. Dépréciation de SlowBuffer. Dépréciation de l'instanciation de REPL sans new. Dépréciation de l'utilisation des classes Zlib sans new. Dépréciation du passage de args à spawn et execFile dans child_process. Node.js 24 est actuellement la version “Current” et deviendra une version LTS en octobre 2025. Il est recommandé de tester cette version pour évaluer son impact sur vos applications. Data et Intelligence Artificielle Apprendre à coder reste crucial et l'IA est là pour venir en aide : https://kyrylo.org/software/2025/03/27/learn-to-code-ignore-ai-then-use-ai-to-code-even-better.html Apprendre à coder reste essentiel malgré l'IA. L'IA peut assister la programmation. Une solide base est cruciale pour comprendre et contrôler le code. Cela permet d'éviter la dépendance à l'IA. Cela réduit le risque de remplacement par des outils d'IA accessibles à tous. L'IA est un outil, pas un substitut à la maîtrise des fondamentaux. Super article de Anthropic qui essaie de comprendre comment fonctionne la “pensée” des LLMs https://www.anthropic.com/research/tracing-thoughts-language-model Effet boîte noire : Stratégies internes des IA (Claude) opaques aux développeurs et utilisateurs. Objectif : Comprendre le “raisonnement” interne pour vérifier capacités et intentions. Méthode : Inspiration neurosciences, développement d'un “microscope IA” (regarder quels circuits neuronaux s'activent). Technique : Identification de concepts (“features”) et de “circuits” internes. Multilinguisme : Indice d'un “langage de pensée” conceptuel commun à toutes les langues avant de traduire dans une langue particulière. Planification : Capacité à anticiper (ex: rimes en poésie), pas seulement de la génération mot par mot (token par token). Raisonnement non fidèle : Peut fabriquer des arguments plausibles (“bullshitting”) pour une conclusion donnée. Logique multi-étapes : Combine des faits distincts, ne se contente pas de mémoriser. Hallucinations : Refus par défaut ; réponse si “connaissance” active, sinon risque d'hallucination si erreur. “Jailbreaks” : Tension entre cohérence grammaticale (pousse à continuer) et sécurité (devrait refuser). Bilan : Méthodes limitées mais prometteuses pour la transparence et la fiabilité de l'IA. Le “S” dans MCP veut dire Securité (ou pas !) https://elenacross7.medium.com/%EF%B8%8F-the-s-in-mcp-stands-for-security-91407b33ed6b La spécification MCP pour permettre aux LLMs d'avoir accès à divers outils et fonctions a peut-être été adoptée un peu rapidement, alors qu'elle n'était pas encore prête niveau sécurité L'article liste 4 types d'attaques possibles : vulnérabilité d'injection de commandes attaque d'empoisonnement d'outils redéfinition silencieuse de l'outil le shadowing d'outils inter-serveurs Pour l'instant, MCP n'est pas sécurisé : Pas de standard d'authentification Pas de chiffrement de contexte Pas de vérification d'intégrité des outils Basé sur l'article de InvariantLabs https://invariantlabs.ai/blog/mcp-security-notification-tool-poisoning-attacks Sortie Infinispan 15.2 - pre rolling upgrades 16.0 https://infinispan.org/blog/2025/03/27/infinispan-15-2 Support de Redis JSON + scripts Lua Métriques JVM désactivables Nouvelle console (PatternFly 6) Docs améliorées (métriques + logs) JDK 17 min, support JDK 24 Fin du serveur natif (performances) Guillaume montre comment développer un serveur MCP HTTP Server Sent Events avec l'implémentation de référence Java et LangChain4j https://glaforge.dev/posts/2025/04/04/mcp-client-and-server-with-java-mcp-sdk-and-langchain4j/ Développé en Java, avec l'implémentation de référence qui est aussi à la base de l'implémentation dans Spring Boot (mais indépendant de Spring) Le serveur MCP est exposé sous forme de servlet dans Jetty Le client MCP lui, est développé avec le module MCP de LangChain4j c'est semi independant de Spring dans le sens où c'est dépendant de Reactor et de ses interface. il y a une conversation sur le github d'anthropic pour trouver une solution, mais cela ne parait pas simple. Les fallacies derrière la citation “AI won't replace you, but humans using AI will” https://platforms.substack.com/cp/161356485 La fallacie de l'automatisation vs. l'augmentation : Elle se concentre sur l'amélioration des tâches existantes avec l'IA au lieu de considérer le changement de la valeur de ces tâches dans un nouveau système. La fallacie des gains de productivité : L'augmentation de la productivité ne se traduit pas toujours par plus de valeur pour les travailleurs, car la valeur créée peut être capturée ailleurs dans le système. La fallacie des emplois statiques : Les emplois sont des constructions organisationnelles qui peuvent être redéfinies par l'IA, rendant les rôles traditionnels obsolètes. La fallacie de la compétition “moi vs. quelqu'un utilisant l'IA” : La concurrence évolue lorsque l'IA modifie les contraintes fondamentales d'un secteur, rendant les compétences existantes moins pertinentes. La fallacie de la continuité du flux de travail : L'IA peut entraîner une réimagination complète des flux de travail, éliminant le besoin de certaines compétences. La fallacie des outils neutres : Les outils d'IA ne sont pas neutres et peuvent redistribuer le pouvoir organisationnel en changeant la façon dont les décisions sont prises et exécutées. La fallacie du salaire stable : Le maintien d'un emploi ne garantit pas un salaire stable, car la valeur du travail peut diminuer avec l'augmentation des capacités de l'IA. La fallacie de l'entreprise stable : L'intégration de l'IA nécessite une restructuration de l'entreprise et ne se fait pas dans un vide organisationnel. Comprendre le “sampling” dans les LLMs https://rentry.co/samplers Explique pourquoi les LLMs utilisent des tokens Les différentes méthodes de “sampling” : càd de choix de tokens Les hyperparamètres comme la température, top-p, et leur influence réciproque Les algorithmes de tokenisation comme Byte Pair Encoding et SentencePiece. Un de moins … OpenAI va racheter Windsurf pour 3 milliards de dollars. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-06/openai-reaches-agreement-to-buy-startup-windsurf-for-3-billion l'accord n'est pas encore finalisé Windsurf était valorisé à 1,25 milliards l'an dernier et OpenAI a levé 40 milliards dernièrement portant sa valeur à 300 milliards Le but pour OpenAI est de rentrer dans le monde des assistants de code pour lesquels ils sont aujourd'hui absent Docker desktop se met à l'IA… ? Une nouvelle fonctionnalité dans docker desktop 4.4 sur macos: Docker Model Runner https://dev.to/docker/run-genai-models-locally-with-docker-model-runner-5elb Permet de faire tourner des modèles nativement en local ( https://docs.docker.com/model-runner/ ) mais aussi des serveurs MCP ( https://docs.docker.com/ai/mcp-catalog-and-toolkit/ ) Outillage Jetbrains défend la suppression des commentaires négatifs sur son assistant IA https://devclass.com/2025/04/30/jetbrains-defends-removal-of-negative-reviews-for-unpopular-ai-assistant/?td=rt-3a L'IA Assistant de JetBrains, lancée en juillet 2023, a été téléchargée plus de 22 millions de fois mais n'est notée que 2,3 sur 5. Des utilisateurs ont remarqué que certaines critiques négatives étaient supprimées, ce qui a provoqué une réaction négative sur les réseaux sociaux. Un employé de JetBrains a expliqué que les critiques ont été supprimées soit parce qu'elles mentionnaient des problèmes déjà résolus, soit parce qu'elles violaient leur politique concernant les “grossièretés, etc.” L'entreprise a reconnu qu'elle aurait pu mieux gérer la situation, un représentant déclarant : “Supprimer plusieurs critiques d'un coup sans préavis semblait suspect. Nous aurions dû au moins publier un avis et fournir plus de détails aux auteurs.” Parmi les problèmes de l'IA Assistant signalés par les utilisateurs figurent : un support limité pour les fournisseurs de modèles tiers, une latence notable, des ralentissements fréquents, des fonctionnalités principales verrouillées aux services cloud de JetBrains, une expérience utilisateur incohérente et une documentation insuffisante. Une plainte courante est que l'IA Assistant s'installe sans permission. Un utilisateur sur Reddit l'a qualifié de “plugin agaçant qui s'auto-répare/se réinstalle comme un phénix”. JetBrains a récemment introduit un niveau gratuit et un nouvel agent IA appelé Junie, destiné à fonctionner parallèlement à l'IA Assistant, probablement en réponse à la concurrence entre fournisseurs. Mais il est plus char a faire tourner. La société s'est engagée à explorer de nouvelles approches pour traiter les mises à jour majeures différemment et envisage d'implémenter des critiques par version ou de marquer les critiques comme “Résolues” avec des liens vers les problèmes correspondants au lieu de les supprimer. Contrairement à des concurrents comme Microsoft, AWS ou Google, JetBrains commercialise uniquement des outils et services de développement et ne dispose pas d'une activité cloud distincte sur laquelle s'appuyer. Vos images de README et fichiers Markdown compatibles pour le dark mode de GitHub: https://github.blog/developer-skills/github/how-to-make-your-images-in-markdown-on-github-adjust-for-dark-mode-and-light-mode/ Seulement quelques lignes de pure HTML pour le faire Architecture Alors, les DTOs, c'est bien ou c'est pas bien ? https://codeopinion.com/dtos-mapping-the-good-the-bad-and-the-excessive/ Utilité des DTOs : Les DTOs servent à transférer des données entre les différentes couches d'une application, en mappant souvent les données entre différentes représentations (par exemple, entre la base de données et l'interface utilisateur). Surutilisation fréquente : L'article souligne que les DTOs sont souvent utilisés de manière excessive, notamment pour créer des API HTTP qui ne font que refléter les entités de la base de données, manquant ainsi l'opportunité de composer des données plus riches. Vraie valeur : La valeur réelle des DTOs réside dans la gestion du couplage entre les couches et la composition de données provenant de sources multiples en formes optimisées pour des cas d'utilisation spécifiques. Découplage : Il est suggéré d'utiliser les DTOs pour découpler les modèles de données internes des contrats externes (comme les API), ce qui permet une évolution et une gestion des versions indépendantes. Exemple avec CQRS : Dans le cadre de CQRS (Command Query Responsibility Segregation), les réponses aux requêtes (queries) agissent comme des DTOs spécifiquement adaptés aux besoins de l'interface utilisateur, pouvant inclure des données de diverses sources. Protection des données internes : Les DTOs aident à distinguer et protéger les modèles de données internes (privés) des changements externes (publics). Éviter l'excès : L'auteur met en garde contre les couches de mapping excessives (mapper un DTO vers un autre DTO) qui n'apportent pas de valeur ajoutée. Création ciblée : Il est conseillé de ne créer des DTOs que lorsqu'ils résolvent des problèmes concrets, tels que la gestion du couplage ou la facilitation de la composition de données. Méthodologies Même Guillaume se met au “vibe coding” https://glaforge.dev/posts/2025/05/02/vibe-coding-an-mcp-server-with-micronaut-and-gemini/ Selon Andrey Karpathy, c'est le fait de POC-er un proto, une appli jetable du weekend https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383 Mais Simon Willison s'insurge que certains confondent coder avec l'assistance de l'IA avec le vibe coding https://simonwillison.net/2025/May/1/not-vibe-coding/ Guillaume c'est ici amusé à développer un serveur MCP avec Micronaut, en utilisant Gemini, l'IA de Google. Contrairement à Quarkus ou Spring Boot, Micronaut n'a pas encore de module ou de support spécifique pour faciliter la création de serveur MCP Sécurité Une faille de sécurité 10/10 sur Tomcat https://www.it-connect.fr/apache-tomcat-cette-faille-activement-exploitee-seulement-30-heures-apres-sa-divulgation-patchez/ Une faille de sécurité critique (CVE-2025-24813) affecte Apache Tomcat, permettant l'exécution de code à distance Cette vulnérabilité est activement exploitée seulement 30 heures après sa divulgation du 10 mars 2025 L'attaque ne nécessite aucune authentification et est particulièrement simple à exécuter Elle utilise une requête PUT avec une charge utile Java sérialisée encodée en base64, suivie d'une requête GET L'encodage en base64 permet de contourner la plupart des filtres de sécurité Les serveurs vulnérables utilisent un stockage de session basé sur des fichiers (configuration répandue) Les versions affectées sont : 11.0.0-M1 à 11.0.2, 10.1.0-M1 à 10.1.34, et 9.0.0.M1 à 9.0.98 Les mises à jour recommandées sont : 11.0.3+, 10.1.35+ et 9.0.99+ Les experts prévoient des attaques plus sophistiquées dans les prochaines phases d'exploitation (upload de config ou jsp) Sécurisation d'un serveur ssh https://ittavern.com/ssh-server-hardening/ un article qui liste les configurations clés pour sécuriser un serveur SSH par exemple, enlever password authentigfication, changer de port, desactiver le login root, forcer le protocol ssh 2, certains que je ne connaissais pas comme MaxStartups qui limite le nombre de connections non authentifiées concurrentes Port knocking est une technique utile mais demande une approche cliente consciente du protocol Oracle admet que les identités IAM de ses clients ont leaké https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/08/oracle_cloud_compromised/ Oracle a confirmé à certains clients que son cloud public a été compromis, alors que l'entreprise avait précédemment nié toute intrusion. Un pirate informatique a revendiqué avoir piraté deux serveurs d'authentification d'Oracle et volé environ six millions d'enregistrements, incluant des clés de sécurité privées, des identifiants chiffrés et des entrées LDAP. La faille exploitée serait la vulnérabilité CVE-2021-35587 dans Oracle Access Manager, qu'Oracle n'avait pas corrigée sur ses propres systèmes. Le pirate a créé un fichier texte début mars sur login.us2.oraclecloud.com contenant son adresse email pour prouver son accès. Selon Oracle, un ancien serveur contenant des données vieilles de huit ans aurait été compromis, mais un client affirme que des données de connexion aussi récentes que 2024 ont été dérobées. Oracle fait face à un procès au Texas concernant cette violation de données. Cette intrusion est distincte d'une autre attaque contre Oracle Health, sur laquelle l'entreprise refuse de commenter. Oracle pourrait faire face à des sanctions sous le RGPD européen qui exige la notification des parties affectées dans les 72 heures suivant la découverte d'une fuite de données. Le comportement d'Oracle consistant à nier puis à admettre discrètement l'intrusion est inhabituel en 2025 et pourrait mener à d'autres actions en justice collectives. Une GitHub action très populaire compromise https://www.stepsecurity.io/blog/harden-runner-detection-tj-actions-changed-files-action-is-compromised Compromission de l'action tj-actions/changed-files : En mars 2025, une action GitHub très utilisée (tj-actions/changed-files) a été compromise. Des versions modifiées de l'action ont exposé des secrets CI/CD dans les logs de build. Méthode d'attaque : Un PAT compromis a permis de rediriger plusieurs tags de version vers un commit contenant du code malveillant. Détails du code malveillant : Le code injecté exécutait une fonction Node.js encodée en base64, qui téléchargeait un script Python. Ce script parcourait la mémoire du runner GitHub à la recherche de secrets (tokens, clés…) et les exposait dans les logs. Dans certains cas, les données étaient aussi envoyées via une requête réseau. Période d'exposition : Les versions compromises étaient actives entre le 12 et le 15 mars 2025. Tout dépôt, particulièrement ceux publiques, ayant utilisé l'action pendant cette période doit être considéré comme potentiellement exposé. Détection : L'activité malveillante a été repérée par l'analyse des comportements inhabituels pendant l'exécution des workflows, comme des connexions réseau inattendues. Réaction : GitHub a supprimé l'action compromise, qui a ensuite été nettoyée. Impact potentiel : Tous les secrets apparaissant dans les logs doivent être considérés comme compromis, même dans les dépôts privés, et régénérés sans délai. Loi, société et organisation Les startup the YCombinateur ont les plus fortes croissances de leur histoire https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/15/y-combinator-startups-are-fastest-growing-in-fund-history-because-of-ai.html Les entreprises en phase de démarrage à Silicon Valley connaissent une croissance significative grâce à l'intelligence artificielle. Le PDG de Y Combinator, Garry Tan, affirme que l'ensemble des startups de la dernière cohorte a connu une croissance hebdomadaire de 10% pendant neuf mois. L'IA permet aux développeurs d'automatiser des tâches répétitives et de générer du code grâce aux grands modèles de langage. Pour environ 25% des startups actuelles de YC, 95% de leur code a été écrit par l'IA. Cette révolution permet aux entreprises de se développer avec moins de personnel - certaines atteignant 10 millions de dollars de revenus avec moins de 10 employés. La mentalité de “croissance à tout prix” a été remplacée par un renouveau d'intérêt pour la rentabilité. Environ 80% des entreprises présentées lors du “demo day” étaient centrées sur l'IA, avec quelques startups en robotique et semi-conducteurs. Y Combinator investit 500 000 dollars dans les startups en échange d'une participation au capital, suivi d'un programme de trois mois. Red Hat middleware (ex-jboss) rejoint IBM https://markclittle.blogspot.com/2025/03/red-hat-middleware-moving-to-ibm.html Les activités Middleware de Red Hat (incluant JBoss, Quarkus, etc.) vont être transférées vers IBM, dans l'unité dédiée à la sécurité des données, à l'IAM et aux runtimes. Ce changement découle d'une décision stratégique de Red Hat de se concentrer davantage sur le cloud hybride et l'intelligence artificielle. Mark Little explique que ce transfert était devenu inévitable, Red Hat ayant réduit ses investissements dans le Middleware ces dernières années. L'intégration vise à renforcer l'innovation autour de Java en réunissant les efforts de Red Hat et IBM sur ce sujet. Les produits Middleware resteront open source et les clients continueront à bénéficier du support habituel sans changement. Mark Little affirme que des projets comme Quarkus continueront à être soutenus et que cette évolution est bénéfique pour la communauté Java. Un an de commonhaus https://www.commonhaus.org/activity/253.html un an, démarré sur les communautés qu'ils connaissaient bien maintenant 14 projets et put en accepter plus confiance, gouvernance legère et proteger le futur des projets automatisation de l'administratif, stabiilité sans complexité, les developpeurs au centre du processus de décision ils ont besoins de members et supporters (financiers) ils veulent accueillir des projets au delà de ceux du cercles des Java Champions Spring Cloud Data Flow devient un produit commercial et ne sera plus maintenu en open source https://spring.io/blog/2025/04/21/spring-cloud-data-flow-commercial Peut-être sous l'influence de Broadcom, Spring se met à mettre en mode propriétaire des composants du portefeuille Spring ils disent que peu de gens l'utilisaent en mode OSS et la majorité venait d'un usage dans la plateforme Tanzu Maintenir en open source le coutent du temps qu'ils son't pas sur ces projets. La CNCF protège le projet NATS, dans la fondation depuis 2018, vu que la société Synadia qui y contribue souhaitait reprendre le contrôle du projet https://www.cncf.io/blog/2025/04/24/protecting-nats-and-the-integrity-of-open-source-cncfs-commitment-to-the-community/ CNCF : Protège projets OS, gouvernance neutre. Synadia vs CNCF : Veut retirer NATS, licence non-OS (BUSL). CNCF : Accuse Synadia de “claw back” (reprise illégitime). Revendications Synadia : Domaine nats.io, orga GitHub. Marque NATS : Synadia n'a pas transféré (promesse rompue malgré aide CNCF). Contestation Synadia : Juge règles CNCF “trop vagues”. Vote interne : Mainteneurs Synadia votent sortie CNCF (sans communauté). Support CNCF : Investissement majeur ($ audits, légal), succès communautaire (>700 orgs). Avenir NATS (CNCF) : Maintien sous Apache 2.0, gouvernance ouverte. Actions CNCF : Health check, appel mainteneurs, annulation marque Synadia, rejet demandes. Mais finalement il semble y avoir un bon dénouement : https://www.cncf.io/announcements/2025/05/01/cncf-and-synadia-align-on-securing-the-future-of-the-nats-io-project/ Accord pour l'avenir de NATS.io : La Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) et Synadia ont conclu un accord pour sécuriser le futur du projet NATS.io. Transfert des marques NATS : Synadia va céder ses deux enregistrements de marque NATS à la Linux Foundation afin de renforcer la gouvernance ouverte du projet. Maintien au sein de la CNCF : L'infrastructure et les actifs du projet NATS resteront sous l'égide de la CNCF, garantissant ainsi sa stabilité à long terme et son développement en open source sous licence Apache-2.0. Reconnaissance et engagement : La Linux Foundation, par la voix de Todd Moore, reconnaît les contributions de Synadia et son soutien continu. Derek Collison, PDG de Synadia, réaffirme l'engagement de son entreprise envers NATS et la collaboration avec la Linux Foundation et la CNCF. Adoption et soutien communautaire : NATS est largement adopté et considéré comme une infrastructure critique. Il bénéficie d'un fort soutien de la communauté pour sa nature open source et l'implication continue de Synadia. Finalement, Redis revient vers une licence open source OSI, avec la AGPL https://foojay.io/today/redis-is-now-available-under-the-agplv3-open-source-license/ Redis passe à la licence open source AGPLv3 pour contrer l'exploitation par les fournisseurs cloud sans contribution. Le passage précédent à la licence SSPL avait nui à la relation avec la communauté open source. Salvatore Sanfilippo (antirez) est revenu chez Redis. Redis 8 adopte la licence AGPL, intègre les fonctionnalités de Redis Stack (JSON, Time Series, etc.) et introduit les “vector sets” (le support de calcul vectoriel développé par Salvatore). Ces changements visent à renforcer Redis en tant que plateforme appréciée des développeurs, conformément à la vision initiale de Salvatore. Conférences La liste des conférences provenant de Developers Conferences Agenda/List par Aurélie Vache et contributeurs : 6-7 mai 2025 : GOSIM AI Paris - Paris (France) 7-9 mai 2025 : Devoxx UK - London (UK) 15 mai 2025 : Cloud Toulouse - Toulouse (France) 16 mai 2025 : AFUP Day 2025 Lille - Lille (France) 16 mai 2025 : AFUP Day 2025 Lyon - Lyon (France) 16 mai 2025 : AFUP Day 2025 Poitiers - Poitiers (France) 22-23 mai 2025 : Flupa UX Days 2025 - Paris (France) 24 mai 2025 : Polycloud - Montpellier (France) 24 mai 2025 : NG Baguette Conf 2025 - Nantes (France) 3 juin 2025 : TechReady - Nantes (France) 5-6 juin 2025 : AlpesCraft - Grenoble (France) 5-6 juin 2025 : Devquest 2025 - Niort (France) 10-11 juin 2025 : Modern Workplace Conference Paris 2025 - Paris (France) 11-13 juin 2025 : Devoxx Poland - Krakow (Poland) 12 juin 2025 : Positive Design Days - Strasbourg (France) 12-13 juin 2025 : Agile Tour Toulouse - Toulouse (France) 12-13 juin 2025 : DevLille - Lille (France) 13 juin 2025 : Tech F'Est 2025 - Nancy (France) 17 juin 2025 : Mobilis In Mobile - Nantes (France) 19-21 juin 2025 : Drupal Barcamp Perpignan 2025 - Perpignan (France) 24 juin 2025 : WAX 2025 - Aix-en-Provence (France) 25-26 juin 2025 : Agi'Lille 2025 - Lille (France) 25-27 juin 2025 : BreizhCamp 2025 - Rennes (France) 26-27 juin 2025 : Sunny Tech - Montpellier (France) 1-4 juillet 2025 : Open edX Conference - 2025 - Palaiseau (France) 7-9 juillet 2025 : Riviera DEV 2025 - Sophia Antipolis (France) 5 septembre 2025 : JUG Summer Camp 2025 - La Rochelle (France) 12 septembre 2025 : Agile Pays Basque 2025 - Bidart (France) 18-19 septembre 2025 : API Platform Conference - Lille (France) & Online 23 septembre 2025 : OWASP AppSec France 2025 - Paris (France) 25-26 septembre 2025 : Paris Web 2025 - Paris (France) 2-3 octobre 2025 : Volcamp - Clermont-Ferrand (France) 3 octobre 2025 : DevFest Perros-Guirec 2025 - Perros-Guirec (France) 6-10 octobre 2025 : Devoxx Belgium - Antwerp (Belgium) 7 octobre 2025 : BSides Mulhouse - Mulhouse (France) 9-10 octobre 2025 : Forum PHP 2025 - Marne-la-Vallée (France) 9-10 octobre 2025 : EuroRust 2025 - Paris (France) 16 octobre 2025 : PlatformCon25 Live Day Paris - Paris (France) 16-17 octobre 2025 : DevFest Nantes - Nantes (France) 30-31 octobre 2025 : Agile Tour Bordeaux 2025 - Bordeaux (France) 30-31 octobre 2025 : Agile Tour Nantais 2025 - Nantes (France) 30 octobre 2025-2 novembre 2025 : PyConFR 2025 - Lyon (France) 4-7 novembre 2025 : NewCrafts 2025 - Paris (France) 6 novembre 2025 : dotAI 2025 - Paris (France) 7 novembre 2025 : BDX I/O - Bordeaux (France) 12-14 novembre 2025 : Devoxx Morocco - Marrakech (Morocco) 13 novembre 2025 : DevFest Toulouse - Toulouse (France) 15-16 novembre 2025 : Capitole du Libre - Toulouse (France) 20 novembre 2025 : OVHcloud Summit - Paris (France) 21 novembre 2025 : DevFest Paris 2025 - Paris (France) 27 novembre 2025 : Devfest Strasbourg 2025 - Strasbourg (France) 28 novembre 2025 : DevFest Lyon - Lyon (France) 5 décembre 2025 : DevFest Dijon 2025 - Dijon (France) 10-11 décembre 2025 : Devops REX - Paris (France) 10-11 décembre 2025 : Open Source Experience - Paris (France) 28-31 janvier 2026 : SnowCamp 2026 - Grenoble (France) 2-6 février 2026 : Web Days Convention - Aix-en-Provence (France) 23-25 avril 2026 : Devoxx Greece - Athens (Greece) 17 juin 2026 : Devoxx Poland - Krakow (Poland) Nous contacter Pour réagir à cet épisode, venez discuter sur le groupe Google https://groups.google.com/group/lescastcodeurs Contactez-nous via X/twitter https://twitter.com/lescastcodeurs ou Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/lescastcodeurs.com Faire un crowdcast ou une crowdquestion Soutenez Les Cast Codeurs sur Patreon https://www.patreon.com/LesCastCodeurs Tous les épisodes et toutes les infos sur https://lescastcodeurs.com/

pytest-metadata is described as a plugin for pytest that provides access to test session metadata. That is such a humble description for such a massively useful plugin. If you're already using pytest-html, you have pytest-metadata already installed, as pytest-metadata is one of the dependencies for pytest-html.However, pytest-metadata is very useful even on its own.Links:pytest-metadata - The plugin we're talking about in this episodepytest-base-url - Adds the base URL to the metadata.pytest-html - Displays the metadata at the start of each report. See S2:E6: pytest-html - a plugin that generates HTML reports for test resultspytest-reporter-html1 - Presents metadata as part of the report.pytest-selenium - Adds the driver, capabilities, and remote server to the metadata.If you've got other plugins that work well with pytest-metadata, please let me know. Sponsored by: Porkbun -- named the #1 domain registrar by USA Today from 2023 to 2025!Get a .app or.dev domain name for only $5.99 first year.Help support the show AND learn pytest: The Complete pytest course is now a bundle, with each part available separately.pytest Primary Power teaches the super powers of pytest that you need to learn to use pytest effectively.Using pytest with Projects has lots of "when you need it" sections like debugging failed tests, mocking, testing strategy, and CIThen pytest Booster Rockets can help with advanced parametrization and building plugins.Whether you need to get started with pytest today, or want to power up your pytest skills, PythonTest has a course for you. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

1/2: #KASHMIR: FOREBODING AT THE LINE OF CONTROL, BILL ROGGIO, FDD. HUSAIN HAQQANI, HUDSON INSTITUTE. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/world/asia/india-pakistan-kashmir-history.html 1682 KASHMIR

BILL ROGGIO, FDD. HUSAIN HAQQANI, HUDSON INSTITUTE. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/world/asia/india-pakistan-kashmir-history.html 1865 KOLKATTA

Aprende cómo crear una app con Vibe Coding y la IA de Hostinger Horizons.

Ebay revising and comparing listings (prices, subscriptions, niche stores, HTML and editing text)

Carson Gross, creator of HTMX, talks about its evolution from intercooler.js, its viral rise on social media, and its philosophy of simplicity and stability. They dive into how HTMX fits into the modern web dev ecosystem, the idea of building 100-year web services, and why older technologies like jQuery and server-side rendering still have staying power. Carson also shares insights on open-source marketing, progressive enhancement, and the future of web development. Links https://bigsky.software https://www.linkedin.com/in/1cg https://github.com/bigskysoftware https://x.com/htmx_org https://htmx.org https://htmx.org/discord https://hypermedia.systems https://github.com/surrealdb/surrealdb.js https://unpoly.com https://ui.shadcn.com We want to hear from you! How did you find us? Did you see us on Twitter? In a newsletter? Or maybe we were recommended by a friend? Let us know by sending an email to our producer, Emily, at emily.kochanekketner@logrocket.com (mailto:emily.kochanekketner@logrocket.com), or tweet at us at PodRocketPod (https://twitter.com/PodRocketpod). Follow us. Get free stickers. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, fill out this form (https://podrocket.logrocket.com/get-podrocket-stickers), and we'll send you free PodRocket stickers! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket provides AI-first session replay and analytics that surfaces the UX and technical issues impacting user experiences. Start understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at [LogRocket.com]. Try LogRocket for free today.(https://logrocket.com/signup/?pdr) Special Guest: Carson Gross.

What do you do if you believe God isn't listening to your prayers? Reading or audio options of the book "Counsels on Diet and Foods", mentioned in this episode, may be found below:Read it online (HTML format)Read it on a PDF file, Listen to it (MP3 file), orPurchase a hard copy. Find all options available here: https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/384/info.This message was presented during the General Conference "Mission Family" worship on June 14, 2023. "Mission Family" comprises employees from Adventist Membership Service, Adventist Mission, ASTR, IPRS, IWM, and Secretariat (AVS and VividFaith are included in Secretariat).

Then and Now, Throwback Trends. Learn about why Montana for the legendary Miles City Bucking Horse Sale & Rodeo —Plus, the biggest illegal bird bust in U.S. history! Join radio hosts Rebecca Wanner aka 'BEC' and Jeff ‘Tigger' Erhardt (Tigger & BEC) with The Bend Radio Show & Podcast, your news outlet for the latest in Outdoors & Western Lifestyle News! Season 5, Episode 234 The Evolution of Cool: What We Loved Then and What's Trending Now Nostalgia always finds a way to trend. From bumpin' bass in your trunk to custom AI avatars flooding your feed—what's cool evolves, but the vibe stays the same. Let's take a ride through the decades and catch up on what's hot, what's history, and what's happening right now in pop culture, rodeo, and the wildest wildlife headline you didn't know you needed. From Fax Machines to 3D Cartoon Avatars  Then: Remember the days of waiting in line at the office fax machine, praying it didn't jam? Or spending hours crafting a MySpace page with custom HTML? Now: We've moved on to creating 3D cartoon versions of ourselves using AI and ChatGPT to share on TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. It's not just for kicks—these avatars are now brand mascots, profile pics, and conversation starters. 25 Years Ago: CD Players & Subs in the Trunk In the late '90s and early 2000s, if your ride didn't have a Pioneer deck and a couple of 12-inch subs in the back, were you even cool? Whether it was Tupac, Tim McGraw, or Linkin Park, music hit different when your rearview mirror shook from bass drops. The era of custom installs and trunk-rattling power might be long gone, but the spirit lives on in today's custom car scene and wireless audio obsessions. Rodeo Spotlight: Miles City Bucking Horse Sale & Rodeo – Montana's Wildest 4 Days Miles City, Montana becomes the capital of cowboy culture every May during the World Famous Miles City Bucking Horse Sale & Rodeo—a four-day extravaganza of raw horsepower, western tradition, and all-out fun. Kickoff: Pendleton Whiskey Country Concert  The event kicks off Thursday, May 15th, 2025 with a Pendleton Whiskey Country Concert featuring rising Montana country artist Tanner Laws. “This rodeo is electric. It's not just the horses that buck—every night feels like a full-on western party,” Tanner shared in our exclusive interview. Hear his full interview on this episode of The Bend Show. Joining the Tanner Laws Band are special guests Tigirlily Gold, adding a powerhouse female energy to the stage, and Gary Allan, headlining the show and bringing decades of country grit. What to Expect All Weekend Friday, May 16: Match Bronc Rides and Street Dances Saturday, May 17: PRCA-sanctioned rodeo performances Sunday, May 18: Cowboy Church and the PRCA Xtreme Bronc Match Rodeo Vendors, parades, beer gardens, and the best western wear you'll find all year! Bucking Horse Sale, Rodeo & Concert: TICKETS ORDER NOW!! These tickets are selling fast, so make your plans and grab your tickets! Purchase Tickets, Schedule and To Learn More visit BuckingHorseSale.com or RanchChannel.com Largest US Illegal Taxidermy Bird Bust In unexpected wildlife news, the largest illegal taxidermy bird bust in U.S. history just landed a Montana collector with a $900,000 fine. Authorities uncovered a treasure trove of over 300 protected species, including eagles and falcons. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service called it "an unprecedented display of arrogance and disregard for federal law." Busted: $900,000 Fine in Largest Taxidermy Bird Sting in U.S. History According to OutdoorLife.com; A Georgia man has been fined a whopping $900,000 in what authorities are calling the largest taxidermy bird bust in U.S. history. Dr. John Waldrop of Cataula, Georgia, was sentenced this week for illegally trafficking thousands of rare and endangered bird mounts and eggs from around the world — including some species possibly extinct. Federal agents say Waldrop smuggled over 1,400 bird mounts and nearly 2,600 eggs between 2016 and 2020, using fake shipping info and even recruiting his farm's caretaker to help hide the shipments. His massive collection included protected eagles, rare parrots, and songbird eggs — many of which didn't have the permits required by law. Some of the birds and eggs were from species so rare, no U.S. museum has them, including three eggs from an Asian shorebird with only around 1,000 left in the wild. Officials say Waldrop created demand that fueled illegal poaching across Africa, Asia, and South America. Waldrop pled guilty, was fined $900,000 and will serve three years of probation. His caretaker got six months. Authorities say the case shows just how seriously wildlife trafficking is being taken — and how much it can cost when the law is broken. OUTDOORS FIELD REPORTS & COMMENTS We want to hear from you! If you have any questions, comments, or stories to share about bighorn sheep, outdoor adventures, or wildlife conservation, don't hesitate to reach out. Call or text us at 305-900-BEND (305-900-2363), or send an email to BendRadioShow@gmail.com. Stay connected by following us on social media at Facebook/Instagram @thebendshow or by subscribing to The Bend Show on YouTube. Visit our website at TheBendShow.com for more exciting content and updates! https://thebendshow.com/ https://www.facebook.com/thebendshow WESTERN LIFESTYLE & THE OUTDOORS Jeff 'Tigger' Erhardt & Rebecca 'BEC' Wanner are passionate news broadcasters who represent the working ranch world, rodeo, and the Western way of life. They are also staunch advocates for the outdoors and wildlife conservation. As outdoorsmen themselves, Tigger and BEC provide valuable insight and education to hunters, adventurers, ranchers, and anyone interested in agriculture and conservation. With a shared love for the outdoors, Tigger & BEC are committed to bringing high-quality beef and wild game from the field to your table. They understand the importance of sharing meals with family, cooking the fruits of your labor, and making memories in the great outdoors. Through their work, they aim to educate and inspire those who appreciate God's Country and life on the land. United by a common mission, Tigger & BEC offer a glimpse into the life beyond the beaten path and down dirt roads. They're here to share knowledge, answer your questions, and join you in your own success story. Adventure awaits around the bend. With The Outdoors, Rural America, and Wildlife Conservation at the forefront, Tigger and BEC live this lifestyle every day. To learn more about Tigger & BEC's journey and their passion for the outdoors, visit TiggerandBEC.com. https://tiggerandbec.com/  

I loved this conversation with Rick and Tisha! I recommend their book and connecting with them!About RickRick Butterworth is a founder, product designer, and developer who has dedicated just under two decades to revolutionizing user interactions and learning experiences in online applications. With a strong background in UX/UI, front-end development, and product management, Rick possesses a versatile skill set that drives innovation and creates meaningful impact. Rick's journey began at the University of Salford, where he cultivated Visual Basic Script and Aviation Technology skills. Overcoming dyslexia, he embraced his unique learning style, which ultimately fueled his determination to succeed and help learners who struggle with their learning challenges. In his early twenties, Rick began his entrepreneurship by looking for a solution to a problem and developing his first software application, which is used by aviation enthusiasts. He then founded a successful web design and development company catering to diverse industries such as technology, aviation, photography, and media. Additionally, his expertise encompasses wireframing, prototyping, and interactive design, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and React programming languages.  www.rickbutterworth.comhttps://iste.org/tomorrowleaders (along with Amazon, Target, B&N, etc)Rick's website is www.rickbutterworth.comAbout TishaTisha Poncio received her M.S. in Learning Technologies from the University of North Texas in 2019, expanding her passion to inspire learners, educators, and leaders. With over two decades of dedicated service in the education and instructional design fields, Tisha's energy and enthusiasm have fueled her success as a teacher, digital learning coach, learner, and leader. Throughout her career, Tisha has left a lasting impact on her students, guiding them in subjects ranging from Web Design, Graphic Design, Business Computers, and Programming to English, Broadcast Journalism, and Entrepreneurship. In addition to her exceptional work as a classroom teacher, she served as an innovative digital learning specialist for over 12 years, leading and inspiring fellow educators and administrators with meaningful technology integration and instructional design that supports all learners. Tisha's commitment to staying at the forefront of educational and emerging technologies is evident throughout her journey. She was named a TCEA [Texas Computer Education Association] finalist for the Instructional Technology Specialist of the Year award in 2018 and contributed a chapter to the EduMatch 2020 Snapshot in Education: Remote Learning Edition. She continues seeking opportunities that support and empower students, teachers, and leaderswww.tishaponcio.com@tishaponcio on all social media and her website is ⁠www.tishaponcio.com⁠ About RachelleEducator, Keynote Speaker, Consultant, Attorney, and AuthorSubscribe to the podcast and my ⁠newsletter⁠.Also, check out my ⁠blog⁠ and submit a guest blog.Contact me for speaking and training related to AI, AI and the law, Cybersecurity, SEL, STEM, and World Language Educator training for each of these topics as well! ⁠bit.ly/thriveineduPD⁠If you're interested in a sponsored podcast or collaboration, please contact me for details.

News includes EEF board elections with voting beginning May 9th, Gleam v1.10.0 enhancing security with SBoMs and SLSA build provenance, an AshAuthentication vulnerability with mitigation steps, the Elixir Secure Coding Training project finding a permanent home at the EEF, announcements for both ElixirConf US 2025 in Orlando and ElixirConfEU in Krakow with speaker lineup, and more! Show Notes online - http://podcast.thinkingelixir.com/250 (http://podcast.thinkingelixir.com/250) Elixir Community News https://paraxial.io/ (https://paraxial.io/?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Paraxial.io is sponsoring today's show! Sign up for a free trial of Paraxial.io today and mention Thinking Elixir when you schedule a demo for a limited time offer. https://erlef.org/blog/eef/election-2025 (https://erlef.org/blog/eef/election-2025?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – EEF board elections announced with important dates - candidacy submissions by May 8th, voting open May 9-16th. https://x.com/TheErlef/status/1911847956308959650 (https://x.com/TheErlef/status/1911847956308959650?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Gleam v1.10.0 will ship with Build SBoMs and SLSA build provenance for all release artifacts and Docker images, improving visibility into dependencies and software supply chain security. https://x.com/theerlef/status/1910348770514006242 (https://x.com/theerlef/status/1910348770514006242?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – The "Elixir Secure Coding Training (ESCT)" project has been transferred to the Erlang Ecosystem Foundation for a more permanent home and maintainership. https://bsky.app/profile/davelucia.com/post/3lmcqhzoc7c26 (https://bsky.app/profile/davelucia.com/post/3lmcqhzoc7c26?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Dave Lucia shares information about the ESCT project transfer from Podium to TvLabs and ultimately to the EEF. https://github.com/erlef/elixir-secure-coding (https://github.com/erlef/elixir-secure-coding?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – An interactive cybersecurity curriculum designed for enterprise use at software companies using Elixir. https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix/pull/6184 (https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix/pull/6184?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Fix for Plug.Debugger screen which was showing ANSI codes in HTML. https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix/pull/6194 (https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix/pull/6194?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Fix for the Phoenix installer's incorrect application of custom variants in tailwind v4. https://github.com/team-alembic/ash_authentication/security/advisories/GHSA-3988-q8q7-p787 (https://github.com/team-alembic/ash_authentication/security/advisories/GHSA-3988-q8q7-p787?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – AshAuthentication vulnerability published with mitigation steps - update packages, set requireinteraction to true, and add confirmroute above auth_routes. https://elixirconf.com/ (https://elixirconf.com/?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – ElixirConf US 2025 is open for submitting talks and workshops in Orlando. Talk submissions due April 29, workshop submissions due April 15. https://x.com/elixirconf/status/1907843035544826137 (https://x.com/elixirconf/status/1907843035544826137?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Announcement for ElixirConf US 2025 in Orlando with deadlines for talk and workshop submissions. https://x.com/ElixirConfEU/status/1911747531953832323 (https://x.com/ElixirConfEU/status/1911747531953832323?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – ElixirConfEU Speakers were announced for the upcoming conference in Krakow, Poland. https://www.elixirconf.eu/#tickets (https://www.elixirconf.eu/#tickets?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Ticket information for ElixirConfEU - 250 Euros for virtual ticket, 600 Euros for in-person ticket. https://www.elixirconf.eu/#keynotes (https://www.elixirconf.eu/#keynotes?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Keynote information for ElixirConfEU in Krakow, Poland, May 14-16 (training on May 14, regular sessions on May 15-16). Do you have some Elixir news to share? Tell us at @ThinkingElixir (https://twitter.com/ThinkingElixir) or email at show@thinkingelixir.com (mailto:show@thinkingelixir.com) Find us online - Message the show - Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/thinkingelixir.com) - Message the show - X (https://x.com/ThinkingElixir) - Message the show on Fediverse - @ThinkingElixir@genserver.social (https://genserver.social/ThinkingElixir) - Email the show - show@thinkingelixir.com (mailto:show@thinkingelixir.com) - Mark Ericksen on X - @brainlid (https://x.com/brainlid) - Mark Ericksen on Bluesky - @brainlid.bsky.social (https://bsky.app/profile/brainlid.bsky.social) - Mark Ericksen on Fediverse - @brainlid@genserver.social (https://genserver.social/brainlid) - David Bernheisel on Bluesky - @david.bernheisel.com (https://bsky.app/profile/david.bernheisel.com) - David Bernheisel on Fediverse - @dbern@genserver.social (https://genserver.social/dbern)

Fredrik snackar med Daniel Raniz Raneland om att skapa och hålla presentationer. Ämnen finns överallt bara man börjar se dem, och man ska inte göra det svårt för sig. Att berätta hur man själv lärt sig något blir en alldeles utmärkt presentation. Skulle du kunna skriva en bloggpost om något? Då kan du också göra en presentation av det, du behöver bara anpassa formen lite. En presentation behöver vara lite mer av en resa och ge lite mer av en kontext. Du vet inte vilken kunskap du sitter på som är vardagsmat för dig men ett guldkorn för någon annan! Våga hålla en presentation! Ett stort tack till Cloudnet som sponsrar vår VPS! Har du kommentarer, frågor eller tips? Vi är @kodsnack, @thieta, @krig, och @bjoreman på Mastodon, har en sida på Facebook och epostas på info@kodsnack.se om du vill skriva längre. Vi läser allt som skickas. Gillar du Kodsnack får du hemskt gärna recensera oss i iTunes! Du kan också stödja podden genom att ge oss en kaffe (eller två!) på Ko-fi, eller handla något i vår butik. Länkar Raniz Factor10 Besöket i Varberg - då avsnitt 609 spelades in Softhouse Raniz blogg Jfokus TDD Kodkata Parprogrammering Sessionize Seecfp - mejllista Devoxx We are developers Berlin Raniz Øredevpresentation 2024 - Pipeline patterns and antipatterns Swetugg Slidev - koda dina presentationer i Markdown, HTML, och CSS Mermaid Magic code Stöd oss på Ko-fi! En version av Raniz Java på AWS lambda-presentation Papercall Martin Fowler Myconf - konferens i Varberg i maj Devopsdays i Zürich NDC Titlar Myndig på mjukvaruutveckling Vad gör ni här? Jag skriver abstrakt Alldeles för höga förväntningar En väldigt bra struktur En chans att dra sig ur Slutsatsen i början Prata väldigt fort istället 22 minuter inspelat material Ingen presentation är den andra lik En konferens i födelsedagspresent Broar som leder vidare

Send us a textIn this solocast episode, On Top of PR host Jason Mudd discusses what every company must know about media relations before hiring a public relations firm. Tune in to learn more! Five things you'll learn from this episode:1. Media relations is just one part of strategic public relations2. What makes a story newsworthy3. What journalists really care about when evaluating your pitch4. Why relationships don't guarantee coverage5. What PR tools you shouldn't buy until you're ready Quotables"Public relations is not only media relations. Media relations isn't what most people think it is either." — @JasonMudd9"Earned media must be earned. If someone guarantees coverage, you're buying ads, not PR." — @JasonMudd9"The only audience that matters is the journalist's audience — not your CEO or marketing team." — @JasonMudd9"Great [news] stories beat great [media] relationships." — @JasonMudd9 "PR is a long-term business strategy — not a one-time campaign or quick win." — @JasonMudd9If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to share it with a colleague or friend. You may also support us by buying us a coffee or leaving us a quick podcast review.About Jason Mudd, Axia Public RelationsJason Mudd is a trusted adviser and dynamic strategist for some of America's most admired brands. Since 1994, he's worked with brands including American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster's, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon. Jason founded Axia Public Relations in 2002. Forbes named Axia one of America's Best PR Agencies. At Axia, Jason oversees strategic communications for national clients and leads top PR talent. Clients love his passion, innovation, candor, commitment, and award-winning team. He consults with leadership teams at billion-dollar global business-to-business and business-to-consumer brands, advising them on spokesperson training, crisis communications, analytics, social media, online reputation management, and more. In an increasingly tech-forward world, Jason's grasp of the technological demands companies face helps his multiple-sector clients reach their target audiences. After teaching himself HTML in 1994, Jason helped pioneer internet marketing strategies as an early adopter of e-commerce, search engine optimization, and social media, inspiring tech giants like Yahoo. He speaks to corporations and industry groups and writes about PR trends and best practices for American City Business Journals and other national outlets.Guest's contact info and resources:Jason Mudd on XJason Mudd on LinkedInAxia Public Relations 1:1 consultations and training with Axia Support the show On Top of PR is produced by Axia Public Relations, named by Forbes as one of America's Best PR Agencies. Axia is an expert PR firm for national brands. On Top of PR is sponsored by ReviewMaxer, the platform for monitoring, improving, and promoting online customer reviews.

On Hands-On Tech, Mikah Sargent answers a question from Wayne about streamlining a process to organize his recipies copied in Apple Notes and reformat them in HTML. Don't forget to send in your questions for Mikah to answer during the show! hot@twit.tv Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-tech Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

On Hands-On Tech, Mikah Sargent answers a question from Wayne about streamlining a process to organize his recipies copied in Apple Notes and reformat them in HTML. Don't forget to send in your questions for Mikah to answer during the show! hot@twit.tv Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-tech Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Would you like access to our advanced agency training for FREE? https://www.agencymastery360.com/training Is SEO still a viable service offering? If you're an SEO agency, are you at risk for extinction? With AI taking over many industries at the moment, it's no wonder people are asking if it's rise means the death of SEO. Today's featured guest is an SEO expert that found her path into the industry after discovering her passion for tech. She discusses how AI is reshaping the SEO industry — not eliminating it, but transforming its execution and potential. The fundamental principles that have always driven search engine optimization continue to matter, though their implementation evolves alongside technological advancement. Tune in to gain insights into how forward-thinking businesses are adapting their SEO strategies to thrive in this new environment, and gain practical insights for navigating this shifting digital terrain. Lindsay Halsey is the owner of Pathfinder SEO an agency that helps clients grow their recurring revenue by getting the system, tools, and training to add SEO services to their agency. She reflects on the early days of SEO, reminisces about outdated practices, and talks about why the rise of artificial intelligence and “alternative search engines” does not mean you should stop investing in SEO. In this episode, we'll discuss: 3 core principles of SEO that haven't changed. Did AI kill SEO? Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Wix Studio, the all-in-one platform designed to help agencies scale without the headaches. With intuitive tools, robust native business solutions, and low maintenance, Wix Studio lets your team focus on what matters most—delivering exceptional value to your clients. Ready to take your agency to the next level? Visit wix.com/studio an Turning a Love of Digital Technology into an SEO Agency In the early days of SEO, when tactics like hiding keywords in same-colored backgrounds were still common practice, Lindsay was finding her footing in a vastly different field working as a ski patroller and mountain guide. Her dramatic career shift came through a HTML and CSS course at her local community college that developed a consuming passion for technology. As she devoted increasingly more time to computer work, her hobby naturally transitioned into a professional opportunity, leading to her first position as an SEO account manager at a local agency. After gaining valuable experience during her two-year tenure at the agency, Lindsay took the entrepreneurial leap. Partnering with a colleague and securing their first client, she launched her own business. In retrospect, she knows their initial pricing structure was too conservative—offering SEO and Google Ads services for merely $500. Despite this undervaluation, she's proud of having prioritized recurring revenue from the start, a lesson she took from her years at the previous agency. Unlike project-based work, which often creates financial unpredictability, a subscription model provides the stable financial foundation necessary for strategic planning and sustainable growth. Within the first year of launching their agency, they managed to generate enough recurring revenue to pay themselves salaries that surpassed what they earned in their previous jobs, which was an important victory that helped cement their belief in the business. 3 Core Principles of SEO in 2025: The principles of SEO have undergone significant transformations over the 15 years that Lindsay has been in the space. At its core, however, the values that guide the industry remain and now Google has gotten better as measuring and rewarding them: User experience. You need to have a well-built and secure website that is easy to use and has good design. Genuine experience and expertise. No more getting away with lame content that just repeats keywords. External validation. There have to be external signals that validate a brand's expertise. This includes back links from reputable websites, positive Google reviews, and the establishment of authority figures within the organization. Did AI Kill SEO? The conversation around Search Engine Optimization often oscillates between optimism and skepticism. Lately, it has focused on AI and why its rise means that SEO is dead. Indeed, the rise of AI has also meant a rise of “alternative search engines”. Basically, this means that people are starting to move to ask ChatGPT questions they would have previously asked the Google search engine. The answers provided by AI are rapidly improving, and users will see both advantages and disadvantages in queries answered by AI and answered by Google. For her part, Lindsay has been seeing this fear surge every couple of years in the industry and isn't worried about the inevitable questions of “should I invest in SEO? Will it even be around?” Her answer continues to be a resounding YES. There might be some changes and some trends, but there's still value of ranking in Google and so it will continue to be a part of a business's long-term strategy. Of course, as owner of an SEO agency, Lindsay continues to monitor this rise of alternative search engines and assess where they fall into the industry. It could very well be that they'll be part of the strategy moving forward. For now, her agency continues to help clients navigate that transition by creating content that helps them rank in all searches. Ultimately, SEO is adapting to new technologies and user behaviors, and by understanding and leveraging user behavior, businesses can enhance their SEO efforts, leading to greater visibility and success in the digital marketplace. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? Looking to dig deeper into your agency's potential? Check out our Agency Blueprint. Designed for agency owners like you, our Agency Blueprint helps you uncover growth opportunities, tackle obstacles, and craft a customized blueprint for your agency's success.

On Hands-On Tech, Mikah Sargent answers a question from Wayne about streamlining a process to organize his recipies copied in Apple Notes and reformat them in HTML. Don't forget to send in your questions for Mikah to answer during the show! hot@twit.tv Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-tech Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

On Hands-On Tech, Mikah Sargent answers a question from Wayne about streamlining a process to organize his recipies copied in Apple Notes and reformat them in HTML. Don't forget to send in your questions for Mikah to answer during the show! hot@twit.tv Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-tech Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

On Hands-On Tech, Mikah Sargent answers a question from Wayne about streamlining a process to organize his recipies copied in Apple Notes and reformat them in HTML. Don't forget to send in your questions for Mikah to answer during the show! hot@twit.tv Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-tech Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

On Hands-On Tech, Mikah Sargent answers a question from Wayne about streamlining a process to organize his recipies copied in Apple Notes and reformat them in HTML. Don't forget to send in your questions for Mikah to answer during the show! hot@twit.tv Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-tech Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

On Hands-On Tech, Mikah Sargent answers a question from Wayne about streamlining a process to organize his recipies copied in Apple Notes and reformat them in HTML. Don't forget to send in your questions for Mikah to answer during the show! hot@twit.tv Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On Tech at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-tech Want access to the ad-free video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

In this exciting crossover episode, Chris Nesi teams up with Leena Marie Saleh (The EdTech Guru) for a detailed look into Canva's latest educational innovations unveiled during Canva Create 2025. Whether you're a teacher, instructional coach, or tech integrator, this episode is packed with transformative features and real classroom applications. Featured Topic: Canva Create 2025 Key Themes and Highlights: Canva Sheets: The Spreadsheet Reimagined A powerful new addition to the Canva suite—Canva Sheets brings AI-infused, visually pleasing spreadsheets to the classroom. Bulk Background Remover: Easily remove backgrounds from dozens of student photos at once. Bulk Create with Images: Mass-produce certificates, report cards, or newsletters by integrating images directly into your sheet. Magic AI Prompts: Skip the formulas—just describe your needs and let AI do the rest (e.g., calculating budgets, charting grades). Magic Insights: Auto-generate graphs, summaries, or positive student comments—great for data storytelling or end-of-year celebrations. Student Access: Available to students in districts where Canva's Magic tools are enabled. The All-in-One Visual Suite Create multi-modal projects within a single file: combine slides, spreadsheets, videos, documents, and websites. Use Case: Teachers can build unit plans with rubrics, grading sheets, lesson videos, and linked resources—all in one shareable design. Student Application: Portfolios that blend writing, multimedia, assessments, and visual elements in a single file. Canva Code No coding experience needed! Generate interactive HTML-based tools like: Flashcard games Vocabulary matching activities Countdown timers Use Cases: Do-Nows & Exit Tickets Interactive experiences (e.g., virtual art exhibits) Includes real-time code editing via voice or chat and seamless integration into other Canva designs. Voiceover and Text-to-Speech Enhancements Record true voiceovers directly in Canva—no more video workarounds. Use AI-generated voices to read text aloud in different accents and languages (e.g., Spanish voice packs Alejandra and Sofia). Ideal for student presentations, podcasts, and accessibility support. AI-Powered Speaker Notes Auto-generate speaking points from your presentation slides. Great for prepping lessons, webinars, or class presentations on the fly. Assignments Hub Instantly generate quizzes from highlighted text in a lesson or document. New classwork dashboard allows for real-time monitoring of student progress (especially for educators without an LMS like Google Classroom). Scrollables (a.k.a. Scrollytelling) Create animated, interactive timelines or diagrams that engage students through scroll-triggered movement and transitions.

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 17:00:00 GMT http://relay.fm/clockwise/600 http://relay.fm/clockwise/600 Always Using My Little Snippets 600 Dan Moren and Mikah Sargent Whether we use a docking device with our main PC or Mac, feelings of algorithm fatigue and if it's enough to leave Spotify, the software we geek out over like Numbers, and if rising prices due to tariffs might stop us from buying a new phone this year. Whether we use a docking device with our main PC or Mac, feelings of algorithm fatigue and if it's enough to leave Spotify, the software we geek out over like Numbers, and if rising prices due to tariffs might stop us from buying a new phone this year. clean 1799 Whether we use a docking device with our main PC or Mac, feelings of algorithm fatigue and if it's enough to leave Spotify, the software we geek out over like Numbers, and if rising prices due to tariffs might stop us from buying a new phone this year. This episode of Clockwise is sponsored by: BBEdit: The leading professional HTML and text editor for macOS. Try it free for 30 days. Guest Starring: Shelly Brisbin and Amanda Silberling Links and Show Notes: Support Clockwise with a Relay FM Membership

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 17:00:00 GMT http://relay.fm/clockwise/600 http://relay.fm/clockwise/600 Dan Moren and Mikah Sargent Whether we use a docking device with our main PC or Mac, feelings of algorithm fatigue and if it's enough to leave Spotify, the software we geek out over like Numbers, and if rising prices due to tariffs might stop us from buying a new phone this year. Whether we use a docking device with our main PC or Mac, feelings of algorithm fatigue and if it's enough to leave Spotify, the software we geek out over like Numbers, and if rising prices due to tariffs might stop us from buying a new phone this year. clean 1799 Whether we use a docking device with our main PC or Mac, feelings of algorithm fatigue and if it's enough to leave Spotify, the software we geek out over like Numbers, and if rising prices due to tariffs might stop us from buying a new phone this year. This episode of Clockwise is sponsored by: BBEdit: The leading professional HTML and text editor for macOS. Try it free for 30 days. Guest Starring: Shelly Brisbin and Amanda Silberling Links and Show Notes: Support Clockwise with a Relay FM Membership

Josh Cirre joins us to discuss his transition from the JavaScript ecosystem to Laravel, revealing why PHP frameworks can offer a compelling alternative for full-stack development. We explore the "identity crisis" many frontend developers face when needing robust backend solutions, how Laravel's batteries-included approach compares to piecing together JavaScript services, and the trade-offs between serverless and traditional hosting environments. Josh also shares insights on Laravel's developer experience, front-end integration options, and his thoughts on what JavaScript frameworks could learn from Laravel's approach to abstraction and infrastructure.Show Notes0:00 - Intro1:02 - Sponsor: Wix Studio1:46 - Introduction to Laravel2:25 - Josh's Journey from Frontend to Backend5:40 - Building the Same Project Across Frameworks6:32 - Josh's Breakthrough with Laravel8:20 - Laravel's Frontend Options10:25 - React Server Components Comparison12:00 - Livewire and Volt13:41 - Josh's Course on Laracasts14:08 - Laravel's DX and Ecosystem16:46 - MVC Structure Explained for JavaScript Developers18:25 - Type Safety Between PHP and JavaScript21:12 - Laravel Pain Points and Criticisms22:40 - Laravel Team's Response to Feedback24:50 - Laravel's Limitations and Use Cases26:10 - Laravel's Developer Products27:20 - Option Paralysis in Laravel30:46 - Laravel's Driver System33:14 - Web Dev Challenge Experience33:38 - TanStack Start Exploration34:50 - Server Functions in TanStack37:38 - Infrastructure Agnostic Development41:02 - Serverless vs. Serverful Cost Comparison44:50 - JavaScript Framework Evolution46:46 - Framework Ecosystems Comparison48:25 - Picks and Plugs Links Mentioned in the EpisodeLaravel - PHP frameworkTanStack Start - React meta-framework Josh created a YouTube video aboutLivewire - Laravel's HTML-over-the-wire front-end frameworkInertia.js - Framework for creating single-page appsVolt - Single file component system for LivewireLaravel Cloud - Managed hosting solution for Laravel applicationsHerd - Laravel's tool for setting up PHP development environmentsForge - Laravel's server management toolEnvoyer - Laravel's zero-downtime deployment toolLaracasts - Where Josh has a course on LivewireJosh Cirre's YouTube channelHTMX - Frontend library Josh compared to LivewireWeb Dev Challenge with Jason Lengstorf (featuring Josh and Amy)Josh Cirre's BlueSky account (@joshcirre)Amy's BlueSky accountBrad's BlueSky account Additional ResourcesLaravel DocumentationSvelte's new starter kit (mentioned as a good example)Nightwatch - Latest product from LaravelLaravel Vapor - Serverless deployment platform for LaravelTheo's Laravel exploration (discussed in the criticism section)Laravel BreezeLaravel JetstreamLaravel Fortify (authentication package mentioned)Adonis.js (JavaScript framework compared to Laravel)Anker USB powered hub (Josh's pick)Grether's Sugar Free Black Currant Pastilles (Josh's pick)JBL Portable Speaker (Amy's pick)

Brandon Liu is an open source developer and creator of the Protomaps basemap project. We talk about how static maps help developers build sites that last, the PMTiles file format, the role of OpenStreetMap, and his experience funding and running an open source project full time. Protomaps Protomaps PMTiles (File format used by Protomaps) Self-hosted slippy maps, for novices (like me) Why Deploy Protomaps on a CDN User examples Flickr Pinball Map Toilet Map Related projects OpenStreetMap (Dataset protomaps is based on) Mapzen (Former company that released details on what to display based on zoom levels) Mapbox GL JS (Mapbox developed source available map rendering library) MapLibre GL JS (Open source fork of Mapbox GL JS) Other links HTTP range requests (MDN) Hilbert curve Transcript You can help correct transcripts on GitHub. Intro [00:00:00] Jeremy: I'm talking to Brandon Liu. He's the creator of Protomaps, which is a way to easily create and host your own maps. Let's get into it. [00:00:09] Brandon: Hey, so thanks for having me on the podcast. So I'm Brandon. I work on an open source project called Protomaps. What it really is, is if you're a front end developer and you ever wanted to put maps on a website or on a mobile app, then Protomaps is sort of an open source solution for doing that that I hope is something that's way easier to use than, um, a lot of other open source projects. Why not just use Google Maps? [00:00:36] Jeremy: A lot of people are gonna be familiar with Google Maps. Why should they worry about whether something's open source? Why shouldn't they just go and use the Google maps API? [00:00:47] Brandon: So Google Maps is like an awesome thing it's an awesome product. Probably one of the best tech products ever right? And just to have a map that tells you what restaurants are open and something that I use like all the time especially like when you're traveling it has all that data. And the most amazing part is that it's free for consumers but it's not necessarily free for developers. Like if you wanted to embed that map onto your website or app, that usually has an API cost which still has a free tier and is affordable. But one motivation, one basic reason to use open source is if you have some project that doesn't really fit into that pricing model. You know like where you have to pay the cost of Google Maps, you have a side project, a nonprofit, that's one reason. But there's lots of other reasons related to flexibility or customization where you might want to use open source instead. Protomaps examples [00:01:49] Jeremy: Can you give some examples where people have used Protomaps and where that made sense for them? [00:01:56] Brandon: I follow a lot of the use cases and I also don't know about a lot of them because I don't have an API where I can track a hundred percent of the users. Some of them use the hosted version, but I would say most of them probably use it on their own infrastructure. One of the cool projects I've been seeing is called Toilet Map. And what toilet map is if you're in the UK and you want find a public restroom then it maps out, sort of crowdsourced all of the public restrooms. And that's important for like a lot of people if they have health issues, they need to find that information. And just a lot of different projects in the same vein. There's another one called Pinball Map which is sort of a hobby project to find all the pinball machines in the world. And they wanted to have a customized map that fit in with their theme of pinball. So these sorts of really cool indie projects are the ones I'm most excited about. Basemaps vs Overlays [00:02:57] Jeremy: And if we talk about, like the pinball map as an example, there's this concept of a basemap and then there's the things that you lay on top of it. What is a basemap and then is the pinball locations is that part of it or is that something separate? [00:03:12] Brandon: It's usually something separate. The example I usually use is if you go to a real estate site, like Zillow, you'll open up the map of Seattle and it has a bunch of pins showing all the houses, and then it has some information beneath it. That information beneath it is like labels telling, this neighborhood is Capitol Hill, or there is a park here. But all that information is common to a lot of use cases and it's not specific to real estate. So I think usually that's the distinction people use in the industry between like a base map versus your overlay. The overlay is like the data for your product or your company while the base map is something you could get from Google or from Protomaps or from Apple or from Mapbox that kind of thing. PMTiles for hosting the basemap and overlays [00:03:58] Jeremy: And so Protomaps in particular is responsible for the base map, and that information includes things like the streets and the locations of landmarks and things like that. Where is all that information coming from? [00:04:12] Brandon: So the base map information comes from a project called OpenStreetMap. And I would also, point out that for Protomaps as sort of an ecosystem. You can also put your overlay data into a format called PMTiles, which is sort of the core of what Protomaps is. So it can really do both. It can transform your data into the PMTiles format which you can host and you can also host the base map. So you kind of have both of those sides of the product in one solution. [00:04:43] Jeremy: And so when you say you have both are you saying that the PMTiles file can have, the base map in one file and then you would have the data you're laying on top in another file? Or what are you describing there? [00:04:57] Brandon: That's usually how I recommend to do it. Oftentimes there'll be sort of like, a really big basemap 'cause it has all of that data about like where the rivers are. Or while, if you want to put your map of toilets or park benches or pickleball courts on top, that's another file. But those are all just like assets you can move around like JSON or CSV files. Statically Hosted [00:05:19] Jeremy: And I think one of the things you mentioned was that your goal was to make Protomaps or the, the use of these PMTiles files easy to use. What does that look like for, for a developer? I wanna host a map. What do I actually need to, to put on my servers? [00:05:38] Brandon: So my usual pitch is that basically if you know how to use S3 or cloud storage, that you know how to deploy a map. And that, I think is the main sort of differentiation from most open source projects. Like a lot of them, they call themselves like, like some sort of self-hosted solution. But I've actually avoided using the term self-hosted because I think in most cases that implies a lot of complexity. Like you have to log into a Linux server or you have to use Kubernetes or some sort of Docker thing. What I really want to emphasize is the idea that, for Protomaps, it's self-hosted in the same way like CSS is self-hosted. So you don't really need a service from Amazon to host the JSON files or CSV files. It's really just a static file. [00:06:32] Jeremy: When you say static file that means you could use any static web host to host your HTML file, your JavaScript that actually renders the map. And then you have your PMTiles files, and you're not running a process or anything, you're just putting your files on a static file host. [00:06:50] Brandon: Right. So I think if you're a developer, you can also argue like a static file server is a server. It's you know, it's the cloud, it's just someone else's computer. It's really just nginx under the hood. But I think static storage is sort of special. If you look at things like static site generators, like Jekyll or Hugo, they're really popular because they're a commodity or like the storage is a commodity. And you can take your blog, make it a Jekyll blog, hosted on S3. One day, Amazon's like, we're charging three times as much so you can move it to a different cloud provider. And that's all vendor neutral. So I think that's really the special thing about static storage as a primitive on the web. Why running servers is a problem for resilience [00:07:36] Jeremy: Was there a prior experience you had? Like you've worked with maps for a very long time. Were there particular difficulties you had where you said I just gotta have something that can be statically hosted? [00:07:50] Brandon: That's sort of exactly why I got into this. I've been working sort of in and around the map space for over a decade, and Protomaps is really like me trying to solve the same problem I've had over and over again in the past, just like once and forever right? Because like once this problem is solved, like I don't need to deal with it again in the future. So I've worked at a couple of different companies before, mostly as a contractor, for like a humanitarian nonprofit for a design company doing things like, web applications to visualize climate change. Or for even like museums, like digital signage for museums. And oftentimes they had some sort of data visualization component, but always sort of the challenge of how to like, store and also distribute like that data was something that there wasn't really great open source solutions. So just for map data, that's really what motivated that design for Protomaps. [00:08:55] Jeremy: And in those, those projects in the past, were those things where you had to run your own server, run your own database, things like that? [00:09:04] Brandon: Yeah. And oftentimes we did, we would spin up an EC2 instance, for maybe one client and then we would have to host this server serving map data forever. Maybe the client goes away, or I guess it's good for business if you can sign some sort of like long-term support for that client saying, Hey, you know, like we're done with a project, but you can pay us to maintain the EC2 server for the next 10 years. And that's attractive. but it's also sort of a pain, because usually what happens is if people are given the choice, like a developer between like either I can manage the server on EC2 or on Rackspace or Hetzner or whatever, or I can go pay a SaaS to do it. In most cases, businesses will choose to pay the SaaS. So that's really like what creates a sort of lock-in is this preference for like, so I have this choice between like running the server or paying the SaaS. Like businesses will almost always go and pay the SaaS. [00:10:05] Jeremy: Yeah. And in this case, you either find some kind of free hosting or low-cost hosting just to host your files and you upload the files and then you're good from there. You don't need to maintain anything. [00:10:18] Brandon: Exactly, and that's really the ideal use case. so I have some users these, climate science consulting agencies, and then they might have like a one-off project where they have to generate the data once, but instead of having to maintain this server for the lifetime of that project, they just have a file on S3 and like, who cares? If that costs a couple dollars a month to run, that's fine, but it's not like S3 is gonna be deprecated, like it's gonna be on an insecure version of Ubuntu or something. So that's really the ideal, set of constraints for using Protomaps. [00:10:58] Jeremy: Yeah. Something this also makes me think about is, is like the resilience of sites like remaining online, because I, interviewed, Kyle Drake, he runs Neocities, which is like a modern version of GeoCities. And if I remember correctly, he was mentioning how a lot of old websites from that time, if they were running a server backend, like they were running PHP or something like that, if you were to try to go to those sites, now they're like pretty much all dead because there needed to be someone dedicated to running a Linux server, making sure things were patched and so on and so forth. But for static sites, like the ones that used to be hosted on GeoCities, you can go to the internet archive or other websites and they were just files, right? You can bring 'em right back up, and if anybody just puts 'em on a web server, then you're good. They're still alive. Case study of news room preferring static hosting [00:11:53] Brandon: Yeah, exactly. One place that's kind of surprising but makes sense where this comes up, is for newspapers actually. Some of the users using Protomaps are the Washington Post. And the reason they use it, is not necessarily because they don't want to pay for a SaaS like Google, but because if they make an interactive story, they have to guarantee that it still works in a couple of years. And that's like a policy decision from like the editorial board, which is like, so you can't write an article if people can't view it in five years. But if your like interactive data story is reliant on a third party, API and that third party API becomes deprecated, or it changes the pricing or it, you know, it gets acquired, then your journalism story is not gonna work anymore. So I have seen really good uptake among local news rooms and even big ones to use things like Protomaps just because it makes sense for the requirements. Working on Protomaps as an open source project for five years [00:12:49] Jeremy: How long have you been working on Protomaps and the parts that it's made up of such as PMTiles? [00:12:58] Brandon: I've been working on it for about five years, maybe a little more than that. It's sort of my pandemic era project. But the PMTiles part, which is really the heart of it only came in about halfway. Why not make a SaaS? [00:13:13] Brandon: So honestly, like when I first started it, I thought it was gonna be another SaaS and then I looked at it and looked at what the environment was around it. And I'm like, uh, so I don't really think I wanna do that. [00:13:24] Jeremy: When, when you say you looked at the environment around it what do you mean? Why did you decide not to make it a SaaS? [00:13:31] Brandon: Because there already is a lot of SaaS out there. And I think the opportunity of making something that is unique in terms of those use cases, like I mentioned like newsrooms, was clear. Like it was clear that there was some other solution, that could be built that would fit these needs better while if it was a SaaS, there are plenty of those out there. And I don't necessarily think that they're well differentiated. A lot of them all use OpenStreetMap data. And it seems like they mainly compete on price. It's like who can build the best three column pricing model. And then once you do that, you need to build like billing and metrics and authentication and like those problems don't really interest me. So I think, although I acknowledge sort of the indie hacker ethos now is to build a SaaS product with a monthly subscription, that's something I very much chose not to do, even though it is for sure like the best way to build a business. [00:14:29] Jeremy: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people can appreciate that perspective because it's, it's almost like we have SaaS overload, right? Where you have so many little bills for your project where you're like, another $5 a month, another $10 a month, or if you're a business, right? Those, you add a bunch of zeros and at some point it's just how many of these are we gonna stack on here? [00:14:53] Brandon: Yeah. And honestly. So I really think like as programmers, we're not really like great at choosing how to spend money like a $10 SaaS. That's like nothing. You know? So I can go to Starbucks and I can buy a pumpkin spice latte, and that's like $10 basically now, right? And it's like I'm able to make that consumer choice in like an instant just to spend money on that. But then if you're like, oh, like spend $10 on a SaaS that somebody put a lot of work into, then you're like, oh, that's too expensive. I could just do it myself. So I'm someone that also subscribes to a lot of SaaS products. and I think for a lot of things it's a great fit. Many open source SaaS projects are not easy to self host [00:15:37] Brandon: But there's always this tension between an open source project that you might be able to run yourself and a SaaS. And I think a lot of projects are at different parts of the spectrum. But for Protomaps, it's very much like I'm trying to move maps to being it is something that is so easy to run yourself that anyone can do it. [00:16:00] Jeremy: Yeah, and I think you can really see it with, there's a few SaaS projects that are successful and they're open source, but then you go to look at the self-hosting instructions and it's either really difficult to find and you find it, and then the instructions maybe don't work, or it's really complicated. So I think doing the opposite with Protomaps. As a user, I'm sure we're all appreciative, but I wonder in terms of trying to make money, if that's difficult. [00:16:30] Brandon: No, for sure. It is not like a good way to make money because I think like the ideal situation for an open source project that is open that wants to make money is the product itself is fundamentally complicated to where people are scared to run it themselves. Like a good example I can think of is like Supabase. Supabase is sort of like a platform as a service based on Postgres. And if you wanted to run it yourself, well you need to run Postgres and you need to handle backups and authentication and logging, and that stuff all needs to work and be production ready. So I think a lot of people, like they don't trust themselves to run database backups correctly. 'cause if you get it wrong once, then you're kind of screwed. So I think that fundamental aspect of the product, like a database is something that is very, very ripe for being a SaaS while still being open source because it's fundamentally hard to run. Another one I can think of is like tailscale, which is, like a VPN that works end to end. That's something where, you know, it has this networking complexity where a lot of developers don't wanna deal with that. So they'd happily pay, for tailscale as a service. There is a lot of products or open source projects that eventually end up just changing to becoming like a hosted service. Businesses going from open source to closed or restricted licenses [00:17:58] Brandon: But then in that situation why would they keep it open source, right? Like, if it's easy to run yourself well, doesn't that sort of cannibalize their business model? And I think that's really the tension overall in these open source companies. So you saw it happen to things like Elasticsearch to things like Terraform where they eventually change the license to one that makes it difficult for other companies to compete with them. [00:18:23] Jeremy: Yeah, I mean there's been a number of cases like that. I mean, specifically within the mapping community, one I can think of was Mapbox's. They have Mapbox gl. Which was a JavaScript client to visualize maps and they moved from, I forget which license they picked, but they moved to a much more restrictive license. I wonder what your thoughts are on something that releases as open source, but then becomes something maybe a little more muddy. [00:18:55] Brandon: Yeah, I think it totally makes sense because if you look at their business and their funding, it seems like for Mapbox, I haven't used it in a while, but my understanding is like a lot of their business now is car companies and doing in dash navigation. And that is probably way better of a business than trying to serve like people making maps of toilets. And I think sort of the beauty of it is that, so Mapbox, the story is they had a JavaScript renderer called Mapbox GL JS. And they changed that to a source available license a couple years ago. And there's a fork of it that I'm sort of involved in called MapLibre GL. But I think the cool part is Mapbox paid employees for years, probably millions of dollars in total to work on this thing and just gave it away for free. Right? So everyone can benefit from that work they did. It's not like that code went away, like once they changed the license. Well, the old version has been forked. It's going its own way now. It's quite different than the new version of Mapbox, but I think it's extremely generous that they're able to pay people for years, you know, like a competitive salary and just give that away. [00:20:10] Jeremy: Yeah, so we should maybe look at it as, it was a gift while it was open source, and they've given it to the community and they're on continuing on their own path, but at least the community running Map Libre, they can run with it, right? It's not like it just disappeared. [00:20:29] Brandon: Yeah, exactly. And that is something that I use for Protomaps quite extensively. Like it's the primary way of showing maps on the web and I've been trying to like work on some enhancements to it to have like better internationalization for if you are in like South Asia like not show languages correctly. So I think it is being taken in a new direction. And I think like sort of the combination of Protomaps and MapLibre, it addresses a lot of use cases, like I mentioned earlier with like these like hobby projects, indie projects that are almost certainly not interesting to someone like Mapbox or Google as a business. But I'm happy to support as a small business myself. Financially supporting open source work (GitHub sponsors, closed source, contracts) [00:21:12] Jeremy: In my previous interview with Tom, one of the main things he mentioned was that creating a mapping business is incredibly difficult, and he said he probably wouldn't do it again. So in your case, you're building Protomaps, which you've admitted is easy to self-host. So there's not a whole lot of incentive for people to pay you. How is that working out for you? How are you supporting yourself? [00:21:40] Brandon: There's a couple of strategies that I've tried and oftentimes failed at. Just to go down the list, so I do have GitHub sponsors so I do have a hosted version of Protomaps you can use if you don't want to bother copying a big file around. But the way I do the billing for that is through GitHub sponsors. If you wanted to use this thing I provide, then just be a sponsor. And that definitely pays for itself, like the cost of running it. And that's great. GitHub sponsors is so easy to set up. It just removes you having to deal with Stripe or something. 'cause a lot of people, their credit card information is already in GitHub. GitHub sponsors I think is awesome if you want to like cover costs for a project. But I think very few people are able to make that work. A thing that's like a salary job level. It's sort of like Twitch streaming, you know, there's a handful of people that are full-time streamers and then you look down the list on Twitch and it's like a lot of people that have like 10 viewers. But some of the other things I've tried, I actually started out, publishing the base map as a closed source thing, where I would sell sort of like a data package instead of being a SaaS, I'd be like, here's a one-time download, of the premium data and you can buy it. And quite a few people bought it I just priced it at like $500 for this thing. And I thought that was an interesting experiment. The main reason it's interesting is because the people that it attracts to you in terms of like, they're curious about your products, are all people willing to pay money. While if you start out everything being open source, then the people that are gonna be try to do it are only the people that want to get something for free. So what I discovered is actually like once you transition that thing from closed source to open source, a lot of the people that used to pay you money will still keep paying you money because like, it wasn't necessarily that that closed source thing was why they wanted to pay. They just valued that thought you've put into it your expertise, for example. So I think that is one thing, that I tried at the beginning was just start out, closed source proprietary, then make it open source. That's interesting to people. Like if you release something as open source, if you go the other way, like people are really mad if you start out with something open source and then later on you're like, oh, it's some other license. Then people are like that's so rotten. But I think doing it the other way, I think is quite valuable in terms of being able to find an audience. [00:24:29] Jeremy: And when you said it was closed source and paid to open source, do you still sell those map exports? [00:24:39] Brandon: I don't right now. It's something that I might do in the future, you know, like have small customizations of the data that are available, uh, for a fee. still like the core OpenStreetMap based map that's like a hundred gigs you can just download. And that'll always just be like a free download just because that's already out there. All the source code to build it is open source. So even if I said, oh, you have to pay for it, then someone else can just do it right? So there's no real reason like to make that like some sort of like paywall thing. But I think like overall if the project is gonna survive in the long term it's important that I'd ideally like to be able to like grow like a team like have a small group of people that can dedicate the time to growing the project in the long term. But I'm still like trying to figure that out right now. [00:25:34] Jeremy: And when you mentioned that when you went from closed to open and people were still paying you, you don't sell a product anymore. What were they paying for? [00:25:45] Brandon: So I have some contracts with companies basically, like if they need a feature or they need a customization in this way then I am very open to those. And I sort of set it up to make it clear from the beginning that this is not just a free thing on GitHub, this is something that you could pay for if you need help with it, if you need support, if you wanted it. I'm also a little cagey about the word support because I think like it sounds a little bit too wishy-washy. Pretty much like if you need access to the developers of an open source project, I think that's something that businesses are willing to pay for. And I think like making that clear to potential users is a challenge. But I think that is one way that you might be able to make like a living out of open source. [00:26:35] Jeremy: And I think you said you'd been working on it for about five years. Has that mostly been full time? [00:26:42] Brandon: It's been on and off. it's sort of my pandemic era project. But I've spent a lot of time, most of my time working on the open source project at this point. So I have done some things that were more just like I'm doing a customization or like a private deployment for some client. But that's been a minority of the time. Yeah. [00:27:03] Jeremy: It's still impressive to have an open source project that is easy to self-host and yet is still able to support you working on it full time. I think a lot of people might make the assumption that there's nothing to sell if something is, is easy to use. But this sort of sounds like a counterpoint to that. [00:27:25] Brandon: I think I'd like it to be. So when you come back to the point of like, it being easy to self-host. Well, so again, like I think about it as like a primitive of the web. Like for example, if you wanted to start a business today as like hosted CSS files, you know, like where you upload your CSS and then you get developers to pay you a monthly subscription for how many times they fetched a CSS file. Well, I think most developers would be like, that's stupid because it's just an open specification, you just upload a static file. And really my goal is to make Protomaps the same way where it's obvious that there's not really some sort of lock-in or some sort of secret sauce in the server that does this thing. How PMTiles works and building a primitive of the web [00:28:16] Brandon: If you look at video for example, like a lot of the tech for how Protomaps and PMTiles works is based on parts of the HTTP spec that were made for video. And 20 years ago, if you wanted to host a video on the web, you had to have like a real player license or flash. So you had to go license some server software from real media or from macromedia so you could stream video to a browser plugin. But now in HTML you can just embed a video file. And no one's like, oh well I need to go pay for my video serving license. I mean, there is such a thing, like YouTube doesn't really use that for DRM reasons, but people just have the assumption that video is like a primitive on the web. So if we're able to make maps sort of that same way like a primitive on the web then there isn't really some obvious business or licensing model behind how that works. Just because it's a thing and it helps a lot of people do their jobs and people are happy using it. So why bother? [00:29:26] Jeremy: You mentioned that it a tech that was used for streaming video. What tech specifically is it? [00:29:34] Brandon: So it is byte range serving. So when you open a video file on the web, So let's say it's like a 100 megabyte video. You don't have to download the entire video before it starts playing. It streams parts out of the file based on like what frames... I mean, it's based on the frames in the video. So it can start streaming immediately because it's organized in a way to where the first few frames are at the beginning. And what PMTiles really is, is it's just like a video but in space instead of time. So it's organized in a way where these zoomed out views are at the beginning and the most zoomed in views are at the end. So when you're like panning or zooming in the map all you're really doing is fetching byte ranges out of that file the same way as a video. But it's organized in, this tiled way on a space filling curve. IIt's a little bit complicated how it works internally and I think it's kind of cool but that's sort of an like an implementation detail. [00:30:35] Jeremy: And to the person deploying it, it just looks like a single file. [00:30:40] Brandon: Exactly in the same way like an mp3 audio file is or like a JSON file is. [00:30:47] Jeremy: So with a video, I can sort of see how as someone seeks through the video, they start at the beginning and then they go to the middle if they wanna see the middle. For a map, as somebody scrolls around the map, are you seeking all over the file or is the way it's structured have a little less chaos? [00:31:09] Brandon: It's structured. And that's kind of the main technical challenge behind building PMTiles is you have to be sort of clever so you're not spraying the reads everywhere. So it uses something called a hilbert curve, which is a mathematical concept of a space filling curve. Where it's one continuous curve that essentially lets you break 2D space into 1D space. So if you've seen some maps of IP space, it uses this crazy looking curve that hits all the points in one continuous line. And that's the same concept behind PMTiles is if you're looking at one part of the world, you're sort of guaranteed that all of those parts you're looking at are quite close to each other and the data you have to transfer is quite minimal, compared to if you just had it at random. [00:32:02] Jeremy: How big do the files get? If I have a PMTiles of the entire world, what kind of size am I looking at? [00:32:10] Brandon: Right now, the default one I distribute is 128 gigabytes, so it's quite sizable, although you can slice parts out of it remotely. So if you just wanted. if you just wanted California or just wanted LA or just wanted only a couple of zoom levels, like from zero to 10 instead of zero to 15, there is a command line tool that's also called PMTiles that lets you do that. Issues with CDNs and range queries [00:32:35] Jeremy: And when you're working with files of this size, I mean, let's say I am working with a CDN in front of my application. I'm not typically accustomed to hosting something that's that large and something that's where you're seeking all over the file. is that, ever an issue or is that something that's just taken care of by the browser and, and taken care of by, by the hosts? [00:32:58] Brandon: That is an issue actually, so a lot of CDNs don't deal with it correctly. And my recommendation is there is a kind of proxy server or like a serverless proxy thing that I wrote. That runs on like cloudflare workers or on Docker that lets you proxy those range requests into a normal URL and then that is like a hundred percent CDN compatible. So I would say like a lot of the big commercial installations of this thing, they use that because it makes more practical sense. It's also faster. But the idea is that this solution sort of scales up and scales down. If you wanted to host just your city in like a 10 megabyte file, well you can just put that into GitHub pages and you don't have to worry about it. If you want to have a global map for your website that serves a ton of traffic then you probably want a little bit more sophisticated of a solution. It still does not require you to run a Linux server, but it might require (you) to use like Lambda or Lambda in conjunction with like a CDN. [00:34:09] Jeremy: Yeah. And that sort of ties into what you were saying at the beginning where if you can host on something like CloudFlare Workers or Lambda, there's less time you have to spend keeping these things running. [00:34:26] Brandon: Yeah, exactly. and I think also the Lambda or CloudFlare workers solution is not perfect. It's not as perfect as S3 or as just static files, but in my experience, it still is better at building something that lasts on the time span of years than being like I have a server that is on this Ubuntu version and in four years there's all these like security patches that are not being applied. So it's still sort of serverless, although not totally vendor neutral like S3. Customizing the map [00:35:03] Jeremy: We've mostly been talking about how you host the map itself, but for someone who's not familiar with these kind of tools, how would they be customizing the map? [00:35:15] Brandon: For customizing the map there is front end style customization and there's also data customization. So for the front end if you wanted to change the water from the shade of blue to another shade of blue there is a TypeScript API where you can customize it almost like a text editor color scheme. So if you're able to name a bunch of colors, well you can customize the map in that way you can change the fonts. And that's all done using MapLibre GL using a TypeScript API on top of that for customizing the data. So all the pipeline to generate this data from OpenStreetMap is open source. There is a Java program using a library called PlanetTiler which is awesome, which is this super fast multi-core way of building map tiles. And right now there isn't really great hooks to customize what data goes into that. But that's something that I do wanna work on. And finally, because the data comes from OpenStreetMap if you notice data that's missing or you wanted to correct data in OSM then you can go into osm.org. You can get involved in contributing the data to OSM and the Protomaps build is daily. So if you make a change, then within 24 hours you should see the new base map. Have that change. And of course for OSM your improvements would go into every OSM based project that is ingesting that data. So it's not a protomap specific thing. It's like this big shared data source, almost like Wikipedia. OpenStreetMap is a dataset and not a map [00:37:01] Jeremy: I think you were involved with OpenStreetMap to some extent. Can you speak a little bit to that for people who aren't familiar, what OpenStreetMap is? [00:37:11] Brandon: Right. So I've been using OSM as sort of like a tools developer for over a decade now. And one of the number one questions I get from developers about what is Protomaps is why wouldn't I just use OpenStreetMap? What's the distinction between Protomaps and OpenStreetMap? And it's sort of like this funny thing because even though OSM has map in the name it's not really a map in that you can't... In that it's mostly a data set and not a map. It does have a map that you can see that you can pan around to when you go to the website but the way that thing they show you on the website is built is not really that easily reproducible. It involves a lot of c++ software you have to run. But OpenStreetMap itself, the heart of it is almost like a big XML file that has all the data in the map and global. And it has tagged features for example. So you can go in and edit that. It has a web front end to change the data. It does not directly translate into making a map actually. Protomaps decides what shows at each zoom level [00:38:24] Brandon: So a lot of the pipeline, that Java program I mentioned for building this basemap for protomaps is doing things like you have to choose what data you show when you zoom out. You can't show all the data. For example when you're zoomed out and you're looking at all of a state like Colorado you don't see all the Chipotle when you're zoomed all the way out. That'd be weird, right? So you have to make some sort of decision in logic that says this data only shows up at this zoom level. And that's really what is the challenge in optimizing the size of that for the Protomaps map project. [00:39:03] Jeremy: Oh, so those decisions of what to show at different Zoom levels those are decisions made by you when you're creating the PMTiles file with Protomaps. [00:39:14] Brandon: Exactly. It's part of the base maps build pipeline. and those are honestly very subjective decisions. Who really decides when you're zoomed out should this hospital show up or should this museum show up nowadays in Google, I think it shows you ads. Like if someone pays for their car repair shop to show up when you're zoomed out like that that gets surfaced. But because there is no advertising auction in Protomaps that doesn't happen obviously. So we have to sort of make some reasonable choice. A lot of that right now in Protomaps actually comes from another open source project called Mapzen. So Mapzen was a company that went outta business a couple years ago. They did a lot of this work in designing which data shows up at which Zoom level and open sourced it. And then when they shut down, they transferred that code into the Linux Foundation. So it's this totally open source project, that like, again, sort of like Mapbox gl has this awesome legacy in that this company funded it for years for smart people to work on it and now it's just like a free thing you can use. So the logic in Protomaps is really based on mapzen. [00:40:33] Jeremy: And so the visualization of all this... I think I understand what you mean when people say oh, why not use OpenStreetMaps because it's not really clear it's hard to tell is this the tool that's visualizing the data? Is it the data itself? So in the case of using Protomaps, it sounds like Protomaps itself has all of the data from OpenStreetMap and then it has made all the decisions for you in terms of what to show at different Zoom levels and what things to have on the map at all. And then finally, you have to have a separate, UI layer and in this case, it sounds like the one that you recommend is the Map Libre library. [00:41:18] Brandon: Yeah, that's exactly right. For Protomaps, it has a portion or a subset of OSM data. It doesn't have all of it just because there's too much, like there's data in there. people have mapped out different bushes and I don't include that in Protomaps if you wanted to go in and edit like the Java code to add that you can. But really what Protomaps is positioned at is sort of a solution for developers that want to use OSM data to make a map on their app or their website. because OpenStreetMap itself is mostly a data set, it does not really go all the way to having an end-to-end solution. Financials and the idea of a project being complete [00:41:59] Jeremy: So I think it's great that somebody who wants to make a map, they have these tools available, whether it's from what was originally built by Mapbox, what's built by Open StreetMap now, the work you're doing with Protomaps. But I wonder one of the things that I talked about with Tom was he was saying he was trying to build this mapping business and based on the financials of what was coming in he was stressed, right? He was struggling a bit. And I wonder for you, you've been working on this open source project for five years. Do you have similar stressors or do you feel like I could keep going how things are now and I feel comfortable? [00:42:46] Brandon: So I wouldn't say I'm a hundred percent in one bucket or the other. I'm still seeing it play out. One thing, that I really respect in a lot of open source projects, which I'm not saying I'm gonna do for Protomaps is the idea that a project is like finished. I think that is amazing. If a software project can just be done it's sort of like a painting or a novel once you write, finish the last page, have it seen by the editor. I send it off to the press is you're done with a book. And I think one of the pains of software is so few of us can actually do that. And I don't know obviously people will say oh the map is never finished. That's more true of OSM, but I think like for Protomaps. One thing I'm thinking about is how to limit the scope to something that's quite narrow to where we could be feature complete on the core things in the near term timeframe. That means that it does not address a lot of things that people want. Like search, like if you go to Google Maps and you search for a restaurant, you will get some hits. that's like a geocoding issue. And I've already decided that's totally outta scope for Protomaps. So, in terms of trying to think about the future of this, I'm mostly looking for ways to cut scope if possible. There are some things like better tooling around being able to work with PMTiles that are on the roadmap. but for me, I am still enjoying working on the project. It's definitely growing. So I can see on NPM downloads I can see the growth curve of people using it and that's really cool. So I like hearing about when people are using it for cool projects. So it seems to still be going okay for now. [00:44:44] Jeremy: Yeah, that's an interesting perspective about how you were talking about projects being done. Because I think when people look at GitHub projects and they go like, oh, the last commit was X months ago. They go oh well this is dead right? But maybe that's the wrong framing. Maybe you can get a project to a point where it's like, oh, it's because it doesn't need to be updated. [00:45:07] Brandon: Exactly, yeah. Like I used to do a lot of c++ programming and the best part is when you see some LAPACK matrix math library from like 1995 that still works perfectly in c++ and you're like, this is awesome. This is the one I have to use. But if you're like trying to use some like React component library and it hasn't been updated in like a year, you're like, oh, that's a problem. So again, I think there's some middle ground between those that I'm trying to find. I do like for Protomaps, it's quite dependency light in terms of the number of hard dependencies I have in software. but I do still feel like there is a lot of work to be done in terms of project scope that needs to have stuff added. You mostly only hear about problems instead of people's wins [00:45:54] Jeremy: Having run it for this long. Do you have any thoughts on running an open source project in general? On dealing with issues or managing what to work on things like that? [00:46:07] Brandon: Yeah. So I have a lot. I think one thing people point out a lot is that especially because I don't have a direct relationship with a lot of the people using it a lot of times I don't even know that they're using it. Someone sent me a message saying hey, have you seen flickr.com, like the photo site? And I'm like, no. And I went to flickr.com/map and it has Protomaps for it. And I'm like, I had no idea. But that's cool, if they're able to use Protomaps for this giant photo sharing site that's awesome. But that also means I don't really hear about when people use it successfully because you just don't know, I guess they, NPM installed it and it works perfectly and you never hear about it. You only hear about people's negative experiences. You only hear about people that come and open GitHub issues saying this is totally broken, and why doesn't this thing exist? And I'm like, well, it's because there's an infinite amount of things that I want to do, but I have a finite amount of time and I just haven't gone into that yet. And that's honestly a lot of the things and people are like when is this thing gonna be done? So that's, that's honestly part of why I don't have a public roadmap because I want to avoid that sort of bickering about it. I would say that's one of my biggest frustrations with running an open source project is how it's self-selected to only hear the negative experiences with it. Be careful what PRs you accept [00:47:32] Brandon: 'cause you don't hear about those times where it works. I'd say another thing is it's changed my perspective on contributing to open source because I think when I was younger or before I had become a maintainer I would open a pull request on a project unprompted that has a hundred lines and I'd be like, Hey, just merge this thing. But I didn't realize when I was younger well if I just merge it and I disappear, then the maintainer is stuck with what I did forever. You know if I add some feature then that person that maintains the project has to do that indefinitely. And I think that's very asymmetrical and it's changed my perspective a lot on accepting open source contributions. I wanna have it be open to anyone to contribute. But there is some amount of back and forth where it's almost like the default answer for should I accept a PR is no by default because you're the one maintaining it. And do you understand the shape of that solution completely to where you're going to support it for years because the person that's contributing it is not bound to those same obligations that you are. And I think that's also one of the things where I have a lot of trepidation around open source is I used to think of it as a lot more bazaar-like in terms of anyone can just throw their thing in. But then that creates a lot of problems for the people who are expected out of social obligation to continue this thing indefinitely. [00:49:23] Jeremy: Yeah, I can totally see why that causes burnout with a lot of open source maintainers, because you probably to some extent maybe even feel some guilt right? You're like, well, somebody took the time to make this. But then like you said you have to spend a lot of time trying to figure out is this something I wanna maintain long term? And one wrong move and it's like, well, it's in here now. [00:49:53] Brandon: Exactly. To me, I think that is a very common failure mode for open source projects is they're too liberal in the things they accept. And that's a lot of why I was talking about how that choice of what features show up on the map was inherited from the MapZen projects. If I didn't have that then somebody could come in and say hey, you know, I want to show power lines on the map. And they open a PR for power lines and now everybody who's using Protomaps when they're like zoomed out they see power lines are like I didn't want that. So I think that's part of why a lot of open source projects eventually evolve into a plugin system is because there is this demand as the project grows for more and more features. But there is a limit in the maintainers. It's like the demand for features is exponential while the maintainer amount of time and effort is linear. Plugin systems might reduce need for PRs [00:50:56] Brandon: So maybe the solution to smash that exponential down to quadratic maybe is to add a plugin system. But I think that is one of the biggest tensions that only became obvious to me after working on this for a couple of years. [00:51:14] Jeremy: Is that something you're considering doing now? [00:51:18] Brandon: Is the plugin system? Yeah. I think for the data customization, I eventually wanted to have some sort of programmatic API to where you could declare a config file that says I want ski routes. It totally makes sense. The power lines example is maybe a little bit obscure but for example like a skiing app and you want to be able to show ski slopes when you're zoomed out well you're not gonna be able to get that from Mapbox or from Google because they have a one size fits all map that's not specialized to skiing or to golfing or to outdoors. But if you like, in theory, you could do this with Protomaps if you changed the Java code to show data at different zoom levels. And that is to me what makes the most sense for a plugin system and also makes the most product sense because it enables a lot of things you cannot do with the one size fits all map. [00:52:20] Jeremy: It might also increase the complexity of the implementation though, right? [00:52:25] Brandon: Yeah, exactly. So that's like. That's really where a lot of the terrifying thoughts come in, which is like once you create this like config file surface area, well what does that look like? Is that JSON? Is that TOML, is that some weird like everything eventually evolves into some scripting language right? Where you have logic inside of your templates and I honestly do not really know what that looks like right now. That feels like something in the medium term roadmap. [00:52:58] Jeremy: Yeah and then in terms of bug reports or issues, now it's not just your code it's this exponential combination of whatever people put into these config files. [00:53:09] Brandon: Exactly. Yeah. so again, like I really respect the projects that have done this well or that have done plugins well. I'm trying to think of some, I think obsidian has plugins, for example. And that seems to be one of the few solutions to try and satisfy the infinite desire for features with the limited amount of maintainer time. Time split between code vs triage vs talking to users [00:53:36] Jeremy: How would you say your time is split between working on the code versus issue and PR triage? [00:53:43] Brandon: Oh, it varies really. I think working on the code is like a minority of it. I think something that I actually enjoy is talking to people, talking to users, getting feedback on it. I go to quite a few conferences to talk to developers or people that are interested and figure out how to refine the message, how to make it clearer to people, like what this is for. And I would say maybe a plurality of my time is spent dealing with non-technical things that are neither code or GitHub issues. One thing I've been trying to do recently is talk to people that are not really in the mapping space. For example, people that work for newspapers like a lot of them are front end developers and if you ask them to run a Linux server they're like I have no idea. But that really is like one of the best target audiences for Protomaps. So I'd say a lot of the reality of running an open source project is a lot like a business is it has all the same challenges as a business in terms of you have to figure out what is the thing you're offering. You have to deal with people using it. You have to deal with feedback, you have to deal with managing emails and stuff. I don't think the payoff is anywhere near running a business or a startup that's backed by VC money is but it's definitely not the case that if you just want to code, you should start an open source project because I think a lot of the work for an opensource project has nothing to do with just writing the code. It is in my opinion as someone having done a VC backed business before, it is a lot more similar to running, a tech company than just putting some code on GitHub. Running a startup vs open source project [00:55:43] Jeremy: Well, since you've done both at a high level what did you like about running the company versus maintaining the open source project? [00:55:52] Brandon: So I have done some venture capital accelerator programs before and I think there is an element of hype and energy that you get from that that is self perpetuating. Your co-founder is gungho on like, yeah, we're gonna do this thing. And your investors are like, you guys are geniuses. You guys are gonna make a killing doing this thing. And the way it's framed is sort of obvious to everyone that it's like there's a much more traditional set of motivations behind that, that people understand while it's definitely not the case for running an open source project. Sometimes you just wake up and you're like what the hell is this thing for, it is this thing you spend a lot of time on. You don't even know who's using it. The people that use it and make a bunch of money off of it they know nothing about it. And you know, it's just like cool. And then you only hear from people that are complaining about it. And I think like that's honestly discouraging compared to the more clear energy and clearer motivation and vision behind how most people think about a company. But what I like about the open source project is just the lack of those constraints you know? Where you have a mandate that you need to have this many customers that are paying by this amount of time. There's that sort of pressure on delivering a business result instead of just making something that you're proud of that's simple to use and has like an elegant design. I think that's really a difference in motivation as well. Having control [00:57:50] Jeremy: Do you feel like you have more control? Like you mentioned how you've decided I'm not gonna make a public roadmap. I'm the sole developer. I get to decide what goes in. What doesn't. Do you feel like you have more control in your current position than you did running the startup? [00:58:10] Brandon: Definitely for sure. Like that agency is what I value the most. It is possible to go too far. Like, so I'm very wary of the BDFL title, which I think is how a lot of open source projects succeed. But I think there is some element of for a project to succeed there has to be somebody that makes those decisions. Sometimes those decisions will be wrong and then hopefully they can be rectified. But I think going back to what I was talking about with scope, I think the overall vision and the scope of the project is something that I am very opinionated about in that it should do these things. It shouldn't do these things. It should be easy to use for this audience. Is it gonna be appealing to this other audience? I don't know. And I think that is really one of the most important parts of that leadership role, is having the power to decide we're doing this, we're not doing this. I would hope other developers would be able to get on board if they're able to make good use of the project, if they use it for their company, if they use it for their business, if they just think the project is cool. So there are other contributors at this point and I want to get more involved. But I think being able to make those decisions to what I believe is going to be the best project is something that is very special about open source, that isn't necessarily true about running like a SaaS business. [00:59:50] Jeremy: I think that's a good spot to end it on, so if people want to learn more about Protomaps or they wanna see what you're up to, where should they head? [01:00:00] Brandon: So you can go to Protomaps.com, GitHub, or you can find me or Protomaps on bluesky or Mastodon. [01:00:09] Jeremy: All right, Brandon, thank you so much for chatting today. [01:00:12] Brandon: Great. Thank you very much.

The above title does not do Dan Swift justice. Dan also has his own podcast, successful Youtube channel and he has released seven music albums. Talk about being unstoppable! I met Dan when I appeared as a guest on his podcast, Time We Discuss and I knew he would contribute to a fascinating story here.   Dan grew up with an interest in music. For a time he thought he wanted to write music for video games. Along the way he left that idea behind and after graduating from college he began working at designing websites. He has made that into his fulltime career.   As he grew as a website designer and later as a supervisor for a school system coordinating and creating the school sites Dan took an interest in accessibility of the web. We talk quite a bit about that during our time together. His observations are fascinating and right on where web access for persons with disabilities is concerned.   We also talk about Dan's podcast including some stories of guests and what inspires Dan from his interviews. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I.       About the Guest:   Originally wanting to write music for video games or become an audio engineer, Dan Swift graduated from a small Liberal Arts college with a degree in Music Composition (Bachelor of Arts) and Music Recording Technology (Bachelor of Music).  Dan went on to release seven EP albums between 2003 and 2024. Most recently, "Parallels" dropped on Leap Day, 2024.  Dan has always had a passion for shaking up genres between Eps writing classical, electronic, and modern rock music.   While creating music has always been a passion, Dan took a more traditional professional path as a web developer. While on this path, Dan had a lot of experience with accessibility standards as it relates to the web and he values accessibility and equity for everyone both inside and outside the digital workspace. Having received his MBA during COVID, Dan went on to a leadership position where he continues to make a difference leading a team of tech-savvy web professionals.   In early 2024, I created a podcast and YouTube channel called "Time We Discuss" which focuses on career exploration and discovery. The channel and podcast are meant for anyone that is feeling lost professionally and unsure of what is out there for them. Dan feels that it is important for people to discover their professional passion, whatever it is that lights them up on the inside, and chase it. So many people are unfulfilled in their careers, yet it doesn't have to be this way.   When not working, Dan enjoys spending time with his wife and three kids. They are a very active family often going to various extracurricular events over the years including flag football, soccer, gymnastics, and school concerts.  Dan's wife is very active with several nonprofit organizations including those for the betterment of children and homelessness.  Dan enjoys playing the piano, listening to podcasts, and listening to music.  Dan is very naturally curious and is a slave to a train of never-ending thoughts.   Ways to connect with Dan:   Time We Discuss on YouTube Time We Discuss on Spotify Time We Discuss on Twitter/X Time We Discuss on Instagram Time We Discuss on BlueSky   Time We Discuss Website Dan Swift Music Website   About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Well, hi everybody. Welcome once again. Wherever you may be, to unstoppable mindset, I am your host, Mike hingson, sometimes I say Michael hingson, and people have said, Well, is it Mike or Michael? And the answer is, it doesn't really matter. It took a master's degree in physics and 10 years in sales for me to realize that if I said Mike Hingson on the phone, people kept calling me Mr. Kingston, and I couldn't figure out why, so I started saying Michael Hingson, and they got the hinckson part right, but it doesn't matter to me. So anyway, Mike hingson, or Michael hingson, glad you're with us, wherever you are, and our guest today is Dan Swift, who has his own pine podcast, and it was actually through that podcast that we met, and I told him, but I wouldn't do it with him and be on his podcast unless he would be on unstoppable mindset. And here he is. Dan is a person who writes music, he's an engineer. He does a lot of work with web design and so on, and we're going to get into all that. So Dan, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here.   Dan Swift ** 02:25 Michael, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. I am. I'm super excited.   Michael Hingson ** 02:30 Well, looking forward to getting to spend more time with you. We did yours time to discuss, and now we get this one. So it's always kind of fun. So, and Dan is in Pennsylvania, so we're talking across the continent, which is fine. It's amazing what we can do with electronics these days, telling us not like the good old days of the covered wagon. What can I say? So, So Dan, why don't you tell us a little bit about kind of the early Dan, growing up and all that.   Dan Swift ** 02:57 Oh, geez. How far   Michael Hingson ** 02:58 back to go? Oh, as far as you want to go,   Dan Swift ** 03:02 Well, okay, so I am, I am the youngest of five. Grew up just outside of Philadelphia as being the youngest. You know, there are certain perks that go along with that. I get to experience things that my parents would have previous said no to the older siblings. And you know how it is with with, you know, if you have more than one kid, technically, you get a little more relaxed as you have more but then I also had the other benefit of, you know, hearing the expression, there are young ears in the room, I will tell you later. So I kind of got some of that too. But I grew up outside of Philadelphia, had a passion for music. Pretty early on. I was never good at any sports. Tried a number of things. And when I landed on music, I thought, you know, this is this is something that I can do. I seem to have a natural talent for it. And I started, I tried playing the piano when I was maybe eight or nine years old. That didn't pan out. Moved on to the trumpet when I was nine or 10. Eventually ended up picking up guitar, bass, guitar, double bass revisited piano later in life, but that's the musical side of things. Also, when I was young, you know, I had a passion for role playing games, Dungeons and Dragons, was really big when I was a teenager, so I was super excited for that. Yeah, that's, that's kind of those, those memories kind of forced me, or kind of shaped me into the person that I am today. I'm very light hearted, very easy going, and I just try to enjoy life.   Michael Hingson ** 04:30 I played some computer games when computers came along and I started fiddling with them, the games I usually played were text based games. I've never really played Dungeons and Dragons and some of those. And I I'm sure that there are accessible versions of of some of that, but I remember playing games like adventure. You remember? Have you heard of adventure? I have, yeah. So that was, that was fun. Info con made. Well, they had Zork, which was really the same as adventure, but they. At a whole bunch of games. And those are, those are fun. And I think all of those games, I know a lot of adults would probably say kids spend too much time on some of them, but some of these games, like the the text based games, I thought really were very good at expanding one's mind, and they made you think, which is really what was important to me? Yeah, I   Dan Swift ** 05:21 completely agree with that too. Because you'd be put in these situations where, you know true, you're trying to solve some kind of puzzle, and you're trying to think, Okay, well, that didn't work, or that didn't work, and you try all these different things, then you decide to leave and come back to and you realize later, like you didn't have something that you needed to progress forward, or something like that. But, but it really gets the brain going, trying to create with these, uh, come up with these creative solutions to progress the game forward. Yeah, which   Michael Hingson ** 05:43 and the creative people who made them in the first place? What did they? Yeah, they, I don't know where they, where they spent their whole time that they had nothing to do but to create these games. But hey, it worked. It sure. Did you know you do it well. So you went off to college. Where'd you go? Sure,   Dan Swift ** 06:02 I went to a small liberal arts college, Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania. It's near, it's near Hershey. It was, it was weird in that my the entire school was about half the size of my entire high school. So that was very, very weird. And then you talk to these other people. And it's like, my high school was, you know, very large by comparison. But for me, it was like, well, high school, that's what I knew. But yeah, it was I went to, I went to 11 Valley College near Hershey. I studied, I was a double major. I studied music composition and music recording,   Michael Hingson ** 06:35 okay, and, oh, I've got to go back and ask before we continue that. So what were some of the real perks you got as a kid that your your older siblings didn't get?   Dan Swift ** 06:45 Oh, geez, okay. I mean,   Michael Hingson ** 06:49 couldn't resist, yeah, probably, probably   Dan Swift ** 06:51 some of the more cliche things. I probably got to spend the night at a friend's house earlier than my oldest brother. For instance, I know my parents were a little more concerned about finances. So I know my oldest brother didn't get a chance to go away to college. He did community college instead. And then, kind of, my sister was a very similar thing. And then once we got, like, about halfway down, you know, me and my two other brothers, we all had the opportunity to go away to college. So I think that was, that was definitely one of the perks. If I was the oldest, I was the oldest, I probably wouldn't have had that opportunity with my family. Got   Michael Hingson ** 07:24 it well, so you went off and you got a matt a bachelor's in music, composition and music recording. So that brought you to what you were interested in, part, which was the engineering aspect of it. But that certainly gave you a pretty well rounded education. Why those two why composition and recording? Sure.   Dan Swift ** 07:43 So if we talk about the music first at that time, so this is like the the late 90s, early 2000s any kind of digital music that was out there really was, was MIDI based, and anyone that was around that time and paying attention, it was like these very like, like that music kind of sound to it. So there wasn't a whole lot going on with MIDI. I'm sorry, with music as far as how great it sounded, or I shouldn't say, how great it sounded, the the instruments that are triggered by MIDI, they didn't sound all that great. But around that time, there was this game that came out, Final Fantasy seven, and I remember hearing the music for that, and it was all, it was all electronic, and it was just blown away by how fantastic it sounded. And And around that time, I thought, you know, it'd be really cool to get into writing music for video games. And that was something I really kind of toyed with. So that was kind of in the back of my head. But also, at the time, I was in a band, like a rock band, and I thought, you know, I'm going to school. They have this opportunity to work as a music engineer, which is something I really wanted to do at the time. And I thought, free studio time. My band will be here. This will be awesome. And it wasn't until I got there that I discovered that they also had the music composition program. It was a I was only there maybe a week or two, and once I discovered that, I was like, Well, this is gonna be great, you know, I'll learn to write. Know, I'll learn to write music. I can write for video games. I'll get engineering to go with it. This is gonna be fantastic. Speaking   Michael Hingson ** 09:07 of electronic music, did you ever see a science fiction movie called The Forbidden Planet? I did not. Oh, it's music. It's, it's not really music in the sense of what what we call, but it's all electronic. You gotta, you gotta find it. I'm sure you can find it somewhere. It's called the Forbidden Planet. Walter pigeon is in it. But the music and the sounds fit the movie, although it's all electronic, and electronic sounding pretty interesting.   Dan Swift ** 09:37 Now, is that from, I know, like in the 50s, 60s, there was a lot of experiments. Okay, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 09:45 yeah, and, but again, it fit the movie, which was the important part. So it certainly wasn't music like John Williams today and and in the 80s and all that. But again, for the movie, it fit. Very well, which is kind of cool. Yeah,   Dan Swift ** 10:02 I'll definitely have to check that out. I remember when I was in school, we talked about like that, that avant garde kind of style of the the 50s, 60s. And there was a lot of weird stuff going on with electronics, electronic music. Um, so I'm very curious to see, uh, to check this out, yeah, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 10:14 You have to let me know what, what you find, what you think about it, when you get to chance to watch it, absolutely or actually, I I may have a copy. If I do, I'll put it in a dropbox folder and send you a link. Fantastic. So you graduated. Now, when did you graduate?   Dan Swift ** 10:32 Sure, so I graduated in 2003 okay,   Michael Hingson ** 10:35 so you graduated, and then what did you do? So,   Dan Swift ** 10:41 backing up about maybe 612, months prior to that, I decided I did not want to be a I didn't want to write music for video games. I also did not want to work in a recording studio. And the reason for this was for music. It was, I didn't it was, it was something I really, really enjoyed, and I didn't want to be put in a position where I had to produce music on demand. I didn't want to I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to lose my hobby, lose my passion in that way. So I decided that was out. And then also, when it came to working in a studio, if I wanted to be the engineer that I really wanted to be, I would have to be in a place where the music scene was really happening. So I'd have to be in like Philadelphia or Los Angeles or Nashville or deep in Philly or something like that. And I do not like the cities. I don't feel comfortable in the city. So I was like, that's not really for me either. I could work in like a suburb studio. But I was like, not, not for me. I don't, not for me. So when I graduated college, I ended up doing freelance web work. I had met through, through a mutual friend I was I was introduced to by a mutual friend, to a person that was looking for a new web designer, developer. They lost their person, and they were looking for someone to take over with that. And at the time, I did a little bit of experience doing that, from when I was in high school, kind of picked it up on the side, just kind of like as a hobby. But I was like, Ah, I'll give this a shot. So I started actually doing that freelance for a number of years after graduation. I also worked other jobs that was, like, kind of like nowhere, like dead end kind of jobs. I did customer service work for a little bit. I was a teacher with the American Cross for a little bit, a little bit of this and that, just trying to find my way. But at the same time, I was doing freelance stuff, and nothing related to music and nothing related to technology,   Michael Hingson ** 12:29 well, so you learned HTML coding and all that other stuff that goes along with all that. I gather, I   Dan Swift ** 12:35 sure did, I sure didn't. At the time, CSS was just kind of popular, yeah, so that. And then I learned, I learned JavaScript a little bit. And, you know, I had a very healthy attitude when it when it came to accepting new clients and projects, I always tried to learn something new. Anytime someone gave me a new a new request came in, it was like, Okay, well, I already know how to do this by doing it this way. But how can I make this better? And that was really the way that I really propelled myself forward in the in the digital, I should say, when it comes to development or design.   Michael Hingson ** 13:05 Okay, so you ended up really seriously going into website development and so on.   Dan Swift ** 13:15 I did. So I continued doing freelance. And then about five years after I graduated, I started working as an audio visual technician, and also was doing computer tech stuff as part of the role as well. And while I was there, I ended up developing some web applications for myself to use that I could use to interact with our like projectors and stuff like that. Because they were on, they were all in the network, so I could interact with them using my wait for it, iPod Touch, there you go. So that was, you know, I kind of like started to blend those two together. I was really interested in the web at the time, you know, because I was still doing the freelance, I really wanted to move forward and kind of find a full time position doing that. So I ended up pursuing that more and just trying to refine those skills. And it wasn't until about about five years later, I ended up working as a full time web developer, and then kind of moved forward from   Michael Hingson ** 14:09 there, iPod Touch, what memories? And there are probably bunches of people who don't even know what that is today. That   Dan Swift ** 14:16 is so true, and at the time that was cutting edge technology,   Michael Hingson ** 14:21 yeah, it was not accessible. So I didn't get to own one, because was later than that that Steve Jobs was finally kind of pushed with the threat of a lawsuit into making things accessible. And then they did make the iPhone, the iPod, the Mac and so on, and iTunes U and other things like that, accessible. And of course, what Steve Jobs did, what Apple did, which is what Microsoft eventually sort of has done as well, but he built accessibility into the operating system. So anybody who has an Apple device today. Troy actually has a device that can be made accessible by simply turning on the accessibility mode. Of course, if you're going to turn it on, you better learn how to use it, because the gestures are different. But it took a while, but, but that did happen. But by that time, I, you know, I had other things going on, and so I never did get an iPod and and wasn't able to make it work, but that's okay. But it's like the CD has gone away and the iPod has gone away, and so many things and DVDs have gone away.   Dan Swift ** 15:31 Yes, so true. So true. You know, just as soon as we start to get used to them   Michael Hingson ** 15:35 gone. I think there is, well, maybe it's close. There was a blockbuster open up in Oregon. But again, Blockbuster Video, another one, and I think somebody's trying to bring them back, but I do see that vinyl records are still being sold in various places by various people. Michael Buble just put out a new album, The Best of Buble, and it's available, among other things, in vinyl. So the old turntables, the old record players, and you can actually buy his album as a record and play it, which is kind of cool. Yeah, they've been   Dan Swift ** 16:07 very big with marketing, too. It's been kind of a marketing, I don't want to say gimmick, but in that realm, you kind of like, hey, you know, this is also available in vinyl, and you try to get the people that are like the audio files to really check it out. I never really took the vinyl personally, but I know plenty of people that have sworn by it. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 16:25 I've heard a number of people say that the audio actually is better on vinyl than typical MP three or other similar file formats. Yep,   Dan Swift ** 16:35 yep. I had a friend growing up, and actually, I shouldn't say growing up, so I was already, like, in college or post college, but a buddy of mine, Craig, he was all about vinyl, and he had, he had the nice, the amplifier, and the nice, I think even, like, a certain kind of needle that you would get for the record player. And you know, you'd have to sit in the sweet spot to really enjoy it, and and I respect that, but um, for me, it was like, I didn't, I didn't hear that much of a difference between a CD and vinyl. Um, not very. Didn't have the opportunity to AB test them. But now I will say comparing a CD to like an mp three file, for instance, even a high quality mp three file, I can tell the difference on that Sure. I would never, you know, I'd use the MP threes for convenience. But if I were to have it my way, man, I'd have the uncompressed audio, no doubt about it, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 17:27 wave forms, yep, yep, yeah. Obviously that's that's going to give you the real quality. Of course, it takes a lot more memory, but nevertheless, if you've got the space it, it really makes a lot of sense to do because mp three isn't going to be nearly as high a level quality.   Dan Swift ** 17:43 Absolutely, absolutely true. And that the way I rationalize it to myself. It's like, well, if I'm going to be though in the car or probably walking around and listening to music, I'm going to be getting all kinds of sounds from outside. Anyway, it kind of offsets the poor quality of the MP justify it.   Michael Hingson ** 17:56 That's true. Well, you know when and mp three is convenient if you want to put a bunch of stuff in a well on a memory card and be able to play it all, because if you have uncompressed audio, it does take a lot more space, and you can't put as much on a card, or you got to get a much bigger card. And now we're getting pretty good sized memory cards. But still, the reality is that that for most purposes, not all mp three will suffice.   Dan Swift ** 18:26 That is true. That is true. And I think too, you have a that the next battle is going to be mp three or a streaming,   Michael Hingson ** 18:33 yeah, yeah, that's going to be fun, isn't it? Yeah? Boy. What a world well. So one of the things I noticed in reading your bio and so on is that you got involved to a great degree in dealing with accessibility on the web. Tell me about that.   Dan Swift ** 18:55 Absolutely. Michael, so I've very strong opinions of accessibility. And this really comes back to, you know, I was, I was at my job, and I was only there as a full time developer. I wasn't there all that long, maybe a year, maybe two, and my supervisor came over to me and she said, you know, we want to start to make things more accessible. And this is like, this is like, 1012, years ago at this point, and I was like, okay, you know, and I did my little bit of research, and there wasn't a whole lot going on at the time. I don't think WCAG was a thing back then. It may have been. I can't remember if 508 was a thing at the in the Bible. It was okay, yeah. So I was doing my research, and, you know, you learn about the alt tags, and it's like, okay, well, we're doing that, okay. Then you learn about forms, and it's like, okay, well, they need to have labels, okay, but, but the turning point was this, Michael, we had a person on staff that was blind, and I was put in touch with this person, and I asked them to review like, different, different web applications. Applications we made, or forms or web pages. And the one day, I can't remember if he volunteered or if I asked, but essentially the request was, can this person come into our physical space and review stuff for us in person? And that experience was life changing for me, just watching him navigate our different web pages or web applications or forms, and seeing how he could go through it, see what was a problem, what was not a problem, was just an incredible experience. And I said this before, when given the opportunity to talk about this, I say to other developers and designers, if you ever have even the slightest opportunity to interact with someone, if they if, if you meet someone and they are using, let me, let me rephrase that, if you have the opportunity to watch someone that is blind using a navigate through the web, take, take that opportunity. Is just an amazing, amazing experience, and you draw so much from it. As a developer or designer, so very strong opinions about it, I'm all about inclusivity and making things equal for everyone on the web, and that was just my introductory experience about a dozen years ago.   Michael Hingson ** 21:07 And so what have you done with it all since? Sure, so   Dan Swift ** 21:11 with our website, we went from having about a million success criterion failures, and we've gotten it all the way down to, I think my last check, I think was maybe about 10,000 so it was huge, huge change. It's hard to get everything as because as content changes and newspaper, as new pages come online, it's hard to keep everything 100% accessible, but we know what to look for. You know, we're looking for the right contrast. We're looking for, you know, the all tags. We're looking for hierarchy with the headers. We're making sure our forms are accessible. We're making sure there aren't any keyboard traps, you know, things that most people, most web visitors, don't even think about, you know, or developers even thinking about, until you know, you need to think about them   Michael Hingson ** 22:00 well and other things as well, such as with other kinds of disabilities. If you're a person with epilepsy, for example, you don't want to go to a website and find blinking elements, or at least, you need to have a way to turn them off, yeah.   Dan Swift ** 22:13 Or or audio that starts automatically, or videos that start automatically, yeah, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 22:19 So many different things, or video that starts automatically, and there's music, but there's no audio, so you so a blind person doesn't even know what the video is, yes, which, which happens all too often. But the the reality is that with the Americans with Disabilities Act, it's it's been interesting, because some lawyers have tried to fight the courts and say, well, but the ADA came out long before the internet, so we didn't know anything about the internet, so it doesn't apply. And finally, the Department of Justice is taking some stands to say, yes, it does, because the internet is a place of business, but it's going to have to be codified, I think, to really bring it home. But some courts have sided with that argument and said, Well, yeah, the ADA is too old, so it doesn't, doesn't matter. And so we still see so many challenges with the whole idea of access. And people listening to this podcast know that, among other things I work with a company called accessibe. Are you familiar with them? I am, Yep, yeah, and, and so that's been an interesting challenge. But what makes access to be interesting is that, because it has an artificial intelligent widget that can monitor a website, and at the at the low end of of costs. It's like $490 a year. And it may not pick up everything that a body needs, but it will, will do a lot. And going back to what you said earlier, as websites change, as they evolve, because people are doing things on their website, which they should be doing, if you've got a static website, you never do anything with it. That's not going to do you very much good. But if it's changing constantly, the widget, at least, can look at it and make a lot of the changes to keep the website accessible. The other part of it is that it can tell you what it can't do, which is cool,   Dan Swift ** 24:16 yeah, that's a really good point. You know, there's a lot of tools that are out there. They do monitor the stuff for you, you know, like we on our on our site, we have something that runs every night and it gives us a report every day. But then there are things that it doesn't always check, or it might, it might get a false positive, because it sees that like, you know, this element has a particular color background and the text is a particular color as well. But there's, you know, maybe a gradient image that lies between them, or an image that lies between them. So it's actually okay, even though the tool says it's not, or something like that. So, yeah, those automated tools, but you gotta also look at it. You know, a human has to look at those as well.   Michael Hingson ** 24:52 Yeah, it's a challenge. But the thing that I think is important with, well, say, use accessibe. An example is that I think every web developer should use accessibe. And the reason I think that is not that accessibe will necessarily do a perfect job with with the access widget, but what it will do is give you something that is constantly monitored, and even if it only makes about 50% of the website more usable because there are complex graphics and other things that it can't do, the reality is, why work harder than you have to, and if accessibility can do a lot of the work for you without you having to do it, it doesn't mean that you need to charge less or you need to do things any different, other than the fact that you save a lot of time on doing part of it because the widget does it for you. Absolutely, absolutely.   Dan Swift ** 25:47 That's that's a really, really good point too, having that tool, that tool in your tool belt, you know, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 25:55 yeah. And it makes a lot of sense to do. And there are, there are people who complain about products like accessibe, saying artificial intelligence can't do it. It's too new. You gotta start somewhere. And the reality is that accessibe, in of itself, does a lot, and it really makes websites a lot better than they otherwise were. And some people say, Well, we've gone to websites and accessibe doesn't really seem to make a difference on the site. Maybe not. But even if your website is pretty good up front and you use accessibe, it's that time that you change something that you don't notice and suddenly accessibe fixes it. That makes it better. It's an interesting discussion all the way around, but to to deny the reality of what an AI oriented system can do is, is really just putting your head in the sand and not really being realistic about life as we go forward. I think that is   Dan Swift ** 26:52 so true. That is so true, and there's so many implications with AI and where it's going to go and what it will be able to do. You know, it's just in its infancy, and the amount of things that that the possibilities of what the future is going to be like, but they're just going to be very, very interesting.   Michael Hingson ** 27:05 I interviewed someone, well, I can't say interview, because it's conversation. Well, I had a conversation with someone earlier on, unstoppable mindset, and he said something very interesting. He's a coach, and specifically, he does a lot of work with AI, and he had one customer that he really encouraged to start using chat GPT. And what this customer did, he called his senior staff into a meeting one day, and he said, Okay, I want you to take the rest of the day and just work with chat, G, P, T, and create ideas that will enhance our business, and then let's get together tomorrow to discuss them. And he did that because he wanted people to realize the value already that exists using some of this technology. Well, these people came back with incredible ideas because they took the time to focus on them, and again, they interacted with chat, GPT. So it was a symbiotic, is probably the wrong word, but synergistic, kind of relationship, where they and the AI system worked together and created, apparently, what became really clever ideas that enhanced this customer's business. And the guy, when he first started working with this coach, was totally down on AI, but after that day of interaction with his staff, he recognized the value of it. And I think the really important key of AI is AI will not replace anyone. And that's what this gentleman said to me. He said, AI won't do it. People may replace other people, which really means they're not using AI properly, because if they were, when they find that they can use artificial intelligence to do the job that someone else is doing, you don't get rid of that person. You find something else for them to do. And the conversation that we had was about truck drivers who are involved in transporting freight from one place to another. If you get to the point where you have an autonomous vehicle, who can really do that, you still keep a driver behind the wheel, but that driver is now doing other things for the company, while the AI system does the driving, once it gets dependable enough to do that. So he said, there's no reason for AI to eliminate, and it won't. It's people that do it eliminate any job at all, which I think is a very clever and appropriate response. And I completely agree   Dan Swift ** 29:29 with that, you know, you think of other other technologies that are out there and how it disrupted, disrupted different industries. And the one example I like to use is the traffic light, you know. And I wonder, and I have no way of knowing this. I haven't researched this at all, but I wonder if there was any kind of pushback when they started putting in traffic lights. Because at that point in time, maybe you didn't have people directing traffic or something like that. Or maybe that was the event of the stop sign, it took it took away the jobs of people that were directing traffic or something like that. Maybe there was some kind of uproar over that. Maybe not, I don't know, but I like to think that things like that, you know. It disrupts the industry. But then people move on, and there are other other opportunities for them, and it progresses. It makes society progress forward.   Michael Hingson ** 30:06 And one would note that we still do use school crossing guards at a lot of schools.   Dan Swift ** 30:11 That is so true, that is true. Yeah, yeah. And especially, too, like talking about idea generation. I was talking to ginger. I forgot her last name, but she's the the president of pinstripe marketing, and she was saying that her team sometimes does the same thing that they they use chat GBT for idea generation. And I think, let's say Ashley, I think Ashley Mason, I think was her name, from Dasha social. The same thing they use, they use a chat GPT for idea generation, not not necessarily for creating the content, but for idea generation and the ideas it comes up with. It could be it can save you a lot of time. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 30:48 it can. And you know, I've heard over the last year plus how a lot of school teachers are very concerned that kids will just go off and get chat GPT to write their papers. And every time I started hearing that, I made the comment, why not let it do that? You're not thinking about it in the right way. If a kid goes off and just uses chat GPT to write their paper, they do that and they turn it into you. The question is, then, what are you as the teacher, going to do? And I submit that what the teachers ought to do is, when they assign a paper and the class all turns in their papers, then what you do is you take one period, and you give each student a minute to come up and defend without having the paper in front of them their paper. You'll find out very quickly who knows what. And it's, I think it's a potentially great teaching tool that   Dan Swift ** 31:48 is fascinating, that perspective is awesome. I love that.   Speaker 1 ** 31:52 Well, it makes sense. It   Dan Swift ** 31:55 certainly does. It certainly does. And that made me think of this too. You know, there's a lot of pushback from from artists about how that, you know, their their art was being used, or art is being used by AI to generate, you know, new art, essentially. And and musicians are saying the same thing that they're taking our stuff, it's getting fed into chat, GPT or whatever, and they're using it to train these different models. And I read this, this article. I don't even know where it was, but it's probably a couple months ago at this point. And the person made this comparison, and the person said, you know, it's really no different than a person learning how to paint in school by studying other people's art. You know, it's the same idea. It's just at a much, much much accelerated pace. And I thought, you know what that's that's kind of interesting. It's an interesting   Michael Hingson ** 32:45 perspective. It is. I do agree that we need to be concerned, that the human element is important. And there are a lot of things that people are are doing already to misuse some of this, this AI stuff, these AI tools, but we already have the dark web. We've had that for a while, too. I've never been to the dark web. I don't know how to get to it. That's fine. I don't need to go to the dark web. Besides that, I'll bet it's not accessible anyway. But the we've had the dark web, and people have accepted the fact that it's there, and there are people who monitor it and and all that. But the reality is, people are going to misuse things. They're going to be people who will misuse and, yeah, we have to be clever enough to try to ferret that out. But the fact of the matter is, AI offers so much already. One of the things that I heard, oh, gosh, I don't whether it was this year or late last year, was that, using artificial intelligence, Pfizer and other organizations actually created in only a couple of days? Or moderna, I guess, is the other one, the COVID vaccines that we have. If people had to do it alone, it would have taken them years that that we didn't have. And the reality is that using artificial intelligence, it was only a few days, and they had the beginnings of those solutions because they they created a really neat application and put the system to work. Why wouldn't we want to do that?   Dan Swift ** 34:23 I completely agree. I completely agree. And that's, again, that's how you move society forward. You know, it's similar to the idea of, you know, testing medicine on or testing medications on animals. For instance, you know, I love animals. You know, I love dogs, bunnies. I mean, the whole, the whole gamut, you know, love animals, but I understand the importance of, you know, well, do we test on them, or do we press on people, you know, you gotta, or do you not test? Or do just not you like you gotta. You gotta weigh out the pros and cons. And they're, they're definitely, definitely those with AI as well.   Michael Hingson ** 34:56 Well, I agree, and I. With animals and people. Now, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, we ought to be doing tests on politicians. You know, they're not people. Anyway. So I think when you decide to become a politician, you take a special pill that nobody seems to be able to prove, but they take dumb pills, so they're all there. But anyway, I'm with Mark Twain. Congress is at Grand Ole benevolent asylum for the helpless. So I'm an equal opportunity abuser, which is why we don't do politics on unstoppable mindset. We can have a lot of fun with it, I'm sure, but we sure could. It would be great talk about artificial intelligence. You got politicians. But the reality is that it's, it's really something that that brings so much opportunity, and I'm and it's going to continue to do that, and every day, as we see advances in what AI is doing, we will continue to see advances and what is open for us to be able to utilize it to accomplish, which is cool. I   Dan Swift ** 36:04 completely agree. Completely agree. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 36:06 so it'll be fun to see you know kind of how it goes. So are you, do you work for a company now that makes websites? Or what is your company that you work for? Do, sure.   Dan Swift ** 36:16 So I'm still in the education space, so I'm still, I'm like, in a state school managing a team of web professionals.   Michael Hingson ** 36:23 Okay, well, that's cool. So you keep the school sites and all the things that go along with it up at all that   Dan Swift ** 36:31 is correct. And we have lots of fun challenges when we start to integrate with third parties and got to make sure they're accessible too. And sometimes there's dialog that goes back and forth that people aren't happy with but, but it's my job to make sure, that's one of the things that we make sure happens, especially since I'm sure you've been following this. There's the Department of Justice ruling back in April, but I think it's anyone that's receiving state funding, they have to be. They have to follow the WCAG. Two point, I think, 2.1 double A compliance by April of 26 if you are a certain size, and my my institution, falls into that category. So we need to make sure that we were on the right path   Michael Hingson ** 37:06 well. And the reality is that has been around since 2010 but it took the the DOJ 12 years to finally come up with rules and regulations to implement section 508. Yep, but it's it's high time they did and they do need to do it for the rest of the internet, and that's coming, but people are just being slow. And for me personally, I think it's just amazing that it's taking so long. It's not like you have to redesign a box, that you have to go off and retool hardware. This is all code. Why should it be that difficult to do? But people throw roadblocks in your way, and so it becomes tough. Yeah, it's   Dan Swift ** 37:47 interesting, too. I remember reading this article, oh, gosh, this is probably, this is probably about a dozen years ago, and it said that, you know, the original web was 100% accessible, that it was just, you know, just text on a page pretty much. And you could do very, very simple layouts, you know, and then it got more convoluted. People would start doing tables for layouts, and tables within tables within tables, and so on and so forth. Like the original web it was, it was completely accessible. And now with, with all the the interactions we do with with client side scripting and everything like that, is just, it's a mess. If   Michael Hingson ** 38:19 you really want to hear an interesting thing, I like to look and I've done it for a long time, long before accessibe. I like to explore different sites and see how accessible they are. And one day I visited nsa.gov, the National Security Agency, which, of course, doesn't really exist. So I could tell you stories, but I went to nsa.gov, and I found that that was the most accessible website I had ever encountered. If you arrow down to a picture, for example, when you arrowed into it, suddenly you got on your screen reader a complete verbal description of what the picture was, and everything about that site was totally usable and totally accessible. I'd never seen a website that was so good contrast that with and it's changed. I want to be upfront about it, Martha Stewart Living. The first time I went to that website because I was selling products that Martha Stewart was interested. So I went to look at the website. It was totally inaccessible. The screen reader wouldn't talk at all. Now, I've been to Martha Stewart since, and it's and it's much more accessible, but, but I was just amazed@nsa.gov was so accessible. It was amazing, which I thought was really pretty cool. Of all places. You   Dan Swift ** 39:41 know, it's interesting. Before I started my my YouTube channel and podcast, I actually thought about creating a channel and or podcast about websites that are inaccessible, and I thought about calling companies out. And the more I thought about it, I was like, I don't know if I want to make that many people angry. I don't know if that's a   Michael Hingson ** 39:58 good idea. I'm. Would suggest going the other way, and maybe, you know, maybe we can work together on it. But I would rather feature websites that are accessible and tell the story of how they got there, how their people got there. I would think that would be, I hear what you're saying about making people angry. So I would think, rather than doing that, feature the places that are and why they are and and their stories, and that might help motivate more people to make their websites accessible. What do you think about that as an idea?   Dan Swift ** 40:28 I actually thought about that as well, and I was going backwards between that and and the other the negative side, because I thought, you know, bring that to light. Might actually force them to like by shedding light on it, might force them to make their site more accessible, whether what or not or not, no, but I definitely thought about those two sites.   Michael Hingson ** 40:45 Yeah, it's, it's, it's a challenge all the way around. Well, what was the very first thing you did, the first experience that you ever had dealing with accessibility that got you started down that road.   Dan Swift ** 40:58 I think it was like I said, when I work with that, that blind person, when I, when I first had that opportunity to see how he used the different web applications, we had the different web pages, and he was using a Mac. So he was using VoiceOver, he was using the, I think it's called the rotor menu, or roto something like that. Yeah, yep. So then after that happened, it was like, whoa. I need to get them back so I can, like, learn to use this as well and do my own testing. So the IT department had an old I asked them. I said, Hey guys, do you have any any old MacBooks that I can use? I was like, it can be old. I just need to test it. I need to, I need it to test for accessibility on the web. They hooked me up with an old machine, you know, it wasn't super old, you know, but it was. It worked for me. It gave me an opportunity to do my testing, and then I kind of became like the person in the department to do that. Everyone else, they didn't have the interest as much as I did. They recognized the importance of it, but they, they didn't have the same fire on the inside that I had, so I kind of took that on, and then like that. Now that I'm in the position of leadership, now it's more of a delegating that and making sure it still gets done. But I'm kind of like the resident expert in our in our area, so I'm still kind of the person that dives in a little bit by trying to make my team aware and do the things they need to do to make sure we're continuing, continuing to create accessible projects. You   Michael Hingson ** 42:20 mentioned earlier about the whole idea of third party products and so on and and dealing with them. What do you do? And how do you deal with a company? Let's say you you need to use somebody else's product and some of the things that the school system has to do, and you find they're not accessible. What do you do?   Dan Swift ** 42:42 So a lot of times, what will happen, I shouldn't say a lot of times. It's not uncommon for a department to make a purchase from a third party, and this is strictly, I'm talking in the web space. They might, they might make a purchase with a third party, and then they want us to integrate it. And this is a great example I had. It was actually in the spring the this, they had essentially a widget that would be on the on their particular set of pages, and there was a pop up that would appear. And don't get me started on pop ups, because I got very strong opinion about those. Me too, like I said, growing up, you know, late 90s, early 2000s very, very strong opinions about pop ups. So, but, but I encountered this, and it wasn't accessible. And I'm glad that in the position I'm in, I could say this unit, you need to talk to the company, and they need to fix this, or I'm taking it down. And I'm glad that I had the backing from, you know, from leadership, essentially, that I could do, I can make that claim and then do that, and the company ended up fixing it. So that was good. Another example was another department was getting ready to buy something. Actually, no, they had already purchased it, but they hadn't implemented it yet. The first example that was already implemented, that was I discovered that after the fact. So in the second example, they were getting ready to implement it, and they showed us another school that used it also a pop up. And I looked at it on the on the other school site, and I said, this isn't accessible. We cannot use this. No. And they said, Well, yes, it is. And I said, No, it isn't. And I explained to them, and I showed them how it was not accessible, and they ended up taking it back to their developers. Apparently there was a bug that they then fixed and they made it accessible, and then we could implement it. So it's nice that like that. I have the support from from leadership, that if there is something that is inaccessible, I have the power to kind of wheel my fist and take that down, take it off of our site. Do   Michael Hingson ** 44:31 you ever find that when some of this comes up within the school system, that departments push back, or have they caught on and recognize the value of accessibility, so they'll be supportive.   Dan Swift ** 44:45 I think the frustration with them becomes more of we bought this tool. We wish we had known this was an issue before we bought I think it's more of a like like that. We just wasted our time and money, possibly. But generally speaking, they do see the. Value of it, and they've recognized the importance of it. It's just more of a when others, there's more hoops everyone has to go through.   Michael Hingson ** 45:05 Yeah, and as you mentioned with pop ups, especially, it's a real challenge, because you could be on a website, and a lot of times A pop up will come up and it messes up the website for people with screen readers and so on. And part of the problem is we don't even always find the place to close or take down the pop up, which is really very frustrating   Dan Swift ** 45:30 Exactly, exactly the tab index could be off, or you could still be on the page somewhere, and it doesn't allow you to get into it and remove it, or, yeah, and extra bonus points if they also have an audio playing or a video playing inside of that.   Michael Hingson ** 45:44 Yeah, it really does make life a big challenge, which is very, very frustrating all the way around. Yeah, pop ups are definitely a big pain in the butt, and I know with accessibility, we're we're all very concerned about that, but still, pop ups do occur. And the neat thing about a product like accessibe, and one of the reasons I really support it, is it's scalable, and that is that as the people who develop the product at accessibe improve it, those improvements filter down to everybody using the widget, which is really cool, and that's important, because with individual websites where somebody has to code it in and keep monitoring it, as you pointed out, the problem is, if that's all you have, then you've got to keep paying people to to monitor everything, to make sure everything stays accessible and coded properly, whereas there are ways to be able to take advantage of something like accessibe, where what you're able to do is let it, monitor it, and as accessibe learns, and I've got some great examples where people contacted me because they had things like a shopping cart on a website that didn't work, but when accessibe fixed it, because it turns out there was something that needed to be addressed that got fixed for anybody using the product. Which is really cool.   Dan Swift ** 47:07 Yeah, that's really neat. I definitely appreciate things like that where, you know, you essentially fix something for one person, it's fixed for everyone, or a new feature gets added for someone, or, you know, a group of people, for instance, and then everyone is able to benefit from that. That's really, really awesome. I love that type of stuff.   Michael Hingson ** 47:22 Yeah, I think it's really so cool. How has all this business with accessibility and so on affected you in terms of your YouTube channel and podcasting and so on? How do you bring that into the process? That's that's   Dan Swift ** 47:37 really, really good question. I am very proud to say that I take the time to create transcripts of all my recordings, and then I go through them, and I check them for for accuracy, to make sure that things aren't correct, things are incorrect. Make sure things are correct, that they are not incorrect. So I'll make sure that those are there when the when the videos go live, those are available. Spotify creates them automatically for you. I don't know that you that I have the ability to modify them. I'm assuming I probably do, but honestly, I haven't checked into that. But so that's that's all accessible. When it comes to my web page, I make sure that all my images have the appropriate, you know, alt tags associated with them, that the the descriptions are there so people understand what the pictures are. I don't have a whole lot of pictures. Usually it's just the thumbnail for the videos, so just indicating what it is. And then I just try to be, you know, kind of, kind of text heavy. I try to make sure that my, you know, my links are not, you know, click here, learn more stuff like that. I make sure or they're not actual web addresses. I try to make sure that they're actual actionable. So when someone's using a screen reader and they go over a link, it actually is meaningful. And color contrast is another big one. I try to make sure my color contrast is meeting the appropriate level for WCAG, 2.1 double A which I can't remember what actual contrast is, but there's a contrast checker for it, which is really, really helpful   Michael Hingson ** 49:00 well. And the other, the other part about it is when somebody goes to your website again, of course, accessibility is different for different people, so when you're dealing with things like contrast or whatever, do people who come to the website have the ability to monitor or not monitor, but modify some of those settings so that they get maybe a higher contrast or change colors. Or do they have that ability?   Dan Swift ** 49:28 I They do not have that ability. I remember looking into a tool a while ago, and it was and actually, you know, at the school, we thought about developing a tool. It would be like a widget on the side that you could adjust on different things like that. You could do, you could remove images, you could remove animation, you could change color, contrast, that sort of thing. And it just be like a very predefined kind of kind of settings. But in my research, I found that a lot of times that causes other problems for people, and it kind of falls into the the arena of. Um, separate but equal. And there's a lot of issues with that right now in the accessibility space when it comes to the web. So for instance, there was a company, I forget what the company name was, but they had one of their things that they did was they would create text only versions of your pages. So you'd contract with them. They would they would scrape the content of your site. They would create a text version, text only version of your pages. So if people were using a screen reader, they could just follow that link and then browse the text only version. And there was litigation, and the company got sued, and the the person suing was successful, because it was essentially creating a separate argument.   Michael Hingson ** 50:34 And that's not necessarily separate, but equal is the problem, because if you only got the text, pictures are put on websites, graphs are put on websites. All of those other kinds of materials are put on websites for reasons. And so what really needs to happen is that those other things need to be made accessible, which is doable, and the whole web con excessive content. Accessibility Guidelines do offer the the information as to how to do that and what to do, but it is important that that other information be made available, because otherwise it really is separate, but not totally equal at   Dan Swift ** 51:11 all. That's absolutely true. Absolutely true. Yeah. So it   Michael Hingson ** 51:15 is a, it is something to, you know, to look at well, you've been doing a podcast and so on for a while. What are some challenges that someone might face that you advise people about if they're going to create their own podcast or a really productive YouTube channel,   Dan Swift ** 51:31 be real with yourself with the amount of time you have to dedicate to it, because what I found is that it takes a lot more time than I originally anticipated I thought going in, I thought, you know, so I typically try to record one or two people a week. When I first started out, I was only recording one person. And usually I would do, you know, record one day, edit the next day, you know, do the web page stuff. I would go with it, you know, I can knock it out in like an hour or two. But I wasn't anticipating the social media stuff that goes with it, the search engine optimization that goes with it, the research that goes with it, trying to so if I'm if I'm producing a video that's going to go on YouTube, what's hot at the moment? What are people actually searching for? What's going to grab people's attention? What kind of thumbnail do I have to create to grab someone's attention, where it's not clickbait, but it also represents what I'm actually talking to the person about, and still interesting. So it's a lot of a lot of that research, a lot of that sort of thing. It just eats up a lot a lot of time when it comes to like the transcripts, for instance, that was those super easy on their number of services out there that created automatically for you, and they just have to read through it and make sure it's okay. I know YouTube will do it as well. I found that YouTube isn't as good as some of the other services that are out there, but in a bind, you can at least rely on YouTube and then go and edit from that point. But yet, time is definitely a big one. I would say, if anyone is starting to do it, make sure you have some serious time to dedicate several, several hours a week, I would say, upwards, you know, probably a good, you know, four to 10 hours a week is what I would estimate in the moment. If you're looking to produce a 30 minute segment once or twice a week, I would estimate about that time.   Michael Hingson ** 53:11 Yeah, one of the things I've been hearing about videos is that that the trend is is clearly not to have long videos, but only 32nd videos, and put them vertical as opposed to horizontal. And anything over 30 seconds is is not good, which seems to me to really not challenge people to deal with having enough content to make something relevant, because you can't do everything in 30 seconds exactly,   Dan Swift ** 53:41 and what I found too. So this was very this was a little bit of a learning curve for me. So with, with the YouTube shorts that you have, they have to be a minute or less. I mean, now they're actually in the process of changing it to three minutes or less. I do not have that access yet, but it has Go ahead, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so. But what I'm finding Michael is that the people that so I might create this a great example. So I was interviewing a comedian in New York City, Meredith Dietz, awesome, awesome episode. But I was talking to her about becoming a comedian, and I made about four different shorts for her from her video, and I was doing a new one each week to kind of promote it. And the videos, for me, they were getting a lot I was getting anywhere between maybe 315 100 views on the short for me, that was awesome. For other people, you know, that might be nothing, but for me, that was awesome. But what I found was that the people that watch the shorts aren't necessarily the same people that watch the long form videos. So I'm or, or I might get subscribers from people that watch the shorts, but then they're not actually watching the video. And in the end, that kind of hurts your channel, because it's showing, it's telling the YouTube I'm gonna use air quotes, YouTube algorithm that my subscribers aren't interested in my content, and it ends up hurting me more. So anyone that's trying to play that game. And be aware of that. You know, you can't get more subscribers through shorts, but if you're not converting them, it's going to hurt you.   Michael Hingson ** 55:05 I can accept three minutes, but 30 seconds just seems to be really strange. And I was asked once to produce a demonstration of accessibe on a website. They said you got to do it in 30 seconds, or no more than a minute, but preferably 30 seconds. Well, you can't do that if, in part, you're also trying to explain what a screen reader is and everything else. The reality is, there's got to be some tolerance. And I think that the potential is there to do that. But it isn't all about eyesight, which is, of course, the real issue from my perspective. Anyway.   Dan Swift ** 55:41 Yeah, I completely agree. I think what YouTube is trying to do, and I believe in getting this from Tiktok, I think Tiktok has three up to three minutes. Actually, there might be 10 minutes now that I think about it, but, but I think they're trying to follow the trend, and it's like, let's make videos slightly longer and see how that goes. So be very curious to see how that all pans out.   Michael Hingson ** 55:58 Well. And I think that makes sense. I think there's some value in that, but 30 seconds is not enough time to get real content, and if people dumb down to that point, then that's pretty scary. So I'm glad to hear that the trend seems to be going a little bit longer, which is, which is a good thing, which is pretty important to be able to do. Yeah, I completely   Dan Swift ** 56:21 agree. Because like that, the trend right now, it's, you know, people, they want stuff immediately, and if you don't catch them in 10 seconds, they're swiping onto something else, which is which is very challenging, at least, especially for me and what I do. Who's   Michael Hingson ** 56:32 the most inspiring guest that you've ever had on your podcast?   Dan Swift ** 56:37 Michael, this is a good one. This is a good one. So the video for Ashley Mason. She is a social media marketing she created a social medi

Wait. Gemini 2.5 can do whhhaaaaat?

Al and Kev go over the recent news, including everything cottagecore from the Nintendo Switch Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:02:43: What Have We Been Up To 00:10:49: Feedback 00:13:18: I Know What You Released Last Month 00:15:50: Game News 00:27:39: New Games 00:27:52: Story Of Seasons: Grand Bazaar 00:34:57: Witchbrook 00:36:58: Tomodschi Life 00:42:14: Tamagotchi Plaza 00:48:31: Outro Links Distant Bloom Console Release Monsterpatch Kickstarter Outbound News Story of Seasons: Grand Bizarre Witchbrook Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream Tamagotchi Plaza Nexus Mods App Contact Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/ Transcript (0:00:30) Al: Hello farmers, and welcome to another episode of the harvest season. My name is Al, (0:00:36) Kev: My name is Kevin. (0:00:38) Al: and we are here today to talk about cottagecore games. (0:00:42) Kev: Woo! A lot of them. (0:00:45) Kev: A lot of games to talk about. (0:00:45) Al: So many cottagecore games. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So, we just had a Nintendo Direct. (0:00:56) Al: By the time you hear this, there will have been another Nintendo Direct, (0:00:58) Kev: Haha sick. Oh my gosh. It’s that close. Oh my gosh. I’m not ready. I’m not ready (0:00:59) Al: But… (0:01:00) Al: We won’t be talking about that one. (0:01:02) Al: Not in this episode. (0:01:04) Al: Yeah, yeah. I think it’s the day of. Yeah, it’s the second. We release on the second, which is when the… (0:01:10) Kev: Yeah (0:01:11) Al: So, yeah. (0:01:14) Al: Let’s see how this goes. But we are… (0:01:16) Kev: So thank you for tuning in when even we’re not caring about this episode (0:01:22) Al: Hey, hey, I care. I care. (0:01:23) Kev: No, that’s not true (0:01:26) Al: So yeah, we’re going to talk about the switch direct this (0:01:30) Al: well, so we have a greenhouse episode where we talk about the switch direct in its whole, (0:01:35) Al: but we skip over the stuff that we’re going to talk about in this episode, (0:01:39) Al: specifically, it’s cartridge core games. (0:01:40) Kev: Because there was stuff for us. (0:01:43) Kev: Episode, entire episodes of the horror season were announced in that direct. (0:01:49) Al: You’re not wrong, I will say. So we’re going to talk about that. We’ve got some other news, (0:01:56) Al: Because people decided to send out other news as well this week. (0:02:00) Al: And that wasn’t just all in the Nintendo Direct. (0:02:03) Al: We’ve also got the roundup of March because it’s a new month now. (0:02:08) Al: Almost. It will be a new month now. (0:02:10) Al: This is one of those weird months where we are recording in a different month (0:02:14) Al: than we’re releasing, and I was like, do I wait till next week? (0:02:16) Al: But I decided, no, let’s do it in this one, because I’m sure nobody will announce (0:02:18) Kev: Sure. (0:02:21) Al: and release their game in the next two days. Right? (0:02:24) Kev: Oh, oh, oh, oh. (0:02:26) Al: We’ll see. (0:02:27) Kev: There’s you. (0:02:28) Kev: There’s you. (0:02:28) Al: We’ll see. (0:02:31) Al: So we’re going to talk about what released last month, in March. (0:02:35) Al: And we’ve got some feedback that we’re going to talk about as well. (0:02:39) Kev: Oh, oh, that’s that’s a genuinely exciting. I didn’t know that I’m excited (0:02:43) Al: But first of all, Kevin, what have you been up to? (0:02:46) Kev: Uh (0:02:48) Kev: Gosh, I can’t believe it’s actually been a week since I recorded and it feels like so much has happened (0:02:54) Kev: I got sick in between then and there it was rough (0:02:54) Al: No, no. (0:02:58) Kev: I don’t know if I thought it was a common cold at first. It might have been something a little last year. That’s (0:03:05) Kev: Yeah, the uncommon cold. That’s correct. Um, I (0:03:09) Kev: was breaking it off. Thankfully, but uh, yeah, that that took me down a few pegs over the week, but uh, I (0:03:16) Kev: When I was able to I squeezed in its usual say so on and so forth, but the big one wonder stop I finished it (0:03:25) Kev: I’m just holding up my thumb. You know one can see it, but I am and and that’s all I’m going to say on that because (0:03:33) Kev: One you people should play it because it’s a good game and two (0:03:37) Kev: Maybe who knows I will talk (0:03:39) Kev: about it somewhere in detail, somewhere, someplace, maybe, I don’t know. (0:03:43) Al: So, obviously, not spoilery, but nothing to change on what you said about it in the last (0:03:49) Kev: nope my nope my that is correct it did not crash and burn did not you know (0:03:49) Al: episode. (0:03:50) Al: You’ve not changed your mind. (0:03:58) Kev: scald my I and games there are games that will do that right the last second (0:04:02) Kev: just just ruin everything nope it stumps up all the way yeah so wonder stuff good (0:04:12) Al: Oh, nothing big, I’ve been continuing on Pokemon GO despite everything, because I still genuinely (0:04:12) Kev: stuff what about you well what’s been going on (0:04:23) Al: enjoy that game, and the new TCG Pocket expansion dropped a couple of days ago, so I’ve been (0:04:26) Kev: Now, you know, that’s fair. (0:04:32) Al: opening some packs, getting some cards, I got a shiny something, was that charming? (0:04:33) Kev: Uh, it’s… (0:04:35) Kev: Oh. (0:04:36) Kev: What? (0:04:38) Kev: Uh. (0:04:39) Kev: Okay. (0:04:40) Kev: Like, I, I, I am… (0:04:42) Kev: …interested in… (0:04:45) Kev: …because, you know, in the standard TCG, a new… (0:04:49) Kev: …set, or expansion, or whatever… (0:04:52) Kev: …usually has… (0:04:55) Kev: …stuff. (0:04:55) Kev: Well, it has. (0:04:56) Kev: Certain expectations or expectations are set. (0:04:59) Kev: Let’s say that right sometimes. (0:05:01) Kev: Yeah. (0:05:01) Kev: I mean, yes, there are cool arts that people can want that and so on and so forth. (0:05:06) Kev: Sometimes to ridiculous scalpery like insane levels of the expectations, but there’s gameplay stuff to lots of times, right? (0:05:17) Kev: Like we’re getting the Team Rocket Pokemon are coming back soon in the TCG and that’s cool or you know, we got styles or whatever. (0:05:25) Kev: I like to, there’s, there’s. (0:05:26) Kev: Oh, okay. There you go. That’s a big one. All right. All right. (0:05:35) Al: No, it is. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (0:05:37) Al: So the last the last set included tools, which they hadn’t had before. (0:05:43) Al: Pokemon to and I and also the there’s like Arceus Link. (0:05:52) Al: I don’t know if you know about the Arceus… (0:05:53) Al: Like that was a thing in the physical TCG years ago. (0:05:56) Al: I don’t know if you know what that is. (0:05:56) Kev: Okay, I’m not. I heard whispers of it, but I didn’t look at it. (0:06:01) Al: It’s like abilities that affect Pokemon, (0:06:04) Al: but only if you use– (0:06:05) Al: Arceus, so it’s like if you have Arceus on the field then this happens sort of thing. (0:06:06) Kev: Huh, okay. (0:06:09) Kev: Yeah. (0:06:11) Kev: Oh, that’s a pretty cool idea. Actually, I like that. That’s fun. (0:06:15) Al: It’s very tied to Arceus which obviously limits your deck abilities but– (0:06:19) Kev: Yeah. Yeah. (0:06:21) Al: And then this set there– I mean there’s obviously always cards that have like (0:06:26) Al: new abilities and stuff like that. There’s a different Charizard which– I haven’t looked (0:06:28) Kev: Sure, sure. (0:06:31) Al: into what people are saying but I think looks like a much better Charizard than the previous (0:06:36) Al: one. There is a Giratina that is interesting. Both of those cards are heavily based around (0:06:45) Al: attacks that add energy to them so that then you can use the more powerful attack quicker. (0:06:51) Kev: Hmm, okay (0:06:54) Al: And they did just launch a ranked in pocket as well. So I will not be doing that but that does exist. (0:06:59) Kev: Oh dang pocket pocket going all in all right no longer just the collector app good good for you pocket again (0:07:10) Al: So yeah, yeah, there’s always stuff and then obviously there’s the shinies in the new the new set (0:07:15) Kev: - Yeah. (0:07:17) Al: Which are fun they are they added new missions that get you (0:07:23) Al: You’re able to unlock full decks as well. So you can say like oh I want the Tinkitung on (0:07:28) Kev: Uh-huh. (0:07:29) Al: EX deck and you get all the cards from that which is cool (0:07:32) Kev: Oh, that’s nice. (0:07:33) Al: Yeah (0:07:34) Al: So yeah, yeah, they’re adding stuff (0:07:36) Al: I don’t expect big changes every set because they’ve (0:07:40) Al: basically released a set every month, which is fast. (0:07:44) Kev: That’s that’s a lot. That is a lot. I’m exhausted just hearing that Wow (0:07:49) Al: With with the trading, I am managing to keep up with the (0:07:52) Al: standard cards, obviously not with the secret rares. But yeah, (0:07:56) Kev: prayers and all that, yeah, yeah, sure. (0:07:58) Al: but like with the standard, they call them diamond rarity. I’m (0:08:03) Al: managing to keep up to date with that. So I’m missing two (0:08:06) Al: from the last set and three from the previous set, but I’ll get (0:08:10) Al: to easily if actually put in the effort to look into trading. (0:08:14) Kev: Okay (0:08:15) Al: So that’s not very many. So yeah, I’m just exclusively (0:08:18) Kev: All right, that’s not bad all right (0:08:20) Al: opening the new set just now. (0:08:23) Al: I think that’s everything. I don’t think I’ve been playing (0:08:24) Al: anything. And this is why we’re not talking about Mika this (0:08:26) Al: week. We’ve had a week, but it’s fine. Because we were given (0:08:28) Kev: Yeah, it’s it’s been a week (0:08:35) Al: quite the list of news to talk about. So we didn’t even need to (0:08:37) Kev: Yeah (0:08:39) Al: have an alternate. (0:08:41) Kev: Yeah, yeah, I like (0:08:41) Al: So let’s see how long this takes us. (0:08:45) Kev: So I like how that happened cuz it was like (0:08:48) Kev: Just two days ago something you reached out like hey, I haven’t touched (0:08:53) Kev: Oh, you might we just do news episode. I’m like, that’s great. I have also not touched me good (0:09:00) Al: I was like I really should play the game and then I was like it’s Thursday. I’m not gonna be able to play this enough (0:09:02) Kev: Yeah, but (0:09:07) Kev: Yeah (0:09:08) Al: And it’s not that I don’t want to play the game. It’s just this week has been very busy and very tiring on so many levels (0:09:16) Kev: a lot of levels, I agree, for different reasons for both of us, but somehow, um, law, very (0:09:24) Al: It was Craig, my youngest, he’s really into Astrobot just now and he’s been, he’s really (0:09:29) Al: good at it but he can’t do everything and so there’s a few things he’s been, like he’s done (0:09:34) Al: some of the really hard bosses but there’s like some speed run levels that he’s struggling with (0:09:39) Al: and so he’s been asking me to help him with those ones. But he’s improved so much since he started, (0:09:45) Al: like he’s I think legitimately better than like most adults now, like he’s actually really good, (0:09:50) Kev: Oh, dang! (0:09:51) Al: like he defeated the final boss. (0:09:54) Al: Um, in the game, which is really good. (0:09:54) Kev: Oh, dang! (0:09:56) Kev: Way to go, kid! (0:09:56) Al: Um, I need, the game is now a hundred percent. (0:09:59) Al: He, as I say, he, I’ve done, I did some of that for him, but his save file (0:10:03) Al: is at a hundred percent now, which is wild. (0:10:07) Al: So yeah, but yeah. (0:10:09) Al: So we were sitting down this afternoon after we’d spent the day in Edinburgh. (0:10:13) Al: And he was like, Oh, Daddy, could you help me with this bit? (0:10:16) Al: And I’m like, honestly, Craig, my brain can’t deal with that just now. (0:10:20) Al: Like, it’s just there is too much to deal with in a platform. (0:10:24) Al: platformer that I do not have the energy to focus on that. (0:10:29) Al: So he was like, OK, that’s fine. (0:10:30) Al: I’ll do something else then. (0:10:32) Al: And it wasn’t the problem. (0:10:33) Al: But yeah, it’s just like when your brain can’t even do a 3D platformer, (0:10:37) Al: you know that you’ve had a week. (0:10:40) Kev: Yeah, absolutely (0:10:43) Al: So let’s see how this episode goes. (0:10:45) Al: I hope you’re excited for whatever this is. (0:10:46) Kev: Yeah, oh (0:10:49) Al: Let’s talk about some feedback. (0:10:51) Al: got another Spotify comment, uh, from our, (0:10:53) Kev: Yeah, oh I’m so excited (0:10:54) Al: only Spotify commenter, Jack, but thank you, Jack, for the comment, uh, Jack says, (0:11:01) Al: excellent job on the Grimoire Groves. Um, I think I might try it sometime in the future. (0:11:05) Al: Do you feel the next Coral Island update with children will be a good time to hop back in? (0:11:10) Al: My answer to that is I think it depends. Like if you played the game at 1.0, um, (0:11:16) Al: I think it will be a good time to jump back in. If you played 1.1, probably not. Like I think (0:11:21) Al: Anybody who’s played the game was (0:11:24) Al: 1.0 or before should be probably not now. Until we knew that 1.2 was coming out in the summer, (0:11:32) Al: I would have said just go for it now because 1.1 is such a good update for it. But obviously, if you’re (0:11:39) Al: happy with waiting another couple of months, it’s definitely a good time to jump in. And if you’re (0:11:44) Al: not super interested in multiplayer, I don’t think that other update gives you anything. (0:11:50) Al: so yeah get the get the children go for it (0:11:54) Al: get the children that was weird (0:11:56) Kev: The children (0:11:58) Kev: The children I’d you kids hide your wife (0:11:59) Al: goodness me (0:12:02) Kev: My my opinion is you should wait for the coral island update called fungi store (0:12:08) Al: oh dear (0:12:13) Al: um also has anyone on the team played bookbound on steam? I haven’t heard of anyone saying it, (0:12:19) Al: uh but uh good one to add add to the list it’s a cozy game where you operate (0:12:24) Al: a big store. I was curious about your thoughts if anyone has played it so I yeah interesting (0:12:28) Kev: Yeah, same thing here. (0:12:32) Al: maybe we need to get uh nami on for that episode it’s a big store not a library but (0:12:32) Kev: Oh, that would be fun. (0:12:38) Al: they’re basically the same thing right a big a big store is just capitalist version of a library (0:12:40) Kev: Yeah, it’d be. (0:12:45) Al: right libraries are socialism big stores are capitalism that’s how you understand the difference (0:12:46) Kev: It is, yes. (0:12:50) Kev: There you go. (0:12:54) Al: thank you for your comment jack and this is just a reminder that if you comment on spotify or you (0:12:58) Al: send us feedback from our website we will probably mention you on the podcast because we don’t get (0:13:04) Al: enough to to get it too busy like I mean if we ever get popular then i’m not promising that we’ll (0:13:09) Kev: that’s right (0:13:09) Al: do that for everyone but when we get one every three months i’m gonna mention it on the podcast (0:13:18) Al: uh kevin it’s time for I know what you released last month (0:13:22) Al: I’ve settled on that name. (0:13:24) Kev: Did you decide? (0:13:24) Al: We have quite the list of games that came out in March. (0:13:28) Al: So we’re starting off with Grimoire Groves. (0:13:30) Al: Obviously, we’ve covered that. (0:13:32) Al: That came out in March. (0:13:34) Al: Desktop Cat Cafe came out in March. (0:13:36) Al: That was the Cat Cafe Rusty-like. (0:13:40) Al: I don’t know anyone that’s tried it yet, but… (0:13:40) Kev: all right (0:13:44) Kev: yeah I i don’t either (0:13:46) Al: Believe it or not, Sugardew Island came out in March. (0:13:48) Kev: uh… i’ve heard the rumors that (0:13:50) Al: I was going to say it feels like longer than that, (0:13:54) Al: but that’s because I played it in February, so that’ll be why. (0:13:58) Kev: hmm (0:14:00) Al: Wonderstop came out, obviously. (0:14:02) Kev: died (0:14:02) Al: We had the fantastic episode about that last week. (0:14:04) Al: Good job. (0:14:04) Kev: go one, play it, go, go play it (0:14:08) Al: Mudborne came out. (0:14:08) Al: That’s the Frog Apical. (0:14:10) Kev: good name (0:14:10) Al: Apical, but frogs. (0:14:12) Kev: still great name, little bit (0:14:14) Al: I know somebody who will be playing it. (0:14:18) Al: I don’t think they have started playing it, (0:14:18) Kev: da, ah, ah, ah, ah (0:14:20) Al: but I know someone who will be playing it. (0:14:24) Kev: secrets (0:14:26) Kev: it’s not me (0:14:26) Kev: Hope it’s not me. (0:14:28) Al: Maybe it is, nothing you know who it is anyway, but honeyman sir, early access released as (0:14:29) Kev: It’s news to me if it is. (0:14:37) Al: well, as well as galactic getaway early access, apparently I backed that one on Kickstarter (0:14:43) Al: because I got a key in an email yesterday, which was like, oh, I don’t remember backing (0:14:45) Kev: Hahaha, surprise! (0:14:50) Al: this, but fair enough, I’ve got a game, it’s a little present to me from two years ago. (0:14:58) Al: Technically will be last month by the time this episode comes out, Space Sprouts came (0:15:03) Al: out on the 31st of March. Thankfully they announced it before we recorded the episode (0:15:08) Al: so we could include it. Busy month, biggest month of the year so far. Let’s turn it down (0:15:16) Al: a little bit because that’s too many games. Thanks, please and thank you. Oh, a lot of (0:15:18) Kev: No, Nintendo finally said no. (0:15:26) Al: games. Let’s see how that (0:15:28) Al: continues. But that’s what released last month. Are you (0:15:32) Al: playing any of these other games that you that aren’t (0:15:36) Kev: uh if any of them probably be mud born because I like frogs it’s a good name I don’t know i’ll (0:15:44) Kev: see how it goes though but there it’s not high on my priority list other ways (0:15:48) Al: It’s fair enough. Fair enough. Let’s talk about the game news then. So yeah, we’re going to start (0:15:54) Al: with games that we know about that have announced something new. So first up, Distant Bloom. It’s out (0:16:03) Al: on PlayStation and Switch. So it was already out on Steam, but now it’s out on PlayStation 4, (0:16:04) Kev: There you go go (0:16:09) Al: PlayStation 5 and Switch. So if you were wanting to play it, but you’re waiting for it to be on (0:16:10) Kev: There you go, I (0:16:13) Kev: I I didn’t even remember this game to be honest, but I looked up. It looks fine (0:16:13) Al: console, there you go. (0:16:21) Kev: I’d like yeah (0:16:22) Al: This is the game where you are cleaning a planet, I think, (0:16:28) Al: and you have to save plants. (0:16:28) Kev: Yeah (0:16:31) Kev: I do like that (0:16:34) Kev: I think (0:16:35) Kev: Yeah, I like that kind of terraforming or nature restoration (0:16:40) Kev: Sort of premise more than just your standard farm generally speaking. I think so that is cute. I like (0:16:48) Al: Well, this game came out almost exactly a year ago on Steam, 27th of March last year. (0:16:54) Kev: Wow. (0:16:55) Kev: Why? (0:16:56) Kev: Well, it’s not too bad if I turn around to get your ports out. (0:16:58) Al: Yeah, yeah, not bad. (0:17:01) Al: Next, we have Monster Patch. (0:17:03) Al: The Kickstarter is live and we therefore have a lot more information about Sean (0:17:08) Al: Young’s upcoming Monster Collector game. (0:17:11) Kev: Not just out of the things dang funded of course (0:17:16) Al: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. (0:17:17) Al: It’s currently sitting– (0:17:18) Al: so it’s doing pretty good, doing pretty good. (0:17:22) Kev: Yeah, that’s correct Shocker (0:17:27) Al: I have backed it. (0:17:28) Al: Have you backed it, Kevin? (0:17:29) Kev: Not yet (0:17:30) Al: Are you going to? (0:17:31) Al: Or are you going to wait till it’s out? (0:17:35) Kev: I don’t know how to think about it. Maybe not bad. What do I get for backing? Yeah, I don’t know (0:17:39) Al: A future present. This is the thing. If you think you’ll have more money in the future, (0:17:44) Kev: The future present (0:17:51) Al: don’t back the game, right? Because why would you pay for a game now when you’ll have more money in (0:17:52) Kev: You know, you know. (0:17:57) Al: the future? If you think “I won’t have more money in the future” or “I have enough money to buy it (0:18:03) Al: just now”, back it because it’s fun to get a free game later on. Yeah, there you go. (0:18:10) Al: And you don’t have to worry about it not being funded because you didn’t support it, (0:18:14) Al: because it’s already funded. Assuming 90% of people don’t pull out. Because you can, (0:18:16) Kev: yeah fair I guess (0:18:20) Kev: yeah that would yeah (0:18:21) Al: but they won’t. 2,000 people have backed it so far. Fair. (0:18:24) Kev: i’ll wait i’ll wait to see because I need I want to see more (0:18:29) Kev: about the game I guess like how is (0:18:32) Al: Well there’s another good reason to wait, as well as the Kickstarters only for a Steam key. (0:18:39) Al: He’s not promising it’ll be on Switch, and it’ll be later on. So if you want Switch, (0:18:41) Kev: but yeah yeah probably and and there’s (0:18:45) Al: don’t back it, because that’ll just be a separate thing later on. Which I’m going to guess he will (0:18:51) Al: do it, because Littlewood went to Switch, and you know, people like Switch. (0:18:58) Kev: money when people like things (0:18:59) Al: That too. That too. That too. What I find really fun about this is that he’s doing the thing where (0:19:09) Al: he’s trying to create a save file, because he has both versions of it. So it’s a fun little nod to (0:19:12) Kev: Yeah. (0:19:23) Al: how Pokemon games do that, but without actually the negatives of it. (0:19:26) Kev: yeah bless you um that yeah that like it’s kind of dumb to think about that it wasn’t (0:19:34) Al: Yeah. (0:19:35) Kev: part like but I just never even considered that we had the technology we’re here this is the future (0:19:42) Al: Here’s a secret for you. The actual, the Pokemon games are both versions as well. They just (0:19:43) Kev: but um but that is a very cool thing to do um yeah yeah (0:19:51) Al: have a config in them that says which version is and you can’t change it. Because of course (0:19:54) Kev: Yeah, I forgot about that. You’re totally right. (0:19:56) Kev: That’s super true. (0:20:01) Al: they are. Why would they actually make two different games? It’s the same game. (0:20:02) Kev: Yeah, you’re super right. (0:20:06) Kev: Good stuff. Good times. (0:20:10) Kev: But yeah, very cool, though, that he does that. (0:20:12) Kev: And you can trade with yourself. (0:20:14) Kev: You can become that one penny arcade panel. (0:20:18) Al: Yeah. (0:20:18) Al: Yeah. (0:20:23) Al: I don’t actually know if it has trees. (0:20:28) Kev: I read somewhere you could trade between your save files. (0:20:31) Al: trade Mons and interact with your other save files through trading version (0:20:36) Al: exclusive Mons items and turn decorations player will be players will (0:20:39) Al: be able to 100% their save files in either version there will also be unique (0:20:43) Al: game mechanics that utilize characters from different saves like battling your (0:20:46) Al: character from past playthroughs and that’s cool so it’s try interact with (0:20:51) Al: your other save files that yeah so that means you don’t you can just do it on (0:20:54) Al: one one device as well you don’t even have to have two devices to save which (0:20:56) Kev: Yeah, mhm (0:20:58) Al: which is probably actually simpler than trading between (0:21:02) Al: devices, right? Because he can just modify the saves on this one thing (0:21:02) Kev: Yeah, oh it probably actually is (0:21:10) Al: rather than dealing with that inter-device communication. (0:21:12) Kev: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s a very good point. Yeah, it’s shocker. It’s actually easier. (0:21:14) Al: It’s very clever. (0:21:19) Al: It’s quite cool. I like it. I’m looking forward to this. And I think I like the (0:21:25) Al: monster designs. Almost said Pokemon. The monster designs. (0:21:28) Kev: Hahaha, she’s already getting in their crosshairs we go we care (0:21:31) Al: Yeah, you play as Gary. (0:21:37) Kev: Yeah (0:21:40) Kev: You’re playing as as Gary Powell, I believe his name is (0:21:41) Al: The monster designs are fun and unique, but also feel distinct from other monster collecting games. (0:21:54) Kev: Yeah, it’s such, I say this as someone who’s fooled around with trying to design fake mods like it’s so difficult because the bar is so clear and and you know, it’s set. So, you know, how do you stand out but there’s there’s some fun ones. There’s definitely some fun ones in here. (0:22:19) Kev: I like, I like little shark guy. (0:22:22) Kev: That’s a whooper though, that’s still just a whooper. (0:22:24) Kev: I’m sorry. (laughs) (0:22:26) Al: shh. There’s also collecting and crafting and magic, which is, is, oh, I like it. Some (0:22:37) Al: people don’t, but I like collecting and crafting in games. (0:22:40) Kev: Yeah, let’s let’s see how it goes. The animations. It looks good because it’ll very much. It’s fascinating because he got the aesthetic of the, you know, the Game Boy color, Pokemon games, but the animation looks pretty dynamic and fluid and it’s nice. You can move your house and stuff around. (0:23:02) Al: Yes, yes, town building mechanics, like in Littlewood. I haven’t seen anything as to (0:23:08) Al: whether they have terraforming or not, because Littlewood did, but that feels a more complicated (0:23:15) Al: thing to do in a game where you’re like exploring and catching monsters and stuff like that. (0:23:18) Kev: Yeah. (0:23:22) Al: So maybe it won’t have terraforming, but there is at least some level of town customisation. (0:23:27) Kev: yeah the four team battles that’s a fun little thing that’s different and then (0:23:34) Al: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m looking forward to this and trying very hard not to buy the physical (0:23:36) Kev: you make carts (0:23:43) Al: edition of both versions because I don’t need it. (0:23:47) Al: I don’t need it. (0:23:48) Kev: Is that, are you sure? (0:23:50) Al: I don’t need it. (0:23:50) Kev: You don’t need it, no, but it’d be nice. (0:23:52) Al: I don’t need it. (0:23:53) Al: All right. (0:23:55) Al: I’m sure we’ll talk about this game much more in the future. (0:23:58) Al: Next we have the most pointless piece of news ever, but I’m going to talk about it anyway. (0:24:02) Al: outbound the campervan game have said that (0:24:04) Al: we’re going to have some news on the 10th of April. (0:24:06) Al: That’s it. We’re done. Great. (0:24:07) Kev: It’s it’s the teaser for two days before the trade the teaser trailer that movies do now (0:24:12) Al: It’s news about news, it’s an announcement of an announcement. (0:24:14) Kev: Yeah (0:24:17) Kev: Yeah, I’m excited. Oh (0:24:18) Al: And it’s not even before the next episode. (0:24:20) Al: We have to wait two episodes to talk about this. (0:24:22) Al: What is this nonsense? (0:24:27) Al: Anyway, will it be a release date? (0:24:30) Al: That’s my guess. (0:24:31) Kev: Probably boy be you better be something good if it’s not (0:24:38) Al: Well, so I don’t think it will actually be the release date, (0:24:40) Al: because the alpha isn’t even out yet, which is coming in April. (0:24:42) Kev: Well, I bet I meant the release date for the alpha (0:24:45) Al: That’s so anticlimactic, if it’s that. Like, I don’t care. Go away. (0:24:49) Al: Come back to me with a finished game. Come on. (0:24:54) Al: We have some release dates from the Nintendo Switch Direct. (0:24:59) Al: Fantasy Life I The Girl Who Steals Time is coming on the 21st of May. (0:25:04) Kev: I’m so excited. My brothers excited fantasy lives. There’s a lot going on here (0:25:11) Kev: Like are you familiar with the original fantasy life at all? (0:25:15) Kev: okay, um (0:25:16) Kev: so the original conception for (0:25:19) Kev: the original fantasy life was a (0:25:22) Kev: single-player (0:25:24) Kev: Non-violent MMO that was like literally the the pitch for it (0:25:30) Kev: um and it uh they didn’t go the non-violent thing in the end they ended the combat (0:25:34) Kev: classes but uh but they did keep the single-player aspect it’s a single-player (0:25:41) Kev: MMO basically with different classes and you can switch between them and you do different (0:25:45) Kev: things and yada yada it’s very gr- and very grindy sort of game like MMOs um uh but uh (0:25:54) Kev: very cute very charming by level five the professor late in the okai watch people (0:25:59) Kev: they’re very good at writing so uh very enjoyable game in my opinion um Calvin (0:26:04) Kev: my brother plays a lot too um so you know we got a lot of mileage into that um and but they’re (0:26:09) Kev: really ramping it up here because we’re going way past the the MMO skeleton um we we we got (0:26:16) Al: Yeah, this is a life seminar, basically. (0:26:18) Kev: basically because you you’re now and there were some aspects of that you could decor your house (0:26:22) Kev: but now we’re terraforming we got the animal crossing terraforming in here which is wild to me (0:26:28) Kev: um I don’t even know how that’s gonna fit in like i’m sure you can (0:26:34) Kev: terraform the whole world it’s probably just like maybe your home plot or something but uh (0:26:39) Al: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, uh, what’s it called? What was the game? Um, the Dragon (0:26:47) Al: Quest was a Dragon Quest game builders. Yeah. They, you could terraform the whole world (0:26:48) Kev: Builders yeah (0:26:51) Al: there. Couldn’t you possible. (0:26:52) Kev: Yeah, you could oh man, that’d be wild if he could (0:26:56) Kev: Maybe I it’s possible either way fantasy life sick. I’m looking forward to it. It’s coming real soon. May 21st (0:27:04) Al: The Wandering Village is coming to Switch on the 17th of July, so that’s cool. (0:27:10) Al: I still haven’t played this game. (0:27:12) Kev: Yeah, me neither (0:27:14) Kev: Will I now I don’t know maybe (0:27:18) Kev: Well idea you’re playing on a big dinosaur (0:27:21) Al: And Luz Lagoon have announced that their Switch release is coming in the summer of this year. (0:27:28) Kev: to have alloy at home over the summer now (0:27:34) Al: Yeah, so that’s all of the news about games that we already know about. (0:27:39) Al: So we’re now going to talk about new games that we didn’t know about, (0:27:43) Al: and all of these were announced in the Nintendo Direct. So here we go. (0:27:51) Kev: Let’s do this! (0:27:51) Al: Story of Seasons Grand Bazaar. This is a remake of Harvest Moon DS Grand Bazaar. (0:28:02) Al: If you don’t understand why a Harvest Moon game is now called Story of Seasons, (0:28:06) Al: I don’t have time to explain that to you just now. It is how it is, right? Harvest Moon is now Story (0:28:08) Kev: that’s that’s that long and short of it yeah (0:28:12) Al: of Seasons, and Harvest Moon is not Story of Seasons. It wouldn’t be confusing if they just (0:28:19) Al: renamed it. (0:28:21) Al: The confusing thing is that Harvest Moon still exists, that’s what’s confusing about it. (0:28:25) Kev: Yeah, yeah, and the worst part is it works, right? Like the other Harvest Moon series, (0:28:34) Kev: it’s still kicking. They’re still pumping stuff out. (0:28:38) Al: So, this is coming in August, the 27th of August, a little birthday present for me. (0:28:46) Al: I’m excited because, I mean, this is one that I never played and the graphics, I think this (0:28:53) Al: looks gorgeous. (0:28:54) Al: It looks, it’s kind of similar to “Story of Seasons - Pioneers of All the Times” graphics, (0:28:58) Al: but it’s definitely nicer, I think. (0:29:01) Al: Yeah, I like the look of it. (0:29:05) Al: I guess when you get close up to the characters, they look very much like. (0:29:08) Al: I’m not a huge fan of how close up you get in those discussions, but when you’re zoomed out and you’re seeing the world and it looks really fun, I need to figure out what the deal is with the traveling in this game, because it looks like someone has a paraglider. (0:29:28) Kev: it very much looks like the the Korok Lee from Wind Waker that you’re flying around with. (0:29:34) Al: Yeah. (0:29:36) Kev: I don’t know. There is you’ve got your cows so you know all the base is covered. We’ve got the (0:29:38) Al: Looks like there’s a good amount of character customization. (0:29:46) Kev: bazaar thing itself is an interesting mechanic right the the Moneco night market style set your (0:29:53) Kev: stuff and sell your wares. (0:29:56) Al: Yeah, we’ll see. I worry it’ll feel like I’m not on… (0:30:03) Al: Maneko, I quite enjoyed because of how fast paced and how limited it was. (0:30:08) Kev: Uh-huh. (0:30:09) Al: And I think it worked really well. (0:30:12) Al: I’m worried I wouldn’t enjoy it in this one because it feels much more frequent and slower. (0:30:16) Kev: Uh-huh. (0:30:20) Kev: That’s very possible. I understand your concern. (0:30:24) Al: Yeah, this is 100% just a paraglider. He jumps off a cliff and he’s got the paraglider. (0:30:31) Al: Fine, sounds great. Why have we not had that in other three seasons games? (0:30:36) Kev: I mean, I don’t think– has there ever been a need? (0:30:38) Al: What’s this nonsense? (0:30:42) Al: There’s always a need. Trio of Towns did a fun thing where you could jump, (0:30:46) Al: and you could jump up things. I really liked the movement in that game, and then they kind of just (0:30:52) Kev: Hmm (0:30:53) Al: just stop doing that as well. (0:30:54) Kev: That’s wild (0:30:55) Al: Yeah, I would just like, I don’t even care necessarily about it speeding things up. (0:31:01) Al: I just find it fun to be running around and jumping at the same time. (0:31:04) Kev: Yeah, you know that’s very fair. That’s very fair (0:31:05) Al: But it’s just fun to do that. (0:31:09) Al: The blurb for this. (0:31:11) Al: Searching for a peaceful farm life? (0:31:13) Al: A fresh mountain breeze and your own market stall? (0:31:16) Al: Look no further than the friendly community of Zephyr Town. (0:31:18) Al: Here you’ll grow crops and raise animals. (0:31:20) Al: Get to know the locals and sell your wares at the town’s bazaar (0:31:25) Al: to its farmer glory. (0:31:26) Al: Everything is always being restored to its farmer glory in these games. (0:31:29) Kev: always always good girl yeah basically oh that’s story of seasons like it’s it’s (0:31:32) Al: Make Zephyr Town great again. (0:31:42) Kev: you know it’s it’s the standard it’s gonna be good like standard for a reason right like (0:31:50) Al: OK, so it says use windmills to create new products to sell and effortlessly travel (0:31:57) Al: across the town on your glider. (0:31:59) Al: I have a question. Do they not understand (0:32:01) Al: how windmills work and they are implying that the windmills are creating the wind (0:32:05) Al: for you to travel with? I don’t know. (0:32:08) Al: That’s what it sounds like to me. (0:32:09) Kev: Maybe, you know, that’s how it works now. (0:32:11) Al: It feels like it’s a cause and effect (0:32:14) Al: sentence, but that doesn’t make any sense, right? (0:32:16) Al: that use the wind for both of those things but not the wind. (0:32:20) Al: I mean, Tree of Towns was a 3DS game and this was a DS game, so I guess maybe it sounds (0:32:28) Kev: Probably from what you describe. I’m gonna guess yes (0:32:34) Kev: Yeah (0:32:35) Al: like they were continuing that from this to Tree of Towns. (0:32:37) Kev: That’s what I’m thinking (0:32:40) Al: Well, I’m going to buy it, right? (0:32:44) Al: I’m not going to pretend. (0:32:47) Al: The question is, will I buy the… (0:32:56) Kev: The Deluxe Mega Collector’s Rare Edition. (0:33:06) Al: platforms, which retailer, Amazon Boo, is the only retailer, 65 pounds. (0:33:14) Kev: That doesn’t sound that bad. (0:33:15) Al: The standard is 45 pounds, so it’s 20 pounds difference for the limited edition. (0:33:22) Al: The limited edition doesn’t mention what it actually does. (0:33:25) Kev: I was about to ask but wait was that included is in cow does it include a cow plush at all because that’s (0:33:31) Kev: That’s the real money maker (0:33:32) Al: I had this in a link, and I now no longer have it in the link, and I’m really annoyed (0:33:36) Al: about that. Here we go. I’ve got it now. Fantastic. Fantastic. The limited edition copy includes (0:33:46) Al: The Game, a plush Suffolk sheep, so not a cow, but a Suffolk sheep, a poster, a physical (0:33:54) Kev: No, that’s alright. (0:33:57) Al: art book with over 115 pages of cosy art. Why is the art cosy? I don’t know. (0:34:02) Kev: That’s a lot of art. That’s a pretty decent sized art book. (0:34:02) Al: And an original soundtrack CD. The digital deluxe version includes the trunk of transformation (0:34:07) Kev: Not bad overall. (0:34:14) Al: DLC, and the super deluxe digital edition includes a digital art book and soundtrack (0:34:19) Al: app in addition to the items from the deluxe version. And that is the same cost as the (0:34:25) Al: physical limited edition. Will the physical limited edition not come with the DLC? That (0:34:31) Al: That feels weird. (0:34:32) Kev: that’d be wild nope you don’t know nothing (0:34:33) Al: We don’t know anything about that DLC. (0:34:38) Al: Well, I guess we’ll find out in time. (0:34:41) Kev: yeah all right the plush questions answer that’s all I needed though i’m probably not gonna get (0:34:47) Kev: it right it’s like oh yeah or I mean the physical whatever edition will I get the game so yeah maybe (0:34:48) Al: Fair, fair, fair, fair, maybe, maybe. (0:34:55) Kev: I do enjoy story of seasons (0:34:58) Al: Next we have Witchbrooke. (0:35:01) Al: Discover magic and mystery in Witchbrooke, a spellbinding witch life sim (0:35:04) Al: for up to four players. (0:35:06) Al: Start your life as the newest resident of witch in the bustling seaside (0:35:11) Al: city of Mossport. (0:35:12) Al: Make friends, find love and discover a world filled with wonder and charm on (0:35:16) Al: the road to graduation and beyond. (0:35:19) Al: Look, you can, it’s a 2D witch game where you can write a broom. (0:35:22) Al: That’s, do I need to tell you anymore? (0:35:22) Kev: I was about to say finally Cozy Games and Witchcraft at long last! (0:35:29) Al: I don’t really care about the witchcraft part of it. (0:35:31) Al: What I care about is the broom. (0:35:33) Al: I’ve, if I can write a broom in your game, I’m probably going to buy it. (0:35:36) Al: I want to be able to fly. (0:35:39) Al: Just let me fly. (0:35:40) Kev: yeah that’s a pretty good one um I like the graphics they’re going for a (0:35:47) Kev: 2d isometric like pixel gba ds era graphic style I like it um uh well I play it I don’t know (0:35:58) Kev: because I got a slot but but it looks well done very true very (0:36:01) Al: Will I buy it? Probably. Will I play it? (0:36:03) Al: We’ll see. Those are two different questions. (0:36:10) Kev: true um (0:36:12) Al: um yeah no I i I i i’m I think it’s I think it looks great and is getting a lot of buzz online (0:36:17) Kev: yeah no it looks it has all your your staples and all the all the good stuff you want your marriage (0:36:24) Kev: and your your relationships and crafting and things (0:36:30) Al: Apparently, this game was first announced seven years ago, and then they’ve never said anything about it ever again. (0:36:36) Kev: That’s wild I didn’t know that that’s wild (0:36:40) Al: Someone in the YouTube comments says, “7 years of radio silence for it (0:36:44) Al: finally to surface on a Nintendo Direct.” (0:36:48) Kev: and is a silk song of an earlier generation. Yeah, Jack. (0:36:54) Al: Yeah, I really like, I really like the graphics. (0:36:59) Al: Tomodachi Life, not Tamagotchi Life, Tomodachi Life. (0:37:03) Kev: That’s that’s another one (0:37:08) Al: I googled, I started googling Tamagotchi Plaza, which is the the other game we’re about. (0:37:14) Kev: Yeah, and you discovered a whole list of new episodes, let’s talk about that vape sometime. (0:37:16) Al: Hey Google, shut up. (0:37:20) Al: And I, yeah, one of them was Tamagotchi life. (0:37:24) Al: Someone just doesn’t know how to spell Tamagotchi, right? (0:37:27) Al: They heard it and thought it was Tamagotchi life, or just confusing the games. (0:37:33) Al: Anyway. (0:37:34) Al: Tamagotchi life. (0:37:35) Al: No. (0:37:36) Al: Yes, that’s what we’re talking about just now. (0:37:37) Al: Tamagotchi life. (0:37:38) Al: I got confused myself, because I wasn’t sure which one we were talking about. (0:37:42) Al: After over 10 years, Tamagotchi life is back and coming to Nintendo Switch. (0:37:46) Al: So this is like me, Animal Crossing, right? (0:37:50) Kev: of sorts gets a bit more wild than that it’s more like somewhere between Animal (0:37:58) Kev: Crossing and the Sims I would say that’s it’s closer to the sims I think even (0:38:04) Kev: because you don’t actually control a character you’re just watching the the (0:38:10) Kev: drama that ensues when you put all your friends and me’s and oh you not play (0:38:12) Al: Oh, you’re not actually controlling any of these characters. (0:38:17) Kev: Like Tomodachi? (0:38:18) Al: I have not, no, no. (0:38:18) Kev: Life or familiar? (0:38:20) Kev: Okay, yes, no, no you are not controlling the characters or okay to be fair. I’m not played myself (0:38:24) Al: Not directly controlling them. (0:38:26) Kev: Yeah, not directly controlling them (0:38:26) Al: You mean like in the Sims, you like can tell them what. (0:38:30) Kev: Okay, yes, um I to be fair (0:38:32) Kev: I’m not played myself, but I’ve watched my sister and Sami familiar with the the thing and it’s more or less (0:38:37) Kev: Yes, just you have a whole bunch of me’s you’re letting them into (0:38:41) Kev: You letting them loose into the house and watching all the hijinks that ensues as they do things as they if all in love (0:38:50) Kev: Become friends throw (0:38:53) Kev: Sports balls at each other. I don’t know (0:38:56) Kev: It’s a zany game and this one’s turning up the zany up to 11. We got we got giant people (0:39:03) Al: Yes, that was very funny at the end. It’s just like the person running towards the camera and (0:39:08) Al: then they just get bigger and bigger and bigger. You’re like “oh my word, what’s happening here?” (0:39:09) Kev: Bigger, yeah (0:39:14) Al: I legitimately thought this was just like Animal Crossing. I’m now watching a gameplay video (0:39:17) Kev: No, no, no (0:39:20) Al: of Tamadachi Life from the 3DS and I have no idea what’s happening. (0:39:23) Kev: Yeah, that’s that sounds correct. I don’t think you you’re even if you were (0:39:28) Al: Is any of this gameplay or is this just like a film? Are we just watching a really weird (0:39:33) Kev: a little bit maybe a little bit, but it’s (0:39:33) Al: film? Is this like The Sims Cross with WarioWare? Because it feels like some of it’s like minigames. (0:39:40) Kev: Maybe a little bit (0:39:44) Kev: And it’s a little bit some stuff will pop up you never know in the Tomodachi, huh? (0:39:48) Al: What is happening in this game? A pretzel appeared. What will Big Bad Pig do? What is this? (0:39:56) Al: I’m so confused. Yes, now I need to buy this game. (0:39:59) Kev: Well, aren’t you curious that’s (0:40:03) Al: Anyway, it’s coming next year. This is like an actual Nintendo game though, right? This isn’t (0:40:03) Kev: See you got to know what happens with the pretzel (0:40:09) Kev: You (0:40:11) Al: like third party. Nintendo make this. It’s coming in 2026. People are excited. I’m confused. (0:40:11) Kev: Yeah, it is (0:40:14) Kev: Stage on smash (0:40:25) Al: I clearly completely misunderstood what this game was and I am so confused. Okay, look. (0:40:33) Al: We’ll talk about it I’m sure. Why are these characters throwing items at each other? (0:40:35) Kev: ha ha ha ha oh i’m excited oh why why not they might be playing games they might be if you (0:40:44) Kev: think it’s unsure you have to play the game to get your answers it’s the only way to know could be a (0:40:50) Kev: talent competition possibilities are endless yeah toma means friend I think in japanese i’ve heard (0:40:52) Al: Tomodachi means “friends” and Dachi is plural, so it’s “friends”. (0:41:02) Kev: yeah okay that’s fruit so yeah (0:41:06) Kev: put you all your oh man you know what this means we can put all the I other ths hosts (0:41:13) Kev: into one tamodachi life house and watch the drama that will unfold (0:41:18) Al: Oh so you like actually get your “me’s” from other people. (0:41:21) Kev: you can yeah or yeah or I i mean I don’t know how (0:41:22) Al: Oh my word. (0:41:24) Al: “The game follows the day-to-day interactions of “me” characters,” referred to as the Islanders. (0:41:29) Al: “They build relationships, solve problems, and interact with the player.” (0:41:32) Kev: The possibilities are endless. (0:41:34) Al: Oh goodness sake, I hate that I have to buy this game now. (0:41:39) Al: It looks like it’s very tied into StreetPass, so how are they going to replace that? (0:41:44) Kev: I don’t know. That is the big question because obviously, I guess so. I guess so because obviously, (0:41:46) Al: Just internet connection. (0:41:48) Al: And I guess, like, you can connect and share your Miis that way. (0:41:54) Kev: yeah, the 3DS was a lot more suited for me stuff and that sort of connectivity. I don’t know how (0:42:02) Kev: they’re gonna handle it, but we gotta stay tuned. Just wait. We’ll find out. Somebody will do the (0:42:10) Kev: the day again by which I may meet somebody who’ll play. (0:42:14) Al: All right last but not least in the games we have Tamagotchi Plaza not to be confused with (0:42:20) Al: Tamagotchi Life. The fact that they announced both these games on in the same direct is just so mean. (0:42:20) Kev: Yeah, no, it’s great, it’s what I want. (0:42:32) Al: Although I feel like we knew about Tamagotchi Plaza and see I’m doing it again Tamagotchi Plaza. (0:42:34) Kev: Probably, maybe, I don’t know. (0:42:38) Al: I think we knew that this game existed I feel like but not a lot about it. (0:42:44) Al: Let me check. Oh no maybe not no the internet does seem to think it was this was the first (0:42:49) Al: announcement of it. It’s another shop simulator game but with Tamagotchi characters. (0:42:57) Kev: Yeah, that’s all I need. (0:43:00) Kev: I’ve never had a Tamagotchi in my life. (0:43:04) Kev: There’s some dope ones out there. (0:43:07) Kev: The Digimon crossover ones are good. (0:43:07) Al: I yeah yeah I love I love Tamagotchis as well not actually using them but I (0:43:13) Al: like I used to use them as a child but now I just collect some um I have a Pac-Man one (0:43:19) Al: and I have a Gugitama one um (0:43:20) Kev: Ooh, where’s this updated shadow labyrinth? (0:43:26) Al: um but I don’t I don’t think I want to play another shop game (0:43:30) Al: do you have to do the shop but I think so it seems like it’s pretty core (0:43:32) Kev: You do you must (0:43:37) Al: in June 27th of June for the first time in the series an offline two-player mode is now available (0:43:39) Kev: Be excited (0:43:43) Kev: No, why did it know there were other times in the series, okay? Oh (0:43:43) Al: collaborate or compete with other (0:43:49) Al: yes it’s the newest in the Tamagotchi corner shop series (0:43:53) Kev: Okay shows me what I know how much apparently (0:43:58) Al: over a hundred Tamagotchi in total. (0:44:00) Kev: I (0:44:03) Kev: Okay, good. I didn’t I didn’t even consider the number would be an issue, but all right. I just thought it was just like (0:44:08) Al: Well it’s not, because there’s a hundred of them, it’s not an issue. Yeah I don’t think (0:44:13) Al: I’m gonna play this game but I’m excited for those who are excited by it. Oh you can be (0:44:13) Kev: I’m not I (0:44:16) Kev: Mean I I heard Mike gets cheers of joy in the distance is watching the direct. So, you know, oh (0:44:23) Al: a dentist. You can run an afternoon tea shop. Okay so this is when they say shop simulator, (0:44:25) Kev: Hold a hold the phone now or talk (0:44:31) Kev: Oh, that’s cute. (0:44:34) Kev: I thought… (0:44:35) Al: This is just a bunch of minigames. (0:44:37) Kev: Okay, yeah, yeah, you’re… (0:44:38) Al: You’re not actually have to get the stuff and stock the shop. (0:44:41) Al: You just go and like run the shop. (0:44:41) Kev: It’s not Grand… (0:44:43) Kev: It’s not… (0:44:44) Kev: It’s not Tamagotchi Grand Bazaar. (0:44:46) Kev: You can… (0:44:46) Al: Well, now I’m interested. (0:44:47) Kev: Live your dreams. (0:44:49) Al: Make the tone vibrant and full of life. (0:44:51) Kev: Restore it to its former glory! (0:44:54) Kev: Now we’re talking! (0:44:58) Al: Probably still not going to play it, but. (0:45:00) Kev: I probably will not either. (0:45:01) Al: More more interested in it now than I. (0:45:03) Kev: Unless they get those crossovers like the Godzilla and the Digimians. (0:45:06) Al: Look, look. (0:45:08) Al: Luke, Luke, Luke. If Gudetama’s in it, then yes. I will play it. (0:45:11) Kev: Nah, see, that’s what I’m talking about. (0:45:15) Al: We need our Sanrio characters. Oh wait, that’s just… (0:45:16) Kev: Dope. (0:45:17) Kev: Yeah. (0:45:20) Kev: Panda to our brand. (0:45:21) Al: That’s just Hello Kitty Island adventure then. (0:45:27) Al: Oh goodness, we’re nearly there. We’re nearly done with the news (0:45:31) Al: and the episode, but we have one more thing to talk about. (0:45:35) Al: Kevin. Nexus Mods. (0:45:38) Al: A website for mods for games. (0:45:42) Kev: They are unleashing the dogs of war. (0:45:44) Al: They have and they’ve finally announced their open source cross-platform Nexus Mods app, (0:45:51) Al: which includes support for Stardew Valley. Now this is exciting because this is a very easy way (0:45:59) Al: to add mods to games compared to how you previously had to add mods to games. It is (0:46:06) Al: is an app that shows you (0:46:08) Al: what games you can add mods to, and it allows you to search for mods and add them with (0:46:12) Al: the click of a button, which is excellent. Do you know what’s even more excellent about (0:46:15) Kev: Yeah, what is tell me (0:46:16) Al: it? It has support for Linux, including the Steam Deck, which has been even harder to (0:46:21) Kev: Oh (0:46:23) Al: do mods on because they didn’t really have any apps to help with the process before now. (0:46:28) Kev: Oh, that is exciting. (0:46:30) Al: So there you go. That’s exciting. So it has support for Stardew Valley as of now, which (0:46:38) Al: listeners of this podcast will be interested in that. They’re also working on support for (0:46:43) Al: Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Mount & Blade 2 Bannerlord. I’ve never heard of that game. (0:46:50) Kev: Okay, I don’t know what those are (0:46:52) Kev: Where’s the harvest season host as the start of NPC mod? Where’s that mod? (0:46:58) Al: Well, someone just needs to make the mod then. Nexus mods don’t actually make the mods, t

If you're in SF: Join us for the Claude Plays Pokemon hackathon this Sunday!If you're not: Fill out the 2025 State of AI Eng survey for $250 in Amazon cards!We are SO excited to share our conversation with Dharmesh Shah, co-founder of HubSpot and creator of Agent.ai.A particularly compelling concept we discussed is the idea of "hybrid teams" - the next evolution in workplace organization where human workers collaborate with AI agents as team members. Just as we previously saw hybrid teams emerge in terms of full-time vs. contract workers, or in-office vs. remote workers, Dharmesh predicts that the next frontier will be teams composed of both human and AI members. This raises interesting questions about team dynamics, trust, and how to effectively delegate tasks between human and AI team members.The discussion of business models in AI reveals an important distinction between Work as a Service (WaaS) and Results as a Service (RaaS), something Dharmesh has written extensively about. While RaaS has gained popularity, particularly in customer support applications where outcomes are easily measurable, Dharmesh argues that this model may be over-indexed. Not all AI applications have clearly definable outcomes or consistent economic value per transaction, making WaaS more appropriate in many cases. This insight is particularly relevant for businesses considering how to monetize AI capabilities.The technical challenges of implementing effective agent systems are also explored, particularly around memory and authentication. Shah emphasizes the importance of cross-agent memory sharing and the need for more granular control over data access. He envisions a future where users can selectively share parts of their data with different agents, similar to how OAuth works but with much finer control. This points to significant opportunities in developing infrastructure for secure and efficient agent-to-agent communication and data sharing.Other highlights from our conversation* The Evolution of AI-Powered Agents – Exploring how AI agents have evolved from simple chatbots to sophisticated multi-agent systems, and the role of MCPs in enabling that.* Hybrid Digital Teams and the Future of Work – How AI agents are becoming teammates rather than just tools, and what this means for business operations and knowledge work.* Memory in AI Agents – The importance of persistent memory in AI systems and how shared memory across agents could enhance collaboration and efficiency.* Business Models for AI Agents – Exploring the shift from software as a service (SaaS) to work as a service (WaaS) and results as a service (RaaS), and what this means for monetization.* The Role of Standards Like MCP – Why MCP has been widely adopted and how it enables agent collaboration, tool use, and discovery.* The Future of AI Code Generation and Software Engineering – How AI-assisted coding is changing the role of software engineers and what skills will matter most in the future.* Domain Investing and Efficient Markets – Dharmesh's approach to domain investing and how inefficiencies in digital asset markets create business opportunities.* The Philosophy of Saying No – Lessons from "Sorry, You Must Pass" and how prioritization leads to greater productivity and focus.Timestamps* 00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome* 02:29 Dharmesh Shah's Journey into AI* 05:22 Defining AI Agents* 06:45 The Evolution and Future of AI Agents* 13:53 Graph Theory and Knowledge Representation* 20:02 Engineering Practices and Overengineering* 25:57 The Role of Junior Engineers in the AI Era* 28:20 Multi-Agent Systems and MCP Standards* 35:55 LinkedIn's Legal Battles and Data Scraping* 37:32 The Future of AI and Hybrid Teams* 39:19 Building Agent AI: A Professional Network for Agents* 40:43 Challenges and Innovations in Agent AI* 45:02 The Evolution of UI in AI Systems* 01:00:25 Business Models: Work as a Service vs. Results as a Service* 01:09:17 The Future Value of Engineers* 01:09:51 Exploring the Role of Agents* 01:10:28 The Importance of Memory in AI* 01:11:02 Challenges and Opportunities in AI Memory* 01:12:41 Selective Memory and Privacy Concerns* 01:13:27 The Evolution of AI Tools and Platforms* 01:18:23 Domain Names and AI Projects* 01:32:08 Balancing Work and Personal Life* 01:35:52 Final Thoughts and ReflectionsTranscriptAlessio [00:00:04]: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Latent Space podcast. This is Alessio, partner and CTO at Decibel Partners, and I'm joined by my co-host Swyx, founder of Small AI.swyx [00:00:12]: Hello, and today we're super excited to have Dharmesh Shah to join us. I guess your relevant title here is founder of Agent AI.Dharmesh [00:00:20]: Yeah, that's true for this. Yeah, creator of Agent.ai and co-founder of HubSpot.swyx [00:00:25]: Co-founder of HubSpot, which I followed for many years, I think 18 years now, gonna be 19 soon. And you caught, you know, people can catch up on your HubSpot story elsewhere. I should also thank Sean Puri, who I've chatted with back and forth, who's been, I guess, getting me in touch with your people. But also, I think like, just giving us a lot of context, because obviously, My First Million joined you guys, and they've been chatting with you guys a lot. So for the business side, we can talk about that, but I kind of wanted to engage your CTO, agent, engineer side of things. So how did you get agent religion?Dharmesh [00:01:00]: Let's see. So I've been working, I'll take like a half step back, a decade or so ago, even though actually more than that. So even before HubSpot, the company I was contemplating that I had named for was called Ingenisoft. And the idea behind Ingenisoft was a natural language interface to business software. Now realize this is 20 years ago, so that was a hard thing to do. But the actual use case that I had in mind was, you know, we had data sitting in business systems like a CRM or something like that. And my kind of what I thought clever at the time. Oh, what if we used email as the kind of interface to get to business software? And the motivation for using email is that it automatically works when you're offline. So imagine I'm getting on a plane or I'm on a plane. There was no internet on planes back then. It's like, oh, I'm going through business cards from an event I went to. I can just type things into an email just to have them all in the backlog. When it reconnects, it sends those emails to a processor that basically kind of parses effectively the commands and updates the software, sends you the file, whatever it is. And there was a handful of commands. I was a little bit ahead of the times in terms of what was actually possible. And I reattempted this natural language thing with a product called ChatSpot that I did back 20...swyx [00:02:12]: Yeah, this is your first post-ChatGPT project.Dharmesh [00:02:14]: I saw it come out. Yeah. And so I've always been kind of fascinated by this natural language interface to software. Because, you know, as software developers, myself included, we've always said, oh, we build intuitive, easy-to-use applications. And it's not intuitive at all, right? Because what we're doing is... We're taking the mental model that's in our head of what we're trying to accomplish with said piece of software and translating that into a series of touches and swipes and clicks and things like that. And there's nothing natural or intuitive about it. And so natural language interfaces, for the first time, you know, whatever the thought is you have in your head and expressed in whatever language that you normally use to talk to yourself in your head, you can just sort of emit that and have software do something. And I thought that was kind of a breakthrough, which it has been. And it's gone. So that's where I first started getting into the journey. I started because now it actually works, right? So once we got ChatGPT and you can take, even with a few-shot example, convert something into structured, even back in the ChatGP 3.5 days, it did a decent job in a few-shot example, convert something to structured text if you knew what kinds of intents you were going to have. And so that happened. And that ultimately became a HubSpot project. But then agents intrigued me because I'm like, okay, well, that's the next step here. So chat's great. Love Chat UX. But if we want to do something even more meaningful, it felt like the next kind of advancement is not this kind of, I'm chatting with some software in a kind of a synchronous back and forth model, is that software is going to do things for me in kind of a multi-step way to try and accomplish some goals. So, yeah, that's when I first got started. It's like, okay, what would that look like? Yeah. And I've been obsessed ever since, by the way.Alessio [00:03:55]: Which goes back to your first experience with it, which is like you're offline. Yeah. And you want to do a task. You don't need to do it right now. You just want to queue it up for somebody to do it for you. Yes. As you think about agents, like, let's start at the easy question, which is like, how do you define an agent? Maybe. You mean the hardest question in the universe? Is that what you mean?Dharmesh [00:04:12]: You said you have an irritating take. I do have an irritating take. I think, well, some number of people have been irritated, including within my own team. So I have a very broad definition for agents, which is it's AI-powered software that accomplishes a goal. Period. That's it. And what irritates people about it is like, well, that's so broad as to be completely non-useful. And I understand that. I understand the criticism. But in my mind, if you kind of fast forward months, I guess, in AI years, the implementation of it, and we're already starting to see this, and we'll talk about this, different kinds of agents, right? So I think in addition to having a usable definition, and I like yours, by the way, and we should talk more about that, that you just came out with, the classification of agents actually is also useful, which is, is it autonomous or non-autonomous? Does it have a deterministic workflow? Does it have a non-deterministic workflow? Is it working synchronously? Is it working asynchronously? Then you have the different kind of interaction modes. Is it a chat agent, kind of like a customer support agent would be? You're having this kind of back and forth. Is it a workflow agent that just does a discrete number of steps? So there's all these different flavors of agents. So if I were to draw it in a Venn diagram, I would draw a big circle that says, this is agents, and then I have a bunch of circles, some overlapping, because they're not mutually exclusive. And so I think that's what's interesting, and we're seeing development along a bunch of different paths, right? So if you look at the first implementation of agent frameworks, you look at Baby AGI and AutoGBT, I think it was, not Autogen, that's the Microsoft one. They were way ahead of their time because they assumed this level of reasoning and execution and planning capability that just did not exist, right? So it was an interesting thought experiment, which is what it was. Even the guy that, I'm an investor in Yohei's fund that did Baby AGI. It wasn't ready, but it was a sign of what was to come. And so the question then is, when is it ready? And so lots of people talk about the state of the art when it comes to agents. I'm a pragmatist, so I think of the state of the practical. It's like, okay, well, what can I actually build that has commercial value or solves actually some discrete problem with some baseline of repeatability or verifiability?swyx [00:06:22]: There was a lot, and very, very interesting. I'm not irritated by it at all. Okay. As you know, I take a... There's a lot of anthropological view or linguistics view. And in linguistics, you don't want to be prescriptive. You want to be descriptive. Yeah. So you're a goals guy. That's the key word in your thing. And other people have other definitions that might involve like delegated trust or non-deterministic work, LLM in the loop, all that stuff. The other thing I was thinking about, just the comment on Baby AGI, LGBT. Yeah. In that piece that you just read, I was able to go through our backlog and just kind of track the winter of agents and then the summer now. Yeah. And it's... We can tell the whole story as an oral history, just following that thread. And it's really just like, I think, I tried to explain the why now, right? Like I had, there's better models, of course. There's better tool use with like, they're just more reliable. Yep. Better tools with MCP and all that stuff. And I'm sure you have opinions on that too. Business model shift, which you like a lot. I just heard you talk about RAS with MFM guys. Yep. Cost is dropping a lot. Yep. Inference is getting faster. There's more model diversity. Yep. Yep. I think it's a subtle point. It means that like, you have different models with different perspectives. You don't get stuck in the basin of performance of a single model. Sure. You can just get out of it by just switching models. Yep. Multi-agent research and RL fine tuning. So I just wanted to let you respond to like any of that.Dharmesh [00:07:44]: Yeah. A couple of things. Connecting the dots on the kind of the definition side of it. So we'll get the irritation out of the way completely. I have one more, even more irritating leap on the agent definition thing. So here's the way I think about it. By the way, the kind of word agent, I looked it up, like the English dictionary definition. The old school agent, yeah. Is when you have someone or something that does something on your behalf, like a travel agent or a real estate agent acts on your behalf. It's like proxy, which is a nice kind of general definition. So the other direction I'm sort of headed, and it's going to tie back to tool calling and MCP and things like that, is if you, and I'm not a biologist by any stretch of the imagination, but we have these single-celled organisms, right? Like the simplest possible form of what one would call life. But it's still life. It just happens to be single-celled. And then you can combine cells and then cells become specialized over time. And you have much more sophisticated organisms, you know, kind of further down the spectrum. In my mind, at the most fundamental level, you can almost think of having atomic agents. What is the simplest possible thing that's an agent that can still be called an agent? What is the equivalent of a kind of single-celled organism? And the reason I think that's useful is right now we're headed down the road, which I think is very exciting around tool use, right? That says, okay, the LLMs now can be provided a set of tools that it calls to accomplish whatever it needs to accomplish in the kind of furtherance of whatever goal it's trying to get done. And I'm not overly bothered by it, but if you think about it, if you just squint a little bit and say, well, what if everything was an agent? And what if tools were actually just atomic agents? Because then it's turtles all the way down, right? Then it's like, oh, well, all that's really happening with tool use is that we have a network of agents that know about each other through something like an MMCP and can kind of decompose a particular problem and say, oh, I'm going to delegate this to this set of agents. And why do we need to draw this distinction between tools, which are functions most of the time? And an actual agent. And so I'm going to write this irritating LinkedIn post, you know, proposing this. It's like, okay. And I'm not suggesting we should call even functions, you know, call them agents. But there is a certain amount of elegance that happens when you say, oh, we can just reduce it down to one primitive, which is an agent that you can combine in complicated ways to kind of raise the level of abstraction and accomplish higher order goals. Anyway, that's my answer. I'd say that's a success. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk on agent definitions.Alessio [00:09:54]: How do you define the minimum viable agent? Do you already have a definition for, like, where you draw the line between a cell and an atom? Yeah.Dharmesh [00:10:02]: So in my mind, it has to, at some level, use AI in order for it to—otherwise, it's just software. It's like, you know, we don't need another word for that. And so that's probably where I draw the line. So then the question, you know, the counterargument would be, well, if that's true, then lots of tools themselves are actually not agents because they're just doing a database call or a REST API call or whatever it is they're doing. And that does not necessarily qualify them, which is a fair counterargument. And I accept that. It's like a good argument. I still like to think about—because we'll talk about multi-agent systems, because I think—so we've accepted, which I think is true, lots of people have said it, and you've hopefully combined some of those clips of really smart people saying this is the year of agents, and I completely agree, it is the year of agents. But then shortly after that, it's going to be the year of multi-agent systems or multi-agent networks. I think that's where it's going to be headed next year. Yeah.swyx [00:10:54]: Opening eyes already on that. Yeah. My quick philosophical engagement with you on this. I often think about kind of the other spectrum, the other end of the cell spectrum. So single cell is life, multi-cell is life, and you clump a bunch of cells together in a more complex organism, they become organs, like an eye and a liver or whatever. And then obviously we consider ourselves one life form. There's not like a lot of lives within me. I'm just one life. And now, obviously, I don't think people don't really like to anthropomorphize agents and AI. Yeah. But we are extending our consciousness and our brain and our functionality out into machines. I just saw you were a Bee. Yeah. Which is, you know, it's nice. I have a limitless pendant in my pocket.Dharmesh [00:11:37]: I got one of these boys. Yeah.swyx [00:11:39]: I'm testing it all out. You know, got to be early adopters. But like, we want to extend our personal memory into these things so that we can be good at the things that we're good at. And, you know, machines are good at it. Machines are there. So like, my definition of life is kind of like going outside of my own body now. I don't know if you've ever had like reflections on that. Like how yours. How our self is like actually being distributed outside of you. Yeah.Dharmesh [00:12:01]: I don't fancy myself a philosopher. But you went there. So yeah, I did go there. I'm fascinated by kind of graphs and graph theory and networks and have been for a long, long time. And to me, we're sort of all nodes in this kind of larger thing. It just so happens that we're looking at individual kind of life forms as they exist right now. But so the idea is when you put a podcast out there, there's these little kind of nodes you're putting out there of like, you know, conceptual ideas. Once again, you have varying kind of forms of those little nodes that are up there and are connected in varying and sundry ways. And so I just think of myself as being a node in a massive, massive network. And I'm producing more nodes as I put content or ideas. And, you know, you spend some portion of your life collecting dots, experiences, people, and some portion of your life then connecting dots from the ones that you've collected over time. And I found that really interesting things happen and you really can't know in advance how those dots are necessarily going to connect in the future. And that's, yeah. So that's my philosophical take. That's the, yes, exactly. Coming back.Alessio [00:13:04]: Yep. Do you like graph as an agent? Abstraction? That's been one of the hot topics with LandGraph and Pydantic and all that.Dharmesh [00:13:11]: I do. The thing I'm more interested in terms of use of graphs, and there's lots of work happening on that now, is graph data stores as an alternative in terms of knowledge stores and knowledge graphs. Yeah. Because, you know, so I've been in software now 30 plus years, right? So it's not 10,000 hours. It's like 100,000 hours that I've spent doing this stuff. And so I've grew up with, so back in the day, you know, I started on mainframes. There was a product called IMS from IBM, which is basically an index database, what we'd call like a key value store today. Then we've had relational databases, right? We have tables and columns and foreign key relationships. We all know that. We have document databases like MongoDB, which is sort of a nested structure keyed by a specific index. We have vector stores, vector embedding database. And graphs are interesting for a couple of reasons. One is, so it's not classically structured in a relational way. When you say structured database, to most people, they're thinking tables and columns and in relational database and set theory and all that. Graphs still have structure, but it's not the tables and columns structure. And you could wonder, and people have made this case, that they are a better representation of knowledge for LLMs and for AI generally than other things. So that's kind of thing number one conceptually, and that might be true, I think is possibly true. And the other thing that I really like about that in the context of, you know, I've been in the context of data stores for RAG is, you know, RAG, you say, oh, I have a million documents, I'm going to build the vector embeddings, I'm going to come back with the top X based on the semantic match, and that's fine. All that's very, very useful. But the reality is something gets lost in the chunking process and the, okay, well, those tend, you know, like, you don't really get the whole picture, so to speak, and maybe not even the right set of dimensions on the kind of broader picture. And it makes intuitive sense to me that if we did capture it properly in a graph form, that maybe that feeding into a RAG pipeline will actually yield better results for some use cases, I don't know, but yeah.Alessio [00:15:03]: And do you feel like at the core of it, there's this difference between imperative and declarative programs? Because if you think about HubSpot, it's like, you know, people and graph kind of goes hand in hand, you know, but I think maybe the software before was more like primary foreign key based relationship, versus now the models can traverse through the graph more easily.Dharmesh [00:15:22]: Yes. So I like that representation. There's something. It's just conceptually elegant about graphs and just from the representation of it, they're much more discoverable, you can kind of see it, there's observability to it, versus kind of embeddings, which you can't really do much with as a human. You know, once they're in there, you can't pull stuff back out. But yeah, I like that kind of idea of it. And the other thing that's kind of, because I love graphs, I've been long obsessed with PageRank from back in the early days. And, you know, one of the kind of simplest algorithms in terms of coming up, you know, with a phone, everyone's been exposed to PageRank. And the idea is that, and so I had this other idea for a project, not a company, and I have hundreds of these, called NodeRank, is to be able to take the idea of PageRank and apply it to an arbitrary graph that says, okay, I'm going to define what authority looks like and say, okay, well, that's interesting to me, because then if you say, I'm going to take my knowledge store, and maybe this person that contributed some number of chunks to the graph data store has more authority on this particular use case or prompt that's being submitted than this other one that may, or maybe this one was more. popular, or maybe this one has, whatever it is, there should be a way for us to kind of rank nodes in a graph and sort them in some, some useful way. Yeah.swyx [00:16:34]: So I think that's generally useful for, for anything. I think the, the problem, like, so even though at my conferences, GraphRag is super popular and people are getting knowledge, graph religion, and I will say like, it's getting space, getting traction in two areas, conversation memory, and then also just rag in general, like the, the, the document data. Yeah. It's like a source. Most ML practitioners would say that knowledge graph is kind of like a dirty word. The graph database, people get graph religion, everything's a graph, and then they, they go really hard into it and then they get a, they get a graph that is too complex to navigate. Yes. And so like the, the, the simple way to put it is like you at running HubSpot, you know, the power of graphs, the way that Google has pitched them for many years, but I don't suspect that HubSpot itself uses a knowledge graph. No. Yeah.Dharmesh [00:17:26]: So when is it over engineering? Basically? It's a great question. I don't know. So the question now, like in AI land, right, is the, do we necessarily need to understand? So right now, LLMs for, for the most part are somewhat black boxes, right? We sort of understand how the, you know, the algorithm itself works, but we really don't know what's going on in there and, and how things come out. So if a graph data store is able to produce the outcomes we want, it's like, here's a set of queries I want to be able to submit and then it comes out with useful content. Maybe the underlying data store is as opaque as a vector embeddings or something like that, but maybe it's fine. Maybe we don't necessarily need to understand it to get utility out of it. And so maybe if it's messy, that's okay. Um, that's, it's just another form of lossy compression. Uh, it's just lossy in a way that we just don't completely understand in terms of, because it's going to grow organically. Uh, and it's not structured. It's like, ah, we're just gonna throw a bunch of stuff in there. Let the, the equivalent of the embedding algorithm, whatever they called in graph land. Um, so the one with the best results wins. I think so. Yeah.swyx [00:18:26]: Or is this the practical side of me is like, yeah, it's, if it's useful, we don't necessarilyDharmesh [00:18:30]: need to understand it.swyx [00:18:30]: I have, I mean, I'm happy to push back as long as you want. Uh, it's not practical to evaluate like the 10 different options out there because it takes time. It takes people, it takes, you know, resources, right? Set. That's the first thing. Second thing is your evals are typically on small things and some things only work at scale. Yup. Like graphs. Yup.Dharmesh [00:18:46]: Yup. That's, yeah, no, that's fair. And I think this is one of the challenges in terms of implementation of graph databases is that the most common approach that I've seen developers do, I've done it myself, is that, oh, I've got a Postgres database or a MySQL or whatever. I can represent a graph with a very set of tables with a parent child thing or whatever. And that sort of gives me the ability, uh, why would I need anything more than that? And the answer is, well, if you don't need anything more than that, you don't need anything more than that. But there's a high chance that you're sort of missing out on the actual value that, uh, the graph representation gives you. Which is the ability to traverse the graph, uh, efficiently in ways that kind of going through the, uh, traversal in a relational database form, even though structurally you have the data, practically you're not gonna be able to pull it out in, in useful ways. Uh, so you wouldn't like represent a social graph, uh, in, in using that kind of relational table model. It just wouldn't scale. It wouldn't work.swyx [00:19:36]: Uh, yeah. Uh, I think we want to move on to MCP. Yeah. But I just want to, like, just engineering advice. Yeah. Uh, obviously you've, you've, you've run, uh, you've, you've had to do a lot of projects and run a lot of teams. Do you have a general rule for over-engineering or, you know, engineering ahead of time? You know, like, because people, we know premature engineering is the root of all evil. Yep. But also sometimes you just have to. Yep. When do you do it? Yes.Dharmesh [00:19:59]: It's a great question. This is, uh, a question as old as time almost, which is what's the right and wrong levels of abstraction. That's effectively what, uh, we're answering when we're trying to do engineering. I tend to be a pragmatist, right? So here's the thing. Um, lots of times doing something the right way. Yeah. It's like a marginal increased cost in those cases. Just do it the right way. And this is what makes a, uh, a great engineer or a good engineer better than, uh, a not so great one. It's like, okay, all things being equal. If it's going to take you, you know, roughly close to constant time anyway, might as well do it the right way. Like, so do things well, then the question is, okay, well, am I building a framework as the reusable library? To what degree, uh, what am I anticipating in terms of what's going to need to change in this thing? Uh, you know, along what dimension? And then I think like a business person in some ways, like what's the return on calories, right? So, uh, and you look at, um, energy, the expected value of it's like, okay, here are the five possible things that could happen, uh, try to assign probabilities like, okay, well, if there's a 50% chance that we're going to go down this particular path at some day, like, or one of these five things is going to happen and it costs you 10% more to engineer for that. It's basically, it's something that yields a kind of interest compounding value. Um, as you get closer to the time of, of needing that versus having to take on debt, which is when you under engineer it, you're taking on debt. You're going to have to pay off when you do get to that eventuality where something happens. One thing as a pragmatist, uh, so I would rather under engineer something than over engineer it. If I were going to err on the side of something, and here's the reason is that when you under engineer it, uh, yes, you take on tech debt, uh, but the interest rate is relatively known and payoff is very, very possible, right? Which is, oh, I took a shortcut here as a result of which now this thing that should have taken me a week is now going to take me four weeks. Fine. But if that particular thing that you thought might happen, never actually, you never have that use case transpire or just doesn't, it's like, well, you just save yourself time, right? And that has value because you were able to do other things instead of, uh, kind of slightly over-engineering it away, over-engineering it. But there's no perfect answers in art form in terms of, uh, and yeah, we'll, we'll bring kind of this layers of abstraction back on the code generation conversation, which we'll, uh, I think I have later on, butAlessio [00:22:05]: I was going to ask, we can just jump ahead quickly. Yeah. Like, as you think about vibe coding and all that, how does the. Yeah. Percentage of potential usefulness change when I feel like we over-engineering a lot of times it's like the investment in syntax, it's less about the investment in like arc exacting. Yep. Yeah. How does that change your calculus?Dharmesh [00:22:22]: A couple of things, right? One is, um, so, you know, going back to that kind of ROI or a return on calories, kind of calculus or heuristic you think through, it's like, okay, well, what is it going to cost me to put this layer of abstraction above the code that I'm writing now, uh, in anticipating kind of future needs. If the cost of fixing, uh, or doing under engineering right now. Uh, we'll trend towards zero that says, okay, well, I don't have to get it right right now because even if I get it wrong, I'll run the thing for six hours instead of 60 minutes or whatever. It doesn't really matter, right? Like, because that's going to trend towards zero to be able, the ability to refactor a code. Um, and because we're going to not that long from now, we're going to have, you know, large code bases be able to exist, uh, you know, as, as context, uh, for a code generation or a code refactoring, uh, model. So I think it's going to make it, uh, make the case for under engineering, uh, even stronger. Which is why I take on that cost. You just pay the interest when you get there, it's not, um, just go on with your life vibe coded and, uh, come back when you need to. Yeah.Alessio [00:23:18]: Sometimes I feel like there's no decision-making in some things like, uh, today I built a autosave for like our internal notes platform and I literally just ask them cursor. Can you add autosave? Yeah. I don't know if it's over under engineer. Yep. I just vibe coded it. Yep. And I feel like at some point we're going to get to the point where the models kindDharmesh [00:23:36]: of decide where the right line is, but this is where the, like the, in my mind, the danger is, right? So there's two sides to this. One is the cost of kind of development and coding and things like that stuff that, you know, we talk about. But then like in your example, you know, one of the risks that we have is that because adding a feature, uh, like a save or whatever the feature might be to a product as that price tends towards zero, are we going to be less discriminant about what features we add as a result of making more product products more complicated, which has a negative impact on the user and navigate negative impact on the business. Um, and so that's the thing I worry about if it starts to become too easy, are we going to be. Too promiscuous in our, uh, kind of extension, adding product extensions and things like that. It's like, ah, why not add X, Y, Z or whatever back then it was like, oh, we only have so many engineering hours or story points or however you measure things. Uh, that least kept us in check a little bit. Yeah.Alessio [00:24:22]: And then over engineering, you're like, yeah, it's kind of like you're putting that on yourself. Yeah. Like now it's like the models don't understand that if they add too much complexity, it's going to come back to bite them later. Yep. So they just do whatever they want to do. Yeah. And I'm curious where in the workflow that's going to be, where it's like, Hey, this is like the amount of complexity and over-engineering you can do before you got to ask me if we should actually do it versus like do something else.Dharmesh [00:24:45]: So you know, we've already, let's like, we're leaving this, uh, in the code generation world, this kind of compressed, um, cycle time. Right. It's like, okay, we went from auto-complete, uh, in the GitHub co-pilot to like, oh, finish this particular thing and hit tab to a, oh, I sort of know your file or whatever. I can write out a full function to you to now I can like hold a bunch of the context in my head. Uh, so we can do app generation, which we have now with lovable and bolt and repletage. Yeah. Association and other things. So then the question is, okay, well, where does it naturally go from here? So we're going to generate products. Make sense. We might be able to generate platforms as though I want a platform for ERP that does this, whatever. And that includes the API's includes the product and the UI, and all the things that make for a platform. There's no nothing that says we would stop like, okay, can you generate an entire software company someday? Right. Uh, with the platform and the monetization and the go-to-market and the whatever. And you know, that that's interesting to me in terms of, uh, you know, what, when you take it to almost ludicrous levels. of abstract.swyx [00:25:39]: It's like, okay, turn it to 11. You mentioned vibe coding, so I have to, this is a blog post I haven't written, but I'm kind of exploring it. Is the junior engineer dead?Dharmesh [00:25:49]: I don't think so. I think what will happen is that the junior engineer will be able to, if all they're bringing to the table is the fact that they are a junior engineer, then yes, they're likely dead. But hopefully if they can communicate with carbon-based life forms, they can interact with product, if they're willing to talk to customers, they can take their kind of basic understanding of engineering and how kind of software works. I think that has value. So I have a 14-year-old right now who's taking Python programming class, and some people ask me, it's like, why is he learning coding? And my answer is, is because it's not about the syntax, it's not about the coding. What he's learning is like the fundamental thing of like how things work. And there's value in that. I think there's going to be timeless value in systems thinking and abstractions and what that means. And whether functions manifested as math, which he's going to get exposed to regardless, or there are some core primitives to the universe, I think, that the more you understand them, those are what I would kind of think of as like really large dots in your life that will have a higher gravitational pull and value to them that you'll then be able to. So I want him to collect those dots, and he's not resisting. So it's like, okay, while he's still listening to me, I'm going to have him do things that I think will be useful.swyx [00:26:59]: You know, part of one of the pitches that I evaluated for AI engineer is a term. And the term is that maybe the traditional interview path or career path of software engineer goes away, which is because what's the point of lead code? Yeah. And, you know, it actually matters more that you know how to work with AI and to implement the things that you want. Yep.Dharmesh [00:27:16]: That's one of the like interesting things that's happened with generative AI. You know, you go from machine learning and the models and just that underlying form, which is like true engineering, right? Like the actual, what I call real engineering. I don't think of myself as a real engineer, actually. I'm a developer. But now with generative AI. We call it AI and it's obviously got its roots in machine learning, but it just feels like fundamentally different to me. Like you have the vibe. It's like, okay, well, this is just a whole different approach to software development to so many different things. And so I'm wondering now, it's like an AI engineer is like, if you were like to draw the Venn diagram, it's interesting because the cross between like AI things, generative AI and what the tools are capable of, what the models do, and this whole new kind of body of knowledge that we're still building out, it's still very young, intersected with kind of classic engineering, software engineering. Yeah.swyx [00:28:04]: I just described the overlap as it separates out eventually until it's its own thing, but it's starting out as a software. Yeah.Alessio [00:28:11]: That makes sense. So to close the vibe coding loop, the other big hype now is MCPs. Obviously, I would say Cloud Desktop and Cursor are like the two main drivers of MCP usage. I would say my favorite is the Sentry MCP. I can pull in errors and then you can just put the context in Cursor. How do you think about that abstraction layer? Does it feel... Does it feel almost too magical in a way? Do you think it's like you get enough? Because you don't really see how the server itself is then kind of like repackaging theDharmesh [00:28:41]: information for you? I think MCP as a standard is one of the better things that's happened in the world of AI because a standard needed to exist and absent a standard, there was a set of things that just weren't possible. Now, we can argue whether it's the best possible manifestation of a standard or not. Does it do too much? Does it do too little? I get that, but it's just simple enough to both be useful and unobtrusive. It's understandable and adoptable by mere mortals, right? It's not overly complicated. You know, a reasonable engineer can put a stand up an MCP server relatively easily. The thing that has me excited about it is like, so I'm a big believer in multi-agent systems. And so that's going back to our kind of this idea of an atomic agent. So imagine the MCP server, like obviously it calls tools, but the way I think about it, so I'm working on my current passion project is agent.ai. And we'll talk more about that in a little bit. More about the, I think we should, because I think it's interesting not to promote the project at all, but there's some interesting ideas in there. One of which is around, we're going to need a mechanism for, if agents are going to collaborate and be able to delegate, there's going to need to be some form of discovery and we're going to need some standard way. It's like, okay, well, I just need to know what this thing over here is capable of. We're going to need a registry, which Anthropic's working on. I'm sure others will and have been doing directories of, and there's going to be a standard around that too. How do you build out a directory of MCP servers? I think that's going to unlock so many things just because, and we're already starting to see it. So I think MCP or something like it is going to be the next major unlock because it allows systems that don't know about each other, don't need to, it's that kind of decoupling of like Sentry and whatever tools someone else was building. And it's not just about, you know, Cloud Desktop or things like, even on the client side, I think we're going to see very interesting consumers of MCP, MCP clients versus just the chat body kind of things. Like, you know, Cloud Desktop and Cursor and things like that. But yeah, I'm very excited about MCP in that general direction.swyx [00:30:39]: I think the typical cynical developer take, it's like, we have OpenAPI. Yeah. What's the new thing? I don't know if you have a, do you have a quick MCP versus everything else? Yeah.Dharmesh [00:30:49]: So it's, so I like OpenAPI, right? So just a descriptive thing. It's OpenAPI. OpenAPI. Yes, that's what I meant. So it's basically a self-documenting thing. We can do machine-generated, lots of things from that output. It's a structured definition of an API. I get that, love it. But MCPs sort of are kind of use case specific. They're perfect for exactly what we're trying to use them for around LLMs in terms of discovery. It's like, okay, I don't necessarily need to know kind of all this detail. And so right now we have, we'll talk more about like MCP server implementations, but We will? I think, I don't know. Maybe we won't. At least it's in my head. It's like a back processor. But I do think MCP adds value above OpenAPI. It's, yeah, just because it solves this particular thing. And if we had come to the world, which we have, like, it's like, hey, we already have OpenAPI. It's like, if that were good enough for the universe, the universe would have adopted it already. There's a reason why MCP is taking office because marginally adds something that was missing before and doesn't go too far. And so that's why the kind of rate of adoption, you folks have written about this and talked about it. Yeah, why MCP won. Yeah. And it won because the universe decided that this was useful and maybe it gets supplanted by something else. Yeah. And maybe we discover, oh, maybe OpenAPI was good enough the whole time. I doubt that.swyx [00:32:09]: The meta lesson, this is, I mean, he's an investor in DevTools companies. I work in developer experience at DevRel in DevTools companies. Yep. Everyone wants to own the standard. Yeah. I'm sure you guys have tried to launch your own standards. Actually, it's Houseplant known for a standard, you know, obviously inbound marketing. But is there a standard or protocol that you ever tried to push? No.Dharmesh [00:32:30]: And there's a reason for this. Yeah. Is that? And I don't mean, need to mean, speak for the people of HubSpot, but I personally. You kind of do. I'm not smart enough. That's not the, like, I think I have a. You're smart. Not enough for that. I'm much better off understanding the standards that are out there. And I'm more on the composability side. Let's, like, take the pieces of technology that exist out there, combine them in creative, unique ways. And I like to consume standards. I don't like to, and that's not that I don't like to create them. I just don't think I have the, both the raw wattage or the credibility. It's like, okay, well, who the heck is Dharmesh, and why should we adopt a standard he created?swyx [00:33:07]: Yeah, I mean, there are people who don't monetize standards, like OpenTelemetry is a big standard, and LightStep never capitalized on that.Dharmesh [00:33:15]: So, okay, so if I were to do a standard, there's two things that have been in my head in the past. I was one around, a very, very basic one around, I don't even have the domain, I have a domain for everything, for open marketing. Because the issue we had in HubSpot grew up in the marketing space. There we go. There was no standard around data formats and things like that. It doesn't go anywhere. But the other one, and I did not mean to go here, but I'm going to go here. It's called OpenGraph. I know the term was already taken, but it hasn't been used for like 15 years now for its original purpose. But what I think should exist in the world is right now, our information, all of us, nodes are in the social graph at Meta or the professional graph at LinkedIn. Both of which are actually relatively closed in actually very annoying ways. Like very, very closed, right? Especially LinkedIn. Especially LinkedIn. I personally believe that if it's my data, and if I would get utility out of it being open, I should be able to make my data open or publish it in whatever forms that I choose, as long as I have control over it as opt-in. So the idea is around OpenGraph that says, here's a standard, here's a way to publish it. I should be able to go to OpenGraph.org slash Dharmesh dot JSON and get it back. And it's like, here's your stuff, right? And I can choose along the way and people can write to it and I can prove. And there can be an entire system. And if I were to do that, I would do it as a... Like a public benefit, non-profit-y kind of thing, as this is a contribution to society. I wouldn't try to commercialize that. Have you looked at AdProto? What's that? AdProto.swyx [00:34:43]: It's the protocol behind Blue Sky. Okay. My good friend, Dan Abramov, who was the face of React for many, many years, now works there. And he actually did a talk that I can send you, which basically kind of tries to articulate what you just said. But he does, he loves doing these like really great analogies, which I think you'll like. Like, you know, a lot of our data is behind a handle, behind a domain. Yep. So he's like, all right, what if we flip that? What if it was like our handle and then the domain? Yep. So, and that's really like your data should belong to you. Yep. And I should not have to wait 30 days for my Twitter data to export. Yep.Dharmesh [00:35:19]: you should be able to at least be able to automate it or do like, yes, I should be able to plug it into an agentic thing. Yeah. Yes. I think we're... Because so much of our data is... Locked up. I think the trick here isn't that standard. It is getting the normies to care.swyx [00:35:37]: Yeah. Because normies don't care.Dharmesh [00:35:38]: That's true. But building on that, normies don't care. So, you know, privacy is a really hot topic and an easy word to use, but it's not a binary thing. Like there are use cases where, and we make these choices all the time, that I will trade, not all privacy, but I will trade some privacy for some productivity gain or some benefit to me that says, oh, I don't care about that particular data being online if it gives me this in return, or I don't mind sharing this information with this company.Alessio [00:36:02]: If I'm getting, you know, this in return, but that sort of should be my option. I think now with computer use, you can actually automate some of the exports. Yes. Like something we've been doing internally is like everybody exports their LinkedIn connections. Yep. And then internally, we kind of merge them together to see how we can connect our companies to customers or things like that.Dharmesh [00:36:21]: And not to pick on LinkedIn, but since we're talking about it, but they feel strongly enough on the, you know, do not take LinkedIn data that they will block even browser use kind of things or whatever. They go to great, great lengths, even to see patterns of usage. And it says, oh, there's no way you could have, you know, gotten that particular thing or whatever without, and it's, so it's, there's...swyx [00:36:42]: Wasn't there a Supreme Court case that they lost? Yeah.Dharmesh [00:36:45]: So the one they lost was around someone that was scraping public data that was on the public internet. And that particular company had not signed any terms of service or whatever. It's like, oh, I'm just taking data that's on, there was no, and so that's why they won. But now, you know, the question is around, can LinkedIn... I think they can. Like, when you use, as a user, you use LinkedIn, you are signing up for their terms of service. And if they say, well, this kind of use of your LinkedIn account that violates our terms of service, they can shut your account down, right? They can. And they, yeah, so, you know, we don't need to make this a discussion. By the way, I love the company, don't get me wrong. I'm an avid user of the product. You know, I've got... Yeah, I mean, you've got over a million followers on LinkedIn, I think. Yeah, I do. And I've known people there for a long, long time, right? And I have lots of respect. And I understand even where the mindset originally came from of this kind of members-first approach to, you know, a privacy-first. I sort of get that. But sometimes you sort of have to wonder, it's like, okay, well, that was 15, 20 years ago. There's likely some controlled ways to expose some data on some member's behalf and not just completely be a binary. It's like, no, thou shalt not have the data.swyx [00:37:54]: Well, just pay for sales navigator.Alessio [00:37:57]: Before we move to the next layer of instruction, anything else on MCP you mentioned? Let's move back and then I'll tie it back to MCPs.Dharmesh [00:38:05]: So I think the... Open this with agent. Okay, so I'll start with... Here's my kind of running thesis, is that as AI and agents evolve, which they're doing very, very quickly, we're going to look at them more and more. I don't like to anthropomorphize. We'll talk about why this is not that. Less as just like raw tools and more like teammates. They'll still be software. They should self-disclose as being software. I'm totally cool with that. But I think what's going to happen is that in the same way you might collaborate with a team member on Slack or Teams or whatever you use, you can imagine a series of agents that do specific things just like a team member might do, that you can delegate things to. You can collaborate. You can say, hey, can you take a look at this? Can you proofread that? Can you try this? You can... Whatever it happens to be. So I think it is... I will go so far as to say it's inevitable that we're going to have hybrid teams someday. And what I mean by hybrid teams... So back in the day, hybrid teams were, oh, well, you have some full-time employees and some contractors. Then it was like hybrid teams are some people that are in the office and some that are remote. That's the kind of form of hybrid. The next form of hybrid is like the carbon-based life forms and agents and AI and some form of software. So let's say we temporarily stipulate that I'm right about that over some time horizon that eventually we're going to have these kind of digitally hybrid teams. So if that's true, then the question you sort of ask yourself is that then what needs to exist in order for us to get the full value of that new model? It's like, okay, well... You sort of need to... It's like, okay, well, how do I... If I'm building a digital team, like, how do I... Just in the same way, if I'm interviewing for an engineer or a designer or a PM, whatever, it's like, well, that's why we have professional networks, right? It's like, oh, they have a presence on likely LinkedIn. I can go through that semi-structured, structured form, and I can see the experience of whatever, you know, self-disclosed. But, okay, well, agents are going to need that someday. And so I'm like, okay, well, this seems like a thread that's worth pulling on. That says, okay. So I... So agent.ai is out there. And it's LinkedIn for agents. It's LinkedIn for agents. It's a professional network for agents. And the more I pull on that thread, it's like, okay, well, if that's true, like, what happens, right? It's like, oh, well, they have a profile just like anyone else, just like a human would. It's going to be a graph underneath, just like a professional network would be. It's just that... And you can have its, you know, connections and follows, and agents should be able to post. That's maybe how they do release notes. Like, oh, I have this new version. Whatever they decide to post, it should just be able to... Behave as a node on the network of a professional network. As it turns out, the more I think about that and pull on that thread, the more and more things, like, start to make sense to me. So it may be more than just a pure professional network. So my original thought was, okay, well, it's a professional network and agents as they exist out there, which I think there's going to be more and more of, will kind of exist on this network and have the profile. But then, and this is always dangerous, I'm like, okay, I want to see a world where thousands of agents are out there in order for the... Because those digital employees, the digital workers don't exist yet in any meaningful way. And so then I'm like, oh, can I make that easier for, like... And so I have, as one does, it's like, oh, I'll build a low-code platform for building agents. How hard could that be, right? Like, very hard, as it turns out. But it's been fun. So now, agent.ai has 1.3 million users. 3,000 people have actually, you know, built some variation of an agent, sometimes just for their own personal productivity. About 1,000 of which have been published. And the reason this comes back to MCP for me, so imagine that and other networks, since I know agent.ai. So right now, we have an MCP server for agent.ai that exposes all the internally built agents that we have that do, like, super useful things. Like, you know, I have access to a Twitter API that I can subsidize the cost. And I can say, you know, if you're looking to build something for social media, these kinds of things, with a single API key, and it's all completely free right now, I'm funding it. That's a useful way for it to work. And then we have a developer to say, oh, I have this idea. I don't have to worry about open AI. I don't have to worry about, now, you know, this particular model is better. It has access to all the models with one key. And we proxy it kind of behind the scenes. And then expose it. So then we get this kind of community effect, right? That says, oh, well, someone else may have built an agent to do X. Like, I have an agent right now that I built for myself to do domain valuation for website domains because I'm obsessed with domains, right? And, like, there's no efficient market for domains. There's no Zillow for domains right now that tells you, oh, here are what houses in your neighborhood sold for. It's like, well, why doesn't that exist? We should be able to solve that problem. And, yes, you're still guessing. Fine. There should be some simple heuristic. So I built that. It's like, okay, well, let me go look for past transactions. You say, okay, I'm going to type in agent.ai, agent.com, whatever domain. What's it actually worth? I'm looking at buying it. It can go and say, oh, which is what it does. It's like, I'm going to go look at are there any published domain transactions recently that are similar, either use the same word, same top-level domain, whatever it is. And it comes back with an approximate value, and it comes back with its kind of rationale for why it picked the value and comparable transactions. Oh, by the way, this domain sold for published. Okay. So that agent now, let's say, existed on the web, on agent.ai. Then imagine someone else says, oh, you know, I want to build a brand-building agent for startups and entrepreneurs to come up with names for their startup. Like a common problem, every startup is like, ah, I don't know what to call it. And so they type in five random words that kind of define whatever their startup is. And you can do all manner of things, one of which is like, oh, well, I need to find the domain for it. What are possible choices? Now it's like, okay, well, it would be nice to know if there's an aftermarket price for it, if it's listed for sale. Awesome. Then imagine calling this valuation agent. It's like, okay, well, I want to find where the arbitrage is, where the agent valuation tool says this thing is worth $25,000. It's listed on GoDaddy for $5,000. It's close enough. Let's go do that. Right? And that's a kind of composition use case that in my future state. Thousands of agents on the network, all discoverable through something like MCP. And then you as a developer of agents have access to all these kind of Lego building blocks based on what you're trying to solve. Then you blend in orchestration, which is getting better and better with the reasoning models now. Just describe the problem that you have. Now, the next layer that we're all contending with is that how many tools can you actually give an LLM before the LLM breaks? That number used to be like 15 or 20 before you kind of started to vary dramatically. And so that's the thing I'm thinking about now. It's like, okay, if I want to... If I want to expose 1,000 of these agents to a given LLM, obviously I can't give it all 1,000. Is there some intermediate layer that says, based on your prompt, I'm going to make a best guess at which agents might be able to be helpful for this particular thing? Yeah.Alessio [00:44:37]: Yeah, like RAG for tools. Yep. I did build the Latent Space Researcher on agent.ai. Okay. Nice. Yeah, that seems like, you know, then there's going to be a Latent Space Scheduler. And then once I schedule a research, you know, and you build all of these things. By the way, my apologies for the user experience. You realize I'm an engineer. It's pretty good.swyx [00:44:56]: I think it's a normie-friendly thing. Yeah. That's your magic. HubSpot does the same thing.Alessio [00:45:01]: Yeah, just to like quickly run through it. You can basically create all these different steps. And these steps are like, you know, static versus like variable-driven things. How did you decide between this kind of like low-code-ish versus doing, you know, low-code with code backend versus like not exposing that at all? Any fun design decisions? Yeah. And this is, I think...Dharmesh [00:45:22]: I think lots of people are likely sitting in exactly my position right now, coming through the choosing between deterministic. Like if you're like in a business or building, you know, some sort of agentic thing, do you decide to do a deterministic thing? Or do you go non-deterministic and just let the alum handle it, right, with the reasoning models? The original idea and the reason I took the low-code stepwise, a very deterministic approach. A, the reasoning models did not exist at that time. That's thing number one. Thing number two is if you can get... If you know in your head... If you know in your head what the actual steps are to accomplish whatever goal, why would you leave that to chance? There's no upside. There's literally no upside. Just tell me, like, what steps do you need executed? So right now what I'm playing with... So one thing we haven't talked about yet, and people don't talk about UI and agents. Right now, the primary interaction model... Or they don't talk enough about it. I know some people have. But it's like, okay, so we're used to the chatbot back and forth. Fine. I get that. But I think we're going to move to a blend of... Some of those things are going to be synchronous as they are now. But some are going to be... Some are going to be async. It's just going to put it in a queue, just like... And this goes back to my... Man, I talk fast. But I have this... I only have one other speed. It's even faster. So imagine it's like if you're working... So back to my, oh, we're going to have these hybrid digital teams. Like, you would not go to a co-worker and say, I'm going to ask you to do this thing, and then sit there and wait for them to go do it. Like, that's not how the world works. So it's nice to be able to just, like, hand something off to someone. It's like, okay, well, maybe I expect a response in an hour or a day or something like that.Dharmesh [00:46:52]: In terms of when things need to happen. So the UI around agents. So if you look at the output of agent.ai agents right now, they are the simplest possible manifestation of a UI, right? That says, oh, we have inputs of, like, four different types. Like, we've got a dropdown, we've got multi-select, all the things. It's like back in HTML, the original HTML 1.0 days, right? Like, you're the smallest possible set of primitives for a UI. And it just says, okay, because we need to collect some information from the user, and then we go do steps and do things. And generate some output in HTML or markup are the two primary examples. So the thing I've been asking myself, if I keep going down that path. So people ask me, I get requests all the time. It's like, oh, can you make the UI sort of boring? I need to be able to do this, right? And if I keep pulling on that, it's like, okay, well, now I've built an entire UI builder thing. Where does this end? And so I think the right answer, and this is what I'm going to be backcoding once I get done here, is around injecting a code generation UI generation into, the agent.ai flow, right? As a builder, you're like, okay, I'm going to describe the thing that I want, much like you would do in a vibe coding world. But instead of generating the entire app, it's going to generate the UI that exists at some point in either that deterministic flow or something like that. It says, oh, here's the thing I'm trying to do. Go generate the UI for me. And I can go through some iterations. And what I think of it as a, so it's like, I'm going to generate the code, generate the code, tweak it, go through this kind of prompt style, like we do with vibe coding now. And at some point, I'm going to be happy with it. And I'm going to hit save. And that's going to become the action in that particular step. It's like a caching of the generated code that I can then, like incur any inference time costs. It's just the actual code at that point.Alessio [00:48:29]: Yeah, I invested in a company called E2B, which does code sandbox. And they powered the LM arena web arena. So it's basically the, just like you do LMS, like text to text, they do the same for like UI generation. So if you're asking a model, how do you do it? But yeah, I think that's kind of where.Dharmesh [00:48:45]: That's the thing I'm really fascinated by. So the early LLM, you know, we're understandably, but laughably bad at simple arithmetic, right? That's the thing like my wife, Normies would ask us, like, you call this AI, like it can't, my son would be like, it's just stupid. It can't even do like simple arithmetic. And then like we've discovered over time that, and there's a reason for this, right? It's like, it's a large, there's, you know, the word language is in there for a reason in terms of what it's been trained on. It's not meant to do math, but now it's like, okay, well, the fact that it has access to a Python interpreter that I can actually call at runtime, that solves an entire body of problems that it wasn't trained to do. And it's basically a form of delegation. And so the thought that's kind of rattling around in my head is that that's great. So it's, it's like took the arithmetic problem and took it first. Now, like anything that's solvable through a relatively concrete Python program, it's able to do a bunch of things that I couldn't do before. Can we get to the same place with UI? I don't know what the future of UI looks like in a agentic AI world, but maybe let the LLM handle it, but not in the classic sense. Maybe it generates it on the fly, or maybe we go through some iterations and hit cache or something like that. So it's a little bit more predictable. Uh, I don't know, but yeah.Alessio [00:49:48]: And especially when is the human supposed to intervene? So, especially if you're composing them, most of them should not have a UI because then they're just web hooking to somewhere else. I just want to touch back. I don't know if you have more comments on this.swyx [00:50:01]: I was just going to ask when you, you said you got, you're going to go back to code. What

Quinn Li started into tech well before college. In High School, she was into fashion and would take pictures of herself and her friends. She wanted to share these pictures, and found her way to Squarespace - which ultimately, led her getting into HTML and CSS - and the rest is history. Outside of tech, she plays a lot of tennis, and teaches Aerial. I had to ask what this was, and she explained it was the art form that you see in the circus, when people are climbing the sheets in the air, acrobatically.Quinn Li has been focused on productivity throughout her career. As she started to swing her focus to building connections at work through play. One of the games she and her team built went viral on TikTok - and they knew they were on to something.This is the creation story of Braid.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.trybraid.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/qloshea/Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.com* Check out Red Hat: https://www.redhat.com* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

pytest-html has got to be one of my all time favorite plugins. pytest-html is a plugin for pytest that generates a HTML report for test results. This episode digs into some of the super coolness of pytest-html.pytest-htmlrepo readme with screenshotenhancing reportspytest-metadata Sponsored by: The Complete pytest course is now a bundle, with each part available separately.pytest Primary Power teaches the super powers of pytest that you need to learn to use pytest effectively.Using pytest with Projects has lots of "when you need it" sections like debugging failed tests, mocking, testing strategy, and CIThen pytest Booster Rockets can help with advanced parametrization and building plugins.Whether you need to get started with pytest today, or want to power up your pytest skills, PythonTest has a course for you. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

News includes the release of Plug v1.17.0 with dark mode support for Plug.Debugger, an exciting Phoenix PR for co-located hooks that would place hook logic directly next to component code, a new RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) library from Bitcrowd for enhancing LLM interactions with document management, a syntax highlighter called Autumn powered by Tree-sitter, an Elixir-built YouTube downloader project called Pinchflat, and more! Show Notes online - http://podcast.thinkingelixir.com/246 (http://podcast.thinkingelixir.com/246) Elixir Community News https://gigalixir.com/thinking (https://gigalixir.com/thinking?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Gigalixir is sponsoring the show, offering 20% off standard tier prices for a year with promo code "Thinking". https://github.com/elixir-plug/plug/pull/1261 (https://github.com/elixir-plug/plug/pull/1261?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Plug v1.17.0 introduces dark mode to Plug.Debugger, providing a more comfortable experience for developers working in dark environments. https://github.com/elixir-plug/plug/pull/1263 (https://github.com/elixir-plug/plug/pull/1263?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Plug.Debugger now links to function definitions in Hexdocs, making it easier to understand errors. https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenixliveview/pull/3705 (https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix_live_view/pull/3705?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Phoenix PR in progress for "Co-located Hooks" that would allow hook logic to be placed next to component code. https://github.com/elixir-nx/fine/tree/main/example (https://github.com/elixir-nx/fine/tree/main/example?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Fine, the C++ library for Elixir NIFs, now has an example project making it easier to experiment with C++ integrations in Elixir. https://podcast.thinkingelixir.com/244 (https://podcast.thinkingelixir.com/244?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Previous episode discussing Fine and how it integrates with PythonEx for embedding Python in Elixir. https://github.com/bitcrowd/rag (https://github.com/bitcrowd/rag?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – New RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) library for Elixir from Bitcrowd to help with LLM context and document management. https://bitcrowd.dev/a-rag-library-for-elixir/ (https://bitcrowd.dev/a-rag-library-for-elixir/?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Blog post explaining the new RAG library and its functionality for document ingestion, retrieval, and augmentation. https://expert-lsp.org/ (https://expert-lsp.org/?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Expert LSP, the built-in Elixir LSP, now has a reserved domain, though the site is currently empty. https://github.com/kieraneglin/pinchflat (https://github.com/kieraneglin/pinchflat?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Pinchflat is an Elixir-built project for downloading YouTube content locally, ideal for media centers or archiving. https://github.com/leandrocp/autumn (https://github.com/leandrocp/autumn?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Autumn is a new Elixir/tree-sitter syntax highlighter that supports terminal and HTML outputs, powered by Tree-sitter and Neovim themes. https://autumnus.dev/ (https://autumnus.dev/?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Website for the new Autumn syntax highlighter for Elixir. https://github.com/leandrocp/mdex (https://github.com/leandrocp/mdex?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – MDEx library updated to support CommonMark, GitHub Flavored Markdown, Wiki Links, Discord Markdown tags, emoji, and syntax highlighting via Autumn. https://voidzero.dev/posts/announcing-voidzero-inc (https://voidzero.dev/posts/announcing-voidzero-inc?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes) – Evan You (Vue.js creator) announces Vite Plus, a comprehensive JavaScript toolchain described as "Cargo but for JavaScript." Do you have some Elixir news to share? Tell us at @ThinkingElixir (https://twitter.com/ThinkingElixir) or email at show@thinkingelixir.com (mailto:show@thinkingelixir.com) Find us online - Message the show - Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/thinkingelixir.com) - Message the show - X (https://x.com/ThinkingElixir) - Message the show on Fediverse - @ThinkingElixir@genserver.social (https://genserver.social/ThinkingElixir) - Email the show - show@thinkingelixir.com (mailto:show@thinkingelixir.com) - Mark Ericksen on X - @brainlid (https://x.com/brainlid) - Mark Ericksen on Bluesky - @brainlid.bsky.social (https://bsky.app/profile/brainlid.bsky.social) - Mark Ericksen on Fediverse - @brainlid@genserver.social (https://genserver.social/brainlid) - David Bernheisel on Bluesky - @david.bernheisel.com (https://bsky.app/profile/david.bernheisel.com) - David Bernheisel on Fediverse - @dbern@genserver.social (https://genserver.social/dbern)

ThePrimeagen (aka Michael Paulson) is a programmer who has educated, entertained, and inspired millions of people to build software and have fun doing it. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep461-sc See below for timestamps, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc. CONTACT LEX: Feedback - give feedback to Lex: https://lexfridman.com/survey AMA - submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama Hiring - join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring Other - other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact EPISODE LINKS: ThePrimeagen's X: https://twitter.com/ThePrimeagen ThePrimeagen's YouTube: https://youtube.com/ThePrimeTimeagen ThePrimeagen's Twitch: https://twitch.tv/ThePrimeagen ThePrimeagen's GitHub: https://github.com/theprimeagen ThePrimeagen's TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@theprimeagen ThePrimeagen's Coffee: https://www.terminal.shop/ SPONSORS: To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts: Invideo AI: AI video generator. Go to https://invideo.io/i/lexpod Shopify: Sell stuff online. Go to https://shopify.com/lex NetSuite: Business management software. Go to http://netsuite.com/lex BetterHelp: Online therapy and counseling. Go to https://betterhelp.com/lex AG1: All-in-one daily nutrition drinks. Go to https://drinkag1.com/lex OUTLINE: (00:00) - Introduction (10:27) - Love for programming (20:00) - Hardest part of programming (22:16) - Types of programming (29:54) - Life story (39:58) - Hardship (41:29) - High school (47:15) - Porn addiction (57:01) - God (1:12:44) - Perseverance (1:22:40) - Netflix (1:35:08) - Groovy (1:40:13) - Printf() debugging (1:46:35) - Falcor (1:56:05) - Breaking production (1:58:49) - Pieter Levels (2:03:19) - Netflix, Twitch, and YouTube infrastructure (2:15:22) - ThePrimeagen origin story (2:30:37) - Learning programming languages (2:39:40) - Best programming languages in 2025 (2:44:35) - Python (2:45:15) - HTML & CSS (2:46:05) - Bash (2:46:45) - FFmpeg (2:53:28) - Performance (2:56:00) - Rust (3:00:48) - Epic projects (3:14:12) - Asserts (3:23:26) - ADHD (3:31:34) - Productivity (3:35:58) - Programming setup (4:11:28) - Coffee (4:18:32) - Programming with AI (5:01:16) - Advice for young programmers (5:12:48) - Reddit questions (5:20:20) - God PODCAST LINKS: - Podcast Website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast - Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr - Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 - RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ - Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 - Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/lexclips

Mark of the Web: Some Technical Details Windows implements the "Mark of the Web" (MotW) as an alternate data stream that contains not just the "zoneid" of where the file came from, but may include other data like the exact URL and referrer. https://isc.sans.edu/diary/Mark%20of%20the%20Web%3A%20Some%20Technical%20Details/31732 Havoc Sharepoint with Microsoft Graph API A recent phishing attack observed by Fortinet uses a simple HTML email to trick a user into copy pasting powershell into their system to execute additional code. Most of the malware interaction uses a Sharepoint site via Microsoft's Graph API futher hiding the malicious traffic https://www.fortinet.com/blog/threat-research/havoc-sharepoint-with-microsoft-graph-api-turns-into-fud-c2 Paragon Partition Manager Exploit A vulnerable Paragon Partition Manager has been user recently to escalate privileges for ransomware deployment. Even if you to not have PAragon installed: An attacker may just "bring the vulnerable driver" to your system. https://kb.cert.org/vuls/id/726882

Everybody get up, it's time to slam now! Yes, this episode is about the 1996 movie "Space Jam," starring NBA legend Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes. Rather, it's about the website for "Space Jam," which is still up and functioning nearly 30 years later. Amory and Ben talk to the hilarious team behind this digital artifact and hear the unlikely story of its continued existence. Show notes: The Space Jam website 'Space Jam' Forever: The Website That Wouldn't Die (Rolling Stone) The TIL post on Reddit Hollywood in Pixels SpaceJamCheck on X Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML in 14 Days Welcome to the Space Jam, Again (The New York Times)