Scrolling Bugs, Pursuing Optimization, and Number Go Up is Good

Adam:

People commented that I am a skinwalker or I look like a skinwalker or I'm definitely AI. Listen. I'm not AI. Could AI do this? That's what I thought.

Adam:

So look, I'm a person I'm a human being with real feelings. I don't actually have real feelings. Oh my god. I am AI.

Dax:

Am I a real boy? No, Pinocchio. To make Geppetto's wish come true will be entirely up to you. Up to me? Prove yourself brave, truthful, and unselfish, and someday you will be a real boy.

Dax:

A real boy. I've been in hell for the past, like, 48 hours.

Adam:

Oh, really? What I I feel like you've been quieter than normal. What's been going on?

Dax:

Yeah. So you you know, this multiplexer thing that I showed you? Yes. And I was like, okay, it's basically done. It was pretty hard to put together, like, you know, doing little terminal stuff like that.

Dax:

But thankfully, I, like, glued together a bunch of random code that I found on GitHub, and I got something working. Then the last step was to support scrolling.

Adam:

Oh, no. And I was

Dax:

like, okay. I I, like, checked a while ago. There was a scroll function in one of the libraries that Yeah. I'm using so let me just map it up. So I mapped it up, and it turns out that it does not work.

Dax:

Like, their understanding what scroll meant was totally different than what I needed, which is, like, keeping a scroll back buffer so you can scroll up and down your output. So I was like, okay, what does this mean? Then I started digging more into, okay, what do I need to do to support this? And it, like, unraveled everything. Like, pretty much everything that I was relying on could not work.

Dax:

I had to go, like, one level lower. The past 48 hours, I've just been, like, figuring out what the hell to do and, like, I'll solve one thing. And there's, like, so many cascading issues. And for the last, I would say, like, 8 hours or so, I've been struggling with this one issue where, so in my multiplexer, when I spawn processes, everything's working. But when I spawn a fancy process, like one that like the terminal website or the terminal server, for example, or but the STI app that does like more complex stuff inside terminal, it would like lag for 5 seconds before it started.

Dax:

I was like, what the hell is this issue? I've been trying to track it down in the last 8 hours, and literally 5 minutes ago, I found it. There is a but the answer so, I mean, I don't know what the fix is, but I know the problem is. I trace it all the way down to where it's freezing and there is 10 lines commented out in this low level library that I'm using that says to do.

Adam:

Oh, that's good.

Dax:

Yeah. So

Adam:

you've got it now right in those 10 lines.

Dax:

Yeah. I gotta figure that out. It's, yeah. This stuff is interesting because, you know, draw like, the stuff we're using for, for terminal bubble t, that obviously gives us a high level abstraction over building UIs in the terminal. And if you keep going lower and lower level, it gets, like, more and more crazy.

Dax:

But if you go, like, low level enough, it gets simple again because it's just, like, the most basic stuff. I mean, it's it's the complexity comes from the fact that it can't do much on its own. Like, you have to implement all the functionality yourself, but the underlying system is is very, very easy. It's just like, a grid, and you can move the cursor and, like, paint on the grid. And when you get down to that level, that that's all there is.

Dax:

There's nothing else. And you can paint text, and you can change, like, the color of the text. You can change the whatever. And if you wanna, like, update it, you, like, repaint the screen. It's, like, very, very straightforward.

Dax:

But, yeah, it's been quite a journey.

Adam:

I I am in love with terminal UIs. I think it's so fun.

Dax:

Me too.

Adam:

It's like this whole world that, yeah. I mean, you've been engrossed in it. So you you've you know where I'm coming from, like, building the terminal shop. There's there's just parts of it that tickle the brain in ways I that hasn't been tickled in a while. You know what I mean?

Adam:

It's been a it's been a lot of building stuff in the browser, and this has been so refreshing to build back to the basics.

Dax:

What's cool about it is I think there's this dream for the browser where there's, like, a really rich set of components that every website uses and everything kind of is same and consistent, etcetera. But, obviously, it will never happen on web and the web has different goals. But you kinda have that in a terminal just because there's so many constraints. Like, you can't have you can't even have, like, one element that's one font size, another amount that's different font size. Right.

Dax:

So that, like, standardizes all UIs. And then people can theme their stuff locally so that all the apps look the same and match each other. So it's like a different take on, like, optimizing for different goals. It's like optimizing more for standardization. You lose out on some of the creativity, but you kind of get this, like, I get to build the experience that I want and no matter what app I'm using, it's gonna look the same as a user.

Adam:

Yeah. So a few thoughts in response to your specific situation. 1st, I'm glad I didn't start using it, I guess. You you said I could start using that you had a version of it.

Dax:

Well, I I was using it. And I was like, wow. Not being able to scroll up the logs is like really bad. It's really not usable without that.

Adam:

So Yeah. Well, I hadn't gotten to using. I know you you had added it to terminal. The second thought is, man, scroll scroll sucks. Scroll in the terminal.

Adam:

Like, the bubble t, solution to it, there's like a bubble, which is like a component for scrolling.

Dax:

Right.

Adam:

And it it's it's given us a lot of issues. Like, there's still all kinds of outstanding stuff in terminal that I wanna fix. Terminal, the capital t. When you have a company named what in the world? Why did my music just start?

Adam:

Hang on. Okay. So Tidal? Tidal? Do you use Tidal or Spotify?

Dax:

I I used to back in the day. I'm back on Spotify now.

Adam:

So I I use Spotify in my headphones. Oh, jeez. Where did you go? I use Spotify in my headphones, but I've been playing Tidal because I got these, these speakers. I got speakers, physical speakers again, like computer speakers.

Adam:

It's It's been a long time.

Dax:

They're not computer speakers.

Adam:

They're like these Kev I don't know.

Dax:

DJs recommend them.

Adam:

Yeah. Yeah. They're awesome. So I wanted, like, the best quality, so I got the the title for that. But title will just randomly start playing.

Adam:

I've noticed this. I leave the app

Dax:

up all

Adam:

the time, and it'll just start randomly playing for no reason. I can't stop and just start playing.

Dax:

They they should fix that because that means they're paying more to the artist.

Adam:

Oh, good point. Yeah. No. But, like, I've come to my computer, like, in the morning, and it's been playing overnight for sure. So there's definitely a bug there they need to figure out.

Dax:

The scrolling thing's funny because I think it so even though this was hell for the last 48 hours, I think there was something about it that I felt like I'd been missing for a while. So I think we've talked about how when I do normal development these days, like if I'm making a web application or whatever, things have gotten so simple and abstracted and standardized that it feels like I'm writing configuration more than I'm programming.

Adam:

You haven't written any JS lately, have you?

Dax:

But but especially Next JS. It's like you feel like you're programming. You feel like you're writing configuration.

Adam:

The simple is not the word I was thinking of with my experiences lately.

Dax:

I wouldn't say okay. So, yeah, maybe simple isn't the right word. It's that you're you're operating in such, like, a high level that I feel like I've lost the feel of programming. Like, it doesn't feel like I'm programming. Yeah.

Dax:

Yeah. Yeah. With this type of work so, again, if my name is scrolling, right, there's, like, very, like, programmer programming y stuff to it. Right? So what is scrolling?

Dax:

It's just calculating when the height of your buffer is outside the height of the screen and like putting it into a different, matrix. And then when someone hits scroll, like, they wanna scroll up 1, you, like, render a part of that matrix and then part of the active screen. But then what if it's, like, more stuff is printing while they're scrolling? Like, how do you, like, you know, manage all that? That to me really scratches what I think I've been missing for a while, which is, like, just the very basic arithmetic to do that, the very basic logic to do that.

Dax:

That, to me, feels like programming, and I think a lot of that is basically gone from the day to day.

Adam:

Okay. I have a lot to say here. I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm gonna do that thing where I talk too much, and you just gotta stop me.

Adam:

But this is tying together a lot of thoughts I've had, which is, like, I've said it I don't know if it's said on the podcast, but I've said it before that I just I hate that newcomers are being shoved into, like, React because it's just such a different thing than what I started programming in. Not that everybody has to start programming the way we started programming, but exactly what you're saying. Doing this, like, terminal UI in Go has, like, brought back that, like, oh, yeah. This, like, this is what programming computers used to feel like. I'm not writing React Hooks and stuff that just feels so, like, different from programming.

Adam:

The it takes me back to, like, early when I was in college and I or when I first started dating Casey, my now wife. I made her, like, a little tile game, like a picture scramble up the picture and, like, you slide the tiles around, and I made it like wind forms or something. It was like Mhmm. Super old school, but it ran on her laptop. And the doing that kind of stuff, like, the math for, like, figuring out where the tiles can go and can't go and, like, moving them around and how you would represent that, you know, in state.

Adam:

That that kind of stuff, yeah, I feel so disconnected from it, writing a modern web app. Like, in some ways, that's great. All the abstractions we have are wonderful. In other ways, it just feels less and less like this familiar thing. I don't know.

Adam:

Is that going away? Is, like, our our roots of programming is that just gonna be, like, a thing you do, as like a hobby, but it's not really part of day to day business operations?

Dax:

Yeah. I I I've been trying to figure out I I I don't think it was until this week I really understood what like, I felt like something was off. And then after this week, I think I really understand what was off. But I'm still trying to understand how I feel or think about it. Yeah.

Dax:

It's just like in certain scenarios, I have certain goals, right? So, when me and Liz are working on Radiant, here's a perfect example of this. We have like the ultimate boss of lists. We have a list that needs to be keyboard navigatable, needs to be able to multi select, toggle it. There's like all these little details that we need to get right.

Dax:

And in that situation, it's a little frustrating to have to do the program y parts, because Yeah. Like, I'm I'm actually excited about something quite different with that project. Like, I'm not trying to get into those details. It's kind of like a like a burden. It's funny because I did end up implementing it because I have this problem everywhere, like, in the s c console, like, everywhere.

Dax:

I have this keyboard navigator list of the problem. And I was talking in the Solid Discord about it. And literally the next day, like, one of the best Solid people, like, happened to just build a list thing for it right after I spent, like, time time doing it, which I got was fun, but, like, it wasn't it's not a point of that of that project. But, like, I can't letting that go to 0 where I'm never doing that stuff feels hollow to me. It feels like I've, like, over optimized on something Yeah.

Dax:

Yeah. To a weird, weird place. I don't know if it goes away in terms of, like, it's only, like, a fake thing you do for fun. Like, if I look at my other work at SST, I there's unique work there too, but it's quite different. So the work there is, like, designing very good abstractions, which is not like this, but it's also very, like, stimulating and interesting.

Dax:

Yeah. But, yeah, I think it it just goes to show there's so many, like, sub categories of programming, sort of like zones your brain is in. And it does feel off when you're not getting to do all of them. And I guess a lot of people might not even be aware that there are different zones.

Adam:

That's the that's the thing. So many people just operate in the one zone probably for their day job, and they don't tickle all those zones. I think, like, being a part of small companies, being a founder, we probably get more of that on average than the average dev, I guess. Like, I think of the the the thing that it makes me think of I think I've said this before. I don't know if I where I said it, or I maybe tweeted it.

Adam:

It reminds me of, like like, you can just buy, like, a glass jar at the store, and they're made, like, by the 1,000 in some factory. We can also go to Silver Dollar City, which is like this old timey amusement park here in Branson, Missouri. You can go there and watch people blow glass, And they do it through the tube, and they, like, they have the furnace, and they heat up the stuff and whatever. But it's like they're wearing these old timey clothes, and they're, like, behind these glass panels. You just watch them, and people are lined up just watching them blow glass.

Adam:

I feel like that's what some of the, like, roots of programming are gonna feel like. It just feels more and more like this novel thing. Like, remember when we used to do this stuff? But it's, like, commercialized to the nth degree and we have all these subtractions, and now you'd never need to do this stuff. But some people just do it for fun, like, on stream or something.

Adam:

I don't know.

Dax:

Yeah. And you do, like, weird versions of it. Yeah. That reminds me of 2 things. So the first thing is, I'm sure you can relate to this because you spent time as a consultant.

Dax:

I will never stop being, like, mind blown by how when I'm working on something that feels very, very specific for one project, it, like, somehow shows up on the other project, too. And I can never tell whether I'm forcing it or if it's just actually happening. Like, what are the chances that we do this, like, crazy terminal thing for our coffee thing? And then, like, the biggest problem we have at SST is that we need to build, like, a lower level terminal. That's really odd.

Dax:

And then if you look at what Prime did, Prime did the whole doom and ASCII

Adam:

Oh, the ASCII thing. The doom? Yeah. I think it was one

Dax:

of his best videos ever. I think that was so good. I feel like

Adam:

it Incredible.

Dax:

To a whole new thing. Yeah. They're just so entertaining and so interesting. He's doing a bunch of, like, ASCII, like, like, terminal character code stuff, which is the exact same thing I've been staring at for the past week. So it's like, how is this happening?

Dax:

Is this just pure coincidence? Are we, like, forced is there, like, some correlation here where it's in our heads and we're actually making it happen? It's it's always mind blowing when when that's the case.

Adam:

Yeah. I'd love it if we could somehow create an industry shift back to terminal UIs.

Dax:

I know.

Adam:

We'd sell more coffee that way, if not the house. There's more attention on the terminal.

Dax:

Wild because someone picked up on this. Because we've had the experience where we go in and, like, place an order, and everything's already set up. And, like, this is the best checkout experience that exists, period.

Adam:

So good. Now. Mhmm.

Dax:

And then I saw someone someone did a reorder, and they were like, what the hell? This is so great. They're like, everything was saved, and it was so easy.

Adam:

Once it's got your your card and your address, yeah, it's you don't wanna open a browser anymore.

Dax:

It is wild when you step back and you forget everything that exists, and you're like, the goal is to build the best possible experience. Mhmm. This actually is the best possible

Adam:

Yeah.

Dax:

Experience. And it is it is really crazy that how so much gets in the way of that, and we, like, convince ourselves of a lot of other stuff. But yeah. I mean, obviously, I don't think the world will shift to this. But there is something to be learned, I think, from

Adam:

it. There will be more ecommerce experiences in the terminal. I know that we've inspired enough people. That's gonna happen. Right?

Adam:

There's been too many people, like, very excited about this.

Dax:

Even if it's not in the terminal, I'm just like there's nothing innate about the terminal that like, that good experience that we gave you in the terminal, you could get in the browser too. But for some reason Yeah. Even Amazon is slower to just reorder something.

Adam:

Yeah.

Dax:

It is a little weird. The second thing I was going to say was this thing you talked about the class flowers was interesting. The world like tries to optimize in certain ways and we lose a lot of things by like kind of blindly pursuing it. So an example of this is, obviously like as as a species, we're trying to get our emissions down and we're trying to get our cars to be electric and put in, policies in place that make it so that, you know, more and more of the vehicles in the world are electric. There was this whole thing with Ferrari where they were like, oh, yeah.

Dax:

You guys can't do this. You guys can't make Ferraris anymore and, like, you need to make them electric. And everyone was like, yeah. Like, fuck rich people. And, like, they they think they can not be part of this.

Dax:

And I get, like, that's, like, the immediate sentiment, but it's a little if you really think about what it actually is, like, I think they should get an exemption. Because what a Ferrari actually is is this extremely tiny niche thing of people that still hand build Yeah. Cars in a very inefficient way, in a very artistic way, in a very, like, craftsmanship way. And the reality is is, like, the literal carbon impact of those vehicles is probably basically 0.

Adam:

Right.

Dax:

I get that there's, like, this metaphorical thing where it feels like if you're rich, you get away with it. But do we really wanna lose that in pursuit of of this other thing? And I feel like this trick shows up in a bunch of the bunch of places in the world.

Adam:

Yeah. I think it's my personality too is drawn towards like, I would love to do more, work that felt like that, like artisan, like, artisanal Mhmm. Extremely, like, inefficient yet, rare. I that's like I would love to just throw time at things that shouldn't have a lot of time spent on them. Like, if I could somehow make a living doing that, I just love, I don't know, something about, I mean, you're just describing Ferrari.

Adam:

I drive electric, but now I want a Ferrari. I mean, just the idea that it's handmade and, like, something about that. It just feels nice. I don't know.

Dax:

Yeah. It's I think that I had this rule that I figured out a while ago where, when it comes to luxury items, I am definitely willing to pay a crazy amount of money for luxury, but only when it's expensive because it hasn't scaled. If you look at the world, there's a lot of things that are expensive and scaled, which means it's a kind of a scam. Mhmm. And I think recently, it's actually showed up in a very little way.

Dax:

I don't know if you saw the there's a bunch of news about, I think, Dior where it turns out, like, their bags cost, like, $57 to make the ones they're selling for 1,000 to $1,000. Like, those things are expensive for no reason. Like, they could be a lot cheaper. It just there's, like, a scam going around it where people think it's rare, but it's not. But there are other things in fashion where it's a small group that is doing something that's not that there's not a lot of demand for, but, like, you might personally like it.

Dax:

And then it's very expensive because, you know, that that's what they need to keep it going. I'm, like, super happy to pay pay for stuff like that. And I don't think that's a scam. I think that's like Yeah. I'm also very interested in things like that.

Adam:

Those are things that should exist in the world. Can we talk about can we have, like, a strategy session here? I know, like, we're 2 5ths of the team on the call right now. But I just feel like I could use a little bit of, like, high level discussion, cofounder to cofounder on the terminal coffee. It kinda ties into this conversation because, like, really, the question is, what is terminal?

Adam:

What is it going to be? What do we want it to be? What what's interesting to you? Every time I think of, like, a million things I could do every day towards the terminal effort, I just hear you in my head being like, well, that's not a business worth even making. And I'm like, what is the business worth making, Dax?

Adam:

What does Dax wanna make?

Dax:

Yeah. I think the way I'm thinking about things is, we there's a lot of things we want I I talk about things in these these terms all the time. There's a lot of things we wanna do, but they actually fall in the category of things we get to do after we hit a certain point. We usually get to a place where we, like, understand the numbers. We have a sale amount of money coming in and that we can figure out how to reinvest.

Dax:

All of this stuff that people bring up, I think they're like interesting ideas that we should do. It's just, like, we don't get to do that yet because we gotta figure out a way where we're not doing these, like, single shot like, 2 weeks where we do a bunch of sales and it goes to basically 0. And then till we do the next thing, like, we gotta have, like, something steady. Otherwise, it's, it's quite hard.

Adam:

Yeah. I'm not thinking about the new ideas even. Like, there's been a lot of ideas thrown out over the last 3 months in our Discord. I'm saying just in terms of the business we have right now with coffee, selling coffee, what are, like, the next moves? And what in your mind, is it just we need to wait and and learn more about how much coffee we're selling over time?

Dax:

Yeah. I think so. Again, if you if you go back from what I was saying, it's I want to have predictable sales every month. And to do that, you need to sell something that is somewhat recurring, which is why the only thing I really care about right now is is getting that,

Adam:

subscription,

Dax:

that monthly thing thing going. And that also it, like, serves 2 purposes. Like, it solves that problem, but it also is a channel for all our weird ideas because every 1 month we can execute on 1 on one weird idea. So it's, like, a nice, like, stable schedule for us to actually do something with the ideas that we have. That's the only thing I care about.

Dax:

But I also am, like, I don't think we can do anything till we get all the Lair Lyricon stuff.

Adam:

Lyricon. Yep. Done.

Dax:

Yeah. That makes sense? So we

Adam:

get yeah. It makes sense. So we get Lyricon next month, that behind us, which I was thinking about, so we're we're doing some set amount of bags for the conference. We're gonna have to have those bags shipped to Maher. He's gonna have to fill them all and ship them to us in Dallas.

Adam:

Right? It's just got it really in the weeds.

Dax:

Okay. So sort of, but not really. We are going to so, yes, the number one thing is we gotta get the bags designed and printed because that's actually the only thing that's, like, kind of Time sensitive. That can get screwed, that can screw us. They need to ship to our roaster, but he doesn't have to fill all the bags.

Dax:

He just needs to fill 30 or 40 that he can ship to Texas because we're only gonna sell not that many in person. Most of

Adam:

Oh, we're not gonna sell very many in person.

Dax:

Okay. We'll sell some in person, but, like, people can just order. Yeah. Like, the idea is where the bags will be in the store ahead of time before the conference. And he can just fulfill those normally.

Dax:

So Okay. Cool. Yeah. His side of it is pretty simple. And and he's gonna ship a few larger bags just to actually serve the coffee there for the people attending the conference.

Dax:

So the only only variable thing here is getting the bags printed. Yeah. Me and Liz made up a big list of a few other things. But, yeah, it's all pretty straightforward.

Adam:

So Lyricon, then we do the monthly subs thing, which is, like, gonna be a different blend every month, which is very exciting

Dax:

for the creativity. If that works like, there's so many ways to make that work. Like, we can we can say, like, the first 100 subscribers, you get the first one free. The partnerships with other companies that sponsor the boxes, so there's not even a charge that month for Yeah. People subscribed.

Dax:

Like, there's so many things that that enable. So if that works, then, yeah, then this thing can stick around for a long time.

Adam:

Cool. Okay.

Dax:

And then we can we get to do all the stuff we wanna do.

Adam:

Yeah. We we do wanna do a lot of stuff.

Dax:

I know.

Adam:

Yeah. There's also, like, people just rebuying coffee. How do you ever learn, like, whether people are buying coffee, because they saw something on Twitter versus I can feel like we need some intelligence around knowing why we sell coffee. Like, are people just rebuying? I guess we'd know that if there's a previous customer.

Adam:

Well, I'm getting way too in the weeds here. This this just got way too specific, for a podcast, probably. Well, I

Dax:

mean, if you take a step back so I am curious about, like, what analytics you guys look so at SST, we're, like, really we're pretty numbers driven. I think that's a lot more relevant when you're earlier than when maybe where SatMees is at. But everything we're doing, it's, like, very clear from the numbers whether it's working or what we should be doing. There's, like, no mystery on Yeah. About anything.

Dax:

So I feel like it'll be the same way given that terminal's early. But do you guys still, like, obsess over the numbers the way, like, an early stage company would?

Adam:

Yeah. I mean, like, we've grown over a 100% year over year the last 3 years in a row. So, like, the it's we're obsessed in, like, the way that, it's just exciting to look at them every day. I guess, eventually, when the numbers aren't so good every year, if it slows down, then we'll be obsessed in the bad way where it's like, oh, we gotta get these numbers up. Right now, it's just kinda like enjoying the ride and, like, look at number go up.

Adam:

The the main like, our main metric is just page views, which is what we sell ads against. So, I mean, that's the main driver of revenue. But, like, a a large percentage of our page views just come from Google. So we also stare at the Google Search Console a lot just seeing the numbers day to day clicks from Google and what pages are driving traffic. Yeah.

Adam:

We I'd say we're, like, we're very aware of the numbers as a team over the last few years just since they got so big. But I wouldn't say obsess because we all we just have so much to do. We do kind of, like, take bets on like, we think this will drive up time on page. Like, engagement numbers could be better here on this page. So, I'd say it, like, influences product decisions.

Adam:

But, it's mostly a healthy relationship because, again, the numbers have been good.

Dax:

Yeah. So for us, we literally look at the same numbers every week, and that kind of tells us whether what we did in the last week Yeah. Worked or not. So we're, like, still pretty in, like, in the micro of, like, one week it'll be good, the next week it'll be bad. So things change pretty frequently.

Adam:

Yeah. Like, for stat news, it's so driven off the sports schedule.

Dax:

Right. Yeah.

Adam:

It's super interesting.

Dax:

It's less about your Yeah.

Adam:

Like, you can see a down day, and then you look at year over year. And it's like, oh, this week, every single year is a low week just because of the nature of the sports schedule. The sports schedule is oddly consistent. But we have, like, added sports, and that kinda fills in some of the gaps. And, yeah, it's largely, like, day to day, we can't get too worked up over numbers just because it just totally depends on what happens.

Adam:

Somebody could break a record in a game, and we can have our best day in the last 6 months. And it's just kinda random.

Dax:

Mhmm. I see. That makes sense. Yeah. So I'm, like, looking forward to having some basic numbers that we can look at week to week.

Dax:

So I think next week will be the 1st week where we have, like, stable data. The last 2 weeks have been, like, crazy spiky because of we just launched. And then we'll see from there, like, how many new people are we getting week to week, which is very hard to change, by the way. Like, new users tend to be flat for, like it's just hard to move that number. Yeah.

Dax:

And with how many reorders we get, we see how much all that. I think it'll be clear what to do.

Adam:

Yeah. You so you said something in Discord about, like, ready for it to settle into, like, a normal and I guess, like, for me, will there be a normal rate? I feel like it's always gonna be pretty spiky depending on, like, our activity on socials. Like, I don't know what other driver right now.

Dax:

Well, the active if the activity on socials don't translate to increasing your baseline of, like, this we can always guarantee on this happening, you're, like, not compounding anything.

Adam:

Yeah.

Dax:

You know what I mean? Like, that's where we are right now. We're, like, we can do a bunch of effort, and then we'll get a bunch of sales.

Adam:

Get some sales, but they don't keep coming.

Dax:

Yeah. They don't add

Adam:

up to 10. But there's slower things that'll take time, like, word-of-mouth. I feel like word-of-mouth is gonna be really strong with this. Like, everybody who's in an office is gonna tell their friends that's a developer. Right?

Adam:

I mean, it's just kind of like it's got that novelty.

Dax:

That's kind of what I'm talking about. Like, if you have a healthy thing going, like, yeah, you'll see growth just from long term things like that.

Adam:

Okay. So the little flashes in the pan kind of, like, help seed more little champions of the company and the brand.

Dax:

Yeah. Yeah. They should they should increase just like

Adam:

And over time, it all just grows.

Dax:

What? Like like, our averages should go up over time. I guess it's Yeah.

Adam:

Like, week to week.

Dax:

Yeah. If they're if they're flats, then, you know, it's it's still fun, but it's not like something that is compounding.

Adam:

Yeah. I gotcha. So business is basically, if the number keeps going up, things are good.

Dax:

Well, so this is really funny. It's we were it's like years ago. We were hanging out with Liz's, very successful uncle. I had mentioned before, he's got, like, probably the 2nd biggest health care business in Miami. Billboards everywhere, like, vehicles on the road.

Dax:

You see it all the time. Massive, massive company. And one time we're hanging out with him, of course, this was at his he's got a, giant apartment on the beach and has a private beach with, like, people that, like, serve you when you're there. So you go and just hang on the beach and people I could say you're at a resort, but it's his house. So we were there, like, obviously enjoying this, like, really, like, rich, successful situation.

Dax:

And he was, like, describing to us his, like, a bunch of random things about his outlook on life and business and all that. And he was literally he literally said what you said. He was like, I go to people every week, the people that are managers, and I look at their chart. If the numbers are going up, that's good. If they're not going up, they're out.

Dax:

And that was that was like That's it. It was really that simple. And I think a lot of stuff in business is that simple. Like, you can complicate it, but, yeah. And and that was it.

Dax:

And, like, it's it was so convincing because we were, like, around all of his success. Yeah. He had this other funny point where he was like,

Adam:

oh, yeah.

Dax:

Like, people should definitely, like, go to really good schools and, like, like, go to Harvard and get a business degree so that you can so I can hire you. You can come work for me. It was like this kinda condescending thing, but I was like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dax:

It was yes. Number go up is good.

Adam:

Number go up. We'll just keep making that number go up. I gotta say something here before we move on to something else, before I forget. We had a clip on TikTok, and people commented that I am a skinwalker or I look like a skinwalker or I'm definitely AI. Listen, I'm not AI.

Adam:

Could AI do this? That's what I thought. So look, I'm a person I'm a human being with real feelings. I don't actually have real feelings. Oh my god, I am AI.

Adam:

Oh, am I AI?

Dax:

Oh, no. I found that so funny. Like, that okay. That you post a screenshot, like, of, like, 5 or 6 people agreeing that you're It's

Adam:

the only comments on the video. They're all like, that guy's definitely AI. What does that mean? Just my voice? The tone?

Dax:

I found it so funny to because to me, it's so random. But to have such a consistent response It's such

Adam:

a consistent response. Yeah.

Dax:

Like, what are people seeing? Is it what were you saying? Was it the content of what you were saying?

Adam:

The clip, I was just kind of like it was like 5 seconds of me just talking very monotone before you then, like, elaborated on a bunch of stuff. I was kinda asking you a question, but I did it very monotone. I don't know. I guess that was enough to make me look like AI. A nice camera?

Adam:

I don't know. I look fake.

Dax:

It was so funny. And it's, I think there's and it got me thinking about this. Like, there's some kind of reverse Turing test now.

Adam:

If you're not yeah. If you're not

Dax:

like, people think you're AI when you're actually a human. It's like the opposite of what we're trying to do.

Adam:

A great question. Yeah. What's, like, the most human thing you could do on a video that would be, like, that's clearly not AI? Like, how could I literally not be AI? What would be a thing?

Adam:

Like, when you think of text, like, the chat gpt spits out and, like, there's models that can figure out that it was AI generated, what's the equivalent for, like, a talking head? Like, what

Dax:

would be proof? Easy answer.

Adam:

Is it? Yeah. Pick my nose? What?

Dax:

No. Just say the most offensive word you can think of.

Adam:

Oh, because AI would knew that. That's funny. I'm not gonna do that.

Dax:

Yeah. Exactly.

Adam:

I must

Dax:

be AI. Me too. Yeah.

Adam:

Oh, man. So if anything on this podcast episode ends up on TikTok, I'd appreciate if you kept in mind that we're real human beings that were here. There's no AI on this podcast.

Dax:

Hey, not wait. I wasn't accused of not being AI.

Adam:

It did make me think, like, it's so easy to create, like, an AI version of yourself now. There's so many tools that, like, offer AI voices or like, why not? If people already think I'm AI, why shouldn't I? Just, like, clone me and then check out and, like, never show up on the podcast again.

Dax:

I'm just talking to an AI version of you.

Adam:

I won't even tell you, actually. You won't even be able to tell. I'll just make sure it's super convincing. And you'll just think you're talking to me. You might be talking to AI right now.

Adam:

Just saying.

Dax:

I wouldn't be surprised.

Adam:

I can't prove that I'm not. What's going on? I've been in a hole myself doing some programming. What what's the what's the latest? What's

Dax:

What is going on?

Adam:

Have you been, like, plugged into the tech scene? I saw on Twitter people are talking about, commit hooks or something. I I swear it really is just like a cycle. It's just like we get bored of something, and then we talk we bring up the same thing we brought up 3 months ago.

Dax:

I I had a bunch of fun with that yesterday. I posted, like, I posted, like, 50 tweets in 30 minutes.

Adam:

I believe you're in favor of commit hooks. I could tell you the list of people who are not. It's just it's getting it's getting out of hand. We got to come up with something new. I'm not

Dax:

in favor of commit hooks in general. I have one hook that I set up. A pre push hook to do a type check because I've observed behavior in myself and my team where that's an easy thing we miss. And then waiting for CI to fill is, like, way too slow of feedback loop. So might as well just just run it there.

Adam:

It's it's definitely very teams, context specific. Right? Like, within a given team, what you do from code authoring, like, your little fingies hitting the keyboard to it being deployed somewhere, that's very team specific. Right? Like, there's no general, like, this is how you should do things for every single team.

Dax:

Well, the thing I was having fun with was just making fun of, as usual, making fun of everyone else's process because they have process. It's Oh, yeah. Yeah. I so in my head, I'm like, when I make a code change and I push, I wanna be done. Like, I'm done.

Dax:

When I get pushed, my code is done. So I wanna make sure that if it pushed successfully, like, I can consider it done. Yep. But but then I realized, oh, that's not how everyone else works. They're like, oh, I'm actually pushing to a feature branch.

Dax:

So no matter what, I have to go to GitHub, like, check to wait for the PR checks to finish and then squash merge. So to them, I guess it's fine. I said squash merge out of Instinct. Probably not squash merge, probably some other weird thing that

Adam:

Some other weird thing.

Dax:

That people do. It's all because way yeah.

Adam:

Team teams aren't just made up of DAXs, you know? There's believe it or not, there are some programmers who aren't great. That's what

Dax:

I make fun that's what I make fun of everyone for. It's like, you guys all suck, so you need this stupid ass linter running so it can tell you that please add an underscore to this variable that is not used because if there wasn't an underscore there, like, the world would collapse.

Adam:

Like, it's

Dax:

just like there's just people just add so many tools and all this stuff, so I get why don't wanna run all that on every commit because that's just a lot of stuff. But for me, I'm just like Just don't use any of that.

Adam:

Just don't use it. Just be good at programming, and you don't need all that stuff.

Dax:

And then, of course, the response is, like, that works for you because you're a small team, but it doesn't work us because we're a big team and we we need to

Adam:

do that. Yeah. People don't know anything and we have to make them do the right thing. That's basically the the gist of it.

Dax:

Right? Yep.

Adam:

Like, we hire a bunch of people who are still learning lots of things. And we're like, we want our code to be perfect and just like this. And so we're gonna force everyone into this through automated tooling.

Dax:

And my my response to that is always, oh, like, but if it was just you, would you still need it? Or are you doing this for everyone else because everyone else is stupid on your team? And that's when they don't have an answer for it. It's like Well,

Adam:

I bet, like, everybody's side projects have all the same

Dax:

It's also because you're stupid.

Adam:

Yeah. Well, I'm sure, like, most people's side projects have all the same tooling they use at work because they're just in that habit. And then, like, you're a solo person working in repo with all this nonsense. You helped me see the light of, like, getting rid of ESLint. I'm, like, what what am I doing this for?

Adam:

Why do I have ESLint at all? I was so tired of configuring ESLint and all the other tools that everybody configures. It's just I'm just a sheep, you know, I just follow along. I just I see everybody else with all these things in their repos, and I'm like, I guess I need all that stuff.

Dax:

They're all Until

Adam:

I talk to you.

Dax:

The ESLint is so important that we've now, like, rewritten it in Rust. It just

Adam:

oh, jeez.

Dax:

But okay. Here's another thing that's funny. If you ask people the question, if all of your pre commit hooks could run a 100 times faster, would you still be against them? And they probably would say no. They wouldn't be against them.

Adam:

That was a question I had for you. Like, I saw somebody was it was it Kent, C. Dodds, that said, he runs them no. It was Matt Pocock. Somebody runs them, like, in a watcher.

Adam:

They run TSC in a watcher. And you said you don't like that, I think. But my question to you was

Dax:

I mean, that's that's fine, but that doesn't guarantee that I even noticed the watcher.

Adam:

Like I see. Like I

Dax:

said, I wanted to know when I push, I'm I'm good. That's my reply. I thought

Adam:

it was also just, like, if you have a big complex code base, TSC is not exactly instant. But if it could be instant

Dax:

Well, TSC Watcher is gonna be faster than running at full type check on push.

Adam:

It just it does like a diff or something? Like, it only

Dax:

Well, then you can

Adam:

do that

Dax:

even you can still do that with what I'm describing. But

Adam:

Okay.

Dax:

I don't I don't know if there's a speed difference between the 2. I just I just know that TSC Watchers is gonna be like, I'm not gonna pay attention to it or tease it and miss.

Adam:

That makes sense. I've officially waded into waters. I I'm not smart enough. Yeah.

Dax:

We tried to we ended up just talking about the thing we were making fun of, as usual.

Adam:

I actually don't care about any of that. I don't even run type checking. I don't care. I just push stuff, and sometimes it blips under

Dax:

the belt. We actually don't even have it turned on in the terminal code base.

Adam:

Sometimes things work when I push. Sometimes they don't. And we do. We also don't.

Dax:

We also haven't turned it on in the ion code base either, but we need to. But, yeah, it's just like I I posted a picture of the SR 70 1 Blackbird being, like, people built this with a fucking ruler.

Adam:

I saw that. Is that true? Like, they actually had, like, hand tool that they that's crazy.

Dax:

Yeah. The hand hand operated calculator.

Adam:

Wait a minute. The were, like, modern, commercial aircraft built that way?

Dax:

No. That was the last, like, big effort that was ever built.

Adam:

Okay. Okay.

Dax:

The slide rule, I think.

Adam:

Because I got a couple flights coming up. And I don't wanna be

Dax:

thinking about

Adam:

I don't wanna be thinking about that slide rule nonsense.

Dax:

I mean, it it works.

Adam:

I guess. It works. Yeah. It's true.

Dax:

Sometimes I stare especially in New York, sometimes I would, like, just stand and stare at buildings being like, how the hell is that door, like, in the exact center of the building? Like, how did they do that? It's such a large building, a large door on, like, uneven ground. Like, every part of the building is, like, perfectly symmetrical. It's impossible.

Adam:

Yeah. I mean, the pyramids. Right?

Dax:

Yeah.

Adam:

Okay. I just I just said that because I've heard, like, the pyramids are amazing. Are they really that amazing? They look kinda shitty to me. If I'm being honest, like I mean, they don't look like perfectly straight edges.

Adam:

Like, what why do we just, like, we praise the people who built the pyramids? I think the skyscraper is a little more impressive, personally. People are like, I can't even imagine we could build the pyramids now.

Dax:

The pyramids were built a long time ago.

Adam:

Yeah. But, like, I'm just saying nothing. It's not okay. They're impressive because they're large, and they were built a long time ago. We our ancestors were dum dums.

Adam:

They can't build big things, only little things. Is that is that what it is? What about Stonehenge?

Dax:

Well, hang on. This is a complex topic because well, Stonehenge is funny because it's just a that is also just not impressive. Stonehenge is not very impressive.

Adam:

Don't we just yeah. It's not impressive, but don't we, like, not know why it's like that? Like, clearly somebody did it, but we're like, who and

Dax:

why? Yeah. There's theories. Yeah. Okay.

Adam:

Let's get

Dax:

back to the pyramids.

Adam:

I want you to explain to me why the pyramids are impressive.

Dax:

Well, the pyramids is just it's a lot of these things are funny because it's like, how do they do that? Well, you know, through slavery. It's like, how do they achieve this crazy thing, though?

Adam:

By forcing lots of people to do it? Yeah.

Dax:

And, you know, you just ground people

Adam:

But there's, like, There's, like, actually some impressive engineering stuff about the pyramids, I guess.

Dax:

I'm sure there is. Like, I mean, people there's so many theories on how they think they've lifted all the blocks up. There's, like, some really wild theories involving, like, basically, like, hydraulics, like, when, like, water pushes things out. Like, there's all these weird theories, but there's no, like, definitive answer. I don't I don't think on this is the exact process that was used.

Dax:

And I think that's makes it interesting.

Adam:

That does make it yeah. It's interesting. I should take back all the bad things I said about the pyramids. Very impressive.

Dax:

Apologize to the ancient Egyptians right now.

Adam:

Sorry. If you are

Dax:

an ancient Egyptian listening

Adam:

to this podcast, I'm so sorry. Do you ever think about, like, when, we're all dead and gone and it's been how many years has it been since the pyramids are made? Like, 3000 years? 2000? What was it?

Dax:

I don't know.

Adam:

That's some 1,000. It's in the 1,000. Right? Do you ever think about, like, when it's been 1,000 of years and, like, some remnants of these skyscrapers and stuff are left and people are like, look at what they built. That's so impressive.

Adam:

And, like, pat this on the head. But they made these nice little towers. They're, like, floating up in space, driving their flying cars and all that, and they're like, look at those towers. How sweet.

Dax:

That is really funny.

Adam:

More. If you wanna get morbid, do you ever think about, like, how how many millions of years before there's no trace of us literally on earth? It's not that long. It's kinda wild. I I heard this in a book, actually, or maybe a podcast.

Adam:

It's like 10000000 years or something. It's not a lot. Somebody looked it up. Fact check me. But it's like there'll be literally no trace of humanity.

Adam:

Ain't that wild?

Dax:

Wait. But, like, if we die out?

Adam:

Yeah. Assuming, like well, I think you make the number big enough and you can just kinda, like, I guess, unless we start traveling to other planets or something. Maybe that's a wholly owned Mustang. I don't know. But I it was this book that talked about

Dax:

We'll we'll be transformed to pure energy.

Adam:

Oh, okay.

Dax:

Well, I'm not just ball b atoms across the universe.

Adam:

Okay. I don't know what that means, but I believe you. I'm sure there's an optimistic that's probably the optimistic case. Right? The the the thing I heard was, like, if we wanted to determine if another intelligent species lived on this planet a 100000000 years ago, a 1000000000 years ago, could we actually do it?

Adam:

And that the conclusion was, no. Like, you go far enough back, it's in the 1000000 of years, and, literally, there's no trace, like, the way the sediment layers work and isotope half lives and all that stuff.

Dax:

Mhmm.

Adam:

It's like literally the the we would have no idea. There could have been another intelligent civilization living on earth far enough back in time that we just can't even detect it. And then it's like, well, you do the same thing forward if we die out. There will be no trace of us. Isn't that wild?

Dax:

That is true.

Adam:

It's nuts.

Dax:

Yeah. I mean, it's crazy how nothing is permanent. Like, you that we build these things, and they just slowly erode. Just entropy always. I think it is all the time with my house because it's it's so old, and I'm like, there's so many forces working against it.

Dax:

There's, like, physical forces of, like, just deteriorating the house, and there's, like, economic forces that, like, also wanna get rid of it.

Adam:

Spiritual forces, like the voodoo dolls that I just poke around about your house.

Dax:

I don't know. I'm just gonna say This isn't a 100% related, but there's a short story that if you haven't read, you should you should read called The Last Question. It's an Isogasimov thing, and it, like, plays forward, like, trillions of years. I believe it imagines, like, all these all

Adam:

these things. Been a trillion years?

Dax:

There have been a trillions?

Adam:

That's a good question. What is it?

Dax:

A year

Adam:

is a spin around the Earth. I'm talking very badly today. I might be AI. Yeah.

Dax:

A year no. But this proves they're not because AI will not say a

Adam:

year is

Dax:

a spin around

Adam:

the Earth.

Dax:

Is that what you said?

Adam:

I said a spin around the Earth. One rotation of

Dax:

the Earth. Anything.

Adam:

Oh, yeah. That's a that's a I mean, okay. A year, When we say a year, we mean one, trip around the sun for the planet earth. What is a year in the universe? There is no such thing.

Adam:

Time isn't like that.

Dax:

No. It's not how it works. Time is a thing.

Adam:

It's relative.

Dax:

You measure it

Adam:

But it's relative.

Dax:

In different ways.

Adam:

Right. That's

Dax:

like saying Fahrenheit and Celsius. You know, we got 2 different ways of measuring the same concept. Kinda the same thing.

Adam:

Okay. So but when we say, like, no, I'm so curious about this. When they when people are like, the universe is 13,000,000,000 years old, they're basing that off 13000000000 Earth trips around the sun?

Dax:

Yeah. But it's not like the Earth had to exist for all those all that time.

Adam:

Right. Okay. There could still be years even if we weren't floating around the sun. That makes sense. But there hasn't been a trillion years yet.

Adam:

Right? So when you say, like, trillions of years in the future No.

Dax:

There hasn't. It's it's it's in the billions.

Adam:

So, like, what is this book ex how does it explore trillions of years? Like, what do we know about what would happen in a trillion years?

Dax:

I mean, it's actually not about that concept. That's kind of the fact that a trillion years are passing is kinda like a side thing to the main story. But Wow.

Adam:

What is the main story? Because that's quite a side thing.

Dax:

It's about a computer that is just ingesting data to answer the last question. And it's just ingesting data over time, and it plays forward 1,000,000 of year trillions of years. And you can Now

Adam:

I gotta now I gotta know what the last question is. Can you just tell me?

Dax:

No. I'm gonna tell you. You have to do it.

Adam:

I have to, like, read the book or something? Okay.

Dax:

Or or just listen to it. Listen to it on like, just search the last question on YouTube, and someone will have narrated it.

Adam:

Oh, I don't know if you

Dax:

could give it Audible. This sounds a little It's a short story. Mhmm. A little what?

Adam:

It's a little sketch ripping it off YouTube,

Dax:

It's a short story.

Adam:

A short story? Fine. I'll look it up on YouTube. What was last question?

Dax:

I listened to it on one of my drives to Miami.

Adam:

Yeah. Okay. You need to listen to have I told you about, Project Hail Mary? Have I told the podcast about Project Hail Mary? Because

Dax:

Yes. We talked about it. And I need to like, Liz is really pissing me that I haven't heard it

Adam:

yet. You have to read it. And I will. Listen to it on Audible. Don't read it.

Dax:

I will.

Adam:

She listened to it. Right?

Dax:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam:

Okay. Yeah. I feel like it it has to be better on Audible than it would be reading it.

Dax:

Just, like, sound wise. Me that. Yeah.

Adam:

Okay. So if you're listening to this podcast right now, please stop and download Project Hail Mary. It's on Audible because it's an actual book. You won't find it on YouTube. If it's on YouTube, it'll probably get taken down because that's how books work.

Adam:

You have to get, like the author has to get money somehow. So you don't listen to books on YouTube, contrary to to DAX's. I'm really struggling with English today. Like, just like every word, it feels so labored. I've not been talking much.

Adam:

I feel like I've been in a hole in my office for a week, and I haven't been practicing English or communicating. I also really have to pee. Are you just letting me squirm right now?

Dax:

So I refreshed my memory on this last question, short story, exactly what it was. So I can't tell you what the question is. That's not as spoiler alert.

Adam:

Okay.

Dax:

Yes. The the premise of the short story is they build a computer, and the purpose of the computer is to answer the question, how do we stop and reverse entropy? Oh. And they keep revisiting the computer every 1000000, 1000000000 years and asking it the question, how do we do it? And at the end, it finally tells you, basically.

Dax:

Oh,

Adam:

I wanna listen to it now. How many hours are we talking?

Dax:

Not that I mean, probably 1 or 2. Oh, really? Maybe maybe less than 1. It's 1 on the short story. No.

Dax:

It's only 28 minutes.

Adam:

28 minutes? Yeah. Wow. Do you ever listen to those, like, 36 hour books on Audible?

Dax:

I've got a few of those biographies. Is that a lot or little? I have, like, no like, 12 hours is normal, I think. Right?

Adam:

I mean, a lot of books are 5 to to 10. I mean

Dax:

Oh, really?

Adam:

And then if you listen at 2 times speed, it's half that. Everything's half that. Everything is half that. Yeah. Like, I'm struggling, Dax.

Adam:

I feel like did I have a stroke? Every, like, every yes. Everything, every number divided by 2 is in fact half of that number. What is going on with me?

Dax:

So you you discovered a new law of mathematics.

Adam:

Right. I don't know what's going on. It just feels like everything feels slow.

Dax:

Check your c o two meter.

Adam:

Okay. No kidding. 14 100. It's actually pretty high. Yeah.

Adam:

That's actually big.

Dax:

That's funny. That's funny.

Adam:

At 2 x speed, though, that's that's not very big. I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm not a 2 x

Dax:

speed person.

Adam:

You're not a 2 x speed? What are you? What what do you listen at?

Dax:

I'm a I'm a one x. I mean,

Adam:

I don't listen to much. What?

Dax:

I don't listen to much. But when I do, it's a one x thing.

Adam:

Wait a minute. You don't you don't listen like, do you go for walks? I guess you, like, have to walk places

Dax:

for purposes. And usually, I'm walking with Liz.

Adam:

So So do you never okay. You never just go on, like, an arbitrary walk just to get steps?

Dax:

I do sometimes when I'm walking Zuko. But I mean, I walk in my backyard a lot when I'm playing with him, especially with the whole

Adam:

Yeah.

Dax:

Bubbles thing as you saw. But I'm usually not alone and walking.

Adam:

So I go on, like, several little 15 minute walks every day just to because I literally just have to move because the human race has gotten so convenient that we don't have to move, so we have to do it for arbitrary reasons. So I always listen to books or podcasts when I walk. But if I didn't have that, I guess if I didn't walk, I wouldn't listen to anything either.

Dax:

So for a while, when I was doing my morning routine with Zuko, I had an audiobook playing.

Adam:

I did it for, like, maybe

Dax:

2 months, and I haven't for a month now.

Adam:

I don't know.

Dax:

I just, like, this habit never sticks for me. I never, like, really listen to stuff.

Adam:

Maybe you need to you just need to start listening to Project Hail Mary. You need something so riveting that you can't just Like, I go for more walks. Something like that. Yeah. When I get into a book, like, really into it, I just go for more walks, which is good.

Adam:

I need to move more. Anyway, I'm so I'm gonna listen to Project Hail Mary at 2 or you're gonna listen to Project Hail Mary, and I'm gonna listen to

Dax:

At one x.

Adam:

At one x. And I'm gonna have fun with that. I'm gonna listen to your recommendation at point 3 x. I don't know. I gotta make it last longer than 20 minutes.

Dax:

Yeah. Otherwise, you might be left alone with your thoughts.

Adam:

Oh, okay. Actually, it's funny you said that. This morning, I did my first not my first ever, but, like, in a long time,

Dax:

meditation practice.

Adam:

Yeah. I'm trying. Casey's making me, because there's some alarming things about my brain. Well, you've seen today on this podcast. So, she's making me just, like, sit, and the the instruction is I set a 5 minute timer.

Adam:

I do this every morning now. Today is day 1. I have to just sit and observe my thoughts. Like, watch them go by like cars on the road. It's like the the stereotypical meditation thing, like, for beginners.

Adam:

And I'm a beginner. It's very hard. My brain does not want to sit still. Does yours?

Dax:

I don't know if you know this, but Jay is, like, has had a very consistent

Adam:

I thought it.

Dax:

Meditation practice. Yeah. And it's, like, had made some pretty big profound changes in his life. That.

Adam:

Yeah. Could you just talk about some of the changes?

Dax:

No. Okay.

Adam:

That's fine. That's fair. We'll have

Dax:

you on the podcast, and maybe he can he can

Adam:

talk tell you some details. That'd be that's pretty personal. Yeah. Yeah. But I I, like, I think I know what I I I was asking not because I wanna know Jay's whatever.

Adam:

I'm asking because I wanna know, like, what to expect. What can I expect to improve in my life with meditation? Could you tell me some generic things that generally people improve? It's it's it's really I think

Dax:

it's yeah. I just can't articulate it because I haven't Yeah. Yeah. It's not an MB thing. But I will say that, back when I used to do a lot more hallucinogens, I also was doing meditative stuff a lot where I would just let my mind just run on its own.

Dax:

Mhmm. And, honestly, I found this, like, infinitely entertaining. And when I remember when I remember this every now and then when I'm bored, I'll do it again, and I find it, like, really, really fun. Like, for me, when I just, like, release control, like, I start seeing all this, like, crazy interesting stuff, and it's so wild to me how, like, my brain just jumps from one thing to another. So, yeah, it's weird because I don't find meditating boring, really.

Dax:

I just find it I think it's, like, really fun. I don't know how else to put it.

Adam:

Yeah. I didn't it's not that like, this morning in my experience of meditating of one day. It's not that I found it boring. It's just really hard. It's really hard to not run with everything.

Dax:

Control. Yeah.

Adam:

Yeah. To, like, literally just do the thing you're supposed to do when you meditate. It feels like my brain it's it's a learned skill, and I just not done it. Yeah.

Dax:

For sure.

Adam:

I gotta learn it. And I want to. I I think there are some things I need to improve in my brain and my

Dax:

And there is a big that people link meditation and hallucinogens a lot together. They, like, kind of can put you in the same mental state.

Adam:

Right. That's what I've heard that, like, like, hallucinogens are the cheap and easy way to get into states that through years years of practice with meditation, you can eventually get to. Is that kind of what you've Yeah. Gathered? Yeah.

Dax:

I I've heard that too. And I I I can kinda see the link, because I definitely was able to much more release in that way Yeah. When I was when I was doing that stuff more. The visual I always got was it felt like I was in the ocean. The the waves were just, like, popping around That's deep.

Dax:

Ocean with the waves, and that's what it felt like my brain was doing.

Adam:

For me, this morning in my one experience, it felt kinda like being in the middle of Stonehenge and wondering I was just

Dax:

wondering what the hell are a

Adam:

bunch of rocks

Dax:

sitting in my head.

Adam:

I can't wait till I have really deep, profound things to say after my years of meditation. I'm gonna become Dax, basically. I'm gonna, like, get on Twitter and, like, wow people with my wisdom because I meditate. That's the goal. It's really the only goal.

Dax:

You could do that now if you just limit yourself to, like, 5 words and just randomly pick 5 words that kinda sound like that makes sense together and post it, and you'll probably get, like, 80% of the way there.

Adam:

I'm gonna do that actually right after we get off. I'm gonna run I'm gonna do tweet something that's 5 words, and they will be random words. I don't know about random, but they won't make sense, and we'll see what we'll see what happens. If you hear this, find the tweet, like it, boost it.

Dax:

It it's funny we're talking about Stonehenge so much, and the Stonehenge was recently vandalized. I saw that.

Adam:

I did see that. What are your feelings on that?

Dax:

I really hate stuff like this because I'll tell you exactly why I hate it. It's like one of the one of my core things that I just didn't really bother me. So, again, it's one of the situations where there are so called climate activists that do these crazy things, to get attention for that or, like it's like a way to, like, you know in their view, I think it's to, like, find places to strike that are painful. To, you know it's, like, trying to get leverage in that way. Yep.

Dax:

What I hate about this kind of thing is this type of thing tends to be done by people that have no personal risk of their cause not working out.

Adam:

And you

Dax:

can see it because they don't consider backlash at all. If you are truly someone that has, like, dedicated their life to solving our climate problems, you don't want stuff like that because you know it creates backlash, and you know it creates it just makes it harder for you to do your actual job of, like, convincing people to care about things in a in a genuine way and to, you know, do whatever you need to do. I think so much in life is like this. There's just people that are unaffected by the problems they're trying to solve, and they do things that create backlash for the people they're supposedly trying to help. But, yeah, I I just I just hate all of that.

Adam:

Yeah. How how do they get to that? I mean, I guess, like, how does one become insulated from the ramifications of just, like, doing stupid stuff?

Dax:

Most of your people are rich, for 1. Like, if you look at all if you look up all these people, they're just, like, children of wealthy people that have

Adam:

So that's where the not having

Dax:

root guilt.

Adam:

Ramifications. Okay. Like, if they if they weren't made of money, then they'd be worried about losing a job or they'd be worried about other just normal pressures. Interesting.

Dax:

The the climate one's interesting because it's obviously so big that it's hard to imagine, like, an individual that's more affected by it. So I kinda categorize it more as people that are, like, trying to do actual work to improve the stuff versus people that are just, like, role playing in this weird thing that they're trying to do.

Adam:

Yeah. I gotcha.

Dax:

But, yeah, if you're someone that, like, is trying to get a certain policy passed and then these climate activists are pissing off millions of people, that does not help you.

Adam:

No. Right. You're upset.

Dax:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That means it's become a trend. Like, they just throw shit on the on paintings and stuff.

Adam:

I I saw the the painting. I saw the painting, the, Stonehenge thing. It made me sad a little bit. Like, I didn't I didn't actually see in the initial articles, like, does it come off? Can they get that off?

Adam:

I don't know.

Dax:

No. Yeah. I think pretty much every situation, they've been able to undo the damage as far as

Adam:

To undo? Okay. That I can see. But because that's artisanal handmade stone. Yeah.

Dax:

I was gonna say

Adam:

it ties back

Dax:

to our original thing. Like yeah.

Adam:

It's rare.

Dax:

What's the purpose of our species continuing to exist if, like, we're gonna destroy

Adam:

Right.

Dax:

These things.

Adam:

Yeah. Seems bad. Don't be like that. If you're a listener of the podcast and you're considering vandalizing precious humanity, don't. Maybe just don't.

Adam:

I doubt anywhere listeners would do that. We got really good listeners, I hear. They're really nice. I like them. I don't know.

Adam:

What am I talking about? We should get off here. I my brain, I should not be talking right now. I don't know what's going on.

Dax:

You should go get some oxygen, I think.

Adam:

Yeah. I'm gonna open the window.

Dax:

To me, what it seems like is this meditation has had a reverse effect on you.

Adam:

Meditation. It's meditation's fault. It's the first day I've meditated, and my brain is like mashed potatoes. Oh my word.

Dax:

It's like it's like you have a fixed number of thoughts that you can have, and then you just you just use them all in the morning.

Adam:

Remember when I said that, 1, 1 year is, when the earth one spin earth?

Dax:

What did

Adam:

I say? You can't. Oh, man.

Dax:

One spin of the earth.

Adam:

I'm gonna one spin. That's what I said. I'm gonna, I'm gonna submit this episode to Casey as evidence that maybe meditation not for me. Just possibly.

Dax:

Were you breathing during it? Like, maybe you were focused so hard on meditation that you just you just we watched

Adam:

No. It's 5 minutes not breathing bad. You're talking to me, but dead. This is AI. I had to get AI to replace me.

Dax:

A real boy.

Adam:

This was episode 99, by the way. Really? Yeah. Wow. This next episode is, like, until 100.

Adam:

No big deal. Not like I've been anticipating it for

Dax:

a year plus. Are we gonna do something special?

Adam:

Yeah. I think so. I'm not exactly sure, so I'm gonna not say anymore, but I think so. I don't wanna make promises.

Dax:

Something really, really, really special in the next episode.

Adam:

Very special episode. You don't wanna miss it. Also, if you're listening this long, I know some people do. Hey. Why don't you why don't you do stuff?

Adam:

What do what do you what? Subscribe? What do what do you even ask for on a podcast? Subscribe's not even a thing, is it? Like, if you listen to this on Spotify I don't know.

Adam:

What's something I could ask you to do? I'd like to ask you to do something because, I don't know, we have that power.

Dax:

I want you to go run out in the streets and scream about tomorrow

Adam:

Yes.

Dax:

FM.

Adam:

Say my favorite podcast ever. What what would they say, Dax? You you tell me because I'm my brain. Run out

Dax:

to someone and demand that they listen to tomorrow FM right now. Make them pull out their phone and listen to an episode and repeatedly punch them until they do.

Adam:

Well, maybe not the punching. But, yeah, all the other stuff for sure.

Dax:

Oh, but the rest of it's fine.

Adam:

Yeah. The rest of it was great. Oh, leave a review. That's the thing I can ask for. Please leave reviews on your favorite actually, no.

Adam:

Cancel that. You can't even leave reviews. I was checking out Spotify, like, I'm a podcast listener. You can't really do anything to interact with a podcast. This is a one way street, folks.

Adam:

I'm sorry.

Dax:

Send us money.

Adam:

Send us money. That'd be great.

Dax:

Mail mail us money.

Adam:

I think you can actually leave reviews on Apple Podcasts, but does anyone use that? I don't even know. Okay. I'm done. Let's be done.

Adam:

Okay. Alright. Yep. Next time I see you, it'll be episode 100. It's pretty exciting.

Dax:

Right? If I show up.

Adam:

Well, I'll see it before that. I'll show up.

Dax:

Instead of I show up?

Adam:

I'm getting on a plane next week. Oh, if you show up, is that a threat? Okay.

Dax:

See that. Apparently, you're hanging in episode 100. You were waiting so long

Adam:

for it. That would be so sad.

Dax:

It's such a good prank.

Adam:

Oh, don't do it.

Dax:

I've never talked to you again.

Adam:

This this is like the the Dax has an opportunity to do something really funny right now. This is that

Dax:

me. Exactly.

Adam:

Oh, man. I'll see you next time, Dax, if I don't die on a plane. Okay. See you. Yeah.

Creators and Guests

Adam Elmore
Host
Adam Elmore
AWS DevTools Hero and co-founder @statmuse. Husband. Father. Brother. Sister?? Pet?!?
Dax Raad
Host
Dax Raad
building @SST_dev and @withbumi
Scrolling Bugs, Pursuing Optimization, and Number Go Up is Good
Broadcast by