216: Tragedy, Tech, and T-Swift

Brett

[00:00:00]Brett: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Brett Terpstra, and we’re going to get the, uh, the intro in the proper order this week. So here it goes. Welcome to overtired. I’m Brett Terpstra. I’m here with Christina Warren. How’s it going, Christina?

[00:00:12] Christina: [00:00:12] pretty good, Brett, pretty good. Uh, w this is like classic overtired style, and that we are doing this at the crack ass of Dawn my time. So we’re both going to be a little bit tired. Um, how are you?

[00:00:26] Brett: [00:00:26] I haven’t slept all week. So yeah, I am fully over right now. I, we had to, we had to do a really sad thing this week. I’m not talking like really sad. I’m talking like tragic.

[00:00:40] Christina: [00:00:40] yeah, no. I saw your Facebook post and like it broke my heart. And so I think we should just skip all the niceties and just go straight into, uh, into Brett’s mental health

[00:00:50] Brett: [00:00:50] Yeah, right. So yeah. Speaking of mental health, uh, I’ll mention our two sponsors this week are, uh, better help, [00:01:00] uh, which is online counseling and, uh, ritual vitamins, which are great for all kinds of health stuff. So. That’s a good lead in, I guess, to the fact that, uh, we had a kitten born on, uh, born on Valentine’s day.

[00:01:18] And, uh, and we got him, uh, after about eight weeks and, uh, we named him Finnegan and he w his nickname was loved pig because he would just crawl up on your shoulder and purse so loud that you couldn’t hear anything. And he just, he was so good. And then he got FIP, which is, uh, it’s caused by a Corona virus and it, uh, causes fluid buildup and, uh, it it’s terminal.

[00:01:51] And we had to put him down last week, uh, at the age of like nine months. And it was the saddest thing I’ve ever [00:02:00] done. I’ve put plenty of animals to sleep over the years. But this was the hardest.

[00:02:07]Christina: [00:02:07] Uh, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t even like losing pets is the hardest anyway, but yeah, no. And I saw your Facebook posts. I was just like, my heart went out to you and L because. I can’t even imagine, you know, something to who, it seemed like you really connected with this, with this kitten and you know, for it to be so little.

[00:02:27] And, uh, I’m so sorry.

[00:02:29] Brett: [00:02:29] Yeah. And it was the first pet that Ella and I got together. Uh, all, all of our other pets came into the relationship. And, uh, and we’re very attached to one or the other of us and Finnegan was kind of both of ours after he got sick, he became, uh, a momma’s boy. He always wanted to be an L’s lap, which was fine.

[00:02:50] I think I’m better at petting animals than she is, but she’s the, uh, she’s the chill nurturing one. Uh, and I think he, [00:03:00] he just wanted to curl up in her lap while she knit and just his breathing got labored over time. and we didn’t want him to slowly suffocate. So

[00:03:10] Christina: [00:03:10] no. You wanted to do the humane thing. Uh, is there like, is there anything preventative that, like, I know some feline diseases, like they have vaccines and stuff. Is there

[00:03:21] Brett: [00:03:21] I don’t think there is the, like they say 80 to 90% of all cats get exposed to this Corona virus. Uh, and only about one in 5,000 actually develop FIP from it. So, uh, to really your cat’s immune system will determine whether or not this happens. And I’ve talked to him since, cause I posted about this.

[00:03:45] Um, and since posting, I’ve heard from a few people, who’ve had the same thing happen and it’s just kind of a risk you take. Um, and I don’t think it matters where your cat comes from, whether it’s a shelter or a breeder or. [00:04:00] Whatever, however you get your cat, like I’ve adopted cats that I found in gutters and they haven’t had the kind of health problems that we saw.

[00:04:10] So yeah, I’ve been, I lost sleep before, like the thought of having to do it, uh, made me like ill,

[00:04:20] Christina: [00:04:20] yeah.

[00:04:21] Brett: [00:04:21] to my stomach. Uh, so I lost sleep for a couple of nights before we had to put him down. And then the grief like kept me awake. I would think like, all I’d want to do would be to sleep, but I just couldn’t.

[00:04:36] I just had like waking dreams about the whole situation and it was,

[00:04:41] Christina: [00:04:41] Hmm.

[00:04:42]Brett: [00:04:42] there’s a book called tear soup that Mike Rose sent to me, uh, when I lost my dog, Emma, And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this book, but it’s about it. It’s this kind of metaphorical soup that this old woman makes after suffering [00:05:00] a major loss and she fills it with tears and memories.

[00:05:04] And it is the ultimate book for people who are grieving about anything, because it talks about how, like, no one can go through this with you. And a lot of people will. Try to be sympathetic. And then a lot of people won’t know how to deal with someone who is grieving and it kind of covers all of these bases that you’re going to go through. I highly recommend it. I’m going to add it to the show notes because it’s, it was the best thing that, uh, anyone offered me through the whole grieving process.

[00:05:41] Christina: [00:05:41] No, I that’s, that’s really good to know about that. I’m, I’m, I’m one of those people who like, I can be there for people that I can talk to that I can listen, but I, I, you know, I struggle because like my instinct is to want to try to be helpful and there’s nothing helpful you can really do [00:06:00] except maybe do what micros did, which has offered really good books.

[00:06:03] Um, My mom though. It’s like, you know, one of the things that she did for years and years and years was she would run grief groups, you know, for, for kids, you know, and she was a school counselor, a school psychologist. And so, uh, she’s actually like really good at that. Um, and you know, in that case, you know, you’re talking about like elementary school kids, who’ve lost a sibling or a parent, or, you know, maybe, maybe like a close new grandparent or something.

[00:06:31] Um, but. Yeah. It’s it’s you do, you always like struggle with that thing. So I thank you for mentioning that book and I’m, I’m just so sorry this happened. How has L doing? I bet.

[00:06:46] Brett: [00:06:46] She, she, she shows on the outside more, um, the grief. And I’ve learned through this, that the best thing you can say too, and I can’t say this is true for everyone, but the [00:07:00] best thing you could say to either of us is just to say that sucks. Like you can say, you’re sorry, you can offer your own personal stories, but all we really need to hear is that that fucking

[00:07:10] Christina: [00:07:10] this is absolutely no. And it does, it does fucking suck. Like it’s yeah, it’s shitty.

[00:07:17] Brett: [00:07:17] I was in. When I was in middle school, both of my grandfathers died on the exact same day. Uh, and the same week my dog died they stuck me in a grief group that I did not take well to. Like I just, I needed to deal with that on my own. And to be honest, I started drinking around that time

[00:07:38] Christina: [00:07:38] Right.

[00:07:38] Brett: [00:07:38] really deal with it until I was in my twenties.

[00:07:42] And then like, I dealt with that and like my friends who had died during my junkie years and it all kind of crashed in at once, but yeah, I did grief groups. Weren’t great for me.

[00:07:52]Christina: [00:07:52] Yeah, no, I mean, they have to be the right person to like, I think that, that they’re not going to work for everybody. And I mean, it’s kind of the same thing with. [00:08:00] Any sort of therapy or

[00:08:01] Brett: [00:08:01] Oh, for

[00:08:02] Christina: [00:08:02] you need to be, you need to be in the right mindset to do it and be open to it. Not everybody is going to be.

[00:08:07] And then some people are much more tuned to it than others. Like, like my mom, like is really fucking good at that. Um, but, but some people, especially, uh, I don’t mean to be disparaging of our public school systems or a private school systems, to be honest, actually I would, I would argue that our private school systems are probably worse.

[00:08:26] With this regard, but you know, a lot of people who do that sort of counseling stuff at that level, usually aren’t, they’re not always the best. I’m just going to say it there. They’re not always the best, so I can see why, especially at that age for you being in middle school, that that would be like, you’d be like, yeah.

[00:08:45] Brett: [00:08:45] Yeah,

[00:08:46] Christina: [00:08:46] not, I’m not able to deal with this.

[00:08:47] Brett: [00:08:47] like I was, I was the major, uh, ingredient there. Like I just was

[00:08:53] Christina: [00:08:53] Oh, completely.

[00:08:54] Brett: [00:08:54] to any of that.

[00:08:55] Christina: [00:08:55] Right, right. I mean, that’s the thing. You could have the perfect person then they would still not, [00:09:00] they would still not be able to do anything because you wouldn’t be open to it, but there can be people who, you know, would maybe recognize and be like, Hey, I see that this isn’t going to be productive if you need somebody I’m here, but otherwise we’re, we’re going to, you know, we’re not going to force you to, to go to this or, or whatever,

[00:09:18]Brett: [00:09:18] I feel like there’s never going to be a better segue into our better help sponsorship than

[00:09:25] Christina: [00:09:25] I agree. I agree. Actually, I was just thinking that.

[00:09:28] Brett: [00:09:28] Um, and normally I would say this for a little further into the episode, but this is extremely, uh, apropos. So. Um, the question you have to ask yourself is what’s getting in the way of your happiness. And for me personally, it’s a combination right now of grief, uh, being bipolar and having ADHD.

[00:09:48] Uh, but I think a lot of people have something that prevents them from achieving their goals. So. There’s better help, better help is professional therapy available remotely. You fill out a [00:10:00] detailed questionnaire and they match you with a professional therapist. That’s right for you licensed in this state where you live, and then you connect in a safe and private online environment, whatever way works for you.

[00:10:11] Whether it’s live calls, video calls, or just text messages. Uh, once you filled out your questionnaire, you can start communicating with your counselor and under 24 hours. And this isn’t self-help. This is professional counseling. Uh, I see a psychiatrist who takes care of my medication prescription needs, but honestly, I don’t, I don’t have access to great therapy where I live a pretty limited selection.

[00:10:37] And that’s why I’m excited about this. I just filled out the questionnaire yesterday and got matched in a couple of hours. So I’ll be starting my first session today. And I’m feeling really good about it. Uh, really looking forward to. Some grief counseling, um, but better help is more affordable than traditional counseling and financial aid is [00:11:00] available in many areas.

[00:11:01] Um, there are counselors who specialize in ADHD and bipolar as well as depression, stress, anger, LGBT specific matters, grief, sleeping trauma. Just about any specific need that you have, um, including grief. Grief that’s uh, yeah, that, that, that, that is that’s our segue, but, uh, anything you share is completely confidential and I want you, our listeners to start living a happier life today.

[00:11:34] So as a listener or you’ll get 10% off your first month by visiting our [email protected] slash overtired. Join over 1 billion people who have taken charge of their mental health. Again, that’s better help. H E L p.com/over tired. Have you ever done online counseling?

[00:11:56]Christina: [00:11:56] I haven’t, but, uh, I liked that it [00:12:00] exists. Um, although like I’ve never done online. My shrink though is who’s also my psychiatrist. Like I don’t, I haven’t lived in the same state that he’s in, in a decade. So I do it over the phone. So it’s similar.

[00:12:14] Brett: [00:12:14] Yeah, and, and better help offers, uh, phone-based counseling sessions. So yeah, pretty much exactly the same.

[00:12:22] Christina: [00:12:22] Yeah, no. And I have to say, uh, finding somebody is oftentimes the, I think for a lot of people, the most challenging part to even figure out like, if this would be useful to you or not. And so I’m glad that things like this exist to make things more accessible, you

[00:12:37] Brett: [00:12:37] Yeah, which reminds me the read is over, but I will mention that it’s super easy to switch counselors. If you have any problem with the one they match you with, it’s like you can immediately switch to someone else with no hassle at all.

[00:12:51]Christina: [00:12:51] That’s really

[00:12:52] Brett: [00:12:52] Yeah. That is cause, cause finding a therapist that like you see in person and then switching [00:13:00] therapists is a

[00:13:01] Christina: [00:13:01] no it is. And, um, Yeah. So this is one of the, the times where I think it’s more advantageous when you can just kind of do things remotely, so to speak. Um, well, yeah, well, I look forward to seeing how that works for you, but, but also like, I, I want you to be able to talk to someone and talk about your grief, because this is, this is shitty and I’m really

[00:13:25] Brett: [00:13:25] Someone who’s ready to deal with it because truly a lot of people. Myself included. I don’t deal well with other people’s grief. Like I feel for them, I’m not, um, I like I’m, I’m not callous. Like, I, I feel for you, but I don’t know how to relate to you when you’re grieving. And I get that people, people need, I need someone to talk to that isn’t, uh, like my friends who might not know how to deal with me, so

[00:13:57] Christina: [00:13:57] Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, exactly. That’s, that’s sort of trying to say [00:14:00] like about my mom, like my mom is like, I think that’s one of the reasons why she went into doing what she did and she switched careers. Cause she was. So good at that. I’m, I’m not like I think of myself as an empathetic person and I’m usually good at talking to people about a lot of stuff, but there are certain things, grief being one of them where, I mean, sometimes all you can do is hold a person and just tell them you love them.

[00:14:23] And you know that it sucks and, and listen, and maybe that’s what you need to do. But I guess

[00:14:29] Brett: [00:14:29] and that’s like Ella and I like we’re, we’re both going through this together, but you have to grieve on your own.

[00:14:38] Christina: [00:14:38] exactly.

[00:14:38] Brett: [00:14:38] the most we can really do is commiserate and hold each other. But we can’t. Like just because I’m not crying today. Doesn’t mean she can’t and like it, we have to give each other the space to kind of do that on our own.

[00:14:57] Christina: [00:14:57] Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, that’s the thing too. I think that [00:15:00] compounds things is, is when you go through a shared loss, right? Like it, it makes it what, whether it’s a pet or a person or even something, um, like a job, right. Or, uh, you know, any sort of, kind of like, like shared grief moment, like that, that adds another.

[00:15:20] Level of just mess to it. And so I feel for both of you, and I’m glad that you two have each other, but I also like this, this is just really shitty and I wish that I could take the pain away and, you know, wave a magic wand for you.

[00:15:35]Brett: [00:15:35] Yeah, me too. So should we turn this into a tech show?

[00:15:40] Christina: [00:15:40] Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so I guess, I guess that our, our, our, our, our Taylor Swift and, and depression, uh, pod, uh, she’d go into our tech show a real quick segue on the Taylor Swift front. Have you seen the, the folklore documentary live concert?

[00:15:55] Brett: [00:15:55] It’s going to say there’s a double, uh, uh, I can’t remember what [00:16:00] they called it, but there’s a double record album available now for folklore, but no, I

[00:16:05] Christina: [00:16:05] Yeah, yeah,

[00:16:06] Brett: [00:16:06] what’d you say

[00:16:07] Christina: [00:16:07] yeah, yeah. So, so what she did is it’s like a documentary thing, and this is why they’ve got the double album where they went to long pond studios, which I guess is like Aaron Dressner, who’s the he’s from the national. And he was the producer for most of the record. And they went to his, um, like he has like a farm in upstate New York and she and Jack Antonov and, um, uh, who’s one of her long time collaborators and, and Aaron Dresner all got together and they played the entire record.

[00:16:38] And in, in the studio and then, um, talked about each track and for the track that has a bone of air, he was at his studio in, um, Wisconsin. And so, you know, like he came in like remotely, but. Uh, it’s pretty cool. Actually, a you get to hear her thought process about the songs, but the [00:17:00] recordings themselves are actually, it’s really interesting to hear kind of a stripped down like the album is already stripped down, but to then here, uh, and even more stripped down, you know, kind of like live performance, you know, mix of the stuff, uh, as well as seeing how, you know, they play it and, and, you know, do those things actually really highly recommended.

[00:17:21] A-plus.

[00:17:22] Brett: [00:17:22] I, I, I will admit that like a, like a real asshole, I have not even watched that miss Americano or whatever it is, you know?

[00:17:31] Christina: [00:17:31] I know what you need to, you need to watch the miss Americana. No, she, this is my favorite thing about her. She knows how to get paid because she has, she had the Netflix thing. She got, she was on Apple and now she’s on to city. Plus I think she even had an Amazon special at one point. Like they, uh,

[00:17:49] Brett: [00:17:49] where’s the folklore docket.

[00:17:51]Christina: [00:17:51] Uh, I assume that what they’re doing and as they should is that they’re, that her people are like basically, you know, [00:18:00] doing a bidding for, and using the fact that all these services will pay big money for Taylor Swift. But, uh, but what I do appreciate at least is that even though the, the documentary is on, uh, and the live thing is, is on Disney plus the, um, Album like that the recordings themselves are on YouTube and Spotify and Apple music and all that stuff.

[00:18:20] So you can like listen to the music anywhere, but if you want to watch the performances and stuff, that’s on Disney plus.

[00:18:28] Brett: [00:18:28] Cool. Hey, we got Taylor Swift in for like the first time in probably three weeks.

[00:18:34] Christina: [00:18:34] I know, I know I was, I was feeling bad that we hadn’t touched on her in a while, but, uh, yeah. Um,

[00:18:42] Brett: [00:18:42] my friend, Frank Frank Petri sent me a link to the double album set. It was, it was good through and through, and I hadn’t followed up on it yet, but hi,

[00:18:54] Christina: [00:18:54] Nice. Hi Frank. Yeah, appreciate that. I, uh, it was actually funny [00:19:00] because somebody on Twitter last week asked me, they were like, I started listening to the album. I really like it. Do you have any other recommendations for songs? You know, like. You know of hers or whatever that are in this vein. And so I wound up, uh, taking an hour out of my Workday, uh, and making a folklore mood mix, which, you know, um, was like all on the same aesthetic of the album.

[00:19:22] Some of it was her tracks, but some of it was like from other artists and stuff. And I have to say really, really good fall winter kind of gloomy, like playlist. Like I haven’t made like. A good playlist in a while. I’ll, uh, if people want, I’ll have the links in the show notes for, uh, Apple music and for Spotify.

[00:19:41] But, uh, I was actually really pleased with it. I was like, actually, I kind of nailed this. This is good.

[00:19:46] Brett: [00:19:46] Manually make it first Spotify and Apple music.

[00:19:50] Christina: [00:19:50] I did.

[00:19:51] Brett: [00:19:51] Okay. Cause there are services. That’ll

[00:19:53] Christina: [00:19:53] There are

[00:19:54] Brett: [00:19:54] but they keep breaking like every time a good one comes out, it eventually breaks.

[00:19:59] Christina: [00:19:59] exactly. And [00:20:00] Spotify, they re they, they. Ended up reversing course on this, but they actually banned some of the apps that were doing those things from use theory, API, and then they came out.

[00:20:11]Because playlisting is now, I guess what they see as their secret sauce. And so I do understand the point where they’re like, Hey, we don’t want people to take RapCaviar and convert that into something they can listen to on another like service, even though it’s a commodity. Right. And even though it’s XML files, right?

[00:20:29] Like we all know what this is, but, um, I don’t know the, the backlash they reneged, but, um, It was easier for me to be totally honest, to just recreate it. I just had like my iPad, cause also the, the, the reality was it was like, uh, it was like the day before Thanksgiving and I didn’t want to grab my laptop and bother.

[00:20:51] So I just had like my iPhone in one hand and like my iPad on the other. And I just like, you know, manually did it. It was like 40 [00:21:00] songs. So, you know,

[00:21:01] Brett: [00:21:01] It’s a long playlist.

[00:21:03] Christina: [00:21:03] I know, I know, but I kept like finding it’s a good playlist. Uh, it’s very much in the mood. It’s, we’ll, we’ll have links to that, but, um,

[00:21:10] Brett: [00:21:10] it out too.

[00:21:11] Christina: [00:21:11] okay. So we’ve got Taylor Swift covered.

[00:21:13] Now we are also, you know, a Mac fandom, uh, podcast. Uh, let’s talk about some, uh, some Mac news, uh, AWS, uh, has a, you see two instances running back on now?

[00:21:26] Brett: [00:21:26] Yeah, which, uh, uh, personally I think that’s great. Like, especially if I can, uh, load up any, uh, version of the S and allow for, for anyone who doesn’t know what this means, it basically means you can spin up a cloud computer, uh, on a Mac. So, uh, this has always been problematic because of the way Apple hardware is tied so closely to Apple software.

[00:21:52] If you wanted to develop for a Mac, you kind of had to have a Mac. So you could, you could use ECE two for everything, [00:22:00] except for developing a Mac. So now they’ve added some Intel max that they, they say they’re going to update to soon. Um, but yeah, if I can say test on three different versions of the operating system, that would be way better than, than having multiple test machines with multiple partitions.

[00:22:22] And, uh, yeah, I would dig it.

[00:22:26] Christina: [00:22:26] yeah. Yeah. The, there are some caveats and there are some things that, that make me kind of laugh and they do make me question, I think, how useful this will be. I think that for your build testing stuff, stuff like, uh, Azure pipelines, um, there is some other CIC services. Um, app center is when I know that we also do at Microsoft get hub.

[00:22:45] Has. They’re they’re build things. There’s some other, um, uh, like, uh, services that have, uh, Macko S runners, which basically they’re all doing the same thing where they’re running, you know, the bills, um, stuff on, you know, Mac minis. Um, the, the [00:23:00] issue with it is that because of how Apple licenses, this stuff, uh, the minimum amount of time that you have for like, um, Compute, you have to reserve as 24 hours.

[00:23:12] So you have to pay for at least 24 hours. The issue is, is that it’s like a dollar an hour. And, and so if you do the math on that, that $750 a month, if you’re running 30 days, all, all uptime, uh,

[00:23:28] Brett: [00:23:28] buy, you could buy your own Mac mini.

[00:23:30] Christina: [00:23:30] You absolutely. Could you absolutely could. Um, if you pay three years in advance, uh, Corey Quinn, um, who’s a friend of mine and, and he, um, is, uh, uh, like an AWS, uh, billing expert.

[00:23:44] He like went through all the math on this. If you pay three years in advance, they will give you a discount and it’s only $450 a month. I’m still rolling on month. I’m still kind of like, like, you know, choking, uh, I think in that case, like, If you were [00:24:00] a big enterprise and you’re somebody who’s doing tons of build minutes all the time, because the build minutes, this is where your other services who do that do add up and get pretty expensive.

[00:24:09] And if you don’t want to manage, um, you know, a bunch of Macs, which a lot of people don’t want to do. Completely, if you don’t want to manage that. And also if you need certain security things, you know, uh, that Amazon is, is certified for, I think that that’s who this is targeted as unfortunately, at least right now and into this could change for people like you and I.

[00:24:31] Ironically, what this has done is, is just made MacStadium, who I know you’ve used for years and years. It really just kind of makes their point for them. Um, although it doesn’t, it doesn’t like, it really does make their point for them, for people like you. And I, because it just says, Hey, um, either co-locating or, you know, straight up paying, um, you know, $50 a month, you know, or $150 a month for a Mac mini from them is the way to go.

[00:24:57] That said they have their Kubernetes. [00:25:00] Uh, uh, like, uh, you know, kind of cloud private cloud thing called Orca that starts at 1500 a month. So, um, but again, when we’re talking about people who are not uni, like I, this is, I think that when I look at this offering, I’m excited that it exists, but I also look at it.

[00:25:18] I’m like at first I was really excited and then I looked at the details. I was like, Oh shit, this is for Netflix. Right? Like genuinely,

[00:25:25] Brett: [00:25:25] you’ve just made this a

[00:25:26] Christina: [00:25:26] is for Netflix. I’m sorry, I didn’t, I didn’t mean to, but like I was, I was glad we were going to talk about this. No good. But this, this launched last night yesterday and I was super excited and I started looking into it and then I started doing the numbers and talking to Corey and, and, um, uh, my friend, Brad Fitzpatrick, uh, you know, played it out and I was just like, God damn it.

[00:25:46] Like, this is not what I wanted, but. The upside is, uh, a, the reason it’s not what we want is completely 100% Apple’s fault. So that’s good for us to know. We can be mad at them cause they’re the ones who set the terms with their [00:26:00] licensed and how that stuff works. But, um, if there’s demand for this stuff, and I think this is where it gets interesting with the M one stuff.

[00:26:08] If there was demand for this stuff, I see both. Amazon, you know, or other clouds potentially, you know, being willing to lower the price and doing stuff like that. Or, and, and potentially if Apple related see a market for this, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t offer something like this for developers themselves.

[00:26:29] In fact, it’s, it’s always seemed kind of weird to me that they haven’t offered. This, like, since they’re not the services company, this would be a really easy kind of value add for them to say on top of their, you know, your developer account. If you pay, you know, a certain amount of money, you get a certain number of build minutes or whatever, and you can access this number of configurations and do these, you know, builds and tests like.

[00:26:53] It makes sense. So I don’t know. I, at the very least, I’m glad that they’re doing it. And the whole reason they were able to do this is because [00:27:00] Apple finally, finally, finally with, with big Sur, like set out rules and, and set out like guidelines for how people can. Use and kind of resell like max in the data center.

[00:27:11] And because before that has been sort of a gray area where you’ve had the Mac stadiums of the world doing it, but they’ve kind of been operating in a place where we’re like, they’re like, well, we don’t exactly know like what we are and aren’t allowed to do accept that the one rule Apple’s had, which is frustrating is that they’re like, Under no circumstances.

[00:27:30] Can you slice these things up and sell them and smaller instances it’s, it’s a all or nothing play, but I do hope that at some point they are willing to, um, come down on the, the residency requirement and or tenancy requirement. Sorry. Uh, and it’d be like, Hey, your tenant doesn’t need to be 24 hours long because that’s what kills it.

[00:27:52] Cause I think for a lot of people, if you could pay by the hour, that would, that would be like a game

[00:27:57] Brett: [00:27:57] Yeah. That’s the thing I think of [00:28:00] AWS as pretty dirt, cheap computing. Uh, so this kind of requirement, definitely, uh, nix is any cost savings you would have, like, honestly, like it just sounds like I’d be better off buying extra Mac minis.

[00:28:18] Christina: [00:28:18] Yeah. You would, you would, um, if you have the wherewithal to be able to manage it and do that stuff yourself, you absolutely would,

[00:28:24] Brett: [00:28:24] I have two on my shelf right now, 2012 Mac minis, but they still work.

[00:28:29] Christina: [00:28:29] Hey, as long as they still work. Right. But, um,

[00:28:32] Brett: [00:28:32] of Ram in each one. They do. All right.

[00:28:35] Christina: [00:28:35] Yeah, no. I mean, honestly though, those are, those are good machines. Um, it was funny, uh, uh, Andy and Arco last night on Twitter, like he was posting a picture. He was like, yes, I too, him, uh, you know, one of those power users you see in your threads of grading, his 2012 Mac mini with 16 gigs of Ram, I was like, I was like, yes, yes.

[00:28:55] I love this Andy. So.

[00:28:57] Brett: [00:28:57] to do that. Now you can buy the, [00:29:00] the, the new, the Ram modules for like 30 bucks. So.

[00:29:04]Christina: [00:29:04] Yeah, this was just good. Yeah. So, sorry to be a bummer on the, on the AWS Mac front, but I know, but I do actually think that it’s good that we see it, and I’m hoping that, um, like we, that. This will maybe open up some other opportunities. I don’t know. We’ll see. I’m just excited to see them do. And I have to give, even though like, and we don’t really see disclosures on this podcast because people know, but I clearly work for a direct competitor of AWS.

[00:29:35] Uh, but I have absolutely no problem, like game respects game. And, and I I’m excited like as a user and a person who, um, Knows and cares way more about cloud computing than I ever thought I would. Uh, like didn’t ever think that would be my life. I’m like, actually I’m pretty, I’m pretty excited to see that this is something that, um, is at least an option.

[00:29:58] Cause I think that it’s really [00:30:00] good. Um, on that segue, let’s talk about some, like some big syrups that you love.

[00:30:06] Brett: [00:30:06] um, yeah, so. Anyone who any Mac power user, whether self-proclaimed, or otherwise has probably heard of bartender. Um, if you run enough utility apps on your Mac, your menu bar gets like completely overcrowded and bartender helps like, um, hide.

[00:30:29] Christina: [00:30:29] make it hide up, make it

[00:30:31] Brett: [00:30:31] Yeah. So you have, you get like two, two menu bars, basically one for your, the stuff you actually need in your menu bar, and one for overflow.

[00:30:41] And it can do cool things like, uh, in the CA like Dropbox, anytime an icon updates, uh, with like a Badger or whatever, you can have it display temporarily and then disappear again. Um, but for a while there on, on Catalina, And maybe even back [00:31:00] to what was before Catalina, Mojave. I think it started with Mojave.

[00:31:05] Um, uh, it got really slow, like switching between the menu bars took like three, four seconds and it was, it was annoying. Um, if not more, but then bartender four came out and I’ve only used it on big Sur. I don’t know how it runs on Catalina, but. It is super fast. Uh, it can do, it can be the thing where it replaces what’s in the menu bar or expands in the menu bar, or it can have the separate, like floating bar underneath it with the overflow stuff.

[00:31:38] And it is super fast and super easy to configure. And I am, um, I’m blown away that an app that I was so in love with, to begin with has gotten so much better.

[00:31:50]Christina: [00:31:50] I love that. I love that. And I haven’t used big Sur yet because I am afraid. But, um, this is the sort of [00:32:00] stuff that I hear about that like would make me want to make the upgrade. So, because I love bartender, like you I’ve been using it for. God, I don’t even know how many years. Um, but, uh, I love it.

[00:32:11] Actually. It’s funny, you mentioned a bartender because it reminds me in some ways, did you hear the news about growl? So they have officially retired. The growl project growl is

[00:32:21] Brett: [00:32:21] notifications completely replaced it.

[00:32:24] Christina: [00:32:24] come completely did. Right. But, um, 17 years, hell of a run. Um, and, and they’ve encouraged people, you know, like it’ll continue to run, but like for they’re, they’re not updating it for big stir.

[00:32:35] And, and honestly, it hasn’t even, I haven’t even been able to get it to reliably install and a couple of years, to be honest, I used to use it for everything. I used to script custom stuff with it. Um, but most apps have, have dropped support for it. And I’ve just used notification center, which makes sense.

[00:32:51] But it reminds me of bartender in the sense that like, No bartender is also one of those like really nice Mac utilities [00:33:00] that just gets out of your way and makes the experience better. And, um, just shout out to the, to the bar, to the ground, team, us, to the bartender dev for sure, but also shout out to the grounds team, because that was one of those apps that when I became, you know, like a full-time Mac user was one of those things that made me fall in love with the Mac.

[00:33:19] Like it was. That that, and ironically is some of the same members all worked on like, you know, ADM and, and, um, uh, Parian and growl. And I think back about that kind of time in the max, like life cycle, and I’m like, yeah, This was like peak good. Like part of it might be nostalgic, but I also think that it’s also like, genuinely like those like, like peak Mack era of, you know, maca West stuff.

[00:33:49] Uh, Baca was 10 anyway, um, of, of development. So,

[00:33:53] Brett: [00:33:53] I’ll admit

[00:33:54] Christina: [00:33:54] but yeah,

[00:33:55] Brett: [00:33:55] use ADM.

[00:33:56]Christina: [00:33:56] I would, if I had any contacts

[00:33:59] Brett: [00:33:59] Yeah, I [00:34:00] use it.

[00:34:00] Christina: [00:34:00] XMPP,

[00:34:01] Brett: [00:34:01] I use it for IRC. Um, I haven’t run colloquy or colloquy colloquy

[00:34:07] Christina: [00:34:07] Yeah, yeah. I, for years, yeah, I have, I haven’t either. I’ve used textile, uh, best the one I’ve used for many

[00:34:15] Brett: [00:34:15] Yeah. Never got into the text-based IRC clients and I don’t know why, because it makes perfect sense.

[00:34:21]Christina: [00:34:21] Well, the one that I it’s called textual, sorry. Yeah, no, sorry. The one I was talking about, it’s called textual and it’s a really good gooey and it’s it’s. Uh, it’s actually really pretty. It’s been in the Mac app store for forever. And that’s the one that I’ve used is it it’s called textual. And that.

[00:34:37] Brett: [00:34:37] was a text-based one.

[00:34:39] Christina: [00:34:39] Um, no, I mean, it is text-based in the sense that like it’s, you know, right, right, exactly.

[00:34:44] But no, but a bit, it’s got a really nice looking gooey and, um, and they continue to, you know, to update it. It has dark mode support and you know, all that kind of stuff. It’s, it’s, it’s actually really nice. I have to, I give them credit for that, um, uh, that they, they, they are [00:35:00] continuing to, um, develop it and updated and stuff, which is really nice.

[00:35:05] Um, But, yeah. I’m if I used IRC more, I could see myself still using ADM. I don’t know. I miss ADM sometimes though, like it was just, I loved the themes. I loved having that back when chat was all open standards, instead of being federated into all these different things, which. Is the shitty part. If I can be totally honest about the modern world we live in is that we literally did have interoperable chat standards.

[00:35:32] Cause nothing is new or unique about the way we chat now. Nothing like it, like, like we’ve added nothing to the ability of this, except that you can add files more easily. Right. And that you can maybe that’s basically it. Right? Cause there’s nothing like. Demonstrably different or new about teams or Slack or, you know, uh, matter most or, or, or discord or whatever.

[00:35:56] Um, then our other solutions like discord, at [00:36:00] least ads, voice chat, but like everything else is the same. All that we’ve done is we’ve replaced our instant messaging stuff, you know, uh, or campfire. Right. Which we, we still up, all we’ve done is we’ve replaced. We’ve replaced, you know, that’s who we used to have interoperable standards with.

[00:36:15] So you can at least have. You know, an Omni client with just a bunch of electron apps where you have to run like four instances of, of, of, of a web browser so that you can, uh, access all your different shaft things. But I digress and I’m not salty about it or anything, uh, that, that we’ve, that we’ve as a society could completely regressed, but, uh, yeah.

[00:36:41] Brett: [00:36:41] Yeah, I don’t have a segue for this, but I’m gonna, I’m gonna fit our other sponsor in here. Um, and then I do actually have a segue to the next topic, but it’s gonna, it’s not gonna work now because we’re going to talk about ritual.

[00:36:56]Christina: [00:36:56] yeah, we’re going to talk about ritual.

[00:36:58] Brett: [00:36:58] This episode

[00:36:59] Christina: [00:36:59] about some [00:37:00] vitamins.

[00:37:00] Brett: [00:37:00] wh