413: Politics, Money, and Tacos

Politics, Money, and Tacos

[00:00:00] Introduction and Jeff’s Absence

[00:00:00]

[00:00:03] Brett: Welcome back to Overtired, couple weeks off, uh, it’s gonna be a little sporadic through the summer, but, uh, I’m Bret Terpstra, I am here with Christina Warren, Jeff is out this week, right before we recorded, he tweaked his back and now he is laying down and does not want to podcast laying down, uh, I guess, I get that.

[00:00:26] Brett: Um, Christina, how are you?

[00:00:29] Christina: I’m good. I’m good. I’m, I’m very, I, I feel for Jeff. Cause like, I know like back pain is like one of the worst things ever. So, um, and, and you know that, um, very well too. So, um, I, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m fine, but I’m, I am, uh, worried about our comrade.

[00:00:46] Discussing Back Pain and Sciatica

[00:00:46] Brett: Have you ever had sciatica?

[00:00:49] Christina: yes, I have, but usually what I get, um, cause I have, I have scoliosis, so my back pain is usually different, but I have had sciatica before. Not often though.

[00:00:58] Brett: Yeah, I have [00:01:00] minor scoliosis. I always hated those checks in gym class. But, um, yes, sciatica wrecked me for like two weeks the first time I had it. Um, and I thought it was just lower back pain, but it’s actually in my, in your like upper thigh. Um, and the solution was massage. I went to like a sports therapist who massaged And it took 15 minutes and she basically fixed my sciatica with like a deep tissue massage.

[00:01:33] Brett: But that’s, that’s, that’s irrelevant because that’s probably not what Jeff did in his paddle boat, uh, over the weekend. Um, happy 4th of July. I guess, happy treason day.

[00:01:47] Christina: God, I don’t even know, man. Like I, I’m so, okay.

[00:01:52] Political Anxiety and Mental Health

[00:01:52] Christina: So we’re not even getting into the mental health corner yet, and this isn’t even really a mental health corner thing, but it’s kind of a, [00:02:00] except it kind of is. So I feel kind of like an asshole for saying this, but at the same time, this is genuinely like a protective thing that I need to do, like for my mental health and for other things.

[00:02:12] Christina: But I, I can’t be bothered to be upset or care or get too like mad about this election that Biden is absolutely going to lose. Like, I’m, I’m so, I’m, I’m, I’m so upset by the prospect of another four years of Trump, don’t get me wrong, but like, I just don’t have the energy to either, to, to be engaged, outraged, or like, even like, I don’t even want to think about it.

[00:02:40] Christina: You know what I mean? Right.

[00:02:41] Brett: Yeah, I do. I know exactly what you mean. Um, like I have already lost hope and project 2025 is scary as shit. Um, and I can’t spend all day thinking about it. Um, what I have done is focus more [00:03:00] on local, um, politics and grassroots efforts, um, that really have nothing to do with. The presidential election, because like you said, it’s almost a lock.

[00:03:12] Brett: Um, I, I, I will not go so far as to make a prediction, but in my, in my opinion, it is, it’s a lock for Trump and, and we are fucked and the Supreme Court is just, you know, Decision after decision that are, it’s the most activist court in history and I just can’t spend all day thinking about this. I limit myself to like 20 minutes of like news slash outrage a day and then I just move on.

[00:03:43] Brett: Focus on things I can actually control and change and not lose hope. Because there’s no hope out there right now. It’s fucking, it’s fucked up.

[00:03:55] Christina: No, that, that, that’s totally, I’m, I’m, I’m in a very similar thing because, [00:04:00] yeah, it’s, it’s so upsetting to think about, um, on so many levels. And it’s not that I’m wanting to be like, head in the sand, I don’t care. It’s, it’s almost kind of the inverse. It’s like, no, I care so much, but I know there’s nothing that I can do.

[00:04:12] Christina: And, That’s exactly what it is. That’s exactly what it is. And, and honestly, it’s one of those things where I, you know, um, it, I don’t know if this is, if this is how people become apathetic, maybe it is. I, it feels different. It feels like usually people don’t go through the sorts of trauma that we as a society collectively have gone through since 2016, right?

[00:04:32] Christina: With, you know, first Trump thing and then pandemic and everything else. But, um, because we were just so polarized because things are so bad because it’s just. Thing on top of thing on top of thing, the Supreme Court. You know, you think about like, when you think about like the ultimate like bad decisions, I mean, obviously, you know, people can be understandably upset about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and saying she should have left before she did, which maybe is true.

[00:04:57] Christina: But at the same time, even if she had like [00:05:00] left with plenty of time, I, I don’t, I’m not convinced that, that Obama ever would have been able to get. The, um, you know, confirmation at the time, right? Like, I think that we were just kind of fucked because they weren’t playing hardball enough. Like, everybody just assumed, okay, well, 2016’s a lock, so we don’t have to push and, and have these Supreme Court appointments when they needed to really have them, you know, in, in 2016 when there was plenty of time, right?

[00:05:24] Christina: When you would still potentially have a fucked court, but it wouldn’t be to the level that it is now. And it’s just like, that more than. Even like the election and other things are the things that are going to have these, you know, like carry on ramifications that are so upsetting. Exactly. Right. Because that’s the real thing.

[00:05:41] Christina: Like, like the, the, the Supreme court stuff that, you know, like the, you know, the stuff that they, you know, keep rolling back. Um, and not even just on women’s rights, but on, on so many other levels, like it’s so disturbing and it’s so upsetting on so many, you know, issues that it’s like, that’s the thing that, you know, Yeah, we’ll have 30 plus [00:06:00] that, that we can’t unravel, right?

[00:06:01] Christina: That even if we had a good candidate to run right now, which we don’t, um, like what’s going to happen, right? Because the, the, unfortunately the age of the justices that you need to get out, um, are, it doesn’t align, right?

[00:06:16] Brett: I mean, there’s the option to expand the Supreme Court,

[00:06:20] Christina: yeah, but not

[00:06:21] Brett: its own lasting repercussions,

[00:06:23] Christina: totally, but, but, but that’s not going to happen when we, when there’s, unless you have a super majority. in both houses. You won’t ever get that pass. And even then, that’s not even a guarantee, because there’s, that’s a risk, right? Like, so, okay, we, we, we expand the court for three more seats.

[00:06:38] Christina: Great. Um, what does that mean, like, when powers shift again? Like, there’s, there’s very valid reasons why, why that sort of thing has not happened before. And it’s, I don’t know. Yeah. Um, yeah, but yeah,

[00:06:55] Brett: absolutely a mental health corner. We have begun the mental health

[00:06:59] Christina: We’ve begun the mental [00:07:00] health corner. Yeah. So that’s, I’ll just kind of start and kind of finish.

[00:07:02] Christina: Like I I’m, I’m doing okay. Um, I had some stressful stuff, um, uh, last week, um, uh, work related, um, that I was able to get through, but it was, it was, it was a lot.

[00:07:13] Conference Experiences and AI

[00:07:13] Christina: I went to a conference in San Francisco. It was a really good event, but the lead up to the event, there was just a lot of stuff that was involved with it that came in, um, pretty hot, even hotter than usual.

[00:07:22] Christina: And as, as. Um, much as like, ADHD is a superpower for, um, like tight deadlines, um, there are some things that, like, there just aren’t enough man, man hours for, and that, you know, can just be too much, but, but things, things went well, but, um, I was, uh, it was like the, the event ended on, um, Thursday, like the day of the debate, and I was, I was in a bar, I was in the hotel bar, like, all day.

[00:07:49] Christina: While the debate was happening and like they, they had it on one of the TVs, but not even all of them and just watching, just even silence, like with, you know, without even any captions or [00:08:00] anything on, I was just like, filled with dread and I was like, okay, you know what? Executive decision. I’m not fucking with this.

[00:08:06] Christina: I’m not opening Twitter. I’m not engaging. I caught up the next day and it was exactly as bad as I, I anticipated it would be. But I’m very glad I didn’t watch it in real time. Go on.

[00:08:16] Brett: I’m just going to interject this. Um, in a poll, only 65 percent of respondents thought that Trump won the debate. I don’t understand how anyone doesn’t think Trump won the debate.

[00:08:30] Christina: No, this is a Nixon Kennedy situation, right?

[00:08:34] Brett: fact checking aside, but

[00:08:36] Christina: Right, but, but who cared? Well, that was, that was the interesting thing from the polls, right? Was that I think anybody with eyes knew that, that, uh, you know, or, or any, so any level of cognition, um, greater than Joe Biden’s, which would, you know, I’m sorry that’s, but I had to, it’s right there.

[00:08:53] Christina: But like anybody with like, uh, you know, just like a monochrome of any sort of cognition or, or any ability, I think knew he [00:09:00] won, but. Like the, the big thing is like that it didn’t, at least from what the initial polls I saw was, it was like, it didn’t change anybody’s opinions. Right. Like undecideds were still undecided.

[00:09:11] Christina: And, and it’s so partisan at this point. Right. But, but the problem is, is that it’s, you know, and this is why there’s so many calls from inside the house being like, we got to replace them. And it’s like, it’s too late guys. Like that, that, that ship sailed. And a lot of people were trying to call for that months ago when they were, you know, pilloried and, and, and really attacked, um, by the establishment, by the way.

[00:09:32] Christina: Some of the same people who are now like, man, we got to fix this. It’s like, yeah, kind of fucked. Um, but like, the, the, the worry is, is that people just aren’t going to show up to vote because,

[00:09:44] Brett: because who gives a fuck anymore?

[00:09:46] Christina: right. And also, what is it like?

[00:09:50] Brett: That said, that said, I will absolutely show up to vote, and I will vote blue all the way down the ticket. Um, like, that’s [00:10:00] just, I think, I honestly think a majority in Congress would be More effective than like it, like they could stop Trump from causing some damage, although project 2025, basically. Gives all power to the executive branch and Congress can’t really stop basically populating all of government with, um, sycophants.

[00:10:31] Brett: Yeah. It’s going to be a mess. Sorry. I didn’t mean to derail your,

[00:10:35] Christina: No, it’s okay.

[00:10:36] Brett: conferences have you been to this year?

[00:10:38] Christina: A bunch, but this was just this, yeah, but this was just like a, a last minute kind of ask. And, um, but it was good. It was, it was, it was an AI conference. Um, the AI Engineer World’s Fair, it was kind of a crappy name, but actually a really good event. And, um, uh, I think it was a good mix of people, um, who, you know, varying levels of, of how much [00:11:00] they have awareness about, you know, what’s happening with generative AI and, and, you know, All those things.

[00:11:04] Christina: Um, you know, some people are really actively involved. Some people, you know, are more, you know, peripheral. Some people kind of in between. Um, I, despite not having any sort of like CS, you know, like a traditional CS background and certainly not in, into the level of stuff that, you know, like the really good AI people are, are there for, like, I can’t do the low level shit, but I’ve been getting more and more into, you know, various APIs and, and playing with various models and stuff over the last, you know, couple of years.

[00:11:33] Christina: And,

[00:11:33] Brett: Has there been any good, has there been any good hackathon around, Generative AI. I haven’t seen news about one.

[00:11:44] Christina: That I don’t know. Um, but that’s a good question. I bet there probably have been some, but I don’t know. But yeah, cause that would be a

[00:11:50] Brett: could be pretty cool to see. Um, we at Oracle are, my team is doing a huge push on this AI hub [00:12:00] where we’re interfacing with all of the other teams at Oracle that are working with AI and they’re Well, like Oracle has its own, like, kind of LLM and, and generative AI service that obviously is inferior because it’s Oracle.

[00:12:16] Brett: Um, but the teams that are making use of it are doing some really cool shit. Like, um, there’s one that uses drones to examine, um, construction projects. And reports failures. Uh, um, what are they called? Uh, potential failures. Like it can analyze, like say a beam is rusting, like it can pick that up and it can process the data and give you a full report on like, how many years will this last?

[00:12:52] Brett: What is the extent of the damage? And it all, it uses AI. To process all of the images from the drone and it’s [00:13:00] cool and there’s there’s yeah I’ve done I’ve done five or six myself now and every time I’m like man, this is actually a Reason I give people a lot of shit about generative AI for the average person Who’s sending me emails written by AI that drive me nuts.

[00:13:23] Brett: Um, I don’t know, people, people don’t give the second prompt to like make this sound, make this sound less like AI. Um, but when it comes to like industry and practical uses, it, it blows my mind and I would love to see a hackathon around it.

[00:13:45] Christina: Yeah. I think that like when I was doing some kind of cursory searches while you were saying that, I think like some individual companies have been kind of doing things, but I don’t know of any like big ones, like more broader, like kind of community things. But, [00:14:00] um,

[00:14:01] Brett: I should push for an Oracle. Hackathon, that could be really good on my, my yearly review.

[00:14:08] Christina: Yeah, no, that’s, that’s how you get a promotion or like a raise or whatever. That’s how you show value. Try to get that off the ground and then, you know, write that up in your, in your,

[00:14:17] Brett: Oracle doesn’t give raises anymore. I’m, I’m convin I won’t know what compensation I get until September, but I guarantee you there will be no raise. Which means, basically, our Pay is decreasing because it’s not keeping up with costs of living and

[00:14:37] Christina: Right.

[00:14:38] Brett: so they’re basically paying us less every year by not giving us even, like, a 5 percent raise.

[00:14:46] Brett: They give me, like, a bonus that amounts to, like, 1%. of my yearly salary and it, it means nothing. It literally means nothing. Um, no, what’s [00:15:00] going to save me is my first year at Oracle. My bonus was, uh, 100, 000

[00:15:10] Christina: RSUs.

[00:15:10] Brett: RSUs. And they vest yearly. So this year I’ll get a quarter of that. And Oracle stock is great right now. Um, and you know, I’ll take it.

[00:15:22] Christina: Mm hmm.

[00:15:23] Brett: That’s a good bonus. That’s like a four year bonus they gave me.

[00:15:27] Christina: No, I mean, that’s amazing. No, when I joined Microsoft, um, my sign on amount of stock was, was actually really insulting in retrospect, but I didn’t know that and I didn’t know what to ask for and, and all of that. But because when I joined the company, the stock was like 65 at the time or something.

[00:15:45] Christina: By the time, like the initial, I think it was a four year period or whatever, by the time it all vested, like, because it was one of those things where like, you know, annually, That the stock at that point had like 4X’d, so it wound up being like the total value that [00:16:00] I got out of it, you know, wound up being still not enough, but, um, but, but, but a lot better, you know, and, and I had,

[00:16:08] Brett: Not as insulting as it was initially.

[00:16:10] Christina: Exactly. And I’ve had a couple of special stock awards, um, that, you know, things they try to give you for retention and, and stuff like that in, in addition to like whatever, you know, I get as part of like my yearly compensation. Um, and one year, um, when they issued it, the, the stock was like 256 or something like that.

[00:16:29] Christina: Which at the time was kind of like a high. And so I was like, okay, well, I don’t know if this is going to be like a thing that pays off or not. And at some point, like there were certain best periods where like, I, I would like be underwater, you know, with, with that amount.

[00:16:39] Christina: But now, because the stock is like 460 or something like that, like even that, like the, the hard thing is going to be, and this is why I think like a lot of people like calling like for like, they really like employees especially, but like, I think a lot of people like they want the stock to split because it’s like getting close.

[00:16:55] Christina: Yeah. Like as we’re recording this,

[00:16:56] Brett: 460 a share?

[00:16:58] Christina: 468. [00:17:00] Yeah. 468. Yeah. And when I got in,

[00:17:03] Brett: need a new job.

[00:17:04] Christina: yeah, when I, well, I wish that we could split because if they split the stock, it would still

[00:17:09] Brett: that mean? What does that mean?

[00:17:11] Christina: okay, so a stock split basically means that they will, um, uh, divide the number of available shares, um, in, in half. And so if you owned, so basically, um, to, to have a bigger offering so that you could have bring more people into it.

[00:17:26] Christina: But what it also essentially does is that if you bought in, so like, let’s say like you bought in at 65, um, And now it is 468. If the stocks split and, and it became 234 a share, um, your number of, of outstanding shares would be doubled, but your cost average, if you, if you bought in like at 65 or whatever, would still potentially have more room for a run up.

[00:17:54] Christina: See what I’m saying?

[00:17:55] Brett: I, I don’t because I’m really bad at this kind of thing. I’m gonna [00:18:00] take your word for it.

[00:18:01] Christina: Okay, so the idea would just be your total number of shares would double, so your value would be the same. But at that point, you have

[00:18:08] Brett: Gotcha. Okay.

[00:18:09] Christina: another run up, right? So whereas, you know, so, so, okay, so usually what happens, like, like Nvidia split a few weeks ago and, um, and, and so Nvidia had been, uh, and they’re one of the most valuable companies in the world right now, but like their stock had gone super, super high and it split a few weeks ago.

[00:18:26] Christina: So what that does is that A allows. people who would otherwise not be able to buy in because it was too high to get in. But B, it means that there’s another opportunity, like if there’s another run up, right? So if it’s 127 right now, but let’s say it has like another rally and it goes to like 175 by the end of the year, then that means that people who, you know, owned it earlier could potentially like double their, their returns or not double, but like have, have, have higher returns.

[00:18:56] Christina: Because they’re, they’re, the number of shares would be higher.

[00:18:59] Brett: That, [00:19:00] okay. You’re making sense to me. I get this. I get this. I get this one concept. Um, this is now a money corner.

[00:19:10] Financial Talk and 401k Loans

[00:19:10] Brett: Um, so I just this week, um, took out a loan against my 401k. And I did a bunch of research before I did this, but I was able to take out enough money to pay off all my outstanding loans. Um, and at, uh, about 10%, Uh, interest rate, but on a 401k loan, you pay the interest to yourself because it’s your money.

[00:19:41] Brett: Um, and so that sounds great to me. You’re not earning interest on all of the money you’ve withdrawn. But when I did, when I did my own number crunching to see like what I was going to lose in interest versus what I was [00:20:00] going to. Gain in the, in the total based on the extra interest I was paying in. Um, it, it just, it made good sense to me.

[00:20:10] Brett: So I paid off all my other loans and came out with enough money for home improvement projects. Um, and now, and now my only loan is paid back to myself. So do you know, what do you know about 401k loans? I’m just kind of putting it out there.

[00:20:28] Christina: I don’t know a lot about them except that I know that there are sometimes like penalties that can be involved. Um, like, like you can take them off for certain purposes and you can get them back for certain things. Like, so I know that there are ways that you can do it that could be more beneficial. I think usually, because I think usually the problem is like, like, because the interest rate, like the 10 percent or whatever, like that’s not that much, like that’s better than a credit card.

[00:20:51] Christina: That’s, that’s probably going to be about the same.

[00:20:53] Brett: was better than, it was, it was, uh, point, point three better [00:21:00] than my, my lowest interest rate. So it is my lowest interest rate loan. And you’re right. If you wanted to take out I think it’s 50 percent of your, of the value of your 401k. Then there are penalties unless it meets certain criteria. Um, it has, it’s like, I think it’s called a hardship loan and you have to provide paperwork that there is like you lost your job, whatever.

[00:21:26] Brett: Um, but for the amount I took out, there are no tax penalties. There are no. Additional deductions made. Uh, so I took out basically the smallest amount you can take out without penalties. Which honestly, like I didn’t start building a, I had, when I left AOL, I had like, I think 30k in my retirement fund and I rolled it over and then over the [00:22:00] course of seven years as an in, as an unsuccessful indie developer, um, I basically withdrew most of it with penalties and paid all the tax penalties on it and by the end I had like in it, which I rolled over into, um, Oracle.

[00:22:20] Brett: And since then I have been putting in like 15 percent of my paycheck and 6 percent of that is matched and add in my RSU value. And I actually. It’s not a great retirement fund. Like, honestly, and I’ve said this before, but I could afford a pretty nice car to live in at this point. Um, except I think San Francisco outlawed living in cars.

[00:22:49] Brett: Um, but where I live, you could still live in a car and that’s my retirement plan. Me, me and Al living in, I don’t know, like, uh, it would probably [00:23:00] be a Nissan, like a higher end Nissan, nothing fancy, nothing fancy. Anyway, anyway,

[00:23:08] Christina: I mean, look, you at least have a house. Like that’s the, that’s the real thing. Like you have like, at least like, you

[00:23:14] Brett: L has a

[00:23:15] Christina: well, L has a house, but you know, but like one of you has a house,

[00:23:18] Brett: right? Right. Yeah. Even though, even though I basically pay the mortgage on it, my name is not on it at this point. Maybe I should change that. Maybe I would be more comfortable. Like right now I invest all the money for home improvement projects comes from me. But, if we broke up, there’s no legal reason she would have to,

[00:23:44] Christina: Right. I

[00:23:45] Brett: like, we have, we have agreements, about, like, if, if worse comes to worse, uh, uh, upon the sale of this house, you will be compensated for the investments you made in it.

[00:23:56] Brett: But it’s not illegally binding. [00:24:00] Like, I trust El. I love El to death. Um, but I have no, like, legally binding, um, stake in, in this property.

[00:24:09] Christina: mean, maybe that, maybe that should change, right? And it’s not because, like you said, like you don’t, there’s lack of trust or lack of love with them or anything, right? But it might make you feel more comfortable about how you go about things and, and also feel like, you know, like makes the investment feel maybe even like more real.

[00:24:27] Christina: You know what I mean?

[00:24:28] Brett: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Like, I get a little queasy dropping ten grand on new windows. Um, Like watching my, like, I have, I have my own savings and I like to keep it at a certain point. Like I feel like it gives me a sense of like wellbeing and comfort to have at X number of dollars in my savings account.

[00:24:51] Brett: And in this case, in my Apple savings account, because holy shit, that is the best return rate out there right now. Um, but, [00:25:00] uh, anytime that gets, uh, like you take 10 grand out of it, And feel less mentally okay. Okay. It’s a mental health corner again. Money is mental health. Like, this is all mental health. Um, uh, comfort and, uh, stability and all of these things are heavily related to money, which is heavily related to privilege, obviously.

[00:25:27] Brett: But, um, yeah, money is mental health.

[00:25:32] Christina: I, yes,

[00:25:33] Brett: And, and I have been broke. I have been destitute. I’ve been homeless. Like, I understand the psychological ramifications of not knowing if you can afford groceries. Um, and that is a place I never want to be again. Um, I want to hedge my bets all the time. I want a job at GitHub, but, um, I, [00:26:00] I don’t trust that I, I don’t trust that my job at Oracle will last forever.

[00:26:06] Brett: But anyway, yep, this is still mental health. I feel like, I feel like I’ve done my mental health corner.

[00:26:12] Christina: this is a weird one, but I feel like we both were able to get like our mental health corner like out of the way. It was kind of like a good like joint one. Like that was, that was, that was kind of weird. Like we’ve been doing this podcast for so long that we were able to do. Kind of a, a back and forth, like kind of, kind of shared like mental health corner, all about like politics and money.

[00:26:31] Christina: The, the two things that everybody wants to think about, but that genuinely are mental health, right? They genuinely are. These are things that, at least for me, those are definitely two things that

[00:26:39] Brett: The highest, the highest source of conflict in couples, politics and money.

[00:26:45] Christina: totally. Totally.

[00:26:47] Brett: Um, are we a couple? We’re kind of a couple. We’re a podcast. We’re like podcast couple.

[00:26:53] Christina: totally. You’re, you’re, you’re definitely like my, my, my pod spouse for sure.

[00:26:56] Brett: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So do you want [00:27:00] to do a quick sponsor break and then move on?

[00:27:03] Christina: Yeah. Let’s do that. All right.

[00:27:06] ExpressVPN Sponsorship

[00:27:06] Christina: This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. All right, going online without ExpressVPN is like leaving your laptop unattended at the coffee shop while you run to the bathroom. Most of the time, in fact, almost all the time, you’re probably going to be fine. But what if one day you come out of the bathroom and your laptop is gone?

[00:27:24] Christina: Side note, this happened to me once, although not at a coffee shop. It was, I left my laptop. At my office and I came back in the next day and it was gone and it was a pretty terrible feeling. So even though 99 percent of the time you’re going to be fine, ExpressVPN is a great thing to add to your arsenal, uh, when you’re going online because everybody does need a VPN of some sort.

[00:27:47] Christina: When I’m at a hotel, for instance, having a VPN is a really good thing to have in your arsenal, whether you’re using it because you want to protect yourself. Um, if you’re, on weird wifi networks, say you’re in an airport or you’re at a hotel, or maybe you’re on some sort [00:28:00] of like, you know, like conference wifi, that’s a little bit sketch and you’re like, Hey, um, I know that most of the websites that I visit are encrypted, and that’s great.

[00:28:07] Christina: So I’m not really worried about sending my passwords across, you know, in plain text. But I don’t know if I really like the fact that somebody is going to be logging everything that I’m doing while I’m on this network. A VPN, especially if you’re using a service like ExpressVPN where they don’t log, is really good because You’re not going to, A, have your information sold by data brokers, but B, um, you don’t need to worry about kind of people spying on what sort of activities or what sort of traffic is taking place on your network, because they’re not able to see it.

[00:28:37] Christina: So, I think that ExpressVPN is a great VPN. I’ve used it for a really long time. One, um, it is very secure, so it would take a A hacker with a supercomputer over a billion years to get past ExpressVPN’s encryption. So it is encrypted in addition to, various other, uh, provisions they have placed.

[00:28:55] Christina: Um, the other thing is that it’s really, really easy to use. You can get it, [00:29:00] um, up and running with just a click of a button to get protected. But the thing that I really appreciate about it is that it works. on all sorts of devices. So phones, laptops, tablets, you can even get it running on like a fire TV sticks and things like that.

[00:29:14] Christina: So this is one of those services where a lot of times, some VPN services work better than others on multiple types of devices. ExpressVPN works everywhere. Really big fan of that. Um, I actually was at a hotel a few weeks ago that was being weird. Um, about the fact that I was running a BitTorrent daemon in the background and it didn’t want me to connect on their network.

[00:29:35] Christina: So basically I had to stop the daemon, connect to the network, connect to ExpressVPN, and then I was able to load, you know, my protocol again and the the hotel Wi Fi couldn’t tell me what to do with it. With my information because it couldn’t see it, which is pretty great. So big fan of using VPNs for lots of reasons, including getting around onerous hotel wifi restrictions.

[00:29:58] Christina: Secure your online data [00:30:00] today by visiting expressvpn. com slash Overtired. That’s E X P R E S S VPN. com slash Overtired. And you can get an extra three months free. That is expressvpn. com slash Overtired.

[00:30:16] A Little More About VPNs

[00:30:16] Brett: Nice job, Christina. So, side note, like, they made this, the notes for the read were all about online security, which Like, as you cleverly worked into the read, is not the primary use of VPNs anymore. Like, so much of the web is encrypted

[00:30:41] Christina: All of it is.

[00:30:43] Brett: and VPN, if you’re worried about your passwords, don’t. Like, just, it’s, most, I think all browsers will warn you now before entering a password on a non SSL encrypted site.[00:31:00]

[00:31:00] Brett: Like, every, every browser has something in place, whether it’s a little lock bar or an actual pop up that says, Hey,

[00:31:07] Christina: Yeah. No.

[00:31:07] Brett: want to think twice about this.

[00:31:09] Christina: Exactly. They’re like, are you really, really sure? Are you positive? And people who, cause there’s still a contingent of people who are like, very much, I will never encrypt my, my website. And this is just a scam from the certificate authorities. And it’s like, no, there, there’s nothing wrong with SSL, but that isn’t the only reason why you use a VPN because

[00:31:25] Brett: Right, exactly. Exactly. And, and I, I like what, I like where you took that read. I appreciate that.

[00:31:32] Reviewing Sonos Ace Headphones

[00:31:32] Brett: Let’s talk about the Sonos Ace headphones.

[00:31:36] Christina: Yeah. Because we both got them.

[00:31:38] Brett: Our, our friend of the show, Brian Guffey got us a great deal on, on some Sonos Ace headphones, and I jumped on it because I am always looking for comfortable over the ear headphones. My ear canals just do not work for. I have bought multiple [00:32:00] iterations of, uh, AirPods that sound okay, but don’t fit my ears.

[00:32:07] Brett: Or like, the one in my right ear always falls out no matter what cup size I choose for it. Um, so over the years, like, the only way to go for me. And Like, these headphones we’re using for these Sonys we use for the podcast, they’re comfy. I can wear them for, uh, two hours about before my ears start hurting.

[00:32:29] Brett: I wanted a really good pair for, uh, watching TV, watching movies, and music listening. And so I jumped on this deal, and honestly, at the price you and I paid, they are fantastic headphones.

[00:32:45] Christina: there, there are no brainers. They’re, they’re fantastic. Where it gets hard is that the MSRP is 450, which granted, it, it’s not that difficult for people to, you know, find certain sales or get discount codes if you, a lot of corporations [00:33:00] even will have some sort of, you know, like, like Sonos, you know, discount, um, uh, like, like, I know that, that.

[00:33:06] Christina: Microsoft sends it by extension, GitHub does. But 450 is a lot of money for a pair of headphones. Um, and so at that price point you’re going up against, uh, Bose, Sony, and Apple, uh, the the Apple, um, the AirPods Max are 550. Um, I, you know, I don’t recommend anybody buy those right now because, unless the, the sale is really good because the, um, the rumors are that a new version with, with the USB C will be coming out.

[00:33:34] Christina: Apparently they’re not going to be making many other changes, but, but that will be coming out. But the thing is, is that if you already have AirPods Max, I don’t, even if you were very deeply embedded in the Sonos ecosystem, I don’t think that you need to buy these headphones. If you are somebody who is looking for a pair, like you, like, like you are Brett, of like good over ear, um, you know, noise canceling headphones.

[00:33:58] Christina: They are very, very comfortable. [00:34:00] They

[00:34:00] Brett: The noise canceling, the noise canceling is insanely good.

[00:34:04] Christina: It’s very good. It’s very, very good. Um, I used them last week on a plane and so I was able to give them like a real test. Like I actually left my AirPods at home and I just took the Sonos with me, which I thought was like a really good travel test to kind of compare, like, okay, how do these compare against these things that I’ve, I’ve worn?

[00:34:20] Christina: Um, and, um, and really, really well, like the, I would say that the noise canceling is, is right up there, um, against, you know, uh, you know, Sony and Bose, who are kind of like the leader in that and then the transparency mode, um, where you can kind of hear background things coming in to, it’s pretty good, it’s not as good as on the AirPods Max, but it’s, it’s, or, or even the AirPods Pro 2, but it’s really, really solid, um, but the big thing for me is like, I, I don’t know what your experience has been like.

[00:34:51] Christina: Incredibly comfortable. Like

[00:34:53] Brett: Incredibly comfortable. And the, like, I don’t, I don’t have like the Sony or the AirPods [00:35:00] max to compare to, but the audio quality is the best I have in, and I own eight pairs of over the ear headphones of in various price ranges. Um, and the Sonos Ace. Trumps them all. Uh, they, it, it’s a, it’s a really good pair of headphones.

[00:35:24] Brett: Like you said, like it’s a competitive market and I’m sure it depends. Like, like I said at the beginning, at the price you and

[00:35:34] Christina: at the price that we got them at, it’s, it’s a no brainer. It’s amazing. It’s, it’s harder at MSRP. And the only reason I say that is that I feel like if you already have things in the Sonos ecosystem, because right now how I think that a lot of people envisioned how these would work would be that you would be able to wirelessly tune into any of your, your Sonos.

[00:35:56] Christina: Speaker zones that are happening throughout your house. And if [00:36:00] that were the case at this price point at 450, that would be, I think, for a lot of people, like a kind of a no brainer, right? Because like, okay, I could, I could tune into, you know, this room where this thing is happening, or maybe this room where I have my turntable connected or something else.

[00:36:13] Christina: Um, but that’s not the case. How it works right now is that they only work with. The Sonos ARC soundbar, although it apparently is going to be coming to some of the less expensive soundbars later this year. Um, and so anything that’s connected to that soundbar, so anything that’