Hi. I'm Michael Dyrynda.
And I'm Jake Bennett.
And welcome to Episode 177 of the North Meet South Web Podcast. [upbeat music]
-Nailed it. Got it. Nice work. All right. -Perfection.
From now on, we have it. Is it, is that on Riverside, or are you playing that
-through your special controller? -No. Yeah. No. That's coming through the,
the RODECaster.
-Okay. Yep. -Yep. So it's all-
-So glad you're using that -... all one channel for you. [laughs]
It is. It sounds great. Yeah. I'm loving it.
-Excellent. Excellent. -It sounds really nice. Nice job.
Hey, um,
boy, I've got a lot of stuff written down to talk about. Before our show-
-You do -... started, I was like, "Oh, man, what
are we gonna talk about?" And then I had a bunch of things to talk about. I think
this little power nap helped me out. I was, uh...
Dude, it has been a busy last couple days, and so-
-Mm-hmm -... my son was like, "Dad, will you sit
with me?" 'Cause he really likes it when I sit with him, and I have not been able to
sit with him the last couple nights. And so tonight, I was like, "Yeah. I'll sit
with you for a few minutes."
Immediately fell asleep. Just lights out, man. Lights out. And so I woke up, and it
was like 10:03, and I'm like, "Oh, man. We gotta, we gotta get the podcast in here,"
-so... -Yeah. Yeah. That was-
-Anyway -... that's the same with, with me and Eli.
Like, I, I will do his bedtime every night, so I read and I sing, and then-
-Mm-hmm -... after that, you know, lately, he's
like, "Dad, stay with me for a bit." So I will stay until Ray comes in 'cause he'll
put Liv down and, yeah, it's just between when I finish singing and when Ray comes
in, I don't know what happens, but I'm usually being jabbed in the leg to wake
-up. [laughs] -[laughs]
That's hilarious. Yeah, man. I mean, you know, it's like, hey, could be worse. I'm,
I'm thankful that he still wants to sit with me, so it's like, you know, some
-nights- -Yeah
... it's like, oh, like, do I have to do this? And it's like-
-Mm-hmm -... but then I'm remembering, like, yeah,
this is not the case for any of my kids anymore. Nobody's asking me to sit with
them, so I'm just gonna enjoy it and take it, you know-
-Mm-hmm -... take it where I can get it, sort of
-deal. So, anyway. Yeah. It's good. -Sure.
It's good.
Well, um, let's jump in real quick to Liquid Glass. Have you seen Apple's new
design thing that they've come out with? Have you seen this?
I don't know. Look, the reason, the reason I own an iPhone is because Apple is,
like, a multi-trillion dollar company with all of these designers-
-Yep, yep -... and I just want them to design me the
interface, and then that's the interface. I don't wanna customize it. I don't want a
-widget. -Yeah.
-I don't want different size icons. -Okay, okay.
I don't want different col-... Like, I... You design it, and I'll use it. And if I
-don't like it, like- -Mm-hmm.
And this is the thing. "Oh, why can't we customize our phones?" You, you totally
can. Go and customize your Android. Leave the iPhone alone.
Absolutely.
-Dude, I- -I didn't get-
-You know what? -I didn't get the iPhone-
-I can- -... because it was customizable. I got it
-because- -I can-
... it looked good as it was.
I can appreciate that perspective, actually. I really can. And it's, um...
You know, you sound like my dad
back when I was growing up [laughs] and we had a Windows XP computer, and anytime I
would change anything, he would get somebody to say, "Do not change the
-wallpaper." -Yeah.
-Do not- -Yeah
-... change the cursor. -Yeah.
-Do not change the icons. -[laughs]
Just leave it the same, and we've arrived-
-Just leave it -... at that point.
-Yeah. -We've arrived at that point as, as, uh,
you know,
senior gentlemen that we are like, "You know what? I just like my iPhone as it
-is." I don't- I don't need the dark mode- -Yeah
... the icons. I don't need the large icons with no text, although I have both
of those turned on. Don't need them. Uh, you know? [laughs] I don't need them.
-Yeah. -Uh, so no. I c- I can get that
perspective. I, I will say, though, like, it's, um... No, no. It looks cool. Some of
the stuff they have looks cool. I, I do actually wonder,
um, with some of it, if... But, which by the way, folks, if you haven't gotten the
chance to look at it, this is, like, a new design aesthetic that they're sort of
carrying across all of their different products. So from the TV to your MacBook
-to your iPad- -Mm-hmm
... to your phone to your watch, they're implementing this new design aesthetic, I
guess is what I can call it. Um, Liquid Glass is the idea, and they're wanting to
focus more on content. And so they want the controls to sort of get out of the
-way, as it were- -Mm-hmm
... and
to that end, they've made the controls
more transparent, I suppose. The,
uh, you know, at the bottom of your apps, normally you'll have a bar, like, an
action bar that you can do things on, and what they've done is they've decided to
make those contextual, almost. So you can think of, like, Dynamic Island at the top,
-how it sort of changes- -Mm-hmm
... based on what live activities you have going on and things like that. Well,
that, that section at the bottom sorta changes contextually based on where you're
at in the app. If you're scrolling and you're at the bottom, it's gonna be
different than if you're coming back up to the top and it's, and it's whatever. And,
and then, and then it's transparent. It's not, like, a hard-
-Yeah -... line color. It's-
-No, it's frosted- -... it's a-
-Frosted glass, basically. -Frosted glass. Sure. Yep.
-Yeah. -And some of the effects that they have
moving between things is really interesting, so I don't know. It's okay.
I, I'm wondering, like, accessibility-wise, the contrast didn't
seem that high. It seemed like for people who need higher contrast, even for just
normal people who don't need higher contrast-
-Yeah -... it seemed awfully close. Um, so
anyway, I don't know. We'll see. I, I always love to kinda play with the new,
the new designs and, and take a look at those, but...
I don't know. Whatever, whatever it looks like outta the box is, is exactly how I'm
gonna leave it. I'm definitely not going to customize my message background, so I,
I can look at the icon and I know who I'm talking to. I don't need a
wacky-colored background. I don't need any of this stuff. Like, the frosted glass is
nice in things, like, in application where it's, like, the music app and the
controls are... Yeah. Okay, that's fine, 'cause it allows them to present the
cover art more, but
it's not [laughs]... Like, you're not showing more of the, the background of the
home screen because you've got all of these frosted glass elements because it's
-all, it's all blurred anyway, so... -Yeah.
-I don't know. It's- -Yeah.
Whatever. Like, I get it. But whatever the default is, however the icons look when I
install iOS 26 now, 'cause they've decided to t-... number of these things
based on the year that they- they're released ahead of, rather than, you know-
-Ah, interesting. Okay -... sequential numbers. So, obviously,
-this will come out in September. -Kind of like with, like, vehicles.
-Because it comes out in September. -Yeah.
Yeah, like cars. You know, it's coming out in September. There's no point in calling
it iOS 25 because 25 is almost over, so we'll... You know, this is-
-Right -... iOS 26. Which I- I get that. Whatever.
Totally fine. Um, but, yeah. However it looks out of the box is exactly how I'm
gonna leave it. I'm not gonna change it. I'm not gonna look for any... Like, I s-
I've created one Genmoji. I'm go- okay, that was fun.
-I know. -So...
-I'm with you on that. Like- -I think-
-... I've created a couple, but not many -...
I think the... I think the interesting perspective is that I, I... And I didn't
see that because this happened at 3:00 AM, so I haven't... Whatever has crossed my
-timeline in- -Sure
... in Twitter is all I've seen. But, um,
I think the, the interesting perspective is that they, like, they just didn't talk
-about Siri or Apple Intelligence at all. -Mm-hmm.
And, you know, everyone's obviously,
um, the sky is falling at Apple, they're so far behind on AI, they can't... You
know, it's like... I don't know.
They don't have to talk about it.
They haven't delivered on the stuff that they promised last year, really, so why
would they bring that up? I d- I also don't think... Like, they're sticking
their heads in the sand a little bit as well, so.
Yeah.
But who knows? Like, it's a, it's a multi-trillion dollar company. Clearly,
AIs... And I don't know how much of it is tech bubble stuff. You know, we're
obviously on the bleeding edge of AI, um, as developers and people that are using
this stuff. I don't know... Like, I don't talk to anyone
outside of tech, really, that
even acknowledges AI as a thing. You know, it's not... I get that there are
productivity gains and there are things to be said for, for that. Like,
there are certainly
consumer-focused applications of AI that, that are out there. Um,
but I think a lot of it... You know, OpenAI, all of this chat, ChatGPT stuff,
all of the, like, Claude and Cursor, these are all developer-focused tools.
Yeah.
Um, I feel like AI from a consumer perspective is kind of being rammed down
people's throats. You know, you go to Google and it's no longer Google search
results, it's Gemini, you know, the AI stuff at the top of, of the-
-Yeah -... Google search results. So, like,
people are not seeking this out. It's Google saying here's... This is how we're
gonna deliver search results to you now. So, I don't,
I don't know.
Like, yes, there are certainly applications of it that people would find
useful. I just don't know
how broad that is.
Well, I feel like, I feel like the applications that they would find useful
have been integrated. So, you know, this is, like-
-Mm-hmm -... sort of Apple's thing, where it's like
when near field communication stuff, like NFC stuff first came out, Android, all the
phones were like, "Oh, now shipping with NFC." And it was like, "What are we
supposed to do with this?" Like, you c- it's-
-Yeah -... it's a useful sort of, like, uh,
headline, I suppose, but there was nothing actually useful that you could do with
-it, right? It was like- -Yeah. Yeah, yeah
... okay, get a tag, and, like, if- when you walk in your home, you can, you know,
tap your phone to that tag and it will activate smart home things. Or it's like,
or you could just talk to your Siri or whatever. And it's just-
-Yeah. Yeah -... I don't know. It wa- it just... It
-seemed gimmicky, right? Um- -Mm-hmm
... and so Apple doesn't ever seem really satisfied to just take the technology at
face value and just push it out there, like a very unrefined, raw version of it.
-Mm-hmm. -Instead, they integrate it into a product,
like Genmoji or like some of the Playground stuff that they've done, where
you can take photos and use them as reference images and sort of add on
-additional things. -Mm-hmm.
They- they've done that, so they've, they've-
-Yeah -... pulled that in. They've made it
consumer-facing. They've done things where
you can highlight the text and have, um, have it rewrite it for you. "Hey, I want
this to sound more professional. Hey, I want this to sound more..." whatever. You,
you can do all that stuff. So, the, the practical applications of it, I think have
been delivered on. I don't, I don't really know that there's a whole lot else.
Um, but I will say, too, that, you know, it's not like they're disa- disallowing,
-like, ChatGPT from your phone. -Yeah.
Like, I have that on my phone. And, also, if I tell it to ask ChatGPT, it will. So
-they'll- -Yeah
-... they have, like, a first party- -Yeah
... you know, I don't know if it's first party, but they have an integration with
it, so it's like if I want that type of answer-
-Yeah -... I can just have it ask it. And so-
-You can connect to your account. -I don't know, like-
-You can do all that kinda stuff, um, so. -Totally. I'm not so worried about it.
-Like, I feel- -Yeah
... like I can get everything that I need to get without a whole bunch-
-Mm-hmm -... of messing around. I, I think it's...
Yeah, it's pretty good. So, I, I'm not too worried a- I'm not worried about that at
all.
-Um... -Yeah, I think when the time comes... And
th- there was, like, a research paper that came out
over the weekend, I think, or end of last week, from some researchers at Apple that
basically said what we have now is peak AI. And, like, the, the approach is
fundamentally flawed. Like, not, not flawed.
It is fun- th- there is a ceiling that you, we just-
-Mm-hmm -... won't get past with the approach that
we're taking now, because it's just mimicry and, like, guessing based on what
it already knows. It's not,
um...
You know, it's not able to infer stuff or create stuff or do stuff from scratch. You
know, if we, if
AGI is the goal, for better or worse, then the way that
all of the known or all of the current stuff that is public, um, is being done is
not gonna get, get us there. So, like, who's to say that Apple is not working on
whatever the next thing is? You know, when the iPhone-
-Yeah -... first launched,
Google was making the next BlackBerry. They were, they were not even thinking.
Now, you know, it might be OpenAI or it might be whoever else that comes up with
whatever the next thing is. You know, it might not be Apple.
Um, you know, Apple has always been, like, a hardware company that, that tied all of
the hardware together with software.
I think that
whatever the next evolution is, you know, maybe Apple is working on that, maybe
Google is working on that, you know, all of this stuff that's happening.
I think
c- for consumers, you know, everyone was looking... Like I said, Google was making
the next BlackBerry, and they were 12 months behind the ball when Apple came out
with, like, this piece of glass-You know, this single pane of glass on the-
on the iPhone, you know? It was like, "Oh, we've been thinking about this all wrong
because we've been thinking about how do we improve what we have, not what do
-people want next," kind of thing, so. -Yeah. Yeah. And I think too, it's like,
you know, Apple doesn't ever seem to be the pioneer in the parti- particular
technology. They seem to be like the perfecters-
-Very rarely -... of it though.
-Yeah. -Yeah, yeah. It's like, um... You know,
just, so I mean, we were talking about NFC, right? But there's- there's a lot of
-other- -Yeah, NFC. Yeah
... things like that where it's like, you know, contactless payments. Well,
everybody had it, but nobody actually adopted it until Apple was like, "Nope,
we're gonna actually roll this thing out properly, and now everybody's gonna have
it." And everybody has it now. And so, it, um, you know, I- I don't think they
typically are the first ones to enter a space. They really wanna make sure they
nail it when they do. So, I was reading an article recently called,
I think it was something like AI and the Horseless Carriage. And it was this idea
that when-
when they first came up with the automobile,
they didn't call it the automobile. They called it the horseless carriage because
all they had previous to that was carriages with horses pulling them.
-Yeah. -And so they were still in this mode of,
"Oh, it's a carriage. It's just a carriage without a horse. It's a horseless
carriage." That was how it was advertised, and you still had the person sitting on
-the outside of this thing. -Yeah.
-Like, out on the front. -Yeah.
Like, as if there would be a horse there normally, so it's just like you had this
bizarre,
like...
They didn't know yet how to utilize the technology. They just sort of took the
-horse away and that was it, right? -Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
And we're seeing sort of the inverse of that where it's like we've got these
applications that have existed for forever, and now we're just sprinkling AI
-on top of everything. -Yeah. [laughs]
And the idea was like, no, no, no. We need a reinvention of these applications.
-Right. -This is not email with AI on top. It's an
-AI-enabled... Like, it's AI first inbox. -Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Like. every piece that comes in is going to first be analyzed by, and then we're
going to use the intelligence to only deliver-
-Yeah -... to you the things that you need, and
we're going to draft a response for you using a prompt that you provided that has
context about you and your life and your tone of voice, right?
-Mm-hmm. -That's what you need. That is the next
-generation application. -Mm-hmm.
-It's not a horseless carriage. -Yeah.
-It's an automobile, right? -Yeah, yeah.
And so that's- that was kind of the idea of the article, and I think that's...
Hopefully that's where Apple's headed, and hopefully that's what they're thinking
about too, so.
I also think, interesting from a consumer perspective, like us as, you know,
developers, engineers, whatever you wanna call
our cohort of people, like yeah, we will be early adopters for this stuff, but
we're also
generally in a position financially to pay for this stuff. And, like, some people
are spending hundreds of dollars a month on,
um, you know, licenses... Not licenses. Subscriptions and tokens and-
-Yeah -... what have you. Like, the average
consumer, especially, you know, with the price of housing and the cost of living
and all of that kind of stuff, I don't... You know, I assume it's fairly similar in
the US for large portions of the population, but, like, in Australia,
people are not gonna be spending $200 a month for, um, you know, GPT credits or
Cloud credits or whatever else because- [laughs]
-Yeah -... these- these are the... There's a
large percentage of the population that, like, can't afford groceries week to week,
you know? So,
the economies of scale have to kick in before any of that stuff is viable anyway,
-so. -Yeah, and I mean, these things aren't free
-either. Like, these- these- -No. Yeah, the compute, the-
... you know, these cycles they're running-
-... electricity, all of this stuff. -... it's not- it's not insignificant.
-Yeah, they're run- -No.
You're a- you're running on VC bucks right now. You know, everything is.
-Right. Yeah. -Um, but it-
-Look, and look how much money, like- -... can't s- be sustained forever.
Yeah, like, look how much money, um, Tesla has put into building out, you know,
their compute clusters. Look how much money OpenAI is spending, how much,
uh, money Microsoft is investing in Azure and building all these data centers and
thing. Like,
-this is not infinitely scalable with- -Right
... you know, current- current, um, technology in terms of power production
and- and the power consumption. It's, you know,
you know, there- there is a limit to- to what can be done with the current
approach. And things are getting faster and things are certainly getting more
economical, but I think there is still a ceiling. We can't keep, you know, churning
through water and electricity and whatever else to- to power all of these
things, so.
Yeah.
-Yeah. -Interesting. Well, that didn't go the way
I was thinking it would, but it was still a very interesting discussion anyway.
-Thank you- -Yeah
... for the insights on that. I love that.
-That's all right. -Um,
okay, so I have a couple items here. I- I- I have a few things that I'm just wanting
to talk about as, like, a, "Do you think this is interesting?" Or I thought they
-were interesting, maybe you will too. -Mm-hmm.
And then I had a-
maybe a scenario to share and/or a interesting
question for where you would store particular values if you were wanting to
generate pages that were sort of static. Where should we store that data?
-Mm-hmm. -So I'll save that one towards the end.
But,
um, we've been working recently on our website for our job application page.
Basically, like, who we are as a company, and if you want to come work with us, what
our values are, what our culture is,
what jobs are available, et cetera, right? Previous to the... Previous to this
iteration, it was just a job board. Basically, here are the jobs we have
available. You like it or you don't, go click and apply, right?
And now we've sort of morphed it into who are we as a company? What are our values?
What is our culture? Where are we at? What are our locations? How do you get here?
What do you expect in an interview? Just a lot more content, right? And so,
to that end, we've got a new designer on the team and he's killing it, doing a
great job, but it's basically pushed me back into this, um,
this
role that I really enjoy but don't really get a lot of time to spend, uh, on, which
is just designing things or coming up with ideas for things that I think would be-
would be interesting. And- and so
I've been gathering some inspiration from a couple places around, and one place that
I found that I thought was really, really good, uh, is Kit.com.
So if you go to Kit.com/features, this is what used to be ConvertKit, right? They
changed over to just Kit. So Kit.com/features is really cool.And one of
the things that I really loved on their page is their use of video. Now, you know,
video is not new at all. We've been using video on the web for a long time.
However,
I feel like the video format that we typically see on the web is quite static.
It's typically a 16 by 9 window, it's got a big play button in it, and you play the
video or you don't, right? And most of the time, you don't. I mean, like, unless
you're going to somebody's page to see something,
you know, like that, like, that's typically how videos are shown on, on web
pages these days is, is that, "Hey, it's a video that we've put together for you to
view. It's a minute long," whatever. Click then see. Eh, maybe, maybe not. Or you
might have, like, video backgrounds which are pretty cool. There's some novel uses
of video, uh, where, like, you scroll the page and it advances. You know, they're
using mp4s instead of, like, a GIF or something like that and, sort of, because
they're more efficient, maybe they're advancing as you scroll the page. Y- maybe
you've seen some of that. So tho- those are kind of cool but, but whatever. The
thing I really like about what Kit has done is instead of using that 16 by 9
format, they've done more like a square format. So if I was to... You know, they
have, like, a employee testimonial on the page, so it's a stripe across the page,
and on the left-hand side, they have, um, like, a square or maybe a little bit
taller than wide. So maybe it's rectangular, it's a little bit taller than
-that. -Yeah, slightly.
But it's, it's where you would normally see, like, an avatar, right? You'd see-
-Mm-hmm. -You'd, you'd think like, okay, I have a, a
testimonial on the right, I'm gonna have, like, a circle avatar or I'm gonna have,
like, some sort of, like, you know, square-ish sort of avatar there. But it's
-not, it's a video. -Yeah.
Which is really cool. And it's autoplaying but with
no audio, right? And so what it does is it just has, like, the first five, six
seconds of the video playing there for you, sort of like what you would have if
you're on YouTube and you mouse over a Short. It starts to play that first five,
six seconds of the clip, and then it repeats. You know what I'm saying? And
-then if you wanna watch that- -It kinda makes it a GIF that bounces
... if that piques your interest, yes, then you can click on it. Um, and so what
it has is it has this really neat little icon at the top, which is this black
circle that has audio and, you know, you hover over it and it says, "Click for
-sound." You click it- -Mm-hmm
... and it will begin to play. And then if you click it again, it will pause it with
a big pause button, and if you click it again, it'll play, right? So all these
sort of considerations that you'd make for how do I expose the idea that this is a
playable thing to them without bi- putting a big play button on it-
-Yeah -... are available. It's moving, so it's,
like, intuitive, "Oh, this is a video I can play. Very cool." Um, and then things
that are difficult
to
do with it on mobile are also considered. So I was like, "This is a really great
pattern. I love this idea of using video in a different format." It's, it's unique.
It's, um,
uh, it's, like, really tasteful. It's done really well, and it's, it's, um, it, it
feels like the right place and the right way to use it. However,
we tried to make something like this on our own. It's near impossible
to come up with... You know, nobody has embeds for this stuff other than, like, a
-16... -Yeah.
You know, you're gonna use YouTube? Not working. It's not gonna work. You're gonna
-use Vimeo? You can't do it. -Mm-hmm.
Like, so you either have to roll your own, which is a pain in the butt, because
using those different aspect ratios, where are you gonna host it? Um, you know, then
you're gonna have to do your own video tag. It's a pain in the neck. And then you
have to do the, the click-to-do, you have to do the, uh, the autoplay.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. -It's a mess.
So what I found out is that kit.com uses Wistia, which I had never heard of before,
but it is a video hosting platform
where they allow you to do all these things. Uh, custom embed sizes, uh, this
au- you know, this click-to-play audio thing that's, it's a thing. They, they,
-they just already have it. -Yeah.
And then they also have, I think it's called, like, Tesseract or something like
that. I can't remember exactly, but it's essentially how they deliver the video to
con- to, to, um,
to devices, right? How, how they really are...
-Yeah. -They're insanely, uh, obsessed with
efficiently delivering these experiences to users in a very, um, low bandwidth way.
And so they've got not only their first version, they've got their second version
out, which was even faster. And so it's something like 90% faster or something
than YouTube or Vimeo's embeds. Really lightweight, really good stuff. And so
we've been using them. I was like, "Screw it. Switch out all of our videos that even
use YouTube or Vimeo for embeds and put this in there instead." I've been so
pleased. It is really good, and their embeds are awesome. I pay, I think it's
like 12 bucks a month we're paying. Totally worth it. And, um, just, just
super impressed. So huge shout-out to kit.com because their stuff looks great,
and, um, I'd be lying if I didn't say we're essentially just ripping off some of
-those ideas in some of our- -[laughs]
... [laughs] in some of our testimonial stuff. I'm like, "Why reinvent this? This
-looks so good, I'm gonna-" -Yeah.
"... I'm gonna kinda go with this." Um, but wistia.com has been really cool, so
-definitely check that out. -Nice.
Um, if you're looking for something novel like that, I just thought it was really
cool.
Hmm.
Very interesting. Yeah, it's always, uh, interesting to look at these video
delivery tools,
platforms, whatever it is, um, and, like,
-fairly reasonably priced in terms of... -Yeah, totally.
Um,
you know, the free plan is 200 gig of bandwidth and,
um,
-what is it, 10, I guess, 10 files? -Mm-hmm.
Is that, that what they're saying here? So-
-Yep -... you know, if you're just getting
started with something, you're probably not gonna serve a great deal of content,
and I assume that they're doing all the transcode and things like that as well, so
-they're delivering optimized media and- -Being able to leverage media.
-Yeah. So- -Everything.
-That's- -Yep
... that's really cool. Professional hosting.
-It is. -No code replacement, video SEO, video
chaptering using AI. There you go. Video creation. It's just, like, a whole heap of
different stuff. So if you're looking for-
-Yep -... for video stuff and you're, you're not
Aaron Francis and you don't wanna go out and build your own thing that serves video
-off of Cloudflare- -Yeah.
-Um- -Yeah
... then yeah, maybe, maybe consider this. So-
-Totally. -There's, like,
the...
Having, having worked in this space a while ago now, you know, all of this stuff
exists now that didn't really exist back then, which is why we built a platform to,
to do it all. There's just so much involved in terms of transcode and then
videos, and then devices become problematic because, you know, if you
think you're testing on, like, your Chrome device but you don't have access to all
of the different Android devices, and all the different Android and Google devices
do things differently with t-Video playback and autoplay. That does or
doesn't work and different, you know, bit rates and things. It's just to, to have a
platform, like, if, especially if it's not your focus, if your focus is just
delivering video content to the internet for people to consume.
Um, and, and, like, if you wanna have some control over it, obviously if you don't
care too much, you'd put it on YouTube or, or whatever else and just link to YouTube
directly. But if you're wanting to present stuff on your own website, then
yeah, something like this is, is great. Even, even like their-
-Yeah -... paid plan at $25 a month is, is pretty
reasonable. Um, and that allows you to customize-
-Yeah. Exactly -... the player as well. Clickable video
CTAs, which is, I, I assume is what you're doing, so.
-Yeah. Yep. There's... -[clears throat]
I mean, there's really, there's a whole suite of things you can do, and if you get
into, like, their features, they, they've got... I mean, even if you go to
wistia.com, they've also got really novel uses of video throughout their whole site,
obviously, right? That's what they're selling. And so, um, if you look through
their stuff, there's some really cool things that you can do or that, you know,
that are just, like, sort of inspiration things. I, I think for me, what it is too
is it's, I, I'm hoping to get something that somebody's going to, it's gonna make
-them pause on the page. -Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And
I think, you know, one of the things that will hook my attention... Well, currently,
right now, like, a great way to hook my attention is something that looks like a
-short, you know? -Mm-hmm.
Everybody's pushing this concept. I think we were just talking, I was just
listening, I think Aaron, Aaron and Ian were just talking about this, how, like,
YouTube, you know, YouTube is pushing shorts. Like, you know, when you go to
their Apple TV official app and, like, shorts are at the very top.
-Yeah. -Like, they, they've recognized, people
recognize that, whether it's TikTok, whether it's Instagram-
-Mm-hmm -... or whether it's Threads, whatever,
-right? The- -Yeah, everyone wants a quick content clip
-of something -Yeah. Correct. Nobody wants a minute and a
-half video. Nobody wants a- -Yeah
... minute video. They just want something quick. And sort of appealing to that same
aesthetic, giving a, like, a differently shaped video that's autoplaying, hooking
into that, I think is a great way to sort of utilize, um, or sort of hack the
attention of those users because that's what they're used to already, right?
-Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. -So, um, when reading an article not too
long ago about web patterns, they were like, "Don't reinvent the wheel." Like,
look at what Amazon is doing. They've spent millions of dollars in research to
-figure out the best way to do this. Just- -Mm-hmm
... borrow what they're already doing, right?
-Yeah. -And so this is the same idea. Like,
they've, people have already figured this out. This autoplay thing really captures
-people attention- -Mm-hmm
... people's attention, and they already know, they've already been trained to
click on the video if they wanna watch the rest of it.
-Yeah. -Utilize it. Hack that thing, right? Grab
-their attention that way. -Yeah. Yeah, there, there are certain
things that, like, you look at these giant companies and you shouldn't do. You know,
obviously you don't need,
you don't need Amazon scale infrastructure for your 50 view a month [laughs] blog or
-anything like that. But in terms of- -Right
... this kind of stuff where they've, they've invested
tons of time and money to, to figure out what people are actually clicking on,
because what they want is for people to click on stuff.
-Yeah. -Then, you know, those are the kinds of
things that you can leverage. I will say that, like, I hate seeing YouTube shorts
on my TV 'cause if I'm opening my TV, like, I wanna watch something on the big
-screen. I don't wanna watch [laughs]- -Yeah
-... vertical resolution short- -Yeah, totally
-... on, on my TV, so. -Yeah.
But, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely, um, interesting. I like, I
like those little testimonial type things. I should, uh-
-Mm-hmm -... use that-
-Mm-hmm -... for something in the future.
Um,
maybe for Laracon.
-Maybe for Laracon, yeah. I wanna- -Do you wanna talk, do you wanna talk about
Laracon real quick before I, before I jump into-
We can talk, we can talk about other Laracons
-... either of my other two, uh- -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-... topics? Yeah. All right. -Well, where-
-Let's just do that. -You and I-
I'm gonna grab my water bo- I'm gonna refill my water bottle while you do that.
Water bottle. Yeah, yeah. That's fine. So you, you and I-
-While this thing is going. -As, as part of Laravel New- Like, last
year you, you did with David Hemphill, like, a bit of a,
a recap of day one. So I think you and I we're gonna try and do a day one, day two
recap as a, as a "official Laravel News" thing. But then I think we're also gonna
look at wandering around and doing some vox pops, which, you know, is a Latin
thing that I forget the full version of it. It's basically going round and, and
catching people's opinions. And, and I'm sure Eric will get that edited up 'cause I
don't wanna do it, but I'm sure [laughs] he'll do something with that where we take
all those opinions from people. We'll talk about, you know, the highlights, the,
the, you know, the reasons that you attend a conference, et cetera, et cetera,
and put them together into some,
some content for Laravel News around the place. So, if you see Jake and I wandering
-around with microphones at Laracon A- -Yes, yes
... uh, La- Laracon in Denver, then, uh, you will know why. Um, and yeah, we'll
probably do some similar... Like, I just ran out of time to do it at Laracon AU
last year, but I'd be keen to
do that kind of thing as well. 'Cause it's nice to have the, the testimonials and
things like that up on the website, you know, for people that are on the fence or
are trying to sell it to their employers and things like that. Why, why would I go
to this thing?
Um, some, you know, some places are more difficult than others to, to sell it into,
so,
um, yeah. We definitely, definitely wanna see what we can do with, with that kind of
-stuff as well. 'Cause- -We're excited for that
... it needs to be more than just m- my face on videos, I think. [laughs]
[laughs] Right. Yeah. They said that they're gonna have, like, a green room at,
-um, Laracon this year sort of reserved- -Mm-hmm
... for podcasting stuff, so I just think-
-Yeah. -That's a great idea.
-Pretty cool. -That was really cool. So should be fun
-times. -Yeah. Looking forward to it. It's, um,
it's coming up quick now. What are we? Tenth of, tenth of June, ninth of June. So
we're only, you know, what? Six or so weeks? Five, six weeks away from-
-Yeah -... me jumping on a plane for-
-Yeah -... 72 hours of travel for a 48 hour
-[laughs] stopover. [laughs] -Mm-hmm. And right now, right now-
I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be so tired. [laughs]
Yeah, dude. You are going to be toast. You better just start getting-
-I get there- -... sleep. Banking sleep right now.
-Yes. Stop, stop banking it. -For when... Yeah. Six weeks from now. Yep.
I am... Monday I leave at, like, 6:00 AM
here, fly to Sydney, then fly to Dallas to Denver. Um, so I'll, I'll get to Dallas
at... I, I leave at, I leave Sydney at 10:00 and I get to Dallas at 10:30 on
Monday. On the same day, 'cause time zones are lots of fun. And then I think I get
in at, like, 3:00 PM on, on Monday arvo to, to Denver, and then, uh... So I'm
traveling with Aaron. So OG Aaron will be there with me.
-Even though you saw him? -And, uh, we'll be there for, uh...
Unfortunately, our return flight got changed. We were supposed to leave at,
like, 5:00 PM or something like that on Thursday.
-Mm-hmm. -And the flight got-... brought forward to
11 AM. So instead of having a day in Denver-
-Yeah -... we're gonna have eight hours to kick
around LAX on the way back, so... [inhales]
-No good. No good. -That's a... That'll be, that'll be
interesting. But, uh, we might venture out to... There's, I think, on the strip
outside of the airport, there's like Five Guys, Chick-fil-A, and In-N-Out Burger. I
said, "Let's just do all three of them. What's the worst that could happen?" You
-know? -Nice. Absolutely. Yeah.
There's a 16-hour flight ahead of us and three different-
-Totally -... types of burger. [laughs]
[laughs]
Yeah, that'll be glorious. I, I, I wanna hear about that when you get back. Maybe
-it's- maybe, like, uh, -... on India from last year, right? Like,
-just that, uh.... -Ah, yeah.
We won't go into details. We won't go into details on that, but, but yeah. Uh, yeah,
no, dude, I'm looking forward to it. It's gonna be a great time, and, and, um,
Denver's a great place. Like, there's a lot of fun stuff to do there, and so, um,
really excited for that too. I, I think that they're actually... I heard that they
might be doing a golf outing previous to-
Yeah, some golfing on, on Monday, yeah.
-Something like that, so... -And I'm going to my first golf lesson
-tomorrow. -Oh. You, you can-
-True story -... get into it.
We, we've, we've been... Well, so, uh, my son and I have been golfing recently.
-Um... -Mm-hmm.
Uh, and so I'm... It's been super enjoyable, a lot of fun. And so we've both
-kinda caught the bug again, so- -[laughs]
... there's a kid that we know who's a really decent golfer, and he's, like,
offering lessons this summer. He, he went to... He, you know, he's got a scholarship
at college to play, and so I'm like, "Heck, I mean, what's the worst that could
-happen? I'm sure he'll help me-" -Yeah.
"... do some stuff better." And so, yeah, we're going to some lessons tomorrow,
which should be fun, but I don't know. I'm, I might try and get in on that. The
only problem is, like, I have to, like, ship my clubs there, you know, so...
-Yeah. -May- they might have-
-I'm sure they'll have some -... rentals, though. I think they actually
-have rentals. -Yeah, they'll have rentals.
-Maybe I- -Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So... Yeah, maybe I'll do that. We'll see.
I'm sure it'll be fine. Yeah, no, I think I'll have to miss it just because s- it's
too hard. Like, this is the first time that I have been, obviously since the kids
-were born. Uh, well- -Yeah
... sorry, first time since New York in 2019. So Eli was, like, one year old then.
So it's, it's been a while, and I, I, I'm... I've got the leave pass, but it's,
like, go and come back in as short a period of time as you can. So, yeah-
-For sure -... leave, leave Monday, back Saturday,
-because time zones again. So w- I missed- -Mm-hmm
-... all of Friday, but, um- -Yep.
Fortunately, fortunately, it is the week after Liv starts school, so I won't miss
her first week, which is, which is good. Um, she just had-
-No, that's- -... her second-
-Yeah -... second transition visit today, which
she was a bit,
um, bit upset about. Like, she didn't wanna go, it was gonna be too boring, it
-was gonna be too long. -[laughs]
And then she didn't wanna leave when Rhee went to pick her up, and then she didn't
wanna go back to kindy. She's like, "Can you pick me up at lunchtime?" We're like,
"No, no. You've..." You know, "We're working, you've gotta
go, go and do that." So she's only got a few weeks of, of, uh, kindy, kindergarten
left before she starts school, which is exciting, and,
um,
yeah, it's a bit... When you stop and think about it, it's like, wow, it's, um,
five, just almost five years of, of her life have already just, like, blown by.
-Yeah, dude, that's wild. -And it's, it's Eli's birthday today. He
turns seven, so
it's just... Time flies, really. I said to him, walking him to school this morning,
like, "It, it feels like just yesterday we were bringing you home from the hospital,
-and here you are-" -Yeah.
-"... like, halfway through-" -Yeah
-"... your second year of school, so." -Yep. Big kids, man. Uh, if you... Do you
know who Ben Rector is?
-No. No, I don't think so. -He's a, he's a, he's a musician.
-Okay. -Um, [sighs] I picked up listening to Ben
Rector, I don't know, the first time I heard any of his songs was probably, like,
15 or 16 years ago, I think. I just sorta happened across it on MusicBed. David
-Hemphill used to work there. -Oh, yeah.
-And so- -Mm-hmm
... I was pulling a song for something, and I came across one of these songs. I
was like, "Oh, this is really good. I don't know who this is." Ben Rector? I've
never heard of him. I was like, "He's just some indie artist or something out of
Nashville, I'm not sure."
And so
as time went on, I sort of listened to some... A couple more of his things. But
-anyway, he's a dad now- -Mm-hmm
... and his latest album is so... There's so much about, like, parenthood in there,
and it's just a super good album. It's the, one of the best ones he's, he's had,
I've, I think. And so, um, if you're looking for-
-Check it out -... something to get you to be reflective
on how quick time is passing for your kids, definitely check out Ben Rector's
latest, latest album. It's super good. Super, super good. But yeah, I was
listening to it in my, in my car with my daughters on my way somewhere yesterday.
-Mm-hmm. -And I, uh, I had to stop singing for a
minute 'cause I was like, "Ooh boy, this is gonna get heavy. This is gonna get-"
-Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. -I was, like, thinking of my daughters
while I was in the car, that song. I was like, "Ooh boy, all right. Uh, it's gotta
chill for a minute here." It's so good, though. So good.
-It's, it's- -But very emotional. As, like, a parent,
like, listening to some of these things, it's like, okay, 'cause he's hitting, he
hits the nail on the head at a couple of spots. Where he's-
-Yeah. -I think one of his songs are called Golden
-Days. Like, these are the golden days. -Mm-hmm.
Oh man, it's really good. So anyway, check it out. Definitely.
It's, it's, it's definitely funny as a parent the kinds of things that hit you,
-that you, like, don't expect- -Yes. Yeah
... to hit you. Like, we, we went and when Liv did her first transition visit last
week, we went
and we met with, like, the principal and the vice principal, and they talked about
the school and all of this kind of stuff. And we just said it's like a bit of a
refresher, 'cause we've been there for a year already, but, um,
just talking about... 'Cause the, the school that we're in used to be considered
a bit of, like, a, a poor school. Um, it was, like, in a low socioeconomic area. It
didn't really get the funding. Um, they were, like, considered average for
schools like them. You know, so, you know, within their, their group, they're like,
"Uh, you know, you're as shit as the other schools." So
they didn't do anything. There was no... Like, they didn't get any extra funding or
any extra support or anything like that. And when the current principal came in,
this was back in 2011, there was like 150 students in the school, and their focus
was all around compliance rather than learning and, and all of this kind of
stuff. And over the last
14 years, to see the turnaround where it's now like a, a 500-person or 500-student
school, where they effectively get
their pick of, you know, whichever teachers they want, they go and poach
them. They're having to turn students away now, because they're at capacity. They're
building new, new classrooms and new buildings and things like that.And, um,
and- and all of it's changed
just because they're giving opportunities. And I'm sitting there, and I'm, like,
welling up going, "Oh." You know, it's-
it's just... Y- y- like I said, you don't know
-what's gonna set you off, but it's like- -Yeah.
There are these complete strangers to your children
that, you know, you trust that they're going to- to set them up
for life, to teach them, you know, how to read and write and do maths and- and all
of this kind of stuff. But to- to support them as their own? Like, I sometimes-
-Yeah, yeah. -Some days, it's hard enough, like,
supporting your own kids to the level that-
-Yeah. -... th- they- they need 'cause, you know,
being a parent is- is hard work. But then to have these, like, complete strangers
treat your children a- as their own children is just,
um, really, really heartening to see that there are people out there in the world
that will go out of their way to- to- to look after kids and to- t- to do the right
thing by them. So...
Yeah, it's like they adopt them for a year almost because-
-Yeah -... you know, in reality, they end up
spending more time with your kids than you do.
-More time, yeah. Yeah. -I mean, truly.
-Yeah. -Like, more waking hours are spent with
-that teacher than are spent with you- -Mm-hmm
-... as their parent. -Mm-hmm.
And so, yeah, it's crucially important that you have those good teachers and
-stuff, but it is. -Yeah.
That's- it's incredible. Like, we're so blessed to have people who have dedicated
their lives to helping kids and families, right?
-Yeah. -And help society really, right?
-Yeah. -Um, and so yeah. That's really cool.
I don't know how people that homeschool their kids can do it 'cause I- I- I
wouldn't know. And the- and the stuff that they come home with, you know, the way
that they- they learn now and the way that they're taught now is very different to
what it was when I was in school 30 years ago.
-Okay. Yeah. -And, you know, Eli coming home, and he's
telling me about phonics and digraphs and, like, "Did you know Y is, like, the
sometimes vowel?" I'm like, "What are you talking about?"
-[laughs] -Like, it was funny. Him, he... A-
-actually- -Yeah
... as a- as a former math teacher, you may be able to... You may know this.
He came, and, like, they're learning, uh, addition and subtraction, and they... H-
he always writes everything left to right. And I'm like, I- I don't wanna get in his
way. I don't wanna confuse him, right? However he's learning is- is what I wanna
try and support him to learn. 'Cause when I did it, it was like, you know, addition,
-subtraction, top to bottom. -Yeah.
-You get the right- -Yeah, right to left. Yeah, yeah.
You work right to left, you carry the numbers-
-Yeah, exactly -... and all that kind of stuff. And
[laughs]
he says to me... Oh, he goes, "No, this is how we do it now." There's, like, the-
the make- the make 10 strategy or something where you, like, get the numbers
-and- -Hmm, okay
... figure it out, how to get to 10. He goes, "In the olden days, they used to
call it rainbow facts." And I looked at Rhee, and I said, "What do you mean, the
olden days? Like, I don't know what rainbow facts is. That was never anything
-I learnt. Like, this is-" -No.
So- so now we're, like, two generations removed from what is-
-Ah -... current teaching. It's like-
-So we- -Not- not- not, like, to-
... we're the... We're, like, the olden olden days.
We're- we're like the great-great-parents of the- this- whatever it was that we were
-taught [laughs] 'cause that's- -Oh, that's hilarious.
And it's not- not- not generations as in, like, my generation and my kids, but,
like, generations of learning. These things seem to cycle every seven or eight
-years. So, like, they did this. -Yeah.
And that's... When I was in school, it was like, "This is the word, this is how you
say it," and you just memorize that, and then you move onto the next thing.
-That's right, yeah. -Whereas now, they give them the tools to,
like, break down the sounds and recognize the patterns and all of this kind of
stuff, so that you can give Eli a word that he's never seen before, and he can
-sound out, and he breaks it down- -Break it out, yeah
... into the pieces, and he knows. Like, we gave him his birthday card
this morning, and Rhee and I reach- each wrote a message in there, and- and I- he
opens it, he goes, "Oh, that's a lot of words." I said, "Di- did you wanna read it
yourself, or do you want me to help you out?" He goes, "No, I can read it myself.
I can read it in my head." And just watching him and watching his head go and,
like... And his little smile was when he read something that tickled him-
-Oh, that's so funny. -... and it was just like, wow, you know?
-He's a little human. -He's- he's a little human that can, like-
-He's a little person. -Yeah.
And then, like, every now and then, he, like, loses his marbles and throws
something across the room and runs off screaming, so it's like... H- he gets all
these... And it's funny 'cause they're like... You know, before it was like, "Ah,
he's having a tantrum." Now it's like, "He's having a moment of dysregulation."
-I'm like, "Okay, sure." -[laughs]
-"Whatever. Whatever it is." -Ah.
-Oh, that's true. -Okay.
-Yeah, man. -So he takes himself to his bedroom now and
-just calms himself down- -There you go
... which is nice 'cause before, it used to be just, like, flinging things across
-the family room. -Progress.
-I- I- and I- -We're making progress.
There was fear for our television on a number of occasions.
-Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. -[laughs] Don't throw anything towards the
-TV, please. [laughs] -Yep. Yep. Well, that's- that's great,
-dude. -Mm-hmm.
And they- they just continue to get bigger. That's the crazy thing.
-Uh-huh, yeah. -You got to see- you got to see Graham
-before- before we started the show. -Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-He's- he's an adult, man. He's huge. -He looks like you, but he's huge, yeah.
He's a blond Jake.
He is. Yeah, and, I don't know, he's- he's got your face and so...
But he's got your face. He- but he's got- he's got Laura's hair.
Yeah, yeah. He's a better looking Jake Bennett, so...
-[laughs] -I- he's- he's the kid I wanted to look
like when I was a kid. I always wanted blonde hair. You know what I mean?
-Mm-hmm. -To be athletic and, like, you know,
-whatever. He's- he's that person. -[laughs]
So anyway, he's a cool kid.
Well, dude, I think I've got these other topics queued up for next time. We had
-talked about- -Yeah
... really trying to have a little bit more continuity between the shows, so I'll
tell you folks what we're looking at for next time. So, a couple items. Uh,
defensive programming
and anticipating breakages. Where am I going to miss? So I was watching... And
because we're getting into g- golf, um, I was watching this clip. Tiger Woods was in
the rough, and he's trying to hit onto the green, right? And so he's looking down
the fairway, and he's like, "Okay, the..." So he's like, "I know this is kind
of what I..." You know, "I know what club I need to hit to get there."
But he's like, "Now I have to figure out when I'm... where I'm gonna aim." And he's
like, "Because I'm hitting out of the rough, I'm not gonna be precise in where
I'm gonna hit, so I have to pick where
it's going to be least harmful when I miss. I have to pick my miss." Like, "If I
miss on the right side, uh, there's bunkers over there. If I miss on the left
side, I've got a wide open green. There's a little bit of rough over there, but it's
gonna be a much better miss on that side." Right?
-Mm-hmm. -So it's trying to anticipate, where in my
programming do I want to miss? Where are the things where, like, if I'm going to
mess up, if somebody's going to use this- abuse this thing, how do I wanna sort of,
like, direct it so that the- the exception has the least damage to me-
-Mm-hmm -... or to the- the business? So, um,
you're never gonna get perfect, and you're never going to be able to anticipate all
of the things that are gonna happen in your programming. It's just not.
-Yeah. -And I'll share an example next time, where
it's like, that is so freaking bizarre. How did you ever think that that was how
-the tool was supposed to be used? -Mm-hmm.
But I didn't think about, where is the miss?So what ended up happening is we
deleted a bunch of stuff that was actually crucial, and ending up, we're gonna end
up having to have two people redo a month worth of work, literally a month worth of
work. It's brutal. It's brutal, because I did not think about
this- this sort of, like, contingency plan. Anyway-
-Mm-hmm -... we're gonna talk about that a little
bit next time. And then, also, um, when you're not using a static site generator,
you're using Laravel,
where do you store values that you want to chuck into something where you have a
bunch of pages that are the same,
but need small variance? So is it a YAML file? Is it a database that then gets
pushed down into static pages? Do you just put it into the view? Do you put it in
the controller? Do you put it in the config? Where do you put it? Right?
Um, do you generate DTOs that all have them and you just store it in your code?
Where do you put it? So those are some things we'll talk about next time, and I
have, uh,
-some fun- fun ideas for that. So... -Nice.
-I will also want- -Cue them up for next time, friends.
Also a quick say it as well, I have just embarked upon deleting the tenancy package
-from our application. -Ooh, yes.
We have finally, we have finally moved all of the other pieces so that we don't need
multiple tenants anymore. So it's now a process of step one was just to remove
the- the package from Composer and then work through the tests and see what's
breaking. So it's a, it's a slow-going thing. Um, someone will probably tell me I
can use AI for it, which I, which I won't do.
-There you go. Yeah. -But Duly noted. Um, yeah it's, it's, it's
going all right.
Having a better grasp of, like, parallel testing now and multiple database
connections and just, like,
making life easier for myself and also, like, hopefully improving the speed of our
tests will be,
um, a good side effect of doing this. So,
yeah,
-to be continued- -Rock on
-... in future episodes. -To be continued. Well, folks, Episode 178.
Is that right, Michael? Did I get it right?
Hmm, I don't know. I wrote it up here. 177, I think.
-177. -Ooh, 177. Folks, this is Episode 177. Find
show notes for this episode at northmeetsouth.audio/177. Uh, if you'd
like to hit us up on Twitter or on
X or on BlueSky, hit us up at Michael Dyrynda, @jacobbennett, or at North South
Audio. And of course, if you liked the show, we'd really appreciate it if you'd
rate us up in your pod catcher of choice. Five stars would be incredible, amazing,
and awesome.
Thanks for tuning in, folks. We love hearing from you, honestly. Um, I would
love to get any feedback on any of these items. Wistia, if you thought Wistia was a
cool idea, you should definitely,
um, let us know. What are your opinions on liquid glass and iPhones and the new- the
-new designs- -Yeah
... that are coming out? And then, um,
tune in next time to hear about some of those other cool things we'll talk about
in two weeks. We'll see you then, folks. Bye-bye.
Bye. [upbeat music plays]