WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:04.914 --> 00:00:05.794 CJ: What's up, Colin. 00:00:05.794 --> 00:00:06.364 How's it going? 00:00:06.594 --> 00:00:07.274 Colin: Pretty good. 00:00:07.274 --> 00:00:13.214 We're back in the recording booth talking today about the para system 00:00:13.264 --> 00:00:18.304 or our attempts at organizing the chaos that both of us have 00:00:18.314 --> 00:00:20.694 for notes and all the fun things. 00:00:20.694 --> 00:00:26.484 But before we get into that, have you seen, there's like a, there's a 00:00:26.484 --> 00:00:30.324 whole interview and a bunch of little clips going around, from an interview 00:00:30.324 --> 00:00:32.994 with Lex Friedman and Pieter Levels. 00:00:33.014 --> 00:00:33.944 Have you seen this? 00:00:35.034 --> 00:00:39.344 CJ: I haven't seen any of the clips I saw that Orlando, made a comment 00:00:39.354 --> 00:00:44.324 on LinkedIn about the fact that, Lex could get Peter to come on, which, 00:00:44.949 --> 00:00:47.699 Colin: I feel the same like Peter going on Lex's show. 00:00:47.699 --> 00:00:50.839 It's like, I don't, I wouldn't say that Lex's audience is 00:00:50.839 --> 00:00:51.939 like software developers. 00:00:51.939 --> 00:00:55.009 So it's a little surprising to me, but awesome for Peter and the 00:00:55.009 --> 00:00:56.389 exposure and the conversation. 00:00:56.759 --> 00:01:00.159 I haven't watched all of it yet, but I've been watching some of the little clips 00:01:00.169 --> 00:01:01.859 that are making their way around Twitter. 00:01:02.394 --> 00:01:07.364 And there was one that I particularly liked that I'll just like paraphrase 00:01:07.364 --> 00:01:08.714 and we can talk about it a little bit. 00:01:09.164 --> 00:01:13.384 and he starts it off as this is his most controversial take is that there 00:01:13.384 --> 00:01:17.224 are a bunch of frameworks and I'm assuming he's talking about programming 00:01:17.224 --> 00:01:21.134 language frameworks and things like that, that have raised a bunch of money. 00:01:21.384 --> 00:01:25.444 They're open source, they're available, they're people can use them, but 00:01:25.444 --> 00:01:26.904 they've raised a bunch of money. 00:01:27.004 --> 00:01:30.244 And because they've raised money, they've now built these platforms. 00:01:30.524 --> 00:01:35.734 Those platforms are like added services and hosting and, Lambda like features 00:01:35.734 --> 00:01:37.644 in the cloud and all that fun stuff. 00:01:38.254 --> 00:01:38.864 And. 00:01:39.299 --> 00:01:42.039 Then they're going out and paying developer influencers. 00:01:42.079 --> 00:01:43.089 They're paying developers. 00:01:43.089 --> 00:01:46.169 They're paying streamers to go talk about their thing, do their thing. 00:01:46.719 --> 00:01:50.029 And their argument is that then they get a bunch of flack for 00:01:50.029 --> 00:01:55.409 using just straight PHP, jQuery and shipping and just building stuff. 00:01:55.819 --> 00:01:59.399 And in Peter's bio, there's a bunch of startups that they've built. 00:01:59.954 --> 00:02:04.734 By themselves that have the monthly recurring revenue of each of them 00:02:04.734 --> 00:02:08.504 And so there's quite a few he's known for building like a startup a month 00:02:08.544 --> 00:02:11.314 and things like that and some making like three grand a month some were 00:02:11.314 --> 00:02:16.124 making like 30 grand a month and with that you get a lot of people 00:02:16.124 --> 00:02:21.554 who I see usually on Twitter talking about tools and things and basically 00:02:21.754 --> 00:02:23.594 Calling out that controversial take. 00:02:23.664 --> 00:02:26.694 I didn't think it was that controversial, but apparently all of Twitter thinks it 00:02:26.694 --> 00:02:29.334 is all of the dev tool space thinks it is. 00:02:29.654 --> 00:02:32.964 and what it makes me think of is just that, the same thing happens 00:02:32.964 --> 00:02:35.944 with rails is, Oh, it's too slow. 00:02:35.974 --> 00:02:36.624 It's dead. 00:02:36.624 --> 00:02:40.434 It's whatever it versus just like shipping stuff for users and customers 00:02:40.484 --> 00:02:45.014 and not, rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, is the tool important 00:02:45.829 --> 00:02:48.709 Is it okay to talk about tools and craftsmanship and all that? 00:02:48.799 --> 00:02:49.569 Absolutely. 00:02:49.569 --> 00:02:53.189 But like at the end of the day, are you delivering for customers? 00:02:53.269 --> 00:02:55.249 Are you trying to solve a real problem? 00:02:55.559 --> 00:03:01.639 Does it matter if it was in PHP or react or both, or, if Ruby is a few seconds 00:03:01.639 --> 00:03:04.349 slower, in aggregate, then using rest, 00:03:05.669 --> 00:03:05.999 CJ: Yeah, 00:03:06.424 --> 00:03:06.889 Colin: think? 00:03:07.159 --> 00:03:08.769 CJ: I have so many feelings about this. 00:03:08.849 --> 00:03:15.249 first of all, I don't know any indie hacker or any tech person who isn't 00:03:15.299 --> 00:03:20.089 jealous of Peter's like monthly recurring revenue from all his projects, right? 00:03:20.099 --> 00:03:24.569 Like he's making hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, if not millions 00:03:24.569 --> 00:03:27.989 per month on A bunch of projects that he's put out and a lot of them are 00:03:27.989 --> 00:03:29.719 just little AI experiments or whatever. 00:03:30.089 --> 00:03:34.849 so with that backdrop, I think a lot of people get frustrated when they 00:03:34.849 --> 00:03:39.829 learn that a lot of these companies or startups that he's built are all 00:03:39.829 --> 00:03:43.999 built with one single PHP file each or something like that, where it's like, 00:03:44.469 --> 00:03:51.994 and then, like some jQuery, some basic, like very basic HTML, And what this 00:03:52.004 --> 00:03:59.534 always reminds me about is like how much time I have spent procrastinating 00:03:59.544 --> 00:04:04.584 on shipping stuff by fine tuning tools or like just getting the thing 00:04:04.594 --> 00:04:08.064 right and getting the thing optimized and making it fast and making it, 00:04:08.139 --> 00:04:10.859 Colin: That's bike and bike shedding, for example. 00:04:11.084 --> 00:04:11.814 CJ: Exactly. 00:04:11.814 --> 00:04:12.164 Yeah. 00:04:12.164 --> 00:04:15.524 And for me personally, if I think really hard about it, I think it's that. 00:04:16.054 --> 00:04:16.754 I. 00:04:17.164 --> 00:04:19.104 it's like the fear of rejection, right? 00:04:19.104 --> 00:04:23.804 and maybe not like believing that the thing that I want to put out will be 00:04:23.804 --> 00:04:27.344 received well, and that I'll be like judged negatively about that or something. 00:04:27.344 --> 00:04:31.364 And so as a result, I procrastinate by yeah, like you said, rearranging the 00:04:31.364 --> 00:04:33.514 deck chairs on the Titanic or, yeah. 00:04:33.514 --> 00:04:36.304 Bike shedding about, should this be in react or should it be in Ruby or should 00:04:36.304 --> 00:04:43.504 it be in whatever, yeah, I, in terms of the question about rejecting frameworks 00:04:44.094 --> 00:04:48.914 that want to become large and they do so through influencers and to try to get 00:04:48.914 --> 00:04:53.994 like more people to use them, I actually don't know what the right answer is for 00:04:54.034 --> 00:04:55.684 people who are building the frameworks. 00:04:56.254 --> 00:04:58.974 if you think about someone like Taylor Otwell and Laravel. 00:04:59.399 --> 00:05:05.529 He's making plenty of money from the small group of people that have, started 00:05:05.529 --> 00:05:07.559 to use Laravel for their startups. 00:05:07.559 --> 00:05:11.819 Like he's provided enough value that he's able to buy Lamborghinis 00:05:11.819 --> 00:05:13.209 and like all this crazy stuff. 00:05:13.209 --> 00:05:17.869 And Vercel, has built like a billion dollar plus business 00:05:17.869 --> 00:05:21.769 on the back of next JS and some of these JavaScript frameworks. 00:05:21.769 --> 00:05:22.239 And. 00:05:23.099 --> 00:05:24.699 Do I think that's wrong? 00:05:24.879 --> 00:05:27.179 I know, not necessarily. 00:05:27.209 --> 00:05:31.279 And do I also, do I, would I say that the way that Peter's doing it is wrong? 00:05:31.319 --> 00:05:31.759 No. 00:05:31.809 --> 00:05:35.779 He's clearly like crushing it as an individual, like indie hacker and 00:05:36.259 --> 00:05:39.839 copying and pasting patterns that he understands and knows for how to make 00:05:39.839 --> 00:05:41.439 money online and build businesses online. 00:05:41.959 --> 00:05:42.499 I don't know. 00:05:42.589 --> 00:05:43.119 I don't know. 00:05:43.159 --> 00:05:43.609 Like 00:05:45.979 --> 00:05:51.809 at the end of the day, we're trending towards this new, I like 00:05:51.909 --> 00:05:57.009 organization of marketing and how marketing works in general. 00:05:57.009 --> 00:06:00.709 Like we start to, now we're starting to trust and believe certain 00:06:00.749 --> 00:06:05.049 influencers and what they say and those influencers are creating the biggest 00:06:05.079 --> 00:06:06.319 brands and the biggest companies. 00:06:06.319 --> 00:06:09.329 If you look at like prime or. 00:06:09.649 --> 00:06:12.179 Joe Rogan's alpha brain or, 00:06:12.789 --> 00:06:14.249 Colin: you talking about prime or primogen? 00:06:15.629 --> 00:06:16.789 CJ: no, like prime is in like 00:06:16.839 --> 00:06:17.524 Colin: That's the yeah. 00:06:18.094 --> 00:06:18.624 CJ: yeah. 00:06:18.724 --> 00:06:21.724 like a lot of the, a lot of the times giant businesses are now 00:06:21.724 --> 00:06:25.654 being built with an influencer co founder or something like that. 00:06:25.654 --> 00:06:28.684 And so I don't know if it's. 00:06:29.544 --> 00:06:33.237 if it's bad to say that , framework and framework companies are taking 00:06:33.237 --> 00:06:37.517 the same approach of using like dev influencers to grow their brand. 00:06:38.017 --> 00:06:40.467 Colin: and he went on to talk about Oh, you could just go 00:06:40.467 --> 00:06:42.127 spin up a digital ocean box. 00:06:42.167 --> 00:06:47.287 And I don't think it's bad that Vercell exists because I love using Cloudflare 00:06:47.297 --> 00:06:51.047 for a lot of the same things, Cloudflare workers, things on the edge, like sure, 00:06:51.047 --> 00:06:52.927 you can go put it on a DigitalOcean box. 00:06:53.307 --> 00:06:58.177 You and I have been through the days of, what, Slicehost, and all the different 00:06:58.187 --> 00:07:01.107 hosting companies, Dreamhost, all these things that have existed before. 00:07:01.467 --> 00:07:02.937 I've admin'ed boxes. 00:07:03.007 --> 00:07:04.967 I've done the Cloud DevOps stuff. 00:07:05.327 --> 00:07:09.347 I've done Docker, I've done, people are going and getting these like 00:07:09.347 --> 00:07:12.067 Hertzner boxes in Germany and stuff. 00:07:12.067 --> 00:07:16.787 And it's if you're trying to optimize for the least dollars spent on this, sure. 00:07:17.397 --> 00:07:21.587 There's a free plan on Vercel, there's a free ish plan on Cloudflare. 00:07:21.962 --> 00:07:25.932 And you can take this thing, you could host something, I don't know if you 00:07:25.932 --> 00:07:30.372 could host a PHP thing on Vercel, but you can get, there are options, 00:07:30.372 --> 00:07:36.322 even our beloved Heroku of old, there were options for doing these deploy, 00:07:36.732 --> 00:07:41.122 try things, and, this is channeling, Aaron Francis, you can just do things. 00:07:41.842 --> 00:07:44.722 It doesn't matter what language, what framework, like just try things. 00:07:44.722 --> 00:07:49.422 and Peter has made a really good effort at making a dollar on the internet and 00:07:49.422 --> 00:07:51.982 then taking that skill, like you said, and learning how to make another dollar 00:07:51.982 --> 00:07:53.402 and applying it to the next dollar. 00:07:53.402 --> 00:07:57.332 And some people like, even myself, like I'll call myself out here. 00:07:57.332 --> 00:08:02.002 Like I, I am working on making my first like pure dollar on the internet. 00:08:02.012 --> 00:08:05.312 Like I've done consulting, I've done other things, but it'd be really 00:08:05.312 --> 00:08:09.072 nice to just have a thing where you get your first sale for software 00:08:09.072 --> 00:08:10.512 you wrote, for bits you wrote. 00:08:11.277 --> 00:08:14.447 And honestly, at the end of the event, it doesn't matter what it was written in. 00:08:14.497 --> 00:08:15.787 a little bit of jealousy, sure. 00:08:16.767 --> 00:08:18.937 digital ocean and all those, I'm not going to do it all. 00:08:18.947 --> 00:08:19.767 I'm like, I'm not going to go. 00:08:20.217 --> 00:08:25.827 Deploy a cloud flare, open source option to, to a distributed, like cluster of 00:08:25.837 --> 00:08:27.977 digital ocean boxes or anything like that. 00:08:27.977 --> 00:08:29.967 So, yeah, I don't know. 00:08:30.137 --> 00:08:30.917 Pretty interesting. 00:08:31.337 --> 00:08:33.917 I'm going to, I think I'm going to have to watch the whole interview at 00:08:33.917 --> 00:08:37.207 this point, but I was trying to avoid it, but I think I'm getting sucked in. 00:08:38.177 --> 00:08:38.687 CJ: me too. 00:08:39.167 --> 00:08:40.577 I'm definitely inspired. 00:08:40.607 --> 00:08:41.508 And the thing that. 00:08:42.227 --> 00:08:48.147 I always think about when watching Peter online is he's really great at building in 00:08:48.147 --> 00:08:54.757 public and also he's very focused like the stuff that he's shipping is not ancillary 00:08:54.757 --> 00:08:59.077 garbage features he's shipping like the core value that someone is looking for 00:08:59.077 --> 00:09:00.667 when they come to one of his businesses. 00:09:01.192 --> 00:09:04.552 So photo AI, it's like you upload a couple of photos and then you can 00:09:04.552 --> 00:09:05.992 generate new photos of yourself. 00:09:06.032 --> 00:09:10.112 And so he's just making that one feature work very well. 00:09:10.512 --> 00:09:11.652 same with nomad list. 00:09:11.652 --> 00:09:15.832 It was just like a giant list of places where you could move and 00:09:15.832 --> 00:09:17.402 some details about those places, 00:09:17.407 --> 00:09:20.667 Colin: well, a nomad lists was like a pain he had. 00:09:21.347 --> 00:09:24.617 And intimately knew it and also traveled around the world and was 00:09:24.617 --> 00:09:28.487 able to create a lot of the data himself and then crowdsourced it 00:09:28.487 --> 00:09:30.487 and there's been lots of repeats. 00:09:30.907 --> 00:09:33.127 And I think a lot of the things I see now is that everyone's 00:09:33.127 --> 00:09:35.137 oh, he just makes AI wrappers. 00:09:35.707 --> 00:09:38.877 It's like you're trivializing the work that he did, like almost half, 00:09:38.897 --> 00:09:41.847 there's startups who are raising shit tons of money on AI wrappers 00:09:41.847 --> 00:09:43.427 too, you can't really knock it. 00:09:43.467 --> 00:09:47.507 This is I hate, I don't know, I hate the in the arena phrase too. 00:09:47.517 --> 00:09:51.567 But there's a difference between building something and then just commenting 00:09:51.567 --> 00:09:53.187 on other people building something. 00:09:53.187 --> 00:09:56.667 And it's okay if you're not building something right now. 00:09:56.667 --> 00:10:00.207 It's, maybe it's not your season of life to be building something. 00:10:00.307 --> 00:10:05.217 I have a little project list in my Parasystem little folder of projects 00:10:05.217 --> 00:10:06.817 that I could work on one day. 00:10:07.297 --> 00:10:09.167 They're not all being worked on today. 00:10:11.137 --> 00:10:11.367 CJ: Yeah. 00:10:11.367 --> 00:10:15.497 I, a realization that I had recently was how much I enjoy 00:10:15.527 --> 00:10:17.237 building stuff just for me. 00:10:17.347 --> 00:10:20.327 And that it doesn't matter if other people see it or other people like it. 00:10:20.367 --> 00:10:25.337 Like I want to just it's holding space and creating like this safe 00:10:25.377 --> 00:10:28.297 area for me to be creative and build stuff just for myself, which 00:10:28.297 --> 00:10:30.537 is like where I have the most fun. 00:10:30.557 --> 00:10:34.717 And I think, being comfortable with putting it out there like Peter is like 00:10:34.717 --> 00:10:39.657 a D like the next step up, but like just starting with just make it for you. 00:10:39.747 --> 00:10:40.817 And if you think it's cool. 00:10:41.252 --> 00:10:44.392 And you don't care about criticism, then put it out there. 00:10:44.422 --> 00:10:49.742 And, yeah, as we'll learn about in the code system, maybe you can express 00:10:49.742 --> 00:10:52.272 yourself, through these products or whatever that you're building, but, 00:10:52.472 --> 00:10:55.902 Colin: I have to wonder how much of this is similar to the task management 00:10:55.902 --> 00:10:58.272 stuff of telling somebody you're going to do something gives you 00:10:58.272 --> 00:11:00.282 the dopamine as much as doing it. 00:11:00.812 --> 00:11:05.622 And discussing and bike shedding gives you that I know something I 00:11:05.622 --> 00:11:10.072 can jump in and fight for my opinion or what I think should be better. 00:11:10.072 --> 00:11:13.952 And it's Is tabs or spaces really going to make a difference at the end of the 00:11:13.952 --> 00:11:16.762 day versus can someone sign up and use it? 00:11:16.762 --> 00:11:18.652 Can you use it for your own benefit? 00:11:18.652 --> 00:11:22.792 I mean you've built so much software just for yourself and I think about that 00:11:22.802 --> 00:11:26.642 a lot because it's also different than I've been helping somebody with their 00:11:26.672 --> 00:11:32.312 with a Y Combinator application and It's very interesting to watch like full on 00:11:32.312 --> 00:11:36.507 engineer brain try to explain You the thing that they've been building for 00:11:36.517 --> 00:11:40.047 four years, and why they should be in YC. 00:11:40.067 --> 00:11:44.027 And it's interesting because it felt like a lot of it was 00:11:44.027 --> 00:11:45.367 written by AI, but it wasn't. 00:11:45.857 --> 00:11:50.147 and I was like, okay, what problem are you solving for who? 00:11:50.667 --> 00:11:54.727 And I don't want to hear about another feature like pretend like we took your 00:11:54.727 --> 00:11:59.447 keyboard away and you can't code anymore It's time to put customer hat on it's 00:11:59.447 --> 00:12:04.757 time to put not even marketing But just like business model and who is it for and 00:12:04.757 --> 00:12:06.997 what problem and do they actually have? 00:12:07.197 --> 00:12:09.662 are you making a painkiller or a vitamin type? 00:12:09.892 --> 00:12:14.052 Conversation versus, it's implemented this way in the database. 00:12:14.052 --> 00:12:16.742 And like that is not the level of detail that we are asking 00:12:16.742 --> 00:12:18.822 for in a YC application. 00:12:18.832 --> 00:12:19.292 So, 00:12:20.312 --> 00:12:22.692 CJ: They want to know like the story that you're going to be able to 00:12:22.692 --> 00:12:28.672 tell that people will see their own transformation in the story that 00:12:28.692 --> 00:12:32.352 like the business is going to make them a superpower because of X or 00:12:32.582 --> 00:12:32.902 Colin: yeah. 00:12:33.232 --> 00:12:35.962 Or they want, they, yeah, they want to see a story, a clear path to making money. 00:12:35.972 --> 00:12:37.302 And you want people to lean in. 00:12:37.792 --> 00:12:40.292 I don't think people are leaning in when you're like, we have 00:12:40.292 --> 00:12:44.122 this like acid complete, database that stores our user table. 00:12:44.122 --> 00:12:47.568 And I'm like, ah, I think we're good there. 00:12:47.568 --> 00:12:49.483 Let's take some stuff out. 00:12:49.533 --> 00:12:50.103 CJ: Interesting. 00:12:50.853 --> 00:12:56.103 there are, I don't know if they know about the Stripe, resources, but Stripe does 00:12:56.103 --> 00:13:00.663 hold office hours for people who want to get their YC applications reviewed. 00:13:01.113 --> 00:13:03.963 And it's, they're reviewed by people who used to work for 00:13:03.963 --> 00:13:05.443 YC reviewing applications. 00:13:05.453 --> 00:13:06.933 So it's a pretty solid resource. 00:13:06.943 --> 00:13:09.603 I don't know how many people out there know about that or 00:13:09.633 --> 00:13:10.673 have used that, but yeah, I 00:13:10.903 --> 00:13:14.433 Colin: the deadline is in five or six days, so I don't think it's gonna happen. 00:13:14.763 --> 00:13:15.123 CJ: All right. 00:13:16.513 --> 00:13:21.053 Colin: But I have done my best to, to help a little bit, but, yeah. 00:13:23.123 --> 00:13:25.613 CJ: Should we talk about, personal knowledge management? 00:13:25.763 --> 00:13:26.193 Colin: do it. 00:13:26.503 --> 00:13:30.253 I think, I think this one is, this is a pain point I have. 00:13:30.303 --> 00:13:34.793 I don't know if this is something that you also feel deeply. 00:13:35.918 --> 00:13:36.208 CJ: Yeah. 00:13:36.258 --> 00:13:40.558 I, the way that I would take notes, either I have a physical notebook on my desk. 00:13:41.018 --> 00:13:43.188 I never go back and read anything that I write down. 00:13:43.188 --> 00:13:44.848 It's just I don't even know why I write in it. 00:13:45.113 --> 00:13:45.463 Colin: Yeah. 00:13:45.978 --> 00:13:49.328 CJ: And then if I want to remember something, I just email myself, right? 00:13:49.378 --> 00:13:50.668 or I would just email myself 00:13:50.803 --> 00:13:53.243 Colin: you use the notes app on Apple? 00:13:54.268 --> 00:13:55.328 CJ: I do not know. 00:13:55.683 --> 00:14:00.673 Colin: I do, but it's for like throwaway stuff, like shopping lists, 00:14:01.063 --> 00:14:02.863 packing lists, stuff like that. 00:14:03.633 --> 00:14:07.653 This is an interesting topic because it can easily become a little bike 00:14:07.653 --> 00:14:11.113 Shetty itself around what tools to use and what systems to use. 00:14:11.603 --> 00:14:16.493 I think I mentioned it on past episode where I still love text mate and 00:14:16.493 --> 00:14:21.303 I use it to just spawn a bunch of windows and have one is my work brain. 00:14:21.303 --> 00:14:24.473 One is my today's personal errands brain. 00:14:24.813 --> 00:14:26.543 And I just drop stuff there. 00:14:26.553 --> 00:14:29.713 And the problem is if I don't save them. 00:14:30.273 --> 00:14:33.313 Or sometimes I save them and never go back to them, like you just mentioned. 00:14:33.933 --> 00:14:35.813 but they're not connected. 00:14:36.133 --> 00:14:39.213 If I, or lose my computer, I lose all those notes. 00:14:39.213 --> 00:14:41.093 If I don't, all that stuff. 00:14:41.583 --> 00:14:46.823 so I've been trying to think through like how to actually start using Obsidian. 00:14:47.028 --> 00:14:48.858 just cause I like it as a tool. 00:14:49.248 --> 00:14:51.698 That's probably not the right way to choose one of these 00:14:51.698 --> 00:14:53.638 tools, but, it does mark down. 00:14:54.178 --> 00:14:57.588 It has a sidebar it, that I can just jump around in. 00:14:57.588 --> 00:14:58.998 It feels pretty comfortable to me. 00:14:59.338 --> 00:15:03.088 It's not notion, but you could use notion for all of this. 00:15:03.518 --> 00:15:08.378 so there's the tools and then there's the like process, right? 00:15:08.408 --> 00:15:09.808 There's the management systems. 00:15:09.808 --> 00:15:12.008 Which ones did you take a look at with 00:15:13.128 --> 00:15:17.268 CJ: So I have only tried out one tool and basically if you're listening at home and 00:15:17.268 --> 00:15:19.928 you're like, what the hell is any of this personal and knowledge management stuff? 00:15:19.928 --> 00:15:26.758 Like I would boil it down to, it is like note taking with a couple extra features. 00:15:26.778 --> 00:15:28.758 So it's like, how do you do note taking? 00:15:29.158 --> 00:15:29.888 Yeah, exactly. 00:15:30.678 --> 00:15:33.758 Maybe I wonder, I'm curious, like what your use cases are. 00:15:33.758 --> 00:15:35.488 Like, what do you want out of your notes? 00:15:35.538 --> 00:15:37.148 what are you, how are you going to use them later? 00:15:37.668 --> 00:15:38.968 I have a couple, but I'm curious 00:15:39.348 --> 00:15:43.988 Colin: so like you, I also have a lot of notebooks and I actually just moved 00:15:43.988 --> 00:15:48.098 recently and now I have an entire shelf of all of my past notebooks. 00:15:48.178 --> 00:15:50.988 It's probably 12 years of notebooks. 00:15:51.598 --> 00:15:57.553 And I don't always refer back to them I used to have one where I was always 00:15:57.553 --> 00:16:02.463 writing in it and keeping a pretty good, like bullet journal, like daily list. 00:16:03.013 --> 00:16:07.663 Going back through those now is wild because some of the there's 00:16:07.663 --> 00:16:12.273 I'll run across a goals list and some of them are like so far fetched 00:16:12.323 --> 00:16:13.563 and some of them I have done. 00:16:13.993 --> 00:16:16.798 And I think one of them was like, Speak at RailsConf. 00:16:16.838 --> 00:16:18.788 And I was like, I did that. 00:16:18.818 --> 00:16:21.338 I don't know when I wrote that down, but that's amazing. 00:16:21.818 --> 00:16:23.788 things like that, that it's just so crazy. 00:16:23.788 --> 00:16:26.768 It's like literally like a form of time travel to go back and put 00:16:26.768 --> 00:16:29.828 yourself back in those, in your shoes when you were writing those things. 00:16:30.458 --> 00:16:35.918 I have all these disparate on paper, but I also have this digital, like 00:16:35.928 --> 00:16:39.308 just landmine minefield of notes. 00:16:39.308 --> 00:16:43.868 And so I'm trying to add some linkages there around what can I find? 00:16:43.868 --> 00:16:49.558 and I picked up the book, I guess just the para method from, Tiago Forte. 00:16:49.638 --> 00:16:52.278 And I haven't read their second brain book. 00:16:52.278 --> 00:16:55.218 That would be the other thing that people might've heard of is personal 00:16:55.218 --> 00:16:58.908 management system, knowledge management, or second building a second brain. 00:16:59.638 --> 00:17:04.448 And what was, I was drawn to was just these four categories of projects, 00:17:04.468 --> 00:17:06.098 areas, resources, and archive. 00:17:06.738 --> 00:17:10.538 I'm still running up against some of the issues there where I'm just 00:17:10.538 --> 00:17:16.818 like, not, I'm like, okay, this is long term, this is a project for one 00:17:16.818 --> 00:17:20.458 of my areas, this is a resource for one of my areas, so where does it go? 00:17:20.498 --> 00:17:21.268 Does it go in areas? 00:17:21.268 --> 00:17:22.348 Does it go in resources? 00:17:24.123 --> 00:17:28.123 I'm still like just putting things down on paper and putting them in categories. 00:17:28.733 --> 00:17:35.753 but for me, it's yeah, mostly like long term storage and linkages between 00:17:36.143 --> 00:17:39.043 concepts, ideas, turning a project. 00:17:39.053 --> 00:17:43.243 That might just be a one line item as a reminder for myself 00:17:43.403 --> 00:17:47.623 into a full on project when I do decide to pick it up as a project. 00:17:48.848 --> 00:17:53.028 CJ: So it sounds like one of the nice things from those old written 00:17:53.028 --> 00:17:55.828 ones was time traveling back to see what you were thinking before. 00:17:56.548 --> 00:18:00.618 And also one of the ways that you want to use it is to organize tasks 00:18:00.658 --> 00:18:04.908 and projects and like over time build out those tasks and projects. 00:18:05.778 --> 00:18:09.278 And then, yeah, like I, part of me questions whether I'll 00:18:09.278 --> 00:18:12.978 go back and actually read the notes, part of the notes, but. 00:18:13.408 --> 00:18:16.548 Yeah, there were, there was a, so the couple of use cases that I 00:18:16.668 --> 00:18:22.718 find that I was using like sending myself messages about one was ideas. 00:18:22.988 --> 00:18:26.968 So if I had a, if I was brainstorming something or, on the train or I'm, 00:18:27.268 --> 00:18:31.098 just got out of the shower or, you, you randomly have these ideas about whether 00:18:31.098 --> 00:18:34.898 like it's a dev problem you're trying to solve right now, business idea, something 00:18:34.898 --> 00:18:36.978 you want to try a challenge or whatever. 00:18:36.978 --> 00:18:39.838 So I would get these ideas and I would email myself and just the subject would 00:18:39.848 --> 00:18:42.828 be ideas and then I would go back through. 00:18:43.018 --> 00:18:47.418 My ideas, emails to myself to try to like mine, what should I work on next? 00:18:48.148 --> 00:18:49.258 So that was one use case. 00:18:49.278 --> 00:18:52.728 And then another was we moved across the country. 00:18:52.798 --> 00:18:55.938 And so we're meeting all these new people and a lot of them were 00:18:55.938 --> 00:18:58.678 meeting through our kids, friends. 00:18:59.098 --> 00:19:03.403 And so it was really challenging to remember Oh, so and so's friend's 00:19:03.403 --> 00:19:07.393 mom's name is this and she's into this and that or whatever. 00:19:07.423 --> 00:19:11.253 And, I, we want it to be more intentional and thoughtful about building our 00:19:11.253 --> 00:19:14.153 network and kind of understanding the people that we were interacting with. 00:19:14.563 --> 00:19:18.628 So on the personal, like friendship side, doing that, and then also on 00:19:18.628 --> 00:19:22.213 the professional side, when I have one on ones or meetings or I'm introduced 00:19:22.213 --> 00:19:23.693 to new colleagues, I like to like. 00:19:24.208 --> 00:19:28.338 try to understand their motivations and, their interests and try to 00:19:28.338 --> 00:19:30.048 find shared ground, to cover. 00:19:30.048 --> 00:19:34.358 So for me, it was, it's almost like a CRM in a way, just like taking notes about 00:19:34.358 --> 00:19:35.688 those interactions and those people. 00:19:36.138 --> 00:19:40.328 so that I can remember when I see someone after I haven't seen them for nine 00:19:40.328 --> 00:19:43.788 months, you bump into them or the kids are going to have a play date or something. 00:19:43.798 --> 00:19:44.598 You can be like, Oh yeah. 00:19:44.598 --> 00:19:46.298 Hey, how's the, the remodel going or 00:19:46.353 --> 00:19:48.833 Colin: you gotta find a minute to duck behind the corner and 00:19:48.833 --> 00:19:52.643 pull up your obsidian to go find what this person's name is. 00:19:53.608 --> 00:19:54.478 CJ: yeah, exactly. 00:19:54.478 --> 00:19:54.788 Yeah. 00:19:54.788 --> 00:19:58.248 and I do think it's it's a valuable thing. 00:19:58.248 --> 00:20:01.598 I think people care when you remember their name and you, when you're, when 00:20:01.598 --> 00:20:04.688 you remember things about them and it's very hard to do if you're meeting 00:20:05.068 --> 00:20:09.368 tons of new people all the time and I don't have a very good person, like 00:20:09.538 --> 00:20:11.888 my actual memory is not super great. 00:20:11.888 --> 00:20:16.418 And so I don't know, this seems to be one, way to make that a little better, but. 00:20:16.913 --> 00:20:21.563 Colin: Yeah, it is interesting because I don't want to use it for tasks. 00:20:22.588 --> 00:20:24.648 like the way I'm doing projects. 00:20:24.648 --> 00:20:28.258 So to not to teach this, you should go read the book if you're interested 00:20:28.258 --> 00:20:33.188 in this, but like para is in projects, areas, resources, and archive. 00:20:33.188 --> 00:20:36.188 And so archive is interesting because it's literally inactive 00:20:36.188 --> 00:20:37.988 items from all of the categories. 00:20:38.528 --> 00:20:43.838 Projects is like short term and I'm trying to do it as if I am not actually 00:20:43.838 --> 00:20:48.053 working on, this isn't a, I want to work on it is, I have to be working on it. 00:20:48.163 --> 00:20:48.783 Working on it. 00:20:48.793 --> 00:20:49.833 It's in projects. 00:20:50.263 --> 00:20:53.173 it doesn't mean I have to work on it every day, but it's not like 00:20:53.663 --> 00:20:55.323 the aspirational project folder. 00:20:55.343 --> 00:20:56.783 It is the project folder. 00:20:57.243 --> 00:21:01.123 And this is across all of my areas of life, which is weird because 00:21:01.123 --> 00:21:02.843 there's a whole category for areas. 00:21:03.283 --> 00:21:06.213 And so I've been, those two things have been at odds with each other, but 00:21:06.213 --> 00:21:10.613 with areas I've been doing like long term storage of like I think of like 00:21:10.613 --> 00:21:16.273 my household operating system lives in areas like personal fitness is in areas. 00:21:16.668 --> 00:21:20.878 like health record, this is tricky because like your health records would 00:21:20.878 --> 00:21:23.208 maybe go under resources and reference. 00:21:23.668 --> 00:21:28.138 And so it's almost like thinking of a matrix of project area resource 00:21:28.138 --> 00:21:33.628 archive across multiple dimensions, like tags, categories, things like that. 00:21:34.218 --> 00:21:37.298 but like when I'm writing down stuff for a project, it's not 00:21:37.298 --> 00:21:38.828 the items that I need to do. 00:21:39.208 --> 00:21:39.918 It's. 00:21:40.648 --> 00:21:43.688 The thoughts and ideas and maybe I should try this. 00:21:43.718 --> 00:21:43.978 Okay. 00:21:43.978 --> 00:21:44.658 That didn't work. 00:21:44.658 --> 00:21:47.618 it's more of a running consciousness of that kind of stuff. 00:21:47.648 --> 00:21:51.688 And then maybe it becomes like a work log of next time I sit down 00:21:51.688 --> 00:21:55.098 to do this, especially because the project I'm working on, I don't always 00:21:55.098 --> 00:21:56.578 know when I can work on it next. 00:21:56.808 --> 00:21:59.228 So I write down okay, this didn't work. 00:21:59.268 --> 00:22:00.898 Let's try this next time. 00:22:01.398 --> 00:22:03.548 almost like future AI prompts to myself. 00:22:05.423 --> 00:22:06.283 CJ: Yeah, okay. 00:22:06.823 --> 00:22:09.753 and so for all of, generally though, all the things in 00:22:09.753 --> 00:22:12.733 Para you keep in Obsidian or? 00:22:13.648 --> 00:22:13.888 Colin: Yeah. 00:22:13.888 --> 00:22:16.938 So I've created four main folders. 00:22:17.098 --> 00:22:20.368 and then a fifth one that I added for inbox. 00:22:20.378 --> 00:22:24.518 So if I'm wanting to write something down, I don't have time to figure 00:22:24.518 --> 00:22:25.488 out where the heck it goes. 00:22:25.488 --> 00:22:27.818 I just throw it in the inbox and then I process that later. 00:22:28.308 --> 00:22:32.758 I found a rabbit hole of YouTube videos of people talking about 00:22:32.758 --> 00:22:34.848 obsidian and para and Zettelkasten. 00:22:36.738 --> 00:22:43.178 Very easy to fall into the trap of the tool and the plugins and making 00:22:43.178 --> 00:22:44.608 all your folders look amazing. 00:22:44.998 --> 00:22:50.028 Someone went as far as they have their own custom CSS and it makes 00:22:50.028 --> 00:22:54.018 it look like an actual physical notebook inside of Obsidian. 00:22:54.448 --> 00:22:55.588 but all I have is this. 00:22:56.648 --> 00:23:00.558 which is inbox one projects, areas, resources, and then archive. 00:23:01.058 --> 00:23:02.538 and I think that's going to work for now. 00:23:02.538 --> 00:23:07.358 And then each of those I have, for projects I've been torn on whether 00:23:07.358 --> 00:23:09.388 they should be folders or just notes. 00:23:09.903 --> 00:23:14.193 like one long note for each project or a whole folder for each one. 00:23:14.743 --> 00:23:21.463 but then under areas I have basically like work, life, fitness, health, right? 00:23:21.483 --> 00:23:22.783 Those kinds of things. 00:23:23.213 --> 00:23:26.843 and then resources, I'm honestly not using this too much, but this is like 00:23:26.863 --> 00:23:28.713 meant to be like taking other people's. 00:23:29.078 --> 00:23:34.548 Articles and just like copy, paste it in research, longstanding facts 00:23:34.548 --> 00:23:38.608 that you can refer to and catalog, which for me is usually just links. 00:23:38.608 --> 00:23:41.458 So I don't know if I'm really using that properly yet. 00:23:42.638 --> 00:23:43.118 CJ: Got it. 00:23:43.648 --> 00:23:46.578 It's interesting to hear that you're like, like how you're organizing it 00:23:47.478 --> 00:23:52.088 within Obsidian, the way that logs, log seek, I'm going to call it log seek. 00:23:52.088 --> 00:23:54.528 I don't know if it's log sec or log seek, but the way that log 00:23:54.528 --> 00:23:59.538 seek, has its like default mode is you open up to a journal page. 00:23:59.953 --> 00:24:02.953 Which gives you like today's date in an empty bullet. 00:24:03.293 --> 00:24:06.703 And then there's not like a question of where stuff really goes by default. 00:24:06.723 --> 00:24:09.383 You like just log stuff in the, in today's date. 00:24:09.833 --> 00:24:12.773 And as I'm writing it down, I guess like sometimes I'll throw hashtags 00:24:12.773 --> 00:24:16.363 on the end and I don't even know if this is a similar, but I would 00:24:16.363 --> 00:24:20.883 say I apply the area as a hashtag to a bullet in today's journal. 00:24:20.903 --> 00:24:23.513 So I'll write down, Oh, I went for a run today. 00:24:23.513 --> 00:24:23.553 Okay. 00:24:23.753 --> 00:24:26.493 Me's felt rough hashtag fitness or something. 00:24:26.493 --> 00:24:30.433 And then like now that ends up, if I click on the fitness hashtag, I can pull 00:24:30.433 --> 00:24:32.533 up all the previous notes about fitness. 00:24:32.533 --> 00:24:38.153 Oh, I did, 45 minute leg strength day today and it was okay. 00:24:38.153 --> 00:24:40.483 But whatever, I don't know, just like random stuff about fitness. 00:24:40.483 --> 00:24:43.113 For example, for me, I actually keep. 00:24:43.698 --> 00:24:46.948 Everything about projects outside of log seek. 00:24:46.948 --> 00:24:48.678 I'm keeping it all in a personal linear. 00:24:49.228 --> 00:24:53.228 So I just have a linear org that is like my personal, like solo org, 00:24:53.248 --> 00:24:54.468 I think it's free for one person. 00:24:55.038 --> 00:24:58.738 and I have a bunch of project ideas in there. 00:24:58.818 --> 00:25:00.928 And when I think of stuff, I go in and add tasks. 00:25:00.938 --> 00:25:03.868 And if I'm working on it, then I'll put it in progress or whatever. 00:25:04.338 --> 00:25:06.128 but for me. 00:25:06.448 --> 00:25:09.608 I don't know that it's become like a habit, like a work habit that I follow. 00:25:09.608 --> 00:25:12.438 And so I'm like, let me just see if I can organize it on the personal side. 00:25:12.948 --> 00:25:16.818 But as a result, I don't keep any of the P from para in log seek. 00:25:16.868 --> 00:25:19.328 Colin: think this is like to do Matt management. 00:25:19.528 --> 00:25:24.998 It, the best tool is the one that you use and I, it's very 00:25:24.998 --> 00:25:29.258 easy to go like the adrenaline of changing tools is always fun. 00:25:29.768 --> 00:25:31.768 You're always like, Oh, I'm being so productive. 00:25:32.128 --> 00:25:34.758 And again, rearranging deck chairs. 00:25:34.838 --> 00:25:37.588 you're like, you didn't actually do any work today, but you felt like you did. 00:25:38.198 --> 00:25:40.678 everything's perfectly fastidious and organized. 00:25:42.478 --> 00:25:46.968 Obsidian has a button, and there's so many plugins that I haven't played around with 00:25:46.978 --> 00:25:50.348 that makes this a little bit easier, but you press a button and it opens today's 00:25:50.348 --> 00:25:55.318 log, so it does have what you're talking about, and what I'm trying to use that 00:25:55.318 --> 00:25:58.748 for, because I saw another coworker do this, where they just, every day they 00:25:58.748 --> 00:26:04.068 write down a work log of, what they did, but also now when they do reviews, 00:26:04.068 --> 00:26:07.308 they have all this stuff that they can come back and like for performance 00:26:07.308 --> 00:26:10.328 reviews, they can go search stuff, but they also can refer back to like, 00:26:10.348 --> 00:26:12.388 where did you leave the end of the day? 00:26:12.758 --> 00:26:15.008 so you can get back into your flow faster. 00:26:15.663 --> 00:26:21.533 and I want that because my work, it's I also want to document how some days in 00:26:21.533 --> 00:26:25.093 dev rel, I go from one thing to a vastly different thing, to a different thing. 00:26:25.093 --> 00:26:27.123 And then I'm like, what the hell did I do today? 00:26:28.263 --> 00:26:31.633 And did I actually get any work done or am I getting distracted 00:26:31.633 --> 00:26:32.693 by things I don't need? 00:26:33.043 --> 00:26:36.703 But I don't really want to put that on para and obsidian. 00:26:36.713 --> 00:26:38.293 that's a different problem. 00:26:38.763 --> 00:26:40.383 That feels like slow productivity. 00:26:40.443 --> 00:26:42.303 That feels like that whole thing. 00:26:42.973 --> 00:26:48.083 What I'm curious about for you is like these note, they do not have just like 00:26:48.083 --> 00:26:53.533 notes, digital scraps of paper that are just somewhere that aren't in those dates. 00:26:55.033 --> 00:26:58.073 CJ: not usually, 00:26:58.423 --> 00:27:00.403 Colin: Cause I can give you some examples of ones that I have. 00:27:01.048 --> 00:27:05.868 like I have a code that I can use to go buy something from an e commerce store. 00:27:05.918 --> 00:27:06.838 where do I put that? 00:27:07.448 --> 00:27:11.098 So I, right now it's in my inbox because it's something I need to use soon. 00:27:11.568 --> 00:27:14.538 So it's just hanging out there and I would, should go process it. 00:27:15.408 --> 00:27:19.768 I am running a D and D campaign or I'm going to be. 00:27:19.778 --> 00:27:23.288 And so I wasn't sure if this was an area or a project, but I 00:27:23.288 --> 00:27:26.548 now have a D and D folder inside that I have a campaign folder. 00:27:26.998 --> 00:27:32.048 And I'm starting to write out like the story arc because we're not using a book 00:27:32.158 --> 00:27:33.998 where I'm like building my own world. 00:27:34.458 --> 00:27:39.268 So like I'm starting to write out the campaign arc and the themes and 00:27:39.708 --> 00:27:42.688 things are going to have to think about so that I can refer to them later. 00:27:43.328 --> 00:27:44.418 This is like writing, 00:27:45.543 --> 00:27:46.113 CJ: Yeah. 00:27:46.963 --> 00:27:47.303 Yeah. 00:27:47.303 --> 00:27:50.113 If it, I think if it's like longer form stuff like that, I don't 00:27:50.113 --> 00:27:52.443 know, planning a vacation or. 00:27:53.598 --> 00:27:56.818 Colin: Yeah, all the places you might stay the hotels. 00:27:56.838 --> 00:27:57.138 Yeah. 00:27:57.338 --> 00:27:57.838 CJ: Yeah. 00:27:58.058 --> 00:28:01.818 I think a lot of that ends up in Google docs, honestly, like just because 00:28:02.128 --> 00:28:04.028 then I can share it with other people. 00:28:04.468 --> 00:28:08.878 log seek does not have great multiplayer stuff. 00:28:09.698 --> 00:28:10.168 Yeah. 00:28:10.218 --> 00:28:13.358 so there's not like any way for me to share like any of the 00:28:13.358 --> 00:28:14.398 stuff that's in there with other 00:28:14.618 --> 00:28:15.128 Colin: Oh, I see. 00:28:15.128 --> 00:28:20.008 So you're because you'll probably be doing that like with the family. 00:28:20.048 --> 00:28:21.238 You'll want to get input. 00:28:22.048 --> 00:28:25.518 CJ: If it's, yeah, if it's like personal, then I likely want to share it with the 00:28:25.778 --> 00:28:25.798 Colin: Yeah. 00:28:26.418 --> 00:28:28.898 CJ: If it's work related, I want to share it with coworkers. 00:28:28.998 --> 00:28:31.768 And so it always just ends up in some shareable place. 00:28:31.958 --> 00:28:32.378 Colin: True. 00:28:32.418 --> 00:28:37.008 Yeah, I do have the, I have Notions and Google Docs and we 00:28:37.008 --> 00:28:38.488 have Google Docs for the show. 00:28:39.018 --> 00:28:41.788 So that's interesting too, because yeah, I don't think 00:28:41.788 --> 00:28:43.608 Obsidian has multiplayer either. 00:28:44.138 --> 00:28:47.928 Maybe there's a plugin, but I do have syncing working. 00:28:47.928 --> 00:28:52.978 So I have one vault that syncs to my personal computer, my work computer, 00:28:53.008 --> 00:28:54.398 but I have it fully encrypted. 00:28:54.438 --> 00:28:55.598 It's not always open. 00:28:56.188 --> 00:28:57.768 With that one, I have to be careful. 00:28:57.768 --> 00:29:01.418 I just don't want it to ever look like I'm ever doing non work stuff 00:29:02.008 --> 00:29:04.178 on a work machine during work time. 00:29:04.708 --> 00:29:07.958 So I have the vault like vault literally locked. 00:29:08.518 --> 00:29:09.188 interesting. 00:29:09.268 --> 00:29:09.568 Yeah. 00:29:09.658 --> 00:29:12.528 I haven't read Cal Newport's. 00:29:13.798 --> 00:29:15.058 Digital minimalism book. 00:29:15.078 --> 00:29:18.308 And I have a feeling that this will hit on a lot of this stuff too. 00:29:18.748 --> 00:29:23.018 It's just I feel like I have so many of those little digital scraps of paper 00:29:23.458 --> 00:29:28.228 and they're like, maybe there's a full thought in between 20 of them, but 00:29:28.258 --> 00:29:30.233 because I picked them all up, differently. 00:29:30.233 --> 00:29:32.553 Like I don't always connect them. 00:29:32.583 --> 00:29:36.583 And I think I also, I'm not trying to save every thought I've ever had either. 00:29:37.163 --> 00:29:41.273 so it's, it is like when I buy a really good new notebook, I'm always 00:29:41.303 --> 00:29:43.233 like afraid to write something in it. 00:29:43.243 --> 00:29:46.073 And you're like, Oh, this is only for my best thoughts, which 00:29:46.073 --> 00:29:47.533 is not what a notebook is for. 00:29:47.583 --> 00:29:50.643 again, best notebook is the one you use, the one you carry with you. 00:29:51.763 --> 00:29:54.983 So I've been trying not to be too precious with it and just throw 00:29:54.993 --> 00:29:57.113 things in here and I can, drop a tag. 00:29:57.153 --> 00:30:00.403 I think this has tags similar to what you're talking about with hashtags too. 00:30:00.403 --> 00:30:02.323 I think you just use like square brackets. 00:30:03.073 --> 00:30:04.863 and so you could say like podcasts. 00:30:04.973 --> 00:30:08.313 And then now when you click on that, it'll bring up all the notes that have. 00:30:09.363 --> 00:30:10.213 That as well. 00:30:11.113 --> 00:30:11.593 CJ: Nice. 00:30:12.023 --> 00:30:12.193 Yeah. 00:30:12.193 --> 00:30:16.923 There's two different kinds of links or tags or something in log seek, 00:30:16.953 --> 00:30:18.683 one is the two square bracket thing. 00:30:18.903 --> 00:30:21.863 And then the other one is just hashtag whatever. 00:30:22.123 --> 00:30:23.183 I don't know the difference. 00:30:23.293 --> 00:30:27.583 there's like a concept of like pages and the concept of like links things. 00:30:27.583 --> 00:30:31.033 But, yeah, I'm like three weeks into this, so we'll see how it evolves. 00:30:31.603 --> 00:30:33.743 And yeah, are you using any plugins? 00:30:33.783 --> 00:30:35.983 I know that we skimmed right past that, but yeah. 00:30:36.173 --> 00:30:41.523 Colin: I have a few, so I have, Excalibur as a plugin, that I'm excited 00:30:41.523 --> 00:30:43.503 about to do, brainstorming and stuff. 00:30:43.593 --> 00:30:50.603 Um, I'm using the syncing as a plugin and I'm just paying obsidian, 00:30:50.733 --> 00:30:52.303 because I want it to just work. 00:30:52.703 --> 00:30:54.713 It does work with iCloud syncing. 00:30:54.713 --> 00:30:56.333 If you're in the Apple ecosystem. 00:30:56.933 --> 00:30:59.043 I wasn't sure how. 00:30:59.548 --> 00:31:00.828 if it actually was sinking. 00:31:00.828 --> 00:31:03.508 So I'm just using the built in actual one. 00:31:04.198 --> 00:31:08.058 they tell you like, don't try to use our sink and also store it in 00:31:08.068 --> 00:31:10.708 iCloud cause it will have conflicts. 00:31:11.068 --> 00:31:12.198 so you gotta be careful of that. 00:31:12.568 --> 00:31:15.128 Some people have done get backing of their obsidian. 00:31:15.138 --> 00:31:16.918 I don't want to deal with that. 00:31:16.928 --> 00:31:18.428 So I'll just say take my money. 00:31:18.968 --> 00:31:23.278 community plugins for some reason, the thing that's not obvious to 00:31:23.278 --> 00:31:25.358 me is I don't think plugins sink. 00:31:25.408 --> 00:31:26.558 I need to figure that out. 00:31:27.283 --> 00:31:31.393 Cause I know I have them somewhere else, but there's ones that like 00:31:31.423 --> 00:31:34.453 change the colors of your sidebar and make it easier to search. 00:31:34.473 --> 00:31:39.483 And there's a command palette inside of obsidian, like there is in every app now. 00:31:39.483 --> 00:31:41.853 So you get just access to things. 00:31:41.853 --> 00:31:43.683 There's a GPT co pilot. 00:31:44.288 --> 00:31:47.778 That you can throw in your own API key and use. 00:31:48.298 --> 00:31:50.158 so yeah, it's been a fun little thing. 00:31:50.558 --> 00:31:54.548 It's weird because it syncs, but when I'm in Obsidian, it feels like I'm offline. 00:31:55.308 --> 00:31:58.178 versus if I'm in a Google doc, like I'm very much online. 00:31:59.798 --> 00:32:03.298 CJ: Yeah, it definitely having the separation of it being a standalone 00:32:03.308 --> 00:32:06.468 app makes that feel different in a way. 00:32:07.038 --> 00:32:10.578 the only plugin I'm using, I think is a Google calendar sync. 00:32:10.578 --> 00:32:14.638 So it's so jank, first of all, like all of the plugin, the entire plugin 00:32:14.638 --> 00:32:19.888 ecosystem, super jank, all the syncing jank, the mobile app jank, like it's 00:32:19.898 --> 00:32:21.838 all I don't know if I picked the wrong 00:32:22.038 --> 00:32:25.388 Colin: I think it's not all built in PHP and jQuery, is it? 00:32:25.838 --> 00:32:25.978 CJ: yeah, 00:32:28.228 --> 00:32:28.788 Colin: a beautiful 00:32:28.903 --> 00:32:35.343 CJ: yeah, the log seek, I don't know, what I read was that they're rebuilding it to 00:32:35.353 --> 00:32:39.073 be, instead of using flat files, they're going to rebuild it to be database backed 00:32:39.083 --> 00:32:43.053 so that you can have multiplayer and you can't have all this stuff, but yeah, 00:32:43.053 --> 00:32:44.603 sometimes I'll open up the mobile app. 00:32:44.603 --> 00:32:48.343 So I only have it syncing on my desktop and on my phone. 00:32:49.333 --> 00:32:52.183 And when I open it up on my phone, sometimes it's which version do you want? 00:32:52.193 --> 00:32:54.353 I'm like, Oh my gosh, is this 2005? 00:32:54.383 --> 00:32:59.123 Like you can't figure out which one, or merge them or, yeah, which one wins? 00:32:59.123 --> 00:32:59.523 come on. 00:33:00.053 --> 00:33:00.483 Colin: Interesting. 00:33:00.483 --> 00:33:02.413 does this actually have a CRM built in? 00:33:02.413 --> 00:33:05.163 I see there's like relationships is one of the core models 00:33:06.398 --> 00:33:09.728 CJ: It, it might, I need to look like deeper into that. 00:33:09.758 --> 00:33:12.058 I'm just using pages, 00:33:12.143 --> 00:33:15.553 Colin: or maybe, yeah, maybe it's just creating a page for per person and they're 00:33:15.563 --> 00:33:17.983 just saying like what you can use it for. 00:33:19.008 --> 00:33:21.358 CJ: Yeah, I think that might be how it works. 00:33:21.358 --> 00:33:23.468 There might also be plugins that give you like templates. 00:33:23.478 --> 00:33:27.488 So like when you create a page for a person that like adds their contact 00:33:27.488 --> 00:33:30.578 details and their address and some other stuff, but I'm just like 00:33:30.768 --> 00:33:32.818 adding, like dropping in raw notes. 00:33:33.153 --> 00:33:39.103 Colin: Next you're going to have a LinkedIn plugin and 00:33:39.453 --> 00:33:41.893 CJ: there was a, like a personal CRM a long time ago. 00:33:41.893 --> 00:33:46.313 this is like 2012 called, contactually, I think they're out of business 00:33:46.313 --> 00:33:48.543 now maybe, but it was amazing. 00:33:48.573 --> 00:33:52.903 And it used to sync like your Facebook messages, your Gmail messages. 00:33:53.298 --> 00:33:57.068 Your text message, like it seems like all of your personal interactions 00:33:57.068 --> 00:34:00.658 with people and you could mark certain contacts as I want to keep in contact 00:34:00.808 --> 00:34:04.668 then every month or every three months or every, once a year at least. 00:34:05.028 --> 00:34:08.378 And then it would bubble up people that you haven't contacted in a long time. 00:34:08.378 --> 00:34:10.658 So you could remember to reach out to them and see how things are going. 00:34:10.688 --> 00:34:11.298 I loved it. 00:34:11.298 --> 00:34:12.048 It was awesome. 00:34:12.478 --> 00:34:16.478 But then like a bunch of those APIs got locked down more. 00:34:16.508 --> 00:34:18.578 And so they removed access to. 00:34:18.928 --> 00:34:23.938 Messages and some other features that just crippled the usability of the thing. 00:34:23.948 --> 00:34:30.368 And so I dream of getting back to that sort of CRM experience one day, but for 00:34:30.368 --> 00:34:31.738 now we're going to have to live with this. 00:34:31.763 --> 00:34:33.513 Colin: let's just say it feels like a great rails app. 00:34:34.488 --> 00:34:34.898 CJ: yeah. 00:34:35.748 --> 00:34:39.028 have you used any of these tools that like records or Otter. 00:34:39.268 --> 00:34:44.018 ai or one of the things that you can join your meeting and it'll write the meeting 00:34:44.018 --> 00:34:45.508 notes for you or transcribe it for you. 00:34:45.643 --> 00:34:48.703 Colin: We have one at discord that we built. 00:34:49.118 --> 00:34:49.748 CJ: Oh, that's right. 00:34:49.788 --> 00:34:50.148 Okay. 00:34:50.208 --> 00:34:50.478 Yeah. 00:34:50.578 --> 00:34:52.178 I forgot you guys have an internal one, right? 00:34:52.338 --> 00:34:55.638 Colin: Yeah, I think it just uses whisper though, so like I don't think 00:34:55.648 --> 00:35:00.928 that we built the model or anything like that But we have it just for that and 00:35:01.228 --> 00:35:04.938 outside of discord I don't think I really have a need for anything like that. 00:35:04.938 --> 00:35:06.238 So I haven't really played with it. 00:35:07.688 --> 00:35:13.338 CJ: So I built something, I played with a bunch of them and I've, we have meetings. 00:35:13.348 --> 00:35:18.088 So like the engineering team, we meet on tuple and the broader team meets 00:35:18.088 --> 00:35:21.568 on Google meet and we meet with other people sometimes on zoom or whatever. 00:35:21.868 --> 00:35:26.238 And I was like, I just want like a general personal meeting transcriber thing. 00:35:26.608 --> 00:35:30.318 And so I wrote this little script that, records calls. 00:35:30.618 --> 00:35:31.948 With, FFmpeg. 00:35:32.728 --> 00:35:38.928 And, so it will record all the audio on the machine and then it pipes the audio 00:35:38.928 --> 00:35:41.178 file to whisper and transcribes all of it. 00:35:41.498 --> 00:35:44.948 And then it takes all of the transcript and passes it to open 00:35:44.948 --> 00:35:48.278 AI to pull out, what are the high level takeaways and the action items? 00:35:48.318 --> 00:35:49.968 And it dumps that into a markdown file. 00:35:49.968 --> 00:35:50.588 That's bulleted. 00:35:50.608 --> 00:35:54.158 So I could just, after I'm done with a call, I just do control C. 00:35:54.548 --> 00:35:58.758 And then, I copy the contents of the Markdown file into my log seek. 00:35:59.038 --> 00:36:03.088 And so then I have this, like voice version of a meeting that I just had, 00:36:03.088 --> 00:36:06.228 which I, think is freaking awesome. 00:36:06.228 --> 00:36:10.878 um, I'll put up a link to the GitHub repo. 00:36:10.928 --> 00:36:11.498 it's all public. 00:36:11.498 --> 00:36:11.818 It's just 00:36:11.948 --> 00:36:12.968 Colin: So you do this for work 00:36:13.298 --> 00:36:17.558 CJ: of, yeah, we're like work meetings and personal meetings and whatever. 00:36:17.578 --> 00:36:18.268 Like it's just, 00:36:18.898 --> 00:36:22.338 Colin: do you find like how do people on the call feel about it? 00:36:22.398 --> 00:36:24.438 do you tell them like hey, I'm recording this 00:36:25.348 --> 00:36:30.428 CJ: I don't, but it's, It's the same as if I was like taking notes, right? 00:36:30.498 --> 00:36:31.388 Colin: Yeah, it's not like you're 00:36:31.438 --> 00:36:32.368 CJ: and I'm not using the 00:36:32.418 --> 00:36:33.168 Colin: the audio 00:36:33.208 --> 00:36:33.518 CJ: right? 00:36:33.558 --> 00:36:33.768 Yeah, 00:36:34.058 --> 00:36:35.948 Colin: but does it have to join the meeting with you? 00:36:37.308 --> 00:36:42.688 CJ: no, it like listens to the local, like local audio input output. 00:36:42.728 --> 00:36:43.208 Yeah. 00:36:43.308 --> 00:36:43.998 Microphone. 00:36:44.298 --> 00:36:47.888 It doesn't do like whisper can do the diarization or whatever to 00:36:47.888 --> 00:36:51.178 pick out different speakers, but it doesn't know who said what. 00:36:51.388 --> 00:36:51.868 And. 00:36:52.688 --> 00:36:56.498 So at the end of the day, and also it's just, it's taking the raw audio, 00:36:57.008 --> 00:37:01.008 transcribing it locally, and then taking that local transcript that's 00:37:01.018 --> 00:37:05.858 not tied to any person's name or anything, and then summarizing that and 00:37:05.858 --> 00:37:07.478 then giving me the, the takeaways and 00:37:07.673 --> 00:37:08.103 Colin: Yeah. 00:37:08.553 --> 00:37:11.213 Ours does join the discord call, which is good. 00:37:11.213 --> 00:37:15.793 So people know it's there and then it will spit out like, these are 00:37:15.793 --> 00:37:18.523 the people who are in the call based on just us being there. 00:37:18.523 --> 00:37:19.553 We don't have to say anything. 00:37:20.003 --> 00:37:23.533 so it knows who's in the room and then it knows who talked and 00:37:23.533 --> 00:37:25.033 then it pulls out action items. 00:37:25.348 --> 00:37:26.358 Which is pretty slick. 00:37:26.458 --> 00:37:30.458 Who is gonna do them, who's responsible for them, and then, 00:37:30.468 --> 00:37:33.298 I think we mentioned it, it then creates a little screenplay based on 00:37:33.358 --> 00:37:36.638 maybe Star Wars, aliens, whatever. 00:37:36.638 --> 00:37:39.718 It just comes up with a little screenplay, it's like a little sci fi thing, 00:37:39.768 --> 00:37:40.918 CJ: Yeah, that's fun. 00:37:41.008 --> 00:37:41.808 That's super fun. 00:37:42.378 --> 00:37:42.568 Yeah. 00:37:42.618 --> 00:37:47.968 I tried tactic, which we tried a couple of them and they all felt pretty. 00:37:48.348 --> 00:37:51.578 I don't know, if it was, if it felt intrusive or if it was intrusive, 00:37:51.628 --> 00:37:55.378 a couple of them like took over giant parts of the screen when we 00:37:55.378 --> 00:37:56.558 were in, Google meet or whatever. 00:37:56.558 --> 00:38:00.458 I think part of the, part of this solution that's nice is that it's not dependent on 00:38:00.458 --> 00:38:03.728 a browser or like, zoom app or something. 00:38:03.728 --> 00:38:05.818 It's just all just using your local audio. 00:38:06.563 --> 00:38:07.013 Colin: Nice. 00:38:07.703 --> 00:38:15.243 in that vein, I've been playing around with some new AI, like code editor things. 00:38:15.243 --> 00:38:17.323 Have you played much with those? 00:38:17.323 --> 00:38:22.053 We can talk about this next week, but, I have started to use cursor on 00:38:22.053 --> 00:38:26.033 my personal machine and, pretty sure we're not allowed to use it at work. 00:38:26.093 --> 00:38:27.813 I've been playing with it on my personal things. 00:38:28.343 --> 00:38:31.853 I will just say cursor plus rails is awesome. 00:38:32.138 --> 00:38:38.888 Insane like holy crap so we can dig into that I already was having conversations 00:38:38.888 --> 00:38:43.198 with co pilot and stuff but like cursor just I think Brian castle is already 00:38:43.198 --> 00:38:48.408 like how do they not just get acquired by microsoft like in a weird way It's just 00:38:48.408 --> 00:38:53.718 like a fork of vs code that has ai built into it Which is what that's already a 00:38:53.718 --> 00:38:59.588 microsoft product and I guess it's the pros and cons of Open source or open 00:38:59.588 --> 00:39:01.598 sourcing your, your tool chain in general. 00:39:01.608 --> 00:39:01.978 But, 00:39:02.068 --> 00:39:02.518 CJ: Totally. 00:39:02.773 --> 00:39:03.423 Colin: it's been pretty good. 00:39:03.648 --> 00:39:06.868 CJ: On your recommendation, installed and played around with cursor for a bit. 00:39:07.318 --> 00:39:08.958 And it is pretty mind blowing. 00:39:08.968 --> 00:39:13.598 And I love being able to at mention like different files and different 00:39:13.618 --> 00:39:16.998 like folder paths and things, and just be like, go find me this, or 00:39:17.008 --> 00:39:18.398 let's talk about that or whatever. 00:39:18.738 --> 00:39:19.328 very cool. 00:39:20.048 --> 00:39:21.618 Colin: I say, let's save it for the next one. 00:39:21.618 --> 00:39:24.328 Cause, and the thing I want you to think about is whether or not you 00:39:24.338 --> 00:39:31.148 think it's like coming for your job, because I, I'm curious what you think 00:39:31.158 --> 00:39:35.248 for it, like there's all those AI developers that you can hire and stuff. 00:39:35.248 --> 00:39:37.048 So I'm curious your take on that, but. 00:39:37.463 --> 00:39:42.853 We will talk about and dive into the AI world next week. 00:39:43.588 --> 00:39:45.058 CJ: That, that is a great cliffhanger. 00:39:45.118 --> 00:39:45.908 Thanks for listening. 00:39:45.948 --> 00:39:47.588 You can head over to build and learn. 00:39:47.588 --> 00:39:51.508 dev to check out all the links to the resources that we talked about today. 00:39:52.228 --> 00:39:53.368 And, yeah, we'll see you next time. 00:39:53.663 --> 00:39:54.103 Colin: All right. 00:39:54.163 --> 00:39:54.823 We'll see you next time. 00:39:55.203 --> 00:39:55.413 Bye.