Tangential 1: Travel Around In A Hoverchair

We're embarrassing Vic. You're embarrassing who? Vic? Sorry. No, I love Vic. We're discussing me being the old guy compared to him. How old are you Vic? I'll be 40 this year. Oh, nice. So that's right, you're a couple years older than me. I'm 38 in about 7 weeks. There you go. So yes. And Amit, you're the kid. You're like 20 or 19. How old are you? Yeah, he was like, "I'll be 40 in 16 years." I said, "Yeah, see, I'm the old guy." [Laughter] [Sigh] Us old guys, we shouldn't be programming, hey Vic? We should be like doing woodwork or something, making, I don't know. I do some woodwork on occasion. I always wanted a lathe. I seriously always wanted a lathe and a workshop. But all I've got now is a shed full of crap. What did you say? You want to get laid in a workshop? Oh my God. Lathe. L-A-T-H-E. Lathe. I said I'm gonna shove your head on the end of it and get a bloody, you know, tool out and just like sculpt your head a bit. Anyway, that kind of thing. Yes. This is Tangential, an unending conversation where every topic is a tangent from the last one. Embrace the chaos. I'm Jon Chidjie and digressing with me today are Vic Hudson and Amit Chai. Here we go. I don't actually- We told you 10 seconds ago that Apple will, that Facebook will release Slingshot. Oh God. And since, see we were right because we told you 10 seconds ago. Yep. That is just so annoying. Oh my God. I'm like they get it you're right. Do you have to really really do I told you so every single time in every single post Well, if he doesn't do that, then people my favorite is the well, I had it right so they changed it That's ridiculous The funny thing is that some heavily heavily inflated sense of self-worth Definitely, but it's not just that. The problem is that whether he realizes it or not, he's burning bridges. In people's minds, he's becoming less and less credible. Even the ones he gets right, you know, people don't... Would he maintain more credibility if he just said, "You know what guys, I got this one wrong." Yeah, because then what would he trust him to say when he got one wrong? Like, is he chasing a perfect record or something? I can't even tell anymore. No, I do. Who the hell cares anyway? You know what I got I got burned out about oh, I don't know Have a look at tech distortion. It was about a year and a half ago I just got burned out of rumors, and I'm like fuck this I'm done. Oh, no. I'm seriously burned out of rumors I I enjoyed this WWDC so much. Oh, it's brilliant because we knew nothing and like just imagine if we knew that Hey, there was a new language coming then Do you? Were you were you following it live John? Oh god. Yeah, absolutely. You were right. So did you see the reactions on Twitter? Oh, it was amazing. Oh, yeah That was that was the general tone all over and just imagine if we only had a hint of it So it's just like rumor sites are why we can't have nice things and they ruin everything Yep, you said it Yep, not you nailed it man. I mean bottom line I'm just I'm over rumor sites just completely and utterly over them and I would be happier I think the world would be a better place without them to be honest, but oh Well a man can dream right? I mean, it's not gonna happen. But yeah, hey Anyway, that's all right. There's page views to be had there though. I No, I get it the point. I mean he makes a hundred thousand dollars a year Does he really make that much? Did you ever it came out about a year and a half or something? So he might make a bit more than that today it was who is the Who runs 95 back? He's also a giant dick. Oh God Now we're making friends and influencing people. Bottom line, if he really earns that much money from rumor mongering, I really want to punch him in the face. I really want to start rumor mongering. Then I'll punch you in the face. But by all means go ahead. If he has fun, and he's really good at it. I mean, I can't imagine having that many connections and people trusting me with that much information. But anyway the guy who does run 95 max, so it was an interview or something and He said that government makes enough to buy a Tesla and a half each year Yeah, but yeah, that's that's all well and good, but he's still got a pay room and board and you know and so on oh I'm pretty sure he has Scholarships of course yeah, I goes to a state university so Well in any in any truly great in any case great, but at the end of the day, it's like I So I used to hate night five back terribly then Saichi got me to believe that Garmin is kind of a different one from there He's not at 95 Mac only because of the kind of deal they give him that any and all traffic He brings to 95 Mac he gets the revenue from that so he's there just for that and He's different, and he's nice, and he's not a dick basically Lately it has just been terrible. It's like and And it's like I made this point on Twitter that when Gruber says something Regarding Apple regarding how Apple works there is some credibility behind it right a lot of people came lambashing at me that even on slack it was some people like you can't say that because just he's young, my government just because he's young that doesn't mean he's not credible or that doesn't mean he's wrong and I'm thinking like that I'm like that's fine but Gruber has been around for a while and Apple is a complex company takes time to understand how they work what they do if Gruber says that no they didn't change it because you fucking leaked it there has to be something there right instead of well assisting that no I'm right let's let's us more. Well, it's just common sense though. I mean, anyone that's worked for companies that do research and development, okay? Like when I worked at Nortel, for example, we had some products in the consumer space, but not like Apple almost, you know, practically everything Apple does is in the consumer space. It's just that, you know, for us, we were more in the backend stuff for the mobile phone network. But the truth is that we had handsets that were out there in the consumer space. But anyway, the point is that when you're doing R&D, it happens behind closed doors. And if anyone's commenting about whatever you're doing, or there's newspaper articles, there's more the investigative reporting back then, because that was in the mid to late 90s, when the internet hadn't really taken off quite so much, and social networks didn't exist. It was just IRC channels and that sort of thing. keywords. That sort of thing but you know you don't change direction because there's some investigative report or some kind of you know newspaper article saying something about what you might be working on I mean you know it's like well what why the hell would you you've just invested millions and millions of dollars developing something you don't just change direction and the thing the other thing is you know a lot of people say well what's in a name but the name is still very important so if you've got a list of possible names and they're all really good, but you've got one you really like, you're going to run with the one you really like. You're not going to change it just because one person somewhere said, "Oh, I've got some guy in here that's got a loose tongue." And he's- well, you know, some person who's got a loose tongue. And they've told me. And just on that topic of leaks and stuff, you know, one of the things that really gets me is that, yeah, the leak mongering and everything, there's a dark side to that because people lose their jobs over that if they get caught. And I think to myself, okay, here's what rumor sites are doing, okay? What they're doing is they are taking people's jobs in their hands if they are not very sensitive about, and I guess to some point they can't be sensitive, I mean, if they leak some information, how do they know if it's not a false leak? And that false leak was given to a select group of people that allows Apple to track down who the hell they were and get rid of them. - So they know where the leak is. Yes, I know exactly who's leaking it. I mean, it's, you know, espionage 101, right? It's it's that's just the way it's done. And how do you know? And anyway, so they're trading these people's futures for a few page views. And that makes me angry because it's like, well, these guys are the programmers and the engineers that are delivering the products that you love so much. And yet you are putting their jobs at risk just for your own selfish benefit. And I mean, that's what that's what shits me. I completely agree, John. But there's There's also another side of it. Those programmers and developers and executives are also dumb enough to actually give those leaks. Yeah, well I suppose that's true. And there's controlled leaks. They are risking their job themselves. I mean, sure, rumour-mongering sites have some responsibility, but ultimately it falls down to the person who's actually leaking. I suppose so. You know, I mean, you're just in your own job. Yeah. You can just not leak. Yeah, I got it. It's your choice. Right. Of course it is. And whether you do it because it's like I'm talking to the great John Gruber or something and that's just, "Oh, John Gruber's like sort of, you know, repeating one of my rumors. Yay, I feel amazing." Or whether there's actually money involved, which you never know. There could be. I don't know. But the point is, okay, fine. It takes, what's the expression? Takes two to tango. I get it. Fine. And if people weren't making those transgressions in the first place, there would be no rumor sites. But the truth is that, you know, that's not human nature. I guess it just frustrates me. But they are doing so for incentives. There has to be something there. Yeah. Well, what's the incentive? I think they get a share. You reckon? Well, I don't know. I don't know. Like if there are big leaks and there is enough risk involved, if I was the person leaking, I would do it if I were to get some financial or implicit benefit of. Well let me tell you something, when I'm currently working as an end client, end user, I guess you would say. However, in my previous jobs, one of my jobs was working for a consulting agency. And when you're a consultant, you'll have, we would set the standards and we would say, "Okay, this project we're going to have Schneider PLCs and we're going to have, you know, Siemens drives or whatever we're gonna have and we would recommend that they would be used on the project for a whole bunch of reasons. Sometimes anyway. And that's the sort of thing that suppliers really want you to do. Suppliers are gonna say to you, "Hey, you know, we really want you to use Danfoss drives, we want you to use Schneider drives or whatever the hell you want we want you to use." How do they do that, right? It's the same kind of deal. They'll come and they'll say, "Hey, let's do lunch sometime." And they do lunch with you and that's when they start probing and they're like, "Oh, so what are the projects you got on the books, anything interesting happening? And it's like it's casual conversation, but it's not casual conversation. They are trying to find out. They're working you. Yeah, they're working me. They're trying to figure out what the hell's going on. And I- But, you know, like these people who do know all that, they are pretty much higher up. Any and every Apple designer doesn't know everything that is going on, or anything for that matter, substantial. But those who do, they are pretty higher up. They are expected to be smart enough to not fall for such fishy tactics. - Well, then who the hell-- - There's another thing, like you brought up the case maker thing, right? So there is literally money at stake there, a lot of money. - Oh, sure. - The case maker who is first with decent enough cases for new iOS devices, oh, they make bank. That is why all these shells and prototype leaks because that's what they care for. We never see leaks of internal battery components or anything until like the last day. We do see shell leaks. Why? Because it is sponsored by case makers and accessory developers. And since there's a lot of money at stake, these secrets are literally sold. So those people who are selling it, they are making a conscious decision. - Oh sure, yeah, but I mean that's the other end of the chain. - You're making a very conscious decision. So it's like, it's both ways. Today, it's just there's so much money involved, there's so much interest in technology. Finally, thankfully or for the worse, I mean, it depends how you look at it, there's so much interest in technology, people wanna know what's gonna happen to their iPhones or things like that. So that, yeah, just a market, you can't do anything about it. - I see a different-- - It's gonna be there, it's gonna go grow and-- - I see it at different levels. See, that's the other end of the spectrum. That's the hardware side where you've got hundreds of thousands of people, probably hundreds of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, certainly a lot of people assembling iPhones, iPads, and MacBook Pros, and what the hell, Samsung Galaxy Ss, whatever, right? And the case makers are going in there and they're prying away, and they're offering amounts of money that are obscene. You know, they're like, here's a year's worth of salary, give me the damn case. You know, that's different from Dalrymple, Gruber, or German with the quote unquote little birdies on the inside. It's a different spectrum. And honestly, I think that the people in the other end of the spectrum, that is to say the ones within hyper-echelons of Apple, it is more about relationships. I don't think it's about kickbacks, but I just don't understand the motivation. If they're controlled leaks, yeah, okay, I get it. That's fine. But if they're not controlled leaks, then seriously, what the hell is the motivation? I mean, if you're doing it just because it's like, oh, I've got to tell someone I'm working on something so cool. Okay, seriously, you're in the wrong job. Because if you can't, you know, I mean, when I worked on a defense project, that's the sort of shit that gets you like, instantly sacked, your classified status revoked. I mean, like secret agents showing up at your doorstep, probably, I mean, come on. It's like, you just know that you just don't do it. You just don't. So anyway. So we should probably introduce ourselves a little bit because people may be listening and they may not know who the hell we are. Do you think? I mean, certainly not Vicky hasn't said much 'cause we keep talking over him. - Oh, that's okay. I'm just listening. - Just, yeah, but it's not a podcast if you just listen, man. - I'll add when I have something to contribute. - That's so gentlemanly of you. You got to stop that or something. Okay, so I'm John Chidjy and hello, yes. And that weird accent you hear is an Australian accent. So there you go. - It's the convict accent. - Yeah, shut up. Go on. You were saying Amit, who are you? - I'm Amit Jain. I'm an iOS and web developer and the weird accent you're hearing, It's an Indian accent. - Yes, but you are currently in America. - I am in America. I've been in America for five years. And yeah, that's me. - Cool. - Prod. - I'm Vic Hudson. - Prod Vic, Prod Vic. - Okay, I'm Vic Hudson. I'm an iOS developer and new podcaster. And that weird accent you're hearing is a Kentucky accent. - It's a brilliant accent too, by the way. - It's the worst. - Don't give him the shit. Are you fucking kidding me? - It's an awesome accent. I love it. - Oh my god, it's so bad. - It's multiple levels of cool. Don't knock the accent, man. - It's like multiple levels of tobacco. - What? - Wow. - What the hell? - I had this statement, that anybody from the South... - You're close, Slapy. - We're gonna take it that level? - It sounds like it might be. Oh my God. Yeah, I have immense degree of prejudice regarding accents. Really? Wow. Not against people. Not against people. Just accents. Well, when I went to, when I lived in Canada, the number of women that were swooning over my accent, it actually got irritating after a while, which, you know, sounds odd, but it really did. Dude, it's sexy, bro. She just says, "I'm just ordering a burger at Wendy's," right? And she said, "I just want you to know that I really like your accent." And I'm like, "Okay, thank you. That's the 10,000th time I've heard that." - No, you should be like, "Do you want to come to my house? I'll let you listen to my accent and more." - Yeah, after the 10,000th time, it really does get old. But anyway, nevermind that. That was a lifetime ago. God, that was... That was such a hard life. Oh yeah, okay. I'll admit it was a nice part of my life then. But that's okay. That was before, you know, yeah, anyway, never mind. I came back to Australia and now my accent is perfectly dull and boring. So there you go. Why did you come back? I got laid off. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. No, I was working for Nortel. Nortel... Oh, Nortel. overextended yeah I think a lot of people know the Nortel story they overextended themselves they everyone wanted to be part of the dot-com boom when there was a dot-com boom and then when the boom ended they're like we're not part of the dot-com boom no we're not and it's like not too late you're fucked that's it in a nutshell okay it was a hell of a lot more complicated than that but let's just put it that way so they lingered on after the dot-com bubble burst and within about three or four months after the worst of the dot-com bubble had gone, they had a oh god what do they call it, it was their their earnings did not meet their expectations by a lot like 3% so that 3% under their projected earnings just 3% and all everyone said dump your stock. They're part of the dot-com bubble that just burst get rid of them and that's what happened so that stock went in the tank and they just had to let people go. They let 60,000 people go in the space of six months worldwide. And I was one of them. - Ouch. - Yeah, ouch. - That's crazy. - Yeah, a lot of my mates lost their jobs. It was really depressing. - I would imagine. - Yeah, the company took really good care of me though. I mean, they had the good payout and everything, the redundancy payments, they helped you with finding a job with the placement agency. They were as gentlemanly as you could ever wish for, and they were a wonderful company to work for. But unfortunately, at that point, I kind of lost its appeal to some extent, so I came home. Yeah, anyway, 'cause I was sort of doing my dream job over there, which is working in RF design, and unfortunately-- - Oh, yeah. - Yeah, unfortunately, just, yeah, I kind of lost it and packed it in, came home. - So. - Anyway. What does everybody think of WWDC? What the hell's that? That's some kind of weird acronym. Anybody tried Swift yet? I have downloaded the Xcode, I have fired it up, and I have done Hello World. Yes! That's it. I haven't done a lot of coding with it, I've been reading mostly. Didn't you go on a camping trip and take the book with you or something? I did. That's what I like. You can make me camp, but I'm still programming in my head. You can't stop me. That's crazy. What, the camping? See, that's what people do in the South. What, camp? I go camping. They read programming books like literature. Yeah, but they are literature. They're not. They do it themselves. They're more like a Kia assembly guy. Okay, no they're not. There's no pictures man. In the middle of WWDC week I was drug off into the woods with like a half bar of liquor. Where did you go Vic? Lake Michigan. Oh nice, I haven't heard nice things about it. How did you like it? It was a good camping trip. trip. Aside from the internet withdrawal I was okay. So were you like shaking and convulsing or something in the sleeping bag? No not not quite that bad. Okay all right mild withdrawal then. Yeah. Cool so of course you know all of us having done development on iOS we're most jazzed about Swift of course. Wait I think I'm losing here. What have you developed John? Oh I need to stump up with my geek cred. Okay, hang on. - Yes, please. - Okay, so a few years ago I made this totally shitty little clock and it like, you know, made me about a thousand bucks and I'm like, bonus, and then that was it, pretty much. - Nice. - Is it still on the tower now? - A thousand bucks is nice. - No, no. It got taken down, it got taken down. It was a 99 cent app and I simply called it my bedside clock for the want of a, well, I couldn't think of anything better. Yeah, but it addressed an issue that still exists, I think, on the iPad, which is when the iPad, so I wrote it when the iPad came out on iOS 3 and iOS 4, because you remember when the iPad 1 first came out, that it was running iOS 3 and it sort of, I think it lagged behind the iPhone at the time, was on iOS 4, but the iPad originally was on iOS 3.2, I think, from memory and so it didn't have support initially for background notifications and a few other bits and bobs I added in iOS 4. Anyway, so what I try to do is write an app that was just the screen was the clock. There was no other anything else and all of the settings were accessible through a modal. Essentially an entire screen would change. Literally, the clock would slide away and you'd have an entire iPad full page of settings, which at the time seemed like a really good idea. It went against the the Hig and you know looking back at it now I cringe and I kind of vomit a little bit in my mouth but yeah. Anyhow I do it differently now let's put it that way my design tastes have evolved but irrespective the point was you could pinch to zoom on the actual numbers on the clock you could select different fonts and they had a pretty cool color picker and you could see the idea was that you could customize just the clock so it was just the numbers you could have hours minutes and or seconds so if you just want hours and minutes and you could zoom it up and the numbers were gigantic and that was the whole point is because my eyesight is terrible. I'm short-sighted to the extreme almost as bad as John Syracuse, not quite but close. Anyhow, point is, anyway, point is that with my glasses off in the middle of night I can't read a normal size bedside clock. The numbers are too bloody small. So I wrote an app to solve that problem, put on the store and apparently a whole bunch of people loved it and when I stopped selling it and I stopped supporting it, I had, I was, I'm still getting emails about how much they love it and I'm like you, it hasn't even been compiled to run on iOS 5, 6, 7, let alone 8. So first of all what fucking device are you using it on that it still works on at that's first. Second of all I mean because surely some API that I've called has been changed and it must mustn't work on more recent versions anyway. Has been in the store for three years and I'm still getting the occasional email saying how much they love it. I'm like wow. Is it still there? No it's gone. No. No I let my developer account lapse. - That's sad. - Man, it's $119 in Australian a year or whatever it is. So $99 US, whatever. But you know, it's an ongoing expense. And there's a double-edged sword to developing, especially when you're gonna charge 99 cents for an app. Everyone says, "Oh, it's 99 cents. "You know, that's a lot of money." Apparently. I got some of that shit. I seriously did. I got emails, you know, 99 cents. Oh man, I expected more for 99 cents. I'm like, "It's a fucking clock. "What do you expect more?" - Whatever. (laughing) - Like, that's nonsense. It's the bare minimum. You can't even charge. - I'm not putting out a free app because all a free app is is advertising for you, right? It's like, I'm a developer. Here's something great. I'm gonna get millions of these out there in the world. And that's fantastic. And that's what you did with Symbol, right? It's advertising. It's saying, you know, Amit can code. Amit made something great. You know, you should love Amit. And if you don't, hurry up and start loving him. Point is that if that's your model, that's great, but I didn't want to do that. I wasn't in it for that. I was in it for, I would like to see how, if I could make money from developing software. What the hell? Because I've written lots of software before when I've worked for companies, but I've never done anything entirely for myself that I actually sold. So that was sort of the first and only time I've done that. Anyway, that was years ago. So, so yeah, I have, I have done some development and I'm not a hardcore developer, that's for sure. But- - Okay, I have a question. - Yeah, Vic, sorry. Okay, so you made this thing to scratch your own itch. Yeah. And you made $1,000 from it. Yep. And you're still getting emails for support and compliments on the app now. Oh, I haven't had one for about three months, but the fact that I'm getting it four years later is weird. Why did you stop developing it? Why did you? All right, you want to know the truth? I'm sure you couldn't support the family with that, but it definitely justified the developer account per year. All right, well, you're right, it would. All right, so honestly, truth is that it took a lot of time. All right, first of all, it started out as an iPad only application because on the iPhone, you've already got a clock. So I figured, and plus, plus the numbers weren't gonna be anywhere near as big. The screen's, you know, in relative terms, tiny, right? So yeah, there was less value in the app on the iPhone, but I was getting a lot of requests for it to be a universal app, or at very least to release an equivalent app for the iPhone and iPod touch. So, you know, I started developing that and I was working on a separate binary and I was probably about two thirds, three quarters of the way through that and it was coming up till Christmas. And basically I was pouring in so much of my spare time that I kind of forgot someone's birthday, who is important. And it kind of, yeah, it didn't go down well. So, I sort of made a decision at that point, I'm making what I'm making for my full-time job. And now I'm spending, you know, like 20 hours, 25, maybe even 30 hours a week, developing this software. And I'm basically making like a thousand bucks, which is in relative terms, nothing compared to my full-time job, of which I work 40 hours a week. So the economics made no sense. And-- - Yeah, but once you got it to where it could just kind of fall into like a maintenance cycle, you could just leave it on the store and-- - Yeah, but that's not the problem is Vic, that you get that initial surge, right? So you put it in the store and it's front and center. I mean, I sold something stupid in, I mean, I thought I'd sell like a dozen, maybe two dozen copies. And when I logged into iTunes Connect and it was up to like 500 and I'm like, holy crap, I did not expect that. I just, I didn't. And then I'd heard about this initial spike, right? And I was up in the charts and it was all hunky dory. Within three or four days, I was down to like a dozen sales, maybe 20 sales a day. And it just tapered off and tapered off. Yeah, keeping it in the store and keeping it in a maintenance cycle and so on. That initial surge is where you make your money. You don't make the money on the tail of it. You just don't. And the only way you're gonna make money again is to release it again under a different name as a different app essentially and charge more for version two. And it's the only way you make more money on the app store at the moment because there's no, well up until, well, you know, maybe that's changing, but for the moment anyway, at the time that was the equation. So no, I disagree. I think that ultimately, um, the only reason to keep it in the store and to continue maintaining it was to say, Hey, I've got an app in the store, you know, and that's it. And that's not reason enough for me. It wasn't. That's fair enough. So it just came down to economics because there's only so much time in the day. you got to choose how you're going to spend it. So, you know, so I just decided instead to focus more on a website that I was working on at the time and I'm still working on it called Tech Distortion and then I've done some podcasts, I did Existential, I've done Anodized and now I'm doing Pragmatic and now I'm doing this. The point is that, you know, all of this takes a lot less time, well I say a lot less time, it takes less time than the software development and the commitment and the ability to walk away is a lot easier. easier. So if things get too busy at work or at home I can step back for a week, it's no big deal. Whereas with development, you get your software out there and it's got a bug in it, a really bad one, you drop everything and you fix it. Yep. I mean if you care you do, you know, and I cared because I got a couple of one-star reviews along the way because there was a bug in it and I'm like, "Oh damn it." Anyway, so I think you just got to be careful, that's all. And there's nothing wrong wrong with it if you've got some spare time then you know go for it yeah absolutely but for me the equation just didn't balance anyway but then I'm down the shitty end of the App Store right it's the Marco comparison between oh dear between the Instapaper and nursing clock right yeah yeah it's like nursing clock sells a dozen copies or something I don't know what every number got up to 50 or something pitiful, which is kind of down that end where I was. And then you've got Instapaper and that's just over the top hundreds of thousands. Well, I assume. I actually don't know the number, but anyway. It's fair to say it sold a lot. Yeah, one or two here and there. But anyway, so I mean, so Amit, you've done Symbol. I have done Symbol. put my hand up and ask what's your download count up to man I gotta know because it cuz it's gonna shit on my mind oh you say you don't you say you don't know but I think right now he's projecting in his mind it's like over over a million million million million now see now you see there's such a huge number now anything I say which looks look tiny that was that was my strategy you got you got it you got me nailed yeah dick I'm being mean okay it's 384,000 see that's pretty decent 384,000 385,000 actually. - Now, just imagine if you charged 99 cents for it. I mean, you wouldn't have. No, I know, but you would, let's say you had a 10th of that. Let's say you had a hundredth of that. See, it's interesting, isn't it? I mean, but anyway, that is a phenomenal number of downloads. That's phenomenal. Mind you, it's a cool app and it's handy. So, you know. - I have update two planned. I have, I just never got to it. It's like, so I also have another app on the App Store. - Yes, that's right. - It's called Endless. And so yeah, that took a while to make and things like that. It's not my app, so just to be clear. It was a client project. So that took a while to make, then afterwards I got busy in school and finals and moving away and everything. But yeah, I think, I don't know, don't ask me. - Fair enough, okay. - It's like restarting with Swift and everything now. - You're gonna recode everything in Swift? - You're gonna recode it? - Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. - Oh, that's good. - There's no sense, there is no sense. There was a sense in recoding if Apple would have said that Objective-C is dead. From now on, it won't compile. From now on, we won't accept anything. But that's not happening. So there's no reason. It's any matter of time, but it's going to be years. - Oh, I don't think. - I think there'll be a pretty good overlap. - Even today you can submit a completely, an app written completely in C. - Yeah. - You know, there is no reason. Like, tell me one thing. What is, oh my God, why do I have so many alarm notifications? Go away. Fuck you. (laughing) - You're an angry notification guy or something. I hate notifications. But the point is, yeah. So what is their incentive in saying that? So it's not like anything written in Objective-C is dead slow or it's not a recommended method anymore. In fact, their Cocoa APIs and everything are still in Objective-C. I mean, the day Objective-C goes away is the day when Cocoa is completely rewritten in Swift and the bridge doesn't exist. There is no reason to deprecate Objective-C, so to say. If they introduce new APIs, so for instance, they deprecated how cameras accessed by introducing a newer, better, nicer, more privacy, more private methods. And not private is not the right term, but methods which respect privacy more. So, and I should not call them methods anymore, I should call them functions. - Damn right. So there is a reason to deprecate. When you deprecate something, it's when you have something more superior and the way you used to do things is just not good enough anymore. Objective-C is not that way, right? - Yeah, I mean, unless-- - It won't be for a long, long time. I mean, C hasn't gone anyway. C is, so Objective-C was C with objects. Swift is Objective-C without the C. So they're not making, well, technically it is a hard fork, but what I'm saying is like, they're not parting ways by doing 180. - Yeah, I guess, I hear what you're saying, but at the same time, I think to myself, why did they go to, why did they do Swift? And the answer, as far as I'm concerned, is that they've been building up to this with Arc. They acknowledge the issues that Objective-C and C has, Those are not issues, you know. Yeah, they are. Like, even today, people love objective Cs. I love, love, love objective Cs. So, honestly, they're not issues as much as they are not contemporary ways of programming. See, the problem I've got with that statement, Amit, is that it's kind of like rewind 20 years ago And then having people say, "You know, man's programming language, that's assembler." You know, and I got that shit. I seriously heard that shit. No, no. I understand. But like, even today, we have other languages which are like, we have C. Oh, my God. There's a lot of production code today in C. Even game developers, they write C. Yeah, they only write C because nothing better. Well. Correct. Nothing closer to the hardware. You can't find anything closer to the hardware. Yeah, but that's changing. very efficient that will never change yes it will we are going we are going higher and higher level mm-hmm it will change but yeah but the trade-off have to your trade-off is gonna eventually break because the problem is the human brain can only keep so much in at any one time the problem that you've got with directly addressing memory to improve your performance is the fact that you lose track of shit eventually you want to go to a high level protected language because it's gonna be easy to build 90% of what we're building bigger and bigger code code bases right more and more complex software more complex API's and all the hardware underneath is getting more and is getting faster so event and memories becoming cheaper it's reaching a point where the performance benefit you will get for writing something in a low-level language is essentially going to be erased and you're going to be at a point where well you know what we've written it all in C and it is one millisecond quicker than the competition but it's all in C no one's gonna give a shit it's It's more difficult to maintain, it's just more difficult to debug, it's just... I completely agree, I completely agree. For 90% of people, this is a valid, great argument. For us, VIC, IU, if you're writing iOS apps, this is a perfect argument. The kind of things we do, there is no reason in hell to ever write it in C. Sure. Definitely. - Definitely, but there are still use cases, like for game developers. We can say that the hardware is gonna get so much better that we would never ever ever have to actually address the metal, as they say. But think about it. Okay, you can get by without addressing the metal. But if you did address the metal on the same hardware, you can get about 10, 15 times Performance you used to get the same thing happened with metal right now, right? We say that oh my god, the power VR chips. They are great a 7 Oh shit, the graphics performance is amazing when it launched it did open GL like nothing else did open GL on the market That's amazing. But suddenly here is the C API and oh my god It does draw calls 10 times faster 10 times is a threshold for tolerating any and every trade-off. >> Yeah. >> I think it depends on what you're making. >> Every time when we have this conversation that our hardware is fast enough, you can always, always bring up some use cases where just going down there with the same hardware, so it has benefits in two different directions. The one is you can get 10 times the performance, right? The second is you can keep the same performance while improving battery efficiency at least a few times. In either cases, normal developers like you and I, normal is now a bad term that I'm saying, but in lack of anything better. For regular developers like you and I, it's great going upstream. The higher the level of APIs, less boilerplate work that we have to do, the better, because we can write actual logic which does productive, constructive things. That's great. But at the end of the day, there are going to be some developers who have to interpret that high-level language and write something that would translate that into bytecode. People who design LLVM, people who design compilers, people who design actual kernels, right? They have to do that. So the entire gist of the argument is, is Objective-C is not a bad way of coding today. It's just not timely today. It's not a bad way. I mean, performant APIs, even today, will still be written in C. Even 10 years from now, they will still be, they will not be written in Swift. Because they will need that hardware access, because that's what, and here's the thing, here's my hunch with Metal, and I think, I think John or Marco, One of the two also say that, but when they launched, that's what I thought immediately that Apple does all their UI frameworks, everything, the animations, that's all done in OpenGL. If they're launching Metal, it's only a matter of time when they just sweep up that OpenGL layer from underneath all UI and make it all Metal. Think of the battery savings they have. The animations won't go any faster. They already go 68 FPS. You don't want 120, that's useless. what you want is to be done with the same thing in a lot less computation time and they will move to metal they're going downstream so on the surface you and I will go upstream but the people who are actually talking to the hardware will go downstream more and more so objective C is not being relegated into the trash pile of assembly. Assembly was at a time when even today there are some people who have to write assembly but the point is assembly was below that threshold of productive languages. C, I think, is where we are, which is close enough but still high level enough that humans can understand code, be fluent, read it like you would read anything else. So I don't think objective C is, as you believe, it's deprecated or it's old or it's not a good way to do things today, it will be a great way to do certain things for a while, while nicer languages, more brief, not brief, but higher level languages will come and take its place in most other use cases. That's what I think. >> Vic, say something, please. >> I think it'll just, it'll gradually phase out from use, Objective-C. I think that as time goes on, I think that as time goes on, Apple will rewrite APIs to use Swift and probably, I would say as soon as maybe iOS 9 and OS 10.11 for the Mac, I think that there will be new APIs introduced that are Swift only. Yep, absolutely. And over time, we'll get more Swift only APIs, we'll get more conversion of the old Objective-C to Swift APIs, and I think it'll just be a gradual thing. I don't think they'll have to flip a switch. This is okay, no more Objective-C, 'cause I think it'll be a natural evolution. - Yeah, exactly. - So what do you guys think about Swift? I know, Vic, you have read some about it, John. Besides the Hello World, have you delved a little bit into it? - You first, Vic. - I've only played with, I've done very little playground playing with, mainly the samples from the iBook store. I haven't really written anything in it yet. I've read some tutorials online and stuff. I'm really eager to get started working on it. I can't get too deep into it right now because I've got a few projects that I'm working on that I actually need to be able to try and ship. So I'm kind of stuck in a limbo where I can't play too much with the shiny new toys yet because I can't do anything with them and I've got things I need to do. But I'm really excited for when iOS 8 finally launches and I can start moving things in that direction. >> Cool. >> So, the projects that you're planning to ship, do they have to be out before iOS 8? >> They don't necessarily have to be, but there's stuff that I would like to do. >> Okay. Then you can always mix and match. >> There's, yeah, I can, but I can't submit anything right now on Swift. >> That's right. >> Oh, you can. >> I've got updates that I need to get into MoneyPilot that are really long overdue. I've got a few other new apps that I want to launch very soon. And I don't think we can submit anything to the store that's been built with Xcode 6, can we? Yes, we can. Because Swift, see, Swift is not Xcode 6 exclusive. Yeah. It's binary compatible. Swift, exactly. Swift still compiles on iOS 7 on Mavericks and in Xcode 5. Yeah. But I guess the question is why? What's the motivation? Apart from the fact you're playing with the new shiny shiny. And let's also be clear, Swift is not a 1.0 version. It's pre-release. And yeah, they have said, hey, guys, it's subject to change without notice. Yeah. They've said anything that you compile will always continue to run. But you could do an Xcode update tomorrow and your source won't compile anymore. Yeah, well, that's that's not a good reason to be updating it. But so far as my impression of the language goes, I think it's great. I think it's got a lot going for it. I like the syntax. I think it's nice. But then again, lots of languages look nice until you start using them. And once you start using them in anger, that's when you find out whether or not you really like it or not. And I'm not in that place. So, it looks appealing from the outside looking in, but that's not the perspective of someone who's just spent a month working on a project written in that language. that language so I'm hesitant to say anything definitive but it looks okay and I've been watching sorry I've been following what's his name Jonathan White, Schwa, whatever he is on Twitter yeah and he's a funny guy but he yeah he's a pretty hardcore developer and you you read some of the things he's saying and I'm like okay so there's still a few holes there so he's finding all sorts of edge cases where Swift falls apart, which is interesting. - I found a few files radars and everything. - I don't think it's ready for primetime yet and where I'm trying to ship stuff, I'm gonna stick with what I know and what works for the moment. I really look forward to when it is ready for primetime and we can make that switch though. - I wanna try Swift because, Okay, so this reset happens in the App Store quite often. It happened with iOS 7, that established apps, for instance, let's think of some app that just monitored your steps or health or anything like that. Those established apps suddenly, suddenly got challenged with new UI and things like that. and it was a time for smaller developers, indie developers, new developers, to just jumpstart. You know, the field was leveled once again. What happens is that every time something new comes out on any platform for, let's talk of iOS, because that's of interest for us, anytime something new comes out, what happens is everybody starts to implement that. The people who start first, who have a head start, they advance further naturally and others try to play catch up and within a year the level is all gone and the terrain is all hilly and there are troughs and hills and everything. Some people are on the top, some people are on the bottom. But this reset doesn't ever happen on the developer side of things, what I mean on the tool chain side of things. And it happened, this WWDC. So what I'm saying is, today if you go look for... Okay, I'll start with how clients look for developers. It goes like, I want an Objective-C developer. Those who are totally cool, they would say, "I want an iOS developer." And then they would find out what the requirements are, and then that's how they will talk to you, that how long have you developed for Objective-C, and what have you done, and what have you not done, things like that. But those who are slightly informed, they go by, I need an Objective C developer who has an experience of five years at least. Now it is not difficult today to find anyone with five years of Objective C development. For everyone you find who doesn't have it, you will find two people who do have at least five years. So it's really difficult to compete, right? especially for newcomers like you and Ivic. On the other hand, Swift is, as Chris Lagner, the LLVM and Swift guy, as he tweeted that I'm the only one in the world with three plus years of development experience. So today, if there's a job post or if there is an opening that says we want two years worth of Swift development, not today, I mean two years from now. I can say that I shipped an app in Swift the first time I had a chance and I've been developing ever since. That is a reset, you know? And the same thing Steve Streza would say, that I shipped the first app. So it creates an illusion. Definitely I'm nowhere near what Steve Streza, I mean, Oh my God, it's awesome. But the point is that it creates an illusionary level field. You know what I'm saying? No. But tomorrow, if both of us apply for a job, both of us have two years of Swift experience. The problem that you've got- I get what you're saying. Go ahead, Vic. I get what you're saying with the level playing field and we're all in the same stage of Swift development but I don't think it's as simple as that. I think it's a pretty shallow thin illusion because while we're all even on the Swift page, we still have varying degrees of computer science in general behind us and just work experience behind us and so that's going to affect the way that people interpret and use Swift. Yes, oh definitely. So we all got a blank slate as far as the language but I don't think it's gonna change our experience level. I'm just saying on paper instead of being ousted in the first stage of screening for a job you'd still have a chance to make it to the second or third or at least an interview. I think that you meet a requirement that could be listed to apply for the job. You gotta have SWIFT experience. But when they start screening, I think it's okay, these two guys both have SWIFT, but this guy's been programming for 20 years, and this guy's been programming for two, they're gonna probably look at the 20 year vet. So I don't know how far that's gonna take you. Here's the thing, all the decisions are not always, the final hiring decisions are not always just based on who has how much experience, right? You're fit, how well you qualify, how interested you are in the company. There's so many factors, right? If you are really passionate about something and there's this other guy who has done iOS for 20 years but doesn't really fucking give a crap, all he wants is his paycheck, you at least have a chance against him now. >> Yeah. >> Right? If you go fly, they at least get to see you. They at least get to see you. or talk to you because, hey, you have the same swift experience as that other guy did. Yeah, okay, but you're at least qualified enough that you have done or used the language for as long as the other guy has. Yeah, he has a lot more computer science experience and this and that and that, but he fucking doesn't give a crap about the company. Yeah, but are there really a lot of jobs posted strictly on the basis of language? Oh, yeah. >> A Swift guy, only a Swift guy. >> I, oh, I, no, no, no. It's like we want an iOS developer, right? And today iOS developer means an Objective C developer. And tomorrow it's going to mean we want a Swift developer. So, like when you look at job listings, I do that all the time. So, when you look at job listings, it's very, very shallow in terms of requirements. So it's not shallow in the final decision making process, but it's shallow in requirements. So at least you get past the screening, at least your resume is not tossed out of the window the moment you submit it. So that is actually good, that is actually decent. That's what I'm saying. - Yeah, but at this point-- - Besides that, I'm just academically very curious about Swift, that why did Apple make the jump today? Why did they think they should do it? And if you think about it, Apple is actually developing a language in Open. I mean, it was so nice of them to not, as you say, John, it's not a 1.0 yet. >> All right. >> And it was so nice to hear Apple say that we're gonna change it as we see fit and things like that because it's like they're actively developing it better. They're developing it outside of their silos. Yeah, they formed the framework and everything. They did most of the work inside. Nobody knew about it. That's fine. But today we have a chance to actually affect or change how Swift develops. If there's something that is extremely wrong about it that only you found out, it's an edge case. It's not something 90% of the people would ever run into, but you did. And in your code, you find it. Today they are much more receptive. they're listening much more intently than they will in a year from now. You know, when Swift is more or less, then we're back to the same radar things, which you follow radar, you hear or you don't hear from them, and you never know when it's gonna get fixed and things like that. So, but today they're listening very intently. If you point one bug on Twitter and anybody of any credibility notices it and realizes that, "Oh my God, yeah, tomorrow if I write something similar, I've been running the same thing and it should be reported and needs to be fixed. Next beta of Xcode, it will be fixed. So that's why I kind of think that it's a good time to actually participate in making something which we will probably be using for the rest of our careers. I mean, I don't see the language changing again very quickly. I mean, maybe one time when I'm like 50 or 60, but I don't see, I mean, this is what I would be using. old Amit. No one does. Can I just, I just, I just want to go back and address the the issue regarding the resume thing. I hear what you're saying Amit regarding everyone's on a level playing field in so far as that they have the same level experience. I don't dispute that but what I do just sort of have to take issue with is you know that's not how you hire people or rather that's not the way smart people hire people you know it's like when you're writing a job description and you're in you're advertising and trying to get people on board, you have to write what you need. So it's like, I need someone with Swift experience, Objective C experience, I need someone with Pearl experience, whatever the hell I need, right? I have to write a list of requirements. That is only gets you to the first step. Once you get through that first step, which is your argument, at that point in time, everything goes out the window because you no longer care about that. All you care about past performance is a predictor of future performance. So you now look into, well, what have you done? So, what have you- how well have you worked with other people? You know, and you then talk to these other people and you say, "Hey, what was it like working with such and such?" And they say, "Oh, yeah, he was a jerk." I'm like, "Yeah, oh, hang on, no, not Hyde." So, you know, that's the way that it's done, unfortunately. Yeah, no, John, I completely agree with that. But what I'm saying is that, imagine that there's this guy who started developing about only two years into it. He has done some great things, I mean pretty smart or it's a girl, doesn't matter. She has done some great things and everything. I mean a great team worker, a great collaborator, has nice sense of design, anything and everything that you want from an iOS developer. Swift gives her a chance to actually pass that first stage. Yeah I guess but the problem I've got is people that actually really do understand appreciate what Swift is and what objective C is they're gonna look for language equivalents and they're gonna say okay well you've got a lot of experience with Java. But how many such people are out there hiring? Mate I tell you what if that if you've got people in your company that don't have enough knowledge to know what Swift is language similar to then they should not be in charge with fucking hiring you know they should be the ones you sack. - That's a should thing, but what actually happens? - Bigger companies, okay, and you're dealing with HR, right, and you get a HR question, and the HR question is some kind of pseudo babbly bullshit, and it goes something like this. Can you describe how you dealt with conflict in a situation recently? And you go, yeah, well, you know, I got out this, my nine millimeter and I blew the asshole's head off 'cause he was a dickhead. Like, okay, that's the wrong answer. But the point is, that's the sort of bullshit you get from HR, right? Is that they've got a standard list of crap questions. But they're not the ones that have the decision on whether they hire you or not. For smaller companies, if you don't have people doing your hiring and firing that actually know a bit about programming, then you're doomed. You really are. You're doomed. So, and frankly, if you're working with companies that are going to hire people based solely on, I've had five years of objective C versus two years of objective C, then you are doomed. You don't even want to work for them, you know? Well, no, exactly. But look, that one point you are making, I agree with that one point, but the rest of it, I've just got to say, you know, honestly, there are companies out there that... I'm not making the point that it will get you any close to being hired, but it will get you in the door. It will give you a fighting chance. That's all I'm saying. It'll get you in the door, I'm not sure I have a fighting chance. It will get you considered instead of being just tossed out the moment they look at you. So this is a question for both of you. How are your jobs like? Do you guys move around a bit or... No. It's mostly sitting down? How is it? Well, I'll go first I guess. No, I sit down for most of it. We have... Well, you know, I mean, sometimes we travel between buildings because we've got something like seven or eight, you know, not whole buildings, like we'll have like three or four floors on, amongst seven or eight different buildings around the CBD. So we'll, we go between the buildings sometimes. Sometimes I walk if it's a nice day or if I feel like going for a walk, but apart from that, yeah, it's sitting down pretty much all the time. And it's funny, you know, you walk, you go up to someone's desk or whatever else and you can talk to them for five minutes. And I say, pull up a chair and I look at the chair and I'm like, you fucking kidding me? I sit down all fucking day. I don't want to sit down again. Anyway, you go, Vic. You work heavy machinery, don't you? I work in a warehouse. I work four 10 1/2 to 11-hour shifts a week, and it's primarily standing on concrete floors or in a stand-up forklift. By the time I come home from work, I'm pretty exhausted. On a work night, I'll just sit on the couch and watch TV for a few hours before bed. And then on my three days a week off, I usually am in the recliner or in front of the TV or I'm sitting in my desk chair trying to get some coding done. According to David Smith's Pedometer Plus app, I get a decent activity level on my work days, but my three days a week off are not good. How many steps do you get, Vic? On my work days, I usually clear 10 grand easy. Let's take a look at... Let's see. Yeah, so I work Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday and on Friday I had 12,000, Saturday 12,000, Sunday was 10,000, yesterday I actually got 15,000, but like if I go back toward the last weekend, on Tuesday I had 4,700, on Thursday, no Tuesday was 3,100, Wednesday was 4,700 Thursday was 4700 so okay that's still you know that's that's still decent that's as sedentary as mine like if I don't actually make an effort oh my god I get like 10 steps in the day you travel around a fucking hover chair or some shit that's really good bed to the chair chair to the kitchen kitchen to the bed it's like gradual gentle movements I don't want to actually have register a step. Rule gentle don't... I get my 11th step for the day. Damn it. Well I've been using an app lately from these guys he's actually going to be in the next episode of App Story. It's called Stand Up. And what it is, is it's just an app that goes off in periodic time intervals and it tells you to get up It just it basically it just goes off and it tells you to stand up and move Fair enough. I just want to ask you something though Vic about the whole standing for most of the day Do you find that you get sore feet or sore legs and ankles at all? Yes Every day. Yeah, cuz I mean I worked in retail when I was finishing my degree at a place called Dick Smith electronics And I being in retail, of course, you know you you stand up all bloody day. So you know, I was standing out for like six, seven hours straight and at the end of it all I was It was so exhausting and I would get home and I would literally as you sit down on the recliner All of your it's like this enormous weight is taken off of your feet and your ankles It is so relaxing and I used to... And that's exactly why I go home and I don't move. Yeah, I don't blame you - Yeah, it's hard. - And my first, like Tuesday's my equivalent to a Saturday morning. And a lot of the times, Tuesday will be my absolute worst step count day because I've worked Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Like I said, almost 11 hours each of those days. So the first half of Tuesday, I just, I don't even want to move. - Yeah. Nah, that's rough, man. That's rough. I mean, there's people that serve at checkouts, for example, they've got the, they've recently, well, I don't know how recently, they've introduced this rubber matting that's supposed to be post-traumatic or something or supposed to be better for your feet something like that but if you're walking around a warehouse and it's just like flat concrete good luck with that hope you got some comfortable shoes right because that would help. But can't you buy shoes with soles like that? I've got some actually yeah but I've got them because I've got problem feet you know but whatever. Well they're too damn wide. I've got ridiculous feet. Too damn wide? Yes, I got wide feet man. I'm in like a 6E shoe in width because you know it's just friggin annoying. Anyway, finding shoes is a pain in the ass for me and my shoes always split at the sides. Anyway, but um and I also have an issue with the way I walk so I've got a supportive insert in the shoe so you take out that inner sole, whatever it's called, you know the inner insert bit and you put the yeah yeah the yeah and it's like built up in the arch and yeah I'm not I'm an engineer I'm not a foot person person what a hell is a pediatrician that's the right word I'm not a pediatrician was a baby duck oh crap podiatrist god damn it yes I got it So you can tell, I know there's so much about engineering and I know nothing about nothing else. I realized that yeah, you're not a pediatrician. I should have stuck with the foot person. Anyway, good. So, I've been, you know, I've got pinged for saying anyway too many times on Pragmatic. They came back and said, you say anyway too much. So I responded, well anyway, yeah, anyway, you're right about that. And the funny thing is that I also about six months ago sort of pinged Anze Tomic who does Storming Mortal. Anze? You know Anze? No? - No. - Anze Tomic. Yeah, it's pronounced Anze Tomic. Anyway, he's from Slovenia. - How do you spell it? - I don't know. Anyway, look, he's just this guy, you know. Anyhow, so... - He's a good guy. I've listened to his show. Yeah, he is. He's pretty good. Anyway, and he says "basically" a lot. So, of course, his comeback... All of us have our catchphrases. His comeback to me was, "Well, basically, you're right about that, basically." And I'm like, "Okay, fine. Yep. Good comeback. It's all good." So, I shamelessly ripped off his comeback in my comeback about "Always." So, there you go. So, thanks, Ange. Not that Ange listen to this I think but that's okay anyhow now storming mortal squad podcast you should check it out my biggest complaint about it is it doesn't come out often enough and I know why it's his side project right it's not his full-time gig and yeah he runs a podcast network over in Slovenia I think if I remember correctly or radio or something like that I forget and it's um and he and it's in English sorry yeah he did he has a Slavic podcast and I think he said that Storming Mordor are just a few episodes that get recorded in English he puts out in that feed. Yeah. I think. Sounds atomic. Yeah. So, basically what you got is a situation where, you know, he is a good interviewer, he's funny, he's sharp, and, you know, I heard recently that he's just called Siracusa, so he's going to be interviewing him, that'll be coming out at some point. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just caught some... You should have Sir Acuse. You had got English. Oh my God. That's awesome. It was great talking to Guy. He's such a- How did you get a catch? I mean, seriously. Sorry? How did I- Did you just reach out to him and he was like, "Yeah." The thing that I'm learning in doing this is that there are a lot of people that listen to Pragmatic, but don't publicly say, "Yeah, I listen to the show." There's big names like Marco that say, "Yeah, I listen to it. I love it. You should listen to it." I'm like, "Wow. Okay." And when, of course, he did that, my numbers got holistic. - I've seen Marco saying that. - But you don't know, just because people follow you is a good indication that they like the show. But there's a bunch of people out there that don't follow you because Twitter is not a, hey, I like what you do, I'm just gonna follow you just 'cause. There are people that think that way, but Guy was not one of them. And I sort of, I thought, I love this guy's work. I mean, it's brilliant. I've seen videos and so on of Singleton. I've listened to D-Bug from every episode from the beginning, some episodes twice, he's introduced me to a bunch of people through debug, like I mean, introduces in people I'd never heard of before like Don Melton and listening to him talk about Safari. Yeah, well, listening to how Safari was developed and everything is just absolutely incredible. Yeah, and so he has connected up the wazoo with people inside Apple, past and present. He's such a lovely guy. And when I just on Twitter, just for the hell of it, I'm like, I got off the train, It was like five in the afternoon my time and it was stupid o'clock at like three in the morning his time or something. And he was still up, you know, hacking away because he's a bit of a night owl. And I just thought, you know what? What the hell? I'm going to message him and see if he's interested in coming on the show. And I was stunned. He said yes. So, yeah, I just could not believe it. And I'm sitting there talking to Guy English and it's just absolutely awesome. Have you guys heard that episode, by the way? Just went up. - No, I have not got it. - I liked it. - I'm going to today. - You liked it, cool. - Oh, that is another thing I do in the gym. I listen to podcasts. - Oh, cool. Well, that's fine. I mean, I listen to them on the side. - Skyler laughs at it, but I'm like, oh my God, come on, let me. - No, but it was wonderful. I felt, the thing is that I'm stunned at how many people will talk to me now, whereas previously I was just nobody on Twitter. And I mean, I am still nobody on Twitter. But the point is that- - No, you're not nobody. - In relative terms, you know, I mean, I don't mean I'm not nobody. me and my family and all that and they all care about me and you guys like what I do and that's great. But you know, ultimately though, if I'm tweeting at John Syracuse and I say, "Hey John, how's it going? Nice glasses." Yeah, he's going to come back. Well, actually no, he's not going to come back because who the hell are you? I'm just some guy. Where's this? Australia. I've heard of that place. It's like, where the hell is that? Didn't they send convicts there? That's your job. But the point is, you know, so no, look, John Don Siracusa, I think he is aware of the show, but beyond that, that's all I know. So you know, and... You should definitely get him. Oh my God. Yeah, but what am I going to... Yeah, it would be awesome, but what am I going to talk about? You know, what's the topic? You know... Don Siracusa is my favorite internet personality. Look, I love him too. I've been following him for years. He was the inspiration for The Pragmatic, and yeah, he remains one of my favorite guys, but admiration is not a two-way street. typically a one-way street so you know my admiring him does not translate into him admiring what I do therefore I can't just stump up to him and say hey come on the show and and just expect him to say yes anyway guys well look you know what I'm getting ready for work or actually I already am dressed for work but I gotta you know get these do you sleep like those British tea drinking nannies what the hell are you talking about? A tea drinking nanny? What the fuck does that mean? I'm gonna say no but with no idea what the fuck you're on about. Provisional no, what the fuck. Like they sleep in a suit and dressed up and everything. Oh what? No, fuck that. I'm not gonna tell you exactly how I sleep but I can at least confirm this not like that. - It was TV King Nanny's. - Yeah, is that a Downton Abbey reference or something? - No. - No? - It's from Family Guy. - Oh, Family Guy. Oh, yeah, right, okay, Family Guy, got it. - You should watch Family Guy, that's where your American knowledge should come from. - Oh, God. Sometimes I just want to shoot Peter Griffin, I mean, really. - That is the fun part. Well, the thing is I feel like it just the same thing happened to the Simpsons right it started out funny like really funny and then it's just I mean it's like the bit where he's in the women's Restroom and he's hiding behind a panel of wood with a little peephole in it and the rest of his fully visible He's like, oh they saw me Yeah, that's funny, right? Whereas in more recent episodes he'll do just plain old stupid bullshit, which is just like yeah now the recent episodes are just well They just carry it on too long. Yeah. Yep. You nailed it exactly Vic It's like the joke they take it what was it starts out as a good joke that should go for about three to four seconds And they drag it out for 30 seconds, and you're like It's another one of those jokes it drags on Yeah, family guys. It's done for the newest season is terrible It's it has it has really no good ratings this time. Yeah, I don't think it will be renewed If it gets renewed that might be the last time it's renewed. Yeah, I think Seth MacFarlane needs to move on with his life Correct. Yeah, it's a shame with the Simpsons because with this they're old Simpsons. It used to be a joke every 15 to 20 seconds and they were all good and Now it's like you're lucky if you get two or three jokes in a whole episode It's just you know So I same deal with the Simpsons. I mean I Because I was listening in that case that the show has gone on too long. Yeah, exactly Yeah, that is that as well I mean, however great the show is there is a natural limit to how many jokes you can make in the circumstance, you know Yeah, I mean look at all the Star Trek series, you know, they all stop Well, okay apart from the original series that got canned after three, but you know, you're looking at Seven seven for next gen it was seven for ds9 and Seven for Voyager, you know, they all sort of drew the line. Oh, and I guess Enterprise was like was that four seasons because I just wasn't working Our next gen the next yeah, that was my best Yeah, next gen was next year was pretty amazing, but I've gone back like it was amazing at the time but I've gone back and I've and I've watched it again, and it's I have watched next gen twice Yeah, I've watched next gen multiple times But only I've gone back recently and watched a few of my formerly favorite episodes And I don't know what's happened to me whether or not I just see things differently but I just the formulaic nature of it and the the the scripting and the interplay between a lot of the characters I don't know if it was just the same old writers doing the same old thing or what but at the time I loved it but going back to it you know like 15 years later didn't it didn't inspire me the same way whereas I'll go back to Voyager and I'll look at that and it's I think much better written. I'm gonna go on record and say that I've rewatched them all many times. Yeah well and that's fine. And on on the rewatch I've actually decided I didn't feel this way when it aired it originally but on rewatch I've decided that Deep Space Nine was the best. Yeah I'm not far behind you there. I hate Deep Space Nine. I hate DS9. I love DS9 because the early seasons of DS9 started far quicker so like they really hit their groove a lot quicker than Voyager a lot quicker than Next Gen. They just they just seem to get into their characters and they really started to interact so well and a lot of the plots like I don't know I guess I just I like there was a lot more to me I felt like there was a lot more character development yes there was a lot more character driven stories yes it's due to the nature of the fact that it wasn't a starship always on the move yeah I had to do a lot more creatively to keep it interesting and I just I liked it a lot better yeah I agree can absolutely agree and I for that and and I again I say I I did not feel that way when I first watched it, but on rewatch of them all, I feel like by the time they got into the Dominion War, that was just really gripping television. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, that's true. Now, DS9, yeah, I agree with everything you just said. Absolutely. And the only regret that I, the only thing I didn't like so much at the last season and a bit of DS9 was Vic Fontaine always being in it. It was okay for a while, but when you start leaning on a holodeck, you're like, "Again?" But apart from that, that one little blemish, it was pretty damn awesome. And Ben Sisko's a badass. But the ending of it, like him going back to the whole... He was the bloody... What do they call him? The prophets or the wormhole creatures or whatever the hell. Yeah it's like that was I think to some extent unnecessary. It could have easily just gone on that he was the emissary and he was just a human and that was all that mattered. There was no other special connection there that he'd been entrusted with and that was it. But it kind of went a little bit weirdish there as well. The other great thing about DS9 is that it had a really great villain the whole way through in Golda Kutt he was just you know absolutely brilliant you know and also Wei Yun in the last few seasons as well was also brilliant it's such a good such a good show and I look back on it and sort of you know they just don't make shows like that now I mean they just don't yeah which is a shame yeah but I mean I like Voyager as well it's just... Oh I liked them all I love all Star Trek. I don't have any that I dislike, but I just after re-watching I just I really feel like Deep Space Nine is the one that like if I just decided I was going to sit down and Watch some out of the blue that probably the one I picked. Yeah. Yeah, I recently re-watched the last I say recently like in the last six months. I re-watched the last three seasons of DS9 and Yeah, it was absolutely brilliant and the episode my favorite episode of DS9 was it was it was it was it it's the one where is it this not storyteller no that was the terrible one the Dow rock that was just silly no it was it was it was the one where Jake and there's a there was an accident and and Cisco gets sort of like thrown off and into another sort of like a dimension but he keeps on coming back like a rubber band for a period of time every so many yeah I remember that And Jake gets old and he becomes an author. When Jake was an old man, yeah. Yeah. And that is my all-time favorite DS9 episode. It's just so beautifully written. Like you said, the character development, the storyline was just absolutely brilliant. And I love that. And it just, it was lacking. There are a few episodes of Next Gen, you know, like The In The Light was a good example. And The Next Gen, that was a really beautiful story. And yeah, it's just, I feel like sometimes, though, that they- When I was, I think when I was younger it was like, you know, photon torpedoes phases and, you know, ships blowing up. Oh, that's so cool, right? Yeah. Whereas as you get a bit older and you rewatch it, it's more about- When you look at it a little more critical, you can see a lot of formulas. Yeah, exactly. And you're less interested in like, oh, ship got blown up. There you go. But you're more interested in the character development. So I think that's part of my issue anyway. So I see it differently, very differently now. [MUSIC PLAYING] [Music] [Music] (upbeat music)