437: This Time It’s Love (with Jay Miller)

This Time It’s Love (with Jay Miller)

Introduction and Guest Welcome

[00:00:00]

Christina: You are listening to Overtired. I’m Christina Warren, and I’m joined as always by Jeff Severance, Gonzo. And this week we have back one of our favorite guests, Mr. J Miller. Jay, welcome back to the pod.

Jay: What’s up? What’s up? Glad to, glad to be back. Glad to, to be here with the crew. I think I’ve been, now, I’ve been on the show with every variation

Christina: was going to say, I was going to say, you’ve, you’ve been on, like, every iteration you’ve been on with just like, like, uh, like, like, like Jeff and, and, and Brett. You’ve been on just with me and, and, and, and Brett and now with, with, uh, Mia and Jeff. So yes, you’ve done like the full, like, you know, uh, yeah.

Jeff: Due for a solo, solo episode, Jay.

Christina: Yeah. Oh, honestly, honestly, that that, honestly.

Jay: have a guess.

Christina: I was going to say, that would actually be hilarious if we’re like, okay, we can’t do it for hire this week. So we’re gonna have, uh, uh, Brian and Jeff, uh, no, Brian and Jay take it. Right? That would be, that would be like a

Jeff: That’s good. Yeah.

Jay: I can [00:01:00] see this happening.

Jeff: Well, it’s good to see everybody.

Christina: yes.

Jeff: Um, so Brett is out, uh, this week. Hello Brett. Um, wherever you are, specifically in the editing window right now, probably as you listen to this.

Linux Teaser and Framework Desktop

Jeff: Um, but yeah, Jay, it’s awesome to have you back and, um, I, I’m just gonna like spoil it for everybody and we’re not gonna start here, but I’m gonna talk about Linux and, and I don’t care who knows it,

Christina: Hell yes.

Jeff: but that’s just, that’s just a teaser.

That’s just to keep people listening.

Christina: Excellent. Excellent. Um, well, well, this is fun. I, I’m excited about this because I bought a, uh, a framework desktop a few months

Jeff: Oh,

Christina: and, and, well, well, more than a few months ago, but, but it arrived I guess like a month and a half ago. And, uh, it’s super, super fun. So I’m very excited to know. I didn’t know going into this, I, I didn’t look at the document beforehand, so I didn’t realize we were gonna be talking about Linux, but this is exciting for me.

Jeff: man.

Jay: I, I, I mean, I have some Linux stuff going on.

Jeff: I’ve got some Linux.

Jay: yeah, not as much as y’all. I [00:02:00] mean, but

Jeff: So,

Jay: a Linux box back there.

Christina: Hell

Jay’s Plant Obsession

Jeff: Jay, Jay, greet the, the listeners who have been waiting for the next Jay Miller episode tells how you’re doing.

Jay: Oh, I’m, I’m doing good. Um, I’ve, I’ve dealt with some, some title changes that don’t really mean anything, so we can just skip ’em. And I am. I’m just out here. We were, we were talking about this before the show started. Uh, I’m getting ready for a very, uh, stressful trip to Lavia next week. Um, now is not the time to be traveling like out of the country and trying to get back in

Jeff: You’re fleeing

Jay: def Well, I mean, you know, the, to be honest, YouTube video somewhere, Picon 2025, I sat on a panel and it was like, what do you tell folks who are wanting to come to like picon us in 2025 or getting ready for 2026?

And I’m like, to be honest, just don’t, like, I [00:03:00] wouldn’t tell you to miss out on all the fun, but also I can’t promise your safety, so Yeah, just don’t, so I’m, I’m rolling those dice, but, uh. Not much has really changed for me. It’s still working, still doing the same stuff, still talking. Um, I’ve become an obsessed plant person in the last year.

Um, so that’s fun. I think my camera has like five plants over there, and then there’s three more on the other side of the camera, and then I’ve got like another seven or eight downstairs.

Jeff: So it follows that you’ve become someone who can keep plants alive. Not that you couldn’t before, but I’m just thinking when people have plants, they think, oh, you’re a good person. You can keep them alive.

Jay: I mean, one could argue I bought so many because I keep killing them, but, you know, it’s, I’m trying, I’m, I’m trying to keep ’em going.

Jeff: What made you a plant person? Like what’s tell, I mean, that’s a thing.

Jay: Um, I mean, I’ve always liked plants. I, I noticed sometime earlier in the year, I don’t remember when it was, [00:04:00] honestly, that I was spending a lot of time like in my office and. It just felt horrible. Like it felt very drab and like I kept watching these like how to like spice up your, your office space and all this stuff.

And one of the things they talked about was like, get some greenery in there, like get a plant. Usually they say like, get a fake plant, but you know, there’s some benefits to also getting real plants. And I got one, I’ve had plants for a couple of years, but they were all like, I had like two plants downstairs.

I barely water them and they’re okay with that. But like I just started getting more and more and then all of a sudden I like blink and I’ve got like a monster behind me that’s, you know, doing its best. It’s living its best life. I saved it from the Home Depot, so, you know, it’s, it’s probably happier to be here than there.

Jeff: awesome, awesome. You know, I meant to say this at the beginning.

Meeting in Person for the First Time

Jeff: This is a hard pivot, but Christina, this is the first time we’ve been on the pod together since we [00:05:00] met in person for the first time ever,

Christina: I know, which has been months, which was so amazing. I was so happy to meet your beautiful family and, uh, your, your wife who’s amazing and, and your two sons, and like, that was so fun. Like that was such a great, I was,

Jeff: had lunch.

Christina: we, did we had lunch? Did you guys have a, have fun the rest of your time in Seattle?

Jeff: We had a good time in Seattle. We had a good time in war ravaged Portland, and we had a great time on the Oregon coast. Yes, it was awesome. Yes. But yeah, it was so, it was so weird because I mean, Jesus, you and I for what, three years now, have known each other through these little video boxes.

Christina: No, I mean that, well, it was finally, it was like, oh yes, good. Finally like a name, like to, you know, it, not a name for the face, but you know what I mean? Like a, like a face, like to, to the person that I’ve seen their face, but like now I really get to get to know it, which was really, really cool.

Jeff: awesome. So fun. I can’t believe that we have not recorded together since then.

Christina: I know. I know.

Jay: the last time I saw all of y’all. I think I haven’t, I still haven’t seen you in person, Jeff. That’s okay. I’ve got an event in Cleveland you [00:06:00] can come to, um, later this year. We’ll talk

Jeff: me, okay,

Jay: Well, actually I can’t talk about that. It hasn’t been announced yet, but spoiler alert, there’s an event in Cleveland that I’ll be at doing things.

Um, you should come. Um, but, uh, Christina and I met at scale. Right. And then, uh, I was just looking at scale to go back next year. So like a small world. And then Brett and I met, wow, that was probably like six. Was that before COVID? I can’t remember if the wood, the Woodstock, or Max stock that we went to was before or after COVID. I’m confused now.

Jeff: luck figuring that

Jay: been that long. It’s been at, it is been at least five years. Probably six or seven.

Jeff: Brett and I have only been in person three times, which is also crazy ’cause not only have we been doing this podcast, but we were working together for a while before that and I met him after being a guest on Systematic, like way, way, way, way long ago.

So anyway,[00:07:00]

Jay: This is the first company that I’ve worked for in tech where I’ve actually met all of my teammates. And that was, that was after like several rounds of layoffs and now it’s like, hey, some have, most have gone and now there’s like one person I haven’t met in person yet, but who knows? Actually I don’t even, I don’t have a team anymore.

It’s kind of weird, but again, like we’re not talking about that right now. Um,

Jeff: Jay, I have something. And it wasn’t something I initially put on our list to talk about. ’cause you have a couple of recent posts. I just want like, at least for you to touch on.

Conference Presentation Pet Peeves

Jeff: But you said you’re going to Latvia to talk to people about how to prepare for talks and I was just at a conference in which like whenever I met a conference, all my fucking pet peeves about conference presentations come up and I get like Larry David angry. Um, but I just want to, I really want you to talk about what you’re gonna talk about to prepare for talking.

Jay: Okay, so I’m, I’m giving two talks at, uh, Postgres Comp Europe. Uh, one is called [00:08:00] like, don’t Leak, PII, to ai. Um, those that love acronyms, we’ll get that like, Hey, it’s a lot of good best security practices. Like, don’t give this thing that you shouldn’t fully trust, like unfettered access to your entire database.

Duh. But you know, there’s some, there’s some more niche niche tips in there. But then, uh, I got asked by two former colleagues to do. Uh, to, for us all to team up and basically give this talk that is about what we call the speakers corner. Um, companies tend to have ’em, speakers, corners, speakers bureaus, speakers, whatever former KGB affiliated organization that we won’t call.

And then, like effectively the goal is to get a bunch of people in a room and let someone rehearse a talk. And it’s great specifically for folks like you, Jeff, who are, you know, might be a little pedantic, might want. Specific slides a certain way or you know, hey, you could just ink out a little bit more value from your talk if you [00:09:00] just did this.

This gives you a place to call home where you can, you can do that at the behest and, uh, consent of the people presenting, uh, whether it’s a upcoming post. I actually did this for my keynote, um, that I did at Picon US last year. Um, and we wound up raising like 20 grand. And one of the biggest benefits that I can like tie directly to that is someone in my speaker’s rehearsal said, yo, this is lacking the big call to action.

Like, you’re missing the donate slide. Like add, add the donate button, big text, give it lots of space. Let people do the thing where they lift, they, you know, lift the phone up to take pictures and like. Sure it works. So, uh, we’re just gonna talk about that. Whether you’re an experienced speaker or you’re giving your first conference talk, there’s something to benefit from these things.

So, yeah, we’re just gonna dive into that a little bit

Jeff: that’s awesome. In Lavia,

Jay: in la in, in Lavia. Yes. [00:10:00] Step one was indeed find lavia on a map. Step two was like, figure out how to get there. Step three was prepare slides.

Jeff: Nice. Oh, I’m remember that checklist. Next time I’m doing talks in Latvia. Um, uh, okay. So let me ask both of you and, and I can give one example just to get us started, but shit that drives you crazy, uh, about presentations at conferences, besides how unnatural it is to be at a conference in the first place as a human.

It’s like being on an airplane. It’s like we weren’t supposed to be here like this. Um, this is so small, it drives me crazy and I have done it, but I haven’t done it in a long time, which is when someone starts in a room and they believe they are the person that doesn’t need the microphone and they say, Hey, I talk really loud.

Can everyone hear me? And of course the people who can’t hear you are not raising their hand to be like, no, this sucks for me. But everyone who’s like, oh sure. And then you go ahead and you can’t hear anybody. That’s a huge pet peeve of mine.

Christina: Yeah, well this is especially true now that like a lot of these things are, are recorded, you know, or, or sometimes live [00:11:00] streamed, right? Like, like, um, although that’s changing a little bit now, places are like getting really weird where being like, oh no, we’re in person only we, we, we’ve completely forgotten that Zoom exists.

And it’s like, really, guys? Really? Um, but I so it, it was annoying for, for those folks, but also if there’s any sort of recording, but, um, even more so like I, I’m with you, like a, people can’t hear you. They won’t say it, but like, if people have questions and then you don’t repeat the question, you know, for everybody who can out, who, who’s out there, it’s like, that’s, that’s very frustrating to me.

I’m like, okay, I’m not saying you need to pass a microphone out because that can take a lot of time, but at the very least, you should repeat what the question that the person asked is before you answer it.

Jeff: Yes.

Jay: good for the recording. I mean, specifically for the recording, if it is recorded, like I don’t, I don’t hear what dude said. I don’t wanna rewind, so

Jeff: Yeah.

Christina: Well, exactly. Well, it’s good for that, but it’s also even just in person, depending on how big the room is, I might be able to hear you, but that doesn’t mean that somebody on the other side of the room can

Jeff: Also, I should say, I mean, related to this, [00:12:00] in this two day conference, the only one that was like even moderately accessible, meaning in this case it had live captioning, was the one about digital accessibility. That’s the other thing. It’s like a little, little shitty, but Jay, what? What do you got?

Jay: I don’t, I think, I think the biggest one for me is, I mean, it’s, it’s the classic like. I’m gonna read to you exactly what, like this is for code conferences. If you’ve got a hundred lines of text, like a hundred lines, like code lines on your slides, don’t, don’t read it. Like

Jeff: please.

Jay: you can point to samples.

Like I do that a lot. Like I will have like a large wall of text there and I’m like, look, I know this is scary. The scariness is for effect, but we’re gonna break this down in a way that we can understand. And then you bring in the boxes, you bring in the highlighters, you bring in like the little laser pointer thing.

You talk to those specific points and you keep it moving. But like, if you’re gonna tell me like, well, the first thing you do in Python is install your dependence. Like, we know, we know, I’m sorry. And if we don’t know, [00:13:00] again, that’s when you raise your hand and you ask the question and, and then they repeat that question.

And we, we remind ourselves that there are people of all different experience levels, but. I, I want, I want dynamic slides. I want slides that are doing something. I don’t want to sit there and look at text on white background with no images, no graphs, no charts, no dates, like nothing but just straight up text because I will fall asleep

Christina: Right.

Jeff: Right.

Jay: So like we don’t want that.

Jeff: I will snore. That’s a great point. That’s a great point. Um, I was, I was at a session, this conference was for nonprofits. I don’t work for a nonprofit, but we, we serve a lot of them. Kind of wanted to just know in this moment, like what people were talking about and afraid of and wondering and all this stuff.

Right. It’s obviously a crazy time to be a nonprofit. Um, although nonprofit can mean all sorts of things, but we’re all thinking of the same kind of nonprofits probably. And so they had [00:14:00] the very first session, the very first day was about what do the federal funding cuts mean for you. The Descript of it sounded like they were really gonna hit on the really important stuff.

The room was packed. I mean, there were probably 200 people there who were clearly there to just like. Be in a room together and figure this thing out. And the first 20 minutes of the hour long presentation was about the Johnson Amendment, which is just the amendment that kind of names that you can’t as a nonprofit, um, endorse political candidates.

So a little history about that. Then they did about 10 minutes on the government shutdown in which they. Said nothing that was relevant to these people in the room. And then they finally got into it after the lady showed pictures of her baby, which is another pet peeve of mine, because not everybody here has children.

Not everybody here likes children. Not everybody here can have children, even if they want to have children. So let’s not show eight pictures of your baby, um, when you’re already giving a shitty presentation. So this, this led, this led to my other, other, other pet peeve, which is when the time ran out, they had four slides left.

And what was the [00:15:00] last slide? Questions and answers. And this was a room where no doubt people needed to talk. Right? And they ran out the clock talking about stuff that was totally not, I mean, it’s the kind of thing where like when you can tell a talk’s not getting where it needs to go, you can almost feel it in your stomach, right?

Where you’re like, come on, get to the thing. Anyway, that was, that’s another one is like, and don’t cut it off when your last slide and then do this to the last slide. Question and answer. Say sorry, what didn’t have any time. That’s another one for me. Especially when people are hurting or scared. Right?

Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think time management is, is, is a, a big challenge for a lot of speakers. I definitely have had those experiences where I’m too early or I, or, or I go too long and yeah, you just,

Jeff: all the things I’m talking about.

Christina: Oh yeah. No, I was gonna say I have too, but, uh, uh, we definitely have. But, but yeah, but that’s one of those things you gotta just like keep it in mind.

I mean, and this is also why, at least for me, I, I can’t speak for anybody else, but like for me, like the one time that I ever like, was really off time-wise, that was like a really good indicator that was like, oh, I haven’t rehearsed enough. [00:16:00] This talk is not actually, like, I, I’ve actually, I’ve fucked up because I got like, you know, big ego brain, like, oh, I don’t need to

Jeff: I got this

Christina: this.

And you’re like, no, I don’t. I don’t. I actually had a talk in India, um, this, uh, this year, this was funny. I had timed it and I knew that I was on time. And then when I did my rehearsal, there were some issues getting the computer set up, and I knew that the time was still going, like for their thing. And so I was manually like subtracting, you know, however many minutes from it.

And then I get off the stage and they told me, they’re like, no, you went too long. You were w we’d accounted for it for the new time and you were this many minutes over. And I was like, okay. I really don’t think that I was. But fine. And so I cut a demo, um, from the talk and whatnot. Anyway, long story short, I wound up ending three minutes early, so like,

Jeff: like, yeah,

Christina: know, but, but, but they, but they drilled it into me so much because this was one where they were gonna be like, we’re gonna cut you off.

You know, we’re, we’re gonna start flashing big lights if you go too long. [00:17:00] Right? And, and, and I wanted to be respectful of that. I knew that there were a lot of people after me and I, I didn’t wanna, you know, keep people from their lunch or from anything else. Um, but it was one of those funny things. ’cause I was like, okay, but I’ve actually been practicing this.

This is a really long talk and I’ve already had to cut a lot of things out of I, and I, I thought that I had the timing. I did actually have the timing, but yeah.

Jay: Not, not to move this into a, a, the career conversation of, of how we give proper talks, but like there, there is this part of me that wonders very much so when it comes to presenting your, like I, I know people who are so prepared and like they’ve over rehearsed their talk. Like you, you can tell they are reading from like a mental script that they have.

And like that is, I mean, some people dig that, some people really love that. I think that there is something to, like, I’ve seen talks as a performance where like there’s music involved and people come on [00:18:00] stage and interrupt the talk intentionally to do a thing and it’s all like, it’s a bit, and to me there is a level of rehearsal about that that takes away from the moment of. People have kind of come in here to hear your expertise and that if you have prepared the talk that like that deep, just make it a YouTube video. At this point, like I feel like there has to be a little bit of, I don’t, I don’t know what the word is, but I would call it like organicness

Christina: Yeah, qua, there’s, there’s, yeah, yeah. There, there has to be a little bit of unpredictability, right? Like, like, so, so something makes me feel like it’s live, right? Like, I mean, honestly, this has been my problem with, with Apple’s, um, conferences and, and like events for the last few years, like since COVID, is that we always knew it was scripted and that they were reading off scripts, but there was, there were live demos, and there were, there were kind of these senses that like, okay, they are rehearsed to the nines and it is impressive, but this is like a live person doing this in front of me.

And now it’s like, no, this is, this is a video. Right? And, and that’s fine. It’s just, you know, that’s, that’s not [00:19:00] the same thing. Which, which to your point, yeah. If, if it’s gonna be so perfectly rehearsed down to the millisecond, maybe, maybe I, I don’t, I don’t know,

Jay: Like make, make it a video. Hey, play the video

Jeff: Well, and if it’s rehearsed that tightly, if you have some, all of a sudden it’s one of those sessions where everybody’s raising their hand, even though there’s a time at the end, which good for them. ’cause they probably predict that they’re, you’ve gotta be able to like, adapt. And if it’s that tight, you just end up kind of like, you know, being a little stuck,

Jay: Yeah. But I, I recognize that that’s, you know, that might be what people need to be comfort, you know, comfortable getting up on stage and presenting. Like, I, the more I prepare, the less comfortable I feel because it’s like, I’m trying to remember what I’m saying versus I know the, I know the context.

Like I know the content, I know the flow. I can speak to the flow. If I’m trying to think about the exact ways to say it, I’m going to wind up messing up. Whereas if I’m like, all right, well, I know that. Slide two is [00:20:00] me talking about this thing and I have approximately 30 seconds, like I will feel the 30 seconds of this slide talking about it or talking to it.

Christina: Yeah. I mean, I will say this though, I would rather someone, like if it were up to me, like I would rather see somebody who was super over-prepared and maybe even like robotic than someone who is not prepared. Right. Um, like, like, like I, I I’m with you. I think like it’s a better talk if it can be more organic.

I think organic is a, is a good word for it. Um, but, but I also, like, if I had to choose, I would rather take the person who is overly polished to the point that you’re like, is, is, is this a video? Um, versus, you know, the person who’s just trying to kind of, to muddle through it. And, and I’ve been in both of those situations, right?

I’ve both been the person who has probably given the same talk a million times and, and it’s very practiced versus person who’s like, oh, I’m actually completely doing this for the first time in person. And you can tell, you know.

Jay: us. Usually my third, third version of the talk is the [00:21:00] best one. Like some, most of the time you don’t get to the third one, but like the third version, I’m like, in my bag. I’m like, cool, I could do this blindfolded. It’s almost like Linux, you know? The third time you’ve spun it up, it’s, you might know what you’re doing.

Speaking of Linux.

Christina: gonna say listen to that segue. Listen to that segue. Um, actually though, but, but before we do that, I was gonna say, do we need to have a sponsor break?

Sponsor Break: Shopify

Jeff: Yeah, we should probably have a sponsor break. Um, and, and I’m, I’m happy to be, um, our sponsor break for today. Our sponsor today is Shopify. Look at Overtired. We’ve tried to sell merch before. It was a long time ago, but it seemed like, you know, you gotta figure everything out on your own.

You gotta do design marketing. Gotta figure out the sales platforms, like the whole deal. Um, it can be super overwhelming. We, we try to keep it simple, um, but every day, uh, can introduce a new decision that needs an answer. And when you’re starting off with something new, it seems like your to-do list keeps growing every day with new tasks.

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Supporting Python Devs in Latin America

Jeff: Now, before we go into Linux, um, I want you, Jay, to update us on Black Python devs. You had a post about supporting, um, Python devs in Latin America, and I would love for you to just like talk about that. And there’s also a call to action, if I’m not mistaken,

Jay: there better

Jeff: can give some money.

Jay: so yes. Um, so it’s been, yeah, it’s been a couple of years. Uh, black Python [00:24:00] devs is in its second year as a nonprofit, third year of existence, which is wild and like. We operate on about 20 to $30,000 a year, and that allows us to sponsor about 20 to 25 conferences. It looks like that’s what we’re tracking for.

Uh, and these are conferences, these are user groups meetups, um, across the u uh, different parts of the us. Uh, several in Africa. And this year I bitched and moaned about like, Hey, how come we we’re not sponsoring anyone in like the, in like Latin America and South America? Like, you know, I don’t know how people think about like, colorism in other countries, but you have several Caribbean islands.

You have several like, like places like Brazil, um, the last country I believe to like abolish slavery in the Americas. Um, yeah, there race is, is [00:25:00] a complicated thing. Um, so. Finally, we had a couple of people from Columbia reach out to us and we started sponsoring some places in um, Columbia, which was super awesome.

And then shortly while I was in the, the throes of trying to figure out this problem, we also had a, a friend of mine who now lives in Montreal but is heavily invested in the Dominican saying like, Hey, look, I understand that like in America, and I guess for people who don’t fully know, in America, there is actually this strange like black.

Black-ish doesn’t identify as black unless someone who’s not black is identifying them. Like there is this weird context around blackness that happens and it, it tends to happen a lot around like, uh, Puerto Rico, like Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Um, it’s why our president wants a nice American Super Bowl, although the halftime show is presented by someone from Puerto Rico, which is [00:26:00] America.

Yes. Um, these, these things are weird. So all of that to say, I’ve been thinking a ton about like, what, what is next? And a lot of that is just doubling down on what we’re doing in the us, doubling down what we’re doing, um, in Latin America and specifically Latin America. So this is my call to action, like, so everybody, everybody take a, a pin out, open a keyboard, do something like if you know of an event in Latin America and anywhere where there could be.

People who are we? We’ll even say indigenous, native, indigenous to that location. Um, so we’re talking about like Mayan ancestry, Aztec ancestry. Uh, we’re talking about people who were brought over to Latin America or their, at least their ancestors were brought over during slavery or the slave trade. Um, let [00:27:00] me know if there is some type of tech event happening and we are happy to support it.

Now granted, we don’t have a ton of money, um, but we do have some, and it’s what we’ve learned is having some is better than like. Not giving it to people. So like, let’s, let’s make that happen. And our goal is we’re gonna, right now we only have two events that we sponsor in Latin America. My goal is to triple that by 2027.

Um, I think we can do significantly better than that, but all of my advisors are like, you can’t keep making these lofty goals. Eventually you won’t hit one. Um, and I’m just like, shut up. You can’t tell me what to do. So again, at least six, I’m gonna say seven by 2027. And, uh, yeah, we’re, otherwise we’re doing great.

I’ve learned how to give other people responsibility and just trust that they do it. And it works like 95% of the time. And the five.

Jeff: success rate.

Jay: [00:28:00] Yeah, the 5% that it doesn’t work. Usually it’s my fault anyway. So like it’s, I, I’ve like delegated a task and then like something’s sitting in my inbox and I didn’t send it to them and I’m like, oh my bad.

I am the screw up here. Um, can we please try and fix this quickly?

Jeff: what does, what does sponsorship look like? Is it donating to the organizing costs? Is it sponsoring someone to attend?

Jay: um, usually we leave that to whatever the conference needs. Uh, the first few years we were very, very like, Hey, we’re gonna sponsor getting people to the, like, to the event. And what we learned was that injecting 30 or 50 people into an event that was designed to hold a certain number of people only causes more problems.

It increases all of the other budgets. Um, so instead now we just look at the prospectus, we donate, you know, at whatever sponsorship level we can. And I tell people my barrier to entry is like. If [00:29:00] you’re looking at the event and you’re like, I know at least two black people that could get to this event, like, it qualifies.

We, we’ll figure it out. We’ll work with their community to figure out how to make it like the best possible sponsorship that we can. But ultimately it’s, it’s gonna be, Hey, what needs do y’all have? Here’s some money. Like, address those needs. And I guess the way that we keep from, I guess, Nigerian printing, which I, I don’t like that phrase.

’cause now we actually do sponsor a significant number of events in Nigeria. So it’s like,

Jeff: Yeah.

Jay: it’s like, oh, we, we actually do sponsor a lot of those events, but our community members also attend those events. So usually if we’re sponsoring an event, we’re also showing up, we’re inviting people from the local area to join and get started.

So it’s, I, I tell people like, if you’ve ever wanted to donate to like a large number of diverse events, donate to us. You know, if we look at the whole Red Cross, like oh 0.3% of your donation goes to [00:30:00] bottled water, like 76% currently of your donation funds immediately go right back out into the community.

So like, if you really want your money to, to get to the community in like a impactful way, like black python devs.com, hit the support button, you can set up recurring donations. I tell everybody recurring donations are so much more important than big number on screen. Like I can plan a budget around $5 a month.

Jeff: You can plan. Oh my

Jay: Yes, take, take your $500 and just split it up in like $5 a month intervals. And then you’ll have given us like nearly, not as much, but that’s fine. Like we can plan around it, double it, make it 50, whatever.

Jeff: That’s such a great point, man. I didn’t really, I mean, I see the recurring stuff and I get it as soon as you say it, but like makes a lot

Christina: I had never thought about that either. And now, now I feel like kind of bad ’cause like I’m gonna have to shift like my giving patterns. ’cause usually what I do is that like I will give in, in the month of [00:31:00] October, because that’s usually when there’s like a big giving drive, like a, you know, a past companies that I’ve worked at or, um, on like giving Tuesday or, or, or whatever, you know, if, if there will be like a, a, an additional match that the companies will offer.

So I’ll usually try to do like my big, you know, donations like during those months, once a year. But, um, what I, what I should be doing, I guess, is looking about seeing if I can somehow get credit for that and, and donate, you know, on a, on a recurring level, um, or maybe make a. You know, maybe, maybe split it in two.

Right. Give like, if I, if there’s an extra match, give the bigger amount, like on giving Tuesday that gets like the double match or whatever, and then take the other half and, and say, okay, I’m gonna have that recurring over the course of the, of the year. ’cause that’s, that’s a great point. I never thought about that.

Jay: That’s been like, the biggest challenge for us was, again, we, we raised so much money the first year that we were like, okay, cool, we’re up. And then we knew that that money wasn’t coming around the second year. ’cause like [00:32:00] there was no big keynote, there was no big funding event. There was no like, congratulations we’re a nonprofit and getting featured and like the new stack and all this other stuff.

So we basically had to be overly conservative about how much money we could give out because we had no idea how much money was going to come back. And I think we’re still probably more conservative in how we we give than like we need to be. We could probably give a little bit more, but the, the challenge with that is we’re still very much in the infancy of like.

Hey, I didn’t know this community existed. There’s also like, people have questions about like, well, hey, how do I know my money is going to a certain event? Or like, you know, how much of my money is going to the US versus like Africa? And I don’t know why that matters, but people ask. And a lot of this stuff is, I mean, it’s hard for us to tell, you know, a couple of years ago the Python Software Foundation was like, yo, we have plenty of money to sponsor your events.

Come [00:33:00] get us. And then like the next year they’re like, we have to cut off sponsorships because we’ve given way more than we budgeted for, and way more than we expected. And like, my goal is to not ever have to do that. So in order for us to, to really budget effectively, it, we, we look at like what’s the bare minimum that we bring in, which is now about $500 a month.

And what goes out, which is also about $500 a month. Which I’m like, okay, cool. So like we can basically just. Give out what we’re getting in and then let that interest build up and let things just happen. And then when we have something that’s a little bit bigger, we wind up running these small campaigns for it, we’ll raise a little bit of money and then from there it’s like, okay, cool.

We now, we now have a little bit extra to support this big event. Like something like a pi ladies comp, um, that’s happening. So like we have to, like, I don’t budget this much in my own personal [00:34:00] finances and it’s so frustrating at times, but we’re, we’re extremely meticulous about like, like we are cheap.

Like our, um, our North American executor, the guy who runs North America, um, he likes to go down to Mexico just for vacation every year. And he came back with like $400 worth of shirts and stickers and stuff. And he was like, cool, I’ve covered our merch budget for the rest of the year. And I was like. We have a Canva account, like you don’t, like we can just drop ship to like, whatever you need.

And he is like, no, no, no, no, no. This is much cheaper. It’s fine. Um, so it’s, it’s been fun, uh, working with different people and seeing how different people like do things. But yeah, again, get out there, donate and also like take that advice that I gave you and give it to like other small nonprofits and stuff.

They, they might, they get really excited by big numbers. Trust me, I get excited by big numbers, but I’m more excited when I can go. I know that we can sponsor [00:35:00] this event because we’ve budgeted for this much going out based on what we’re bringing in every.

Jeff: That’s amazing. It seems like too, the way you’re set up, very simple. You could scale up if you scaled up. If all of a sudden you’re like, holy shit, somebody just gave us 10,000 more dollars

Jay: Yeah, well a a lot of that goes into like 10,000 more dollars. What does that allow us to do? And, you know, I had a, a great conversation we’re for those that dunno, we’re a part of the OME Foundation. Another linuxy thing, uh, we’ll, we’ll keep tying it back in, um, but it’s coming. But, uh, one of the conversations we had with, with them was, this was never meant to be a permanent, like, fiscal sponsorship agreement.

Like basically they are our bank account, they’re our insurance, they’re our lawyers, they’re our advisors. Like they teach us how to be a nonprofit. Um, but then they don’t have any say in, you know, how we operate outside of, Hey, you can’t give money this way because that’s illegal. Um, so other than that, they’re like, just letting us do [00:36:00] our thing.

But. Eventually we are planning on becoming our own nonprofit that’s in the works. Eventually I’m going to also step down and someone who like knows how to run nonprofits will come in and do that thing, or I’ll pursue that full-time. I don’t know. But we have to save up for that to happen. Hire, putting a lawyer on retainer is not cheap.

Getting, getting insurance because you’re, you’re like, nonprofit is called Black Python devs. And people want to ask about, well, what about white Python devs? And I’m like, they’re invited too, I guess. Like, cool. Like I’m, I am

Jeff: all devs matter, Jay,

Jay: I am dreading and planning for the lawsuit to eventually happen and like just having that money saved up and ready to go, like it sucks because that’s money that could go out into the community, but it’s money that we’re going to have to spend

Christina: No. Well, right. Well, no, that’s the thing, right? Is like you’re being, you’re thinking about this in a smart way. You’re like, it [00:37:00] sounds like you’re, you’re running this the right way. And you know, it, it’s hard to, to run budgets and, and to, to do these things with nonprofits. Like we’ve seen bigger organizations, you know, struggle with that, with with, with budget things.

I’ve seen that a number of times. So I’m, I’m applaud you for that. And, and also for, yeah, like either having the, the insurance, um, you know, the legal insurance, you know, about the potential lawsuit or, or having, you know, the, the things on file, you know, ready to go in, in case something like that happens.

’cause. Unfortunately, this is, it’s, it’s not like a, oh, this, this is a, a far off possibility of a thing, right? Like, that is unfortunately a very real threat that your organization faces. And frankly, I think that’s a thing that a lot of organizations like nonprofits don’t think about enough, which is like legal liability, whether it’s, you know, people, uh, trying to, to come up with bullshit lawsuits or not, right?

I mean, especially if you’re, you’re giving money for people to attend events and whatnot, you’re like, okay, you need to have some sort of insurance plan. Um, and, uh, I, I think a lot of [00:38:00] people who, when they start up, like they’re, they’re nonprofits, don’t even think about that. So I think you guys are way ahead of the game, so that’s, that’s awesome.

Jay: Yeah.

Jeff: man, that’s so cool. I’m glad, I’m glad you were here to talk about that. And I, I will, um, become a recurring donor and I’m sorry I haven’t done that till now.

Podcast Guesting and Braves Fandom

Jeff: Um, but I’ll,

Jay: Th this, this is what I do. I just guest on podcasts and then get the host to spot to donate.

Jeff: Jay did not put me up to this topic.

Jay: I was actually surprised to see it in there. Like, again, I forget what I write about. I’ve been wanting to blog more and genuinely I was, I was sitting at Los Bravos night, which I mean, see a couple episodes back. Big Braves fan this year. Sucked. Uh, first season tickets this year sucked. Um,

Christina: Well, well see. See, now, now, now, now you’re a real Braves fan because that’s, that’s how it goes.

Jay: pain. Yeah, that’s, it’s just the pain. I, but yeah, I’ve, I love Los Bravos night.

Indigenous People’s Day and Baseball Anecdotes

Jay: Um, we’re recording this on [00:39:00] Indigenous People’s Day. Um, trying to explain to like my 7-year-old daughter, like. What indigenous peoples means has been great. But then like she got the connection, she’s like, oh, like Los Bravos.

And I was like, kind of, um, but your, your heart’s in the right spot. I see what you’re, I see what you’re doing here. Um, but it was, it was a great moment and it just reminded me of, you know, a year before I had taken again, said friend from Montreal who’s in the Dominican, um, I was like, Hey, we’re going to a baseball game.

And he’s like, are you inviting me to a baseball game because I’m Dominican? And I was like, I mean, I’m going to the game either way, you can come with me. And he was like, well, that’s fine because I’m Dominican, I love baseball, and like, this is, is how this works.

Jeff: I must bust your balls.

Jay: But, but you know, he runs a couple of orgs in Santa Domingo and I think, I think we’re going to, you know, we’re gonna wind up giving him like $1,500 next year.

We gave him like 500 this year. Um, so, you know, we got more of that on the way.

Jeff: That’s [00:40:00] awesome. And that’s kj miller.com

Christina: KJ

Jay: miller.com for the blog, black python devs.com for the nonprofit. Um,

Jeff: Awesome.

Christina: We will, uh, we will have all those links out there. Um, I did just wanna say, uh, while we were speaking about baseball, um, so I only fuck with baseball in the postseason. I, I can’t bo be bothered

Jay: been so good.

Christina: but, but, but I love the postseason. I like love postseason baseball. Like I get very into it and, and uh, you know, um, obviously, uh, four years ago, you know, the Braves did win and I was very excited.

I was in Atlanta when that happened. And like, as much as like, I don’t, I don’t like claim ’em as like my main team anymore, but like, that was the team I grew up going to see. So go Braves.

Mariners’ Historic Game and Baseball Memories

Christina: But, um, but the Mariners are doing incredibly well. And I don’t know

Jay: out Big dumper.

Jeff: saw,

Christina: I, I, I don’t know if either of you saw the game on Friday.

No, seriously. Yeah.

Jay: does,

Christina: on Friday night.

Jeff: night I did not see it. No, but I should be tuning in. Okay.

Jay: I was say, Jeff, do you understand the context of Big Dumper?

Jeff: [00:41:00] understand the context of big Dumper, and it made me really happy to hear that

Jay: I feel like I would have to explain this with Brett. So, uh, Brett, since you’re, you’re not here, big Dumper is the catcher. His name is Cal Rowley. He broke, king Griff Junior, single season, met, uh, Mariners record for home runs.

He broke Mickey Mantle’s switch hitting home run record. Um, he broke Mike Piazza’s, like dedicated catcher, home run record, like absolutely ridiculous. Dude is amazing. And also he has a big ass like that’s

Christina: he is. He’s, he’s the biggest ass

Jeff: and because it’s baseball, that means he’s the big dumper forever.

Jay: Yep.

Christina: No. And he’s an incredible player. But, but so, so the game, so basically like to get into like the, the playoffs, um, uh, which, um, so the, the Mariners are the only major League team who’s never been to a World Series. And, uh, and, and like that’s much, much to like our, our eternal like seattleite, like shame, right?

And there was, you know, they got close, um, a few years ago and then [00:42:00] like, blew it. Like they were up, like so many runs. And then like to the point that like, I stopped watching. I was like, oh, well they’re gonna win, and then they lost. And I was like, well, that is such an Atlanta team move. I, I guess I’ve brought the, I, I guess I’ve brought the, the, you know, Atlanta team energy to, um, to Seattle.

But no, the, the game, um, against, uh, the, um, the Tigers on Friday night went 15 innings. And it was, it was completely tied. And like finally at the bottom of the 15th, the, the Mariners were able to, to, to get, um, a run. And, um, and honestly it was partially because of Big Dumper. He wound up getting out, but him getting thrown out, like set up a play that then this, this guy who was a pretty shitty player to be honest, um, managed to get a hit off.

And like, we all love him now, but, uh, but no, the, the downtown area everybody was, was screaming and cheering and it was, it was wild. ’cause that was honestly like one of like the most insane baseball games I’ve probably ever watched. 15 innings, like, like [00:43:00] last time I screamed that much. Which, which

Jeff: I love a good, excessive, excessive inning baseball game.

Christina: No. Totally, totally. I mean, I, I, I was saying to my husband, I was like, I think the last time I yelled this much was probably when the, when the Cubs won the World Series, um, in 2016. And, uh, ’cause I think the neighbors had to like knock on the wall in Brooklyn then. And I think before that, the time I yelled as much was when the, the Falcons lost the Super Bowl, which I’m still mad about.

And, and, and I was like, and, and, and like, let the Patriots just like walk all over them in the, in the fourth quarter after they were up. So it was, ugh. I’m still, I’m still pissed about that, but, uh,

Atlanta’s Unique History and Museums

Jay: welcome to Atlanta. Uh, a city that loves to like name their sports teams after a fire that happened in the Civil War, I noticed that like we used to have the Thrasher, which was like a bird on fire. And then you have like, there’s a, like a blaze team that’s there, and then all their minor league teams are called like the blaze, the fire, the flame.

And I’m just like, dang, y’all really hated history.

Christina: [00:44:00] Yeah. Yes. Oh, dude. Growing up, like learning, like history, like Georgia history, like in Atlanta, like, it was very weird because we’d had like these two like dichotomies where like they would, and, and you would know, like I would know as a kid that like, this is not correct. Like, we would be going in the same year, we would go to both the Margaret Mitchell house Okay.

And we would go to the Martin Luther King house.

Jeff: Mm

Christina: A little, little bit different. Little bit

Jeff: They call that both cider.

Christina: yeah. Well, but they wouldn’t even try to draw, they wouldn’t even try to draw like any parallels being like, oh, well, can we see how maybe the actions of like this sort of thing that we’ve lifted up led to this thing?

No, there was none of that. It was just like, oh, well we, we, we need to take the buses someplace so that the kids can, you know, go to a field trip and. So we’ll, we’ll all go to a plantation house and, and celebrate that bullshit. Um, and, uh, but then we’ll also go to the n Kay House, you know, and, and, and pretend that the civil, you know, rights movement was different than it was.

Jay: And after that, the world [00:45:00] of Coca-Cola,

Christina: Yes. Which gr which granted is the greatest museum in, in the world. Um, it’s not, but, but, but, but in terms of corporate museums, it’s actually worth your time. If you’re ever in downtown Atlanta, it’s like $5.

Jay: it, it’s good to go to at least one time,

Christina: it is. You wanna go one time?

Jeff: that has cocaine in it.

Christina: No, no. But you can. Yeah, no, no. But you can sample every other type of coke in the world, so

Jay: including the most disgusting one

Christina: yes.

Jeff: which is,

Christina: just,

Jay: I ever, or Beverly. I can’t remember if it’s, or that’s.

Jeff: yeah. What is that? I, what is that? I don’t know. Beverly

Christina: syrup.

Jeff: What is it? It’s like, is it in the US or is it something that like exists in Latvia? Yeah.

Christina: It’s like, it’s like Germany, I think or something, but like, it’s, it’s bad. Um, no, but. Italian. Yeah, it was one of the ones in Europe. But, um, yeah, it’s one of those things where, so they have like, you know, like the, the machine where you can taste every Coke flavor, but the thing is, is you can actually take taste Coke from like every region of the world.

So it’s not, so, it’s not like, [00:46:00] so it’s not like a normal freestyle machine. It’s like the, the, the real good freestyle machine. And then of course there’s like the corporate, you know, video set. I mean, it’s a corporate museum. It, it, it’s, it’s great propaganda. Um, uh, and, uh, but hey, if you’re downtown, if you’re there, if you’re in Atlanta for a conference and, and you happen to be in the downtown area and like you don’t have a lot going on, like it’s not that expensive.

It’s a really go at least once. Honestly.

Jeff: Awesome, awesome. All right.

Linux Adventures and Distro Discoveries

Jeff: It’s Linux time

Christina: Yes.

Jeff: and I know, you know, we’ve got gratitude to get through. Um, and I don’t mind this being like my extended gratitude, but I actually, there’s, I wanna see what conversation comes of it.

If you all have a little more time. Um. So, okay, so I, the, the, the, the joke in the show notes was, it’s that time of year, again, Jeff’s using Linux, but the, the other piece of it is like, this time, it’s love. And, and I’ve always like, truly once a year I pull out my think pad and I, I install some distro.

’cause I just feel like being in a [00:47:00] different world, a different environment. I have never since Tahoe, I have never felt more a desire to be in a different environment in my computer. Um, I haven’t even. I haven’t, no, I haven’t put it on my main computer, but I have a monitor. I’m looking up at my monitor.

That monitor is attached to a Mac Mini. And I went ahead and I put it on, and it is, we don’t need to get into it. It’s well documented. It’s truly hideous, and it, and it scares me that this thing that I’ve loved for so long, whatever, blah, blah, blah, we’ve all heard it. Um, there’s also sort of a little bit of a, of a, of a YouTube phenomenon right now of the, of the YouTube video that talks about this distro I’m using now, which is, I believe pronounced Achi.

When I watched the videos from the creator, it, it is spelled O-M-A-R-C-H-Y, like anarchy, but om at the top. I was hoping it wasn’t some kind of weird, like Buddhist

Jay: see. I just given, given who the creator is, which I’ll, I’ll let you answer who

Jeff: Uh, okay. So I was hoping to be able to say that last,

Jay: no, no, no, no, no. Lead,

Jeff: because [00:48:00] there’s a problem. There’s a, there’s a huge problem here, which is that it’s created by David Meyer Hansen, DHH, who among many other things created Ruby on Rails, but that’s not the reason we’re all groaning. Um, and he also, he’s at 37 Signals, which is another reason to groan.

And this thing lives on the 37 Signals GitHub. Um, so there’s lots of groaning, uh, about this thing. And maybe I’m a terrible

Christina: though. I’m sorry. It’s a

Jeff: Oh, my. God. So basically like what what was interesting to me is it was pitched, who’s the guy of the prima, the pri, the,

Christina: Yeah. Prima. Yeah.

Jeff: YouTuber, prima Primo, who I have like a guilty pleasure.

Um, I, I watched

Christina: entertaining.

Jeff: He’s insane. And uh, and he just had a post that was kind of like the thing that you’re seeing, which is like, Tahoe sucks. Windows is a mess. Is this the year of the Linux desktop? Which by the way, that is a post I see every year, and it will never be the year

Christina: And it and, and and the answer is, and the, and then the answer is no. It’s like, it’s like, and if it is, it’s like Steam O West, which [00:49:00] barely counts, but yeah. Anyway,

Jeff: And will it be more

Jay: a hot take on that. I do think that the year of Linux will happen, and it’s gonna be in the worst way possible. Windows will eventually just become a Linux dis.

Christina: Yeah, I mean, I’ve, I’ve had, I I, I’ve had that thought too. Um, the problem is it’s ’cause I know a lot of the Windows kernel folks, the problem is, is like the NT kernel is actually quite good. Like, this is like the problem, like the Windows kernel is actually in a lot of ways better, sorry, Linux guys. It’s the, the problems with, with with Windows are not at the kernel level.

Um, but, but yeah, I, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s like, I, I kind of had that theory for a long time too. I was like, oh, Microsoft is just gonna wind up making windows, but

Jay: single, single text prompt in the middle, powered by copilot and everything else is a Unix like

Christina: see. We’ll see what, what you just described. So this is my, my theory, my hot take is that, yeah, it’ll be similar to yours, but it’s, it is the year Linux accessible will be when OpenAI, uh, comes up with, with the chat, GPT Os.

Jay: Mm.

Jeff: Oh

Jay: That replaces like all the chrome boxes out there.

Christina: Yeah. [00:50:00] Or, or Mac os, right? That goes after the whole thing, right? Because they’re not gonna do their own kernel, they’re not gonna do their own thing. But like, I do feel like they are gonna wanna have their own operating system, um, so that they can have full control over stuff that you can do. And, uh, unfortunately guys, I think people will, will try it.

Jay: Oh yeah,

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay, so I see, I see a post, I put aside the signals and the David Meyer Hansen thing, and I, and I loaded onto my think pad. Um, by the way, the first time I ever heard someone talk about a ThinkPad was weirdly Henry Rollins in a live show, um, where he was just discussing his computer. And this was in like 95 maybe.

So whenever I open my think pad, I also think of Henry Rollins, which is super weird.

Jay: ThinkPad is the unofficial Linux laptop. I think the official Linux laptop is the, uh, the framework, but like the

Jeff: yeah, exactly,

Jay: the unofficial one is like that ThinkPad you got in 1996 that is

Jeff: Yeah, totally, totally. So this, I mean, what everyone will tell you this thing, it stalls super fast. It is, it’s [00:51:00] based in Arch Linux, but it’s not actually terrifying, like Arch Linux

Christina: No, the defaults are really sane and good.

Jeff: oh my God, you go in, the defaults are amazing. It uses Hyperland, the like Windows management thing, window management thing, and Linux, which means that like you’re just like right away.

The keyboard shortcuts are there. They’ve done a nice job of just making a really digestible list of keyboard shortcuts so that, like when I log in, I hit Super O and obsidian opens, I hit Super B and my browser chromium opens, which you can change of course. Right? And, and you’re just like, you’re, you’re moving through it so quickly right away.

And none of the experiences I’ve had in the past with Linux, which is like, okay, now I’m gonna go over here and this thing’s over here. Like, it all is just like at my fingertips. And it’s beautiful, it’s beautifully put together. And I was more than any other time, it was instantly. Able to be my work computer, like within, I’d say about a half day of just setting it up and playing.

I was like, oh, I can use this every day now. And, and I am playing with that. I’m not on it right now, but like I have been using it for three days as [00:52:00] like my main computer. And that operating system is beautiful. I love, I love being so free of my mouse, but I also love that like there’s just little touches, like when you’re using your mouse, if you have three windows open and they’re all configured, just so whichever.

Whichever window your mouse is hovering over is the active window. And that, that is like, that little piece of like hyperland magic is so fucking beautiful. Um, so anyway, like I dove right in, I started using it. I love it. I’ve been customizing it. And here’s the thing I realized is that this is the first time that like this really hit me and that’s stupid.

But the kind of user I am in this podcast is, is this room is full of people like this and this, the listeners of this podcast are like this. I do so much of my configuration on my Mac from text files, right? Like I’ve built a world like that and all of a sudden I’m in this os where I’m like, oh, right.

That’s just what it all is. And I’m already doing that. I’m already finicking, like I’m already doing so much. Custom configuration wherever I [00:53:00] can in a text file and like, let’s just fucking admit it, I’m like a Linux guy like a little bit already. And so like that’s the other thing going into this, it’s really easy to just start bouncing around between config files, just making your changes.

So I am, I, here’s my hope and, and we’ll see what happens. I’m hoping it is at least my month of the Linux desktop. And I don’t know if I would go further than that, but like it is truly the first time I’ve sat down with a distro and been like, this could be my everyday computer. And that’s kind of amazing.

Uh, especially just being a Mac person for I think since 2002 now. Um, and, and to have it feel that like natural, the last time I remember feeling that way is when I went from like when I went to Mac and I opened it up and I’d never used a Mac and I was like, oh, this, I can do, this could be my everyday thing.

So it’s kind of interesting. Takes that long to get there. But, and the other thing I’ll say is if I’m staring up at my Tahoe. Interface right now. And all these fucked up, rounded corners, man. These are the, these are the most not rounded corners [00:54:00] ever in this distro. And it’s gorgeous. There’s no chrome, man.

It’s just a box. And there’s your thing. Beautiful. Thanks for

Jay: I, I haven’t upgraded my, I’m still in Sequoia, so

Jeff: Stay back. Stay back. Stay there.

Christina: Yeah, yeah. I’m still in Sequoia too. I think I’m about to be forced on one machine to be on Tahoe and fine, whatever. But like, I’m, I, I’m, I’m waiting until like the, the.one update, right? Like I, I, I put it on a VM and I was just like, Nope. Nope,

Jeff: It’s really, really awful.

Jay: I, I don’t really have a, a complaint about I, I’ve, I’ve called it o Markie this long, so I’m just going to, I’m not gonna be able to say

Jeff: Oh man. Can I, can I get behind you and say, oh, Omarie, because, just ’cause David Meyer Hansen says, Archie Ochi doesn’t mean I have to.

Jay: like.

Christina: yeah. I was gonna say, I called

Jeff: I don’t follow him at all.

Christina: Um, he, they, they have another [00:55:00] distro, which is very similar, which is like Oma Cub, uh, which is like a, a, a similar option, but it’s Ubuntu based rather than arch based. And it uses OME rather than Hyperland. But it’s a similar setup for people who maybe, you know, may, may maybe like the, the archness and, and, and the hyperland ness is, is too much for you.

So you want like more of a, you know, um. Linux mint style thing, but with, again, with sane default set up for people who are coming over from a Mac. Um, and probably like work in developer spaces. ’cause like that I think is basically part of why the, the d why erky works for me. Why I really like it as a distro is it’s very clearly like the people who are working on it.

Um, which is not just DHH, right? Like, I mean, we, we can all like turn our noses up about like that aspect and I, and if, if that is a deal breaker for you, totally get it, whatever. At the very least you should look at what the defaults they do have are. Right? And, and if you wanna build your own thing and customize your own thing, maybe that makes sense because I, I will say like.

They, they [00:56:00] make sense for people, you know, like us who are like Mac users and don’t wanna deal with the typical Linux bullshit, which is still around. Right. And, and it’s, some, some people really get off on it. And I love that for you. Like, I’m not trying to, you know, like

Jeff: I love that

Christina: can’t have that. I do, I do.

I, I, I love it. For you. Like, that’s your favorite thing. Please, by all means. Like, I love this. That is not the thing for me. I, I want, ’cause usually what winds up happening, the reason, like when I looked at a Markey, I was like, oh, this actually does a lot of things that I would naturally kind of install and, and actually does some things better that frankly I never wanted to take the time to bother to do.

And you know, it was really been designed by people who were like, no, I really do enjoy, you know, what Lennox offers me because I’m annoyed with Apple, um, for whatever reason. And, and, and Windows is a non-starter, but I don’t wanna deal with all the, the, the bullshit stuff. So, um. If, if, if that, that’s worthwhile.

But, but Oma Cub, or however the hell you pronounce it, is much more, you know, just based on the standard Ubuntu, um, stack, which, which some [00:57:00] people like more because they, they don’t wanna, like, if you’re not used to a tiling, um, the window manager thing and, and controlling things from your keyboard, like, I like Hyperland, but like some people might not.

Jeff: Yeah. Oh yeah,

Christina: that’s, that’s a good one too.

Jeff: Yeah. Oh yeah. I’ve never looked at it. That looks good. Also, shout out to Lazy Vim, which comes with this thing, and I’ve been, I’ve been doing config files in Vim for three days, and I, I’m fine, like, like high level Vim. I’ve always enjoyed, but I usually bounce on that one big time.

But I’ve really been loving it,

Jay: I am a big fan of Lazy Vim.

Jeff: so Good.

Jay: Vim on the Daily. Um, I mean it, what, what I feel like this is a call to like the ai, the, like the AI of everything, all of this stuff is that we all genuinely just stopped carrying a long time ago. And like I, people used to want to have like nerd clout and it’s like, oh yeah, I spin up Arch with Hyperland and da da da da da.

Like my arch [00:58:00] box doesn’t have. Like any gooey on it. And that’s because it’s literally there to like run, docker, run. One of the things that we’ll talk about in gratitude and then a bunch of other, like just docker containers that I have on my own personal network with tail scale like that is, its only purpose.

And like, as I’m hearing this, the, like, there’s, I would, there’s no reason for me to, to try a new distro. And it’s like, I don’t want to think about it beyond, oh crap, the power went out. Let me go and like turn that back

Jeff: Yeah.

Jay: And I, I love that Linux is finally getting to that point. I think that’s great for Linux.

I wish that like a Mac would probably also get to that point sooner than later and like, Hey, stop adding stuff and instead maybe just like make it easier for me to navigate around the stuff that I want to navigate around. I literally asked. [00:59:00] Like my phone the other day, Hey, open the calendar to March, 2026 because I need to plan for the future.

And it could not process the thought of like literally it, it didn’t even open up the calendar. It was like, let me ask Chad GPT how to do that. And I was just like,

Jeff: Oh,

Christina: Right, right. Wait, wait, we, no, I mean this is the problem, right? It’s like we’re so close in all these other areas where we can automate so many actions of our lives and we can be like, do this, right? And like that should be something that should be table stakes. Where you should be able to, like, what is the point of Siri?

Whether it is like on your desktop, where I obviously always have it disabled because who in the hell would ever wanna use it on the

Jeff: Yes.

Christina: or on your phone if it can’t even do those things for you, right? Like sometimes it will, like I used to always joke, oh, well it’s great at setting timers at least, and then like it stopped being able to set timers well,

Jeff: Yes.

Christina: even, you know what I mean?

But, but yeah. But you, but to your point, Jake, like you should

Jeff: tyranny of low expectations.

Jay: yeah.

Christina: But you should be able to be like, open my calendar to this date and do this. Right. And like, and, and the annoying thing is, is that with like AI [01:00:00] agents, which are, you know, sometimes kind of sus like, I always wanna like watch behind my back.

Like, what are you actually doing? Am I actually trusting you with this stuff? And like my answer right now is no, I’m not going to give you full access to my calendar and email and all that stuff. Um, but if I were to say that like, you know, in like a, in an agent based, you know, scenario, it could do that for me.

It would actually have the ability to do that. So it it, it’s frustrating that it’s like, okay, uh, the core OSS don’t, and I also think you’re right, Jay. Like, yeah, we’ve all kind of gotten to this point where we, the, the nerd cred of, oh, I’ve, I’ve hand rolled this by, you know, from scratch is, is a lot of us are over it.

Some people still are really into that. And again,

Jay: that’s getting people laid off. Now, if you don’t know how to use AI, and instead you have to roll it yourself like you are now, like at your own detriment in your career as a professional developer.

Christina: No, this is absolutely true, but I’m just saying if this is like for a passion project, this is like a thing that you personally enjoy doing. I’m not trying to king shame you enjoy it, but the rest of us, it’s like, no, [01:01:00] we, we just kind of want it set up and, and doing what we wanna do and, and, and then go from there, right?

Like, I, I don’t wanna, I, I like to be able to customize and I like having the control, but please don’t make me set all this up. Like, please let, please let me use lazy them.

Jeff: Yes. Amen. Also, I had a funny experience where, and this is just how Linux forces you into a little bit of a purity mindset, where like you can also just log in, hit super A and chat. GPT comes up and as soon as it came up I’m like, ah, you know what man? I don’t want you at this party. It was just a, you know, little purity thing came up.

I left it in the party though, but I did get rid of Basecamp and Hay, which comes loaded. They both come loaded as, as web apps. That’s like number one.

Jay: Yeah, that’s a,

Jeff: Hey, no,

Christina: I mean, look,

Jay: a.

Christina: I mean, look, if if they’re gonna de I mean, it is what it is. I mean, this is why like, you can remove things is why it’s open. But I mean, I, I, I, yeah, I, I I guess that’s, I mean, you know, gotta, if you, if you, if you have a whole [01:02:00] bunch of people who are never going to use base cam, never going to use Hay, who are using your Linux er all of a sudden who may or may not agree with your, uh, pretty awful world views, especially around immigration, um, I guess you still have to try to put a little bit of like PWAs by default to try to see if you can get some traffic.

I, I don’t think it’s gonna be successful, but there you go.

Jay: there’s gonna be o Marcy, that’s like O Marky with no d, HH in it, and they just remove all the apps.

Christina: I mean, honestly, I’m kind of surprised that hasn’t happened already because like, you know, all this stuff could just be workable and like, I mean, it would, it would require some maintenance, but like, yeah, where is our, our Rocky Linux of, of, uh, of the O mark, you know, um, red Hat, uh, world. But yeah.

Gratitude and Tech Recommendations

Jeff: Well, let’s call that my gratitude.

Christina: Excellent.

Jeff: Who wants to go next? Um,

Christina: Um, I’ll, I’ll go quick because, uh, I, I, I like what Jay says a lot and I wanna hear him talk about it. So mine, this is a Mac app. So this is, um, [01:03:00] one that I’d actually, I might’ve even mentioned, like one that was similar to this was paid a few months back. And if so, I apologize, but this one is free. So one of the interesting things, you know, that’s been around at this point for 18 years now is, is like quick look extensions on Mac Os, but with, um, with Sequoia, they changed how quick look extensions work in ways that are both better and worse, better in the sense that you can have a little more granular control except not as granular as you would want, because sometimes there are multiple quick look extensions that will do the same thing.

And depending on the order in which they’re installed is or enabled will, will depend on, on which one gets access to what. But, um, worse in that, you know, um, the, the distribution process is a little bit different, but one of my, um, my, my favorites is, is that there is a, um, an extension called, fuller Quick Look, and it is from a developer, I think I found out about this from, uh, it’s app ahead. Uh, and I think I found out about this from, um, [01:04:00] uh, John Gruber, but basically is just a, uh, Macs app that will let you, uh, basically view inside it’s 3 9, 9, sorry, I thought it was free, but it’s 3 9 9, so it’s still very inexpensive.

Um, basically lets you preview what’s inside folders or archives from a quick look and you can even sort how the tables work and, um, view everything. And so this is, like, this was back in the day, like first version of Mac Os um, uh, 10, um, uh, leopard. There was like a, I remember like a third party, um, quick look extension that somebody cobbled together where you could view a folder view from a quick look.

Um, but, but, but that broke I think after, I think it broke around lion or mountain lion. So it, it hasn’t existed for a while. Um, and so this is just, I don’t know, this is one of my most used things where, you know, I’m, I’m going through like a folder lesson, like it’s great, like a better zip. And there are a bunch of other archiving ones will let you view inside of a zip file, but viewing inside of a folder is different.

And what I like about this one is that you can sort. [01:05:00] Um, the, the things by like date or by kind or whatever you want, and just kind of have like a, a very nice binder like window, um, available in a quick look environment, which is really, really good. If, if you’re somebody like me who oftentimes has really big folders and you’re just trying to figure out, okay, what’s in here, um, is, is, is this the, the, the thing that I need or not, you

Jeff: and you can like, you can expand, you can expand folders and shit in there. I mean, that quick look, that’s amazing.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah. So, so that, that is my, that is my gratitude.

Jay: I love it.

Jeff: Awesome.

Jay: I’m guessing Brett has probably talked about this in the past. Um, if not, well then I’m talking about it for him, uh, for the first time.

Uh, mine is called LinkedIn. Um, I used to be a Pinboard person. I kind of gave up hope on the Pinboard, like it’s not the year of Pinboard. Um,

Christina: I still pay for it, but I’m with you. Like I, I still like pay my renewal every year, even though I don’t have to. And like, I’m like, do I need to,

Jay: [01:06:00] I exported everything and was like, uh, I think I’m done. Uh, but LinkedIn is like this, this self-hosted, it’s not a fork of pinboard. It’s like this other like link manager that looks a lot like Pinboard. Um, it’s by design and yes, I am hearing myself in your mic, Jeff. I don’t know what’s happening there.

Jeff: Oh, you’re hearing yourself in my mic? Yeah. Here, I’ll mute myself. Okay.

Jay: Um, but yeah, like it’s, it’s interesting in that even though it was meant to look like Pinboard, I really just wanted a place to keep all my bookmarks. And this is like the biggest AI story. Like my biggest use for AI is asking a question about a thing that I knew the answer to once before and I can’t remember where it was.

And I used to use Pinboard for that. So I would just automatically search Pinboard for the thing and it would be there. So now I just [01:07:00] use LinkedIn and as I mentioned earlier, like I’m not full on home labing, but I am definitely in this realm of wanting to have some level of ownership of all of my stuff that I’m doing.

Um, I don’t since, since we, I was last on the show, I deleted my ex account and then someone took over my ex username.

Jeff: Oh my God.

Jay: that was fun. Um, I think they’ve finally been blocked to the point that like X banned them, but I, I guess there’s nothing stopping that from happening again. Um, but I’m, I’m not like, I’ve, I’ve kind of given up on social media just kind of at large.

Most of my, like posts are coming from my personal micro blog that I just put on my own personal website. And a lot of it is, oh, hey, here’s a really cool link of a thing that’s happening. And then [01:08:00] I needed a place to store that internally that wasn’t my personal website. ’cause that still would have to like either make a weird round trip or like read through my files.

So now LinkedIn has two extensions that I, well, three extensions that I wanna talk about. One of them isn’t an extension at all. It’s Brett Terpstra custom C-H-C-S-S for LinkedIn, which. Makes it actually look more like Link Warden, which is like this other tool that’s, that’s pretty, um, I’ve got no other statement on it than like, it’s prettier than Pinboard, which was, you know, that’s, that’s a thing.

Um, the other

Jeff: that’s a thing.

Jay: yeah, that’s a thing. Like I,

Jeff: than Craigslist.

Jay: I, I barely go into the site, but when I do, at least I go, oh, that looks nice. Um, and then I keep going. The other one is both on, um, Firefox, so you can use it with Zen. Um, and in [01:09:00] Chrome they have this LinkedIning injector. So if you’re using DuckDuckGo or Google or Bing or whatever, you can write a search and then it will search your LinkedIn like server.

And if it pops up any results, it will actually place them on the side and say like, here are the results based on the stuff that you actually like have already said you like, um, which was fantastic. Um, and the third one is just the LinkedIn MCP and I I have told Claude, anytime you search the web, you must first search my LinkedIn to find out if I’ve already liked something.

Um, and granted it does slow down my queries by like. A second or two. But also, again, there’s just a layer of trust that gets built when it’s like, I’ve already vetted this page to be something that I want. So if you find the information in this, then pull from that page, don’t [01:10:00] pull from the internet and just grab anything.

Um, which is, you know, starting out. Obviously you just get a bunch of nothing, but the more you use it, the more it becomes helpful.

Jeff: Yeah. That’s awesome.

Jay: Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah, I remember Brett talking about LinkedIn and at the time I wasn’t in the mood to play. Um,

Jay: But now you’ve got a new lease on life. ’cause it’s the year of Linux.

Jeff: right. That’s right. I’m in the mood to play. That’s awesome. That was fun.

Christina: Yes. Great

Jeff: Thanks Jay.

Jay: Absolutely.

Jeff: Always good to have you. Um, awesome.

Wrapping Up and Final Thoughts

Jeff: Should we wrap this thing up? Should we, should we wrap it up?

Jay: Yep. You should always wrap it up.

Jeff: I would like for both of you to get some sleep.

Jay: Get some sleep.

Christina: Get some sleep.