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Hi everyone. 
My name is Patrick Akil and 

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joining me today is Paulina 
Force, Senior Software Engineer 

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over at MongoDB. 
And we talk about software 

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engineering culture. 
It didn't start in a vacuum. 

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It originated from somewhere 
hacking, do it yourself kind of 

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rebellious culture. 
That's what it was originally, 

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and you can still find it 
somewhere today, mainly an open 

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source in hacking communities. 
And what are the differences 

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between what we see now and how 
this originated? 

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That's what we discussed today. 
So enjoy. 

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Software culture has evolved, 
and I've never thought of 

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software culture being a thing. 
I just see what it is now. 

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Culture for me is like the way 
we do things here and the way we

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do things are like the focus of 
software has not really changed,

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at least like in my lifespan, 
being involved in this. 

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Yeah. 
But when talking to you, you 

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have a distinct opinion that 
things have changed. 

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Yeah. 
How did he originate? 

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What was like the OG software 
culture? 

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I mean, I, I wasn't born yet so 
I, I wouldn't have been there, 

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but I do like read a lot about 
it and like consume a lot about 

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it. 
And I was pretty early, I think 

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I was very extremely online 
already before a lot of people 

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were like when the word meme, 
for instance, wasn't like a 

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mainstream concept. 
But I think if you take it all 

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the way back, there's like a 
weird mixture between like 

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academia, like people coming 
from like math, physics, 

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engineering and stuff. 
But then also there are they 

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were already a little bit weird,
a little bit strange and like a 

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little bit solitary. 
And a lot of it was quite 

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counterculture also. 
And I think that's the thing I 

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get passionate passionate about,
as well as the the the kind of 

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counterculture aspect of it. 
And like the anti authoritarian.

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And yeah, I just find there's a 
lot of overlap with other less 

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profit focused things like 
cultural things like punk 

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culture, DIY culture, anarchist 
culture. 

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And now software is very, I 
mean, you know, you have like 

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the VC money and stuff, which 
is, I mean, I'm not going to be 

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disingenuous about it. 
I work for a publicly traded 

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company. 
Money is nice. 

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Yeah. 
You know, but like, I think I 

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think especially I saw a pretty 
big shift around like 20/17/2018

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when a lot of these like coding 
boot camps happened. 

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And a lot of people who 
originally maybe never really 

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considered software engineering 
is a job where then like, oh 

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shit, I never realized that, you
know, this is where there's 

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quite a bit of money to be made 
and there's such a high demand 

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that you also don't even need to
be super experienced to get 

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ahead and like to get a nice 
job. 

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And so a lot of people kind of 
shifted to software and kind of 

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missed that whole era of like, 
Internet culture and hacktivism 

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and all of that stuff. 
Yeah. 

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And I, I think it's a shame 
because it's, it's quite cool. 

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And yeah, I just feel like 
there's like an increasing 

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disconnect between the cultural 
aspects. 

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Yeah, yeah. 
I don't know how it evolved. 

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Like I, I think I started 
coding. 

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It must have been 6-7 years ago.
I started in operations and then

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I was kind of frustrated. 
I had some stuff in university, 

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but it was like data science 
oriented, so math, more 

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probability, statistics like 
that. 

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But it was really from 
operations where I, I wasn't 

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responsible in changing things, 
but I was responsible for 

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running things in production. 
Then I read about dev OPS and I 

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was like, yeah, this just dev 
OPS makes sense. 

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This what I have doesn't make 
sense. 

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Yeah, I think, I think that's 
the experience of most people 

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starting out, especially if 
you're like finding a job, any 

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job, and it's like you tend to 
find a job where best practices 

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don't really exist, Yeah, 
because people just don't really

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know about it. 
And then I think everyone has 

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that same experience of like 
breaking something in production

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just because like the, the 
appropriate guardrails are not 

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in place because, and also 
because there's this misguided 

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trust in developers like, oh, 
we're all smart people, right? 

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And it's like, it's not about 
being smart. 

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It's like, you know, I didn't 
sleep well last night. 

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I don't really know what I'm 
doing with this Engine X 

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configuration, Oddly specific. 
Yeah, and then that can destroy 

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your whole gateway. 
Yeah, which is what I did, yeah.

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Really. 
Yeah, no way. 

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Yeah, 'cause I saw my, I saw my 
boss. 

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It was it was one of these shops
that was just like a 0 

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guardrails basically. 
And I saw my boss just like SSH 

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ING into a server and just using
I think nano to just like change

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an engine X configuration. 
And you know, I was pretty 

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green. 
So I saw that I was like, OK, 

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this is what we do. 
That's it. 

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And I had SSH access to client 
servers. 

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And so I was like, all right, 
let's change this. 

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Engineer just took the whole 
shit down. 

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Oh, do you have a swearing 
policy on this? 

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Oh, no, no, no. 
OK, that's very good. 

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That's when you deal with me. 
Yeah, I mean, back to the 

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software culture, like I, I 
understand what we have now. 

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I see people starting up 
startups and their goal not 

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necessarily is to scale or to 
deliver value, but it's to exit 

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and like to sell this thing, to 
deliver value quickly and then 

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to sell it to a big company. 
And that's their model. 

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They're good at starting things.
They're good at finding product 

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market fit. 
They're good at building 

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something out, good enough to 
have it sell. 

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They don't want to do this 
follow through. 

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There's people that still want 
to do this follow through, but 

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those are like the two aspects 
that I see. 

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There's not this hacking or 
puzzling or like counter culture

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that you talked about. 
Like I don't see that. 

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Strangely, I think that was 
already a thing before and like 

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the the 80s and then I think 
there was already this thing of 

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like we're building because I 
think it also takes a certain 

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personality type to like build a
thing, get super excited about 

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it. 
Not just to like exit, which is 

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obviously way more the goal now,
but also way harder now because 

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like there's so much 
competition, but but not 

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necessarily to exit, but to like
build something cool quickly. 

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And then so I think there were a
lot of hacker types. 

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I mean, if you look at like the 
Homebrew Computer Club, and I 

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was saying that I think it was 
called Homebrew Computer Club 

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that had like Steve Wozniak and 
Steve Jobs and stuff, We're all 

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part of that as well. 
So you know, that was already 

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kind of a thing. 
Also Google being started from a

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garage and that sort of stuff. 
So not unheard of at the time. 

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Those are all hacker adjacent as
well so. 

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Yeah, I feel like like I've 
never hacked something. 

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I know that's like part of a 
security thing, but this, this 

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culture of like hacking, 
breaking, playing around, that 

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play around. 
I have. 

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I do see some stuff like from a 
puzzling mindset. 

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I like puzzles. 
That's always why I like solving

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problems in software. 
But not everything is a puzzle. 

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Some stuff is also, you just 
have to get stuff done and it's 

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building an API. 
Building an API is very 

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different from solving a puzzle.
Yeah, I think that's a very 

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different mindset. 
And that's like, well, I mean, 

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that stems from like running a 
business, right? 

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You have to deliver the value. 
I think a hacker mindset is much

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more about the puzzling and the,
the, the problem solving rather 

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than anything else. 
And I think also in a business 

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context, you still get those 
people who are like just simply 

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not interested in doing those 
menial tasks and really, and 

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they become like architects and 
stuff like that. 

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You know what I mean? 
They just have like different 

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roles I think because those are 
not the detail oriented people 

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that are going to really follow 
things through until the end, 

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but they're more like the big 
idea conceptual people, I guess.

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I just came out of an 
architecture training and maybe 

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specifically I, I came into it 
with a similar notion as you and

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it blew my mind that his 
architecture training, this was 

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Gregor Hope. 
He lives in Singapore. 

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He flew over for this training 
in person and in Netherlands. 

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And his training was mainly 
about only drawing, for example,

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an architecture diagram if 
there's a concrete question. 

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And he mainly focused on 
communication. 

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So if you want to have buy in, 
have empathy with your people, 

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figure out what the way to speak
basically to get buy in on a 

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certain idea. 
Be pragmatic, be practical. 

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Don't just draw a diagram to 
draw a diagram. 

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Be close to the people that do 
the work with regards to 

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software engineering and 
operations, he said. 

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I made my architecture team run 
operations to actually feel the 

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pain. 
You're responsible for building 

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a system run the pain of 
basically running it in 

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operations. 
Then you become a better 

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architect. 
I was like, that's interesting. 

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I think that's honestly like a 
really good because I think a 

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common pitfall for these very 
architectural types are they 

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want to build like like an 
amazing feat, you know, they 

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want to really design and then 
often it just leads to over 

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engineering, right? 
Like, and I think what he kind 

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of expresses from what I 
understand from you is very like

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DDD as well. 
So very domain driven design, 

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which also focus on focuses on 
this like ubiquitous language. 

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Like you have stakeholders that 
have to be very closely involved

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in like trying to understand 
what you're building and who 

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you're building it for and not 
just like, oh, look at this, 

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cool, I'm going to build the 
coolest system we've ever. 

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Yeah, exactly. 
You know this thing, talking to 

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this thing and yeah, yeah. 
It's a rocket ship, not what we 

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need right now. 
It's a little car. 

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Yeah, exactly. 
When we're talking about this 

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kind of do it yourself culture, 
at least the the more roots 

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where software engineering 
culture originated from. 

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Are there still aspects or in 
the current industry parts where

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you see that most? 
Is it in security? 

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Is it in observability? 
Is it in platforming? 

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I mean, honestly, no, I feel 
like because the the mindset 

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behind DIY culture is very anti 
capitalist. 

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Yeah. 
And so it does not fit really in

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a modern. 
So you have, you have companies 

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like Fairphone, for instance, 
where their whole, their whole 

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premise is we have this phone 
that's modular that you can 

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repair yourself. 
Whereas like profit margins 

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depend on us buying. 
You know, if you look at Apple, 

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you have to buy a new phone 
every every two years and you 

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cannot repair it yourself. 
Or, you know, they count on you 

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not being able to repair it 
yourself. 

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You could try but then your 
warranty is void. 

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Yeah, exactly. 
So, so DIY culture, there's a, 

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a, a very high is highly 
political. 

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It's it's anti consumerism, anti
capitalist. 

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And it's the focus is on like 
self-sufficiency. 

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And there's also like a sort of 
eco socialism thing tied to it. 

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Because if you're, if you're 
buying a thing that is modular, 

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that you know how to take apart 
and you know how to salvage 

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parts, you know how to clean the
parts, put it back together, 

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then the electronic waste that 
you produce is so much more 

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minimal. 
And it's, it's entirely 

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possible. 
Like if we were to just, you 

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know, even even if we look like 
before tech, it used to be 

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really common knowledge how to 
repair your clothes, right? 

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It's all the same thing to me. 
It's all the same. 

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You have, because you have 
hacker spaces for this sort of 

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thing, but you also have repair 
spaces, which is more of a punk 

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DIY culture thing. 
So not tech adjacent at all, but

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it's the same mindset of like we
repair our clothes, we don't buy

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new stuff, you know, and it 
just, it's all the same concept.

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It's minimizing waste, it's 
minimizing consumerism, it's 

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protecting our environment. 
Yeah, it's self-sufficiency. 

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What's your take then on on open
source? 

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Because I see parts of it 
overlapping but other parts are 

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just not overlapping. 
And then there's also currently,

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I wouldn't call it a trend 
because it's like a valid 

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business model, but productizing
open source projects. 

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Yeah, yeah. 
So it's interesting, interesting

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you say that because obviously I
work for MongoDB, but in the DBX

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department, which is basically 
the open source portion of it. 

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So, yeah, in terms of like open 
source being like open source 

228
00:12:18,400 --> 00:12:23,120
being productized, I do think 
for an ecosystem and for users, 

229
00:12:23,120 --> 00:12:27,440
it's important that like regular
releases are being done for 

230
00:12:27,440 --> 00:12:29,000
libraries and packages and 
things like that. 

231
00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:32,800
Because, you know, we have 
several packages that used to be

232
00:12:32,800 --> 00:12:37,000
kind of open source land and not
maintained by us that we've then

233
00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:40,840
taken over because that, you 
know, gives users a much more 

234
00:12:41,120 --> 00:12:43,560
like reliable. 
You can't expect like 1 

235
00:12:43,560 --> 00:12:47,200
maintainer who started this 
project by themselves to like 

236
00:12:47,440 --> 00:12:49,800
keep maintaining it over the 
years and keep everything up to 

237
00:12:49,800 --> 00:12:54,520
date sort of thing. 
So then to, as a business to be 

238
00:12:54,520 --> 00:12:57,520
able to offer like a reliable 
ecosystem to your users, which 

239
00:12:57,520 --> 00:13:00,080
you, you need to make money 
because there's this paid 

240
00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:04,360
product behind it, right? 
You need to ensure that that 

241
00:13:04,360 --> 00:13:08,040
you're the one maintaining it 
basically, because, yeah, then 

242
00:13:08,040 --> 00:13:09,880
you can ensure a healthy 
ecosystem. 

243
00:13:09,880 --> 00:13:14,920
So yeah, I think honestly, it's 
a really good business model 

244
00:13:14,920 --> 00:13:17,400
that we see these days where a 
lot of these open source 

245
00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:21,520
companies have this platform 
layer behind it, which drives 

246
00:13:21,520 --> 00:13:23,280
the open source portion of it as
well. 

247
00:13:24,240 --> 00:13:29,160
But yeah, open source again as a
culture also has very political 

248
00:13:31,120 --> 00:13:33,320
concepts, right? 
What do you mean by the 

249
00:13:33,320 --> 00:13:38,720
political concepts of that? 
So open source culture, like, 

250
00:13:38,760 --> 00:13:43,760
goes back to like the 70s, yeah,
which is very closely tied to 

251
00:13:43,760 --> 00:13:46,240
hacker culture, same origins, 
essentially. 

252
00:13:46,240 --> 00:13:50,600
And there's a lot of people in 
open source who believe in the 

253
00:13:50,600 --> 00:13:54,520
Internet as like, and technology
is like a public infrastructure,

254
00:13:54,680 --> 00:13:56,600
right? 
Like for the people. 

255
00:13:57,120 --> 00:14:02,440
And quite a few of them see as 
see like free information, open 

256
00:14:02,440 --> 00:14:05,800
information, accessible 
information as a human right. 

257
00:14:07,720 --> 00:14:10,920
And so that that includes open 
source software basically. 

258
00:14:12,120 --> 00:14:14,600
Yeah. 
So it's, again, it's the same, 

259
00:14:15,160 --> 00:14:19,280
it's a slightly different 
expression of this DIY thing, 

260
00:14:19,800 --> 00:14:24,680
but still the same sort of, 
yeah, pro people, anti 

261
00:14:24,680 --> 00:14:28,240
capitalist, kind of, it's all 
kind of a socialist construct. 

262
00:14:29,160 --> 00:14:31,960
That's why I saw it overlapping.
And I, I love this aspect. 

263
00:14:31,960 --> 00:14:34,920
And I don't know if there's a 
similar field where you have 

264
00:14:34,920 --> 00:14:37,520
something in place like open 
source, or you can have a 

265
00:14:37,520 --> 00:14:41,160
community around something that 
someone created, a single person

266
00:14:41,520 --> 00:14:44,280
that then gets embraced by a 
group of people that gets built 

267
00:14:44,280 --> 00:14:47,600
out to this platform that 
upholds or is like an integral 

268
00:14:47,600 --> 00:14:50,800
part of certain organizations. 
And then I fully understand that

269
00:14:50,800 --> 00:14:54,560
it cannot be maintained. 
It cannot be sustainable to them

270
00:14:54,560 --> 00:14:57,440
be maintained by the same group 
with regards to speed and 

271
00:14:57,440 --> 00:14:59,400
release and focus. 
And real life happens. 

272
00:14:59,400 --> 00:15:02,920
And it being such a big part of 
like bigger organizations, a 

273
00:15:02,920 --> 00:15:05,440
multitude of organizations, it 
just grows to a certain level of

274
00:15:05,440 --> 00:15:09,480
skill that having a dedicated 
team and those also need to be 

275
00:15:09,480 --> 00:15:11,000
paid. 
Those also need to provide. 

276
00:15:11,880 --> 00:15:14,400
So I fully understand the model.
It's just, yeah, there's that's 

277
00:15:14,400 --> 00:15:17,160
where I see the biggest overlap.
The fact that we can still 

278
00:15:17,480 --> 00:15:19,880
create open source software that
can still have this growth in 

279
00:15:19,880 --> 00:15:23,040
kind of Catalyst without having 
the incentive to make money, 

280
00:15:23,040 --> 00:15:26,680
even though obviously there's 
varied opinions there, but I 

281
00:15:26,680 --> 00:15:28,280
think people do it for the 
greater good. 

282
00:15:28,880 --> 00:15:30,480
Look, this is something that 
we've built. 

283
00:15:30,760 --> 00:15:32,440
It works really well in and of 
its own. 

284
00:15:32,440 --> 00:15:35,720
Or we cleaned it up so it can be
stand alone for others to build 

285
00:15:35,720 --> 00:15:39,320
on top of, for others to use for
others to learn, which I think 

286
00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:42,360
is really cool. 
Yeah, I I think so as well. 

287
00:15:45,320 --> 00:15:47,480
Yeah. 
I think that I was thinking 

288
00:15:47,480 --> 00:15:48,720
about something and then I lost 
something. 

289
00:15:48,720 --> 00:15:50,400
Yeah, No, no worries. 
No worries. 

290
00:15:50,760 --> 00:15:54,560
Open source for me is also very 
different with regards to 

291
00:15:54,560 --> 00:15:57,560
comparing it to a product, 
because a product has different 

292
00:15:57,560 --> 00:15:59,880
end users. 
This is like open source is 

293
00:15:59,880 --> 00:16:03,640
usually part of a bigger piece 
of software, a puzzle piece that

294
00:16:03,640 --> 00:16:06,200
someone uses in their own puzzle
in whatever outcome they're 

295
00:16:06,200 --> 00:16:08,120
trying to achieve. 
I mean, sometimes, but there's 

296
00:16:08,120 --> 00:16:11,080
also like full blown products 
that are open source, like GIMP,

297
00:16:11,080 --> 00:16:14,720
for instance, is open source, 
which is like the, the, the open

298
00:16:14,720 --> 00:16:17,800
source version of Photoshop 
essentially, right. 

299
00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:20,080
So it's a whole, it's a whole UI
and stuff. 

300
00:16:20,080 --> 00:16:23,120
It's not just like, oh, here's a
get up repository. 

301
00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:26,160
You got to like install it and 
then use it through the CLI or 

302
00:16:26,160 --> 00:16:28,600
something. 
Does it have then the same team 

303
00:16:28,600 --> 00:16:31,120
that I would expect with regards
to products or product manager, 

304
00:16:31,120 --> 00:16:33,720
UXUI people, researchers, 
developers? 

305
00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:35,720
Is that the same structure 
behind? 

306
00:16:35,880 --> 00:16:39,560
You don't know. 
I think for some probably and 

307
00:16:39,560 --> 00:16:42,880
then for others it's like this 
like loosely held sort of e-mail

308
00:16:42,880 --> 00:16:46,240
group, I guess like this News 
Group, I mean PHP friends, 

309
00:16:46,240 --> 00:16:50,600
because I work in PHPPHP for the
longest time was just like, it's

310
00:16:50,640 --> 00:16:54,000
very recently organized a 
foundation. 

311
00:16:54,000 --> 00:16:56,200
So now we have the PHP 
foundation, which is like a core

312
00:16:56,200 --> 00:17:01,000
group of people who, you know, 
like decide where the language 

313
00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:04,440
goes and like do the maintaining
of the, the language and stuff 

314
00:17:04,440 --> 00:17:06,079
builds new features and things 
like that. 

315
00:17:06,079 --> 00:17:08,280
And then, you know, and now they
have this sort of central 

316
00:17:08,280 --> 00:17:11,640
organization that also 
businesses that use PHP can 

317
00:17:11,640 --> 00:17:16,000
donate to so that there's like 
an active, but before that, and 

318
00:17:16,000 --> 00:17:20,680
this is like, so like 2 years 
ago and PHP was released in the 

319
00:17:20,680 --> 00:17:23,400
mid 90s. 
So that's like close to two 

320
00:17:23,400 --> 00:17:28,319
decades of it just being like a 
group of people just arguing on 

321
00:17:28,319 --> 00:17:31,080
RFCS and an e-mail groups like, 
yeah. 

322
00:17:31,080 --> 00:17:34,320
Yeah, I feel like the, I don't 
know where I saw this. 

323
00:17:34,320 --> 00:17:37,200
It was on a conference. 
What is that very specific 

324
00:17:37,800 --> 00:17:39,920
platform that you can run simple
websites on? 

325
00:17:39,920 --> 00:17:43,000
That's always been a thing. 
WordPress. 

326
00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:45,200
Exactly. 
So WordPress running on PHPI 

327
00:17:45,600 --> 00:17:48,760
think it was the company behind 
WordPress and they laid out all 

328
00:17:48,760 --> 00:17:51,600
the pieces of software they use,
which are all open source, which

329
00:17:51,600 --> 00:17:54,560
ties together WordPress. 
And I was just amazed. 

330
00:17:54,600 --> 00:17:57,600
And I feel like this is me very 
much on a surface though, but I 

331
00:17:57,600 --> 00:18:00,880
feel like the PHP community 
embraces open source software 

332
00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:04,480
and I haven't seen that from. 
Oh, PHP. 

333
00:18:04,480 --> 00:18:06,360
This is why I love PHP. 
It's not. 

334
00:18:06,360 --> 00:18:09,360
I mean, not because it's like 
the best language. 

335
00:18:09,360 --> 00:18:11,720
I think it's a much better 
language than people. 

336
00:18:12,200 --> 00:18:14,040
Give it credit for. 
Yes, because there's this. 

337
00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:16,040
It's actually really 
interesting. 

338
00:18:16,400 --> 00:18:20,600
Neil's the the one of the 
founders of Composer, which is 

339
00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:22,640
like the dependency manager for 
PHP. 

340
00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:26,640
He's on this like, kind of like 
Crusade because there's this 

341
00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:30,560
thing that goes around people 
saying like, oh, is PHP dead? 

342
00:18:30,560 --> 00:18:33,280
And like nobody really knows who
came up with it, but it's been 

343
00:18:33,280 --> 00:18:36,600
going since I started it's. 
Such a meme, it is ridiculous. 

344
00:18:36,600 --> 00:18:38,760
It's such a meme and it just has
been going for. 

345
00:18:38,760 --> 00:18:42,400
So clearly it's nonsense because
the meme itself has been going 

346
00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:45,920
for like 15 years already. 
And so but but he's now just 

347
00:18:45,920 --> 00:18:48,560
anyone who mentioned it, he's 
like, stop saying it. 

348
00:18:48,560 --> 00:18:51,360
Stop saying it because all 
you're doing is like reinforcing

349
00:18:51,360 --> 00:18:52,840
this idea that came from 
nowhere. 

350
00:18:52,840 --> 00:18:57,040
That's absolute nonsense. 
And then so, yeah, that's why I 

351
00:18:57,040 --> 00:19:01,200
say like PHP is quite a good 
language, actually modern PHP, 

352
00:19:01,960 --> 00:19:05,200
and I love it. 
But what what I really love 

353
00:19:05,200 --> 00:19:09,280
about PHP is that the ecosystem 
is just so mature and there's so

354
00:19:09,280 --> 00:19:11,440
many people who care about it 
involved. 

355
00:19:11,440 --> 00:19:14,920
And anything that you kind of 
are looking for, any type of use

356
00:19:14,920 --> 00:19:19,680
case, there's always a library 
that's very stable, very active,

357
00:19:19,760 --> 00:19:22,640
you know, and there's just 
lovely people in this ecosystem.

358
00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:28,560
People don't realize. 
It's become joke that people use

359
00:19:28,560 --> 00:19:30,760
that don't use PHP and they use 
it to each other. 

360
00:19:31,200 --> 00:19:33,880
And it's very strange how this 
has grown, right, Because it's 

361
00:19:33,920 --> 00:19:36,320
it's an ongoing job. 
I've seen that out in the open 

362
00:19:36,320 --> 00:19:38,320
for a while now and it's still 
running. 

363
00:19:38,320 --> 00:19:39,760
I cannot believe it's still 
running. 

364
00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:41,280
Yeah. 
And it's still modernizing. 

365
00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:42,920
It's definitely and I think a 
lot of. 

366
00:19:43,480 --> 00:19:47,800
So Laravel is this is this 
framework is and together with 

367
00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:50,200
Symphony or like the two weeks 
PHP frameworks basically. 

368
00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:54,480
And Laravel has a has a very 
strong focus on developer 

369
00:19:54,480 --> 00:19:56,920
experience. 
So there's a lot of like auto 

370
00:19:56,920 --> 00:19:59,800
generation scripts for like 
generating classes, generating 

371
00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:03,520
config my all this stuff. 
Symphony has that 2 two degree 

372
00:20:03,520 --> 00:20:07,240
Larva was built on Symphony and 
then larva just kind of is that 

373
00:20:07,240 --> 00:20:12,440
on steroids. 
And so it's a little bit less 

374
00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:16,520
pure PHP and much more the 
larval way that you're expected 

375
00:20:16,520 --> 00:20:18,440
to do things. 
But then in return you get. 

376
00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:23,600
All this like automation, right?
And so that really blew up and 

377
00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:27,200
it's really easy to like do like
a starter project. 

378
00:20:27,560 --> 00:20:30,600
And so now people from like the 
JavaScript world are trying out 

379
00:20:30,600 --> 00:20:33,880
Laravel and just their minds are
being blown. 

380
00:20:33,880 --> 00:20:38,320
So it's really kind of blowing 
up at this point and people are 

381
00:20:38,320 --> 00:20:41,360
kind of looking at PHP now like,
oh, I didn't realize you could. 

382
00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:43,920
Yeah, yeah, just heard about the
memes and then you made 

383
00:20:43,920 --> 00:20:46,040
assumptions. 
Yeah, and now you're trying out 

384
00:20:46,040 --> 00:20:48,680
this thing. 
It's like, oh this is cool 

385
00:20:48,760 --> 00:20:50,360
actually. 
I mean, I love having a wow 

386
00:20:50,360 --> 00:20:51,800
factor. 
That's definitely one. 

387
00:20:51,800 --> 00:20:53,520
Yeah, yeah. 
Based on all the signals that 

388
00:20:53,520 --> 00:20:56,320
you get that it's it's going 
nowhere and then you use it and 

389
00:20:56,320 --> 00:20:58,040
it's actually pretty solid. 
That's very cool. 

390
00:20:58,040 --> 00:21:02,840
Yeah, and I mean, nothing beats 
like, you know, with one of 

391
00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:05,680
these starter kits, it's 
literally just like 21 liners in

392
00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:08,840
your CLI and you have a whole 
app with authentication and 

393
00:21:08,840 --> 00:21:12,600
everything built in and yeah, 
that's it. 

394
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:15,640
It's literally 30 seconds. 
So it's. 

395
00:21:16,120 --> 00:21:19,600
Yeah, Back to open source. 
For me, open source is still 

396
00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:23,040
kind of a community of created 
by developers and also for 

397
00:21:23,040 --> 00:21:24,640
developers. 
And like you said, there are 

398
00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:27,680
full blown products there. 
But I don't see many people with

399
00:21:27,680 --> 00:21:31,640
regards to having a product 
background, having AUI or user 

400
00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:35,040
experience background also 
contributing in open source in a

401
00:21:35,040 --> 00:21:37,680
similar manner. 
I feel like we could create very

402
00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:41,600
cool products, but I don't know 
what it is that kind of brings 

403
00:21:41,600 --> 00:21:44,400
developers together with regards
to open source in that way, and 

404
00:21:44,400 --> 00:21:47,400
that doesn't do it for the same 
kind of other user groups which 

405
00:21:47,400 --> 00:21:49,360
are very adjacent in creating 
software. 

406
00:21:49,360 --> 00:21:53,200
Yeah, so I, I really think it's 
this weirdness that like 

407
00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:56,720
software engineers have, I think
there's this, you know, like the

408
00:21:56,800 --> 00:21:59,240
people, people will say the 
same, like, oh, if you're a 

409
00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:00,800
software engineer, you're 
probably somewhere on the 

410
00:22:00,800 --> 00:22:03,320
spectrum sort of thing. 
I've seen that. 

411
00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:05,320
Yeah. 
So I, and this is, again, it 

412
00:22:05,400 --> 00:22:07,840
comes back to my theory that 
there's a lot of overlap with 

413
00:22:07,840 --> 00:22:10,640
these other like also like queer
culture, for instance, in punk 

414
00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:13,760
culture, there's like people 
that are a little bit strange 

415
00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:16,960
generally and you know, from the
outside looking in, but I feel 

416
00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:19,240
like if you're kind of in the 
thick of it, it's super obvious 

417
00:22:19,240 --> 00:22:22,720
that you're all some form of 
like neurodivergent. 

418
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:26,960
And with that comes kind of this
mindset like this sort of 

419
00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:32,720
idealism often and this sort of 
yeah, this idealism that we 

420
00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:36,040
talked about before. 
And I think a lot of people who 

421
00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:41,360
are like in design and product 
management, they're just not 

422
00:22:41,360 --> 00:22:44,320
necessarily always that into it.
And if they are, they don't 

423
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:49,880
realize that software engineers 
also are similar in that regard 

424
00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:52,080
and that there's a lot of like 
cool work that they can do. 

425
00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:57,120
But I think it's a, it's a 
massive shame because in terms 

426
00:22:57,120 --> 00:22:59,680
of this idealism and, and 
creating these open source 

427
00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:03,840
projects, which, you know, I 
could go on for days about like 

428
00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:08,840
how I think open source software
and like, well, anyway, could 

429
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:12,680
save the world in a, in a lot of
ways, But maybe we'll get back 

430
00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:16,760
to that in a minute. 
But, but it's not going to 

431
00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:20,640
happen if, if you don't get 
people involved to understand 

432
00:23:20,640 --> 00:23:22,640
what users want. 
Because for instance, like, if 

433
00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:25,560
you look at like Mastodon, you 
know, because Twitter, when 

434
00:23:25,560 --> 00:23:29,080
Twitter was bought by Elon, a 
lot of people had like an exodus

435
00:23:29,080 --> 00:23:31,200
because especially like 
journalists and, and people like

436
00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:34,720
that because they were worried 
about like censorship and, and 

437
00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:37,800
things like that. 
And so they, they heard of 

438
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:41,320
Macedon, which promised to be 
sort of like a Twitter clone or 

439
00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:43,360
whatever. 
So they all just went there. 

440
00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:47,680
But then, you know, and I think 
because Macedon is part of the 

441
00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:50,560
feta verse, I don't know if we 
need to expand on that, but 

442
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:54,000
maybe. 
If you if you can in a in a 

443
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:55,160
nutshell. 
Yeah. 

444
00:23:55,160 --> 00:24:00,840
So kind of hard to say, but like
the feta verse is, is like a a 

445
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:05,560
group of applications that run 
on the same protocol, not 

446
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:08,280
necessarily the same protocol, 
but most of them run on the same

447
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:13,000
protocol called activity pub, 
which is yeah, essentially A 

448
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:17,120
protocol for for messages, so 
like social messages. 

449
00:24:17,120 --> 00:24:20,960
So for instance, you have like 
you have all these objects on 

450
00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:25,120
this protocol, like post poster,
like, you know, I can't remember

451
00:24:25,120 --> 00:24:28,000
what the actual names are on the
protocol, but and then this 

452
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:30,840
shared protocol is reused 
between apps. 

453
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:34,240
So you can build an app around 
this protocol, run it, and then 

454
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:37,400
actually between apps, because 
it runs on the same protocol, 

455
00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:41,120
you can follow other people on a
completely different app, but 

456
00:24:41,120 --> 00:24:43,240
subscribe to this. 
So for instance, let's say like,

457
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:46,760
Oh, my mom doesn't want to be on
Instagram, but she is on some 

458
00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:49,080
other app. 
She can still follow me. 

459
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:50,920
I can still. 
Yeah. 

460
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:54,720
So that's one aspect of it. 
Another aspect of it is that 

461
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:57,560
it's like decentralized. 
So instead of having one central

462
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:01,480
entity that manages Twitter, 
yeah, that is controlled by one 

463
00:25:01,480 --> 00:25:06,840
person called Elon Musk, a fed 
verse has multiple instances. 

464
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:09,680
So anyone can start an instance.
They just have to run the server

465
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:11,120
basically and maintain the 
server. 

466
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,800
So the whole network runs over 
the activity pub. 

467
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:18,280
If one instance is taken down, 
people can move to another one 

468
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:21,160
and still follow what's going on
on the network basically. 

469
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:26,680
So it's super interesting in 
terms of like takedowns and, you

470
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:29,240
know, also censorship by 
governments. 

471
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:32,080
And because it's really easy, 
for instance, for a repressive 

472
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:36,400
government to cut off this big 
entity like Twitter, but it's 

473
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:39,520
much harder to like cut off all 
these different instances of 

474
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:41,720
fetaverse apps. 
So there's all these kind of 

475
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:45,400
benefits. 
But then a big problem lies in 

476
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:51,360
the fact that all these kind of 
idealistic, A principled 

477
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:55,120
software engineers who make 
these things out of the sense of

478
00:25:55,120 --> 00:25:58,400
idealism, they don't think about
what how users think because 

479
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:00,080
that's just not their bread and 
butter. 

480
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:04,680
And so a user is going to go on 
Mastodon and then it's going to 

481
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:06,440
go like, oh, you got to pick a 
server. 

482
00:26:07,360 --> 00:26:09,200
What does that mean? 
Server. 

483
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:11,200
What are? 
You talking about I just want to

484
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:15,080
post it like go into the tippy 
taps and post a message like so 

485
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,000
that sort of stuff is just what 
screws it for everyone else. 

486
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:22,040
And then you get like instant, 
like Meta who did threads, which

487
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:25,720
is, you know, it instantly gets 
critical mass because they know 

488
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:27,960
exactly how to reel people in. 
Oh, they know. 

489
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:31,640
Yeah, they they're just sending 
notifications to every Instagram

490
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:34,000
and Facebook using like, hey, 
maybe you want to use Threads. 

491
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:35,720
Yeah, why not? 
Yeah, you like this? 

492
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:37,720
This. 
Cool thing, yeah, but what's 

493
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:41,480
quite cool about threads is that
it also runs on activity pub, so

494
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:44,360
it is actually Federated. 
And last time I checked, I'm 

495
00:26:44,360 --> 00:26:49,200
pretty sure you can like follow 
people from on threads from 

496
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:52,640
Mastodon and vice versa. 
And obviously not just Mastodon,

497
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:56,160
but any other activity. 
I didn't know that, it was very 

498
00:26:56,160 --> 00:26:57,840
cool. 
If they have federation turned 

499
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:01,040
on, then yeah. 
Yeah, look at that. 

500
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:06,000
I I this sense of idealism, like
I feel like I have it to a 

501
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:08,120
certain degree at least that's 
based on feedback because it's 

502
00:27:08,120 --> 00:27:13,120
easy to say, well, I have it, 
but I never really thought about

503
00:27:13,120 --> 00:27:15,960
open source in that way that 
it's something that people 

504
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:18,360
create and it's also kind of an 
anarchistic. 

505
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:22,000
Oh, as it makes me so. 
And this is exactly why I like 

506
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:24,480
to talk about it because it's so
sad to me. 

507
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:27,120
Like the people. 
It's not, I'm not saying that 

508
00:27:27,120 --> 00:27:31,400
everyone should live with this 
like idealism and like everyone 

509
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:35,240
should be an activist. 
And I'm, I'm not like that 

510
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:38,560
either, to be fair. 
Like, I mean, you know, I have a

511
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:43,600
job and consume as well. 
But it's such an interesting 

512
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:45,480
history and it's such an 
interesting culture. 

513
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:50,160
And I mean, open source 
especially is so connected to 

514
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:54,000
the politics of it. 
Like the the the original 

515
00:27:54,120 --> 00:27:58,600
premise was so purely political 
that and so purely idealistic 

516
00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:01,520
that it's such a shame that 
people can work with open source

517
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:04,360
every day for years and they've 
never heard of this. 

518
00:28:04,360 --> 00:28:06,640
No, no, that I, I fully agree 
with that. 

519
00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:10,360
Like when you and I spoke, I 
never thought of this history. 

520
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:14,000
Like I get history taught in 
class and I see it online, but 

521
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:16,000
no, no one really talks about, 
you know, the history of open 

522
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:17,160
source. 
It's also me. 

523
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:19,480
I also didn't really look for 
it, but I do think it's 

524
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:23,520
fascinating. 
Like I can see culture evolving 

525
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:26,720
and I can see what the culture 
is now for me, if I if I were to

526
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:29,000
say what culture is in the 1st 
place, it's just the way we do 

527
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:30,960
things around here. 
And that can change from 

528
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:33,800
organization to organization, 
but it definitely normalizes 

529
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:37,600
among an industry. 
And I don't see this hacky DIY 

530
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:41,000
kind of anarchist culture. 
I see a culture that is there to

531
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:43,120
use software, definitely to use 
it. 

532
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:46,400
Also there's aspect to use it 
for the greater good, to also 

533
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:50,440
contribute to humanity, but also
to manipulate or like, not on 

534
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:52,040
purpose, but to a certain 
degree. 

535
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:54,000
That is the effect of some 
applications. 

536
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:56,920
It's like to make money. 
And then a side effect is, yeah,

537
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:59,960
you zone in or you're not good 
for the brain or like these 

538
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:02,680
aspects of it are side effects 
and the goal is to make money. 

539
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:04,600
Yeah, exactly. 
That is more the culture we have

540
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:05,400
now. 
Yeah. 

541
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:08,080
And it's, you know, like, it's 
the thing that came out recently

542
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:10,640
where it turned out that, like, 
was it? 

543
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:14,480
I think Mehta was doing this on 
Instagram where they detected 

544
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:17,280
when teenage girls deleted 
selfies. 

545
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:20,160
OK. 
And then they would target them 

546
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:24,960
specifically with beauty ads 
after they and it's like, you 

547
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:28,160
know, and they said something 
like this is where we make money

548
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:30,320
like this is. 
A horrible thing. 

549
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:33,960
Yeah, and it's like, you know, 
but they like they're not going 

550
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:37,520
to think about that like, but 
there there is this whole layer 

551
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:39,200
of society that's still very 
active. 

552
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:44,000
It's not just historical who are
like web pioneers who are trying

553
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:46,200
to do the. 
So I have this talk about the 

554
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:49,640
decentralized web, which a lot 
of people now after NFTS and 

555
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:52,960
crypto and stuff, when they hear
decentralized web, they think it

556
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:54,920
means that. 
But actually there's this whole 

557
00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:58,200
separate move movement about 
which is more associated with 

558
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:01,680
this feta verse thing and and 
some other like protocols and 

559
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:04,960
interesting things that are 
happening that are just more 

560
00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:09,080
concerned with like the original
purpose of the web as like a Tim

561
00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:15,920
Berners Lee had intended it. 
So Tim Berners Lee like often 

562
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:18,760
credited as the inventor of the 
web, but in reality, it was like

563
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:22,640
part of a group at CERN. 
But like the purpose there was 

564
00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:28,200
also it was political. 
It was supposed to be public 

565
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:31,320
infrastructure. 
It was supposed to be the 

566
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:34,920
purpose of connecting personal 
computers all around the world 

567
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:36,920
was so that people who normally 
don't have access to 

568
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:39,680
information, for instance, 
because they live in poverty or 

569
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:42,280
because their governments were 
restrictive or they couldn't go 

570
00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:44,240
to university for whatever 
reason. 

571
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:47,640
You know, you can imagine like a
young girl in a country where 

572
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:49,400
she's not allowed to go to 
school, for instance, maybe 

573
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:52,120
she'll have access to a personal
computer or something and then 

574
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:55,520
she can still learn stuff, you 
know, that sort of stuff. 

575
00:30:55,520 --> 00:31:00,120
That's what it was meant for. 
And that was genuinely, I'm not 

576
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:02,360
making this up. 
This is genuinely was the 

577
00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:08,560
premise and and he himself, so 
Tim Berners Lee himself now says

578
00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:13,800
he deeply regrets how it's kind 
of been morphed into something. 

579
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:18,640
I think he actually used the 
word perverted into something 

580
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:23,160
that's not good for humanity. 
And so there's this whole 

581
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:29,320
decentralized web movement that 
is trying to go back to this 

582
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:34,880
premise of like the web is nodes
of people connecting as opposed 

583
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:39,320
to this these big like 
conglomerates, like, you know, 

584
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:42,600
who control like at this point 
like 90% of the web. 

585
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:46,320
Because it's not just like web 
traffic over like Facebook and 

586
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:47,760
stuff. 
It's also like all the cloud 

587
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:53,960
providers, all the same people 
like AWS, Google, you know, all 

588
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:58,320
the Internet traffic is now 
centralized under these giant 

589
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:01,640
entities as opposed to public 
infrastructure. 

590
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:04,320
I, I forget who I was talking 
to, but it must have been like a

591
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:07,440
year, maybe year and a half ago.
This person I had on the podcast

592
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:10,880
and he was working on this 
messaging app called Geet where 

593
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:13,360
you and I have something locally
running on our machine. 

594
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:15,560
And that would just be point to 
point machine to machine 

595
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:18,800
communication instead of going 
to a server and then having kind

596
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:21,600
of central centralized control 
lying with that server. 

597
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:25,360
That's the first time where he, 
he mentioned this idea to me of 

598
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:28,360
like the decentralized web and 
infrastructure and the 

599
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:31,120
capabilities that we can have. 
I just feel like we need to 

600
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:34,400
reach critical mass to get to 
that point where it's actually 

601
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:36,600
valuable enough for people to 
use it. 

602
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:38,680
If everyone used it, then it 
just made sense. 

603
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:40,240
Yeah. 
And like, this is where we are 

604
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:42,160
now. 
Yeah, and that's where you need 

605
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:45,000
these, these people that we were
talking about because like a 

606
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:48,120
user doesn't really doesn't give
a shit about decentralization. 

607
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:50,640
They're like, especially when 
they're in a cushy place, right?

608
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:53,960
Like, especially when they're in
a place where they don't feel 

609
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:56,880
like they're they're being 
suppressed in any way or 

610
00:32:56,880 --> 00:32:59,600
whatever. 
Yeah, you know those people are 

611
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:05,000
not going to care about like 
giving their data to MET or IT. 

612
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:07,920
Doesn't hurt, yeah. 
So yeah, not. 

613
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:10,040
In any immediate sense? 
In any Case, No. 

614
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:13,120
I get that. 
What do you think of kind of how

615
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:15,360
the Internet is evolving? 
Because I talked to many people 

616
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:18,360
with regards to AI and some 
people are of the opinion that 

617
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:21,560
the Internet is dying, right? 
We are now having this one 

618
00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:24,480
interface, no ads. 
I ask it a question, it does all

619
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:26,680
the browsing for me. 
I stick to that interface 

620
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:29,680
basically, and that's where I 
get my truth versus what would 

621
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:31,760
happen five years ago. 
I would go to Google, I would go

622
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:34,880
to numerous websites, I'd be hit
with ads, and I would be trying 

623
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:36,520
to find the information I'm 
looking for. 

624
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:38,480
We're moving to a singular 
interface. 

625
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:43,080
I know not a lot about AI with 
the rest of the intricacies, but

626
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:47,920
I do think this way of interface
evolving, that's definitely 

627
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:49,440
something that's going to stick 
I feel like. 

628
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:53,200
I, I do think so as well. 
I think we're in a weird spot 

629
00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:56,040
right now where it's all very 
new and nobody really knows 

630
00:33:56,040 --> 00:33:59,360
where it's going. 
I am a little bit concerned 

631
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:02,840
about like the the brain 
training as a 'cause there's 

632
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:06,440
already studies coming coming 
out that were atrophying our our

633
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:08,040
brains basically. 
Critical thinking. 

634
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:14,040
Yeah, so I, I try not to use 
LLMS for, for things like, you 

635
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:16,960
know, e-mail writing. 
And I just don't use it because 

636
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:24,920
I've, I am of the opinion that 
we don't really need what you 

637
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:31,080
call it now. 
What's the word like? 

638
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:34,920
It's like a word for ease, the 
convenience you need. 

639
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:36,880
I don't think we need 
convenience for everything. 

640
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:39,840
And I think it's actually bad to
have everything too convenient. 

641
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:44,880
Like we're built to think and 
move and, and, and I feel like 

642
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:48,040
increasingly people are going to
start to miss things like real 

643
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:51,679
life textures. 
And you know what I mean? 

644
00:34:51,679 --> 00:34:55,320
Like, I mean, I feel it. 
So if I'm feeling it, I'm, I'm 

645
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:57,680
sure I'm not the only person. 
I do feel like at some point we 

646
00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:01,600
want to, on some level we want 
to like remain human. 

647
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:06,720
And so I, I think, I think we 
shouldn't look for convenience 

648
00:35:06,720 --> 00:35:10,760
in everything that we we use. 
But that is so like counter 

649
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:12,680
intuitive because convenience is
nice. 

650
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:13,840
Yeah, you want to get to think 
about the. 

651
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:15,960
Efficient route to wherever. 
You're going right. 

652
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:17,360
Why? 
Why would I do the math myself? 

653
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:18,560
Why? 
I'm using a calculator. 

654
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:21,080
Calculator just makes sense. 
It's a certain level of 

655
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:23,480
convenience. 
Yeah, I think it's also like you

656
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:24,840
want to cherry pick what you 
like. 

657
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:29,280
Using a calculator is one thing,
but like completely cutting out 

658
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:33,400
problem solving, like if you use
a calculator is part of a 

659
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:35,680
problem that you're trying to 
solve, you're still using your 

660
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:38,280
brain basically, right? 
But like for instance, if you go

661
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:42,480
to a university to learn stuff 
and all you're doing is using 

662
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:44,960
ChatGPT, then it's like, OK, 
what are you doing there then? 

663
00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:48,800
Trying to game the system. 
Yeah, And like, OK, valid. 

664
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:51,760
I, I think gaming the system can
also be a good exercise for your

665
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:54,680
brain in a lot of ways. 
But I do feel a little bit like,

666
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:56,560
OK, you got to, I don't know, 
you got to. 

667
00:35:56,560 --> 00:36:01,480
I think you're a human being 
with your own agency and I think

668
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:04,840
you have to like on a personal 
level, think about like, what do

669
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:06,320
I want? 
For me? 

670
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:10,880
Also completely a different 
aspect of AI that I'm concerned 

671
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:15,400
about is like I was trying out 
lovable for a little bit to like

672
00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:19,320
it's a lovable. 
It's like the the AI generated 

673
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:23,040
apps basically where you prompt 
like, Oh, I want this app and it

674
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:27,000
does a pretty good job in like 
the the front end aspect of it 

675
00:36:28,240 --> 00:36:32,320
where you know it can generate 
like this pretty bog standard 

676
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:34,000
like crud application or 
whatever. 

677
00:36:34,160 --> 00:36:37,360
Yeah, pretty convincing looking 
like sauce thing, especially if 

678
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:39,480
you like tell it to like make it
look a certain way. 

679
00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:43,360
Mm hmm all good. 
But then like, I think there's a

680
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:46,560
lot of non software engineers 
who are using this thing and 

681
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:50,680
thinking they're building hot 
shit and then not knowing how to

682
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:52,520
read the actual code that is 
generating. 

683
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:56,360
Because like when I was using it
and I looked at the code that it

684
00:36:56,360 --> 00:36:59,200
was actually generating, it was 
full of holes of course. 

685
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:01,000
And yeah, but like glaring 
holes. 

686
00:37:01,240 --> 00:37:03,200
Yeah. 
Like the worst one I got was I 

687
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:07,160
tried to have it create a 
password reset link because like

688
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:11,120
out-of-the-box it'll generate an
app with authentication and and 

689
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:13,880
stuff, but it didn't have a 
password reset link. 

690
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:17,520
So it's basically OK, here's a 
user can register, but if they 

691
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:19,440
ever lose their password then we
didn't think I can't do 

692
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:20,080
anything. 
So. 

693
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:23,680
I was like, I had a reset 
password link, please. 

694
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:25,440
What? 
And I was like, yeah, yeah, all 

695
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:26,680
right. 
And then it didn't work. 

696
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:27,840
And I was like, hey, it's not 
working. 

697
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:31,240
Can you make it work? 
I was like, there we go. 

698
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:35,720
I'm clearly not a prompt 
engineer, but then I looked at 

699
00:37:35,720 --> 00:37:38,280
what it generated and basically 
what it did was like the IT 

700
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:41,200
added to the recent link. 
It was like it added a query 

701
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:44,440
parameter that said reset 
password equals true. 

702
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:48,240
And if that was set to true is 
like, OK, reset the password. 

703
00:37:48,240 --> 00:37:50,800
I was like, I don't think 
that's. 

704
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:55,280
But now I'm really concerned 
that we're now like entering a 

705
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:59,400
great era for like a goldmine 
era for hackers like Black Hat 

706
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:03,600
hackers, because you've got all 
these people who don't know how 

707
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:07,600
to read code, who are deploying 
this and this, real users with 

708
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:12,200
real user data. 
I I fully agree. 

709
00:38:12,240 --> 00:38:17,360
Like I love the idea of enabling
many people to create software 

710
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:19,760
to do something really cool with
an idea. 

711
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:23,160
They have to innovate to provide
value to users, right? 

712
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:27,240
And like you said, it works. 
They have users, but then it's 

713
00:38:27,240 --> 00:38:29,320
like they do take the easy Rd. 
Yeah. 

714
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:32,240
It's like, OK, I use this tool 
and I just have an idea and bam,

715
00:38:32,240 --> 00:38:35,040
it works. 
It's like you found this real 

716
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:37,040
life cheat code. 
Basically. 

717
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:38,680
Yeah. 
You press ABAB, left, right, 

718
00:38:38,680 --> 00:38:40,600
left, right, and something pops 
out and you're like that. 

719
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:41,720
That's a cheat code. 
Yeah. 

720
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:43,440
And you use it. 
And why not, right? 

721
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:46,440
Because people are marketing. 
You can use these cheat codes. 

722
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:47,880
Now. 
Look here what other people are 

723
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:49,440
doing. 
They're making XY and Z. 

724
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:53,360
Oh my God, I can't stand. 
Everywhere LinkedIn is lovable, 

725
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:55,920
does a great job with their 
marketing because it's like, 

726
00:38:55,920 --> 00:38:58,600
look at these people, they make 
X amount in two days and you're 

727
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:00,920
like, what the hell? 
Yeah, if it sounds too good to 

728
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:04,440
be true, it usually is. 
But also like, at the end of the

729
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:09,400
day, like people were like, you 
know, spitting out these these 

730
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:13,080
MVPS left and right for like 
concepts that are just like, 

731
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:16,040
just because you can make the 
app doesn't make it a good app. 

732
00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:22,360
Like Kill Your Darlings cuz I 
yeah, is this sprouted stuff 

733
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:24,720
sprouting up where it's just 
like, oh, look, I made 

734
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:27,080
essentially an excel sheet. 
Well, it's, you know, the same 

735
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:31,480
problems as every other Sauce 
app being like a glorified Excel

736
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:34,960
sheet. 
I mean, the, I do see like a, a 

737
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:37,960
good side of it because me, if I
look at myself as an individual,

738
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:40,000
I have a hard time starting 
things. 

739
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:42,240
Yeah. 
So once something is already up 

740
00:39:42,240 --> 00:39:44,920
and running, this podcast, for 
example, I got help starting it 

741
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:46,560
up. 
I keep it running forever. 

742
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:48,960
That is really good. 
That's what I'm good at. 

743
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:50,840
Opposite. 
I I'm really bad at starting 

744
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:52,720
things. 
And then what I see nowadays is 

745
00:39:52,720 --> 00:39:55,280
that starting is super easy. 
I see everyone starting and I'm 

746
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:57,440
like, oh, I should get better at
starting. 

747
00:39:57,440 --> 00:40:01,400
So it is it gives me I I don't 
know if I would call anxiety. 

748
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:03,680
It might be that. 
It gives me anxiety. 

749
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:05,400
Yeah, 100%. 
I'm like. 

750
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:07,840
I should like be like I should 
be moving. 

751
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:09,880
Yeah, I am not. 
Yeah, I should move. 

752
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:14,360
Yeah, yeah, I heard about 
Bitcoin in, you know, like 2012 

753
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:16,600
and didn't do anything also 
'cause I was broke as shit, so I

754
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:18,680
couldn't have done anything if I
wanted to, but. 

755
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:21,000
It wasn't that expensive though.
Would have been nice, yeah, but 

756
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:22,520
I didn't have 20 years in my 
name. 

757
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:24,400
Most. 
Most months, frankly. 

758
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:26,360
Gotcha. 
Yeah, that's yeah. 

759
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:30,360
No, I see it maybe as a as a 
good thing because in the end 

760
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:31,720
it's going to enable people to 
move. 

761
00:40:31,720 --> 00:40:33,800
They're going to look into 
things like there will be a good

762
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:36,880
side of things. 
But yeah, with regards to kind 

763
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:40,200
of the the garbage that is being
put out in production kind of 

764
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:43,640
hacker friendly, I do see that. 
And I think, I think if you 

765
00:40:43,640 --> 00:40:47,040
thought about like making a 
pivot into infosec, this is like

766
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:49,800
a really good time because 
Infosec people are going to be 

767
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:55,400
needed far and wide, I think. 
Have you heard of stop 

768
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:57,280
squatting? 
I love that term so much. 

769
00:40:57,280 --> 00:40:59,880
Like I keep telling people about
it because it's, it's so funny. 

770
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:02,200
Stop squatting. 
Slop squatting, so you know, 

771
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:06,120
like slop like AI swap. 
So there's like this thing 

772
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:08,640
called like name squatting where
you know. 

773
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:12,680
For domain names. 
No, for actually, I think that 

774
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:14,200
might have been. 
Yeah, name squatting is for 

775
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:17,360
domain names. 
And then there's maybe registry,

776
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:20,440
so I can't remember the term, 
but there's a similar thing for 

777
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:23,880
like packages. 
So for like MPM packages or like

778
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,320
compose packages. 
Of course, that's the thing. 

779
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:31,440
So like, you know, people often 
make typos when they like, 

780
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:35,440
install a dependency. 
So then people install back 

781
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:40,960
doors and and packages with like
a very similar name and then, 

782
00:41:41,160 --> 00:41:44,400
you know, a few people will 
accidentally install that 

783
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:46,400
dependency and stuff. 
So that is that. 

784
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:49,200
But now there's this new thing 
called slop squatting, which I 

785
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:53,680
love because it's so funny and 
also not funny, but it's so 

786
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:58,840
funny to me that so like slop is
things that are AI generated, 

787
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:03,120
right? 
So hackers found out the like 

788
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:07,200
when you ask AI for like a 
dependency for a certain use 

789
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:10,560
case that doesn't exist, it'll 
generate it'll go like, OK, 

790
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:13,800
yeah, sure, I'll install that 
dependency that doesn't exist 

791
00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:17,840
and I'll make up a name for this
dependency and it'll try to 

792
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:21,520
install this package that 
doesn't exist with this name. 

793
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:27,000
So they found like a, a series 
of commonly generated names for 

794
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:29,760
a certain dependencies and then 
just like posted, like published

795
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:31,760
the package. 
And so you have all these like 

796
00:42:32,720 --> 00:42:37,840
AI applications and that have 
these dependencies that don't 

797
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:41,400
exist. 
Yeah, I think people find a way 

798
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:44,600
and they find kind of very 
creative ways and I think this 

799
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:46,960
is a great example of it. 
I think that's fascinating. 

800
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:51,240
I mean, my final thought is, and
also a question to you is for 

801
00:42:51,240 --> 00:42:54,080
people that are listening that 
hear about the software culture 

802
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:56,960
and it really hits home to them,
You already mentioned that it's 

803
00:42:56,960 --> 00:43:00,080
it's kind of hard to find that 
culture in the way of working 

804
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:01,760
nowadays. 
What would be your advice for 

805
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:03,680
them if they want to do more 
with this? 

806
00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:06,800
Would it be to go and contribute
to open source or what would be 

807
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:09,040
your your advice to? 
That I think contributing to 

808
00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:12,160
open source is one thing, but I,
I also find that like it's quite

809
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:14,680
hard to do outside of your day 
job and it, it's if you want to 

810
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:19,040
be a part of the, the culture, I
think it's nicer to actually 

811
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:23,680
like really go into it. 
So there's like FOS, which is 

812
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:28,280
like an event and a huge open 
source event that happens every 

813
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:31,120
year. 
So people go there and there's 

814
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:32,600
like talks and parties and 
stuff. 

815
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:35,200
So that's quite fun. 
I think also the reason we 

816
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:37,320
started talking about this is 
because I'm going to a hacker 

817
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:42,080
camp soon, which was something 
that I'd wanted to go to for so 

818
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:43,920
long, for years and years and 
years. 

819
00:43:43,920 --> 00:43:47,200
But I was always a little bit 
afraid, OK, because I thought I 

820
00:43:47,200 --> 00:43:49,720
wouldn't know anyone. 
I, I thought I'd be like, you 

821
00:43:49,720 --> 00:43:51,320
know, I'm not a real hacker sort
of thing. 

822
00:43:52,520 --> 00:43:55,960
And then like the last time they
had a so it's every four years 

823
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:59,640
in Holland. 
And the last time I went was 

824
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:02,560
also the first time I went, I 
was like, all right, fuck it, 

825
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:04,440
I'll, I'll go. 
I'll try to see if I know anyone

826
00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:05,520
who's going. 
Turned out. 

827
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:10,680
I knew like heaps of people from
like, because I, I do know quite

828
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:14,200
a few people from the Dutch 
hacker scene from way back, like

829
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:16,360
Operation Chenology. 
I don't know if you know that. 

830
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:21,480
Do you know those like Anonymous
protests that happened, like the

831
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:23,720
protesting Scientology in like 
2008? 

832
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:27,360
Yeah. 
OK, so that was monthly protests

833
00:44:27,720 --> 00:44:31,280
of like 4 Chan and Something 
Awful people who would go, and a

834
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:34,200
lot of them were hackers. 
That's basically what 

835
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:36,720
popularized Anonymous is a 
concept as well, because we were

836
00:44:36,720 --> 00:44:40,000
all masked, basically, Yeah. 
Yeah. 

837
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:42,680
So I made a whole bunch of 
friends from that era and a 

838
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:45,360
whole bunch of them were there. 
And so I just joined their 

839
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:48,920
village and then it also turned 
out that like, because they have

840
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:52,200
like this capture the flag 
that's for all levels, it's very

841
00:44:52,200 --> 00:44:54,000
child friendly. 
They have like a family zone 

842
00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:56,440
that has to be quiet at some 
point at night. 

843
00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:58,560
So like, people come there with 
their families. 

844
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:01,400
Are you talking about a physical
capture the flag? 

845
00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:03,760
This Is this digital? 
Thing no, it's like a digital 

846
00:45:03,760 --> 00:45:07,640
thing slash physical because 
they're they incorporate hacking

847
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:10,320
of all kinds. 
So that's like and network 

848
00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:14,160
hacking and exploding websites, 
but also lock picking, you know,

849
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:16,080
all this other stuff like. 
Physical lock picking. 

850
00:45:16,240 --> 00:45:17,800
Yeah, yeah, physical lock 
picking. 

851
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:20,440
Yeah, people don't realize how 
broad hacking is, but physical 

852
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:23,680
lock picking, you know, you get 
like, actually I think I parked 

853
00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:24,640
my bike. 
Your pins. 

854
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:26,680
With a practice lock. 
Really. 

855
00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:28,320
Yeah. 
Because I didn't have another 

856
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:29,000
lock. 
Yeah. 

857
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:30,960
So it's like a see through lock 
that you can pick. 

858
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:32,640
They're really cool. 
So. 

859
00:45:32,720 --> 00:45:34,840
And that's super Zen. 
It's very fun, yeah. 

860
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,120
So you definitely recommend that
for the finding the culture that

861
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:39,480
is similar if you want to do 
more, it's. 

862
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:41,760
So fun and it's not intimidating
at all. 

863
00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:44,480
It's I thought it was going to 
be intimidating, but they're so 

864
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:47,400
inclusive and these people are 
also so wacky. 

865
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:49,400
Even if you haven't done 
anything with hacking. 

866
00:45:49,440 --> 00:45:51,760
Nothing at all. 
There's a lot of like community 

867
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:54,120
as I convinced a bunch of 
friends to go this year and 

868
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:57,200
we're creating our own village 
and our village because like a 

869
00:45:57,200 --> 00:45:59,560
village is like a group of 
people that you can camp with at

870
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:01,560
a hacker camp. 
And usually they have some sort 

871
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:04,800
of theme and our theme is the 
library village. 

872
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:07,320
So we're just going to have a 
bunch of like cyber related 

873
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:11,280
books and people can just like 
come and like check out a book 

874
00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:13,480
and like just chill and have 
some coffee and stuff. 

875
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:17,720
And then there's also like a, a 
cooking village where you can go

876
00:46:17,720 --> 00:46:19,640
and have meals that they cook 
every day. 

877
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:23,600
You know, there's all all sorts 
of different villages and it's 

878
00:46:23,600 --> 00:46:25,640
completely like community 
organized. 

879
00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:29,200
All the there's talks, there's 
like parties. 

880
00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:34,080
I'm actually organizing a battle
snake competition at this one. 

881
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:35,880
What is a Battlesnake 
competition? 

882
00:46:36,240 --> 00:46:39,840
So Battlesnake is really fun. 
It's came from like a bunch of 

883
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:41,720
conferences. 
I think it specifically came 

884
00:46:41,720 --> 00:46:45,440
from a bunch of PHP conferences.
OK, but Battlesnake is kind of 

885
00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:48,560
like, it's kind of like battle 
bots, you know, like people make

886
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:51,480
their own bots, like robots and 
they fight each other and like 

887
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:52,280
I've. 
Seen that online? 

888
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:53,640
Yeah. 
So this is like the coding 

889
00:46:53,640 --> 00:46:56,560
version. 
So you register your snake and 

890
00:46:56,560 --> 00:46:59,520
it's like snake like on a Nokia 
sort of. 

891
00:46:59,840 --> 00:47:06,280
But you there's like a kind of 
an API and I think it, it's like

892
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:08,520
events your Oh no, it's web 
hooks. 

893
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:12,440
So you expose your, you run a 
little web server and you expose

894
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:17,520
an endpoint and then the 
Battlesnake game will like hit 

895
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:22,640
your web hook and then you no, 
not web hook, just say API 

896
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:24,600
endpoint. 
Yeah, it hits your API endpoint 

897
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:27,560
and then you have to send it a 
response with like the moves 

898
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:29,640
that you want your snake to do 
next, essentially. 

899
00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:32,160
And then you just get paired up 
with someone else with another 

900
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:34,920
snake and then you know, and 
you're all watching it on like a

901
00:47:34,920 --> 00:47:36,840
screen and cheering on your own 
snake and stuff. 

902
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:37,600
It's very fun. 
It's. 

903
00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:39,680
Really cool. 
That's really cool. 

904
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:42,920
I only know it from like the 
game Battletoads, but I love it 

905
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:45,880
when people gamify something 
with regards to software. 

906
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:49,120
The first time that I heard 
about it was from this YouTube 

907
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:51,400
Kevin Powell. 
He does a lot with regards to 

908
00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:53,960
CSS and he says there's CSS 
battles. 

909
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:58,200
So imagine you have this like 
black and white shape and then 

910
00:47:58,200 --> 00:48:00,840
you only have CSS and you're 
supposed to make the shapes in 

911
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:04,160
CSS to make it pixel perfect and
you're racing someone else. 

912
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:08,680
So you and I would face off and 
try and fit CSS shapes in this 

913
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:11,680
kind of black and white thing 
and it's insane. 

914
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:14,360
And see, you don't realize, but 
this also has roots in this 

915
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:16,880
hacker culture because it like 
it really reminds me of the demo

916
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:19,480
scene, which is also there's 
going to be demo parties at this

917
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:22,000
hacker thing as well. 
A lot of people don't know what 

918
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:25,360
the demo scene is, which is such
a shame because it's so cool. 

919
00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:29,360
It used to be, there's still 
demo scene party sort of, but 

920
00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:33,360
computers have normalized and 
not normalized, modernized and 

921
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:35,880
stuff. 
But it used to be the like you 

922
00:48:35,880 --> 00:48:38,240
have a party, right? 
And you have a computer with 

923
00:48:38,240 --> 00:48:42,280
very limited memory resources 
and things like that. 

924
00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:47,040
And so live people are hacking 
programming this thing to make 

925
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:49,320
like, cool visuals and like 
music and stuff. 

926
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:53,480
And so you have this party where
the music and or visuals are 

927
00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:56,680
being live programmed. 
And then, you know, it's 

928
00:48:56,760 --> 00:49:00,760
supposed to like, showcase the 
cool things you can do with this

929
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:05,160
like chiptune thing or like, 
yeah, this thing with limited 

930
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:06,880
resources. 
I just think it's so cool and 

931
00:49:06,880 --> 00:49:12,000
all this stuff, like it's just 
an evolution of that basically. 

932
00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:15,760
It makes me sad to hear when 
people say they're not having 

933
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:18,680
fun at work, right? 
Maybe because they get they just

934
00:49:18,680 --> 00:49:20,880
have a golden handcuffs. 
They get paid really well, but 

935
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:23,400
they're also really much focused
on output and outcomes. 

936
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:27,880
I feel like having fun in a way 
of battle snakes or like CSS 

937
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:31,000
battles like gamifying or even 
finding a like minded people 

938
00:49:31,240 --> 00:49:34,280
that think along the same lines 
or just can give you insights 

939
00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:37,800
with regards to hacking and 
having fun and kind of puzzling.

940
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:40,880
I I love that that that aspect 
is still there and that you can 

941
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:42,360
still find community in that 
way. 

942
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:44,800
Yeah. 
And I think also, if you can't, 

943
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:48,440
if you don't have the space to 
do it at work, I think people 

944
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:52,320
would be surprised how many 
employers are prepared to, for 

945
00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:55,160
instance, pay their ticket for a
hacker camp or for their 

946
00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:57,200
attendance to like things like 
Foss. 

947
00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:01,920
So I think if people haven't 
done that and they feel like, 

948
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:05,400
oh, I have a job, I'm too busy, 
go ask your manager because 

949
00:50:05,440 --> 00:50:07,360
usually there's budget for this 
type of stuff. 

950
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:08,880
So you can actually immerse 
yourself. 

951
00:50:09,280 --> 00:50:11,920
Even if it's just like a tech 
conference, it's really nice to 

952
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:16,000
be able to talk to maintainers 
and because they're just out and

953
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:19,240
about and you can talk to them 
and it's, it's really quite 

954
00:50:19,240 --> 00:50:20,280
nice. 
They're usually very 

955
00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:22,320
approachable, very nice people. 
Yeah, yeah. 

956
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:23,680
Awesome. 
I've really enjoyed this 

957
00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:24,960
conversation, Padina. 
Thank you. 

958
00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:26,600
Me too. 
Thank you so much for coming on 

959
00:50:26,600 --> 00:50:29,040
and sharing your perspective. 
I think it's extremely valuable 

960
00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:31,040
and really inspiring as well. 
Thank you. 

961
00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:32,680
Cool. 
And we're going to round it off.

962
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:34,400
If you're still here listening, 
leave a like. 

963
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:36,920
If you like the episode, let us 
know in the comments section 

964
00:50:36,920 --> 00:50:39,320
what you thought. 
I'll leave Padina's socials in 

965
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:40,680
the description below. 
Check her out. 

966
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:43,000
Let him know you came from the 
show and otherwise we'll see.