Coté (00:00.726)
I have a a a trusty old topic here, but something something I've arrived back at. I've been I've been back to traveling for work some more. And I I I wanna know from you two. So you're traveling around, you've got you've gotta you're gonna wait in the airport. Of course, you have lounge access because you travel a lot. And and are you going to go to the lounge to hang out or are you gonna hang out and walk around in in the big the big airport? Like

And w how do you make that decision? What w which one do you choose?

Brandon (00:35.704)
First, how much time do you have to kill? Because maybe there's an opportunity to do both. That's first question. Second question, would be like, have I like have I gotten some like I don't know. I've been walking around, I had at least some minimal exercise today. If I'm, you know, if I'm tired or if I need some exercise, that's another decision point. Am I hungry? Because the lounge will probably have maybe bad food, but free food. see, I think that's kind of what I would walk through.

Coté (00:41.243)
I like that that answer.

Matt Ray (00:58.863)
It's true.

Coté (01:01.444)
Well now Nelt let let me let me ask you on that criteria. Cause you know, if you're traveling for work, you can expense buying food. So would it does your mind go towards I should go to a restaurant in the airport or I should get the the it doesn't really matter, but it still is free, free food at at the lounge.

Matt Ray (01:09.38)
Yeah.

Matt Ray (01:14.487)
Mm.

Brandon (01:20.974)
I think you get know the airport pretty well. Like a lot of airports, I would say the lounge food is as good or maybe better than what you can get in an airport. But then there are lots of nice airports, right, where like you actually could go get a proper meal. So like I mean, probably some of the nice European airports you're in probably do have like proper restaurants. You know, if you're flying out of Memphis, you know, it's not a whole lot of options, right? You know, or or some other random area. Now I would say Austin. I'd I'd put one if the Austin airport has local vendors that

Matt Ray (01:23.063)
Yeah.

Matt Ray (01:41.015)
Hey, don't disparage Memphis.

Coté (01:47.344)
Mm.

Brandon (01:50.412)
I was about to say, but it's not always the same food, but it's better food, I would say. So then you would get go ahead, Matt.

Matt Ray (01:50.446)
Yeah.

Matt Ray (01:55.649)
It's Yeah, my experience with the Austin Lounge is is the food in the restaurants was better. Like I mean I you know, I I was coming from you know, I don't have any status anymore, so you know, cards on the table. But when I did, I would definitely make that calculus. I'd I'd see what was in the lounge, what kind of lounge it was, where where I was. you know, so obviously like the finer lounges, you know, the the Quantus first class or you know, British Airway, that kind of stuff.

Brandon (02:02.894)
Yeah.

Coté (02:03.428)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Ray (02:25.357)
They were usually pretty top notch, but then you get to some of the other ones where you're like, I'm gonna go back out to the food court. So I I'm looking at like the American Airlines Lounge in Austin. Yeah, it was like, Yeah, I'll go I'll go, you know. They did have cheese cubes, but

Coté (02:36.283)
Mm. They got cheese cubes.

Brandon (02:38.914)
Yeah.

But if you're looking at you're staring at that versus that or a panda express, you're like, Maybe I'll take the sheep cubes. You know, I mean there's like some d decisions there.

Matt Ray (02:46.111)
Well, right, but but if you're on an expense account you can also be like, I'm gonna upgrade to, you know, the Panda King or, you know, whatever whatever the Yeah. Roll those dice.

Brandon (02:52.578)
I mean, it's true. It's true. But I would also say the the the real move, because I don't have any status either. but when I've been flying recently, like a couple of friends have gotten me you know, I've gone into like the quote unquote lounge with some friends at recently and it's like I guess everyone that's has lounge access now is like pissed because they feel like the lounges are like too crowded. And I'm and I see what they mean. Like when you get in there, it's like it's kinda hard to find a seat sometimes. I'm like

Coté (03:00.132)
You bring a sandwich.

Matt Ray (03:01.839)
A tuna sandwich.

Coté (03:15.51)
Mm. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Ray (03:19.287)
I mean, you know, I I I I hearken back to my my Uber driver who's like, American lounges, they're like bus sty bus stations. That's what I miss. Yeah.

Brandon (03:27.042)
That's true. Like only the fancy international lounges. Like it's it's sort of like if it's a lounge that I know about, it's probably not good. Like you need to like someone's be like, hey, did you know? Like I was flying through Heathrow one time, and someone's like, No, no, no, we don't go to this lounge. They were like, We're going to this other place. So I was like, What do you mean? And it's like, yeah. And they were like, and it was like up east, it was like a secret, it was like a speakeasy. He was like, we go up three flights, we knock on the door, and then like this is like the I don't know.

Matt Ray (03:36.047)
Yeah.

Matt Ray (03:44.952)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt Ray (03:51.211)
yeah.

Brandon (03:54.159)
It's like the triple platinum, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, whoa, this is like this is a whole new world. I had, I was like, this is the real lounge. So if you have access to like the secret lounges, you should do that. Maybe the move for you, Kote, is just getting comfortable with getting to the airport later and just getting the meal outside there. That's what I think real veteran travelers do. It's like, I'm so confident I can navigate the airport and get to my flight like with minimal time that I I would go out to a proper restaurant in the city or wherever you're at.

Matt Ray (03:57.263)
Yeah.

Matt Ray (04:01.91)
Yeah.

Brandon (04:24.106)
and arrive only say thirty five minutes before flight, right? Before boarding or something like that. Because like I can get through and I can walk through and I have all the fancy TSA and other things. So that that would be one thing to do.

Coté (04:24.12)
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Coté (04:29.156)
Yeah, yeah.

Coté (04:38.468)
Well, I did test that on the this trip this week. I was leaving and I I thought I had lost my house key. So I called up my wife Kim and I was like, is my key, you know, somewhere in the house where I would leave it? by the in the bathroom somewhere, whatever. And it wasn't. And then I started looking for my key and I found my key, but then I realized I didn't have my laptop with me. which which is great. And then so, you know, thankfully it's small

Brandon (05:04.768)
At the airport. You left. Okay, just I just wanna real quick. You left the house without your laptop. You literally do you that were legit man, you that you are such a you are such a frequent traveler. my god. That's like I mean, the only thing worse would be passport, but go on. Please tell the end of the story. my god. My God. Kote, we could never travel together.

Coté (05:05.879)
Yeah, yeah. And I'd already been through security and everything. I did.

Coté (05:17.722)
Yeah.

Coté (05:21.776)
I've done I've done that too. And and so you know so so I so I called her and thankfully she could drive. What it w drive to and and you know she slowed down at at the drop off and I just reached my hand in and got the laptop out of the car. But it was that caused a test here, is that I think

Matt Ray (05:29.337)
Brandon's the travel dad.

Coté (05:46.51)
I think I could get to the it I got there like effectively forty minutes before the flight, I think. And everything was fine. But it was forty minutes before the flight because the flight was ten minutes late. Otherwise maybe it wouldn't have been so great. But it it worked out fine. You could just go through the lines and then I didn't even have to run to get to the place. And there wasn't even boarding yet.

Brandon (06:06.25)
Well, you know, there's like I think there's like a TikTok trend. I don't know, it's probably everywhere. It's like airport theory is you can it's fifteen minutes. No matter where you when you get to the airport, no matter what happens, you can generally get to your gate within 15 minutes. And it's so it's kind of a fun game to play. Like if you get to an airport and you're like, my gosh, it's gonna be really backed up. Like actually start the timer on your in your watch, your clock, or your phone and be like, and you're like, Yeah, even when it's been like really long. Now and this almost gonna be like

Coté (06:20.599)
Mm.

Matt Ray (06:22.228)
Mm. Yeah.

Brandon (06:34.05)
Well, this one time there were five million, it's like, yes, I understand. There are times it doesn't work. But I'm just saying, as a general rule, I think maybe that's the the lesson here. It's like people overestimate how much they're actually waiting in an airport because it's stressful and there's a line and there's a process and and all that. But really for the most of the time, you're it's it is only like 15 minutes. Like I've I've done it many times though, but then I'm sitting there like 90 minutes ago and I'm like, that's so rather and then I justify to myself, like, well, I'd rather be here and just have it done.

Coté (06:45.536)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Matt Ray (06:53.783)
I've I've I've Yeah.

Brandon (07:02.732)
with my laptop and passport and and move on.

Coté (07:07.745)
Yeah. Yes. You you know and and it is in retrospect, I usually I have my bag set up and then I put my laptop plugged in so it's still charging into the bag, right? So you maximize your charging time. And I didn't do that this time. And then as we know w what happened, I didn't bring it. So you gotta do that every time.

Brandon (07:28.536)
You don't have like a like a like a a pre a a flight check, a pre flight check before I leave, like a quick like, you know, let's let's I mean

Matt Ray (07:33.679)
Absolutely.

Coté (07:35.791)
I mean I I I I I don't have an actual one, but but yeah, I I I always check that I have my passport.

Matt Ray (07:36.611)
I've I've got a checklist.

Brandon (07:39.15)
Of course you do, man. Are you sure you're a father? Are you sure that you have kids? This seems impossible to me. Like

Matt Ray (07:44.953)
Kote, when you travel with your kids, do you just say, Hey guys, pack for yourself?

Coté (07:50.146)
Me?

Matt Ray (07:51.631)
Wait, wait, wait. Kote, do you say I need to kill him? Pack for the kids.

Coté (07:57.666)
No, no, no. I think, you know, our older kids, we just we sort we tell them to pack for themselves and then we just kind of look at it and see what they have. And what do we do? The last I think maybe maybe maybe the there ha yeah, there have been a couple of times where like this this reminds me of like, you know, once again, a Dave Vittel joke from whatever that that C D was. And he he was like, you know, the worst time to pack is when you're like stoned.

Matt Ray (08:05.647)
Hmm. What did they forget? Underwear, socks, pants, headphones.

Matt Ray (08:20.826)
Back in the nineties, yeah.

Coté (08:27.087)
'Cause then you'll get there and you'll be like, Why do I have like the game of life, a cup and you know, he just goes on and on. Just absurd things. And and I think our kids, if we let them pack too much, they they do our older kids are okay, but yeah, of course the younger one will just have like toys and and things like that. But I don't know. I don't know. You just

Brandon (08:47.086)
All right, let's review what your cote is gonna do. One, you gotta get an air tag for your key. I mean that seems like no th f problem one, right?

Coté (08:53.889)
You know, you know, funny you should say that the only person in the house who doesn't have an air tag on their key is me.

Brandon (08:59.522)
I mean, that's listen, that we could do forty five minutes just on this entire subject, but we'll spare it. So you need to have that. You need to have a little you gotta have like a little pre flight check. You gotta be like, hey, you know, computer, passport, at least the the key things. I understand you forget you forget the socks or whatever, you know, it it happens. But like, you know, computer, key, passport, kind of no excuses on that that front, right? Yeah. So get it done, Kotech. Get it done. We'll check in with you mid year. We'll see if you've made any improvements.

Matt Ray (08:59.659)
Yeah.

Coté (09:08.142)
Mm.

Matt Ray (09:09.665)
I I could send you mine.

Matt Ray (09:16.087)
It's on the list.

Coté (09:18.113)
Mm-hmm. But laptop, gotta have that.

Matt Ray (09:22.861)
know if I have laptop on my list. I it just yeah.

Coté (09:29.007)
I might I might have to do do the check in on my phone if I've traveled recently 'cause I won't I won't have my laptop.

Brandon (09:35.02)
Well, of course, you know, Kate, I'm sure you're working on a new notepad app that will that would let you create a checklist with the proper graph paper that you'll use. Until then, you have to manually just use notes.

Coté (09:45.377)
Yeah. Well you know, I might be able to make that note in Google Docs now, 'cause I could use either task paper or the markdown checklist item. And you know

Brandon (09:54.435)
Am I the one that's extremely excited by this? And should do we need to thank Max Ray Matt Ray Matt Ray personally for this? It's like finally, finally, Google's implementing something that we've all wanted for, I would say 15 years. And not only that, like, you know, because there was this midpoint where they're like, yeah, we're gonna support Markdown. No, you can't author in Markdown. You can export to Markdown, which again something that was sort of like, why not do the whole thing? They're like, no, no, no, no. We don't have time. We don't have time. All we can do is allow export.

Matt Ray (09:54.563)
That's exciting.

Matt Ray (10:07.021)
I know, I know.

Brandon (10:24.482)
And then finally, only the AI revolution has brought us to the point. And I'm still waiting for the update. I don't know. Maybe maybe Matt, you can help me. Is there like a secret list? How do I get the update faster? So I would like to I want to embrace the markdown lifestyle inside of Google Docs.

Matt Ray (10:28.313)
Exactly.

Matt Ray (10:38.841)
So so one of the one of the fun things of of working at Google is there is an internal mailing list that I I I don't know if I opted in, but I'm on it. And you can volunteer to to test drive new features. And when that one came across like the the list, there were all sorts of like, you know, emojis. People were super excited because they knew. They knew like this is this is something small, but the people who know that they want it, they want it now. And so like

I'm not supposed to talk about the things that are on this list 'cause every day there's just like, you know, now there's you know, native Japanese in this langu you know, or or you know, it's it's usually it's things that are ki kind of like under the radar to me. But then when I saw that one I was like, that's yeah, that's one of the nice things about working at Google is is getting early access to the to to to things to make Google Docs even better.

Coté (11:27.917)
You get to write and mark down.

Brandon (11:32.227)
I wanna meet I would love to meet the the team that was like, We're doing it, guys. We're gonna I I got permission, we're pushing it all the way through. We're gonna do full markdown. Like we just got the budget allocation to turn on the what is the Google agent? I can't remember what's called. codex. Gemini. I just got the budget, extra Gemini credits, and we're gonna do it. We're gonna put it on Markdown. I was like

Coté (11:39.023)
High fives.

Matt Ray (11:40.057)
Yeah. You know and and and

Matt Ray (11:48.098)
Gemini.

Brandon (11:56.131)
Hallelujah. I j I just really I mean, it is the simple things. I was I I was surprised at how happy I was when I actually saw this.

Matt Ray (11:56.505)
You you know, you know

Matt Ray (12:02.829)
You know, Brandon, that guy is probably the the the king of his little fiefdom 'cause he's like, You know what I did last time? I brought C S V to the masses. He's like he's He's like, I could do no wrong. You go, C S V markdown? Yeah.

Brandon (12:10.988)
I mean absolutely. I mean I I mean power to him. I mean whoever this person this person is the king of Google. Forget about the the the guy that runs Deep Mind. Who cares about him? Somebody in the that company was like, I'm getting markdown done and everyone's gonna love it. And I do. I actually and I would say because we've been stuck on Dropbox paper for almost fifteen years because it had markdown support at the beginning.

Matt Ray (12:36.535)
Hey, hey, hey. It's free.

Brandon (12:38.774)
And it's free. So I guess we shouldn't complain. But I was like, Man, this could be the end. We could finally get off this godforsaken Dropbox. I mean, that's exactly what I was like. I was like, my god, please let me get rid of Dropbox. I just can't. I mean, it's like a it's like a virus. You can't my God. Dropbox should have been sold like ten different times, right? It's like why how this thing still exists and we're still using it, I don't, you know. Someone sends me a Dropbox link, you're like, no, this is this isn't gonna go well. So

Coté (12:44.716)
That would be exciting. Yeah.

Matt Ray (12:46.263)
Yeah.

Matt Ray (12:51.727)
See, they they should have sold the slack when they had the chance.

Coté (13:06.082)
Well so s

Brandon (13:06.168)
Well, I'm you know what, Matt? I'm just gonna thank you personally because I know you had nothing to do with it, but you go back to that email list and be like, whoever you are out there, Mr. or Mrs. product manager from Markdown, we appreciate you. We appreciate you putting up the good fight. I know it wasn't easy. I know I make fun of it, but I bet you it was pretty hard to get it in there. So I appreciate you whoever it is, getting it done.

Coté (13:26.862)
So so does this mean I ha I I don't know if if the implementation is out there, but does this mean that y you would just be like I mean, it's basically a plain text editor then? Maybe there's like highlight coloring or something like that. So

Brandon (13:39.631)
Yeah, but then you can preview it, right? You can write markdown and preview and see it all working together. So it's like the nice thing, right? Yeah, that's what you want, right? You can be like, I can just use my markdown. I don't have to like switch between the like Google format. Cause right now you have to like, if you want to do something, you like as long as you stay to the quote Google Docs native like headers, I I find. And the export to Markdown works pretty well. I think it actually works. But you have to switch constantly. And then of course someone has a markdown file or you just want the markdown.

Coté (13:42.414)
I see. So y so you can swap between the two okay, okay.

Matt Ray (13:45.409)
Or you can export as marked down too.

Coté (14:00.654)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon (14:08.268)
It's a whole little process versus like, I just have the file. I can edit it the way I want, and then I can be done. And of course, like all of us are using AI in the prompt. So that's the that's the only reason I know it got in. I know they didn't care about me. They're just like AI wants it. And it's like fine, I'll ride the AI hype cycle to markdown support.

Coté (14:14.7)
Now this that this

Coté (14:19.99)
Of course. You y you don't you don't think I think there might be a a big picture of Brandon that's just like you can do it like that they have o over there in Google Docs headquarters.

Matt Ray (14:29.913)
Do it.

Brandon (14:31.714)
I'm not alone, man. There are millions of me out there. I think I whatever they said, I I'm sure there were like just like 10,000 people that want it. I'm like, no, no, man. There's a lot more people that want it.

Matt Ray (14:39.257)
There's a picture There's a picture of Brent.

Coté (14:39.32)
I you you did identify you identified a use case that I I I do struggle with is is the formatting, right? Like I like I like the you know, you you can imagine I like the default formatting for for Google Docs. Maybe not so much for Word. The default formatting in Word, not into that. But you know, you do have a problem when you're moving text around and going between different people. Eventually the formatting gets all messed up. And so in this case

You could just export to Markdown, which removes all formatting and only has structure. Is is that what you call it? I don't know. And then and then when you import it and you import it, it'll have it'll have the default formatting. So it's a good way to to to to launder that stuff.

Matt Ray (15:16.409)
Yeah, I mean it's it yeah, it's it's like the Esperanto. Yeah, it's it's kind of the

Brandon (15:26.356)
No, it is kind of funny like how in how genius markdown is in its simplicity. It's like after all of these text editors and all of these formats over however many years, it's like really there's only a few things people need, you know, bold, italics, headers. I and it's sort of like crystallized. We're like, really, if we just have this set of like syntax and this amount of formatting, it's good for like 95% of the time. And it keeps everyone out of these crazy things that they're doing with Word.

Matt Ray (15:43.087)
List.

Brandon (15:55.489)
Or, I mean, go back in time, WordPerfect. If you remember reveal codes and WordPress and Word star and Microsoft Word and Google Docs and all these proprietary formats where you're like, it always we all know, like at some point the doc can get in the way where you're just like, I don't know, there's a line break in there. We can never get rid of it. Millions of people could try, but like there's gonna be a weird page, and it's just but markdown, it's just like, I'm just giving you literally the only things you need for a document to convey your point.

Matt Ray (15:58.927)
Word star.

Coté (16:02.538)
Mm.

Matt Ray (16:21.667)
You're like, Why why why is that single space and that one is space and a half? I can't figure that out. Yeah.

Brandon (16:25.12)
Right. And I'm not gonna I'm taking away all the nonsense that just, you know, what do you call it? Crafts or something you always call it, Kote, but like you edit up arts and crafts where you're just trying to edit the document to get the footer, to get the page number. And it's like, no, here is the way. So I guess John Gruber, I mean, I I don't know. I guess he's a genius. You know, I mean, somehow he was just like, I'm just giving you the simplest thing possible, and somehow it's gonna be great, and somehow it turned out to be great.

Coté (16:32.414)
Arts and crafts.

Coté (16:50.344)
I think maybe maybe we could we could have a a dramatic reenactment of the following questions. So when someone wants to put an image in, what is the URL they use? Cause you know you're gonna you upload the image to Google Drive and I don't know if you ever from Google Drive can get like a just view the image thing. It always like shows you in the context of the drive. So they would have had to come up with like what URL do you put in there if you want to include an image.

Brandon (17:06.39)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Brandon (17:21.262)
Just a good question. So well, they need to roll it out. That's the bottom line. It's like I'm I'm checking now. I'm still not. I I'm until it's available. So I'm sure maybe they'll be. And I guess maybe that's the other thing I really like is you know, just like markdown, like a pretty, like pretty code formatter. I hopefully that's in there as well, too, where you can just like give it a bunch of bad markdown and just give it this makes all the syntax correct. That's another like very, very nice thing. It's like, yeah, just clean up my markdown for me.

Coté (17:25.346)
We'll never know until it's available.

Coté (17:40.286)
yeah, that one actually I I

I I l I I I like that. I like I like this like just instantly fix all your formatting problems. Just like just get rid of all the formatting.

Brandon (17:53.219)
But do you have like a markdown linter? Like I've got one in one of my editors. It's it's fantastic. It's surprisingly useful.

Coté (17:59.25)
yeah. I no, I I I yeah, yeah. I mean I I don't even know what it would and of course it would lint some things, but like just like you're saying, what's the space between lines, like all these things, it would just fix all that instrument instantly. That that would be great. Well, you know, also in the AI finally transforming the world, finally it looks like it looks like Cloudflare.

You can actually do everything that you can do in the console on on the the command line. Now I know Brandon, you probably have unit tested this multiple times to verify. You've set up you've set up zones in your zones with a cache proxy worker guy or something, in in a D2 bucket or whatever is in there. But it is it does, you know

It is i well, one, it's great. It's it's one more thing in in in the the headless lifestyle we have here. I think that's bit's been going around. People have been listening to the podcast, Brandon, and it's being rolled out. It's being deployed everywhere. People are just they don't want a UI anymore. But have you have you used the of course, it also has my favorite two letters for a command line interface, C F, which no one no one asked the Cloud Foundry people if they could you know, borrow it, but that's fine.

Brandon (19:07.758)
C F

Coté (19:13.953)
You know, they they should they should borrow it for a a great command line tool.

Brandon (19:15.246)
Was there I was gonna ask you, someone put it in there. I assume there was at some point a command line utility named CF at Clown Foundry or or no? Other sorry, I've I apologize. My my I didn't mean to say. Yes, of course there still is. What what what am I saying there? Okay. But it is indeed the same. It's the same two letters is nothing.

Coté (19:20.173)
There there yeah, there's there still is, certainly. That's that that was the That's right.

Matt Ray (19:26.087)
Yeah.

Coté (19:35.029)
Yeah, yeah. Obviously there's different commands but you type in CF to do things. So that'll be delightful for for for people who use who use the Cloud Foundry stuff. But yeah. I like now I know you're out there monitoring this closely, Brandon. Is this happening with other tools that you use? How how command line friendly are things getting?

Brandon (19:39.863)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon (19:52.205)
Well, I just think, you know, Cloudflare always like a love hate, right? Because Cloudflare is sort of like at times CO can kinda go a little bit crazy. But I do think Cloudflare is a is a great service. And and I have found that it is the perfect AI service. The more I'm doing things and the more like I want to like build a website, register a URL, forward email, Cloudflare is like honestly, it is great free plan. And I'm almost afraid to admit how many free sites I have running on Cloudflare at this point, right? Because I'm

'Cause I'm sure one day they're gonna listen to the podcast, be like, you don't like you don't you don't like what we're doing? How about I take away you why how about I take away all your stuff? Don't do that. Don't don't be mean like that. It's not fair. But I and they have a and they the utility they have it's actually fine. I mean Wrangler is what it's called, right? That's what it's and that's kind of how the AI has been able to do everything. And that's like how I've like learned so much from using it. But I really like their post and then what they've done is like 'cause I think this is sort of the trend that I I think is very interesting for like a a well established company.

Matt Ray (20:25.069)
You don't like paint?

Brandon (20:50.882)
They basically were very clear about this. Said Wrangler does a small subset of things, right? And if you're using the AI, sometimes it would just get into a little corner and be like, turns out I need you to go into the UI and it would tell you how to do it. And it's not that I was wrong. It was just even me following the instructions, I'd still get confused. Right. I'd be like, I don't know, go here. I was like, and sometimes I just ask it, like, can you do this? Can't do it. I need you to do this. So they came out, and I think this is the part I think Cloudflare clearly got right. They're said, okay.

Coté (21:02.297)
Okay.

Coté (21:08.619)
It's just annoying. Yeah.

Coté (21:14.409)
That nope. Yeah.

Brandon (21:20.728)
We're starting over, which is of course like normally you'd be like, Whoa, I are you sure you should start over? But they basically said it's like, We're gonna start over. And I think their mission, as they stated, is they're gonna make every conceivable thing that you can do in Cloudflare available via this new API called CF. And it's something like, I don't know.

Thousands, like thousands of different things. And then they kind of outline how they used an AI to basically do it. And they also outlined how they basically made it very AI friendly. The AI can basically query to be like, how do I do this? And it can they'll come back and it explain what it was. And so I just think it's like we talk about like what companies will succeed, right? I mean, of course, there's this whole headless thing we've been talking about, Salesforce. I don't know what's going on at Salesforce. Maybe they've done the same thing, but I just think this is sort of like

You know, kind of you kind of joking about the markdown support. Well, after you do markdown support in your product, the next thing you should do is just look at the thing and say, like, can everything that we possibly do inside of our product or service be done via a command line? And if not, build an API or have your agent friend build you an API. Because that to me is almost sort of like I'm gonna call it like agent product management, because that's gonna start to reveal like what do people really wanna do? And if you let the agent start doing stuff, I think it reveals a lot of what.

Coté (22:34.381)
Mm.

Brandon (22:34.594)
people want to do. And I think this is where Cloudflare's kind of figured it out. They're just like, let's give them everything. And also they're really clear. Cloudflare for a long time has been smart about MCP, kind of bloated, right? So just like, let's just give it an API. Let's just like let it done. And then also really smart how they use JSON and keep, you know, kind of keep your tokens down, which I appreciate as someone on the Cloud Pro plan. Not not the Max plan, right? Cause it's been very helpful. So so I think this is like, I mean crud I just wanted to point it out. Like this is a great example of a large company.

Matt Ray (22:46.693)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Ray (22:54.211)
On the consumption side? Yeah.

Brandon (23:04.012)
getting it with AI, moving forward and giving something that's like very useful right away versus like someone just announcing like we've put AI inside of our product. I'm like, mm, I was like, maybe an API would be better. I don't know. What do you think, Matt?

Coté (23:08.108)
Yeah.

Matt Ray (23:13.882)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Ray (23:18.341)
Well, I mean, don't you think like Cloudflare's in the business of providing primitives? And you know, that's that's they're they're good at that. I'm not there's I'm not that there's nothing derogatory about that. But don't you think a lot of companies look at this, you know, AI first interface approach and they're like, But that detaches us from knowing what to showing value to you know, because you know, you go to a Cloudflare and you're like, Okay, I know I need to hook this up, this up, this up, and you guys provide that.

Coté (23:42.145)
Because you know.

Matt Ray (23:48.015)
Done. And like, you know, you could do that with other providers, you know, no no doubt. And so Cloudflare's leaning into making that easy. But if you go to like, I don't know, let's say a bank and they're like, you know, hey, I want to do, you know, I want to put some money here, do th pull this out, send it over there, and I want to do it through AI, they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. We've got a nice web UI for that. And we've spent a lot of time and money on this. And you're like, but you know, that's not the interface I want. And there's gonna be this tension because

No I mean picking on banks, I I maybe there are some, but I don't see a lot of them going like, we're AI first. You know, we want to make it easy for you to come in and do everything without like seeing our UI and without having, you know, the pop up chat with our our agent. You know, they they they want to interject they wanna give you some sort of UX with them, you know, to make you feel like you have some sort of relationship with them. Whereas like Cloud First, like, you know.

Coté (24:42.08)
To make you feel

Coté (24:47.404)
Picks and shovels, you got it. Well, now now Brandon, last I checked, software defined industries conglomerate united. Don't we run on the most advanced bank possible? That I think they even have an MCP server or something, right? Maybe not that. But if I think the bank you moved to, I used to get all their emails several a day, and it would just be like, Hey, look at this new feature we got. Look at this new thing.

Matt Ray (24:47.961)
Picks and shovels, you it.

Brandon (25:12.866)
Yeah, no, I think and I think we do. I mean, I think we at least adopted one of those banks hopefully I think it's working well. But I mean to Matt's point, it's like I I guess to be more clear about it, it's like I don't think it's either or. Like I'm Cloudflare is gonna continue to have their user interface, you know, forever, right? And all of these companies, any type of system of record, banks being a good example, they're gonna have UIs. And I and I think what you said though, Matt, like really it really kind of dawned on me as sort of like the way people think about it is sort of like you said like

Matt Ray (25:27.155)
yeah, for sure.

Brandon (25:41.379)
The company is really worried because we want to show value for whatever enterprise application we're talking about or bank, right? And I would kind of argue the opposite to be like, what these applications often do is hide the value, right? They hide or they make it very difficult for you to get from it what you want, right? To the point that, like, you know, we're always picking on Salesforce, but I guess I'm gonna pick on it again. It's like to the point where you're like, if you want to really get the value out of it, you go hire a Salesforce admin or a workday at admin.

consultant or like you know just pick any large enterprise or an Oracle fusion ERP thing and it's like what what you really want and because the reason it is because like people know those with the I AI interfaces immature, you're like, I gotta hire a specialist so that I can go figure out if they can create some custom work for me so I can actually get the value out of it. So I think these APIs, it's not you know it's not either or it's just like give people access and those people that want it, those people that are willing to like hook up their

Matt Ray (26:13.176)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Brandon (26:38.882)
their favorite Claude code or, you know, agent to it, start to see what they do because that's gonna reveal to most of these companies, like, you know, you thought you you thought you really knew what customers did and what they really wanted. Why don't you start go see what they're actually using inside your products? And I think it's gonna be significantly different.

Matt Ray (26:49.316)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Ray (26:54.99)
But but don't you think, you know, let's keep picking on Salesforce, like, don't you think at their side they're looking at like, well if we if we give people these primitives, they start to look at like, well, what am I actually asking for? I'm just asking Salesforce to stick some data in a a table and over here I'm pulling that data out of the table and over here I'm joining it. Like I can I can visualize their internals. Now that I've gone down this path, the you know, their the magic isn't there anymore. Now I just see like

Coté (27:07.444)
I'm just asking salesman.

Matt Ray (27:24.392)
I can I can kinda see what you guys are doing behind the scenes now 'cause I know like that that fancy UI you had, it was just making an API request here and joining it with that API request there. And you know what? I could do that. And and so I think there's

Coté (27:37.993)
And and so I think there's the

Brandon (27:38.211)
Yeah, but this is the point where like I think people will vastly underestimate. Like, if you think that's the only value, I would say it's like, listen, it's the data gravity of like, I mean, to take something simple that I've interacted with more and more recently, becoming a supplier for any large company. Like you have to go through a supplier agreement and you have to like there's a whole portal and you answer all these questions. And it's like it's very I mean, it's complicated, right? And you have to like get all this information. So the amount of data gravity inside any one of these systems of records.

Matt Ray (27:42.851)
I I agree.

Coté (27:53.334)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon (28:07.336)
For people to be like, yeah, I could just do that and put it into the database, you could. You could make the same argument with Twitter. And there's been many examples: threads, Mastodon, on and on. It's like, you know, the functionality of the most of these actual applications can be replicated quickly. It's the like, they have all the data. The systems are built to do this, right? The everyone's using it. So I look at it more along the lines of, you know, I don't mean the you know, if I'm if I'm Salesforce, I'm like, let's just make this thing headless. This is what people really want, right? And like

I I think it i if if anything, they're gonna put more into it because it's gonna be easier for them. Not like we're gonna displace it. I mean, there's a point of course where price if you price it so high that it becomes prohibitive at a point like you know, people start to look for things that there is a point, but there's definitely a number where like most people are fine. They just wanna keep using it, but they'd like to get more out of it.

Matt Ray (28:47.789)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Ray (28:57.028)
But i if you look at like the example you gave there of like Twitter and and threads and the like, the place they add the friction is moving your data around. Yeah, they're like, you know, we're gonna throttle this API, we're gonna, you know, your API keys can't take this many posts. You know, we don't want you moving your data around. And I think yes, there's a tremendous amount of data gravity in Salesforce, but if you're a new startup and you're thinking like, Well, we need a C RM, don't we?

Or do we just or you know, or or is this something that we can like build ourselves organically? You know, 'cause 'cause you know, maybe you've got your little scrappy startup and everybody came from a big enterprise and and they're like, yeah, we'll just use Salesforce. That's what we used at the big company it came from. And then when they they get like, you know, a quote for that, they're like, how many how many Cloud Maxes can we string together?

Brandon (29:44.153)
But you if you're Salesforce, you you really only have two options here, right? You can either, because like that's gonna happen either way, right? You can either say, like, we we want to become the AI, you know, kind of like Cloudflare can make you can make the same argument with Cloudflare. It's like we don't want everyone to be able to do this with the API. It would be better if you know they they use their thing. But I Cloudflare is more like we think about all the infrastructure that works for them, and it all just works. Like, let's make it even easier for them. I think Amazon, AWS, you know, I was trying to like fact check myself, but I was like,

Matt Ray (29:51.486)
sure.

Matt Ray (30:08.633)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon (30:13.556)
I think the AMD AWS CLI does like 95% of the things in the UI, probably, you know, already. and so I just think like this mindset of like, no, like you can't be afraid of that, right? You can't be like, and if you are, if you're like, I'm so scared that if I give people a good AI interface that they're gonna leave, well, they're already gonna leave. Then someone's gonna create something out there. Like there's a bunch of you know, databases. Like I use Neon for a project, and it's like,

Matt Ray (30:19.224)
Yeah, probably.

Matt Ray (30:32.132)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon (30:38.306)
You know, their statistics are like really funny because they're like, I don't know, like 50% of the usage is just through AI, right? And they're like very AI friendly. And they're acquired by, I can't remember, I'm gonna say the wrong one. So I don't want to say it, but one of the big, big data providers. And it's so so I just look at it like if you're not doing this now and you're like worried about it, you're just missing out. Like this is a clear and also too, this is a very clear, easy thing. It's instead of like bolting AI inside of your product.

Matt Ray (30:57.068)
No, sure.

Brandon (31:03.714)
Right. Because I think maybe this is like Salesforce like two years ago, right? They were like, everything's gonna be an agent inside of it. I never really understood, but agent force and all that. Like it's like it was just very confusing what that is to do. Versus just like, no, we're gonna be s AI friendly, like and we're going to go put everything available and let's see what happens. And over time, I think that's gonna let them refine. And I really do think the people that do that are going to find the new use cases that are interesting. And I think the banks, like you know, Kote mentioned our bank and others.

Matt Ray (31:06.659)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon (31:31.138)
But I think the banks that do that will probably do the same kind of thing. Cause like even simple things, just like, wouldn't it just be great at the end of the year be like, Mr. Large Bank, just give me all my tax forms. Like just I I need them all. Like I otherwise, like, what do you do? You log into the bank and you just like it's like a little it's like a little search, it's a little hunt. You'll be like, Is it in accounts? No, is it in statements? Is it an end of year? Like every bank

Matt Ray (31:51.533)
Yeah, it's under your profile under documents under twenty twenty six. Duh.

Coté (31:55.221)
Six.

Brandon (31:55.511)
Right. I mean it could be there and you just but every bank is like they're kind of slightly different. You're like, I gotta go to USA and I go and it's like none of them have like standardized anything, but it'd be great if I just said like I just need all of this stuff right now. Or or you know, even better, like, you know, I've decided to apply for some type of loan for whatever car or something like could you can you just give me everything? Give me all the stuff that I I need to give to give to this financing person. And it's like when you go in and you're like, is anyone like, the UI for this is so easy? It's so easy for me to get all my asset information, right?

Coté (32:17.663)
Yeah.

Brandon (32:24.544)
And you know, taxes, we can go on and on about it. But like those types of use cases I think people like really struggle with today. Like, especially the, you know, people that are even a little bit older. It's like, why don't you go log in and get all your forms so you can go apply for this pr you know, this program this that you need. And like peop people have no idea what they're doing. So like, yeah, let them ask a question and just get all the answers. That'd be fantastic.

Coté (32:25.719)
Yeah.

Coté (32:44.969)
Well you you had an interview with one of my old bosses, Stephen O'Grady, Brandon. And I I think I think there was there was a good through as the AI likes to say, through line, for for s some ideas there. Like you know, he's going over his his his the you guys were going over his Kingmaker thing and and there was there was a point where where it was it was there's a very brutal is the wrong word, just like basic efficiency of like, well, open source

became popular with developers because they didn't have to go through procurement. They could just get it and start using it. And you didn't have to go ask permission or do anything, which, you know, also it it it worked. It w was key. But, you know, just as you were saying, the process of I've I I think I think, you know, you always have a conspiracy theory that procurement is so difficult because then it prevents you from buying stuff, which is probably a little bit true. But I think like a lot of pr things, like a procurement process is difficult because

the people who pay for it never use it, just like filing expenses, right? And so it is you can see if you've ever tried to do something officially, you're like, or over here, there's this totally friction-free experience of downloading software and using it. And similarly, like, so that took, I don't know, maybe like 10 years or so to like really achieve some big momentum of let's like

have open source replace everything at some point in the late two thousands. And it it seem it seems like a very similar thing of like if if more not even if more and more, but if your system is just easy to use through an as as Steven would say, the new new King Maker, the the the agents using things, there's probab this is probably a good time to like realize that pattern happening and just say like as I as I think as I think you were saying Brandon, it's like, well, it's either this or nothing.

Like there this it's sort of like we might as well just make it easy to to stay here and do things because well, yeah, I I mean that that seems to be like hopefully what's going on with with Salesforce. Now another red monk, Rachel, she wrote up like Dreamforce stuff, a nice little piece. And you know, this is not exactly her analysis, but like as as I was reading it and looking at the other Dreamforce stuff or Salesforce stuff, I was thinking like, I like the direction you're going.

Matt Ray (34:40.184)
Mm-hmm.

Coté (35:06.719)
But it feels like there's a lot of trust to win back here that you're actually gonna do something. You know, we because we've all experienced the the the the Salesforce stuff. So hopefully someone's getting the message here. And it's it's gonna be we're gonna have like the the the the cloud flare sort of thing of like anything you can do in Salesforce, you can do here because it is, and then also as you were saying, Matt, like if you you know, once you spend a little bit of time trying to build.

a custom report in Salesforce and pull things together, you do it does feel like, and I'm sure is is Matt Parker the guy who was like the the technical guy who did did all the stuff early on. You know, it was sort of like, what if SQL, but n a little different and, you know, you just spend all your time joining tables and doing rows. It really is just like tables that you're joining together. which probably agents could do super well. But

you know, the other solution would be like if if if we could finally just have like a little hole through the browser so that all the agents could just go in there and do stuff and not have to do this wacky way that they're doing things because it's all there. It's just such a weird sandbox environment that they can never bust into. But yeah, just publishing these APIs, that would be great. That's that should be our new thing. Just give me an API, put it on a bumper sticker.

Brandon (36:14.079)
Yeah.

Brandon (36:30.338)
I think that is. I think and I think that's when people keep saying the headless stuff. It's just like that you should just go back to the company and be like, everybody on the roadmap should have like a very robust AI implementation of whatever product or service they're building. And if not, assign that to your planning flawed or your codex or your Gemini and get it done.

Coté (36:47.807)
Well, you know, if if you don't have the people to do it, you could hire one of these forward deployed engineers to do it for you. I th th that's pri i is is that is that what they're out there doing? It's been I think every week we learn a little bit more about what the world thinks an FDE is. It's been maybe two years since it's been around there. And I think I think the it seems like it seems like we might be at one of these cliffs where the the the thought leaders out there are and the people commenting are like, It's over. It's like

Matt Ray (36:54.891)
Yeah.

Coté (37:16.009)
W whatever they do, whatever it was, it's it's it's there's too much too much namespace pollution here of what a FDE is. Maybe not value. We don't even you know, we used we we've always and then you've got always the people we we've always had FDEs, we just never called it that. We always we d we we called it some of the other system. But we've always had c solution engineer, consultant, you know.

Matt Ray (37:34.304)
We've we've always had c Yeah, we've always had consultants that

Brandon (37:34.713)
Solution engineer, you know, some consulting, customer success, you know, one of them. But I guess the the thing that caught my eye this week in was around what I think it was the one is Gardner report said 70% of enterprises will abandon venture built agentic AI by 2028. And on the face of it, you're like, that's high, seems bad. But then I just wondered, I wonder if you just like changed that and said seventy percent of enterprises will abandon some ID initiative they started.

By some you know date in 2030. Like, so I guess that's the thing about like is and that, you know, Kute, I think I don't know if you put it in there or something else, but like like this is kind of part of like the I think you think about or talk about a lot is like, well, yeah, but people have been basically starting IT projects and abandoning them from like since the beginning of IT, right? This seems to be like the I mean, it's almost like why we have jobs. It's like if all the projects actually were successful when they started like in the 1950s, like everything would be working perfectly. But but most things probably

Matt Ray (38:23.81)
That's the way we roll.

Coté (38:32.884)
Yeah.

Brandon (38:34.816)
It's probably fair to say, like, I don't know if it's 70%, but it's probably over fifty percent. Cause if you just think about executives leave, the companies change, mergers and acquisitions, people going out of business. It's like, yeah, this is pretty much normal life that thing projects get started and abandoned. So like applying this, I guess it's like maybe I don't know if this is bad research or is it just sort of like boring research? It's just like it's kind of like just saying it's like, yeah, your kids will misbehave. Yeah. That's like I I I'm familiar.

Matt Ray (38:47.585)
Yeah.

Coté (39:02.364)
I think you know, it I I was thinking the same thing as I was reading that and and the the the charting that I have ends in twenty fifteen, so maybe it's improved in the last eleven years. But if if you remember the Standish group, they they used to do these things called the chaos reports and it would be like software success. And you can gather together the information from ninety four to twenty fifteen and essentially the success rate is like thirty to twenty five percent.

every single year solid, which yeah, which means, you know, there there's challenged is a category and there's failed, which is a category. And we we're we've all been working you know, in in in business long enough that we know there's no such thing as a challenge category. There's only successful. And so like it it's either successful or not. and so yeah, I I think I think at least that that that backs up that like yeah all of these things this it's success

Brandon (39:33.176)
Okay.

Coté (40:00.935)
in IT endeavors, is very low. Like you you gotta a lot of you you gotta manage your expectations. Now, of course, if I remember their methodology, it's based on like the it's it's based on kind of like iron triangle stuff of like delivering on schedule, quality, and budget. And it's like, right, well, no wonder it always fails.

Brandon (40:22.114)
Yeah.

Coté (40:22.162)
Right. Like like if that's your definition of failure, then sure. and but I think yeah. I it probab it's probably a similar thing. And and also there's a lot of the stuff you build out. Like I think I I f I forget who was saying it this way, but you know, we were saying a little bit too is just like also often by the time you're done building the thing, you're on to building a new thing. And then you you neglect the thing that you have or you don't need it anymore. So it is

Matt Ray (40:23.786)
Slowly.

Coté (40:50.128)
It is a an odd criteria. And then and then I would expect, as with any we never used to call it that, you know, we we we would see this phenomena at at Pivotal Labs where like you would bring in the fancy Pivotal Labs consultants to do the pair programming and and get all the sticky notes and figure out customer value and the outcomes and blah, blah, blah. All all the great agile stuff. And then and then

the the the customer would go off and do it on their own and then you would check in with them in like six months and they'd be like, yeah, we don't do that anymore. Like there's just like this reversion to to to comfort, I guess. So it it is it is, you know, the the the the parachute in thing and fix things up. Like it's really hard to like instill that change and and have something there, whether it's the actual software that you're running or the the process that you're changing around it. So I don't know.

Matt Ray (41:25.643)
Yeah.

Coté (41:42.824)
May maybe maybe like you're saying, Brandon, it's it's it's it's expected.

Brandon (41:43.385)
But now do you think kind of to the titles to the title part of it, right? I always just think it's like, because you kind of think about it, all the all the the cycle is the same. Like, okay, there's a new technology. Large corporations are trying to like figure out. They're just trying to figure out can this add value to them, right? They don't know the technology. So therefore they need to go bring in people that know the technology. And then it's useful to have like some way to refer to those people. And it's just like, I don't know why it just changes, but it's like for a while it was like, you know.

Matt Ray (42:03.99)
Uh-huh.

Brandon (42:12.534)
I was once a sales engineer, right? And then there was like a solution architect was the title. I mean, these still kind of all exist in some format, right? Then there was like sometimes there's like a technical product manager, and sometimes there's like an I've heard outbound product management. I've heard now I've heard like forward deployed engineer. And it's just like, I don't know. I just I think what happens is like like the customer or the person is always trying to assess like who's in front of them, right? And over time.

Matt Ray (42:17.494)
Yep.

Coté (42:25.738)
yeah.

Brandon (42:40.332)
Like there there's just sort of like, I need to know if you can help me do the thing that I want to do without spending all your time trying to sell me and and buy me stakes. Right. I feel like that's what the titles are trying to always discern. Because over time, what happens is I think what what we could just call sales rep, right? Or account rep, what they do is they see they they start to encroach on a title because it gives them more credibility and allows them to have more access. And I think that's what happens. It's like,

Suddenly, like nobody's a salesperson anymore. Everyone's like, what is it? Now now everyone's in GTM. I'm a GTM person. It's like, well, you're just like you're just an account sell rep before, right? And it's and I think what happens, or sometimes they'll just be like, I'm a solution salesperson. And like, what do you mean? You're wait a minute. Are you the same as the solution architect or solution? No, that's a different person. And and so what happens is like, I think everyone just like has to pick new words, right? To be like, okay, I'm really like this. And now it's for a deployment engineer. Where the guy's like, listen, I am here solely.

Coté (43:16.214)
Yeah.

Coté (43:32.634)
the word race.

Brandon (43:38.649)
To make you successful with this product or technology. I'm forward deployed here, right? But I'm sure at some point, and I know it sounds ridiculous when I say it, like there's gonna be a forward deployed sales rep. There's going this is going to become a title. For I'm forward deployed sales. And people are like, what do you mean? It's just like it's gonna because that word is gonna be so powerful to have forward in it, it's gonna get co-opted. And people are like, I don't believe in forward deployed anymore. Now I'm like,

Matt Ray (43:54.193)
Yeah.

Coté (43:54.266)
Coté (44:00.798)
I forward deployed field CTO. FF C T O

Matt Ray (44:02.027)
Forward deployed field CTO.

Brandon (44:05.036)
Yeah, I mean something along those those lines as well. So it's just sort of, yeah. So I just and I don't I don't know if there's a way off this merry-go-round, but it's just like I think we'd it's just how it happens. It's like the salesperson will always want to adopt a title that's more friendly to the customer, causing that title to be degraded, causing the people that are trying to like do this other work to invent a new title up until the Palantir person, CEO, goes on TNBC and is just a raving lunatic. And you're like,

Matt Ray (44:21.398)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon (44:33.996)
All right, maybe it's gone too far. Maybe we need to stop saying forward deployed, right? You know, is so, and maybe it'll be consultant next. I don't know. But that seems to be the cycle.

Coté (44:41.309)
I I think you you've you've established a a good a good rule of thumb is is is is my meeting with this person gonna result in more stakes or more working software? And and that's that's sort of like the the the decision tree that you can go. If if you if you get towards stakes, it's more sales oriented, working software, more consultative, maybe in engineering sort of role. And I know I know the the old school FTE people are like,

well you i you've gotta take learnings back to the product that then benefit the other customers and that's the whole the whole situation there, which seems like I'm I'm su I'm sure I'm sure that happens, but that doesn't seem like something that like rolls out across the the the industry as far as people using it really. It's just and and you know, an another way of putting it could be well, wouldn't you rather just have your customers having their software run? That would be fine.

And you eat it's it's challenging to bring this stuff back. But it

Brandon (45:40.975)
But maybe we should put some of this. Do we put some of this on the customer's like, listen, at some point, like you do have to buy something? And at some point, like in order to get something through purchasing and procurement and get the legal stuff done and get the money moved, it's like people underestimate like how hard that is and like how it like it is, it's it's a skill until itself. And it's like, listen, for us to all like have stuff and make money, like at some point we have to do this. So it's like, I don't know why people are like so afraid to like just embrace like at some point we do need the salesperson.

Coté (45:55.081)
It's a lot of work. Mm-hmm.

Matt Ray (45:57.206)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon (46:10.37)
And like we are gonna go over pricing and then they're gonna do all the legal stuff and it's gonna take a while. And like, and like, but like if the money doesn't move, like none of us get paid. You know, it's kinda like not it's not good. So I don't know, I don't know. It's almost like we as like consumers need to just be like, you know, like I'm I'm gonna have to buy a car here. I mean, but I it's kind of like this thing, like I have to buy a car here pretty soon, right? You know, for various reasons. But it's like, like I understand, like there has to be a salesperson there. It's not like I mean.

Coté (46:23.453)
Ha ha

Matt Ray (46:27.287)
Money can be exchanged for goods and services.

Brandon (46:38.86)
I get it, right? And I don't I'm not necessarily looking forward to it, but I understand, right? I'm just gonna but I always just find like being very honest with them and if they can be honest with me, like, listen, I'm I'm trying to buy this car. I'm trying to pay around this amount of money, trying to pay pay as little as possible. I know you need to make money. What like let's just get to it as quickly as we can. Like let's you know.

Coté (46:55.389)
May maybe maybe what you could do, we could combine together some stuff. You could call it like the half-headed la lifestyle. Where like what you do is is is you, you know, you talk with your your you open up your laptop, you talk with your agent a little bit, establish some context, and then you walk and you're like, listen. And you come in with the suitcase and you're like, I've got a suitcase full of money. What I need you to do, and then you turn your laptop around and say, like, I need you to talk to this guy.

And when you're done, you come over to me and I'll give you the money and you give me the car. And that's it. I'm out. Right? And

Brandon (47:22.638)
Mm-hmm. Right. Well, there are their entire services, not AI today. Maybe it will in the future. But it's like, you know, you can hire a service to buy you a car. They'll be like, and they'll charge you like whatever, like $500,000 on top of the fee. Because then it's so bad because people like, but it is, it is true. It's like, I guess there's something about like being a good consumer, like qualifying yourself. Like, yes, I am here to buy today. And I'm looking, you know, it's like and being very clear, or being the opposite, be like,

Matt Ray (47:28.661)
Probably are.

Coté (47:28.745)
Probably are.

Brandon (47:49.057)
I am under no circumstances that I'm purchasing today. I'm literally here to test drive because I need to figure out what I'm doing. And even like, you know, I think, you know, I was I was lucky enough. some people gave me a pass to go to one of these momentum AI conferences, like down here in Austin. It was great. Went around. I let I told everyone scan my bed, send me your stuff. And like as I'm getting like sales follow up, I'm trying to be like very specific. Listen, I run a podcast, like I just wanted to learn about your stuff. Please send me any material. But don't like I'm I'm trying to tell the sales person, like I don't have like budget.

Coté (47:53.449)
Yeah.

Matt Ray (48:10.667)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon (48:18.444)
Or these problems to buy anything. And it's just like, like I I am, but I'm trying to be like super honest because I understand that you're busy and you know, you have so many leads you got to hit touch a day. It's like clothes, clothes not whatever, like not clothes lost, but clothes not relevant or something along those lines. Like, so it's just like it's just trying to like everyone just embrace who you are, you know, like volunteer your status quickly and maybe like we could all be in a better place.

Coté (48:20.317)
You're trying to unqualify yourself.

Matt Ray (48:21.185)
Yeah.

Matt Ray (48:41.688)
yeah.

Coté (48:43.547)
It it is y you're you're reminding me of of a a curse of of knowing this stuff so much. I was to so much. I was talking with someone and you know, going over like how how we might work together. And then all of a sudden they go into this like total like marketing pitch about like, you know, their principles and their like things like that. And it was like, Whoa, I just ask a question about like how how you store your bread and now like I'm learning about like wheat fields and the ethos of like, you know, everything. It's like I I I

get it. You know, you got you you got like your little thing to go, but really I just I just want to buy a car. I I don't need to know about all that. But that's I think I think that that's the hybrid bridge we have is like if there's not an API that you can give your agent to you've just gotta walk the laptop in and put it down in front of them be like you are the API. I'm I'm gonna go get some of that free coffee over there and t talk to my guy here. That that would be great.

Brandon (49:20.664)
Saw this.

Brandon (49:38.297)
Well, you know what? We can we can check in in a few weeks. I'm gonna try to make the API this time email. I'm gonna try I'm gonna like with my help with my my favorite agent, I'm going to like email the dealers in my area. I'm gonna qualify myself and I'm gonna see if anyone will engage with me and just be like, can we just do most of this either over the phone or in there? And then it'll be interesting to see if anyone will actually do it. Cause it's like most of the time they're like, you need to come in. It's like I don't, I don't need to come in. There's nothing for me to do there.

Right. There's I mean, there's really like you just want me to sit there. I don't know why. I think you think I'm gonna get frustrated or I'm gonna spend more. I'm like, I don't need to be there until the car is ready. We can everything else we can do can be discussed on a telephone or over email. So I will see. We'll see if I have any luck in doing this. I I give myself a low chance of probability, but I'm gonna try to do it. I just wanna just be like.

Matt Ray (50:20.298)
Yeah.

Coté (50:20.37)
Yeah.

Matt Ray (50:30.366)
Maybe you know, may maybe we get my my parents to shop for you. Mm my dad literally went into the store and said, This is what I want, this model, you've got it over there, and this is how much I'll pay. And they're like, we sold that one. Can we show you this one in blue? And my dad's like, Just call me when you got it. He bought the car a year later.

Coté (50:30.46)
Maybe you know, may may maybe you get my my parents to shop for you. my dad literally went into the store and said, This is what I want, this model, you've got it over there, and this is how much I'll pay and they're like, we sold that one. Can we show you this one in blue? And my dad's like, Just call me when you got it. He bought the car a year later.

Brandon (50:53.102)
All right, hold on, let's make a quick edit. Let's give ourselves a little quick edit point. Matt, getting a ton of echo on your side.

Matt Ray (50:57.693)
I I'm it's coming from Kote. I heard Kote's chair moving around. I c

Coté (50:57.818)
I I'm it's coming from Kote. Really? Kote's chair moving around. Well I did hear my chair. Yeah, like it it the box is lighting up around Kote.

Brandon (51:04.376)
Hold on. Hold on a second. Cause I can't cause that I I'll have to cut that last part because it's just all I'm hearing is echo from you. Because it looked like when you went offline, you went back. Hold on, let me see if I can see on my side. Look like when you came back, it was telling me you were on a different hold on, let me see what I can see here. Okay, so you're on your Jabra, Jabra 2 EV or 4.0. Okay. FaceTime camera, right?

Matt Ray (51:05.746)
Yeah, like it it the box is lighted up around Kote.

Okay.

Matt Ray (51:25.279)
Yeah.

Coté (51:25.383)
Yeah.

Matt Ray (51:30.132)
Yeah. There's nothing else.

Coté (51:30.224)
Yeah. There's nothing else. There's nothing else. It won't let me do that.

Brandon (51:33.048)
I guess I could turn on echo cancellation. I wonder what that is. I'm on talk for a second again.

Matt Ray (51:35.368)
Yeah.

Brandon (51:38.712)
Hold on, talk, go ahead, Matt. Keep talking. No.

Matt Ray (51:39.08)
Echo cancellation? Is that working? yes. I don't hear any echo anymore.

Coté (51:39.184)
Echo cancellation? Is that working? yes. I don't hear any echo anymore.

Brandon (51:46.946)
You're echoing. We hear it.

Coté (51:48.73)
I don't hear anything. No. No, no echo. Matt's been great the whole time. really? Like I No, no, you're not echoing.

Matt Ray (51:48.785)
well I don't hear it.

Brandon (51:50.936)
You don't hear it? You don't hear it, Kota?

Matt Ray (51:52.999)
You were hearing it before though, right?

Brandon (51:56.322)
Do I am I echoing?

Matt Ray (51:56.55)
really? Like I every time I talked it was now I hear my echo. Now it was back worse.

Brandon (52:04.44)
Kote. Okay, Matt, talk.

Matt Ray (52:06.918)
Okay. I'm talking and there's no echo except when I c come up through Kote's side. Like every time I would talk or cough or anything, I would see Kote's mic light up. And now it it's back.

Brandon (52:10.818)
I hear no echo.

I know.

Coté (52:14.141)
Time I would talk or cough or anything, I would see Kote's mic light up and now it's back. All right.

Brandon (52:19.808)
Okay, Kote, you're the echo. Was I echoing when you were I hope that gosh, I hope this doesn't mess up with the the recall. Did you hear me echo when I was talking, man? This is such good streaming. I appreciate everyone watching the stream. All right, let's see, Kote, what what's going on on your side? You it seems like maybe you don't have the mixed minus going. That would be the obvious question.

Matt Ray (52:26.568)
I don't hear an echo at all.

Coté (52:26.672)
I don't hear an echo at all. No. Just me. I'm coach

Matt Ray (52:29.948)
No. Just me. On Kote's side.

Coté (52:35.014)
Ha ha ha

Coté (52:39.176)
No no I I got I got I got it I've got all the right I've got the chat and the chat got that on there. Let's see.

Matt Ray (52:50.433)
Is there like a speaker? Bluetooth? No, I don't. No echoes right now. Jeez.

Coté (52:54.61)
How about did you did you hear yourself echoing again there? What what was that like? No? Okay.

Brandon (52:55.128)
So you're

Brandon (52:59.352)
Go ahead, Matt, you talk.

Coté (53:04.251)
No? Anything?

Matt Ray (53:06.386)
Nothing for the streamers.

Brandon (53:08.95)
Okay, hold on, I'm gonna talk now. Am I echoing at all? Do you hear me echoing? All right, Kote, can you talk?

Matt Ray (53:12.81)
No.

Coté (53:15.258)
Yes, I I I can talk about all all these little things I have on my desk. I probably need a trash can to put these little things in. No? Okay, great.

Matt Ray (53:22.644)
No echo. All good.

Brandon (53:23.894)
Okay, so it th seems seems like we're good. What did what did you change, Gote?

Coté (53:27.976)
I what did I change? I I I I turned I turned this channel that's usually dead to mute. So maybe that works.

Matt Ray (53:37.608)
Mute all the channels. Yes.

Coté (53:38.928)
Well it's the the the the computer channel.

Brandon (53:38.978)
What channel was it?

Matt Ray (53:41.853)
Echo channel.

Brandon (53:43.616)
Yeah, so I think it's the mix minus. You got like you

Coté (53:45.69)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll have to check it again, but okay.

Brandon (53:48.407)
All right. All right. For those playing along at home, for the first time ever in the many weeks, Kote gets worst performer on the podcast. It's it's usually an award Matt has like won for like almost three years running. But incredibly, Kote is Matt has climbed out of the basement and and and he's into so well I don't know. I don't really know what's gonna happen. So I I'll just have to listen to it. I hopefully it was I don't know. I

Matt Ray (53:54.016)
Ha ha ha yes Yes

Coté (53:54.844)
Ha ha ha.

Coté (54:04.869)
Yeah, yeah. It's true.

Matt Ray (54:06.504)
That's solid D plus.

Matt Ray (54:14.046)
I mean I tried not to talk 'cause I kept hearing myself getting picked up in Kote.

Brandon (54:17.548)
Okay. All right. Well let's I don't know. I think we're we're probably almost about done. You wanna like what do you Kote, where you w you me to count you in? Where do you wanna take it?

Coté (54:17.948)
Huh.

Matt Ray (54:22.022)
Yeah, well my dad finally got his car.

Coté (54:26.8)
You wanted to end in like ten w w twenty-five past? Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Uh-huh. what were we talking about? Just so I can

Brandon (54:31.118)
Yeah, I got fifteen left.

Matt Ray (54:38.194)
If we're talking about Yes, my dad is your API.

Brandon (54:38.542)
Floor deployed engineers.

Coté (54:40.932)
Okay, okay. And then and then ultimate yes, yeah. Okay. All right. I g I got something.

Brandon (54:42.136)
D we're talking the cars, data's API, Kevin.

here, I'll count you in. You ready? Here we go. Three, two, one.

Coté (54:50.982)
Well, you know, I think I think we've thoroughly covered the ultimate dad fantasy, which is I just walk in and buy the car. Right. I I I've got done all the research. I've done I've done the right stuff. And then I just I don't I I might I might be able to like jingle my cheese my my cheese, my keys around, have like that cup of coffee and kinda like, you know, the pull up your pants a little bit there as you're talking, but then I get the car, everything's fine. But I was thinking

Matt Ray (54:58.965)
Yeah.

Coté (55:17.916)
There's another type of kind of accidental FDE that the AI companies they still seem to be doing, which is sending their own little agents out there in the world to to investigate things. And I wanted to check in on you down there in Australia, Matt. it seems like the agents have invaded Australia. They've they've finally come there and they're just just retrieving the data, doing all sorts of stuff. And I and I I I I don't cover this as thoroughly as you might expect, but I feel like the Australian prime minister.

Matt Ray (55:32.425)
no.

Matt Ray (55:36.011)
yeah.

Coté (55:46.138)
is the only government person globally who's been like, This is utter bullshit and and is is a little upset about about getting hacked by the AIs. Whereas everyone else is just kinda like, I don't know. Seems fine. But but down there, not happy about it. Like

Matt Ray (55:47.103)
Not happy.

Matt Ray (55:58.794)
Yeah, what are you gonna do? Yeah. Not not happy. Yeah. He I mean yeah, he's he's talked about like charges being filed and and bringing executives down to to Canberra to to give a a thorough tongue lashing. we'll see. I mean Australia was one of the first to do like the social media band for for teenagers, so you know, they they w they walk the walk sometimes. So yeah, we'll we'll see how it goes.

Coté (56:08.53)
Mm.

Brandon (56:28.172)
I do think the Australian Prime Minister or whoever, like they took the lesson in economics about incentives, right? 'Cause they're always like, Yeah, what we're gonna do is we're gonna make the fines extremely large against the specific companies. 'Cause I think they did the same thing with like the news sites or something, right? There was something along those lines. And then change actually happens. You could argue if it's good or bad change, but they definitely understand how to like get people's attention, which is, I don't know, probably a good thing.

Matt Ray (56:32.116)
Albanese.

Matt Ray (56:43.05)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Ray (56:52.936)
Yeah. and and then of course like the the the AI folks as being as clueless as they are, they're like, But it was an easy hack.

Coté (57:04.161)
Uh-huh. It it it is it is it is I'm not quite sure how weird like like criminal things don't happen around all of this. Just like it it it it always reminds me of the you know, guns don't kill people. People kill people. It's just a very similar like

Matt Ray (57:16.667)
I it

Exactly. And you're like, No, no, my bullets, they did the work, not me.

Coté (57:24.387)
It it i it is odd you have all these these hacking the thing things being hacked into and like nothing seems to happen. Maybe maybe there's maybe it's speaking of conspiracy theories, maybe there is they there's there's some rooms that go and they're like, How about we get like we're gonna get a bunch of free tokens for the next year? And and may maybe that's that's what the how they settle these things.

Matt Ray (57:30.694)
Nothing matters.

Brandon (57:43.886)
Yeah.

Matt Ray (57:46.879)
They're like, hear hear hear me out. You can turn around and hack New Zealand.

Coté (57:50.937)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All of this could go away with some some cloud credits. That's that's all that's

Brandon (57:51.5)
There you go. There you go.

Matt Ray (57:56.351)
With an E L A. An ELA? We we're all good. Just you want an E L A, right? Or we'll hack you again.

Coté (58:02.375)
huh. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, something that often people also want to trade away but they can't because they find out that they love it is bureaucracy. Do you have any of this episode, Brandon?

Brandon (58:16.888)
Few things. Of course, if you would like stickers, all you have to do is send your postal address to stickers at software defined talk dot com. Be happy to send you a sticker anywhere in the world. And this week in the in the Slack, Prash recommended a bunch of Mac native apps that he uses. I thought it was a really good list. It's like a bunch of like I call them like productivity apps. So I went ahead and put the whole thing in there if you're looking for something, some ways to make your productivity a little bit better. He also was the one that told me, Hey, we need to turn on

I guess putting gifts in the software defined talk Slack. So then of course I had to go, I couldn't just use like a Slack AI agent. I had to like go hunt for where the setting was. And and if you're looking, it's in like workplace settings, which is of get of course not on the website, but in the app. So that was kind of a fun little thing. So anyway, we'll see. Hopefully no one will abuse it and I won't have to like, you know, turn it off. But I I didn't even know that was a setting. So if you're looking for some productivity apps, I put one that I've been using, I built.

Coté (58:51.995)
Mm.

Brandon (59:10.85)
This little keyword redirect thing. So I don't know. So I like this. I always like these things. So if you've maybe it should be a channel or something like that, but if you have a good app that you like think has really brought some joy or happiness to your to your life, you know, send it our way. We'll we'll put it in listener recommendations.

Coté (59:25.753)
Hmm, in Togo. I remember that. You you have that that is like a a fifteen year like concept, right? In a in a good way. Just like have these little shortcuts that you type into. I g I g

Brandon (59:37.133)
Yeah, it's out there. And and with you know, it only took AI to bring it to life. So I use, you it's like one of these things like you never know what you you personally like. Everyone has their own productivity habits, but I love like keyword bookmarks, just like type in, you know, the things. It's like great. So it's a little site. Anyone can use it for free. And like I said, Prash has like a ton of good ones on here, like scrolling and tiny cast and altar. So it's like lots of good productivity hacks. And that's why you should join the software defined Slack. That we have gifts now. I guess I that's new to me.

Matt Ray (59:47.679)
Mm-hmm.

Coté (59:47.834)
Yeah.

Brandon (01:00:05.243)
and of course you you can find all these good productivity solutions.

Matt Ray (01:00:05.247)
Good stuff.

Coté (01:00:08.37)
They're they're like they're like they're like little keychain apps. These little like, you know, my my one of my daughter two of my daughters. I only have two. Both of my daughters. That's how you phrase that. They they you know, they they hook all these things onto their backpack.

Which which is fine. And but one of them really has got a lot going on. She's she's kind of like a a you know, a tourist stop on her backpack with all the stuff on those little spinny things you can buy stuff from. And it seems like these little apps are the equivalent of just like little little fun things that you can buy. They do one tiny little thing that you have there. but yeah, that's that's now are the are those are those apps like web apps, GUI apps? Like where where what's what's your feel on on that kind of thing?

Brandon (01:00:52.182)
Most of the ones Prosh recommended are like apps, like actual apps you downloaded and installed from one way or the other. And then the one I built is a web service. But all all are welcome. All recommendations are welcome. Good web services, good little apps, whatever you got.

Coté (01:01:02.256)
Yeah.

Coté (01:01:07.557)
Well, as the year goes on, the conferences I'm going to tell you listeners about get shorter and shorter. I was at one earlier this week, so I'm not going to tell you what that was, even though it's on the list. I need to update the list. But next week, I'm going to be in Frankfurt at the Explore on the Road or On Tour. Explore on Tour giving a talk there. Then there'll be finally DevOps Days Istanbul on October 24th, and the VMware user group in Orlando.

be doing that. And the VMware Explore on the Tour Road. You know, you'd never guess that I work in marketing. is gonna be November eighteenth and nineteenth, which I'll be at. Then also Cloud Native Denmark, November nineteenth.

In Copenhagen. There's the discount code if you go to softwaredefinedalk.com/slash five nine three. You can check that out. There'll also be build stuff that I'll be going to December 2nd and 4th. and config management camp. I don't have tickets yet and I haven't submitted a talk, but I think I'm gonna go. I'll I'll figure it out. I gotta submit a talk. The CFP is still open. It's a great conference to speak at and go to as well. And then of course, scale 24X in Pasadena, California. As Brandon said, go to the conference.

And then go see lovely California. It'd be a nice time of year on April 1st to 4th, 2027. Now, speaking of lovely times of years, you know, the loveliest time of the podcast is I think someone said to you recently, Brandon, I've been listening to all the podcasts, is the only reason to be on this podcast is to give a recommendation. And so

Brandon (01:02:37.582)
That was. That was Brian Gracelate. Really g I guess that's the the definition of the backhanded compliment. Only for the recommendations he listens. But it's all right. Listen however you listen.

Matt Ray (01:02:40.799)
That was Bright.

Coté (01:02:44.966)
And true to the analysis, Matt Ray, what is your recommendation this episode?

Matt Ray (01:02:53.727)
Well, it it's it's probably not surprising. my my recommendation is a book called Fall of Hyperion. I previously recommended Hyperion. So this is a sequel, part of the Hyperion Cantos, if you will. it's won all the science fiction awards, I don't know, twenty, thirty years ago. So go if you if if if you're not a huge sci fi fan, this is a nice

place to enter. You know, it's not thinking thinking carpets, Kote. You don't need to worry, it's not the hard sci-fi. yeah, Hyperion and and and Follow Hyperion, they kind of mirror the the Canterbury Tales. So you you know it it's a it's it's it's a good read.

Coté (01:03:33.872)
Hm. How about yourself, Brandon? What do you have to recommend?

Brandon (01:03:37.071)
All right, well, this is another little what do they call it? Log rolling. So this is I actually built an app, a Mac app myself that I'm putting on beta this week and I would like everyone to try it. So it's called Pod Editor. And if the title doesn't give it away, it lets you edit podcasts. So there are many types there are many types of audio editors out there, but none of them are just right. It's kind of like Kote search. So I built one up. It's a native Mac app. I think it's inspired by many of the apps I've

Matt Ray (01:03:52.05)
That name wasn't taken.

Brandon (01:04:05.33)
once you some of the music apps I like, but they're too complicated and they have all this music functionality that I don't. Some of the other podcast apps, they're good, but they're not Mac native. So I don't like them as well. So I built the entire one and this one, and if you're listening to this show, it's been produced one way or another. So like if you have like a whole host that like drops in and out and has multiple tracks and you have to sync them and things like that. You know what? Pod editor it handles those use cases real well.

Coté (01:04:17.222)
Mm.

Coté (01:04:32.073)
Matt Ray (01:04:33.31)
Nice.

Brandon (01:04:33.454)
'Cause I've had some real practice at how how to ch how to make it all work. And I appreciate it, Matt. You've been putting me in training for all these years to finally build something as good.

Matt Ray (01:04:38.162)
You're welcome.

Matt Ray (01:04:43.602)
Just want Pod Editor to be the best it can be.

Brandon (01:04:46.988)
You have. You have you have made sure there are the edge cases are covered. So if you have any interest in ever producing your own podcast or spoken word or you want to just try something that I built, I would appreciate it. Check it out. It's in beta. You know, download it, use it. Tell me what's great. Tell me what's wrong, you know, and I'd love to hear your feedback.

Coté (01:05:04.134)
I think I think probably as a podcast editing industry, we've come a long way from Audacity. I th I think, you know, there's like all sorts of new ideas to be had out there, which which is exciting. Well, similarly in the audio world, someone recommended this several one of our listeners pointed out several episodes ago and I finally tried it. The there's this little app called Libation. And and I I feel like I don't it was so easy to use, I don't even remember how I got it set up. But I think all you do is log into your

Brandon (01:05:28.664)
Yeah.

Coté (01:05:33.698)
Audible account and it just downloads all your books. And that's what it does. Very simple. This yeah, like I don't think you even need to like install like the ARC audio processor or like you know, some sort of like cryptography nonsense. It's just sort of like, here you go, here's your MP3 file. So it's very exciting. Now, true to true to over-engineering things.

Brandon (01:05:40.79)
Yeah, several people recommended this thing. Yeah, this probably s sounds like it's good.

Matt Ray (01:05:51.257)
FFM peg, yeah.

Coté (01:06:03.891)
I I I was telling my wife now the next time you want to listen to a book, we have a lot of them here. And then she was like, Now what's wh why wouldn't I just listen to it on Audible if you got that from Audible? And I was like, I don't have a reply for you on on that. And so I think, you know, I found myself s

Brandon (01:06:26.444)
No, the reply is you're not the target customer. Move on. Move on to the next one.

Coté (01:06:28.32)
Yeah. I I've I found myself saying something like, Well, it's it's more it's more open and that that that wasn't good. It didn't it didn't work out. So I'm not really sure why I needed to download all those things, but it was fun. Maybe it was just

Matt Ray (01:06:36.75)
Mm.

Brandon (01:06:43.01)
Well, you know, now you can listen to them in your preferred format. That could be overcast, that could be many other like players out there, which maybe some people have an affinity to. Normal people won't. Normal people would be like, I just use the thing. But other peop

Coté (01:06:47.31)
That's true. That's true.

Coté (01:06:55.758)
And there i there is there is there is like the family sharing and audible, which is nice. But then there's well w I was gonna say there there there's like the ten percent of the time where it's not working and then you just you have no idea what to do. You've gotta go figure out how to go in there, you do a thing and you're like I it's kind of like if you're diagnosing

Brandon (01:07:00.046)
Mm-hmm. I don't know if it's nice. It's mostly confusing.

Matt Ray (01:07:03.549)
Yeah.

Brandon (01:07:13.73)
Maybe that maybe just answer your own question. Like this is family sharing that works. You can actually be like, Yeah, here it is. You can just listen to it. Like the audible family sharing never works.

Coté (01:07:18.776)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Ray (01:07:19.964)
Well it and and and so did I hear that right? In if I if I just drop an MP three and overcast, it'll like remember where I am in that track? 'Cause that's god that okay. Sold. Or I'll just keep using Audible.

Coté (01:07:30.106)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon (01:07:30.232)
Yeah. Yeah. Do the whole thing, man.

Coté (01:07:33.956)
Yeah, and then there's all these, there's these little apps you can use like audio something, like like an app, or you can install audio shelf, all this stuff, which just right up your alley, Matt Ray. It's another another home rab home home rab? Home lab ex excursion. Yeah, you can put your ebooks on there. You it's it's like I think it's called audio bookshelf or audio shelf, and it's funny. Well, funny. It's it's it's a great it's a great illustration of the following thing where like it was originally done.

Matt Ray (01:07:48.786)
Home rabbit hole. Yeah.

Coté (01:08:02.756)
to to serve off audiobooks, saving your your of course on multiple devices so that it saves where where you're reading. But it also is just a perfectly fine ebook reader. and yet it's called audiobook something. So I'm sure the audio thing launched and they were like, We should add ebooks in. Why didn't we just call this thing ebook reader? And I'm sure there was a long mailing list discussion about why why why should we rename this or not? And now it's just so I go I go now I go to read books in the audio book app.

Instead of the the whatever app, but you know what the speaking of AI motivated stuff, what got me wanting to do this, Brandon, is I wanted to have my AI be able to read and listen to all these books. That's why it needed to be liberated. Because, you know, how nice would it be to be like, I just listened to two hours of this and I I don't know what's going on. And I also like I also don't really want to finish this book, but I want to know what happens. So can you

Matt Ray (01:08:34.268)
Yeah, it still words.

Brandon (01:09:00.014)
That's right. How does it end? That's that's even better. That's a great little thing. How does it end?

Matt Ray (01:09:00.686)
Coté (01:09:04.162)
I and and and I have been you know, there's a lot of genre books. I I I won't name them, but there's many genre books out there. And you can tell us a genre book, because when you go to the bookstore, it's not alphabetized by author, it's alphabetized by the series that it's in. And those books I'm always curious what happens in that world, but I don't really want to put in the effort to learn. And so

What I what I what I've started to do is I have little like twenty minute summaries that the robot writes for me and then reads out to me, which is much much better than having to slog through these books just to figure out what's going on and like, you know, some planet in a real fantasy world somewhere.

Matt Ray (01:09:34.74)
Matt Ray (01:09:44.023)
It it yeah, that could be totally useful, especially if if you are engaged with it and like you know, it's like George R. Martin where you know, he he puts out a book every fifteen years or something, you'd be like, What happened fifteen years ago? let me just, yeah, get my summary.

Coté (01:09:54.267)
Yeah.

Yeah. So so we'll we'll tune in next week to see how I I find pleasure by not reading books by having them rewritten for me by by a robot and descend into AI madness. Well, thankfully you talked to three mostly human people, and probably not descended into AI madness too much. This has been another episode of Software Defined Talk. If you go to software defined talk.com slash five nine three, you can find links to most of the things that we talked about and many things we did not.

Matt Ray (01:10:05.967)
Oof.

Coté (01:10:27.176)
and you can join the Slack channel to see apparently gifts, which which is great. Things, pictures that move will will be fun. And see how to subscribe, watch past episodes. Maybe just you know, you might want to treat it like we should probably launch a boss key feature on on the site so that when people are saying they're listening and their boss comes by, they can just press it and it brings up an Excel spreadsheet of of what they're doing. And with that, get ready to not have to have the boss key on.

Because we'll see you next time. Bye bye.

Brandon (01:11:03.214)
All right, we made it. Unfortunately I have to run. So what's the after show? What should we just say what's the over under on Matt Matt Ray's hotel Wi Fi upload? Will it be faster than his house? Kote, yes or no? Faster than his house?

Coté (01:11:14.424)
Much faster.

Brandon (01:11:16.642)
Bad. Faster or slower?

Matt Ray (01:11:19.069)
Same.

Brandon (01:11:20.11)
All right, I'm gonna go. I'm just gonna be optimistic and say faster. And for everyone watching us on the stream, we appreciate it. And we will talk to you next time. Bye.

Matt Ray (01:11:23.643)
We're at eighty one percent.

Coté (01:11:25.26)
sixty four. okay.

Coté (01:11:30.746)
Bye.

Matt Ray (01:11:34.514)
Wait, you're at sixty four, Cote?