00:00.00 jamesmontemagno Special thanks to this week's sponsor sync fusion. You know them? you love them. They've been our sponsor since day one they are the world's best ui component suite for building powerful web desktop and mobile applications. It isn't anything that you need to build sync fusion's got your back. They have awesome controls and their entire developer platform for blazorflutterasp.necorejavascript angular react view jquerery dne mai xamarin uwp win forms wpf win you I they got them all. They have everything to be honest with you I use them in my applications for charts graphs sliders controls all the things. Awesome document processing like excel pdf word powerpoint and so much more there's a control or widget that you're looking to add into your application take a look at sync fusion by going to syncfusion.comforward/mergeconflictthat'ssyncfusion.comforward/merge conflict so link in the show notes below and thanks syncfusion for sponsoring this week's pod all right? Frank let's get into it. It's episode 340. 00:58.10 Frank Oh my gosh. No way that that's way too many numbers. Let's just call it episode 40 Hi everyone welcome to episode 40 is that mean oh it's a lightning round lightning striking. 01:09.48 jamesmontemagno Ding d ding ding bu up BuBu yes every 10 episodes we break down 6 different topics that we think would be fun to talk about and this cool because we're just kicking off the new year you know over here week two basically of January and there's some fun topics I know on the top of my head and maybe some on the top of Frank said now if you're just now listening to merge conflict for the first time like Frank said it's a lightning topics week which means 6 topics five ish minutes each would do okay frank. 01:34.63 Frank We we we used to be very stringent with that 5 minute clock and I noticed the last couple times we've been terrible so we'll see everyone we we aim for 5 minutes that's how it is. 01:48.50 jamesmontemagno Yes, um, and this week is a special week because normally Frank and I go back and forth discussing what order we should put them in and this and that but we decided to do a mystery week. Frank. 01:57.40 Frank Yeah I have a set of questions you have a set of questions not questions topics because a few of them I'm afraid are going to be monologues everyone prepare yourself, but it's fun. Monologues are fun I love it when James Monologues we'll see if I can monologue. 02:04.70 jamesmontemagno Now. 02:15.65 Frank As well. 02:16.98 jamesmontemagno Yes, let's get into it. Ah I'll go first you go first. 02:18.65 Frank Yeah, this is this is the little staring contest we do in the beginning you go first. 02:26.79 jamesmontemagno Okay, ah the first topic that I want to talk about today is security and push notifications and smart cameras frank. 02:39.56 Frank Oh ah, if they're smart then they have security or they're smart. They can get around security. 02:45.96 jamesmontemagno Yeah, so the the current of issue is the the actual camera system that I use in a house is called you fee as as you know as we've talked about in the podcast. It's ah it's a system from Anchor The company that makes all the battery chargers in the world and adapters and um I like them because there's no fees. There's no monthly fee. 02:55.16 Frank Yeah. 03:02.76 jamesmontemagno And they don't store stuff you know on the cloud like your videos or things like that they have a little server that you can put in your house that stores the stuff or the cameras themselves store them well last year a few months ago and Linus did a whole thing where he. They they'd like anchor like you like kick them out of their their system of of doing stuff. Ah, but basically uy there was ah a security researcher that said hey like I see that when my camera notifies and detects something that there's some photos being uploaded to a server. Um, and that's's not what you promised. 03:31.78 Frank No. 03:36.65 jamesmontemagno And people have gone back and forth and what yuffy came and said was like hey listen when you have notifications on in your push notifications on you want the image to be sent. We need to upload the image somewhere and it's deleted after so many days. Um, so that's what we're using it for and there's a bunch of other information that that's a short story of it. But there was a whole. 03:47.24 Frank Yeah. 03:56.22 jamesmontemagno Conundrum about it. But I want to talk to you more about maybe the security aspect of it. But I guess more of the push notification aspect of it is like does that seem like a legitimate reason or not in my mind I was like yeah how else are you going to get the image in the push notification like I always knew that they were uploading something to some server like they could not be. It's a free service. 04:13.54 Frank Yeah. 04:15.23 jamesmontemagno That is displaying images inside of a mobile application and on push notifications right. 04:19.44 Frank Yeah, it's the classic problem of we don't have perfectly synchronous communications I can't just push an image at your phone and even then it doesn't make sense because you would want that image maybe on your Mac Also so all that stuff. So I. I'm a little worried to come down and just say right Away. Of course this is a very good reason for it. Of course you have to upload the image so that things can reference it and so it can be displayed but at the same time you know they're probably doing a little bit of extra stuff on the side with the image. They're probably throwing it into their database. They might be trying a network. Who knows what things you sign in the terms of service. So I would say there that does sound like a fine technical reason to me but I am ah cynical and skeptical that said in the in the end I I think I just kind of don't Care. Um I I don't have any I would never have any cameras pointed indoors only outdoors and so if people are looking at what's in my yard then that's fine and anyone can see what's in my yard. It's It's okay. 05:16.49 jamesmontemagno Um, John. 05:22.58 jamesmontemagno Yep. 05:29.83 jamesmontemagno Yeah I I agree that's that's how our cameras are set up and most of the times it's just photos of me in general. Um, that's out there. But you know you were also walking by tons of cameras. 05:34.55 Frank A sentence. 05:39.85 jamesmontemagno Out there I think that's the the tricky part is like the marketing was pretty off so I'll give Linus like that he was really talking about like look what the website says it's not what it does the website says everything's local I was like yeah but like your videos are local like and actually how that works right? And how we know it works is yeah, there's a video file. 05:47.98 Frank Yeah. 05:58.80 jamesmontemagno On the camera on this little server here but like those ports aren't exposed to the internet they're exposed to to uy servers and uy is doing a passthrough to give you know a Url basically reroute right? Like that thing that that video file is being transmitted through servers on Aws. 06:10.49 Frank Yeah. Yeah, and and I mean if you just think about like in the end it always sets up on a server if you set an Mms. It would end up on at and t's web servers if you sent it through your own app. You're you're going to have to queue it up on a server somewhere. Otherwise. 06:16.20 jamesmontemagno Right. 06:24.57 jamesmontemagno Yeah. 06:34.38 Frank People's phones are all going to have to be perfectly in sync with each other and receiving pushes and we know that'll never work because I try to use Apple's walkie-talkie app and that thing can't even work so there is no chance at synchronous communication. 06:44.87 jamesmontemagno That's true unless it's airdrop it is definitely going through a server somewhere. Um, yeah, So my takeaway here some people had asked me about this because if people know I use this stuff is I'm totally fine with with I already kind of have assumed that that stuff was happening so to me I was like yeah that makes sense. That being said, they should have made it more clear right? because the the default option is don't send a photo like that's actually the default option but I was like of course I want a photo I'm a push notification so I turned it on for all of them. But. 07:13.13 Frank Um, yeah. 07:15.41 jamesmontemagno They've now made it clear that like if you turn on those options that an image is being sent temporarily to a server for X amount of days or whatever. Um, and by X amount of days I mean probably forever. 07:18.89 Frank Yeah. 07:24.43 Frank And I want to applaud the security researcher for actually figuring it out. Maybe they jumped the gun a little bit and accusing them. But it is good to know people are auditing these tools. 07:33.80 jamesmontemagno Yeah I think that's the the biggest part of it as well and there's a lot of other things in there. This is just 1 aspect of it so I won't go into the other areas but that seemed to be the biggest thing basically. 07:43.45 Frank Yeah, well look at this. We have random topics this week and you set up a perfect segue because I got a question from John Sagara ah friend of the show and he asks what's new. 07:50.63 jamesmontemagno Nice. 07:59.99 Frank and Iot James and I was teasing you with this question earlier. Okay, so we cheated a tidy bit I did mention this question but James promised t would forget everything I talked about ah so I want to I want to pitch it off to you because I have a whole story. Everyone knows I bought a house so I'm dealing with it and I'm trying to iot my house but I want to pitch that off to you first. 08:19.49 jamesmontemagno Only because Cs is happening right now as we record this podcast and I've been looking at different things I believe the thing that is happening the most in Iot especially in the smart home world. That's where I'll focus on least, that's where I think the. 08:19.55 Frank And then I'll come back. 08:38.26 jamesmontemagno That the money is at it's a thread and a matter I don't know what they do um but everyone seems to be talking about it at Cs even Nanoleaf those you know hexagon things behind me. They have some. Sense control lighting automation thingy and that uses thread or matter or something I don't know but thread and matter. Yeah,, that's that's what's happening in Iot thread and matter. 08:59.58 Frank Okay, threat threat and matter those are your answers. Okay I guess I'm not keeping up so I interpret this question a little differently I thought of it not what's late breaking at Sas whatever it is. 09:15.71 jamesmontemagno This. 09:18.13 Frank I and I took it as when I go to Amazon and I'm trying to iot my house. What what's the offering looking like these days and my answer is you know it's a little bit samey is what it's been for the last few years but there's a few standouts that I really appreciate. 09:26.89 jamesmontemagno Um, earth. 09:34.40 jamesmontemagno Um, okay, yeah, yeah. 09:36.91 Frank So I'll say I've noticed zwave is becoming less popular and I think that's Zwave's fault I think their license was too much or something. So no one is making cheaper products people I'm I'm looking at the cheap stuff here. You know I'm not looking at the expensive stuff. Um, zigby. 09:52.36 jamesmontemagno Yep. 09:56.48 Frank Is still doing well but Zigby has become the expensive product. A lot of people advertise Zigby products. But in fact, they all require hubs so people are still trying to do the hub thing and it's annoying I don't want hubs and so the zigby world is split. Ah, some of the devices are true zigby and do all the mesh stuff. Not not the kind of mesh you were talking about old old old mesh and technology. Um, Okay, so that's fine and the cheap upper encumber. There are the wi-fis. 10:22.65 jamesmontemagno So. 10:30.65 jamesmontemagno Has. 10:32.63 Frank And these are broken into 2 categories too. You have the wi-fis that require their own special hub because gosh darn it of course every light manufacturer every outlet manufacturer every switch manufacturer is making their own stupid hub and so if you want to get the cheap switches and stuff. 10:37.49 jamesmontemagno And. 10:50.38 Frank That is probably the most economical way to do it. But I still refuse to get a hub on principle. Well, the only hub I've had hubs in the past I used to have the wing cub and I absolutely hated it and so I have Alex ah sorry everyone I have echo family devices pluses. 10:53.76 jamesmontemagno Do it. 11:08.16 Frank And they have zigby hubs built to to them and obviously wi-fi so I've been trying to go on that side. Finally James I'm going to end this I swear. Ah, it's nice to see that Amazon basics has started making iot devices and they're kind of hilarious. They're wi-fi devices also. But of course they work with the. 11:11.77 jamesmontemagno And. 11:20.92 jamesmontemagno Um, saw that. 11:27.12 Frank Echo family of devices. So I think I'm going to try to get as many Amazon things as I can. The problem is my house is big enough and annoying enough that maybe wi-fi won't be 100% will have to use zigby for something the end. 11:39.53 jamesmontemagno Yeah, and let me recap this basically nothing has changed. Everything is fragmented and all over the place and you basically need to have wi-fi for everything. No I agree like I I agree with you because to me. When I look at it I have 4 hubs right now I have a ufi hub I have a switch bot hub I have a huge hub and I have a go V hub for the water sensors for Hubs they are stacked. They're just stacked by the router. Yeah now. 11:57.78 Frank Oh Jez oh my god where do you put all your hubs are they just like on a wall. They're stacked. That's not good for the radio signals. Okay, that's that's funny. Um. 12:12.63 jamesmontemagno Who cares? That's what I think the house is small. The houses are small so they're all they're all well they're all, um, all minor connected via ethernet. So yeah, that's the win. 12:15.21 Frank Yeah. 12:20.96 Frank That's nice. Yeah yeah, and even the wi-fi you can do the mesh networking with wi-fi now. So maybe maybe what thread you called it other mesh Maybe those will come out but it looks like wi-fi you know wi-fi just like my homemade thermostat. It's wi-fi wi-fi is. 12:30.17 jamesmontemagno Earth. 12:38.30 jamesmontemagno And so thread let me break this down in our last 30 seconds are thread is a protocol that delivers internet access to your systems just like wi-fi in a nutshell thread features powerful encryption and can accommodate several hundred devices likewise it's fast with a little latency and can accommodate nearly any device. 12:38.55 Frank The thing It's the easiest. 12:57.44 jamesmontemagno So that's the thing I think that you have thread built into something a hub and then that is the thing that everything talks to instead of your wi-fi now matter provides compatibility within iot ecosystems between different devices applications and system. The idea is to reduce fragmentation across different vendors and achieve interoperability among smart home devices and iot platforms from different providers. Specifically these are meant to solve the problem of gateways and hubs with many many adapters but still give compatibility. With multiple systems like the echo family google assistant homekit and more so those are the things see they they work they're together the things that you were just talked about says you're going to buy all these things and none of them are going to have threat or matter in them and then you're going to like 2 years from now you're like oh. 13:44.45 Frank Aha. 13:50.80 Frank And because no one could agree on a standard. We made a new standard. Great. 13:50.18 jamesmontemagno Oh well, it all works who cares exactly? um, all right next? Ah topic in my mind talking about new cool fancy, ridiculous things is I want to talk about the future of foldables and. Slideables. What our good friends over at Samsung ah have a prototype out although I can't find a video of it and it very much upsets me which is in the flex hybrid. It's an oled mobile display that cannot only slide but it can. It can not only fold but it can. 14:18.41 Frank Um, hello. 14:28.28 Frank What. 14:28.87 jamesmontemagno Also slide it converts from a ten point five inch four point 3 to a twelve point four inch 16 by 10 aspect ratio and of course it folds so you can make it like a little ah tablet looks like a Nintendo ds um and this thing is pretty neat. And in my recent ama people were asking me what I was excited for and I said I'm kind of excited for new form factors or maybe Apple Vr or whatever they're doing at some point like I want to build something for something cool and different and when I look at this I'm like this looks exciting in some odd way because. 14:52.65 Frank Here. 15:01.58 jamesmontemagno Ah, then that right hand side. That's the slider see that gap right? there like it. It slides out like how are they stretching a screen who knows Frank. It's amazing. 15:09.84 Frank It's it's reminding me. Okay, everyone. It's it's a clamshell but it has a part of it like an edge and you can pull on the edge and it looks like that slides out. It reminds me of those old children toys that had like drawings that were kind of coiled up and you could pull on them and to see more of the drawing. I love this I love this you know I'm sure I've said it a million times on the show I love my Apple I make a living off of Apple but gosh darn it I want a z-f flip phone and s slidedy phone I'm not sure the slidey sounds like a lot of effort flipping is easy but I applaud them for doing ridiculous things. But their screens and yeah that this is classic us right? we're we're always chasing a fun new bit of hardware that we want to like program for and use and I'm with you I love my simple phones. But. I desperately want some new form factors too. 16:05.97 jamesmontemagno Yeah, and you know the clam. The clamshell design is my favorite design of all time and my my passion for clamshell design cames up came about with the ah game boy advance sp ah which was the second iteration of the game boy advance and i. 16:17.74 Frank In. 16:23.83 jamesmontemagno By far the best 1 um, one of the best Nintendo handhelds of all time because in my personal opinion I think the nintendo 3 d the the ds light by by that time was like very good. It was also foldable but the clamshell just makes so much sense because it really. Protects that screen and you know whenever I have my phone and I have this iphone 11 now I guess that howther gave me you know those whenever I set it down I'm literally setting these super expensive cameras like down on a table or down on the you know our ground when I'm doing something I'm like. How are these cameras just not just torn to shreds. You know what? I mean where if it was a foldable those would be up. They'd be up like you're talking about the flip but man how cool would it would be if you had a phone and then you could just you know here's the and all of a sudden. 17:02.34 Frank Then. 17:17.41 jamesmontemagno It's like a dual screen you like you just slide it out Frank it's it's like a transformer what it's like it's like westworld. 17:24.41 Frank I Ah ok I'm still ah the the slide is still baffling me a little bit I'm excited that you're excited again. I Love these screens but I'm still a little bit confused about what the slide is is it just.. It's It's just to watch movies right? It's it's to keep the phone a little bit tighter and then oh I'm watching a movie slider out. Okay, okay book Yeah because it could do Portrait mode assuming. Yeah. 17:38.90 jamesmontemagno Yes, oh totally or I'm reading a book. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's what I think or playing a game or doing something else something like that. Yeah I think. I Think that's really what it is is boom put it in this mode and you're good to go in my opinion and it's a rollable I think it's the roll I think it's rollable rollable right. 18:02.36 Frank So is it actually rolling it I was making a joke with the children's toys is it does it actually roll the screen. Maybe it does like 1 spin like an escalator you know one 1 one eighty degree turn I don't know how does any of that work. Why does an Apple make this. 18:08.71 jamesmontemagno And I I don't know it doesn't say but yeah, how does that know? yeah. 18:22.74 Frank I'm I'm very angry that I'm an Apple fanboy and I'm not buying any of these phones. 18:25.22 jamesmontemagno Now I don't get to I don't get to buy I don't get to buy in this craziness anymore. That's Cs prototype which means it'll never come out but I like this it's someone's doing it. Cs is like my. 18:28.88 Frank It is this for sale or is it just like a CS thing 18:38.35 Frank Yeah, yeah, is it. You know I remember all the tech people pundits always hated Cs because it was so much effort and everything but I am a freakish consumer. 18:43.46 jamesmontemagno Favorite time I now went to CS 1 year oh yeah 18:56.30 Frank And it is fun to see products. No matter how soy they are that would be great. What's planned for next year 18:56.33 jamesmontemagno We should go on year. We should go 1 year we should go let's go I think as anyone can go I would go and the the I haven't gone since I worked for Seaton but I went because we presented there and it was a while. There's just like so I mean there's just so much stuff. There's. There's halls of just stuff that were you know the the tiniest little people are coming with the craziest things you know they get covered I mean it's it's super wild. Um, and it's a super fun show I know it's different now I think it's changed a lot over the years obviously but I feel like it's kind of coming back and it's happening. So. 19:24.71 Frank Yeah. 19:34.81 jamesmontemagno I'll be down to go I think it'd be fun. 19:34.89 Frank Oh yeah, okay, we'll try. It's probably a exhaust. It's probably like going to comiccon or something are are we supposed to dress up. Oh I'm going to dress up as an airpod. 19:42.50 jamesmontemagno No I don't I don't un believe so okay I'm going to slide up I'm going to I'm going to be a slidedable phone so you can slide my my arm outund and you know then it becomes Okay, next topic. 19:57.74 Frank Okay, enough on that topic. Ah the next letter I feel a little bit bad about because it is going to be a bit of a monologue from me but it will will. We'll find a way to involve James everyone hi. Ah this is a question from career cur real I can say your name hi. Friend of the show a is asking tell or demanding that I say tell us about your time on the wpf team as much detail as possible. This is my fault I talk about this too much but they were very formative years and everything and ah yeah I did. Work on the wpf team. It was a very formative job. What we we've we've done a bit of your background. What was your most formative job as a professional programmer sir. 20:41.26 jamesmontemagno Most formative job. Ah as a professional but I worked at I worked at ah can well two two jobs I worked at canon writing printer software that was for yeah, that's pretty desperate and the other one I just became a mobile developer and. 20:52.90 Frank I've got say that one that was my guess. Yeah. 20:58.73 jamesmontemagno Ah, pretty professional but I would say my first job was like enterprise scale. So yeah. 21:01.36 Frank Yeah, okay so I was lucky and got to work on the wpf team at the time we called it Avalon Avalon it was for this new operating system called longhorn which eventually became vista and those were great products. So i. Highly recommend. Everyone should work on a. Product. Everyone loves for their first time out of college so it was good times James designing a new ui paradigm we invented zal we invented. Trying to use the gpu that's not true. Apple was already using the gpu microsoft was catching up try to use the gpu on these new fancy machines for all your window drawing and all that kind of stuff and I was lucky I got to work in the media integration stuff. So this was the um. 21:48.37 jamesmontemagno Um I will. 21:50.94 Frank You know it's funny so it was all the low-level drawing which was all implemented in C plus plus code and com code but we wanted to make a beautiful C sharp wrapper over all of that kind of stuff and so that's how Wpf got invented.. That's how um. Do you remember like system dotwindows.media. That's how that that's that that was my team. Everyone we were systems dot system dot windows dot media and it was the 2 D drawing I didn't get to work on that. Sadly, there was the 3 D Graphics rendering I didn't get to work on that. Sadly. 22:10.27 jamesmontemagno Are. 22:27.10 Frank What I worked on was imaging so it's not too different from your printer stuff. Honestly, ah so load loading images the Api the metadata James we built a beautiful metadata api around all that kind of stuff wpf had amazing imaging stuff. We had. Transform things. No one ever really used them but they could resize the images and that's what people mostly used them for but it was fun because it was graphics programming out of college. 22:58.83 jamesmontemagno Now I like that I mean this was ah yeah, it's it's big enterprise software enterprise company I think it's very similar to my time at Canon as well. It was a very yeah we had a lot of processes in place. A lot of things like that. Um. 23:04.81 Frank Yeah. 23:11.50 Frank I I learned build systems for the first time like I never had to deal with a build system before and there was a giant one because every time we wanted. This is one of the reasons vista had a reset is every time we wanted to change something and how the application programming model changed. You had to recompile the operating system and that it was just tremendous amount of work it it slowed everyone down to a snail space but it was interesting to see as you said big enterprise play out. 23:30.86 jamesmontemagno Um, earth. 23:41.81 jamesmontemagno Yeah, that's pretty cool that ah was that your that wasn't your first job out of college right? or no, that's right. 23:48.14 Frank no no I was working at Gm before then but that was more of an engineering job. So I kind of distinguish between my software career and my engineering career. Um I will say though I got really into security. So my actual job title at the time was a developer in. Test so I was programming but I wasn't programming the final api that people used I was writing apps that tested those Apis and so it's kind of great I got to be basically a white hat white hat white hat hacker and. 24:06.25 jamesmontemagno Um, ah. 24:22.97 Frank I really specialized in imaging file formats. So I got to know the Gif or Gif whichever format. You want to call that I got to know that file format inside and out I've done things with Gifs that you don't you don't even want to know crashes most operating systems but not windows thanks to us. 24:32.57 jamesmontemagno Um. 24:42.45 Frank Ah, Jpeg tiff. They were all terrible. They're all terrible file formats and it's amazing how you can make operating systems crash. So I worked a lot in the imaging department and managing both. We call them the codex and it was a pluggable interface so it was user extendable so you had to make sure all that kind of stuff worked too. So much work writing an operating system who wants to do that. 25:05.15 jamesmontemagno That's true that's true I'm proud of you and you know wpf I someoneir was asked me like oh what's the happening with it. You know there was it in the Ama and I was like they're like oh is on now goingnna replace ball blas like I and wpf just someone asked me like oh I have a Wpf app I miggrated to dot m ma I said do you do you. 25:20.91 Frank You need to? yeah. 25:21.89 jamesmontemagno To target anything besides windows like I don't know don't rewrite it just because there's something new and shiny I was like put put your Wpf app on dot n seven. It's gonna be great I don't know I'm done wrong with that. You know. 25:33.27 Frank Yeah I saw that there was ah it is it is a little apropos because I think wpf was ah transferred to a different department outside of windows recently at Microsoft and so people are nervous. But. 25:42.71 jamesmontemagno Yes. 25:44.95 Frank Look everyone like visual studios built on it. It's baked into the os your your apps are safe for probably 10 years I was going to say 5 but you're probably safer like 10 years on wvpf maybe at some point you'll have to port it. But it's not going to be anytime soon. 25:59.21 jamesmontemagno I Don't know there's team still supports I mean Win Forms Apps Run on Dot n seven. So just saying? Yeah yeah, that's you know and I've been going through that even with all my Xamarin forms apps too just because I'm like I've there's. 26:03.90 Frank Right? Exactly I think you're safe. Don't don't port the Amos you have to. 26:19.16 jamesmontemagno 1 or 2 that I'm like started the migration on one I've already done but the other ones I just like yeah, it's fine right now like there's really no reason for me to put in any work right now over the holidays and just enjoy my holidays I just didn't so problem solved in fact which is what I decided to do over the holidays frank I just. Roast some delicious coffee because ah, that's my other passion project. Besides you building some iot devices and talking and knowing all the things about Iot and iotifying your house I've been getting in back into I should say coffee roasting at home which is a science and really is kind of like. Being an engineer I think that to me all saw all software engineers or some not everyone. But I think software engineers some things that are cooler like pinball because I think pinball is cool like how does it work nobody knows and then ah. 27:11.17 Frank Um. 27:12.87 jamesmontemagno Like brewing or roasting things I think is it's a science and I think is very very enlightening in general. But I've been getting deep dive into it. But specifically I want to get into coffee I just drank a cup of my roasted coffee that I have here. And I made that with an arrow press and now our listeners here don't know but our Patreon subscribers do that for Christmas I brought Frank Kruger and arrow press which is the best way of making a cup of coffee a single cup of coffee and ah Frank I'm curious has. 27:48.86 jamesmontemagno Said Arrow press been used to make the delicious cup of coffee or no. 27:53.44 Frank Ah I'm just set up for failure I'm I'm ruining the podcast right now James it's been sitting in the box staring at me saying Frank make delicious coffee out of me frank make delicious coffee and I just keep staring back at it. Saying no Mr. Coffee is making my delicious coffee and I don't know what to do with you James I am so thankful for the gift. What a wonderful gift from you but I apologize perfusely I have not yet experienced the lifestyle but I'm bu. 28:23.85 jamesmontemagno I'm very sad that that hurts my hers I when I got the the notification I've been delivered. It's like oh this is gonna be great because Frank's gonna get onto the the Patreon fees and be like oh I got this brand new thing just like testss it it out just like like a kid in the candy store got a new iot device aka coffee making device and boom good to go. Um. I guess I'll to roast you some beans roasting beans is very fun I have a fresh roast sr Five hundred the five forty is out now. Um, so people were asking me as well. So on on my last dreams I wanted to talk about it a little bit but it's very fascinating now roasting beans yourself, you can roast them in anything you can roast them. In ah in a popcorn popper. For example, the fresh roast I think is a few hundred dollars to buy and you roast about six ounces at a time. So a third of a pound ah and it takes to you know, eight or nine minutes and you buy green beans not green beans but green coffee beans frank those are. 29:04.22 Frank In. 29:18.46 jamesmontemagno Unroasted coffee beans which are very cheap. They're like $6 a pound. 29:20.39 Frank See. Okay so I shouldn't roast the roasted beans got it I will buy some green beans ah can one use like 1 of those little little toasters. You know like a little toaster oven. Could you use that? oh. 29:36.46 jamesmontemagno I probably not I would say that you could definitely do a ah air popper in fact, Sweet Marias is the website that I use and specifically they have a whole bunch of information on it but you could get a. 29:45.62 Frank Moving. 29:53.22 jamesmontemagno A nostalgic popcorn popper and used that and I think because it moves it around and they have different guides now what you have to do it's it's a science because every second kind of matters which is really something cool to think about now the. 29:56.51 Frank Okay. 30:02.15 Frank 3 30:08.76 jamesmontemagno 1 that I have I'll give you a link to it you and I'll put it in the show notes as well. On Sweet Maria's website where I also buy my beans. Um, ah specifically what you do is you have control over low heat medium high heat and then you're able to adjust the fan and. You start off with a low heat high fan and what you're trying to do is get all of the moisture out of the beans because the beans have moisture in them so you can start roasting them that usually takes a minute or 2 and then you have to pump up. Um the heat and then you turn down so it's kind of just like going through and it's like spinning around it's doing stuff and the beans start to to turn colors right? It's like. 30:32.20 Frank Ah. 30:45.71 jamesmontemagno You know I think it's like the first time that I roasted beans a while ago and I got back into it and just bought like fifty more pounds of of beans recently. So I'm going to start start up doing some stuff. Um, but it was kind of like the first time we have that fun moment like oh I made something right? and. And it it starts to it starts to get yellow and then starts to get brown and then you're like okay I need to start to adjust again like how dark do I want the roast like and it starts making noise it pops right? because you're literally roasting a bean like popping a popcorn and they call it the um, what do they call it the first. First crack and it makes cracking noises and then the second crack is when it's like popcorn basic with like like rice crispies almost so anyways, it's super amazing if you haven't tried coffee roasting. It's it's so easy to do now Sweet Marias Dot Com ah everything you ever need and anyone also has other recommendations. You can you import it in they have. 31:22.93 Frank It's fun. 31:34.97 jamesmontemagno All sorts of green beans that you can buy um tons of great resources books stuff like that. Um I just wanted to mention it and there's not really a discussion but I wanted to talk about I think it's cool. Yeah. 31:44.50 Frank Yeah I see I got nothing other than super cool I like that there is a cheap one I could I could do the roasting if I want to get into roasting and I want to toss out there completely unrelated to this. Ah. If you're ever trying to make a fried rice. A fun way to do. It is to pre-roast the rice in like an oil or something and it's kind of the same satisfaction you get you have to be very Careful. You have to do it very Quickly. You got to keep it moving but you can roast the rice and if it pops you did it Wrong. You can't go that Far. You don't want to go that far. 32:04.49 jamesmontemagno Oh. 32:17.66 Frank But you roast it and then you cook it in like a ah chicken soup or something like that anyway to fluffen up the rice Anyway, just wanted to mention you can do fun roasting stuff with rice also but I will try your coffee thing at some point. 32:29.46 jamesmontemagno No, maybe I'll just make you coffee I'll send it to you in the it to grind it I Guess you have a grinder you have a not a good grinder. You got to go you got a oh that's good. That's good that you have a good one Then yeah, you get know it. 32:37.44 Frank I Got a manual one for manual people. It's exhausting. It's terrible. 32:47.14 jamesmontemagno Yeah, people live and die by the manual grind I I used to I thought but I had one originally and then I'm proud of you because literally after like six months I'm like yeah I'm not going to use this ever again. So um. 32:56.20 Frank Oh right? Well we we are going a little bit long but I have 1 topic left and so we're going to end on something fun that I'm a little worried you're going to roll your eyes at. But I'm hoping you'll have fun with it too. Jades I did a deep dive into chat gp t. 33:12.72 jamesmontemagno Okay. 33:16.20 Frank Not because ah, okay because I have been enjoying it but I don't want to talk about like that part of it. How youthful, it's been to me how wonderful it's been to me I actually want to talk about. Ah what makes it so special because after using it for a while I was questioning what does make you so special. Have you read any technical articles or anything to know like usually there's some innovation in a new neural network and so have you run into ah anything at all technical about it. 33:42.43 jamesmontemagno No, not at all. Basically I tried to ignore everything about chat gbt as much as I humanly can. 33:48.61 Frank Oh darn. Okay, well this is gonna be a fun segment to everyone Well okay. 33:56.26 jamesmontemagno Ah, do du does it have something to do with its and sibling model and shrus Gp t. 33:59.70 Frank It does in fact and in some ways I just want to talk about instruct. Well not really actually there's another model before instruct. So let me break it down. Why why? I think it's kind of special so chat. Gp t is. Just gpt so that we've had gpt 2 we've had GpT3 they trained a new gp they call it gp 3 point 5 so it's it's just a bigger more powerful one. But if you've ever used gpt you would know that it it makes for ok answers. But it's it's not. 34:23.91 jamesmontemagno The. 34:35.19 Frank Right? It's it's so general purpose that it's sometimes hard to get it to do what you want I made that Youtube video of an ai reacting to star wars and it was good but it it lacked a little bit of cleverness and things like that and through lines and things like that. So I was curious. What actually made chat gpt special and it turns out this is this is the part I wanted to get to that was all precursor the algorithm that they're using to train. It is reinforcement learning which is the algorithms I use to train like. 35:06.92 jamesmontemagno A. 35:12.40 Frank My Robots It is neural networks for robotics the idea being um, there's a world out there. The Robot wants to interact with it every time the robot interacts with the world. It gets rated. It gets judged how well it's interacting with the world. And what they ended up doing was using this reinforcement learning to train vendoral Network I Want to talk a few more details about it. But I'm going to stop there for a moment doesn't that sound a little bit fun using robotics stuff to train these big things. 35:46.13 jamesmontemagno Yeah, that's really neat I mean I think the world of machine learning and ai and this stuff like they're going to converge in some different parts and that's really neat I mean can you talk a little bit um about this type of training like what that actually means you said that it's this specific type of training. 35:59.60 Frank Yeah. 36:03.95 jamesmontemagno Reinforcement training but like what would be a scenario that you will you do with your robot. For example, that would be applied in the scenario. 36:08.92 Frank Right? Okay, so like for a balancing robot the way the whole thing works is you give it rewards over time and from the rewards how much you reward it. It decides whether it was acting well or not.. It's a very time based thing and so for like a balancing Robot I could say are you standing upright give it a. Give it an award every time It's standing Upright. So How does that translate to a chatbot.. How do you do that? Ah, the neat problem that they were trying to solve is actually a more like philosophical problem. How do you align the outputs of neural networks and the things that they do. 36:28.20 jamesmontemagno Um. 36:45.48 Frank With your actual desires for what they should do it sounds a little bit obvious but it's it's not always aligned like for example, if I go to old Gpt and say like how do I roast some coffee it may or may not give me an answer. It's really depending on some random number generator. 37:01.53 jamesmontemagno And. 37:03.52 Frank What they did for this reinforcement learning is put humans in the loop and this is the cool breakthrough that they came to. They said we want to make sure that this thing is actually useful for humans and so really the only way to do that. We don't. We don't have the mathematics for that humans are complicated. What are we going to do. We're just going to ask humans and so they actually paid for enough people I don't know which service they used and all that but what they would do is have the neuro network generate 5 answers or whatever. To a prompt and then the humid would pick which one is better and then they would do that again and the human would pick which one is better and the great revelation that they came to and I really think this is kind of profound is they not they someone else sorry that there's more work here. But ah, they found. There's a way just by having people choose which one's better which one's better which one's better. This one's better that one's better. You can create a reward function and once you have a reward function now you can use reinforcement learning a robotics technique to make the network better and all that sounds so highfalutin and so weird. But it worked. That's the amazing thing. It actually worked and so I love it. I think it's very exciting in the field. 38:24.12 jamesmontemagno That's really cool. Yeah and reinforcement training another scenario here. Not only just on robots but also on dogs. 38:28.90 Frank Oh yeah, you don't want to make too many analogies to real living things because the way we treat these networks is terrible. You never treat a living thing like that. But in the case of a Neuro network you can treat them terribly and make them learn from a million human responses. It's neat. 38:47.67 jamesmontemagno I'm gonna. 38:48.69 Frank I I almost want to train my balance robot based upon this the idea is like you show a one point five second video to different ones and you say which one's better. Do that again, which one's better which one's better which one's better and then it just figures out how to get better over time. Like a holy Grail I've I've always wanted to implement something like this. 39:10.66 jamesmontemagno This is amazing I've I've decided to sign up based on this conversation about um and what you said I've never used chat Gpt now to sign up and use chat Gpt is um. 39:28.10 Frank Yeah. 39:28.35 jamesmontemagno The terrible process you have to like you to put in your phone number and that feels wrong. Um, but I did it and you can't use Voip you you have to use a real one. Um, so I asked them is that what is the best way to roast coffee on a fresh roast s r 500 which is what I use. 39:33.90 Frank Sorry oh. 39:45.56 Frank Um. 39:45.57 jamesmontemagno Says the fresh roast shar 500 is a small home coffee roaster that uses hot air to roast coffee beans here are some steps you can follow roast coffee with your fresh RoastSRFiveHundred now I don't think I'll follow these specifically but it says um, start by selecting your coffee beans. You can use any type of coffee bean you'd like but keep in mind the different types of beans will roast differently that makes sense preheat. 39:53.60 Frank A. 40:03.31 Frank 2 How. 40:05.20 jamesmontemagno You're fresh roast by turning it on and saying it to the highest heat setting that's fascinating I've never read that before I don't where they got this from but I want to I want to know if. 40:11.95 Frank Um, you can ask it. You can follow up and be like where did you get that knowledge from you can ask it? Oh yeah, it's freakishly knowledgeable. Ah, while you're typing that I will interject. Ah. 40:16.17 jamesmontemagno Really? Okay Allen. 40:25.87 Frank I do recommend people go check out the website where they actually describe the network because you can go and try Gpt and ask that same question to Gpt and it's going to give you a nonsense answer so it is all because of this whole like we're we're making this for humans. We're actually trying to make it. Comfortable to use that it actually gave you that decent of an answer I'm just gloating I just love it. 40:48.18 jamesmontemagno Yeah, it went through 8 steps I went through this whole thing it was like ah when it's pre-hi it. But it's preheated. It says it says only up to four ounces which is correct but I have the extender which gives me up to six ounces um add beans to roasting chamber or turn the heat down to medium and start the roast by pressing the start button. 40:56.42 Frank Oh. 41:05.22 jamesmontemagno Roast will take about 10 to 15 minutes that's way too long by the way depending on how dark you like the roast as the bean roast. You'll go through several stages green to yellow yellow to Tan Tan to brown you can use the fresh RoastSRFiveHundred is builtin timer to try it to the roast time when it's finished it will auto shut off carefully pour the roast beans in a colander or strainer to remove any shafe that is correct chaff shafe. 41:22.31 Frank This instance that earth. 41:25.18 jamesmontemagno Shafe and it says the outer layer bean that comes off during roasting. Let the beans cool for a few minutes then transfer them into an airtight container se best to let the beans rest for a day before brewing I Love that says the guide is based on information from the manufacturer's website and general knowledge about home roafing roasting coffee just general knowledge that it knows. 41:39.13 Frank Loud general knowledge general knowledge. Wow Okay, well we've cracked it people. 41:43.43 jamesmontemagno Um, yes, it does say it's It's fascinating because then it says you know it repeats a sentence that it said earlier and then it said it's a popular choice. The steps I provided are I provided and oh um, I. 41:55.75 Frank Um, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's an entity. It deserves the eye title. 42:02.88 jamesmontemagno I Recommend consulting the manufacturer's instructions or seeking advice from someone who has experience using it if you have specific questions about this particular roaster I'll say thank you chat dpt. 42:14.56 Frank That question comes up a lot. Do you do you think it I thank it I Know it's honestly it's literally just wasting power in the world to thank it. But at the same time. How can you not if it was helpful. You think it. 42:30.70 jamesmontemagno Um, and say 10 to 15 minutes sounds like a long roast time is that correct. 42:37.36 Frank Well, we've completely ruined our lightning talks now now we've deteriorated into one of those let's just chat with chat G P T podcasts but did it agree. No okay. 42:46.66 jamesmontemagno all right? all right I'm very fascinated. It's says the it says the roast time for bees can vary ah by many factors and it's like it should chilly be 10 to 15 minutes I like all right? Oh now it's now it's now it's describing to me in detail. What each. 42:53.58 Frank Okay, alright budy. 43:03.63 jamesmontemagno Stage of the process is um says the rosa is generally considered to be finished when the beans reaches side roast level and emit series of cracking noises known as the first crack and the second crack that is correct chat Gp you're so smart. Why do I even exist anymore. Ah. 43:06.47 Frank Ah, you're going to learn so much tonight chatting with it. 43:22.17 jamesmontemagno Yeah, shouldn't have signed up logging out and. 43:23.91 Frank Ah, it gives me hope it doesn't make me sad. 43:29.11 jamesmontemagno Also I want to say one final thing when you go to log in to chat gbt they have figured out how to use bootstrap and center login and sign up and some text on the screen it took Frank having me Google that to do that in bootstrap from my amazing website that I built for coffee roasting. Um to center an image. Inside of the website because center tags don't work and that makes me sad these 2 yeah who needs css that it made me so sad when I now know why it doesn't work because of the. 43:51.31 Frank They used to work they work if you don't use any other css. 44:04.65 jamesmontemagno Css in the bootstrap but I was like just center it. It's like Nope. Ah. 44:05.78 Frank Yeah, the 1 thing you used to be able to do in html at at least it's become a meme. That's all people joke about is centering a Div. 44:17.96 jamesmontemagno Oh my goodness and I did update. Um, ah my fave iico and I did figure out how to get it all centered which is great. Well thanks, everybody for tuning in to this week's interesting enlightening merch conflict. Maybe I don't really know what this episode was but. Hopefully you enjoy it if you did head over to Merge Conflict data fm that's a whole website that we run I don't do anything by it. We use our amazing host of fireside which we've used for many many many many many many years. Um, since year two I think of merge conflict. there's ah there's a Discord button. There's a Patreon button. There's a subscribe button. There's a sponsor button. There's a whole bunch stuff. The Patreon one's a cool one. We put up bonus episodes every single week this week's bonus episode is called New Year's drones where we talk about drones flying over the space needle and then we ramble for 20 minutes um if you really want a solid Patreon one. Maybe I'll release it to the world at some point check out the Patreon and check out the one from a week ago which is called spoilers avatar 2 where I rant for a way too long about avatar 2 um there. We go. 45:12.42 Frank Um. 45:24.45 Frank I'm always here for your movie reviews. 45:25.38 jamesmontemagno I Used to have a movie podcast called the movie podcast. It was a podcast about video games now as podcast about movies. 45:28.45 Frank So well named. 45:34.55 Frank I Do miss it I Do actually enjoy you talk about what we we'll talk about more movies. Maybe we'll do puss and boots if I ever go see it. Yeah. 45:43.72 jamesmontemagno Which act surprisingly looks pretty good. Well the mario movie's coming out which is pretty pretty good. Um, and then I just finished Fleischman is in trouble which is a Tv mini series based on a book with Jesse Eisenberg Claire Danes and Lizzie Kaplan 45:59.82 Frank And. 45:59.86 jamesmontemagno Very good kind of depressing. It's on Hulu Um, but I just binge that over the the holiday break. So that's my update on stuff. 46:07.90 Frank All right I look forward to the next update on stuff. 46:12.53 jamesmontemagno Well thanks, everyone for tuning in that's gonna do for this week's merge conflict. So until next time I'm Jason on to Mag Now pace 46:18.49 Frank And I'm Frank Krueger thanks for listening.