Studio Sessions
Discussions about art and the creative process. New episodes every other week.
Links To Everything:
Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT
Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT
Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT
Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
Studio Sessions
55. Reclaiming The Soul of Digital Technology - Less Capability, More Freedom
We explore the philosophy behind building personal websites and using intentionally limited computing as creative practice. The conversation examines why modern computers feel "too dangerous"—offering infinite possibilities that paradoxically constrain focus—and how deliberately choosing simpler tools can restore agency over our attention and creative output.
Through discussions of building throwback websites, setting up old computers as single-purpose machines, and integrating AI through terminal interfaces, we unpack the psychological difference between technology that serves us versus technology that exploits our behavioral patterns. The episode ultimately centers on a deeper question: how do we design our relationship with technology to support sustained attention, genuine connection, and meaningful creative work? We consider whether the future might look more like the 1960s than the 2010s—not through regression, but through conscious iteration that prioritizes human flourishing over engagement metrics. -Ai
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a rating and/or a review. We read and appreciate all of them. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.
Links To Everything:
Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT
Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT
Matt’s 2nd Channel: https://geni.us/PhotoVideosYT
Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT
Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
It had been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
Speaker 2:There's something so cool to me about the original idea of the television. Just like pulling you just got it. Yeah, Like you. Just all you had to do was buy the TV Right and you just got the signal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just got it. Yeah, like you. Just all you had to do is buy the tv right and you just got the signal. Yeah, and I still do that with my you know, my 55 inch flat screen tv upstairs when football season's on. I put the antenna up and I watch the games off the off, for free, off the air yeah which is just crazy.
Speaker 2:To me, it's like perfect high definition yeah, it's crazy, that is nuts, it's like magic. When I was, when I was a kid, I we got to go move the satellite dish around, yeah. It was like we had a sat like a crazy antenna Right that was supposed to give you more channels than just the ears, especially if it was way up high.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you could pull from other markets. It was like installed on the.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was supposed to pull from other markets. Other markets and you were, but yeah it never really worked. We had one, it was great, but it was, it was not. Yeah, then we got cable or a satellite and I was for like a year and then we lost it and I was like we had one of those antenna.
Speaker 1:It was a regular tv antenna but the guy had put it on like a 30 40 foot structure next to the house and like when you like as a kid, you could climb it.
Speaker 1:I never climbed to the top because it was way up. But there was a big storm one night and we were I think we we were gonna do like an outdoor sleepover with all the neighbor kids, but then it started raining and the storm came in. So we went all and slept in the family room and in the middle of the night, bam that the whole. Thing fell across the house. Oh, Jesus it poked a couple holes in the roof, but it came down like a ton of bricks.
Speaker 2:This big metal structure. Yeah, they're huge.
Speaker 1:It was like for those listening. It's just like I don't know 12 to 18 inches.
Speaker 2:It's like a really narrow but long column.
Speaker 1:I feel like it was triangular. Mine was a try, it was a triangle, but yeah, that was uh, did it just have like the three yeah? That was like zigzag kind of deals on them yeah so you could climb up it. But um, but then the funny thing was we, when we bought the house, I was I don know two or three years old. The thing's there but it's not connected. Yeah, yeah, everybody had like that, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean my grandma still to this day has a giant dish in her backyard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just dead.
Speaker 2:I guess it was to grab.
Speaker 3:TV and she was kind of out in the boonies back in the day, like now it's the city's kind of moved out there, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's this huge it just looks like a direct TV dish, but it's like 10 times as large.
Speaker 1:And I've got a bunch of photos that I've taken around town because I was messing around with that as a project and I took just. I have probably 20 to 30 just photos of dead satellite dishes all over the Omaha area.
Speaker 2:It's such a crazy of dead satellite dishes all over the Omaha area. It's such a crazy. I feel like that's something. That, like radio, is something I think about all the time. Like seems like a medium that is very useful, pretty cool, and that it should probably make it seems like there is an opportunity there to kind of do something with it.
Speaker 1:Do something with it Like make it.
Speaker 2:Like we keep KVNO on here in your cars, right, and I know you listen to like the jazz on npr yes, that night, yeah, and in the afternoon yep. So I mean there's something there to like ad free radio, yeah, it-free radio. I think there's something. And I mean, obviously, like a lot of people listen to sports talk radio. Still Sure yeah.
Speaker 2:On the car. That's extremely popular. Am radio is still popular, I'm sure. Yeah, there's some of the sports talk stuff Everybody kind of like if you're a big sports fan, you know you're local and then I mean, yeah, other than sports like maybe like country music or classic rock, like that kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You hear that in the background at a lot of places I was listening to just like an alternative station the other day because Aaron needed the truck for an excursion with the kids and our niece so I took the car out and it has a CD player. But I didn't get a bunch of CDs ready, so I'm like what's on the radio and found a little alternative station so I was jamming to that. It was kind of a throwback because I haven't really other than NPR, which isn't the radio experience that I remember from high school driving around, you know, listening to Q101 in Chicago, which was the alternative station back then and hearing all the ad breaks and the MCs and all that it's not the same, even NPR
Speaker 2:is not the same as like what it was. Like, I feel like I don't know. In my head I picture like 90s New York City. Yeah. Kind of that vibe.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I just miss that. Yeah, it's like a like like late 90s in New York City is like the mecca of just city culture in my mind.
Speaker 1:For some reason. Yeah, no, I hear that. Yeah, wnbc, just like the low low the jazzy like.
Speaker 2:And you can just like this image of like New York City with all of these halogen bulbs and the twin towers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like Sod, like Sodium vapor.
Speaker 2:Well, you know that I, yeah, I'm like all in on the weather channel from the 90s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, buddy.
Speaker 2:There's nothing, nothing sweeter than that. Nope, that's just like I don't know. It just puts me in this zen place.
Speaker 1:But that's, I was thinking about that. Your your project too.
Speaker 2:Cause I, as I was setting up the switch today, the RCA switch. We do not need to dedicate more time to my stupid the thing that caught me was like I got to get that Apple monitor, though that thing's crazy, that thing's sweet.
Speaker 1:I mean that is like quintessential sort of computer CRT monitor without it being so obnoxiously big that it wouldn't even fit on the corner of your desk, you know. But there was just something to me about like you having that idea and the tools are out there to bring it to life. And you know what I got to. You know today, this switch that lets me go back and forth between the different inputs is not like some big, profound invention.
Speaker 1:It's a very simple concept. Yeah, you don't even have to have power to it. I mean, there's no like plug or anything, it's just a box that's free of cables. Yeah, and you route the cables through it. Yeah, it's just a splitter.
Speaker 2:Super simple yeah.
Speaker 1:And there's just something cool about like me sitting there going. I want all these things to just go to one TV and I don't even need a remote. I just want to push a old clicky button to switch back and forth between the inputs from the sources and it was just the greatest, like I mean. I'm like in the video, I'm just like laughing Cause I'm so delighted that it was just an idea to finish product. And same thing for you with Apple TV on the CRT. Yeah, and what you're thinking about with the weather, like Raspberry Pi running Windows.
Speaker 1:Like it's all out there. You can easily do it.
Speaker 2:I don't even think it costs that other than the hardware. Right A little bit of time and I found a couple of solutions like there's there's a non-crt solution that yeah I might try um, just like a little desktop monitor that I thought about. I was like, ah, but then I was. I started looking at it more and like it would be cool to have the apple.
Speaker 1:I think you need to do the apple one, yeah, even if it's 200 bucks well, and I could put it on that table.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like that fan is only there during the, during the summer, so I could put it on there for six months of the year, seven, eight months of the year, and it wouldn't really add that much space. Obviously, I've got the barrage of cords, but yeah there is a place for it. I want to. The other thing is I gotta figure out the music, so I'll show you something really quickly.
Speaker 1:Go for it, show and tell.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I cut this out or what.
Speaker 1:Whatever You'll decide, oh wow Cool website. Oh wow cool website. Now we're talking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's go. So I had it yesterday, finally, where it didn't reset every time. Um, but it's supposed to just keep playing, nice, but yeah, and then the visitor count is obviously way off. It's just every time I've reloaded the freaking page. But yeah, literally just like hosted it myself, oh yeah buddy.
Speaker 1:And so there we go. There's that saxophone that's it right 80s cool jazz, isn't that amazing yeah dental dentist office.
Speaker 2:So I've got like an hour and 20 minute loop of this. This is great and it's so.
Speaker 2:It'll pick up too. It'll. It'll cache and then pick up wherever. So if you leave the website and come back it's not like you just run it back if you change pages, it'll discontinue all those crash symbols. I'm gonna put a, I'm gonna put a photo all the photos in here, though sorted obviously by year and month, and then videos hosted on YouTube. Wow, and all of that there. Books, just a very simple letterbox kind of review system. I was thinking about doing the film thing too, but I'll just keep it at books for now. Blog and then the homepage. I'm going to get the little Weathertron radar scanner Classic To tag off of the IP and then got to do a lot of work with this.
Speaker 2:Yeah like the clock. The animation's a little wonky and instead of doing it hour minute second, I want to do it a little differently.
Speaker 1:So for those listening who have no idea what's going on, Alex has his laptop out and he's showing me a website that he's working on, but a website that's sort of in the spirit of the old internet. Yeah. And a place where he can kind of hold all of his content and the stuff that he's writing and working on, versus putting it on some essentially social media thing, yep versus putting it on some essentially social media thing.
Speaker 2:Yep, and so it'll have recent posts weathertron radar. Nice guest book so you can sign in, and then you'll be able to view whoever signs and then.
Speaker 2:So the visitor count will go over to the guest book links. So these will just be links of things that I'm messing with and then, yeah, obviously you can support and I think that's gonna be it for now. Yeah, that's gonna be it. Like just this, there's I. So I thought about doing this thing where I incorporate like a ticker of like things I'm interested in, whether that's like sports things that I'm interested in or like just random, like a micro blog maybe or something kind of a Twitter-esque but more.
Speaker 2:And then obviously I'll RSS for the blogs and stuff like that. Killer dude.
Speaker 1:Work in progress.
Speaker 2:There's still quite a lot that needs to be done. It's not robust at all. It's a complete vibe code mess. It's not robust at all.
Speaker 1:It's a complete vibe code mess. This reminds me of me sitting in the Iowa State computer lab building a GeoCities website line by line of code HTML. I mean, dude, I spent days in there building a GeoCities multi-multipage website.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1:I wish I could access it.
Speaker 2:Dude, you got to jump back in. You just got to mess around with this a little bit. It's pretty cool. I'll let you know how the experience goes and we can revisit, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'll mute this. Actually, that could be the soundtrack of your guys' podcast, just playing that cool jazz in the background. It's so good.
Speaker 2:And I want it to be a place where people can feel like they can come and hang out, yeah, or like leave it up and like maybe on a second monitor or something. So I really want to like obviously I'm not going to be putting up videos constantly. I'm not going to be putting up videos constantly. I'm not going to be putting up photos constantly. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I want that when you're on the photo page, I want it to feel like you're in a gallery, yeah, and like you can randomize, and I don't know if it'll be like actual work or if it'll just be like fun, like photos. I don't know where I'm going to draw the line, cause like I'm going to keep my portfolio, yeah, um, I might just have that as like just mess around and have a good time, like here's, like you know, maybe things that I think are cool photos but aren't necessarily like work, work or like maybe it is work but it's like the early stages of it, before it's been edited Yep, I mean edit it before it's been, like curated ages of it before it's been edited.
Speaker 1:Yep, I mean edited before it's been like, curated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, I like this because it's sort of like you know, our online presence and I've used that, not you and I, but people in general you know exists in a sort of um, splintered way, with an instagram account, a youtube channel, and then sometimes people do this link tree thing, where you can go to one place but then access all your different stuff.
Speaker 1:There's something really nice about something like what you showed me a one-stop shop for all the things that you are into and are making, and what I imagine would be normal conversations that we have like in an event, like last night, the dining event where, you know, I asked the guy Josh was sitting across from me, you know, like, are you on Instagram or whatever? Like there's a sort of default asking which social media site can I see what your life is like through? And then, if I did need to contact you, I could DM you or whatever. And then, if I did need to contact you, I could DM you or whatever. There's something fun about or something that if I was in your position, I would be sort of proud and excited in those situations to be like.
Speaker 1:Well, here's my website.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go to my website and then people are like oh, it's his fucking website, Like your business website. Not that they would say that, but they might be thinking it and then to have their expectations you go and you're like you're either like this is cool or like wait, this is yeah awful looking and old guys like me go.
Speaker 1:I see what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember these days you would hope I feel like a lot of people would probably just be like this doesn't look good well, I think you know again, as soon as you open it I'm like, oh yeah, that's the old Internet I remember yeah. And that's kind of what I'm trying to recapture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's great.
Speaker 2:And I hope that's more the direction that more people move in. No, I think.
Speaker 1:I think that's a fun way to centralize your life online. Your life online, um.
Speaker 2:But then in a sort of rejection of the traditional. When it's like I can totally capture email addresses, like if people want to give me their emails. I can, I can do that on there and own it like actually right all, I can still publish stuff if I wanted to publish something to instagram or youtube or substack or uh, I don, or I don't know where else. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Whatever, it's also kind of a cool trial run. I'd love to if I get that figured out how I want to do it and can execute on that. I would love to do the Studio Sessions website. Yes, in a similar vein A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:I think that'd be great Because it feels like it fits, especially because we don't have a website no-transcript.
Speaker 2:It serves a different purpose in my mind, though. Yeah, like that's where I'd send people. If I'm like I don't see, I don't know, maybe it's just serving a different purpose in my mind, because I'm like slowly putting my foot in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, oh, the water's a little warm.
Speaker 2:Let me just and maybe I'm just like that, like keeping, yeah, the option open because I could see, completely.
Speaker 1:I could see it goes all the way to that.
Speaker 2:But exactly at the same time. It's like, yeah, I want to, like I have to build this out and, like I said, I'm not like coding this completely from scratch, like I'm borrowing people's ideas all across absolutely like vibe, coding it with language models in certain places because I'm like, all right, this would take me a month to figure out.
Speaker 1:Yeah I'm surprised that, like a squarespace or wix hasn't created not that I want them to, but it hasn't created templates that not only the design but like feet, like widgets or whatever you would call them like if you want to put a ticker across, if you want to have a view counter. Dude, I remember all of that stuff, coding those by html on my website. Well, you gotta have a view counter. Yeah, you gotta have a little ticker. You gotta have an auto music playing feature where there's a little control interface.
Speaker 2:It's like I like I remember when people would take myspace to the highest degree and you'd go to MySpace and you've got their music playing and you've got this. You've got that. I can see why it wasn't the most popular thing because you had to learn JavaScript, you had to learn HTML, you had to learn. Css to effectively work with it.
Speaker 1:We need to figure out a way for your website to have, like an embedded playlist of music. Yeah. But when you click on like the option to go deeper into your music library, it opens up like a pop-up window that emulates Winamp. Oh yeah, so like people could have a floating pop-up window that emulates Winamp. Oh yeah, so like people could have a floating pop-up window that's part of their browser, as opposed to like it launching an actual app.
Speaker 2:This is a great idea. I could do this where the pop-up window was nested inside of the website.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Which would be the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was thinking of something floating, and I'm not saying this is the right answer, but something that was floating like they could move the winamp inspired interface, you know, independently from the browser or your website. I see what you're like on their desktop and it could just stay open right and basically they sort of like possible they you know so like two days later, if they come back, they don't have to go back to your website to reaccess that week's playlist. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But like See, the only thing I like browsers are so sandboxed.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent Absolutely For good reason.
Speaker 2:Yes, Because you've got a bunch of people trying to do shady shit but. It could be something too, where you just there's something Because Could be something too, or you just there's, there's something, cause that's that's one thing I want to do, and I haven't. I just started with the background music. Absolutely Like the vibe music because I wanted.
Speaker 2:That's where I wanted to start and my idea I want to do a playlist, Cause I used to do a playlist every month. Yeah, I'd release it and I designed the cover for it. This was in college and I did it for like four years. Yeah. And they're still out there. They're like on Apple Music and Spotify. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, but I love doing it. Yeah, because one, it had me like seeking out new music constantly, right, and then two, it really like bookended seasons in my life, mm-hmm. So, like, okay, I can go back and I can still to this day in my life. So, like, okay, I can go back and I can still to this day because, like, like, some of that I was listening to, like that was the music I was listening to when, like audrey and I were like first getting yeah, getting together, like you know, becoming a couple and like that is just ingrained, I can pull up this playlist and it's like oh, transport your time, yeah, yeah it's a time machine pull up
Speaker 2:this playlist and it's like oh, transport your time, yeah, yeah, it's a time machine, absolutely. So I want to do something like that. Um, I just haven't figured out a way yet where I can, because the easiest way for me to do it is apple music. Yeah, and I don't want to make it too difficult, because if you make it too difficult, I just, I just won't do it so but yeah, there's something, there's something there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I want more. Again, I do want it to be Obviously. There's the curation aspect, where you come and we talk about the table at Jackson Street yeah, for the stupid metaphor, but I want people to come and have a reason to come check it out every week. Well, and maybe that's like maybe I'll do more videos and things like that, now that I have something that's not as like statistics driven, to put it on.
Speaker 1:And you know, some people who are listening or watching might be going. Why are you doing this? Not because, not because it's stupid, or it's it's.
Speaker 2:It is kind of dumb.
Speaker 1:I mean I don't know. I mean I think I think some people are probably like this is interesting, but they want to kind of peel the layers of the onion and kind of go. Interesting, but they want to kind of peel the layers of the onion and kind of go. What are some of the elements that you've experienced?
Speaker 1:whether it was you know social media, what the internet feels like when you're using it. Yeah, If you're even using it because, obviously, and you know, you have a flip phone, but then you still have an iPhone that you don't necessarily use that much, so it doesn't have like a browser, it's app based.
Speaker 2:like I've got music, yeah, like I use it as an ipod and podcast player.
Speaker 1:the internet is something that lets you stream stuff or whatever, but you're not like on the internet, like yeah, I was in the late 90s yeah, I mean that I'd like to be on that, I know.
Speaker 1:So I'm curious if you can unpack a little bit. Obviously, a lot of powerful feelings motivated you to invest this time in this and you know we talked about the weather machine and having the CRT. Like you get these visions of stuff, you're pulling inspiration from what you've seen other people do, but you're also tapping into something's missing from the way that I can experience the internet now and I want to experience it this way, so the best thing I can do is just make it yeah, uh, so I'm I'm just yeah curious what some of the the forces are at play well, like, like I did the rss thing, like I like.
Speaker 2:my favorite thing about the internet is one I'm a very I like constant stimulation.
Speaker 2:I like constantly being stimulated with ideas and with different perspectives and things like that. Um. So, like I've I've been, I've listened to podcasts since like 2008 or 2000 and probably before, like whenever the really early on. Like you would have to go plug your ipod in, yeah, download the podcast, do it in itunes and sync it up and, like I was, immediately I was like, oh, this is not too much work for what you get, yeah, and you know it was great for running um. So I've always been like a big podcast fan and I we talked on the last episode a little bit about just reading all these, like tim berners lee, like the like weaving the web, uh, or these like 90s um essays and these writings on the internet.
Speaker 2:Or, like you know, learning about linux or you know, open source, some of the the web 3 stuff, not like the web 3 like venture capital side, but like the actual like web three stuff and like some of the early Bitcoin kind of inspiration and, um, you know, micro blogging, um, like Twitter before it got co-opted, and Reddit I, you know it was a huge fan. Like I love the internet, I love the idea of the internet and I don't like what it is. But it's like I don't think that where we are right now with technology is kind of I don't think it's the place that we'll end up Like. I think this is very much a trend and we're in it right now and it seems like it's everything very much a trend and we're in it right now and it seems like it's everything. But I personally would love to see us go back to kind of the original, uh, something closer to the original vision.
Speaker 2:And you see, these this thing, like I talked about linux and like linux is the most popular operating system in the world, I think by numbers I mean, yeah, there's different, uh, distributions and things like that, but linux is community owned and, like we talked about some of these game developing communities on the last um episode, like there's just really cool communities that pop up on the internet and it's kind of the we have a lot of problems in our world, like economically and socially and you know, yada, yada, yada and there's information and there's all this nonsense and it's like I think the original vision of the internet, kind of carried forward, does solve a lot of those things. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We just got a little detoured. And so yeah, I mean I, you know I love keeping the CRT on because of the buzz Right, like it just makes me feel like I'm not alone, like that was always. You know, I was an only child. I have a brother, but you know he's my half-brother and I mean he's my brother, but you know, like when I was at my mom's Right. Which is where I spent most of my time. I was by myself, Yep, and so I mean I, I, my companion was the TV. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And um, you know, if you're lonely, turn that thing on and you get just that feeling. It's like I'll keep that thing on and I love having just like things to stare at, like little passages to other places, yep, and and um, like something about the weather, like that's comforting. It's like, man, I'm a part of a group of people, I'm a part of, like a society of people.
Speaker 1:You should we're all looking at this thing and you should throw up a clip, if you can, in the edit, of that kind of 8-bit looking late 90s or mid 90s weather map you know the animated weather map. That is a vibe. I remember seeing that shit online all the time like go to weather the weather channel and you'd see the little shitty yeah when you click on it and you pull up the radar, that really like inspired.
Speaker 2:Some of the aesthetics of this podcast yeah like my love for that, like I don't know, you just have some of these things that you get stuck on where you're like. This gives me so much joy and comfort and I can't explain it right but I know, when it's like when I'm in its presence, it just makes me happy and yeah I'm at peace, I'm not worried about anything, and there are some things with technology that do that yeah certain little things, and so I'm trying to recapture that and, um, also, just like, like one test my own assumption that, like this is the best.
Speaker 2:You know, I can have a flip phone? Yes, and I can have.
Speaker 1:I can, you know, stream a game or whatever whenever I want yep, like yeah, you can kind of have the best yeah of both worlds like we were out we were. You were streaming looney tunes the other day.
Speaker 2:Streaming looney tunes, yeah and like, but it also feels old eating the garden last night and I put the cubs game on and it was like it was on earlier in the day and I threw it on, had it streaming to my bluetooth speaker and it's just up on the ledge and it's like a radio broadcast. I'm like that's cool. Yeah. You know there's just I don't know. There's a lot of ways you can we're so uncreative with our technologies today and I just want to get more creative with it.
Speaker 1:I know Because it's so wonderful.
Speaker 2:It's like. It's like this is wonderful stuff, wonderful stuff, yeah, and everybody's so down on it because there is this lull. Nobody's thinking creatively about it. But it's like this is literally magic. I mean, I again, I have that feeling.
Speaker 1:I have that feeling today, just with the stupid switch and getting all these components hooked up. But then I had it when I went to the estate sale to wait for this Betamax player to be half off and I'm like, if this fucking thing works, I am going to be so stoked. Yeah, because I have a Betamax of like a bunch like it's a medley of Madonna music videos.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that I picked up in a thrift store or whatever.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, if this thing works. So you know, I plugged it in and went to put the tape in and it like like it wouldn't go in. So like then it kind of did I hit play, like kind of started to play, but it didn't do anything. So I took the top off. This thing also weighs like 35 pounds, so heavy, so well-made, um. And then I'm like like kind of pulling on stuff that's supposed to spin and move and bands and all this kind of stuff, uh like, uh, not like a rubber band, but like a little. I don't know how to describe it.
Speaker 1:Anyway, sure enough, dude starts, starts going get it warmed up warm it up I put a little bit of like uh, this kind of special electronics lubricant? And some of the gears and all that stuff. Dude, it works perfectly, yeah, and I just sit there and go. I know it's dumb, I know Betamax isn't out there everywhere. I find them every once in a while, but it's just fun.
Speaker 1:It's just more fun than turning on my Apple TV upstairs. I can't even see it. It's like hidden in with all the shit and I just oh there's YouTube, oh there's Hulu, and don't get me wrong, I love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I love being in my studio and having four archaic devices to choose from to play Punch, drunk Love or the Shining on VHS.
Speaker 2:Just have it as like background noise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just there, and it's just another layer of inspiration to make shit.
Speaker 2:I think of, like Basquiat, when he would paint. He would have like a record going he'd have the news running and he'd have. I would hear these stories like, okay, he would never paint without the TV running and a record playing and the windows are open and he's on the phone maybe, and whenever I heard that I just kind of was like, oh, I get it, I understand, I get uh, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know like Audrey will make fun of me, cause like I've got to have three things conflicting in my head playing um to work sometimes and I'm I'm the same way I all day.
Speaker 1:Today I had jazz records playing. Yeah, the volume on the tv was just enough to hear a little murmur of voices.
Speaker 2:And well, because I just I do feel a little alone and there's nothing like, yeah, like having TCM going or or like some. There's something about having something that is live, like like when I watch TCM it's really nice, especially because you can do the East stream or the West stream.
Speaker 1:Oh right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I can throw on the West stream and I can just be like I wonder who's. I wonder who's watching this. Yeah, Just as I am like I wonder who's, I wonder who's watching this. Yeah, Just as I am Like I wonder who out there is sharing this experience with me right now. I love that feeling. It's one of my favorites. Yeah, I don't get that when I'm like streaming.
Speaker 1:That's where you like, you wish like. Tcm had a page on their website that was like a live chat for the West Coast.
Speaker 2:Like who's watching? Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it could be like an old. You know, just like on YouTube. You know the live chat, you know, when you watch a live stream and it's just people chatting about what's going on with it, you know.
Speaker 2:I kind of like the not knowing, though, but I mean, I get it Like I would love, but there's that option. Yeah, just that, and that's kind of what I yeah.
Speaker 1:That feels like old internet to me.
Speaker 2:That's the thing, is I just I want to explore some of these more creative ways, and the cool thing about old internet, or this old internet technology, is a lot of it people have. Oh, you can't make any money off of this Like this has been around for 25 years. We're not going to. This isn't monetized. A lot of this shit is out there just for free you can just kind of like oh yeah, you can.
Speaker 2:Did you know? You can host your own website for like up to you know a terabyte, yeah, for like a hundred bucks a year and you get the domain and everything you can do that like that's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2:You own it. Nobody can touch it, you know. If you know they can go after the hosting platform, I guess, but you're gonna have to violate some laws to get that to happen. Yeah, uh, maybe you shouldn't be doing whatever you're doing if that's the case. Um, like, I'm not trying to, you know, dox, foreign governments or anything, so I don't think my content's gonna get.
Speaker 2:Yeah it, yeah, it's just cool. And yeah, I mean the technology thing like, yeah, I just want a TV or a computer monitor that just plays the weather 24-7. And you know, I want a speaker that plays cool jazz on loop. Do you remember the Godfather TV and Casey Neistat's studio?
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely, just played Godfather on loop that's.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, I get that, I understand that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that is one thing that you know of many things that I loved watching about, or his channel is he gets those kind of seemingly off-kilter ideas and then it's all about figuring out how to do it. Yeah, and there's something about the what we say rube goldberg, when we were talking the last episode with like the beginning of back to the future. I'm sitting there hooking all this shit up to this rca switch and I'm just like this is relatively simple albeit, but I'm like you have six things hooked up to a TV. It's just so convoluted, but it has to be this way. I have to have these things as part of the vibe. So the follow-up to what I really started, this part of the conversation, which was you know why embrace this, why you know why do this. So you know you have like a page, and this is a work in progress. Of course, we have a page for portfolio, in essence, or you know photos, a blog, so there's lots of sharing you know, sharing and sort of the public of the internet, right?
Speaker 1:What is exciting for you about doing it on this website that you're building? But you know and don't don't let me put words in your mouth, but sort of like yuck about sharing, sharing the essence of these things, a photo or a little like whatever on X or Instagram.
Speaker 2:I'm a neurotic freak, like I mean, you know, like I've had conversations with you before about, um, yeah, I Well, I'm a neurotic freak. I mean, you know, I've had conversations with you before about, yeah, I just, I don't know Sharing stuff in that it's so corrupted in my mind from the get-go there's not really a way to do that without it's like oh, I want something Right, and with this it feels more like like. It feels more like oh, I'm going to, I'm like I built these shelves. Mm-hmm. Why? Because I wanted them. Right.
Speaker 2:And if you come in here, I'm super happy to tell you about how. I built these shelves To share. And I'm super happy to tell you about the story behind all of these plants and why there's a crt there and you know all of these bookshelves and this sign and you know why I, why I have these books, or why I have these whatever, or this chair. So it's almost like like, I'm, you're in my space. Yeah, I'm like, I'm like, hey, let me share these things with you.
Speaker 1:So it's like a digital studio in a sense. Yeah. And putting stuff up on Instagram is like it's just disconnected. I'm trying to sell something, yeah.
Speaker 2:Even if I'm not, and also people, I get it. I don't think my website's going to be like a. There's something nice about not having the expectation of like I'm doing this for traffic, I'm doing this for clout or to build some kind of social. It's just like, hey, if you want to come check this out, it's here, and if not, that's fine too.
Speaker 2:But at least then I know okay, I'm doing this because I'm trying to curate this and obviously, like I want some people to like, if just nobody goes there yeah I'm just building this thing like for a little while it'll be fun, but then I'll eventually probably get bored of it, but maybe not who knows, does it extend into video?
Speaker 1:do you think where you would say yourself this is a kind of interesting idea for like a video. Yeah. If it was on my website, hell, yeah, I want to make this thing. Yeah, if I put it on YouTube, it's kind of you know, well, I'm excited to make more like vloggy content. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I know that sounds really goofy, but like it's cringy when it's on YouTube and for some reason it's not as cringy when it's on A website. My website, so I want to like.
Speaker 1:I want to figure out like why is that you?
Speaker 2:know if I want to, if I want to film, it's your thing or their maybe. Yeah, I mean it's like, it's like. It's my thing, I don't want to. I don for google right, right like, especially with something as stupid as internet video like like, not like there's. You know, obviously we're making it yeah but it's like like we've always just this. This has always felt like a pretty low-key intention right, and that's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've talked about that.
Speaker 2:I was sort of like trying to capture that a little bit, it's like, and I've always been more excited about the podcast data than the YouTube data. Yeah. And um, yeah, it's just kind of trying to continue that, to capture that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's something about it Like it's more mine on a website and not like control in a bad way, but it's sort of just like it's it's all mine and you can come hang out and you can come check it out or not. Um, it doesn't you know if, if you come to my website and see a vlog that I posted, it doesn't feel like it communicates. I'm trying to be a content creator.
Speaker 1:It's just I have something to say about the stuff that happens in my life and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah're right. Probably it's like a. It's just a pure form of, which is like. I don't like. This was always supposed to be like the hobby. This is always the fun. This is like oh man, this is just something I do because I enjoy it, right, and it got hijacked to where there was this expectation of this is work, right, and it's like I don't like. For some people, that's like exactly what they're looking for. It's not, this isn't what.
Speaker 1:I'm looking for this is supposed to be like vacation.
Speaker 2:This is a hobby, this is fun. Yeah, this is just pure creativity, like oh, that's. I will say that. What am I feeling?
Speaker 1:and I know it's. I know it's different, um, but there there was something about creating. I know it's like you know it's a paid membership thing and you know all that through my youtube channel, but there was something about deciding to make um channel member videos that were simpler, less time intensive. It was just about communicating a thought, a feeling of whatever, um, an idea, a quick tip and final cut, without it being like contenty, yeah, like oh well, you got to do the picture in picture and you've got to have little snappy animations and all that stuff, or are you even trying? If you're, if you're not doing that stuff, there's something very freeing about like, oh, I read this thing about Bruce Springsteen or I saw a movie or have you noticed this thing in Final Cut Pro and I can just kind of sit down and talk about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I can just kind of sit down and talk about it. Yeah, and this to me seems like a whole other level of that, where I would not be surprised, you know, especially if other people are starting to do this, building websites where they're putting video and photography and blogs, or you know some, uh, all of it. One thing, you know, one of those things where they're sort of liberated from even the perception that they're doing it for commerce, when maybe, if they put it up on YouTube, like I'm not doing this for that, for that reason, I just want to share these feelings you can totally still throw up, like the like I've got the buy me a coffee button. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like if somebody's like oh man, this is awesome, I love this, and who knows, Like, you know, who knows where that goes.
Speaker 1:Banner ads. No way, Old internet buddy. Then you're letting Google crawl in. Sign up for America Online.
Speaker 2:There are some really cool banner ads, though, that you can do from like where you like little GIFs of other people's websites. That would yeah. So, it's a banner ad that they create and you host on your website, so I like that.
Speaker 1:I might.
Speaker 2:There might be some of that on there.
Speaker 1:I like the idea of like a fake banner ad.
Speaker 2:Like. You can't actually click on it, but it's for like, like a made-up product, but it's made to look like late 90s or just like even just like a vibe like just yeah, what, like you know fake banner ad, but you could also just do use that space and that art style for something right for sure that's, interesting there's a lot. I mean, there's so much fun stuff you can do. It's like as as creative as you want to get with it.
Speaker 1:Have you noticed anybody else and I'm not saying nobody else is doing this, but have you seen anybody's websites where, even if it's not the way you would do it, like they have the essence of what you're going for?
Speaker 2:I mean, there's the whole. We talked a little bit about like the indie web.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I haven't watched those videos that you sent me yet.
Speaker 2:And yeah, there's a couple of videos and, like some of it, the spirit is very like, oh, like we hate tech and we want to, and you know, obviously I think there's nuance that needs to be taken. But yeah, no, I mean it's definitely like I'm not, this isn't like.
Speaker 1:No, no, yeah, no. That's what I mean, though there's trendy, there's subcultures that are very much into this and it's a very.
Speaker 2:It's a similar thing and, like I don't I don't want to just like copy paste the 90s no, yeah, I want to take like what was really good about the 90s, and then I want to like make it work for me in 2025 yeah so, like there there's certain, like there's the you you know, we talked about, we've talked several times about typewriters Yep, they're still very relevant today.
Speaker 2:You can use one, or like a film camera or whatever technology. That was the forties, fifties, sixties, seventies. And then you're using it with a modern workflow and it's right, it's amazing, yeah, and it adds so much pleasure to the experience, and that's kind of what I want to do. It's not just like nostalgia for nostalgia's sake, it's like what worked right. Then let's keep that going and continue to push it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's, you know, and I, you know, um, there's all kinds of stuff swirling around that has us pushed and pulled toward older tech and older ways of doing things. I mean, I've been I had a whole video series on installing Apple's dead photo editing app, aperture, on my 2013 Mac Pro because I didn't want to use Lightroom DaVinci Resolve was too difficult to edit my color photography, film photography stuff in, and while Aperture only died, you know, 10 years ago, it feels old. You know, I'm like I'm stepping into 2013 when I'm working on it and that's kind of interesting to me, especially just editing film photos or having these old iPod. You know classics and you know putting up iTunes like older iTunes, or even I, you know I had a couple of people buy iPod touches from me that have Apple's old skeuomorphic um operating system iOS one all the way through, I guess up to seven, I think, was that way.
Speaker 2:Um see, we moved away from skeuomorphic design because it was like sorry, I don't want to know too much, but we just that's. That's something I just really do want to play more with is, I feel, like skeuomorphic design. I totally get it. Well, we moved past it, you know right it became, the digital world became its own identity.
Speaker 2:But I do feel like that concept is kind of something we've lost ourselves in a little bit, and that might be why we feel so disconnected. Like there's something to skeuomorphism, like there's something to that idea of like the physical made digital. Right. So maybe there is like more to explore there. We might've thrown the baby out with the bathwater a little bit.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think you know you're always going to have I mean, I see videos all the time on YouTube about like what the Internet looked like in the 90s, or design, you know, like. And some of that shit was bad.
Speaker 1:Even 2000s design product packaging logos Doritos bag. You know. Design pack product packaging logos doritos bag. You know? Um, the thing I see now is like photographs of a mcdonald's yeah, from the 90s. And then what it is today yeah, and it's like in the 90s. It's got this colorful roof with these yellow lines on it and there's a playland yeah, the place is a vibe. And then the ones now are gray rectangles with super minimalist.
Speaker 2:Some of that stuff in the 90s was awful looking though, but absolutely.
Speaker 1:To be fair, it's a article or whatever about like the last minimalist McDonald's in the country, you know, and they're going to have this reverence for it, like, oh, it's just so cool. It's just this gray box, yeah, with an M on the side and it's super low key and chill. And like they're going to have photographs of the interior, yeah, with the simple little minimalist style tables and shit, yeah, and that'll like people will seek it out, seek out the.
Speaker 2:The it's part of the like. I think part of it is just this like a lot of it is American design. Yeah, Like.
Speaker 2:America dominates the, and we have a lot of European listeners and I'd be I'd be curious if any with an opinion cause this is just my point of view, but when I go to Europe or like a like a European city, something that stands out is there's more. It seems like there's more of a they've had more time to think about it, like they've had more time to process and, you know, things have a little more character to them. Um, and I think there's a lot of really good stuff in american design, but it also does feel like, you know, we're still I mean, we're not even 250 years old like, yeah, like we're still figuring this out like we're trying something and you know a lot of the original stuff was very european inspired.
Speaker 2:Then we're like, okay, we want to find our own voice and a lot of that didn't start until the 20th century that like what is our voice? And so I think some of it might just be immature, like we're still figuring things out, but I do think there is like a soullessness to some of, yeah, the american design, and I I don't get that as much with.
Speaker 1:I mean, obviously there's certain european designs and there's like and there's, you know, stuff from the gilded age where buildings were incredibly ornate and yeah I mean there's a and there's a lot of soulless stuff from like the 20th century, sure, and yeah, I mean you've got um.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there's just there's a lot of directions you can take this, but it does feel like there is more of a soulfulness to it. And I don't know if that's age or what that is, but you said, like the minimalist McDonald's where it's kind of a vibe and I'm just like man, yeah, but those places are tough.
Speaker 1:They're tough and they're so ubiquitous across all the restaurant chains, and now it's even.
Speaker 2:And the American culture export is the biggest thing. So it goes worldwide. You have the soullessness kind of.
Speaker 1:There was like a bunch of videos on YouTube about Cracker Barrel locations going minimal, like instead of having like all the shit all over the walls, yeah, instead of having like all the shit all over the walls. Yeah, they like took like a frame, a wood frame with different wood texture, and they just like arranged utensils, like kitchen utensils, on like a grid and like and I'm just like no, yeah, like maybe like Is it cool that they're trying?
Speaker 2:something.
Speaker 1:But it's just like they're at the tail end of the minimalist design movement, I feel like, because I think with like stuff like you showed me with your website, um, these videos about 2000s and 1990s design, like some you know the ones that were the kind of cool and interesting ones I think about the winamp player and like the look of that, like that got tired at one point it's just sort of like it got tired and then like somebody comes up with this flat apple, you know thing, and you're just like oh, wow, that's so cool, um, but then that you know goes goes flat.
Speaker 2:I think, like design trends aren't really, it kind of goes against the idea of design. Well like, like, if it's a major trend, you kind of like you're automatically removing the personality from it at that point.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think you have to, we have to kind of define too. Like you know, I hear the word trend and I think something that has a much shorter lifespan, versus like a movement or um, and I'm not saying that restaurant minimalism, I don't know how many, yeah, I don't know how many versus a trend.
Speaker 2:You would have a lot of people that are like minimalism is a movement and like, yes, they're also design studios that are trying to charge you for their complete grasp of minimalism and the minimalist aesthetic. Yes, so it's like okay, I see what we're doing here, but like like we went to somebody's house yesterday and it was the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 2:It was they had like black and white tile in one room, hardwood plants everywhere. They had a little like holder on the wall that just said knives, and then they had some knives in there like hunting knives and stuff like that. I mean just like they had this giant tube. Yeah, kind of VHS is on the wall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you would have been. I mean, we're talking like like a cabinet tube TV. Yeah, Send them down Like an old phone.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was like it was just so you go in their bathroom. All of their wallpaper is just pictures that they've taken of themselves. Like, not like, funny, funny like tasteful nudes, like funny, like doing shit, like real, not like right, like like really fun, like I don't. It was so interesting that and it's like you walk in and you're not going to necessarily be like oh, this is for everybody, but it was so them that it felt so authentic that it just was warm. It's like wow, yeah.
Speaker 1:This would be my choice. They have personality.
Speaker 2:Some of it. I'm like this would be my choice. This would be my choice Like 100%, but I was like I get it Like you guys. This is your space. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I like to see that. I hate going to places so many places I go nowadays. I'm just like you don't even know what this is, this is. You just saw some things and copied it. It's like this has. No, this tells me nothing about you, and or it tells me everything I need to know about you, which is even more unfortunate that I would have that thought. And yeah, it's just. I like it when spaces are personal 100%.
Speaker 1:You know, like with your website that you showed me and you know sorry for the viewers and listeners who can't see it, yeah, it's such a.
Speaker 1:It's such a big up and down thing, but there you know you kind of look at it and you're like, look, this is a throwback to things I remember seeing 25 plus years ago, 25 plus years ago. Uh, and then you know I will go through the Squarespace templates for what I could. You know I'm, I need to redo my website and it's through Squarespace. Uh, and I sit there and go. These are all different but they're all kind of the same.
Speaker 2:I think you should. I think this would be the best project. I'm telling you, man, like I would love to, I'll give you any kind of.
Speaker 1:I know Anything that I I'm going to steal the shit off of what you've done there.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm saying Like, but I think you like you because you redid your physical space. Yeah, I know and it'd be really cool to kind of redo your digital space along that line of thinking. Agreed, and you've got enough experience. Like you can do html, especially with ai. Like you can figure out css and javascript. Like I can walk you through who I'm hosting with and everything, and could be the move.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because I I do think I've avoided messing with my website because I'm very uninspired, yeah, by um these templates.
Speaker 2:Here's another box of content. What's gonna?
Speaker 1:suck though, bro is as you and another person, and another person starts doing what you're doing. They're gonna the the cool, the agents of cool are gonna discover it and go all right, everyone's doing this. We got to get in on the score. Space is gonna come up with all the 90s internet temp.
Speaker 2:It's still better, though, if people are like, if personal websites are cool I think it's still on a whole better. Yeah, I don't care if it's the trend, if everybody's doing their own thing, right it's still. And you know what, like facebook doesn't want that. They want this, like everybody has their profile.
Speaker 1:They want to be the internet. Yeah, they want to be the internet, and you know you don't need to go anywhere else yeah, and you know google doesn't want you off of youtube.
Speaker 2:They don't want you hosting your private videos right on their service just so you can kick them off on your website, because then they're not getting the track.
Speaker 1:I mean, I guess they still are getting the traffic, but yeah they're not getting the ads yeah, it would be cool to host your stuff. You know, like it's just embedded in a built-in player. It's not, you know, uh, it's not embedded from vimeo or from from youtube well, I would love to build like maybe it just feels the line, if we get a house like I could build a server room Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And like actually, I mean, that would just take so much, though, and it's going to take storage and maintenance and networking. It's a lot. It's just a lot that I don't really want to go into right now.
Speaker 1:Can't the website hosting companies just provide you with the, or does it cost a lot?
Speaker 2:It's just, it costs more and more if you do everything with because, like, if you think about it like how many, how like? Now there is that like I don't like, I wonder how much this podcast we've got to be hundreds of gigabytes at this point. But? But if we were?
Speaker 1:I mean, can you imagine if we were doing three, even just three, camera, modern camera, camera, 1080?, yeah. So I wonder if there's like a camcorder vibe that, oh, that's probably what I would do anyway, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:It's so low data.
Speaker 1:I mean, obviously it's going to add up over time, yeah, but you know you could kick out an MP4 at 30 megabits per second.
Speaker 2:It would be sick to have it all backed up and like have it all, and and they just have a native player on your website. I don't know, we'll see where it goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's something just really exciting about coming across someone's website, sort of learning about them, and they have a body of work, whether it's blogs, photography, you know video content on there and you're just like this isn't anywhere else.
Speaker 2:Like it's just this guy's website, it's just here yeah. There's something really interesting about that and that's kind of what I want. It's just here. Yeah, there's something really interesting about that and that's kind of what I want.
Speaker 1:It's just like.
Speaker 2:I want that. I'm going to go visit with Alex's thing for like an hour a week and then like, and it's comfortable, it's like when you show up here, like you know what to expect when I show up at your studio.
Speaker 1:I know what to expect. There's something also interesting that's probably optimized for a desktop computing experience and maybe I mean, I can't imagine there's like you're like it's mobile responsive so like that's nice, like I mean, obviously that wasn't possible right mobile didn't exist, but right like it does work on a mobile yeah
Speaker 1:I mean, oh yeah, I mean it is optimized for a desktop right, there's something about that too, like because that that you know the big thing for that, because the big thing, for that is when I was young, you went and got on the internet. Yeah, you were on there for a while and then you left it.
Speaker 1:You had no access to it unless it was on that desktop Something interesting about your website and again, you could pull it up on a phone, but ultimately the best experience is you have to go sit down on the computer and go to the website, spend your time there and then be done.
Speaker 2:And that's one of the things that I'm trying to kind of facilitate is it's a, I'm going to go spend 30 minutes.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:What books has he read this month?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's only once a month that you visit. But I mean, like this podcast, like people listen, you know what? Maybe some people maybe listen once a month some people maybe listen once every two weeks, right? Some people maybe skip a couple months and catch back up. Or maybe it's like, oh, I listen in the fall, but I don't listen in the or they just, you know, whatever title strikes them.
Speaker 1:you know, yeah, this doesn't really seem like my thing, so I'll just wait till the next one and see what the title is and yeah, I mean, there's something really cool about that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Although, but there's, like some podcasts, that I listen to every week or every two weeks, without question. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't care what it is, I'm just there for it. And it's funny. Some of those are the more of the vibe ones, but not like oh, I'm trying to curate a vibe that matches like a trend, it's mostly just like, it's mostly just there being themselves, so much that it has. It's kind of. What I'm shooting for is, yeah, you're going to spend deliberate time and I mean, you know, in my ideal world, you know you've got a flip phone or don't have a phone or whatever.
Speaker 2:And you're just a landline. You pop into the Internet and do your thing and then get out and you know it's again like for for my, you, anybody can do anything with their own website, but like I don't want I don't want people leaving my website feeling scared or upset or like I want people leaving feeling fired up and like not like motivational speaking or anything, but I want people leaving being like that was a great God, that was fun. 30 minutes, is there a?
Speaker 1:service. This is a total. That was great. God, that was fun. 30 minutes. Is there a service? This is a total, total sidebar. Sorry, and I agree with you. I think there's something really fun about about people visiting the website and taking in what's there, seeing what's new. It feels it feels separate from the work too Like it feels so distinct, like I can still, like we, like we.
Speaker 2:I kept talking, hold your thought is there a service, um, but I, I, you and I kept talking. You're like, oh, you just need to make a video and put it here, or do this, like I just don't want to do that right.
Speaker 1:I know like there's this hang up, but this feels like it feels like I'm kind of like oh, this is the solution. This is the solution Exactly.
Speaker 2:And yeah, it just feels like, okay, figured that one out and I was just like I've been messing with this for two years at this point trying to figure out like what the hell am I going to do? And I thought about doing my website before. But, like again, when I was, you know the format website of the Squarespace, I just was never like yeah, that's not right and I don't know why. It's pretty much the same, it's just not like.
Speaker 1:Is yours mostly like custom, where you create those gradients and the border imagery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean a lot of that is just CSS. Yeah, I mean, it's all CSS, javascript, that's it. And I mean, yeah, you can go out and find like little widgets Sure, weathertron, I didn't code that Right. I don't even know if I'm going to be able to make that work.
Speaker 1:We're going to need some vibe coding at a major level to get that to work. The question I had was is there something out there that allows you to receive phone calls on like a touchtone or a rotary phone, but like you run an ethernet cable from a router? Yeah, and it has an adapter to a telephone. You know size and that you can set up a phone number for a landline for people to call that come like the internet can trigger the phone to ring and you can hear them over the phone, or is that?
Speaker 2:and this is me being clueless yeah, you might be able to figure it out. I just I picture you getting bombarded by fucking robocalls and spam shit yeah, maybe there's some as soon as that got, it's some way like.
Speaker 1:Maybe there's like a like. If someone did have that as a subscription, there was like a a way for them to block your number from being public.
Speaker 2:So I did.
Speaker 1:Because there's Google Talk. Like it'd be so cool, like I would. I mean, I would consider, as long as they're not listening to everything I say and then serving me up ads based on my conversations on the phone. But like I have Google Talk and I use it for promotional stuff or like rewards at the thrift store. You know text messaging people where I don't want them to know my personal number, yeah.
Speaker 1:And like how hard would that be for them to let you hard line in a traditional phone and just like receive a call on the phone?
Speaker 2:I imagine it wouldn't be ridiculous and I guess you could screen it through Google. Can the internet?
Speaker 1:send a signal into an old phone to make it work, or is that like no dude you need? Like the shit that AT&T used to have is the only thing that works Well, because I know like the touch tone was like actual tone based Right.
Speaker 2:So I mean, yeah, I don't know no-transcript, and I have thought about doing that. Like you have the number, like you know, like five people have the number, Exactly that's what I'm thinking.
Speaker 1:That's a cool idea.
Speaker 2:I also. I got really into Morse code last year around Christmas time because I was reading a book about it, Just like how it works. Yeah, and like how the the like how they actually built the code and, um, I was like man.
Speaker 1:This would be fun for like matt and I to set up like receivers and yeah, just like little, it's so goofy, it's so like, yeah, translates it to a little tape, it translates it and then it translates it and then and you read it.
Speaker 2:I was like that'd be really cool for us and we could totally figure out how to set this up. Like it's not that much, it's like a few hundred bucks maybe, or like a couple hundred bucks and like some time, and that's for like the. Really I'm going to figure. I'm going to tonight when I get home, if I don't fall asleep first.
Speaker 1:I'm going to see on the phone thing Because I think it'd be so cool, Because you know like you'll call me about the podcast when I'm sitting at my computer. Yeah, and I would just love to have a phone there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, where we can just chat about it.
Speaker 1:It's like okay, and because only a few people have that number, like the Kennedy and Khrushchev Right, exactly. Only because a few people have that number. Like I know, it's one of those five people who's going to call me on that landline. And there's just something cool about that.
Speaker 2:There's got to be some way to run Ethernet into an adapter.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think you could totally just I would just do the landline, I know, yeah, I just worry that I don't have the actual infrastructure on the telephone poles and shit anymore, that they've ripped all that out and that there's nothing. You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean? Well, I think it would be internet based.
Speaker 1:That's what I mean. Yeah, Like this is what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:I think it would be.
Speaker 1:I don't know, but can it work with an old phone? I mean, I have literally a rotary phone.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, those will still work if you just plug it in to the.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:To the telephone line.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm so clueless as to how the so if Like what People are listening.
Speaker 2:If they've managed this has been the most off-the-wall fucking episode we've ever done. I like this one. It probably won't do well, but I mean this has been off-the-wall, like why you know? Like I mean, if they haven't already asked the question, like why are you doing all this stupid shit with old technology? And like whatever.
Speaker 2:Like, why, Like, why are we interested in? Because there's a part of me I watch a bunch of old films and read a bunch of old like there's something cool being attached to that, there is something awesome about that. It makes me feel, I think. For me, though, it's just connection, it's connection period, Like I want to feel connected to the past. I want to feel connected to the people around me. I want to feel connected to the world. I want to feel connected to the past.
Speaker 2:I want to feel connected to the people around me, I want to feel connected to the world, I want to feel connected to my neighbors, I want to feel connected and you know, technology is just one way of many that I can get a little bit of that connection. Yep, and not connection in the way of like oh well, I have 1400 friends on Facebook that are. You know, I don't like intimate connection or just the idea of intimate, like having the buzz of the TV making me feel not isolated.
Speaker 1:Listen, I think too, you know, like we go through life looking at things and experiencing things and deciding how we feel about it or that experience. Right, was it good, was it bad, is it cool, is it lame? And I think we're just seeing things. You're thinking about possible experiences, and I just mean the experience of answering a landline phone. Sure, is it nostalgia, you know, maybe a little bit, but I think we can also just simply go. I don't know. There's something cool about that. There's something cool about the CRT. I mean, I'm sitting there with Josh at Lost down in the old market and I brought in this DVD 13-inch, dvd 13-inch TV with the DVD player built in and threw in Big Lebowski, just so it was playing in the shop. And I'm just looking at the screen and I'm like this just looks good, there's something fun about this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's just something cool about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm not like. I never had a DVD player built into a TV. I mean, I had a little 13 inch TV with cable and obviously there's throwback with the VHS. I've never had a laser disc player but I just think it's cool. I think there's something fun and cool about having a giant fucking disc and you put it in a tray and it shoves into a big, huge machine and it plays a movie and 40 minutes in it stops out of nowhere and you have to flip it over. It's just fun. And you know there might be a point two, three years from now where I'm kind of over it. It's you know whatever. But I looked at your website and I'm like there's something cool about that. It is a little bit of nostalgia but it is also just sort of independently cool. Yeah, um, and I don't know if that sounds lame, using that word.
Speaker 2:It's just not. It's just not what you I don't want to say expected, but it's not what you it's just you just get bombarded with the same, like the same false illusion of choice constantly, and it's like sometimes you see something you're just like that's didn't it didn't like mentally prepare for that yeah that's interesting and whether it's an experience or uh yeah I mean there's.
Speaker 1:I mean I saw it like, uh, in council bluffs there was a like a late 90s toyota celica that was like just cherry. Yeah, I mean, a girl I had the hots for in high school had that car and I haven't, like, I don't think I've seen one since, especially one in that good of shape, and I'm just like man, it's so cool, it just looks cool. I saw a Lexus LS 400 in the old market the other day. My ex-girlfriend's dad had that car and I got to drive it one time. Yeah, and I'm just looking at it and I'm like there's something timeless about that vehicle. Yeah, there's something timeless about sitting at a desk and answering a black touchtone phone. Yeah, yeah, um, I just I just think it's neat. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's not for me, it's not to be sort of like. You know, answering a phone call on an iPhone is dumb, Like yeah, you know, I'm going to throw it out and just and just like hey, you want to get a hold of me.
Speaker 2:It is funny, though. There's totally. There's totally a world that could play out where the 2060s look more like the 1960s yeah, the night than the 2010s. It's certainly possible and, yes, you have this amazing magic technology that connects everybody you know, hopefully it's not like regression, right, hopefully it's progress by way of like iteration.
Speaker 1:But I think that that's why, you know, we went and saw a fantastic four. You've seen blade runner, obviously, star wars I don't think that they necessarily knew this, but there was something about having futuristic things with, like with old analog switches and dials and shitty graphics and you know like, I mean like literally the, the schematic of the death star, looked like, you know, kind of looked like trash in the original star wars. It was much cooler. In return of the jedi.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Jump to light speed, you know, and I think that what you're talking about and that was kind of the thing in Fantastic Four. It was a very polished and sleek co-op of the 1960s into this alternate earth. That wasn't like a, you know, like the year was like 825 or something.
Speaker 1:So it was this cool hybrid of futuristic and old tech and I think you know just like the idea of you sitting at a desk with a modern computer and all this. You know these abilities that you have to stream and do all this stuff vibe code, all of that, yeah, but then, like I send you a message with Morse code and you read it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. What time are we meeting?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, or you type you know we're typing notes on typewriters. I think there is something Well.
Speaker 2:I want to get more away from the computer.
Speaker 1:Still, yeah, like there's still something where I feel like a little too stuck on this one stupid thing, and when you say computer do you mean just like the computer itself or the computer coupled with modern internet so the computer is cool but, like I mean, there's a thing where, like, I'll be working during the day and you know you're, you're, you're on two websites, or it's like your email account and like the bullshit, whatever the.
Speaker 2:You know whether it's slack for your company or whatever the bullshit.
Speaker 1:Navigational 47 tools yeah, like base camp or whatever it's slack for your company or whatever the bullshit. Navigational 47 tools.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like yeah base camp or whatever. It's like okay, cool. Like I see the same three things and, um, yeah, I'll just sit there and I'll do that for the day and I'm like man, this is really ruining this beautiful device for me. Yeah. Like I kind of hate everything about this. Yeah, Like I kind of I don't know. So when you're on a modern computer. It's not even. It's not like a modern. But you're on your Like this thing would be fantastic if all I did was edit video. That's what I'm asking.
Speaker 1:What are the things that you do on a computer where that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you don't have to answer it necessarily Like. I type on that laptop that doesn't even have like it. I think that I just use a fucking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, use a word processor and you know, and I have my old iBook and it's like, oh well, why are you like part of I know? It's like you're just acquiring gear and you're just. I know that that is like a feasible argument, but something feels less corrupted about that. Right.
Speaker 2:Like you know, I'm doing the website on my Mac. It's like you know, it's fine and like I love, like I love the Mac, mac and I love the like. All of that is amazing. It's just I wish I didn't have to corrupt it with the stupid stuff and I could just use it for all the amazing stuff, because then I think I would have a better vision of what it what it is. And I also, like I'm just I'm really kind of sick of multi-purpose everything. Everything is just so multi-purpose and sort of limitless like yeah, and it's like it's like oh, it's useful, but it doesn't really do anything.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's cool because you can kind of do whatever you want but it's all fragmented and yeah, you got to use this for this and this for this and everything and like, if you think about, that's what the internet is.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I don't. It's like everybody's just been trying to create their own privatized version of the internet for so many years and I'm just like okay, yeah, Like all the software is like well, it does 40 million things, and it's like okay.
Speaker 1:I feel like because I picked up these two old iMacs the white iMacs and I've been chewing on an idea, whether it's an article or a video or whatever but I'm like what can you do with these? Are these still usable today? And I'm like, even if it's just as simple as a word processor and you can play a DVD on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's enough to warrant 200 bucks. Think about if you literally opened it up and get Linux on there a really efficient distro and you take full advantage of the processing power the computer computer has, and then you can run a language model. And I know like we definitely probably have an audience of people who are like fuck ai, like that's trash and like how cool is it that you can just interact like you could do, run it in your terminal, even, sure?
Speaker 2:and then it's not even like the branding, it's literally just your terminal and you can ask it questions in real language, in English and broken English, and it gives you whatever you need to know. Like you could do that. And you could do a browser list, like you could do that. You probably need a browser to like open things, but you could do a really light browser. You could do that like a language model built into the terminal. You could do that like a language model built into the terminal. You could do a word processor or like a really light, like a fountain screenwriting app or something, and then that's kind of like the utopian idea of the computer. Right, that's what I'm getting at.
Speaker 1:Like it's more about what it can't do than what it can. Like it's a pain in the ass to get on Facebook because you don't have your passwords on there or anything like that well and you like the internet would, wouldn't even really work on that computer that old with you know it would be so slow and if you're running a modern linux like really lightweight distribution, it probably would like you could install a modern browser, most likely as long as it was just like just that, the computer and the ram and all that I mean, obviously if
Speaker 1:it's like a simplified version of a website, but like the full like web showing up youtube the apple website with all the high definition graphics and all that like a 15 year old.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna struggle. I don't know how efficient it would be. But but that's what I want, I, I want yeah, but I mean again, though you could have the access to all the information you need, right, it would still run. You know, imagery or? Whatever.
Speaker 1:And we could see how sort of slow it would be at doing that.
Speaker 2:But if you could have a really bare bones it would fly through it though, because it's just pulling from the cloud Right. It's just so. It's not like your computer is doing it especially with terminal based, you're not pulling any kind of graphical and that's a whole vibe in itself.
Speaker 2:That's where I'm like people that are shitting on ai. It's like there is a, there's a world out there where, yeah, you have just I mean, you see that guy building like the wood computers. Then you start with the key, I know and I'm like, okay, this is a goofy product that costs way too much, but it's so cool and all it is is a language model and it's just like built for you to sit down and just explore ideas with this thing, and then you can open up a word processor and type documents, so it's like basically a typewriter that has access to all of the libraries and it can Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty cool, I know. So I want to figure out and just keep chewing on this idea of, with these old iMacs that I have and the iBook, how do we do that? Yeah, I want to figure that out. I want to have that resource on an old computer, but I can't really do much of anything else other than word processing, like putting in the DVD, listening to music. You know what I mean Like very simple things so that you can access the information but not be on the internet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean yeah. Synthesize, if you could get like Apple Music, like a really light player or something. Then you have access. I mean, maybe that's not even the vibe you're looking for, but that'd be cool to me, it something, then you have access I mean maybe that's not even the vibe you're looking for, but that'd be cool to me.
Speaker 1:It's like you have access to all the music but you can't really get sucked into like yeah, I mean, it could even be honestly, just like I like the idea of ripping all the cds that I've gotten over the years. Or every time I get a cd that I'm gonna sell in josh's shop, you rip it and it's just stored on the hard drive because you've put a little one terabyte SSD in there and it's going to. You know, you've got a gazillion songs you could fit on there. But then there's some sense of like ownership of it. Like I got that CD, I ripped it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like the limitation of not being able to access. I found the cover art. Yeah, I named the tracks that were wonky, yep, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's something about that, that the work of that, that just gives a greater sense of pride and excitement about the device itself, I mean there's something. It's about building something.
Speaker 2:And the reason I don't think that caught on is you can't reset, like if people knew that a lot of these 2013 computers, you could swap it out for a lightweight distribution and throw an ssd in there and you know, pop a language model on there and a word processor and you essentially have. You know, maybe you can't view facebook?
Speaker 2:I, which I don't want to essentially have a machine that does everything that I can like. You can't edit 4k video, no, no and not. And that's everything that it can be Like you can't edit 4K video.
Speaker 1:No, no, and that's not what it would be for.
Speaker 2:But I mean, yeah, like you would have given that to somebody in the 80s. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where you're like yeah, this thing is connected to all of the knowledge in the world that's been digitized. That's right, that's been digitized and there's a lot of knowledge that isn't out on the Internet, but you know all of the knowledge in the world that's been digitized. You can access this. Yeah, these, you know these LLMs are getting pretty pretty good and I mean, you know, yeah, they have their kinks and they're wonky and they're there's like issues and sometimes they're just really dumb and frustrating or make shit up, yeah, but you know I mean you're not, you're not using them to do the work for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or you shouldn't be. Yeah, or like you you should be, I don't. You know, I don't care, like, do whatever you want to do, but you know it. You know you create your own set of set of guidelines and then get in there, but yeah you literally have like no visual stimulation. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So like I'm thinking like this, like here's a quick, simple example I'm writing a story and I'm crafting a character and I'm trying to figure out what name I want that character to have, and just to get the ball rolling, I want to just ask ChatGPT, like, what were the most popular women's names in 1932? I don't want to leave, like if I'm writing on my iBook, I don't want to leave it to go on the internet or pick up my phone and like see the Google results or actually ask the chat.
Speaker 2:GPT app and it's all. Just it's all. Seo bot bullshit on Google.
Speaker 1:If this terminal window is essentially chat, GPT waiting for me to prompt it and I get like literally a shitty terminal. I don't mean the terminal app on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like we're literally, I'm talking black or green and it's blinking Yep Like MS-DOS, looking shit Yep With just the information and every time you exit it or clear it, it starts a new chat. That's right. Yep, and that exists. That is totally doable. It would take no time at all. I want to figure that out. Yeah, it takes I. You can ask Chad GPT how to set it up honestly, but like or Claude, or you know, any Grok or AI, whatever AI.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Like there's all this hate on AI, and I get it because it's really annoying. But that simple thing so cool, tell me what the most popular names from 1932 were, and it's like it's just, or like what are the most popular songs from 1963? Yeah, like what did the top 40 look like in July 1963? Right, that's right. Yep, oh, I've got that record over. I don't know.
Speaker 1:No, 100%, do whatever you want, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just a really useful not get dopamine hijacked way to interact with things.
Speaker 1:And I've been using it more and more for those direct questions where I'm still have that first instinct. I'll just Google this real quick and then sort through all the bullshit and you can.
Speaker 2:You can totally prompt your AI to like argue with me or, you know, don't like kind of push against anything. I say that isn't, and it'll do that. Right, and it really makes you kind of be on your like. You can't just say some bullshit and it's going to be like yes, that's true and you can also.
Speaker 2:You can totally. I mean, I would recommend people. If somebody is like I hate AI, it's ruining humans and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like think of it as a way to avoid visual stimulation. Like all of the things that you need to pull information from that are just covered in landmines of visual stimulation. Think could a language model do this more effectively? Yeah, Like, because it's just a way of communicating with the computer. That's all a language model is that's right yeah?
Speaker 2:We've built this like AI or like it's like we've anthropomorphized this idea that it's this thing that's big it's. It's literally just a natural language way of interacting with the computer, that's all language models are, at this point, like we, like you know, we're creating this major PR, whatever mess behind it, but I mean most people don't understand. It's as if you were just really skilled at operating your terminal and pulling information and things like that. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a great way to avoid visual.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Slop Visuals. I would love to see it too, if you build that I wanted because after I saw that guy with a key in the wood computer, I was like, because after I saw that guy with a key in the wood computer, I was like, oh, I want one of these. Well, I love the idea of a typewriter.
Speaker 1:That's just like I just love the idea of resuscitating older, these older iMacs that can still access the internet through Wi-Fi, so it's relatively advanced. Quote unquote yeah, you know, you don't have to jack in an ethernet cable, which a lot of people would be a little difficult to do in their homes or home studios but to be able to have it, have internet access, but just have this incredibly simplified UI to access the information in as simple and plain text way as possible. So you have all the information of the internet combined with, again, a few things that you want to do with it. Um, uh, you know, uh, you could do some simple graphic design with it. You know, with, uh, an older version of some graphic design apps. Um, so, so, trying to figure, out.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you'd necessarily want to. It might, just because it's more of a pain in the ass experience potentially, I'm pulling photos that are higher resolution, right, and they're loading slowly. I mean, most of the work that anybody does in this world is just text. Yeah, it's Word documents. Right. It's some form of a Word document. Mm-hmm. So yeah, words, Natural language and words. Mm-hmm. Computers can do that really well. Yeah. Logic testing, things like that.
Speaker 1:That to me is just an interesting, for lack of a better word. An interesting product or tool is like and then that makes me go what if I just like got a bunch of old iMacs and like this caught on?
Speaker 2:And I don't mean to make it a business, but it was more curation, it was like I want that well, that's what that guy is doing with the computer and he literally just like I think the person that asked for it was like I'm sick of interacting with computers that are just trying to steal my attention. That's kind of what I don't like about my computers, like my hey, look over here, hey come over here, hey come over here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, leave me alone you know how, like the, the modern, the the easiest way to describe like contemporary society to a person is. You walk into a room and you look around and say what the fuck did I come in here for? And that's the experience on the computer. You're just. What did I come? What was I?
Speaker 1:gonna do well, and that goes back to the bar. Why has there got to be a TV?
Speaker 2:in here.
Speaker 1:I'm here to hang out and have a drink. Yeah. Like is the TV like? Why can't the TV be rolled out like it was?
Speaker 2:in school or why can't it like it?
Speaker 1:be, covered and like yeah if there's a game on and you're like hey, for three hours on a. Sunday or Saturday if it's college football. We're like turning this space into a hybrid know, a chef and all this stuff. Can we just fucking? Have a little cover it up.
Speaker 2:Or just turn it off. Yeah, just live life for a little bit. Yeah, but then you have this giant, soulless like black box in the middle Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's where just like have it disappear into the structure of the room. I like those.
Speaker 2:I love those TVs that are paintings. Yeah, that you get framed Right. Have you seen these? You just have, yeah, samsung has one.
Speaker 1:That's what we really want, yeah. And that's really what I'm talking about with the computer. It's look, I go to the bar. Yeah, I talk to people. I drink. Yeah, I go on the computer. Yeah, I go on the computer, I write stuff, I ask the Internet questions.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's all I need, or I go to my special computer and I do heavy graphical work Right, I manage my photos, yep, or I, or I do a video. I edit this podcast, I edit the video and I upload, but don't take everything else away. Take all of the stuff that's popped up. That is just pointless, right, take all that away, because it's just having illicit drugs sprinkled. I know Like, oh, you want a little bit of it. No, just take all that shit away.
Speaker 2:I just want to get from point A to point B.
Speaker 1:I almost want there to be like a way to almost built in a Mac OS where you can set up a separate user account and just like.
Speaker 2:So you can Block Safari Block? Well, I don't think you can block.
Speaker 1:That's what I mean, though you can't.
Speaker 2:Linux is really the only way to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because Linux you have complete control Right. You can literally not install a browser.
Speaker 1:Right, if you want. That's what I mean.
Speaker 2:You can't do that with Mac, you can't do that with Windows. But what I really, really, really want is I want this thing somewhere else. I don't like it in here. Yeah, I really don't like it in this space. Yeah, it contaminates this space. I would rather have a CRT with a word processor or I mean, mean it doesn't like, it doesn't have to be like a stupid crt yeah, like yes, that's cool. I I like the idea of like the big yeah mac on the or like a computer on the swivel, but then it's on.
Speaker 2:You know, I've got it on a really modern like micro pc, lennox installed or something yeah and I've got a word processor, I've got a file server and I've got, I've got the, the essentials chat, gpt or right quad or whatever through a terminal app.
Speaker 2:But oh man, that is so I want to see what comes from this, because I want to see I know like I, I love the idea, though, about having like okay, I've got my virtual typewriter that I can connect to things, and then you know, I've got I don't know, it's just, it's a little more innocent. That thing's just too dangerous. It's too. There's too much you can do with it. It's got too much capability, and with all that capability comes the option to just waste your entire life on it and look, I have the self-discipline to not get on that shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know I can use my laptop at the coffee shop and not get on shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but there's something I can too. But knowing that it's there, that's exactly it. It ruins the whole experience.
Speaker 1:There's something about the vibe of it's just not even.
Speaker 2:It's not even remotely possible. It doesn't even populate your mind.
Speaker 1:Even populate your mind. So when I've taken my iBook to the coffee shop just to write, or when I'm just doing something on a typewriter, there's just something special about that experience of creation, when it's not even a subconscious presence, that you can jump on the Discord, you can get on to text messages, you can check your email, you can do all that stuff. I, like I said, I have the self-discipline to avoid those things, but I don't even want to think about it yeah, I don't even want to. I don't even want to have to.
Speaker 1:I don't want to think about it. To then have to deploy the self-discipline? Yeah, and that sounds like well. You just want the lack of tools on the computer to provide you the self-discipline.
Speaker 2:It's not for everybody though there's plenty of people who I'd be like, then don't do this.
Speaker 1:It's just more about the this is ridiculous.
Speaker 2:This is a lot of work and for maybe no benefit to you. Maybe you're just like what?
Speaker 1:do you?
Speaker 2:mean.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 2:I hated when computers couldn't do shit yeah. Like I love being able to and I get it Like I love that Mac literally does anything I could imagine 100%.
Speaker 1:I love that mind too.
Speaker 2:There's something really cool about that. But at the same time there is, like I don't necessarily want, you know, a laptop that I don't know like well it's it's, we can have both and maybe it's just yeah, it's just like, it's like I can have the flip phone right and then if I need to throw a sim card in my ipod, you know, because we're, you know, we're taking a trip or something, and it's just more convenient for a couple of days I can do that, and then I can take it away and totally like, okay, when I'm sitting waiting for you know food to get ready, like okay, I'm sitting waiting for the Chinese takeout to get ready, I have no option because I have a flip phone. So I look at that for two seconds and I close it and I just start staring at the yeah, then I'm just here and I'm like, oh, wow, yeah, this is interesting yep, I am in the real world yeah some.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just technology reached a point where it became too dangerous, like it just became. There, became an extra layer of effort that always has to be deployed to avoid something that wasn't a problem in the nineties, it just wasn't. Yeah, it didn't exploit you like that, right.
Speaker 1:Or seduce you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Interesting, yeah, it's good, build that thing out. I want to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've got those two iMacs in my iBook. So I gotta I'm gonna figure it out and I wanna see if I can figure out.
Speaker 2:You'll definitely you'll have to get Mac OS off of there that's the first step and it's super easy. I mean, you can definitely like these. You could get a, a Linux distro. That's not like. You can go like Arch Linux or something super complex, but I wouldn't. I would just get something really simple. Those things have the hardware to run that all day long. I mean it'll be amazing. It's a really lightweight distro.
Speaker 1:I mean it'll feel like a brand new computer. So you're telling me there's no way to have Mac OS and like a word processor app and use the actual terminal app in mac os to to communicate?
Speaker 2:so you're going to. You could probably do that, but, like with linux, you can literally decide don't install these pieces, like don't install a browser, don't install this, don't install this, like. All I want is a word processor. Maybe you do do a lightweight browser or something yeah, I don't know, but you could, you, you can make up your mind.
Speaker 1:Because I don't even think that the Safari and Mail app and all that stuff I mean Mail you can probably set up, but I don't even think Safari on my iBook G3 can even really process the internet. I think it would just lock up.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I mean see, but then with the modern thing you'd have the option to install something that could process it. Right. Because the power is there. I mean, like those things are probably more powerful than like a 2020 Chromebook or something I don't know. Fair point. I'm speaking with a not clear picture, but yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean they're.
Speaker 2:I mean I would go the Linux route. I know it seems more complicated, it's really not. No, no yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just it's going to give you a lot more freedom and it's going to be like Mac, just they get clunky, get bloaty over time. That's why you go back and you get an iPad from 2011, and it feels like it's a piece of shit. Part of that is how they've updated it. Yeah, so I mean, yeah, just updated it. Yeah. So I mean, yeah, just run modern software. It'll make the computer essentially brand new again. Well, I think it'd be awesome, and then you can even skin it to look just like mac os if you wanted to.
Speaker 1:There's plenty that are designed after that design language, so it could be interesting to just try both and be like what which one? Yeah which one feels better? Which one, yeah, works better? Which one's the better vibe?
Speaker 2:for you Because I know you're used to like a slow computer sucks, like slow computing. Environment is not fun. Yeah, and you're used to the snappy. Sure, like you're used to the.
Speaker 1:But when I'm using my iBook, I'm literally just using it as an electronic typewriter, using a word processor. I mean it's as fast and snappy as anything there is, and if I put a DVD in there and hit play it just plays the movie.
Speaker 2:I mean you could definitely set up the terminal thing pretty easily.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I just like having like the-. No, I hear you, you can't have this stuff on here, yeah.
Speaker 1:You just know, and I've used it enough to where I'm like, I don't even think about like opening Safari because, it's just a piece of shit. Experience it can't do anything. Yeah, so it's as if it doesn't exist on the computer. But I hear you, it'd be fun to just be like it literally doesn't exist. You have.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 2:It's not there. You could even do like a browser that doesn't like. I know there's some like privacy browsers or things like that that just wouldn't save anything. Right, that I'm sure you could. I don't know, like, I don't know. Like there's stuff you could find where you wouldn't be able to like. So if you needed to search the internet, you could, right, but it wouldn't. It's not saving anything. Yeah, like you're not logging into anything because it's not going to save it. Right, it's so much of a pain in the ass to go dig up your password, get into the app. Yeah, so maybe that's an option too. Yeah, it's like you still have that functionality.
Speaker 1:Yeah so fascinating. Yeah, and it'd been a golden afternoon, and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
