Dave (00:12) Hi and welcome to another episode of That Podcast.

Beau (00:14) And I'm Beau.

Dave (00:16) How are we doing?

Beau (00:17) I was just talking with people on Twitter. Someone was talking about doing a special, interesting social media share cards for their blog posts. And I jumped in to say, Oh, Hey, we do that for our podcast. And so I looked at the most recent episode and it was last November. I'm like, wow. Uh, right now it's, you know, mid part end part of September, almost October, that's, it's been quite a while since we've last recorded.

Dave (00:50) Yeah. We'll just call this season five or something.

Beau (00:55) Yeah. Yeah. We could go back through and figure out what it is.

Dave (00:59) Writer's strike and stuff like that.

Beau (01:00) We, uh, I think we explicitly decided over the holidays last winter to take a break for a while. Uh, talked about rediscussing it this summer and then this summer came and went. Um, but now we're here. So I'm pretty excited about that.

Dave (01:20) Yeah, definitely happy to be here.

Beau (01:23) And, uh, I know a lot of stuff has happened for me over the last year. I think, I think some cool changes happen for you. You kicked off a project of some sort that wasn't technical really?

Dave (01:35) Well. It kind of, yeah, it, it it's, uh, it's stalled out completely at the minute?

Beau (01:41) Oh man, I shouldn't have brought it up then.

Dave (01:43) No, no, it's fine. Um, I just lost a bit of momentum, really. I was excited about, still excited about it in a way. Uh, but I was like, I mean, I was talking to you about it. It was, I basically made this silly little, um, they're tins about the size of a whole pack of cards. Uh, and I'm trying to ridiculous. I'm trying to sell, uh, sawdust to woodworkers. That could be my greatest achievement ever if I get it for money.

Dave (02:15) Um, and there's a, there's a hashtag people use on Instagram called I sawdust is man glitter. Uh, so yeah, I've got a tin that says basically, uh, basically say sawdust is man glitter with a nice picture of a what's such what's called a Roubo workbench. Um, the, some French guy probably in the 17th or 18th century designed this workbench. And, uh, the design kept going for so long, for whatever reason. It's a quite famous design. Um, and that's all printed on the front and it looks kinda nice and yeah, I'm going to put it upon Etsy. I'm going to try. And, but what I did do is I took one photo that was okay. I spent so long trying to work out, trying to get the lighting right. And things. And I was like, Oh, what I need is like a light box.

Dave (02:58) You know, like one of those boxes that is like, you can buy them on Amazon. They're not too expensive, like canvases or material cube with the LEDs to make. So you've got late. Nice, uh, what'd you, what do you call it? Light when it's not soft light diffused, that kind of thing. And I was like, and I started going and I was just saying, Dave, stop it. Just wait until it's a sunny day and a sheet or something just outside or near a big window. Yeah. And so, yeah, I've just stalled out on that. Take taking nicer photos if you like, I need to work on the description, but then we see one side it's nicer photo. I was going to try and put some pictures on social media and things, but you have just not got around to it. It's not really moneymaking venture. Uh, it was just about fun. Um, uh, getting into design, doing, getting the tin, sourcing the tins, getting the tins printed. Uh, so yeah, the just sat on the shelf there. I mean, I've got one right here. You can see it, Beau. Yeah.

Beau (04:04) That's awesome. I think the closest project I have if I ever come to, to that would probably be my short-lived, uh, thought to do airplants for devs, uh, for, I wasn't even sure what I was going to do with it beyond the name and airplants. Uh, yeah, that would have been a nice little interesting venture. I can't remember who it was, but I remember seeing someone recently doing some small woodworking thing on the side. I think it was woodworking and they were making custom boxes or something like that. Uh, it, it does seem like it could be fun to venture into something more hands on, uh, you know, just to do something fun. Maybe like you said, maybe it doesn't make a lot of money, uh, but it's just something that you can do in your spare time and

Dave (04:57) Yeah, well, that's, it, it was, it was just to do with one would do I'm enjoying my woodwork still. And one idea I had, um, so one of the things I made awhile ago with all the work in something called the Moxon vice and Moxon vice is quite a wide, uh, vice. Um, and usually sort of, it's not attached to the bench. The one I've made it's you would attach it when you need it to a bench. Um, and I followed a couple of, well, I looked at a couple of tutorials and watched a couple of videos on YouTube. YouTube is where I get most of my stuff. And, um, one of the YouTube videos I used, um, he got his hardware from McMaster is that a site in America you're familiar with ?

Beau (05:42) No.

Dave (05:45) We just don't seem to have the equivalent in the UK selling at least even if they do sell the similar sort of things, they are much more expensive. So I found it really hard to source the hardware for this, a reasonable cost. Um, and one thing that I noticed that there are people in the States who sell kits to make this kind of vice, and the're just selling you the hardware. And you it's like bring your own timber, or lumber as you might call it. Um, and I thought about doing that in the UK. Cause if I buy bulk at some of the places in the UK does bring the price down, I'd have to buy in quite a lot of bulk, right? It is something I could probably sell quite easily. It's, you know, it's quite a small package is heavy, so it costs in shipping.

Dave (06:34) But if anybody else did want it to do build one of these vases and they got the, have the options to just get all the gear from me in one go, and then they'd bring their own wood. I think it'd be quite cool. I just don't know how many people would be interested, but then once I've got the kit, I could also then make a video and it it's put on YouTube of me trying to make one best I can with the added angle that it's UK focus. Because like I say, there's plenty of people doing it in the States and things are plenty of people doing elsewhere. So getting this specific hardware in the UK was different. And it was the interesting thing was these washers, there were two part washer. Um, and let me get this right, the outer part. So there's a concave part and a convex part on the concave part was a wider, a bigger hole than the concave convex part.

Dave (07:30) So this allowed, um, imagine two sides, two sides of the vice on a almost right and bolts. So you can move one side in, not as far as the other, so they don't have to move parallel because of the washers actually allow for, I think it's about 10 degrees movement on either side. Those washes were quite well not. They went to a difficult to find, but the place I ordered them from there, the kind of place where, uh, you know, uh, some sort of engineering company or machine company would order 2,000 of these things, you know, rather than just Dave in the garage ordering one or two. So yeah. Um, yeah, so I, I, I don't know if I will pursue that, but it's a nice little idea. And again, it's something physical I could sell rather than in digital things.

Beau (08:19) Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. It's something that I've been kind of been excited, watching happen in your world is see, you sort of get excited about those sorts of things. Yeah.

Dave (08:32) Like it's such a context switch. It's so nice to go. So my garage now is actually fairly well laid out. I've got decent size workbench. I'm starting to get things tidy. Um, I'm starting to get a collection of tools that I always need more. I make up this constant, trying to control my urges to buy multiples because I just want all the time I've been, in fact, I've got, I've got a whole new notebook just for my woodworking ventures. And the page it's open at the minute is my tools, hand tools, wishlist list. You can see it's right on my desk next to me as one of those where I think if I write it down on the wishlist, it also gets out on my mind a bit. So it's not thinking about it.

Beau (09:14) Yeah. Speaking of, uh, wishlists and, uh, paper, um, I've, I've gotten back on the bullet journaling bandwagon and I've actually done a really good job this year of sticking to it so much so that I think I had a three, maybe four months streak with no meaningful break. So I let myself splurge a bit and I imported a new journal from the UK actually. Very nice. Yeah. They don't have this size. They don't have the, I think it's A4 is like close to letter size in the U S. They do sell A5 and A6. And I've actually used one of these as A5, I believe. And so I really wanted him in a four to try it out. So I ordered two of those from co cultive pens or cult pens, one of the two. Uh, yeah. So I was really excited about that. And you talking about, uh, these different tools and these different things, I'm like, you're speaking a completely different language and you say, you're, you know, you're talking about these things like, you know, of specific type of workbench design from like, you know, however many years ago. And it reminded me that I was talking to my friend, Josh and I was telling him about my new journal. And he said, you know, I'm sitting here programming, I'm coding and I'm playing a online game. That's 20 years old. And I think you sound like a nerd.

Beau (10:55) Uh, I was having the same sort of same sort of thought. I like it when I get to know people well enough to know that their hobbies are super exciting to them, because I don't understand what they're saying. It can be a lot more fun that way. Yeah. But yeah, the bullet journaling has been pretty awesome. Um, I've been trying to do a lot more stuff with like creativity level things, trying to do more with drawing and art. Uh, I was gonna hold this up for you. It's my spray can that I did yesterday.

Dave (11:31) I saw it on Instagram already. Yeah, yeah,

Beau (11:33) Yeah. And so I've been doing, I've been doing a online class with someone out of the UK. Actually. We met him when we were living in the UK and since then he's been doing in person classes. And then earlier this year, he moved to online classes to do those as well. And so it's been a lot of fun. Um, before school started again, Luke could join us. And so I'd say for maybe two or three weeks, he was able to join us over the summer. But since then, it's mostly been me and I've been loving it. It's I guess, art and drawing and playing with paint markers is, is my woodworking at this point. So it's yeah, that's what a lot of fun.

Beau (12:15) And my journal, I was telling Bec, I'm like, I'm on page 47 of my new journal. And this is only like two weeks worth of stuff because I've started to use it way differently than I had in the past. I'm really starting to get a better idea. This was like one meetings worth of notes. Right. Um, so I'm, I'm incorporating more things I'm not being, I don't know if dogmatic is the right word about doing everything in pen. Uh, like, you know, there were some, some of the core bullet journal rules, if you will. And I'm kind of letting some of that go, which has been a lot of fun because you know, some things look great. Some things are literally just, you know, scratched it with pencil really quickly. And it's, it's, it's made it been able for me to actually follow through with it for, I think, four or five months at this point.

Dave (13:09) Yeah. I think that's, I mean, the mine looks horrendous. It never is, never look, never looks good, but I've been in much been the same format that I've come up with. Like, like two pages is my week. And I've been at that format now for more than a year, I think. And you know, I can look back in, those looks almost the same. It's sort of, it's a scruffy mess, but it's working and I keep doing it, you know? And it, it keeps me getting me through my days in terms of what I'm doing, what I've done, keeping track of a few things on a, on a, you know, on a habit, same style tracker. Yeah. Well, in fact, I've changed from habit to, I'm now on traffic lights from a habit, habit tracker. Cause I kept think I kept feeling, I was cheating myself a bit. Like, you know, if I had a particular habit that I had to do for the day, I knew something I have to do every day. And like five minutes, I give myself a tick and I'm like, come on Dave. So now, now I'm on traffic lights. So I don't only get an amber if it's only half an effort. Uh, but yeah.

Beau (14:18) Yeah. So is that, is that a, like an application or is that in your journal?

Dave (14:24) In my journal. So I draw a grid for the week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and there's five or six things. And the title is, I know zero days as in, without fail, I have to do with these, one of these things, you know, successfully. Um, I mean, it's, it's a little bit of a misnomer because I don't include things like my work, you know, my work is without fail. I don't include things like playing with the kids. That's just, that happens every day without fail, you know, there's no, Oh wait, unless I will wait or whatever. But, um, but it's sort of sort of extra things like the, the little things that just pushed me on a little bit. Uh, so things like exercise is one of them, um, spending quality time with Rebecca because family people, I I'm sure, you know, when you, when you've got the children and everything work and everything else going on in your life, it's quite easy. Let's let that kind of thing slip. So yeah. So things like that go in there and like, say, try and definitely know I need at least one green every day, but try and get as many greens as a cancer.

Beau (15:28) That's awesome. Yeah. I've gotten into a, I would say it's a good habit of doing intentional time hanging out with Bec. We do generally. It's on Wednesday. So earlier today we had a coffee date and it's not so much a date as it is just the time for us to sit and intentionally talk about, you know, whatever's going on questions we have. Um, because yeah, it's, otherwise it's really easy to have one day blend into the next. I never really have a chance to talk. You know, it's not even like about important things sometimes, but you know, it's just, uh, a time for us to just communicate, which is awesome.

Dave (16:12) Yeah. I mean, particularly like, as you you're particularly lucky that, you can do it during the day because we find, I mean, I'm a bit of a night owl, but Rebecca is not. And I think even for all, I'm a night owl, you know, I can concentrate quietly on work things on a night and not necessarily know if I want to sit down and talk or definitely don't want a coffee late at night. So by the time you've got to everything during the day of school work, the children, kids, activities, getting the kids, fed guns a bad clean, if you're lucky, but it doesn't leave you much time on an evening, especially when you're feeling tired, especially when there's football's on or whatever's on, you know, one of us wants to watch something on TV that we, you know, we always watch or whatever that might be. Um, so yeah, that penciling in time during the day is a lucky thing for us, but yeah, definitely worth doing.

Beau (17:09) Yeah. It's, it's kind of come and gone over the summer. Um, our ability to do that, uh, we've had to rely a lot on video games for Luke, um, just to get him some social interactions. So if we know when that's going to happen in advance, then it's made it easier for us to be able to schedule time, you know, and it's it's range anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes to an hour and a half on some days, if that, if that's the way that it, it shakes out. But yeah, it's, it's super important to be able to do that. So I've been pretty thankful that we've had that now that he's doing school. Um, that's been back and forth a couple of times too, but currently, um, they're doing a synchronous school and so he's seeing the teacher live because there's some students in school he's not, um, and he's doing a really good job of like sticking to it. So like he can go in, uh, Bec does a lot of help, but he is able to just sort of be in class virtually for, you know, an hour at a time or whatever. Um, so yeah, we've, we've been able to work it in and we know, I know that we're very fortunate to have been able to do that because I think, you know, even though you're working from home, you know, it doesn't mean that it's going to be easy for you to do that sort of thing during the middle of the day.

Dave (18:37) Sure. Yeah. Definitely easier than people who have workplaces, they both go to them, but it's still not always easy from home either.

Beau (18:50) Yeah. So yeah, doing art and that's basically been the main thing I've been trying to cut back on social media a bit. Um, part of that is mental health related. Just the, it there's just a lot going on. There has been a lot going on since last year and just ongoing. And eventually I realized that I need to take a step back and it's kind of difficult because for wanting to stay relevant in other people's brains and wanting to keep a pulse on what's going on in various online communities, whether it be PHP or DDD or whatever, it's hard to still feel connected if you're not actively looking at things happening as they happen. Um, I don't know. Like I know that you're probably a little more balanced than I am or have been in the past on social media, but that's, it's been difficult for me to even thinking about the podcast, like trying to think about, okay, we're going to have to, I haven't logged into that podcast, Twitter feed probably almost a year to get back onto that and start posting stuff and paying attention so that if people write back, um, just to be able to, to engage and stay on top of things, um, I think I may be a little more able to, uh, moderate my online stuff now that I've sort of taken a step back.

Beau (20:29) So I am looking forward to seeing how well that goes, but it is something that I've been actively working on this year.

Beau (20:36) Yeah. I mean, it's really weird, isn't it? I, I I'm, I'm quite out of the loop with a lot of things in terms of keeping up to date with technology communities and things like that. And I think, um, it's one thing. I mean, I definitely miss, uh, RSS aggregator type things for that, because that's how I would have kept up with things, you know, particularly like things like Reddit, just turn into a cesspit. Yeah. Um, and I know you could know, ignore the comments, but even so the way things get voted up and down in those are difficult. I mean, what it tends to need is, um, you know, a really decent sort of newsletter aggregator. Someone's, who's going to curate content for whether it's DDD or PHP or whatever, because sometimes it's quite hard to find something that covers the niches that you're interested in.

Dave (21:29) Um, yeah. So yeah, I I'm, I'm, I'm much the same as you, I dip in and out, but it's a really quick glance. And to be honest, I think I'm still, I don't know how Twitter works now, but I use the official apps and I'm pretty sure at one point, like you could tell the timeline, you wanted it to be chronological order, but then like next time you went to say it, go to go back to that. Like, so I think I gave any of them bothering them and I think I'm just letting the algorithm show me. And to be honest, from, from what the algorithm is telling me, the content and consuming the most of is like stupid parody things and, you know, comedy things, or like a follow, like a nineties wrestling thing that just posts nostalgic video clips, follow nineties football, and they post nostalgic video clips and just rubbish like that. But, um, so yeah, I'm not, I don't miss it. If I'm honest, I do feel like about loop sometimes, but

Beau (22:28) Part of the detox that I've put myself through has been removing any of the native apps from my mobile devices. So I only consume through the actual web interface. And so that's exposed me to the algorithm that you're talking about more so than, you know, some of my favorite clients in the past. I've also found the clickbait sponsored stuff to get me more often than I'd like to admit. And it just, I get so frustrated because I'll find myself getting suckered into clicking on something, thinking that somebody, I know, thought this was interesting, but really it's just because my silly brain is just like everybody else's silly brain thought that this was an interesting thing to look at. So that's been kind of frustrating and annoying is making that realization that I'm actually, I'm actively clicking on promoted links and not meaning to you. Um, sometimes or the other side effects of my social media consumption.

Beau (23:43) Um, I've been actively trying to, uh, increase the diversity in the voices that I follow and that has had, I think it's had a really good impact on me in terms of, uh, seeing the broader picture. And I've never told anybody this, and I feel like this is something I hit get skewered over, but man, the world is, is negative. When you start looking at how other people's lives are being impacted by politics or regional things or whatever, um, culture, um, to the point where even if I'm following diverse voices in technology, I don't feel like my feed is full of technology very much. Like a lot of it is controversies struggles, hardships. Um, and like, I, I feel like doing a, like say like a Twitter follower, bankruptcy thing, and just remove everybody that I followed. Um, but I feel a little guilty about that. You know, there's like, I want to be responsible and be aware and um, promote other voices that wouldn't otherwise be promoted. And to, to just kind of like, nah, I'm just gonna get the content I'm interested in now

Dave (25:25) It's one of the you're well within your right to do that, you know? Yeah.

Beau (25:29) Oh yeah. I know that like, yeah.

Dave (25:33) Yeah. I think it's good for all of us to have an insight into how it was the people that, because I mean, I know I'm quite looking in the area I live in the, the house I live in my job, the school, my children go to things like that. I know, I know I'm lucky, but I do need remind in quite a regular basis, but you don't, it definitely doesn't have to be in your face all the time. Yeah. And if, especially if it starts affecting you in a negative way, then you know, at least I don't, I don't think you, you're not being overly selfish. It's, you know, it's not, you're not putting your head in the sand completely. It's just, you know, you don't have to have it. So in, in your face all the time, I understand that.

Beau (26:21) Yeah. So yeah, it's, it's one of the things that I think I've, I felt coming for a while. Um, but it is something that, you know, I have reasons why it might not and just haven't. I haven't followed through with it yet, but as my, as my need to start doing more online stuff or, you know, media stuff, again, I feel like I'm going to have to cross that bridge sooner rather than later. Uh, because I, I do miss being able to interact with other people too. Um, and you know, I feel like I need that social interaction. I don't know about you, but for the last six to eight months, I felt very isolated and not being able to have regular online communications with people I, I had in the past, I think has been a little bit, uh, it's been difficult for me. Uh, it's the same reason why we're letting Luke do a little more online communication than we might in other situations because he needs that social interaction with his friends. He's not going to get it otherwise. And would we rather have him go play outside with his friends after school? Sure. But reality is that, that can't happen right now. So

Dave (27:46) Yeah. I mean, to be honest, I've been the opposite. If anything, throughout the whole debacle, I've had more social interactions with some people because I've been doing online gaming. Um, I don't know if you've seen the call of duty was zoned it's free. Uh,

Beau (28:03) I think you were telling me about it over the summer, maybe.

Dave (28:05) Yeah. It's like the fortnight equivalent for call of duty. And so I've been playing that with my, my, my brother and our friends from school. So these are people I've known for a long time, like 30 years, um, all my life, really for my brother. Um, and it's so real and it's even different for, to social interactions on things like social media with people who I think I know, but I don't really know if that makes sense. You know, you know, when that, when it's somebody like that, I mean, particularly family, my brother, you know, there's no guards, there's no, there's no, you know, we can say whatever we like to each other and not really offend each other. Does that make sense? You know, um, and locked down, particularly locked down. My brother was a teacher, um, my friend, my other friend, Jim's a teacher, so they were off work completely.

Dave (29:02) And they were doing bits and bobs here and there, but not really working. So, uh, we were staying up super late playing every night. Um, so I was talking to them a couple of hours every day, which I hadn't done for years. We used to play call of duty like that 15 years ago, maybe not 15, 10 years ago, whatever. Um, so yeah, so if anything, that's probably why I've not really been missing anything like social media, because I've had those kinds of interactions. Uh, and yeah, I know what you mean about Luke, um, with the online gaming stuff. I mean, I know, uh, so we actually bought the kids iPad earlier during lockdown because they were doing more and more online school for schoolwork that they were both amazing with the homeschooling. Um, just the, just the, the work ethic. And as long as you keep them and keep it interesting, we'll just keep working like really happy. Uh, so we got them iPads and then that actually meant cause a few of their other friends have got iPads, um, doing a what's it called iMessage and FaceTiming and everything was all there. So they were actually able to speak to a few of their friends like that. Um, they were playing, they played Minecraft, they've played, uh, loads of Roblox at the minute, which annoys me.

Beau (30:27) Why, why does it annoy you?

Dave (30:29) Um, many reasons. I think part of it is as a parent, it's really annoying in terms of the scope of how many different games on Roblox, uh, looked at it properly. But like my understanding is it's like they provide this sort of platform to build these micro, um, what'd you call it not micro economy, but there's micro transactions in all these games and there's rope books and, and people who design games and, but make, I mean, one of them, one of the games we played with some sort of home invasion games, we both nearly both ready to have nightmares before he went to bed. I was like, well, I didn't know they were playing this. I knew the play of Roblox, but I hadn't seen they were playing this. I mean, the other one they do is like a murder mystery. And that seems to hasn't bothered them yet, but there is, you know, it is a murder mystery and the same in the way of, um, we call it Cluedo, what do you call it? The, the game is, you know, um, I'm just waiting for that to sort of manifest in some of the, you know, bother them or something or other, I don't know. And also the noises that, some of the cause again, it's like these weird games and there's these weird noises when I try to work, it just irritates me. I don't know why.

Beau (31:46) Yeah. So I am with you pretty much, 100%. Um, I don't think I'm like super frustrated with it necessarily, but I don't, I don't get it Bec, understands it a little bit more because she's around them while they're playing more. But the, the premise, as I understand it is to, it's like an open world gaming platform. And so there are a bunch of different versions of the same game, basically. Uh, sometimes just with slightly different skins, like, uh, he's playing one right now about building an airport. So ed

Dave (32:30) Like theme an airport?

Beau (32:33) Yeah. So he can build, you know, a tower, he can buy an airplane. Uh, he, I think he has like 12 airplanes. Now. One is a hanger that he can park them in. Uh, he, he made an airline lounge for the fancy people. Uh, he was, he was doing a, what's like a restaurant game for a bit. So he was leveling up his chef to go from Mac and cheese to sushi or something, AI it, I mean, it does it, it does sound kind of interesting, but the fact that it's completely open world does mean that, um, you know, there, I think there are people moderating it. I think there are people trying to make sure that inappropriate content doesn't show up, but that's, I don't think it's, it's not perfect by any means. And um, yeah, just, you know, one of his friends says, Hey, let's try this. And it's something completely inappropriate. We wouldn't know. Luke might not even know until he was into the game that there's troubles, you know, problematic pieces to it. So I don't know. It's, it's fine for right now, but yeah. It's and as far as the noises, I don't know if that's necessarily bothered me specifically about that game. Um, but the, some of the concepts or plots, or just the whole premise of the game, it does seem questionable as to the necessity.

Dave (34:08) I don't know the details. I know the kids, like it do know sometimes it causes squabbling between our two, like, and typically with games, Rowan's more of a gamer than Evie. Um, and he, he adapts them far quicker. So there's quite often the squabbling in terms of Evie wants help. Rowan's prepared to give help, but it's the most minimally viable amount of help you could possibly give before he moves on to whatever he wants to do and does sometimes cause arguments, um, which we, which I haven't seen in things like Minecraft. Yeah. And Minecraft did the thing is with Minecraft. We always say, it's like Lego. You know, if you break it, you just build it again. You know? And if that's pretty much what happens in Minecraft, you know, one of the might break something, the other one's constructed or crafted, whatever, and you just fix it. Whereas in robotics, there's a little bit more, I don't know,

Beau (35:03) With Minecraft, it's been interesting because Luke's, uh, skyrocketed past me in terms of skill and ability to focus on certain tasks. And I know that like early on, he was afraid to go hunting for monsters because he didn't want to lose his stuff. And I'm like, well, that's part of it, right? Like going to do something interesting and fun and taking a risk. Um, well now we're at a point where he wants to go fight the ender, dragon and daddy doesn't want to spend 40 minutes collecting the stuff, another 30 minutes running to the portal. And you're running to the village that has the portal, finding the portal in the basement and then, you know, dying from the Ender dragon after two minutes, losing all this stuff and then having to run 40 minutes to get back to the game, to get back to the fight.

Beau (36:01) And I'm like, how did that happen? I feel kind of bad about it, but, he's been very adaptive and he'll do things like, get things ready for us in advance to like, Oh yeah, I have two chests right. By the portal. So if you die, there's a bed there. So you could sleep before we go. Uh, so he's like getting to the point where he's like planning these little campaigns for us, which really makes my life a lot easier. But it is just kind of ridiculous though, that we've had this flip flop from, I don't know, less than a year ago, probably. Have you done much Minecraft yourself?

Dave (36:41) No, not really at all. A little bits here and there, but it's usually just to help them when they've been well, I mean, our two don't even do that much in terms of survival mode or anything. They just like building and we're just going creative mode and just fill stuff. I don't even know if the, what they're doing in terms of fighting things or whatever. I don't know,

Beau (37:03) Luke's pretty, pretty onboard with pretty much everything. So he he'll, he'll get into creative mode sometimes and just make like a massive rollercoaster, which is a lot of fun or he'll start experimenting with like the redstone to make contractions. Uh, but he also does like doing strict survival mode as well. Like we're going to, we're going to start a brand new world. We're gonna see how far we can get in in three game days or whatever. Uh, because that, those first three days or five days or whatever really fun, cause you don't have anything. Um, and so like how quickly can we get a diamond from nothing is, is something that he likes a lot. And I've found that I like mining. I don't like mining for a purpose necessarily. It's just really soothing to just mine. I can mine it for like half an hour and just get a little that, that, that, that, that, that, that, you know, just, um, Bec will laugh sometimes.

Beau (38:01) She's like, what are you doing? And I'm like mining. Like she likes, she likes to know he's too. And she, she hears it. Meanwhile, Luke's off doing some complicated thing now. And I, every once in a while, he'll call me out like, Hey dad, can you come help? Or, Hey, can I come mine with you? And then that lasts for about five minutes and then he wants to go do something else again. I don't know. It's fun, but I've definitely not been playing as much lately because he's, since he's ramped up his playing with friends, uh, the necessity or desire to have dad play has kind of diminished a bit because they so much, they have so much more fun doing like kid things, but he still does like to play with me sometimes. So I got up, I got to actually have Minecraft Monday on my weekly spread every week and sad to say I'm more after the not actually doing it, but that doesn't have as much to do with me as Oh, I told you. No, I told so. And so I going to play with him tonight, like, yeah. Alright. I guess daddy'll go work, darn, go, go work out by computer for a little while. Um, but yeah, he's a great little guy. I wish I could do more gaming stuff with him. I kind of want to do some programming with him. Have you done any programming with your kids yet?

Dave (39:16) Not a whole lot. We did. Um, the last thing we did was there's this little raspberry PI kit. Wow. They got to put together. I was on special offer, so I just picked it up. Um, and it comes with a little, uh, like Bluetooth keyboard. Um, and they just got to plug bits in and put the board in the case out a few bits, then they could do some, it wasn't so much programming. It was sort of introducing you to a few concepts, like, um, but we didn't get very far with it. Um, and they do loads of scratch.

Beau (39:51) Where did they do scratch? Is that like part of the curriculum or just because you set them up with it and they do it on their own.

Dave (39:57) We've done both. I mean, so they've done some, they've done some school. Well, I know when they started doing it at school, we'd already done some at home. Um, but yeah, they started doing some at school. Um, they might even done some preschool. I can't remember. Um, but not, not, not much. They've done loads.

Beau (40:22) I feel, I feel a little convicted about not having done any programming with Luke because it's a big part of my life. I think he'd really dig it. I think he'd really liked doing it. And um, his school, isn't going to be a source for him to learn. Like it's going to have to be driven by me.

Dave (40:46) I'm really just, I don't know if I'm not bothered, but I mean, when did, did your dad teach you to code? No. Well, what does your dad do for a living? He was a plumber. Did he do plumbing stuff with you for fun?

Beau (41:01) Sometimes he tried to.

Dave (41:06) I'm sure he wasn't teaching you to work out, you know, cubic feet per meter of gas pipes or whatever, you know, I just, I mean, I, I think it's cool to do, but I mean, if the kids, if I tried it and the kids weren't interested, it'd be like, okay, cool, go play roblox. Um, I dunno. I just think, um, people don't know. I mean, I don't really think everyone needs to learn to code. I mean, if, if they do, they need to learn this spreadsheet, that's all they need to know. You know, if, if everyone could use a spreadsheet welded to be a bad place or people will be able to do their jobs better full-stop so they need to learn to code. Probably not. Um,

Beau (41:54) I don't think he needs to learn to code. I think that, I think he should. I think I'd like for him to at least get that experience to see what it's like. And, you know, he definitely shows an aptitude toward problem solving and liking video games and figuring out how they work and how to, um, kind of understand the, understand how the games are working and, you know, especially with like Roblox, um, and Minecraft, you know, learning how like to bend the rules within the systems. And, um, I don't know. I feel like, yeah, maybe it is me pushing more on him, but I feel like since I have that desire to teach him and haven't yet, I guess that's the thing that probably,

Dave (42:45) I don't think it was a bad thing. I just mean, I don't think you should beat yourself up about having ...

Beau (42:51) Yeah. I'm good at doing, beating myself up. So,

Dave (42:55) I mean, I think it's the thing with code for me is like, I just don't even know how viable a career it'll be for them by the time. I mean, I assume in a way it looks same age as Evie, isn't it? And like, so more than 10, more than a decade away from probably starting their career, if they go to college for your university for us, um, and we'll still need code, don't get me wrong. But one of the things that made, made our career successful is being that supply and demand problem in that there's been a high demand for our skills and a low supply for quite a long time. I think this place probably starts to catch up. Now I might be imagining it. I don't know. But you know, we all talked about a few years ago, there was a whole brogrammer sort of meme wasn't there about, you know, how people were when we started getting into code, we were doing it because we had a passion for it when we discovered it. But then all of a sudden there were people who were getting into it because it was a viable career, less so than having passion for it. And then just falling into it as a career, I guess. Yeah. And in 10 years time, I don't know, we'll every Tom Dick and Harry be doing it. You know, if it's teaching every kid to code, then I don't know. Yeah. I'm not saying it necessarily be a bad career, but I don't know if it would have been as fruitful as it probably has been for us. I mean,

Beau (44:24) Yeah. But th th the flip side of that though, is if everybody knows how to code and that's a given, but Luke doesn't learn to code because the school that we're going to doesn't have STEM as a priority, but he will be at a disadvantage. I mean, like, you're talking about your kids having been learning scratch since, since preschool, and maybe that is just going to be a base level skill in the future that doesn't have that.

Dave (44:51) Yeah, I understand that. Yeah. But then the other thing is, you know, you didn't land well, you didn't land when you were eight or nine or 10, and you still picked it up well, enough, you know, it's not like you can't be too old to learn how to code. Yeah. That's really good. Luke could live. Luke's a bright kid. Could probably, he'd be 17. And thinking about applying for colleges and they're like, Oh, you don't know how to code. They just say, okay. And you can take them away for three weeks and he'd be writing Python. It's like, I dunno. Um, but yeah, I mean, I am interested in that because that's what that does make me sort of question the whole. It's not that it won't be a viable career. It's just, it's not going to be the same. Do you know what I mean?

Beau (45:43) Yeah, no, I it's. It's, it's something I worry about for myself. Like, you know, I'm not going to be of retirement age for a while. At what point am I going to be a dinosaur and no longer required? And it's been sort of a given that I have a, a nice career and can do interesting things, but you know, if programmers don't matter as much in 10 years...

Dave (46:11) Well, they will. I think they will, man, I just think--

Beau (46:14) ... if it's a different thing where it's not like a high paying career where, you know, we can make a living off of it and it becomes more like, uh, other careers or other jobs that, you know, people struggle to make rent on. That's not going to, it's not going to be good for me or my family.

Dave (46:37) So basically, you know, I take a law like that. Vocation has been around for a long time. Everybody knows you can make a good career out of it. So they've sort of got this sort of parity of people who can do it if they want to choose to do it. Whereas I think programming for a long time, didn't have that sort of, it's like, it's like the people, our age who don't know how to code .

Dave (47:13) Loads of them could have been capable of doing it. It just wasn't on the menu for them. Yeah. When we, when we got into it by fluke, if you like, possibly, because we enjoyed doing it in our spare time or whatever, they didn't because they were doing other things. And it was never really a career path at the time was like it was becoming so when people had heard of it, but it wasn't, it's not like they had people in the family, you know, there's not like this four generations of coders, but there are in others, you know, there is yeah.

Beau (47:44) I could have been a third generation plumber.

Dave (47:48) Yeah, exactly. And, and the will be for a long time, third generation plumbers and well, no mind fed, there'll be dozens of generations not implement it, but definitely with solicitors doctors, you know, even though those are high level high paying jobs, if you like that we could equate to, in terms of coding can get to those heights. Um, so yeah. So in a few years when you've got sort of stuck that up a bit, so just be more competition, I guess, I guess. I don't know. I don't think, uh, I'm not even sure what my kids would be interested in anyway. Well, I'll say that. I know we don't think he would be, I've no idea what Rowan Rowan wants to be a zoologist. I find it really hard to tell him that it's probably not going to not have much money doing that. It's like, if you want to do that kind of thing, you've got to like beg people for, to give you enough money just to do something nevermind. Make a proper career out of it. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Beau (48:58) Well, I think that, uh, coming off of coming off of not having done an episode in a while, I think we could maybe not set the precedent to go too long on this one. Uh, so yeah, I think that maybe we should call this one quits for now and then see if we can get back on a, a good swing for season five or nine or three or whatever we're at now.

Dave (49:24) Yeah, sure. Uh, I'm pretty easy. Yeah, probably. We're probably going to go into full lockdown again next week on something silly like that. So I'll be around. Yeah.

Beau (49:35) Nice, cool. Well, I have a lot of stuff that I can talk about from earlier in the year and hopefully by the next time record, I'll have more new stuff to talk about, which will be awesome.

Dave (49:45) Yeah. I, I've got I'm, I'm starting something new now as well as another new thing. So I'm going to start looking at, um, day-trading as a hobby side project thing, I just want to learn. So I'm, I'm going to go for a deep dive with that and I will report back next time.

Beau (50:06) I think you, you had a, you had a bot doing some, uh, simulation trading back in the day with some cryptocurrencies, right?

Dave (50:14) Yeah, I did. Yeah, I am. Yeah. I gave up with that though. It just, I don't know. It still doesn't seem quite real enough for me that the crypto was sorry. I'm going to stick to more bricks and mortar type stocks and shares and foreign currencies, currency exchange and that kind of thing for now, but I will keep an eye on cryptos, but the thing is there's different tax implications with doing crypto.

Beau (50:46) I didn't get the impression you were doing crypto now. It just reminded me that you had embarked on a, uh, automated background day trading sort of thing with crypto. I don't think we ever heard how that went.

Dave (50:58) I can't remember.

Beau (51:00) Yeah, nothing too interesting.

Dave (51:03) I guess I'll speak to you soon.

Beau (51:10) I guess we'll call this one a wrap!