Ooohhh my god nature
Do do dink
Do boon
Booo
EEEE
Now to the reveal
Hey Chris.
Hey John, how are you?
B-B-Bo稱
Yeah
I'm doing good.
I've got a mug that says, heck yes.
Yes you do.
That we're going to drink out of today, or that I'm going to drink out of.
I bought this really nice mug set for us and I just keep forgetting to bring it.
So you've got yours.
I've got mine.
Congratulations.
Yes.
I'm drinking out of a coffee mug right now.
It's going to be great.
It works.
Alright, so tell us the story.
What are we drinking?
Okay, so this is from my friends David and Wayne at Flare Data.
Flare Data.
Been working with those guys for at least 13 years, if not closer to 15.
They had invited us to an event in January, but it was pretty much a drinking event.
And it was like, sorry guys, I really can't attend that as a Pine Cove employee.
Not as an employee, but I could attend that if I wasn't an employee.
Correct.
So I met with them earlier this week and they were like, hey, we felt bad that you couldn't
make it.
Let us give you this instead.
I'm like, well, I will gladly accept that 64 ounce bottle of beer.
So they got this at Pint and Barrel in Palestine.
Okay.
It is filled with Founder's Solid Gold Premium Lager.
So it's not, they got it from Pint and Barrel.
Correct.
But it's not one of Pint and Barrel's.
No.
Does Pint and Barrel make beer?
As best I can tell on their site, no.
They just have existing beers on tap.
But it is Founder's.
It is Founder's.
And we like Founder's.
Yes, love the breakfast out.
Although we have not had this.
Not this, but I'm also, I'm a self-admitted beer snob.
If it's not dark beer, I don't like it.
Paler.
But hey, when you get free beer, you drink the free beer.
You say thank you very much.
I'll drink it.
I mean, we say that, but also you brought a backup.
Just in case.
You never know.
Although I do have a track record on the show of just powering through anyways.
Yeah, yeah, you do.
So I mean of some really questionable.
What is going on?
Here we go.
So, but I do have their blur pulled up off their site since we don't go for it.
Yeah.
Actual bottle to read off of.
So it says our brewery was built on an attitude of no regrets.
No regrets.
That's what came to mind the first time I read it.
Not even one letter.
No, an attitude of taking risks, bringing the best beer possible to our fellow renegades
and rebels.
Okay.
Never brewing to style, but always brewing what we want to drink.
Our take on a classic solid gold is a drinkable premium lager.
I'm glad it's drinkable.
Brewed with the highest quality ingredients, changing what a lager can be.
That's something we won't regret.
Regret.
I don't think AI wrote that or anything, but the fact that they use drinkable as a, I don't
know.
Well, I'm going to take it that there's kind of a dig at other places and saying that,
hey, your beer is not even drinkable.
Oh gosh.
Okay.
So shot over the bow.
Shot over the bow.
Hey, we actually have drinkable beer.
Yes.
And so their tasting notes say crisp notes of cereal grain and a hint of lemon with a
light body and low bitterness.
Okay.
4.4% and it is a 20 on the IBU.
So it is pretty low on the bitter.
I'm all for low on the bitter, but light on the body and this may be a, what I call a
lawn work beer.
If I've been sweating and I'm going to drink a beer, it's probably not going to be a dark
one.
No, probably not.
So maybe it's one of those.
It's like the Gatorade of beers.
It might look like Gatorade.
Okay, let's hopefully not.
We're about to see a color for the first time here.
I'll make my pour and then I'll just pass you the rest of the bottle.
Thanks man.
Cause you'll need to keep that cup full.
I just going to have to keep refilling it over here because it is not the same.
All right.
Oh no.
That is very blonde, Chris.
Are you okay?
I'm going to power through it.
Okay.
Wow.
Okay.
You are going to power through it.
It just keeps coming.
I want to make sure that I get my half.
You get your half.
You get my half and your half.
32 ounces.
Yeah, it's only 4.4 though.
All right.
I like it.
I'm taking a picture of mine.
I'm going to pass this small jug to you.
It's okay.
I got it by the handle the way you're supposed to.
I should drink it out of this instead of using my heck yes mug.
I just sit over here.
Look like an old moonshiner.
Like a moonshiner.
Yeah.
I mean, I love these old 64 ounce.
Yeah.
Whatever you call them.
Not tumblers.
Growler.
Thank you.
You said it a second ago.
I just couldn't come up with it while I was trying not to pour the beer on my pants.
Okay.
I'm psyching myself up for this.
It's going to be great.
Just think I am super hot and sweaty and I don't.
I'm just trying to get some electrolytes in my body.
That's what you need to think.
All right.
Hey, cheers.
I'm sorry, Chris.
Okay.
So here's the thing.
If you are into paler beers, I need you to know that this is the equivalent of in my
mind, people that make fun of me for not being a real coffee drinker.
I'm like doubly not a real coffee drinker because not only do I have milk in my coffee,
which is what my grandmother always used to say, if you put milk in your coffee, you're
not a real coffee drinker.
But not only am I not a real coffee drinker because I put milk in my coffee, I put chocolate
in that milk that goes in my coffee.
So that's really the only kind of coffee that I like.
This to me is like that where it's like it tastes more like beers that are this light
to me.
And I don't mean like calories because it's not a light beer, is it?
They don't say it is.
Please tell me it's not a light beer.
So the lighter colored beers generally to me just don't taste like anything.
It's like those sparkling waters that are all like the rage now.
And people will be like, oh, it's got lime in it.
And it's like, yeah, not very much.
It's not like it's sprite.
I'm finding it hard to believe that that's a 20 on the IBU.
Is it bitter, dude?
Because to me, there was way more bitter there than I expected.
The reason that I think that you've got that on your tongue is because there's not much
other flavor.
Perhaps.
That's what I'm saying.
There's not really anything to it.
It's more like water than it's like anything else.
That's a personal opinion.
Take it for what it is.
Are you going to power through?
I'm going to power through.
It's not horrible.
I mean, you've got to really be bad to be worse than Old Rasputin.
Oh my gosh, that was terrible.
Horrible.
And I will say, real quick, if you heard the last show, the beer selection was a little
rough.
Yeah.
We're on a streak right now.
Yeah, we are.
I don't know what to do with this.
So this is a step up from those.
But what I will say for those beers, they actually made us talk about the beer.
And that's the one thing I've been saying that we need to do more of on the show.
We need to talk a little more on the front end about the beer because it's pretty much
a drink.
Oh, that's great.
All right.
What are we talking about?
Yeah.
And I would say like beer, I think for us, you talked about being a snob.
Yes, I am.
I'll call that knowing what you like because there are people out there that love this
stuff.
Like this is beer to them.
They're like, this is amazing.
I mean, there are people that like IPAs and I'm like, I don't know what's wrong with
you.
But brain damage.
They intentionally made it not good so that it could survive going around the horn of
Africa.
Yes.
Because if they didn't, it wouldn't travel the distance.
So they made it not good.
It's not supposed to taste like that.
It's supposed to be in a boat for another couple of months and gross.
But people like it.
And I'm like, okay.
Whatever you say, man.
But like, I mean, this is the kind of beer that I started drinking.
When I first started drinking beer, there was not much taste to it.
You had to put a lime in it sometimes.
Yeah.
I couldn't touch Guinness at that point when I started.
It was too much.
Yeah.
No, I totally get that.
But it's that like, oh, no, like there's a taste here that you don't realize.
And you know, you get bit like I did.
I don't remember the first dark beer that I drank, but it's like, it just was a little
bit gross.
It was not Guinness.
But it made me like, oh, no, I don't like dark beers.
You do.
You just don't.
You don't know it yet.
And I would say like there's lighter beers, lighter beers, like lighter lagers.
I like reds or some reds.
There have been some lighter lagers that I felt like have had plenty of taste to them.
This is not one of them.
Yeah.
They.
This is a little natty light for me, if you know what I'm saying.
It's been a long time since I've had a natty light.
Just I'm just saying like, and I feel like you're disrespecting the natty light.
I'm not disrespecting the natty light.
I'm just saying there are beers that are supposed to be drank really cold.
Sure.
That is one of them.
And that is one of them.
I think I think probably, and this is cold.
Like good job keeping everything cold.
Chris cheers to you.
But I feel like it's supposed to be maybe sub 32 degrees.
Yeah.
That's the key with Natty.
When you can get it to where the ice chips are starting to form, boy, it just takes on
a whole nother level.
Man, any beer that has like there's like a some one of the flavors and especially it,
it's definitely more prevalent in this type of beer to me.
It tastes like soap.
That's the best way.
Like the like Dawn dish soap.
That's that's there's a little like I don't know what that is that causes that.
But every once in a while when I'm drinking these beers, I'm like, did they just clean
this cup?
Well, they talk about hint of lemon.
I mean, maybe like the citrusy like I guess there's a bite a little bit.
And as I've taken a few more drinks, it's like the bitter has started that I was detecting
has started to fade.
But it was really bitter, like on the side of my tongue.
Yeah.
That first couple of drinks.
I definitely feel like it should be higher in alcohol content so that, you know, we get
through this faster.
Anyway, 4.4 just means you can drink that many more ounces.
Yeah.
So this is, you know, a couple bucks and tell us what you what you think about beer and
what you prefer, because if you're one of those IPA guys, we're probably going to make
fun of you.
But there's a lot of them.
There are a lot out there.
Doesn't mean they can't be wrong.
You go to fresh and it seems like that's all you see.
Yeah, I don't get it, man.
It's like, yuck.
Yep.
That's why we're friends.
That's not why we're friends.
Speaking of friends, I wanted to take this show and kind of talk a little bit about technology
bringing us together.
OK.
Not just us, but people.
Right.
So one of the like we're we're obviously bought into this.
We are podcasting.
Right.
So if nothing else, we I think we talked about this to begin with.
If nothing else, this is an opportunity for me and you to get together.
So there's just community building at the very not community building.
It's like community.
I almost said management.
That's not good either.
We're maintaining relationship here.
Yes.
And that's the one of the goals is just to be able to get together and talk about things
that we are interested in.
Yeah.
Beer and gear.
Very easy.
Yep.
This is not really a gear as much podcast in today's episode.
We're going to talk a little bit about software because their podcasts, I think, do a great
job of not only going the step beyond like you and me talking, but we're we're we are
making it possible for other people to join in in that conversation.
Yes.
That's the hope, at least one of the hopes is that other people would be able to listen
to it and be like, I agree.
I don't agree.
This is part of this.
This is for me.
I think it has more to do with this or that or, you know, whatever the conversation, wherever
the conversation would take us inside of I prefer this gear.
I prefer this gear.
I mean, I'm actually surprised there's not more of that with people just being really
excited about sharing their divisive opinion sometimes.
But yeah, I guess for a lot of that, you've got to go to YouTube.
Everybody wants video.
They want to see it.
I get that.
You know, like when we were doing the audio signal gear, it would have been nice for people
to be able to see it.
Yeah.
And I think another way of doing that is chapter art.
Yeah.
And so you can throw up an image of what exactly it is that you're talking about.
And if you don't know what we're talking about with chapter art, it's because you're not
using the right podcast.
Yes.
You need a podcasting 2.0 app.
Yeah.
Find a podcasting 2.0 app.
A modern podcast app.
Modern.
Yeah.
Get away from the app.
I think we're both using Fountain right now, I think.
I am podcast addict.
Oh, podcast addict.
Yes.
Okay.
Fountain's a great app.
Cross platform.
Got to love that.
Like there's, anyway, again, talking about part of this, we're not talking politics.
No.
We're not talking politics.
We're not going to talk politics.
That's not what we're going to do in this podcast.
But that's the new show that we'll start.
I think that we are all very aware of how divided a lot of opinions are in a lot of
different areas.
Yes.
Some people are Apple and some people are not.
That's not people are not.
Okay.
I'm just, I'm saying.
Here's the thing though.
If you only ever hear from the other non-Apple people, you miss half of the conversation.
Yeah.
You get caught in an echo chamber.
Same for the other side of it.
Yes.
So I'm just saying apply that to whatever political stuff you want.
And the point is, I think inside of all of this different technology allowing different
modes of these communication, we just have to be really careful not to allow ourselves
to be only echo chambered.
Yeah.
Inside of it.
Because the algorithm will get you.
Have friends that are saying the things that you don't want to hear.
Have friends that are telling you that FaceTime is not as important as you think it is.
Blue bubbles are not all that matters.
Green bubbles are not the enemy.
Though sometimes they really mess things up.
I guess technically I still maybe show up as a green bubble.
Oh, not technically.
You are definitely a green bubble.
But because of the integration now, I can see when I've sent it to you.
I can see when you read it.
I can see when you're typing.
So I mean, some of that iMessage type of interaction is there.
If that's lemon, it's the Rhine of the lemon.
Sorry.
Yes.
You can see these different things.
Yes.
All green bubble.
But you got to be able to listen to the green bubble.
I'm just saying.
And so like all of that being said, there's a couple different things that have been brought
up to me lately.
The reason that I wanted to talk about this to begin with was actually a guy who was telling
me that he was interested in podcast stuff.
I was like, great, let's go talk podcast stuff.
And then he's like, actually, I'm kind of moving towards instead of just doing a podcast,
I'm looking at Mighty Networks.
And I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about.
So when someone says that and it's tech related to me, I go look up what the heck they're
talking about.
Check it out.
So Mighty Networks is a cool platform.
They have decided to try to take things a little bit further than they, I would say,
has been, it's not further.
That's the wrong word.
They've tried to group some things that aren't always grouped together.
Most of the time, I really applaud, like, if you've got something that you're good at,
stay in that lane.
Yes.
Like, I depend on you to do the thing that I depend on you to do really well, because
you do it better than everyone else.
I want you to keep doing that.
You get all convoluted in trying to do everybody else's job and then all of a sudden, your
other stuff is not as good or you don't pay any attention to the feedback inside of it
and you think that you know, we know what they want.
We'll give them what they want.
They just don't know they want it yet.
That sounds like the Apple approach.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's Steve Jobs' trademark.
But all that to say, so like things like YouTube, they're a video platform, right?
This is what they do.
Yep.
Instagram was a photo platform.
Yes.
And then it was like, you know, we really want to do is to be able to compete with things
like YouTube.
And it was like, look, guys, and then it's like Facebook, all the all the things.
I'm not saying that you can't expand your, you know, whatever you're doing, but you got
to do with a little more like thought than reaction.
Correct.
What it looks like Mighty is trying to do is they're trying to start with we're going
to we're going to pull in a lot of different things.
So they they call themselves a community platform.
The idea is that it makes it easy for somebody who's making content, not just making content,
but like also maybe doing online courses or hosting events of some kind, whether that's
teaching or network building, I'm sure, or anything like that, like that they would have
one place that they're trying to bring a community together inside of.
Now this gets a little bit strange because as I'm like thinking about it and trying to
wrap my head around it, the idea that my friend had that that was more like wellness related
where they're they're trying to get information that they have out about living a healthy
lifestyle in a bunch of different way, like not ways, but like aspects of what that means
and healthy lifestyle.
There's a lot of things to talk about and what I like about it is that as a community
you're using a community platform, you're going to bring in people from a lot of different
walks of life where that like only getting one opinion.
Not necessarily going to happen or only one seeing one like form of thought.
Not as likely.
Anyway, so this got me thinking and I was like, okay, I Chris, I know, I know that you
are a huge fan of social media.
Let me tell you, you I mean, it's like the day social media came out, you were like,
finally, all of my prayers have been answered.
Aside from seeing Michelle, this is the best day of my life.
Best thing ever.
All kinds of sarcasm dripping inside of that.
But the idea that social media is not our favorite thing, it should not be anybody's
like, whatever.
But how do people like us leverage the technology that we have at our fingertips to be able
to collaborate, to be able to share ideas, to be able to bounce questions off of each
other, to be able to have like, oh, I ran into something.
Has anybody else seen this or know of an answer?
And actually have any kind of, I guess, structure to that that's not, well, I'm going to Google
it.
And then if I don't get the answer that I want, I'm going to YouTube it.
And I'd always rather talk to my friends than whatever, because I got some really smart
friends.
Chris and I live in a very underrated community here in Tyler, Texas.
There's quite a lot of snobbery that is pointed at us from other places.
Number one, we're in Texas.
So obviously we ride horses to work and cowboy hats and the whole night don't know what a
car is.
We don't know this is a sophisticated part of life.
Yes, no, we're not sophisticated at all.
And you know, there's an element of that.
I was watching Braveheart again the other day.
Yeah, I didn't see that in a while.
So good still.
And he's getting talked behind his back, but in front of him when he's talking to the princess
and her advisor or whatever is talking to her in Latin and doesn't know that he speaks
Latin and he says that he never lies, but he is a savage.
And that's that like, I mean, I feel like that so many times when people talk about
Texas, I'm like, I mean, yeah, we are probably the things that you think that we are.
We're also not the things that you think that we are.
And you don't necessarily care that you think that.
Correct.
But it does mean that sometimes we get kind of pigeonholed into this.
Don't know what they're talking about side of things.
And not only are we in Texas, we're in East Texas, which is.
It's not Dallas.
And it's not West Texas.
No, it's not.
Which I just want to say that's a whole nother animal out there.
West Texas is maybe what you're thinking Texas is.
Not you, but like, well, people that think of Texas, like, I would say if you're picturing
a desert right now, you're picturing West Texas.
That's what you're picturing as a kid.
When my grandparents was down here, Indiana, you weren't here originally.
No, no, no, no, no.
And so even even before my grandparents moved here, you hear Texas.
It's instantly Cowboys and Indians Cowboys and Indians.
And then my grandparents moved down here and you're on the phone like, are you all seeing
the cactuses?
No, no, no, no.
Not a single one.
No.
And I'm like, but you're in Texas.
Yeah.
Well, then where's the cactus at?
Well, it's not like that in this part of Texas.
About seven hours that way.
Yes.
So yeah, I mean, I totally get that outside perspective that people have of Texas of thinking
one thing and we happen to be in part of Texas that just is not that.
But you could you go out past Fort Worth.
Yeah.
Get an hour or so out.
Yeah.
There's the Texas that people are thinking of.
Oh, yeah.
And I'm still I don't know, 10 hours away from El Paso.
Yes.
And this is going to look like this for a while.
Yes.
I'm just saying Big Bend is really pretty, but there's nothing to look at when you're
driving out that way.
Correct.
I totally get that.
There's a whole lot of Texas that's not that.
Yeah.
And I would say there's for those of you that are mad at us about other things, there's
a whole lot of Texas that's not that either.
Correct.
And maybe there's a lot of Texas that is what you're thinking.
So I don't care.
But all that to say, I've got really smart friends and I would like to ask them because
even if they don't have the answer, I'm pretty sure they can find the answer.
So like there's the like I want to be able to leverage the technology that we have and
the tools that are at our disposal to be able to actually build community.
And I'm not necessarily saying that it has to be the people around me that live here
or anything like that.
But if I could just not have it be everyone, that'd be great.
Sure.
Enter Mastodon.
Yeah, I know a little bit about Mastodon.
All right, let's talk about Mastodon.
Okay, yeah.
So Mastodon.
We're going to be tooting folks.
You know that's what it's called, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
You just you went quiet on me.
I did.
What's he talking about?
I was hoping we could like we just talked about Texas and not being if we could if we
could not have the like blazing saddles like where the white women.
Oh, movies that you can't make anymore.
Oh, man.
Anyway, so the you know, their tagline on their the top tagline or whatever on their
in Mastodon.org website is social networking that's not for sale.
Yes.
The idea, though, is is less about I guess not not having ads.
Well, maybe maybe it is mostly that's where they started.
I don't actually know the story here.
But what is appealing to this to me inside of this is the idea that you can you can create
a server for your particular community community.
Yeah.
And Mastodon is what old school Twitter was.
Yes.
There is school Twitter.
It was literally just it rolled on pass.
And if you missed it, you missed it.
There wasn't all this curation and there's not Mastodon doesn't have algorithm.
To feed the things to you.
I mean, it's literally just this giant river of posts.
And if you missed it, you missed it.
So yeah, I was on Mastodon for a little while for the new agenda podcast.
They had their own instance.
And so that was a whole community built around that podcast.
Right.
Then they got some bad apples in the mix.
Oh, and it kind of disbanded.
And then that was kind of my last stint of anything social media.
And that was probably two or three years ago now.
Sand Chris.
But you can stand up your own to your point.
You can run.
You can literally run this on some computer at home.
Doesn't have to be anything special.
Or there are companies who will run it for you in their cloud.
Yeah.
Hosted.
Yep.
It's a good platform.
So it's that like the idea of creating a space and being able to like kind of fly under the
radar with what's going on.
What do we say about one of the things that's been fun, you know, because we've we've talked
about Windows and Apple for a long, long, long, long, long time now.
One of the things that we that I remember from early on in our conversations was the
idea that innovation always drives more innovation.
It does.
Yeah, absolutely.
There's always that competition is going to drive innovation.
Yes, the the idea that one person being able to tweak something and make something or make
something new or whatever is going to explode ideas all over the place and and just being
able to be in a spot where you can be a little bit freer with that, where you can have ideas
or you can have questions and not having to worry about it like we we're all trying to
belong as human beings in all these different aspects.
We have our identity, who we, you know, have found ourselves to be or been told that we
are.
And then we have, you know, our peers, the group of people that we belong with.
And then we have our heroes.
And those are the people that we try to attain to, that we want to be one of, you know, that
type of thing.
And and I think having.
Having more of these opportunities is not reinventing the wheel.
Like, you know, social media is what it is.
But I don't know about you, but it just like sucks the life out of me.
Yeah, human beings were not made for social media.
It doesn't seem like it.
No.
We just don't we don't work that way.
We've never had this level of communication amongst ourselves.
For essentially all the existence of mankind.
And so now you're getting blasted by everybody from everywhere.
Now, anybody can say anything they want, how they want, whenever they want.
And people are going to be more brash and bold to speak up on social media than they
would ever be face to face.
Oh, gosh, no.
So it really brings out some of the worst parts of people.
And then you've got the impact that it has on kids, especially young girls.
And all they're seeing is this perfection.
Well, I don't have that in my life.
What's wrong with me?
Right.
I don't look like that.
What's wrong with me?
You know, and there's even grown people who, once they get into social media, they still
have some of those very same struggles and challenges.
Oh, you just can't, they just can't separate it.
It is like the number of times that Laurie talks about, that my wife talks about, you
know, that she's not being a good mother or she's not, you know, being a good wife or
something like that.
I'm like, where are you getting that?
And it is all about comparison.
And I'm not saying that you wouldn't like compare yourself to each other in any community.
But when you're talking like all of the women in all of the world and you're only seeing
the curated part of their lives, like that's not healthy.
No, very, very few people actually put the real thing on social media.
Yeah.
And then also the like, it's either like they're showing you their best day or their worst
day.
Yeah.
And the worst days, you know, mean that you've got, you know, empathy fatigue all the time
because you're bearing everyone's tragedies all the time as well.
And that's been hard for me lately to try to deal with is just the idea that like I
cannot, it's not that I'm heartless because I know that I care very deeply for, I mean,
a lot.
Yeah.
But like the number of times that I cannot catch my breath because I go from one death
or severe chronic illness to another, to another, to another.
And it's just not a good situation.
And makes it hard to still feel actual grief for the person who's right in front of you.
I get home, my son's having a bad day.
I don't want to hear about it.
Sure.
Yeah.
Why are you having a bad, don't have a bad day.
I've got to carry everybody else's bad day.
Yep.
You're not allowed to have a bad day.
Yeah.
Let me tell you what, my son should be allowed to have a bad day with his daddy.
Yeah.
And it's that type of thing with you and me being able to sit here and talk about what
that actually looks like.
That's the community I want.
Sure.
Yeah.
So, I mean, you know, there's the idea of, do you limit community by only limiting or
only having it around part of the time?
Like we do a show every two weeks.
I mean, I'd like to talk more often.
So, the timing of it has been more just life getting busy for, you know, your life has
been busy.
Sure.
My life is getting busier right now and then someday we'll ship our kids off to college
too.
But you know, but what, I guess what handcuffs do you put on the technology in order to actually
create real community instead of just fake community, which is what most social media
looks like?
Yeah, that's tough because, I mean, you're just talking about the basic human nature
and how do you restrict that?
Yeah, I don't know how you put guardrails on that for the general, you know, I mean,
I know what I've done for my kids.
You know, it's been no social media.
Yeah.
You know, Garrett didn't get social media until he was 19 years old.
And even now there's still some times when we're like, hold up, pump the brakes there,
you know, and I've got a 15 year old daughter who's like, well, why can't I have Instagram
and TikTok?
Everybody else has it.
I'm like, yeah.
And without being too rude, look at how they're doing.
Yeah.
Hey, their parents don't love them.
Yes.
That was rude.
Yes.
So yeah, it's just one of the things like, and even with my wife, there are times that
I have to tell her you really need to turn that off.
You know, and she's only on Facebook.
You know, she's not into all the, all the others, but there are just times that it's
just kind of like, okay, you need to turn that off.
You need a digital detox because you're just consuming too much junk and it's, and it's
impacting you and it's, we need to step away.
So in terms of putting barriers and controls on that, that's, that's tough to do with the
general public.
I mean, yeah, you could have somebody who is essentially the policeman.
Like if we, if we had our own mastodon instance, you could have a moderator on there who's
trying to keep things in check and under control and remind people of, Hey, this isn't acceptable
here.
Or, but you know, you know, I don't know that you can honestly control it.
It's just the broken nature of man.
I mean, yes, absolutely.
Yeah, that, that brokenness is, is, is pretty unquestioned over here.
Correct.
It's just, it has more to do with the next step because I, I, I don't want to, like when
you don't trust media outlets anymore, you just stop, stop watching media outlets.
Yeah.
Okay.
But there are things that are happening that don't really get talked about anywhere else
other than on media outlets.
And I just need a place that tells me what's happening without trying to editorialize it
all the time.
Sure.
But it's that type of thing where you're like, okay, so how do I take the good parts of social
media without it obviously just turning into Facebook for our people?
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Well, I'm definitely in that category that stopped watching the news media probably 2013,
2014 really started to step away.
And then by the 2016 election was just completely out of it.
You know, just kind of saw the left was going to go one way.
The right was going to go another way.
There really was nothing in the middle.
Nope.
And so just kind of cut it out.
And I guess to me, the therapy there to keep me sane has been the no agenda podcast.
They do media deconstruction.
So they pull this, they go with whatever's in the media and then pull those stories in
and then kind of dig in behind it and try to show, okay, so these guys are so, so they
are slanted this way and these guys are kind of slanted this way.
And you're at least getting some knowledge of what's going on in the world without getting
feeling like you're being indoctrinated or propaganda.
But then there are just sometimes that, you know, it's just such a wonderful thing to
just not listen, just shut it off.
Don't even think about it.
The world is mad.
Let the world be mad.
I'm just going to sit here in my own, in my own home with my family and I'm just going
to pretend that there's nothing else going on right now.
Cause I just want to turn my brain off.
Yeah.
But I recognize that you can't be an ostrich and just stick your head in the sand and just
act like there's nothing going on.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, you can, but I don't know how effective that would be.
Yeah.
And then I guess the closest thing that I've seen to trying to help a person stay grounded
with the news is, have you heard of ground news?
As I'm saying, being grounded, it's ground.news and their whole schtick is they try to show
you this particular story is left, right or center.
Okay.
So that you can kind of understand the bent behind a given story.
And then you can say, I want to see only what's left.
I want to only see what's right.
I want to only see what's center.
And it kind of gives the individual an ability to kind of cater what you see.
And it can help you try to minimize some of that echo chamber.
Yeah.
Things like that though.
Like this is a way to make technology work for you in a way that's not, I feel like more
harmful than it is helpful.
Sure.
Cause that's what it seems like social media is now.
Absolutely.
Well, yeah, it's all because of the algorithm.
You know, the algorithm goes, oh, that gets you fired up.
I'm going to give you more of it.
Yeah.
And then tick tock is the opposite.
Tick tock is going, Oh, you like that?
I'm going to give you more of that.
So now you're getting echo chambered into in a completely different way, right?
Instead of having something thrown at you, that's constantly going to keep you worked
up and upset and angry.
They're going to pigeonhole you into this one thing.
And you're just going to see like everybody's like me.
Right.
No, I only hear things that tickle my ears.
Correct.
That's the thing that I have to struggle with.
That's what makes the mastodon interesting again, because there's no algorithm.
Right.
And you can pick any of these instances to be a part of.
You can hop around at any time and you then also have, and I don't recommend people do
this, but in your mastodon instance is the FETI stream, which is the live stream from
all mastodon instances that are federated together.
Really?
Yes.
So for your own insanity, don't go there.
For your own sanity, I should say.
For your own insanity.
If you're looking for your insanity, I found it.
Yes, I found it.
Don't go there.
And then just the sheer junk that people put out there.
It's out there.
So if you're going to go to mastodon, you can typically turn off that tab.
Just turn it off.
Just don't, just don't.
Don't do it.
No, that's just like sticking your head in the sewer pipe and just seeing what comes
by.
Oh, it's bad.
Thank you for that visual.
Yes.
Don't drink it.
Dish soap.
That's what I'm drinking.
Yeah.
Oh, we both drink at the same time.
That's a no-no.
Well, the more I drink of it, it's not so bad.
Well yeah, that's kind of the nature of beer.
I mean, if I just drink a whole lot of this, then all of my senses are dulled.
I can't tell what's going on.
Yay.
No.
So, oh, what was that show?
Steven, one of my friends, Steven was one of our friends, Steven was telling me about
a show that these guys were, they had found or there was a science, scientific discovery
or something like this, fictional obviously, that was talking about the human brain actually
is made to function at a higher alcohol content than like optimum level of alcohol content
is higher than what we normally think of.
So they all just try to maintain this certain level of blood alcohol, whatever.
They're trying to live like this, right?
Wow.
And it's like, well, this guy who's depressive or whatever is having a much better time and
this guy is really creative where he didn't used to be and all this stuff.
And of course, the movie-ness of it is that it gets out of hand and all the consequences
and life.
Sounds like they're trying to become functional drugs.
Right.
Exactly.
I don't know if you know it, Steven, but I was, yeah, sorry, that reminded me.
I wish I knew the name of it.
Where are your friends?
If I was on mastodon with him right now, you could just text him.
Anyway, that's what we need.
We just need a huge group text that we just invite people to.
Well, that's- No, don't say it because then I got to watch
your green bubble all the time.
No, I wouldn't go in with the group text.
Some of what goes on with a lot of the podcasting 2.0 and I'm going to throw out a term and
it's going to be a throwback term, but it works.
IRC channel.
Do you remember those days?
Wow.
Yeah.
I mean-
Merck, anybody?
Yeah, like what exactly is going on?
We would be having this conversation as we are now and we would have our own IRC channel
going that we could view and the people who in theory would be listening to us live, which
we haven't got to live yet, by the end of the year, I want to be alive.
I'm going to have to figure that out, but the idea is that we'd be having this conversation.
We'd be streaming live.
People will be listening to us.
They would be in that IRC channel and they could communicate with us in the show.
They could totally just poke fun at us.
A bunch of losers getting drunk.
It's like Twitch right now.
Yeah, pretty much.
And so you have that, but you get that interaction with your listeners that makes the show hopefully
more engaging for not only for them, but also for us.
We're talking about something.
We're seeing them responding in near real time and we're seeing that they're actually
enjoying this or they're going, that's boring.
Would you move on?
I mean, why are you just reading the website to me?
Yeah.
Sorry.
Yeah.
So that something like that would come with going live.
But again, it's just another way of kind of, you're trying to build a community around
your show and what you're doing.
Right.
And that's just one more level of interaction.
I'm just saying we need that interaction.
Yeah.
I think we need actual interaction and we got to do it in a way.
I like the idea.
I guess part of the reason that I like the idea of doing something where it is the people
that it's not, it's not everyone from every whatever.
And you know, Bob, who, you know, nobody actually knows because he's somebody's friend who is
somebody's friend, who's somebody that, you know,
Bill Braskey.
Bill Braskey was a real son of a.
So but it was that like, it's the idea that when you've, when you've met somebody face
to face, when you like, if you, especially if you limited to the people that are in the
same town as you, I could run into this guy.
Yeah.
I better watch what I'm saying.
Yes.
Like you lower the, you know, take a little bit of that bass out of his voice.
You know what I'm saying?
Don't, don't, nope, you don't, nope.
Yeah.
Anyway, that was funny to stumble over there for a little bit.
But yeah, it's just a thing.
It's something worth thinking about and trying to, you know, as we're all managing our, how
much we're investing in technology in one way or the other, we got to, we got to look
at that.
One of the things that I loved about, um, audio Sigma is how little it asks of you to
invest in order to get something that you really want or really could use.
Yes.
I wish more technology was that way.
Absolutely.
So we're thinking about anyway, we don't have any boosts.
Do we?
Uh, actually we do.
Okay.
Believe it or not.
What's up, Jason?
Uh, yes, exactly.
So he and I, and we kind of mentioned this too on the, on a previous show, John, the
Albie apocalypse and kind of what that meant and where are we going to be able to get boost
in or not and what that means.
So he did the test boost.
Okay.
Uh, a hundred sats from Jason and it just says test boost.
Hey, it worked.
It did work.
Yes.
So that was good to see.
Thanks, Jason.
Yes.
And then he followed up with one more.
Okay.
So he's got a podcast and his message is sorry about the mystery beers, John, I didn't care
for either of them either.
Hey, you got to talk more about the beer.
Oh my gosh.
So come to find out he'd never had either of those himself either.
Hey Jason, I don't know if you've been listening to this podcast, but can I, can I recommend
a founders logger to you as payback?
Yes.
So, um, I would agree with him.
The oatmeal stout was better than the solace.
Yeah.
The solace was just rough.
Yeah.
But the oatmeal stout was definitely better.
I mean, yeah, it was better, but like, holy cow.
I mean, it just, I, again, I don't, it's not, it's not, um, I don't know.
I don't have words for it.
Um, it's like you are thinking that you're biting into a nice loaf of sourdough bread
and it ends up being raisin bread or something.
There you go.
Yeah.
Or, you know, you think you're going to drink a darker pepper and it's sweet tea.
Gross.
Oh yeah.
The brain recoils in horror.
Yuck.
Um, anyway, thanks Jason.
I really appreciate you.
Remind me to buy you a beer of my least favorite beer sometime.
Get that man an old Rasputin.
Yeah.
But we definitely talked about that beer.
Yeah, we definitely talked about that.
Most mentioned beer on our podcast is a beer that we hate.
Uh, yeah.
That's hilarious.
Yeah.
I do have one piece of gear to throw at you real quick.
Okay, throw it to me.
You may look at.
Yeah.
I got my computer right here.
I'm going to look it up.
Yes.
The personas quantum.
E S two.
Okay.
Don't, don't try to tell me what I'm going to write.
So be thinking pod mobile.
Yeah.
I see the E S four.
I see the E S two.
Yes.
Okay.
Particularly for me, it's the E S two.
Okay.
USB C interface.
Yeah.
Which is, I mean, I was expecting this to catch on faster than it has with the audio
interface world.
I'm like, guys, I'm, if you, if someone else puts a USB B on one of these audio interfaces,
I'm going to lose my mind.
I'm looking at you, Berenger.
Stop it.
Yep.
Guys, it's just not, it's not funny anymore.
I don't know if it was somebody's joke.
Put it on there as a joke.
It's going out like that.
Yep.
Stop it.
Anyway, so I would put this essentially in the same range as the pod mobile, just because
you can do two XLR mics.
You can leverage the USB C. You've got your quarter inch out for your monitor.
It doesn't have some of the DSP features of the pod mobile.
What's the auto?
Is that like auto gaining?
Yes.
When you would plug in your mic and you'd start talking and you would press auto and
it will auto adjust for you.
I mean, that's great.
Don't get me wrong, but I would expect, I guess I shouldn't expect to get more for $200,
but I kind of was, I would hope for more.
And it's not just honestly, I'm looking at this very quickly.
It's not just two inputs.
There is a...
You have an instrument in on the front.
Yes, that's correct.
Instead of a, it's not headphones on both of those.
One of them is an instrument in.
So I wonder if you can do three at a time or if it's like, you can do two at a time,
but you can plug into the front if you really want to.
I don't know.
These are all questions that are rolling around in my head.
So they've got the quantum audio interfaces.
They have a two, a four.
Then you go to HD.
Yeah.
HD two and HD eight.
Is that what I'm seeing?
I thought it was the eight and 16.
Quantum.
Yeah.
HD eight and HD...
Oh, there's a 26 by 26.
Yeah.
There's the HD.
Holy cow.
No, I guess it is.
You're right.
It's the HD two and then it is the HD eight.
The eight is the rack mount, but the eight has the...
Oh, where is it?
It's on the back.
Sorry.
I walked over to the quantum 2626.
Oh.
Which is 26 in, 26 out.
Just give me a minute.
I gotta look over this thing real quick.
Stop showing me the front.
Okay.
And it says 26 out.
It's not actual hard line.
Oh, okay.
They're doing that with optical.
Where are you seeing the 26?
Oh, there it is.
I see it now.
I see it.
So that looks like that would go up against the...
Is it the Claret?
There's a few of them.
I'm more interested in how they're getting that number right now.
But anyway, Presonus has a lot of gear that I would say is that...
Can I say prosumer without it sounding condescending?
Yeah.
I cannot make this gear.
So I always feel like, listen, I'm sorry.
I'm not trying to offend anyone with the whatever.
It's not like if I'm specking out something that I really need it to be top of the line,
you just like, let's know who we are, Presonus, Behringer, whatever else.
They're not in the same conversation as Digico.
But still really useful.
And when you're looking at things like audio interfaces where you're like, I need this
to be reliable, I feel like it does a great job.
So yeah, I think for $200, that's a great find.
Good job.
And the one other bonus on this, if you use their Studio One DAW, you can control the
interface directly from the DAW.
Oh, nice.
So there's some really nice integration that they're kind of putting together there.
Yeah, the more these companies get on this understanding of like, if you're plugging
it into a computer, it needs to be able to interface well.
I'm all about it.
Rode looking at you.
You've got Rode Central, man.
Yeah, I'm not saying that they're not trying to fix the problem.
I'm saying you've got some great gear.
Let's focus on the Kinks.
Yeah.
Come on, Australia.
They're Aussies.
Which is surprising with Blackmagic because, you know, the notorious like, hey, if you
buy a Blackmagic piece of gear, you need to buy a fan to go with it.
You would expect a country that is, again, much like Texas, stereotyped as being in the
desert.
Yep.
But can you, why in the world would you not have an air conditioner running on this air
conditioner?
You need to work on your cooling system.
Yes, their ventilation definitely leaves you wanting.
Did I tell you about that?
We got a new, we bought a switcher for one of our rooms to replace.
We had an old analog way that was awesome.
Loved that thing.
It finally died.
And we bought a Blackmagic piece of gear to replace it.
And Chad's first question to me was, did you buy a fan?
And my answer to him was, I bought two.
I bought two.
Can't have this thing going on.
So there's an intake and an outtake.
There's an intake and an exhaust.
On our little rack now because we've got a Blackmagic piece of gear running in it.
If you know what we're talking about, let us know.
Yes.
If you don't know what we're talking about, you've never bought Blackmagic before.
That's true.
All right.
That's all I got.
All right.
I enjoyed it.
Yeah.
Thanks for the free beer.
Yes.
Thank you, David and Wayne.
Appreciate you guys.
Absolutely.
All right.
See you.
Cheers.
This is a beautiful pie, my friends.
Look at this.
They're going to say, how many times is he going to say that?
But really, look at this.
I just said it again.
Look at this.
Is that gorgeous or what?
I love my life.
A pound of saffron is like two or $3,000 and you can't even smoke this stuff.
Look at it.
Everybody thinks they're part of the olive.
They have nothing to do with olive.
The capers is a flower bud of the caper bush, which means if allowed to grow, it becomes
a nice whole white flower.
You know, I always say, what were they smoking when they come up with the idea of capers?
Hey, before it becomes a flower, let's take it and let's put it in the brine so we can
eat it three months from now.
They have to be smoking something strange to come up with that idea, right?
Then you have to, then you'll have too much.
Yeah.
If you put too much, you'll have too much.
I'm glad you came to my channel because I give you a scientific facts.
If you put too much, you'll have too much.
Now, if you put too much, you'll be too thick.
If it's too thick, no good either.
I got a little camera in here.
It's full of grease from the meat.
Normally, I got a little camera, one of the Osmo packets, but we cooked it this morning.
We forgot it.
We put it in the oven.
It's made by the company called Crap.
Oh, no, no, Craft.
Every mistake you can make in the kitchen, I made them, okay?
And some, okay?
And sometimes more than one time.
Sometimes I wonder.
It all depends on what is it I have in my coffee.
Put the water in there, and that's all you need.
Don't be out there putting some oil in the water, okay?
You need like this.
They'll shoot you if you do that.
Talking about a whisk.
Size matters.
Mamma mia, look at this thing.
And I turned my heat off.
Well, how do you like that?
Not a good idea.
While you're cooking, do not turn the heat off.
And I haven't drink anything.
And then we're going to make the bracing container right here.
Just checking to make sure it's hot enough.
Now for those of you who think my accent is a fake accent, it's not.
Okay, I'm half French and half Italian.
All right?
But now I'm 100% American.
God bless America.
God bless the rest of the world.
We'll be reading!