Ep. 5 - You Need Highlights Magazine with Jon McLaren | Devs:After Dark

Yeah, that's fair.

There's a lot of chinks in this armor.

I mean, it's a fair assumption. It's a fair assumption.

The belly of this dragon is quite easy to hit with the arrows.

Well, I mean, when he makes his own armor, it's kind of hard to— if we're talking quality craftsmanship, maybe Nick shouldn't make the armor.

Um, but yeah, so let's, uh, let's get started then. Like, we are here at episode 5 with, uh, our good friend John, who I'll let him introduce himself in a minute. But, uh, just to kind of start everything off, we'll do a little bit of, uh, just a little bit of housekeeping corrections, notes from the management. Uh, as I promised last week, there is now a website. Uh, for the podcast, and that's going to be devsafterdarkpod.com. That is devsafterdarkpod.com. You just have to say it twice. You ever see the infomercials where they always repeat the domain twice? That way it sticks.

One more time, just so— one more time, please, just so I can—

That's—

yeah, that is devsafterdarkpod.com.

Is that www or is that—

I mean, you can add the www. I think we're in an era where that really, that'll just It'll take care of itself if you just get the first part right most of the time. Uh, if not, contact your provider, but, uh, yeah, no, it should be fine. Uh, but that again, that's devsafterdarkpod.com.

Oh my God. Stood up, went to the mic and everything for that last one.

I leaned in. Did you see that? I've been watching, I've been watching other podcasts and I see a lot of people mess with the mic or lean in when they want to be really serious and get really down and dirty.

I felt very serious just now.

It's like ASMR, like I'm like right eating the mic right now. Um, but no, so that, that, that is up and running as promised. There's show notes for all of the shows, um, you know, show lists and then links to subscribe and watch all of our YouTube or listen on Spotify or Apple Music or anywhere else you get your podcasts. Um, as far as any corrections, uh, from the previous episode, um, there are many. I have a, uh, there's, uh, there's some, there's some, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring this down a little bit to a serious note. And, and, and I want everybody to, I want, I want you to put on your empathy hats for a minute for me. Um, because there is, there is, and I have to have it confirmed by, by, by a doctor, but I, there is a, a disorder I have where when it comes to movies and, um, any type of nostalgia, my brain is stuck in the 1990s to the 1996 time era.

Yeah.

Uh, especially with when it comes to trivia. Now, there, there, there isn't a specific diagnosis for that yet. I, I'm sure I'll be one of the ones they name it after. Uh, but there is something there. And, uh, I, we do have to give a shout out to Brie, uh, last episode for putting up with it.

Uh, seriously.

'Cause yeah, it, it was, yeah, not my, not my finest quiz moment ever. So, um, any of those British quiz shows I will not be invited to.

No, no, no. Those, those invitations have been canceled for sure.

But they can redirect them to me because I would love to appear on them.

I mean, I, I wanted to meet Richard Ayoade. Like, it's never gonna happen. No, it's never gonna happen.

Sorry.

Yeah, I suck at movie trivia, at least with, with, within the bounds of prior to 1990 or after 1996.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If it's in that like 5, 5-year timeframe, 6-year timeframe, I'm golden.

If, if, do you have like that, uh, Trivial Pursuit that's like from 1990 to 1996? Is that what you have?

I get all my references from board games that were bought when I was in like my early, early 20s.

That's it.

Uh, so yeah, that's— yeah, my, my— I'm, I'm basically like early stages of like AI where like I was locked to a certain year and then I was not allowed to go past. So that's, um, but yeah, I'm gonna have some, uh, I'm gonna have some tests done, uh, you know, and then, uh, those ones—

You watch some movies that are this year? Like that.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to do some of that. You know, admit that I all although I did watch totally off topic. Count of Monte Cristo, the French version with the subtitles. That was this year. Very good movie. But yeah, but I'm working on it. Baby steps, baby steps. It's all baby steps.

So ironically, that's a reference from What About Bob, which was another movie from the on the bus, right?

On the baby steps on the bus, baby steps on the bus. I love it. Yeah. I'm subconsciously doing it. That's the problem. I can't really— it's, it's— listen, there'll be medication for it. They're gonna name it. And, and, and, and others that are afflicted by it as well will also be able to— the support group is going to be very, very massive at a certain point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you realize that— oh, go ahead, Dennis.

I just wanna make sure everyone, if there's someone out there listening who, uh, has, uh, medication for this, we're looking for sponsorships. So, uh, yeah.

I'm thinking the best medicine is like Netflix, Hulu, just sign up for a streaming service and just start watching things.

I always told AJ that I guess the job I wanted was I wanted to name some of that stuff. Like, I'm not gonna name 'em out loud 'cause I don't wanna give any of 'em credit for anything, but like, you know what I mean? Like, I wanna name those like late night, like infomercials at like 2:00 AM, like medications. I think that's gotta be probably one of the funnest jobs that you can possibly have. It's gotta be. Just make up random stuff. It's great.

So speaking of naming things, I think in the comments people should come up with names for whatever this '90s era conditioning put you out. Yes, let's do this.

I see now, John, bringing the community in. I love that, John. That, that's, that is absolutely brilliant.

Like, great segue for an intro there, don't you think?

Yeah, I, I think it is. Uh, just one more quick thing, uh, just to point out, like, Dennis doesn't know what a walking taco bar is, so I just wanted to point that out because I wanted to knock him down a peg so that way I could kind of get the ball rolling. make myself feel better after the first disclaimer. So yeah. And then also too, I wanted to see, there was just one that just happened previously. And I was telling Jon before we started taping, I always miss them, but any dehugs that we need to like point people out to coming up or?

That's quite kind of you. There is one coming up on December 5th where we're going to talk about the new Custom Channels API coming out. I think it's— I said this a lot yesterday. I think it's in private beta now. And by the time we get to this, we're going to be pushing probably to public and really trying to let people know what it's all about, why it's important. This is kind of a new thing for us. You know, like we always focus on these, the objects APIs and things like that. And now we're like talking more about the Service Hub parts of things and, you know, support, which is very interesting. So I'm excited about it.

December 5th.

At 2 PM Eastern Standard Time on, uh, the YouTubes. Uh, there's also, I don't know, I'll put in the show notes, so I'll give you a link for the show notes for it, Nick.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Perfect. And AJ, whatever you're doing, we don't really care.

Yeah, that's true.

No, no, it's fine. That's fine.

Um, so without further ado, I'm Nick. He's Dennis, depending on how he arranges the screens later. He's Dennis. He's AJ. Those are co-hosts. I'm the host, but let John introduce himself and tell everyone who he is and what he does.

Hi. So, uh, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. Oh, sorry. I think, I think Nick's condition is contagious.

That's the only reason I understood you. You were speaking my language now.

I'm John McQuarren. You've probably seen some videos from me as well as seen blog posts. I'm a developer advocate with AJ and Donath. Yeah.

So you're on the YouTubes then too, aren't you? I've seen you around.

Yes, I'm on this channel.

There was a series called Coding with John that he did a while back, which I really enjoyed. And I want to do more of that, John. So, you know, let's, let's get that back going.

We're gonna bring it back. It'll keep going. This time, AJ might be on it too.

Possibly, possibly. I do know some things contrary to what people believe. That's—

yeah.

I wanted to ask you, what are some of your— to get, to get the ball rolling, what are some of your favorite, um, things to create content around? Is there a particular language or a particular, uh, focus? that like that you do where you're kind of like, I could do this all day nonstop?

I would say the things that are my favorite to actually work on are the things where— so before I worked at HubSpot, I worked at the development agency that worked with a bunch of HubSpot solutions partners. And so the things that actually are most interesting for me to work on are the things that I think of that are problems that I had back then, or problems that I, I know that I would have now, that I'm like, I, I knew I would have to solve this in a creative way or something like that. And so those are the most fun for me to tackle. It's not specific to if it's JavaScript or CSS or Hubble or or GraphQL. I kind of just enjoy all of the above. But I will say, I am a little bit of a self-professed CSS wizard. I will use HTML and CSS to solve problems that most people would use JavaScript for, because I love accessibility, and it makes it easier to do it that way.

John, John, can I push back a little bit real quickly? I do agree that you are a wizard at these 2 things. But I would say, and more specifically, You are a tables wizard. Uh, CSS, sure, whatever, but give John a good table and he'll go to town.

Interesting.

And it's true.

Now, have you heard of— I'm also a big fan of CSS. I, I think that was like one of the very first things when I started getting into like just doing HTML coding in general that like I really kind of gravitated towards. Did you ever hear of the, um, there's like a competition, it was called, uh, And, and I don't know if they still do it, but I don't even know if the website's still around, but, uh, CSS Zen Garden, where it was, um, yeah, I, I'd love that. To me, it was kind of the first thing I actually got into that was, um, I don't wanna say beyond the basics, but it was where I, I, I started to understand like just how awesome and like the cool things that could be accomplished. 'Cause you know, you, you, you're doing like one little task or something like that when you're first starting out and you're like, yeah, I get the purpose of it. But it, this was like one of those things where it's like, That, that, oh, this is cool moment where it was, uh, do you know what I mean? And, and then any kind of like CSS awards website after that? 'Cause there was a, there was a time like not too far, uh, you know, back where like that was the biggest craze was like CSS awards websites. Mm-hmm.

You know?

And it was just like, for me, that's what gave— did you, did you have any of those things that you did first saw when it came to CSS?

Yeah. So for me it was definitely CodePen. And then also, uh, there was a thing that's kind of similar to CSS Zen Garden, but it's, uh, CSS Golf. Uh, I didn't actively play it a whole lot, but it did inspire me to think of doing things in unorthodox ways. Uh, like one of my favorite little things that I actually did for, uh, for some client work as well, uh, so it came in handy, is, uh, it's a total CSS hack, but it is so freaking cool when someone does an amazing job with it. So something that people don't often know about. I know we're not trying to dive into code any— in this, but this is really cool to me.

Perfect.

So, uh, with CSS, uh, drop shadows, uh, if you didn't know that, didn't know this, or box shadows, sorry, you can actually, uh, get really crazy and make pixel art out of them because you can layer them on top of each other. And so you can do basically particle effects, like having things explode, fireworks, et cetera. Do, like, have the individual pixels. Like, if you make your box shadow be on an element that is 1 by 1 pixel, Mm-hmm. you now can create an infinite number of little box shadows on there and have each individual pixel animate in a different way from all of the other ones. And you can create some really crazy effects through that.

That's awesome.

That was probably the first time where I was like, okay, this, this is super cool.

And then you combine that with like the blink tag and I'm like, this is amazing. You can do things now.

The blink tag.

I love it.

Yeah. Wasn't there a marquee tag as well?

Right.

Wasn't that one?

Yeah. I used both of those heavily on my first website that I ever built.

Oh yeah.

Hey, John, I think everybody did. So you joined HubSpot and what, you're at 5 years now, right?

Yep.

Right about, and then you were coding like every day prior to HubSpot. I'm not, I'm guessing you don't code every day at this point, like not as like heavily as you did when you were at the agency life, but like I would say around 5 to 3 years ago is when CSS went kind of like crazy, right? How are you keeping up with all of, I mean, it's like a programming language now. Like you can do anything with it.

Yeah. So thankfully I'm just naturally interested in all that. So for me, like I'm already subscribed to, uh, I'm glad by the way, CFS Trips seems to be back. Uh, it is back, be dead. Uh, but, uh, I follow Chris Corrier, Jen Semany, uh, a whole bunch of really awesome developers, dev advocates, and engineers and whatnot. And so whenever I see that something is coming down the pipeline— oh, I also watch or listen to the Shop Talk Show podcast and the Syntax podcast. And that also is a tie-in. The Scott Owens feed from Syntax was at React Summit. But anyways— Uh, I am giving you SUGWave like crazy. You're gonna have a whole company now.

I was literally gonna go make lunch. I was just gonna, I, I, I was good. I got, I got pizza upstairs. I can go. It's, I'm good. But no, I'm glad that you mentioned some of that stuff that you use to like keep up to date. 'Cause like, I literally just follow the Kardashians on X and I really, my CSS skills have not improved at all. So I'm, I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong.

No, no, no.

Keep up that path.

That's what I'm thinking.

It's Chloe.

That's what you're doing wrong.

Chloe's the one you gotta follow.

She knows CSS.

That's the thing.

Yeah. See, there's multiple, like with me and AJ, it's like if you follow one of us, you'll at least get 50% of some like really interesting but boring stuff.

Yeah.

Uh, there's just, there's too many to follow at this point. But, um, I wanted to ask you, not even a segue to anything, but, uh, I, I, I wanted to ask, I wanted to ask you, um, before I wanna talk about the, the React Summit, absolutely. But I, I wanted to get first though, um, one of the things we like to do and we've asked just about everybody and, I mean, uh, anywhere from external to internal people, but, um, your journey to here, or your journey basically into the, into the business or into the, the atmosphere of either, you know, coding or tech in general, how did you, how did that happen?

Real estate.

I can say, uh, for once, well, I think Bri also was not real estate, so.

Right, right.

Yeah.

There are dozens of us that are not real estate.

So, second person, we're breaking the chain. I had nothing to do with real estate. Um, same, same situation as Bree. Most I've gotten into real estate is buying my own house and playing with things. So, uh, I agree. But my start, uh, was actually when I was 8 years old. Uh, I was really into a video game called Guild Wars. Great game. The whole series of games. And I decided I wanted to make a Web3 for my guild at the time. And I knew nothing. I knew absolutely nothing. So I was just Googling HTML tags and trying to scrappily put this thing together. And this was at the time when like the font tag was a thing. So yeah, this code was horrendous and everything was very, In vertical, because I didn't know how to do table-based layouts at that time yet. And doing CSS, uh, responsively just definitely was not a thing yet. Um, yeah, it was horrendous looking. Marquee tags and break tags everywhere. Uh, it was great. Um, and then after that—

I'd love to see this.

Uh, well, Probably for my benefit, uh, that site is no longer online, and to my knowledge, it is not on archive.org.

I was just gonna ask, I was gonna be like, do we need to archive.org this? Is that what we need to do? But no, I can respect that, 'cause I, uh, similarly, like, uh, PHP forum, like, templates, right? Like, customizing those was kind of like my first journey into that same type of process as well when I was a kid. Like, uh, I can't remember. I think it was like, like stuff like original, like, uh, Medal of Honor or Call of Duty, like those type of ones, like the original ones where it was like guild or clan, like websites and stuff like that. And forums for things like that where just like building those out and like customizing those was like break it and learn type of situation. So yeah, no, that I, uh, the utmost respect for that kind of, um, that kind of—

That kind of reminded me, I did do a tiny bit of the like forum customizing and stuff too, but what I really did a lot of. Was MySpace was big back in the day. And so I would make little, like, for example, MySpace started having ads that would appear on your profile. And so I wrote CSS that would hide those ads or replace the ads with something else.

Yeah.

You were the original ad blocker. You, you literally, you were the original ad blocker, isn't it?

Can we say that Tom is like perhaps the most, um, influential developer advocate out there?

Probably. I feel like, yeah.

I agree.

I believe so.

And he's all of our friends.

Yeah.

It's such a perfect point.

Yeah.

Not many people wanna be our friends after being on this podcast, but Tom, Tom's always there for us. Tom's always there.

He's always been a friend.

So I appreciate that. That's really good. So after a, so after like, after a young age, after getting into like coding for, let's say, the gaming sites like that. What was one of the next things that kind of sparked? Because at a certain point then, right, you're, you know, as, as a hobby or as something like you do to gain the knowledge, there has to come a point, right? And this is with anybody, not just one person in particular, where you hit that either milestone or you hit that, um, point in time where you're like, okay, this, this could become a thing like a career, or this could become something more than just me. And I, and I, I don't mean to sound disingenuous, but like, this could be more than just me like messing around with a site and just like, you know, trying to break stuff. What, what was, do you remember like the point in which you thought, uh, I could do something with this?

Yeah. Uh, so I was maybe, I'm gonna say like 10 years old. So again, I got a weird start, but, uh, at around 10, my mom had this friend that had a like videography business. So like he would, he would shoot like videos of conferences, videos of concerts, videos of just everything like weddings, everything. And he decided he needed a website to promote his business and he wanted to put samples of all of his videos up so that potential clients could actually go, oh, like, this is, this is my, like, what I could get. And well, I, I was dumb and, and a 10-year-old. And, uh, my mom was like, hey, like, are you interested in doing this? He said he's, he's willing to pay, like, I, I don't remember the exact number, but I wanna say it was like between $100 and $300. Uh, for this. And like, I was like, uh, the expansion to Guild Wars is coming out here. I think I want to do this.

For a 10-year-old, that's like, that's millionaire money right there.

You're like, I'm gonna get my own house, make my own rules.

Yeah. And I did a terrible job, like, looking back. Like, I mean, I did the best that I could for, for my age and everything, but basically it was like I was putting— you remember back when not iframes, but framesets and frames were a thing?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I didn't learn yet that you could like use like PHP or anything to create like templates that would be reused across pages. So what I did was I created frames and framesets. So you'd have like your nav menu within a frame, you'd have the individual video within a frame. Yeah. And, uh, and the videos, I didn't know how to actually like embed 'em on a page, so I was just uploading 'em to Google Videos at the time. Shout out to the team that worked on that and then had their work thrown away. But yes. But, uh, yeah, so I, I uploaded all that to there and then just basically made a ton of individual HTML files for each video.

Wow.

And It, it worked. It looked terrible. Uh, I'm not going to call it the name of the, uh, business because it is still around and I have looked it up.

And the funny part is— Please, they're still using that. Please.

The funny part is he's still using a website that was clearly made from that time period, but probably, like, is not mine. Someone else did it and somehow did just as poorly at it.

Another 10-year-old. This person's only employed.

This is the last 10-year-old I hire. It's 12-year-olds from now on.

That is it.

Exactly. Yeah. Um, and then from there, uh, I, I knew right from then and I was like, okay, this web development thing, it's fun. I'm enjoying it. Uh, I'm solving problems and, uh, I'm kind of good at it. Not, not great at it, clearly, but I was good enough at it that, like, right, uh, I took like a high school class that was web development. And fun fact, I failed this class.

Wait, were you still 10?

No, no, no, no, this was later on.

Jesus, child.

Yeah, this was later on. But, uh, in high school, I took, I took a web development class, and the fun fact of it is I actually failed it. Okay, hold on.

I gotta Slack. I'm gonna Slack your manager as you're talking. Keep going.

Say more.

Yeah.

So, so what happened was the, the teacher actually really hated the way that I did everything because I did it in code. We were using Dreamweaver.

Okay.

She only knew how to do everything with the WYSIWYG interface. And I was like, I'm way faster just writing the code. Like, I'm gonna just do this. And, and so the funny part is, like, I did all the assignments and I did them like to the T, like perfect. And she failed me because I was doing it in the code view. Not exactly ethical, but so I was like, well, I'm not accepting the failure. So next year after that, I'm back in her class again just to annoy her. Uh, and I didn't change my tactic. I stayed doing, uh, the, the like manually coding everything, but I also had all of my assignments from the prior year. So I just like went nuts on all of them. Like, like make them very clearly like, okay, this person absolutely knows what they're doing kind of a thing. Like making little like. explosions happen when you clicked things and doing goofy, whatever you can imagine a kid would, would do to make a website cool.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, including like my final project, uh, was a friend of mine, uh, in the same class. We built these websites that were as if they were for like warring countries, that the countries were like, the people were produce, not people. So like mine was like the Idaho potatoes or something, and his were something else, uh, like oranges or something. And so, uh, I built on my site. I know this is ridiculous, but I built on my site because what I figured out I could do in Dreamweaver that I didn't know how to do by coding in, uh, by hand was Dreamweaver had this really cool, really early animation system. So you could like do keyframes and everything.

Yeah.

And I was just loving that. And so as a kid, I like— that's right. His team, his team was the Florida Oranges. So I made a map up here. Not ethical, but made a map. map appear and then add a button at the top of the screen. And it's just like a Google Map or whatever. When you click the, the button, what it would do is it would show a nuke launching from Idaho, traveling to Florida, and then it would get to Florida and it would explode and, and show like sparks and whatever all over the street. But then— But then immediately after that, uh, it would show my friend's website in an iframe, and then it would show that like the whole website was getting disfigured and blown up. Oh my God. That's hilarious.

I just know John is still in this class, by the way.

He's failed this class for 20 years. Yeah.

It's like, it's like a 20-something-year doctorate that you have to get to get it arted up. As you're describing this, I'm imagining like hamburgers and hot dogs and bayonet warfare. I'm like, what is going on?

Yeah. So it was, it was ridiculous. And, uh, the funny part about it is, well, funny and sad. So the teacher still strongly did not like me. Uh, did not, did not give me a good grade. Uh, I can't remember if she either failed me again or gave me a D. But I ended up bringing it up to, to another teacher who then advised me to bring it up to the principal because like I showed what I had built and they were like, this is like, I get that it may not visually be the most appealing or whatever, but this is freaking amazing for your age and your like class and everything. And technically it met all of the requirements that the teacher Had, so you shouldn't be like. I could understand getting a B, but you shouldn't be getting an F or a D. Yeah. So I brought it up and ended up my grade got changed drastically in that class from a really low grade to an A. And I had heard that the teacher didn't work there anymore. So I. I feel bad, but she may have been fired. I don't know.

But I can imagine like John's assignments were like, just create this thing in like tables. And he submits as like the final thing, like a, uh, you know, a database-driven commerce site.

And it's just like, it's a little much, but okay.

Watching Spuds at your teacher.

Yeah. So a little weird start, uh, for me.

Uh, I mean, everybody has a unique journey, so I mean, it's no more weirder than anybody else's. At what point then did you, um, did, did, well, at what point did developer relations start to like play a role in what you were doing? Like as, as your career went on from, 'cause I imagine like if you're already building like complex things at 10, uh, you created, uh, probably the beta of Facebook at 12. And then, so when did developer relations start to make its way into some of the work that you were doing?

So honestly, it started, so I worked for a company called Spin Group. Some of you may be familiar with that name because that company possibly works with your company, but also Another HubSpotter now also came from Spin Group. His name is BJ, and I worked over there. I was building for a for a period of time. We were able to build a website in two weeks, like turnaround time, and these were enterprise websites. And then clients started wanting more complicated things, so stuff started taking longer, etc. But My start started there. So I honestly took that job from a, I posted my resume on Craigslist and this, this sounds crazy cuz I, I did, I was like, man, Craigslist, why would I put, that sounds sketch. But I had worked with another web developer who was from Wisconsin. I was originally Uh, in Minnesota. And, uh, that guy was like, hey, yeah, I used to do freelance and I would get all of my work through Craigslist. And I was like, really? So I, of course, did the LinkedIn thing and all that, but I also put my resume out on Craigslist. And what do you know? I got offered the job before I even moved out to Wisconsin. Nice. And so at that company, they're like, hey, like we're building a lot of these sites in HubSpot. Do you know HubSpot? I was like, I know, and then I don't know anything. And so he, he made me full-time focus on building HubSpot websites. I got pretty darn good at it and then started coming up with like little tools and helpers to make it easier to build fast. So for example, many of you out there might use the Developer Chrome extension. I forked that basically from something that William Spiro, a HubSpotter, who was a HubSpotter at the time, had built. And I was like, hey, like, I wanna add a whole bunch of features to HubSpot. to make it easier to build things for myself. And I was like, but it's also cool if like everybody else can use them, 'cause why wouldn't I give it to everybody? You know, I did that, got super active in our developer Slack, started doing some talks at a prior like inbound side event, et cetera. And then the lovely AJ and Dennis, And I went and we organized a whole developer meetup because HubSpot was not going to have an official event for developers that year. And it was a ton of fun. And to the dismay or to the confusion of Dennis, AJ and I had to hide from him. That we were outspotted.

I feel bad. We— I hide from Dennis all the time. This is not anything. Yeah.

I was just— I saw my push inbound last. I was like, why?

Yeah.

I remember that.

Yeah.

We were on the same hotel floor, and I had to, like, peek out every time to make sure he wasn't around so that way I could leave without having to talk to him. It was so awkward.

He just camped out outside your door. Oh, hey, you're awake.

I, I, I had to call— I had to call the front desk every time and say, is there a— can you page Dennis, Edson, please? And then they're like, oh, he's not there. Then I know I could leave my room. So it was just, yeah, that's why it took me so long to get anywhere. It was very awkward, but not to derail. Sorry.

Well, it's not a, it's not a derailment because, uh, speaking of hotel rooms, so while we were planning this whole thing and trying to hide from the community members that we were suddenly now HubSpot employees, uh, AJ and I got flown out to the HubSpot headquarters for in-person training.

Yep.

And we were put in the same hotel. So we were on this call, uh, with probably 6 different people and we were all just planning out the, the event. And thankfully AJ caught this and I didn't know until after and he told me. Uh, but so we both picked the exact same place in our hotel rooms to do the call from. Well, the problem is the pictures are identical.

You know hotels, yeah.

They're the same picture. AJ quit industry and was like, sorry, I'm sick, or something like that. Yeah.

Are you both eating at Chick-fil-A at the same time?

That's— yeah, that's literally what it was. It was the same, like the couches were the same, the artwork. It literally looked like if I would have just turned my computer, John was next to me.

Like, you should have just said we both shop for furniture at the same place. What's the problem, folks?

Yeah, I just remember him and I were talking at great lengths because it was like, what do we do? We're supposed to be jumping on this call with all of the community people And they don't know that we just got hired by HubSpot, but we weren't allowed to say anything yet because it hasn't been like told to everybody yet. So like we were just kind of like literally him and I, we palled around for like 2 weeks and like we went everywhere and it was, it was, it was hilarious. But I do remember and I want to call this out, like at that time, that first week was really rough for me because I was switching up medications and John was a lifesaver. Like he was there for me every minute. So like, I do want to call out that, like when John says like he likes to help people, He's not just saying that, like, he literally is one of the most helpful people ever and will always help you.

So.

Well, I already have diabetes, but that was really sweet. That was really nice.

I just have to call that out because that's literally like one of my favorite pictures is the picture of you and I in front of Emmett's Bar where we're both giving the thumbs up.

Yeah, I love that idea. I've seen you and you had that as like a profile picture at one point.

Yeah, he loved John in that so much he cropped him out. Or was it the other way around?

It was the other way around.

Other way around. So we have a—

it's bad lighting, that's all.

So we have an internal emoji in Slack that is AJ approved, and it's AJ doing this for that picture.

Yep.

That's great.

Now you mentioned, um, that before you, you, you were doing speeches and stuff before, have you, you did that before you were at HubSpot?

Yeah, so I did that before I was at HubSpot and actually like that and the work that I did on the Chrome extension and the interactions in, uh, developer Slack.

Yeah.

Where I was doing a lot of, like, I kind of learned that by helping other people, I would learn things faster. I would have fun. I would grow relationships. Those people would then teach me back things that they learned. And so from there, it just kind of turned into a snowball effect of like, hey, this is, this is a lot of fun. This is the fun part of my job. The part where I have these deadlines, not as fun. Same with you. Like, granted, granted, when you have like a talk to do, there's still a deadline and it is stressful. It's even today, it's stressful to have like a short turnaround for giving a talk. But I was like, I could just like, When I, when I heard that there was an opening for developer relations, being a developer advocate, fun fact, well, I'll wait a moment. So, Ben, we had to— So, when I had heard about that, I was like, man, that's the fun part about what I'm doing. And I really love where I work right now. Ben Group, awesome company, awesome owner. I swear by it. DJ swears, swears by it as well. Um, but, uh, the opportunity was like, I should at least try. This is in— this is what I'm already doing for free. I could just be getting paid to do it full-time. So, uh—

Wait, you guys, you guys get paid here?

Oh, uh, sorry. Um, this is awkward.

This is a little bit awkward.

Text in the mail. Text in the mail. Don't worry.

I, yeah, I mean, Okay.

Wow. Yeah, the checks in the mail, the same speed as my shirt is. You should get that sometime.

My checks are sitting in a box somewhere and HR is like collecting those. Yeah, that's okay.

Postmarked to Illinois, but they'll get there eventually.

Yeah, the shirt, the shirt should be there by like Monday. I'm just letting you know. Sure, sure. But, um, but John, let me ask you, uh, does it get— for you, does it get easy? Like, as you keep doing 'Cause I, uh, when we talked with, um, oh God, I can't remember if it was Hannah or if it was Bri. Um, and everybody knows this, like at, at, at not the, the previous, not at this inbound, but the previous one, uh, like speaking in front of larger groups or more people as time goes on, do you find it easier or the same? Or is there like a tactic that you use where, yeah, maybe it, it, it doesn't really even affect you at this point?

So it definitely still affects me, but it's different. Something I learned about myself, and I didn't actually learn this directly through giving talks for HubSpot or about HubSpot. I actually learned it at weddings. So I've been a best man or a groomsman a few times, and what I learned is I enjoy public speaking. But here's the crazy part about it. In the run-up to doing the public speaking, I am nervous as all heck. I have notes like crazy. My, like, like I, I was so anxious the first time I had to give one of those kind of talks. But like, I, I enjoy making people laugh. I enjoy talking about interesting things. And so what I found was in the moment when I'm actually talking, giving a talk, I'm on autopilot. My brain is not like, like I, I am aware that I am on the stage or on, on video talking, but I am Not— I don't have to think as hard about what I'm about to say. I am saying something I already know, and I am also just trying to enjoy that I'm talking to all these people. They— their facial expressions are that they seem like they're at least interested, or I tell a joke. And it gets a laugh, or in my case, I like to tell a lot of dad jokes, so occasionally I'll get a groan and I enjoy that too.

Good job.

So I, I enjoy all of that and I kind of just learned that I'm gonna be anxious. I'm never gonna feel fully comfortable when it came to inbound doing that talk. Uh, we don't know the exact numbers of how many people were there because We had a badge tracking system and it was literally not possible for it to track everyone because we were outside of the bounds of that tracking system of how many people were there.

Well, there were people lined up. I was, I was working the booth directly across from it, like the customer service booth, and there were people flooding like outside the stage. Like it was, yeah, it was, it was immense. Uh, the amount of people there.

Everyone yelling, John, John.

It was so cool and it was so nerve-wracking at the same time because, uh, like, I don't know, I, I gave that in the run-up to that event. Everything was like COVID situation. Everything was virtual. I was in my office or, or I had like even a fake facade banner behind me when I gave talks. Uh, and then all of a sudden now there's like a ton of people in front of me. Uh, and what's funny is, so I actually brought— do one sec. I had brought these notes up on stage, uh, with me, and there goes my earbud again. I'm just too excited. Uh, but so I had brought those notes. And the funny part is, is I didn't actually like print anything on them before. And let's see if we could find—

they're just blank note cards.

So they just—

Are they? Were they blank? Did you have blank note cards up there?

Yeah.

So this is—

yeah. So I, I did have some cards that actually had like a bullet point. So just in case I totally failed. Remembering anything, but I also had one note card, uh, that had just a music note drawn on it. And this is a callback to— so my mom passed away, uh, when I was 18. Don't mean to be a downer, but this is actually a sweet, uh, thing.

Yeah.

So when my mom passed away, uh, at the funeral service, we had an open mic and my uncle Uh, he, he went up and he went to, to give his speech and he had some note cards and he said, I don't know if I can make it through, through talking about my, my sister, uh, like this way. It was really hard. Uh, and, and, uh, my, my uncle is known for a lot of jokes. So what he said, So I hope you don't mind, but I brought along some notes. And he pulls out his notes and it's just a giant music note. And I thought it was like, I, it, it was one of those moments where when you're at a funeral and it's like, uh, you're having a, a really sad time, yada yada. And all of a sudden there's that little bit of like light that you're like, that, that.

Yeah.

Took me out of a little bit of a funk and, and I, I was present. I was enjoying the moment, uh, for what it was. And so that's my thought.

That's beautiful.

So my thought was, I was like, I'm going to reuse that. If I actually get hung up, uh, and I don't remember what I'm gonna say, what I was supposed to say, I'm going to just pause and go say the same Joke effectively. Hey, sorry, I hope you don't mind, but I have to look at my notes and then flip it around. And all I got is, and then, and then use that time while I'm doing that to catch my brain back up to where I'm at so that I can, I can actually continue. And the fun, funny part is, if you watch the recording, I'm holding those notes. Uh, the entire time, but I never once ever looked at them. And so I'm just like waving them around because I do these big hand gestures all the time. And I could have done like, it could have been like a card throwing thing.

But it makes you look, it does make you look though, like super professional, like at an inbound talk like that when you're holding those. Because actually, remember Dennis, we were sitting at the table before we did our talk and I'm like, I feel like I just need to have a note card and like, it doesn't have to have anything on it, but don't I look just like I, like I belong here as opposed to like not without the, like just in general. And I was just like, but no, it, it does. Like, I don't know for what, it must be like some sort of like placebo effect, but like just having those note cards up there, it made like when I was watching other people, it was like, yeah, yeah, those, those are professionals. I'm just here like, you know, talking about, you know, you know, weird Johnny Depp pirate stuff popping up on my, you know, SEO slide.

Yeah.

Uh, so, but yeah, no, it's, uh, that, that's a really cool kind of, um, like brain pause that actually, you know, gives you that moment. That's really, really cool. I love that.

Speaking of, speaking of, uh, looking professional though. So what I wore that day was I was wearing this, this blazer with an orange t-shirt under it. Uh, and so I, I didn't wanna look super businessy. I wanted to like, I learned this from Chris Riley, our manager. I was like, he, he can pull off wearing just like a nice cute blazer thing and, and just a t-shirt under it. And I was like, you know what, that's the look, that's the look I want, uh, for this talk. And then to top it off though, what did you do, Dave, uh, Dunnett?

Oh no, I, I'm so sorry, I'm blanking.

What did I do? At the end of my talk, after I finished Didn't you do that?

Oh, the cape, the cape.

I brought the cape.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I remember that. And I was like, I was 50 feet away and I still—

It's all out of body for me, man. I don't remember anything past yesterday.

And so that's what context there. The stage was called the HubSpot Heroes stage. So it felt obligatory that I needed to have this cape with me. Yeah. Yeah.

Full context of the cape is the Community Champions Cave, uh, before, uh, being HubSpotter, John was a Community Champion. Um, curious, John, like, I, I'm kind of similar to you as like, uh, once I get on stage, it's kind of like out of body. Like you're just doing your thing, you go and you know you're there and you're just going through the steps. This last inbound when I was doing it, same situation. The second I got to the computer to have to code, oh my God, everything like just like—

Not know if that's you, but I know the feeling.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is hard to learn.

It's like, oh my, this is like, this is the easiest type of coding I've ever done in my life. It's, but at the same time, I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. Like at all. Do you have a similar situation or is it, or is it, are you better?

Oh, absolutely. Uh, and the one thing that I kind of just sort of learned from doing it a bit with, uh, like the coding with John, that was kind of like a, a moment for me to do 2 things. Uh, so. For myself personally, that Coding with John series, I was actually trying to teach myself a couple of things. One of them is avoid ums and ahs and filler words. I am still working on that. I think I've gotten better because of it, but I've still got a bit of that going on. And the other thing was live coding, being comfortable in the moment. allowing problems to happen and then troubleshooting on the live. Because what I learned and kind of realized was people are super forgiving of your—

Yeah, for sure.

You make a typo or you, you code something wrong and you get an error, they, they're not there to laugh at you when you make a mistake like that. They're— unless, unless you do something that's really hilarious with it, like I don't know.

If I'm in the audience, I'm judging you. I'm silently judging you. Don't worry.

But in, but like from watching different events and speakers popping, I'm there wanting them to do well. I want to see them succeed because I want to learn from them. I want to Experience, uh, or what they intended to show me. So yeah, I learned a lot from that.

Um, yeah, that the whole error thing, like, uh, that's, I was okay until I got to like, I made it, I don't know, I didn't put something in like a default value for something and so it didn't show up on the screen. And at that moment it all just went outta my mind. I had no idea what I was doing anymore. I was like, okay, I'm just gonna leave. I wanted to blame Nick, you know, just for some sort of, you know, his phone going off or something like that.

But at that point, I would have took it.

You did terrific. You did terrific.

And I'm not fishing for compliments here. I'm just like saying, no, no, no, you did terrific.

And if anything, for them, yes, yes.

I don't know how I did, guys, but I don't want a compliment.

Tell me, tell me, how did I do?

You did terrific. And if anything, the audience that was there for that talk felt like they could relate to you in that moment.

Sure.

Before that moment, they were like, okay, these 2 people are like developers. I don't— for context, uh, you know, what was the name of the talk exactly? Or is coding for marketers? So yeah, I think you— they were mostly marketing.

A, uh, what, what, what do you call it when someone compliments you?

An underhanded compliment where, uh, oh, I didn't mean it like that, but as well as No, it just made you relatable. It made you feel like you weren't on less possible credits.

Dennis, it's okay. You have a great personality.

Like, that's— Well, great.

Plus he had a—

you have a nice smile.

He also had a very charismatic co-speaker, so that helped him out a little bit. I'm just saying.

I read it.

So I've heard.

The chemistry that you both had was amazing. I loved that you were both teasing each other while you were up there. It made it feel so much more fun.

That literally sparked this podcast. Like, seriously, that, that was like, that was the whole basis of it. It's like, yeah, let's keep doing this. Well, how are we gonna do that? Well, let's do a podcast.

Oh yeah.

Okay, let's do that. That sounds good.

Well, I was just like, I think also you guys are all talking about something that's really important, and that is like the chemistry between presenters, right? Mm-hmm. Because a lot of the times you see companies will match people up. They'll be like, oh, you're gonna go talk with so-and-so. Sometimes it, it, knocks it out of the park. Other times, like, if the chemistry isn't right and the— like, they don't have the same— and it's not a knock on anybody, but like personalities sometimes don't clash well together. Like, you have people that present in 2 different ways. You have people that, you know, do their own thing in a certain way. But like, you 2 have that same like sarcastic wit, like, but you're serious. And like, you, you— Like, if— like, anybody who— like, first of all, anybody who's like tuning into this episode probably knows that the 4 of us know each other very well. And anytime that there's meetings internally that are happening, anytime you look in the Zoom comments, we're like ripping on each other or we're like making fun of each other. And like the team, like we all make fun of each other on the team. Like it's, it's fun to poke fun at each other when you have friends like that and you all have the same kind of mentality and personality. So I think that's what makes— when you guys were talking, like it made it so engaging because it was as if 2 friends got together and said, let's just talk to people. And it's very much poured into this. Like, this is such a casual conversation that it's not overly scripted and like there's not screaming and yelling and fighting back and forth. It's because everybody has like this like mind. And I just think like that's, that's shown in a lot of presentations and that's what makes them as engaging as they are.

I mean, it's not overly scripted because the leader of this podcast doesn't script it at all.

Oh yeah, no, he's totally lost in anything he does, but like, it's great.

Dennis.

They think we're friends.

Cute. I haven't even gotten my freaking shirt from the guy.

Yeah, a real friend would ship it overnight. I'm just saying.

That's good friends that I forgot to mail them something for like a week.

He told me it's coming. Oh, it's not, by the way.

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that's love right there. If nothing else, complete neglect. That's how you do it. That's how you show it. But no, that's fair.

That's fair.

That's fair. I deserve that. Um, let me ask you this, John, because this is something that, um, It's pretty much become a staple, uh, in these episodes because I, I love, uh, the answers because they can vary so greatly from person to person. But, uh, and of course there's a caveat to it because one, you can't remove tech from a— nowadays, you know, more and more so you can't remove technology from a position like a job regardless of what it is. But with that being said, if you could choose something, uh, as a profession, whether it exists now or You have to like semi-make it up. What would you do to get yourself away from technology as much as you could? For example, just to kind of give an example, like for me it would be like opening up a coffee shop, knowing you can't, there's still technology to it, but that would be something that would take me out of my current element. What would be that for you?

Yeah, so Goes without saying, I'm a huge tech geek. And so no matter what I do, I'm going to pull in technology into whatever I'm doing. But, but this is actually my wife and I's like retirement plan. And this may change. This may change down the road. It's had some mutations, but largely it's stayed the same. We want to own a campground. My wife wants to run a little store selling camp supplies, firewood, et cetera. And then I would do the overall management of the whole campground. And our ideas though are a little possibly new, or at least something that I haven't seen that's common. So we want this campground to be in the middle of nowhere. Okay. Hopefully somewhere pretty, but, but middle of nowhere.

In a swamp or something.

Nevada desert.

Go on.

Yes.

We will have one portion of the campground where there will be Wi-Fi available to all of the campsites. That's one portion. And then the other side is for people who want to disconnect, and there will be no electricity, no, uh, no Wi-Fi, etc. And we won't even give those people the Wi-Fi password, so if they want to cheat, they can't. And then the other thing is, so at least AJ and Dennis know this about me, well, about my wife, actually. My wife is a pilot. She's not a commercial pilot. She doesn't make her money through that. She's actually a schoolteacher, but she has her pilot's license. And so in this campground, we want to build a grass runway so that she can have a plane. As well as pilots can come fly in and camp at our campground.

This is all a front because you're gonna do drug runs. You're gonna—

oh no. Oh no.

It's all on top of a Bitcoin mining thing.

Right.

Right. Those aren't trailers.

Those are just server farms. Yeah.

It's got a bunch of Jeep GeForce, like video cards.

Can you check out the Borscht Belt in New York, my friend? There's all kinds of abandoned campgrounds and stuff from, uh, the '50s, '60s that they're just waiting for you to take. I've been talking to Hannah about that a lot.

Yeah, I'm interested. Uh, I don't know how soon we're gonna dive into that plan, but that is something we wanna do. And like something else that I wanna do is like, I, I wanna make it such as like automated thing. that we can weave. And like, maybe, maybe sure, for like the camp store, we have to have an employee show up. Uh, but like checking in, uh, checking out, getting your firewood, you don't need a person there. Everything just automated. You know what, probably put everybody in a CRM, tie it all back. I wonder what you would use for that.

Like, what CRM could we possibly use to manage camping?

I know, I mean, we could send like some emails I'm imagining half of this campground is like a 5-star Hilton, and then the other half where there is nothing is like Lord of the Flies.

Yes, exactly.

It's like a prison yard. There's the double fence in the middle so that way you can see each other but you can't get to it.

Exactly, exactly.

That's amazing. Now, what kind of, um, What kind of hobbies do you do outside of, I mean, like everybody, it's cuz like I always find it hard, like, cuz people have asked me that question too, or asked me this question too, because like working in this industry and like, you know, even in my prior jobs it's been tech related. But are, what are the, some of the things that you do that are not as techie as hobbies to kind of give yourself like that, um, that mental break?

Yeah, it's probably not gonna be a big surprise here, but since I got my start in web development basically because of video games, I'm super into video games. Just in the last month, some games that I've been playing are Tape to Tape, which is a hockey roguelike game, Rogue Command, which is a brand new StarCraft-ish roguelike game. I've been playing a lot of those lately. Uh, I've been playing the sequel to Life is Strange, Stardew Valley, Baldur's Gate, um, and like the Portal series, all-time favorite game.

Mm-hmm.

Um, also now I, I've been playing a lot of board games. Uh, my wife and I play board games about once a week to Every 2 weeks we have a group of friends that we play games with. We're super into a game now called Root, which is kind of like in video game world analogies, kind of like playing the Warcraft series of games.

Mm-hmm.

There's also, my next favorite is, uh, Colt Express, which is like themed around robbers robbing a train, but it feels like a board game version of Super Mario Brothers, or not Super Mario Brothers, but Super Smash Brothers, where you're duking it out.

It reminds me of that movie. And, and this, now this is in the 2000s, so Dennis, you'll be very proud of me, but Game Night with, I can't remember who's the main actor in that, Bateman, I believe. But where they're like, they get together and they do the games and it gets like crazy and out of hand. I don't know if you've seen it, but That's like that, that, that, that to me is like, uh, that's— I don't know, for some reason like that popped in my head.

I'm surprised it wasn't Jumanji or something like that.

Yeah, that could have been it too. Yeah, because there's been a couple of those in this decade. So that's— well, no, there's Jumanji 2, so that's not fair because The Rock was in it, right? Uh, or was it the—

yeah, there's also Jumanji 3. I think they made it.

Yeah, they came out with the third.

Dang.

See, that covers all my decades, covers all my bases. All I gotta say is Jumanji and I'm Set. So it's good. No, that's good. No, that's I I I often find that like me, AJ, and some other you know cousins and stuff like that. It's um it's sort of a good stress reliever. I mean, and it's hard too because you'll talk to people that maybe are a generation older. So, and I I don't know. I don't think that there's a not that they don't understand it, but I I just don't think that there's a um there's a difference, right? Because like. The way we grew up, you know, or the way people grow up now, like in this era, if you will, like video games are a lot more mainstream, right? They're a lot more connected to everything, right? You can't drink a Mountain Dew without getting Call of Duty points. So it's like, do you know what I mean? So it's, it's, it's, it's there, right? So, but no, but I, I, I do find like, as long as it's like anything in moderation, you know, consult your doctor. It's It helps kind of like deflate, you know, when you're constantly working on stuff or you're constantly like, even if you're coding 8 hours a day or something like that, right? Even, and, and when you're done and at the end of the day, even if you play video games after that, it doesn't feel like you are on the computer still. Do you know what I mean?

Mm-hmm.

It's like, it's a bit of a different, so yeah, like I, I, I too am kind of like subscribed to doing that as kind of like a decompression, you know, towards the end of the day or at the end of the day kind of thing. So, but no, that's, um, do, are there any type of, because like you got started at a young age as far as like tech and all things techie. Um, are there any things that, like from a non-tech perspective, like any kind of like, I don't know, like, you know, like there's Magic: The Gathering or there's like things like that that are like card-based, which even that is like digital at, to a certain point now. But like, were you, did you ever get involved or interested in any of that kind of stuff?

I would say that Pokémon was huge for a little bit, but I, I, I didn't get super into them. I had a deck of Magic cards, Magic: The Gathering cards, but I probably only actually played the game maybe twice. And even with the Pokémon cards, most people didn't actually know how to play. At least, at least when I had them, they didn't actually know how to play. They were just like, it's shiny. I like this one.

That's literally my son. Like, he, he just started doing that. And I'm like, well, let's learn how to play this. He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah. And then he'll like go off and he'll just start by, look how much damage it's at. But I'm like, do you know what that's for though? Like, do you have, like, he doesn't care. He's just like, yeah, but it looks cool. And look at it. And I'm just like, all right, fair enough. Fair enough. But yeah, I, I totally get that. That's so true. Even though I don't want it to be, I'm like, could you, could we just learn to do this first? And then we'll like, you know.

Do you guys remember pogs?

Oh yeah.

You know, pogs.

Yeah.

I remember having those.

Yeah, I probably honestly have a set up in my attic right now because I— yeah, it probably, probably just got moved into a bunch of boxes that just kept going from place to place and never was like, okay, this just needs to go.

Yep.

Now every once in a while on here we like to, um, talk about some of the— call them some of the things happening, uh, you know, I I don't wanna call it This Week in Tech because that's, that's actually the name of a podcast, so I don't wanna infringe on that at all. But like, you know, every once in a while we kind of just throw around a couple topics. Um, I had picked like 3 of 'em, uh, just to kind of, and I, and I try to pick ones that like, um, you know, they're not controversial or they're not, um, you know, they don't invoke any kind of like argument or anything, you know what I mean? Like, so, but, uh, some of the ones that I actually picked were—

And this versus space that we've started.

What's that?

I said pound versus space would look star— oh God, no.

I still don't like the fact that double spacing on a Mac makes a period every time.

Ah, yeah, thank you.

Don't need it. Well, I mean, Dennis, you still double space your documents when you type, don't you?

Listen, I am from 1953 and I do everything on a word processor first.

See, I always go tabs, but 4 tabs in when I code. Like, it's got to be the 4-tab. I like things to be very, you know, so, but I'm just saying it, it's the right way to do it, but I'm just saying like, it's, it's a way.

Well, I know when Dennis sends me anything, it's like, hey, I FedExed you this document that I printed out. Can you, you know, he faxes me things still. So that's how we talk about Pony Express.

You know, you gotta read it for the Pony Express.

So just, just, and you know that you gotta read whatever Dennis sends you because you would know that it took him a lot longer because he's typing on that typewriter. He can't hit multiple keys at the same time or the hammers will be—

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's right. And the dings, like you could see where he is like manually adjusting it every time to line up the code. It's just—

And the whiteout that I use, you see that whiteout? Yeah.

And he complains about me being stuck in the past. Like, I'm just, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, like, this seems a bit hypocritical, just a bit hypocritical. I just want to point that out. But no, one of the ones that came up that I saw that I just, I had a double take, it was, um, there's a company that's now developing, and I kid you not, it is a human washing machine. It is like literally, it's like a washing machine for human, like It's essentially like you would be sitting down in the cockpit of like a, but it's like a, you know, it's built like a, like a bubble-shaped whatever, you know, and it's like, but you'd sit down in a chair and then it fills up with water.

Yep.

Wow. I was just talking about this like with my daughter, like when we went to the car wash, it's like, what if this was you?

Exactly. That's, I couldn't do that. I'm just saying right now.

I'm like, what if this goes wrong?

Yeah.

Right. I wonder if I didn't see the pictures that I'm In my head, I might— I'm imagining like a mechanical arm with a nozzle shooting at you, just spraying you in the face or something.

I'm all for innovation, but this is just like, I, I just don't think I'd do it. I don't wanna be locked in this cuz it fills with water. So you'd realize like, so you figure it has to be like, it, it's shut. Like from the picture, it's like shut, it's locked. It almost looks like, you know, like one of those like tiny space capsules, but you wouldn't be like, You'd be sitting up like, like, like a little race car almost. But it, you know, and then there's like a kind of a HUD in front of you, but like it has to be kind of like watertight and then it has to be closed and it fills up. And I'm just like, what happens if like—

Does it fill up or does it just like—

It does.

It fills, it fills. It fills up.

That's terrifying.

That's like absolutely horrible for anybody who has claustrophobia. Right.

Well, think about like when you make coffee with a Keurig, If you push the wrong button and you make a 12-ounce instead of an 8-ounce, what happens? It just keeps filling up. Like, what happens if it doesn't realize, oh, I'm not 6 feet tall, I'm only 5'9, and it puts 6 feet of water in there? You're gone. Like, you're just gone.

Well, I think if you're 5'9 and it fills to 6 foot, you could just do one of these and raise yourself. No, because there's not much of a difference.

There's not a lot of space in there. It's not like—

I'm more concerned with the sentence that says where up to 8 people can experience a 15-minute-long wash and dry each day after first booking. Is it— looks like it's one of your things. I'm hoping—

I'm even more concerned about the fact that this thing looks exactly like— like, if you just changed the title of the, the post for this and you said self-driving car, you'd be like, yeah, that's totally a self-driving car. Why are they suspicious?

It looks like basically Weaver comes out of in Predator. Like, it Or not Predator. Um, Jesus, that would have been a mistake.

It looks like a Geo Metro, basically. It's about— yeah, that fills with water. That's what I want.

I'll be going to work and, uh, just in my self-driving car taking a bath at the same time.

But I mean, part of me, part of me wants to think of this as like, okay, think of this like when you go to the gym, for those of you that do. I, I do not. I am not athletic whatsoever. But like, just because you spray a bottle with some like cleaner and wipe down the bench, is it really clean?

Like, oh yeah, for sure.

I think about like how many people— like, if this is somebody's personal thing in their home, one, outrageous. Two, I get it. But if we're gonna start opening up like, hey look, I'm gonna go shower down at the corner of 5th and whatever for 15 minutes, I'll be back. Like, it just seems like this is one of those things that was made but didn't really need to be made.

You know, I'm curious there. You know, someone peed. Come on.

Yeah, I know, right?

I'd be curious if this is being made for like, uh, public like, uh, implementation. Like, so like, there's no— this, this would have to be something you just get for your house.

There's no— I can see this beneficial in the medical field when it comes to having to watch patients, or I can see that being, you know, yeah, or like people with disabilities where this is very, very great for somebody like that, right? The problem is looking at this thing, there's no way anyone's going to afford it. This thing literally looks like a space shuttle capsule. Like, yeah, where are you going to put this in your home?

And if you already have a bathroom in your home that has a shower, you're probably just going to modify the shower to make it accessible rather than replace it with this space pod that will randomly drive out of your house.

Yeah.

John, John, your campground, the Wi-Fi connected site.

Oh yeah, you could. Like, it's either that or Starfleet. That's, that's where this is going. Like, it's one of the two. Like, that would be— wow. Can you imagine that? It would look so— just, just rows of these things at the campground, and then that's where you're—

that's where you're— Instead of delivery drones, these things just come out of the sky.

Yeah, no, that's where you go in the winter to hibernate for the next summer. You just go sit in there for a while.

That's hilarious. Which makes me—

which brings me up to a question real quick, talking about technology. Do we think the technology from Demolition Man will ever happen? Do we think cryogenic chambers like that—

And you say I'm the one that brings up movies from a certain era.

What did I— oh, I'm sorry, I bring up one of the greatest documentaries of the future ever called Demolition Man.

That was a little touchy.

It's not a movie, it's a documentary. It was shot in real time.

That's—

I get it, I get it, I get it.

Uh, yeah, why not, right?

Sure, sure.

And I don't say no.

I've, you know, yeah, I think the food thing, maybe the food thing might be a little like the Taco Bell, like, yeah, I don't think Taco Bell is going to last in the wars against restaurants.

I just don't, I don't see that coming out on top.

I mean, I don't know, man. Hardee's, they're, they're, they're strong. I don't know. That's, that's my money's on them in this battle, but Um, or Carl's Jr. I don't know if they're the same thing now, but—

Pitching for sponsors yet again, Nick.

Like, I'm just— one of these days I'm hoping I just open my front door and there's just like a box of Chick-fil-A there and they say, here it comes to you. Like, yeah, I'll try. I'll keep pitching. I'll try. But, um, but yeah, like, I, I, yeah, I can imagine some of that stuff. Like, they were already looking at like, um, like non-lethal— like, what was one of the— I can't remember. Was it the shock sticks that were in that one? Where it's like, uh, right where it was like you just hit 'em and they knock out. Yeah. So like, I, I, there were already like, there's already been like, uh, tech or like military stuff, like trying to delve into that like non-lethal, um, kind of corralling or like, you know, subduing. So I imagine like some of that stuff will, 'cause I remember we were talking about this on one of the episodes where it's like, like some of the stuff like Gene Roddenberry had came up with, you know, like originally in some of the Star Treks, like it makes its way into— Pop culture will always bleed into real life if it's, uh, if it's catchy enough, you know?

So if you're going into physics, kind of the physics of Star Trek is an amazing book, like talking about how like half of it's not possible.

I'll never, I'll test that. Check that out.

Good book.

Speaking of Star Trek and all that, something that I've kind of just kind of come to, at least in the last 10 years, to feel is whenever it comes to anything Cool sci-fi related. Yeah, we're gonna have whatever that thing is for sure. For sure. We're gonna figure out how to build it because it's cool. And some, some geek like me or AJ or Dennis or Nick is gonna be like, we gotta build this just because they want to. But then they're like, we gotta somehow make money. So ads or, uh, subscription, or you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to accept some cookies, Stu.

Yep.

Or Or buy the battle pass. You always have to buy the battle pass. And every season is only like a month long. So there's like 12 seasons in a year, which is kind of outrageous. But I mean, I'm not complaining about anything. Um, but yeah, yeah, I imagine there's going to be somebody that wants to monetize it to the extent where it starts to get like, um, kind of almost where it was.

What was it?

The, um, well, yeah, I like that. Like you're talking about gaming and stuff like that, that type of, um, Subscription, uh, or like the, uh, what, what is it like the, not the beta model, but you would have like the early access, right? Yeah, exactly. Where it's like, oh, you're, you're paying for this. Or there's this one game, uh, and I've only played it a couple times, but Stellaris, it's made by this— oh yeah, Paradox is the one. And they're like, they will, and I'm sure I'm not supposed to like say these type of things, but they'll nickel and dime you to death with like DLC, like all day long.

That's fair.

Well, I mean, that's the whole point of DLC is to make extra, like microtransaction type stuff.

Right.

But to an, to an extent it'll, it like some places will kill you with it. Like, yeah.

And this topic is an interesting one because there's certain types of DLC that I think the majority of folk, folks are okay with. And then, then at some point. Things tip over. So everyone generally agrees, like if you're playing a multiplayer game and you buy something and that gives you a competitive advantage, that's not cool.

Pay to win is not, yeah.

But it's like, so here's an example of actually a game that a lot of people like, and I wish I actually liked it more because the model for the game I like. Elder Scrolls Online is known for the fact that every little piece of content possible, they put into a DLC that you can purchase, and it's actual game content. So you're not just like getting like a skin or something, you're getting something to do. Uh, and I like that, but at the same time, I'm like, I don't, Really want to keep having to throw money every, like, 2 hours at the game to be able to keep playing the more new content. And so, I don't know. And they have a subscription, which is a good model too. I'm okay with these things, but for some reason the gameplay itself doesn't hook me. But that's something.

Well, I mean, Fallout 4 did that, right? Fallout 4 had some really awesome DLCs with like whole campaigns attached, like new areas to explore, like, that is DLC that's worth buying. But if it's like, buy this, $15, your character now has an overcoat, like, I think that's a little much.

Like, the original DLC of all time, the, uh, Skyrim, uh, Warhorse. If anyone's not familiar, basically the first DLC that was ever created was a Warhorse skin for your horse in Skyrim.

Oh, right.

It was either Skyrim or Oblivion. I don't remember which came first, but yeah, it was that. And people were okay with it at first. And, and then all of a sudden, yeah, everyone was like, man, Bethesda, wait, wait, you've started a, you've started a whole thing.

Yeah, no, it's, it's turned into a culture of just kind of like, it's like bleeding you dry slowly, uh, you know, mentality.

So, I, I, I think of all 3 or 4 of us here, I am the only person who's really not a gamer. I don't do these things. I, I got kind of like stopped it a long time ago and I don't know, I've lost, I've tried to get back into it a few times, but, oh yeah, 1957 typewriter dude over here. Um, everything's too complex now, man. I, I, I like the old arcade style, you know, like I went with my daughter to the arcade to play The Simpsons. Then that's like kind of my jam. Like that's where I'm happy. This, this whole thing y'all talk about, you kids, you, you do you.

After this podcast, Dennis is gonna go curl up in the corner with his Atari and just go, it's okay.

It's okay.

Well, he plays, it's okay.

Dennis plays Stardew Valley in real life. He has a whole, a full, he really does, thing of chickens. He's, he's got a whole thing going on.

So you, you have chickens, you have, I know you grow strawberries as well.

Yes, of course.

And then what else, what else are you growing? Are you growing grapes?

Uh, we do have a grapevine. Yes, we have grapevines. Uh, we do blueberries. We, yeah, we got like a small little farm in our backyard. Tons of water.

He's doing Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley in real life. Mm-hmm.

My wife wants to raise chickens, but luckily the association doesn't allow it, so I'm happy with that.

I, I don't want to raise chickens.

Yeah, I'd be getting eggs from you, that's for sure. That's fantastic.

Yeah, yeah. My daughter has like a, like a whole business now. She sells eggs to the people across the street, $5, uh, you know, for a dozen.

You gotta get her a site and then hook it up to a CRM. I know a good one you might be able to use.

Um, tell me more later on.

Don't, don't look it up now. DM me later.

All right, let's do one more and then, uh, we will get to, um, I wanna, I wanna get, get to our game that, uh, please do the song.

Do the song one. Because I, I'm just, I'm starting to read this story and I want to— yeah, I'm assuming you've gone through it.

Do you want to post in the, in the chat for John? He may have heard of this too. Um, and apologies, I didn't share this doc. Uh, I did it a little late.

Yeah, so I came in blind.

Really late, like super late, like, uh, like maybe 3 hours ago. Like, yeah, well, 3 hours, but you know, who's counting? Um, but no, this, this actually happened 2 weeks ago, but when I saw it I didn't get a chance to talk about it last week, but for me, it was something because I had, I actually had this song on like a playlist because I was so intrigued by the mystery behind it. So basically, and so much so that I kind of like not know it by heart, but I know the kind of the story of this. But, you know, over time, and I think it's even in the article, it mentions about 17 years, there's been this song that literally has been dubbed the most mysterious song on the internet. And basically, uh, the gist of it was, and I'm gonna get the timeframes wrong in the years, so I'm not even gonna take a stab at it. But, uh, on a, on a radio station in Germany, there, this song was played and it had been, uh, on a tape. It had been recorded off the radio station on a tape by someone. And for the longest time, they couldn't figure out who wrote the song. So it kind of went down and this was like, For years, right? Almost, I think, 17 at this point, uh, until now. Until, and again, I, I believe that the way this is positioned is they have solved it. They've confirmed with the band and the person and they reached out to everybody, but it was just a mystery for so long and people were trying to track this down. And then, you know, you know, in comes— what's that?

Ooh, reverb.

Ooh, I like it. I like it. No, no, that's good. I like to hear my, I like to hear myself talk, so I get to hear it twice.

This feels like a Twilight Zone kind of topic anyways. So like the reverb was perfect.

We need Dennis. Can you get me a stinger that like is like an Unsolved Mysteries thing?

Yeah.

Yeah. Like, it's like, and I'll get in a really deep voice and I'll start talking. But, but no. Yeah. So they, for years, you know, they tried to track this down and then, you know, comes the Reddit era where like, you know, there was more attention paid to it and people tried to like, you know, through various resources, tried to figure out who it was. And then after a certain amount of time, uh, I believe someone had come across, there was a, I, I wanna say it was a competition, uh, there, there was something that like, and this is all in Germany at the time, uh, they would play like, uh, songs for like exposure and things like that. And somebody thought, oh, you know what, maybe this song might be one of these, you know, uh, one of these songs that was played, uh, in this. I don't know if it was a show or it was like a thing where it's like, it's like a showcase or whatever.

Yeah.

But they said, okay, well, maybe it's that. Because there had been articles previously where they thought they had found the person or the band, or they, they had a really good idea of where it came from. But I don't think any of those, from what I remember reading, were even— came close to this. But apparently somebody had tracked down, um, one of the band members had switched bands. Like, they had located the name of a person and then found out through just like internet sleuthing that he had joined another band. I think it was called— is it, is it PEX or FEX?

FEX.

FEX. And that person was actually— he reached out to them and was able to confirm the actual origins of the song. So this thing had been buried for like years. Like we're talking, uh, early '80s, I think is what the, the, um, The article states, but yeah, and then like through like like imagine like tirelessly people had to put like hours and hours into this, right?

Like there was you got a really long list. I mean, cheerio. Yeah. Listen to your later. It's now probably the most one of the most bland randomly makes the top charts after he's so dead, and the people don't even care about it anymore.

I would not be surprised at all, but like. So the person found the individual and then made sure they went and they reached out to every band member that was, I believe, still alive.

If they're—

maybe they're all still alive. But I thought it was really cool because it like, it solved an internet mystery and then actually had like a really nice ending to it because they said they wanted to get together at some point and rerecord it like so many years later. But I mean, it wasn't a bad song either. I mean, the quality of it, it was from a cassette tape from like 2007, I believe it said. It was recorded to a cassette tape. But, um, but yeah, for the longest time, I remember reading articles about this, like, over the years where they're like, hey, we finally found out what the mysterious, most mysterious song is and who did it. We're just, we're checking into this and nothing would ever, like, pan out. But they finally, after, like, and there, there's, there was sleuthing where they needed to, like, I think it said they had to, like, call up help from, like, hundreds of people and go through spreadsheets and spreadsheets of songs.

A spreadsheet? Dude, did you look at the spreadsheet? My God, that's like, this is some serious stuff. Yeah.

Is it linked to the spreadsheet? Where's it linked at?

It's in, um, oh, extensive spreadsheets, man.

And it's a Google Doc. Well, this has to go in the show notes.

Yep. Yep. No, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go ahead and put it in there. But it's like, it's just fascinating that like the dedicate, you know what I mean? Like imagine what we can do in the future if like this much dedication and this much manpower Without getting paid was just put into finding who sung this song, right? Like, we're going to Mars easily. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm convinced.

If AI starts doing more and more work for us and we like go down to like 4, 4-day work weeks or something, what are people gonna be doing? Spending their time looking up ancient songs and whatnot.

Exactly.

I mean, at this point, I've, I just watched, like, you, when you mentioned AI, I just watched Uh, there was a couple people, they were posting it in various places and there was an article about it too. But like the video, I mean, Dennis, yeah, I'm, no offense, man, but you're gone. Like they, uh, I'm just kidding. But no, they like, they, they, you know, you'd feed it. I can't remember what it was, uh, what, what the input fed was, whether it was just a script or it was like actual imagery as well. But like creates like a movie out of, and they did like a political one with like presidential candidates and like world leaders and stuff.

Mm-hmm.

But it was, It's pretty good for just like AI-generated, like video, you know, for movie. And, and it was just, you've got that, you've got Midjourney and you've got other things too. Uh, and it's just like, I was just telling my wife the other day, I'm just like, it's, you know, 'cause you hear people say like, oh, it's the end of this job, that job. And rightfully so, there, there's room to be, you know, skeptical and fearful. But it's like, you know, at first you always hear this stuff and you're like, yeah, okay, sure.

Okay.

It's, this is the newest shiny, you know, toy.

Mm-hmm.

Let's not get crazy. But you know, there's something to be said about like some of the output, right? That's coming from these things that it's just like, it's pretty impressive. Uh, I'll say.

Well, one of those is what, Runway, right? 'Cause I, I just looked it up. It's not like I knew that off the top of my head. I literally was typing that just so, you know, like I don't wanna, don't wanna make it seem like I know everything.

John, are you, are you coding from a, uh, uh, windsurfer or like, you know, like are you on the water surfing right now and coding at the same time? Because It's that easy. You can, you can do it now.

Yeah. You can't tell. This is just a, uh, one of those Zoom filter type things. Mm-hmm. It, it just makes me look official, but, uh, I'm currently, uh, diving under the water right now. The fun— it's even filtering the audio. Perfect.

The fun fact is there is no John at HubSpot. This is, you are literally just an AI bot.

That's it.

He's not an actual person. So. We just couldn't find a guest, so we created one. And that's, that's how John came about. So, uh, little, little fun fact that probably nobody knows. Um, but no, yeah, it's, uh, yeah, I, I just, I, I find it fascinating that, you know, with, and, and I wonder too, like if this hadn't gone solved or this hadn't been solved, like at a certain point with this much data, being able to feed it right into a language model and knowing like, here's all the songs, here's all the things. pinpoint, like, this stuff, you know what I mean? Like solving these problems in the future will just be that much more easier. And then creating this kind of, like, you know, creating this kind of work, whether it's music or movies and stuff like that, it becomes, I don't know, it, it, it, it, it goes into a realm of like a lot of discussion's gonna have to be made about like who owns what.

Mm-hmm.

And like, like especially like think about it, like if, if it can create a video and then like it can create, like let's say John, Is real. Maybe he is. You don't know.

Let's say. Let's say.

But well, let's say. Let's say he is a bot.

Can you check off this box for me, John, to prove that you're human?

I'm gonna hold up.

Let me go death somewhere.

I'm gonna hold up a picture of a bicycle. Can you point to which one it is, please?

Traffic light.

Traffic light. The beam.

But imagine like who owns the rights to that you know digital person or like. who gets paid for that, like what actor gets paid for that, you know, it would be different.

That's already a thing.

Yeah.

Because, right. Um, digital influencers, like completely fake people are on social media. Mm-hmm. Yep. Uh, oh yeah. And it's companies that own and run them and they're just sponsored by all these other companies trying to get their products shown and everything. And it's kind of funny cuz it's like their products are just Photoshopped into images of their Facebook is littered with those ads.

Like if you go through Facebook, which I barely do, like I, but you, you'd see it, you'll see it. Like just create this person for to sell your product, create this person, create this person. Or there'll be ones where it's like create a better screen or not a better screenshot, but a better like headshot for your, like of yourself, you know, just put in like the crappiest photo and it's like, it's almost like not the same person.

Suddenly it's a business photo and you're like, what?

It—

you tried that with one of your pictures and then like it gave you like a picture of looking like this, but then there was like this mysterious hand out of nowhere.

Yeah. Yes.

I tried that in Midjourney with our pictures, the 3 of us, like, and it was just like, it could not. That's why I'm wondering like how good their stuff that like it could— I swear to God.

You can't reproduce this, Nick. You can't reproduce this.

No, you can't. You cannot. Like it. Yeah, it made me look like— first of all, I couldn't tell the difference between me and AJ, and it would like merge us into one person. I was like, with these 3 people, story of my life. It was always 2 people. It was me and then like somebody that sort of looked like Dennis, maybe. And then I was like, where's the 3rd person? And then I started to realize, oh, okay, that it's literally merging us together and it like, it's like a seamless— okay, I get it.

It did create some really cute images though, like the 3 skeletons when we were trying to do one for the Halloween. Like, that was adorable.

No, some of it's good. Like, I wonder, like, especially too, like, you can just tell, like I told Midjourney, like, do it in like Disney style. And that one was good too.

Yeah, I would have—

I could never have guessed that it wasn't done by like, you know, a Disney animator or something like that. So that's— yeah, it's, it's pretty impressive. Uh, so yeah, it's like, you know, buckle your seatbelts, it's, it's only going to get crazier from this point on.

So yeah. Speaking of that, like mimicking styles and whatnot, like Who, like Mojang, who made Minecraft?

Yeah.

Could never have imagined, like the year that he officially like put it out there, could never have imagined that there would be a completely AI-generated version of Minecraft. Granted, if you've ever played it or ever, if you haven't seen it, you need to see it. If you haven't played it, the gist is it visually looks like Minecraft. You have the same relative controls. Not every feature is implemented. And the idea is all it was was trained on a ton of video footage of Minecraft. It's just an AI tool and it Has no game engine. It is just predicting the, based on your inputs, what should render next. So if you turn your screen, it will try to fill in those pixels based on the footage it's seen before.

Oh wow.

If you click and you start, uh, like hammering away at the, at the block in front of you, It's seeing pictures that are like that. So it starts to do that action. And you can also place blocks. Now, where things get super trippy is because it has— it's not a game. It's not a game engine. It has no concept of the 3D space that you are in. It is only rendering pixels based on what it's seen. So If you turn, uh, like say your field of view is like this and you turn to your right, well, now if you turn back, suddenly everything over there is completely different because it didn't— there's no memory.

100%.

It's not— there's no 3D object saved in the world. It's just recreating what it thinks should be there. And so If you watch some videos on it, it is the trippiest. Like, no one needs to do psychedelics. Just play this game. It's, it's, it's probably—

I was gonna say, hey, have you ever played Minecraft on LSD? But I didn't know if I could actually say that. So I was gonna say like, yeah, that's what I was thinking. But, uh, um, did I ever say, I, I was gonna, I mentioned this last episode too, 'cause you brought up Minecraft. But like, uh, speaking of, did I ever, uh, did I ever mention on here the story of the, the $300? What, my son?

No, Minecraft. I don't think you, I don't think you've told people the story.

It's a great story.

It's a great story.

I mentioned it last episode and I was like, remind me. But I thought you mentioned Minecraft. But, uh, uh, I don't know how much, I don't wanna like waste up all of our time just talking about like me not taking a credit card off of a Minecraft, uh, or a Microsoft account properly. But that's essentially the gist of it. And like, I had left it on there and, um, my son, I hadn't taught him yet that the coins relate to money and they're not, they're, They're not separate or mutually exclusive. They are together. And they like, you spend coins, you spend daddy's money on his credit card. Like, and I didn't, he didn't realize that until $300 in when I was, I was literally, I was sitting here working and, uh, he hadn't, I don't think he had started school this year yet, but he was sitting at his computer next to me and I just see my Capital One like ding, ding, ding. And I'm like, what is, I'm like, why is Microsoft, I'm like, This ain't like Microsoft Office charges because I don't use it. And I'm like, what is this thing doing? And I'm like trying to track it down. I'm on the phone with them. Meanwhile, he's doing it while I'm like, Wally. And I'm like, are you, are you buying something? And he might. And he was like, no. And I'm like, oh, all right. And I'm just, and then finally the guy's talking to me on the phone and he goes, yeah, it's from, you know, it's Minecraft. It's from, you know, and I'm like, what? And I'm looking at him and he's like, and he literally, he just looks at me. And he gets up, he puts his headphones down, and he walks out. And I was just like, so I had to have like the talk with him about like, yeah, okay, these are coins, sure, but those coins, you need this money to do it. And then of course that's the whole credit cards aren't infinite money. And it was like this whole— it's like imagine trying to teach a 7-year-old at the time like an Economics 101 class and trying to like relate that to Minecraft and coins. I'm like, this is This is this is insanity. I'm like, yeah. So but that's just never leave your credit card on an account where someone else is buying stuff.

Hot tip.

Hot tip.

Don't tell Dennis that I'm still using his account to buy things off Amazon.

Linus Tech Tips, like Linus from Linus Tech Tips, has this policy when I when it comes to his kids. He decided he's gonna he's gonna just try to teach them, and he's like. Anything you see in an app, like anything that is not a physical thing that will be mailed to you, it's like, this isn't real. You need to recognize this is not real. We avoid spending money on it if we can. If it's a new game, that's different. Maybe you spend money on it, but you don't just keep buying new games. You play the games you have until you're done with it.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, I don't know. That's the philosophy I'll take when, when I'm eventually a parent, because it's also hard. Like, I get like the kids being like, well, I want that cool fiery skin in this game, right? Because I'm playing it with my friends all the time. But like, at the same time, like, oof. You do not want to end up like randomly dealing with calling a credit card company on a Friday night. After you drove $3,000 worth of—

Yeah.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. All right, well, we're gonna, um, let's, let's jump to the very last thing here where we do a little bit of a, just a quick quiz. Uh, let's do a little game at the end here. We're gonna, we'll land this plane. Um, seeing that you're from Wisconsin, we, um, I wanted to do a cheese quiz 'cause I felt like that was absolutely necessary. So I, I tried to redeem Trying to redeem myself from last episode, although they were good questions. I just yeah, Briel never talked to us ever again.

That's a type of cheese.

Yeah, I was gonna say, are you are you hinting at one of the answers?

Is this no no no no.

I didn't even know Briel was a type of cheese.

He's probably I do know that it's just coincidental. But yeah, well, we'll we'll we'll fire through these real quick, and then we'll we'll end this. And John, I want you to be able to tell everybody like you know where they can find you and stuff that you're working on. And in that case, but let let's go through these because they're hopefully this quiz isn't too cheesy.

I'm just gonna put it out there. That's for you, John. That one was for you, buddy.

I'm sure it'll be Gouda.

And on that note, thanks everybody for listening.

Let's—

okay, I'll jump to number 1. Uh, and again, you guys can answer individually, just keep it honest. Some of these are choose of the 3, and then some of them are just, you know, give an answer. Uh, but for question 1, which cheese accounts for almost 2/3 Of the Netherlands production, is it Gouda, Cheddar, or Edam?

Edam.

Edam.

Edam.

Gouda, actually. It's Gouda.

Yeah.

You're. So I don't trust Dennis anymore. He just leaves questions.

You are all wrong, and that's that's the kind of the way I like these to go.

Smile on his face.

Just want to say yeah. See, I I don't take pleasure in this. I mean, come on. I just, I'm just calling them. I'm calling balls and strikes here, folks. That's all I'm doing.

Yeah.

Question two: A cheese much used in pizzas that takes its name from the Italian for cut. Is it mozzarella, ricotta, or provolone?

Mozzarella.

Ricotta.

It's mozzarella.

Ricotta on a pizza?

So this is a, this is maybe more actually an Outro thing, which makes me wonder why you two didn't come up with that. But mozzarella and ricotta get used in deep dishes. Mm-hmm.

Well, that's why it's awful. Continue.

And I just, I was just doing it. Sounds like out of all of the things having to sound like cut, I was like, ricotta sounds more aggressive than mozzarella.

Yep.

Question 3, how many pounds of milk does it take to make a pound of cheese? Is it 3, 5, or 10?

It is— oh my God, it's actually— it's 10.

He's thinking like he knows.

So my daughters have, um, Highlights magazines and National Geographic Kids, and I swear this was one of the things that they just recently said in like the past month and a half.

So yeah, I'm not giving you credit for that. Addie and Scarlett gave you that answer.

Was it 10 though? Was it 10?

It— well, what does everybody else think?

I don't know.

I'll say 5 just to be—

Yeah, I'm gonna go with 10.

Yeah, it was 10. Yeah, but, um, John's the only one getting the point, so I, uh, what?

Yeah, I got my answer from an 8-year-old, so I got 2 8-year-olds.

So yeah, I'll, I'll give my nieces a point, but I'm not getting— I'm not giving you a point.

Highlights, uh, will be the new sponsor of the show.

I wish.

Great.

Okay, number four. In which century did people begin to start dyeing cheese orange to fool people into thinking it was better quality? Was it the 16th century, the 17th, or the 18th?

When did mac and cheese come out?

I want to say 18th century.

18th. Yeah.

Or 1965.

2007. No, the 17th century.

How's it feel that I'm winning again, Nick? Do you like that? Oh, are we keeping score?

I didn't realize we were keeping score. Uh, question number 5: What type of cheese was used as a cannonball during a naval battle in 1841? Was it mozzarella, brie, or Edam?

This had to be from the Wisconsin naval—

Edam. It wasn't.

It wasn't from Wisconsin, but Yeah, brie. Eat 'em, Dennis.

Uh, no, brie is too— I'm gonna go with cheddar just because, I don't know, I think consistency-wise it's—

I mean, you can go with cheddar. It wasn't one of the options, but you can go with cheddar.

What were the options again?

I think it was mozzarella, brie, or Edam.

Oh, I think I'm gonna go with Edam, even though it failed me before. You're not going with Edam?

Aw, man.

It was, it was a, it was a, it was actually, it was Between Uruguay and Brazil, there was a naval battle, and the Uruguayan commander was running low on ammunition. This was the story. I don't. As to the trueness of it, couldn't tell you. But they used a hard Edam cheese as a makeshift cannonball. That's amazing. That's it's intuitive.

I like it. I love it. The battle.

Yeah.

Jesus!

It goes to that whole war becomes the food fight.

Again, hot dogs, hamburgers, bayonets, the cheese balls as cannons. I love it. It's all good.

Well, speaking of, you brought up— well, before, before that, you brought up hot dogs there. I have my own question for y'all. I'm throwing this, the Folklore Show, off a little bit.

Interesting.

Okay. Is American cheese a cheese? And I'm bringing this up because you said, you mentioned about hot dogs. Here's the debate. Is it a sandwich?

It should not exist.

Is it a cheese?

Uh, is it a cheese? I mean, I think it is. Is plastic a cheese?

Because, uh, yeah, that's the same thing, right? Yeah.

So, uh, American cheese is technically by the FDA not considered a cheese.

Really?

However, the only products in it are cheese and 3 common preservatives. It's cheddar cheese, But they add, I think it's like sodium nitrate and one other chemical. There's no plastic. It actually just literally comes out like that. It's strange. Um, and yeah, that history of American cheese is also wildly weird. There's literally government vaults filled with cheese, American cheese.

That's—

I love that.

Still to this day.

That's a dream of mine, actually.

Okay.

The question is, if only it was a better tasting cheese.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's, there's always that. Yeah, that's fair. Okay. Question number 6. On average, how many pounds of cheese does each American adult eat every year? Is it 30, 42, or 51?

51.

No. Well, me is 51, but I would say the average American.

Yeah, ideally.

Yeah.

Is 51 the highest? Yeah, there's— I'm gonna say 51, and that's mostly just because I know that the population in my state probably makes up like 30% of that. Raises the average considerably. You raise that average quite a bit.

It's, uh, 42 actually. So it's right in the middle there. Yeah.

We're failing.

We're failing as a country.

Yeah. I gotta start eating more cheese apparently.

Seriously, get on it, folks.

Get on it.

Gotta pump those numbers up. Those are rookie numbers. Okay, what are the what are the holes in Swiss cheese called? Are they called holes, eyes, or windows?

Windows.

I've heard eyes before.

Eyes, Dennis, you're wrong.

Man, I'm really. I love cheese.

You need the Highlights magazine is what you need, Dennis. Yet another one where I heard that from.

I know what I'm getting you for Christmas, Thomas. It's great. Which again, question number eight: Which country is the largest producer of cheese in the world? Is it the United States, Germany, or France? No, not cheese naval cannonballs. It's just cheese.

United States, Germany, or France?

France. France it is.

I'm gonna go Germany.

I'm gonna go with America. I don't know. USA. USA.

Yeah, it's followed closely by Germany. Germany's a second, close second.

So, oh, so I was totally wrong. I was like, wow.

So just like in real life, John is first, I'm second, Dennis is third.

Got it. Yeah.

Not even close.

That checks out. That checks out according to mine. Question number 9. Now this is one that there, there, you have to guess the answer. There is no 3 choices. Uh, what blue cheese is named after a village in Italy where it was first produced? And the answer's not blue cheese. So that, that was the first thing I thought of. I was like, what a dumb question. Is it blue cheese? It's not blue cheese.

Is it blue cheese spelled differently?

Uh, no, it was B-L-U-E.

It's—

yeah, that's the way online it's spelled.

What? That's not how it's spelled.

I know, but that's the way they spelled it online. I'm just saying, it's— you cannot trust the internet. But yes, I'm assuming they mean like blue cheese.

Yeah. Absolutely no idea. So I'm just gonna throw out, uh, burrano.

Okay. It's a good guess, but no.

I'm gonna say Uruguay.

Okay, that's close. You're in the vicinity.

I mean, I'm just gonna say if there's a city named Blue, it's spelled funky.

Nope, it is Gorgonzola.

Oh, Gorgonzola. Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look at me nodding like I knew.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, question number 10. Final question. What is the most popular cheese variety in the United States?

American, because it's officially an actual cheese. Technically it's a cheese.

I'm going to say it's probably cheddar because that's the default that ends up on most things. But I, I don't think it's people's necessarily favorite.

So, so repeat the question one more time because I feel like you said variety, meaning there's more than one that I need to answer. I feel like this is a trick question because you've been doing this No, there's a—

this is the way the question was worded. I didn't word the question like this, but it does say, what is the most popular cheese variety in the United States? Now, there might be multiple varieties of this particular cheese. Ah, okay. It could be that, but it's— yeah, the answer— there's one answer on this one.

Yellow.

I'm gonna go with Monterey Jack because there's Colby Jack and then there's like a bunch of different ones. So I'm just thinking like variety that way.

Well, can you say Jack then? Can you just say the Jack?

Yeah, I guess you could say Jack, but you're all wrong. But let me explain the, the reasoning. Now think about it in terms of pizza. Mozzarella is the most popular cheese variety because pizzas, mozzarella cheese on pizzas.

That's what pushes that over the edge. And you eat so much of it.

Yep, yep, yep. So, um, you know, I, I, I, I was kind of scoring like on the fly here. Dennis probably got, you know, 1 or 2. John definitely won, probably like in the 5s. And AJ, you didn't get any. Yeah, I didn't get any. You really didn't get anything. But Eddie and Scarlet got 1 point, so they beat you out in this one too.

Too, because I also got the, uh, the, the Swiss cheese eyes thing.

So.

Wow. You, you really care here.

I know.

I'm happy now. Right.

Why we gotta live in the past?

I got 2.

We're living in the past, man. We can't live in the past. But, um, John, why don't you tell everyone where they can find you and anything that you're working on or, uh, just anywhere they can find you online if they want to get in touch with you or see some of your work?

Yeah. Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn. Uh, You can also find me now on Bluesky. I have an X account. I'm not serious. I haven't been active very much on that for like 2 years. I mostly post them, but don't actually look at anything on there. I'm also on Mastodon.

And I can't find you.

We follow the HubSpot Developers YouTube channel as well.

And is your MySpace page still up?

I wish. I don't think that works that way anymore. I think it's only banned now.

Yeah, it's worth a shot. I mean, that or GeoCities. We, you know, it's one of those 3. You gotta have at least one of those running still, possibly. But no, I wanted to thank you for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. It is always a pleasure to have one of the, uh, developer relations crew here. Uh, you know, me being as an honorary one, uh, with the advocates here.

You're not honorary.

You actually are on the team. What are you even saying?

No, no, advocate.

Advocate.

Okay. Okay.

Advocate.

Yeah.

I caught— yeah, I didn't say— I, I know, I know what team I'm on. I'm just saying, like, as an honorary advocate, I, I—

again, the check's in the mail. The check's in the mail.

So do you— do you— she said no. Like, do you read the theater? Yeah.

What would you say?

I thought I was— I thought I was a freelance podcast host, but it's not really working out.

Maybe you should get into cheaters.

No, I should get into custom naval cannonball cheeses and, like, sell those because I could— Uruguay could be my biggest customer at this point, so I think we could work something out, uh, sponsorship. Uh, but yeah, but no, uh, I want to thank you for coming on. We really appreciate it. And from everybody here at Developers After Dark, we appreciate everybody taking the time to listen to us, and we will see you on our next episode.

Bye-bye. Later. Love it, folks.

Love it.

Indeed.

Ending.