 All right, all right, you tell me when you're when you're ready when you've got enough lead All right, we got you can go Because because you the reason you need that lead is so that if the beginning of your reel-to-reel gets munged you don't ruin the Which is not a which is not a thing with digital technology, but it's a leftover from my Yeah, and it also it also is useful for finding the beginning. It's easier to find the beginning if you've got lead Even on digital editing. All right here we go in three two Coming up on DTNS. We talked to four of the greatest listeners in the greatest audience of all time It's the Daily Tech news show listener co-host show This is the Daily Tech news for Thursday December 26 2019 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and from studio Redwood I'm Sarah Lane And I'm the show's producer, which you can't see right now. I'm Roger Chang Welcome to our end of the year listener co-host show the annual episode where we invite several of our supporters to appear alongside us on the show and this time we're very excited to have William Chance Ira Genie aka Chance the Hacker. How's it going? It's going wonderful. I'm really excited to be here and great to meet you guys Close listeners of the show will have heard us read emails from Chance before. We also have Zoe Did you bring bacon Zoe? Let me just check Yes, I have got bacon So it's funny have a piece just plenty for everybody. I was I threw on a hoodie Today and in the pocket of the hoodie was a piece of bacon that Zoe had given me in Las Vegas Still residing in the hoodie to show you either don't put your hands in your pockets or have more in that jacket for a while Sheila Dunn the communications director for the National Motorist Association is also with us. Welcome Sheila. Yes Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you Thank you and long time supporter of the show Chris Allen former software engineer now owner of the Cleveland Rock Gym in Cleveland, Ohio Thank you Chris for joining us. Hey, thanks for the invite. I really appreciate you guys having me on Now the way we're gonna do this We'll go around the horn and talk to each one of you in turn with some questions if you have questions for each other At any point don't don't feel afraid to jump in and ask. This is just kind of an open forum But Sarah, what do you say we start with chance? I think we should William Chance Paragini chance the hacker freelance web developer building websites for small businesses His website, which is a soft skills blog is chance the hacker comm But we wanted to we wanted to get to know our our listener co-host a little bit better So we're gonna start with the kind of the obvious. How long have you been in this business? How long you've been doing web developments? So I'm relatively new to it. Actually. I'm a career switcher. So for most of my life I've been doing demolition and I am currently a demolition site supervisor right now and past I'd say three years four years. I've been teaching myself to code and build websites and Also, I like ethical hacking a lot too So yeah, I don't know about three four years I've been doing this and I'm kind of swapping over right now Do you demolish large buildings small they're like, what do you demolish? I should ask If it needs to come down, I will tear it down. I have I've worked in chemical plants. I've worked with highly lethal chemicals. I have worked on tiny little buildings one time I just Demolished a little shack and I got paid for that too. So yeah, I've done it all I feel like chance could help me with my power washer a new problem. Yeah, I like fixing stuff. I'm a thinker for sure So was it people getting tired of people calling you demolition man that made you want to become a coder? Like how did you make the transition? so it's actually my back decided for me because I'm getting I'm about 34 years old almost 35 and I've been trying to impress everybody with my strength for so long that it's all going you know and Swinging big sledgehammers and those kinds of things really beat you up physically. So I Decided I wanted a nice cushy job where I can sit at home and just press keys It's it's I mean that's that makes sense and I'm glad that it's better on your back How long did you kind of think about doing this before you decided to make the leap? Well, it's so I've always been into computers You know, I love video games especially When I was 16, I was teaching myself how to Write my own video games and that kind of stuff. I started with Warcraft 3 They had like a little create your own game mode in there And so I kind of taught myself how to use it and then I just stepped away from it and focused on demo for a long time Eventually somebody showed me that you can just learn coding online, which I didn't think that was possible I thought I was kind of stuck in demolition forever and a friend just showed me. Hey, look Just go to you to me comm and you can Learn anything there. So I did What kind of stuff do you like to to code what kind of projects you want to work on? I like I just I really like building creative websites with really interactive you eyes. I love animation So I'm really big into just animating stuff. That's why if you remember I sent you that email with the Animation stuff. Yeah, I just think animations are really cool. So I like making pretty stuff You know, if I wanted to look good, I wanted to function well, and I want Mozilla to get there together You know, you know, it's destroying you now want to create. Yes Exactly, I mean you mentioned you learned so many things online. How long did it take before you felt like, okay? I can actually do this as a job. I know what I'm doing actually that that's only come recently and I just kind of just forced myself into it I never really felt that way. I never got that like, oh, yeah, I'm just a web developer now I just started telling people I was And then I forced myself into that, you know, you really you never you're never gonna Feel confident in yourself. Like I always felt stupid. I was like, oh, why is this so easy for so many other people? And it's so hard for me, you know, it's so frustrating, but I just did it Well, and I think I think we all suffer from that that sort of overestimation of how easy it is for someone else Right, it kind of goes along with that psychological thing where you underestimate how hard someone else's job is You also sometimes I think look at other people and go Oh, well, it comes so easy for them. Why is it so hard for me? You just probably don't see how hard it is for other people and like say the solution is just kind of keep at it, right? Well, and there's sort of that confidence that goes with saying to somebody. Yeah, I can do this knowing in your heart I don't know how to do this, but I'll learn and I will and I will come through and I think I think that pressure Sometimes drives a lot of us to learn things that we otherwise would think we're out of our skill range Oh for sure. Yeah, like I was I was really Really doubting that I was going to be able to do it But the one thing I really had faith in is that I would be able to figure it out Not necessarily that I'd be able to do it, but I would be able to teach myself how to do it That's great. That's great. So do you have any questions for us? I Want to know, you know, you guys are asking me how I switched to the web developer I want to know how you guys switched into podcasting. That's really interesting to me Yeah, well, I think Tom and Roger and I all have somewhat similar stories, but but I'll go ahead and start I mean when people say what do you do for a living? I say I produce podcast and they go wow cool weird. How where? And I say I used to work in television. That's what I I went to school for that I went to school for broadcasting and I I wanted to work in television not necessarily film but certainly, you know motion pictures and Over time the internet just got to a point where job started to crop up where we now had online video jobs and you could produce things that were on the web because video production had gotten to a point and Bandwidth had gotten to a point where you could deliver that to people and now that's how everything is is going So it kind of just happened to me But I'm glad it did because for me it gave me so much more flexibility I mean I live in my garage. Well, I don't live here, but I work in my garage You know in in in the forest and that would never have been possible when I started my career Yeah, for me podcasting came along in 2004 and I was immediately fascinated with it because I had been in radio in My teens and 20s My first job was in 1986 at a radio station and I and I missed doing radio So I wanted to do podcasting From the first moment I heard about it took till about January 2005 to convince Folks at CNET that this is something that we wanted to do and that's where I was working at the time and then round February we started doing test episodes of a show with me and Molly Wood March 30th, we finally posted one for other people to hear and That was the buzz out loud podcast that I started doing at CNET and I did that from 2005 till 2010 at which point Leo Laporte offered me a job at his twit network to do a similar show a daily news show about tech And so I started working there was reunited with working with Sarah on that show and then Eventually had to move to Los Angeles did a year with twit before they decided they didn't want to have me in Los Angeles Anymore's and went out on my own so Really it was just it was seeing podcasting out there and and saying that's something I want to do and then continuing to Could keep doing that until it became the only thing that I do if that makes any sense. I don't know For me specifically After I left tech TV the few other places of the following three places I worked at all had some sort of web video or Audio component to it. So I just sort of kind of naturally fell into it. I did a podcast back at Ziff Davis at the publishing side and then when I went over to ribbon vision three a lot of the content was video But some of it actually dovetailed into audio as well So it was just kind of a natural fit. And so when I left when I when revision three night parted ways Tom asked me if like hey, can you give me a hand with this stuff? And I said sure why not? I got nothing else to do And it's been that way ever since All right, let's let's turn to Zoe denerding a volunteer for a UK charity age UK Which helps older people use technology and clients normally bring in their own tablets phones laptops tablets cameras other gadgets? Charity also provides other sorts of of help Zoe You're always good at bringing titles into our chat room and of course bringing the virtual bacon and coffee But it sounds like you're bringing a lot of help to people too. That's great Yeah, I'm I really enjoy listening to people's stories and quite often they come in for the social aspect anyway and it's quite a skill sometimes working out what their problem is so Interpreting their stories and but yeah, I really enjoy you know helping with a Technology so it could be anything from setting up an email address Attaching a photograph to it or something they might even have a little Navigation device for their car It's of anything really so it's kind of challenging. You never know what you're going to get every day It's like I'm only there once a week. Sometimes I pop in other days as well, but But we're sort of in contact Yeah throughout the week and helping each other as well Sometimes we get emails from the other volunteers and sort of sorting out problems. So yeah, it's very interesting Yeah, do you find the most challenging aspect to be? That communication you talk you're talking about Yeah, because quite often they might know what their problem is but being able to describe it Efficiently and they're trying to be helpful by using terminology that we that they think is the correct terminology But so often then they're not using quite the right words So they've heard about a browser, but they're not using it in the right way and Well quite often we're the we're the person who sorts out a problem Perhaps the son or daughter or spouse has tried to troubleshoot and then they come to us because as we quite often know The family members aren't always very patient I started up the once I'm not available for it. Yeah, so We are a lot more patient. We like to think we're very very patient and yeah sort of Can listen and yeah interpret what the problem is. So do you find the family members sometimes maybe the cause of the issue? Yeah, yeah, it can be but actually quite often the family member will suggest they get a smartphone and Turns out, you know, one or two people who come in they don't even have a phone anyway, and they really don't need a smart phone They just need a phone because they they just want something that can text or You know make calls. They don't need one of these fancy computers in their pocket. So Identifying actually what the real issue is Is is the half the challenge sometimes? Yeah, so if people are bringing in trouble, you must have a good overview of Which things happen the most often? Is there a child? Is there something that you see over and over again? It's fairly split I would say I wouldn't say necessarily get one problem More than any other and it's there's so many so many devices and so many things and so many problems that We have we have about Four computers you have four desktop computers in the room and it always used to be the case They would come in and use one of our machines But now they're coming in with their own devices So I'm talking about when I started ten years ago and they'd all come in they'd learn how to use a Computer and now they're coming in with their own tablets and they very rarely use one of our desktop computers But it's so very because there's a lot more techno technology But yeah, it's sort of get any almost anything thrown at you. It might be Apple. It might be Samsung It might be any make, you know, and so it can be quite challenging, but So you can't point out one device. You're like it's always that one. That's always causing people to problems It's all spread out. What I find interesting is that we've only had recently one person with a with a Chromebook I don't know if they're a lot more popular in the States I've only come across one person with a Chromebook in the last Well as far as I can remember. So I don't know I don't know if you know how popular they are in the in the UK But they're fairly popular but usually in educational settings. So it may just be that the older demographic Doesn't have them as often or maybe they're causing them less trouble. I don't know I mean, it seemed to me that they're a perfect machine for people who aren't very tech-savvy That's got that getting the first machine or something I would assume though that having having so many folks who have have their own devices And they bring them in and say please help and of course you want to if they're they're sitting down at the computer Is already there and you know how it works, you know how to log in, you know, you know How to teach them something that's one thing but the personalization of everything is a whole added layer I mean, I had somebody down at the market the other day say like can you help me log into my iPad and I was like Probably not Because that's your thing So that that that probably is pretty challenging. Yeah, actually come to think of it the I would say actually the biggest problem Is passwords because that's not always something that we don't know the answer to it They're all pretty good at having a notebook and they write things so actually the biggest challenge is Not necessarily making a note of it, but understanding their notes So they'll say we'll ask them a question about something and they all say oh, yes I wrote it down and then but it might have been a year ago and So there's a little flipping through the pages and there's no like heading to the instructions So they don't even know what they're looking at and they haven't really written efficient instructions So actually to try and when you see them writing actually to help them write notes that they understand a year later or something like that so It's yeah getting around to Yeah passwords and sorting that out and instruct you haven't their own notes for helping themselves at a later later stage, so that's I think Well, the last time I saw you Zoe you were at Worldcon in Dublin and managing the social media account Is that something that that you've been doing more often? Yeah, so that's something I'm getting more into now So I'm also on the staff for the next two Worldcons So I'm just helping with New Zealand, which is yet next August. I'm not going there but I'm just helping to moderate the the Facebook stuff and I'm going to be going to Washington the year after So I'm area head for social media for that. So I'm really enjoying sort of getting into that side of things managing social media accounts So promoting the kind of things that are happening at the conventions and it's a whole wide range of Things that happen as you know, you know what Worldcons are like. So Yeah, so I really enjoy that. I'm on social media anyway all the time. So it's no I'm not sort of spending necessarily any more time That's but it's just quite a lot of It can be quite a lot of work with the run-up for the weeks before the convention. So, yeah Alright before we move on Zoe. Do you have any questions for us? I do yeah traveling talk about traveling on planes And I know you have talked about traveling with tech before and the technology use But what kind of challenges do you have when you're traveling with your technology, especially on a plane? Do you have to make compromises with with what you can't take with you? And that sort of thing just generally about traveling with tech. Well, I know for I do a fair amount of Traveling for a podcast which requires me to pack, you know for microphones and stands and a preamp and a mixer and a laptop and lots of XLR cables and the whole thing and It actually gets pretty compact. I can get that into It's a pretty stuffed backpack, but I can get into a backpack that I'm with the whole time I will never check that it is precious cargo, you know how that all goes but I've definitely gotten to situations where especially on small planes where Yeah, I had the misfortune of not being able to board until a little bit later and they want to check it And I'm like nope. I am not checking this There's just no way because once it's broken my job is over, you know, and you know It's not only expensive but gonna be really really a huge burden for everybody who's waiting for me on the other side So that is and also going through TSA where everyone thinks like I'm a DJ But they're confused and they look at all my equipment and go like what is this like weird thing that you've got? You know, it looks like a weapon and so it's a it's a conversation I have over and over I've gotten a little bit better about packing it in a way knowing that they're gonna take it apart So I can just pack it again as quickly as possible because I know they will Yeah, but but yeah, it's it's I think I think the key for me anyway is Whatever else you got pack light because you have to keep your equipment with you Yeah, I don't have too much more to add to that I mean the few things that I do that that are tricks is I keep all my cables in a single bag So that when I'm pulling them in and out of my suitcase It's easy to know where everything is and in fact, I'll usually pack the mics in there, too But I will always find something that Like you say Sarah security is gonna flag There there was a mic stand that I had for a long time that had a really weighty base and it always Caused them to want to look at it because it was so heavy and solid and it was never a problem once they saw What it was But I I started to put that in a separate bag It was actually a bag from Target and I would pull it out of my suitcase and I'd even have people saying oh You don't you don't have to pull things out of your you're in TSA pre and I'm like no you're gonna want this out And several times people would look like from the x-ray machine just reach in look in the bag and go Oh, okay, and it's just saved me time. So I've picked up little tricks like that I think you have the same mic stand that I have Sarah that that often looks like a butterfly knife Because it's got holes in the in the base That's another one where I tend to put it at the top of my bag So it's real easy to for them to pull out and take a look at it that one doesn't always get pulled aside But that's it. It's mostly security based stuff. It's mostly yeah, it's security and just and making sure that things that are Delicate which they are aren't getting thrown around, you know in baggage below. Yeah, some of the stuff Just can't I can't check I all carry on for me all my podcasting stuff And I will put things like my icicle xlr adapter in my laptop bag rather than my suitcase because it's a little more delicate And I want to make sure that I've got it in a place that's gentle. So yeah All right, let's move along shall we Let's move along Sheila Dunn the communications director for the national motorist association Which is a grassroots nonpartisan group of motorists from across the u.s Sheila tell us about the national motorist association What do you do? What does it do and and and and what's the goal? Yeah, sure the NMA started back in the day when the federal government imposed the 55 miles per hour speed limit on everyone and the the founder was uh instrumental in getting that that Revoked so that's how it got started now. We've wrenched out to a lot of other different sorts of things that we advocate for like we advocate against anything automated traffic enforcement like red light cameras speed cameras Green light cameras, which is the combination of the two facial recognition and automated license plate readers. We still advocate for for saying traffic laws and speed limits So we're continuously Working towards that in my position. I'm the communications director So I serve as the primary media spokesperson So I do a lot of interviews been doing a lot of interviews in new york city lately because there's so much going on there um, I also attended the uh, keep the Los angeles moving conference in october and so we're starting to work with the keep the us moving folks there, um we're opposing, um Putting uh road diets on streets that have are we call them arterial streets that have more than 20 000 cars per day Because um, it does cause a lot more traffic issues and it also is really unsafe for for a lot of reasons. So So there's a lot of things I do in terms of that. Um, I uh, also, uh, I work on four blogs a week. Um, I two of them are like curated headlines So one's on the called the ate racket report and it's the uh automated Which ate stands for automated traffic enforcement And that's just headlines from the past week and it's usually a 15 to 20 headlines of things going around the country The other one is called the warren cars watch and uh, it's everything from uh, what's going on, you know, with the expense of vision zero complete streets, um And then also road diets traffic calming and we do other things too. So it's all different kinds of things than that I also do another blog called driving in america that's repurposing some of the content So that that's been written before we have a lot of content on our website And also sometimes I do original pieces or have guest pieces and then the last thing I do started out as the car of the future blog And I did that for about I think two years And then um, and rat I started to realize that the height for car of the future has was really like the balloon was being deflated And I decided, you know It's really more of an auto tech thing. So I changed the blog name to auto tech watch and now I write A blog I try to write it every week. It just doesn't always happen. But and um, so I do do a lot of that and then I also write We have a weekly newsletter on one topic And so I write on that and then I also edit our quarterly magazine called driving freedoms Wow, uh, you were a busy woman. My goodness very busy Very very busy and it sounds like I mean you have a lot of passion for Privacy security certainly safety. Definitely. Definitely all of the above Surveillance is a I think a huge issue There's been so many articles about facial surveillance that coming out and all the things that are happening with Chinese surveillance And then going selling it to other like countries like Bolivian's places. You're just wondering what the heck is going on, you know, so Well, there's so much going on with all the tools that you're aware of and certainly And keeping tabs on how has technology impacted your life personally? Well, I um I'm you know, I'm not it. I I wouldn't call myself a techie. I'm more of a content provider. So like for example I've tried to Understand html could but I just don't get it. So, you know, that's that's why we wanted to introduce you to chance Yeah, I'm willing to help Yeah, so that's my and I you know tried to do the online courses and one time I tried to learn c plus and I got up Really early to learn and I couldn't even get c plus to turn on so, you know, that's where I'm at I'm in terms of trying to learn tech, but I I actually know google really well I wouldn't call myself a you know professional googler, but I use google sheets and docs almost all the time I've used google mail for years. I have a lot of email addresses. I don't want to go into that really but I'm I'm very um, I'm very tech poor. That's one of my biggest problems. That's um, you know, I have a six I phone six plus. Okay. That's where I'm at In the iphone realm and you know while we were talking I've already had to plug it in because my battery's been dying lately So I'm going to have to get a new phone soon I have three computers at home. They're all garbage, you know, the last one's on his last leg. It's a think pad I we have a macbook pro This doesn't work anymore. I've already had to get a new engine for that and then I have a 2008 You know iMac which doesn't really work anymore. So, you know, I'm very tech poor I also, you know, I have a 17 year old child So we have a lot of issues with uh, and he likes to watch america Soccer or what we call football because we lived in europe for a while and And you know just to watch american soccer you have to have like three different subscriptions to three different things And it's like a fortune. So i'm very tech poor. Um, I have a lot of email addresses. I have password problems I use ipassword, but every single time I still have a password problem You know, uh, so it's really really frustrating. I just looked at how many emails I personal emails I have right now. I think it's over 2000 I don't even know why because I you know, I'm getting ready to go through my yearly purge I I have to purge a lot of stuff Because I'm always like looking at new stuff, you know, put my my email address in and then I never look at it again So that's what I have to I have to do that. Is there a could I never get the never stops? Sure, please Um, I was curious. I wanted to go back to your auto surveillance thing I want to ask if you know Um anything about I I know there's companies that actually make money working with tow truck drivers and they grab license plates and they Store it all and track people. Do you know anything about that? Yeah, you know, uh, there's well, you know There's so much stuff like that going as there's just a big story I think it was in ice or motherboard or something today about the california dmv selling, uh, you know driver's license information is they're making 50 million dollars a year florida does that I think a number of other states do that um tow truck drivers, you know, there's a whole thing with predatory tow towing And um, it's a huge it's been a huge problem in chicago and you know, philadelphia a lot of other places And um, what they do is they use an automated license plate reader Which is you know, they can scan your license plate They go through parking lots if you like are behind in your car payments or you know, have a some of the problem They're confiscate your car. So yeah, so that happens. Um And uh, you know, it's it's frightening what's going on out there. I mean, uh, it's just I don't think people are really aware of it. And I think motorists certainly aren't Do you remember the pretty oblivious? So do you remember the steve goodman song lincoln park pirates? Uh, no, i'm sorry. It was about people in chicago towing you to make money And this this is this is this is from back in 1972 So, yeah, so I mean, i'm not trying to be mean to chicago, but they I mean they have The red light camera situation there is just Outrageously bad And they've had corruption scandal corruption, you know beyond I mean, it's just like amazing that I just don't even understand. So now elinoy is trying to ban red light cameras the state You're living in interesting fights to see if it happens texas banned them this year So that was really really exciting to see but because you know the the problem with automated traffic enforcement You get a ticket in a lot of places. It doesn't count towards your insurance. They just want the cash So it's really like a taxation by citation sort of thing It's not really about safety. I can remember reading an article about the new orleans mayor mitch landrew who Um Stated in his like, I don't know yearly address that we're going to be putting more 50 more, you know Speak cameras and red light camera cameras in the city because we need the cash And uh, he got voted out and the woman that replaced them She said well, we're going to get rid of them and guess what she hasn't gotten rid of them because cities get used to this Get used to this cash and they just they just don't know they can't get rid of it and um, you know, when you have little ladies calling from florida and saying, you know, I just got a Red light camera tick. I got caught and you know trying to turn left I went to court to fight my ticket all the all the people that were there were little old ladies and i'm thinking that's just really bad Well, sheila before we move on, uh, do you have any questions for us? Yeah, um, you know, are you guys concerned at all that? The autos really aren't that secure in terms of connections. I wrote a story this summer Um called is this vehicle secure? But is by design and these these statistics really jumped out of me A dreamliner jet uses about 6.5 million lines of programming code while a late model Ford f-150 pickup requires more than 20 times that amount and I'm you know It's not really secure and I just don't know why we're going headlong into this pace Of trying to connect everything and trying to you know have a driverless car when you know, I mean literally Day after day, there's an auto recall on two different things Mercedes just had two recalls today I mean, I'm just thinking one is going on here. Why do why do we need driverless cars when we're kidding fix the cars we have Well, I you know, I think it's sensible Uh a way to approach technology in general not even just cars is is to prioritize security more than we have in the past And and I don't think cars should be an exception to that any more than your smart home or anything else And and so yet my the way I would answer that is the way I answer industry-wide is we need To move security up the priority list More than we have because yeah, by obscurity just doesn't work anymore. You know, nope. It doesn't I totally agree with that Okay That's the problem. Yeah, it's just it's not a cash cow. You're right. I mean Yeah, okay, we have this. I mean, you know, even even the article I mean, are there's not even any our security cybersecurity units at automakers. Do you realize that? I mean, it's just shocking how they don't even think about the security aspects When they're designing these cars and I'm talking about cars just now. I'm not even talking about cars the future I'm talking about cars that are coming out today. Yeah, so something we'll uh, we'll we'll keep even more of an eye on On daily technician. It's a good point Uh chris allen, uh owner of the cleveland rock gym in cleveland, ohio software engineer Before that, uh, you you it says you bought the gym in 2012 and uh, I I've got to add chris chris has been a huge supporter of daily tech news show from the beginning I don't want to embarrass him by telling all the ways that he's supported it But I appreciate every single one of them chris. You're amazing. It was based on a Tom throughout a um challenge at one point to um Try and bring in bring enough page fans on to bring peter wells in Every week to add some addition or every other week to add some international flavor and I Brazenly said, you know what we're not meeting the goal. I will uh, I will uh, I will Make up the difference and then I realized that was a thousand dollars a month and I said Uh tom I did a miscalculation But I will at least contribute a little bit and so uh, yeah that uh, that's how that started Well, and even even without a thousand dollars a month, you've been very generous uh to to me and the show So we appreciate that uh First of all before we get to the the rock climbing stuff. What what was your job software engineer? um, I was uh doing a lot of uh full stack development Which meant I was working in the database side of things as well as the front end stuff the things that you would see on the web um, we were doing a lot of financial uh institutions and um, you talk about how scary autos are The banks are also quite scary when it comes to how your money gets moved around um, but uh but uh We did a lot of that kind of stuff and um after Doing that for so many years. I just kind of got burnt out on it. So So just too much too much time too much stress. Uh, no work or life balance Yeah, yeah, it was it's it's a competitive field. Um, and um, I I had a great time doing it but um over the years I just you know They always say that you should do something that you love and I loved it But I didn't love it 60 hours a week. Love it. So, uh, yeah, it was time to it's time to find something new You know, yeah Back in the day, I remember rock climbing was like a thing that I mean lots of people already knew how to do it But but indoor climbing gyms kind of became a thing in san francisco and certainly with the tech set Do you find? Talk into your clients that that there are a lot of people in technology who are looking to blow off some steam Actually, yeah, I sarah. You're completely correct. Um, it's been amazing to me. I I I think of uh, I think the perception is that it climbers are a bunch of uh People that are taking off time between high school and college but in reality It's a lot of uh attorneys Doctors, we have a big nasa facility nearby. Uh, so a lot of engineers are in here I uh around the time that the medical exams go on there's people in here With their books and their flashcards and they'll climb a little bit and then take a break for a few minutes And study and then go back on the wall, but it's a very. Um, it's a very intelligent group of people I was really shocked by that but you're completely correct in that Do so what what made you pick rock climbing what what made that the thing that you decided to to make the jump from software engineer to do So I was a software engineer, uh at a local company. I came on board and, um Got the standard cubicle and was working there for a week and none of the other people around me Came by to say hi welcome aboard or anything like that Um, mostly because they were in a different division even though we were cubbies right next to each other And so about a week after I started another guy came on board Um In the cubby next to mine and I said, you know what I'm not going to treat him the way everybody's been treating me So I went and introduced myself and we both thought we'd give it a shot and We gave it a shot in 2001 and I've been climbing ever since That's that's amazing. That's like living your dream Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah Well, and people do say and I'm I'm not much of a climber Although I I like scaling a hill here on there But people do say once once you get really into it. It is the best workout. It really is It is it's a real good full body workout It doesn't get your chest so well, but the back the legs the arms does really well Um, if you're gonna want to do a lot of climbing I don't suggest buying a rock gym because you're going to be busy doing Uh, a lot of management stuff Yeah, yeah, I I know that feeling a little bit sometimes it's like wait I really need to to do my the job not the business, but the business is a job on its own Uh, do you use a lot of technology in the gym? Um, so there's not a lot of technology that gets done in the gym It's it's somewhat similar to the stories you hear about nasa using older equipment Because they want the reliability the stuff that we use is very uh, it tends to be I don't want to use the word simple because that has the wrong connotation But there's there's not a lot of complexity to a lot of stuff that we use We because we have tried and trued methods that work Um, I would say that on the engineering side There's probably quite a bit of technology that goes into the engineering of figuring out metals or or other materials That might go into things like that, but from a from a user standpoint We don't use a lot of technology. I I specifically use a lot of technology in managing the business, but as a climber Um, I don't I think you could get pretty unplugged from the technology world and still climb for several years And without missing a beat when you talk about managing you're talking about like quick books invoicing stuff like that Oh, yeah, all that kind of stuff managing employees Over time taxes all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Oh fun stuff. Good stuff. Yeah. Yeah Uh, well, do you have any questions for us chris? Um, I actually do have a question Both of you seem to do a lot of extra side projects and I know dts and s Is a pretty full-time job. So How many hours are you working because I don't understand how you get everything done Uh, Tom, I'll I'll go ahead and take this one. Uh, and we you start we all have various side projects, but you're right Uh, uh, I uh with tom and and and roger and pretty much every peer I have in the podcasting world Has if we're lucky kind of that that anchor show which dts and s absolutely is And it does for the most part what I tell people is I can take a call in the morning Might be able to do an errand or two But mostly I can't do anything until the show is over and once we're live I really can't do anything, you know, if somebody comes to the door. I can't answer it Because we're we're a live show. It's live tv. It's kind of like I said before it's the same thing It's just a different medium But um, but it does afford us enough flexibility to be able to tack on other projects later in the day perhaps early in the morning on the weekends and What's nice is that we have a team that we're all really kind of respectful of each other's schedules And sometimes somebody's got to dip away and to do something else and the rest of us will pick up some slack And it works really well for us. Uh, that said I do sometimes think my time management could be better Because I don't feel like I ever kind of like wake up on a saturday and go Ah cool watch some college football and that's all I'm doing today. No, that hasn't happened in a long time So it's um, and it's great. It's it's great to be busy. But at the same time sometimes Working for yourself and taking on projects. I just had you know, somebody ping me yesterday saying Hey, we want to do a podcast. We'd love to talk to you and I was like great work But when would I do that? Yeah, I'll figure it out. I guess But you know, it's it's sort of, you know, that that's that's always sort of the going problem is How do you manage your time so that you're not just overdoing it and robbing yourself of, you know, a little bit downtime Yeah, I probably I mean in general I'm working on daily tech news show from seven till 230 ish a little bit later than 230 depending on the on the day because we'll we'll meet after the show and And chat about stuff Yeah, but but I you know, I get up in the morning and I'm looking at headlines and looking at feedly and That sort of thing and then the rest of my morning, like you say, like Sarah said, I may take a call with somebody. I may not I'm on wednesdays. I'm on tms I'm also doing daily tech headlines on wednesday, which feeds into daily tech news show So there's some nice overlap there But it is really hard to fit in other things in that time because it's the lead up To a show that has to be reinvented every day and I'm spending All three of us are spending hours Looking at the news figuring out what should go in Understanding it not just having a headline but also, you know, daily tech headlines is a little easier because I I wouldn't call it cheating but but you can just write the basics whereas on daily tech news show We need to actually be able to discuss it and have some thoughts producing information is one thing talking about it Is another thing So I have some tasks I use a google calendar with with all day tasks as my task list every day and I have some things in there Some of them are just like walk the dock So that I make myself take a break and clear my head and and that that's probably the biggest thing I've had to learn over the years is how to how to force myself to take breaks away from stuff So that I'm not spending too much time and burning myself out And not and not being productive at the things that I do And then after after daily tech news show is when I fit in most of the other shows like current key Court killer sorden laser all of that they they happen in that second half of the day And that's where I'll do my errands like you go get I'm gonna go get groceries after we record this for instance Stuff like that. So and like you said Sarah somebody actually rang my doorbell like 10 minutes ago And I was not able to go answer it. So but ring doorbell made me see it probably wasn't worth it it's uh, it's this is a funny thing that so many of us who Do these sorts of jobs we get but the rest of the world doesn't get where I will have friends be like, hey You know, I'm in your hood Let's get lunch and I'm like it's wednesday Yeah, I can't ever get lunch Monday to friday like don't you know my schedule? It's not their job to know my schedule But I know it and I know that like it doesn't it just doesn't work can't be done We talk about this a lot one of the hardest things to get people to understand is a live daily show They don't understand that you can't just push it off until later, right? It like it happens at 130 Yeah, like if I'm late, it's a problem Yeah, I I understand that because I I also do uh I do a daily, um email that goes out of driving news headlines And um, I try to get out by two every day, but if I get a press call or something It just totally rocks my schedule and it's really really frustrating and I'm getting to the point where it's It's almost overwhelming that the rest of my work. So I I'm trying I'm always trying to figure out how to be more efficient how to cut things out But at the same time I do so much cutting and pasting and it doesn't really help when google changes their algorithm For example, I mean I use google sheets a lot and like a month ago They decided to change their algorithm from um, we could cut and paste a link to another sheet But now you have to actually relink it. So, you know, that was like, um, yeah Trust me you still can I I did it today. I tried and tried I figured I have not figured it out because it just seemed like it changed Uh a month a month ago But you know the cutting and pasting and you know, that has a physical toll on you and also the sitting That's that's another physical toll. Yeah, that's why that's why I put in those things that make me get up and walk around Yeah, I walk at lunch. So some months ago. I actually it's gotten a lot better because I changed kind of my schedule and I My um, my my sitting arrangement and I got a better monitor But I was having rsi to the point where I was like, I'm not able to edit very well Like this is like really painful, you know sitting here for four hours, you know, meticulously doing something Was actually like hurting me and I was a little worried like what what happens when my right hand goes I know I I worry about that a lot because I'm having a lot of uh, you know pain in my my You know fingers now And that's not good. So I I'm yeah, I mean I work braces and stuff at night. Yeah Changing up the just I don't know that a lot of just angles and stuff had Has really helped me but but yeah, I mean, it's it's a real thing it and it it affects all of us Now chris, uh, did you have something you wanted to ask follow up? I just want to say that um, yeah from from uh from my schedule I can't always, uh do things because I might have to fill in for staff or something and I always get the line from my family like but you're the boss Why can't you just make time to Go out for lunch and stuff right because I'm the boss. I'm the last line. I have to I have to do stuff So I just wanted to give you guys kudos for the amount of stuff that you guys get done every single day It's I'm just floored by that. Yes. Thank you so much Please take the please take the the holidays off When you uh, you know the those weird bank holidays Yeah, please take those off and re-energize because it's impressive how much you guys get done each week Well, thank you all uh for being with us today and uh and helping us to have this december 26th off Oh, I I tore aside the veil. We're not really here. It was pre-recorded Uh, William Chance Paragini. Thank you so much anything to tell folks about before we leave Um, yeah, if you need some websites built I do that or if you want to hire a web dev remotely I'll also do that Chance the hacker.com. Go check it out. Uh, zoey dennerding. How about you? Well, I'm I'm always on social media and you can always track me down if you want a page managing then I'm your person. I'll even bring you bacon So I could swear by it. It really does happen Yep. Uh, thank you so much. Sorry Sheila Dunn Anything you wanted to let people know about before we go Yeah, you know, if you want to check out the national motorist association. We're at www.motorist.org. It's pretty simple. It's the plural motorist.org And we also are on twitter facebook linkedin and pinterest and chris allen. Where's your gym? I'm actually in Cleveland, Ohio But I would like to let people know that they need to get outside and enjoy things Don't get trapped in your technology bubbles Excellent, uh, and clevelandrockjim.com if you're just curious you want to see chris of what chris's place looks like you can go check that out As well, uh, thank you everyone, uh for supporting the show Uh, we are in our holiday episodes right now as you may have noticed, uh, but we will be back on, uh, what is it? It's it's not Not in here on january 3rd thing Yeah, it's it's gonna be january 2nd, right? We'll be back on thursday january 2nd with normal episodes and then right after that CES is happening and we will be at, uh, the consumer electronics show on monday tuesday wednesday The sixth seventh and eighth of january with special episodes from there. Don't miss that Thank you everyone again for supporting us at patreon dot com slash dtns And if you have feedback for our listener co-host show With four great co-hosts our email addresses feedback at daily tech news show dot com We're live money through friday 4 30 p.m. Eastern 21 30 utc in our regular schedule And you can find out more at daily tech news show dot com slash live see you tomorrow with our 2019 predictions result show This show is part of the frog pants network get more at frog pants dot com Bob hopes you have enjoyed this brover Good show everybody. That was great. Thank you. Oh, that was fun. Thank you so much The the funniest thing for me is that I listen to all podcasts on double speed So you guys sound like you're trashed right now. Yeah Yeah, yeah, I was gonna thank him for talking 1.6 times slower We sound like we're trashed because you're we're usually so much snappier for you. Usually so usually The the podcast goes so quickly if you're literally at double speed. So I to Me your normal voices are way faster. Oh, that's so slightly higher pitched So it sounds like you've got a deeper voice So It's funny when you have any questions from me Justin robb Young was sending me his He's the dead podcast in advance For me to listen to and give feedback on and I'm used to listening to him at 2x speed So I was listening at a drop box where you can't speed it up and I kept saying like, I don't know It feels like it's a little slow and then I realized no, it's not slow I'm just used to hearing him at chipmunk speed So I totally don't know what you're talking about. It's so funny. It's really hard to get past for a minute Or maybe we are just really really slow. There's also a really You guys you guys do a great job and thank you so much for doing what you do. I know it's hard work and I've been listening for about a year. I started listening about a year ago when I Realized I wanted to listen to more podcasts and you're the only tech show I listen to on a podcast site And Yeah, and I listen to it I use overcast I just want to say that because I I try to use the apple podcasting thing That was just garbage and I never could listen to anything because I couldn't get it to work properly But overcast allows me to put everybody in folders and you're in my daily one folder. I have two daily folders So I just want to tell you that so yeah, that's very nice Yeah, I listen to a bunch of tech podcasts and you guys are hands down my favorite I love thanks, man. I really like your news and your discussions. I think that really um, it's really important and You actually are able to articulate things that um, I read about and so it's really good to to get that refresher as well So that's so good to hear because that's really our main goal is to to make you feel A little more well informed without having to spend those hours that I was talking about earlier Doing it. That's what we're here for Like your international feel as well, which doesn't always come across very well with other podcasts It can do but American based podcast whereas you're you're definitely very You know got a very global feel to the yeah. Yeah, so now we work hard on that and and having patrick masia around helps to so yeah, and actually zoe having you around Bringing the british bacon. Yeah We'll have fun at CES. That sounds really fun. I've never been there, but I always always thought it would be fun to go So you should the first four times I went was really fun Yeah, yeah There's great. Yeah, maybe someday I'll go but I just haven't had the chance yet. So it sounds like a lot of fun I gotta pay for all those subscribers first It is always fun as as tom was alluding to after It is that's what it is. It's work, you know working in vegas is Is a challenge because it's just hard to get anywhere. It's just it's just it's not a walking city. Yes, you know So you guys actually do your podcast from them. Yeah, I didn't I don't remember that from last year Yeah, we started doing that two years ago. We started doing it from the show floor Wow, that's hard. Yeah So this would be actually see each other. So that's kind of fun too. Steve Sheridan actually on the floor, wasn't he? I think Yep, yeah, and it's and it's good because Between the three of us we must have at least a hundred people former colleagues co-workers that we run into So it's always like catching up. It's a good chance to reconnect with people For sure All right, folks, we'll let you get back to the rest of the day, but uh, thank you again. Thank you again all of you This was so fun. It was fun. You guys are awesome You're a good co-host. Start your own podcast We'll be guessing your podcast. Yeah, totally All right, thanks very much. Okay. Bye. Bye everybody