Late Night Bite

Ian

Hello.

Aaron

Good morning. You, you you freaked me out this morning, Ian. You messaged me 8:20 my time, and we're like, hey. Well, guess you're running late, bud. I was like, what?

What? I'm outside in the street putting a new car seat in in an old car, and I'm like, wait. What time is it? Who am I late? Is he I was like, no.

Wait. Ian's Ian's early. We do this at 9 AM. So what what's going on? Did Taylor Swift, keep you out too late?

Ian

Yes. I was in New York last night. Taylor Swift, we had to talk about that. But this actually brings up an excellent point. First of all, a little preview here of what it's like to have more than 2 kids.

Just your brain is just toast. Just

Aaron

lose it altogether.

Ian

You're just gonna lose it. Just be happy you make it anywhere within, like, 2 hour window. K. Second of all, this is a conversation we haven't had on here. There is only one true time zone, and that is the US East Coast.

All the time zones are ridiculous. There shouldn't even be other time zones. What? So the real problem is that you are on the wrong time zone. If we were on the same time zone, notice what happened.

Aaron

How is East Coast okay. We can both agree West Coast is nothing. Like, it's Abomination. I don't even it's, like, 4 AM over there right now. So who knows what time it is there?

But East Coast?

Ian

East Coast. This is where everything is. East Coast. It's in between Europe and West Coast. It's perfect.

East Coast.

Aaron

It's not a very strong argument if I'm being honest. It's not a in between West Coast and Europe.

Ian

Got New York. New York is the center of everything. All this, again, our New York team today.

Aaron

I the only thing I will give you on this is growing up back in back in the old days when we had to watch TV, like, on TV, we didn't just, you know, pick an app and watch TV.

Ian

Right. Yeah. The picture time is

Aaron

the Yeah. They would always say 8 PM EST, 7 PM CST, and they would always, always, always say that. And so I did growing up, I did always think, oh, eastern is the time that everything airs. Right? You know, Seinfeld comes on at whatever eastern, and then they adjust it for our viewing time in central.

So I, like 100%. Buy I buy that. But that's the only thing that's the only thing I buy.

Ian

No. East Coast, man. Like, Dallas, Fort Worth is not the center of the universe. Right?

Aaron

Fort Worth, I agree.

Ian

New York. Yeah.

Aaron

Fort we we can agree

Ian

on Fort Worth.

Aaron

But Dallas I don't know. We've got Dallas and Chicago in Central. Chicago. We'll have the Nobody wants to go to Chicago.

Ian

Exactly. I will say the only plus of the West Coast time see, to me, central is totally pointless. Mountain, totally pointless.

Aaron

Unbelievable. This so you're such an aggressor this morning.

Ian

No point in either of these. But West Coast, the thing I do like about West Coast time is sports are done early. So it's like, oh, the game's on at 5. The game's over at 8. You would go out to dinner after the game.

Whereas, like, East Coast, yeah, it's, you know, it's 11. It's 12. Like, you know, it's kinda weird. Like, you have when the kids were little, it's like they wanna stay up and watch the game, but it doesn't even start till 9. And so,

Aaron

you know,

Ian

there are some stuff like that that,

Aaron

what's happening? There were, like, something right in the middle? It's like, it's not too late, but it's not

Ian

too early.

Aaron

It's kinda, like, in the center. You know?

Ian

Even then, I don't think it's central. I think it's I think it's mountain then.

Aaron

Mountain I don't. Honestly, who's ever heard of mountain time? No.

Ian

Never heard of that. Everything a mountain time. Never, ever.

Aaron

There was I work with I work with a, engineer, a guy at PlanetScale named Mike, and he's always on Twitter talking about how East Coast is the best because

Ian

It's true. You wake

Aaron

up and get, like, a full day's work done before the West Coast people roll out of bed.

Ian

That's so funny.

Aaron

It's like, I I just need my my European engineers to approve my pull request because my West Coast people are still asleep.

Ian

That's so funny. We've never really had that userscape because everybody's been more, like, central east for the most part. And then we do have, one of our longtime employees, Matt, is mountain, but he works east because, you know, he gets it. He's like East Coast is the best time. And so he's always here east coast time.

He just works east coast day. So yeah. So I don't I don't really have to think about that that way, but East Coast, one two time zone. You'll see. Wait.

The feedback of this episode

Aaron

is gonna be way in the East Coast

Ian

one two time zone.

Aaron

Back. Your your, your scorecard is not looking so good. I don't know if we wanna get into soul

Ian

versus fight first

Aaron

versus only, but you, I think you resoundingly lost that fight. So I did not Are you serious?

Ian

Yes. I am serious. I my position has been only strengthened.

Aaron

Okay. You had 2 people agree with you. 1 was Matt Swanson, and he was being he was being spicy because that's his brand. And one was Chris Soudal, and he doesn't know anything. What does he know?

He just he all he knows is servers. That's okay. We we can do that now, or we can talk what you did last night.

Ian

Let's let's we're here. Let's follow-up. Let's do follow-up first.

Aaron

K.

Ian

So, alright. So we can have a little follow-up. Right? We have soul soul does already exist on the query builder. We

Aaron

Yes. So the thing that we kind of independently derived that if you were to have Sol on the query builder, it would have to do a limit to and then throw an exception. That is exactly what exists on the query builder. So on the collection, it just simply checks to see if there's more than one record. And then on the query builder, it pulls 2.

And if 2 come back, it throws an exception. If 0 come back, it throws an exception. If 1 comes back, it gives you that record. So Nice. That has been clarified.

Ian

Which is great. I'm all for that. I like that. But at times you wanna know that you're definitely, you know, whatever. You wanna throw the error if you get to and whatever.

If you wanna know if the query hits 2, another one. And we did Tom Westrick wrote in. I like to get the email feedback. He just had he he I was under the impression that I don't use first, but I do use first. I do use first.

I just don't want it first.

Aaron

That sounds that sounds like an e m communication problem and not a Tom Westmore problem.

Ian

Only I want to use something that is more precise there.

Aaron

I just I honestly cannot believe you're digging in on on this one. They're just

Ian

And then

Aaron

so many people.

Ian

Matt Swanson had the perfect way to put it. Do you consider your fur your wife your first wife? No. You consider her your only wife. What a great way to put it.

It's genius.

Aaron

So we have to judge this response. We have to judge this response on 2 vectors. 1 is humor. Great. Great.

Great response. Top notch. Best one, probably. The other is, reasonability, and it's just not it's just not a ridiculous question.

Ian

Very reasonable.

Aaron

It's it's a ridiculous question. I mean, Mary, friend of the show, Mary responded to Matt and was like, I would con I'm the only child, and I would consider myself the first child, and I would consider myself the last child. And it's like, yeah. That's absolutely right.

Ian

That's a great point. Would you feel weird about calling the last method? Should should you call the last method to get one? You know you're gonna get one item returned to this. Do you wanna call it last?

Yes. No. It is the

Aaron

exact same thing.

Ian

Yes. It is the exact same thing. I totally agree with that, but it's all so insane to say you'd wanna call the last method.

Aaron

We haven't even warmed up yet. Yes.

Ian

Last would be insane.

Aaron

No. Listen.

Ian

You're a crazy person if you wanna call last. That's bizarre.

Aaron

If there's okay. How can I put this in terms you would understand? If there's if there's a table of concerts Yes. And there's one Taylor Swift concert in there Right.

Ian

That's that's the Taylor method. You just have a Taylor method for that.

Aaron

There's one concert in New York City, Taylor Swift.

Ian

Yes.

Aaron

And you say concerts where city equals New York City, where city equal or where performer equals Taylor Swift first, you would get the concert back.

Ian

But that's true. Yes.

Aaron

And if you were to call last, you would get that one concert back.

Ian

I totally agree.

Aaron

That that's what

Ian

No. That's not what we're arguing about, though. In the code, do you want to read the word last there? Does last make sense

Aaron

to you? If okay. If the thing that I'm looking for is the last record, which could mean the last of a number of records or

Ian

Right.

Aaron

The only one that exists.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

Then I would put last.

Ian

If That's not what we're talking about.

Aaron

But that's not

Ian

what we're talking about. Right? That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about where we know there's only going to be 1. We I only want 1.

I mean, you could put Soul. That's fine. But that's not how people use Soul currently. Right? Everybody uses 1st.

I use 1st. Everybody uses 1st when they're only getting one. They know there's only 1 and they use first. Right?

Aaron

Yes.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

I agree with that point.

Ian

Right. So my only point is there is a better name for that than first. Okay. First is the year.

Aaron

I think this is the same argument.

Ian

It is the same argument. But if you put it in context of last, that makes it you realize how bizarre that is because you would not want to read this code where it said last where somebody meant 1. They wanted 1.

Aaron

So okay. So I think Last. I think what you're arguing is that people are using something incorrectly to which I have a null response.

Ian

Terminology there. I feel like it could be I feel like I'd rather say 1 or only. Or soul. I mean, you could use soul. Yes.

I mean, soul's fine. I don't like that it has, like, the does the 2 and, like, whatever. I mean, that's fine. You have a little extra logic in there that maybe isn't necessary, but I mean, Soul I'll I'll probably gonna switch to Soul, to be honest with you, because I do like that. That's better.

Aaron

What I what I think we've come to is that the terminology may be fine even if you would prefer only. Soul Soul is only, but you feel like the popular usage has not caught up to using Soul in place of 1st.

Ian

That could be. Like, that Soul I don't think anybody even knew about Soul. Right? Like, I feel like Soul is, like, nobody whatever. Not literally nobody, but, you know, whatever.

10% of the Laravel doves know about Soul, and the rest of us had no idea. So we have Soul, which is good. Maybe that's all we need. I I still haven't thought about it enough. I have to think about it a little more if I like that it does the extra error there.

I think it's fine. Right?

Aaron

I think that's the only difference between that and 1st, though.

Ian

It, yeah. I guess that's true. Right? Yeah. I think that's true.

And yeah. Because first just does it still puts the limit on, I believe

Aaron

It does.

Ian

Of 1. Yeah. So, Yeah. I definitely like the word soul better. When if when you know you're getting 1 and you and then you get the extra benefit of it is checking to make sure you are in fact only getting 1, which is Right.

You know, I think useful. So, yeah, Soul will probably be what I moved to. So maybe that's really the same thing as if we had a one, but I'm just saying the first and last are bizarre. That's what I'm saying. Man.

And now we're the last. It makes the point perfectly. The last is that's it's a that's that's it right there.

Aaron

Fully disagree.

Ian

I just wanna I

Aaron

just wanna say I just wanna have people check the record on the replies to the mostly technical pod tweet and just see how many people were like, Ian has lost his mind.

Ian

Because they all use first. But listen. If you go through if you we post up some code samples, I didn't even see that reply. I wish I had because if you post up a bunch of code samples where people are calling last when they only want one, every single person's gonna be like, oh, that doesn't look right. But it's the same thing.

Aaron

It's a no. It's not. It's a it's

Ian

a thing as first. No. Yes, it is. It's literally doing the same thing. No, it's not.

In a in a way, you expect to get only one result back. If you call first or last, the same thing's gonna happen.

Aaron

The only time that first or last would be the same is if you're, like, where ID equals to

Ian

Right.

Aaron

Last.

Ian

Right? But I'm saying people use first that way all the time. Right? People use first when they know they're only getting one.

Aaron

Yeah. And Right. I don't I don't have a problem with that. Yeah. So there's there's there's, like, our there's our fundament there's our fundamental there's our fundamental core, belief problem is I don't have a problem with using first if I know that there's only gonna be 1.

Ian

Which is what I do because I didn't know about Sol, but I just think if you say I use last, then I'm only gonna get one, people look at you like you're crazy because

Aaron

it does

Ian

the exact same thing. It is a crazy thing to do.

Aaron

That's a crazy thing to do.

Ian

Which is why first is a crazy thing to do. But now we've got that settled. I've won Do we? A new one.

Aaron

I don't think we do, but sure.

Ian

Maybe this will be an ongoing ongoing, segment.

Aaron

I I came into this so confident that you were gonna be like, man, I I was wrong.

Ian

No way. A little about you. I'm

Aaron

a little bit. I'm a little bit.

Ian

My convictions are stronger than

Aaron

I do. That's, yeah, that's for sure. Okay. So soul

Ian

the thing the only thing I've bent on a little bit is I do think Soul is probably just fine. Like, I think Soul I don't know that we need one or whatever. Like, maybe Soul is really fine. The extra check is fine. You should probably have the extra check there anyway.

If you're calling this with the belief that you are, in fact, only ever gonna get one, then, yeah, that check is kinda cool. Because, like, if you get more than 1, then something's wrong. Right? So I that's that's pretty good there. So I'm probably satisfied with Sol is is that's a little bit that is a little bit of a win in that that direction.

I still think first and last and all that. Just

Aaron

some Alright. We'll we'll we'll call that a compromise for the sake of for the sake of content because we we have to move on.

Ian

Do do we need an hour on this? I don't know.

Aaron

Okay. You stayed out super late last night.

Ian

I did. I'm a little sleepy.

Aaron

At the at the movies slash at the concert. Tell me, how was it? No.

Ian

This is how it was right here, man. This is how

Aaron

it was. Sparkly sequins.

Ian

Look at that. That's cheapo Amazon. The brand?

Aaron

I don't see a brand.

Ian

Not Taylor Swift.

Aaron

This is the unbranded.

Ian

Sequins. Yeah. I just had to have a little a little bling for the concert. But,

Aaron

Okay. Did you blend in?

Ian

Like, the cheapest made hat in the world.

Aaron

Yeah. I feel I feel like it's about to disintegrate, honestly.

Ian

Go backwards with it. Yeah. It was so we saw the concert when, you know, in the past, and that was amazing. By far the best concert I've been to, 9 Close. Then me and the daughter went to see it in the theater.

We went down to New York so we could see it in the biggest IMAX in the country.

Aaron

Awesome.

Ian

You haven't lived till you've seen a 7 story tall Taylor Swift.

Aaron

It's just unbelievable. Stories. Are they gonna play that in the sphere? Oh, woah. Can you imagine That

Ian

would be unbelievable.

Aaron

Be story tall, Taylor Swift?

Ian

Man, I'm definitely going if they do that. Wow. That's gonna cost me a lot of money. If she, like, does this

Aaron

year, I'm You know you know she's gonna do it.

Ian

Doesn't matter the cost, whatever it is. I'm I'm going.

Aaron

So She's gonna do it.

Ian

Wow. It just blew my mind there.

Aaron

I know.

Ian

But it was great. It was, it was really cool. It's like I mean, it's like one tenth of the awesomeness of the concert, obviously, but you know, it's $28 instead of 1500 or whatever you need for the concert. And, and, yeah, it was cool. Like, I mean, who's ever been in a movie theater with, like, 300 people dancing down the aisles and going crazy?

You know? Like, you're not gonna see that.

Aaron

So yeah. So tell me

Ian

flick. Right? So

Aaron

The the the shtick is, like, this is a concert film. So, like, this has been done this has been done before. Like, there are concert films that have been done before, but this is the first or maybe biggest theatrical, and it's not a one night only, is it? Because I think my wife is going to see it this week.

Ian

Yeah. No. It's not. It's like it's like they're releasing it like a movie. I don't think you know, people have obviously, like, there have been recordings of concerts.

Right? And people have released them, and I think occasionally in the movie theater, but I don't think it's ever been rolled out quite like this,

Aaron

where

Ian

it's like an actual movie rollout. Like, they did a prerelease, and they it's got, like, a run at the movie theaters, across the country. Like, not just like, hey. In New York and San Francisco and Yeah. Chicago, they're doing whatever, some special showings.

It's like, no. This is in 4000 theaters or whatever it's gonna be in. And, Yeah. I think it's the 2nd highest grossing October release ever. So That's perfect.

Opening weekend opening weekend ever. It's the 2nd highest October opening weekend ever, yes, of any movie of any movie.

Aaron

So That is incredible.

Ian

It's incredible. I mean, there's so much demand out there for the concert, I guess, that it makes some sense because, obviously, whatever. Even these huge stadiums only fit so many people. It's just obviously nice to just, whatever, go down the street and see it for $10 and all that. So, yeah.

Aaron

So you went you went to both, and you would say

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

Even then, going to the movie was still worth it.

Ian

Yes. I it was fun. Like, I mean, I think even my daughter also felt like, you know, it's nowhere near the concert. Like, if you're a super new Taylor Swift, like, you should go to the concert. But the movie version of it, I think, captured the, you know, essence of what's going on there.

And especially because, like, people in the theater, I imagine this is just how it is most places is people in the theater are singing and dancing and up

Aaron

that mountain.

Ian

Yeah. So so it was great. Yeah. So I know we're I guess we're done with Taylor Swift for now. I don't know if we're gonna

Aaron

For now. My my wife is going so my wife went, like Yes.

Ian

Oh, good. Good.

Aaron

Of friends to the actual concert.

Ian

Oh, you're good.

Aaron

That same group is is re getting together to go

Ian

to the movie. So yeah. Man, the repeat customers. Uh-huh. I know.

Just killing it with the repeat customers.

Aaron

I know. Okay. So that's why you were out late. That's why you gave me the scare this morning

Ian

because you Yes. We're down the

Aaron

city, which is,

Ian

like, an hour and a half, away from me. So down to New York, came back. I was thinking about you. This came up on Twitter. Somebody was like, oh,

Aaron

we're Good thing you didn't get mugged in New York City.

Ian

Oh, man. First of all, New York City is the safest city in the country. Let's just start there. Safer than your Dallas, safer than all these cities. But, also, New York City at night I mean, did were you even out at night?

Did you leave your hotel room at in the nighttime?

Aaron

So let me let me tell you my experience in New York City because it's it's one it's one for the ages. And the people who love New York City are going to be furious with my experience.

Ian

So Don't do this. Don't do this to me.

Aaron

So never been to New York City in my life. Right. Right? Go for the first time in maybe, like, 2018, 2019, something like that. So in in my in my late twenties, I'm maybe early thirties, I'm going to New York for the first time ever for a work trip.

I used to work for a company that had the headquarters up there. And so I go I go up there, I think, one day and come back the next, first of all, because I'm, like, I don't I don't super I don't super I don't super wanna be there. So Right. I go up, and I'm, like, alright. Well, now I'm in New York City by myself.

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

And I have a meeting. Like, I have a, you know, all hands, whatever, in the morning. Right. I don't know I don't know the first thing about New York City. I'm here Didn't

Ian

have a guide. No guide.

Aaron

Have a guide. Didn't have a friend. Didn't have anything.

Ian

I see. That's a bummer.

Aaron

I had that.

Ian

That's a bummer.

Aaron

And so I'm like, well, let me see what's around let me see what's around my hotel room. Maybe I'll pop up and get a bite. What month? Oh, gosh.

Ian

It's important information.

Aaron

No idea. I don't even remember.

Ian

I have

Aaron

no clue.

Ian

Alright.

Aaron

It wasn't super cold. I remember that. Okay. So I'm like, what's around my hotel room? Let me see if I can find something.

Oh, there's a Chipotle nearby. I love Chipotle.

Ian

It's killing me.

Aaron

I'm a man of the people.

Ian

Oh, it's killing me. You're in every man. Through the heart. Right through the heart.

Aaron

Yeah. I'm in I'm in I'm in New York City. There's a Chipotle. I'm gonna pull a Michael Scott, get my favorite New York slice. Yeah.

And so I walked I walked over to the Chipotle, and I'm like, man, this building is crazy. New York City is wild. The Chipotle is at the bottom of the Empire State Building. Gotcha. Like, inside the Empire State Building.

So I walk in. I'm like, yeah. I have some some chicken and some white rice, and this is crazy. We're just the Empire State Building. And then I took it, and I walked back to my hotel room and ate it in my hotel room.

Ian

Oh, god.

Aaron

And that was and then the next morning, I had a meeting, and the the the next day, I went home. So that was my first New York City experience. Okay. So you can tell already. Yeah.

2nd time, my wife and I went for less than 24 hours again, but we went, and saw the Jimmy Fallon show record live. So this was

Ian

Alright.

Aaron

Several several years ago, she was super into Jimmy Fallon at the time. The tickets are free. You just have to, like Right. Do the lottery thing. And so I did the lottery thing, surprised her.

I was like, hey. We're going to New York City for a day to watch Jimmy Fallon. And we went, and that part was super cool. Like, being in the studio at 30 Rock is like, hey. This is awesome.

But beyond that, it's just like,

Ian

I don't

Aaron

know, man. So my problems my problems with it. One, I didn't have a guide, so maybe that's a problem.

Ian

That's tough.

Aaron

Everybody's like, oh, were were you midtown, uptown? Did and I'm like, dude, I don't know. I have no idea. That was where the buildings are. And then the the scaffolding hate the scaffolding.

Ian

I understand. Nobody likes scaffolding.

Aaron

I'm a I'm a claustrophobe, and so I just felt like every I was closed in. Right. And beyond the, you know, the great height of the buildings, you have the oppressive scaffolding coming down on your head and in on your sides. You're bumping into people, and they're like, hey. I'm walking here.

And I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm from Texas. And then then there's garbage.

Ian

Like in the eighties movie.

Aaron

There's garbage everywhere.

Ian

I don't think not more than the other big cities. I don't think. I

Aaron

don't Yes. I could walk down my street right now and not see any garbage at all. There's garbage there's garbage everywhere. There's cars double parked every it just feels

Ian

Cars everywhere.

Aaron

So, like, close to

Ian

COVID's important information. See, we didn't have this information before. So there's an aspect that makes it more understandable to me now.

Aaron

There you go.

Ian

Alright. So here's here's the thing. I'm gonna I got the

Aaron

solution to all your problems.

Ian

I have literally the solution to every problem you have, then you will love New York City. First of all, New York City must be experienced at night. Let's just start there.

Aaron

Okay.

Ian

And that's gonna solve all your problems. Because if you are

Aaron

You can't

Ian

see a garbage thing. No. No. Because the claustrophobe thing is much better because there's less people. There's still a lot of people, which is what makes it cool.

Like, it's not like whatever. I've been out in big cities in 10 o'clock. You go 10 o'clock at night in downtown Chicago is dead. There's not a person in the street. There's nobody around.

Aaron

Except bad guys. There Oh, there's dangerous. You got that Yeah.

Ian

You need Batman under there, that underneath part, you know, where it's, like, built up over it. No. So there's still people, so it's cool because you're like, oh, there's always lights and people and whatever, but it's, like, not that overwhelming crush of people that you have, like, in the day in certain areas. You gotta stay mostly out of Midtown. Like, you were in Midtown both times.

Midtown's fine, but, like, that's not, like, the best spot to be to, like, kinda hang out. And then, yeah, let's take all about the like, yesterday, a lot of New York City is, like, the serendipitous aspect of things. So, like, we're walking around before the concert, and they've just shut down, like, 12 city blocks, Columbus Avenue. And it's just, like, totally open to pedestrians, and you're just, like, walking down the middle of the street. There's fields with chalk.

There's people set up pickleball. There's music. There's food. There's whatever. And it's just, like, fine.

But it's not like over it's not like, like like an event per se where, like, it's a crush of people. It's just like people doing their thing, wandering around. Like, yeah, you could grab a slice of pizza. You get a beer. You hang out.

Fabulous. So you need a guy So

Aaron

okay. So you need. Your solution is go at night.

Ian

I mean, there's stuff in the day too.

Aaron

With night is great. Guide.

Ian

Night is the best. Night is the best to me. There's nothing else in the world like night in New York City.

Aaron

Stumble upon a block party. So those that's your solution.

Ian

And you got it. No. You stumble on all kinds

Aaron

of It doesn't seem repeatable.

Ian

There's all well, that's the thing because you don't know what it's gonna happen to you. You go out and you experience whatever there is to experience. That's part of it. But there is just like the New York City version of these things that'll give you the same experience you want that you're comfortable with, but is a 100 times better. For example, Chipotle's.

Okay? Like, you could just go and have Chipotle's. Right? And they there's Chipotle's in New York City. You should never have Chipotle's in New York City.

Let's start there. Mhmm. If you're gonna have quick food, you get pizza. Quick pizza is the official quick food.

Aaron

Sparo. Right.

Ian

Something like that. Yeah. Not a sparo. No chains. But so here's a place I've gone a 100 times.

That's basically like Chipotle's, but it's only open after, like, 9 or 10 PM. It's this big it's a halal food stand, which is like chicken and lamb and rice

Aaron

and

Ian

things like that. Like and, it's it actually is in Midtown, but they don't even open till 10. There's a bunch of knockoff ones. There's only one legit one. You go to the legit one, in front of the Hilton, and you you get your tray of, like, a big huge tray of food.

It's gigantic. And you sit outside. There's, like, all these public seating things and sculptures and stuff. You just sit on that stuff, and you eat this outside. It's unbelievable.

You go there 2 in the morning. There'd be a line a whole block long. People with strollers, kids

Aaron

At 2 in the morning?

Ian

Drunk people. Yes. 2 in the morning. I will dig up a picture I have. 2 in the morning, strollers, drunk people, everybody together.

It's fantastic.

Aaron

You're telling me at 2 in the morning, I gotta go near near the Hilton and look for a meat cart. Right. And and there's nowhere to sit, So I get I get some I get some meat off a spinny thing. Yeah. And then they're like, good luck.

Go sit somewhere.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

And I'm sitting amongst one of the older sculptures.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. Sculpture.

Aaron

We'll have to we'll have to check the record on that.

Ian

They are. It sounds bullshit.

Aaron

It's it sounds like you're re framing an inconvenience as, like, a charm.

Ian

That that's what I

Aaron

do on it.

Ian

That's true, I guess, in a sense. Yeah. You could also take this, like, back to your hotel. This is kinda like the late night after you've gone out. You stop there.

You know, I've been you know, if you're in the Hilton, you can go back into the Hilton.

Aaron

Late night bite. So that that part of it that part of it is appealing to me. I think we need to back up a second. How do you

Ian

say better.

Aaron

Wait. How do you say the restaurant that I went to that's in the bottom of the Empire State Building? How do you say that? Chipotles? Chipotles?

Yeah.

Ian

How do you say it?

Aaron

Chipotle. Chipotle. Interesting. Chipultes.

Ian

You're probably you're probably right because you're closer to Mexico. You just I'm gonna go

Aaron

with you. Folded. I never expected you to just fold on that one.

Ian

Listen. I'll never say it that way. I can't even remember what you said.

Aaron

30 I heard 30% of your story because I was like, Chipotle's? Chipotle? Chipotle?

Ian

Is these 2 different things?

Aaron

Yeah. What what are you talking about? I don't know the first thing about New York. Yeah.

Ian

Maybe it's a whole different chain.

Aaron

Yeah. I think it might be. Maybe that's maybe that's why Chipotle's Chipotle. Definitely Chipotle.

Ian

But Chipotle

Aaron

I do love a late I do love a late night bite.

Ian

The best in the world for late night bite.

Aaron

I think

Ian

The best.

Aaron

If I'm if I'm gonna get a late night bite, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get pizza by the slice. That's what I'm

Ian

gonna get. Yes. That's that's the one you should start with, of course. Like, that is pizza at, like, 11, 12 at night in New York City. No.

It's just nothing better. Like, it's not old and nasty. It's, like, fresh. It's delicious. They reheat it, make give it that little extra crisp.

Aaron

I am willing to reconsider my position on New York City.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

I will only do so if I come and, like, hang out with people that I know.

Ian

That's the way you gotta do it.

Aaron

If I come up there and you show me around or I think does does Sam Selakoff live in New York City?

Ian

Yes. Mhmm.

Aaron

I I made a hysterical reply to one of his tweets, and he was like, don't make me like you after you trashed New York City. It's like, oh, no. I didn't know you lived there.

Ian

So So

Aaron

if I go out

Ian

there New Yorker.

Aaron

If there are friends there that can show me cool stuff, that's fine. But if I'm just walking around in the heat and the garbage and the scaffolding

Ian

I mean, lessons. Then the cab driver's worst time in New York. You don't wanna be in New York City in the summer. It's stinky. It's the you know, whatever.

Aaron

That's what I'm saying.

Ian

Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't go I wouldn't say let's, you know, go in August. Like, you wanna go you go fall or spring, Just forget it. It's perfect. We're gonna have to do podcast meetup.

That's what we do.

Aaron

That's great. You'll have a

Ian

guest meetup. Right? You come to New York. Listeners can come and hang out. I'll tour you around.

We'll grab Sam, grab a couple other people.

Aaron

And then it's a write off.

Ian

That you're a 100% accurate. That's absolutely a write off. What's better than that? A trip that is a write off is my favorite kind of trip.

Aaron

Yep. I love it. Alright. I'm open I'm open to reconsidering,

Ian

my opinion.

Aaron

So we'll we'll hold it. We'll put a pen in it there.

Ian

Alright. Alright. Should we do some actual, technical? Should we go technical instead of mostly?

Aaron

Yeah. Let's go technical. You wanna talk you wanna talk you wanna talk spreadsheets?

Ian

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Let's talk spreadsheets. So you built a mega collaborative real time spreadsheet thingy, like I did. 4 years ago.

What the hell? Like

Aaron

I did.

Ian

Even know this about you.

Aaron

I know.

Ian

I know.

Aaron

Because this is back when I had, like, 400 followers on Twitter, and I was just tweeting into the void. Was this

Ian

a product? Was this a thing you just built to do?

Aaron

This was an internal this was an internal tool. So I used to work at a at a property tax company, which, you know, property tax is is big. We don't have income tax in Texas. Property tax is very high. And so these companies exist to protest the taxes on behalf of homeowners.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

So, like, that's what we did. Homeowners would hire us, and then we were the registered agents that would go in and the the the problem space is we work across a lot of properties. Right? So we had Right.

Ian

I

Aaron

think when we started, we had, like, 15,000 under management. And when I left, we had, like, 75,000. And so we have all of these homes that we have to to, like, do these protests on. And, you know, when you're working in so I built the entire, like, internal app. So when I started, I was the only developer.

When I left, I think there were, like, 4 or 5. But I built the entire internal app. It's all, you know, traditional Laravel. And, you know, when you're working like, when you're doing like, when somebody calls in and, like, hey, I need to ask about my property, you go to, like, the detail screen. You know, you go to property slash 1, and it's, like, oh, here's everything about your property.

That's fine. When you're like, I need to look across the 500 properties that are assigned to me for this day, going in, you know, screen by screen is not gonna work. Right? Right. We've had solutions for this a long time.

It's called a spreadsheet. Good. But but spreadsheets like, you can export the data out of your Laravel or whatever app and import it into the spreadsheet, But then you're stuck in this you're stuck in this no man's land of the data may be stale, and how do the updates get back to my application. Right?

Ian

Yep. Mhmm.

Aaron

And so you at some point, you just don't trust the data. And once your employees don't trust the data, it's like game over. Because then they never know if they're operating on sure footing or not. And it's like Yeah. You can't go into a a a hearing and be like, Hey, this is the data.

I think it's pretty right. So what I did was I built out, I built out a different view. So you have like the index view where you can kinda look through the UI. You've got the detail view where you can look at a specific, you know, bunch of forms and stuff on a single page. Then you've got the spreadsheet view where you can take, like, a 1000 properties and be like, alright.

This is my work list for today. I'm the Dallas agent on October 16th, and these are the properties I'm gonna work today. Let me throw them into an internal spreadsheet. And then every single cell that I have exposed as the developer, every single cell in there is two way bound to the actual Eloquent Laravel models. So you could go in and say, alright.

The property was listed at, you know, 300,000. I got it cut to 275,000. I'm gonna go in and type 275 into that cell. It's gonna update the entire application everywhere, and I just move down to the next row. Row by row by row.

You just move down, and you never have to leave that screen. It's updated 2 ways automatic. So if 2 agents are working on the same work list, you're seeing their updates pop in. It was it was the coolest thing frankly, one of the coolest things that I've ever I've ever built. And it was so much freaking fun.

Ian

That is, like I mean, did you have, one of the things that would worry me about that exact scenario is, like, do you have, like, confirmations? Like, because, again, in spreadsheets, like, you edit the, you know, the number you put in part part of a number, and then it does it update back or does it not? And, like, how does that work? And if it updates back too early, is it kicking off some other workflow or whatever? Like, that kind of thing.

Aaron

So there were, one of the great things is there were, Laravel validations on each cell. So I could say, like, you know, this cell needs to be a number, and it needs to be between this value and this value. And so if you typed in if you typed in, oh, I got this house cut from 300,000 to 200 or to 29,000, it would be like Right. Wait a second. You got this house cut by 90 whatever percent.

Are you sure? And so it would pop up. Yeah. The client's real happy. We're gonna send them a huge bill.

It would pop up an alert that says, like, this value is out of range. And so, like, that was cool. Another protection was, certain cells could only be updated by certain people. So, like, there was an authorization there was an authorization layer that would say, like, this cell is only updated by these 5 people. And if you tried to change it, it would throw that same error.

And then I just put in, like, a blanket, protection that you couldn't change more than I think it was, like, 30 or 50 cells at once. Mhmm. And so if you accidentally selected the entire column and hit paste, it would be like, ah. I don't think you can do that.

Ian

Yeah. That's yeah. You gotta have those, yeah, mass edit protections. Well, this is really interesting too because, like, what to me, you're kinda talking about, and which I hit a lot in HelpSpot, is this idea of, like because help desk agents, they don't need to usually edit across a 100 tickets necessarily, but they will often wanna see a 100 tickets, especially if they're more, like, managing or things like that. It's like, well, let's see what's going on today.

Like, here's everything that's open, for example. And one of my hugest beefs in all of web development, especially web design, is there's so much good web design out there now, and there's all this, like, templates and it's all beautiful or whatever. And literally, I don't think I've ever once seen any of these sample SaaS apps designed in a way that, like, deals with data density of our real application. Like, they never ever it's like, look at it. It shows 7 rows on the page, and it's like Yes.

Nobody wants 7 rows

Aaron

on the page. Got an avatar next to everyone, like a pretty icon. You're like, bro, I need to see 100 rows on

Ian

this page. I wanna see as much information on this page as I can without scrolling. And Yep. Still have spacing and stuff. Like, I want it to have density, but still be readable and all these things.

And it's like and, obviously, the spreadsheet is, like, the extreme. It's like, whatever. We're giving up even that, and we're just doing, like, maximum density. And Yeah. Especially if you are editing, that makes total sense.

But even in my case where, like, I'm not mass editing generally, but it's still, like, they wanna see a lot. They don't wanna have to scroll, like, 20 pages because, like, a 100 rows is, like, you know, infinitely deep. But, like, they never never ever do you see anybody web design for these things. In the abstract. Right?

Like, it's only real apps that do it, like but the abstract designs never have these things. So

Aaron

Yeah. And so that's when I that's when I was, like, okay. Instead of inventing this from whole cloth, instead of saying, like, alright. I'm just going to figure out how to design, you know, a Tailwind esque UI that gives me max density. Because then when you do that, you get to this point where it's like, alright.

I'm going from read only to I need to edit this one value. And at that point, your host came over. The game has broken. And now you're no longer. Building.

Or something. Yeah. You're no longer dealing with, like, strict, you know, TRTDs where you can get, like, infinite performance because it's just a table on the page. Now you're like, oh, okay. You also have a 1,000, you know, form bindings or a few components or whatever.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

And so I just bailed and went straight spreadsheet. But

Ian

That's awesome.

Aaron

With the ability to control, like, I can still do the you know, maybe the majority of the cells are read only, and certain ones were edit. And so that helped. Like, you can you can just have a read only spreadsheet and just kind of work through it that way. That was really helpful. And then also you still get some visual control.

Like, I could still do color coding for, like, this property is overvalued. This one is under. I could still put links in there. So I still had a little bit of control over, like, the UI. So I could say, hey.

Click on this link, and that'll take you to another screen in the app that shows you all of the evidence that the homeowner sent in. And I could still do, like, computed properties. So instead of, you know, instead of having to, like, calculate everything, I could set up formulas myself on the back end so that when they typed in a value, you know, the 3 cells next to it would populate and that kind of stuff. And it also helps, like so one of the main things I was focused on at that job is process improvement and process automation and, like, letting the computer do what the computer's good at and the humans do what the humans are good at. And so one of the things like, anytime you typed in a final value of, like, what you got the house down to, typically then you'd have to go in and type in, like, alright, and I did it on this date, and it was done by this agent.

And so I was one of the things you can do is, like, alright. Whenever they type in a final value, just put the date and they logged in user as the agent and the date. It's like, why are y'all typing? That was one of the things I came in. I was like, why are everything y'all are doing is manual, and that's just, you know

Ian

Yeah. Just follow

Aaron

along. Businesses that aren't they aren't tech businesses. It's like, yeah. Well, our business is working, dude. So why don't you not complain so much?

It's like, ah, it's okay. That's a good point. But, yeah, that was one of the things that I set up a macro system. So we're like, we're when you do this thing, populate these cells with these values. Right.

And so I think it's I think I could do I wanna try like, a super long form YouTube video, like, 2, 3, 4 hours.

Ian

We were gonna make a YouTube video about this. Yeah.

Aaron

It would be interesting. I'm curious how that would perform.

Ian

Would you, stream yourself for 4 hours, or you would actually No. Record it and edit it down?

Aaron

Record and edit. I found

Ian

It's a big edit.

Aaron

I found this it's a huge edit. I found that streaming is just not valuable. Yeah. It's fun to, like, it's fun to hang out sometimes for a little bit, like, as

Ian

someone community building more than actual video is not gonna perform necessarily.

Aaron

I don't think anybody's gonna watch a 4 hour rambling stream. But do you think they'll watch a 4

Ian

hour produced video?

Aaron

I don't know. They would watch I think they would watch chapters of it, maybe chapters at a time. Around. But the odds are higher

Ian

than a whole project.

Aaron

Yeah. I think it would be fun, and, you know, most most of the hard work is done. Like, the actual figure out building. How to do it. Yeah.

So, yeah, we'll see. I would love to see more spreadsheets in in in the game because In the world. Spreadsheets are

Ian

did you use for the data table? Like, for the spreadsheet? Was that use an a g grid or something, or did

Aaron

you build your own? Or I no. I used one called hands on table.

Ian

Okay. Oh, I

Aaron

think that's It's a it's an AG grid competitor. Mhmm. And I back when I was evaluating, I don't I don't really remember exactly why I picked that one, but I do remember that hands on table had incredible extensibility, in terms of, like, being able to modify cells and hook in hook in to basically every, application or or life cycle event of the spreadsheet, and I used that extensively. So hands on table was amazing. It's kind of expensive maybe.

I think it's, like, $1,000 a developer a year or something. But, like, for a real business, we didn't even think twice about it. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Sure. You're gonna build a spreadsheet for me, and I don't have to freaking do the hard part? Yeah. That sounds great.

Ian

Yeah. And that's not something that's, you know, $500,000 of development to build out, like

Aaron

Yes.

Ian

Oh, sure. Good JavaScript script data table setup. So, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Real businesses, they whip out the credit card easily Yeah.

Quickly for things they need.

Aaron

Yeah. If you need to build an actual spreadsheet and your business isn't building spreadsheets

Ian

Right.

Aaron

Just golly. Just pay for somebody to do that for you.

Ian

Yep. For sure. Cool, man. Well, what else do we have here? I guess we stay on tech here.

What about this static static site generator? I got I got opinions on static sites, so this will be interesting.

Aaron

I'm curious to hear your take. Let me let me set the table, and then you tell me

Ian

Let's set the table.

Aaron

Tell me your opinions. Tony Tony Lee of DevDojo, Laravel community member, just released a new static site generator called, kind of confusingly, called static. So it's gonna be it's gonna be hard it's gonna be hard to Google for, but it's at static.devdojo.com. And from what I can tell, it is, like, a very it it's npm install. So already, it's not a Laravel thing, which I think is interesting.

But it's a static site generator that uses Node to compile HTML into a static website, which is every static site generator. But he's got a lot of cool templates. I think it's a heavy focus on Tailwind, and he's got Website's great. Well, got a beautiful website with some docs and templates and everything already. So I haven't tried it, but I, of course, like everyone, have thought I'm gonna build my own static site generator at some point.

So I saw this, and I know that Tony makes really good products. So first of all, your thoughts on static sites in general? You've got a lot.

Ian

So definitely nothing about this. I haven't tried it. Like, the website looks really cool and looks, you know, whatever. Stack site generator. Great.

I'm not a fan of Stack site generator. I also went through that phase. Like, my personal website is Stack site generator. And, of course, you know, I don't know. To me, it's like you don't use the Stack site generator every day.

Right? It's like you use it for your personal website. You use it for some random thing. And, like, I had a need to update my website a couple weeks ago, and I I hadn't touched it in like 3 years. And like, so I had to go back and figure out what the hell was done.

It didn't it didn't work, of course. Right? So I had to upgrade the thing and get it working on PHP and blah blah blah, whatever. And it's just like, why? Like, if this was just a Laravel app, I would not think at all.

It would Yep. I could do anything I need to do instantly without any extra thought or work. And I just think there's no point in a static site generator. Like, so even if you just need, like, a form on your website, right, it's like, well, now I have to figure out some way to get a form. I have to use some form service or whatever, like, because I can't even just have a form.

And also, like, what what the ostensible kind of is that word?

Aaron

That's pretty good. Yeah. You went for it, and that was it.

Ian

That's it. Right? Reason for the static generator essentially is for, like, speed, but that's not even really a good reason because you first of all, like, most Laravel sites can be fast enough for most websites on the 5 dollar Linode or whatever. But also, you can just have Cloudflare in front and just tell it to cache forever. Like, that's what I actually do with helpspot.com.

It's like every page is cached forever even though it's allowed. And then they just serve it off the edge of, you know, 500 locations 2 feet away from the customer. And it's instant, and it's static. And then whatever. Or you clear clash when you update?

So yeah. I don't know. To me, it's kind of it's like one of these cool things geeks love because it seems like it's useful, but then in fact, it's more work and Yes. Like, the technologies outpaced it in terms of CDNs and what they can do and things like that. So but I don't know.

What's your take?

Aaron

Well, I will steal man the other side, but I happen to fully agree with you, because yeah. I'll tell you what my site is running on. But I think the the steel man of the other side is not very strong, honestly, so we'll call it a bronze man. It's like you can deploy it anywhere for free. I feel like that is the appeal of the static site

Ian

is GitHub Pages and whatever.

Aaron

GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, you know, whatever. You can put it anywhere for free. And if maybe you're an open source project or maybe you're creating dozens of sites, like, being free is it matters. But

Ian

I guess man,

Aaron

that was a that was a bad steal, man. But also,

Ian

you give a $5 Linode with $20,000,000,000 extra money on it and, like

Aaron

okay. So the reason I can't steelman is because my site, my aaronfrancis.com site is just a Laravel app. Just just as a bit. Becomes Laravel app just search some views. I don't even know if I have anything that is not static.

Like, that wouldn't work under a static regime.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

But it you know why you know why it's this way? Because it's easy. I always remember how to update it. It's just I know. Freaking markdown in Laravel, and if I wanna add, like, a if I wanna add a redirect, so I think aaronfranzys.com/youtube, like, goes to my YouTube channel.

I just put a I just put a a redirect in the in the routes file. Right. I'll have to figure out Netlify's redirect, JSON, whatever. Don't care about that. Don't care about that.

The other thing is I just I just push it to Laravel Vapor, and I don't worry about it. And at the end of the month oh, love vapor. We love vapor. At the end of the month, I look, and I'm like, oh, wow. I spent 8¢ on my personal site.

Oh, I'll have to skip a coffee or something. Right. But, yeah, it's just I don't I I don't find I don't find the the value to be very like, the amount of time I would have to invest to figure out a static site generator

Ian

Right.

Aaron

I'm just like, I could just keep running this Laravel app that I've shifted from Laravel 6 all the way up to 10, and it's like it just it just works. I don't care.

Ian

Exactly. Yep. I mean, yeah, that's exactly what happened to me. It's like, I'm on, yep, the static site generator, and then that was broken. And then Netlify was broken because, like,

Aaron

it was,

Ian

like, 4 years ago when everybody was like Netlify. I'm like, well, let me see if this thing's, like, actually something real and useful and important. And, obviously, I decided and discovered it was not. Yep. So it's like, okay.

Like and then, of course, that was broken because I had to update something or you know? So it becomes like a 2 hour process to, like, do the tiniest update in the world to our website. So, yeah, everything all of our other, like, business sites or everything are all just Laravel apps. I mean, now with, like, Folio, it's like it's like really it makes it even easier. I haven't actually used Folio yet, but but, yeah, now it's You

Aaron

under you understand that it will make things easier. Yes.

Ian

It'll make things easier. When I redo Ian landsman.com, someday, that will be much nicer to just pop those in those folders and be done with it. So, yeah. Yeah. So I think we're on the same page there.

Aaron

But if you But if you don't If you love static site generators

Ian

I know.

Aaron

This one looks pretty this looks pretty amazing. Sorry, Tony, for the for the for the segment on static generators. We should have just done a segment without bringing up his thing. Yeah. I do so.

Ian

His thing looks awesome. If you're into it, it looks cool.

Aaron

Yeah. Tony Tony makes good stuff. Maybe. This one looks awesome. If you're not fundamentally opposed to the core concept of static site generators, use this one.

This one looks great.

Ian

Yeah. So Like, this is what's wonderful about the Internet. We've kinda forgotten that, like, you know, whatever. It can be stuff for everybody out there. Yes.

And it doesn't have to be for you and there's people who are obviously super into it. Like, people are into React or they're into Vue or they're into whatever, these other things. And that's why there's all these options.

Aaron

So Yeah. So good job, Tony. My bad.

Ian

No. My bad.

Aaron

Yeah. That's right. It's My

Ian

I'll take I'll take the heat on this one. Yeah. You don't want this much heat, man. You don't

Aaron

want this I don't I can't handle this

Ian

much heat. Bad for the brand. Yeah. Alright. So we got one one more topic officially on the docket.

Aaron

This

Ian

is all you, man. I gotta get It's

Aaron

all me.

Ian

Another hot take coming in, I think. You claim no hot takes. We've had a lot of beef with you on the Internet this week. You say no hot takes right in your profile, and you have a lot of hot takes lately. Let's just say that.

Aaron

Here's the here's the deal. The hot the, the no hot takes is per medium. Right? So on Twitter on Twitter out. Yeah.

On Twitter, it's no hot takes because the medium is so constricted that nuance is not available. Right?

Ian

Right. Right.

Aaron

So on YouTube and long form, hot takes are more allowable because We have discussed this. Yes. Yeah. It allows for nuance. So

Ian

Little room little room to breathe out over here.

Aaron

Yeah. So here is the, here's the official card as it stands on the next podcast outline written by me. Tunnels are good, comma, we should have more tunnels, and that's it.

Ian

I did laugh out loud when I heard that. When I read it, I was like, oh, tunnels are good.

Aaron

Tunnels are good. We should have more tunnels. Okay.

Ian

It's not the hottest of hot takes to be fair. No.

Aaron

No. No. It's a very it's a very lukewarm take.

Ian

That's these things.

Aaron

Who's gonna argue?

Ian

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

Who's gonna argue? Good. Tunnels are good. Here's here's where people are gonna lose their god dang minds is when I say, I think we should have autonomous vehicles in tunnels.

Ian

Okay. Here we go. Here's what he's looking for. Before before the day Elon plan.

Aaron

Yeah. Before Dave Hicking says, you've just invented subways or trains, but worse. Ship. Because that's what that's what people are gonna say. It's like, wow.

Congratulations to this tech bro who has invented subways, but a worse version. Like okay. Alright. So here's first of all, tunnels tunnels as as they stand alone are amazing. Tunnels totally rule.

If you haven't watched tunnel YouTube, you gotta watch tunnel YouTube.

Ian

Tunnels are I love tunnels.

Aaron

There are some really, really great channels that are, like, purely engineering channels. It's, like, done by tunnel companies in I think they're all in Europe. I haven't seen any good American tunnel videos, but that, like, show how they dig tunnels, like, up mountains to do, you know, to run stuff. And it's, like, oh, this is incredibly cool. And as a claustrophobe, terrifying.

If you watch some of these videos about, like, the people that actually dig the tunnels

Ian

Yeah. And

Aaron

they're in these they're in these machines

Ian

I love the tunnel diggers, man. Those are Oh my gosh. That's tunnel digger.

Aaron

Oh, dude. That is the most terrify I was I had sweaty hands the whole time I was watching. It was so scary. But the way that they, like, inject concrete into certain parts to prevent, you know, to prevent the soil from collapsing and the way that they, like, push forward and then reset and then push for it's very, very, very cool. So, anyway, tunnels tunnels as, like, a platonic ideal, great.

Love it. Gotta have it.

Ian

Love tunnels. Keeps the over keeps the land free for other usage and not mucking

Aaron

up everything

Ian

above ground. Yep. I like that.

Aaron

So here's here's my here's my hottest of hot takes on the future of mobility. Unfortunately, America has been designed for vehicles. Observation of the world whoops. My current observation of the world whoops. My current observation of America is, it's been designed for vehicles.

So if we hold that to be true, the question is, like, what what do we do about that?

Ian

Right.

Aaron

If if we had the political wherewithal to get trains all over the country, that would be awesome. That would be super duper cool.

Ian

I do love a train.

Aaron

We've been work we've been working on, like, a Texas Austin Houston train

Ian

I mean, that's the most obvious train in the world.

Aaron

For, like, 20 years. Literally.

Ian

Have, like there's, like, tons of land. Like, just build it. What? There's

Aaron

nobody there's nobody to negotiate with. It's just us. And so I just have come I have come to believe that we don't have the political willpower or desire to, like, build trains, and part of me thinks because the average American thinks trains are European.

Ian

I do think yeah, or at least

Aaron

There's like a sense. Right?

Ian

Me. It's more of it's also like the, like, car is such an American thing. I

Aaron

mean, it's

Ian

an identity

Aaron

with the

Ian

car, right, that, like, is so strong in America that I do feel like that is hard to overcome. And, like, and, like, if you go the next level up of, like, autonomy and independence is, like, kind of this core American attribute. And, you know, the car is very independent. Like I can take it literally anywhere I want to the foot, right where I wanna be. Whereas like train obviously can't do that.

You know, you're gonna have to walk 5 minutes or whatever and, like, it's not the same thing. So

Aaron

Yes. Totally agree. Same same coin, different sides. Trains are European. Cars are American.

Is that stupid? I don't know. I I don't care. I don't care. I just think that it's true.

Right? I think that it's true that Americans think you can't you can take my car away when you take my life away. I feel like that's what Americans think.

Ian

You know what's funny about that is that Europeans if you ask most Europeans, they're all about the airplanes. They are not about the trains. They are all about the, like, there's $29 planes everywhere,

Aaron

and we

Ian

take $29 planes. And we don't we don't go through the channel. We're not taking the train across the continent. We just fly everywhere for $29, then they're actually Interesting. Trains are for the tourists.

But I

Aaron

took the channel like a chump, apparently.

Ian

Oh, no. I took the channel too. I was

Aaron

like, y'all have trains to go underwater. Yeah. But, okay. So I think what I think what I would I think what could be the future of autonomy and what maybe should be is we should have autonomous vehicles Mhmm. That run-in an underground network of tunnels.

Because here's what you get from that. Here's what you get from that. You get to reclaim the surface. Right? Right.

So you get to reclaim the surface for the humans, which is where the humans should be. It's like walking around in nature, not trying to avoid a 6 lane car, like a 6 lane road through your neighborhood, which is where we're at now, which is stupid. But you also get the last mile problem solved. Right? So I could, you know, I could take my 4 runner and pop in the tunnel here and then pop out, you know, 30 miles away at my parents' house and then navigate directly to my parents' front door.

So we can't get rid of all roads. Right? We should get rid of, in my opinion, the major, like, major thoroughfares should all run underground. You get infinite stacking. You don't have to you just go deep as you want.

Ian

Keep going.

Aaron

Yeah. You keep going. You never stop. Trains one of the big problems with trains, they're always stopping. I'm like, I'm not stopping here.

Keep going. Right. I wanna go to the next stop. And they're always like, well, I gotta let the other people off. I'm like, it's about me, not about the other

Ian

people. Yep.

Aaron

And that's what you get with cars. You just you never have to stop. You pop out at your front house.

Ian

Big flag back here or something.

Aaron

Yes. Yeah. Exactly.

Ian

Okay. Yeah. I'm with you.

Aaron

So and then autonomous vehicles have gotten pretty good already in the chaotic, like, real world. Imagine how good they'll be constrained by tunnels. It's just, like, just don't hit the walls or anything in front of you. Just keep going. So there is, there is a car manufacturer or, like, sub manufacturer.

It might be a Chevy, subsidiary called ZOOX, z o o x.

Ian

I love it.

Aaron

One of these it's one of these vehicles that doesn't have a steering wheel, doesn't have a front seat, back seat. It's just like honestly, it's like a train car or train cabin or tram, where the seats face each other, and it has, like, you know, 4 to 6 seating capacity. And I think that is gonna be the future. Basically, we'll all get in our own little our own little pods that'll go into this tunnel network, And then we'll still get to reuse all country roads, rural roads, last mile roads, because we can't fundamentally rearchitect the cities of America. However, there's one city that's being built from scratch called something in Tempe, Arizona.

Cul de sac. It's called Cul

Ian

de Sac. About this.

Aaron

It's great. They're building it from scratch to be car free, and that that is honestly what I would I would love to live in a city like that. Yeah. But there we just don't have, so far, the desire to rebuild our cities.

Ian

So Right.

Aaron

Tunnels tunnels are good. We should have more tunnels.

Ian

I like

Aaron

I like

Ian

this take. I like this take. I mean, the obvious the first of all, the very obvious thing to bring this full circle is there's no city in the country, and probably the world, that has more tunnels than New York City. So New York City should be your very favorite place on earth. Let's just start with that.

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Ian

Tons of tunnels, multilayered. We'll go to Grand Central. Hundreds of tunnels coming in all at one spot. That's very cool.

Aaron

Yeah. That's kinda cool.

Ian

Yeah. I mean, I I agree with you. I agree with you.

Aaron

Your voice your voice your voice principle. Betrayed you. You reached you reached the register where it's like, I don't agree with you.

Ian

No. I do I do tend to agree. I mean, I do think you're never gonna build all these trains. Like, forget it. The trains aren't moving.

Like, the northeast has trains, and they're cool. And I take them, because it's old and the trains were here first, but just don't see being able to build. Maybe there'll be some big high speed lines at some point between major cities, but I don't think you're ever going to get more than that where like in the city, there's, like, this I know. Network of trains, like New York has. Yeah.

So, yeah. So without that, and I think the going I mean, the autonomous vehicle, the thing to me is, like, people talk about it like it's gonna be here really soon, and I just don't know. I mean, like, Tesla built their own tunnel, and they have ostensibly the best autonomy. And in those tunnels, they have humans driving you around in those tunnels in Vegas. They do.

Like you know? I don't know. The the the whole I mean, I haven't gone through it. I wanna go through it when I go to Vegas next month, but it looks very claustrophobic and not an entertaining ride. So, yeah, I think you kinda have to get the autonomy to that place where it's truly autonomous.

And then, like, yes. You don't even know it's, like, there's just screens on the inside of the car. Like, you don't even see you're whatever. It's a beautiful sunset you're watching while you fly through this little tunnel thing or whatever. So I could be down with all that.

I mean, I think eventually we get there, but I don't know if we're gonna get there. I think it's gonna be a while. Like, I don't think it's gonna be, like, when your kids are driving. Even though I know it's your plan, but I don't know.

Aaron

I think my kids I think I still hold to the facts or to the belief that my kids will not have to drive because the cars will be autonomous. I do think that they will still exist on the surface of the Earth, and they'll have

Ian

to go on the surface. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. I mean, there is,

Ian

like, these other things too. Like, tunneling is, like I mean, it's obviously probably, I would think, quite expensive, to tunnel compared to surface roads. You have, like, security stuff with tunnels. When you have, like, 20 layers deep of tunnels, there's obviously people who might try to collapse those tunnels and things of that nature you have to worry about. But, yeah, I in principle, I enjoy the idea.

I definitely think people would want that last mile aspect Yes. And people don't like, you know, like, last night, I could've taken the train. But the thing is where this was in Lincoln Center, which is, like, in 62nd Street or whatever. So, like, you have to take the train I have to go to, like, the train station in my town, which is, like, the wrong direction. And then I have to, like, go an hour and wait.

No. It's almost 2 hours on the train because it makes every stop because on a Sunday, there's no express trains. So I make every stop for 20 stops, the whole line down, then I gotta get on the subway or take a taxi to get up to where I need to be. So it's like a 3 hour trip each way if I've done that. Whereas if I drive, it was hour and a half.

So, like, okay. I'm gonna drive. So, yeah, there is that problem of, like, the other train gets you in the zone. That's doesn't get you where where you need to be. And am I gonna be with a 10 year

Aaron

old Right.

Ian

On a train at 3 in the morning to get home? Like, you know, it's like or we could be home at midnight or whatever. And yeah. So that part is a bummer, but I do like tunnels. I do like the idea about autonomous vehicles.

Also, the other problem with autonomous vehicles is, like, the bar is gonna be so much incredibly higher than for humans. Right? Like, we're all fine with, like, humans going around drunk killing people all the time. Not that we're actually fine with it. Right?

But, like, this is like

Aaron

Speak for yourself.

Ian

Like, I think society has I

Aaron

just wanna go on the record and say I'm not fine with that.

Ian

I'm not fine with it either, but we have all accepted it. Right? Like, there is not a breathalyzer in our cars. Right? There is not a speed limiter in our cars.

Like, we have all these things that could easily

Aaron

have a gun. That.

Ian

We could totally do all these things. We don't do any of them to make things safer. Right? If anything, the opposite. Right?

Here's your Tesla. It goes 0 to 60 in 2 seconds. Why do I need a car that goes 0 to 60 in 2 seconds? But but it does it. Right?

So we're going the the opposite direction on safety, really, in terms of cars. And it's like, okay. But you know when the autonomous cars kill a family or mow down somebody on the side of the road or whatever. Like, even though I have no doubt as somebody in technology that these cars will be way, way safer than any human could drive, But the bar is gonna have to be really super hot. Like, they're gonna have to be so incredibly safe before people are like, yeah.

I'm gonna buy that and I'm never gonna drive. I'm not gonna have a steering wheel and I'm gonna trust this thing. Isn't gonna drive me into the river or whatever. The bar is just, yeah, super, super high.

Aaron

Like, airplane and the automobile. Gonna happen there, I think I think Tesla and I think any any company that manufactures an autonomous vehicle is going to end up self insuring them. So you you won't have like, Ian Landsman won't have insurance on your autonomous vehicle. You will pay a fee or whatever or or not, but Tesla will hold insurance on that. And, like, Berkshire Hathaway will back it up and they'll buy it Because that's gonna be the way that I think that's gonna be the way that they they push the cars out.

Be like, listen. We know that your state like, we know that somebody's gonna try to sue the pants off of you if this thing ever crashes. You don't have to worry about it. Like, you're insured. Your vehicle itself is insured because you're not the driver.

We're the driver. So I think that's that's how that's

Ian

gonna happen. Don't know if, like, as the person buying the v I guess, will people buy vehicles, though, or is everything just, like, why do you buy a vehicle?

Aaron

Rentals. Yeah.

Ian

Fleets of autonomous vehicles or whatever. But I still think as the person buying it, you're gonna have a big hurdle of, like, do I trust this thing?

Aaron

Do I trust it? Yes.

Ian

Yeah. To, like, drive me. Like, whether I'm insured or not. Like, I still have to trust it to get me. Yeah.

Whatever. If I hit somebody else, so that's like an insurance thing. But if it kills me, that's a me thing. Right? So, yeah.

I don't know. Well well, I think we'll probably get there, but I don't know. I don't know. Well, I was like, I'm gonna see how soon. I know I have a friend who could use that whammo waymo, whatever the, the Google thing in San Francisco, he loves it.

He's like, he he's like, takes like, he just universally only uses that. He's like, it's the best thing ever. Hasn't been scared yet. So Cruise has self

Aaron

driving Cruise has self driving vehicles in Dallas now.

Ian

Doug? Really? Oh, wow.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

Have you taken one?

Aaron

I have not. No.

Ian

You should try one.

Aaron

I know. I think they're unsupervised in San Francisco, but I think in Dallas and Austin, there's still a driver sitting or a person sitting in the front seat.

Ian

Interesting. Yeah. Well, I hope we get there because I am sick of driving. I hate, like, last night. I'm tired.

I'm like, I could get in this car, drive tired home at midnight. Like, I would much rather push the button and let the robot drive me home. So

Aaron

I agree.

Ian

I'm looking forward to this tunneled automated future.

Aaron

Yeah. So write write us in. Let us know what you think about tunnels. I'll I'll share some tunnel videos with you.

Ian

Yes. Yeah. Oh, that's a good idea. Well, definitely, let's put some tunnel videos in the show notes.

Aaron

Yeah. There's one specifically. I think I tweeted about it one time, and it was, like, 45 minute video on tunnels,

Ian

and it

Aaron

just was transfixed the

Ian

whole time.

Aaron

So we'll put that one we'll put that one in the show notes for sure.

Ian

Sounds good. Alright, man. Have

Aaron

a good week.

Ian

Yes. Everybody follow us, mostly tech pod on x, mostly technical dot com, and mostlytechnicalpodcast@gmail.com. I was glad to see we got an email this week, and, so keep those coming if you have any feedback. And, we'll see you next week.

Aaron

See you. Bye.