Speaker 1: Hey, folks, welcome back to another episode of Ruby Rogues.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna let y'all know, since this is the
Speaker 1: second Ruby Rogues episode in a row, that is just
Speaker 1: me let y'all know kind of what's been going on.
Speaker 1: So in uh, and then I'm gonna talk a bit
Speaker 1: about Miniswan and the community and things like that, because
Speaker 1: I'm seeing a lot of things that are concerning me there.
Speaker 1: Let me jump in and talk a little bit first
Speaker 1: about just where things are. So I wound up getting
Speaker 1: a full time working at Price Picks in March, and
Speaker 1: that has taken up a lot of time and and
Speaker 1: so I've put a lot of effort in there. And
Speaker 1: between that and all the stuff going on with my
Speaker 1: kids in school and and all that stuff, I haven't
Speaker 1: been as good about scheduling guests to come on the show.
Speaker 1: And Valentino got a new job as well. He's not
Speaker 1: a doctor anymore, and so anyway, it's just there's been
Speaker 1: a lot going on, and so we haven't been as
Speaker 1: diligent about recording. But I want to get back into this.
Speaker 1: I actually intend talked about this on another show just
Speaker 1: out Ruby Tip of the Day, do some stuff about
Speaker 1: AI and Ruby and so keep an eye out for
Speaker 1: that stuff. But yeah, so there will be an episode
Speaker 1: every week, even if it's just me for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 1: But I have started inviting guests, and so we're going
Speaker 1: to see if we can get some of the folks
Speaker 1: on who are talking about interesting stuff or doing interesting
Speaker 1: stuff in the Ruby community. In the meantime, I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk today a little bit about miniswan. So if
Speaker 1: you're newer to the Ruby community or I haven't heard
Speaker 1: the term before, Miniswuan stands for matts is nice, and
Speaker 1: so we are nice. And when I joined the Ruby community,
Speaker 1: that was kind of a mantra that all cited as
Speaker 1: one of the things they really loved about the Ruby
Speaker 1: community was that they would join the community and people
Speaker 1: would embrace them and invite them to be part of things,
Speaker 1: and would be excited to have them around and would
Speaker 1: help them out and things like that. And over the year,
Speaker 1: feels like some people have need to embrace that, and
Speaker 1: we've also had other elements of the community that have,
Speaker 1: let's just put in a friendly way and say they haven't.
Speaker 1: Some of this is down to kind of the political
Speaker 1: climate that we find ourselves in right so some people
Speaker 1: just don't want to associate with people on the other
Speaker 1: side of the political aisle, at least here in the US.
Speaker 1: I have tried to keep my politics out of the
Speaker 1: shows for the most part. I mean it's cropped up.
Speaker 1: I got canceled on Twitter for it in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, you're not listening to hear
Speaker 1: what I think about social issues. You're not here to
Speaker 1: hear what I have to say about Utah or US politicians. Right,
Speaker 1: You're not here to get my take on some of
Speaker 1: these other issues. Right. You're here because we all love Ruby,
Speaker 1: and we all want to level up with Ruby. We
Speaker 1: all want to learn to write code better. We all
Speaker 1: want to, you know, remain employed. I'm trying to think,
Speaker 1: you know what other things you know, write code that
Speaker 1: we love, build businesses, all of that stuff, Right, And
Speaker 1: so if I'm talking about that stuff and I'm providing
Speaker 1: you with things that help you with those areas, then
Speaker 1: I feel like that's you know, that that's the powerful thing,
Speaker 1: that's that's where the payoff is. But if I'm out
Speaker 1: there and I'm saying, well, I don't want to talk
Speaker 1: to so and so because they don't align with me politically,
Speaker 1: then that's not in the spirit of Minnsuan, But it's
Speaker 1: also what does that have to do with you and
Speaker 1: I loving Ruby and having that in common? And so
Speaker 1: let's just speak about this for a minute, because I
Speaker 1: want to talk about a few areas where I'm seeing
Speaker 1: this crop ups. One of them is there's a fairly
Speaker 1: large Ruby discord out there that I've seen them ban
Speaker 1: or otherwise pile on people because of their stances that
Speaker 1: they've taken on various things. And you know, usually it's
Speaker 1: not something has to do with the Ruby community, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, if so, let's back up for a minute, Right,
Speaker 1: So last week I talked about the situation with Ruby
Speaker 1: e gems and Budler and things like that, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, apparently the ruby gems and Butler repos have
Speaker 1: moved over to the Ruby organization instead of Ruby Central, right,
Speaker 1: So Ruby Core team's going to manage those, which is awesome,
Speaker 1: right because it kind of takes a lot of this
Speaker 1: out of the hands of people that some of the
Speaker 1: community doesn't trust anymore. And the other thing is is
Speaker 1: that they're kind of more core to the Ruby core
Speaker 1: than they are to the Ruby Ruby Central can hopefully
Speaker 1: just hopefully just can continue to maintain ruby gems dot
Speaker 1: org and you know, we can tamp down some of
Speaker 1: the concerns there, right, so then they can just be
Speaker 1: good stewards of that, they can keep it running and
Speaker 1: everybody can be happy and move along. Right. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so we've seen a lot of anger and frustration and concern, right,
Speaker 1: and to my thinking, right, a lot of that is
Speaker 1: appropriate to our community because it's like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: we saw Andre log onto those servers when he shouldn't have, right,
Speaker 1: and so we can express concern about that. Right now.
Speaker 1: I'm not going after him for anything that has to
Speaker 1: do with anything outside of the Ruby community, because that's
Speaker 1: not really relevant to what we're talking about. But I
Speaker 1: can express concern over whether or not I feel like
Speaker 1: I can trust the guy based on his behavior, Right,
Speaker 1: you know, look at some of the other things that
Speaker 1: are going on out there and recognize that, you know,
Speaker 1: if somebody's not being a good steward of the gem
Speaker 1: that they write, right, and so that they'll open up
Speaker 1: security vulnerability or you know, there's a team out there
Speaker 1: that maintains a framework or something you use, right, and
Speaker 1: you you find that they're hero days and then they're
Speaker 1: not taking right. So all of those things I feel
Speaker 1: like are appropriate for us to call out and say, hey,
Speaker 1: look right, you're not you're not being a responsible actor community.
Speaker 1: As far as ideas and issues and practice go, the
Speaker 1: community has a reasonable expectation that you will uphold. Right.
Speaker 1: But again, a lot of that really just boils down
Speaker 1: to the code and things like that now into personal conduct.
Speaker 1: I also, I don't I'm not opposed to saying, hey,
Speaker 1: look you know uh Miniswan, for example, we're going to
Speaker 1: try each other with respect, We're going to be kind
Speaker 1: to each other, We're gonna we're going to help each
Speaker 1: other where we can, right, and having those be values
Speaker 1: that we appropriately affect within the community. Right. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I see Coft right where it says, hey, don't don't
Speaker 1: treat people poorly because of their sexual orientation or this
Speaker 1: or that or the other. Right, And I would like
Speaker 1: to add political leanings to that. Right, So we don't
Speaker 1: discriminate people, we don't bully people, we don't mistreat people.
Speaker 1: We don't ban people because they think differently from us,
Speaker 1: or because they behave differently from us. Now, if you're
Speaker 1: coming into my community and you're being a total jerk off, right,
Speaker 1: You're you're just mistreating people, and you know that does
Speaker 1: maybe reflect you know, some value that you hold. Then yeah,
Speaker 1: that's behavior that I don't have to tolerate. And I
Speaker 1: can say no, you're out right, but the reality is
Speaker 1: is then I have that code of conduct to fall
Speaker 1: back on and say, you should have known that if
Speaker 1: you started mistreating people, I was going to kick you out.
Speaker 1: I want to call out one thing in particular. So
Speaker 1: I was at a Rocky Mountain Ruby conference a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago, and there were a couple of talks where
Speaker 1: they talked about their communities, and I'm going, yeah, and
Speaker 1: then I love that, right, I love that, Hey, you
Speaker 1: know we've got this library or this you know. One
Speaker 1: of them was Hanami and dry RB, right, and they
Speaker 1: do cool stuff, interesting work. But the guy up there said, yeah,
Speaker 1: and we put together this community. And then he basically said,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna use some politically charged language here again,
Speaker 1: I see it from both sides, and so I'll call
Speaker 1: it out from the other side in a minute. But
Speaker 1: you know, they basically said no Nazis, transfoms, or fat
Speaker 1: phobes or fascists right in the channel, and I was
Speaker 1: sitting there thinking to myself, well, how does somebody know
Speaker 1: if they meet your definition of a Nazi, transphobe or fascist? Right?
Speaker 1: You know. On the other side, you know a lot
Speaker 1: of times we hear what snowflakes or libtards or you know,
Speaker 1: things like that, and again, you know, not helpful, right,
Speaker 1: And again it is down to, hey, you know what
Speaker 1: kind of people do we want? And for me, it
Speaker 1: has a whole lot more to do with your behavior
Speaker 1: in the community. Right, So just to go back to
Speaker 1: the nazi and transphobe and fascist for minerals, those terms, right,
Speaker 1: So what does define a Nazi? Like? How do you
Speaker 1: how do you determine if somebody who joins your community
Speaker 1: meets that definition and is not welcome? Right? As you know,
Speaker 1: I see some people and it seems like they would
Speaker 1: categorize that as you know, maybe people who voted for
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, or people who have conservative politically means, or
Speaker 1: who support Republican candidates in any way. But what I
Speaker 1: find is that there are a lot of people out
Speaker 1: there that I talk to that Donald Trump kind of
Speaker 1: drives him nuts, but they voted for the guy because
Speaker 1: they thought that the economics would be better, or maybe
Speaker 1: they don't buy into some of the premises or messages
Speaker 1: where people are trying to make him out to be
Speaker 1: you know, hateful or this or that or the other, right,
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, no, I see him doing the
Speaker 1: things that you're calling out as evil for reasons that
Speaker 1: I think are reasonable. And so to me, the concern
Speaker 1: over the idea of calling somebody out as a Nazi
Speaker 1: is that what you're saying is is that fundamentally they
Speaker 1: want to harm people of the specific race or religion, right,
Speaker 1: or that you know, they're looking and to some kind
Speaker 1: of purity with the Aryan purity thing that the Nazis
Speaker 1: did or something like that, and so, and it's got
Speaker 1: this historical context and so it it it doesn't have
Speaker 1: a good definition. And if you're concerned with, okay, well
Speaker 1: you know these people have some issue with some other
Speaker 1: group of people, well then just call that out in
Speaker 1: your you know, in your code of conduct. And instead
Speaker 1: of saying Nazis, say look, we don't mistreat people based
Speaker 1: on race, we don't mistreat people based on religion. Right.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing with transphobes, right. So the term
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a little more directed, because if
Speaker 1: you're mistreating people because they're transgender, right, and I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody gets behind that, or at least no reasonable
Speaker 1: people do, right, I think again, going back to Minnisuan,
Speaker 1: we want people to feel welcome, you know, just to
Speaker 1: put kind of a finer point on it, right. I'm
Speaker 1: a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Speaker 1: day Saints. A lot of people call us Mormons, right,
Speaker 1: and the church specifically teaches that transgender surgeries and transgender
Speaker 1: stuff is just you know, it's not okay, it's not
Speaker 1: in line with what God teaches us. Right now. The
Speaker 1: church is also pretty explicit about, hey, look, we're kind
Speaker 1: of people who don't believe what we believe, and we're
Speaker 1: kind of people who you know, don't act in line
Speaker 1: with our beliefs. Right. Another one of our beliefs is
Speaker 1: that we don't drink alcohol or coffee or tea. And
Speaker 1: you know, again, I don't go and you know, shun
Speaker 1: people because they drink alcohol, right, just like I don't
Speaker 1: go and shun people who are transgender. A couple of
Speaker 1: the shows on this network, including Ruby Rogues, have had
Speaker 1: transgender hosts, and you know, they were great hosts. They
Speaker 1: talked about stuff they knew. There's stuff they were you know,
Speaker 1: knowledgeable and friendly and helpful, and that's what I wanted
Speaker 1: in a host and so I had them around. Right now,
Speaker 1: do am I going to sign off on their lifestyle
Speaker 1: and say that that's the right way to live? No? Right,
Speaker 1: because I don't believe it. But am I going to
Speaker 1: mistreat them? No? Why? Because they obviously have a different
Speaker 1: value system than I do, and so they're going to
Speaker 1: make those decisions based on whatever it is that they believe.
Speaker 1: And you know, and so we can have discussions about
Speaker 1: what we believe is fundamental truth without beating each other
Speaker 1: up verbally and without mistreating people and still walk away
Speaker 1: as friends. And that's a lot of what's in the
Speaker 1: spirit of Miniswan. But you know, if somebody doesn't want
Speaker 1: to talk about it, I'm going to I'm not going
Speaker 1: to force them to talk about it. I don't have
Speaker 1: to write. I have plenty of stuff going on in
Speaker 1: my life to where I don't need to worry about
Speaker 1: what they're doing. Right, And you know, if it's my
Speaker 1: kids or somebody else that I have that kind of
Speaker 1: a relationhi ship with, then I can have that conversation
Speaker 1: with them, but I have that kind of relationship with
Speaker 1: them too, and so I just I get really frustrated
Speaker 1: with this. The other one is fascist, right, And again,
Speaker 1: you know it's like, you know, I think it's kind
Speaker 1: of become this code for authoritarian authoritarian or you know,
Speaker 1: somebody who kind of moves a little bit beyond what
Speaker 1: has been the norm and does things that makes people uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: And what I again, what I want to push on
Speaker 1: there is, you know, I would be much more comfortable
Speaker 1: if we're calling out the behaviors that we don't want
Speaker 1: to see, right. And so it's like, again, you know,
Speaker 1: you're not going to do these kinds of things. You're
Speaker 1: not going to attack these kinds of people, at least
Speaker 1: within our community right now. If you're going out and
Speaker 1: supporting other political movements or you're speaking in public or
Speaker 1: things like that, then you know, do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: But within the community, if if you're going to be
Speaker 1: mistreating these people, then you're not welcome, right, And and
Speaker 1: I would rather make that distinction then go off into
Speaker 1: this other stuff, right. And it's the same thing for
Speaker 1: going the other way, right. So I mean, I'll confess
Speaker 1: that I'm very politically and socially conservative, right. So, and
Speaker 1: I talk to people that kind of on my side
Speaker 1: of the aisle quite a bit because I'm involved in
Speaker 1: politics here in Utah, and some of them make out
Speaker 1: that well, if these you know, liberal people weren't such morons,
Speaker 1: they would understand how this stuff works. And I look
Speaker 1: at them and I go, well, look, you know, the
Speaker 1: thing is is that I know a lot of liberal
Speaker 1: people who are really really intelligent people, right, and they
Speaker 1: care deeply about other people, and they're they're looking for
Speaker 1: solutions to these places where they see people suffer. And
Speaker 1: so I can't just write them off as idiots, right,
Speaker 1: because I know that they're not. I know that they're
Speaker 1: intelligent people. I know that they have, you know, some
Speaker 1: values that I share, right, because I don't want to
Speaker 1: see people suffer either. And so for me, I have
Speaker 1: to look at it and go, Okay, well, then what
Speaker 1: are the fundamental things that are different between me and
Speaker 1: them and what we believe? Right? What do I believe
Speaker 1: that they don't or what do they believe that I don't?
Speaker 1: That fundamentally shifts the argument for them, right, placing more
Speaker 1: weight on than I am. What things are they hearing?
Speaker 1: That I'm not hearing what things am I hearing that
Speaker 1: they're not hearing, right, And if we can get down
Speaker 1: to that, then it starts to make sense. And I
Speaker 1: can see the a, the humanity and the other people,
Speaker 1: and B understand that, you know what, they may vote
Speaker 1: different from me and may vote for things that I
Speaker 1: think are scary. Right, It's like, hey, look, you know,
Speaker 1: if we go all the way down that road, you know,
Speaker 1: talk about your tutalitarianism or authoritarianism. I think we get
Speaker 1: way down that road and it gets freaky scary. But
Speaker 1: I can see where they're coming from with that stuff,
Speaker 1: and then we can have a conversation about it, and
Speaker 1: I don't have to hate them for doing things that,
Speaker 1: you know, enable some of these movements that I honestly
Speaker 1: think are evil, you know, because at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, yeah, there may be somebody up the chain
Speaker 1: that's giving them bad information on purpose to gain power,
Speaker 1: or maybe the people up the chain believe it too. Right.
Speaker 1: I think there are both kinds out there. I think
Speaker 1: they're both kinds on both sides or all sides, I guess,
Speaker 1: because sometimes it's not a two sided thing. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, right, we need to recognize
Speaker 1: that there are reasons why people behave the way that
Speaker 1: they do. And so if you come back to this, well,
Speaker 1: Nazis because through Trump, right, And the thing is is,
Speaker 1: I know, like I said before, I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people who voted for a lot of reasons, and
Speaker 1: a lot of those reasons have nothing to do with
Speaker 1: hating a particular group. They just had specific concerns about
Speaker 1: the way the country was going and how that affected
Speaker 1: their lives, and so they voted that way. And a
Speaker 1: lot of people are centrist enough to where in the
Speaker 1: next election they may vote the other way. And that's
Speaker 1: all understandable. But you know, demonizing people as Nazis is
Speaker 1: just not helpful, especially when you're not getting into the
Speaker 1: nitty gritty of Okay, the things that I specifically think
Speaker 1: are evil and we're not going to tolerate those in
Speaker 1: our community. I want to get into another one, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm definite with some people here, and that's
Speaker 1: David d So, David says a lot of stuff. I
Speaker 1: could say that about a number of people, public people,
Speaker 1: but he says a lot of stuff, and to be honest,
Speaker 1: a lot of the things that he says I agree
Speaker 1: with me, will go as far as he does on something,
Speaker 1: or you know, maybe I have a little bit more
Speaker 1: nuanced than he does. In a lot of cases. I
Speaker 1: think he's diagnosing a lot of the in the world
Speaker 1: at large, and he does right and and out on
Speaker 1: a lot of issues in the world at large. Now
Speaker 1: I want step back because when I see him at
Speaker 1: like Ruby Rails World and other Ruby, he expresses a
Speaker 1: strong worldview, but it's almost always within the realm of
Speaker 1: the Ruby community and what's going on with Ruby or rails,
Speaker 1: and so you know, if you want to go watch
Speaker 1: a Rail's World keynote, more power to you, right, don't
Speaker 1: like his worldview on other stuff, then don't go read
Speaker 1: his blog. And I don't know. Maybe I don't have
Speaker 1: a problem separating things that way, and and maybe other
Speaker 1: folks do. But honestly, it's it's just I get I
Speaker 1: get so worried sometimes that we get so wrapped up
Speaker 1: in this. And there are folks that tried to kind
Speaker 1: of stage this boycott of anything involving DHH because of
Speaker 1: his stances on things. And again, you know, I think
Speaker 1: we have all been richly benefited by having things like
Speaker 1: Ruby on Rails and the work that he's done out
Speaker 1: there in the world. And I think we should all
Speaker 1: support him when he does the right thing with Ruby
Speaker 1: and rails, and then if you want to go and
Speaker 1: fight the other political battles on the other fronts where
Speaker 1: you don't agree with him, that that's fine. But I
Speaker 1: don't understand the point of shunning somebody like DHH based
Speaker 1: on his wider worldview when most of the time when
Speaker 1: he's working within the technology industry, he's either calling out
Speaker 1: problems that specifically exist there or he's you know, otherwise,
Speaker 1: you know, he's kind of stayed in his lane. And
Speaker 1: then when he steps out into the wider world of hey,
Speaker 1: there are these other concerns or political movements or things
Speaker 1: like that, you know, it doesn't have to bleed back
Speaker 1: into the technology arena. And so you know, again, I
Speaker 1: just I want to talk about just how we maintain
Speaker 1: that idea of accepting and understanding other people instead of
Speaker 1: shunning them because they hold some kind of different view
Speaker 1: from what we care about what we think about. So
Speaker 1: I just when it comes right down to it, what
Speaker 1: I'd like to see, if anything, is that we have
Speaker 1: more conversations that we reach out to more people that
Speaker 1: we open up, open our minds and open our hearts
Speaker 1: to people and just say, okay, look, you know, you
Speaker 1: clearly believe something different from me. Let's talk about why
Speaker 1: that is. Right. You you clearly value different things from me,
Speaker 1: or at least value some things more strongly than I do.
Speaker 1: You know, let's talk about why that is. You know,
Speaker 1: why do you do the things you do? Why do
Speaker 1: I do the things I do? And if we can
Speaker 1: break things down to that point and then have the conversations.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that we come to agree. That isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily you know where I think we necessarily end up.
Speaker 1: I have plenty of friends where we have these conversations
Speaker 1: and we walk away still friends and still disagreeing on stuff. Right.
Speaker 1: But I want the community to be open to people,
Speaker 1: and I want people to feel like they can come
Speaker 1: and they can express themselves in ways that are beneficial
Speaker 1: to the community. And sure, you know, if somebody comes
Speaker 1: in and they start spouting off about, you know, some
Speaker 1: political thing here or there that has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with community. I also have a problem with people saying, hey, look,
Speaker 1: you know, we understand that people strongly disagree in these areas,
Speaker 1: and so that belongs to it different discord channel, or
Speaker 1: that belongs in a different forum, or that belongs in it,
Speaker 1: you know, and so you can go and have those
Speaker 1: arguments somewhere else, but here we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: stuff that is relevant and matters to the Ruby and
Speaker 1: Ruby on Rails communities, and we can kind of open
Speaker 1: that up. So a few things that I've seen that
Speaker 1: are encouraging to me. So one of them is Greg
Speaker 1: Molnar opened up another Ruby discord and I'll put the
Speaker 1: link in the show notes. But he's been pretty explicit
Speaker 1: that he's taking all comers and they're not going to
Speaker 1: ban people for having points of view, which I think
Speaker 1: is awesome. Right, And so I think if you show
Speaker 1: up and you start picking on people or bullying people
Speaker 1: or causing problems, then he'll probably throw you out, and
Speaker 1: he probably has every reason to do that. But if
Speaker 1: you come in and it turns out that you have
Speaker 1: pretty strong opinions on this social issue or that political issue,
Speaker 1: as long as you're not broutbeating people with it, you're
Speaker 1: probably fine in there, which is great. And so then
Speaker 1: we can talk about, Hey, I love Ruby and you
Speaker 1: love Ruby, right, I love working in Ruby on rails,
Speaker 1: and so do you. I think these features of PostgresSQL
Speaker 1: are awesome. I've been deploying with kamal. Oh well, I've
Speaker 1: been deploying on Kubernetes. Oh okay, Well, you know what
Speaker 1: are the benefits? What are the frustrations? What are you
Speaker 1: doing different from me? How can I benefit you? Know? Oh,
Speaker 1: you've got this scaling issue. Oh, I might be able
Speaker 1: to help you, right. And I feel like if we
Speaker 1: do those kinds of things and we have those kind
Speaker 1: of communities, right, then that's the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: can bring us together. Right. And we see this in
Speaker 1: other communities, right. I mean I go to church every week.
Speaker 1: I know everybody there doesn't agree with me on everything, right,
Speaker 1: even within the church and church doctrine. I know some
Speaker 1: people have some different ideas for me, right, I think
Speaker 1: the fundamental core things we agree on, right, because those
Speaker 1: are kind of foundational to the faith. But you know,
Speaker 1: they're other ideas out there and things that people consider
Speaker 1: and stuff like that that they may come to a
Speaker 1: different conclusion than I do, right, but they're still welcome.
Speaker 1: I'm still welcome, right. I may have a different political
Speaker 1: leaning than some of the other folks at church, I'm
Speaker 1: still welcome and they're still welcome, right, And again, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe we don't talk about it, or maybe we talk
Speaker 1: in general principal terms, or maybe when we walk outside
Speaker 1: of the door of the church. You know, I have
Speaker 1: I go to lunch with you and we have a
Speaker 1: deeper conversation about it. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: that's what we're really looking at is then I can
Speaker 1: I can still love you for who you are, you
Speaker 1: can still love me for who I am. I can
Speaker 1: accept you for what you believe and why you're different,
Speaker 1: and you can accept me for what I believe and
Speaker 1: why I'm different. And we don't have to get into
Speaker 1: this tiki tac you know, tit for tat because you
Speaker 1: know you're this and I'm that. Right, Let's just go
Speaker 1: and help everybody succeed as a part of our community,
Speaker 1: and let's go create that kind of place where people
Speaker 1: can come and say, oh wow, this is a great
Speaker 1: place to be, right and so kind of beyond the community,
Speaker 1: things like conferences and discord channels and podcasts and things
Speaker 1: like that, where you know, we kind of have these
Speaker 1: open conversations about things. You know, again, I'd love to
Speaker 1: see us be doing more things like you know, you've
Speaker 1: got go rails or drifting ruby or some of the
Speaker 1: things that I'm working on putting together. Right, You've got
Speaker 1: video courses, you've got YouTube channels, You've got all of
Speaker 1: these places where people can come and level up and
Speaker 1: feel like, hey, look, we want you here. And so
Speaker 1: we built these resources so that you can come and succeed.
Speaker 1: You know, We've built these resource so that you can
Speaker 1: come and find acceptance and family in the communities that
Speaker 1: we've created. Right. I mean, I can't tell you how
Speaker 1: many of my friends over the years have come out
Speaker 1: of this community. And it's because we all got together
Speaker 1: and we celebrated the things that we had in common
Speaker 1: and that we loved that they loved too, Right, And
Speaker 1: so at the end of the day, that's really what
Speaker 1: I'm pushing for, is I'm just pushing for. Hey, look,
Speaker 1: so next time you see somebody and you kind of
Speaker 1: have that reaction of oh, they might be you know,
Speaker 1: politically non desirable, they're a privileged person or this or that, Right,
Speaker 1: instead look at them and go, how can I help them?
Speaker 1: And then the next person you see, how can I
Speaker 1: help them too? And the next person, right, how can
Speaker 1: I help them, and then maybe when you ask for help, right,
Speaker 1: then maybe it's my turn. How can I help you? Right?
Speaker 1: And then you ask that along. Right. I had a
Speaker 1: conversation with somebody yesterday that I worked with, you know,
Speaker 1: because they have they call him virtual coffee. But basically,
Speaker 1: you know, we just get on a call for a
Speaker 1: half hour and we just chat, right, and and it's
Speaker 1: for me to get to know my coworkers and then
Speaker 1: to get to know me, and it tries to pair
Speaker 1: you up with people who are not on your team
Speaker 1: that you don't interact with on a regular basis. And
Speaker 1: you know, so we were chatting, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I had just gotten done recording JavaScript Jabber and he's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know what what podcast do you record? And I
Speaker 1: was like, JavaScript Jabber. He's like, oh, I listened to that,
Speaker 1: you're him, right. But then he proceeded to tell me
Speaker 1: that he had, you know, when he was learning the
Speaker 1: program that he had gotten in and that he had
Speaker 1: listened to us on a regular basis to learn and
Speaker 1: level up. And you know that some of the things
Speaker 1: that we had talked about on the show where things
Speaker 1: that helped them out, and and those are the kinds
Speaker 1: of things, right, if we're going to focus on anything
Speaker 1: instead of being focused on is this person an undesirable
Speaker 1: Is this person not politically aligned with me? Is this person,
Speaker 1: you know, supporting causes that I find hateful? Instead it's
Speaker 1: you know, is this person somebody that I can help?
Speaker 1: Is this person somebody that I can make a difference with?
Speaker 1: Is this a person somebody that I can you know,
Speaker 1: that I can really you know, bring into the community
Speaker 1: and help them thrive and help them thrive in a
Speaker 1: way that then they in turn will help others thrive.
Speaker 1: And if I can do those kinds of things, and
Speaker 1: I can have those kinds of relationships with people, then
Speaker 1: if it does come down to some of these other
Speaker 1: things and we want to discuss what we see is
Speaker 1: true and what we understand to be right and things
Speaker 1: like that, then those conversations are a whole lot easier
Speaker 1: because then it's Okay, well, I know that you're a
Speaker 1: good person because we've had all these interactions, and I
Speaker 1: know that you care about a lot of these things
Speaker 1: that I care about because we've had a lot of
Speaker 1: these interactions shown it through your actions. So now we've
Speaker 1: got this cognitive dissonance between what you believe and what
Speaker 1: I believe. But we can talk about it, right, Oh okay,
Speaker 1: I understand why you think the way you think. I
Speaker 1: understand why you believe the way you believe. Here are
Speaker 1: some things that I you know, here's the way I
Speaker 1: see it. Oh okay, I thought about that that way before,
Speaker 1: and so then I go and I think about it
Speaker 1: and decide, you know, if if there's some truth in
Speaker 1: what you're telling me, and I decide if that's you know,
Speaker 1: how deeply to consider that. But if we're coming at
Speaker 1: each other and going, you know, you're you're a Nazi,
Speaker 1: or you're a fascist, or you're a transphobe, or you're
Speaker 1: a moron, or you're an idiot, or you're a communist,
Speaker 1: or you're a this or that, the labels just don't help,
Speaker 1: right because at the end of the day, then I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna shut I'm going to shut off. I'm gonna go, well,
Speaker 1: I don't need to listen to you. You're you're attacking me.
Speaker 1: But if we're friends and we can build those relationships
Speaker 1: and understand each other, then I think we begin to
Speaker 1: bring people around and understand. Oh okay, you know, this
Speaker 1: is why we see the world differently, and then maybe
Speaker 1: two I can have a conversation with you and basically say, hey, well,
Speaker 1: you know, so we kind of agree on this stuff.
Speaker 1: Does this thing happening right now concern you, right, and
Speaker 1: then we can talk about it. Oh yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm concerned. I think this is the you know, the
Speaker 1: reason why this is happening and not that, but I
Speaker 1: am concerned that it could lead to this other thing,
Speaker 1: just as you're saying. And then we we have that
Speaker 1: back and forth and we have that understanding. But we've
Speaker 1: got to be creating this community where we can bring
Speaker 1: people in and accept people where they're at, and then
Speaker 1: from there we can build into some of these other
Speaker 1: things and some of these other ideas. So anyway, that's
Speaker 1: mostly what I wanted to talk about today. So I
Speaker 1: am going to wrap up the show. What I'm going
Speaker 1: to get into at this point is the picks, and
Speaker 1: so I've got a couple of picks. My first pick
Speaker 1: I always do a board game. I'm sorry this was
Speaker 1: a little bit heavy this episode, but I just, you know,
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure I cover it. I guess
Speaker 1: I should also talk about that probably about half of
Speaker 1: the people that i've had as hosts on the shows.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what they're religious, or political or
Speaker 1: any other leanings are, because I just haven't thought it
Speaker 1: was that critical to know. And I've also gotten crap
Speaker 1: for platforming people who hold some of the opinions that
Speaker 1: are less palatable to people. And again, I just, you know,
Speaker 1: I've never understood what the problem is if if they've
Speaker 1: got a different idea, then let's talk about it. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So picks. So my first pick is it's a variation
Speaker 1: on Pandemic, and it's called Lord of the Rings Fate
Speaker 1: of the Fellowship. And what it is is it you
Speaker 1: So you've got this big game board, and in Pandemic,
Speaker 1: you're usually fighting a disease strain, right, and so you're
Speaker 1: collecting cards so that you can cure a disease. In
Speaker 1: Fate of the Fellowship, you're doing some of that, but
Speaker 1: instead of a disease, it's the armies of Souron and
Speaker 1: you know the other bad guys, I guess the Orcs
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So you have good armies, right,
Speaker 1: So you've got the row heroin Elves and I think
Speaker 1: there was another group I can't remember, but anyway, so yeah,
Speaker 1: So you're moving armies around the board and you know,
Speaker 1: taking territories and things like that, and you're also trying
Speaker 1: to get Frodo to Mountain Doom to destroy the Ring.
Speaker 1: But before you do that, you have to do other things, right,
Speaker 1: So you have to you have to take I Guard over,
Speaker 1: right and turn it into a haven. You've got to
Speaker 1: There was something about a battle we didn't actually win,
Speaker 1: and so we didn't get them all done. But anyway,
Speaker 1: there are three mission you have to complete before you
Speaker 1: before Frodo can destroy the Ring. And then Frodo has
Speaker 1: to be a Mountain Doom and you have to have
Speaker 1: I think five Ring cards in order to win. And
Speaker 1: so you have different characters that you move around the board,
Speaker 1: and I have to say the game is actually very
Speaker 1: visually stunning. Right. You've got the tower with the Eye
Speaker 1: of Sour on it and you roll the dice through it,
Speaker 1: which is cool. It has nine nas Ghoul and there
Speaker 1: are fairly large pieces that you move around the board
Speaker 1: and they're awesome. Most of the character pieces are pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: The armies are just little wood cutouts, right, so they're
Speaker 1: not as exciting, but you know, you move along the
Speaker 1: map and the armies move across the map in different
Speaker 1: prescribed ways based on the cards you flip to quote
Speaker 1: infect the map, and anyway, it's it was really really fun.
Speaker 1: We lost twice. We lost the first time within like
Speaker 1: a turn and a half, just bad luck. And then
Speaker 1: the second time we you know, we played for a
Speaker 1: while and lost. I kind of want to play again
Speaker 1: just to see if we can make it work. We'll
Speaker 1: be teaching the game at Tipcon in Provo, Utah on
Speaker 1: November seventh and eighth, So if you're in Utah, you know,
Speaker 1: come out. I'll be spending some of the time at
Speaker 1: the Hot Games table teaching the games. But anyway, it's
Speaker 1: it's very fun board game. Geek waits it at two
Speaker 1: point ninety nine on Amazon. It is not currently available.
Speaker 1: It has sold out. But yeah, it's a cool game,
Speaker 1: very cool game. And my wife is a big Pandemic fan,
Speaker 1: and so I think we own all of the pandemics
Speaker 1: except maybe that one, and there might have been another
Speaker 1: one that's come out since then, because a lot of
Speaker 1: games use the Pandemic engine and then build on it
Speaker 1: from there. So anyway, so I'm going to pick that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess the other thing that I'll just put out
Speaker 1: there is I am starting a new podcast about building
Speaker 1: a SaaS. I'm working on a software as a service
Speaker 1: that will host podcast networks, and specifically I want to
Speaker 1: get more into media and you know, it will have
Speaker 1: all the podcast features, but you know, kind of branch
Speaker 1: into the other you know, videos and training and coaching
Speaker 1: and masterminds and you know, things like that, and so
Speaker 1: all the things that I've talked about doing with top
Speaker 1: end devs and say Ruby and JavaScript, where it's hey,
Speaker 1: you've got the tip of the day videos. You've got
Speaker 1: a weekly you know, more in depth video on the technology.
Speaker 1: You've got a weekly you know, group coaching calls that
Speaker 1: are anywhere from hey, here's an expert I know that
Speaker 1: came in to talk about a thing to you know,
Speaker 1: maybe asking questions or getting to know each other, or
Speaker 1: book clubs or things like that. Doing the summits. I
Speaker 1: want to do more of those over the coming years,
Speaker 1: you know, putting out other video content. I'm also imagining
Speaker 1: this for some like a local media channel where it's
Speaker 1: you know, like in Utah, right, so it's, hey, here
Speaker 1: here's the stuff that's happening in Utah. As far as
Speaker 1: news goes, here's you know, stuff that's happening, you know,
Speaker 1: in the legislature and how that affects us, because a
Speaker 1: lot of that stuff, especially when you get more and
Speaker 1: more local, is less and less partisan, right, and so
Speaker 1: it's hey, look, you know, like Utah's a super majority
Speaker 1: Republican state, right, and so the things that the Republicans
Speaker 1: tend to get right, sometimes they still make poor decisions, right.
Speaker 1: And you see this in super majority Democrats states too, right,
Speaker 1: where there's not really it on one of the parties,
Speaker 1: and so they tend to do what they want, and
Speaker 1: so a lot of times there's not somebody really pushing
Speaker 1: back and saying, hey, this what you're trying to do
Speaker 1: make sense, but the way you're doing it has problems,
Speaker 1: and so you know, just kind of pushing down to
Speaker 1: that and saying, hey, here's how we protect our freedoms,
Speaker 1: here's how we protect our ability to live and things
Speaker 1: like that, and so, you know, just getting into some
Speaker 1: of the more local issues, right traffic, I'm trying to think,
Speaker 1: you know, we have other resource issues here in Utah
Speaker 1: with water and stuff like that, and so yeah, just
Speaker 1: providing kind of an outlet for that stuff where maybe
Speaker 1: you don't have the money to go and set up
Speaker 1: a traditional or proper TV channel, right, you can still
Speaker 1: have the Utah channel app on your Apple TV or
Speaker 1: Firestick or Roku and you can, you know, you can
Speaker 1: get all the shows and watch all the things. He's
Speaker 1: just like you do on Netflix. So anyway, that's the
Speaker 1: SaaS I'm building. And so I'm working on putting together
Speaker 1: a show called Single Player SaaS and it's focused mostly
Speaker 1: going to be focused on single developers or small teams
Speaker 1: that are building out SaaS products. And so I'm going
Speaker 1: to kind of chronicle my journey. But the other thing
Speaker 1: is is that I'm also going to be bringing on experts.
Speaker 1: For example, I just I finished listening to this book
Speaker 1: on Audible. It's called Email Marketing Demystified. I'm almost through it.
Speaker 1: I'm about halfway through it. I don't know, let's see
Speaker 1: it there. And so because I read, I like to
Speaker 1: read the physical book, but I listen to a lot
Speaker 1: more books than I physically read. And so if I
Speaker 1: like the book, then I'll buy it and I'll actually
Speaker 1: read it, read read it, and then sometimes I pick
Speaker 1: up other books. So like I've got software as a
Speaker 1: science is the book right there behind my head. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's an audiobook. I just so I just
Speaker 1: got it because it looked like it was in line
Speaker 1: with what I wanted. So I'm going to bring some
Speaker 1: of those authors on and talk through things, right, you know,
Speaker 1: I know Rob Walling and some of the other folks
Speaker 1: from like Startups for the rest of Us and so
Speaker 1: and micro Confidence. So just kind of pull some of
Speaker 1: that together and say, Okay, if you're building a software
Speaker 1: as a service, right, what do you have to do?
Speaker 1: And whether it's you know, kind of a broad use
Speaker 1: category king kind of app, you know, so I'm trying
Speaker 1: to create a new category with my app, or whether
Speaker 1: it's hey, you know, there are a few others out
Speaker 1: here that do the same kind of thing, and so
Speaker 1: I'm going to create a software as a service that
Speaker 1: plays in that space. And it's going to be a
Speaker 1: smaller microsas, right, I'm going to put that together, so
Speaker 1: that's going to be single players SaaS and so yes,
Speaker 1: keep an eye out for that as well, just to
Speaker 1: kind of provide a lot of that, Hey, here's how
Speaker 1: you build and market it while you're small. And then
Speaker 1: I do plan on getting into a little bit of
Speaker 1: and here's where maybe you want to grow beyond a
Speaker 1: single developer or a small team. And here's maybe when
Speaker 1: you don't want to. So anyway, those are my picks.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you all enjoy that, and then just a quick
Speaker 1: remind you again, you know, just just be kind to
Speaker 1: each other and just try and understand where people are
Speaker 1: coming from. It's been my experience that even the people
Speaker 1: who are kind of supporting the scary, weird or frustrating things,
Speaker 1: they have reasons, right, and so I can at least
Speaker 1: try and understand those, even if I can't get behind them.
Speaker 1: So anyway, until next time, Max out