Tris despairs at Robin’s desk setup, Robin recommends tech/lefty podcasts, and Tris explains how he’s augmenting his Obsidian use with the open-source ecosystem.

📖 CHAPTERS

• 00:00 Intros, summer over
• 01:14 Robin’s home working environment
• 31:53 Robin’s leftist podcast recs
• 52:25 Tris’s non-fiction podcast recs
• 54:47 Demo to Robin how Tris makes his videos

🔗 LINKS

• ROBIN’S SHAMEFUL DINING TABLE SETUP:

Ours

• https://robinwinslow.uk
• https://noboilerplate.org
• https://lostterminal.com
• https://modemprometheus.com
• https://phosphenecatalogue.com

External

• Scott Hanselman’s “Brain, Back, Buns, and Bites” article
• Presenterm

Robin’s podcast list

• The Intercept
• Drop Site News
• Macro Dose
• Deconstructed
• Politics Theory Other
• Factually with Adam Conover
• On the Media
• Tech Policy Press
• Tech Dirt
• Each Week Work Repeat

Tris’s podcast list

• Self-Directed Research
• WB-40
• Cortex

🧑 CREDITS

Decapsulate is a NAMTAO Production (namtao.com)

It is hosted by:

• Tristram Oaten (https://mastodon.social/@0atman)
• Robin Winslow (https://union.place/@nottrobin)

This work is BrainMade (https://brainmade.org)

Transcript

Intros, summer over

Tris: Right. There we go. September, I can’t believe it. Where’s the summer gone or where’s the summer going?

Robin: mean, it’s crazy to be, for me, obviously it, it’s, it means kids starting school.

Tris: Of course. Right. That’s exciting.

Robin: the school holiday, summer, even if people don’t have kids, I feel like everything is oriented around school holiday, you know, in terms of what events are happening and all that

Organising life around academic year

Tris: Right, exactly. Yes. my heroes seem to be great organizes this year around the academic year, and I think that like ending with the summer is quite a nice, like, reset quite a nice big block of time. Although you could argue that winter also works quite well, but we we’re no longer in the Roman Empire where everything stops for four months for an enormous single month cold winter.

Robin: Yeah.

Tris: so school holidays, my upcoming video, the video is called Obsidian for Students. I’ve timed it for back to school.

Robin: Oh, wow.

professional.

Mental health day

Tris: I mean, I’m trying, everyone says you’ve gotta like, get in all this and every single year I miss Mental Health Day. even though all of my podcasts and half of my videos are about mental health. Um, right.

Robin: some strong

Tris: Uh,

Robin: don’t you, for the lead up to that.

Robin’s home working environment

Tris: yes, exactly. So we were gonna talk about some other stuff, but I have sneaked in an extra extra topic because you mentioned just now that you were interested in setting up a new workspace in your new house.

Robin: Yes,

Tris: opinions. Tell me.

Robin: Yeah. So I, sent you the photo of what my setup right now looks like, which is just that I moved into this house,

Tris: Oh.

Robin: was full of. Furniture because it’s, um, you know, furnished place. It used to be an Airbnb, so it was like really kitted out and I’ve already shipped out a couple of beds into a storage place.

and I just haven’t gone around to like, getting rid of this table because if I get rid of this table right now, I have nothing else to work on. But ul ultimately I think I want this room to be to be like a massive play place for the kids when I’m not working. So I kind of want a desk that is a work desk. Like I think I’ve given up on the idea of having an actual dining table in this room, which is what this table

Tris: Yeah. Gotcha.

Robin: so I want a desk that is a work desk that I can kind of put away behind the, the door or something quite easily, um, if I need to. but otherwise, when it comes out, it’s like a proper workstation and I’ve got a proper chair a little bit of an A DHD thing. It’s

Tris: Mm-hmm.

Robin: of the life I had I got very used to just working ad hoc wherever, so I never

Tris: Oh,

Robin: a place to work, and now I’m

Tris: right. That’s where everyone starts.

Robin: improve that. So I, I have very little experience in this and I wanna do it.

Tris: I must tell the listener. What I am seeing here, because this photo is, it looks like a nightmare. this is a, a dining table with like a flat top, that a weird crisscrossed are very arty, legs holding it up. that is not the worst part, the worst part of the dining chairs that are around it, they look very soft and comfortable.

But these are hurting my back even to look at, these are making me very sad. I do appreciate the, the microphone boom arm that, that I bullied Robin into getting. So that’s why that’s working very nicely.

Robin: we can put the

Tris: Do IS Yeah. Yeah. As long as you’re happy with it. but yeah, we can put it in the show notes.

That sounds good. am I seeing a Mac wireless keyboard in front of you there? Oh my God. We will return to that,

Robin: I’m

Tris: at least the laptop. Hmm.

Robin: I love, like I know, I know. I think our taste in keyboards is, is very different.

Tris: Great. Great, great. I’m happy for you. it’s obvious that Apple just struck gold 20 years ago on the perfect land, and they’ve never needed to update it since. That’s so lucky for them. what fits on a tiny laptop is also perfect on the big desktop.

Robin: the keyboard layout a different

Tris: Yeah, I agree. I agree. However, behind the keyboard, there is a, a Mac laptop on a little stand, bringing it up slightly higher, that looks a bit better.

And then there’s a, a large screen off to the right,

Robin: Yeah.

Bites, back & buns

Tris: this isn’t the worst thing, but you an internet professional, a programmer, someone who probably sits here for a lot of time, real nightmare, real nightmare. I’ll tell you why I’m what made me so passionate about.

About this sort of thing,There was a blog by Scott Hanselman, called Brain Bites, back and Buns, the Programmer’s Priorities.

he wrote this in October of 2011. And the TLDR is that if you are a programmer, That was his primary audience. But I think probably it applies to anyone who works with computers for a living brain Bites back and buns you.

Invest in all these things. You should not be afraid to like spend real, real good money on this. [00:05:00] It’s similar to spending on your health, which everyone would recommend. You know, don’t be afraid investing in your health if you know as much as one can afford.

Robin: Yeah. Yeah.

Tris: So the buns part is what you’re sitting on. Don’t be afraid to spend on your chair.

Tris: The back was your bed. Don’t be afraid to buy a nice, comfortable bed with a good mattress that fits you.

Robin: Oh,

Tris: There’s nothing worse than,

Robin: bit, because to

Tris: yeah.

Robin: To me, sleep is the thing that you really should invest in. Like, I think I, I think I, I, I saw a quote, which I completely agreed with that it was like,

Tris: Yeah.

Robin: sleep is the solution to all problems. Basically.

Tris: Oh my God, I love that.

I couldn’t agree more as someone who has both back problems and insomnia. I couldn’t agree more.

Robin: but I’ve got a bit better. Yeah.

Tris: No, I’ve seen your, commit times. no, you, you don’t sleep great. so back was like bed, make sure you have a nice, comfortable bed. Make your back is very, is very worth investing in.

Tris: And then bites he was saying. don’t struggle with a slow, bad computer. Don’t struggle with a bad screen that has bad reflections or isn’t the right resolution for you.

you are touching this thing all day, every day. Make it nice and ergonomic and make it fast for programming because that’s what he was focusing on. we programmers, we make a little change in the editor and then look at the website or recompile the program and see what we’ve done.

that loop of compiling or refreshing the browser and then making another tweak. And then based on that feedback, doing it over and over and over again. If you can shave one second off that, and it happens every 10 seconds, you’ve saved enormous amounts of time over the course of the day just in very small increments.

So yeah, fast, fast bites.

Robin: limit this point of programmers, like I think with my parents

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: The furthest thing from programmers. You can imagine. I dunno if you mind me sharing this, Trish, but you said your mom just did her first poor request.

Tris: Oh my God, my mom,

Robin: is so far

Tris: 76. Age 76. Mom did her first pr. I am so proud. She got it all wrong, but she’s learning. Oh, what a what a what A woman.

Robin: Yeah. That is so cool. but anyway, I’ve had this big argument with them about how important it’s for them to, to optimize their internet connection. They have a really bad internet connection and they have options, but they’re just not focusing on it. And I think that they find daily life and the management of daily life really difficult.

And if they just improve their internet connection, the amount of difference that would make to how easily they could manage daily life would be immense. Even with them, I mean, obviously they don’t use the internet as the extent that I do, but just

Tris: Yeah.

Robin: able to WhatsApp the family, you know, they’re not doing it properly because it feels sluggish and so they put it off

the

Tris: Yeah.

Robin: of having latency In your communication tech are just huge on everybody. I mean?

Tris: If it affects everything, like just a slight delay in the web browser, a slight delay in reading messages, it’s the, the same point,all those seconds add up to years of waiting. And I think, I’m not sure I’ve, I’ve forgotten if this is mentioned in the article or not, for me personally, worse than the waiting is the temptation to switch to a different tab.

While I’m waiting.

Robin: yeah,

Tris: So if something takes 10 seconds to load, I’ll tab over to something else and I could be there for half an hour, you know, scrolling, getting distracted, whatever.

Robin: yeah.

Tris: so that was bites. And the last one is brain Scott recommends, investing in your brain, your education, your sleep, buying and reading books, getting a mentor, stuff like that.

I’ll link the article in the show notes for everyone.

Robin: I think it’s absolutely true. it could be doing the research on the topic we’re gonna talk about.

Robin’s desk plans

Tris: Right. Absolutely. So I’ve described this, horrific, working space. You’ve got, what are your dreams for this?

Robin: it has to go away out of the way.

I mean I could send you a picture of this, but I have a little space behind my main door that comes into the living room.

that little alcove there, that’s behind the door and it creates this little, dead space behind it that’s about three feet wide. and then as deep as the door I suppose,

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: you could just slide a desk back into there if it fitted and that would be outta the way.

Tris: Gotcha.

I can often work quite well. Mm-hmm.

Laptop & screens

Robin: So, so I want that. I like to have my laptop a little bit raised, so it’s in line with my eye.

’cause up to now I’ve always worked with my laptop screen and then a monitor next to it, as you can see in my photo.

Tris: Yeah.

Robin: option would be. Two monitors close my laptop. Right.

Tris: Mm-hmm.

Robin: which would be better because then I could have monitors of the same size I don’t think I need three per se. I kinda have three when I go into work, and I don’t think it makes me any more efficient.

I think I just sort of lose stuff slightly out of my view on the other side,

Tris: Yeah, I think that actually I, I used to have like as many monitors as possible, and then I switched to an [00:10:00] ultra wide monitor, which is twice as wide as a regular monitor. It’s like two, four by three monitors glue together. And that was cool for a bit. But I think actually that what works extremely well for me is a 4K monitor as large and as cheap as I can find.

and that is what I’m working at, working with now. And I occasionally throw in a small secondary monitor to put video calls on or notes or something. But a 4K monitor is so big that I tile all my windows out. That that’s, I suppose that’s where we are. We’re different. I’ve got a really good,

Robin: where we’re different. Yes.

Tris: uh, okay, cool.

Right?

Robin: actually what it is, is if I closed the laptop, I’d have to get a webcam, right? my laptop is where the camera is at the top of it. And that’s really crucial because what it means is my biggest screen that’s off to the right of my laptop where I put my note taking programming, having Jira open those sorts of things so that

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: laptop much of the day is Zoom, right?

And that way when I look

Tris: Yeah,

Robin: to, I’m looking at the camera.

Tris: that’s good. Yeah, I like that. I always make sure my monitors are in a configuration where whatever video chat I’m looking at, it’s so close to where my camera system is. That’s nice.

Robin: that setup, so I’d probably keep that setup. I probably just have a monitor to the right and my laptop, on a stand like I do at the moment so that I can use it for video as my video call screen. You know, I do a lot of video

Tris: Yeah, I think so. There, you’re limited in, in flexibility by having this Mac, because I, one of the reasons that Apple don’t let MAC screens fold back far enough is to make them more annoying on the desk so that you buy more screens. You know, they’re a hardware company. Everything that they do is, is designed with encouraging you to buy more, more hardware conspiracy, maybe,

Robin: for, that’s an natural decision they made.

Tris: No other laptop in the world does this. This must be

Robin: no other laptop in the

Tris: designed.

Robin: fold back. I disagree with that. I’m sure I’ve had other laptops that, you’d fold ’em all the way back. They break.

Tris: yeah, but none of them are at that, 120 degree. Like, it’s so suspicious to me.

Robin: Okay. Yeah. This is maybe something I don’t know because I haven’t like, like I suppose if you, if you actually study the angles, then you’re like,

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: that Apple have chosen is different from what everyone else is doing. I didn’t know that, but that sounds,

Tris: Yeah. I admit I have no sources for this other than it’s deeply, deeply weird. And Apple are extremely good at aligning their business model to making, to encouraging you to buy more hardware.

Robin: yeah.

Tris: Of course, there.

Robin: agree with

Tris: Yeah.

Robin: I just feel like, we shouldn’t make a conspiratorial, accusation without evidence, but I, do agree

Tris: You’re right, you’re right.

Robin: the company that would do it.

Tris: Yes. there’s no physical reason. it’s a choice.

Robin: Yeah. Yeah.

Tris: Hmm. So the reason I, the reason I was sad about that, is that nearly every other laptop in the world, that the screen can fold back much further. you can tilt that laptop up in a much more vertical position and the screen can actually be way, way, way, way higher.

Robin: got a lot more, you’ve also got a lot more desk space because your stand

Tris: Yes. Yes,

Robin: Yeah.

I’d love a framework laptop

Robin: if I have to work and I need a Mac, then obviously I’m limited to what Mac will do. But, love to get a frame. If I wa if it wasn’t for, for work, I would love to get like a framework, laptop and then that could probably, you know, do what you’re saying and, and go more vertical.

Tris: Oh, my framework is arriving tomorrow. I got a framework 12, soon as they announced it, I was like, oh, okay, great. This is a nice, inexpensive way for me to get into the framework, ecosystem. I broke my laptop a little bit when I went to Rust Week in the Netherlands. I just like threw it loosely in my bag and I guess I was like smashing my back around, so I slightly cracked the screen.

and I was like, oh, that’s not gonna get better over time. and it was about time for me to upgrade, I do like the framework like Max are fine. we’re all working inside of web browsers and text editors anyway, so it’s, most of our time is pretty similar.

Robin: totally.

I’m very fortunate to have a pretty modern and powerful max, so I’m very happy with it in general.

Tris: Right? Yes. that’s the bites thing.

Raging against Apple

Tris: Yes. Exactly. I’m on record at Raging Against Apple. I think the video I made two years ago was the unreasonable effectiveness of Linux workstations and that on that video, I received so many comments. I. I had to declare bankruptcy on reply to all of them. Up until that video, two years into my, my video career, I had answered and replied to every single comment on every single video.

This video broke me because the reaction was so strong.

Robin: one, people had opinions.

Tris: They, yeah. It was 50 50. Half the people were like, oh my God, finally, yes. This, this, why is everyone so, so possessed by Apple’s fixation of having everything being metal? And, you know, the, the various things that I said

Robin: But Apple

Tris: in the, in the video and

Robin: of advocates like

Tris: oh yes.

The other half of people, were very [00:15:00] upset with me. and while they might be, well, they might be. I was, I was in insulting their religion.

Robin: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Are I, I was having a fun conversation, a little, little sidebar that we might remove. I was having a fun

Tris: Yeah.

Robin: with somebody where I decided that my religion is actually panpsychism, which I love to talk about at some point

Tris: Is what?

Robin: is panpsychism.

Tris: Panpsychism.

Robin: don’t worry. we’ll talk about it. It’s a completely different it’s a whole departure.

An entire

Tris: All right.

Get everything up off the desk

Tris: All right. I’m gonna look that up and we’ll talk about it later. so Brain Bank Buns and Bites, chair table, that sort of thing. So I’ve got some like fundamental suggestions for you, for whatever you do with a folding desk or whatever The first one is, make sure everything is up off the desk.

that’s just a really good rule of thumb. Like monitors, put them up on a stand, clamp them up in a, monitor stand that clamps to the table, an arm that goes up, and then it clamps into the visa stands at the, at the back of the monitor. That way you can get them at the exact height you want and you free all of the space under them.

They cost 19 quid. It’s a no.

Robin: Yeah, I’m covered on that.

Laptop vs screen position

Tris: and secondly, I would’ve said that large screen, should be in the center and the small screen that you use for video should be off to the side.

Robin: Yeah, that would be a good idea. Like I think that basically, I feel like the monitor. It’s the more effective place for me to work. And I find myself working on the laptop screen and I feel like I should be working on the monitor. And that’s probably

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: the reason you describe that. I’m, I should just put it to the left and put the monitor in the middle, and then I would naturally be everything on the monitor, which is the better place to do it anyway.

Tris: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Where to put laptop for video calls?

Robin: I suppose it then means that the reason it’s in the middle is because I’m thinking for video calls I want to be square on.

Tris: Well, I’m not square on, on video calls. I have my monitor in the center and my camera and small monitor. I put the video on off to the side, and I think it’s quite natural because you, as long as you are looking, when you’re speaking to the person, as long as you are looking at them where their monitor is and where their their faces is, and where the camera is, when you are speaking to them, you are allowed to look off to the side and typey, typey type E do some work or whatever.

Because it’s like having the person sitting next to you, you know, you, you look forward and work, and then when you talk to them, you look over your shoulder.

Robin: is a tricky one because I feel a bit like, you know, when I talk to you, I feel looked past for much of the time, by your, by by your setup, which

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: could say is perfectly legitimate. I don’t know how much I look at people actually when I’m on video call, and yet I still want to give them the impression that I’m there centering them and engaged with them, if you see what I mean.

Tris: Yes, I consider this a feature. over the last five years, I’ve optimized my setup a lot, especially in the last three years of doing, mentoring as part of my no boilerplate YouTube channel. I really, really care about the ergonomics of video and making it as natural and pleasant as possible.

Robin: Hmm.

Tris: And I think if you have, let’s say you’ve got a laptop screen and you’ve got a webcam above it, I not knowing when the person is looking at me or looking at something else is, is no good. Like I would actually prefer

Robin: Like, you know, if I am looking at my monitor, you’re going to see that. I’m looking at my monitor for sure. But it’s just like with the setup I have, I feel like it’s more like 50 50 where if I put it on the left, it might be like 80 20. Do you know what I mean?

Tris: one. Why would that have changed?

Robin: Because, when I’m not actively looking at anything on my screen, because what I’m doing is, In my head and talking like I’m thinking about what I’m saying and I naturally just look straight ahead.

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: I think that’s my thought. this is why I’ve put the laptop in the middle.

Tris: Right, right. Well, you should certainly shouldn’t optimize for, for video calls in that way. Right. you don’t have,

Robin: to optimize your video calls. I think the video calls are a massive part of my life

Tris: I.

Robin: what I’m kind of doing in my way. Which is different from yours.

Tris: Right. Okay. So maybe the solution is a, a webcam that can then go on the main monitor

Robin: Hmm.

Tris: not staring at the small monitor all the time.

Robin: maybe, maybe. Anyway, options. Yeah, lots of options in there.

Standing desks are cheap

Tris: Yes. So I, your foldable desk idea, I have a bit of a spanner in the works, which is that I, I think standing desks are now so cheap. I’ve recently bought one for [00:20:00] my parents’ house. It was a hundred pounds, like a motorized static desk

Robin: that actually,

Tris: and

Robin: cheap. Yeah.

Tris: wildly cheap. flex his spot was the brand not sponsored.

they’re so cheap, like. Yeah, that’s right. Other brands. That’s what, that’s what we say on the B, b, C, other brands are available. I do love that. let me make a note of that. That is what I should do in my video is, I should say other brands are available.

That would be very nice. my point is that they are, they’re super flexible in terms of like getting the height perfect. Like your monitors are so close, are so close down because your, you can’t change the height of either your chair or your, your, your desk and changing your, like if you’ve got a nice office chair that had like a pneumatic raise, lower mechanism, you could get that a little bit better.

But being able to control both of them, you can get it perfect every single time.

Robin: I was looking into desks, I I was looking at this and I, and I also was thinking that these motorized sounding desks are cheap enough that I don’t see why I wouldn’t get one. so I suppose that then leads me to think, ’cause all the ones I’ve, I’ve experienced are quite large. But I guess that’s

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: mostly experienced them. at work, at work we have motorized selling desks. Um, but

Tris: Yeah.

Robin: and so I was, just trying to look at how small they could be because I, like I said, I don’t need it to fold away. So if I just got a small one because the space on it was so well optimized by the vertical laptop and all the other stuff you’re talking about, although that

Tris: Perfect.

Robin: work with my Mac though, does it? But anyway, I still feel like I probably tuck it away quite well if I had well optimized space on there. I don’t need it to be big at all. And then it can just wheel away into behind the door, you know?

Tris: Yeah, absolutely. Like the uk the the smallest ones are, are just tiny. where, how big is this? less than two meters across and 80 centimeters deep. Like you can get them really, really.

Robin: less than two meters. two meters would not go anywhere near but fit behind my door. We’re talking about one

Tris: Yeah.

Robin: maybe less than one meter. I’m not quite sure.

Tris: Yeah. here we go. So, desktop size.

Robin: if I got a 90 centimeter wise desk

Tris: Yeah.

Robin: then that probably

Tris: Oh, sure. You, you could definitely do that. I mean, they’ve got all kinds of, they’ve got all kinds of options. Like, you just choose the one you want. You can even do, which is what I did. You can bring, you can buy the frame, which is just the, the legs and the, and the mechanism, and bring your own desktop.

So you buy, and the frames go down really small, like well below the 90 centimeter minimum. You might be able to buy it outta the box and you just go onto eBay or some, like find a place that sells. Would at a specific size. I got mine on eBay five years ago. and they’ll just cut it to your exact size and then you just screw it into the, the top and you’re off to the races.

Tris’ fake mahogany (remove?)- Buy desk top separately from frame

Robin: You mean. it is the reason for that, because only up to a point, but you can put a significant different range of desktops on the same frame because you can go quite significantly overlapping the edges of where your frame ends.

Tris: exactly. Yeah. You’d, anything you want, like that’s the ultimate customization that perhaps you should go for.

Robin: that’s a good point.

Tris: And it’s, it’s so good. And yes,

Robin: width of the space behind my door, for example.

Tris: and you can choose the exact color that matches the, the decoration that you’ve got, you know, light wood, darkwood or, or what have you.

Robin: Well, the coloring in

Tris: Which is, which is nice.

Robin: I mean,

Tris: Yes.

Robin: Anyway.

“Standing desks have been a miracle for me”

Tris: It’s a bit, it’s a bit Airbnb. I agree. I find stand, stand desk have been a miracle for me. They’ve basically stopped, they basically stopped me getting the lower back injuries that I, that my whole career has been plagued with. The, the big risk, uh, that programmers get is. When you sit all day and then you go home and you very often sit all evening playing video games or whatever you are sitting the whole time.

And it was, I just kept getting lower back injuries. The, the primary solution is I should have been doing exercise, you know, I should have had a sport, I should have been going to the gym or what have you. But I solved it. I put a little patch over that problem by getting a standing desk and standing for most of the day.

And that sidestepped that particular problem. Uh, I should make it clear to our listeners, you should definitely choose exercise and not this, but maybe both,

Robin: I

Tris: you know, have a nice mix.

Robin: working at a computer all day, regardless of whether you, you have other coping mechanisms, right? Like that is still something that’s gonna, that’s gonna impact on your frame, your body.

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: and so, you know, you want, you want it to be ergonomic. I think I am, mean, I want to sit at my computer more than I have successfully been doing up to now.

So I’m, it’s like I’m kind of on a journey of trying to professionalize myself in actually staying put and, working on a significant thing my

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: So that’s part of what this, what this is gonna help enable. But I don’t think I’m anywhere close to the amount that I imagine you were sitting stationary, because I’m quite a.

Tris: Restless.

Robin: Yes. Yeah,

Tris: Hmm. [00:25:00] You are, and I, one of, and I think you might find that in a standing desk situation, if you do end up standing with Bluetooth headphones, you know, cordless. You can just, like in meetings that are happening, you can kind of pace the room really easily and still be at the same eye level as your, as your monitor.

So it’s easy to go forward, back, forward back. This is what I do when I’m, when I’m drafting, get doing the final drafts of my videos, is that I’m reading the script out loud into an empty room and then like pacing as I’m doing it, trying to redraft, make, make the sentences sound better, pop better, flow better.

like walking is great for thinking.

Robin: Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah,

Robin’s chair and carpet

Tris: Yeah. So the chair I see you’ve written, you’ve written something in our notes about the chair.

Robin: Well, it just has to, it has to work on carpet. I mean, I think most desk chairs are kind of assuming a hard floor. And I

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: Like, I like to be able to adjust to shift my chair a bit left to right to be able to pull it in really easily. Like, I like it to be on wheels.

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: but I, but I needed to be able to do that on carpet.

But I Googled that a little bit and it’s not that hard. ’cause I think they basically, you just buy the ones that have the slightly bigger wheels and then it’s kind of fine. And that’s what I read when I was looking into it.

Tris: Right. Um, probably, yeah. But, um, there’s, there might be an even more flexible option that you can buy, thing you can buy carpet protectors, which is like a square of plastic, like hard plastic, hard clear plastic that you just put down right under where you would be sitting

Robin: I’ve,

Tris: and it stops.

Robin: before and I think

Tris: No,

Robin: I could experiment with it, but I think I’d rather just have a chair that just rolls over carpet, right? Like, I,

Tris: sure.

Robin: it to be super rolly anyway, right? Because want to

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: I want it to be able to, I want it to have just the right amount of resistance.

And I think. If you’ve got good wheels, that probably carpet might provide exactly the right amount resistance I’m looking for, because it means that it’s not gonna just randomly shift, but it will move quite easily when I, when I actually push it.

Robin’s chair

Tris: Yeah, sounds perfect. There, there’s a, there’s a mechanism you should make sure you don’t have, which is a safety feature. I don’t know if it was a, if it’s a legal thing, like a regulatory thing, but some chairs only will roll with weight on them. So you have to sit on them and then move them and like unlocks the wheels.

And when you stand up, it block, it locks the wheels.

Robin: God, that sounds annoying. Yeah.

Tris: It, oh my God. Uh, when I worked at, when I worked at the government digital service, all of the chairs had this, and the ratcheting mechanism made it really loud to move them around and you couldn’t push them. You know, like if you wanted to push a chair outta the way it was locked, you had to sit in it and move it with your feet and then stand up.

My God, make sure you do not buy one of these.

Chair ergonomics

Robin: Okay. Definitely worth taking into account. Yeah. on the ergonomics of the chair design, I can

Tris: Yeah.

Robin: decide how important that is. Like I got a chair that I was fine with at, um, you know, in my, in my old house, which is still there. Um, and I, and it was, it wasn’t, you know, one of these things that has a really shaped, like it did have a back that curves towards your back, you know? Um,

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: the thing that I really like to have, which I think is probably against what you’re supposed to have, is a loose back that can, that can rock back if I want to. And like slouch, I can slouch into.

Tris: I mean, everyone is super, super different and the, the trend or the, the hype about, oh, how great this chair is, that chair is, or whatever, and people review chairs or keyboards or mice or anything that is like ergonomic, that’s a very expensive word. Ergonomic. If anything that is ergonomic, you’ve, you kind of can’t trust initial reviews because the rule that my physiotherapist taught me a few years ago is the best position is your next position.

Tris: I’ve heard this online as well repeated. So like, changing position is actually what is good for you. So if you find you buy a new chair and the new chair initially solves your back problems, but it’s, it’s because you changed, not necessarily because it’s such a magical, wonderful chair.

Robin: I was at this, hippie Quaker week, a week ago. And there was a Pilates there that was led by this, this lady who seemed really, really expert in all this, physical, posture and frame and health and everything. And she was saying

Tris: Oh,

Robin: good posture is always moving,

Tris: yes. Hmm.

Robin: is that your body is responding to, all the different things that you need to adjust to just to keep yourself comfortable. your spine is an s is one of her favorite points.

people think their spine should be straight, but it just isn’t true. it’s a, s and it’s kind of like an s that moves around,

Tris: Yeah,

Robin: I mean, it feels very similar to what you’re saying.

Tris: absolutely. I mentioned before on, on the show that my RSI was made much worse by getting a DHD treatment. But because the, the meds that I was taking kind of cured my A DHD or they let, they let, they alleviated a lot of the symptoms, which meant I could focus more, but it meant that I like got distracted less.

And from an ergonomic point of view, [00:30:00] it working for long periods of focus time is bad for your health. So it was good for my brain, but bad for my body. So you gotta just keep moving. That’s why the, the standing desk works very well for me. I’ve got an alarm every three hours and I go from sitting to standing every three hours.

Robin: Wow, very rigid. Yeah.

Tris: Yeah.

Robin: So we’ve spoken about screens, we’ve spoken about desk size, we’ve spoken about, you know, the fact that probably I want a motorized desk.

chairs, it sounds like you’re saying there are lots. I can get one. it doesn’t necessarily matter. it just fits in with what works for me, and so

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: of that. Yeah, I mean, I, I think that’s really good. and I love the point about. How, it would be nice to have my laptop as a vertical as possible.

Tris: the general rule that brain back buns and bites espouses I’ve heard simplified recently as don’t be afraid on spending money on anything that separates you from the ground. So your chair separates you from the ground. Your bed separates you from the ground, and if you squint your keyboard and mouse separates you from the ground.

Robin: that feels like a bit of a stretch

Robin’s leftist podcasts

Tris: I’m thinking that we could solve the comment box problem by maybe having a button at the top of these pages that say, uh, click, you know, jump to discussion, and then it jumps to the bottom of the page.

Robin: That is a

Tris: That’d be quite a,

Robin: better solution. And I’m quite ashamed that I didn’t think of it myself.

Tris: so simple. Yeah.

Robin: the reason I say that is because I think there’s of cases where, I’ve been faced with people trying to implement such things, they’re like, oh, can you duplicate this thing over there? so many cases I’m like, just do, is that what you’re saying?

Like, just do a little link and send in the right place. need to like, recreate stuff all over the place. The beauty of the internet,

Tris: Cool. So we got a comment from, user scoop on our GitHub discussions page, saying Robin mentioned leftist podcasts. At some point I’d be interested in hearing any recommendations. so your chance to shine now, Robin.

Robin: Yeah, so I was really gratified to have some interest in this because, this podcast definitely leans technical and, possibly towards software engineering. but my real obsession is much closer sociology and politics. so I care a lot about that space.

I find it really interesting. I didn’t really know whether there’d be any interest in those sorts of, topics. So I was really glad to get this comment from somebody.

Tris: Yeah,I would say that in amongst technical audience, there is often an overlap with interest in, fully automated luxury gay space communism and that umbrella of things,

Robin: Well, certainly in your audience. I dunno that every tech audience has that.

Tris: only the best audiences.

Robin: Only the best

Tris: Yes.

Robin: Yeah, no, I completely agree.

Tris: So I’d be interested as well. I don’t listen to any of these kinds of shows. and maybe I should.

Robin: well, I think I’ve tried to persuade you before and you were just like, that’s too dry for me.

Tris: Yeah, yeah, that’s true

Robin: Like they are dry, like some of these recommendations here are very dry, so you really have to be into it,

Tris: actually. I do listen to one, I listen to someone news,

Robin: all right. Okay.

Tris: Katie Johnson’s, amusing show, but it’s all about America and like doesn’t have much impact on like my exact world. You know? Maybe they perhaps should be more, more targeted, more focused content I could consume that’s more relevant to me.

Robin: Ah, right. Well, that’s a big feature of my interest, I suppose. Like first of all, I’m very interested in Americana. I think, there’s a reason for that, which is I suppose in one sense I’m a very high level thinker. I want to find global or possibly even universal patterns that describe or improve the entirety of human society, right.

Tris: Mm-hmm.

Robin: and America has been for all of my lifetime and long before the global Hegemon Britain is very, very made in the image of America

Tris: right. And of course, the internet where, where we really live, like my body happens to be here in England, but I live on the internet, is a private American endeavor.

Robin: exactly. that’s probably the piece. Yeah. Thanks for pointing that out. I think that is a huge part of the link is that I’m really

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: in, I’ve got that intersection between geopolitics, and technology. And technology is all American, like, at least, at least particularly when I was, you could say coming of age when I was a teen and early twenties at uni right.

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: the whole technology space was just incredibly American dominated, right? It was like any other country was just an afterthought.

Tris: Yes, of course. the legacy of the internet comes straight out of literally an American defense [00:35:00] situation.

Robin: Yeah. Even

Tris: Yeah,

Robin: Burners Lee is British, but,

Tris: true. Yeah. We got that.

Robin: yeah.

Tris: played his piano, by the way, at Southampton University. He’s got a piano outside his office, so it was very outta tune.

Robin: Wow. That’s quite a story. Oh,

Tris: Well, you’ve, that’s, that’s the whole story,

Robin: Yeah. but what he was actually doing at the time with the internet was in America.

Tris: right?

Robin: but yeah, that’s why there’s a lot of Americanness in in my list of podcasts. it does not particularly focus on politics, but I actually would love to find as rich, like, I don’t know if it’s me or if I just, like, what if I just haven’t found it or if they don’t exist.

Because to me, much of the people who are interested in doing heterodox challenging political, commentary and discussion are American centric, endeavors.

Tris: Right. I don’t think I know what heterodox means.

Robin: right, so heterodox is, so you’ve got, you know, what orthodox means.

Tris: Uh, kind of, but maybe only in a religious sense.

Robin: so, well Orthodox, I mean, obviously it’s very religious, but it really means, according to a single authority, right?

Tris: Mm gotcha.

Robin: and therefore, by contrast, heterodox means multiple places, but also with a little bit of a sort of pejorative in there. Like, it starts with the same two letters as heretic, and I feel like there’s some, there’s

Tris: Right. Maybe like a lot of, like too many cooks maybe, you know, like if who, what, what, where’s the truth?

Robin: not, they’re not, they’re like upstarts. They shouldn’t be,

Tris: All right.

Robin: sort of thing. so I encountered it first in economics.

Tris: Okay.

Robin: you have orthodox economics and you have heterodox economic theory. And heterodox economic theory is never going to be represented by the B, B, C,by the IMF, the

Tris: International Monetary fund.

Robin: Yeah, right, exactly. The World Bank, the Bank of England,

they have started to take in some of what were heterodox ideas, but they do it very slowly. and the heterodox economists are very much kept out the conversation until there’s just no way to, hold it back anymore, you know?

Tris: Right.

Robin: so that’s what hetero means. It means these theories that are forbidden sort of, if that

Tris: Cool. I mean, sounds good to me. Like heretic, you had me at heretic, honestly.

Robin: but like I say, you can argue about the extent to which they do it successfully, but America’s always had the First Amendment and that’s very deep part of their identity, right?

The First Amendment being the one that protects free speech. so they’ve had as like a core part of their identity, this idea that free, that free speech has to be protected. And that leads to, there being a lot more places in America where people are creating a challenging perspective.

Like they feel that they have license to do that. And I think Britain particularly is quite cautious on that sort of thing. So it’s hard to

Tris: Right.

Robin: well-known British perspectives that are really challenging. I think.

Tris: Ah, okay. Mm-hmm.

Robin: Anyway, the list, right? So,

Tris: Yes, please.

Robin: as the, the, the commenter, as sc like commented only, Hours after having sent their first comment, they said, oh, I found, Robin’s blog post nevermind, which is a blog post that I had written, on the 4th of November, 2023, a long time ago, My Favorite Leftist Economics and Tech Podcasts. and it recommends a bunch of things, but, the podcast world moves quite fast and I definitely think it’s due an update. So I did put a little bit of an update in a reply to that comment, which is mostly what I’m just gonna say now, so, you’d have to go

Tris: Cool.

Robin: it. at the time quite significantly centers around. The Intercept, which I would say has changed. So the Intercept, is, is his name Pierre Omidyer or something? Basically one of the, one of the eBay billionaires,

Tris: Right.

Robin: decided that he wanted to create a media platform that had a lot of funding and therefore wasn’t, was free from, from other corporate pressure. And he, and he gave it a lot of freedom and it was called the

Tris: Mm-hmm.

Robin: and the intercept it’s explicitly anti-imperialist is the first thing. anything that was about challenging American power, they would be doing. And

Tris: Right.

Robin: also significantly lent into American Tech power. like, the way in which American technology would be exploiting people. they definitely had a significant thing about, about, Facebook’s, enablement of the Myanmar genocide. one of the founding, founding people who has [00:40:00] since gone rather sideways is Glenn Greenwald,

Tris: Mm-hmm.

Robin: was central to all the Snowden coverage with The Guardian.

So that was before the Intercept, he did all that with The Guardian, and then he went and founded The Intercept with Jeremy Scahill. and then he of, went a little bit off the rails. He started being very involved with Fox News because at the time he was like, I want to go and give my message to the place where people really need to hear it, I’m

Tris: Uh.

Robin: sympathetic to as a theory, but then he. absolutely allowed his himself and his message to be morphed into the platform that he was now very significantly platformed in.

Tris: Right. Yeah. They’re not gonna let you say, say things that aren’t along the, the lines that, Murdoch wants to do.

Robin: I don’t wanna let him off the hook to that extent because, because there are definitely significant opinions he has that are very illiberal who is it that has a really good piece on that? so I’m really interested in like, journalists and journalism and like how you communicate the truth and how you argue about all that kind of stuff.

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: I’m gonna have to look it up afterwards. That’s really annoying. but anyway, this guy is just fantastic and he has his own platform and he is very, solidly left wing as in like really well researched.

And he did a piece on why Glen Greenwald’s argument that he is the true sort of protector of human rights while also supporting the police and, and these other weird things that he got into, is bullshit basically. Like he he isn’t That champion, it is a really, really good piece.

It’s very thorough, and very convincing. if anyone’s interested in the Glenn Glenn Greenwald story, which they might be like, I think it’s actually really important to do those things because I think I was one of them. Glenn Greenwald had a massive fan base I think he probably took a lot of people with him as he drifted rightwards, if you see what I mean.

Tris: Right.

Robin: yeah, that’s really fascinating. So, the Intercept Great platform probably still is a great platform I don’t wanna say it’s not, but, um,

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: Glen Gr left. And then for reasons that I am not a hundred percent sure of, and it’s a little bit amicable, but Jeremy Scahill, who used to run the Intercepted podcast and Ryan Grim, who used to run the Deconstructed podcast, who were both great, they went off and started, drop Site News, and Drop Site News and The Intercept clearly collaborated, or I think still do collaborate to a significant degree, but they’re very clearly creating a separation from The Intercept.

And I think Drop Site News is now the more powerful, platform that the Intercept used to be. that’s significant change. And,

Tris: Cool.

Robin: and then there’s, and then the things that are missing from my blog post, ’cause I’ve got, okay, in the blog post I’ve got like Macro Dose, which is actually UK based, that’s a UK based, uh. Economics podcast. I think economics and politics. There needs to be a name. Is there a word that I’m missing that like means economics and politics? Because the two things are so very, very related all of the time and everybody knows this, but there needs to be a, like a combined term

Tris: Oh yeah. I don’t know it. If there is one, it does it. I bet there is Deconstructed Is the podcast you recommended to me like a, a year or two ago, wasn’t it?

Robin: probably. Yeah. Yeah.

Tris: Yeah. Yeah.

Robin: were like, this is too dry. I can’t, I’m too American.

Tris: It wa Yes, it was. I gave it a go. I gave it a go.

Robin: I mean, that’s entirely fair enough. Like I said, this is a very heavy way of listening is it’s just my sort of obsession. I’ve got my obsession, so therefore I, I can take the density of it, you know, but it is dense.

Tris: Right? Yes. This is what’s so great about, like, people like, Cody Johnson and, Adam Conover comedians who do heavily well researched, political and, and like topical, videos and shows is like, I can actually get through that. Me and my burnt out brain can actually enjoy and focus. Like, I can watch that for two hours, no problem.

Robin: Mm. Yeah, no, I

Tris: Or listen

Robin: with you. I think that’s really important. the other one that’s even more dense that I don’t recommend you try to listen to unless you want to,

Tris: me, me specifically,

Robin: You specifically

Tris: yes, our audience can.

Robin: is politics theory. Other, so I think

Tris: Mm,

Robin: UK based. I think Alex Doherty is, British. it’s a UK based podcast, but it’s nowhere near limited to and probably doesn’t even touch on all that much, like, specifically British politics. it’s a lot more focused, I would say, if anything on like Israel Palestine. but PTO is. Really thorough, and I don’t know where they, where they get their sources from, becauseI want to have access to all the stuff that, like Richard Seymour, who’s a significant guest on the show,

Tris: hmm.

Robin: to just know immediately about the latest developments in, in leftist theory, on current developments and just, I dunno how he does it, but it’s really fascinating.

So if you are, if you’re a proper geek on all this stuff, then I really recommend politics theory. Other,

Tris: Great.

Robin: macro dose was, macro dose is really good for explaining p politic politics. no economics in it is, it is half UK based, I would say, and half more international.

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: really good at, at summarizing that stuff.

It can be quite short. [00:45:00] it’s not comedy,

Tris: No.

Robin: so that’s still true. And then I’ve got some, some more news, which you mentioned in the list. But the thing that I did never even put in this list, which I should have, I think I was probably even interested in it at the time, is, as you said, factually, which is Adam Conover podcast or, video

Tris: Yeah.

Robin: channel. and

Tris: Yeah. I like factually.

Robin: factually is really great. Like factually, what I love about factually is like you say, the way that he does it is so high energy and fun like he’s trying to argue with people, and it doesn’t seem really serious.

Right. And yet

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: most of the time, the experts he’s bringing on and the topics he’s covering are like really, really quite central and insightful and, and potentially transformational. I think

Tris: Yeah. Yeah.

Robin: by factually in that way. ’cause he

Tris: Same.

Robin: you know, his whole persona is as a sort of, not that serious person sort of.

’cause he’s a comedian and he’s a, you know, but I think it is seriously good stuff.

Tris: I think it is. I’ve liked Adam kind of since he worked at College Humor and like his main show, like his breakout show was Adam Ruins everything. it really resonated with me because it’s such an artistic coded show. He’s like, oh you dunno, this exact framework of how the world works, let me give you all the information and then you are sure to understand it and, and think that everything is fine.

And of course, just explaining something to somebody doesn’t make them fine with it or, or happy with it. And that was part of the show as well. Like, he’d explain everything like how diamonds for Engagement rings are a complete fabrication of the De Beers diamond company. And like at the end of the episode he’d be like, so you are not gonna get a diamond wedding ring now, are you?

And the people would be like, no, we now we’re just sad about it and are going to do it. And if there was ever an autistic summary, it would be that.

Robin: I mean, that is so true. I love the point, like, to me, in if you are like a a, a progressive political actor, this is such an important point about strategy that. You can’t go around being moralistic about everything to everybody all the time, because

Tris: Mm-hmm.

Robin: is trapped in the system.

You can’t tell them to just not use it. if you try and do that, you are fucked as a movement because everybody’s gonna abandon you because they have to use the system. And if you make them feel too bad about it, they’re just gonna hate you because they have no choice but to use the system. Right.

Tris: Mm.

Robin: I mean?

Tris: Yeah, I’ve, I’ve heard, heard that problem.

Robin: turn your criticism away from them onto root causes. Right. allow them to give them entire license to use the system as long as they’re fighting the system at the same time. Right.

Tris: Yeah. Yeah. We all understand that we shouldn’t run our lives on the five internet companies that control all of our lives, but we are so ingrained with the, the, with society, which expects that all the way up to governmental level, that it’s not a moral failing to do that, it is just life.

Robin: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And the,

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: thing is to be on the right side of the politics as far as I’m concerned.

Tris: Yes, yes, of course. I have just subscribed to factually. Thank you for reminding me that that exists. I’ve, I’ve listened to like occasional episodes, but I should just subscribe ’cause I always enjoy them. I’ve got a question that I’ve, written in our notes here, is there a European focused, podcast show?

I’d like something that is, like, what is happening in European politics, because I want to know more about that. I don’t actually like this, this small island with a weird king that we live on.

Robin: Hmm.

Tris: Like I’m is a bit depressing and weird, but I like the broader European,

Robin: Yeah. Landscape.

Tris: stage. Landscape. Yeah. The broader, the broader European landscape like is so interesting.

Robin: Yeah.

Tris: I’d be fascinated by that.

Robin: would love to know of if anybody else, if anybody in our audience has any suggestions for that, I’d love to hear them.

Tris: Yeah, please.

Robin: say the two UK ones in my recommendations, politics theory, other and macro dose give me some of that. They definitely comment on European, positions and developments in Europe. and there used to be a show called, that, I’m surprised, wasn’t in my list at this time, ’cause it probably existed at the time I wrote this blog post doesn’t anymore. That was, that was called, talking politics. that was with a couple of professors from, Cambridge maybe. they, they would, would also comment on European politics.

and that was quite interesting. And it was from there, I got this, there was a topic I was very interested in, which I think I’m still very interested in, which was really about the way that the European Central Bank, like at some point there was this, there was this presentation I gave, I think at work, I think a canonical, just for fun, called

Tris: Cool.

Robin: that I called the, the, well I called it Europe blows up, which [00:50:00] they might have used as a phrase in their, in their podcast. and the point of the podcast was that there is a sort of spending crisis in many, many European countries, which requires, Requires the, it would to fo to solve, it would require those countries to be able to create their own money with a sovereign bank like Britain can, but they can’t. And the European Central Bank is not going to give them the money that they need. And that’s going to lead to a huge sort of stalemate.

There’s gonna have to have some kind of resolution and it’ll be a hugely impactful for Europe. And it was really, really interesting and I haven’t really stayed on it since then because I don’t have that much European coverage and political coverage in my, in my, yeah, my feed, you know?

Tris: Yeah, perhaps, perhaps. if you do know, dear Listener, please go to cap state.com. Click on this episode, and there is a comment box, at the bottom of the page. You can click skip to, discussion. do tell us, or if there’s more in depth con conversation, we use GitHub discussions, on the, encapsulate repo.

that should be, that should be there. But while we have been talking, I’ve updated and we now have that skip two discussion, link.

Robin: So there are a couple of things in here that are, that are tech focused, because I did, I did promise some tech, and I haven’t really talked about tech at all yet. Tech policy press is pretty good. It’s the closest you can get to a, a politics theory of tech, I think. so they, they, they, they have some pretty interesting topics. you’ve,

Tris: Cool

Robin: each week work repeat is not at all political really, half of it’s probably tech specific and half it’s probably not. but like it’s about, you

Tris: it,

Robin: running a team and honoring people and making sure that everyone has good morale and that kind of thing, which I like. there is, things like tech Dirt, is pretty interesting.

Tris: uh,

Robin: yeah,

Tris: I think

Robin: on the media was the last suggestion, but that’s very, very, like if you’re into journalism in America. And,

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: and leftism. It’s got better actually on the media has got stronger and it’s become particularly relevant because there is an attack on wing media in the US by Trump. from my view, it seems like on the media has taken up the mantle a little bit of being an ideological center for

Tris: Ideological center.

Robin: the concept of free speech in terms of, you know, progressive journalism against the Trump administration.

Tris: Wow.

Robin: Yeah. So I recommend that to you and then

Tris: Amazing.

Robin: over to you.

Tris: Right. I’m afraid I don’t have, leftist, podcast recommendations, but I do have podcast recommendations that I think will work with our audience. just three. I’ll start with the podcast that Inspired de capsulate, which is Cortex, relay fm slash cortex. It’s, CGP Gray, big YouTube hero of mine.

And, Mike Hurley, huge podcaster, another hero of mine. talking about their creative process there, what they’re doing in their own creative projects and so forth. If you like this show, it’s a started off with like, the initial ideas were like, oh, I’d love to do something like that. so I’m sure our listeners would love, would love that.

Secondly, my friend Ammos from Faster Than Lime, a fellow Rust. and technical YouTuber started a podcast last year called Self-Directed Research, which is sdr podcast.com. It’s Amos and a friend James talking about what they’ve been up to, usually rust embedded web servers, stuff like that.

It’s extremely programming heavy, which will work fantastically for some of our audience and not at all for the others. You’ll know if you are, really, really good, A very tight, short. They sort of give presentations to each other. the slides are in each of their episodes shown. It’s a very interesting format.

and the last one is WB 40, which is wb 40 podcast.com. it’s a, web. Tech, creative focus, discussion podcast. my friend Lisa is a co-host, and she invited me to be a guest. I’ve not yet recorded. We were supposed to record yesterday, but due to sickness, we had to postpone.

So you’ll eventually be able to hear me on an episode of WB 40. And, that’s my three.

Robin: Wow.

Tris: yes, the rest of what I listen to is perhaps I’ll put some fiction recommendations in the show notes, but I won’t go into it in this segment.

Robin: that sounds like a good idea. you’ve recommended those podcasts all to me previously, and I think I haven’t, properly engaged with them and I need to do that.

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: yeah.

Tris: Cortex is great. W four is great. Like Amos’s, self-directed research is a trip because you get to see how deep the rabbit hole goes and it makes you one really pleased that somebody is going this into detail. And two, that it’s not you, that someone else is doing all of this

Robin: Yeah. Absolutely.

Demo to Robin how Tris makes his videos

Tris: so. I’m going to demo to you, Robin, how I make a video in obsidian. Would you give an overview for our listeners of what you are [00:55:00] seeing?

I am seeing a title at the top ofyour document that says Obsidian for Students.

on the right And on the left of that, you’ve got the outline of the headings in that document,You’ve got it. my process for writing a video is to not start with slides and so forth, but to start here,

I’ve just got a marked down document with some headings and some text headings and text headings and texts. I’m scrolling all the way through it. Occasional mermaid diagram, lover mermaid diagram. Love a mermaid diagram ca.

Robin: really meaning to get really good at Mermaid. I don’t really use them and I absolutely love the idea and so many things support Mermaid and I really feel like I should just, do the basic learning to just be able to write one on the fly really easily,

Tris: absolutely. the killer feature of Mermaid, is, it stops you wasting timeMermaid, for our listeners who don’t know, is a simple text format that you can make asky diagrams, with boxes and lines flow charts or Gantt charts or a few other options like common diagrams that you just write in text and then mermaid will convert that into an image.

what you can’t do is choose where everything is. if you’ve got a flow chart that has, a box and then you point the arrow to the second box, you can choose whether or not they’re flowing from top to bottom or left to right, but you can’t do anything else. You can’t click and drag stuff, like if you’re

traditional drag and drop tools, you’re drawing boxes, drawing lines, that sort of thing. If you’re really lucky, the arrows might snap to the boxes and shapes that, you’re working with. They might help you a little there and then when you move things around that might keep them joined.

But there’s so much fussing. There’s so

Robin: Yeah.

Tris: much moving at one pixel to the left, one pixel to the right. Are they lined up?

Robin: Well, I

Tris: I was wasting so much time.

Robin: for, corporate use. for your job. Mermaid is definitely not gonna be acceptable for all use cases. you say, if you’re very lucky, they’ll snap. I think nowadays we’re actually in a world where there are loads and loads of these tools that have realized that you are likely to want a box and then an arrow to another box.

and so they base their whole interface around that concept. But you’re absolutely right that you are designing the layout of the thing to an extent that you don’t do with mermaid. Like draw io, lucid

Tris: Yes.

Robin: charts.

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: Miro, which I think maybe is, is Miro, that

Tris: Miro. Yeah.

Robin: I’ve been told it many times and I just can’t learn it. I just dunno how to pronounce it.

Tris: I think it’s, because to me it sounds very like Milo, which you,

Oh yeah.

Robin: aware of, probably because it’s a chocolate drink mostly in Southeast Asia or something.

Tris: I’m not aware of it. Cool.

Robin: but yeah. to me it’s almost Milo, which is probably why I call it myro.

Tris: Tasty. Right? So those tools are great and you are right, you’d want them, if you are presenting to a client especially, you might want the perfect layout, pixel, perfect colors, the branding. But I don’t, in my notes, even in my videos, I actually, the value I get out of a mermaid diagram is that it renders everywhere, including on GitHub and on my digital garden.

website, namal.com renders there. And it’s not fussy or other, it is fuss resistant. I can’t be precious about exactly moving things around because there’s just no option. this box connects to that box and it will render in a reasonable way. And you can’t change where those boxes are in relation to each other.

it’ll flow with a simple algorithm if you don’t like it. Tough luck. Get back to work, stop yak shaving. That’s what I like about it.

So I’ve got a load of mermaid diagrams here in my, slides in this obsedian for students, script.

the tool, in question is called present term, this is a rust powered tool that is just. The features keep coming. it’s got image support in a terminal. It’s got mermaid support in terminal.

It’s got types and latex and different font sizes like you see here where

Robin: isn’t an

Tris: like,

Robin: plugin per se.

Tris: it is not, it is a markdown based presentation tool

Robin: I, I really

Tris: presenter.

Robin: would be presenting your slides. I thought you were using like the slides plugin or something, and you’d be presenting them through the, something like that.

Tris: Up until five videos ago, I used the slides extended plugin, which is a fork of advanced slides, which is an improvement on the built-in slides feature of obsidian.

Robin: Right.

Tris: Really, really good. But I needed both more features and less features.

Robin: sure.

Tris: the built-in obsidian slides And slides extended, which improves it gives you a bit more, tweaking options and some quality of life features is based on, reveal js. So it’s an HT ML JavaScript, system, and it allows you to just write in some nice simple markdown in obsidian with some horizontal rules to delineate different, slides.

And that’s what I did. If you go to github.com/eight man slash no boilerplate in the scripts directory, you will see all of my previous slides. They’re all like that.[01:00:00]

But this plugin, this tool, present term is slightly better for a few subtle reasons. I would say that most people should probably just use the built in slides, but people who talk about programming and might want to show, code on.

Their presentations might consider present term because it’s got some really good features, like it can execute your code or syntax, check your code so that if you make mistakes, your presentation breaks. And that was extremely important for me as a rust programming educator, because in my early videos, I made mistakes all the time, copy and paste mistakes like typos.

Like if you’re just showing a blob of text that happens to be code, it’s very easy for that to be wrong and you’ll never know.

Robin: Yeah. it happens

Tris: I wrote,

Robin: Like I remember. So,

Tris: yes.

Robin: so many times you’ll see slides and they will have code mistakes in them and the problem is that like often that is the only reference you have for how to solve the specific problem they were talking about in the slide. So then you try and copy it, it doesn’t work, and now you don’t know why it doesn’t work.

’cause it’s not like a full of documentation. Yeah.

Tris: Right. Yes, exactly. Um, that’s another nice thing about having marked down as your, as your slides format, is that this document we’re looking at here, Atidum for students, will eventually published onto my Digital Garden website, namal.com, in exactly the same format. And that’s another thing that present term works very nicely with,

And this is actually better than the built-in obsidian slides because built-in obsidian slides uses horizontal rules.

To chain, to, to delineate their, their different slides.

Robin: Right.

Tris: And when I push this code up to namal.com, you see those horizontal rules in the page.

Robin: Yeah,

Tris: we’ve got HTML comments for control flow, and they don’t show on the site. They are there on the site.

Robin: in multiple different ways.

Tris: Yes, yes. it’s, extremely, extremely nice. we’ve got image support, it’s marvelous.

this is how I love to do my slides, text is the most important thing in all of my projects. the flow, the story that is vital,

Robin: Yeah. very

Tris: the.

Robin: and the reason I need to learn mermaid is because I feel like I can see other people at work like being power more powerful, because I’ll write like a very authoritative argument about a thing, but it’s several paragraphs and the number of people I get to read those paragraphs is diminishing. And

Tris: Right.

Robin: can make a diagram, in a sense that’s a more powerful, so I need to learn to diagram better. I’m very text first in exactly the way you are.

Tris: Nice. Yep.

Robin: you do the same thing. You take a text first approach and you turn it into a presentation rather than just a document that is a bit dense, right?

Tris: Right, exactly. That’s the secret I think with my, my videos is that they are podcasts that have a slideshow.

Robin: Yeah. Yes.

Tris: at the top of this document, I’ve got four dates in the YAML front matter scheduled, written, published, and due. scheduled when I start working on the project written when it, it needs to have been written by, published when it’s published to patrons and due when it’s actually live on the public site or, on YouTube.

And this is the same across all of my podcast video projects.

Robin: this one. Yeah.

Tris: Yeah. Yes, exactly.

and there we are.

That’s, um,

Robin: Wow.

Tris: that’s the setup. Do you have any follow up questions

Robin: And if anyone has further questions, obviously please comment on this episode. On to capsulate.com.

absolutely. It is a very useful thing for everyone to know. I think I kind of knew that this was roughly your process. I think it is very interesting to know that you are using that command line. Um, the fact that it’s command line does endear me to it a little bit more.

I don’t love that so many things are obsidian plugins. When obsidian is a proprietary, closed source platform, it’s not closed source in the sense that it encourages you to create, plain text documents, which is fantastic. But nonetheless, if obsidian goes away or you need to platform into a different markdown, editor, take your

Tris: Yes.

Robin: right? it’s very

Tris: Yeah.

Robin: have things that are outside of that.

Tris: Yes. I’m trying to de platform a lot of my core plugins. and that was another big advantage of presenter. Like if I go to my daily note here, we’ve got my calendar on the side. but if I bring it in from off screen, I have mimicked that in a terminal dashboard.

Robin: Mm.

Tris: Um. Which only requires markdown, not obsidian. This is the, the,

Robin: That is

Tris: is the supreme. Well, thank you. This is the supreme [01:05:00] advantage of having all of your life plain text is that You can easily build a bit more tooling or use,

Robin: Yeah,

Tris: uh, complimentary tools.

Robin: think absolutely this should be a a video topic of yours,

This is really interesting. I know that it’s like a shot at obsidian in a sense, but it’s

Tris: Well, it’s obsidian is the best tool for doing all of this, but it is proprietary and can go away tomorrow.

Robin: And,

none of us love the, I feel like I’m, I know who is a fan of obsidian, they’re really like that because they are quite interested in open source and every one of them is frustrated that obsidian is not open source.

And then there’s just something they accept because it’s good enough, but

Tris: Yeah, the what’s nice is that the plugins are mostly open source. Nearly every plugin has a GitHub page. Of course, it needs the framework of obsidian to, to make sense and to actually render, but a lot of the logic could be fairly easily ported. But it, it’s not perfect. a lot of people ask me, why am I using obsidian?

’cause it’s closed source and shouldn’t I use something else? I would love to. There is nothing else.

Robin: Yeah,

Tris: the complexity that I need to run my life and my systems. Like, people say, well, couldn’t you use org mode or Loge or Joplin or, and like those, you know, you can mention 20 or so others, they’re all garbage.

They’re all simple note-taking tools, and I have transcended their ability to handle the complexity of my life. Like I, I need way more than that. and it’s not even that other proprietary apps can satisfy me. Like Todoist is a fine to do system, but that is not the level of complexity that I need to run my life.

Robin: it works very well for you. I mean, but, but

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: this is an example of that point I was making about progressive movements. Like, I’m not telling you don’t use obsidian, but I think it is

Tris: Yes.

Robin: for you to explain the ways you’ve discovered that you can. Inoculate yourself in places against the centralization of obsidian, right? Because that

Tris: Right.

Robin: that’s then the political movement.I would describe it as of,

Tris: Mm-hmm.

Robin: building resiliency and extracting from this centralized system which we, which we nonetheless have to work with. and similarly I think it’s, it’s, you know, in the open source world, I think it’s very, very unhelpful for people to try and tell everybody they should be using like the gimp instead of Photoshop.

Like,

Tris: Mm.

Robin: crazy argument. It’s sucks compared to Photoshop. Like,

Tris: It is so bad.

Robin: I mean, I’m

Tris: I use,

Robin: offend

Tris: I,

Robin: our audience, but like,

Tris: I I, I use it every day. it’s my primary image editor, and it sucks compared to Photoshop.

Robin: right. so don’t go around and tell people they should use the gimp. Go around and figure out why it is. The gimp is so much worse. And take that seriously and don’t just deny it and pretend that it’s not true, and

Tris: Hmm.

Robin: figure out how you can improve things. Right?

Tris: Yes, it is possible to beat Adobe at their own game. Look at Inkscape, the vector editor. There are many, it is so on par with Illustrator that there are some artists who straight up prefer it even though they have an Illustrator license.

Robin: Yeah, totally.