439: Ditches and Psychology

January 9, 2023 Elecia White

Transcript from 439: Ditches and Psychology with Chris White and Elecia White.

EW (00:06):

Hello and welcome to Embedded. It is just us this week.

CW (00:11):

Well, I mean, it has been a few weeks.

EW (00:13):

It is Happy New Year.

CW (00:15):

Happy New Year, and everything that came before New Year.

EW (00:18):

Yes. Happy winter. Please let the light come back.

CW (00:21):

I do not care about the light so much. I do not like the moist.

EW (00:26):

Yeah. You have been having fun playing in the mud?

CW (00:30):

Yes. I am the Mud Man now.

EW (00:33):

The thing that they do not tell you about buying a house, is that it is a lot like getting a part-time job that nobody pays you for. In fact, you have to pay a lot to do it.

CW (00:42):

Yeah, there is that. And it is also a constant battle against the disintegration of your house, through various forces that you were not aware of before you owned a house. And then- I know I am complaining about owning a house, which is-

EW (00:57):

This is so. Yes.

CW (01:01):

You never know if something that is wrong is actually wrong, or if you just do not know anything. Like, is some moisture under the house okay when you have a big crawlspace and you are built into a hillside? I do not know. Nobody has ever explained that to me. I have asked people and I do not remember the answer.

EW (01:17):

How much erosion is too much erosion?

CW (01:19):

<laugh>. So, how much work should I be doing on this drainage, problems?

EW (01:24):

Yeah, these are not real problems.

CW (01:26):

Yeah. We do not want your place for shelter to fall down the hill and become a boat.

EW (01:34):

Particularly not as the storm of storms is coming.

CW (01:38):

Yes, I have been messing with sump pumps, which are as fun as the word "sump pump" sounds.

EW (01:45):

Yes. And you discovered that we have a heated water source.

CW (01:52):

<laugh>. Yes, temporarily.

EW (01:53):

That is kind of what started it.

CW (01:54):

Yeah. So I went down there before the latest storm, but after the first storm, to check on the sump pumps. We have three sump pumps, which take water that accumulates in our crawlspace and moves it somewhere else, hopefully not in our crawlspace. It is moderately successful with that. The design of the sump pump system was done by somebody who did not know what they were doing. I am inheriting what is mostly an amateur project.

(02:22):

I went down there and checked on- We have three sump pumps, and one of them was obviously not running because the catch basin was full of water and overflowing. And also steaming. Which was a new experience, to see a pool of water in my basement crawlspace steaming. Briefly, I thought, "Oh my God, we have some new geothermal event happening under our house."

EW (02:47):

And not, "Oh wow. A motor has seized, and now we are just using it to transfer electricity to warm."

CW (02:54):

So that pump had seized completely. I do not know how long it had been down there doing that, but it was bad. Yes, my project for the week, in addition to trying to get back to work after taking time off, is to replace that sump pump, which I am not doing well at.

EW (03:10):

What did you do with your time off?

CW (03:14):

A lot of nothing, which is something I have not done in a while. Not intentionally. So that was nice. You got me some things for Christmas that I played around with, which were fun technology stuff, which I have to say I have not been that excited about doing little tech projects. But after several days of not doing work and not interacting with the tech community <laugh>, I was like, "Oh, I have these boards, want to see what I can do with these." It was actually fun. I did not have too much ambition about it. I am still playing with them and I have ideas for them.

EW (03:50):

You used CircuitPython for one of them?

CW (03:52):

Yeah. The boards you got me, the only one I played with so far- You got me this thing from MIKROE, M I K R O E, which I had never heard of before. They make these little- They have a whole ecosystem.

EW (04:06):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And they have a lot of sensors and a lot of-

CW (04:09):

Tons, hundreds.

EW (04:09):

Just amazing. So many.

CW (04:11):

So these little boards, it is like the Feather system or the Arduino shields or Raspberry Pi HATs, where you have these little boards that all interconnect with a common connector and they have various sensors. But these people have hundreds and hundreds that they make.

(04:29):

They have CPU carrier boards, so you can put two or three microcontrollers on a board, and then plug these modules in. There is this whole module system, it is really fascinating. I had never heard of them. They have their own compiler and other stuff. They have the whole embedded deal. Never heard of them. M I K R O E. Never heard of them.

EW (04:48):

<laugh>

CW (04:48):

So the board you got me is this little MIKROE 8800 board, which they take the name from the Altair 8800. But what it is, it is an eight by eight array of red LEDs and a four by four array of micro buttons. It is really small. It is about the size of a Raspberry Pi Pico, maybe a little smaller.

EW (05:09):

I would have said a little bigger.

CW (05:11):

It is a little bigger in one dimension, but smaller in another.

EW (05:13):

Okay.

CW (05:15):

It has an LED and button controller chip on it from somebody, AMS1115 or something, and that is I2C. So you talk to that, and you can make all the buttons light up and stuff.

EW (05:27):

Make all the LEDs light up and receive all the buttons.

CW (05:29):

Right. <laugh> You can make the LEDs light up and you can easily read the buttons. I will play with that with the Raspberry Pi Picos I have laying around, because I have not tried those. I was hemming and hawing. I was like, "Well, I have got the Picos, so I am going to install the SDK. And do Visual Studio Code. And do all this stuff." And I was looking at it, I was like, "Well, there is a Docker for that. Maybe that is the simplest thing to do, so I do not screw up my Mac's existing install. And then finally I said, "Why do I not try CircuitPython?"

EW (05:56):

<laugh>

CW (05:58):

And I did. It was really fun, and it is super easy.

EW (06:01):

And you did not have to install anything.

CW (06:02):

Did not have to install anything.

EW (06:04):

Edit the file and it does its thing.

CW (06:06):

I opened it in VS Code as if it was its own project folder, which is probably not what you are supposed to do, because a lot of touching of-

EW (06:11):

Why not?

CW (06:11):

Well, I write the flash a lot. Edited it right there, and it was super easy. I think the newer CircuitPython even has a web server, so you do not even need anything installed on your computer. This is the Pico W, with wireless. So if you have that, I think you can connect to it and edit the code on it using its own web server. I have to try that still, but when I had a brand new install of it and I connected to it, it was like, "Oh, click here to edit your code." So I want to give that a shot.

(06:43):

It was very relaxing to use CircuitPython. It was weird. I still had problems and bugs and things I did not understand, but it was...

EW (06:57):

It was comfortable.

CW (06:58):

It was comfortable, yeah. There was no driver for the LED chip that was on this board, so I had to look up the data sheet and some other stuff, and use the base I2C calls to write to it.

EW (07:11):

But you did all that in Python, you did not go and recompile CircuitPython.

CW (07:14):

All that was in CircuitPython, and I found some example code for that. So I worked with that and I put Conway's Game of Life on it and made it flash things. And I had a web server so you could reset Game of Life using your browser. I was so inspired, I tried to make a little box for it, a 3D printer box for it, which I am still not very good at.

EW (07:40):

And you did SCAD for that?

CW (07:43):

No, Onshape. That is what I have been using.

EW (07:43):

Onshape. And it is a free, if you are not selling...

CW (07:50):

It is free-ish. You normally have to pay for it, but if you are just a hobbyist and you allow- They have their own cloud storage of everything. So if you allow all your designs to be public, then it is totally free. And I do not care. <laugh> People can look at my crappy boxes if they want <laugh>.

(08:10):

I had been using Fusion 360 for some work stuff, and it is so expensive and they keep changing the subscription. I like it. The UI is better than Onshape's. I understand it better, but I am still bad at it. I have decided I am going to use Onshape, it works on my iPad, works in a browser. There is no software for Onshape, so it just works in a browser. It is same idea as Fusion 360, where you do sketches and extrusions and all that kind of stuff.

EW (08:44):

It is funny, you have been down on technology for a while, just completely, "I do not want to do this". A couple weeks off, and you got really into it. You were lost programming for three days.

CW (08:58):

I read somebody say something. Oh, no, I saw a study a couple weeks ago, that said that the internet, having access to the internet and social media and all this information and these little bite-size information, means that people do not reach a profound state of boredom. And that you have to reach a profound state of boredom to go do creative, to be like, "Okay, I am going to go work on something creative." I think there is a little bit of truth to that <laugh>, at least for me. So I think this week I might have achieved close to a profound state of boredom at one point. It is like, "Oh, I have got these boards. I will sit down." I think I did not want to do- The thing that is hard for me with projects, is I do not want to be tied to a desk.

EW (09:42):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Is it when you are at your desk, you are working?

CW (09:44):

Yeah. So I do not want be down here at my desk with a whole bunch of boards and a JTAG and all this stuff in this workspace. With the CircuitPython, I was like, "Oh, I am going to go sit on the couch. I will have a coffee. All I need is the board and a USB cable." And that was nice.

EW (10:03):

Which with wireless, you might even have the board on the coffee table.

CW (10:06):

<laugh> I did not even need the USB cable. I just need the board and a battery or power. So it was kind of different. It is making me re-evaluate my connection to technology. Some of it is, if it feels like work, it is work. I do not want to do it.

EW (10:25):

Yeah.

CW (10:26):

Making the lights blink was fun.

EW (10:29):

It is. I mean, I get run down at work with work, and I am not even working very hard lately. <laugh> I have been working much harder on origami than I have with work, which is kind of embarrassing. But you need a break sometimes. And then you realize that you do like what you do, you just do not like what you do every day.

CW (10:57):

Yeah. Well it is the same thing with people telling you, "Oh, you are so good at this. Why do you not turn this into a business or sell your stuff?" And it is like, "Yeah, but once I do that, then it is work, and then I will not like it anymore."

EW (11:09):

I went to the doctor, just normal physical. I folded an origami jellyfish while I was there, because it has gotten to where I fold things if I am nervous. I gave it to the doctor at the end, and she was really impressed. She said, "Where did I get the pattern?" And I said, "Well, this is one I made up." And she said, "Well, you should put it in a book." And my thought was like, "No, that would be awful." And they really probably should document the pattern, because it is not bad. But that looks like work.

CW (11:53):

It is a nice compliment.

EW (11:54):

It is a wonderful compliment.

CW (11:56):

Yeah. So what else? Did I do other things? I tried to do some music stuff. I finished up a project for someone else, for music.

EW (12:05):

Yes! You were working with someone else for a while.

CW (12:07):

I did a small amount of session work, bass guitars. That will come out someday and I will let people know. It is a genre of music that I am pretty unfamiliar with. So it was a very big challenge. It was very experimental, synth. Synth heavy stuff, and ten minute, 11 minute long song.

EW (12:28):

Are you looking for other session?

CW (12:31):

I do not think so for the next month or two, because I have some classes that I am taking.

EW (12:37):

Right. One of the things you got me for holidays was a paper engineering class, that costs a little bit more than my "Making Embedded Systems" class costs.

CW (12:49):

<laugh>

EW (12:50):

So it was pretty expensive.

CW (12:54):

So what is that all about?

EW (12:55):

Okay, so paper engineering.

CW (12:57):

What does that mean?

EW (12:59):

Some origami. The person who teaches it has written several pop-up books with mechanisms in them. One you put an LED under it and it puts stars on the ceiling. And there is a pop-up that is a camera, which we are going to build in class. I am excited about that.

CW (13:21):

A film camera?

EW (13:23):

I do not know.

CW (13:24):

Okay.

EW (13:25):

As far as I am concerned, can you not make a little tiny hole and call it a camera? I do not know what it is going to be. The first class was about Mobius strips, which I was like, "Okay, yeah, we will just count that as a no op." But it turns out there was a lot of good stuff there. If you have a Mobius strip and you cut it in half, you get two.

CW (13:56):

Cut it in half not to disconnect it. You cut it along the curved path.

EW (14:01):

You cut it along the center line.

CW (14:03):

Yeah, okay.

EW (14:03):

Well actually, you get a Mobius strip that has two rotations in it. If you have two Mobius strips and you put them together, and you do it the right way with the right chirality and everything is going the right direction, when you cut them in half along the lengthwise, you can get two heart shapes.

CW (14:28):

Huh.

EW (14:28):

And there is this mathematician who has this really great lecture about how all that works, which I should put into the show notes. That was not really what we talked about. We did not talk about the math at all, but she showed all these different things that were additional on top of Mobius strips. The second class was about tessellations. I do tessellations a lot. I find them relaxing...

CW (14:56):

This is not drawing tessellations, this is folding tessellations.

EW (14:59):

Folding tessellations. People may have seen the water bomb tessellation that kind of moves and looks like a sheep. We did that in class. <laugh> I think I was done doing it, before she was done explaining what it was <laugh>.

(15:14):

But we also talked about different rigid foldable things, like they use on space stuff. Like the Miura Ori folds, that will compress down to a small size. And then you only have hinges, the folds, and flat sides. So you can get to a very small area and then expand up to a huge area. The example there was the solar shield, which is the size of a baseball diamond if it is fully extended. They have not launched that one, but I know that the James Webb Space Telescope has what is called a Flasher style origami <laugh> as part of it. So we talked a little bit about those.

(16:09):

And then today, I do not quite understand what happened. There was something with boxes and jitterbugs and like that clacky clacky toy that it runs down the loop and then you pick it up at the bottom and it runs down again. Something happened like that with paper.

CW (16:27):

<laugh> Okay.

EW (16:27):

I do not quite understand. There was this- I almost never cut things myself because I am like a five year old with scissors. I have the Cricut, which cuts things out for me. So we cut it out during class and I could not cheat with my robot. Yeah, mine worked, but it looked like a five year old made it.

CW (16:53):

So what is the goal with the class to learn these techniques? Is there like, "Oh, you have to do a final project where you build the James Webb Space Telescope?"

EW (17:03):

There are going to be little projects like we have been doing, but there is going to be one big project, not huge. As a class we got to decide whether we wanted to have everything go toward the one big project, or if we wanted little ones and then a larger one at the end. I think most of her past classes have done pop-up books.

CW (17:21):

Wow.

EW (17:21):

We have not gotten to pop-ups yet. I am not quite sure when that is, but we are going to spend some time talking about flexagons, which are really fun and Flashers, which also are fun. Those are both origami stuff, things I am familiar with. But we also talk about the mechanisms of how things can make other things move with paper. So we talked to Professor O about paper mech. Paper mecha? [http://www.papermech.net/]

CW (17:49):

Yeah. Something like that.

EW (17:50):

That you can make gears out of paper. So you are doing some things like that.

CW (17:54):

Okay.

EW (17:55):

It has been a fun class so far. As with many things, I spend some time in class wondering what I am doqing there.

CW (18:02):

<laugh> Can you consider not second guessing yourself?

EW (18:08):

And trying not to be the person who interrupts, which today I actually did interrupt, because she was looking at the origami simulator, but clearly she did not know how many extra features she could have. And she said, "You know, you can load your own if you get the colors right." And I am like, "Yeah, I use that all the time. It is super cool." But I am trying not to be too noisy.

CW (18:30):

Speaking of the origami simulator, you have got me something else electronics related, that was sort of inspired by the person who did the origami simulator?

EW (18:40):

Yeah. Amanda.

CW (18:41):

Amanda Ghassaei. I hope I am pronouncing that right.

EW (18:46):

I am going to go with Amanda G, because I know that she has how to pronounce her name, and I am still not sure.

CW (18:53):

Anyway, it was from a project she did in 2014 called Sugarcube, which is a little MIDI instrument with these nice buttons from...

EW (19:03):

SparkFun.

CW (19:03):

SparkFun, yes. So you got me the buttons and the LEDs to do something like that. So they are very nice white partially translucent buttons that you can put LEDs- They sit on top of an LED matrix, and so you can turn them on and off and stuff. I think I will make some sort of MIDI thing out of that, and I will probably do it in CircuitPython again.

EW (19:24):

Did you realize that the two were connected? The little one was the stocking stuffer, that is essentially the same thing as the big one.

CW (19:31):

Yeah, I know. I got that.

EW (19:32):

Okay, just want to make sure. And the big one, the buttons and the LEDs are in the same place, but in the little one they are separated.

CW (19:39):

Yeah, I got it.

EW (19:40):

Just wanted to make sure.

CW (19:45):

It is all R Pi Pico. Either could do MIDI stuff, so I do not know what I will do with them. A little tiny drum machine would be funny too. Very tiny.

EW (19:55):

The little MIKROE one. I really like that you are excited about that.

CW (20:02):

Well I think part of it is- I do not know what part of it is <laugh>. I think I got to the point where I can be a little less precious about technology. Does that make any sense?

EW (20:17):

With those projects you do not have to be professional about it.

CW (20:20):

That is it. Since I am a professional...

EW (20:25):

So-called.

CW (20:26):

So-called professional, I feel like I have to do everything the way I would do it if I was making a product. Use bare metal boards and make my own board. Or Visual Studio Code and C and C++, or I should learn Rust.

(20:42):

I just want to play around with this gadgety things and make things blink, and do some MIDI stuff and CircuitPython is right there. Or if there was something easier than CircuitPython, I would probably use that now. Drag and drop some blocks, use Scratch. I just want to build something and have it be fun. The hardest thing I am doing is the stupid CAD stuff, and there is no way around that as far as I can tell. Ah, actually there is! <laugh>

(21:08):

That is another thing I was going to mention. I came across, and I do not remember the source of this, it is somewhere on Mastodon I saw this. It is a website called Boxes.py and the whole website is festi F E S T I, festi.info/boxes.py. What it has is a whole bunch of box designs that you can click on and they are parameterized. So you click on one and then it opens up a parameterization, that you can set the sizes and if you have got shelves and stuff. Then it gives you the code you need to do laser cutting out of wood to make. They are like those dinosaurs that you piece together that have wood edges. So it makes boxes like that. So you can make project boxes super, super easy if you have a laser cutter.

EW (22:05):

You know, I can do that in the Cricut, right? I mean, I cannot do super thick wood, but I can do...

CW (22:11):

Well, now I am much more interested in this.

EW (22:13):

<laugh>

CW (22:16):

So Boxes.py is an open source box generator written in Python. It features both parameterized generators as well as a Python API for writing your own. It can make finger, flat dovetail joints, flex cuts, holes and slots for screws, hinges, gears, pulleys and more. So it is really cool.

(22:32):

The things I am making are super, super small, so it would probably be hard to make out of wood. But for larger projects, these were really neat. I want more stuff like this, where it is like, "I want Star Trek replicators." And the thing about Star Trek replicators is you did not say, "Here is my CAD drawing."

EW (22:53):

You did not say, "I want Earl Grey with 25% aged Boss Assam and 75% newer Assam and 2% bergamot, and-"

CW (23:07):

"Make sure the water is 1% deuterium."

EW (23:10):

"And I want it to start out at a temperature of 180 and steep for four minutes in a 70 degree room." You do not have to write all of these things. You just say, "Earl Grey hot," and that is it. That even puts it in a cup for you, which I would have forgotten to put into my program, and I would have just ended up with a puddle.

CW (23:34):

<laugh> Yeah. So I am discovering, maybe trying to discover, my relationship with the word I hate "maker" stuff, where if it is easy and I am relaxed doing it, then I am more likely to do it. So, trying to apply that to more things. Music - there is no hope for that. Music is hard. You cannot make your music easy. Well you can make music easy, but then you are limited in what you can do.

EW (24:04):

That sounds like technology. That made me think about something I have totally forgotten now.

CW (24:14):

<laugh>

EW (24:14):

Wow, that was fast.

CW (24:18):

Was it music? Was it...

EW (24:20):

Oh, you said about having to make it look professional, because you are a professional.

CW (24:27):

Well not look professional.

EW (24:29):

Be professional.

CW (24:29):

Use the professional tools and workflow.

EW (24:32):

Right. And you are not even- If you post this, it will be in video form, you are probably not doing a tutorial on it.

CW (24:40):

That sounds like a lot of work. I am probably just using it for myself.

EW (24:43):

Yeah. You might put it on Mastodon with a video.

CW (24:49):

Yeah. If it is a wireless thing, maybe I will just put it up here, and have it make a face at me when the weather changes or something.

EW (24:55):

You said you wanted to try Pomodoro. It could stick its tongue out at you, when it was time for you to switch tasks.

(25:01):

One of the things that has come about with talking to people about burnout, is questioning why you do the things you do and your values and all of that stuff. I never meant to live my life so much in public. We have talked to people and I do not remember, somebody. I think maybe I said, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Or something like that. Hopefully not that condescending. And they said something about wanting to be an inspiration. I have never wanted to be an inspiration, like "Make your own mistakes folks." I have made plenty, but they are mine.

CW (25:54):

I was thinking about this a couple of days ago, coincidentally, and we have not talked about this. With artistic pursuits, specifically music, I would like people to enjoy what I do and listen to it. And I would like to hear that people enjoy it. But I do not need them to know who I am.

EW (26:14):

Okay.

CW (26:16):

So I would like to do great things, and be left alone.

EW (26:20):

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CW (26:22):

I would like to be recognized and ignored, if that makes any sense <laugh>. I do not know what that means exactly for-

EW (26:31):

I would like my output, my achievements to be recognized. But in the meantime, do not look at me.

CW (26:38):

I am much more comfortable hearing, "That is a great song," which I do not hear very often. Not trolling for compliments. But I would rather hear "That is a great song," than "You are a great player." Because the song I feel like is its own thing. And I am happy for this song. I am glad people like it. If somebody says I am great, then I do not feel comfortable about that. Because I do not know how to process that, because it is probably- Yeah, anyway.

EW (27:06):

Is this just an esteem thing?

CW (27:07):

I do not know what it is, but I was thinking, what do I want with music or artistic output? Well I would like to know that people enjoy this, but it can be at a remove. I do not want to be famous, and that is not going to happen. I think we were watching something where somebody had some fame, and it was like, "Yeah, that does not seem great."

EW (27:34):

Obscurity seems like a lot more fun.

CW (27:36):

Like if I was a woodworker, I would love people to enjoy this desk, but I do not need to be on social media as somebody who is a famous woodworker <laugh>.

EW (27:46):

Yeah. I think social media is part of it. We have been switching over to Mastodon from Twitter, and-

CW (27:52):

I switched. I do not even have an account on Twitter anymore <laugh>.

EW (27:55):

I bet it still has an account.

CW (27:56):

Yeah, well.

EW (27:59):

It is not really politics, it is just Twitter kept changing their rules, and I do not want to deal with that.

CW (28:04):

It was also politics for me <laugh>.

EW (28:09):

I have been posting a lot less than I did. It is not for any reason. I guess part of it is because I do not check as often, because I have not found people to follow that I am really happy with. Not that they are not there, just that I have not found them yet. And I have been very much in the "leave me alone, do not look at me" mode. And yet, I posted the origami wave, which I am super happy with and I want people to see it. I want people to enjoy it, and I want them to like it, and to say that they like it. But I do not really need them to say that I did a good job.

CW (28:47):

Yeah. Very strange.

EW (28:52):

Welcome to "Ditches in Psychology."

CW (28:54):

So I do not know why we do things <laugh>.

EW (28:56):

The new podcast about sump pumps, and motivation.

CW (29:01):

Ditches in psychology <laugh>. Yeah. I do not know why we do things. I think at a fundamental level, we do things for our own enjoyment, and if we are not enjoying them then we should not be doing them. Work aside, because you need to work in order to enjoy food, shelter from the mud...

EW (29:31):

I mean, I like the work that I do-

CW (29:32):

Being able to buy one or two sump pumps a week, until you find one that actually works.

EW (29:36):

Got to be just the right size.

CW (29:38):

God, I cannot stand it. And then after I bought the sump pump at Home Depot, Monday, of course I tried to look for a different one. This, the one that I got, is not working well. So I needed a different one, and they are not cheap. I looked at Home Depot again. There are no sump pumps to be had in the Santa Cruz County region <laugh>.

EW (29:56):

Probably not in the whole Bay Area. That storm has everybody looking at what is underneath their house, and how much water is okay to have.

CW (30:05):

Got one from Amazon. Sorry, what were we talking about?

EW (30:09):

Ditches in psychology?

CW (30:10):

Yeah, ditches in psychology. Oh, I mentioned I was not going to do session work. Not that I have any <laugh> in the queue, but because I am taking some courses. And then we talked about your course.

EW (30:22):

Oh, right. We were going to talk about your courses.

CW (30:24):

It is nothing to talk about yet, because I have not started. But I am taking two songwriting workshops, or maybe one, and canceling the second one and doing a different course. These four or five week long things, they are remote, and you work with a semi-known musician who is running the class. And write a lot of songs, and learn some stuff about songwriting. I am kind of excited, kind of nervous, because I need to pick. Not a great guitar player, so that is probably what I am going to use for playing though. And I definitely am not a good singer or lyric writer, so it will be an experience.

EW (31:00):

You are really worried that they are going to make you write lyrics, are you not?

CW (31:02):

Oh, I guarantee they are going to make me write lyrics. It is a songwriting course. It is not a...

EW (31:07):

Music writing.

CW (31:09):

Yeah <laugh>. It will be fun.

EW (31:10):

Cool.

CW (31:10):

But they were pretty inexpensive, so I could just take one of these constantly, basically <laugh>. It was like $120 for five weeks.

EW (31:20):

That is much cheaper.

CW (31:22):

That gives you Zoom classes with the instructor, and then songwriting workshops with the other students. You do not interact with the instructor much, so it is not a fully interactive thing, but should be some. I do not know. That will be interesting.

(31:40):

I am desperately trying to reduce my workload in work land this year. We will see how that goes. Today I booked a new record amount of hours, so it is not going well so far. New record for the year. It is a total record for the year.

EW (31:58):

Well, yes.

CW (31:59):

<laugh>

EW (32:01):

We are pretty early in the year yet.

CW (32:03):

No, I just did a full day today.

EW (32:06):

I did not. I did a couple hours, and then I had my paper class.

CW (32:09):

You had your class, which is like three hours long. I could tell you feel bad about that somehow.

EW (32:17):

Well, I feel like that should be not during work hours.

CW (32:21):

The class?

EW (32:22):

It does not-

CW (32:23):

What is work hours?

EW (32:25):

All of them.

CW (32:25):

It is not like the clients pay attention to when you do stuff.

EW (32:29):

No, and actually the client I was working on this morning, has told me not to work until they finish their budget.

CW (32:38):

See, that was was my mistake. I gave my client a budget, and then I was thinking, "He is never going to approve this!" And he was like, "That is all fine." I was like, "Ah. Damn, damn it!"

EW (32:48):

<laugh>

CW (32:49):

Damn it.

EW (32:50):

You should have added some multiples in there <laugh>.

CW (32:55):

So speaking of all that, what are your plans? I know this is New Year's garbage, but what are you planning for 2023? How are you looking at this new block of time, which has been delineated by the Romans since 70 AD?

EW (33:11):

Arbitrarily delineated. I made this resolution bingo card, which has things for health and mental health and nature and going out and origami. I decided I did not really need a bingo card about work. That would happen whether I wanted to or not. I have some plans and goals there, but I am still open to them changing.

(33:40):

So I figured I should make resolutions about the things that I really want to do, but I cannot make myself do. Then I did the bingo chart, because you always break resolutions. So what if all I had to do was connect five of them?

CW (34:01):

<laugh>

EW (34:05):

A few of them are really easy, and a few of them like "go to the dentist" I cannot just pop in today. That takes a little bit of planning. Some of them were exercise certain amount of time for a whole month. But they amused me, and I will print that out and keep it, and maybe one day I will shout "bingo" in the middle of the day.

CW (34:30):

You can just post it randomly. Nobody will understand what it is.

EW (34:32):

That is probably what will happen.

CW (34:36):

But you still have clients, and I still have client.

EW (34:43):

I do have two clients, one of which should finish really soon. Both of which should finish really soon. Then I think maybe I will take a month and think about doing that second edition O'Reilly wants. Maybe.

CW (34:58):

Maybe <laugh>.

EW (35:01):

I am really nervous about reading my book <laugh>.

CW (35:03):

Oh. See, it has been long enough that...

EW (35:06):

I know it does not really feel like mine anymore.

CW (35:08):

Yeah, okay. Like I said, I am going to try to do a little bit less, but I still have one client that has approved a bunch of work for the next couple of months. So I will have to do that. And a lot of it involves electronics, which I do not know if you know this, but I am a software engineer.

EW (35:27):

Do you think we should hire a-

CW (35:29):

Double E?

EW (35:30):

Mech electronic person?

CW (35:31):

Mechanic? Well, yeah. I got to do some power management stuff for a UAV, that we are going to mount a small computer onto, and the computer needs power. So I got to get power from the power distribution system of the UAV, and then I got to get it at the right voltage and power draw capabilities to the computer. And I got to make sure that is filtered enough that the computer does not freak out when the drone spins up and stuff. Then I got to mount the computer to the drone, which is going to require some CAD stuff. All of these are things I do not know how to do very well. I have bought a bunch of parts from Amazon for the power stuff. Hopefully that will be straightforward.

EW (36:12):

One of the great things about our clients is they want us to learn things. They know we are not experts in some areas and they are willing to pay us to learn. It is one of the great things about the clients we have.

CW (36:27):

Yeah. This is the same client that, as part of the different project, I have to hack into a Subaru at some point.

EW (36:34):

That was kind of fun having a Subaru around.

CW (36:37):

<laugh> Let us see what you think next time, when we have to disassemble the entire thing to get access to the CAN bus we need.

EW (36:43):

I am looking forward to disassembling for the wiring harness.

CW (36:47):

This is perfect. Well, you can do that.

EW (36:48):

I do not mind. I like taking things apart, as long as you are willing to put it back together.

CW (36:53):

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no <laugh>. I hate putting things back together.

EW (36:58):

<laugh> No, I do not mind putting them back together.

CW (37:00):

What if I hire somebody to put them back together? Yeah. What else you got? Do you have any listener things we got to talk about?

EW (37:11):

No, I think our listeners have been pretty quiet. It has been holidays, and I do not have anything in the queue.

CW (37:21):

Oh. All right. Well, a very short show.

EW (37:26):

I can read extra Winnie the Pooh.

CW (37:27):

<laugh>

(37:30):

I think it is appropriate to have an extra short show, with the whole introspection due to burnout. I do not understand. You say, "I am being really tired," and they say, "Okay, now think about why you have been tired, while you do all the things that have made you tired." It is like, "Really? One more thing?" And now at this point it is like five more things.

(37:51):

Is that what they are telling you to do?

EW (37:52):

Well, no. The first thing she told me to do, is do less so that I would have more time to navel gaze. It is helping. It is just there are some hurdles first. One of them is that right now the podcast is not doing all I want it to do.

CW (38:13):

What do you want it to do?

EW (38:14):

Leave me alone.

CW (38:16):

Oh, well that is easy. We just stop doing it <laugh>.

EW (38:18):

I am not ready to do that either. There are still people I want to talk to. But I do want to put on the notice that we may be light on shows for the next six months. We will play repeats as we can.

CW (38:34):

Yeah. What is that?

(38:34):

It is not that we are going to go away. I think we will do at least-

(38:38):

I think we should have a regular schedule, even if it is less often.

EW (38:42):

Well, I do not know if we are going to play old ones every week, and then have a new one once or twice a month. Or if we are going to just go to once or twice a month.

CW (38:52):

Well, we are recording three in the next ten days.

EW (38:55):

Oh, my goodness. Yes. See?

CW (38:57):

<laugh>

EW (38:57):

Ooh. But even recording three in the next ten days is not going to really help me get ahead.

CW (39:05):

No, unless we post them late.

EW (39:08):

Exactly.

CW (39:08):

Spread them out.

EW (39:10):

Anyway, we are not leaving. We are just trying to get the space to figure out what we want to do. We will be around, and I really do like doing the show. But I need to get back to the point where I am excited about doing the show, instead of realizing on Wednesday that we are supposed to record on Friday, and I do not know how or what or when are we going to talk to. I actually do not know who we are talking to. I really should have done some research. All these things do not make for good shows, so maybe a little extra time will help me.

CW (39:47):

Weekly has been tough, and we have been doing it for 500 years.

EW (39:51):

Yes! 500 years. Well, I think it is only like 438 years or something. But it has been a lot. It is a pretty grueling schedule. Like, before we drop a show, the week before we have recorded it. The week before that, I have given the guest an outline, and done a little bit of research about them. And then the week after, we do promotion and transcripts, which we have help for now, which is very helpful. Thank you Patreon subscribers for helping us do those things, paying for the those things to be done.

(40:29):

But every week, I am finding people for a future show, preparing for next week's show, recording this week's show and promoting last week's show. It is a lot! And I have been falling down. Like I said, I have not prepared for the show coming up. We did not have a show last week, so I did not do any promotion.

CW (40:58):

And there were no notes for this show. <laugh>

EW (41:00):

And there were no notes for this show <laugh>. So I have been not doing it, and I am still tired.

CW (41:10):

Well, there are many options.

EW (41:10):

Yes.

CW (41:10):

We can go at a reduced paces for a while. We can take a longer break, and call the 439 episodes "Season One" <laugh>.

EW (41:21):

<laugh> That would be pretty funny.

CW (41:25):

We will do what we need to do. The show is- Like the other things we were discussing, the show is because we enjoy doing it. And if we do not enjoy doing it, then we should figure out how to get back to that point.

EW (41:37):

Yes. Because I think the root of talking to people, and hearing about what they are doing and hearing about what they are excited about, is still something I want to do. I just need to frame it in a way that is workable.

CW (41:52):

And this is not our job. We do not make a profit doing this show.

EW (41:55):

We so do not make a profit.

CW (41:58):

It sort of breaks even, maybe.

EW (42:01):

Sometimes <laugh>.

CW (42:04):

This is not our job. This is something that we do because we enjoy it. And so when things become less enjoyable, we need to figure out why.

EW (42:13):

Especially as we are not fame seekers.

CW (42:17):

Yeah, no, I mean I like talking to people, but that is different.

EW (42:23):

Yeah. And I like talking to one person at a time, and having a podcast is a good way to con them into letting me do that.

CW (42:29):

Well, I like the Slack we have built.

EW (42:31):

Yes. The Slack community is really nice. It is fun to watch them talk to each other, more than anything.

CW (42:37):

<laugh> Yeah. So there might be some changes in store for the show. They may not be permanent. They may not be big deals.

EW (42:47):

Yeah, you probably will not even notice. It will just be like, "These are the same lightning round questions for three times in a row. What are they doing?"

CW (42:54):

"It is the same show! They keeps posting the same show."

EW (42:57):

Same show over and over again <laugh>. But we do really appreciate that you listen to the show. And that you email us sometimes, and tell us we are doing good things or bad things, or should have somebody else on. We do like hearing from you. We like that you are out there, and hope that you get something out of the show.

CW (43:19):

Yes, I agree. Sorry, I was actually looking at an email about an upcoming show. <laugh>

EW (43:29):

Okay. So are you ready for Winnie the Pooh?EW (00:06):

Hello and welcome to Embedded. It is just us this week.

CW (00:11):

Well, I mean, it has been a few weeks.

EW (00:13):

It is Happy New Year.

CW (00:15):

Happy New Year, and everything that came before New Year.

EW (00:18):

Yes. Happy winter. Please let the light come back.

CW (00:21):

I do not care about the light so much. I do not like the moist.

EW (00:26):

Yeah. You have been having fun playing in the mud?

CW (00:30):

Yes. I am the Mud Man now.

EW (00:33):

The thing that they do not tell you about buying a house, is that it is a lot like getting a part-time job that nobody pays you for. In fact, you have to pay a lot to do it.

CW (00:42):

EW (00:57):

This is so. Yes.

CW (01:01):

EW (01:17):

How much erosion is too much erosion?

CW (01:19):

<laugh>. So, how much work should I be doing on this drainage, problems?

EW (01:24):

Yeah, these are not real problems.

CW (01:26):

Yeah. We do not want your place for shelter to fall down the hill and become a boat.

EW (01:34):

Particularly not as the storm of storms is coming.

CW (01:38):

Yes, I have been messing with sump pumps, which are as fun as the word "sump pump" sounds.

EW (01:45):

Yes. And you discovered that we have a heated water source.

CW (01:52):

<laugh>. Yes, temporarily.

EW (01:53):

That is kind of what started it.

CW (01:54):

(02:22):

EW (02:47):

And not, "Oh wow. A motor has seized, and now we are just using it to transfer electricity to warm."

CW (02:54):

EW (03:10):

What did you do with your time off?

CW (03:14):

EW (03:50):

You used CircuitPython for one of them?

CW (03:52):

Yeah. The boards you got me, the only one I played with so far- You got me this thing from MIKROE, M I K R O E, which I had never heard of before. They make these little- They have a whole ecosystem.

EW (04:06):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And they have a lot of sensors and a lot of-

CW (04:09):

Tons, hundreds.

EW (04:09):

Just amazing. So many.

CW (04:11):

(04:29):

EW (04:48):

<laugh>

CW (04:48):

EW (05:09):

I would have said a little bigger.

CW (05:11):

It is a little bigger in one dimension, but smaller in another.

EW (05:13):

Okay.

CW (05:15):

It has an LED and button controller chip on it from somebody, AMS1115 or something, and that is I2C. So you talk to that, and you can make all the buttons light up and stuff.

EW (05:27):

Make all the LEDs light up and receive all the buttons.

CW (05:29):

EW (05:56):

<laugh>

CW (05:58):

And I did. It was really fun, and it is super easy.

EW (06:01):

And you did not have to install anything.

CW (06:02):

Did not have to install anything.

EW (06:04):

Edit the file and it does its thing.

CW (06:06):

I opened it in VS Code as if it was its own project folder, which is probably not what you are supposed to do, because a lot of touching of-

EW (06:11):

Why not?

CW (06:11):

(06:43):

It was very relaxing to use CircuitPython. It was weird. I still had problems and bugs and things I did not understand, but it was...

EW (06:57):

It was comfortable.

CW (06:58):

It was comfortable, yeah. There was no driver for the LED chip that was on this board, so I had to look up the data sheet and some other stuff, and use the base I2C calls to write to it.

EW (07:11):

But you did all that in Python, you did not go and recompile CircuitPython.

CW (07:14):

EW (07:40):

And you did SCAD for that?

CW (07:43):

No, Onshape. That is what I have been using.

EW (07:43):

Onshape. And it is a free, if you are not selling...

CW (07:50):

(08:10):

EW (08:44):

It is funny, you have been down on technology for a while, just completely, "I do not want to do this". A couple weeks off, and you got really into it. You were lost programming for three days.

CW (08:58):

EW (09:42):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Is it when you are at your desk, you are working?

CW (09:44):

EW (10:03):

Which with wireless, you might even have the board on the coffee table.

CW (10:06):

EW (10:25):

Yeah.

CW (10:26):

Making the lights blink was fun.

EW (10:29):

CW (10:57):

EW (11:09):

CW (11:53):

It is a nice compliment.

EW (11:54):

It is a wonderful compliment.

CW (11:56):

Yeah. So what else? Did I do other things? I tried to do some music stuff. I finished up a project for someone else, for music.

EW (12:05):

Yes! You were working with someone else for a while.

CW (12:07):

EW (12:28):

Are you looking for other session?

CW (12:31):

I do not think so for the next month or two, because I have some classes that I am taking.

EW (12:37):

Right. One of the things you got me for holidays was a paper engineering class, that costs a little bit more than my "Making Embedded Systems" class costs.

CW (12:49):

<laugh>

EW (12:50):

So it was pretty expensive.

CW (12:54):

So what is that all about?

EW (12:55):

Okay, so paper engineering.

CW (12:57):

What does that mean?

EW (12:59):

CW (13:21):

A film camera?

EW (13:23):

I do not know.

CW (13:24):

Okay.

EW (13:25):

CW (13:56):

Cut it in half not to disconnect it. You cut it along the curved path.

EW (14:01):

You cut it along the center line.

CW (14:03):

Yeah, okay.

EW (14:03):

CW (14:28):

Huh.

EW (14:28):

CW (14:56):

This is not drawing tessellations, this is folding tessellations.

EW (14:59):

(15:14):

(16:09):

CW (16:27):

<laugh> Okay.

EW (16:27):

CW (16:53):

So what is the goal with the class to learn these techniques? Is there like, "Oh, you have to do a final project where you build the James Webb Space Telescope?"

EW (17:03):

CW (17:21):

Wow.

EW (17:21):

CW (17:49):

Yeah. Something like that.

EW (17:50):

That you can make gears out of paper. So you are doing some things like that.

CW (17:54):

Okay.

EW (17:55):

It has been a fun class so far. As with many things, I spend some time in class wondering what I am doqing there.

CW (18:02):

<laugh> Can you consider not second guessing yourself?

EW (18:08):

CW (18:30):

Speaking of the origami simulator, you have got me something else electronics related, that was sort of inspired by the person who did the origami simulator?

EW (18:40):

Yeah. Amanda.

CW (18:41):

Amanda Ghassaei. I hope I am pronouncing that right.

EW (18:46):

I am going to go with Amanda G, because I know that she has how to pronounce her name, and I am still not sure.

CW (18:53):

Anyway, it was from a project she did in 2014 called Sugarcube, which is a little MIDI instrument with these nice buttons from...

EW (19:03):

SparkFun.

CW (19:03):

EW (19:24):

Did you realize that the two were connected? The little one was the stocking stuffer, that is essentially the same thing as the big one.

CW (19:31):

Yeah, I know. I got that.

EW (19:32):

Okay, just want to make sure. And the big one, the buttons and the LEDs are in the same place, but in the little one they are separated.

CW (19:39):

Yeah, I got it.

EW (19:40):

Just wanted to make sure.

CW (19:45):

It is all R Pi Pico. Either could do MIDI stuff, so I do not know what I will do with them. A little tiny drum machine would be funny too. Very tiny.

EW (19:55):

The little MIKROE one. I really like that you are excited about that.

CW (20:02):

Well I think part of it is- I do not know what part of it is <laugh>. I think I got to the point where I can be a little less precious about technology. Does that make any sense?

EW (20:17):

With those projects you do not have to be professional about it.

CW (20:20):

That is it. Since I am a professional...

EW (20:25):

So-called.

CW (20:26):

(20:42):

(21:08):

EW (22:05):

You know, I can do that in the Cricut, right? I mean, I cannot do super thick wood, but I can do...

CW (22:11):

Well, now I am much more interested in this.

EW (22:13):

<laugh>

CW (22:16):

(22:32):

EW (22:53):

You did not say, "I want Earl Grey with 25% aged Boss Assam and 75% newer Assam and 2% bergamot, and-"

CW (23:07):

"Make sure the water is 1% deuterium."

EW (23:10):

CW (23:34):

EW (24:04):

That sounds like technology. That made me think about something I have totally forgotten now.

CW (24:14):

<laugh>

EW (24:14):

Wow, that was fast.

CW (24:18):

Was it music? Was it...

EW (24:20):

Oh, you said about having to make it look professional, because you are a professional.

CW (24:27):

Well not look professional.

EW (24:29):

Be professional.

CW (24:29):

Use the professional tools and workflow.

EW (24:32):

Right. And you are not even- If you post this, it will be in video form, you are probably not doing a tutorial on it.

CW (24:40):

That sounds like a lot of work. I am probably just using it for myself.

EW (24:43):

Yeah. You might put it on Mastodon with a video.

CW (24:49):

Yeah. If it is a wireless thing, maybe I will just put it up here, and have it make a face at me when the weather changes or something.

EW (24:55):

You said you wanted to try Pomodoro. It could stick its tongue out at you, when it was time for you to switch tasks.

(25:01):

CW (25:54):

EW (26:14):

Okay.

CW (26:16):

So I would like to do great things, and be left alone.

EW (26:20):

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CW (26:22):

I would like to be recognized and ignored, if that makes any sense <laugh>. I do not know what that means exactly for-

EW (26:31):

I would like my output, my achievements to be recognized. But in the meantime, do not look at me.

CW (26:38):

EW (27:06):

Is this just an esteem thing?

CW (27:07):

EW (27:34):

Obscurity seems like a lot more fun.

CW (27:36):

Like if I was a woodworker, I would love people to enjoy this desk, but I do not need to be on social media as somebody who is a famous woodworker <laugh>.

EW (27:46):

Yeah. I think social media is part of it. We have been switching over to Mastodon from Twitter, and-

CW (27:52):

I switched. I do not even have an account on Twitter anymore <laugh>.

EW (27:55):

I bet it still has an account.

CW (27:56):

Yeah, well.

EW (27:59):

It is not really politics, it is just Twitter kept changing their rules, and I do not want to deal with that.

CW (28:04):

It was also politics for me <laugh>.

EW (28:09):

CW (28:47):

Yeah. Very strange.

EW (28:52):

Welcome to "Ditches in Psychology."

CW (28:54):

So I do not know why we do things <laugh>.

EW (28:56):

The new podcast about sump pumps, and motivation.

CW (29:01):

EW (29:31):

I mean, I like the work that I do-

CW (29:32):

Being able to buy one or two sump pumps a week, until you find one that actually works.

EW (29:36):

Got to be just the right size.

CW (29:38):

EW (29:56):

Probably not in the whole Bay Area. That storm has everybody looking at what is underneath their house, and how much water is okay to have.

CW (30:05):

Got one from Amazon. Sorry, what were we talking about?

EW (30:09):

Ditches in psychology?

CW (30:10):

Yeah, ditches in psychology. Oh, I mentioned I was not going to do session work. Not that I have any <laugh> in the queue, but because I am taking some courses. And then we talked about your course.

EW (30:22):

Oh, right. We were going to talk about your courses.

CW (30:24):

EW (31:00):

You are really worried that they are going to make you write lyrics, are you not?

CW (31:02):

Oh, I guarantee they are going to make me write lyrics. It is a songwriting course. It is not a...

EW (31:07):

Music writing.

CW (31:09):

Yeah <laugh>. It will be fun.

EW (31:10):

Cool.

CW (31:10):

But they were pretty inexpensive, so I could just take one of these constantly, basically <laugh>. It was like $120 for five weeks.

EW (31:20):

That is much cheaper.

CW (31:22):

(31:40):

EW (31:58):

Well, yes.

CW (31:59):

<laugh>

EW (32:01):

We are pretty early in the year yet.

CW (32:03):

No, I just did a full day today.

EW (32:06):

I did not. I did a couple hours, and then I had my paper class.

CW (32:09):

You had your class, which is like three hours long. I could tell you feel bad about that somehow.

EW (32:17):

Well, I feel like that should be not during work hours.

CW (32:21):

The class?

EW (32:22):

It does not-

CW (32:23):

What is work hours?

EW (32:25):

All of them.

CW (32:25):

It is not like the clients pay attention to when you do stuff.

EW (32:29):

No, and actually the client I was working on this morning, has told me not to work until they finish their budget.

CW (32:38):

See, that was was my mistake. I gave my client a budget, and then I was thinking, "He is never going to approve this!" And he was like, "That is all fine." I was like, "Ah. Damn, damn it!"

EW (32:48):

<laugh>

CW (32:49):

Damn it.

EW (32:50):

You should have added some multiples in there <laugh>.

CW (32:55):

EW (33:11):

(33:40):

CW (34:01):

<laugh>

EW (34:05):

CW (34:30):

You can just post it randomly. Nobody will understand what it is.

EW (34:32):

That is probably what will happen.

CW (34:36):

But you still have clients, and I still have client.

EW (34:43):

CW (34:58):

Maybe <laugh>.

EW (35:01):

I am really nervous about reading my book <laugh>.

CW (35:03):

Oh. See, it has been long enough that...

EW (35:06):

I know it does not really feel like mine anymore.

CW (35:08):

EW (35:27):

Do you think we should hire a-

CW (35:29):

Double E?

EW (35:30):

Mech electronic person?

CW (35:31):

EW (36:12):

CW (36:27):

Yeah. This is the same client that, as part of the different project, I have to hack into a Subaru at some point.

EW (36:34):

That was kind of fun having a Subaru around.

CW (36:37):

<laugh> Let us see what you think next time, when we have to disassemble the entire thing to get access to the CAN bus we need.

EW (36:43):

I am looking forward to disassembling for the wiring harness.

CW (36:47):

This is perfect. Well, you can do that.

EW (36:48):

I do not mind. I like taking things apart, as long as you are willing to put it back together.

CW (36:53):

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no <laugh>. I hate putting things back together.

EW (36:58):

<laugh> No, I do not mind putting them back together.

CW (37:00):

What if I hire somebody to put them back together? Yeah. What else you got? Do you have any listener things we got to talk about?

EW (37:11):

No, I think our listeners have been pretty quiet. It has been holidays, and I do not have anything in the queue.

CW (37:21):

Oh. All right. Well, a very short show.

EW (37:26):

I can read extra Winnie the Pooh.

CW (37:27):

<laugh>

(37:30):

(37:51):

Is that what they are telling you to do?

EW (37:52):

CW (38:13):

What do you want it to do?

EW (38:14):

Leave me alone.

CW (38:16):

Oh, well that is easy. We just stop doing it <laugh>.

EW (38:18):

I am not ready to do that either. There are still people I want to talk to. But I do want to put on the notice that we may be light on shows for the next six months. We will play repeats as we can.

CW (38:34):

Yeah. What is that?

(38:34):

It is not that we are going to go away. I think we will do at least-

(38:38):

I think we should have a regular schedule, even if it is less often.

EW (38:42):

Well, I do not know if we are going to play old ones every week, and then have a new one once or twice a month. Or if we are going to just go to once or twice a month.

CW (38:52):

Well, we are recording three in the next ten days.

EW (38:55):

Oh, my goodness. Yes. See?

CW (38:57):

<laugh>

EW (38:57):

Ooh. But even recording three in the next ten days is not going to really help me get ahead.

CW (39:05):

No, unless we post them late.

EW (39:08):

Exactly.

CW (39:08):

Spread them out.

EW (39:10):

CW (39:47):

Weekly has been tough, and we have been doing it for 500 years.

EW (39:51):

(40:29):

CW (40:58):

And there were no notes for this show. <laugh>

EW (41:00):

And there were no notes for this show <laugh>. So I have been not doing it, and I am still tired.

CW (41:10):

Well, there are many options.

EW (41:10):

Yes.

CW (41:10):

We can go at a reduced paces for a while. We can take a longer break, and call the 439 episodes "Season One" <laugh>.

EW (41:21):

<laugh> That would be pretty funny.

CW (41:25):

EW (41:37):

CW (41:52):

And this is not our job. We do not make a profit doing this show.

EW (41:55):

We so do not make a profit.

CW (41:58):

It sort of breaks even, maybe.

EW (42:01):

Sometimes <laugh>.

CW (42:04):

This is not our job. This is something that we do because we enjoy it. And so when things become less enjoyable, we need to figure out why.

EW (42:13):

Especially as we are not fame seekers.

CW (42:17):

Yeah, no, I mean I like talking to people, but that is different.

EW (42:23):

Yeah. And I like talking to one person at a time, and having a podcast is a good way to con them into letting me do that.

CW (42:29):

Well, I like the Slack we have built.

EW (42:31):

Yes. The Slack community is really nice. It is fun to watch them talk to each other, more than anything.

CW (42:37):

<laugh> Yeah. So there might be some changes in store for the show. They may not be permanent. They may not be big deals.

EW (42:47):

Yeah, you probably will not even notice. It will just be like, "These are the same lightning round questions for three times in a row. What are they doing?"

CW (42:54):

"It is the same show! They keeps posting the same show."

EW (42:57):

CW (43:19):

Yes, I agree. Sorry, I was actually looking at an email about an upcoming show. <laugh>

EW (43:29):

Okay. So are you ready for Winnie the Pooh?

CW (43:32):

Yeah.

EW (43:35):

[Winnie the Pooh excerpt]

CW (43:32):

Yeah.

EW (43:35):

[Winnie the Pooh excerpt]