Spotify Wrapped and New Stuff We Have

Basic AF Episode 24 Transcript

Jeff Battersby (0s)

I don't drink much in the morning,

Jeff Battersby (1s)

but I do occasionally drink in the morning.

Intro music (10s)

I don't wanna know about your imperfections, dude, prefer to leave you...

Tom Anderson (10s)

Hello, welcome to Basic AF, a mostly tech podcast. Tom Anderson and Jeff Battersby together again.

Intro music (15s)

♪ I still prefer to leave you ♪

Tom Anderson (17s)

Thank you for being here with us, Jeff. How's it going?

Jeff Battersby (19s)

I'm good man. I'm back in Jeffrey Dahmer's basement as you'll note. Nobody else can but starting to

Jeff Battersby (26s)

Decorate but I'm keeping this forever. I think you know had pulled out the Christmas lights and uh

Jeff Battersby (31s)

I'm gonna put another string a little lower in here to give me some cute little ambient lighting in my

Jeff Battersby (36s)

You know in my basement as I cut up the bodies. It's a great thing. I

Tom Anderson (39s)

Yeah, maybe sprinkle in a few fairy lights as you go.

Jeff Battersby (43s)

Could do something like that for sure, but I am yes, I'm back in back in New York

Tom Anderson (44s)

Next level.

Jeff Battersby (49s)

I Spent three weeks in California

Jeff Battersby (53s)

hanging with my mom and she's doing great by the way, so I'm very happy about that and

Jeff Battersby (59s)

And so I'm back in the usual place and here we are we are ready to play again

Tom Anderson (1m 5s)

Here we go. Yes another episode and happy holidays

Tom Anderson (1m 9s)

Everybody as we record this it is Sunday, December 10th. So mid-december right in that sweet spot between Thanksgiving in the US and Christmas

Tom Anderson (1m 17s)

Work starting to slow down because everybody's burning that vacation if they have it

Tom Anderson (1m 21s)

and so we're

Jeff Battersby (1m 22s)

and Boxing Day in the UK. Cheers.

Tom Anderson (1m 23s)

Yeah, so we're rolling into the holidays. We're right in the thick of it and looking forward to that I hope everything is going well for you out there listening

Tom Anderson (1m 32s)

as They have done for the last

Tom Anderson (1m 35s)

several years now, towards the end of the year, Spotify and Apple Music have done their end-of-year recaps for podcast listeners, music, so Apple does Replay..

Thank You

Tom Anderson (1m 45s)

Spotify does Wrapped. So I got a message the other day, Jeff, from a friend of mine and she said, I thought this was good news, Spotify said my most listened to podcast was yours. Yes, I was happy about that. Then she says, wait...

Jeff Battersby (1m 58s)

Oh, I like that. That should be somebody else.

Jeff Battersby (2m 3s)

I-- Oh, go ahead. Oh, there's more.

Tom Anderson (2m 5s)

There's more. There's more. No one needs to know it's by default because I don't listen to any other podcast regularly.

Jeff Battersby (2m 7s)

There's more.

Jeff Battersby (2m 15s)

It's funny, 'cause a friend of mine,

Jeff Battersby (2m 18s)

who shall remain unnamed, but he'll know who he is when I talk about him,

Jeff Battersby (2m 23s)

sent me a picture of his most played podcast.

Jeff Battersby (2m 25s)

We're number two out of three.

Tom Anderson (2m 26s)

Good. Hey, I'll take it.

Jeff Battersby (2m 28s)

Um, so we're right in the middle and he said, if, if we want to get to the top of the list,

Jeff Battersby (2m 33s)

we have to talk more about history.

Jeff Battersby (2m 36s)

Yeah, not, yeah, not, not going to be me, man.

Tom Anderson (2m 37s)

Well, I don't think we're smart enough for that. So sorry, buddy.

Tom Anderson (2m 41s)

I'm happy in the middle there.

Jeff Battersby (2m 43s)

Yeah, definitely, definitely not a me thing.

Tom Anderson (2m 45s)

But the way I took that is like, hey, at least, you know,

Tom Anderson (2m 48s)

we're worth listening to a single podcast. So we're grateful for that. But what they also do, Jeff,

Tom Anderson (2m 54s)

is they give us a list.

Tom Anderson (2m 56s)

of things. Spotify for podcasters. And so, to kind of wrap this up pretty quick,

Tom Anderson (3m 5s)

we were the top 10 podcast for 10 people, top 5 for 8, and the top podcast for 4 fans.

Tom Anderson (3m 14s)

So thank you everybody for that. I'm very grateful for that.

Jeff Battersby (3m 16s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (3m 17s)

I'm making

Tom Anderson (3m 20s)

That's okay. So, we do appreciate that. We're just closing up our first

Tom Anderson (3m 26s)

year of this little show. In January, it'll be a year, I think, towards the end of January. So,

Jeff Battersby (3m 30s)

It's hard to believe we've made it.

Tom Anderson (3m 30s)

11 months or something. Yeah, I'm surprised we haven't quit yet.

Tom Anderson (3m 38s)

But here we are.

Jeff Battersby (3m 40s)

Right, we have managed to do it again.

Jeff Battersby (3m 43s)

Holy crap.

Jeff Battersby (3m 45s)

Yeah, and we're incredibly grateful.

Jeff Battersby (3m 49s)

I'm not gonna type this.

Jeff Battersby (3m 51s)

We're incredibly grateful to have all of you here listening to us, and we do continue to grow.

Jeff Battersby (3m 57s)

And so if you'd like to help us to continue.

Jeff Battersby (4m)

To continue to grow, please be sure to subscribe if you leave reviews on which are still getting reviews on on you know, Apple's podcast site and I don't know about you said we're getting a little bit of something on on YouTube now and and have been.

Tom Anderson (4m 18s)

Yeah, we've got not too much going on on YouTube.

Tom Anderson (4m 23s)

Spotify, we've got 4.5 star rating.

Tom Anderson (4m 26s)

So thank you everybody for that.

Tom Anderson (4m 27s)

Of course, there's only two votes there so far,

Jeff Battersby (4m 28s)

Yeah, that's great. 4.5. Wait a second. 50% of us didn't like it. 50% of our reviews.

Tom Anderson (4m 29s)

but hey, we'll take it.

Tom Anderson (4m 30s)

We've got 13 on Apple.

Tom Anderson (4m 35s)

No, I think it was a four and a five.

Tom Anderson (4m 37s)

So it's 4.5, but there were only two.

Tom Anderson (4m 40s)

So, but we do appreciate that.

Tom Anderson (4m 42s)

I know we're trying to jump into Spotify.

Tom Anderson (4m 45s)

The thing with Spotify though that bugs me is they're...

Tom Anderson (4m 49s)

We're there because there are a lot of people there.

Tom Anderson (4m 51s)

And if you listen there, we do appreciate it.

Tom Anderson (4m 52s)

And this is not a dig against anybody except for Spotify.

Tom Anderson (4m 55s)

But I don't like their approach towards podcasting that takes it from an open platform to this Spotify exclusive, right?

Tom Anderson (5m 1s)

Joe Rogan's the biggest one, but they've got other ones.

Tom Anderson (5m 3s)

And that's not really what podcasting is set up to do.

Jeff Battersby (5m 6s)

No, I know. And it's, it's lame. That, that whole thing is, um,

Jeff Battersby (5m 11s)

I don't know. It's a little,

Jeff Battersby (5m 15s)

there are a bunch of them that have done stuff like that. Uh, you know,

Tom Anderson (5m 16s)

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Battersby (5m 17s)

the wonderies and the, and not that we wouldn't, you know,

Jeff Battersby (5m 20s)

if you guys wanted to take us on, you'd take your money.

Tom Anderson (5m 22s)

Hey, if you got some spare cash, we'll sell out.

Jeff Battersby (5m 25s)

Right. Yeah. We'd be happy to take your money. Um, but,

Jeff Battersby (5m 32s)

but until then you suck. Um, you know, it, it,

Jeff Battersby (5m 37s)

I, there are a couple of podcasts that I listened to that, uh,

Jeff Battersby (5m 40s)

that became Spotify exclusives. Two of them, actually, one of them was one of the New York times, uh, best podcasts this year. Um,

Jeff Battersby (5m 49s)

which is a pretty good podcast that I love called heavyweight. Um,

Jeff Battersby (5m 54s)

heavyweights, uh, pretty interesting little, little podcasts, but, uh,

Jeff Battersby (5m 58s)

there were a bunch of podcasts that were kind of in the open that, uh,

Jeff Battersby (6m 2s)

Went over to to spotify and then you couldn't get

Jeff Battersby (6m 6s)

them but only on spotify and I wasn't bouncing between two apps you know I wasn't gonna get on the Spotify app to listen to you know I first of all well never mind we're leaving politics out of this stuff but I saw that look on your face pal but I you know there are reasons that I uh you know that I was not gonna be donating money to Spotify chief which was you know donating money Spotify. Um, but yeah, the closed platform.

Tom Anderson (6m 8s)

Right?

Tom Anderson (6m 21s)

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Battersby (6m 36s)

I don't don't like to too much, you know, and so a lot of those podcasts that were really great that were in the open that were sponsored or being run by other, uh, places is suddenly I wasn't listening to him anymore and I stopped listening to heavyweight because it was on Spotify.

Jeff Battersby (6m 53s)

Um, there's another one called science versus that was, uh.

Jeff Battersby (6m 59s)

That was also one of my favorites that I didn't get to listen to anymore. They are.

Jeff Battersby (7m 7s)

Uh, I think Spotify found Jesus and, uh, figured out that, you know, he can't just be in a little private world and listen to only to you because you're going to lose listeners.

Tom Anderson (7m 17s)

Well, they just laid off a ton of people too, Spotify.

Jeff Battersby (7m 17s)

So both of those, I know they did.

Jeff Battersby (7m 21s)

Right.

Jeff Battersby (7m 22s)

Well, and you, you talked about that before, you know, we're, we're a product podcast production team of two, actually, technically one.

Jeff Battersby (7m 30s)

I just show up and talk.

Tom Anderson (7m 31s)

They're heavy.

Jeff Battersby (7m 32s)

So, you know, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it,

Jeff Battersby (7m 36s)

some of those some of those places you know we're 15, 20 people yeah and unless you're this American life or you know have the resources of the New York Times so you know you're you're one of those other big ones um I don't see how you do it.

Tom Anderson (7m 53s)

And you don't necessarily need that either. I mean, I don't I don't know how many people like Rogan has but I feel like it's just a

Jeff Battersby (8m 1s)

It's Rogan. I don't listen to that guy. Um, but the, uh,

Tom Anderson (8m 1s)

few but um But I mean, he's huge though and he's done it for years and he does three hour shows a couple times a week Yeah, it's a lot of work. I Mean we struggle to do a half hour and I know he's got some people that help him out But I just wonder how big that that team is

Jeff Battersby (8m 10s)

yeah, yeah. I'm sure he's got some people doing production.

Jeff Battersby (8m 16s)

I bet you it's somewhere between three and five, you know,

Tom Anderson (8m 18s)

Yeah, that feels right

Jeff Battersby (8m 19s)

somebody doing the editing and stuff like that. But, um,

Jeff Battersby (8m 22s)

and he's doing video too. So it's, I think much more difficult, you know,

Tom Anderson (8m 23s)

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Battersby (8m 27s)

the times where we cross over each other and you shut my mouth.

Jeff Battersby (8m 31s)

the time.

Tom Anderson (8m 40s)

Right. Yeah, and he's done it for so long. I mean, they've got it down. I mean, he's done podcasting for a long, long time. So it's well tuned. So anyway.

Jeff Battersby (8m 48s)

Yeah, so anyway, there's, you know, there's reason that the Spotify is laying off a bazillion people, even though they made more money this year than they did last year. Funny how that is. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I'm going to take over the world. So anyway.

Tom Anderson (9m 1s)

Yeah, well

Tom Anderson (9m 3s)

Got future plans man. They got future plans. Yeah

Tom Anderson (9m 7s)

Just goes to show us better to be the owner

Tom Anderson (9m 11s)

So this show we want to talk about some new things that we have some new gadgets other things

Tom Anderson (9m 18s)

So Jeff you've picked up something new. Yeah a

Jeff Battersby (9m 20s)

Yeah. So let's yeah. Are we going to talk about that first? Okay. All right. We'll start with the easy one. So I, I told you that I was getting rid of Fantastical. Um, just not seeing, um, the upside of that heavy, uh, you know, I spent the last year, year and a half, two years, maybe now in their, uh, in their subscription model. And I really like the application, but, uh, the, the amount of money.

Itsycal for Mac (Apple Calendar)

Tom Anderson (9m 22s)

Couple things now. Let's go with let's go with the easy one first

Jeff Battersby (9m 50s)

I was paying for, for that, um, wasn't seeing the benefit. And so I started playing with Apple's calendar and, um, it was pretty satisfied with it, uh, with how it worked, except for one thing I started noticing was, uh, I would always reach for the menu bar to get, uh,

Jeff Battersby (10m 10s)

an idea of, you know, what's coming next or hop onto a zoom meeting or whatever it is that I needed to do and there's no menu extra for apples.

Jeff Battersby (10m 20s)

So I was on the search for something and I may not have finalized this decision yet,

Jeff Battersby (10m 33s)

but there's an app by a company called Mowgli, which I guess the guy's maybe a jungle book fan or something like that, I'm not sure, but they have a little free...

Jeff Battersby (10m 50s)

You can send them a little money if you want to, but a little free app, menu extra app called Itsycal, I-T-S-Y-C-A-L, I presume that means it's like itsy bitsy, but it's a great little menu extra that I have now that I can now see what it is that is on my calendar for a given day.

Jeff Battersby (11m 14s)

One thing it doesn't do is when I hit it, it doesn't open up the calendar app, at least They haven't figured out a way to--

Jeff Battersby (11m 20s)

I haven't had a Zoom meeting in the last few days since I've had that there, so I don't know whether or not I'll be able to jump on Zoom meetings,

Jeff Battersby (11m 27s)

although it appears that it should allow me to do that.

Jeff Battersby (11m 31s)

But that was a good, easy, quick fix for that knee-jerk reaction that my arm has.

Jeff Battersby (11m 37s)

So my arm has a knee-jerk reaction on multiple--

Tom Anderson (11m 39s)

It's funny how that how quickly you get used to that.

Jeff Battersby (11m 43s)

I used it every day.

Tom Anderson (11m 44s)

Yeah, me too.

Jeff Battersby (11m 44s)

I almost never opened Fantastical, right?

Tom Anderson (11m 44s)

Multiple times a day.

Jeff Battersby (11m 47s)

I mean, I never actually opened the app.

Jeff Battersby (11m 50s)

But stuff from there, that became the tool that I have.

Jeff Battersby (11m 53s)

So anyway, it's mogli.com, M-O-W-G-L-I-I.com.

Jeff Battersby (11m 59s)

And yeah, pretty slick little app, at least for me,

Jeff Battersby (12m 4s)

is solving that little issue that I was having.

Jeff Battersby (12m 8s)

And I got to say, I'm really happy with Apple Calendar.

Jeff Battersby (12m 12s)

There are other things that I really like about it.

Jeff Battersby (12m 14s)

One of them is it shows up in CarPlay,

Jeff Battersby (12m 17s)

which Fantastical didn't.

Tom Anderson (12m 18s)

Right, I remember we talked about that

Jeff Battersby (12m 20s)

Yeah, I can see my schedule in CarPlay.

Tom Anderson (12m 23s)

Now for me what happens with that is I've got

Jeff Battersby (12m 23s)

Not that you want me to look at--

Tom Anderson (12m 27s)

Actually, it's set up Apple calendar

Tom Anderson (12m 31s)

And so they still show up in CarPlay just because I happen to have it set up like it's not

Tom Anderson (12m 35s)

Fantastical showing up in CarPlay, but but that affects the same thing

Tom Anderson (12m 41s)

That menu item you sent when I looked at it has kind of an old-school feel to it like a classic Mac OS

Jeff Battersby (12m 48s)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's sweet.

Tom Anderson (12m 48s)

Menu bar thing. Yeah, I kind of like that. It's got a nice not quite retro, but

Tom Anderson (12m 54s)

Little touches of it there

Jeff Battersby (12m 56s)

Yeah, definitely. And it's not, you know,

Jeff Battersby (12m 58s)

in Fantastical allows you to color things differently and do stuff like that.

Jeff Battersby (13m 1s)

This is a little lower key at that in that regard, too.

Jeff Battersby (13m 3s)

But I was I'm really looking for is a place to say,

Jeff Battersby (13m 5s)

what's next, by the way, the go ahead.

Tom Anderson (13m 7s)

Right, and I think we talked about this before.

Tom Anderson (13m 10s)

Apple Calendar doesn't have calendar sets.

Tom Anderson (13m 15s)

Right, like you can have multiple calendars, but you can't do a set.

Tom Anderson (13m 18s)

And what I mean by calendar set is in Fantastical.

Tom Anderson (13m 21s)

It allows you to set up custom groups with certain calendars in them.

Tom Anderson (13m 27s)

So I use that a lot because I've got like a planning calendar that I put stuff on.

Tom Anderson (13m 31s)

I've got a work calendar, obviously.

Tom Anderson (13m 33s)

So when I go to work, I have it set automatically to switch to.

Tom Anderson (13m 37s)

My workday calendar, which pulls all my other like side hustle stuff out, my personal stuff out.

Tom Anderson (13m 42s)

And then we've got a couple of different like shared calendars at work to show who's in the office, who's out, help desk appointments and stuff like that.

Tom Anderson (13m 51s)

And so I can quickly filter that stuff out with the groups.

Jeff Battersby (13m 54s)

Mm hmm. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, that's not a feature. It's a feature I had set up, but I didn't use that much. You know, so that's

Tom Anderson (13m 56s)

And honestly, that's probably what's keeping me there the most.

Tom Anderson (13m 59s)

So I use it all the time.

Tom Anderson (14m 2s)

And I'm like, of course I would pick that.

Tom Anderson (14m 7s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (14m 11s)

that's reason. And by the way, the reason that that Apple calendar didn't show up in CarPlay for me is because I deleted it. I had it removed. You know, Apple has now allowed you to delete apps that you don't use that come as part of

Tom Anderson (14m 18s)

Right.

Jeff Battersby (14m 24s)

the CarPlay process. And so that was one of the ones that I don't need two calendars. I need one, you know, and oftentimes what would happen is, you know, instead of opening up Fantastic Al, if I got a meeting invited, would open up Apple calendars, like, I don't want to do that. So that was a way for me to kind of mitigate that friction was to delete it. So

Jeff Battersby (14m 44s)

once I added it back, I was like, Oh, look at that. I can see those things in in CarPlay, which is great. So, um, yeah.

Tom Anderson (14m 50s)

Yeah. All right. Good. Glad that's working out.

Jeff Battersby (14m 54s)

So I think, you know, we'll, we'll see how that plays in the future. Maybe, you know, my subscription, I don't drink much in the morning, but I do occasionally drink in the morning. My subscription is really good this morning. Um, I,

Jeff Battersby (15m 8s)

my subscription for Fantastic Al doesn't run out, I don't think until February. So I still have time to, you know, repent. Yeah.

Tom Anderson (15m 14s)

Quick side note on subscriptions, you know, we were talking that I moved

Tom Anderson (15m 20s)

from craft to bear

Tom Anderson (15m 22s)

right And I was gonna get all my stuff out of craft

Jeff Battersby (15m 24s)

Oh, good for you. Sure. Yeah. What did you get, Tom? Ah, I I I

Tom Anderson (15m 27s)

Yeah, I haven't done that yet. So I'm still on the subscription with that. I went month to month though So I'm gonna try to get it out

Tom Anderson (15m 33s)

Because I got a lot of work stuff in there So I need to export that out and just make sure I've got it somewhere else. But anyhow, I got something new this week, too

Rock Paper Pencil for iPad

Tom Anderson (15m 42s)

So back in episode 21 Jeff.

Tom Anderson (15m 45s)

You talked about Rock Paper Pencil from Astropad.

Tom Anderson (15m 49s)

So that's the screen cover for your iPad that connects to the magnets on the device that pairs with a custom tip for the Apple pencils,

Tom Anderson (15m 57s)

like a little ballpoint tip. You spoke highly of it. So I ordered one and it took,

Tom Anderson (16m 2s)

well about that amount of time since episode 21 to this, which is episode 24.

Jeff Battersby (16m 4s)

That's about how long mine took, too.

Tom Anderson (16m 7s)

So I don't know what kind of production process they have for these,

Tom Anderson (16m 10s)

but I've had it a couple of days.

Jeff Battersby (16m 11s)

Little elves making them one by one, I think, is what the deal is, yeah.

Tom Anderson (16m 13s)

They might be.

Tom Anderson (16m 15s)

But I will say, first impressions,

Tom Anderson (16m 17s)

quite happy with it.

Tom Anderson (16m 18s)

It is, it's really nice.

Tom Anderson (16m 21s)

I do like, of course, there've been these paper-like and type things for a long time that press onto the screen and kind of stay on there.

Jeff Battersby (16m 29s)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (16m 31s)

I liked this one when you talked about it being magnetic so that you can take it off if you want to.

Tom Anderson (16m 37s)

I've left it on.

Tom Anderson (16m 38s)

I've found that the kind of the matte texture of it knocks down the glare.

Jeff Battersby (16m 42s)

Yeah, definitely does.

Tom Anderson (16m 44s)

And doesn't, obviously it changes the colors a little bit on the display, but it's not too bad.

Tom Anderson (16m 53s)

So I think I might just leave it on.

Tom Anderson (16m 55s)

But yeah, so far, I like it a lot.

Tom Anderson (16m 57s)

Feels good to write on.

Tom Anderson (17m 1s)

How many of the ballpoint tips did you get?

Jeff Battersby (17m 5s)  

• I just too, and I, oh, that's charming.

Tom Anderson (17m 6s)

Okay, so now they're packing in four.

Tom Anderson (17m 10s)

So, apparently they wear down.

Jeff Battersby (17m 10s)

I feel a little ripped off.

Tom Anderson (17m 15s)

Which is a little surprising 'cause it looks like a metal tip,

Jeff Battersby (17m 15s)

Yeah, so I, yeah, it is a metal tip,

Tom Anderson (17m 17s)

but I guess it's not a hard metal tip.

Jeff Battersby (17m 21s)

and I will tell you something else.

Jeff Battersby (17m 23s)

You know, the thing about that magnet and keeping the Apple Pencil stuck to your iPad

Jeff Battersby (17m 32s)

is that occasionally if you're carrying it funny,

Jeff Battersby (17m 35s)

well, mine did, and it fell on the tip, unbeknownst to me.

Jeff Battersby (17m 40s)

And when I was in California, I was letting my niece do some, you know, she's a little kid,

Jeff Battersby (17m 48s)

but she's a fantastic artist.

Jeff Battersby (17m 50s)

Her mother's an artist, like really, really good artist.

Jeff Battersby (17m 56s)

And so she has started, you know, drawing stuff.

Jeff Battersby (17m 59s)

So she was trolling me by drawing pictures of me

Jeff Battersby (18m 5s)

on the iPad, as one does when you're nine years old.

Jeff Battersby (18m 11s)

And she, but there was a little edge on the tip that I had,

Jeff Battersby (18m 17s)

and I didn't have any other tips with me,

Jeff Battersby (18m 19s)

and I left the two that I got, I left one at home.

Jeff Battersby (18m 22s)

And so I've got a slight, it's not a big deal,

Jeff Battersby (18m 25s)

but I've got slight little scratches in the cover as a result of that.

Jeff Battersby (18m 33s)

So, you know, nothing that's going to drive.

Jeff Battersby (18m 35s)

Nuts, but I may have to get a replacement cover in the future.

Tom Anderson (18m 38s)

Yeah, and I was looking at a YouTube video while I was waiting for it to show up and one of the things the

Tom Anderson (18m 44s)

reviewer mentioned was that over time the

Tom Anderson (18m 48s)

Little protector itself will start to get wear marks and things on it from the tips

Tom Anderson (18m 53s)

And he noticed his tip was wearing down

Tom Anderson (18m 56s)

So I'm guessing that's why they doubled the amount they give from two to four but it's about what 40 bucks if I recall like I say, it's been three years since I ordered it, but

Jeff Battersby (18m 59s)

Got it

Jeff Battersby (19m 2s)

Yeah 

Tom Anderson (19m 5s)

Wasn't really that long as six weeks maybe

Tom Anderson (19m 8s)

But I think that's about 40 bucks, I think but if you do a lot of note-taking

Tom Anderson (19m 13s)

With it and it's you've really taken to it and have actually changed up some of your workflows because of it, right?

Jeff Battersby (19m 17s)

So, yeah, and this was kind of an accident.

Jeff Battersby (19m 21s)

So I am working on a long-term, long-form writing project right now.

Jeff Battersby (19m 27s)

And typically what happens when I'm doing something like that is I'll write, and then I'll print out what I've written, and I'll rewrite on paper, and then I'll enter that information and then I'll save a little archive of whatever it is that I've been writing.

Jeff Battersby (19m 45s)

And by virtue of the fact that I was

Jeff Battersby (19m 47s)

in California, I decided to try something different, which was exporting what I was writing on as a PDF and then opening that in, you know, the preview app or whatever the heck it is in iOS these days. And start writing my edits that way by hand in the iPad.

Jeff Battersby (20m 10s)

And one of the things I think I've said before is when it comes to writing, I have hideous

Jeff Battersby (20m 17s)

really, really bad handwriting. I have since I was a kid. I used to get like C's and D's in penmanship as one does. They don't teach penmanship anymore these days and they don't grade you for it. And they, you know, teachers don't whack your fingers with a ruler anymore for it either if you do a bad job. But that's beside the point. But it was hard for me to write on the glass of the iPad without some kind of resistance coming from the iPad when

Jeff Battersby (20m 47s)

I was a kid. So one of the things that I'll note is I write with pencils. I have some nice mechanical pencils that I use and the resistance between the lead on the pencil and the paper slows down whatever it is that I do writing-wise and makes it so it's legible.

Jeff Battersby (21m 12s)

This when I started taking notes was exactly for me like paper was.

Jeff Battersby (21m 17s)

So going forward, I'm not going to do any paper printouts, I don't think, except for maybe when I get to the end of the project and want to see it as a whole.

Jeff Battersby (21m 28s)

Instead I'm using this.

Jeff Battersby (21m 29s)

And the other nice thing about it is I'm archiving all my edits.

Jeff Battersby (21m 32s)

So I'm now, you know, saving all the pages so I can see, go back to and see what it was that I had before.

Jeff Battersby (21m 41s)

I can see notes that I wrote down when they were, I'm just dating those things and putting it on there.

Jeff Battersby (21m 47s)

I'm finding that I'm liking it more and more and that is, you know, liking editing those documents more and more on the iPad.

Jeff Battersby (22m)

And I don't even think I would have considered it before.

Jeff Battersby (22m 2s)

So it was kind of by accident and didn't want to burn paper at my mom's house.

Jeff Battersby (22m 6s)

So I thought, yeah, let me, you know, try this and see how it works out.

Jeff Battersby (22m 12s)

And it worked out brilliantly and that's all I'm going to do going forward.

Jeff Battersby (22m 16s)

a really simple way.

Jeff Battersby (22m 17s)

And I always have the iPad with me.

Tom Anderson (22m 17s)

Mm-hmm, right.

Jeff Battersby (22m 19s)

So if I'm someplace and want to do something,

Jeff Battersby (22m 21s)

all I have to do is export the PDFs,

Jeff Battersby (22m 23s)

sit and do the hand edits, and enter them.

Jeff Battersby (22m 26s)

Whereas before, it's like, "Ah, I can't do this.

Jeff Battersby (22m 28s)

I got to wait till I get home because I got to print it out."

Jeff Battersby (22m 30s)

And so it's been a really good thing.

Jeff Battersby (22m 32s)

I'm really, really very,

Jeff Battersby (22m 34s)

very happy with how that's worked.

Tom Anderson (22m 38s)

Yeah, I think I will be as well and you know, it feels like paper and

Tom Anderson (22m 43s)

Interestingly, it sounds like it too. Like when you're writing. Yes. I don't even hear that but

Jeff Battersby (22m 45s)

It kind of does, right? Yeah. Yeah, it does. I hear it. Very papery sounding. Yes.

Tom Anderson (22m 49s)

Yeah, it feels like you know a lead on paper type thing

Tom Anderson (22m 56s)

Yeah, so good it's a astropads rock paper pencil

Tom Anderson (23m 1s)

So about 40 bucks. I think we both both recommend that. Yep

Jeff Battersby (23m 2s)

Yeah. Awesome. Highly recommend. Yeah. If you're looking for something to put in your stocking, there's a, well, they shouldn't fold it up. That's right. Indeed. Indeed. I get another new thing, Tom. Yeah. So, um, so, uh, I've been driving

Tom Anderson (23m 9s)

 Right now, it'd be a big stocking, but stick it under the tree.

Tom Anderson (23m 14s)

Well, it'll be Valentine's Day by the time you get it, but.

Tom Anderson (23m 20s)

Happy Valentine's Day, darling, there you go.

Tom Anderson (23m 22s)

Great, thanks.

Tom Anderson (23m 24s)

Yeah, all right, so Jeff, tell us what else you got this week.

Tom Anderson (23m 27s)

Yeah, what you got, buddy?

New Car Tech

Jeff Battersby (23m 32s)

the X1 for a while. Um, but I, basically to test the waters have been leasing the same. I don't usually lease cars, but,

Jeff Battersby (23m 42s)

uh, I decided before I was going to make some major, you know, put a ring on it, commitment to a vehicle. Uh, I was going to do, I was going to do that. So my lease was up. Um,

Jeff Battersby (23m 54s)

and, uh, I was actually looking at a, uh, Kia Sportage hybrid.

Jeff Battersby (24m 2s)

Um, but BMW, which you couldn't, by the way, find one to drive,

Jeff Battersby (24m 7s)

nor could you order one. You couldn't, there's, I couldn't even order a 2024 if I wanted to. Uh, that's how far out those things are. A really nice car, by the way, I did get to test drive one, uh, plugin hybrid, but BMW, uh, wanted to get rid of all their 2023. So they, they made me an offer. I couldn't reviews. So I just as a

Jeff Battersby (24m 32s)

of Friday got into a 2023 BMW X1 with a premium package. They told me that I wasn't going to be able to get a moonroof because they were limiting that I guess putting it in new production vehicles instead of old ones. But I got that as well. But it's a pretty slick car. So the last BMW that I had, had car play.

Jeff Battersby (25m 2s)

You know, it had some okay tech, but it was still mostly manual.

Jeff Battersby (25m 7s)

This is, is 2021. So, and 2023 is brand new model.

Tom Anderson (25m 8s)

What model year was that one?

Tom Anderson (25m 11s)

Okay.

Jeff Battersby (25m 14s)

So this is brand new version of the X1. 2022 was the same as mine.

Jeff Battersby (25m 19s)

2023 is, you know, is the one, is the one that,

Tom Anderson (25m 23s)

That's the new production model.

Jeff Battersby (25m 25s)

correct, the new production model.

Jeff Battersby (25m 26s)

And technically my lease was up in February, but they, you know,

Jeff Battersby (25m 30s)

they wanted to.

Jeff Battersby (25m 32s)

Wanted to get me into it and you know, December, they kept on kept on saying, God bless him.

Jeff Battersby (25m 39s)

You're never going to get a better deal than the one that we give you.

Jeff Battersby (25m 41s)

This is back in, you know, as far back as September, October, uh, the deal that I got into was pretty, pretty sweet.

Jeff Battersby (25m 49s)

So it, you know, it's, it's pretty nice, but, um, this X one is, uh, pretty much all electronic.

Jeff Battersby (25m 59s)

So there are with.

Jeff Battersby (26m 2s)

Very few exceptions, like, uh, stuff on the steering column, like, you know,

Jeff Battersby (26m 9s)

volume controls and, and, um, you know, any, anything like that.

Jeff Battersby (26m 15s)

There are a couple of those, you know, turn signals going to be physical as well,

Jeff Battersby (26m 18s)

but for the most part, everything is digital, which could be kind of annoying.

Jeff Battersby (26m 22s)

You know, I'm, I'm still all touchscreen, really fat touchscreen too, by the way.

Jeff Battersby (26m 28s)

I think it's somewhere along the lines of 11.9.

Jeff Battersby (26m 32s)

Inch on one side and then the the the main display you know that has your speed and stuff like that on it is is also all digital which you've got the ability to control really really sleek looking I'll send you pictures later just so you can see what it looks like but it's a it's a it's a really really clean look kind of long lines of an iPhone you know it's

Jeff Battersby (27m 2s)

as possible we'll see how annoying that gets for some things but technically I'm only using my iPhone for nav I'm using my iPhone for you know listen to the podcast which by the way podcasts sound frigging amazing in there has a Harman Kardon speaker system that's that's pretty slick but it's a mostly tech podcast no I'm sorry it's mostly

Jeff Battersby (27m 32s)

tech it's a mostly tech vehicle which I'm liking a lot it's a little beefier x1 you know for whatever reason it's it it I saw an x3 from about probably 2020 2021 it is the same size as that x3 was a couple years ago so it's it's a nice roomy inside the biggest thing that I noticed, you know, it used to in the.

Jeff Battersby (28m 2s)

My previous X1, when you got in, you started the car up,

Jeff Battersby (28m 6s)

and it took probably close to 15 seconds for CarPlay to load and for all of that stuff to work.

Jeff Battersby (28m 16s)

Whatever they've done in the new software,

Jeff Battersby (28m 18s)

as soon as I get into the vehicle,

Jeff Battersby (28m 21s)

it's already playing whatever's on my,

Jeff Battersby (28m 23s)

and this is before I've even started the car,

Jeff Battersby (28m 24s)

it's already playing whatever's on my phone or whatever I've been listening to.

Jeff Battersby (28m 29s)

It's transferred it to there.

Jeff Battersby (28m 30s)

It's instantaneous.

Jeff Battersby (28m 32s)

It's really kind of amazing.

Jeff Battersby (28m 36s)

And this is kind of annoying about BMWs.

Jeff Battersby (28m 40s)

There are some features that you can add, which I'll give that a little test today.

Jeff Battersby (28m 48s)

But it has cruise control, but not adaptive cruise control.

Jeff Battersby (28m 53s)

But it appears that was something that I could add.

Jeff Battersby (29m 2s)

For three months for $0, let's see what the next...

Tom Anderson (29m 6s)

Oh my god, it's a subscription?

Jeff Battersby (29m 8s)

It's a freaking subscription.

Tom Anderson (29m 10s)

Yeah, hard pass.

Jeff Battersby (29m 11s)

Well, for three months for $0, not a problem.

Jeff Battersby (29m 14s)

So I'm going to test it and see.

Jeff Battersby (29m 16s)

I don't need adaptive cruise control if that's the case.

Tom Anderson (29m 18s)

Oh, I love that. That's my favorite features in cars these days. Yeah

Jeff Battersby (29m 21s)

It is a nice feature, but I don't need it.

Tom Anderson (29m 23s)

Yeah, like it's better in my wife's infinity than it is in the Subaru like Subaru is good for like safety and it's it's fine

Tom Anderson (29m 31s)

But the one in the infinity that she has the qx60

Jeff Battersby (29m 35s)

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Tom Anderson (29m 35s)

Like we take that on our long trips because it's bigger we pile off stuff in there But like I mean there were stretches when we were going down south this past summer where I don't touch the brake or the gas

Tom Anderson (29m 48s)

Hours, I mean it just you know, which is nice because all that You know driver fatigue is is a thing and that just all those little things that you don't

Jeff Battersby (29m 49s)

Great, so you can sleep.

Tom Anderson (29m 57s)

Think about until you have something like that and you're like, oh, well, this is pretty nice

Tom Anderson (30m 1s)

but

Jeff Battersby (30m 2s)

Yeah, and actually this has cameras for that too that that's part of built-in feature so it'll check and see if your eyes are wobbling a little bit and encourage you to a

Jeff Battersby (30m 9s)

Pull over and get a cup of coffee or take a nap or do whatever it is. So there's

Tom Anderson (30m 13s)

Right. And then if you crash, the police will summon those and then you'll go to jail. Good.

Jeff Battersby (30m 15s)

Right, well

Tom Anderson (30m 16s)

Good. Welcome to any state. We love it.

Jeff Battersby (30m 21s)

So, yeah, it's got it's got a lot of a lot of good stuff it has also nice little feature

Jeff Battersby (30m 27s)

it has the

Jeff Battersby (30m 30s)

It'll parallel park.

Jeff Battersby (30m 32s)

It'll back into parking spots and back out of parking spots for you, which is, I'll confess, kind of cool.

Jeff Battersby (30m 38s)

I've played with it. It's probably not something that I'll use.

Jeff Battersby (30m 41s)

I'm a pretty darn good parallel parker.

Jeff Battersby (30m 43s)

Joke used to be I could park in a space in New York City that was smaller than my car.

Tom Anderson (30m 47s)

Yeah, I had a good good case of that Friday night.

Jeff Battersby (30m 48s)

So, you know, I like the challenge of a good parallel park.

Tom Anderson (30m 54s)

We went to get pizza and there's a tight little spot.

Tom Anderson (30m 57s)

There was a Tesla parked and kind of in the front space and then the back space was thankfully my car is pretty small and I was able to squeeze it in.

Tom Anderson (31m 6s)

But yeah, I impressed myself.

Tom Anderson (31m 8s)

I haven't done that for quite a while.

Jeff Battersby (31m 10s)

Yeah, yeah, it's because you live in the weeds.

Tom Anderson (31m 10s)

I haven't had to parallel park for quite a while.

Jeff Battersby (31m 13s)

I live in a place that's very popular downtown that you have to parallel park over.

Tom Anderson (31m 17s)

Well, we have that, but usually it's, you can find a space.

Tom Anderson (31m 20s)

Cuz I like to park away as far as I can from people because they're asses and they'll beat the heck out of your car.

Jeff Battersby (31m 22s)

yeah right yeah i'm this i'm the same

Tom Anderson (31m 26s)

Yeah, so you know what I find interesting is they're putting these big touchscreens in cars, so, and they're all doing it, right?

Tom Anderson (31m 32s)

So, Subaru, BMW, all of them, for the most part.

Jeff Battersby (31m 38s)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and fewer.

Tom Anderson (31m 38s)

And there are fewer physical knobs.

Tom Anderson (31m 44s)

but then at the same time, avoid.

Tom Anderson (31m 47s)

So, if you're distracted driving, and it's like, well, I can't do anything without looking at the stupid screen because if the knob's there, I can just, you know, I know where that is.

Tom Anderson (31m 55s)

I can adjust the temperature.

Tom Anderson (31m 56s)

I can do this.

Tom Anderson (31m 57s)

I can do that.

Tom Anderson (31m 58s)

And they've done some studies that show it takes longer to do things on the touchscreens,

Tom Anderson (32m 1s)

which means you're distracted for longer.

Tom Anderson (32m 4s)

And I'm just this, this, uh, I'm not a fan.

Jeff Battersby (32m 8s)

Yeah, well, let me just say, they are, and BMW got rid of, they had a little dial in the middle that you could control things with, too, that was, and they got rid of that, yeah,

Tom Anderson (32m 9s)

Like I think they're fine for the display.

Tom Anderson (32m 17s)

Yeah, I think Mazda has that too, yeah.

Tom Anderson (32m 19s)

Because I was looking at the CX-50 before I bought the Crosstrek.

Jeff Battersby (32m 22s)

they, yeah, they, it's, they've gotten rid of that.

Jeff Battersby (32m 27s)

But what they've added, remember when we were talking to my brother the last two weeks,

Jeff Battersby (32m 33s)

One of the things that he said is in his soltera, he had a feature called "Hey Subaru."

Jeff Battersby (32m 39s)

There is a feature, and I've shortened this just to "BMW." We'll see how that works.

Jeff Battersby (32m 45s)

But they have a "Hey BMW" feature that will control everything.

Jeff Battersby (32m 49s)

Which I'm gonna take advantage of. Like you can turn the seat heater on. You can open windows if you want to, you know.

Jeff Battersby (32m 55s)

You know, open the back passenger window.

Jeff Battersby (32m 58s)

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna start trying to take advantage of that in, you know, in lieu of

Jeff Battersby (33m 3s)

touching the screen once I get everything kind of configured.

Jeff Battersby (33m 8s)

and make it so it's it's my little baby but it is a very uh it's a very sleek

Jeff Battersby (33m 18s)

sleek interior really so far I've only had it you know I've only driven 30 miles in it at most you know most of that was back from the dealership um you know I ran out to get groceries but for the most part, you know, not a lot of driving yet.

Jeff Battersby (33m 39s)

So far really like it got a we'll see how this plays got an oyster interior I had a mocha interior last time. So we'll see, you know

Tom Anderson (33m 47s)

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Battersby (33m 49s)

No food or drinks in my car pal

Tom Anderson (33m 54s)

Noted in case I ever make it up there.

Jeff Battersby (33m 55s)

Yeah, you you can have water

Jeff Battersby (33m 58s)

waters So anyway, it's uh, I'll have more to report later as I begin to play with the tech in this but it's a very tech heavy vehicle.

Jeff Battersby (34m 8s)

make use of that. Hey, BMW feature. And, uh, you know,

Jeff Battersby (34m 11s)

see how much I can and can't control with that. Plus, you know,

Tom Anderson (34m 13s)

Well good news is it should work better than Siri, so

Tom Anderson (34m 16s)

If it doesn't it's really bad. Yeah

Jeff Battersby (34m 17s)

one hopes. So, right. Right.

Tom Anderson (34m 19s)

So yeah, let's put a tickler on the calendar for I don't know spring Maybe if you've had some time with it, and we'll do a little follow-up see how see how it's gone But yeah looking forward to the pictures - I want to take a look at

Jeff Battersby (34m 24s)

Yeah. I think that's a good idea.

Jeff Battersby (34m 28s)

All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely will. Uh, I'll do that. I'll, uh,

Jeff Battersby (34m 33s)

to get outside today and program my, uh, my garage remote.

Jeff Battersby (34m 38s)

I'll have it outside and it's raining here. I don't know if I want it to get wet.

Tom Anderson (34m 42s)

Nothing like that new car paranoia the first couple of weeks.

Jeff Battersby (34m 46s)

Yeah. Right. Right. Drive. Right. You're driving around like everybody.

Jeff Battersby (34m 50s)

I will say some goofball yesterday as I was driving home from grocery shopping, um, some was leaving a gas station.

Jeff Battersby (35m)

So I left a space, but you know,

Jeff Battersby (35m 2s)

on you when you're driving through the space that I'm leaving you to make sure no cars are coming.

Jeff Battersby (35m 8s)

You know, in the opposite direction, this person just kind of blew through it.

Jeff Battersby (35m 11s)

And there was another car coming at pace.

Tom Anderson (35m 12s)

Yeah, yeah

Jeff Battersby (35m 14s)

And it was like, if that car had hit the car that was crossing in front of me, it would have hit me, it would have been that, that would have been the story.

Tom Anderson (35m 17s)

Yeah, yeah

Jeff Battersby (35m 21s)

So it's.

Tom Anderson (35m 22s)

Yeah, so far I got my first and only door dings on the well, it's not new now It's almost a year old in my own garage. Thank you kids

Jeff Battersby (35m 30s)

Don't you love that? Yeah, I've had that happen too.

Tom Anderson (35m 31s)

Yeah, that's great. I just kind of

Jeff Battersby (35m 33s)

Whoops, the bikes fell over.

Tom Anderson (35m 34s)

Shook my head ruefully and went about the day

Jeff Battersby (35m 37s)

Yeah, right. Gotta love that stuff.

Tom Anderson (35m 37s)

Yeah So alright, excellent. Yeah, looking forward to hearing about the.

Jeff Battersby (35m 40s)

Tom.

Tom Anderson (35m 42s)

How that goes as you get through the winter and into the spring.

Jeff Battersby (35m 44s)

Yes, sir.

Jeff Battersby (35m 47s)

All right. We'll see. We'll see how it plays. We'll see how it drives in the snow.

Tom Anderson (35m 49s)

Alright. Excellent, well, I think Jeff that about wraps this one up, right?

Jeff Battersby (35m 54s)

Look at us. We've done another show, Tom.

Close

Tom Anderson (35m 56s)

We have you want to hit the credits for us on this one.

Jeff Battersby (36m)

So if you want feedback, we'd love feedback. We do like to hear from you.

Jeff Battersby (36m 7s)

Again, a shout goes out to Mr. Abe Frenes for sending us a note a couple weeks ago.

Jeff Battersby (36m 12s)

But you can get us feedback at basicafshow.com.

Jeff Battersby (36m 16s)

I am no longer on Twitter, but you can find me on threads and other places at ReyesPoint.

Jeff Battersby (36m 21s)

Tom, you show up as whom? Where?

Tom Anderson (36m 24s)

Uh, on threads, it would be Tom Anderson, which I'm on predominantly these days, a website,

Tom Anderson (36m 31s)

Tom F. Anderson.com.

Tom Anderson (36m 32s)

You can sign up.

Jeff Battersby (36m 35s)

Cool. And, uh, you know, the good stuff, uh, all our show music is, uh, from psychokinetics,

Jeff Battersby (36m 42s)

also known as Celsius seven, who we will be getting on, uh, in, in a few weeks, he's recovering from surgery presently. So he's not up to doing any musical performance, uh, little,

Jeff Battersby (36m 56s)

little shoulder work done. Um, and, uh, Randall Martin design who, uh, I will note, I think I said this in our...

Jeff Battersby (37m 5s)

last episode as well, but he designed my sister's new book of poetry, which we'll pitch here in a little bit.

Jeff Battersby (37m 13s)

But he did a brilliant job.

Jeff Battersby (37m 15s)

It's a great, great book of poetry and we'll talk about that.

Jeff Battersby (37m 19s)

Maybe even get her on, even though it's...

Jeff Battersby (37m 21s)

That would make us mostly tech, but we can have her on and talk about that.

Jeff Battersby (37m 26s)

Oh, my family.

Jeff Battersby (37m 27s)

We're just going to get my family on.

Tom Anderson (37m 28s)

Yes, hanging out with the Battersby's.

Jeff Battersby (37m 28s)

It's what we'll do to get guests.

Jeff Battersby (37m 32s)

Woo-hoo!

Jeff Battersby (37m 33s)

We're a good crew.

Tom Anderson (37m 35s)

All right.

Tom Anderson (37m 35s)

Well, that is a wrap for this one.

Tom Anderson (37m 37s)

We do thank you for being here.

Tom Anderson (37m 39s)

Happy holidays, everybody.

Tom Anderson (37m 40s)

Uh, until next time.

Jeff Battersby (37m 43s)

See ya

Outro Music (37m 54s)

♪ Gon' smash my whole world, lost in the loop ♪