Tech: Off-topic: Recent Episodes

Mike Elsmore

Interested in Technology, Development, and all the random stuff around it? So are we! This podcast is the sidebar discussions that you'd normally hear at a tech event but broadcast over the internet for all to enjoy.

I'm Mike Elsmore and I'll regularly be hosting guests talking about the culture and community in technology circles, the tech itself, and have a giggle along the way.

To see it live head to https://twitch.tv/ukmadlz at 3 pm UK time every other Friday.

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Hello 2024, it's Tech: Off-topic here! Mike (⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/ukmadlz⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://mastodon.social/@ukmadlz⁠) has brought in Ollie Read (⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/ollieread https://phpc.social/@ollieread) to talk tech and what's happened recently. However, that barely happens and the tangents are strong. We end up talking about:

  • Multitenancy in software (you can ask Ollie about that all you want)
  • RGB & Camera stuff (thanks to tech difficulties)
  • Gundam, Warhammer, and hobbyist "plastic crack"
  • Corporations and patent fights https://news.sky.com/story/apple-watch-to-lose-feature-after-us-court-reinstates-sales-ban-over-patent-dispute-13050692
  • Super rich (plenty of tech money) spending lots of money to build a city... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/17/tech-billionaire-new-city-plan-california-forever-san-francisco
  • Pothole robots https://news.sky.com/story/hertfordshire-worlds-first-pothole-preventing-robot-to-hit-roads-in-test-rollout-13045036

This episode has plenty of side quest adventures so enjoy the chaos

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Mike (⁠⁠https://twitter.com/ukmadlz⁠⁠ https://mastodon.social/@ukmadlz) and co-host Jim (https://twitter.com/secondej https://phpc.social/@SecondeJ) gather for the first time in a while and are joined by Stuart Langridge (https://twitter.com/sil https://mastodon.social/@sil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Langridge). The usual variety of social tech chat goes truly off the rails to the point where it's more teachable moments than tech discussion. But some of what we cover is:

  • Elon is against Chat GPT 4+ https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/pause-ai-development-open-letter-warning/
  • Don't deploy on Friday horseshit is BACK https://twitter.com/allenholub/status/1637111242610610182?t=EBkSZzQ6-zVpZ0I5lC4s4g&s=19
  • Dilbert
  • Twitter outage two weeks ago was because they fired everyone with access to mint certs https://izzodlaw.com/@IzzoD/110001516908481048
  • You can't avoid politics in tech sometimes https://twitter.com/AlyssaM_InfoSec/status/1637383087020548096

The topics list was a lot longer, and this is all we got to. I think we hit a new level of off-topic with this episode, so enjoy.

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Mike (https://twitter.com/ukmadlz) couldn't bring Jim with him to Japan so we replaced him with Diana (https://twitter.com/dianasoyster) and she was the best co-host/guest you could ask for! The one is a truly off-topic session, so much so that we didn't actually follow many of our starter points. But we did cover:

  • Bidets
    • Vending machines
  • VR influence to save the virtual world https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-64862006
  • Mushroom clothes! https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64810935
  • Robot restaurant servers
  • Square watermelons
  • Parking garage elevators
  • Driving system

Enjoy the truly random conversation we had, we enjoyed having it

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Mike (https://twitter.com/ukmadlz) and Jim (https://twitter.com/secondej) are at it again, did you miss the tangential chat? The odd directions the conversation goes in this episode are truly off-topic, but our starter topics are:

  • Trongate, the legendary new PHP Framework
  • New Relic is hiring! That was an expensive mistake
  • ChatGPT Articles and Avatar 2 gaslighting - https://twitter.com/MovingToTheSun/status/1625156575202537474
  • Google wants people to share a desk - https://fortune.com/2023/02/23/google-returning-staff-share-desks-partner-maximize-office-space-tidiness-expectations-rotational-model/
  • The tomato thing is real - https://www.itv.com/news/2023-02-24/europeans-mock-uk-shoppers-over-tomato-shortage-but-is-brexit-to-blame
  • What on EARTH did Purple Bricks DO https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64678984
  • 15-minute cities are a MARXIST CONSPIRACY

And the usual off-topic tangents.

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Mike (https://twitter.com/ukmadlz) and Jim (https://twitter.com/secondej) missed a few weeks due to life but they're back talking about some of the weird and terrible things that have happened in software land:

  • Twitter turning off the API with a week to spare https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/2/23582615/twitter-removing-free-api-developer-apps-price-announcement
  • Netlify buys Gatsby https://thenewstack.io/netlify-acquires-gatsby-its-struggling-jamstack-competitor/
  • Netlfix canning shared passwords https://news.sky.com/story/revealed-how-netflix-plans-to-stop-you-sharing-your-password-12800510
  • More layoffs, this time PayPal with 2000 and Pinterest with 150
  • Jamstack man all over promoted Twitter
  • Microsoft is doubling down on OpenAI https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/01/23/microsoftandopenaiextendpartnership/
  • Amazon closing AmazonSmile, one of the actually good things they’ve ever done https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-closing-amazonsmile-to-focus-its-philanthropic-giving-to-programs-with-greater-impact
  • Dyson has made headphones with an air purifier… and you WILL look stupid https://www.dyson.co.uk/newsroom/overview/news/march-2022/dyson-zone-announcement
  • Ring doorbells are terrible for onboarding

And the usual off-topic tangents.

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Mike (https://twitter.com/ukmadlz) and Jim (https://twitter.com/secondej) start the year with shenanigans, and the usual madness covering:

  • Mastodon rejecting funding https://technology.inquirer.net/120533/mastodon-rejects-funding
  • Tech salaries https://mastodon.online/@chaosmonster/109545607020550255
  • CES provides https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/loreal-brow-magic-eyebrow-printer-ces-2023-news/
  • Salesforce ELT wouldn't understand Slack https://fortune.com/2023/01/05/leaked-slack-all-hands-meeting-reveals-a-strong-culture-clash-and-growing-rift-with-parent-company-salesforce/
  • AWS nuclear layoffs https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/05/tech_workers_in_the_firing/

And the usual off-topic tangents.

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Mike (https://twitter.com/ukmadlz) couldn't get Jim to come to play, so instead dragged along Chris Miller (https://twitter.com/ccmiller2018) and Steve Goode (https://twitter.com/sociablesteve1) to keep me company during this holiday episode:

  • Myspace Tom to replace Elon Musk https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/myspace-tom-twitter-elon-musk-ceo-position/
  • SBF got out of jail for $250m https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64068810
  • LastPass leak https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/12/lastpass-says-hackers-have-obtained-vault-data-and-a-wealth-of-customer-info/
  • TikTok reading data from Journalists https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/22/23522808/tiktok-journalists-data-accessed-bytedance-internal-audit
  • Twitter to have public view counts https://www.searchenginejournal.com/twitter-adds-public-view-counts-to-tweets/475185/
  • Pokemon Samsung Accessories https://www.androidpolice.com/pokemon-samsung-accessories/

And the usual off-topic tangents.

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Mike (https://twitter.com/ukmadlz) and Jim (https://twitter.com/secondej) drag along Julia Biro (https://twitter.com/juliadoesthat) and Eli Holderness (https://twitter.com/EliHolderness) for a genuinely unruly and off-topic conversation. Any yes, one of the topics did generate the title of this episode:

  • Was anything interesting from DevRelCon?
  • That new OpenAI chatGPT bot
  • Lensa and its considerations
  • New Pokemon called Spidops in the Scarlet/Viole
  • Raspberry Pi managed to hire some nutter - https://twitter.com/adacable/status/1600830256780570626
  • Literal killer robots - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63883235

And the usual off-topic tangents.

Bonus content: Mike did in fact break the chair and hurt himself https://twitter.com/EliHolderness/status/1601239042967801862

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Mike (https://twitter.com/ukmadlz) and Jim (https://twitter.com/secondej) have our usual chat and pseudo spicy takes, this episode with guest Alistair Hey (https://twitter.com/alistair_hey), and cover:

  • Modern Frontends Live!! https://dylanbeattie.net/2022/11/22/modern-frontends-2022.html / https://www.cassie.codes/posts/modern-frontends/ / https://dev.to/thisisjofrank/my-experience-of-modern-frontends-conference-1cgg
  • Going through a lovely bit of MongoDB marketing fluff https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/25/mongodb_marketing_movie_dross/
  • Black Friday. Really. Is it a thing anymore here
  • "The backend shouldn't exist" - Conversation with bootcamp mentees
  • Hive to replace Twitter (and mastodon) https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-competitor-hive-social-run-by-24-year-old-founder-2022-11?r=US&IR=T
  • Linux Foundation pays Linus 1.6 mill a year

And the usual off-topic tangents.

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A quick note to start, sorry about the audio... teething problems with the new kit

Mike (https://twitter.com/ukmadlz) and Jim (https://twitter.com/secondej) have our usual chat and weird humour, this episode with guest Luke Browne (https://twitter.com/lukebrwne), and cover:

  • The regular cycle of layoffs
  • Finding some amusing takes about Musk’s Twitter bin fire
  • THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT ATTEMPT TO LAUNCH ON DISCORD, RESULTS ARE HILARIOUS https://kotaku.com/uk-britain-treasury-discord-government-bullied-tories-1849787589
  • Evernote has been bought!!! EVERNOTE! Remember that? https://www.engadget.com/evernote-bending-spoons-acquisition-201505825.html
  • Maybe Sam Bankman-Fried, if we can be arsed with crypto shit https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/cryptocurrency/ftx-declares-bankruptcy/
  • HelloFresh accused of using coconut milk obtained from monkey labour https://futurism.com/the-byte/meal-kit-hellofresh-monkey-labor
  • VR kit that kills you if you die in VR https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy7kbq/palmer-luckey-made-a-vr-headset-that-kills-the-user-if-they-die-in-the-game

And the usual off-topic tangents.

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Mike and Jim have our usual chat and weird humour, this time we give our take on:

  • PHP gets a new web server, built-in Go! https://github.com/dunglas/frankenphp
  • Hey, pop the cloud, move to physical infrastructure
  • Pulumi get busted papering themselves all over Hashiconf
  • Canonical’s interview process - I’m sure we never discussed this and it came up recently
  • No Man’s Sky drops another enormous update. How are Hello Games making money
  • First Github Copilot litigation has arrived, as predicted on Tech: Off Topic.
  • The price of a Bratwurst and a beer at the Birmingham Christmas Market

And the usual off-topic tangents.

We did attempt to stay clear of politics…

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Mike and Jim have our usual chat and weird humour, this time we give our take on:

  • Oven.sh “grind” culture https://twitter.com/oven_sh/status/1562248121656102914 (thread after deleted tweets https://twitter.com/oven_sh/status/1562248122633314304)
  • Build a city with your GH contributions because why the hell not https://honzaap.github.io/GithubCity/
  • https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1562104562219196416 wtf John Carmack is at Meta
  • FN Meka dropped by Capitol Records https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/24/entertainment/fn-meka-dropped-capitol-records-cec/index.html
  • Because Excel https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/892919315395903578/1012513522313343057/unknown.png
  • Max headroom Chicago takeover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_signal_hijacking
  • Best tech swag

And the usual off-topic tangents.

PS Sorry Mike's mum for the introduction

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Mike and Jim have our usual chat and dark humour moments, but this time we also chat about interesting new tech.

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Mike Elsmore & Jim Seconde can't help but talk about the commonwealth game, but we also have takes on bun.sh, latest layoffs, and evil corp.

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Mike Elsmore & Jim Seconde chat about all the things that have been happening in the tech space recently.

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This is episode was an awesome chat with Matt Hamilton who is the Principle Developer Advocate from RippleX. Our chat covered his route into his current role, including the home experiments that got him to Ripple, as well as Mike learning a lot about Ripple and the XRP Ledger.

If you want to be part of the live recording and give opinions and ask a question, please just head to https://twitch.tv/ukmadlz and join the conversation.

If you have anything you'd like to follow up, or you'd like to be a guest at a later date, feel free to reach out to me on Twiter at https://twitter.com/ukmadlz

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I had the amazing chance to have a nice chat with Hannah Jones & Andy Jones from The Fusion Group, you may have heard of a little thing they run called Fusion Meetup. During this chat, which we kept relatively short, we covered recruitment, the community in and around Birmingham (our shared city), and some of the transition for people working in tech over the last year or so.

If you want to be part of the live recording and give opinions and ask a question, please just head to https://twitch.tv/ukmadlz and join the conversation every other Friday at 3pm UK time.

If you have anything you'd like to follow up, or you'd like to be a guest at a later date, feel free to reach out to me on Twiter at https://twitter.com/ukmadlz

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In this episode Tech: Off-topic, Mike Elsmore has Simon Metson, VP of Engineering at EDB get ever so nostalgic and then the conversation gets interesting. An amazing conversation unfolds talking about music, web monetisation (if interested check out https://coil.com/), and building stuff.

If you want to be part of the live recording and give opinions and ask a question, please just head to https://twitch.tv/ukmadlz and join the conversation every other Friday at 3pm UK time.

If you have anything you'd like to follow up, or you'd like to be a guest at a later date, feel free to reach out to me on Twiter at https://twitter.com/ukmadlz

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In this episode of Tech: Off-topic, Mike Elsmore has Marcus Noble, Principle Systems Engineer at Elsevier on for a conversation about tinkering. Over the course of the conversation we talk, home setups, IoT, Smart Home tech, and all roads seem to lead to a Kubernetes conversation.

If you want to be part of the live recording and give opinions and ask a question, please just head to https://twitch.tv/ukmadlz and join the conversation every other Friday at 3pm UK time.

If you have anything you'd like to follow up, or you'd like to be a guest at a later date, feel free to reach out to me on Twiter at https://twitter.com/ukmadlz

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In this episode of Tech: Off-topic, Mike Elsmore, a Developer Advocate at Logz.io, has a gaggle of bootcampers new and old from the School of Code in Birmingham to talk about the experience and everything around it from remote learning to the realities. The bootcampers involved were:

  • Chris Miller (Cohort 1) from Jump24.co.uk (can be found on Twitter & LinkedIn)
  • Katie Hawcutt (Cohort 4) and is available for full-stack JS work (can be found on Twitter & LinkedIn)
  • Tom Bennett (Cohort 4) and is available for full-stack JS work (can be found on LinkedIn)
  • Carl McIntosh (Cohort 4) and is available for full-stack JS work (can be found on Twitter & LinkedIn)

If you want to be part of the live recording and give opinions and ask a question, please just head to https://twitch.tv/ukmadlz and join the conversation every other Friday at 3pm UK time.

If you have anything you'd like to follow up, or you'd like to be a guest at a later date, feel free to reach out to me on Twiter at https://twitter.com/ukmadlz

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In this episode of Tech: Off-topic, Mike Elsmore, a Developer Advocate at Logz.io, has Lech Guzowski, the man behind Human.pm, on for a chin wag and gentle heckling. We talk tech, a tiny bit of politics, and just have a giggle ridiculous things happening at the moment. 

If you want to be part of the live recording and give opinions and ask a question, please just head to https://twitch.tv/ukmadlz and join the conversation every other Friday at 3pm UK time. 

If you have anything you'd like to follow up, or you'd like to be a guest at a later date, feel free to reach out to me on Twiter at https://twitter.com/ukmadlz

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In this episode of Tech: Off-topic, Mike Elsmore, a Developer Advocate at Logz.io, and co-host James Seconde, also a Developer Advocate at Jump24 decided to roast tech gifts. Earlier in the month, we asked the internet to suggest the worst tech gifts they could think of and we decided to give eight of them the once over. In no particular order, here they are and you can judge for yourself:

  • https://portal.facebook.com
  • https://www.crateandbarrel.com/revolution-cooking-r180-smart-toaster/s661747
  • https://amzn.to/3nMB4Mg
  • https://www.greatbigstuff.com/products/computer-mouse
  • https://smarter.am/products/smarter-coffee
  • https://embrlabs.com/
  • https://habitaware.com/
  • https://5gbioshield.com/

Also, we mentioned the Fusion Community Discord, if you like the Fusion meetups etc help to maintain the community over at https://discord.gg/pCejkYXYsr

If you want to be part of the live recording and give opinions and ask a question, please just head to https://twitch.tv/ukmadlz and join the conversation every other Friday at 3pm UK time.

If you have anything you'd like to follow up, or you'd like to be a guest at a later date, feel free to reach out to me or Jim at the links below:

  • https://twitter.com/ukmadlz
  • https://twitter.com/secondej

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None

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In this episode of Tech: Off-topic, Mike Elsmore, a Developer Advocate at Logz.io, and co-host James Seconde, also a Developer Advocate at Jump24 just chat about some interesting stuff that's happened recently. This episode we were joined by Jon Kingsley who's a Software/Hardware Engineer (genuine builder of many random things…), and we chat about everything from start-ups and protocols, meetups, past Kingsley adventures, and even some on our corporate overlords.

If you want to be part of the live recording and give opinions and ask a question, please just head to https://twitch.tv/ukmadlz and join the conversation every other Friday at 3pm UK time.

If you have anything you'd like to follow up, or you'd like to be a guest at a later date, feel free to reach out to me or Jim at the links below:

  • https://twitter.com/ukmadlz
  • https://twitter.com/secondej

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In this episode of Tech: Off-topic, Mike Elsmore, a Developer Advocate at Logz.io, and co-host James Seconde, also a Developer Advocate at Jump24 just chat about some interesting stuff that's happened recently. We chat about start-ups, outages, space, and our home town of Birmingham (BHX).

We also mention some events coming up, here are the links:

  • PyJamas, Dec 5th - https://pyjamas.live/
  • NorDev: the Webb Telescope, Norwich Astronomical Society, Dec 3rd - https://www.meetup.com/Norfolk-Developers-NorDev/events/274592397/

If you want to be part of the live recording and give opinions and ask a question, please just head to https://twitch.tv/ukmadlz and join the conversation every other Friday at 3pm UK time.

If you have anything you'd like to follow up, or you'd like to be a guest at a later date, feel free to reach out to me or Jim at the links below:

  • https://twitter.com/ukmadlz
  • https://twitter.com/secondej

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The first episode of Tech: Off-topic, Mike Elsmore, a Developer Advocate at Logz.io, and co-host James Seconde, also a Developer Advocate at Jump24 just chat about some interesting stuff that's happened recently.

We also mention some events coming up, here are the links:

  • Fusion Meetup, November 26th https://www.meetup.com/Fusion-Technology-Meetup-Birmingham/events/274553750/

  • Fusion Workshops:

  • Introduction to Distributed Systems (.NET Core) with Dylan Beattie, November 19th https://www.eventbrite.com/e/introduction-to-distributed-systems-net-core-with-dylan-beattie-tickets-119602742021

  • Communication for Software Teams, November 24th - 27th https://www.eventbrite.com/e/communication-for-software-teams-tickets-120395206303

  • OpenObservability Podcast, November 26th https://openobservability.io/

  • RubyConf, November 17th -19th https://rubyconf.org/
  • LaravelDay, November 26th https://2020.laravelday.it/
  • YouGotThis, January 15th - 16th 2021 https://yougotthis.io/couch/

If you want to be part of the live recording and give opinions and ask a question, please just head to https://twitch.tv/ukmadlz and join the conversation every other Friday at 3pm UK time.

If you have anything you'd like to follow up, or you'd like to be a guest at a later date, feel free to reach out to me or Jim at the links below:

  • https://twitter.com/ukmadlz
  • https://twitter.com/secondej

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