We discuss our favourite part of Sydney, the monopoly of Google as a search engine, and SAD lamps.
✍🏻 View the transcript for this episode
We discuss our favourite part of Sydney, the monopoly of Google as a search engine, and SAD lamps.
We’ve gone old school, so email us! toastroastpod@gmail.com
Georgie 0:09
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. I’m your co host, Georgie and as always, I’m here with Geoff.
Geoff 0:16
Howdy, howdy, howdy.
Georgie 0:17
Where’s your cowboy hat?
Geoff 0:19
Hey, it’s wasn’t there like a, there’s a Toy Story.
Georgie 0:23
Oh?
Geoff 0:23
Part where they were like, howdy, howdy, howdy? Oh, yeah, you don’t watch, you don’t watch Toy Story.
Georgie 0:28
Yeah, I barely remember Toy Story.
Geoff 0:31
There were three of them. And no one can tell me otherwise.
Georgie 0:35
Oh, you, you one of the people who would like the, four was like—
Geoff 0:39
Oh man.
Georgie 0:40
Bottom of the barrel or something, hey.
Geoff 0:42
Yeah, I mean, they should have just renamed it to be honest. Should have named it Bo Peep’s Adventure. Whatever. But they named Toy Story 4. For all the new kids. The kiddos coming out. Popping out?
Georgie 0:58
(laughs)
Geoff 1:00
We... Yeah, so, going. We bought a new board game.
Georgie 1:10
Yeah.
Geoff 1:10
Actually. We, I think we’ve talked about Ticket to Ride.
Georgie 1:15
Yes we have, cos—
Geoff 1:15
On the podcast.
Georgie 1:16
Yeah. It’s just it’s like a kind of board game classic.
Geoff 1:20
Yeah. Now it is. I guess for those don’t know, it’s a board game where everybody gets kind of like destinations on a map. And you have to basically lay down—
Georgie 1:33
On a certain route.
Geoff 1:34
Tracks, trains, on certain routes. Yeah, that connect those two locations. And, of course, there’s a limited amount of tracks. Oh, there’s a limited amount of...
Georgie 1:46
Routes?
Geoff 1:47
To... routes. Yeah, the routes to get there.
Georgie 1:49
So if someone takes the shorter one—
Geoff 1:50
So you can conflict with other people?
Georgie 1:51
You, yeah. Yeah.
Geoff 1:52
Yeah.
Georgie 1:53
You have to take like the longer one. And you don’t know what other people are doing? Or planning?
Geoff 1:58
Exactly. So they released the new one. And—
Georgie 2:03
Did they?
Geoff 2:04
Yeah, it’s pretty, like, so for the most part Ticket to Rides are very location based. So there’s one for the States. There’s one for London, Europe, Japan, Italy, you know, all the countries. And some of them aren’t even trains, they’re like, do New York it’ss taxi routes. And if you do—
Georgie 2:25
Oh my god. How did I not know this?
Geoff 2:27
Yeah, yeah, taxi routes, and things like that. So they haven’t released one in a while. But it said they released one called Ticket to Ride Legacy. The Wild West story or whatever. But the difference between this and the other ones is that actually, if you’ve played if you’ve heard of any other legacy versions of the games is that you actually play the game multiple times. And every time you play the game, something happens, something changes, something unlocks in, in the game that’s permanent. So—
Georgie 3:05
Oh, wait, hang on, is this, are you talking about the digital version?
Geoff 3:08
No, this is, no physical, physical one.
Georgie 3:11
So this is like the proper way to play.
Geoff 3:13
Well, the—it’s a more interesting way to play because the other ones are sort of like very succinct. You’re, you’re in America, you, you pick up some random locations to go to and you and you try figure out the best way to get to there. But in this case, I haven’t opened it yet. But from different games that have the same mechanism, you basically play around and then you pick, maybe something in the round makes you pick an option, which makes you then open something and then that doing that opening that will introduce more cards, or it will introduce a new mechanic.
Georgie 3:54
Okay.
Geoff 3:54
Or it will do something to the board that’s permanent. So the next time you play it, you play with the new rules. Rules are always changing every every time you play.
Georgie 4:03
Can you start again if you want?
Geoff 4:05
No.
Georgie 4:06
No, what do you mean no?
Geoff 4:07
This is, this is what, it’s permanent. It’s it’s permanently changing the game.
Georgie 4:13
Does it actually change the board? Or like—
Geoff 4:15
I don’t know about this one. But Pandemic, if you’ve ever—
Georgie 4:19
No, I’ve not played, I’ve heard it. I’ve heard of it. I haven’t played it.
Geoff 4:22
Yeah, so for those who don’t know, Pandemic is a game where do you collaboratively try and kill off a virus.
Georgie 4:30
Haha, great.
Geoff 4:32
Was very popular to play back in late COVID came around. And they they make you mark the board?
Georgie 4:42
Ah, so there is a sense of permanency.
Geoff 4:43
You draw on the board. Yeah, you take stickers and you cover things, you will reveal things you kind of like, because with Pandemic Legacy, the viruses like evolve and get a little bit more serious. So, so when—
Georgie 4:59
I think we’re very familiar with this.
Geoff 5:01
Anyway, yeah, so you can you could cure a virus, but then you know, it may evolve to the point where you can’t cure it anymore. And you just have to work your way around to cure it.
Georgie 5:10
So what if you’re playing with different people. The next time you—
Geoff 5:14
You don’t, you have to you just basically always play with the same people.
Georgie 5:17
Really? What happens if like, one of them is like your ex, and you fucking hate their guts, and—
Geoff 5:23
Well, then you throw the game out.
Georgie 5:25
Is it? Is it necessary, though? Do you have to play with this? Do you have to play with the same people?
Geoff 5:30
I don’t think you have to. It’s just the board—
Georgie 5:32
The board has changed and so if you come in new you will not have experience.
Geoff 5:37
Yeah.
Georgie 5:37
So is it beneficial to you to have experienced what’s happened in the game up to that point? Or not really?
Geoff 5:42
Not particularly I think it’s more of a feeling type thing?
Georgie 5:45
Yeah. Like it’s just the gang goes on and on and on.
Geoff 5:48
Yeah, it’s sort of like you’re a band, you’re, you’re a band of misfits. And you’re like, you’re you’re working together on solving these problems. And if you come in fresh, you may or may may critique things like we do an odd job, we look at code, and we’re like, who the fuck wrote this?
Georgie 6:07
(laughs) Yeah, yeah.
Geoff 6:07
What Bozo? And then you look at the history. Like oh, it’s me.
Georgie 6:10
Yeah.
Geoff 6:12
So you don’t know what’s happened prior to put you into this scenario. So you may empathise a little less.
Georgie 6:18
Yeah.
Geoff 6:19
In any case, so what I’m assuming is, is kind of similar to the to that in which like something permanent happens to the game. There is a storyline instead of just simply going to places for no reason other than having drawn the cards.
Georgie 6:34
Oh OK. Yeah, yeah.
Geoff 6:35
So I think the story will drive some decision making and the person who wins the wins the round perhaps makes a choice between one box or another, and then something happens to the game’s rules. And then what I also found really good about this is that at the end of the game, at the end of the 12 rounds, you’ve actually created possibly, like a kind of a unique version of Ticket to Ride that you can replay. So—
Georgie 7:05
Oh OK, cool, cool.
Geoff 7:07
Inlike Pandemic Legacy, where you kind of just solve it, you kind of like defeat the virus, and that’s it, you can’t really go back and defeat it again. It’s just the end, right? But with Ticket to Ride, I think like they’ve, you just kind of like introduce a little some some features or some mechanics and then you can just play those features and mechanics again and again. So um, so yeah, of course, my partner’s a Big Ticket to Ride fan, so I got it for her Christmas present. And I got it early, because it’s kind of like an advent calendar.
Georgie 7:44
Oh, my god. Yes.
Geoff 7:46
So we’ll play it every weekend for 12 for 12 weeks—
Georgie 7:50
And by Christmas time it’s like a whole new—
Geoff 7:53
Exactly. It’ll be a Christmas gift. So—
Georgie 7:56
Very nice.
Geoff 7:58
So yeah, I thought it was because advent calendars are kind of fun, but also quite boring.
Georgie 8:05
(laughs)
Geoff 8:07
Simultaneously.
Georgie 8:08
Where’s your one star review?
Geoff 8:09
(laughs) Yeah, can’t swing my cat around this, this advent calendar. So, so yeah, I mean, like what, advent calendars these days, you just open them up, has some chocolate in it. We’re in summer by the way, for those who don’t know. Australia is summer.
Georgie 8:27
Nah, we’re in a completely different like earth, where there’s like no...
Geoff 8:35
So chocolate, chocolate doesn’t really fare very well in terms of an advent calendar.
Georgie 8:39
Wow, did you just uncover the real reason why we eat all of the chocolate on December First, then the advent calendar is going to melt.
Geoff 8:47
Today is like 35 degrees or something.
Georgie 8:50
What, it’s only 27! I love how I say only, peeps in the UK are like oh my god I need like ice cream all day.
Geoff 9:00
Well it said 30 degrees now but it I’m pretty sure estimated 33 at the beginning of the day.
Georgie 9:06
Interesting.
Geoff 9:08
Yeah, it’s it’s funny actually spoke speaking to some co workers that are from the UK.
Georgie 9:14
Yep.
Geoff 9:15
And we did this icebreaker thing, because we have a new office.
Georgie 9:18
You have to do the icebreaker thing.
Geoff 9:20
Yeah. It’s funny because one of my my colleagues and another someone from the business, I guess, colleagues? Eh. So I refer to colleagues as people I’ve worked with directly. And then there are people at the company which are just employees.
Georgie 9:40
You have a point actually like I call it, well I call them co workers because I feel like it’s a bit more universal than colleagues. And the word colleagues with me out but yeah, it’s weird, right? Like I tend to label the other people? Like someone in finance, the accountant, like the senior bla yada yada, but um.
Geoff 9:58
Yeah.
Georgie 9:58
Yeah, coworkers usually people in sort of my direct sort of like department in the engineering department.
Geoff 10:03
Yeah. They teamed up to do a, like an icebreaker. They’re like, just to come up with icebreakers.
Georgie 10:11
Yeah.
Geoff 10:12
I’m like, okay, so you want to do one every week or something. But we’re at that phase where—
Georgie 10:17
Ice doesn’t break at that point. Yo, it’s melted. There’s no ice to break. We know each other.
Geoff 10:23
Yeah, I think it’s fairly easy. Because it’s mostly the same people.
Georgie 10:28
Yeah.
Geoff 10:31
So yeah, they, we started having so every Tuesday, they I say they, I mean, the company has, is giving us free lunch every Tuesday. Which is a first for me, I guess.
Georgie 10:47
Yeah.
Geoff 10:48
But so everyone’s coming in on Tuesday. And everyone’s basically sitting at the long table and having lunch together.
Georgie 10:54
Yeah.
Geoff 10:55
And I don’t remember the last time I’ve been, I was at a company where this has happened.
Georgie 11:00
Where everyone sat around and?
Geoff 11:03
And had lunch together.
Georgie 11:05
Yeah.
Geoff 11:06
Yeah.
Georgie 11:06
Just because we’ve been like, remote ish and stuff.
Geoff 11:09
That and even when we’re in office, I’ve never had—
Georgie 11:13
Just didn’t really happen.
Geoff 11:14
...the whole team in the whole team sitting down and eating together. It just wasn’t a thing. You’d have two or three go out. The team team lunches are a thing, but that’s a team lunch. This is like “everybody who works in Sydney” lunch. Which is, is it like, I think it’s at least 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Maybe 18 to 20 people in the office?
Georgie 11:40
That’s a lot.
Geoff 11:40
...on Tuesday.
Georgie 11:41
That’s quite a lot.
Geoff 11:43
Nine on each side should be about nine on each side. Anyway, so we sit down and we have this icebreaker we had to go around the table and say which part of Sydney we liked the most?
Georgie 11:57
Oh my god. Which part of Sydney, Sydney is huge.
Geoff 12:03
Yeah, Greater Sydney. You can name an area, you can name a specific place—
Georgie 12:08
So it can be specific, can be broad.
Geoff 12:09
You can say whatever reason? Yeah, it can be broad.
Georgie 12:12
Okay. Yeah, very interesting topic. Very interesting. What were some of the answers that came out of...?
Geoff 12:20
Yeah, so a lot of love for the Northern Beaches.
Georgie 12:23
Okay. A lot from the shire as well?
Geoff 12:25
No, no shires.
Georgie 12:28
Oh, interesting.
Geoff 12:29
A lot of Northern, yes, Northern Beaches and inner west and Bondi.
Yeah, what would you, what would be—
Georgie 12:38
Bondi’s like, can Bondi just not be Sydney?
Geoff 12:44
So so what would your answer be? What would your favourite place in Sydney be?
Georgie 12:47
Favourite like, can they be a place, like an individual place?
Geoff 12:50
It can be an individual place and then I’ll tell you what mine is.
Georgie 12:53
But you said part.
Geoff 12:55
Part, place, any, anything because—
Georgie 13:01
Like for whatever reason, it’s really hard to pick—
Geoff 13:03
For whatever reason.
Georgie 13:05
It’s hard to pick a favorite you know, because I have different reasons.
Geoff 13:10
That’s exactly what someone said.
Georgie 13:12
Yeah.
Geoff 13:12
So you can go through all of them if you want to, you can go through place for one reason, in another place for another reason.
Georgie 13:16
So I find myself in Newtown a lot. There are things there that I do so I go to I go to Lady Lash which is like an eyelash extensions place there so I find myself going there quite frequently. For entertainment there’s a tiki bar there that I like, there’s the Enmore Theatre, there’s a bunch of like vintage shops and whatever on the—even though I don’t like really buy from them just walking down the main street like King Street in Newtown is nice and like I don’t know if the transport there is necessarily good but I can get there. And I think I just also like people watching there. Actually there’s a few other there’s a few restaurants I like there as well. There’s like a vegan Mexican restaurant called Vandal—
Geoff 14:06
Eurgh.
Georgie 14:06
That’s, hey, it’s actually real good. And I’ve had people say like people who don’t who aren’t vegan who like eat meat or whatever, have liked it, so, I would recommend it’s kind of nice, anyway. Other this other restaurants are like there as well. There’s a Italian restaurant called Alba and it’s the food is from like a specific region in Italy, called, it’s like, Salentinian is the, is the cuisine. So it’s it’s really specific. I think there’s something else I liked there and now I can’t even remember.
So yeah, Inner West.
Yeah. I got my first tattoo at a at a tattoo studio there.
Geoff 14:50
So meaningful.
Georgie 14:52
Yeah, so, I don’t know. Maybe it’s—
Geoff 14:56
Mot the place you were proposed to in, like?
Georgie 14:59
That, wasn’t in Sydney?
Geoff 15:01
Oh, you didn’t get proposed to in Sydney? Yeah.
Georgie 15:05
But yeah, I just I feel like maybe because I frequent Newtown because there’s some quote unquote memories there. It’s interesting, people, yeah, people have their own sort of sense of style. They I feel like, it’s really interesting to just watch people walk down the street there because they express themselves—
Geoff 15:24
Very chic.
Georgie 15:25
Very hippie and all this, like, people are very individualistic in the way they, I dunno, just, if I were to think of any other place, it’s just very hard for me to think of something that feels like it has that much meaning. I mean, I could also tell everybody where I live, because I like this spot over here in Sydney somewhere. But that’s—
Geoff 15:46
Where you live.
Georgie 15:47
I guess I can say where I live, right? I mean, as I like, where I live, because—
Geoff 15:50
Where you live.
Georgie 15:51
Convenient. It’s not too far from the city is pretty easy to get to. It’s very, like, community—like it’s dog friendly. It’s family friendly. So you know, a lot of even though a lot of young people live here, it’s not a bad place to kind of have a family, have a dog. There’s lots of parks and stuff or whatever. Also if you’re figuring out—
Geoff 16:12
Sounds like the worst place.
Georgie 16:14
Hey?
Geoff 16:14
Sounds like the worst place. (laughs)
Georgie 16:17
But I’m saying yeah, I mean, that’s just my opinion, right?
Geoff 16:21
Yeah. You can have one.
Georgie 16:22
I can totally have an opinion.
Geoff 16:25
You can totally have an opinion.
Georgie 16:26
And then you know, I don’t want to say even though I like grew up in Western Sydney, it’s not. It’s not my favourite part of Sydney.
Geoff 16:34
Yeah.
Georgie 16:34
It’s just even though that’s like identity or whatever, blah, blah. It’s—
Geoff 16:39
Yeah, some someone said they liked they liked the thing they like about Sydney was the fact that was there’s no guns.
Georgie 16:48
Oh.
Geoff 16:49
Came from America. They’re like safety.
Georgie 16:51
Yeah.
Geoff 16:51
Safety is the thing they love about Sydney.
Georgie 16:54
Well, there are guns but people in gangs and stuff like that.
Geoff 16:59
They were saying like they when they were living in America, they couldn’t even honk their horns for the fear of their life.
Georgie 17:08
Oh, really? Like they—
Geoff 17:10
And then someone else. Yeah, and then someone else said that’s how we communicate in Sydney.
Georgie 17:15
Yeah, it is.
Geoff 17:19
I said I liked Neutral Bay. Because my favourite burger is there.
Georgie 17:25
Your favoruite burger is there?
Geoff 17:27
My favourite burger is there.
Georgie 17:29
Wait, what is it?
Geoff 17:30
Wingmill.
Georgie 17:31
Wing, oh, I think you told—
Geoff 17:32
You go there for wings but you should go there for a burger. And I like Maroubra because—
Georgie 17:39
You like Maroubra?
Geoff 17:40
...my favoruite baguette is there.
Georgie 17:42
Can I tell you why I don’t like Maroubra?
Geoff 17:44
It’s because it’s sandy as fuck.
Georgie 17:47
No it’s, oh is it by the beach? Is the baguette thing by the beach?
Geoff 17:50
Oh yes, yeah. No it’s not by the beach. But there’s this beach nearby.
Georgie 17:53
OK, I hate—not I hate, but—I’m sick of Maroubra my parents loved to go there when I was younger because of like the Asian food in the area and—
Geoff 18:03
There’s Asian food in the area?
Georgie 18:05
Yeah it’s like an Asian—
Geoff 18:06
Since when?
Georgie 18:07
Maybe maybe not by the beach but yeah. I’m pretty sure there’s an Asian grocer—
Geoff 18:12
Probably Golden—
Georgie 18:14
That my mum frequents—
Geoff 18:14
Yes there is, it’s pretty good.
Georgie 18:17
There you go.
Geoff 18:18
I guess the I guess the Golden Century or whatever Golden Unicorn thing there is all right.
Georgie 18:24
I don’t even know what that is. I don’t even go to—
Geoff 18:27
Yeah, it’s where you get yumcha.
Georgie 18:29
Ah, okay.
Geoff 18:32
So yeah, those are my poor reasons. Someone said something about Northern Beaches because they were proposed to there as well or something like that.
Georgie 18:41
Really? I don’t know.
Geoff 18:44
Oh, Centennial Park was one because—
Georgie 18:46
Oh Centennial Park is nice.
Geoff 18:47
Someone used, somebody used to be a long distance runner and they would run there.
Georgie 18:52
Yeah.
Geoff 18:53
All the time. So that’s pretty sentimental.
Georgie 18:56
Yeah. Did anyone say Surry Hills? Because I just realised that’s probably like kind of cool area.
Geoff 19:01
No, nobody said Surry Hills.
Georgie 19:04
Interesting.
Geoff 19:05
That is interesting. It was either Bondi, Northern Beaches or Inner West like Marrickville and Newtown.
Georgie 19:13
Did anyone say Western Sydney? (laughs) Blue Mountains? Does that count? Is, that doesn’t count, hey.
Geoff 19:20
Oh yeah, yeah it does, it’s Greater Sydney. I think some, I don’t know if someone said Blue Mountains though.
Georgie 19:26
Yeah.
Geoff 19:29
But yeah, don’t ask someone in Sydney how to tour Sydney.
Georgie 19:35
Oh, actually on that right, like because I have a friend who I keep telling her to come here. She’s from the UK. I said come here because she’s never been here and I said I’ll give you a tour and then I actually started thinking like, okay, what am I gonna like...
Geoff 19:47
What’s interesting?
Georgie 19:48
But I, you know what, I always tell people about the bridge, feel like I just drop that one in.
Geoff 19:53
Yeah.
Georgie 19:53
I’m like, pricey, but—
Geoff 19:54
Two minutes? Oh, like walking it 300, bucks or so?
Georgie 19:58
Yeah, like climbing that like proper, the actual thing. It’s like it. And I don’t know, is it true that like, there’s not many places in the world where you can claim your fucking city’s icon?
Geoff 20:10
Oh, maybe not, hey.
Georgie 20:11
So that’s why I find it’s like unique so yeah, I mean also walk across it because it’s nice. What else. If you like beach go to go to the beach, probably don’t fucking go to Bondi though, like, find...
Geoff 20:24
Yeah, I forgot why I told this story is because the British person said that they will they mentioned a place but then they said you know what I like? I like Sydney because of sunlight. And I was like, oh, were you actually like just so much happier since you became, you came into the sun and like, it’s yeah, they were like so much happier. Like—
Georgie 20:47
Yeah because it’s so grey in the UK.
Geoff 20:52
Yeah.
Georgie 20:52
Yeah.
Geoff 20:52
So that’s something you can tour them around. You can tour them around sunlight.
Georgie 20:55
Just walk around. Now I feel like my friend would actually like it here because she’s also into the beach. And she does really get like super ugh when it’s like gloomy and stuff.
Geoff 21:06
Yeah.
Georgie 21:07
Like get away from that shit.
Geoff 21:08
It was also like, I think they I think they also mentioned like, it’s just the people as well, like people are happier. And when there’s more happy people, you become happier.
Georgie 21:18
Feel mentally—yeah.
Geoff 21:18
Yeah.
Georgie 21:19
Yeah, it makes sense. Quite like, have you that you haven’t been to the UK? Have you?
Geoff 21:26
I have, I have been to UK.
Georgie 21:27
Oh.
Geoff 21:27
Yeah.
Georgie 21:28
Have you been to like?
Geoff 21:29
London.
Georgie 21:29
Yeah, like, I thought because I really liked. I thought British culture was quite funny and interesting. And just like, you know, seeing pictures in London like, yeah, I thought I would like it. But there was something about like, when I was walking around there like on my very first day there I was like, shit. I was like, this is not, this is not what it was all like cracked up to be. So I was fucking sad. There was something about it, like maybe I think I had high expectations of like it like, what do people say‚
Geoff 22:03
One star. Did you one star London?
Georgie 22:07
You know how some people land somewhere and they’re just like, “oh my god it stole my heart”. “New York stole my heart” and all this other shit. Like maybe I was looking for—
Geoff 22:14
Japan stole my heart.
Georgie 22:16
OK. I believe that, I believe that coming from you.
Geoff 22:19
If I had a heart to steal. Japan. Japan would be the one.
Georgie 22:22
But yeah, like I think like, I loved a lot of the the—hilarious coming from me—TV shows coming out of England. And yeah, like it just, maybe I just shouldn’t have—and from then I’ve just tried not to have any expectations when I travel. Like no place is going to, quote unquote steal my heart. I’m just gonna. You know. Just go with the flow. And then make my decision. You know.
Geoff 22:48
I, I’m trying to. I’m trying to downplay Japan a little bit.
Georgie 22:51
Yeah.
Geoff 22:52
Because my partner hasn’t gone. And so I’m like trying to down—
Georgie 22:55
You’re making it sound like Disneyland or some shit.
Geoff 22:57
Yeah. But there are things like, she really likes sushi. She really likes Japanese food in general. So like, every now and then she thinks like, oh, I’ll be able to have the real thing or, I’d have to, like, it would be really nice to be able to just have this all the time.
Georgie 23:17
Okay. But the thing is, when you come back from there, you will criticise every—
Geoff 23:21
You’re ruined.
Georgie 23:22
Yes. There was this guy on, his name’s Alex Hunter. And he has this Youtube series or channel called Attache. And he did a tour guide on Japan or Tokyo, I think. He said Tokyo is the line in the sand for a lot of travellers, you will always be comparing before Tokyo and after Tokyo.
Geoff 23:47
There is pre Tokyo and post Tokyo
Georgie 23:50
And the funny thing is, because—the funny thing is, my first trip like not with my parents, and going on family trips to just like, you know, where we’re from, Indonesia or wherever. My first trip was fucking Tokyo.
Geoff 24:02
Oh shit.
Georgie 24:02
Fucking everything is after Japan. Anyway.
Geoff 24:07
Yeah.
Georgie 24:07
Obviously Nick experienced it, like when we went and you know, he was he very much like, enjoyed it. He loved it.
Geoff 24:14
Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s like—
Georgie 24:17
Live, vicariously through your partner.
Geoff 24:18
There’s this, yeah, there’s this moment where we’re like, standing outside Maccas and my partner makes his comment about how unhappy they look to be working there. And I’m like, you’ll like Japan.
Georgie 24:34
Irasshaimase!
Geoff 24:36
Is it because they’re like, they’re creepy happy and I’m like, no, they’re happy. Creepy is up to your definition, your interpretation. But they’re just, there’s a smile and they just they’re just generally happy at their job. And if you find that scary, then that’s a different discussion altogether. But yeah, it’s it is it is definitely like yeah, pre Tokyo, post Tokyo. Yeah, get that vibe. But I’ve spent enough time away from Tokyo to forget how like nice it is. But once you come back, I think like the first thing that happened when I came back from Tokyo, my last trip six or seven years ago in the freaking immigration office, like not even, we just got off the plane not even on, like out of the airport yet. The immigration.
Georgie 25:32
Coming back?
Geoff 25:34
Yeah, we came back in Sydney, in Sydney, the immigration area in Sydney. And then the there’s a there’s a guard that that suppose, that that’s and this, what was it? Was it what that was doing? I can’t remember. But in any case. They were just like the most miserable person. I’m like, woah, definitely not in Japan anymore.
Georgie 25:57
(laughs)
Geoff 26:01
So yeah. So I yeah, I’ve been to London. And I think at that time, I was very much that person, where I was like, I spend most of my days in the dark. So I feel like London was, was London was okay.
Georgie 26:18
Yeah.
Geoff 26:19
Like I don’t I didn’t have much human interaction outside of the internet and—but the thing is, you don’t know what affects you until it’s gone. So.
Georgie 26:30
Yes.
Geoff 26:31
Whilst I can say I don’t really appreciate I don’t really like sun, generally. If you take it away—
Georgie 26:38
When daylight savings is here you’re just like oh my god, it’s 5pm. I can’t see anything.
Geoff 26:42
Yeah. Can’t stand it.
Georgie 26:44
It’s so cold.
Geoff 26:46
Daylight savings is so terrible. But yeah.
Georgie 26:52
Where’s my burger!
Geoff 26:53
I think if you took away, if you took away the sunlight, I’d probably be affected by it. No matter how much I say that. I don’t really appreciate sunlight.
Georgie 27:04
I’m actually very er, affected by when it’s like rainy and gloomy. Like I feel like oh, it just brings my mood down. Just like seeing it.
Geoff 27:14
Yeah.
Georgie 27:14
Yeah. Actually, it happened, my friend, like my same friend I’m talking about like, who lives in the UK. She said there’s thing called SAD lamps. Have you heard of them?
Geoff 27:26
No.
Georgie 27:26
You can just get them on Amazon or something. But it’s like a lamp that’s supposed to like radiate like light and heat during these, especially for people during these like times when it’s gloomy when it’s like not very much light.
Geoff 27:40
Oh, so it’s meant to... right. I think I have heard of this. Seasonal Affective Disorder. Sad.
Georgie 27:48
Yeah. Funnily enough.
Geoff 27:51
So that yeah, they’re meant to them and to kind of emulate—
Georgie 27:55
Yeah, like—
Geoff 27:56
Some level of real sunlight. Oh, yeah I started using—
Georgie 28:02
Vitamin D.
Geoff 28:03
To completely switch topic. I’ve started using a different search engine if you hadn’t noticed.
Georgie 28:10
Yeah. Okay. I did notice because I’m, sometimes actually I use between DuckDuckGo and Ecosia. Depending on what device I’m on for some reason. Because I’m weird.
Geoff 28:20
Yeah, one second. I think it’s told me that, that I’ve reached my limit.
Georgie 28:25
Ah there’s a limit of 100 searches, for like how long?
Geoff 28:29
So now it’s going through Google. So this pitch of this search engine is that it’s a subscription based search engine.
Georgie 28:39
OK.
Geoff 28:40
So Ecosia, DuckDuckGo, etc. They’re they’re different. They’re a different breed. Because I think what they do is they try—
Georgie 28:52
Ecosia goes through Bing, I think.
Geoff 28:55
Oh Ecosia goes through Bing? See, that’s it. Right? It’s going through. It’s going through Bing. And yeah, they’re planting trees. So they’re not really solving the problem.
Georgie 29:03
I think DuckDuckGo as well. But they do the privacy—yeah.
Geoff 29:09
Ah. So the see the description here, because yeah, all of these other ones, they kind of go through what’s existing. And I think if DuckDuckGo is more internet privacy, then maybe it’s just stripping away all of your. like avoid filters and personalised search results. What does it go through? Anyways, so Kagi is a bit different, because what it does is that it takes a variety of, of search engine results. So it goes through Google, it goes through Bing, it goes through it basically aggregates from all these search engines, and anonymises, like does the whole security thing. And it it optimises for Finding your answer the quickest, right? Out of all the results across the internet, it will pick whatever is the closest to what could be your—
Georgie 30:09
Whatever’s the quickest?
Geoff 30:10
...answer, quickest, quickest. So, for those who don’t know, I don’t know who doesn’t know this as much. But Google, when you go through Google, they optimise for advertising. They will optimise for whoever is giving them the biggest ad dollars.
Georgie 30:25
Money. Money money money.
Geoff 30:27
And they, yeah, they almost don’t want you to find the answer you’re looking for. But also, the they also surface a lot of the answers on their page, and you don’t actually have to click into any websites to find your answers.
Georgie 30:45
Yeah. Which sucks.
Geoff 30:45
Which you might think is fast. But also, none of those websites get traffic anymore. Like it just removes the traffic on websites.
Georgie 30:56
Monopolises like a bitch.
Geoff 30:57
Yeah. So it’s quite interesting. They go through a whole bunch, it’s quite open, is it open source? I think it’s open source. They have plans. So you can pay $5 a month for 300 searches a month, or 10, for $10 per month for unlimited searches. And you don’t have to deal with any ads. It’s faster. So—actually faster, the results come up faster, like render faster than Google.
Georgie 31:27
Okay. Can I ask you to put in a question?
Geoff 31:32
In a what? In a question? I’ve like, I’ve run out of run out of searches.
Georgie 31:36
So wait, what’s the trial? 100 total? Like for how long?
Geoff 31:40
A hundred total searches, forever.
Georgie 31:43
Forever?
Geoff 31:43
So now I’ve reached my 100 searches.
Georgie 31:46
That’s not fair!
Geoff 31:47
You can go on it on it right now. And you can do a search for yourself.
Georgie 31:51
But then I’d be at 99.
Geoff 31:54
Oh, no. So yeah, I think, what was the other interesting thing about this? There’s a family plan, a team plan. You can give someone—
Georgie 32:03
Why pay for search?
Geoff 32:03
Why pay for search?
Georgie 32:05
Yeah. So I was gonna ask, if you were to try sell this to me. Like, why should I pay?
Geoff 32:08
Yeah, um, well, you you wouldn’t get any algorithms. And it’s so without the algorithms. It’s faster. And it actually surfaces niche websites, like small websites that may have the answer.
Georgie 32:22
Yeah, yeah.
Geoff 32:22
So it promotes more of the web, and no page ranking. So basically, it doesn’t try to, to, because it doesn’t try pointing you to sub optimal web pages that have paid for a PageRank.
Georgie 32:43
Yeah.
Geoff 32:44
Which is the main problem.
Georgie 32:44
The information is probably like bullshit. Actually. Yeah. On a similar note, right. So one of these, there’s a YouTuber I’ve probably mentioned before JJ McCullough, he did something on Wikipedia, and why he doesn’t use Wikipedia anymore. Because they’re basically they kind of want you to use Wikipedia. But they’re not, I can’t remember, it’s just something very similar to this to do with money to do with big corps, to do with like monopolising information. And he encouraged going for to actual encyclopedias, or he brought up those sort of niche websites that often don’t really look professional, they don’t look great. They’re kind of like the they they look like something from that you might recognise from like the 90s, or something. Just very basic default text Times New Roman, but someone has dedicated this page, like their time to creating this page to have information or like a specific scientist, because it’s like, their passion or whatever. And, yeah, I feel like maybe this would surface more of that kind of stuff. The single just single page, like web pages, not full on websites that have like real information that’s not behind some, some company behind it. Yeah.
Geoff 34:03
Because most websites, like if if you don’t understand exactly how Google works, and that’s actually by definition, that’s by design. Google does not want you to know how search works, because that is what makes the money. But if you go into SEO, like search engine optimisation techniques, it’s all about, you know, keyword flooding, people will say that it’s not that relevant these days. But I don’t believe that. Getting on first page of Google, it’s so it’s just about trying to let Google know how relevant your page is to certain keywords. And you can do this without your page actually, giving the information that you say it should give, and you can pay Google for ads and Google will rank you higher, etcetera, etcetera. So it’s a lot of shady stuff. Now Google is answering me. So I’m wondering if it’s coming up on the pod But let’s have a read through. Why pay for search? “Yeah, you should pay the search engine to ensure the incentives of the information provider are aligned with what’s best for you, not what’s best for advertisers. Think about it. Do you want the results to find you find in your search engine to give you the information you need, or the information an advertiser wants you to see?” And so I think, just generally, it’s not a big amount, like $5. Like, I don’t know, when I’d signed up for this, but 100 searches took me a long time. And—
Georgie 35:43
Like, I’m thinking like, I don’t actually use a search engine all that often. So I wonder if—
Geoff 35:49
Yeah?
Georgie 35:50
If it’s worth just pain for it.
Geoff 35:52
Five bucks. $10 $10 is not exorb—is not a big amount of money to people who search heavily. We, software engineers are generally just Google engineers, Google searching engineers. And I think the other ones don’t—like I’ve been trying to do DuckDuckGo, and stuff like that, but they just don’t give me the answers that I need for most of my work. So this actually makes that nice balance, where it’s actually going through Bing, it’s going through Google, it’s coming up with my answers that I would necessarily, I would probably come from a Google and their special sauce—
Georgie 36:34
You can claim on taxes maybe? The Kagi subscription?
Geoff 36:36
Oh, that’s interesting.
Georgie 36:38
Yeah.
Geoff 36:40
But I guess it’s, to me, it’s like the best of both worlds. They’ll go to Google, they’ll fig— and they’ll use their special AI sauce to figure out if, like, results from Google or Bing, or whatever source they come from, is the right answer for me, and then give it to me. It’s, yeah, it’s just sort of like a different.
Georgie 36:58
How do you know it’s the right answer?
Geoff 37:00
I mean, when I find the answer that I need, like, how do I—
Georgie 37:03
Yeah, it’s interesting.
Geoff 37:05
Yeah. Also, I think they have shortcuts for like Chat GPT and things if you want, like they have Fast GPT where when you’re searching for something, you can just write the type the word GPT and then search for something and it will come up with the answer or do the thing that GPT would do, but you don’t have to actually go specifically to GPT. Universal summariser. But yeah, they’ve they’ve got a few other things that will help speed up your use of the Internet, essentially.
Georgie 37:40
Interesting.
Geoff 37:41
So yeah, yeah, it’s got a lot of fun stuff. You can apparently you can you can tailor, customise your search result kind of things. Like if you want to focus on getting answers from forums. Something that’s fun that I can’t show you now is listicles.
Georgie 38:04
Oh like those article, are you talking about thseo really basic type lifestyle blog articles?
Geoff 38:08
Yeah.
Georgie 38:08
Are you talking about the shit, you’re talking about listicles as in being shit, right?
Geoff 38:12
Listicles being, listicles are kind of shit. But you like, I want to, if I want like the five best SAD lamps, the nine best SAD lamp.
Georgie 38:19
Yeah.
Geoff 38:20
I want a SAD lamp, it will actually just on the search results, show me all these listicles that have that have mentioned SAD lamps. And then you can actually go and find all the, they just basically group it all together, instead of like spreading it all out.
Georgie 38:36
So hang on. Instead of like diving into each listicle are you saying it just summarises it?
Geoff 38:42
Oh no just lists every listicle that has the mention in it in one block of result?
Georgie 38:50
But then how would you use that information? Would you be like oh, it’s mentioned like 10 times? And then would you be like—
Geoff 38:54
Oh, you go into each listicle if you want to read listicles. You can also ignore listicles by just telling it—
Georgie 39:02
Like just because it made somebody’s bloody list doesn’t mean it’s like good.
Geoff 39:07
Yeah, true.
Georgie 39:08
Because you might want to actual review on a SAD lamp right? Like someone who’s written something in detail not just put it as part of an entire thing was like bloody nine other SAD lamps.
Geoff 39:18
Oh, cool recipes without spam.
Georgie 39:21
What does that mean, well, what’s a recipe with spam?
Geoff 39:25
I have no idea what this means? Oh, you can actually list the websites you liked to get results from. And that would be where they would kind of like organise your results. So—
Georgie 39:40
Oh because there’s some that are copied straight up.
Geoff 39:45
I think this is generally like, let’s give more realistic—world news. So if you read news from a specific source, then then you can actually list the news sources that you want results from, that will rank higher than the other results. So you’ll get less—
Georgie 40:01
Like The Guardian or something.
Geoff 40:03
Yeah, exactly. Academic forums. Yeah. So I think there’s they have interesting features that would probably not be possible because it’s to the detriment of advertisers, like it’s to the detriment of Google’s—
Georgie 40:18
People who are paying like.
Geoff 40:19
Monetary model. Yeah. And because you are paying for these features, it is in service of you. They want to make this search the best search for you so that you keep paying them, not making the search the best search.
Georgie 40:34
Take that Sky News. Or whoever else I’m gonna list here as a diss. Daily Mail! That’s the one, take that Daily Mail. Dot co dot uk.
Geoff 40:44
Yeah. So I’m just gonna hit—
Georgie 40:50
You gotta, you gotta put your credit card information on the—
Geoff 40:53
Gonna put my credit card information on this—
Georgie 40:58
Seriously get that shit expensed.
Geoff 41:01
Yeah, I wonder if it can do it for work. Like, helps me do my job.
Georgie 41:05
Yeah.
Geoff 41:06
Yeah.
Georgie 41:07
That’s probably where I mostly would use like search. Is is like to kind of look up stuff for work.
Geoff 41:15
Yeah, you’re going to quickly take a snapshot of my—
Georgie 41:18
Of your credit card details?
Geoff 41:23
And that’s, that’s, that’s my shill for the day.
Georgie 41:27
Yeah.
Geoff 41:29
So...
Georgie 41:30
So where was your favourite place in Sydney again?
Geoff 41:32
Oh, yeah.
Georgie 41:34
Maroubra?
Geoff 41:35
Neutral Bay for my burger. For my burger, and Maroubra—also another bougie place, for my baguettes. Can’t go without my baguette. And so you can reach out to us on email.
Georgie 41:53
Reach far. Reach very far.
Geoff 41:56
toastroast, toastroastpod@gmail.com
Georgie 41:59
And you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcasts, and, I dunno, the big search engine?
Geoff 42:08
Big SAD lamp.
Georgie 42:09
Big SAD lamp.
Geoff 42:13
And new episodes every Monday.
Georgie 42:16
Yeah.
Geoff 42:16
So see you next week.
Georgie 42:20
Bye.