A transient chat about technology starting with AirTags, to Geoff's "monitor story", and team bonding from afar. (25:00~ if you want to skip the monitor story LOL)
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A transient chat about technology starting with AirTags, to Geoff's "monitor story", and team bonding from afar. (25:00~ if you want to skip the monitor story LOL)
Team games:
Social media
Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
Geoff 0:01
Welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. I'm your host, Geoff, and I'm here with the co host, Georgie.
Georgie 0:09
Hello.
Geoff 0:10
How's it going?
Georgie 0:11
It's all right. Yeah.
Geoff 0:14
Yeah, you were you actually, before we, before we started this, you were gonna tell me about this YouTube video on AirPods or Airtags?
Georgie 0:21
Airtags. Yeah.
Geoff 0:23
Yeah.
Georgie 0:23
Nick shared it with me.
Geoff 0:24
Why were you watching a YouTube video?
Georgie 0:27
Because occasionally I watch. No, it was, it was because Nick recommended or he thought I would like it. And he was telling me about it while walking outside today. And he was like, oh you might like what this guy did in this video. So I'm trying to remember the guy's YouTube channel, I think it was called Megalag. I've never heard of—
Geoff 0:47
Can put it in the show notes later.
Georgie 0:49
I'd never heard of the guy before. But he was doing a little bit of a experiment with Airtags. And he sent one to actually the the idea of the experiment was to see how how it would compare with like, parcel tracking, how like tracking a parcel with and Airtag, versus like, say—
Geoff 1:12
Mmm, interesting.
Georgie 1:13
And he chose DHL, by the way. And he sent an Airtag to Tim Cook at Apple. He sent another one to Elon Musk. And he tried to send another one to North Korea. I don't know if you like want me to give spoilers, but it was it was an interesting video. And since we talked about Airtags before, I thought you might find it interesting or fascinating as well. But basically the the at the at the end he he, deduced that yeah, like the the Airtags are kind of more accurate or better or give you a better idea of what it possibly is compared to some tracking services. Because some of these services show you, like they come with delays. And they might say that something is at this airport or has departed this airport and actually hasn't, not, it's just not it's not accurate. But you can see when using the Airtags, you can actually see where exactly they are.
Geoff 2:12
Yeah, I was wondered how those systems worked. I'm pretty sure it's, it feels like it's based on people, right? The person that gets it at the airport, checks it into some system, and then that system talks to a different system, and then tells us that it's got, that it’s landed, and then gets passed to the next person that also checks it into a system. But an Airtag makes way more sense, because it's all real time. And it's all via satellites and no human interaction. But it kind of reveals sort of other people's packages, right? If your package has an Airtag in it, and other people's don't, then you're essentially tracking the truck itself that's carrying other people's stuff. So—
Georgie 3:02
Yeah.
Geoff 3:02
Probably run into some privacy issues where you now know the address of everyone on this route.
Georgie 3:08
Well, I’m not sure actually, the guy, he talked about, he talked to some lawyers to see if it was like legal or not, and they said, yeah, you know, it's not really because you're tracking a parcel not a person. It's, there's actually—
Geoff 3:19
Except the driver.
Georgie 3:20
Yeah, I recommend washing his hands pretty interesting because he was also able to I think he got an update from some of them while the parcel was basically in a flight on a on a, like a passenger flight. And he used like the like flight radar to see the flight compared to where it was in in the Find My app. And he said maybe somebody on the flight like it must be that somebody on the flight was, had an iPhone, and they were connected to the internet. And it picked up on that location of the Airtag. But I mean, I still don't see how that would be a privacy issue.
Geoff 3:56
True, true. I was just thinking like, cuz when you order stuff on Uber Eats and stuff and things like that. They'll, they won't show you where the driver is going until it coming towards you to give you like to give your food because sometimes they do multiple drops in one on one route.
Georgie 4:18
Yeah.
Geoff 4:18
So they'll say they picked it up. But actually, they don't show you the location of the driver until they start delivering your package. And it's that's I just kind of that weird.
Georgie 4:31
Haven't you had one where it says they're going to deliver a parcel on the way or sorry, not parcel, but deliver another person's order? On the way? Have you had that before?
Geoff 4:41
Yeah.
Georgie 4:42
So I can tell that sometimes, oh, they're delivering it to somebody like down the road in the street. But I don't know how I’d know who that person is. Another interesting time is when Nick ordered something on Uber Eats and they were actually delivering another order to, to the same apartment complex as ours, which was kind of interesting because they were a different door, like a different entrance. And they came to our specific entrance after they'd delivered that one.
Geoff 5:17
Oh my god, one morning when I got my, my monitor, like my very first monitor, they they rang up and I was like, okay, I'll come down. And no joke. There were like 10, 15 other people in the building all getting the packages at the same time it was, it was just packed. And the lifts were were like, so busy, you had to wait ages for a lift to go down and a lift to go up—
Georgie 5:47
This actually happens to me all the time.
Geoff 5:48
Basically a queue.
Georgie 5:50
This happens to me quite frequently, because I mean, I don't know how how many apartments, your like entrance services.
Geoff 5:58
Probably more than 15 people.
Georgie 5:59
But yeah, we have like, I have to go outside to ele, I have to exit the building, or go to the lobby via two elevators, two different elevators. And then someone's, yeah, there is a queue because especially now during COVID. Like you don’t always want to share an elevator with somebody. But yeah, sometimes it'll take a while to get to the front door to pick up the parcel. And so what I've noticed the, postie does sometimes, is he'll dial in advance at a different like entrance. And you can tell—yeah, so he'll dial from a different entrance. Like not my main one. And then I can tell by the video when I answer the like the buzzer. But then I just come down to my normal one, like my normal entrance and he'll be there he'll have like just arrived because he had called in advance as he as he pushed the trolley down the down the street, if that makes sense.
Geoff 6:59
Yeah, they’re, they're getting they're getting ingenius.
Georgie 7:02
Yeah. But I mean like this, because we’re all ordering so much these days.
Geoff 7:09
Yeah, it was. It's pretty crazy. One of them. One of my buildings, I guess, unit dwellers was like, this is the most social interaction that I get, like, all week is when everyone comes down to get packages. But it hasn't been that packed since. Because I've had like, three different monitor kind of deliveries. But I kind of want to get into my monitor, because I'm pretty sure I've mentioned in other podcasts but I never really elaborated.
Georgie 7:45
No, we need to hear the story now. So what's what's going on?
Geoff 7:47
Yeah. So essentially, my work my new workplace gave me a 13 inch MacBook Pro. And I had been working on a 15 inch prior. And I thought this is a bit difficult, right? 13 inch. And we're developers, we need to see like code documentation plus the thing that we're coding because all of us does very visual, we make a code change, we have to see it work in a browser, and then make a code change. So I was like, okay, cool. I'll get a I'll get a monitor. And what's what's hot right now? Ultra wide, ultra wide is, is the love of all developers for some reason. And just before leaving my previous workplace, they moved into a new building and all the desks had, I don't know, 34 inch curved, wide monitors. And I was like, okay, this looks impressive. I hate curved things because it does distort designs, and they're not as colour accurate unless you get into like the 1000s and 1000s of dollars. So I said okay, I'll get an ultra wide, but I didn't want to spend 1000s of dollars on an ultra wide. So I got like a really low tier one. And boy, was it a trip because the aspect ratio is long and skinny. And the, it's I think it's really good. If you need to see three different documents side by side, if that's all you ever need to do. But I have like chat applications for work and that stuff doesn't really work on a tall skinny rectangle or long or wide skinny rectangle. Any case besides the specifics, I hated it. I went on Gumtree and I sold it. And then I bought another one. And it was too big, was 32 inches. 4k. But I actually started getting neck pain. Listen, everybody. Ergonomics is very important at your desk, make sure you get it right, because I went through two weeks of basic neck pain, top, bottom of the neck and in the middle of the neck neck pain, and I was like what the hell is going on? And I chalked it up to just my monitor being way too big.
Georgie 10:17
Wait so, so you said 32, 32 inches. That—
Geoff 10:23
It was a 32 inch—
Georgie 10:25
Ultra wide?
Geoff 10:25
4K monitor. Yeah.
Georgie 10:27
So—
Geoff 10:27
No, just just a regular one, not not ultra wide. Yeah.
Georgie 10:31
That's so bizarre. Okay, wait, hang on. So I have a have a 27 inch. And I feel like that's almost as big a monitor as I can stand. I feel like anything bigger than that is sort of like sitting in front directly in front of like, a television or something.
Geoff 10:48
Exactly. That's, that's essentially what it felt like. Like, as soon as I loaded up a full screen video, it's like, I couldn't actually see all of the video.
Georgie 11:00
Because your peripheral vision doesn’t reach 32 inches.
Geoff 11:04
Yeah.
Georgie 11:05
Or a 32 inch monitor.
Geoff 11:07
And like doesn't reach a 32 inch diagonal, because you can see the sides, you just can't see the bottom of the monitor unless you like look up and down.
Georgie 11:14
That's such a trip.
Geoff 11:15
It's crazy.
Georgie 11:16
You know what that reminds me of—
Geoff 11:17
I think it’s like—yeah?
Georgie 11:18
That reminds me of those rides that you sit in a chair. And the ride is like a 3D kind of, or 4D.
Geoff 11:25
Oh, yeah.
Georgie 11:27
And if you're in the middle of the entire ride, it's kind of a better place to be. If you're at the edges, you can kind of see the edges. But then also, if you're in the middle, you kind of get more of the vertigo or whatever the sensory experience when you're in the middle because you can't see or feel the edges of the screen. So—
Geoff 11:45
Yeah.
Georgie 11:46
But I can’t imagine like at your desk like to have a screen that's just so big that you're almost just straight looking at just screen.
Geoff 11:56
Yeah, I think so I do have a monitor arm and I could adjust it. But I have a shelf on my desk. So I couldn't bring the monitor low enough, including the shelf. But like setup beside, I still like even if it was at the right height. And even if I didn't have neck pain, whilst looking at it, I still can see the bottom of the screen. Like I literally have to shift my head to down to the bottom left to see things.
Georgie 12:23
So, so when you open, you said you open like a video, for example. And you just can't, it kind of feels like it feels like that because you're looking,yYeah. So I assume that you then use your monitor like one window for the whole screen sort of thing.
Geoff 12:39
Yeah, the other recommendation is that you do floaty windows.
Georgie 12:43
Yeah, that's what I do. So I always, so I have a 27 inch monitor, which is about as big a monitor as I can stand and I always have it in like generally always have it in halves. So like one half, or the left side has some video maybe. And then the right side has tech, or like, you know, document or something like that. And I also make use of the Spaces in, Spaces in Mac macOS.
Geoff 13:05
Oh, yeah.
Georgie 13:06
And then I have my 15 inch laptop, which is where I have like a Calendar or like, Messages and things like that. So I I've already kind of set up the way I work so that I am kind of moving my eyes like a lot. And that's like, not a bad thing. Because I went to the optometrist, like a couple months ago. And she's she recommended yeah, like, she asked how many monitors I use, which was quite interesting. And I said two, and she's like, how much do you—
Geoff 13:33
Yeah they’re wising up.
Georgie 13:34
Yeah, do you do you look at like, from each of them? You know, she said, it's good to have like, two, and yeah, to give your eyes a break, like look away and that kind of thing.
Geoff 13:46
Yeah, so I don't normally have things 100%. But I felt like when I wanted it 100%, it was just unbearable. But my coworker was actually talking about that same thing. She went to, I think a PT or something. And the PT says, like after examining some muscles was like, “Do you have two monitors? One is big and one is slightly smaller?” And she was like “Yes?” And he's, the PT was like yeah, I can tell that's the muscle here like that was was growing because they were constantly looking down at a smaller monitor.
Georgie 14:23
Wow.
Geoff 14:24
So yeah, they had to work on getting rid of it.
Georgie 14:28
Actually speaking of that, like I have my I have my laptop my 15 inch laptop on my right hand side and I was thinking earlier this week, like should I move it to the other side because I did have it on the other side like a year ago so I don't know if it's good to like change your setup?
Geoff 14:46
It's like—
Georgie 14:46
I don't want a muscle imbalance, Geoff!
Geoff 14:48
Like when you do weights. You can’t just do one—
Georgie 14:50
I know!
Geoff 14:50
You can’t do just one. You can’t just jack one arm, Georgie, jack one quad.
Georgie 14:55
That's that's that's precisely true, right. You don't want a muscle imbalance, but to think that like in our daily lives as developers, we could have a muscle imbalance based on the way that we've set up our monitors that's really like, I'm almost like, scared.
Geoff 15:10
It's like, we didn't really think about it. We're just like, well, our laptops open, and we have a monitor. So let's just put them together, what what, what could go wrong? What could go wrong? So I actually closed my laptop, and I only use one monitor for for everything. So I tried to make 4K work as two monitors, when it’s just one. In any case, so I was like, hey, 32 inches too big. So I sold it off to a co worker who was actually buying in the process of buying the same thing. So I was like, just take mine. Take it away.
Georgie 15:45
I need to get rid of it!
Geoff 15:47
Yeah. And they found it okay, because I think that desk is their desk is a 15 centimetres deeper than mine.
Georgie 15:56
Yeah.
Geoff 15:56
And they only use floaty windows. They never like half and half or quarter and quarter. So they move their windows to their eyes. And they admitted that they don't actually use all of the space on a 32 inch because it’s too big. But that's comfortable for them.
Georgie 16:16
That's cool.
Geoff 16:17
All right. So I bought a 27 inch monitor to replace it.
Georgie 16:20
Yeah.
Geoff 16:21
I thought, this is great. I bought the 27 seven inch version of the 32 inch. My bad. It was a bad judgment. Or I overlooked the fact that it wasn’t, it wasn't 4k. It was 1440p or whatever. I said, oh god, why did I do this? Why didn't I look at the resolution? And I thought you know what, I'll live with it. You know, what's what's I lost? What? 1000 pixels on each side?
Georgie 16:50
You know, I think mine is I don't know what mine is. But it's not retina. Mine's just like, straight up. Basic—
Geoff 16:56
Just 1080 or something.
Georgie 16:57
Yeah, I actually bought this secondhand of a friend, like a couple of years back. And it's and it's, it's fine for me. But it's always weird when someone I'm sharing like my screen on Zoom. And, or I take a screenshot and like, why is it so fuzzy? And I'm like, It's 1x. Just stop being spoilt with these high pixel density things.
Geoff 17:21
Yeah, I mean, do you want? Do you want my 1440p 27 inch monitor?
Georgie 17:27
I don't care enough like to upgrade whatever this is to be honest with you. Like, but—
Geoff 17:33
Okay.
Georgie 17:33
If you ever, yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's better than mine. But if you still have it, and I need one, like, in a couple of years, yeah.
Geoff 17:43
This is this is my life. I just cycle through a bunch of electronics on to other people. In any case, I thought—the problem actually really was that it's the same, it was the same price as a 4k version. And I was a little bit miffed about that. I spent the same money for 4k on something less than 4k. So I ended up buying the 4k version and thinking, what could go wrong? I could go back to two monitors. Right? Everybody usually has two monitors.
Georgie 18:15
I don’t.
Geoff 18:15
Even—yeah you do. Your—
Georgie 18:18
My laptop just serves as—yeah. All right. All right. Yeah.
Geoff 18:21
Serves as a second monitor, right.
Georgie 18:23
Yep.
Geoff 18:25
So what could go wrong? And so I bought the second one, I set it all up, plug both of them into my M1 MacBook. And I found out it doesn't support two monitors.
Georgie 18:38
(sniggers)
Geoff 18:39
So now I have one working and the other one sitting there as an ornament. And that is the story of my monitors. The solution is waiting for Apple to fix this. So yeah, I've tried everything. So any anyone wants to bring up you know, ultra wide, versus 32 inch 4k, versus a 27 inch 4k? I'm on it. I've done lots of research. I've made many mistakes. I can talk about it endlessly. Clearly. I think I just rambled about this for 20 minutes.
Georgie 19:19
Yeah.
Geoff 19:20
So that's my monitor story.
Georgie 19:22
We've all finally heard it now. So I don't, I don't share like the same experience at all whatsoever.
Geoff 19:30
Yeah, I think it's kind of okay if you have two monitors, like your laptop open plus a, plus an external.
Georgie 19:37
Yeah.
Geoff 19:37
But it's a bit harder when you kind of try and use it as one monitor.
Georgie 19:43
I think I might have—
Geoff 19:44
Which I don't know why—
Georgie 19:45
Tried to do that before. But that's probably because like I said, in my workflow is kind of like I use half the screen for half. Like I usually split the screen into two different tasks. So I think it entirely depends on how you work.
Geoff 20:00
Yeah, exactly. So definitely make sure that you've got the setup that works for you. Don't follow anyone's advice.
Georgie 20:10
Actually, you you know what I used to really obsess over like at one of my first jobs, was was the vertical vertical monitor. I was—
Geoff 20:20
I tried that too, yeah.
Georgie 20:21
...properly obsessed with that because it just, I really loved it for like looking at the command line. Like, you know, run a log or whatever and then someone else pointed out it's very good for full on Photoshop, kind of Photoshop designs when you want to see the entire page like an entire landing page that someone's designed. I was like, yeah, I don't even know if I can, I think I can actually rotate mine. Like my current one. I just don't think I have because like it like, a vertical 27 inch alongside my 15 inch MacBook is just fucking weird. I’m not gonna do that.
Geoff 20:56
Yeah, I've seen I've seen photos of that. It looks really weird.
Georgie 21:00
Oh, yeah. So you've seen people like people set up actually like that, like a vertical with a laptop.
Geoff 21:07
Yeah, it doesn't look comfortable at all. Yeah, I've, I've, I've done this at multiple workplaces. Actually, every workplace I have, I kind of make a ridiculous setup. So at one point, I had the, like, two 17 inch monitors. One was vertical, one was horizontal. And I was like, this is this the best right? It didn't work out for very long. And then the designers, they have 27 inch, like the fancy Apple ultra fine $2,000 ones.
Georgie 21:41
Damn.
Geoff 21:41
5k. And I put two of them together. I was like, shit. Literally, literally went out of my peripheral. I had to like look all the way to the left to see something and I was like, this is no longer useful. Like if I got a message all the way on the left. I'd be like, I didn't see it. I’ll just, I’ll just completely ignore it.
Georgie 22:06
Yeah, I knew somebody had like he I think he his own setup was he had like four different large monitors and something with the, with an arm. I don't know if it was like a reflect reflective of the fact that he was like he worked in security like cybersecurity.
Geoff 22:25
Oh yeah.
Georgie 22:27
It looked like yeah, it was like a, like a pilot console kind of thing that was his home set up, it was pretty intense.
Geoff 22:35
Yeah, like day traders. If you ever look at day traders, they've got like six monitors, like stacked on top of each other. I did, I did the ultra wide curved 34 inch plus a 5k 27 inch monitor. I was like—
Georgie 22:53
That’s excessive.
Geoff 22:54
The ultimate, right. It’s so excessive. I was like, yes, this is ultimate, but it really isn't like, it's so overkill. And you can't see anything really.
Georgie 23:07
Yeah.
Geoff 23:08
But a lot of people like to put monitors like an ultra wide, and then they put a smaller one on top. And they look up and I just don't understand.
Georgie 23:17
Yeah.
Geoff 23:18
...that need.
Georgie 23:19
Yeah.
Geoff 23:20
They mount TVs on top like above their monitors.
Georgie 23:23
Yep I’ve seen that.
Geoff 23:23
And then I’m like, oh, I don't get it. Some people I guess they might sit further back and use it as a TV, they just look up at the TV. And then when they come back to the like close to the desk, they use their monitors, but at this rate, I actually have three monitors in my apartment, all 27 inch, I could very well do a three monitor setup. But it'd be like 1080, 1440 and 4k. It‘ll be so many different resolutions kinda. But yeah, the workplaces are getting really special these days. Does CM like provide provide stuff?
Georgie 24:08
I think we were given—
Geoff 24:08
When you were back at the office.
Georgie 24:10
Oh, yeah. So it's a bit old but I had I had one of those, is it the Thunderbolt 27 inch. iMac, not iMac—
Geoff 24:18
Oh.
Georgie 24:18
But the Mac—yeah, it was that old, that old one.
Geoff 24:21
The Cinema Display?
Georgie 24:22
Is it Cinema? I don't know. But um, I would just plug my laptop into, into that. So pretty similar to my home setup. It's very old. I don't know what, it's just the one where you just straight up plug it in. No, not that one. The one that still has the chin or whatever you want to call it, at the bottom.
Geoff 24:48
Okay, but that's good. They didn't think, they, did they provide that for you guys specifically. Or was it kind of like office wide?
Georgie 24:55
I think I that one happened to be there when I started, but some people have like, just like Dell monitors or whatever. So there are a few options. I don't know. I don't think any were like particularly bougie. But yeah, we were also allowed to take them home in like lot at the beginning of last year and went to work from home. We were allowed to take any equipment that we needed. So—
Geoff 25:19
That’s nice, just ransack.
Georgie 25:20
So I didn't need, I mean, I didn't need to. Because I already had one at home. But yeah.
Geoff 25:26
Yeah, some of the designers took the very expensive Apple monitors home. And I was like, wow. And some of them didn't even ask, they just picked it up, walked out of the office. And then later on, they got greenlit. Yeah, the ones at my current workplace aren't the best. So I do prefer working from home. They did provide a free monitor, which was nice, 27, the 27 inch 1080. But they took so long, they took like—
Georgie 26:00
To ship to?
Geoff 26:01
This one was three weeks to ship to me, they accidentally shipped it to the office, that's why. And then so—
Georgie 26:06
Directly from Apple?
Geoff 26:07
I didn’t even have the monitor for three weeks. No, they got one from Officeworks.
Georgie 26:13
Oh. Okay.
Geoff 26:13
So just a regular monitor. And it took so long, but I was already set on getting like an ultra ultra wide or getting something extra on the side to work on. And so they delivered to the office, and I was only going into the office once a week. So they told me about it. Okay, I'll just go in the office.
Georgie 26:35
Carry it home.
Geoff 26:35
Carry it home? That was the worst. The worst. And then, and then I got a blue stain on it because of my jeans where it's still leaking blue.
Georgie 26:46
Oh, yeah. I remember this.
Geoff 26:47
And I was carrying it. So yeah, the office monitors aren't too great, but I don’t spend much time there anyways. Did you get a like a st—like a stipend? Was your was—
Georgie 27:06
Oh for work from home?
Geoff 27:07
Your work?
Georgie 27:07
Sort of thing?
Geoff 27:08
Yeah. Work from home?
Georgie 27:09
Yeah, I used it all on these headphones.
Geoff 27:12
Oh!
Georgie 27:13
Yes.
Geoff 27:15
This is the—
Georgie 27:16
The, the Sony—this is the XM3. I think they were gonna, or, they had the XM4s. But I didn't care too much about the difference in the features. And it was a bit cheaper to get the XM3. So I was like, yeah, cool. But yeah, they covered they covered, I think, I can’t remember there was a few hundred dollars, which, yeah, and they've been nice enough to also give us like, a little bit towards internet usage. Like, like, $2 a day kinda thing.
Geoff 27:44
Oh. That's nice. That's really nice. Do you find that people on your meetings can hear Nick? If—
Georgie 27:54
Oh, yeah.
Geoff 27:55
...sitting next to you?
Georgie 27:55
Yeah, absolutely. Because like, there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of, he's not very far away. So he’s literally sitting next to me, like an arm's length. So, so yeah, he has the XM3s as well. And but I the reason I got mine is not so much like for like him talking. But so I could, like block out him talking. So I could focus on all my meetings, and not hear him in the background when he happens to be in a meeting at the same time.
Geoff 28:27
Yeah. But people in the meeting can hear Nick.
Georgie 28:30
Yeah. And it's funny because they can hear him better than I can hear because I've got the noise cancelling.
Geoff 28:35
Yeah. My coworker has the same problem.
Georgie 28:39
Their partner is—
Geoff 28:40
I was wondering if you were having the same issue.
Georgie 28:42
Mm. Yeah. I mean, I do try and like just, you know, mute liberally. When when he happens to be in a meeting at the same time. But we try and like communicate, look, I'm going to be in a meeting. Sometimes I just pick up my laptop and move to the kitchen. If it's just like a casual stand up or something. Because Nick does have to do a lot of presentations sometimes.
Geoff 29:04
Yeah, yeah.
Georgie 29:05
It's quite funny, though, because, because my colleagues can hear him sometimes they end up like almost responding to what he's saying. But only I can hear the response. But it's funny to me. Yeah.
Geoff 29:20
Yeah, yeah. It's pretty weird. Because we're trying to have a meeting and every time my coworker like goes off mute, and she starts speaking, it—
Georgie 29:33
Hear another voice?
Geoff 29:34
Her speech gets cut out, like versus her partner speaking in the background. And yeah, and she also kind of moves away just just to sometimes to speak clearly.
Georgie 29:48
Yeah.
Geoff 29:48
That really sucks.
Georgie 29:49
I think there's a Zoom feature the way you can, like sort of mute background noises. Like if you're tapping on the table and stuff, sometimes like dogs barking and they're, I think there's an app that I I use sometimes—I don't know, I don't know how well it works. But there's an app called Krisp that—
Geoff 30:05
Oh, cool.
Georgie 30:06
Yeah. That kind of blocks out sound. K, R, I, S, P. Oh, yeah.
Geoff 30:12
Yeah.
Georgie 30:13
I think there's a certain amount, like there's free a free version and a paid version. But they, I downloaded that before, before Zoom introduced it. So I'm not sure how good the Zoom one is. But yeah.
Geoff 30:30
Yeah. Well, if people are still hearing, Nick, then clearly not doing that well. The Google, we use Google Meet at work. So it's, it's clearly no one's no one's unlocked the cancelling of human speech in the background? Because I think that's super difficult. How can they tell it's not you?
Georgie 30:51
Yeah, exactly. Because sometimes I think sometimes Nick is really loud. And so it's almost at the same level as what I would be speaking at. So yeah.
Geoff 31:02
Yeah. The, although, they did say that their partner has the Bose ones. And apparently their meetings are okay, so—
Georgie 31:13
Oh.
Geoff 31:14
I'm not gonna say that the Bose ones are better than Sony. But—
Georgie 31:18
Does that mean the microphone on the Bose ones are like diff, like is, is maybe not as sensitive. I don’t know.
Geoff 31:25
Noise cancellation is somehow better?
Georgie 31:29
Bizarre.
Geoff 31:30
They are the, they are the OG of noise cancelling headphones. They're the ones who did the first—
Georgie 31:36
Doesn't mean they’re the best, but yeah.
Geoff 31:39
Yeah I suppose. In this case, I think we have two out of two data points to base all of our recommendation on.
Georgie 31:52
I, yeah, like, I mean, I wouldn't. I don't have strong opinions, but it's just Nick had the XM3. And like I had, I gave them a go before deciding to get mine. I had tried the Bose ones in store. And the, I dunno, I just didn't really like them as much. So I just I asked for friends recommendations. And it was mostly for like listening. Not really calls, but whatever.
Geoff 32:18
Yeah, turned out that way. Actually, something cool that my workplace did was they gave us the Uber Eats vouchers. For a team, team bonding team lunch type thing.
Georgie 32:31
Oh, yeah, we have we had something like that.
Geoff 32:33
So we all got bubble tea.
Georgie 32:34
Oh, that's nice.
Geoff 32:35
Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, like, normally you, of course, you, you get together as a team, you go to a lunch place, and they put on a P card.
Georgie 32:45
Yeah.
Geoff 32:46
But yeah, the voucher thing is, is pretty good. It's a pretty good—
Georgie 32:52
Like an incentive to—
Geoff 32:53
Online, work from home version of that.
Georgie 32:56
Especially because it's still encouraging, like, connecting with each other. Like because otherwise you just, you maybe just wouldn't like really do that. But now they're just like, here have a bit of cash to buy some lunch and so on. Otherwise, it's like up to us to sort of like, we make, our team makes meetings to have a coffee chat, like every week or whatever.
Geoff 33:16
Ah, yeah, we have a Social Thursday. And so far, we've just been playing like mini online games, and we recently got Jackbox. So we've been playing Jackbox.
Georgie 33:29
Oh yeah. Nice.
Geoff 33:31
Yeah, have you played Jackbox?
Georgie 33:32
No, I've heard I've heard of it. But um, we've played this. There's a website called Gartic Phone. Where—
Geoff 33:40
Gartic, how do you spell that?
Georgie 33:42
G, A, R, T, I, C. And I think there are a few different prompts. But it gets a little bit more complex, the more you, the more players you have. But basically, yeah there's one way you write a story, like “the chicken sat on the mat” or something, and then someone has to draw it, but you have a limited time. And then at the end, you kind of end up with a bunch of things, a bunch of different pictures that were drawn by everyone of a chicken on a mat. And sometimes that can be lost in translation, sort of thing.
Geoff 34:17
This is cool. This is kind of like scribbly draw awful, but it's kind of its own thing.
Georgie 34:23
Yeah, it's kind of like, like a like telephone thing where you know, someone has a message and then someone draws it. But then what they draw might not exactly look like the original story and then kind of adapts and grows over time. And sometimes it can be really, really funny. I've actually only played once and we had 14 people which was like complete chaos.
Geoff 34:43
Woah!
Georgie 34:43
Four, because we had to do we had to basically draw 14 different things and it just took a very long time. In the end it was worth it. It was hilarious, but I wouldn’t, probably, like, I didn't have the patience and I was like, this better be worth it. And someone was saying to me, it is so worth it. Like, okay, but I think with less players, it would just maybe be a bit a bit more tolerable. And like you don't need to be as patient.
Geoff 35:10
So we had I played a Jackbox game that's kind of similar but a lot more work oriented. And not not that they purposefully made the game feel like work. But because we work in tech industry, it does. But essentially, they'll give you this sentence with a blank and you fill the blank in. And the sentence with the word in it is, quote, unquote, the problem. So it'll say “I have a hard time, blank”. And then you fill in the blank. And everyone has—
Georgie 35:47
(laughs) So I thought of, the first thing that came to mind was taking a shit. I don't know why.
Geoff 35:51
Yeah, that's exactly what I thought of.
Georgie 35:58
Really? But you’re saying someone, you’re saying that your friends at work thought of something techy?
Geoff 36:03
No. So the whole system, the whole, the whole game is kind of techy. But in any case, so everyone comes up with a problem statement. And then it gets sent randomly to each person in the in the game.
Georgie 36:16
Yeah.
Geoff 36:16
And so you, you get to pick actually between one to two different statements, problem statements. And the idea here is that you pick the problem statement, and then you draw a picture to solve that problem statement. What kind of idea would you have to solve, you know, the problem?
Georgie 36:39
Having trouble taking a shit, like Metamucil or like fibre or we Weetbix or something?
Geoff 36:44
Yeah, I mean, you should be creative about it. I would think maybe along the lines of like a bidet that sucks the shit out of you instead. (laughs)
Georgie 36:52
(laughs) So you’re full on. I'm thinking like, legit. Yeah.
Geoff 36:58
No, you're not, you’re trying to be funny.
Georgie 37:01
Wait, you are trying to be funny?
Geoff 37:03
Yeah, you’re trying, you’re trying to make interesting invent, inventions.
Georgie 37:07
Oh.
Geoff 37:07
Yeah, inventions and stuff like that. But that's the problem with the game, actually. Because they don't say this specifically, your, your thought was perfectly valid, like, yeah, just take some extra fibre, here's some extra fibre tablets. And then you get the they get asked you, they ask you to give it a title, like a name of the invention and a tagline. And the whole point around this is that later, everybody gets together and you pitch your solution to the problem that you're given. And everyone gets to choose to fund it or not.
Georgie 37:42
Ah so, so it's on you to think of something that's that's kind of funny and good. And everyone was like, oh, yeah, I would vote for that. Or I, I’d buy that.
Geoff 37:50
Exactly. Yeah. So the idea is to be funny. And the idea is—
Georgie 37:57
And that‘s how you win?
Geoff 37:57
Kinda to get buy in, and that's how you win. Yeah.
Georgie 38:02
But is that like, not that apparent to someone who's new to the game? And then they're like, “oh”, is that?
Geoff 38:07
Yeah, yeah.
Georgie 38:08
Yeah, yeah.
Geoff 38:08
someone accidentally drew the problem. They didn't even think about the solution, they just illustrate the problem. Because I think the end goal wasn't very clear that we were pitching this as an, as an idea to solve the problem that a random poll we were given. So I would get up and you get options. You got options to show the name of the invention, or the tagline or the picture first. So you can start your pitch like, “Hey, everybody, you see, I had the problem of like, it's too hard to take a shit”. So I'll, and then I'll press like the button to show the title. “So I came up with the shit sucker”. Don't take your shit so seriously at the tag line, right? And then I'll press the button to show the image. The image, and this is what it looks like, is a bidet that sucks the shit out of you. And then, so that's like the game.
Georgie 39:12
I don't know if I’d buy a shit sucker, I feel like I'd rather take the fibre supplements.
Geoff 39:19
Then you could only go up and go, I came up with the extra fibre. And the, it's like has 10,000 times more fibre than a regular tablet in the size of a pea. So, you, like. So I picked this problem statement that said something along the lines of I have trouble with my groin guard being too big or something like that, or not fitting. Like, groin guard? Oh my god. So I I picked the problem statement. I just had no idea. I was trying to come up with a solution. So I just said, I just drew a shrinking groin guard.
Georgie 39:58
Wait, why wouldn’t you do it the other way? Just make the groin bigger.
Geoff 40:05
Hahaha. Groin expander. Good, good idea.
Georgie 40:07
Yeah.
Geoff 40:08
You're good at the game.
Georgie 40:09
I'm good at the game.
Geoff 40:10
And I was trying to draw this groin guard shrinking. And I thought it like every other game, you're like you're supposed to just showed the picture and people are supposed to guess what it is. Right? So I was trying to be as, like descriptive—
Georgie 40:26
Graphically descriptive.
Geoff 40:27
Illustrative as possible. Yeah. But in the end, it was a lot easier, because I could actually explain it. Like, as you can see, if your groin guard is too big, it just automatically shrinks.
Georgie 40:41
(laughs)
Geoff 40:41
It got funded, it was it was the most funded.
Georgie 40:44
So you basically drew like a, you drew a dong with it with a cover and—
Geoff 40:50
Oh, no, I didn't go that far. I drew some legs.
Georgie 40:53
Wait, wait, Geoff, what do you mean? You had every excuse to draw a dong and you didn’t.
Geoff 40:56
Draw a penis? Ah...
Georgie 41:02
(laughs)
Geoff 41:02
It was—
Georgie 41:03
Would have that been like NS—
Geoff 41:03
...a company wide games night.
Georgie 41:06
NSFW.
Geoff 41:06
With the VPs of engineering. Nah, I'm sure it would be fine. If I drew a penis.
Georgie 41:13
But you, your prompt is literally a groin guard, like...
Geoff 41:17
I know. To be fair. Shame on the other person who put “groin guard” as a, as a thing—
Georgie 41:23
As the prompt.
Geoff 41:24
Because someone else wrote it. Yeah, as a problem. So therefore, I did apologise. I'm like, I apologise. Also, I blame the person who wrote this.
Georgie 41:34
Well, I mean, if as long as nobody was offended, then, you know.
Geoff 41:37
Nah, I think it will be fine. Yeah. So I drew a groin guard. No penis. You're right. Bad, bad decision.
Georgie 41:44
What’s a groin guard without a groin?
Geoff 41:49
It’s just, it's just a guard for nether regions.
Georgie 41:56
So we went from talking about monitors to talking about, nether regions.
Geoff 42:01
The theme of—have you seen it? Have you seen one? I've never worn one.
Georgie 42:08
Um, so when I played paintball when I was in high school. The guys wore—
Geoff 42:13
Wait a second.
Georgie 42:13
Yeah.
Geoff 42:16
You played paintball? Was this a sport? Was it like—
Georgie 42:18
Oh, like recreational.
Geoff 42:20
One-off thing?
Georgie 42:20
Yeah, like, you know—wait, have you ever played paintball?
Geoff 42:24
Yeah, I have, but it's never been part of like, RE or anything?
Georgie 42:29
No, I mean, as in I happened to be in high school. Like my age. I was saying when I was in high school.
Geoff 42:34
Oh okay. The school wasn't sanctioning paintball.
Georgie 42:38
Yeah no, there a, there's a bit too much like risk for injury. I feel like schools wouldn't really—yeah, anyway.
Geoff 42:44
Oh, definitely.
Georgie 42:45
Yeah. When I when I was, yeah, high school age, we went paintballing and the guys wore groin guards. Because they'd been warned that if you get hit in the nuts with the paintball it bloody hurts. So yeah, I think they said you get them at like Rebel Sport, because I think cricketers wear them and like, some some sports, like it's helpful to wear them so you don't get hit in the groin and experience a lot of pain.
Geoff 43:16
I think that was the first time I wore a groin guard was during paintball. And I only did paintball when I was like, 26 or something? 27? So—
Georgie 43:30
Yeah, to be fair, I don't think I've gone paintballing since then, and I was like, 18 or something.
Geoff 43:37
Oh, man, I don't know if it's classified as fun when you’re scared the shit out of being like pelted with a paintball.
Georgie 43:45
Yeah, I mean, I think it was a cool experience. I just yeah, I don't know if I found it as an, like that enjoyable.
Geoff 43:54
Yeah, I think... I didn't—I guess I thought it might be a little bit enjoyable when I hit somebody with a paintball, but to be honest, everyone's so far away. I couldn't tell whether or not I hit anybody with a paintball. And it had no scoring system. Well, the one I played.
Georgie 44:14
Was it just like you got hit, you were out?
Geoff 44:17
So I couldn’t tell whether—yeah, I couldn't tell if I did any good.
Georgie 44:21
So the one I played, it, some someone was hiding behind like some sack of whatever, like a bunch of sacks or something. And they didn't know that I was hiding behind a building behind them. And so I was I was able to shoot them. And that was like, my only win. But um, we had we we had a group of, I don't remember how many people, maybe 10 people, but there was like a minimum, so we got bundled with some other people we didn't know. And like one of them actually shot, they just shot my friend at close range and wouldn't stop, and an official had to come out.
Geoff 44:52
My god.
Georgie 44:52
An official had to come out and say hey, like you shot, like it's enough, right? You don't need to keep shooting. You've already hit him, like yeah.
Geoff 44:59
What a psychopath.
Georgie 45:00
Yeah, I had, I got hit somewhere near the face and then it like, the ball exploded and went in my mouth. And one of the one of the officials was like, it's vegetable based. It's fine. I'm like, I'm not vegan. But yeah, thanks for letting me know. It was weird.
Geoff 45:15
It still tastes horrible.
Georgie 45:17
Yeah, it just it tasted like vegetable based paint. But I don't know, I think like, everyone, like in my group that I was with, they all got a lot of bruises. I think I was a little bit too chicken and I spent most of my time hiding and trying to just shoot people, like in, while in hiding, so I didn't really get out there.
Geoff 45:40
Sniping is a legitimate strategy. But I was behind. I was in kind of like this dead end. And somebody like came right around that entrance. And—
Georgie 45:52
You were in there?
Geoff 45:52
Just immediately shot.
Georgie 45:53
Oh.
Geoff 45:54
And they were they were actually quite close. They were close to the three metres. And they shot, like the inner of my thigh. And I was like, yeah, massive, massive bruise afterwards for that. It was like the only, the only close call that I had.
Georgie 46:10
Yeah, even three metres seems pretty close. Like I think I was really far.
Geoff 46:15
Yeah.
Georgie 46:16
Whenever anyone happened to hit me.
Geoff 46:18
Yeah, the, yeah. So the problem with paintball I find is that I have no way of telling how good I'm I am at the end of it. Unlike laser tag where you can you have all the stats at the end of laser tag, they’re like, you see accuracy, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, I just didn't find paintball all that statistically rewarding.
Georgie 46:41
Yeah.
Geoff 46:42
To be fair, but yeah, I guess that's all we have time for really. Thanks, everybody for joining us for another Toast & Roast. I think this was basically Work From Home Edition.
Georgie 46:55
Yeah.
Geoff 46:58
And stay chilly. I'm pretty sure we have an outro outline here somewhere, right. Don't forget to follow us on all the big ones, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
Georgie 47:14
And you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @toastroastpod. Probably more likely on Twitter.
Geoff 47:22
On Twitter. Let us know of a) maybe your worst paintball story, or b) how you like to work from home, or c) what kind of games you play with your co workers, you know? Everyone's looking for a nice chill game to play with their co workers or their friends over the internet. And we'll see you next week.
Georgie 47:44
See you next week.
Geoff 47:45
Bye!
Georgie 47:47
Bye!