Episode Transcript
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Chloe Condon (02:03):
Hey we're back.
It's Wednesday. How are youdoing Brandon? It's another fine
Wednesday.
Brandon Minnick (02:11):
It really is a beautiful day. I'm doing great.
Although I had some bicycleinjuries, I guess you can see it
there on my hand and got it.
bandages on my elbows from aspill I took over the holiday
weekend, but I'm okay. nothing'sbroken. That does damage just
bruises.
Chloe Condon (02:31):
viewers at home.
Brandon has some some band aidson his palms that looks ouchy
Brandon Minnick (02:38):
Yeah, I miss it a lot of skin on this hand where
I caught myself after flippingover the handlebars.
Chloe Condon (02:45):
Wow. Well, that sounds like a very eventful
Fourth of July long weekend. Forthose of us internationally. We
had a nice long three dayweekend here in the States. So
I'm feeling refreshed. I'mfeeling good. How is your week
been? Brandon? Hmm, I've got a
Brandon Minnick (03:05):
bunch of things in progress. So, shameless plug
for Git trends, aka the app ofthe show. It's a open source app
that you can find in the iOS andAndroid app stores. If you are
also an open source developer,you have a bunch of repos on
GitHub, and you can't keep trackof all of them and need to know
which ones are trending, gettinglots of views and clones stars,
(03:30):
you can check out Git trends,calm gi T, tr. E, NDS. It's a
totally open source app. That iswritten in C sharp using
Xamarin. And it will help youkeep track of your GitHub repos,
it will send you pushnotifications, if what is your
repos blows up because maybesomebody tweets about it or puts
it in a blog post. And theannouncement is you can check
(03:51):
out there's an open pull requeston this repo where you, me and
Luis the other maintainer havebeen hard at work, adding in a
new feature where not only willyou be able to see your repos,
which you can today. So if youdownload the app from the App
Store, you'll see all of yourrepos once you connect to
GitHub, and all their stats, butwe're going to add in the
(04:11):
ability to see organizations youbelong to as well. So it's
adding a bunch of new stuff tothe UI and the settings page to
enable that. But you can followour progress. Hopefully, we'll
have that new release. It'sprobably still a couple months
away. Yep. It's a free app. Wejust do the work on nights and
weekends. We don't get paid todo any of this. So But yeah, I
(04:34):
spent a lot of time last nightworking on that feeling really
good about it. And I've alsobeen teasing some speaking to
Xamarin, the Xamarin communitytoolkit. Yeah, is also an open
source repo that you can use forall your Xamarin apps. It's kind
of that it's a toolkit. So it'sbasically all that code you
(04:54):
probably copy paste fromXamarin, app, Xamarin app, all
those common features You wishwere just included in, say
Xamarin forums? Well, we gotthem in the toolkit. So we've
also been working hard on makingthe toolkit work with make sure
it's compatible with dotnet,Maui, which is coming down the
pike that'll be included indotnet. Six in November. And
(05:17):
we've got an announcement, I wasjust chatting with one of the
maintainers. Today, that willprobably announce next week
about how we're going to expandour toolkit and maybe unify with
another toolkit. I don't know. Ijust have to stay tuned for the
announcement. Wow, that's
Chloe Condon (05:38):
a that's a sluicey. That's exciting.
Brandon Minnick (05:41):
Yeah. You're here to hear first.
Chloe Condon (05:45):
Excited? Well, I can't wait to hear any like, I
guess Can you share any excitingpieces or things? Like, I don't
know, is it Are you still kindof in stealth mode with it?
Brandon Minnick (05:58):
I mean, it's, I'd say it's pretty official
internally. I mean, the biggesthurdle is not necessarily the
technical stuff, but becauseMicrosoft, such a big company.
And there's so manystakeholders, especially in the
dotnet ecosystem, Xamarinecosystem, Valley ecosystem,
getting everybody on board. Sowe have to align with the dotnet
engineering teams and marketingteams, the docs team, so we
(06:22):
could put all the docs up aboutthis new repo we're working on
but it's pretty much official.
So we're going to be areliterally going to be typing up
these blog posts announcementstoday. Then we'll go through
more approval processes, butwe're getting really close and
it feels it feels really real.
Something we've wanted to do andwe talk about for months. So
(06:43):
hopefully we'll get thoseannouncements out next week. So
stay tuned, my dotnet friends,my Xamarin friends, check the
dotnet blog in the Xamarin blognext week for some big fun new
announcements.
Chloe Condon (06:54):
Find yourself someone who talks as
passionately as Brandon. I loveI just love that you're like the
Xamarin hype man and always havethem ever since I've met you
this is just this is your life.
I love it. Um, let's see, oh, Ihave something fun to share. Um,
I started my got bought serieslast week with the Microsoft
(07:19):
reactor. And it was really fun.
And I'm sharing my screen rightnow if you want to share it,
Brandon and for folks listeningto the podcast, I will describe
what's on the screen. Lastminute friend of the show, PJ
joins us to talk about all ofthe awesome diva bots that we've
(07:39):
created over the last year Iguess it's been now and I just
had to share this hilariousscreenshot I'll zoom in even
more of an actual tweet that PJused to test his just bought
paid Twitter bots that says Ican't believe it's working and I
just felt this was such adeveloper test tweet for testing
(08:00):
the Twitter but we had a bunchof fun and you can check that
out if you go to aka.ms slashgot bots one I believe. Also
make sure to share it on Twitteras well but you can check out
that really fun video where PJoh my gosh, we walk through our
Britney Spears bought our MariahCarey bought our ariana grande
(08:21):
de bot. Oh my gosh, there's somany are in sync bought so many
books. Should I ajwain How can Iforget the original Shania Twain
so check that out? I'm doingevery Thursday at the reactor at
3pm do pm I should know this. Iam doing a series on bots for
beginners. So last week wetalked all about ethical bot
(08:44):
creation, which is really fun.
I'm essentially talking about tshirt bots. Do you know what a T
shirt bot is? Brandon?
Brandon Minnick (08:51):
Okay, take
Chloe Condon (08:52):
a guess. Sure.
Sure. I'm gonna
Brandon Minnick (08:58):
isn't a bot that will make a T shirt about
what you're maybe tweetingabout.
Chloe Condon (09:03):
Okay, yes, but um, we had on the show because I
hate t shirt bots. And thereason is, I come from a family
of artists. I know how importantit is for artists to get paid
for their work. And somethingreally weird happened one time
when I posted a photo of mewearing this shirt and for folks
at home. This is a shirt it's apurple shirt that says Girls
(09:24):
Just Want to Have fundamentalhuman rights. And a bunch of
people started commenting I needthis shirt. I want this on a
shirt. And there are bots thatwill find those keywords. And
they will make the shirt likethey'll just take the text from
the shirt and create the shirtand put it out there. So I
(09:44):
learned this and I did my owntest where image and if for
those listening on the podcast,it's the meme of SpongeBob
that's very popular that says Itweeted about this design and
all I got with this was thisunlicensed shirt from a Twitter
bot. And I've tried thismultiple times, Brandon, I've
done this. Also with an ArrestedDevelopment image, if I can find
(10:07):
it, here we go. And it works.
Every time I tweet an image orsomething with text, and I say,
I'm testing something comment onthis, I want this on a shirt or
something of that nature. Andthe shirt bots will instantly
you know, just kind of usethey're just scraping the
internet looking for thesekeywords. So we did a really
interesting lesson on like, youknow, when you're thinking about
building bots, it's important tothink about like, Does this hurt
(10:30):
or abuse anyone? Does thisharass anyone? And I thought
this was such a great example,right? Like, how many times of
course, this is a silly examplehere. But how many times does
this happen to artists whenlike, you know, their image, or,
or text or something thatthey've created, gets resold on
a third party site? Like, whatis this T chip or something? So
(10:51):
we talked a lot about good botsand bad bots, which are, you
Brandon Minnick (10:58):
know, just thinking about that, as you're
describing, it's like, somebodyprobably owns the rights to
these images or to text and thebot just makes it like, Oh, no,
something doesn't sound quitelegal there. But
Chloe Condon (11:13):
it's something interesting that I learned,
because someone that I follow onInstagram, who's an artist, um,
sells enamel pins, and I learnedthrough this account, they did
like an Instagram story thatshared if you don't have and I
noticed this now when I turnaround any enamel pin, and I, I
encourage all of you to checkout your own enamel pins. If it
doesn't, on the back have anengraving that has like a
(11:34):
registered trademark or any orcopyright. It's basically free
reign for anyone to copy, whichis why we see you know, even
places like Urban Outfitters orwish especially or some of these
resale markets, resellingpeople's art without paying for
it, essentially. So this is myPSA, that if you're building
software in general, andespecially if you're building
bots Don't do this. This this isnot good. But you can learn all
(11:57):
about that on the stream. Wetalk all about ethical bots,
diva bots, all the bots really
Brandon Minnick (12:05):
aka.ms slash got bots, what the newer one,
Chloe Condon (12:09):
and soon when you go to aka.ms slash got bots,
it'll take you to a lovely devto post with all of the
summaries of episodes. That's myafternoon today. Um, yeah, so
check that out. And then also, Igot to host the static web apps
calm. Last week. That was superfun. I learned all about Azure
static web apps. There are abunch of announcements. JOHN
(12:30):
Papa keynoted it and kept weeven had some I thought of you,
Brandon, because we thought wenot only talked about Disney, a
little bit on it. Because johnPapa worked at Disney and before
and one of the first websites Iever went to was the 101
domination live action moviesstatic web page. But yeah, we
(12:52):
also talked about geo cities, myspace, all of the fun stuff that
we talked about on this show. Soyou can check that out@aka.ms
slash swa calm? Um, yeah, thatwas my way. It was very busy.
Yeah, big announcement day. Oh,yes. But I think we need to
bring in our guest, because wehave a lot to talk about, um,
(13:14):
should I just say, I'm going toenter this person, because I'm
going to, we're going to get allinto their origin story today.
But let me let me tell you aboutthe origin story of our guest
and my life. So once upon atime, back in the days where we
could meet in person forconferences, I was at Twilio,
(13:35):
Joe's signal conference in SanFrancisco. And I was on Twitter
tweeting about Tony Hawk,because Tony Hawk was giving a
talk, I did not mean to makethat rhyme. And I immediately
found this individual on theinterwebs. And I was like, Oh,
my gosh, this person's going tobe my friend. We hung out for
the whole day. They showed meall of the cool design stuff
(13:58):
they were doing. And they said,What What's your job? What do
you do? And I said, Oh, youknow, I'm a, I'm a developer
evangelist or developeradvocate. And she said, Oh, I
want to do that. And noweveryone, she works on the same
team as me. Where's it Microsofthere with us? Welcome to the
show. Cloud aggregate. Cloudadvocate, April. Hi. How are
(14:21):
you? Welcome to the show. Ican't believe this is your first
time on the show. I feel likewe've talked about you a lot on
the show.
Brandon Minnick (14:29):
Oh, good.
Thanks.
Chloe Condon (14:33):
Um, tell tell.
Tell them about yourself.
April Speight (14:36):
Yeah, I will preface this by saying that I
hear we're doing a lot ofexclusive today and
announcements. So I have anexclusive for you all later. But
in any case, and you'reliterally the first like large
audience to know cuz he'llprobably tell my boyfriend. So
in any case, I'm April Speight.
And I work with in spatialcomputing at Microsoft, and I do
think within the area of mixedreality, augmented reality,
(15:01):
virtual reality, and basically Idon't live in reality I live in
what's the fake world, most ofthe time. I prefer it that way.
But in any case, I've beenworking in this area for
officially one year and a halfunofficially, two years. But my
programming background is inPython. But my actual career
(15:23):
background where I spent themost amount of my time has been
in project management, andprogram management. Before that,
I worked in the luxury fashionindustry, I was a menswear
stylist as well as a visualmerchandiser. And basically, I
got to create art, which wasfun. So if you're unfamiliar
with what visual merchandisingis, it includes working on store
(15:45):
windows, so if you ever walkedpast, I feel like there's not
too many places that make themess fancy nowadays, but if you
ever go to New York during theholidays, and if you walk past
Bergdorf Goodman, theirelaborate sort of windows,
that's what I did. And then notfor Bergdorf, but, but for other
companies. And then also thathas to do with moving things
(16:06):
around in the store, whether itbe the way that clothes are laid
out, yada yada the whole pointwas to make you all want to buy
it and believe it or not.
There's been times where we'vehad like a pile of clothes, just
or like maybe it was a say itwas like a sweatshirt. It's been
folded up. It's been about amonth, no one's touching it. And
(16:27):
then Believe it or not, you canmove it to the right restyle it.
And all of a sudden, it fliesoff the shelf. And it's just
like,
Chloe Condon (16:34):
like you out for clothes.
April Speight (16:37):
Yes, pretty much.
That's pretty much what it is.
And a lot of it comes down topsychology somehow. But that's
what I did. And then styling.
menswear was my preferred I didsomewhere it's a much as some
women's wear too. But workingwith men and dressing them, in
my opinion was more fun. Andafter a while, I realized that
(16:57):
it didn't pay much to do eithervotes unless you worked in
corporate and you were the onethat was telling people what to
do. So I figured, okay, I needsomething else that's going to
be sustainable long term. And Ihad this background in project
management. So then I said,Alright, I'm gonna go be a
project manager didn't know atthe time that most of the jobs
(17:17):
and project management were init. And I had no it background
on paper. But I knew computers.
And so when I interviewed for aninternship, that was literally
IT project management intern,like what are the odds side it's
like exact title. My seniordirector at the time when he did
(17:37):
his interview with me, heliterally walked in with a my
resume and he said, Do you likecomputers? And I say, Yeah, he
was like, that's all I need toknow. And I like that dinner.
Yes, absolutely. And, you know,to be fair, for folks at home, I
did have a more formal interviewprior to that with the person
(17:58):
who became my manager where weactually talk through my
history, but for the person whowas higher than her. That's
literally what he came in andsaid, he was a very, very great,
great leader for our entire ITdepartment. But I did that. The
first time I did anythingremotely close to programming
was running SQL reports. I have30 minutes to learn. We had an
(18:19):
individual who was retiringearly, and someone were divided.
Yeah, so tell you why 30minutes. So one of our guys on
our team, he was retiring. Andwe divided up all of his
workload, and all that was leftwith running SQL reports. And so
at that point, I volunteeredbecause I said, Oh, I'm
(18:41):
interested in that. And he onlyhad 30 minutes before he had to
go. So that's why I only have 30minutes to learn. And so he gave
me like, quickest Crash Coursepossible. And fortunately for
me, I had a background in, inlogic, so as it relates to like
philosophy, because I did somephilosophy and undergrad and a
(19:04):
lot of that has to do with notlogic, almost, I'm sorry, go
syntax. I had six majors incollege. But anyways, I had a
background with syntax because Iwas studying linguistics, um, at
one point was my major and sothat helped a lot. For me, I was
able to understand patterns ofputting together
(19:25):
what I needed for SQL reports.
So that's how once he left Ijust kept at it um, I feel like
this was before googlingprogramming concepts was really
like a thing because it wasn'tlike that much online. And so
there weren't all these likefabulous online courses or
YouTube videos that you can gotry out. So it was a lot of kind
of self learning. I did that andI was still doing pm work some
(19:50):
time went by different companiesstill doing pm work. And then I
decided Alright, I think I wantto do some programming. I
thought I wanted to do data,data science. And so that's how
I started with Python. And thenI realized I hated data science.
And then I said, Okay, I need touse this programming skill that
I now have learned. And so Idiscovered chatbots through
(20:11):
Twilio, actually, and I feellike that only really came to be
because I went to a Tullio tevent. And I felt so behind
going through all of theactivities that day. And the
thing about me is, if I feellike I don't get something, and
everyone else does, I'm gonnawork my butt off to figure it
(20:33):
out. And that's really whathappened, I spent the next like,
three months or so reallystrengthening my Python
background. Because my job Ididn't go to school for
programming. And I had to do iton my own in my free time. And
so I started doing that gotreally into working with
chatbots and AI assistants. Andthen I also started doing
(20:55):
YouTube videos, because I, forme, personally, the best way for
me to learn is to teach. Andthen I also figured that I
couldn't be the only person thathad issues with learning with
some of the different onlinefree courses that are out here
on the internet, as well as someof the different YouTube videos.
And so I started relatingprogramming concepts to the
(21:15):
thing I knew best, which wasfashion, as well as like pop
culture movies, like Mean Girls,for example. So I was doing
that. And then that's when I gotquote, unquote, discovered by my
acquisitions editor at Wiley, mypublisher, and he had reached
out and acts that I think aboutwriting a book, I thought I was
(21:35):
being catfished. And I went.
Turns out he was very much real.
And so
Chloe Condon (21:43):
pause here and say, all of this stuff that
April's talking about happenedin the last four. Want to say,
right, yeah, like, happening ina very short amount of time. And
yeah, being April's friend makesme both proud and exhaustive.
You never know, for people athome who are listening to
(22:04):
April's story about beingworking in you said fashion,
merchandising, what you cannotsee. And what I recommend taking
a look at on our YouTube is justhow beautiful April's background
is. And I want to buy everythingand it shows in your work.
April Speight (22:22):
Thank you. Yeah.
Once I got quote, unquote,discovered, for technical
writing, I wrote my first book,which is bite sized Python
introduction to Pythonprogramming. And then after
that, I wrote a second bookVisual Studio code for Python
programmers, which if this was achance for behat graphics, I
would say exclusive exclusive,because the book is available as
(22:44):
of today, to purchase and haveit mailed to you. So if you
happen to either go to we'resharing a link as well, but also
on my website, Bowden code. comthat's vo G and D, CO, D, or you
can go to APR space comm it'llredirect there, there is a
(23:07):
section on my site that pointsyou to links for the book for
the newest book. I'm not thateveryone loves Amazon. But if
you go in there, you'll see thatit is available for order now we
were doing pre orders for acouple of months. But literally
today is the day where it's likeofficial, like officially out.
And so if you get today, whichis the seventh it'll arrive
(23:30):
Friday, which is two days fromnow. My math is right. So So
yeah, I wrote that. I discoveredmixed reality. Thanks to
Twitter, I saw a demo that washappening at one of our
Microsoft conferences. And itwasn't that it was they were
using a HoloLens it was more sothat they were doing real time
(23:51):
speech translation with theHoloLens during like a
conference kind of call. And sothe whole speech part is what
got me because as I mentioned, Ibriefly was a linguistics major.
So foreign languages is like mything. And I asked for help to
get started. I got some folks atMicrosoft to help out some folks
(24:14):
from Magic Leap to help out andthen I was learning, learning
learning. Six months later, Ijoined my team here at
Microsoft, and that's where I'vebeen since still learning as new
things are coming out and I feellike with that particular tech
area, you never know what'sgoing to happen next and we
refer to it as emerging tech. Soit's emerging and again just
(24:36):
never know what's new. So that'sme in a nutshell.
Chloe Condon (24:42):
I know nothing jail just like we're in a new
language.
Brandon Minnick (24:51):
I love that you went from hating Python, to
literally writing two books.
What are the odds right The mostquintessential example of a love
hate relationship.
April Speight (25:04):
Yeah. And it took some work to because I feel that
the for our job and death row,we write different type of
content, tutorials and what haveyou. And when it comes to
technical writing, especiallywhen you're doing like a
programming like for programminglike introduction, you really
(25:25):
like have to humble yourself ormore so it humbles you because
you start to realize what youactually don't know. And
fortunately, the tech, mytechnical editor, I got to
choose who it was. And he hadwritten books on Python for
like, probably as long as I'vebeen alive. So I was very
fortunate to have him he'sdefinitely he was patient with
(25:46):
everything. But when it comes tobook writing, yeah, you might
feel like you're an expertheading into it. And then when
you start trying to explain thewhy behind certain things, it's
like, Oh, you know what, I don'tknow why. And so it's a
humbling. It is definitely ahumbling process. And if you
don't do well, receivingfeedback, likely This is going
(26:08):
to be challenging for you.
Because as many folks I spokenwith who have written books. The
one common thing is as gettingedits back from the editor, and
like things are all commentaryor comments, they are comments.
They're delete this, delete thatand it's just like, I spent two
weeks writing this great. Yeah,yeah. But you know, for any of
(26:29):
you who do pursue book writing,especially in the technical
area, I think my manager said itbest is just that your editors
really want you to succeed, theywant the book to succeed as
well. So all the feedback thatyou get, yeah, might sometimes
be like a hit to your ego. Butthe whole purpose is to make
sure that the book issuccessful. So if you keep that
in the back of your head, youknow, throw yourself a little
(26:51):
pity party for like 10 minutes,and then just get back to
writing. So that's one thing Ican definitely recommend if you
decide to write technical books,
Brandon Minnick (27:02):
even in the comments, like john was saying,
it's that it's the old DunningKruger effect, where he said he
thought he knew so much moreabout Python before going
further in depth with it. Andyeah, it's so true. I feel like
yeah, as, as programmers, we,we, there's high highs and low
(27:22):
lows. So yeah, this amazing Hi,where maybe you just published
your app or your website, orwhatever it might be, and like,
I'm the best developer in theworld. And then you try to like
fix a bug. I have no idea whatI'm doing. Exactly. I don't know
anything.
Chloe Condon (27:39):
Computers are usually like metal or plastic.
And I'm shocked that they don'tjust come like in a foam like a
Nerf gun like foam. Because mywant and desire to throw my
computer, especially when Ifirst started programming and
just like could not figure outcertain bugs even today, really,
I feel like we need to makethese things less damaged.
(28:00):
Because it's true. Like one day,I remember vividly, April, and
I've worked on a projecttogether where she stayed up all
night. Like she truly means thatshe was like, I will work on
this
April Speight (28:11):
until I figure it out. And mind you it was a
language that I don't doanything with it was JavaScript,
and I do nothing withJavaScript. So yeah, that's how
I felt.
But we made it.
Chloe Condon (28:26):
April, you have a million bajillion hobbies, and
we will not be able to coverthem on the show. Among them,
y'all. One time, April was likeI want to learn how to remix
Africa by Toto, and then shesigned up for a DJ class the
next day. But you also have ashared passion of Barbies. Tell
(28:49):
us about your Barbie hobby. So Ihave my friends with me. I
brought them all today. So
April Speight (28:59):
I'm gonna, I'm gonna first intro my background
with Barbies. I grew up as aBarbie collector. And I was that
kid whose parents bought two ofthe same Barbies one to play
with one to collect. And I had areally good collection one of my
neighbors she had like an entirebedroom dedicated to Barbie. So
(29:19):
like I grew up in a townhouseand like under those housing,
like one of those developmentsfor like all the houses with the
same. And so my bedroom and thatwoman's house was a Barbie room,
and she had the whole roomfilled with Barbies. And I was
like, Oh my goodness, I want tobe you when I grow up. So that's
how I got into Barbie. And thenI eventually ended up selling my
(29:40):
collection. Kind of like for meonce if anyone knows, like how
the Beanie Baby market was andstill is, that's pretty much how
the Barbie market is. But incase I didn't do much with
Barbies for your couple yearsafter that, and then one day I
just decided to look up Barbieon social media, as most people
(30:01):
do, and I noticed that there'san entire world where people
pretty much create little minisets and put the Barbies in
different like positions andstuff, and they photograph them
and it becomes like a wholething. And there's a whole world
of people who do this, there'sYouTube videos dedicated to how
(30:22):
you can go about. Usually, Iusually share, like how you can
rethread their hair, how you canstyle their hair, how you can
make Barbie clothes, how you canmake all other different like
accessories and stuff in thehouse. And so, or the room that
you're working with. So ifyou're curious as to like what
that even looks like, I'm goingto share my screen so you all
(30:42):
can see this hobby that I'vegotten into, let me get this set
up for you all. So this is whatI'm referring to. People
actually spend hours working onthings like this. What's great,
and you might be wondering, forthose who of you who are
familiar with Barbies, thatBarbies historically didn't have
(31:03):
a lot of joints. So their armswere like the way you put them.
Now they make Barbies with Iforget how many joints are part
of the Barbie, but they have allthese joints that you can move
and pose them in different ways.
And so when you see Barbies,like the one that I have on the
left with the blonde hair andthe sunglasses, her hand is
sitting on her cheek, which youtraditionally you couldn't do
(31:23):
that with a regular Barbie doll.
But nowadays you can. And so youcan pose them all sorts of ways.
And people do this as a hobby,and I fell in love with it. And
even like on the table. No, keepin mind these things are Barbie
size. I think it's like a 112scale. So as you're putting
items out on the table, there'slike a nail file. There's like
(31:45):
an eyelash curler. But it's nothuman size. like someone's
making these teeny tiny objects.
Chloe Condon (31:53):
Image and there's there's kind of a What do they
call that like a poster boardbehind the bulletin board and
I'm like our little tiny Barbiesized push pins in there.
April Speight (32:04):
They might there might be so like I have a couple
of examples like the next oneshe has on a tweed jacket. And
she's at her computer she haslike a cell phone next to her
like in the background. She hasa rack of like clothes because
I'm assuming she's a fashiondesigner. And then like on this
next one how meta is that? Mygosh, Barbie dolls with a Barbie
(32:26):
house?
Chloe Condon (32:29):
blowing my mind.
I'm zooming in are there littleBarbies in there?
April Speight (32:35):
No, no, but that would have been great. That
would have actually been reallygreat. So like yes, it's like in
for some of the images dependingon who makes them. So like back
on the first one where her armhas been facing on her cheek.
You don't see the joint therebecause people will take these
photos that they shoot and putthem in Photoshop, and they'll
like edit the photos out to makeit look more realistic, which is
(32:56):
so cool. So back to my ownstory. And when to start trying
that out. I bought a coupledifferent Barbies in hopes of
being diverse with all my girls.
This one is bald, and thisrepresents when I actually cut
all my hair off duringquarantine because who doesn't
do that during a quarantine.
Chloe Condon (33:13):
Orange, the neon orange thing but I feel like
April Speight (33:16):
it's a thing. And then I bought this one FAO
Schwarz which is like if you'reinto toys, that's like the
pinnacle of toy shops. And sothis one is kind of hard to see
with my ring light but it's arobotics engineer doll. And so I
got her for that reason. Andplus she has a laptop. So that's
like one less thing that I needto get.
Chloe Condon (33:33):
I have that one on my desk in the Microsoft Office.
It's been there alone for a yearso it's probably come to light.
April Speight (33:42):
Yes, then I just got this one recently. She's a
looks one. I love that Mattelcame out with this collection
because they have different bodytypes. The hair is great, they
look they're more fashionforward and the way they do
certain details. Also, theyretail for like stupid, crazy
expensive prices once they'resold out. So that's I'm not
(34:02):
going to end up opening herunfortunately. But if any of you
happen to collect them, hold onto it. I love this one as well.
Um, I think she's short too.
Yeah. Which is great becauseshe's, you know, not like Barbie
hi and she's a bit she has a bitmore more the body shape that
like I wish I had but she alsohas some really nice braids. And
(34:23):
this one I liked her Afro andshe has blue lipstick. Like how
amazing is that? And the lastone was gently Chloe, you got me
this one and I also had one aswell which is perfect because
now I have two of them. But thisis one of the first ones like
styles they came out with wherethey had all the different poses
you can do. So I'm going to getinto that at some point soon
(34:46):
hopefully and again, start justmaking all these different
Barbie sets. So I'm like reallylooking forward to that and like
before we hop off the Barbieinformation. I do want to share
one other hobby I picked uplately, which is like not hobby,
but a hobby. So as I was turning31, I realized that I wasn't
(35:09):
sure how much I wanted to be onsocial media, as much as I
actually really love Instagram,if anything, because I love all
the photos. But then I alsorealized that I wasn't
photographing as much when Iwent out. And I feel that a lot
of photos that were on socialmedia were being more perfected.
(35:29):
And I don't know if anyonefollows this around Macau
influencers in the wild isn'tAlyssa hilarious account. But
like things like that, I don'tmind for other people to do it.
But I felt like I didn't havethe time to do that. And I
really love capturing moments asthey are rather than what they
could be. And so naturally, Iwent to Etsy and bought an
(35:52):
actual vintage Polaroid camera.
And it actually works. This oneis from the 80s. So it's like,
yeah,
Brandon Minnick (36:07):
so 20 years,
April Speight (36:09):
right? So what I've been doing, whenever I go
out nowadays, I try to captureat least one photo while I'm out
sometimes have to take twobecause I'm not always sure how
the lighting is going to workout. But I'm on there. If I have
like a decent picture to sharewith you all, I have just one
(36:29):
that turned out actually reallywell. So this car, um, it was
like a picture of one. I took apicture of a car that's over on
roadeo near where I live. Andthis one actually came out
really well. And I've taken someof people and when people hear
you taking a picture of them,they're just like, Oh, wait,
(36:49):
wait a second, I want to youknow, get myself together. And
I'm like, Alright, I'm like,Alright, now this is how we're
taking a picture and there's nodo over so. And I've just been
collecting Polaroid pictures andkeeping them in my drawer
because I want those memories. Iwant to look back and you never
remember exactly how that momentwas and how it was captured. And
(37:11):
I love that you can't edit it. Ilove that you don't know what it
looks like until the film likedevelops, if you will. And so
you have those photos, I justdon't share them with anybody
that just from my own littleeyes. And so those are my
current
Chloe Condon (37:23):
hobbies to middle school. Maybe I'm aging myself
here we had these things calledInsta pics. They were like, Oh,
yeah, many in my locker. April,I love that you're taking up
this Barbie hobby. I'm going toshare my screen here. I'm
starting to see this trend. Sowhen we were younger April and
(37:44):
are about the same age, therewas not a lot of girls, computer
science toys or content outthere. And I love this new trend
of girly, girly or feminineleaning toys that are
encouraging young girls to getpewter science. The newest
American Girl course is fromthat ninis and she's a game
(38:06):
designer. It's really oh it'skind of Stranger Things
aesthetic. She's got a cassetteplayer, she's playing Pac Man.
And I have my original AmericanGirl Macintosh. So like this is
something that I've kept fromage Gosh, like six or something.
And it works it has like theoriginal Macintosh software on
(38:26):
it. You could press the keyboardit does little like spreadsheets
and constellation shirts. And Ithink it's so important that the
people making this contentunderstand the industry are
making sure to include like adiverse perspective and I'm so
excited I you have to share thehandle when you
April Speight (38:45):
Oh, that was the other thing like I forgot the
biggest detail because you whenyou mentioned tech and more
feminine leaning. So for all thedolls and what I'm doing they're
actually all going to be techthemed. So it's just like a
purely Barbie tech settings, ifyou will different photos and
I'm meant to text you backChloe, I'll do that after we get
(39:07):
done. I need help with a handleand I needed to be something
because Chloe's good at namingthings. I fall short of that. So
what I was looking for when Iwas looking to the left, I have
I should have grabbed it. Idon't think it's out here. Maybe
it's in my background. Yeah, I'mgonna grab it really quick for
(39:31):
everyone at home. So because Iknow that Chloe loves this
topic. So because I used to workin fashion I can also sew as
well and I've been doing thatsince like Middle School. I
bought a sewing clothes forBarbie book. Like what are the
(39:52):
odds right? And it has like,patterns in here for different
things that you can make forlike Barbie size and so on. I'm
like gonna be fully committed tothis particular craft. And
because I have a Cricut machine,you know, you can cut out wood
and everything with it. And sothat's how I'll be making more
like her furniture andBarbie, I pretty much Yes.
Brandon Minnick (40:20):
It's amazing.
Yeah, cuz actually, Rob, in thecomments was asking when you
were going through the photos ofthe different Barbie scenes and
he's asking if that laptop waslike a 3d printed paint kind of
thing It sounds like might bedo, you can use a milling
machine.
April Speight (40:38):
Yeah, and people get really creative with like
how they make stuff, which iswhat I really appreciate. And
like, for me personally, I havespent a couple hours on
Pinterest creating a Pinterestboard of like real life, places
that I love and trying to findthings that I can replicate. But
it's a sorry, that was my frontdoor. But um, it's just a really
(40:59):
cool thing. Because you canreally stretch your your
thinking of your creativity ofhow you can make stuff without
like defaulting going to Etsyand just buying something
because there's a whole marketof people who also make all the
little light furniture to andaccessories, which I won't get
into right now. But it's thewhole thing,
Chloe Condon (41:18):
right? Like to scale and like, yeah, I can only
imagine, you know, the imagethat you showed earlier of two
Barbies at a desk with a bunchof papers. Even just getting the
font size, correct. Yeah,there's so many different,
April Speight (41:33):
like, it's just Yes, it's and it's it's, it's a
lot of it's one of those hobbiesthat you don't spend like 10
minutes holding, you're done.
Like you can spend hours likesomeone did like a time lapse on
YouTube a purchase, creatinglike a room. And I think was it
three or five hours that shetook just doing that one room.
So I love that I love that ittakes time. I love that I have a
(41:54):
lot of time dedicated towardsit, because I'm not writing
books right now. And I'm nottaking on anything
extracurricular. So outside oflike my work life, I just have a
lot of free time now. And I whatI think I love most about it too
is that I'm doing it for fun. Idon't want any like financial
gain from it. Because I feellike once you add that to the
(42:14):
mix, that's when it starts tobecome less fun. So I'm just
doing it just to like, have itnow, where will this live in my
home? I don't know. You're out.
I have a blank wall in front ofme. And I saw someone's
Instagram account recently thatdoes these, but not Barbie, but
she just makes like little likemini homes and stuff. And she
(42:36):
has like an entire row on a wallof like little mini houses where
she just goes and change themout every so often. So I might
do something like that. We'llsee. But I can't wait because
it'll be tech theme. And it'slike how many like, I know
there's like, as far as I know,there's like a tech Barbie
Instagram account, but like tobe able to see this collective
(42:59):
group of Barbies workingtogether in tech. And like for
me, getting black parties wassuper important because like
growing up those were the onlyones Well, not the only ones cuz
I had some that were likemulticultural from different
parts of the world. But most ofmy collection were black Barbie
dolls. And so I'm always feelit's important to get you know,
more more minorities in tech,but now to have like this Barbie
(43:20):
account, if you will, thatdepicts that in that form. And
they all look different. So I'mgoing to start with that. And
then I'll slowly startincorporating some of the other.
I don't wanna say Mattel callsand racist but for lack of
better terms, more racism to itas well. But I mean, right now I
have six Barbie dolls. So I'mgonna play with those first. And
(43:41):
then I'll start adding ones tothe mix. So
Chloe Condon (43:44):
the attention to detail on this account, like
we're going to look over aBarbie shoulder and they're
going to be logged into teamsand have like a mini document.
Brandon Minnick (43:55):
website on Azure. Yeah, and I
April Speight (44:00):
want to like document it also more than just
like the Barbie style accountthat I showed they just only
show like the finished product.
I think I want to do more bylike actually doing like short
Instagram reels, for example oflike how to make certain pieces.
And then of course show thefinal product. But I think it's
one of those things where youdon't need a you don't need a
perfect photo to show process.
(44:22):
You know, I mean, the onlyperfect photo you need is the
end result. And so I like that Ilove that for me.
Chloe Condon (44:29):
I love this comment in the chat, which I'm
sure you can relate to Aprilwhich is from Rob that says I
played board games in VR. And Ilove how you can pick up virtual
objects and just see all thecool intricacies. I catch the
same vibe on those RV directYes, I think you probably kind
of do that a lot in your ownmixture. Yeah,
April Speight (44:48):
for work. Yeah.
When you're working with you allcomes down to 3d modeling, which
is in no way my forte I've triedit I gave up but there are Folks
who you know, who do make 3dmodels of stuff, and you can
make things very, very detailed.
And so like for me coming up,what I'll be making want to try
(45:10):
two different ways, I'm going todeal with VR, as well as an AR
version with the HoloLens. Andthen the VR for Oculus quest up
a bowling alley, and the abilityto like, pick up a bowling ball,
roll it and hit pins and keepscore and everything. So there's
not too much detail with abowling ball, you know, or the
(45:30):
pins, but, um, being able tocreate games like that, which is
like typical work that I do,which is why I love what I do.
But I've also done like a mixedreality, new Sam, the
Smithsonian, for those of youwho aren't familiar, the
Smithsonian, many, many yearsago, a family who donated
(45:51):
museums, at least in the DCarea, as far as I know, that
said, but they're all free forthe general public to go to a
tip. Because if it's theSmithsonian Museum, that all
these museums, but just to Sonyin one's any case, they came out
with a 3d collection of 3dmodels that are royalty free.
And you can, you can use them inany projects. And so I ended up
(46:16):
using a pair of boots from TheWiz of like, The Wiz is boots.
And you can have to pick it up,there's just so much detail. And
on the bottom, you can see thatit's written that says The Wiz
on it. And so I just love howdetailed you can get when you're
making 3d models. And, you know,I've also just done some VR
(46:37):
things that just feel real,which is a like another thing
like I played, if anyone outthere, they're playing Ritchie's
plank, it is two differentversions of it, there is like, a
little I mean, regardless, it'sall kind of scary, depending on
if you're afraid of heights. Butthere's a scary mode, where you
end up in like this dark room.
And there's like this ResidentEvil Stiles zombie sort of
(46:59):
thing, like walking towards you,and then it runs towards you.
And so like, That felt realbecause you're in the dark, and
you kind of forget that you'relike you're in VR, but I went on
a tangent there. But it's alsowhile working in an area where I
work because you can reallyescape from what's happening
around you. And this year, I'llbe doing more with VR. So if
anyone's working in that area,firstly, if you're a beginner,
(47:22):
and you want to learn more ofhow to develop for VR, I will be
your go to as we're heading intothis new year at work. So yeah,
we got that going on soon.
Chloe Condon (47:36):
I just love the idea of making an indoor bowling
alley in your home moreaccessible because growing up in
90s television, very like I'mthinking like, first kid, blank
check. Catch dry, but eventhough that was like not their
house, yeah, I feel like now wecan. It's almost like open
(47:57):
sourcing bowling alleys forhomes. I love that. Yeah, free a
free bowling alley in everyhome.
April Speight (48:03):
Which by the way, whenever I do create projects
for work, I always posted in arepo on GitHub, because I
there's nothing I can do with itbeyond make it but I always post
these things. So for people whoare watching content that I do,
because I always did my YouTubevideos like actual like super
thorough walkthrough. You know,once it's posted, go take it, go
(48:23):
do whatever with the code thatyou want, if you decide to turn
it into like an award winninggame app, and by all means,
like, go do that. I do it tohelp folks who, you know, who
need that start somewhere. Andthat's why I really love about
the work that I do. Because forme, I do a lot more with
beginners. And so I like beingable to provide that foundation
(48:44):
for them to get started withwhatever area of xR that they're
working in. And I'm happy when Iknow people are actually
watching the content or readingthe content and actually using
it that makes me most happy. Andif I can do that, and you're
satisfied with it, great if youget the beat, honestly just
going through it even if youdon't like it. So you have to
(49:05):
know that you've gone through atutorial and you ran into a
problem, or at least lets meknow that you actually went
through the tutorial and peopleare actually, you know, looking
at the stuff that I put out intothe world, but hopefully you
don't run into issues. So yeah,that's my philosophy on the work
that I do.
Brandon Minnick (49:23):
Now, there is a new movie coming out that you've
had some partnership with. Yes.
Can we talk about that? Yeah.
Because Are we allowed to talkabout the movies. But the work I
did is out? Yes. Tell us aboutthat. But yeah,
April Speight (49:46):
Space Jam to you like to see. And Microsoft did a
collaboration with WarnerBrothers for the movie. There
were learned modules that werecreated and one of the modules
that I contributed to wasn'tmixed reality app of a player
roster for the tune squatcharacters. And so essentially,
(50:09):
if you have one I did mine forHoloLens you have on the
HoloLens. When you start theapp, you can see all the players
in like squares. And then if youwere to select like Elmer Fudd,
for example, it would show hisstats. And the one stat that we
use in the example is the playerefficiency rating, which pretty
much depicts how good the playeris. And so you can tap it, see
(50:35):
it, you can close it. And thewhole purpose was to explore
different features of that mixedreality toolkit, which is a
toolkit that I primarily use inmy work, it helps us celebrate
your mixed reality development.
And just a lot of featuresinclude it where if you're
familiar with Unity, the engine,UK, it's kind of almost like,
not drag and drop this, thatpipe necessarily drag and drop,
(50:56):
but you can just add thecomponents from the mixed
reality toolkit saves a lot oftime that start from scratch. So
like from my project, we use alot of buttons. And so you know,
it's one thing to create abutton from scratch, which you
can totally do, or you can uselike pre made buttons, I
demonstrated both actually inthe Learn module. So that way,
you can learn how to do fromscratch and also how to use the
(51:18):
ones that prefabs that areincluded. And so that's the
collaboration that we did. Andthat project Oh, my goodness. So
what I created learning lessonis to make sure that you can
actually thoroughly create whatyou say you want to do before
committing to it. Because theidea came from an existing app.
(51:39):
And I quickly realized that itdidn't do 100% what I wanted to
do, and I had to create a muchmore simpler version, or I
guess, more approachable versionof creating from scratch. And I
did some pair programming withone of the developers over the
mixed reality team to solve someissues. It's I think we took
(51:59):
like, two or three days just topair program, we didn't quite
find a resolution. And then oneday I sat there, I went through
every line of code in thescripts that I had available
from the original project. Andlo Behold, I figured it out. And
so you know, like when youfigure out an issue, when you're
programming, you feel like thesmartest person in the world at
(52:20):
that point. And that's how Ifelt. And of course, like no, no
one was around to know, becausethat's how it always is. But
that was a nice lesson learned.
So yeah, I finished it though.
It's on Microsoft learn. If youhappen to be on learning or
browsing through the catalog, ifyou type in Space Jam on that's
going to docs on microsoft.comslash learn if you search for
(52:43):
Space Jam, there's a learningpath available on there. And two
other folks, Sarah couples, Dr.
duffles, she led everything soshe also created learn modules
as well for for thecollaboration. And then Cassie,
I don't want to mess up her lastname. Is it break you review?
(53:03):
Yes. She also contributed shedid a a Babylon JS version of
what I created. So if workingwith web is more your thing, you
can check out her version of theLearn module. It's within that
learning path. And yeah, that'sthat's what I've worked on
recently. And I love it.
Chloe Condon (53:21):
I have an exclusive announcement starting
in August, myself and ornellawill be walking through a caceis
module reactor. So I'm going tolearn all about basketball
y'all. Pe player er, er. Yeah.
Well, did you ever think inmillion years April that first
(53:41):
of all, you'd be working intech. And second of all, that
you'd be like moving around aLola bunny with your hands and
your code? Like was that everanything in your line of sight
when choosing your college majoryour career?
April Speight (53:59):
Not in the least bit and like I went to college?
Well, I'm with college for a lotof things. But the major that I
ended up with at the end of theday was global business and
public policy, which is a fancytitle for international
business. And then, for gradschool, I got my master's in
luxury and fashion management.
So neither tech related. And Ifeel Honestly, I actually use
(54:20):
both degrees in my job now. Andso even though I do a lot of
creating tutorial content andapps, at the end of the day,
because like we have like jobswhere there is like an actual
outcome and goals that we needto meet. I'm very business
oriented. And so understandinghow to strategize around the
(54:40):
work that I do and then helpingout our team and the work that
we do. That's for that businessbackground comes comes into
play. And then when you're doingbusiness, there's also the
marketing side of stuff as well.
So amplify whatever it is thatyou create in our case, and then
for the fashion back record andfashion Management background,
(55:01):
we had an entire course that welike dedicated to Adobe Creative
Suite. And so knowing how to usethose different products and
tools is really helpfulunderstanding the design process
too, because for the area whereI work, and like really all the
areas that we work in tech,where there's a visual component
to it, you really have tounderstand the designing
principles around it. And sounderstanding color and things
(55:24):
of that nature. It's veryimportant in my role, so even
though my even though my degreeisn't necessarily computer
science, I still use both for mydegrees in my job, and it's a
matter of finding transferableskills and applying them to the
job that I have.
Chloe Condon (55:41):
I just can't get over. One at the beginning of
this episode, you mentioned thatyou could move a shirt a couple
inches to the right and no offthe shelf. I can't get over how
translatable that is to buildingYeah, like yeah, truly, it's a
matter of like changing a buttoncolor moving it or making it
more accessible or within your,your frame of view. I can only
(56:04):
imagine how many times this hasjust popped up throughout your
tech where like, Oh, that'snifty.
April Speight (56:10):
Yeah, pretty much. So yeah, I know, for those
of you who are either startingout, or you're considering
transitioning, just really thinkabout the skills you do have.
And honestly, sometimes youmight not have the skills that
you need heading to the next,your next step. And like for me,
I'm heading into mixed reality.
I didn't do anything mixedreality. I mean, I had to learn
(56:31):
a whole new programminglanguage, I had to learn C
sharp, so you might not haveeverything, but it's really
great to, you know, to use whatyou do have and then recognize
where what might be yourweaknesses and do all that you
can to strengthen them. Also, Ilove to have let people know
this. The I know that the casefor every job that you might
walk into or go into. But youdon't have to know everything.
(56:55):
You don't have to be an expertin a certain area. Like
literally in two weeks, I'mspending most of my time only
doing VR content, like learningVR stuff. And that's it. So
there's opportunities to learnon the job and don't feel like
you can't apply until you'relike expert level in the area
there there will be times tostill learn new things.
Brandon Minnick (57:19):
Such a good message. And and also Yeah, just
like you said earlier, your,your degree doesn't define you
or your lack of degree doesn'tdefine you just because you
graduated with a four yeardegree or two year degree or
didn't even do it doesn't meanyou can't get into new things
and learn new things. And I'dsay if anything April taught us
(57:41):
today is just we can learnanything we put our mind to.
We're always learning we'realways evolving. It's just been
such an amazing, amazingconversation. April I'm so
inspired. For we only have acouple minutes left.
Unfortunately, this has been anamazing conversation. But for
the people at home where wherecan they find you? Where can
(58:01):
they follow more of April'swisdom?
April Speight (58:04):
Yes, you can follow me on twitter at vogon
code. We do have it here in thisconversation but for those of
you who are listening vlg Ue aand d c od e that's also my
Instagram account and that'slikely where I'll let folks know
when this Barbie Instagramaccount exists. And so you could
(58:24):
check me out cater Yes, and yeahmy website building code comm
that's where I have my contactinformation if you have any
questions and it's info atBowden code comm so that's where
you can find me. And if youhappen to be in LA you can
(58:46):
likely find me outside somewhereprobably over a roadeo since I
live very close, so
Chloe Condon (58:52):
I really cannot wait to visit you go to
Cheesecake Factory. It's beenway too long since I've given
bread. Yeah. Brandon close outthe show because there's a
helicopter outside my window.
And there's like cops outsidemine. So
Brandon Minnick (59:09):
hopefully everybody stay safe. But thank
you everyone for Joanie, get ajoining us again this week. I'm
your host Brandon Minnick withChloe content and April Speight.
Please visit us next week. We'llbe here at the same time. Make
sure to go to a pitstop TV tosubscribe to the podcast. Give
us a rating five stars, leave agreat review help other people
(59:30):
find it and we will see you nextweek. Bye
Hey we're back.
It's Wednesday. How are youdoing Brandon? It's another fine
Wednesday.
Brandon Minnick (02:11):
It really is a beautiful day. I'm doing great.
Although I had some bicycleinjuries, I guess you can see it
there on my hand and got it.
bandages on my elbows from aspill I took over the holiday
weekend, but I'm okay. nothing'sbroken. That does damage just
bruises.
Chloe Condon (02:31):
viewers at home.
Brandon has some some band aidson his palms that looks ouchy
Brandon Minnick (02:38):
Yeah, I miss it a lot of skin on this hand where
I caught myself after flippingover the handlebars.
Chloe Condon (02:45):
Wow. Well, that sounds like a very eventful
Fourth of July long weekend. Forthose of us internationally. We
had a nice long three dayweekend here in the States. So
I'm feeling refreshed. I'mfeeling good. How is your week
been? Brandon? Hmm, I've got a
Brandon Minnick (03:05):
bunch of things in progress. So, shameless plug
for Git trends, aka the app ofthe show. It's a open source app
that you can find in the iOS andAndroid app stores. If you are
also an open source developer,you have a bunch of repos on
GitHub, and you can't keep trackof all of them and need to know
which ones are trending, gettinglots of views and clones stars,
(03:30):
you can check out Git trends,calm gi T, tr. E, NDS. It's a
totally open source app. That iswritten in C sharp using
Xamarin. And it will help youkeep track of your GitHub repos,
it will send you pushnotifications, if what is your
repos blows up because maybesomebody tweets about it or puts
it in a blog post. And theannouncement is you can check
(03:51):
out there's an open pull requeston this repo where you, me and
Luis the other maintainer havebeen hard at work, adding in a
new feature where not only willyou be able to see your repos,
which you can today. So if youdownload the app from the App
Store, you'll see all of yourrepos once you connect to
GitHub, and all their stats, butwe're going to add in the
(04:11):
ability to see organizations youbelong to as well. So it's
adding a bunch of new stuff tothe UI and the settings page to
enable that. But you can followour progress. Hopefully, we'll
have that new release. It'sprobably still a couple months
away. Yep. It's a free app. Wejust do the work on nights and
weekends. We don't get paid todo any of this. So But yeah, I
(04:34):
spent a lot of time last nightworking on that feeling really
good about it. And I've alsobeen teasing some speaking to
Xamarin, the Xamarin communitytoolkit. Yeah, is also an open
source repo that you can use forall your Xamarin apps. It's kind
of that it's a toolkit. So it'sbasically all that code you
(04:54):
probably copy paste fromXamarin, app, Xamarin app, all
those common features You wishwere just included in, say
Xamarin forums? Well, we gotthem in the toolkit. So we've
also been working hard on makingthe toolkit work with make sure
it's compatible with dotnet,Maui, which is coming down the
pike that'll be included indotnet. Six in November. And
(05:17):
we've got an announcement, I wasjust chatting with one of the
maintainers. Today, that willprobably announce next week
about how we're going to expandour toolkit and maybe unify with
another toolkit. I don't know. Ijust have to stay tuned for the
announcement. Wow, that's
Chloe Condon (05:38):
a that's a sluicey. That's exciting.
Brandon Minnick (05:41):
Yeah. You're here to hear first.
Chloe Condon (05:45):
Excited? Well, I can't wait to hear any like, I
guess Can you share any excitingpieces or things? Like, I don't
know, is it Are you still kindof in stealth mode with it?
Brandon Minnick (05:58):
I mean, it's, I'd say it's pretty official
internally. I mean, the biggesthurdle is not necessarily the
technical stuff, but becauseMicrosoft, such a big company.
And there's so manystakeholders, especially in the
dotnet ecosystem, Xamarinecosystem, Valley ecosystem,
getting everybody on board. Sowe have to align with the dotnet
engineering teams and marketingteams, the docs team, so we
(06:22):
could put all the docs up aboutthis new repo we're working on
but it's pretty much official.
So we're going to be areliterally going to be typing up
these blog posts announcementstoday. Then we'll go through
more approval processes, butwe're getting really close and
it feels it feels really real.
Something we've wanted to do andwe talk about for months. So
(06:43):
hopefully we'll get thoseannouncements out next week. So
stay tuned, my dotnet friends,my Xamarin friends, check the
dotnet blog in the Xamarin blognext week for some big fun new
announcements.
Chloe Condon (06:54):
Find yourself someone who talks as
passionately as Brandon. I loveI just love that you're like the
Xamarin hype man and always havethem ever since I've met you
this is just this is your life.
I love it. Um, let's see, oh, Ihave something fun to share. Um,
I started my got bought serieslast week with the Microsoft
(07:19):
reactor. And it was really fun.
And I'm sharing my screen rightnow if you want to share it,
Brandon and for folks listeningto the podcast, I will describe
what's on the screen. Lastminute friend of the show, PJ
joins us to talk about all ofthe awesome diva bots that we've
(07:39):
created over the last year Iguess it's been now and I just
had to share this hilariousscreenshot I'll zoom in even
more of an actual tweet that PJused to test his just bought
paid Twitter bots that says Ican't believe it's working and I
just felt this was such adeveloper test tweet for testing
(08:00):
the Twitter but we had a bunchof fun and you can check that
out if you go to aka.ms slashgot bots one I believe. Also
make sure to share it on Twitteras well but you can check out
that really fun video where PJoh my gosh, we walk through our
Britney Spears bought our MariahCarey bought our ariana grande
(08:21):
de bot. Oh my gosh, there's somany are in sync bought so many
books. Should I ajwain How can Iforget the original Shania Twain
so check that out? I'm doingevery Thursday at the reactor at
3pm do pm I should know this. Iam doing a series on bots for
beginners. So last week wetalked all about ethical bot
(08:44):
creation, which is really fun.
I'm essentially talking about tshirt bots. Do you know what a T
shirt bot is? Brandon?
Brandon Minnick (08:51):
Okay, take
Chloe Condon (08:52):
a guess. Sure.
Sure. I'm gonna
Brandon Minnick (08:58):
isn't a bot that will make a T shirt about
what you're maybe tweetingabout.
Chloe Condon (09:03):
Okay, yes, but um, we had on the show because I
hate t shirt bots. And thereason is, I come from a family
of artists. I know how importantit is for artists to get paid
for their work. And somethingreally weird happened one time
when I posted a photo of mewearing this shirt and for folks
at home. This is a shirt it's apurple shirt that says Girls
(09:24):
Just Want to Have fundamentalhuman rights. And a bunch of
people started commenting I needthis shirt. I want this on a
shirt. And there are bots thatwill find those keywords. And
they will make the shirt likethey'll just take the text from
the shirt and create the shirtand put it out there. So I
(09:44):
learned this and I did my owntest where image and if for
those listening on the podcast,it's the meme of SpongeBob
that's very popular that says Itweeted about this design and
all I got with this was thisunlicensed shirt from a Twitter
bot. And I've tried thismultiple times, Brandon, I've
done this. Also with an ArrestedDevelopment image, if I can find
(10:07):
it, here we go. And it works.
Every time I tweet an image orsomething with text, and I say,
I'm testing something comment onthis, I want this on a shirt or
something of that nature. Andthe shirt bots will instantly
you know, just kind of usethey're just scraping the
internet looking for thesekeywords. So we did a really
interesting lesson on like, youknow, when you're thinking about
building bots, it's important tothink about like, Does this hurt
(10:30):
or abuse anyone? Does thisharass anyone? And I thought
this was such a great example,right? Like, how many times of
course, this is a silly examplehere. But how many times does
this happen to artists whenlike, you know, their image, or,
or text or something thatthey've created, gets resold on
a third party site? Like, whatis this T chip or something? So
(10:51):
we talked a lot about good botsand bad bots, which are, you
Brandon Minnick (10:58):
know, just thinking about that, as you're
describing, it's like, somebodyprobably owns the rights to
these images or to text and thebot just makes it like, Oh, no,
something doesn't sound quitelegal there. But
Chloe Condon (11:13):
it's something interesting that I learned,
because someone that I follow onInstagram, who's an artist, um,
sells enamel pins, and I learnedthrough this account, they did
like an Instagram story thatshared if you don't have and I
noticed this now when I turnaround any enamel pin, and I, I
encourage all of you to checkout your own enamel pins. If it
doesn't, on the back have anengraving that has like a
(11:34):
registered trademark or any orcopyright. It's basically free
reign for anyone to copy, whichis why we see you know, even
places like Urban Outfitters orwish especially or some of these
resale markets, resellingpeople's art without paying for
it, essentially. So this is myPSA, that if you're building
software in general, andespecially if you're building
bots Don't do this. This this isnot good. But you can learn all
(11:57):
about that on the stream. Wetalk all about ethical bots,
diva bots, all the bots really
Brandon Minnick (12:05):
aka.ms slash got bots, what the newer one,
Chloe Condon (12:09):
and soon when you go to aka.ms slash got bots,
it'll take you to a lovely devto post with all of the
summaries of episodes. That's myafternoon today. Um, yeah, so
check that out. And then also, Igot to host the static web apps
calm. Last week. That was superfun. I learned all about Azure
static web apps. There are abunch of announcements. JOHN
(12:30):
Papa keynoted it and kept weeven had some I thought of you,
Brandon, because we thought wenot only talked about Disney, a
little bit on it. Because johnPapa worked at Disney and before
and one of the first websites Iever went to was the 101
domination live action moviesstatic web page. But yeah, we
(12:52):
also talked about geo cities, myspace, all of the fun stuff that
we talked about on this show. Soyou can check that out@aka.ms
slash swa calm? Um, yeah, thatwas my way. It was very busy.
Yeah, big announcement day. Oh,yes. But I think we need to
bring in our guest, because wehave a lot to talk about, um,
(13:14):
should I just say, I'm going toenter this person, because I'm
going to, we're going to get allinto their origin story today.
But let me let me tell you aboutthe origin story of our guest
and my life. So once upon atime, back in the days where we
could meet in person forconferences, I was at Twilio,
(13:35):
Joe's signal conference in SanFrancisco. And I was on Twitter
tweeting about Tony Hawk,because Tony Hawk was giving a
talk, I did not mean to makethat rhyme. And I immediately
found this individual on theinterwebs. And I was like, Oh,
my gosh, this person's going tobe my friend. We hung out for
the whole day. They showed meall of the cool design stuff
(13:58):
they were doing. And they said,What What's your job? What do
you do? And I said, Oh, youknow, I'm a, I'm a developer
evangelist or developeradvocate. And she said, Oh, I
want to do that. And noweveryone, she works on the same
team as me. Where's it Microsofthere with us? Welcome to the
show. Cloud aggregate. Cloudadvocate, April. Hi. How are
(14:21):
you? Welcome to the show. Ican't believe this is your first
time on the show. I feel likewe've talked about you a lot on
the show.
Brandon Minnick (14:29):
Oh, good.
Thanks.
Chloe Condon (14:33):
Um, tell tell.
Tell them about yourself.
April Speight (14:36):
Yeah, I will preface this by saying that I
hear we're doing a lot ofexclusive today and
announcements. So I have anexclusive for you all later. But
in any case, and you'reliterally the first like large
audience to know cuz he'llprobably tell my boyfriend. So
in any case, I'm April Speight.
And I work with in spatialcomputing at Microsoft, and I do
think within the area of mixedreality, augmented reality,
(15:01):
virtual reality, and basically Idon't live in reality I live in
what's the fake world, most ofthe time. I prefer it that way.
But in any case, I've beenworking in this area for
officially one year and a halfunofficially, two years. But my
programming background is inPython. But my actual career
(15:23):
background where I spent themost amount of my time has been
in project management, andprogram management. Before that,
I worked in the luxury fashionindustry, I was a menswear
stylist as well as a visualmerchandiser. And basically, I
got to create art, which wasfun. So if you're unfamiliar
with what visual merchandisingis, it includes working on store
(15:45):
windows, so if you ever walkedpast, I feel like there's not
too many places that make themess fancy nowadays, but if you
ever go to New York during theholidays, and if you walk past
Bergdorf Goodman, theirelaborate sort of windows,
that's what I did. And then notfor Bergdorf, but, but for other
companies. And then also thathas to do with moving things
(16:06):
around in the store, whether itbe the way that clothes are laid
out, yada yada the whole pointwas to make you all want to buy
it and believe it or not.
There's been times where we'vehad like a pile of clothes, just
or like maybe it was a say itwas like a sweatshirt. It's been
folded up. It's been about amonth, no one's touching it. And
(16:27):
then Believe it or not, you canmove it to the right restyle it.
And all of a sudden, it fliesoff the shelf. And it's just
like,
Chloe Condon (16:34):
like you out for clothes.
April Speight (16:37):
Yes, pretty much.
That's pretty much what it is.
And a lot of it comes down topsychology somehow. But that's
what I did. And then styling.
menswear was my preferred I didsomewhere it's a much as some
women's wear too. But workingwith men and dressing them, in
my opinion was more fun. Andafter a while, I realized that
(16:57):
it didn't pay much to do eithervotes unless you worked in
corporate and you were the onethat was telling people what to
do. So I figured, okay, I needsomething else that's going to
be sustainable long term. And Ihad this background in project
management. So then I said,Alright, I'm gonna go be a
project manager didn't know atthe time that most of the jobs
(17:17):
and project management were init. And I had no it background
on paper. But I knew computers.
And so when I interviewed for aninternship, that was literally
IT project management intern,like what are the odds side it's
like exact title. My seniordirector at the time when he did
(17:37):
his interview with me, heliterally walked in with a my
resume and he said, Do you likecomputers? And I say, Yeah, he
was like, that's all I need toknow. And I like that dinner.
Yes, absolutely. And, you know,to be fair, for folks at home, I
did have a more formal interviewprior to that with the person
(17:58):
who became my manager where weactually talk through my
history, but for the person whowas higher than her. That's
literally what he came in andsaid, he was a very, very great,
great leader for our entire ITdepartment. But I did that. The
first time I did anythingremotely close to programming
was running SQL reports. I have30 minutes to learn. We had an
(18:19):
individual who was retiringearly, and someone were divided.
Yeah, so tell you why 30minutes. So one of our guys on
our team, he was retiring. Andwe divided up all of his
workload, and all that was leftwith running SQL reports. And so
at that point, I volunteeredbecause I said, Oh, I'm
(18:41):
interested in that. And he onlyhad 30 minutes before he had to
go. So that's why I only have 30minutes to learn. And so he gave
me like, quickest Crash Coursepossible. And fortunately for
me, I had a background in, inlogic, so as it relates to like
philosophy, because I did somephilosophy and undergrad and a
(19:04):
lot of that has to do with notlogic, almost, I'm sorry, go
syntax. I had six majors incollege. But anyways, I had a
background with syntax because Iwas studying linguistics, um, at
one point was my major and sothat helped a lot. For me, I was
able to understand patterns ofputting together
(19:25):
what I needed for SQL reports.
So that's how once he left Ijust kept at it um, I feel like
this was before googlingprogramming concepts was really
like a thing because it wasn'tlike that much online. And so
there weren't all these likefabulous online courses or
YouTube videos that you can gotry out. So it was a lot of kind
of self learning. I did that andI was still doing pm work some
(19:50):
time went by different companiesstill doing pm work. And then I
decided Alright, I think I wantto do some programming. I
thought I wanted to do data,data science. And so that's how
I started with Python. And thenI realized I hated data science.
And then I said, Okay, I need touse this programming skill that
I now have learned. And so Idiscovered chatbots through
(20:11):
Twilio, actually, and I feellike that only really came to be
because I went to a Tullio tevent. And I felt so behind
going through all of theactivities that day. And the
thing about me is, if I feellike I don't get something, and
everyone else does, I'm gonnawork my butt off to figure it
(20:33):
out. And that's really whathappened, I spent the next like,
three months or so reallystrengthening my Python
background. Because my job Ididn't go to school for
programming. And I had to do iton my own in my free time. And
so I started doing that gotreally into working with
chatbots and AI assistants. Andthen I also started doing
(20:55):
YouTube videos, because I, forme, personally, the best way for
me to learn is to teach. Andthen I also figured that I
couldn't be the only person thathad issues with learning with
some of the different onlinefree courses that are out here
on the internet, as well as someof the different YouTube videos.
And so I started relatingprogramming concepts to the
(21:15):
thing I knew best, which wasfashion, as well as like pop
culture movies, like Mean Girls,for example. So I was doing
that. And then that's when I gotquote, unquote, discovered by my
acquisitions editor at Wiley, mypublisher, and he had reached
out and acts that I think aboutwriting a book, I thought I was
(21:35):
being catfished. And I went.
Turns out he was very much real.
And so
Chloe Condon (21:43):
pause here and say, all of this stuff that
April's talking about happenedin the last four. Want to say,
right, yeah, like, happening ina very short amount of time. And
yeah, being April's friend makesme both proud and exhaustive.
You never know, for people athome who are listening to
(22:04):
April's story about beingworking in you said fashion,
merchandising, what you cannotsee. And what I recommend taking
a look at on our YouTube is justhow beautiful April's background
is. And I want to buy everythingand it shows in your work.
April Speight (22:22):
Thank you. Yeah.
Once I got quote, unquote,discovered, for technical
writing, I wrote my first book,which is bite sized Python
introduction to Pythonprogramming. And then after
that, I wrote a second bookVisual Studio code for Python
programmers, which if this was achance for behat graphics, I
would say exclusive exclusive,because the book is available as
(22:44):
of today, to purchase and haveit mailed to you. So if you
happen to either go to we'resharing a link as well, but also
on my website, Bowden code. comthat's vo G and D, CO, D, or you
can go to APR space comm it'llredirect there, there is a
(23:07):
section on my site that pointsyou to links for the book for
the newest book. I'm not thateveryone loves Amazon. But if
you go in there, you'll see thatit is available for order now we
were doing pre orders for acouple of months. But literally
today is the day where it's likeofficial, like officially out.
And so if you get today, whichis the seventh it'll arrive
(23:30):
Friday, which is two days fromnow. My math is right. So So
yeah, I wrote that. I discoveredmixed reality. Thanks to
Twitter, I saw a demo that washappening at one of our
Microsoft conferences. And itwasn't that it was they were
using a HoloLens it was more sothat they were doing real time
(23:51):
speech translation with theHoloLens during like a
conference kind of call. And sothe whole speech part is what
got me because as I mentioned, Ibriefly was a linguistics major.
So foreign languages is like mything. And I asked for help to
get started. I got some folks atMicrosoft to help out some folks
(24:14):
from Magic Leap to help out andthen I was learning, learning
learning. Six months later, Ijoined my team here at
Microsoft, and that's where I'vebeen since still learning as new
things are coming out and I feellike with that particular tech
area, you never know what'sgoing to happen next and we
refer to it as emerging tech. Soit's emerging and again just
(24:36):
never know what's new. So that'sme in a nutshell.
Chloe Condon (24:42):
I know nothing jail just like we're in a new
language.
Brandon Minnick (24:51):
I love that you went from hating Python, to
literally writing two books.
What are the odds right The mostquintessential example of a love
hate relationship.
April Speight (25:04):
Yeah. And it took some work to because I feel that
the for our job and death row,we write different type of
content, tutorials and what haveyou. And when it comes to
technical writing, especiallywhen you're doing like a
programming like for programminglike introduction, you really
(25:25):
like have to humble yourself ormore so it humbles you because
you start to realize what youactually don't know. And
fortunately, the tech, mytechnical editor, I got to
choose who it was. And he hadwritten books on Python for
like, probably as long as I'vebeen alive. So I was very
fortunate to have him he'sdefinitely he was patient with
(25:46):
everything. But when it comes tobook writing, yeah, you might
feel like you're an expertheading into it. And then when
you start trying to explain thewhy behind certain things, it's
like, Oh, you know what, I don'tknow why. And so it's a
humbling. It is definitely ahumbling process. And if you
don't do well, receivingfeedback, likely This is going
(26:08):
to be challenging for you.
Because as many folks I spokenwith who have written books. The
one common thing is as gettingedits back from the editor, and
like things are all commentaryor comments, they are comments.
They're delete this, delete thatand it's just like, I spent two
weeks writing this great. Yeah,yeah. But you know, for any of
(26:29):
you who do pursue book writing,especially in the technical
area, I think my manager said itbest is just that your editors
really want you to succeed, theywant the book to succeed as
well. So all the feedback thatyou get, yeah, might sometimes
be like a hit to your ego. Butthe whole purpose is to make
sure that the book issuccessful. So if you keep that
in the back of your head, youknow, throw yourself a little
(26:51):
pity party for like 10 minutes,and then just get back to
writing. So that's one thing Ican definitely recommend if you
decide to write technical books,
Brandon Minnick (27:02):
even in the comments, like john was saying,
it's that it's the old DunningKruger effect, where he said he
thought he knew so much moreabout Python before going
further in depth with it. Andyeah, it's so true. I feel like
yeah, as, as programmers, we,we, there's high highs and low
(27:22):
lows. So yeah, this amazing Hi,where maybe you just published
your app or your website, orwhatever it might be, and like,
I'm the best developer in theworld. And then you try to like
fix a bug. I have no idea whatI'm doing. Exactly. I don't know
anything.
Chloe Condon (27:39):
Computers are usually like metal or plastic.
And I'm shocked that they don'tjust come like in a foam like a
Nerf gun like foam. Because mywant and desire to throw my
computer, especially when Ifirst started programming and
just like could not figure outcertain bugs even today, really,
I feel like we need to makethese things less damaged.
(28:00):
Because it's true. Like one day,I remember vividly, April, and
I've worked on a projecttogether where she stayed up all
night. Like she truly means thatshe was like, I will work on
this
April Speight (28:11):
until I figure it out. And mind you it was a
language that I don't doanything with it was JavaScript,
and I do nothing withJavaScript. So yeah, that's how
I felt.
But we made it.
Chloe Condon (28:26):
April, you have a million bajillion hobbies, and
we will not be able to coverthem on the show. Among them,
y'all. One time, April was likeI want to learn how to remix
Africa by Toto, and then shesigned up for a DJ class the
next day. But you also have ashared passion of Barbies. Tell
(28:49):
us about your Barbie hobby. So Ihave my friends with me. I
brought them all today. So
April Speight (28:59):
I'm gonna, I'm gonna first intro my background
with Barbies. I grew up as aBarbie collector. And I was that
kid whose parents bought two ofthe same Barbies one to play
with one to collect. And I had areally good collection one of my
neighbors she had like an entirebedroom dedicated to Barbie. So
(29:19):
like I grew up in a townhouseand like under those housing,
like one of those developmentsfor like all the houses with the
same. And so my bedroom and thatwoman's house was a Barbie room,
and she had the whole roomfilled with Barbies. And I was
like, Oh my goodness, I want tobe you when I grow up. So that's
how I got into Barbie. And thenI eventually ended up selling my
(29:40):
collection. Kind of like for meonce if anyone knows, like how
the Beanie Baby market was andstill is, that's pretty much how
the Barbie market is. But incase I didn't do much with
Barbies for your couple yearsafter that, and then one day I
just decided to look up Barbieon social media, as most people
(30:01):
do, and I noticed that there'san entire world where people
pretty much create little minisets and put the Barbies in
different like positions andstuff, and they photograph them
and it becomes like a wholething. And there's a whole world
of people who do this, there'sYouTube videos dedicated to how
(30:22):
you can go about. Usually, Iusually share, like how you can
rethread their hair, how you canstyle their hair, how you can
make Barbie clothes, how you canmake all other different like
accessories and stuff in thehouse. And so, or the room that
you're working with. So ifyou're curious as to like what
that even looks like, I'm goingto share my screen so you all
(30:42):
can see this hobby that I'vegotten into, let me get this set
up for you all. So this is whatI'm referring to. People
actually spend hours working onthings like this. What's great,
and you might be wondering, forthose who of you who are
familiar with Barbies, thatBarbies historically didn't have
(31:03):
a lot of joints. So their armswere like the way you put them.
Now they make Barbies with Iforget how many joints are part
of the Barbie, but they have allthese joints that you can move
and pose them in different ways.
And so when you see Barbies,like the one that I have on the
left with the blonde hair andthe sunglasses, her hand is
sitting on her cheek, which youtraditionally you couldn't do
(31:23):
that with a regular Barbie doll.
But nowadays you can. And so youcan pose them all sorts of ways.
And people do this as a hobby,and I fell in love with it. And
even like on the table. No, keepin mind these things are Barbie
size. I think it's like a 112scale. So as you're putting
items out on the table, there'slike a nail file. There's like
(31:45):
an eyelash curler. But it's nothuman size. like someone's
making these teeny tiny objects.
Chloe Condon (31:53):
Image and there's there's kind of a What do they
call that like a poster boardbehind the bulletin board and
I'm like our little tiny Barbiesized push pins in there.
April Speight (32:04):
They might there might be so like I have a couple
of examples like the next oneshe has on a tweed jacket. And
she's at her computer she haslike a cell phone next to her
like in the background. She hasa rack of like clothes because
I'm assuming she's a fashiondesigner. And then like on this
next one how meta is that? Mygosh, Barbie dolls with a Barbie
(32:26):
house?
Chloe Condon (32:29):
blowing my mind.
I'm zooming in are there littleBarbies in there?
April Speight (32:35):
No, no, but that would have been great. That
would have actually been reallygreat. So like yes, it's like in
for some of the images dependingon who makes them. So like back
on the first one where her armhas been facing on her cheek.
You don't see the joint therebecause people will take these
photos that they shoot and putthem in Photoshop, and they'll
like edit the photos out to makeit look more realistic, which is
(32:56):
so cool. So back to my ownstory. And when to start trying
that out. I bought a coupledifferent Barbies in hopes of
being diverse with all my girls.
This one is bald, and thisrepresents when I actually cut
all my hair off duringquarantine because who doesn't
do that during a quarantine.
Chloe Condon (33:13):
Orange, the neon orange thing but I feel like
April Speight (33:16):
it's a thing. And then I bought this one FAO
Schwarz which is like if you'reinto toys, that's like the
pinnacle of toy shops. And sothis one is kind of hard to see
with my ring light but it's arobotics engineer doll. And so I
got her for that reason. Andplus she has a laptop. So that's
like one less thing that I needto get.
Chloe Condon (33:33):
I have that one on my desk in the Microsoft Office.
It's been there alone for a yearso it's probably come to light.
April Speight (33:42):
Yes, then I just got this one recently. She's a
looks one. I love that Mattelcame out with this collection
because they have different bodytypes. The hair is great, they
look they're more fashionforward and the way they do
certain details. Also, theyretail for like stupid, crazy
expensive prices once they'resold out. So that's I'm not
(34:02):
going to end up opening herunfortunately. But if any of you
happen to collect them, hold onto it. I love this one as well.
Um, I think she's short too.
Yeah. Which is great becauseshe's, you know, not like Barbie
hi and she's a bit she has a bitmore more the body shape that
like I wish I had but she alsohas some really nice braids. And
(34:23):
this one I liked her Afro andshe has blue lipstick. Like how
amazing is that? And the lastone was gently Chloe, you got me
this one and I also had one aswell which is perfect because
now I have two of them. But thisis one of the first ones like
styles they came out with wherethey had all the different poses
you can do. So I'm going to getinto that at some point soon
(34:46):
hopefully and again, start justmaking all these different
Barbie sets. So I'm like reallylooking forward to that and like
before we hop off the Barbieinformation. I do want to share
one other hobby I picked uplately, which is like not hobby,
but a hobby. So as I was turning31, I realized that I wasn't
(35:09):
sure how much I wanted to be onsocial media, as much as I
actually really love Instagram,if anything, because I love all
the photos. But then I alsorealized that I wasn't
photographing as much when Iwent out. And I feel that a lot
of photos that were on socialmedia were being more perfected.
(35:29):
And I don't know if anyonefollows this around Macau
influencers in the wild isn'tAlyssa hilarious account. But
like things like that, I don'tmind for other people to do it.
But I felt like I didn't havethe time to do that. And I
really love capturing moments asthey are rather than what they
could be. And so naturally, Iwent to Etsy and bought an
(35:52):
actual vintage Polaroid camera.
And it actually works. This oneis from the 80s. So it's like,
yeah,
Brandon Minnick (36:07):
so 20 years,
April Speight (36:09):
right? So what I've been doing, whenever I go
out nowadays, I try to captureat least one photo while I'm out
sometimes have to take twobecause I'm not always sure how
the lighting is going to workout. But I'm on there. If I have
like a decent picture to sharewith you all, I have just one
(36:29):
that turned out actually reallywell. So this car, um, it was
like a picture of one. I took apicture of a car that's over on
roadeo near where I live. Andthis one actually came out
really well. And I've taken someof people and when people hear
you taking a picture of them,they're just like, Oh, wait,
(36:49):
wait a second, I want to youknow, get myself together. And
I'm like, Alright, I'm like,Alright, now this is how we're
taking a picture and there's nodo over so. And I've just been
collecting Polaroid pictures andkeeping them in my drawer
because I want those memories. Iwant to look back and you never
remember exactly how that momentwas and how it was captured. And
(37:11):
I love that you can't edit it. Ilove that you don't know what it
looks like until the film likedevelops, if you will. And so
you have those photos, I justdon't share them with anybody
that just from my own littleeyes. And so those are my
current
Chloe Condon (37:23):
hobbies to middle school. Maybe I'm aging myself
here we had these things calledInsta pics. They were like, Oh,
yeah, many in my locker. April,I love that you're taking up
this Barbie hobby. I'm going toshare my screen here. I'm
starting to see this trend. Sowhen we were younger April and
(37:44):
are about the same age, therewas not a lot of girls, computer
science toys or content outthere. And I love this new trend
of girly, girly or feminineleaning toys that are
encouraging young girls to getpewter science. The newest
American Girl course is fromthat ninis and she's a game
(38:06):
designer. It's really oh it'skind of Stranger Things
aesthetic. She's got a cassetteplayer, she's playing Pac Man.
And I have my original AmericanGirl Macintosh. So like this is
something that I've kept fromage Gosh, like six or something.
And it works it has like theoriginal Macintosh software on
(38:26):
it. You could press the keyboardit does little like spreadsheets
and constellation shirts. And Ithink it's so important that the
people making this contentunderstand the industry are
making sure to include like adiverse perspective and I'm so
excited I you have to share thehandle when you
April Speight (38:45):
Oh, that was the other thing like I forgot the
biggest detail because you whenyou mentioned tech and more
feminine leaning. So for all thedolls and what I'm doing they're
actually all going to be techthemed. So it's just like a
purely Barbie tech settings, ifyou will different photos and
I'm meant to text you backChloe, I'll do that after we get
(39:07):
done. I need help with a handleand I needed to be something
because Chloe's good at namingthings. I fall short of that. So
what I was looking for when Iwas looking to the left, I have
I should have grabbed it. Idon't think it's out here. Maybe
it's in my background. Yeah, I'mgonna grab it really quick for
(39:31):
everyone at home. So because Iknow that Chloe loves this
topic. So because I used to workin fashion I can also sew as
well and I've been doing thatsince like Middle School. I
bought a sewing clothes forBarbie book. Like what are the
(39:52):
odds right? And it has like,patterns in here for different
things that you can make forlike Barbie size and so on. I'm
like gonna be fully committed tothis particular craft. And
because I have a Cricut machine,you know, you can cut out wood
and everything with it. And sothat's how I'll be making more
like her furniture andBarbie, I pretty much Yes.
Brandon Minnick (40:20):
It's amazing.
Yeah, cuz actually, Rob, in thecomments was asking when you
were going through the photos ofthe different Barbie scenes and
he's asking if that laptop waslike a 3d printed paint kind of
thing It sounds like might bedo, you can use a milling
machine.
April Speight (40:38):
Yeah, and people get really creative with like
how they make stuff, which iswhat I really appreciate. And
like, for me personally, I havespent a couple hours on
Pinterest creating a Pinterestboard of like real life, places
that I love and trying to findthings that I can replicate. But
it's a sorry, that was my frontdoor. But um, it's just a really
(40:59):
cool thing. Because you canreally stretch your your
thinking of your creativity ofhow you can make stuff without
like defaulting going to Etsyand just buying something
because there's a whole marketof people who also make all the
little light furniture to andaccessories, which I won't get
into right now. But it's thewhole thing,
Chloe Condon (41:18):
right? Like to scale and like, yeah, I can only
imagine, you know, the imagethat you showed earlier of two
Barbies at a desk with a bunchof papers. Even just getting the
font size, correct. Yeah,there's so many different,
April Speight (41:33):
like, it's just Yes, it's and it's it's, it's a
lot of it's one of those hobbiesthat you don't spend like 10
minutes holding, you're done.
Like you can spend hours likesomeone did like a time lapse on
YouTube a purchase, creatinglike a room. And I think was it
three or five hours that shetook just doing that one room.
So I love that I love that ittakes time. I love that I have a
(41:54):
lot of time dedicated towardsit, because I'm not writing
books right now. And I'm nottaking on anything
extracurricular. So outside oflike my work life, I just have a
lot of free time now. And I whatI think I love most about it too
is that I'm doing it for fun. Idon't want any like financial
gain from it. Because I feellike once you add that to the
(42:14):
mix, that's when it starts tobecome less fun. So I'm just
doing it just to like, have itnow, where will this live in my
home? I don't know. You're out.
I have a blank wall in front ofme. And I saw someone's
Instagram account recently thatdoes these, but not Barbie, but
she just makes like little likemini homes and stuff. And she
(42:36):
has like an entire row on a wallof like little mini houses where
she just goes and change themout every so often. So I might
do something like that. We'llsee. But I can't wait because
it'll be tech theme. And it'slike how many like, I know
there's like, as far as I know,there's like a tech Barbie
Instagram account, but like tobe able to see this collective
(42:59):
group of Barbies workingtogether in tech. And like for
me, getting black parties wassuper important because like
growing up those were the onlyones Well, not the only ones cuz
I had some that were likemulticultural from different
parts of the world. But most ofmy collection were black Barbie
dolls. And so I'm always feelit's important to get you know,
more more minorities in tech,but now to have like this Barbie
(43:20):
account, if you will, thatdepicts that in that form. And
they all look different. So I'mgoing to start with that. And
then I'll slowly startincorporating some of the other.
I don't wanna say Mattel callsand racist but for lack of
better terms, more racism to itas well. But I mean, right now I
have six Barbie dolls. So I'mgonna play with those first. And
(43:41):
then I'll start adding ones tothe mix. So
Chloe Condon (43:44):
the attention to detail on this account, like
we're going to look over aBarbie shoulder and they're
going to be logged into teamsand have like a mini document.
Brandon Minnick (43:55):
website on Azure. Yeah, and I
April Speight (44:00):
want to like document it also more than just
like the Barbie style accountthat I showed they just only
show like the finished product.
I think I want to do more bylike actually doing like short
Instagram reels, for example oflike how to make certain pieces.
And then of course show thefinal product. But I think it's
one of those things where youdon't need a you don't need a
perfect photo to show process.
(44:22):
You know, I mean, the onlyperfect photo you need is the
end result. And so I like that Ilove that for me.
Chloe Condon (44:29):
I love this comment in the chat, which I'm
sure you can relate to Aprilwhich is from Rob that says I
played board games in VR. And Ilove how you can pick up virtual
objects and just see all thecool intricacies. I catch the
same vibe on those RV directYes, I think you probably kind
of do that a lot in your ownmixture. Yeah,
April Speight (44:48):
for work. Yeah.
When you're working with you allcomes down to 3d modeling, which
is in no way my forte I've triedit I gave up but there are Folks
who you know, who do make 3dmodels of stuff, and you can
make things very, very detailed.
And so like for me coming up,what I'll be making want to try
(45:10):
two different ways, I'm going todeal with VR, as well as an AR
version with the HoloLens. Andthen the VR for Oculus quest up
a bowling alley, and the abilityto like, pick up a bowling ball,
roll it and hit pins and keepscore and everything. So there's
not too much detail with abowling ball, you know, or the
(45:30):
pins, but, um, being able tocreate games like that, which is
like typical work that I do,which is why I love what I do.
But I've also done like a mixedreality, new Sam, the
Smithsonian, for those of youwho aren't familiar, the
Smithsonian, many, many yearsago, a family who donated
(45:51):
museums, at least in the DCarea, as far as I know, that
said, but they're all free forthe general public to go to a
tip. Because if it's theSmithsonian Museum, that all
these museums, but just to Sonyin one's any case, they came out
with a 3d collection of 3dmodels that are royalty free.
And you can, you can use them inany projects. And so I ended up
(46:16):
using a pair of boots from TheWiz of like, The Wiz is boots.
And you can have to pick it up,there's just so much detail. And
on the bottom, you can see thatit's written that says The Wiz
on it. And so I just love howdetailed you can get when you're
making 3d models. And, you know,I've also just done some VR
(46:37):
things that just feel real,which is a like another thing
like I played, if anyone outthere, they're playing Ritchie's
plank, it is two differentversions of it, there is like, a
little I mean, regardless, it'sall kind of scary, depending on
if you're afraid of heights. Butthere's a scary mode, where you
end up in like this dark room.
And there's like this ResidentEvil Stiles zombie sort of
(46:59):
thing, like walking towards you,and then it runs towards you.
And so like, That felt realbecause you're in the dark, and
you kind of forget that you'relike you're in VR, but I went on
a tangent there. But it's alsowhile working in an area where I
work because you can reallyescape from what's happening
around you. And this year, I'llbe doing more with VR. So if
anyone's working in that area,firstly, if you're a beginner,
(47:22):
and you want to learn more ofhow to develop for VR, I will be
your go to as we're heading intothis new year at work. So yeah,
we got that going on soon.
Chloe Condon (47:36):
I just love the idea of making an indoor bowling
alley in your home moreaccessible because growing up in
90s television, very like I'mthinking like, first kid, blank
check. Catch dry, but eventhough that was like not their
house, yeah, I feel like now wecan. It's almost like open
(47:57):
sourcing bowling alleys forhomes. I love that. Yeah, free a
free bowling alley in everyhome.
April Speight (48:03):
Which by the way, whenever I do create projects
for work, I always posted in arepo on GitHub, because I
there's nothing I can do with itbeyond make it but I always post
these things. So for people whoare watching content that I do,
because I always did my YouTubevideos like actual like super
thorough walkthrough. You know,once it's posted, go take it, go
(48:23):
do whatever with the code thatyou want, if you decide to turn
it into like an award winninggame app, and by all means,
like, go do that. I do it tohelp folks who, you know, who
need that start somewhere. Andthat's why I really love about
the work that I do. Because forme, I do a lot more with
beginners. And so I like beingable to provide that foundation
(48:44):
for them to get started withwhatever area of xR that they're
working in. And I'm happy when Iknow people are actually
watching the content or readingthe content and actually using
it that makes me most happy. Andif I can do that, and you're
satisfied with it, great if youget the beat, honestly just
going through it even if youdon't like it. So you have to
(49:05):
know that you've gone through atutorial and you ran into a
problem, or at least lets meknow that you actually went
through the tutorial and peopleare actually, you know, looking
at the stuff that I put out intothe world, but hopefully you
don't run into issues. So yeah,that's my philosophy on the work
that I do.
Brandon Minnick (49:23):
Now, there is a new movie coming out that you've
had some partnership with. Yes.
Can we talk about that? Yeah.
Because Are we allowed to talkabout the movies. But the work I
did is out? Yes. Tell us aboutthat. But yeah,
April Speight (49:46):
Space Jam to you like to see. And Microsoft did a
collaboration with WarnerBrothers for the movie. There
were learned modules that werecreated and one of the modules
that I contributed to wasn'tmixed reality app of a player
roster for the tune squatcharacters. And so essentially,
(50:09):
if you have one I did mine forHoloLens you have on the
HoloLens. When you start theapp, you can see all the players
in like squares. And then if youwere to select like Elmer Fudd,
for example, it would show hisstats. And the one stat that we
use in the example is the playerefficiency rating, which pretty
much depicts how good the playeris. And so you can tap it, see
(50:35):
it, you can close it. And thewhole purpose was to explore
different features of that mixedreality toolkit, which is a
toolkit that I primarily use inmy work, it helps us celebrate
your mixed reality development.
And just a lot of featuresinclude it where if you're
familiar with Unity, the engine,UK, it's kind of almost like,
not drag and drop this, thatpipe necessarily drag and drop,
(50:56):
but you can just add thecomponents from the mixed
reality toolkit saves a lot oftime that start from scratch. So
like from my project, we use alot of buttons. And so you know,
it's one thing to create abutton from scratch, which you
can totally do, or you can uselike pre made buttons, I
demonstrated both actually inthe Learn module. So that way,
you can learn how to do fromscratch and also how to use the
(51:18):
ones that prefabs that areincluded. And so that's the
collaboration that we did. Andthat project Oh, my goodness. So
what I created learning lessonis to make sure that you can
actually thoroughly create whatyou say you want to do before
committing to it. Because theidea came from an existing app.
(51:39):
And I quickly realized that itdidn't do 100% what I wanted to
do, and I had to create a muchmore simpler version, or I
guess, more approachable versionof creating from scratch. And I
did some pair programming withone of the developers over the
mixed reality team to solve someissues. It's I think we took
(51:59):
like, two or three days just topair program, we didn't quite
find a resolution. And then oneday I sat there, I went through
every line of code in thescripts that I had available
from the original project. Andlo Behold, I figured it out. And
so you know, like when youfigure out an issue, when you're
programming, you feel like thesmartest person in the world at
(52:20):
that point. And that's how Ifelt. And of course, like no, no
one was around to know, becausethat's how it always is. But
that was a nice lesson learned.
So yeah, I finished it though.
It's on Microsoft learn. If youhappen to be on learning or
browsing through the catalog, ifyou type in Space Jam on that's
going to docs on microsoft.comslash learn if you search for
(52:43):
Space Jam, there's a learningpath available on there. And two
other folks, Sarah couples, Dr.
duffles, she led everything soshe also created learn modules
as well for for thecollaboration. And then Cassie,
I don't want to mess up her lastname. Is it break you review?
(53:03):
Yes. She also contributed shedid a a Babylon JS version of
what I created. So if workingwith web is more your thing, you
can check out her version of theLearn module. It's within that
learning path. And yeah, that'sthat's what I've worked on
recently. And I love it.
Chloe Condon (53:21):
I have an exclusive announcement starting
in August, myself and ornellawill be walking through a caceis
module reactor. So I'm going tolearn all about basketball
y'all. Pe player er, er. Yeah.
Well, did you ever think inmillion years April that first
(53:41):
of all, you'd be working intech. And second of all, that
you'd be like moving around aLola bunny with your hands and
your code? Like was that everanything in your line of sight
when choosing your college majoryour career?
April Speight (53:59):
Not in the least bit and like I went to college?
Well, I'm with college for a lotof things. But the major that I
ended up with at the end of theday was global business and
public policy, which is a fancytitle for international
business. And then, for gradschool, I got my master's in
luxury and fashion management.
So neither tech related. And Ifeel Honestly, I actually use
(54:20):
both degrees in my job now. Andso even though I do a lot of
creating tutorial content andapps, at the end of the day,
because like we have like jobswhere there is like an actual
outcome and goals that we needto meet. I'm very business
oriented. And so understandinghow to strategize around the
(54:40):
work that I do and then helpingout our team and the work that
we do. That's for that businessbackground comes comes into
play. And then when you're doingbusiness, there's also the
marketing side of stuff as well.
So amplify whatever it is thatyou create in our case, and then
for the fashion back record andfashion Management background,
(55:01):
we had an entire course that welike dedicated to Adobe Creative
Suite. And so knowing how to usethose different products and
tools is really helpfulunderstanding the design process
too, because for the area whereI work, and like really all the
areas that we work in tech,where there's a visual component
to it, you really have tounderstand the designing
principles around it. And sounderstanding color and things
(55:24):
of that nature. It's veryimportant in my role, so even
though my even though my degreeisn't necessarily computer
science, I still use both for mydegrees in my job, and it's a
matter of finding transferableskills and applying them to the
job that I have.
Chloe Condon (55:41):
I just can't get over. One at the beginning of
this episode, you mentioned thatyou could move a shirt a couple
inches to the right and no offthe shelf. I can't get over how
translatable that is to buildingYeah, like yeah, truly, it's a
matter of like changing a buttoncolor moving it or making it
more accessible or within your,your frame of view. I can only
(56:04):
imagine how many times this hasjust popped up throughout your
tech where like, Oh, that'snifty.
April Speight (56:10):
Yeah, pretty much. So yeah, I know, for those
of you who are either startingout, or you're considering
transitioning, just really thinkabout the skills you do have.
And honestly, sometimes youmight not have the skills that
you need heading to the next,your next step. And like for me,
I'm heading into mixed reality.
I didn't do anything mixedreality. I mean, I had to learn
(56:31):
a whole new programminglanguage, I had to learn C
sharp, so you might not haveeverything, but it's really
great to, you know, to use whatyou do have and then recognize
where what might be yourweaknesses and do all that you
can to strengthen them. Also, Ilove to have let people know
this. The I know that the casefor every job that you might
walk into or go into. But youdon't have to know everything.
(56:55):
You don't have to be an expertin a certain area. Like
literally in two weeks, I'mspending most of my time only
doing VR content, like learningVR stuff. And that's it. So
there's opportunities to learnon the job and don't feel like
you can't apply until you'relike expert level in the area
there there will be times tostill learn new things.
Brandon Minnick (57:19):
Such a good message. And and also Yeah, just
like you said earlier, your,your degree doesn't define you
or your lack of degree doesn'tdefine you just because you
graduated with a four yeardegree or two year degree or
didn't even do it doesn't meanyou can't get into new things
and learn new things. And I'dsay if anything April taught us
(57:41):
today is just we can learnanything we put our mind to.
We're always learning we'realways evolving. It's just been
such an amazing, amazingconversation. April I'm so
inspired. For we only have acouple minutes left.
Unfortunately, this has been anamazing conversation. But for
the people at home where wherecan they find you? Where can
(58:01):
they follow more of April'swisdom?
April Speight (58:04):
Yes, you can follow me on twitter at vogon
code. We do have it here in thisconversation but for those of
you who are listening vlg Ue aand d c od e that's also my
Instagram account and that'slikely where I'll let folks know
when this Barbie Instagramaccount exists. And so you could
(58:24):
check me out cater Yes, and yeahmy website building code comm
that's where I have my contactinformation if you have any
questions and it's info atBowden code comm so that's where
you can find me. And if youhappen to be in LA you can
(58:46):
likely find me outside somewhereprobably over a roadeo since I
live very close, so
Chloe Condon (58:52):
I really cannot wait to visit you go to
Cheesecake Factory. It's beenway too long since I've given
bread. Yeah. Brandon close outthe show because there's a
helicopter outside my window.
And there's like cops outsidemine. So
Brandon Minnick (59:09):
hopefully everybody stay safe. But thank
you everyone for Joanie, get ajoining us again this week. I'm
your host Brandon Minnick withChloe content and April Speight.
Please visit us next week. We'llbe here at the same time. Make
sure to go to a pitstop TV tosubscribe to the podcast. Give
us a rating five stars, leave agreat review help other people
(59:30):
find it and we will see you nextweek. Bye
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