Episode Transcript
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Chloe Condon (02:02):
Looks like we've made it thank you PJ. We're
back. You know, we were just inthe in the private chat a little
a little behind the scenes lookhere at eight beds. We get
pumped on that song every time.
Our podcast listeners get tohear that song Right, right,
Brandon?
Brandon Minnick (02:21):
Oh, of course, we do not edit that after the
podcast. cuz everybody shouldsubscribe to.
Chloe Condon (02:27):
It gives me like.
Yes. Where can people subscribeto our podcast? Brandon,
Brandon Minnick (02:35):
we can find us at eight bits.tv. It's probably
the coolest URL I've ever gottenthe opportunity to purchase?
Because it's a.tv. Yeah, if yougo to ABC TV, you can subscribe
to the podcast, you can see allthe previous episodes or if you
prefer to watch us on youtubevia video, then you can check
(02:57):
out all the live streams toeverything. Everything we do is
there. And
Chloe Condon (03:00):
now all the previous apps with all the
awesome guests that we've had,we've done almost 50 episodes at
this point we're getting there.
What is it?
Unknown (03:08):
Yeah, already
Brandon Minnick (03:11):
been going for over a year. Now you're doing it
once a week with the exceptionof when we aren't allowed to
stream because Microsoft ishaving a conference or maybe
there's a holiday like I don'tthink we did it over New Year's.
But yeah, we're around thecorner on the year number two.
Chloe Condon (03:28):
We've been at it for a year now. And just like
Brandon said, if you want towatch any of the previous
episode, and we've had some verycool guests, some guests that
are in the chat right now. Also,if you're listening to the
podcast, we do this as a livestream live every Wednesday at
one pacific time. So definitelycome if you ever want to ask
(03:48):
questions, live to our guests.
And just get involved with theshow. Come and join us. We have
a good time, right PJ PJ is inthe chat.
Brandon Minnick (03:58):
And maybe you can be a guest on the show one
day to
Chloe Condon (04:00):
Yes, full circle.
Brandon, how have you been? Howis your week Ben?
Brandon Minnick (04:07):
Oh, so far so good. I do want to apologize in
advance. We have a gentlemanhere that's removing a tree so
if you hear chainsaws in thebackground or loud begging just
know that I'm safe everything'sfine you know what
Chloe Condon (04:24):
judgment free zone we're all still technically
working from home even here inCalifornia and I feel like who
amongst us has not had asignificant other or friend make
an espresso in the backgroundlive stream so are welcome here
Brandon Minnick (04:44):
to comment says removing the tree the internet
yeah hopefully doesn't affectthe internet cable and I go dark
but yeah, we had a tree that itsroots were encroaching in on the
foundation. And so it was youknow I hate cutting down trees.
trees in reactive landscapingplans are going to add more
stuff to the backyard soon. Butyeah, we just bought this house
(05:07):
and I can't afford to redo afoundation. So it's either that
or the tree and portrait lost atthat tree, hopefully won't be
too bad.
Chloe Condon (05:19):
Well, I am very, very excited here in California
things have started opening up.
So it's very interesting to goout into the world and, and be
able to go to restaurants again,and not have to wear a mask all
the time. So it's, I will say,it's very different. I think we
all thought this would be a lotshorter that it would be and it
feels you know what I kind ofmiss making faces that. Like, I
(05:42):
kind of need to pull myexpressions back in now. But um,
it's been a lovely week to beoutside. And yeah, I'm, I'm
super excited. Because I'mhosting the static web apps,
static web apps conference nextweek, you can go to aka.ms
(06:03):
slash, s w a calm, it's going tobe super fun. I'm, there's going
to be a keynote by john papa. Sothat will be very exciting. But
I kind of love this conferenceformat, Brandon, because here's
the thing. As we all know, Ihave ADHD, my attention span is
very short, especially during aglobal pandemic, right. We're
(06:25):
all home. We're in meetings allday. And it's really hard to pay
attention in this cool trendthat actually I'm sure our
guests will have a lot to sayabout this, because they just
ran a fabulous event similar tothis as well, is the talks
instead of being the usual, youknow, 30 minute or you know, 45
minute with question format, or15 minutes. So that's like super
(06:45):
digestible for my brain. And Ireally, really excited because
there's going to be all theseannouncements happening talking
about the Azure static web appcsli, how to do that, just like
static web apps in theproduction API, all kinds of
stuff. And I'm going to be yourhostess with the mostess. I'm
going to be hosting it, askingthem all the questions, all your
burning questions about staticweb app. So I'm really excited
(07:08):
and also excited to learn moreabout static web apps, like I
get to watch the wholeconference because I'm hosting
it. So maybe I'm gonna be makinga static web app. My Furby Who
knows?
Brandon Minnick (07:21):
What, what even is a static web app?
Chloe Condon (07:24):
Oh, great question, Brandon. Well, it's
basically a way I just had agross are basically the quickest
way for your JavaScript to havestatic sites from code to scale.
So the way that I like toexplain it is, you know how I
can get hub, you get a GitHubpage with like, your GitHub repo
automatically, very that verymuch just a static website, just
(07:45):
very simple with JavaScript. Youcan get up and running very,
very quickly. And just superexcited to hear all the
announcements. I use staticwebsites all the time to just
whip up something reallyquickly. You know, like, I think
we always say, we don't want toreinvent the wheel. We don't
have to want to build a websitecompletely from scratch. So I
use them all the time to host Ithink I have my Azure Mario Kart
(08:08):
astrology on an Azure static webapp. That sounds right. Just a
great place to have all my dataon all of my different Mario
Kart characters and their stats,just, yeah, someone's new wheel
is the best way. Yeah, asengineers, we tend to think that
(08:28):
way. But there's a lot of reallygreat tools to just help that be
a lot more easier.
Brandon Minnick (08:33):
Yeah, and you know, static web apps are great
for anything where the dataisn't dynamic. It's not
necessarily interactive. Sothink of like a blogging
platform, right? We're justposting articles. Those are
great use cases for static webapps. And I would argue most
websites could be static webapps. And if you can, you might
(08:54):
want to do it, because it's waycheaper. So with Yeah, with
Azure static web apps, theyessentially what Azure does, it
just saves your code and then ondemand will display that to the
user. So it's not like you haveto pay all the server costs in
the background. You just havethis great looking website that
you design that you don't haveto pay a fortune for. So check
(09:17):
it out. aka.ms slash SW a calm.
So
Chloe Condon (09:23):
a fun project. A static web apps project I'm
gonna write this down isreplicating a geo cities type
page because we talk a lot onthe show about tech selja and
how much we loved our Angelfire. geo city is maybe like
recreate that for an Azurestatic web app. Stay tuned, let
it or to hear any updates in theXamarin world? I went to Maui
(09:52):
recently. How is Maui doingBrandon?
Brandon Minnick (09:56):
data Maui is coming. We just pushed out
Preview five of dotnet, six andalso dotnet, Maui, they're
still, we're still working atit. So obviously, it's still in
previews, there's still certainthings that aren't in the
library yet. So things like ifyou ever needed the Xamarin
(10:18):
Forms content view, we're stilladding that to Maui. So it's
still very much a work inprogress. But you can check out
the previews. So I wouldn't tryusing it yet for your App Store
apps. But if you want to playaround with it a little bit, get
a feel for the syntax. That way,you're the dotnet Maui expert.
(10:39):
Once it finally launches, go forit. But yeah, probably, I mean,
preview six is gonna have abunch more features in it. And,
yeah, for the next couplemonths, it's just gonna get more
and more feature complete. Andthen we'll obviously November,
it'll move into ga intoproduction. So it's very
exciting. And it's all opensource, and you can follow
(11:00):
along. So please do but alsostay tuned for all the updates
over the next couple weeks.
Chloe Condon (11:07):
So exciting. I keep seeing you and friend of
the pod. squeaky talking aboutall of the awesome updates. come
in around the mountain. Veryexcited. Um, cool. Should we
bring in our guests, anythingelse? Anything else we want to
update our listeners and ourviewers about?
Brandon Minnick (11:25):
That sounds good to me. I mean, let's, let's
bring her in.
Chloe Condon (11:29):
So excited. Okay, so I met this lovely human
being, I believe, through theconference in boot camp world,
we have another boot camp gradwith us here today. And I
believe I totally just fell inlove with this creative person
who had a lot of handwritten orhand drawn visuals and their
(11:51):
presentation. And I was like anartist. I love it. So I'm very,
very excited to welcome thisperson on the show. They are a
beam of positivity in the techcommunity. Welcome, Katie.
Hello.
Katy Farmer (12:06):
Hi, now might be the nicest intro I've ever had.
And I liked it. It's so true. I
Chloe Condon (12:12):
just remember, you know, I came from a creative
arts world myself and seeing alot of tech talks and having,
you know, this, this standard,you know, clipart, or, you know,
the images that you get from astock photo, if you will. But I
loved all these handwritten handdrawn examples to illustrate a
point. Do you remember what thattalk was? I feel like a DevOps
(12:33):
talk maybe?
Katy Farmer (12:34):
I think, I think the first one that I maybe did
was just like, what is timeseries data?
Chloe Condon (12:39):
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Katy Farmer (12:41):
Because here's the thing, every time somebody asked
me a question, I don't know theanswer to I'm like, Great. I'll
go find out. And then I'll writea talk about which is the best
Chloe Condon (12:51):
way to write a talk. I
Brandon Minnick (12:52):
do that all the time. I call it conference
driven development, where
Chloe Condon (12:57):
I love topic.
Brandon Minnick (12:58):
Yeah. So if there's a topic I'm excited
about, like I did this years agowith graph QL. I was actually at
a conference, I sat in a talk ongraph QL. I was like, I need to
learn more about this. So I juststarted submitting talks for it.
And I was like, well, we'll seeif one of these gets picked up,
then I have to learn it. And itworks. It works surprisingly,
well. You'll definitely learnit. You might be stressed out.
(13:20):
And you might be hating yourselfbecause I submit this talk about
it, think about it,
Chloe Condon (13:25):
and you're probably nervous. You're fresh,
content and exhilarating. I'msure. I'm so good at reading
manuals. That's what I basicallyhave a degree in. So you know
what, I feel like I betterunderstood time series
development because of yourtalk. Like I had a visual. I'm a
(13:48):
very visual learner. And ithelps me learn so thank you,
Katie. And you know what, foryou, Chloe, anytime. Thank you
so much, Katie. It's all thelovely people tuning in and
listening to the show aboutyourself and what you do.
Katy Farmer (14:05):
Oh, well, Hello.
I'm Katie. I am a communitymanager at circle ci right now.
So that's one thing that I do. Ihave been a developer advocate.
I have been an editor of PhDtheses erotica, Nala novels. I
worked in retail and I made ajuice for a job one year I had
(14:28):
never drank juice, but I waslike, I get it. You put fruit in
the juicer. Um, I am a sort of aperson of all trades who have
been in a lot of jobs and acouple careers. I went to
college for music, switchedcourses to literature, worked in
(14:48):
that for a while switch coursesagain. And so I am very much a
renaissance woman One could sayor you can always I'm saying
that I just have ADHD boththings would be true. So
Chloe Condon (15:08):
yes. And if you're not following Katie on Twitter,
her Twitter is the cater taughta lovely Twitter account, follow
lots of positivity out there,but would love. So on the show,
we talk, of course, aboutpeople's origin stories to tech
and how they get here. And whatled you to this career? And it
(15:28):
sounds like you have a verymusical path to tech. Is that
correct?
Katy Farmer (15:35):
Yeah, I would say that I really fought my way
through a dark forest. Andcareer wise, and maybe in some
other ways, too. Like, I when Iwas a kid, I definitely have a
really musical family. And itwas one of the few things we all
could kind of agree on was justthat, like, we liked music. And
(15:58):
that was one thing. So inschool, I had the chance to
start, you know, just like aregular band class. And once I
was in, I played the trumpet,and I was just like, you know
what I like about this, like onevery loud, big fan. And I always
had listened to a lot of like,older music that featured a lot
(16:19):
more bras like Louie Armstrongstuff like that was just like
stuff that I listened to aroundthe house. So I was always
exciting about it. And yeah, Ikind of stayed that course for
most of school. I loved playing.
But I also knew that like, itwas my best chance at like a
scholarship to go to college.
(16:42):
Like I loved it, but I was verymuch like big fish. small pond,
like my high school was reallyrural. There were I think there
were maybe 30 kids in band, butlike, you know how it is like 25
of them were flutes, and you'relike this can't be accurate.
It's too many floats.
Chloe Condon (17:03):
We had to test into an instrument at my
elementary school, which I havea lot of thoughts on and would
love to get. So we have twoother band geeks here on the
show. Brandon, you are apercussionist. Is that right?
Yep. And then we have a trumpetplayer here. I did not get to
choose my instrument because andyou have to imagine this is the
(17:25):
90s when cassettes are ourchosen form of audio, not high
definition. And we had aninstructor, lovely woman, but
she played all these soundeffects and we had to mark on a
sheet like on a on a, like atest sheet. What sounds we
(17:45):
preferred, but looking back Ican't imagine like imagine a
flute on a low residue set. Iwould have been like no, too
shrill, right like very oldequipment. Well, I've listened
to you can call me out opinions.
Great song. Yeah, absolutely.
(18:05):
And tested into so here's here'sa little insight into my my
fourth grade mind, alto sax, andI was only given these options
like I'm sure someone's parentscomplaint and tried to get their
daughter into flute but minedidn't matter. My options were
what is the big one sousaphone,sousaphone the big one that you
(18:26):
have to wear around you? Yeah,it's like a tube overseas or to
that and a saxophone alto sax?
And, you know, I want to be withall my friends and play like a
different instrument. But no wayit was I had to play. I was
like, I cannot know people whomake fun of me if I play the
tuba. So I went with alto sax, Ihad to test into it. Did you get
to pick your instrument? Katie?
(18:48):
Yeah, fully. No one. No. One inthe machine learning? Did I have
to
Katy Farmer (18:55):
get my history? I think you were part of an
experiment. I think there's dataout there that we could be using
Chloe Condon (19:02):
did you choose?
Brandon Minnick (19:04):
So I'm a little unique. So I moved to Florida,
the summer for sixth grade. Sothe summer for middle school
here in the US. And the newschool I was joining. Or
actually I should rephrase thatin. In the school district. I
was joining. They didn't teachinstruments until Middle School.
(19:25):
Whereas when I lived in NewYork, we started band in second
or third grade. So I had alreadybeen playing percussion for a
couple years. And so yeah, inmiddle school, they also had you
test into an instrument. So youwent around you played maybe you
got to try all of them.
Chloe Condon (19:44):
No hands on, it was no hands on. not accessible
either. Because imagine ifyou're heard of hearing like
come on. This is not exactly
Brandon Minnick (19:53):
yeah. So actually, yeah, I thought was
pretty cool. Yeah, like you gotto go around and like try out
the tuba and see if you couldget To make a sound because,
honestly, that's the hardestpart about it instrument is
like, do you know how to buzzyour lips to make a brass
instrument? Create a sound? Doyou know how to use a reed for
woodwind? I mean, percussion ispretty easy. You just hit stuff
(20:14):
with a stick. And usually,that's enough to make a sound.
Yeah, I was fortunate to where Ialready had experience in
percussion. So I just, well, Istill test it in, but I was kind
of
Katy Farmer (20:28):
interested in but you were like, real cocky about
it.
Brandon Minnick (20:32):
I will say the big difference was I did a
little bit of so percussion isanything from, from drums to
what we call keyboardinstruments. So xylophones,
marimbas, Viber phones, chimes,anything like that. Anything you
hit with a stick, or a mallet.
And so the biggest difference inthe middle school was they had
(20:53):
like zero dial phones. marimbas.
And I had never played thosebefore. So she the band director
put some site music on themusic's and was like, okay, play
this on the xylophone. I waslike, but how do you do that?
Can I just play the snare drum?
But yeah, now I can do all ofit.
Katy Farmer (21:14):
Yeah, I definitely feel like there was none. Again,
I went to school in the woods,nobody paid attention. I'm very,
I feel very lucky that there wasbanned at all. Um, it was very
small, rural area in Oregon. Andyeah, so there were only ever I
think, maybe three or fourtrumpets in the band. And, and I
(21:36):
happen to be the best out ofthat group. So I also felt very
accomplished. But the samplesize was not, you know, wasn't
really enough to go off of, butI did. I did get a scholarship.
And it was a, I don't know, Ithink, you know, looking back,
(21:56):
you're like, that was a reallyspecial thing. I'm really glad
that happened for me. But at thetime, I was just like, this is
what is supposed to happen.
Like, this is the path I'msupposed to be on. Like, of
course, I got a scholarship, Iworked very hard. Even though
it's probably as random asanything else. You know. Like I
was, you know, I didn't I didn'tlove living at home, it wasn't a
(22:18):
super happy place. And but Iloved music. And so the idea to
like, leave on that and have itbe my way out felt very poetic,
which I was also very into, Iwas into like, a lot of drama. A
lot of Evanescence, like, justlike a real just a vibe, you
know, just like a, like a sadgirl vibe. That I was just like,
(22:40):
very, very about and with
Chloe Condon (22:45):
a music scholarship, what does one like?
What field does one go into witha music scholarship? Because I
know, as an actress, we wouldask me that all the time. Like,
I want to be an actress or, youknow, like, I would teach
acting? What does that look likefor a music scholarship?
Katy Farmer (22:58):
Yeah, so I mean, most people either know that
they're going to be in thesymphony, and that takes a long
time. You just kinda have towait for like a lot of older
people to die. Or currentlyprobably.
Chloe Condon (23:16):
is a symphony.
Every state have a symphony,actual question I do not know
the answer to and what defines asymphony like, can I? Because I
feel like in the Bay Area wehave. Oh, it's a lovely. It's
like a group Symphony in theEast Bay that meets up as kind
of like a crowded Symphony. Sowhat? What is the symphony?
Katie?
Katy Farmer (23:39):
These are all great questions. I want to say that
most states have Symphony. Idon't.
I don't know if they have one.
Like, I don't know if there'sone at a state level or if
there's like, you know, becauselike Chicago, New York obviously
have them. Boston. Yeah. Likethere's a lot of a lot of great
ones. There's a lot of likesmaller ones, too. I learned
Chloe Condon (24:01):
in Symphony Orchestra. I feel like I heard
of it.
Brandon Minnick (24:06):
Yeah, yeah, we have a San Francisco City
orchestra as well. So maybe it'sworth anything.
Katy Farmer (24:12):
But I mean, those things like they don't really
pay a lot of people like a lotof musicians. I know now they
like will gig as you know, fortheatres, right? They'll be like
in the orchestra pit. But that'sjust like a
Chloe Condon (24:30):
Broadway is a pretty steady music job. I would
think kind of in the same waythat I feel like an actor steady
job would be a TV show, or aBroadway show or a touring show.
Sounds like symphonies are kindof a sweet gig sometimes.
Katy Farmer (24:43):
Yeah. And I was one of those. I think, again,
because I have this like, I justvery determined to plan for like
getting out of dodge. So I waslike, here's what you do. You
get your scholarship, and you gothrough college, and then you
join a symphony, any Symphony,whoever will take you you do
that until your first Then youmove up to a bigger Symphony in
your first year, and theneventually you're the conductor.
(25:04):
That was sort of my, you know,not everyone wants to be a
conductor, but I thought itwould be really cool. Um,
Chloe Condon (25:10):
is it very Game of Thrones in the symphony world?
I'm genuinely curious. Like, ifyou're like, I don't know how
many trumpets there are like,six trumpets? Do you like have
to fight your way to firsttrumpet?
Katy Farmer (25:22):
Yeah, you do.
There's usually some kind oflike, in the same way that you
might have tested into aninstrument there were like tests
within the sections, right? Andyou all play the same short
piece, and then the conductor,whoever judges you, and then
puts you in order. I willhear that I didn't know how they
determined the numbers. Yeah,they basically like you all play
(25:44):
the same thing. Sometimes it'slike, it's not just talent.
Sometimes it's range. Like,right, like, Oh, well, you know,
Katy can hit this, like higherrange. So she needs to be in the
parts that are going to have thehigher range, like in the same
way that you might do with voicelessons. But like, for me, I
think I was just I was verylucky that I have sort of like a
(26:05):
good sense of musicality, again,I think just from being exposed
to it a lot at home. And also,everyone else was bad. So
sometimes the tests it soundslike, like, it sounds like a lot
of whiteboarding for musicalmost to be like a
(26:27):
professional.
Yeah, like, there's a lot of,you're on the spot in front of
and it's not like they're like,okay, trumpets go into this
room, and we'll figure it out.
It's like, here you are with theentire Symphony or the band or
whatever. Play your piece. Wow.
Right. So it's very much basedon that I,
Chloe Condon (26:46):
like stand up.
It's Symphony stand up. Yeah.
Katy Farmer (26:51):
I hated it. I mean, I hated the like, because here
are some things you can't dosuper well with a dry mouth play
a brass instrument. So you know,like, there are some instruments
that I feel like if they'repercussion or any, like the
strings, that if you're like, alittle nervous, you can sort of
work around but if you get a drymouth here, like a little shaky,
(27:14):
which I always was, then itstarts being like, Oh, what a
cool vibe. Bravo, you have like,thank you. I'm really nervous.
Chloe Condon (27:21):
Singing as well. I feel like there's certain
instruments that your, your bodylanguage or even just your mood
can affect how you play verymuch very much. And
Katy Farmer (27:32):
I'm when I got into college, still number one, but
but still kind of a smallcollege
Chloe Condon (27:41):
scholar among us.
Katy Farmer (27:43):
Yeah, no big deal.
But I've read some books. Idefinitely like it was wildly
difficult. And I wentspecifically to a school that
was like, really rigorousacademically. Because that's
what I wanted. I want I justwanted to like, I always loved
school. I like again, like, ifyou're not super excited about
(28:05):
being in your home, then likeschool is a good backup. And so
I loved being at school, I wouldget there. Not voluntarily, but
just because of like my family'stransportation and stuff. I
would always be there superearly. Reading every book, I
would just be like, I remembergoing to the library and being
like, what is the longest bookin this library? And she said, I
think at the time, it was the,the Once and Future King. Okay,
(28:28):
which is like an Arthuriannovel. For King Arthur, and it's
not good or interesting. I readit, I read it so hard.
Chloe Condon (28:43):
So you say that you read the longest book,
Katy Farmer (28:45):
so I could say and that was very much how I was. I
think I just, I wanted to do thehardest things. So that I would
feel you know, like worthwhileand valid and like, Okay, well,
I'm maybe not like the strongestperson in my family. But I've
read the most books, I'm smarterthan them, or, which is like,
not a good way to measure any ofthat. But
Chloe Condon (29:07):
I identify with that. I watched every musical at
blockbuster. And that was like athing that I had to do. I
couldn't explain it. But I waslike, I need to watch every
single one of these. So I am theexpert at these musicals. Okay.
Katy Farmer (29:18):
Yeah, like I needed to be in like the expert in my
domain, because there were somany parts of my life that I
felt had so little control over.
So it was like, I'm on thispath. And I play the trumpet.
And then I go here, and I dothis, but it was maybe only it
was my my first year in college.
So you when you're a musicmajor, they're not messing
(29:40):
around with the amount ofcredits you have to take because
you have to study your owninstrument. So you have like, a
one on one like coachingbasically, with a teacher. You
have to be in the symphony, andprobably also the jazz band like
because there's always bothright and so you're in both of
those which are separate.
courses with separate rehearsaltimes and performances and all
(30:01):
the things. Every music major nomatter what your instrument, you
have to take piano, which I hadnever played any of these tiny
baby hands can't reach the keys.
The professor was just like theangriest, smallest, most furious
little man in the planet, he hadreally specific rules. And he
(30:24):
was, he was just like, you know,as an 18 year old have never
been anywhere but home. He wasabsolutely terrifying. One time
I remember at the piano recital,I was like, you know, you have
to memorize everything. So I waslike, playing my little beginner
piece. And a lot of the otherstudents were like, more
advanced in piano because it wassomething that like a lot of
music majors do learn. And Iremember playing this piece, and
(30:46):
I remember he just looked at meand he said, That was wonderful.
But it was an originalcomposition. Oh, I guess I
didn't play the piece, right iswhat he was trying to tell me.
Chloe Condon (30:59):
Like, a line from glee.
Katy Farmer (31:02):
He was harsh. He was so just like, Yeah, I just I
remember that. Because it wasvery funny. But also I wanted to
be dead. So it was like,complicated.
Chloe Condon (31:12):
Have you guys had like, I feel like I've had one
or two teachers in my life likethat. That just scared me into
into learning the content, nevergood method to learn.
creative type?
Katy Farmer (31:29):
I do think it happens a lot in the arts. Yeah.
Because a lot of times, and thisis something I came across a lot
with, like being in music and alittle bit and I was a little
involved with the theater worldwas that sometimes people in
those areas are given license tobe not very nice. Under the
guise of creativity andartistry, creative license.
Yeah, we're like, oh, well,that's just how they are. But
(31:52):
look at this magnificent thingthat they made. I'm like, well,
genius.
Exactly right. It's how it'slike, I don't know, there's kind
of this idea that like, in orderto be creative, in order to be
this creative genius, you kindof have to be unwell in some
way, right? You either have, youhave to, like have a condition
or you just have to be like amiserable person. Like there's
(32:13):
all of these ideas about like,what does it mean to be a
creative genius, I think in verysimilar in tech, right, like the
people who we think of as beinglike, Oh, well, this person,
they're like the greatestprogrammer, and then we like
make allowances for things thatare maybe not very nice, you
know, in the way that they treatpeople, right. And you can see
it in all the stories of all ofthe like, original founders,
(32:36):
jobs and gates, and you're like,yeah, they just like weren't
nice to people. And people werelike, that's okay. I believe in
the dream. And I'm like, I havea dream of not getting a chair
thrown at me. So like, That'sthe dream.
Chloe Condon (32:48):
creative license is so subjective to like, like
what constitutes like a goodpiece of art. My mom was a
artist and also taught art andespecially when you're dealing
with children, but especiallywith adults giving feedback is
important. But artists aresubjective, right, like, and I
think that was the mostdifficult thing for myself as a
(33:08):
non technical person with code.
You forget a semi colon and thecode does not work and it will
not run and you are doing a badjob. If you can't get your code
run but with arm it was so youknow, if you're an actress,
there's so many different wayssomeone can portray a role or if
you're an artist, there's somany different ways that people
can paint something. So that'sbeen a very interesting black or
white transition from my leftbrain life and detec I think and
(33:32):
I'm sure with with music, that'sprobably pretty similar, right?
Katy Farmer (33:38):
Well, if you know what it's like, you kind of
you've led me to fascinatingterritory, Chloe, it's like
you're good at this.
Chloe Condon (33:45):
Are you more of a jazz fan? Katie?
Katy Farmer (33:48):
I do like some surprises. I'm not gonna lie.
That's why I like JavaScript,right? It's just like, I know,
maybe there won't be a semicolon. But today, you know,
what's more important, or thesemi colon? You don't type? Oh,
wow. That's, that's a jazz joke.
For fans out here. But yeah, solike, I very much I realized
(34:10):
about a year into this, likereally intensive music degree
that I had a I had a problem,which was my jaw, there's
something not quite right. And Ididn't know what it was. And and
now I do, but it doesn't, it'snot super helpful. It's just in
a very exaggerated form of TMJ,which is kind of like lockjaw,
(34:33):
basically, but my jaw juststarted it started to hurt
started to hurt and I mean,you're playing for hours and
hours a day. And I realized thatlike, the, the plan, the the the
sort of path that I was on, Icould see it just like
evaporating. Do you know what Imean? Like, I was just like, my
face hurts and I went to thenurse. Again, this is another
(34:56):
person who scared me a lot andProbably maybe wasn't an expert.
She was just the campus nurse.
And she said, Oh, yeah, if youdon't get your job reset, but
with a surgery, it's gonna it'sgoing to be stuck forever. And I
was like, Well, I guess I'lljust go
Chloe Condon (35:18):
musical A Chorus Line, there's a whole song
about, you know, what I did forlove was, which is essentially
if you're a dancer, your job isto dance. And if you get an
injury, if you break your leg ifyou you know, or if you kind of
age out of being the age rangeof a ballerina ballerina, your
job is over. So like, yeah,having that passion for
something and not being able todo it is so difficult.
Katy Farmer (35:41):
Yeah. So I feel like I just went through a
period of like, I mean, I wasdefinitely depressed. And I was
a little like, at sea, and Iswitched to I switched schools
to somewhere less intense. And Igot into literature, which had
always been something I wasinterested in, you know, I was
already reading the biggestbooks there were so didn't sound
(36:02):
too harsh. Um, and, and I did Imean, like, Look, if somebody
could just pay me to read allthe time if that were the job.
Okay, great. I loved my timestudying literature and being in
it, but like, yeah, like, what?
I wouldn't pay that much for itagain, like, No, probably not.
Chloe Condon (36:24):
Right? It's that like, what would you do? What do
you do with a BA in English fromAvenue Q is it is a song like, I
think when we're for folks,creative folks like us, I think,
oftentimes, people don't come upto us and say, Great, like, what
are you going to do with yourtheater degree? Do you know how
much you will make as anactress? Do you know how much
(36:45):
you know? Do you know what it'slike to be a trumpet player in a
professional Symphony? And whatthat life looks like? And I
think it's very, it's very coolto see people from these non
traditional backgrounds comeinto their because a lot of us
have like, never heard ofcomputers like what what was
your computer relationship?
Katy Farmer (37:01):
I zero, it was none. I didn't have a computer
at home. We It was eithersomething we were like, I don't
really know if it was somethingthe family like, I mean, we
couldn't afford it slash therewas very little interest. the
only the only things I knewabout computers came from my
grandpa, who was very, was aheadof his time. He loved that man
(37:24):
loved Radio Shack more than allof us. And I was fine. Yeah, he
he was always bringing us likefun little electronic things.
And he got us our first sort ofcomputer, which was a called a
Web TV. Oh, oh, it's horrible.
It's like if you had a computer,but it didn't work. As far as I
understand it, I'm going to belike a little bit wrong about
(37:47):
this. But basically, it was justsomething you hooked up to your
TV as an internet proxy. So yourTV became the monitor. And you
just had like you said, Webley,yeah, it had an infrared
keyboard
Brandon Minnick (38:02):
board. Yeah,
Katy Farmer (38:02):
yeah. And the funniest thing to me was, I
remember ours was hooked up tothis TV that like, was so old,
it didn't have a remote. It hadknobs. Wow, that like
juxtaposition of being like, I'mon the internet on this TV from
like, 1972.
Brandon Minnick (38:19):
Over to channel three.
Katy Farmer (38:21):
That's exactly the channel. And I remember not
understanding it, like Iremember, like not knowing what
to do with the internet. And atthat time, it was like
relatively limited, right? Itwasn't like, or at least it was
on the Web TV, it was a littlebit like, you know, there wasn't
like a Google search engine. Itwas just Web TV search. There
(38:48):
was like, there was like a WebTV search, I think, again, it
was like relatively limited inthis like, strange, proprietary
way. And it had a guidebook thatit came with, so that you could
look up keywords in theguidebook and then look them
Chloe Condon (39:03):
up to help out here. No, no assistance.
Katy Farmer (39:07):
But I use computers in school a little bit. I took
like business classes. So Ilearned how to type and like, I
generally, like knew what theywere, but just like, I was not
fluent in any way. Um,
Chloe Condon (39:19):
and they just weren't around you. It sounds
like
Katy Farmer (39:21):
no, they just did.
They just weren't there. Andwhen they were like, I didn't
have the context to understandwhat they were for. Like, I
just, I remember my grandpabeing like, yeah, you could like
I don't know, type in horses,and then you'll see something
about horses and I was like, whywould I type in horses? He's
like, it's an example. And I waslike, I don't care about horses
even a little Is there somethingelse?
Chloe Condon (39:43):
Okay, I love this.
Because when I think so Iimagine Katie and I were pretty
similar ages, with the internetto me as a child, like I'm going
to say four or five, six earlycomputers. My grandpa had a
computer. And the only websitesthat I knew about were websites
that started popping up on TV.
So like Disney Channel tv.com,or like zuke disney.com. So the
(40:05):
only websites I was visiting waslike 101 Dalmatians live action
movie.com. And I didn'tunderstand what significance a
computer would have to me or theinternet specifically, because I
was like, this is justinformation about the movie like
you. I don't know, I haven'teven seen this movie. But it
would have Glenn Close on it andsome sparkly Dalmatians. But I
(40:28):
think that's such it is likeBrandon, you probably had a very
different relationship with theinternet, right? When you were
younger.
Brandon Minnick (40:36):
I mean, we, we were kind of the opposite of
Katie's family, like we had acomputer really early on like
before, is either at windows3.1, or before windows 3.1. I
mean, remember, I learned MS DOSback in the day, as just that's
how I use the computer. Andreally, if I'm being honest, it
was a dad showing me how to playvideo games on the computer. So
(41:00):
it's like putting the floppydrive and then run this command
to kick off the xe file and MSDOS. But yeah, I mean, the the
the internet was unique back inthe day, before we had great
search engines. I mean, theyslowly started coming out like
there was, was it like AltaVista? I mean, Yahoo search used
(41:21):
to be
Chloe Condon (41:22):
solidly on AOL my first five years. AOL
Katy Farmer (41:29):
was on the equivalent of like, the store
brand. Do you know what I mean?
It's like, Oh, I was on Web TV.
Maybe you've heard of it? No.
Brandon Minnick (41:40):
But yeah, I mean, like you said, going back
in the day, before search wasreally a thing. And but Well,
before, like, really, reallygood, fast search was a thing.
Yeah, you just had to know theURL. And so you just go to the
websites you knew and like, kindof like how today we'll share
like, like memes and stuff withfriends, like back then we would
(42:01):
forward emails with like, linksURLs, and like, you just
bookmark them. And you have hisbookmark folder that was just
gigantic. Those are the onlywebsites you do about in the
world. Yeah, it was, it was astrange place. Back in the day,
Katy Farmer (42:15):
I got a bunch of emails from my grandpa, he was
the only person that everemailed me. And they were all,
you know, jokes, like chainthings. They were just like,
very silly jokes that weren'tfunny, but I read all of them. I
even still have a very old yahooemail. And like, there are easy
(42:37):
ways to shut it down. I justkept it because that's like,
he's not around anymore. And itwas just like, I was like, I'm
gonna keep my grandpa's emails,I'm gonna keep them in this
special Yahoo account that heused to email me at. And like,
you know, it's like a littletime capsule.
Chloe Condon (42:50):
But so jealous of y'all because I it's kind of
funny that I work at Microsoft,because my family was a family
of artists. And my mother waslearning graphic design. So
naturally, she wanted one ofthose big I mean, it was
beautiful. Those candy apple.
Oh, clear. Mac giant, likecraters. Yeah, but I was so
upset because all I wanted to dowas play games on the computer.
(43:12):
And there were no games for Mac.
They were only PC games. And Ihad a neighbor friend who had
putt putt goes to the parade.
And all I wanted to do is playthis game. I'd never played a
computer game before this. Itwas like mind blowing to me. And
so slowly, but surely my parentswould take me to fries and I
could find Mac specific games,but they were so rare. And I
(43:34):
Brandon, I'm so jealous of thisgame life. And we have people in
the chat here talking aboutMickey Mouse games like that,
that we're on. Oh, 720 kfloppies. Wow. Yeah. a gateway
to tech that I think I missedout on a little bit. Yes.
Katy Farmer (43:53):
We had, we had like some consoles with a Super
Nintendo and I had a we had likethe original Gameboy. I think my
mom still has it. Like it stillworks, because those things are
are bricks. But like, Idefinitely I think something
that came up later was that Idid not understand computers
outside the context of theinternet either. Right? So like,
(44:15):
I became internet literate. Likein college. I my partner was a
programmer. And so they helpedme like understand a little bit
they fixed my computer a lot. Igot my first laptop as like a
college gift. And then, but likeI didn't do anything else, but
(44:35):
get on Yahoo chat or whatever.
Like, so a lot of times in StarWars chat rooms. Ooh, no. begaye
pretty cool.
Chloe Condon (44:45):
great conversations happening in
there.
Katy Farmer (44:46):
Oh, man. It's like so easy to live on your age on
the internet. And I don'trecommend it to everyone out
here who's maybe just don't doit. It's not it's not great. But
I did and I think I didn't Iunderstand like, the internet as
a separate concept fromcomputers, right? Like, I have
no concept of like hardware orwhat that. Um, and I don't know
(45:10):
why it just like didn't it justdidn't occur to me because this
was the only context I'd everreally worked with them and even
things that like, you know, Ilearned a bunch of software in
school like, you know, you learnlike the Microsoft suite in in
full. But in my mind, althoughmaybe I knew it wasn't on the
internet. I don't think I had aconcept of like, what is
(45:31):
computer? Yeah.
Chloe Condon (45:35):
And you said you got your first computer at how
old 1818? Wow,
Katy Farmer (45:41):
yeah, I got I got a laptop as a college gift. I had
to buy a wireless card for it.
It was a it was a big was a bigdeal. You know, and the Wi Fi.
Yeah, like Internet in your
Brandon Minnick (45:55):
bedroom.
Chloe Condon (45:56):
Let me check my router real quick.
Katy Farmer (46:00):
I didn't it you know, for many years. After I
switched degrees, I, I workedthe entire time I was in school.
And through pure nepotism, I'mnot ashamed to admit my, my
partner worked in it at thecollege and got me a job there.
And they were like, cool, whatdo you know about computers, I
(46:21):
was like, I could type so much.
But basically, I just learnedabout computers through that job
and spent the next four years asI finished my degree is working
in it and working in support.
And, you know, I mean, like,when it comes to that, kind of
like university setting, thecomputers were just like, not
(46:43):
that complicated, becausethere's a limited amount of
things they let people do on thecomputers in that setting. So
it's like, um, you can get avirus, but I can just like, wipe
it, and it's fine. I startedlearning about like, hardware
separate and what you could doon the internet, and when I
graduated, I lost my job becauseit was a student specific job.
(47:05):
And I was like, I'm gonna guessI could work at like, Best Buy.
And that made me not thrilled tothink about because I had worked
in a lot of retail already. Andlike I was telling you before
the break, I was real tiredgetting yelled at by customer.
One time, I just wouldn't sellthis woman. The like, you know,
(47:25):
they have like beds in thedepartment store. And they have
like, bedding on them. And shewanted to buy the things that
were on display. And I was like,I literally don't have the
knowledge to be able to do thatfor you. Like I couldn't if I
have nothing, you can't do allthis. And yeah, she chased me to
customer service, throwinglittle decorative pillows at me
(47:47):
the whole way. And I was justlike, man, do I love 725 an hour
this much.
Chloe Condon (47:54):
Tales from retail could be a whole other show. I
think I think that's our show,Katie.
Katy Farmer (48:01):
So I knew I didn't want to get back into that. But
I was definitely, like losingmusic set me on feeling adrift
for honestly, like, way longerthan I'm proud of. I think I
just didn't realize it. I didn'trealize like it was a one it was
like an outlet, right? Like allartistic things was like this
expression. But it had alsoserved as a kind of like therapy
(48:24):
and medication for me also. Andso losing it and I think kept me
from feeling this like purpose.
And so I was just kind of likedrifting and after I graduated.
I again, just I lucked into ajob as a freelance editor. Kind
of, I mean, I was looking foreditor jobs. And I got lucky as
a freelancer. But I was justmoving commas around all day,
(48:47):
which is not the worst thing inthe world.
Chloe Condon (48:51):
And you were reading probably and
Katy Farmer (48:54):
I was reading hard, okay, like nobody's business.
And I felt very lucky in thatbecause I was freelancing, I did
a lot of different projects andget to read about 1000 different
subjects, like somewherebetween, you know, a PhD thesis
on whether tropical earthwormscan rehabilitate soil to full
(49:16):
romance novels that were hard tocorrect because they were so
specific. And I did never six orseven years, I you know, I did
it for a pretty long time and Ireally enjoyed it, but it didn't
feel like enough and when you'refreelancing, you know, it's,
(49:37):
it's a hustle. Like, I wasalways worried and and I was
relying on my, my at the timespouse's income, right, like,
they were a programmer. And sowe had this like household
income, so I didn't have toworry about it as much. But I
wanted more. I just didn't knowhow to get it and I They always
(50:01):
had wanted me to learn to code.
But I came across a lot of theproblems that you talked about
earlier, which is just that,like, what I had no concept of
it before I met them. And also,it felt like this very formulaic
thing. I was just like, Yeah,get it, like, you memorize the
things. And then you type thosethings where they belong. Like,
(50:21):
that was my sort of, you know,preconceived notion of it. And I
think, that was just like,specific to my partner, almost
like they had a certainexperience where like they had
had, they had started with basicwhen they were a kid, and moved
up with it. And the way thatthey programmed was very, was
very mathematical, because they,as a person were very
(50:43):
mathematical. But I wasn't, so Ijust like, didn't see it
happening. And it wasn't until Istarted meeting. Like, more co
workers and people in thecommunity, then I started seeing
that, like, the ways that codecould be more creative, and be
more expressive. And I thought,like, Oh, well, that's something
I do know how to do. Like,that's something I am interested
(51:05):
in, like, if the point oflearning this is to then create
another thing that I love. Like,that totally makes sense. Like,
if I learned,
Chloe Condon (51:13):
you know, crafting sort
Katy Farmer (51:15):
of exactly right, like if the if the outcome is
another piece of art, then yeah,it's totally worth learning. And
it doesn't have to be just for,I don't know, like, I don't know
what I thought it was forbefore. I was just like, I am
not math, math, right, whichmost of us know is just not
true. And also, like math isalso learnable. It turns out,
(51:37):
like, I didn't spend a lot oftime on it. So I thought I was
bad at math. But it turns out,most people are not bad at math.
They just don't practice math.
Chloe Condon (51:47):
Very bad.
Katy Farmer (51:48):
Yes. Right. Now, you didn't spend time. You
didn't spend time practicing itand therefore you're not great
at it. Like just like anythingelse. And
Chloe Condon (51:58):
I think it's so full circle that I saw you give
this talk where you had drawnyour own illustrations in the
talk because I thought, Oh cool,someone adding something
creative to their talk.
Katy Farmer (52:10):
Like I was always really important to me that like
when I saw when I finallydecided like, okay, now's the
time to code. I knew that I wasgoing to go to a boot camp
because I don't if I could havelearned it on my own I would
have learned it in the manyyears of the relationship that I
was in with this expert you knowwhat I mean? I just am not great
(52:32):
at learning such a such a newconcept on my own. So I knew I
needed to be in class. That's aquestion I people ask me a lot.
It's like how did you know youneeded to go to a boot camp and
like for me, it was just like, Ineed to be in a classroom with
somebody telling me there's achance I might not be good
Chloe Condon (52:50):
external accountability. Shout out to
frequent co host and guess thepod PJ for being self taught
because I don't have thediscipline. I need other people
around me.
Katy Farmer (52:59):
Yeah, well, things I've taught myself. Literally
nothing. I will eat until I geta stomach ache. Unless someone
is like, Excuse me. Excuse me,excuse your stomach hurt. I'll
be like yeah, does I don'tunderstand. I knew I needed to
be in a classroom and I went tothe the touring school in
Denver. Which, which was great.
And it was a little bit longerthan some of the other ones. I
(53:21):
can't remember a lot of my lifeprevious guests
Chloe Condon (53:26):
of the show, Danny also went to terrain school,
we've got a lot of terrain folksout in the community that are
just killing it. And in seniorroles and out in the world.
Katy Farmer (53:37):
Let's I mean, I'll say that I have a lot of
opinions about boot camps. Andas anyone who goes to a boot
camp does, right, but like Ithink touring definitely, like
was one of the better schoolsand continues to be I think as
far as the curriculum goes, andI thrived in the school
environment. Like I said, I justlike being in school. Yeah, I
(53:59):
just like it people are likehere's what you need to learn
like you just need it the rightschool Katie?
Unknown (54:06):
Right school? Yeah,
Chloe Condon (54:07):
I think that's a lot of what we see with people
who are on this show. And peoplethat I know in the community who
come to tech non traditionallyis oftentimes we're just not
around technology. It's not forlack of interest. Like we were
all in a group chat earliertalking about Chucky cheese. I
love shaggy cheese, and I loveDisneyland and I know for a fact
(54:27):
that was because theanimatronics fascinated me, but
I didn't have anybody in my lifeto tell me that's technology
like that's something you couldlearn how to build and work
with. So I think it's you know,sometimes it's just a matter of
being introduced or even justmarinating in the subject matter
a little bit with a partner orwith a friend that like, like PJ
(54:49):
and Marina. But sometimes itjust takes the right teacher
even I think probably
Katy Farmer (54:54):
well and it's so fascinating because like i
during my time in boot camp,because I had made. I mean, it
was like a big life change. AndI tell this now when I, when I
talk to people who are in bootcamps is like, okay, nobody's
really at this boot camp becauseeverything was going great.
Like, that's not when you decideto change your whole life
usually, like,
Chloe Condon (55:14):
you don't just wake up and pay a bunch of money
and decide to make a careerchange. Right?
Katy Farmer (55:18):
You reach a point, right? It's usually some kind of
breaking point. And it's a bigrisk. It costs money and time,
and you don't know if you'regoing to be good at it. And I
was filled with fear the entiretime. I mean, again, I have an
anxiety disorder. So I am filledwith fear most of the time, but
like extra and during that bootcamp time was the time when I
(55:39):
had a full like, I started, ithad been many years since I'd
had like a panic attack orsomething like that. And those
started coming back, becausethat environment is so intense.
Chloe Condon (55:49):
Did you know what imposter syndrome was before
your boot camp? Because I didnot
Katy Farmer (55:53):
know, I heard people talking about it. And I
was just like, I don't know ifI'm supposed to be here, because
I'm too worried abouteverything. You know what I
mean? Like I couldn't separatethings that were going on. So I
think for me, it was like Istarted having, you know, full
like, I don't want to sayregressions. But it was just
another you know, when you havea any kind of disorder, it's
(56:16):
just like, it's just whereyou're at in it, right? Your
best is different every day. Andmy best wasn't, was just a
little bit less than it had beenbefore that pressure. But like,
I started going back to therapy,and then for my like, sort of
like capstone project. I learnedJavaScript, just so that I could
build a game, like we talkedabout, because I was like, how
(56:38):
do I get people to understandlike, what I'm feeling and
having ideas for projects, whenyou're just free like that is
hard. So I built a very bad, notnot bad an idea was, you know,
objectively, it didn't work.
Like it was supposed to, but Ibuilt a game. That was a, I
think it was called shine. Andit was about going around and
(56:59):
interacting with positive thingsin the game. And every time you
interact into somethingpositive, your little character
got a little bit shiny or likeglow. And then if you like,
stayed by yourself for too longand didn't do the positive
things that your glow wouldstart to go down a little.
Unknown (57:16):
No, okay, wait,
Chloe Condon (57:18):
this is a great segue to following Katie on
Twitter, because her Twitter isa beam of positivity almost as
much as should I have bought inmy life when I see my feet.
Let's go girls have it just youknow, hey, you can do it. You
could do the thing. So everybodyout there, make sure that you're
following Katie on Twitter justfor it is no surprise to me that
(57:40):
you built a positivity outbecause that is just so your
aesthetic. Oh my goodness. We wehave had Okay, I feel like we
have to have you back on and I'mso sorry you didn't get our best
episodes are the two partersbecause there's so much journey
here. And I think this is agreat, this is an episode that I
(58:01):
am going to send to folks whoasked me about boot camps. part
one and part two that we'regonna have you back on here for.
But Katie, where can people findyou on the interwebs? And where
should they go check out yourstuff. And we're I think we're
gonna just like make Katie comein on the show. She's gonna come
back right, Katie? Yeah.
recorded.
Katy Farmer (58:21):
What is your best bit I love? I love Twitter. It's
a horrible place that I like tosend little boob positivity
jolts into just to see whathappens. It's chaos. And I think
anytime there's chaos, there's achance for something really good
to happen. So find me. The catertaught on Twitter. That's your
(58:45):
best bet. And you know, I workat circle ci. So if you're like,
man, I need to work there. Ilove it so much. You can message
me about that.
Chloe Condon (58:51):
Wonderful, Katie, you're such a bright spot of
positivity in the community. Wecan't wait to have you back. And
I can't wait to just talk moreabout boot camps and the job
search. We didn't even get tothe job search. So
Katy Farmer (59:07):
let's talk about just remove this as a reminder
for myself. Let's talk about theworst interview we've all had.
Chloe Condon (59:15):
Oh, that's a good cliffhanger. Yeah, I'm sure as
someone who had to audition somuch as the musician that we're
gonna have some very interestingwhiteboarding stories. Alright,
y'all on that very intensely.
I'm excited for this episode onthis cliffhanger. That has been
it for a bit. Brad, did you wantto close this out? Yes. Thanks.
Brandon Minnick (59:37):
Thanks, everybody for joining us. Make
sure to check out all theepisodes on eight bits TV,
subscribe to the podcast on yourfavorite podcasting platform.
And we'll see you back here nextweek. Wednesday at 1pm Pacific.
Bye, y'all.
Looks like we've made it thank you PJ. We're
back. You know, we were just inthe in the private chat a little
a little behind the scenes lookhere at eight beds. We get
pumped on that song every time.
Our podcast listeners get tohear that song Right, right,
Brandon?
Brandon Minnick (02:21):
Oh, of course, we do not edit that after the
podcast. cuz everybody shouldsubscribe to.
Chloe Condon (02:27):
It gives me like.
Yes. Where can people subscribeto our podcast? Brandon,
Brandon Minnick (02:35):
we can find us at eight bits.tv. It's probably
the coolest URL I've ever gottenthe opportunity to purchase?
Because it's a.tv. Yeah, if yougo to ABC TV, you can subscribe
to the podcast, you can see allthe previous episodes or if you
prefer to watch us on youtubevia video, then you can check
(02:57):
out all the live streams toeverything. Everything we do is
there. And
Chloe Condon (03:00):
now all the previous apps with all the
awesome guests that we've had,we've done almost 50 episodes at
this point we're getting there.
What is it?
Unknown (03:08):
Yeah, already
Brandon Minnick (03:11):
been going for over a year. Now you're doing it
once a week with the exceptionof when we aren't allowed to
stream because Microsoft ishaving a conference or maybe
there's a holiday like I don'tthink we did it over New Year's.
But yeah, we're around thecorner on the year number two.
Chloe Condon (03:28):
We've been at it for a year now. And just like
Brandon said, if you want towatch any of the previous
episode, and we've had some verycool guests, some guests that
are in the chat right now. Also,if you're listening to the
podcast, we do this as a livestream live every Wednesday at
one pacific time. So definitelycome if you ever want to ask
(03:48):
questions, live to our guests.
And just get involved with theshow. Come and join us. We have
a good time, right PJ PJ is inthe chat.
Brandon Minnick (03:58):
And maybe you can be a guest on the show one
day to
Chloe Condon (04:00):
Yes, full circle.
Brandon, how have you been? Howis your week Ben?
Brandon Minnick (04:07):
Oh, so far so good. I do want to apologize in
advance. We have a gentlemanhere that's removing a tree so
if you hear chainsaws in thebackground or loud begging just
know that I'm safe everything'sfine you know what
Chloe Condon (04:24):
judgment free zone we're all still technically
working from home even here inCalifornia and I feel like who
amongst us has not had asignificant other or friend make
an espresso in the backgroundlive stream so are welcome here
Brandon Minnick (04:44):
to comment says removing the tree the internet
yeah hopefully doesn't affectthe internet cable and I go dark
but yeah, we had a tree that itsroots were encroaching in on the
foundation. And so it was youknow I hate cutting down trees.
trees in reactive landscapingplans are going to add more
stuff to the backyard soon. Butyeah, we just bought this house
(05:07):
and I can't afford to redo afoundation. So it's either that
or the tree and portrait lost atthat tree, hopefully won't be
too bad.
Chloe Condon (05:19):
Well, I am very, very excited here in California
things have started opening up.
So it's very interesting to goout into the world and, and be
able to go to restaurants again,and not have to wear a mask all
the time. So it's, I will say,it's very different. I think we
all thought this would be a lotshorter that it would be and it
feels you know what I kind ofmiss making faces that. Like, I
(05:42):
kind of need to pull myexpressions back in now. But um,
it's been a lovely week to beoutside. And yeah, I'm, I'm
super excited. Because I'mhosting the static web apps,
static web apps conference nextweek, you can go to aka.ms
(06:03):
slash, s w a calm, it's going tobe super fun. I'm, there's going
to be a keynote by john papa. Sothat will be very exciting. But
I kind of love this conferenceformat, Brandon, because here's
the thing. As we all know, Ihave ADHD, my attention span is
very short, especially during aglobal pandemic, right. We're
(06:25):
all home. We're in meetings allday. And it's really hard to pay
attention in this cool trendthat actually I'm sure our
guests will have a lot to sayabout this, because they just
ran a fabulous event similar tothis as well, is the talks
instead of being the usual, youknow, 30 minute or you know, 45
minute with question format, or15 minutes. So that's like super
(06:45):
digestible for my brain. And Ireally, really excited because
there's going to be all theseannouncements happening talking
about the Azure static web appcsli, how to do that, just like
static web apps in theproduction API, all kinds of
stuff. And I'm going to be yourhostess with the mostess. I'm
going to be hosting it, askingthem all the questions, all your
burning questions about staticweb app. So I'm really excited
(07:08):
and also excited to learn moreabout static web apps, like I
get to watch the wholeconference because I'm hosting
it. So maybe I'm gonna be makinga static web app. My Furby Who
knows?
Brandon Minnick (07:21):
What, what even is a static web app?
Chloe Condon (07:24):
Oh, great question, Brandon. Well, it's
basically a way I just had agross are basically the quickest
way for your JavaScript to havestatic sites from code to scale.
So the way that I like toexplain it is, you know how I
can get hub, you get a GitHubpage with like, your GitHub repo
automatically, very that verymuch just a static website, just
(07:45):
very simple with JavaScript. Youcan get up and running very,
very quickly. And just superexcited to hear all the
announcements. I use staticwebsites all the time to just
whip up something reallyquickly. You know, like, I think
we always say, we don't want toreinvent the wheel. We don't
have to want to build a websitecompletely from scratch. So I
use them all the time to host Ithink I have my Azure Mario Kart
(08:08):
astrology on an Azure static webapp. That sounds right. Just a
great place to have all my dataon all of my different Mario
Kart characters and their stats,just, yeah, someone's new wheel
is the best way. Yeah, asengineers, we tend to think that
(08:28):
way. But there's a lot of reallygreat tools to just help that be
a lot more easier.
Brandon Minnick (08:33):
Yeah, and you know, static web apps are great
for anything where the dataisn't dynamic. It's not
necessarily interactive. Sothink of like a blogging
platform, right? We're justposting articles. Those are
great use cases for static webapps. And I would argue most
websites could be static webapps. And if you can, you might
(08:54):
want to do it, because it's waycheaper. So with Yeah, with
Azure static web apps, theyessentially what Azure does, it
just saves your code and then ondemand will display that to the
user. So it's not like you haveto pay all the server costs in
the background. You just havethis great looking website that
you design that you don't haveto pay a fortune for. So check
(09:17):
it out. aka.ms slash SW a calm.
So
Chloe Condon (09:23):
a fun project. A static web apps project I'm
gonna write this down isreplicating a geo cities type
page because we talk a lot onthe show about tech selja and
how much we loved our Angelfire. geo city is maybe like
recreate that for an Azurestatic web app. Stay tuned, let
it or to hear any updates in theXamarin world? I went to Maui
(09:52):
recently. How is Maui doingBrandon?
Brandon Minnick (09:56):
data Maui is coming. We just pushed out
Preview five of dotnet, six andalso dotnet, Maui, they're
still, we're still working atit. So obviously, it's still in
previews, there's still certainthings that aren't in the
library yet. So things like ifyou ever needed the Xamarin
(10:18):
Forms content view, we're stilladding that to Maui. So it's
still very much a work inprogress. But you can check out
the previews. So I wouldn't tryusing it yet for your App Store
apps. But if you want to playaround with it a little bit, get
a feel for the syntax. That way,you're the dotnet Maui expert.
(10:39):
Once it finally launches, go forit. But yeah, probably, I mean,
preview six is gonna have abunch more features in it. And,
yeah, for the next couplemonths, it's just gonna get more
and more feature complete. Andthen we'll obviously November,
it'll move into ga intoproduction. So it's very
exciting. And it's all opensource, and you can follow
(11:00):
along. So please do but alsostay tuned for all the updates
over the next couple weeks.
Chloe Condon (11:07):
So exciting. I keep seeing you and friend of
the pod. squeaky talking aboutall of the awesome updates. come
in around the mountain. Veryexcited. Um, cool. Should we
bring in our guests, anythingelse? Anything else we want to
update our listeners and ourviewers about?
Brandon Minnick (11:25):
That sounds good to me. I mean, let's, let's
bring her in.
Chloe Condon (11:29):
So excited. Okay, so I met this lovely human
being, I believe, through theconference in boot camp world,
we have another boot camp gradwith us here today. And I
believe I totally just fell inlove with this creative person
who had a lot of handwritten orhand drawn visuals and their
(11:51):
presentation. And I was like anartist. I love it. So I'm very,
very excited to welcome thisperson on the show. They are a
beam of positivity in the techcommunity. Welcome, Katie.
Hello.
Katy Farmer (12:06):
Hi, now might be the nicest intro I've ever had.
And I liked it. It's so true. I
Chloe Condon (12:12):
just remember, you know, I came from a creative
arts world myself and seeing alot of tech talks and having,
you know, this, this standard,you know, clipart, or, you know,
the images that you get from astock photo, if you will. But I
loved all these handwritten handdrawn examples to illustrate a
point. Do you remember what thattalk was? I feel like a DevOps
(12:33):
talk maybe?
Katy Farmer (12:34):
I think, I think the first one that I maybe did
was just like, what is timeseries data?
Chloe Condon (12:39):
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Katy Farmer (12:41):
Because here's the thing, every time somebody asked
me a question, I don't know theanswer to I'm like, Great. I'll
go find out. And then I'll writea talk about which is the best
Chloe Condon (12:51):
way to write a talk. I
Brandon Minnick (12:52):
do that all the time. I call it conference
driven development, where
Chloe Condon (12:57):
I love topic.
Brandon Minnick (12:58):
Yeah. So if there's a topic I'm excited
about, like I did this years agowith graph QL. I was actually at
a conference, I sat in a talk ongraph QL. I was like, I need to
learn more about this. So I juststarted submitting talks for it.
And I was like, well, we'll seeif one of these gets picked up,
then I have to learn it. And itworks. It works surprisingly,
well. You'll definitely learnit. You might be stressed out.
(13:20):
And you might be hating yourselfbecause I submit this talk about
it, think about it,
Chloe Condon (13:25):
and you're probably nervous. You're fresh,
content and exhilarating. I'msure. I'm so good at reading
manuals. That's what I basicallyhave a degree in. So you know
what, I feel like I betterunderstood time series
development because of yourtalk. Like I had a visual. I'm a
(13:48):
very visual learner. And ithelps me learn so thank you,
Katie. And you know what, foryou, Chloe, anytime. Thank you
so much, Katie. It's all thelovely people tuning in and
listening to the show aboutyourself and what you do.
Katy Farmer (14:05):
Oh, well, Hello.
I'm Katie. I am a communitymanager at circle ci right now.
So that's one thing that I do. Ihave been a developer advocate.
I have been an editor of PhDtheses erotica, Nala novels. I
worked in retail and I made ajuice for a job one year I had
(14:28):
never drank juice, but I waslike, I get it. You put fruit in
the juicer. Um, I am a sort of aperson of all trades who have
been in a lot of jobs and acouple careers. I went to
college for music, switchedcourses to literature, worked in
(14:48):
that for a while switch coursesagain. And so I am very much a
renaissance woman One could sayor you can always I'm saying
that I just have ADHD boththings would be true. So
Chloe Condon (15:08):
yes. And if you're not following Katie on Twitter,
her Twitter is the cater taughta lovely Twitter account, follow
lots of positivity out there,but would love. So on the show,
we talk, of course, aboutpeople's origin stories to tech
and how they get here. And whatled you to this career? And it
(15:28):
sounds like you have a verymusical path to tech. Is that
correct?
Katy Farmer (15:35):
Yeah, I would say that I really fought my way
through a dark forest. Andcareer wise, and maybe in some
other ways, too. Like, I when Iwas a kid, I definitely have a
really musical family. And itwas one of the few things we all
could kind of agree on was justthat, like, we liked music. And
(15:58):
that was one thing. So inschool, I had the chance to
start, you know, just like aregular band class. And once I
was in, I played the trumpet,and I was just like, you know
what I like about this, like onevery loud, big fan. And I always
had listened to a lot of like,older music that featured a lot
(16:19):
more bras like Louie Armstrongstuff like that was just like
stuff that I listened to aroundthe house. So I was always
exciting about it. And yeah, Ikind of stayed that course for
most of school. I loved playing.
But I also knew that like, itwas my best chance at like a
scholarship to go to college.
(16:42):
Like I loved it, but I was verymuch like big fish. small pond,
like my high school was reallyrural. There were I think there
were maybe 30 kids in band, butlike, you know how it is like 25
of them were flutes, and you'relike this can't be accurate.
It's too many floats.
Chloe Condon (17:03):
We had to test into an instrument at my
elementary school, which I havea lot of thoughts on and would
love to get. So we have twoother band geeks here on the
show. Brandon, you are apercussionist. Is that right?
Yep. And then we have a trumpetplayer here. I did not get to
choose my instrument because andyou have to imagine this is the
(17:25):
90s when cassettes are ourchosen form of audio, not high
definition. And we had aninstructor, lovely woman, but
she played all these soundeffects and we had to mark on a
sheet like on a on a, like atest sheet. What sounds we
(17:45):
preferred, but looking back Ican't imagine like imagine a
flute on a low residue set. Iwould have been like no, too
shrill, right like very oldequipment. Well, I've listened
to you can call me out opinions.
Great song. Yeah, absolutely.
(18:05):
And tested into so here's here'sa little insight into my my
fourth grade mind, alto sax, andI was only given these options
like I'm sure someone's parentscomplaint and tried to get their
daughter into flute but minedidn't matter. My options were
what is the big one sousaphone,sousaphone the big one that you
(18:26):
have to wear around you? Yeah,it's like a tube overseas or to
that and a saxophone alto sax?
And, you know, I want to be withall my friends and play like a
different instrument. But no wayit was I had to play. I was
like, I cannot know people whomake fun of me if I play the
tuba. So I went with alto sax, Ihad to test into it. Did you get
to pick your instrument? Katie?
(18:48):
Yeah, fully. No one. No. One inthe machine learning? Did I have
to
Katy Farmer (18:55):
get my history? I think you were part of an
experiment. I think there's dataout there that we could be using
Chloe Condon (19:02):
did you choose?
Brandon Minnick (19:04):
So I'm a little unique. So I moved to Florida,
the summer for sixth grade. Sothe summer for middle school
here in the US. And the newschool I was joining. Or
actually I should rephrase thatin. In the school district. I
was joining. They didn't teachinstruments until Middle School.
(19:25):
Whereas when I lived in NewYork, we started band in second
or third grade. So I had alreadybeen playing percussion for a
couple years. And so yeah, inmiddle school, they also had you
test into an instrument. So youwent around you played maybe you
got to try all of them.
Chloe Condon (19:44):
No hands on, it was no hands on. not accessible
either. Because imagine ifyou're heard of hearing like
come on. This is not exactly
Brandon Minnick (19:53):
yeah. So actually, yeah, I thought was
pretty cool. Yeah, like you gotto go around and like try out
the tuba and see if you couldget To make a sound because,
honestly, that's the hardestpart about it instrument is
like, do you know how to buzzyour lips to make a brass
instrument? Create a sound? Doyou know how to use a reed for
woodwind? I mean, percussion ispretty easy. You just hit stuff
(20:14):
with a stick. And usually,that's enough to make a sound.
Yeah, I was fortunate to where Ialready had experience in
percussion. So I just, well, Istill test it in, but I was kind
of
Katy Farmer (20:28):
interested in but you were like, real cocky about
it.
Brandon Minnick (20:32):
I will say the big difference was I did a
little bit of so percussion isanything from, from drums to
what we call keyboardinstruments. So xylophones,
marimbas, Viber phones, chimes,anything like that. Anything you
hit with a stick, or a mallet.
And so the biggest difference inthe middle school was they had
(20:53):
like zero dial phones. marimbas.
And I had never played thosebefore. So she the band director
put some site music on themusic's and was like, okay, play
this on the xylophone. I waslike, but how do you do that?
Can I just play the snare drum?
But yeah, now I can do all ofit.
Katy Farmer (21:14):
Yeah, I definitely feel like there was none. Again,
I went to school in the woods,nobody paid attention. I'm very,
I feel very lucky that there wasbanned at all. Um, it was very
small, rural area in Oregon. Andyeah, so there were only ever I
think, maybe three or fourtrumpets in the band. And, and I
(21:36):
happen to be the best out ofthat group. So I also felt very
accomplished. But the samplesize was not, you know, wasn't
really enough to go off of, butI did. I did get a scholarship.
And it was a, I don't know, Ithink, you know, looking back,
(21:56):
you're like, that was a reallyspecial thing. I'm really glad
that happened for me. But at thetime, I was just like, this is
what is supposed to happen.
Like, this is the path I'msupposed to be on. Like, of
course, I got a scholarship, Iworked very hard. Even though
it's probably as random asanything else. You know. Like I
was, you know, I didn't I didn'tlove living at home, it wasn't a
(22:18):
super happy place. And but Iloved music. And so the idea to
like, leave on that and have itbe my way out felt very poetic,
which I was also very into, Iwas into like, a lot of drama. A
lot of Evanescence, like, justlike a real just a vibe, you
know, just like a, like a sadgirl vibe. That I was just like,
(22:40):
very, very about and with
Chloe Condon (22:45):
a music scholarship, what does one like?
What field does one go into witha music scholarship? Because I
know, as an actress, we wouldask me that all the time. Like,
I want to be an actress or, youknow, like, I would teach
acting? What does that look likefor a music scholarship?
Katy Farmer (22:58):
Yeah, so I mean, most people either know that
they're going to be in thesymphony, and that takes a long
time. You just kinda have towait for like a lot of older
people to die. Or currentlyprobably.
Chloe Condon (23:16):
is a symphony.
Every state have a symphony,actual question I do not know
the answer to and what defines asymphony like, can I? Because I
feel like in the Bay Area wehave. Oh, it's a lovely. It's
like a group Symphony in theEast Bay that meets up as kind
of like a crowded Symphony. Sowhat? What is the symphony?
Katie?
Katy Farmer (23:39):
These are all great questions. I want to say that
most states have Symphony. Idon't.
I don't know if they have one.
Like, I don't know if there'sone at a state level or if
there's like, you know, becauselike Chicago, New York obviously
have them. Boston. Yeah. Likethere's a lot of a lot of great
ones. There's a lot of likesmaller ones, too. I learned
Chloe Condon (24:01):
in Symphony Orchestra. I feel like I heard
of it.
Brandon Minnick (24:06):
Yeah, yeah, we have a San Francisco City
orchestra as well. So maybe it'sworth anything.
Katy Farmer (24:12):
But I mean, those things like they don't really
pay a lot of people like a lotof musicians. I know now they
like will gig as you know, fortheatres, right? They'll be like
in the orchestra pit. But that'sjust like a
Chloe Condon (24:30):
Broadway is a pretty steady music job. I would
think kind of in the same waythat I feel like an actor steady
job would be a TV show, or aBroadway show or a touring show.
Sounds like symphonies are kindof a sweet gig sometimes.
Katy Farmer (24:43):
Yeah. And I was one of those. I think, again,
because I have this like, I justvery determined to plan for like
getting out of dodge. So I waslike, here's what you do. You
get your scholarship, and you gothrough college, and then you
join a symphony, any Symphony,whoever will take you you do
that until your first Then youmove up to a bigger Symphony in
your first year, and theneventually you're the conductor.
(25:04):
That was sort of my, you know,not everyone wants to be a
conductor, but I thought itwould be really cool. Um,
Chloe Condon (25:10):
is it very Game of Thrones in the symphony world?
I'm genuinely curious. Like, ifyou're like, I don't know how
many trumpets there are like,six trumpets? Do you like have
to fight your way to firsttrumpet?
Katy Farmer (25:22):
Yeah, you do.
There's usually some kind oflike, in the same way that you
might have tested into aninstrument there were like tests
within the sections, right? Andyou all play the same short
piece, and then the conductor,whoever judges you, and then
puts you in order. I willhear that I didn't know how they
determined the numbers. Yeah,they basically like you all play
(25:44):
the same thing. Sometimes it'slike, it's not just talent.
Sometimes it's range. Like,right, like, Oh, well, you know,
Katy can hit this, like higherrange. So she needs to be in the
parts that are going to have thehigher range, like in the same
way that you might do with voicelessons. But like, for me, I
think I was just I was verylucky that I have sort of like a
(26:05):
good sense of musicality, again,I think just from being exposed
to it a lot at home. And also,everyone else was bad. So
sometimes the tests it soundslike, like, it sounds like a lot
of whiteboarding for musicalmost to be like a
(26:27):
professional.
Yeah, like, there's a lot of,you're on the spot in front of
and it's not like they're like,okay, trumpets go into this
room, and we'll figure it out.
It's like, here you are with theentire Symphony or the band or
whatever. Play your piece. Wow.
Right. So it's very much basedon that I,
Chloe Condon (26:46):
like stand up.
It's Symphony stand up. Yeah.
Katy Farmer (26:51):
I hated it. I mean, I hated the like, because here
are some things you can't dosuper well with a dry mouth play
a brass instrument. So you know,like, there are some instruments
that I feel like if they'repercussion or any, like the
strings, that if you're like, alittle nervous, you can sort of
work around but if you get a drymouth here, like a little shaky,
(27:14):
which I always was, then itstarts being like, Oh, what a
cool vibe. Bravo, you have like,thank you. I'm really nervous.
Chloe Condon (27:21):
Singing as well. I feel like there's certain
instruments that your, your bodylanguage or even just your mood
can affect how you play verymuch very much. And
Katy Farmer (27:32):
I'm when I got into college, still number one, but
but still kind of a smallcollege
Chloe Condon (27:41):
scholar among us.
Katy Farmer (27:43):
Yeah, no big deal.
But I've read some books. Idefinitely like it was wildly
difficult. And I wentspecifically to a school that
was like, really rigorousacademically. Because that's
what I wanted. I want I justwanted to like, I always loved
school. I like again, like, ifyou're not super excited about
(28:05):
being in your home, then likeschool is a good backup. And so
I loved being at school, I wouldget there. Not voluntarily, but
just because of like my family'stransportation and stuff. I
would always be there superearly. Reading every book, I
would just be like, I remembergoing to the library and being
like, what is the longest bookin this library? And she said, I
think at the time, it was the,the Once and Future King. Okay,
(28:28):
which is like an Arthuriannovel. For King Arthur, and it's
not good or interesting. I readit, I read it so hard.
Chloe Condon (28:43):
So you say that you read the longest book,
Katy Farmer (28:45):
so I could say and that was very much how I was. I
think I just, I wanted to do thehardest things. So that I would
feel you know, like worthwhileand valid and like, Okay, well,
I'm maybe not like the strongestperson in my family. But I've
read the most books, I'm smarterthan them, or, which is like,
not a good way to measure any ofthat. But
Chloe Condon (29:07):
I identify with that. I watched every musical at
blockbuster. And that was like athing that I had to do. I
couldn't explain it. But I waslike, I need to watch every
single one of these. So I am theexpert at these musicals. Okay.
Katy Farmer (29:18):
Yeah, like I needed to be in like the expert in my
domain, because there were somany parts of my life that I
felt had so little control over.
So it was like, I'm on thispath. And I play the trumpet.
And then I go here, and I dothis, but it was maybe only it
was my my first year in college.
So you when you're a musicmajor, they're not messing
(29:40):
around with the amount ofcredits you have to take because
you have to study your owninstrument. So you have like, a
one on one like coachingbasically, with a teacher. You
have to be in the symphony, andprobably also the jazz band like
because there's always bothright and so you're in both of
those which are separate.
courses with separate rehearsaltimes and performances and all
(30:01):
the things. Every music major nomatter what your instrument, you
have to take piano, which I hadnever played any of these tiny
baby hands can't reach the keys.
The professor was just like theangriest, smallest, most furious
little man in the planet, he hadreally specific rules. And he
(30:24):
was, he was just like, you know,as an 18 year old have never
been anywhere but home. He wasabsolutely terrifying. One time
I remember at the piano recital,I was like, you know, you have
to memorize everything. So I waslike, playing my little beginner
piece. And a lot of the otherstudents were like, more
advanced in piano because it wassomething that like a lot of
music majors do learn. And Iremember playing this piece, and
(30:46):
I remember he just looked at meand he said, That was wonderful.
But it was an originalcomposition. Oh, I guess I
didn't play the piece, right iswhat he was trying to tell me.
Chloe Condon (30:59):
Like, a line from glee.
Katy Farmer (31:02):
He was harsh. He was so just like, Yeah, I just I
remember that. Because it wasvery funny. But also I wanted to
be dead. So it was like,complicated.
Chloe Condon (31:12):
Have you guys had like, I feel like I've had one
or two teachers in my life likethat. That just scared me into
into learning the content, nevergood method to learn.
creative type?
Katy Farmer (31:29):
I do think it happens a lot in the arts. Yeah.
Because a lot of times, and thisis something I came across a lot
with, like being in music and alittle bit and I was a little
involved with the theater worldwas that sometimes people in
those areas are given license tobe not very nice. Under the
guise of creativity andartistry, creative license.
Yeah, we're like, oh, well,that's just how they are. But
(31:52):
look at this magnificent thingthat they made. I'm like, well,
genius.
Exactly right. It's how it'slike, I don't know, there's kind
of this idea that like, in orderto be creative, in order to be
this creative genius, you kindof have to be unwell in some
way, right? You either have, youhave to, like have a condition
or you just have to be like amiserable person. Like there's
(32:13):
all of these ideas about like,what does it mean to be a
creative genius, I think in verysimilar in tech, right, like the
people who we think of as beinglike, Oh, well, this person,
they're like the greatestprogrammer, and then we like
make allowances for things thatare maybe not very nice, you
know, in the way that they treatpeople, right. And you can see
it in all the stories of all ofthe like, original founders,
(32:36):
jobs and gates, and you're like,yeah, they just like weren't
nice to people. And people werelike, that's okay. I believe in
the dream. And I'm like, I havea dream of not getting a chair
thrown at me. So like, That'sthe dream.
Chloe Condon (32:48):
creative license is so subjective to like, like
what constitutes like a goodpiece of art. My mom was a
artist and also taught art andespecially when you're dealing
with children, but especiallywith adults giving feedback is
important. But artists aresubjective, right, like, and I
think that was the mostdifficult thing for myself as a
(33:08):
non technical person with code.
You forget a semi colon and thecode does not work and it will
not run and you are doing a badjob. If you can't get your code
run but with arm it was so youknow, if you're an actress,
there's so many different wayssomeone can portray a role or if
you're an artist, there's somany different ways that people
can paint something. So that'sbeen a very interesting black or
white transition from my leftbrain life and detec I think and
(33:32):
I'm sure with with music, that'sprobably pretty similar, right?
Katy Farmer (33:38):
Well, if you know what it's like, you kind of
you've led me to fascinatingterritory, Chloe, it's like
you're good at this.
Chloe Condon (33:45):
Are you more of a jazz fan? Katie?
Katy Farmer (33:48):
I do like some surprises. I'm not gonna lie.
That's why I like JavaScript,right? It's just like, I know,
maybe there won't be a semicolon. But today, you know,
what's more important, or thesemi colon? You don't type? Oh,
wow. That's, that's a jazz joke.
For fans out here. But yeah, solike, I very much I realized
(34:10):
about a year into this, likereally intensive music degree
that I had a I had a problem,which was my jaw, there's
something not quite right. And Ididn't know what it was. And and
now I do, but it doesn't, it'snot super helpful. It's just in
a very exaggerated form of TMJ,which is kind of like lockjaw,
(34:33):
basically, but my jaw juststarted it started to hurt
started to hurt and I mean,you're playing for hours and
hours a day. And I realized thatlike, the, the plan, the the the
sort of path that I was on, Icould see it just like
evaporating. Do you know what Imean? Like, I was just like, my
face hurts and I went to thenurse. Again, this is another
(34:56):
person who scared me a lot andProbably maybe wasn't an expert.
She was just the campus nurse.
And she said, Oh, yeah, if youdon't get your job reset, but
with a surgery, it's gonna it'sgoing to be stuck forever. And I
was like, Well, I guess I'lljust go
Chloe Condon (35:18):
musical A Chorus Line, there's a whole song
about, you know, what I did forlove was, which is essentially
if you're a dancer, your job isto dance. And if you get an
injury, if you break your leg ifyou you know, or if you kind of
age out of being the age rangeof a ballerina ballerina, your
job is over. So like, yeah,having that passion for
something and not being able todo it is so difficult.
Katy Farmer (35:41):
Yeah. So I feel like I just went through a
period of like, I mean, I wasdefinitely depressed. And I was
a little like, at sea, and Iswitched to I switched schools
to somewhere less intense. And Igot into literature, which had
always been something I wasinterested in, you know, I was
already reading the biggestbooks there were so didn't sound
(36:02):
too harsh. Um, and, and I did Imean, like, Look, if somebody
could just pay me to read allthe time if that were the job.
Okay, great. I loved my timestudying literature and being in
it, but like, yeah, like, what?
I wouldn't pay that much for itagain, like, No, probably not.
Chloe Condon (36:24):
Right? It's that like, what would you do? What do
you do with a BA in English fromAvenue Q is it is a song like, I
think when we're for folks,creative folks like us, I think,
oftentimes, people don't come upto us and say, Great, like, what
are you going to do with yourtheater degree? Do you know how
much you will make as anactress? Do you know how much
(36:45):
you know? Do you know what it'slike to be a trumpet player in a
professional Symphony? And whatthat life looks like? And I
think it's very, it's very coolto see people from these non
traditional backgrounds comeinto their because a lot of us
have like, never heard ofcomputers like what what was
your computer relationship?
Katy Farmer (37:01):
I zero, it was none. I didn't have a computer
at home. We It was eithersomething we were like, I don't
really know if it was somethingthe family like, I mean, we
couldn't afford it slash therewas very little interest. the
only the only things I knewabout computers came from my
grandpa, who was very, was aheadof his time. He loved that man
(37:24):
loved Radio Shack more than allof us. And I was fine. Yeah, he
he was always bringing us likefun little electronic things.
And he got us our first sort ofcomputer, which was a called a
Web TV. Oh, oh, it's horrible.
It's like if you had a computer,but it didn't work. As far as I
understand it, I'm going to belike a little bit wrong about
(37:47):
this. But basically, it was justsomething you hooked up to your
TV as an internet proxy. So yourTV became the monitor. And you
just had like you said, Webley,yeah, it had an infrared
keyboard
Brandon Minnick (38:02):
board. Yeah,
Katy Farmer (38:02):
yeah. And the funniest thing to me was, I
remember ours was hooked up tothis TV that like, was so old,
it didn't have a remote. It hadknobs. Wow, that like
juxtaposition of being like, I'mon the internet on this TV from
like, 1972.
Brandon Minnick (38:19):
Over to channel three.
Katy Farmer (38:21):
That's exactly the channel. And I remember not
understanding it, like Iremember, like not knowing what
to do with the internet. And atthat time, it was like
relatively limited, right? Itwasn't like, or at least it was
on the Web TV, it was a littlebit like, you know, there wasn't
like a Google search engine. Itwas just Web TV search. There
(38:48):
was like, there was like a WebTV search, I think, again, it
was like relatively limited inthis like, strange, proprietary
way. And it had a guidebook thatit came with, so that you could
look up keywords in theguidebook and then look them
Chloe Condon (39:03):
up to help out here. No, no assistance.
Katy Farmer (39:07):
But I use computers in school a little bit. I took
like business classes. So Ilearned how to type and like, I
generally, like knew what theywere, but just like, I was not
fluent in any way. Um,
Chloe Condon (39:19):
and they just weren't around you. It sounds
like
Katy Farmer (39:21):
no, they just did.
They just weren't there. Andwhen they were like, I didn't
have the context to understandwhat they were for. Like, I
just, I remember my grandpabeing like, yeah, you could like
I don't know, type in horses,and then you'll see something
about horses and I was like, whywould I type in horses? He's
like, it's an example. And I waslike, I don't care about horses
even a little Is there somethingelse?
Chloe Condon (39:43):
Okay, I love this.
Because when I think so Iimagine Katie and I were pretty
similar ages, with the internetto me as a child, like I'm going
to say four or five, six earlycomputers. My grandpa had a
computer. And the only websitesthat I knew about were websites
that started popping up on TV.
So like Disney Channel tv.com,or like zuke disney.com. So the
(40:05):
only websites I was visiting waslike 101 Dalmatians live action
movie.com. And I didn'tunderstand what significance a
computer would have to me or theinternet specifically, because I
was like, this is justinformation about the movie like
you. I don't know, I haven'teven seen this movie. But it
would have Glenn Close on it andsome sparkly Dalmatians. But I
(40:28):
think that's such it is likeBrandon, you probably had a very
different relationship with theinternet, right? When you were
younger.
Brandon Minnick (40:36):
I mean, we, we were kind of the opposite of
Katie's family, like we had acomputer really early on like
before, is either at windows3.1, or before windows 3.1. I
mean, remember, I learned MS DOSback in the day, as just that's
how I use the computer. Andreally, if I'm being honest, it
was a dad showing me how to playvideo games on the computer. So
(41:00):
it's like putting the floppydrive and then run this command
to kick off the xe file and MSDOS. But yeah, I mean, the the
the internet was unique back inthe day, before we had great
search engines. I mean, theyslowly started coming out like
there was, was it like AltaVista? I mean, Yahoo search used
(41:21):
to be
Chloe Condon (41:22):
solidly on AOL my first five years. AOL
Katy Farmer (41:29):
was on the equivalent of like, the store
brand. Do you know what I mean?
It's like, Oh, I was on Web TV.
Maybe you've heard of it? No.
Brandon Minnick (41:40):
But yeah, I mean, like you said, going back
in the day, before search wasreally a thing. And but Well,
before, like, really, reallygood, fast search was a thing.
Yeah, you just had to know theURL. And so you just go to the
websites you knew and like, kindof like how today we'll share
like, like memes and stuff withfriends, like back then we would
(42:01):
forward emails with like, linksURLs, and like, you just
bookmark them. And you have hisbookmark folder that was just
gigantic. Those are the onlywebsites you do about in the
world. Yeah, it was, it was astrange place. Back in the day,
Katy Farmer (42:15):
I got a bunch of emails from my grandpa, he was
the only person that everemailed me. And they were all,
you know, jokes, like chainthings. They were just like,
very silly jokes that weren'tfunny, but I read all of them. I
even still have a very old yahooemail. And like, there are easy
(42:37):
ways to shut it down. I justkept it because that's like,
he's not around anymore. And itwas just like, I was like, I'm
gonna keep my grandpa's emails,I'm gonna keep them in this
special Yahoo account that heused to email me at. And like,
you know, it's like a littletime capsule.
Chloe Condon (42:50):
But so jealous of y'all because I it's kind of
funny that I work at Microsoft,because my family was a family
of artists. And my mother waslearning graphic design. So
naturally, she wanted one ofthose big I mean, it was
beautiful. Those candy apple.
Oh, clear. Mac giant, likecraters. Yeah, but I was so
upset because all I wanted to dowas play games on the computer.
(43:12):
And there were no games for Mac.
They were only PC games. And Ihad a neighbor friend who had
putt putt goes to the parade.
And all I wanted to do is playthis game. I'd never played a
computer game before this. Itwas like mind blowing to me. And
so slowly, but surely my parentswould take me to fries and I
could find Mac specific games,but they were so rare. And I
(43:34):
Brandon, I'm so jealous of thisgame life. And we have people in
the chat here talking aboutMickey Mouse games like that,
that we're on. Oh, 720 kfloppies. Wow. Yeah. a gateway
to tech that I think I missedout on a little bit. Yes.
Katy Farmer (43:53):
We had, we had like some consoles with a Super
Nintendo and I had a we had likethe original Gameboy. I think my
mom still has it. Like it stillworks, because those things are
are bricks. But like, Idefinitely I think something
that came up later was that Idid not understand computers
outside the context of theinternet either. Right? So like,
(44:15):
I became internet literate. Likein college. I my partner was a
programmer. And so they helpedme like understand a little bit
they fixed my computer a lot. Igot my first laptop as like a
college gift. And then, but likeI didn't do anything else, but
(44:35):
get on Yahoo chat or whatever.
Like, so a lot of times in StarWars chat rooms. Ooh, no. begaye
pretty cool.
Chloe Condon (44:45):
great conversations happening in
there.
Katy Farmer (44:46):
Oh, man. It's like so easy to live on your age on
the internet. And I don'trecommend it to everyone out
here who's maybe just don't doit. It's not it's not great. But
I did and I think I didn't Iunderstand like, the internet as
a separate concept fromcomputers, right? Like, I have
no concept of like hardware orwhat that. Um, and I don't know
(45:10):
why it just like didn't it justdidn't occur to me because this
was the only context I'd everreally worked with them and even
things that like, you know, Ilearned a bunch of software in
school like, you know, you learnlike the Microsoft suite in in
full. But in my mind, althoughmaybe I knew it wasn't on the
internet. I don't think I had aconcept of like, what is
(45:31):
computer? Yeah.
Chloe Condon (45:35):
And you said you got your first computer at how
old 1818? Wow,
Katy Farmer (45:41):
yeah, I got I got a laptop as a college gift. I had
to buy a wireless card for it.
It was a it was a big was a bigdeal. You know, and the Wi Fi.
Yeah, like Internet in your
Brandon Minnick (45:55):
bedroom.
Chloe Condon (45:56):
Let me check my router real quick.
Katy Farmer (46:00):
I didn't it you know, for many years. After I
switched degrees, I, I workedthe entire time I was in school.
And through pure nepotism, I'mnot ashamed to admit my, my
partner worked in it at thecollege and got me a job there.
And they were like, cool, whatdo you know about computers, I
(46:21):
was like, I could type so much.
But basically, I just learnedabout computers through that job
and spent the next four years asI finished my degree is working
in it and working in support.
And, you know, I mean, like,when it comes to that, kind of
like university setting, thecomputers were just like, not
(46:43):
that complicated, becausethere's a limited amount of
things they let people do on thecomputers in that setting. So
it's like, um, you can get avirus, but I can just like, wipe
it, and it's fine. I startedlearning about like, hardware
separate and what you could doon the internet, and when I
graduated, I lost my job becauseit was a student specific job.
(47:05):
And I was like, I'm gonna guessI could work at like, Best Buy.
And that made me not thrilled tothink about because I had worked
in a lot of retail already. Andlike I was telling you before
the break, I was real tiredgetting yelled at by customer.
One time, I just wouldn't sellthis woman. The like, you know,
(47:25):
they have like beds in thedepartment store. And they have
like, bedding on them. And shewanted to buy the things that
were on display. And I was like,I literally don't have the
knowledge to be able to do thatfor you. Like I couldn't if I
have nothing, you can't do allthis. And yeah, she chased me to
customer service, throwinglittle decorative pillows at me
(47:47):
the whole way. And I was justlike, man, do I love 725 an hour
this much.
Chloe Condon (47:54):
Tales from retail could be a whole other show. I
think I think that's our show,Katie.
Katy Farmer (48:01):
So I knew I didn't want to get back into that. But
I was definitely, like losingmusic set me on feeling adrift
for honestly, like, way longerthan I'm proud of. I think I
just didn't realize it. I didn'trealize like it was a one it was
like an outlet, right? Like allartistic things was like this
expression. But it had alsoserved as a kind of like therapy
(48:24):
and medication for me also. Andso losing it and I think kept me
from feeling this like purpose.
And so I was just kind of likedrifting and after I graduated.
I again, just I lucked into ajob as a freelance editor. Kind
of, I mean, I was looking foreditor jobs. And I got lucky as
a freelancer. But I was justmoving commas around all day,
(48:47):
which is not the worst thing inthe world.
Chloe Condon (48:51):
And you were reading probably and
Katy Farmer (48:54):
I was reading hard, okay, like nobody's business.
And I felt very lucky in thatbecause I was freelancing, I did
a lot of different projects andget to read about 1000 different
subjects, like somewherebetween, you know, a PhD thesis
on whether tropical earthwormscan rehabilitate soil to full
(49:16):
romance novels that were hard tocorrect because they were so
specific. And I did never six orseven years, I you know, I did
it for a pretty long time and Ireally enjoyed it, but it didn't
feel like enough and when you'refreelancing, you know, it's,
(49:37):
it's a hustle. Like, I wasalways worried and and I was
relying on my, my at the timespouse's income, right, like,
they were a programmer. And sowe had this like household
income, so I didn't have toworry about it as much. But I
wanted more. I just didn't knowhow to get it and I They always
(50:01):
had wanted me to learn to code.
But I came across a lot of theproblems that you talked about
earlier, which is just that,like, what I had no concept of
it before I met them. And also,it felt like this very formulaic
thing. I was just like, Yeah,get it, like, you memorize the
things. And then you type thosethings where they belong. Like,
(50:21):
that was my sort of, you know,preconceived notion of it. And I
think, that was just like,specific to my partner, almost
like they had a certainexperience where like they had
had, they had started with basicwhen they were a kid, and moved
up with it. And the way thatthey programmed was very, was
very mathematical, because they,as a person were very
(50:43):
mathematical. But I wasn't, so Ijust like, didn't see it
happening. And it wasn't until Istarted meeting. Like, more co
workers and people in thecommunity, then I started seeing
that, like, the ways that codecould be more creative, and be
more expressive. And I thought,like, Oh, well, that's something
I do know how to do. Like,that's something I am interested
(51:05):
in, like, if the point oflearning this is to then create
another thing that I love. Like,that totally makes sense. Like,
if I learned,
Chloe Condon (51:13):
you know, crafting sort
Katy Farmer (51:15):
of exactly right, like if the if the outcome is
another piece of art, then yeah,it's totally worth learning. And
it doesn't have to be just for,I don't know, like, I don't know
what I thought it was forbefore. I was just like, I am
not math, math, right, whichmost of us know is just not
true. And also, like math isalso learnable. It turns out,
(51:37):
like, I didn't spend a lot oftime on it. So I thought I was
bad at math. But it turns out,most people are not bad at math.
They just don't practice math.
Chloe Condon (51:47):
Very bad.
Katy Farmer (51:48):
Yes. Right. Now, you didn't spend time. You
didn't spend time practicing itand therefore you're not great
at it. Like just like anythingelse. And
Chloe Condon (51:58):
I think it's so full circle that I saw you give
this talk where you had drawnyour own illustrations in the
talk because I thought, Oh cool,someone adding something
creative to their talk.
Katy Farmer (52:10):
Like I was always really important to me that like
when I saw when I finallydecided like, okay, now's the
time to code. I knew that I wasgoing to go to a boot camp
because I don't if I could havelearned it on my own I would
have learned it in the manyyears of the relationship that I
was in with this expert you knowwhat I mean? I just am not great
(52:32):
at learning such a such a newconcept on my own. So I knew I
needed to be in class. That's aquestion I people ask me a lot.
It's like how did you know youneeded to go to a boot camp and
like for me, it was just like, Ineed to be in a classroom with
somebody telling me there's achance I might not be good
Chloe Condon (52:50):
external accountability. Shout out to
frequent co host and guess thepod PJ for being self taught
because I don't have thediscipline. I need other people
around me.
Katy Farmer (52:59):
Yeah, well, things I've taught myself. Literally
nothing. I will eat until I geta stomach ache. Unless someone
is like, Excuse me. Excuse me,excuse your stomach hurt. I'll
be like yeah, does I don'tunderstand. I knew I needed to
be in a classroom and I went tothe the touring school in
Denver. Which, which was great.
And it was a little bit longerthan some of the other ones. I
(53:21):
can't remember a lot of my lifeprevious guests
Chloe Condon (53:26):
of the show, Danny also went to terrain school,
we've got a lot of terrain folksout in the community that are
just killing it. And in seniorroles and out in the world.
Katy Farmer (53:37):
Let's I mean, I'll say that I have a lot of
opinions about boot camps. Andas anyone who goes to a boot
camp does, right, but like Ithink touring definitely, like
was one of the better schoolsand continues to be I think as
far as the curriculum goes, andI thrived in the school
environment. Like I said, I justlike being in school. Yeah, I
(53:59):
just like it people are likehere's what you need to learn
like you just need it the rightschool Katie?
Unknown (54:06):
Right school? Yeah,
Chloe Condon (54:07):
I think that's a lot of what we see with people
who are on this show. And peoplethat I know in the community who
come to tech non traditionallyis oftentimes we're just not
around technology. It's not forlack of interest. Like we were
all in a group chat earliertalking about Chucky cheese. I
love shaggy cheese, and I loveDisneyland and I know for a fact
(54:27):
that was because theanimatronics fascinated me, but
I didn't have anybody in my lifeto tell me that's technology
like that's something you couldlearn how to build and work
with. So I think it's you know,sometimes it's just a matter of
being introduced or even justmarinating in the subject matter
a little bit with a partner orwith a friend that like, like PJ
(54:49):
and Marina. But sometimes itjust takes the right teacher
even I think probably
Katy Farmer (54:54):
well and it's so fascinating because like i
during my time in boot camp,because I had made. I mean, it
was like a big life change. AndI tell this now when I, when I
talk to people who are in bootcamps is like, okay, nobody's
really at this boot camp becauseeverything was going great.
Like, that's not when you decideto change your whole life
usually, like,
Chloe Condon (55:14):
you don't just wake up and pay a bunch of money
and decide to make a careerchange. Right?
Katy Farmer (55:18):
You reach a point, right? It's usually some kind of
breaking point. And it's a bigrisk. It costs money and time,
and you don't know if you'regoing to be good at it. And I
was filled with fear the entiretime. I mean, again, I have an
anxiety disorder. So I am filledwith fear most of the time, but
like extra and during that bootcamp time was the time when I
(55:39):
had a full like, I started, ithad been many years since I'd
had like a panic attack orsomething like that. And those
started coming back, becausethat environment is so intense.
Chloe Condon (55:49):
Did you know what imposter syndrome was before
your boot camp? Because I didnot
Katy Farmer (55:53):
know, I heard people talking about it. And I
was just like, I don't know ifI'm supposed to be here, because
I'm too worried abouteverything. You know what I
mean? Like I couldn't separatethings that were going on. So I
think for me, it was like Istarted having, you know, full
like, I don't want to sayregressions. But it was just
another you know, when you havea any kind of disorder, it's
(56:16):
just like, it's just whereyou're at in it, right? Your
best is different every day. Andmy best wasn't, was just a
little bit less than it had beenbefore that pressure. But like,
I started going back to therapy,and then for my like, sort of
like capstone project. I learnedJavaScript, just so that I could
build a game, like we talkedabout, because I was like, how
(56:38):
do I get people to understandlike, what I'm feeling and
having ideas for projects, whenyou're just free like that is
hard. So I built a very bad, notnot bad an idea was, you know,
objectively, it didn't work.
Like it was supposed to, but Ibuilt a game. That was a, I
think it was called shine. Andit was about going around and
(56:59):
interacting with positive thingsin the game. And every time you
interact into somethingpositive, your little character
got a little bit shiny or likeglow. And then if you like,
stayed by yourself for too longand didn't do the positive
things that your glow wouldstart to go down a little.
Unknown (57:16):
No, okay, wait,
Chloe Condon (57:18):
this is a great segue to following Katie on
Twitter, because her Twitter isa beam of positivity almost as
much as should I have bought inmy life when I see my feet.
Let's go girls have it just youknow, hey, you can do it. You
could do the thing. So everybodyout there, make sure that you're
following Katie on Twitter justfor it is no surprise to me that
(57:40):
you built a positivity outbecause that is just so your
aesthetic. Oh my goodness. We wehave had Okay, I feel like we
have to have you back on and I'mso sorry you didn't get our best
episodes are the two partersbecause there's so much journey
here. And I think this is agreat, this is an episode that I
(58:01):
am going to send to folks whoasked me about boot camps. part
one and part two that we'regonna have you back on here for.
But Katie, where can people findyou on the interwebs? And where
should they go check out yourstuff. And we're I think we're
gonna just like make Katie comein on the show. She's gonna come
back right, Katie? Yeah.
recorded.
Katy Farmer (58:21):
What is your best bit I love? I love Twitter. It's
a horrible place that I like tosend little boob positivity
jolts into just to see whathappens. It's chaos. And I think
anytime there's chaos, there's achance for something really good
to happen. So find me. The catertaught on Twitter. That's your
(58:45):
best bet. And you know, I workat circle ci. So if you're like,
man, I need to work there. Ilove it so much. You can message
me about that.
Chloe Condon (58:51):
Wonderful, Katie, you're such a bright spot of
positivity in the community. Wecan't wait to have you back. And
I can't wait to just talk moreabout boot camps and the job
search. We didn't even get tothe job search. So
Katy Farmer (59:07):
let's talk about just remove this as a reminder
for myself. Let's talk about theworst interview we've all had.
Chloe Condon (59:15):
Oh, that's a good cliffhanger. Yeah, I'm sure as
someone who had to audition somuch as the musician that we're
gonna have some very interestingwhiteboarding stories. Alright,
y'all on that very intensely.
I'm excited for this episode onthis cliffhanger. That has been
it for a bit. Brad, did you wantto close this out? Yes. Thanks.
Brandon Minnick (59:37):
Thanks, everybody for joining us. Make
sure to check out all theepisodes on eight bits TV,
subscribe to the podcast on yourfavorite podcasting platform.
And we'll see you back here nextweek. Wednesday at 1pm Pacific.
Bye, y'all.
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