The Rise of the Design Engineer  🔗 **Source:** [The Rise of the Design Engineer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo5Gw23jcBU) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: [design-engineering, ai-assisted-development, software-testing, agentic-coding, developer-careers, human-computer-interaction] > author: Syntax > source: Syntax > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo5Gw23jcBU > date created: 2026-08-05 > --- > # 🏷️ Title: The Rise of the Design Engineer > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > ## 🧭 Table of Contents > - Summary > - Main Content > - References > - Paraphrase > - Newsletter > - Action Items > - Hypotheses > - Methodology > - Questions > - Future Research > - Implications > - Learning Styles Assessment > - Accessibility Assessment > - DEIB Assessment > - Logical Validity > - DARVO Analysis > - Conclusion > - Refactor Appendix > - Template Library > ### 🔗 References > - [Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo5Gw23jcBU) — primary episode > - [Syntax](https://syntax.fm/) — publisher and show archive > - [Design Engineering at Vercel](https://vercel.com/blog/design-engineering-at-vercel) — role definition referenced in the episode > ## 📝 Summary > - The potluck episode treats design engineering as a growing hybrid role that combines product judgment, interface design, and production coding. > - The hosts argue that AI can imitate visual conventions while missing interaction quality and product-specific character. > - They recommend deterministic tests, small files, linters, hooks, and scoped decision records for coding agents. > - A guest segment discusses guided, age-appropriate AI use with children and warns against substituting instant answers for foundational thinking. > - These are practitioner opinions and examples, not controlled findings. > ## 📖 Main Content > The episode joins several questions under one theme: human judgment becomes more important as code and visual output become easier to generate. Design engineers can carry intent from problem framing through implementation. The hosts distinguish surface resemblance from interaction quality, arguing that product behavior and small usability decisions create much of a design’s value. For AI-assisted development, they favor tests and static checks that make acceptance deterministic, plus small code files and short instruction files. They also treat AI fluency as an emerging hiring expectation while warning that children need guided use and a clear understanding that chatbots are predictive systems, not caring people. > ### 🗒️ Notes > #### ⏱️ [01:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo5Gw23jcBU&t=78s) The design-engineer role > - Hybrid design and coding skills can reduce handoff loss and preserve product intent. > #### ⏱️ [08:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo5Gw23jcBU&t=519s) AI and design taste > - The hosts separate surface styling from interaction quality and product character. > #### ⏱️ [14:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo5Gw23jcBU&t=892s) Testing in the AI era > - Unit, end-to-end, and visual tests make fast code changes safer and reduce repeated agent browsing. > #### ⏱️ [38:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo5Gw23jcBU&t=2294s) Introducing children to AI > - The guest favors supervised use, critical thinking, and explicit limits around relational and image-transformation risks. > #### ⏱️ [49:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo5Gw23jcBU&t=2974s) AI experience and hiring > - The hosts expect practical AI-tool fluency to become a common developer requirement. > #### ⏱️ [52:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo5Gw23jcBU&t=3173s) Keeping coding agents efficient > - Small files, ADRs, linters, hooks, and concise instructions move constraints into deterministic systems. > ## 📚 References > - [Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo5Gw23jcBU) — primary episode > - [Syntax](https://syntax.fm/) — publisher and show archive > - [Design Engineering at Vercel](https://vercel.com/blog/design-engineering-at-vercel) — role definition referenced in the episode > ## 🗣️ Paraphrase > Design engineering combines aesthetic judgment, product thinking, and enough technical skill to ship the result. The hosts expect the role to matter more as generated interfaces become common. > Good design isn't only visual distinction. It includes flow, behavior, copy, feedback, and the small decisions that make a product understandable. > Tests and static checks should carry repeatable rules. Agent instructions should hold only context that code, linters, hooks, or decision records can't express. > Children can learn about AI with adult guidance, but instant answers, simulated friendship, and transformed self-images require clear limits. > Developers who avoided AI tools may need practical experience with planning, cost, context, and verification as those skills enter hiring expectations. > ## 📰 Newsletter > Syntax’s potluck on the [rise of the design engineer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo5Gw23jcBU) connects product taste, AI-generated interfaces, deterministic testing, children’s AI use, and efficient coding agents. The most reusable advice: put repeatable constraints in tests, linters, hooks, and ADRs; keep agent instructions small; and treat interaction quality as design, not decoration. > ## ✅ Action Items > #### DevRel > - Explain design engineering and AI-assisted software work with a source-linked demo and a clear claim/evidence boundary. > - Build a short learning exercise, document prerequisites, and collect outcome data. > - Give maintainers a feedback path for corrections, missing context, and accessibility gaps. > #### OSPO > - Policy & Governance: record ownership, decision rights, review dates, and rollback conditions. > - License Compliance: confirm the licenses and provenance of cited software and media. > - Security Management: document threat assumptions, reporting paths, and safe defaults. > - Software Inventory: track dependencies, versions, owners, and update status. > - Developer Support: publish examples, office-hours routes, and known limitations. > - Community Engagement: invite upstream review and credit contributors. > - Strategic Alignment: connect the work to measurable project goals without inflating its scope. > #### Community > - Maintainers: create a review checklist for claims and examples. > - Contributors: offer a small reproducible task with a named reviewer. > - Sponsors: fund documentation, accessibility, and maintenance work with public outcomes. > - Ecosystem: compare practices across projects before treating one example as general. > #### WordPress > - Core: identify any core-facing technical or governance implications. > - Core Performance: measure user-visible and contributor-visible costs before optimizing. > - Core AI: define evaluation cases, human review, and failure reporting. > - Core Program Team: track cross-team dependencies and decision records. > - Mobile: test the idea against mobile constraints and offline use. > - Playground: create a safe browser-based demonstration where applicable. > - Community: turn the topic into a facilitated discussion, not a promotion. > - Training: create a lesson with objectives, checks, and source links. > - Marketing: keep claims proportional to the evidence. > - Support: document common misunderstandings and escalation routes. > - Design: test workflow and interaction consequences with users. > - Documentation: define terms, assumptions, examples, and counterexamples. > - Photos: use accurate captions and source metadata for any supporting images. > - TV: provide edited captions, transcript links, and chapter markers. > - Polyglots: avoid idioms and supply context for technical terms. > - Accessibility: test keyboard, screen-reader, zoom, contrast, captions, and cognitive load. > - Meta: check contributor-tool and WordPress.org workflow effects. > - CLI: provide deterministic commands when the topic has a command-line path. > - Hosting: identify environment differences rather than assuming one setup. > - Tide: separate measurable checks from subjective judgments. > - Openverse: verify licenses and attribution for reused media. > - Themes: test design-system or presentation effects in varied themes. > - Plugins: document compatibility, security, and maintenance boundaries. > #### The WPOCC > - Programs: support t Welcome to Synax. Today we got a potluck episode. We're talking to you about the comeup of the design engineer. This is a new thing you're hearing a lot about and I quite honestly I think this is going to be very important uh role in companies going forward. Uh talking about how to introduce your kids to AI or if you even should. We've got special guest coming on so stay tuned for that. Uh update on Scott using Omargy in Linux. Is he still doing it or is he switched back to Mac OS? um why AI has no taste. And we talk a little bit more about design in this episode. And it's not just about like how it looks. Design is not just like, oh, I chose red. Because a lot of these apps look exactly the same, but they are not the same in how they function. And finally, we're talking about keeping coding agents efficient. What how should you tackle building your projects so that they are efficient and not just spewing out a whole bunch of extra files? I got some really good tips from Scott on that one. If you've got a question you'd like us to answer, please go to syntax.fm, click on potluck in the uh in the navigation and send us that. We will answer it on a future episode. What's up, Scott? You ready to get going? Hell yeah, I'm ready to get going. All right, first question from birthday girl says, "I'm a designer and self-taught developer with a background in design. I see myself as a hybrid, equally good at both, and don't want to define myself primarily as one or the other. Recently, the role of design engineer has been on the rise, and they linked to a Verscell blog post that essentially says what a design engineer is. A design engineer at Verscell blend aesthetic sensibility with technical skill. This allows us to deeply understand a problem, the design, and build and ship a solution autonomously. Right? somebody who has the eye for design and the the UX of design as well as actually being able to to build the entire thing. So this this term of design engineer is on the rise which I think captures the dual expertise well. I have two questions. First, what are your thoughts on the future of design dev separations or convergence? And two, I feel like most engineers discount design and dev hybrid expertise if they come from a design background, but the vice versa is not true. A really talented engineer who got really good at designs seems to have credibility issues. Um, are people biased at design because it is not as a technical background? I find this a bit silly given the developer community is very welcoming of self-taught developers. Or do I experience this more because I am a woman? Curious to hear your thoughts on this. Super designs savvy devs. Thanks for the pod. Okay, this is awesome and I love this idea of a design engineer because like many years ago we had this question of like should designers code um and everybody would would fight about it. They say no no I'm going to sit in Photoshop and I'm going to design my things and and then I'm going to hand it off to somebody else to actually do the implementation of it. Um, and then equally you see you've heard like devs being super frustrated where like I designed this thing and then I handed it off and they didn't do a very good job. And then as the web got more complex um design became much more about how does it work? How do you interact with it? How do these things um work together? Rather than simply just like what does it look like, right? Like I think that's such a very small part of design. Um, so I love this idea of a design engineer, which is somebody who very well understands how products work, how user interfaces work, how they what happens when you click it, how what happens when you have multiple items together. This stuff is so we have a question coming up next that is similar to this. I won't say too much, but this stuff is so important, especially as everybody is just vibe coding their UIs right now and just pooping out some dog crap, right? So I think that this design engineer is fantastic and and I think it's going to be even more important in the in the next coming maybe probably 6 months. You know everybody and their mother can prompt out a halfdecent looking UI. But where excellent UIs really come to the surface is where somebody who spends time understanding how it all works together and how it interacts and what happens when you hover over top of it and the little frustrations that come with using an application. I've got more to say that on the next question, but I think that this skill is going to be the new full stack developer, right? Because that was the other thing, right? I'll let you talk in a second, Scott, but like that was the huge thing that everybody fought over as well is like should you be a full stack engineer or should you be backend and front end? That's no longer a question. In most cases, people are are doing both in the web world. Yeah. Wow. You know what I I and and I think one, happy birthday, birthday girl. two, if it is still your birthday, which I would assume it is considering that's your name. I I would say on the regard of are people biased against design because it's not seen as technical. Uh I think that this has always been one a bias that I've noticed and I would like to pose that it's out of jealousy. developers look at somebody who's good at design and think they possibly could not be as good of an engineer as me because well I'm not good at design and I would uh was you know that's a whole discipline you've had to learn and I've spent that time in the engineering side of things. So I I've personally seen this to be the case. Some people just have much better design intuition too. I've seen engineers that are are fantastic designers just because they have that really good design intuition. I would also say it is probably also because you're a woman. I I that is also a bias that we see in this industry. So you you have a multiple factors here and I think that's working against you. But I do think that this role in particular is such a huge role in the future now uh of the world that we exist in with AI and all these things and somebody who has design taste and design style is going to be able to create some really amazing stuff. So I think you're in a great position if if you can read and write code as well as have a great design sense. To me, this is like this is a role that I have tried to embody my entire career. This is the the this is the skill set that I wish that I had. I've always wanted to be a great designer and I've never been able to crack that nut. I've always been a mediocre designer. Uh Wes, you've always been a great designer and that's one thing I've always been jealous of your abilities on because it does it could if you are a great developer and a great designer, the world's yours. It's you're unstoppable when you can do everything. Um and and when you can come and fix solutions where it's not just what it looks like take a look at the the Verscell blog post here I'm sharing it is um no individual expected to have all the skills the team collectively is able to execute on ambitious designs because we have design in Figma and code write production code debug browser performance you know that that's a huge one write shaders right copy that that's a big one as well it's like can somebody just look at a website that you're building and say, "That's not the right tagline. That's not the right copy." You don't have to go through this whole thing of like, "Oh, let's get the copywriter involved. Let's have a meeting." No, you should just be able to like look at it and say like, "That's not the right thing to say. That just doesn't feel good." Um, and like I I feel like we've I've done that many times on on the syntax team where you're just like, "No, that's that that comes off as weird." Right. Yeah. um 3D experiences, Blender, edit videos, using CGI for camera effects, all of that type of stuff is just like if you can do it all or if you have a good taste in all of these things, you're unstoppable in creating things that will be able to capture people's attention and make an enjoyable product in this age of absolutely dog crap interfaces. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Word. Uh so, Birthday Girl, I think you're in a great spot. Yes. So, next question from Mike Swatk. Hey guys, not a question. Oh, Mike, what are you doing? Not [laughter] a question, just a comment. I was thinking about it as I drove to work listening to the anthropic episode where you guys kept mentioning how AI tends to lack taste, and I don't know how else to put it. I would liken it to the '9s and 2000 subdivision boom, where developers basically used a template. All houses look the same. Everything looked cookie cutter and you couldn't tell homes apart. All of those houses lacked character and I think that's what's missing when it comes to designs or creating things. It's missing the character that makes it unique. Yes, exactly. And this goes right with a birthday girl's question where the people who have the design sense and they have the ability to see something and make it look special are the people who are are are on it because we've always had this. Anybody who's been in the industry knows that back in, oh gosh, back in the early 2000s, what we had the basically unstyled websites, links were blue, backgrounds were white or single color. Maybe you had repeating background uh GIF images or something like that. Then we had the Bootstrap era where everything looked like either Bootstrap or foundation and you could see it from a mile away. And then now we have the AI slop era of the same thing where everything looks like you got unnecessary all uppercase labels. You got you you have all the design tells, right? Uh it's this is nothing new. It's just a different version of the same thing. And I I think this is a really good example because it's yes, they look like violently people always say like violently Ontario. Like you you've been to my neighborhood, right? All of the houses look exactly the same and they are all awful looking and and that that's one that's one part of it. They they they're not nice looking houses, but um on the same regard is like there's a lot of like weird things about it. Like my roof has like 800 peaks and valleys and it's all unnecessary. I've been in the attic. It could just be [laughter] a square. It could just be a little hut. Could be a triangle. But no, there is probably I don't know eight different peaks and points that are all unnecessary and they just added that cuz it it looked good. Um, and it was impressive to the people that wanted to buy these houses in the 2000s. And now like I we have to get your my neighbor got their roof replaced and it was like like $50,000 or something insane like that because of how complex it is, right? And there's all of these like like usability issues where like you you drive into the any garage on our street and you can hardly open your car door. Like like did nobody think that you would need to open car doors by driving in these things? Like there's all of these awful usability things about the houses and I agree where it's just like yes that is technically a house and that is technically a nice decent looking house but when you really get into like the usability and the flow and how people live in a lot of these houses there's a lot of like weird oddities that the people are trying to now undo in in how these things work. So my rant here is that it's not just what it looks like with this AI design. Yes, we get it. like there's purple and there's like there's uh gradients and stuff added to it. Like that's not the biggest point here. The the biggest point is not what it looks like. It's it's how usable it actually is. Because if you take a look at like all of the apps, like if I open Threads, Twitter, Blue Sky, and and all of these other like short form blogging apps, sometimes I cannot even tell which one I'm in. If I am on Tik Tok and on Instagram, I often do not know which app I am in. I have to like swipe up to actually see what icon it is because they look so much the same. But if I if I am using Threads and I get so frustrated with it because the the actual interface of it. If you go on Thread's desktop, infuriating experience. Even though it looks very similar to Twitter, there is so much more thought and care put into the design of Twitter than there is on the threads desktop website. And that there is is a perfect example of it's not what it looks like. It's how the you interact with it, how you use it. If somebody spent the time to say, hm, when you click on this button where it says a notification, does that notification clear? or all of these little tiny examples as to how the interface is to to get where you want. Another example is um this is my rant hour of of bad interfaces, but like the Apple um screen time for parents. Every single time I need to make a change in my screen time, I get so mad because it's just it's it's an awful like technically yes, there is a list of settings and you can click on the different categories, you can click through to them, but the usability is is absolutely awful. Um, and that's a perfect example of like somebody actually wanting to use it. Yes. Rant over. Brant over. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it is funny because that's it's a great analogy like you had mentioned, but the the cardboard nature of some of the the homes that are built in that era, McMansion kind of era of homes is very analogous to, you know, the way that AI stuff is is [music] turned out here. So just add it on. And if you want to see all of the errors in your application, you'll want to check out Sentry at centry.io/sintax. You don't want a production application out there that well, you have no visibility into in case something is blowing up and you might not even know it. So head on over to centry.io/sax. Again, we've been using this tool for a long time and it totally [music] rules. All right, next question from TLC says, "I hear a lot of people talking about how LLMs have helped accelerate the speed of development, but testing is more important than ever. What I haven't heard is that people are what are people actually using to write tests? Are people writing them by hand? Are we using cloud to generate tests on the code we just wrote? What about more specific endto-end and edge cases? It seems like it would be a huge token spend to explore and write pre playright tests for a complex site using an agent. So yes, a few things. First of all, your your tests are more important than ever as as people are just prompting and adding features to absolutely everything. You need to feel extremely confident. There's the amount of pull requests that are coming in, the amount of code changes that are coming coming in have skyrocketed. And you need to have confidence that adding these things is not going to break uh other parts of your website, right? Like I get all of these pull requests on some of my sites that that don't have tests and I'm just like I I don't know if you actually spent time doing this or if you just drive by prompt, pull request something and it's going to break something else. So the tests are more important than ever. I totally agree. Um, so a few thoughts here. Unit tests first for for complex logic is something that I will do quite a bit. So one example on my personal website, I needed to be able to take in a URL for any social network and parse out the ID of that URL. Fairly simple function where I don't know there's like 10 different kinds of social networks and there's probably 20 different types of links. You know, there's YouTube.com, there's you u2.be, there's twitter.com, there's x.com, there's there's threads, there's blue sky. They all have six or seven different types of URLs that you can. So I basically what I did was I took every possible example of every URL that I want and I wrote unit tests for it. So taking this expect the platform to be Twitter and the ID to be ABC123. And then having that I was so much more confident being like all right AI please write a function that will cover every single one and you can kind of loop through it and make sure that it hits every single one of those use cases. So unit test extremely important in that regard and then the endto-end integration tests are super important for these types of things because you want to make sure that you can still use it. I don't think the the token spend is is any bigger than writing the actual code. What do you think? Yeah. You know what? For me, it's like part of the the benefit of this type of thing is making your your confirmations of things working more deterministic. I personally lean more on end toend tests than I do for even unit or integration tests. End toend tests in the web context is really firing this thing up in a browser and stepping through. Tools like Playright are so good for this because you can one see it happen. Uh in Cypress, and I'm I'm sure Playright has this too. Cypress had a mode where you could click through the thing and it's going to write and record your tests. You could even put an agent browser on that to do that and have it write the test as you click through it. And then that becomes a deterministic thing where it's going to run through these things. One thing that I've always loved in a integration test or an end toend test setup is like just straight up an app tour where it's going on everything, clicking on everything, doing everything one by one. Um, and then that way you can just see at a glance something break. Uh, another thing too with this is that what the visual testing visual testing is not something that I ever really like to do because styles change and your test fail and all this stuff, but sometimes uh when working with CSS and agents and and all these things if you're working in big systems, having visual testing is a a good way to make sure that nothing is breaking really. So, I I really lean hard on end to-end tests, especially in this and moving those possible things out of the AI's discretion, right? Oh, fire up a Chrome MCP or fire up an agent browser and make sure this thing works. Uh, how about instead write the playright test, click through it, and then you can run those tests. And talk about token spend like like cursor clawed, they want to open a browser to test it, right? you you see them doing that all the time and and that's that's way more expensive than just running a deterministic test. So that's yes, you're in good shape. You you probably use less tokens if you have explicit ones. And also like one thing people hate about tests is that when they're flaky, you start to ignore them because you're like, "Ah, it's actually fine, but something broke, you know." Um and having an agent be able to decipher, is that just it being flaky? Is that like a non-issue that throw can I modify it? Agents are fantastic at being able to look at something that was flaky and say this is a big deal. Something broke or no that that was that's totally fine. Yeah, totally. Cool. Next question here from Sheabaz. What are your thoughts about AI being a bubble? Do you think that the bubble will burst anytime in the near future? Is it even possible? Do you think people will go back to coding manually in that case or would it be difficult to go back to coding manually if we ever have to? I think listen I think I think the information around AI being a bubble is very real. I think the the house of cards there in terms of uh CPU or GPU ownership and things like that. I I think all of that very much makes sense. Do I think that the bubble will pop and that AI will go away? Absolutely not. I I think we're I think we're kind of in a world where uh people will just be able to do whatever they want. And I I don't I I think there's too much money involved here. I think the companies are just going to keep passing money around. AI is going to keep existing until either it becomes profitable or there's just going to be a couple of big players and that's it. Yeah. Either way, the uh what is that? The cat cat going down the bag. The rabbit's not going back in the hat. The genie is in the bottle. The genie is not going back in the bottle. No. So, are we ever going to go back to writing code by hand only? No. Absolutely not. I don't see that ever happening. I cannot imagine a world where that exists. Uh folks, this is the reality. This is this is it, man. This is what's going on. So like I I just don't I don't see it. Um so to me, you know, I I think the world that we live in is you got to get good at working with this stuff if you want to continue to be effective. That's just where I'm at on this. How we are building this stuff has fundamentally changed forever and that is not going back. the bubble itself. Like CJ and I had a video called the AI bubble is bursting. And that was about how expensive these things are getting where every single company 6 months ago was like whatever, sign up, spend as much as you want. Go go. We're changing. And then here we are 6 8 months later. A lot of these companies are going oh this is kind of getting expensive. Um we're not spending this much per employee because this is this is hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Um, and the bubble of Enthropic being able to charge every single engineer $5,000 a month, I think, is is going away. Um, and we're seeing that by people realizing, oh, some of these new open weight models are 10 times cheaper and 98% as good. So, that's that's where I'm going. So, that the bubble of like how much money these companies have raised and like are they going to be able to get that back? I I don't know. That's the kind of the crazy part about it is that like what if we all just switched to other models that are 10 times cheaper and just as good. I I I think that the the the way you could think about this ship is that when the dot bubble burst, did the internet go away? Was like websites gone? No. You know, just like uh Pets.com or who was it? Who was the was it Pets.com? What are the They were like the poster child of the whole uh Yeah. the dot bubble burst. Well, either way, when the dot bubble burst, it's not like websites or the internet or any of that stuff went away. It's just that uh some people got shut down. A lot of people did. And and the things of people are going to be ordering dog food online turned out to not be true. Um it was it was just too hard. And and I think a lot of the the things the big AI companies are saying where it's going to be replacing absolutely everything and there's going to be no jobs for for anybody anymore. I don't think that is true and and I think that that's the bubble that is is going to be burst and we're already seeing people like having a hard time believing anything that OpenAI Anthropic are saying anymore because it's just like are you saying that because you're trying to pump the stock value or are you saying that because you actually believe it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Totally. They they kind of lost me at the AI needs a therapist one. That was that was my breaking point where I was I was like you are so dumb. the the open claw becoming sentient and AI models needing a therapist. We kind of you kind of lost me there. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. It's it is wild. Yeah. All right. Next one here from Anan. What are your thoughts on the negative public sentiment towards AI and data centers? Do you think it would affect vibecoded products or products made with AI even if they're somewhat decent? Yeah, man. Data centers suck. You know, I think they're a necessary uh evil if AI is going to continue to exist. And I say necessary in terms of they are required for the AI to continue to expand. Data centers quite possibly for the compute they need to exist in that sense. Uh, do I like data centers popping up in different communities causing hum uh messing with water supply, you know, heat and energy usage and all that stuff. I hate that. And I I'm like I hate how one I hate how it's affecting communities. And one, I ultra hate how politicians are collecting money and then just throwing these in their communities and saying whatever. You know, I hate that. And I I don't I don't have anything educated to say at beyond that. [laughter] Uh you know, it like kind of drives me nuts when I see like people living in, you know, major cities being like, "LOL, let's throw some data." Like, I don't know if you see this, Wes, but I see this in Twitter where there's like people like pro- data center. Like, yes, let's huck data centers here and there, wherever, but like it's not affecting you. So, like that I don't know. It should it should be up to the people of the communities they're being put in. Yeah, I think it's it's kind of tricky. So, they tried to they tried to put one here in Hamilton um on steel land like literally like this. Nobody wants to live there. It's awful. It's polluted. It's like an old steel mill that is just like unusable. Um and and everybody said absolutely no way. And I think part of that is for legitimate reasons where it's like, yeah, we don't want this thing having lights and humming all day long. Like you see it even you drive in Ontario and you see the like cannabis green houses. They just glow. Like imagine imagine living next to this glowing orb um in the middle of the night you can just see this just like that smells like weed glow. Yeah. That that sucks. And and I I feel for those people that that has popped up in their neighborhood. But then like in the same regard like you can see a lot of these people protesting against it and they they don't really understand it. Like part of it comes from an anti-AII sentiment because they they've been told by all these wieners that their jobs are are going to to go away and it's going to absolutely destroy the world, right? Like stop being a wiener and start stop talking like that. That's why these people don't like you. Uh that's that's certainly one of them. But then also like these people don't understand. Like I see like a Tik Tok where someone's like no AI data centers AI is awful. And then they like put the AI captions on there and then they put the AI green screen behind them and like they don't they don't understand that like for you to be able to use these these apps and these features, we need these somewhere, you know, for some regards. Yes. And like for like good things like medicine and for you to be able to use social networking and and enjoy your Tik Toks, you need those. So, I think there's a there's a bit of a a balance here and it's kind of a a hot hot topic. And also, I don't even know like the water is is one of them. I have this question and nobody can seem to answer it like where does water go. Doesn't it just come doesn't it go back into the clouds and rain again? How does water work? How does rain work? [laughter] I would like to talk to somebody that's a bit more dialed on that and not so um doesn't have like a like a horse in that race. Yeah. Well, I think that's tough because I think a lot of the people uh have horses in the race. Uh yeah. And and one thing that bug I think maybe I'm sensitive to this because specifically like Denver, man, we we we have a major drought this year. Uh you know the I worry about the climate here. Um and Denver is worried about it too. They put a moratorum in effect. So no no more uh data centers for one year. In Colorado in in general, I think a lot of communities here are very anti- the data centers specifically because we have limited water here. Like the water that we get comes from snowfall in the mountains and it melting. And if we have a bad snow year like we had last year, then there's like no water. I can only water my grass on what two days uh two days a week and it's dry and super 100 degrees here. So like I I mean the water stuff is a sensitive conversation like a like a liquid cooled PC. You put the the water in or like the cooling the coolant in and like it just like cycles forever, right? You're not just like like putting toxic stuff in it and then just firing it into space, you know? Doesn't And I I'm I may be like totally out to lunch. You guys can to let me know in the in the comments, but like are not new data centers closed looped? Meaning that like you would fill them with like water and coolant and then they would not you're not just like constantly turning the tap on and refilling these things and and cooling things off. I think that's a little different than like like pumping them into crops like pumping it out of the the ground and then like making like almonds or something like that. Yes. I don't know the answer, folks. We are speaking ignorantly. So, if if there's any good resources on this stuff, yeah, leave them in the comments. I want to know all about this. Next question from aa Aaron. Can we get an update on Scott using Linux? I sold my Mac almost a year ago and went all in on Linux. I have a Linux desktop and a laptop framework 13. I love Linux, but the thing I am discovering, it feels like I need need at least one stable machine in my life. I missed my MacBook and will probably buy one later on this year. I was wondering how Scott got feels since the Omarie episode. Yes. Well, you know what? I I think my uh well, okay, answer your question. A Aon, I have been using my MacBook Pro full-time. The reason being is that the computer that I was using for my Linux is quite old. I think I bought it I think I bought it pre- syntax. So, it might be like from like 2016. I mean, that might be a 10-year-old laptop. Wait, you have the framework 13, right? Yeah. No, no, I don't have the framework 13. I have the uh it's made by system 76. Ran another random number. Um I think you bought that system, but I bet I bet it's 8 years old if I were to remember when you bought it. It's old for a laptop for me. You know, I I used to upgrade my laptop uh frequently. So, this this MacBook Pro is like the longest I've had any computer and it is showing its age right now. But either way, so that computer was not even good to start with. It was like a cheap lemur that I I got to to have around. And so because of that, it's it's not impossible. It's not possible for me to use my full-time machine. We're doing a lot of media. If I was doing less media recording, I think I'll be fairly happy working on that full-time. The biggest issues I had with Omari in general was Omari. Omari, I have no idea how to say it still today, was like the dual monitor support I thought sucked. And and there were people in the comments being like, "It's not that hard. You got to just open up this config and write these following config lines." Like, "Brother, just let me plug it into a monitor and have me drag stuff around like that." Or or key easy keyboard shortcuts. Yeah. Uh but could I use Linux full-time? I think I could. I think I could if it wasn't for my media stuff. If I was just a developer, I think I would be very happy on that. As far as what am I using Linux for today? I have a Steam machine, the video game system that I'm running Linux on and doing some non-gamy stuff on it. Uh, but two, I am going to be building a Cyber Deck, which is fully Linux and will be existing in a little handheld Linux computer. And that will actually be my beefiest Linux computer even though it is going to be a handheld Cyber Deck. So, folks, uh, keep your eyes out for that project cuz I'm going to be throwing Linux on that bad boy and I'm going to be doing some cool stuff with it. So, I can't wait to show it off. Actually, I would love to do it, but there's just the media stuff, you know, like I need Photoshop and I need a Da Vinci. I know Da Vinci Resolve runs on like one version of Linux and you can like kind of get it running. I like looked into it at one point. I'm like, can I really get uh Linux? Can I really get Da Vinci Resolve running on Linux? And like all the reviews are like, it works pretty good. Like I don't want pretty good. I don't want like oh you have to do X Y or Z. No thanks. And then also like a lot of the like same with like Windows people. They're like what's the equivalent of X Y or Z on Windows? And there's always some like halfbake watered down version of something like I'm not using I don't what's the like Photoshop alternative that everybody always uses like some crappy sketchy version the the one on Linux. Yeah. I don't I don't know but like yeah I haven't used Photoshop in so long so I understand that. Uh that's the one I'm not using No I'm not using and I you can't you can miss me on entirely. And like people talk about like Audacity being good enough and then it's like I use Audacity to record uh Courtney's podcast and man Audacity sucks. [laughter] And I'm not saying that's the only audio thing, but Audacity straight up sucks. It it like they're there's so many annoyances with it in general. Still look like it's built in Java and Windows XP or did they finally spin that thing? Yes. No, they they it I would say it looks a hair better. Um, [clears throat] at least unless they're coming out with something new that looks I mean even the logo the logo should tell you what it looks like enough. It looks the exact same. They've made it look a hair decent. But no, like that's such a thing for me that's like the design of the application has to be nice still. I'm I'm just sorry. I I need that. I'm I'm I'm I'm not Audacity 4 looks a little better than I remember it. I'm just looking at it right now. But Audacity 4 beta 2. Okay. So, it's just in beta for that type of stuff. I would absolutely love it because there's so much in Mac OS that I I absolutely hate, but I just don't have time to fuss with that type of thing. And also, I just love a computer that you can upgrade. You know, I'm looking at these framework laptops, the framework pro where you can like put more RAM in it if you want or you can you can choose which ports you want. Like one of my biggest qualms with my MacBook Pro is there's I'm I'm o almost over this, but there's no USBA on it and there hasn't been forever. So, I had to carry this dongle around cuz so much of my stuff is still USBA and I'm almost to a point now where everything I own is is just straight up USBC. But still, every now and then you you run into something weird and you're like, "Oh, now I gotta find the dongle and and put it in." I don't use anything USBA. That port is is not something that that's not something I think about. But like, no, nothing. Not a single thing. Oh, maybe not a single thing. I don't know. But I unless I'm at my desk and if I'm at my desk, I do have like the big unit which I need anyways to connect all my stuff because I got too much stuff to connect anyway. So, like Yeah. I don't know. I'm using I I I personally I think I could I don't know, man. I I'm happy. I think my next computer is even going to be a MacBook Air and then get a Mac Studio and have that be chilling here. That's We had a couple other questions of like like what are you waiting out for for like the local the local um AI thing and it's just like some beefy ass Mac studio that that you can buy and slap in. I I like it's just it's too early people and you can't really do it on hardware unless you have many many thousands of dollars to run, but maybe new chips in the next I don't know a couple years. It's going to be a few years before this type of thing. And I'm sitting here on my M1 MacBook Pro. It's starting to get a little bit slow as well. And I'm kind of like I don't want to upgrade yet. But yes, I know it is. It is like my fans are running all the time on this thing. And I I I'm thinking like taking out a another mortgage to get a Mac Studio with a 1.5 [laughter] TB of RAM whenever that drops. That's actually a joke. I'm not not considering that, folks. But you know what? One thing I did is the Mac Pro when they moved to the 16in from the 15-in, it's just you can't bring it on a plane anymore. The 15-in would just fit underneath the little notch and like I cannot code on a lap on a plane anymore with the 16 inch and I am getting the 14 next time I get a laptop. I think this is the power of being short in and kind of slight here is that I can I can do my stuff on the laptop on the plane. I I'm a little guy. I can I can crunch up in a little ball and use my laptop. I can get, you know, I can get in here and just Oh my gosh. [laughter] short king. He's just a little guy. Um, are you ready for this next one here? Yes. Uh, Court, we are ready for you. Next question. We have a special guest for because Scott and I don't know anything about kids or parenting or whatever. So, Syntax Fac's dad says, "How are you teaching and exposing your kids to AI? Are they asking to have AI chatbot friends? Are they starting to ask Claude instead of Google? How has this latest round of tech shown up in family life and what are you hearing from parents in your circle? So, we thought let's bring in the expert Dr. Courtney Tinsky knows a ton about uh children. So, do you want give us people probably heard you before, but give us a quick rundown of your credentials and and what you do before you answer this. Yeah. Hi. So, I'm Court Dr. Courtourtney. I'm a licensed clinical and school psychologist. Um, and I've been working with kids in families and schools, private practice, etc. for over 15 years. And now, actually, Scott and I have uh, well, we've started a podcast about child development. So, it's called Phases.fm. And now I get to talk even more about all these things and it's been great. That's awesome. So, what do you think about AI and kids? Is it a good idea to expose them to it? Yeah. Well, so this one's tricky and I think it depends on, you know, the child's it depends on so many factors, right? But obviously the child's age, their maturity level, you know, and and where they are developmentally. So this person did not leave this child's age, but let's we'll start at like I guess high school. We can start there. So high schoolers we're imagining are using AI more in schools. And I know at least for our kids, they have Chromebooks and so Gemini is just kind of built into their search engine and so it's just already there. You know, I I don't know how much the teachers are really monitoring that. But I do think it's important at home to have these conversations with your kids. So, if it's a high schooler, they might be diving more into like the chatbot friends um and using it to supplement their actual answers or responses for, you know, what they should be doing independently. So, I think it's really important to teach kids to be critical thinkers, and it's something that we've been talking about here with our kids who are only, you know, seven and nine. But I think it's even more important at that high school age to really have that conversation and to let kids, you know, understand and know that just because it's a computer, you know, it doesn't mean that it's going to be accurate. Like we do tend to think of computers as being like you know accurate and errorproof but you know we know that AI is not right. It hallucinates it is not always correct and the more you have conversations with it the more it starts to make mistakes. Yeah. So you know having that understanding really built into your kids of it can make mistakes and it is not errorproof is really important and again to be critical thinkers. So to be able to like think about is this answer correct? Is this you know aligned with what I know? Yeah. Do I need to like double check this or you know go elsewhere for information? I I was showing my kids the other day how AI is highly agreeable. Um, and I showed it by just doing two separate prompts of like things that you thought and and it it agreed with you in both cases because often we'll we'll use it to like not like resolve a fight, but like someone someone says one thing and the other person says says another thing and they'll be like, "Hey, uh, Gorgle, is it true that X, Y, or Z?" And it's really funny. I showed them at how you just phrase it in a certain way and then it will come back to you with an agreeable answer to your and they're like, "Oh, wow." Like you can It's not the definitive answer. Um, and I think I feel like I've taught my kids have have a high level of skepticism towards a lot of the stuff. Maybe even too much. They think like the news they think the news is AI because it's so well produced or anything with like a like a blurred background they think is AI. [laughter] Oh, that's so funny. Yeah. So maybe not. I mean, a healthy dose of skepticism, right? But I like the word critical thinking because it, you know, you can, it's an important life skill for all adults to be critical thinkers of anything anyone is telling you. Um, but but I like that you're doing that with your kids. I think that's great. Another thing is we we have it in our car now. We have Grock in our car. And it's funny because when we're in the car, we're often talking about things and questions will come up. Um, and I really like having it because you can find the we have a button that literally you can get an answer to anything. Um, and sometimes I'll I'll pause and be like, well, let's talk about it. What do you think? You know, like like that there's that critical thinking of like don't press the button to answer absolutely everything immediately. It's nice that we have it, but let's talk about what it have critical thinking. Think about what the answer might be. Um, what are your thoughts? And then we can ask Rock what it thinks and we can kind of build off of there. We were just talking on our episode about boredom, Wes. About like how it's good for kids to be bored and how even with uh on demand TV, it's so easy to get everything in. And I think that like really aligns a lot with that. Like sometimes you need to suffer through discussion or use your brain and figure things out. And if you're just getting everything instant, instant instant, instant, like what's that teaching? It's not It's like not It's not teaching critical life skills, right? But it's like ignoring that entirely. Yeah. Well, and I think that's so tricky, too, because like just the process. I mean, if you go back to high school or college, the process of writing, I mean, it takes forever and there's so many like drafts and versions that you have to do. there's so much effort and it's just so easy to like put it into, you know, AI and have it do it for you, but then you're missing all of those foundational skills, you know, that you need to be a good writer or a good thinker, you know. So, I I think it's a tricky balance because I can understand that temptation for kids to want to just put it in there and just get the answer. Yeah. You know, instantness. I was even thinking, this is not AI related, but I was thinking about the Are you guys into like Neato and all the squishies right now? Your kids are are into those. We don't have any, but yeah, I know it's it's a big toy right now. Yeah, everybody loves getting these squishies, and they're they're really hard to find, and there's all different kinds, and and kids want them. Lab boooo. It it's it's even crazier than that. It's it's absolutely nuts how these kids want these the latest squishy that is, you know, they they see a video about it, their friends are getting it. And I remember that as a kid of like wanting the latest thing, but like now we have the internet where you can just press a button and it will come the next day um at your doorstep. And like I was thinking about like being okay with not having something. Um like it was a was a very good lesson for me growing up where like I didn't I didn't have all the stuff that my friends had and simply because you could not find it. I remember I wanted a visor so bad you know and so stupid but like I wanted a visor for like a year and then finally we found one at like a discount store and I was so happy about it. But like that like just hold out. we'll find it somewhere is like I feel like such a good life skill. I also wanted a visor and [laughter] uh I I ended up getting I got to skate at the Warp Tour. I got to skate like like skating at the Warp Tour and I got like a a visor and a t-shirt from it. So, I was like I got my visor. I can put my uh bleach tips through the top, you know, spike them up real good. Um Oh my god. One other one other thing I'll add here is that I we specifically don't let our kids have the um AI image transformation. Um because like a couple times we've done it where you take a photo and then you try to make a silly thing or like what would it look like if I have this haircut, but I think that that could be very damaging to children where Yeah. What would I look like if I was prettier? What would I look like if I had a different color hair? And then all of a sudden you just don't start to not like yourself because the photo that the AI comes up with is looks so much better. Yeah. Yeah. I I think that's a good point too. And you know I was talking about high school earlier, but like going to like elementary school or middle school where we are now. We monitor our kids when they're and they general. Yeah. Computing in general. But if they're using AI, we're using it with them and we don't let them have a lot of exposure to it. But I made like a really cool project with my son. It was like an affirmation poster and I had him like type in, you know, the things that he wanted it to say, the things that he's good at and his strengths and we made it in his likeness. It was really neat. But, you know, I did that with him and we talked about the process. So, I think introducing kids to AI is important because obviously we know it's not going away, but you have to do it in a way where you're like guiding their usage and monitoring it. And obviously with chatbot friends, you know, things like that. Having them understand that it is, you know, a predictive model. It does not care about you. It does not have feelings for you like a human being would. You know, having those that distinction in those conversations, I think is so important. But doing that exposure in a way that is, you know, supported and guided by you. You know what we should do, Wes, is we should get CJ to do his video that he did about building an LLM from scratch, teaching LLMs and how they work. We should get him to redo that in like a Blippy costume and make a lot of like [screaming] Yeah. [gasps] Do you want to hear about tokens? [laughter] Yeah. See, we'll put them on that would watch that show. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Do it in like a Mark Robber style. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, that would be great. I like that a lot. Cool. Okay, cool. Well, thank you so much, Courtney, for your time. I appreciate it. Check out phases.fm if you want to learn a little bit more about how to raise your kids. [laughter] A lot more to that though. It's awesome. [laughter] I'm just reading the phases website right now. Dr. Courtney Courtney Dinsky, PhD, LP, NCSP, licensed clinical in school psychologist, and her husband, Scott. [laughter] Yes. Yes. Just Scott. Just me. That's me. Just Scott. [laughter] Oh, that's hilarious. I don't have any titles. I Nothing. Yes. Yes. Full stack. Yes. Exactly. Um, all right. Next question we have here from Geizy. Um, as someone who has spent much time learning to program skills without AI, I was recently turned away for not having much experience using AI to build things. What would you recommend for someone who doesn't really work with AI to you using it as a develop development tool effectively? This is crazy that we're starting to hear these things. where it's like it used to be can you code without the help of AI and now people are being turned away because they don't know how to use these tools effectively and and they wouldn't make for a good employee. Um and I think like as as much as you we joke about just typing in the box what you want and it comes out the other end. There certainly is a huge skill to be able to use these effectively. um being able to choose like one weird skill right now is that you have to like you have to know how expensive these things are. Like we were talking yesterday how like some people are spending thousands of dollars a day and we're like how can that even be possible? And and one of the ways is that people just continue chats in the morning. And if if the chat is not cashed, then let's say you had a $150 chat yesterday and you you you say, "All right, let's keep going today." That's another $150 tokens when because it's it's no longer cash. It's no longer hot and it has to send that whole back history. And then you you've racked it up. So like you have to know about these types of things in terms of how much they cost and as well as like how do you you steer them? Um, how do you how do you write plans? How do you tackle them? What skills are you using? All of that type of stuff. And h how do you figure this stuff out? I I think you just got to start using it. You got to say, given that what I know about being a good programmer, how can I wield this tool in such a way where it will output highquality code and software for what it is that I want. So, you just have to like really get in listen to us. We got lots of tips on this podcast as well. Yes. Yes. And honestly, I I I think like that is such like the other like we talked about in the is the the the genie going back into the shoe. It's it's going to become a it's it's not going to become it's become a part of this job. Just as like at one point you were like, "All right, test-driven development. That's like a part of this job. You need to understand whether or not you're doing it. You should probably understand how to be effective with it." or even for full stack engineers when JavaScript frameworks came into play, it's like all right, now you got to learn how to do uh UI and JavaScript stuff, you know, I mean there's there's always going to be these shifts and uh this is just another one of those shifts. You have to understand how to be effective with it or you will get turned away from jobs. And and I there's going to be exceptions to that. It's not every job, but I think more and more you're going to see that. Yeah. Yeah. your your basic like run-of-the-mill your your common job is is going to want to see that you are good with these tools. No differently than how they wanted to see you're good with your your text editor setup, your your GitHub integrations, all of that type of stuff. Just I know a lot of people have been ignoring it for for so long because they thought it was was bad or whatever, but uh it's you're not that genie unfortunately is not going back in the bottle like Scott says. All right, last question here in this like all AI episode from keyboard tapper. How do you keep coding agents cloud code cursor you name it efficient token usage speed hallucinations and accurate in big code bases? Do you cap agents.md size? What I try to do is I try to keep code files small, small react component components. If there is a linting rule, rather catch it with the llinter than writing it down inside of claw.md. Store the why of technical choices in separate ADRs and link to them. Be mindful of compacting conversations. Curious on what you guys do. Thanks for the show. It's awesome. Let me tell you, I do a lot of this exactly like you do. I try to make things deterministic. We talked earlier in the show getting uh that the the correct testing take the agent out of just testing stuff to writing tests and having those tests execute and and to end set up. But uh I use tools like to make sure that uh code duplication is taken care of and things like that. There was a really good blog post from Ben Vinegar on the modem site modem.dev. I'll link to it talking about writing code that's effective and efficient for agents because you're creating functions that have unique descriptive names rather than generic names and making your code more findable reducing token spend in that way. I do use the ADR approach because I have found it to be good. So ADR is like a decision document that documents why you make decisions that the AI can reference when it only when it needs to instead of just throwing all that stuff into an agents.mmd. Again, take anything that can be uh deterministic out of your agents. MD, put it into hard things. Cloud code and open these things have the idea of like hooks. And if you can build in hooks to catch the AI in a deterministic way, it's trying to do something, you stop it, and then step in there. That's great, too. Again, any of these tools that can be caught by llinters, uh what what do they what is fellow considered? follows static code analysis. Anything that can be uh caught in those ways, I do. So, um small code files, man, AI loves to make a big ass file. It loves to make a big ass file. Uh so, making a deterministic way to say, "Hey, I think this file is getting a little big." Uh definitely always something good to have. I I think that those are great. We've we've done several episodes in the past on like tips for this type of stuff. Um, but Scott nailed it there is make it as deterministic as possible. Um, don't absolutely throw so much in your agents.mmd. Um, in many cases those are going to cause slower responses and way more code generation, right? Like I I when the skills first came out, I slapped so many different skills in here and had all these different like super user or whatever. I I ripped them all out. you don't need them. I certainly still have a handful of skills and and rules per project. Um but a lot of this stuff you don't necessarily need and it's it's just making things messier than normal. I have skills for like um like here's how to use the spelt uh agent tools or whatever. Okay, here's how to use Dex, which is our thing. So that way it doesn't have to do Dex help. Dex is a a task list thing that I use. So, it's it doesn't like as if you don't have a skill for that, it's always going to be like, let me go to dexy hyphen help and see how to use it. So, I'll use skills for things like that. But again, um like like you said, Wes, yeah, I'm looking at a agents.nd file I have right now that's way too long that I need to um knock out here. I I also like what people love to do is they they love to say like analyze my codebase and then create a agents.mmd based off of that and then it just duplicates absolutely everything and a good coding model is able to infer a lot of that stuff without you having to uh write it down explicitly. Um so it's it's in many cases not necessary. Yes, that's all I have here. Uh Wes, do you have anything else for us? Do you want to get into sick picks? And uh yeah, I do. I have the sickest pick for you. Um we just spent some time up at our cottage and one thing that I built I don't know probably 8 years ago at our cottage was a floating dock. Um it's like 12 by 12 raft. It has those like blue barrels underneath so it floats and it's super fun. Um and it's connected to the ground with two huge huge chains. Um, and then there's cinder blocks at the bottom. And over the winter, one of the chains snapped and fell to the ground at 15 ft underwater. And I was like, "Oh no." Like, first of all, that chain is really expensive. I don't want to have to buy a new chain. It's a couple hundred bucks. But also, 13 ft is too too deep for me to dive. Um, I'm not that good of a diver. Nobody I know can dive that deep to be able to find it. And we also didn't know where where it had fallen, right? mucky or or you know, you never know what's on. Yeah, it's just it's it's sandy. It's not mucky, but it it's sandy enough that you can't see through it. Um, so what we ended up doing is we bought something that I've wanted forever, and that is a magnet fishing set. I I don't know if you've ever been on YouTube and watched like magnet fishing where they throw a magnet in the lake and they come out and there's like iPhones and gold on the on the bottom. Um, I've wanted one of those forevers. I think it would be so fun. And uh we bought one because it was cheaper than buying a new chain. And we just dragged it around. Took like a couple hours. We dragged it around the lake and then all of a sudden it we found the chain and we're able to pull it up most of the way and then dive down and and grab it with our hands and and tie a line to it. But I that was so fun. And then we went to a couple bridges and threw it over the bridge trying to find stuff. But I'm going to I think we're going to have the rest of the summer doing a whole bunch of magnet fishing. So, I highly recommend. It's kind of scary how how powerful. 1,400 lb magnet. I got it stuck to the bridge and I almost could not take it off with all of my mics. I was going to say, yeah, that sounds crazy. Yeah, you got to be careful you don't pinch your fingers, but it's fun. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's the type of thing I would do. That is exactly the type of thing [laughter] that I would do. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sick. Yeah. I love this. That sounds like a lot of fun, man. being outside doing outside stuff. Love that. Uh I'm going to pick something about inside but not computers. I hate uh kitchen brushes. We we I don't know. A lot of them don't work very well. But I got a a kitchen brush that I actually really like a a cleaning brush for the dishes that I actually really like. I like enough to talk about as a sick pick. Um I like this one because not only does it work well, it's $10. It's uh just a kitchen sink, but it has like this notch on the the side of it allowing you to hang it over the side of the sink. So, when you're drying, you're not just setting it on the counter, getting the counter on wet. You hang it on the side of the sink. And it's just a stupid little feature, but it's a delight to use. And also, I I don't know what is it about this kitchen brush. It's not particularly like brittle. Um, but I found it's really good at getting stuff off the pans. I have I have some little scraper head on it, too. Godless scraper head. We have these stainless pans that are like really hard to clean sometimes, and it's been super effective on them. So, I guess I'm sick picking a $10 kitchen uh kitchen scrubber, but my gosh, it's made my life a little bit better. So, I'm I'm putting it in front of y'all. make me want to. We use the IKEA dish brush cuz like they're also pretty aggressive and they're like two bucks a piece but it doesn't hang over the side. Now I want to Oh, you know ours has like a little suction cup. You can put it on the side of the sink, but like then it's in the way of the entire sink. What this one does is it just hangs on the end. I want to 3D print something for mine now that will do this. Get a little clip and Yeah, clip and print. I know our ours like got ours was needing a a new one, so it was a perfect time to see what kind of advanced technology exists out there for [laughter] dish. Love it. I we we've talked about cleaning stuff way too often on this podcast. We got the scrub daddies because of you and I love a scrub daddy. Scrub daddy it up. Uh I'm going to shamelessly plug really quick Courtney's podcast phases.fn. That's phases. like phases of life phases.fm. We're also on YouTube and man, she's like she went from not doing any this type of stuff to putting out shorts every single day and she's doing a great job at it. She's doing an awesome job. So, check it out on YouTube as well. I've been like really really impressed with her efforts there. So, we got her we got her one of those little DJI mics and everything like that. That's pretty dope. Yeah. I need to try one of those. My wife has the Holly Land, Holly Lark, whatever. We got it off of producer Ry's recommendation and it's really cool, but I I kind of I want one for the shorts and I want to hold it. Like I you know, it drives people nuts cuz you're not supposed to hold them, [clears throat] but I I get it. I don't get it. I don't get it. I don't get why people I get it. It's because it's it's a visual thing. It's something to look at and people clip them onto funny things like a dish brush. You should try clip it onto your dish. and and record a short. I guarantee it will do well. I've been watching you uh Warhammer YouTube Warhammer painting your and I've noticed the guy's clipping it onto a paintbrush and stuff. And now that you say that, it's like, "Oh, I get it." Okay. Yeah. Drives audio people nuts because it's not how you're supposed to use it, but nobody cares. That's it for today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Send us your potluck questions. Syntax.fm. Peace. Peace., The Rise of the Design Engineer, Syntax, 01kz92mn5vycz7tfme1df9g7tm.