---
title: Creating vs Consuming, Consistency &amp; Fitness
slug: creating-vs-consuming-consistency-fitness
published_at: 2024-03-04 16:00:00 +0000
updated_at: 2024-05-29 13:53:48 +0000
summary: This week, Colin and CJ discuss how differently we can feel when we get caught in the mindless doomscrolling traps of consuming content rather than creating things, interacting with other IRL humans, and more! - Accountability/fitness update- Quick update on Buckets!- Consumption vs Creation- Learning styles- Badass Course Creators podcast: Raising the bar for online learning with Greg RogNext episode, we&#39;re digging into the Campfire codebase from 37Signals/Once.glhf!
description: &lt;div&gt;This week, Colin and CJ discuss how differently we can feel when we get caught in the mindless doomscrolling traps of consuming content rather than creating things, interacting with other IRL humans, and more! &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;- Accountability/fitness update&lt;br&gt;- Quick update on &lt;a href=\&quot;https://buckets.cjav.dev/\&quot;&gt;Buckets&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;br&gt;- Consumption vs Creation&lt;br&gt;- Learning styles&lt;br&gt;- Badass Course Creators podcast: &lt;a href=\&quot;https://badass.dev/podcast/course-builders/raising-the-bar-for-online-learning-with-greg-r%C3%B3g\&quot;&gt;Raising the bar for online learning with Greg Rog&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Next episode, we&#39;re digging into the Campfire codebase from &lt;a href=\&quot;https://37signals.com/\&quot;&gt;37Signals&lt;/a&gt;/&lt;a href=\&quot;https://once.com/\&quot;&gt;Once&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;glhf!&lt;/div&gt;
duration: 2803
keywords: []
author: CJ Avilla
co_author: Colin Loretz
url: https://www.cjav.dev/podcasts/creating-vs-consuming-consistency-fitness
embed_url: https://share.transistor.fm/e/561df5f8
share_url: https://share.transistor.fm/s/561df5f8
image_url: 
podcast_show: Build and Learn
type: podcast_episode
---

# Creating vs Consuming, Consistency &amp; Fitness

*Published: March 04, 2024*
*Duration: 2803 seconds*
*Podcast: Build and Learn*

## Listen

[Listen on the web](https://share.transistor.fm/e/561df5f8)
[Share URL](https://share.transistor.fm/s/561df5f8)

## Show Notes

&lt;div&gt;This week, Colin and CJ discuss how differently we can feel when we get caught in the mindless doomscrolling traps of consuming content rather than creating things, interacting with other IRL humans, and more! &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;- Accountability/fitness update&lt;br&gt;- Quick update on &lt;a href=&quot;https://buckets.cjav.dev/&quot;&gt;Buckets&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;br&gt;- Consumption vs Creation&lt;br&gt;- Learning styles&lt;br&gt;- Badass Course Creators podcast: &lt;a href=&quot;https://badass.dev/podcast/course-builders/raising-the-bar-for-online-learning-with-greg-r%C3%B3g&quot;&gt;Raising the bar for online learning with Greg Rog&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Next episode, we&#39;re digging into the Campfire codebase from &lt;a href=&quot;https://37signals.com/&quot;&gt;37Signals&lt;/a&gt;/&lt;a href=&quot;https://once.com/&quot;&gt;Once&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;glhf!&lt;/div&gt;

## Full Transcript

  
Colin: Welcome to build and learn.  My name is Colin.  

CJ: And I&#39;m CJ and we&#39;re back again,   just catching up on what we&#39;re  working on, what we&#39;re learning.  And we thought we might kick this   one off with a little fitness update.  So I, yeah, I mean, we, we talked   about this a while ago and you  as the listeners are holding us   accountable to some fitness goals here.  So Colin, you want to, yeah, why don&#39;t you   give us a quick update on your fitness?  

Colin: Yeah, for me, I&#39;m trying   to do the James Clear consistency  over you know, doing like these   Herculean effort type things.  So I have a plan, a training plan from   Hal Higdon marathon training plan.  So I&#39;m gearing up for   just it&#39;s a 30 week plan.  So it&#39;s not like one of those, like do   a marathon in 12 weeks type of thing.  It&#39;s very slow burn gets you back   into just like, Knocking off the  runs and then you&#39;ll start getting   into the more marathon training plan.  So I&#39;m hoping to do a marathon in   September with a friend of the show one  of our friends Calvin, up in Washington.  And and then potentially   one in December in Honolulu.  

CJ: Ooh, nice.  

Colin: be my first time down to Hawaii.  So that&#39;s the plan and just trying   to get into the habit of it, have the  rhythm of it, you know, even if it&#39;s,   if it&#39;s a three mile run, it doesn&#39;t  need to be a fast three mile run.  It just needs to be done.  So  

CJ: hmm.  Mm hmm.  

Colin: that.  

CJ: And what are the long runs in the   first couple of weeks for that program?  

Colin: My first long run this last   weekend was going to be seven miles.  So  it&#39;s, you know, you still do the   long run on Sundays, the whole  church of the long run type  thing.  And so it&#39;ll ramp up to eventually,   usually you do like, eventually  you get up to like 20 miles.  a few, maybe four weeks before   the actual marathon, and then you  taper off into the actual thing.  And so you don&#39;t need to have run a   marathon before you go do the marathon.  But yeah, just getting into that and   trying to weave in a little bit of  things like kettlebells and strength.  A lot of working on the knees.  They don&#39;t work like they used to.  So making sure that they have the   strength that they need to support  myself through that whole run.  

CJ: Very cool.  Is the, the marathon that&#39;s in   Washington in November, is it,  is it in Washington in November?  I think I  

Colin: September.  Yeah.  

CJ: or September.  Okay.  And is that one like a qualifying   one for Honolulu or can you just go  to Honolulu even if like, no, okay.  

Colin: Yeah.  Yeah.  They&#39;re separate.  This one&#39;s just, you know, my   brother wants to do the Honolulu one.  So I&#39;m training with him and then   Calvin wants to do the one up by him.  So I&#39;m training with him for that one.  And, and for me, their accountability.  You know, once you pay for a race, once   you have it in your calendar, you, you  can&#39;t just be like in the 11th hour,   decide like, Oh, I guess I should  get ready for that, which is a good   way to think of like a lot of goals.  Like if you want to try to like write   a book, you&#39;re not going to be like.  Oh, I procrastinated until the 11th   hour and then I wrote the whole book.  Like it just doesn&#39;t work like that.  So it&#39;s good.  You know, I could just do things like   there&#39;s the Spartan races and, you  know, all those kinds of races and   things, but it&#39;ll be good to like,  keep myself accountable, keep them   accountable and have it on the calendar.  

CJ: Nice.  Yeah.  I think the destination marathons are   the ones that are most interesting and  attractive to me because it&#39;s like,   you&#39;ve got, not only do you have like  this big thing that you&#39;re planning for   and you&#39;re prepping for, and you have  it on the horizon, but all of that, like   anticipation of like, Oh, it&#39;s going  to be so cool to like fly there and be   there and be in like a different place  and experience like Hawaii after like   all of this hard work and everything.  So that seems.  Like it would be awesome.  On there&#39;s a instructor on Peloton   that I really like Matt Wilpers.  And he often talks about like, you   know, plan out your year and make  your trips like fitness related,   or like have some thing that you&#39;re  going to do fitness wise on a trip.  And then even if you&#39;re not like   going to do a race or something,  you can still make it, you know,   interrelated with your vacationing.  And then you kind of like build your   lifestyle around, like, you know,  these healthy habits and things.  And I don&#39;t know.  It definitely, definitely   seems attractive.  So  

Colin: I think when you go on trips, they   try to like, you know, depending on where  you&#39;re going, there&#39;s all these like   excursion options and like side things.  And, you know, honestly going on hikes,   even if they&#39;re like with guides or you  know, doing some back country stuff, like   it&#39;s a great way to see those places.  They tend to be less touristy.  They tend to be not super   expensive to see, like kind of  more of the local take of it.  When we went on the offsite in Portugal   for orbit, it was funny because like,  We were with this like outdoor adventure   team that was taking us on this thing.  And like, it was very apparent that we   all sit at a desk and work inside all day.  Like some people are super stoked   to be outside and doing things.  And others were like are we there yet?  We&#39;re done.  We&#39;re  ready to sit on the beach.  So yeah.  How about your update?  How&#39;s things going for you?  

CJ: Things are going well.  We&#39;ve got our our accountability crew.  We are in week seven of eight weeks.  So we&#39;re doing like an eight week   session and we&#39;re trucking along.  We keep posting updates of every   single meal and You know, our exercise  routines and things like that.  I think we&#39;ve missed a   couple here and there.  And you always just trying to catch   back up and get back on the train.  So I am this past weekend.  I waited in like two 16, which was   down from like two 50 in the summer.  So making tons of progress.  And it&#39;s all just like consistency.  Like you&#39;ve got to kind of just show up   and eat the right things every single day.  And, I think that I&#39;ve kind of found   a pretty high protein diet that is  sustainable, like relatively sustainable,   which has been working really well  for me, kind of just like it took   me a while of like looking at every  single thing I was eating and trying   to figure out, you know, is this, or  what is the protein content of this?  What is the fat?  Like, what are the macros of each meal or   each like part of the meal and is there  something I can swap out or swap in for   something that&#39;s like a higher protein?  And as a result, like yeah, I&#39;ve kind   of like narrowed in on a few dishes  that I never would have had before.  Like one is I&#39;ll have like Greek yogurt.  In the morning, I&#39;ll have Greek yogurt   with like scoops of protein powder, like  plant based protein powder and flax seed   and I just stir it all up and it sounds  gross, but it&#39;s so good and it&#39;s just like   become this, like, super high protein,  like 30, it&#39;s like 35 grams of protein,   very little net carbs, very little other  stuff in it and it&#39;s really filling and   so satiety is very high so doing that and  then On the, like the exercise front doing   a power zone challenge with on the bike.  So we have like two 45 minute rides   and then a long ride on the weekend.  That&#39;s like between 60 and 120 minutes.  And then five days a week I&#39;ve been   doing like a barbell, like dumbbell type  strength training, just like a really   low key, 30 minute a day, five day split.  And, yeah, all of that seems to   be working really, really well and  yeah, feeling pretty strong and   I&#39;m really happy with the progress.  So yeah,  continue to  

Colin: I&#39;ve been seeing   your, your updates on Strava.  So I can see you&#39;re out there doing it.  

CJ: nice.  Nice.  Yeah, I, I, it&#39;s like automatically   hooked up to Peloton, which I love  because it sends the rides along.  And you know, like when you do   like a strength workout, but I also  use Peloton a lot for meditation   and that like Postman&#39;s drama too.  It&#39;s like, all right, CJ   couldn&#39;t sleep that night.  Obviously he did, like three   meditations and like yeah.  

Colin: noticed, I mean, I&#39;ve noticed   that they were on there, but I&#39;m not, I  haven&#39;t, didn&#39;t notice what times they   were posted, but, you know, it also shows  the Strava TriHards that you&#39;re out   there stretching and out there taking  walks and out there, you  know, it&#39;s not always maximum   efforts, like, oh, I just did  this super long bike ride or bike,   you know, run, things like that.  So  it&#39;s another tool, another   accountability thing.  Which can help.  So, and I think like, you know,   we&#39;re, we&#39;re, we&#39;re talking about  this fitness stuff to kind of also   hold each other accountable too.  And like diet, nutrition   fitness is all super individual.  So I&#39;m glad that you found some things   that you like that work for you.  It&#39;s not going to work for   everyone who&#39;s listening.  It&#39;s, we&#39;re not a fitness podcast,  but.  We pretend to be one on TV.  

CJ: Yeah.  And I think what&#39;s what does   maybe resonate more with listeners  is that it wasn&#39;t like clear.  The answer wasn&#39;t clear for   what to try or what to do.  It was all very much like experimentation   and learning and watching videos and  trying to figure out which fitness   influencers I believe and trust and  you know, like reading these books   about you know, And you know, white  papers about different, like new   research that&#39;s coming out about muscle  protein synthesis and creatine and   you know, should you take TRT or not?  And like all these different   things, you know, like so yeah,  

Colin: There&#39;s a lot of that right now.  A lot.  

CJ: tons.  There&#39;s tons.  Yeah, totally.  So yeah, one that&#39;s definitely on my   list to research too, is like, what  are the impacts of Ozempic and all of   these like GLP one or whatever drugs  that are supposed to be like You know,   you get a shot and then you magically  lose a bunch of weight and yeah, just   trying to see how, how that&#39;s affecting  people&#39;s like stomach longterm,   you know, is it is it, you know,  damaging their digestion or whatever.  So yeah, lots of stuff   to research and learn.  And yeah, it&#39;s kind of like   building your own health or  something, but yeah, fun stuff.  

Colin: Yeah.  Well, this is kind of around the   consistency and like what we do every  day kind of like defines what, where   we spend our time and our identity.  And this thing that keeps coming up in   the podcasts I listen to and some videos  I&#39;ve been watching has been this like   concepts that I&#39;d be curious to get your  take on of if you&#39;re busy creating things.  You should spend less time consuming   things or vice versa, like in a way it  almost I think now that I said it out loud   like casts like consuming as bad and like  when you hear like mindless consumption   or like doom scrolling and Instagram  and tick tock like they want your time   and attention, which means that you&#39;re  probably not going out and making your own   things, whether it&#39;s content or code or.  Working out or whatever it is, right?  It&#39;s, it&#39;s time and attention.  I&#39;d be curious, like, what do you   think about that in terms of like,  do the things that you consume   help you to be a better creator?  Are they kind of like the yin and yang of   like, you know, inspiration and creation  or, or like, Oh, too busy, too busy   creating things in a little vacuum over  here that you know, it can&#39;t be bothered.  

CJ: I, I need to think a lot more about   this, but I, my gut reaction is that  you have to consume a little to build   like taste and it&#39;s important to see  like what other people are doing to   consider whether or not that&#39;s something  you want to incorporate into your own.  I don&#39;t think mindlessly scrolling is   good or beneficial for like, for creation.  I think if you go into it and you open   up TikTok and you look at it and you  say to yourself, I&#39;m going to look   at these TikToks because I want to  see what they&#39;re doing to go viral.  That is like a very different intention   when you open the app than like, I&#39;m  bored or I&#39;m tired or I&#39;m anxious   or I&#39;m like, you know, like other  reasons why you might like reach for a   dopamine hit through through tick talk.  And like it, those things are   not good for you for sure.  Right.  Like the just mindless scrolling.  But I think, yeah, if you can, if you&#39;re   consuming intentionally to become a better  creator, then I could see that, that   would be totally positive and, and there&#39;s  like absolutely a good way to do it.  That said, I don&#39;t think anyone, or   like, I would say most people are not  mindfully consuming TikTok, Instagram,   YouTube Shorts, or any of the,  like, algorithmic feeds of anything.  And yeah, personally, I have definitely   fallen into a really unhealthy pattern  of consuming mindlessly at night and   like all the algorithms just want  to show me like political shit now,   and I&#39;m like I&#39;m very, very over it.  Like I don&#39;t want to hear about political   news and I just get sucked into it like  on a daily basis where every time I open   up any of the, these apps, it&#39;s just  showing me like all of this junk like   political propaganda stuff basically.  And so it&#39;s definitely not good.  And I&#39;m also like.  Trying to be better about when I   open any of the social media apps.  Like, what do I want to learn or   what do I, like, how do I want to  like grow from this experience?  And so yeah, I&#39;m trying to be a little   bit better about it, but yeah, just  throwing yourself off of the cliff   into the algorithm is is definitely  not, not the right way to go for sure.  

Colin: Yeah, and I think like with most   things, I mean, you can use them as  entertainment, like we don&#39;t need to open   them every time with like, I must get  something out of it, like that&#39;s useful   in my work or whatever, but tends to be  that like, if you mindfully say I&#39;m going   to watch a show or like, I think A lot of  people are moving to watching things on   YouTube that and like it used to be that  YouTube videos were super long and they   became shorter and shorter and shorter.  And now some creators that I follow   are like creating series of like  pretty like 30, 40 minute, you know,   adventure videos and things like that.  And I watch those like I would watch.  Like a tv show and I&#39;ll watch one   and then walk away from it and not  necessarily Get pulled into the   the algorithm or the next video.  I think watching YouTube on like a tv   you don&#39;t have that sidebar as much  of like next videos It still kind of   happens, but it&#39;s it&#39;s not I don&#39;t think  they spend as much time on that Like how   do we get you to click on the next one  as much as they&#39;ve done it on the web?  Or probably even But yeah, I hear you.  I mean, it&#39;s really easy to fall into.  I think the whole Senate hearing thing   that happened recently, some, a lot of  that was like kangaroo court around.  They already had soundbites that they   wanted to, you know, tell tick tock  and meta and all these, but there is   a lot of truth in the fact that they.  want you to use it more.  And so their, their motivations are   not always aligned with like what  our goals are for what we use those   apps for, or like what&#39;s the job  to be done with Instagram, right?  It&#39;s a lot of it is ads now, which are   very, very good and very targeted ads.  But I&#39;ve been wondering myself, like,   how would I feel Less of an urge to  buy things if I wasn&#39;t on social.  And now I like witness the, like, Oh,   this thing&#39;s easy to buy right now.  If I want it, I&#39;ll write it   down and see if I still want it.  And usually if it comes from   the internet, it&#39;s probably  not, not something that I need.  Yeah, so that&#39;s, that&#39;s a good one.  I think something for everyone   to think about at home, just.  How much are you consuming?  Do you want to be creating more?  It doesn&#39;t have to be a public thing.  It might even be a thing for yourself.  Just kind of time, time and attention.  

CJ: Yeah.  We&#39;ve been, it&#39;s, it&#39;s, it&#39;s interesting   too, when we try to help our kids  learn how to be like thoughtful   consumers and productive creators.  Not like you don&#39;t, YouTube famous   or anything, but like trying to  help them understand that playing.  Or like, yeah, consuming social media   right now for them at their age,  completely off limits, but there&#39;s also   like a difference for them between playing  certain games and watching, you know,   documentaries and, and then like creating.  And so we&#39;ve tried to like   carve up screen time into these.  Different sort of scopes, maybe where if   they are spending time on the computer to  make a podcast or a video or a stop motion   animation or to write a story or to draw  or something like that, we feel much more   comfortable with being like, yeah, sure.  Like go be creative, use the   tools, go 3D print stuff, go  print things out, whatever.  But if you want to just go on the   computer and scroll through YouTube  and watch people play video games.  That in our opinion is like way   less healthy than like, even  if they were to just go and   play the video game themselves.  Right.  Like they&#39;re at least like a little bit   more engaged, but yeah, both like the  yeah, just kind of garbage entertainment.  That&#39;s trying to get them to buy   stuff versus a little bit more  thoughtful, like, okay, let&#39;s watch a   documentary about space or something  that we as parents have somehow   deemed more valuable for their future.  But yeah, I don&#39;t know.  It&#39;s it&#39;s an interesting balance for sure.  So,  

Colin: Yeah.  Well, speaking of building things, what   have you been working on building lately?  

CJ: Oh my gosh.  So at work, we are we&#39;re building   out a bunch of tools for calculating  gross margin on projects.  Lots of different calculators and   estimators and caching data in certain  places so that things render quickly.  Also continuing to work on our   messaging release for Twilio,  which is coming along pretty well.  And so we&#39;ve been experimenting with   like recording calls and routing calls  and building all that kind of stuff.  And then yeah, on the side, continuing   to hack on buckets here and there.  So buckets.  cjav.  dev, if folks are interested, it&#39;s going   to be a little personal finance app.  And yeah, like we, you and I chatted about   this in all the different data providers.  And it&#39;s funny watching Josh   Pigford on Twitter, like just  raging about how the data providers   for all this financial data.  There&#39;s like not one good one that will   give you all the connections to all the  banks and mortgage companies and you   know, brokerage accounts and bank accounts  and credit cards and all these things.  And so went through the whole cycle   of trying to integrate lots of  different ones and then came full   circle back to, back to Stripe.  And it&#39;s still like,   none of them are perfect.  But it&#39;s been, it&#39;s been fun to hack on.  So.  

Colin: Yeah, I&#39;ve got it.  Running on my machine too and I&#39;ve   been playing around with figuring out  where I can be useful and what we can   add to it and I think it&#39;s funny that,  you know, as you&#39;ve been tweeting   about it, so many people are like,  just use maybe just use Josh&#39;s thing.  It&#39;s like, well, we have our own   little thing going on over here.  

CJ: Yeah.  Yeah.  Yeah.  It&#39;s partly, I mean, it&#39;s fun to scratch   your own itch and it&#39;s also fun to have  full control over it, you know, instead   of it being like this open source thing  where I definitely feel like Josh is going   after like a global solution that has  recently he&#39;s been talking a lot about   like currency conversion and all these  different features that will support a   global solution, which I think is awesome.  It&#39;s a great use case for, Open source and   all these things to scratch our own itch.  Like, I don&#39;t, I don&#39;t know about you, but   I only have US dollars , so like currency  conversion feature that can wait for   you know, scale or something like that.  So it&#39;s like,  

Colin: Well, and some people have   been poking him on that about  like, should you not make a fully   complete system for USD first  before you start going wide?  And I, I actually think like   following the journey of lunch  money which is a budgeting tool,   like they were digital nomads.  Jen from from lunch money.  It&#39;s built by one person and she was   moving around the world being digital meds  and it needed to be multi currency first.  Like it&#39;s  really hard to go back in and be   like, let&#39;s tack on multi currency.  Like it doesn&#39;t work well.  So I think they&#39;re probably   right in starting it first.  But there was a lot of really   interesting conversations around.  I don&#39;t want you to convert it.  the other currencies into my   money, I want you to keep them  in the currency that they&#39;re in   because they&#39;re in that currency.  And you lose little tiny   amounts of rounding errors and  things when you do conversions.  And if it&#39;s sitting in another account   in France, you know, in another currency,  like keep it in that currency and just   keep the balances going in that currency.  And sure, you could do like a total   net worth in USD or whatever you want.  With my like a lot of my interest in   personal finance, it&#39;s so interesting  to think about like how easy and   like for us it is to just think in U.  S.  Dollars.  But like most people in other   countries have to be thinking  multilingual, multi currency, right?  They have a lot of them   have investments in U.  S.  Dollars in the U.  S.  Stock Exchange as well as   their home countries or others  a little bit more diversified.  So it&#39;s a wild world.  

CJ: Totally.  Yeah, I think yeah, maybe to paint a   picture to like the initial idea was I,  I mean, we both used mint for a long time   to just like track balances and stuff.  And we both use a different   app for budgeting.  So I use YNAB and you   you&#39;re using co pilot.  Shout out if they want to give   us a affiliate link or something.  Or yeah, we&#39;ll share, we&#39;ll   share links to affiliate things.  I&#39;m sure we&#39;ll find them.  So you can, you can try those out   based on the show notes, but those  are, those are great budgeting apps.  I don&#39;t think what like we&#39;re trying to   build as a budgeting app by any means.  It&#39;s like, how can we look at our   entire like financial wellbeing and  make suggestions or adjustments or   plans based on kind of where we&#39;re at.  as a whole.  And so, yeah, the idea of buckets is   like you can put your, you can kind of  like assign the money that&#39;s in different   accounts into these buckets that you  can track the balance of over time.  So maybe you have an emergency   fund and you have some goal  for that emergency fund.  So you can associate one of your   accounts with an emergency fund and  then see that in the dashboard as   like your emergency fund bucket.  Or maybe you have one that&#39;s like   retirement and you have in your  mind some number that you need for   retirement that you want to retire  early or whatever, like you can.  have your retirement accounts   roll up to and aggregate some  balance over time for retirement.  Same thing with real estate.  And then all of that, obviously rolling   up into some net worth calculation.  One component of that is when you&#39;re   tracking real estate assets over time,  you want to try to get like, what is the.  Estimated value.  If you were to like sell this house   today and Zillow has like a really  legit data science team with pretty   good estimates called Zestimates.  It&#39;s like their little internal   estimation thing or whatever.  Yeah.  Zesty.  So Submitted we submitted some paperwork   to try to like get access to their API.  I have not heard back after   the first kind of like back and  forth with their support team.  So if any, if we know anyone   that works at Zillow, like  let  

Colin: to say, we might need to   like flex our DevRel muscle here.  

CJ: yeah,  

Colin: Who&#39;s the Zillow DevRel?  

CJ: videos and some shared content here.  

Colin: Just,  

CJ: But yeah, the rent cast.  So rent cast is another API.  We I think it was just bought by   RealtyMole or RealtyMole bought  rent cast or something like that.  And we are using rent cast or we&#39;re   using the RealtyMole API at Craftwork.  And so I was like, Oh, like   we can use that for now.  And then I put in my own, like   a couple of my own addresses and  the property estimates were just   like way off, like twice as much  as I think they&#39;re probably worth.  And so we&#39;ll have to figure that   out, but yeah, you don&#39;t want your  

Colin: multiply them all by two.  

CJ: Yeah, exactly.  Just, just double it.  Just whatever, you know, like,  

Colin: Yeah.  I think we&#39;ve been, we&#39;ve   been thinking too small here.  I think we should just get   Zillow to sponsor the podcast.  I think  

CJ: great idea.  There you go.  There you go.  

Colin: house Zillow.  

CJ: Didn&#39;t they do something like that?  Or was that a different company?  Redfin maybe?  Or there was like some   real estate property.  It was Zillow.  

Colin: I don&#39;t know.  I&#39;m, I&#39;m a Redfin fan myself.  I  do like that.  I don&#39;t know why their app is just.  Less cartoony feeling to me than   Zillow, so I&#39;m not sure why, I  don&#39;t know if it&#39;s the colors or   what, but yeah, Redfin, Zillow,  give us access to your APIs, please.  

CJ: Yeah.  I feel like there was a company,   like one of those companies went  out and bought a bunch of properties   and then they couldn&#39;t unload them.  like  the, and they were like stuck with a  

Colin: They both did that.  They both became like the I buyer type   thing where they were the very thing that  they realized that like the hell is data.  So we could arbitrage and buy   houses and then sell them.  You can still list your house with Redfin.  So it like, it&#39;s like using.  But Redfin is your agent and they get like   a special marking on the UI that&#39;s like  listed by Redfin and they probably have   like lower fees or something like that.  Man, but like in 2007 I worked on   building out and this is before a  lot of these APIs existed on this.  There was this idea to build a website.  You could sell your house to like,   if you needed to move tomorrow, you  could just get like kind of what   you&#39;ve done with craftwork, like  get inspections and get all these   different things done in one place.  And there&#39;s so many steps when you   buy and sell a house from inspections  and escrow and all that kind of stuff.  And unfortunately, this was like before.  Any of these things, Zillow, Redfin,   and it was just too far ahead of its  time because we were trying to figure   out, like, how do we send a text message  to these people who only take text   messages and phone calls and fax machines  and like, just automate it via paper,   but with texts and facts and stuff  like that, and you know, and that&#39;s   very much what Redfin and Zillow did.  And then they, like you said, they   found it really hard to actually,  they were stuck with a lot of   inventory and couldn&#39;t actually make.  Money on those houses, even though   houses have gone up in crazy value.  So yeah, it turns out pure technology   is, has more margins there.  

CJ: Yeah.  Interesting.  Interesting.  So yeah, maybe the someone needs   to make a bad ass course about  how to buy and sell houses.  Speaking of bad ass courses,   you see that transition,  

Colin: all the segues today.  

CJ: your segues were on point.  I had to make like a,   just as the cheesiest one.  

Colin: Yeah, so I&#39;ve, I&#39;ve been   binging a lot of course creation,  dev rel, docs type content.  So back that maybe that was where the   consuming versus creating kind of came in.  I&#39;m sure it was mentioned multiple   times, but one that stuck out to  me was badass courses with Joel   hooks really good podcast for  course creators and course builders.  And I actually think the podcast is   called course builders with Greg rogue  it&#39;s, I think it&#39;s their first episode,   raising the bar for online learning.  And what I really liked about   the episode was they both are  video course creators and.  platform creators as well.  Like they both, both Joel and Greg   run their own course platforms.  Greg actually runs two two different   ones, two different code bases.  And the really big question that   they posed at the top of it was how  do you actually approach sitting   down to learn a new complex topic?  So they both are video course creators.  And I think their answer was kind   of interesting that both of them  are actually, they learn by reading.  And so their, their, their own   favorite method of learning  is a little bit different than   the stuff that they put out.  So yeah, I&#39;d be curious just   to hear what your approach is  to sitting down to a new thing.  

CJ: I&#39;m jealous because I, I wish that   reading was my like priority version  of learning, but usually it&#39;s video.  And so it like, that basically means   that like the videos that I make are just  like lower quality versions of the other   videos I&#39;ve seen online or something, you  know, like a collection of other videos.  Yeah, no, I think like, first   of all, learning by learning  a topic by reading is.  Obviously going to be very, very important   for any career because most content will  be available as written word, right?  Like if there&#39;s documentation about an   API, it will be written documentation.  There&#39;s probably 2 percent or less   of information available about how to  use an API is going to be available.  And so when, yeah, like learning a complex   topic I guess like most of my experience  in this case comes through Stripe.  A lot of it would be.  Read through the docs with a super   fine toothed comb because Docs writers  often try to be as concise as possible.  And so there might be one sentence on   a giant docs page that has the answer  for something that you&#39;re looking for.  So yeah, just trying to be like   really, really thorough when  you&#39;re reading through things.  And then second is like trying stuff out.  So just getting really quick at   trying quick starts, following  instructions and tutorials.  And then also like.  Yeah, I think I, I guess like   recently too, I&#39;ve been kind of like  leaning a lot on chat GBT where I&#39;ll   say like, okay, here&#39;s the pieces  that I think I understand what,   where, where are my blind spots?  And then how would you do this?  And then give me some alternatives   to how you would do it.  And then trying to like think through the   implications of those has kind of been a,  a little bit of a new approach, but yeah.  What about you?  How are you approaching   these kinds of things?  huh.  

Colin: Yeah, I think, they brought up   that it really depends on the thing that  you&#39;re learning, which I would agree with.  And part of that would be, like you   said, what&#39;s available to learn with.  ChatsDBT is definitely a new part for me.  Not just telling it what I know or   having it explain it, but I&#39;ll sometimes  take, like, if it&#39;s extremely technical,   I&#39;ll copy technical documentation  and say, Okay, explain this.  in a different way.  Like I&#39;ll say, explain it like I&#39;m 10   which is always funny when you, if you  do the explain it like you&#39;re five, they   like comes up with like very kid focused  like metaphors and analogies and things.  But you know, that can   help to break it down.  Tragedy is also really good at   summarizing things and like, say  like, give me steps or bullet points.  And I don&#39;t know how much when you   tell it to do that, how much it&#39;s  still trying to pull from the outside.  Right.  And versus what it&#39;s been given.  So that you always got to take that   with a grain of salt and make sure it&#39;s  not hallucinating and things like that.  But for me, I would say like, I   definitely like to go find a video like  you do and just being able to do it.  I think learning by doing is, is like,   if there&#39;s a sample project, a quick  start guide, pull down the tutorial,   get clone, whatever it needs to be.  And I just need to like, get   it running and then maybe  change some things to get it.  to fail or break and then put   it back and just kind of poke at  the edges to see what&#39;s possible.  I&#39;ve been doing that a lot with the   thing that I&#39;m documenting right now  because it&#39;s like the team that built   it, we still can&#39;t talk about it.  The, the team that built it.  It knows it in and out, but I need   to know it in and out to document it.  And so I&#39;m using it, breaking it,   fixing it, thinking like, okay, all  these things that I already know,   do they still apply to this thing?  Or is this like a new   thing that I need to think  about?  And to your point, you know, how do we   avoid having one very crucial, important  line buried in the bottom of the docs   instead of like, these are the things  you should know before you start.  So, that&#39;s been interesting and in   a, I think like an episode or two  from now, we&#39;ll actually get to   talk about the thing, which will be  

CJ: Nice.  Yeah.  So when you&#39;re thinking about these   complex topics and yeah, I guess learning  a complex topic, like saying complex topic   to me is what is throwing me a little  bit because a lot of like a lot of the   stuff that we&#39;re working with, a lot of  the API clients, a lot of the like SDKs   and things, they&#39;re not that complex.  It&#39;s when they&#39;re like, Yeah.  For me, at least it&#39;s when they   explode out into like bigger domains.  So for one example would   be like Stripe Connect.  When you start like trying to facilitate   payments on behalf of other people, and  you know, as a platform like Lyft or   Airbnb or whatever that kind of a topic  where like, okay, using the SDKs is fine,   but you also need to know like, here&#39;s  all these different concepts and hold   them in your head, like as you&#39;re going.  And.  Yeah, I guess in, in, in that sense,   oftentimes, like when you&#39;re reading a  book, right, like you can kind of get the   main points as you go, or like you can  be entertained as you go, but at the end,   you&#39;re not going to get a quiz on it.  Right.  And when you read through technical   documentation, and there&#39;s lots of  different concepts, you almost need to   like, Sometimes I, I definitely need  to go back and like reread it several   different times to just build in my head.  Like what is the mental model for   all these different components  and where do they fit in?  And like, what step in the flow   are they involved in and trying  to draw analogs to other things.  So great, like couple great examples, the   Twilio conversations API, like they have  this conversation, the concept of the   conversation, which is a set of messages  between multiple different parties.  And those are all   conversation participants.  So you have to like make API calls   to create the conversation to create  the conversation participants.  But as a separate thing, you can   create a conversation user Which can  be a participant in a conversation   user represents like, Oh, I&#39;m a  salesperson or a support person that   works at the company that is going to  like, you know, Act on behalf of the   company in certain ways or whatever.  And so those can also have roles   and like all these different things.  And it took me a long time going through   the docs over and over and over and being  like, why can&#39;t I just use conversations   and conversation participants?  Why do I need this like, other thing?  And yeah, so I guess for me, maybe   that&#39;s because I&#39;m reading isn&#39;t my  primary, it&#39;s like just I have to   go over it over and over and over.  So, yeah.  I  

Colin: Did they have any   diagrams and things, or  models  

CJ: I did not see diagrams, but that   probably would have been helpful.  Yeah.  

Colin: Yeah, I think the other thing   to think about is that we&#39;ve been  doing this for so long too that   like I realized the other day Do  you remember when Oath was hard?  Or is  

CJ: Right.  Right.  Right.  Right.  

Colin: It kind of still can be  because there&#39;s so many flavors of it But  

CJ: Right.  Yeah.  

Colin: I was working on   something in one step.  It was like step step five do   Oath and someone was like What?  Like, this is like the, this is   like the draw a circle and now draw  the rest of the owl, and you&#39;re  like, no, no, no, to me, doing the   OAuth was only one step, but to  them, like, that&#39;s its own guide.  And I&#39;m like, yeah, you&#39;re, you&#39;re right.  And we have a guide on that.  But for this, it is the tiniest,   this is the beginning point.  Like, if you  do not, it&#39;s a prerequisite to   understand OAuth to do this next thing.  And so we do have to remember not to   take, you know, into account like our, the  curse of knowledge that we have when we   think about these things, but there was, I  remember having to like have this picture   of a lot in my head and like this happens  and then there&#39;s this handshake and  where do I keep this thing and now it&#39;s   very automatic or like a lot of the SDKs.  Do it for you now,  but it&#39;s important to know how it   works because when it breaks, you  need to understand how it works.  So that&#39;s something I&#39;ve just been   trying to remind myself more about  is that, like, how do we keep the   beginner&#39;s minds when you&#39;re learning?  And then now when you learn the next   thing, you&#39;re not starting from zero,  you&#39;re starting from a new starting place.  

CJ: hmm.  Yeah.  I guess another thing that comes to mind   sort of is using friction logging as  yeah, as a way to start conversations   about how things should work.  So especially when you&#39;re on a   DevRel team and you&#39;re providing  product feedback to the product team.  One way to do that is in these things   called friction logs, where you  just like write out your stream of   consciousness of you trying to solve a  problem with the tool that was built.  And sometimes as you go through that,   the product team will be like, Oh,  whoa, like we, this is not what we   expected people to think about that  part of the documentation or that   part of the API or SDK or whatever.  And so let&#39;s have a conversation   about that and try to make the  developer experience better.  Sometimes it&#39;s also like,   Oh, I was just being.  Like dumb and I missed or like   completely misunderstood how  that was supposed to work.  But yeah, it can, yeah, writing a stream   of consciousness to try to explain what  you were thinking when you&#39;re trying to   build something and then show it to the  person, like the team responsible for   building that can, it can also lead to  some fruitful conversations and learning.  

Colin: Totally.  

CJ: Yeah.  

Colin: All right.  Well, I think we can tease this   one for next time, but we can  talk about it a little bit.  There&#39;s been a lot of conversation   about Campfire and the kind of one  time, once business model of Campfire.  We talked about it a few episodes   ago and like, we&#39;re curious to  see how it went and it went live.  It got sold.  The numbers that were   kind of thrown around.  A few weeks ago was that it had only   sold, had only, in quotes, sold like a  thousand copies or so, that&#39;s probably   more now, but some people have just  been, you know, armchair experting about   whether or not that was a success or not.  Basecamp is You know, such a big   company and being able to release this.  It&#39;s like kind of what, what   is the motivation for this?  Do they think it&#39;s the   true business model?  Ultimately it seems like a lot of   people bought it just to see the code.  and we went ahead and bought it   so that we could see the code.  So we&#39;ll definitely, we&#39;re   going to be looking at it.  And then we&#39;ll talk about it in a,   in the next episode, but yeah, I  mean, what do you think about this?  Do you think that people actually   want to host this themselves?  Do you think that there&#39;s like   this appetite that you want  to have a server somewhere?  

CJ: I don&#39;t think anyone, well, I   mean, I&#39;m sure there&#39;s going to be some  people, but I, I would guess that the   majority of people who&#39;ve bought it so  far are just interested in looking at   the code that DHH wrote, or was kind of  like responsible for in, in some way.  And I, I&#39;m really excited that   this is available and also like.  In the same way, watching the maybe code   base evolve and, you know, getting to  read this, getting to read the jumpstart   pro source, getting to read you know,  there&#39;s, there&#39;s a few other like open   source rails projects that have been  kicking off that seem really interesting.  And so I&#39;m, I&#39;m just really   excited that there&#39;s more.  And then there are full rails applications   that are going to be available some  for free and some for money that you   can go and read and see how other  people are approaching problems.  Because I think for a long time there,   there really weren&#39;t any, right.  It was like, you could see some toy   apps online or, you know, some read  blog posts, but you couldn&#39;t really   dig into a full application source.  Some company had used to actually run   and execute their entire business.  Maybe there, maybe there are some   but yeah, I think that&#39;s like  the most exciting part about it.  

Colin: Yeah.  Well, and whoever bought it, I   think it already, it happened once.  I&#39;m not sure if there&#39;s plans to do   it again, but DHH did a walkthrough  of the code for anyone who bought it.  And I, some people were saying like, If   you want to think of this as a course,  like it&#39;s cheaper than some courses.  It&#39;s code written by DHH   and team who created Rails.  Now, you know, obviously now Rails is more   than just DHH and it&#39;s a community effort.  But if you want to see how,   you know, DHH thinks about some  of these things, that&#39;s what&#39;s   motivating a lot of people to do it.  I think they&#39;re doing a walkthrough   around the CSS and design with  one of their designers coming up.  So it&#39;s, it&#39;s interesting.  It&#39;d be almost.  Very.  I would be curious to get recordings of   those now that I have a copy of the code.  And it could be sold as a course   if and people can still host it  themselves the way that it comes.  It comes with an install   script that installs docker.  And downloads the code and all of that   onto the server that it&#39;s meant for.  And they&#39;re using like license   keys and things like that.  I&#39;m mostly interested in, in looking at   the hotwire and stimulus side of things.  I don&#39;t think that there&#39;s like   a mobile version necessarily,  like using like hotwire and   turbo native and all that stuff.  But I could see that becoming   a thing in the future.  Two.  My first pass of the code, there is a   bunch of stuff in there for bots, and  I remember the OG campfire had bots.  Like it was, it was ahead of the time,   you know, it was people were leaving  IRC to go to campfire before Slack and   before teams and all these other tools.  So I think those things might happen.  I just don&#39;t know because they&#39;re not   getting recurring revenue and they&#39;re  not gonna be able to resell like, hey.  Here&#39;s a DLC like is there gonna be like   a 20 add on to get bots and integrations,  but a lot of people use integrations   with slack and you&#39;re not going to go  see like can&#39;t fire show up in Zapier   for instance, you know, you&#39;re gonna have  to make some HTTP requests to your own   API, but we&#39;ll have to dig into the code.  I haven&#39;t looked to see   like, is there an API?  I imagine That there is, or at   least like some sort of webhook  ingest or something like that.  

CJ: And is it that they just kind   of like took a snapshot in time and  they&#39;re selling it as is at a certain   version or is it getting updates?  Like, how does that work?  

Colin: From what I&#39;ve seen, they&#39;ve   mentioned that it&#39;s major version.  So you&#39;ll probably get whatever   versions come from this, but they could  potentially say like Campfire 2 is ready.  And we redid the whole thing.  And to be clear, this is not the   original Campfire that they packaged  up from 2008 and threw over the fence.  Like it was rebuilt.  There&#39;s some things that.  You know, I wonder, I&#39;m sure they   use it internally because they&#39;re a  decent sized team with like having   been in large communities in Slack  and then now working at discord.  I&#39;d be curious to see like some of   their design choices around like having.  Avatars and who&#39;s in the   server, like going horizontally.  If you have over even a hundred   people, like scrolling sideways,  a hundred times is, is rough.  What does pagination look like when you   have thousands of people in a campfire?  What do rooms look like when you have   that many people and notifications  and all that kind of stuff?  So yeah, chat apps are challenging, like   you&#39;ve got persistence and you&#39;ve got,  you know, I think one of the benefits of   this is that you don&#39;t have the problem  that you have with slack where you can&#39;t,   if you&#39;re on free slack, you don&#39;t get  more than 30 days of message retention.  So if you&#39;re really wanting to have   a quote unquote free, as long as you  maintain it solution, it does seem like   a pretty cool thing that you can run.  And if you&#39;re a fan of.  37 signals, then you have   another thing to look at.  

CJ: it&#39;s interesting because we are   building internally, we&#39;re building  like this customer support interface   that is very much a chat app.  It&#39;s just, well, like customers will   receive the messages as SMS or as email,  but internally it has like, you know Like   bot integration, where we&#39;re generating  responses with different AI tools and   then being able to like auto complete.  And we have like our own little   mini co pilot thing going on.  And the, as a team, we decided to   build a lot of that and react just  because it was like a little bit   more interactive on the front end.  And so looking, I&#39;m kind of   curious to see, you know, inside  of campfire, how are they solving   all these things without react?  And they&#39;re just kind of using   stimulus and hotwire and.  They&#39;re able to build a world class sort   of solution without too much JavaScript or  so it sounds like, yeah, be cool to see.  

Colin: Totally.  I&#39;m excited to dig into it.  It sounds like even for some of those   like bot things it might be interesting  to look at for you guys to see if   there&#39;s any, anything to inspire there.  And you know, I&#39;m, I&#39;m still curious   to see how all these things Work  with, I don&#39;t think this project uses   tailwind because they don&#39;t want to  use all the dependencies and things,   but like, I&#39;m always curious to see  like the front end, both design and   JavaScript or lack of JavaScript.  If not needed to do like these live   updates and refreshes and HTML over  the wire and all that kind of stuff.  So stoked to dig in.  

CJ: Totally.  That&#39;s probably a good spot   to wrap it up as always.  You can head over to build and learn.  dev to check out all the links   and resources in the show notes.  And we will yeah, drop some   affiliate links to budgeting  tools you can go sign up for.  So,  

Colin: All right.  We&#39;ll see you next time.  

CJ: All right.  Bye friends.  All audio, artwork, episode descriptions and notes are property of CJ Avilla, Colin Loretz, for Build and Learn, and published with permission by Transistor, Inc.  [**Broadcast by**](https://transistor.fm &quot;Broadcast by Transistor.fm&quot;)

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