Tell us your story

Tommy: Wait a minute! Crossface, the Daily Talk Show, a conversation sometimes worth recording with Josh Janson and Tommy Jackett.

Josh: It's the Daily Talk Show, episode 166.

Tommy: What's going on, mate? Uh, the countdown, 20 6 days. New York City.

Josh: I'm excited for the time when we're in the same room and you don't have to say boom after I say, like, my first line.

Tommy: Well, you could say shakalaka when I say boom.

Josh: Boom shakalaka. I think with the delay it would sound even more awkward than I already do.

Tommy: Hey, I forgot to tell you that I got, along with your present for my birthday, Oculus Go.

Josh: Cool. Is this like a portable? Yeah. What is it? Yeah.

Tommy: So it's Facebook. Remember how they have created their own, you know, headset?

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And so this is one of the Facebook VR headsets. Amazing. Yeah. Jules Lund got it for me. Thanks, bro. I know you're listening.

Josh: Do you reckon he got it as a freebie doing the Face to Face podcast?

Tommy: No, no, no. Facebook? He did send me the purchase information, which had the cost on there. So—

Josh: Oh, classic.

Tommy: But I just got a message saying that it's currently being delivered. So I'm looking forward to it. It's like, it's so interesting. Those kind of pieces of technology is not something, as you know, that I would probably go and buy just because I'm not that techy. But I'm super interested in them. So I'll be the guy with one of those.

Josh: Between the AirPods and this, you're, um, you're outgeeking me, mate.

Tommy: Those things are unbelievable. It's like, I feel like the AirPods— yeah, I feel like such a dickhead because it's like everyone's had them for ages and I'm just like, dude, these are amazing, you can just touch it like this. Everyone's like, nah, we know.

Josh: Do you actually use the touch feature? Course I do. The tapping. I've never used it.

Tommy: I tap for double tap for Siri. Yeah, but you don't use Siri like I do.

Josh: What is the use case for Siri? Tap tap. Sorry, I just caught you half drinking your 7-Eleven coffee.

Tommy: Yeah, I go tap tap, call Amy Jack, or I write text messages. You can, yeah, I just like the feature where you take one out and it turns off the music. That is the only problem though, because I'm so used to just like ripping one out and ripping one out, ripping one out when I, um, see somebody. And so I don't have that same ability to just fling it out of my ear and let it swing.

Josh: Uh, this sounds weird. Just stop that. I think you're probably the best audience for all of those home products like the, the Audio like the voice products. If you're actually using Siri, you might be the guy that asks Siri to buy something from the shops.

Tommy: Yeah. Yeah. I could definitely see myself doing that. I see these things like I like to utilise the use of products. That's why I've been a big fan of Siri because not many people have spent the time with her and got to know her.

Josh: You are the only guy using the face detection and Siri. Like, and actually enjoying it. But I get it. You want to— I think that that's the— I take a more sort of user experience approach, which is if it doesn't make my life easier in a big way, I'm not going to use it. Yeah.

Tommy: I mean, the problem with that, though, is that you're always looking for the thing that is perfect straight away, that— Because all these things take a little bit of effort. To get used to. Like, you know, Siri and I have been on many dates. Some have been difficult. Now we're smooth sailing.

Josh: So, you think that, like, because I remember people saying that about Siri, what, like 4 or 5 years ago? But it still doesn't, like, what are you getting now with Siri that you couldn't get before? Like, what's the real improvements?

Tommy: Well, I think you learn what, how to talk to her, as in what works, how fast you have to talk, when to start talking. She runs my life. It sounds like I've got a really controlling girlfriend.

Josh: It's got that vibe. Have you actually used the VR headset before?

Tommy: I tried on one ages ago, so long ago. So I'm really— and it wasn't amazing. It was actually, and I hadn't thought about this day for so long. Remember the time that Jules and I were in Sydney and we went to some convention and we saw, bumped into you?

Josh: Do you remember that? Hang on. It's only just hit me that that was, you saw me at the Game On event. That was the one where only one person rocked up to my talk. You were there.

Tommy: Yeah, I was there. I totally forgot because I was thinking, because we went to VidCon on the weekend, Jules and I, and I was like, was this the same event as what we went to in Sydney? We saw Josh, which that day was pretty much the catalyst for me to sort of connect with you. And I then messaged you after that.

Josh: That's so weird. I don't even remember. Like, I couldn't, because that happened way before. We had properly connected. But to be honest, I can't actually remember. Like, now that you say it, I sort of semi can remember it, but I just remember—

Tommy: You got a semi?

Josh: Jules being there. #semi.

Tommy: No, you know why you probably can't remember is because you're probably sweating bullets about doing a talk and then your worst nightmare came to life and there was one person in the room.

Josh: That's— When you say to life, this is something for people to look out for when I was working, um, at Envato, they were trying to come up with this, um, like a tagline, the communications team. And my idea was helping your ideas grow. And it was like Envato has like this leaf, right? And so what I wanted to do was create this animation where you have a leaf and then it connects up to all these other leaves and it becomes a tree and it's your idea and all that sort of thing. But they went with help bringing your ideas to life. But the thing is, if you look out in the world and see how many companies are saying that they're bringing something to life, I just see it every second campaign is all about bringing blah blah to life. It actually, it started to drive me insane. Yeah.

Tommy: Well, I mean, there's, there's not much to choose from. I don't know how clever you can get in, uh, in half of these little ad campaigns. The, the silliest ad campaign I thought, and it made me angry. And, um, it was, I was on Punt Road, so I was already annoyed sitting in traffic and I pull up to the lights where just before you're about to go under Richmond Station.

Josh: Um, What, a digital billboard type of thing?

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, it's a digital billboard. It's about halfway to work. So, I'm right in the middle of it. And there was this, this promotional billboard for, I think it was like Deakin University or one of the universities in Melbourne. And it was like, it said something like, don't like the traffic on Punt Road? Well, do something about it. And then it was like, it was like a degree for some engineering, which they were just, it was like this silly approach to going, you could be an engineer and change the roads to remove the traffic. Fuck off. You're not doing that.

Josh: No, it's, they're thinking of politics. I feel like the, it's got nothing to do with engineers because the thing is that I'm sure the answer is just add more fucking lanes. Isn't it? I don't know.

Tommy: Well, yeah, they've got to do something, mate. You're not going to remove people from Melbourne. There's more people coming every single year. They've just actually announced, I don't know if you've seen this, like this, like a ridiculous rail network is being built in Melbourne. So, I know we've spoken about it. We've talked about on this show, like a, you know, a train to the airport that will be built in 20 years' time or something that's costing some ridiculous amount of money. And we were laughing at just like the announcement of these things that are so far away, but they're just owning them now. And anyway, they've just released this huge rail network that basically connects every line together and the airport. It's, it construction, like it will not be done until I think past 2050. And the dude who announced it, there's a big chance he'll be dead. Like, it's, it's so bizarre. It's like, we're doing it, guys. Uh, it's happening.

Josh: It takes so much time, doesn't it? You just have to look at the, um, what I always find fascinating is you look at the old, um, Dubai photos. Have you seen that? Where it's like, oh, 1995, 2000, and how much those cities have like developed over the years. But yeah, I guess, I mean, you've got to do it right. You've got to actually put in the, you know, like what's the solution? I guess like the amount of disruption that's going to be in creating this mega train system has got to be massive.

Tommy: It's, yeah, it's ridiculous. My friend is actually working on the rail, and he said Melbourne is— Melbourne has the most work in Australia for working on the rail. It's like one of the biggest growth cities, and he's been doing like night shift. And so if you wanted a job on the rail, he reckons if you got in like a year or so ago, you'd be making a shitload of money.

Josh: What do you actually do working on the rail?

Tommy: Yeah, you're lifting heavy shit. You're helping like, so they're doing, you know, crossing removals. So they're replacing tracks. They're working on the Metro Tunnel. There's all these different roles. It's kind of like people who are into going out to the mines and working on that kind of stuff. Just heavy lifting. I'd be too sooky.

Josh: Oh, my back hurts. You're speaking to me here. But do you know that I've actually been in the city loop, so, the train, the tunnel when it was closed at 2:30 in the morning.

Tommy: What were you doing there?

Josh: So, when I was working at the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, this was, this would have been 2011, 2010, something like that. Maybe even 2009. I'm not good with timings. I think it was 2009. But they basically were doing anti-terrorism drills with the fireys, the police, the ambos. It was sort of a joint operation. And I was in the media department, so I went down and filmed. And so, they had like basically a actors who had just been like in a terrorist incident, all like screaming and stuff, and they had to get them out. Yeah, it was pretty intense.

Tommy: Oh, I've actually seen some footage of that at a train station. It looks scary because they can't— like, you can't be having any public see it because it looks totally legit.

Josh: Yeah, so they do it, they do it in like— it was 2:30 in the morning and it was on Collins Street was where we accessed Melbourne Central Station. But yeah, that was, that felt like a cool experience that, you know, you're only going to get if you're working within, you know, a government agency.

Tommy: Or you're just a little criminal like I was, and I went down this tunnel. I found this grate that I just lifted up this big thing, climbed down this ladder, and it took me down into the subway. When I was young.

Josh: Did you get a footlong? Were you smelling the bread? Is that what it was?

Tommy: It was Flagstaff Gardens in Melbourne. There's— I just literally found, climbed up on this thing. I was like, fuck, that looks like it goes down to the subway. You could feel the breeze coming up, you know, creates all the air. And so I went down there and I've gone back in recent years and I look down and they've totally locked it all up and put like a security system because it blows me away. Like the shit. The shit that you used to be able to access when I was growing up, it's like they hadn't— no one was thinking of terrorist attacks. Like, no one was thinking, oh, if this— someone gets down here, just puts a bomb here.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: No, they're not.

Josh: Well, I even was thinking about that with unprotected Wi-Fi, right? So nowadays, if you go to a website Um, most websites are HTTPS nowadays, which means they're secured. But, um, you know, 10 years ago, the only sites that were HTTPS were your banking sites and stuff like that. And what it means is if they aren't HTTPS, they're not encrypted, they're not secure. So the packets of information over the white The Wi-Fi can just be sniffed out, basically. So, someone can be on the network and can see, imagine there's packets in the air and they, you can see them and basically, you could find out, you know, password information, stuff like that. And I remember early days of Facebook, there was a Firefox extension that you could download onto your computer., and you could sit on a— this was before they went to a secure network, to HTTPS. This would have been 2008, 2009. And, um, yeah, basically I could, um, sit with my laptop, and if anyone logged in to Facebook or was on Facebook, their profile picture would come up on the app, and I could click on their face and it would log me in as them.

Tommy: Jesus.

Josh: And so, like, you're talking about that whole security thing. It's amazing, you know, like, going, um, being in Slovenia at the moment, there's— I was so surprised at how many open Wi-Fi points there are. So, it's not even like putting in a password to access it, and it's awesome. But the problem is that you are opening yourself up to, uh, people going on the network and doing dodgy shit.

Tommy: Yeah, well, I was like on the network in, at, um, Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. I was just like, just, you can just log in, there's free Wi-Fi at most of those airports, and you never, you think, I'd never use them in Melbourne because I've got internet access here. So you just like, when you dumb tourists like me just logging in anywhere, oh fuck, they got free Wi-Fi. Just log straight in.

Josh: It's, it's gotten a lot better. Like, if it's HTTPS, it's a lot, like, a lot more secure. But I've been, um, using a VPN for most of the time. There's, um, ExpressVPN, which we use, plus I've also got NordVPN.

Tommy: So if I've got my mobile phone, like, and there's no chance I'm getting a VPN because I've got no idea what it is, what do you— what's the risk for me if I'm just on my phone signing in?

Josh: Like, it's pretty, I think it's fairly low nowadays, but I think that it is handy. Right there, you got the sniffles?

Tommy: Correct. I nearly sneezed.

Josh: Are you feeling okay?

Tommy: Yeah, I'm good.

Josh: You just did a little sort of thing like you did a little bit of wee came out, that sort of face.

Tommy: But I turned 30, not 80.

Josh: Well, you've never, you know what I mean. You don't know what I mean. No, but no, I think that you, you're fairly okay. But a VPN is good because what that's doing is it's creating a tunnel, a virtual private network. It creates a tunnel so no one can see what the traffic is that you're going to. So you could go to Facebook or whatever. Like, for instance, we have a friend, um, that, uh, you know, works at a company and they have a, uh, you know, Wi-Fi. And basically on the, the admin of the, the Wi-Fi network can see what are the main sites that people are going to. And our mate was saying that the— one of the sites was like a dating website. But the thing is everyone in the building is like in long-term relationships. Dirty dogs. But so, but the thing is that that basically can happen where if you go to websites and stuff and you're on a network, they can see what those sites are.. And so, um, you know, if you're at work, you might not necessarily want people to know that you're going on social media or stuff like that. So use a virtual private network. Everything, everything goes through the tunnel basically. So they just see that there's a connection, but they don't actually see what the sites are that you're going to.

Tommy: Yeah, I remember working in for companies and you're restricted, or you kind of have that mindset because I've never like you, you, when you work for yourself, you know, you're not thinking about that kind of stuff. Not that I'm going to dating websites, but I just remember you always thinking, oh, they, they could be looking at my emails. Like when I, when I quit the radio station in Shepparton, I was still there for a little while after, and I was convinced that my emails— because all they have to do is ask, you know, uh, tech to to forward all emails to me or something. Like, I wouldn't be able to tell that stuff. We were convinced that, that, yeah, that I started getting email, that they were getting our emails. Not that we were slagging them off, we were plotting something actually. It was even worse.

Josh: No, no. Well, I had a mate that was, um, working for a company. His, his company was actually acquired by another company, and that company turned out to be a bit terrible to work with. And turns out they'd gone into the computers and gone to iMessage and all that sort of stuff and basically had read all of these messages where he was slagging off this company and like front-footed them, like he was getting ready to leave and they ended up front-footing it and basically fucking shit up. So, yeah, it's definitely worthwhile being as secure with your communications. And I think probably the best way to be secure is not using a work device for personal shit. Like, if you've got a, if you've got a work phone, don't have WhatsApp where you're like slagging people off on your work phone and be using that and thinking that you're going to be okay.

Tommy: Well, you— Can they access your WhatsApp?

Josh: No, well, the thing is that they could access the phone at any time. So, I think that's what people don't realise is it's like if you've— If the phone is the property of the place that you work at, you just— You don't want to be doing anything on that device that you wouldn't be okay with them seeing. I don't think anyway.

Tommy: Yeah, that should be the filter just writing emails in general because you don't feel like if you're accidentally sending an email and it goes to the wrong person. Fuck, that scares me. I mean, not that I've seen those.

Josh: Oh, yeah. No, but the thing is, it's just you want to have that filter, you know. Yeah. Talking about the tell us your storey thing, I found a blog that I remembered the other day. Actually, were we talking about the tell us your storey thing? No, no, we talked about that. Or did I literally—

Tommy: Okay.

Josh: So, I didn't connect these dots. The other thing that I was thinking about when all of this around the bringing your ideas to life or bring whatever to life is how many companies say, "Tell us your story." Yes. And so, there's a website called tellusyourstoryblog.tumblr.com, and basically someone just posts every single time a company says like, "Share your story" or "Tell us your story." It's like cookie companies and like, I'm just going through it right now. Just like cinemas, Weber grills. What did you grill this past #WeberWeekend? Share your grilling storeys with us.

Tommy: Oh, God. It's a good thing to—

Josh: Yeah, but it's good to sort of be— Pull-ups. Got a silly potty training story? Share it with us and you might see it illustrated here next month. It's just, I think, a good way to remember that, um, to not be too cliché in what you're trying to say.

Tommy: How are they finding these? Do you think they've got like a Google alert looking for the word? I mean, story, storey's such a common word.

Josh: Well, tell us your storey on Twitter would be easy. So, so, Matt, that fucking noise. There was a guy at a cafe that was doing that noise today, and Bri said let's go. She couldn't handle it. It's just too— it does make my throat feel funny. Are you feeling better now?

Tommy: I hope it's less annoying than that voice you had. Hey, it's Joshie.

Josh: Very true.

Tommy: That weird little gremlin of you.

Josh: This is why we need the cough buttons when we have the studio to be able to press it.

Tommy: No, the problem is it's 5, it's just 6, it's 6:30 AM here in Melbourne. And it's like when you get up, it's, you know. It's cold.

Josh: Both extremes. Both extremes of the day. Early morning and evening, like late evening, I feel like you get the worst versions of people. And so, this is why this show is so great.

Tommy: Just back to your storey thing. The storey is like the buzzword. It's the hot topic. It's the— hot phrase and has been for a little while. What do you think, what do you think we'll land on next? Have you got any ideas? Because you're thinking, you're always thinking ahead in the future and seeing little things pop up. Is there anything, anyone that, anything that anyone's saying that you think will sort of stick? Um, any buzzword-esque words, especially around content and, and online content?

Josh: I reckon, yeah, I reckon we're going to see a bit about, um, disconnection. I think is going to be— I think we're only seeing just the start of that. I think it's going to be— I reckon there's going to be a big move over the next 3 to 5 years around, around, um, disconnecting from your device and, uh, potentially Maybe having a bigger distinction between our virtual lives and our, you know, being out and about. Because I just, I even saw it when we were in places like Turkey where it's like everyone is on their phones all the time. So, I feel like it's got to be something around that.

Tommy: Yeah. No, I reckon you could be spot on. We all are, dude.

Josh: It's—

Tommy: yeah, I catch myself constantly walking behind this woman and I was on the phone yesterday looking down. I was just like finding music to put on to then put back in my pocket. But I was just like, if you were looking over at us, she's walking ahead, I'm sort of behind her. It's so zombie-like. Yeah, just like looking down in the moment, but we're outside walking in nature.

Josh: Yeah, I think that potentially the other thing too will be around living, like what it means to live. Like, is being on devices, like, if you're having fun playing a video game, are you like, are you living? Are you having a great life?

Tommy: I mean, some people are on Fortnite, but then it's, yeah, maybe that is living for some people. I think there's like, they're realities. And if the reality that isn't the actual reality that you're living in is better than yours. So like, you know, computer games, I remember playing so much of, you know, GTA, I'd be Grand Theft Auto, you know, I was stoned, I was stoned, but I, I remember just thinking, like feeling like I was in this game. That's the closest. Oh, you know, and Counter-Strike and, um, Call of— not Call of Duty, there was another one.

Josh: I love Duke Nukem: Time to Kill.

Tommy: Oh yeah, that was a PlayStation game. It's super old. Tony Hawk. Tony Hawk, yes, on, um, PlayStation. Yeah, the first PlayStation. Yeah, far out. But yeah, I remember being in those games for so long and just thinking it was hard to switch off when you get out of them. And that's the thing with, you know, Oculus Go, the— you're in this reality that seems like your reality, and it'll be sometimes better than your existing reality, which is the danger, because then people are like, you know, addicted to this thing. That's where it comes from.

Josh: Well, I don't think there's a single truth, right? When there's not a single truth, then I think that there's not a single reality. And I think that for, you know, some people maybe doing that sort of stuff is better than, you know, what's out there on the other side for them. But I just think that I noticed that the— especially travelling, screen time and just trying to control that and trying not to just You know, I said how much better I'm feeling just being able to write down everything I need to do. But, yeah, there's definitely— I've noticed on this trip just how wired I'd gotten with technology.

Tommy: Like habitual, like you just—

Josh: Yeah. Felt going through your phone constantly. Just constantly checking or constantly. And the problem is that useful stuff is merged into really like shit. Like, so technology has enabled us to book this whole trip. You know, we haven't used a travel agent. We've literally just booked as we went. And so, using Expedia, Booking.com, Airbnb, all of these sites have been awesome. And they've been like, if we have, if we weren't able to do that, then we wouldn't have been able to have the trip that we've had. But at the same time, that same device is the one that you can go down a rabbit hole and look at. Like, I went on news.com.au today just to see what's happening. It's just like so many negative stories. Like, it's all pretty depressing.

Tommy: Ah, I mean, yeah, there's, there's a lot of bullshit.

Josh: Are you thinking about how you're going to control Bodhi's screen time when he's getting older?

Tommy: It's hard. It is like crack. It's their drug. And I don't— yeah, it's such a weird thing. It's because it's changing. It's not— yeah, they are just feeling. They're just— that's where it's become— you can start to see where it shifts their emotions. And that's the scary bit where they can be so upset and want something. But then I'm, then I'm sort of, you know, we're starting to work out like, okay, when he doesn't want something, you can't just, you know, rewarding that feeling within him isn't teaching him anything. And so, you know, and then it's like the mo— then we have to read the situation. So it's like, do he need— do we need to survive in this moment by doing that? And then is that being selfish? And then, you know, you've got to have, like, you got to be strong enough sometimes to, even when we don't want to give him something and it's painful for us, for us to deal with it. But then we've got our life, our life to consider, like, what's going on in my world that I am strong enough to resist just curing that moment of him yelling and screaming with the device. Like, that's where you've got to— So many things are at play when you're being a parent.

Josh: Well, you're pacifying those things, right? I think that the thing is that the devices can sometimes make us numb to the situation that we're actually in. So that rather than dealing with the situation at hand, where, you know, using the device to distract us. I think that that's probably the risky bit.

Tommy: Yeah, it's something I've been thinking about quite a bit, and I don't know the answer yet. I think it's like, I think we've given him more screen time than I thought I would. Before you get in, you're like, ah, you'll watch it when you're a parent, when you're watching from the outside. I know my thoughts were different to what they are now. Because I didn't have a kid. I didn't have a little wild maniac at that point. And now I do. But they adore— like, it's annoying. I got home and he was just up in bed watching something. I was like, Bodhi, Bodhi, look at me. You just wouldn't look at me. He was just loving it. Looked up, just blank face, looked back down. What do you want, Dad?

Josh: It's so funny.

Tommy: It's no different when you've actually— when you're in a relationship, it's just like your partner gets home, you just on Facebook, look up, sup.

Josh: But that's the risk, isn't it? That's the— I think that the concern is that the connectedness that we're feeling online is removing that connectedness within the real life, real world.

Tommy: I am just glad that I can say I was from a time that didn't have that stuff. In terms like, I reckon we were sort of on that back end of the generation where You know, now you're growing up, everyone has smartphones, like any kid. But I remember the time that we didn't have that shit, and then we had the first one, MySpace, and that, you know, that stuff at scale, which is good. I still remember.

Josh: I think this is going to be— it's, it's going to be the thing, like this, what we're talking about now, I reckon is going to be the biggest topic. This is what people are going to be talking about when Bodhi's generation is at the age of 18 or, you know, 25. Yeah. I think that it's going to be— we're going to work out what the impact has been on technology, you know, with technology.

Tommy: Yeah, that's interesting.

Josh: Well, we got an email from Michelle.

Tommy: Oh, did we?

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: She—

Josh: You go on.

Tommy: I was just going to say, I need you to give me the password for the Daily Talk Show. Mate, you can give it to me live on here.

Josh: It's all good. Can you use a fucking password manager? Can you explain how you end up losing the password?

Tommy: I've got it on my phone and it looks like the Da Vinci Code when you send it through to me. So that's pretty much your fault because they've auto-generated.

Josh: Well, it's all long and complex.

Tommy: You could just at least have JoshTommy123. That's good enough, isn't it?

Josh: No, that's shit. But no, I'll sort that out for you. LastPass is what we use, which is good. But Michelle, subject line, logline for Jaws, best shark, oh sorry, bad shark, kill shark. So, she couldn't come up with one for our show, but she's managed to. Jaws doesn't need any more publicity, but she also says happy birthday, Tommy. So, thanks, Michelle, for the email. Cheers.

Tommy: There you go.

Josh: Alright, mate. Well, have a good day. And I'm looking forward to the US. It's coming up. It's very exciting.

Tommy: Yeah, I've got the countdown on my end. So, you're still on holiday, so you're probably not counting down.

Josh: No, I'm excited. I'm excited for, like, I'm excited for the podcast and what we're able to do in person versus the— What people are getting at the moment is, I think, very different to in person, TJ and JJ. And it's not a bad thing, but it's just— it's just different.

Tommy: Yeah, 100%.

Josh: It's, uh, it will talk to everyone. Uh, have a good one. We'll catch you tomorrow.

Tommy: See you guys.