Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hello, welcome back to Cortex. On this episode of the State of the Workflow series, I have the absolute pleasure of being joined by Alec from the Technology Connections YouTube channel.

00:00:09 ◼   ► Alec has become well known for his incredibly detailed and thoughtful videos, where he digs into how everyday technology works, from things like air conditioners to Christmas lights to, of course, dishwashers.

00:00:22 ◼   ► I really love that through his incredible writing and presentation style, Alec can make me interested in things I never would have actually thought that I could be interested in.

00:00:32 ◼   ► He has this unique way of being able to draw out a story from these unexpected places.

00:00:37 ◼   ► I wanted to find out how Alec chooses the things that he wants to talk about, how he writes the scripts, how he decides if something really is worth a video,

00:00:45 ◼   ► and also how the growth of his YouTube channel affects the decisions that he makes, and also how he thinks about YouTube as a platform at all.

00:00:52 ◼   ► And we're going to get into all of that and more in today's episode.

00:00:56 ◼   ► But before we get started, considering it is a new year, it is a tradition around these parts that we would have a yearly theme.

00:01:03 ◼   ► In the absence of having a dedicated episode this year, I have made a YouTube video where I talk about my year of fatherhood from 2025 and set my theme for 2026.

00:01:13 ◼   ► I'm going to add a link in the show notes to this video, which you should go and watch.

00:01:17 ◼   ► It is on the Cortex YouTube channel.

00:01:19 ◼   ► I'll also add a link to a blog post that I wrote if that's more of your thing.

00:01:23 ◼   ► But for now, please enjoy this episode of the State of the Workflow series with Alec from Technology Connections.

00:01:29 ◼   ► Alec, I want to get started by asking the question I ask all of my guests.

00:01:34 ◼   ► What is the most important device to you for getting your work done?

00:01:38 ◼   ► I mean, it's either my computer or my teleprompter.

00:01:42 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:01:43 ◼   ► Okay, so the teleprompter.

00:01:45 ◼   ► Tell me about that.

00:01:46 ◼   ► It's a disaster.

00:01:47 ◼   ► I made a video four or five years ago just about teleprompters, and I showed the setup I use, which is the same.

00:01:55 ◼   ► It is a terrible $99 Windows 8 tablet.

00:02:00 ◼   ► Whoa.

00:02:01 ◼   ► Yeah, which was upgraded to Windows 10.

00:02:03 ◼   ► It's from Micro Center, and it is running some weird teleprompter app I found on the Windows store.

00:02:11 ◼   ► And at some point, five or six years ago, a Windows update broke that app.

00:02:17 ◼   ► So I rolled back the update, and now all that tablet does is be a teleprompter.

00:02:22 ◼   ► It's horrible.

00:02:23 ◼   ► Whenever you see me in the bloopers reaching to my right, I'm backing it up.

00:02:28 ◼   ► But the thing is, I know how to use it.

00:02:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:32 ◼   ► And as I'm going through my process, once the script is done, I just want to get the video done, so I cannot be bothered to change that part of the process.

00:02:42 ◼   ► It's a terrible process, but I know how to make it work.

00:02:45 ◼   ► Does the teleprompter advance automatically?

00:02:47 ◼   ► Nope.

00:02:47 ◼   ► And it doesn't even save my settings, so every time I have to use it, I need to tell it scroll speed of 51, font size of 80, and mirror the text.

00:02:58 ◼   ► So it's just going.

00:03:00 ◼   ► Yep.

00:03:00 ◼   ► I guess you've dialed it into your speaking speed at this point.

00:03:04 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:03:05 ◼   ► There's some leeway, but I also use a teleprompter very weirdly.

00:03:08 ◼   ► I have the text very, very small, which is why it's very convincing.

00:03:14 ◼   ► You don't really see my eyes move very much, and also the teleprompter is very far away from me, but it's also pushing the limits of legibility for me.

00:03:24 ◼   ► You're constantly doing your own eye exams.

00:03:26 ◼   ► A little bit.

00:03:27 ◼   ► That's how I'll know I need glasses.

00:03:28 ◼   ► And so, okay, have you ever tried using an iPad or something like that, or this is just like a, this works, I will not touch it?

00:03:39 ◼   ► Yeah, it's this works, I'm not going to touch it until it breaks.

00:03:42 ◼   ► Okay.

00:03:43 ◼   ► Which it has done once, but you managed to fix it.

00:03:45 ◼   ► Yes.

00:03:46 ◼   ► We also mentioned your computer.

00:03:48 ◼   ► What is that computer?

00:03:49 ◼   ► It is a Dell XPS 17 from a few years ago.

00:03:54 ◼   ► I don't love it, but I'm too used to Windows.

00:03:59 ◼   ► We're talking on a Mac Mini that I got to dingle around with and see, can I get the hang of macOS?

00:04:06 ◼   ► And I could, but there's enough little annoyances about it that I've just been like, I keep gravitating towards the devil I know.

00:04:14 ◼   ► The most frustrating thing about my laptop is it just, it's a Windows laptop.

00:04:18 ◼   ► It sometimes does really dumb things and no one knows why, but it's working well enough.

00:04:24 ◼   ► It's more powerful than I need.

00:04:25 ◼   ► It just sounds terrible when it's rendering video, but otherwise it works fine.

00:04:29 ◼   ► So the laptop is where you're editing and doing just your general work, your research, all that kind of stuff?

00:04:33 ◼   ► That's your daily computer?

00:04:34 ◼   ► Pretty much.

00:04:35 ◼   ► I'm a big advocate of docked laptops.

00:04:37 ◼   ► I bring it into the office, plug it in, everything's all set up, it connects to my NAS.

00:04:43 ◼   ► And then when I go home, it's whatever I need it to be.

00:04:45 ◼   ► How would you describe the kind of videos that you make?

00:04:48 ◼   ► Do you think you have like a lane or a type of topic that you want to cover?

00:04:52 ◼   ► How would you describe it to someone?

00:04:54 ◼   ► I make videos about how stuff works, but I try to find things that are surprising or interesting.

00:05:02 ◼   ► And typically I like to focus on the ordinary everyday stuff that people just aren't really putting too much thought into.

00:05:11 ◼   ► Everything has a fascinating story if you just tell it.

00:05:14 ◼   ► Well, I would say that it also requires someone who can tell the story, which I cannot put my finger on what it is about the videos that you make that make me want to watch multiple hours about dishwashers and the like and, you know, catalytic converters.

00:05:30 ◼   ► Maybe it is just your enthusiasm and interest for finding this stuff out that translates it in that way, but I think that's why it works.

00:05:39 ◼   ► Well, thank you.

00:05:40 ◼   ► I'm kind of conscious of that.

00:05:42 ◼   ► I've said before that if there's a secret to my writing process, it's just as I uncover information, I'm thinking, what might someone ask about that piece of information?

00:05:54 ◼   ► And then I ask that question in the script and answer it.

00:05:57 ◼   ► So my scripts, at this point, they kind of write themselves, but it's because of the process that I figured out.

00:06:05 ◼   ► I'm a tortured Midwesterner who hates to toot his own horn, but I do recognize that I have some kind of talent for holding people's attention.

00:06:13 ◼   ► I don't know what it is, though.

00:06:14 ◼   ► When I did the video on the Red Fridge, that script got over an hour.

00:06:20 ◼   ► And as I was editing, I was like, this is so dumb.

00:06:22 ◼   ► No one's going to watch this.

00:06:23 ◼   ► But I'm so far into this script, I might as well finish it.

00:06:27 ◼   ► And it performed better than average.

00:06:30 ◼   ► And I'm still shocked by that.

00:06:32 ◼   ► So I don't know what exactly it is that I'm doing, but I apparently am doing something, so I'm not going to stop.

00:06:39 ◼   ► I think in the many years which I've been lucky enough to talk to people who are good at what they do and are interesting communicators, I do think that there is a similar thing in that.

00:06:50 ◼   ► You can do a thing but can't explain it.

00:06:53 ◼   ► And I think the inability to be able to explain it is why it is not a thing that everybody can do.

00:06:58 ◼   ► I think if someone was able to completely articulate why they can speak about something in an interesting way, they will be able to teach it.

00:07:06 ◼   ► And I don't really think it's teachable.

00:07:08 ◼   ► Perhaps not.

00:07:09 ◼   ► I've not put too much thought into trying to teach that.

00:07:12 ◼   ► But I have been consciously working on how to teach the troubleshooting process.

00:07:18 ◼   ► And I've been very stuck on how to explain what feels very innate to me.

00:07:27 ◼   ► I suppose that's similar.

00:07:29 ◼   ► I haven't really thought of it, but I guess script writing and video making is a form of troubleshooting.

00:07:34 ◼   ► I'm reading my script as I'm going, so I will have read the script probably a dozen times.

00:07:40 ◼   ► But just reading it aloud helps me figure out that doesn't work and I need to fix that.

00:07:47 ◼   ► But I couldn't really identify why any particular thing isn't working.

00:07:52 ◼   ► With the writing and the troubleshooting, my assumption is that is your research process, essentially.

00:07:57 ◼   ► You have an idea for a video and you're going through and researching it.

00:08:00 ◼   ► You clearly take a lot of time to understand your subjects in detail, whether that is, I'm assuming, through reading about them, but also sometimes physically taking things apart and understanding.

00:08:12 ◼   ► How does the research process begin on a video for you?

00:08:16 ◼   ► At this point, I don't usually start a project unless I have figured out a good hook for it.

00:08:25 ◼   ► I am conscious enough of the first 20 seconds of the video have to grab your attention.

00:08:32 ◼   ► I have to have an interesting angle about the thing that I'm talking about.

00:08:37 ◼   ► So a lot of my videos are just backburners almost permanently because either I haven't thought of a good hook for it or I'm not passionate about this subject right now.

00:08:48 ◼   ► That is something that I know will produce bad videos.

00:08:52 ◼   ► So until I want to do something, I'm not doing it.

00:08:57 ◼   ► But once I decide, OK, I'm committing to this project, it really is just what's the most interesting way I can open up a dissection on this topic.

00:09:07 ◼   ► Sometimes it is a fact.

00:09:09 ◼   ► Sometimes it's an interesting visual demo.

00:09:12 ◼   ► Like, for instance, in the CRT projector video, I opened it up with actually a very old trick of mine where I will export my talking head to a different video format and play it through some other device.

00:09:25 ◼   ► So I opened that video with video of my face upside down and only red, I think, is either red or blue, and sliding my camera from one of the projector lens to the next.

00:09:37 ◼   ► CRT projectors, for those that don't know, it's three monochrome CRTs firing through three different lenses and the images are converged on the screen.

00:09:45 ◼   ► Really cool tech.

00:09:47 ◼   ► Really glad we don't have it anymore because it's a pain in the butt, but it's really cool tech.

00:09:53 ◼   ► So that's the sort of thing where I knew I want to cover this one day.

00:09:57 ◼   ► That's going to be a great way to open it because what are we even looking at?

00:10:01 ◼   ► Why does it look like that?

00:10:03 ◼   ► And then I could zoom out and be like, this is how we used to do video projectors.

00:10:06 ◼   ► So that is really where I start these days is trying to figure out what kind of hook can I pull people in?

00:10:14 ◼   ► And from there, I continue on to what I mentioned before, where I'm just thinking what might people be curious about and then exploring that curiosity.

00:10:23 ◼   ► I'm a little bit surprised by that answer, you know.

00:10:25 ◼   ► I didn't think that you would necessarily have thought of the content that way.

00:10:31 ◼   ► I mean, it is, I think, over time proven that if you want to be successful on YouTube, you do need to think that way.

00:10:39 ◼   ► You give the impression that you just create the videos that you want to make, but there is still clearly the, even if you want to make it, if you can't find a way to make it immediately interesting, it has to wait.

00:10:51 ◼   ► That was a surprise to me.

00:10:53 ◼   ► I guess I'm kind of a mix of the two because I have a Google doc that's like five pages long now of various things that I would like to cover at some point.

00:11:02 ◼   ► And then whenever I'm stuck on something, I'll go back to that document and think, what subject can I grab from that, that I'm really excited to move forward with.

00:11:12 ◼   ► But if I'm not very excited, I'll usually just take a break and be like, okay, guess I'm taking a week off.

00:11:20 ◼   ► And that is how I force myself to take vacations because I'm really bad about that otherwise.

00:11:26 ◼   ► That's not a bad way to take one though, right?

00:11:28 ◼   ► If like, I don't have the inspiration, so I will take some time off.

00:11:33 ◼   ► And I think that that's a pretty decent trade-off.

00:11:35 ◼   ► I hadn't thought about that, but I guess it is.

00:11:38 ◼   ► Just thanks for scheduling purposes.

00:11:40 ◼   ► Do you consider a schedule?

00:11:41 ◼   ► I have a daily schedule.

00:11:44 ◼   ► I now enforce work hours of 10 to 6, which is mainly because I'm not a morning person.

00:11:51 ◼   ► It also means I don't have to fight traffic.

00:11:53 ◼   ► But I mean, I'm here on the weekends an awful lot.

00:11:57 ◼   ► I still have enough of that passion where my hobby became my job and that's amazing.

00:12:03 ◼   ► In other ways, it is now work.

00:12:06 ◼   ► I was actually thinking back to the fact that when I used to work full time, my output was

00:12:11 ◼   ► higher than it is now.

00:12:12 ◼   ► And like, how is that even possible?

00:12:15 ◼   ► I think for, I know I can speak for myself, but other people who are in the same scenario.

00:12:19 ◼   ► When I was working a job, I used to produce more podcasts than I do now.

00:12:24 ◼   ► I think part of it is you're just so desperate to make it your thing that you will just work

00:12:30 ◼   ► harder and harder.

00:12:31 ◼   ► And then I think once you've been successful, you then care more about quality than output.

00:12:36 ◼   ► And I think that then kind of like changes the sheer amount of stuff because the motivations

00:12:41 ◼   ► are different, I think.

00:12:42 ◼   ► That makes sense.

00:12:44 ◼   ► I think I can agree with that.

00:12:46 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Sentry.

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00:14:19 ◼   ► Our thanks to Sentry for their support of this show and Relay.

00:14:22 ◼   ► How much time do you spend learning things that are completely new to you from reading research?

00:14:29 ◼   ► Like for, say, if we pick any video, how much time is going into reading about it, taking

00:14:37 ◼   ► it apart, seeing how it works?

00:14:39 ◼   ► Do you have like a rough guide for how long that takes?

00:14:42 ◼   ► I usually don't know until I'm well into it.

00:14:46 ◼   ► What has tended to happen is a lot of video concepts start from stuff I learned a long time

00:14:54 ◼   ► ago.

00:14:54 ◼   ► I'm usually not starting from a blank slate as far as not knowing anything about the topic.

00:14:59 ◼   ► I consider what I do a kind of weird form of primary verification research where I will

00:15:07 ◼   ► read about something, some way something works, and then like, okay, well, I'm not just going

00:15:13 ◼   ► to make a video where I just regurgitate that.

00:15:15 ◼   ► I want to actually show you how it works.

00:15:17 ◼   ► And then typically that's when I start uncovering interesting things.

00:15:22 ◼   ► Sometimes I uncover things that nobody really has mentioned online or nobody has really pressed

00:15:29 ◼   ► on the catalytic converter videos.

00:15:31 ◼   ► A good example where I had seen all sorts of stuff where technicians will explain the

00:15:37 ◼   ► downstream oxygen sensor should not be oscillating, but nobody really explained why is the upstream

00:15:42 ◼   ► sensor oscillating?

00:15:43 ◼   ► And the fact that it has to do with the chemistry going on in the catalytic converter.

00:15:46 ◼   ► I was like, that's really interesting.

00:15:48 ◼   ► That's a really interesting fact.

00:15:51 ◼   ► And then that kind of became like, here is the mind blow part of the video for me.

00:15:56 ◼   ► That happens a lot where I'm well into my script.

00:16:01 ◼   ► And then I discover something that's like, ah, this is something that doesn't get enough

00:16:07 ◼   ► attention.

00:16:07 ◼   ► I want to actually demonstrate this particular thing.

00:16:11 ◼   ► And I don't know if you would call that research, but that's why I'm like, it's kind of like

00:16:15 ◼   ► a verification study, but in video form.

00:16:18 ◼   ► Maybe that's a heady way to think about it.

00:16:21 ◼   ► But I mean, really, it just, I feel like it all comes down to just a innate curiosity that

00:16:27 ◼   ► you appear to have the way that things work, right?

00:16:29 ◼   ► I feel like that seems to be at the core of a lot of the stuff that you're producing.

00:16:34 ◼   ► That's certainly why my brain is the way that it is.

00:16:36 ◼   ► That explains that part.

00:16:37 ◼   ► How do you organize your research?

00:16:39 ◼   ► Is it all going into just one Google Doc?

00:16:42 ◼   ► Are you saving in folders?

00:16:43 ◼   ► Like, what are you doing?

00:16:44 ◼   ► It's very stream of consciousness.

00:16:46 ◼   ► It tends to be a living document.

00:16:48 ◼   ► I'll throw links in there that I need to save or something that I'm mildly embarrassed by,

00:16:54 ◼   ► but like I've given up trying to be embarrassed by.

00:16:57 ◼   ► It's like, I don't do citations at all.

00:17:00 ◼   ► I'm an entertainment channel first, and I lean into that.

00:17:05 ◼   ► So I watch other creators that are like actually bothering with really good citations, and I'm

00:17:11 ◼   ► just like, I should do that.

00:17:14 ◼   ► But quite honestly, more often than not, I just have a browser window full of tabs.

00:17:20 ◼   ► And then when I'm done with the project, I nuke that thing and don't look back.

00:17:24 ◼   ► That's funny to me.

00:17:25 ◼   ► I've never have considered citations.

00:17:27 ◼   ► So I guess what are people putting them in the descriptions?

00:17:30 ◼   ► Are they showing URLs on screen, that kind of stuff?

00:17:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:17:33 ◼   ► URLs on screen, showing them in descriptions, or sometimes even creating entire web pages for

00:17:38 ◼   ► their videos with the resources.

00:17:40 ◼   ► I'm like, that's really cool.

00:17:42 ◼   ► I cannot be bothered.

00:17:43 ◼   ► Maybe some people would feel this way, but I just don't really feel like that's a thing

00:17:47 ◼   ► that I want from watching your channel.

00:17:49 ◼   ► But I am definitely someone who consumes your content as entertainment.

00:17:52 ◼   ► And I assume that there are people that have different needs or wants from the content.

00:17:59 ◼   ► Yes.

00:17:59 ◼   ► Some of the most terrifying messages I ever get are people like, can I cite this video in

00:18:04 ◼   ► this paper?

00:18:04 ◼   ► I'm like, please no, please no.

00:18:05 ◼   ► You can consider my videos as a starting point.

00:18:08 ◼   ► Like basically, kind of think of my videos as like a weird version of Wikipedia.

00:18:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:14 ◼   ► And then you want to verify what I'm saying because like, I'm doing my best faith job, but

00:18:19 ◼   ► I am not to academic standards.

00:18:21 ◼   ► For people in that scenario, you've given them a starting point to go and do their own research,

00:18:25 ◼   ► right?

00:18:25 ◼   ► Like you've given them an answer.

00:18:26 ◼   ► They can kind of backfill from that and do their own if they want to.

00:18:30 ◼   ► And that's really my hope is, for instance, one of the things that was a big

00:18:35 ◼   ► mind blow for me and part of why I'm so passionate about the refrigeration cycle was it took a

00:18:41 ◼   ► really long time for me to find someone or some resource that actually explained, no, what's

00:18:50 ◼   ► happening here is the refrigerant is changing phases between liquid and gas, and that moves

00:18:55 ◼   ► a lot of heat energy.

00:18:57 ◼   ► I had only ever seen enough explanations that you're compressing a gas in one place and letting

00:19:04 ◼   ► it expand in another, but then like playing around with air compressors and stuff like

00:19:08 ◼   ► this isn't getting that hot.

00:19:09 ◼   ► It's not moving that much heat.

00:19:11 ◼   ► What is the special sauce to refrigeration?

00:19:13 ◼   ► And then when I finally ran across something, it was like, oh, that's why it's called the

00:19:18 ◼   ► condenser because the refrigerant condenses.

00:19:20 ◼   ► Got it.

00:19:22 ◼   ► And so it was like, I'm trying to find those moments in all sorts of things for other people.

00:19:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:28 ◼   ► And I'm trying to like, here's an epiphany, I hope, that I might spark in other people that

00:19:35 ◼   ► are curious about whatever particular thing I'm making videos about.

00:19:38 ◼   ► When you're doing the physical research that you do, do you ever find yourself in situations

00:19:44 ◼   ► where you're like, what I'm doing is quite dangerous?

00:19:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:48 ◼   ► What do you do about that, if anything?

00:19:51 ◼   ► I have a very good sense of knowing what is and isn't dangerous.

00:19:56 ◼   ► If you don't mind me bringing back the troubleshooting part, this is part of why it's hard to explain

00:20:01 ◼   ► to other people like, no, I know how to isolate an electrical circuit.

00:20:05 ◼   ► So I know how to play around with this sort of stuff and not feel risky.

00:20:09 ◼   ► You know, I try to be a good steward.

00:20:12 ◼   ► At this point, I often put the fire extinguisher in frame just to be like, look, I'm not that

00:20:17 ◼   ► careless.

00:20:18 ◼   ► I do recognize I'm doing something a little bit sketchy.

00:20:20 ◼   ► But like, honestly, the scariest thing is what I just did, shoving 240 volts in an American

00:20:25 ◼   ► kettle.

00:20:26 ◼   ► I love that so much.

00:20:28 ◼   ► That felt so dangerous.

00:20:29 ◼   ► I was like, it's filled with water.

00:20:33 ◼   ► I mean, what really could happen?

00:20:35 ◼   ► But I was still like, you couldn't see it in the camera.

00:20:38 ◼   ► But as I was worried about what would happen.

00:20:41 ◼   ► Do you ever consider having somebody else on hand when you're doing some experiments?

00:20:47 ◼   ► If it ever gets to a point where I feel truly reckless, yes.

00:20:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:52 ◼   ► But so far, I think it has only just happened opportunistically.

00:20:57 ◼   ► Like, yeah, like my dad was helping me out with something.

00:21:01 ◼   ► I was like, oh, by the way, I need to discharge the CRT.

00:21:03 ◼   ► Do you mind being around?

00:21:05 ◼   ► So that has happened.

00:21:07 ◼   ► When in a video project do you start writing, like writing for the actual script of the video?

00:21:14 ◼   ► It depends.

00:21:16 ◼   ► Usually at the very beginning.

00:21:18 ◼   ► It tends to be like I have some sort of concept in mind.

00:21:22 ◼   ► I will try to do some basic introductory stuff and maybe an outline.

00:21:27 ◼   ► But then I'll have to stop and actually verify that I can demonstrate the things that I think I can demonstrate.

00:21:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:32 ◼   ► Honestly, that's the majority of the scripts where I'm like, I'm pretty confident I can do this.

00:21:37 ◼   ► So I will write as if that worked and then actually do it and then make adjustments as necessary.

00:21:45 ◼   ► But there are times where I have started just with getting B-roll of the subject, especially when I have to do more experimental stuff and write from that.

00:21:56 ◼   ► But more often than not, I start with writing.

00:21:59 ◼   ► And then I guess throughout the whole process, you're adjusting, adding, that kind of stuff.

00:22:05 ◼   ► Because I'm sure very often the B-roll that you're shooting changes the course of the video because sometimes things are happening in that that maybe you're expected or unexpected.

00:22:15 ◼   ► Usually not.

00:22:17 ◼   ► I do a good deal of experimenting not on camera.

00:22:21 ◼   ► Right.

00:22:21 ◼   ► I see.

00:22:22 ◼   ► Okay.

00:22:22 ◼   ► You'll always be able to tell because if I ever cut in with voiceover or a different cut, I've been meaning to get a T-shirt printed that says continuity error.

00:22:31 ◼   ► I need to do that at some point, but you'll be able to tell that like this is something that did not go correctly.

00:22:37 ◼   ► But usually the script is done and I shoot the talking head first and then I edit the talking head down and then I create a list of all the B-roll shots that I need.

00:22:49 ◼   ► Okay.

00:22:50 ◼   ► And that's my least favorite part of the process is filming all the B-roll, even though it's my favorite part.

00:22:57 ◼   ► Wait, wait, it's your least favorite and favorite part?

00:23:00 ◼   ► Yes.

00:23:01 ◼   ► Because it's some of my most creative work.

00:23:04 ◼   ► I get to be creative with camera movements, framing the shots, lighting, experimenting, all the sorts of stuff, but it's so tedious.

00:23:14 ◼   ► Okay.

00:23:15 ◼   ► And I hate seeing that sometimes two-page long list of shots that I have to go through and get every single one and it's the biggest to-do lists in my life, but I like it.

00:23:27 ◼   ► It's like I'm really tortured about it.

00:23:29 ◼   ► It's my favorite part.

00:23:30 ◼   ► And yet every time I know I could get it done in a day if I just kept my mind on it, but I'm always farting around because it's just like, I don't want to do this anymore.

00:23:42 ◼   ► Because I guess it's a lot of hurry up and wait kind of stuff, right?

00:23:45 ◼   ► Like you're essentially doing something that could take 20 minutes and like you're just filming it for 20 minutes and that's that.

00:23:53 ◼   ► Sometimes, sometimes.

00:23:55 ◼   ► Or else it's just like I do a lot of shots on a slider because it's a lot more dynamic.

00:24:01 ◼   ► That's your cheat for good B-roll, everybody get yourself a slider, but you need a really sturdy tripod to use one of them.

00:24:08 ◼   ► And I have a really sturdy tripod, but moving it around is just really annoying because you have this four foot wide thing on the top of your tripod and the whole contraption probably weighs 20 pounds or so.

00:24:24 ◼   ► So I try to organize my B-roll shoots as here's everything that needs the slider, here's everything that needs experimentation, and here's everything that's miscellaneous.

00:24:32 ◼   ► But even doing that creates different headaches because then it means I'd have to set the thing up multiple times.

00:24:40 ◼   ► Once for the slider shots, once again for the experiments or whatever.

00:24:44 ◼   ► So no matter how I do it, there's some layers of tedium, and I guess that's why I don't like it.

00:24:52 ◼   ► It's just really tedious.

00:24:53 ◼   ► Even with the amount of time that takes, is the video production part the quickest part of the process?

00:25:01 ◼   ► Are you editing for longer?

00:25:03 ◼   ► Because I'm sure that the research and writing is probably the longest.

00:25:06 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:25:07 ◼   ► And then my assumption would be that it would then be video and then editing would fall in there somewhere.

00:25:14 ◼   ► How does that kind of work on time usually?

00:25:16 ◼   ► Typically, once I have all the shots I need, editing is a two-day process.

00:25:21 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:25:23 ◼   ► It goes pretty quick.

00:25:24 ◼   ► And this is part of why I do No Effort November, because that's kind of a challenge for me to just barf out a script in a day or two and try to get an entire video production done in one standard work week.

00:25:36 ◼   ► Which I can do.

00:25:38 ◼   ► But typically, the scripting itself takes a whole week at least.

00:25:43 ◼   ► Like, sometimes what I'll do is I'll finish the script at noon and I'll shoot the talking head at maybe 2 p.m., edit it down to the point where I'm ready to get B-roll, and then go home.

00:25:56 ◼   ► And then the next day will be fire up the set, get it all warmed up, and start making that list of B-roll shots and try to get it all done that day, which typically doesn't work.

00:26:08 ◼   ► So I usually need two days for B-roll, but then once that's all done, probably only takes about 12 hours for me to do the edit.

00:26:15 ◼   ► So I can do it in one day.

00:26:16 ◼   ► But I am beyond that now.

00:26:18 ◼   ► I split it up.

00:26:20 ◼   ► Have you ever considered getting any help with the production?

00:26:22 ◼   ► Yes.

00:26:23 ◼   ► And the answer I've arrived at is no.

00:26:25 ◼   ► Okay.

00:26:26 ◼   ► It just doesn't work for you?

00:26:27 ◼   ► I can't see how I could give up parts of the process and be happy.

00:26:32 ◼   ► Okay.

00:26:32 ◼   ► I mean, I think this is a thing that everybody goes through, and you kind of have to let go a little bit.

00:26:39 ◼   ► But in the way that you answered that, I just get the sense that you can't let go.

00:26:44 ◼   ► Either that or I simply just don't want to.

00:26:47 ◼   ► I'm beyond the point of being oriented towards growth.

00:26:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:26:51 ◼   ► I'm very happy with where I am, and I don't have any real reason to change things.

00:26:56 ◼   ► So I have a very core belief, which is don't look for reasons to be unhappy, and I'm not going to look for reasons to be unhappy.

00:27:05 ◼   ► I mean, you say you're very happy with where you are.

00:27:08 ◼   ► I mean, where you are is very successful.

00:27:11 ◼   ► Like, you have many videos that have millions and millions of views on them.

00:27:17 ◼   ► Did you ever expect that this would be the case?

00:27:21 ◼   ► No, not at all.

00:27:23 ◼   ► Not at all.

00:27:24 ◼   ► Are you still surprised when a video breaks out?

00:27:28 ◼   ► I mean, not super surprised.

00:27:30 ◼   ► It'll be certain topics where I'll be like, I can't believe that was a hit.

00:27:34 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, I'm pretty used to the idea that most of my main channel videos are going to hit a million views at some point.

00:27:44 ◼   ► But I truly did not expect that.

00:27:46 ◼   ► Like, I didn't think I could possibly hit a million YouTube subscribers.

00:27:50 ◼   ► When that happened, I was like, wow, I really did not imagine that future at all.

00:27:56 ◼   ► I figured I could maybe top out at maybe half a million, and I'm closing in on three now.

00:28:01 ◼   ► The ones that do the best, are you able to understand why?

00:28:07 ◼   ► Like, can you look at those videos after the fact and be like, oh, okay, like, I think I can work out what hit here?

00:28:14 ◼   ► Yes and no.

00:28:15 ◼   ► I have, what is that quote, 50% of the time it works every time?

00:28:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:20 ◼   ► That's kind of where I am.

00:28:22 ◼   ► Okay.

00:28:23 ◼   ► I can sometimes predict some videos that I know are going to do well.

00:28:28 ◼   ► But then I actually had a pretty major disappointment with the cassette to eight track adapter video.

00:28:33 ◼   ► I thought that was going to do much better than it did.

00:28:36 ◼   ► And it just didn't.

00:28:38 ◼   ► It was a 10 out of 10, as we say on YouTube, which is bad.

00:28:44 ◼   ► I kind of had a lazy thumbnail, but then I went, okay, I'm going to make the thumbnail a lot better.

00:28:47 ◼   ► And I did.

00:28:48 ◼   ► And that thumbnail, I think should work really well, but the video is just not doing well.

00:28:52 ◼   ► So there are some times where I still have complete misses on what I think will be interesting.

00:28:59 ◼   ► But I probably am about three quarters of the time, pretty right as far as guessing how the videos are going to do.

00:29:07 ◼   ► For example, I knew the CRT projector one was going to do good with that hook and that thumbnail.

00:29:13 ◼   ► That's the one that's freshest in my mind.

00:29:15 ◼   ► I wasn't sure how the catalytic converter video would do because a thumbnail for that did not gel in my head.

00:29:22 ◼   ► And I'm not happy with the thumbnail that's on there, but it's doing well enough.

00:29:26 ◼   ► How much time do you spend thinking about title and thumbnail?

00:29:29 ◼   ► Do you have a process that works for you or is it kind of new every time?

00:29:33 ◼   ► It depends.

00:29:34 ◼   ► So I have what I would call a trade dress on my thumbnails now.

00:29:39 ◼   ► I try to make sure my set is visible so it's very clear whose video this is.

00:29:44 ◼   ► I always use the same font for everything, which is not Impact, by the way.

00:29:48 ◼   ► It is Hettenschweiler, or however you pronounce that.

00:29:52 ◼   ► Tons of people are like, oh, you use the Impact font, the meme font.

00:29:56 ◼   ► I'm like, it's close, but it's not actually what it is.

00:29:58 ◼   ► So I just want that on the record somewhere.

00:29:59 ◼   ► I have a very good style down.

00:30:02 ◼   ► I'll sometimes do certain 3D tricks where you will just like put the text a little bit behind

00:30:09 ◼   ► the object.

00:30:11 ◼   ► So it kind of looks like there's a 3D element in there.

00:30:13 ◼   ► It is surprising how effective that can be, but I put less thought into my thumbnails than

00:30:20 ◼   ► I probably should.

00:30:22 ◼   ► And it's quite rare that I'm doing a deliberate thumbnail shoot.

00:30:25 ◼   ► Usually it's just a pulled frame from the video, but I am conscious of like,

00:30:31 ◼   ► I need to have some good B-roll footage that I can turn into a thumbnail.

00:30:35 ◼   ► But it's pretty rare that I'm actually crafting a thumbnail on its own.

00:30:40 ◼   ► It's usually if I just forgot.

00:30:42 ◼   ► So that's interesting.

00:30:43 ◼   ► It's interesting that you don't put like maximum effort into thumbnails, but you are thinking

00:30:50 ◼   ► about like the videos having these hooks to them.

00:30:52 ◼   ► That feels to me at least that those two kind of areas of production are quite linked together.

00:30:59 ◼   ► I have a theory that there's too many people on YouTube following best practices, and I kind

00:31:07 ◼   ► of deliberately don't follow best practices.

00:31:10 ◼   ► Like, for example, I watch all these creators that are doing really deep 10-bit color, gamma,

00:31:17 ◼   ► whatever, doing this amazing color grading work.

00:31:19 ◼   ► And I'm like, more power to you if you enjoy that.

00:31:22 ◼   ► This is YouTube.

00:31:23 ◼   ► I don't think it's that important.

00:31:25 ◼   ► So I'm just not going to do it.

00:31:27 ◼   ► And I think my thumbnails stand out because there's not a ton of effort put into them.

00:31:34 ◼   ► I don't know how true that is, but I can say I made a video back in early 2020 or else

00:31:40 ◼   ► it was 2019 on the color brown and just the fact that brown doesn't really exist on the

00:31:47 ◼   ► color spectrum.

00:31:48 ◼   ► It's just orange that we see contrast as a dark orange.

00:31:51 ◼   ► And I knew what that thumbnail was going to be.

00:31:54 ◼   ► It was just going to be a flood of brown with the word brown.

00:31:58 ◼   ► And when I made that video, I was like, I know that's going to do great because no thumbnail

00:32:04 ◼   ► looks like that.

00:32:05 ◼   ► But the more people follow best practices, the more everything starts to look the same.

00:32:10 ◼   ► So I'm just like, eh, you don't have to do that.

00:32:14 ◼   ► And I am conscious of being a bit of a model for that.

00:32:16 ◼   ► Like my frumpy jacket that I wear has turned into a style thing, even though it was basically

00:32:22 ◼   ► just me trying to be like, give an old man presenter vibe.

00:32:26 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:32:26 ◼   ► That's all I was trying to do.

00:32:28 ◼   ► But now it's my thing.

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00:34:27 ◼   ► I'd like to hear a little bit about your studio.

00:34:30 ◼   ► Is it a self-contained place?

00:34:31 ◼   ► It's not in your home?

00:34:32 ◼   ► Correct.

00:34:33 ◼   ► Do you like that separation between the home and the office?

00:34:36 ◼   ► I need that separation.

00:34:38 ◼   ► Because you'll be working all the time or relaxing all the time.

00:34:41 ◼   ► Which way around is it?

00:34:44 ◼   ► So this set behind me has moved twice.

00:34:47 ◼   ► And I have gone to the effort of the walls are always painted the same colors wherever it is.

00:34:53 ◼   ► So a lot of people have not realized it has moved.

00:34:57 ◼   ► But it started out just in my dining room at my first home.

00:35:02 ◼   ► I had a two-bedroom apartment.

00:35:04 ◼   ► And I figured I have room on this wall here to put a set.

00:35:09 ◼   ► But then it meant because of the way I shoot with the teleprompter and do the talking head,

00:35:13 ◼   ► the camera needs to be quite far away from me.

00:35:16 ◼   ► So my entire living space was taken up with YouTube.

00:35:22 ◼   ► And once it became like, this is now your job, I had to create separation.

00:35:28 ◼   ► I did it in a really weird way at first, which was back in 2018.

00:35:34 ◼   ► I was looking at how much would it cost to lease an office around where I live.

00:35:39 ◼   ► And it was expensive enough that I thought of the wild idea of buying a house in the country

00:35:47 ◼   ► and working out of a house in the middle of nowhere.

00:35:52 ◼   ► And that's what I did.

00:35:53 ◼   ► But then when the pandemic caused the lockdowns and I had to live out there full time,

00:36:00 ◼   ► I learned I really didn't like living out there.

00:36:02 ◼   ► So it became a reversal of, okay, I guess now I actually need to find an office.

00:36:07 ◼   ► So this is in an office building in the middle of Chicagoland that no one would ever know YouTube

00:36:15 ◼   ► stuff's happening in.

00:36:16 ◼   ► And that's now where I am.

00:36:17 ◼   ► And the warehouse, which is on the other side of that wall, is for doing the sorts of projects

00:36:24 ◼   ► I want to do, which need more space, like the videos on car stuff, as well as just storing

00:36:29 ◼   ► all the various stuff.

00:36:31 ◼   ► So that's all at the same place.

00:36:32 ◼   ► I was wondering, because I'd seen that, you know, I've got this bigger kind of warehousing

00:36:37 ◼   ► space now, but I wondered if that was in a different location.

00:36:40 ◼   ► No, this is what's called a flex space.

00:36:42 ◼   ► So the front third of it is finished offices.

00:36:45 ◼   ► And then the back two thirds is a warehouse with a overhead door.

00:36:50 ◼   ► I learned in the process of finding one of these that they are impossible to get.

00:36:54 ◼   ► This is a kind of space that the businesses who need them have not really been affected by

00:37:02 ◼   ► the changes in e-commerce or whatever.

00:37:03 ◼   ► Like the kind of business that needs both a public facing office and a lot of storage just

00:37:10 ◼   ► needs these spaces.

00:37:11 ◼   ► So this sector of the commercial real estate market is still extremely hot.

00:37:15 ◼   ► Maybe it's slowed down now because I'm coming up on my third year here, but at the time

00:37:19 ◼   ► it was just utterly impossible to find one of these spaces.

00:37:22 ◼   ► And this was just my last resort option.

00:37:25 ◼   ► Luckily it's worked out, but I was a little worried it might not.

00:37:28 ◼   ► Yeah, because I could imagine if you need that physical space, it is then kind of linking the

00:37:36 ◼   ► fact that it's going to exist as a business, like businesses that require some kind of place

00:37:42 ◼   ► where you have to go to them to do the thing will kind of secure it for a longer period of time.

00:37:47 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:37:48 ◼   ► And also it's like a much better value than any other office spaces that are out there.

00:37:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:37:54 ◼   ► When you consider the dollar cost per square foot, because it's basically like it's a little

00:37:59 ◼   ► bit more expensive per square foot to have the office space that I have.

00:38:03 ◼   ► But then I also have 2,500 square feet of warehouse space.

00:38:06 ◼   ► Do you have your studio set up that you can just get in and start shooting?

00:38:12 ◼   ► Do you leave everything kind of as is, or do you pack it all down and set it all back up

00:38:17 ◼   ► again each time you shoot?

00:38:18 ◼   ► Oh, it's all set up all the time.

00:38:20 ◼   ► Okay.

00:38:20 ◼   ► The only thing I have to wait for is the lava lamps.

00:38:22 ◼   ► Right, because I got to warm up.

00:38:24 ◼   ► So that's the first thing I do.

00:38:25 ◼   ► But then otherwise the lights are on stands, the microphone's on a stand, everything is set

00:38:29 ◼   ► up to just go.

00:38:30 ◼   ► You mentioned a few times about YouTube being a hobby at first.

00:38:35 ◼   ► I'd like to back up all the way, actually, and talk about that a bit.

00:38:39 ◼   ► What was it that made you want to become a YouTuber?

00:38:41 ◼   ► You're getting into embarrassing stuff, man.

00:38:44 ◼   ► We've all got those stories.

00:38:45 ◼   ► So I've had an active YouTube account since I was in middle school.

00:38:52 ◼   ► Okay.

00:38:53 ◼   ► I could not tell you exactly when I started it, but this was like before the Google merger.

00:38:58 ◼   ► So I had to go through transitioning your YouTube account into a Google account.

00:39:03 ◼   ► And I'm almost certain something is still broken because of that.

00:39:07 ◼   ► But what actually got this all started was I have a dear family friend who gave me an Edison

00:39:13 ◼   ► cylinder phonograph.

00:39:15 ◼   ► And I thought this is really cool.

00:39:17 ◼   ► How many people have ever seen one of these being used?

00:39:22 ◼   ► And so I just started a YouTube channel where I was doing different recordings of the different

00:39:26 ◼   ► cylinders that he gave me.

00:39:28 ◼   ► That's how it all started.

00:39:30 ◼   ► And then I had one video go, like it didn't go viral, but it had a few hundred thousand views,

00:39:36 ◼   ► which was total copyright infringement because it was just me filming a record player playing

00:39:41 ◼   ► a song.

00:39:42 ◼   ► I was Ray Stevens, the streak, which is a comedy song from the seventies, I think.

00:39:48 ◼   ► And I guess I was the first person to upload that to YouTube because it was taken off pretty

00:39:54 ◼   ► well.

00:39:55 ◼   ► And then when the partner program became a thing, I applied and I started doing a little

00:40:02 ◼   ► bit of like how to videos, including some incredibly terrible stuff that only high school

00:40:09 ◼   ► age people think they should do to their cars.

00:40:11 ◼   ► And that's how it all got started.

00:40:15 ◼   ► I made a bit of money from that and thought I could actually turn this into a job.

00:40:19 ◼   ► And it stayed in the back of my mind as a thing that might happen one day, but I didn't count

00:40:25 ◼   ► on it at all.

00:40:26 ◼   ► And in high school, I didn't really know what I wanted to do for a living.

00:40:30 ◼   ► One day, my mom just suggested, have you ever thought of managing hotels?

00:40:35 ◼   ► And I was like, that actually sounds kind of fun.

00:40:38 ◼   ► So I went to school for hospitality management.

00:40:42 ◼   ► The back of my mind the whole time was I would love if I could become a YouTuber, but fat chance

00:40:47 ◼   ► that's ever going to happen.

00:40:48 ◼   ► So that remained throughout.

00:40:49 ◼   ► That remains.

00:40:50 ◼   ► Yes.

00:40:50 ◼   ► And I worked for the Disney company doing a college program in 2014, and I had to actually

00:40:59 ◼   ► leave my program slightly early.

00:41:00 ◼   ► I had a bit of a health scare, which turned out to be nothing.

00:41:04 ◼   ► But it was concerning enough that I thought I had better just quit and go home.

00:41:09 ◼   ► And at that time, I thought, I want to make a concerted effort at a new YouTube channel with

00:41:17 ◼   ► an actual cohesive theme.

00:41:19 ◼   ► So I think I reserved the channel name Technology Connections in early 2015.

00:41:27 ◼   ► Okay.

00:41:27 ◼   ► And then it was just, let's have a go at this.

00:41:31 ◼   ► And in 2017, it may have been late 2016, I don't remember for sure, my video on the

00:41:37 ◼   ► magic inside your VCR just suddenly exploded.

00:41:40 ◼   ► And I'll never forget the day because I was at work, my phone just starting to blow up.

00:41:44 ◼   ► I'm like, what's happening?

00:41:45 ◼   ► And I went from maybe 700 subscribers, maybe I cracked 1,000.

00:41:51 ◼   ► I told my original channel viewers about this new effort.

00:41:54 ◼   ► And then all of a sudden I had 30,000 subscribers.

00:41:58 ◼   ► And that was it.

00:42:01 ◼   ► I figured, well, this is working now.

00:42:03 ◼   ► Better grab this bull by the horns.

00:42:05 ◼   ► And just transitioned as quickly as I could into making YouTube content.

00:42:10 ◼   ► How long was it from that point until you were a YouTuber, like that was your profession?

00:42:15 ◼   ► Well, I'm an extremely risk averse person.

00:42:18 ◼   ► So I did not even go part time at my job until AdSense revenue had replaced my income.

00:42:27 ◼   ► So I was like, I'm not taking any risks here.

00:42:31 ◼   ► This is all just fun bonus money until I know I can live off of this.

00:42:36 ◼   ► And even then, I just went part time.

00:42:39 ◼   ► Fun fact, I didn't even quit my job.

00:42:41 ◼   ► I was terminated because I went on what was called pool status.

00:42:46 ◼   ► It was basically just like you're on the books as help when needed, purely so I could keep my travel benefits.

00:42:54 ◼   ► And both of my bosses at my hotel had moved on to other hotels.

00:42:58 ◼   ► And so one day, the new bosses were like, who is this guy?

00:43:02 ◼   ► And just, yeah, I was just one day terminated.

00:43:05 ◼   ► I'd like to talk about audience feedback.

00:43:08 ◼   ► With the type of content that you produce, I would imagine that you get lots of opinions from people, whether that's people who they agree with what you're doing, they like what you're doing, or disagree, or have their own thoughts on the matter.

00:43:25 ◼   ► What is that like for you, to kind of the overall realm of feedback?

00:43:29 ◼   ► How does that sit with you?

00:43:31 ◼   ► Well, first of all, I should say, my amazing Patreon members are not only amazing because they fund this work, but they're the best test audience you could ever ask for.

00:43:40 ◼   ► So typically, if there is a major problem that they have identified, I will take that to heart and be like, okay, you're right, this is serious.

00:43:51 ◼   ► Once it goes out to the YouTube general audience, though, I monitor the comments for a couple of hours, and so long as nothing terrible has come up, I don't look at them again.

00:44:01 ◼   ► That is dangerous.

00:44:03 ◼   ► I will sometimes go back to my videos, you know, weeks later, just see what the comments are doing.

00:44:10 ◼   ► Why do you think it's dangerous?

00:44:11 ◼   ► Why would you say it's dangerous to not look?

00:44:13 ◼   ► For everyone who says never look at the comments, you do need to look at the comments because they're going to teach you what you're doing wrong.

00:44:19 ◼   ► They're going to teach you what you're doing, which is annoying to people, although sometimes I'll lean into that depending on the kind of person.

00:44:28 ◼   ► I mean, also, there's only so much you can do about the annoying things, right?

00:44:32 ◼   ► Like there are some things that we do as people that we kind of have no control over, and it's incredibly hard to change.

00:44:40 ◼   ► But the reason why the YouTube comments tend to be a bit of a minefield, my least favorite comment is, you forgot to talk about, X, which happens all the time.

00:44:52 ◼   ► And I don't like it because 80% of the time, it's nothing I forgot to talk about.

00:44:58 ◼   ► I chose not to talk about it.

00:45:00 ◼   ► And so it's frustrating because I would like to be able to explain to these people that like, no, I'm aware of what you're talking about.

00:45:13 ◼   ► It's just, I don't think it's actually that important.

00:45:15 ◼   ► And those are the kind of comments that really dig at me.

00:45:20 ◼   ► There's always this presumption of like, oh, this foolish person didn't think of this thing, even though the commenter doesn't understand that like, I've spent weeks on this project.

00:45:31 ◼   ► It's not like, you know, I'm just throwing this stuff together.

00:45:34 ◼   ► There might be a reason I didn't talk about that.

00:45:37 ◼   ► But for every annoying comment, there are also really valuable ones.

00:45:42 ◼   ► And like a lot of the direction of my channel changed because of feedback from people.

00:45:49 ◼   ► So in the position that I'm in now, like I don't take the comments as seriously as I used to because you can't.

00:45:56 ◼   ► It's really bad for your mental health.

00:45:58 ◼   ► But at the same time, I don't like the advice, don't read the comments.

00:46:01 ◼   ► Your work is going to be really impacted if you just never look at them.

00:46:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel like it is decent advice for people later.

00:46:10 ◼   ► It's bad advice in the beginning.

00:46:13 ◼   ► And I think the thing about people saying don't read the comments, it is said by people who can stop now.

00:46:20 ◼   ► But unfortunately, they say it and everybody hears that.

00:46:24 ◼   ► Yeah, but that's not really if you're starting out, it's not for you.

00:46:28 ◼   ► But you've got to live in that for a while while you're learning because people, even if it doesn't feel like they're trying to help, the things that they're saying can help.

00:46:36 ◼   ► Are you familiar with the way you can tell when you've made it as a YouTuber?

00:46:40 ◼   ► Because it has to do with the comments.

00:46:41 ◼   ► OK, go on.

00:46:42 ◼   ► It's when the comments stop talking to you and they're talking about you.

00:46:48 ◼   ► Yes.

00:46:48 ◼   ► And it is interesting when I've discovered smaller channels, looking at their comments and seeing they're really active in them.

00:46:56 ◼   ► They're giving everybody a heart.

00:46:57 ◼   ► They're replying to everybody.

00:46:59 ◼   ► I'm like, this is awesome, but you are going to have to stop doing that unless you want to hire someone to just do this.

00:47:05 ◼   ► And I think that maybe they don't necessarily identify it happening.

00:47:10 ◼   ► But one day, this community that you've curated in your comments is going to stop being such a cohesive community.

00:47:19 ◼   ► And when that happens, you just kind of have to let go.

00:47:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I think there is a time when you are part of the community and then there is a time when the community exists and you're not a part of it anymore.

00:47:30 ◼   ► The community is formed around your work and it is people interacting with each other rather than the expectation that people are interacting with you, right?

00:47:41 ◼   ► And it's a bit sad.

00:47:43 ◼   ► It's also got weird parasocial aspects to it, but it's just what happens when you get a big enough channel.

00:47:50 ◼   ► You know, I publish a video and within an hour, there's going to be over a thousand comments.

00:47:57 ◼   ► So like, there's no way I can spend much time.

00:48:00 ◼   ► It's already gone too far at that point.

00:48:02 ◼   ► Like, it's just, it's not manageable.

00:48:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:04 ◼   ► Do you have any or manage any other like smaller community efforts?

00:48:09 ◼   ► Like, I mean, you mentioned your Patreon.

00:48:10 ◼   ► Are you talking with people in there or do you have like a Discord or anything like that?

00:48:15 ◼   ► Yeah, there's a Patreon exclusive Discord.

00:48:17 ◼   ► I don't spend as much time in there as I should.

00:48:21 ◼   ► I enjoy my time in there, but it is, sometimes it can feel like another thing to manage.

00:48:26 ◼   ► And luckily I have some great people in the admin team that have volunteered to help out there.

00:48:32 ◼   ► But I do, I try to do monthly Patreon live streams now, and I've been really enjoying that.

00:48:37 ◼   ► It is a great way to actually like, not directly talk with people because I'm just seeing them write comments in, but it's still nice to have real time interactions with people in the audience.

00:48:50 ◼   ► So I do like that.

00:48:51 ◼   ► You know, the thought has crossed my head.

00:48:53 ◼   ► Can I do like a public live stream?

00:48:55 ◼   ► And absolutely not.

00:48:56 ◼   ► You've broken the thing you like about it at that point, probably.

00:48:59 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:49:00 ◼   ► The comments would not work, and I would need to have a team of moderators to even have that be a possibility.

00:49:07 ◼   ► So it's like, yeah, just the Patreon thing is the only thing I do.

00:49:10 ◼   ► As a content creator, do you think of social media as part of your job?

00:49:14 ◼   ► Oh, no.

00:49:15 ◼   ► It's something I fart around with.

00:49:16 ◼   ► Do you think about promoting your work outside of YouTube?

00:49:19 ◼   ► Is that an important part of it?

00:49:21 ◼   ► Is social media a place where you go to promote, or do you not really think about promotion of your work, post what YouTube will do for it?

00:49:27 ◼   ► I don't really think about it.

00:49:28 ◼   ► I do, just as a resource, I guess, I will post on Blue Sky and Mastodon when I make a new video.

00:49:35 ◼   ► I used to use Reddit.

00:49:36 ◼   ► There's a subreddit out there, which is, I haven't looked at it in a long time, so who knows what's happening.

00:49:41 ◼   ► Reddit never really clicked with me, and I've kind of abandoned it.

00:49:44 ◼   ► But I don't know.

00:49:47 ◼   ► Social media, it's the best way for people to reach me if they want to.

00:49:53 ◼   ► But I also kind of deliberately keep a distance from it.

00:49:57 ◼   ► So, yeah, I don't know what exactly my relationship is with social media these days, to be honest.

00:50:02 ◼   ► But it's not really trying to help YouTube.

00:50:05 ◼   ► It's just a thing I'm doing.

00:50:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess at this point, YouTube is the best system for getting people to find out about what you're doing, right?

00:50:13 ◼   ► Like, the algorithm is doing its thing, and it seems to work pretty well for you overall.

00:50:19 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I have almost no complaints about YouTube, other than pretending nobody wants to use the subscriptions feed,

00:50:26 ◼   ► and then having this feedback loop or the subscription feed gets worse because nobody's using it.

00:50:30 ◼   ► I still have qualms about that.

00:50:32 ◼   ► But, you know, it's easy for me to say I don't have any complaints because my YouTubes do very well.

00:50:37 ◼   ► YouTubes?

00:50:38 ◼   ► What year is it?

00:50:39 ◼   ► It's working well.

00:50:41 ◼   ► I'll just put it that way.

00:50:42 ◼   ► Nothing's broken, so just keep doing it.

00:50:45 ◼   ► Are you the dishwasher guy at this point?

00:50:47 ◼   ► Oh, absolutely.

00:50:49 ◼   ► Because I think maybe to your audience, you're also the Christmas light guy.

00:50:54 ◼   ► But I think to the world, you are the dishwasher guy now.

00:50:57 ◼   ► I was just at a couple of conferences, and when I was explaining what I do, I would have to say,

00:51:02 ◼   ► you might have seen some videos on dishwashers, and then they're like, oh, you're that guy.

00:51:07 ◼   ► And actually, this happened to me on a train.

00:51:10 ◼   ► I love taking the long-distance Amtrak trains from Chicago out west whenever I need to go out that way.

00:51:15 ◼   ► And literally, I was talking to somebody at my dining table, and I was explaining I made a lot of videos about dishwashers.

00:51:23 ◼   ► And then the people across the aisle were like, yeah, he's the dishwasher guy.

00:51:28 ◼   ► So, yes, it is absolutely a thing now.

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00:53:05 ◼   ► So as is the way in the show, I think that you can tell a lot about how somebody thinks works and what they're prioritized by looking at the home screen of their phone, the thing that they carry around in their pocket.

00:53:17 ◼   ► So you have shared your home screen with me.

00:53:21 ◼   ► Isn't it boring?

00:53:22 ◼   ► I have a bunch of things that I want to talk to you about.

00:53:24 ◼   ► So I see Tusky on your home screen, which I believe is a Mastodon client.

00:53:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I haven't opened that in quite a long time.

00:53:31 ◼   ► You have things on your home screen that you just are paying no attention to.

00:53:34 ◼   ► They're just living there?

00:53:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:53:36 ◼   ► In the case of Tusky, so what happened there was I moved to Mastodon pretty early and was treating it like a Twitter replacement.

00:53:44 ◼   ► And so I put that where the Twitter app was.

00:53:47 ◼   ► I'm now not that active on Mastodon at all.

00:53:51 ◼   ► I'm more active on Blue Sky than anywhere else.

00:53:54 ◼   ► But I just use Blue Sky in a Chrome tab.

00:53:57 ◼   ► I've never downloaded the app.

00:53:58 ◼   ► You've decided to keep it off your phone, basically.

00:54:00 ◼   ► No, I mean like in my phone.

00:54:02 ◼   ► There's a Chrome tab for Blue Sky.

00:54:04 ◼   ► Huh.

00:54:05 ◼   ► That's an interesting decision.

00:54:07 ◼   ► I don't know why, but I guess when I first signed up, I was like, well, this works.

00:54:11 ◼   ► Why would I download the app?

00:54:12 ◼   ► So there's just a tab in Chrome that I go back to to get to Blue Sky.

00:54:16 ◼   ► Amazing.

00:54:17 ◼   ► I noticed YouTube Studio sitting kind of front and center.

00:54:20 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:54:21 ◼   ► Do you check your analytics often?

00:54:23 ◼   ► Not between video releases, but around the time they're coming out, yes.

00:54:27 ◼   ► Are you looking for specific signals or are you just checking that it's performing?

00:54:31 ◼   ► So when I release it, I'm looking at the real-time analytics.

00:54:36 ◼   ► I am looking for certain signals.

00:54:39 ◼   ► That's actually not very possible to do on your phone.

00:54:42 ◼   ► It is possible, but the interface is not as good.

00:54:45 ◼   ► You don't get the simultaneous, here's performance in the last hour.

00:54:49 ◼   ► Here's the performance in the last two days on mobile.

00:54:51 ◼   ► It's kind of annoying.

00:54:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:54:53 ◼   ► One thing, what YouTube does, which is really good, I never had to mess with any of my notification

00:55:01 ◼   ► settings.

00:55:02 ◼   ► They just had a system where it's like, once you get big enough, they start throttling

00:55:05 ◼   ► it down automatically.

00:55:06 ◼   ► Yes.

00:55:07 ◼   ► And so I never really get notifications about anything, except if a bigger channel comments,

00:55:14 ◼   ► I will get a notification about that.

00:55:15 ◼   ► So I do need the app running for that purpose, because the notifications you get in the studio

00:55:23 ◼   ► versus the plain YouTube app are kind of weird and they conflict sometimes.

00:55:26 ◼   ► But yeah, that's there.

00:55:29 ◼   ► I am kind of obsessive about checking the analytics in the first few days.

00:55:33 ◼   ► That's kind of why it's in that spot.

00:55:35 ◼   ► The calculator has got prime placement here on your home screen.

00:55:39 ◼   ► Are you often calculating?

00:55:41 ◼   ► Often enough that I want it there.

00:55:43 ◼   ► Okay.

00:55:43 ◼   ► I was originally thinking, oh, clock.

00:55:46 ◼   ► But I guess you're doing a lot of timers too, right?

00:55:48 ◼   ► Like, I guess that's the thing you're probably doing.

00:55:51 ◼   ► So you need that for there.

00:55:52 ◼   ► You have Google Home and SmartThings on your home screen.

00:55:57 ◼   ► And Nest.

00:55:58 ◼   ► And Nest, yes.

00:55:59 ◼   ► Which I'm pretty sure that app is deprecated now.

00:56:02 ◼   ► I think it doesn't work very well anymore.

00:56:04 ◼   ► So I'm assuming you have a lot of SmartHome stuff, but they're not all in systems that are

00:56:10 ◼   ► talking to each other very well, if you have all of these apps.

00:56:13 ◼   ► Okay.

00:56:13 ◼   ► So SmartThings is actually running the back end of my SmartHome stuff and Google Home talks

00:56:19 ◼   ► to it.

00:56:20 ◼   ► Okay.

00:56:21 ◼   ► I made back in 2016 a video on SmartHome stuff as it was being built out then.

00:56:28 ◼   ► And I have a very hot take, which is that we've made a huge mistake by not explaining the benefit

00:56:34 ◼   ► of hubs.

00:56:35 ◼   ► Because back in the day, everybody was like, oh, I don't want to have to have a hub.

00:56:39 ◼   ► I just want my smart stuff connected to Wi-Fi.

00:56:41 ◼   ► So SmartThings is running a hub, which is actually talking to all of my smart switches, which run

00:56:50 ◼   ► through Z-Wave and have a couple of ZigBee devices.

00:56:53 ◼   ► That system works great.

00:56:55 ◼   ► But everybody hated the idea of having to have a hub.

00:56:57 ◼   ► And so I'm kind of running this weird legacy system that I don't really love.

00:57:03 ◼   ► And one day I should play with Home Assistant.

00:57:05 ◼   ► But basically, I don't really use the SmartThings app unless something wonky is happening.

00:57:10 ◼   ► Google Home actually manages all that stuff.

00:57:12 ◼   ► I think I have like seven hubs in my house for various device ecosystems.

00:57:18 ◼   ► That's the thing.

00:57:19 ◼   ► We created Z-Wave, which was awesome.

00:57:23 ◼   ► But I've now figured out, I think this is just Silicon Valley impulses.

00:57:27 ◼   ► People were so annoyed at the idea that you'd have to spend $2 in a licensing fee per device

00:57:34 ◼   ► that they were like, well, I would rather invent a worse system to get around that fee.

00:57:38 ◼   ► And so I've been like, all of my Z-Wave stuff has always worked perfectly and flawlessly.

00:57:43 ◼   ► And I don't understand why everybody is so mad about the smart home ecosystem.

00:57:48 ◼   ► So I'm cranky that there are cranky people because the cranky people were not convinced

00:57:54 ◼   ► by the better system.

00:57:55 ◼   ► And now it's all getting worse.

00:57:57 ◼   ► So yay.

00:57:58 ◼   ► So I know it's Pocket Cast and YouTube.

00:58:00 ◼   ► Are you watching, listening to a lot of media on your phone?

00:58:03 ◼   ► Oh, yes.

00:58:05 ◼   ► So I'm a big believer in casting.

00:58:07 ◼   ► I have never signed into YouTube on any of my devices that I watch YouTube on.

00:58:12 ◼   ► I just cast them from my phone.

00:58:13 ◼   ► And it means I don't have to deal with passwords.

00:58:16 ◼   ► I don't have to deal with signing into YouTube Premium.

00:58:18 ◼   ► I don't have to deal with like, oh, if my mom and dad watch YouTube on their TVs at home

00:58:23 ◼   ► and they have signed in.

00:58:24 ◼   ► And I'm like, well, this is going to just be me.

00:58:27 ◼   ► I'm just going to cast to the TV.

00:58:29 ◼   ► So, yes, I control a lot of the media that I watch with my phone.

00:58:35 ◼   ► But I'm often not actually watching it on my phone.

00:58:38 ◼   ► This does lead me to the last app that I wanted to mention.

00:58:42 ◼   ► It's just intriguing.

00:58:43 ◼   ► Paramount Plus, you're a big fan of Paramount?

00:58:45 ◼   ► I haven't used it in quite a while, largely because I started getting back into physical

00:58:52 ◼   ► media and the stuff that I was watching on Paramount Plus I now own on DVD like it's 2002.

00:58:57 ◼   ► I think it replaced Netflix for me.

00:59:01 ◼   ► Okay.

00:59:01 ◼   ► And yeah, I just don't watch a lot of streaming content these days other than YouTube.

00:59:05 ◼   ► Is it difficult to try and have a DVD collection in 2025?

00:59:10 ◼   ► I only think it's difficult because of weird social pressures.

00:59:13 ◼   ► Okay.

00:59:14 ◼   ► I put some nice bookcases up and I'm really enjoying having a collection of stuff.

00:59:19 ◼   ► Then I run across people that are like, oh, why?

00:59:22 ◼   ► And I'm like, I don't know.

00:59:23 ◼   ► I like it.

00:59:24 ◼   ► I just figured content is less available, maybe, or at least a weird time frame.

00:59:31 ◼   ► Maybe it's not a priority for some of the people that produce it to put it on disc.

00:59:35 ◼   ► Well, I mean, I'm not really collecting new stuff for the most part.

00:59:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:40 ◼   ► I feel like an old man with some of the stuff people have said to me with DVDs.

00:59:44 ◼   ► When I started talking online about I'm getting back into physical media, some people are really

00:59:49 ◼   ► bothered by things that I'm like, I don't know why this is bothering you.

00:59:53 ◼   ► Like, I don't want to have to watch a 15 second anti-piracy warning.

00:59:58 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, you amateurs, you put the DVD in and use the bathroom.

01:00:01 ◼   ► And then when you're back or like somebody was saying, I don't want to have to sit through all of the previews.

01:00:07 ◼   ► I'm like, I know some discs lock you out, but you can usually fast forward or skip.

01:00:11 ◼   ► And then I just learned a lot of people just never even tried that.

01:00:13 ◼   ► So I think the quality is fine.

01:00:16 ◼   ► Part of why I like it is because like, if you're watching through a TV show, only so many episodes fit on a disc and it's going to stop.

01:00:25 ◼   ► And you have to decide if you want to keep going or not.

01:00:28 ◼   ► It's a little bit more than the are you still watching, right?

01:00:31 ◼   ► Like it's got a bit more of an effect.

01:00:32 ◼   ► So you're going for DVD over Blu-ray?

01:00:35 ◼   ► You know, you didn't consider Blu-ray?

01:00:36 ◼   ► It depends on what I'm collecting.

01:00:38 ◼   ► For older TV shows, no.

01:00:40 ◼   ► I'll just, DVD is fine.

01:00:41 ◼   ► But like I did get Star Trek The Next Generation on actual Blu-ray because why not?

01:00:47 ◼   ► I just have been discovering that there's a lot of old TV shows that I keep coming back to watch and you can get them for a song on DVD.

01:00:54 ◼   ► So I'm just like, yeah, why not?

01:00:55 ◼   ► As we've reached the end of the main episode, I wanted to give you the opportunity if you would like to let the audience know about anything you're excited about right now.

01:01:04 ◼   ► Or if you've got anything that you've got going on that you would like to tell the audience about, please do.

01:01:09 ◼   ► Oh, gosh.

01:01:10 ◼   ► I'm all done with all of my exciting things.

01:01:13 ◼   ► Well, what are they?

01:01:15 ◼   ► I mean, like the stuff I was doing with Goodstore because that's –

01:01:18 ◼   ► Yep.

01:01:18 ◼   ► Well, the socks are over.

01:01:20 ◼   ► The dishwasher detergent, I believe, will come back in stock, but it's out of stock.

01:01:25 ◼   ► But that's one.

01:01:26 ◼   ► People can go, and I'll put a link in the show notes, to the Dishwasher Powder Eco Geek.

01:01:31 ◼   ► They can put their email in, and I think they'll be notified about it.

01:01:34 ◼   ► So that's something.

01:01:35 ◼   ► They should be, and I hope people are looking out for that.

01:01:39 ◼   ► So, yeah, I mean, I'm working on the next video in the engine management series.

01:01:44 ◼   ► I have a cool demo that I would like to do, but I don't yet know if I can capture it on camera.

01:01:49 ◼   ► Do you know what a timing light is?

01:01:51 ◼   ► I don't think I do, no.

01:01:52 ◼   ► There are really cool things that you used to have to use to tune your car.

01:01:56 ◼   ► You would clip it around one of the spark plug leads, and it would sense the current going through the spark plug and would flash a strobe light at the same time.

01:02:06 ◼   ► And the idea was you would hold this light up against the spinning crankshaft of your engine, and because it's flashing the strobe light when the spark plug fires, it causes a persistence of vision effect, which makes the crankshaft appear as if it's not moving.

01:02:20 ◼   ► And so you can adjust the ignition timing using this device.

01:02:25 ◼   ► And on my Nissan Figaro, which has a distributor, but it's modern engine computer controlled, I was able to hook up the timing light, and you can actually see the computer making step adjustments to the ignition timing.

01:02:38 ◼   ► Wow.

01:02:39 ◼   ► I'm really hopeful that I can capture that on camera, but I haven't tested that yet.

01:02:44 ◼   ► So I guess this can be a fun little secret behind the scenes thing.

01:02:49 ◼   ► So people should subscribe to Technology Connections on YouTube, and eventually, at some point, they will find this.

01:02:55 ◼   ► So hopefully they see a cool demo of an old car and a timing light, and you can talk to your dad and be like, remember that?

01:03:03 ◼   ► I really hope that you enjoyed this episode.

01:03:06 ◼   ► I want to thank Alec again for joining me.

01:03:09 ◼   ► I loved talking to him.

01:03:11 ◼   ► This was a really interesting conversation to me, and also surprising, too.

01:03:15 ◼   ► I think that probably came across some of his answers were not necessarily what I expected that they would be.

01:03:20 ◼   ► But of course, there is more conversation to be had.

01:03:23 ◼   ► Alec has long spoken about Patreon being how his channel makes money.

01:03:27 ◼   ► He doesn't do ads.

01:03:29 ◼   ► He doesn't do traditional merchandise.

01:03:30 ◼   ► I wanted to know more about this.

01:03:32 ◼   ► So on more text for this episode, we dig into how Technology Connections makes money and the decisions made along the way.

01:03:40 ◼   ► If you want to hear this, just go to getmoretext.com and you can sign up.

01:03:44 ◼   ► You'll be supporting the show.

01:03:45 ◼   ► You'll be getting free listening and bonus content as well.

01:03:48 ◼   ► I want to thank you all for listening to this episode.

01:03:50 ◼   ► I will be back again very soon with another episode in the State of the Workflow series.

01:03:55 ◼   ► And don't forget, if you want to hear about my yearly theme, go and check out the video that I made on our YouTube channel.

01:04:00 ◼   ► Thank you so much for listening.

01:04:02 ◼   ► I'll speak to you soon.