8 Bits with Katy Farmer!
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Chloe Condon 2:02
Looks like we've made it thank you PJ. We're back. You know, we were just in the in the private chat a little a little behind the scenes look here at eight beds. We get pumped on that song every time. Our podcast listeners get to hear that song Right, right, Brandon?
Brandon Minnick 2:21
Oh, of course, we do not edit that after the podcast. cuz everybody should subscribe to.
Chloe Condon 2:27
It gives me like. Yes. Where can people subscribe to our podcast? Brandon,
Brandon Minnick 2:35
we can find us at eight bits.tv. It's probably the coolest URL I've ever gotten the opportunity to purchase? Because it's a.tv. Yeah, if you go to ABC TV, you can subscribe to the podcast, you can see all the previous episodes or if you prefer to watch us on youtube via video, then you can check out all the live streams to everything. Everything we do is there. And
Chloe Condon 3:00
now all the previous apps with all the awesome guests that we've had, we've done almost 50 episodes at this point we're getting there. What is it?
Unknown Speaker 3:08
Yeah, already
Brandon Minnick 3:11
been going for over a year. Now you're doing it once a week with the exception of when we aren't allowed to stream because Microsoft is having a conference or maybe there's a holiday like I don't think we did it over New Year's. But yeah, we're around the corner on the year number two.
Chloe Condon 3:28
We've been at it for a year now. And just like Brandon said, if you want to watch any of the previous episode, and we've had some very cool guests, some guests that are in the chat right now. Also, if you're listening to the podcast, we do this as a live stream live every Wednesday at one pacific time. So definitely come if you ever want to ask questions, live to our guests. And just get involved with the show. Come and join us. We have a good time, right PJ PJ is in the chat.
Brandon Minnick 3:58
And maybe you can be a guest on the show one day to
Chloe Condon 4:00
Yes, full circle. Brandon, how have you been? How is your week Ben?
Brandon Minnick 4:07
Oh, so far so good. I do want to apologize in advance. We have a gentleman here that's removing a tree so if you hear chainsaws in the background or loud begging just know that I'm safe everything's fine you know what
Chloe Condon 4:24
judgment free zone we're all still technically working from home even here in California and I feel like who amongst us has not had a significant other or friend make an espresso in the background live stream so are welcome here
Brandon Minnick 4:44
to comment says removing the tree the internet yeah hopefully doesn't affect the internet cable and I go dark but yeah, we had a tree that its roots were encroaching in on the foundation. And so it was you know I hate cutting down trees. trees in reactive landscaping plans are going to add more stuff to the backyard soon. But yeah, we just bought this house and I can't afford to redo a foundation. So it's either that or the tree and portrait lost at that tree, hopefully won't be too bad.
Chloe Condon 5:19
Well, I am very, very excited here in California things have started opening up. So it's very interesting to go out into the world and, and be able to go to restaurants again, and not have to wear a mask all the time. So it's, I will say, it's very different. I think we all thought this would be a lot shorter that it would be and it feels you know what I kind of miss making faces that. Like, I kind of need to pull my expressions back in now. But um, it's been a lovely week to be outside. And yeah, I'm, I'm super excited. Because I'm hosting the static web apps, static web apps conference next week, you can go to aka.ms slash, s w a calm, it's going to be super fun. I'm, there's going to be a keynote by john papa. So that will be very exciting. But I kind of love this conference format, Brandon, because here's the thing. As we all know, I have ADHD, my attention span is very short, especially during a global pandemic, right. We're all home. We're in meetings all day. And it's really hard to pay attention in this cool trend that actually I'm sure our guests will have a lot to say about this, because they just ran a fabulous event similar to this as well, is the talks instead of being the usual, you know, 30 minute or you know, 45 minute with question format, or 15 minutes. So that's like super digestible for my brain. And I really, really excited because there's going to be all these announcements happening talking about the Azure static web app csli, how to do that, just like static web apps in the production API, all kinds of stuff. And I'm going to be your hostess with the mostess. I'm going to be hosting it, asking them all the questions, all your burning questions about static web app. So I'm really excited and also excited to learn more about static web apps, like I get to watch the whole conference because I'm hosting it. So maybe I'm gonna be making a static web app. My Furby Who knows?
Brandon Minnick 7:21
What, what even is a static web app?
Chloe Condon 7:24
Oh, great question, Brandon. Well, it's basically a way I just had a gross are basically the quickest way for your JavaScript to have static sites from code to scale. So the way that I like to explain it is, you know how I can get hub, you get a GitHub page with like, your GitHub repo automatically, very that very much just a static website, just very simple with JavaScript. You can get up and running very, very quickly. And just super excited to hear all the announcements. I use static websites all the time to just whip up something really quickly. You know, like, I think we always say, we don't want to reinvent the wheel. We don't have to want to build a website completely from scratch. So I use them all the time to host I think I have my Azure Mario Kart astrology on an Azure static web app. That sounds right. Just a great place to have all my data on all of my different Mario Kart characters and their stats, just, yeah, someone's new wheel is the best way. Yeah, as engineers, we tend to think that way. But there's a lot of really great tools to just help that be a lot more easier.
Brandon Minnick 8:33
Yeah, and you know, static web apps are great for anything where the data isn't dynamic. It's not necessarily interactive. So think of like a blogging platform, right? We're just posting articles. Those are great use cases for static web apps. And I would argue most websites could be static web apps. And if you can, you might want to do it, because it's way cheaper. So with Yeah, with Azure static web apps, they essentially what Azure does, it just saves your code and then on demand will display that to the user. So it's not like you have to pay all the server costs in the background. You just have this great looking website that you design that you don't have to pay a fortune for. So check it out. aka.ms slash SW a calm. So
Chloe Condon 9:23
a fun project. A static web apps project I'm gonna write this down is replicating a geo cities type page because we talk a lot on the show about tech selja and how much we loved our Angel fire. geo city is maybe like recreate that for an Azure static web app. Stay tuned, let it or to hear any updates in the Xamarin world? I went to Maui recently. How is Maui doing Brandon?
Brandon Minnick 9:56
data Maui is coming. We just pushed out Preview five of dotnet, six and also dotnet, Maui, they're still, we're still working at it. So obviously, it's still in previews, there's still certain things that aren't in the library yet. So things like if you ever needed the Xamarin Forms content view, we're still adding that to Maui. So it's still very much a work in progress. But you can check out the previews. So I wouldn't try using it yet for your App Store apps. But if you want to play around with it a little bit, get a feel for the syntax. That way, you're the dotnet Maui expert. Once it finally launches, go for it. But yeah, probably, I mean, preview six is gonna have a bunch more features in it. And, yeah, for the next couple months, it's just gonna get more and more feature complete. And then we'll obviously November, it'll move into ga into production. So it's very exciting. And it's all open source, and you can follow along. So please do but also stay tuned for all the updates over the next couple weeks.
Chloe Condon 11:07
So exciting. I keep seeing you and friend of the pod. squeaky talking about all of the awesome updates. come in around the mountain. Very excited. Um, cool. Should we bring in our guests, anything else? Anything else we want to update our listeners and our viewers about?
Brandon Minnick 11:25
That sounds good to me. I mean, let's, let's bring her in.
Chloe Condon 11:29
So excited. Okay, so I met this lovely human being, I believe, through the conference in boot camp world, we have another boot camp grad with us here today. And I believe I totally just fell in love with this creative person who had a lot of handwritten or hand drawn visuals and their presentation. And I was like an artist. I love it. So I'm very, very excited to welcome this person on the show. They are a beam of positivity in the tech community. Welcome, Katie. Hello.
Katy Farmer 12:06
Hi, now might be the nicest intro I've ever had. And I liked it. It's so true. I
Chloe Condon 12:12
just remember, you know, I came from a creative arts world myself and seeing a lot of tech talks and having, you know, this, this standard, you know, clipart, or, you know, the images that you get from a stock photo, if you will. But I loved all these handwritten hand drawn examples to illustrate a point. Do you remember what that talk was? I feel like a DevOps talk maybe?
Katy Farmer 12:34
I think, I think the first one that I maybe did was just like, what is time series data?
Chloe Condon 12:39
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Katy Farmer 12:41
Because here's the thing, every time somebody asked me a question, I don't know the answer to I'm like, Great. I'll go find out. And then I'll write a talk about which is the best
Chloe Condon 12:51
way to write a talk. I
Brandon Minnick 12:52
do that all the time. I call it conference driven development, where
Chloe Condon 12:56
I love topic.
Brandon Minnick 12:58
Yeah. So if there's a topic I'm excited about, like I did this years ago with graph QL. I was actually at a conference, I sat in a talk on graph QL. I was like, I need to learn more about this. So I just started submitting talks for it. And I was like, well, we'll see if one of these gets picked up, then I have to learn it. And it works. It works surprisingly, well. You'll definitely learn it. You might be stressed out. And you might be hating yourself because I submit this talk about it, think about it,
Chloe Condon 13:25
and you're probably nervous. You're fresh, content and exhilarating. I'm sure. I'm so good at reading manuals. That's what I basically have a degree in. So you know what, I feel like I better understood time series development because of your talk. Like I had a visual. I'm a very visual learner. And it helps me learn so thank you, Katie. And you know what, for you, Chloe, anytime. Thank you so much, Katie. It's all the lovely people tuning in and listening to the show about yourself and what you do.
Katy Farmer 14:05
Oh, well, Hello. I'm Katie. I am a community manager at circle ci right now. So that's one thing that I do. I have been a developer advocate. I have been an editor of PhD theses erotica, Nala novels. I worked in retail and I made a juice for a job one year I had never drank juice, but I was like, I get it. You put fruit in the juicer. Um, I am a sort of a person of all trades who have been in a lot of jobs and a couple careers. I went to college for music, switched courses to literature, worked in that for a while switch courses again. And so I am very much a renaissance woman One could say or you can always I'm saying that I just have ADHD both things would be true. So
Chloe Condon 15:08
yes. And if you're not following Katie on Twitter, her Twitter is the cater taught a lovely Twitter account, follow lots of positivity out there, but would love. So on the show, we talk, of course, about people's origin stories to tech and how they get here. And what led you to this career? And it sounds like you have a very musical path to tech. Is that correct?
Katy Farmer 15:35
Yeah, I would say that I really fought my way through a dark forest. And career wise, and maybe in some other ways, too. Like, I when I was a kid, I definitely have a really musical family. And it was one of the few things we all could kind of agree on was just that, like, we liked music. And that was one thing. So in school, I had the chance to start, you know, just like a regular band class. And once I was in, I played the trumpet, and I was just like, you know what I like about this, like one very loud, big fan. And I always had listened to a lot of like, older music that featured a lot more bras like Louie Armstrong stuff like that was just like stuff that I listened to around the house. So I was always exciting about it. And yeah, I kind of stayed that course for most of school. I loved playing. But I also knew that like, it was my best chance at like a scholarship to go to college. Like I loved it, but I was very much like big fish. small pond, like my high school was really rural. There were I think there were maybe 30 kids in band, but like, you know how it is like 25 of them were flutes, and you're like this can't be accurate. It's too many floats.
Chloe Condon 17:03
We had to test into an instrument at my elementary school, which I have a lot of thoughts on and would love to get. So we have two other band geeks here on the show. Brandon, you are a percussionist. Is that right? Yep. And then we have a trumpet player here. I did not get to choose my instrument because and you have to imagine this is the 90s when cassettes are our chosen form of audio, not high definition. And we had an instructor, lovely woman, but she played all these sound effects and we had to mark on a sheet like on a on a, like a test sheet. What sounds we preferred, but looking back I can't imagine like imagine a flute on a low residue set. I would have been like no, too shrill, right like very old equipment. Well, I've listened to you can call me out opinions. Great song. Yeah, absolutely. And tested into so here's here's a little insight into my my fourth grade mind, alto sax, and I was only given these options like I'm sure someone's parents complaint and tried to get their daughter into flute but mine didn't matter. My options were what is the big one sousaphone, sousaphone the big one that you have to wear around you? Yeah, it's like a tube overseas or to that and a saxophone alto sax? And, you know, I want to be with all my friends and play like a different instrument. But no way it was I had to play. I was like, I cannot know people who make fun of me if I play the tuba. So I went with alto sax, I had to test into it. Did you get to pick your instrument? Katie? Yeah, fully. No one. No. One in the machine learning? Did I have to
Katy Farmer 18:55
get my history? I think you were part of an experiment. I think there's data out there that we could be using
Chloe Condon 19:02
did you choose?
Brandon Minnick 19:04
So I'm a little unique. So I moved to Florida, the summer for sixth grade. So the summer for middle school here in the US. And the new school I was joining. Or actually I should rephrase that in. In the school district. I was joining. They didn't teach instruments until Middle School. Whereas when I lived in New York, we started band in second or third grade. So I had already been playing percussion for a couple years. And so yeah, in middle school, they also had you test into an instrument. So you went around you played maybe you got to try all of them.
Chloe Condon 19:44
No hands on, it was no hands on. not accessible either. Because imagine if you're heard of hearing like come on. This is not exactly
Brandon Minnick 19:53
yeah. So actually, yeah, I thought was pretty cool. Yeah, like you got to go around and like try out the tuba and see if you could get To make a sound because, honestly, that's the hardest part about it instrument is like, do you know how to buzz your lips to make a brass instrument? Create a sound? Do you know how to use a reed for woodwind? I mean, percussion is pretty easy. You just hit stuff with a stick. And usually, that's enough to make a sound. Yeah, I was fortunate to where I already had experience in percussion. So I just, well, I still test it in, but I was kind of
Katy Farmer 20:28
interested in but you were like, real cocky about it.
Brandon Minnick 20:32
I will say the big difference was I did a little bit of so percussion is anything from, from drums to what we call keyboard instruments. So xylophones, marimbas, Viber phones, chimes, anything like that. Anything you hit with a stick, or a mallet. And so the biggest difference in the middle school was they had like zero dial phones. marimbas. And I had never played those before. So she the band director put some site music on the music's and was like, okay, play this on the xylophone. I was like, but how do you do that? Can I just play the snare drum? But yeah, now I can do all of it.
Katy Farmer 21:14
Yeah, I definitely feel like there was none. Again, I went to school in the woods, nobody paid attention. I'm very, I feel very lucky that there was banned at all. Um, it was very small, rural area in Oregon. And yeah, so there were only ever I think, maybe three or four trumpets in the band. And, and I happen to be the best out of that group. So I also felt very accomplished. But the sample size was not, you know, wasn't really enough to go off of, but I did. I did get a scholarship. And it was a, I don't know, I think, you know, looking back, you're like, that was a really special thing. I'm really glad that happened for me. But at the time, I was just like, this is what is supposed to happen. Like, this is the path I'm supposed to be on. Like, of course, I got a scholarship, I worked very hard. Even though it's probably as random as anything else. You know. Like I was, you know, I didn't I didn't love living at home, it wasn't a super happy place. And but I loved music. And so the idea to like, leave on that and have it be my way out felt very poetic, which I was also very into, I was into like, a lot of drama. A lot of Evanescence, like, just like a real just a vibe, you know, just like a, like a sad girl vibe. That I was just like, very, very about and with
Chloe Condon 22:45
a music scholarship, what does one like? What field does one go into with a music scholarship? Because I know, as an actress, we would ask me that all the time. Like, I want to be an actress or, you know, like, I would teach acting? What does that look like for a music scholarship?
Katy Farmer 22:58
Yeah, so I mean, most people either know that they're going to be in the symphony, and that takes a long time. You just kinda have to wait for like a lot of older people to die. Or currently probably.
Chloe Condon 23:16
is a symphony. Every state have a symphony, actual question I do not know the answer to and what defines a symphony like, can I? Because I feel like in the Bay Area we have. Oh, it's a lovely. It's like a group Symphony in the East Bay that meets up as kind of like a crowded Symphony. So what? What is the symphony? Katie?
Katy Farmer 23:39
These are all great questions. I want to say that most states have Symphony. I don't.
I don't know if they have one. Like, I don't know if there's one at a state level or if there's like, you know, because like Chicago, New York obviously have them. Boston. Yeah. Like there's a lot of a lot of great ones. There's a lot of like smaller ones, too. I learned
Chloe Condon 24:01
in Symphony Orchestra. I feel like I heard of it.
Brandon Minnick 24:06
Yeah, yeah, we have a San Francisco City orchestra as well. So maybe it's worth anything.
Katy Farmer 24:12
But I mean, those things like they don't really pay a lot of people like a lot of musicians. I know now they like will gig as you know, for theatres, right? They'll be like in the orchestra pit. But that's just like a
Chloe Condon 24:30
Broadway is a pretty steady music job. I would think kind of in the same way that I feel like an actor steady job would be a TV show, or a Broadway show or a touring show. Sounds like symphonies are kind of a sweet gig sometimes.
Katy Farmer 24:43
Yeah. And I was one of those. I think, again, because I have this like, I just very determined to plan for like getting out of dodge. So I was like, here's what you do. You get your scholarship, and you go through college, and then you join a symphony, any Symphony, whoever will take you you do that until your first Then you move up to a bigger Symphony in your first year, and then eventually you're the conductor. That was sort of my, you know, not everyone wants to be a conductor, but I thought it would be really cool. Um,
Chloe Condon 25:10
is it very Game of Thrones in the symphony world? I'm genuinely curious. Like, if you're like, I don't know how many trumpets there are like, six trumpets? Do you like have to fight your way to first trumpet?
Katy Farmer 25:22
Yeah, you do. There's usually some kind of like, in the same way that you might have tested into an instrument there were like tests within the sections, right? And you all play the same short piece, and then the conductor, whoever judges you, and then puts you in order. I will
hear that I didn't know how they determined the numbers. Yeah, they basically like you all play the same thing. Sometimes it's like, it's not just talent. Sometimes it's range. Like, right, like, Oh, well, you know, Katy can hit this, like higher range. So she needs to be in the parts that are going to have the higher range, like in the same way that you might do with voice lessons. But like, for me, I think I was just I was very lucky that I have sort of like a good sense of musicality, again, I think just from being exposed to it a lot at home. And also, everyone else was bad. So sometimes the tests it sounds like, like, it sounds like a lot of whiteboarding for music almost to be like a professional.
Yeah, like, there's a lot of, you're on the spot in front of and it's not like they're like, okay, trumpets go into this room, and we'll figure it out. It's like, here you are with the entire Symphony or the band or whatever. Play your piece. Wow. Right. So it's very much based on that I,
Chloe Condon 26:46
like stand up. It's Symphony stand up. Yeah.
Katy Farmer 26:51
I hated it. I mean, I hated the like, because here are some things you can't do super well with a dry mouth play a brass instrument. So you know, like, there are some instruments that I feel like if they're percussion or any, like the strings, that if you're like, a little nervous, you can sort of work around but if you get a dry mouth here, like a little shaky, which I always was, then it starts being like, Oh, what a cool vibe. Bravo, you have like, thank you. I'm really nervous.
Chloe Condon 27:21
Singing as well. I feel like there's certain instruments that your, your body language or even just your mood can affect how you play very much very much. And
Katy Farmer 27:31
I'm when I got into college, still number one, but but still kind of a small college
Chloe Condon 27:41
scholar among us.
Katy Farmer 27:43
Yeah, no big deal. But I've read some books. I definitely like it was wildly difficult. And I went specifically to a school that was like, really rigorous academically. Because that's what I wanted. I want I just wanted to like, I always loved school. I like again, like, if you're not super excited about being in your home, then like school is a good backup. And so I loved being at school, I would get there. Not voluntarily, but just because of like my family's transportation and stuff. I would always be there super early. Reading every book, I would just be like, I remember going to the library and being like, what is the longest book in this library? And she said, I think at the time, it was the, the Once and Future King. Okay, which is like an Arthurian novel. For King Arthur, and it's not good or interesting. I read it, I read it so hard.
Chloe Condon 28:42
So you say that you read the longest book,
Katy Farmer 28:45
so I could say and that was very much how I was. I think I just, I wanted to do the hardest things. So that I would feel you know, like worthwhile and valid and like, Okay, well, I'm maybe not like the strongest person in my family. But I've read the most books, I'm smarter than them, or, which is like, not a good way to measure any of that. But
Chloe Condon 29:07
I identify with that. I watched every musical at blockbuster. And that was like a thing that I had to do. I couldn't explain it. But I was like, I need to watch every single one of these. So I am the expert at these musicals. Okay.
Katy Farmer 29:18
Yeah, like I needed to be in like the expert in my domain, because there were so many parts of my life that I felt had so little control over. So it was like, I'm on this path. And I play the trumpet. And then I go here, and I do this, but it was maybe only it was my my first year in college. So you when you're a music major, they're not messing around with the amount of credits you have to take because you have to study your own instrument. So you have like, a one on one like coaching basically, with a teacher. You have to be in the symphony, and probably also the jazz band like because there's always both right and so you're in both of those which are separate. courses with separate rehearsal times and performances and all the things. Every music major no matter what your instrument, you have to take piano, which I had never played any of these tiny baby hands can't reach the keys. The professor was just like the angriest, smallest, most furious little man in the planet, he had really specific rules. And he was, he was just like, you know, as an 18 year old have never been anywhere but home. He was absolutely terrifying. One time I remember at the piano recital, I was like, you know, you have to memorize everything. So I was like, playing my little beginner piece. And a lot of the other students were like, more advanced in piano because it was something that like a lot of music majors do learn. And I remember playing this piece, and I remember he just looked at me and he said, That was wonderful. But it was an original composition. Oh, I guess I didn't play the piece, right is what he was trying to tell me.
Chloe Condon 30:59
Like, a line from glee.
Katy Farmer 31:02
He was harsh. He was so just like, Yeah, I just I remember that. Because it was very funny. But also I wanted to be dead. So it was like, complicated.
Chloe Condon 31:12
Have you guys had like, I feel like I've had one or two teachers in my life like that. That just scared me into into learning the content, never good method to learn.
creative type?
Katy Farmer 31:29
I do think it happens a lot in the arts. Yeah. Because a lot of times, and this is something I came across a lot with, like being in music and a little bit and I was a little involved with the theater world was that sometimes people in those areas are given license to be not very nice. Under the guise of creativity and artistry, creative license. Yeah, we're like, oh, well, that's just how they are. But look at this magnificent thing that they made. I'm like, well, genius.
Exactly right. It's how it's like, I don't know, there's kind of this idea that like, in order to be creative, in order to be this creative genius, you kind of have to be unwell in some way, right? You either have, you have to, like have a condition or you just have to be like a miserable person. Like there's all of these ideas about like, what does it mean to be a creative genius, I think in very similar in tech, right, like the people who we think of as being like, Oh, well, this person, they're like the greatest programmer, and then we like make allowances for things that are maybe not very nice, you know, in the way that they treat people, right. And you can see it in all the stories of all of the like, original founders, jobs and gates, and you're like, yeah, they just like weren't nice to people. And people were like, that's okay. I believe in the dream. And I'm like, I have a dream of not getting a chair thrown at me. So like, That's the dream.
Chloe Condon 32:48
creative license is so subjective to like, like what constitutes like a good piece of art. My mom was a artist and also taught art and especially when you're dealing with children, but especially with adults giving feedback is important. But artists are subjective, right, like, and I think that was the most difficult thing for myself as a non technical person with code. You forget a semi colon and the code does not work and it will not run and you are doing a bad job. If you can't get your code run but with arm it was so you know, if you're an actress, there's so many different ways someone can portray a role or if you're an artist, there's so many different ways that people can paint something. So that's been a very interesting black or white transition from my left brain life and detec I think and I'm sure with with music, that's probably pretty similar, right?
Katy Farmer 33:38
Well, if you know what it's like, you kind of you've led me to fascinating territory, Chloe, it's like you're good at this.
Chloe Condon 33:45
Are you more of a jazz fan? Katie?
Katy Farmer 33:48
I do like some surprises. I'm not gonna lie. That's why I like JavaScript, right? It's just like, I know, maybe there won't be a semi colon. But today, you know, what's more important, or the semi colon? You don't type? Oh, wow. That's, that's a jazz joke. For fans out here. But yeah, so like, I very much I realized about a year into this, like really intensive music degree that I had a I had a problem, which was my jaw, there's something not quite right. And I didn't know what it was. And and now I do, but it doesn't, it's not super helpful. It's just in a very exaggerated form of TMJ, which is kind of like lockjaw, basically, but my jaw just started it started to hurt started to hurt and I mean, you're playing for hours and hours a day. And I realized that like, the, the plan, the the the sort of path that I was on, I could see it just like evaporating. Do you know what I mean? Like, I was just like, my face hurts and I went to the nurse. Again, this is another person who scared me a lot and Probably maybe wasn't an expert. She was just the campus nurse. And she said, Oh, yeah, if you don't get your job reset, but with a surgery, it's gonna it's going to be stuck forever. And I was like, Well, I guess I'll just go
Chloe Condon 35:18
musical A Chorus Line, there's a whole song about, you know, what I did for love was, which is essentially if you're a dancer, your job is to dance. And if you get an injury, if you break your leg if you you know, or if you kind of age out of being the age range of a ballerina ballerina, your job is over. So like, yeah, having that passion for something and not being able to do it is so difficult.
Katy Farmer 35:41
Yeah. So I feel like I just went through a period of like, I mean, I was definitely depressed. And I was a little like, at sea, and I switched to I switched schools to somewhere less intense. And I got into literature, which had always been something I was interested in, you know, I was already reading the biggest books there were so didn't sound too harsh. Um, and, and I did I mean, like, Look, if somebody could just pay me to read all the time if that were the job. Okay, great. I loved my time studying literature and being in it, but like, yeah, like, what? I wouldn't pay that much for it again, like, No, probably not.
Chloe Condon 36:24
Right? It's that like, what would you do? What do you do with a BA in English from Avenue Q is it is a song like, I think when we're for folks, creative folks like us, I think, oftentimes, people don't come up to us and say, Great, like, what are you going to do with your theater degree? Do you know how much you will make as an actress? Do you know how much you know? Do you know what it's like to be a trumpet player in a professional Symphony? And what that life looks like? And I think it's very, it's very cool to see people from these non traditional backgrounds come into their because a lot of us have like, never heard of computers like what what was your computer relationship?
Katy Farmer 37:01
I zero, it was none. I didn't have a computer at home. We It was either something we were like, I don't really know if it was something the family like, I mean, we couldn't afford it slash there was very little interest. the only the only things I knew about computers came from my grandpa, who was very, was ahead of his time. He loved that man loved Radio Shack more than all of us. And I was fine. Yeah, he he was always bringing us like fun little electronic things. And he got us our first sort of computer, which was a called a Web TV. Oh, oh, it's horrible. It's like if you had a computer, but it didn't work. As far as I understand it, I'm going to be like a little bit wrong about this. But basically, it was just something you hooked up to your TV as an internet proxy. So your TV became the monitor. And you just had like you said, Webley, yeah, it had an infrared keyboard
Brandon Minnick 38:01
board. Yeah,
Katy Farmer 38:02
yeah. And the funniest thing to me was, I remember ours was hooked up to this TV that like, was so old, it didn't have a remote. It had knobs. Wow, that like juxtaposition of being like, I'm on the internet on this TV from like, 1972.
Brandon Minnick 38:19
Over to channel three.
Katy Farmer 38:21
That's exactly the channel. And I remember not understanding it, like I remember, like not knowing what to do with the internet. And at that time, it was like relatively limited, right? It wasn't like, or at least it was on the Web TV, it was a little bit like, you know, there wasn't like a Google search engine. It was just Web TV search. There was like, there was like a Web TV search, I think, again, it was like relatively limited in this like, strange, proprietary way. And it had a guidebook that it came with, so that you could look up keywords in the guidebook and then look them
Chloe Condon 39:03
up to help out here. No, no assistance.
Katy Farmer 39:07
But I use computers in school a little bit. I took like business classes. So I learned how to type and like, I generally, like knew what they were, but just like, I was not fluent in any way. Um,
Chloe Condon 39:19
and they just weren't around you. It sounds like
Katy Farmer 39:21
no, they just did. They just weren't there. And when they were like, I didn't have the context to understand what they were for. Like, I just, I remember my grandpa being like, yeah, you could like I don't know, type in horses, and then you'll see something about horses and I was like, why would I type in horses? He's like, it's an example. And I was like, I don't care about horses even a little Is there something else?
Chloe Condon 39:43
Okay, I love this. Because when I think so I imagine Katie and I were pretty similar ages, with the internet to me as a child, like I'm going to say four or five, six early computers. My grandpa had a computer. And the only websites that I knew about were websites that started popping up on TV. So like Disney Channel tv.com, or like zuke disney.com. So the only websites I was visiting was like 101 Dalmatians live action movie.com. And I didn't understand what significance a computer would have to me or the internet specifically, because I was like, this is just information about the movie like you. I don't know, I haven't even seen this movie. But it would have Glenn Close on it and some sparkly Dalmatians. But I think that's such it is like Brandon, you probably had a very different relationship with the internet, right? When you were younger.
Brandon Minnick 40:36
I mean, we, we were kind of the opposite of Katie's family, like we had a computer really early on like before, is either at windows 3.1, or before windows 3.1. I mean, remember, I learned MS DOS back in the day, as just that's how I use the computer. And really, if I'm being honest, it was a dad showing me how to play video games on the computer. So it's like putting the floppy drive and then run this command to kick off the xe file and MS DOS. But yeah, I mean, the the the internet was unique back in the day, before we had great search engines. I mean, they slowly started coming out like there was, was it like Alta Vista? I mean, Yahoo search used to be
Chloe Condon 41:22
solidly on AOL my first five years. AOL
Katy Farmer 41:29
was on the equivalent of like, the store brand. Do you know what I mean? It's like, Oh, I was on Web TV. Maybe you've heard of it? No.
Brandon Minnick 41:40
But yeah, I mean, like you said, going back in the day, before search was really a thing. And but Well, before, like, really, really good, fast search was a thing. Yeah, you just had to know the URL. And so you just go to the websites you knew and like, kind of like how today we'll share like, like memes and stuff with friends, like back then we would forward emails with like, links URLs, and like, you just bookmark them. And you have his bookmark folder that was just gigantic. Those are the only websites you do about in the world. Yeah, it was, it was a strange place. Back in the day,
Katy Farmer 42:15
I got a bunch of emails from my grandpa, he was the only person that ever emailed me. And they were all, you know, jokes, like chain things. They were just like, very silly jokes that weren't funny, but I read all of them. I even still have a very old yahoo email. And like, there are easy ways to shut it down. I just kept it because that's like, he's not around anymore. And it was just like, I was like, I'm gonna keep my grandpa's emails, I'm gonna keep them in this special Yahoo account that he used to email me at. And like, you know, it's like a little time capsule.
Chloe Condon 42:50
But so jealous of y'all because I it's kind of funny that I work at Microsoft, because my family was a family of artists. And my mother was learning graphic design. So naturally, she wanted one of those big I mean, it was beautiful. Those candy apple. Oh, clear. Mac giant, like craters. Yeah, but I was so upset because all I wanted to do was play games on the computer. And there were no games for Mac. They were only PC games. And I had a neighbor friend who had putt putt goes to the parade. And all I wanted to do is play this game. I'd never played a computer game before this. It was like mind blowing to me. And so slowly, but surely my parents would take me to fries and I could find Mac specific games, but they were so rare. And I Brandon, I'm so jealous of this game life. And we have people in the chat here talking about Mickey Mouse games like that, that we're on. Oh, 720 k floppies. Wow. Yeah. a gateway to tech that I think I missed out on a little bit. Yes.
Katy Farmer 43:53
We had, we had like some consoles with a Super Nintendo and I had a we had like the original Gameboy. I think my mom still has it. Like it still works, because those things are are bricks. But like, I definitely I think something that came up later was that I did not understand computers outside the context of the internet either. Right? So like, I became internet literate. Like in college. I my partner was a programmer. And so they helped me like understand a little bit they fixed my computer a lot. I got my first laptop as like a college gift. And then, but like I didn't do anything else, but get on Yahoo chat or whatever. Like, so a lot of times in Star Wars chat rooms. Ooh, no. begaye pretty cool.
Chloe Condon 44:45
great conversations happening in there.
Katy Farmer 44:46
Oh, man. It's like so easy to live on your age on the internet. And I don't recommend it to everyone out here who's maybe just don't do it. It's not it's not great. But I did and I think I didn't I understand like, the internet as a separate concept from computers, right? Like, I have no concept of like hardware or what that. Um, and I don't know why it just like didn't it just didn't occur to me because this was the only context I'd ever really worked with them and even things that like, you know, I learned a bunch of software in school like, you know, you learn like the Microsoft suite in in full. But in my mind, although maybe I knew it wasn't on the internet. I don't think I had a concept of like, what is computer? Yeah.
Chloe Condon 45:35
And you said you got your first computer at how old 1818? Wow,
Katy Farmer 45:41
yeah, I got I got a laptop as a college gift. I had to buy a wireless card for it. It was a it was a big was a big deal. You know, and the Wi Fi. Yeah, like Internet in your
Brandon Minnick 45:55
bedroom.
Chloe Condon 45:56
Let me check my router real quick.
Katy Farmer 46:00
I didn't it you know, for many years. After I switched degrees, I, I worked the entire time I was in school. And through pure nepotism, I'm not ashamed to admit my, my partner worked in it at the college and got me a job there. And they were like, cool, what do you know about computers, I was like, I could type so much. But basically, I just learned about computers through that job and spent the next four years as I finished my degree is working in it and working in support. And, you know, I mean, like, when it comes to that, kind of like university setting, the computers were just like, not that complicated, because there's a limited amount of things they let people do on the computers in that setting. So it's like, um, you can get a virus, but I can just like, wipe it, and it's fine. I started learning about like, hardware separate and what you could do on the internet, and when I graduated, I lost my job because it was a student specific job. And I was like, I'm gonna guess I could work at like, Best Buy. And that made me not thrilled to think about because I had worked in a lot of retail already. And like I was telling you before the break, I was real tired getting yelled at by customer. One time, I just wouldn't sell this woman. The like, you know, they have like beds in the department store. And they have like, bedding on them. And she wanted to buy the things that were on display. And I was like, I literally don't have the knowledge to be able to do that for you. Like I couldn't if I have nothing, you can't do all this. And yeah, she chased me to customer service, throwing little decorative pillows at me the whole way. And I was just like, man, do I love 725 an hour this much.
Chloe Condon 47:54
Tales from retail could be a whole other show. I think I think that's our show, Katie.
Katy Farmer 48:01
So I knew I didn't want to get back into that. But I was definitely, like losing music set me on feeling adrift for honestly, like, way longer than I'm proud of. I think I just didn't realize it. I didn't realize like it was a one it was like an outlet, right? Like all artistic things was like this expression. But it had also served as a kind of like therapy and medication for me also. And so losing it and I think kept me from feeling this like purpose. And so I was just kind of like drifting and after I graduated. I again, just I lucked into a job as a freelance editor. Kind of, I mean, I was looking for editor jobs. And I got lucky as a freelancer. But I was just moving commas around all day, which is not the worst thing in the world.
Chloe Condon 48:51
And you were reading probably and
Katy Farmer 48:54
I was reading hard, okay, like nobody's business. And I felt very lucky in that because I was freelancing, I did a lot of different projects and get to read about 1000 different subjects, like somewhere between, you know, a PhD thesis on whether tropical earthworms can rehabilitate soil to full romance novels that were hard to correct because they were so specific. And I did never six or seven years, I you know, I did it for a pretty long time and I really enjoyed it, but it didn't feel like enough and when you're freelancing, you know, it's, it's a hustle. Like, I was always worried and and I was relying on my, my at the time spouse's income, right, like, they were a programmer. And so we had this like household income, so I didn't have to worry about it as much. But I wanted more. I just didn't know how to get it and I They always had wanted me to learn to code. But I came across a lot of the problems that you talked about earlier, which is just that, like, what I had no concept of it before I met them. And also, it felt like this very formulaic thing. I was just like, Yeah, get it, like, you memorize the things. And then you type those things where they belong. Like, that was my sort of, you know, preconceived notion of it. And I think, that was just like, specific to my partner, almost like they had a certain experience where like they had had, they had started with basic when they were a kid, and moved up with it. And the way that they programmed was very, was very mathematical, because they, as a person were very mathematical. But I wasn't, so I just like, didn't see it happening. And it wasn't until I started meeting. Like, more co workers and people in the community, then I started seeing that, like, the ways that code could be more creative, and be more expressive. And I thought, like, Oh, well, that's something I do know how to do. Like, that's something I am interested in, like, if the point of learning this is to then create another thing that I love. Like, that totally makes sense. Like, if I learned,
Chloe Condon 51:13
you know, crafting sort
Katy Farmer 51:15
of exactly right, like if the if the outcome is another piece of art, then yeah, it's totally worth learning. And it doesn't have to be just for, I don't know, like, I don't know what I thought it was for before. I was just like, I am not math, math, right, which most of us know is just not true. And also, like math is also learnable. It turns out, like, I didn't spend a lot of time on it. So I thought I was bad at math. But it turns out, most people are not bad at math. They just don't practice math.
Chloe Condon 51:47
Very bad.
Katy Farmer 51:48
Yes. Right. Now, you didn't spend time. You didn't spend time practicing it and therefore you're not great at it. Like just like anything else. And
Chloe Condon 51:58
I think it's so full circle that I saw you give this talk where you had drawn your own illustrations in the talk because I thought, Oh cool, someone adding something creative to their talk.
Katy Farmer 52:10
Like I was always really important to me that like when I saw when I finally decided like, okay, now's the time to code. I knew that I was going to go to a boot camp because I don't if I could have learned it on my own I would have learned it in the many years of the relationship that I was in with this expert you know what I mean? I just am not great at learning such a such a new concept on my own. So I knew I needed to be in class. That's a question I people ask me a lot. It's like how did you know you needed to go to a boot camp and like for me, it was just like, I need to be in a classroom with somebody telling me there's a chance I might not be good
Chloe Condon 52:50
external accountability. Shout out to frequent co host and guess the pod PJ for being self taught because I don't have the discipline. I need other people around me.
Katy Farmer 52:59
Yeah, well, things I've taught myself. Literally nothing. I will eat until I get a stomach ache. Unless someone is like, Excuse me. Excuse me, excuse your stomach hurt. I'll be like yeah, does I don't understand. I knew I needed to be in a classroom and I went to the the touring school in Denver. Which, which was great. And it was a little bit longer than some of the other ones. I can't remember a lot of my life previous guests
Chloe Condon 53:26
of the show, Danny also went to terrain school, we've got a lot of terrain folks out in the community that are just killing it. And in senior roles and out in the world.
Katy Farmer 53:37
Let's I mean, I'll say that I have a lot of opinions about boot camps. And as anyone who goes to a boot camp does, right, but like I think touring definitely, like was one of the better schools and continues to be I think as far as the curriculum goes, and I thrived in the school environment. Like I said, I just like being in school. Yeah, I just like it people are like here's what you need to learn like you just need it the right school Katie?
Unknown Speaker 54:06
Right school? Yeah,
Chloe Condon 54:07
I think that's a lot of what we see with people who are on this show. And people that I know in the community who come to tech non traditionally is oftentimes we're just not around technology. It's not for lack of interest. Like we were all in a group chat earlier talking about Chucky cheese. I love shaggy cheese, and I love Disneyland and I know for a fact that was because the animatronics fascinated me, but I didn't have anybody in my life to tell me that's technology like that's something you could learn how to build and work with. So I think it's you know, sometimes it's just a matter of being introduced or even just marinating in the subject matter a little bit with a partner or with a friend that like, like PJ and Marina. But sometimes it just takes the right teacher even I think probably
Katy Farmer 54:54
well and it's so fascinating because like i during my time in boot camp, because I had made. I mean, it was like a big life change. And I tell this now when I, when I talk to people who are in boot camps is like, okay, nobody's really at this boot camp because everything was going great. Like, that's not when you decide to change your whole life usually, like,
Chloe Condon 55:14
you don't just wake up and pay a bunch of money and decide to make a career change. Right?
Katy Farmer 55:18
You reach a point, right? It's usually some kind of breaking point. And it's a big risk. It costs money and time, and you don't know if you're going to be good at it. And I was filled with fear the entire time. I mean, again, I have an anxiety disorder. So I am filled with fear most of the time, but like extra and during that boot camp time was the time when I had a full like, I started, it had been many years since I'd had like a panic attack or something like that. And those started coming back, because that environment is so intense.
Chloe Condon 55:49
Did you know what imposter syndrome was before your boot camp? Because I did not
Katy Farmer 55:53
know, I heard people talking about it. And I was just like, I don't know if I'm supposed to be here, because I'm too worried about everything. You know what I mean? Like I couldn't separate things that were going on. So I think for me, it was like I started having, you know, full like, I don't want to say regressions. But it was just another you know, when you have a any kind of disorder, it's just like, it's just where you're at in it, right? Your best is different every day. And my best wasn't, was just a little bit less than it had been before that pressure. But like, I started going back to therapy, and then for my like, sort of like capstone project. I learned JavaScript, just so that I could build a game, like we talked about, because I was like, how do I get people to understand like, what I'm feeling and having ideas for projects, when you're just free like that is hard. So I built a very bad, not not bad an idea was, you know, objectively, it didn't work. Like it was supposed to, but I built a game. That was a, I think it was called shine. And it was about going around and interacting with positive things in the game. And every time you interact into something positive, your little character got a little bit shiny or like glow. And then if you like, stayed by yourself for too long and didn't do the positive things that your glow would start to go down a little.
Unknown Speaker 57:16
No, okay, wait,
Chloe Condon 57:18
this is a great segue to following Katie on Twitter, because her Twitter is a beam of positivity almost as much as should I have bought in my life when I see my feet. Let's go girls have it just you know, hey, you can do it. You could do the thing. So everybody out there, make sure that you're following Katie on Twitter just for it is no surprise to me that you built a positivity out because that is just so your aesthetic. Oh my goodness. We we have had Okay, I feel like we have to have you back on and I'm so sorry you didn't get our best episodes are the two parters because there's so much journey here. And I think this is a great, this is an episode that I am going to send to folks who asked me about boot camps. part one and part two that we're gonna have you back on here for. But Katie, where can people find you on the interwebs? And where should they go check out your stuff. And we're I think we're gonna just like make Katie come in on the show. She's gonna come back right, Katie? Yeah. recorded.
Katy Farmer 58:21
What is your best bit I love? I love Twitter. It's a horrible place that I like to send little boob positivity jolts into just to see what happens. It's chaos. And I think anytime there's chaos, there's a chance for something really good to happen. So find me. The cater taught on Twitter. That's your best bet. And you know, I work at circle ci. So if you're like, man, I need to work there. I love it so much. You can message me about that.
Chloe Condon 58:51
Wonderful, Katie, you're such a bright spot of positivity in the community. We can't wait to have you back. And I can't wait to just talk more about boot camps and the job search. We didn't even get to the job search. So
Katy Farmer 59:07
let's talk about just remove this as a reminder for myself. Let's talk about the worst interview we've all had.
Chloe Condon 59:15
Oh, that's a good cliffhanger. Yeah, I'm sure as someone who had to audition so much as the musician that we're gonna have some very interesting whiteboarding stories. Alright, y'all on that very intensely. I'm excited for this episode on this cliffhanger. That has been it for a bit. Brad, did you want to close this out? Yes. Thanks.
Brandon Minnick 59:37
Thanks, everybody for joining us. Make sure to check out all the episodes on eight bits TV, subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcasting platform. And we'll see you back here next week. Wednesday at 1pm Pacific. Bye, y'all.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
