This Is Not My First Apocalypse: Essential Tools, Time Travel Insights, and Lessons

0:00Incoming transmission [music] from the future. Vancouver AI community meetup. >> All right, so now the moment you've all been waiting for. Um, there's a cooler in the back with beers and bubbly wines in it. I'm going to set up Dave's little perch right here. We got Dave Olsen in here from Okyama, Japan. Um, I've been really sentimental about this the whole night like cuz I invoke Dave's name all the time at these meetups. Dave uh you know broadcasts in sometimes. He's the reason why we have a podcast cuz he's like, "Hey, you got to tell me what you got going on over there." So now Dave and my mom listen to the podcast. Um but

0:36I've been really sentimental about this whole thing. I'm really excited so many of you came. Grab a drink in the back. Come find your seat. I've got a handout to give you that me and Dave been working on for a month. And um we'll get this party started in like one minute here. Dave Olsen, come on up, buddy.

0:53[applause]

0:59Oh, hello. Hello everyone. Hello young Ichiro son. How are you, sir? He's smiling. That's all we need to know. Hello everyone. Uh my name is Kemp. Uh it is my great honor to be in front of you. Uh I've been working with Chris uh behind the scenes to help support him uh with this event. Although, man, as you know, Chris does so much. Um, and so, uh, I also, uh, it was a long time ago.

1:29It was like 2007, 2008. And I was sitting in a classroom at BCIT learning about social media. And I was like, I know all about this Twitter thing. And I was like, I have these three people. I need to learn. I need to meet these people. I'm going to use this Twitter thing. I'm going to meet these people.

1:44They're so cool. They're the coolest people. One was my future boss at Hootsweet. Uh, one was Dave and one was Chris actually. Um, if you Google Kris Krüg digital footprint, you will find my blog interview with Chris from 2008. It is very interesting. Um, but also uh Dave uh who has been sort of a mentor to me uh and uh uh manur manatee a kind of symbiosis has occurred over time. Uh but it is truly my great honor uh to introduce after 10 plus years we were here for Northern Voice, the last one that I recall. I remember sitting right there introducing Dave uh as he was giving a talk that was similar but different. Um but this is something all

2:30new and I'm so glad to be able to introduce Dave Olsen who needs an introduction. [applause]

2:43>> [applause] >> Where is our uh First Nations brother that gave us such that warm welcome off the top. Anthony George and just left. Oh, I brought a present all the way. Okay, I'll put her on standby. There will be other presents. >> All right, let's hit some slides. Let's see what happens.

3:06>> You got the You got the button right there, sir. So, here we are again together alone. Everyone good? >> All right. Well, this is not my first apocalypse. [laughter] Dear little Dave hanging out with his super cool bif focals. Have you ever seen bifocals look that punk rock on anyone? [laughter] and what seems to be a dwindling fire and a bowl of oatmeal. Well, when I think about that little Dave, I think, what would fi what would he find handy?

3:45Cuz tools, we humans love our tools, don't we? After all, so lighters. A collection. Everyone has a collection of lighters at home, right? >> Yeah. Yes, of course. >> And that cute little bifocal Dave would probably want a pocket knife. So, just in case next time I'm traveling through that time, I keep at least a dozen on standby cuz it seems like he would need that. But what he really wanted is a big knife cuz whoever's got the big knife wins, the biggest computer, the biggest thing wins. Or is it the person who has the best eyesight? Cuz all of you have a collection of glasses, too, right?

4:22>> Yeah. >> I'm going to make a mobile sometime. I think I paid for the orthodontist of children of opthalmologists by now. [laughter] Let that one sit for a minute. That was a lot of syllables and I pulled it off. Well, that's uh I guess we call it good now, eh? [laughter]

4:46But what I really love is scissors. I love these scissors so much. I bought them 3 years ago and I still haven't taken the tag off of them because it just looks so right. You know, I think about someone handmaking those scissors and tying the tag on it and coming all the way to my barn in Japan.

5:02Oh, and a good tape dispenser. We've been we've been fooled by big tape to put up with those tiny little crappy things. Single use tape dispensers. And really, if you're going back to an apocalypse, tape. Think of all the things you can do with tape. And parenting tip to any of you who are parents, get your 5-year-old a proper tape dispenser.

5:27>> Yeah. >> Yeah. And he's going and he's working out fine. He's working out fine so far. And then do that and then let's all check back in 10 years or so, right? Oh my god. Oh. And then typewriters. Who doesn't love a typewriter? Except the people who don't know how to fix things and have poor eyesight. Um, [laughter] I got a collection of those, too. They don't ship well. They don't travel well, but my goodness, when you sit down and type, it feels like doing trapeze without a net. On our computers, we can change anything. And if we want want to change it, we just ask a robot to change it for us. And even if we don't want to

6:07change it, there's little squiggly lines popping up. How hard is it to invent new words when there's always autocorrect in some word that you've come up with or giving you little things? No, I want to write. So, do you know what you do is you get a typewriter and the typewriter never complains except when it's a broken typewriter. Do you have your handouts? Did you get your handouts?

6:26>> Kathy, make sure you take one anyway cuz it's a great momento. So I I typed this on an Oliveti Lura 33, which it turns out, like everything on the internet, there's a massive subset of diehard enthusiasts about typewriters. They collect typewriter user manuals. They quibble about the different subsets and subm models. And sure enough, this Lura 34 that we found on our honeymoon at a thrift store, 2,300 yen, about 20 bucks.

6:58Uh, one, it's not listed in any databases because it's the model that has a yen key, which seems like it would be really valuable. No one really cares, right? [laughter] The second thing is there's a spring or something missing. So, the thing hiccups. So, you'll see I went diligently went out to type this thing. Now, I could have gone back and corrected all of that, but you know, where's the fun in that, right? You can see in there, some of you will figure out which of my keys is faulty. one of you will probably figure out well if you replace this spring then it will work out all right. I however do not have those skills.

7:31The other thing that's very handy to have during an apocalypse is a is a map. My family and I uh recently flew from uh obviously the we flew across the Pacific and every time I've done this I've done this so many times in my life. I've flown so many times and I'm always trying to make it slightly less sucky.

7:53Uh, however, I'm not I'm [clears throat] not one of those wealthy folks or one of those people who collects points. Uh, so there we were thinking about the only time I crossed the Pacific that I was comfortable was on a ship. So, I found this map. I drew a map just in case the ship got lost. I made some memorandum to share with the captain.

8:11Maps handy, right? And now we got uh, you know, all these devices. I remember in the days before there was just one or two dominant map service providers. Uh all the excitement about the ability to have a map to anywhere in your pocket robot. Now, do you know what's really fun is leaving the house with no maps or getting a paper map. Last summer, we took a road trip around Japan. We went to JAF, which is like the BCAA. They no longer produce paper maps. I was furious. But undaunted, I took a 1992 expressway map purely for aesthetic purposes. We did not use the map. They built some roads. Unlike Vancouver, infrastructure projects move along quite

8:57quickly. Oh, inside. [laughter] All right. Awesome new bridges. I've driven across several new bridges while we're staying in Langley. Has anyone ever been to Langley? [laughter] Oh, wow. More way more than I thought. I grew up in Siri, so there wasn't too many places we could make fun of. And actually, no, no one made ever talked about Langley, so there's really nothing to it. Okay, so the other thing that's great to have in apocalypse is friends and friends who stick with you and you find common ground on beyond things. So many people here. We met simply because we were using the same types of technology way back in ' 06 or whatever.

9:34And we all convened together and we have so many of these faces in here. We have all convened in many windowless [laughter] conference rooms with recycled air. Fortunately, this one has beverages and it's not surrounded by uh guys that smell like Axe body spray that are trying to get you to try their new database tool. [laughter] You totally know the guy. So, as a board certified time traveler, I have my card in here somewhere.

10:01Believe me, I have a certificate. Uh, I'm going to tell you a story about when I was back time back then, time traveling through Egypt. However, this photo, there's not a problem with time travel in Egypt. Not a lot of cameras. Only the Aztecs had cameras. But there is this snapshot from me in around the 1500 BCE. Um, doing a I was a stunt double for King Tut. Very rare job.

10:24Unfortunately, they killed me when he died at 19. However, the story I want to tell you [laughter] fast forwards another uh till about 300 B.CE after Alexander the Great told me told me the P is silent. That's how punk rock you can have a dynasty with a silent P. And it still lives through all those years. They built the Library of Alexandria.

10:49You've heard of it, right? Right. And then these tollies, the second and the third in particular, case you're keeping score, enacted a great terms of service agreement for anyone who wanted to bring a ship to Alexandria, which everyone did. It was a big deal. It was like an important city. It was a world class a worldass city. It was probably on top 10 list of most livable cities. You know those ones? Oh, dang. Melbourne. Oh, Zurich.

11:20They enacted a law that said anytime a ship came in uh to port, they could go on board and seize any documents, any manuscripts, any scrolls, any papyra, any clay tablets, anything that you had written. But it's okay. We're going to take the original, but we're going to have our scribes over there at the local kinkos make you a copy and then you get the copy back because it's the same words, right? So, we're going to keep the original. We're going to give you the copy and we'll let you stop stop here in Alexandria. And people like, well, gez, I guess, you know, it's a copy. It's good enough. Meanwhile, they're also sending people around to

12:00buy up, you know, private collections. They were doing the antique road show. They were going and buying they were on their eBay buying collections of books and stuff, right? But they really needed the the premium goods. So, they said, "Well, you know who's got the best stuff is those Athenians, right? Hang in there. [laughter] >> What are you copying me? [laughter] So then the the the those Greeks, right?

12:29They got the best the best stuff. And and this dynasty of Egyptians, you know, this was after 200 years of Persian rule. This was a Greek uh insp Greek Macedonian uh consortium dynasty that was running the thing. So they were like, "Hey Greece, man, you guys got all this great stuff." And they're like, "No, no, no.

12:47We know your scam. We're not sending you the works of Escilis. Like, come on. This is original, dude. This is a first edition Batman. We're not sending you this unless you pay us a deposit like like I don't know like a cost of doing business. Like what you would get is a fine from a that GPRD. Like what do those companies gets fines for? When you get a fine for addicting kids to social media apps and you get a fine like I don't know 5 million, 10,000, 50 million. Is it really any difference?

13:16just rounding errors, right? So the Alexandrian the the the folks who were working there in the library and keep in mind the library was a mighty campus and employed all kinds of professionals who their job was to copy things maybe decorate things maybe you know there's like free wine at the Tivera night things get a little sloppy there's some little jokes in there things get lost or whatever right but then there was also people who were hired just to think let's think about this stuff this categorize this what a beautiful thought taking all the knowledge of the world and categorizing having it instantly accessible. Oh, except that we stole most of it.

13:58So the Athenians uh you know sent for all the money Alexandrians never returned it. They started doing this scam all over the world until people start really started resisting but they're like well can't come here then. But that wasn't what really destroyed well the two things happened. one uh Julius Caesar invaded Alexandria. You know the story. Cleopatra was there. Da da da da da. But the main thing was they just stopped funding it. They just stopped paying attention. One by one.

14:25The scribes got better offers at some new startup. Scribes are us or whatever, right? They had a pingpong table is the perk, right? Get some stock options and something the Spartans. Who knows? This Homer guy might be on to something. Can I back? Can I Kickstarter his book? [laughter] So, I love library still right now.

14:53Library of Alexandria, it's all gone. We don't know where it is. Nothing really happened. There's no end of the story because no one was left there to write it down. And no one really bothered. No one was paying the bill to say, "Hey, would you mind writing this down?" And not everyone writes for free and Papyrus that cost money. So, we don't really know except that it wasn't maintained and fell into oblivion and all the world's knowledge disappeared. Okay, bye. And then [laughter] uh but now we live uh fast forwarding to contemporary times, we live in a city has majestic, right? Moment.

15:25>> Look at this. Who's that little guy on the screen? Oh, you was that tiny. We love libraries. And I heard recently about the way one of the one of the LLM models is gathering old text. They're taking old editions of books and cutting the spines off of them. Talk about a way to break my we achy heart.

15:54All right, Egypt. No cameras. Now we have cameras. What comes next as we time travel? Not where we at? Oh, Siri, 1979. [laughter] There were still dirt roads. Guilford Mall was brand new. [laughter] >> Yes. Imagine a world where you would have to get across the old Pillo Bridge with thank goodness that thing is torn down with that middle lane cuz it was always raining and you weren't really you may have had a driver's license but you were not a driver until you drove the middle lane of the Padulo Bridge on a Friday night at 10:00 in the rain and get past the turf. There's a reason the parents never told us what goes on in the turf.

16:44>> [clears throat] >> So Siri, it was a far away land. I took it upon myself to get a mimograph machine. Now in between that whole thing with the Egyptians and the Romans and mimograph machine, there was printing press, but everyone always brings that up and you know talks about Gutenberg and blah blah blah, but still you needed to go to a guy with a printer and pay money. Mimograph machines, oh my goodness, these things were cheap. You got like this carbonyy kind of um page you typed or wrote on it. You got some weird fluid that anyone over 50 remembers this from their elementary school? Do you remember that? Right? Or maybe some of you remember this from the

17:27church bulletin that told you about the bake sales mimograph machines. These were great because anyone like some goofball kid uh adorable with bif focals 8-year-old kid in Siri could foretell the eclipse of the sun. What if there was not this community newspaper available to tell people? They would be shocked. They would go out one day and there would be an eclipse happening. The second page had an instructible drawing about how to make your safety device so you could gaze the eclipse safely without burning your retina. Yeah. Um there was about 30 subscribers about what my blog has now. So you know if we're going to continue the same thing three same three column layout [laughter]

18:13seven years it took to get six years it took to get that lap. How many? [laughter]

18:23So, the Pig Express went a few issues, but it wasn't much longer that I uh discovered the joys of the road and I uh I went on a big road trip in this case. I'd already been on some trips, but I went on a big trip with my grandpa. He came and picked me up and he says, "Oh, we're going to be away for a couple of days." And two weeks later, we were in Mexico driving in his uh I don't know, like some little hatchback. He smoked two packs of c of Salem's a day, the Salem menthols. And every time I'd roll down the window, it'd be like, "Oh, there David. It's a little bit uh just a

18:59little bit cool there." [laughter] So, a little cute little trying to, you know, get a pre fake ID Dave. Pre- awesome beard Dave going along with uh and then he'd go in the back and sleep and I would uh drive in Mexico um unlicensed. We went across the border with my junior high school ID card and he had a letter from um some like ambass Mexican ambassador he played golf with like 15 years previously. Oh yeah, this this will be fine, David. This will be fine. He's in the back and he stops breathing, which is, you know, unnerving. But anyway, the point of this was [laughter] he started me making travel diaries, travel journals, and you can see my um

19:40uh interesting uh handwriting on the left and um oh, and then a little bit of grandpa's exceptional curs cursive up there on the top right. He taught me a couple things. Write everything down even if it doesn't seem important at the time. Um I've taken a different approach where I write down all the unimportant things, right? Which is great because that's what becomes poetry. His was very much a log book. Um, the second thing was on road trips. The best way to do this instead of one person driving until they're tired. Everyone alternate drivers every two hours. Just try it.

20:13Works. I no longer drive. Poor Dyoko just drives all the time. But I say every two hours like, "Oh, let's stop for a coffee." But that's actually just me. [snorts] [laughter] So, Mimograph gave us a means for copying our own thoughts. So did cassettes. Albums are beautiful form. I have far too much vinyl. I've had to have a serious relationship talk about my vinyl purchasing habits, etc. And never had the same love affair with CDs.

20:44But cassettes and cassettes, you all with that didn't throw away your cassettes from the 80s. Oh, buddy. Cha-ching. But making mixtapz is really fun because you send a mixtape to someone in the post and they're like, "Well, I don't have a cassette player." Like, well, now you have now you have a side quest to go get a cassette [laughter] player because do you know what's way more fun than a Spotify playlist?

21:09A cassette playlist. And you get to get your Sharpies out and scribble on the label and write little love notes on the the J card. So much fun. Has anyone not made a mixtape? All right, I mentioned Kinko earlier. Now, in dedication to my craft, I worked at a Kinko for three months.

21:32[laughter] For those of you under 50, Kinko was a copy center. Kinko in many ways was the internet before the internet was. Because in the town of Olympia, Washington, where I worked, everyone who had a band, a venue, a concert, a judo iikido club, a church musical, a play, was trying to publish a book, was trying to do a thing, was leaking secrets from their accounting firm. All of them came to Kinko's. And a lot of the weirdos [clears throat] came to the night shift where I was there with my little name tag said saying, "I'm here to help you.

22:07I'm Dave." They kept on putting me at the cash register despite my discalcul and inability and indifference towards money. But I got to work there to make stuff with all the machines. You know, sometimes things fall off the back of the truck, as they say, right? [laughter] I love this. I love this side of you, I love this side of you. I love your laughs.

22:34[laughter] So, uh, this I do have my name tag somewhere, but this, uh, shows us that once upon a time to correct things, you would get out a small container of liquid, which coincidentally, as the junior high kids knew, would get you high if you smelled it, and you would cover up the letters and go back and fix. I did not do this on your handout.

22:58I did not use the liquid paper. Has anyone ever seen the show The Monkeys? >> Michael's father. Michael Nesmouth's mother invented liquid paper. >> And for a short period of time, probably a 30-year lifespan, liquid paper was absolutely critical. Now, >> no, not so much. Invest wisely, kids. >> All right. So, story about me and the internet. Are you all hanging with me?

23:24>> Yeah. >> Okay. So, uh once So, I was making all these little arts and crafts projects, right? Like making all these fzines. In between there, there's punk rock. uh punk rock fanzines where I learned that if you make a punk rock fanzine, you can call up the promoter and they'll get you a free ticket and then you'll start getting free records in the mail which is like the best and then you start going other places and builds on a whole builds a thing. The downside is Xerox copies are significantly more expensive than Mimograph as I learned. My parents were in real estate in Siri in the 80s and uh I used their their key counter thing on the

23:59thing and on the machine and it turned into a whole debacle cuz all of a sudden my fans cost $80 to produce. It had Joey Ramon on uh Joey Ramon on the cover. Still, it's hard to recoup those kind of costs at a buck 50 a piece, right? Especially since everyone says, "Yeah, I'll totally pay you later for that, man. That's great. Cool scene, man."

24:20So, in between all that, uh, I started going elsewhere, far away, anywhere I could buy a one-way ticket to, cuz roundtrip tickets, it turns out they're way more expensive. You just buy a one-way ticket cuz in those days, no one cared if you had an ongoing ticket. You just go to a country, right? No one cared if you had a giant hatchet on your carry-on bag or a loaded camp stove. I can attest to all of these things. Oh, it's wonderful days. Wonderful days. no maps.

24:50Ah, [laughter] so I ended up on the island of Guam. Uh, it's in Micronia and I was uh diligently working my way through life as a as a fire stick uh juggler and my head felt like a Jimmy Buffett song. My job was to go to help people have a good good time on the beach every day. At the time there was loads of Japanese tourists coming like you know dozen flights a day. Now there is not um because Japanese people have just basically stopped having fun since those days. So um my job was to help them have a good time on the beach. I was very diligent and very serious about my job. But then one day Jerry Garcia of

25:29the Grateful Dead died. This was the same day that Netscape had its IPO. Coincidence? [laughter] All right. [laughter] So, as we do, as dead heads do, we gather in some park with a candlelight vigil and [clears throat] some, you know, there's some guys from the newspaper, couple howies, off islanders, right? And they had all the information about like how Jerry died, you know, where's their memorial, what's going on. They had all and I'm like, how do you guys know? And they did an interview. See, that's the newspaper thing. They asked me some quotes and there were some cheesy quotes in there.

26:10I've been given cheesy quotes to newspapers since long before Jillian Sha. I've been given the cheese to the suri leader. Oh, I got a collection. >> No, I don't. >> This time it was the Guam Pacific Daily News and they give some some cheesy quotes about that. But I asked these guys, "How do you know all this?" And they're like, "Well, we have the internet." I'm like, "What's the internet?" And they said, "It's like words and pictures coming on your computer screen through the telephone line." And I'm like, "I don't understand anything you just said, man. [laughter] >> Guys are weird. What?"

26:50Two days later, I took a class. Trumpet Windock, Windows 3.1, 144 modems. We connected to the internet. Yeah. Quentos.wam.net. I wonder if that email still works. I started downloading dead.net, the first web page that and then about a third of the way down the a brown trees snake built bit into the uh power lines and cut off power to the island [laughter] for two days.

27:17So I'd seen the future, right? And it was just like these magazines, these little zenes and newsletters and whatever I've been making, right? Except it was like what? This is seems super cheap and anyone can get it. I don't have to pay for postage. So, right away I started making web pages and I quickly left the island of Guam because I thought, well, maybe there's this whole thing with this internet. I'm 25 now. I'm practically an adult. I should probably go finish that college degree. [laughter] Oh. So, I flew to uh Olympia, Washington, Evergreen College. First night I was there, I went out looking for change for the laundry machine and uh I saw some guys setting up a booth to

27:58sell some tie-dye shirts. So I said, you know, I'm like, "Okay, these guys are safe. I can talk to these guys." [laughter] And they're like, "Are those hemp overalls you're wearing?" I'm like, "Yes, these are hemp overalls. Come see us tomorrow." Yeah. Yeah. Cool, man. Thanks, Jane. They're like, "We started an ISP." I'm like, "You guys have accounts at an internet service provider?" Like, "No, man. We started an ISP. We got 336 modems [laughter] and there's three dudes and they're all like chromoginally internet hippies and I'm slightly less chromoginally.

28:35[laughter] So I weasled my way and I boot camped the internet for a few months and then I worked my way into be the marketing guy for this internet company which is very nice. Good job Dave. Congratulations. But um we we were the first one to do DSL on US West then US West network and we gave static IP addresses right so you you program are like oh my gosh I can run a server from home yes and we were your only choice and in those late '9s days there's companies like Amazon there's a startup called Amazon and like people could work from home if they could have a VPN so to get a VPN you need a static

29:10IP address or you did at the time so there's one ISP to get that from chit ching holy And one by one, the little ISPs, the mom and pop ISPs died and withered and all the quarters came to us. And we had a lot of those guys that say, "Hey, you want to go get pizza? We want we have coming in. We're going to buy your company. We're going to make you an offer." Uh, thinking that they could buy us off the scrap heap. And we were just like, "Get away from us. We are communely internet hippies."

29:39>> [laughter] >> But finally a group came and their address was 420 Stony Point Road, Santa Rosa, California. We thought it's a sign and they said, "We need bright young we need bright young internet minds to modernize our company." were like like like [laughter] like us and they were a competitive local exchange carrier which was you have like in Canada you have Bell Rogers Talis which are your incumbent local exchange carriers for a brief moment of time there's competitors you could like choose another company besides the cartels anyway um we sold the company to them and everything imploded this was uh early 2000 you guys remember.com bomb all that so I had that unique feeling of

30:20losing $800,000 in a day before I was 30. It's good to get that out of the way, those milestones. [laughter] So, I took revenge. The only way I do is like uh call up the newspaper guy and say, "Hey, this run a sensational article. I'll give you a cheesy quote." And look at my photo.

30:39Oh boy, did we cause trouble with this. And then two days later, the company declared bankruptcy. Except for the $800,000 part. It would have been nice, but then we wouldn't all be here together, would we? No. >> No. Sliding doors and all that. So, I tried to get a job after that. No one would hire me because I was just an ex chromoginly internet hippie. So, me and one of the other chromoginly internet hippies, we said, "Well, we should just start this do the same thing." So, we found a little cafe and we put free Wi-Fi in there cuz we didn't want to work in an office anymore. Nobody when we put up sign said Wi-Fi, people

31:12thought, "Wiffy? What's Wiffy? [laughter] The heck?" So, we had DSL and Wi-Fi connections. We put them in all our favorite coffee shops and cafes and record stores and bookstores from Bellingham to the other Vancouver. And so, our work was location independent. What? It's all possible. Think of how sucky your job would be right now without Wi-Fi, without DSL doing like we got AI, we have all the compute, and we have 288 modems. [laughter] So, we uh that was one of my great uh tasks of liberation and trying to explain Wi-Fi to people because they thought, well, people are just going to come in our coffee shop and buy a coffee and sit here all afternoon.

31:57And we said, no, no, they totally won't. It they did. It just took 10 years later for them to change their behavior to that. And now, possibly like some of you, I'm looking for the co coffee shops. They're just like, "No Wi-Fi, digital nomad, using up our counter space. And if anyone dares put a Zoom call on speaker, you'll be forever banned. [laughter] We had it all for a minute. So before the internet, there was telegrams.

32:26My older brother got this telegram on the day of his birth, 1969. I am the second child. I did not get a telegram. I also got the smaller bedroom. [laughter]

32:46>> Please start my GoFundMe. Start a GoFundMe [laughter] for me. So I started looking into telegram technology and I went all the way to Signal Hill in Newfoundland just to go investigate that because you have to run a cable under the water from, you know, the UK, wherever. I don't bother learning the place names anymore cuz they all just sound like places in Siri all the way to uh Newfoundland. They got a couple telegrams across and then the cable broke.

33:13So they had to send a ship across. Say, "Was that error on your end?" No, man. We're fine here. I thought it was your guys'. Send a ship across from us. It's like, "No, this wasn't them." So, they go down, get the geek down in the basement. I don't know, man. Everything's fine here. Guess we just got to lay a new cable. All right, that's going to take 5 years. [laughter] But telegrams lasted for hundreds, like more than hundred years, right? In the same form. This is 1969. This is still the same ticker tape cut out and pasted on there where I thought, if I can't have my own telegram, I'm getting through it, man. I'm getting through it.

33:46you and me. >> I should just remix the telegram form into my own uses. And so I printed I got a bunch of old telegram pads. Thanks, eBay. And I started sending out telegrams. Anyone ever any of you ever get that? Some of you get mail from me, right? Yeah. Okay. All those mail strikes. I'm never I'm never sure. And I thought, you know, I could cut up these things and make my own telegrams and start sending in notes. And then I took telegrams and wrote a story on them. And I sent them to four separate people who may or may not ne ever know each other. And I should have taken pictures of all all of

34:16these things before I send them. [laughter] Oh, the postal services of the world are one of my great joys and I see it diminishing right now and it breaks my heart. So telegram. So when I this guy, this happy jolly fella who's no longer impressed by my jokes was born, some friends sent a telegram to us cuz we had sent a telegram to them in Switzerland for the wedding. In Switzerland, guy shows up a chap in a cap, not the app.

34:44And you know, it's Switzerland. They probably bought chocolates or something, right? Um, in this case, the post office sent um my wife's fax number an email cuz it's an EAC thing saying there's a telegram and it says these words on it. I'm like, hold on, hold on. I want like a thing, like an artifact. She calls, he said, well, you know, we got this thing.

35:05I guess we could print it. And this this is a telegram that was faxed to the post office. They print it out and then print out on paper. [laughter] And now I took a picture of it and put it on the internet. So I think we just achieved communications yatsi. [laughter] [applause and cheering] And now it lives in Icho's uh scrapbook, his baby scrapbook, because we make a scrapbook for it. And look how cool this the the weird mutated faxed uh whatever. Um yeah, very cute. Hey, it kind of cute, you know, to to paraphrase Borgus. Uh cuz who doesn't paraphrase Bores? [laughter] The original is unfaithful to the translation.

35:54>> Voila. That evergreen college diploma. [laughter] Interdisciplinary studies is my degree, which just means I don't know. I couldn't really decide. [laughter] All right. So, in those early days, the ISP, back to the ISP thing, at that cafe, we had Wi-Fi everywhere, so we started doing podcasts. Has anyone listened to a podcast that doesn't involve celebrities namechecking each other and going, "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was on his show. Oh, that's funny. We should golf together."

36:24Anyway, do you need to buy a mattress? I have a subscription to a toothbrush service. >> Has anyone listened to a podcast that has none of those attributes? >> All right. >> They do exist. >> Yes, they do exist. In 2005, me and my buddy, we started the Clubside Breakfast Time Podcast. That newspaper you saw earlier was called the Clubside uh cafe and we started doing a podcast and everyone says, "Well, I can't listen. I don't have an iPod." Oh jeez. Another one of those things like Wi-Fi trying to explain these stupid terms, blah blah blah blah blah. Um, but these things live on and now I uploaded all of my old podcasts to the internet archive because

36:59I was so pleased to see uh the uh a couple months ago >> talking about internet archive which I adore >> and you know I've had some health challenges we may mention. Anyway, I uploaded all these things to internet archive because the things seems like they should live on. A guy in New Zealand found all my audio archives and sound samples and all this stuff and we started collaborating. We've talked on the telephone one time for 10 minutes.

37:26Aside from that, we made an album. >> There's actually a vinyl, but vinyl is totally difficult to travel with. So, I brought the CD so the '9s folk will get this. And look how cute it is. And it's me absolutely appallingly with two original pieces. and then a James Joyce who's public domain and Jack Carowak who's you know >> wow >> you know um so I just mixed me and those two guys in there together no big deal but the winter keep guy in New Zealand because he found this stuff on internet archive and if I started thinking about it I'd be like no no no that doesn't fit so I just gave him carp launch and then

38:05sure enough we have a CD you can buy it on the internet I have no idea how but yes you can clap for me releasing a CD this year all >> [applause and cheering] >> Okay, so we made podcasts back in the day and podcasting was beautiful cuz you could do it so for so cheap and now it's just become just another way to sell mattresses to sell like Rick Rubin. Come on, dude. Like, are you really hurting for cash? You really need to push me on your energy drinks or whatever, right?

38:33Ah, make more beautiful podcasts. >> Yeah. >> All right. Oh, my mic. My mic technique is off. Thank you. >> All right. Payones. In Japan, we have convenience stores, public toilets, and payoneses everywhere. Ner, nener, nener, nener, nener. [laughter] I'm traveling with like an international phone number. I'm trying to catch a cab the other day cuz uh uh the child is of the limit where he needs to anyway car seats, cabs, blah blah blah. And they're like, "We need a call back number." I'm like, "Dude, you don't have enough letters, you know, numbers in your thing, right?" So, it's a real hassle.

39:10And I went to look for a pay phone and there's no pay phones along. They all packed them up. What' they do with them? I bought one of the old ones in Japan and I put it in my studio and people say, "Does it work?" I'm like, "Yeah, dude. You can pick up the handle and call anyone at any point in time." And it's beautiful. [laughter] Kate, you've used it. It works. But I've taken upon myself on all my rambles and travels to document payoneses. Because payoneses, as you longtime travelers know, you would take all of the change that you possessed in the entire planet and you'd plug it into a pay phone and you get

39:42about 45 seconds of conversation after doing the math for the time zone. Right? So to me, these were a portal and a lifeline to the whole outside world. And one day soon they'll be gone. So I started then saying, well, what can I do with all these pictures? And I'll make postcards out of the payones and mail them to folks like you, right?

40:03super fun. >> So, [clears throat] >> um there was some conversation earlier about uh turning this kind of stuff into job and your creative endeavors into job. And I was thinking about how to summarize this cuz I'm incapable of brevity as you learn. I [laughter] moved I moved to a country that doesn't do hugs and everything has to be short and to the point.

40:31Ah ah I have a hundred yen store whiteboard that we have on our fridge along with postcards that we've received from wonderful folks and I write little messages on there and I wrote a little message to my future self that seems like it should be written in papyrus type face and sold at a gift shop in Bali. [laughter] Super cheesy, right?

40:55But in my double nickels on the dime, 55 years and dozens and dozens of businesses and you know like you could say I hit some Can I make a sports metaphor? I hit some doubles. Got hit by a pitch a few times. That was a movie set. Uh that's for you. Um I've done, you know, I've done my things, right? But if you're not doing something that you're passionate about and you're working for someone else and they all do this thing where they say, "Oh yeah, we're all in it together. Oh, just this next three months is really important. Oh, this next weekend. Oh, we really need to get together and do this this push, this sprint. We're going to

41:37do our standup and then the then the VCs roll in, right? And the money starts rolling in and things get different and things get weird really fast. But the great news is you can do your own thing. You can understand contracts and you can change yourself 15 times in your life at least. I mean, heck, I've changed myself at least a dozen times.

42:03And I don't mean just like who you are and and what you do. You can completely reinvent yourself. You can throw yourself. It's like walking out of you go to a movie theater and you go to the Lou and then you walk back into another movie accidentally, but it takes you like 10 minutes to figure out that you're I'm in a completely different movie. That's happened to me so many times, right? And that's where the magic happens. This is where you veer off the path and reinvent yourself. Plus, you end up with so many freaking ID cards, right? And then I look at these pictures. So, I did a project leading up to my 50th birthday where I found

42:42pictures of me that could be dated for each year of my then young 50-year-old life, plus an artifact to that I could actually triangulate and date to that because, you know, some people do puzzles or sudoku or whatever, right? I just like I do personal archaeology and I found all of these and dated them and triangulated them. I made them into a blog series that I don't know, no one looked at. I don't know, probably someone did. Well, thanks.

43:09>> [snorts] [laughter] >> And I had a blast doing this. And this guy, he'll be able to look back and be like, "Oh, okay. Here's my dad's whole story. I don't have to do all that thing like it's the end of the life and your parent is." And he he won't ever have to sit down and do that with me because I'm like, "Dude, check my website." He's like, "Ah, it'd be easier just to sit down and talk with you." [laughter] Right.

43:33>> So, which is which is your favorite Dave? the one on stage. >> No, stop it. >> Okay, so everyone talks about transparency, right? Transparency is like one of those bud buzzwords like leverage and synergy and standup and sprint and hackathon. So here's my transparency. Here's all my ID cards. You can copy all of those and uh and uh hack all my information, right? And reinvent new versions of me. And just to triangulate, so you have for my Wikipedia page because shockingly I don't have a Wikipedia page. Here's all my ribbons from uh elementary school science fairs. So you can enter all of those in and so it's totally accurate.

44:15So it's all factbased. And there's also a list of all my talks that I've ever done, all the newspapers and magazines from Wall Street Journal to high times. I've been in them all. List them on the Yeah. All right. Oh, and there's my first fake ID. Look at that. I was like rolling in there like, "Yeah, of course." I'm 23 years old.

44:37[laughter] >> Worked every time. >> Utah. What's that? >> You on Granville Street? >> Um, no. I I did get one of those Granville Street ones. I used this Virginia one to get a BC ident just just off Granville Street. Yeah. [laughter] >> All right. Passports. I love passports because it wasn't 60, 80 years ago, people didn't need passports. Just wherever you were, that's where you were, you existed. We didn't have all this documentation. And passports now are so unbelievably critical and complicated. Boy, how do you ever lose your passport in a foreign country? You think about embassies and consulates are going to be all like, "Oh, welcome Canadian. We've got donuts and coffee." No, it's so not like that,

45:21right? So I've taken upon myself to remix passports. Can I show you a little show and tell? >> Okay. Um so this is a Yugoslavia passport. These in itself are you know kind of like neat rare kind of stuff. You know the country had went through some upheavalss and you get you go from one country you get like six out of the is it six Vishna? Yeah.

45:47Okay. More or less. It changes every six months or something. Um, so this uh gentleman's passport, I thought, you know, the Egyptians said we only stop dying when die when people stop talking about us. This is a call back to the Egyptians, right? You guys thought I was just making this up. So I said, you know, this fell, we should still he should still be part of our world. So I have an acquaintance named Jason MD emde in GeFu, Japan. We're both from British Columbia. He is from Vernon. I am from like wherever, right? And he writes poems. He makes podcasts.

46:22He's been to the same concerts as me and we've never met. And he's met two of my brothers. What? So to get to know each other, we took this gentleman's passport and we mailed it between ourselves 20 times each time filling putting in little weird cryptic magic things. And that's a great use of a passport. You get a little scrapbook out of the deal, right? Yeah. Does anyone want to look at this that will take care of it? Here, Julian. You You're >> irresponsible.

46:53>> We This ain't our first rodeo, you and I. >> Here's another one that's super fun because this is a Cascadia passport and I've lived from >> Dave. You got about like an hour and a half left. Just let >> Okay. Oh, no. All right. Later, if you want to nerd out on passports.

47:09All right. I'll expedite. I'm so sorry. I don't get to talk much. [laughter] Okay. Here's my advice. This is a beautiful windowless room filled with beverages and brilliance and fun times. Do not, dear friends, go work for a company and your life becomes spending your precious weekends in windowless conference rooms. I cannot emphasize this enough. I have spent so many weekends of my life in malls and Canada place and all. Hey you. Yeah, here's the guy. Yeah. [laughter] Take your knowledge that you're gaining at times like this. make your money and cut and run.

47:52[applause] >> You have a tiny window of opportunity before the world catches up with you. Don't try to do everything with it. Try to do what's the easiest way I can get X. I say I'm a millionaire. I live in Japan and I roll in yen. But whatever number you want to come up with, however many commas you want, get that money and get the f out of the game.

48:15Yeah, >> cuz everything's going to change >> and then put on a new hat and make cute postcards about it, right? >> You can be a big shot with all your billion dollars and buy yachts and stuff or you can just not work a lot and go buy cool hats in foreign countries cuz the sunsets are the same sunsets. Oh, put that on your Bali tapestry.

48:40[laughter] So now what do I do instead of tech is I do laundry and dishes and make pickles and vinegars in a provincial town in Japan. [cheering]

48:59And I get to make the labels for it, too. And I'm loaded. Look at that w of cash I roll with. Right. [laughter] Just rock around with that all the time. Yeah, [laughter] >> if you like money, if you need money, just print it out of the laser printer is what I always say. [laughter] I learned that at Kinko's or make your own Canadian tire money, but call it Canadian [clears throat] crypto money.

49:28Yeah. All right. So, here, Gen X guy, you're just all full of apathy about these tools. Here you are reminiscing about mimograph machines and Telegrams. Great guy. I have my hundred my 1 point I was going to say $150,000 mortgage. That's Japan. It's your $1.5 million mortgage here in Vancouver, right? >> I uh I want to teach you uh I want to tell you about revolutions. Revolutions come and go and they go in waves and they have uh patterns and this is Alexandria and Ditto machines and punk rock fzines and all these things and all these waves of the internet through the ISP days and what we colloquial call the web 2.0 days. [laughter] Turns out that was just code word for

50:13another way to sell you a bunch of crap on the internet. Oh my hands are filthy. Just a little bit more. All right. Chris already told me to hurry out. [laughter] Revolutions. I wrote something on my beautiful Underwood, the Remington Jr. typewriter about this. I'm not going to try to read it right now because, you know, clock's ticking. But these will all be available. But instead, we will turn to Lauren H. Olsen, realtor of Siri, now deceased. We already went to visit his grave while we were here, and he left us this wonderful gift of a box full of notepads that he hadn't given away from his real estate business.

50:54Right. And this is so old school. Doesn't even have the 604 on it. You didn't even need an area code on your real estate letter head, nerds. Right. All right. So, Mr. Gen X guy living in Japan, how do you use AI? Oh, all right. I have a chron complex illness going on 13 years. I have been through every kind of medical test you can imagine. And uh I've got really good at it, really good at dealing with because I [ __ ] hate it and I want to fix it. I want to be on the forefront of fixing all of this. So I go to I found a hospital, Okama University Hospital, shout out to them

51:32cuz they're awesome. Founded 1870, 100 years before me. And they have a special clinic dealing with my illness and illnesses like mine. And I said, I'm going to be the best patient you've ever had. And also I'm your only foreign patient. So I need to represent for all foreigners cuz that's important in Japanoo.

51:53So I go in with bilingual memos every appointment four times a month. And this gives them a longitudinal view of my health situation. And because it's a teaching university, they often have interns like medical interns, not interns. Anyway, I love them all. And so then I have a copy for their intern. They get to read it and look at it. And then I don't forget anything cuz I forget things all the time. And I get on the bus and I go to the doctor. I'm like, and uh instead of cryptic memos, they now have a dossier. And but before this, before I was using the AI pocket robots, I have to tell Pocket Robot. I

52:31said, I've been doing this for years before you showed up. Right? And then they say, why don't we take all your data from all of the years and compile it together and make a report? I'm like, I didn't ask you for that. I just want a memo. Make me a memo. We'll do that some other time. But I got stuff to do, pocket robot. But now I have this massive 10-year archive of medical memorandum. The last seven years of which are bilingual, and I'm going to be able to be part of someone's understanding of something dot dot dotbd.

53:03>> Yeah, >> that's pretty awesome. >> Yeah. >> All right. Laundry. I take very good care of laundry at our house cuz my wife is an arborist. In fact, she's a Japan nationalist certified tree doctor as of last year October. [cheering] [applause]

53:22And there's Ichiro and he has no off button except for right about now. So, I take very serious care of our laundry. I'm sound like a commercial now, aren't I? But we have a a laundry machine because it's Japan and it's a robot and it has a thousand buttons on it, right? And it's not written in cute little symbols or in the easy hiragana. It's written in dense kanji and I'm like I got dodgy eyes and I'm trying to read the things and it's LED screen. So I say robot help me. I have a load of describe the load and then goes into incredibly go into this three menus deep and over to the left I

54:01connected my heat pump air conditioner to the infrared remote control to the Wi-Fi and it connects to my phone except it's not smart enough to know that I'm in another time zone. When I try to connect it says, "Oh, your clock's off by more than 5 minutes. I have to connect my phone to Tokyo to adjust my heat pump." But I got that heat pump connected. And that was thanks to those robots because I didn't know how to do it. So, I'm using it for laundry and uh air conditioners [laughter] and how to pace my day. So, I run out of energy really easy. My mitochondria doesn't work. I don't make new energy.

54:37I'm always tired and I get kind of grumpy and spaced out. And in the last few months, um the pocket robots have been helping me out with um how to organize and pace my days cuz I'm in we've had this Canada trip, the slow Fraser trip, um that I tried to cancel because of going to the hospital. Um but I bought the cheap tickets [laughter] and here we are together. Yay.

55:03Um so I'm managing hospital stuff, right? cuz just cuz I have a memo bilingual and I'm going there trying to be smart and talk all fancy, it's still like whoo, right? It's a hospital in Japan. And then uh uh I mentioned Japanese immigration. I have a complicated immigration situation now and I'm going to get into but we have a very nice lawyer and we're going back and forth and boy howdy has it been uh um and then uh uh and then and then uh Dyoko had concerts and Ishro had a birthday. What a life, right? And so I uh for pacing my days and organizing my days. So all of y'all are going, "Wow, this guy like

55:41hardly does anything." Nope. Nope. Nope. I'm not finished. [laughter] Dear wonderful people, Vancouver AI ecosystem. I have a side hustle. [sighs] I never thought I'd use those words. Side hustle. Actually, it's not a side hustle because it's pay. Um [laughter] I am uh I'm the Santa Claus's regional representative in Okama area. >> [laughter] >> And uh last year for our community association Christmas party, which my wife played accordion at because she was just like, I think I'm going to play accordion at this cuz great-grandfather had played accordion there in 1947.

56:21Weird, right? So I went to the robots and I put in pictures of me as Santa Claus in the past and said, "Chub me up just a little bit, you know, flush out the beard just a touch and make these into coloring books." And then I had a picture of me on a Santa Claus, probably at Guilford Mall. Uh, and I'm looking disgusted, like eight, nine years old, just going like, "This is super lame."

56:44[laughter] Uh, so I, uh, I put my face on it, and all the kids were coloring five, six different designs of Santa Claus, and then I roll in with my bag over my shoulder. Ho ho ho. And all the kids are like, "Oh my gosh, it's that guy." [laughter] And then they see that there's no string, [laughter] but we have rules. It's Japan. No one sits on my lap. They stand a respectful distance away. I give them a choice of poses. There's double piece, [laughter] antler piece.

57:19They got choices. They hung the pictures up on the wall. And I was like, "No, kids, children, take your pictures. yonder. But I was just left with I have a big stack of Santa Claus uh colored pictures. So if anyone wants one, hit me up and I'll mail you one. Okay. So what do I want AI to do? I want it to tidy up messes. I have a 5600 post WordPress [clears throat] um personal creative archive and the world is filled with websites that we all made diligently in 1995 and 2005 and last year that are filled with broken links and broken images and broken crap.

57:57and WordPress. I remember some little kid worked for CNET out in the patio talking about this new blogging software he had made. So I know some of that code is at least well older than a college student. So I got a hunch with all this vibe coding and all these tokens and all this agenticness. There could be a whole new way to repositize personal creative content. I don't need another website. I don't need a Substack because you know what that is? That's an email, right? We already did list serve.

58:32Um although I'll totally subscribe to you and I totally won't filter it. Um [clears throat] [laughter] so I want I want tools that can fix up things and then um manage the mundane. So we have um an endless supply of broken government websites. We have all kinds of social problems that just need fixing. We have supply chains that we that need refined. We need like basic civic information and we need AI to also do the mundane and the janitorial tasks of our life for us.

59:07Movies are great. I made a movie in 1997. I'm so sorry, Chris. On VH on VHS tape, so I also have the feeling of what it's like to have 500 VHS tapes on hand. So I made it into a notebook. [laughter] Yeah. So, this was also a benefit of working at Kinko's. Okay, I think I'm on my last one.

59:26>> You don't have to be sorry. >> All right. >> Um, we're not going to go back out and do the bar and do the whole networking thing afterwards. So, you have like 10 more minutes, man. And then we got the go. >> Okay. >> Most scenic dump slop in, slop comes out. You all have beautiful ideas and beautiful backstories and beautiful uh artifacts and you have fantastic elementary school report cards and stellar imaginations and you have your master's thesis master's thesis master thesises that you wrote and it went on a shelf after two people read it. All that stuff is our legacy and can go into the world if we put the good things out into the

1:00:07world. if we keep the things that are the best of us tucked away in shoe boxes. But I know all of you keep my postcards wrapped up with uh twine, little red ribbon, some cedar in a shoe box, right? Don't you? Right. Um, we have so much wonderfulness and I believe there's more to us than we can even really imagine at this point because now all these roadblocks of tools and compute and what's possible is combined with also the sense of that there's business models behind all of this that we have to navigate. There's once upon a time you get a company that has a shiny name and you were just like cha-ching, this is my thing that I do.

1:00:48or in Japan, you get a job for company and you're going to work for that company for 50 years. But now there's a whole new landscape that is possible to get your piece of. I'm don't have any skin in it, but I want you to get your piece so you can come visit us in Japan.

1:01:06But don't waste your time putting garbage into the systems. Don't waste your tokens having one thing analyzing other things. If you got something to make, make it. Don't put just put the the leaves in a bucket just because the leaves are falling, right? Maybe the leaves want to stay on the tree. Maybe they want to be scattered. You need to let yourself loose from the parameters that you think you have to do for your personal and professional life. Um, I once said years ago, [ __ ] stats make art. There's my buddy Cameron that brought it up and sent it to me and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm still relevant for half a second because I

1:01:40said that in 2008 when everyone was trying to get a million hits on their website." But those million site hit sites or for the most part disappeared or else giant evil conglomerates. But the art that all of you have made over the years, I have art from people in this room that sit in my flat folder with dehumidified pro protocols because Japan is humid.

1:02:04But these things are precious to me. And these are the things that are going to be part of your legacy in 20 years and 50 years and 100 years or in the case of the Egyptians, what uh 3,000 years, right? Oh yes, there's something I was going to say clever about this. Oh, the Concord flying from Akaba to Aman is 150 miles.

1:02:26They didn't need the Concord for the transportation. The Concord was a label to put on the thing so they could make a first date cover so people would buy the first day cover. I don't know why or how, but I sure bought one and had a time rolling to Akaba, Jordan. Do have you guys seen Lawrence of Arabia?

1:02:43>> Yeah. So, I went rolling into Aaba in this row, right, as like my little like jump. And I thought it was hilarious and awesome. I had the best day. All right. Fill up notebooks all the time with everything. This is my list of what I was looking for for community. Notebooks. Notebooks. Notebooks. Okay.

1:03:02Zen. I I'm a foreign guy living in Japan, so I'm obligated to make like well actually in Japan reference at least one thing. I've been holding myself back, but I'm just going to say that this is at Ahenji, which is the original Zen temple. So, a guy called Dogen. you maybe use that as like your video game avatar name or something like that. Went to China, got Zen, brought Zen back and we were at this temple. You have to put your shoes in a plastic bag and I'm like, "This doesn't feel very Zen." And then I found one little shrine that's covered with punk rock stickers.

1:03:32I'm like, "Ah, it has survived hundreds and hundreds of years just waiting here just for me." And all of us have this I'm going [clears throat] to say it. I'm going to say it. moment of zen awaiting us out there in this big weird world. So, what I want out of life is I want sleep and poetry. The three of us were up on the Osaka Bay down below. And you buy these little heart-shaped rocks, which is a great business model if you have heart-shaped rocks, and you throw it into the abyss. I don't think you're supposed to write on it or take a photograph of it, but like dur like there's no rules posted. So, this is

1:04:07what I want out of life. And how I look at these tools, any tools, whether it be pocket knives or pocket robots or AI models or whatever, and I say, how can I use these things to get what I want out of them? I have my list. I actually have a longer list of an idea that would be a great piece of something that's like a personal archiving tool. I want an AI, LLM, whatever on my local computer. I have a 10-year-old Mac Mini, so I guess I'm halfway there. But it can take in all of my hard drives. Chris, you this is what you need. You need a machine that you can put in all your 87 hard

1:04:42drives of photos and all your Quirk Express documents, Sean, and all your ClariS works documents and all your stuff. And this AI will go, "Wow, man. I see you got a bunch of stuff. You got pictures of payoneses. You got pictures of post boxes. You got all the stuff from this year. You got this format. I got an idea. Why don't we organize it like that and then let's pull in your Twitter feeds because I don't want them to own it. I want my stuff on my server.

1:05:08But you know, I got laundry to do, right? So, I'm waiting for someone else to figure out all those things so I can just install it. >> I'm telling you, Dave, we got that. >> I know. I know. You've told me, but I'm waiting for it to be I've been busy, man. I've been in hospitals. I've been painting post boxes. The top line of the ha coup on the post box wore off.

1:05:26[laughter] So, I do the things that I'm capable of doing, right? You notice the gold gold paint? So, I had a little kinugi flare. There's my two references, my two Japanese references. So, here I am now. Your friend [applause] Dave, I married two other time travelers. And here we are in the Taiisho era traveling through time cuz this dude's apocalypse.

1:05:46He's got fire. He's got music. He's got a knife. He's got his own knife, you guys. Yeah. Like, of course. Right. and my wife's got a little Tonka truck there. So, we're ready for the apocalypse, man. Whatever is coming, we're dialed in. I won't know all of the things, but I know you guys. So, I'm now here calling. I'm like, "Hey, I'm your pal. So, you're going to tell me like, "All right, Dave, we're going to take your 5600 post pile [snorts] of ancient WordPress slop and we're going to get all fixed up without me spending $39.99 each on 15 different plugins. Is it possible? I don't know.

1:06:26So, in the meanwhile, I'm going back to my true love, which is making little analog things. It's become very hard to ship things between countries, tariffs. Um, so I make things that can go letter rate that fit in a little handy cute envelope and they're little folded books. And I've been selling sending these around the world and oh my goodness, is it fun. They're stamped and numbered and they have all the emotions.

1:06:50And this one was from a healing hotring that's filled with radium. It's totally good for you. Radium dirt. [laughter] It's the uranium that's the precursor that's bad for you. But I put a diagram in this book so you'll understand the thorium and the radium and the uranium and how they all fit together. I didn't know but Marie Curry did. And there's a statue of her in this town in Japan.

1:07:14And who else is going to make a little book book of poetry about it with prayers and haiku and a picture of me with the mayor in 1994? I mean, this seems totally normal, right? [laughter] And then I took it a step further and I taught Mr. Ichiro how to make these origami fold zons.

1:07:37Guess what? I have tons of now. And he makes the little I love you cards. Get your children a tape dispenser and you will get things like that, >> right? And it all folds out the same style. And then I found a poem that I wrote at that same hot spring in 1993.

1:07:56And all of a sudden, you got a bundle that can go into an envelope. [laughter] There they all are. Oh, and here's all I Itch's books right over there. Look at that. >> 100 bucks each. No big deal. [laughter] Um, so this this is my next uh project which is going through Nepal. I set up this whole mis scene, including a fictional letter head for a guest house that never existed. Or did it? And then I have an overhead laser scanner. One shot is the truth. That's all you get.

1:08:29And that's coming out pretty soon. It's that 106-y old printer shop in Japan right now. There's the There's the front of it. That's all you get. Oh, there was the last one. Blah blah blah. All right. So, here we are 13 years later. The chair was slightly right there. >> Oh my god. Look at that [ __ ] 198.

1:08:48>> That's my campfire blanket. I did a talk called Poets, Punks, and Revolutions. Forgotten Vancouver Stories. >> I have hair. >> What's that? >> I have hair. >> You have hair. You know, it's a long time ago that he has hair. >> So there I am. I We had a campfire up on the stage. I had a chair because I'm a delicate ball of prince. And that was the last time I've been on a stage. That was the last talk ever of Northern Voice. I broke Northern Voice. I didn't mean to. Um, and then I set off in this whole other part of my life. And what I realized along that nice Shabuya Republic shirt, by the way. Um, oh,

1:09:29there was a diagram. I had to set up a schematic. You know, it's not a talk unless you have a schematic of your stage setting. It's art direction, right? Is that what it's called? [cough] So, in my attempt to regain my title that I earned at summer camp of Mr. Fun, which I'm totally not, I'm Mr. Go to bed at 9:00. Mr. Send some postcards. That's fun. That's fun. I'm I'm fun if you need a I'm fun if you need a coffee. Um, so, uh, what I learned through all this with all the other stuff about money and blah blah blah and passion and all that crap, um, friends, friends will crowd surf you along the way. There were so many of you

1:10:11that I've known for a hundred years. I've shown up at every time someone asked me to speak at a thing, whether it be some college or some association of something something that they didn't even give me a freaking Starbucks gift card to give to a guy outside. No thank you letter. >> [clears throat and cough] >> I'm looking at a credit union right now.

1:10:30Um, I showed up, but it's the friends like you who are the ones that crowd surfed me to safety. I had to disappear into some far away lands to find myself cuz you get lost and sometimes you get found, but not always. But because of people like you, I found my way back here for this night only. So, thank you very much. And you can send me a postcard.

1:10:55[applause] Come by.

1:11:04[applause] Thank you, David. We're definitely going to do a Q&A. I know a lot of you people came to get uh be here with Dave tonight. And real quick, I want to invite you guys to come stand with him here and get a photo taken real quick. I just want to do a group photo with David and then we're going to jump right into the [ __ ] Q&A. So, if you came here to be a part of this, even if you're not, if you're new, welcome to the cult.

1:11:28But come on up. Let's do a group photo on the stage right quick. >> Hey, Ichy in the house. Drop boots. >> You're fantastic. >> Thank you, Tristan. All right, let's do the day Q&A. Thank you guys for playing along. >> We love you. I'm so proud of you each. So proud of you.

1:11:49Check it out. Here we go. >> David, this is my friend Zoe. >> Hello, >> Dave. Thank you. Um, I noticed that you >> Dave, I noticed that you won first place in the science fair in grade 5. >> Um, I've won three times actually. >> Oh, three times. Great. I'm wondering, do you happen to remember back to that project? And during the process of that project, what surprised you?

1:12:16You you'll be amazed to know that there's comprehensive blog posts about all three of those. Um [laughter] fourth grade was uh Charlie Transit which preaged the ALRT which became known as the Sky Train. Uh grade five was the King Tutt. Um I was going to go to regionals but there was a teacher strike. I'm still angry about it.

1:12:34Where's the guy that was setting up the GoFundMe page? He'll like that. Um, six was about like grade six was about like Rubik's cubes and puzzles like that which were a big deal at the time. And seven was about guided missiles. That was a very newsworthy topic. Yeah. >> Yep. Yeah. That's my illustrious career.

1:12:51My I I have two brothers who are engineers and I say my achievements are on par with them, but they uh they disagree. >> Um, bro, that was a little bit of chaos tonight. Um, but one of the community announcements that I didn't get to give was Andrea Mills here and >> she works for the Internet Archive Canada and they've been a sweet partner of ours or whatever and we're about to like drop a fellowship on the world tonight. Actually, it's open. People can apply. Martin Monto. Yeah.

1:13:19>> Um, anyway, the off webcam. >> Yeah, we're doing like a um Why don't you say a thing, dude? David, the thing you said about archives tonight was amazing, bro. She's like, I want the recording. I'm uh yeah, like I'm a I'm a super fan. I have a massive archive of stuff and I've been evangelizing forever and sending my little $5 and that kind of stuff. So, um I I I I have huge admiration for the work that you did. I was going to go down more into a rabbit hole of this and that, but you know, telegrams and whatever, no one ever talks about them. So, thank you for your hard work.

1:13:50>> We're kindred spirits. I mean that you're, you know, telegrams and all. But I just wanted to say thank you. uh for someone like me, I I've worked for the internet archive for 20 years and coming to a night like this to be here hear your story um was really reviving for me.

1:14:08>> Thank you. >> Um and I you know I will bother you about thesis and what we're doing with AI and thesis. So I I I feel like I've made a made a new friend that I and I will bother you. >> Um so thank you so much for this. >> I'm in Japan. So what I I do is I give you my card with both hands and it's like a very formal exchange and you look at it as though it's like oh my gosh I've never felt paper that exquisite before.

1:14:32>> Thank you so much. [laughter] >> And one thing I was going to say is you know we've been collecting the internet archive for years and it it stands on the shoulders of the library of Alexandria and many many other uh archives and libraries. Um, but what you were saying about, you know, AI, the age of AI, we've made these collections and now, you know, let's make the robots work for us, [laughter] make these collections better. And it's really, it was just really bouncing off of what Chris and I have been working on. So, I've gotten to know this community a little bit um over the last year. Um, come to a few sessions. Uh,

1:15:08you know, I made you all listen to me. Um uh and we have a fellowship idea that came uh from conversations that Chris and I about using the internet archive uh government data to make something uh using AI. So that's what Chris and I are just like burned out on all kinds of other things and we forgot about this whole thing that we worked on that made a lot.

1:15:29>> Yeah. So it's a live on the BCA AI website right now. You can check out the $5,000 fellowship that we're going to run over the next month. >> Hey, thank you Mr. Um, >> hit that >> right here. [laughter] >> It's real. For the first time, you can submit your idea. We're going to give away $5,000 to somebody to build something on top of the archives like David's been doing. Uh, you should check out this thing.

1:15:52>> Yes, please. Yes, please. >> Well, I as soon as I get home from the trip, I go right into the hospital. So, I'm just going to wait for someone else to do it. Awesome. And then I'll uh I'll like cheer them along and send postcards. Say, "Good job." >> Are you Mr. Fun?

1:16:05>> I know a conference room. Sorry, say it again. >> I said, "Are you free this weekend?" >> No wonder. >> No, no, [laughter] >> no. I'm uh I'm I'm strictly hot tubs now. >> Okay. >> Solid plan. >> I want to thank you all for being a part of something fun for me and pretty awesome. David, I hope you had a great time. You're amazing, man. Like, >> um Chris, I want to I want to thank you for inviting me and dragging me into this. And I also brought a present for Museum of Vancouver.

1:16:34>> Lorraine, are you still here? Uh, so I'm hoping that that can somehow end up in in uh their archive rather than their recycling. Um, but uh [laughter] but it's made with love and affection and gratitude. This place means a lot. This is for the archives. >> Yeah, that's for Museum of Vancouver.

1:16:52That's uh or if they don't want it. Yeah. [laughter] Um, thank you guys so much for being a part of this. It's a very free flowing experiment. Uh, welcome to my laboratory. [laughter] tonight. That means we got a GTFO and there's a few things we got to do before we do. >> Um, you have to pick up after your neighbor. Kush, get your ass up here for a second.

1:17:18>> Kush, >> we got to clean up before we get out. All right. >> Am I cleaning up? >> No, I'm [laughter] not. >> You're coming under my arm over here, man. Um, Kush is going to like rock the mic. This guy's like a rapper and an MC. He talks about open source software. He talks about what's going on in the world and um so we got about 12 minutes [laughter] to grab our [ __ ] and go >> except for you and you in the back.

1:17:46[laughter] >> But I'd appreciate if everybody else took grabbed a drink from the cooler in the back and stepped out front onto the Yeah. And that's where we'll all be. Dave's going to come there. >> Did you guys have a good time tonight? >> Oh yeah. Cookies. I don't know. >> I heard I heard that the cookies are really the main reason to come here. So, I need I chaotic space situation. So, there's cookies. There's cookies in the room. Uh Eliza and Noah made 200 cookies. They laid them all out on the table in where we were having food and drinks earlier, but just don't stay too long. Grab some cookies. Grab some cookies and go. [laughter]

1:18:24I love you guys. Thank you for being here. This is amazing. >> Thank you. Thank you so much, everybody. Keep your keep your handouts. There will be wise advice that you can meditate on in the future uh at the gift shop in Bali.