Connor McDonald's Year of Tech Tales and Travel Tips

00:00:13: Kai: Hello and welcome to another episode of

00:00:15: Kai: Devs on Tape, again from DOAC 2024 in

00:00:18: Kai: Nuremberg.

00:00:19: Kai: This is a single English recording this

00:00:21: Kai: time, so bear with us that we might have

00:00:25: Kai: some word finding issues, but Connor will

00:00:27: Kai: help us, surely, right?

00:00:28: Caro: And it's really early in the morning

00:00:30: Caro: because Kai had no other slot available.

00:00:34: Caro: Thank you, Kai.

00:00:35: Kai: It's very nice from you to say that because

00:00:39: Kai: of the slot issue, not because of my

00:00:41: Kai: inability to proper plan anything here.

00:00:44: Kai: But yeah, we're very, very happy.

00:00:46: Kai: So just oh, I almost forgot.

00:00:48: Kai: Hello, carol.

00:00:49: Kai: Hi Kai All right, great, didn't miss that.

00:00:52: Kai: So we have a very special guest for this

00:00:54: Kai: podcast.

00:00:55: Kai: Maybe it's like each and every year.

00:00:57: Kai: He and I'm back.

00:00:58: Kai: We welcome Connor McDonald.

00:01:00: Kai: Hi, connor.

00:01:01: Connor McDonald: Hi, hi guys, it's good to be back.

00:01:04: Connor McDonald: That sounds like some sort of rock star.

00:01:10: Connor McDonald: It's great to be back.

00:01:10: Connor McDonald: It's great to be back, but no, in all

00:01:11: Connor McDonald: seriousness, it's good to be back at DOAG.

00:01:12: Connor McDonald: It's certainly a favorite of mine, and it's

00:01:13: Connor McDonald: good to be loitering around the podcast

00:01:14: Connor McDonald: lounge and be roped in.

00:01:16: Connor McDonald: Yes, for those listeners who are unaware,

00:01:18: Connor McDonald: kaya sent me 17 different calendar invites

00:01:20: Connor McDonald: for this session, each one being slightly

00:01:22: Connor McDonald: different, and somehow we settled on the

00:01:26: Connor McDonald: earliest hours in the morning possible.

00:01:28: Kai: Right after the party yesterday.

00:01:31: Connor McDonald: Hence my I'm going the husky deep voice.

00:01:34: Connor McDonald: Nothing to do with the alcohol consumption.

00:01:36: Kai: It is not the wrong settings in the

00:01:38: Kai: recorder, right?

00:01:40: Kai: Yeah, so 8 am 8.30 in the morning, we had a

00:01:43: Kai: coffee, it's everything fine, I guess, and

00:01:46: Kai: we have a couple of questions.

00:01:47: Kai: I mean, we talked about many, many things

00:01:49: Kai: in the last recordings and, yeah, we start

00:01:53: Kai: with the question what happened in between?

00:01:54: Kai: What happened in between the?

00:01:56: Connor McDonald: recordings question.

00:02:00: Kai: Receiving calendar invites from Kai maybe

00:02:03: Kai: that's right.

00:02:04: Connor McDonald: Lots of emails from Kai and Twitter DMs.

00:02:07: Connor McDonald: But so after DOAG last year, that was

00:02:09: Connor McDonald: pretty much, I think, my last event for the

00:02:11: Connor McDonald: year.

00:02:11: Connor McDonald: I think UKOG was before DOAG, is that

00:02:13: Connor McDonald: correct?

00:02:14: Connor McDonald: Last year they were adjacent, I can't

00:02:16: Connor McDonald: remember which one I did before the other,

00:02:18: Connor McDonald: but that was pretty much the last few years,

00:02:19: Connor McDonald: as it typically is.

00:02:21: Connor McDonald: Then in January I had a bit of time off and

00:02:24: Connor McDonald: then February, sai from the India user

00:02:26: Connor McDonald: group does a multi-cloud event and, as we

00:02:29: Connor McDonald: all know, we're now singing from the

00:02:30: Connor McDonald: multi-cloud hymn sheet.

00:02:31: Connor McDonald: So back in February I think we'd only

00:02:34: Connor McDonald: announced just us and Microsoft, and then

00:02:38: Connor McDonald: throughout the year we had the Google and

00:02:40: Connor McDonald: then at Cloud World the AWS one.

00:02:42: Connor McDonald: So we're all big multi-cloud happy families

00:02:44: Connor McDonald: now.

00:02:44: Connor McDonald: But so in February I went to India, and if

00:02:47: Connor McDonald: you've never been to India on one of Si's

00:02:48: Connor McDonald: trips, they are both hectic and insane.

00:02:52: Connor McDonald: It's normally like we did six cities in

00:02:54: Connor McDonald: about seven days.

00:02:55: Connor McDonald: And so you literally you talk at an event

00:02:57: Connor McDonald: and then you literally take your bags from

00:02:59: Connor McDonald: the event to the airport, jump on a plane

00:03:05: Connor McDonald: You'll often land at like 1 a the morning,

00:03:06: Connor McDonald: go to the hotel the next day, you get up,

00:03:07: Connor McDonald: oh, let's do another conference.

00:03:07: Connor McDonald: But if you ever get a chance, uh, reach out

00:03:09: Connor McDonald: to si if you ever want to do some talking

00:03:11: Connor McDonald: in india.

00:03:11: Connor McDonald: It's, it's a breathtaking country,

00:03:13: Connor McDonald: fantastic experience and and yeah, it's

00:03:15: Connor McDonald: insane, but it's in terms of being a

00:03:17: Connor McDonald: speaker, having all those logistics and

00:03:19: Connor McDonald: everything looked after for you and just

00:03:20: Connor McDonald: being able to absorb the wonder of the

00:03:22: Connor McDonald: country is pretty cool.

00:03:24: Connor McDonald: Then, after that, we had Mumbai Cloud World.

00:03:27: Connor McDonald: So I had some involvement in Mumbai Cloud

00:03:28: Connor McDonald: World when putting my Oracle marketing hat

00:03:31: Connor McDonald: on.

00:03:31: Connor McDonald: There's the Cloud World tours that go

00:03:33: Connor McDonald: around the world and I think there'll be

00:03:35: Connor McDonald: the same thing next year.

00:03:36: Connor McDonald: So keep your eye out for a city near you,

00:03:38: Connor McDonald: the Cloud World tours.

00:03:41: Connor McDonald: Then what happened then after that?

00:03:42: Connor McDonald: So April May was pretty quiet.

00:03:46: Connor McDonald: I was planning on going to Apex Connect but

00:03:47: Connor McDonald: the travel gods intervened and said that

00:03:50: Connor McDonald: couldn't be done.

00:03:50: Connor McDonald: But as a result, I think Apex Connect was

00:03:52: Connor McDonald: super successful, not because of my absence,

00:03:55: Connor McDonald: but maybe because of my absence but I know

00:03:58: Connor McDonald: that Chris Rice went and Mike Hitcher went,

00:04:00: Connor McDonald: so pretty much the brain's trust of Apex

00:04:02: Connor McDonald: and Ord's.

00:04:03: Kai: Yeah, we catch them for Death's Untamed.

00:04:06: Connor McDonald: So I'm sure that would have been an

00:04:07: Connor McDonald: absolutely huge event.

00:04:09: Connor McDonald: After that I went to K-Scope and K-Scope

00:04:11: Connor McDonald: was in.

00:04:12: Kai: Nashville.

00:04:14: Connor McDonald: First time I'd been to Nashville and it has

00:04:16: Connor McDonald: that sort of Vegas feel to it in the sense

00:04:18: Connor McDonald: that the place parties all the time, but I

00:04:20: Connor McDonald: found it a bit more friendly than Vegas.

00:04:22: Connor McDonald: You could walk the streets and people were

00:04:23: Connor McDonald: happy to talk to you.

00:04:24: Connor McDonald: I went to the all-important Country Music

00:04:27: Connor McDonald: Hall of Fame and realized how little I know

00:04:30: Connor McDonald: about country music and also how little I

00:04:32: Connor McDonald: want to know about country music.

00:04:35: Kai: I wanted to say that.

00:04:38: Connor McDonald: But it was good fun and we went to what's

00:04:40: Connor McDonald: the name of this, that big theater, the old,

00:04:42: Connor McDonald: the Grand Old Opry that's what it was which

00:04:48: Connor McDonald: I never knew of its heritage and its

00:04:49: Connor McDonald: history.

00:04:49: Connor McDonald: It apparently is where all the great

00:04:50: Connor McDonald: country singers have, you know, made their

00:04:51: Connor McDonald: mark or whatever.

00:04:51: Connor McDonald: So, um, that was organized, I think, by the

00:04:53: Connor McDonald: ace program, and so that was.

00:04:54: Connor McDonald: That was super cool.

00:04:55: Connor McDonald: Then what after that?

00:04:57: Connor McDonald: Then cloud world, after that had some talks

00:04:59: Connor McDonald: in vegas, and that was a lot of fun.

00:05:01: Connor McDonald: And that sort of brings me through to here.

00:05:04: Connor McDonald: I think we've done some a number of events

00:05:05: Connor McDonald: in Australia, just small scale events with

00:05:08: Connor McDonald: the Australian user group, and I know this

00:05:10: Connor McDonald: sounds like I document my year purely on

00:05:13: Connor McDonald: conferences.

00:05:13: Kai: I go to.

00:05:15: Connor McDonald: But other than that there's been the usual

00:05:16: Connor McDonald: stuff.

00:05:16: Connor McDonald: I've been cranking out YouTube videos and

00:05:18: Connor McDonald: the occasional podcast.

00:05:19: Connor McDonald: I've been a bit.

00:05:20: Connor McDonald: I've been a bit lazy, Unlike you guys.

00:05:22: Connor McDonald: On the podcast, I came to a halt around

00:05:25: Connor McDonald: about July after I did one with Martin Bach.

00:05:27: Kai: Oh, that's pretty sad for our listeners.

00:05:29: Kai: Maybe, if there's some listeners listening

00:05:31: Kai: to your podcast and our podcast, we did the

00:05:33: Kai: same right.

00:05:34: Kai: So we ended up in end of June, I think.

00:05:37: Caro: Yeah.

00:05:38: Connor McDonald: And the summer pause is still ongoing,

00:05:41: Connor McDonald: right, so the recordings from this

00:05:42: Connor McDonald: conference will be the first for this year,

00:05:44: Connor McDonald: and I have to admit not that I want to be,

00:05:46: Connor McDonald: not that I want to take the tone down to a

00:05:48: Connor McDonald: sad place, but I then pretty much have done

00:05:50: Connor McDonald: nothing for the last couple of months

00:05:51: Connor McDonald: because, unfortunately, my sister passed

00:05:54: Connor McDonald: away a couple of months ago and then my

00:05:56: Connor McDonald: partner's mother passed away two weeks ago.

00:05:59: Connor McDonald: So not that I want to be like down, a bit

00:06:01: Connor McDonald: like yeah, so that obviously has an impact

00:06:03: Connor McDonald: on what you do in terms of a technical

00:06:04: Connor McDonald: sphere, but one thing, as I said, not to

00:06:07: Connor McDonald: try to bring the tone down one thing that I

00:06:09: Connor McDonald: have enjoyed is being back at things like

00:06:11: Connor McDonald: DOAG and stuff like that is, it is really

00:06:14: Connor McDonald: good to be able to just interact again with

00:06:17: Connor McDonald: the community.

00:06:18: Connor McDonald: And it's a cliche when people say, oh,

00:06:19: Connor McDonald: conferences are about networking.

00:06:21: Connor McDonald: But what I found is, you know, especially

00:06:23: Connor McDonald: because I've had a bit of heartache, it's

00:06:24: Connor McDonald: been so good just to have that idle banter

00:06:27: Connor McDonald: with people, get your head in a good space,

00:06:29: Connor McDonald: you know, because conferences are always

00:06:31: Connor McDonald: super positive, everyone's super excited

00:06:33: Connor McDonald: about stuff.

00:06:34: Connor McDonald: So, yeah, it's been pretty cool and what

00:06:36: Connor McDonald: you know, what did Thanos say in the

00:06:38: Connor McDonald: Avengers?

00:06:40: Connor McDonald: You know, and it all leads back to here you

00:06:42: Connor McDonald: know the annual podcast episode.

00:06:49: Kai: So looking forward to it, and even the

00:06:50: Kai: SEPTA invitation for 8.30 in the morning.

00:06:52: Kai: So I was getting up this morning and I was

00:06:54: Kai: hitting myself for the same exact reason.

00:06:57: Kai: Why do I do that?

00:06:58: Kai: But yeah, for our listeners, we have four

00:06:59: Kai: recordings today, so you can be happy, you

00:07:01: Kai: can look forward to four new recordings

00:07:03: Kai: just from today.

00:07:06: Kai: Yeah, but mainly German, mainly german yeah,

00:07:08: Kai: this might be good for our listeners, but

00:07:11: Kai: as a little service, service advice or

00:07:13: Kai: service information.

00:07:14: Kai: You can hear our podcast in german language

00:07:17: Kai: with english subtitles on youtube.

00:07:20: Kai: Under titles is the german german, most

00:07:22: Kai: german translation under titles.

00:07:24: Kai: That's true, yeah the subtitles english,

00:07:26: Kai: english and each and every other language.

00:07:28: Kai: I guess, too, you can read it during the

00:07:31: Kai: the youtube video yeah, but what did john

00:07:33: Kai: said?

00:07:34: Kai: it's like, it's like reading a book on

00:07:37: Kai: youtube, so I don't know when it should

00:07:39: Kai: publish a book, right, you know, with all

00:07:41: Kai: the transcripts from our recordings.

00:07:44: Connor McDonald: well, one of the things I've been looking

00:07:45: Connor McDonald: at is last year, I got you know a million

00:07:50: Connor McDonald: email spams from AI companies, all

00:07:52: Connor McDonald: promoting their services, and there was one

00:07:54: Connor McDonald: whose name I can't remember, but they said

00:07:56: Connor McDonald: they would take a YouTube video of yours

00:07:59: Connor McDonald: and they would redo the entire video in a

00:08:02: Connor McDonald: language of your choosing.

00:08:03: Connor McDonald: And they would use your own voice, that

00:08:05: Connor McDonald: they change your voice to.

00:08:06: Connor McDonald: In this case, I chose spanish yeah and that

00:08:08: Connor McDonald: even changed your lip movements and mouth

00:08:10: Connor McDonald: movements on the video and I thought I'll

00:08:12: Connor McDonald: give it a go.

00:08:12: Connor McDonald: So I paid I think it was ten dollars us for

00:08:15: Connor McDonald: for a minute, so it was not cheap, but I

00:08:17: Connor McDonald: said I sent it off and after about two days

00:08:20: Connor McDonald: they sent back a video and it was me

00:08:22: Connor McDonald: talking in spanish and I was like super

00:08:24: Connor McDonald: impressed and I sent I.

00:08:26: Connor McDonald: Obviously I didn't know if it was any good

00:08:28: Connor McDonald: because I don't speak spanish I'm one of

00:08:30: Connor McDonald: those embarrassingly monolingual people but

00:08:32: Connor McDonald: I sent it to a monica from the apex team

00:08:34: Connor McDonald: I'm sure you know monica groy and I said

00:08:36: Connor McDonald: look, what are your thoughts.

00:08:37: Connor McDonald: And she came back and she said it's like

00:08:40: Connor McDonald: conversational spanish.

00:08:41: Connor McDonald: She said it was really good.

00:08:42: Connor McDonald: The only thing that got wrong was the video

00:08:43: Connor McDonald: I sent had references to 23C and every time

00:08:46: Connor McDonald: I said that the AI turned it into 23

00:08:49: Connor McDonald: Celsius because I thought it was

00:08:51: Connor McDonald: temperature.

00:08:51: Connor McDonald: But other than that she said it was fine.

00:08:53: Connor McDonald: So that's obviously an expensive way, but

00:08:56: Connor McDonald: there are other AI services I've seen

00:08:57: Connor McDonald: recently which will take your voice and

00:09:00: Connor McDonald: just do the audio.

00:09:01: Connor McDonald: So I would recommend you guys could explore

00:09:04: Connor McDonald: where you could take your podcast episodes

00:09:07: Connor McDonald: in, say, english or in German and say I'd

00:09:09: Connor McDonald: like a new version of the podcast episode

00:09:12: Connor McDonald: in another language.

00:09:13: Kai: That would be great to have it

00:09:15: Kai: automatically redone, so we have to restart

00:09:19: Kai: the recording, the video.

00:09:21: Caro: You haven't started the recording yet.

00:09:23: Caro: I did For listeners tuning in.

00:09:24: Connor McDonald: There's a bit of animosity in the room.

00:09:25: Connor McDonald: All you haven't started the recording yet.

00:09:25: Connor McDonald: I did For listeners tuning in.

00:09:25: Connor McDonald: There's a bit of animosity in the room all

00:09:27: Connor McDonald: of a sudden between Caroline and Kai

00:09:30: Connor McDonald: debating who pressed record on the camera

00:09:33: Connor McDonald: or who didn't press record.

00:09:34: Connor McDonald: I just want to keep our listeners up to

00:09:36: Connor McDonald: date as to what's going on.

00:09:37: Connor McDonald: Great, great.

00:09:39: Connor McDonald: Suddenly, it's really cold in here.

00:09:41: Connor McDonald: The temperature seems to have dropped a lot.

00:09:44: Kai: No, we're fine, everything's right.

00:09:47: Kai: I guess I put on.

00:09:48: Caro: Maybe it just turned off.

00:09:50: Caro: We will see so for the background.

00:09:52: Kai: This camera is recording like 4K, 60 frames

00:09:56: Kai: per second in ProRes HDR and it's 800

00:10:00: Kai: gigabytes for one hour.

00:10:02: Kai: So there's an SSD on it and everything else

00:10:04: Kai: and it's just recording for 20, 20 seconds

00:10:07: Kai: snippets for for YouTube and so on.

00:10:09: Kai: But I think, uh, did we interrupt you?

00:10:12: Kai: No?

00:10:13: Caro: no, sorry.

00:10:15: Kai: I was guessing where we stopped.

00:10:16: Kai: So, yeah, our listeners might be with us,

00:10:19: Kai: because it's more chatty, chatty podcast

00:10:21: Kai: this time.

00:10:23: Connor McDonald: We were talking about audio dubbing, how we

00:10:24: Connor McDonald: could do these podcasts in another language.

00:10:26: Connor McDonald: So because I'm going to explore because

00:10:27: Connor McDonald: YouTube nowadays has let you do multiple

00:10:30: Connor McDonald: audio tracks for a video.

00:10:32: Connor McDonald: So I'm looking at, you know, because I was

00:10:34: Connor McDonald: originally thinking about doing another

00:10:36: Connor McDonald: YouTube channel of my stuff in, say,

00:10:38: Connor McDonald: spanish, and that's how people used to do

00:10:40: Connor McDonald: it, that had multiple channels, but now on

00:10:42: Connor McDonald: your single channel you let people choose

00:10:44: Connor McDonald: the, the audio dubbing.

00:10:46: Connor McDonald: So because I haven't researched pricing yet,

00:10:48: Connor McDonald: but if it's, if I'm thinking like if we'll

00:10:50: Connor McDonald: say, let's say it's a dollar, well, you

00:10:52: Connor McDonald: know, even ten dollars per recording, like

00:10:54: Connor McDonald: the ability to, you know, reach out to an

00:10:57: Connor McDonald: audience, because for me it would probably

00:10:58: Connor McDonald: be.

00:10:58: Connor McDonald: I'd probably record things in hindi,

00:11:00: Connor McDonald: because I have a lot of people in india

00:11:02: Connor McDonald: watch my videos and maybe Spanish, and that

00:11:05: Connor McDonald: would make up for my you know my lack of

00:11:07: Connor McDonald: language skills, which I'm sure I'll never

00:11:09: Connor McDonald: be able to solve.

00:11:10: Kai: I mean, I think I heard the first time from

00:11:12: Kai: about that from MrBeast, but but I think

00:11:15: Kai: they're manually redoing all the videos in

00:11:17: Kai: different languages, so there's someone

00:11:19: Kai: sitting there and recording the voice of

00:11:21: Kai: MrBeast and translate that, so but he has

00:11:24: Kai: like 20 YouTube channels, true, but he's

00:11:27: Kai: been shutting them down.

00:11:28: Connor McDonald: That's how I found out one of the

00:11:29: Connor McDonald: information.

00:11:30: Connor McDonald: So, once YouTube introduced the multiple

00:11:32: Connor McDonald: dubbing, he's like.

00:11:34: Connor McDonald: I know the MrBeast Spanish channel hasn't

00:11:37: Connor McDonald: put any content out for the last couple of

00:11:38: Connor McDonald: years because now you can choose the

00:11:40: Connor McDonald: Spanish dubbing on his main channel.

00:11:45: Caro: If you use, so some youtube talk right now.

00:11:48: Caro: But if you use the other dubbing, do you?

00:11:50: Caro: Can you also replace the video so it's not

00:11:53: Caro: just like in a really bad and old like

00:11:57: Caro: those, those you know, old kung fu movies

00:11:59: Caro: yeah where you see the lips move for five

00:12:02: Caro: seconds and someone says yes, yeah.

00:12:06: Connor McDonald: Do you know that I don't think so I don't

00:12:08: Connor McDonald: think it's a brand new version of the video.

00:12:09: Connor McDonald: I mean, as I said, you can pay an AI system

00:12:12: Connor McDonald: to do it, but I think that'd be pretty

00:12:13: Connor McDonald: pricey.

00:12:14: Kai: Maybe they have that on YouTube as a

00:12:15: Kai: feature in the future.

00:12:26: Kai: They say, okay, we do the lip sync for you

00:12:27: Kai: and everything AI part.

00:12:27: Kai: But I don't know if I would prefer like two

00:12:28: Kai: good running YouTube accounts in different

00:12:29: Kai: languages you have them separated or if I

00:12:30: Kai: would like to have everything in one place

00:12:31: Kai: and everything in one video.

00:12:34: Kai: I don't know what.

00:12:35: Kai: Would I prefer to have multiple?

00:12:36: Caro: channels that have.

00:12:37: Caro: I can imagine that it's better for the

00:12:40: Caro: algorithm, because if you have videos which

00:12:42: Caro: click more, or which are clicked more or

00:12:45: Caro: seen more by users, you get more views

00:12:49: Caro: because YouTube promotes videos which are

00:12:53: Caro: performing well.

00:12:54: Caro: So I think it might be better from a

00:12:57: Caro: performing perspective.

00:12:59: Connor McDonald: I think it's fair to say none of the three

00:13:01: Connor McDonald: of us in the room will be retiring off

00:13:02: Connor McDonald: YouTube monetary income anytime soon.

00:13:06: Kai: Yeah, that was what I was guessing.

00:13:08: Kai: Maybe there's just one person needed now to

00:13:10: Kai: administrate the one single account he has.

00:13:13: Kai: But I mean, we have like six listeners on

00:13:15: Kai: YouTube, I guess because YouTube.

00:13:18: Kai: So if someone is listening to podcasts, I

00:13:20: Kai: think the last platform you would go to is

00:13:23: Kai: YouTube and see like wavelengths and listen

00:13:25: Kai: to the video, Unless you want to see the

00:13:27: Kai: subtitles and your player on your phone or

00:13:29: Kai: something is not showing the subtitles for

00:13:31: Kai: that.

00:13:31: Kai: But back to topic.

00:13:33: Kai: I would love to see Caro speak Japanese,

00:13:37: Kai: Like the lip-sync stuff, and some exotic,

00:13:40: Kai: real exotic languages.

00:13:41: Kai: That would be great.

00:13:42: Kai: And we're saying oh, Caro, I didn't know

00:13:44: Kai: that you can speak Japanese fluently.

00:13:46: Caro: Yeah, I think I would translate to English

00:13:49: Caro: first, because then I can hear how I would

00:13:51: Caro: sound if I could speak English.

00:13:53: Caro: Well, oh, great.

00:13:56: Kai: And then Connor will switch from Hindu to.

00:13:59: Connor McDonald: Maybe German, maybe German.

00:14:00: Kai: Oh, that would be interesting.

00:14:02: Kai: Maybe that's $10 worth, Maybe German?

00:14:04: Kai: Oh that would be interesting.

00:14:04: Caro: Maybe that's $10 worth.

00:14:05: Caro: Yeah, I've also I've already seen these

00:14:08: Caro: some examples from German YouTubers which

00:14:11: Caro: were converted in such an AI.

00:14:16: Caro: But I had a look at it at the best and it

00:14:17: Caro: was really expensive.

00:14:18: Caro: So we paid for one minute and I thought

00:14:21: Caro: about putting our podcast in there, but it

00:14:24: Caro: would be $10 per minute.

00:14:26: Caro: So a 60-minute podcast it's too expensive

00:14:30: Caro: for us Not worth it.

00:14:32: Caro: No.

00:14:33: Kai: Yeah, we see that this will get cheaper if

00:14:36: Kai: there's more movement in the AI part but

00:14:39: Kai: yeah, I imagine.

00:14:40: Connor McDonald: so.

00:14:41: Kai: Okay, we stopped.

00:14:42: Kai: And which stop on your travel in 2024?

00:14:47: Kai: Like, Doeg is the last thing for the year

00:14:48: Kai: and what is happening in December for you?

00:14:51: Connor McDonald: For me very little.

00:14:52: Connor McDonald: I know the UKOEG conference is on, but last

00:14:55: Connor McDonald: year, because it was adjacent to Doeg, I

00:14:56: Connor McDonald: could do both in one trip.

00:14:58: Connor McDonald: But it's just not practical from a

00:15:00: Connor McDonald: financial perspective to come back to the

00:15:02: Connor McDonald: UKOEG, which is a bit of a bummer for me

00:15:05: Connor McDonald: because it's back in Birmingham this year,

00:15:08: Connor McDonald: and the UKUG no disrespect intended to DOAC

00:15:11: Connor McDonald: holds a very dear place in my heart because

00:15:13: Connor McDonald: it was probably my I think it was my first

00:15:15: Connor McDonald: ever overseas talk.

00:15:16: Connor McDonald: I'd done talk for the Australian user

00:15:18: Connor McDonald: groups for a number of years.

00:15:19: Connor McDonald: But then my wife and I re-immigrated to the

00:15:22: Connor McDonald: UK back in 1998 because of the Y2K.

00:15:26: Connor McDonald: It was work everywhere.

00:15:28: Connor McDonald: My father was Irish, so I have an EU

00:15:29: Connor McDonald: passport, and my wife now ex-wife, but she

00:15:33: Connor McDonald: had a UK passport so we could both work

00:15:36: Connor McDonald: anywhere in Europe without any issues.

00:15:38: Connor McDonald: So we thought, oh yeah, we'll chase the

00:15:40: Connor McDonald: money.

00:15:41: Connor McDonald: And the funny thing is I always feel guilty

00:15:45: Connor McDonald: saying this.

00:15:45: Connor McDonald: But she was right.

00:15:46: Connor McDonald: She said she wanted to go to the UK so she

00:15:48: Connor McDonald: could expand her horizons and go traveling

00:15:50: Connor McDonald: and I was like I'm here for the dollars and

00:15:53: Connor McDonald: she was right.

00:15:54: Connor McDonald: I came over thinking I'm just going for the

00:15:56: Connor McDonald: money, but it was actually a great

00:15:58: Connor McDonald: experience more, just because there was

00:15:59: Connor McDonald: work everywhere.

00:16:00: Connor McDonald: You'd pick a place you'd like to see and

00:16:03: Connor McDonald: you go get a contract there because there

00:16:04: Connor McDonald: was a contract wherever you wanted.

00:16:06: Connor McDonald: Even in places like France, which is

00:16:08: Connor McDonald: obviously very strictly French speaking,

00:16:11: Connor McDonald: they would take English speaking developers

00:16:12: Connor McDonald: because they just had so much work on.

00:16:17: Connor McDonald: So long story short, that's how I got

00:16:18: Connor McDonald: involved in my UKOG first talk overseas,

00:16:21: Connor McDonald: and so then it was at the Birmingham ICC.

00:16:23: Connor McDonald: So this year it's not at the ICC because

00:16:25: Connor McDonald: that's a massive venue, but it's still back

00:16:27: Connor McDonald: in Birmingham.

00:16:27: Connor McDonald: I'd have loved to have gone there.

00:16:30: Connor McDonald: And also a friend of the show, maybe Tim

00:16:32: Connor McDonald: Hall Oracle Base.

00:16:34: Connor McDonald: He hasn't given any talks at conferences

00:16:37: Connor McDonald: for a long long time.

00:16:38: Kai: We didn't have him in the podcast yet.

00:16:40: Connor McDonald: Oh, he'd be a good get.

00:16:41: Connor McDonald: I've had him on my podcast.

00:16:43: Connor McDonald: He's always happy to talk, always happy to

00:16:44: Connor McDonald: talk, always happy to talk tech.

00:16:46: Connor McDonald: But yeah, I don't think he's done any

00:16:48: Connor McDonald: conferences since COVID and so he's coming

00:16:50: Connor McDonald: out to do some talks at the UKG so I think

00:16:52: Connor McDonald: it'll be a really spectacular event, but

00:16:55: Connor McDonald: unfortunately I won't be there and then

00:16:56: Connor McDonald: it's sort of heading into Christmas, so

00:16:58: Connor McDonald: I'll just be doing the Ask Tom.

00:17:02: Connor McDonald: I do a monthly office hours, which

00:17:02: Connor McDonald: unfortunately I had to cancel this one

00:17:03: Connor McDonald: because I'm in DOAG but December's office

00:17:06: Connor McDonald: hours we do an annual thing where we do no

00:17:09: Connor McDonald: content in advance.

00:17:11: Connor McDonald: We just say it's going to be open Q&A, it

00:17:13: Connor McDonald: goes as long as it goes, and so that's

00:17:15: Connor McDonald: always fun because you're more just.

00:17:17: Connor McDonald: There's no slides, there's no demos, it's

00:17:22: Connor McDonald: all just scribbling on a piece of paper

00:17:23: Connor McDonald: with the camera mounted above the paper.

00:17:24: Connor McDonald: So I just scribble notes and do it that way

00:17:26: Connor McDonald: and that'll be pretty much it for the year

00:17:27: Connor McDonald: for me, and then we start thinking about

00:17:29: Connor McDonald: next year.

00:17:30: Kai: Yeah, what is going on next year?

00:17:32: Kai: How do you start?

00:17:33: Connor McDonald: Same old, same old.

00:17:36: Connor McDonald: It's like the multi-cloud 2025 event will

00:17:39: Connor McDonald: be in February, so I'll be off to India in

00:17:41: Connor McDonald: February for six cities in seven days.

00:17:46: Connor McDonald: Other than that, I've submitted for a

00:17:47: Connor McDonald: number of developer conferences, because

00:17:49: Connor McDonald: one of the things I think that's important

00:17:50: Connor McDonald: is it's very easy to get trapped in your

00:17:52: Connor McDonald: own little voice bubble.

00:17:53: Connor McDonald: So, as much as I love coming to Oracle

00:17:55: Connor McDonald: events and catching up with people that I

00:17:57: Connor McDonald: haven't seen typically for a year and

00:17:59: Connor McDonald: that's always heartwarming and good fun I

00:18:02: Connor McDonald: think also, if we're going to have the IT

00:18:06: Connor McDonald: community prosper, especially if they're

00:18:07: Connor McDonald: using Oracle, then you've got to get out

00:18:09: Connor McDonald: more to the developer events which might

00:18:11: Connor McDonald: not be so much Oracle-based and, what's

00:18:13: Connor McDonald: more, in some of the events there's even

00:18:15: Connor McDonald: sort of open hostility to Oracle because of

00:18:18: Connor McDonald: that thing of you know we don't like big

00:18:19: Connor McDonald: companies.

00:18:20: Connor McDonald: We don't like big business.

00:18:21: Connor McDonald: It's all about open source.

00:18:46: Connor McDonald: So I'm keen to reach out to those places

00:18:48: Connor McDonald: and see if I can get some talks accepted,

00:18:49: Connor McDonald: just so have to do themselves to run a

00:18:50: Connor McDonald: Postgres environment in a sort of an

00:18:51: Connor McDonald: enterprise space.

00:18:52: Connor McDonald: This is not me dunking on Postgres, it was

00:18:54: Connor McDonald: more the fact that it's that balancing act.

00:18:57: Connor McDonald: You either pay for features in the product

00:18:59: Connor McDonald: and have less operational overheads or you

00:19:02: Connor McDonald: pay for the operational overheads at the

00:19:04: Connor McDonald: cost of less features in the product.

00:19:05: Connor McDonald: It's just a choice that people make.

00:19:06: Connor McDonald: So I had a couple of customer meetings

00:19:08: Connor McDonald: where people were looking at we're looking

00:19:10: Connor McDonald: at moving away from Postgres back to Oracle

00:19:12: Connor McDonald: simply to reduce that.

00:19:14: Connor McDonald: One telco company.

00:19:16: Connor McDonald: I think they said we have 30 DBAs looking

00:19:18: Connor McDonald: after our systems and they said that's a

00:19:21: Connor McDonald: lot of overhead that we're looking at

00:19:23: Connor McDonald: trying.

00:19:23: Connor McDonald: Know we'd rather relocate those people to

00:19:25: Connor McDonald: do other tasks that are more practical to

00:19:26: Connor McDonald: help the company as opposed to just making

00:19:28: Connor McDonald: sure things stay up and running and then

00:19:31: Connor McDonald: it'll be back in the conferences ask Tom

00:19:33: Connor McDonald: office hours, hopefully record some more

00:19:35: Connor McDonald: podcasts.

00:19:37: Connor McDonald: I might flip the tables and get each of you

00:19:39: Connor McDonald: individually on my podcast and see how we

00:19:41: Connor McDonald: go.

00:19:41: Kai: Yeah, there might be a conference where we

00:19:43: Kai: both attend.

00:19:44: Kai: I don't know how often this will happen.

00:19:47: Kai: You can fly us over to Australia, no

00:19:48: Kai: worries.

00:19:50: Connor McDonald: You're always welcome in Perth.

00:19:51: Connor McDonald: I can show you all the site Singular, one

00:19:56: Connor McDonald: of the great scams.

00:19:57: Connor McDonald: If you ever fly to Perth, this is my word

00:19:58: Connor McDonald: of warning to you as you arrive at the

00:20:00: Connor McDonald: International Airport and you're walking

00:20:01: Connor McDonald: through that area to get through customs

00:20:03: Connor McDonald: and baggage and all that kind of stuff.

00:20:05: Connor McDonald: There's these beautiful murals along the

00:20:06: Connor McDonald: wall of the terminal of all the various

00:20:08: Connor McDonald: sites that you can come to once you've

00:20:10: Connor McDonald: landed in Perth, and there's a wine region

00:20:13: Connor McDonald: called Margaret River famous wines there.

00:20:15: Connor McDonald: There's a place called Broome which has a

00:20:17: Connor McDonald: beach which is 80 miles long, single bay 80

00:20:19: Connor McDonald: miles long.

00:20:19: Connor McDonald: All these amazing things kangaroos, koalas,

00:20:23: Connor McDonald: all sorts of all the things that you would

00:20:24: Connor McDonald: think of wanting to go see if you're in

00:20:26: Connor McDonald: Australia.

00:20:28: Connor McDonald: What they don't tell you is the scale.

00:20:30: Connor McDonald: So the Margaret River region is a five-hour

00:20:32: Connor McDonald: drive from Perth, broome is a three-hour

00:20:35: Connor McDonald: flight, and so there's all these wonderful

00:20:37: Connor McDonald: things that you can literally hear the

00:20:39: Connor McDonald: tourists coming in, going.

00:20:40: Connor McDonald: Oh, we should do that tomorrow and we'll do

00:20:42: Connor McDonald: that the next day, and I'm going.

00:20:45: Connor McDonald: Oh, we should do that tomorrow and we'll do

00:20:46: Connor McDonald: that the next day, and I'm going, I've got

00:20:47: Connor McDonald: some news for you You're not doing any of

00:20:48: Connor McDonald: that stuff unless you have a helicopter

00:20:49: Connor McDonald: Exactly.

00:20:49: Connor McDonald: So it's, it's a bit of a scam, but yeah.

00:20:51: Connor McDonald: So if you, but if you come out to, if you

00:20:53: Connor McDonald: come out to Perth, I'll I'll show you

00:20:54: Connor McDonald: around and yeah maybe we'll see.

00:20:57: Kai: I don't know.

00:20:58: Kai: I had a webinar for the Australian.

00:21:07: Kai: Bad timing for me to present from Germany

00:21:10: Kai: to Australian time, but yeah, maybe

00:21:12: Kai: sometime we visit Australia.

00:21:15: Kai: We see we write it on our list for being

00:21:17: Kai: guests at a podcast.

00:21:18: Caro: Yeah.

00:21:19: Kai: And for sure we will get bad headphones.

00:21:22: Caro: I'm pretty sure.

00:21:23: Kai: To have a comeback to the last episode last

00:21:25: Kai: year.

00:21:26: Kai: This time, connor, get really, really

00:21:28: Kai: decent headphones.

00:21:29: Connor McDonald: Very nice headphones.

00:21:31: Kai: Are you now happy?

00:21:32: Kai: Is it okay?

00:21:33: Kai: Is everything?

00:21:34: Connor McDonald: okay, I feel I'm being treated like a human

00:21:37: Connor McDonald: being.

00:21:37: Kai: finally, the first time in this podcast.

00:21:40: Kai: Yeah, I mean we had to have a proper

00:21:44: Kai: hardware setup for you because we are now

00:21:45: Kai: recording the video, but right after that

00:21:47: Kai: you will see All right, okay, so

00:21:52: Kai: technically speaking, do you have any

00:21:54: Kai: technical questions from new topics this

00:21:56: Kai: year?

00:21:57: Caro: yeah, I have technical.

00:21:59: Caro: I just thought about because we wanted to

00:22:01: Caro: ask you something about traveling and I

00:22:03: Caro: thought that it would, that this would be

00:22:05: Caro: perfect timing because you want to fly to

00:22:09: Caro: australia.

00:22:10: Caro: Yeah, we need life hacks.

00:22:12: Kai: That was a topic we were talking about

00:22:14: Kai: earlier this morning, so we heard already

00:22:16: Kai: that you're traveling so much around during

00:22:18: Kai: the year and someone who has obvious a

00:22:20: Kai: million of miles on his airline wallet must

00:22:24: Kai: have any good advice for traveling.

00:22:26: Kai: People like life hacks or something.

00:22:28: Kai: What do you do when you go to a hotel room

00:22:30: Kai: first and do some magic?

00:22:33: Connor McDonald: Okay, let me think.

00:22:34: Connor McDonald: Well, I'll give you a couple options.

00:22:36: Connor McDonald: First of all, if you want to hear me just

00:22:38: Connor McDonald: bitch and moan about travel, I have a blog

00:22:42: Connor McDonald: post I wrote.

00:22:42: Connor McDonald: I think I'd had a bad flying experience and

00:22:45: Connor McDonald: I was just so wound up I thought I'm going

00:22:46: Connor McDonald: to write a blog post about this.

00:22:48: Connor McDonald: And so I head over my blog and search for

00:22:50: Connor McDonald: travel.

00:22:51: Connor McDonald: I've got, like you know, my top 10 tips for

00:22:53: Connor McDonald: travelers, but it's just me complaining.

00:22:55: Caro: It's just me.

00:22:56: Connor McDonald: Yeah, it's got.

00:22:57: Connor McDonald: Like you know, things like you know.

00:22:59: Connor McDonald: When you get to the desk and they say you

00:23:01: Connor McDonald: know, show us your boarding pass.

00:23:03: Connor McDonald: That is not the time to put your suitcase

00:23:05: Connor McDonald: down, unzip your suitcase, go hunting

00:23:07: Connor McDonald: around for your boarding pass, like you

00:23:09: Connor McDonald: know they were going to ask for it.

00:23:10: Connor McDonald: You don't have to then take 15 minutes to

00:23:12: Connor McDonald: do it.

00:23:13: Connor McDonald: Or things like you know the overhead

00:23:15: Connor McDonald: baggage, you know the carry-on luggage.

00:23:16: Connor McDonald: I'm going.

00:23:18: Connor McDonald: Are you emigrating?

00:23:20: Connor McDonald: Why did you pack?

00:23:21: Connor McDonald: You know all your clothes, all your

00:23:23: Connor McDonald: belongings, a ride-on lawnmower.

00:23:26: Connor McDonald: You know a filing cabinet into your

00:23:28: Connor McDonald: carry-on luggage, and I don't mind any of

00:23:31: Connor McDonald: that if during the flight you see them use

00:23:34: Connor McDonald: it.

00:23:34: Connor McDonald: But people bring these enormous things on.

00:23:36: Connor McDonald: They just jam them in the overhead locker

00:23:38: Connor McDonald: and then they just leave it.

00:23:39: Connor McDonald: I'm going well, why did you bother?

00:23:43: Kai: Anyway, I don't want to go ranting Head to

00:23:44: Kai: my blog.

00:23:45: Connor McDonald: My tips for traveling is number one is do

00:23:50: Connor McDonald: not ever underestimate the value of an

00:23:52: Connor McDonald: airport shower, because especially most of

00:23:55: Connor McDonald: my flights are long-haul flights.

00:23:56: Connor McDonald: They're sort of normally seven, eight hours

00:23:59: Connor McDonald: and upwards.

00:24:03: Connor McDonald: Going home from here it's, I think, seven

00:24:04: Connor McDonald: to Dubai and then 12 to Perth.

00:24:05: Connor McDonald: But what I find is, whenever you have more

00:24:06: Connor McDonald: than one hop, if you can have a shower and

00:24:09: Connor McDonald: sometimes I fly, and now there's

00:24:11: Connor McDonald: occasionally the airlines I fly I'll have a

00:24:14: Connor McDonald: lounge access, which I'm not sure.

00:24:15: Connor McDonald: But even if not, if I'm flying with an

00:24:16: Connor McDonald: airline for which I don't have any

00:24:18: Connor McDonald: particular perks most airlines have a

00:24:21: Connor McDonald: shower, even a rubbish one, available to

00:24:23: Connor McDonald: all the public, although I have pay-per-use

00:24:25: Connor McDonald: showers.

00:24:26: Connor McDonald: But don't underestimate the value of that,

00:24:28: Connor McDonald: because it literally turns like if I'm

00:24:30: Connor McDonald: flying 7 hours and 12 hours, that's 19

00:24:32: Connor McDonald: hours, but if you have a shower in the

00:24:33: Connor McDonald: middle, suddenly it's two short flights as

00:24:35: Connor McDonald: opposed to one enormous ordeal, because you

00:24:38: Connor McDonald: don't have that sort of feeling of you know,

00:24:40: Connor McDonald: when you get off a plane after seven hours,

00:24:43: Connor McDonald: you're carrying seven hours of other

00:24:45: Connor McDonald: people's breath with you.

00:24:47: Connor McDonald: And you just feel awful.

00:24:52: Connor McDonald: You just feel awful, you just feel

00:24:53: Connor McDonald: disgusting.

00:24:53: Connor McDonald: And so, getting on the plane for the next

00:24:54: Connor McDonald: flight, you're going, it's already.

00:24:55: Connor McDonald: It feels like this is our seven, seven

00:24:56: Connor McDonald: hours and one and one minute, whereas if

00:24:58: Connor McDonald: you have a shower it's like a brand new

00:24:59: Connor McDonald: flight so now my colleagues will hate me

00:25:02: Connor McDonald: because I have to show on each and every

00:25:03: Connor McDonald: airport, even if it's a short flight right,

00:25:05: Connor McDonald: 30 minutes flight and then I have to take a

00:25:07: Connor McDonald: shower because I'm taking magnificent.

00:25:10: Connor McDonald: the other is it's funny, I have a hack for

00:25:12: Connor McDonald: sleeping on planes and the backstory is

00:25:15: Connor McDonald: before COVID.

00:25:16: Connor McDonald: I managed to develop this routine where I'd

00:25:18: Connor McDonald: get on a plane and just sort of zone out

00:25:21: Connor McDonald: Almost like in a trance, to the extent that

00:25:22: Connor McDonald: occasionally the airline staff would often

00:25:25: Connor McDonald: come up and tap me and say is everything

00:25:26: Connor McDonald: okay?

00:25:27: Connor McDonald: They thought I'd died.

00:25:28: Kai: They thought I'd died.

00:25:30: Connor McDonald: And so back in those days, literally I'd

00:25:32: Connor McDonald: get on this long-haul flight and with a

00:25:34: Connor McDonald: click of my fingers they're going, we're

00:25:36: Connor McDonald: starting our descent and I've just missed

00:25:39: Connor McDonald: the entire flight.

00:25:40: Connor McDonald: And it was funny post-COVID.

00:25:42: Connor McDonald: When I jumped on my first long-haul flight,

00:25:43: Connor McDonald: I thought no problems, but I've lost it,

00:25:46: Connor McDonald: I've lost that ability.

00:25:48: Connor McDonald: So I remember I zoned out and I went okay,

00:25:51: Connor McDonald: how much time's passed?

00:25:52: Connor McDonald: I looked at my watch, three minutes have

00:25:54: Connor McDonald: passed and I go oh great, only 12 hours and

00:25:57: Connor McDonald: 57 minutes to go.

00:25:59: Connor McDonald: So even now I've lost that ability.

00:26:02: Connor McDonald: So my hack for sleeping on a plane is if

00:26:04: Connor McDonald: you can get a spare seat next to you, which

00:26:06: Connor McDonald: obviously is that luck of the gods, but

00:26:08: Connor McDonald: sometimes we get lucky.

00:26:15: Connor McDonald: My travel hack is you lift up the armrest

00:26:16: Connor McDonald: in between and you jam don't put your

00:26:17: Connor McDonald: blanket on, jam your blanket on top of the

00:26:18: Connor McDonald: armrest, put your pillow on top of that and

00:26:19: Connor McDonald: now you have the perfect headrest.

00:26:21: Connor McDonald: You can lie on a bit of an angle, and I

00:26:22: Connor McDonald: find I've told a few people this and they

00:26:24: Connor McDonald: were like doesn't sound that comfy to me,

00:26:26: Connor McDonald: and then they all come back to me

00:26:27: Connor McDonald: afterwards and go.

00:26:28: Connor McDonald: I managed to sleep on that plane for the

00:26:29: Connor McDonald: first time.

00:26:30: Connor McDonald: So there's my sleeping hack on planes.

00:26:32: Kai: Oh, wow, yeah you should try that.

00:26:33: Connor McDonald: Yeah, and what else is in terms of hacks,

00:26:36: Connor McDonald: in terms of hotel hacks, one of the things

00:26:40: Connor McDonald: that I find is every hotel, you can never

00:26:44: Connor McDonald: close the curtains.

00:26:45: Connor McDonald: You can close them almost, but there's some

00:26:46: Connor McDonald: light or something coming out, whatever and

00:26:49: Connor McDonald: this is a common one, but I know a lot of

00:26:51: Connor McDonald: people who haven't heard.

00:26:52: Connor McDonald: It is if you go to the wardrobe, they've

00:26:54: Connor McDonald: always got the coat hangers with little

00:26:55: Connor McDonald: clips on them for hanging up trousers and

00:26:57: Connor McDonald: slacks and stuff.

00:26:58: Connor McDonald: What you do is you use that to clip the

00:27:00: Connor McDonald: hotel blinds shut and that's how you have a

00:27:03: Connor McDonald: nice, dark hotel room.

00:27:04: Kai: Oh, that sounds reasonably, and I know one

00:27:08: Kai: too, because there's always some device in

00:27:09: Kai: the hotel room that is having the stand.

00:27:11: Kai: Got the light on, yeah, so you get some

00:27:12: Kai: duct tape with you in each and every travel,

00:27:15: Kai: and then you're just.

00:27:16: Connor McDonald: The TV always has it, yeah.

00:27:19: Connor McDonald: Smoke detector yeah, I'm not advising

00:27:21: Connor McDonald: listeners to put duct tape on the smoke

00:27:22: Connor McDonald: detector, but I just came up with some way

00:27:25: Connor McDonald: of putting something in front of it.

00:27:27: Connor McDonald: What else in terms of hotel hacks?

00:27:28: Connor McDonald: Oh yeah.

00:27:28: Connor McDonald: What else in terms of hotel hacks?

00:27:29: Connor McDonald: Oh yeah, turn off the fridge because that's

00:27:30: Connor McDonald: going to make noises during the night.

00:27:32: Connor McDonald: That's always a pain.

00:27:34: Connor McDonald: I have no idea if this is true, but ever

00:27:37: Connor McDonald: since I heard it, it's always made my

00:27:38: Connor McDonald: stomach turn.

00:27:40: Connor McDonald: Someone once told me they said never use

00:27:42: Connor McDonald: the kettle in a hotel because what happens

00:27:45: Connor McDonald: is people used to do their washing in it

00:27:47: Connor McDonald: Like they'll wash their socks and underwear

00:27:49: Connor McDonald: in the hotel by boiling the kettle.

00:27:50: Connor McDonald: Washing in it Like they'll wash their socks

00:27:51: Connor McDonald: and underwear in the hotel by boiling the

00:27:52: Connor McDonald: kettle.

00:27:53: Connor McDonald: So uh, so yeah.

00:27:53: Connor McDonald: So I have no idea if that is true, but

00:27:55: Connor McDonald: since I heard that, I have not used a hotel

00:27:57: Connor McDonald: kettle.

00:27:59: Kai: No, I cannot do that.

00:28:02: Connor McDonald: So apologies for sharing that.

00:28:03: Connor McDonald: Maybe I've spoiled hotel kettles for you

00:28:05: Connor McDonald: for the rest of your life, but I'd

00:28:06: Connor McDonald: recommend, yeah, Like, if you're sitting

00:28:08: Connor McDonald: there going, this green tea tastes awfully

00:28:10: Connor McDonald: sour, then you'll know I'm made of cheese

00:28:15: Connor McDonald: in it, all right no more kettles in the

00:28:22: Connor McDonald: room, okay.

00:28:22: Kai: Coffee machines are okay, right I?

00:28:24: Connor McDonald: assume.

00:28:25: Connor McDonald: So okay, all right, coffee machine, I'm

00:28:27: Connor McDonald: sure it'll be fine.

00:28:27: Connor McDonald: But yeah, kettles is one I just can't.

00:28:29: Connor McDonald: And and for all I know that this is a total

00:28:31: Connor McDonald: old wives sale, but now that I've heard it

00:28:33: Connor McDonald: I just cannot bring myself to use a hoe for

00:28:36: Connor McDonald: a kettle anymore well, I can't imagine

00:28:38: Connor McDonald: people do many things and in a hotel room.

00:28:43: Kai: You don't want to know about that yeah but

00:28:46: Kai: yeah, so, leading to that, there might be

00:28:48: Kai: some weird moments in hotel rooms maybe.

00:28:50: Kai: So I I present.

00:28:51: Kai: You said go to india, talk there, but my

00:28:54: Kai: biggest fear to go to india is you can't

00:28:57: Kai: drink tap water.

00:28:58: Kai: You shouldn't drink tap water but you can

00:29:00: Kai: shower in it.

00:29:01: Kai: I don't know if this feels good and

00:29:04: Kai: obviously I don't know if have hygienic

00:29:07: Kai: expectations from there to be not that good

00:29:09: Kai: and and food, and I don't know what happens

00:29:11: Kai: there.

00:29:12: Kai: So I guess there might be some stories you

00:29:14: Kai: might share with us what happened in

00:29:15: Kai: different countries.

00:29:16: Connor McDonald: I've been remarkably lucky in India that

00:29:19: Connor McDonald: I've had an occasional funny stomach but

00:29:22: Connor McDonald: never wiped out, and I've been fortunate

00:29:25: Connor McDonald: We've had some other people on the Indian

00:29:27: Connor McDonald: tours who have gone down and gone down hard.

00:29:34: Connor McDonald: But one of the reasons I would recommend if

00:29:35: Connor McDonald: you're ever going to India is to do an

00:29:36: Connor McDonald: event where Sai Penaruma is running.

00:29:37: Connor McDonald: It is he looks after all the logistics and

00:29:41: Connor McDonald: obviously he has a vested interest in this

00:29:43: Connor McDonald: in the sense that if he organizes what

00:29:45: Connor McDonald: flights everyone should take inside India,

00:29:47: Connor McDonald: he organizes everyone's what hotels he

00:29:49: Connor McDonald: recommends and as a result, it makes his

00:29:51: Connor McDonald: life easier because in the following day

00:29:53: Connor McDonald: when you're all going to the conference,

00:29:55: Connor McDonald: you're all at the one hotel.

00:29:56: Connor McDonald: We can all organize cars and Ubers to

00:29:58: Connor McDonald: Woolie from there.

00:29:59: Connor McDonald: There's no looking for people, there's no

00:30:00: Connor McDonald: people getting lost, but also importantly,

00:30:02: Connor McDonald: you've got Sai with you, who's local to

00:30:04: Connor McDonald: India.

00:30:04: Connor McDonald: He knows India well and also, as a result,

00:30:07: Connor McDonald: whenever you go out for a meal, someone

00:30:10: Connor McDonald: might order something off the menu and Sai

00:30:11: Connor McDonald: goes.

00:30:12: Connor McDonald: I wouldn't recommend it Maybe stay away

00:30:14: Connor McDonald: from that.

00:30:14: Connor McDonald: So he's very careful in making sure his

00:30:17: Connor McDonald: guests stay healthy the entire trip because

00:30:19: Connor McDonald: obviously if he loses a speaker then that

00:30:21: Connor McDonald: just makes his life hard as well.

00:30:23: Connor McDonald: So if you're ever going to India, do it

00:30:25: Connor McDonald: with Sai.

00:30:26: Connor McDonald: But some of the things it's funny, now that

00:30:27: Connor McDonald: I've been to India so many times, the days

00:30:30: Connor McDonald: of Sai looking after me have sort of

00:30:31: Connor McDonald: dissipated.

00:30:32: Connor McDonald: He's like oh no, I'm going to look after

00:30:33: Connor McDonald: these people, you're on your own, connie,

00:30:36: Connor McDonald: you stay at your own hotel.

00:30:37: Connor McDonald: I don't care.

00:30:39: Connor McDonald: But I guess he's a lovely guy.

00:30:42: Connor McDonald: But as a result, some of the things you do

00:30:43: Connor McDonald: learn is in terms of the water situation

00:30:46: Connor McDonald: generally in India.

00:30:47: Connor McDonald: It's bottled water only.

00:30:48: Connor McDonald: People say oh you know, make sure you don't

00:30:51: Connor McDonald: put your head in the shower, stuff like

00:30:52: Connor McDonald: that.

00:30:52: Connor McDonald: That's a fiction.

00:30:54: Connor McDonald: I've never had any issues.

00:30:56: Connor McDonald: Same thing like in terms of brushing your

00:30:57: Connor McDonald: teeth I just use the water from the tap.

00:30:59: Connor McDonald: I've never had any ill effects.

00:31:00: Connor McDonald: I know a lot of people will only wash their

00:31:02: Connor McDonald: teeth with the bottled water, et cetera.

00:31:13: Connor McDonald: But for me, as long do you want some ice in

00:31:14: Connor McDonald: the drink?

00:31:14: Connor McDonald: And ice can be a bit problematic.

00:31:17: Connor McDonald: But one of the interesting things is and I

00:31:19: Connor McDonald: found this in any country, because when I

00:31:21: Connor McDonald: was in South America for the Latin America

00:31:22: Connor McDonald: tour, we ate some very interesting meals.

00:31:25: Connor McDonald: India, there's obviously some very spicy

00:31:26: Connor McDonald: meals, et cetera.

00:31:35: Connor McDonald: If you think, oh, I don't want to get sick.

00:31:36: Kai: I won't have a local meal.

00:31:36: Connor McDonald: That simply increases your risk Because,

00:31:37: Connor McDonald: for example, I know some people in India

00:31:39: Connor McDonald: who've come to traveling to India have got

00:31:41: Connor McDonald: sick because they've said I'm not going to

00:31:43: Connor McDonald: eat any of the Indian food and so they're

00:31:44: Connor McDonald: just ordering a salad and things like that,

00:31:46: Connor McDonald: but mostly local.

00:31:47: Connor McDonald: You know all the in these countries the

00:31:49: Connor McDonald: local foods are cooked to within an inch of

00:31:51: Connor McDonald: their life, so any bacteria is long since

00:31:53: Connor McDonald: gone.

00:31:54: Connor McDonald: But if you have like a fresh salad which

00:31:56: Connor McDonald: has been washed in local water, then you're

00:31:58: Connor McDonald: like playing Russian roulette and it's

00:32:00: Connor McDonald: funny how the people that are worried about

00:32:02: Connor McDonald: getting sick generally get sick because

00:32:05: Connor McDonald: they were worried about getting sick and

00:32:06: Connor McDonald: they therefore went away from the local

00:32:08: Connor McDonald: foods.

00:32:08: Kai: They did the wrong things.

00:32:08: Kai: Right went away from the local foods.

00:32:09: Kai: They did the wrong things right.

00:32:11: Connor McDonald: But yeah, I've very rarely got sick in

00:32:14: Connor McDonald: India, but I know that there's been a few

00:32:16: Connor McDonald: people on the tour who have been, but

00:32:18: Connor McDonald: that's just one of those.

00:32:20: Connor McDonald: I call them anecdotes.

00:32:23: Connor McDonald: Every time something goes wrong.

00:32:24: Connor McDonald: I've had some horror stories traveling,

00:32:27: Connor McDonald: where missed flights, or I remember once I

00:32:29: Connor McDonald: was stuck in China and in the Shanghai

00:32:31: Connor McDonald: airport there was no English signs at all

00:32:33: Connor McDonald: it's unlike most places where there's the

00:32:35: Connor McDonald: local language and English in Shanghai, but

00:32:38: Connor McDonald: it was all in Chinese.

00:32:40: Connor McDonald: And there was a problem with my boarding

00:32:42: Connor McDonald: pass in the sense that, because I was

00:32:44: Connor McDonald: leaving late at night and I was boarding

00:32:47: Connor McDonald: before midnight, but the flight was leaving

00:32:49: Connor McDonald: after midnight, the date on the ticket

00:32:52: Connor McDonald: suggested that I was meant to be boarding

00:32:53: Connor McDonald: in 24 hours time as opposed to 10 minutes

00:32:56: Connor McDonald: time.

00:32:56: Connor McDonald: So I'm trying to explain this to someone

00:32:58: Connor McDonald: who doesn't speak English and that's my

00:33:00: Connor McDonald: fault.

00:33:00: Connor McDonald: Yeah, I'm in China.

00:33:01: Connor McDonald: I'm the one at fault here because I don't

00:33:02: Connor McDonald: speak the local language, but so there's a

00:33:05: Connor McDonald: lot of me drawing clocks and pointing hands

00:33:08: Connor McDonald: and stuff, but during that time I was both.

00:33:11: Connor McDonald: I'd completed my flight into Shanghai, but

00:33:13: Connor McDonald: I haven't cleared customs.

00:33:14: Connor McDonald: So I'm stuck in this no man's land where I

00:33:16: Connor McDonald: can't leave and I can't go back and I

00:33:19: Connor McDonald: thought, yeah, it's going to be like that

00:33:20: Connor McDonald: movie where that guy was here in the

00:33:21: Connor McDonald: terminal for the rest of his life.

00:33:23: Connor McDonald: And I was like, yeah, this is not so much

00:33:26: Connor McDonald: fun.

00:33:28: Connor McDonald: But all these things, I think if you're

00:33:31: Connor McDonald: stressed about them when you're traveling,

00:33:32: Connor McDonald: then you're in trouble.

00:33:33: Connor McDonald: I mean, I've always said that half the fun

00:33:35: Connor McDonald: of traveling is bitching about traveling.

00:33:37: Connor McDonald: Yeah, half the enjoyment is sharing stories

00:33:39: Connor McDonald: with your friends about how this airline

00:33:41: Connor McDonald: went here, his airline went there, in fact,

00:33:43: Connor McDonald: even I don't want to turn this into a

00:33:45: Connor McDonald: travel podcast, but even coming to DOAG,

00:33:48: Connor McDonald: originally I'd booked a short holiday with

00:33:50: Connor McDonald: Genevieve, my partner, in Tasmania, on the

00:33:52: Connor McDonald: east coast of Australia, just on Saturday

00:33:54: Connor McDonald: and Sunday.

00:33:54: Connor McDonald: We were coming back Sunday night and we

00:33:57: Connor McDonald: were in Hobart, meant to be flying

00:33:58: Connor McDonald: Melbourne to Perth.

00:33:59: Connor McDonald: The Melbourne flight got cancelled.

00:34:00: Connor McDonald: So then we're like oh, what do we do now?

00:34:02: Connor McDonald: So jumping on the internet, phoning up

00:34:04: Connor McDonald: Qantas, sitting on hold for an hour, and

00:34:06: Connor McDonald: they said oh, we can get you to Sydney,

00:34:07: Connor McDonald: that'll get you from Sydney back to Perth

00:34:09: Connor McDonald: in order to come to Doeg.

00:34:11: Connor McDonald: So we're flying to Sydney and then, halfway

00:34:12: Connor McDonald: through the flight, the captain comes on

00:34:14: Connor McDonald: and says just to let you know, there's

00:34:15: Connor McDonald: catastrophic storms that have shut Sydney

00:34:17: Connor McDonald: airport.

00:34:18: Connor McDonald: So we're flying to a place called Canberra

00:34:20: Connor McDonald: now.

00:34:20: Connor McDonald: And we land in Canberra and there's a

00:34:23: Connor McDonald: hundred planes all just landed there.

00:34:24: Connor McDonald: They're all just wherever they'd come in

00:34:26: Connor McDonald: Australia, going to Sydney, they'd all been

00:34:27: Connor McDonald: forced to just land in Canberra.

00:34:29: Connor McDonald: So, as a result, we had this huge queue to

00:34:32: Connor McDonald: fly out to Sydney once the storm passes.

00:34:33: Connor McDonald: We had to refuel.

00:34:35: Connor McDonald: We get to Sydney and I think we missed our

00:34:37: Connor McDonald: flight, but luckily that flight had been

00:34:38: Connor McDonald: stuck as well.

00:34:40: Connor McDonald: So we're doing that classic run through the

00:34:42: Connor McDonald: airport trying to get to the plane.

00:34:44: Connor McDonald: We get on the plane and we sit there for an

00:34:46: Connor McDonald: hour because there's a million planes now

00:34:48: Connor McDonald: wanting to fly out of Sydney now that the

00:34:49: Connor McDonald: storm's gone.

00:34:50: Connor McDonald: Then they come on.

00:34:51: Connor McDonald: They say look, we're really sorry, but

00:34:53: Connor McDonald: there's an 11 pm curfew at Sydney Airport

00:34:55: Connor McDonald: because of noise pollution.

00:34:57: Connor McDonald: So we've missed that.

00:34:58: Connor McDonald: So we're taking you now to a hotel you can

00:35:01: Connor McDonald: stay overnight.

00:35:02: Connor McDonald: So it's funny.

00:35:02: Connor McDonald: On Monday just gone, I flew home, got my

00:35:06: Connor McDonald: washing out of my suitcase, put it in the

00:35:08: Connor McDonald: washing machine, dried it, put it back in

00:35:10: Connor McDonald: the suitcase and took a taxi to the airport

00:35:12: Connor McDonald: to come to Doha.

00:35:14: Connor McDonald: But, as I said, this is a story I share.

00:35:16: Connor McDonald: Like at the time I was swearing and

00:35:18: Connor McDonald: complaining and my dog's looking at me

00:35:20: Connor McDonald: going what is wrong?

00:35:21: Kai: with you, and this is, by the way, the

00:35:23: Kai: reason why I had to send so many invites.

00:35:27: Connor McDonald: Proper time slot right Now we have the

00:35:29: Connor McDonald: re-read, but yeah, so as I said, you know,

00:35:31: Connor McDonald: when things go wrong at travel, I like to

00:35:33: Connor McDonald: try to laugh them off, because it makes for

00:35:36: Connor McDonald: a funny anecdote later on.

00:35:37: Connor McDonald: And that's you know what's the saying

00:35:40: Connor McDonald: Experience is what you get when you're

00:35:41: Connor McDonald: expecting something else.

00:35:42: Kai: Wait a second Now we have the perfect short

00:35:46: Kai: shot for YouTube now on video, that now on

00:35:53: Kai: video.

00:35:54: Kai: But but yeah, I mean then they're

00:35:54: Kai: absolutely necessary that there are people

00:35:56: Kai: who are ranting about traveling, because I

00:35:57: Kai: love to watch them, and I sit somewhere in

00:35:59: Kai: the airport or somewhere even on on train

00:36:02: Kai: stations.

00:36:02: Kai: I'm sitting there watching people

00:36:04: Kai: discussing about hey, this cannot happen.

00:36:07: Kai: There's always a problem with the deutsche

00:36:08: Kai: bahn or with the, the airline xyz, and I

00:36:11: Kai: was sitting there and say, all right, we

00:36:13: Kai: have the same problem now and you are

00:36:15: Kai: ranting about it and you're very high blood

00:36:17: Kai: pressure and I don't know risk to faint,

00:36:21: Kai: and I'm sitting here, just, I cannot change

00:36:23: Kai: anything, but I love to see how they are

00:36:25: Kai: reacting.

00:36:26: Caro: Right, now Really, because it stresses me

00:36:28: Caro: out when other people are ranting.

00:36:32: Kai: I thought other people watching you rant

00:36:34: Kai: about things stresses you out.

00:36:37: Connor McDonald: Yeah, I mean I get the feeling that Kai and

00:36:39: Connor McDonald: I are the kind of people that bask in

00:36:40: Connor McDonald: watching other people's misery.

00:36:43: Connor McDonald: Maybe a little bit, but it's true.

00:36:46: Connor McDonald: I'm always bamboozled when you see people

00:36:48: Connor McDonald: at a desk who are just losing their mind at

00:36:51: Connor McDonald: someone behind the desk and I'm going.

00:36:58: Connor McDonald: What outcome did you think was going to

00:36:59: Connor McDonald: happen here, did you?

00:36:59: Connor McDonald: At what point did you think this was going

00:37:00: Connor McDonald: to end well for you?

00:37:01: Connor McDonald: All it's going to get you is on is either a

00:37:02: Connor McDonald: no-fly list or if if five seats come up on

00:37:05: Connor McDonald: some flight, there's no way that person is

00:37:07: Connor McDonald: picking you it's like it's just mindless.

00:37:11: Kai: Know like you wonder what are they thinking

00:37:13: Kai: yeah, they have to leave, they have to

00:37:15: Kai: express their their bad feelings about that

00:37:18: Kai: and maybe feel better after that.

00:37:19: Kai: But yeah, there's no positive side on that,

00:37:22: Kai: because if you say, oh, flight delayed,

00:37:24: Kai: whatever, but sometimes I think they they

00:37:27: Kai: lost two of my, my bags a flight from

00:37:30: Kai: Boston to Frankfurt and they said, all

00:37:33: Kai: right, we have a problem with your luggage.

00:37:36: Kai: I said, all right, so what happened with my

00:37:38: Kai: luggage?

00:37:39: Kai: It's still in Boston.

00:37:41: Kai: Oh wait, maybe we have one of your two bags.

00:37:44: Kai: I said, okay, either it's a shitload of

00:37:48: Kai: sweets I brought from my family or it's my

00:37:51: Kai: clothes.

00:37:52: Kai: And they said, okay, nevermind, Both bags

00:37:55: Kai: are still in the US.

00:37:57: Kai: I say, okay, I don't have even a toothbrush.

00:37:59: Kai: I don't have anything on me right now and I

00:38:01: Kai: have a very long flight after me, jet lag

00:38:03: Kai: and everything.

00:38:04: Kai: I have to buy everything new yeah, but you

00:38:07: Kai: enjoyed it.

00:38:07: Caro: I remember this is the first time we had

00:38:11: Caro: this.

00:38:11: Kai: I mean I hopped on the to the taxi, went to

00:38:14: Kai: the, the biggest shopping street in

00:38:16: Kai: frankfurt, and then I got everything new,

00:38:19: Kai: like $600 for one, one single outfit, I

00:38:22: Kai: guess, new shoes, everything, hygienic

00:38:24: Kai: products and like the, the, the good jeans

00:38:28: Kai: and so on.

00:38:29: Kai: And yeah, I enjoyed.

00:38:30: Kai: I enjoyed having new clothes and my bags

00:38:32: Kai: were there like at 9, at 20, 21 PM.

00:38:35: Connor McDonald: Now, you guys are Apple guys, not Android,

00:38:37: Connor McDonald: are you?

00:38:37: Connor McDonald: Yeah?

00:38:37: Connor McDonald: Is that right, yes.

00:38:39: Connor McDonald: So what are your thoughts on?

00:38:40: Connor McDonald: Are you ever thought about the old AirTag

00:38:42: Connor McDonald: in the suitcase?

00:38:43: Kai: This was the time before AirTag, but would

00:38:47: Kai: you do it now?

00:38:48: Connor McDonald: You see, people on Facebook and it's like

00:38:51: Connor McDonald: oh, my bags are here.

00:38:51: Connor McDonald: The AirTag told me and the airline's this.

00:38:54: Connor McDonald: I've done it, yeah.

00:38:55: Kai: I've done it, yeah, but I mean AirTags are

00:38:57: Kai: working like this broadcast Bluetooth

00:38:59: Kai: signals.

00:38:59: Kai: I are working like this broadcast Bluetooth

00:39:01: Kai: signals, I guess, or some.

00:39:03: Kai: So it's not Wi-Fi, or not?

00:39:05: Connor McDonald: Yeah, it just needs to find another Apple

00:39:08: Connor McDonald: device, doesn't it Exactly?

00:39:09: Kai: And everything, if anyone in the plane is

00:39:11: Kai: having their phone in flight mode and

00:39:13: Kai: everything, and you're just landing, turn

00:39:17: Kai: on your phone and you see where's my AirTag.

00:39:19: Kai: And maybe the AirTag was not connected

00:39:21: Kai: already to different devices and they were

00:39:22: Kai: not sending it and so it's the last seen

00:39:26: Kai: AirTag position in the airport.

00:39:29: Kai: You left and then you go where's my bag and

00:39:32: Kai: then it's right below right.

00:39:35: Connor McDonald: I was on the EMEA tour recently.

00:39:37: Connor McDonald: In fact, I forgot to mention that on my

00:39:38: Connor McDonald: calendar of what I'd done.

00:39:39: Connor McDonald: I was on the EMEA tour for the first time

00:39:41: Connor McDonald: earlier in October and one of the things I

00:39:44: Connor McDonald: was impressed with, I think one of the

00:39:45: Connor McDonald: airlines I think it might've been a lot,

00:39:51: Connor McDonald: maybe Polish airlines that you'd get these

00:39:52: Connor McDonald: notifications on their app saying yep, just

00:39:52: Connor McDonald: letting you know your bag has now entered

00:39:54: Connor McDonald: the airline.

00:39:55: Connor McDonald: You know the airplane.

00:39:56: Connor McDonald: And then it'll say, yep, your bag has now

00:39:57: Connor McDonald: been taken off the airline and is heading

00:39:59: Connor McDonald: toward the baggage cart.

00:39:59: Connor McDonald: Yeah, you got these notifications about

00:40:01: Connor McDonald: what your bag was doing which I thought was

00:40:03: Connor McDonald: pretty cool.

00:40:03: Connor McDonald: For all I know, it's just an automated fix.

00:40:06: Connor McDonald: Like we have no idea, I don't know, but you

00:40:10: Connor McDonald: just you know, but I mean it's, it's, you

00:40:13: Connor McDonald: know, it's true Like communication matters

00:40:16: Connor McDonald: so much more Like it's like Like when

00:40:17: Connor McDonald: you're on a flight delay, the frustrating

00:40:20: Connor McDonald: thing is not the delay, the frustrating is

00:40:21: Connor McDonald: sitting there going.

00:40:22: Connor McDonald: I have no idea what's happening.

00:40:24: Connor McDonald: Is my flight going to leave in an hour, two

00:40:26: Connor McDonald: hours, whatever.

00:40:27: Connor McDonald: If they come on and say we're doing this,

00:40:29: Connor McDonald: we're doing this, we're trying to fix the

00:40:31: Connor McDonald: wings, or whatever it's communication right.

00:40:34: Kai: Everyone feels better if they're informed.

00:40:37: Caro: I know we have talked about traveling very

00:40:39: Caro: much.

00:40:41: Connor McDonald: Welcome to the YouTube audio.

00:40:43: Kai: Deaths on travel.

00:40:46: Caro: But I would like to talk about some

00:40:48: Caro: technical stuff.

00:40:49: Connor McDonald: Let's go.

00:40:50: Caro: Also because we had a talk with Gerald

00:40:52: Caro: Wenzel yesterday and he talked about some

00:40:56: Caro: smaller features of the new versions of the

00:40:58: Caro: 23 AI, the new versions of the 23.ai, and

00:41:02: Caro: he said, for example, he liked the

00:41:06: Caro: sessionless transactions.

00:41:08: Caro: And I just thought, because we recorded

00:41:10: Caro: with him in German, I just thought maybe we

00:41:15: Caro: can talk about this or you can share

00:41:16: Caro: another feature you like between the 23.1

00:41:20: Caro: and now the 23.6.

00:41:21: Connor McDonald: Okay, sessionless transactions are

00:41:23: Connor McDonald: interesting, like between the 23.1 and now

00:41:24: Connor McDonald: the 23.6.

00:41:25: Connor McDonald: Okay, okay, sessionless transactions are

00:41:27: Connor McDonald: interesting.

00:41:27: Connor McDonald: Now I'm doing a demo of this later on today,

00:41:33: Connor McDonald: but funnily enough, the demo I'm doing is

00:41:35: Connor McDonald: travel related.

00:41:37: Connor McDonald: So, yes, this is unplanned, but it's a

00:41:40: Connor McDonald: lovely segue.

00:41:43: Connor McDonald: So what used to happen is and this is the

00:41:43: Connor McDonald: demo I'm doing later on today but you go

00:41:44: Connor McDonald: onto your log, onto your airline website,

00:41:45: Connor McDonald: you've booked a flight and it's almost time

00:41:47: Connor McDonald: to check in and you say I'm going to

00:41:48: Connor McDonald: reserve a seat.

00:41:50: Connor McDonald: And back in the good old days yeah, we're

00:41:51: Connor McDonald: talking like before the internet.

00:41:53: Connor McDonald: Yeah, this was typically just a very simple.

00:41:56: Connor McDonald: You'd go to your travel agent and they

00:41:57: Connor McDonald: would do it.

00:41:57: Connor McDonald: It'd be a client server program running

00:41:59: Connor McDonald: forms or something and they would do in SQL

00:42:02: Connor McDonald: form the most simple thing possible.

00:42:04: Connor McDonald: They'd simply say, yeah, you want seat 42A.

00:42:12: Connor McDonald: So they simply do select from the flight

00:42:13: Connor McDonald: where the flight number is this the seat

00:42:14: Connor McDonald: number is 42A and seat assigned to someone

00:42:15: Connor McDonald: is null for update.

00:42:16: Connor McDonald: You'd lock that row, make sure no one else

00:42:18: Connor McDonald: has got it, and then you'd update it and

00:42:20: Connor McDonald: say, yep, 42a is now Connor McDonald and

00:42:22: Connor McDonald: commit Job done.

00:42:25: Connor McDonald: Yeah, it was an easier time, it was a

00:42:27: Connor McDonald: better time in IT.

00:42:29: Connor McDonald: Then, of course, the internet comes along

00:42:31: Connor McDonald: and microservices.

00:42:32: Connor McDonald: This microservices that airlines now have

00:42:36: Connor McDonald: code shares and partnerships.

00:42:38: Connor McDonald: So nowadays, if you were doing that same

00:42:39: Connor McDonald: thing, you would select from the table for

00:42:42: Connor McDonald: that particular row for update where no

00:42:44: Connor McDonald: one's yet assigned to it.

00:42:45: Connor McDonald: But then if I'm on Qantas, then I've got to

00:42:47: Connor McDonald: make sure that no one on the Emirates

00:42:49: Connor McDonald: website has done it, because it's a code

00:42:51: Connor McDonald: share.

00:42:51: Connor McDonald: I've got to call the Emirates service, then

00:42:53: Connor McDonald: I've got to call the Qatar service, then

00:42:54: Connor McDonald: I've got to call the American Airlines

00:42:56: Connor McDonald: service and then, of course, nowadays,

00:42:57: Connor McDonald: because they charge you everything, I've

00:42:59: Connor McDonald: got to call the frequent flyer program,

00:43:01: Connor McDonald: microservice, which works out what your

00:43:03: Connor McDonald: status is, and then, based on that, we call

00:43:05: Connor McDonald: the payment service because we're going to

00:43:06: Connor McDonald: charge you $10 if you want to book that.

00:43:09: Connor McDonald: All this stuff goes on and all that time

00:43:11: Connor McDonald: you've got that row locked.

00:43:13: Connor McDonald: And that's just not practical nowadays

00:43:15: Connor McDonald: because in the world of connection pools if

00:43:17: Connor McDonald: anyone saw Jasmine Fleury's connection pool

00:43:19: Connor McDonald: talk yesterday you can't be sitting there

00:43:21: Connor McDonald: on a limited resource like a connection

00:43:23: Connor McDonald: pool, with one of those pools currently

00:43:25: Connor McDonald: marked as inactive or unavailable to anyone

00:43:28: Connor McDonald: else, because you've got an open

00:43:29: Connor McDonald: transaction in there for 60 seconds while

00:43:31: Connor McDonald: you've called 37 microservices around the

00:43:33: Connor McDonald: world.

00:43:34: Connor McDonald: So as developers, we've had to make it

00:43:36: Connor McDonald: really complicated.

00:43:37: Connor McDonald: Now you can't just do a lock and hold that

00:43:39: Connor McDonald: lock open.

00:43:40: Connor McDonald: What you have to do is we've had to build

00:43:43: Connor McDonald: this ourselves.

00:43:43: Connor McDonald: You would put some row in there saying,

00:43:45: Connor McDonald: okay, connor has that seat, but this

00:43:47: Connor McDonald: transaction is now pending and you commit

00:43:49: Connor McDonald: that you actually end the transaction so

00:43:51: Connor McDonald: you can release the connection pool.

00:43:53: Connor McDonald: Now you go off and call the Emirates

00:43:54: Connor McDonald: service and the Qatar service and this

00:43:56: Connor McDonald: service, that service, whatever, and then

00:43:58: Connor McDonald: you come back once all that thing is done

00:44:00: Connor McDonald: and you say, okay, I'm going to do another

00:44:02: Connor McDonald: transaction where it changes it from

00:44:03: Connor McDonald: pending to confirmed and commit it.

00:44:06: Connor McDonald: And that sounds easy enough, but it

00:44:08: Connor McDonald: introduces a whole new set of problems.

00:44:11: Connor McDonald: What happens if when I call one of these

00:44:13: Connor McDonald: services, it never responds?

00:44:15: Connor McDonald: Well, now I've got this row that's marked

00:44:16: Connor McDonald: as pending.

00:44:17: Connor McDonald: So now I've got a garbage collection

00:44:19: Connor McDonald: program I have to write that goes and you

00:44:20: Connor McDonald: know, does timeouts to make sure that

00:44:22: Connor McDonald: pending rows get cleaned up, made available.

00:44:24: Connor McDonald: And we've all had those things where you go

00:44:26: Connor McDonald: into a website and you book, say, for a

00:44:28: Connor McDonald: concert ticket or something, where you book

00:44:29: Connor McDonald: a slot, and then the website crashes.

00:44:35: Kai: You come back and you can't book that seat

00:44:36: Kai: anymore because it thinks you're still in

00:44:37: Kai: some other session.

00:44:38: Kai: Sometimes it has a counter on it like your

00:44:39: Kai: ticket is reserved for the next six minutes

00:44:40: Kai: or seven minutes, and then it will be

00:44:42: Kai: released.

00:44:43: Connor McDonald: And so all this stuff just goes on and it's

00:44:45: Connor McDonald: just complexity for us.

00:44:47: Connor McDonald: It's a worse user experience, whatever.

00:44:50: Connor McDonald: A sessionless transaction is the ability

00:44:52: Connor McDonald: for you to come on to a connection pool and

00:44:54: Connor McDonald: say I want to take a lock on a row, but

00:44:56: Connor McDonald: rather than while I'm going to other stuff,

00:44:58: Connor McDonald: that transaction is unavailable to anyone.

00:45:00: Connor McDonald: I can literally free it up.

00:45:02: Connor McDonald: I can leave the transaction open but I no

00:45:04: Connor McDonald: longer own it.

00:45:05: Connor McDonald: I can simply say I'm done with it and the

00:45:07: Connor McDonald: best thing is I can go do call them all my

00:45:10: Connor McDonald: various services.

00:45:11: Connor McDonald: I can come back and of course by random

00:45:13: Connor McDonald: I'll get a different session in the

00:45:14: Connor McDonald: connection pool, but I can say I'd like to

00:45:17: Connor McDonald: bring that transaction that was existing in

00:45:20: Connor McDonald: that session, I'd like to reclaim it in my

00:45:23: Connor McDonald: session over here because it was really my

00:45:24: Connor McDonald: transaction.

00:45:24: Connor McDonald: I just want to continue using it.

00:45:26: Connor McDonald: And so all of a sudden, I don't need a

00:45:29: Connor McDonald: pending status and a garbage collection

00:45:31: Connor McDonald: program and all this kind of nonsense.

00:45:33: Connor McDonald: I'm doing what databases were designed

00:45:35: Connor McDonald: through, which was lock a resource until

00:45:37: Connor McDonald: I'm ready to commit it, but without the

00:45:40: Connor McDonald: overhead of it being a problem in the

00:45:41: Connor McDonald: modern way we build applications.

00:45:43: Connor McDonald: So sessionless transactions, I think you

00:45:45: Connor McDonald: know, is super cool.

00:45:47: Connor McDonald: Anyway, that's the English translation of,

00:45:49: Connor McDonald: perhaps, what Gerald was saying.

00:45:51: Kai: Exactly, it was almost the same example he

00:45:55: Kai: chooses.

00:45:55: Kai: He said microservices for all the different

00:45:57: Kai: areas from booking vacation, I guess.

00:46:01: Kai: It was like the flight, the hotel,

00:46:03: Kai: everything.

00:46:04: Kai: And then you pick up, always each and every

00:46:05: Kai: microservices picking up the session to

00:46:07: Kai: move forward instead of have everything in

00:46:10: Kai: different sessions and transactions.

00:46:13: Caro: Yeah, but it was not his first use case.

00:46:17: Caro: He said he's not yet into this one.

00:46:21: Caro: He is into other use cases more.

00:46:24: Connor McDonald: But yeah, and one of the things I like

00:46:26: Connor McDonald: about 23.ai is there's been a number of

00:46:28: Connor McDonald: things I've seen where the documentation

00:46:32: Connor McDonald: says this feature has been invented for

00:46:33: Connor McDonald: this particular reason.

00:46:35: Connor McDonald: Yet when I've looked at the feature, my

00:46:37: Connor McDonald: first thought has been I know exactly a

00:46:39: Connor McDonald: problem that solves, which is not the one

00:46:41: Connor McDonald: that's documented.

00:46:43: Connor McDonald: Another one is this thing called reservable

00:46:45: Connor McDonald: columns and which is the ability.

00:46:49: Connor McDonald: It looks like it gives the appearance that

00:46:52: Connor McDonald: two transactions can lock the same row at

00:46:54: Connor McDonald: the same time uncommitted.

00:46:56: Connor McDonald: And you think doesn't this break database

00:46:58: Connor McDonald: locking?

00:46:59: Connor McDonald: Like the whole objective of database

00:47:00: Connor McDonald: locking is to not allow this.

00:47:02: Connor McDonald: But a reservable transaction is your

00:47:04: Connor McDonald: ability to say look, I have an interest in

00:47:07: Connor McDonald: this row, but I'm aware that other people

00:47:09: Connor McDonald: also have an interest in this row and I

00:47:11: Connor McDonald: don't want to block them.

00:47:12: Connor McDonald: From the application code's point of view,

00:47:14: Connor McDonald: it thinks it has locked a row, so it is

00:47:17: Connor McDonald: unchanged.

00:47:17: Connor McDonald: It simply says I want to grab this row.

00:47:25: Connor McDonald: It might be, for example, an inventory

00:47:26: Connor McDonald: counter of how many iPhones I have in stock.

00:47:27: Connor McDonald: So I want to.

00:47:27: Connor McDonald: You know, someone's bought an iPhone.

00:47:28: Connor McDonald: I want to drop that by one.

00:47:29: Connor McDonald: So I do an update and say lower it by one.

00:47:30: Connor McDonald: The problem is, if someone else has bought

00:47:30: Connor McDonald: an iPhone, they also want to lower that

00:47:33: Connor McDonald: stock by one and in times gone by that's a

00:47:36: Connor McDonald: big contention point.

00:47:37: Connor McDonald: You've now got this concurrency issue in

00:47:39: Connor McDonald: your application which you have to now

00:47:41: Connor McDonald: solve, and it's hard to do because you have

00:47:43: Connor McDonald: to now manage.

00:47:44: Connor McDonald: How do I make sure we don't get the lost

00:47:46: Connor McDonald: update problem where both of them take the

00:47:48: Connor McDonald: iPhone count from, say, 10 down to nine?

00:47:51: Connor McDonald: because, it really should have been 10 to

00:47:52: Connor McDonald: nine and nine to eight if two people were

00:47:54: Connor McDonald: buying an iPhone.

00:47:55: Connor McDonald: So what this does is it gives the

00:47:57: Connor McDonald: impression that you've locked the row, but

00:47:59: Connor McDonald: it does what we had to do manually as

00:48:01: Connor McDonald: developers.

00:48:04: Connor McDonald: It actually took your intent and put it in

00:48:05: Connor McDonald: a sort of a queue and says when you come

00:48:06: Connor McDonald: back and commit, then I'll actually go do

00:48:08: Connor McDonald: the update.

00:48:09: Connor McDonald: So in this queue table it says ah yes,

00:48:12: Connor McDonald: caroline's bought a phone.

00:48:13: Connor McDonald: She thinks she's done update the iPhone

00:48:16: Connor McDonald: table, set it to, you know, from number of

00:48:18: Connor McDonald: rows, number of values, number of phones in

00:48:20: Connor McDonald: stock to number of phones minus one, and

00:48:23: Connor McDonald: we'll tell her that's what she's done.

00:48:24: Connor McDonald: You know, for all intents and purposes,

00:48:25: Connor McDonald: your code thinks you've locked that row and

00:48:27: Connor McDonald: done that update.

00:48:28: Connor McDonald: But we didn't do it, we just put it in a

00:48:30: Connor McDonald: queue.

00:48:31: Kai: You come along, do the same thing, yeah but

00:48:33: Kai: how we can say that this is a real

00:48:35: Kai: operation then because is there only the

00:48:38: Kai: data saved?

00:48:38: Kai: In our database like minus one, and then,

00:48:41: Kai: after the queue was done, it's saying okay.

00:48:43: Connor McDonald: So in the queue is literally an expression

00:48:46: Connor McDonald: of intent.

00:48:47: Connor McDonald: It's not the iPhone code.

00:48:49: Connor McDonald: Total goes from 10 to one.

00:48:51: Connor McDonald: It literally says take the iPhone row and

00:48:53: Connor McDonald: subtract one from it.

00:48:55: Kai: Okay, so you're updating the row, not

00:48:57: Kai: saying update count to nine, that's right.

00:49:00: Connor McDonald: We're simply saying we're going to

00:49:00: Connor McDonald: decrement that count.

00:49:02: Kai: Yeah, so you have to take care of that on

00:49:04: Kai: the programmatic side of your yeah.

00:49:06: Connor McDonald: And so your code has unchanged your code.

00:49:08: Connor McDonald: Both simply said update, reduce it by one.

00:49:11: Connor McDonald: You think you've locked the row, you think

00:49:12: Connor McDonald: you've got exclusive access to it, but we

00:49:15: Connor McDonald: didn't actually lock it.

00:49:15: Connor McDonald: We've let everyone think that they've

00:49:17: Connor McDonald: locked that row.

00:49:18: Connor McDonald: They've locked that row.

00:49:18: Connor McDonald: You then commit and we go okay, now there's

00:49:21: Connor McDonald: time to go get the entries from that queue

00:49:23: Connor McDonald: and do the actual work.

00:49:24: Connor McDonald: And it's done in commit sequence.

00:49:29: Connor McDonald: As a result, you don't get lost updates and

00:49:31: Connor McDonald: everyone thinks, oh yeah.

00:49:32: Connor McDonald: You log on, you say oh, yes, the count has

00:49:34: Connor McDonald: gone from 10 to 9.

00:49:35: Connor McDonald: You log on, it says, oh, it's gone from 9

00:49:37: Connor McDonald: to 8.

00:49:38: Connor McDonald: So you don't get lost updates.

00:49:39: Connor McDonald: And it's funny enough.

00:49:40: Connor McDonald: This was once again designed from a

00:49:42: Connor McDonald: microservices perspective, because

00:49:44: Connor McDonald: microservices want to all have concurrent

00:49:47: Connor McDonald: access to common rows.

00:49:49: Connor McDonald: But for me, putting microservices aside, a

00:49:52: Connor McDonald: problem that's existed throughout all

00:49:55: Connor McDonald: applications forever is that issue of

00:49:57: Connor McDonald: summary level data.

00:49:58: Connor McDonald: Because the example I've been using is, if

00:50:01: Connor McDonald: I'm having a system where people can buy

00:50:02: Connor McDonald: iPhones, the issue is not the insert insert

00:50:05: Connor McDonald: into the orders table that Caroline's done

00:50:07: Connor McDonald: an insert, kai's done an insert, connor's

00:50:09: Connor McDonald: done an insert because we've each bought

00:50:11: Connor McDonald: something.

00:50:11: Connor McDonald: The issue has always been the summary data

00:50:13: Connor McDonald: saying okay, I need to update the row that

00:50:15: Connor McDonald: says how many iPhones I have in stock.

00:50:17: Connor McDonald: That's always been the friction point and

00:50:21: Connor McDonald: people have avoided that.

00:50:21: Connor McDonald: They simply say, well, let's not have a

00:50:23: Connor McDonald: summary data, I'll have a materialized view

00:50:25: Connor McDonald: to do it in the background, or I'll just

00:50:27: Connor McDonald: not have any summary data at all and I'll

00:50:29: Connor McDonald: do it at runtime, which means now your

00:50:30: Connor McDonald: reports are really slow.

00:50:32: Connor McDonald: There's always been a problem solving this

00:50:34: Connor McDonald: issue, and now the problem goes away.

00:50:37: Caro: I have some questions.

00:50:39: Connor McDonald: Yeah, it's a mind-blowing thing Like how is

00:50:41: Connor McDonald: this?

00:50:42: Caro: The other question what happens if I roll

00:50:45: Caro: back my transaction because of some error?

00:50:47: Connor McDonald: From your perspective, you have issued,

00:50:49: Connor McDonald: update a row, let's say you've added one to

00:50:53: Connor McDonald: a value.

00:50:54: Caro: Yeah.

00:50:54: Connor McDonald: So it was 10 and you've updated it and

00:50:57: Connor McDonald: you've now updated it to 11.

00:51:02: Connor McDonald: If you do a select, it'll say you've

00:51:02: Connor McDonald: updated it to 11.

00:51:03: Connor McDonald: But we didn't update the update.

00:51:04: Connor McDonald: Your select has gone and looked in the

00:51:05: Connor McDonald: queue table and said ah, yes, from

00:51:07: Connor McDonald: Carolyn's perspective, she's added one to

00:51:09: Connor McDonald: this value, so it knows that the queue

00:51:12: Connor McDonald: table exists.

00:51:13: Connor McDonald: If you roll back, all we do is we throw

00:51:15: Connor McDonald: away that entry in the queue table Because

00:51:18: Connor McDonald: we never actually touched the real row.

00:51:20: Connor McDonald: It's yet to be done.

00:51:22: Connor McDonald: If you commit, that's when we go.

00:51:24: Connor McDonald: Okay, at this point in time I go get the

00:51:25: Connor McDonald: entry from the queue table and really do

00:51:27: Connor McDonald: the update.

00:51:28: Connor McDonald: But because they're done in series, because

00:51:31: Connor McDonald: it's all coming from a queue, then we

00:51:34: Connor McDonald: preserve that order.

00:51:34: Connor McDonald: And things are even more interesting.

00:51:40: Connor McDonald: The only thing I've really noticed that is

00:51:41: Connor McDonald: probably a change to what you would

00:51:43: Connor McDonald: consider application behavior, because the

00:51:46: Connor McDonald: objective here is that you let people think

00:51:47: Connor McDonald: they're doing an update, but we want to

00:51:48: Connor McDonald: hide the complexity from them, whereas

00:51:49: Connor McDonald: before they had to do it themselves, you

00:51:50: Connor McDonald: get.

00:51:50: Connor McDonald: The interesting thing is, let's say there's

00:51:52: Connor McDonald: one iPhone left and you both want to order

00:51:55: Connor McDonald: it and we have a constraint that says the

00:51:57: Connor McDonald: number of iPhones can't go below zero.

00:51:59: Connor McDonald: So you would do an update and say, okay,

00:52:02: Connor McDonald: you're taking it from one down to zero

00:52:03: Connor McDonald: because that's the number of iPhones left,

00:52:05: Connor McDonald: but you haven't done that update.

00:52:06: Connor McDonald: It's in the queue.

00:52:08: Kai: You come along and you want to do an update,

00:52:10: Kai: let's do one in stock and, of course,

00:52:11: Kai: you're thinking, oh, this will work.

00:52:13: Connor McDonald: So the question is, how do we manage this?

00:52:14: Connor McDonald: Because if you were to both commit, we

00:52:16: Connor McDonald: would then have a data corruption option.

00:52:18: Connor McDonald: So what we do is the only thing I've really

00:52:20: Connor McDonald: noticed is that normally, a constraint in

00:52:23: Connor McDonald: your own session only looks at committed

00:52:25: Connor McDonald: transactions, by definition.

00:52:27: Connor McDonald: That's what you know.

00:52:28: Connor McDonald: In this case, it's a bit different.

00:52:29: Connor McDonald: When you go to commit, or when you, in fact,

00:52:31: Connor McDonald: when you go do your update, we're going to

00:52:33: Connor McDonald: go look in the queue table and say, even

00:52:35: Connor McDonald: though Caroline hasn't committed yet, we

00:52:38: Connor McDonald: know that if she did you would get a

00:52:40: Connor McDonald: constraint error.

00:52:44: Connor McDonald: So you might get a bit of a preemptive

00:52:45: Connor McDonald: constraint error.

00:52:45: Connor McDonald: It's literally telling you that you know,

00:52:47: Connor McDonald: as it currently stands you would be okay,

00:52:50: Connor McDonald: but because caroline's transaction started

00:52:52: Connor McDonald: before you, if she was to commit you would

00:52:54: Connor McDonald: not be okay.

00:52:55: Connor McDonald: So we give you a constraint error right

00:52:56: Connor McDonald: there and then you know you there's.

00:52:58: Connor McDonald: Basically you're heading into bad territory.

00:53:00: Connor McDonald: Yeah, we can't guarantee that you would

00:53:01: Connor McDonald: have had a problem, but we're going to make

00:53:03: Connor McDonald: sure that we navigate to a situation where,

00:53:05: Connor McDonald: if we allowed the commit, you would end up

00:53:06: Connor McDonald: with a data corruption.

00:53:08: Connor McDonald: So it's pretty cool stuff.

00:53:10: Caro: It's a really cool feature because it's

00:53:13: Caro: such a small, simple.

00:53:15: Caro: It sounds small and simple, but it's also a

00:53:17: Caro: problem I think many companies are facing,

00:53:21: Caro: for example, for invoice numbers, because I

00:53:24: Caro: don't know if it's in America or Australia

00:53:26: Caro: the same, but in Germany you have to

00:53:28: Caro: document every number which is not used,

00:53:31: Caro: which was not used.

00:53:32: Caro: So many people put some tables where they

00:53:36: Caro: update, they lock these rows, they update

00:53:38: Caro: or a list of numbers which are documented.

00:53:43: Connor McDonald: And you grab one, as opposed to using a

00:53:45: Connor McDonald: normal sequence.

00:53:46: Caro: It's pretty nice.

00:53:47: Caro: I really like it.

00:53:48: Connor McDonald: I'll give you another one, which I like.

00:53:50: Connor McDonald: Oh, rest assured, we could go for hours.

00:53:54: Kai: Yes, sir Go ahead.

00:53:56: Connor McDonald: One's called transaction priority, because

00:53:59: Connor McDonald: one of the great things about a database,

00:54:01: Connor McDonald: one of the great things and the great

00:54:01: Connor McDonald: things about a database, one of the great

00:54:01: Connor McDonald: things and the bad things about a database

00:54:03: Connor McDonald: both at the same time is it's a very

00:54:06: Connor McDonald: democratic system.

00:54:08: Connor McDonald: If you lock a row and I want to lock it, I

00:54:11: Connor McDonald: don't get to because you locked it first,

00:54:13: Connor McDonald: and vice versa.

00:54:14: Connor McDonald: Everyone is on equal playing field.

00:54:16: Connor McDonald: We're all the same.

00:54:17: Connor McDonald: We're equal in terms of our power, right?

00:54:20: Connor McDonald: Whoever locked it first gets the row.

00:54:22: Connor McDonald: That sounds lovely, it's fair, it's just,

00:54:25: Connor McDonald: it's a perfect world.

00:54:27: Connor McDonald: But the real world is not like that.

00:54:29: Connor McDonald: Let's say, for example, caroline's Java

00:54:31: Connor McDonald: programmer.

00:54:32: Connor McDonald: Right, you know a little bit To the fullest.

00:54:36: Caro: She's a.

00:54:37: Connor McDonald: Java programmer A little bit lazy A little

00:54:42: Connor McDonald: bit lazy.

00:54:43: Connor McDonald: Often we'll basically start a transaction

00:54:45: Connor McDonald: and then go oh, it's 10.30, it's coffee

00:54:47: Connor McDonald: time, coffee time, so leaves that committed

00:54:49: Connor McDonald: transaction, disappears off, grabs a coffee.

00:54:52: Connor McDonald: So that's fair enough.

00:54:53: Connor McDonald: She locked the row.

00:54:53: Connor McDonald: No one else had it locked.

00:54:55: Connor McDonald: She's entitled to that.

00:54:55: Connor McDonald: It's an equal playing field.

00:54:58: Connor McDonald: The daily payroll run comes along which is

00:55:00: Connor McDonald: going to pay all the employees in this

00:55:02: Connor McDonald: company.

00:55:02: Connor McDonald: It wants to lock that entire table and of

00:55:05: Connor McDonald: course, it fails.

00:55:07: Connor McDonald: Your daily payroll run just ran because

00:55:08: Connor McDonald: Caroline's getting a flat white with

00:55:10: Connor McDonald: whipped cream Sounds like me.

00:55:14: Connor McDonald: And so that's when you realize that in this

00:55:16: Connor McDonald: wonderful, just world of equal playing

00:55:18: Connor McDonald: field that's maybe not what we want.

00:55:20: Connor McDonald: And the reality is maybe the daily payroll

00:55:22: Connor McDonald: run which pays all the employees in the

00:55:24: Connor McDonald: company is perhaps more important than

00:55:27: Connor McDonald: Caroline's need for a coffee with sugar.

00:55:29: Connor McDonald: So transaction priority in 23i lets you

00:55:32: Connor McDonald: assign levels of importance to your ability

00:55:35: Connor McDonald: to lock rows.

00:55:36: Connor McDonald: So by default everyone has an equal

00:55:39: Connor McDonald: priority.

00:55:39: Connor McDonald: So it maintains the existing behavior and

00:55:41: Connor McDonald: that equal priority is low.

00:55:43: Connor McDonald: But we have three priorities.

00:55:44: Connor McDonald: We have low, medium and high.

00:55:46: Connor McDonald: So what would happen is we don't stop

00:55:48: Connor McDonald: anyone from knocking rows still.

00:55:49: Connor McDonald: So Caroline can still think I want to get a

00:55:51: Connor McDonald: coffee, I've locked a row and off she goes.

00:55:54: Connor McDonald: But her priority is low.

00:55:55: Connor McDonald: The daily payroll comes along and you can

00:55:57: Connor McDonald: say well, the daily payroll, I'm a high

00:56:00: Connor McDonald: priority transaction.

00:56:02: Connor McDonald: What'll happen is it'll try and lock those

00:56:03: Connor McDonald: rows and wait just like normal, because

00:56:06: Connor McDonald: we're going to give Caroline a chance to

00:56:07: Connor McDonald: come back from her coffee and commit the

00:56:09: Connor McDonald: transaction.

00:56:10: Connor McDonald: But we can choose a timeout.

00:56:11: Connor McDonald: We can say, if I'm a higher priority than

00:56:13: Connor McDonald: someone who has a locked row after this,

00:56:15: Connor McDonald: many seconds, 10 seconds, 20, whatever I'm

00:56:18: Connor McDonald: taking over, and that will happen.

00:56:20: Connor McDonald: The daily payroll will wait for, say, 10

00:56:22: Connor McDonald: seconds for Caroline to commit.

00:56:24: Connor McDonald: Caroline ain't coming back anytime soon,

00:56:26: Connor McDonald: and so it says I'm going to force roll back

00:56:29: Connor McDonald: her transaction.

00:56:31: Connor McDonald: So her lock is thrown away and the payroll

00:56:34: Connor McDonald: run goes long.

00:56:35: Connor McDonald: Everyone gets paid, everyone's happy.

00:56:37: Connor McDonald: Caroline comes back and says I'm going to

00:56:39: Connor McDonald: do something.

00:56:39: Connor McDonald: It'll say I'm sorry, your transaction is no

00:56:41: Connor McDonald: longer active, you've been forcibly rolled

00:56:43: Connor McDonald: back.

00:56:44: Connor McDonald: But it's more reflective of the real world

00:56:46: Connor McDonald: there.

00:56:47: Connor McDonald: What's the quote from Animal Farm?

00:56:49: Connor McDonald: George Orwell?

00:56:51: Connor McDonald: All animals are equal, but some are more

00:56:52: Connor McDonald: equal than others.

00:56:54: Connor McDonald: It's the same In the real world.

00:56:58: Connor McDonald: There are levels of importance to

00:56:59: Connor McDonald: transactions.

00:56:59: Connor McDonald: Some transactions are much more hurtful if

00:57:01: Connor McDonald: they fail and others aren't.

00:57:03: Connor McDonald: So that's a cool feature as well that has

00:57:05: Connor McDonald: to be honest, then right.

00:57:07: Kai: So if so, I think if everyone is saying, oh,

00:57:11: Kai: this is a high priority table log now, or

00:57:14: Kai: row log, right, so it's always high

00:57:15: Kai: priority, then you don't use that feature

00:57:18: Kai: properly.

00:57:18: Kai: But so caro has to always use the lowest

00:57:22: Kai: level of priority, Basically the feature.

00:57:25: Connor McDonald: At the moment, my understanding is you can

00:57:27: Connor McDonald: nominate what people are allowed to have.

00:57:30: Caro: So, it's like it's a privilege to be a

00:57:32: Caro: priority transaction and how do you set

00:57:35: Caro: this priority Per statement or per session.

00:57:38: Caro: Per session.

00:57:40: Connor McDonald: So you could do a logon trigger which will

00:57:41: Connor McDonald: basically set it.

00:57:42: Connor McDonald: Now, don't get me wrong if you gave people

00:57:44: Connor McDonald: the alter session privilege yeah, well,

00:57:46: Connor McDonald: yeah, and they're allowed to change to

00:57:47: Connor McDonald: whatever priority they want then they can

00:57:49: Connor McDonald: obviously circumvent it.

00:57:51: Connor McDonald: But this is one of those things where you

00:57:52: Connor McDonald: know you would use it judiciously to

00:57:54: Connor McDonald: actually decide what things are pretty

00:57:56: Connor McDonald: important and I have another question.

00:57:59: Caro: I'm sorry, I use it also for my experience

00:58:03: Caro: here with the 23AI.

00:58:05: Caro: So if I have, for example, if I don't get a

00:58:07: Caro: coffee, I just programmed a really slow

00:58:11: Caro: process and still lock the table and

00:58:14: Caro: another statement, for example, after that

00:58:17: Caro: is still performing and then the daily

00:58:20: Caro: payroll or monthly payroll process is

00:58:23: Caro: coming do this.

00:58:25: Caro: So this process still rollbacks my process

00:58:29: Caro: because it's still running so it doesn't

00:58:31: Caro: matter if I just wait idle a session or if

00:58:36: Caro: I know, because even if you're idle, you

00:58:37: Caro: still have an open transaction.

00:58:38: Connor McDonald: Yeah, so it will end your transaction yeah,

00:58:41: Connor McDonald: okay so.

00:58:42: Connor McDonald: So you may have happily done that update

00:58:43: Connor McDonald: and now you're moved on to other things.

00:58:45: Caro: But until you've committed, you've got

00:58:47: Caro: those rows locked and we're going to sit

00:58:49: Caro: here and say yeah, yeah, so so I have to,

00:58:52: Caro: yeah, if I program a process, for example,

00:58:55: Caro: which takes eight hours, and then there's,

00:58:58: Caro: of course, process with higher priority, we

00:59:02: Caro: have to think about this.

00:59:03: Caro: If it's really yeah, good, okay, nice,

00:59:07: Caro: interesting.

00:59:09: Caro: I don't know if my English was good enough,

00:59:11: Caro: but you understood it's great.

00:59:15: Connor McDonald: What else we got.

00:59:16: Connor McDonald: What other 23 hour features?

00:59:17: Caro: I think we have time for one more yeah, one

00:59:19: Caro: more, go ahead.

00:59:22: Connor McDonald: I like that.

00:59:22: Connor McDonald: That's sort of like he's starting to talk a

00:59:24: Connor McDonald: whole lot.

00:59:25: Connor McDonald: He's like we need to wrap this guy up.

00:59:27: Connor McDonald: Okay, I've got one more.

00:59:30: Connor McDonald: Okay, so let's.

00:59:31: Connor McDonald: I'm duty bound, obviously, to talk about AI.

00:59:35: Connor McDonald: So it's funny how everyone's you know all

00:59:38: Connor McDonald: the demos you see, and not just from Oracle,

00:59:40: Connor McDonald: from anyone in the it world it's all about.

00:59:43: Connor McDonald: You know chatbots, or you know talk to your

00:59:46: Connor McDonald: database, talk to your application.

00:59:48: Connor McDonald: You know you guys are apex guys.

00:59:50: Connor McDonald: You know this thing.

00:59:51: Connor McDonald: I can now, you know, in natural language,

00:59:53: Connor McDonald: say give me a, give me a region, give me a

00:59:55: Connor McDonald: page, give me an application.

00:59:56: Connor McDonald: I can go into live sql and say give me a

00:59:58: Connor McDonald: data model, and it does the ddl.

01:00:00: Connor McDonald: All these things are super cool, but I

01:00:03: Connor McDonald: think on day one when these things are

01:00:04: Connor McDonald: available, I don't think they'll get used a

01:00:07: Connor McDonald: great deal.

01:00:07: Connor McDonald: And this is not me dunking on the features.

01:00:09: Connor McDonald: I think there's that inbuilt fear that

01:00:11: Connor McDonald: people have that if I'm talking to a large

01:00:14: Connor McDonald: language model which might be sitting

01:00:16: Connor McDonald: outside my database or outside my data

01:00:18: Connor McDonald: center or outside my region, you know, in

01:00:21: Connor McDonald: the could be.

01:00:23: Connor McDonald: If I'm using OpenAI or I'm using Cohere,

01:00:27: Connor McDonald: how much am I sending?

01:00:29: Connor McDonald: What am I revealing about myself or my data?

01:00:33: Connor McDonald: So I think there'll be a natural caution to

01:00:35: Connor McDonald: this approach.

01:00:36: Connor McDonald: So that's why I think it will come, but I

01:00:38: Connor McDonald: think initially there'll be a natural

01:00:41: Connor McDonald: caution to it.

01:00:42: Connor McDonald: However, what I think will be an absolute

01:00:44: Connor McDonald: game changer on day one, when people are

01:00:46: Connor McDonald: running 23 AI, is the use of vectors, which

01:00:49: Connor McDonald: is related to AI for ad hoc search, and one

01:00:54: Connor McDonald: of the demos I'll be doing later on this

01:00:55: Connor McDonald: afternoon but I did it earlier this week as

01:00:57: Connor McDonald: well at my talk is I have a simple table

01:01:01: Connor McDonald: which has a list of drinks in it.

01:01:04: Connor McDonald: You know and drink recipes.

01:01:06: Connor McDonald: So how to make a gin and tonic, how to make

01:01:08: Connor McDonald: a mojito, how to make a tequila sunrise, et

01:01:10: Connor McDonald: cetera, et cetera.

01:01:11: Connor McDonald: Nowhere in any of that does the word

01:01:13: Connor McDonald: cocktail appear.

01:01:14: Connor McDonald: It just doesn't happen.

01:01:15: Connor McDonald: It's just because they're recipes.

01:01:17: Connor McDonald: Yeah, and the recipes say this is how you

01:01:18: Connor McDonald: make a gin and tonic, not this is how you

01:01:20: Connor McDonald: make a cocktail.

01:01:22: Connor McDonald: So you think about ad hoc search.

01:01:23: Connor McDonald: Today, someone comes to their website, your

01:01:25: Connor McDonald: website, and they type in I'm looking for

01:01:27: Connor McDonald: cocktails and we say no rows selected, we

01:01:30: Connor McDonald: have no hits Because the data doesn't

01:01:32: Connor McDonald: understand what humans understand.

01:01:36: Connor McDonald: We know that if I see the word gin and

01:01:38: Connor McDonald: tonic, tequila sunrise, whatever, these are

01:01:39: Connor McDonald: cocktails, but database doesn't know that.

01:01:42: Connor McDonald: Okay, if I take those and this is the demo

01:01:45: Connor McDonald: I do if I take those recipes and convert

01:01:48: Connor McDonald: them to vectors.

01:01:49: Connor McDonald: Then I take the word cocktail and convert

01:01:51: Connor McDonald: that to a vector.

01:01:52: Connor McDonald: Then whichever vectors are closest in terms

01:01:55: Connor McDonald: of distance, because vectors are ultimately

01:01:57: Connor McDonald: just points, in simple terms, let's say

01:02:00: Connor McDonald: points in three-dimensional space.

01:02:02: Connor McDonald: Typically it's a thousand-dimensional space,

01:02:04: Connor McDonald: but humans understand three-dimensional

01:02:05: Connor McDonald: space a little bit better.

01:02:07: Connor McDonald: If we plot them in three dimensions.

01:02:09: Connor McDonald: The vectors for various drinks will be

01:02:12: Connor McDonald: close to the vector for the word cocktail.

01:02:15: Kai: Okay, yeah.

01:02:16: Connor McDonald: So I simply say okay, show me the vectors

01:02:17: Connor McDonald: that are close to the vector for cocktail.

01:02:20: Connor McDonald: And lo and behold, out comes gin and tonic,

01:02:22: Connor McDonald: mojito, whatever Other information in that

01:02:24: Connor McDonald: table car manufacturers, cities in Europe,

01:02:27: Connor McDonald: et cetera those vectors are a long way away

01:02:30: Connor McDonald: in 3D space from the vector for cocktail.

01:02:33: Connor McDonald: So all of a sudden, now you have this

01:02:36: Connor McDonald: ability to I search for cocktails, it says

01:02:38: Connor McDonald: here's some drink recipes.

01:02:41: Connor McDonald: I search for funny white stuff falling from

01:02:44: Connor McDonald: the sky and it says oh yes, you're

01:02:46: Connor McDonald: interested in the Nuremberg weather, even

01:02:48: Connor McDonald: though I never typed in Nuremberg, I never

01:02:50: Connor McDonald: typed in weather.

01:02:51: Connor McDonald: It goes oh yeah, funny white stuff from the

01:02:53: Connor McDonald: sky that's snow, et cetera.

01:02:54: Connor McDonald: So all of a sudden you talk to most

01:02:57: Connor McDonald: customers of any application out there and

01:03:00: Connor McDonald: the most common sentence I often hear when

01:03:01: Connor McDonald: you've delivered a bespoke application to

01:03:04: Connor McDonald: people, they go how come the search isn't

01:03:06: Connor McDonald: like Google?

01:03:07: Connor McDonald: It's that classic thing.

01:03:08: Connor McDonald: People want their search to understand the

01:03:10: Connor McDonald: human relationships to data.

01:03:12: Connor McDonald: So on day one I think vector searching will

01:03:16: Connor McDonald: blow people's minds because all of a sudden

01:03:19: Connor McDonald: any application that has ad hoc search

01:03:21: Connor McDonald: which is pretty much every application it's

01:03:25: Connor McDonald: a game-changing thing for them because all

01:03:27: Connor McDonald: of a sudden their search will blow them

01:03:28: Connor McDonald: away.

01:03:29: Kai: Definitely looking forward to those three

01:03:32: Kai: new features and I guess we might invite

01:03:34: Kai: Conor to the next podcast and call it the

01:03:36: Kai: Vectors Edition, because I guess I have

01:03:39: Kai: hundreds of questions about that and how

01:03:41: Kai: you can achieve your goals when you have

01:03:43: Kai: big data, tables and so on, but

01:03:46: Kai: unfortunately Hold on hold on.

01:03:48: Connor McDonald: I have one last 60-second feature for you.

01:03:50: Connor McDonald: I've got to say this is for your benefit,

01:03:52: Connor McDonald: not mine.

01:03:53: Connor McDonald: I'm making a sacrifice telling you this far,

01:03:55: Connor McDonald: but I know that you guys are Apex guys,

01:03:57: Connor McDonald: huge fan of Apex.

01:03:59: Connor McDonald: Right, the awesome thing about Apex is

01:04:01: Connor McDonald: great.

01:04:01: Connor McDonald: Until you want to call a REST service

01:04:04: Connor McDonald: because you call Apex web service, and the

01:04:06: Connor McDonald: first thing it says is certificate not

01:04:08: Connor McDonald: valid.

01:04:09: Connor McDonald: Because you're calling a HTTPS website and

01:04:12: Connor McDonald: it says, oh no, you haven't got the SSL

01:04:14: Connor McDonald: certificate.

01:04:15: Connor McDonald: And what do you do?

01:04:16: Connor McDonald: You can't fix it as an Apex guy.

01:04:18: Connor McDonald: You've got to go speak to the DBA and the

01:04:20: Connor McDonald: OS admin.

01:04:21: Connor McDonald: You've got to go download the certificate

01:04:23: Connor McDonald: from Chrome.

01:04:23: Connor McDonald: You've got to right click on the little

01:04:25: Connor McDonald: padlock.

01:04:25: Connor McDonald: Got to make sure you get the right one at

01:04:26: Connor McDonald: the root level.

01:04:27: Connor McDonald: You've got to export it to.

01:04:28: Connor McDonald: It's got to be base 64 PKI encoded format.

01:04:31: Connor McDonald: If you get it wrong, it's not going to work.

01:04:33: Connor McDonald: Then you've got to find an Oracle client

01:04:35: Connor McDonald: that has Aura PKI in it.

01:04:36: Connor McDonald: Then you've got to add the certificate to

01:04:38: Connor McDonald: the wallet.

01:04:39: Connor McDonald: Then you've got to copy that to the

01:04:40: Connor McDonald: database server, make sure it's on all the

01:04:41: Connor McDonald: servers.

01:04:42: Connor McDonald: If you're running rack, got to make sure

01:04:43: Connor McDonald: that thing's backed up.

01:04:44: Connor McDonald: And after all that crap, you can call a web

01:04:48: Connor McDonald: service In 23.ai.

01:04:51: Connor McDonald: Rather than typing in the name of the full

01:04:53: Connor McDonald: wallet path, like when you type in the

01:04:55: Connor McDonald: wallet, you do file colon, blah, blah, blah,

01:04:57: Connor McDonald: slash, uo1 slash.

01:04:58: Connor McDonald: Yeah, you type in the word system colon and

01:05:02: Connor McDonald: it will use all the operating system level

01:05:04: Connor McDonald: certificates that come with servers to

01:05:06: Connor McDonald: reach out.

01:05:07: Connor McDonald: So as long as you're calling a web service

01:05:09: Connor McDonald: that uses one of the common certificate

01:05:11: Connor McDonald: providers, you're done.

01:05:13: Connor McDonald: No wallet, no, nothing.

01:05:15: Connor McDonald: There you go.

01:05:15: Connor McDonald: That's a little gift for the apex people.

01:05:17: Caro: It's so cool because I had the, the exact

01:05:19: Caro: problem I had a few weeks ago, and it was

01:05:22: Caro: pain.

01:05:22: Caro: It was just pain.

01:05:24: Caro: There you go.

01:05:25: Kai: As we already learned from the sessions

01:05:27: Kai: before with Gerrit and so on, you will

01:05:29: Kai: still have that problem for the next couple

01:05:31: Kai: of months, right?

01:05:32: Kai: So because?

01:05:33: Caro: Yeah, but months, not years.

01:05:35: Kai: Yeah, but you have to wait until the new

01:05:36: Kai: version comes out.

01:05:37: Kai: Then the customer will adopt it and then

01:05:40: Kai: you are able to.

01:05:41: Connor McDonald: Now I know you're all keen on the

01:05:42: Connor McDonald: on-premise release date.

01:05:44: Connor McDonald: Let me give you a little sneak.

01:05:48: Connor McDonald: January 27th 2025 is my birthday.

01:05:52: Connor McDonald: It's got nothing to do with the release

01:05:53: Connor McDonald: date, but note that down, Start saving.

01:05:59: Kai: So we have some deeper insight already.

01:06:03: Kai: So this is not a good guess.

01:06:05: Connor McDonald: I guess For a moment you were like oh no,

01:06:07: Connor McDonald: I've got nothing for you.

01:06:09: Kai: Now.

01:06:09: Kai: I definitely want to throw something at you.

01:06:13: Kai: I think I will close the recording before

01:06:14: Kai: and then we get into a big fight here in

01:06:16: Kai: the recording room.

01:06:18: Kai: So this was the closing statement me

01:06:22: Kai: throwing things at connor, but just just

01:06:25: Kai: kidding.

01:06:25: Kai: Thank you very much for attending again,

01:06:27: Kai: connor.

01:06:27: Kai: We will see you next year for sure, at

01:06:29: Kai: least actually we'll wrap up things what's

01:06:31: Kai: happening in 2025 and you say exactly the

01:06:34: Kai: same as 2024.

01:06:35: Kai: I was in india and so on, but either way,

01:06:38: Kai: thank you for attending and waking up so

01:06:40: Kai: early this morning for us because my good

01:06:42: Kai: time management and thank you, caro, for

01:06:44: Kai: also coming that early in the conference

01:06:47: Kai: area and having the chat about the

01:06:50: Kai: different travel aspects and new features

01:06:52: Kai: in 23.ai.

01:06:54: Caro: Always a pleasure.

01:06:55: Caro: Thank you very much.

01:06:55: Caro: Thank you very much.

01:06:56: Caro: Bye, bye.