Modern Tools, Retro Mindset [The Zero Dot Podcast #23]

let's go back.

Film wasn't a choice.

It was the only option.

You had 36 exposures.

You loaded it carefully because if you messed up, you wasted money.

Every frame cost you something, not just money.

Time, attention, intention.

You composed the shot in your mind before you pressed the shutter.

Then digital arrived.

It promised freedom.

No film costs.

Instant feedback.

And this I want to hit on Daniel.

Delete the bad, keep the good.

I don't like it.

Um, be a bit more specific because I'm

So I'm with a group of friends who are all five to six years younger than me.

They've all got iPhones, whatever.

We're going to the zoo for someone's birthday.

Cool, whatever.

uh And then they make this big hubbub right before we start departing and going our
separate, you know, just look at different parts of the zoo.

Oh, let's everyone share our AirPass or our iPhone GPS coordinates so I always know where
you are at all times.

And I said, no, I'm like, I'm not doing that.

He why won't you?

I want to know where you are.

I'm like.

You don't need to know where I am.

I'm gonna be somewhere in the zoo.

You can find me.

If you really need to contact me, I will have my phone on me and you can call me." Right,
but they were like, no, no, no, I need to know exactly where you are.

It makes me feel better.

I'm like, what?

I don't want people to where I am every second of every day.

Even my friends.

don't need to know where people are and what they're doing every second of every day.

Even if I really like that person.

They've got their own life and they're doing whatever they want to do.

And if we want to come together at a different point in time and chat about what they were
doing or something, that's fine.

If they're desperate to reach me, then call me.

Text me.

Just...

And...

don't expect, don't expect me to pick up if I'm busy and don't expect me to message back
immediately for two reasons.

A, because I don't have to and B, because the ADHD means that I often can't.

oh I mean, I can, but I can't.

It's, you you know how it is.

You know, you know, you know how it be, how it do.

oh Yeah.

I don't know.

I am...

Yeah, I mean, it also, the extended part of the story is that the person that was making a
big hem and haw about it, she's like, well, I do it with my spouse all the time.

Like my spouse and I always know where we are at all times.

And I'm like, that's fucking creepy.

That is creepy.

Just like, I understand from a viewpoint of safety, if you were in an unfamiliar place or
something like that, or, you know, and you need to...

They go to the same job, they go to the same place, they live in the same house.

What do need to know where someone is?

you need, you know, if you need to know that someone got home safe or something like that,
or if they took a specific route because it was for their safety, something like that.

I can kind of understand the argument for that, but at the same time, everyone's their own
person.

They have the right to be where they want, when they want to, and do what they want when
they want to.

And they don't have to inform everyone.

of what that is.

I don't know, that signals, I know, it signals a bunch of things, but it's like, it
signals a lack of trust.

It signals like, it signals a notion of wanting to have control over what the other person
is doing with their day.

It's a whole bunch of stuff that I'm definitely not gonna get into.

And I'll just plant my own relationship here for a minute with my wife.

uh A, we don't do any of that for the reasons we just talked about.

I don't need to know where she is at all times.

Also, because she's really good at communicating, hey, I'm going to be late from work for
X, Y, Z reason, or hey, I'm going to yoga today, or I'm going to happy hour with a friend.

Cool, no worries.

And then I communicate to her like, hey, I'm traveling.

I'll call you when I get to my hotel.

We communicate in that way.

And then the second level, which is related.

We have separate bank accounts.

We have separate phones.

We don't look at each other's phones.

We don't look at each other's accounts.

We share expenses on everything.

We have never merged our accounts together, even though that's what is expected of married
people.

We've never done that.

Like, nope, we share the expenses.

Here's what's due.

Your money is your money.

My money is my money.

We'll come together and do whatever we got to do.

But like, I'm not here to hound you over your money because the easiest way for me to hate
you is if I see how much money you're making and how much money you're spending and I go,

I wouldn't have spent my money on that.

The whole thing's a mess.

I'm like, no.

It's your thing.

You do whatever you want.

Whatever you want.

yeah.

It is two separate individuals who are joined together as a unit in a relationship, in
marriage, whatever.

When you start morphing into the same being,

it from someone who's been in one of those relationships.

I'll take fault in that.

That was, you know, it was 50-50.

It was partly me, partly the other person that led to it being that way.

It was one of my first serious relationships.

So I was very much still figuring things out, still, you know, figuring out how
relationships work or don't work.

And it just became a case of when that relationship ended.

because so much of me was tied to this person.

So much of me had become us.

I didn't know who I was anymore.

I came out the other side of it not knowing who I was and had to re-spend a long, long
time rediscovering myself.

And I've only just got to the tail end of that process of figuring out what I want from
myself and from other people and it took a long time.

eh Well, this took a turn.

Hey, I liked it.

It was a good chat.

Mm-hmm.

Hello there!

Welcome to the Zero Dot Podcast!

Boys and girls, boys and girls, everyone of all ages, this is where we come to remind
ourselves that when the chips are down, we are our strongest because we remember we are

Team Human.

This is Sam, this is Daniel.

Hello there.

And of course, John.

John?

John, if you would.

Where's John?

no, where's John?

We've lost John.

We've lost John.

Just kidding.

No, John won't be in this episode because John is fighting the good fight of Johnland
right now, but don't worry, he'll be back with us next week.

One of the things about Zero Dot is we support each other, and just like Sam has battles
in Samland, Daniel has battles in Danielland, John's got battles in Johnland.

Plus, just for our listeners and viewers to know, if this is your first time tuning in, we
are an international enterprise.

We are literally dialing into each other from different time zones all across the board.

Scheduling is always a little bit of a nightmare, and this time it just didn't work out,
but we'll see John next week.

So John, we'll give you this time, but next time you gotta be here for us, all right?

All right.

Everybody, as Daniel says, everybody gets one.

Well, it's been seven days, seven consecutive days, as we say every single time.

It's been an entire week.

Things have certainly happened, and things have certainly not happened.

Wouldn't you say it's so, Daniel?

biting commentary as always.

Yes, things have happened and things have not happened over the course of seven days,
making it a week.

Correct.

Yes.

absolutely.

I think it's about time we get some good news here.

I'll go ahead and give us some good news even though John's not here.

We gotta represent John giving us the good news, the good lore, what's been going on for
us.

And Daniel, I am delighted to say the demise of something.

I don't often like to tear things down, but I gotta be honest.

For this particular enterprise, it made me a little giddy, a little happy because it might
lead to better things in the future.

you want to revel in the demise of this thing?

Yeah.

Just a little, just a tidbit of reveling.

Just a little bit of reveling.

bit.

And just before I say anything, for those that are really sad about this, I am sorry
you're sad.

I can say that.

I have empathy.

I'm a human being because I'm team human.

I am sorry.

You are sad.

At the same time, I am really happy this might be, as we might say, the first domino of
many things.

As Associated Press reported two days ago, March 24th, we record this on the 26th, don't
tell anyone, OpenAI pulls the plug on Sora, the viral AI video app that sparked

Deep fake concerns.

It is gone.

It's not a, and it is speculated one of the major reasons why they pulled the plug is that
Disney pulled out of their $1 billion investment into OpenAI.

uh This makes me delighted folks, not because I'm anti-AI.

In fact, Daniel, myself, and John, he's not here, would tell you that AI has some really
good use cases.

AI can do some phenomenal things, really quick calculations of things.

It can help with certain elements, but replicating human art,

pilfering the world wide web of other people's art without permission because that's how
AI works, there's no legislation for it, recreating something to our quote unquote tastes,

getting really dangerously close to the tick tock vacation of user generated content which
we are very vehemently opposed, that's not the play here and it sounds like this is the

one early domino of many other things to come but I don't know.

But Daniel, a penny for your thoughts on this.

I know that John said last time, you can keep your penny and he cannot so be bought so
cheaply.

eh I can, give me my penny.

Please, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Unfortunately, not quite as much as the billion, what was it, billion dollar investment.

Well, I took out the billion dollar investment so I could give you the penny.

I have a penny to spare now, just one, just one though.

Mm-hmm, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I do hope that this is the first domino that, you know, knocks over, that chain
going.

I, like Sam said, I am an artist, an art maker, maker of things.

Sometimes.

All the time.

All the time.

It's okay to not create something every single day.

It's okay.

It's okay.

So that side of things, AI trying to replicate human creativity, know, creative mediums.

It's not good.

Not what it should be used for.

I think AI, like Sam said, should be a useful tool.

to relieve some of the strain of menial tasks and such like.

think that's, we could all agree that if it can do those things well, which it can in most
cases, that's what it should be used for.

Not for trying to replicate human creativity and expression.

So as Sora was dipping its toes or its whole damn leg into that pool, I...

I'm happy to see it gone personally.

And I just hope that, yeah, I hope that this is the first of many.

full.

making way for a world where AI can be used for the things that it's best at.

And that isn't going to take anything away from creative people, hopefully.

Yeah, I agree with you, Daniel.

You know, I'm not usually the one to say this, you know, there's this concept in economics
called laissez economics where you just let the markets do what they're going to do.

But I think if this is where things are leading, I kind of want laissez faire to happen,
which is I think investors going to places like OpenEye and other firms who have promised

these incredible promises of incredible production and yields.

They've been investing tons of money in these data centers, investing into the company,
and they ask the question as all investors should, which is, okay, where are we at?

Where's it coming?

I want to see progress.

I want to see something happening.

And when OpenAI has nothing to offer, which again, all speculation, I have no idea that's
actually how it worked out.

But if OpenAI and other firms don't have anything to offer, then investors should do what
investors should do, which is pull out.

They should say, nope, this is not what I signed up for.

We're pulling out or I'm demanding a return on my investment, et cetera.

And if that's how the market does things, then naturally the people that are very pro AI
in this generative AI space, the ones that think that this will innovate creativity, no,

it won't.

But they think that.

They think it'll, you know, streamline production.

It won't.

They think all these things, they've been selling on this idea.

They'll be forced to say, this isn't economic anymore because we can't get people to
invest into it.

And plus we know, Daniel and I know, John knows, you know, if you're listening and
watching, that when you see an AI thing versus a real made thing, we all like the real

made thing more.

We always do, every single time.

The real made thing looks better, feels better, is more human because turns out humans
have this thing where we like to see each other.

in the things that we're seeing.

And when we can't see that, it's a dangerous effect.

overall, I think this is a net good thing all around, except unless you're an investor in
this, if you've been betting on this market, I am so sorry.

ah I hope you find a way to get your money back.

My heart goes out to you, but it looks like this might be the beginning of something.

Who knows?

But as Daniel said before, ah not in this recording, we actually recorded this another
time, but we had to do a whole thing because, you know, good old technology.

What are you talking about?

It's the first time.

This is take one.

This is, we get it right on the first take every single time.

Not speaking of the last week which took our patrons again apologies to our patreon
members who had to wait an entire extra 24 to something 30 hours for your patreon extended

mess episode not something we like to do but technology was in our way that particular
time

so hey, look, if you lost your money on this, I'm really sorry.

Really, I am.

I am sorry that you might lose some money on this bet.

Maybe you don't, maybe I'm wrong and you're gonna make even more money off of this.

I don't know.

But what I am here to say is we here at Team Human, we don't believe AI should be a tool
that is used to replicate the human experience.

In fact, I was just talking to Daniel and John about a firm.

Whom I will not name but a firm that I'm aware of a human resources training program firm
that is literally using AI to mimic human beings teaching other human beings about empathy

and uh Cyber security and artificial intelligence they're using an AI bot to mimic a human
being to tell people the warning signs about AI and it was the most ironic thing ever that

Daniel John and I was looking at and let me tell you man

For those folks, if they are using Sora, I guess you can't use Sora anymore.

My B, I'm sorry.

It's like an onion headline.

Like it's it's radic, it's ridiculous.

You can't write this stuff.

You can't make this stuff up.

It's ridiculous.

You cannot.

You cannot.

The only time we'll tell, once again.

Who knows what we'll be labeled as.

I think one of our most successful YouTube shorts was about AI.

I think that was just naturally one of our most successful ones.

Hot topic.

Not to be confused with Spencer's hot topic.

Yeah, I think it's, look, I know it can be exhausting to wake up and talk about the same
thing day in day out.

And I know there's a lot of people who are just sitting there thinking, please, for the
love of Zero Dot, just stop talking about how I every single time, but it's relevant.

It's like I said, it's a hot topic.

It's important.

talk about.

I feel as though the importance of the topic outweighs the strain it puts on me to have to
think about it and talk about it every day of my life until it changes.

For sure.

Or at the very least, it can be in a corner of the internet or the world where we can just
safely ignore it.

I think the issue is it's pilfering into everything.

It's filtrating into everything.

And we didn't ask for it.

grubby little fingers into everything.

I don't want it.

Well, couple more things I want to just point out that have been good this week.

Once again, some small little takedowns, but again, I call this accountability.

uh Earlier this week, Daniel, if you're unaware, the US jury verdict against Meta and
Google in terms of their uh overall tech liability shield.

And more specifically, uh the US jury in Los Angeles on Wednesday found Meta and Google
liable for a young woman's depression and suicidal thoughts after she said she became

addicted to Instagram and YouTube at a young age.

ordering them to pay a combined $6 million in damages.

And then in a separate New Mexico case, jurors on Tuesday ordered Meta to pay $375 million
after finding the company misled users about the safety of its products for young users

and enabled the sexual exploitation of children on its platforms.

Reuters reports that shares of Meta fell nearly 3 % or lowest since May 2025, while those
of Alphabet, which is Google,

shed about 1.5%.

One of the key points about this particular case is that the jury or the jurors found that
Metta had full awareness of this impact that was happening and chose to either hide it or

do nothing about it.

And that's what they're being fined for in this particular capacity.

As things follow through, Google, specifically YouTube, is trying to argue that...

YouTube, even though they're part of the schism right now, YouTube is not a social media
platform.

So they're going to be trying to appeal this as much as possible.

And I'm here to tell you, unofficially, I'm not a financial advisor.

I don't know anything about business, but YouTube is absolutely a social media platform,
ladies and gentlemen.

So yes, if you're watching this on YouTube, you're watching it on social media.

That's just how this works.

So again, yeah.

can engage in the social media platform tools that it gives you in order to help us.

Please, comment down below.

Hit that like button.

Ding the bell.

Do everything that you would do on a social media platform.

But remember, it's not.

Right, according to Google, is not.

It does all the things, but it's clearly not, right?

ah Yeah.

We call this a win, folks, just simply because I'm a big fan of accountability.

I've been saying this for years now.

Human beings were not designed to have a supercomputer in the pocket of just their jeans
and their jacket and everywhere else and just follow them everywhere they are, which I'm

not complaining, the technology is fantastic, but there have been no safeguards, no
guardrails, no nothing to make sure that this technology works best with our brains.

I've been saying this forever and I'm happy to see some small bits of accountability.

I'm so sorry for the individual that suffered suicidal ideation.

I'm sorry for those that have been affected by it.

I think we all have been affected by it, but I'm glad to see some semblance of
accountability.

And the one final thing I want to point out because we talked about this before, ah so as
you might be aware from last week's episode, TSA has not been getting paid since February

14th.

That is still the case, sadly, unfortunately.

Cool news though, Delta Airlines, which if you remember from my story of my horrible...

flight situation from before Delta Airlines was actually the one airline that saved me a
couple of times in that story.

They're saving the day again because Delta Airlines is suspending perks for Congress amid
government shutdown.

I didn't know this Daniel.

I did not know Congress people, House representatives, folks of the Senate, I didn't know
they got special perks when they checked into an airline.

I had no idea but apparently they were and Delta's like nah we're not doing that until we
can get this whole TSA thing figured out.

And just folks those of that had tuning in for the first time

TSA is literally the way in which you can catch your flight on time.

If you can't get through TSA, you can't get to your flight.

And they have been the people that run TSA for security and homeland security.

They have not been getting paid since February 14th.

So big win for Delta.

I like Delta doing the good thing in whatever way they can.

I asked the question before, hey, what can the airlines do about this?

Because if no one goes through TSA, if it totally gets blocked off or the lines are too
long, you can't even catch a flight anymore.

Shouldn't the airlines do something?

And I'm happy to hear that Delta has been doing something about

we did indicate that TSA still is not getting funded, but even worse yet, and I'm almost
guaranteed Daniel will get, not demonetized, but we will get D-algorithm for even uttering

these words.

You know what I mean when I say that, right?

Like, ah, The US administration has decided to help solve the TSA problem instead of
funding them and getting them paid, which is what everyone wants.

They've gone ahead and deployed ICE agents to TSA posts in many Big Hub airports.

We should be so grateful, folks, because, my gosh, the ICE agents were asked to not wear
masks when they're at TSA.

uh Wow, so lovely.

Geez, Louise.

ah So nice.

the faces, the identities of these loyal people who are serving the country.

ah If you look at photos online you will see these individuals have been reported and just
standing in a corner and just doing a whole lot of nothing They are technically at TSA,

but they're not doing anything.

They're not assisting They're not they don't appear to be doing anything There was one set
of photos that I saw that if they are real indicated that the people that are run at ice

are 18 years or maybe just at 18 years old They are very young individuals not trying to
be ageist here, but you know with the training that is required with ice

or at least it used to be required before all this change and happened.

uh You'd think it would take a while before you could be a seasoned veteran in that
particular department, but no, that's not the case there.

It's almost as if the training isn't being done.

Almost yeah, it's almost as if who is that guy who was the training instructor for ice
actually testified against Congress to say we are legitimately failing This is a this is

this is a problem We are we are skipping it.

Yeah Yeah, 100 % geez uh So folks I don't bring you bad news to say hey doom and gloom I
want to offer you just a couple of quick tips when you get through this so as a fellow

traveler I can tell you right now um The general rule is when you're trying to do a
domestic flight

One to two hours, I would say two to four now.

Two to four hours earlier ahead of your flight.

I know that sucks because you've got time, you've got places to be, et cetera, but please,
if you can, try to make that process as as possible.

The few times I've been flying lately, there's been just a skeleton crew of TSA agents
even before ICE got there and it has made things incredibly slow.

If you still have time to sign up for TSA PreCheck, you can do that.

um

Not every airport authority is going to have a TSA pre-check available because again,
staffing is incredibly low, but that is one of the quickest ways to get through TSA.

You sign a questionnaire, you do have to pay a little bit of money.

It's like $100, $125.

It's an annual fee that allows you to go through, just check your luggage.

You don't take any clothes off.

You don't take any of your belts off, your shoes, nothing.

You just go through the scanner, you get on with your day.

It can make the process a lot faster for you.

And if you're traveling internationally, again, four hours is not a bad number, maybe even
five.

And I know I sound insane by saying five, but again, with the way TSA is going, you do not
know what's going to happen.

You might have to get derailed to a totally different gate where TSA is available, then
get shuttled over to another gate where you actually are, depending on what airport you're

flying out of, especially Atlanta Airport, the literal largest airport in the entire
world.

If you're flying out of there, be mindful, be careful, be wise.

If you're listening to this, be safe out there.

ah

That's what I gotta say about that.

Daniel's like, I'm not traveling at all.

Screw that.

I'm not, uh I am not in that country and B, I am not getting on a plane.

So not for a lack of wanting to travel abroad, just, you know, it's expensive.

It's very expensive.

I'd love to again soon, but no.

Yeah, please be safe.

No matter where you are in the world, to be perfectly honest, if you're travelling, take
care of yourselves.

Take care of yourselves.

Be safe.

All right, well, that's the good, that's the bad, and think now's about time we talk about
our main topic.

Daniel, you're an artist, right?

Some say.

Some say, I would say, I think you're an artist.

I think today's topic's gonna be interesting for you specifically.

I'm gonna talk about my love for photography and then something I stumbled upon that might
interest both of us.

as Daniel might know, but our listeners might not know, I'm an avid photographer.

I do like taking photographs.

I like street photography.

I like in the moment photography.

I like taking photography of mundane things.

Photography is one of my passions.

You know, I remember when I learned photography, literally learned how to develop film in
a dark room where you literally are in either total blackness or you have a very small red

light.

You're using phosphorus chemicals and other stuff and just trying to make sure that the
film develops.

Fun fact about film when you're actually developing the film, it's actually little tiny
itty bitty crystals that have a chemical reaction.

And that's what gives you the wonderful picture that you're looking at every time you look
at an old film photograph.

And if you zoom in on it, you can actually see the crystals.

It's beautiful.

It's wonderful.

It's fantastic.

I love film photography.

But do you remember the moment Daniel, maybe in your time, in my time, when we
transitioned very quickly from film photography to digital photography?

Do remember that transition?

I do.

I do.

I was...

I don't take as many photos anymore.

I love photography.

I think it's a wonderful pastime.

It's a wonderful hobby.

It's a wonderful profession.

At whatever level you want to do it on.

It's really nice, but I don't take as many photos as I once did as a child.

I used to carry around this cute little camera with me, this little film camera that was,
oh, what was it?

It was like, think the camera itself was black, but it had like this purple fuzzy spider,
like, and his legs were like kind of embossed and everything.

It was like over the camera and the lens, the lens of the camera was like one of its eyes
or something.

I've got photos of it somewhere.

It was cutest little camera.

I took it everywhere with me.

And I used to just snap, snap, snap away.

And then, yeah, I remember just all of a sudden everything was sleek and silver and this
is digital and you don't need to put something in the back of the camera to make it work.

You just press the button and then you connect it with a cable and there you go.

No dark room, and it's all pixels now, which in the early days you could see the pixels,
but now it's such high resolution you might not see the pixels.

But Daniel, you're speaking about something which is in your old camera that used film at
some point, it used an actual film device, kind of like what I've got right here.

You pop the back open, you put the film in this little chassis.

Yes, joke it through.

You had to try to do it in a dark place so you wouldn't lose that because anytime this
film had light, it would be a problem, it be a big deal.

It was a whole process and you had to take it to a place to get it developed or some
people who are really good at it, they could develop it themselves but that's all a big

laborious process.

But you remember Daniel, there's a sound these things.

boy, do I enjoy buttons and switches and levers and just anything that makes it's why, ah
it's why so many people like clicky clacky, thocky keyboards, anything just, just that

tactical feedback is so nice.

And you got this digital camera.

This is a DSLR from Canon.

It's nice up camera.

One of my first ones I got.

It took really nice photos.

And that's all you hear.

There's just a little, there's no, there's no click, there's no nothing, there's no power
to it.

It's all electronic.

little beep beep when it auto focuses and just before you, yeah, but that's kind of about
it.

And because it's a DSLR, it actually uses a mirror reflection, so you might hear the
mirror flap a little bit if it was on, but all digital, right?

Now, I would say, Daniel, that you and I are pretty progressive individuals, and that we
believe that when technology advances, there's a lot of good to be had.

I would also say that there's always something that gets a little bit lost in a
translation, and that's why it is nice to go back to old technology and kind of see, hey,

what was lost here?

Absolutely.

There's a, there's always a trade off.

There's always, always a trade off of, you know, new technology comes along.

Fantastic.

Wow.

This makes the thing that we used to struggle with so much easier, so much quicker.

Wow.

But then as I always say, you lose the magic, you lose the, you lose the friction, the
struggle, and you might even start missing the struggle.

Oh yeah, the struggle is huge.

You're hitting on a really good point there.

The struggle is, we need to struggle a little bit as human beings.

I think when we make things too easy, we feel it.

There's an angst.

We want to feel a little bit of struggle.

Before we get ahead of ourselves though, Daniel, you're kind of talking about this
absolutely perfectly in every single way.

There's a change that happened from film photography to digital.

And as someone who loves film and digital, I love both things.

There's a lot of advances with digital.

Like again, no darkroom.

uh I don't have pay for film anymore.

I can just like I have almost infinite amount of film So then I start shooting and praying
and taking tons of photos wherever I can and I thought that was all an incredible net

benefit Well, I stumbled across a video that I want to walk through and don't worry.

We're not gonna play the video It's a very short video.

I actually have the transcript in front.

I'm gonna read through it It's a video by someone by the name of Gerald.

I'm gonna mispronounce the name jewelry jewelry

But that's the individual right there.

We're not gonna play the video.

We're gonna drop the video in the description of this podcast.

You can all listen to it after the fact, because it's that good.

But he uh is a photographer.

He's a professional photographer.

And he also dabbles in film photography and old retro photography, et cetera.

I stumbled across this in my good old algorithm search, and it came upon my way.

And the video we're gonna talk about is the What We Lost When Cameras Got Better.

Now...

Like I said, I'm not gonna play the actual video for everyone, but I'm gonna just kind of
recite what he says.

And the reason I'm doing this, Daniel, at the behest of sounding boring, this video isn't
just about film photography and digital photography.

It is literally a work of art.

Like, it's poetry in motion.

And I wanted to recite what he says in this video and talk about it with you, Daniel,
because I think a lot of things he's talking about are things you might resonate with, I

resonate with it.

And I think there's a lot, there's a metaphor here that he doesn't talk about, because
that's what a good metaphor does.

He doesn't talk about that it's a metaphor.

for other things in life that I think we can walk away from here at Zero Dot.

Let me get my script in front of me.

And he's a Swedish man, so just for context, he did the video in English, but it's
obviously not his first language.

So there's like a directness, like a beauty to that.

He's just to the point about that.

Let me just go through the first couple parts here.

He shows the sound of the camera.

Here's the click of the camera.

Actually, let me get in front of me.

Forget that.

I have my iPad, but it's right here.

I'll just do it this way.

It's easier.

He gets to click of the camera.

He does this.

And the video starts and he says, that sound used to mean something.

36 chances.

That's all you got.

Now we have unlimited chances.

So why do our photos feel empty?

I'm Gerald and for the past three years, I've been shooting with cameras older than I am.

Not because I'm a purist, but because something felt wrong with modern photography and I
couldn't figure out what.

We've been told every upgrade makes us better photographers.

More megapixels, better autofocus, computational photography that fixes mistakes before we
make them.

Here's what nobody talks about.

Every time we gain something, we lost something too.

And what we might have lost might have been more valuable.

He then says, by the end of this video, I'm going to show you five things we traded away
and how to get them back.

But let me just pause right there because Daniel, you said it.

It's always a trade.

You never 100 % get a net gain out of something.

There's always something lost.

He's about to dissect into that.

again, there's a metaphor here about life.

But I mean, you're an artist, right?

You use digital tools.

You also use analog tools.

And I'm sure you've felt a little bit about that in your life.

Like there's something beautiful about writing something on a physical paper, feeling it
scrape against that paper.

Something is lost there.

any observations you have in your life, in your mind that just come to mind when he says
things like, it's never, we don't gain something, we lose something, it's a trade.

Yeah, I think...

I'm a big fan, I'm a big believer of there needs to be some sort of friction in front of
you, you know, in the way of getting to the thing that you are creating, the thing that

you want.

dude, the whole...

the whole thing of the end goal is all that matters just there you go just I made I made
the thing just just only you know the end goal is the be all end all I I've spoken it

before but I think there's some

real quality to things that have had to go through a struggle to come to be, I think.

And you can't always pinpoint it, you can't always pin it down, but you can often feel it.

And that's very wishy-washy.

It's very like, you know, I'm gonna go hug a tree and talk about souls.

it's, I found it to be true.

I find it to be very, true.

think the what you gain by being able to do things instantly, by having infinite attempts
at something, you know, you go back to the whole thing of

restriction breeds creativity.

you, if you restrict, I, when I first got into working with digital tools to create
things, it was amazing.

I downloaded every brush I could find.

I downloaded every texture I could find.

I just had this massive load, it's thousands of colours, brushes, tools, everything I
could ever dream of.

And it was like choice paralysis.

I was so lost.

I was so lost.

And then by realizing, ah, if I just keep it to this handful of brushes, this handful of
colors, then I can make something really, really beautiful.

No, I love it.

You say your wishy washy, I disagree with you.

You you talk about the end result.

One of the things I'm dealing with when I talk with young professionals, they're always
focusing on the end result.

What do I produce at the end of this, right?

And it's so nice to live in this sliver of life as a millennial where you see both sides
of it.

And there was a side where like, no, you just, drew, you doodled and you draw and you
didn't, you weren't thinking about where it went.

You just made it.

You know, I...

it to post somewhere.

You weren't doing it to make a quick bit of money or anything.

I used to sit at my grandmother's table and doodle because doodling was fun.

And that was it.

I didn't think about where it was going.

I didn't think about what it was for.

It was for my enjoyment.

It was because it was what I wanted to do in the moment.

It was so fulfilling.

It was so nice.

We talked a few episodes about how I've been going back to writing everything manually on
a pen and paper.

And there's been a few times now in my books where I'm trying to describe a scene and I
don't have the words for it.

So just start storyboarding it in the middle of my text.

Like here's a quick storyboard of what I want visually to happen in the scene.

Then I keep going, right?

I'm not an artist, like drawing artistry, just being creative, like it doesn't always have
to have an output.

And yet we've treated it like where's your output?

I remember telling someone, close friend of mine that, yeah, I like to draw.

You know, I draw.

You know, on weekends, on Sundays with coffee, I just doodle to myself, I'd love to see
some of your drawings if you post them on Instagram.

Like, no, they're just for me.

They're just my drawings.

I'm not shy.

I'll show them to you.

But they're literally just meant for me.

They're not meant to be something other people see, right?

The act of drawing is just what I enjoy the most.

And we're going to get a little bit of glimpse of this as we keep going through this
journey of what Gerald's talking about when he says the difference between digital and

film.

So it's a great stopping point there.

As he talks about, he talks about the history of film.

Very briefly, he says, let's go back.

Film wasn't a choice.

by the way, before we keep going, once again, I said this before, let me say this again.

Daniel and I, we are very progressive.

We are not of the generation that believes that things were better yesterday.

That's not what we're trying to say.

That's not what I'll ever say.

uh And it's, as we keep diving in, you think that's what Gerald is trying to say?

He's trying to, you think he's saying film was way better?

That's not his schism.

We will see at the end what he has to say about this.

It's beautiful.

like, boo, technology.

We not like the good old days.

The good old days didn't exist, pal.

They didn't need, we were, we are now at a point in time where like today, this very day
that we are living in right now is the best that it's ever been in so many ways.

That doesn't mean that things from the past and the old ways don't have value.

But again, same with a lot of things.

They can exist side by side.

They both have a purpose.

Yeah.

So again, as we, as we talk about this, we're not saying the old days were better.

Let's go back.

Never.

We are in the best timeline, even as suckiest things have been lately.

We're still, we got great tools.

got great resources, great technology.

Health is better in a lot of ways than we've ever been.

John was talking before about how we're getting cures for cancer, which is fucking
phenomenal.

We are literally in a great time.

that's a cure for types of cancer.

That's something that you just, you never thought would be, you know, you never thought
you'd hear it.

You never thought you'd hear it.

And now we have with our very own ears.

Wow.

when HIV and AIDS was out and we were told there's never going to be a cure for it now
there's a cure?

It's manageable.

It's fine.

that's it.

If you've got it, donezo.

Like that's it, it's over for you.

And now, now we know that's not the case.

It's so good.

It's so wonderful.

Anyway.

So as we keep going down, he says,

let's go back.

Film wasn't a choice.

It was the only option.

You had 36 exposures.

You loaded it carefully because if you messed up, you wasted money.

Every frame cost you something, not just money.

Time, attention, intention.

You composed the shot in your mind before you pressed the shutter.

Then digital arrived.

It promised freedom.

No film costs.

Instant feedback.

And this I want to hit on Daniel.

Delete the bad, keep the good.

Mm, hate on it, my friend, hate on it.

delete the bad, keep the good.

I think about that and I get a little sick to my stomach because it is true.

Like you go through digital photos and like, that was a bad photo, let me delete it.

Or, you I'm not gonna use that.

I'm not gonna post that online.

I'm only gonna do focus on the good ones.

And as I think about that, I remember when I would develop my own film, a lot of my photos
would be bad.

There'd be a couple of good ones, but I kept it all because it was part of the experience
of how I had rolled the particular film.

And when I think about delete the bad, keep the good, he's saying a truth here.

A lot of us are framed that way to believe like only show people the good stuff.

Everything has to be good.

Everything has to be that particular way.

And that makes me really sad that that's that's it dives into perfectionism, excellentism.

Like it's it's nasty.

It has to be picture perfect.

Yeah, it definitely is a very, very big thing.

You know, they always tell you just all these social media influencers and stuff.

You're only ever seeing the very best.

You're seeing the best case scenario of their life and you're sitting there and you're
just like, wow.

Look at this.

Look what they're doing.

wow.

That outfit's so nice.

oh They're on a boat.

I wish I was on a boat.

That'd be so good.

They're not showing you all of the days where they sat there and crying.

They're always struggling with their mental health or they had bad news in the family or
they just, they tried and they tried and they tried and they failed and they failed.

You don't see any of that.

Yeah, think that's bad for the brain, bad for the old noggin.

But we thought it was good at the time.

We thought, it's cool, I can delete the bad ones, keep the good ones, and all my photos
will be quote unquote good.

The sharp ones, the clear ones, the ones that are in frame ones, right?

No film costs, instant feedback, delete the bad, keep the good.

He says, it felt like liberation, and for a while, it was.

Oof.

Oof, for a while, it was.

He then says,

Then smartphones put the camera in everyone's Computational photography made every shot
technically perfect.

HDR, portrait mode, night mode, the camera thinks for you.

We went from 36 exposures per month to 36 before breakfast.

We photograph everything, sunsets, coffee.

We have more photos than ever.

And then he asks,

So why can't we remember taking?

YIKE.

It's uh, I award that one yike.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We've got more photos.

I went through my photos, where he's gonna see in just a little bit.

He says, last year I found prints from 2005 from a 20 year old disposable camera photo,
camera that I did.

And I remembered every single shot, the moment, the feeling, why I pressed the shutter.

Then I opened my phone, almost 8,000 photos and I couldn't tell you the story behind most
of them.

That's when I realized we didn't upgrade.

we trade it.

I think that's poignant.

Very, very well said.

It's not, you know, we didn't upgrade, we traded.

Yeah.

Like Sam said, we're not here to say we didn't upgrade, we downgraded.

No, no, we traded.

We traded, but we think it's an upgrade.

I think he, Gerald's saying, we gotta be mindful.

As Daniel said, both things should coexist, right?

Well, I can't film photography and digital photography exist.

They bring about two different schisms, two different reactions to it.

He then dives into what are the things we lost?

There's five things we lost when we made this quote unquote upgrade.

And again, it is a trade, but there are things we lost.

The first thing we lost was intentionality.

When every frame costs nothing,

every frame means nothing.

With film, you have 36 frames.

You can't spray and pray.

You have to see before you shoot.

You check settings, wait for light, consider the composition before you can take another
100.

And because you can't take another 100 shots and hope one works, we call that coverage in
photography.

Like, let me take a bunch of shots from a bunch of different angles.

I'll pick the one I like.

Remember, delete the good, keep the bad, right?

He's saying back then,

Unless you're a professional photographer with heaps of film in your bag which costs you
hundreds of dollars, you couldn't do that.

With one roll film, you took one shot, you hoped it was the best one.

Consider the composition.

You can't take 100 shots and hope one works.

Digital taught us to shoot first, think later.

Film taught us to think first, shoot once.

m

This whole podcast is just going to be me and you going, mm, mm.

Mmm.

I'm telling you there's a reason why I watch this like holy shit.

This is a phenomenal poetic piece of literature.

This guy's putting through

there are a lot of good punctuation marks, a lot of good stopping moments where you just
go, mm, mm, mm-hmm.

You said it, my guy, you said it.

He did the next one He says the second loss is presence and you Daniel you just talked
about this the moment you take a photo.

Where are you?

Well with digital we are constantly pulled out You take the shot you check the screen is
the crop is it cropped is it exposed right take another check again?

In film photography, you don't got a screen.

You got nothing

You did the best you did, you calculated, you got the lighting right, made sure your light
meter was good to go, you think it's in frame, you took one photo.

Man, your thumb could have been over the lens for all you know.

You did the best that you could and you'll find out later.

You will find out later and he says this so then the third thing we lost was anticipation
that gap between shooting and seeing The film sometimes you'd wait days sometimes weeks

You don't know what you got until the prince came back and that waiting made you care You
remembered the moments because you had to hold them in your in your mind or your hand or

in your head

Now we see it instantly and then we forget instantly.

There's no space for the photo to become a memory.

You talked about that again, Daniel.

There's no space for us to remember something in our head before moving on to the next
thing.

We need time.

Our brains, they're really capable, but they need a little bit of space, a little bit of
deliberation.

And with the tools that we have right now, social media and otherwise, we don't...

There's no guardrails for this.

There's nothing.

It's just boom boom boom boom boom and it's weaponized against us if I might say so
myself.

We know it's weaponized against us.

Our brains can't handle it.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

he's saying, we need to have some time.

That time, as annoying as it was to wait a week, a day, a month to get your film back,
that gave you space to think about that photo a bit before you got it back.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I miss that.

I miss the...

Yeah.

I very much miss that period in between.

And then I remember getting like, I remember getting the prints back and you could sit
down with people who maybe you were on that holiday with those people and you all took

film photos and you'd sit together and you'd go through them all and you'd be like, I
remember that.

That was so good.

And that was, and just like, oh, look at that one.

Maybe it's got like a light leak or like someone's thumb is in front of the lens, like I
said, or it's slightly out of frame or it's blurry, but so much charm to it and there's

good memories and it's all attached to this thing.

You don't get any of that because you wouldn't see the ones where the thumb was in the
frame.

You wouldn't see the ones that were blurry because they'd just be like, no, not good
enough.

See you later.

Boop.

Gone.

Which dives into his fourth thing.

We lost imperfection, he says.

Film had character.

Grain told you what film stock you used.

And Daniel just said it.

His words are, light leaks were happy accidents.

The photo is technically wrong.

Underexposed, grainy, slightly out of focus.

But it feels more real than any perfect digital shot I've taken.

Digital removes imperfection.

AI smooths skin, sharpens edges, balances exposure.

Every photo looks the same.

We optimize.

I have a mistranslation here.

optimize something out of our images.

We optimize it so much out of our images that every photo is the same.

And you're speaking about that, right?

Like there's a reason why I like grittiness and rawness and lack of perfection because it
draws me in more.

When I see something that's perfect, go, wow, that's a beautiful sunset.

That's perfectly colored and graded and everything else.

Nice.

And I keep scrolling.

I might do a quick like and that's it.

I feel nothing, right?

I was having a conversation with a mutual friend of ours and I shared a photo that I just
grabbed.

I nabbed it on one of my walks I have after work.

And just the way the lighting was hitting the telephone poles and the telephone poles had
ice on them and it crystallized and made the light bounce.

It was a total happy accident.

I grabbed this photo.

I'm like, wow, this is incredible.

And our mutual friend was like, was this a golden hour photo?

I'm like,

Probably probably like a golden minute like it was literally a flash and it was gone and
there was a sense in the conversation of like well you you can calculate for this and if

you if you got in the right position and write this and I I appreciate those types of
photographers but as someone who's more street more spontaneous this was like a quick

flash and a golden moment and Daniel let me show you what picture I'm talking about here I
have it with me.

Let's see.

This is the photo that

to double tap on it and never see it again.

Yeah, but like

this is the photo.

I was just walking The sun is coming in you can see the light bounce.

It's it's imperfect.

It's not level It's not cropped correctly, but I'm like, man, that's crazy.

That's whoa.

That's awesome, right?

I love that shot.

That's really nice.

it's a nice shot.

And I just thought, like, wow, I didn't think I'd ever get that shot.

And this was using my camera phone, because that's all I had on me.

And I'm like, I want to quickly grab it real quick.

I didn't do any digital AI filtering.

This is just the raw shot, the raw color that came through on it.

And I miss that.

I'm not saying there's anything against landscape photography and calculating the sunset
and all that stuff.

That's great.

But we see tons of that stuff all the time.

Me personally.

I'll still enjoy looking at those, this kind of tactile quality, I respond more to it.

So with that, he talks about the fifth loss, the fifth thing we've lost in film
photography.

And the fifth loss is one that brought me back to film, he says.

Mindfulness.

Film photography is a ritual.

You load the film, you set your ISO, you can't change it until the roll is done.

You advance manually after every shot.

You feel the mechanism.

Every action requires presence.

You're not just capturing, you're participating.

The camera isn't doing the work, you are.

Digital cameras are tools.

Film cameras are teachers.

One gives you results, the other gives you discipline.

And in a world that moves too fast, that discipline is what I needed most.

And I didn't realize any of this until I burned out.

I was shooting constantly, thousands of photos, chasing the perfect, the perfect shot, the
perfect everything, and I felt nothing.

More photos, less meaning, more gear, less creativity.

At every advantage modern technology could give me, I'd never been more disconnected from
my work.

So I bought a 50-year-old camera for 60 bucks, loaded cheap film, and I went for a walk.

I took 12 photos that day.

I used to take 12 photos before leaving the house, and I remember every single one of
these, though.

Where I was standing, what I was thinking, why it mattered.

That's the paradox.

Unlimited shots gave us unlimited forgetting Let me repeat that unlimited shots gave us
unlimited forgetting Limitations gave us meaning we didn't lose these things because film

disappeared.

We lost them because we stopped valuing them Let me pause there for that because he said a
lot in that last piece

He did.

this is, well, I mean, you can go back and watch the episode where I say that I very much
value the ritual in things.

I am picking up what this man is putting down.

I think it's extremely valuable.

And like you said, this isn't to devalue those people who want to

adjust everything to the nth degree to make sure that everything's perfect.

There's still value in that.

There's still value in doing that.

this doesn't, you know, this doesn't make any of their works redundant.

It doesn't make them pointless whatsoever.

uh But I do think there's a lot of magic and a lot of heart to be found in the ritual of
things.

Just, you can apply it to most things.

To be perfectly honest, it doesn't just have to be photography.

It can be anything.

It doesn't even have to be things that you create yourself.

It can be how you consume things, especially nowadays where you've got instant access to
anything you would ever possibly want.

Like the other month I went to the record store in the city and I just stood there and I
was like, what have you been listening to?

And he said, this actually, I've been really big on this.

And he pulled out a record and he handed it to me.

I looked at it.

I'd never seen it before.

I liked the artwork.

And I was like, and I trust his name's Rich.

He's a lovely guy.

Super, super, superhero of the local scene.

And he just, he put it in my hands and I was like, okay.

And I walked out with that record.

I paid for it just to be clear.

eh I didn't just walk out and I said, thanks.

And then I ran out.

it felt so meaningful and so special.

I just, wouldn't, I'm not sure it would have felt the same way if I'd have logged into
Spotify and it would have been like, here's something for you.

Like here's something you might have.

I don't know.

It just, it doesn't hit the same.

It doesn't have the same, again, friction barriers.

You know, I had to travel, I had to interface with another person.

I had to trust their opinion, their taste, and that it would align with mine.

I had to be okay with the fact that it might not, and I might spend money on something
that I don't end up enjoying.

all of those things taken into account it was just wonderful and there's so much so much
value to be found there I think

Yeah, the time, the distance, the trust, you know, this can even disseminate into like not
even talking to the person.

I remember one of my most seminal music influences was Fugazi.

And you I liked Fugazi back in the day, Repeater was a great album.

I liked their stuff, but I was also a big BMXer back in the day and I would read BMX
magazine every month and they'd have a section where BMX people would recommend albums to

people and they'd have a quick write-up about the album from like a BMX lens.

And one guy wrote up the Fugazi's The Argument.

And I'm like, they have a new album?

Like, yeah, it's their final album.

uh And I think it's the best one yet.

I think this is going to change music forever.

I'm like, huh.

That sat in my head for a while.

And then finally, I went to the record store and I found a copy of Fugazi's The Argument.

I picked it up.

And I can tell you, Daniel, this is the beauty of this.

If I hadn't been told it was probably one of the greatest albums of all time, I wouldn't
have liked it.

Because when I listened to it the first time, I was like, huh?

This is weird.

It's kind of experimental.

It's kind of all over the place.

But I gave another listen another listen then I listened to other music and I realized so
much music was being inspired by this album and I could hear bits of that album in that

music and I went back to like my gosh, this is a masterpiece This is incredible and it's
that time that distance that ruminating and again getting someone recommend to you and

just going with that It's huge.

It's

giving it the time to sit and to evaluate it.

There are so many records, so many games, so many books, so many things in my life that if
I was living my life by the algorithm, by the scroll, by anything like that, by the

infinite attempts, uh it...

I wouldn't have some of my favourite pieces of media in my life.

Because upon first consumption, upon first absorbing it, it didn't gel well with me and I,
you know, if I was living my life by that way, I could have just...

Nope, see you later.

Pushed it out the door.

On we go.

but by sitting with it, maybe giving it a few more listens, maybe coming at it when I'm in
a different head space, when I made a different time in my life.

and know those things that might have never, never been a part of my life, never been
important to me, because I just put at the first instance of, you know, I just pushed them

out the door, see you later.

They're so important to me now.

I think, you know, I think it's worth giving the things that you consume that time.

Sure, time is, it's incredible.

We're so impatient because everything comes at us fast, but when you give something time,
as painful as friction that gives you, there's so many benefits to it, Massive.

You know, when you...

When you are so easily and freely given something, you don't think twice about sending it
away.

There's even an element of like egotism because in that framework you're going, your thing
must meet my needs and if it doesn't meet my needs, I'm discarding it.

And I appreciate some elements of that but there's another element of like, well who the
fuck are you?

This thing was made not for you, it made for someone else or whatever, it took a lot of
effort and time and et cetera and.

You know, you can discard it if you'd like, but there's a benefit to really just absorbing
it, let it sit with you, and maybe you're wrong, and maybe it's time to grow with it go,

holy cow, this changes me, right?

Ideally, ideally, it was made for the person who made it.

uh Ideally, ideally this, this art, this thing that you are consuming was made for the
person that made it.

um Not always the case, but.

Well, if you're a part of the Rick Rubin School, who's one of the most premier music
producers in the world, he will tell you all art should be made with no other purpose than

making good art and it's made for the artist's favor, lends what they like.

And then once the art is done, then you think about the selling part, then you think about
marketing it, then you think about how you can make money off it, but that's after the

thing is done.

And if you try to...

do the two at the same.

Regardless if any of us like that kind of art, we can all tell there's a difference.

I can tell when I'm looking at something that it was made to be production, it was made to
sell, versus I can tell there was something more to it that the artist had to say.

And that's not me because I have a superpower.

We all have that ability.

All of us.

We all have that like, hmm, something doesn't smell right.

Yeah, like I'm, you know, I'm not meaning to come off as like the content snob who's like
got these magic superpowers of deeper introspection and everything like that.

no, not at all.

I just, I'm just saying how I feel.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so Gerald, you might think at this point in the video, he's made all these wonderful
poignant points.

He's like, all right, go back to film.

But that's not what he says.

He says, so what do we do?

Do we abandon digital, become film purists?

He pauses and then he says, no.

Like not no, he's very loud.

He's like, no, we don't do that.

He says, the tools don't matter.

The mindset does.

You can shoot digital with film discipline.

Limit yourself.

Shoot like you have 36 frames.

Turn off the screen.

Don't review until you get home.

Set constraints and honor them.

I promise you'll remember those 36 photos more than your last 3,600.

Because photography isn't about capturing everything.

It's about remembering what matters.

We didn't lose these things when cameras improved.

We lost them when we stopped paying attention.

Better cameras gave us better images with worse photographers.

And maybe it's time we got that back.

And then he, and then he, it's a poignant moment, but then he just says, so that's my
take.

What did you lose when you upgraded?

Do you remember your old photos better than your new ones?

Tell me in the comments.

And he says this and I fucking love it.

And if you look at this video, you'll know it's true.

He says, tell me in the comments.

I read every single.

the video's done.

And if you go to that video, it's got, let me just double check, it's got 184,000 views,
it's got how many comments?

Let me see if I can get that tally, 2,591, and yes, he has read every single.

beautiful.

I think that's hit on what I'm trying to say.

And maybe I failed at saying it in my own words.

I really, really appreciate where he came to at the end of that.

Because you know, earlier when I was like, oh, when I first started digital, I had
thousands of brushes and all this kind of stuff.

And then I was like, and then I took it down to like five brushes and a single color
palette.

And then I worked with that.

I was still working digitally, but I imposed those restraints on myself in order to get
back to that feeling, back to that heart, back to that soul of it, of why I was doing it

and what I was doing.

That's...

You can still use modern day technology.

You can still shoot digital.

You can still draw on a digital tablet.

You know, you can still do all these things using the modern technology with all of its...

Because as you said, film photography, expensive.

To keep paying for a roll of film, especially now, this is a whole other thing.

This is a whole other thing that I might get into in a minute, but let's say you can't
afford to be a film photographer because the film's just too expensive.

That doesn't mean that you can't shoot like a film photographer.

You can use a digital camera, but think like a film photographer, shoot like a film
photographer.

You don't have to give up the modern convenience and these things that help us in order to
get back to this mindset that is uh restoring some of the core values to what you are

doing and what you're consuming.

I think.

Yeah, Yeah, I mean, what I found when I listened to this and I watched this, by the way, I
recommend everyone, even if you've heard me say all the words, literally watch the video.

It's nine minutes long, his accent's beautiful, it's fantastic.

He does wonderful composed shots while he's doing it, very filmic.

um Cool little aside, Daniel, just for you and me, because I hate it when these filmic
things have like that music that's like really cheap and crappy.

No music at all, it's just his voice.

No music.

He chose not to do any music.

Just his voiceover, his shot, some of his film, and that was it.

It beautiful.

When I'm listening to this though, it's so profound because we're talking about
photography, we're talking about art, but it's everything in life.

We are in a...

When people say, I liked it when things were old, I liked it back in the day, when things
were...

When they make that leap of like, things were better when I was a kid.

Well, there's two things.

One, you were a kid, you were stupid, and...

You had your food taken care of for you.

Most of you did.

You didn't have to worry about bills.

Yeah, of course things were great.

But the other element is, and there's a truth to this, at that point in time, 20, 30 years
ago, it could be argued that our brains had the tools to somewhat rise to the challenge of

the world we were in.

Now we're in a world that is so fast, our brains are not equipped for that.

And what I love what he says here, he doesn't say, abandon the new tools.

He says, no, use the tools you got, use them.

then slow down the world around you so you can keep up at the pace that makes sense for
you.

Which is basically what he's saying.

Like, in this analogy, go ahead and do use digital photography, but use it like a film
mindset and you will love every photo a little bit more.

Restrain yourself a bit.

Have constraints.

Daniel was saying he has all these brushes and he downloaded every single one.

It was like being in Candyland.

But then he realized there was opportunity paralysis.

And at a certain point, what are the ones that I like?

We're the ones that I need.

Let's minimize it as much as I can, make the workflow simple.

Yeah, you know, maybe, and it forces you to butt up against problems and roadblocks and
then you can think of creative ways to get around those roadblocks, you know, rather than

just being like, that's okay.

I'll take one of my 10,000 brushes to solve this problem.

If you limit yourself to say five brushes and you come up against a problem.

And you're just like, how can I make this work with what I have made available to myself?

And you will most likely, hopefully, come out the other side, having created something
really wicked, really cool and something that you love and something that you are proud

of.

Because rather than just, no, that's okay, reach for that, but do whatever.

You had to sit, you had to think.

You have to figure your way out of it.

And then you can look back on it just be like, that was so good.

That was so cool.

I was engaged.

My brain was working.

I wasn't just going through the motions and it's imbued it with some sort of special
sauce.

It's really, really important.

It's really good.

I'd recommend you do it.

If you create something, place some boundaries around yourself.

Place some, place some...

place some fences around your artistic area.

You'll find that, yeah, you create some of your best work when you are restrained and
restricted.

And I would argue the struggle is somewhat the point.

It's not meant to be easy.

I can't tell you how many times I'm sure Daniel you get feedback like this where someone
comes up to you whether you're taking a photo, drawing, doing whatever, doing something in

your life, you're enjoying the process and they shake you out of it go, there's an easier
way to do that.

There's a better way to do that.

And don't be wrong.

I'm all for learning new things and all that stuff.

But the truth is I'm liking this kind of difficult, weird way that I'm doing it.

I'm in the process of video editing this behemoth of a video that has taken me way too
long but I gotta be honest, I'm enjoying the process.

Yes, I could hire an editor to make it easier for me.

Yes, I could do all the editing tricks but I'm enjoying wrestling with it.

I'm enjoying kind of making it work and it's getting a little bit more of me in it.

The struggle is part of it.

it's well-intentioned.

In their eyes, they're making it easier for you.

They're providing you with an out.

providing you with a, they maybe think that you don't know about this alternative way of
doing it or alternative route.

And they're just like, hey, did you know that you can do it this way?

And it saves you a bunch of.

this struggle that you're going through and it's well intentioned but...

Like you said, I kinda like the struggle.

I kinda like the struggle.

Yeah, it's...

I'm not one to...

was some famous game maker who said that, and just replace the word gamers here with just
people, m that gamers when given the chance will optimize the fun out of everything.

They will optimize the fun out of games.

um I am going to search this up because it's driving me crazy.

I used to know.

While you're doing that, I want to also just say like, if we all adopt everyone's
shortcuts, which I'm all for learning things from people, but if we all are doing

everyone's shortcuts, everyone's telling each other to do to make everything easier, then
we're at the same problem we're at right now where everything looks the same.

Everything looks and feels the same.

So for instance, if I have a little bit of a struggle boss on something I'm working at,
it's going to look a specific way, specific to me.

It won't look like the way you did it.

I arrived to somewhat the same place, but it's a little bit different.

And there's beauty in that too.

Yeah.

So, Soren Johnson.

Soren?

Soren.

S-O-R-E-N.

Uh, Civilization.

Um, yeah.

Yeah.

One of the people behind Civ.

Um, that's the bloke, that's the guy who said the thing that I like.

Um, yeah.

I...

Can I pose a question to you, Sam?

Wonderful.

I just kind of want to know your take on something, if that's okay.

Absolutely.

When we talking about, uh you know, the draw of retro things and nostalgic things and like
the old way of doing things, old film cameras and such like that, like vinyl records,

cassette tapes, stuff like that.

What's your take on something that is very real?

oh I know it's happening.

And it ties back into when I said, maybe film photography is too expensive for you.

Which is people discovering the joy in the struggle of doing things the old way before all
of this technology came about.

And then companies recognizing that people want that nostalgia and they want that old way.

And they're just like, ha.

we can capitalize on this.

you see a big upsurge now of um new companies creating new digital point and shoot cameras
um to cater to an audience of people who have either lived through it the first time like

us and have nostalgia for it or

younger generations that are getting into this and discovering this for the first time
It's become a fashion trend.

We're currently going through an era where the 90s and the uh Y2K is kind of a fashion
trend right now.

I think I'm seeing a lot of companies

being very predatory and saying like, oh, people like this, people like the nostalgia and
everything like that.

We're going to pray on this and we're going to hike the price of all this kind of stuff.

And they're making like new film cameras, new digital point and shoot for, you you could
go to a charity shop and pick up an old point and shoot, Panasonic, whatever you want,

Kodak, whatever you want for like, I don't know, 20 quid?

$20, like whatever.

And it's the real thing.

It's the legit thing that people are after.

But instead, you've got companies who are making new ones that are trying to emulate the
old ones.

And they're them for hundreds and hundreds of pounds, hundreds and hundreds of dollars to
specifically snipe this little market of mixture of nostalgia and...

fashion i suppose trends that's going on right now um what are your thoughts on it

I have a ton.

need to, I need to get something.

Give me one second.

Cause I have a whole thing.

I have a whole thing.

Greetings, it is I, Daniel, someone you don't usually hear a lot from, but you've heard
quite a lot from today.

Whether that's a good thing or not, I'll leave that up to you.

You can't tell because of my sunglasses.

I'm staring directly into your souls right now to bring you the names of our wonderful
Patreon members who helped us support what we do.

In no particular order, we have Robert Restant.

David Rivera, William Kirk, JP, Aid, and God of Grunts.

Thank you everyone who pays us a little bit of money.

$3.99 a month or your regional equivalent to help keep this going.

to the episode.

Okay, all right.

Yeah, yeah, I got a whole thing I gotta talk about.

Okay, ah you're saying so many wonderful things I wanna talk about.

So I'm gonna get to photography in a second, because there's a corollary, but what you're
also talking about is something that I'm sensitive to as a writer.

As you might imagine, writers right now, the market for people who want to be a writer,
one of the things is how can I write distraction-free, right?

How can I?

You know, I need to find a tool that allows me to write without all these pop-ups and the
computer, the word processor being too fancy, whatever.

We talked about this a couple episodes ago about one of the ways you can do it is one of
the oldest tricks in the book.

It's so cheap, just a pen and paper will do the trick that can get you to write without
distractions.

But people want to be able to do it with a keyboard, sometimes keyboard apparatus.

Now, I don't like doing this, but I feel the need to do it.

we're going to come after a company in just a second.

There is a company, what you're talking about,

which offers this ability, this incredible tool that allows any writer to go ahead and
write distraction-free.

It's called the Smart Typewriter by FreeWrite.

Wow.

Now, this device looks very nice.

It's clacky, it's cool, but the idea is that it's just a text screen, nothing more.

You are not incentivized to edit your text.

You're incentivized just to write, write, write, write, write, then upload it to a server
that FreeWrite owns.

I've just seen the pro stack.

Oh no.

No.

to be doing this right.

You write it, you upload it to a cloud server.

The cloud server is one that FreeWrite owns, so once again, you're on their proprietary
cloud service.

can't, it's not super easy to kind of manually download it, et cetera.

And this has been a popular item for like four or five years, Daniel.

And it's, as you can see the price, $700 US dollars to get a, a very dumb keyboard.

And it's very big.

You see pictures like this.

And the whole purpose as a writer is that, aha, this has unlocked the ability for you to
go ahead and write with no distractions at all.

This is the thing.

Now Daniel, I'm gonna pause here for two reasons.

One, I already said it, but one of the most obvious things you can do as well, a pen and
paper costs like a pad of paper and a pen, maybe eight bucks.

That's a lot cheaper than this.

But let's, yeah.

I've just...

I've got a big thing about tech that he's trying to solve problems we already have
solutions for.

Yes!

So you got that, but then let's say Daniel, you're the person that's like, no, Sam, I want
to be able to type.

Typing is where I am my best.

Okay?

I'm not here to fight your process.

You could in the used market buy a really cheap, shitty laptop that all it can do is do
word processing.

Those are available.

Those are available for less than $600.

No, no, what if the battery fails or what if the screen fails or what if it's still got
too many applets on?

It's going to distract me too much.

Well, Daniel.

And this might be a break in the story, because I've known this forever, but no one wants
to talk about it.

Do know what this is?

Ooh, that looks to me like one of those smart typewriters that cost $700.

Am I wrong?

Am I correct?

I'm wrong.

So it's called the uh Neo 2.

This Neo 2, these are devices meant to teach kids how to type.

And the whole purpose of it, if I have battery, which I don't think I do, no, I don't have
battery, but if it had battery, it would give you just a small amount of space to write

and you'd write as much as you could.

Editing isn't super easy on this thing.

You'd reach a certain cap, like 10,000 words.

And then you'd have this little USB hub.

right here.

You plug that into your computer, your main computer, you click enter and it types
everything you just typed into a Word document.

So you'd have everything and then you could edit it from there.

This device was meant to teach kids how to type.

It's exactly the same thing that FreeWrite is marketing.

When this device was in its heyday, this was $20.

You

This was $20.

because it's a simple piece of technology that serves a specific purpose.

Right.

And then these died, right?

Because there was no market for them anymore because kids were starting to get iPads and
bigger tech.

And so now FreeWrite is doing this thing where they're trying to sell you on this idea
that already existed, give you a premium price tag to make you believe that there's

nowhere else you can get this technology.

You can go on Amazon, eBay and find these for like 80 bucks now.

They're really cheap.

And they're even more effective because they're not on a cloud.

They're stored in the internal memory and you can just put them in your computer and it
gets all the text for you.

It does everything.

my god, speaking of things beyond the cloud, I can't remember the name of the company.

If I could, believe me, I would name them.

And subsequently shame them.

However, there was a company that was doing this whole retro revival, making a new product
that emulates the old product.

And it was like, look, look how analogue and rustic these photos look.

through this camera.

Wow.

It looks just like a film camera.

It looks just like a point and shoot.

That's so cool.

What it was actually doing.

Get this.

Well, this is daft to start off with a device that was meant to separate the camera from
your phone.

You needed an app to make it work.

So you haven't separated it from your phone in the first place.

It was sending the photos you took.

two servers run by the to the cloud to these servers, whatever.

And they were editing the photos via some algorithm, via something I don't, obviously not,
it wasn't a human manually editing all of these photos.

Some computer process was applying filters and light leaks and grain and stuff to these
photos.

And then it was sending them back to the app post edit, making people think that it was
the actual camera that was making these photos look this certain way.

a lot of problems with this.

So A, as I touched on, you haven't separated the camera from your phone because you've got
an app.

B, they had this whole thing of like while it was doing that process, the app would show
like, photos are processing.

They're like, going through the, they're going through the, they're in the dark room.

They're in there, they're in there and that was kind of like a, you had to wait.

a certain amount of time until you could see your photos because it was emulating the
process of waiting for your film photos.

And that was to hide the fact that they were being sent off, edited and then sent back.

What if one day that company shuts down the service?

That's now a paperweight.

That does nothing.

Or at least it does a very diminished version of what it was meant to do.

So there's always the chance the service shut down and the whole thing, the whole crux of
their service is gone.

Also,

All of those photos that you are taking are being sent away to these random servers that
you don't know who has access to them.

You don't know who's seeing these photos.

You don't know whether they're storing them or not.

That's a massive invasion of privacy.

It's a whole thing from top to bottom.

This entire product is ridiculous.

It's stupid.

It costs far too much.

It's an invasion of privacy.

They are not pulling you away from your phone because you need an app to make it work.

There's always the risk of obsolescence because they could shut the servers down and sweep
their entire service from under from under itself.

I just wanted to get that out there.

I just wanted to have a mini little.

I think that is daft on so many levels.

Silly.

And that just reminded me when you said about the cloud, I was just like, no, this thing,
photography, it just, it beamed its way back into my head.

And I was like, I need to say how silly this is.

I've got another crazy example for you that's not quite cloud-based, but if you're on
Instagram and if you are looking at photography stuff, you're gonna see an ad for a

company called Retropia.

And Retropia sells this very cool, very unique Oreo-looking lens for your camera.

Yeah, you've seen them.

Okay, so the argument here is that, yes, it looked like a funny Oreo, but the idea is that
this uses repurposed other lenses, it's very biodegradable.

uh

And it's a lens that when you apply it on, it gives you this disposable film look.

So if you want that like, polar-eyed, kind of warpy, kind of washy look in your photos,
you know, the normal price is $75, but we'll give you a discount for $48.75.

Here's the thing, Daniel.

This Pancake lens, it's called a Pancake lens, like this, even though it looks like an
Oreo.

This has been around for years, and it was designed to be a quick,

lens you used on your camera when your other lens broke and you're waiting for that to get
repaired.

They're telling you it's $75, we're discounting it to $48.75.

You can literally go to any camera store and go get their version of this for 30 bucks and
it's called a Kecks Oreo style lens.

It's $30, it's not amazing, it's not anything boutique.

And it's actually lenses that come from China using incredibly cheap parts.

But this website Retropia sells you on the idea that, it's, as you said, it's hip, it's
chic, it's neat, it's biodegradable.

And it would be 75, we're only charging you 54.

It's like, nope, just stop.

As far as I'm concerned, that's a snake oil salesman thing.

Yeah, yeah, mean, well, first off, if it is biodegradable and it is made using parts of
old lenses and broken lenses stuff, okay, cool, yeah, commendable, awesome, good stuff,

love that for the environment.

um

But all the other lenses do that too.

They all come from biodegradable.

They're all coming from recycled parts.

It's the marketing.

do you know what is always a big tell for me with these products is the infinite sale.

The infinite sale.

Well, if you get it right now, it's 48, but it would be 75.

And then you check back in like three weeks time.

It's.

This should be 75, but it's actually 48 or it's actually 50 or something like that.

they just suddenly, never, only a few lenses left, get it while you can.

Artificial scarcity and fake sales that go on indefinitely.

They were never selling it at 75.

It was always 48, but.

showing that, it would be 75, but we're saying at you at a sale price.

They're not.

buying the $30 lenses and selling them at 48.75 to make that $18.75 profit.

it's, that's what they're doing.

it's very manipulative.

I do not like it whatsoever.

It's either they never sold it at 75 and they just wanted, they just put that there.

So you'd be like, oh, I could get it for much cheaper now.

Oh, cool.

I'll press the button.

I'll buy now.

Awesome.

Or they do what a lot of products on your Amazons, your Ebay's all this kind of do, which
is

They will.

for a short while, hike the price like really high, say like $80, whatever, of something.

And then they'll put it on sale for what they actually wanna sell it for.

So like when it's up at the tippy toppy price, like ridiculous asking price, they're still
probably gonna get a few people buying it.

And they'll be like, I can't believe these people paid this much for this thing.

And then they'll put it on sale at the price they actually are going to sell it for.

And then I'll get a load more sales through that.

So it's a win-win for them.

It's a win-win situation, but ultimately very manipulative.

Watch out for it.

Watch out for it.

This is everywhere.

uh Daniel, yes, from my opinion, I think it's all shite.

I think it's all crap.

I hate it all.

And I think that's a great way to kind of seg into kind of as we close this episode.

Joel was talking about photography, bringing it back to photography.

This is my beginner lens, the Pentax Asashi K1000.

This was everywhere in the 70s.

If you were learning photography, this took black and white.

This is how I learned how to do it.

Everything here is manual.

And then as I showed before, I had one of my very first DSLRs, this Canon guy here.

Very digital, auto-focus is everything.

I can manually tweak every setting that I want to.

I took beautiful photos on it, but I didn't really quite like it.

And then when I'm looking to try to get a new camera, Daniel, I'm like, okay, should I get
a film camera?

I thought about the price, not the price of the camera itself, but how much the film is
gonna cost, how much all that's gonna take.

Okay, well, what digital options are there for me that mimic that film camera feel for me
specifically?

And there was one camera that just recently came out in the market a few years ago that
some people loved and some people thought was the biggest ripoff of money you could

possibly imagine.

The people that thought it was a ripoff go, it's so manual.

You have to do everything manually.

There's barely any kind of autofocus.

All the knobs and tweeds, they aren't very ergonomic.

And I looked at it and went, that's the camera.

And so that's the guy.

This is the Nikon, as it's pronounced everywhere else except for in America.

In America, we pronounce it Nikon for some dumb reason.

But it's got all these manual dials, just like a manual film camera does.

What sent me over the edge is I talked to a guy who hey I just bought this camera and As
someone who grew up with black-and-white photography and grew up with you know, the old

style.

It's amazing.

It's incredible So I picked it up I attached a custom a new handle on a new grip and it
takes some of my favorite photos ever So there is a way to take what is digital and try to

modify it for what you like of the manual world I am I love film photography, but it does
cost a bit of money to keep

keep the rolls, it takes up space in your drawer.

uh I like digital photography, but it does incentivize this idea of just covering
everything and shooting everything and deleting the bad.

So I try to hold restraints in whatever way I can.

And Gerard said it much more beautifully than I could in his nine minute video.

And I think we can adopt that with all of our lives with everything that we do.

Absolutely.

that, let's see, it even makes the shutter noise.

Very, very quiet, but you can hear it.

It's not coming.

Yeah, barely.

it was coming through on my headphones.

Hopefully, dear listeners and viewers who are also at the same time listeners will be able
to get that coming through.

It's very nice.

Very beautiful looking camera.

Very nice.

Very aesthetically pleasing.

is.

And again, there's people that are like, it's terrible, it's awful.

You should have a DSLR, should have all the ergonomic knobs.

I'm like, I want, I want the manualness.

I want that, so.

It's the top gear meme as Neo, like, this is great, but I like this.

It doesn't stop your thing from also being cool, but this is what I like.

I like this thing.

That was fascinating.

That was a really good, really good episode topic.

Thank you, Yeah, for diving into all the ins and outs of photography.

I enjoyed that.

And I...

I miss you John.

Come back to us John.

John!

John's gonna come back and okay, so I took notice of that episode and here's what you did
wrong and here's what I would have done and we're gonna redo the entire episode.

You never know.

You never know.

never know.

You might not ever hear this episode.

Might not be a thing.

Um, John, wherever you are, out in the Aether, floating around in the world of John, I
hope you're good, buddy.

We miss you.

We're holding down the fort.

And hopefully see you soon, along with everybody else.

Well folks, that's been the Zero Dot podcast.

Thank you so much for tuning in.

Thank you, Daniel, for being my partner here.

Thank you, John, for being here in spirit.

You know where to find us.

Thezero.podcast.com is a website.

We own that website.

You can find all links to all of our podcast episodes right there.

You can even find a nice little fancy link to drop in your questions.

We'd love to know what your questions are.

Send us a note on any comments on Spotify, on uh Apple.

Music, on Apple podcasts, on Amazon podcasts, are literally everywhere.

Drop us a comment, we'll talk about it in our podcast.

We want to hear your thoughts about things.

This is the pl...

Do it.

Do it, right?

it.

Use your, use your smart typewriter that you spent $800 on or whatever it was, $700, $600.

Use that, send us, typist, your questions, whatever you want.

We are everywhere where podcasts are shown you can also find us on blue sky and Instagram
once again.

This has been Sam.

This has been Daniel

Peace.

Peace.