Abstract Factory

Casey and Mark, back in July, talk about making a podcast named Abstract Factory. It's an episode 6 months in the making! Casey and Mark talk about working on a project that is outside their wheelhouse. Mark frets about audio quality and the frustrations of editing the podcast. Casey talks about his latest creative project. How does the creative sausage get made and when is the right time to just "ship it"? How precious should we be about our creative projects? What's the feedback loop between a creative work and its audience? Mark and Casey don't worry about their "reach". It's difficult to keep a schedule, but it would be easier if the podcast running time wasn't constrained. Mark and Casey talk about different kinds of podcasts and where they want Abstract Factory to be. Mark lists his favorite podcasts that he subscribes to (at least in July…). Casey and Mark recall how Abstract Factory came to be and look back at our work. We come up with one more idea for a project.

Casey reminisces about the appearance of several Mark Wunsch Twitter parody accounts and is reminded of the "unmasking" of Satoshi Nakamoto by Newsweek. How does anonymity or pseudonymity coexist with authorship? What connects our virtual avatars to our physical presence? Mark (who is not a cryptographer) does his best to explain cryptography and how it's used to verify identity and establish trust. Casey and Mark evaluate Keybase.io, a public key directory. Casey asks "Is there such a thing as anonymity online?"

Mark tries to send Casey a calendar invitation and falls in a gap between clouds. Casey and Mark both switch to the same email provider for reasons. Casey is skeeved by Google Plus encroaching on his inbox. Mark thinks inboxes aren't private spaces anymore. Casey broke his VPS and that is why "private clouds" are nightmares. Mark ruminates on why implementing sync has flummoxed so many good developers.