# Lamentations on technology and Disney princesses **Date:** 2020-02-25 **Topics:** safe-d **URL:** https://zactax.com/blog/2020/02/lamentations-on-technology-and-disney-princesses --- In this episode, Chad and Patrick talk about attending the Safe-D conference in Galveston, technological miscues at the Iowa Caucus, the end of Internet Explorer, and why Chad's least favorite Disney princess. - [Safe-D](https://www.safe-d.org/) - [How the Iowa Caucuses Became an Epic Fiasco for Democrats](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/us/politics/iowa-democratic-caucuses.html) - [Meet the people behind Shadow, Inc](https://www.salon.com/2020/02/04/meet-the-people-behind-shadow-inc-the-tech-company-that-botched-the-iowa-caucus/) - [The perils of using Internet Explorer as your default browser](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/the-perils-of-using-internet-explorer-as-your-default-browser/ba-p/331732) - [Parkinson's Law of Triviality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality) --- ## Transcript **[0:09] Chad:** Hey, everyone. Welcome to ZacCast. This is Chad Janicek here with my buddy, Patrick Lawler. Pat- **[0:14] Patrick:** What's up, guys? How are y'all? **[0:16] Chad:** We are actually live. Well, not live. This is recorded, but- **[0:20] Patrick:** Yes, correct **[0:20] Chad:** ... we're in Galveston, Texas for the Safe-D Conference. **[0:23] Patrick:** Safety. **[0:24] Chad:** Safe, hyphen, D. **[0:26] Patrick:** Hyphen D. Absolutely, yes. **[0:27] Chad:** So we're actually sitting in a hotel room right now with some rather intimate lighting. **[0:32] Patrick:** So we're, uh, we are, we are sitting in a hotel room with some intimate lighting. It's very interesting. But also, uh, we, we are a bit fish out of water at this conference. **[0:40] Chad:** Yeah. **[0:41] Patrick:** It is, it is very interesting. We are city managers at a conference full of fire chiefs and fire departments. **[0:48] Chad:** Yeah, so this is an ESD conference. **[0:50] Patrick:** Emergency services district- **[0:51] Chad:** Exactly **[0:51] Patrick:** ... for those folks who don't know what that means. **[0:52] Chad:** Yeah. Most of the time, uh, our interactions are with finance directors, with city managers, with economic development professionals. **[0:58] Patrick:** Yes. **[0:59] Chad:** Don't have a whole lot of interaction, um, from a ZacTax standpoint with the fire services. **[1:05] Patrick:** I mean, for 15 to 20 years, we had lots of interactions- **[1:08] Chad:** Of course **[1:08] Patrick:** ... with fire departments. It was just- **[1:09] Chad:** As city managers **[1:10] Patrick:** ... we want new fire trucks, and we want lots of staffing, and we want, you know, all those fun things, and now we're hanging out with our fire buddies trying to figure out how to make their revenue a little better. So it's, uh, you know, it's, it's a very interesting dynamic, for sure. **[1:23] Chad:** What I found most interesting is that the concerns they have is so much different from city managers. **[1:28] Patrick:** Yeah, absolutely. **[1:28] Chad:** A lot of these ESDs are, um, either overlapping with cities or other special districts, so they may not even get their full local tax rate, um, across the, their entire boundary, uh, or they're competing with other districts. Um, they've, they don't have the same traditional retail because a lot of them are in the unincorporated areas of their counties. **[1:48] Patrick:** Yes. **[1:48] Chad:** Um, so they're dealing with different types of sales tax, and, and a lot of them are just new to sales tax. **[1:54] Patrick:** Well, I mean, they're very new. I mean, that's the thing that we found is, you know, you, you've got all these ESDs. There's not a ton of them, maybe 100 ESDs or so that are charging sales tax right now, and a lot of them are new. Like, "Hey, we just started in June." We got, we got that a lot, right? Um, but it's- **[2:08] Chad:** Or, "We're currently trying to get an election in May." **[2:11] Patrick:** Yeah. **[2:11] Chad:** For sales tax. **[2:11] Patrick:** "We're gonna have an election in May, so we kinda wanna know how much sales tax is gonna be out there." I mean, it's, it's really interesting to have the conversations with them because they're, they're, I mean, like, their top five taxpayers for a lot of them, Amazon's, like, one or two for home delivery. You know what I mean? So it's just a really different animal than what we're used to from that standpoint, and, and the users that are generating a lot of sales tax for them are very different from our city clients. **[2:33] Chad:** Yeah, yeah. **[2:34] Patrick:** So. **[2:34] Chad:** And I mean, obviously, an ESD is not gonna be focused on development and growth of their sales tax base. They're kind of, um... It's l- we talked a lot about, or when we have worked with, um, transit authorities, it's kinda similar. They don't have a ton of interaction in the actual economic development, uh, so they're kind of at the whim of whatever the city is doing from a development standpoint. **[2:53] Patrick:** I mean, they're, th- the reality is, is from a tax rate standpoint, they're, like, fighting for scraps, right? Like, a city gets out there, they get their percent and a half or their 2%. The transit district comes in there and gets a half a percent. And these ESDs are overlapping sales tax in all these areas that may have been, like, these donut holes that had, like, a quarter cent left, right? And so they're just collecting these overlapping taxes, so their tax files are not all a percent and a half. They may be collecting a quarter percent from one user and a half a percent from another, and it's just a real different hodgepodge of, of taxation- **[3:23] Chad:** Yeah **[3:24] Patrick:** ... uh, from that standpoint. So it's, it's just, it's, it's interesting. **[3:26] Chad:** Yeah. **[3:26] Patrick:** It's different for us. **[3:27] Chad:** Yeah, definitely. New to us. **[3:28] Patrick:** Mm-hmm. **[3:28] Chad:** Really eye-opening to just talk about different aspects of sales tax that we don't really deal with on a daily, daily basis. **[3:34] Patrick:** Yeah, absolutely. **[3:35] Chad:** So, so, but speaking of things we don't deal with on a daily basis, uh, this is not a, uh, a regular podcast. You know, we do every couple weeks. So sometimes current events pass us, and we don't get a chance to talk about them while they're in the news cycle. **[3:47] Patrick:** Oh, we're gonna talk about the Iowa Caucus? **[3:49] Chad:** Yeah. **[3:49] Patrick:** So excited about this. **[3:50] Chad:** So you are probably familiar, if you're listening to this, with the Iowa Caucuses, which happened, what, a couple weeks ago now? **[3:56] Patrick:** Yes. We're not gonna get political. Let's, let's just be clear. We're not picking a candidate. We're not picking sides. We just wanna talk about the technology associated with the Iowa Caucus. **[4:03] Chad:** Yeah. So the Iowa Caucus on the Democratic side, 'cause that's really where the only primary caucus was- **[4:09] Patrick:** Yes **[4:09] Chad:** ... um, was a total disaster. **[4:11] Patrick:** It was horrible. **[4:12] Chad:** And a lot of it stemmed from, uh, both some rule changes that they implemented after 2016, but primarily because they contracted, the Democratic Party of Iowa contracted with a company to build an app to help them manage their caucus. **[4:27] Patrick:** Can you imagine the money behind that app? What do you think that cost? **[4:31] Chad:** Uh, I'm sure a ton. I- **[4:32] Patrick:** A lot **[4:32] Chad:** ... from what I understand, th- they were, they were building a caucus app that could be used in other places. They were actually gonna use it in Nevada, which I think is next week. **[4:40] Patrick:** Not anymore. **[4:40] Chad:** Not anymore. **[4:41] Patrick:** Yeah. **[4:41] Chad:** Um, the company, I think, is Shadow, Inc., or something. Like, that's not really who I want to- ... to build my- **[4:48] Patrick:** "Hey, we're gonna have a pol- we're gonna have a political election, and we're gonna contract with a company called Shadow, Inc." **[4:53] Chad:** I mean, just from an optics standpoint, that's interesting. But- **[4:56] Patrick:** Br- branding 101, folks. Let's, let's try not to do that. **[4:58] Chad:** But the bottom line is the app that they built was a total train wreck. Um, the people they were building it for didn't know how to use it. They actually had trouble getting it on the App Store so that they could download it, so they had to go through this process to sideload it on- **[5:14] Patrick:** Were they just on Apple, or were they on, were they on Google as well? **[5:17] Chad:** I don't know, but I- **[5:18] Patrick:** Okay **[5:18] Chad:** ... I'm, I'm pretty confident that it was, like, iPads. **[5:21] Patrick:** Okay. **[5:21] Chad:** Um, because the way that they were sideloading it was through Apple's developer, like, enterprise account. **[5:25] Patrick:** Okay. **[5:26] Chad:** And, um, it's just a different process. Like, you don't go to the App Store to download it. **[5:30] Patrick:** So, so I, I think that's important to understand, 'cause not everybody's developed apps like we have in the past, you know, failed at them occasionally as well, yes. So, but when you develop an app, you can have an app developer account, which allows you to download an application without putting it into the App Store, uh, so that you can, you know, really beta test it. You can take it for a drive, right, with multiple different users in that way. **[5:52] Chad:** Yeah. **[5:52] Patrick:** And Google Store works a lot differently than the Apple Store. **[5:56] Chad:** I, I have absolutely zero experience with Google's, um, ecosystem. **[6:00] Patrick:** Yeah. **[6:00] Chad:** But I can- **[6:00] Patrick:** It's a lot more open. **[6:01] Chad:** But I- **[6:01] Patrick:** I mean, their system itself is a lot more open. **[6:03] Chad:** I can tell you that, so Apple recently purchased this app called TestFlight, which is what, uh, we used- **[6:09] Patrick:** Yeah, we used it **[6:09] Chad:** ... way back in the day- **[6:10] Patrick:** I remember it. Yeah, absolutely **[6:10] Chad:** ... to, uh, to... to push development builds for beta testers. **[6:15] Patrick:** I didn't realize Apple bought it. **[6:16] Chad:** Oh, yeah. **[6:16] Patrick:** Oh, okay. Well. **[6:17] Chad:** But Apple also has an enterprise program where you can build internal apps. Like, there was a huge kerfuffle a few years ago because Facebook had all these internal apps. **[6:25] Patrick:** Kerfuffle? **[6:26] Chad:** Yes. **[6:26] Patrick:** Okay. **[6:27] Chad:** Uh, yeah. **[6:28] Patrick:** Some big words. **[6:29] Chad:** So, so Facebook has all these internal apps. They have one for, like, shuttles. They have one for their, their cafeteria menus and things like that. And Facebook kinda went afoul of Apple's policies, and Apple actually shut down all their internal apps. So one day, all these Facebookers go to work, and their app for determining what's on the cafeteria menu doesn't work anymore, right? So, um, all that to say that there is a process to, to install, like, internal enterprise apps or development apps for testers. **[6:59] Patrick:** Okay. **[6:59] Chad:** And but it's different than the App Store. You don't go to the App Store and download it like a normal app. And because this Caucus app was not able to get through the review process, they opted for this sort of enterprise-y distribution method, which the users of the app couldn't figure out, couldn't get it installed. Um, s- the ones that did, uh, they had issues with logging in because the pins that they were given expired, and so when they got to the actual caucus, their logins weren't working anymore. **[7:27] Patrick:** This is, this is an utter disaster. **[7:29] Chad:** Yeah. And so- **[7:29] Patrick:** From a company called Shadow, Inc. **[7:31] Chad:** So the, the overall point that I think we'd like to make is technology is great. Obviously, we're a software company. **[7:39] Patrick:** Absolutely, yes. **[7:39] Chad:** You know, we fully support using technology when it's appropriate. **[7:42] Patrick:** But too much is too much. **[7:43] Chad:** You have to know your limits. **[7:45] Patrick:** Yes. **[7:45] Chad:** Like, what is the appropriate amount of technology to accomplish the task that you're trying to accomplish? **[7:50] Patrick:** Well, I just think it's interesting to talk about elections in general. So, you know, where... So in the state of Texas, for example, you know, a lot of folks at the county level have gone from electronic machines that didn't have a paper record, like the little turn wheels that we used to have where you would, like, click enter and it would go in. Most of the counties have gone away from that, and they've gone to actually a paper ballot that prints at the end of the electronic. So you go in, you make your selections. It gives you a piece of paper on, like, a Scantron-looking form. And I, I'm not talking, like, normal test Scantron, but, like, your TAAS test Scantron, right? And so- **[8:22] Chad:** That really dates you- **[8:22] Patrick:** That really dates me, yeah **[8:23] Chad:** ... 'cause it's not called TAAS anymore. **[8:24] Patrick:** It, it, it- **[8:24] Chad:** It's called, like, TACS or something now **[8:25] Patrick:** ... TACS. I think it's TACS now, yeah. Or STAR, no, it's STAAR test now. Yeah. **[8:29] Chad:** Uh, your wife's an ed- **[8:30] Patrick:** We'll have to bring Jennifer on the... My wife's an educator. We'd have to bring Jennifer on the podcast to have that conversation. But, um, you take that Scantron, and then before you walk out of the poll site, you slide that Scantron into a machine that electronically records you, right? So, um, that's where we've gone. We've gone from, like, electronic fully to back to electronic with, like, a paper record. And then these folks decide, "Hey, in Iowa, we're gonna build an app, and we're gonna do this caucusing all through an app." It, it just, it was a disaster from the start. **[9:01] Chad:** Well, you have to think, so they have, like, what? 1,000 or so precincts that are doing the individual caucuses. **[9:06] Patrick:** But, uh, I mean, to understand caucusing, though, like, I, I don't know if you ever went through that, but, you know, A&M, I had a class where they kinda taught us how the caucus proce- process works, right? And, and you, you try to convince people to come to your side. **[9:19] Chad:** Yeah, so the deal is you go through your first round or your first alignment. **[9:22] Patrick:** Correct, yes. **[9:22] Chad:** And you, you, you stand on the corner of the room for whoever you- candidate you support. **[9:27] Patrick:** That is correct. **[9:28] Chad:** And if the candidate doesn't reach a threshold, which I think is, like, 15%- **[9:30] Patrick:** Uh-huh **[9:31] Chad:** ... then you re- realign. **[9:33] Patrick:** Yes. **[9:33] Chad:** And the people will kind of, like, horse trade to try to get you on their side or the other side, and then you, uh, everyone who was below that threshold is basically gone. **[9:40] Patrick:** Yes. **[9:41] Chad:** And then all those people who supported that particular candidate have to go pick someone else. **[9:45] Patrick:** Correct. **[9:45] Chad:** And that just continues until no one is below that threshold. **[9:48] Patrick:** That is correct. **[9:48] Chad:** Right? So you may have one, you may have two, you may have five alignments depending on how the vote shakes out, where people aren't meeting that threshold. **[9:57] Patrick:** And the idea of a caucus is, especially when you have a field as large as they have in the Democratic primary, 'cause there's a lot of candidates, right? It, it helps to start to move support towards a smaller field, right? And so that's why traditionally they're all done kinda towards the beginning. You don't see caucusing that happens on Super Tuesday, you know? It, it's why it's done towards the beginning. So you get there. You didn't make 15%. "Hey, congratulations, you've gotta move on to somebody else." And so then you start competing for who's gonna be there, and, uh, it's an interesting process because you have to have people who are really good at politicking at each of these caucus locations- **[10:36] Chad:** Right **[10:36] Patrick:** ... so they can convince people to go there. **[10:38] Chad:** Right, representing the candidate. **[10:40] Patrick:** So community leaders representing the candidate, that type of stuff, yeah. Um- **[10:41] Chad:** But the gist is that- **[10:42] Patrick:** But why in a, in a process that's, like, so- **[10:46] Chad:** Small at the end of the day **[10:47] Patrick:** ... well, like, 18th century American? **[10:49] Chad:** Well, and also, but you've got, you've got only a certain number of precincts- **[10:52] Patrick:** Let's make sure I've dated that right. I'm sorry. It, it- **[10:54] Chad:** Eight... That's 1700s, yeah, 1700s **[10:56] Patrick:** ... 1700s, yeah, so 18th century American process. **[10:58] Chad:** But you only have, like, 1,000-plus precincts. You're gonna have maybe three or four alignments at the max. **[11:04] Patrick:** Correct. **[11:04] Chad:** So you're talking, like, just a s- very small amount of data that has to be collected across the entire state. And to solve this problem, you've built an entire app. And I, I, I don't wanna get too technical, but let me kinda go through the process of building an app that would actually do this, okay? **[11:24] Patrick:** Okay, awesome. **[11:24] Chad:** Okay. **[11:25] Patrick:** Go for it. **[11:25] Chad:** So 'cause probably no one has... A lot of people don't have an idea of how this would actually be built, okay? **[11:30] Patrick:** Okay. **[11:31] Chad:** So you got, you got basically two options for you. One, you can build the whole back end yourself. You, you're building a database server. You're building code that writes to and reads from this database and handles logins and all that kind of stuff, right? So you have your own bespoke server- **[11:48] Patrick:** Gotcha **[11:48] Chad:** ... that's handling all this stuff. **[11:49] Patrick:** Okay. **[11:50] Chad:** Or perhaps you're using a service for your database or for your login, so you're not writing quite all of it, but for the most part, you're at least writing some of the business logic on the server side. **[12:00] Patrick:** Got it. **[12:00] Chad:** Okay? Then you're, you're writing all the code to handle the interface for the application itself on the phone, like the native iPhone code or iPad code. **[12:10] Patrick:** The buttons that people are pushing and that sort of stuff. **[12:12] Chad:** The interface- **[12:13] Patrick:** Okay, gotcha **[12:13] Chad:** ... that the people are using, okay? **[12:14] Patrick:** Okay, yep. **[12:15] Chad:** Totally separate because it's, it's for iPhone or iPad. **[12:18] Patrick:** We call that the UI. **[12:19] Chad:** ... the user interface **[12:20] Patrick:** Yeah. No, I'm using it. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. **[12:21] Chad:** Yeah. This is your super technical- **[12:23] Patrick:** I'm super technical over here **[12:24] Chad:** ... language here. So, so- **[12:25] Patrick:** I get to get all my nerd points today **[12:26] Chad:** ... so these are written in totally different languages- **[12:28] Patrick:** Okay **[12:28] Chad:** ... with totally different, um, like, libraries and code bases that you have to use. In a lot of cases, it's probably totally different people, because you have people who specialize in iPhone or iOS, and people who specialize on- **[12:40] Patrick:** And people who specialize in database **[12:40] Chad:** ... on server side. **[12:41] Patrick:** Yeah. **[12:42] Chad:** Um, and then what you have to do is build an interface to connect those things, right? So- **[12:47] Patrick:** Correct **[12:47] Chad:** ... you have your server-side code that's handling connecting to your database and storing information from each alignment at each precinct, and that's handling logging in and making sure that the users who are logging in actually have access to it- **[12:59] Patrick:** Yeah **[12:59] Chad:** ... you know, to it. So, so you're building an interf- like a, a go-between, an intermediary between these already two distinct code bases. It's so much effort. **[13:09] Patrick:** It's a lot of work. **[13:09] Chad:** So much effort for such a small but extremely important application. **[13:16] Patrick:** So, so back to my original point when I was trying to figure out what 18th century meant, we took an 18th century process and decided to put an application in the middle of it, a process that's worked for a long time. **[13:28] Chad:** It has. **[13:29] Patrick:** Right? It has. **[13:29] Chad:** No, I mean, it's been updated, right? 'Cause you call your, your results in now instead of- **[13:32] Patrick:** You call your results in instead. Yeah, I understand that. But- **[13:35] Chad:** But if you wanna use technology for something like this, you could use a Google spreadsheet. **[13:40] Patrick:** That's, that's correct. **[13:41] Chad:** Right? Like, you could have... Or Google Forms, and you could just have each precinct with a, with a form that they go to, and it's authenticated that way, and you don't have to write any of that. It's literally just a form that's feeding into a spreadsheet, which would be perfectly sufficient for their needs. **[13:54] Patrick:** I- instead of trying to just recreate the wheel. **[13:56] Chad:** Right. Or, since you're already building an infrastructure for the back end to share the data between all the precincts- **[14:02] Patrick:** Correct **[14:02] Chad:** ... you're already building that server side, just build a website interface so you're only having to write, you don't have to write the interface between the app and the server. **[14:12] Patrick:** Okay. Gotcha. **[14:12] Chad:** When you, when you build a website, y- you basically, all you're doing is you're just putting a, a visual front end on the exact same code that the server is operating on, right? So you're, so at, at the very least, you're reducing the different types of code you're having to write from three to just one. **[14:29] Patrick:** No, I get that. I just question the fact at all why w- it was necessary to write any type of software program or app for a phone call system that worked just fine. **[14:41] Chad:** I, I'll leave that to the listener- **[14:42] Patrick:** I just- **[14:42] Chad:** ... to decide. **[14:43] Patrick:** Yeah. **[14:43] Chad:** But I think there's, I mean, I think there's room for technology to make it more efficient. The question is, just what, like, how much technology do you really need to, uh, to introduce to this kind of process? I mean- **[14:54] Patrick:** I mean, this was so bad. Let's talk about how bad it really was. It was so bad, the candidates literally got on a plane and left the state. **[15:00] Chad:** I mean, do they still even have official result- I think they do. **[15:04] Patrick:** No, no, no. Officially, uh, Pete won by, like- **[15:08] Chad:** Like .08 **[15:09] Patrick:** ... .08 or .2- **[15:10] Chad:** De- delegates or- **[15:10] Patrick:** ... something like that. Yeah, it was like- **[15:11] Chad:** Or state delegate equivalents or whatever they call it. **[15:12] Patrick:** Yes, correct. By, by percentage, it was, like, .2%. It was very, very low. **[15:16] Chad:** But it, it took two weeks or so to get the actual results. **[15:19] Patrick:** Which, I mean, then at that point, as a voter, you just question, like, were those the actual results? **[15:24] Chad:** Technology is great. Obviously, we support it. Our entire livelihood at this point is built around software. **[15:29] Patrick:** Yes. At this point, our livelihood- **[15:30] Chad:** But- **[15:31] Patrick:** ... is all built around soft- software **[15:31] Chad:** ... you only have to use as much as is necessary. I think there's, like, this famous Einstein para- like, it's a paraph- paraphrasing of, uh, something that he wrote, which is basically, "Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler." And I think that the way that they approached it was to make things as complicated as possible, but not more complicated. You know what I mean? Like, they just- **[15:51] Patrick:** No, agree 100% **[15:51] Chad:** ... they just reverted it on its head. **[15:52] Patrick:** Yeah. **[15:53] Chad:** So, uh, yeah, just embrace technology and, and making things more efficient, but man, don't go overboard. **[16:00] Patrick:** Uh, you know, look, it was a special moment in time, for sure. Maybe Iowa doesn't have an app next year. **[16:05] Chad:** I suspect they won't. **[16:05] Patrick:** Or two years from now, right? Yeah. So. **[16:08] Chad:** So since we're on the topic of technology, let's talk about something that I always find interesting, which is, uh, your IT, IT governance in cities. **[16:20] Patrick:** Okay. **[16:20] Chad:** Okay? So we recently had to update, uh, the News Act tax. **[16:24] Patrick:** Yes. **[16:25] Chad:** Um, we have introduced some new technologies which are no longer, they no longer support the legacy Internet Explorer. **[16:32] Patrick:** Okay. **[16:33] Chad:** Um, which Microsoft itself has basically end-of-lifed as of- **[16:37] Patrick:** Wait **[16:37] Chad:** ... last year. **[16:38] Patrick:** I, to, to clarify, we didn't have to do what we did, but in order for us to grow the platform into other areas, we had to redo the platform and improve it significantly, specifically from a database side, right? We had to improve it so that we, we could bring on the other things that we've been telling our clients for a long time that we were gonna bring on. **[16:58] Chad:** Yeah, no. So none of that stuff had any impact. The, where the impact was the front-end side. **[17:02] Patrick:** Yes. **[17:02] Chad:** So we in- introduced some new elements to make the, the user interface better, but the bottom line is that Internet Explorer is basically end-of-lifed. **[17:11] Patrick:** It doesn't like pretty. **[17:12] Chad:** As of m- I think March of 2019- **[17:15] Patrick:** Mm-hmm **[17:15] Chad:** ... Microsoft basically said you should only use IE for legacy applications. Like, there's a lot of healthcare, uh, industry, or industry applications that have been built around old school .net frameworks- **[17:25] Patrick:** Mm-hmm **[17:26] Chad:** ... and they require IE, and it's way too much effort to, like, update those. **[17:31] Patrick:** Mm-hmm. **[17:31] Chad:** Uh, and mission critical. So IE still exists for those, those purposes. So you can upgrade to Micro- to Windows 10, uh, but you can still use IE for all those old things. But they have this new browser, Microsoft Edge, which is what it is. I mean, it's not great, but it's at least built on, you know, some new technology. Um, and Microsoft recommends using that as your default browser and not IE. But we ran into some issues where people would click on their emails, uh, for, like, login or password reset links, but their IT departments had set IE, or kept IE as the default browser on their, basically their default, uh, installation of Windows for their users. **[18:14] Patrick:** Yes. **[18:15] Chad:** So these people are opening up... They maybe have been looking, uh, like reset their password in Edge or, or Chrome, but they get their email, and it's opening up into IEAnd they don't know the difference. It's just a browser. **[18:27] Patrick:** Correct. **[18:27] Chad:** But it's not working. So we actually had to shut off IE, uh, and basically put up a screen that says, "Hey, you're using Internet Explorer. Microsoft doesn't recommend it. You should use Edge or something else." **[18:38] Patrick:** Yep. **[18:38] Chad:** Um, and but basically show them a screen that says, "Sorry-" **[18:42] Patrick:** Right **[18:42] Chad:** ... 'cause it's not gonna work anymore. **[18:43] Patrick:** Sorry, you can't do this. I- my, my question is, though, what that tells me as well is that some of those cities are using platforms that are... I, I mean, even, even the Microsoft software itself is gonna be legacy, right? 'Cause when, when you get to, like, Windows 9- **[18:58] Chad:** There's no Win- yeah, there's no- **[18:59] Patrick:** There's no IE. **[19:00] Chad:** There's no Windows 9. **[19:01] Patrick:** What's- **[19:02] Chad:** It went from Vista to 7 to 10. **[19:05] Patrick:** Okay, so Windows 10, right? **[19:07] Chad:** Shows how much we use Windows. **[19:08] Patrick:** Right, yeah. We clearly are on... I get on Windows on my Parallels when I need to get to my server, and that's about it. So, uh, but, but the, the question is, is there is no... On my, I mean, on my Window- on the Parallels side of my Windows 10, there's no IE on it at all, is there? **[19:22] Chad:** Yeah, it's just, it's hidden. **[19:24] Patrick:** Okay. **[19:24] Chad:** It's, it's there, but it's- **[19:25] Patrick:** So these IT departments are, are going to, like, a hidden Internet Explorer. **[19:28] Chad:** Well, I mean, they probably just have the same images that they had from before, and it just had IE as the default. **[19:33] Patrick:** Okay. **[19:33] Chad:** And now that Windows 10 is out there, it has Edge. Whenever they install a new user and it sets up that default image for Windows- **[19:39] Patrick:** Okay **[19:39] Chad:** ... it's probably just still set as, as Internet Explorer. **[19:42] Patrick:** But it's not necessarily safe. **[19:44] Chad:** Oh, no, it's not. **[19:45] Patrick:** Yeah. **[19:45] Chad:** It's not safe at all. **[19:46] Patrick:** Okay. **[19:46] Chad:** It's far less secure than, you know, n- modern browsers. **[19:49] Patrick:** Yeah. **[19:49] Chad:** I mean, I think Microsoft Edge, I know it uses the Chromium, um, like, web driver. **[19:54] Patrick:** Yes, it does. **[19:54] Chad:** Um, I assume it's probably what they call evergreen, which is, like, if you go to Chrome or Firefox, these, these s- uh, browsers are updating on their own all the time. **[20:03] Patrick:** Mm-hmm. **[20:03] Chad:** Like, weekly if not more often. Um, so you never have to worry about security updates and things like that. I, I assume that Microsoft Edge is probably the same way. Um, but the bigger question is, like, what are IT departments worried about? Um, the level of trust that they have with their users to, I mean, just to install software. One of the big reasons why we decided for web as opposed to an app or, uh, like a desktop application or even an iPhone application for, for ZactX, is because the web is just ubiquitous. You know, you just open a browser and you go on a website and it works. You don't have to install anything. Um, and a lot of these cities in particular, especially as you get bigger and you have- **[20:44] Patrick:** Correct **[20:44] Chad:** ... stronger and stronger IT governance. I mean, there's a role for IT governance, and there's a role for things like change management and all that kind of stuff. **[20:50] Patrick:** Oh, in the world, i- in the world of, of, you know, ransomware and things like that, PDFs that get downloaded off the internet, I mean, it, it's, it's a major issue. Don't get me wrong. **[21:00] Chad:** But you can download a, you can download a bad PDF in any browser. **[21:05] Patrick:** Any bro- doesn't matter which browser- **[21:07] Chad:** Right **[21:07] Patrick:** ... you're in. **[21:07] Chad:** You can- **[21:07] Patrick:** That's correct **[21:07] Chad:** ... you can be susceptible to a phishing email in any browser. **[21:11] Patrick:** That's correct. **[21:11] Chad:** Or any software application. That's not... Like, if you really, if you really wanna protect yourself- **[21:16] Patrick:** Yes **[21:16] Chad:** ... A, a really good backup system is, is important. **[21:18] Patrick:** Yes. **[21:20] Chad:** B, just letting your employees know what is and is not likely to be a phishing email. **[21:25] Patrick:** Yeah, so s- s- talk about that, a really good backup system. So cities have gone from, "We are gonna protect ourselves," right? Like really, really protective. Like, "Nobody's gonna break into our system. We're gonna build these big walls," right? And now we are on, "We've come to the conclusion that we're not gonna be able to protect ourselves, and so we just have good backup systems so that we can lose a day." **[21:45] Chad:** Just roll back and lose a day. **[21:46] Patrick:** Just roll back and lose a day. Like, that's the concept that's in IT. I mean, it's a scary concept for a manager, right? 'Cause managers get, you know, constantly bombarded by our IT folks about, you know, cyber attacks and ransomware and all that different type of stuff. We're not really necessarily worried as much about people stealing financial data or information out of our, out of our systems. We- **[22:05] Chad:** Well, aside from employee, like, personnel records- **[22:07] Patrick:** Yeah, except for- **[22:07] Chad:** ... everything's open data anyway, so. **[22:08] Patrick:** That's correct. Everything's open data except for, like, an employee's Social Security number and address, right? Uh, but it, it really is, it's very interesting to me that we've gone from, in, in my, you know, 15, 16 years, we've gone from, "We're just gonna lock these systems down where nobody else can get into them, and they're gonna be safe and secure and locked like a big box," to now it's, "We're gonna just have really good backups, and if something goes wrong, we'll just roll back to the next day and lose a day." **[22:32] Chad:** Truthfully, no matter how important the things that we do are, we can always afford to just lose a day rather than having our entire systems encrypted with ransomware, right? **[22:43] Patrick:** Th- that is absolutely correct, yeah. **[22:44] Chad:** I mean, it's, it's just a risk mitigation. **[22:47] Patrick:** Yes. **[22:47] Chad:** Uh, you know, losing one day's worth of productivity is, is not gonna, is not gonna put the city in a, in a terribly unfortunate state. I mean, it's, it's terrible. **[22:57] Patrick:** It, it- **[22:57] Chad:** It sucks. It's a pain in the butt. **[22:58] Patrick:** And, and let's be honest. There's, there's, there's been a couple of cities out there that have been talked about that have h- gotten hit with ransomware, right? But there's not a city out there in the state of Texas who probably hasn't had at least one instance of ransomware. It may have been isolated, it may have been stopped, but the reality is, is pretty much everybody has been faced with ransomware at some point. **[23:15] Chad:** Well, I mean, we've, we've worked with cities before that have had to go back and recreate months of financial data. **[23:21] Patrick:** Months of financial data. **[23:22] Chad:** Right? **[23:23] Patrick:** Correct. **[23:23] Chad:** Uh, and that's just because, uh, it was... In one particular case, it was just a extremely unfortunate set of circumstances that all- **[23:29] Patrick:** Yeah, it wasn't actually ransomware. It was, it was servers that went down, yeah **[23:31] Chad:** ... all kind of coalesced to, to cause some big problems, but I mean- **[23:34] Patrick:** Backups are only as good as the data that actually gets backed up. **[23:37] Chad:** Yeah. **[23:37] Patrick:** Yeah. **[23:37] Chad:** But everything is, everything is basically redo-able, is what we kind of learned from that experience. It may not be fun, but you can do it. Um- **[23:45] Patrick:** I love when we picked up the phone and called Todd Ortek, right? And we, we call Encode, the, the major ser- W- we gotta tell this story just a little bit, right? We had a server that went down. It was our major financial server that went down. There was no, there was no attack on our system or anything like that. We had a, we had a RAID controller. This is getting really technical, but part of the RAID controller went down. The system didn't notify us. The second part went down, and then it started parsing the files like a bad puzzle, right? So it would get, like, the first side of the file and then the third and then the second and then the fifth and then the ninth, and it was just like a... You couldn't put the data back together again. Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall, and you couldn't put him back together. And so this occurred, and we didn't realize that a, a RAID controller had failed, like, three months prior, four months prior.So we call ENCODE and we said, "Hey, we have bad financial data in our system and it's a real problem." And ENCODE's response to us is, "Yep, don't know what to do for you. Good luck." **[24:39] Chad:** Let us know how that goes. **[24:40] Patrick:** Let us know how that goes. **[24:41] Chad:** Whenever you figure that out, that'd be interesting to find out how it works. **[24:43] Patrick:** Yeah, correct. And so then, then we went back and, and, uh, luckily we, we took all of our paper reports that we had taken out of ENCODE and we recreated every financial tra- transaction for that like three to four-month period. And then when we got done, ENCODE's response was, "Man, if we have another client who does this, y- y'all probably get paid a lot of money to help fix that." So gotta, gotta love that, right? **[25:00] Chad:** Yeah. **[25:01] Patrick:** So. **[25:01] Chad:** But yeah, ha- having and having backups and making sure they're working is quite helpful. **[25:06] Patrick:** Yes, it is very. **[25:06] Chad:** But I mean, at the end of the day, I fully understand the, the concern that I- these IT departments have. Part of it is honestly justification of their existence, right? **[25:16] Patrick:** Ooh. **[25:18] Chad:** But that's not unique to IT departments. Uh, that's a little bit maybe controversial, but- **[25:22] Patrick:** Okay. **[25:22] Chad:** ... I mean, we talk about- **[25:25] Patrick:** That comment's gonna stay on the podcast. Oh my- **[25:26] Chad:** You want me to go, you want me to go even further? Okay. **[25:29] Patrick:** Yeah. **[25:29] Chad:** We talk about like libraries, okay? **[25:30] Patrick:** Oh, Lord. No, we can't go libraries. **[25:32] Chad:** We talk about libraries. **[25:32] Patrick:** We're gonna do this. **[25:33] Chad:** Talk- We're, we're at a, a firefighter conference, let's talk about fire departments, right? **[25:36] Patrick:** Fire departments, yes, correct, yes. **[25:36] Chad:** Why do we have $800,000 traffic cones going out to deal with, with traffic accidents, right? We don't have fires to fight anymore, largely speaking. **[25:45] Patrick:** Correct, yes. **[25:45] Chad:** So we find other things to do to justify why we're here. **[25:49] Patrick:** So- **[25:50] Chad:** That's not unique to, to IT, to fire, to libraries, to parks, to governments. **[25:55] Patrick:** Yes. So I'm gonna ref- **[25:56] Chad:** It's, that's- **[25:56] Patrick:** I'm gonna reflect- **[25:57] Chad:** That's a bureaucratic issue. **[25:58] Patrick:** That's correct. So I'm gonna reflect just for a minute, right, on, on that $800,000 fire cone comment, right? 'Cause I think, uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna eat a little crow here for a second, and it's gonna be really interesting. So at this conference, I, I talked to a few people who were selling firetrucks, right? And much like the strong towns movement that's occurred with city managers where it was so cool to build, it was so cool to have sprawl, it was so good to do new development and do all those things, and now we've kind of looked at it and we said, "Wow," like we loved all those badges that we wore on our sleeves, but was really that the smartest decisions, uh, long-term financially for our city? I think that's occurring in the fire department too, right? There's some reflection that's going on in the fire department about fire service and what that fire service looks like and what that level of service needs to look like and all those different types of things. It, it's coming. I'm not saying they're gonna get rid of the pretty red firetruck. **[26:47] Chad:** Oh. So- **[26:48] Patrick:** But I, I, I am saying that like, like city managers, they've, they've made decisions just like city managers had out of vanity. **[26:57] Chad:** It, it's a welcome change if that's the case. **[26:59] Patrick:** That's correct. **[26:59] Chad:** But ju- just like we talked about not using more technology than is necessary- **[27:03] Patrick:** Agreed **[27:03] Chad:** ... right? **[27:03] Patrick:** Yes. **[27:04] Chad:** We've been using way more fire technology than is necessary for what we're actually doing most of the time. **[27:10] Patrick:** I'm telling you, I literally saw a drone for a f- a, a fire thing that, that was flying in the air today at this conference, and I thought to myself like, "What do you use that drone for?" So I went over to talk to the guy and I got a, "It's really cool." **[27:24] Chad:** That was it? **[27:25] Patrick:** I mean, but I mean, from a development standpoint, you know, you get an economic development director out there and, and we develop something that we don't really look the financials on and it's, it's, it's really cool. That's why we did it. It's really cool. So. **[27:35] Chad:** So that digression aside- **[27:37] Patrick:** Yeah **[27:38] Chad:** ... you can't really argue that there's not some degree of, um, of justification to why we have all these policies. It's not IT centric, it's not firefighters or libraries. Every bureaucracy is going to develop rules and procedures to justify HR, right? **[27:55] Patrick:** But that makes us less efficient. **[27:56] Chad:** It does. That's what's kind of what I'm gl- alluding to with, you know- **[28:00] Patrick:** Yes **[28:00] Chad:** ... this whole, whole topic, is I understand that there's some level of security and governance that needs to happen because, I mean, even though you want all of your employees to be responsible adults, not everyone's gonna be. But the things that are causing us the most problems are not gonna be controlled by whether you set a default browser or whether your network settings are blocking Facebook, right? The things that are causing, that you hear about the most are people responding to bogus emails, and there's just no way to really solve that. **[28:32] Patrick:** You, you can't change somebody's bad decision-making habit in an email. You know, I mean, you could train them. Uh, we have an IT firm that works for us that like tries to actually trick them and then train them after they trick them and- **[28:46] Chad:** So you, you wanna tell a funny story real quick? **[28:48] Patrick:** Yeah, go ahead. **[28:48] Chad:** Okay. 'Cause I, I do wanna talk about something else- **[28:50] Patrick:** Okay **[28:51] Chad:** ... be- before we wrap up here. **[28:52] Patrick:** Yeah. **[28:52] Chad:** But, uh, if we go a little bit longer than normal, you know, whatever. **[28:54] Patrick:** Yeah. **[28:54] Chad:** We're, we're at a conference. Who cares? **[28:56] Patrick:** We're probably gonna cut out all the comments about libraries and fire departments, so we got time. **[28:59] Chad:** Oh, no. **[29:00] Patrick:** We're gonna leave that, yeah. **[29:01] Chad:** Okay. So, um, we got a phishing email, uh, at one point. **[29:06] Patrick:** Oh, yes. This is a great story. **[29:07] Chad:** Okay. So we got a phishing email sent to our finance director. **[29:09] Patrick:** Hold on. Did we violate any federal laws before we tell this story? **[29:12] Chad:** No. **[29:13] Patrick:** Okay, we're good. **[29:13] Chad:** No. **[29:13] Patrick:** Law enforcement was involved. **[29:14] Chad:** Statute of limitations is over anyway. **[29:16] Patrick:** That's true. All right. **[29:16] Chad:** Yeah, no, they, they, they thought what we did was pretty clever. **[29:18] Patrick:** Yeah, that's true. Yes. **[29:19] Chad:** Okay. So, so a phishing email comes to our finance director. It says, uh, "Hey, Doug," comma, like all these random spaces and capitalizations, like it's obvious it's not from, from Patrick. **[29:29] Patrick:** Yes. **[29:29] Chad:** But it says, "This is Patrick. Please follow the instructions to this email and wire this money." **[29:35] Patrick:** To which this has been used on many cities and many cities have wired money. **[29:38] Chad:** Which is insane. Now in our- **[29:39] Patrick:** It, it happens **[29:40] Chad:** ... in our case, it was obviously stilted English. It was not something that you would've said. **[29:44] Patrick:** And we're not, we're not gonna talk about our actual policy, getting back to IT policies on this, right? But we're not gonna talk about our actual policy 'cause people don't need to know that and use it against us later. But we have a very deliberate and specific policy in place for how wires are sent to protect against this, right? **[29:59] Chad:** Right. **[29:59] Patrick:** So the process started, and, and continue with the story. **[30:01] Chad:** Yeah. But I mean, if you're getting that email as, uh, some kind of clerk who handles wires- **[30:08] Patrick:** Yes **[30:08] Chad:** ... right, hopefully you have a process in place where multiple people have to approve it and vet it and make sure that it's, you know, if you're sending money directly to someone else, that there's a level of check and balance that goes on. But in this case, it was obviously not from Patrick, even though it was spoofed as his email address. Um, like the language was crazy. We were in a small organization. He would've walked into Doug's office anyway and said, "Hey, I got this. Here's the paperwork for it." It wouldn't have come from a random email. **[30:32] Patrick:** In fact, we didn't send a wire unless they saw my face in front of them to tell them- **[30:36] Chad:** Yes **[30:36] Patrick:** ... to send a wire. **[30:37] Chad:** That's right. So we knew it was fake.So here's what we did. We, we kind of played along with them. We emailed them back a few times and just- **[30:43] Patrick:** A few times **[30:44] Chad:** ... kind of irritated them a little bit to get- **[30:45] Patrick:** Correct, yes **[30:46] Chad:** ... more information. And I don't know if you know this, but if you go into a website- **[30:50] Patrick:** Mm-hmm **[30:51] Chad:** ... uh, if you have, if you're in Chrome or Safari or Firefox, uh, there are things called developer tools, which let you inspect the actual HTML that generates the website that you're seeing. **[31:02] Patrick:** That's correct. **[31:03] Chad:** You can change the way that it looks. You can basically manipulate everything that you see on the screen. So we went into our bank system and looked at an old, like, receipt basically of a wire draft that was legitimate that we did. **[31:16] Patrick:** Yes. **[31:16] Chad:** And we just used the, uh, the dev tools to change the information that was shown on the screen to- **[31:22] Patrick:** The account numbers, the sender information, all that type of stuff, yes **[31:24] Chad:** ... to what they sh- they sent us- **[31:26] Patrick:** Yes **[31:26] Chad:** ... should be sent. **[31:26] Patrick:** Yes. **[31:27] Chad:** And we took a screenshot of it. **[31:28] Patrick:** Yes. **[31:28] Chad:** Okay? **[31:30] Patrick:** And then, hold on- **[31:30] Chad:** So- **[31:30] Patrick:** And then we took the screenshot. **[31:32] Chad:** So we took the screenshot. **[31:32] Patrick:** Yeah. **[31:32] Chad:** We uploaded it to a web server that we had. **[31:34] Patrick:** Uh-huh. **[31:35] Chad:** We built a script, like a, uh, basically a, a URL that fed to a script. **[31:40] Patrick:** An embedded pixel URL. **[31:41] Chad:** It embedded a pixel- **[31:42] Patrick:** Yes **[31:43] Chad:** ... into the image that it later served. **[31:45] Patrick:** Okay, at this point, guys, I wanna be clear because we changed- ... the HTML of a website. We embedded a pixel in an email. We at this point had law enforcement there with us- **[31:54] Chad:** Right **[31:54] Patrick:** ... as we were doing this, right? To, to which the, the law enforcement official who was basically the IT specialist for the, the law enforcement agency that we were working with was absolutely amazed by what we were doing. **[32:07] Chad:** Basically, long story short, all this did was whenever that image was requested- **[32:12] Patrick:** It sent us, yeah **[32:12] Chad:** ... like if you opened an email, it would track all the information about the IP address and the location of where that request was coming from. **[32:21] Patrick:** It would give us the location of where the request came from. **[32:23] Chad:** So when we sent the email, uh- **[32:27] Patrick:** Well, it ki- **[32:27] Chad:** ... with that screenshot- **[32:28] Patrick:** Some of the responses were, were doozies too. I mean, that's, that's, that's kind of important to talk about. Like, you sent off the email, and it's like, "Yes, sir," and- **[32:34] Chad:** Yeah. **[32:34] Patrick:** I mean, it was just, it was, you know, it was, it was funny. **[32:37] Chad:** Yeah. **[32:37] Patrick:** The whole process was funny. **[32:37] Chad:** The more we interacted, the more blatant the s- **[32:40] Patrick:** The- **[32:40] Chad:** ... the scam became. **[32:41] Patrick:** That's correct, yes. **[32:42] Chad:** But so we s- we sent a follow-up email with a response and a screenshot of this fake transaction- **[32:47] Patrick:** Uh-huh **[32:48] Chad:** ... uh, that was la... Uh, it was, it wasn't the actual screenshot. It was the URL of this script that we wrote that would store the IP address information for anyone who actually viewed the image. **[32:59] Patrick:** Yes. **[32:59] Chad:** So when they opened the email and it pulled up that image- **[33:02] Patrick:** It ran a script **[33:03] Chad:** ... it ran the IP address- **[33:04] Patrick:** Mm-hmm **[33:04] Chad:** ... of that computer, and we were able to trace it to a, like a, an internet cafe in Lagos, Nigeria. **[33:11] Patrick:** It, yes, it was in Lagos, Nigeria. **[33:12] Chad:** So- **[33:12] Patrick:** It was an internet cafe. We actually got a picture of the cafe and pulled it up. **[33:17] Chad:** Yeah. **[33:17] Patrick:** There was nothing we could do at that point. **[33:18] Chad:** Nothing we could do. **[33:19] Patrick:** Yeah. **[33:19] Chad:** But we were hopeful that maybe it was some, you know, some guy in his mom's basement, basement and, uh- **[33:23] Patrick:** Well, 'cause I think they were, they wanted us to actually wire the money to a bank in New York, and then I'm sure they were just gonna wire the money out of that bank in New York back to Nigeria. But, uh, so we were hopeful we would find somebody, like, in the States. **[33:33] Chad:** Yeah. **[33:33] Patrick:** Like, you know, we were, we were gonna be like the super sleuths, and we were gonna catch somebody. **[33:36] Chad:** At the end of the day, we wasted, like, two hours, and- **[33:39] Patrick:** It was fun in the office **[33:39] Chad:** ... it was what it was. **[33:40] Patrick:** Like, everybody was crowded around the office watching this. It was... You know, we had a good time with it, so. **[33:44] Chad:** Okay. So Pat, I just got back from Disney. **[33:49] Patrick:** This is, like, your third or fourth vacation of the year. **[33:51] Chad:** Uh, so I- **[33:52] Patrick:** Can we talk about this? **[33:53] Chad:** I hope my wife doesn't listen. But since my oldest was born four and a half years ago, I swear we've been to Disneyland, Disney World, like, six times now. **[34:03] Patrick:** So I can handle Disneyland six times, but Disney World's a lot. **[34:07] Chad:** It's a lot. **[34:07] Patrick:** Yeah. **[34:08] Chad:** A lot of parks. **[34:09] Patrick:** Yeah. **[34:09] Chad:** A lot of people. Anyway. **[34:12] Patrick:** Yes. **[34:13] Chad:** So this was our, like, biannual trip semiannual trip to Disney. And, uh, I, I have to tell you something. So, so the new Frozen came out recently. **[34:24] Patrick:** Frozen 2. **[34:24] Chad:** Frozen 2 came out over the holidays. Um, when the first one... Actually, the first one came out way before my kid was born, but- **[34:30] Patrick:** Still just as frozen. **[34:32] Chad:** It's, yeah. **[34:33] Patrick:** Yeah. **[34:34] Chad:** So, um, the first Disney show that my oldest, uh, my son was ever interested in was Moana, which was a great show. **[34:41] Patrick:** Great. Fantastic movie. **[34:42] Chad:** Great message, great show. **[34:44] Patrick:** Yes. **[34:44] Chad:** Wonderful music. **[34:45] Patrick:** Awesome. **[34:45] Chad:** Lin-Manuel Miranda is amazing. **[34:47] Patrick:** Yes. **[34:48] Chad:** Um, so I was perfectly fine watching that over and over and over. **[34:51] Patrick:** In my opinion, will probably go down as one of the greatest Disney movies ever made. **[34:54] Chad:** Yeah, I don't know. **[34:54] Patrick:** It's, it's really good. **[34:55] Chad:** It's good. **[34:56] Patrick:** It's good. **[34:56] Chad:** It's good. Anyway. **[34:58] Patrick:** Yeah. It's good. **[34:59] Chad:** Uh, very quickly after that, he abandoned Moana, jumped on the Frozen bandwagon- **[35:04] Patrick:** Okay **[35:05] Chad:** ... which j- is just terrible. It's- **[35:09] Patrick:** The face that you have right now when you say, "It's just terrible," I have to describe it. Eyes rolled back, face going side to side. **[35:16] Chad:** Gesticulations. **[35:17] Patrick:** Just arms up in the air. It's just, yeah, I understand it. **[35:20] Chad:** So that lasted a few months, and then Frozen kind of died off, and other things happened, and then Frozen 2 came out. **[35:25] Patrick:** Mm-hmm. **[35:25] Chad:** And so for the last m- two months now, we've been nonstop Frozen. And Frozen 2 finally came out on, um, like to buy, I guess, last week. **[35:35] Patrick:** Uh-huh. **[35:36] Chad:** So now we have Frozen 2. We already know all the songs 'cause we've been listening to them in the car forever. And anyway, so, uh, so now we're onto Frozen 2 again. But here's what I wanna say about Frozen. First of all, Moana was almost an afterthought. Like, we went to Disney when Moana was, was released. There was almost nothing about Moana, and I don't think that there's a Moana character at Disney World. You can, I think there is one at Disneyland 'cause we, we met her. **[36:00] Patrick:** Yep. **[36:00] Chad:** But Disney World is, like, it's basically nothing. There's a handful of, uh, you know, stuffed animal cartoons or, uh, stuffed animals, and there's, they can buy a dress at the little boutique at, where you can get all the princess dresses. But there's basically nothing about Moana, which is this great story about, you know, um, empowerment and, and all this kind of stuff. Frozen, on the other hand, is basically a story about Disney's first postmodern princess. Like, this may be even more controversial than the comment about, uh, you know, justification of our jobs. Elsa's terrible. She is- **[36:35] Patrick:** Like, in what way is she terrible? **[36:37] Chad:** Elsa. Okay, so f- in the original Frozen, her, her, like, big song, the big anthem that, you know, won an Oscar and was like- **[36:43] Patrick:** "Let it go." **[36:44] Chad:** Yeah, you don't need to s- **[36:45] Patrick:** "Let it go." **[36:45] Chad:** PleasePlease don't sing **[36:47] Patrick:** There's, all right **[36:47] Chad:** If we still have anyone still listening, they're gonna stop if you can sing **[36:50] Patrick:** Or stop right now, yes **[36:51] Chad:** It's basically about how she just doesn't give a crap anymore about how what she does affects anyone else, right? She's just gonna leave and just do whatever she wants to do **[37:02] Patrick:** Standard millennial **[37:04] Chad:** That's why I say she's, she's- **[37:05] Patrick:** It's, I, I'm joking around, like she's a millennial **[37:06] Chad:** She's the first post-modern Disney princess **[37:08] Patrick:** Yes **[37:08] Chad:** I've been making this case to my wife for, like, seven years now. Um, you know, Anna's great. She's nice. She was a bit naive, but she's a nice person. Elsa is basically just terrible So- Um, and then so the new Frozen came out, and she's like, "Oh, no, Elsa's redeemed," right? She's, she's recognized that she was selfish and now she's better, but the, the song that she sings this time, which is called Into the Unknown, she basically, uh ... No, I'm sorry, it's actually this, it's the finale song called Show Yourself. **[37:36] Patrick:** Show Yourself, yes **[37:38] Chad:** Okay. I, I, I ha- I really am sad that I even know all this, but- **[37:42] Patrick:** Is that a Justin Bieber song? **[37:44] Chad:** No **[37:44] Patrick:** Okay. Just- **[37:45] Chad:** No, that's Love Yourself **[37:47] Patrick:** Love Yourself, yeah, that's right, yeah. Sorry **[37:48] Chad:** Oh, Biebs. Okay. **[37:50] Patrick:** Love Biebs **[37:50] Chad:** So anyway, uh, so in this song she basically says, um, uh, basically, like, "I've always been the kind of person f- that normal rules don't apply for me," right? **[37:59] Patrick:** Okay, yeah **[38:00] Chad:** So, like, she hasn't learned anything. So we've gone six years between the first movie and the second movie, and she has not learned a damn thing about how her, how her actions affect other people and how she needs to be cognizant of that. And, uh, and so in the first episode, just to go back to that, the first movie, um, uh, the original argument that she kind of had remorse was when, uh, Anna found her in her, like, ice castle. **[38:28] Patrick:** Uh-huh **[38:28] Chad:** And, uh, she's like, "You know, everything's, uh, everything's frozen back in Arendelle, and, like, you know, you have to come fix it." And her response is, "Oh, I'm such a fool. I can't be free." It's like, "Woe is me that I can't just do whatever I want and damn the consequences." So I just- **[38:46] Patrick:** It's a whole conversation **[38:47] Chad:** I just, I just have to get this off my chest **[38:49] Patrick:** Okay **[38:49] Chad:** Elsa is a terrible role model for, for young girls, for young boys, for anyone. She is the worst Disney princess, and that's all I gotta say about that **[38:59] Patrick:** That's all. You got that off your chest and we covered it **[39:00] Chad:** I got that off my chest **[39:01] Patrick:** So we have covered bad technology- **[39:03] Chad:** It is, it is on, it is on record now **[39:04] Patrick:** We've covered bad technology, the end of life for Internet Explorer, all different types of stuff in between that, and, and then now Elsa is the worst princess you've ever faced **[39:14] Chad:** So you know what's funny- **[39:14] Patrick:** Or, or, or known **[39:15] Chad:** ... is the people in the booth next to us today- **[39:17] Patrick:** Yes **[39:18] Chad:** ... I had this exact same conversation, and they 100% agreed. **[39:21] Patrick:** This was which booth? This was the booth, the construction booth? **[39:23] Chad:** The, the architect guys **[39:24] Patrick:** The architect guys, okay. Interesting. Yeah **[39:26] Chad:** They also, he, uh, one of them had kids the same age as mine. **[39:29] Patrick:** Okay **[39:30] Chad:** And he was like, "Yeah, she's terrible." So, so, so that's pretty funny. There, there was a, uh, there was a cartoon that my brother's kids used to watch all the time. I'm trying to remember the name of it, but it was always, like, a whiny kid. Is it Peppa Pig? **[39:44] Patrick:** It, Peppa's whiny, too **[39:45] Chad:** Because, because- **[39:46] Patrick:** No, but it's on the same channel. It's, uh, it's, it's the little boy that's on there, and I can't remember the name of that one, but, ah, it'll come to me. But my brother used to always say, "I'm not gonna let my watch, my kids watch this, 'cause all this kid does is whine." **[39:58] Chad:** Yeah, I know people didn't like Peppa Pig because I think she was rude to her parents or something. I don't know. **[40:02] Patrick:** Yeah, we- **[40:03] Chad:** I know my kids have never watched Peppa Pig, but- **[40:04] Patrick:** Yeah. So my kids are already watching Ninja Turtles. I'm not sure that's appropriate at this point, but that's what they're watching **[40:10] Chad:** Yeah, my four-year-old loves Power Rangers **[40:11] Patrick:** Oh, Dino Charge? Power Rangers Dino Charge. **[40:15] Chad:** Yeah. **[40:16] Patrick:** That's- **[40:16] Chad:** So, uh, when my wife and I first started dating, uh, we went to s- to school at different schools. **[40:23] Patrick:** That's correct, yeah **[40:24] Chad:** And, you know, you're in the early sort of honeymoon period, and we would talk on the phone all night. And it would get to the point where Power Rangers would come on the TV, and it was like, "Okay, well, I guess it's time to go to class now." **[40:35] Patrick:** Nice **[40:36] Chad:** So that's the last time I watched Power Rangers was way back in, uh, in college **[40:40] Patrick:** Nice. Well, guys, we're gonna wrap it up on this episode of ZacCast. I appreciate you coming and hanging out with Chad and I and, uh, letting us kind of bloviate on these issues today. So, um, you know, obviously we've got a lot to talk about. I really loved being at the Safety Conference, hanging out with our firefighter buddies. Uh, we are, uh, super excited to be able to help those folks out. And, uh, if you've got questions for us, always reach out. Talk to you soon.