Questions
Questions
What people ask before they come on.
The show
What does it cost?
Nothing to me. I speak to everybody first, for 15 minutes, and my schedule is tight, so I might say no, or we might have to move the time around. But you pay me nothing, before or after.
The one thing that does cost is the AI itself. It runs on your computer under your own account, and the plan that includes Claude Code is a paid one. That is between you and Anthropic and their price is theirs to change, so check it rather than take a number off me.
How long is it?
About three to four hours. The agent works slowly, so nothing is instant, and that waiting is where most of the conversation happens.
When do you record?
Monday and Friday nights at 9, and Sunday mornings at 10, Brisbane time. Queensland has no daylight saving, so the window never shifts.
Can I come back on?
Yes. If a month later something has moved on, or you want to take it further, I'm happy to do another one.
Do you do live events?
Yes, I am open to it. Get a few mates together and we can do a bigger workshop, everyone with a computer in front of them.
Is there a course?
I'm thinking about it. For now I'd rather focus on the show, so there is nothing to enrol in.
Your computer
What do I need on the day?
A strong internet connection, because you are sharing your screen the whole time. A microphone I can hear you on clearly. A camera.
And something you are happy for other people to see.
What kind of computer?
Windows or a Mac, with about 16 GB of memory and 40 GB of free space. On Windows there are a couple of settings to switch on in the BIOS, and I will tell you which ones. Linux works too, and if you are on it you already know that.
Do I have to prepare anything?
It helps a lot if you install the agent before we start. If you have not had time, we spend the first part of the show doing it together.
Is it safe?
Any development carries a risk and I am not going to pretend otherwise. I do what I can to keep it safe on the day, and what that means in practice is written down.
Your stuff
Do I have to share personal information with you?
No. Everything happens on your computer. I do not log in to it and I never take control of it: I tell you where to click, you do the typing. What I can see is whatever you put on screen, and so can everybody watching.
What if the work involves personal data?
Maybe. Only if the data never appears on screen and the work still makes sense without it, because everything that is on screen goes out in public. I will ask you to keep that part off screen, or you stop sharing for a minute while you open it.
You do have to be able to talk about the idea around it, though, or nobody watching can follow.
Who owns what we build?
You do. It is on your computer, not mine, and you never have to send me anything.
While it is running
What if it breaks something?
The setup saves a version of your work before anything interesting happens, which is the whole reason that step is in it. If the change was saved, you can usually ask it to put that change back.
Usually, not always. Ask what the undo is before anything real gets touched, and if the answer is that there is not one, that is the moment to slow down.
It can delete things, the same as you can. It asks first, and you are the one who says yes.
Does it run out? What happens then?
There is a daily allowance and a weekly one. If you use up the day, you wait a couple of hours; if you use up the week, it comes back on a fixed day.
Asking for six versions of something at once burns through it much faster than asking for one. That is usually still worth it.
What about my passwords and account keys?
They never go in the chat. It opens a file for you, you paste the key in with the screen hidden, and it reads the file rather than being told.
One went on screen during a recording once. We deleted it at the source and made a new one, which took under a minute. That is the fix, and it is why we do it the other way round.
I closed everything. Have I lost it?
No. It keeps a history in the project folder, so you go back to that folder, start it again, and ask it to pick up where you left off.
That is the reason each project gets its own folder rather than everything going in one place.
What do I do when it says something red?
Copy the whole thing and paste it straight back to it. Not the last line, all of it. That is the single most useful habit on the show and it takes no skill at all.
If it is a page in a browser rather than a terminal, take a screenshot with the address bar in it.
Can it just do it all automatically from now on?
Eventually, and not on day one. Get it emailing you every time it does the thing, watch that for a while, and automate it once you trust what it is reporting.
Some things genuinely cannot be automated, and I will say so rather than spend your afternoon on it.
Me
Where are you?
Brisbane. Hungarian originally. Wife, three kids.
Where does the name come from?
It's a joke about my own name. Mate Visky, the Hungarian spelling said a different way, turns into Mate Wish Key. I know. I'm at the age where that's the point.