// life timeline
1982ZX Spectrum, Glasgow
1984VITCOM BBS sysop
1990IBM London, then GE
20003G in Hong Kong, streaming
2026Omarchy on a 2017 MBP
// 00
The rundown
James Tervit was a Glasgow kid with a ZX Spectrum who became a BBS sysop in the 1980s (VITCOM, on FidoNet). He took that terminal habit to London and IBM, where knowing DMA settings got him in the door, then to GE as a turnaround specialist, the OS/2 team, a 3G network build in Hong Kong as one of its first employees, and early internet video streaming around 2000. He later ran telecom work in the Gulf, and today he is based in Singapore.
He runs Omarchy on a 2017 MacBook Pro. His agent fixed the Touch Bar, Touch ID came from another community member's work, and a "Super Kevin" agent animation flies across his screen. He is about 90% done with an Omarchy virtual monitor that turns any screen on a LAN PC into a second display through a browser.
His site, jamestervit.com, is a time-travel tour of his career with a dial-in recreation of his old BBS, self-hosted on Proxmox behind a Cloudflare tunnel. He says DHH "went back to basics" with Omarchy, and that the community feels like the BBS days again: everyone sharing.
“This is how it used to be on BBS with community. Everybody was sharing”James Tervit · L374
// 01
From a bedroom in Glasgow to the City
A Spectrum, a modem and a BBS. Then London, IBM and AS/400s across the City, with token ring and DMA know-how as his ticket in. ↳ jump to L213
// 02
Terminal first, always
"If I don't know any other application that's better than the terminal, it's my go-to." Omarchy suits a man who never left the command line. ↳ jump to L359
“if I don't know any other application that's better than the terminal, um, it's my go-to.”James Tervit · L359
// 03
A 2017 MacBook, reborn
Agents fixed the Touch Bar, the community supplied Touch ID, and the old MacBook is his Omarchy machine. ↳ jump to L365
// 04
The virtual monitor
Any screen, on any PC on your LAN, becomes another Omarchy monitor through a browser. He plans to publish when it is stable. ↳ jump to L401
// 05
Spec before code, and big maps
His agent project team (a PM and an analyst) writes the specification before any code. He used that approach to aggregate UK planning data into a searchable 3D map built on Cesium. ↳ jump to L500 ↳ jump to L917
// 06
It feels like BBS again
"This is how it used to be on BBS with community. Everybody was sharing." ↳ jump to L374 ↳ jump to L1020
// their setup
Setup
hardware
MacBook Pro 2017omarchy · retired mac
GX10s, an M3, an RTX boxlab · workstation
tools & models
hyprlandcloudflare-tunnelproxmoxcesiumgithublocal-llmclaudebashterminal: terminal-first
agent workflow
An agent project team writes the spec before any code
// learn from James
Learn from James
Revive a retired Mac with Omarchy intermediateJames runs Omarchy on a 2017 MacBook Pro; Yasir started on a 2012 Mac mini.
Specification engineering: spec before code intermediateAn agent project team (PM, analyst) writes the spec before any code is generated.
// full transcript (cleaned)
Show the cleaned transcript (777 lines) · open full page
L1James Tervit: How are you—
L2Fred Nix: How are you doing? I can't hear you—
L3James Tervit: I can't hear you yet.
L4Fred Nix: I don't hear—
L5James Tervit: I can hear you.
L6Fred Nix: What's up?
L7James Tervit: What's up?
L8Fred Nix: Can you hear—
L9James Tervit: Can you hear me?
L10Fred Nix: Uh, hang on one sec.
L11James Tervit: Please do.
L12Fred Nix: Can you hear me?
L13James Tervit: Okay.
L14Fred Nix: There, I hear you now. Can you hear me?
L15James Tervit: I just didn't want to—
L16Fred Nix: I hear you.
L17James Tervit: Yeah.
L18Fred Nix: Yep. Do you hear—
L19James Tervit: I'm good now.
L20Fred Nix: Yeah. Do you hear me?
L21James Tervit: I can hear the test.
L22Fred Nix: Do you hear me?
L23James Tervit: Wait, I have my cell phone on test, but I can't hear you, Fred, for some reason.
L24Fred Nix: Okay, um, hang— hang on. I'm trying—
L25James Tervit: I'm gonna mess the both of my set up.
L26Fred Nix: Yep.
L27James Tervit: Uh—
L28Fred Nix: How about now?
L29James Tervit: So—
L30Fred Nix: One, two, three.
L31James Tervit: Microphone.
L32Fred Nix: Hello, hello, hello.
L33James Tervit: Next time.
L34Fred Nix: One, two, three.
L35James Tervit: Yeah. I think everything's set up. Can you hear me okay?
L36Fred Nix: I certainly can. How about you?
L37James Tervit: Yeah. I can't hear you, though.
L38Fred Nix: Ugh.
L39James Tervit: There's just nothing coming through.
L40Fred Nix: Ugh. Um, but—
L41James Tervit: Okay.
L42Fred Nix: I got—
L43James Tervit: Oh, s***. My— my camera's a bit dark.
L44Fred Nix: How about— how about now? Can you hear me now?
L45James Tervit: Nothing yet, no.
L46Fred Nix: No? No swap?
L47James Tervit: I've also had this problem with, um—
L48Fred Nix: Yeah.
L49James Tervit: Got a—
L50Fred Nix: What?
L51James Tervit: A little between Zoom and Microsoft Teams, and then various other ones.
L52Fred Nix: One—
L53James Tervit: I almost seem to get messed up.
L54Fred Nix: One, two, three. Hello, hello, hello.
L55James Tervit: I actually moved from Bluetooth headphones, uh, to wired— you know, wired—
L56Fred Nix: One, two.
L57James Tervit: Headphones, because all my devices were connected.
L58Fred Nix: One, two.
L59James Tervit: By the Bluetooth.
L60Fred Nix: One—
L61James Tervit: Yeah, yeah. I can see the lips moving, but nothing's coming. It's like silent movie time.
L62Fred Nix: Yeah. H-hang on, hang on. Oh, crap.
L63James Tervit: I love that monitor. I've always liked— liked the 49-inch. Awesome, man.
L64Fred Nix: Yeah. Um, give me one second. I'm gonna switch— I'm gonna switch machines.
L65James Tervit: That's my setup. I've got— I've just got the four monitors kind of stacked.
L66Fred Nix: That's nice.
L67James Tervit: With a 49-inch again.
L68Fred Nix: Uh, let's try this.
L69James Tervit: That gives us a little bit of— At least I won't be able to look at it. I wonder if I can do something right now.
L70James Tervit: Okay, okay. Um, um, let's—
L71Fred Nix: Ugh.
L72James Tervit: Let's see.
L73James Tervit: I can't— I can't get the sockets.
L74James Tervit: Oh my God, that was such a fluke.
L75James Tervit: You see, that's why—
L76Fred Nix: I know, that's why.
L77James Tervit: I know. You can't really see because the darkness here is always messing with my camera. Now, let's see.
L78James Tervit: Let's see. That's kind of a little bit better.
L79Fred Nix: How about now? Can you hear that?
L80James Tervit: Perfect, bro. Absolutely perfect.
L81Fred Nix: You hear me now?
L82James Tervit: I can, yeah. And your different camera perspective, so.
L83Fred Nix: Yeah, I went to a completely different machine. Um, unfortunately, that's my Omarchy box that wasn't working. Uh, I've— I've heard of problems with, uh, Zoom before, so, uh, not unexpected.
L84James Tervit: I'm not a big fan of Zoom, to be honest with you.
L85Fred Nix: Yeah. It's just better—
L86James Tervit: I come from a— sorry, go on. Yeah.
L87Fred Nix: It's just better than Google Meet— Google Meet meeting app.
L88James Tervit: Yeah. It's a security thing, uh, with me. So I've had to create a VM and— and stuff to—
L89Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah.
L90James Tervit: Get my own sort of security things. Because I'm in— I'm in Singapore.
L91Fred Nix: Singapore? Okay, okay.
L92James Tervit: I flutter between Singapore and the Philippines, right? Because my wife's Filipino.
L93Fred Nix: Okay, okay.
L94James Tervit: Um, we— we met in Qatar when I was, uh, a director at Qatar Telecom back in—
L95Fred Nix: Wow.
L96James Tervit: The 2000s, right? And I'm an XGE boy.
L97Fred Nix: Okay, okay.
L98James Tervit: Right? So Jack Welsh.
L99Fred Nix: Oh, my God.
L100James Tervit: Going and kick-f****** everything and get it back online and just make it f****** work, right?
L101Fred Nix: That's right.
L102James Tervit: That's right. So I was— I was deployed as his little, uh, Scottish f****** weapon, right? Because I was the type of guy that knew technology but also understood business.
L103James Tervit: Loved by everybody at the end, hated by everyone at the beginning, you know?
L104Fred Nix: Right, right. At least it was the other way around.
L105James Tervit: Well, it— it's kind of funny because you go in, you try to help people, and it's like they just want to kill you, right? And when they realize that the politics isn't working and there's a kind of something going on, they— they— they just settle down and— and behave, you know?
L106Fred Nix: Right, right.
L107James Tervit: Um, but it was a— it was a hell of a career, mate. I went from being just a kid in a bedroom in the 1980s to taking a little bit of money and heading down to London, UK, because I couldn't get a job in Scotland, uh, because we still had this kind of Catholic Protestant kind of bigotry going on.
L108Fred Nix: Oh, that's right.
L109James Tervit: And it was just difficult to get a job, right? It was— it was a horrible time. There was gang violence, and there was—
L110Fred Nix: Yep, yep.
L111James Tervit: Uh, it was just a horrible, horrible place to be in at that time, to try and evolve and— and reinvent yourself. So I went to London, luckily got picked up with IBM, and I started deploying AS-400s across the London Financial District. I literally went from broke, like being a— a poor kid from a working-class family, to running 900 pounds an hour, um, right?
L112James Tervit: And just f****** making it and everybody just testing me. I didn't— I didn't realize the difference between being poor and trying to actually come out of that, and the people you leave are actually not liking you very much.
L113Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah.
L114James Tervit: It's a very British thing to do, you know? F****** bastard, he made it, so let's kill him.
L115Fred Nix: That's right. That's a great story. Americans, we're so— all we think is the only thing that exists in the whole world is America.
L116Fred Nix: We don't realize there's a whole world out there.
L117James Tervit: Yeah, and I— I got a taste of America accidentally. I went to visit my cousin in Ohio, Columbus.
L118Fred Nix: Okay, okay.
L119James Tervit: Back in 1999.
L120Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah.
L121James Tervit: And I had actually— I had done a bit, uh, you know, RS-422 over TCP/IP because I did switching, integrating switching from all over.
L122Fred Nix: Right.
L123James Tervit: And, um, I was at a big gun meet, and I'm not into guns because we don't get exposed to them that much.
L124Fred Nix: Sure.
L125James Tervit: So I thought, I'm going to— I'd love to go because go down there to Knob Creek, everybody from Texas and everybody from America who is into guns was just there, right? And what a— what an experience that was, bro. Unbelievable.
L126James Tervit: Um, everything from getting to open up the event with napalm flamethrowers, love it.
L127James Tervit: You wouldn't be American without one, right?
L128Fred Nix: Oh, I'll—
L129James Tervit: To have a gun in reach. But dude, when I opened up the show and they— they— they kind of threw me— I had no idea what was going on. The napalm flamethrowers, like, f*** me.
L130James Tervit: So— and all the oil drums. So after that, they took me up in the helicopter, and we started shooting up the oil drums to explode them, to open up the whole event.
L131James Tervit: Everybody was just— it blew my f****** mind, the whole thing.
L132Fred Nix: Whoa.
L133James Tervit: You know? Then the big Calvary gun came out.
L134Fred Nix: Yeah.
L135James Tervit: And it's like, you had to hold your ears because this thing was like, boom, boom, boom.
L136Fred Nix: Yeah.
L137James Tervit: It's like, holy f***, these things were brutal, right?
L138Fred Nix: Yeah.
L139James Tervit: Back in the day. It's like, rip off maybe bodies of about 300 men in one go as it went past them. It's— oh, just unbelievable.
L140James Tervit: And then the opposite extreme, watching these guys with, uh, the technology, how do you make a gun so quiet?
L141Fred Nix: Right, right.
L142James Tervit: You know? And everybody went quiet and literally sniper rifles. So there was always a competition about who could make the most silent gun, right?
L143James Tervit: And— and that— that also blew my mind. That was crazy, man.
L144James Tervit: What a time to be alive. And then I got picked up by a company in Indianapolis, just simply by talking to one of these guys, "Hey, what do you do?"
L145James Tervit: I'm— I'm a telecoms guy that do RS-422 over TCP/IP, and—
L146Fred Nix: Sure.
L147James Tervit: "Oh, we've got— we've got a project."
L148Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah.
L149James Tervit: "We could maybe talk." I said, "Well, I'm here on a tourist visa." Said, "I don't worry about that.
L150James Tervit: We'll fix that."
L151Fred Nix: Ah, that's—
L152James Tervit: He said, "You got— you got skills." I said, "Yeah, dude. I'm— I'm— I'm coming from an unusual background."
L153James Tervit: He's like, "Yeah, we like guys like you." So I got involved in essentially resolving the quality of object for video on unmanned airborne vehicles, but I didn't know it was at that time.
L154Fred Nix: Right, right.
L155James Tervit: So it was basically the telemetry coming together with, uh, how can we get 100% of video without artifacts being introduced, um, globally, with the systems back at that time, and how can we get it back to US stateside?
L156Fred Nix: Right.
L157James Tervit: I had no idea what it was. We just solved it. Uh, big troopers came in and said, "Right, you're— you're done.
L158James Tervit: You can— you can go. You'll get paid for six months in advance.
L159James Tervit: You— you're all good. You're good.
L160James Tervit: You've done a great job. Thank you very much."
L161James Tervit: I said, "Can I ask what we worked on a minute?" "No, now f*** off."
L162James Tervit: I said, "Okay." I get the message.
L163Fred Nix: That's awesome.
L164James Tervit: But— but Fred, because of that, I got headhunted by a company called Hutchinson Wanpua in Hong Kong, um, who set up 3G. So I got involved and wrapped up in 3G because my name got attached to American tech, right?
L165Fred Nix: Right, right.
L166James Tervit: So— so there you go. There's a short snapshot of my history of being around, uh, 3G.
L167Fred Nix: And 3G was a big step. Like, that was a— that was a big leap.
L168James Tervit: In 2000, yes. Um, and— and another reason I got involved in a project with my family, who actually were stage management people, right, at San Francisco. Um, they were— uh, they— they built a business with, um, a guy called Herbie Herbert, who was the manager of Journey at that time.
L169James Tervit: And, you know, they're a big rock— big American rock band. So the family were able to put together a whole American tour and— and also how they got the Russian Antonovs in to then take it worldwide.
L170James Tervit: So they then got involved with a whole bunch of stuff. Cut long story short, they called me.
L171James Tervit: They realized I was stateside and said, "Hey, look, you're the video guy. You understand all this technology internet s***, right?"
L172Fred Nix: Right, right.
L173James Tervit: And we— they understand welding and putting stuff together. I said, "Well, kind of." So before I knew it, I was in charge of, um, I think called burst.com.
L174Fred Nix: Okay.
L175James Tervit: Which was essentially the before pre-YouTube and all that stuff, which essentially was real-time video streaming across all the different plugins, right?
L176Fred Nix: Sure.
L177James Tervit: Um, so that was 1 million internet subscribers in California and 1 million cable TV, so we could compare the difference between the two back in 2000, right? So that's what's on my jamestervit.com. That's my whole history.
L178Fred Nix: Very good, sure.
L179James Tervit: So I got involved in— yeah, I got involved in broadcast and the whole YouTube thing. And the YouTube guys had bought this company. They didn't know what the f*** to do with it.
L180James Tervit: Um, and again, it didn't do me any harm, right, because I told, um, the principal management team, essentially the management of YouTube, uh.
L181Fred Nix: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
L182James Tervit: Him being Irish.
L183Fred Nix: I thought— I took a look at this before. This website is amazing.
L184James Tervit: It's because of you. You inspired me. I thought I better get— I better get my finger out because I saw your website.
L185James Tervit: I said, "F***, that's great, man." I said.
L186Fred Nix: Oh, man.
L187James Tervit: Then I realized I need to get my s*** out.
L188Fred Nix: Yeah, that's awesome, mate. This is amazing. This is really good.
L189Fred Nix: I like the— I like the— the effects. It's kind of a little bit retro.
L190James Tervit: It's a bit different, right?
L191Fred Nix: With a little bit— it's a little retro with a little bit of tech.
L192James Tervit: I'm a time-traveling guy.
L193Fred Nix: Whoa, whoa. I like the.
L194James Tervit: Yeah. It's like time-traveling s***, right?
L195Fred Nix: Okay, so every— oh, that's an amazing transition. Oh, and look at it. It looks like old Windows.
L196Fred Nix: Oh, man, this is awesome.
L197James Tervit: Yeah. Because I'm a BBS. I came from fight on that, and I was a big.
L198Fred Nix: I ran a— I ran a— I ran a Mustang BBS, the— you remember the brand Mustang?
L199James Tervit: Yeah, I remember them. Yeah, 100%. I remember Mustang.
L200James Tervit: It was a choice for me between whale— was it WhaleCat? Mustang.
L201Fred Nix: Yeah, WhaleCat.
L202James Tervit: And Spitfire. There's a guy called Mike Wilkes in Walnut Creek, I think it was. And I got attached to that because it kind of made sense to me.
L203James Tervit: I thought it was a kind of cool system.
L204Fred Nix: Holy moly, this— this website is badass.
L205James Tervit: You can— if you find it, uh, Fred, you can actually dial into a simulation of my BBS. I recreated the whole f****** thing.
L206Fred Nix: Where is it? Where— where did I do that?
L207James Tervit: Oh, it's buried in there somewhere, uh, I think under one of the eras. But, um, I won't bore you too much.
L208Fred Nix: Yeah, it is. I love how it changes. Like, you— you really get the sense of a different time each— each step.
L209James Tervit: Yeah, and if you got your speakers on it, it's like, it goes boom.
L210Fred Nix: If I got— yeah, I love that. All right, so I'm on how do you like to travel? So I'm going to— which one should I save?
L211James Tervit: Yeah, the adventure. The top one.
L212Fred Nix: Okay, the full history and adventure. Okay. Uh, so I'm in, uh, 4K RAM.
L213James Tervit: 48K. I've— I've done all my spectrum coding and all my games that I've picked and bought, so I've— I've managed to emulate all of them again, which is kind of fun.
L214Fred Nix: This is amazing, man.
L215James Tervit: I mean, it's— it's f****** insane what you can do today.
L216Fred Nix: It really is.
L217James Tervit: Unbelievable.
L218Fred Nix: All right, to the carrier. All right, now I'm in Connect 2400. Welcome to the board.
L219Fred Nix: This must be it. Enter the board.
L220James Tervit: This is it.
L221Fred Nix: Okay, there it is.
L222James Tervit: Yeah, yeah. There it is.
L223Fred Nix: Wow. All right, this is bringing back memories, man.
L224James Tervit: S***. No kidding? I was the same when I built it.
L225James Tervit: It's like.
L226Fred Nix: Uh-oh, I don't know the password. Let's see if I can hack it.
L227James Tervit: Oh, you can type any password.
L228Fred Nix: I know, I know.
L229James Tervit: Yeah, yeah.
L230Fred Nix: All right. This is amazing. This is exactly how it used to be.
L231James Tervit: Yeah, it is.
L232Fred Nix: Do you keep a log of the people that come by? You should.
L233James Tervit: Not really. I— I think I should, but I think I just wanted it to be a fun thing that, you know, there's no dodgy s*** going on behind it.
L234Fred Nix: Well, you hit the nail on the head, man. This is amazing.
L235James Tervit: Thanks.
L236Fred Nix: Okay.
L237James Tervit: And— and I've been into music big and because, you know, knowing my family were media guys, you'll see why, right? I was in the whole music thing, and I was inspired with trying to do showcast streaming way back in the beginning with Live 365 and.
L238Fred Nix: Yeah.
L239James Tervit: So I've tried to recreate a lot of stuff, and I was like, "F***, I've done a lot."
L240Fred Nix: Yeah.
L241James Tervit: I'm going to put it up there, you know?
L242Fred Nix: Yeah.
L243James Tervit: A lot of stuff, you know?
L244Fred Nix: Yeah, this is really cool.
L245James Tervit: I've been around. It's really crazy to see your whole career. I mean, I've kept all the personal stuff out for obvious reasons, but the fun stuff I've kept in.
L246Fred Nix: Right.
L247James Tervit: The stuff that I can't mention, like the military stuff that I did. But I've kind of hinted on it.
L248Fred Nix: Where do you— where do you, uh, host this?
L249James Tervit: Um, I host it on my machine here in the Philippines, um, on a Proxmox server, uh, out to Cloudflare. That's it, right?
L250Fred Nix: All right. Um, I host all— what I do, I ho— I create a GitHub repository.
L251James Tervit: Yeah.
L252Fred Nix: And then have you heard of Cloudflare?
L253James Tervit: Yeah. I use Cloudflare a lot. They— they actually give me 250k, um, to go and do s***, just to mess around, right?
L254Fred Nix: Wow, wow.
L255James Tervit: And I struggle— I struggle to spend it.
L256Fred Nix: That's right. So what you do is you point Cloudflare pages at the GitHub repo, and if you change the repo, it automatically updates the website.
L257James Tervit: Oh, awesome. Yeah, I've saw that. I saw that with pages and stuff.
L258Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah.
L259James Tervit: But I thought— I'm— I'm kind of old school. I love to just do my own thing, you know?
L260Fred Nix: Right, right. Are you tunneling this? I guess you— you're probably tunneling it to a Proxmox.
L261Fred Nix: Is it through a Cloudflare tunnel?
L262James Tervit: Yeah, basically.
L263Fred Nix: Yep, smart man. Very smart.
L264James Tervit: And I can use the CDN, um, if I want to do the media. But I'm actually messing with the— the media. I'm running my own cache-based system just to try and see how it works.
L265James Tervit: I'm— I'm— I'm looking at new technologies as to how does caching actually work within Nginx and the various web servers, and I swap them around just to see how far can I push, like, local hosting, you know?
L266Fred Nix: Right.
L267James Tervit: And you can push it a lot.
L268Fred Nix: Can you— can you give me 11 seconds? I want to go get my drink.
L269James Tervit: Sure. I'll— I'll do, man. No problem.
L270James Tervit: This is great. I'll do the same.
L271James Tervit: I'm— I'm on camera a bit, just in case she pops out. I'm on camera.
L272Fred Nix: You— you guys.
L273James Tervit: I'm going to get some water.
L274Fred Nix: Yeah.
L275James Tervit: I mean, Fred, you're going to be talking a long time. We're— we're from the same era. It's going to be a while.
L276James Tervit: I'm just going to get a glass of water and then.
L277Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah.
L278James Tervit: I'll come back to it.
L279James Tervit: Right. Oh, you're back again.
L280Fred Nix: So you're in Singapore, huh?
L281James Tervit: Right. Let me have one second.
L282Fred Nix: Singapore?
L283James Tervit: There we go.
L284Fred Nix: Yeah, so you're in Singapore, right?
L285James Tervit: Yeah. Yeah, I'm floating between Singapore and the Philippines.
L286Fred Nix: You don't have access to these then, I bet.
L287James Tervit: Yeah, yeah.
L288Fred Nix: It's a— it's a weed drink.
L289James Tervit: Yeah, they're great.
L290Fred Nix: They're great. Yeah, cheer— cheers to you, man. Thank you for—
L291James Tervit: Thank you for inviting me. Yeah. You too, Fred.
L292James Tervit: And I love what you're doing, man. I mean, you— you literally— your— your Fred website just inspired me.
L293James Tervit: I went in and I was like, "Oh, holy s***, this is really cool."
L294Fred Nix: I appreciate that.
L295James Tervit: All the different pixels and— and there's so much there. You're like, "Wow, f***." So I thought, "S***, I need to do something.
L296James Tervit: I've got so much stuff on terabytes. I've got 100 terabytes of storage here storing all my work and life, and I can—" and now I just realized just how much storage costs now, you know?
L297James Tervit: Everything's doubled in price. You know, my GX10s, I got them in March before the price rise.
L298James Tervit: That was a smart move. I've got an M3 before the price went up on them as well.
L299James Tervit: And, um, I've got my RTX, um, running at the moment, and I've managed to get a new hosting box for that. And— and this is a— this is a kind of my background, right?
L300James Tervit: So we— we had this, uh, water pump which got a video screen on it, right?
L301Fred Nix: Uh-huh.
L302James Tervit: This kid says, "Have you got Windows on it?" "No." That's a blasphemy, you know?
L303James Tervit: And he said, "Well, you're not going to have the application for the— the— the— the— the screen on the pump." I said, "I don't worry about that.
L304James Tervit: I'll just write my own app."
L305Fred Nix: Right, right.
L306James Tervit: And then within 20 minutes, because you've got AI nowadays, and it's so much easier. So if you know what you're doing, just went ahead. And before I knew it, I was running my own— streaming my own stuff to the— the water pump, and f****** great.
L307James Tervit: And my own animations, my little Super Kevin. And by the way, Super Kevin, why— why him?
L308James Tervit: I was following Kevin Mitnick back in the day on BBS.
L309Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah, good guy.
L310James Tervit: He— he— yeah, f***. I love that guy. He, uh, was my introduction to what became my career in thinking, right?
L311James Tervit: How to think differently, you know, phone freaking, you know, how to get the static and get the coin mech to go f****** drop coins and get you free shot in games and all that sort of stuff. And, um, you know, the share weird.
L312James Tervit: And then we followed his stories. He was— he was like, packing, you know, uh, wireless radios and staying one step ahead.
L313Fred Nix: Yes.
L314James Tervit: And we realized, "Oh, f***, that. The eyes onto him. What the f***?
L315James Tervit: This is wild," you know? And it was a crazy time.
L316James Tervit: It really was.
L317Fred Nix: Crazy time. Now, can— can you hear me okay? Is the mic— is it kind of—
L318James Tervit: Definitely.
L319Fred Nix: Yeah. All right, I'm going to— I'm going to switch it. See if you can tell the difference between this and— do you— do I sound different now?
L320Fred Nix: Or about the same?
L321James Tervit: No, it's— it's very, very close. Very close. It's very— I wouldn't even know.
L322Fred Nix: This one better or this one better?
L323James Tervit: That one.
L324Fred Nix: This one.
L325James Tervit: You got more— you got more bass in your voice with that one.
L326Fred Nix: Okay.
L327James Tervit: Just slightly, you know?
L328Fred Nix: All right. I appreciate the feedback. Um.
L329James Tervit: I got a good pair of ears.
L330Fred Nix: Oh, apparently so. What do you— uh, are you retired?
L331James Tervit: Yeah, I'm 61. Um, I decided to get out of corporate. Um, but I've been self-employed all the way through since I was a kid, right?
L332James Tervit: I just bounced from project to project because.
L333Fred Nix: Sure, sure.
L334James Tervit: You know, getting attached to General Electric, being attached to IBM, it doesn't do you any harm.
L335Fred Nix: No.
L336James Tervit: And then being in America and working on such a high-profile project, then getting headhunted by Hutchison Whampoa, which was the first 3G company out there in the world. We built it from the ground up. I was number five in the company.
L337Fred Nix: Wow.
L338James Tervit: So I've— I've been extremely f****** lucky, Fred, to have been able to be in the place at the right time. But my wife said, "No, no, no, no. You— you weren't lucky.
L339James Tervit: You were just you, you know, doing what you do," and— and everybody needed those skills.
L340Fred Nix: I believe that.
L341James Tervit: So I thought, "Okay, that's cool." So we— we've been— we've been together about 13 years with my wife because we— we met in Qatar. She was scared of me at first, but— because I was in such a high position, but, uh, we— we got together through a friend, which I was forever grateful because— ah, best woman in my life ever, man.
L342James Tervit: I'm so happy.
L343Fred Nix: Oh, man, that's great to hear.
L344James Tervit: Be stable, you know? Yeah.
L345Fred Nix: That's great to hear.
L346James Tervit: A great message. So I'm— I'm not going to retire, Fred. I'm going to f****** keep going until I drop.
L347James Tervit: I will drop at the table.
L348Fred Nix: That's right, right.
L349James Tervit: With my PC. I'm not stopping. This is— this is not work.
L350James Tervit: This is— this is just fun, you know?
L351Fred Nix: Yeah, it's fun. How did you find the market?
L352James Tervit: I'm trying to work out X.
L353Fred Nix: Yeah, I know.
L354James Tervit: And I f****** love it. I'll tell you why I love it. Um, is it reminds me of when we started out in the day, right?
L355James Tervit: So DHH is clocked onto something. Um, thankfully, um, about the Linux space.
L356Fred Nix: Right, right.
L357James Tervit: Which doesn't need this wonderful, flashy, next bells and whistles GUI, right? It's just gone back to basics. And I've always been banging on about with a bunch of kids, they're like, "Hey, what— what do you use for dev?"
L358James Tervit: I was like, "The terminal." They're like, "You can't do that."
L359James Tervit: It's like, "Yes, you f****** can," because if I don't know any other application that's better than the terminal, um, it's my go-to. I just naturally always want to be there, right?
L360Fred Nix: Right.
L361James Tervit: Because I can't be arsed with Windows and clicking in this and 20 things deep to try and find something. I just f****** do it, you know? So they're like, "Oh, you're crazy, man."
L362James Tervit: Then all of a sudden, people are realizing without all the overheads of— of all the— the stuff around it, you get performance, right? Um, so I think he's done an amazing job.
L363James Tervit: I got my old MacBook here. I got onto it quick.
L364James Tervit: I brought it, uh, off the shelf like everybody. I put it on there, and it just worked.
L365James Tervit: There was a couple of things which I had to get the agent to go in and fix that touch bar.
L366Fred Nix: Sure, sure.
L367James Tervit: And then I found one of the other guys from, um, I think in the US, he— I can't remember his name. He had done some stuff on the touch ID stuff, and we got that going. And I was like, "This is cool."
L368James Tervit: And then I was able to actually get my Super Kevin agent to fly onto the screen and do all sorts of cool stuff. I was like, "Oh, man, this is just the right thing to do," you know?
L369James Tervit: Because end-of-life Apple is coming to every expensive device within seven years because there's a seven-year cycle where they just want to sell you the next best thing, right?
L370Fred Nix: That's right.
L371James Tervit: So I'm— I'm— yeah, I'm grateful for that because the software is no longer the walled garden anymore, you know? It's over. Look how fast the guys are getting M4s and M5s, and, um, the Apple Neural Engine is now open.
L372James Tervit: It's— f***, what a timeline.
L373Fred Nix: Faster, faster, faster, faster.
L374James Tervit: But this is community, right? This is how it used to be on BBS with community. Everybody was sharing, and—
L375Fred Nix: Yes.
L376James Tervit: And then eventually, we had to come up with a concept of shareware because everybody, uh, plagiarized everything. No different today, right? As soon as you put something out, people are going to plagiarize the— the same thing over and over.
L377Fred Nix: And it's interesting with the, um, with— with the open source, how, you know, sharing's encouraged.
L378James Tervit: Yeah.
L379Fred Nix: Are you, uh, are you an avid GitHub guy?
L380James Tervit: I am. Yeah.
L381Fred Nix: Yeah, my man. What's your, uh?
L382James Tervit: I'm not really published much at the moment. It's, um, it's CG hyphen 8663.
L383Fred Nix: Let me get there. CG.
L384James Tervit: Yeah. Um, CG hyphen 8663.
L385James Tervit: Why 8663? That's Kevin Mitnick's date of birth.
L386Fred Nix: Well, you drop— drop your, uh, username in the chat because I don't— I think your— my American ears and your accent is. Throwing me off.
L387James Tervit: It's my Scottishness. Even— even— even the trained voice systems don't understand. Even the polite Scottish guy.
L388James Tervit: It's like— it's f****** fun, man. You try to tell it to do something, and it does the opposite.
L389James Tervit: It's like, "F****** great." Um, CG 8663.
L390James Tervit: The 8663 is actually Kevin Mitnick's birthday.
L391Fred Nix: Oh, there you go. Little— little shout-out.
L392James Tervit: And Kronara Group. Uh, I'll send it to you. I'll ping this.
L393Fred Nix: I'm not seeing it in the chat here. Are you—
L394James Tervit: I'll stick it in the chat now.
L395James Tervit: There you go.
L396Fred Nix: There we go.
L397James Tervit: It's in the chat on Zoom.
L398Fred Nix: Oh, wow. Cool. 432.
L399James Tervit: There's not much— there's not much there, really. Um, just a bunch of stuff that I'm—
L400Fred Nix: I just want to follow you so I keep up with you. That file is.
L401James Tervit: My Omachi work is I've actually built a virtual monitor. So you're on Omachi, right? And, uh, and you create a virtual monitor about— let's say the monitors are connected to another PC on your LAN.
L402James Tervit: It hooks in. It creates a monitor on a browser on any monitor connected to any other PC, and you get dual monitors.
L403James Tervit: And I think you can float between the two.
L404Fred Nix: So what a.
L405James Tervit: Edge actually clicked onto Ellie Doors. So he got video on that, and then he went off because he's super busy, right? He's just— the guy's getting pummeled by friends and that.
L406James Tervit: So I'm going to— I'm going to publish that into Omachi at some point when I get it right, get it stable. It's about 90% done.
L407James Tervit: So that'll— that'll be cool. Yeah.
L408Fred Nix: Are you, uh, is there any local Omachi meetups or anything happening in Singapore?
L409James Tervit: Not really, no. I think that the— they're all kind of still [redacted]-type heads out here, and I'm like.
L410Fred Nix: The [redacted] bros?
L411James Tervit: Yeah. Um, I dabbled in that for a little bit. Um, I put my project in there, tried to understand what all this kind of, uh, scumware is all about, because that's what it is.
L412James Tervit: It's— there's a lot of nice people in it.
L413Fred Nix: Because I'm like, "Oh, good.
L414James Tervit: There's more criminals in it than anything, to be honest with you.
L415Fred Nix: Right, right.
L416James Tervit: And given my background, um, I actually worked with a guy in NVIDIA called Dr. Atamli, who is Mr. Forensic Science, right, of NVIDIA.
L417James Tervit: He's the main guy. He was at Mellanox.
L418James Tervit: So I got attached to him, um, in terms of doing stuff. And then I got involved with NVIDIA because we get into Morpheus, and I was doing MapLotlib and all these different, um, uh, visionary-type libraries and stuff.
L419James Tervit: And I was able to put, uh, Morpheus out and visualize it before they could, right? So I got involved in that.
L420James Tervit: So I got exposed to a lot of Northbridge, Southbridge-type remote forensic stuff that they were doing. And obviously, they got bought up by NVIDIA, and they got wrapped in.
L421James Tervit: But I wasn't able to do anything with them because all the big corporates were like, "Ah, we— we got everything wrapped up in legacy," and I was too far ahead of time with it all. So it's the story of my life, man.
L422James Tervit: Too far ahead of the game.
L423Fred Nix: That's cool.
L424James Tervit: Doesn't pay much. Too far ahead.
L425Fred Nix: Are you a big Formula guy?
L426James Tervit: Formula 1, yeah. Um, uh, McLaren, um, uh, because, uh, because the American takeover of— of McLaren was quite interesting to me.
L427Fred Nix: Sure, sure.
L428James Tervit: And to see how that evolved with Formula 1 being sold off after, um, uh, it gets sold off by the— the founder. Um, and— and obviously, Lewis Hamilton, I'm a big fan of his because of his history and— and how he battled through from working class all the way through to the top.
L429Fred Nix: Right.
L430James Tervit: Of course, I follow Ferrari, right, because of him. Um, and I think everybody's a big Ferrari fan in Europe.
L431Fred Nix: Of course. You have to be.
L432James Tervit: Because of the— the status and because of the history. But— but the— the people that run Ferrari are f****** idiots, you know?
L433Fred Nix: Yeah, I've heard that before too. I don't— I don't know much about Formula because it's not really promoted here. We don't hear about it much.
L434James Tervit: No. Now, you'll— you'll— you'll be a NASCAR guy, right?
L435Fred Nix: Ooh. Turn left.
L436James Tervit: Or Indy 500.
L437Fred Nix: Turn left. Listen, turn left. Wee!
L438Fred Nix: There we go. Let's go.
L439Fred Nix: Hurry, hurry.
L440James Tervit: I had the privilege of attending an end-of, um, NASCAR event, uh, where my— my— my family were managing Bon Jovi at the time. This is going back to— s***, when was this? I mean, just call it '98, thereabouts.
L441James Tervit: And Bon Jovi was quite big. I went in, and I just— then it made me realize just how big NASCAR was, you know?
L442Fred Nix: Right.
L443James Tervit: When they had the Edda party and everything there and all the cars and Ernhardt Jr. and stuff. I mean, I had no idea who everybody was. I was getting to meet all these guys and just kind of— just a— just a nice bunch of f****** guys who loved racing cars, you know?
L444James Tervit: But f*** those cars getting moved. They're crazy, man.
L445Fred Nix: Wow. That's cool.
L446James Tervit: What a— what a life I've had, I'll tell you. Um, yeah. Half of— half of it you can't even talk about.
L447Fred Nix: You talk like it's o— you talk like it's over, man. It's— it's— you're in your best.
L448James Tervit: It's cool.
L449Fred Nix: Right now.
L450James Tervit: I— I am, for sure. Uh, but most of the family are dead that ran all that, right? And that's why I kind of talk the way I do, because that period is— because they— those guys were 20 years ahead of me, right?
L451James Tervit: And, um, I don't even know if Herbie is still alive, but— but my uncle who lived in San Francisco, he— he literally set up a, uh, you know, sold a multi-million-dollar company just simply by collecting scaffolding. That's it.
L452James Tervit: He collected scaffolding because they were doing these tours of the journey, and they're like, "F***, what do we do with all this stuff?" And Herbie said, "Just store it.
L453James Tervit: Find a— a warehouse in San Francisco somewhere near the bay, right? Just get one of the big warehouses and just stock it up."
L454Fred Nix: Right, right.
L455James Tervit: He said, "It's going to cost." He said, "I don't worry about it."
L456Fred Nix: Right, right.
L457James Tervit: And so they were driving between offices, and they set up the company. And because of that scaffolding, they were able to put concerts together pre-sales, right? Pre-ticket allocation.
L458James Tervit: So— and they— they had all the planes they could fly, any stuff to anywhere, mostly Texas because you've got the big space and the big diners there, right? Um, yeah, they— they'd set up a concert and do— and so they could fly the artists down, and they would say, "Right, is this kind of the concept you're looking for?
L459James Tervit: We've kind of mocked up the stage so we can make it all modular." And they were the first to do that.
L460James Tervit: So they— they were— they were always hired by the big bands, you know? So Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson, Pink Floyd, uh, would— would work with them sometimes.
L461James Tervit: They got the projection from Pink Floyd because they were big on all the lighting.
L462Fred Nix: Right.
L463James Tervit: So my uncle Pat, to his credit, he actually got the exclusive license of outdoor projection with Barco, believe it or not. And that was back in '78, '77. Nobody was doing outdoor projection back then, right?
L464Fred Nix: Right, right.
L465James Tervit: And that became a big thing. So the Rolling Stones came on because they could do all this projection stuff and—
L466Fred Nix: Oh, that's right.
L467James Tervit: And whatnot. Yeah. So f****** great, man.
L468James Tervit: Anything can happen in America. I love— I love that whole aspect.
L469James Tervit: You can do anything, right?
L470[redacted: private invited group and unreleased tools, lines 470 to 497]
L498James Tervit: Yeah, same here. So because of my background being program director, product manager, SDLC stuff, and all the projects I run on, I did exactly the same. Uh, I— I essentially built up my whole project team, you know, product manager, analyst, and all that stuff.
L499James Tervit: And I do the same. I just run it through before I hit AI anything.
L500James Tervit: I get what I call specification engineering, right? I just get the specification laid down of what it is.
L501James Tervit: Because an idea— people don't really understand. An idea is only an idea unless you can build a design around it, and unless you can visualize that design into something that people want or may want.
L502James Tervit: And how does that work in terms of the operation and then the servicing? And people don't understand the whole lifecycle of that is actually very complex.
L503Fred Nix: Right, right.
L504James Tervit: Um, hence why a lot of startups get great ideas but don't go anywhere.
L505Fred Nix: Right, right, right.
L506James Tervit: So I did the same. It's the only way to survive, right, to try and put stuff down and— and get out. I mean, it's very slow in the way I do it, but at least you get the detail around it.
L507James Tervit: And I'm actually getting into Ash Hart's, um, stuff that he's published, his TensorFold and his living weights. So I got that running last night.
L508[redacted: finance plans, deal figures and politics, lines 508 to 564]
L565James Tervit: Um, because I actually think that, yes, there's a lot of things going around with open source and AI, which I really love because I think we're now— we're at a turning point now where it can actually be as good as Frontier. Because I'm running like 250 transactions a second, 500 transactions a second, whereas last year it was like 50 and 30, and I was lucky to get 20, right? So I'm— I'm seeing that rates go really fast.
L566James Tervit: And then Ash Hart's, uh, concept of the living weights really interests me because I— I follow, uh, you know, Andre— Andre Karpathy— Karpathy, right? Uh, who is very big on wiki and— and structures and so on.
L567Fred Nix: Sure.
L568James Tervit: So— so that kind of makes me think that allows us to try and control our own LLM fairly quickly. And I'm a big Nemotron fan with Nvidia because it's a dumb f****** thing, but you have to tell it what to do, right? Not many people get that.
L569James Tervit: Everybody's so turnkey and f****** shelf software, right? So— so I can see the— I can see the view that at some point we need a Napster-level type of distribution, not a Hugging Face one.
L570James Tervit: So that's where my model is going, right?
L571Fred Nix: Okay, okay.
L572James Tervit: Napster, your Winamp, your MP3 distribution, all that stuff. So— so us guys— us old guys have seen it all before, and it's just. Obviously, we've got more speed, we've got more connectivity, right?
L573James Tervit: And, um, and we've got more tools. And I think most kids don't realize what we went through to actually do not even an ounce of this stuff, right?
L574Fred Nix: Yeah, like changing the pins on the— on the sound blaster card to IRQ-7 so it'll work.
L575James Tervit: Yeah. I— I actually got a break into IBM because I actually knew DMA settings on the token ring cards with actually blue screen older machines.
L576Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah.
L577James Tervit: And when— when I get into, um, I— I realized that not many people understand this s***. You know, most people didn't even know what— what 8 bits were in terms of modems and 8 bits and a byte, right? So, um, I was like, "F***, man.
L578James Tervit: I'm— I get paid to do this, you know?"
L579Fred Nix: Right, right.
L580[redacted: fundraising figures, lines 580 to 593]
L594James Tervit: Correct. 100%. Um, yeah, there's a song for everything that we know about today, right?
L595James Tervit: So I'm a— I'm a big collector. I've got all my original vinyl from back in the day, Fred.
L596James Tervit: I've got 20,000 albums that I collected from.
L597Fred Nix: Wait, wait, wait. You said you had 20,000 albums.
L598James Tervit: Yeah. Vinyl.
L599Fred Nix: Where do you keep them?
L600James Tervit: Uh, in storage at the moment because I'm flying around. But— but I've got my real-to-real stuff, you know, Pioneer RT909, which is completely mint. Um, so I've got all my real-to-real stuff.
L601James Tervit: I've got all my old Hi-Fi stuff.
L602Fred Nix: Sure.
L603James Tervit: So I just keep recapping it and better components come out, right?
L604Fred Nix: That's amazing.
L605James Tervit: So it's awesome.
L606Fred Nix: Well, what's life— what's life like in Singapore? We all, you know, in America, we hear— we hear like you'll get arrested if you chew bubble gum, like that kind of thing.
L607James Tervit: Well, it— it's strict, right? But everybody behaves themself. Um, so you don't get what's going on in the West.
L608James Tervit: So you don't get what's going on in the West, right? What you get is, if you step out of line, you get your f****** bucket.
L609Fred Nix: Right, right.
L610James Tervit: Behave. Um, have the freedom to express yourself, but don't interrupt anybody else. Um, and whilst you're doing so, say your piece.
L611James Tervit: Um, say it openly. But as soon as you start graffiti and violence, you're going to get slammed, right?
L612Fred Nix: Yep, yep.
L613James Tervit: It's not acceptable.
L614Fred Nix: Is it true? Like, you can't even spit on the ground?
L615James Tervit: Like, you'll get a ticket for spitting on the ground? Um, it's not as strict as that. But if— if you do it, you're going to get pulled up and go, "Hey, don't do that," right?
L616James Tervit: And if you don't take the warning, then they will— they will slam you with a— a massive fine.
L617Fred Nix: Right, right.
L618James Tervit: Um, but it is probably the most free society. Like, for example, my wife can go out at 1, 2, 3 in the morning. Not a single person's going to say boo, right?
L619James Tervit: So I lost my phone, right? Some— someone stole my phone off me, and it was back to me within 2 hours.
L620Fred Nix: What's that?
L621James Tervit: What's that? So I lost my phone, right? I thought I'd lost my phone, but someone had stole it.
L622Fred Nix: Okay, okay.
L623James Tervit: But within 2— within me reporting it to the police, it was back in my possession within 2 hours.
L624Fred Nix: Whoa.
L625James Tervit: Yeah. So people don't steal.
L626Fred Nix: Oh, man.
L627James Tervit: Because if you— if you get caught stealing, right, you— you're getting 5 years minimum in prison.
L628Fred Nix: And I get— I bet Singapore prison is not where you want to be.
L629James Tervit: Uh, no. You don't want to be there because you're going from luxury to the pits of depravity. Yeah.
L630Fred Nix: Right.
L631James Tervit: Because they know how to do punishment properly.
L632Fred Nix: So it's also a thing here where we heard, like, you have to wash your car every day or something like that? You have to have a clean car?
L633James Tervit: No, not really. Um, that kind of comes from Japan, where they're only allowed to have 50,000 miles on their car, and then they have to sell it. That's why they've got a massive export thing going on with retro cars.
L634Fred Nix: Well, who can you sell. If you have to sell 50,000 miles?
L635James Tervit: You can't. They just export them worldwide. It's a massive market.
L636James Tervit: People in Europe and people in America, they buy all the old cars from the '90s because they've been lying around because they can't use them. They just send them out.
L637James Tervit: So yeah. So there's a massive industry around that.
L638James Tervit: Yeah. So they're mastered shipping, right?
L639James Tervit: They're mastered shipping cars, for sure.
L640Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah. In America, you'll see, like, beaters that are like.
L641James Tervit: I know.
L642Fred Nix: You know, just barely making it down the road.
L643James Tervit: That's wild. We don't understand that, right?
L644Fred Nix: Now, what— what time is it there?
L645James Tervit: Uh, 8:00 a.m. in the morning.
L646Fred Nix: Oh, okay. So it's early. Uh, it's— it's almost 9:00, 9:00 p.m. here.
L647James Tervit: Yeah. So we're exactly 13 hours.
L648Fred Nix: It's yesterday for me. This is, uh, time travel.
L649James Tervit: It's Saturday. Yeah. It's Sunday morning for me.
L650James Tervit: So right now.
L651Fred Nix: I mean, what a time to be alive, man, that we're— we're, like, literally, literally the other side of the planet and getting to talk to each other.
L652James Tervit: Yeah. It's awesome. So we're exactly 12 hours, Fred.
L653James Tervit: So you must be east, midwest, east.
L654Fred Nix: That's correct.
L655James Tervit: Eastern time. Yeah, yeah. Um, so yeah, it's a short window.
L656James Tervit: It's really hard being out in Southeast Asia trying to get, um, some kind of presence because you realize when you're here just how much America and Europe and the Middle East, to some extent, drives. But mostly America and then Europe, right?
L657James Tervit: It's— and it doesn't surprise me with being there. Once you've been there in the '90s, you— you understand how things move there.
L658James Tervit: It's so freaking fast, right?
L659Fred Nix: Yeah.
L660James Tervit: Um, and I love America for that. I need to bring my wife over to experience the US. She's like, "But isn't it all the same?"
L661James Tervit: I said, "No, you don't know America like I know. We'll— we'll arrive in John F.
L662James Tervit: Kennedy. I'll drive over to Pennsylvania.
L663James Tervit: We'll go around Delaware, so you'll get to see all the little colonial homes and places and stuff, and I'll show you the places that nobody really knows about." Um, and it's not all about Main Street, you know?
L664Fred Nix: That's right, that's right.
L665James Tervit: So she'll— she'll enjoy it. Because I drove all over America that time I was there. I literally drove, again, John F.
L666James Tervit: Kennedy, uh, uh, the Delaware, Ohio. I went up to Michigan.
L667James Tervit: I actually got— my cousin got me tickets to see the Michigan-Ohio college game, which 147,000 people turned up. It's like, "Holy s***."
L668Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah.
L669James Tervit: Yeah, that was a massive game. And then drove all the way down to Kentucky, um, into Nashville to meet up with my family. South Carolina, Lake Murray, and then drove down to Miami in Florida, back up Nashville, and then across to San Diego, then up to San Francisco again to meet the family, then across to Las Vegas, and then that was me.
L670James Tervit: I thought, "Okay, I've done enough." I didn't want to go to Chicago or Minnesota, so I wasn't missing s*** up there.
L671Fred Nix: Yeah. Chicago? I don't like Chicago.
L672Fred Nix: It's not my— not my favorite.
L673James Tervit: Me too. Me too. It just reminded me of my old town, Glasgow, which is just a violent, f*****-up town, you know?
L674Fred Nix: Yeah. Have you been down to, uh, Georgia?
L675James Tervit: Yeah, I went— went through it. Didn't kind of stop over, but kind of got an appreciation. Um, my cousin said to me, "The women are pretty here until they smile."
L676James Tervit: I thought that was funny.
L677Fred Nix: That's funny. That's funny. Yeah, I've— I've lived most of my life here, pretty much.
L678James Tervit: Oh, really?
L679Fred Nix: Yeah. You hear— you hear my Southern accent?
L680James Tervit: I do. Yeah, I love it, man. It's so easy to— actually, for me, it's less painful to listen to than— than the drawl of the Northern accent.
L681James Tervit: I think it f****** kills me.
L682Fred Nix: And it's, uh, it's, uh, the Northern accent is, um, grating. It's like, "Ahhh."
L683James Tervit: It is grating. It's like they draw everything out. It's like— it's like it takes them 2 weeks to f****** say, "Today," you know?
L684Fred Nix: Yeah.
L685James Tervit: "Today!"
L686Fred Nix: Yeah, f****** today.
L687James Tervit: You don't know.
L688Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
L689James Tervit: What the f***? So I— I prefer— I think the reason I like Southern people is because I think a lot of Scottish ancestors definitely parked themselves in that area. And I think the attitude of the people there is just a bit more relaxed and a bit more— a bit more human.
L690Fred Nix: Oh, yeah. My— my ancestry is Scottish-Wales.
L691James Tervit: Yeah, see? Yeah. Yeah.
L692James Tervit: There you go.
L693Fred Nix: So I'm Scottish. I mean, like, way, way, way, way, way back, but that's where I am.
L694James Tervit: I mean, I preferred it. When I went down to Nashville and then I went around that area, like Lake Murray, South Carolina, I just found a different America, big time. And I could see all the big money people from California were moving there to buy their houses up in the '90s, right?
L695Fred Nix: Yeah.
L696James Tervit: And I thought, "I can see why," because they're away from the— the rat race, you know?
L697Fred Nix: Right, right. That's cool. Well, what are you doing this— what are you doing today since it just began?
L698Fred Nix: What's on your schedule?
L699[redacted: business and funding plans, lines 699 to 715]
L716James Tervit: Trying to be more efficient. Yeah.
L717Fred Nix: Yeah. Melanox does a lot of stuff.
L718James Tervit: Really?
L719Fred Nix: And really very few people even know who they are.
L720James Tervit: They have no idea.
L721Fred Nix: Yeah.
L722James Tervit: If it wasn't for them, Nvidia wouldn't be where they are today because that's—
L723Fred Nix: Really?
L724James Tervit: It's all Melanox. Because all— because they were a massive think tank, right? So all the forensics, uh, all the Triton stuff for Nvidia came out of Melanox.
L725James Tervit: Um, all the efficiencies in terms of the Ethernet and, uh, stuff that they did all came out of Melanox, all of it.
L726Fred Nix: Right, right.
L727James Tervit: So Nvidia was just a GPU gaming company until they realized they had to get involved with all these other things, and AI started to become a— a thing with them. I think Nvidia are a funny company. They're hilarious with—
L728Fred Nix: Yeah.
L729James Tervit: I mean, Jensen Wong is really good at selling any old s***, you know?
L730Fred Nix: Yeah, no doubt. He's good at that. And it's interesting how, um, they've got the whole money ring set up where, like, Nvidia gives money to Anthropic, and then Anthropic gives money to, uh, Starlink, and then Starlink gives money to Nvidia.
L731Fred Nix: It's like just the same money going around and around and around.
L732James Tervit: Yeah. I think it's protectionism because they know how high risk the development of trying to push this tech. Um, and I think Elon's very switched on.
L733James Tervit: Um, I'm— I'm trying to teach a lot of corporates, "You need to start getting— you need to stop waiting for data centers. You need to start getting your stuff into shipping container type, um, uh, like your tiny box type approach, right?
L734James Tervit: You— you need to get that done." Why?
L735James Tervit: Because before data center comes on, Elon's going to have space data centers. And if you don't have a containerized, literally a container van of data center ready to go, you're going to miss the boat.
L736James Tervit: In fact, you'll be acquired and you're— you're finished. You're f****** yesterday's news, you know?
L737James Tervit: And they're like, "We don't— we don't think it's going to be like that. That's your f****** problem.
L738James Tervit: You don't need to think. It's going to happen," you know?
L739Fred Nix: That's right. It's amazing how quickly the space data center came on and, like, became an idea and then just, like, instantly almost a thing. Like, he'll have something up there by the end of the year, I think.
L740James Tervit: Well, I call Elon's a Bill Gates type of guy, right? Um, I mean, Bill Gates got his money from reselling DOS, effectively, and then being in the right places.
L741Fred Nix: I'm stealing it from IBM first.
L742James Tervit: It's still f****** everything. Yeah. Everything.
L743James Tervit: I mean, give me a break. I mean, when they came out with 32-bit, uh, NT, Windows NT, right?
L744James Tervit: That's— I don't know if you know this, Fred, but Windows NT is essentially one letter after VMS. That's how they got the name because they put VMS as that's their operating system, right?
L745James Tervit: Because I realized user manager on VMS is exactly the same on NT. It's that f****** took VMS and turned it into a Windows platform.
L746Fred Nix: Yeah.
L747James Tervit: So— and then the hardware abstraction layer. So I was on the OS/2 team way back in the day, right? And the hardware abstraction layer is a pissed-ick on IBM because they stole the OS/2 abstraction layer and turned it into Windows NT.
L748James Tervit: And when you open up the boots, they call it the hardware abstraction layer of Windows NT, and that's a pissed-ick on IBM because it's hell. H-I-A-B-L-M, right?
L749James Tervit: I thought, "You f****** pricks, man. How did they get away with this?"
L750[redacted: unverified claim, health and family, lines 750 to 800]
L801James Tervit: Yeah, misguided. Yeah. And he was like, "Yeah, you're right."
L802James Tervit: So now he's like— he's what? He's what?
L803James Tervit: 21? He's like, "Yeah."
L804James Tervit: He said, "Everyone's f***** up around me." I said, "I told you."
L805Fred Nix: Right, right.
L806James Tervit: Just be yourself and be your own person and be kind to everyone, right? Because everyone's— not everyone's got the privilege to be nice, you know? Um.
L807Fred Nix: It's so formula.
L808James Tervit: Yeah, it is. It's— it's not rocket science. It's just— just go and explore and do what you want to do.
L809James Tervit: Hey, when they were growing up, "Do you want me to be an engineer?" I said, "No, I want you to be who you are."
L810Fred Nix: There you go.
L811James Tervit: Just find out what you want. What makes you— what is going to make you really excited?
L812Fred Nix: Right, right.
L813James Tervit: I don't know. I said, "Well, if you don't know, don't ask me because I ain't going to influence you," right?
L814Fred Nix: Right, right.
L815James Tervit: You can see around you, you're exposed. I bought you the best computers. You've got the best phones and got it all available to you.
L816James Tervit: So it's up to you what you want to do, you know?
L817Fred Nix: Right, right.
L818James Tervit: Go play football, get a career in computers. Whatever you do, don't f****** get a psychology degree or— or get an English degree or— it's f****** useless. Get something useful, right?
L819Fred Nix: That's right, right.
L820James Tervit: Get a skill. Get something you can apply to— I don't know what I'm going to do. I said, "Just pick something that's transferable," right?
L821James Tervit: What does that mean? Well, you can be a doctor because doctors are going to be around for a while.
L822Fred Nix: Right, right.
L823James Tervit: Um, okay, you want to be a psychologist and you can listen to all the f***** up people, you'll end up becoming a cabbage yourself, right?
L824Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah.
L825James Tervit: Um, but do something that creates something in life. Do something that can maybe help people in life. So my oldest kid, he went to computers and he thinks he's better than me now.
L826James Tervit: And I was like, "That's great. Yeah, you are better than me.
L827James Tervit: And I hope you're better than me. And I hope you go do better things than me."
L828James Tervit: And then he just realized I put up at jamestervit.com. So he went in.
L829James Tervit: He's like, "Oh, f***. Wow.
L830James Tervit: Long way to go, kid."
L831Fred Nix: That's right.
L832James Tervit: Yeah.
L833Fred Nix: That's old guys.
L834James Tervit: So, Fred, what's the magic with X? Because it seems like some people seem to get traction. Um, some people don't.
L835James Tervit: I mean, I've got 700 people there, right, without even really trying to figure this out. But there's a knack to it somehow.
L836James Tervit: And I think what I'm seeing— what most people get traction on is, um, a bit of b*******, right? It's kind of like the media.
L837James Tervit: If you put a bit of b******* out there, people jump on it. But there's a kind of knack to how you get people to— because I'm invisible right now.
L838James Tervit: No matter what I put out there, it's just invisible. And I'm thinking, is it just a matter of finding something that gets a run or what is it?
L839Fred Nix: I wish I could tell you, man. I don't— I don't know myself. Um, I've been using, uh, Twitter back to— I think I was 2013 when I joined.
L840Fred Nix: So it's been a minute.
L841James Tervit: Very early, yeah.
L842Fred Nix: Um, and early in my career, I worked at Dell, which you got on your shirt there. Um, ran a small group of about 5,000 people there that were, uh, virtualization specialists. And, um, I don't know, I was lucky enough to add on a couple of thousand followers when I did that.
L843Fred Nix: And, um, I don't know. Right now, I'm running at about a clip of about 150 new followers a week, something like that.
L844James Tervit: Wow. That's a lot. Yeah, because they'll match you.
L845James Tervit: You must have got a run when the OMRT thing kicked off, right?
L846Fred Nix: Totally. Totally. And I jumped on it.
L847Fred Nix: Um, you know, it's not building a fellowship or whatever on X is not really my goal. Like, that's not the goal.
L848James Tervit: No.
L849Fred Nix: My goal really is to reach out to people. And, like, I'm meeting with people like you and I and, like, you met with Lee. And it makes me super happy.
L850Fred Nix: Like, uh, Portia was meeting with Lee and you and, like, all these people are starting to— to do these Zoom meetings. And, uh, X traditionally was like, you know, danger.
L851Fred Nix: Don't talk to people. Like, stay away.
L852Fred Nix: And within the Omarchi community, uh, I've talked to David, uh, DHH a little bit about it. And, you know, the goal is that we're always helpful, always in a good mood, always positive.
L853Fred Nix: You know, just keep those kind of tones. And, you know, it's, uh, I find that just being honest and asking sincere questions and— and truly being, like, uh, you know, sincere about your interest in other people.
L854Fred Nix: And I think when you do that, people— people gravitate towards that because the fake, you know, the fake attention and all that stuff is— people can smell it a mile away now. And— and it's irritating.
L855Fred Nix: And so, you know, just be sincere and be yourself and kind of— kind of— kind of how it works.
L856James Tervit: That's easy because I've always been that way, right?
L857Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah. I can tell. I can tell.
L858James Tervit: I love it because I always say to people, like, if you're sincere, you'll jump on a call and you'll get your cam on and, "Oh, no, I don't do that. Well, well, okay. If you don't do that, I don't do you."
L859James Tervit: So I'm off, right? Because I don't know who the f*** you are, right?
L860James Tervit: So, um, and why— why do you want to be anonymous? What are you hiding, you know?
L861James Tervit: What's going on? What's your intent, right?
L862James Tervit: So trained GE psychology. So I kind of figure people out fairly, fairly quick.
L863[redacted: private disclosure story, lines 863 to 904]
L905James Tervit: Well, I've got— I've got a really good one as well, Fred, because we're the same, right? So I get involved with this planning company and they invited me into government meetings about the future of planning. And knowing what we know, right?
L906Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah.
L907James Tervit: I'm sitting there listening. So I've got two things when I go into meeting people. I listen and I'm— I'm waiting to hear the smart people and I'm trying to understand what they're agreeing and I'm trying to figure out the direction and trajectory of what they're trying to do.
L908James Tervit: And I couldn't actually tick any of those three off and it was a mess, right? It was all over the place and it was all egos and everybody knew this and the professor of this knows that.
L909James Tervit: And I'm— I'm sitting going, "They haven't a f****** clue," right? So I said to my people, they said, "Why— why didn't you jump in and stop talking?"
L910James Tervit: I said, "Because I have a standard to keep."
L911Fred Nix: Right, right.
L912James Tervit: Those people are all over the place. They have no idea what's coming with what I'm about to do.
L913Fred Nix: True story.
L914James Tervit: And— and— and she— and they said, "Well, what are you about to do?" I said, "Well, whilst, uh, I've been working out your— your environment, I've worked out an API for every single regional council in the UK because they've got old websites out there. I've decided I'm going to develop my own API and aggregate all the data.
L915James Tervit: And we have all our data in the office already set up." They said, "What the f***?"
L916James Tervit: I was like, "Yeah, this is what we do as old guys, you know, us old school guys. We just f****** invent s*** for ourselves because we can't be bothered to listen to the f****** noise," right?
L917James Tervit: So I built this spatial interface. So I took all the data and I— and I took, um, uh, Cesium, which is a really good engine, right?
L918James Tervit: And I mapped out every single planning application that had been rejected, that had been approved. And I mapped it into every location in the UK.
L919James Tervit: So when you search for a planning application, it takes you to the exact spot of where that application relates to. So now I've aggregated millions of records.
L920Fred Nix: Right, right.
L921James Tervit: Now, instead of them going to every single different website across each of the regional organizations, instead of taking 14 clicks to find something, it now takes you one click, right? Um, and they fell off their seat. I said, "This is the future, guys.
L922James Tervit: This is the simple stuff that I'm showing you," right?
L923Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah.
L924James Tervit: They're like, "What the f***?" They're like, "Can you find this for me?" I said, "Yeah, bang, there it is."
L925Fred Nix: Boom, boom.
L926[redacted: grant, government deal and figures, lines 926 to 962]
L963Fred Nix: Right, right.
L964James Tervit: So that's where we are. And yeah, it's an exciting time. And so— so I— I did exactly what you did.
L965James Tervit: I just built s***, right?
L966Fred Nix: Right, right.
L967James Tervit: Um, that's what— that's what we do. Yeah. Um, that's what Linus Torvalds says in the beginning, you know, "Just f****** do it.
L968James Tervit: Just build it." And Elon said, "Just build s***," you know?
L969Fred Nix: Yeah.
L970James Tervit: Half the thing in the world is taking an idea into engineering because the engineering is really f****** hard to get out, you know?
L971Fred Nix: Yeah.
L972James Tervit: So he's right.
L973Fred Nix: Turns out you can just do stuff.
L974James Tervit: Oh, who said that? Um, oh, that's such a great phrase. I love— I love Calvin Coolidge, one of your famous American presidents, um, about, um, there's more derelicts in education than anywhere else in the world.
L975James Tervit: An unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. But I live and I live and die by those rules, you know?
L976Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah.
L977James Tervit: So, you know, it's just awesome.
L978Fred Nix: My dog wants to poop.
L979James Tervit: Yeah, yeah. It's— it's his time, huh?
L980Fred Nix: Wow, it's been an hour and a half, man. That's a— I mean, it's like I've been talking— talking five and a half minutes.
L981James Tervit: I know. It's f******— it's— I know. It's just how it goes, man.
L982James Tervit: When— when it goes so good. And it's because we— we come from the same background, though, right?
L983Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah.
L984James Tervit: Come from the same background. But I'll let you go, Fred. But if there's anything I can— I can work with you on or anything I can do, I'm there, man.
L985James Tervit: I'm— you can see my nature, right? I help leads.
L986Fred Nix: I see that. I see that.
L987James Tervit: I think he's a good guy.
L988Fred Nix: Well, um, let's just keep in touch. Uh, I'm going to start, um, well, I— I think— do you know about the Marchi space on Sundays? But that's at 3:00 a.m. for you.
L989Fred Nix: That's tough. Yeah.
L990James Tervit: But I'm going to try and make it this one, right?
L991Fred Nix: Wow.
L992James Tervit: I'll try and get to it. So if— if— is— is it actually advertised on your X as a schedule? So I can click, right?
L993James Tervit: I'll— I'll get on there and I'll just click and I'll come on today.
L994Fred Nix: I'll make sure— I'll— I'll reach out and make sure that I— that I— especially if you're going to get up at 3:00 a.m. And if you do, um, let's get you promoted up to a speaker and have you talk to everybody and tell your story.
L995James Tervit: Yeah. I— I think sometimes I'm not that interested, but I like to listen to people more. But I'm happy to come in and just talk, man, about some of the spatial stuff I'm doing.
L996James Tervit: I mean, I took— I mean, Fred, I— I took four photographs from my planning team and built a whole 3D model around it. I'm like, "What the f*** is going on with this tech?"
L997Fred Nix: I know.
L998James Tervit: I can't believe you. I mean, it— it'd take a team back in the day to do that. It'd take six months, a year to do that, you know?
L999Fred Nix: Yeah.
L1000James Tervit: F***.
L1001Fred Nix: Yeah, yeah.
L1002James Tervit: Anyway.
L1003Fred Nix: Well, hey, let me ask you this. Um, do you mind— do you mind, uh, if I take a screenshot of our conversation? And do you mind if I—
L1004James Tervit: No, please.
L1005Fred Nix: Is there anything?
L1006James Tervit: Let me get— see if I can get some light on my face because it's so dark here right now. I can't get any light in. Hold on.
L1007James Tervit: Let me get— let me get—
L1008Fred Nix: No, no. I'm going to just kind of— I'm going to post a summary of just kind of what we talked about, if that's okay.
L1009James Tervit: Let me see if I can get the light. Where's it coming in? Is it coming in?
L1010Fred Nix: That's better. Much better.
L1011James Tervit: They shouldn't get to see my face, right? Because I'm—
L1012Fred Nix: Yeah. All right. Here we go.
L1013Fred Nix: One, two, three. All right.
L1014Fred Nix: Cool. I got that one.
L1015James Tervit: Awesome.
L1016Fred Nix: That's awesome.
L1017James Tervit: And it's— it's a pleasure to meet you, Fred.
L1018Fred Nix: Yeah, you too, brother. I'll— I'll tag you. And, uh, this isn't the end of the game again.
L1019Fred Nix: Let's— let's get to know each other.
L1020James Tervit: I think there's some good stuff that's really going to come out between what DHH has done. He's revived the whole, um, thing about community, right? And it's only good.
L1021[redacted: politics, lines 1021 to 1024]
L1025Fred Nix: Love you, man. Have a good afternoon.
L1026James Tervit: Take care, man. God bless, Fred. Thanks for your time.
L1027Fred Nix: Thank you. Later. Later.