The Pod Sage

Dave Jones, collected

Recommendations & Tips

What Dave recommended or warned about: products, tools, software, food and health, and life tips.

114 entries · 1–40 on this page

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Products

Hardware and physical things he talked about using or skipping.

Pit Boss smoker: best bang for the buck

ProductsPit Boss pellet smoker

Talking smokers, Dave calls the Pit Boss the best bang for the buck. There are more expensive smokers, but the Pit Boss has a lever feature the others lack.

pit boss, I almost spent like the pit boss is the best bang for the buck because there's many more expensive smokers like the,

Episode 208: The Booby Trap 00:06:51

Voice-matched

Not in the audio. 'Pellet smoker' is inferred from context (smoker talk and the competitors mentioned); Dave says only 'pit boss'. He describes the lever feature only partially here, and it's believed to be a flame-broiler/sear slide.

Audio-Technica ATH-M20x: good headphones for about $50

ProductsAudio-Technica ATH-M20x headphones

Dave has owned Audio-Technica ATH-M20x headphones, says they're really nice, and points out they cost only about 50 bucks, a cheap way to monitor your podcast audio.

Technica, I've had a pair of the at H, M 20 x's, and they're really nice. Here. I have headphones, and they're only 50 bucks.

Episode 190: Chattelle 00:10:04

Speaker-labeled

Heavy audiobook listening

ProductsAudiobooks (Audible)

Dave calls himself a heavy Audible user. At one point he finished about four audiobooks in a couple of weeks and was listening to more audiobooks than podcasts.

I listened to tons of audiobooks like the last couple of weeks, I've listened have completed probably for audiobooks. My my heavy audible user

Episode 176: Angel Number 01:24:33

Speaker-labeled

A cheap 3000-series card is enough for local AI

ProductsNVIDIA RTX 3050 (3000-series GPU)

To run a language model locally, you don't need a powerful GPU. Dave says a roughly $200 NVIDIA 3050, or any 3000-series card, is enough.

Get a 3050 It's not a powerful card, but you don't need much you'll all you need is is eight, you need a 3000 series card. And you need which 3050 is like $200

Episode 168: Frog Giggin' 00:01:24

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. Context is running a local LLM trained on the podcast namespace. 'Eight' presumably means 8 GB of VRAM. The price is Dave's estimate at the time.

Use copper foil tape to kill USB noise near XLR

ProductsCopper foil tape

His USB-C cable kept resting on the RodeCaster's XLR jack and adding hiss. Dave stuck copper foil tape (the kind he uses to shield guitar electronics cavities) between them, and the noise went away.

wanting to always go back and rest on top of the XLR jack. So I just put some copper foil there. I feel like we're in good shape. I know I don't hear any hizzy

Episode 161: Cooking with Sterno 00:02:06

Speaker-labeled

1 other mention

Put your podcast gear on a UPS

ProductsUPS battery backup

Dave rearranged his podcast room around a newly acquired UPS battery backup unit (but would de-solder the beeper if it nagged him).

the reason I rearranged because I finally got a UPS battery backup unit.

Episode 158: Thingamajigger 01:32:35

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. Dave reports buying one and being pleased; he doesn't explicitly tell listeners to buy one.

Get a decent microphone

ProductsA decent microphone and audio interface

People who represent podcast advertising agencies often sound like they're in a can. Microphones aren't expensive; anyone in that job should get a decent mic and audio interface on day one.

You sound horrible. Like, I don't understand how they let that out. Microphones are not expensive. You should be handed a decent microphone and audio interface is the day that you sign up for this job.

Episode 157: BEP5 00:11:05

Speaker-labeled

The Light Phone: buy a lifestyle, not a phone

ProductsLight Phone

Dave uses the minimalist Light Phone 99.9% of the time and keeps a smartphone only as backup. The point is the lifestyle it pushes you into.

I'm LifeFone 99.9% of the time. Yeah, me too. It's nice because if I have to walk the dog or something, I'll I'll grab. I'll grab the light phone

Episode 133: It's a Lifestyle! 01:37:58

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. 'LifeFone' is a transcription of 'Light Phone'.

3 other mentions

Don't use a Raspberry Pi as your main desktop

ProductsRaspberry Pi as a desktop (avoid)

Dave thinks people using Raspberry Pis as their main desktop are nuts. Adam's alternative in the same exchange: for similar money, a small Beelink mini PC running Ubuntu is more powerful.

People using these Raspberry Pi's as like their main desktop, you people are nuts, just don't do this.

Episode 132: Felt-Manhood 00:03:24

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. The Beelink/Ubuntu suggestion is Adam's line just before Dave's, not Dave's own words.

1 other mention

A five-year-old Lenovo is still a great machine

ProductsUsed Lenovo ThinkPad (e.g. T15) from eBay

For a cheap laptop to give someone, it doesn't have to be new: a five-year-old Lenovo like the T15 is still great and can be found on eBay for around $75.

like like a like a Lenovo like a five year old Lenovo T 15 which is still a great machine. You can find those on eBay for like painty 75 bucks

Episode 130: For All The Drummers 01:29:49

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. 'painty 75 bucks' is a garbled price (likely 'seventy-five' or 'sixty, seventy-five'). He says 'T 15'; the exact model is as transcribed.

Tools

Specific tools, settings, and ways of working.

Every agent prompt is a roll of the dice, so jail your agents

ToolsRun AI agents in an isolated VM (network and filesystem jail)

With an agent harness that has no guardrails (like Pi), every time you hit Enter you're rolling the dice if it can roam your file system and reach your keys. Dave's plan is to isolate agents in a VM that's network- and filesystem-jailed, physically segregated from the host.

Meaning, especially with something like Pi, that really just does not have any guardrails whatsoever. Anytime you hit the inner key... you're kind of rolling the dice.

Episode 269: Verbal Pollution 01:07:43

Voice-matched

2 other mentions

Dave's bare-minimum SSH hardening

ToolsSSH hardening baseline (keys only, no root, UFW allowlist, Tailscale)

After Adam's server was compromised, Dave lays out his standard protocol for anyone running Linux servers: disable root login, password login and keyboard-interactive login; move SSH off port 22; allow only public-key authentication; and go further by restricting the SSH port with UFW to specific IPs. With Tailscale and his home CIDR block, the restriction is less of a pain on the road.

need to disable root login, disable password login, disable interactive keyboard login. Only put your SSH server on a different port than 22. Then make, and then enable only key pair authentication, public key authentication.

Episode 236: No Nancy Here 00:09:17

Voice-matched

Get less 'AI-looking' Midjourney images by prompting like a photo site

ToolsMidjourney prompt trick: name a real camera

To avoid typical Midjourney fluff, remember the model learned from internet content, so prompt the way a photo site would describe a picture, e.g. 'a picture taken with a Nikon camera'. That pulls toward real-photo styles. Dave used this for his audiobook cover art.

you first you have to know that everything that is getting all of its content from the internet, yeah, so then you think like you would with an internet site, so you can say things like a picture taken with a Nikon camera, right?

Episode 195: Grep Pipe 01:17:38

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1 other mention

Catch every feed update (Podping or not) with the Index tracking endpoint

Toolstracking.podcastindex.org/current

For apps that keep their own feed database: besides watching Podping, watch the Podcast Index tracking endpoint at tracking.podcastindex.org/current, which also covers feeds that don't use Podping. Fetch current, then follow the 'previous' links back until you reach the last one you checked, and you'll have seen everything the Index has seen. It's a static file in object storage, cached at Cloudflare.

Or even better, first to encompass feeds that don't have pod pain as well. You can watch our tracking endpoint also. So you, you watch into sort of two fire hoses there, because we publish if you go to tracking dot podcast index.org/current

Episode 188: Nothing Doodle 00:51:08

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. The walk-back method and storage details come from Dave's turns at 00:53:44 and 00:54:16.

Hungry dynamic mics need a real preamp

ToolsEnough preamp gain for dynamic mics (RE320 / SM7B; Cloudlifter or a device with strong built-in preamps)

Reacting to Adam's demo of Fernando's PodMobile device, which has strong built-in preamps, Dave noted that dynamic mics like the Electro-Voice RE320 (and even more the Shure SM7B) are 'hungry'. Without a decent preamp or a Cloudlifter, they suffer.

Well, I mean the RA 320 is a hungry mind too. It needs a lot of pre does. Yeah. And I don't think it's as much as the SM seven V but it's pretty close.

Episode 182: Drop the Dongle 00:42:46

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. 'RA 320' = Electro-Voice RE320, 'SM seven V' = Shure SM7B; the device demoed was Fernando's PodMobile (named by Adam).

1 other mention

When a USB-C dock acts up, reboot the dock, not the PC

ToolsPower-cycle the USB-C/Thunderbolt dock

Modern USB-C/Thunderbolt docks route USB 1, 2 and 3, video and power over a few pins, and the number of things that can go wrong is limitless. Some faults (multi-monitor issues, mic buzz) can't be fixed from the computer at all. You have to reboot the dock itself.

So there are things that can happen with with these. Where, where nothing you do on the computer For itself actually, we'll fix it. You have to reboot the doc because the doc is acting, it's acting.

Episode 180: Serial Churn 00:04:51

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. Context is a Lenovo USB-C dock support bulletin from Dave's day job.

Test your app's live support against a 24/7 test stream

ToolsDovydas's 24/7 live test stream

Dovydas runs a 24/7 live stream test feed that switches value blocks every minute or so. Dave tells app developers adding live streams, with or without value blocks, to hook into it and sandbox their app.

So if anybody's wanting to support live streams with value blocks, or I mean, or just live streams in general, with your podcast app, yeah. Go hook into WDS as live stream. And that way you can, you know, sandbox, your app.

Episode 179: Swiss Army App 01:48:34

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. 'Dobby Das' / 'WDS' in the transcript are Dovydas (a Podcasting 2.0 developer). The 'switching blocks every minute' detail comes from Adam's line.

Beware 'denial of wallet' attacks on S3 buckets

ToolsWatch your object-storage bill for 'denial of wallet'

A newer class of attack: AWS charges for object-storage PUT operations even when they fail, so anyone can flood your bucket with failed PUTs, even a private bucket, and rack up thousands of dollars. Dave advises keeping it in mind and watching your bill. If you're targeted, you may have to ask Amazon to waive the charges.

you still get charged for puts for AWS Object Object Storage put operations even if they fail. So basically some use somebody can just flood a bucket of yours with failed puts and rack up 1000s of dollars in charges

Episode 179: Swiss Army App 00:48:45

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. This reflects AWS billing behaviour as Dave described it in 2024. AWS has since said it changed S3 billing for unauthorized requests; check current terms.

Go quiet on writes before migrating a database VM

ToolsStop all writers before a VM migration

Before triggering Linode's live migration of the Podcast Index's main database VM, the busiest and heaviest-writing machine, Dave shut down all the aggregators and the Podping watcher so there was radio silence on writes, then let the migration run.

just shut down. All the aggregators shut down the pod paying watcher, all that kind of stuff. And like, okay, radio silence on the rights. And then wait and hope and just cross your fingers.

Episode 169: Wifi & Web Apps 00:07:01

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. The transcript has 'rights'; context makes clear he means database writes.

Read the fine print on 'no egress fees' storage

Tools'No egress fee' object storage (e.g. Wasabi)

Storage providers advertising no egress fees (Wasabi came up) still have limits: go over a certain amount of egress per month and you get a phone call telling you they don't want you anymore. The Index instead runs Cloudflare in front of Linode.

no egress fees. But then, as soon as you get over a certain amount of gigabits of egress per month, you get a phone call. And they the phone call is we don't like you anymore.

Episode 163: Storage Power 00:46:45

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Flip it around: use YouTube as a free host

ToolsYouTube as a free host (via alternate enclosure)

Instead of feeding YouTube, podcasters could reference their YouTube videos as alternate enclosures in their own RSS feed, the way people once used SoundCloud and archive.org. Dave thinks it's worth testing.

I think it's worth I think it's worth looking at it because it'd be flip it around. us use the use the free host. Hey, why not?

Episode 157: BEP5 01:00:58

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. Proposed idea Dave wanted to test, not a proven practice.

1 other mention

Consider a feed mirror for host-independence, but choose carefully

ToolsFeed mirror / redirect service

Dave likes feed-mirror services because they add a layer of indirection: you can change hosts a hundred times without updating any directories. The risk is the mirror service shutting down, so pick a company that's been around a long time.

Because then it sort of gets an indirection like you can change hosts 100 times and you never have to actually update any directories right

Episode 156: Model Drift 00:28:33

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1 other mention

App devs: just watch the Podping firehose

ToolsPodping (instead of polling/API)

Dave tells app developers who only need update notifications to skip the API and watch Podping. A $5 Linode can run a push-notification server for an app.

if that's all your need, then the API for you don't need the API, just use piping. And everybody sees the feed.

Episode 149: Scrape my JSON 00:25:57

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2 other mentions

Turn log rotation back on and monitor disk space

ToolsLog rotation + disk space checks

The Podcast Index API timed out because Dave had turned off log rotation on the front-end servers while troubleshooting and never turned it back on; logs filled the disks. He'd long meant to add a disk-space checker. Lesson: restore temporary changes and monitor disk space.

I had turned off the log rotation in order because I was troubleshooting a problem. And I just didn't turn it back on. Now, this thing's growing. You know, exponentially daily.

Episode 149: Scrape my JSON 00:09:30

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1 other mention

Use object storage, not cloud block storage, for bulk files

ToolsObject storage (vs. VM block storage)

Object storage is cheap; block storage attached to cloud virtual machines is expensive. Anyone hosting media (e.g. IPFS nodes) has to plan for the monthly cost.

Object storage is cheap block storage, which is what this is, is not Yeah, exactly. On a VM, you know, block storage on a cloud cloud providers just in their virtual machines. Those are expensive.

Episode 144: Velocity 01:24:17

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Windows users: disable Fast Startup

ToolsWindows Fast Startup (disable)

Dave's public service announcement: at his day job, a wave of hard-to-pin-down Windows problems (memory leaks, weird printer behavior) was almost always fixed by disabling Fast Startup in the power options ('Choose what the power buttons do').

The public service announcement is if you run Windows, disable, you will be doing yourself a favor to disable fast startup. Oh, in the power options.

Episode 134: ChapterGPT 02:33:08

Speaker-labeled

1 other mention

Doing taxes for a lightning node isn't hard

ToolsThunderHub CSV exports for lightning node taxes

Dave exports the year's six CSV reports from ThunderHub (on-chain fees/receives/sends; lightning forwards/payments/invoices), drops channel-open on-chain sends, sums income and expenses in a spreadsheet (fiat values included), and sends it to the accountant.

what I do is I go into, I go into thunder hub, and just export everything for the year there's there's basically six files you get in there split up into on chain, and lightning.

Episode 126: Podcasting Power Rangers 01:37:41

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Food & health

Food, health, and household habits.

Dave's beef protein milkshake recipe

Food & healthBeef protein milkshake (Equip Foods beef protein + whey isolate + milk; later creatine)

Dave's signature drink, made in a blender: three ice cubes, a cup of milk, a scoop of whey protein isolate and a scoop of Equip Foods grass-fed hydrolyzed beef protein (chocolate; 'a little pricey, but high quality'). Later versions add creatine and high-protein, low-sugar milk. He says chocolate works and vanilla doesn't.

It is the it is three ice cubes. This is in a blender. Three Ice cubes. A cup of milk. A scoop of whey protein isolate, and a scoop of equipped foods. grass fed beef protein hydrolyzed beef protein from equip foods.com That is that is the recipe.

Episode 171: Misaligned Expectations 01:21:04

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. Brand spelled 'equipped foods'/'equip foods.com' in transcript; product line name (e.g. 'Prime') is never said. Milk is 'a cup of milk' (ep171) and 'high protein, low sugar milk' (ep194); whole milk is never mentioned.

10 other mentions

Give a cold a week, then see the doctor

Food & healthSeven-day rule for colds

Dave's personal strategy when sick: give it a week, and if he isn't getting better by day seven, go see his ENT (it usually turns out to be a bacterial sinus infection).

So I go to the I go to the end. User, here's my typical. Here's my typical strategy. So I'll give it a week. And then if I'm not getting better by day seven,

Episode 153: Chapter HO 00:01:39

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. "the end" is a transcription of "the ENT" (ear, nose and throat doctor). Personal habit, not medical advice.

Eat mostly what your ancestors ate

Food & healthAncestral diet

Dave's admittedly unscientific theory: look at your heritage, ask what your ancestors ate, and make that the bulk of your diet.

I have this theory that if you look at your heritage, and you say, Okay, what did my ancestors eat? That's probably what you should mostly be eating.

Episode 146: Ad-a-Lytics 00:04:33

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. Dave explicitly calls this theory completely unscientific with no basis; it is a personal belief, not medical advice.

Smoke your own meat

Food & healthSmoking meat at home (ribs, Boston butts; Meat Church seasoning)

Dave has a smoker (a friend's hand-me-down) and smokes baby back ribs and Boston butts. He name-checked Meat Church, the BBQ seasoning brand.

I got a buddy of mine gave me a smoker gave me his old smoker a couple nine a couple of weeks. Now you're talking and South preps and some baby back ribs before the show with Do you know meet church

Episode 134: ChapterGPT 00:03:47

Speaker-labeled

Not in the audio. 'meet church' assumed to be Meat Church (BBQ seasoning brand).

1 other mention

Software

Software, hosts, apps, and services.

Run Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B locally in OpenCode

SoftwareQwen3.6-35B-A3B (local) in OpenCode

Dave urges Adam to try the Qwen 3.6 35B A3B mixture-of-experts model running locally in the OpenCode agent. It's very good and so fast that output arrives almost before you hit Enter.

model okay use on open code run it locally and run it on open code it is really real Awesome. And it's so fast.

Episode 258: Perceptron 01:38:09

Voice-matched

Not in the audio. 'Quinn' in the transcript is Qwen (Alibaba). The model name is spoken in a lone Dave cue and an adjacent Unknown cue just before the quote. Context confirms Dave: he's urging Adam to 'try' it, and Dave uses this model on his DGX Spark in other episodes.

NixOS: your whole system in one config file

SoftwareNixOS

Dave explains why he's moving toward Nix. Everything in the system (packages, options, static IPs) lives in one configuration file. A rebuild script makes it so, and software is built with its libraries included, so there are no library conflicts. Once you have a system you're happy with, you can replicate the box elsewhere with basically no effort.

Every everything, like literally everything in the system is controlled with this one configuration file.

Episode 254: Pop a TTermy! 00:29:57

Voice-matched

1 other mention

Put `timeout` in front of commands so runaway jobs get killed

SoftwareLinux timeout command

For runaway processes, Dave points Adam to the standard `timeout` command: put it in front of a command, and if the command runs longer than the time you set, it gets killed. It's handy for cron jobs you don't want accidentally doubling up.

You can put that in front of a command, and so if it exceeds a specific time, it'll kill it.

Episode 253: Dirty Fix 00:03:41

Voice-matched

Not in the audio. The name 'timeout' is in the Unknown cue just before the quote, and the cron-job remark is also in an Unknown cue. This is before the guest joins (around 00:36), so the conversation is just Dave and Adam.

Gemma 3 12B: a small local model that's great for text extraction

SoftwareGemma 3 12B (local model)

If all you need is to interpret text, Dave says the smaller models do great. Gemma 3 12B was the one that worked for his invoice-extraction pipeline after trying ten models. It fits easily in a 24 GB RAM system, runs locally, and processes a page of text in about three seconds.

If all you need is to interpret some text, the smaller models will do great. They're just fine. And they'll fit in a 24 gig Ram system easily. And so if you just need a small model, something like Gemma three, 12 B is a very good model.

Episode 252: Joy Robber 01:17:29

Voice-matched

Read feeds as a river, not an inbox

SoftwareRiver-of-news feed reading

Dave favors the 'news river' approach from Freedom Controller over the inbox-reader model. Instead of unread items you have to mark as read, you get a first-in, first-out stream. Only the few feeds you don't want to miss stick to the top until you dismiss them.

we took a news river approach, not an inbox reader approach. You didn't have unread items that you had to look at right and again then go through and mark as Mark as read. What you just had is you just had a stream of things coming a first in, first out view.

Episode 193: Helpful Little Wizards 00:42:37

Speaker-labeled