The Monkey Patching Podcast: Going Bananas on AI, Data, LLMs & Tech

Bart: 00:01

So

Murilo: 00:06

hello, everyone. Hey, Bart. Hey. Long time no see.

Bart: 00:10

Long time no

Murilo: 00:10

see. So this is the first, the very intro about the monkey patching podcast?

Bart: 00:16

The very first episode of the monkey patching podcast.

Murilo: 00:19

The very first. So maybe what is the monkey patching podcast, Bart? How would you describe it?

Bart: 00:24

For people that have know us already, they know that we were recording the data topics podcast. Yes. Which was linked to date roots as a company.

Murilo: 00:37

Yes.

Bart: 00:40

And that's now I left DateRoots

Murilo: 00:43

since a few weeks. Sadly. Yeah.

Bart: 00:48

That we still want to continue.

Murilo: 00:50

Exactly. We now

Bart: 00:51

have this independent podcast called monkey patching podcast.

Murilo: 00:56

Yes. Episode one. Episode zero.

Bart: 00:58

Zero. Oh, we started zero.

Murilo: 01:00

Yeah. We started zero. We started one.

Bart: 01:01

That was good. That's good. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Bart: 01:03

Makes sense. Like, the monkey patching is a concept that comes from Python. Right?

Murilo: 01:06

Yes. Yes. Python is Python exclusive?

Bart: 01:11

Good question. I want I've heard always heard it referred to in Python context. Yeah. But monkey patch for the people that don't know it, monkey patching basically means that at runtime, you change stuff. Like, typically, it's this, like, you have a, like, a Python class, for example, you make an you make an instance of that class.

Bart: 01:30

Yeah. And let's say you have a method in that class that you can call and that at runtime, you change whatever logic in that method, which is typically a bit frowned upon. Right?

Murilo: 01:38

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's like, it's not very transparent.

Bart: 01:41

It's not very transparent. It's used, like, think more practically for unit testing a lot to mock stuff and stuff. Yeah. And sometimes it's used in production, which is a bit frowned on. Yeah.

Bart: 01:52

So maybe it's a podcast that often you can be happy about, sometimes you're gonna be frowned upon a bit.

Murilo: 01:58

We don't promise anything.

Bart: 01:59

You know? It's probably gonna be okay.

Murilo: 02:02

Uh-huh. But I feel like in Brazil, that's why we would say, you know, it's like you just figure it out on the way. It works. You know? Don't touch it.

Murilo: 02:09

And I think it's also

Bart: 02:12

it's out

Murilo: 02:13

of the spirit. You know? Like, we're gonna figure things out as we go at runtime.

Bart: 02:16

And we're fully independent, so there's no topic that we cannot discuss.

Murilo: 02:21

I wasn't sure how much before. How many topics we couldn't discuss. But yeah. So this will be weekly?

Bart: 02:29

Yeah. Right? Weekly. Live from Marielo's Closet. One day we'll come out.

Bart: 02:39

Are so like can you describe where we are? It's How do you call this room?

Murilo: 02:44

In well, it's a guest

Bart: 02:45

room, I guess. Okay. Yeah. In the guest room.

Murilo: 02:48

In Dutch, say, I see. Guest room. Yeah. Indeed.

Bart: 02:53

Well, not really live. Right? Recording from Recording. Recording from the

Murilo: 02:57

guest Maybe we'll do live. Right? One thing we also are playing with is a video form. So actually, we will have video form. Yeah.

Murilo: 03:05

The idea for people who have never heard us is to have four to eight topics. So we cover the news as well, discuss a bit. Then maybe it's not gonna be super news, but stuff that caught our attention. And then we can cover and discuss a bit what we saw. Maybe we'll send a newsletter, maybe not.

Murilo: 03:20

So the future is a it's a noister. We'll see what happens.

Bart: 03:23

Yeah. For the people that that were following data topics, I think it's more or less the same concept. We're we're gonna try to be a little bit more

Murilo: 03:30

Maybe data topics unplugged. Because now the Plugged. Yeah. The branding may continue. There was also before and after, but data topics unplugged.

Bart: 03:36

Is That's what a bit what we did. Right? Like, we did a bit of, like, weekly discussions on what's new in data and AI, what's new in tech related business.

Murilo: 03:46

Sometimes soap. Sometimes we talk about soap.

Bart: 03:49

Sometimes we talk about soap. Sounds true. Soap bars. But, we're gonna try with the monkey patching podcast to be a little bit more diligent on preparation. We we have, like, four to eight articles that we will, like, do a smoke quote from and then Yeah.

Bart: 04:05

And free from discussion on.

Murilo: 04:07

Yeah. Indeed. Indeed.

Bart: 04:07

And we might also have sessions with guests, etcetera. That is still a little bit to be seen. But for now, the priority is making a start.

Murilo: 04:16

Exactly. Alright. So I think, yeah, starting sometimes is is is tricky. So I think sometimes I should get the ball rolling. Yeah.

Murilo: 04:22

Then we see how it goes. Yeah. But we will have a video form because often if you heard from the data topics as well, we would share links and share the screen sometimes, not really not super focused, so if you're just listening and you may wanna check out the video form as well, because we'll have some stuff there. And we'll always add all the links to everything we put on the show notes as well. Maybe before that as well, Bart, who are we for people that haven't heard the data topics Unplugged?

Murilo: 04:48

Who are you Bart?

Bart: 04:49

I'm gonna let you take the lead.

Murilo: 04:50

Oh, fuck. Okay. Maybe we are in Belgium, we're located in Belgium. Yeah. I'm from Brazil.

Murilo: 04:57

That's why I was referring to the Brazilian Gambiaja. Been here in Belgium for over five years, I wanna say. Still learning Dutch. It's one of the official languages, so if people don't wanna know. Next to French as well.

Murilo: 05:10

So I'm learning French, but anyways. Yeah. I still work at Datarooch. I'm leading the tech initiatives at Datarooch, let's say.

Bart: 05:19

And what is Datarooch?

Murilo: 05:19

Datarooch is a consultancy in data and AI. I'll just leave it at that. But so yeah. Doing technical stuff, sometimes more, sometimes less, but always staying up to date with all the things. Yeah.

Murilo: 05:31

I'm not sure what else is interesting. That's about it. Brazilian. Okay. Dittoots.

Bart: 05:37

It's a little bit about me. I'm Dutch. We're all we're we're both in Belgium and none of us is Belgian.

Murilo: 05:42

Yeah. It's true.

Bart: 05:43

I'm Dutch originally. Have been in Belgium for, I want to say, maybe already twenty years by now. No. A little bit short. A little bit shorter.

Bart: 05:53

Between fifteen and 20.

Murilo: 05:54

Okay.

Bart: 05:56

I have been a data scientist slash data engineer for a very long time. Let's say ten years now to make the role official. I think before that we didn't really use these terms. No. Or just like programmer.

Bart: 06:10

Yeah. Yeah. And then eight years ago, I founded Deiroots, where we were what we were discussing. They had a lot of different roles there, often a of a technical focus. And then after well, now four weeks ago, I exited the date route.

Bart: 06:26

And now I'm a bit looking towards the future, what I will do. Yeah. So I'm more or less technically unemployed now. Yeah. So if Marilla de Cidiot, I'm unemployed guy.

Bart: 06:37

And we're But yeah. But you still you're Oh, I can put podcaster on my LinkedIn tag. Oh, yeah. For Check by now.

Murilo: 06:43

For sure.

Bart: 06:43

Yeah.

Murilo: 06:43

Influencer.

Bart: 06:44

Influencer. Yes. Okay. Check.

Murilo: 06:46

Yeah. But I think we're both well, you're also very technical. You're always doing stuff. Right? Like, not just data science tech, let's say, but even, like, JavaScript, all these other things.

Murilo: 06:55

These other fun things. Right?

Bart: 06:57

Not sure. Is that really, like Yeah.

Murilo: 06:58

I'm not sure. You're one of the top top art developers?

Bart: 07:01

Oh, that's long long time ago. No. I think that's a bit exaggerated. But I did a lot of open source art stuff. Yeah.

Murilo: 07:06

But, like, GitHub didn't put you on the top 100? Belgium. Belgium.

Bart: 07:11

Oh, no. Maybe top 100.

Murilo: 07:12

Top 100.

Bart: 07:12

At one time, maybe, yes. At one time in my life, was very active.

Murilo: 07:17

Yeah. But doing a lot of stuff. Right? I think you you mentioned this.

Bart: 07:19

A lot of open source packages. Yeah. Yeah. This is a long time ago. In R.

Bart: 07:23

Going now. In R.

Murilo: 07:24

Yeah. Yeah.

Bart: 07:25

Still do a lot of open source stuff.

Murilo: 07:26

In data? Like, recently, even the MCPs. So So one things we

Bart: 07:29

yeah. Yeah. People can check out my Hitler profile.

Murilo: 07:31

Yes. Bart

Bart: 07:32

six one one four.

Murilo: 07:33

Bart six one one four. There we go. Yeah. Indeed. So a lot of cool stuff.

Murilo: 07:39

We may tinker with stuff as well. We wanna show some little things here and there. I know Bart, you're into vibe coding. No. You were not I don't know if you're into vibe coding.

Bart: 07:46

I think vibe coding very quickly got a bad rep.

Murilo: 07:49

Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's just it doesn't sound serious.

Bart: 07:51

Right? It doesn't sound serious.

Murilo: 07:52

Vibe coding.

Bart: 07:53

Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's I think it's what would be interesting, like, every every episode I will see is a bit like what are the projects that we're each working on. Right?

Murilo: 07:59

Yeah. We could definitely do that. No. You can by by the way, side note, I I try vibe coding, but I don't think I know how to vibe code yet. But I'm still

Bart: 08:06

Maybe some tips and tricks.

Murilo: 08:07

Yeah. Yeah. I think I think I need some tips and tricks. I think this skill I need to tap into.

Bart: 08:11

But I think we should call it Gen AI assisted coding. Then suddenly it sounds

Murilo: 08:15

Yeah. That's true. That sounds more

Bart: 08:16

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Then know what you're doing here.

Murilo: 08:18

If you just say AI assisted coding sounds even Yeah. Sounds more artificial intelligence. Sounds good. That was good. Vibes coding.

Murilo: 08:24

Even though vibe coding is fun. But anyways, we digress and we may do this from time to time. Where do we wanna go with this?

Bart: 08:33

What is your ideal view? Like, if you if you can be bold, like Bold. Bold. Like, make a bold statement about where you want to go. So With the monkey patching podcast.

Murilo: 08:44

With the monkey patching. So definitely have a like a following, not following, but like knowing that people are listening to us, having external guests as well. I think one goal that will be interesting for us is to to get sponsors, but more not for the sponsors per se, but it's more like if someone says, I would give you money to, you know, advertise whatever. Mhmm. I think it it's a it's a proxy for doing something good.

Murilo: 09:11

We're doing something worthwhile.

Bart: 09:12

We're on

Murilo: 09:12

the right direction. There's more actually for that.

Bart: 09:14

I agree. But

Murilo: 09:16

I think most I also would like to have the podcast tied to something else maybe, like a platform for people to share, like something that can I don't know? Maybe people can someone has a project they wanna advertise or something like an initiative or startup, like something like that, that could be very interesting. But most and first and foremost, I think the having fun, I think it's the that's the goal.

Bart: 09:40

I think that's also why we're doing this in our free time. Right? Exactly. Just because it's fun.

Murilo: 09:43

Yeah. And I also think that this even before even before data topics, we said that we were already talking, we found ourselves already talking about all these things that happen, like cool things, ah, show these tips and tricks. So I think it's something that will come up in natural to us. So it's like, yeah, that would be cool to record it. Why not?

Murilo: 10:00

What about you, Bart?

Bart: 10:03

I hope one day, like, if we're successful, but, like, a lot of steps to take. I think we can be, like, a bit like the data and AI reference for, a conversational podcast in Europe.

Murilo: 10:15

Oh, yeah. That would be cool.

Bart: 10:16

I don't think we really like, you you have, of course, you have a lot of European podcast, but, like, there's no this is the one, right? But maybe Norden will be the one, but like one of the bigger, more conversational

Murilo: 10:26

Yeah. Conversational. Like casual.

Bart: 10:28

Yeah. Yeah.

Murilo: 10:28

Like yeah. Yeah. Think a lot of them, they're very I don't know. I don't know if serious is the right word. Because I don't know.

Murilo: 10:35

I don't wanna say that we're not serious. But I think Yeah.

Bart: 10:37

It's a different style. Like, yeah. Yeah.

Murilo: 10:39

Yeah. That would be that would be cool. That would be cool. It would be cool if we're the one that meet ups and they're like, oh, yeah. We do that at the top.

Murilo: 10:47

I know that podcast. I

Bart: 10:49

know that. Yeah. Indeed. And like you like you say, like a bit of a platform to do other stuff, but I think that would also be cool that, like, we maybe potentially we could have like, with the newsletter you already mentioned, like, maybe we can like, next to the podcast, we can have a newsletter. Maybe next to those things, we can actually organize a live event or something.

Murilo: 11:05

Yes. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I like the idea of bringing people together.

Murilo: 11:07

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You know? So yeah.

Bart: 11:10

And I think the the because we've discussed it before, I like the the advertisement. I fully agree, like, if there is someone willing to sponsor you, like, I mean, we're never gonna make big money with this. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Bart: 11:22

But it's like it's a it's a way that's like people believe what you're doing. I think that that is that's a good like more like more very tangible KPI, like how many listeners do you have? Like

Murilo: 11:34

Yeah. Exactly.

Bart: 11:35

Do you have sponsors like I think these type of things like because we do put a lot of personal time in this, it's it's good to have a bit of view on where we're heading.

Murilo: 11:43

Right? Indeed. Indeed. I think it would be exactly. Like, it's a good signal that we're in the right direction.

Murilo: 11:47

Yeah. Alright. And I think it's more holistic than just looking at one number or another. Yeah. You know?

Bart: 11:52

So it would be a bit like having this discussion now, a year from now, people are listening to an app an episode and then there's no sponsorship. Like Oh.

Murilo: 12:02

I should yeah. But I think it's not mean. Yeah. But like I said, I think

Bart: 12:06

But it's good to do express. Right?

Murilo: 12:08

Yeah. But maybe the better way to say is, like, if someone voiced an interest to sponsor because also, if someone is offering to sponsor, it's not like we're just gonna yes automatically, depends also what it is. Right? I think it's

Bart: 12:18

Yeah. I think you need to be maybe not believe, but not be against it.

Murilo: 12:23

Exactly. Right? Exactly.

Bart: 12:24

That is Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Murilo: 12:25

So But I think also, like, yeah. I don't know how this goes up, but, like, if the sponsors, they want to have a better say on, like, what can be said on during the podcast. Like you know like

Bart: 12:33

Oh, think that is you know? That's a no go.

Murilo: 12:35

Yeah. Exactly. But that's what I mean.

Bart: 12:36

Complete independent.

Murilo: 12:37

Yeah. Exactly. So I think it's it's like there needs to be the right conditions.

Bart: 12:40

Yeah. Yeah. That I fully agree.

Murilo: 12:41

But I think even if someone just comes and says, hey. Even if we say no to that person, I think that's a good signal.

Bart: 12:46

Yeah. But but definitely, like, if company x comes to us and then says, you we sponsor you, but, yeah, you can't say anything negative about company

Murilo: 12:53

x. Exactly.

Bart: 12:53

Yeah. No. Right? That's a no.

Murilo: 12:54

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Agree.

Murilo: 12:56

Or like you say either this fool or this company comes and says, would like to sponsor it, but you cannot mention other tools that are competing with that, like Fully agree. Yeah.

Bart: 13:04

That's a no.

Murilo: 13:06

Very cool. Okay. And where can people find us, Bart?

Bart: 13:11

People can find us on monkeypatching.io. By Well, at this point, while we're recording, it doesn't exist. But I hope when we publish it, it will be there.

Murilo: 13:23

Yes. And if it's not there, you can always send an email. Send us an email.

Bart: 13:26

Yeah. At? At either at for you, send me an email at [email protected] or [email protected].

Murilo: 13:36

Yeah. Thanks. That's a that's a good point there. Maybe I should create the other one as well with two l's.

Bart: 13:43

An alias.

Murilo: 13:43

Yeah. Just an alias to flow Like, we

Bart: 13:44

one, two, and three l's. Just to be sure.

Murilo: 13:46

Right? And no l's as well. Just yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Murilo: 13:52

You have a lot of domains as well. Talking about domains.

Bart: 13:59

I have well, depends. What what do you think? What is a lot?

Murilo: 14:02

I don't know. What do you think the average how many domains

Bart: 14:04

do think When you say someone has a lot of domains, sounds a bit like a domain squatter. Yeah. For me, it's more like, okay. I have this idea in my head. Yeah.

Bart: 14:12

This is really cool. It's gonna be a fun project. I registered the domain, and then I never got around to this project.

Murilo: 14:18

Never. Like but it's too funny. Because I have a hard time finding domain names. Like because actually, I wanted one that I can kind of reuse for other stuff.

Bart: 14:28

And what don't you have your own personal one?

Murilo: 14:30

I have one.

Bart: 14:31

What is it again?

Murilo: 14:32

No. Because that's is is too common. So my full name is like, is too long.

Bart: 14:39

But it's like is like It's

Murilo: 14:41

just super popular. Yeah. It's like super, like, super popular. But it's funny because like I mean, you know probably because you probably looked me up and you found a whole bunch of Marie Lukunia.

Bart: 14:48

Yeah. But like everywhere I'm

Murilo: 14:49

in Belgium, like, yeah, this is super common.

Bart: 14:51

Really? But there there is this soccer player thing. Right? Those on you always find if you look at it.

Murilo: 14:56

Oh, yeah. That's true. I think so. But I think it's Mateusz Kunia.

Bart: 14:59

Oh, it could be.

Murilo: 14:59

I'm not sure.

Bart: 15:00

And then But it feels very popular. You have your own website. Right?

Murilo: 15:03

I have

Bart: 15:04

You're kinda trying to dot it? I

Murilo: 15:08

don't think it's up yet, because I think they still needed some work. But I have I have actually one. But I have I have two actually, but I wanna keep on the DL only.

Bart: 15:17

What is the second?

Murilo: 15:18

Yeah. Not ready to Okay. Okay.

Bart: 15:20

Share it

Murilo: 15:20

live yet. But one is moodymoody.dev. I found that moody is actually quite easy to find. Yeah. Yeah.

Bart: 15:28

Own let's say my own personal space is bartz. Space.

Murilo: 15:33

But you said it was too complicated. You have to have to explain it to people? Yeah.

Bart: 15:37

I think it's it it makes sense that it's Bartz, like, Bart's his space. Yeah. Yeah. But when I say it, it's my email address.

Murilo: 15:44

It's like Bart's space.

Bart: 15:45

Yeah. And then people think it's Bart dot Yeah.

Murilo: 15:48

I think when you read it, it makes a lot of sense. It's like, oh, yeah. That's clever. But, like, when you say it, maybe

Bart: 15:53

So, yeah. [email protected]. Yes. And well, you can find us. You can tag us on LinkedIn as well.

Bart: 16:00

Right? We'll maybe we'll maybe link our our LinkedIn profiles on monkeypatching.ai as well.

Murilo: 16:08

Yeah. For sure.

Bart: 16:09

We have some contact details And

Murilo: 16:11

you can find us if you're listening to this, you found us somewhere, I guess. But if you can probably find us on every podcast player?

Bart: 16:17

Yeah. Every every significant podcast platform, yes.

Murilo: 16:22

Yes. And for the video form, where we where can we find the videos?

Bart: 16:26

It should be YouTube.

Murilo: 16:27

YouTube,

Bart: 16:27

at I'm not % sure that this first one will already be up, but

Murilo: 16:30

Maybe not this one.

Bart: 16:31

We're gonna try to have this all on YouTube, yeah.

Murilo: 16:33

But, yeah. Anything else you wanna

Bart: 16:36

For now? Well, if people

Murilo: 16:39

yeah. Go ahead. No. Because I've I we already started gathering topics to discuss. I feel like there's a lot of stuff.

Bart: 16:44

There's lot of stuff. Yeah.

Murilo: 16:45

Yeah. I think for the first time, we have to also tone it down.

Bart: 16:47

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a yeah. We we probably should just keep this one short. But but it's true.

Bart: 16:53

Like like, we used to record this weekly

Murilo: 16:55

Yeah.

Bart: 16:55

Up until, I want to say, five, six weeks ago. Yeah. And then, like, with the first week that we stopped recording, I was like, okay. I I have all these things. How am I gonna who who who am I gonna share this with?

Murilo: 17:09

Calling your wife, you know, she's like, leave me alone.

Bart: 17:12

Normally normally, we we would send this stuff to each other or or we have a Notion page that we we

Murilo: 17:17

added there. Everything and all.

Bart: 17:18

Oh, Shit. Where do I share that? So, yeah, there's a lot but I like, it's crazy how much happened in AI and data in the last six weeks.

Murilo: 17:29

Yeah. That's

Bart: 17:30

true. It's hard to make a summary.

Murilo: 17:31

That's true. Yeah. It is.

Bart: 17:32

It's hard to make a

Murilo: 17:33

I can even if I had to recap this this sabbatical that we took. It would be really hard.

Bart: 17:36

But it's because you have a huge amount of developments within AI and data. Yeah. But then you have also the whole political thing around this. The the the whole the whole stuff in The US that doesn't it does impact these big tech players that typically are involved in AI and Yeah.

Murilo: 17:52

Yeah. Yeah. This Much in This year. This year.

Bart: 17:54

All these things at the same time going around.

Murilo: 17:55

Yeah. A lot of stuff. A lot of stuff. But that's why lot we won't run out of stuff to talk about.

Bart: 18:00

No, no.

Murilo: 18:01

And maybe

Bart: 18:04

because we're recording now, let's say we're gonna probably publish it still this week, but then you're gonna go on holiday? Yes. So when will be our first content episode? Maybe we should

Murilo: 18:14

I think people can expect us weekly starting early June.

Bart: 18:20

Early June.

Murilo: 18:21

Yeah. Early June.

Bart: 18:22

And then we're gonna see a little bit with how we do how we tackle the summer holidays. Right? Maybe we Yeah. Because we typically record for our physical together. Maybe we're gonna do some remote stuff if need be.

Bart: 18:33

Or we prerecord something, which is something which is always a little bit more difficult because it's like we're we do it based on the on whatever happens this week. Right? It's a bit timely. Right? It's a bit timely.

Murilo: 18:44

Yeah. But we'll see. Maybe we have something more topic focused. But we'll we'll do our best to to weekly.

Bart: 18:53

And if people have any ideas on what else we can do, how we can shape stuff up, if they have interesting news about the week, if they want to be guest Yes. Just hit us up on one of our contact points, right, which we will share on monkeypatching.

Murilo: 19:10

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And we will have a jingle.

Murilo: 19:14

Yes. You have a jingle. You made the last jingle.

Bart: 19:15

So You made the last jingle, but that's and if you're feeling you need to do something with monkey sounds now. Right? Maybe you can just make some monkey sounds now and I sample them.

Murilo: 19:25

Maybe later. Okay. I thought that

Bart: 19:27

was a big quote. No. Maybe maybe two sounds.

Murilo: 19:32

Maybe. But like what? Maybe I'll make one and make the other. But you start. Oh.

Bart: 19:38

Nice. Yeah. Yeah. We can do sniff it there.

Murilo: 19:40

Yeah. We can do sniff it Can't wait. I can't wait to see what you're gonna come up with. Good luck with that. Okay.

Murilo: 19:47

And alright. Thanks everyone for listening. Thank you. Looking forward to this.

Bart: 19:51

Definitely. Looking forward to this.

Murilo: 19:52

Yeah. It would be nice. So

Bart: 19:53

Thanks for listening. Bye. See you next time. Bye.