0:00:00Did you ever get that Apple watch mic?
0:00:01I did. I got it the next day actually.
0:00:03Oh yeah.
0:00:03Because after we finished recording, I called DPD, the delivery company,
0:00:09and I told them that the delivery driver's a liar.
0:00:12And I think the lady believed me.
0:00:15Like she actually, I could tell she believed me.
0:00:18Cause it was like, here's the thing.
0:00:20I already had a different delivery driver deliver me a different
0:00:24DPD package that morning.
0:00:25I was like, so you know, I was in, right?
0:00:27Like we can't get around this.
0:00:29You know, I was in.
0:00:29And then, you know, they sent me one of the tracking information had like a photo right which is a photo of nothing. Yeah
0:00:35Yeah, I've gotten those which the photo eventually ended up disappearing from the site
0:00:40And I was like Santa last like come on. We all know what happened here
0:00:43And she was like, yeah, okay, and then she ended up putting through some expedited delivery and it came to me the next day
0:00:49I'm glad you got your Apple watch in the end. Mm-hmm. Yeah, me too. I actually really like it
0:00:53I'm really happy with it. Like the LTE thing is good
0:00:58I've been going swimming again and I found the pool which is relatively like in a health club relatively close to me and
0:01:04I really like that like during my breaks like when I start taking a swim for like 15 minutes or whatever
0:01:11Take a take a break for a few minutes
0:01:12I can like check my text messages at the poolside like it's it's like this cool little thing
0:01:18Like I'm I'm really excited about the LTE watch honestly like it's uh, it's becoming a more and more interesting product
0:01:25Like I was thinking to myself the other day, like, what is the future of this?
0:01:28And I was imagining like this watch that you could just take off the band and like
0:01:32unfold it.
0:01:33So it becomes a bigger device and then you like fold it and put it back on again.
0:01:37Like this is like a 20 years in the future. What does these products look like?
0:01:40And this was this thing that I imagined of like, well,
0:01:44we just have everything strapped to our wrists and then you just take it off the
0:01:47band and then it's, that's your little pocket computer.
0:01:49And then you put it back again. Like it was just making me think about,
0:01:52It has been making me think about where this stuff is going.
0:01:55I think at that point it's easier to just install the display in your eyes than to
0:02:00make a thing that unfolds into something bigger and folds back up.
0:02:02So I will say that like Samsung already they're like saying that there is a
0:02:07potential they may have may have a folding phone next year.
0:02:09Like they are already saying this which I think is very bold from them to say
0:02:16something like that. But like one of their executives is like oh yeah the note will
0:02:19fold in half next year." It's like, "Whoa, Samsung, don't say stuff like that." But
0:02:25the folding screen technology, I think, is closer than we think it is, honestly.
0:02:29[Laughter]
0:02:30BRIAN: I can just see the executive being pulled off stage as he's saying this thing
0:02:35by the underlings who have to actually make it happen.
0:02:37MATT: What did I say? He's called like a "crick," like a shepherd's crook. Is
0:02:39that what they're called?
0:02:40BRIAN and MATT [in unison]: I don't know.
0:02:41MATT [in unison]: Like, one of the, like, the shepherd's crook just comes and just
0:02:42pulls him off, like, just grabs him by the neck and just, like, slides him off the stage.
0:02:46He's on a little wheelie chair and then he was never heard from again.
0:02:49There's a whole bunch of engineers who are pulling on that thing.
0:02:52We have to actually make that.
0:02:53You can't just – that's not how technology works.
0:02:55You can't just promise it.
0:02:57Like there's that story of when FaceTime was announced and Steve Jobs said on stage
0:03:01that they were going to be submitting it all to the standards bodies.
0:03:04Like it was just never true.
0:03:05It was just something he said.
0:03:07There are stories of engineers being like, "What?
0:03:11No we're not.
0:03:12This isn't a thing we can do."
0:03:13So did you get yours?
0:03:15Did you get one?
0:03:16I know you were like 10 million in the queue or something.
0:03:20My Apple Watch has not yet arrived, but the dot sticker that is going to cover up the
0:03:27red dot on my Apple Watch has arrived.
0:03:29Oh that's good news.
0:03:30Stick it to something.
0:03:31I'm 50% of the way there, I guess, is where I currently am.
0:03:39I don't ever see the red dot.
0:03:41This is my thing.
0:03:42I don't see it.
0:03:43I don't care about it.
0:03:44if I look at my hand in an odd position, right?
0:03:46Like, I'm looking at my watch right now
0:03:47and I would never know.
0:03:49- The Dot's not about you, Myke.
0:03:52The Dot is about flashiness,
0:03:55a certain kind of flashiness that I have zero interest in.
0:03:59- You don't wanna show everybody the products that you own?
0:04:01You don't wanna like walk down the street,
0:04:04big man on campus?
0:04:06- No, no.
0:04:07I find I would literally have paid extra money
0:04:13for a more innocuous version of the watch.
0:04:16I'm trying to think what the upper limit is,
0:04:20and it is reasonably high that I would pay
0:04:22to have a watch that is the incognito version.
0:04:27I don't want the red dot on my watch.
0:04:30I personally think it is obnoxious,
0:04:34and I really think that the whole reason
0:04:36that red dot was chosen, everyone's saying like,
0:04:39"Oh, it clashes with the colors of everything.
0:04:41"It's a terrible choice."
0:04:42And I was like, "Yes." But that's why it was chosen. It's a monkey signaling option.
0:04:49That's what it is. It is chosen to clash so that it is visually obvious to people that you have the new thing.
0:04:57And I have zero interest in that. So that is why Dot Stickers have been ordered to my house.
0:05:04And I will try a bunch and see which one sticks the best and works.
0:05:09it is really irritating to me that this is even a thing that I have to consider
0:05:12and I just don't like it. I feel like just some enamel paint and a steady hand
0:05:16would probably be the better option than those little stickers like I can't
0:05:19imagine any sticker lasting more than a couple of days. So it's just rubbing against
0:05:23your hand all the time like that is gonna come off immediately. That's why I'm
0:05:28that's why I'm really frustrated about it it's it's just annoying I don't like
0:05:31it and it's like oh thanks Apple. You're forcing me to show off to the world that
0:05:37I have the new thing in a way that I really don't want to, that makes me feel like I'm
0:05:41a marketing shill for you. I just don't like it, I really don't like it. It's the same
0:05:48way, I've never liked the white earbuds and the white pencil, is there something that
0:05:52feels like they're designed to be eye-catching to help Apple, not because they're the colors
0:05:57or the options that I would actually want. Anyway, long story short, no new Apple Watch
0:06:02in my house yet.
0:06:04Yeah, well, I've had it for like a couple of weeks or whatever. I am a big fan of it.
0:06:10Like it's really, really great. I like it a lot. I think it's opening up a new world for the device.
0:06:16I'm really excited for you to get yours actually because I'm very keen to see what you think of it.
0:06:21Because I think like me, you will see from this device like, "Oh, this is what the Apple Watch
0:06:28was supposed to be." It really does have more of that feel to it.
0:06:31Yeah, this is the obvious direction that it's supposed to go in.
0:06:34I think the curious thing that I will just see is, like with all of these things,
0:06:38figuring out how does it best fit into your life.
0:06:40Because your use case of checking text messages at the gym is like my nightmare use case.
0:06:46I don't actually want it for that.
0:06:48So it'll just be interesting to see how does this fit into my life
0:06:51and how many developers decide to take advantage of the fact that the device is now a cellular device.
0:06:57because I think most of the things that I would probably find the most useful to have a cellular connection on the watch,
0:07:03like the various apps that I use, might not be updated for cellular connection for a long time, if ever.
0:07:09Yeah, spoiler alert, not many right now.
0:07:12[BEEP]
0:07:13There is a word that I struggle with being an English person talking to Americans,
0:07:18and that word is the Tex-Mex-style food with the shells that you fill up.
0:07:25Do you know what that-- can you tell me what they're called?
0:07:27Do you mean tacos?
0:07:28Mm-hmm. I can't... there is not a way that I can say that word and it sound accurate or legitimate in any way.
0:07:36What do you mean? Do you say it like a fraud?
0:07:39Okay, so there are two different ways to say it, right?
0:07:41Like there's the way that would make me sound like an American
0:07:44and there's the way that makes me sound like a British person and neither of them work.
0:07:47Just say it the way you would normally say it.
0:07:49Tacos.
0:07:50No, that's all wrong.
0:07:51Exactly, right? And then what's so we're gonna say like an American like tacos?
0:07:54Like it doesn't... see it doesn't work, right?
0:07:56Right? Like there is no way for me to say that word and it sounds legitimate.
0:08:00The second one is much better. We're going to tell you right now.
0:08:03The second one is better.
0:08:04But it's still like I'm putting on this weird fake American accent for one
0:08:07word. Like it doesn't work. And then I can't,
0:08:10I can't straighten it out in my brain when I'm saying it in a sentence.
0:08:13It's like a nightmare.
0:08:14Another one of these words is the surname of somebody who we have been seeing a
0:08:19lot of pictures of recently. Derek Jeter. Jeter?
0:08:22How do you say that name? Is that right?
0:08:26I can't help you because I don't know who that person is.
0:08:29See, I think the way you're supposed to say it is it's got more of like a D sound in it, which is like
0:08:34like Jeter or something like that.
0:08:37Jeter?
0:08:38Yeah, you see, you could say it right, but I can't say it right.
0:08:40Yeah, the same way I say like water. There's a D in water.
0:08:42Exactly, right? So, there is this person, his name is Derek Jeter, and all I know is he's something to do with baseball.
0:08:52I don't really know much more about him. Is it baseball? I don't even know if it's baseball.
0:08:56I'm assuming it's baseball. But I don't know. Do you know anything about this person?
0:09:01Okay, background for the confused listener at this point is on Twitter, I don't know,
0:09:07couple days ago, suddenly it felt like hundreds of people were sending you and me photos of
0:09:13this man at a desk with two iPads on his desk. And I retweeted one of these because I was
0:09:20Yeah, #MultipadLifestyle. Great. This is on brand.
0:09:24Like, retweet this. It's a nice photo of a man at a desk.
0:09:28But these tweets just kept rolling in all the--
0:09:32And eventually I finally figured out, "Wait a minute, this is like a real person."
0:09:36This is someone in-- I just thought it was--
0:09:38I don't know, I just thought it was just some random photo of some guy at a desk.
0:09:41But the sheer volume of these things made me eventually realize that this guy is some...
0:09:49sports guy but I I'm afraid Myke I cannot tell you anything about this
0:09:56person because I know literally nothing about this person I would have just
0:10:01thought this was a photo spread of people working at offices in some
0:10:06magazine that everybody was sending us I didn't realize it was it was like a real
0:10:09guy Wikipedia tells me that Derek Sanderson Jeter is an American
0:10:15businessman, a professional baseball executive who is the CEO and part owner of the Miami
0:10:20Marlins, which is an MLB team, and he used to be a baseballer himself at one point in
0:10:27his life and apparently was very successful at that, which is why he's so known and I
0:10:32think he played for the New York Yankees for a long period of time because there are lots
0:10:36of pictures of him on his Wikipedia page wearing the New York Yankees jerseys.
0:10:41Yeah, unless he played for the New York Yankees while Larry David owned them. I like I can make no connection to this person
0:10:47so that's who he is and
0:10:49He is using he's jewel wielding iPad pros on this desk
0:10:55Yeah
0:10:55Which is like twelve point nine inch serious iPad pros and that he is a real proponent of the multi-pad lifestyle to
0:11:0312.9. That is that's really serious
0:11:05the thing that's funny to me about this is a while ago I
0:11:11I was working in the public lobby of my office building and I had brought down into this sort of public workspace
0:11:19my two
0:11:2212.9 inch iPad Pros and
0:11:24I had them just in front of me working working side by side on on a thing
0:11:30So I was like writing a script on one of them and I had some
0:11:32Research notes probably Evernote open up on the other screen with a little thing to type on
0:11:37I was kind of going back and forth between the two of them and
0:11:39I had headphones on but I just happened not to have any music on them and I
0:11:45Saw the people next to me start pointing and I overheard that they started talking about this real weirdo who's over there using two iPad
0:11:52No way
0:11:54I'm pretending that I don't hear you. I'm just gonna keep working away at this thing
0:11:59but yeah, I think if if
0:12:02It's notable if somebody is using two really big iPad pros. It just looks it looks weird
0:12:08I think that's also partly why it's so eye-catching in this photo that this guy has this this huge desk with two
0:12:15Big iPads on them. I think it's still it still looks visually
0:12:19Weird to people we haven't yet reached the Picard point where you can just have iPads spread all around you
0:12:26And it's just a visual indicator of oh yes. This is a person who's very busy and working on a lot of things
0:12:30But yeah, so we got sent this photo quite a lot, but I felt I felt a kinship with this photograph
0:12:37Yep, and the and the anonymous man contained within it who he is and what he does we will never know
0:12:41There are think every now and then something like this happens and it's so fun for me because there's a social media manager
0:12:47They like can't understand what's going on
0:12:49Yes, right because you get a bunch of people they're like including me and you in the tweet and like hashtag multi-pad lifestyle
0:12:55And it's like you can only imagine that there is a person sitting in front of tweet deck and they have no idea what's happening
0:13:01Yes, of course. Yep. Yeah, they're sitting in front of tweet deck
0:13:04They have all the columns open and they're saving the multi-pad lifestyle column search
0:13:09and thinking, "I don't understand what internet lever or button we have stumbled upon here,
0:13:16but we've stepped on a thing with just this press photo of our CEO doing business at his
0:13:22desk."
0:13:23There are obviously a lot of people replying to that tweet and they're all saying whatever
0:13:26they're saying, but you'll start to see this trend.
0:13:29in every 10 is referencing these two people and/or this weird hashtag which when you read
0:13:34it out doesn't make any sense because it's #MULTIPAD. What does this mean? What does
0:13:39any of this mean? But it's just me and you living our lives. I have to say, multi-pad
0:13:45lifestyle, the way that it's settled out for me, I'm still a big proponent, I tend not
0:13:49to use them together very often, but I interchange between them all. That's kind of how the multi-pad
0:13:57lifestyle has manifested for me. Because you know the multi-pad lifestyle is whatever you
0:14:02make of it, there must just be more than one iPad. Like if you want to live the kitchen,
0:14:07you know I have an iPad in the kitchen and an iPad that you use in the front room on
0:14:12the sofa watching TV, you live the multi-pad lifestyle. We all can.
0:14:17But I agree it's the same thing for me. That's why it's a rare situation where I'm using
0:14:24two of them at the same time. It just, I can't even remember why on that particular day it just worked out that it was.
0:14:29But I'm doing the same multi-pad lifestyle thing that you are in, as I've mentioned before, I really like separating out workspaces and different devices for different kinds of things.
0:14:39And so that's the way that I still use it, is like, ah, okay, here is couch iPad, which is for goofing off and for nonsense, and here is work iPad.
0:14:51iPad and these and these devices are different physical sizes they have
0:14:55different looks and I find that really helpful to reinforce in your mind like
0:15:00what is this for what are you supposed to be doing right now I have too many
0:15:05iPads in my house right now though it's like I'm still dealing with like the
0:15:11movement of the old ones like where did they go who like what family member will
0:15:16take this one like what room in the house will this one be stationed in like
0:15:20Like, the bringing in of two new iPads, like earlier this year, I haven't yet shook out
0:15:26where everything's going yet.
0:15:27So they were like, "I will just happen upon one," which in a place—it's like, "Oh,
0:15:32underneath this notebook is my old 9.7-inch iPad Pro.
0:15:35I didn't know you were under there."
0:15:37Still trying to filter all that through.
0:15:39Yeah, the grey household is definitely going through the same thing between myself and
0:15:43my wife and our old iPads, because the introduction of the iPad Pros with pencils has now made
0:15:49every non-pencil iPad just dead to us?"
0:15:53And I was like, "Oh, okay.
0:15:55There's no place to shift these, and yeah, there's a little sad pile of iPads that we
0:16:01need to figure out something to do with at some point of, 'Oh, these are the pencil-less
0:16:06iPads.
0:16:07They exist for us no more.'"
0:16:08MATT: Did the Gray House hold Eradicate iPad Minis?
0:16:13Is that something that ended up happening?
0:16:15Yeah, that's a thing that has ended up happening.
0:16:19Oh, okay.
0:16:20Much to the sadness of an unspecified other member of the household.
0:16:25The iPad Mini, because it lacks pencil support, which is still a thing I think that it should have,
0:16:31it just became untenable because of RSI issues and the need to keep using a pencil as input
0:16:40for someone who may or may not be my wife who uses the iPad on the couch quite a lot.
0:16:44So yes, there's no more mini use in this household.
0:16:48And it's funny, I was actually just talking to my parents
0:16:52and my mom is a big fan of the iPad mini. She's like holding on
0:16:56to this sad iPad mini that's really dying
0:17:00and she's just still hoping for this. She's like "Oh sure, any day
0:17:04they're going to come out with one with Pencil support." I'm like "I don't think so, Mom.
0:17:08I think you gotta let it go." But that might be
0:17:12the last iPad mini that exists in the greater extended gray family is that one.
0:17:19So iPad minis, they're on the way out.
0:17:21We never fully eradicated the iPad mini from this household.
0:17:25It's still sitting like in the living room, right? Like it's still there.
0:17:30And I don't know how much it's getting used, but like it's still there when we've had many
0:17:36conversations about like why it shouldn't anymore. Because, you know, you've got to try and transition
0:17:41like you don't want to get too used to it, but like it still exists.
0:17:45So like I--
0:17:45Oh wait! I just realized, I realized there's one more.
0:17:48There's one more iPad mini I forgot about.
0:17:50And it is the iPad mini that I never see because it is a dedicated sound machine
0:17:58for white noise in the bedroom.
0:18:01So we have a speaker that has a button that you can turn on and off
0:18:04and then it just it just plays white noise to help sleep.
0:18:07And I forgot that the audio wire that is coming out of that speaker is plugged into an iPad Mini,
0:18:13which has sat in a drawer untouched for years.
0:18:16So this is an app that is running constantly, like 24/7?
0:18:21It's just, yeah, it's just the music player. I have a file that's just a white noise file,
0:18:26and it's just playing on Repeat 1 in the music app on that iPad.
0:18:31Because it's easier just to press the physical button on the top of the speaker,
0:18:35Because when you're waking up it's easier to like you turn off the white noise and again it's like
0:18:39it's it makes it simple it makes it easier to wake up and then you turn it on when it's bedtime.
0:18:43So you just press the button instead of fiddling around with the iPad but I totally forgot that
0:18:48that iPad is even in the drawer somewhere just plugged into the wall doing repeat one forever.
0:18:53That's iPad retirement.
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0:20:30You mentioned sitting in a lobby doing some work in an office building, which made me wonder...
0:20:39We haven't checked in for a while on your office situation, and I had an image of you,
0:20:46like a gray that sits in a lobby is a gray that's trying to avoid something, you know?
0:20:55like I can't imagine you wanting to be sitting in a lobby so if it's in a lobby of an office building
0:21:02I'm assuming the office building that you're in is your office building and if you're in a lobby
0:21:10some something's pushing you there
0:21:13uh I guess it has been a long time since we've done an update
0:21:24Alright. Let's cast our mind back a long time ago.
0:21:28I feel like this is a story I don't even know where we left off anymore.
0:21:33I think the last time we spoke about this there were images of whiteboards with motivational words on them
0:21:40and graphs and "be the best you you can be" that kind of stuff.
0:21:44Yeah. Inspiration on a wall on whiteboards with my neighbour.
0:21:49Okay, alright. Let's spool up this story.
0:21:54As long time listeners of the show may be aware, I was increasingly annoyed by my office neighbor in my office.
0:22:02Talking on the phone, talking to China, his nonsensical and comic notes to himself on a whiteboard that I would have to see when I passed his office.
0:22:13Bothering me for no good reason, but they just kind of were.
0:22:16every single time you were there, no matter the time, day, hour, like none of it mattered.
0:22:21Didn't matter. But then more genuinely just the inconvenience of his schedule lining up exactly
0:22:29with my schedule of being there super early in the morning and super late at night. So there's just
0:22:35the two of us in these offices next to each other. And I want to be able to talk out my scripts out
0:22:39out loud and just so aware that this person is right next to me, hearing
0:22:44thunder sounds and repeated sentences over and over again.
0:22:48So, before the summer rolled around, I realized, you know what, this office is not
0:23:00exactly working for me. Maybe I found myself in the lobby one too many times
0:23:04working on iPads instead of in the actual space that was upstairs that was
0:23:09rented and I was thinking forward about what was going to be happening over the summer and how I was going to be gone a very long time
0:23:15and I was also thinking about the very high rent on this place and I thought, you know what, the hell with this, I'm out of here.
0:23:22I'm gonna cancel because I'm going to be gone for a couple of months over the summer anyway and I just, I couldn't abide with
0:23:30spending the money on a place that I was finding myself not conducive to work anyway,
0:23:36and then also paying for a couple of months when I wasn't going to be there.
0:23:39So I thought, "It's over. We're done."
0:23:42Did you put the room back together as you found it?
0:23:45No. I picked up my iPad and I walked out.
0:23:49I took my one piece of equipment with me and I left.
0:23:52So you left the two desks standing on top of each other, you left the ceiling tiles
0:23:57in whatever mess you left them in, like everything stayed.
0:24:01- I didn't mess up the ceiling tiles.
0:24:02The ceiling tiles were just fine.
0:24:03- The carpet, you did something, you ripped something up.
0:24:06- Oh, I put all the electric wires back down
0:24:10the false floor, yeah, I shoved all the wires down there.
0:24:13Oh, and I did, oh, I forgot, I did put,
0:24:16I did put cardboard blockers over most of the ceiling lights
0:24:21because they were too bright, I didn't like them.
0:24:24Okay, look, there were some modifications
0:24:26that were done to that office.
0:24:27Which I didn't really think about when I left. I took the iPad and I walked away.
0:24:31Was there a cleaning crew in this office? Like were people coming in to this office?
0:24:35Yeah. Yeah, I wonder what it was like when like the administrator came back in there.
0:24:40It's like what crime was planned in this room?
0:24:45Nothing. They would come into a room that was just nice and neat and empty. A couple of things would be oddly out of place
0:24:53But mostly it's fine.
0:24:54Now you see the thing is though, like the things that you have changed, like those specific things that you did,
0:24:59they are
0:25:01They are out of the norm enough that I think it would be more concerning
0:25:06Right? That there are just like small
0:25:09Changes that most people wouldn't make that it's like why did they choose to do things this way?
0:25:16You know, especially if they'd heard the thunder sounds like I think that I
0:25:20I reckon they were happy to let you go.
0:25:21Like when you came in that day and you were like,
0:25:23"I wanna go," they were like, "No problem, Mr. Gray.
0:25:26Sign here.
0:25:27(laughs)
0:25:28It's time to get you out of here."
0:25:30- Well, yeah.
0:25:32Like I went to the front office
0:25:33and told them I wasn't coming back.
0:25:35- Oh, you just dumped him by text message.
0:25:38- I took my iPad, I walked away,
0:25:39and I told my assistant to deal with it.
0:25:41So she was in touch with them saying,
0:25:44"Mr. Gray will no longer be returning," right?
0:25:47- Oh my gosh.
0:25:48- So I didn't handle that.
0:25:49I don't know how that went down, but I can't-- it was fine.
0:25:52Everything was fine. I walked away. That's what mattered. So the summer happened. I was gone for a while. I came back and
0:25:59we'll say for now that I have a much
0:26:03longer-term plan
0:26:06for what I
0:26:08want to do with my working space.
0:26:11But
0:26:13when I came back from the summer, I thought this longer-term plan that I have is going to take a long time.
0:26:17That's why it's a long-term plan, and I need something
0:26:20to tide me over for a while. So I thought, now that I'm back in London after the summer has happened,
0:26:28let me take a look around and see if I can find a place to work temporarily.
0:26:34And it seems like in the past maybe year or two,
0:26:38there are a whole bunch more
0:26:42working
0:26:43Short term office spaces around than there were when I was looking the last time
0:26:48It seems like this is a I don't know almost like there's something
0:26:52Startup II feeling about it
0:26:54Like there's a whole bunch of companies that are trying to do the same thing about like hey look at us
0:26:59It is a growth industry. I think okay
0:27:02So this is not just my perception because it feels a little bit like the food
0:27:06Company the food delivery companies in London where there's yeah
0:27:09Oh, there was one and now there are ten all with knives at each other's throats, like
0:27:16out for your business.
0:27:18There are a couple of really big companies, like I won't name them because they should
0:27:22sponsor us before we name them, but like there are a few big companies that are setting up
0:27:30in London and all over the place that are doing this stuff. And at a huge degree, like
0:27:36buying multiple floors of brand new office buildings, like really kind of just big, big
0:27:41business stuff.
0:27:42Yeah, it's interesting to see this sort of change.
0:27:45So I think I ended up looking at something like five or six different companies that
0:27:53were all trying to provide some kind of temporary office services.
0:27:57Because I just wanted to see what's available.
0:28:00And also, I find this interesting.
0:28:02Interesting. I mean you and I have visited office spaces. Like there's something about this that I just I find interesting
0:28:07I don't exactly know why but it's just
0:28:09Hi, I don't I don't mind. I don't mind a little tour of a workspace
0:28:14See how things are set up. See how different people do things. So
0:28:18There was a certain
0:28:21commonality to these places Myke. I would say hey, I
0:28:25am
0:28:28looking for an office to rent.
0:28:31Like I know that you are primarily a company that's a co-working space.
0:28:35So you have an open
0:28:38bullpen in which there are people.
0:28:41They want to sell you the opportunity of a chair.
0:28:44Right. Yes, that is
0:28:47the perfect way to put it. Yes. There are lots
0:28:50of companies that are in the opportunity of a chair
0:28:53business now. It's like,
0:28:56Okay, how interesting this is.
0:28:58I feel like this is some kind of signal about changes in the economy that I don't fully understand.
0:29:04But, like, why is this a thing that you're selling? Why is it a thing that so many people are buying?
0:29:09Including me, but presumably not all of these people are YouTubers.
0:29:12I don't understand who these people all are.
0:29:14But whatever.
0:29:15So many of these places will then also try to upsell some of their chair opportunities as offices.
0:29:24So there's going to have they're going to have some dedicated office space
0:29:27But typically they are for six people right like I think in most instances
0:29:34They are expecting a company of multiple people to to be the people that like that take those
0:29:40Even though they're really on the offices for one person, but like you shove seven people in them
0:29:44Yeah, so this is this is the this is the trend is oh yes. We have offices
0:29:50Will there be eight of you? And then I show up and it's a space in which I think it would be cruel to put
0:29:56three people. But they're like, no, no, it's fine.
0:30:00This chicken cage meets the minimum regulations and we can put eight people inside of there.
0:30:05It's like, oh, all right. One of the first places that I went to really typified for me the thing that I find baffling,
0:30:10which is, okay, do you have offices for...
0:30:12I would usually just ask for two people because the one person space was just comical, right?
0:30:19It was it was like no, I will not be in this one person space
0:30:21So do you have an office space for two people? Oh, yes, come right in
0:30:24We have a couple come take a look
0:30:26so the first place I went to is this big open bullpen and
0:30:30In the middle of the bullpen there are glass cubes
0:30:38Yeah, this is exactly what it was Zuckerberg's
0:30:43Office setup. So if you think of big
0:30:48Open office workspace, and then in the middle, cubes.
0:30:53Pure glass cubes.
0:30:57That, my favorite detail, the glass did not go all the way up to the ceiling.
0:31:05The glass stopped maybe two feet short of the ceiling.
0:31:11Just high enough that if you weren't paying attention, you might not notice.
0:31:16But if you're me, you notice immediately.
0:31:19That's silly.
0:31:19This was the worst version of this, but I saw so many of these things.
0:31:25And I was looking at this place to work, and I'm just trying to understand the world.
0:31:35This office space, it provides 0% privacy over the open bullpen, because it's just glass.
0:31:45There's no privacy here at all.
0:31:47It's not soundproof.
0:31:48It's not soundproofed because the glass doesn't go up to the top.
0:31:54And it's only glass, right? So it's never gonna be that soundproofed anyway.
0:31:59Yeah, it's never gonna be that soundproofed anyway.
0:32:02I don't know. In these situations, I don't say things, but the girl who's giving me the tour,
0:32:11I almost want to just really ask some honest questions like why was this designed this way?
0:32:18Who is this for and what advantage is this cube supposed to provide?
0:32:24I just I don't get it. I don't understand it at all. But it was interesting to me that this was a
0:32:31recurring theme of a bunch of these places that I went to.
0:32:35And these are different company types, right? Like you're not just going to
0:32:39all with like company provider A.
0:32:41Yeah, so that's what I want to be clear here, and that's the thing that I found was interesting, was
0:32:46I think I would have been a lot more baffled by this had we not done our tours of the big
0:32:53campuses out in Silicon Valley.
0:32:57Because it's like if I if this is the first time I had seen this I would have been genuinely horrified, right?
0:33:03But having walked through the Facebook campus, it's like, "Oh, okay, I have a frame of reference for this now."
0:33:09Like this is a pattern that it feels like is being stamped across the world.
0:33:17Is this open space, this space where there is very little privacy,
0:33:27And now it is taking over office space where it's not even like,
0:33:34"Oh, this is a company and we want everybody who is in the same company to be able to talk to each other
0:33:39and work with each other in this open area."
0:33:42It's like, no, no, this is now what different private companies competing with each other
0:33:48are offering to people who are small businesses, you know, anywhere from like one to ten people in size.
0:33:55The central glass office thing makes no sense, right? Like, there is a metaphor for Mark Zuckerberg's office
0:34:04that, like it or not, makes sense, right? Like, look, he's the CEO of one of the biggest companies
0:34:11in the world. He has to have an office because every now and then he's gonna bring somebody in.
0:34:17Because, like, they even said to us when we were there, most of the time he's working outside the
0:34:21the office. And there are like the picture of him with the tape over the computer camera.
0:34:26He is at a desk outside of the office, which is where he tends to work with everybody else.
0:34:31But every now and then he needs to take a meeting, so he goes into the glass room. But
0:34:35he doesn't want it to be like, "I'm hiding away from you people so everybody can see
0:34:39him when he's in there." There is a metaphor to that which has some sense to it.
0:34:46It is a statement about his view of his position here.
0:34:52Which I actually kind of liked when they explained it to us, because it's kind of like, if you're
0:34:57going to make everybody work this way, right, everybody's going to work in these huge, vast
0:35:01aircraft hangars with cables hanging from the ceiling, the CEO of the company should
0:35:07do this too.
0:35:08Like, if he's making everybody do this, he should do it.
0:35:12So like, you know, I kind of liked it that they were like, he has his desk here, he has
0:35:15as this office, but he only uses it for this and this,
0:35:17and it's like, okay, I actually kinda like this.
0:35:19Like if I was working at Facebook,
0:35:20I would be like, okay, right,
0:35:22like this is the situation that we're all in,
0:35:24because let's be frank about this,
0:35:26the amount of people we have,
0:35:27there's no other way to do it, right?
0:35:29Like you just gotta cram all those people
0:35:31in those insanely large buildings.
0:35:33But if I'm going to see an office space,
0:35:37and hiring an office space, I don't need that metaphor.
0:35:40Like the metaphor is not required, right?
0:35:42Like, I don't need to feel a sense of camaraderie with these other 25 companies.
0:35:46Like, there's no that this isn't required.
0:35:49This is not needed.
0:35:51Oh, well, I mean, OK, so this is another thing. So.
0:35:54I like I said, I think I saw five or six of these companies.
0:35:57Would you said right there camaraderie?
0:36:00Every one of these companies was not like they didn't just want me to rent an office.
0:36:04They wanted me to be part of their community.
0:36:10The community. Oh, God.
0:36:12And this is a case where I've always had a little bit of an annoyance with the word "community"
0:36:22because I feel like my familiarity from this has been the YouTube world where
0:36:27YouTubers who have enormous audiences want to just talk about being a part of their own communities
0:36:35in a way that I find weird and deflecting of what they are.
0:36:41But now it's like I feel like this word has spread everywhere and it has now become...
0:36:48It's not just a word that I feel uncomfortable with, it's a word that essentially makes me flinch.
0:36:53So now when an office manager is telling me about how like,
0:36:58"I'm here to rent an office because I want to just work quietly on my own."
0:37:03and they say, "We have an excellent community."
0:37:08(sighs)
0:37:10Look, I'm not like the world's most extroverted guy,
0:37:13but there's something that feels almost like weirdly
0:37:17like threatening about if you're not part of our community.
0:37:22It's like everybody here is part of the community
0:37:25because we're all pod people.
0:37:26And as like, you're gonna be a pod person too
0:37:29by coming here.
0:37:30I just, I find myself flinching away from this word because it's so forced.
0:37:37And I also find it so, it's so strange to go from different company to different company
0:37:44but hear the same thing each time.
0:37:47I was like, "Oh, in our open office space, you will be part of the community of all the
0:37:50other people who work in this open office space."
0:37:52Because it has become part of the corporate jargon for this industry.
0:37:58That's what it is. It's weird.
0:38:01- I don't disagree with the phrase community
0:38:06in the way that you do.
0:38:07I don't have the distaste for it
0:38:10in regards to YouTube or podcasting or whatever,
0:38:13even people that listen to this show,
0:38:15people that listen to other shows.
0:38:17The idea of the community makes sense to me,
0:38:19but for me, it is a thing that you join voluntarily
0:38:22or you're a part of because you enjoy something
0:38:25or you have an affinity for something.
0:38:27I don't join a community when I'm giving you money, right?
0:38:30It's not a community, right?
0:38:32Like I'm not buying into this community.
0:38:34Like this is an organization that I'm a part of, right?
0:38:37Like that is the difference.
0:38:39It's like I pay my dues for this organization.
0:38:42Like I'm not adapting to your worldview
0:38:45because I pay you 400 pounds a month, right?
0:38:48Like this isn't what this is.
0:38:50- Yeah, exactly.
0:38:51My flinchingness is the when someone tells you
0:38:56you a thing as a community. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Communities are things that exist. It's a human
0:39:04function, but it's the uncomfortableness of the top-down-ness of it, right? Like this is our
0:39:11community that we're going to. We are building this community in this anonymous floor of an
0:39:16office building, right? Like that's what we're doing here. It's like, "Errrr." Like you can do
0:39:22things to encourage a community, but it's just weird when it feels like it's a mandatory
0:39:29part of the thing.
0:39:30Like, guess what?
0:39:31You're gonna be part of this thing as part of the thing.
0:39:33I'm just here to rent an office, man.
0:39:35Like I'm not here to make friends.
0:39:39That's not what's happening here.
0:39:42So it was just a strange experience.
0:39:46And it was also just weird seeing how much this pattern has spread.
0:39:54Which makes me assume that it partly must be because it's just incredibly cost effective.
0:39:59I also think there's a way that it looks good at a glance if you're not really thinking
0:40:05about things.
0:40:06But so anyway, there's like a whole bunch of these different companies around.
0:40:10I made a decision to try to suck it up a little bit because what I was, what I wanted was
0:40:17a space outside of the house where I could work and I wanted it quickly and I also specifically
0:40:26wanted a place that I just, I could just get started with and I'll work on my long term
0:40:33problem later.
0:40:34So, after having toured a bunch of these companies, I eventually found one that to me was the
0:40:39least offensive of these things, and I have an office workspace now that is-- it is not
0:40:49a glass cube in the middle of a gigantic bullpen, but it is a glass cube among a bunch of other
0:40:55glass cubes, and it's really weird. It's a really weird thing to be a part of.
0:41:01So you can just, like, see through all of them?
0:41:03Yeah, so you can see through all of these glass cubes.
0:41:07It's it's like a coworking space that I used to be a part of.
0:41:11But if you just put glass dividers between all of the chair opportunities
0:41:15that that people have, I don't think I like that.
0:41:18Like, I don't think I would feel very comfortable.
0:41:21Like, I feel like I would always be on some kind of performance.
0:41:25Yeah, so this is
0:41:27I feel like I'm having an experience by doing this right.
0:41:33Like I just want to say, right, like I've worked in big buildings, like I've worked in
0:41:36co-working spaces, like I'm cool with that.
0:41:38Right. Like I actually think that co-working spaces are pretty good and I used one for
0:41:42quite a while.
0:41:43Yeah.
0:41:43But if I if I am paying for an office, I want some seclusion.
0:41:49Otherwise, I'm just going to sit in the bullpen like and pay probably half the money.
0:41:54Right. Like if I'm in an office, I want some walls.
0:41:57I don't want it to just be glass.
0:41:59Like, I kinda, personally I don't, I don't,
0:42:02I don't like it and I'm surprised
0:42:05that you've settled for it, honestly.
0:42:06Like, it just doesn't really feel like something
0:42:08that I would have expected you would go for.
0:42:12- Okay, well there's a few things
0:42:14that I think you need to understand
0:42:15about the situation here.
0:42:17So one of the things that happened
0:42:19essentially by accident,
0:42:22but has worked really well with this is,
0:42:27We were talking last time about like me changing my sleeping schedule.
0:42:30I basically have that sorted out now and it's great.
0:42:33I'm getting up nice and early and I'm back into the routine.
0:42:35I haven't actually changed, it just took a lot more effort to click myself back into the way that things used to be.
0:42:40But so the way things are working is I'm not actually using
0:42:46the glass office space
0:42:48for
0:42:50the writing and the video work in the same way that my old office used to be.
0:42:54What I'm doing is I'm up early enough that when I go into the building, there's nobody there.
0:43:01So I have just
0:43:04access to essentially the whole building and
0:43:07there are a couple of spots where it's like, "Great! I can just take my iPad and I can work here and I can
0:43:12write and talk out loud and
0:43:15there's nobody else here because it's
0:43:18630 in the morning, and and there's not going to be anybody in this building for at least another two hours really
0:43:24so
0:43:26it's having access to a certain amount of space and
0:43:29That's really great and the thing the thing that I have ended up doing with
0:43:35this weird glass cube that I'm in is I have set it up as
0:43:40I've set it up as it like an administration
0:43:43center for all of what I regard as
0:43:47light work stuff. So this is email, this is
0:43:52communicating with people that I work with, this is editing the podcasts,
0:43:56this is editing videos or vlogs or just a whole bunch of other stuff. Like I have set up that space to do
0:44:04this kind of work and
0:44:07I've partly done it because for a very very long time
0:44:11I've done all of that work in the place where I am speaking to you right now
0:44:16which is the home office in my house, which is like the podcast recording studio.
0:44:20But it has been on my mind ever since the summer that I want to push this idea of separating workspaces
0:44:29further and harder than I have before, and so what I am trying to do as much as possible now is
0:44:37have it be the case that if I am home,
0:44:42I am doing no work.
0:44:45Right now the podcast recording is the one exception to that, but if I'm not recording a podcast and I am home,
0:44:52I am not working.
0:44:55And I've been doing this for, I guess it's about a
0:44:59probably about a month now, and I have to say I really like it. I really like having that additional
0:45:07physical separation, and I think it's working really great that like my wife knows if I am home for the most part that I like
0:45:14there isn't a thing that I'm going to disappear and do.
0:45:17I've essentially recreated for myself this idea of like,
0:45:20I am going to the office because I have a whole bunch
0:45:23of stuff that I need to do.
0:45:25And I'm gonna go there and I'm going to work
0:45:27and then when I am done, I am going to come back home.
0:45:30So that is the overarching idea for what is going on.
0:45:35It's like I wanted a place to be able to move a bunch
0:45:40of the light work out of the house to this second location.
0:45:47And that is the reason why the glass cube is tolerable,
0:45:52because what I'm not doing in there
0:45:55is walking back and forth talking out loud
0:45:58while 600 people in the neighboring glass cubes
0:46:02are all looking at me, right?
0:46:03That is not what is occurring in that space.
0:46:06- Why do you record the audio of your videos?
0:46:10For now, I'm still going to be doing that in the house.
0:46:12That it's not gonna be in the office.
0:46:15I'm gonna record it at home in the same place
0:46:17that I am recording the podcast, which is at home.
0:46:20- So the home office is the audio studio.
0:46:24And then all of the work is performed
0:46:27in the administration glass cube.
0:46:30- Yes, that's the idea.
0:46:31- Do you know what I'm really keen on though?
0:46:35- What?
0:46:35- Finding out what this long-term plan is.
0:46:38- I know you are.
0:46:39Because in my mind you're building an office building.
0:46:42That's the great hours.
0:46:44This is what I imagine is happening.
0:46:46- Well look, let's not get distracted by the future.
0:46:49(laughing)
0:46:51In the meantime though, I do have to say
0:46:55that the thing about the glass cube is
0:46:57I'm with you on, there is a strange element to it
0:47:04and I'm able to do this I think partly because
0:47:08I'm viewing it as not necessarily a long-term solution.
0:47:14And I'm also viewing it as almost as an anthropological experiment.
0:47:21I am coming into this office environment.
0:47:24It's like, "Oh yes, hello fellow office workers."
0:47:28Like, "I'm just going to my desk and yes, I am one of you too.
0:47:33Yes, we are here all on the computers working together."
0:47:36I'm treating it very much in this mental mode of I am apart from this.
0:47:42Like this is, I'm just passing through on this thing and there are so many details about this that I find
0:47:49interesting and/or horrifying that, but I'm viewing them from a distance or from a bit of a separation.
0:48:00And that is why this thing is working.
0:48:03[BEEP]
0:48:04Hello Cortex listeners. It's your friend, CGP Grey, recording now, late at night, from my glass cube.
0:48:12Do you hear that? [knocking]
0:48:14That's the sound of me knocking on the wall of my cube.
0:48:18Because I'm a nosy sort, during the day I like to walk around and look in all the cubes, then see what everybody's up to.
0:48:24See what they're doing.
0:48:26You know what I see a lot of? Little companies with a few people building a website.
0:48:33A website that looks terrible. You know what they need?
0:48:36They need to listen to Cortex so that they know
0:48:39about Squarespace. If you're an eight-person company in a smallish glass cube
0:48:44and you just need a website to let the world know what your business is
0:48:48you probably shouldn't have one of those people spending all of their time making
0:48:53a website.
0:48:54That's what Squarespace is for. With Squarespace
0:48:57you can have a website up and running in no time flat.
0:49:01Squarespace is the place that lets you easily create a website for your next idea.
0:49:07If you want to sell something because you're a company, you can do an online store with Squarespace.
0:49:13If you're a design agency and you need to show off your portfolio, guess what? Squarespace does that.
0:49:19Maybe you just need to have a blog where you can let everybody know what your company is up to.
0:49:24You know the answer. The answer is Squarespace.
0:49:27because Squarespace is the all-in-one platform that lets you do everything you want to do.
0:49:33And there's nothing to install, no patches to worry about, no upgrades needed.
0:49:39And guess what? Squarespace is way cheaper than hiring someone to work on a website all the time.
0:49:45Squarespace is just $12 a month.
0:49:49That gives you access to all of their beautiful templates, their 24/7 customer support, everything they offer.
0:49:56That's why my company in a glass cube uses Squarespace, because there's no room in here for somebody else to maintain a website all the time.
0:50:03So right now you can start a trial by going to squarespace.com,
0:50:09and when you decide to sign up, use the offer code "CORTEX" to get 10% off your purchase and show your support for the show.
0:50:18Squarespace. Make your next move, make your next website.
0:50:21Thanks to Squarespace for supporting Cortex and all of Relay FM.
0:50:25How's that Nintendo Switch treating you?
0:50:29It's good.
0:50:30I'm trying to get up my 200cc Mario Kart skills.
0:50:34That's difficult.
0:50:35You've got a break on 200cc, you can't just smash into the corners anymore.
0:50:39No way around that.
0:50:42Yes, that's what I have learned.
0:50:45I need to break.
0:50:47A lot.
0:50:48And I'm not very good at it.
0:50:49But it's still 95, actually no probably 99% Mario Kart around these parts.
0:50:58Not so much Zelda.
0:50:59It's good.
0:51:00Got a little bored with Zelda.
0:51:01But yeah.
0:51:02I want to tell you about a game that I've been playing for a couple of days but I've
0:51:08been waiting for for a long time.
0:51:10And I think you would like it.
0:51:13It's called Stardew Valley.
0:51:15Have you heard of Stardew Valley before?
0:51:17I have because you have pitched it to me before.
0:51:20I think on this very show you mentioned Stardew Valley as a possibility.
0:51:23I mentioned it to you as a game that was upcoming when you first got your Switch a couple of
0:51:28months ago.
0:51:29My memory is it's a farming simulator?
0:51:31Yeah, it is.
0:51:32Sounds terribly boring.
0:51:33Who wants to simulate that kind of thing?
0:51:34Who would play farming simulators, right?
0:51:36This is why I am offering this game to you as an option.
0:51:40It is part farming simulator, part RPG.
0:51:43Have you ever played Animal Crossing?
0:51:45No, I haven't.
0:51:47The only thing I know about Animal Crossing is the video review of it that Yahtzee did,
0:51:52which is like a work of genius. But no, I don't, I don't, I'm unfamiliar with these
0:51:57things.
0:51:58Okay, so I guess the way for me to try and describe this game to you is that there is
0:52:04like a very light RPG mechanic in that you're in a town and there are people that you can
0:52:09talk to and sometimes they'll give you quests but you can also build your relationships
0:52:12with them.
0:52:13Oh, you have to do errands for the people?
0:52:14It's way less that the errands that you perform for people are purely as a way to
0:52:20get your money quicker.
0:52:22There isn't a story that is forced in that way, like you have to progress through this
0:52:28by doing errands.
0:52:29So I don't need to find chickens for a guy to get the boomerang?
0:52:32That's not what this is?
0:52:33Yeah, you don't need to do that sort of stuff because the result of doing these things
0:52:37is to get money from them and then the money helps you push forward.
0:52:41And really the main focus that you have is building your farm. Right? Like it starts
0:52:47off great actually. Like I don't want to say too much because I find it kind of surprising
0:52:50but like basically you're a person who decides that you want to go start a farm. Right? Like
0:52:55this is this is kind of what you are. And there are there is some surprises in it for
0:52:59me in that there are intriguing little things that happen which build into a story which
0:53:07exists in the game but you don't really have to pay a ton of attention to it if
0:53:11you don't want to like I feel like it's kind of got this like addition of a
0:53:14story that I wasn't expecting which is kind of surprising but a lot of this
0:53:19game is resource and time management hmm which is why I think you would like it
0:53:24like you are farming you are creating a farmland like you're clearing out the
0:53:29farmland you're planting the stuff you're watering the plants you're
0:53:33harvesting them and you're selling them and as a way to build up more and more
0:53:37money to plant more and more things and then to get animals as a way to
0:53:41continually make your farm bigger and bigger and bigger like you have this
0:53:44huge plot of land that you can work with and you can build up the farm and then
0:53:49you can build up your house and you can decorate if you want to it's like as a
0:53:53something else you can spend your money on.
0:53:55Can I automate this or hire people to do some of this work for me?
0:53:59That is a question that I don't have an answer for because I'm not that far in.
0:54:04Like I'm still a relatively small farm, like I don't know if it's a thing that you can do.
0:54:07See, that's where the sweet spot comes from.
0:54:10In the world of imaginary work, when you start thinking, "Hmm, how can I automate this imaginary work?"
0:54:14Well, so there's like, I've seen some elements of this in that like,
0:54:17so one of the things that I'm doing now, every morning, I have to water my plants, right?
0:54:21Like I have to go through and individually water every plant.
0:54:24That's like one of the things I have to do every day.
0:54:27But I know it's possible to buy sprinklers,
0:54:31like to make sprinklers.
0:54:33- Okay.
0:54:34- Which then take that job away from me, right?
0:54:36So like that's the thing that I'll be able to do.
0:54:39- So the reason I ask, just to be clear here,
0:54:42is because what I'm cautious of is the Farmville
0:54:47type gameplay where the game is just playing
0:54:52on your loss aversion.
0:54:53Like, oh, you need to harvest your pumpkins today,
0:54:55otherwise you're going to lose them, right?
0:54:57which is just solely their mechanism
0:54:59to make you keep coming back.
0:55:00- Yeah, this game has elements of that,
0:55:02but it's not real world time.
0:55:05- Okay.
0:55:06- So things are only growing when you're playing.
0:55:08- Okay, all right.
0:55:10- Right, so if you left the game for a week,
0:55:12your crops don't die,
0:55:14because you haven't been playing the game.
0:55:17But there is an element of going through and harvesting.
0:55:20You will do the harvesting.
0:55:22But I've been enjoying,
0:55:24even though it's like it's beginning more work, right?
0:55:27Like to make my farm bigger and bigger,
0:55:28like there was a moment where I was like,
0:55:30"Oh, that's how I make more money, I plant more stuff."
0:55:33Right, like it's just kind of this,
0:55:35it's a very simple thing, but like it took me a moment.
0:55:37I was like, "I'm making a lot of money on this game."
0:55:39'Cause I just kind of was keeping the plot that I made
0:55:42the same size and was just refilling it.
0:55:44It's like, "Oh no, I should spend all of the money
0:55:46that I have to buy more seeds."
0:55:49As opposed to like trying to slowly save up
0:55:52to buy something that I needed.
0:55:54So, but there are like, you know, there's also like, um, there's mining that you can
0:55:59do, right?
0:56:00So you go in and like, there is like a most spelunky like mine that you go into and there
0:56:05are like, uh, simple enemies that you kind of hack and slash at.
0:56:09And that's the way do you build up resources.
0:56:11And the deeper that you go into this mine, the better resources you need.
0:56:14Like I need iron to build the sprinklers and I'm confident-
0:56:17Okay, so this sounds very Minecrafty in a way.
0:56:20Um, in a way, yes.
0:56:24Like Stardew Valley, I think the reason that it has become so popular, because it's been
0:56:28a very popular PC game for quite a while, I think one of the reasons that it became
0:56:33so popular is it borrows a lot of very interesting mechanics from a bunch of different types
0:56:37of games.
0:56:38So like Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, Spelunky and Minecraft.
0:56:42Like it's got all of this type of aspect in it, but it's all presented in a 16-bit
0:56:45art style, right?
0:56:46Like it's very simple.
0:56:49The controls are pretty simple.
0:56:52It is a good game, but it is one of those games that like, another reason I think you'll
0:56:58like it is I accidentally spent seven hours playing it yesterday because it's just one
0:57:04more day.
0:57:05Because everything's done in days.
0:57:10So like you wake up, you do your stuff, and then you go to sleep.
0:57:14And like different things happen.
0:57:15So like you might do a thing and it's like you get like a little message like, "oh tomorrow
0:57:19this thing's gonna be on sale in the store."
0:57:21like well I could that would be good so I'll get that and then I'll stop playing after that but
0:57:26then there's this other thing that happens and then there's another day and another day and
0:57:29another day and you know you have limited energy as an individual so you plan around how much energy
0:57:36you spend in a day right like if you spend the whole day trying to clear out the farm you'll get
0:57:42tired but you can eat to build the energy back up but you might want to save those ingredients to
0:57:46sell them instead. Like, I think this is a game you would enjoy.
0:57:52You're selling it very hard here, Myke. Because I think it's great. I think it's
0:57:59really great. I love it.
0:58:00Yeah, five stars from Myke.
0:58:02I think so. I've waited for a long time for this game and it's paid off. Like, I am enjoying
0:58:07it immensely. In a way that No Man's Sky, right, like, people always laugh when they
0:58:12hear the episode a long time ago where I talk about, "Oh, I can't wait for No Man's Sky
0:58:15had to come out and then it kind of ended up being overwhelming. Stardew Valley already
0:58:21had a track record beforehand, where it's considered to be a great game. I have a bunch
0:58:25of flights coming up and I'm very excited about the prospect of being able to spend
0:58:29six hours just tending to my crops.
0:58:32Alright, alright, you've been pushing it so hard, I'll give it a try.
0:58:35I want you to try this one and you can report back, but I think that you would like this
0:58:39game. It's one of those games that's perfect for the Switch because you can take it with
0:58:44you.
0:58:45I don't know about this idea about bringing a whole other...
0:58:49I know everybody that's a selling feature for the Switch is "oh boy you can bring it
0:58:52with you" and I was like "I got another thing to bring" and now I need to bring my USB-C
0:58:56cable to charge the thing as well.
0:58:59I'm not sure I'm ever going to be a guy who travels with a Switch.
0:59:02Yeah but you should already do that because you have a MacBook Pro.
0:59:05Oh god yes that's right of course never mind.
0:59:07You know?
0:59:08It's all the same charger.
0:59:09Universal USB-C, the universal plug that I love so much.
0:59:15Externally symmetrical, internally in the wire, not the same everywhere.
0:59:19It's great. I love you USB-C.
0:59:21Yeah, I'm not sure I'm going to be someone who brings the Switch with me.
0:59:23Here's the thing, Myke.
0:59:25It's not that I wouldn't enjoy bringing the Switch with me,
0:59:29but I think there is something
0:59:31there's something that I resist about the idea of
0:59:35acknowledging in advance that when I am traveling, I'm going to be playing a bunch of video games.
0:59:42I feel like I have a little bit of psychological resistance to that,
0:59:45because normally when I'm traveling it's the idea that I'm doing--
0:59:48I'm traveling because there's a good reason. There's a thing that I want to do.
0:59:52What are you doing on the plane?
0:59:53No, I-- like, yes, but see, in Fantasyland, what I'm doing on the plane is
0:59:59amazing work in an isolated environment.
1:00:02That doesn't happen.
1:00:03which...
1:00:04Here's the problem.
1:00:06It's like a slot machine, right?
1:00:07Every once in a while it does, and it's fantastic,
1:00:10and I'm always hoping for that.
1:00:13But yes, most of the time,
1:00:14the idea of what I'm going to do on the plane
1:00:17versus the reality of what actually happens on the plane
1:00:19is not one and the same.
1:00:21And of course, the plane would be an absolutely perfect time to bring a switch.
1:00:25But I'm resistant to...
1:00:28bringing the switch feels like giving in and acknowledging
1:00:31that the amazing work times on a plane will just never happen because I'm just going to
1:00:35take out my Switch.
1:00:36You're missing out.
1:00:37You're missing out.
1:00:38Like, you could be playing Mario Kart instead of watching a dumb movie, right?
1:00:42Like just, you need to do two things.
1:00:44One, you need to buy Stardew Valley and then the next time you get on a plane you have
1:00:48to take this thing with you.
1:00:49I'm telling you, man, it's so good.
1:00:51Like some of these trips that me and you take…
1:00:53I've got to bring the little card with me.
1:00:55The little card?
1:00:56What little card?
1:00:58I need to bring the little, I need to remember which memory cards to bring with me for which
1:01:02games on my Switch. Why are you buying the game? Download them.
1:01:04What? Oh, I didn't even know this was a thing you could do. I thought you had to buy the
1:01:08card. No, the eShop. You need to have an SD card,
1:01:10like a micro SD card, but they're super cheap and super easy to deal with. You just buy
1:01:15like a big micro SD card, pop it in the back, and then you can just download games from
1:01:20the eShop. Oh. I didn't even know this was a thing.
1:01:24I only own one cart, which is Zelda.
1:01:27And the Zelda cartridge stays in the Nintendo Switch.
1:01:30It's never been taken out from the day I got the Switch.
1:01:33So it's always there.
1:01:34Everything else I download.
1:01:35- I've been thinking Nintendo really needs
1:01:39to get on this idea of an app store
1:01:40so I can just download games to my Switch.
1:01:42- There's like a dedicated button on the menu.
1:01:43It's like a shopping bag.
1:01:45It's where you go to buy the games.
1:01:47- Never even noticed.
1:01:49- So go to the eShop.
1:01:51Get the Stardew Valley.
1:01:53Do you know what I'm looking at on my screen literally right now, Myke?
1:01:57I'm looking at amazon.co.uk where I typed in "Stardew Valley Switch"
1:02:01to try to find the thing where I buy the card, and I didn't see it.
1:02:04I was like, "How am I supposed to get this game?"
1:02:06Yeah, because they haven't got a physical release of it yet.
1:02:08It's just a digital release.
1:02:10Oh, see? I learned something today.
1:02:12[DING]
1:02:13I see you've put the thing in the show notes, Myke.
1:02:17The thing that you have been bothering me about for...
1:02:21six months? Maybe more?
1:02:23It's probably longer than that.
1:02:25- Yeah, I think it is really longer than that.
1:02:26- I actually think this is the thing that I've had
1:02:28since my original notes document
1:02:30from before Cortex existed.
1:02:33- Okay.
1:02:36- So I wanna do a Cortex Book Club episode on the next show.
1:02:40So that means in advance,
1:02:42me and you are gonna read a book
1:02:43and we're gonna talk about it
1:02:44and we want to tell people about it now
1:02:46so they can read along with the book if they so choose.
1:02:50- Right.
1:02:51going to be discussing Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, which
1:02:59is a book that you've probably heard of. I feel like in the pantheon of business books,
1:03:07this is one of the big ones.
1:03:09Yeah, there's this one and there's that book about moving cheese.
1:03:13Where is my cheese? Who Moved My Cheese? That one.
1:03:16Who Moved My Cheese, yeah.
1:03:17I saw an animated video version of that about five or six years ago, one time.
1:03:25I cannot get the song out of my head every time I hear it.
1:03:31It's so bad.
1:03:33It was like an animation done in the 80s, and they have this little song,
1:03:37Who Moved My Cheese song, and it's just horrific.
1:03:40I see if I can find a link.
1:03:41I'll put it in the show notes if I can find a link to this on YouTube or something.
1:03:44Don't do that. You're going to confuse the people, Myke.
1:03:46You just look, okay, so we got off on a bit of a tangent straightaway because my brain just resists and slides off seven habits of highly effective people.
1:03:55Because, okay, so here's my backstory. Here's why it's been in the show notes for forever.
1:04:00Is because I know I already read this book a long time ago.
1:04:04And I just, I have had a great deal of resistance to the idea of reading it again.
1:04:11But Myke has been bothering me about it for so long and I don't know why but I finally caved and so
1:04:18We're going to do this
1:04:20so if you if you want to
1:04:22Be all caught up on the book club before the next episode of the show you two
1:04:27can read seven habits of highly effective people and
1:04:30We're going to talk about it next time
1:04:33But the thing that is always worth remembering
1:04:35with the book club is we're gonna do our very best to give you all of the important information
1:04:41in the episode. So if you want to read along then do it but we're gonna do our best to try and
1:04:48digest it and give you the important stuff. So seven habits of highly effective people. I can't
1:04:54wait to be highly effective. You can read it but you can also listen to the tone of my voice and
1:05:01And think about me having put this off for so very long.
1:05:06So it's there, it's like an option on the table.
1:05:09It's an option at the book buffet that you can pick up
1:05:14or you can pass right by.
1:05:16It's just there, but we'll be talking about it next time.
1:05:19- Gray, it is time for some #AskCortex questions.
1:05:25So listeners, you can send these into us.
1:05:27You just tweet with the #AskCortex,
1:05:29they go into a document.
1:05:31And I want to try and do these more often.
1:05:32So we're going to start today with some questions
1:05:34that I've picked out from our listeners.
1:05:36And the first one comes from Nathan and Nathan asks,
1:05:40how do you two deal with tasks that you despise
1:05:43but have to do yourself a must complete in a timely manner?
1:05:47- Okay, Myke, I think you should go first on this one.
1:05:55- So the way that I handle this
1:05:59is knowing when I need to do the task,
1:06:01so knowing what the deadline is,
1:06:03and then setting the to-do item
1:06:05like three weeks before the due time.
1:06:09- Okay.
1:06:10- Because it is the constant badgering
1:06:13that I may end up doing it.
1:06:15Right, so say for example it's a tax-related thing, right,
1:06:19because nobody ever wants to do that stuff, right,
1:06:21like I guess unless you're an accountant, I guess.
1:06:25I wonder if accountants like doing their own taxes.
1:06:28Anyway, so I would set something like three weeks in advance and know that it needs to
1:06:35be done.
1:06:36And one of the reasons – I do this for two reasons, right?
1:06:38One of the reasons is if it was to pop up on that final day, I wouldn't be so annoyed
1:06:43at the universe, right?
1:06:45Because it's like, "Ugh, why do I have to do this thing today?"
1:06:47You feel like you were given fair notice.
1:06:49Exactly, yeah.
1:06:51It's not a surprise.
1:06:52The boss didn't barge in and be like, "You've got to get me this TPS report by five."
1:06:57Right, yeah.
1:06:58And the other is for the benefit of work procrastination, which I believe is a thing
1:07:06that I've spoken about before, in where I procrastinate from work that I need to do on a
1:07:11day by doing work that I don't need to do. Which is a great use of time, actually.
1:07:16That I feel like I can be like, "Oh, it's okay. I didn't do that thing I had to do today,
1:07:20but I did other stuff." So I have these tasks, which are like these menial... because
1:07:24These things, they tend to be like admin or like menial tasks that like only I can do.
1:07:30I don't really think anybody likes tasks like this, right? Which is just like,
1:07:33there is this thing which is an administrative thing that you don't want to have to deal with,
1:07:37right? Like it's entering some data into a spreadsheet, finding some receipts in a folder,
1:07:41scanning stuff, right? Like just this boring tasks which don't really have a result to them,
1:07:47which you are comfortable, which you are excited about. So, but these are perfect time fillers.
1:07:54Yeah. So that's how I do it. Like I set the task really early in the hopes that I will be slacking
1:08:02off one day and decide that I'll just take care of that scanning now. That's how I do it.
1:08:07Okay, so you're hoping that it'll be an opportunity for work procrastination in the future.
1:08:12Like I'm tricking myself basically into doing these things.
1:08:15Yeah, but you know what? That's what all of this stuff is, right? It's all about tricking yourself.
1:08:19I'm a big believer in the method of tricking yourself because it's just like your brain is lazy and
1:08:25You got it. You got to have a whole bunch of tricks up your sleeve to get anything done
1:08:29So
1:08:34Here's the thing when I look at this question, right so
1:08:38At first I thought I was going to get a little bit out of it because
1:08:45thought well
1:08:47Just like I didn't want to
1:08:49be the person who actually cancels my old office, like I will hand this off to my assistant to do.
1:08:55I try to hand many things off to my assistant to do.
1:08:59But when the question then specifies that you have to do,
1:09:02it becomes a slightly different thing.
1:09:05So here is a thing that I think is both good and sometimes bad.
1:09:10Which is that I cannot help but always think about like the return on investment of time or like the upside or downside of doing various things.
1:09:19Mm-hmm.
1:09:20You know where this is going, don't you, Myke?
1:09:22And so...
1:09:24I know the kind of question that this person is asking, and...
1:09:29Look.
1:09:30Everyone can't do this because civilization will fall apart,
1:09:36but I often find my brain whispers to itself,
1:09:40"What really happens if we don't do this?"
1:09:43Oh, God!
1:09:44Right? Like...
1:09:46Like, what's the...
1:09:48But like what's the real downside of not doing this?
1:09:52How big will the fine be?
1:09:55Well yeah so this is...
1:09:58How long will I have to go to prison for?
1:10:00How big is the fine and what is my hourly rate?
1:10:04Right and it's like okay well so like I really like basically I need a lot of motivation
1:10:11if a task falls into the category of something that I despise
1:10:17that also has a deadline that I need to do myself,
1:10:23it's like I need a hell of a lot of motivation to do that kind of thing.
1:10:28So it's like if this task is not the kind of thing that can be done by somebody else,
1:10:36it's... there needs to be a real big downside to motivate me.
1:10:40So that is the honest answer to this is
1:10:44I'm just not very good at doing tasks
1:10:46that my brain doesn't see a real upside for.
1:10:50I'm terrible at that.
1:10:52And it's a thing that I have definitely gotten way worse at
1:10:57as I have gotten older.
1:10:58Like my tolerance for doing that kind of stuff
1:11:01has gone way down.
1:11:03So don't take my advice on this thing.
1:11:05- This is bad advice.
1:11:07Alright, this is straight up bad advice.
1:11:10Well, it is bad advice because, again, civilization would fall apart because once you do this
1:11:17once and you realize, "Hey, wait a minute.
1:11:20Nothing really that bad happened."
1:11:23You realize, "Oh, I could do this more."
1:11:24But everybody can't do that.
1:11:26If everybody does that, it's bad for civilization.
1:11:29So I shouldn't even be saying it out loud on the show.
1:11:33This is why finds exist.
1:11:35Yeah, this is why finds exist.
1:11:37didn't do it at first, right? That they had to start finding people to make them do it.
1:11:42B: Yeah, but so uh, so that's my answer is I break civilization.
1:11:48[Music]
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1:13:29We have been well known to like to try out email apps and to-do apps. That is a thing that me and
1:13:36you both enjoy greatly. And Adrian wants to know if either of us have tried the app on iOS and on
1:13:42the Mac, Things 3. Have you spent any time with Things 3? Oh yeah, of course. I try everything.
1:13:49Oh yeah? Yeah, I'm always interested. I haven't tried this one. I mean, I've tried Things 3,
1:13:54Even though I've, you know, I bought Things 2. I'm pretty sure I bought the original Things.
1:13:58I know I had the original and Things 2, because Things 2 was around for like 100 years.
1:14:03Yeah, maybe I didn't have the original. Yeah, maybe it was just Things 2. But yeah,
1:14:07that one was around for a very long time. I've tried it. I have to, I like,
1:14:15I like the aesthetics of Things. I think that app has a good look to the way it
1:14:23organizes stuff. Wonderful looking. Yeah as opposed to I'll say to Daoist which is
1:14:32very ugly I find in in the way it arranges stuff it's hard to pin down
1:14:38what it is I just think it's ugly. I wouldn't call it ugly I would it is an
1:14:42application that is cross-platform in design. Yeah maybe that's what it is. And apps that are that way they don't
1:14:50necessarily have the beauty of any of the platforms that they're on. It's stripped back
1:14:55in a non-minimalistic way, it's like stripped back in a functional way, which makes it unattractive.
1:15:02Yeah, maybe that's what it is. But so yeah, Thing 3 looks great. I played around with it because
1:15:09I like to keep my mind on what are the uses of these various apps because I do use more than one
1:15:18to-do manager for different purposes.
1:15:20And Things 3 just falls to me in an uncomfortable category of...
1:15:25it's complicated enough that it doesn't fulfill the needs for my very simple to-do managers,
1:15:34where I just want like a little list of things.
1:15:37But it's not complicated enough to even come close to replacing something like OmniFocus.
1:15:43So for me personally, I find Things 3 fits in a weird middle ground.
1:15:49For me to use it, it would either need to be much simpler or much more complicated.
1:15:56So I can't see myself personally using it at any point.
1:15:59The reason I haven't tried it is like a similar answer, right?
1:16:03Like, I know it's bigger and is more complex than the basic stuff that I have, something like Dew.
1:16:10I know that this is an app that is bigger than Take Out the Garbage, right?
1:16:17But I know that it doesn't have any automation aspects, so that makes it not enough.
1:16:23I'm only ever going to move to a to-do application that has a web API now, because that is what
1:16:30I've gotten used to in Todoist.
1:16:32Even though I don't have a lot of things that use it, I don't want to move away from it,
1:16:36Because I like to have that if I have an idea, that I can fulfill that idea.
1:16:44Because that is my favorite thing about using Web Automation is that I might have an idea
1:16:50and then I want to fulfill it.
1:16:51So for example, me and Adina are getting married next year and we sent out RSVPs.
1:16:58RSVPs were firing off a form that landed results in a Google Sheet.
1:17:03So I set up a task with Zapier to give me a push notification when something was filled
1:17:11out because I just wanted to know so I didn't have to keep checking.
1:17:15So like that is how I kind of see automation is like I have a new thing that's come up.
1:17:20Oh how can I make this better for me?
1:17:22So I'd like to have all of the services that I have have some kind of automation in them
1:17:27if it's possible and it is possible to have automation in a task manager.
1:17:30So I want automation in my task manager.
1:17:33Doug wrote in, and Doug says, "Myke, how do you decide between making content that
1:17:37will be easily received by an audience and therefore more popular and content that you
1:17:42want to make?"
1:17:43And Doug goes into a bit more context here.
1:17:45So he says, "I've noticed on your YouTube channel that your most popular video is your
1:17:49review of the Nintendo Switch, which has around 30,000 views.
1:17:53Meanwhile, your vlogs tend to hover between 10,000 to 15,000 views.
1:17:58I also noticed that despite the greater success of this technology review video, that your
1:18:03you're still making vlogs mostly.
1:18:05I'm personally facing this issue with my own channel
1:18:07and I'd love to hear what you and Gray
1:18:08have to say about this.
1:18:10So, it's a very good question because the logic,
1:18:15like the logical route with the YouTube channel
1:18:19is that I would keep making technology product review videos
1:18:23because they are about two times more successful
1:18:27than the vlog videos that I've made.
1:18:29- Well, I mean, I'll put a little asterisk here in that.
1:18:32I don't think you, you don't really have enough data points
1:18:36to say that with confidence.
1:18:37- No.
1:18:38- But you do have an indication of it.
1:18:40- Yeah.
1:18:41You know, it's like I made one of them
1:18:42and it was more successful, right?
1:18:45So it's like, that's still an interesting data point
1:18:48because it was like, I didn't have a channel
1:18:50that was known for this stuff,
1:18:51but yet it's still either amongst my existing audience
1:18:55or people that were tangentially aware of me,
1:18:57they still wanted to watch this video.
1:18:58And or it probably got chewed up by the algorithm more,
1:19:01which it would, right?
1:19:02Like, a video about a product is going to go into the algorithm easier than my trip
1:19:07to Disneyland.
1:19:08You know, like, that sort of stuff is going to get…
1:19:12There isn't actually a trip to Disneyland, but just in case people were like, "Hey,
1:19:15where's your Disneyland vlog?"
1:19:16There wasn't one.
1:19:17Hey, where is your Disneyland vlog?
1:19:18I haven't been to Disneyland, because I didn't go to VidCon.
1:19:23So why do I do this?
1:19:25It's purely a case of the YouTube channel just being whatever it is that I want to make.
1:19:30I don't have grand plans when it comes to the YouTube video.
1:19:37If I was following just data, then sure, I would make videos about technology and hardware
1:19:42constantly.
1:19:43But I made the video about the Switch because it was a video that I really wanted to make.
1:19:47And I have an idea for another video at some point this year which is also about technology
1:19:52hardware because it's a video, it's an idea that I really want to make.
1:19:57And so the reason that I tend to make non technology videos is because that's just where
1:20:01I'm being pulled to.
1:20:03If I had made the decision at any point that like YouTube is where I want to be, that's
1:20:09what I want to do.
1:20:11Like rather than it just being a flight of fancy, like I want to push into that, then
1:20:16I would target the things that have been the most successful.
1:20:19But because this is kind of just like a side creative project, I'm cool with just doing
1:20:26whatever it is that I'm most interested in because at the same time I'm like playing
1:20:30around with different things and different ideas until I find the thing that I really
1:20:33want to make or not.
1:20:35Yeah, and I remember you at the time also just talking about that you partly wanted
1:20:39to do that Switch review to just try doing something different.
1:20:44Like doing the different thing was part of the motivation behind it.
1:20:49Yep, and the Switch video was vastly more complicated to put together than any of the
1:20:55of vlog videos have been.
1:20:56- Yeah, you seemed real exhausted that weekend.
1:20:58- It was horrible.
1:21:00It was fun, but it was really, really hard.
1:21:02I mean, and I will say this, having, like, right now,
1:21:05I have like a Final Cut project of a vlog video
1:21:10that like, I don't know if it's ever gonna get done.
1:21:13It's just sitting there,
1:21:14and it's been sitting there for ages, like, so yeah, but.
1:21:18- I know the feeling, Myke.
1:21:21- Yeah, I do feel, I feel like you a little bit with this,
1:21:24Like I have this Final Cut project which is just like, it's got a chip taken out of it and I got too much stuff going on.
1:21:32Poor Myke.
1:21:36Yeah, I mean, as a side comment to Doug here, when he says he's facing this with his own channel,
1:21:43there's a thing I think that you can see people doing on YouTube in particular,
1:21:49which is channels that are trying a whole bunch of stuff,
1:21:54waiting to see what hits,
1:21:57and then trying to replicate those hits.
1:22:01I think that's a totally reasonable strategy to do.
1:22:05It's just a question of what are you--
1:22:06- It's a path to success.
1:22:07That is a path.
1:22:09- Yeah, it's like, what are you trying to do
1:22:13with a YouTube channel or anything like this
1:22:16that you're trying to do in the public?
1:22:17in the public and like, well, one of the most
1:22:19data-driven ways to do that is like,
1:22:21just try a whole bunch of stuff,
1:22:23see what works,
1:22:24and keep building on the thing that works.
1:22:28That is a way, over time,
1:22:30to try and build an audience.
1:22:32But I say like, what do you want to do with the thing?
1:22:36And it's like, well, if you want to grow a thing as big as possible, that is definitely what you should do.
1:22:41But
1:22:43that strategy also doesn't
1:22:45take into account what you as the creator want to do.
1:22:50Like that's a trade-off here.
1:22:52And like, that's definitely a thing, like I know with videos sometimes,
1:22:54it's like, "Oh, I'm making this thing because I'm interested in this thing,"
1:22:56and it's not necessarily going to be as popular as other stuff.
1:23:02But you just have to know, like, what is the goal here?
1:23:04If your goal is, "I want this channel to get as big and grow as fast as possible,"
1:23:10then you need to follow what the audience wants more.
1:23:15I will always point out that my few list videos that I have ever done were done when I was pushing the channel as hard and as fast as I could
1:23:23because I had a deadline by which I needed to quit my job.
1:23:26It was like list video time, right? But I haven't done list videos in forever since then
1:23:32because that's where I was like, I'm pushing more on people love lists, so I'm going to go with the data on this.
1:23:39But I haven't done that in a while.
1:23:42So if you follow the data, you may end up running a YouTube channel that you don't like very much,
1:23:49but is very popular, and I've met those people and they are very professionally successful.
1:23:57We can say that.
1:23:59So yeah, it's just a question about what is the goal?
1:24:02What are you trying to achieve?
1:24:04And I think, Myke, you have answered in particular, for your channel,
1:24:08you're not trying to make the YouTube channel the main thing
1:24:12and so you're just experimenting and playing around with it and
1:24:16seeing what happens over there out of interest.
1:24:19I'm lucky in the sense that my job
1:24:24is a creative outlet and all the shows that I have about things that I enjoy
1:24:29so I personally don't
1:24:32see a value in chasing something just for the sake of chasing it because I don't
1:24:37I don't have to do that in my day job.
1:24:40For me to feel creatively fulfilled in podcasting,
1:24:44I don't have to chase the list version of a podcast.
1:24:49I can just make the stuff that I wanna make.
1:24:51So I can't imagine, with a side project,
1:24:54wanting to do the opposite.
1:24:56I just make the things that I wanna make.
1:24:58And if there is something that ever comes along one day
1:25:00where I'm like, I think I can do this,
1:25:02but I gotta build a base first,
1:25:04then sure, maybe I'll chase off the data-driven approach.
1:25:07But with the YouTube channel, I don't feel that.
1:25:10The YouTube channel for me is just a thing.
1:25:14And sometimes I'll have a video that I wanna put together
1:25:16because I think it might be interesting, so I'll do it.
1:25:18And if I don't do one, then I'm gonna beat myself up
1:25:20about it, this is a change that I made
1:25:22in the last few months, we spoke about it, right?
1:25:24Ideally I would like to have a video a month,
1:25:26but if I don't, I'm cool with that.
1:25:28I miss September, I'm fine with that.
1:25:29I'm not gonna beat myself up over it, I'm good.
1:25:32I have enough stuff to do that is more important,
1:25:36that is my actual job, I'm not gonna take time away
1:25:39from that to put the video together.
1:25:41Like, I spent seven hours playing Stardew Valley yesterday.
1:25:44I should have maybe edited the vlog, but do you know what?
1:25:46I wanted to play Stardew Valley instead, so I did that.
1:25:49- Yeah, and if you spent the whole day grinding away
1:25:52at a vlog that you didn't feel like doing,
1:25:54it's like, well, guess what?
1:25:55You've just turned your YouTube channel into a job now.
1:25:58Right, that's what you've done.
1:25:59- Yep, this question comes from Samuel.
1:26:01Samuel wants to know if we use fidget spinners.
1:26:04Oh, this is a very on zeitgeist question, I guess.
1:26:08No, I don't use a fidget spinner.
1:26:12I've played with them.
1:26:14I don't really get it.
1:26:16OK. Do you?
1:26:18There's not been a podcast recorded in maybe the last two or three months
1:26:22where I haven't been using one constantly.
1:26:24I'm spinning a fidget spinner right now.
1:26:26I didn't know that.
1:26:28I first got a fidget spinner a few months ago.
1:26:30I think even the Wirecutter put out their recommendations
1:26:33'cause I was like, what is this thing?
1:26:36Why do people do this?
1:26:37So I went to Amazon, this was months ago,
1:26:39when it was just starting to take off.
1:26:41And Amazon is just a sea of fidget spinners
1:26:45at vastly varying prices, and they all kinda look the same.
1:26:48So I kinda closed the tab, 'cause I was like,
1:26:50this is too much, I need the wire cutter to tell me.
1:26:53And then a few months later, they did.
1:26:55The wire cutter published an article
1:26:57with their fidget spinner recommendations.
1:26:59So I bought one of the plastic ones,
1:27:01the ones that you see everywhere,
1:27:03one that they recommended and it came and I didn't understand it. Like it was, it arrived,
1:27:07I span it and I was like, I don't get it. Then I put it on my desk and then I realized,
1:27:12oh, this is something for my hands to do when I'm recording, which is a thing that I tend
1:27:17to desperately need, right? Like just another way to help me keep focused to what I'm actually
1:27:21doing, which is talking into a computer whilst looking at a screen that doesn't move, right?
1:27:26Like, and so spinning the fidget spinners is a way to help me keep focus. So I have
1:27:31a plastic one which was their recommendation and then I also bought their metal one like
1:27:35that they recommended as well which is the one that I'm spinning right now and it's a
1:27:40thing that I'm able to do and keep quiet like I have one of those fidget cube things but
1:27:45that's just all about making noise right like I backed the Kickstarter for the fidget cube
1:27:49which came before the fidget spinner and that thing just makes sound all the time and I
1:27:53can't be making sound so I get to spin my fidget spinner in silence unless I drop it
1:27:59especially the metal one, and it crashes into the table and then I have to edit around it.
1:28:04But for the majority of the time that you hear me recording today, including this and
1:28:07maybe the last five or six Cortex episodes, you can feel happy in knowing that Millennial
1:28:12Hipster Myke has been spinning a fidget spinner the whole time.
1:28:16So this is your new coloring?
1:28:18Yeah, this is the new coloring. Although I will say on this show as well, and I've always
1:28:23done this, I have a pad in front of me and a bunch of pens and I doodle. And I always
1:28:30have done that.
1:28:31Carano noticed something. In episode 39, Gray compares YouTube processing to rolling 100
1:28:36D20s. Has Gray ever played anything like Dungeons and Dragons?
1:28:42I have never played real official Dungeons and Dragons. I'm familiar enough with it,
1:28:49that I know the mechanics of it.
1:28:51I've never played real Dungeons & Dragons.
1:28:53I've played, uh...
1:28:55I might not be remembering the name correctly,
1:28:58but I used to play...
1:29:00Let me just look. Was it called Hero Quest?
1:29:03Oh no, yeah, Hero Quest. That's what it was.
1:29:06I played Hero Quest as a kid.
1:29:08Wow, this Google image search really brings back memories.
1:29:13I played that a ton as a kid, which,
1:29:16which as far as I can tell is Dungeons and Dragons for babies.
1:29:20But I was the Dungeon Master for Heroes Quest
1:29:24in my local neighborhood for forever.
1:29:28So that is a thing that I had very many fond
1:29:32memories for a long time of playing. But it's the same idea.
1:29:36Like you're doing the dice rolls, the Dungeon Master is creating a story
1:29:40and people are barbarians and wizards and all the rest of it. It's just, it's a simpler
1:29:44version of Dungeons & Dragons, but so no I have never played the full on Dungeons & Dragons.
1:29:53Were you only ever the DM? You never played?
1:29:55Yeah, no, I don't want to be the player. I was the Dungeon Master. That's the only way to roll, Myke.
1:30:02Interesting. Okay, I'll file that away for future use.
1:30:05Okay.
1:30:07Zachary asked, "I recently heard of going to working cafes without your device charger to
1:30:13motivate yourself to get work done? What do you think?
1:30:16I actually think it's a kind of genius idea and I definitely know that on the cases when I have forgotten or I don't have access to a charger, I'm way more focused on the work.
1:30:30I do wonder though if this is just a Hawthorne effect where it's like, "Oh, something has changed."
1:30:36And so because of the change you're more focused and it's not the absolute state that if you started doing it on a regular basis
1:30:45maybe it wouldn't be as effective.
1:30:47But yeah, it has definitely been a thing that causes me to focus a great deal more.
1:30:51I think I made a very quick reference to it on
1:30:53the vlog that I actually put up where I was on a plane without power in the seats and
1:30:59It's like man was I really focused on trying to get as much done as I could
1:31:03while that laptop battery was was draining down. So I'm not exactly
1:31:08sure if I feel like I would ever want to do it on purpose
1:31:13but there is a noticeable effect when it happens by accident.
1:31:15My concern is that I would use this as an excuse.
1:31:19Hmm, I could see that.
1:31:21I would get to a certain point in the day and I have like 20% left and I'm like
1:31:25Might as well pack it up and go home because I might run out of battery at any moment
1:31:29That would be my concern about me
1:31:31I can see how it may motivate people but I think I would use it as an excuse to pack up and go home
1:31:37Yeah, you never know when the battery runs out