0:00:00Hey Gray, where are you?
0:00:01Hi Myke. I am in North Carolina now.
0:00:06Start of the summer of fun.
0:00:08No, it's not a summer of fun. Where did you get a summer of fun from?
0:00:10This is not a thing. What it is is a hashtag
0:00:15"summer of vastly more travel than I would like not fun".
0:00:19That's the summer hashtag. That's what's occurring here.
0:00:22I don't think you understand how hashtags work.
0:00:24What do you mean?
0:00:26It's a little long. It's a little on the long side.
0:00:29I think I think I'm fantastic at hashtags. Someone will use that hashtag.
0:00:33Well they will now.
0:00:34Someone's having that summer too. They'll use that hashtag. There'll be a little group
0:00:38of people who are, I know, also having summers of many travels and not fun discussing them
0:00:44on a hashtag. That's how it works. I use Twitter. I know how the Twitter works, Myke.
0:00:47Sounds like it.
0:00:48But yes, for the moment, for the moment, I am visiting my parents in North Carolina and
0:00:54and I'm talking to you from my temporary recording studio.
0:00:59- It means Cortexmas is on the way.
0:01:01- Oh yeah, summer Cortexmas,
0:01:04one of the six annual Cortexmases coming up very shortly.
0:01:07- Why does it grow, it multiplies.
0:01:09- When is that coming up?
0:01:10I don't know, I forget, when is that?
0:01:12- I think it's in August sometime.
0:01:14- Okay, so you want the people to know
0:01:15that there's going to be a missing episode in August.
0:01:17- I feel like I have to tell them.
0:01:20I know you would prefer to just never tell them,
0:01:23I want the listener to know. I think you should not tell them. I think people
0:01:26should just be surprised when it's Cortex-MIS. You never know when it's
0:01:29going to be Cortex-MIS. I don't think it's a surprise if
0:01:32something doesn't arrive. I don't think like, "Oh! Surprise! No episode!" I don't
0:01:36think people think like that. Well, I mean, we know we know there's the
0:01:39regular, right? There's Christmas Cortex-MIS,
0:01:42of course, right? There's a summer Cortex-MIS. And then
0:01:45there are, you know, maybe eight to ten random Cortex-MISs
0:01:50throughout the year. There are many attempts at more cortex misses around the year. But Myke always
0:01:56pulls me back people. He's trying to eek an extra cortex miss out of Myke. You know innocently
0:02:03messaging him and now it's like oh no we're going to record a show today. So I'm recording a show
0:02:06today with you and I'm very happy to be here Myke. I'll tell you something I was very happy about
0:02:12In the reddit from the last episode
0:02:14Many people who had applied for the animation illustration position
0:02:21in CTP Grey Industries
0:02:23Were posting their videos in the reddit thread, which was really cool
0:02:29So there's a bunch in there
0:02:31I'll include a couple links in the show notes to some threads where you'll find some of the videos that were put in the in
0:02:36in the Reddit.
0:02:38And it was just really interesting to see
0:02:40the different takes that people had.
0:02:42And I really liked it.
0:02:43So I'll encourage anybody else to post in the Reddit
0:02:47their videos that they submitted
0:02:49if they're interested in sharing them,
0:02:51because it was really cool to see.
0:02:52And also I think considering how much we've spoken
0:02:54about this and you've kind of gone through the process,
0:02:57I think it adds a lot of context
0:02:59to kind of the way that it's going through.
0:03:00And maybe people can draw lines
0:03:02as to type of thing you're looking for
0:03:03by looking at what maybe didn't get through.
0:03:05I think it's really interesting to see how it's evolving.
0:03:08- I was kind of surprised at how much interest
0:03:11there was around this, but yeah,
0:03:12I saw a whole bunch of people were,
0:03:14seemed to be having fun posting those applications
0:03:17and talking about them.
0:03:19I even saw people were like,
0:03:21it was like a little group of people
0:03:22who were also each critiquing the applications
0:03:26and giving feedback.
0:03:27The internet always surprises me in these ways,
0:03:30and this is one of those times of like,
0:03:31oh, there was a lot of interest in this
0:03:33lot of interesting discussion. So yes, if you are listening to Cortex, presumably this is the thing
0:03:39that is probably of interest to you since you've stuck with us through whatever it is so far,
0:03:45two or three episodes of me talking about hiring a person. So yeah, if you want to see a bit more
0:03:52of the behind the scenes of that, Myke will put the appropriate links in the show notes.
0:03:56>> Whilst we're talking about other people promoting something that they're doing,
0:04:01I would like to promote something that I'm doing.
0:04:06So I have a new project
0:04:08that I wanted to let the Cortex listeners know about.
0:04:10I have a question, Myke.
0:04:13Is it a podcast?
0:04:14It is a podcast.
0:04:15Really?
0:04:16How could you have guessed?
0:04:16How could you have guessed?
0:04:18I have to say it seems quite out of character for you
0:04:19to be starting a new podcast.
0:04:22I'm very surprised by this.
0:04:25It's a show called "Ungeniased."
0:04:26And "Ungeniased" explores weird and wonderful Wikipedia articles.
0:04:28So this is me and my Relay FM co-founder, Stephen Hackett.
0:04:31We did this show together in like 2011.
0:04:34It was our first ever show together
0:04:36and we decided to bring it back for a new season.
0:04:39And when you listen to "Ungeniused",
0:04:41you will gain some interesting knowledge
0:04:44about things you'll probably never use again.
0:04:46(laughing)
0:04:47- Fantastic.
0:04:48- That's what we promise.
0:04:49The first episode is about Action Park,
0:04:53which is probably the most dangerous water park
0:04:56in US history.
0:04:57- Oh.
0:04:58I'm gonna say for now. But I want to know more. I want to know more right now. Where do I need to go for this?
0:05:02Relay.fm/ungenius and there will be a link in our show notes too. All right, go check it out listeners.
0:05:07It's a fun show. It's something kind of different for us. I really I really I really enjoy making it
0:05:13And I think people will enjoy listening to it. We've got some really weird stuff in the pipeline.
0:05:18I do I do have to say
0:05:21I've seen a little bit of the the behind the scenes stuff and I can see like you put you put a lot of work into
0:05:25to this one and it sounds super interesting. What I want to know Myke is how on earth do
0:05:29you have time in your schedule for another podcast? How many podcasts is this now in
0:05:35total that you do?
0:05:37Eight maybe?
0:05:38Eight maybe?
0:05:40Well I forget the number. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, that
0:05:49can't be right. One, two...
0:05:51list them out Myke do the shows what are the shows what do you do analog okay
0:05:55analog bonanza bonanza connected connected cortex cortex remaster
0:06:02remaster the pan addict the pan addict thoroughly considered thoroughly
0:06:07considered ungenius ungenius an upgrade and upgrade okay so that's nine
0:06:16podcasts. Yeah. That's a lot. It's a lot. But it's my job. This is what I do for a living.
0:06:22Oh, is it? Believe it or not. I did not realize that. That's amazing. I don't know how you do it.
0:06:29I am super impressed that you are able to do as many as you do.
0:06:35And I enjoy listening to a whole bunch of them and I'm glad you make them.
0:06:39And I just don't know how you do it. I'm very impressed. And there's yet another one.
0:06:43Yeah, another one. And there's more on the way.
0:06:46More on the way!
0:06:47Can't stop, won't stop.
0:06:48up.
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0:08:32Just before we started recording today, you tweeted something that piqued my interest immediately.
0:08:39It was a photograph of two Apple devices, one on top of the other.
0:08:42One of them is an interesting color. It's the space gray color and it's a MacBook.
0:08:48You've bought a MacBook.
0:08:50I have bought a MacBook.
0:08:53Okay.
0:08:53A MacBook One.
0:08:55The MacBook One.
0:08:55The little tiny one with the single USB port.
0:08:58I'm recording on it right now as we speak.
0:09:01Oh my.
0:09:01I finished setting it up a mere hour ago before we started.
0:09:05Did you like forget to bring a Mac or something?
0:09:09On your trip here?
0:09:13I didn't bring a Mac on my trip. I had this shipped to my parents house
0:09:17waiting for me because Apple stuff is way cheaper in America
0:09:21I knew I wanted to get one of these and so I thought
0:09:25well it'd be foolish to buy it in the UK and I won't need it until I'm in my
0:09:29house and I'm recording a podcast with Myke so I just had it shipped in advance
0:09:33waiting for me in a little box and then finished setting it up this morning so
0:09:38that I could be recording this podcast with you right now. Why did you buy this?
0:09:41Why did you want one? I mean you have a MacBook Pro right? Okay yeah I have a
0:09:45MacBook Pro. Hey look no judgment I have two iPads right like I'm just asking. I
0:09:51don't feel I don't feel judged but what I feel is is I posted this because like
0:09:57Okay, so I got this little MacBook One, and I brought with me on my travels my 12.9-inch
0:10:04iPad Pro.
0:10:06And it's just funny when you unbox the MacBook One next to an iPad Pro, because it's a tiny
0:10:14little thing.
0:10:15It's a weird moment when you realize, "Wait a minute, I own an iPad that is significantly
0:10:21bigger than my laptop, than my Mac laptop."
0:10:26weird little moment. And so I just I thought like oh this is this is kind of
0:10:30interesting that these two like the size difference in these two things it's it
0:10:34feels like a bizarre crossover moment in technology like this like this should
0:10:40never happen but here we are like we're through the looking-glass people iPads
0:10:43are bigger than Macs and so I just thought oh let me take a picture of this
0:10:46like I thought this was kind of interesting. As always with these things
0:10:49on Twitter it seemed like a surprising reaction from just a bunch of people who
0:10:53were like what the hell is going on like what is happening what's this craziness
0:10:57like why would anybody do this and so as always with this stuff I just find
0:11:00myself surprised that what from my perspective seemed like oh I just
0:11:04thought about some stuff for the summer and I made a little decision and I got a
0:11:06piece of equipment and then there's there seems to be like people freaking
0:11:09out and like rioting in the streets about like why is this happening I don't
0:11:12understand explain it to me and I feel like I don't know what to explain it's
0:11:16all it's all quite reasonable from my perspective I think part of it comes from
0:11:19on the fact that this is a controversial computer, right?
0:11:23That it has the single USB-C port,
0:11:25which is kind of weird and not widely supported and adopted.
0:11:29It's super thin and it has been underpowered
0:11:32and is a little better now.
0:11:33And it's just a strange computer in many ways.
0:11:37The keyboard is different and not a lot of people like it.
0:11:40So just seeing anybody buy this machine
0:11:45over the last few months that it's been available
0:11:48has just always been like, hmm, what is your reason for this?
0:11:52So that is why it's interesting to me,
0:11:54especially because a lot of the stuff that you do on a Mac
0:11:59takes probably more computing power
0:12:03than this thing comfortably gives.
0:12:06Because you use a Mac now for very specific tasks, right?
0:12:10We've outlined this on the show,
0:12:11making videos, recording podcasts, and playing games.
0:12:14And I don't think that this computer
0:12:16would be really good at any of those things.
0:12:19So like partly when I wanted to talk to you about this,
0:12:24I just wanted to check that you knew that.
0:12:26Oh yeah. Did you think maybe I was like,
0:12:29I just didn't know what I was even buying. I just went, Oh, shiny. Right.
0:12:32Look how small and light I like that.
0:12:36So first of all, I was perfectly aware of this. Let me, let me, uh, let me,
0:12:43let me walk you through this. Right. So, uh, I'm actually,
0:12:46I was in preparation for the summer,
0:12:50which I have been dreading for months
0:12:51and referenced many times.
0:12:52Like I have the summer of just a ton of flights
0:12:55and family stuff and just like so much travel occurring
0:12:59that I'm just exhausted thinking about it,
0:13:00you know, and tallying up how many flights I'm gonna do.
0:13:03And also thinking that the course of this summer
0:13:06is essentially that I have pretty much three months
0:13:11in a row of a very heavy, constant travel.
0:13:16So I'm going to be moving around a lot, right?
0:13:20And I've been thinking about and preparing for this
0:13:25in a whole bunch of ways of trying to think about
0:13:28how can I make this summer as tolerable as possible?
0:13:32And also a question of, okay, I know that I am going to,
0:13:38in one way, because I'm doing so much stuff,
0:13:41I have to ramp down some of the work that I'm doing.
0:13:44Like I can't keep up my normal work schedule
0:13:47and then also add on top of it,
0:13:49like all of this travel
0:13:51and like family obligations and things.
0:13:53Like it's just not possible.
0:13:54But I do need to do some work,
0:13:57like what's happening at this very moment.
0:13:59Like we're recording an episode of the podcast.
0:14:01Stuff still needs to happen.
0:14:03And so I've been thinking about it for a while
0:14:05about like, what am I gonna do?
0:14:06What am I gonna do?
0:14:07And I was kind of running through
0:14:11all of the pieces of software that I use
0:14:13and I was essentially working on an article
0:14:15trying to outline a bunch of these thoughts.
0:14:17And in the process of writing that article,
0:14:20I came to the conclusion of, I know what I can do.
0:14:23I have a solution for this.
0:14:24What I'm going to do is I'm going to buy the MacBook One
0:14:29and bring that with me as my work computer
0:14:35for a few very specific tasks.
0:14:40And while it is not the most powerful computer,
0:14:45I did test out the thing that matters most to me,
0:14:49which is podcasting on the road.
0:14:52Is this a machine that can do podcasting on the road?
0:14:55And so what I actually did was
0:14:58I uploaded a couple of audio files
0:15:03to a private and anonymous Dropbox URL.
0:15:07And then I went into an Apple store
0:15:09and I went to one of the MacBook ones
0:15:11that they had on the table,
0:15:13and I downloaded those files
0:15:16and was doing some audio editing with them
0:15:19in the store on the MacBook,
0:15:21just to make sure, like, can I do this?
0:15:23Can this machine comfortably handle doing audio?
0:15:28And like, it doesn't have to be the fastest thing,
0:15:30it doesn't have to export these things, you know,
0:15:33at the drop of a hat,
0:15:35but can I edit audio without it stuttering?
0:15:37can it just handle all of this stuff?
0:15:39And it handled it completely fine.
0:15:41And I was looking at some of the CPU numbers on it
0:15:45about like how powerful is this
0:15:47compared to previous computers that I own.
0:15:49And while people talk about how it's super slow,
0:15:51but I also look back at some of the old computers I own
0:15:54and realize, yes, but I've made videos on computers
0:15:57that were way slower than this thing currently is.
0:15:59- It did just get a lot better for the record.
0:16:02Like a lot of the complaints about it's underperformance
0:16:05were when it was originally released.
0:16:08- Yeah, and the new one is better,
0:16:11but it's something like 20% better.
0:16:13Yeah, it's still not like a top of the line
0:16:16computing machine, it's not that.
0:16:19But as always with thinking about work, right,
0:16:25and thinking about the way that we're doing stuff,
0:16:27like what I'm always trying to look for
0:16:29is what is the appropriate tool for the task at hand?
0:16:34task at hand. And this machine really seemed to just fit perfectly as an appropriate tool
0:16:41for the task at hand. Because I was looking at my brick of obligation, my 15 inch, 30
0:16:50pound MacBook Pro, and I thought, "I will not bring you anywhere, machine!" Right? Especially
0:16:58with the knowledge that, like what I'm doing today, that over the course of the summer,
0:17:03number of times I'm going to need and open this machine is maybe once or twice
0:17:08a week. Like, I do not want to have to bring this incredible, heavy, bulky, big
0:17:13thing in what I'm trying to make, like the smallest, lightest possible suitcase
0:17:18that I can bring with me everywhere that I go. So it's like, I want to maximize for
0:17:22travelness and this machine has adequate power to do the things that I needed to
0:17:28do. And if it, if I have to let it run for half an hour to export an episode of
0:17:33of a podcast because it doesn't do it super fast.
0:17:35It doesn't matter.
0:17:36You know, I can just let it run.
0:17:37All that matters is when I'm using it, it doesn't stutter and it seemed to be the case.
0:17:42And even some of the complaints that people had about this computer, about say like the
0:17:45keyboard.
0:17:47While I don't love the keyboard, it doesn't matter because...
0:17:51You don't write on it.
0:17:52Exactly.
0:17:53Doing podcasting or if I'm doing a little bit of animating or illustrating, I'm not using
0:17:57the keyboard, right?
0:17:58It's like I have brought my MX wireless mouse with me to use as an input device for this.
0:18:03I'm not going to use the keyboard.
0:18:05The keyboard for my work is just a row of buttons that happen to do things.
0:18:09If I'm going to type something, I'm going to take out my lovely iPad Pro and I'm going
0:18:13to write something on that because I love that keyboard and that thing is absolutely
0:18:17fantastic.
0:18:20Even though it seemed kind of strange, I came to the conclusion that this pair of machines,
0:18:26My big iPad and now a tiny little adorable MacBook is actually a fantastic working pair
0:18:35for me if I'm going to be doing a lot of travel.
0:18:39And I was just setting it up and just playing around with it a little bit and so far it's
0:18:43like this is great!
0:18:46This thing seems like it's well suited to the task and I absolutely love how small it
0:18:52is.
0:18:53I'm a big fan, big fan of the MacBook adorables.
0:18:57- I've gotten close to doing this exact thing
0:18:59multiple times for the exact same reasons.
0:19:01That I am about to go on a trip
0:19:03and I'm gonna be taking my MacBook Pro with me
0:19:05in case of podcast editing emergencies.
0:19:08And I couldn't be less happy about this scenario.
0:19:11- Yeah.
0:19:12- Because I'm taking my 9.7 inch iPad Pro
0:19:15and this like huge honking piece of metal.
0:19:18- With things.
0:19:19- Which feels like comparatively it weighs a million pounds.
0:19:23(laughing)
0:19:24- It really does.
0:19:25- Because I wouldn't even know my iPad was in my bag.
0:19:28- It really does.
0:19:30- So I've considered this for the same reason of like,
0:19:34honestly now I only use a MacBook
0:19:37when I travel for podcast editing.
0:19:41So really I need a computer that is more suited
0:19:45to that exact task.
0:19:46So thin and light is exactly what I'm looking for.
0:19:50But I've held off on the MacBook.
0:19:52I was gonna get one, I thought to myself,
0:19:55when they were revved, so the one that you just bought,
0:19:57so it'd be a bit more powerful.
0:20:00But now there are rumors on the horizon
0:20:02of the new MacBook Pro, and basically,
0:20:05if that is much thinner and much lighter
0:20:07than what I've currently got, it's gonna be an improvement,
0:20:10even if it's not the thinnest and lightest.
0:20:13And it will also have the power that I'm used to.
0:20:15So I'm gonna wait to see what that looks like,
0:20:18but I'm considering doing the same thing,
0:20:20because I think if anybody can draw some kind of like
0:20:24overall feeling that me and you both have,
0:20:26and you know, people say that I seem to agree with you a lot.
0:20:29- It's because I'm super reasonable, that's why.
0:20:31- Of course.
0:20:32I think if we just think about some things in the same way,
0:20:34and one of those things that me and you really seem
0:20:36to agree on a lot is having the right tool
0:20:39for the right job.
0:20:40- Yeah.
0:20:41- And the MacBook Pro that I have right now
0:20:43is not the right tool for the right job
0:20:45because it is big and heavy because it's powerful, right?
0:20:49it has the maximum power, but I don't need maximum power.
0:20:53I need maximum portability now.
0:20:56Because I'm only using this machine
0:20:58when I am away from home.
0:21:00So I need the best machine for traveling.
0:21:03So if the new MacBook Pro, the thin and light MacBook Pro
0:21:06isn't thin enough and light enough,
0:21:08then I will go the MacBook route.
0:21:10- What you say there, it makes me think
0:21:13of the sunk cost fallacy of where people overvalve
0:21:18overvalue investments that they have made in the past for a thing that they
0:21:25are working on when thinking about decisions today. And so the way
0:21:30you think about it is you and I have each in the past bought MacBook Pros
0:21:35because I got mine two summers ago when I was when I was looking at a similar
0:21:40thing of like I am going to be away for the summer but my work was also
0:21:44relatively different than and I was planning on doing a significant amount
0:21:48of work and it's like okay well this machine is the best machine at that time
0:21:50to get I'm gonna be working on it a bunch I'm gonna do a bunch of animating
0:21:54like I was using it as a primary production machine back then so it's
0:21:58like okay so I got that whatever it was two years ago I think and I own that
0:22:02machine and so in some ways it feels foolish to just get another tiny laptop
0:22:08But it's a case of sunk cost fallacy. If I didn't own that MacBook Pro and I was standing in an Apple store, laptop-less, and looking around and thinking,
0:22:20"What is the best computer for me to take with me this summer?" There's no way I would pick that MacBook Pro.
0:22:28It wouldn't even be in the running as a possible machine to take.
0:22:34And that's an example of trying to reframe decision-making in the context of now.
0:22:43What are the resources available now? What are the requirements for what you need now?
0:22:48What is the best solution to solve this problem now?
0:22:51Don't get distracted by the sunk cost fallacy of, "Oh, I used to do things this way."
0:22:56right? Or I happen to have this equipment currently. It's like, no, no. What is the solution
0:23:02now that is the optimal solution for this problem? And as you mentioned, I think it just occurred to
0:23:09me, but maybe one of the reasons why people are, you know, seemed on Twitter to have a
0:23:13surprising amount of reaction to me posting this was like, was as you said, this is,
0:23:19we're recording this probably literally days before Apple might be announcing
0:23:25new MacBook Pros, like it seems very likely that they're going to announce new MacBook Pros at WWDC.
0:23:30And it vaguely crossed my mind, but that was also a case of, well, if they announce new MacBooks,
0:23:38that still doesn't help me this summer, right? Even if I could literally go to WWDC and Tim Cook
0:23:45was handing out MacBook Pros to everybody and it's like, I'm going to fly to WWDC,
0:23:49like and Tim's going to hand me a MacBook Pro, right?
0:23:53Even if I could get MacBook Pros on day one,
0:23:57it doesn't change the fact that, well, there's some things that I need to do
0:24:00before their announcement, right?
0:24:02It's just like, well, I need a computer now for things that happen this week.
0:24:08And if I bring my MacBook Pro, that means I'm traveling with this MacBook Pro
0:24:13for at least five weeks before I come to a break where I could like swap over machines.
0:24:19It's like, it's not going to happen.
0:24:20It's not going to happen.
0:24:21So it's, yeah, I think you're right.
0:24:23It is a case of trying to think about what is the best tool for the job available.
0:24:29And even though it's a funny little machine and there's a bunch of complaints about it,
0:24:34I think it is the best solution for me right now, and also thinking about the future of my work.
0:24:42You know, we talk a lot about how we have both been transitioning to iPad Pros
0:24:48and doing more and more of our work on there.
0:24:50And I've been thinking about that a lot.
0:24:53But the one thing that I wonder,
0:24:56even a year or two from now,
0:24:59that I might not ever be able to get away from
0:25:01is doing podcasting on a Mac for a variety of reasons.
0:25:05Like I'm very curious to see if that's a thing
0:25:07that I can ever get rid of.
0:25:09And I'm not super convinced that I will be able to do that.
0:25:14And so I wonder if this is just going to end up being
0:25:19my new working solution for a very long time
0:25:22in the same way that I used to have a Mac desktop and a laptop that I would work with
0:25:27that now my default computer setup will be the biggest iPad I can bring with me and the
0:25:34smallest Mac that I can bring with me.
0:25:36And now this is just for the next couple of years maybe the default traveling situation.
0:25:42I wonder.
0:25:43This whole scenario is one of the best and worst things about doing the type of work
0:25:49that we do, which is creating things that are a part of the Internet. Because what
0:25:55happens is you end up moving with the times and as computers become more
0:26:02powerful the type of work that we do on them becomes more complex. So you
0:26:07end up in a scenario where your workflows are changing and the tools
0:26:13are changing around you so you buy new ones and you adapt and you change. Which
0:26:18is why we spend so much money on this stuff but it's because we both see it as a necessary
0:26:25thing to get the work done in the best fastest most productive way. The interesting and the
0:26:34difficult part about being self-employed is again like just talking about you know getting this
0:26:45this machine it relates to a bunch of our conversations in the past about how
0:26:48when you are on your own and when it is just you, you are responsible for
0:26:54building the environment around you. And that environment is
0:27:01things like what are the email clients that you're using for example right or
0:27:07how do you arrange your calendar or how do you think about routines or what are
0:27:13the tools that you're using because there's nobody else who's saying welcome to giant
0:27:20corporate co. enjoy using outlook express forever and that's just not a decision that
0:27:25you make it's like every every tiny bit about the working world and the environment that
0:27:33are operating in is under your control, which is amazing, but it is also your
0:27:42responsibility and obligation to continually reevaluate as part of your
0:27:49job. I think it's really interesting that there's this phenomenon, I don't
0:27:53have a better way to describe it, it's how I notice that things can become
0:27:59invisible to people, like things that are just either the way they do stuff or
0:28:04objects in their environment. It's like if you are, for example like with this laptop of
0:28:10having an old MacBook Pro, it's like the MacBook Pro can in a way become an
0:28:15invisible thing that you just don't think about or you just don't reevaluate. And I feel that way about
0:28:21routines and about all kinds of tools that it is in the course of human life, right?
0:28:28It is just valuable to consciously cast the eye of your mind and the focus of your attention
0:28:39on all of the aspects of your life because these things just become invisible and they
0:28:45become normal and you don't re-evaluate them and you don't think, "If I was starting anew
0:28:52today, is this the way that I would set up things?
0:28:55is the way that I'm currently doing things now the most effective way to work?
0:29:00It's just very, very useful to consciously refocus your mind on these things from time
0:29:05to time.
0:29:06And it is not easy to do.
0:29:08It's not easy to do, but I think it is a useful endeavor, and it's partly why you and I do
0:29:16this show together, and we talk for many hours about, in some sense, seemingly minor decisions
0:29:22about which tool is the best under which circumstances.
0:29:25But it's because we are both aware of this thing of like rethink
0:29:29your environment, rethink your tools, rethink the way that you do things
0:29:33and just look about for if there is a better way
0:29:38to do what you are currently doing.
0:29:40I think it's like we work adjacent to an industry
0:29:46that is constantly moving and evolving.
0:29:50that's true it's very beneficial for us to remain nimble and be willing to adapt and change
0:29:58so we're actually able to look at and and work with and around the industry that we're focused on
0:30:04at least that's what i tell myself when i'm spending 500 pounds in the apple store
0:30:09whatever you got to do man whatever you got to do
0:30:19I do have one thing to say, Myke, about this MacBook Adorable.
0:30:22Is that what we're calling it now?
0:30:24Well, it's adorable!
0:30:26It is, it is! I like it though.
0:30:28You know, but it's like, I just, it's so funny because I just keep thinking like,
0:30:31look at this big powerful like iPad Pro, it's such a beast, like it's an amazing work machine.
0:30:36And then, and then next to it was like, oh, look at that adorable little Mac.
0:30:40Oh, look at that little guy.
0:30:42Yeah, that's how I feel about my 9.7 inch iPad.
0:30:45I have more feelings towards it because he's so little.
0:30:48Right. There's a slight tangent here, but I remember reading years ago that this is an actual
0:30:55human cognitive bias. That humans are more forgiving of problems with objects that are
0:31:03smaller than objects that are bigger. Just inanimate objects. So that if a thing that is
0:31:08a smaller physical object doesn't work perfectly, humans are much more likely to forgive it than a
0:31:12big object that doesn't work perfectly. So, but it's like I can feel this bias in me looking at
0:31:17at these two devices, it's like, "Hey little guy, hey little Mac, you up for recording
0:31:22a podcast today?
0:31:23Like, can you do this?
0:31:24Like, let's give it a go.
0:31:25Like, let's give it a try."
0:31:26Right, whereas if I was trying to do something on the iPad Pro, the big one, and it didn't
0:31:29work, it'd be like, "You need to do this right every time, buddy.
0:31:31Like come on, we're all lying on you here."
0:31:33You know, it's just like, this is not an appropriate feeling for inanimate objects, but it totally
0:31:38is.
0:31:39So along those lines of, "Hey buddy, are you up for the podcast today?"
0:31:43The thing that did not occur to me as I was setting up the MacBook Adorable just this
0:31:48morning finishing before we started is that it does only have one port and that one port
0:31:55is connected to my microphone and we are rapidly running down the battery on my never fully
0:32:04charged MacBook Adorable.
0:32:07So will we get to the end of the show before my battery runs out?
0:32:12Stay tuned to find out.
0:32:14Do we have sufficient time?
0:32:16It'll give me a warning, you know.
0:32:18Don't you worry buddy, let's just keep going.
0:32:21What's next on your list, Myke?
0:32:24You...
0:32:25I can hear it in your voice.
0:32:28Well now, I've got something to worry about now.
0:32:31No, no, just don't think about it.
0:32:33What's next?
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0:34:01You recently put out a new video which was a kind of different style, different kind
0:34:07of even from a business perspective type of crossover video with in a nutshell KurtzGazza.
0:34:18Long time listeners will remember me and you trying to pronounce this channel quite some
0:34:23time ago and you put together a video about the left brain and right brain which people
0:34:28should go and definitely watch.
0:34:30But rather than talking about the video itself, I'm interested in why and how this came about,
0:34:38this like kind of two-part crossover video.
0:34:41So Philip, who is the main writer behind Quartz Gazette, he and I have been sort of colleagues
0:34:48and business associates for a while.
0:34:51I don't remember exactly how we met in the first place, but I don't know.
0:34:54We've known each other for maybe about a year and a half at this point.
0:34:58And we had always just vaguely talked about doing some kind of collaboration at some stage.
0:35:05And like with, I think with many YouTube creators, you don't necessarily know what it is that
0:35:09you want to do, but it's useful just to have it in the back of your mind about, "Is there
0:35:16an interesting thing that we can do?"
0:35:18And so every once in a while we would just talk and sort of discuss projects that we
0:35:24we were working on, sometimes because we were trying to make sure we didn't accidentally
0:35:27overlap with each other, which did occur sometimes of one or the other of us trying to avoid
0:35:34a topic because we knew that the other one was doing it, because it's like, "Boy, we
0:35:38don't want to get messed up with that of releasing a video the day after on the same thing."
0:35:44But at some point, we eventually came across these two topics, one of which is about how
0:35:52your mind may be composed of these separate, autonomous, smaller elements.
0:36:01And then he was thinking about a video about how your physical body is composed of these
0:36:06separate autonomous smaller elements that exist in and of themselves.
0:36:10And as we were talking about it, we realized, "Oh, this is actually nice.
0:36:14These are related, like they're two sides of the same coin.
0:36:19They both are touching on the notion of how you as a person are not as singular as you
0:36:25think you are.
0:36:26Like you are a combination of a bunch of smaller things that can exist independently of what
0:36:31you think of as you.
0:36:32And so we were talking about this and thought, "Oh, this is nice.
0:36:36This works very well together."
0:36:38And so this was actually, we looked it up, the first conversations about this were back
0:36:44in November.
0:36:47And so just to give people the time frame, the final videos were uploaded at the end
0:36:51of May.
0:36:52And we were working on those videos for that length of time, doing other projects at the
0:36:58same time, but this was in the works and these things can sometimes take quite a long time
0:37:03to go from initial discussion to final completed output.
0:37:09I think from the style of your videos, for very different reasons.
0:37:13Oh yes, why do you say that?
0:37:15There is a level of animation in the Kuzcozop videos which is very different to yours, you
0:37:22know?
0:37:23Oh yeah.
0:37:24And I think that you are a one-man band and I believe that there are multiple people that
0:37:30work on the Kuzcozop videos.
0:37:32Yeah there's a big team that works on those things.
0:37:34An ungodly amount of human hours goes into the development of those videos and it certainly
0:37:41shows in the animation.
0:37:42I was watching the videos and there are like these parts
0:37:46where they create these like mythical beasts as it were.
0:37:48There are these, like part animal, part robotic beasts,
0:37:53I guess, and the amount of tiny detail of movement
0:37:58on, I just can't believe it.
0:38:01I cannot believe how this stuff exists on YouTube.
0:38:05It doesn't make sense in my brain.
0:38:09The quality is insane.
0:38:10And that's what it means, like the difference is
0:38:11There's a team who make incredibly complex things
0:38:14and then there's just you who's making things
0:38:16that are difficult to make for just one person, right?
0:38:18And that's probably why it ends up taking,
0:38:20even though they're very different,
0:38:22the same amount of time.
0:38:24- Yeah, that's exactly it.
0:38:25Like the course 'cause that path was a much straighter line
0:38:28than was the production of mine.
0:38:31Because as a slight behind the scenes thing,
0:38:35it was at some point in very late February,
0:38:41I took the script that I had been working on for that whole length of time, so from
0:38:45November until late February.
0:38:48And I was walking around and I was thinking about the video and then it crossed my mind
0:38:52about how to do the thing that I eventually did, which was to film it from a first-person
0:38:58perspective as a way to try to explain some of the complicated things that are going on.
0:39:03And once that idea came into my head, I thought, "Oh, this is a really great way to explain
0:39:09this phenomenon that is otherwise difficult to explain.
0:39:13But if I'm going to film myself doing these things,
0:39:18I need to throw out everything that I've written so far.
0:39:20This whole script just does not work at all
0:39:22if this is the way that I'm going to explain this.
0:39:25And so I started over, right?
0:39:26I started brand new over,
0:39:29essentially halfway through the collaboration
0:39:32between the two of us because it was like,
0:39:34"Nope, this script won't work if I do it this way.
0:39:36"Start again.
0:39:38Select all, delete, and start typing.
0:39:40This is a super pedantic question, but I have a good reason for it.
0:39:44You didn't really start over again though, did you?
0:39:46Like, I know what you mean, but all of the work that you've done to that point
0:39:51was useful in helping you create the final product faster.
0:39:55Yeah, that is true, right? I mean—
0:39:56Like, if you would have had this idea in November,
0:40:00it may have still taken you that amount of time to make it.
0:40:03No, you are totally right.
0:40:04And like, for example, I didn't have to redo the research.
0:40:07Exactly. That doesn't occur. The reason I say just like I'm starting over is because as we have
0:40:13discussed before that my writing process is really very largely an editing and re-editing process
0:40:19and so that that's the thing that I mean like I know that even if I'm thinking about doing it
0:40:24this way I have to do just a ton of drafts before it becomes a thing. Yeah it is basically new text
0:40:33file kind of start over right yeah and it was it was really interesting because again in in working
0:40:40with Philip you know he saw some of the drafts you know we were we were each commenting on the
0:40:45other person's script you know trying to help each other along but he he saw unfold the thing which
0:40:50I always feel when I'm working but I thought oh maybe I'm kidding myself about how basically like
0:40:57this basically how my script is not very good for the first 15 or 20 drafts and then it is the last
0:41:07one or two drafts where suddenly I feel like this is the thing all of a sudden and now it is good
0:41:13and it was interesting to kind of get that confirmed from somebody back of like "boy what
0:41:19did you do between this draft and the last draft because suddenly this really feels like a thing"
0:41:25and the previous ones all felt like they were kind of rough.
0:41:29Like, you know, you could film it and it would be fine, but it's not really fantastic.
0:41:33When do you start reading them aloud?
0:41:35I start reading them aloud when there is something to read aloud.
0:41:39So I usually end up writing, depending on the script, something like
0:41:445,000 words of garbage, let's say, of just like thoughts of how to explain stuff.
0:41:51And that's just largely typing and I end up with that big text file.
0:41:55And then that is the point where I just start reading those notes aloud
0:41:59in my office, you know, with my standing desk.
0:42:03And the thunder.
0:42:03And that's right, and the thunder.
0:42:05I was actually, you put this idea in my mind, Myke, I can't get rid of,
0:42:11about being like, you know, in some sort of evil lair.
0:42:14Because when I was working on this at one point,
0:42:18I saw myself like through your eyes as though you would be standing there and like,
0:42:23like oh this is slightly uncomfortable it's like I am standing in a room I am
0:42:27reading out loud a script that has to do with horrific brain surgery that's been
0:42:33done to people right I'm making gestures with my hands about how I think this is
0:42:39going to go on the screen as I am reading out loud as I am playing thunder
0:42:43sounds and I was also playing like this classical violin album of Bach recordings
0:42:50I was like, for a moment, it's like,
0:42:53I see what I must look like to Myke in this moment.
0:42:58- Let me talk about your brains.
0:43:00- Yeah, it's just--
0:43:01- There's someone inside you working against you.
0:43:05- Yeah, I'm like, I'm moving my hands
0:43:07and there's this music in the thunder
0:43:09and I was like, maybe Myke has a point.
0:43:11Maybe Myke has a point about what he said.
0:43:13- You know, like I imagine someone wants
0:43:15to just come in to check something, right?
0:43:17They just open the door, like just to peek in,
0:43:19know to say I don't know oh there's cake in the lobby and they just like back away.
0:43:24Maybe that happened. I don't know.
0:43:28Because yeah I basically I wondered if like there is a correlation between
0:43:34you reading what you have allowed and the script getting good.
0:43:37Yeah but I do um I would say easily more than half of the drafts are done in this semi-allowed
0:43:47stage or completely allowed stage. And it's, but it's like, I don't know what it is, but I can just
0:43:52feel towards the end when something finally clicks. Like this is the rhythm, like this is the
0:44:00exact way. A surprising thing that often happens is like the very last draft I will radically move
0:44:07around a bunch of paragraphs. Like the paragraphs might not change, but I'll suddenly realize like,
0:44:11oh these are all in the wrong order. Why on earth was I ever writing them in this order? Like I've
0:44:16I've been writing them in this order for months. This doesn't make any sense
0:44:18This one has to go at the beginning not at the end. These two have to go together this one in the middle
0:44:23I can just take this whole thing out and it's like boom suddenly it just kind of gels
0:44:26I understand that because you know every now and then I will have some kind of flash of an idea when editing a show
0:44:32Mm-hmm. It's like oh I could put the girl from Ipanema in here. Mm-hmm, you know and it's like this is a great
0:44:38I'd like I get it
0:44:39It's like you just have these like random flashes of ideas and then everything just starts to fall into place
0:44:45Yeah, and the having someone else see the drafts as I was doing them
0:44:50it was it was just interesting to have it confirmed back to me that
0:44:55It's not in my imagination that this thing is occurring
0:44:59Somebody else sees it and somebody else comments that suddenly it's way better, and I don't know why and it's like yes
0:45:06That's right perfect like great now. It's ready to go
0:45:08I thought it was ready to go and you agree that this final thing is suddenly much better
0:45:12I am not crazy like I'm not imagining that it takes this long like someone else sees
0:45:17That I do need to go through all of these revisions before it becomes the final thing that I'm ready and happy to record
0:45:25So it's an interesting process considering the changes that you're currently embarking on in your production process
0:45:31Mmm, what did it feel like to work so closely with someone? Well, it was just it was just interesting to
0:45:39have the feedback back and forth on what we were doing.
0:45:43I would say like this was...
0:45:45in the YouTube world people talk about collaborations.
0:45:49Doing collaboration videos all the time.
0:45:51And I didn't use that word for what we were doing.
0:45:55I kept using the word crossover.
0:45:57Like what we're doing here is like a crossover video.
0:46:01So we weren't deeply collaborating.
0:46:04And that's what made that word feel like the wrong word.
0:46:07Like I was not popping up in the middle of a Quartz Gazette video and being like, "Hey!"
0:46:12Or you weren't narrating that one or something.
0:46:14Yeah, yeah, like we weren't doing those reverse kind of things.
0:46:18Personally, I think those things are very hard to do. I have seen a few that are absolutely amazing
0:46:26and I will always hold up the Destin from Smarter Every Day and Derek of Veritasium.
0:46:34they did a crossover video on the Coriolis effect that I think I will forever hold up as the most
0:46:40the most amazing example of collaborating with another person. Like they did two videos that
0:46:48each really depends on the other one. They did this fantastic thing with the timing of the
0:46:53videos. It's really quite an achievement what they did. Like that is an amazing collaboration video.
0:46:59But lots of collaboration videos I sometimes feel like people are just in somebody else's
0:47:03video just to be there. And when I watch them it feels like, "Is this adding or is this like,
0:47:09is this like a little jarring moment?" Like the feeling suddenly changes. And so we didn't think
0:47:16that this topic lent itself to true collaboration. And so that's why I was always using the word
0:47:21crossover of at the end we are crossing over that each topic forms a nice little circle of this one
0:47:29leads into that one and that one leads into this one so it makes sense for each
0:47:33of us to point to the other at the end. And so I think it was interesting to do.
0:47:38It's always stressful trying to time something with another person as well
0:47:42especially because we have vastly different production cycles and it's
0:47:47like okay well we have to release on the same day but like how long is it gonna
0:47:50take for all his animation to happen? How long is it gonna take me to come to the
0:47:54end of creating the scripts? Like who knows? Who knows how long it's going to
0:47:58and when you're trying to coordinate with someone that stuff is quite stressful
0:48:02and then of course because I am the person that I am I start immediately
0:48:05worrying like somebody else is working on a split brain video right now and
0:48:08they're gonna upload the day before and it's all of that stuff is is yeah it's
0:48:13high stakes but it seems to have paid off the videos are doing very well I
0:48:17think they're they're helping each other so it's definitely worth it.
0:48:20The main reason that people do these types of things is to I guess point
0:48:26people to other channels, right? Like I think that's why the business reason for
0:48:31doing this type of stuff. Oh yeah. Did you find that to be beneficial? The work
0:48:36that you did together, did it pay off? Business-wise this this kind of thing is
0:48:41is very good. It's also one of those cases where, as we have talked about
0:48:47before, in some ways I am I am this very like spreadsheet oriented return on
0:48:52investment person and I should be doing crossover collaboration videos all the
0:49:00time. The spreadsheet would say like do this every single time but I
0:49:04only want to do it when it feels like it's a good topic and it
0:49:08totally works to do but you can build a pretty successful YouTube career by
0:49:13intensely collaborating with literally everybody who will do collaborations with
0:49:18you. And you can see that as a kind of career path on YouTube sometimes. But I'm just pulling
0:49:25up the numbers here. And so for people who want to know in terms of success metrics and
0:49:31subscriber numbers, in the 48 hours after the video went up, we each gained about 80,000
0:49:41additional subscribers.
0:49:42That's no joke.
0:49:44Yeah, it's a big number. It's a big number of subscribers.
0:49:48So blimey that video's done well.
0:49:50Looking at the view numbers.
0:49:52Whoa holy moly.
0:49:54Wow this is a big success one.
0:49:57Yeah it's done very well.
0:49:59I think you'll find it's holy moly.
0:50:01Well I've made that very clear.
0:50:06I haven't looked at it in a while what is it up to now?
0:50:082.4 million.
0:50:09It's pretty good.
0:50:10Pretty good.
0:50:11Pretty good.
0:50:12Yeah.
0:50:13I was just going to say for comparison for the listeners so they have a sense of scale.
0:50:18On a normal "nothing happens" CGP Grey hasn't uploaded a video in six months.
0:50:24Or something. It's not six months.
0:50:27One day it will be six months.
0:50:29Yeah, one day it will be six months.
0:50:31Hasn't uploaded a video in six weeks kind of thing.
0:50:34A normal day is like a thousand subscribers.
0:50:37Somewhere in that ballpark.
0:50:39So this puts it, you know, sort of again, ball parking it.
0:50:44It's kind of an order of magnitude, larger, roughly sort of.
0:50:49So it's business-wise, like this kind of thing
0:50:52is very good to do.
0:50:54I should, in theory, do it way more than I do.
0:50:58But again, just the way my working cycle is
0:51:02and also my own quite laggy and long production cycles,
0:51:07like it does make it hard for other people
0:51:08to work with me.
0:51:10And it's one of the reasons why
0:51:11Philip and I could collaborate quite easily
0:51:13because he also has the same kind of like very long,
0:51:16very laggy production cycles.
0:51:18So we each very well understand.
0:51:22We are talking in November,
0:51:24it might be almost half a year
0:51:25until this thing is actually done and up.
0:51:28And that's okay.
0:51:29- 2.4 million is a lot of views.
0:51:32- Yep, a lot of people watching a video with my hands,
0:51:36moving stuff around.
0:51:37What a life you laid, huh?
0:51:41It's a little weird to think sometimes.
0:51:44It's a little weird to think.
0:51:45I went to Toys R Us.
0:51:46I bought a Kylo Ren mask.
0:51:50Got some My Little Ponies.
0:51:52Got some Rubik's cubes and some blocks for babies.
0:51:55I put it on my business card.
0:52:00The guy at the Toys R Us was like, "Are these for you?"
0:52:03I was like, "No, it's a business expense."
0:52:05I don't think he believed me.
0:52:07Well because what business is that?
0:52:09I know but that's... I was like...
0:52:11I could see in his eyes like a little bit of doubt
0:52:13and I was like "Why don't you believe me?"
0:52:15But walking away it's like of course he has no reason to believe me
0:52:17that I need some blocks for babies for a business expense.
0:52:21Why would you even ask someone that question?
0:52:24Like, how many people go into Toys R Us and buy things for children?
0:52:28Like, isn't that the whole purpose of the store?
0:52:30What a strange thing to ask.
0:52:32And I don't know. I don't know why clerks always ask stuff when you're in stores. You probably had a weird look on your face
0:52:38Right. Thank you. You knew you shouldn't be there buying those things and he could tell is that what you think it was?
0:52:45That's what I think it was
0:52:46Is that why clerks always talk to me everywhere I go because I have a weird look on my face
0:52:49Is that what you're saying? You know like the idea that magicians when they're pulling somebody out of the audience
0:52:55They pull the person who looks the most awkward
0:52:57Right, like they can just tell like I'm gonna get this person because they clearly don't want to do this
0:53:01I expect that that's the kind of face that you have when you're interacting with anybody in a retail environment
0:53:07So people just are instinctively want to ask you questions because you look like you don't want to be there
0:53:12Hmm, maybe maybe that's why that's my experience everywhere. I go people want to talk to me about things
0:53:19You to work on that poker face
0:53:21Yeah
0:53:22But if I am ever at a magic show
0:53:24I always do my best to give the the guy on stage like a death stare like I will look right into his eyes
0:53:30I mean like I'm thinking thoughts like you don't want to pick me buddy, right? Like looking right at him just like blank face. I
0:53:37Am NOT your person. I figure that's like the fastest way to communicate it
0:53:42Every now and then you say something that like the phrase is funny to me and this time was every time I'm at a magic show
0:53:49How often how often this is what you're secretly in the magic circle nobody knew I
0:53:58I was just thinking like I saw Penn and Teller.
0:54:01- Ooh, I've wanted to do that.
0:54:02Is that in Vegas?
0:54:04- I saw them when they were in London a little while ago.
0:54:07That was probably the last magic show that I was at.
0:54:09- I would love to see Penn and Teller.
0:54:11- Yeah, but I'm also thinking of like Cirque du Soleil shows
0:54:14and things like that.
0:54:15Like they're all just the same kind of like,
0:54:17someone is getting pulled on stage.
0:54:19Like it's all in my brain.
0:54:20It's all filed under like magic show, right?
0:54:22When they're pulling someone on the stage.
0:54:23Like this is what this is.
0:54:25Even if it's clowns at Cirque du Soleil or whatever.
0:54:28you call them clowns? I don't think clowns are the right word. No Cirque du Soleil has the
0:54:31clowns they always have clowns. Do they? Have you seen these shows? Yeah I don't like clowns and I've
0:54:35never been to Cirque du Soleil. Okay well don't go that's my recommendation if you don't like clowns
0:54:40don't go. I'm not going. I don't like the clowns either but it's the same thing of like I want to
0:54:44make them feel like don't pick me buddy. I'm the weirdo in the audience who's looking right at you
0:54:49with the dead deadpan face like I'm trying to signal that I am NOT the person you're gonna
0:54:52have a fun time with if you pick me. I will be the most resistant. Exactly, I swear to god I will.
0:54:58I want to signal like I will be lots of trouble and no fun for you. Look elsewhere, look elsewhere.
0:55:03I can push stuff over.
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0:57:21So your favorite ever email app, Unibox, has recognized the Cortex love.
0:57:28Yes, yes, I saw this morning I think that Unibox put up a very nice little post saying
0:57:36that they heard us talking about the app on the show.
0:57:40And what I really like that they did is they took the time to write out a few things discussing
0:57:48some of the points that we brought up and showing like a few extra tips and tricks for
0:57:53those of you in the audience who are joining me in the unibox way for the endless wheel
0:58:01of email.
0:58:02Basically they did a better job of explaining it than we did.
0:58:05As they should, but yeah, there's some of the things that you were trying to help me with
0:58:10they do a much better job of explaining them.
0:58:12Yeah, reading through their article I was thinking
0:58:15"Oh that's why Myke and I had such a different experience when we set up our apps."
0:58:19Like I just happened to press a button and I didn't even remember, I didn't even think about it.
0:58:23There's one thing in there that I really like which I was just looking at
0:58:28I was like, "Oh, this totally makes sense."
0:58:31I was talking about being able to swipe on just message subjects when we were having
0:58:37the conversation.
0:58:38You were like, "That's really weird and confusing."
0:58:40And they very nicely took the time to say, "You can swipe anywhere on the message.
0:58:45You don't have to swipe on this one little narrow strip."
0:58:48And so I actually just installed it on my phone just to try it.
0:58:50And I was like, "Oh, wow!
0:58:52I don't use email on my phone, but if you are an email on your phone person, you can
0:58:59swipe anywhere on the message, anywhere on the screen and perform a couple of actions
0:59:03on the message.
0:59:04Like, boy, that would be amazing.
0:59:06If I was an email on the phone guy, this is a fantastic feature.
0:59:10So I wanted to say thanks to the team for writing up some additional information that
0:59:15we missed in our attempt to try and explain the app.
0:59:19Thankfully they were there to help.
0:59:21Yes.
0:59:22Hey Gray, do you know what time it is?
0:59:27It is 1.18 in the afternoon as we are recording this.
0:59:32No, that's correct.
0:59:33That's the answer I was looking for.
0:59:35Is that what you're looking for?
0:59:36Yep.
0:59:37Perfect.
0:59:38Let's do some Ask Cortex.
0:59:39Okay, great.
0:59:41Magnus wrote in, Gray, and Magnus wanted to ask, "How does one handle to-do items that
0:59:47are dependent on another person in order to be completed?"
0:59:50So Magnus, with his job, a large part of it is gathering information from people that
0:59:56are not necessarily directly incentivized to get that information for him.
1:00:01Oh Magnus!
1:00:02Oh Magnus!
1:00:04I love the way you describe that and boy have I been there.
1:00:07I was going to say, this sounds like you've got some camaraderie here, Myke.
1:00:11Yep, and Magnus goes on to say they're not necessarily directly incentivized to give
1:00:16the information which means that deadlines don't exist to these people.
1:00:20So how do we handle to do items that are dependent on other people, whether they're incentivized
1:00:26or not?
1:00:27So we both use OmniFocus, and I know that a long time ago, Gray, you'd mentioned using
1:00:33Wunderlist, and I wonder how you continue to do this, especially with the expanding
1:00:40organization that is Gray Industries.
1:00:42Yeah, that's a good point.
1:00:46Uh oh.
1:00:50How do I handle this? Well first of all
1:00:54to Magnus, my sympathies go out to you.
1:00:58Because as we all know, people are the worst. You can't depend on people.
1:01:02They take forever to get back to you. And I include myself in this group.
1:01:06I think of poor Myke reaching out to me sometimes, sending me a
1:01:10a message and it's like "I'll get back to him later" right? Like when does later come?
1:01:14I don't know. Later. It no, don't say never. It comes
1:01:18eventually. Later comes eventually. So this is a problem
1:01:22that we all face and that if we look deep into our own selves
1:01:26we all sometimes also create. I mean the short answer is
1:01:30I try to eliminate dependencies on other people as much as possible
1:01:34to minimize this inevitable problem. But
1:01:38When I do have something that I need to keep track of,
1:01:43like the other person needs to get back to me on this thing,
1:01:48I have a context in OmniFocus that's just called waiting.
1:01:52And this is a kind of holdover from the strict
1:01:56getting things done implementation days of yore
1:01:58that I used to do.
1:02:00But I find this one little thing is quite handy
1:02:04of being able to mark in a project,
1:02:06like the next step is me waiting on this person
1:02:10to get back to me about a thing.
1:02:12And that's just my stake in the ground
1:02:16so that I don't forget,
1:02:17because I know that I am very likely to forget
1:02:19that I'm waiting on another person for another thing
1:02:21and just totally lose track of it.
1:02:23So that's my general catch-all for people
1:02:28that I'm not necessarily formally working with.
1:02:31I still, with my assistant,
1:02:33we do use Wunderlist as a shared list
1:02:37to keep a record of all of the various things
1:02:41that we are working on.
1:02:42And she really likes that app, I really like that app.
1:02:46I have to say, I highly recommend if you are working
1:02:50in probably a very small team,
1:02:52I'm not sure Wunderlist would scale very well
1:02:55to a large team of people,
1:02:57but maybe for five or less individuals,
1:02:59I think it's a fantastic little app
1:03:01for keeping track of who is doing what.
1:03:04And so I can assign to my assistant,
1:03:07like, "These little subtasks,
1:03:09"these are your responsibility."
1:03:10And then she can go through it
1:03:11and also assign subtasks to me.
1:03:14And it's very easy to see like,
1:03:15who is the block in moving this project forward?
1:03:20And the answer is not surprisingly always, I am.
1:03:23But at least like it's clear,
1:03:24like we know who is the person
1:03:26that needs to get back about a thing.
1:03:28So I really recommend that.
1:03:29I really recommend that a lot.
1:03:31But to the later part of his question,
1:03:34I'm much more interested in what Myke does about this
1:03:37because in terms of incentivizing people,
1:03:40I would just have to go, "What?"
1:03:43Like shrug my shoulders like,
1:03:44I have no idea how to get people to do what you want
1:03:48if they are not incentivized to do that.
1:03:50And so I am hoping to learn something from Myke
1:03:54in the very next moment about how to make that happen.
1:03:57- The incentivization portion of this is very difficult.
1:04:01If you're working within an organization.
1:04:04- This is like office politics stuff.
1:04:07- Yeah, that's the only way you can do it.
1:04:10So in my experience,
1:04:12there are two ways you can incentivize people.
1:04:14You can either be really nice
1:04:16or you can loosely threaten them.
1:04:18- Is this actually your advice?
1:04:21- The threat usually comes in the form
1:04:25of whomever has direct line management control.
1:04:30Oh God, is this like the stuff I used to see at schools, like let's CC somebody's boss
1:04:37on this?
1:04:38Is that what you mean?
1:04:39Oh God.
1:04:40That's the only thing to do, I have found.
1:04:42And I would very rarely use this.
1:04:45But sometimes you just gotta throw that CC in, man.
1:04:48If that person is refusing to help you, and you've been as nice as you can be, sometimes
1:04:53the only thing you can do is get the person who has the ability to directly incentivize
1:04:58good or bad, get involved. There's no way around it. There's no way around it. So I
1:05:08will tell you now though, I am not in a position to really do that with the people that I need
1:05:12things from. So I go the nice route, which tends to be my default route anyway.
1:05:17Nice guy Myke. Good cop Myke. Good cop. Good cop. I'll bug people where I need to, you
1:05:22know like send them emails, but you know, eventually there's only so far you can go,
1:05:27but I don't use the CC anymore
1:05:29because it doesn't really work
1:05:30for the type of stuff that I'm doing.
1:05:32I'm sorry Magnus.
1:05:35I will say though, just from the idea
1:05:36from a handling tasks perspective,
1:05:39I have tried Wunderlist and I agree
1:05:41that it is actually quite wonderful, but--
1:05:44- Oh God.
1:05:45- That's so good, but--
1:05:45- You gotta stop that man, it's awful.
1:05:48- No, I will never stop.
1:05:49My problem with it is I don't like having multiple
1:05:52to do apps to check from a dependency perspective.
1:05:56Now many people will point out the amount of to-do apps
1:05:58I have on my screen, but they're different things for me.
1:06:01They're like reminders and to-dos.
1:06:03Like my to-dos are all in one task management system,
1:06:07task management system, and that is omni-focus.
1:06:10Like that is where my stuff needs to be done, goes in there.
1:06:15Things like take out the trash,
1:06:17things like remember that TV show is on,
1:06:19that sort of stuff lives in you, right?
1:06:21Like I see those as different types of things completely,
1:06:25but the things that would go in an application
1:06:27like Wunderlist are like tasks.
1:06:29They are things that for me mentally live in OmniFocus.
1:06:32So when I'm waiting on somebody to do something for me,
1:06:35I put that in OmniFocus.
1:06:37It's like discussion is had and then task of check with X
1:06:42about Y goes in my personal OmniFocus.
1:06:46- Yeah, tool wise, I agree with you there
1:06:48that that is the one thing that I don't like
1:06:50about using Wunderlist.
1:06:53is that feeling of I can't in OmniFocus
1:06:58always have an overview of everything that's occurring
1:07:02because there's this subset of tasks
1:07:05that have to live somewhere else
1:07:07because they are being worked on by another person.
1:07:10And I don't like that split very much.
1:07:14I would prefer if in OmniFocus there was a way
1:07:19to say share a list with somebody else.
1:07:21And I understand that's not a thing
1:07:22probably going to happen. So that is a little bit of a downside, but yeah, I find it's the
1:07:29only way to keep track of that stuff. But yeah, in theory I would want absolutely everything
1:07:35to be in one spot. And I actually also recommend doing the thing that you're talking about
1:07:43here of separating out a lot of those smaller tasks and like those reminder tasks in something
1:07:50else and I have, it's actually over the past few weeks, I used to use Do for that but I've
1:07:57actually been migrating a bunch of my little reminders and tasks like "take out the trash,
1:08:04do some laundry" you know that kind of stuff. I've been migrating them over to my old friend
1:08:08Todo and having, taking advantage of some of its little reminder and nagging features
1:08:14to bug me about things at certain intervals.
1:08:17an interesting overpowered application for tasks like that.
1:08:21- Yeah, it is comically overpowered
1:08:25for that particular purpose.
1:08:28And in theory, I should be,
1:08:30all of these names are terrible.
1:08:31In theory, I should be using do instead of to do
1:08:35to solve this problem.
1:08:37But because of the--
1:08:38- Have I considered three do?
1:08:40- Yeah, I know.
1:08:41I'm gonna make an app called YouDo.
1:08:44Who do? We do.
1:08:45We do the WhoDo, right?
1:08:47This is all a to-do apps.
1:08:49But I ran into some problems with Do
1:08:54correctly syncing across my various devices.
1:08:58And so I was going slowly insane with Do
1:09:01trying to remind me on a whole bunch of different things
1:09:04about like, "Did you do the laundry?"
1:09:05It's like, "Yes, I've ticked off on the laundry
1:09:07on four different iPads.
1:09:08I've done it like I've done the laundry."
1:09:09You know, just, you don't have to tell me on every single,
1:09:11it was kind of driving me crazy.
1:09:13I could never quite get it to work.
1:09:14But then I remembered like my old friend, Todo,
1:09:18ridiculously overpowered, but has rock solid sinking
1:09:23and has better flexible reminders about,
1:09:26nag me about this thing every minute
1:09:29or every 15 minutes or every hour.
1:09:31And so a lot of those kinds of things,
1:09:33like, you know, take vitamins,
1:09:35I'm moving those little things out of OmniFocus
1:09:38and into Todo.
1:09:39And I quite like having that division.
1:09:42And that feels quite natural in my head.
1:09:44like, oh, these aren't projects, these are just little reminders throughout the day,
1:09:48it makes sense to handle them someplace else and to leave the heavy lifting of project
1:09:56management to OmniFocus, you know, for where it shines.
1:10:01Somebody did actually ask us in an Over-Ask Cortex question, like, if we use DUE on different
1:10:06devices. I don't do that. For me, like, I just don't want those things popping up everywhere.
1:10:14for me, Dew is a phone and watch app, that's all it is. And sometimes I'm like, "Oh, I
1:10:21wish I could put this task in on my iPad," but I know that if I put it there, I'll have
1:10:26the notifications turned off and the app's kind of going crazy in the background, I don't
1:10:29want any of that, so I just restrict it to phone and watch. And most of the time, I can
1:10:37get the watch to enter the task.
1:10:39Right.
1:10:40Right.
1:10:40Way more of the time.
1:10:42So like I'm, I'm good with that there.
1:10:43I think that's a totally sensible solution.
1:10:46The reason that I don't do that is because I am using the timers of the do app.
1:10:51That is its primary feature to me.
1:10:53And I want to on any device at any, any time be able to start like.
1:10:58I am beginning a work unit now click 40 minute timer go.
1:11:02And I, and I love the way that it reminds me, like I can set it with just a banner
1:11:05across the top of the screen to poke me like the timer's up, the timer's up, but it doesn't
1:11:08interrupt me.
1:11:09So that's why I want that immediately available on every device at any time.
1:11:14But then the syncing of reminders and things can be crazy making.
1:11:18So that's why it's like, "Oh, here I am.
1:11:20I've got to separate it out.
1:11:21Now I've got like three apps with check marks on my system here for managing different kinds
1:11:26of things."
1:11:27So that's why I went with that solution.
1:11:30A minute ago you mentioned shared tasks in OmniFocus.
1:11:34If anything from history has shown us.
1:11:38- No, Myke, Myke.
1:11:42- What?
1:11:42I didn't say anything.
1:11:43- The good people at OmniFocus,
1:11:45they have been so accommodating.
1:11:46I will not let you do what you're about to do.
1:11:48- I didn't say anything.
1:11:49- Okay, all right, we're not saying anything.
1:11:51- I didn't say anything.
1:11:52- We're just moving right along.
1:11:53- Sam asked, what RSS readers do you use?
1:11:56I will ask, do you even use one anymore?
1:11:59RSS is dead, man.
1:12:01- Okay, here's the...
1:12:03Technically, my answer is no, I don't use an RSS reader.
1:12:08However, I sort of have an RSS reader
1:12:13in that there are a very few websites
1:12:16that I do follow and read.
1:12:19But what I have set up is in If This Then That,
1:12:23a trigger that follows those RSS feeds
1:12:26and automatically dumps the articles in Instapaper.
1:12:29So I sort of don't have an RSS reader,
1:12:33but I sort of do because I have a small number
1:12:36of handpicked websites that I want to read what they have.
1:12:39And so like, I guess Instapaper is kind of my RSS reader,
1:12:44but the difference is when I had a proper RSS reader,
1:12:48and speaking of fantastic names,
1:12:50I used Reader, R-E-E-D-E-R, right?
1:12:53That's my RSS reader,
1:12:55along with my Do app for timers, we had to do, right?
1:12:59It's like guys come on like let's have names.
1:13:02Wunderlist like it's a name, it's a thing.
1:13:04People can use it as a word.
1:13:06Yeah, no it's not Wunderlist.
1:13:09It's not Wunderlist, Myke.
1:13:10But so when I did have Reader, R-E-E-D-E-R,
1:13:15as my RSS reader, at that stage I had just tons and tons
1:13:20of RSS items for all kinds of things.
1:13:23And I had little sub smart lists and I like to be able
1:13:27to blast through a bunch of stuff that I follow that way.
1:13:28I don't use Instapaper like that at all. I think I have maybe five websites that
1:13:37are automatically dumping articles into Instapaper and all of those websites
1:13:41like if they post one thing a week it's a lot so it's it's ridiculously low
1:13:46volume but so you don't have anything.
1:13:48RSS serves one purpose in my life now and it's
1:13:51podcasts that's the the ultimate RSS use is for podcasting.
1:13:56So overcast is your RSS reader. That's effectively yes, it's the only application that I use
1:14:02I believe that has any kind of RSS. I
1:14:04you know, I still subscribe to
1:14:08Feeder angler like it's still there right? Like I have an RSS thing in the background. I used to use probably reader
1:14:16And unread as well. I've used those applications in the past. They're fine apps. I just don't read news in this way anymore
1:14:24So what I found out was I would find every article I needed because I read Twitter
1:14:30Mmm, everything I need to see comes through there most of the time
1:14:36It's for RSS feeds that I was never subscribed to anyway
1:14:39Right, like it would be something that came from Bloomberg that I would need to read but I don't subscribe to Bloomberg's RSS feed because it's too much
1:14:46Or you know the verge I would want to know their stuff but in an RSS reader
1:14:51It's like oh here's like 50 things that I don't care about for the one thing that I do
1:14:54so I follow a bunch of Twitter accounts for
1:14:58You know sites that I like to read including the blogs of my friends and stuff and then you know
1:15:04It's like I'll subscribe to Casey lists is Twitter account
1:15:07I will follow Marco's Twitter account Steven Twitter account like and I get everything that I need to get that way
1:15:12Because Twitter is just what I read and it's where I get that stuff
1:15:15yeah, the idea of opening up an RSS application and
1:15:20and looking at all of the things inside it just doesn't serve a purpose for me anymore.
1:15:24Yeah, I remember when I first signed up for Twitter a while ago, I remember having this feeling like,
1:15:31I don't really get Twitter. Like I was having a hard time figuring out like what purpose does
1:15:35this serve in my life? Like what I'm exactly going to use this for? But I do remember at some point
1:15:41it dawned on me that oh this this is RSS for non-nerds like this is in some ways a much easier
1:15:51RSS like system it's not as complete as RSS but it's way easier for a normal person to sign up to
1:15:59a Twitter account and follow a bunch of sites that are interesting to them and then be able to log on
1:16:03and see stuff and I remember that was the first time that Twitter started to gel for me of like
1:16:08"How do people use this? Why do people use this?"
1:16:11And so yeah, I used to think, "Oh, Twitter is nothing like RSS."
1:16:15When people say that one has replaced the other, that doesn't make any sense, because RSS has all these features.
1:16:19But now it's like, "No, no, I think it really has."
1:16:22I think Twitter really has supplanted the need for RSS in 99% of the population that would be using an RSS reader.
1:16:32Joel asked, "What fonts do you use in your spreadsheets or any document that requires formatting?"
1:16:38[laughter]
1:16:44What's funny?
1:16:45How fantastically specific. I really like this.
1:16:49What font do you use in your spreadsheets?
1:16:51I like that he went with spreadsheets first.
1:16:53Yeah, well that's what's making me laugh.
1:16:56I don't know what font I use in my spreadsheet.
1:16:59It's whatever the default one in numbers is.
1:17:01is is I have no idea. If I'm using something like a numbers spreadsheet or a Google Docs
1:17:08spreadsheet or whatever I'll tend to just go with whatever the standard formatting is.
1:17:14In stuff like Google Docs and Quip like they have a bunch of options I just choose you
1:17:18know a sans serif font that I like the look of. But for me like if I'm formatting a document
1:17:27for somebody so say like an advertising proposal or something. I'm partial to
1:17:33Futura, Avenir and Proxima Nova. There's fonts that I like to use I think that
1:17:39they're nice a couple of you know a couple of them actually fit in with the
1:17:43kind of the fonts that we use on our website and stuff like that and I just
1:17:46like those fonts a lot so I would format those like for external documents and
1:17:51stuff. Outside of that I tend to just go with the defaults. I'm not a I appreciate
1:17:56a good looking font, but I'm not a font nerd in such a way that I will go out of my way to put a
1:18:02nice font on my like Google sheet that tracks some rubbish that nobody else needs to see.
1:18:09I like the way you phrase that like I'll appreciate a good looking font when it's
1:18:16walking down the street you know but I won't go chase after that.
1:18:19I'll turn my head at a font, but you know I'm happy with the fonts that I've got.
1:18:23That doesn't mean I have to go after new fonts.
1:18:25That's what I'm hearing.
1:18:27You know, I'm a nerd after all.
1:18:29For lots of internal stuff, I usually find that the default is fine.
1:18:37You know, like I don't really care.
1:18:39But I'm trying to run through mentally, it's like, but there are places where I am picky about fonts.
1:18:43I realize I have three things, which is two reading things and writing.
1:18:49and writing. And so in my mind,
1:18:53when I'm reading articles in Instapaper, well that just has to be a sans-serif
1:18:57because articles are less serious than a book, and a book requires serif
1:19:01fonts. Does this make sense? No, it
1:19:05doesn't make any sense at all, but it's totally a thing in my mind. Like, I cannot read this book in
1:19:09sans-serif. This book is not being serious enough. And then if
1:19:13Instapaper, when I install it on something new, like if for some reason it has the serif
1:19:17serif font installed by default, I feel like, "Oh, come on, who are you kidding, article?
1:19:21You are a serif font, right? You're not putting on all of these errors with these serifs."
1:19:25No, I will only read an article in sans-serif font, not serif font, right?
1:19:29So that's two places where I do have a preference for books,
1:19:33serifs, articles, sans-serifs. And then for
1:19:37writing, it is the one place where I am a little bit picky about the font
1:19:41that I use. And I like to write
1:19:45with a good programmer font.
1:19:49So if I say a font is fixed with Myke,
1:19:53do you know what that means?
1:19:55- Yeah, kind of.
1:19:57People have explained this to me before,
1:19:59I can't really see the difference in a lot of this stuff,
1:20:03but I understand what people are saying.
1:20:07All the characters are fixed width apart, right?
1:20:12Is that it? - Right.
1:20:13This goes back to the olden days of computing and when you could fit characters only in
1:20:21certain places on the screens, like because of the way the programs were written.
1:20:24Or actually what I think of is like the old style notice boards in train stations where
1:20:31they're rolling over a bunch of letters and to spell out the name of a town.
1:20:35That is a place where you would use a fixed-width font because you want all of the letters to
1:20:41be approximately the same width, otherwise it'll read strange if on a board that's flipping
1:20:47over letters you have a thin eye that's just floating in the middle of its little box and
1:20:53on one side of it is like a big fat O taking up all the space. It looks weird if they're
1:20:59not all the same size. And for some reason when I am writing, I really want a nice fixed-width
1:21:08And so there are a whole family of fonts that are designed to do this for programmers
1:21:17because if you are a computer programmer there are many advantages to being able to look
1:21:23at the length of the line of something that you have written and knowing approximately
1:21:29how many characters it is, knowing that you can compare the line above to the line below
1:21:33about how many characters are in it.
1:21:35And so for a long time I have been using In Consolata is the name of a font that I quite
1:21:41like for as a writing font.
1:21:45There's a few others out there, but if you just if you're the kind of person who cares
1:21:50about this stuff, if you just Google programmer fonts, you will find there are a bunch of
1:21:55options of different fonts that you can try out that are nice for this sort of thing.
1:21:59And so on the iPad, for anybody who is wondering, because the iPad has a limited number of fonts,
1:22:06there is an app called AnyFont that will allow you to install a custom font that you can
1:22:14then use in other applications.
1:22:16And so that's how I'm able to get a font like InConsolata onto my iPad to then use in the
1:22:23writing environment, even if it's not built into the iPad by default.
1:22:27Samuel asked, "What kind of headphones do you guys use?"
1:22:31Which made me think, are you back to using headphones?
1:22:34'Cause you remember when you took your time away from the internet, you also kind of stopped
1:22:39listening to stuff, right?
1:22:40So you weren't using headphones.
1:22:41I remember when me and you met up that day and you didn't have headphones on and I was
1:22:45very confused.
1:22:46Are you back to using headphones again when you're kind of walking around town?
1:22:53When I'm walking around on the town, I like that.
1:22:54Looking at fonts.
1:22:55Yeah.
1:22:56I have three headphones that I can recommend for very specific purposes. Are you ready?
1:23:03Oh, I'm so ready.
1:23:05Okay, big heavy-duty headphones, which I've mentioned before on the show, are the Bose noise cancelling headphones,
1:23:12which are worth their weight in gold when you are on an airplane and there is a crying baby.
1:23:18Because their noise cancelling can mute the sound of that baby and
1:23:24and make it like he's sitting way further behind you than he actually is.
1:23:28And those are the headphones that I'm also wearing right now as I record because they're
1:23:31nice and big over-ear headphones.
1:23:33So I think of these as like the heavy duty headphones.
1:23:35I'm recording a podcast or I am on an airplane trying to artificially create more space between
1:23:42myself and the people around me.
1:23:44They are fantastic.
1:23:46But because they're noise cancelling, they are I think a legitimate hazard to ever wear
1:23:51outside.
1:23:52if you have them on you will not hear cars approaching you will not hear any
1:23:56kinds of warning sounds it is very easy to be oblivious with these outside so I
1:24:00cannot recommend them under those circumstances I strongly believe if you
1:24:05wear noise cancelling headphones outside it is just a matter of time until you
1:24:09get hit by a vehicle yeah it really is I'm like I have done it on occasion if
1:24:15I'm like I don't have anything else available to me but the first couple of
1:24:19times I did it and I had them on my head all the way, I realized like, "Whoa, you cannot
1:24:24do this. You have to have one ear open to the world. Otherwise, it is. It's like you're
1:24:28just asking to die. It's all you're doing." But even with one head, with only one ear
1:24:35covered, I still don't recommend it. You just don't realize how effective they are at making
1:24:40things sound way further away than they are, not even noticing stuff.
1:24:45Now the question that you're wanting to know is like my walking around headphones and for
1:24:50those I recommend the Jaybird X2 Bluetooth headphones.
1:24:56They are fantastic.
1:24:58They're super small in-ear Bluetooth headphones and what I want to recommend to people who
1:25:06get them is you'll see the pictures where people are kind of wearing them dangled around
1:25:11in front of them, but if you open the instruction booklet, you get these headphones.
1:25:16People don't notice this, but they have this fancy way to fold them up so that the headphone
1:25:21wire goes behind your head.
1:25:24So you just stick the two headphones in your ears, and you can run the wire over the top
1:25:29of your ear and around the back of your head.
1:25:32And those headphones are fantastic.
1:25:34I'm not a huge audiophile, so I don't care a lot about these super high sound quality.
1:25:39I can't speak to that.
1:25:40seem fine from my perspective.
1:25:43But the thing that I love about them is they are ridiculously small, the battery genuinely
1:25:48lasts for a full work day out in the world, and they're really light and they're really
1:25:54comfortable.
1:25:55They take a little while to get used to.
1:25:57Like I push these on people and like, "No, you got to stick with it.
1:25:59Like you got to try it out.
1:26:00You got to just go with it.
1:26:02It's going to be weird at first, but you're going to like it."
1:26:05And I have yet to fail with convincing someone that if you give these a shot, they are great.
1:26:10And they're especially great for something like the gym.
1:26:14I cannot imagine going into the gym with wired headphones at this point.
1:26:17And to have a little tiny pair of headphones that you can just put over your ears, it's
1:26:21totally out of the way, totally hands-free, it is fantastic.
1:26:25Although I am absolutely convinced that the Bluetooth headphones make a significant dent
1:26:31in how long the battery lasts on your phone.
1:26:35I really wish Apple would show like Bluetooth usage in their little battery drain thing
1:26:40Because it's like I this I can tell this makes a big difference
1:26:44But I would love to know how much of a difference like how much of the battery is the Bluetooth headphone using from the phone
1:26:48I don't know. So that's that is the one downside
1:26:51But otherwise, I quite like them but I have one more wild card recommendation Myke
1:26:56My wild card recommendation is a headphone called the treks
1:27:03Have you heard of this?
1:27:05Why are you laughing already? The name sounds weird so I expect it's gonna be really weird. These are Bluetooth headphones
1:27:14What on earth?
1:27:17They are not over ear headphones like the Bose noise cancelling. They are not in ear headphones like the Jaybird headphones
1:27:25they are
1:27:27outside of your ear
1:27:30Through the bone on the side of your head headphones. Bone vibration type things, right? Right. Yeah, so
1:27:37This comes from the there's a demonstration that I used to do as a physics teacher with kids
1:27:42Which you may or may not have ever done this listener this may or may not have ever done this in school
1:27:46But with tuning forks that was fantastic to really freak out kids sometimes because some kids reacted like really poorly to this
1:27:53Which is great. You take a tuning fork right and you strike it so it makes a little noise
1:27:59And then you pull up like it's a magic class of volunteer from the audience, right?
1:28:02Like, come up!
1:28:03And you take the tuning fork and you put it against the side of the kid's head, sort of
1:28:08by the ear, just in front of it.
1:28:12And what happens is, the subjective experience goes from "I am hearing a sound that is coming
1:28:19out from the outside of my head" to "I am hearing something that is originating from
1:28:27inside of my head, right? Suddenly your brain has a hard time placing where the sound is coming from and
1:28:32for some people it places the source of the sound as in the center of your skull
1:28:37which freaks some people really out badly with like the tuning forks in my head like what?
1:28:43No, it's like no. No, it's just on the side of your head.
1:28:45It's coming from inside the head!
1:28:47Yeah, but but if you think about the way your brain works, right? You are able to place where sounds are in the world and
1:28:54and this effect of vibrating the bone that's in your head,
1:28:58your brain can interpret it as the source of the sound is located in the
1:29:01center of your skull,
1:29:03which is not normally a place that you hear sounds emanating from. So some
1:29:06people react really weirdly to it.
1:29:08But the Trek's titanium headphones
1:29:10reproduce that effect a little bit
1:29:13of creating a source of sound that
1:29:16feels to some extent like it is coming from inside your head,
1:29:20it is not coming from outside of your head.
1:29:23Now the interesting thing about these headphones is that they leave your ears free.
1:29:28There's nothing blocking your ears even when you're just wearing it over your head.
1:29:33And so the reason that I have these headphones is because when my work office starts filling
1:29:42up with a bunch of people, I don't want to be playing loud thunder sound storms and music
1:29:48in this environment, so I do want to put on headphones, but I also want to hear myself
1:29:51speak.
1:29:52these headphones because they don't block the ears and so i can still hear music or hear thunder sounds
1:29:59and also very clearly hear myself talking while i'm working on a script and writing a script
1:30:04so these headphones are are very very strange yeah i'm sure the look of these headphones
1:30:10definitely don't add to the whole weirdness of the scenario that you're in yeah
1:30:18Oh, he's also wearing his crazy future visor too.
1:30:21That's good to know.
1:30:22- It doesn't feel, these things don't really occur to me
1:30:23until you say them like, like, oh yeah, I can see this.
1:30:26- This is why you need me in your office.
1:30:28- No, I do not need you in my office.
1:30:30But so anyway, these headphones are,
1:30:32they're very interesting.
1:30:33They're very different.
1:30:35But this is going to be one of those things,
1:30:38I mentioned it as the wild card of,
1:30:41you're either going to love it
1:30:43or you're not going to like it at all.
1:30:48But you may be a person for which this sounds like exactly the thing you want.
1:30:52I really want to try these. I do really want to try these.
1:30:56Because I've never experienced that before.
1:30:59But I don't know if I really want to £110 try them.
1:31:04Right. Next time we meet up, I'll remind me to bring them along.
1:31:07And I'll bring along the headphones. You'll try the headphones.
1:31:10We'll do the spreadsheet thing just like I promised. I haven't forgotten Myke. We'll do that.
1:31:14And so you can try out these various things.
1:31:17One of the applications that they mentioned on their website, which I think is really interesting, is for blind people.
1:31:23That this allows, if you are blind, for you to be able to listen to a source of audio while not blocking the primary way that you know where you are in the world.
1:31:34Right? Of hearing what's going on around you.
1:31:36Basically, so you can listen to music without sensory deprivation.
1:31:39Exactly, right?
1:31:41It's like it's one of those things like it would never have occurred to me, but it's like yes, this is this is
1:31:46This is a fantastic feature if you are blind like these are the headphones
1:31:51You never knew that you wanted and must be amazing to use
1:31:54And so it's like I happen to have a particularly narrow use case for how I want to use these things
1:32:00But I can see where they're useful to other people as well if anybody uses these I'd be quite curious to know like why would
1:32:05You want to use them or or like what do you see?
1:32:07because I just kind of wonder like how many people buy them or how big is the market?
1:32:11Who else has a need for these?
1:32:13But I really like them and I found myself using them much more than I anticipated that I would.
1:32:21So I quite like them.
1:32:22Some people might really hate them and deeply dislike the sound is coming from the inside of my head effect.
1:32:28So my headphone picks are nowhere near as interesting.
1:32:32Oh, you should have gone first, Myke.
1:32:34I know.
1:32:34You should have gone first.
1:32:36Tell me about your boring headphones.
1:32:37I use ear pods, the Apple ear pods quite a lot,
1:32:39because I always had them in my pocket.
1:32:42Oh my god, could it be more boring?
1:32:44Minimum viable headphone at all times.
1:32:48I have sent a pair of Sennheiser MM400X stereo Bluetooth
1:32:53on ear headphones.
1:32:55They have physical controls on the side
1:32:57that I really like so I can play and pause stuff.
1:32:59They do not sound good at all.
1:33:01That's the Marco recommendation, isn't it?
1:33:03Yes, there is a theme with all of my headphone things here.
1:33:07The theme is Marco Arment.
1:33:09- The theme is somebody else told you to buy them.
1:33:11- Yep, literally he did.
1:33:12Whilst I was in his house, he was like,
1:33:14put them in my hand.
1:33:15So I was like, they're the ones you need to buy.
1:33:17And he's right because they're good for podcast listening.
1:33:19They're terrible for music.
1:33:21But they have the physical buttons on the side,
1:33:23which are really good.
1:33:24I really don't like two things about headphones.
1:33:28I don't like in-ear and I don't like noise canceling.
1:33:31For some reason, in-ear headphones never stay
1:33:33in my left ear.
1:33:34It doesn't matter what type,
1:33:35they will never stay in my left ear and noise canceling makes me feel nauseous.
1:33:39Yeah. Yeah. The noise canceling does have that effect on some people of,
1:33:43of not feeling great.
1:33:44I think it might be an offshoot of motion sickness.
1:33:46No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be surprised if it, if it's something like that.
1:33:50Although I am, uh, increasingly susceptible to motion sickness,
1:33:55but the, the, the noise canceling doesn't bother me. But yeah,
1:33:57some people just react very poorly to it. They don't like it at all.
1:34:00The headphones that I am wearing right now,
1:34:02my recording headphones are the Beyerdynamic DT 770 pro headphones 32 om.
1:34:18Wow sounds pretty serious. They were put on my head in Marco's house. Right okay
1:34:24and continuing the theme. I listened to some music and I heard things in the
1:34:28music I'd never heard before.
1:34:30I only use these to record.
1:34:32They are incredibly good at letting me hear things
1:34:35in the audio that I want to hear.
1:34:37And they are very comfortable for me to wear
1:34:39for multiple hour stretches a day.
1:34:42So they are my recording headphones.
1:34:45- Right, that's a requirement for you.
1:34:46- The one thing I don't like about these is the cable.
1:34:49I really like it when the cable is coiled
1:34:51because it stays out of the way more, this isn't.
1:34:53I don't like the cable on these,
1:34:55but everything else is fantastic.
1:34:57I have some pair of Bose headphones that I bought in an airport a long time ago that
1:35:02I use for airport travel just because they cover my ears so it's the closest that I can
1:35:05get.
1:35:06They're not great, I don't necessarily recommend them but they do that job.
1:35:09I've had my eye on the Bang & Olufsen H6 2nd generation, another Marco pic and a few of
1:35:18my friends have bought them and I've tried them and they're amazing.
1:35:22But I only use headphones like this when I travel and I just haven't, I haven't felt
1:35:26the desire to spend a few hundred pounds on these yet.
1:35:30Whenever my current traveling headphones bite the dust, this is probably what I will go
1:35:35ahead and buy.
1:35:37It's just something I have my eye on, but I haven't pulled the trigger on it yet just
1:35:41because the use case is so slim and the ones that I have really do the job that I need
1:35:46them to do, to be honest.
1:35:47But yeah, they're my headphones.
1:35:50Nowhere near as exciting as yours.
1:35:51Alright, Myke, I hate to interrupt you there, but we have to go and we have to go right
1:35:56now.
1:35:57Gotta go.
1:35:58Goodbye.
1:35:59Goodbye.
1:36:00Thank you, adorable MacBook.