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Upgrade

76: You're Part of My System

 

00:00:00   *Ding*

00:00:00   *Music*

00:00:08   From Real AFM, this is Upgrade, episode number 76.

00:00:12   Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Backblaze.

00:00:15   My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:18   I am back, sir. Fully refreshed and renewed.

00:00:21   Welcome back. I'm glad you're feeling better.

00:00:23   You sound great. You sound normal.

00:00:24   You don't sound like your sickly self that you apparently were.

00:00:27   I was in a bit of a state, I have to say.

00:00:31   It was not good for a while, but I'm okay now.

00:00:34   I had a throat infection, which is one of the two worst illnesses that I could receive,

00:00:40   I think.

00:00:41   That and laryngitis.

00:00:42   Yeah, you've got the valuable pipes that need to be protected, your podcaster pipes.

00:00:47   Yeah, I've been wondering if there is such a thing as insurance on this, just specifically

00:00:52   on my voice, rather than just like disabilities insurance or whatever.

00:00:56   I feel like I should look into that at some point, but that feels like a big grown up

00:01:00   thing that I can't be bothered to do.

00:01:02   Okay.

00:01:03   I still get those things, you know?

00:01:07   Like there are these things that pop up like I need to, I'm going to get so many people

00:01:10   shouting at me right now, I need to get a pension sorted.

00:01:13   I had a pension at my bank job, which still has some money in it, but I haven't yet got

00:01:19   one as a self-employed person.

00:01:21   And there's part of me that's just like, "Oh, that just feels like such a grown up thing

00:01:26   to do. At the most part of me it's just like, doesn't want to do it. But anyway, some random

00:01:31   diversion.

00:01:32   You're in risk of becoming the guy who's like, "Oh, his voice is so valuable that it is insured."

00:01:38   The Lloyd's of London.

00:01:40   We would make fun of you for that.

00:01:43   And then somebody will try and attack me to get the insurance money.

00:01:46   I was going to say somebody's going to punch you in the throat at that point.

00:01:51   Jason, where are you? You are on location today.

00:01:55   I am on location in Southern California, sunny, hot actually, Southern California. I'm down

00:02:02   here in LA at my wife's parents' house and looking out over some lovely trees and flowers

00:02:09   and things. I've been here a few times. We did the first upgrade-ies. Actually, I was

00:02:12   in this room for that. I've been here a few times before. So that's where I am. I was

00:02:15   down in LA. They had the big Doctor Who convention at LAX and I know so many Doctor Who podcasters

00:02:22   that quite frankly I don't need to buy a ticket I can just go stand in the lobby and talk

00:02:26   to like 10, 12, 14 people I know for the weekend and hang out and there was you know there

00:02:32   was some we did a podcast actually we did an incomparable game show that will go up

00:02:39   later this week I haven't actually even listened to it hopefully if it's audible if it recorded

00:02:43   properly and that was a lot of fun with it's basically with podcasters I met Joe Steele

00:02:49   Did you? In person for the first time so I can verify he is a real human being or he

00:02:53   has a very talented actor. He's taller than you'd think isn't he? He is taller, yes he

00:02:58   is taller than one might expect but that happens, my wife has commented several times that I

00:03:03   have, all my friends are tall apparently. That's what she said, she keeps meeting people

00:03:09   from the internet and finding that they're far too tall, like you, Dan Morin, and Joe

00:03:15   Steele would be in that category because he is surprisingly tall. He's taller than me

00:03:18   me even. So is it Tall Guys deal? So is it Gallifrey one that you were at? I've heard

00:03:24   of that. I think just through you and the other incomparable people that I follow on

00:03:29   the internet.

00:03:30   Yeah it was a lot of fun and doing the podcast was fun and just hanging out and talking to

00:03:33   people was a lot of fun. A lot of different subjects. I was on a panel about podcast stuff

00:03:39   which was kind of fun. Yeah it was a good time and my family gets to hang out with my

00:03:47   wife's mom and dad down here too so they were doing some stuff over the weekend while I

00:03:51   was up at the convention center and they'll probably be doing stuff right now while I'm

00:03:54   doing a podcast. It's like I'm here but I'm kind of not here but that's okay and we're

00:03:59   going back home tomorrow.

00:04:01   So we have a follow up that we need to address. The first thing is I just wanted to underscore

00:04:06   the fact that we have merchandise on sale right now, t-shirts and hoodies. They are

00:04:11   only available until February the 19th so as we are recording and when the episode will

00:04:16   be released. You have four days from the day this is released. There are hoodies and t-shirts.

00:04:23   I am very happy to see that people are buying them. I'm very surprised that we're selling

00:04:27   more hoodies than t-shirts, but I'm happy and as we have said before, those of you who

00:04:32   will buy a hoodie, there is a special surprise in the hoodie and you will be very happy that

00:04:36   you bought the hoodie. That's all I'm going to say. But the Brain Board t-shirts, you

00:04:41   should be getting some of these. We have the regular t-shirts in men's and women's. There's

00:04:45   a couple of different styles of those and the beautiful Raglan t-shirt which was my

00:04:50   only way of imagining this shirt existing in the old kind of baseball sports style so if you want

00:04:59   them they are only on sale for another four days via our friends at the Cotton Bureau and we all

00:05:04   have links in the show notes to those. If you don't get them they're gone and then that's it

00:05:10   So you want to make sure that you pick up some lovely upgrade merchandise.

00:05:15   Well done. Well done.

00:05:16   I'm glad you're back to talk about the merchandise one last time since you

00:05:20   missed it last week.

00:05:21   I did. I'd missed it indeed.

00:05:22   So go and pick that stuff up.

00:05:24   I also wanted to address something from a few weeks ago.

00:05:28   There was a few people that pointed this out to me and they are 100%

00:05:31   correct.

00:05:32   You know, when we were talking about our superpowers that we would like,

00:05:37   that we desire.

00:05:37   I mentioned the ability to control time to stop time and start time and a few listeners from the UK all

00:05:45   tweeted at me and mentioned a show called Bernard's watch as my inspiration for this and they are

00:05:50   100% correct

00:05:52   Bernard's watch was a show on TV when I was a kid on

00:05:56   CITV on channel 3 where this kid called Bernard he had a stopwatch and that stopwatch allowed him to stop time and

00:06:05   And so as kids of a certain, people of a certain generation all wanted this power as I do because

00:06:13   of Bernard and all of the things that Bernard could do.

00:06:16   And we're all very jealous of Bernard and his ability to stop time.

00:06:20   I've put a link in the show notes to the Wikipedia article for Bernard's watch if

00:06:23   you'd like to find more.

00:06:25   And Americans of my generation will remember the television movie perhaps, The Girl with

00:06:30   the Gold Watch and Everything, which was also that premise.

00:06:34   that one was a little more, well it was on TV so it wasn t that adult but it was about

00:06:40   adults with it and so there were sort of like crimes and there were sort of some suggestive

00:06:45   parts in it too. And actually there s a, what s the name of the movie, there s a really

00:06:54   good movie, I can t remember the name now, have we talked about it before? There s an

00:07:03   independent English movie about a guy who is able to concentrate and stop time and he's

00:07:08   a grocery clerk.

00:07:10   I'm Googling, frantically Googling.

00:07:17   Cash back?

00:07:18   Cash back, that's it.

00:07:19   That's a similar thing.

00:07:20   So, I mean, this premise has been done before so there's lots of precedent for your superpower

00:07:27   that you're going to get.

00:07:29   that's useful if there's a court case about your superpower I don't know.

00:07:33   What can I?

00:07:34   And I also wanted to follow up on something that you were talking about last week in the

00:07:40   Ask Upgrade segment and it's in case people haven't noticed I've started a little trend

00:07:45   of the last Ask Upgrade question being a little bit off the wall and we have another one of

00:07:49   those today and last week's was very sadly I put it in the document forgetting that Steven

00:07:54   cannot eat anything pizza related.

00:07:56   uh... what

00:07:58   it's really truly yep really really kind of sticking i think

00:08:02   uh... you mentioned pepperoni and pineapple pizza we upset many people and

00:08:06   and delighted others yes

00:08:08   uh... i'd just wanted to say that

00:08:10   that sounds fantastic to me and i

00:08:13   want it

00:08:14   well i i i just or you i think you can just order it

00:08:17   but you know i'll probably be the places have

00:08:19   pot pineapple as one of the available toppings because of the most decent

00:08:23   places

00:08:23   you can just exactly

00:08:25   And it essentially is a Hawaiian pizza except I like pepperoni better than Canadian bacon

00:08:29   or whatever bacon style pork thing that they put on that they call Hawaiian in the UK if

00:08:35   they have such a thing.

00:08:38   So if you go to a pizza place or order from a pizza place that has those two toppings

00:08:43   as options on pizzas, you can ask them to just do that together.

00:08:48   I've done it where I've substituted and said, "Can I have the Hawaiian with pepperoni instead

00:08:52   of Canadian bacon?"

00:08:53   They say, "Sure."

00:08:54   I hadn't thought that I can just customize a pizza from somewhere.

00:08:57   Yeah. That's the way to do it.

00:08:58   I am going to do this because I like pepperoni. I like Hawaiian. So, together.

00:09:04   Yeah, if you like Hawaiian pizza, it's basically the same thing. And some people don't like

00:09:09   the idea of sweet and savory together, and I totally get that. But I like the, with the

00:09:17   pepperoni and the pineapple together, I think it's a really good combination. I chanced

00:09:22   upon it, I don't even know why, how I discovered it, but that is my favorite combination because

00:09:26   it's a party, it's got everything. What more do you need in a pizza than those two things?

00:09:33   Also, on last week's show, you kind of challenged me a little bit, I think, when talking about

00:09:42   task management systems. I did.

00:09:44   In mentioning you don't have one. I don't.

00:09:48   And we're going to address this just after this break.

00:09:50   It's gonna be an intervention. It's gonna be I I just I just need to understand

00:09:55   I just need to understand maybe I do too

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00:12:41   backblaze.com/upgradepodcast and check out B2 cloud storage as well. Thank you so much

00:12:46   to Backblaze for their support of this show.

00:12:50   >> Yay!

00:12:52   >> So, Jason, task management. I just want to address this for a little while.

00:12:58   >> Yes, let's look at our document that we have where we keep track of what we're going

00:13:02   to talk about on upgrade. That's one of the ways that I do task management.

00:13:08   Help me Myke. Have you ever tried any getting things done systems? You know, apps like

00:13:16   OmniFocus or Things or anything like that. Have you ever tried these apps?

00:13:22   I tried Things. I'm not sure if I ever tried OmniFocus. I think I had it and I think I

00:13:31   I opened it and was intimidated by it but I did use things for a while and ended up

00:13:38   not using it anymore.

00:13:44   What turned you away though?

00:13:46   Did it just not stick for you?

00:13:47   I don't get why you would...

00:13:50   A lot of people switch around, right?

00:13:52   So they use things and they go to OmniFocus or Todoist or something like that.

00:13:57   I think you get less people who kind of just stop using these sort of applications.

00:14:04   I guess I think the overriding thing for me is that I want something that is so frictionless

00:14:10   and I feel like a lot of these apps, like things had like categorization features and

00:14:14   it had sort of specific reminder times like remind me here and recur there.

00:14:19   This is like the anti-cortex, isn't it?

00:14:21   This is the cerebellum podcast or something.

00:14:24   is very, very into organizational structures. And I guess for me, I felt repelled by a lot

00:14:33   of that detail because it felt, it actually reminds me of some stuff Merlin has talked

00:14:40   about before about how every minute you're organizing your index cards is a minute that

00:14:49   you're not doing any of the things on the index cards. And I always felt very strongly

00:14:53   to me like that. That while I needed to remind myself of things to do and I needed to have

00:14:58   some structure for that, that a lot of these apps seem to have a level of, you know, you

00:15:06   can be a power user of organizational tools and I felt like that my job is not to run

00:15:12   an organizational tool. And that I don t want to be a power user of organizational tools

00:15:19   because every minute I spend becoming a power user of organizational tools is a minute I

00:15:24   don't spend working. So for me, I always felt like, "Wow, that's really fiddly. Yes, I can

00:15:30   categorize all my to-do's. Yes, I can send myself little notifications. Yes, I can fiddle

00:15:34   around with this and build this whole system, or I can just get back to work."

00:15:37   [Sigh]

00:15:41   [Laughter]

00:15:43   So, I understand that thought, because these apps can be very complex.

00:15:49   I use, I just scratched the surface of OmniFocus. I've been all in on OmniFocus for a long time.

00:15:55   And I use it very basically. I put tasks in at certain days, at certain times.

00:16:01   times you know. So I'd be like you know I put something in today to make sure I

00:16:06   wanted to order more upgrade merchandise. I want to have some stuff so I've put in

00:16:12   a just threw it in today at seven o'clock to remind me to do that and

00:16:17   then I can just check it off or I can move it to another day that kind of

00:16:20   thing and that's how I run my system basically. I just put in these little

00:16:24   items with their due dates and times and I moved them around as necessary I have

00:16:29   some that repeat because I know that I do them every week or every X amount of days

00:16:34   and my system runs like that and there are people that you know I don't use any of the

00:16:37   context stuff I don't use any of the project stuff it basically is for me just a to-do

00:16:43   list as opposed to a getting things done system and there are lots and lots of apps that have

00:16:50   to-do list functionality I use a couple of different apps for different things but my

00:16:54   my main to do stuff goes in OmniFocus.

00:16:58   And I do that because it works the way that my brain thinks.

00:17:03   Because I'm pretty embedded in the system.

00:17:07   Just certain buttons and certain functions are in OmniFocus.

00:17:11   They work in a specific way and I like them for that.

00:17:14   It just makes sense to me.

00:17:15   It is fully updated always.

00:17:17   It's on all of my platforms.

00:17:19   It's in active development.

00:17:21   It's the app for me.

00:17:23   There are things that things does that I don't like and their development has always been

00:17:28   a bit slow and Todoist works in a very different way to me from like with reminder times and

00:17:36   stuff like that.

00:17:37   So I'm kind of embedded in this system.

00:17:39   So I agree with you completely.

00:17:41   I don't go into the majority of the functionality that are in these applications but in the

00:17:46   same vein that hasn't turned me off completely from using this type of app.

00:17:52   So something different happened in your mind where you were just like, "I don't want this,

00:17:55   I don't like this, it goes away."

00:17:57   >> Well, if I, well, and some of it is what you said, which is I was using things also

00:18:02   at a point where their syncing was really problematic across devices.

00:18:09   And because they were slow to do syncing and it was kind of strange manual-ish syncing

00:18:14   and it would get out of sync, it was local network syncing for a while.

00:18:18   >> Yeah, it was a disaster.

00:18:19   >> And I think they've resolved it all now.

00:18:21   when I was using it that was and given the level of detail that I wanted I mean it was

00:18:26   neat I could tag like these are writing tasks and these are these other tasks but also you

00:18:29   have to subscribe to their notion of how notifications work so you've got sort of like eventual and

00:18:35   on a particular day and I have a lot of tasks where it really is not I need to do this.

00:18:40   Like everybody I've got a task that is next Tuesday you need to do this by next Tuesday

00:18:44   but most of what I do is a list of things I have to do and it's just a list and I don't

00:18:49   have to do them by any particular time and I think my memory is that one of the problems

00:18:52   I had with things was that it was it really wanted to have this concept of sort of like

00:18:58   classified and unclassified and there was like list where I expected to see things I

00:19:02   needed to do but they weren t there because I hadn t put them in the box of eventually

00:19:08   or unordered or something and I felt like with that and the sync issues, the metaphor

00:19:14   that it was trying to use that I didn t want to bother being involved in, I was better

00:19:18   off using reminders because reminder sinks and is just a list of things and so that's

00:19:26   part of my kind of home grown and not quite an organizational system now and I'm also

00:19:32   not claiming that this is the right thing for everybody nor am I necessarily claiming

00:19:36   it's the right thing for me.

00:19:38   It's just sort of where I am right now.

00:19:41   This is my non-system system and part of it is I have several reminders list although

00:19:45   mostly I am in one list which is basically where I write down things that I think I should

00:19:50   write about.

00:19:51   So, this is what I wanted to just find out, because in my mind there was no way you couldn't

00:19:58   have had anything. Like, you had to have something and you might not necessarily consider it

00:20:04   your task management system, but it is it, right? And if reminders, so you use reminders

00:20:09   to keep track of stuff. Because I just can't imagine someone who does the amount of work

00:20:14   that you do with the amount of projects and dependencies that you have, I just couldn't

00:20:20   imagine that you have nothing, that you try and keep it all in your brain.

00:20:24   Well, so it's a combination of things. It's actually funny. I was talking to one of my

00:20:27   fellow podcasters this weekend and she was saying how everybody, her name is Deb Stanish

00:20:36   and she loves spreadsheets. And we had a little high five spreadsheet moment because I realized

00:20:42   that uh... did the you know that's part of my organizational structure might my

00:20:46   organizational thing that has sort of

00:20:48   not been in nap and is and his home grown and it is not something i consider

00:20:52   a system

00:20:53   is

00:20:54   yeah it's reminders for story ideas

00:20:58   calendar

00:20:59   right i have a calendar

00:21:00   and if i have a story so like serenity let's say serenity contacts me and says

00:21:04   i'd like you to write and i'm or column

00:21:07   uh... on

00:21:08   uh... because i write one for them sort of every month

00:21:11   I'd like it on the 25th.

00:21:14   I will put an event on the 25th, an all-day event that is iMore column.

00:21:20   I will do that.

00:21:21   So you put it in your calendar then?

00:21:23   I put it in my calendar and I also have, I actually created a calendar, I think I mentioned

00:21:28   this on maybe even on this podcast, I created a calendar called, I think I call it writing,

00:21:34   but it's basically like sort of self-direction, sort of like goals of when I would like to

00:21:41   be doing certain things during the week because I do have a cycle of like I have a Mac world

00:21:45   column every week and I've got time I need to block off to write for six colors and other

00:21:51   stuff that I want to do whether it's writing or podcast editing actually and I created

00:21:55   a calendar for that that's separate from my like you know doing this podcast which is

00:22:01   a must do you know we do this every week that's more of like a this is when you should target

00:22:07   doing that don't forget to do this so it's sort of like a reminder.

00:22:10   So I do have calendar items and they help remind me of things that I need to do in a

00:22:16   way although I can kind of move those around but they do serve as a reminder.

00:22:21   And then for a lot of my planning stuff like podcasts and the six colors subscriber stuff

00:22:27   and all of that kind of thing I do have a lot of spreadsheets like I was saying I have

00:22:31   a lot of Google sheets.

00:22:33   Like the incomparable topic list and scheduling list is entirely done in a Google sheet and

00:22:40   that's where it all goes.

00:22:42   And then when we schedule something, it goes on a shared calendar and it's on my calendar

00:22:47   and I can see that it's happening.

00:22:49   So all of those things are organizational tools but they're all kind of scattered and

00:22:53   they're not something I would call a system although I suppose anything is a system if

00:22:58   you are functioning inside it.

00:23:01   The calendar thing is interesting to me, because for me, the way that I think about calendars

00:23:08   is calendars are for appointments.

00:23:10   Calendars are where things go at a certain time from a certain time.

00:23:15   Because the way that I look at it, and many people disagree with this, and that's perfectly

00:23:19   fine, each to their own, but the idea of writing an article feels like a task to me, and the

00:23:24   task should be completed at a certain point.

00:23:27   Because for example, let's say something comes up that day and you haven't written the article,

00:23:32   what do you do?

00:23:33   Do you move the calendar?

00:23:34   I do.

00:23:35   I do.

00:23:36   And in fact, and the way I think of this, and maybe this is me, but the way I think

00:23:40   of it is, it takes me two hours to write this story.

00:23:44   And I need to leave, or to just work on six colors that day.

00:23:48   Leave two hours or three hours, leave it in a block, because a block is good.

00:23:52   I want to make sure I have space during that time or sometime I do it.

00:23:57   And so like with the Macworld thing, when is my Macworld column due?

00:24:01   Maybe my Macworld column is due sometime on Thursday, but what I've decided is Tuesday

00:24:06   afternoon is actually the best time for me to fit in the Macworld column because Dan's

00:24:11   writing a little more on six colors that day.

00:24:14   And I've got a space where I'm not doing any podcasts or anything like that and so Tuesday

00:24:18   afternoon is when I'm going to write more color.

00:24:20   I'm going to do it then and I'll slot it in.

00:24:26   My target is essentially assigning myself a time and saying I think you should write

00:24:30   it then.

00:24:31   It's not the due date of the thing.

00:24:33   It's when I think I can do the thing.

00:24:35   That's why I use a calendar because you risk.

00:24:43   For me it basically is like if you have five things that need to be done on Thursday, you

00:24:47   can't just create five to-dos for Thursday.

00:24:49   In my mind that just doesn't work saying by the end of the day on Thursday you need

00:24:53   to do these five things that doesn't help me.

00:24:55   What I need to do then is triage and prioritize and say well if I need to do these five things

00:25:00   by Thursday I'm going to do this one here and this one here and this one here and this

00:25:03   one here and that's how I'm going to get it done.

00:25:05   And that's why I think in terms of the calendar because I need to actually find when I have

00:25:11   the time to do those tasks and then basically tell myself this is when you do it.

00:25:17   So then I'm sitting, we finish a podcast sometimes and I think, "Oh, now what do I do?"

00:25:22   And then I look and I'm like, "Oh, I need to do that thing right now."

00:25:25   And then I do it.

00:25:26   >> Because this is what I expected, is that our systems, the way we think about them,

00:25:34   are basically the same.

00:25:35   We just record them in different ways.

00:25:39   So I don't block things out on my calendar, but I know how long things take me to do.

00:25:45   So when I look at my to-do list in the morning, I plan my day out based on it and I set the

00:25:51   due times and move the times around based on the fact of how I know it's going to run

00:25:56   throughout the day and then move things to a different day if I know that they're not

00:26:01   going to get done.

00:26:02   But we both, we use different types of tools to get that stuff done.

00:26:07   And the funny thing is, what I also find interesting is that we both think that the other way is,

00:26:13   just wouldn't work.

00:26:14   I just don't think putting things in a calendar for me like that would work because I don't

00:26:18   look at my calendar in that way.

00:26:20   Right and the difference is that we're and this is the beauty of this is that we're different

00:26:24   people who think of who conceive of the world differently and so it probably wouldn't work

00:26:30   for you and it totally works for me and that's fine but it is yeah for me that's how I want

00:26:37   to manage my time is I want to have it I want to be able to say you know it's going to take

00:26:42   me this long to do this so I'm going to try to do it here rather than just try to keep

00:26:45   in my mind, "Well, I've got five things and they each take this amount of time."

00:26:48   I do that with some things.

00:26:50   It's not like totally like every single move I make is in a calendar.

00:26:53   That's not the case.

00:26:54   It's more that there are things that I do that require blocks of time where I concentrate

00:26:59   and I need to be sure to get those blocks or I'm going to be in trouble.

00:27:04   Those are the ones that I try to mark out.

00:27:05   I don't usually put in, you know, "Edit total party kill" or something like that.

00:27:10   Sometimes I do or edit the incomparable.

00:27:12   Sometimes I do because I feel like I need to put a stick in a doorway or something like

00:27:17   that and be like, "This needs to be propped open because if I don't prop this open, I'm

00:27:23   going to run out of time.

00:27:24   I need to say, 'If you don't edit that podcast now, it won't get done in time because of

00:27:31   all these other things you have to do.'"

00:27:33   That sometimes happens, but usually that stuff's just in the back of my mind.

00:27:37   Although even then, when I have to post a total party kill, there's an all day event

00:27:40   on that day that says post total party kill.

00:27:43   So what happens then if me and you are talking and I say to you, "Jason, I need you to

00:27:50   get me that copy by Wednesday."

00:27:55   What do you do with that?

00:27:56   Do you do anything?

00:27:57   Does it go in reminders?

00:27:59   Where do tasks like that go?

00:28:03   I don't know what copy it would be but let's say we need to do new text.

00:28:07   Let's say we need a new bio for the show or something like that.

00:28:13   We need a new thing, we need some updated writing or like when we were doing the t-shirt

00:28:17   stuff and I would say to you "Could you get me this or whatever" or you were managing

00:28:23   it.

00:28:24   Where does that sort of stuff go?

00:28:26   I probably had a reminder.

00:28:28   It could have been a calendar item but it probably would have been a reminder just saying

00:28:31   "Write that blurb for Myke."

00:28:32   Cool. So it goes in reminders then. That was what I wanted to see. There's a couple of

00:28:35   different types of tasks, right? Especially like when you're looking at your system. You

00:28:39   have the things that are, "This is a thing I need to do for a certain amount of time."

00:28:44   But then you also have the, "I just need to send that email to someone on Wednesday."

00:28:49   So that sort of stuff goes in reminders.

00:28:52   I suppose, although a lot of that stuff I just try to do it at the time. Like if I need

00:28:55   to send an email to somebody by Wednesday, then that's different. But if I need to wait

00:29:01   until Wednesday and then send that email, then I will probably leave a reminder for

00:29:06   myself. Probably.

00:29:08   This is... I understand your system. I can see how it is the way it is. But there's still...

00:29:14   Because it's not my system, there's still this part of me that's thinking, "I don't

00:29:17   know how he gets anything done."

00:29:18   It's a great mystery.

00:29:21   But you've at least put my mind at rest a little bit. I feel a little bit better now.

00:29:25   Because I know that there's something going on.

00:29:27   Are you envisioning like I have a little piece of paper with some things written on it in

00:29:32   pencil and scratched out and little scraps of paper?

00:29:36   I just thought you were trying to keep it all in your brain.

00:29:39   Some of it's in my brain.

00:29:40   Yeah.

00:29:41   Some of it I do.

00:29:42   In fact, if I'm being honest, if you said I need copy on Wednesday for something, I

00:29:46   would probably just not do anything and just think, "Okay, I'll do that by Wednesday."

00:29:50   That probably I would keep in my brain.

00:29:53   Although I'm 45 so as time goes on I need to learn to write things down more because

00:29:58   I'm not going to remember as many things as I could remember back in the day.

00:30:03   Over the time that we've worked together I have got that impression.

00:30:05   You never don't give me anything but I always feel like when I ask you for something you

00:30:10   just remember.

00:30:11   Which is weird.

00:30:15   I think for some people and the way that I do it is I just don't want the burden of my

00:30:19   memory so I dump it out into only focus.

00:30:22   Because I probably could remember a lot of this stuff. I do remember a lot of this stuff.

00:30:25   I know that every Monday morning I have to prepare for upgrade. I know that. But it's

00:30:31   in OmniFocus.

00:30:32   Oh, interesting. Yeah, I don't have anything like that. I would say if my incidence of

00:30:40   failure of storing things away in my brain was higher, I would rely on the tools more.

00:30:48   And it's not like I don't forget things, but I don't forget very many things.

00:30:55   So it isn't a problem.

00:30:56   If it was a problem, I would start writing it down.

00:31:00   That is part of it though.

00:31:01   Some of it is just like, "Yeah, I know."

00:31:04   I don't have an item for when we're done with the show that says, "Write a blurb

00:31:09   for the episode."

00:31:10   Now, sometimes you will ask me for the blurb for the episode because I'm distracted on

00:31:14   something else.

00:31:15   But I do know that I need to do that for you before you post it.

00:31:18   And also sometimes I use you as my reminder, so that's good.

00:31:22   Yep, that's the thing, you rely on people.

00:31:25   You're part of my system.

00:31:26   I'm part of the system.

00:31:28   Alright, let's talk about one other little thing quickly.

00:31:32   Which is just, it just caught my interest and I wonder what you think about it.

00:31:36   The Hollywood Reporter has broke some news detailing that Dr. Dre is currently filming

00:31:44   Apple's first financed television series.

00:31:50   So there's been some rumours recently that Apple is going to be getting into the Netflix

00:31:54   Originals game and creating their own original content which will be placed somewhere.

00:32:02   Now this first series is going to be starring Dr Dre and it's kind of a biographical piece.

00:32:10   fictional but drawing on events from his life. And one of the reasons this is interesting

00:32:18   is because the content itself sounds very un-apple-like. This is a quote from The Hollywood

00:32:25   Reporter. It is described as a dark drama with no shortage of violence and sex. This

00:32:32   doesn't sound very Apple, but they are financing it. What is going on here, Jason?

00:32:40   It's weird, right?

00:32:41   Like it just sounds really weird.

00:32:44   There's this part of me that wonders

00:32:45   and I don't know if this is speaking out of turn,

00:32:49   but it kind of feels like Dr. Dre is an executive at Apple

00:32:52   now and he's kind of just doing what he wants to do.

00:32:56   And Apple's kind of just like, ah, okay.

00:33:00   - Or Dr. Dre or Eddie Q or Jimmy Iovine or somebody.

00:33:05   No, I, you know, there's been so much speculation

00:33:09   about if Apple would do their own content service.

00:33:12   And this report actually makes me feel better about it

00:33:15   because this report says, and this is a good report,

00:33:18   it's a Hollywood reporter.

00:33:19   This is a legitimate news agency,

00:33:22   and one of the people in the bylines,

00:33:23   Leslie Goldberg, who writes a lot of good news stuff

00:33:25   for them.

00:33:26   I do a podcast with their TV critic,

00:33:29   so I am tied in to them and I'm inclined

00:33:32   to believe what they say.

00:33:34   It sounds like an Apple Music thing to me.

00:33:38   I think that's the really interesting thing here.

00:33:40   And we've seen this, like there's the Taylor Swift concert

00:33:42   that was an Apple Music exclusive and it's a video,

00:33:46   but it was an Apple Music exclusive

00:33:47   for Apple Music subscribers, I believe.

00:33:49   And so I think what's interesting about this

00:33:53   is that this sounds to me like an Apple Music thing

00:33:56   that like they're gonna make a TV show

00:33:58   and it's going to be for Apple Music subscribers,

00:34:00   just like Amazon gets you to sign up

00:34:04   for free two-day shipping

00:34:05   and then they also provide you with video.

00:34:08   that this is sort of like not Apple TV service but part of Apple Music and if it s a show

00:34:14   about the life and times of Dr. Dre, then that fits with, you know, he s a music guy

00:34:22   and it sort of fits. And yeah, it s dark drama and people are like, Oh, is that something

00:34:30   Apple would do? Apple likes to be squeaky clean. But you know, Apple also sells and

00:34:34   rents every movie that is available. I guess there is no porn section of the iTunes store.

00:34:40   But they have erotic books and such in the iBook store though.

00:34:45   And they have plenty of R and unrated versions of movies in the movie store, the iTunes store.

00:34:54   So I don't think it's that big a thing. And yeah, this would be content from Apple or

00:35:00   from Apple Music or from Apple Studios or something like that. But, you know, as a producer

00:35:05   of it. But, I don't know, I think they feel like in a music context that this is, you

00:35:09   know, that Dr. Dre is a landmark music figure and that this is a, this fits with what they're

00:35:17   trying to do with having sort of music themed content. It also may be just an interesting

00:35:22   experiment because they've got Dr. Dre on the payroll and, you know, why not try this

00:35:28   and see what it's like within the context of Apple Music, not within a larger context

00:35:32   about Apple's video distribution plan. I mean, that's my guess.

00:35:37   Because there is like saying about Dr. Dre being on the payroll. Like it just feels like

00:35:41   to me like somebody said to Dre like, "Dre, what do you want to do here? Like, what are

00:35:46   you going to do?" He's like, "Well, I'd like to make a TV show." And I'm like, "Great.

00:35:51   There's a project for you, Dre." Because it feels like I don't really know what he

00:35:55   We don't really hear about him and I forget quite frequently that he is an Apple employee

00:36:01   And it's just a really interesting thing and now he's making this TV show. I

00:36:06   mean and also Apple music it seems weird to me to put a

00:36:12   television series in the music brand section thing

00:36:16   Like for example, I think the amazing is it the iPad app

00:36:21   I think it is the iPad Apple music app doesn't show full screen video

00:36:25   and

00:36:27   Or is it the yeah and well in the podcast and the podcast app as well

00:36:31   I and I think I think the music app is the same you could be corrected if I'm wrong

00:36:35   but this feels like this should be

00:36:37   one of the things that comes with the over-the-top Apple TV service rather than

00:36:43   Putting it in the music subscription service. That's the way that I look at it that these things just feel different a concert makes sense

00:36:51   music videos make sense a TV series created by a

00:36:56   Rapper, which is not it doesn't seem to be about necessarily the music industry. It's just stuff that happened in his life

00:37:04   Maybe it is maybe it's not but I don't know it feels a different it just feels different to me

00:37:10   It doesn't feel like something a music subscriber would expect it. Well, it's not but I think it's an interesting experiment. I

00:37:17   and

00:37:19   And I guess part of the reason that I'm kind of open to it as an experiment is that I like

00:37:23   that idea better than the idea that Apple is gearing up to create a slate of original

00:37:29   material that they're going to sell as a subscription service.

00:37:32   But given Apple's talk about subscription services and making more money from their

00:37:37   existing customers as a place of growth for their business, maybe we should all just sort

00:37:44   of accept that that's probably going to happen and whether this is part of it or not.

00:37:48   and a part of me thinks that. I mean Apple's got a lot of money, we know they've got a

00:37:50   lot of cash in the bank. We know that we act startled when we hear that Netflix is spending

00:37:57   a billion dollars probably on original content this year.

00:38:01   Sot So worth it though because everything they

00:38:03   make is fantastic.

00:38:04   Chris Apple could do that. Apple could spend a billion

00:38:06   dollars on content. I mean they would need to get up to speed with it and they wouldn't

00:38:09   start with a billion. They would need to build it like Netflix built it. But could they?

00:38:13   Absolutely. They would probably need to hire some smart programmers who have been working

00:38:17   elsewhere and they would need to invest a lot of money. They could also invest, Netflix

00:38:21   is going to spend about $6 billion on content in general. So it's also licensing other

00:38:25   material. So if Apple wanted to create an Apple video service that was akin to Hulu

00:38:31   and Netflix and Amazon Prime video, they totally could. And I'm not sure this is evidence

00:38:38   for that, but when you think of, in television terms, you look at Netflix spending $6 billion

00:38:46   think wow that's a lot of money and then you think about Apple and you think

00:38:49   that's nothing for Apple. So on that level if I'm thinking Apple it's

00:38:54   interesting if you think Apple wants growth, Apple's investors want growth,

00:38:58   they're a little nervous about the iPhone and Apple is starting to trumpet

00:39:02   their success with services that why the heck not do a video service right why

00:39:10   Why not do it?

00:39:12   They can invest money in it and it will show growth and even if it's not profitable at

00:39:17   least initially it will show revenue growth that they will be making inroads into a new

00:39:23   market and that will excite their investors.

00:39:27   So it's an interesting idea.

00:39:28   I think this would be weird if this is the kickoff of that service which is why I feel

00:39:32   like maybe it's an experimental thing that they're going to tie into Apple Music so

00:39:37   they can do it now and perhaps also test what the experience is like of going

00:39:43   through and doing you know producing a dramatic series.

00:39:48   Yeah I think I'm aligned with your thinking. This to me feels like Apple's

00:39:53   first step in that realm but it would I don't know why but it just feels like

00:39:58   this would be a very strange one to start with because Dr. Dre he is

00:40:04   incredible at what he does. I don't know if he's known for his acting. I've never seen

00:40:08   him in any acting roles. He could be, but I've never seen him in any. And I think that

00:40:14   maybe this wouldn't be the show that you would launch your thing with. Maybe Apple would

00:40:23   partner with Disney and do something.

00:40:26   Yeah, it is an interesting thing. It will have appeal to his audience, but yeah, it

00:40:31   It is a little surprising in the sense that you would want, perhaps you would want something

00:40:35   with broader appeal if such a thing exists but perhaps everything is a niche now and

00:40:39   this is just one of them.

00:40:41   What makes sense for me again is the music part of it which is at least you can say,

00:40:46   you know, he's an interesting figure in music and that's why we decided to do this and Apple

00:40:50   Music subscribers can watch it and you should be an Apple Music subscriber if you're a fan

00:40:55   of Dr. Dre because you can watch his show and you can listen to his music.

00:40:58   Maybe you know, I think that's a fine story to tell.

00:41:01   Yeah that time works.

00:41:03   It doesn't seem like a long range plan and yeah if you were launching a streaming service

00:41:07   that was going to be a competitor to Netflix you would probably want to go out with more

00:41:10   originals that cover a bunch of different areas so that a broader swath of audience

00:41:18   than one show, than any one show could handle.

00:41:21   But who knows this could also just be the first trickle that somebody from the Hollywood

00:41:26   reporter knew somebody who was producing this thing and was on the crew for this thing or

00:41:31   whatever the story is and this is the one that we know about when in fact there are

00:41:36   several more things.

00:41:37   I get the sense that Hollywood is about as leaky as the Apple hardware supply chain.

00:41:43   There's too many people involved.

00:41:45   People talk at Hollywood so my guess is that Apple won't be able to keep this a secret

00:41:49   if they decide to go down this path.

00:41:52   But yeah, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that this is really a test of what do we think

00:41:58   about this, what's involved with this, and then what do we budget and what's our plan

00:42:01   if we want to make our own service.

00:42:04   But why would you not?

00:42:05   If you were Apple, I mean I'm coming around to this as we talk because it's like why would

00:42:09   you not?

00:42:10   Given the cost of doing this, yeah, it's going to be hard and Netflix is already established

00:42:15   and HBO is established.

00:42:16   But…

00:42:17   You got all the money, what does it matter?

00:42:20   got the money and you want to find ways to do growth of services right? I mean this is

00:42:26   a place that even though there are some established players it's a very young market.

00:42:30   And it's a hot market.

00:42:31   And it is yeah and they're spending a lot of money.

00:42:34   But there's a lot of excitement in this right now you know so many of these companies and

00:42:38   Apple's competitors you know look at Amazon they are putting money into creating original

00:42:43   content and Amazon is winning awards left right and center and I think Apple might want

00:42:50   piece of that pie because it is now becoming part of the pie right like people sign up

00:42:56   for Amazon Prime for multiple reasons now and they get a bunch of different things and

00:43:01   maybe that is the type of thing that Apple would like to have in the future.

00:43:07   Yeah I think so I mean the question is whether they'll offer just like you know a stream

00:43:12   of Apple video Apple music just like a whole bunch of things that you have to subscribe

00:43:15   to and suddenly you've got, boy Wall Street would love this, if suddenly you know it turns

00:43:20   out that all these people who buy iPhones also are essentially spending a hundred dollars

00:43:24   a month on Apple services that come along with it and that just goes on forever.

00:43:29   Whether that's realistic or not I think is a good question and there's a lot of competition

00:43:34   but it's a why would you not, I think even something like Apple Music you could say this

00:43:39   is Apple Music doesn't have to be the number one music service but for every Apple Music

00:43:45   subscriber Apple is reaping more cash from their relationship with those people and if

00:43:52   your Apple on one level perhaps you look at it and say why would we not do that why would

00:43:57   we not offer that and make that attempt and not everybody's going to sign up with us but

00:44:01   some percentage is going to sign up with us and we're going to be able to offer an experience

00:44:05   that's a little more tightly integrated because we're the platform owner and we'll make you

00:44:09   You know and we get to make more money out of services which definitely seems to be,

00:44:15   I mean that was a clear message of their latest analyst call was that services is a target

00:44:21   for Apple.

00:44:22   The Apple wants to make more money from its customers beyond what they buy on hardware.

00:44:26   That just period.

00:44:28   That is happening.

00:44:29   That is going to happen.

00:44:30   That is a future Apple strategy for growth.

00:44:32   Is us spending more money, I mean I'm already spending whatever, $10 on iCloud photo library,

00:44:37   know, storage right now and I'm spending $15 a month on the Apple Music Family Plan.

00:44:42   So I'm already spending $25 a month on Apple and it can only go up, right?

00:44:47   That is it, right? If you're not selling more devices, which we've been over this, it looks

00:44:52   like that's going to be the case, right? We're kind of reaching the amount of devices that

00:44:56   can be sold. What do you do? You sell into that market more. You give them things. You

00:45:03   You give those device owners, you give them stuff and that comes in the form of cases

00:45:10   and accessories but also software and services.

00:45:16   That's how you get more money out of people.

00:45:17   Yeah, and services are potentially a lot easier because you've got a renewing, recurring payments

00:45:24   and it's all digital delivery and then you also can control your roll out of your hardware

00:45:30   like plan for a 4K box or an Ultra HD box let's say and make sure all your content is

00:45:38   in that which is what Netflix has done a very good job of that of rolling out their Ultra

00:45:42   HD content with the availability of boxes that can play Ultra HD and making it a differentiator

00:45:49   and getting people to upgrade to a higher subscription tier in order to get access to

00:45:53   it.

00:45:54   So it's one to watch. I think this year, I would hazard a guess that this year we're

00:46:01   gonna see more of this type of thing from Apple. I cast my mind back to the video iPod

00:46:10   when Apple announced the video iPod and they had a very, very small selection of shows,

00:46:15   mostly Disney stuff, right? And ABC, things like that. I personally think that that's

00:46:22   what we're gonna see, that they'll start with a very small selection of shows

00:46:26   including their own original content and build out build out from there because I

00:46:31   think the entertainment industry doesn't like Apple right because they own music

00:46:36   or at least they owned music for sales for a long time and I think they get

00:46:40   scared of that which is why they had so many problems with Apple music but

00:46:44   eventually they will give in if the market demands it so that's what I think

00:46:49   we're going to see and it is now an expected thing that if you have an over the top subscription

00:46:56   service you have original content which is excellent that goes inside of it. That is

00:47:02   just a thing that we expect now. Like I saw today that Hulu has something right with Stephen

00:47:07   King and J.J. Abrams? Yeah, yeah, 11/22/63 which is based on a really good Stephen King

00:47:15   book that we did an incomparable about and I'm looking forward to seeing it and that's a about a guy who goes back in time

00:47:20   To stop the Kennedy assassination, but it's actually way more complicated and interesting than that simple premise and it's it's it's very good

00:47:28   But that's a Hulu original and they're doing something not Netflix like they're rolling it out weekly

00:47:32   So they're doing a premiere today, but they're not dropping the whole season today. They're dropping it weekly on Mondays

00:47:36   I think I sound like that. I like both I do too. You know, I like both

00:47:40   I like that I can binge but I also like that they're piecemeal like I like that kind of thing

00:47:45   I like that I can binge things but I don't like the fact that nobody can talk about these

00:47:51   bingeable shows because everybody is in a different place.

00:47:57   And that's frustrating to me because I like to talk about TV shows and you're like, "Oh,

00:48:01   where are you?

00:48:02   I'm only in episode 4 of Jessica Jones."

00:48:03   It's like, "Well, tell me when you get to episode 8 and then we'll talk about it."

00:48:06   It's just not the same.

00:48:07   At the same time, I do like being able to just completely binge them.

00:48:10   So I don't know what the solution is, whether it's just we just have to deal that this is

00:48:13   how it is or if they could break them up into blocks where they have smaller sort of sub-seasons

00:48:18   and they drop five episodes now and then in a month they drop the next five or whether

00:48:24   you know or and they're all experimenting. So what Hulu is doing is this weekly release

00:48:31   and we'll see but I'm looking forward to seeing it. So everybody's got this stuff. This is

00:48:37   why we're at Peak TV now is anybody can be a TV outlet and many are trying.

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00:51:05   Alright Billy writes in will 3d touch come to the iPad via pencil force sensitivity

00:51:12   I was thinking about this a little bit and at first I was like that sounds like a good idea, right?

00:51:16   How would you put 3d touch functions into an iPad? It feels like a really difficult thing screens real big

00:51:23   Especially the iPad Pro

00:51:25   Imagine you're holding in one hand and you force touching in the other hand and then your iPad slips out of your hand, right?

00:51:30   like I can imagine that type of thing happening I

00:51:33   I still think that we're a revision or two away from 3D touch on the iPad

00:51:37   I don't think that we're gonna see that in a couple of weeks on the iPad Air 3 and really I just don't see it

00:51:44   right now

00:51:45   I'll ask you Jason in a moment what you think about that

00:51:48   But I started thinking more about like could the pencil work as a way to do 3D touch

00:51:53   It is another way you can push down on the pencil a lot easier

00:51:57   Then you would be pushing down your finger because it's a lot more sensitive

00:52:00   that works that way and or just pressing the pencil could activate a gesture like that.

00:52:06   But then the more I started to think about it, I was realising what it would do is it

00:52:09   would require that everybody has a pencil, which I don't think is something Apple's going

00:52:13   to want to do. It would mean that all iPads would need it, which also they're not going

00:52:17   to do that. And you would always have to have the pencil in your hand to make this work

00:52:23   because the way that 3D touch and force touch actions work is that they're intended to work

00:52:29   in conjunction with regular touches. You don't mode shift to do them.

00:52:35   For example the keyboard shortcut. You press down, you move and you start typing again.

00:52:40   If I had to take my pencil out, press down, move the cursor around and then start typing

00:52:44   again I don't think I'd like that. So whilst I do feel that in theory it sounds like it

00:52:49   makes sense, the more I start to think about it I don't think that's going to work. I think

00:52:53   Apple will just put 3D touch in the way that it is on the phone but I just don't think

00:52:59   ready for it. Jason, what do you think? I think that it's okay if it's not on every iPad,

00:53:06   because 3D Touch isn't on every iPhone. I think that the core of this is Apple's commitment to the

00:53:16   Pencil as a UI interaction mode instead of just a sort of an input mode. And that's what we've been

00:53:23   seeing and you and Grey talked about it on Cortex, that the 9... what is it, the 9 3

00:53:30   beta?

00:53:31   Yeah, the 9 3 beta removes the ability for you to use the pencil as a finger replacement

00:53:37   basically to... so the upset and anger of many iPad Pro Apple Pencil users and we talk

00:53:44   about it on Cortex 22.

00:53:45   So if Apple truly believes that the pencil is supposed to be useless for anything except

00:53:50   drawing which excellent arguments have been made that it's a mistake and you should yeah

00:53:56   I refer you to that episode of Cortex, great, did a great job supported by you of railing

00:54:02   against this decision and I agree with it I think it's a mistake. Why turn off functionality?

00:54:10   Maybe there's a reason where they're having some issues with the most important parts

00:54:13   of the pencil not behaving right because it's looking for these UI interactions.

00:54:20   Okay maybe but it seems like a bad idea that it's actually removing functionality that

00:54:23   people use and like and that isn't mandatory but if they remove it then this is a moot

00:54:29   point because it won't do it right because this is a UI interaction.

00:54:33   If they if they decided though it's okay to interact with the UI this way I don't see

00:54:37   why you wouldn't do this since 3D touch is in the operating system and it's never a must

00:54:43   use feature it's always optional because so many devices don't have support for 3D touch

00:54:48   that I would actually advocate that they do it because it's already in other devices and

00:54:54   you have a touch sensitive device that you're using.

00:54:57   But my gut feeling is that it's already too complicated for them as it is which is why

00:55:03   they're backing away from it and so it won't happen.

00:55:06   But I wouldn't say it's necessarily a bad idea if they decide to embrace what you and

00:55:12   gray use the pencil 4 and 9 too which is you know as a as a substitute finger so

00:55:18   you don't need to keep taking your your pencil out of your hand in order to do

00:55:22   UI interaction and then put it back in your hand to continue doing what you

00:55:26   were doing with your pencil so yeah all right next up we have from Dylan Dylan

00:55:33   wanted to know Jason I've just updated to El Capitan and started using photos

00:55:37   photos, can I delete iPhoto or will that delete my photos?

00:55:41   Steve

00:56:04   photos you probably shouldn't do anything more over here because these changes won't

00:56:08   be reflected in your photos library. It throws up that warning. So if you've migrated to

00:56:13   photos and you're ready to go using it, yeah, you can delete iPhoto and you can even delete

00:56:17   your iPhoto library because you should now have a photos library that is a migrated thing.

00:56:22   You won't save a lot of space in doing either of these things, but you could delete them

00:56:26   if you really wanted to.

00:56:27   If you just don't want it around, maybe.

00:56:29   If you don't want to see it and you don't want that photo, that iPhoto icon in your

00:56:33   face anymore, yeah you could totally do that, it's fine.

00:56:36   Get out of my face, iPhoto.

00:56:39   Prompted by my absence last week, Angelo wrote in and wanted to know what technology comforts

00:56:44   us when we are not feeling very well.

00:56:47   For me, definitely what comforted me last week was Netflix.

00:56:51   Lots of video, I watched all of Making a Murderer and some other like just random shows and

00:56:57   stand-up comedy things and stuff like that because when you're in bed and you're awake

00:57:02   for long periods of time because you feel crap, things like Netflix are a great option.

00:57:08   JE. Yeah, and I agree with that. I think, please distract me. It's always what I'm

00:57:13   thinking when I'm sick. So Netflix, TiVo I've got, so my DVR is loaded up with shows,

00:57:19   just put on some TV. Or like Kindle, I have a hardware Kindle and that's great too because

00:57:27   I can just lay in bed and read and if my concentration fades which happens when you are sick from

00:57:33   a book, from like a novel I can flip over and read a non-fiction book or I can read

00:57:38   the newspaper because I get a daily newspaper on my Kindle and so that's a good thing too.

00:57:43   And then I guess I would say like Slack and Twitter a little bit too just because those

00:57:48   are nice distractions when you are feeling you know isolated and you are just in bed

00:57:53   and you're cut off from the world and feel terrible that sometimes it's nice to see what

00:57:57   your friends and your people on Twitter are talking about.

00:58:03   Yup. The last point today comes from Chris and Chris wants to know what is your favorite

00:58:12   word and least favorite word and Jason, see you've noted this and this is something that

00:58:18   I picked up on as well.

00:58:21   This is from inside the Actors Studio.

00:58:23   This is the questionnaire which is based on the French host and it is itself based on

00:58:34   Proust.

00:58:35   Is that right?

00:58:36   Proust.

00:58:37   I think it's Proust.

00:58:38   Who knows?

00:58:39   I don't think that's right.

00:58:41   You say Proust, I'll say Proust.

00:58:43   No, I said Proust, you said Proust.

00:58:46   tomato tomato I went through a period of time a couple of years ago of binging

00:58:55   on this series on YouTube someone uploaded a lot of inside the actor

00:59:00   studio to YouTube and I love it and I actually took a lot of my I took a lot

00:59:07   of tips and skills for the interview shows that I had done I think that it is

00:59:13   is an absolutely incredible series and James Lipton is a fantastic interviewer. So I took

00:59:19   some thoughts from him. One day, I thought about this a lot that maybe me and you or

00:59:25   whoever should go through the whole list of questions.

00:59:27   That might be fun. But we'll start off today with the favourite

00:59:32   and least favourite words. I go back and forth on this quite a lot but I put some thought

00:59:37   into it and my favourite word, this is definitely one of my favourite words, I think it's

00:59:42   difficult for me to think of what is my exact favorite word but the word

00:59:45   colossal I love the way colossal sounds because colossal sounds big even though

00:59:53   it sounds big yeah even though you know there's no there's no one on at a peer

00:59:57   to it but it has the feeling you said the word colossal sounds like something

01:00:03   that's big and give you a little insider secret this was the name I was pushing

01:00:08   quite heavily for Relay but Stephen did know.

01:00:14   One of the reasons that it's good that he said no is even I, having loved it and owning

01:00:19   a bunch of domains, always spell "Colossal" incorrectly.

01:00:22   He's spelled with two L's?

01:00:24   Two L's or one S. It always goes with it.

01:00:26   Ah, okay.

01:00:27   But I like "Colossal" because it's...

01:00:29   It's nice.

01:00:30   Have you ever seen "The Amazing Colossal Man"?

01:00:31   No.

01:00:32   It's a great title.

01:00:33   It's a bad 50's sci-fi movie but it's a great title.

01:00:35   "Amazing Colossal Man".

01:00:37   Yeah, he's got a lot going for him.

01:00:39   - He does.

01:00:40   (laughing)

01:00:41   - One of my least favorite words is,

01:00:45   when people refer to podcasts as pods.

01:00:49   - Ah, pod pods.

01:00:51   - That is a pet hate of mine.

01:00:53   Podcast is a terrible word for what we do.

01:00:58   I try and say it as little as possible.

01:01:01   I'm not gonna create a new name,

01:01:04   but I refer to what we do as shows.

01:01:06   - Podcasts is available.

01:01:08   - I wasn't gonna mention that.

01:01:09   (laughing)

01:01:10   - Shows, programs, sure, absolutely.

01:01:12   - I say shows, broadcasts, I try and say that stuff.

01:01:15   I am a podcaster, we make podcasts.

01:01:18   I just don't really like the word,

01:01:19   so I try and replace it wherever possible.

01:01:22   But it's just, yeah, pods is like nails

01:01:27   on a chalkboard to me.

01:01:28   - Yeah.

01:01:30   - Like when somebody says, "I listen to your latest pod."

01:01:33   - Yeah, that's the worst.

01:01:35   I only use pod in occasionally I will say and it is intended humorously I will say I

01:01:43   gotta go cast some pods.

01:01:47   But only in that phrase of the casting of pods because that literally a podcaster would

01:01:51   be one who casts pods.

01:01:53   So that's the only time I'll use it and I use it ironically and making fun of it.

01:02:00   So I'm with you there.

01:02:01   It's not a pod.

01:02:02   Jason, what's your favorite and least favorite word?

01:02:06   So I opened this this morning after spending the weekend at this convention talking to

01:02:10   all these friends of mine and was completely unprepared for this and my brain waking up

01:02:16   and drinking tea and trying to think of it. I really struggle with this. I'm sure that

01:02:20   after this is over I'm going to have, for the next week, I'm going to have words that

01:02:25   I love popping into my head and thinking, "Why didn't I say that word?"

01:02:29   That's why we have follow-up.

01:02:30   Maybe that is.

01:02:32   But I took a shot just for fun.

01:02:36   So my favorite word, I put down "dude."

01:02:39   I like "dude."

01:02:40   I don't use it a lot, but what I love--

01:02:41   I don't think I've ever heard you say it.

01:02:44   Oh, "dude."

01:02:45   The--that's not true at all, dude.

01:02:50   Here's why I like "dude."

01:02:51   I like "dude" not only because it is kind of--it seems very Californian, and I am Californian,

01:02:56   but I like its versatility.

01:02:59   And there's a class of words that can be used including some four letter words like dude,

01:03:04   it's a four letter word actually, that can be used in lots of different contexts.

01:03:07   And I like that about it that you can refer to somebody as a dude but you can also exclaim

01:03:13   come on dude and have it be this, you can be a cool dude, the dude can be like somebody

01:03:19   who's not paying attention, you've got the Jeff Bridges connotation which is kind of

01:03:26   fun and like if you're on the freeway and somebody cuts you off, you can just say, "Dude!"

01:03:32   And it is like great, like an insult to a person to say it.

01:03:37   I just find it a versatile, nonsense word and I love it and I should probably use it

01:03:42   even more but I do like it.

01:03:45   For now, that is my current vote just because I thought it would be fun to say.

01:03:48   All right, dude.

01:03:49   What's up next?

01:03:50   I don't know, dude.

01:03:56   least favorite. I again I'm sure there are actually a lot of a lot of I don't I'm happy

01:04:07   to use expletives from time to time I don't do it a lot I try to use it tactically. Yeah

01:04:15   it's always it's always a surprise when you hear Jason swear it happens but it's always

01:04:19   surprising. Sure I know all those I know all those words and I can use them but I choose

01:04:24   to use them in very specific contexts and very specific times and not just I

01:04:28   find that they're much more effective when used tactically rather than just

01:04:31   sort of spouted every other sentence and that's just me that's that's the way I

01:04:36   live my life and there are some words that I really love that are swear words

01:04:40   and there's some that I really hate I'm not gonna get into the ones I hate now

01:04:44   but there are some that I kind of despise and I think they're bad words

01:04:46   they're like not just bad words they're bad my favorite cuz word is a is a

01:04:54   a word that I think is hilarious because it mixes two swear words but I can't say it to

01:05:05   American people.

01:05:07   Right, yeah.

01:05:08   Because one of the two words that it mixes together makes Americans explode into a ball

01:05:15   of flame.

01:05:16   Yeah, so I'm going to go with a different word which I'm actually going to go back to

01:05:20   graduate school. The guy, journalism teacher I had in grad school was the guy named Vince

01:05:26   Cosgrove. He was the city editor of the New York Daily News I want to say in the 80s during

01:05:31   the Ed Koch administration. He had moved to Berkeley. He ended up writing for, what did

01:05:37   he do? He was an editor of TV Guide for a while. He did some entertainment journalism

01:05:41   stuff. He wrote a novel. But anyway, he was my journalism professor in grad school. And

01:05:48   He his perspective in the sort of tabloid in a journalism school enmeshed in the idea

01:05:56   that the New York Times was the most exalted form of journalism was this guy from the New

01:05:59   York Daily News which I just thought was the best and I loved it because you know he would

01:06:04   insult the Times.

01:06:05   He'd be like they're writing for the history books.

01:06:06   We're writing for the people who live today and stuff like that.

01:06:09   I thought that was great.

01:06:10   This is like a more kind of fierce tabloid proud we're not the New York Times kind of

01:06:16   attitude which is so refreshing because you never get that in journalism schools.

01:06:20   But anyway, one of the things that was one of his pet peeves and I really loved it, it

01:06:25   has stuck with me all this time is when you write a story about a politician, don t call

01:06:30   them a law maker. If you call them a law maker, it sounds like Moses coming down with the

01:06:37   tablets with the Ten Commandments. These are amazing priests of our nation who invent beautiful

01:06:43   laws that are there to help us all and he said that's not it they're

01:06:48   politicians politics is a dirty business call them politicians don't give them

01:06:52   the authority and credit for creating laws it's their job it's all backroom

01:06:59   deals it's all special interest based you you do people a disservice by making

01:07:05   their making politicians seem exalted and I it's always stuck with me it's

01:07:11   It's kind of, I agree with that.

01:07:13   That is a word, lawmaker is too good for them.

01:07:18   Quite honestly, it's too good for any politician.

01:07:20   They are not lawmakers, that's not their job.

01:07:22   They're politicians.

01:07:23   They're playing politics and that's fine.

01:07:27   It's a political system, it was built that way.

01:07:29   But please don't, they're not the gray headed wise ones who come down from the mountain

01:07:34   top and proclaim important laws for all of us.

01:07:37   That's not how it works.

01:07:38   So lawmaker, I don't like it.

01:07:40   We can have a word draft, Myke. Word draft. Just draft words forever. All the words. We'll

01:07:46   just draft them all, one by one. Me and you alone. And then so basically we'll have to

01:07:50   do the show, like I'll start a sentence, you finish the sentence because you own one word

01:07:54   and I don't. Yeah. Well, maybe the goal of the word draft is to make the best sentence.

01:07:59   So like we'll do a noun round and a verb round. This is a terrible idea. Anyway. I know it's

01:08:05   one that you are thinking about a lot now. Because you love a draft. That is... I do

01:08:09   love a draft. Everything can be drafted. Everything can be made better if things within it are

01:08:14   drafted in sequence by people. Yeah, it's true.

01:08:17   There you go. Maybe that's what we should do as some kind of draft for our special relay

01:08:22   FM members episode. Oh, that's a great idea. That's a great idea.

01:08:27   So now I'll... Let's write that one down. Now Myke, where

01:08:29   should I write that down in my reminder management system?

01:08:34   You don't need to because I have a note in the Notes app which is called member episodes

01:08:38   ideas and then and now I am writing upgrade some kind of draft in there so

01:08:45   that that's one of my organizational systems there some kind of draft so that

01:08:52   about wraps it up for this week's episode if you want to catch our show

01:08:54   notes you can head on over to relay.fm/upgrades/76 but this should be in

01:09:00   your lovely podcast app of choice if you would like to find Jason online go on

01:09:07   over to SixColors.com, TheIncomparable.com and Relay.fm where he hosts many podcasts

01:09:13   and writes many words and you can find him over @JSnell on Twitter. I am @imike, I M Y

01:09:21   K E. I also have a little website now, MykeWasRight.com. Right now you can go there and see pictures

01:09:27   of Ghostbusters Lego if that so floats your boat. Thanks again to our lovely sponsors

01:09:33   week the fine folks over at Squarespace and Backblaze don't forget to buy upgrade

01:09:39   merchandise t-shirts and hoodies are on sale until February 19th thank you so

01:09:44   much for listening to this week's episode we'll be back next time until

01:09:48   then say goodbye mr. Snell dude dude where's our podcast where's the pod

01:09:57   dude where's my pod I think just mixing the worst and the best the amazing

01:10:03   and ColossalPod.

01:10:05   [ Music ]