Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► I have a microphone question for you, I guess,

00:00:02 ◼   ► while we're setting up here.

00:00:03 ◼   ► - Perfect time.

00:00:03 ◼   ► - Do you put the microphone angled down towards your face

00:00:07 ◼   ► or angled up towards your face?

00:00:09 ◼   ► - I have it angled up towards my face.

00:00:11 ◼   ► - Okay, what's the reasoning for that?

00:00:13 ◼   ► - Because then I can see my monitor more clearly.

00:00:16 ◼   ► - Okay, so it's just about your field of view.

00:00:19 ◼   ► - Yeah. - All right, okay.

00:00:20 ◼   ► - I mean, really, the answer to that question

00:00:22 ◼   ► depends on the microphone you have

00:00:24 ◼   ► if you're thinking of what is the optimal way

00:00:27 ◼   ► to talk into the microphone, right?

00:00:29 ◼   ► Because some microphones you talk into them directly.

00:00:32 ◼   ► Some you talk into the side.

00:00:33 ◼   ► It depends where the actual microphone is within the housing.

00:00:37 ◼   ► - Okay, so let's say you have a Shure SM58.

00:00:43 ◼   ► Are you supposed to talk into that one directly

00:00:45 ◼   ► or is that okay to have up or down?

00:00:47 ◼   ► How would you even know that?

00:00:48 ◼   ► - Well, the Shure SM58, that's the one

00:00:50 ◼   ► that looks like a vocal microphone, right?

00:00:52 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah.

00:00:53 ◼   ► - So that's easy, you talk into the top of it.

00:00:56 ◼   ► - But then you get plosives, right?

00:00:57 ◼   ► That's the problem.

00:00:58 ◼   ► that you're supposed to have a windscreen on it,

00:01:00 ◼   ► which I could hear.

00:01:00 ◼   ► I heard the little foam.

00:01:02 ◼   ► - Right, you heard me adjusting the foam,

00:01:04 ◼   ► that's what you just said. - Yeah, so that

00:01:06 ◼   ► will reduce the plosives.

00:01:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, but it doesn't.

00:01:09 ◼   ► Like this is what everyone always says, it doesn't.

00:01:11 ◼   ► They're like, oh, you get a windscreen

00:01:13 ◼   ► and a thing to put on top of the microphone,

00:01:15 ◼   ► and then there's no more plosives, but that's a lie.

00:01:17 ◼   ► That's not true. - No more, no one said,

00:01:19 ◼   ► I didn't say no more, did I?

00:01:20 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:21 ◼   ► I very specifically said reduced, right?

00:01:25 ◼   ► But the thing is, if you don't talk

00:01:26 ◼   ► into the top of the microphone,

00:01:28 ◼   ► then you're not talking into the microphone.

00:01:30 ◼   ► So then you're off mic.

00:01:31 ◼   ► - Right.

00:01:33 ◼   ► I don't know, like.

00:01:33 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:01:35 ◼   ► - Right?

00:01:36 ◼   ► - Right.

00:01:37 ◼   ► - So like, look, I can talk into the side

00:01:39 ◼   ► of my microphone right now, but that's no good, is it?

00:01:41 ◼   ► Right, 'cause you can't hear me anymore?

00:01:42 ◼   ► - No, that doesn't sound good at all.

00:01:44 ◼   ► - So you gotta balance it.

00:01:45 ◼   ► Like, yeah, there's gonna be a little bit of plosives,

00:01:47 ◼   ► but like, we can manage it.

00:01:48 ◼   ► - No, but I don't want any plosives, right, so.

00:01:51 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:01:52 ◼   ► - So I was thinking for the, well, for the, okay.

00:01:54 ◼   ► So the reason I was asking is because I thought

00:01:56 ◼   ► when I recorded the audio for the video that just went up,

00:02:00 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh my God, I have a genius idea."

00:02:03 ◼   ► Instead of talking into the microphone,

00:02:06 ◼   ► like I see people on YouTube

00:02:07 ◼   ► and they put the microphone below them

00:02:09 ◼   ► or some of them put it above,

00:02:11 ◼   ► and I was like, "Oh, they must do that

00:02:13 ◼   ► so that they don't get plosives."

00:02:15 ◼   ► They don't have plosives when they do that.

00:02:16 ◼   ► - Okay, well, there's a couple of reasons.

00:02:18 ◼   ► One, because now they're practicing bad microphone technique

00:02:21 ◼   ► so they have to turn up the gain on their audio.

00:02:26 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm. - Right?

00:02:27 ◼   ► So they can make sure that they get it all in there,

00:02:29 ◼   ► probably, which is gonna expose more room noise,

00:02:31 ◼   ► which is not good for an audio-only podcast.

00:02:33 ◼   ► People are more forgiving of this stuff on video.

00:02:36 ◼   ► And they're not doing it because of the plosives.

00:02:38 ◼   ► They're doing it so a microphone's in front of their face,

00:02:41 ◼   ► 'cause they're filming themselves.

00:02:42 ◼   ► - Oh, I didn't consider that, okay.

00:02:45 ◼   ► Huh. (laughs)

00:02:46 ◼   ► That didn't really cross my mind, but yes, okay.

00:02:50 ◼   ► - Everyone's not like,

00:02:51 ◼   ► "Oh, we must eradicate plosives from audio.

00:02:54 ◼   ► let's put the microphone on the other side of the room.

00:02:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I thought they were doing.

00:02:58 ◼   ► - No. - I guess not.

00:02:59 ◼   ► - No, it's just so it's not in front of their face.

00:03:02 ◼   ► - Hmm.

00:03:03 ◼   ► - There are some microphones where like,

00:03:05 ◼   ► you kind of talk over them a little bit

00:03:07 ◼   ► and that can reduce it,

00:03:09 ◼   ► but you've got to then have the right kind of microphone

00:03:11 ◼   ► for that and I'll be honest,

00:03:12 ◼   ► I'm not sure what the SM58 is like for that.

00:03:15 ◼   ► Now I know in the microphone that I own,

00:03:17 ◼   ► which is a microphone I know that you bought,

00:03:19 ◼   ► but we can never find any evidence of it.

00:03:21 ◼   ► - 'Cause I didn't buy that.

00:03:22 ◼   ► I'm in KMS 105, you are supposed to talk directly into it.

00:03:26 ◼   ► So there is a little bit of mic technique

00:03:29 ◼   ► that you have to do to try and reduce the plosives,

00:03:31 ◼   ► but I'm not gonna.

00:03:32 ◼   ► - Okay, no, but like--

00:03:33 ◼   ► - By the way, in case people don't know what plosives are,

00:03:35 ◼   ► it's like, I'm gonna remove my windshield

00:03:37 ◼   ► so you can hear one.

00:03:38 ◼   ► Peter Piper picked up, there you go.

00:03:41 ◼   ► It's all the percents.

00:03:42 ◼   ► - Now we're doing this for the show

00:03:43 ◼   ► 'cause now you're talking to the audience.

00:03:44 ◼   ► I was just asking you about microphone technique.

00:03:46 ◼   ► - Right, but you see, we're into this conversation,

00:03:48 ◼   ► which is now, now we've been talking about it

00:03:50 ◼   ► for 17 minutes, it feels like.

00:03:52 ◼   ► there's surely it's going to make its way into the show.

00:03:54 ◼   ► And we're just talking about plosives, you know,

00:03:56 ◼   ► like it's the per sounds.

00:03:57 ◼   ► But by the way, I have a windscreen on now.

00:03:59 ◼   ► You hear how much better it is?

00:04:00 ◼   ► Peter Piper picked up, right?

00:04:01 ◼   ► It's not happening because I have a windscreen thing.

00:04:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have a windscreen thing too.

00:04:06 ◼   ► And I've got the cover on the microphone,

00:04:08 ◼   ► but it just, it never works as advertised.

00:04:10 ◼   ► I don't like, I feel like the plosives

00:04:12 ◼   ► are always really bad.

00:04:13 ◼   ► Anyway, I put the microphone above me pointing down,

00:04:18 ◼   ► which is now-- - Why?

00:04:21 ◼   ► to reduce the plosives, that's why, Myke.

00:04:22 ◼   ► - No, but like, why did you choose up pointing down?

00:04:25 ◼   ► I'm just intrigued.

00:04:26 ◼   ► - Okay, so here was my reasoning for this is,

00:04:31 ◼   ► like sometimes you breathe through your nose,

00:04:33 ◼   ► and so if the microphone is below you,

00:04:35 ◼   ► surely then you're just blowing

00:04:36 ◼   ► right on top of the microphone,

00:04:37 ◼   ► and that just would be annoying.

00:04:39 ◼   ► But if the microphone's above you,

00:04:41 ◼   ► you shouldn't have that problem.

00:04:42 ◼   ► - Have you ever noticed a time where your breath

00:04:44 ◼   ► has made its way into an audio recording?

00:04:47 ◼   ► - I have. - Okay.

00:04:48 ◼   ► - I mean, it's not like a major problem,

00:04:49 ◼   ► but I was just thinking if you pick one way or another, why not?

00:04:52 ◼   ► They seem symmetrical.

00:04:53 ◼   ► Right.

00:04:54 ◼   ► I have a question for you.

00:04:55 ◼   ► Will your new microphone technique do anything to reduce the amount

00:04:58 ◼   ► of rustling that you do, or is that?

00:05:01 ◼   ► Rustling?

00:05:02 ◼   ► Yeah, I cut so much rustling.

00:05:03 ◼   ► You never heard someone rustle as much as you do.

00:05:06 ◼   ► No one else hears it, but there's all this clink clunk.

00:05:08 ◼   ► There's little rappers of some kind doing over there.

00:05:12 ◼   ► There's a glass picking up, putting down.

00:05:14 ◼   ► You're very rustling.

00:05:15 ◼   ► Rustling?

00:05:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:05:17 ◼   ► Oh, well, I guess I didn't put on my quiet shirt for the podcast recording today.

00:05:21 ◼   ► Quiet shirt?

00:05:22 ◼   ► Do you have a loud shirt?

00:05:24 ◼   ► Yeah, some shirts are louder than others, right?

00:05:26 ◼   ► When you, when you move, like the shirt just makes more noise.

00:05:28 ◼   ► I mean, I will say I've never heard a shirt.

00:05:30 ◼   ► Okay.

00:05:31 ◼   ► All right.

00:05:31 ◼   ► Well then it, then it doesn't matter.

00:05:32 ◼   ► No problem.

00:05:33 ◼   ► I'm hearing you fiddling with things on the desk is what I get more of.

00:05:37 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:05:37 ◼   ► All right.

00:05:38 ◼   ► Well, I don't feel-

00:05:39 ◼   ► Last episode was a thousand fishermen's friends, but that one was understood.

00:05:44 ◼   ► I heard every fisherman's friend being unwrapped and consumed.

00:05:49 ◼   ► I saved the cortex from this, but I heard it.

00:05:53 ◼   ► A lot of crunching.

00:05:55 ◼   ► - I don't know what you're talking about.

00:05:57 ◼   ► Okay, all right, well, you know what, whatever.

00:05:59 ◼   ► I shouldn't have brought this up.

00:06:00 ◼   ► This is a sensitive topic for you?

00:06:03 ◼   ► - No, no, no, no, it's not sensitive.

00:06:05 ◼   ► What I'll say is, as far as Gray has a microphone question

00:06:09 ◼   ► goes, this is one of the nicer ones for me

00:06:12 ◼   ► because you're not doing anything wild.

00:06:14 ◼   ► It's not like, "Hey, I unplugged my microphone.

00:06:16 ◼   ► Is that good?"

00:06:17 ◼   ► Like, you know?

00:06:19 ◼   ► This is fine what you're asking me.

00:06:21 ◼   ► I go down pointing up,

00:06:23 ◼   ► just because I find that to be more comfortable,

00:06:25 ◼   ► because also I kind of would then point my face down

00:06:28 ◼   ► towards the microphone to talk into the microphone,

00:06:31 ◼   ► rather than pointing it up to talk into the microphone.

00:06:33 ◼   ► - Oh, interesting points.

00:06:35 ◼   ► That's an interesting point there.

00:06:36 ◼   ► - So I find that to be more comfortable.

00:06:39 ◼   ► - I hadn't thought about that.

00:06:40 ◼   ► The problem for me is I just never really think about the microphones until this moment.

00:06:44 ◼   ► When we start recording the show, suddenly my brain starts articulating the actual questions.

00:06:52 ◼   ► Whereas before I'm just like...

00:06:53 ◼   ► Talking about this, I have a piece of follow up for you that I heard in editing the show.

00:06:59 ◼   ► It didn't clock for me the first time and I had some cortexes mention it.

00:07:02 ◼   ► There's a moment in the last episode where you talk about how nice it would be to have a fixed audio

00:07:09 ◼   ► environment for the videos? Will you ever grace me with the same?

00:07:13 ◼   ► You're like, oh, it'd be so great. It would be so great if the videos, all of the audio

00:07:20 ◼   ► sounded the same. I have an unchangeable audio setup, right? Where like I have tape on the

00:07:27 ◼   ► floor so it sounds the same. Will I ever get given that treat or no?

00:07:32 ◼   ► So look, I know how this sounds, right?

00:07:35 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:07:36 ◼   ► I know how this comes across.

00:07:39 ◼   ► Okay, let me explain my position here.

00:07:42 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:07:43 ◼   ► - Is-- - Good luck.

00:07:44 ◼   ► - The problem with Cortex is that it's a podcast.

00:07:48 ◼   ► - Oh, that's a problem.

00:07:49 ◼   ► - So the issue here is that we're recording on a computer

00:07:54 ◼   ► over a long period of time.

00:07:58 ◼   ► Like it's a very different setup.

00:08:00 ◼   ► When I'm envisioning like,

00:08:01 ◼   ► "Oh, I would like to have a setup where I can have my video audio be the same every

00:08:06 ◼   ► time."

00:08:07 ◼   ► You don't have to record into a computer, right?

00:08:08 ◼   ► Like you can use one of the Rode things to just do a direct recording on there, and then

00:08:13 ◼   ► you can have a totally different setup.

00:08:15 ◼   ► Why does it need to be a different setup?

00:08:16 ◼   ► Why don't you just have one recording setup?

00:08:18 ◼   ► No, because just by the fact that we're on the computer.

00:08:24 ◼   ► Okay, so the software changes all of the time.

00:08:27 ◼   ► We sit here for five hours in an afternoon and are talking to each other and recording

00:08:33 ◼   ► the show.

00:08:34 ◼   ► So during that time, you move around, you rustle a bunch, right?

00:08:39 ◼   ► Like you're moving back and forth from the microphone.

00:08:41 ◼   ► - Eat some fisherman's friends.

00:08:42 ◼   ► - Right, eat some fisherman's friends.

00:08:44 ◼   ► You crack your seat so you can lay back and relax.

00:08:47 ◼   ► - Turn on and off the dehumidifier or whatever that beeping sound is.

00:08:51 ◼   ► - I was trying to do that so that you wouldn't notice because I had forgotten.

00:08:55 ◼   ► Yes, you turn on and off.

00:08:56 ◼   ► - Oh, I didn't hear it then. - Off the various things.

00:08:58 ◼   ► - I don't know if you did it then,

00:08:58 ◼   ► but I didn't hear it then, I just hear it in general.

00:09:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah. - 'Cause this is the funny thing

00:09:02 ◼   ► of like, all of these noises, I don't hear them,

00:09:05 ◼   ► 'cause Skype compres, like,

00:09:06 ◼   ► Skype does like the audio compression, right?

00:09:08 ◼   ► I only hear them-- - Later. (laughs)

00:09:11 ◼   ► - I don't know all the shenanigans you're getting up to

00:09:13 ◼   ► when we're talking, it's later on.

00:09:15 ◼   ► - Okay, right, yes, Skype compresses them away.

00:09:18 ◼   ► So anyway, it's like, just look, recording the podcast

00:09:22 ◼   ► is just a more variable environment.

00:09:25 ◼   ► Why are you doing that?

00:09:27 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:09:29 ◼   ► - But here's the thing, doesn't need to be, right?

00:09:33 ◼   ► Like my environment, very static.

00:09:37 ◼   ► I have a recording desk, microphone,

00:09:40 ◼   ► everything stays the same.

00:09:42 ◼   ► So it can happen.

00:09:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, look, distance from the microphone

00:09:46 ◼   ► is the number one factor, right?

00:09:47 ◼   ► Like that's the big issue that just simply cannot

00:09:51 ◼   ► stay the same when you're recording a podcast for forever.

00:09:54 ◼   ► So look, here's, here's, here's my pitch to you.

00:09:56 ◼   ► Right.

00:09:56 ◼   ► If I'm ever able to get an office where I work outside of the house, which seems

00:10:00 ◼   ► increasingly unlikely with every passing day, right?

00:10:04 ◼   ► And within that office, I'm able to set up just a little corner where I can keep the

00:10:10 ◼   ► audio the same every time for when I record the videos, just like don't touch anything.

00:10:14 ◼   ► That means when I come back and I'm doing the podcasts from my home, it's more likely

00:10:22 ◼   ► that I'm not gonna mess with anything here

00:10:24 ◼   ► because I don't need to change any of the settings

00:10:27 ◼   ► or the way that I have everything set up

00:10:30 ◼   ► for the video versus the podcast.

00:10:33 ◼   ► Like, you just can't keep those settings the same.

00:10:35 ◼   ► It just doesn't work.

00:10:36 ◼   ► And so I have to change them back and forth each time.

00:10:39 ◼   ► And so if I had a dedicated place

00:10:41 ◼   ► to record the audio for the video,

00:10:43 ◼   ► I would have to change less about the Cortex setup.

00:10:46 ◼   ► This would be in your favor in the long run.

00:10:49 ◼   ► - I'm not stopping you.

00:10:50 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:10:52 ◼   ► I encourage it.

00:10:53 ◼   ► - I feel like, Myke, I feel like you make me sound

00:10:55 ◼   ► like a crazy person whenever we have these conferences.

00:10:57 ◼   ► Like it seems very reasonable to me,

00:10:59 ◼   ► but you're somehow framing me

00:11:02 ◼   ► as though I'm the lunatic here.

00:11:03 ◼   ► - No, you're right.

00:11:04 ◼   ► It is me.

00:11:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree.

00:11:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, it's definitely me that does that.

00:11:07 ◼   ► Why, if you had an office,

00:11:10 ◼   ► do you think you'd record the podcast at home?

00:11:12 ◼   ► - It's more comfy, right?

00:11:13 ◼   ► This podcast is an all day affair.

00:11:15 ◼   ► So I feel like this is just a better environment

00:11:17 ◼   ► for recording the podcast.

00:11:19 ◼   ► - I don't have opinions one way or another.

00:11:20 ◼   ► I was just intrigued by that.

00:11:22 ◼   ► Because when you had an office before,

00:11:24 ◼   ► you were never there when we recorded, were you?

00:11:26 ◼   ► - No, never.

00:11:27 ◼   ► I've always recorded the podcast from home.

00:11:29 ◼   ► I mean, okay, that's not literally true,

00:11:30 ◼   ► but it's basically true.

00:11:31 ◼   ► - I mean, you've recorded from hotel rooms

00:11:33 ◼   ► all over the planet, as have I,

00:11:35 ◼   ► but I couldn't remember.

00:11:37 ◼   ► 'Cause I remember when you were in the glass cube,

00:11:40 ◼   ► obviously we'd never do it

00:11:41 ◼   ► because that was just like an audio hell.

00:11:44 ◼   ► Man, I just had a flashback to that guy with the whiteboard.

00:11:47 ◼   ► - The guy with the whiteboard.

00:11:49 ◼   ► There used to be a guy next to you who had a whiteboard and it had a bunch of words on

00:11:53 ◼   ► it.

00:11:54 ◼   ► Oh right.

00:11:55 ◼   ► Can we talk about this on the show?

00:11:56 ◼   ► I'm confident we did.

00:11:57 ◼   ► Yes, I'm fairly sure that we did.

00:11:58 ◼   ► He had like a lot of buzzwords on a whiteboard and you were trying to work out what his deal

00:12:02 ◼   ► was.

00:12:03 ◼   ► Yeah, it's always fun in a cube farm to figure out what all the other cubies are up to.

00:12:08 ◼   ► But you don't want them figuring out what you're up to.

00:12:11 ◼   ► I can work them out.

00:12:13 ◼   ► But yes, I don't know.

00:12:15 ◼   ► Recording the podcast at home, it's just such a long affair.

00:12:18 ◼   ► feels like it makes much more sense and it's much more comfortable just to do from home.

00:12:21 ◼   ► Again, part of the reason I really want the office outside of the home is as a dedicated

00:12:27 ◼   ► production environment and that is lean towards videos. So it's like it's just so much better.

00:12:32 ◼   ► If I go here, I work on the videos, I do everything about that and then I leave and do other things

00:12:38 ◼   ► elsewhere. In the meantime, I'm going to experiment during this podcast with flipping

00:12:44 ◼   ► the microphone from pointing down to pointing up.

00:12:48 ◼   ► And you let me know if you notice a difference.

00:12:51 ◼   ► - Talking about audio, I just wanted to mention this.

00:12:54 ◼   ► No one got in touch with me.

00:12:55 ◼   ► It was like a little secret last episode.

00:12:59 ◼   ► We were talking about ADR, which is when in TV shows

00:13:02 ◼   ► and movies, people add lines in after the fact.

00:13:05 ◼   ► I ADR'd a line about ADR into the last episode.

00:13:09 ◼   ► So when I was editing, I recorded a new line and edited it in.

00:13:13 ◼   ► And I feel like I did a purposeful job of making it not sound like me then.

00:13:19 ◼   ► The way that I did that was I wrote out what I said and then read it back using my bad

00:13:23 ◼   ► acting skills so I could hear it.

00:13:25 ◼   ► Not one person wrote in to tell me that they spotted it.

00:13:30 ◼   ► So I just want to put that out there.

00:13:32 ◼   ► There was a treasure hunt in the last episode and nobody found the prize.

00:13:36 ◼   ► Well I think you're underrating your acting and ADRing skills because I think you did

00:13:41 ◼   ► a good job of matching it.

00:13:42 ◼   ► I purposely didn't match it.

00:13:44 ◼   ► I have done matching.

00:13:47 ◼   ► I have done that and consider it successful.

00:13:50 ◼   ► But I purposefully made it not sound right, I feel like.

00:13:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think you have some advantages

00:13:57 ◼   ► that film sets really don't.

00:14:00 ◼   ► Film sets have a lot working against them

00:14:02 ◼   ► for any ADR stuff.

00:14:03 ◼   ► - I should have recorded it in the bathroom, right?

00:14:05 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:14:06 ◼   ► You know, put that in there?

00:14:07 ◼   ► - No, because if you're gonna do podcasting ADR,

00:14:10 ◼   ► it would have to be the reverse, right?

00:14:12 ◼   ► because what's happening in movies is they're using

00:14:15 ◼   ► on set audio for their dialogue.

00:14:19 ◼   ► And then they have to record in a booth to do the ADR.

00:14:22 ◼   ► So you should have had to be like performing a stunt

00:14:25 ◼   ► while delivering that dialogue and then mixed it back in.

00:14:28 ◼   ► - Like put in a car on two wheels?

00:14:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think people would have noticed it more

00:14:32 ◼   ► if that was the case, if you were performing stunts.

00:14:36 ◼   ► Or just literally just outside,

00:14:38 ◼   ► one of the other big like ways audio just sounds different

00:14:41 ◼   ► as if you're outside.

00:14:43 ◼   ► But yeah, nobody wrote in and noticed.

00:14:44 ◼   ► I didn't even notice when I was editing the show.

00:14:47 ◼   ► And I also had the advantage of knowing

00:14:50 ◼   ► that you were going to do that.

00:14:51 ◼   ► - Also, the section of the audio in Logic said,

00:14:56 ◼   ► "Mic ADR."

00:14:57 ◼   ► - Right, yes.

00:14:58 ◼   ► - So like, you could have seen it.

00:14:59 ◼   ► I mean, you probably weren't looking at the audio

00:15:02 ◼   ► while you're listening to it, but you know,

00:15:03 ◼   ► you could have been.

00:15:04 ◼   ► - Yes, I 100% was not looking at the audio.

00:15:06 ◼   ► I was playing "Game of Magic," which is what I always do.

00:15:08 ◼   ► - I wished I could do stuff like that, but I can't,

00:15:10 ◼   ► because I'm hands-on, right?

00:15:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, and you're doing the first pass, which is, yeah,

00:15:13 ◼   ► you have to be looking. - Yeah, 'cause I have to be,

00:15:15 ◼   ► I'm cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting

00:15:16 ◼   ► and cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting, yeah,

00:15:18 ◼   ► forever, and I know that, like, really,

00:15:20 ◼   ► your job's to listen, and I know you make tweaks

00:15:23 ◼   ► and, you know, every now and then, but, like,

00:15:25 ◼   ► I would assume that you could go 10, 15 minutes

00:15:27 ◼   ► without touching it. - Yeah, ideally,

00:15:29 ◼   ► that's what should be happening, yeah, yeah.

00:15:30 ◼   ► - If I'd done a good job. - Yeah, so I'm not,

00:15:32 ◼   ► I'm not looking at it, and it was only when the show

00:15:33 ◼   ► came to the end, I was like, "Hey, wait a minute, wait,

00:15:36 ◼   ► right, I know he put some ADR," and so I just,

00:15:38 ◼   ► I found it by visually looking at the file and I was like,

00:15:41 ◼   ► there you are extra piece of audio.

00:15:43 ◼   ► - Because this is an audio show,

00:15:45 ◼   ► I will cut that in now so you can hear it.

00:15:47 ◼   ► So people can see, now that you know it's there,

00:15:50 ◼   ► listeners can you hear it?

00:15:51 ◼   ► Is the question.

00:15:53 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:15:55 ◼   ► But like, I don't know what it is.

00:15:56 ◼   ► I think that maybe it's just something like

00:15:58 ◼   ► if you're used to dealing with audio

00:16:01 ◼   ► and like piecing together the way people speak,

00:16:04 ◼   ► it truly is incredible how hard it is

00:16:06 ◼   ► to try and make something match.

00:16:08 ◼   ► It takes a lot of work to try and get that right,

00:16:11 ◼   ► and a lot of skill in controlling your own voice.

00:16:15 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:16:18 ◼   ► - Don't train people to listen for ADR,

00:16:20 ◼   ► it's nothing but a curse.

00:16:21 ◼   ► - That's true.

00:16:22 ◼   ► - You know, it's like teaching people about typography.

00:16:25 ◼   ► You're not doing anyone a favor by like,

00:16:27 ◼   ► oh, here's how to correctly kern letters.

00:16:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, not a fan of the kerning.

00:16:31 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:16:32 ◼   ► - Don't show people that.

00:16:35 ◼   ► It's not a font, it's a typeface.

00:16:37 ◼   ► There's so many things like that in life where it's like, oh, why did you teach

00:16:42 ◼   ► me to appreciate this difference?

00:16:44 ◼   ► Now I can just be annoyed at a thing I never cared about before.

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00:18:51 ◼   ► congratulations on your return to YouTube oh thanks yes what took the

00:18:56 ◼   ► extra time in the end by the way because when we spoke on the episode you were like "I'm

00:19:01 ◼   ► ready to go baby any day now" and it was like another week it felt like that.

00:19:06 ◼   ► I might have ADR'd a bunch of lines.

00:19:09 ◼   ► Fair enough.

00:19:12 ◼   ► I completely re-recorded the entire back third of that video which is the whole physics section

00:19:19 ◼   ► and then there were a bunch of other lines that I did do much more ADR like of "okay

00:19:25 ◼   ► "Okay, I'm gonna try to cut this in, and hopefully it doesn't sound too terrible."

00:19:28 ◼   ► So, yes, I was hoping not to do that, but as I came closer and closer to releasing it,

00:19:33 ◼   ► I thought there was just enough of it that I wasn't happy with.

00:19:37 ◼   ► - Right.

00:19:37 ◼   ► - You only work on these videos for a certain amount of time,

00:19:40 ◼   ► but then you have to live with them for eternity in the way that they go up.

00:19:44 ◼   ► And I thought, "I've spent months on this thing.

00:19:48 ◼   ► I'm going to take the extra week and do this."

00:19:52 ◼   ► It's always really hard to make the decisions about when to stop.

00:19:57 ◼   ► Like it's not obvious when you passed a point of real diminishing returns.

00:20:01 ◼   ► And so I think I had kind of talked myself into the idea that I was past the point

00:20:07 ◼   ► of diminishing returns, but I was actually wrong.

00:20:09 ◼   ► Like this is one case where it's like, no, no, it was the right decision to rerecord

00:20:13 ◼   ► a bunch of it and also spend all of the effort to fix and tighten up and tweak

00:20:18 ◼   ► some of the lines in the first two thirds.

00:20:20 ◼   ► So I'm very glad I took that time because I'm much happier with the video that went

00:20:26 ◼   ► up versus where it was at the time that we recorded.

00:20:30 ◼   ► It would have been fine, but there's something really satisfying about tightening things

00:20:35 ◼   ► up, tweaking it all together, and then being like, "Aha!

00:20:38 ◼   ► Now this thing is much better put together than it was previously."

00:20:41 ◼   ► So that's why I ended up taking an additional week.

00:20:44 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, I am going to rerecord this.

00:20:47 ◼   ► Okay."

00:20:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that that was the right call, right?

00:20:50 ◼   ► 'Cause I think something we were talking about was,

00:20:53 ◼   ► you didn't really wanna peg this to be the,

00:20:55 ◼   ► oh, that's when I had COVID video.

00:20:58 ◼   ► So like, oh, you're a horse, you're a horse, you're a horse.

00:21:02 ◼   ► You know, like you don't want that to come across

00:21:04 ◼   ► in the video.

00:21:05 ◼   ► And also like, you can tell me how I'm wrong,

00:21:08 ◼   ► but it seems like it is doing very, very well.

00:21:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's doing really well.

00:21:13 ◼   ► The thing that's interesting about it is it's,

00:21:16 ◼   ► so just for anyone listening out of time,

00:21:18 ◼   ► this is the runway video, that's the kind of like three in one video.

00:21:21 ◼   ► The simple secret of runway digit.

00:21:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:24 ◼   ► It's what it's currently called.

00:21:25 ◼   ► That's why I didn't say the title, who knows what it's going to be called years from now.

00:21:29 ◼   ► YouTube baby!

00:21:30 ◼   ► Yeah, the topic is runways, and it's a three in one video, and it has a unique eight letter

00:21:37 ◼   ► identifier in the YouTube URL, and that has how it's referred to.

00:21:41 ◼   ► But yeah, it is doing very well, I would say the thing that's interesting is it's following

00:21:46 ◼   ► the same pattern that the Tiffany 2 video did, the sort of follow up to the Tale of

00:21:52 ◼   ► Tiffany, which is that it is doing very well asterisk the audiences extremely lopsided

00:22:02 ◼   ► to pre-existing viewers and subscribers.

00:22:05 ◼   ► Which is not bad, like I'm not complaining about that, but I would prefer to see that

00:22:10 ◼   ► there were more new people being brought in.

00:22:13 ◼   ► So it's doing well, but I can see on the back end, it's like, okay, this is almost entirely

00:22:19 ◼   ► YouTube recommending this to my existing viewers, which I think given the fact that it is a 17 minute

00:22:27 ◼   ► video about runways is not wildly surprising that that might be a hard sell to someone who doesn't

00:22:34 ◼   ► already know the channel.

00:22:35 ◼   ► Like, "this guy made a 17 minute video about runways.

00:22:39 ◼   ► Are you interested in watching?"

00:22:41 ◼   ► I think most viewers would go, "Not really, no."

00:22:44 ◼   ► - It's different to plane boarding video.

00:22:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

00:22:49 ◼   ► - But, so here's my, I guess what I'd say is,

00:22:51 ◼   ► how is this one faring in this regard

00:22:53 ◼   ► to the Interstate Highway numbering video?

00:22:58 ◼   ► Because these feel akin to me.

00:22:59 ◼   ► - What do you mean, just in terms of like,

00:23:00 ◼   ► how many views is it doing?

00:23:02 ◼   ► - Well, like in that breakup that you,

00:23:03 ◼   ► like the makeup you're talking about

00:23:05 ◼   ► of like existing subscribers. - Oh!

00:23:07 ◼   ► - Like how is it performing against that video?

00:23:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, so basically like,

00:23:11 ◼   ► Like as far as I can tell, pretty much day one YouTube is almost exclusively showing

00:23:15 ◼   ► it to your own viewers.

00:23:17 ◼   ► And I think YouTube is just using that as a test to see, oh, like how well is this video

00:23:21 ◼   ► doing with people who already like this content?

00:23:24 ◼   ► And then only from day two do you start to see, okay, is YouTube pushing this to new

00:23:29 ◼   ► people or not?

00:23:30 ◼   ► And I think with with videos, what I want to see and what the interstate video had is

00:23:36 ◼   ► that the ratio of existing viewers to new viewers is approaching but never quite reaching

00:23:43 ◼   ► 50/50.

00:23:45 ◼   ► So it's maybe like 60% of the views are your subscribers and 40% are new viewers.

00:23:51 ◼   ► But videos like Tiffany 2 and this one, the ratio is a lot closer to something like 90/10,

00:23:57 ◼   ► right, where 90% of the views are coming from existing viewers and 10% is new viewers.

00:24:04 ◼   ► So that's, uh, I didn't check this morning what the video was doing, but last time I

00:24:08 ◼   ► looked it was a lot closer to the 90/10 end of the spectrum than the 50/50 end of the

00:24:13 ◼   ► spectrum.

00:24:14 ◼   ► Which the Interstate video had more, was closer to the 50/50.

00:24:16 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel like Interstate video, again, I'd have to double check, but I feel like

00:24:20 ◼   ► that was doing 60/40 a few days afterward.

00:24:23 ◼   ► Which also I feel like is not surprising topic wise.

00:24:26 ◼   ► It's in the same way that like when that Tiffany follow up video came out, I was very like,

00:24:31 ◼   ► "Oh, I don't think this is gonna do very well

00:24:33 ◼   ► "because it's a follow-up."

00:24:35 ◼   ► And then there's a funny thing

00:24:37 ◼   ► if people are just looking at the view numbers,

00:24:39 ◼   ► which is that the follow-up video

00:24:40 ◼   ► has more views than the original.

00:24:42 ◼   ► - It's crushed it, not just more.

00:24:44 ◼   ► It's like one at some point will be double, right?

00:24:47 ◼   ► Like it's a big surprise.

00:24:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, at some point it's going to be double,

00:24:52 ◼   ► but on the back end, there is a funny way

00:24:56 ◼   ► in which the first video is much more successful

00:24:59 ◼   ► bringing in people who didn't know about the channel.

00:25:02 ◼   ► - But that makes sense to me though.

00:25:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:25:04 ◼   ► - Because that follow up video is referential.

00:25:07 ◼   ► And it's very personal.

00:25:09 ◼   ► I think in a way that it doesn't necessarily make sense.

00:25:15 ◼   ► It's like, this is how, this is behind the scenes.

00:25:17 ◼   ► This is how I made that video.

00:25:18 ◼   ► But then you get into the,

00:25:20 ◼   ► well then more people have seen the video,

00:25:22 ◼   ► there's the behind the scenes than the actual video.

00:25:24 ◼   ► I still don't understand how that's possible.

00:25:27 ◼   ► I don't know how someone could come to that video and then not watch the like be like,

00:25:32 ◼   ► oh, I should watch the original first.

00:25:34 ◼   ► Like I should watch the video.

00:25:35 ◼   ► This is referencing like it's such a funny thing to me, but it is what it is.

00:25:40 ◼   ► I think it makes a lot more sense when you realize that the vast majority of people are

00:25:44 ◼   ► just watching whatever YouTube happens to recommend to them.

00:25:47 ◼   ► And so like if you really internalize what does that mean that then I think this scenario

00:25:53 ◼   ► makes way more sense because if you think about it, the Tiffany video might be less

00:25:58 ◼   ► interesting to the average subscriber, but the follow up video might be way more interesting

00:26:04 ◼   ► to the average subscriber.

00:26:06 ◼   ► And so then if you think about if YouTube is just recommending stuff to people and most

00:26:11 ◼   ► people are just following YouTube's recommendations, that pattern actually makes sense if the Tiffany

00:26:17 ◼   ► video is less interesting to people who are already subscribed.

00:26:21 ◼   ► So it is not likely to be recommended compared to something else after someone has finished

00:26:27 ◼   ► watching Tiffany 2.

00:26:29 ◼   ► So that's why I find that that pattern less surprising than it initially seems.

00:26:33 ◼   ► And the breakdown of like new subscribers versus existing ones lines up with exactly

00:26:39 ◼   ► what I would expect with that one.

00:26:41 ◼   ► So as of right now, I would just say that the runway video is doing great.

00:26:47 ◼   ► I am both extremely happy and extremely relieved that it is doing as well as it is doing.

00:26:55 ◼   ► I just think I didn't necessarily think that it might break in this way of like four existing

00:27:03 ◼   ► viewers only in the same way that Tiffany 2 did.

00:27:05 ◼   ► So that's just something interesting I didn't think about at the time, but in retrospect

00:27:10 ◼   ► makes a lot of sense.

00:27:11 ◼   ► Do you think that there exists like a pent up demand kind of feeling?

00:27:15 ◼   ► existing viewership, they're like, "Oh my god, there's a new gray video."

00:27:19 ◼   ► Yes, for sure. There's definitely got to be a pent-up demand effect. The thing that is good,

00:27:23 ◼   ► though, is that I can see that the retention is still pretty high on a long video like this.

00:27:27 ◼   ► I was gonna ask.

00:27:28 ◼   ► So that's the main thing is like, "Ooh, is the retention worse on something like this compared

00:27:34 ◼   ► to other things?" That would be an indicator it's like, "Ooh, pent-up demand," but also

00:27:38 ◼   ► not being satisfied pent-up demand. It would be if the watch time was not as good. But this is the

00:27:44 ◼   ► whole reason why I think YouTube is actually recommending it to a bunch of my subscribers

00:27:49 ◼   ► is because there is a pent up demand, people are clicking on it probably because of that,

00:27:54 ◼   ► and then they are staying a long time and they're interested, and so YouTube is then

00:27:59 ◼   ► amplifying that effect of like, "Okay, this actually is something that his existing subscribers

00:28:05 ◼   ► want to watch, and they want to watch it to the end." So that's where it's kind of hitting

00:28:10 ◼   ► all those points. I've become much more, or I've paid more attention to a lot of this stuff

00:28:16 ◼   ► in the past year, looking at how videos are doing in a bunch of different ways.

00:28:21 ◼   ► And part of that is kind of related to my theme of like, New Decades Dawn, of if I want to be doing

00:28:28 ◼   ► this for a long period of time, I have to like, think about it in a different way than I have

00:28:32 ◼   ► previously. And so yeah, I feel like I've just been digging into the details more with statistics on

00:28:38 ◼   ► videos and seeing what's happening, how does this compare to other stuff, what's different,

00:28:42 ◼   ► what's working, what's not.

00:28:45 ◼   ► One can never know the actual mind of the algorithm, but you can try to see some patterns

00:28:51 ◼   ► and try to bin different videos in different places in your mind, and this then gets put

00:28:58 ◼   ► into the category of like, "Oh, this is a video that's really solid for existing viewers."

00:29:05 ◼   ► There's a funny counter example, which we talked about maybe it was half a year ago

00:29:09 ◼   ► when it came out, where I did that Tesla video about the most deadly road in America.

00:29:13 ◼   ► That one is the flip case where that video was my worst video on release by a lot.

00:29:21 ◼   ► Like it was just tanking.

00:29:22 ◼   ► And the reason there was, it's like, Oh, YouTube showing it to existing viewers.

00:29:26 ◼   ► It's different for a bunch of reasons that I totally can see in retrospect.

00:29:30 ◼   ► And like existing subscribers did not love that video.

00:29:33 ◼   ► So YouTube was really hesitant to recommend it to anyone.

00:29:36 ◼   ► But it's been slowly creeping up over time and it's like, oh, I can see that

00:29:42 ◼   ► YouTube is actually slowly finding the new viewers who are interested in that.

00:29:49 ◼   ► So like that one has flip statistics.

00:29:51 ◼   ► It's like almost all of the views come from people who have

00:29:53 ◼   ► never seen the channel before.

00:29:55 ◼   ► And it's been ever so slowly picking up steam, but it's just, it's interesting

00:30:00 ◼   ► to see as a counter example of like, "Oh, okay, that's the opposite effect." And it's

00:30:04 ◼   ► also a little bit heartening just to know that if you try something that's different,

00:30:08 ◼   ► but some people like it, YouTube may be able to eventually find the people who are interested

00:30:14 ◼   ► in that thing. So, you know, for like a basically like a vlog style video, I'm pretty happy

00:30:20 ◼   ► with where that is now, even though it was real depressing the first week that that one

00:30:25 ◼   ► came out. That was awful.

00:30:26 ◼   ► Because that was also a gap, right?

00:30:29 ◼   ► There was a big gap, not like as big, but there was quite a gap between that and the

00:30:34 ◼   ► prior video.

00:30:35 ◼   ► Again, there's many things about this job that are weird that people might not think

00:30:38 ◼   ► about, but having gaps in your upload schedule is a kind of pressure that I think a lot of

00:30:50 ◼   ► people would deal very poorly with.

00:30:53 ◼   ► And you know, I've been on both sides of that, like with the Tesla video, that was real bad

00:30:58 ◼   ► when it wasn't doing well and there had been a gap.

00:31:02 ◼   ► And this is the flip side where it's like, okay, there's been the longest gap ever.

00:31:06 ◼   ► I am really happy that it is being very well received among my subscribers.

00:31:12 ◼   ► There's just such a deep unpleasantness in that feeling as an upload gap grows longer

00:31:19 ◼   ► and longer.

00:31:20 ◼   ► you know that there's this implicit audience expectation that you're going to come back

00:31:26 ◼   ► with something bigger and bigger?

00:31:28 ◼   ► That's not always the case guys, it doesn't work like that.

00:31:31 ◼   ► It's like Netkalon's gonna be a banger.

00:31:33 ◼   ► Yes, exactly.

00:31:34 ◼   ► I always feel, like obviously I feel for you in these moments, but I really feel for the

00:31:38 ◼   ► YouTubers who they have huge gaps and their videos are like three hours long.

00:31:43 ◼   ► Oh, I know, yeah.

00:31:45 ◼   ► Right?

00:31:46 ◼   ► that feels so horrible to me to imagine like how something like that to put

00:31:53 ◼   ► something together must be so immense I mean I assume I was like I'm not just

00:31:59 ◼   ► saying cuz you here I assume that you have a somewhat similar because it's the

00:32:02 ◼   ► animation right animation takes a really long time so there is definitely someone

00:32:07 ◼   ► out there for you too but like you see the people come and they're like they

00:32:10 ◼   ► got this really nicely well produced well written well researched videos that

00:32:15 ◼   ► are like three hours long and they release a few of them a year. I mean, if you just

00:32:20 ◼   ► chose the wrong topic, man, that feels...

00:32:23 ◼   ► I just want to clarify here. The holdup is always on the writing end. Yes, we spend a

00:32:29 ◼   ► ton of time on the animation, but if you're looking at like what causes the delay, it's

00:32:34 ◼   ► like a 95% of it is me writing. Like that's what causes the delay on this end. But yeah,

00:32:40 ◼   ► What you mentioned there is, I found it,

00:32:42 ◼   ► like, it's an interesting phenomenon that,

00:32:45 ◼   ► over the years, there's, in a way that I think

00:32:49 ◼   ► could never have existed before,

00:32:51 ◼   ► there are an increasingly large number of channels

00:32:54 ◼   ► that do that thing that you've just mentioned.

00:32:55 ◼   ► - Right, okay, I'm pleased you said this,

00:32:57 ◼   ► because I feel like I'm seeing more of it,

00:32:59 ◼   ► but I just thought that that might just be like a...

00:33:02 ◼   ► - No, it is not you. - A thing that I'm seeing.

00:33:04 ◼   ► - No way, like, it's not just you,

00:33:06 ◼   ► it's totally a thing that exists.

00:33:08 ◼   ► But the reason I've really tuned into it is I think that I used to be a real statistical

00:33:14 ◼   ► outlier in terms of the rarity of upload, but now there are a lot of channels that upload

00:33:21 ◼   ► way less frequently than I do.

00:33:25 ◼   ► And like it, it makes me stressed out even just to think about that.

00:33:29 ◼   ► It's it's the pressure of that is unbelievable.

00:33:33 ◼   ► Like you said, if you pick wrong two out of three times, which is very easy to do, like,

00:33:40 ◼   ► it's unbearable the amount of pressure that's there.

00:33:44 ◼   ► I don't know the exact reason for this phenomenon, but I think of this a lot like, there are

00:33:49 ◼   ► channels that are realizing you can basically be a small team who makes an episode of TV

00:34:02 ◼   ► or a movie all on your own in the course of many months.

00:34:05 ◼   ► Like that's basically what they're doing.

00:34:07 ◼   ► - I actually have a theory for why I think this is changing.

00:34:10 ◼   ► - Why?

00:34:11 ◼   ► - Membership, Patreon, that kind of support,

00:34:13 ◼   ► the direct support.

00:34:14 ◼   ► Because these are creators that would like to make

00:34:18 ◼   ► long documentary style pieces,

00:34:20 ◼   ► but the YouTube's payment system

00:34:23 ◼   ► doesn't really want you to do that, right?

00:34:25 ◼   ► Like the way that money works on YouTube

00:34:28 ◼   ► someone who produces lots of small videos on a frequent scale because then

00:34:34 ◼   ► the more inventory you have for people to watch the more money you can make the

00:34:38 ◼   ► more likely you are to be able to turn this into a living right because just

00:34:42 ◼   ► the all of the numbers just keep going up over time and the more videos you

00:34:45 ◼   ► make the more incremental views you get on all of them right and it can and then

00:34:49 ◼   ► YouTube that sense can start to make sense for you but if you do if you have

00:34:53 ◼   ► like a Patreon model which like the one that you switch to of like there will be

00:35:00 ◼   ► a monthly support whether or not there's a video and like you're asking people to

00:35:06 ◼   ► come along on that journey with you right and there's like a bunch of

00:35:09 ◼   ► youtubers that I support that way it allows you to take the time where if you

00:35:16 ◼   ► to work on larger projects because you couldn't do that every month like no one

00:35:22 ◼   ► could make like two hour videos every month to either a) support the pay me when

00:35:27 ◼   ► uploads go or b) the YouTube system of just like keep feeding this content. So I

00:35:32 ◼   ► think as I feel like I'm seeing more and more creators now doing the monthly

00:35:38 ◼   ► support thing and saying kind of like if you really like what I'm doing here you

00:35:43 ◼   ► know there's gonna be more like will you support this and then it allows them to

00:35:48 ◼   ► go ahead and make these videos and it doesn't matter what YouTube think of

00:35:52 ◼   ► I think you have a point there about just the financial structure that needs to exist in order for that to happen.

00:36:00 ◼   ► I do think embedded sponsorships are a big part of that because I can also think of very few channels

00:36:06 ◼   ► I can really only think of one that has this model and also still doesn't have embedded sponsorships.

00:36:13 ◼   ► But even that though, if you're only doing one video a year, or like three videos a year, four videos a year

00:36:20 ◼   ► and you're selling the sponsorships upfront,

00:36:22 ◼   ► admittedly I don't know how this works on YouTube.

00:36:24 ◼   ► Like it doesn't matter how big the video,

00:36:26 ◼   ► like you could tell me the answer to this question maybe.

00:36:29 ◼   ► For embedded ads on YouTube, by and large,

00:36:32 ◼   ► is the practice that you set the price beforehand?

00:36:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah. - And it's a fixed price?

00:36:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's usually how it works.

00:36:38 ◼   ► - Right, so then it's like, if the video blows up,

00:36:41 ◼   ► it doesn't make a difference to you

00:36:42 ◼   ► because you have to have given a number

00:36:44 ◼   ► that you're confident you're gonna hit.

00:36:45 ◼   ► So like, yes it helps, but if you're doing this

00:36:49 ◼   ► like three videos a year and they're mammoth in length.

00:36:52 ◼   ► I still think that the monthly support's

00:36:54 ◼   ► gonna make the actual difference.

00:36:56 ◼   ► - This is to me what is the unbelievable pressure

00:36:59 ◼   ► of those kinds of things is because subscribers

00:37:03 ◼   ► are not really your own on YouTube

00:37:05 ◼   ► and it's entirely about what YouTube recommends,

00:37:08 ◼   ► you can just whiff on a video in a major way

00:37:13 ◼   ► at any moment, right?

00:37:15 ◼   ► And like, that is the horrifying thing about doing this

00:37:20 ◼   ► and having a big gap where you then upload

00:37:23 ◼   ► a really long video.

00:37:24 ◼   ► I just think like, there is just a fundamental rule that,

00:37:29 ◼   ► or not a fundamental rule,

00:37:31 ◼   ► but I think it's a very good guideline that advertisers

00:37:35 ◼   ► in general outbid direct support through things like Patreon

00:37:41 ◼   ► like they just pay more.

00:37:43 ◼   ► So that's why I think it really is a critical factor that these channels that do really

00:37:47 ◼   ► long things really far apart, they have to have the embedded sponsorship almost like

00:37:53 ◼   ► near universally.

00:37:55 ◼   ► I'm gonna challenge one point on that and you can, I mean again you know more than me

00:37:59 ◼   ► about this specific world right?

00:38:01 ◼   ► If you have a creator who has a Patreon and that Patreon gives them money every month,

00:38:07 ◼   ► whether or not there's a video, and they release four videos in a calendar year, would the

00:38:11 ◼   ► sponsorship outweigh the full total of the Patreon,

00:38:15 ◼   ► if their Patreon's really successful?

00:38:17 ◼   ► - Myke, I'm gonna say yes.

00:38:18 ◼   ► - All right, cool.

00:38:19 ◼   ► I mean, look, here's the thing, right?

00:38:22 ◼   ► If the video's gonna hit a million,

00:38:24 ◼   ► and if they're confident they're gonna hit a million,

00:38:26 ◼   ► then yes, of course.

00:38:27 ◼   ► But you have to be very confident in that, right?

00:38:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's what the pressure is.

00:38:32 ◼   ► - Because if you don't, you're not gonna get the money.

00:38:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's gonna cause a lot of problems.

00:38:37 ◼   ► - This is kind of, so my assumption would be,

00:38:40 ◼   ► If you're a YouTuber and you're a smart one,

00:38:43 ◼   ► you're leaving a lot of money on the table

00:38:45 ◼   ► when it comes to sponsorship.

00:38:47 ◼   ► Because if your video blows up,

00:38:49 ◼   ► you don't get more money for it, right?

00:38:50 ◼   ► So you have to like bet it at a level

00:38:54 ◼   ► which you're confident you're gonna hit.

00:38:55 ◼   ► And for most YouTubers,

00:38:57 ◼   ► that I'm confident I'm gonna hit number

00:38:59 ◼   ► will a lot of the time for popular ones

00:39:02 ◼   ► be significantly less.

00:39:04 ◼   ► Do you have a I'm confident I'm gonna hit number?

00:39:07 ◼   ► - No, like I don't.

00:39:08 ◼   ► - I doubt. - Because you don't need

00:39:09 ◼   ► to think about it anymore, so.

00:39:10 ◼   ► - But what we're talking about right here,

00:39:12 ◼   ► like this is a big part of the reason

00:39:14 ◼   ► why I stopped doing the embedded sponsorships

00:39:17 ◼   ► is because I just found it so incredibly stressful.

00:39:20 ◼   ► - Right. - And it's like, I hated it.

00:39:22 ◼   ► It made me so miserable.

00:39:24 ◼   ► It really did.

00:39:25 ◼   ► - And this is why I'm assuming that for a lot of people,

00:39:29 ◼   ► I would expect that the Patreon

00:39:31 ◼   ► is making a huge difference in that

00:39:33 ◼   ► because you actually can feel like you've got

00:39:37 ◼   ► some kind of level of bankable income

00:39:39 ◼   ► to support you through that process.

00:39:41 ◼   ► And like, yeah, you can make a lot of money on the ad side,

00:39:45 ◼   ► but that comes with a lot of increased pressure

00:39:50 ◼   ► if you wanna try and make the money you quote unquote

00:39:53 ◼   ► should make.

00:39:56 ◼   ► - Membership and Patreon, that supplies reliability.

00:40:01 ◼   ► Embedded sponsorships provide more income,

00:40:06 ◼   ► but at a cost of greater variability

00:40:10 ◼   ► and wildly increased stress.

00:40:12 ◼   ► Like I think that's basically what the situation is there.

00:40:15 ◼   ► - And people might say,

00:40:16 ◼   ► "Myke, isn't this just what you do?"

00:40:18 ◼   ► And the answer is yes but no.

00:40:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, yes but no, not at all, yeah.

00:40:22 ◼   ► - Because yes, we sell sponsorships

00:40:25 ◼   ► and at the moment,

00:40:27 ◼   ► our sponsorships are more lucrative than our membership.

00:40:31 ◼   ► However, I don't know how that's gonna change in the future

00:40:34 ◼   ► because membership continues to creep up,

00:40:38 ◼   ► say for this show, in a way that our ad rates don't.

00:40:41 ◼   ► And part of that is because we set an ad rate,

00:40:44 ◼   ► an amount of money that we go out to sponsors

00:40:47 ◼   ► and say this is how much it's gonna cost

00:40:49 ◼   ► and this is how many people listen.

00:40:51 ◼   ► And that how many people listen number

00:40:53 ◼   ► is set at a significantly lower number

00:40:56 ◼   ► than we actually tend to hit

00:40:57 ◼   ► because there is variability, right?

00:41:00 ◼   ► But it's not a massive difference,

00:41:01 ◼   ► but there is variability.

00:41:03 ◼   ► But one of the differences between podcasts and YouTube

00:41:06 ◼   ► is if you subscribe, you probably listen

00:41:10 ◼   ► and the numbers show.

00:41:11 ◼   ► But all we get is we don't know

00:41:13 ◼   ► how many subscribers we have, right?

00:41:15 ◼   ► We know how many people,

00:41:17 ◼   ► by some kind of level of approximation, have pressed play.

00:41:21 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah. - And that's all you get.

00:41:23 ◼   ► And that's very different to YouTube, right?

00:41:25 ◼   ► Where you get that in the how many people have viewed,

00:41:28 ◼   ► but you also have a subscriber number.

00:41:30 ◼   ► And so you've got these two numbers,

00:41:32 ◼   ► You can't really work out what to sell on, maybe,

00:41:34 ◼   ► I don't know, but we don't have that part.

00:41:36 ◼   ► But the variability is way lower.

00:41:39 ◼   ► Like, podcast episodes don't blow up.

00:41:42 ◼   ► They don't go viral, by and large.

00:41:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, and the variance is just lower,

00:41:48 ◼   ► which makes the job of selling a sponsorship so much easier.

00:41:52 ◼   ► - It's much more comforting.

00:41:53 ◼   ► And also, if an episode does have a big difference,

00:41:57 ◼   ► the amount of big difference it has is not so large

00:42:01 ◼   ► that you feel like, "Oh man, I left so much money on the table here."

00:42:05 ◼   ► Right.

00:42:05 ◼   ► It's, I think I would summarize it this way.

00:42:07 ◼   ► If you took an average podcast episode and then you say, "Ooh, what's the

00:42:10 ◼   ► best episode we did in the year?

00:42:12 ◼   ► And what's the worst episode we did in a year?"

00:42:14 ◼   ► The best episode might be 20% more than the average episode, and the worst episode

00:42:20 ◼   ► might be 20% less than the average episode.

00:42:22 ◼   ► On YouTube, that number is 20 times, right?

00:42:26 ◼   ► So like you take the average one and like the best one can be 20 times as much.

00:42:31 ◼   ► And the worst one can be a 20th of the average number.

00:42:35 ◼   ► - There is a funny thing where like me and you,

00:42:38 ◼   ► we actually did have a funny thing like this today

00:42:40 ◼   ► where we were looking through some stats of the show

00:42:43 ◼   ► and realized that there was an episode

00:42:45 ◼   ► that significantly outpaced other episodes

00:42:47 ◼   ► and we were surprised by it.

00:42:49 ◼   ► But the difference, as you say,

00:42:50 ◼   ► it was a little bit larger than normal, it was about 30%,

00:42:53 ◼   ► but it wasn't like, oh my God,

00:42:55 ◼   ► we've made a terrible mistake kind of thing, right?

00:42:58 ◼   ► So it is true, right?

00:42:59 ◼   ► But like if we were looking at that, like,

00:43:02 ◼   ► oh my God, this is a huge difference level on YouTube,

00:43:06 ◼   ► it would be just by the nature of the platform

00:43:08 ◼   ► for us to say like, this is a huge difference,

00:43:10 ◼   ► most likely it's going to be a very big number.

00:43:14 ◼   ► - As an actual viewer,

00:43:16 ◼   ► I really liked that there's this kind of outlier content

00:43:19 ◼   ► of someone's gonna go away

00:43:20 ◼   ► and then they're gonna come back

00:43:21 ◼   ► with a three hour long video about a thing

00:43:23 ◼   ► or they're gonna come back with

00:43:25 ◼   ► just like a crazy in-depth video

00:43:28 ◼   ► about a particular topic.

00:43:30 ◼   ► I really like that that stuff exists.

00:43:32 ◼   ► But the content creator in me can never not look at that

00:43:36 ◼   ► and just be absolutely horrified.

00:43:40 ◼   ► - I mean, I respect the game, right?

00:43:42 ◼   ► - Yeah. - 'Cause I know

00:43:43 ◼   ► I couldn't play it.

00:43:44 ◼   ► - Also from my perspective, it's kind of more relieving

00:43:47 ◼   ► to see people playing in some ways like a higher stakes game.

00:43:51 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:43:51 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Right?

00:43:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - To be like, oof.

00:43:53 ◼   ► - Like I'm gonna pop him in my 18 minute animation

00:43:55 ◼   ► and I'm rolling the dice on it.

00:43:57 ◼   ► like you good luck on your like four hour video.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:44:00 ◼   ► It's, it's interesting to see that kind of thing happen.

00:44:02 ◼   ► And also just because I think people always get weird ideas in their

00:44:06 ◼   ► head about how YouTube works.

00:44:08 ◼   ► And like the meme of watch time is really in some people's minds.

00:44:12 ◼   ► It's like, guys, I guarantee you, even these channels, they're

00:44:16 ◼   ► doing really long things.

00:44:17 ◼   ► They're not like on the YouTube side coming out like bandits because

00:44:21 ◼   ► what YouTube still wants is lots of videos frequently.

00:44:25 ◼   ► I even saw this on my own recent video

00:44:28 ◼   ► where people were leaving comments like,

00:44:29 ◼   ► "Oh yeah, it's Grey's Play and the watch time game.

00:44:32 ◼   ► It totally makes sense to upload

00:44:34 ◼   ► like a really long video every once in a while."

00:44:36 ◼   ► I was like, "No, it doesn't.

00:44:37 ◼   ► Trust me, it doesn't."

00:44:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like, I guess on that, right?

00:44:42 ◼   ► Like, and this is a terrible example,

00:44:44 ◼   ► but like how much better are animated videos

00:44:47 ◼   ► and the Call of Tanks channel do than the podcast videos?

00:44:49 ◼   ► - Oh yeah. - Right?

00:44:50 ◼   ► - Hugely better.

00:44:51 ◼   ► - Because people want short videos.

00:44:53 ◼   ► - Yes, exactly.

00:44:54 ◼   ► - I think that there's like a million reasons, right?

00:44:56 ◼   ► That like, of course the animations are more engaging

00:44:59 ◼   ► than just like the static screen of the audio

00:45:01 ◼   ► of the show playing, like I hear that.

00:45:02 ◼   ► But like, YouTube also serves them and like, yeah,

00:45:06 ◼   ► short videos, that's what the system wants now, right?

00:45:10 ◼   ► But as you say, there was a time

00:45:14 ◼   ► where watch time was the thing,

00:45:16 ◼   ► but it's kind of grabbed its hold on people

00:45:19 ◼   ► and they haven't let go of it.

00:45:20 ◼   ► Like people think it's, that's what the algorithm wants.

00:45:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, it exists in people's mind.

00:45:25 ◼   ► Again, watch time is very important,

00:45:27 ◼   ► but I think this meme got in people's heads

00:45:29 ◼   ► when YouTube first rolled this out

00:45:31 ◼   ► and clearly had over-tuned the system

00:45:35 ◼   ► to recommend stuff purely based on watch time.

00:45:38 ◼   ► And they've pulled that back, and I think,

00:45:41 ◼   ► and again, people can complain about the algorithm a lot.

00:45:43 ◼   ► I certainly do.

00:45:44 ◼   ► I still think watch time is actually quite a good metric,

00:45:46 ◼   ► all things considered.

00:45:48 ◼   ► It's just funny how people have it in their head

00:45:50 ◼   ► whenever you release a long video.

00:45:51 ◼   ► It's like, oh, he's doing that to play the algorithm game.

00:45:53 ◼   ► It's like, I guarantee to you, whoever you're watching,

00:45:57 ◼   ► who just released a 90 minute video,

00:46:00 ◼   ► they're not playing the algorithm.

00:46:02 ◼   ► - No, they are rolling the dice.

00:46:04 ◼   ► - The only game they're playing with the algorithm

00:46:08 ◼   ► is Russian roulette.

00:46:10 ◼   ► Like that is the game they're playing.

00:46:12 ◼   ► - 'Cause the longer your video, right,

00:46:14 ◼   ► the higher the risk you're playing for retention,

00:46:18 ◼   ► which is another very important statistic.

00:46:20 ◼   ► Because if people stick through for the entire video,

00:46:24 ◼   ► well that shows that the videos engage in the entire time.

00:46:26 ◼   ► Like that's gotta be an indication to the algorithm

00:46:29 ◼   ► of like, hey yeah, this is a good one.

00:46:32 ◼   ► If you've got a video that's like three hours long,

00:46:35 ◼   ► you're way increasing the ability for people to bail on it.

00:46:38 ◼   ► - Every second the viewer is watching

00:46:40 ◼   ► is an opportunity for them to bail

00:46:43 ◼   ► because they've lost interest, right?

00:46:45 ◼   ► Every single second.

00:46:46 ◼   ► It's very interesting because MrBeast has a lot of stuff

00:46:50 ◼   ► where he's talked publicly about this.

00:46:52 ◼   ► At the time of recording,

00:46:53 ◼   ► I mean, you can basically say he's the most popular YouTuber,

00:46:56 ◼   ► he doesn't have the most subscribers,

00:46:57 ◼   ► but he's gotta be pulling in the most views.

00:47:00 ◼   ► - I think it doesn't matter,

00:47:02 ◼   ► the numbers I don't think matter,

00:47:03 ◼   ► I think that's obvious, right?

00:47:05 ◼   ► In subscribers, subscribers is a nothing number,

00:47:07 ◼   ► because we spoke about this, right?

00:47:09 ◼   ► It doesn't matter how many subscribers you have,

00:47:11 ◼   ► just the views you have,

00:47:12 ◼   ► but MrBeast is the YouTuber, right?

00:47:16 ◼   ► This person changes every now and again,

00:47:19 ◼   ► Right now it's MrBeast.

00:47:20 ◼   ► Yeah, but I think one of the things that's key about his success, if you watch his

00:47:25 ◼   ► videos, like, and I will admit it took me a little while to kind of get what he was

00:47:28 ◼   ► doing.

00:47:29 ◼   ► Like I watched some of his videos and I thought like, I'm totally not interested

00:47:32 ◼   ► in this, but I kind of forced myself to keep watching them.

00:47:35 ◼   ► I thought, oh, okay.

00:47:36 ◼   ► At some point it clicked.

00:47:37 ◼   ► I'm like, ah, I get it.

00:47:38 ◼   ► But he is the king of maximizing watch time while giving the viewer the, the

00:47:46 ◼   ► fewest possible reasons to click away.

00:47:49 ◼   ► And his stuff tends to be in the like 10 to 20 minute range.

00:47:56 ◼   ► A lot of, a lot of his videos.

00:47:57 ◼   ► And I feel like intentionally or unintentionally he's really

00:48:02 ◼   ► min-maxed what is possible here.

00:48:06 ◼   ► And I feel like that-

00:48:06 ◼   ► I don't think it's unintentionally.

00:48:08 ◼   ► Everything I've heard and seen about him, I don't think anything

00:48:10 ◼   ► he does is unintentional.

00:48:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:12 ◼   ► Sorry.

00:48:13 ◼   ► I, I, I meant unintentionally.

00:48:14 ◼   ► I meant unintentionally in the way of like, he's the right person at the right time.

00:48:20 ◼   ► Not that he is being undeliberate in the videos.

00:48:23 ◼   ► - Because it seems like he has really turned maximizing for the algorithm into an art form.

00:48:28 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah.

00:48:29 ◼   ► But like, so what I mean by unintentional is just like,

00:48:32 ◼   ► there existed an ecological niche that was waiting to be filled.

00:48:36 ◼   ► We just didn't know that, right?

00:48:38 ◼   ► And he came along and he's completely filled it.

00:48:40 ◼   ► But if you watch his stuff, if you listen to him talk about the editing,

00:48:43 ◼   ► yeah, he's just being really good at like, give them a reason to get to the end, don't give them

00:48:49 ◼   ► any reason to click away, and he accomplishes that very well in his videos. But again, I think the

00:48:56 ◼   ► fact that they rarely go over 20 minutes, I mean, I feel like he's got some in the 30 minute range,

00:49:01 ◼   ► but again, we're getting to like very few. That is also why I really respect the channels that

00:49:07 ◼   ► try to do something for like an hour or two hours on a topic. Because again, you're fighting against

00:49:13 ◼   ► the natural thing. Like, the guy who's the best at this takes a topic and spends 20

00:49:20 ◼   ► minutes on it, and you're playing the super high-wire game of "I'm gonna spend

00:49:25 ◼   ► two hours on this thing!" You know, that's a lot of seconds for someone

00:49:30 ◼   ► to potentially click away onto something else, and then YouTube looks at that and

00:49:35 ◼   ► says, "Oh, people only watched a third of the way into the video, so like, why would

00:49:39 ◼   ► you recommend this to people if they don't get to the end?" Like, uh-oh, now your

00:49:43 ◼   ► video is going to have a bad time and you've only done four in a year.

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00:51:53 ◼   ► One of the things that I latched on to this video and I think many other people did because

00:51:57 ◼   ► I think it's the real beauty of this video is the three in one kind of idea where you've got three

00:52:05 ◼   ► kind of distinct videos going on inside of this video to the point where you I think quite

00:52:12 ◼   ► masterfully I will say my hat is off to you the secret grave video inside with like the set being

00:52:19 ◼   ► built when that set started building itself I was like god damn it that's smart you so bravo to you

00:52:25 ◼   ► you there, but what was going on with this? Like why this? Why this three in one this?

00:52:30 ◼   ► Why not three videos? Like why did you do it this way?

00:52:34 ◼   ► So after a video has been out for a while, even though I've been looking at statistics

00:52:37 ◼   ► more now, one of the things that YouTube's had around for a really long time that I have

00:52:42 ◼   ► always looked at is the graph of audience retention. And they have a much more useful

00:52:47 ◼   ► version of it, which is called like relative audience attention, which is basically a line

00:52:52 ◼   ► And it says, "Compared to every other video on YouTube,

00:52:57 ◼   ► which is this same length,

00:52:59 ◼   ► how many people are still watching at a particular moment?"

00:53:03 ◼   ► Which I think is way more useful than the curve

00:53:05 ◼   ► that everyone seems to want to talk about,

00:53:06 ◼   ► which is just percent of viewers still watching at moment.

00:53:09 ◼   ► - I didn't even know that that existed, that graph.

00:53:11 ◼   ► That sounds better.

00:53:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like a much better indicator of,

00:53:15 ◼   ► like I wanna know where people are interested

00:53:19 ◼   ► and where are they not.

00:53:21 ◼   ► And that graph in my experience really matches up with,

00:53:25 ◼   ► I don't know, is scenes the right word?

00:53:27 ◼   ► But like in a video, you have little sections

00:53:29 ◼   ► where you're talking, like we're talking about this,

00:53:31 ◼   ► and now we're talking about this.

00:53:32 ◼   ► And I feel like the relative audience retention graph

00:53:35 ◼   ► matches up really well with where the scenes are.

00:53:38 ◼   ► Like you can kind of see when a scene starts

00:53:40 ◼   ► and when a scene ends.

00:53:41 ◼   ► And so I think one thing I've gotten better at

00:53:44 ◼   ► over the years in making videos

00:53:46 ◼   ► by looking at that little graph

00:53:49 ◼   ► is in some of my older videos, I would have a really big drop-off when people would stop watching.

00:53:54 ◼   ► And it was only after the video had gone up, I could look at it and say, "Oh, I didn't realize,

00:54:03 ◼   ► but at this moment, I was changing topics. Like, we started talking about a thing,

00:54:09 ◼   ► and then I lose a bunch of people here because suddenly we're like talking about something that's

00:54:16 ◼   ► related or it's not quite the main thing. We're gonna get back to the main thing,

00:54:20 ◼   ► but we're on a little bit of a diversion over here.

00:54:23 ◼   ► - My expectation is that's just when it gets too complicated for people and they leave.

00:54:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, sometimes that can be the case. I think there are other ones, I can't think of a video

00:54:34 ◼   ► off the top of my head, but it's where it's just like, "Oh, now we're talking about something

00:54:37 ◼   ► that's related but not the same," which is just different from complicated. It's just like, "Oh,

00:54:41 ◼   ► this video is now moving in a different direction." I feel like-

00:54:44 ◼   ► I'm just talking for myself here, you know what I mean?

00:54:47 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Oh, I don't understand anymore."

00:54:49 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:54:51 ◼   ► - I don't think that's the case, Myke.

00:54:52 ◼   ► But as a viewer as well, when you're watching something,

00:54:55 ◼   ► you can sometimes feel those moments of like,

00:54:57 ◼   ► "Oh wait, what are we doing now?

00:54:58 ◼   ► Why are we talking about this?"

00:55:00 ◼   ► So I think over many years,

00:55:02 ◼   ► I've gotten better at doing that less,

00:55:05 ◼   ► of narrowing the focus and keeping the video on point.

00:55:10 ◼   ► What is this about?

00:55:11 ◼   ► This is about which planet is the most is closest,

00:55:14 ◼   ► and like, boom, we're gonna stick on this.

00:55:17 ◼   ► And like, I think my graphs have gotten smoother

00:55:19 ◼   ► about not losing people during particular sections.

00:55:23 ◼   ► But so with this video, it kind of started

00:55:26 ◼   ► when I was talking to my parents

00:55:28 ◼   ► back when I was visiting them.

00:55:29 ◼   ► And we were talking about runways and airplanes.

00:55:33 ◼   ► My mom's a former flight attendant,

00:55:35 ◼   ► so this stuff comes up all the time.

00:55:36 ◼   ► Somehow it came up about like, oh, the runway numbers,

00:55:39 ◼   ► like, how do they come up?

00:55:40 ◼   ► And so we started looking into it.

00:55:42 ◼   ► What are you laughing at there, Myke?

00:55:44 ◼   ► - Your time with your family is very different

00:55:46 ◼   ► to my time with my family.

00:55:48 ◼   ► - I get the impression whenever I tell people stuff like this

00:55:51 ◼   ► - I don't think this is what normal families do.

00:55:54 ◼   ► I don't think people are sitting around and they're like,

00:55:57 ◼   ► let's look into why there are numbers on runways.

00:56:02 ◼   ► - Is that not how that goes?

00:56:04 ◼   ► - I don't think that that is a normal.

00:56:06 ◼   ► - Do you not have the thing where someone

00:56:08 ◼   ► is going to be Googling and then they airplay to the TV

00:56:10 ◼   ► in front of everyone so everyone can watch the Googling

00:56:13 ◼   ► as we're trying to figure--

00:56:14 ◼   ► - And they create a PowerPoint presentation.

00:56:16 ◼   ► - That's how it works in my family.

00:56:18 ◼   ► - Hey look, I'm not surprised, but I don't think,

00:56:21 ◼   ► I'm not sure, I mean, I would like to know if people's

00:56:24 ◼   ► family lives are like this, but I know mine isn't.

00:56:27 ◼   ► - So anyway, as families do, you're collectively Googling

00:56:30 ◼   ► to try to find the answer to a thing.

00:56:32 ◼   ► And so we found obviously a bunch of,

00:56:34 ◼   ► it's not like actually some kind of crazy secret, right?

00:56:36 ◼   ► It's a well-known piece of information.

00:56:38 ◼   ► But what I found really interesting

00:56:40 ◼   ► And one of the reasons why the topic stuck with me is that they all stopped after explaining

00:56:46 ◼   ► like, Oh, this is the magnetic heading.

00:56:48 ◼   ► But surely the most interesting thing about this is that the magnetic pole moves.

00:56:54 ◼   ► They all stopped in their explanations before they got to that point.

00:56:58 ◼   ► And so when I was working on the video, I kept thinking about, okay, I want to do this.

00:57:06 ◼   ► if I'm going to do it, this is a time where there 100% has to be a topic change in the

00:57:14 ◼   ► middle of the video.

00:57:15 ◼   ► Originally, I didn't want to have anything to do with physics.

00:57:19 ◼   ► There was only supposed to be one topic change.

00:57:21 ◼   ► But you know, so this this but this was like the dawn of this video is there has to be

00:57:25 ◼   ► a topic change.

00:57:27 ◼   ► And so I thought, okay, the moment I realized like this can really work as a video is if

00:57:32 ◼   ► do the reverse instead of trying to get rid of topic changes, acknowledge the fact that

00:57:37 ◼   ► there is a topic change and just really lean into it.

00:57:41 ◼   ► And that's when it was like, here's the idea of the video within a video.

00:57:45 ◼   ► And so over the scripts, we kind of built on that and like made it bigger and bigger

00:57:50 ◼   ► each time.

00:57:51 ◼   ► But that was actually the whole reason for it was was kind of like an audience retention

00:57:55 ◼   ► thing of it's much more interesting if I very explicitly acknowledge we're like starting

00:58:04 ◼   ► over with another topic.

00:58:06 ◼   ► This is part of the reason why before publication I was extremely concerned that this video

00:58:11 ◼   ► could just totally bomb, because I thought like if it doesn't work, I've introduced

00:58:17 ◼   ► two moments that basically guarantee the audience can leave now, where they go like "I don't

00:58:22 ◼   ► care at all about this."

00:58:23 ◼   ► you work backwards from what you're doing back to your insight, like you can take, you

00:58:30 ◼   ► can draw a different path, right? You're like, I know that topic changes, like accidental

00:58:34 ◼   ► topic changes can result in people leaving. At this point, you have nothing to tell you

00:58:40 ◼   ► that purposeful topic changes will produce a different result.

00:58:43 ◼   ► Yeah. In fact, if anything, it may make it worse.

00:58:47 ◼   ► Oh yeah, yeah. It may make it way worse. Now again, I've obviously, I made the video

00:58:53 ◼   ► because I thought, "Oh, I think we can do this in a way where it does work. I think

00:58:58 ◼   ► it can be better this way." But I could have been wrong. It's very easy to be wrong.

00:59:02 ◼   ► You go back to the insight and, like, yes, you've drawn a conclusion, but there's

00:59:06 ◼   ► nothing to say that that was the right move. And also, like, there's nothing to say that

00:59:10 ◼   ► this would work again.

00:59:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:12 ◼   ► Yet. Right? Like, yeah.

00:59:14 ◼   ► Yeah. I mean, look, there's a reason why in 10 years I've done this once, because

00:59:20 ◼   ► it happens to work well in this way. It's also why, like, the script is funny to me

00:59:24 ◼   ► where, like, Greg keeps saying, like, "Oh, this isn't a physics video," is because

00:59:29 ◼   ► that was also my personal experience. It's like, "God damn it, I really don't want

00:59:32 ◼   ► to talk about the physics." Like, I think this magic trick can work once if there's

00:59:36 ◼   ► a video in the video, but I ended up making it like, "Oh God, we do it twice." And

00:59:42 ◼   ► I was really concerned, because I think, like, that last third, part of the reason I rerecorded

00:59:46 ◼   ► Like, it's better now, but it's still, it's still like the slowest part of the video.

00:59:52 ◼   ► And even just like in everyday life, when people find out that you've done physics,

00:59:58 ◼   ► they're often kind of repelled, right?

01:00:00 ◼   ► And they let you know, right?

01:00:02 ◼   ► Like people will just straight up tell you like, "Oh, I hated physics."

01:00:06 ◼   ► Right?

01:00:07 ◼   ► Like, you know, I still will always remember one of my doctors while he was

01:00:11 ◼   ► giving me an injection and it came up about me having physics, he's like, "I did

01:00:14 ◼   ► really bad in my physics classes and it's like dude that is not what I want to hear right now.

01:00:19 ◼   ► You don't tell me you did anything other than perfect in every science.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Yeah, especially when you have a needle in my arm.

01:00:25 ◼   ► That's what I mean right? While you're performing like some kind of...

01:00:28 ◼   ► It's an injection right?

01:00:29 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah you're performing some kind of medical thing on me,

01:00:32 ◼   ► I just want you to tell me you you are aced everything.

01:00:35 ◼   ► Yeah it's like you don't want your anesthesiologist to be telling you he didn't do great on his

01:00:39 ◼   ► kinematics test and it's like nope dude that's not what I want to hear. So people are like

01:00:44 ◼   ► real vocal about, "I did bad in physics and I hate it," which is one of these things that you

01:00:49 ◼   ► just find out if you have a degree in physics and it ever comes up. So that's why I was really

01:00:54 ◼   ► worried about the last third of it. The payoff was good, though. You set it up well, right?

01:00:58 ◼   ► I was excited when the physics part started because you told me how much you didn't want

01:01:04 ◼   ► to do it. The writing of it was good, even though, as I said to you beforehand, that was the part

01:01:10 ◼   ► that I just did not understand, right? And like, I enjoyed the watching of it, but that part,

01:01:17 ◼   ► I didn't get it. It just went over my head. That happens to me with those kinds of topics anyway.

01:01:22 ◼   ► B: I just want to be clear here. For you and for the viewers, there's a reason that I often haven't

01:01:29 ◼   ► done physics stuff. And this moment here where you're like, "Oh, I don't understand that section,"

01:01:35 ◼   ► That is not your fault, because the actual explanation that I have given is not an adequate

01:01:41 ◼   ► explanation of why is this occurring.

01:01:44 ◼   ► So I think like, this is just a problem, especially in a lot of science communication,

01:01:51 ◼   ► where you can explain something in the simplest way that's possible, but I think

01:02:00 ◼   ► you can often end up being more confused by the simple explanation than you would be by

01:02:07 ◼   ► the raw explanation. It's just that the raw explanation takes more time.

01:02:11 ◼   ► Because I guess with the simple explanation, you're just being told, right?

01:02:14 ◼   ► Yeah, you're being told. You don't have the opportunity to come to

01:02:18 ◼   ► it on your own or like you're not given the tools to be able to work it out, right?

01:02:22 ◼   ► You just, this is true. Believe it. So like there's a thing in the video where

01:02:26 ◼   ► I talk about like, okay, because the world is spinning, it makes these coils of current

01:02:33 ◼   ► rotate their position.

01:02:35 ◼   ► The way I say it in the video, I'm kind of expecting that for some viewers, they have

01:02:40 ◼   ► a little bit of an intuitive sense that that's what happens.

01:02:45 ◼   ► Like oh, if you spin something this way, like a thing moves in an opposite direction, but

01:02:49 ◼   ► tons of people won't have that intuitive sense.

01:02:51 ◼   ► And there's no reason that they would.

01:02:53 ◼   ► And I'm just saying twice that this is a thing that happens.

01:02:57 ◼   ► So when you when you hear it the second time, it's not like it's a trick.

01:03:02 ◼   ► But I'm partly relying on the fact of we've been through this before, right?

01:03:07 ◼   ► We talked about this earlier that when the Earth spins, it causes these trade winds to

01:03:12 ◼   ► happen.

01:03:13 ◼   ► And so now later in the video, when the Earth spins, it causes these coils to rotate into

01:03:17 ◼   ► the position that they're supposed to be just like what happens with the wind before.

01:03:22 ◼   ► But if you pause for a second and you go, "Hey, yeah, wait a minute, but like, why,

01:03:25 ◼   ► right?

01:03:26 ◼   ► Why does it rotate in this different direction?"

01:03:28 ◼   ► The answer there is like, well, we would have to talk about rotational inertia.

01:03:33 ◼   ► We could explain this, but now the video needs to be an hour long in order to explain that.

01:03:37 ◼   ► This is how you get to four-hour YouTube videos.

01:03:39 ◼   ► Right, this is how you get to a four-hour YouTube video.

01:03:42 ◼   ► I feel quite passionate about this because – going back to my time as a physics teacher

01:03:47 ◼   ► There was a thing that I always found really frustrating with GCSE physics in the UK where

01:03:52 ◼   ► there's a lot of times where they were like the curriculum as mandated was trying to make

01:03:59 ◼   ► some physics things simple.

01:04:04 ◼   ► But by making them simple, I could see that it routinely tripped up the smarter kids in

01:04:10 ◼   ► the class, right?

01:04:12 ◼   ► Because they could tell that like, something's not right here, or something hasn't been fully

01:04:17 ◼   ► explained here. And like, it was a very frequent pattern. That's like, okay, by making this

01:04:22 ◼   ► simple, you've actually made it harder for the kids who you most want to get into this

01:04:30 ◼   ► topic. Because they can feel like, wait, but you haven't actually explained something.

01:04:35 ◼   ► I feel like I in school, I was always repelled by the "it just is" topics. Since I got

01:04:41 ◼   ► to a point in maths and I was like, I can't – like when we get to like algebra and stuff

01:04:47 ◼   ► like that, it was just like, I can't conceive of this, like I don't – it doesn't make

01:04:51 ◼   ► any sense to me that I couldn't see the logic in it. And I have no doubt that it's

01:04:56 ◼   ► there, but it just wasn't taught to me.

01:04:58 ◼   ► B: Math is a horrifying special case because – and it actually is at the very bottom

01:05:05 ◼   ► of math, it's like, well, it just is, we actually just defined the system this way,

01:05:08 ◼   ► and you could define math to be any way that you wanted it to be, right?

01:05:10 ◼   ► Is the, is the ultimate answer.

01:05:12 ◼   ► It is like, oh, we only happen to use this subset of math that

01:05:15 ◼   ► works out for the real world.

01:05:17 ◼   ► But yes, at the bottom of math is like, this isn't actually connected

01:05:20 ◼   ► to anything real in any actual way is the true horrifying answer.

01:05:25 ◼   ► So yeah, math is particularly weird with that, but yeah, so, so all of this is to

01:05:29 ◼   ► say, like, if you watch that section, that's the physics section, and you say

01:05:33 ◼   ► like, oh, I don't get this part, I think you're correct, ultimately, I have

01:05:38 ◼   ► not adequately explained what is really occurring in that section.

01:05:43 ◼   ► But that's by design.

01:05:45 ◼   ► It's not by design, it's just by practicality of it.

01:05:48 ◼   ► Right, but that's what I mean.

01:05:50 ◼   ► You've made a decision, right, that this is not going to be a 37-minute video.

01:05:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:05:57 ◼   ► This is also why I avoided that section, because I know I'm ultimately going to have to push

01:06:00 ◼   ► up against these little parts where you say, "Okay, look, we're not going to explain rotational

01:06:06 ◼   ► inertia."

01:06:07 ◼   ► of things in there where it's like, we're just not going to explain them and we're going to have to

01:06:10 ◼   ► move on. Now, like, part of the reason that I think that that section does work, and I was happy to

01:06:16 ◼   ► leave it in, is because this idea in some ways is, I think, something that you can take from that

01:06:23 ◼   ► section, even if the mechanics of like, "Wait, how does the Earth have a magnetic field?" doesn't

01:06:28 ◼   ► quite make sense. You can still take from it like, "Hey, if you keep asking why questions,

01:06:35 ◼   ► you're going to get to the bottom of the universe, and Y means nothing here. That's actually the

01:06:40 ◼   ► answer to all of your questions. So I'm happy to have that section in there because I think that

01:06:45 ◼   ► there still is something else to get out of it. But it is the section that I was worried the most

01:06:51 ◼   ► about for a lot of different reasons. And one of them is like, "Oh, it's just not possible to

01:06:56 ◼   ► adequately explain this." And even the simple explanation, which is blowing past a lot of stuff,

01:07:03 ◼   ► it's still long. Like there's still a lot to get through in that whole part. So yeah, I didn't want

01:07:09 ◼   ► to have it put in there. Right up until the 11th hour, I kept thinking it was a mistake to have

01:07:14 ◼   ► that section in there. And it was really only in the last couple days before upload where I finally

01:07:19 ◼   ► got happy with it and thought, "Okay, even if this video bombs, I will be content with feeling like

01:07:26 ◼   ► it wasn't because the last section was terrible. Like I got it to a place where I was happy with

01:07:30 ◼   ► it and thought, "I will put this up and we'll see how it goes." Many opportunities for a viewer to

01:07:37 ◼   ► click away in a three-in-one structure. I feel like it was a—that was a high-risk move,

01:07:44 ◼   ► and there is a alternate universe Grey who is like crying into his microphone right now because the

01:07:50 ◼   ► video is just watched by no one because they were clicking away and it didn't work. Like,

01:07:54 ◼   ► it could have easily gone in a different direction.

01:07:56 ◼   ► If you point the microphone down towards you, less likelihood of the crying into.

01:08:01 ◼   ► Right, the tears don't fall into the microphone. So once again, above.

01:08:04 ◼   ► If you're a sad podcaster, you want to go up pointing down.

01:08:07 ◼   ► That's good advice. Listen to Myke for his microphone advice.

01:08:11 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Sourcegraph.

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01:09:48 ◼   ► Let's do some Ask Cortex questions.

01:09:52 ◼   ► What tickles your fancy?

01:09:54 ◼   ► Not because I have a good answer, but just because I think it's funny.

01:09:56 ◼   ► Tony here wants to know how many secret projects do you have at this moment?

01:09:59 ◼   ► Oh, that's a good question.

01:10:01 ◼   ► This is like a perpetually differing thing depending on time of the year.

01:10:08 ◼   ► And so here's the second subset questions I have here so we can try and define this.

01:10:13 ◼   ► Personal projects.

01:10:15 ◼   ► Primary business projects.

01:10:17 ◼   ► business project, right? So like primary being YouTube for you, Relay for me,

01:10:24 ◼   ► secondary being, for both of us, Cortex brand. Just the way that you feel like, oh

01:10:31 ◼   ► man I've got to really start getting out all these categories for all my secret

01:10:35 ◼   ► projects tells me you have a lot of secret projects going on. No, I'm just

01:10:38 ◼   ► like seeing like these are the areas we're gonna talk about, right? Because I

01:10:42 ◼   ► have two secret personal projects that I'm working on. So I just was wondering

01:10:47 ◼   ► if personal was going to be in the top secret project categories.

01:10:51 ◼   ► I'm wondering what your secret personal projects are.

01:10:53 ◼   ► I'm trying to think about what they could be.

01:10:54 ◼   ► We were talking about one of them today.

01:10:56 ◼   ► The other one we have spoken about, but it's probably not coming into your mind.

01:10:59 ◼   ► Right.

01:11:00 ◼   ► So we've got two personal secret projects.

01:11:02 ◼   ► Like pottery lessons?

01:11:05 ◼   ► You know, that wasn't it, but like, did I tell you we went and did another one in London?

01:11:09 ◼   ► No, you didn't tell me about it.

01:11:10 ◼   ► Like we found it in London studio and it was awesome.

01:11:12 ◼   ► It was so good.

01:11:13 ◼   ► And once I actually get Secret Project 1 out of the way,

01:11:18 ◼   ► that is, I need to get back to that.

01:11:21 ◼   ► It was so good.

01:11:23 ◼   ► Oh my God, I love it so much.

01:11:25 ◼   ► I would say I have one Relay Secret Project,

01:11:29 ◼   ► which is way fewer than normal,

01:11:32 ◼   ► because I'm trying to, you know, structure it, right?

01:11:36 ◼   ► Just calm all of that down.

01:11:38 ◼   ► Cortex brand.

01:11:40 ◼   ► - I feel like there's two in Cortex.

01:11:42 ◼   ► - Well, I was gonna say four.

01:11:43 ◼   ► - Three, okay, right.

01:11:44 ◼   ► - But they're in, like you've got from a case of like,

01:11:48 ◼   ► secret project one currently in manufacturing,

01:11:51 ◼   ► secret project two is like the next one,

01:11:54 ◼   ► and then three, you know what I mean?

01:11:56 ◼   ► Of like, they're just like things that we haven't started,

01:11:59 ◼   ► but we know we wanna do.

01:12:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I was thinking of is,

01:12:02 ◼   ► secret project in manufacturing,

01:12:04 ◼   ► and then there's secret project next up.

01:12:06 ◼   ► That's what I was thinking of for two.

01:12:08 ◼   ► - But I know of like our next three things

01:12:10 ◼   ► that I want to work on.

01:12:11 ◼   ► I don't know if they're gonna be the next three things

01:12:13 ◼   ► that we do. So yeah, that's me. What about you?

01:12:16 ◼   ► I mean, yeah, so I've got the Cortex secret projects, obviously.

01:12:19 ◼   ► Yeah, we share those.

01:12:20 ◼   ► It's funny, because I really just wanted to quickly say that Tony is like, "Nice try, Tony!"

01:12:24 ◼   ► Right? Trying to find out the secrets.

01:12:26 ◼   ► But I think the actuality of it is that today, personally, right now, in terms of what I'm up to,

01:12:32 ◼   ► aside from the Cortex stuff, I don't have any secret projects.

01:12:35 ◼   ► And that is solely because I'm in that weird transition window where the video has gone up,

01:12:42 ◼   ► But I have not decided what the next project is going to be.

01:12:46 ◼   ► I was playing around with some possibilities this morning of like trying

01:12:49 ◼   ► to scry around and feel like, what's, what's soon, what should be later?

01:12:52 ◼   ► Like, what should I work on?

01:12:53 ◼   ► This is actually part of New Decades Dawn is trying to be much more deliberate

01:12:59 ◼   ► before I switch to the next thing.

01:13:01 ◼   ► So I technically currently have no secret projects because I haven't

01:13:07 ◼   ► settled on like, okay, this is the next video and I'm gonna, I'm gonna

01:13:11 ◼   ► gonna work on that, so currently none.

01:13:14 ◼   ► - I'm giving you full control today

01:13:17 ◼   ► over the question picking.

01:13:18 ◼   ► - No, I don't want that kind of pressure.

01:13:21 ◼   ► Ah, okay, so here's an interesting one.

01:13:23 ◼   ► This is from Louis.

01:13:24 ◼   ► What was the last thing you have learned from zero?

01:13:28 ◼   ► So, like, an example, learning to play an instrument

01:13:30 ◼   ► without knowing anything about music.

01:13:32 ◼   ► Is this something you do often?

01:13:34 ◼   ► - No.

01:13:35 ◼   ► What I will say for this one is soldering.

01:13:41 ◼   ► - Oh, that's actually, that's a good one.

01:13:44 ◼   ► - I would say in the time of my life right now,

01:13:48 ◼   ► I have the feeling more of wanting to learn things

01:13:51 ◼   ► for the sake and fun of learning them.

01:13:54 ◼   ► - What do you mean?

01:13:55 ◼   ► - Not to do anything with it.

01:13:56 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

01:13:57 ◼   ► - Like there's just stuff I wanna learn.

01:13:58 ◼   ► Like right now, I've just been learning more about coffee,

01:14:01 ◼   ► even though I haven't actually actioned it

01:14:03 ◼   ► or not necessarily want to action it.

01:14:04 ◼   ► I just want, I'm just interested in the information.

01:14:07 ◼   ► But soldering is the thing that I feel like

01:14:11 ◼   ► I have learned from zero most recently to the point where like I now consider it a skill

01:14:18 ◼   ► that I have and I've done enough variants of it and like weird things like drag soldering

01:14:25 ◼   ► which is like a whole other subset of it and I've done this a couple of times to the point

01:14:29 ◼   ► where I feel confident that like if you sit me down and be like can you sort of this I

01:14:33 ◼   ► know what to do.

01:14:35 ◼   ► What is drag soldering? I've never heard of that before.

01:14:37 ◼   ► You have to use a different compound where you use...

01:14:43 ◼   ► Sorder has something called flux in it which is kind of like a wax.

01:14:46 ◼   ► I'll be honest, I don't know what it actually does.

01:14:49 ◼   ► I think it helps the spread of the sorder to contain it.

01:14:54 ◼   ► It's where if you have pins, like flat pins, where you have to solder a bunch of them at

01:15:00 ◼   ► once.

01:15:01 ◼   ► Like imagine on a USB connector or something, so if you have to solder a USB connector to

01:15:05 ◼   ► a board, rather than it being a one to one point that you're soldering together with

01:15:09 ◼   ► wire, they're like all these little points that you have to touch each other. So this

01:15:15 ◼   ► is where you apply a bunch of the flux stuff that when you then actually apply the solder

01:15:21 ◼   ► wire it pulls around the contact areas as opposed to around the surrounding area. So

01:15:28 ◼   ► if you're soldering something that's really tiny it gives you kind of like a freedom.

01:15:33 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

01:15:35 ◼   ► - I know I'm doing a very bad job explaining this,

01:15:38 ◼   ► so I will find a YouTube video to put in the show notes.

01:15:41 ◼   ► So if you're listening to me and being like,

01:15:42 ◼   ► "Myke, you don't know how to explain this."

01:15:44 ◼   ► Yes, I don't know how to explain this,

01:15:46 ◼   ► but I'm just trying my best.

01:15:47 ◼   ► So it gives you a lot of, it gives you some leeway,

01:15:50 ◼   ► basically, to apply sorta to things that are very tiny,

01:15:53 ◼   ► that would otherwise be really, really hard to do.

01:15:56 ◼   ► This was very intimidating to me,

01:15:58 ◼   ► because it was nothing like what I'd learned,

01:16:01 ◼   ► but I did it and it worked.

01:16:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I've done sorting of very tiny components

01:16:05 ◼   ► and larger components.

01:16:06 ◼   ► So like, I feel like, especially around keyboard stuff now,

01:16:09 ◼   ► if it's just like, you've got to sort of this,

01:16:11 ◼   ► like it's like, yeah, I can work this out.

01:16:13 ◼   ► And I've gotten to the point with it

01:16:14 ◼   ► where I understand that even though this seems

01:16:17 ◼   ► like very complex and daunting technology,

01:16:20 ◼   ► it's actually like one of the more basic kind of brutal

01:16:24 ◼   ► kind of ways of dealing with technology.

01:16:26 ◼   ► Where like you do not have to be perfect

01:16:29 ◼   ► to get this to work.

01:16:30 ◼   ► you can be very clumsy and get it to work.

01:16:33 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

01:16:34 ◼   ► - And I kinda like that about it.

01:16:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, so soldering is pretty forgiving

01:16:37 ◼   ► as far as these things go.

01:16:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's genuinely one of the things I love about it.

01:16:41 ◼   ► You can be really messy and really bad,

01:16:44 ◼   ► but you can still work, 'cause it's very forgiving, I find.

01:16:49 ◼   ► You must have this all the time though, right?

01:16:50 ◼   ► Learning things from zero?

01:16:52 ◼   ► - Well, so now, like--

01:16:53 ◼   ► - I would just assume that you'd consider this

01:16:55 ◼   ► part of your job.

01:16:56 ◼   ► - I feel like you have an answer there,

01:16:58 ◼   ► which is what this question is trying to get at,

01:16:59 ◼   ► which is like a skill, right?

01:17:01 ◼   ► On your character sheet, like what skills

01:17:03 ◼   ► do you have listed?

01:17:04 ◼   ► Soldering, I always have a hard time saying.

01:17:07 ◼   ► - I, it's terrible.

01:17:08 ◼   ► Soldering, soldering?

01:17:10 ◼   ► - Soldering, I've always had that,

01:17:12 ◼   ► 'cause it's also like, the way it is in my head

01:17:14 ◼   ► is not the way that it's written on the page.

01:17:15 ◼   ► - Also, I believe in the UK, it is soldering.

01:17:20 ◼   ► - Is that, okay.

01:17:21 ◼   ► - Right, so, but I only ever really hear Americans

01:17:24 ◼   ► say it from when I was learning,

01:17:26 ◼   ► and so I say soldering,

01:17:28 ◼   ► And that is one of these things that I say to British people

01:17:31 ◼   ► and they're like, "What are you saying?

01:17:32 ◼   ► What's wrong with you?"

01:17:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, so soldering is a skill that you have on a sheet.

01:17:38 ◼   ► Like it's a thing that you can do.

01:17:39 ◼   ► Hey, my keyboard's broken, you can fix it.

01:17:42 ◼   ► I feel like that's what this question is kind of getting at.

01:17:45 ◼   ► So I draw a very strong distinction

01:17:47 ◼   ► between learning how to and learning about.

01:17:52 ◼   ► And I think what most people do most of the time

01:17:56 ◼   ► that they learn about a thing. And learning how to is a way smaller section of what people

01:18:04 ◼   ► spend time learning. So I feel like the spirit of this question is a how to question, it's

01:18:09 ◼   ► not about. So I don't regard anything that I've done in terms of the videos like that,

01:18:13 ◼   ► right? This is learning about, it's not learning how to. Honestly, probably the like the closest

01:18:20 ◼   ► thing I would have as an answer to this question is streaming is like I learned how to stream

01:18:26 ◼   ► - Did you?

01:18:27 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:18:27 ◼   ► Is mine, did you?

01:18:28 ◼   ► - I was like, I know Myke's gonna give me

01:18:30 ◼   ► a really hard time like this.

01:18:32 ◼   ► Which I'm like, okay, try to bring it up.

01:18:34 ◼   ► But I genuinely think that's like the closest how to

01:18:39 ◼   ► in a long time.

01:18:40 ◼   ► - No, you know how to do it most of the time.

01:18:42 ◼   ► It's the technology that you use is creating

01:18:45 ◼   ► a bad environment for you.

01:18:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was trying to think about like the closest thing

01:18:49 ◼   ► earlier to that that I could think of is,

01:18:51 ◼   ► I mean, this is years ago now,

01:18:53 ◼   ► but I was teaching myself how to edit videos

01:18:56 ◼   ► with Adobe Premiere instead of using Final Cut

01:18:59 ◼   ► when I was a little bit worried

01:19:00 ◼   ► that Final Cut was just abandonware.

01:19:02 ◼   ► And Apple has totally turned that around

01:19:04 ◼   ► in the best of all possible ways.

01:19:06 ◼   ► But prior to streaming, I think that's the closest

01:19:09 ◼   ► and that does not count as from zero

01:19:11 ◼   ► because I've already had a ton of concepts in my head

01:19:13 ◼   ► about video editing.

01:19:14 ◼   ► - I would say streaming is a good one though

01:19:16 ◼   ► because it's not just a technical thing.

01:19:19 ◼   ► It's not just a practical thing.

01:19:21 ◼   ► There's like a mentality to it.

01:19:23 ◼   ► - Yeah. - That like,

01:19:24 ◼   ► you really displayed in the Minecraft streams,

01:19:26 ◼   ► those days of yore, that feels like forever ago.

01:19:30 ◼   ► - Yeah. - When you were streaming

01:19:31 ◼   ► Minecraft and like, calling out your subs and stuff,

01:19:34 ◼   ► you know? - Yeah, there is

01:19:35 ◼   ► a whole mindset of it, which I do still feel like

01:19:38 ◼   ► I haven't quite gotten fully, but it is a kind of skill.

01:19:41 ◼   ► There's ways to obviously do it badly,

01:19:43 ◼   ► and there's ways to do it better.

01:19:45 ◼   ► But I just wanna mention here,

01:19:47 ◼   ► it's worth thinking about that.

01:19:49 ◼   ► It should be true in the arc of your life

01:19:51 ◼   ► that you do way more of learning how to at the beginning and way less at toward the end.

01:19:58 ◼   ► Basically, this is called like an explore-exploit algorithm, where you have a computer program and you're trying to figure out like,

01:20:06 ◼   ► "Oh, you want to get a bunch of resources out of a particular area.

01:20:09 ◼   ► How much time do you spend exploring versus how much time do you spend exploiting a known resource?"

01:20:15 ◼   ► I feel like the example that's usually used is like squirrels finding trees that have lots of nuts in them.

01:20:20 ◼   ► Like, how much time do you spend exploring new trees?

01:20:23 ◼   ► How much time do you spend exploiting trees where you found nuts?

01:20:26 ◼   ► And this is like the course of a human career, right?

01:20:29 ◼   ► You spend time exploring at the beginning, but you should spend the

01:20:35 ◼   ► vast majority of your time exploiting the tools and abilities that

01:20:39 ◼   ► you have found and developed.

01:20:41 ◼   ► I think that that's useful to keep in mind because it can kind of be a

01:20:44 ◼   ► weird transition when you leave school or a couple of years into your career.

01:20:50 ◼   ► Like I think a lot of people do get that feeling of like, oh, I haven't

01:20:53 ◼   ► learned anything new or I haven't learned any brand new skills from zero.

01:20:58 ◼   ► And I'm not saying that like the number of skills you should pick up should be

01:21:03 ◼   ► zero, but you should spend the vast majority of your time, like exploiting

01:21:09 ◼   ► the preexisting skills that you have.

01:21:12 ◼   ► And you shouldn't necessarily feel guilty for like not picking up a bunch of new

01:21:17 ◼   ► ones, which is why I can say like very comfortably, like streaming

01:21:21 ◼   ► barely counts as a new skill.

01:21:24 ◼   ► And if we skip past that one, it's like my list of new how tos in a real meaningful

01:21:31 ◼   ► way is like very thin for a long time.

01:21:34 ◼   ► And I'm perfectly fine with that because I feel like I'm exploiting a bunch of

01:21:39 ◼   ► skills that I have already developed and have, and I just think that's useful to

01:21:43 ◼   ► think about in terms of how careers and how life goes.

01:21:47 ◼   ► Picking another one?

01:21:48 ◼   ► No, you have to pick one now.

01:21:49 ◼   ► I picked two.

01:21:50 ◼   ► I picked two in a row, Myke.

01:21:51 ◼   ► Full control.

01:21:52 ◼   ► Full control.

01:21:53 ◼   ► I didn't ask for – why do I – look, I've never had full control in a Q&A before.

01:21:56 ◼   ► Like, this is ridiculous.

01:21:57 ◼   ► What do you mean you don't have full control in a Q&A?

01:22:00 ◼   ► If I ask you a question you don't want to answer, you say, "I'm not going to answer

01:22:02 ◼   ► that."

01:22:03 ◼   ► That's full control.

01:22:04 ◼   ► No, that's veto power.

01:22:05 ◼   ► Isn't veto power technically full control?

01:22:08 ◼   ► I feel like there's some subtle differences here.

01:22:12 ◼   ► But isn't the end result the same?

01:22:14 ◼   ► Yes, the end result is the same.

01:22:16 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:22:17 ◼   ► It's full control while leaning back in a chair.

01:22:21 ◼   ► That's what veto power is.

01:22:22 ◼   ► No, no, no.

01:22:23 ◼   ► - Come on, pick another one.

01:22:24 ◼   ► - Okay, oh, I can actually just answer this one

01:22:27 ◼   ► really quickly.

01:22:28 ◼   ► Adam wants to know, have either of you heard of

01:22:30 ◼   ► or used the Remarkable tablet?

01:22:32 ◼   ► Have you come across that one, Myke?

01:22:34 ◼   ► - I mean, I'm on Instagram, so I get the ads every day.

01:22:37 ◼   ► - Oh, is this like a big Instagram thing?

01:22:39 ◼   ► - I don't know if it's like,

01:22:40 ◼   ► they advertise to me personally very aggressively.

01:22:44 ◼   ► Like I get served ads for the Remarkable a lot.

01:22:47 ◼   ► The Remarkable is a e-ink tablet.

01:22:51 ◼   ► There's a pen, you can take notes on it,

01:22:53 ◼   ► you can read on it, that kind of stuff.

01:22:56 ◼   ► - Are you tempted at all?

01:22:57 ◼   ► - I'm intrigued.

01:22:58 ◼   ► - You're intrigued?

01:22:59 ◼   ► - Yes, but I'm not three, 400 pounds intrigued.

01:23:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's fair.

01:23:05 ◼   ► I went to a conference and I sat next to a guy

01:23:08 ◼   ► who was using one.

01:23:09 ◼   ► I'd never seen or heard of it before.

01:23:11 ◼   ► Apparently I don't spend enough time on Instagram.

01:23:14 ◼   ► And of course, this poor person sitting next to me, I was like, "What is that?"

01:23:19 ◼   ► And explain everything about it to me.

01:23:21 ◼   ► Cause it looks really cool.

01:23:23 ◼   ► Like it's very interesting to see.

01:23:24 ◼   ► Oh, it's a Kindle you can write on.

01:23:26 ◼   ► That's amazing.

01:23:27 ◼   ► I was really impressed with the latency.

01:23:29 ◼   ► It did way better than I would have expected an E Ink screen to do.

01:23:32 ◼   ► There was a lot of things that were really cool about it.

01:23:35 ◼   ► I was extremely intrigued, but for me, the falling down part is just sinking back out.

01:23:42 ◼   ► Like how do you get things out of here that you have worked on?

01:23:46 ◼   ► Okay.

01:23:47 ◼   ► And it's not that they didn't have a bunch of options, but none of them would line up with the way that I would need or want them to work.

01:23:53 ◼   ► So,

01:23:54 ◼   ► Well, what do you want?

01:23:55 ◼   ► Look, Myke, that's a very complicated question.

01:23:57 ◼   ► We're not going to get into it right now.

01:23:58 ◼   ► I mean, like, because they say they've added support for like Dropbox and Google Drive and stuff.

01:24:02 ◼   ► Yes.

01:24:03 ◼   ► Yes, I understand that.

01:24:05 ◼   ► This is why I think for anyone who's intrigued by it, it probably would be a good idea.

01:24:11 ◼   ► but I'm looking for very particular things with the way that I'm working with my scripts

01:24:15 ◼   ► and how those scripts are syncing and also with multiple people.

01:24:18 ◼   ► So like, I just have a much more complicated problem that this can't solve in its current form.

01:24:24 ◼   ► Somebody's built Obsidium integration.

01:24:27 ◼   ► Okay, this is getting closer, but still, like, again, look Myke, this is just like,

01:24:32 ◼   ► we don't need to talk about rotational inertia in a video,

01:24:35 ◼   ► like we don't need to talk about the exact details of what it is that I'm trying to do.

01:24:38 ◼   ► - Okay, this is one of those things where

01:24:40 ◼   ► Myke is personally intrigued, right?

01:24:42 ◼   ► Not about like, do I think this is interesting content?

01:24:45 ◼   ► 'Cause look, I am very interested by this thing

01:24:48 ◼   ► and like, I don't know, but for me, it's like,

01:24:51 ◼   ► I don't know what I would use it for.

01:24:52 ◼   ► This is the reason that I've never progressed, right?

01:24:55 ◼   ► Because I don't use my Apple pencil

01:24:57 ◼   ► or my iPad enough, I feel like, right?

01:24:59 ◼   ► So the reason I put this in a document is I was interested

01:25:03 ◼   ► if you have ever considered it

01:25:04 ◼   ► for like script annotation stuff.

01:25:07 ◼   ► Oh yeah, that is 100% what I would want to use it for.

01:25:11 ◼   ► The problem is, I don't know,

01:25:13 ◼   ► this is more like state of the apps later in the year.

01:25:15 ◼   ► Okay, so here's the workflow that I want is

01:25:19 ◼   ► I want to export a PDF of the document

01:25:24 ◼   ► that I'm working on in Obsidian, the current script.

01:25:27 ◼   ► And then I wanna take that PDF and mark it up.

01:25:29 ◼   ► So even just like with my iPad, right?

01:25:31 ◼   ► I just wanna mark it up with the iPad.

01:25:33 ◼   ► I then want to send that PDF to my assistant, who will make all of the changes on the text

01:25:41 ◼   ► file the PDF was generated from.

01:25:44 ◼   ► And that's the part where it fails.

01:25:47 ◼   ► There's no good way to give her access to the Obsidian files that I'm working on that

01:25:55 ◼   ► also allows Obsidian to sync between all of my devices without also giving her—what

01:26:03 ◼   ► the current state of it. I think I would need to give her the entire Obsidian database,

01:26:08 ◼   ► which I just don't want to do for many reasons because it's just like this horrific spiderweb

01:26:14 ◼   ► of thousands of documents that can go wrong.

01:26:16 ◼   ► Myke- Yeah, because it's- Obsidian is an app for hoarders.

01:26:19 ◼   ► Will- Well, Myke, I think that's a little bit unfair.

01:26:21 ◼   ► Myke- No, I don't think it's unfair at all.

01:26:24 ◼   ► Will- It's just like, it's way too high stakes for something to go wrong at this point.

01:26:31 ◼   ► I'm lost as to why is this a problem with the remarkable?

01:26:34 ◼   ► Well, because the remarkable has the same issue of, ultimately, it's not the issue of marking it up.

01:26:39 ◼   ► The thing that's actually the problem is getting the corrections back into my system.

01:26:45 ◼   ► So it doesn't have anything to do with how am I marking the thing up.

01:26:48 ◼   ► It's right now, it's extremely clunky to get changes back into Obsidian.

01:26:53 ◼   ► That's where the issue is.

01:26:54 ◼   ► But isn't that a problem no matter what you use?

01:26:57 ◼   ► Yes, exactly.

01:26:58 ◼   ► But that's why I'm saying, like, I don't do this enough because there's a different problem.

01:27:03 ◼   ► If I was able to solve this different problem, the remarkable might totally work for me and I would

01:27:07 ◼   ► use it. But I can't get that last, like, how does she make changes on a text document in my Obsidian

01:27:16 ◼   ► without also having access to the entire Obsidian? Like, I just want her to have

01:27:21 ◼   ► access to a subsection of the files. - I feel stupid here.

01:27:24 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Because I feel like

01:27:26 ◼   ► I'm getting lost or something. How are you currently doing it then?

01:27:29 ◼   ► Currently, this is the whole thing, I would like to do this way more, but I've only done it

01:27:35 ◼   ► a handful of times in the last two years because it's so much of a pain in the butt.

01:27:40 ◼   ► And when we do it, it's by manually copying the text file for her to edit, and then I'm like

01:27:47 ◼   ► copy pasting back the text file into my own system, which is just, it's not good. We also

01:27:53 ◼   ► run into because often the text editing is being done in a Windows system, there's slightly

01:27:57 ◼   ► different encoding systems for text files between Windows and here, so it's like, it's

01:28:03 ◼   ► almost exactly formatted the way I like everything formatted but not quite, which is an annoying

01:28:08 ◼   ► distraction when I'm then going to re-edit the file itself.

01:28:11 ◼   ► There's just like a thousand little tiny things.

01:28:13 ◼   ► You should use Kraft.

01:28:17 ◼   ► This is not State of the Apps, Myke.

01:28:18 ◼   ► I know, but we've got months before we do that.

01:28:21 ◼   ► Because if you used craft they could edit it on the web.

01:28:24 ◼   ► Or even Google docs, like why don't you use Google docs?

01:28:27 ◼   ► - Because I want the script, okay look,

01:28:31 ◼   ► I have been thinking about maybe breaking this

01:28:33 ◼   ► for this part.

01:28:34 ◼   ► The question is, do I separate out the scripts

01:28:39 ◼   ► from all of the other documents in Obsidian?

01:28:42 ◼   ► - I think once you've gotten to a script,

01:28:44 ◼   ► to a point where like this script is ready

01:28:46 ◼   ► for others to see, it has to leave the siloed application.

01:28:50 ◼   ► No, it doesn't have to leave the silent application.

01:28:52 ◼   ► Yes it does.

01:28:53 ◼   ► No, I haven't had it been leaving the silent application.

01:28:55 ◼   ► Well then no one's looking at it, are they?

01:28:56 ◼   ► It can stay right in there, right?

01:28:57 ◼   ► It's perfectly fine.

01:28:58 ◼   ► Right, but then it's just you, right?

01:29:00 ◼   ► You can keep it in there, but then no one can look at it.

01:29:03 ◼   ► Right, exactly.

01:29:04 ◼   ► Well, this is a choice you need to make.

01:29:06 ◼   ► Do you want other people to look at them?

01:29:08 ◼   ► Oh no, oh no.

01:29:09 ◼   ► But this is the whole reason that I moved to Obsidian in the first place, is there

01:29:15 ◼   ► are big advantages from my perspective while working on projects to have scripts and notes

01:29:22 ◼   ► in the same place.

01:29:24 ◼   ► And like this…

01:29:26 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:29:27 ◼   ► But why does it need to… like okay, at the moment where you've decided somebody else

01:29:33 ◼   ► needs to see this, can't you just like off-board it to a thing and then when it's done, bring

01:29:37 ◼   ► it back?

01:29:40 ◼   ► That is what we are currently doing.

01:29:42 ◼   ► But it is a real pain.

01:29:45 ◼   ► It's very annoying to do.

01:29:47 ◼   ► It slows down things.

01:29:49 ◼   ► It introduces weird text encoding problems as well.

01:29:52 ◼   ► Maybe Obsidian is the wrong app, you know what I mean?

01:29:54 ◼   ► No, but you still listen.

01:29:56 ◼   ► God damn it.

01:29:59 ◼   ► This is, look, this is my one problem with my current system.

01:30:05 ◼   ► And also, like, I know full well, my use case here is crazy niche.

01:30:10 ◼   ► So like, I'm not expecting anyone.

01:30:11 ◼   ► think so at all? You don't think this is- What, collaboration on a document? That's not-

01:30:17 ◼   ► that's like, not cool! No, no, the way you're framing that there is blowing past all of the

01:30:22 ◼   ► important things. It's collaboration on a document in Obsidian, but only a small section of the

01:30:29 ◼   ► Obsidian vault, not the whole thing. I don't think this is wild at all. This seems like a very valid

01:30:34 ◼   ► use case for me, that somebody has a document in their Obsidian, you call it a vault, I assume

01:30:40 ◼   ► that's what they're called then.

01:30:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, it just means the folder with all the stuff, sorry.

01:30:44 ◼   ► - That they wanna share with someone to work on,

01:30:46 ◼   ► but doesn't wanna give them full access to their Obsidian,

01:30:49 ◼   ► so all of the links are removed from what the person views.

01:30:52 ◼   ► I don't know, this seems pretty obvious to me.

01:30:55 ◼   ► I don't imagine it's easy to build,

01:30:57 ◼   ► but considering this thing is mostly web technologies,

01:31:01 ◼   ► seems possible, 'cause all of these things exist on the web.

01:31:06 ◼   ► It's obscured, but it's on the web.

01:31:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, and again, part of the issue here

01:31:12 ◼   ► is that Obsidian's big selling feature

01:31:14 ◼   ► is that it is your files on your computer.

01:31:17 ◼   ► It's not like a Google Docs, right?

01:31:18 ◼   ► It's not where everything is in the web.

01:31:20 ◼   ► It's very specifically local syncing of all of your files.

01:31:25 ◼   ► This is why I guess we're,

01:31:26 ◼   ► we don't need to talk about all of this.

01:31:26 ◼   ► - But they have a sync system though, right?

01:31:28 ◼   ► Or is it just syncing changes?

01:31:29 ◼   ► 'Cause they have Obsidian sync, right?

01:31:31 ◼   ► What is that doing then?

01:31:32 ◼   ► - They do have Obsidian sync.

01:31:34 ◼   ► I'm under the impression

01:31:35 ◼   ► that they're just syncing changes there.

01:31:36 ◼   ► I could be wrong.

01:31:37 ◼   ► But you could, in theory though, share, but you don't want to share the Dropbox thing

01:31:42 ◼   ► with someone.

01:31:43 ◼   ► Well, okay, so Obsidian, when they moved, when they rolled out the Obsidian sync, they

01:31:48 ◼   ► deprecated Dropbox as a syncing option.

01:31:51 ◼   ► So the two options for syncing are iCloud or the Obsidian sync system.

01:31:56 ◼   ► And iCloud doesn't let you go like, "Hey, I want to let someone have access to this

01:32:00 ◼   ► one subfolder inside this whole thing."

01:32:02 ◼   ► I mean, honestly, if that's the case, then I feel like with Obsidian sync, there should

01:32:06 ◼   ► be a way for somebody to be able to collaborate like that.

01:32:08 ◼   ► That should be a thing that they should work on.

01:32:10 ◼   ► - Okay, I'll add it to the feature request then.

01:32:12 ◼   ► I'll put that on there.

01:32:13 ◼   ► But I just feel like--

01:32:14 ◼   ► - It's gotta be something that they've heard a billion times

01:32:17 ◼   ► like that people want collaboration.

01:32:19 ◼   ► - I'm not convinced because you know why Myke,

01:32:21 ◼   ► Obsidian is an application for individual weirdo hoarders

01:32:24 ◼   ► who all have their own crazy system.

01:32:26 ◼   ► And it's just like everything about the app seems

01:32:29 ◼   ► anti a bunch of people working on it.

01:32:31 ◼   ► - I just searched collaboration on the forum

01:32:34 ◼   ► when there's lots of posts about people wanting collaboration.

01:32:37 ◼   ► It has been labeled as a valuable feature request,

01:32:40 ◼   ► apparently, whatever that means.

01:32:41 ◼   ► - (laughs)

01:32:42 ◼   ► It's like, that sounds like a no thanks kind of comment,

01:32:46 ◼   ► right?

01:32:47 ◼   ► We'll consider your feature request, but.

01:32:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know.

01:32:49 ◼   ► Like I feel like if a text editing thing these days,

01:32:52 ◼   ► collaboration is important.

01:32:54 ◼   ► That's why I thought of craft, right?

01:32:56 ◼   ► Like I know craft is different,

01:32:58 ◼   ► but I know it also has some overlaps with what Obsidian does

01:33:00 ◼   ► like the linking between notes and stuff.

01:33:03 ◼   ► And Kraft is very good at the collaboration,

01:33:07 ◼   ► to the point of like,

01:33:09 ◼   ► you can share an entire database with somebody,

01:33:11 ◼   ► or every note you can create a collaborative version for

01:33:16 ◼   ► on the web, and it's awesome.

01:33:22 ◼   ► Because, I mean, I use it, and I've used it with you, right?

01:33:26 ◼   ► I keep all of the Cortex brand stuff in Kraft,

01:33:28 ◼   ► and I've shared with you, and with your assistant,

01:33:32 ◼   ► some notes and their secret note links only available like in a kind of a Google Docs

01:33:37 ◼   ► way to people that have the URL and then I can choose if they can update it or not. That

01:33:42 ◼   ► stuff they're like pushing further into it. I feel like Obsidian's got to get on that

01:33:46 ◼   ► train because if they don't I don't know I feel like someone's going to come along and

01:33:50 ◼   ► take it from them because it seems I don't know it's just if you're making if I have

01:33:56 ◼   ► people writing their magnum opus inside of this application I just feel like the ability

01:34:02 ◼   ► to share a document with somebody else.

01:34:04 ◼   ► I don't know, it seems pretty important.

01:34:06 ◼   ► But this has got nothing to do with the remarkable.

01:34:09 ◼   ► All of this has got nothing to do with the remarkable at all.

01:34:12 ◼   ► - Right, but that's why I'm saying it's like,

01:34:14 ◼   ► I'm intrigued by the remarkable,

01:34:17 ◼   ► but I have a different problem

01:34:18 ◼   ► that like, precedes even getting it, right?

01:34:21 ◼   ► Otherwise, there's no point in having it.

01:34:23 ◼   ► - But you must be doing something,

01:34:24 ◼   ► like the script markup is not not happening because of this.

01:34:29 ◼   ► - It is happening way less frequently

01:34:31 ◼   ► then it should be happening.

01:34:33 ◼   ► The friction of this has made it like,

01:34:36 ◼   ► oh okay, I'll do this once on each of the scripts now.

01:34:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I feel like you should be taking

01:34:42 ◼   ► the completed draft out of Obsidian,

01:34:45 ◼   ► putting it somewhere that's shareable,

01:34:46 ◼   ► and then having a better flow.

01:34:49 ◼   ► - Yes, I understand, I understand.

01:34:51 ◼   ► Look, I just wanna get into all that.

01:34:53 ◼   ► I will just argue that the advantage

01:34:57 ◼   ► of having it all in one place is that

01:35:00 ◼   ► it is not always as clear as you might imagine

01:35:04 ◼   ► when something is a script and when something is not a script.

01:35:07 ◼   ► And so being able to jump around between different things

01:35:10 ◼   ► in the same application is really useful.

01:35:13 ◼   ► -Yeah, sure. I would say, at the point

01:35:14 ◼   ► that you feel like you want to share it with someone,

01:35:17 ◼   ► that's the point that it needs to leave

01:35:18 ◼   ► because the application that you've gone all in on

01:35:20 ◼   ► that's now failing you doesn't allow for collaboration.

01:35:24 ◼   ► So I feel like, at the point where you're like,

01:35:26 ◼   ► "Oh, Assistant or fact-checker

01:35:28 ◼   ► would be good to see this document,

01:35:30 ◼   ► well, then it should leave Obsidian

01:35:33 ◼   ► because Obsidian can't do that.

01:35:35 ◼   ► It's like Sasami knife,

01:35:37 ◼   ► but it's lost the corkscrew or something, you know?

01:35:40 ◼   ► - I know that you're right,

01:35:41 ◼   ► and I don't want you to be right.

01:35:43 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:35:44 ◼   ► - Always is fun for me.

01:35:45 ◼   ► I wasn't expecting this to be the conversation

01:35:47 ◼   ► that came out of, have you tried the E Ink tablet?

01:35:50 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:35:51 ◼   ► - I just wanted to say, oh, I've seen it.

01:35:53 ◼   ► It looks cool, but it's not for me.

01:35:55 ◼   ► - I've seen it and I think it looks cool,

01:35:57 ◼   ► but I don't have a use for it.

01:35:59 ◼   ► For me, where this would be incredibly useful

01:36:01 ◼   ► is if they could do something

01:36:02 ◼   ► that is no way they could possibly do it,

01:36:03 ◼   ► which is let me mark up Kindle books.

01:36:06 ◼   ► Like they have EPUBs, right?

01:36:09 ◼   ► But not Kindle books.

01:36:10 ◼   ► If Amazon made this thing, I would be more interested.

01:36:13 ◼   ► Right? - Yeah.

01:36:14 ◼   ► - Because if I'm buying an ebook, I'm getting a Kindle book.

01:36:18 ◼   ► Like that's just because I'm just in on that, right?

01:36:21 ◼   ► Like, of course, this is Amazon's whole thing.

01:36:24 ◼   ► I'm intrigued by it.

01:36:25 ◼   ► You know, like the things that I will,

01:36:27 ◼   ► this is not gonna feel like paper and pen, right?

01:36:29 ◼   ► Like everyone tries to show you

01:36:30 ◼   ► these things feel like paper and pen,

01:36:31 ◼   ► they don't feel like paper and pen.

01:36:32 ◼   ► It might feel better, I'm sure it feel more like it,

01:36:35 ◼   ► but it's not gonna feel like it, right?

01:36:38 ◼   ► It's not gonna feel like writing on a glass screen

01:36:40 ◼   ► because it isn't a glass screen.

01:36:42 ◼   ► So that might feel nicer, but you know,

01:36:44 ◼   ► they call it a paper-like surface.

01:36:46 ◼   ► It definitely doesn't have a paper-like surface.

01:36:48 ◼   ► It will have just like a matte surface,

01:36:49 ◼   ► which would be different to a glass surface.

01:36:52 ◼   ► And I believe them that I bet it's much, much easier

01:36:55 ◼   ► to read in sunlight because there's no backlight. So that's funny, they say no glare or backlight

01:36:59 ◼   ► as like a pro. It's also a con, it means you can't see it if it's dark, right? Like, I'm

01:37:06 ◼   ► sure that it's nice for you if you are sitting by the pool and reading, but if you're in

01:37:10 ◼   ► a dimly lit room, well I'm sorry, this isn't going to work for you anymore. I think you

01:37:15 ◼   ► should get one of these and solve your sinking problem. These are two separate things by

01:37:20 ◼   ► the way, getting one of these to solve your sinking problem.

01:37:22 ◼   ► I'll look into that.

01:37:23 ◼   ► [