Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► Let me just put my list of a thousand notes on the screen.

00:00:03 ◼   ► Close down this Google Earth that has Hawaii in the center of the Pacific Ocean.

00:00:08 ◼   ► You should stop opening that.

00:00:09 ◼   ► Like, I don't think that's good for you to keep looking at that.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Look, when you open up the map, it centers on where you are.

00:00:16 ◼   ► The answer is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Why do you need Google Earth open all the time?

00:00:20 ◼   ► I'm actually using it for a video that I'm working on.

00:00:23 ◼   ► So that's why I keep opening up Google Earth.

00:00:25 ◼   ► And then it's like, hey, have you seen that Hawaii exists in the middle

00:00:29 ◼   ► of the biggest expanse of nothing on the face of the Earth?

00:00:31 ◼   ► Yes, Google Earth, I have seen that.

00:00:33 ◼   ► I think about it all the time.

00:00:35 ◼   ► - So you know me and Steven have a show on Genius, right?

00:00:38 ◼   ► Wikipedia article things.

00:00:39 ◼   ► We just did one about the,

00:00:41 ◼   ► I think it's called the spaceship graveyard, I think.

00:00:43 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah.

00:00:44 ◼   ► - Which is this part in the Pacific Ocean

00:00:46 ◼   ► where everybody just aims their satellites

00:00:48 ◼   ► and rockets towards,

00:00:50 ◼   ► 'cause it's so big in an expanse of nothingness

00:00:54 ◼   ► that you can just put everything there

00:00:56 ◼   ► and it's apparently quote unquote fine.

00:00:58 ◼   ► That'll be fun for future alien archeologists.

00:01:00 ◼   ► Why did they put all these machines

00:01:02 ◼   ► in the bottom of the ocean here?

00:01:04 ◼   ► - Oh, this is how you get to like an Atlantis type thing.

00:01:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:01:08 ◼   ► - Why did this civilization

00:01:10 ◼   ► have this underwater rocket launching pad

00:01:13 ◼   ► where clearly there was a horrific explosion?

00:01:15 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:16 ◼   ► - Good luck alien archeologists.

00:01:18 ◼   ► - It's in the South Pacific Ocean Uninhibited Area.

00:01:22 ◼   ► - Right.

00:01:23 ◼   ► - That's its full name or spacecraft cemetery.

00:01:25 ◼   ► - Much better.

00:01:27 ◼   ► We have today probably the wildest time difference that we could have had and have definitely ever had.

00:01:35 ◼   ► Yeah. We're two hours short of the maximum time difference.

00:01:39 ◼   ► Oh, is that true?

00:01:40 ◼   ► I think we're 10 hours off right now.

00:01:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:42 ◼   ► It's 11 a.m. for me and it's...

00:01:44 ◼   ► South past 9 for me.

00:01:45 ◼   ► We'll be... next time we record, because I will still be in Hawaii,

00:01:50 ◼   ► and because Hawaii doesn't do Daylight Savings Time, but the UK does,

00:01:54 ◼   ► Then we will be one hour off of the maximum difference that we could be.

00:01:59 ◼   ► So we'll be 11 hours off next time.

00:02:00 ◼   ► I didn't know that.

00:02:01 ◼   ► Is that just because of like just the way that land masses are?

00:02:04 ◼   ► Like you would never be no matter where you are that like more than 12 hours or whatever?

00:02:09 ◼   ► Is that is that the case?

00:02:11 ◼   ► Yeah that's that's got it right?

00:02:12 ◼   ► Am I doing that right?

00:02:13 ◼   ► I have no idea man.

00:02:14 ◼   ► I've never I've never even thought about that before.

00:02:17 ◼   ► I just figured like you could be anywhere within 24.

00:02:20 ◼   ► Yeah, but if you're within 24, you start getting closer because you're the other way, right?

00:02:25 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:02:27 ◼   ► You're less hours apart because you're closer together.

00:02:30 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:02:32 ◼   ► So that's why we're two...

00:02:33 ◼   ► Yeah, you would never be like 13 hours behind.

00:02:37 ◼   ► Right.

00:02:38 ◼   ► Or whatever it would be, like you would then move the other direction.

00:02:41 ◼   ► I get it now, yeah.

00:02:42 ◼   ► Right, so I think if for the next recording, I think if you go to Romania, I'm gonna guess,

00:02:49 ◼   ► because I think they're an additional hour ahead.

00:02:50 ◼   ► No, it's two.

00:02:51 ◼   ► Okay, right.

00:02:52 ◼   ► If you were in Romania now, then,

00:02:54 ◼   ► we would be the furthest away that we could possibly be.

00:02:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:57 ◼   ► But if you went any further east,

00:02:59 ◼   ► you would start coming closer to me.

00:03:01 ◼   ► So that's how that works.

00:03:02 ◼   ► I will say as well, like,

00:03:03 ◼   ► you are so far away physically and in time,

00:03:06 ◼   ► but it genuinely, to me, doesn't sound like you're any further.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Like, I know why that is,

00:03:12 ◼   ► but like, it's just so fascinating to me sometimes.

00:03:14 ◼   ► Like, you're so far away from me,

00:03:17 ◼   ► But you could just tell me you were at home and I wouldn't know.

00:03:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:21 ◼   ► Like, just from having this conversation, this call.

00:03:23 ◼   ► I mean, maybe when I get the audio back, I'll hear, like, some kind of wildlife behind you,

00:03:27 ◼   ► which is always a possibility, but, like, over this Skype call, like, it just sounds exactly the same.

00:03:33 ◼   ► It's like, in my mind, I imagine there's going to be this, like, long delay or, like...

00:03:37 ◼   ► But it's just weird. It's just, like, a funny thing.

00:03:39 ◼   ► Yeah. Thanks, internet.

00:03:40 ◼   ► Hey, look, it's late for me right now. Maybe I'm a little loopy.

00:03:43 ◼   ► I don't record podcasts this late anymore, which is a good thing in my life.

00:03:47 ◼   ► I used to record podcasts this late a lot, but not anymore.

00:03:51 ◼   ► Yeah. Next time we record, you might hear mooing

00:03:53 ◼   ► because there's cows that are right outside of my window,

00:03:56 ◼   ► but they're not there today because there's currently a tropical storm warning

00:04:01 ◼   ► and there's 50 mile an hour winds outside my window.

00:04:04 ◼   ► So all of the cows are in some shelter somewhere else.

00:04:06 ◼   ► Yeah, in true, like, cortex fashion, like, there's never just one problem.

00:04:11 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:04:14 ◼   ► That is like a real thing for us.

00:04:16 ◼   ► There is never one problem for our recordings.

00:04:19 ◼   ► There's always like multiple problems.

00:04:21 ◼   ► Now when you phrase it this way, yeah, it's like, "Oh, right.

00:04:24 ◼   ► Yes, the wind knocked out the internet a little bit this morning,

00:04:28 ◼   ► but also I had to go move a water trough away from an electric fence

00:04:33 ◼   ► moments before starting recording."

00:04:34 ◼   ► I'm like, "Hold on a minute. I'll be right back."

00:04:37 ◼   ► But it's the same as when I was away, right?

00:04:38 ◼   ► like, "Oh, I'm away, I'm recording for a couple of hours, I'm on a different time zone, I don't

00:04:45 ◼   ► have a good environment to record in, I don't have good internet, I'm going to Disneyland later on,

00:04:50 ◼   ► oh and now I also need to get a COVID test." Like it was like, there's never just like one thing,

00:04:54 ◼   ► there's always like a staged amount of thing, but yeah, you had like Ray Texie today and he's like,

00:04:59 ◼   ► "So the internet's out now, uh, because it's a tropical storm."

00:05:06 ◼   ► Yeah, but it's all good now and it is the gift of the modern world that we can have a conversation

00:05:12 ◼   ► and it does just sound like, "Oh, you could be down the street!" And it doesn't sound like I'm

00:05:16 ◼   ► talking to you through like a tin can on a string from the middle of the ocean, which is what it

00:05:23 ◼   ► seems like it should sound like.

00:05:24 ◼   ► [Ding]

00:05:25 ◼   ► So I have a follow-up/story for you.

00:05:28 ◼   ► I condensed down to the one tech kit.

00:05:30 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:05:31 ◼   ► So if you remember last time I had the tech kit, the bow-ray tech kit and the bow-ray pouch.

00:05:35 ◼   ► And by removing the external battery from my tech kit,

00:05:40 ◼   ► I was able to get all the cables that I needed.

00:05:43 ◼   ► I will say that the Bellroy pouch was like fit to burst,

00:05:47 ◼   ► but I got everything I need in it, went in the bag,

00:05:49 ◼   ► had more space in the backpack, very happy.

00:05:52 ◼   ► So the little extra pouch and the battery they sent home,

00:05:55 ◼   ► everything in the one tech kit.

00:05:57 ◼   ► I was very happy with that.

00:05:58 ◼   ► - Nice, I'm glad to hear that.

00:06:00 ◼   ► I got my own little tech kit just before this trip

00:06:03 ◼   ► and it was great recommendation from you.

00:06:04 ◼   ► - I love it, it's nice, right?

00:06:05 ◼   ► Like, I like the little elastic things

00:06:08 ◼   ► to put all the cables in, all that kind of stuff.

00:06:10 ◼   ► I made full use of it, so I was very happy with it.

00:06:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, it's perfect.

00:06:13 ◼   ► Mine was also fit to burst,

00:06:15 ◼   ► 'cause it had everything for me and my wife,

00:06:17 ◼   ► but, you know, that was a well-timed recommendation

00:06:20 ◼   ► from you last time.

00:06:20 ◼   ► - But we mentioned that the universe plays tricks.

00:06:24 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, what happened, Myke?

00:06:27 ◼   ► - The universe played a trick on me.

00:06:29 ◼   ► - Did you need that battery in the end?

00:06:30 ◼   ► - Memphis has an airport

00:06:32 ◼   ► called Memphis International Airport.

00:06:34 ◼   ► Memphis flies nowhere internationally.

00:06:37 ◼   ► - That's illegal.

00:06:38 ◼   ► No, it has to fly somewhere internationally

00:06:40 ◼   ► if it's an international airport.

00:06:41 ◼   ► - FedEx does.

00:06:42 ◼   ► - Oh, that's a little sneaky Memphis.

00:06:44 ◼   ► - It also used to.

00:06:46 ◼   ► When many years ago you could fly,

00:06:50 ◼   ► I think a route that went through Amsterdam,

00:06:53 ◼   ► Shepole I think.

00:06:55 ◼   ► I think it was like Delta Airlines.

00:06:56 ◼   ► Delta Airlines I think,

00:06:57 ◼   ► if I'm remembering my Memphis history enough.

00:07:00 ◼   ► But I did realize recently,

00:07:01 ◼   ► outside of London, I know more about Memphis

00:07:03 ◼   ► than anywhere else in the world.

00:07:06 ◼   ► Delta Airlines used to use Memphis as a hub.

00:07:08 ◼   ► They moved to Atlanta,

00:07:11 ◼   ► which kind of screwed Memphis in a bunch of ways.

00:07:13 ◼   ► But Memphis Airport, Memphis International Airport,

00:07:15 ◼   ► flies nowhere internationally.

00:07:17 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, it's huge.

00:07:18 ◼   ► Okay, that makes sense why it used to be a hub.

00:07:21 ◼   ► I was just looking it up, like, look at all those runways.

00:07:23 ◼   ► Yeah, that is a former hub.

00:07:26 ◼   ► MEM, nice, I like that, that's good.

00:07:28 ◼   ► - So we always have to connect, right?

00:07:30 ◼   ► So this time we were connecting through Dallas-Fort Worth

00:07:35 ◼   ► and we had a shorter connection time.

00:07:37 ◼   ► I'm a, you know, not nervous, nervous traveler.

00:07:40 ◼   ► I've gotten way better over the years,

00:07:42 ◼   ► but connections are a thing that I don't enjoy.

00:07:44 ◼   ► I always feel like they're going to go wrong.

00:07:47 ◼   ► I mean, this is probably in part,

00:07:48 ◼   ► like the first time that I went to America

00:07:50 ◼   ► with my older brother when I was like 18,

00:07:53 ◼   ► we missed our connecting flight because of a delay

00:07:55 ◼   ► and had to stay over in a completely different place

00:07:58 ◼   ► over 12 hours and spent another 12 hours in an airport on standby. So like I've had

00:08:03 ◼   ► very unpleasant experiences. You know all about standby. You did that by choice.

00:08:09 ◼   ► Yeah, and as someone who just went from Heathrow to Dulles to RDU to O'Hare to LAX to finally

00:08:17 ◼   ► get to Hawaii, I understand connections, yeah. You did make some purposeful stop-offs in

00:08:23 ◼   ► the way though, right? Like that's not like one trip.

00:08:25 ◼   ► - Yes, but still, it's too many connections.

00:08:28 ◼   ► - Yes, connections.

00:08:29 ◼   ► So when we were booking our flights

00:08:32 ◼   ► to get the price that I wanted to come home,

00:08:36 ◼   ► I was gonna have a short connection,

00:08:37 ◼   ► which is like, it was like an hour and 20 minutes,

00:08:39 ◼   ► which is, that's like an hour less than I like, you know?

00:08:42 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:08:43 ◼   ► - But the way I worked it out is,

00:08:45 ◼   ► and this is how I tend to do things,

00:08:46 ◼   ► I take a longer connection going to the place,

00:08:49 ◼   ► because if I'm gonna be delayed,

00:08:51 ◼   ► I prefer to be delayed coming home.

00:08:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, for sure.

00:08:55 ◼   ► Because then it doesn't feel like it's time wasted or money wasted as such, right?

00:09:00 ◼   ► So I felt like it could have been an issue, but we got off on time.

00:09:04 ◼   ► So it seemed like it wasn't going to be a problem.

00:09:07 ◼   ► And at one moment it felt like, I felt like this was a short flight.

00:09:12 ◼   ► This was supposed to be a short flight and I wasn't really keeping track of it, but it

00:09:15 ◼   ► was like, I've watched four episodes of Mad Men.

00:09:19 ◼   ► I was expecting to have watched like two.

00:09:22 ◼   ► This is meant to be like a 90 minute flight.

00:09:24 ◼   ► I was like, I don't know, whatever.

00:09:25 ◼   ► And then all of a sudden they're like,

00:09:26 ◼   ► ladies and gentlemen, we've been circling above Dallas

00:09:30 ◼   ► for a while 'cause there's some weather.

00:09:33 ◼   ► We now have to divert because of,

00:09:35 ◼   ► there's like a storm over Dallas Airport.

00:09:38 ◼   ► We're going to Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is not like close.

00:09:42 ◼   ► It's another hour away.

00:09:43 ◼   ► It's like pretty much the entire,

00:09:45 ◼   ► like double the distance we've already gone.

00:09:48 ◼   ► The Memphis to Dallas, I think is like 90 minutes.

00:09:50 ◼   ► So we're going another hour away.

00:09:52 ◼   ► - Anywhere where you're leaving the state of Texas

00:09:55 ◼   ► is a long way.

00:09:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, we're going now to the state of Oklahoma.

00:09:58 ◼   ► All right, we're like, we're going, right?

00:09:59 ◼   ► We're off.

00:10:01 ◼   ► And I'm like, two things are happening in my mind.

00:10:04 ◼   ► One is we're not making that connecting flight.

00:10:06 ◼   ► Like that's not happening now.

00:10:08 ◼   ► Two is, I knew it.

00:10:11 ◼   ► I need the battery pack.

00:10:12 ◼   ► Because what's gonna happen to me now, you know?

00:10:17 ◼   ► We land in Tulsa.

00:10:19 ◼   ► We were on the tarmac in Tulsa

00:10:21 ◼   ► for like two and a half hours or something,

00:10:23 ◼   ► maybe three hours.

00:10:26 ◼   ► What we knew at that point was no planes were leaving Dallas.

00:10:30 ◼   ► So it was like, well, maybe we'll get back in time, right?

00:10:33 ◼   ► 'Cause all the planes are backing up right at Dallas.

00:10:36 ◼   ► So we're sitting there and people keep coming on and off

00:10:38 ◼   ► and on and off and we're waiting for refueling, right?

00:10:41 ◼   ► We had to go 'cause we were running out of fuel, right?

00:10:43 ◼   ► So like we had to go to Tulsa,

00:10:44 ◼   ► we couldn't keep circling DFW forever

00:10:46 ◼   ► 'cause we had no fuel in the plane.

00:10:48 ◼   ► And it was just like one of those situations

00:10:51 ◼   ► and then there's like guy behind me

00:10:52 ◼   ► was starting to have like an argument

00:10:54 ◼   ► with one of the air stewards

00:10:56 ◼   ► 'cause he wanted more alcohol

00:10:58 ◼   ► and it was like, oh my God, what is going on?

00:11:00 ◼   ► Like it just, it started to become

00:11:01 ◼   ► one of those kinds of situations, right?

00:11:04 ◼   ► And luckily we were on a modern enough plane

00:11:08 ◼   ► that it had USB ports on it.

00:11:09 ◼   ► So I was able to charge my phone.

00:11:11 ◼   ► So I was happy about that.

00:11:13 ◼   ► But this is where that part of the story ends.

00:11:16 ◼   ► And now I just wanna tell you the story

00:11:17 ◼   ► of what happened afterwards.

00:11:19 ◼   ► So the story ends now with Myke didn't need the battery

00:11:22 ◼   ► 'cause he could charge his phone

00:11:23 ◼   ► and the iPhone maxes battery so good.

00:11:26 ◼   ► It's like, I just topped it up

00:11:27 ◼   ► and I was good for however long it was gonna take.

00:11:30 ◼   ► Spoiler alert, it took a really long time.

00:11:32 ◼   ► So everything gets taken care of

00:11:34 ◼   ► and we're taxiing to leave Tulsa.

00:11:39 ◼   ► We then get the notification from Flighty

00:11:40 ◼   ► that our plane has left us for, so it's like, great.

00:11:45 ◼   ► I knew it was gonna happen and it's happened.

00:11:48 ◼   ► - Thanks Flighty for that little bit of news.

00:11:50 ◼   ► - Or like genuinely,

00:11:51 ◼   ► like before I even got on the plane at Memphis,

00:11:55 ◼   ► I thought, I remember I said it to Dina,

00:11:57 ◼   ► I was like, I just want you to know,

00:12:00 ◼   ► I reckon we will not make it home tomorrow.

00:12:03 ◼   ► And this wasn't like, and I wasn't even worried about it.

00:12:05 ◼   ► When we were in Tulsa, I was just calm.

00:12:08 ◼   ► I figured that this might happen.

00:12:10 ◼   ► I'm not upset about this.

00:12:11 ◼   ► I'm not worried.

00:12:12 ◼   ► I know we'll get home.

00:12:14 ◼   ► we'll just work it out.

00:12:15 ◼   ► I've done this kind of stuff before.

00:12:17 ◼   ► We'll just get a flight tomorrow.

00:12:18 ◼   ► It's like, it's fine.

00:12:20 ◼   ► And we leave, we arrive, and we go to the counter, right?

00:12:25 ◼   ► And we go speak to the airline agent,

00:12:27 ◼   ► and they're like, "Don't worry.

00:12:29 ◼   ► We will rebook you on another flight tomorrow."

00:12:33 ◼   ► All the same stuff, same time and all that.

00:12:36 ◼   ► And then I was kind of like, "Okay."

00:12:37 ◼   ► And they're like, "Okay."

00:12:39 ◼   ► I'm like, "What then?"

00:12:41 ◼   ► And Adina's like, "Can we get our bags?"

00:12:42 ◼   ► He's like, "No."

00:12:44 ◼   ► We're like, "What?"

00:12:45 ◼   ► It's like, "No, you can't get the bags."

00:12:47 ◼   ► I was like, "Okay, but the flight is like 24 hours from now."

00:12:52 ◼   ► And he's like, "Well, it would take us two hours

00:12:53 ◼   ► to even find your bag, so we don't give you the bag."

00:12:57 ◼   ► And I was like, "Okay."

00:12:59 ◼   ► And he was like, "Okay."

00:13:01 ◼   ► And I'm like, I actually said to him,

00:13:02 ◼   ► 'cause I was pretty upset at this point,

00:13:04 ◼   ► are we just being released into the night?

00:13:06 ◼   ► What happens now?

00:13:07 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:13:08 ◼   ► And he's like, "Basically, yes."

00:13:11 ◼   ► - Well, welcome to Tulsa, get out of the airport.

00:13:13 ◼   ► - Oh no, we're in Dallas now.

00:13:15 ◼   ► - Oh you're right, you're in Dallas right now.

00:13:16 ◼   ► - We're in Dallas now.

00:13:17 ◼   ► And it was kind of just like,

00:13:18 ◼   ► oh, what it was is we'd booked through our airline,

00:13:22 ◼   ► our airline partners of another airline,

00:13:24 ◼   ► because of that, they would just give us nothing.

00:13:26 ◼   ► But people that were on that airline,

00:13:28 ◼   ► they got hotels paid for them,

00:13:31 ◼   ► taxis to the airport, meal vouchers.

00:13:33 ◼   ► But it's like, even though these airlines

00:13:35 ◼   ► are in the same group, they're just like,

00:13:38 ◼   ► you're not our customer, so off you go.

00:13:41 ◼   ► And it turns out they hadn't booked us on the flight.

00:13:45 ◼   ► It's just because Adina happened to check.

00:13:47 ◼   ► Like we had not been re-booked on the same flight.

00:13:49 ◼   ► We'd been booked on a completely different flight

00:13:51 ◼   ► at a completely different time, which wasn't good.

00:13:53 ◼   ► Like it was a flight that would have gotten us

00:13:56 ◼   ► in like a horrifically terrible time

00:13:58 ◼   ► considering now I have to like explode my calendar.

00:14:03 ◼   ► - Oh, right.

00:14:05 ◼   ► Yes, 'cause you've got all your recordings lined up

00:14:08 ◼   ► for when you come back. - Recordings and like,

00:14:10 ◼   ► Everyone's, you know, I have like people

00:14:12 ◼   ► that have me in their schedule, right?

00:14:15 ◼   ► So I've got to move everything around.

00:14:17 ◼   ► So I can't arrive at just like a random terrible time.

00:14:20 ◼   ► Like I booked the flight that I booked

00:14:22 ◼   ► because I could sleep a little bit on the plane

00:14:24 ◼   ► and then it helps me get back to life normally.

00:14:26 ◼   ► So if I'm gonna have to be delayed a day,

00:14:29 ◼   ► I want to get the same flight

00:14:31 ◼   ► so then I can get back at the time that I wanted

00:14:33 ◼   ► but just a day later and then deal with everything, right?

00:14:36 ◼   ► But getting a flight that gets me into London

00:14:38 ◼   ► like really late the evening before it's just like a terrible way for me I

00:14:42 ◼   ► prefer to arrive home in the morning and so like that's like a whole thing of

00:14:46 ◼   ► like I'm trying to arrange for everyone like can we record this day can we

00:14:50 ◼   ► record that day you know like that's just like a whole big mess that kind of

00:14:53 ◼   ► stuff right mm-hmm and then we're just like okay we have travel insurance we're

00:14:58 ◼   ► on our own we'll just go get a hotel and we'll deal with this later on so we get

00:15:05 ◼   ► to the airport the next day. We had a nice day in Dallas. We spent the day in Dallas.

00:15:09 ◼   ► We had a nice brunch and bought some simple clothing because we had nothing. Just like

00:15:15 ◼   ► nothing.

00:15:16 ◼   ► No bags for you.

00:15:17 ◼   ► And we get to the airport and can you confirm that our bags are going to be on the plane?

00:15:24 ◼   ► And they're like, we're going to put a request through to have your bags transferred from

00:15:28 ◼   ► airline A to airline B. They are airline B, right? And it's like, okay, what does that

00:15:34 ◼   ► It's like, oh, we just call them.

00:15:36 ◼   ► And I was like, okay, can we get any kind of confirmation?

00:15:39 ◼   ► And they're like, just check at the gate

00:15:40 ◼   ► when you go to check in

00:15:42 ◼   ► and they'll confirm that they're there.

00:15:43 ◼   ► It's like, okay, so do the whole thing.

00:15:45 ◼   ► And we get to the gate and we're like, okay, can I check?

00:15:48 ◼   ► Look, you know, line up at the gate and go up.

00:15:50 ◼   ► So can I check the bags on the plane?

00:15:53 ◼   ► And the lady's like,

00:15:54 ◼   ► I have more important things to deal with than checking this.

00:15:59 ◼   ► I was like, I just want to know,

00:16:01 ◼   ► like, can't you check it on the computer?

00:16:02 ◼   ► and she's like, "Nope, if it's not there,

00:16:05 ◼   ► you'll make a claim on the other end."

00:16:08 ◼   ► Just like, "What is happening right now?

00:16:10 ◼   ► Like, why is this going on, right?

00:16:13 ◼   ► Like, I know that you have a million things to do,

00:16:15 ◼   ► but I feel like -- I just feel like surely

00:16:19 ◼   ► they know the bags on the aircraft,

00:16:21 ◼   ► because why else do they have tracking numbers on them, right?

00:16:23 ◼   ► This is when I'm like, "Ah, we have air tags."

00:16:26 ◼   ► -Right.

00:16:27 ◼   ► I was wondering about that for getting your bags.

00:16:29 ◼   ► I was like, "Can you give the person your phone

00:16:32 ◼   ► to find a bag like, "Oh, it's gonna take you two hours?

00:16:34 ◼   ► I can do it in 10 minutes."

00:16:36 ◼   ► It's an air tag here. - Well, it was more that like,

00:16:37 ◼   ► I could open it up and say, "Where is it?"

00:16:40 ◼   ► And it turned out our bag was located at the gate

00:16:44 ◼   ► that we were at.

00:16:45 ◼   ► So I'm like, "All right, that seems pretty good."

00:16:48 ◼   ► So I wanted to see like, "Oh, when we get on the plane,

00:16:53 ◼   ► will it update as we're moving away from the gate

00:17:01 ◼   ► and sending you a message here of a screenshot that I took,

00:17:04 ◼   ► which was to me, absolutely hilarious,

00:17:07 ◼   ► which is as we have started to leave,

00:17:10 ◼   ► and we've taken off a little bit,

00:17:12 ◼   ► this image is of us like very far away from the airport

00:17:17 ◼   ► and the bag just at the airport, right?

00:17:20 ◼   ► And I was like, "Oh God."

00:17:22 ◼   ► And what it was is like, there was no connection.

00:17:24 ◼   ► Our bags were there waiting for us

00:17:26 ◼   ► when we got home in London,

00:17:28 ◼   ► which was a fantastic moment when I opened my iPhone,

00:17:31 ◼   ► open find my and my bag appeared in Heathrow.

00:17:34 ◼   ► I was like, yes, I believed in you little bag.

00:17:37 ◼   ► I did not believe in the airline, but I believed in you.

00:17:39 ◼   ► There was just something to me that was just genuinely

00:17:42 ◼   ► so funny about like checking my phone and being like,

00:17:46 ◼   ► the bags over there man.

00:17:47 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:17:48 ◼   ► - It is, it is, yeah.

00:17:50 ◼   ► Somehow the emoji looks extra sad,

00:17:52 ◼   ► like that brown suitcase emoji is like, oh, goodbye suitcase.

00:17:57 ◼   ► - It was just like a very funny image to me of like,

00:18:00 ◼   ► you're this far away from it.

00:18:02 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:18:03 ◼   ► Bye.

00:18:04 ◼   ► - I do have to say the AirTags are such a winner

00:18:06 ◼   ► for traveling. - Oh, they're fantastic.

00:18:07 ◼   ► - When you told me about that trick,

00:18:09 ◼   ► about just, oh, wait, to get the notification

00:18:11 ◼   ► of like, your bag is nearby,

00:18:12 ◼   ► instead of standing with everyone for picking up the bag.

00:18:15 ◼   ► It's like, that is, that alone is such a great use case

00:18:18 ◼   ► of like, no, no, I'll just sit down.

00:18:20 ◼   ► I don't need to stand around the bag carousel

00:18:23 ◼   ► for 30 minutes waiting.

00:18:25 ◼   ► Like, I'll just sit here

00:18:26 ◼   ► and I'll get a little notification when it's nearby.

00:18:28 ◼   ► It is so good.

00:18:29 ◼   ► - Because I had an AirTag, I ended up just like

00:18:33 ◼   ► telling these people like,

00:18:34 ◼   ► I'm not gonna bother asking questions from you anymore.

00:18:35 ◼   ► 'Cause I could see it was at the gate.

00:18:37 ◼   ► So I had more confidence that it was going to be loaded

00:18:41 ◼   ► onto the plane because it was at our gate, right?

00:18:44 ◼   ► Like I could see it on the map.

00:18:46 ◼   ► Because otherwise I would have been like,

00:18:48 ◼   ► I will not accept this as an answer.

00:18:49 ◼   ► Like, can you at least look on your computer?

00:18:51 ◼   ► Like you won't even do that.

00:18:53 ◼   ► It was just like a really, the whole thing would just

00:18:55 ◼   ► ended up being like a really weird experience.

00:18:57 ◼   ► It was just very strange in the end.

00:18:59 ◼   ► The universe did play a trick on me, which I did find endlessly amusing.

00:19:03 ◼   ► Fate was tempted.

00:19:04 ◼   ► Yeah, of course. That's what happens.

00:19:05 ◼   ► I'm glad you got out of it unscathed, mainly.

00:19:08 ◼   ► I'm glad you got back home.

00:19:09 ◼   ► Are you over all of your knock-on calendar delays,

00:19:12 ◼   ► or are you still making up for that?

00:19:14 ◼   ► No, I ended up getting that handled by the weekend.

00:19:16 ◼   ► Basically, it was just a couple of things that could get cancelled,

00:19:21 ◼   ► got cancelled, and it allowed for the movements to occur.

00:19:24 ◼   ► And then we moved our show recording time,

00:19:27 ◼   ► which helped a lot for me because I would have been wrecked because that would have

00:19:30 ◼   ► been the day after we got home.

00:19:32 ◼   ► Right, we don't have to be polite about that.

00:19:34 ◼   ► We moved the show because I completely forgot.

00:19:38 ◼   ► I just totally blew past my brain and then my wife notified me that people were trying

00:19:45 ◼   ► to get in touch and those people were Myke wanting to record a podcast and I went, "Oh

00:19:50 ◼   ► no!"

00:19:51 ◼   ► I just needed to know you'd forgotten.

00:19:53 ◼   ► That was all.

00:19:54 ◼   ► Then I could go home.

00:19:57 ◼   ► And I had, I had forgotten.

00:19:58 ◼   ► I'm sorry Myke but I'm glad it worked out for you.

00:20:01 ◼   ► It's better for everyone.

00:20:02 ◼   ► I don't think I would have gotten through that recording.

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00:21:54 ◼   ► How is the Minix plug?

00:21:56 ◼   ► - It's amazing, it's powering my laptop right now.

00:21:58 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:21:59 ◼   ► - And I've ended up ordering like five more of them

00:22:02 ◼   ► because since I'm here in Hawaii for two months,

00:22:06 ◼   ► I wasn't really thinking about what that means

00:22:09 ◼   ► where you go, "Oh, I don't just need a charger for travel.

00:22:13 ◼   ► I could basically need to outfit the house

00:22:16 ◼   ► with chargers wherever I want them."

00:22:19 ◼   ► And so it's been absolutely great

00:22:21 ◼   ► Having a little USB-A port on it is surprisingly handy for various random things that you need.

00:22:26 ◼   ► So they were so good, I just ordered a bunch more and now I have them all around the place

00:22:30 ◼   ► where we're staying so we have chargers where we need them.

00:22:32 ◼   ► So this is totally my new base for like everything in the charging system will work around this

00:22:39 ◼   ► little device.

00:22:40 ◼   ► Alright I'm gonna buy one then.

00:22:41 ◼   ► Two thumbs up, I absolutely love it, really recommend it.

00:22:44 ◼   ► Best little charger I have come across in years.

00:22:47 ◼   ► Yeah, I know what this will fit for me.

00:22:50 ◼   ► it's going to replace the standard Apple charger that I bring for like my iPhone or whatever.

00:22:57 ◼   ► Because I'm not going to, as I mentioned before, I will keep the one, oh man what is this?

00:23:03 ◼   ► The 100 watt turbo. That's going to be huge though right?

00:23:07 ◼   ► That sounds bigger. It's physically larger but it has three USB-C

00:23:12 ◼   ► ports and a USB-A port on it, Gray. Ooh wow.

00:23:16 ◼   ► Well, well, well, Minix is spoiling us.

00:23:19 ◼   ► - Minix is rapidly expanding their business.

00:23:21 ◼   ► They've gone from what sounded like a totally sketchy,

00:23:24 ◼   ► who knows, manufactured, wear,

00:23:26 ◼   ► kind of bought off of Amazon thing.

00:23:27 ◼   ► - Still sounds sketchy to me.

00:23:29 ◼   ► I mean, this is why I didn't buy it

00:23:31 ◼   ► without checking that you were happy with yours so far.

00:23:34 ◼   ► - Right, that there was no fire hazard or anything.

00:23:36 ◼   ► Oh, yes, I see what you mean there.

00:23:37 ◼   ► Well, well, well.

00:23:39 ◼   ► - I will wait for the secondary review of that model,

00:23:42 ◼   ► but in the meantime, I'll get this little one,

00:23:44 ◼   ► Because I want to keep the one from my MacBook Pro.

00:23:47 ◼   ► Like I want to keep the official big Apple one

00:23:49 ◼   ► with the MagSafe and all that kind of stuff.

00:23:52 ◼   ► But this will help me to charge, you know,

00:23:54 ◼   ► as we mentioned, like the, either an iPhone,

00:23:58 ◼   ► honestly, we just have to do my iPhone,

00:23:59 ◼   ► my Apple Watch, and an iPad.

00:24:01 ◼   ► Like I could just have all the cables plugged in

00:24:03 ◼   ► and just swap them around depending on what I need.

00:24:06 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm gonna pick up one of those ones.

00:24:08 ◼   ► So I'm pleased that it's been going well for you so far.

00:24:10 ◼   ► - I am literally placing my order for the big one now.

00:24:13 ◼   ► and I will see it in April at some time because Hawaii.

00:24:20 ◼   ► - How has been Hawaii faring for you so far?

00:24:23 ◼   ► How long have you been there?

00:24:25 ◼   ► - How long have I been here?

00:24:26 ◼   ► I guess I've been here two weeks.

00:24:28 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:24:30 ◼   ► It is quite alarming.

00:24:32 ◼   ► I guess, oh, it's two weeks today actually

00:24:34 ◼   ► is how long I've been here.

00:24:35 ◼   ► Yeah, no, Hawaii is in many ways exactly as I remember it.

00:24:43 ◼   ► warm and slightly sticky all the time.

00:24:48 ◼   ► That's my main physical feeling about being in Hawaii.

00:24:51 ◼   ► And I also had completely forgotten until I stepped off the airplane that

00:24:56 ◼   ► Hawaii definitely has a smell. I couldn't describe it to you, but...

00:25:00 ◼   ► - I love the smell of Hawaii.

00:25:02 ◼   ► The air is sweet.

00:25:03 ◼   ► - It's like sweet leaves, I think is maybe the best way I would describe it.

00:25:09 ◼   ► But yeah, I did not have like the best of times the last time I was here and definitely felt a little triggered with that smell of like, "Oh my God!"

00:25:21 ◼   ► Like, you know, the way smells can just really trigger like these visceral memories.

00:25:25 ◼   ► It's like the door to the plane opens up right on the tarmac, as you do in Hawaii, and the air comes rushing in and it's like, "Oh!"

00:25:36 ◼   ► Just like all of these flashbacks were happening.

00:25:39 ◼   ► I'm like, "Oh right, this smell, I forgot it has the smell."

00:25:42 ◼   ► And my wife was going, "Oh, it smells like home."

00:25:45 ◼   ► Right? And like she's bursting into tears with joy.

00:25:47 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Ah, Hawaii, we meet again."

00:25:50 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:25:53 ◼   ► - Oh, it's so funny to me.

00:25:55 ◼   ► This is one of my favorite things about you

00:25:57 ◼   ► is how you do not enjoy this place

00:26:00 ◼   ► that everybody else that I know,

00:26:02 ◼   ► including me is like this paradise.

00:26:04 ◼   ► - I know.

00:26:05 ◼   ► It's just something really funny about it.

00:26:07 ◼   ► I get it.

00:26:08 ◼   ► Like, I understand that it's funny.

00:26:09 ◼   ► This is also one of these things where it's like, I feel compelled to try to

00:26:12 ◼   ► explain, but I also know that my explaining is completely ineffective on everyone.

00:26:17 ◼   ► Everyone's like, you can't explain away this beautiful paradise, right?

00:26:21 ◼   ► When talking to people, I feel like I've told them, oh, I've gone on a trip to

00:26:25 ◼   ► heaven and I don't like it that much.

00:26:27 ◼   ► And people are like, what are you crazy?

00:26:28 ◼   ► Tropical islands, not Hawaii in particular, but just like the tropics are not a place

00:26:34 ◼   ► that I would choose to spend my time

00:26:37 ◼   ► just because I always just do feel like physically too warm

00:26:40 ◼   ► and too uncomfortable.

00:26:42 ◼   ► And I find it extra annoying

00:26:44 ◼   ► when everybody else is telling you like,

00:26:45 ◼   ► "Oh, the weather is so beautiful."

00:26:47 ◼   ► And it's like, I can feel this layer of sweat on my skin.

00:26:52 ◼   ► And like, there's only so many showers

00:26:54 ◼   ► that you can take in a day to try to get rid of it.

00:26:57 ◼   ► But everyone else, oh, it's absolutely lovely today.

00:26:59 ◼   ► But the main thing for me is,

00:27:03 ◼   ► I always know how this sounds when people say this, but there is the resort Hawaii,

00:27:09 ◼   ► and then there is the real Hawaii.

00:27:12 ◼   ► And so when I come here, I am not living on resort Hawaii.

00:27:17 ◼   ► I am living in the real Hawaii, which is far away from resort land.

00:27:24 ◼   ► And I feel like some of the things that I find difficult to deal with are greatly magnified

00:27:31 ◼   ► in real Hawaii and the main thing for me is like it's a place where you where you really

00:27:40 ◼   ► feel like you are at constant battle with nature.

00:27:45 ◼   ► You constantly have to think about keeping the nature out of the house and if you are

00:27:52 ◼   ► not eternally vigilant about that the nature will be in the house and will really ruin

00:27:58 ◼   ► your day.

00:27:59 ◼   ► Okay.

00:28:00 ◼   ► you can see it when you're flying into Hawaii.

00:28:02 ◼   ► You can see where the resorts are

00:28:04 ◼   ► because they actually look like islands on the islands.

00:28:07 ◼   ► Like, they don't look like the surrounding territory.

00:28:10 ◼   ► Depending on which resorts you're going to,

00:28:12 ◼   ► like, if it's a resort on one of the dry sides of one of the islands,

00:28:16 ◼   ► it's like lush and manicured.

00:28:18 ◼   ► And if it's a resort on one of the wet sides of the island,

00:28:21 ◼   ► you can also see that it just physically looks different.

00:28:24 ◼   ► And one of the things that is happening there

00:28:27 ◼   ► that the resorts maintain an army of gardeners

00:28:31 ◼   ► to try to keep everything nice and manicured

00:28:34 ◼   ► and not horrifying.

00:28:35 ◼   ► But if you're living somewhere

00:28:37 ◼   ► where you don't have an army of gardeners

00:28:39 ◼   ► to say, I don't know, sweep the spiders off of everything,

00:28:44 ◼   ► you know what you will end up with?

00:28:47 ◼   ► Spiders on everything.

00:28:49 ◼   ► - Oh, I hate it.

00:28:51 ◼   ► This has not been my experience.

00:28:52 ◼   ► - So this is why I am very happy

00:28:55 ◼   ► that you enjoy Hawaii when you come.

00:28:58 ◼   ► But like, I'm also very aware that you are staying

00:29:02 ◼   ► in places where they have employees whose entire job is,

00:29:07 ◼   ► get rid of all the spiders.

00:29:10 ◼   ► - I wish you'd stop saying it. - So people come back.

00:29:12 ◼   ► - Please stop saying, can you just say something else now

00:29:15 ◼   ► instead of that exact phrase?

00:29:18 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, look, I know, like I am vacationing

00:29:23 ◼   ► when I go to this place, right?

00:29:24 ◼   ► You are, and this is like, I've been in places in Europe where it's like this,

00:29:29 ◼   ► wherever there is like resorts by the beach or whatever, it's totally different.

00:29:34 ◼   ► Stop sending me images.

00:29:36 ◼   ► Stop it.

00:29:38 ◼   ► I'm getting all these notifications and all I can see is spider webs.

00:29:44 ◼   ► I'm not into this.

00:29:45 ◼   ► Stop that.

00:29:46 ◼   ► This is cyberbullying what you're doing to me right now.

00:29:49 ◼   ► Here's the thing.

00:29:50 ◼   ► I just needed to send Myke two images and I needed to send these, like,

00:29:54 ◼   ► for my own sanity because people don't believe me when I say, "I will not leave

00:30:00 ◼   ► the house if the sun is not up."

00:30:04 ◼   ► Like that's just the rule.

00:30:05 ◼   ► I am not going outside when the sun is not up because you

00:30:10 ◼   ► cannot see what is out there.

00:30:12 ◼   ► And so when I say a phrase like, "Oh, I'm in Hawaii," and people go, "That's lovely."

00:30:18 ◼   ► You say, "Yes, I am in the real Hawaii, the very, very rural Hawaii that is very far away from any of these resorts,

00:30:28 ◼   ► and the building is covered in spiders."

00:30:31 ◼   ► And people go, "Oh, you must be exaggerating!"

00:30:34 ◼   ► And it's like, "No, no, no. I have taken photos. The photos that I have taken-"

00:30:38 ◼   ► - I can now agree with what you said, 'cause I did look.

00:30:41 ◼   ► I felt like you sent me, though, I needed to look, right?

00:30:44 ◼   ► 'cause there is the point here, you're trying to get someone to advocate for you here

00:30:48 ◼   ► and I can now advocate for what Grey has just said.

00:30:51 ◼   ► People don't understand what it means when I say "covered in spiders"

00:30:56 ◼   ► and it's like, those photos that I have sent you,

00:30:58 ◼   ► I only took those because those are the ones where you can

00:31:01 ◼   ► clearly see the web against the sky,

00:31:04 ◼   ► but the whole building is covered in spiders, right?

00:31:07 ◼   ► Please!

00:31:09 ◼   ► We get it now!

00:31:11 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:31:13 ◼   ► Killing me.

00:31:14 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:31:16 ◼   ► Right?

00:31:16 ◼   ► But like--

00:31:17 ◼   ► But so this is my own permanent torture though,

00:31:19 ◼   ► is because since my wife grew up here, right?

00:31:21 ◼   ► She's a local girl.

00:31:23 ◼   ► She's just totally oblivious to all of these things

00:31:26 ◼   ► that are like my constant nightmare.

00:31:28 ◼   ► And I made some comment about the spiders and she's like,

00:31:30 ◼   ► "Oh, I guess there are some spiders."

00:31:32 ◼   ► It's like, yeah.

00:31:33 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:31:34 ◼   ► It's like more than I've seen in my entire life,

00:31:39 ◼   ► like, on this building.

00:31:41 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:31:42 ◼   ► - I think some of the stuff that you're saying,

00:31:44 ◼   ► anybody that has a partner who grew up

00:31:48 ◼   ► in a different place to them can understand.

00:31:51 ◼   ► - Oh yes, Myke?

00:31:52 ◼   ► - The problem for you is your partner grew up

00:31:57 ◼   ► in a place that is universally known as a paradise.

00:32:01 ◼   ► That's your issue, right?

00:32:04 ◼   ► And it's like, well, of course she doesn't live in that part, right?

00:32:09 ◼   ► Like, 'cause nobody does. No one lives in the resort towns.

00:32:13 ◼   ► Nobody lives there. Everyone travels in to the resort towns, works in the resorts, and leaves.

00:32:20 ◼   ► Yeah, that's exactly what her parents do. Like, they commute into the resort,

00:32:24 ◼   ► they do their resort-related jobs, and then they commute back.

00:32:27 ◼   ► And yeah, like, the resorts are just a totally different sort of space

00:32:32 ◼   ► than the whole rest of the island.

00:32:33 ◼   ► So I have this funny feeling of like, I've been trying to explain this thing where I'm thinking about like neural nets that are used to identify images, right?

00:32:44 ◼   ► Like iPhoto does. This is a dog. This is a person's face. Even the cool stuff they're doing in maps, like this is this exact building. You train neural nets to recognize objects and images.

00:32:55 ◼   ► Without a doubt, some very significant portion of my brain has been set aside now to train

00:33:03 ◼   ► constantly on recognize the slight shimmer in the sunlight of a spider web between any

00:33:12 ◼   ► two objects that are closer than eight feet together.

00:33:15 ◼   ► When I say any two objects that are closer than eight feet together, I mean any two trees.

00:33:22 ◼   ► Keep in mind, this is a tropical jungle on one side of the house.

00:33:28 ◼   ► Any two buildings, like, there is without a doubt some part of my brain which is hyper-alert

00:33:34 ◼   ► to like, exactly the way a spider strand will look in the sunlight, and now like, I've

00:33:41 ◼   ► never thought about how many objects are closer than eight feet together, and now I can identify

00:33:46 ◼   ► every single one of them as I'm walking around, because like 30% of my brain is devoted

00:33:50 ◼   ► to this task of, don't walk into one of these webs

00:33:55 ◼   ► that feel like they're made of steel

00:33:57 ◼   ► and have a spider the size of your fist

00:34:00 ◼   ► in the center of them.

00:34:02 ◼   ► That is a bad day. Why do you have to keep

00:34:03 ◼   ► describing this in front?

00:34:05 ◼   ► You didn't need that part, you know?

00:34:07 ◼   ► All I wanna say-- 'Cause people don't

00:34:08 ◼   ► believe me! To cortexes,

00:34:11 ◼   ► look, everyone believes you now, all right?

00:34:13 ◼   ► Cortexes, if you are uncontrollably itching right now,

00:34:16 ◼   ► know that I'm with you, right?

00:34:18 ◼   ► This is not what I want at the moment.

00:34:21 ◼   ► But as you have heard me multiple times, I cannot get him to stop.

00:34:26 ◼   ► Okay.

00:34:28 ◼   ► Okay.

00:34:29 ◼   ► But listen, all right.

00:34:30 ◼   ► I'll stop with the spiders, right?

00:34:31 ◼   ► Because my wife, none of her family, none of the local, nobody even mentions the

00:34:37 ◼   ► spiders whenever I ever mentioned them, they're like, oh, I guess there's a lot

00:34:39 ◼   ► of it was like, don't, they don't even see them because what they're concerned

00:34:43 ◼   ► with are the centipedes, right?

00:34:46 ◼   ► Which is also extremely alarming.

00:34:49 ◼   ► All of this, now, we can just--

00:34:52 ◼   ► let's just go back to calling this the nature.

00:34:56 ◼   ► The nature, right.

00:34:57 ◼   ► I preferred that.

00:35:00 ◼   ► I feel like I entered--

00:35:01 ◼   ► I go, what could you mean?

00:35:03 ◼   ► I wish I would never have done that.

00:35:05 ◼   ► Right.

00:35:05 ◼   ► Well, I have definitely had to kill three of the natures,

00:35:11 ◼   ► then that were longer and thicker than my fingers in the house, which were just

00:35:15 ◼   ► waiting to bite me with their hundred nature legs.

00:35:20 ◼   ► And it's so alarming when people are like, "Oh, this is what the

00:35:24 ◼   ► natives are worried about.

00:35:25 ◼   ► They're worried about all of these centipedes."

00:35:26 ◼   ► They're like, "Oh my God, please don't let one of them bite me."

00:35:29 ◼   ► But I just know, I just know that I'm destined to this.

00:35:33 ◼   ► What happens if they bite you?

00:35:35 ◼   ► Like, is that bad?

00:35:36 ◼   ► So here's, here's the thing.

00:35:37 ◼   ► From my perspective, there's so much to worry about here.

00:35:41 ◼   ► Like, we haven't even discussed the jellyfish, but at least I can avoid them,

00:35:44 ◼   ► 'cause it's like, "Well, I'm just not going in the ocean."

00:35:45 ◼   ► Jellyfish I'm good to talk about, they don't creep me out.

00:35:47 ◼   ► But that's avoidable, right? You go, "Oh, the sea, it's filled with Lovecraftian monsters.

00:35:54 ◼   ► Well, you know, just don't go in there. Great, problem solved."

00:35:57 ◼   ► Well, the way to avoid the spiders and the centipedes is just to go in the sea.

00:36:01 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:36:03 ◼   ► That's how you do that.

00:36:05 ◼   ► Go in the sea, and there's none in there.

00:36:07 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:36:10 ◼   ► Yeah, that's... Oh my god.

00:36:13 ◼   ► Or the ocean, I should say, right?

00:36:15 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, no, it's not the sea.

00:36:17 ◼   ► What is... Wait, hold on a second. I have to just...

00:36:18 ◼   ► My sister-in-law was just telling me about some other thing

00:36:22 ◼   ► that I'd never even heard of in the ocean last night.

00:36:25 ◼   ► Oh yeah, they're called nudibranchs?

00:36:29 ◼   ► But it's like... Oh, yeah, I know.

00:36:31 ◼   ► It's N-U-D-I-B-R-A-N-C-H.

00:36:35 ◼   ► They're these like...

00:36:36 ◼   ► Sea slug.

00:36:36 ◼   ► Mollusks, yeah.

00:36:38 ◼   ► but there are a specific branch of them that are hyper-colored

00:36:42 ◼   ► because, as you know, when something in nature has lots of bright colors,

00:36:47 ◼   ► it means it can hurt you quite a lot.

00:36:50 ◼   ► And she was just like, "Oh yeah, I was swimming in the ocean

00:36:52 ◼   ► and a bunch of these things just went by, and oh,

00:36:56 ◼   ► they eat Portuguese Man of Wars and collect all of the poison in their horns,

00:37:01 ◼   ► so I made sure not to touch them."

00:37:03 ◼   ► And I was like, "Oh my god!"

00:37:04 ◼   ► So everyone I know, they're unconcerned about everything

00:37:07 ◼   ► except the centipedes and they're like,

00:37:09 ◼   ► "Oh, you really don't want a centipede to bite you."

00:37:12 ◼   ► It's like, oh my god, right?

00:37:13 ◼   ► So it just makes it a hundred times more alarming.

00:37:16 ◼   ► From my perspective, everything is horrifying,

00:37:19 ◼   ► but there's the one thing that people

00:37:20 ◼   ► are really worried about.

00:37:21 ◼   ► And we've already had to get rid of a few of them

00:37:24 ◼   ► in the house.

00:37:24 ◼   ► - Can we talk about jellyfish now?

00:37:26 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:37:27 ◼   ► I would like to talk about jellyfish instead.

00:37:30 ◼   ► - But so like, this is what I mean.

00:37:31 ◼   ► This is what I mean by like, the nature

00:37:33 ◼   ► and when you're in a place where it,

00:37:36 ◼   ► It really is. It's just a tropical jungle on--

00:37:38 ◼   ► well, where we are it's slightly complicated, but there's like a jungle on one side

00:37:42 ◼   ► and all of the things in the jungle want to come out and get you.

00:37:45 ◼   ► So there's the big obvious stuff to worry about.

00:37:49 ◼   ► There's the small constant annoyance of being like

00:37:52 ◼   ► just a little too warm and a little too sweaty.

00:37:56 ◼   ► And then on the very mild side of the nature, but just like stuff I never normally have to think about is

00:38:03 ◼   ► you just can't leave any kind of food out for any length of time.

00:38:09 ◼   ► And that means you can't throw food into the garbage,

00:38:13 ◼   ► like, which is something I just never think about in London.

00:38:16 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh no, you can't just throw these shavings

00:38:20 ◼   ► from this cooked meal into the garbage,

00:38:23 ◼   ► because it will be a hive of ants in the morning."

00:38:26 ◼   ► And it's like, so there's just so many things I feel like

00:38:29 ◼   ► you have to constantly be really aware of.

00:38:33 ◼   ► Is there big nature?

00:38:34 ◼   ► Uh, I mean, well, there are the cows. The cows I love.

00:38:36 ◼   ► The cows get two thumbs up from me.

00:38:38 ◼   ► Cows are not a problem like that, really.

00:38:40 ◼   ► Yeah, the cows are fine.

00:38:41 ◼   ► Yeah, because I guess there aren't predators.

00:38:44 ◼   ► There's no bears.

00:38:45 ◼   ► We do have, like, there's mungese around, so we've seen a few of them.

00:38:49 ◼   ► There's wild pigs that can get real ornery if you're in their way.

00:38:54 ◼   ► But, you know, most of that stuff is fine.

00:38:56 ◼   ► Like, the bigger stuff, the bigger stuff I feel like, at least like,

00:38:59 ◼   ► "Okay, fellow mammal, I have some concept of you, you know, it would be unpleasant to get into a tussle, right, but it wouldn't be like,

00:39:11 ◼   ► "Oh, Shelob's many eyes are upon you in the jungle and you don't even know when she's reaching out her pincers to bite you."

00:39:20 ◼   ► - Don't like give me some Lord of the Rings thing or some nonsense and think I don't know what you're talking about, alright?

00:39:26 ◼   ► I can give you a lulth reference instead if you would prefer that, but yes.

00:39:30 ◼   ► Because I don't know what that is.

00:39:31 ◼   ► But yeah, so like there's big stuff that's around, but it's all like,

00:39:35 ◼   ► it's all the arthropods, right? That's the whole family of great concern here, is like,

00:39:41 ◼   ► all of those sorts of creatures. As I also just discovered last night,

00:39:45 ◼   ► there's also scorpions on Hawaii, but I've never actually run across one of those.

00:39:49 ◼   ► I didn't know they had those here, but that I can also add to the list.

00:39:52 ◼   ► If you ran across one of those, you'd know. It would let you know.

00:39:55 ◼   ► Well, this came up in conversation because I was reading the Wikipedia article about centipedes.

00:40:00 ◼   ► And I was like, "Well, how much is it gonna hurt Wikipedia? Like, give it to me straight."

00:40:04 ◼   ► So Wikipedia goes, "Oh, it hurts as much as a scorpion."

00:40:07 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, okay."

00:40:08 ◼   ► Whoa! Okay.

00:40:10 ◼   ► Well, I have no frame of reference for how much a scorpion hurts.

00:40:12 ◼   ► Neither do I. I just imagine it's a lot.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Yeah. They look mean, so I assume it's a lot too.

00:40:18 ◼   ► And then Wikipedia's other frame of reference was "scorpion or a snake bite."

00:40:24 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Okay, that is definitely bad news."

00:40:28 ◼   ► That is way harsher than I would have expected from the old centipede there.

00:40:33 ◼   ► Yeah, but that's why it makes sense that people are like,

00:40:37 ◼   ► "You really don't want to get stung by the centipedes."

00:40:41 ◼   ► And they come out at night.

00:40:43 ◼   ► And so I guess I can summarize all of this in that

00:40:48 ◼   ► my perspective on Hawaii is it's the kind of place where

00:40:53 ◼   ► You really just don't want to sit on a toilet without thoroughly inspecting it first, for many reasons.

00:41:02 ◼   ► Do you think we have anybody listening to the show anymore?

00:41:05 ◼   ► Do you think there's anyone left?

00:41:07 ◼   ► It's like, I can't get away from it.

00:41:10 ◼   ► Outside of me, is anybody else still listening? I don't know.

00:41:14 ◼   ► I do—like, Myke, I genuinely—I feel bad for you because you are my captive recipient of someone who will listen.

00:41:22 ◼   ► because no one will listen to me here.

00:41:24 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:41:25 ◼   ► -Hey, look, it's making me incredibly uncomfortable,

00:41:28 ◼   ► but I feel like you need this, so I will provide this to you.

00:41:31 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:41:32 ◼   ► -Yeah.

00:41:33 ◼   ► I mean, to be fair, it is beautiful if in a real, like,

00:41:37 ◼   ► "nature doesn't love her children" kind of way

00:41:40 ◼   ► and don't think about the abyss of the ocean,

00:41:42 ◼   ► but it is beautiful.

00:41:44 ◼   ► Even when there's storms, then there's gorgeous rainbows,

00:41:47 ◼   ► they are the Hawaiian Islands.

00:41:49 ◼   ► Like, I understand the environment that I'm in.

00:41:52 ◼   ► No, I feel like this is your counter-attack to anybody that ever says to you,

00:41:56 ◼   ► "Why don't you love Hawaii?"

00:41:57 ◼   ► And I know I have been one of these people, so...

00:42:00 ◼   ► I am now... I've now got my penance for that.

00:42:03 ◼   ► Yeah. Again, there's like this funny distinction between the real Hawaii and the resort Hawaii, and...

00:42:08 ◼   ► I think one of the other funny things that people just don't think about is how incredibly rural most of the islands are.

00:42:16 ◼   ► Because again, like when you're driving around, you're in the resorts.

00:42:20 ◼   ► So there's like a bunch of people there.

00:42:22 ◼   ► Or you're in the areas that are just, there's nothing here but it's beautiful, right?

00:42:26 ◼   ► So you're in the lava areas.

00:42:28 ◼   ► Then if you drive into the parts where you're like,

00:42:30 ◼   ► "Oh, I'm passing through a small town."

00:42:32 ◼   ► And you sort of think in your head that the town is bigger than it is.

00:42:38 ◼   ► Because what you don't realize is all of the houses in the town are on this road

00:42:43 ◼   ► because there's just not very many roads.

00:42:47 ◼   ► So I'm currently in one of those small towns on the island

00:42:50 ◼   ► where someone could drive through and go like,

00:42:52 ◼   ► "Oh, it's a town!"

00:42:53 ◼   ► And I would go like, "No, no, no,

00:42:55 ◼   ► you've seen all the houses on the street.

00:42:58 ◼   ► This is the entirety of it.

00:43:00 ◼   ► Like, it's not any bigger than this."

00:43:02 ◼   ► And so on one side is the jungle,

00:43:05 ◼   ► and then on the opposite side from where we are

00:43:07 ◼   ► is just an enormous amount of rural agricultural land,

00:43:13 ◼   ► just cattle grazing as far as the eye can see.

00:43:16 ◼   ► People are always quite shocked to discover that I think it's in the top three largest,

00:43:21 ◼   ► but like one of the three largest cattle ranches in America is in Hawaii.

00:43:27 ◼   ► And it's like, we're not near that one, but it's like, man, if you exclude Oahu,

00:43:33 ◼   ► it's like, Hawaii's got two things.

00:43:36 ◼   ► They've got resorts, and they've got endless agriculture of all kinds all over the place.

00:43:43 ◼   ► A wahoo is where Honolulu is, right?

00:43:45 ◼   ► Yeah, that's why I'm saying you exclude Oahu, because it's Honolulu and it's also the military bases.

00:43:49 ◼   ► So there's obviously a lot of economic activity there.

00:43:53 ◼   ► But if you take out the island of Oahu, the rest of the state is very, very rural, very, very low population density.

00:44:00 ◼   ► It's a funny experience, especially exactly where we are, with the jungle on one side,

00:44:05 ◼   ► but then on the opposite side it's just ranch land?

00:44:08 ◼   ► It's very weird. If I look out the back, it looks like I'm in one place,

00:44:12 ◼   ► and if I look out the front, it looks like I'm in a completely other place.

00:44:15 ◼   ► But as far as the big animals go, my wife and I have basically adopted some of the cows who swing by.

00:44:22 ◼   ► Any good names?

00:44:23 ◼   ► Yeah, well, I think I've told you this memorization system to help you memorize words and numbers,

00:44:30 ◼   ► where you can translate numbers into words and words into numbers based on sounds.

00:44:35 ◼   ► So all of the cows have like a numbered tag on their ear.

00:44:38 ◼   ► And so I've been using the numbered tags to come up with names for the different cows.

00:44:43 ◼   ► That's what we've been doing. But yes, I don't know.

00:44:44 ◼   ► There's like a couple dozen who come around regularly now because they know that

00:44:49 ◼   ► we're the suckers who will give them convenient water to drink and lemons to eat.

00:44:53 ◼   ► And then we get to know the cows.

00:44:55 ◼   ► And so that's one of the things I've been doing during the days.

00:44:59 ◼   ► And again, not today because it's too windy, but normally in my office,

00:45:03 ◼   ► My window looks right like six feet away right into where all the cows are and if they see me

00:45:10 ◼   ► here and they are out of water they will moo at me until I go get them some water which is adorable

00:45:15 ◼   ► and I don't mind doing it so I might need to take a break from the podcast to do that.

00:45:18 ◼   ► See how you feel about that in six weeks. We'll find out. I guess they have to make it through

00:45:23 ◼   ► the wind. How desperately do they want the water?

00:45:27 ◼   ► I predict in six weeks I will still be very happy to water the cows.

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00:47:46 ◼   ► So you mentioned the office, how are you maintaining a work schedule?

00:47:51 ◼   ► How successful have you been so far?

00:47:53 ◼   ► Yeah, well, so far I would say moderately successful, but that is largely down to just

00:48:00 ◼   ► the first week is the terrible time zone shift.

00:48:03 ◼   ► The way things are working right now, you know what I need to cl- I've got the Wikipedia

00:48:07 ◼   ► article for a new to branches open on my computer, I need to just stop looking at that and close

00:48:11 ◼   ► that.

00:48:12 ◼   ► I don't think you should be looking at any Wikipedia articles for these things, to be

00:48:15 ◼   ► honest.

00:48:16 ◼   ► Let me close this map of Hawaii.

00:48:18 ◼   ► Let me close this spider pictures.

00:48:20 ◼   ► - Why is your map open again?

00:48:20 ◼   ► Why do you keep doing this?

00:48:22 ◼   ► It just keeps opening.

00:48:24 ◼   ► - Let me close the spider pictures.

00:48:28 ◼   ► Let me get rid of the question of how do you rate

00:48:31 ◼   ► insect pain?

00:48:32 ◼   ► Get rid of all of these things and just talk to you

00:48:34 ◼   ► like a normal person.

00:48:35 ◼   ► - Oh look, your cursor just popped back up

00:48:37 ◼   ► in Google Books again.

00:48:38 ◼   ► So you've stepped back into the podcast.

00:48:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's interesting.

00:48:46 ◼   ► Because I'm here for just so long, like it is really important to me to try to

00:48:50 ◼   ► establish some kind of work schedule.

00:48:52 ◼   ► And so also since we're living with family, like currently it's not full,

00:48:56 ◼   ► but when the house is full, I think.

00:48:59 ◼   ► Oh God, I'd have to double check the whole rota that's been made, but I

00:49:02 ◼   ► think we're going to have eight family members living with us at once.

00:49:07 ◼   ► So it's like a house full of people and nature.

00:49:11 ◼   ► So lots of living creatures in the house.

00:49:14 ◼   ► But what I have worked out, which has gone well this week, is I've set a rule.

00:49:21 ◼   ► I'm making sure everyone in the family understands this ironclad rule.

00:49:26 ◼   ► The rule is, gray is not to be disturbed before 1pm.

00:49:32 ◼   ► It doesn't matter what it is, if there's a problem with the chickens,

00:49:39 ◼   ► If there is any kind of other business going on, doesn't matter.

00:49:45 ◼   ► Grey has an office here, he will be in that room, and that room will not be disturbed until 1pm.

00:49:54 ◼   ► If he exits the room, and he's wearing his big headphones on, he will be trying very hard to pay no attention to whatever may be happening outside.

00:50:02 ◼   ► He's just getting some coffee and going back, and please don't interact with him.

00:50:07 ◼   ► - It's like everyone's got a chair and they're aiming it at one of the nature in the middle of the room.

00:50:12 ◼   ► Like, "I don't wanna know!"

00:50:13 ◼   ► - "I don't wanna know!" Right? Like, look!

00:50:16 ◼   ► One of the cows has escaped? I don't know, right?

00:50:21 ◼   ► This has been, like, a giant jar of honey spilled? Whatever!

00:50:24 ◼   ► I don't need to know about any of this.

00:50:27 ◼   ► And I have to say, everyone's been very good so far.

00:50:30 ◼   ► I'm still waiting until the maximum number of people are here.

00:50:33 ◼   ► But so far the rule has held well for week two of working.

00:50:37 ◼   ► Cool.

00:50:37 ◼   ► And my feeling on this was basically, again, this is a trip to see family, but I also

00:50:43 ◼   ► simply cannot take two weeks to just like not work at all.

00:50:48 ◼   ► That's like, it's just way too long of a time.

00:50:51 ◼   ► So I feel like this is a good use of the 80/20 rule of I would get 80% of my work done before

00:50:59 ◼   ► 1pm anyway, and so then it's like, okay, I'm available in the afternoons and I'm around

00:51:05 ◼   ► for other family stuff, and I have gotten the best 80% of the work done, and then I

00:51:10 ◼   ► can also be there.

00:51:11 ◼   ► You're just not gonna do the other 20, right?

00:51:13 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:51:14 ◼   ► You're just not gonna do it.

00:51:15 ◼   ► Like, I know that there's like things that we normally do, like we might have some Cortex

00:51:19 ◼   ► brand meetings or whatever and we're just like postponing them or like squeezing them

00:51:23 ◼   ► into our calls here.

00:51:24 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:51:25 ◼   ► There's this deep, the parts that can be condensed,

00:51:29 ◼   ► just condense them.

00:51:31 ◼   ► - Yes, exactly.

00:51:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's somewhat similar to when I was out in Memphis

00:51:37 ◼   ► and was just trying to remove as many things

00:51:41 ◼   ► that can be removed and then just have other stuff,

00:51:43 ◼   ► just I'll deal with it when I get home again.

00:51:46 ◼   ► So it's a very similar idea.

00:51:49 ◼   ► Thinking of it as like the 80/20

00:51:51 ◼   ► is actually a really nice way to put it.

00:51:53 ◼   ► where it's like there is stuff in my work day

00:51:56 ◼   ► that I'll get to every day that either A,

00:51:58 ◼   ► doesn't need to necessarily be done, but I'm doing it.

00:52:01 ◼   ► Or B is like the time that I don't track, right?

00:52:05 ◼   ► Where like, you know, I've been at the studio today.

00:52:09 ◼   ► It's a half past 10 now.

00:52:11 ◼   ► I've been here for 10 hours.

00:52:14 ◼   ► And up to now I have tracked five and a half hours

00:52:18 ◼   ► of work time because I was hanging out.

00:52:21 ◼   ► - Yeah. - And I don't track that.

00:52:22 ◼   ► or I'm just like, I'm on social media or I'm doing,

00:52:27 ◼   ► you know, like it's not like I'm just doing stuff

00:52:29 ◼   ► and I just don't track it, right?

00:52:31 ◼   ► But like that kind of stuff falls into my work day every day

00:52:34 ◼   ► where it's like, I'm checking email,

00:52:36 ◼   ► but like not really getting into it

00:52:39 ◼   ► or like maybe I'm having a call

00:52:41 ◼   ► or maybe I'm talking to somebody over Slack

00:52:43 ◼   ► or maybe I'm reading something or like,

00:52:45 ◼   ► but like it's not like work work.

00:52:47 ◼   ► And so I might have like an hour or two of that a day

00:52:50 ◼   ► or most days, but like the reason

00:52:52 ◼   ► There's way more of it today because we've started recording so late, right?

00:52:56 ◼   ► Like I would have gone home, you know, like I wouldn't have stuck around.

00:52:59 ◼   ► But it's more to the point of like, I can have these stretches in the day every day

00:53:03 ◼   ► where it's like, there's just busy work happening.

00:53:06 ◼   ► I don't really track like, because I kind of track when I'm actively working on a project.

00:53:12 ◼   ► And I can, when I'm traveling, I can just take those hours out of the day.

00:53:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:53:17 ◼   ► I'm also thinking of the 80/20 rule in the reverse.

00:53:20 ◼   ► again, I am doing a bunch of traveling this year and one of my real targets for like,

00:53:26 ◼   ► what consistently causes me problems is not being able to work well while traveling.

00:53:32 ◼   ► So I feel like this is one of my little sub goals for the year of I really want to try

00:53:36 ◼   ► to actually be able to consistently get some work done while traveling instead of no work

00:53:43 ◼   ► done.

00:53:45 ◼   ► And so that's why I'm thinking about in Hawaii, I'm aiming for this, oh, I should be able

00:53:49 ◼   ► to get 80% of the work done before 1pm.

00:53:52 ◼   ► But I also think for some of the other trips that I'm going to be doing, it's actually

00:53:55 ◼   ► useful to think about the reverse of like, 20% of your work is also the 80% most important.

00:54:03 ◼   ► And so for busier travel periods, it's like, if I could just keep doing, not trying to

00:54:09 ◼   ► hit 80% of my work, but only trying to hit 20% of the work, but actually hitting the

00:54:15 ◼   ► the most important things, I would still consider that like a great improvement compared to

00:54:20 ◼   ► traveling that I've done in the past.

00:54:22 ◼   ► That was actually the way I was thinking about it.

00:54:24 ◼   ► Of like the importance, not the amount.

00:54:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:54:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:54:29 ◼   ► It's like, it's just a useful metric to kind of think in both ways and just always

00:54:35 ◼   ► be aware of this kind of stuff.

00:54:37 ◼   ► For some of my future traveling things, I'm really going to be aiming more towards like,

00:54:41 ◼   ► if I can just have two solid hours a day of writing

00:54:46 ◼   ► while I'm still traveling,

00:54:48 ◼   ► like that would be like such an improvement

00:54:50 ◼   ► over zero hours of quality writing while traveling.

00:54:54 ◼   ► So that's kind of what I'm aiming

00:54:55 ◼   ► for some of the other stuff.

00:54:56 ◼   ► - 'Cause I think me and you from a travel perspective,

00:54:58 ◼   ► we're coming at this slightly differently, right?

00:55:00 ◼   ► 'Cause I know for you,

00:55:02 ◼   ► you just figure when you're traveling,

00:55:03 ◼   ► you won't have as much time to be uninterrupted.

00:55:06 ◼   ► So you want to focus on it.

00:55:07 ◼   ► And if you're going to be expecting to travel more,

00:55:10 ◼   ► you need to get used to that.

00:55:11 ◼   ► where for me, I'm expecting to travel less.

00:55:15 ◼   ► So when I am traveling,

00:55:17 ◼   ► I want to make the most of the travel.

00:55:20 ◼   ► So therefore, I wanna give up

00:55:22 ◼   ► the least amount of time possible, right?

00:55:26 ◼   ► I don't wanna give up hours and hours every day

00:55:29 ◼   ► to do this stuff, right?

00:55:31 ◼   ► Like to do whatever it is I've got to do for work.

00:55:33 ◼   ► So I'm trying to maximize time when traveling

00:55:36 ◼   ► because I am actively attempting to do less of it.

00:55:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, for sure.

00:55:40 ◼   ► I don't know, just thinking about the upcoming year, I do have more travel planned and all

00:55:45 ◼   ► of my Hawaii complaints aside, it does feel like, "Oh, it's really nice to have experiences

00:55:52 ◼   ► again."

00:55:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, definitely.

00:55:54 ◼   ► - You know, I visited my parents earlier and that felt like a real trial run for, "Hey,

00:56:01 ◼   ► is it fine to travel again at all?" and like that went fine.

00:56:06 ◼   ► And now this trip to Hawaii, I was like, "Boy, have I experienced things!"

00:56:11 ◼   ► And it's just, it's nice.

00:56:13 ◼   ► It's nice to have that again.

00:56:15 ◼   ► And so, as dumb as it sounds, there is a little bit of mentally reworking like, "Oh, okay,

00:56:19 ◼   ► I've got to think about mixing work with experiences that happen out in the world because you're

00:56:28 ◼   ► doing things."

00:56:29 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, I went to the movies with family yesterday."

00:56:35 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, right, that's an experience that I haven't had in a really long time."

00:56:40 ◼   ► I didn't want to go to the movies, I thought I would never have to do that again after COVID,

00:56:45 ◼   ► but it's like, "Hey, it was still great to do something."

00:56:48 ◼   ► So yeah, it's just nice to have that, but I am being aware of thinking about how to make sure

00:56:52 ◼   ► I keep up with the work over the course of the upcoming year with all of that stuff.

00:56:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, when we were in Memphis, we went to a movie and we went to a basketball game,

00:57:00 ◼   ► it's like, "Oh my god, these are like events."

00:57:03 ◼   ► - Right!

00:57:04 ◼   ► These are like things to do.

00:57:06 ◼   ► It's pretty cool actually.

00:57:07 ◼   ► So when I get bit by a centipede, that'll be a new experience too.

00:57:11 ◼   ► So how'd it go with seeing Stephen in Memphis?

00:57:14 ◼   ► I haven't actually heard anything about this trip.

00:57:16 ◼   ► It was so good, man.

00:57:17 ◼   ► Yeah?

00:57:17 ◼   ► Yeah, it was really great.

00:57:18 ◼   ► I mean, just from a personal level was just really important, you know, like

00:57:22 ◼   ► I hadn't seen him in so long and it just felt really good for our friendship

00:57:26 ◼   ► to spend time together because we've just been coworkers mostly

00:57:32 ◼   ► for the last couple of years

00:57:33 ◼   ► and we haven't actually had that time together.

00:57:35 ◼   ► And I don't think it was something that I'd realized.

00:57:38 ◼   ► We'd gotten so deep in work, right?

00:57:40 ◼   ► That I think we needed to have that time together

00:57:43 ◼   ► to like have a friendship time too, you know?

00:57:48 ◼   ► So that was nice.

00:57:49 ◼   ► I enjoyed that.

00:57:50 ◼   ► That was my favorite part of the whole trip.

00:57:52 ◼   ► And we didn't really do much work.

00:57:54 ◼   ► I think at one point he was like,

00:57:55 ◼   ► "We haven't really done any work."

00:57:56 ◼   ► And I'm like, "I don't wanna."

00:57:57 ◼   ► You know?

00:57:58 ◼   ► It was just like, I'm just enjoying this.

00:58:01 ◼   ► I mean, plus the start of the week,

00:58:02 ◼   ► there was an Apple event.

00:58:03 ◼   ► So that was like a whole thing we had to deal with.

00:58:05 ◼   ► But that was fun though, actually.

00:58:07 ◼   ► Like we watched the event together,

00:58:09 ◼   ► did a couple of shows together about it.

00:58:11 ◼   ► Like that was a whole fun thing.

00:58:12 ◼   ► From a work perspective, it did remind me

00:58:16 ◼   ► of something that I do consider important for me,

00:58:19 ◼   ► which is in-person meetings.

00:58:21 ◼   ► They don't always need to be that way,

00:58:24 ◼   ► but there's gonna be a few things every year

00:58:27 ◼   ► where being able to meet with a person I work with

00:58:31 ◼   ► to talk about big stuff is important.

00:58:34 ◼   ► Being able to do big picture things, for me,

00:58:37 ◼   ► having time together really helps.

00:58:41 ◼   ► You can be more focused

00:58:42 ◼   ► because you're in front of each other,

00:58:44 ◼   ► less distracted by things that are going on.

00:58:46 ◼   ► And it's like an extended period of time

00:58:49 ◼   ► that you can spend with someone.

00:58:50 ◼   ► So you have the ability to let your brain, I think,

00:58:53 ◼   ► work through bigger things,

00:58:55 ◼   ► or an idea pops into your head

00:58:57 ◼   ► and you can just share it in that moment

00:58:59 ◼   ► because that person's there.

00:59:00 ◼   ► You know, this is something me and Steven had always done,

00:59:03 ◼   ► was get together at least once a year

00:59:05 ◼   ► and just focus on this kind of stuff,

00:59:06 ◼   ► like bigger picture stuff.

00:59:07 ◼   ► We've had a couple of things

00:59:09 ◼   ► that we've been kind of bubbling around for a while,

00:59:11 ◼   ► some areas that we wanna put more focus in.

00:59:14 ◼   ► And it kind of wasn't until we got together

00:59:17 ◼   ► that we realized two kind of key parts about it,

00:59:20 ◼   ► that one, these two things are actually really connected

00:59:23 ◼   ► in a way that we hadn't considered.

00:59:24 ◼   ► and also that we should probably hire someone to do it.

00:59:29 ◼   ► And so we just hadn't thought of this at all.

00:59:32 ◼   ► It was like, oh, okay,

00:59:33 ◼   ► we'll just work this out together, right?

00:59:35 ◼   ► Like we'll just find a way to do it.

00:59:36 ◼   ► We'll fit it into what we're already doing

00:59:39 ◼   ► and realizing that no,

00:59:40 ◼   ► maybe we need someone who's actually got skills.

00:59:42 ◼   ► So we're still working out the details.

00:59:45 ◼   ► We're a small company adding people in,

00:59:48 ◼   ► even on like part-time, you know, even as contract basis,

00:59:52 ◼   ► we stuff we have to work out, right?

00:59:54 ◼   ► like how are we gonna make that work, et cetera, et cetera.

00:59:57 ◼   ► But it's sometime in 2022,

00:59:59 ◼   ► I think we're gonna expand the team again.

01:00:01 ◼   ► We wouldn't have come to this without having spent

01:00:05 ◼   ► like an afternoon, just the two of us,

01:00:08 ◼   ► just talking about the business.

01:00:10 ◼   ► Because we have a meeting every Monday

01:00:12 ◼   ► where we talk about things.

01:00:14 ◼   ► And we had a meeting like a call a month or two ago,

01:00:17 ◼   ► which was like our goals for the year call.

01:00:20 ◼   ► And we like went through it all.

01:00:23 ◼   ► and we spoke about the things that we wanted to change as a company

01:00:26 ◼   ► and we spoke about these areas we wanted to improve upon

01:00:29 ◼   ► and didn't cross our mind that maybe we should hire someone for it, you know?

01:00:35 ◼   ► I am the world's most resistant person to this idea

01:00:39 ◼   ► but this whole time has actually really demonstrated the value of in-person meetings

01:00:46 ◼   ► like it is just different

01:00:49 ◼   ► it's fundamentally different to be in a room and talk with someone

01:00:52 ◼   ► Like, I'm doubtful of the way that many companies pitch this as like,

01:00:59 ◼   ► "Oh, the magic happens in this meeting, like we can have a great meeting and get everyone together."

01:01:04 ◼   ► But it really is important to actually just spend time in person with someone.

01:01:10 ◼   ► It sounds dumb, it's almost shocking how different it is.

01:01:13 ◼   ► Well, the problem is, is like, a lot of companies, they oversell it as a thing that is every day.

01:01:18 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah. - That like,

01:01:19 ◼   ► us being together every day,

01:01:21 ◼   ► having every meeting in person

01:01:22 ◼   ► is the only way work gets done, and that's just not true.

01:01:26 ◼   ► But there are maybe big things, big picture things,

01:01:30 ◼   ► for some people it will help them to be in the same place.

01:01:34 ◼   ► And I know that it is that way for me.

01:01:36 ◼   ► And me and you have it, right?

01:01:38 ◼   ► Like, whenever we meet up for lunch or whatever,

01:01:41 ◼   ► we talk about business, we always end up in places

01:01:43 ◼   ► that we never would end up in

01:01:45 ◼   ► if we're just sitting and talking.

01:01:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's completely different.

01:01:48 ◼   ► One of the things that's nice about in-person, especially over a length of time, like an entire afternoon or a couple of days,

01:01:54 ◼   ► is you can more naturally do the thing where you sort of mention an idea and then circle back to it later in the conversation a couple times and develop.

01:02:05 ◼   ► It's just, I don't know, it's just harder to do that in a call or especially with FaceTime.

01:02:11 ◼   ► It just, I don't know, it feels like somehow there always has to be like, "This is the topic that we're discussing now."

01:02:16 ◼   ► and where slightly taking turns, each person, you know, especially with like the delays over

01:02:23 ◼   ► Zoom calls, it's like each person sort of has to monologue for a minute and be like,

01:02:28 ◼   ► "I am the person talking now," and then the next person talks. And it just makes it harder to like

01:02:34 ◼   ► bring back up things in a way where it feels like, "Oh, we're developing this idea each time it flows

01:02:41 ◼   ► back into the conversation over the course of an afternoon or over the course of a week." Yeah,

01:02:45 ◼   ► It's surprising how valuable that is to do.

01:02:48 ◼   ► - You know, I do have this feeling like audio calls can be difficult

01:02:51 ◼   ► because it's too easy to get distracted.

01:02:53 ◼   ► I think video calls are complicated.

01:02:56 ◼   ► I saw somebody say this once, I don't know if there's truth to it, but I believe it.

01:02:59 ◼   ► That like the preview of yourself makes you feel like you're performing.

01:03:04 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah, no, the preview of yourself is awful.

01:03:06 ◼   ► I really think it makes the calls so much worse.

01:03:09 ◼   ► - Because you can see you.

01:03:11 ◼   ► And so like you're trying to like talk to the person

01:03:14 ◼   ► but also not look stupid.

01:03:17 ◼   ► I don't know, right?

01:03:17 ◼   ► Like, but this is like a thing that we don't normally have in regular conversation.

01:03:21 ◼   ► Like it would be super weird.

01:03:22 ◼   ► Like, you know, if I was talking to you and you put a little mirror on the desk.

01:03:25 ◼   ► I would just like to see how my face looks while I'm talking to you.

01:03:28 ◼   ► Do you mind if I put this mirror next to you?

01:03:29 ◼   ► Well, if you put it and aimed it at me, right?

01:03:32 ◼   ► Like, you know, like here you go, while you're talking to me, there's this, this,

01:03:36 ◼   ► this little version of you just in the corner.

01:03:38 ◼   ► It would be completely bizarre.

01:03:40 ◼   ► and I think it's just impossible for monkeys not to then think about themselves in the background constantly

01:03:47 ◼   ► when they're looking at themselves in that way.

01:03:49 ◼   ► It doesn't matter who you are, it's just completely impossible.

01:03:53 ◼   ► And it is funny with some people who I do FaceTime with,

01:03:57 ◼   ► they're definitely way more on the extreme of unable to look away from their own image.

01:04:03 ◼   ► And it's very funny, there's a couple of people where I FaceTime, it's like,

01:04:05 ◼   ► "I know that you're just looking at the photo of you 100% of the time."

01:04:09 ◼   ► Like, I can see that you're doing it.

01:04:11 ◼   ► It's very funny.

01:04:12 ◼   ► I don't know why we're doing this as a FaceTime call.

01:04:15 ◼   ► For a bunch of reasons, FaceTime is just more exhausting.

01:04:21 ◼   ► Like, I way prefer an audio call over a FaceTime call for these sorts of things.

01:04:26 ◼   ► Cause I just think the FaceTime stuff is really exhausting in a way that an audio

01:04:30 ◼   ► call isn't, but they're both not as good.

01:04:33 ◼   ► It is just actually being in the same room with a person.

01:04:36 ◼   ► Yep.

01:04:37 ◼   ► I agree completely.

01:04:38 ◼   ► But I'm really glad that you got to go to Memphis and that you guys finally got your co-founder time together.

01:04:43 ◼   ► Like that was just so overdue and I'm glad to hear that some things will come out of it.

01:04:47 ◼   ► [BEEP]

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01:06:41 ◼   ► It is impossible for me to describe how much I hate email. Not just e- like it is the terrible

01:06:49 ◼   ► email that I get and how impossible it is for me to escape from it because of my job.

01:06:56 ◼   ► You're tied to the wheel.

01:06:57 ◼   ► I want to give you an idea of what I'm talking about here, right?

01:07:00 ◼   ► So on any given day, I could get like say 50 to 60 emails, right?

01:07:06 ◼   ► All right.

01:07:06 ◼   ► This is not including junk mail or whatever, right?

01:07:11 ◼   ► This is like 50 to 60 emails that hit my inbox.

01:07:14 ◼   ► So like emails written by a person to you in particular, that's what you're talking about.

01:07:20 ◼   ► Asterisk, but yes.

01:07:22 ◼   ► Okay.

01:07:23 ◼   ► The problem with these emails is around 25% of these emails are PR pitches and sales pitches

01:07:33 ◼   ► that I never want anything to deal with, ever.

01:07:37 ◼   ► Right.

01:07:38 ◼   ► Okay.

01:07:39 ◼   ► These are people that have gotten my email address from scraping the Apple Podcast Directory or something.

01:07:46 ◼   ► And they're like, "This person would be great for your podcast."

01:07:51 ◼   ► Right.

01:07:51 ◼   ► "Hey Myke and Gray!"

01:07:53 ◼   ► "Wouldn't you love to interview person?"

01:07:55 ◼   ► "They would be a fantastic guest for you."

01:07:57 ◼   ► Right.

01:07:58 ◼   ► And it's like, not only discounting the fact that you haven't even done the minimum amount of research gathering

01:08:05 ◼   ► to realize that we have never had a guest on the show.

01:08:09 ◼   ► But like that is giving too much credit to these people, right?

01:08:12 ◼   ► Because they don't care.

01:08:14 ◼   ► Like it's not, they're just scraping and they're just sending these emails out.

01:08:17 ◼   ► Like a bunch of them are like just terrible sales pitches

01:08:21 ◼   ► for things that I don't want.

01:08:22 ◼   ► Like I had a company email me today that wants to do like, um, invoice financing.

01:08:29 ◼   ► Are you familiar with this idea?

01:08:31 ◼   ► Like, I don't know what that is.

01:08:32 ◼   ► So they would sit between us and our sponsors.

01:08:36 ◼   ► Okay.

01:08:36 ◼   ► they would pay us immediately and then chase the sponsors.

01:08:40 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

01:08:41 ◼   ► - But then they take like 10% of the money.

01:08:43 ◼   ► And it's like, this is a company set up

01:08:45 ◼   ► specifically to do this for podcasting.

01:08:47 ◼   ► It's like, why does this company exist, right?

01:08:50 ◼   ► Like, there's such a niche, like why do,

01:08:53 ◼   ► who needs that, you know?

01:08:55 ◼   ► Like, I just start nonsense like this, I get all the time.

01:08:59 ◼   ► - I'm shocked that that can even exist as a viable business.

01:09:02 ◼   ► - I know, right?

01:09:03 ◼   ► Like the business isn't big enough to start with.

01:09:05 ◼   ► the amount of companies that are actually invoicing anyone

01:09:08 ◼   ► is getting increasingly smaller.

01:09:11 ◼   ► Like we are an outlier of an outlier at Relay FM.

01:09:14 ◼   ► It's like a podcast network that sells its own ads.

01:09:18 ◼   ► Like that just doesn't really exist that much anymore.

01:09:21 ◼   ► Like there are a few knocking around,

01:09:23 ◼   ► but most of them just join these larger platforms.

01:09:26 ◼   ► It's not even networks anymore.

01:09:28 ◼   ► You just join this platform that is like an ad marketplace

01:09:31 ◼   ► or you use some kind of advertising agency

01:09:34 ◼   ► to sell on your behalf.

01:09:35 ◼   ► Like that's the way things tend to be done these days.

01:09:38 ◼   ► Yeah, the consolidation in this whole market has been enormous.

01:09:41 ◼   ► And it's like, when I'm thinking of how many companies are still in existence

01:09:45 ◼   ► that work the way Relay does, it's like, it's gotta be less than five in the world.

01:09:51 ◼   ► So, so who is this invoice finance company going for?

01:09:55 ◼   ► But like what that tells me is this is like one person or something, right?

01:09:59 ◼   ► Like, and they're like, I've got a great idea.

01:10:02 ◼   ► But like this is the like, and then maybe another 25%

01:10:06 ◼   ► are like mailing lists of things that I do care about,

01:10:09 ◼   ► but they're for me.

01:10:10 ◼   ► So it's like maybe like Patreon emails,

01:10:13 ◼   ► you know, like things that I've signed up for.

01:10:15 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:10:16 ◼   ► - Then I'll get some like receipt type emails or whatever.

01:10:20 ◼   ► And then the rest is like work email, right?

01:10:22 ◼   ► Like the actual work email that I want,

01:10:25 ◼   ► which is like companies that I have relationships with

01:10:28 ◼   ► that need things from me or companies reaching out

01:10:31 ◼   ► to do sales stuff, which not always,

01:10:33 ◼   ► but still a lot of the time comes to me

01:10:35 ◼   ► and then I give it to Kerry to take on,

01:10:37 ◼   ► just 'cause of the way that our email accounts

01:10:38 ◼   ► are set up or whatever,

01:10:39 ◼   ► and just 'cause my email address just is in the world

01:10:43 ◼   ► somehow, without me ever wanting it to be,

01:10:46 ◼   ► but I can't get away from it.

01:10:48 ◼   ► But like, there is no,

01:10:50 ◼   ► the thing that is making me so upset about this

01:10:52 ◼   ► at the moment, is I have had to come to terms with the fact

01:10:55 ◼   ► that it is impossible for me to escape this.

01:10:58 ◼   ► Email is so fundamentally broken,

01:11:01 ◼   ► but there is no way out of it.

01:11:04 ◼   ► Because I could do what you do, which is not look anymore.

01:11:08 ◼   ► But the problem is, that's not how my company runs.

01:11:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I could talk about that in a minute.

01:11:13 ◼   ► But yeah, your business in particular can't work that way.

01:11:17 ◼   ► - It's just the amount of crap that I get.

01:11:19 ◼   ► 'Cause if you removed the PR pitches and sales pitches,

01:11:23 ◼   ► I'd be fine with what I get.

01:11:25 ◼   ► And I use like email filtering tools,

01:11:29 ◼   ► but I still have to check through the email

01:11:32 ◼   ► because a lot of email filtering tools

01:11:35 ◼   ► collect up these PR pitches along with like sales pitches

01:11:40 ◼   ► that I do want, right?

01:11:43 ◼   ► Or it's like, hey, we have a company

01:11:45 ◼   ► and we wanna get our brand

01:11:46 ◼   ► in front of your podcast listeners, right?

01:11:48 ◼   ► Can you send us your sales debt?

01:11:49 ◼   ► Great.

01:11:50 ◼   ► I still want those emails.

01:11:52 ◼   ► So I don't really,

01:11:53 ◼   ► it feels like I can't get away from this

01:11:56 ◼   ► because even if I was to filter them out of my inbox,

01:11:59 ◼   ► I still then have to go and look at them.

01:12:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, so while you're talking,

01:12:02 ◼   ► I'm having my own email battle right now.

01:12:05 ◼   ► I just opened up my email just to have it open

01:12:07 ◼   ► so I could describe what I'm trying to do.

01:12:09 ◼   ► And while I opened it,

01:12:12 ◼   ► you still just have straight up errors.

01:12:14 ◼   ► So I'm trying to use a bunch of filtering as well

01:12:17 ◼   ► on my system and it works reasonably well.

01:12:19 ◼   ► But just straight away,

01:12:21 ◼   ► when I clicked on the folder of probable junk,

01:12:24 ◼   ► right at the top were two critical invoices

01:12:29 ◼   ► that I have to pay.

01:12:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have to check my spam folder

01:12:32 ◼   ► all the time for this kind of stuff.

01:12:33 ◼   ► - Right.

01:12:34 ◼   ► - And it's like, last month I dealt with this email,

01:12:35 ◼   ► why is it in my spam now?

01:12:37 ◼   ► Like, why is this happening?

01:12:39 ◼   ► - And so these two invoices I have in various systems

01:12:44 ◼   ► marked these things as not spam

01:12:47 ◼   ► probably six times over the last year,

01:12:52 ◼   ► and it's like, why is it still getting caught up

01:12:54 ◼   ► in the system?

01:12:55 ◼   ► So like, I am with you here,

01:12:57 ◼   ► even with the best system, the way email works,

01:13:01 ◼   ► you still can't really ever trust it enough

01:13:05 ◼   ► that you can go like,

01:13:06 ◼   ► "I'm just not gonna look in that junk folder,"

01:13:09 ◼   ► because there can be legit critical problems.

01:13:12 ◼   ► And also what can end up in there is just people

01:13:15 ◼   ► who have never contacted you before,

01:13:18 ◼   ► but who you want to get their message.

01:13:19 ◼   ► Like that's way more likely to get snagged in some filter

01:13:22 ◼   ► for some weird reason.

01:13:24 ◼   ► So yeah, I get it, like it's super frustrating.

01:13:26 ◼   ► - 'Cause like I use a tool called SaneBox.

01:13:28 ◼   ► They've been a sponsor of the podcast in the past,

01:13:30 ◼   ► but I've paid for their product for years.

01:13:33 ◼   ► And they have, like they, I like,

01:13:35 ◼   ► one of the things they like is like,

01:13:36 ◼   ► are you in a sales role?

01:13:37 ◼   ► If you are, you should set it up this way,

01:13:39 ◼   ► where it's like the least aggressive

01:13:42 ◼   ► of this type of filtering.

01:13:43 ◼   ► if I think it's called their sane later thing.

01:13:46 ◼   ► And you can do some manual training, which I've done,

01:13:49 ◼   ► and it works fine and blah, blah, blah.

01:13:51 ◼   ► Because that was my concern

01:13:52 ◼   ► when I was initially setting it up.

01:13:53 ◼   ► It was like, am I gonna start missing stuff now?

01:13:55 ◼   ► It's like, well, they know that there might be other things.

01:13:58 ◼   ► Like I have it pull out newsletters

01:14:00 ◼   ► and I'm able to set up some of my own filtering with it,

01:14:03 ◼   ► but I can't do their best filtering

01:14:07 ◼   ► because of the type of job I have.

01:14:09 ◼   ► Right, 'cause I think at a fundamental level,

01:14:11 ◼   ► what a lot of these services do is like,

01:14:14 ◼   ► if somebody's contacted you for the first time,

01:14:17 ◼   ► it just goes into a bucket

01:14:18 ◼   ► and you can just go in there when you want it.

01:14:20 ◼   ► And for a lot of people, that's like, great,

01:14:22 ◼   ► like that will work.

01:14:24 ◼   ► But that just can't work for me

01:14:26 ◼   ► because the first time someone contacts me

01:14:29 ◼   ► could be important and could have a kind of,

01:14:31 ◼   ► its benefit to my company could diminish every day

01:14:36 ◼   ► that I don't deal with it.

01:14:37 ◼   ► - Exactly, yeah.

01:14:38 ◼   ► - It kind of doesn't really matter

01:14:39 ◼   ► about notifications or whatever,

01:14:41 ◼   ► like this isn't the problem.

01:14:43 ◼   ► I can turn all my notifications off, whatever.

01:14:46 ◼   ► It's still email, I still have to go to the email, right?

01:14:48 ◼   ► Like the problem isn't like the email when it comes in.

01:14:52 ◼   ► It's like when I open my email inbox

01:14:54 ◼   ► and there's just all this just crap in there.

01:14:57 ◼   ► The thing that is so annoying to me is it's like,

01:14:59 ◼   ► this is such low effort.

01:15:01 ◼   ► I don't know who is going along with these things.

01:15:05 ◼   ► Who ever says, yeah, okay.

01:15:09 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:15:11 ◼   ► - Right, like another one that I get a lot is like,

01:15:14 ◼   ► I would like to publish an article on your website.

01:15:18 ◼   ► Whoever says yes to this?

01:15:20 ◼   ► I don't know who it is that says yes.

01:15:23 ◼   ► - So one of the other things is,

01:15:25 ◼   ► I have had a long history of being real bad with email,

01:15:30 ◼   ► but there are a few things that I may want to do

01:15:33 ◼   ► over the next few years which would require me

01:15:35 ◼   ► to be much better at managing email

01:15:37 ◼   ► for like contacting people reasons.

01:15:40 ◼   ► And so one of the things that I spent my time flying

01:15:44 ◼   ► across the world doing was like, okay, great.

01:15:46 ◼   ► You know what I'm gonna do?

01:15:47 ◼   ► I'm gonna clear as much email as I can,

01:15:50 ◼   ► which ended up being just like thousands of messages

01:15:54 ◼   ► because it's the same, I have the same problem that you do.

01:15:57 ◼   ► It seems like in the last two years,

01:16:00 ◼   ► somehow my email has ended up on just 100 million lists.

01:16:05 ◼   ► And I think quite literally I may have deleted,

01:16:09 ◼   ► let's say 200 emails alone on my flight,

01:16:13 ◼   ► which were a variation on,

01:16:15 ◼   ► I would love to put an article on your website,

01:16:19 ◼   ► which again is like,

01:16:19 ◼   ► - I'm so happy you get them too.

01:16:20 ◼   ► - Oh my God, right?

01:16:23 ◼   ► They're completely baffling.

01:16:25 ◼   ► - All of this was exacerbated for me this morning,

01:16:28 ◼   ► when as I was leaving the house, I got an email for you.

01:16:34 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:16:35 ◼   ► - I'm sorry.

01:16:36 ◼   ► - You're not the only person

01:16:37 ◼   ► that I get these emails for, right?

01:16:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, but still it's frustrating.

01:16:40 ◼   ► - But like, it's just like funny to me where it's like,

01:16:44 ◼   ► we would like you to publish your videos

01:16:46 ◼   ► on our platform, CGP Grey.

01:16:48 ◼   ► And it's like, the email is my @mikehurley.net email address.

01:16:53 ◼   ► Like it's not even the one associated with Cortex, right?

01:16:58 ◼   ► I would accept it if it was that one, right?

01:17:00 ◼   ► Like the one that is like publicly

01:17:03 ◼   ► in Apple's podcast database.

01:17:04 ◼   ► But it wasn't, this person had to go to my website

01:17:08 ◼   ► to get that email address

01:17:10 ◼   ► and they didn't even address it to me.

01:17:12 ◼   ► It's like, I don't even understand how this happened.

01:17:15 ◼   ► - I'm so sorry.

01:17:18 ◼   ► - But like, look, you don't need to,

01:17:20 ◼   ► 'cause like that was one of the 25 emails today that I got

01:17:23 ◼   ► that was some version of this nonsense.

01:17:25 ◼   ► This one just so happened to be addressed to you.

01:17:28 ◼   ► Because like with our podcasts by and large,

01:17:31 ◼   ► we just submit them all under a Relay FM email address.

01:17:35 ◼   ► So all of our podcast hosts at Relay FM,

01:17:38 ◼   ► they get shielded from this nonsense

01:17:41 ◼   ► because we receive these terrible emails

01:17:44 ◼   ► that they don't want on their behalf,

01:17:47 ◼   ► where they address them to the host.

01:17:48 ◼   ► Hey, so-and-so, we would love to put Billy Bob on your show.

01:17:53 ◼   ► Billy Bob as the CEO of Big Mind Incorporated,

01:17:59 ◼   ► just all this nonsense that we get all day, right?

01:18:01 ◼   ► Like, which no one ever wants anything to deal with.

01:18:04 ◼   ► - No, it's a frustrating problem.

01:18:06 ◼   ► And what I'm trying to do is through a variety

01:18:09 ◼   ► of smart mailboxes and filters,

01:18:11 ◼   ► is divide it all up into four categories.

01:18:14 ◼   ► So I've got like VIPs, people that I've marked explicitly

01:18:18 ◼   ► as VIPs in my contact address.

01:18:21 ◼   ► Then there's everyone who's a contact of some kind.

01:18:25 ◼   ► There's what I'm calling for now, non-tax,

01:18:28 ◼   ► Which is like, these aren't my contacts, but these are automated messages

01:18:32 ◼   ► from places that I care about.

01:18:34 ◼   ► So it's like Amazon receipts and PayPal notifications and stuff.

01:18:38 ◼   ► And then at the bottom, junk.

01:18:40 ◼   ► So in theory, I should be working from like VIPs to contacts to non-tax to the

01:18:45 ◼   ► junk and clear the boxes in that order.

01:18:48 ◼   ► But even there, it's super frustrating because it's like, oh, I want invoices

01:18:53 ◼   ► from PayPal to show up in the VIP category, but there's no, and I suspect

01:18:58 ◼   ► A lot of companies do this on purpose where there's no good way to try to filter it so

01:19:03 ◼   ► that you only get some of their messages.

01:19:06 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, I can either get everything from PayPal or most of the things from PayPal

01:19:11 ◼   ► showing up on my top level thing, which 90% of it I don't care about.

01:19:16 ◼   ► Or I can have it all go into the non-tax folder, but then I'm missing the important thing."

01:19:21 ◼   ► This is the frustration.

01:19:22 ◼   ► Like you just can't get it to work the way you want to, and you have to check all of

01:19:28 ◼   ► them, including the junk.

01:19:30 ◼   ► And yeah, I was really quite shocked to realize just how much the actual volume of email has

01:19:38 ◼   ► increased over the past two years.

01:19:40 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh my God, what a nightmare to deal with all of this."

01:19:44 ◼   ► The reason it sticks around, and the thing that I am still grateful for, is it is the

01:19:47 ◼   ► only sort of open platform where there is a way to just try to reach people without having to

01:19:53 ◼   ► sign up for like a million different services but boy does it feel like it's really approaching a

01:20:00 ◼   ► tragedy of the commons problem to actually get things done in here so.

01:20:04 ◼   ► The barrier to entry is too low though right?

01:20:07 ◼   ► Yes.

01:20:07 ◼   ► If you imagine this like scale of like your home address, phone number or whatever,

01:20:12 ◼   ► of your email address, it's just too easy

01:20:16 ◼   ► to send stuff to people or to find that email address

01:20:19 ◼   ► or whatever, you know, like the fact that I need

01:20:22 ◼   ► to give an email address in certain circumstances

01:20:25 ◼   ► and then that email address can just be taken and sold.

01:20:28 ◼   ► You know, I think that we are in the same issue here also

01:20:30 ◼   ► of like our email address is on mailing list that are sold.

01:20:35 ◼   ► - Yes, exactly, yeah, that has totally happened.

01:20:37 ◼   ► - That's why we get so many of these emails

01:20:40 ◼   ► that are like, I wanna publish this link on your blog

01:20:42 ◼   ► or this person would be great to come and talk to your audience about the thing that

01:20:48 ◼   ► has absolutely nothing to do with anything that anyone cares about, you know?

01:20:52 ◼   ► I almost feel sorry for the people that have to do these podcast interviews.

01:20:56 ◼   ► Like, you know, like they surely don't even want to do them.

01:20:59 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a strange world, all of that stuff.

01:21:03 ◼   ► It's like, oh, you know, if my email is anything to go by, it's like podcast interviews are

01:21:09 ◼   ► 95% of the global economy, I guess?

01:21:12 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:21:14 ◼   ► I don't know what's happening anymore.

01:21:17 ◼   ► Also, I have the terrible suspicion of,

01:21:20 ◼   ► I just don't believe any of the unsubscribe links anymore.

01:21:24 ◼   ► Like I'm fairly certain that clicking on those

01:21:26 ◼   ► please unsubscribe me lists,

01:21:28 ◼   ► that's gotta be like 50% of the time it works,

01:21:32 ◼   ► but 50% of the time it can just confirms

01:21:35 ◼   ► that this email has a person behind it.

01:21:37 ◼   ► - I worry about this too.

01:21:38 ◼   ► - Now just sells the address on further.

01:21:41 ◼   ► - The only time I ever click them is if I feel like,

01:21:45 ◼   ► or I can see that where I'm going is to the unsubscribe page

01:21:50 ◼   ► of a major email platform.

01:21:53 ◼   ► So like a MailChimp or a campaign monitor or whatever,

01:21:57 ◼   ► because I'm confident that's going to work.

01:22:00 ◼   ► And my personal favorite thing about MailChimp

01:22:02 ◼   ► is I can say, I never signed up for this.

01:22:04 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah, that's very nice.

01:22:05 ◼   ► - Because I know if someone gets enough of them,

01:22:08 ◼   ► it can put them into MailChimp jail, basically.

01:22:11 ◼   ► I know that they pay attention to that kind of stuff.

01:22:13 ◼   ► Yeah, I got into MailChimp jail from a single person clicking that link once,

01:22:18 ◼   ► where it was like, "Oh, we got a report that someone said they didn't sign up for your mailing list."

01:22:23 ◼   ► "Well, you should stop buying one of those email addresses, Gray. That's the problem."

01:22:26 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:22:29 ◼   ► Yeah, but I was like, "Whoa, that's very aggressive there, MailChimp."

01:22:32 ◼   ► But that's a good metric to have, though.

01:22:35 ◼   ► If it's one of the major mail providers, then I can actually believe you on Subscribeling.

01:22:38 ◼   ► Sometimes you can tell just by the way the email looks,

01:22:41 ◼   ► which is helpful.

01:22:42 ◼   ► Sometimes you can see where the link's gonna take you.

01:22:44 ◼   ► But yeah, I feel that too.

01:22:45 ◼   ► If it's like some random thing,

01:22:47 ◼   ► it's like, if I click this, they know I'm there now.

01:22:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, it really feels like cutting off the head of a Hydra

01:22:53 ◼   ► every time you click one of those unsubscribe links,

01:22:55 ◼   ► like, ooh.

01:22:56 ◼   ► - I had this thing the other day

01:23:00 ◼   ► that I clicked one of these

01:23:01 ◼   ► 'cause I was getting emails from his company every day.

01:23:04 ◼   ► And it's like, it could take up to seven days.

01:23:07 ◼   ► like, "Why? Why would it take seven days to get rid of this? Like, what do you do?

01:23:12 ◼   ► Is someone manually checking this? Like, why will it take a week to remove me from this email list?"

01:23:18 ◼   ► I suspect the reason for that is they are operating in a jurisdiction where that is the law.

01:23:25 ◼   ► Like, you must remove it within X amount of time.

01:23:27 ◼   ► And so what they're really just doing is saying, "We have seven more days to mail you pitches."

01:23:32 ◼   ► That's what that, like, that's my suspicion is.

01:23:34 ◼   ► I actually think I might know the real one.

01:23:37 ◼   ► I just said that.

01:23:39 ◼   ► I remember from back in my old days.

01:23:42 ◼   ► Depending on how the information is shared

01:23:45 ◼   ► and who's sending the emails,

01:23:46 ◼   ► there may be a lag in that information

01:23:49 ◼   ► getting from one place to the other.

01:23:51 ◼   ► When I used to work in the bank,

01:23:52 ◼   ► because it was bank information,

01:23:54 ◼   ► you couldn't just have it freely shared

01:23:57 ◼   ► between the bank and the company that sent the emails.

01:24:00 ◼   ► 'Cause it was like a whole other company

01:24:02 ◼   ► that sent the emails.

01:24:04 ◼   ► So that information would feed from one place to the next

01:24:07 ◼   ► and it would be collected up in the next round

01:24:10 ◼   ► of email addresses that would be sent out

01:24:12 ◼   ► to the company to send them to.

01:24:14 ◼   ► Does that make sense?

01:24:15 ◼   ► So like you would say, I don't wanna do this

01:24:17 ◼   ► and the place that takes note of that

01:24:18 ◼   ► is not actually the same place that presses send

01:24:21 ◼   ► on the email newsletter list.

01:24:24 ◼   ► It's like you've got to wait,

01:24:24 ◼   ► there's like a delay between point A and point B

01:24:27 ◼   ► of, oh, this is what the list is now.

01:24:30 ◼   ► I will say it's bull (beep) that that exists

01:24:33 ◼   ► 'cause that's like too many old systems

01:24:35 ◼   ► being strung together.

01:24:37 ◼   ► But that might be in some cases

01:24:38 ◼   ► why that kind of thing does happen,

01:24:41 ◼   ► but it's stupid that so many large companies

01:24:43 ◼   ► use such terribly old technology, you know?

01:24:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, God, like email was invented in the 60s

01:24:50 ◼   ► or 70s, I don't know, like it is an old tech

01:24:57 ◼   ► and that sounds like old tech built on top of older tech,

01:25:00 ◼   ► but yeah, I don't know, like again,

01:25:02 ◼   ► I find myself back on the wheel of email again

01:25:06 ◼   ► after basically ignoring all of my email for two years.

01:25:10 ◼   ► And it has been dismal getting back into this

01:25:13 ◼   ► and be like, "Okay, I need to actually manage this.

01:25:16 ◼   ► I need to deal with the horrific guilt of an email

01:25:19 ◼   ► from an important person from two years ago."

01:25:21 ◼   ► And it's like, "Oh, it feels so awful."

01:25:24 ◼   ► - You still using mail?

01:25:26 ◼   ► - I am still using mail.

01:25:27 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what I'm still using.

01:25:28 ◼   ► - I'd like to make a recommendation for you.

01:25:30 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:25:31 ◼   ► if you just use Gmail. If you do use Gmail, I recommend an app called MimeStream. Oh,

01:25:35 ◼   ► we spoke about it in State of the Apps. If you haven't looked at it, look at MimeStream.

01:25:39 ◼   ► It's awesome.

01:25:40 ◼   ► But it can do non-Gmail stuff? That's the problem. I've got a bunch of accounts that

01:25:44 ◼   ► are not Gmail.

01:25:45 ◼   ► Right now, it's just Gmail. I think that they are going to work on that, and when they do,

01:25:49 ◼   ► it's what I will probably move to on my Mac for a lot of stuff. But I still use Spark.

01:25:55 ◼   ► I just figured we should just update people because we just spoke about email, rambled

01:25:59 ◼   ► about email for 20 minutes. I feel like Stu's and Spark still love their team sharing features.

01:26:05 ◼   ► Like they've got me forever with that because it's so good for what I do, especially when

01:26:10 ◼   ► like all those emails that I mentioned earlier, like the sales ones that come in that I do

01:26:14 ◼   ► want us to actually engage in, I don't deal with them. I then hand them over to Carrie

01:26:18 ◼   ► and she deals with them and I use Spark to like filter that through. Like it came into

01:26:22 ◼   ► my email address, but I can move it over to her email address. Now I've thought like,

01:26:27 ◼   ► we like decouple it and then have just like a sales relay infirm address but it's even then

01:26:32 ◼   ► I'm still gonna want to see it so like whatever like just might as well to keep it as it is.

01:26:36 ◼   ► Yeah this is also the problem where you try to make separate email addresses to have filtering

01:26:41 ◼   ► but then they all end up in the same email program again yeah and it's just like oh I've

01:26:45 ◼   ► accomplished nothing. This is who I end up with it's like I could make things really much more

01:26:50 ◼   ► difficult for myself for a while for no result like there will be no good result for me. Like

01:26:56 ◼   ► Like looking at my email accounts,

01:26:58 ◼   ► I have like 10 different accounts

01:26:59 ◼   ► that my program is checking.

01:27:01 ◼   ► And many of these, I'm looking at them and I know it's like,

01:27:03 ◼   ► oh yes, that's when I thought I would start over

01:27:06 ◼   ► and have just this email that I would give to,

01:27:09 ◼   ► oh, this one's the just for companies email

01:27:12 ◼   ► and this one is just for people.

01:27:14 ◼   ► And it's like, nope, I solved nothing

01:27:16 ◼   ► except making my system more annoying and more complicated.

01:27:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have seven email accounts.

01:27:22 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

01:27:24 ◼   ► - What a fool.