Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► Okay, good to go!

00:00:02 ◼   ► Okay.

00:00:02 ◼   ► Ready to get started.

00:00:04 ◼   ► Only two hours after we sort of got started.

00:00:07 ◼   ► I know.

00:00:07 ◼   ► It's not too bad.

00:00:08 ◼   ► Big meetings today.

00:00:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:00:10 ◼   ► So I am today, I'm doing something I haven't done in nearly four months.

00:00:17 ◼   ► Oh yeah?

00:00:17 ◼   ► I am recording a podcast from Mega Studio.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Ooh!

00:00:21 ◼   ► You're back at Mega Studio!

00:00:23 ◼   ► Well, one day this week I was like,

00:00:25 ◼   ► "I'm gonna go to the studio."

00:00:27 ◼   ► Okay.

00:00:28 ◼   ► I just had this like, I haven't had this feeling.

00:00:31 ◼   ► You just woke up?

00:00:32 ◼   ► I don't even know why it happened.

00:00:33 ◼   ► I was just like, I can't even remember what I was doing at the time.

00:00:38 ◼   ► And she was like, "No, I'm gonna go to the studio this week and the best day will be

00:00:41 ◼   ► Thursday."

00:00:42 ◼   ► Okay.

00:00:44 ◼   ► And so I just said to her, and I was like, "I want to go to the studio.

00:00:48 ◼   ► Do you think that's a good idea?"

00:00:50 ◼   ► And she said, "Yes."

00:00:51 ◼   ► So I did it.

00:00:52 ◼   ► It's good you had that little sanity check.

00:00:54 ◼   ► "I have an idea.

00:00:55 ◼   ► Just let me run it past someone."

00:00:56 ◼   ► And also, you know, if every time we go out, we are making a risk for both of us, and so

00:01:04 ◼   ► I would be leaving the home for the day and spending it in a completely different location

00:01:09 ◼   ► with all manner of different people that I can walk past and stuff, you know?

00:01:14 ◼   ► So I increase my exposure vector for the day and that increases both of ours.

00:01:19 ◼   ► Yeah, it's another one of those like, it's yower decision to make.

00:01:22 ◼   ► Oh that's fun.

00:01:23 ◼   ► I like that.

00:01:24 ◼   ► I like that.

00:01:25 ◼   ► Yower.

00:01:26 ◼   ► I like that, I'm gonna use that.

00:01:28 ◼   ► I've told you that before.

00:01:29 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:01:30 ◼   ► You've got yower and mower, right?

00:01:31 ◼   ► Like, that's how you discuss coupled decisions.

00:01:34 ◼   ► What's mower?

00:01:35 ◼   ► I don't remember that one.

00:01:36 ◼   ► What's mower?

00:01:37 ◼   ► Mower is like if, okay, so two people are making a decision.

00:01:39 ◼   ► It's a coupled decision.

00:01:41 ◼   ► And it's yower or mower from the perspective of the person talking.

00:01:46 ◼   ► So if a decision is, let's say Myke, you and I are deciding something, right?

00:01:49 ◼   ► But the decision affects both of us about something that I'm going to do, right?

00:01:55 ◼   ► It's "mour" decision, like I'm making the decision, but it also affects the both of

00:02:00 ◼   ► us.

00:02:01 ◼   ► And if you're making a decision that affects the both of us, it's "your" decision.

00:02:04 ◼   ► That's how that works.

00:02:05 ◼   ► That's how those words work.

00:02:06 ◼   ► And is that spelled M-O-U-R and Y-O-U-R?

00:02:09 ◼   ► I've never thought to write them down.

00:02:11 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:02:12 ◼   ► I leave it to crowdsourcing how those words are spelled, but it's "your", "our",

00:02:17 ◼   ► and "my", "our".

00:02:18 ◼   ► I guess it can't…

00:02:19 ◼   ► Yeah, it may be like, oh, like Y in parentheses, our,

00:02:24 ◼   ► and M in parentheses, our.

00:02:26 ◼   ► That's I think how I would do that in my brain.

00:02:28 ◼   ► - Oh, yeah.

00:02:29 ◼   ► - Because if you do Y-O-U-R, it's just your, right?

00:02:32 ◼   ► Like there needs to be something that,

00:02:34 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:02:36 ◼   ► as soon as I said, oh, that seems smart.

00:02:38 ◼   ► And then I just thought about it for an extra second

00:02:39 ◼   ► and was like, oh no, I just spelled the word your.

00:02:42 ◼   ► That's exactly not the point.

00:02:45 ◼   ► Okay, yeah, you gotta put it in the,

00:02:47 ◼   ► Well, I would call brackets, but Americans call parentheses.

00:02:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:51 ◼   ► I mean, I can see that, but then that's a little bit ugly to write.

00:02:53 ◼   ► Maybe there could be a silent H in yower.

00:02:55 ◼   ► So it's Y H O U R.

00:02:58 ◼   ► Yower.

00:02:58 ◼   ► Would there be an apostrophe be right?

00:03:02 ◼   ► Like Y apostrophe hour?

00:03:05 ◼   ► I mean, I guess, I guess an apostrophe would be the grammatically correct

00:03:09 ◼   ► thing to do when you're combining two words together, like y'all, right?

00:03:12 ◼   ► So you put the apostrophe there because it's the two things.

00:03:15 ◼   ► I think maybe you've hit upon it.

00:03:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:17 ◼   ► and maybe it's an apostrophe.

00:03:18 ◼   ► Why, why apostrophe hour, M apostrophe hour.

00:03:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I think you got it.

00:03:21 ◼   ► There we go, great.

00:03:23 ◼   ► - Good work, team.

00:03:24 ◼   ► That was just our decision.

00:03:26 ◼   ► - So you were making a decision

00:03:28 ◼   ► for the health of the two of you.

00:03:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, and then one of the things that I did

00:03:33 ◼   ► was I looked at the numbers, right, the COVID numbers,

00:03:36 ◼   ► and we're basically where we were

00:03:39 ◼   ► maybe like September, October,

00:03:41 ◼   ► and I was here every day then.

00:03:42 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:03:43 ◼   ► - So I was like, okay, I'm gonna do it.

00:03:46 ◼   ► So here I am.

00:03:47 ◼   ► - What is your method of transportation to Mega Studio?

00:03:51 ◼   ► Do you take the train now?

00:03:52 ◼   ► - Still take the train, yeah.

00:03:52 ◼   ► - How'd that work?

00:03:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, the train.

00:03:54 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:03:55 ◼   ► - I was taking a train at like 10 a.m.,

00:03:57 ◼   ► something like that.

00:03:59 ◼   ► It's very empty, I could open a window.

00:04:01 ◼   ► I'm not really near anybody.

00:04:03 ◼   ► There's still people that aren't wearing masks, right?

00:04:07 ◼   ► And I just cannot fathom that at this point.

00:04:10 ◼   ► Like, have you not got the memo?

00:04:12 ◼   ► Like, I don't understand.

00:04:14 ◼   ► Like, I really can't get my head around it,

00:04:15 ◼   ► But I think that's just a thing that I can't understand.

00:04:19 ◼   ► Like it's not for me to understand, right?

00:04:21 ◼   ► Why people would choose to make that decision at this point.

00:04:24 ◼   ► Cause I clearly can't understand it.

00:04:25 ◼   ► Well, it's required on the public transport, right?

00:04:27 ◼   ► Like isn't in theory, isn't that required to be on public transport

00:04:31 ◼   ► in the UK is to wear a mask?

00:04:32 ◼   ► Yeah, it's legal.

00:04:33 ◼   ► It's the law.

00:04:33 ◼   ► That's like the other part of it.

00:04:34 ◼   ► I know that there are people that just think that they shouldn't do it or they

00:04:37 ◼   ► don't want to, but like it is illegal to not wear one, but can I say people are

00:04:44 ◼   ► people aren't they?

00:04:45 ◼   ► But, oh man, it's so good.

00:04:47 ◼   ► So good to be here today.

00:04:49 ◼   ► - I'm very envious of you being back in there.

00:04:52 ◼   ► It must be so nice to have all that space to spread out.

00:04:54 ◼   ► You just lay on the floor and make an office floor snow angel,

00:04:58 ◼   ► you know, moving around, just enjoying the space.

00:05:00 ◼   ► - Well, I haven't vacuumed today,

00:05:02 ◼   ► so I wouldn't want to do that.

00:05:03 ◼   ► This place is-

00:05:05 ◼   ► - No, but that's how you could make the office snow angel,

00:05:08 ◼   ► right?

00:05:09 ◼   ► If you had vacuumed, you wouldn't be able to do it.

00:05:10 ◼   ► - It's a dust angel.

00:05:11 ◼   ► - But because you haven't been there for months,

00:05:13 ◼   ► there's enough dust on the floor

00:05:14 ◼   ► that you could make an office floor angel by spreading out.

00:05:17 ◼   ► - So one thing that was funny to me

00:05:20 ◼   ► as I walked through the door is I have one

00:05:22 ◼   ► of the lovely Kertsgesagt calendars.

00:05:24 ◼   ► And it was on January.

00:05:26 ◼   ► - Oh, right.

00:05:28 ◼   ► - So I came in and I had to turn two entire months.

00:05:31 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:32 ◼   ► That was the last time you were here.

00:05:34 ◼   ► We weren't even here in January.

00:05:35 ◼   ► We put it up in December for January.

00:05:38 ◼   ► - Right.

00:05:39 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:40 ◼   ► - It's like, oh God.

00:05:41 ◼   ► It was so depressing to do that.

00:05:43 ◼   ► That's a very movie scene kind of thing to do where you're like,

00:05:46 ◼   ► "Oh, we need to show the audience that a lot of time has passed."

00:05:49 ◼   ► So when Myke returns to his office, there's this calendar he needs to move forward two months

00:05:55 ◼   ► so everyone can go, "Uh-oh, it's been a while since he's there."

00:05:58 ◼   ► [LAUGHS]

00:05:59 ◼   ► That's really funny.

00:06:00 ◼   ► - But as I'm doing it, I'm hearing in my mind the amount of rent

00:06:04 ◼   ► paid during those two periods of time as I'm moving these pieces of paper.

00:06:07 ◼   ► - Cha-ching, cha-ching, right.

00:06:10 ◼   ► - Two very expensive pieces of paper moving.

00:06:12 ◼   ► rent money well spent.

00:06:14 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:06:17 ◼   ► I'm so glad you're back there though.

00:06:20 ◼   ► I think that's really nice.

00:06:21 ◼   ► I assume the plan is to just continue recording

00:06:25 ◼   ► many shows there or most shows there.

00:06:28 ◼   ► Like, what are you thinking?

00:06:29 ◼   ► - I have no plan.

00:06:30 ◼   ► I just came today.

00:06:31 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:06:32 ◼   ► - I assume that I will do like what I did

00:06:35 ◼   ► after the first lockdown.

00:06:37 ◼   ► - Right.

00:06:38 ◼   ► - Where I just increase a little bit

00:06:41 ◼   ► until I'm here all the time again.

00:06:43 ◼   ► I don't really have a plan,

00:06:45 ◼   ► I just knew I wanted to be here today.

00:06:46 ◼   ► But now being here today,

00:06:47 ◼   ► it's like the energy in the space is just so much nicer

00:06:51 ◼   ► than being at home and doing this stuff.

00:06:54 ◼   ► Like it just feels so much better to me.

00:06:56 ◼   ► I feel more focused, I fill my time with different things.

00:06:59 ◼   ► It's again, for me, remembering why I like this space.

00:07:03 ◼   ► My hope will be that, I don't know, within the next month,

00:07:07 ◼   ► I'll be back to being here every day again.

00:07:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, I hope that works out for you too.

00:07:11 ◼   ► Like that space is so cool looking from the photos that I've seen and is, you know, just

00:07:16 ◼   ► enormous and great.

00:07:18 ◼   ► And you've just had such a hard time getting there that I, you know, I don't know where

00:07:25 ◼   ► I would bet my money on this, but I am hopeful that this can be the start of the transition

00:07:33 ◼   ► into using the office full time as you intended it to be last year.

00:07:39 ◼   ► I hope that that's what this can be.

00:07:40 ◼   ► I feel pretty confident about that.

00:07:42 ◼   ► I feel very, very certain that by the end of the year,

00:07:47 ◼   ► we will have actually moved the things here

00:07:49 ◼   ► that were supposed to move here.

00:07:51 ◼   ► - Great.

00:07:51 ◼   ► - So like taking away that final part of the home office

00:07:56 ◼   ► and bringing those last pieces here,

00:07:59 ◼   ► which was just a thing we never got to do.

00:08:00 ◼   ► But just at this point, it doesn't really feel

00:08:04 ◼   ► like it's gonna go any other way for me, right?

00:08:06 ◼   ► Like I just feel like the vaccinations are rolling out,

00:08:09 ◼   ► Like, I'm gonna get that by the summer, and then for me personally,

00:08:14 ◼   ► I wouldn't see any reason why I wouldn't be here every day from then on.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Well, I'm glad you've used Cortex as the start of getting back into Mega Office permanently.

00:08:23 ◼   ► It kind of felt like the right one to me as well, though. It kind of felt right.

00:08:27 ◼   ► There's been an epic progress of Mega Studio over the course of the show.

00:08:32 ◼   ► Plus, I mean, it ended up turning out pretty well,

00:08:34 ◼   ► because I feel like I needed an energy boost after the last 24 hours,

00:08:38 ◼   ► because I have just been...

00:08:40 ◼   ► You've been a little on edge, a little wiped out from the last 24 hours?

00:08:44 ◼   ► Why? What happened, Myke? I have no idea.

00:08:46 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like leading up to the last couple of weeks.

00:08:49 ◼   ► So, More Text subscribers will know that I made a prediction

00:08:52 ◼   ► about when the Theme System Journal would be back on sale.

00:08:55 ◼   ► And I said on our last episode in the More Text section,

00:09:00 ◼   ► which you can sign up for at getmoretext.com,

00:09:02 ◼   ► and you get longer Cortex episodes with no ads every single time we release one.

00:09:07 ◼   ► I made the prediction the first week of March that they would be available

00:09:10 ◼   ► or at least I think I said ready and I was technically correct

00:09:14 ◼   ► that the journals had were sitting in... You were technically correct?

00:09:19 ◼   ► They were sitting in the warehouse at the beginning of March. They could have

00:09:22 ◼   ► gone on sale but we were trying to... there's like this whole new thing after

00:09:26 ◼   ► Brexit with VAT in the UK it's like sales tax basically and a new rule was

00:09:32 ◼   ► passed where you have to... anybody's sending stuff into the UK what

00:09:36 ◼   ► what you should do now is charge VAT

00:09:39 ◼   ► a point of purchase.

00:09:41 ◼   ► And then the company that takes the money,

00:09:44 ◼   ► so for us our partners, Cotton Bureau,

00:09:47 ◼   ► would then pay that VAT to the British government,

00:09:49 ◼   ► I think on a quarterly basis.

00:09:51 ◼   ► And so Cotton Bureau working on this,

00:09:54 ◼   ► and you have to get a rubber stamp

00:09:57 ◼   ► from the government basically,

00:09:58 ◼   ► and they give you a number.

00:09:59 ◼   ► - Like a tax ID number.

00:10:00 ◼   ► That's what the UK government needs

00:10:02 ◼   ► to give out the companies.

00:10:03 ◼   ► Just, I've noticed that since this rule change

00:10:06 ◼   ► has come into effect. A number of companies that I normally buy things that were perfectly

00:10:11 ◼   ► fine to ship stuff to the UK have all, at least for the time being, said "uh, we can't

00:10:17 ◼   ► ship to the UK". Check back with us in a few months. So I figure a lot of places are

00:10:23 ◼   ► going through this process of trying to get the UK government to recognise them in order

00:10:29 ◼   ► to collect VAT for the UK, which seems like such a pain in the ass for everyone. It really

00:10:35 ◼   ► does. Especially because this was Brexit-related. There was no actual guidelines until after

00:10:42 ◼   ► Brexit started, but the rule came into effect immediately.

00:10:46 ◼   ► Right, exactly what you want. Which is not a great way of setting this up.

00:10:52 ◼   ► And I believe that Cotton Bureau are on day 30-something of what is supposed to be a 15-day

00:10:57 ◼   ► process of getting the numbers.

00:11:01 ◼   ► And so I really wanted to have this in place because it would mean that people would know

00:11:07 ◼   ► before they buy how much taxes they're going to have to pay and I believe would remove

00:11:13 ◼   ► the handling fees for customs agencies, which I hate those fees.

00:11:17 ◼   ► I have to pay eight pounds just because it touched your hands, right?

00:11:21 ◼   ► That drives me mad.

00:11:23 ◼   ► In theory, paying all these taxes at purchase would remove that, but it got to the point where

00:11:29 ◼   ► we could be waiting an indefinite amount of time.

00:11:32 ◼   ► And what was really important to me is that these journals would be able to arrive at people before the end of March

00:11:40 ◼   ► because people that journal every day will run out, their journals are going to run out.

00:11:46 ◼   ► And this is the first time in the history of this product that we have ever actually had them

00:11:52 ◼   ► arrive available for sale at the time we wanted them.

00:11:57 ◼   ► This has never happened before.

00:11:57 ◼   ► - It's a huge accomplishment.

00:11:58 ◼   ► - It's a massive accomplishment.

00:12:00 ◼   ► So I was kind of not going to keep waiting.

00:12:02 ◼   ► So we put them live.

00:12:04 ◼   ► I've bought one to ship here just to see what will happen

00:12:07 ◼   ► and I'll find out.

00:12:08 ◼   ► And I guess anybody that does buy from the UK,

00:12:10 ◼   ► if we have problems,

00:12:12 ◼   ► we'll just try and work it out together.

00:12:13 ◼   ► I don't really know what to do.

00:12:16 ◼   ► We'll see, I suppose.

00:12:18 ◼   ► - It is delightfully ridiculous

00:12:21 ◼   ► that both you and I are in the UK, which ends up being the one place on earth where it's

00:12:27 ◼   ► like a little bit uncertain exactly how it will work out with these journals being shipped.

00:12:32 ◼   ► They're gonna arrive everywhere else.

00:12:33 ◼   ► Everyone else in the whole world is like totally fine.

00:12:36 ◼   ► Like do they arrive and get sent back? Do they arrive like they used to and you pay the charges?

00:12:43 ◼   ► Because me as a somebody buying things, I've had some stuff arrive that should have had

00:12:48 ◼   ► charges but hasn't and I've had some stuff arrive and I just get the regular

00:12:52 ◼   ► pay us the customs fee so I don't know what's gonna happen with these and we'll

00:12:57 ◼   ► find out and as soon as we get that registration, the Cotton Bureau will be able to turn

00:13:01 ◼   ► this feature on and then you'll be able to work out your taxes beforehand and

00:13:05 ◼   ► it's gonna be great and I'm looking forward to that happening but

00:13:08 ◼   ► unfortunately it was just a case of like we don't know when this was gonna happen

00:13:13 ◼   ► so we just put them on sale and so far journals are sounding very well so we're

00:13:18 ◼   ► We're recording this the day after.

00:13:20 ◼   ► We never really know what's gonna happen, honestly,

00:13:24 ◼   ► but we've sold over a third so far of this stock.

00:13:29 ◼   ► And once again, we ordered more than we would assume

00:13:32 ◼   ► we would be able to sell.

00:13:34 ◼   ► And we've already put in an order for more,

00:13:37 ◼   ► and we're still working it out, I guess.

00:13:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, no, it's been going very well,

00:13:42 ◼   ► but I just wanna, before I let you slide on past this,

00:13:45 ◼   ► and we need to nail down your prediction here, right?

00:13:48 ◼   ► because you said, first week of March,

00:13:51 ◼   ► are you saying that in Moretex,

00:13:53 ◼   ► your claim was that the journals would be ready

00:13:57 ◼   ► the first week of March?

00:13:59 ◼   ► Because they weren't on sale the first week of March.

00:14:03 ◼   ► But like, you're saying you said in Moretex

00:14:06 ◼   ► they would be ready.

00:14:07 ◼   ► Is that what you're claiming here?

00:14:09 ◼   ► - The reason I said ready

00:14:10 ◼   ► is 'cause I knew that thing was going on.

00:14:13 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:14:14 ◼   ► - I just hadn't communicated all this to you yet.

00:14:16 ◼   ► - Hmm.

00:14:17 ◼   ► Look, I will say that I did not get my prediction

00:14:20 ◼   ► because it's not how anybody else would take it, right?

00:14:23 ◼   ► Right, right, okay.

00:14:24 ◼   ► But I knew that there could be at least a delay

00:14:27 ◼   ► of a few extra days for this thing to occur.

00:14:32 ◼   ► Okay, okay.

00:14:33 ◼   ► I just wanted to nail down the technicalities here.

00:14:36 ◼   ► What are you trying to claim?

00:14:38 ◼   ► And you had set it up that you were giving yourself

00:14:41 ◼   ► a little bit of a flexibility on what does it mean

00:14:45 ◼   ► for them to be ready the first week of March.

00:14:47 ◼   ► does not mean on sale the first week of March.

00:14:49 ◼   ► Okay.

00:14:50 ◼   ► Let me tell you, it was just killer for me to know they were just sitting there.

00:14:54 ◼   ► Oh, I hated it, Gray.

00:14:56 ◼   ► Like it was probably a week, a little over a week, they're just sitting there.

00:15:00 ◼   ► No, it's awful.

00:15:02 ◼   ► Thank you if you bought one.

00:15:03 ◼   ► If you still want one, cortexmerch.com, go there now.

00:15:07 ◼   ► Cortexmerch.com.

00:15:08 ◼   ► You want to go get yourself a theme system journal.

00:15:12 ◼   ► Themes can happen at any time of the year.

00:15:13 ◼   ► You may not have set one yet, but still time.

00:15:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:15:16 ◼   ► changeover. It was just outside yesterday seeing those spring flowers coming up.

00:15:23 ◼   ► You know, some nice daffodils out there. Lovely, lovely start of spring.

00:15:27 ◼   ► It definitely feels like the seasons are changing here in the UK. There's a bit more

00:15:31 ◼   ► sun. Yes, yes we're definitely out of the bleak nothing that is UK winters and

00:15:39 ◼   ► the sun is around longer. You know, the birds are singing, the flowers are

00:15:44 ◼   ► blooming, the journalers are journaling.

00:15:48 ◼   ► It's the start of spring.

00:15:49 ◼   ► It's lovely.

00:15:50 ◼   ► What would you call like a collection of journalers?

00:15:54 ◼   ► You feel like you've always got to try to find something that's

00:15:57 ◼   ► like related that's the group.

00:15:59 ◼   ► Volume.

00:16:00 ◼   ► Volume's not bad.

00:16:01 ◼   ► I was thinking of like binding, like a binding of

00:16:04 ◼   ► journalers, like pages are bound.

00:16:06 ◼   ► Yeah, that's nice.

00:16:07 ◼   ► I like that.

00:16:08 ◼   ► Index?

00:16:09 ◼   ► Contents?

00:16:13 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:16:16 ◼   ► Leave your suggestions in the Reddit.

00:16:19 ◼   ► [BEEP]

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00:18:09 ◼   ► (beep)

00:18:10 ◼   ► On our last episode, we had a horrific failure

00:18:13 ◼   ► of trying to get our screen time data

00:18:15 ◼   ► because downtime just destroyed that for you.

00:18:20 ◼   ► But you sent me a message a couple of days ago

00:18:22 ◼   ► and you were so excited

00:18:23 ◼   ► that you had a full week's worth of data.

00:18:25 ◼   ► - I felt so bad.

00:18:27 ◼   ► Like I felt so bad last time because again,

00:18:29 ◼   ► like you do so much work in trying to get the show

00:18:33 ◼   ► nice and prepared and ready to go.

00:18:36 ◼   ► And, you know, it's, I always really appreciate that.

00:18:39 ◼   ► And I just didn't realize last time that you were, you know,

00:18:42 ◼   ► you're like, oh, I'll build the entire show around screen time.

00:18:45 ◼   ► And that's what we're going to do.

00:18:46 ◼   ► And then I'm like, oh, like an idiot, I deleted all my screen

00:18:49 ◼   ► time data, tried to talk to you.

00:18:50 ◼   ► So I felt real, I just felt really terrible last time.

00:18:53 ◼   ► There's something so funny about that to me.

00:18:55 ◼   ► Like when, especially when I was noticing when I was doing the editing,

00:18:58 ◼   ► like I could hear in my voice the moment where I was like,

00:19:01 ◼   ► I have nothing else prepared, but then we still turned out.

00:19:06 ◼   ► Like a nearly a two hour episode.

00:19:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:11 ◼   ► I mean, you know, that, that, that can happen, you know, conversations can flow,

00:19:15 ◼   ► but it definitely reached me in my heart that, that same moment.

00:19:19 ◼   ► Like I know the exact point you're talking about where it's, you can hear

00:19:22 ◼   ► my go, "Oh no, I have nothing else planned."

00:19:27 ◼   ► And that's just, it's just a terrible feeling.

00:19:31 ◼   ► I mean, you know, even with Cortex not being live, like we could, you know,

00:19:35 ◼   ► In some disaster, I guess we could record a second half of the show at a different time.

00:19:39 ◼   ► It's theoretically possible, but it's still such a pain in the butt.

00:19:42 ◼   ► And you're like, so I just, I've just felt awful about that.

00:19:45 ◼   ► And what I did, cause I was like, okay, I can't let Myke down next time.

00:19:50 ◼   ► So I, I had to set up a reminder in the reminders app to bug me every day at 9 PM.

00:19:58 ◼   ► To take a screenshot of whatever screen time data I happen to have.

00:20:04 ◼   ► And so I was like, I'm going to just look, maybe I can't make it through an entire week,

00:20:09 ◼   ► but I'm going to try to record this whenever I can.

00:20:12 ◼   ► And even just a few days after we talked, I had to reset it again because I ran into

00:20:19 ◼   ► that same problem where I needed to talk to someone and Apple was saying, "No, you're

00:20:25 ◼   ► not allowed."

00:20:26 ◼   ► And I was like, I've got to reset this.

00:20:28 ◼   ► I'm going to lose all the screen time data again.

00:20:30 ◼   ► So I need to remind myself to like make sure to capture it as we go along.

00:20:35 ◼   ► I saw somebody suggest on the subreddit you might want to try this.

00:20:39 ◼   ► They said they've had this issue.

00:20:40 ◼   ► Apparently they force quit messages twice and then it works.

00:20:46 ◼   ► Just something to try for you next time.

00:20:49 ◼   ► I don't know if that's actually going to work or if that's one of those like

00:20:54 ◼   ► swinging a rubber chicken around your head type deals but it seemed to work for this individual.

00:20:59 ◼   ► I mean, look, I'll try it. I'll give it a shot.

00:21:02 ◼   ► Look, if I need to get around the bodyguard that is Apple,

00:21:05 ◼   ► which was Delightfully Animated by H.M. Putte on our Cortex Animated episode,

00:21:11 ◼   ► that was really fun, to see Apple preventing me talking to people, I really like that one.

00:21:15 ◼   ► If force quitting messages twice gets it to work, I'll give it a try.

00:21:19 ◼   ► But yeah, that does sound like we're starting to build up a sequence of superstitions of what works.

00:21:24 ◼   ► But this is the reason why when I made it through an entire week without having to reset

00:21:31 ◼   ► it and keeping the data, I was like, "Extra pleased!"

00:21:33 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh great!

00:21:34 ◼   ► I got this for Myke!

00:21:35 ◼   ► Let me let him know!

00:21:36 ◼   ► Hey Myke, don't worry!

00:21:37 ◼   ► I'm like, you – for the next show, I've actually got the thing to show you!

00:21:41 ◼   ► We're all set!"

00:21:42 ◼   ► So would you like to talk about screen crimes?

00:21:45 ◼   ► Mykey - Well, well, before we do, one last piece of platinum follow-up.

00:21:48 ◼   ► You texted me this morning to tell me you remembered we were recording today.

00:21:51 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:21:52 ◼   ► Which I also really enjoyed.

00:21:55 ◼   ► - Look, I just, I messed up real bad last time

00:21:57 ◼   ► and I'm so sorry.

00:21:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:22:00 ◼   ► I've just got to acknowledge it.

00:22:04 ◼   ► - Screen time, screen crimes.

00:22:07 ◼   ► So the way that I think of this

00:22:09 ◼   ► and the reason I like that we refer to this as screen crimes

00:22:12 ◼   ► is because we can put whatever we want on our home screens.

00:22:16 ◼   ► We can talk about whatever apps we use in state of the apps.

00:22:20 ◼   ► We can track our time depending on how we say we're using it

00:22:24 ◼   ► and what projects we're up to.

00:22:26 ◼   ► But this is data that shows what's being used, right?

00:22:29 ◼   ► We can't escape this data.

00:22:31 ◼   ► I mean, it's not really completely accurate most of the time

00:22:35 ◼   ► and doesn't necessarily draw a full picture,

00:22:37 ◼   ► which is something I want to talk about in a bit.

00:22:39 ◼   ► - Oh yes, yeah.

00:22:40 ◼   ► I've got things to talk about with that as well.

00:22:42 ◼   ► - Oh yes, it's getting worse.

00:22:44 ◼   ► But you at least get a picture of the applications

00:22:47 ◼   ► that are being used.

00:22:48 ◼   ► And for me, I don't know about you now,

00:22:50 ◼   ► but I now include my Macs in this.

00:22:54 ◼   ► So my data is of all of my machines.

00:22:57 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

00:22:58 ◼   ► - This was really unreliable in Catalina.

00:23:00 ◼   ► It was very bad, but on Big Sur,

00:23:02 ◼   ► they actually did make some changes

00:23:03 ◼   ► to the way it works with the Mac.

00:23:05 ◼   ► So I'm gonna send you mine first.

00:23:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, send me yours.

00:23:09 ◼   ► So you're going to send me, what,

00:23:11 ◼   ► screenshots of everything combined?

00:23:13 ◼   ► So this is your phone, your iPad, and your Mac altogether?

00:23:16 ◼   ► - Correct, and I can--

00:23:17 ◼   ► - Oh, whoa, what is, look at this.

00:23:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, I put it all together in a little graphic for you

00:23:21 ◼   ► and I can drill down into it.

00:23:24 ◼   ► And that might be better for stuff like notifications,

00:23:26 ◼   ► 'cause I think with notifications,

00:23:29 ◼   ► it groups them together if it's the same application.

00:23:32 ◼   ► So like messages says 884.

00:23:35 ◼   ► - Right.

00:23:36 ◼   ► - But I didn't get 884 messages notifications.

00:23:40 ◼   ► I got 884 if you bring together my iPhone

00:23:42 ◼   ► and my Macs together, right?

00:23:45 ◼   ► It's like now it's 884.

00:23:46 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, I see what you're saying.

00:23:49 ◼   ► So it's double counting messages that appeared on your Mac and your iPad while you were messaging

00:23:55 ◼   ► someone on your phone?

00:23:56 ◼   ► Is that what you mean?

00:23:57 ◼   ► I guess so.

00:23:58 ◼   ► I guess it's like that.

00:23:59 ◼   ► I just got to open this up full screen on my Mac.

00:24:01 ◼   ► The way that you put this together it's like it's this crazy dashboard of Myke's life.

00:24:05 ◼   ► Yeah because like on the notification segment if I choose just my iPhone it says 432.

00:24:11 ◼   ► If I choose just my MacBook Pro it says 118.

00:24:15 ◼   ► But there's definitely some double counting here.

00:24:18 ◼   ► But again, I don't know how much, but there's definitely some double counting going on, I'm

00:24:22 ◼   ► sure of it.

00:24:23 ◼   ► Okay, so your average screen time across what, three devices?

00:24:29 ◼   ► Is that what you're saying?

00:24:30 ◼   ► Three devices?

00:24:31 ◼   ► Is 10 hours a day?

00:24:32 ◼   ► There's technically like four or five in there.

00:24:34 ◼   ► Okay.

00:24:35 ◼   ► But you see, this is where we get into problem number one.

00:24:37 ◼   ► That 10 hour figure is wrong, because I've hit this really weird bug.

00:24:41 ◼   ► Where, you see that thing that says, that, see the top entry, that 16 hour entry, rss.art19.com?

00:24:51 ◼   ► I was wondering what this is.

00:24:53 ◼   ► Your top entry is a website with 16 hours.

00:24:58 ◼   ► I think, oh wow, this must be the most engaging website that exists if you've spent 16 hours

00:25:04 ◼   ► a week on it.

00:25:05 ◼   ► And I want to know what art19.com is.

00:25:08 ◼   ► I'm quite intrigued.

00:25:09 ◼   ► So Art19 is like a podcast hosting platform.

00:25:12 ◼   ► I have no idea what this website is relating to.

00:25:15 ◼   ► I maybe had a link open for a podcast or something,

00:25:20 ◼   ► but this is an issue that I have found recently

00:25:22 ◼   ► where something's going on with Safari on my Mac

00:25:26 ◼   ► where a website of some description is listed

00:25:29 ◼   ► as being used for 24 hours a day.

00:25:32 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:25:34 ◼   ► Can I have one this week?

00:25:36 ◼   ► Right.

00:25:36 ◼   ► I'm gonna talk about it wrong,

00:25:38 ◼   ► But timing, timing is a Mac app

00:25:41 ◼   ► that can do this kind of stuff as well.

00:25:43 ◼   ► And it has some different features.

00:25:45 ◼   ► But so far this week, I have racked up 52 hours

00:25:48 ◼   ► of screen time on timingapp.com in Safari.

00:25:52 ◼   ► Now, I wasn't on this website for 14 hours yesterday.

00:25:57 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:25:59 ◼   ► - Right, of course.

00:26:01 ◼   ► - So I don't know exactly what's causing that issue,

00:26:03 ◼   ► but I'm pleased 'cause the week before,

00:26:06 ◼   ► I had 24 hours of average usage a day every day

00:26:09 ◼   ► because I had something that was reporting

00:26:11 ◼   ► 24 hours of use a day.

00:26:13 ◼   ► So my actual average is way less, right?

00:26:17 ◼   ► My actual average is probably around seven hours a day.

00:26:22 ◼   ► - So here's my question, right?

00:26:25 ◼   ► You're thinking that your screen time average

00:26:29 ◼   ► is seven hours a day across all devices.

00:26:32 ◼   ► That's your own estimate.

00:26:33 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:26:34 ◼   ► including when you're recording podcasts as well or not with that?

00:26:37 ◼   ► I mean, in theory.

00:26:39 ◼   ► I'm just wondering, it's interesting.

00:26:40 ◼   ► That seems low, maybe?

00:26:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:26:43 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:26:44 ◼   ► But this is where it gets into the issues of how this data is reported.

00:26:49 ◼   ► So if we're looking at all of my devices here, where's Skype?

00:26:54 ◼   ► Oh, yeah. Right. No Skype on here.

00:26:57 ◼   ► Because what it's doing is it records applications that are visible,

00:27:03 ◼   ► not necessarily in use.

00:27:05 ◼   ► So I'm using Skype for hours and hours and hours and hours,

00:27:09 ◼   ► but it's not showing up on these lists because,

00:27:13 ◼   ► I don't know, 'cause it's not in front all the time.

00:27:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I just laughed before because I realized,

00:27:20 ◼   ► so we're gonna have this conversation about screen time.

00:27:23 ◼   ► Question number one,

00:27:25 ◼   ► how much time have you spent on a screen?

00:27:27 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:27:28 ◼   ► Like before we get into the actual details,

00:27:32 ◼   ► - It's like, oh, we're already uncertain.

00:27:35 ◼   ► - There's no way, there's just no way that that's right.

00:27:37 ◼   ► It doesn't make any sense that those would be the numbers.

00:27:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, when we get to my data later,

00:27:42 ◼   ► because I was trying to use this, I think,

00:27:44 ◼   ► more intensely and earlier than you,

00:27:46 ◼   ► I had to turn off screen time on my computers

00:27:50 ◼   ► because I just found it too buggy

00:27:51 ◼   ► and I'd never tried turning it back on

00:27:53 ◼   ► with the latest OS update.

00:27:54 ◼   ► So I don't know what that's like,

00:27:56 ◼   ► but I had the experience of, it would tell me just,

00:28:01 ◼   ► "Oh, you've spent 80 hours this week on Finder."

00:28:04 ◼   ► Because there's a Finder application that was open.

00:28:08 ◼   ► It's like, "Ooh, I love searching for files."

00:28:11 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like, guess what?

00:28:14 ◼   ► I never don't have a Finder application open.

00:28:18 ◼   ► So this data is extraordinarily unhelpful.

00:28:22 ◼   ► It was just like, every time I looked at it, it was,

00:28:24 ◼   ► "Oh, Finder is your most used application

00:28:27 ◼   ► by an enormous margin and everything else is tiny."

00:28:30 ◼   ► So is what you're saying that they've changed that

00:28:34 ◼   ► and now it's, you think it's just recording

00:28:37 ◼   ► whatever application the Mac thinks is the active one

00:28:42 ◼   ► at any time?

00:28:43 ◼   ► Like, is that what you think is occurring?

00:28:45 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:28:46 ◼   ► Well, I mean, it's got to be, because I found it now.

00:28:48 ◼   ► Last week it's saying that I use Skype for three minutes.

00:28:51 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:28:52 ◼   ► Now I can tell you that's not true.

00:28:55 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:28:56 ◼   ► - Right.

00:28:57 ◼   ► - So I think that there's something here about like,

00:28:59 ◼   ► what is the front most window is what's being recorded.

00:29:04 ◼   ► - It's gotta be, it's gotta be.

00:29:06 ◼   ► - That's not accurate all the time, right?

00:29:08 ◼   ► Like it just isn't because, I mean,

00:29:11 ◼   ► Skype is the application by minutes

00:29:13 ◼   ► that I'll use the most in a week,

00:29:15 ◼   ► but it doesn't even register here.

00:29:18 ◼   ► Like my screen time data for today so far

00:29:21 ◼   ► is saying that I used Skype for seven minutes,

00:29:25 ◼   ► but we have been talking for three hours at this point.

00:29:29 ◼   ► - Right.

00:29:30 ◼   ► - So like there are just fundamentals of this data

00:29:32 ◼   ► that are just really, really not good.

00:29:35 ◼   ► But anyway, let's actually look at what we've got here

00:29:37 ◼   ► for a bit rather than we can just complain about it.

00:29:40 ◼   ► 'Cause there is some stuff in here,

00:29:41 ◼   ► there's some stuff of interest.

00:29:43 ◼   ► One thing that frustrates me is my Twitter usage

00:29:45 ◼   ► for the week in question.

00:29:47 ◼   ► Because for the last couple of months,

00:29:50 ◼   ► I have been really good at keeping my Twitter usage

00:29:54 ◼   ► to about four hours a week total.

00:29:57 ◼   ► but this was a six hour, 22 minute week.

00:30:00 ◼   ► I don't know what I did last week

00:30:01 ◼   ► where I was spending more time on Twitter,

00:30:03 ◼   ► but it's annoying because this is like,

00:30:05 ◼   ► if we would have done this on the week

00:30:07 ◼   ► that we had intended to originally do it,

00:30:09 ◼   ► my statistics would look more like

00:30:10 ◼   ► what I want them to right now.

00:30:12 ◼   ► - Right, right, yeah, yeah.

00:30:14 ◼   ► And this is also one of the places

00:30:16 ◼   ► that I find it a little bit frustrating with this stuff

00:30:20 ◼   ► because it would be nice not to just set daily limits

00:30:24 ◼   ► but to be able to have like a weekly target.

00:30:26 ◼   ► I think in some ways weekly targets make more sense for certain things.

00:30:29 ◼   ► And it would be kind of nice, like what you just said happens is the whole reason why

00:30:33 ◼   ► a system automatically recording data in theory is incredibly powerful because your subjective

00:30:43 ◼   ► experience is that your use of Twitter was no different this week than last week.

00:30:47 ◼   ► But the actual data is, well, something happened that caused you to use Twitter more.

00:30:54 ◼   ► And there could have been a moment where the system could alert you to be like, "Hey, it's

00:30:59 ◼   ► only Thursday and you're already like over your average Twitter usage."

00:31:04 ◼   ► It's like, is that something that you want to be doing?

00:31:06 ◼   ► As for now, it's just sort of a mystery as to if you look back, you now discover that

00:31:11 ◼   ► it was more than you thought.

00:31:14 ◼   ► So you're happy with like four hours of Twitter a week?

00:31:17 ◼   ► You feel like that's a good number for you?

00:31:19 ◼   ► Because I feel like this has been a constant struggle.

00:31:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, the four hour number was something where

00:31:25 ◼   ► I spent a week where I was really trying to limit it.

00:31:30 ◼   ► Like I took Twitter off my home screen,

00:31:32 ◼   ► it's off the dock of my Mac, like it's just not there.

00:31:36 ◼   ► And so I'm only gonna go to it when I'm actively choosing

00:31:39 ◼   ► to go to it for whatever reason that might be.

00:31:42 ◼   ► And when I did that for a week,

00:31:44 ◼   ► like the first week that I was doing that

00:31:45 ◼   ► where I was really trying to focus on it,

00:31:47 ◼   ► I kind of got down to around three, three and a bit hours.

00:31:50 ◼   ► And so I was really only checking Twitter

00:31:53 ◼   ► like once or twice a day for that,

00:31:55 ◼   ► or just posting things, you know, not reading.

00:31:57 ◼   ► And then would just read specific times that I had chosen

00:32:01 ◼   ► as opposed to just whenever I want to fill 20 seconds,

00:32:04 ◼   ► right, which was my usual thing.

00:32:07 ◼   ► And so I was like, okay, I want to try

00:32:09 ◼   ► and get around there again.

00:32:10 ◼   ► So I'd been averaging more around four hours.

00:32:13 ◼   ► And I feel better for having done that.

00:32:16 ◼   ► I feel like I'm spending less time,

00:32:18 ◼   ► less time in my life just like really just wanting to see

00:32:21 ◼   ► what's going on or not even caring,

00:32:23 ◼   ► but just opening the app anyway, right?

00:32:26 ◼   ► And you know, like I did that whole thing

00:32:27 ◼   ► where I moved a different app to my dock

00:32:29 ◼   ► in its place where Twitter would have been

00:32:31 ◼   ► and was just constantly surprising myself

00:32:33 ◼   ► for a four day period when I would press the Twitter app,

00:32:36 ◼   ► but something else would be open instead, right?

00:32:39 ◼   ► - Right, right. (laughs)

00:32:41 ◼   ► - And I've left Twitter off my home screen,

00:32:43 ◼   ► so I've put a different app in its place

00:32:47 ◼   ► that I'm enjoying it being there.

00:32:49 ◼   ► It's like forcing me to open it.

00:32:51 ◼   ► And that's working for me,

00:32:54 ◼   ► but I'm just trying to keep my numbers down

00:32:57 ◼   ► with the intention of reducing them further, I think.

00:33:00 ◼   ► I like Twitter, I don't want to leave Twitter.

00:33:03 ◼   ► Like I'm not one of those kinds of people,

00:33:04 ◼   ► but I just feel like I want to limit the amount of time

00:33:07 ◼   ► that I spend in that application,

00:33:10 ◼   ► just because it is so high in that list.

00:33:13 ◼   ► Especially when I've said this before many times,

00:33:15 ◼   ► when it comes to social networks,

00:33:17 ◼   ► I much prefer Instagram the way Instagram makes me feel.

00:33:20 ◼   ► I know that this is different for different people,

00:33:22 ◼   ► but for me personally, I just prefer Instagram.

00:33:24 ◼   ► So I've tried to have those numbers be closer together

00:33:29 ◼   ► by initially increasing my Instagram usage,

00:33:32 ◼   ► which, you know, whatever, it worked,

00:33:36 ◼   ► but now I wanna bring the Twitter usage down as well.

00:33:40 ◼   ► And they're very different, right?

00:33:42 ◼   ► And the reasons I use them are very different.

00:33:44 ◼   ► And sometimes, and a lot of the time,

00:33:46 ◼   ► I am getting a lot of what I consider to be important

00:33:49 ◼   ► and useful information for my job from Twitter,

00:33:52 ◼   ► which is one of the reasons that I use it

00:33:54 ◼   ► and have no intention of leaving.

00:33:55 ◼   ► But I am just trying to find ways to still just limit

00:33:59 ◼   ► how much time is being spent with the application open

00:34:03 ◼   ► when there is no real value to it.

00:34:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think a lot of people really fool themselves

00:34:09 ◼   ► about how valuable Twitter is for their work.

00:34:12 ◼   ► I think I know a lot of people

00:34:15 ◼   ► who I think are really kidding themselves about that, but I- I can make a case for why

00:34:20 ◼   ► it is valuable to you. Like, I don't think you fall into that category of like, "Oh,

00:34:24 ◼   ► Myke, you're just being silly about this and it's not actually valuable to you at all."

00:34:27 ◼   ► I think with all of the shows you do and the things that you talk about on those shows,

00:34:31 ◼   ► like, yes, Twitter- Twitter is a useful source of information for you. It's just like with

00:34:37 ◼   ► all of these things, the problem is that they catch you for more than you intend to spend

00:34:43 ◼   ► with them, right, which is all of their explicit goals of like, you know, "Oh hey, we'd love

00:34:48 ◼   ► love you to check Twitter every time you have 20 seconds free.

00:34:51 ◼   ► Is this a productive use of your time?"

00:34:52 ◼   ► Of course not, but like we sure do love engagement.

00:34:55 ◼   ► It is funny like you have to be careful about what you're trying to optimize for, you know,

00:34:59 ◼   ► "Oh I would like Instagram and Twitter to be more equal so I'm gonna increase the amount

00:35:02 ◼   ► of time I spend on Instagram."

00:35:03 ◼   ► No, like again I think it's good that you're keeping an eye on it and I feel I feel it's

00:35:08 ◼   ► good that like overall you have it in a place that you think the amount of time is worth

00:35:16 ◼   ► it and actually valuable to you that you're spending on it and not just like casually

00:35:20 ◼   ► having it open all day to get distracted by whatever people happen to be talking about

00:35:24 ◼   ► in the moment.

00:35:25 ◼   ► Yeah and it's like I've done a lot of work with different applications and different

00:35:30 ◼   ► things to reduce the reliance you know like using RSS readers and stuff and my RSS reader

00:35:35 ◼   ► it doesn't show up on here, but that doesn't surprise me,

00:35:38 ◼   ► 'cause I don't really read a lot in the RSS reader,

00:35:40 ◼   ► like it's my first triage of news,

00:35:42 ◼   ► and then we'll send that out to Notes

00:35:45 ◼   ► for reading later in Safari,

00:35:47 ◼   ► like on show prep days and stuff like that.

00:35:48 ◼   ► - Ah, okay, yeah, I was wondering where Reader was

00:35:51 ◼   ► on this list, 'cause it doesn't make it

00:35:52 ◼   ► into 26 minutes worth of stuff,

00:35:54 ◼   ► so you're just throwing whatever comes in there.

00:35:57 ◼   ► - Honestly, I was surprised that it didn't even make it

00:35:59 ◼   ► into that, like above 26 minutes or whatever,

00:36:03 ◼   ► But at the same time, you know, I'm like checking it a couple of times a week,

00:36:08 ◼   ► really.

00:36:09 ◼   ► And mostly just looking at the headlines of interest to me and sending them out

00:36:12 ◼   ► somewhere else. But Hey, for all I know, I used it the most and it's just a bug.

00:36:16 ◼   ► Maybe RSS.art19.com is actually a reader.

00:36:19 ◼   ► It's very possible.

00:36:27 ◼   ► Discord is a newer one on my list.

00:36:30 ◼   ► And I presume that's the relay discord. That's what you're talking about.

00:36:32 ◼   ► using the Relay members Discord and also just like for me in general I'm just

00:36:36 ◼   ► spending more time in Discord anyway like as in like with the main interest in

00:36:40 ◼   ► mechanical keyboards that all goes down in Discords.

00:36:43 ◼   ► Oh right right.

00:36:45 ◼   ► And this honestly was a lighter week for me with Discord. Discord's usually much higher than that.

00:36:50 ◼   ► In other weeks more recently Discord and Twitter have been much much closer.

00:36:55 ◼   ► So again I don't know what was going on this week but in other weeks Discord

00:37:00 ◼   ► has been around four hours and Twitter has been around four hours that's

00:37:03 ◼   ► becoming more of a thing and honestly that's something I quite like. So again

00:37:09 ◼   ► like looking at the combination of Discord, Instagram and RSS I can use my

00:37:15 ◼   ► RSS reader as ways to increase my usage there get the information I want whilst

00:37:22 ◼   ► decreasing reliance on Twitter I think has been working pretty good for me in

00:37:26 ◼   ► general recently and I like that as a thing to continue going forward.

00:37:31 ◼   ► And the Twitch I assume is your actual streaming of keyboard construction?

00:37:34 ◼   ► No, that's me watching stuff.

00:37:37 ◼   ► Oh, okay, that's you watching Twitch, that's you watching keyboards being built up.

00:37:40 ◼   ► Because all the streaming is going on on my PC, right?

00:37:43 ◼   ► Oh, of course, right, right.

00:37:44 ◼   ► Again, it's been a big 2020, 2021 thing for me is like watching a lot more Twitch streams

00:37:48 ◼   ► in general because Twitch app is so good, so good, picture in picture and all that stuff.

00:37:53 ◼   ► Although I wouldn't be surprised if as soon as you go into picture in picture it stops

00:37:56 ◼   ► tracking in screen time anyway, so the number's probably way higher than that.

00:38:02 ◼   ► Yeah it's quite possible.

00:38:03 ◼   ► I was just looking at the pickup numbers, and this is also just one of these things

00:38:08 ◼   ► where I wonder...

00:38:09 ◼   ► Okay, so pickup is obviously referring to iOS and iPad devices, like that makes sense.

00:38:16 ◼   ► I wonder, like, does it or should it count something like screen unlocks on the Mac as

00:38:23 ◼   ► a pickup?

00:38:24 ◼   ► I wonder, I wonder if it's tracking that data at all.

00:38:27 ◼   ► Like how many times do you unlock the screen on your Mac?

00:38:29 ◼   ► I wonder if that's in there or not, but, um, well, there is kind of like pickups is a thing.

00:38:35 ◼   ► It is a thing on the Mac side, but I don't know what on earth it's judging that against.

00:38:42 ◼   ► But if I look at my Mac statistics, I have pickup there.

00:38:46 ◼   ► So this is first used after pickup.

00:38:48 ◼   ► My assumption is like first used after unlock.

00:38:53 ◼   ► 'Cause that's what's happening on the iPhone

00:38:55 ◼   ► and the iPad anyway, right?

00:38:57 ◼   ► You're picking up the device, unlocking it,

00:38:59 ◼   ► and then where do you go first?

00:39:01 ◼   ► And I think it's the same on the Mac.

00:39:04 ◼   ► It's just poorly named for the Mac.

00:39:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, or we need to do a side by side test.

00:39:13 ◼   ► Like do you need to physically pick up the laptop?

00:39:15 ◼   ► Is that what it's counting?

00:39:16 ◼   ► And like if you physically pick up your iMac,

00:39:18 ◼   ► then it counts as a pickup.

00:39:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like, oh, okay.

00:39:21 ◼   ► That's what, it actually does mean that.

00:39:23 ◼   ► It's the app you use when your Mac

00:39:25 ◼   ► is suspended above a desk.

00:39:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, I should check if I was running screen time

00:39:29 ◼   ► on my iMac Pro in front of me, it's like,

00:39:31 ◼   ► well, the number of times I pick it up in a week isn't zero.

00:39:34 ◼   ► Like I need to reach behind it

00:39:36 ◼   ► to mess with the cable sometimes.

00:39:37 ◼   ► Like I wonder if it would register it.

00:39:38 ◼   ► I was like, you picked it up once this week.

00:39:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:39:41 ◼   ► - And then you used Skype.

00:39:43 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:39:45 ◼   ► - But yeah, I think like that first pickup data

00:39:47 ◼   ► seems pretty unsurprising really for the most of it.

00:39:51 ◼   ► Messages and Instagram and Slack and Overcast.

00:39:54 ◼   ► - It's important to me for Twitter to be low in the list.

00:39:58 ◼   ► Because if Twitter's lower in the list,

00:40:00 ◼   ► what it means is even though I'm spending more time on it,

00:40:03 ◼   ► I'm spending more time that's most likely

00:40:05 ◼   ► to be purposeful time of using Twitter.

00:40:08 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, that's a good way to think about it.

00:40:11 ◼   ► - Right, like I want the pickup numbers to be lower

00:40:13 ◼   ► because that means the amount of times I've opened Twitter

00:40:17 ◼   ► when I first unlocked my device is less and that's good

00:40:21 ◼   ► 'cause that's less aimless time, I feel, to me.

00:40:24 ◼   ► Did you see "The Economist" in there, Gray?

00:40:28 ◼   ► - Well, yes, I did see "The Economist" in there.

00:40:29 ◼   ► I wasn't sure if you wanted to mention that or not, but...

00:40:33 ◼   ► - We can mention that.

00:40:35 ◼   ► I was given a very nice gift for my birthday

00:40:37 ◼   ► of a subscription to The Economist.

00:40:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is sort of a holdover

00:40:41 ◼   ► from one of our more text conversations

00:40:44 ◼   ► where we were talking about the news

00:40:46 ◼   ► and Myke was thinking about news sources to follow.

00:40:50 ◼   ► And it just so happened that your birthday was coming up

00:40:54 ◼   ► and I was discussing your quest for the news with my wife.

00:40:58 ◼   ► And then she suggested,

00:40:59 ◼   ► oh, why don't we get Myke a subscription to The Economist?

00:41:02 ◼   ► And part of the reason why I thought

00:41:05 ◼   ► this might actually work is because I know you're not a big fan of reading, but they

00:41:11 ◼   ► do a reading, a podcast like reading of all of the articles that they publish every week.

00:41:16 ◼   ► And so I thought, Oh, Myke might actually listen to that.

00:41:19 ◼   ► I'm actually kind of curious if you have or haven't, um, or are you actually reading like

00:41:25 ◼   ► the app on your phone?

00:41:26 ◼   ► So I've tried the podcasts and I typically do not like them like the readings, um, the

00:41:33 ◼   ► readings, they're too slow for that data.

00:41:38 ◼   ► Are you listening to them in the app? In the Economist app?

00:41:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:41:42 ◼   ► Ah, okay.

00:41:43 ◼   ► But what I actually really like about the Economist app is every article tells you how long it's going to take you to read it.

00:41:50 ◼   ► I really like that feature.

00:41:52 ◼   ► So what I do is every day I read their little, they have like a little morning digest, which I like.

00:41:57 ◼   ► It's like here's everything that happened in the world yesterday that you should probably know about.

00:42:01 ◼   ► and then they have just a couple of articles a week

00:42:04 ◼   ► and then they have the magazine articles that you can read.

00:42:08 ◼   ► And so I just dip in when I have a little bit of free time.

00:42:11 ◼   ► This is the app that is living

00:42:13 ◼   ► where Twitter used to live on my phone.

00:42:15 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

00:42:16 ◼   ► - Right, and I'll maybe go in

00:42:18 ◼   ► and I'll see if any articles are of interest to me

00:42:20 ◼   ► and I'll read them.

00:42:21 ◼   ► But I'm also at the same time

00:42:23 ◼   ► a little bit more informed about the world

00:42:25 ◼   ► because every day I'm reading something about world news

00:42:28 ◼   ► and I like it.

00:42:29 ◼   ► It's a good mix for me.

00:42:32 ◼   ► I feel like as far as news sources go,

00:42:35 ◼   ► seems to be pretty fair.

00:42:38 ◼   ► I don't really feel like it takes particular sides,

00:42:42 ◼   ► or maybe it just matches with my own thoughts

00:42:47 ◼   ► on certain topics that are of interest to me,

00:42:50 ◼   ► but I've really enjoyed the stuff that I've been reading

00:42:53 ◼   ► over the last couple of months, so very good gift.

00:42:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a funny thing

00:42:57 ◼   ► because I haven't actually read The Economist myself in like...

00:43:00 ◼   ► five years probably at this point.

00:43:04 ◼   ► It's just funny like to make a recommendation to you of

00:43:08 ◼   ► "I think this might be the thing that you feel like you're looking for"

00:43:11 ◼   ► which is a relatively straight factual—

00:43:17 ◼   ► like the very thing that you're saying there.

00:43:19 ◼   ► I know they have the section which is "here's what happened yesterday"

00:43:21 ◼   ► or like "here's what's coming up in this week"

00:43:24 ◼   ► and I thought like, "It sounds like what you're looking for."

00:43:28 ◼   ► But also, I don't have any idea what this is like now.

00:43:31 ◼   ► I only have my vague memory of what it was like years ago

00:43:34 ◼   ► when I read it more frequently, so...

00:43:37 ◼   ► I'm glad that you're liking it so far.

00:43:39 ◼   ► It's an interesting idea to put something like that in the location where Twitter was

00:43:44 ◼   ► as the replacement checking app.

00:43:47 ◼   ► So, I'll be curious to see how that goes for you, but...

00:43:50 ◼   ► It's going very well so far. I'm enjoying it very much.

00:43:53 ◼   ► Oh good.

00:43:54 ◼   ► You know, happy birthday.

00:43:57 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:43:58 ◼   ► I get a lot of iMessages I think we can say for a second.

00:44:02 ◼   ► I mean, do you get this many iMessages?

00:44:04 ◼   ► No.

00:44:05 ◼   ► Like this notifications number, you're pushing close to a thousand iMessages, you don't think

00:44:10 ◼   ► that's an accurate representation of what your week looks like?

00:44:13 ◼   ► I expect it's somewhere between half and this number, right?

00:44:18 ◼   ► So maybe it's five, six hundred, something like that.

00:44:22 ◼   ► But that's just the notifications because I have a I'm in some group threads that I do not disturb on for

00:44:27 ◼   ► So, you know what? It probably is more than the 800 number

00:44:31 ◼   ► That's just an amount notifications that I get I better get more iMessages in a week than that actually

00:44:35 ◼   ► Because some of the more chatty threads that I'm in I don't have notifications on for

00:44:40 ◼   ► I think this is the biggest part where I look at our differences in screen time

00:44:47 ◼   ► And this is the one where it's like I just couldn't live your life. I don't know. I don't know how

00:44:50 ◼   ► Well, like communicating people. That's all I'm doing. That's like, what do you mean?

00:44:56 ◼   ► You couldn't live my life. More people's screens would be like mine than yours, I bet.

00:45:00 ◼   ► But I suppose you know that.

00:45:01 ◼   ► I'm fully aware that my screen time data will be a statistical outlier compared to the median

00:45:07 ◼   ► screen time data. But when you say like, "Oh, these are the notifications I get," and then

00:45:12 ◼   ► you casually remember like, "Oh yeah, but I'm in a bunch of those really chatty groups

00:45:15 ◼   ► where I turn off notifications." Like, I can't conceive of what a group must be like for

00:45:19 ◼   ► you to feel like you need to turn off the notifications in that group chat.

00:45:24 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:45:24 ◼   ► I just imagine it's 20 people talking constantly all day about everything.

00:45:31 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:45:31 ◼   ► Four people, of which I'm one.

00:45:33 ◼   ► Okay.

00:45:34 ◼   ► And, you know, it's like that sometimes you might be away for a while and you come back

00:45:38 ◼   ► and you have 50 unread messages from the group.

00:45:41 ◼   ► That's horrifying. I don't think I'm in any group chat that's more than three. I think

00:45:46 ◼   ► all of my group chats are three and if the other two people are talking and I ever come back and

00:45:53 ◼   ► it's like oh there are 18 messages in this group I'm always like oh I can't catch up with this

00:45:58 ◼   ► forget it like but this is also why I'm not in very many group chats because I'm a terrible

00:46:04 ◼   ► participant as well. Well if it gets to high double digits or in the dreaded triple digit

00:46:10 ◼   ► I do that too I'm like I'm not reading this okay but it has to get up to that far for me. Honestly

00:46:15 ◼   ► the next one in my notifications this is the one I'm most embarrassed about which is the clock

00:46:19 ◼   ► so why I presume that's timers that would be my guess is it must be timers right

00:46:24 ◼   ► that's alarms in the morning oh my god okay that's are you are you saying that 240 is 240 snoozes

00:46:34 ◼   ► is that what you're telling me okay so I sent that's amazing like eight alarms every day okay

00:46:41 ◼   ► going off every 10 minutes and I'll set those depending on what you should see my my alarm

00:46:47 ◼   ► app is just like there's an alarm for every 10 minutes from like 7 to 11 and I just go through

00:46:54 ◼   ► and tick whatever ones I need for that next day uh and I'll just set like eight and I just

00:47:00 ◼   ► I snooze those things like you would not believe I mean apparently I'm really bad at waking up

00:47:07 ◼   ► I'm really bad at it.

00:47:10 ◼   ► I've gotten worse.

00:47:11 ◼   ► And I think it's 'cause I haven't had the studio.

00:47:13 ◼   ► - I didn't know this about you.

00:47:15 ◼   ► But this is also so confusing

00:47:16 ◼   ► because your whole day is scooched so late.

00:47:20 ◼   ► Like it's inconceivable to me

00:47:22 ◼   ► that you wouldn't wake up in time

00:47:24 ◼   ► for any of the things that you need to do.

00:47:26 ◼   ► Like I don't even understand

00:47:27 ◼   ► why you need all of these alarms.

00:47:28 ◼   ► - Because I still want to have a day before.

00:47:31 ◼   ► You know, I don't want to wake.

00:47:33 ◼   ► Like look, if I actually lived my life

00:47:36 ◼   ► way it made the most sense. I would wake up at noon but I don't want to live that life.

00:47:42 ◼   ► Like I want to be up between nine and ten and have a morning, right? Like I don't want

00:47:46 ◼   ► to be up in the afternoon and so I just, you know, do this terrible alarm situation.

00:47:52 ◼   ► Okay, but wait, so you go to bed at what, like two or three in the morning? Is that

00:47:56 ◼   ► right? Is that between two and three bedtime for you? Yeah. Okay. So I have to always have

00:48:00 ◼   ► to count out hours on my fingers like I'm a child. That's what that was.

00:48:05 ◼   ► It's like six to seven hours of sleep for me, mostly.

00:48:08 ◼   ► So six to seven hours.

00:48:09 ◼   ► - Okay, so what you're telling me here is,

00:48:13 ◼   ► if you went to bed at two and you didn't set any alarms,

00:48:18 ◼   ► you wouldn't wake up until noon.

00:48:20 ◼   ► Is that like, am I interpreting this data correctly?

00:48:23 ◼   ► - At least, Gray, I would sleep like you would not believe.

00:48:27 ◼   ► I've been this way since I was a kid.

00:48:30 ◼   ► If you leave me, I will just keep sleeping.

00:48:33 ◼   ► And it's not like I wake up and I'm like,

00:48:35 ◼   ► "Ooh, what time is it?

00:48:36 ◼   ► Oh, I'll go back to bed."

00:48:37 ◼   ► No, I just don't wake up.

00:48:39 ◼   ► - You don't find this a little alarming

00:48:41 ◼   ► that you seem to need 10 to 12 hours of sleep,

00:48:46 ◼   ► but you're cutting that down through alarms to six hours.

00:48:49 ◼   ► - Great, what the hell can I do about that?

00:48:51 ◼   ► Like, what?

00:48:52 ◼   ► Like if someone tells you,

00:48:53 ◼   ► "Oh, if you had 12 hours of sleep a day,

00:48:56 ◼   ► you would feel so much better."

00:48:57 ◼   ► Yeah, but it's 12 hours of sleep.

00:48:59 ◼   ► Like, what the fuck am I supposed to do?

00:49:02 ◼   ► I can't have that!

00:49:03 ◼   ► - But it also seems like your alarms

00:49:05 ◼   ► aren't very effective anyway,

00:49:06 ◼   ► if you've got 240 snoozes over the course of a week.

00:49:10 ◼   ► - Hey look, no, what we've learned is

00:49:13 ◼   ► it just takes 240 alarms to get me up, right, a week.

00:49:18 ◼   ► - Okay. - But I'm up, right?

00:49:19 ◼   ► I'm here, aren't I?

00:49:20 ◼   ► - I mean, yeah, I guess.

00:49:22 ◼   ► I'm just finding this very alarming and concerning

00:49:25 ◼   ► and I didn't know this about you.

00:49:28 ◼   ► - Just 'cause you've never tried to wake me up?

00:49:30 ◼   ► Yeah, I hope we're not in a situation where I ever have to wake you up.

00:49:34 ◼   ► Hey Myke, pssst, wake up, wake up buddy, it's time to get up.

00:49:37 ◼   ► Hey, look, it could happen.

00:49:38 ◼   ► You're gonna get snooze on my face 240 times.

00:49:41 ◼   ► It's not outside of the realm of possibility, I mean, I don't know exactly what would

00:49:45 ◼   ► have to happen for that to occur, but I don't know.

00:49:49 ◼   ► Another thing about me when it comes to sleep, if I have to, like if I have something which

00:49:55 ◼   ► is unmovable, I get up like you would not believe.

00:50:00 ◼   ► If I'm catching a plane, I am awake on the first alarm

00:50:04 ◼   ► and I am ready to go.

00:50:06 ◼   ► - At least you have that.

00:50:07 ◼   ► - If we're talking regular day, it doesn't help that

00:50:10 ◼   ► most of what I have to do in a day

00:50:12 ◼   ► doesn't happen until after lunch.

00:50:14 ◼   ► When I say have to, it's like people are relying on me,

00:50:17 ◼   ► as in someone's waiting for me for something.

00:50:20 ◼   ► So my brain is just like, ah, this is movable,

00:50:24 ◼   ► this is flexible, you're fine, just sleep a bit more.

00:50:27 ◼   ► That's what's going on.

00:50:29 ◼   ► - I still, I feel like I still think

00:50:32 ◼   ► you should let yourself sleep more.

00:50:34 ◼   ► And like the evidence of the snoozes

00:50:36 ◼   ► is the evidence of that.

00:50:37 ◼   ► Like whatever you're doing, like set your first alarm

00:50:42 ◼   ► two hours later than whenever you're trying

00:50:45 ◼   ► to make it happen.

00:50:46 ◼   ► Like it's very concerning.

00:50:48 ◼   ► I think you should sleep until noon.

00:50:51 ◼   ► - The way, no, that's mad, that's not gonna do that.

00:50:54 ◼   ► But what I need to do is, and eventually I'm gonna have to do this, like I know that time

00:50:57 ◼   ► is coming for me sooner rather than later, is go to bed earlier.

00:51:01 ◼   ► Okay.

00:51:02 ◼   ► That's the thing that has to happen, is I have to go to bed earlier.

00:51:05 ◼   ► And I think that the, like I say, things have gotten worse more recently, and I do believe

00:51:12 ◼   ► it's the studio.

00:51:13 ◼   ► I think that- It's the lack of studio.

00:51:16 ◼   ► Yeah, when I'm coming back here I'm gonna start getting more tired earlier again, because

00:51:20 ◼   ► It's more movement in my day, it's more activity.

00:51:23 ◼   ► And plus, I wanna be up earlier,

00:51:26 ◼   ► like and I will get up earlier,

00:51:27 ◼   ► 'cause I wanna make sure that I'm here

00:51:29 ◼   ► with a good time, right?

00:51:31 ◼   ► So that kind of thing, like I woke up way easier today

00:51:35 ◼   ► than I have any other day this week,

00:51:37 ◼   ► because I wanted to be here.

00:51:38 ◼   ► Like I was like, I know in my mind,

00:51:39 ◼   ► it's like, well, I've gotta get that 10 o'clock train,

00:51:42 ◼   ► because otherwise, it's just all too late at that point.

00:51:47 ◼   ► So I think that will help.

00:51:50 ◼   ► And then the fact that I will be waking up earlier

00:51:53 ◼   ► will force me to go to bed earlier too.

00:51:56 ◼   ► And then that will, maybe I'll get down to, I don't know,

00:51:59 ◼   ► 200 alarms.

00:52:00 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:52:01 ◼   ► Rather than two more.

00:52:03 ◼   ► - I like this.

00:52:04 ◼   ► You'll go to bed earlier, you'll be less on New York time,

00:52:07 ◼   ► because I think my favorite thing that happened this week

00:52:09 ◼   ► is you told me that the journals were gonna go on sale

00:52:12 ◼   ► at 9 a.m.

00:52:12 ◼   ► And so I've messaged you at 9 a.m. about like,

00:52:15 ◼   ► "Oh yay, the journals are going on sale."

00:52:16 ◼   ► And you messaged me back and said,

00:52:18 ◼   ► "Oh no, I meant 9 a.m. New York time."

00:52:20 ◼   ► Yeah, well, see, 'cause this is the thing, Gray.

00:52:22 ◼   ► What the fuck?

00:52:23 ◼   ► How was I supposed to know you meant East Coast time?

00:52:26 ◼   ► I didn't call you on it,

00:52:28 ◼   ► but why don't you go back

00:52:29 ◼   ► and read the original message I sent to you

00:52:31 ◼   ► where I specifically said 9 a.m. Eastern.

00:52:34 ◼   ► Oh, goddammit.

00:52:35 ◼   ► Did you?

00:52:36 ◼   ► Yes, and I just decided not to bother calling you out

00:52:38 ◼   ► on it on message,

00:52:39 ◼   ► but now you're trying to put me on blast.

00:52:41 ◼   ► I said to you, "I sent this in Slack,

00:52:43 ◼   ► "but forgot to tell you here.

00:52:45 ◼   ► "Journals go on sale at 9 a.m. Eastern tomorrow."

00:52:49 ◼   ► - Well, how was I supposed to catch that Easter?

00:52:51 ◼   ► That's ridiculous.

00:52:52 ◼   ► - Well, I wrote it down.

00:52:53 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:52:55 ◼   ► That's how you supposed to catch it.

00:52:57 ◼   ► When you sent me that message at 9 a.m.

00:53:00 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, he's here, you got it."

00:53:01 ◼   ► And I was like, "Oh, I realize what he's done."

00:53:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:53:06 ◼   ► You got a lot of time to wait, yeah.

00:53:07 ◼   ► It's hours.

00:53:09 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:53:10 ◼   ► - It genuinely was annoying

00:53:12 ◼   ► 'cause I wanted to know how the sales were going.

00:53:14 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:53:15 ◼   ► I'm like, "Oh my God, I got six hours to wait to find out."

00:53:19 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:53:20 ◼   ► >> My bad.

00:53:24 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by Inside the Breakthrough, a new history of science podcast

00:53:29 ◼   ► full of "Did You Know?" stuff, like did you know that Marie Curie wasn't French?

00:53:33 ◼   ► She was Polish, and her father was part of the resistance against the Russians that ruled

00:53:37 ◼   ► Poland back then, and he taught her physics in secret, in the basement of their house.

00:53:42 ◼   ► Inside the Breakthrough explores the idea of eureka moments.

00:53:46 ◼   ► It's historical wisdom mixed with modern insight.

00:53:48 ◼   ► Think of it as a history show and a science show with some comedy thrown in there too

00:53:52 ◼   ► with host Dan Riskin who is a comedian, he's appeared on the late late show for example.

00:53:57 ◼   ► If you're intrigued by science and discovery or maybe want to have some new fun stuff to

00:54:01 ◼   ► talk about over dinner this is the show for you.

00:54:04 ◼   ► Maybe you want to know if you can prevent polio by cleaning the streets or who brought

00:54:08 ◼   ► the first elephant to England or does snake oil actually contain snakes?

00:54:12 ◼   ► On the surface this show is a collection of fun, entertaining and surprising stories from

00:54:16 ◼   ► the history of science, but host Dan Riskin also digs deeper and connects those old stories

00:54:21 ◼   ► to what modern day medical researchers are facing.

00:54:24 ◼   ► I really enjoyed listening to this show, it sounds fantastic, there's a bunch of really

00:54:28 ◼   ► great sound effects which is the thing that I love, and this show has them.

00:54:32 ◼   ► It's really great to hear the stories of how big problems are solved.

00:54:35 ◼   ► I love hearing about how people's thought processes work, and Dan says on the show they

00:54:39 ◼   ► make science come to life, and they really do.

00:54:42 ◼   ► The episode that I listened to recently had a story about Alexander Fleming and how he

00:54:46 ◼   ► Discover Penicillin, and it really helped to highlight how these eureka moments that

00:54:50 ◼   ► people go through actually take tons of work, even though they appear to be all of a sudden.

00:54:56 ◼   ► Search for Inside The Breakthrough anywhere you listen to podcasts, and we'll include

00:54:59 ◼   ► the link in the show notes too.

00:55:01 ◼   ► Our thanks to Inside The Breakthrough for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:55:05 ◼   ► Come on in, send me yours.

00:55:07 ◼   ► I don't think I've got anything else interesting on here.

00:55:09 ◼   ► Oh, can I send this to you on Skype?

00:55:11 ◼   ► No, why would you do that?

00:55:13 ◼   ► No, I'm gonna send it to you on Skype, because I don't have iMessages on this computer.

00:55:16 ◼   ► Okay. Wait, what do you mean you have iMessages on your computer? How is that possible?

00:55:22 ◼   ► This is- no, this is the comp- okay. Listen. The computer that I'm talking to you on, this is my

00:55:29 ◼   ► writing computer, and it is my podcasting computer, because it just- with the way I

00:55:36 ◼   ► want to arrange the sound paneling, it makes sense to use that computer as the same thing.

00:55:40 ◼   ► So on my writing computer, I don't have any communication tools installed other than Skype

00:55:48 ◼   ► for these podcasts. So I don't have iMessage installed, I don't have email installed,

00:55:53 ◼   ► I don't have anything installed. And so if we're ever sending little messages back and forth on

00:55:58 ◼   ► iMessage, like I'm using my phone for that, but I have all of these screen crimes images saved on

00:56:05 ◼   ► my desktop. And so the easiest way to drop you eight images at once, because I didn't put them

00:56:09 ◼   ► together in a nice little tile is through Skype. So I think it's very sensible. But just so you

00:56:14 ◼   ► understand what you're looking at here, the again, because I've just found it to be a horrible buggy

00:56:20 ◼   ► mess. I don't share the data between my devices. I don't run screen time on the Macs. And so the

00:56:30 ◼   ► things that I collected data for were my phone, which is one of those. And then this iPad, which

00:56:38 ◼   ► The name of the iPad is "Admin iPad" but that's from a long time ago.

00:56:44 ◼   ► The actual name of that iPad should be "Couchpad".

00:56:48 ◼   ► This is the couch iPad that I have and that I pick up like when I'm couching.

00:56:53 ◼   ► So this is where my data is from.

00:56:55 ◼   ► These are two separate ones here.

00:56:58 ◼   ► There are two separate things.

00:57:00 ◼   ► It's the narrower stuff is all of the iPhone stuff and the thicker stuff is the couchpad data.

00:57:08 ◼   ► Now Myke, just like you wanted to start out with your story of why the data is wrong,

00:57:16 ◼   ► I have the same story.

00:57:17 ◼   ► So this week where I got the data was an unusual week for a variety of reasons.

00:57:26 ◼   ► One of them was, and I'm sure I will get much sympathy from you for this, I had either a

00:57:32 ◼   ► a phone call or a FaceTime meeting every day last week.

00:57:40 ◼   ► There was one a day for seven days in a row.

00:57:45 ◼   ► Poor thing.

00:57:46 ◼   ► Which is just, it's very unusual.

00:57:49 ◼   ► I really can't stand that and it's incredibly draining and frustrating.

00:57:55 ◼   ► It's like, oh my god, every day I need to talk to someone?

00:57:59 ◼   ► It's too much.

00:58:00 ◼   ► It's way too much, but sometimes just trying to arrange people and calls and like family

00:58:05 ◼   ► things, it's just completely unavoidable.

00:58:08 ◼   ► But what I thought is, well, at least in the screen time data, I'm going to look popular

00:58:14 ◼   ► this week, right?

00:58:15 ◼   ► There's going to be lots of phone calls and lots of FaceTime.

00:58:21 ◼   ► But if you look in that data, phone calls and FaceTime are nowhere to be found.

00:58:28 ◼   ► like, Thursday, I was on the phone for three hours. Is their phone registered anywhere?

00:58:36 ◼   ► No! FaceTime calls with people multiple hours? No, it's absolutely nowhere. This again is just

00:58:43 ◼   ► one of these totally baffling things. What did I do with this s*** for if I'm not gonna get the

00:58:48 ◼   ► credit for it? Yeah, they're like, I'm not gonna lie, I definitely have this little feeling of

00:58:56 ◼   ► I can't believe I had to do this much talking and I'm going to get literally zero credit for it

00:59:01 ◼   ► on Screen Crimes Week because it just wasn't recorded. None of it. It wasn't recorded. Like,

00:59:07 ◼   ► the FaceTiming on the iPad? Nope, never happened. You know, the calls on the phone? Never happened.

00:59:13 ◼   ► And it's like, I was just trying to think, is this like the intended behavior? Because I flipped all

00:59:23 ◼   ► of the switches in the settings to try and always allow me to be able to talk to everyone.

00:59:30 ◼   ► Like I've tried to make that as permissive as possible.

00:59:33 ◼   ► So it's like, is this on purpose?

00:59:36 ◼   ► If I flip these switches that say I can talk to people, does Screen Time not record the

00:59:43 ◼   ► time as their way of getting around?

00:59:45 ◼   ► Like I have no idea, but it's just incredibly frustrating that this data is not present.

00:59:53 ◼   ► And just, again, another one of these cases where it's weird and buggy and doesn't

00:59:58 ◼   ► give a good picture of what is actually occurring.

01:00:02 ◼   ► And so even though literally all of my numbers are like an order of magnitude less than yours,

01:00:09 ◼   ► that's not an accurate representation of the use of these devices.

01:00:14 ◼   ► So like things are being undercounted in a super frustrating way.

01:00:18 ◼   ► But anyway, you have the screen time data that I was able to collect on my phone and

01:00:25 ◼   ► on my iPad separately.

01:00:27 ◼   ► So yeah, what do you think of this, Myke?

01:00:30 ◼   ► So I feel like we live in very different worlds.

01:00:33 ◼   ► Yeah, they all have things to look super different.

01:00:36 ◼   ► I imagine you would do in some kind of filming thing because you have two hours in the camera,

01:00:42 ◼   ► 20 minutes in the GoPro app, so I assumed something was going on there.

01:00:46 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, so well last time we had the little diversion we were discussing GoPro and

01:00:52 ◼   ► DJI's action cameras and it's like, oh yes, I'm quite familiar with GoPro and the rest of it. So

01:00:59 ◼   ► last week I was trying some filming for some outdoor stuff which is why the GoPro was up

01:01:06 ◼   ► and I haven't made any video with it yet, but in my home office I have this

01:01:12 ◼   ► little semi-experimental overhead shooting rig, which doesn't work great so far.

01:01:22 ◼   ► It turns out trying to shoot things overhead is an enormous pain in the ass for a huge number

01:01:28 ◼   ► of reasons that you don't think about until you try to set up a real overhead shooting location.

01:01:34 ◼   ► Let me talk to you about the struggles I've had with my Twitch channel.

01:01:38 ◼   ► Oh, of course!

01:01:39 ◼   ► Overhead is very important, right?

01:01:41 ◼   ► For the keyboard stuff.

01:01:42 ◼   ► But I think I might have finally gotten where I want to be with that.

01:01:45 ◼   ► What are you using for your overhead?

01:01:46 ◼   ► I just got a camera, like a Sony camera.

01:01:49 ◼   ► Okay, so you're just using the output of a Sony camera?

01:01:51 ◼   ► Yeah, into, well I mean it's all going into a PC, right?

01:01:54 ◼   ► So it's all way easier.

01:01:55 ◼   ► I have a HDMI capture card.

01:01:57 ◼   ► It's nice, nice.

01:01:59 ◼   ► And then I just stream all of Streamlabs from my PC.

01:02:02 ◼   ► I've been trying to avoid having a real camera as the overhead camera, but I think if this

01:02:07 ◼   ► is a thing that I end up doing, I might have to go that way.

01:02:11 ◼   ► I was using a decent webcam for a while, and it was okay.

01:02:15 ◼   ► It was doing the job.

01:02:18 ◼   ► But I wanted to have more flexibility and ultimately a better picture, so I ended up

01:02:24 ◼   ► going with an actual Sony camera.

01:02:26 ◼   ► I got an A6400.

01:02:28 ◼   ► It's the one that I went with.

01:02:31 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know, maybe I'll end up that way, but I can say at the very least, two

01:02:37 ◼   ► hours of the camera app being open in a week, this is not a typical week.

01:02:43 ◼   ► This is a crazy abnormal use of the camera, but for the most part it was sitting in this

01:02:50 ◼   ► clamp floating above my desk as I concentrated very hard for it to not move at all as I was

01:02:57 ◼   ► trying to have a frame that was exactly the same every time for different takes of things.

01:03:02 ◼   ► How are you suspending it then? What are you doing there?

01:03:05 ◼   ► I've got one of these clamp arm things that I just tightened up as much as possible to

01:03:10 ◼   ► try to keep it in place. Let me give you a great tip. Clamp the boom

01:03:15 ◼   ► arm to a different desk. Oh, yes. I know what you mean. Yeah. That

01:03:21 ◼   ► the thing that is holding the camera over what you're shooting should not be connected

01:03:26 ◼   ► to the desk that the thing is on.

01:03:29 ◼   ► I completely agree that I would love to do that.

01:03:31 ◼   ► My office setup makes it difficult to have that occur, but I've been looking into options

01:03:37 ◼   ► where it's like, maybe I can just have something that's on the ground and achieve the same

01:03:41 ◼   ► purpose.

01:03:42 ◼   ► Yeah, you could just get a C-stand with a sandbag weight on it or something.

01:03:45 ◼   ► I was looking into a bunch of different things, obviously, for the streaming stuff that I've

01:03:48 ◼   ► been doing.

01:03:49 ◼   ► And what I ended up doing was I have this little cart, which is just parked next to

01:03:53 ◼   ► my desk where I can put a bunch of half-finished projects on and I just clamp a boom arm to

01:03:58 ◼   ► that. So I can wobble the table as much as I want and it never shakes the camera. This

01:04:04 ◼   ► is when I'm at the studio. When I'm at home it's like all bets are off. But when I pass

01:04:08 ◼   ► a bit at the studio, when I was streaming from the studio that's how I do it. And then

01:04:12 ◼   ► I can move my desk as much as I want and nothing moves because it's fixed to this cart. But

01:04:17 ◼   ► if I didn't do that I was going to go with like a C-stand route. So it's just basically

01:04:22 ◼   ► the floor right like that's where it's coming from and then over hanging over

01:04:25 ◼   ► the desk and especially if you're using an iPhone which I reckon you should

01:04:29 ◼   ► probably just keep doing for a while I mean I don't use an iPhone because it's

01:04:31 ◼   ► not really feasible for streaming right like it there are apps I tried out this

01:04:35 ◼   ► like app that Elgato bought they bought an application where you can use your

01:04:40 ◼   ► phone cameras to stream from and I just couldn't get it to work reliably but if

01:04:45 ◼   ► you continue just using the phone you don't have to worry about a ton of

01:04:49 ◼   ► of weight on the C-stand because phones aren't that heavy. If you've got an actual camera

01:04:55 ◼   ► you're gonna need to think more about the weight of it but yeah I'd either get a C-stand

01:05:00 ◼   ► or a tripod that has an extending arm and you'd be totally fine because the phone's

01:05:03 ◼   ► so light but that's what I'd recommend from you to put it on the floor then if the desk

01:05:08 ◼   ► isn't right because if you're trying to do things over a long period of time I can imagine

01:05:12 ◼   ► maybe it's meant to be sped up a little bit or whatever and you see it in a lot of movement

01:05:16 ◼   ► in the image.

01:05:18 ◼   ► And that's just not gonna work.

01:05:22 ◼   ► Well, I also made a terrible mistake that it didn't occur to me until halfway through

01:05:28 ◼   ► where I was like, okay, there's a bunch of things that I want to shoot.

01:05:31 ◼   ► I thought, okay, it's probably going to take two days.

01:05:36 ◼   ► That was my mental estimate.

01:05:37 ◼   ► Spoiler alert, we're on day four, of course.

01:05:40 ◼   ► But when I initially set it up and I was thinking, oh, two days, that's cool.

01:05:45 ◼   ► "Okay, fine. I know what I'll do. Okay, let me grab my phone, of course the phone with the best camera, and clamp it in there,

01:05:52 ◼   ► 'cause I'd like, you know, the best image that I can get."

01:05:54 ◼   ► And it was only at the end of the day that it occurred to me,

01:05:57 ◼   ► "Oh, you idiot, you know you use this phone, right? Like, this isn't just a camera."

01:06:02 ◼   ► You have to take it out of this clamp, and then try to clamp it back in tomorrow in the exact same spot,

01:06:09 ◼   ► which is never going to work in a million years.

01:06:12 ◼   ► And so I was like, okay, now I'll just wait.

01:06:14 ◼   ► I just won't use my phone at all.

01:06:15 ◼   ► And I'll leave it in the clamp overnight

01:06:17 ◼   ► and I'll shoot first thing next morning.

01:06:18 ◼   ► It's like, but there was more work

01:06:20 ◼   ► than you thought there was.

01:06:21 ◼   ► And you can't not use your phone for three days.

01:06:24 ◼   ► So I had to cave and take it out.

01:06:26 ◼   ► And of course you can never get it set back up

01:06:28 ◼   ► the same way again.

01:06:29 ◼   ► So lesson is also learned that if I'm going to have

01:06:32 ◼   ► an overhead shooting rig, I should use one of the old phones

01:06:37 ◼   ► that I don't need as the actual camera.

01:06:39 ◼   ► instead of putting my phone in there like a total moron who didn't think about it ahead of time.

01:06:45 ◼   ► Yeah especially because like the only real tangible use of say last year or the year before

01:06:50 ◼   ► will be HDR and you don't want to shoot in HDR anyway. Oh Myke, we can't we can't do it now but

01:06:58 ◼   ► someday we'll talk about HDR. We'll talk about the nightmare, the nightmare of HDR but not today.

01:07:08 ◼   ► I'm not emotionally prepared to discuss that.

01:07:12 ◼   ► But yes, so this is why camera use is so high, it's also why GoPro, which is normally not

01:07:18 ◼   ► there, is existent as well, so that's what was going on with my phone.

01:07:22 ◼   ► It was helping me try to shoot some stuff for potentially a Grey Goes Outside kind of

01:07:28 ◼   ► video and also an experimental indoors overhead shoot kind of video, which may or may not

01:07:34 ◼   ► ever come to fruition depending on how much longer this actually takes me to accomplish.

01:07:39 ◼   ► - What is Portal? - Portal is another

01:07:42 ◼   ► white noise application. There's been a bit of disagreement in the household about the exact

01:07:50 ◼   ► sleeping white noise sound, and so there was an odyssey of exploration searching for alternative

01:07:57 ◼   ► white noise sounds. And the Portal app is one that ended up being settled on as like, "Oh, okay,

01:08:04 ◼   ► this is an acceptable nighttime white noise. So that's what that one is there.

01:08:09 ◼   ► - I'm gonna look here, it's interesting. Files is in there, that's just weird.

01:08:13 ◼   ► It's weird to see apps like that. Like, what are you doing here, Files? Like, why are you here?

01:08:18 ◼   ► - What are you... Okay, no, this is all very explainable, right? So the reason...

01:08:23 ◼   ► Okay, well, actually, maybe now that I think about it, maybe it's less explainable.

01:08:28 ◼   ► Okay, let me tell you about this Jenga tower that I have built for myself about how real life videos

01:08:33 ◼   ► get into Final Cut.

01:08:37 ◼   ► So you go out into the world like, "Ooh, I'm gonna shoot something in the real world."

01:08:41 ◼   ► You're on your phone shooting, shooting, shooting.

01:08:43 ◼   ► Great.

01:08:44 ◼   ► Got some videos.

01:08:45 ◼   ► What I've ended up building is this system that uses iCloud sync combined with Hazel

01:08:57 ◼   ► as a way to automatically rename and organize and tag all of the real life footage that

01:09:06 ◼   ► I shoot.

01:09:07 ◼   ► So you may remember ages ago I had a real problem with the way my files were named when

01:09:13 ◼   ► I was trying to put together that road trip vlog that cost me months of working on it.

01:09:18 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

01:09:19 ◼   ► Wasn't there like they renamed and then it all broke or something?

01:09:24 ◼   ► Yeah, there was a namespace collision problem where multiple files had the same names and

01:09:30 ◼   ► it like, it doesn't matter, it ended up costing me months because I didn't have a good way

01:09:34 ◼   ► to organize my footage.

01:09:36 ◼   ► So I have since really solved that problem.

01:09:41 ◼   ► I like really solved this problem.

01:09:43 ◼   ► I haven't just solved this problem, I have really solved it.

01:09:47 ◼   ► It couldn't be more solved than what I've done.

01:09:50 ◼   ► It couldn't be more solved.

01:09:53 ◼   ► It really couldn't be more solved.

01:09:54 ◼   ► You've over-solved, haven't you?

01:09:56 ◼   ► What you've done.

01:09:58 ◼   ► Okay so here's the workflow.

01:10:00 ◼   ► Shoot a video.

01:10:02 ◼   ► Now that video gets saved into a folder which is called 'Ingest' on iCloud Drive.

01:10:10 ◼   ► And so the reason that it's showing up in the phone is that one of the easiest ways

01:10:15 ◼   ► to get videos off the phone is to just select them in photos and then save to files.

01:10:22 ◼   ► So that's why it's showing up on my screen time there, as you have used files on your

01:10:27 ◼   ► phone, which is not something that I would normally do.

01:10:30 ◼   ► But it's to put the videos into the right place.

01:10:34 ◼   ► And then once they're in files on my phone, it does seem to take a long time, but whatever,

01:10:39 ◼   ► I'm never going to rush with this process.

01:10:42 ◼   ► Eventually those videos distribute themselves throughout the whole iCloud system, and then

01:10:47 ◼   ► eventually make it onto my, like, server computer, which is also this writing computer. It's

01:10:55 ◼   ► the one that's just on all the time.

01:10:57 ◼   ► The writing computer does an awful lot for it just to be called a writing computer. The

01:11:01 ◼   ► writing computer is the podcasting computer and the always-on file server in the home.

01:11:05 ◼   ► Yeah, that makes sense. It makes cool sense.

01:11:08 ◼   ► The natural trio there.

01:11:10 ◼   ► Yeah, I think everyone knows those three things go together. You have file server, writing,

01:11:16 ◼   ► and podcasting.

01:11:17 ◼   ► certain point it would just be "what are the things the computer doesn't do" would be

01:11:21 ◼   ► an easier way to describe what the computer is. So really it's just the non-communication

01:11:26 ◼   ► computer.

01:11:27 ◼   ► B: Yes, if you want to put it that way, that's true. It is the non-communication computer.

01:11:32 ◼   ► Except of course for the communication that we're doing right now. So anyway, back to

01:11:36 ◼   ► the writing computer. That downloads the videos into the ingest folder and then begins this

01:11:43 ◼   ► long process that is a combination of both shell scripts and hazel rules that takes all

01:11:50 ◼   ► of the videos, it gives them a unique date timestamp, so they all have like, forget what

01:11:57 ◼   ► the ISO number is, but it's all like 2020-12-7T19-23-01 to indicate the exact moment that this was

01:12:10 ◼   ► shot and it's renamed so that it's clear to me like which camera was the one that was doing the

01:12:16 ◼   ► shooting. Was this shot on the GoPro or was it shot on the phone? Once there's some basic

01:12:21 ◼   ► avoidance for namespace collision stuff, those files then move into a folder that is called

01:12:27 ◼   ► to_tag where I can add some tags of my own of like what was I doing and where was this shot.

01:12:34 ◼   ► And this is where it gets really crazy, because I have now hundreds of rules in Hazel that will

01:12:43 ◼   ► add tags based on other tags that have been added to the file. So for example, in places where I

01:12:50 ◼   ► know like I'm shooting a lot, I can just put the name of "Oh, this is the location" and then it

01:12:56 ◼   ► will automatically add "Oh yeah, that's in this city in this state," for example. So I can like

01:13:02 ◼   ► automatically add a bunch of other data and get everything all nice and tagged,

01:13:08 ◼   ► because when you import things into Final Cut, Final Cut has an option where it will use the

01:13:15 ◼   ► inbuilt file tags as keywords in Final Cut, which is great, because then you can like quickly find

01:13:21 ◼   ► whatever it is you're looking for. This system also, because I'm terrified about losing things,

01:13:28 ◼   ► is doing various levels of copying over the files at different states to rolling backups that will

01:13:36 ◼   ► keep them in the previous state for some amount of time. So it's like, as soon as they hit ingest,

01:13:42 ◼   ► before they get renamed, they're copied over to this folder, which will save them there for

01:13:47 ◼   ► six months, like just in case something went wrong. And then once I've tagged them, they're

01:13:53 ◼   ► They're copied over to a different system which will hold on to them in their tag state

01:13:57 ◼   ► for 18 months.

01:13:59 ◼   ► Once I mark them as correctly tagged, they will be copied over into a permanent archive

01:14:07 ◼   ► where then Hazel subsorts them into year, month, day folders.

01:14:12 ◼   ► And that is fantastic because like I can search this enormous archive for any of the keywords

01:14:20 ◼   ► that have ever been added or the keywords that have automatically been added.

01:14:23 ◼   ► The system is a little bit of a crazy Jenga tower, but it also really works.

01:14:30 ◼   ► And since that first video of the road trip, I have never lost a file and I've never been

01:14:36 ◼   ► able to not find something when I was looking for it.

01:14:39 ◼   ► So I'm pretty happy with the way this has worked out.

01:14:42 ◼   ► Man, that whole copying part is like really the workflow of a burned man.

01:14:47 ◼   ► I know, I think it's just it's the workflow that just makes sure nothing goes wrong.

01:14:54 ◼   ► That's what that is.

01:14:55 ◼   ► I guess so.

01:14:57 ◼   ► I know people will ask, just in case anyone is wondering,

01:15:01 ◼   ► there's a reason that I use iCloud Drive over Dropbox, which is that in my playing around with

01:15:07 ◼   ► it, iCloud Drive, while it is slow and weird sometimes, it never messes up the tagging.

01:15:16 ◼   ► So like, because I think that's part of Apple's inbuilt file system, that all files can have

01:15:21 ◼   ► tags, it always gets it right.

01:15:24 ◼   ► Like if I add a tag on a file, even if that file isn't completely downloaded, like it

01:15:30 ◼   ► always sticks, it always propagates to everywhere correctly.

01:15:34 ◼   ► Whereas Dropbox is very likely to mess up that tagging system if stuff is still in flux.

01:15:41 ◼   ► So that's why a lot of these things only get copied to a Dropbox rolling folder once the

01:15:47 ◼   ► tagging stage has been complete.

01:15:49 ◼   ► And then it's like, "Okay, now you can copy it over to Dropbox and Dropbox can just upload

01:15:54 ◼   ► it and it's no problem."

01:15:55 ◼   ► But anyway, that's why Files shows up for three minutes in my screen time.

01:16:00 ◼   ► That slow eventual syncing system,

01:16:04 ◼   ► I just couldn't live with that.

01:16:06 ◼   ► I know what you mean about iCloud Drive syncing

01:16:10 ◼   ► seems to kind of happen under a certain set of circumstances.

01:16:14 ◼   ► And I kind of understand why Apple do this.

01:16:16 ◼   ► It's like they're monitoring for like,

01:16:19 ◼   ► they don't want to burn all of your data

01:16:22 ◼   ► if you're not connected to Wi-Fi.

01:16:24 ◼   ► They don't want to take unnecessary battery from you.

01:16:27 ◼   ► So that you kind of have to be under certain circumstances

01:16:30 ◼   ► iCloud Drive. This is the same as like photos and all that kind of stuff syncing. I just

01:16:34 ◼   ► don't kind of, I just, it's just not, I don't work like that. But because I don't have workflows

01:16:37 ◼   ► like you do. When I need files to go places, I typically need them to go now. Right? Like

01:16:43 ◼   ► that's the point. They're going now because they're being used by somebody now or they're

01:16:47 ◼   ► for like, I need to know they're there now so I can archive this project. But with the

01:16:53 ◼   ► type of video that you're shooting, you are shooting it now with the intention of using

01:16:58 ◼   ► it in a month or two if ever, right?

01:17:01 ◼   ► B: Yeah, there's never a rush on my end and also just because I know this stuff is super

01:17:05 ◼   ► slow and weird, it always works out like for some of the stuff it's like "Oh I went out

01:17:09 ◼   ► on a bike ride and I had the GoPro just on my chest, you know, recording the whole time

01:17:14 ◼   ► and then I'm additionally shooting stuff on my phone and I brought another, I do have

01:17:17 ◼   ► a Sony camera that I use to try to get some nicer shots" and then I just know "Okay, well

01:17:22 ◼   ► When I get home, there's dozens and dozens of gigabytes of data across all of these things.

01:17:29 ◼   ► I just dump it all into the ingest folder on whatever device makes the most sense, and

01:17:36 ◼   ► I don't even attempt to try to tag it until tomorrow, right?

01:17:39 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, I'll tag all of this stuff tomorrow afternoon.

01:17:42 ◼   ► I'll just wait for it to synchronize overnight."

01:17:45 ◼   ► And again, that's totally fine because, you know, I'm not trying to shoot like a daily

01:17:49 ◼   ► vlog here, it's like "oh my god I've got to get it done in 12 hours" then the system

01:17:53 ◼   ► would be completely unacceptable.

01:17:54 ◼   ► But yeah but similarly though because of the way you're doing it because it's all going

01:17:58 ◼   ► into a Mac and the scripts like Hazel is a scripting application you have other scripts

01:18:03 ◼   ► that are running locally on the Mac rather than anything happening in the cloud or whatever

01:18:08 ◼   ► you could just ingest it at the Mac right if you needed that footage to be tagged right

01:18:14 ◼   ► now for some reason. You just take the iCloud part of it out of the equation, which would

01:18:20 ◼   ► be easy enough to do. You just pop the memory card in the Mac or plug in a USB cable, bring

01:18:25 ◼   ► the footage in, and just do the tagging immediately and it will do its thing. The delay is just

01:18:31 ◼   ► inbuilt into the system, but you could bypass it quite easily if you wanted to.

01:18:35 ◼   ► Yeah, if for some reason it had to happen fast I would just do it all on the writing

01:18:39 ◼   ► computer but you almost always like one of the cameras I'm particularly interested in

01:18:44 ◼   ► seeing what was on it and so that one I'll just you know because it's the end of the

01:18:49 ◼   ► day I'll load up that stuff on this little laptop that I have by the couch because like

01:18:53 ◼   ► oh I just want to look at this footage right now and then that's the thing that will you

01:18:55 ◼   ► know synchronize and like I'll tag in and organize it tomorrow and delete the shots

01:19:00 ◼   ► that aren't needed or whatever but it is a really crazy system and I'm getting very close

01:19:04 ◼   ► to the point where I was going to try to email the developers of Hazel because it's a weird

01:19:08 ◼   ► system preferences app, there's limits to how much you can see on the screen at one

01:19:14 ◼   ► time, and I, in a couple of my categories, am pushing up real close against the limit

01:19:19 ◼   ► of how much can actually fit on the screen for these contingent rules about when to add

01:19:25 ◼   ► this tag or when not to add that tag.

01:19:27 ◼   ► It's gonna be like, "I don't know if you guys could fix this, but hi, I may be one of the

01:19:32 ◼   ► super-est of super-users of your app for a thing that you never intended.

01:19:37 ◼   ► Can you change your entire app just for me?"

01:19:40 ◼   ► Those emails are very successful always.

01:19:42 ◼   ► [laughs]

01:19:43 ◼   ► MATT: Always.

01:19:44 ◼   ► There was only a couple of things more that really jumped out to me here, which is in

01:19:47 ◼   ► your notifications section.

01:19:50 ◼   ► Shortcuts and Dew, just because they are so much higher than everything else.

01:19:55 ◼   ► Shortcuts has 120 notifications and Dew has 107 on your phone.

01:20:00 ◼   ► And then it goes down to messages at 58 and then we're down into like timers at 14.

01:20:04 ◼   ► Yeah, so, shortcuts, that number should be way higher. Like, in theory, that number should

01:20:10 ◼   ► be like four times as much as it currently is. But the reason that it isn't, again,

01:20:15 ◼   ► goes back to screen time being weird, which is, I have set up all of my timers so that

01:20:22 ◼   ► they create a notification on the phone when they run. So every time I switch from, you

01:20:28 ◼   ► know, writing to researching or reading or, you know, whatever.

01:20:32 ◼   ► When I run that timer change on my phone, I'm doing it through a shortcut, and then

01:20:38 ◼   ► the shortcut sets up a notification that says, you know, "Reading timer running," so that

01:20:43 ◼   ► I know it went through.

01:20:45 ◼   ► Like that shortcut won't appear if it didn't work and like there was a network dropout

01:20:49 ◼   ► or something.

01:20:50 ◼   ► So the reason shortcuts is so very high is because what you're actually seeing is a function

01:20:55 ◼   ► of a timer has run and has changed.

01:20:59 ◼   ► I'm also extremely aggressive about all sorts

01:21:03 ◼   ► of other shortcuts that I want to run.

01:21:04 ◼   ► And shortcuts, I mean, we haven't even talked about this,

01:21:08 ◼   ► like all of the notifications that Apple wants to send you.

01:21:11 ◼   ► One of the things that I find is really frustrating

01:21:13 ◼   ► is tons of shortcuts will still force notifications

01:21:18 ◼   ► even though I don't want them to run as notifications.

01:21:22 ◼   ► So like, here's the one that's the most annoying, precisely because of the synchronization system

01:21:28 ◼   ► that I have.

01:21:29 ◼   ► On my phone, I have a shortcut that runs which says, "Every time the phone connects to a

01:21:36 ◼   ► power source, turn off low power mode."

01:21:40 ◼   ► Because I also have a bunch of shortcuts saying, "I want to turn on low power mode way before

01:21:45 ◼   ► I think it's needed."

01:21:47 ◼   ► But I want low power mode to go off because I have learned, even if the phone is connected

01:21:51 ◼   ► to power, nothing will synchronize if low power mode is on.

01:21:56 ◼   ► But what that means is every time I put my phone down on the wireless charger, I get

01:22:00 ◼   ► a notification from Shortcut saying, "Hey, we ran that notification saying we're connected

01:22:04 ◼   ► to power."

01:22:05 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, goddammit, Apple, please let me turn that one off.

01:22:09 ◼   ► I don't want that one."

01:22:10 ◼   ► But I think Apple is still very concerned about the safety of shortcuts.

01:22:14 ◼   ► So I've got a bunch of little ones like that that just send up notifications that I don't

01:22:21 ◼   ► want, plus every time a timer changes there's a notification.

01:22:27 ◼   ► But the reason that it is lower than it should be is because I can no longer use Siri to

01:22:33 ◼   ► voice activate changing timers, you know, like I mentioned last time.

01:22:39 ◼   ► Hugely frustrating after I built all of these shortcuts to works that I could just use my

01:22:44 ◼   ► voice 100% of the time.

01:22:46 ◼   ► And now I can't, so a huge number of timers I'm just changing on the computer in toggle,

01:22:54 ◼   ► which I just have open.

01:22:55 ◼   ► S: Why can't you?

01:22:56 ◼   ► What's happened?

01:22:57 ◼   ► B: This is the thing I said last time, where if I ask Siri to run a shortcut with my voice,

01:23:03 ◼   ► Siri says she cannot do that because screen time is on.

01:23:06 ◼   ► S & B & D & C.

01:23:07 ◼   ► Oh, it's a screen time thing!

01:23:08 ◼   ► B. It's just a bug.

01:23:09 ◼   ► It's just a bug that appeared months ago out of nowhere.

01:23:13 ◼   ► like probably a couple of weeks after I had just finished redoing my entire system to

01:23:18 ◼   ► be voice-based, uh, Ciri decided no. So I hate it. It's super frustrating and it's why

01:23:24 ◼   ► my timers are really weird. Now just when I'm working on my computer, I have a toggle

01:23:29 ◼   ► window just open where I use to switch the timers a lot instead of using the voice like

01:23:33 ◼   ► I would, but I just, I don't like having the two inconsistent systems there. The other

01:23:38 ◼   ► Another one there is Do is I guess my version of you snoozing stuff.

01:23:43 ◼   ► Like I think Do should always be high on my notification list because that feels like

01:23:49 ◼   ► it's it's the app doing its job.

01:23:52 ◼   ► Like the things that I put in Do are things that I know I almost never want to actually

01:23:58 ◼   ► complete at that moment and I need the app to harass me to do them.

01:24:02 ◼   ► A huge number of those are I have a reminder in due which just runs at nighttime and says

01:24:08 ◼   ► "Hey, you should start running your shutdown checklist now."

01:24:14 ◼   ► Like, "It's time to get ready for bed and do all the things that you need to do to get ready for bed."

01:24:18 ◼   ► And guess what?

01:24:19 ◼   ► I never really want to do that at the theoretical time that I'm supposed to go to sleep.

01:24:23 ◼   ► And so like that's one that's constantly harassing me about like,

01:24:26 ◼   ► "You know, past you thought now would be a good time to start getting ready for bed."

01:24:32 ◼   ► And it's like, "Yeah, but now me is watching TV that I'm interested in.

01:24:35 ◼   ► Like, snooze, snooze, snooze."

01:24:39 ◼   ► So that's why that one is just so ridiculously high.

01:24:42 ◼   ► I'll point out the Just Timers app is also on there.

01:24:45 ◼   ► Again, that one should be crazy high, but it isn't just because Just Timers I have on

01:24:52 ◼   ► my phone because it can work with shortcuts really well for if I start certain activities

01:25:00 ◼   ► that can automatically begin a countdown timer with a non-annoying reminder that the time

01:25:06 ◼   ► is up. But unfortunately again just because I can't use shortcuts the way I want to, just

01:25:12 ◼   ► timers end up being ridiculously underrepresented on this for what it theoretically should be.

01:25:17 ◼   ► Anyway, that's most of the stuff on my phone for what's happening there with notifications

01:25:22 ◼   ► and things.

01:25:23 ◼   ► Again, I feel like we're in totally different worlds.

01:25:25 ◼   ► Because you were like 10 hours on the phone and I'm under two if you exclude me.

01:25:29 ◼   ► No, it's not 10 hours on the phone.

01:25:31 ◼   ► It's 10 hours across all my devices.

01:25:33 ◼   ► Oh, right, right.

01:25:34 ◼   ► But also remember that 10 hour figure was just because of RSS.art19.com.

01:25:37 ◼   ► It was way less than that.

01:25:41 ◼   ► Right of course.

01:25:42 ◼   ► But then again, even though it was less than that, it's still more than that because not

01:25:45 ◼   ► everything's being counted in the first place.

01:25:48 ◼   ► - It's so frustrating.

01:25:48 ◼   ► I feel like this is definitely our most frustrating year

01:25:52 ◼   ► of trying to do screen time comparisons.

01:25:55 ◼   ► Like, it's not a good year for that, for sure.

01:25:58 ◼   ► - I just think what annoys me about this is

01:26:01 ◼   ► that there is such an interesting utility there.

01:26:03 ◼   ► Like, so even in having this conversation,

01:26:06 ◼   ► we see in ourselves and in each other

01:26:08 ◼   ► these interesting things about the way that we work.

01:26:12 ◼   ► And there's real data to get from it.

01:26:14 ◼   ► But the problem is the system is very buggy and is also just not fully realized in any

01:26:23 ◼   ► direction.

01:26:24 ◼   ► So I've been trying out an app for the Mac called Timing recently.

01:26:29 ◼   ► This is an application that does this stuff, but just for the Mac.

01:26:34 ◼   ► But it's so much more involved as to what it does.

01:26:37 ◼   ► And I've only been using it for a couple of days, so I don't really feel like I have a

01:26:40 ◼   ► full grasp over it yet.

01:26:42 ◼   ► But for example, it breaks down every time I use Safari, I can categorize every web page

01:26:50 ◼   ► as a different type of activity.

01:26:52 ◼   ► So if I'm in Google Docs, I'm doing show prep in Safari.

01:26:57 ◼   ► If I'm in YouTube, it's entertainment in Safari.

01:27:00 ◼   ► And also I choose the categorizations.

01:27:04 ◼   ► So I can, you know, you can have it like I think being like projects.

01:27:08 ◼   ► So if you were time tracking on your Mac for a project for a client, you could say, "I've

01:27:13 ◼   ► been doing it on this day and in this thing, it means it's for this project," that kind

01:27:17 ◼   ► of thing.

01:27:18 ◼   ► And what I also like is you can force the app to learn.

01:27:22 ◼   ► So every time I'm in the Craft app, it's for Cortex brand, and you can just lump it into

01:27:29 ◼   ► that little thing for me.

01:27:31 ◼   ► And it's really interesting, and you can add a lot of information to it, and it's also

01:27:36 ◼   ► got lots of interesting charts and stuff that it will build for you. But my problem with

01:27:41 ◼   ► an app like this is I want the full picture and this is only giving me the picture on

01:27:46 ◼   ► the Mac. There's no way for it to do this stuff on iOS, to have that level of system

01:27:53 ◼   ► control where it's watching what I'm doing in every application, which kind of just makes

01:27:57 ◼   ► me feel like I wished that Apple would create a screen time API to let third party developers

01:28:04 ◼   ► make more interesting apps out of this and also really accurately monitor what's going

01:28:10 ◼   ► on because like I see such massive differences between screen time on my MacBook Pro and

01:28:15 ◼   ► timing on my MacBook Pro because timing is picking up when I'm actually using applications

01:28:20 ◼   ► as opposed to when they're just the first application in my view, right?

01:28:26 ◼   ► >> Right.

01:28:27 ◼   ► >> So I'm going to keep running the timing app just to see what it's like over time,

01:28:33 ◼   ► I can already, it's already just served to frustrate me more that Apple isn't doing more

01:28:40 ◼   ► with this screen time thing, especially on iOS when they're the only people that are

01:28:45 ◼   ► allowed to do it in any way.

01:28:47 ◼   ► Yeah, that is the really frustrating thing is we're dependent on Apple to solve this

01:28:51 ◼   ► problem and they're clearly not interested in it.

01:28:55 ◼   ► And this year for both of us has turned up the largest number of bugs and missing data

01:29:00 ◼   ► in this semi-abandoned, maybe, system? That idea of an API is really interesting. Of course,

01:29:08 ◼   ► it would depend on the API correctly reporting data and not also being full of bugs of missing

01:29:15 ◼   ► phone calls and FaceTime chats and everything else, but I would be happy to see something

01:29:19 ◼   ► like that because yeah, I think it's not great the way the information is presented currently.

01:29:27 ◼   ► Even what you just said there is the categorization of stuff is really frustrating that they want

01:29:31 ◼   ► to show you at the top like, yeah, here's how much time you spent in information and

01:29:36 ◼   ► reading as we have decided what counts as reading and what doesn't count as reading.

01:29:41 ◼   ► Like it's very frustrating.

01:29:42 ◼   ► - Because like here's the thing about screen time just in general, right?

01:29:46 ◼   ► Why does screen time, you've given it this name which seems to suggest that applications

01:29:53 ◼   ► only need to be monitored if you are looking at them. Because like if I go to the battery

01:30:01 ◼   ► section of my iPhone I can see that I have in the last 10 days I've used Overcast for

01:30:10 ◼   ► 17 hours. But if I look in screen time it would say maybe 20 minutes. So why is that?

01:30:22 ◼   ► Why should this, why screen time?

01:30:25 ◼   ► Like it's like as if applications can only be quote unquote harmful to me in any way

01:30:30 ◼   ► if I'm looking at them.

01:30:34 ◼   ► Right right right.

01:30:35 ◼   ► So like this, the phone knows what I'm doing.

01:30:39 ◼   ► They're just reporting it in such a specific way because my iPhone tells me about all the

01:30:44 ◼   ► background activity that these applications are doing in this battery section.

01:30:49 ◼   ► And I know sometimes it just means that the application is live or whatever.

01:30:53 ◼   ► So like, you know, like I'm not running Twitter for 44 minutes in the background.

01:30:58 ◼   ► Twitter's doing that itself, right?

01:30:59 ◼   ► Like it's just staying alive in the background.

01:31:03 ◼   ► But there are many applications that I am legitimately running in the background for

01:31:07 ◼   ► long periods of time while I'm doing other things on my phone.

01:31:11 ◼   ► So like I don't, you know, it's just, it's just frustrating to me really that the, the

01:31:17 ◼   ► devices have the ability to detect what's going on, but they only report them in such

01:31:22 ◼   ► a limited way.

01:31:23 ◼   ► Yeah, it's interesting, you bring up something else that didn't even really cross my mind

01:31:27 ◼   ► as again, a bug or intended use, which Overcast is right at the heart of.

01:31:33 ◼   ► So in theory, I have it set that I shouldn't use Overcast until the afternoon, like it's

01:31:39 ◼   ► one of my off-limit apps, like it's a distracting thing in the morning.

01:31:43 ◼   ► But often when it's like the weekend or whatever, I don't care because I'm not working, and

01:31:46 ◼   ► So I'll listen to podcasts in the morning while I'm like tidying up the house or whatever.

01:31:51 ◼   ► So to do that, I have to grant Overcast a special exemption.

01:31:56 ◼   ► And often I hit the wrong button, which says "Approve all day" and instead I hit "Approve

01:32:01 ◼   ► for 15 minutes."

01:32:04 ◼   ► So what happens then is I'm listening to the podcasts and then 15 minutes later, they just

01:32:09 ◼   ► stop because that was all of the allowed time that I had approved.

01:32:14 ◼   ► But that doesn't show up in screen time.

01:32:17 ◼   ► Like it only, it'll show like you used Overcast for two seconds.

01:32:21 ◼   ► And so it didn't even really occur to me until you mentioned it.

01:32:23 ◼   ► But it's like, yeah, Apple is counting it in these odd ways of like, you know exactly

01:32:29 ◼   ► how long I'm listening to Overcast, because you've cut me off after supposedly the time

01:32:35 ◼   ► limit.

01:32:36 ◼   ► But you're also not showing this as time used.

01:32:42 ◼   ► Which again, like, if the intended case of this is, "Oh, like, I'm a parent monitoring

01:32:46 ◼   ► what my kid is doing on the phone," like, I think I'd want to know how much time they're

01:32:52 ◼   ► listening to podcasts, not how much time they're looking at the screen of the podcast app,

01:32:58 ◼   ► right?

01:32:59 ◼   ► Like, it's very strange.

01:33:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:33:01 ◼   ► All I care about is my child's usage of how they choose what podcast to listen to.

01:33:05 ◼   ► After that period of time, I don't care.

01:33:08 ◼   ► Yes.

01:33:09 ◼   ► I'm completely uninterested in this information.

01:33:11 ◼   ► I just want to know how easily they can make this happen.

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01:34:57 ◼   ► Well, that was more time than I thought we would ever spend on screen crimes times.

01:35:05 ◼   ► Great! When you do the crime, you spend the time!

01:35:08 ◼   ► Yes!

01:35:10 ◼   ► I just earned my money for the episode. I did it.

01:35:15 ◼   ► Well done! A+ on that.

01:35:19 ◼   ► Oh, that's really good.

01:35:25 ◼   ► That is an excellent thing for your first recording back in your office studio.

01:35:32 ◼   ► How did it feel?

01:35:33 ◼   ► It must be the energy, right?

01:35:34 ◼   ► The studio energy gave me everything I needed for the perfect pun.

01:35:38 ◼   ► It feels – it does feel different.

01:35:41 ◼   ► I do realize that when I record here, I do feel different to when I record at home.

01:35:45 ◼   ► It's because the environment is very different.

01:35:48 ◼   ► Like it's – I'm very much aware of the space that's around me, which does feel

01:35:52 ◼   ► a little bit weird having recorded at home.

01:35:55 ◼   ► but it's expansive.

01:35:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have a lot of space here, right?

01:35:59 ◼   ► So there is a little bit more of a feel,

01:36:01 ◼   ► like I have like more of an awareness feeling

01:36:03 ◼   ► of the space that I'm in,

01:36:05 ◼   ► but I remember this the last time

01:36:07 ◼   ► and it ended up feeling less that way

01:36:09 ◼   ► as I got more used to it again.

01:36:12 ◼   ► So I expect that will be the case in the future.

01:36:14 ◼   ► I do feel more comfortable here as well with that space.

01:36:19 ◼   ► Like we record for a very long time, right?

01:36:22 ◼   ► Sometimes when me and you record,

01:36:24 ◼   ► I actually, like when I'm here at the studio,

01:36:27 ◼   ► I kind of will sit back a little bit.

01:36:30 ◼   ► So like not necessarily sit at the desk.

01:36:32 ◼   ► I will like, I, you know,

01:36:33 ◼   ► I have like a office chair that can recline.

01:36:35 ◼   ► And so like, sometimes I record this show reclined

01:36:38 ◼   ► with my leg, my feet up on the desk

01:36:40 ◼   ► and the microphone in front of me.

01:36:41 ◼   ► And that's the beautiful boom arm.

01:36:42 ◼   ► And we're just sitting here talking about apps.

01:36:44 ◼   ► Like, but I can't, I don't have the space

01:36:47 ◼   ► for any of that at home.

01:36:49 ◼   ► So it's like, it's kind of a nice way

01:36:51 ◼   ► to sit and chat to Grey.

01:36:52 ◼   ► Like I like that.

01:36:54 ◼   ► So that's, I'm reminded of these like different ways

01:36:57 ◼   ► that I feel when I record here,

01:36:59 ◼   ► that I can kind of cycle between actually feeling

01:37:03 ◼   ► a bit more relaxed to record,

01:37:05 ◼   ► but then there's sometimes where like the space around me

01:37:08 ◼   ► for some reason makes me feel more energized as well.

01:37:11 ◼   ► - I was gonna make a joke about you putting your feet up

01:37:13 ◼   ► on the desk while recording a podcast,

01:37:15 ◼   ► but you're saying that you literally do that sometimes?

01:37:16 ◼   ► - Literally do it, yeah, yeah, I can do that.

01:37:19 ◼   ► - That's great.

01:37:21 ◼   ► Look, we've been here for four and a half hours.

01:37:26 ◼   ► - Yes. - At this point.

01:37:27 ◼   ► You gotta mix it up a little bit, man.

01:37:29 ◼   ► - Not me.

01:37:30 ◼   ► I'm just, no, I'm just-- - Still has a statue.

01:37:32 ◼   ► - Sitting here, mouth right on top of the microphone,

01:37:35 ◼   ► just the way you like it. - That's fine.

01:37:37 ◼   ► - Unmoving the entire time.

01:37:39 ◼   ► - I am currently reclined.

01:37:40 ◼   ► I'm in reclined seat now.

01:37:42 ◼   ► You'd never know. - Okay.

01:37:43 ◼   ► - I've got my feet up on the desk.

01:37:45 ◼   ► The microphone's right in front of my mouth still.

01:37:47 ◼   ► See, this is the beauty,

01:37:48 ◼   ► this is why I'm always telling you to get a boom arm, Grey.

01:37:50 ◼   ► the flexibility that you have, you know?

01:37:52 ◼   ► - Right, okay.

01:37:53 ◼   ► I mean, I guess if I use my other desk,

01:37:57 ◼   ► I could put my feet up.

01:37:59 ◼   ► I don't know if the boom arm would actually reach that far.

01:38:03 ◼   ► Hold on, let me try this.

01:38:05 ◼   ► - I'm terrified of a, just like a crashing sound

01:38:07 ◼   ► and then all of the audio gear immediately cutting out.

01:38:11 ◼   ► - I don't know what you're, look,

01:38:13 ◼   ► I don't know what you're talking about.

01:38:14 ◼   ► - Feet up.

01:38:15 ◼   ► - I just need, I just need to, no, hold on,

01:38:17 ◼   ► I need to stretch this boom arm within an inch of its life.

01:38:20 ◼   ► Hold on.

01:38:21 ◼   ► [laughs]

01:38:22 ◼   ► Because it's not meant to be at that angle.

01:38:24 ◼   ► No.

01:38:25 ◼   ► Okay, let me move this key.

01:38:27 ◼   ► Okay, there's no problems here.

01:38:29 ◼   ► Ooh.

01:38:30 ◼   ► You know, one thing I do have to keep an eye out for is I got—I think I told you right,

01:38:34 ◼   ► I got these little coffee warmers, like these little plates that heat up to keep your coffee

01:38:38 ◼   ► warm, because I like the office colds.

01:38:40 ◼   ► Right, yeah, because everything I hate about Qi charging, right, is in these little coffee

01:38:44 ◼   ► plate warmer things.

01:38:45 ◼   ► It's like the same kind of idea in my mind.

01:38:47 ◼   ► Imagine Qi charging, except there's no charging, there's just the heat.

01:38:51 ◼   ► It's just everything that you hate.

01:38:53 ◼   ► Right?

01:38:54 ◼   ► That's what this is.

01:38:56 ◼   ► So I have it on my desk and I love it.

01:38:59 ◼   ► But the thing that I'm aware of, it's like, it's just a ticking time bomb for when do

01:39:04 ◼   ► I leave a wire draped over this thing?

01:39:07 ◼   ► Have you ever looked into those?

01:39:10 ◼   ► I'm sure you have.

01:39:11 ◼   ► That ember mug?

01:39:12 ◼   ► Yeah, but I don't want to have to have a special mug for it.

01:39:14 ◼   ► That's it.

01:39:15 ◼   ► That's an annoying deal.

01:39:16 ◼   ► coffee mug, like your mug, like Grey's, this is Grey's mug.

01:39:19 ◼   ► We have a variety of mugs at the house.

01:39:22 ◼   ► I don't want to be confined to having to use the one mug that can be used with

01:39:26 ◼   ► inductive charging.

01:39:27 ◼   ► I wouldn't consider it confined.

01:39:28 ◼   ► I have like three mugs that I choose from.

01:39:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:39:32 ◼   ► I have like one mug in the morning and then another mug in the afternoon, which

01:39:37 ◼   ► is one of two, but typically it's just one of them.

01:39:39 ◼   ► So really I only have, I have two mugs and a backup mug.

01:39:41 ◼   ► I don't want to be constrained by their system.

01:39:43 ◼   ► look, I'd much rather have this fire hazard on my desk and the freedom mic to use whatever mug that I want.

01:39:53 ◼   ► You got a fire extinguisher, so what does it matter?

01:39:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I can literally see the fire extinguisher right now. It's right over there in the corner.

01:40:01 ◼   ► But yeah, so I've gotten myself into feed up on the other desk position, but in doing so and

01:40:08 ◼   ► rearranging everything on my desk, I was like, "Ooh, I gotta get that keyboard wire off the heater

01:40:13 ◼   ► so that it doesn't melt and cause a fire and force me to leap out of this reclined position.

01:40:19 ◼   ► I'm gonna say right now though, I'm not loving this podcasting with your feet up thing. I don't

01:40:23 ◼   ► like this at all. - Right, but it doesn't feel like you're in a comfortable position at all,

01:40:28 ◼   ► right? Like I'm in a comfortable position here. It sounds like you've become like a contortionist

01:40:34 ◼   ► to get yourself in the situation that you're in. - It's mostly fine. - Like I've just got my feet

01:40:38 ◼   ► up on the desk that's in front of me. It's nice and comfortable. I'm not stretching my feet to

01:40:42 ◼   ► to the other side of the studio to try and recline here.

01:40:46 ◼   ► You know that Ember mug, they do a travel version now,

01:40:51 ◼   ► which I thought was kind of cool.

01:40:53 ◼   ► - Oh, what, through like USB-C?

01:40:55 ◼   ► Is that what it is, I guess?

01:40:57 ◼   ► - Well, no, like they have,

01:40:58 ◼   ► like it's got a heating element inside of a travel mug.

01:41:03 ◼   ► - What's the heating element connect to though?

01:41:05 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, you charge it,

01:41:06 ◼   ► they can charge it on their plate.

01:41:08 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, right, right.

01:41:09 ◼   ► - But the point being, like you could take the mug with you

01:41:11 ◼   ► and it's just gonna keep everything heated

01:41:13 ◼   ► to a certain level for all day.

01:41:15 ◼   ► So it was kind of cool.

01:41:16 ◼   ► It's cool technology.

01:41:17 ◼   ► I know people that have them.

01:41:18 ◼   ► I don't have one 'cause I don't drink coffee like that.

01:41:22 ◼   ► So like typically these things are for people

01:41:24 ◼   ► that drink black coffee and I don't drink my coffee black

01:41:27 ◼   ► or I don't drink drip coffee.

01:41:28 ◼   ► Like I drink coffee with milk, right?

01:41:30 ◼   ► Which I mean, I don't know about other people

01:41:32 ◼   ► but I don't really think you keep that hot

01:41:35 ◼   ► for long periods of time.

01:41:36 ◼   ► I don't really know why you'd do that.

01:41:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think if I was still drinking coffee

01:41:41 ◼   ► with cream in it, I would not be using this heating thing.

01:41:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:41:44 ◼   ► This is definitely a, "Do you drink black coffee?"

01:41:46 ◼   ► Now this is an option for you kind of accessory.

01:41:49 ◼   ► Or tea, I guess, would be the same,

01:41:51 ◼   ► because if you're not adding milk to your tea.

01:41:53 ◼   ► I think if you add milk to the drink,

01:41:55 ◼   ► you don't wanna keep it hot, that doesn't seem right.

01:41:59 ◼   ► 'Cause you would be cooling the drink down

01:42:02 ◼   ► by adding the milk, and then heating it back up

01:42:05 ◼   ► past its point again.

01:42:07 ◼   ► I don't think that's a good idea.

01:42:08 ◼   ► Look, I think if you just kept milk warm for six hours on your desk, what could go wrong?

01:42:17 ◼   ► Drinking that.

01:42:18 ◼   ► Sounds tasty!

01:42:19 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:42:24 ◼   ► Yum!

01:42:25 ◼   ► But yeah, so anyway, I am not gonna be podcasting with you with my feet up on the desk anytime soon.

01:42:30 ◼   ► I'm back into a nice, proper sitting up position like, like podcasting was intended to be done.

01:42:36 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:42:37 ◼   ► Like, why did my dad taunt me?

01:42:39 ◼   ► Yeah!

01:42:40 ◼   ► (laughing)