Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► I am recording in two places now.

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Oh, my backup recorder.

00:00:05 ◼   ► It should be right--

00:00:06 ◼   ► - Don't forget the backup recorder.

00:00:08 ◼   ► - I can't tell if you're serious or not

00:00:10 ◼   ► about the backup recorder.

00:00:11 ◼   ► Are you serious about the backup recorder?

00:00:13 ◼   ► - I would just wish you recorded in two pieces of software

00:00:15 ◼   ► instead of the other one.

00:00:17 ◼   ► - I don't think that's possible to do.

00:00:19 ◼   ► You can't do that.

00:00:20 ◼   ► And besides, you want things physically separated.

00:00:29 ◼   ► If it's one computer, it's no good.

00:00:30 ◼   ► It's like you've got, you know,

00:00:33 ◼   ► you need two things physically recording.

00:00:35 ◼   ► You need to, God dammit.

00:00:38 ◼   ► - Oh my God, what are you doing?

00:00:40 ◼   ► For something that you consider to be so important,

00:00:44 ◼   ► which is the backup recorder,

00:00:45 ◼   ► why do you feel seemingly buried it?

00:00:47 ◼   ► I think, on the multiple--

00:00:49 ◼   ► - That's a good question.

00:00:51 ◼   ► Well, okay, so the thing is,

00:00:52 ◼   ► I'm recording from my new office, Myke.

00:00:57 ◼   ► My home office is blue now.

00:00:59 ◼   ► - Oh, new is blue.

00:01:00 ◼   ► - Blue is new, right?

00:01:02 ◼   ► And I'm mentally considering it to be my new office.

00:01:07 ◼   ► - Okay, that's good.

00:01:08 ◼   ► - It's been great, but I've also,

00:01:10 ◼   ► as part of the process of painting it,

00:01:12 ◼   ► everything came out of the office

00:01:15 ◼   ► and went into the main room of our house,

00:01:17 ◼   ► which made things quite cozy

00:01:19 ◼   ► for the several days it took to paint.

00:01:22 ◼   ► - I'm sure you were very aware

00:01:24 ◼   ► of all the things that you've purchased.

00:01:25 ◼   ► I became very aware of all the things that I've purchased.

00:01:28 ◼   ► I got rid of a whole bunch of them,

00:01:30 ◼   ► because again, I had collapsed two offices down into one

00:01:33 ◼   ► when I moved out of my old one.

00:01:35 ◼   ► I was like, there's a bunch of redundant stuff

00:01:36 ◼   ► that I got rid of.

00:01:37 ◼   ► And I've just like re-put everything back

00:01:42 ◼   ► into the new blue office.

00:01:45 ◼   ► And I haven't quite figured out

00:01:49 ◼   ► what the storage system is going to be.

00:01:51 ◼   ► But look, basically there's been a ton of change here

00:01:55 ◼   ► at what I'm thinking of is like the blue engine of Spaceship U.

00:01:59 ◼   ► Oh!

00:01:59 ◼   ► Yeah, it's pretty great. I love it. Like, I'm so happy about it.

00:02:03 ◼   ► And it really is the case. Like, the way you arrange your physical environment matters so much.

00:02:08 ◼   ► And we can talk about this stuff, like, later. But the short answer to your question is,

00:02:14 ◼   ► I've spent the last two weeks completely redoing two desks. Like, I got another big desk for this

00:02:20 ◼   ► and like I've set up all of that stuff and to get my office back into a workable state

00:02:26 ◼   ► I just kind of threw a bunch of the stuff that was in my main room into boxes

00:02:30 ◼   ► and I was like "you are my project for later boxes"

00:02:33 ◼   ► like I'll have to organize you and figure all that stuff out and like get a much better storage system

00:02:40 ◼   ► for the various things that I have but what that means is it just occurred to me

00:02:44 ◼   ► I was like "oh I'm pretty sure that audio recorder is in the box that's behind me"

00:02:47 ◼   ► behind me and then I took a look and I go,

00:02:49 ◼   ► oh no, it's not in this box.

00:02:50 ◼   ► I mean, there's only six boxes of things,

00:02:54 ◼   ► but they're very dense.

00:02:56 ◼   ► So we might be doing a trapeze show here

00:02:59 ◼   ► without two nets underneath us, just one net underneath us.

00:03:02 ◼   ► - Did you pick blue because of Spaceship U?

00:03:05 ◼   ► - No, Myke, it's the other way around.

00:03:06 ◼   ► It's blue in Spaceship U because that's the color

00:03:11 ◼   ► for years and years I've always color coded

00:03:14 ◼   ► as important work.

00:03:16 ◼   ► But now, but like did you pick the blue for the office because of that is what I mean.

00:03:20 ◼   ► I don't even understand what you're asking.

00:03:22 ◼   ► Blue is the color of serious work.

00:03:24 ◼   ► Yeah but your office wasn't blue before.

00:03:26 ◼   ► No I know it wasn't blue before because I just hadn't painted it before.

00:03:28 ◼   ► But if you had painted it, it always would be blue is what I'm asking.

00:03:32 ◼   ► Yeah of course, of course it would be.

00:03:33 ◼   ► Like it couldn't be any other, it couldn't be any other color.

00:03:36 ◼   ► It's like, it's like look Myke, if I had like a dedicated recreation room in the house,

00:03:43 ◼   ► It would be green, because green is the color of like, "Oh, I'm relaxing now. I'm reading a book here."

00:03:48 ◼   ► That's just the way the colors would be.

00:03:50 ◼   ► You wouldn't make a relaxing room blue. That's madness.

00:03:55 ◼   ► A relaxing room has to be green.

00:03:59 ◼   ► Like, what are you even asking me?

00:04:03 ◼   ► Silly me.

00:04:04 ◼   ► So anyway, I don't have a backup recorder.

00:04:07 ◼   ► Just a quick thing, just a quick point of order.

00:04:09 ◼   ► Something I'd like to bring to the attention of the court.

00:04:12 ◼   ► Oh dear. Wait, wait, the Cortex?

00:04:16 ◼   ► No, don't you dare. I would like to, I would just, look, I just want like the Cortex stenographer

00:04:22 ◼   ► to take it down that. I got a lot of flack last time for, oh, Gray made a schedule and

00:04:30 ◼   ► then he moved the very first incidents of this.

00:04:32 ◼   ► Oh, here we go.

00:04:33 ◼   ► As Myke said, we didn't even get to one.

00:04:37 ◼   ► Here we go.

00:04:38 ◼   ► We didn't even get to one as like tears rolled down your cheeks into your beard and it's like yes. Yes. Okay

00:04:45 ◼   ► Well, then guess what? We didn't get to one again, but it wasn't me this time. It was you this time

00:04:51 ◼   ► You moved cortex, right? So I so I just wanted that like

00:04:55 ◼   ► Officially on the record. Oh our

00:04:58 ◼   ► Second scheduled time which would have been the first scheduled time. I did not move it. You moved it

00:05:04 ◼   ► All right, when was we scheduled for? The 10th, right?

00:05:06 ◼   ► Oh, I don't know.

00:05:08 ◼   ► All right, all I know is this is not the day.

00:05:11 ◼   ► I think and I've moved it two days earlier.

00:05:13 ◼   ► Yes, two days earlier.

00:05:15 ◼   ► No, but you see the thing is though, it's not the same.

00:05:19 ◼   ► What do you mean it's not the same?

00:05:20 ◼   ► You can't turn it around on me and be like, you moved it.

00:05:22 ◼   ► Of course I can.

00:05:23 ◼   ► I can completely turn it around.

00:05:25 ◼   ► I'm doing that right now.

00:05:27 ◼   ► I never set the schedule.

00:05:28 ◼   ► You set the schedule.

00:05:29 ◼   ► So you broke the schedule.

00:05:30 ◼   ► You set the schedule and I moved it.

00:05:32 ◼   ► That doesn't matter.

00:05:32 ◼   ► It's not my schedule.

00:05:33 ◼   ► It's yours.

00:05:34 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:35 ◼   ► - Don't give me this schedule.

00:05:37 ◼   ► You've wanted a schedule for years.

00:05:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, and you wouldn't give it to me.

00:05:41 ◼   ► - I gave you a schedule.

00:05:43 ◼   ► - Oh, you gave me?

00:05:44 ◼   ► - And that's what the sentence means, right?

00:05:45 ◼   ► Like I gave it to you, wrapped up in a little bow

00:05:50 ◼   ► and said, "Here, Myke, here is the thing

00:05:52 ◼   ► "that you have asked and wanted for years."

00:05:55 ◼   ► And you were so happy.

00:05:57 ◼   ► And now you've ruined it.

00:05:58 ◼   ► - You are only making this situation worse for yourself

00:06:01 ◼   ► when you move next month.

00:06:03 ◼   ► now you're making it a big thing, right? Like you are now making it a thing that I moved it,

00:06:08 ◼   ► so now when you move it, it becomes even bigger. We're basically gonna spend every episode for the

00:06:14 ◼   ► next year having this back and forth conversation. Yeah, but look, look, I mean, Myke, I know what

00:06:22 ◼   ► you're trying to say here, but let's get real. Neither of us is really expecting that I'm going

00:06:27 ◼   ► to be the one who really sticks to the schedule, right? Like, you know, we both know that's not

00:06:32 ◼   ► really going to happen. So no one's surprised when Grey moves the schedule. It's just

00:06:38 ◼   ► — it's pretty shocking that Myke moved the schedule.

00:06:41 ◼   ► Oh, here we go. Here we go. Okay.

00:06:45 ◼   ► You know, you just — this thing that I gave you, it was just immediately treated very

00:06:49 ◼   ► poorly.

00:06:50 ◼   ► I'm not a very good recipient of gifts, that's true.

00:06:55 ◼   ► And for a little bit of behind the scenes, we almost had to move it just as we were recording

00:06:59 ◼   ► now because of some stuff that came up and it was like, "Uh-oh!" So we almost got

00:07:04 ◼   ► like a double move.

00:07:05 ◼   ► Yeah, something we've never done before is rearrange after we've begun, but we ended

00:07:10 ◼   ► up pulling the parachute on that one. We didn't do it.

00:07:13 ◼   ► So anyway, thank you, the court, for hearing that and thank you to the stenographer for

00:07:16 ◼   ► getting that down on the record. It was very important before we began to have that done.

00:07:20 ◼   ► Yeah. Alright, this September, you can join Real AFM in support of St. Jude's Children's

00:07:25 ◼   ► Research Hospital. September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and so we turn our

00:07:31 ◼   ► support to St Jude during that period of time. Childhood cancer remains the leading cause

00:07:37 ◼   ► of death by disease for children under the age of 15 and children undergoing treatment

00:07:42 ◼   ► for cancer and other life threatening diseases need transfusions, physical and cognitive

00:07:47 ◼   ► therapy and so much more. But the families of St Jude patients do not pay a dime for

00:07:52 ◼   ► this world-class care, which is an important thing, especially in America.

00:07:58 ◼   ► And St. Jude cover the costs for those families.

00:08:01 ◼   ► Because if you are in that situation, and your child has been diagnosed with cancer,

00:08:07 ◼   ► what you don't want to have to be thinking about is how can I pay for this?

00:08:11 ◼   ► But as well as being this incredible hospital for children, St. Jude is also a world-class

00:08:16 ◼   ► research institution.

00:08:18 ◼   ► St. Jude combines the very best in personalized care with one of the most technologically

00:08:23 ◼   ► advanced treatment clinics in the world, the Red Frog Therapy Center.

00:08:27 ◼   ► This is the very first proton therapy center dedicated solely to children with cancer.

00:08:32 ◼   ► It has the ability to kill and shrink tumors while keeping healthy tissues and organs safe.

00:08:37 ◼   ► And St. Jude continues to research the use of proton therapy, preventing the growth and

00:08:42 ◼   ► spread of tumors while reducing the risk of treatment related side effects.

00:08:46 ◼   ► And what's so great about St. Jude is because they are a research institution and because

00:08:50 ◼   ► they are funded by donations, they give their research away.

00:08:55 ◼   ► They don't sell it.

00:08:56 ◼   ► They don't keep it for the highest bidder.

00:08:58 ◼   ► They share their research with institutions all over the world.

00:09:02 ◼   ► You can donate today at stjude.org/relay and you will be joining the fight to end childhood

00:09:07 ◼   ► cancer.

00:09:08 ◼   ► Once again that is stjude.org/relay.

00:09:12 ◼   ► go there today and donate for this incredible cause. If you wonder or are

00:09:17 ◼   ► wondering why does Relay FM support St. Jude? Like St. Jude is a hospital in

00:09:24 ◼   ► Memphis Tennessee. Now this is incredibly personal to us and to me because my

00:09:29 ◼   ► co-founder Stephen, his son Josiah has been a patient at St. Jude since he was

00:09:34 ◼   ► a very young baby. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor and the care and support

00:09:39 ◼   ► that St. Jude gave to him allowed him to live today. Without St. Jude things could

00:09:45 ◼   ► have gone very differently and I consider Stephen's family like an

00:09:48 ◼   ► extension of my own family and to have seen and I have visited St. Jude

00:09:54 ◼   ► multiple times and seen firsthand what an incredible place this is and the more

00:09:59 ◼   ► we have worked with them over the years the more I am convinced of the fact that

00:10:04 ◼   ► this is a place that deserves donations and we will continue to keep doing it.

00:10:10 ◼   ► We're trying to raise $314,000 so we're doing it again what we raised last year.

00:10:15 ◼   ► I have been absolutely blown away so far by the support of the Relay FM

00:10:20 ◼   ► community and we have raised just an incredible amount of money so far but we

00:10:25 ◼   ► need your help to get us to that goal so please go to stju.org/relay.

00:10:29 ◼   ► Yes, thank you very much. Thank you very much to all the cortexins who help support St. Jude.

00:10:35 ◼   ► So once again, that's stjude.org/relay.

00:10:39 ◼   ► Podcastathon 2, baby. It's happening. It's happening real soon. Very, very soon.

00:10:47 ◼   ► Are you very, very prepared for Podcastathon 2?

00:10:51 ◼   ► By the time people hear this, I will be more prepared than I currently am.

00:10:55 ◼   ► that will be in the midst of preparing a lot more.

00:11:00 ◼   ► - What a true answer that is.

00:11:06 ◼   ► In the future, it will be closer to Podcastathon 2

00:11:09 ◼   ► than it is now.

00:11:10 ◼   ► - In a little later on in the episode,

00:11:12 ◼   ► I will talk about why I am about a week behind

00:11:15 ◼   ► the preparations that I wanted to be at.

00:11:19 ◼   ► But we're getting things set up.

00:11:20 ◼   ► So the Podcastathon is gonna be a six hour live stream

00:11:23 ◼   ► that we're doing on Twitch at twitch.tv/relayfm

00:11:26 ◼   ► on September the 18th from two to 8 p.m. Eastern time.

00:11:30 ◼   ► So you should come and hang out.

00:11:31 ◼   ► We've got a lot of fun things planned,

00:11:33 ◼   ► a lot of weird challenges,

00:11:34 ◼   ► a lot of great guests from Relay FM shows

00:11:37 ◼   ► are gonna be coming on

00:11:38 ◼   ► and we're gonna be doing a lot of fun stuff.

00:11:40 ◼   ► But getting everything set up,

00:11:42 ◼   ► it's becoming quite a task.

00:11:46 ◼   ► I think I mentioned on our last episode

00:11:48 ◼   ► that I have three areas in Mega Studio

00:11:52 ◼   ► that I'm making, right?

00:11:53 ◼   ► So I spoke about having my lounge area,

00:11:55 ◼   ► which is fully done now.

00:11:57 ◼   ► I've been doing some streams and stuff from there.

00:11:59 ◼   ► I have kind of a desk area, which is partly set up.

00:12:03 ◼   ► And then I had a third area that I wasn't talking about,

00:12:06 ◼   ► but I will now talk about.

00:12:07 ◼   ► It is a gazebo full of balloons, or at least it will be.

00:12:13 ◼   ► So.

00:12:14 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:12:15 ◼   ► - So, okay, so this goes back to last year.

00:12:21 ◼   ► At the St. Jude campus, they have these filming facilities

00:12:26 ◼   ► and they have two studios and we used a large studio

00:12:30 ◼   ► and then there was a small studio

00:12:32 ◼   ► which we maybe would have been able to use

00:12:35 ◼   ► and I don't know how it came up

00:12:36 ◼   ► but I was very excited about the possibility

00:12:39 ◼   ► of every time somebody donated an amount of money,

00:12:42 ◼   ► we inflate a balloon and put it in this room

00:12:45 ◼   ► so it would show donations during the podcast-a-thon, right?

00:12:49 ◼   ► You would see the balloons filling this room.

00:12:51 ◼   ► And I was very excited about the prospect of being in that room and like talking, right?

00:12:57 ◼   ► Like presenting from the balloon room.

00:12:59 ◼   ► It's very excited about this, but it ended up being outside of our scope last year.

00:13:03 ◼   ► And what we did instead was we created a ball pit that we had.

00:13:06 ◼   ► So every time somebody donated money, they got their name written on a ball and it got

00:13:11 ◼   ► thrown in the ball pit.

00:13:11 ◼   ► And there were many times during the podcast, I thought I was standing in the ball pit

00:13:15 ◼   ► and recording from the ball pit.

00:13:18 ◼   ► So I always, for Podcastathon 2, wanted to do the balloon room, right?

00:13:24 ◼   ► I was fixed on the balloon room.

00:13:25 ◼   ► We were going to do the balloon room, but then we couldn't be in Memphis.

00:13:29 ◼   ► So I was like, you know what?

00:13:31 ◼   ► I'm going to make my own balloon room.

00:13:33 ◼   ► So inside of Mega Studio, we are going to be erecting a gazebo.

00:13:39 ◼   ► Is there a different word for gazebo in America?

00:13:43 ◼   ► Is that like, do people know what that means?

00:13:45 ◼   ► I don't know if this is a British term or not.

00:13:47 ◼   ► You know what I'm talking about, right?

00:13:48 ◼   ► Well, okay.

00:13:49 ◼   ► I think I know what you're talking about because I'm, I'm, I'm harkening back to

00:13:55 ◼   ► my time at the craft fairs and I'm assuming that you're talking about one of these

00:13:59 ◼   ► kinds of setups where you have like a booth and, uh, yeah, I think I know what

00:14:05 ◼   ► you're talking about, but now you are suddenly making me doubt, like, do you,

00:14:09 ◼   ► do you mean a gazebo?

00:14:10 ◼   ► Like you would find out on a lawn, like the kind of thing that people get married

00:14:14 ◼   ► in.

00:14:14 ◼   ► Is that what you mean?

00:14:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:15 ◼   ► But like a small one of those.

00:14:16 ◼   ► Oh, okay. That's not at all what I had in my head when you were talking.

00:14:20 ◼   ► Okay, so you mean how did the balloon stay in?

00:14:23 ◼   ► We have netting around it.

00:14:25 ◼   ► So I was able to find a gazebo that had netted walls.

00:14:30 ◼   ► Okay.

00:14:31 ◼   ► So the balloons won't escape and you'll still be able to see in.

00:14:34 ◼   ► Right, the balloons won't escape and you won't escape.

00:14:38 ◼   ► You'll just be in the inside with the balloons.

00:14:39 ◼   ► No, I'll just keep walking in and out.

00:14:41 ◼   ► I mean, again, like as of right now, the gazebo is not up.

00:14:45 ◼   ► It will be.

00:14:46 ◼   ► Okay, I was like, do you have a picture of this thing?

00:14:49 ◼   ► But you don't have a picture of this thing because you haven't built it.

00:14:51 ◼   ► I can show you what it will look like.

00:14:53 ◼   ► Okay, yeah, I would like a photo here because I'm just...

00:14:56 ◼   ► Look, Myke, human communication is very hard.

00:14:59 ◼   ► And suddenly I'm just filled with doubts that I have anything in my head like what you're actually doing.

00:15:03 ◼   ► Okay, I just sent you a link to what I have procured.

00:15:07 ◼   ► Okay, let's see what this gazebo looks like.

00:15:09 ◼   ► They call it a pop-up marquee.

00:15:11 ◼   ► Oh, okay, well now that makes me think I'm thinking of the original thing that I was thinking of.

00:15:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, maybe. - Okay.

00:15:17 ◼   ► - Right? - Okay, yes, all right.

00:15:19 ◼   ► - You understand what I'm doing? - Okay, yes.

00:15:20 ◼   ► I understand what you're doing.

00:15:21 ◼   ► Now, the thing is, this is much closer

00:15:24 ◼   ► to what I was imagining, like say, you know,

00:15:28 ◼   ► a young boy would sell pretzels out of with his father.

00:15:30 ◼   ► Like, this is much closer to that

00:15:32 ◼   ► than when you were like, "No, no, it's like a gazebo

00:15:34 ◼   ► "that people get married in."

00:15:35 ◼   ► And then I was thinking of like a wooden thing in a park

00:15:38 ◼   ► and I just didn't know what was going on here.

00:15:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, that was the wrong one.

00:15:41 ◼   ► But like, so, but now you say that like the wooden ones.

00:15:44 ◼   ► Yeah, but people also get married in marquees, right?

00:15:48 ◼   ► Which is just kind of close to, but bigger ones.

00:15:51 ◼   ► Anyway, this is what I'm erecting in the studio,

00:15:54 ◼   ► inside of my studio.

00:15:56 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:15:57 ◼   ► - And we'll be filling with balloons,

00:15:58 ◼   ► with the idea that as we raise money

00:16:00 ◼   ► during the podcast-a-thon,

00:16:02 ◼   ► the balloon room will get more full.

00:16:05 ◼   ► - I like it.

00:16:06 ◼   ► - And I will be able to be inside the big full balloon room.

00:16:09 ◼   ► Obviously, to do this requires the pre-filling

00:16:12 ◼   ► of many, many hundreds of balloons, right?

00:16:16 ◼   ► - You're not going to fill them live on air?

00:16:19 ◼   ► - Some, for sure. - Okay, yeah.

00:16:21 ◼   ► - But not all, because otherwise,

00:16:23 ◼   ► the sound of balloons being inflated

00:16:25 ◼   ► will be the entire six hours, right?

00:16:28 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:16:29 ◼   ► So we're gonna fill up many hundreds of balloons in advance,

00:16:32 ◼   ► me and Adina, here in Mega Studio,

00:16:35 ◼   ► put them in nets, put them behind the gazebo,

00:16:38 ◼   ► and slowly fill up the gazebo.

00:16:40 ◼   ► - Are you filling them with helium?

00:16:41 ◼   ► Like they're gonna fill balloons?

00:16:42 ◼   ► No, I thought about helium, but there was a couple of things of helium.

00:16:46 ◼   ► One, the ceilings of Mega Studio were very high, right?

00:16:51 ◼   ► And I don't want to be dealing with that.

00:16:53 ◼   ► And two, helium balloons will go to the top, which won't have the visual effect of filling.

00:16:59 ◼   ► Right.

00:17:00 ◼   ► Right? It will go the other way?

00:17:02 ◼   ► Yeah, it'll more be like helium balloons are crushing you from above.

00:17:05 ◼   ► Right.

00:17:06 ◼   ► say anything, but I was also just wondering, what is the, like, those gazebos, as you call

00:17:12 ◼   ► them, they're not that heavy? And I was just beginning to wonder, like, what's the

00:17:17 ◼   ► maximum thrust of all of these balloons? And I was looking to keep real quiet if the answer

00:17:22 ◼   ► to that was yes.

00:17:23 ◼   ► - See, that would have been actually quite a fun thing to have occurred, right? But how

00:17:27 ◼   ► many balloons until the gazebo leaves the ground would have been quite a fun moment.

00:17:33 ◼   ► But no, we're gonna be doing air in that.

00:17:35 ◼   ► So yeah, that's the big thing

00:17:38 ◼   ► that I've been keeping under my hat.

00:17:39 ◼   ► I mean, so here's the thing,

00:17:41 ◼   ► when I'm releasing this episode,

00:17:43 ◼   ► because of things I will get to later in this episode,

00:17:45 ◼   ► we have not had the ability to start the setup of this.

00:17:48 ◼   ► So I'm putting it all on the line here, Gray.

00:17:51 ◼   ► - Has the gazebo been delivered?

00:17:53 ◼   ► Is it in-- - Oh, I have it all.

00:17:55 ◼   ► I have everything.

00:17:56 ◼   ► I have many hundreds of balloons,

00:17:57 ◼   ► I have an inflating machine,

00:17:59 ◼   ► I have the gazebo, the nets, and the whole nine yards.

00:18:02 ◼   ► - Okay, great, then you're set.

00:18:04 ◼   ► What could go wrong?

00:18:05 ◼   ► - I know what could go wrong.

00:18:06 ◼   ► It feels like I have everything.

00:18:07 ◼   ► How could anything go wrong?

00:18:09 ◼   ► So we've put up the metal part and taken it down again

00:18:12 ◼   ► so we know it fits 'cause it's immersive.

00:18:14 ◼   ► Because funnily enough, gazebos,

00:18:20 ◼   ► difficult to buy during COVID.

00:18:22 ◼   ► - Why?

00:18:23 ◼   ► - They're out of stock everywhere

00:18:24 ◼   ► 'cause people putting them up in their gardens.

00:18:26 ◼   ► - I was like, people shouldn't be outside.

00:18:30 ◼   ► What are they doing?

00:18:31 ◼   ► But that doesn't make sense. - But they're in their gardens.

00:18:31 ◼   ► Right.

00:18:32 ◼   ► They're making little rooms for themselves in their gardens, right.

00:18:36 ◼   ► So it ended up being a thing that was trickier to procure than I had expected.

00:18:40 ◼   ► What are you going to do with it long term?

00:18:43 ◼   ► Dunno man.

00:18:44 ◼   ► I haven't thought that far out yet.

00:18:46 ◼   ► Okay, so when it is up, what percent of the floor space of Mega Studio would you say it's

00:18:52 ◼   ► taking up?

00:18:53 ◼   ► Umm… good 25%.

00:18:56 ◼   ► So it's probably not something you'd want to leave up indefinitely.

00:18:59 ◼   ► Oh, it's coming down again.

00:19:01 ◼   ► For sure.

00:19:02 ◼   ► But when it's down, it's very small actually.

00:19:05 ◼   ► I was just thinking like maybe this could be a fun like VR room for you.

00:19:10 ◼   ► You can have like, oh, the gazebo is now the VR cave.

00:19:13 ◼   ► But if it's 25% of mega studio, you probably don't want to do that.

00:19:16 ◼   ► That is a fun idea.

00:19:18 ◼   ► But it's far too big to be a permanent fixture.

00:19:22 ◼   ► But yeah, I will keep it because like, you know, you never know when you need a balloon

00:19:27 ◼   ► room, I guess.

00:19:28 ◼   ► But also when it's down, it's not that large at all.

00:19:31 ◼   ► - Yes, yes.

00:19:32 ◼   ► - It's like a pretty small box that goes inside.

00:19:35 ◼   ► - Well, that would be delightful.

00:19:36 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:19:37 ◼   ► - It's one of the many, many fun things

00:19:39 ◼   ► that we have planned for Podcastathon 2,

00:19:42 ◼   ► but is part of the very, very large job

00:19:47 ◼   ► for a two-person team to put together.

00:19:50 ◼   ► But if you're gonna do it, go for it.

00:19:52 ◼   ► And that's what we're doing, right?

00:19:53 ◼   ► We're just going for it.

00:19:54 ◼   ► See what happens and we're gonna have fun along the way

00:19:57 ◼   ► and it's gonna be, this week is gonna be wild.

00:20:00 ◼   ► - I would like the time tracking numbers

00:20:02 ◼   ► for filling balloons.

00:20:03 ◼   ► Like I'd love to see what percent of the year

00:20:05 ◼   ► that ends up being later on.

00:20:07 ◼   ► That would be great.

00:20:08 ◼   ► - I'll let you know.

00:20:10 ◼   ► It's gonna be a combined number.

00:20:12 ◼   ► It's not just me, thankfully, filling these things.

00:20:15 ◼   ► - Yes, you, Myke, you are a very, very busy boy

00:20:19 ◼   ► this upcoming week.

00:20:20 ◼   ► I do not, I do not envy you.

00:20:23 ◼   ► I do not envy you at all.

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00:21:56 ◼   ► So I've been doing a lot of Twitch streaming in the lead-up to the podcastathon.

00:22:01 ◼   ► So like we've been doing some additional streams, games and some in-person kind of stuff too.

00:22:07 ◼   ► And I am reminded how much I enjoy streaming as an activity.

00:22:13 ◼   ► What do you like about it?

00:22:15 ◼   ► I like that there's so much additional stuff that you can do that you can't do with audio, right?

00:22:21 ◼   ► Like it's video. It's the video thing, right? Like, you know, I can play games, I can show things.

00:22:27 ◼   ► Like I've been doing some show and tell of my growing keyboard collection.

00:22:32 ◼   ► No, the keyboard collection.

00:22:34 ◼   ► Yeah, we'll come back to that.

00:22:36 ◼   ► So many keyboards.

00:22:38 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a collection now. It's a big thing in my life.

00:22:44 ◼   ► at the moment, but so like I'm enjoying that and what I like about the about twitch streaming

00:22:49 ◼   ► specifically is it doesn't have the overhead of post video right like there's no editing

00:22:56 ◼   ► It has many of the things that I enjoy about video as a medium

00:23:00 ◼   ► Without me having to think about putting in the many hours of work of the editing and publishing that YouTube does right

00:23:07 ◼   ► Is that is that just because of the expectations of the platform or is that a side effect of twitch ditches your streams after?

00:23:14 ◼   ► or I don't know what it is, what is it,

00:23:15 ◼   ► like a month or something all the streams go away?

00:23:17 ◼   ► I don't know, I forget.

00:23:17 ◼   ► - I mean, I can host them on a YouTube channel

00:23:19 ◼   ► and I'm planning on doing that for some stuff,

00:23:21 ◼   ► but it's just the fact that all there is

00:23:24 ◼   ► from a production perspective is what's happened live.

00:23:28 ◼   ► And then that's the end, that's the video, right?

00:23:32 ◼   ► So there's nothing more to do

00:23:35 ◼   ► after that period of time, really.

00:23:37 ◼   ► There is no edit to do for me with what I'm doing

00:23:40 ◼   ► because it's not like the vlogs

00:23:43 ◼   ► or it's not like product review videos

00:23:46 ◼   ► where like you do all the filming

00:23:48 ◼   ► and then you start all the editing.

00:23:50 ◼   ► - Right.

00:23:51 ◼   ► - The Twitch stream, it's just like this is what I produced

00:23:53 ◼   ► and you can choose to have been there when it was happening

00:23:57 ◼   ► or you can choose to watch it after the fact

00:23:59 ◼   ► and that's all it is.

00:24:01 ◼   ► And I think I kind of like that

00:24:03 ◼   ► and I'm thinking about maybe now I have room and space

00:24:08 ◼   ► and stuff like that here in the studio,

00:24:09 ◼   ► like trying to make more and more permanent setup for that

00:24:13 ◼   ► is definitely something that I'm going to consider.

00:24:16 ◼   ► Like I'd spoken about always spoken about having like video ambitions here

00:24:20 ◼   ► because I will be able to set stuff up and have it be more permanent.

00:24:24 ◼   ► But I think now that I will probably be turning my attention more towards

00:24:29 ◼   ► streaming than producing some basically more towards Twitch than YouTube.

00:24:34 ◼   ► It's just the casualness of it. That's what you like.

00:24:37 ◼   ► I like the casualness of the actual video itself,

00:24:41 ◼   ► like the making of it.

00:24:43 ◼   ► Like I like the interaction method of streaming,

00:24:46 ◼   ► like talking to people that are in the chat room,

00:24:49 ◼   ► like in the live chat and stuff like that.

00:24:51 ◼   ► I enjoy that.

00:24:52 ◼   ► I find it to be quite chill actually.

00:24:55 ◼   ► Like as a way of producing content,

00:24:57 ◼   ► it is much more relaxed for me

00:24:59 ◼   ► than other types of stuff that I make.

00:25:02 ◼   ► Like the expectations are different.

00:25:04 ◼   ► So I find that quite relaxing as a content production thing.

00:25:08 ◼   ► And I also just like that it's you sit down, you do the thing, you get up and you're done.

00:25:12 ◼   ► There's no more.

00:25:13 ◼   ► All that's there is what you did.

00:25:16 ◼   ► What you put into it when you are alive is all that exists.

00:25:19 ◼   ► And I kind of find that quite refreshing because that's not like the other content that I make.

00:25:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

00:25:28 ◼   ► I feel like I've had this.

00:25:30 ◼   ► I keep asking because I've had this like.

00:25:34 ◼   ► on and off again, like, what is live streaming?

00:25:38 ◼   ► Like, I don't know, I just, I never feel like I'm able to get into it.

00:25:43 ◼   ► Like, I've never found content creators that have been like,

00:25:48 ◼   ► "Oh, I really enjoy watching a bunch of this live stuff."

00:25:51 ◼   ► - See, I have also been watching way more Twitch streams.

00:25:54 ◼   ► - Okay. - So, like, that's part of it,

00:25:56 ◼   ► is like, I've found a type of content that I like to watch,

00:26:01 ◼   ► which is people building keyboards.

00:26:04 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, right. - Right?

00:26:06 ◼   ► Hanging out and building keyboards.

00:26:07 ◼   ► And I've been enjoying that content.

00:26:09 ◼   ► I find it very relaxing to watch.

00:26:13 ◼   ► So it's content that I am watching semi-actively.

00:26:18 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, I mean, I can get that.

00:26:21 ◼   ► I mean, the most recent live thing I did watch was,

00:26:26 ◼   ► I did watch Steven put the wheels on his Mac Pro.

00:26:29 ◼   ► - Oh, yeah, you see, stuff like that.

00:26:31 ◼   ► So he mentioned on that stream an idea that I am saying

00:26:35 ◼   ► that I really want him to do.

00:26:37 ◼   ► So I'm now gonna say on this show as a way

00:26:40 ◼   ► to push him further.

00:26:41 ◼   ► So there was a show called This Old House in America,

00:26:44 ◼   ► right, I think it was called,

00:26:45 ◼   ► it was like a home renovation show or something.

00:26:47 ◼   ► And he referenced this old Mac,

00:26:49 ◼   ► where maybe every Sunday he could take apart an old Mac

00:26:53 ◼   ► and show you the insides.

00:26:54 ◼   ► And I just thought like, yeah man, I would love that.

00:26:58 ◼   ► 'Cause I think I have come to enjoy this calm,

00:27:02 ◼   ► comforting type of content

00:27:07 ◼   ► that the in-person Twitch streaming can be.

00:27:12 ◼   ► And I think a lot of the time on Twitch,

00:27:15 ◼   ► it's called just chatting or whatever,

00:27:17 ◼   ► but I'd like there to be a thing that's going on

00:27:20 ◼   ► as well as the interaction.

00:27:21 ◼   ► So with the keyboard streamers that I watch,

00:27:25 ◼   ► they're doing something and also having conversations

00:27:28 ◼   ► with the people that are there in the Twitch chat, right?

00:27:31 ◼   ► So I like the mixture of that,

00:27:33 ◼   ► which is like the calm conversation.

00:27:35 ◼   ► A lot of them as well have like beds of calming music

00:27:40 ◼   ► through the streams, which I also really like,

00:27:42 ◼   ► like the lo-fi hip hop type stuff.

00:27:44 ◼   ► - Yes, yes.

00:27:45 ◼   ► No, no, I feel like your watch word for this one is calm,

00:27:50 ◼   ► right?

00:27:51 ◼   ► Like you've said it so many,

00:27:52 ◼   ► like Myke wants something that's calm.

00:27:54 ◼   ► And I was just trying to think of like the few things

00:27:57 ◼   ► that I've seen that's live and I'm trying to like bring some stuff up in my mind that's

00:28:02 ◼   ► similar to this. But a friend of mine, I did get into it for a little bit, but not permanently.

00:28:08 ◼   ► A friend of mine showed me these, I don't know how to describe it, like these crazy

00:28:13 ◼   ► Mario Maker levels, like the world's most insanely difficult levels of Mario that you

00:28:20 ◼   ► have ever seen. And as for someone who was totally unfamiliar with Mario Maker, it was

00:28:24 ◼   ► very like "what is this madness?"

00:28:27 ◼   ► Yeah it's a wild game.

00:28:28 ◼   ► I never really got into it but I can see why people like it.

00:28:31 ◼   ► Yeah, but anyway, so the thing about those streams is like

00:28:34 ◼   ► yes, the person who's playing this incredibly hard level

00:28:37 ◼   ► is casually chatting with the audience about whatever

00:28:41 ◼   ► but I would not describe it as calm

00:28:44 ◼   ► because in the background they're pulling off just these totally insane maneuvers

00:28:48 ◼   ► and all I can think of is

00:28:50 ◼   ► how can you possibly have a conversation with anyone

00:28:53 ◼   ► while you're also doing these unbelievably god-tier level moves in the background.

00:28:58 ◼   ► - Well, that's because to them it's like, it's flow, right?

00:29:02 ◼   ► - Yes, I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is, but I don't think—it wasn't like a calming,

00:29:08 ◼   ► viewing experience, right? Whereas watching Steven put the wheels on his Mac Pro—I don't know,

00:29:16 ◼   ► I watched it, but I also felt like, "Oh, this is like a weird art project that he's doing over

00:29:21 ◼   ► over here and it was a much more relaxing experience.

00:29:24 ◼   ► - So that's kind of like where I am with this, right?

00:29:29 ◼   ► Where like I am in, it's like, you know,

00:29:32 ◼   ► I feel like it's a common thing for me

00:29:35 ◼   ► where if I find a type of content that I enjoy consuming,

00:29:39 ◼   ► I like to see if I can do it.

00:29:41 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Right?

00:29:42 ◼   ► This is a trait of me that I have come to realize

00:29:44 ◼   ► about myself maybe in the last year

00:29:47 ◼   ► where like I've started to think like, why do I do,

00:29:50 ◼   ► I try lots of things, right?

00:29:52 ◼   ► And see what works and see what I like

00:29:53 ◼   ► and what doesn't like.

00:29:54 ◼   ► And it's very frequent that like,

00:29:55 ◼   ► I will come across a style of content,

00:29:58 ◼   ► I will consider, can I try that?

00:30:00 ◼   ► I like consuming it, would I like making it?

00:30:03 ◼   ► And I try and sometimes it sticks and sometimes it doesn't.

00:30:06 ◼   ► And I've kind of always been this way,

00:30:08 ◼   ► but I've kind of become self-aware about this of myself,

00:30:10 ◼   ► maybe in the last year or so.

00:30:12 ◼   ► So it's like similar,

00:30:13 ◼   ► where like I have enjoyed watching this type of content.

00:30:17 ◼   ► It is about a thing that I am becoming

00:30:19 ◼   ► increasingly interested in.

00:30:22 ◼   ► And so maybe I will try doing some of it myself.

00:30:24 ◼   ► And I've been doing a couple of streams in this vein

00:30:28 ◼   ► during September, 'cause as we've been hitting

00:30:31 ◼   ► different fundraising amounts through the campaign,

00:30:33 ◼   ► we've been doing content, and Steven's wheel thing

00:30:36 ◼   ► was one of those, where he basically changed the feet

00:30:39 ◼   ► out of his Mac Pro to the really expensive wheels.

00:30:42 ◼   ► - Right.

00:30:43 ◼   ► - And I really enjoyed watching Steven do that

00:30:46 ◼   ► in a similar vein, where it was like it was really chill.

00:30:49 ◼   ► And I think I like that kind of,

00:30:51 ◼   ► I have come to enjoy that kind of content.

00:30:54 ◼   ► And so I'm also thinking like,

00:30:57 ◼   ► are there things that I can do in that space?

00:31:00 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:31:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, well it's also a very natural part

00:31:05 ◼   ► of the creative process that,

00:31:08 ◼   ► it doesn't matter what it is,

00:31:09 ◼   ► like if it's live streaming,

00:31:11 ◼   ► you watch a bunch of different content creators

00:31:13 ◼   ► making live stream stuff.

00:31:15 ◼   ► And then you start to develop,

00:31:19 ◼   ► like preferences or like genre sensitivities where you think,

00:31:23 ◼   ► "Oh, I like it when people do this," or "I don't like it when people do that."

00:31:26 ◼   ► And then, like, I think it can very naturally just lead you into thinking,

00:31:33 ◼   ► "Oh, if I was going to do a version of this, how would I do it?"

00:31:37 ◼   ► And yeah, I think that can just naturally happen for any kind of entertainment.

00:31:41 ◼   ► Like, yeah, I mean, I know when I made that T-Quay video, I watched like a

00:31:45 ◼   ► billion urban exploration videos around that time where I'm just like,

00:31:49 ◼   ► what's this genre like? You know what, you know, when I'm putting this together,

00:31:53 ◼   ► what do people do that I like and what do people do that I don't like?

00:31:56 ◼   ► And let me try to make my version of this thing. And I think,

00:31:58 ◼   ► I think that happens really naturally with any kind of creative project.

00:32:01 ◼   ► I mean the flip side of that is it's sort of cliche,

00:32:04 ◼   ► but it is true where you sometimes run into people where they're like, Oh,

00:32:08 ◼   ► you know, I'm working on a, on a novel or whatever. You're like,

00:32:12 ◼   ► "Do you read a lot of fiction?"

00:32:14 ◼   ► I go, "No, no, I don't read a lot of fiction,

00:32:16 ◼   ► "but I'm writing this novel."

00:32:17 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh no, that project is doomed."

00:32:19 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:32:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think it's pretty normal

00:32:23 ◼   ► for people that are creative, right?

00:32:25 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:32:26 ◼   ► - You look at something and when you start to like it,

00:32:29 ◼   ► you can't help but think, "Can I do that too?

00:32:32 ◼   ► "And how would I do that if I was gonna do that?"

00:32:35 ◼   ► And it ends up becoming a thing.

00:32:37 ◼   ► And I think certain people will not make it,

00:32:40 ◼   ► but I almost can't help myself,

00:32:42 ◼   ► but to always want to try.

00:32:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, and I can see, you know,

00:32:46 ◼   ► chill live with Myke as a future project for sure.

00:32:49 ◼   ► Like, it sounds very up your alley.

00:32:52 ◼   ► - It fits for me.

00:32:53 ◼   ► Basically, I want to get to a point where I learn

00:32:58 ◼   ► and I'm learning to build my own keyboards, right?

00:33:02 ◼   ► From, you buy the kits and you put them together.

00:33:04 ◼   ► And I kind of figure if I'm going to want to learn that

00:33:07 ◼   ► anyway, I may as well just do this stuff on live streams.

00:33:10 ◼   ► Right like it just.

00:33:11 ◼   ► Oh okay so you want to live stream the process.

00:33:14 ◼   ► Mm hmm.

00:33:15 ◼   ► Hmm okay all right that makes sense.

00:33:17 ◼   ► Yeah so something I'm thinking about and I'm kind of just putting I'm just noodling on

00:33:21 ◼   ► it a little bit.

00:33:22 ◼   ► Like you're gonna learn soldering is that one of the things you can do?

00:33:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:33:25 ◼   ► Mm hmm soldering is fun.

00:33:26 ◼   ► I've never done it.

00:33:27 ◼   ► It feels like one of those things where it's kind of missing from my geekdom to have done

00:33:34 ◼   ► anything with electronics.

00:33:36 ◼   ► Right you're you're a geek resume right?

00:33:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:33:40 ◼   ► soldering on there.

00:33:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:33:41 ◼   ► I want to get the badge, right?

00:33:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:33:43 ◼   ► That's what I was just thinking.

00:33:44 ◼   ► It's like the merit badge.

00:33:45 ◼   ► You can, you can prove like able to poorly solder two things together.

00:33:49 ◼   ► Great.

00:33:50 ◼   ► They didn't fall apart immediately.

00:33:53 ◼   ► Yes, exactly.

00:33:54 ◼   ► I've never really done anything like that.

00:33:56 ◼   ► This feels like a low stakes thing to try, you know?

00:34:00 ◼   ► Um, so yeah, I just want to give it a go and basically it all comes back to that

00:34:06 ◼   ► tweet that was sent into this show.

00:34:09 ◼   ► The Ask Cortex question that we had,

00:34:12 ◼   ► it was like in, which started this whole journey.

00:34:15 ◼   ► It was from someone called Neut,

00:34:17 ◼   ► and they sent this back in 2019,

00:34:19 ◼   ► but we read it on our show much later,

00:34:22 ◼   ► basically saying, if either of you

00:34:24 ◼   ► have ever used mechanical keyboards,

00:34:25 ◼   ► have you ever been tempted further down the rabbit hole

00:34:28 ◼   ► to fancy your keyboards?

00:34:29 ◼   ► I can see Myke's love of pens transporting to this.

00:34:33 ◼   ► - Right. - And they were right.

00:34:34 ◼   ► And this kind of interest, this kind of hobby,

00:34:38 ◼   ► I think it actually intersects with a lot of things

00:34:41 ◼   ► that I like, because it also is technology,

00:34:44 ◼   ► as well as being collecting and customization

00:34:49 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

00:34:50 ◼   ► So why not turn it into some kind of content?

00:34:53 ◼   ► But what I don't want to do is make a podcast.

00:34:55 ◼   ► Like I don't want to do that.

00:34:57 ◼   ► I have no interest in that.

00:34:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's something like Myke learns

00:35:01 ◼   ► to build a keyboard is poor podcast content.

00:35:04 ◼   ► It's just not suited for it.

00:35:05 ◼   ► - Right, no, but I could make a version of the pen addict

00:35:09 ◼   ► but with keyboards, not Myke learning,

00:35:12 ◼   ► but like Myke being interested in this hobby,

00:35:15 ◼   ► finding someone more knowledgeable than him

00:35:18 ◼   ► to help teach him and the audience if they're interested.

00:35:22 ◼   ► And then over time, my knowledge builds

00:35:24 ◼   ► and then it becomes talking about

00:35:26 ◼   ► what new products exist in the world, right?

00:35:28 ◼   ► Like there is definitely the pen addict model

00:35:32 ◼   ► would fit for keyboards easy,

00:35:34 ◼   ► but I don't want to do that.

00:35:36 ◼   ► Just because I,

00:35:37 ◼   ► I think I've said this before on the show

00:35:41 ◼   ► of like when I was talking about having hobbies

00:35:42 ◼   ► and this is definitely a hobby,

00:35:43 ◼   ► it's like not turning it into work.

00:35:46 ◼   ► And the streaming stuff-- - It's extremely hard to do.

00:35:49 ◼   ► - Right, but, exactly, but the streaming stuff is like,

00:35:52 ◼   ► I don't really think of that as,

00:35:54 ◼   ► at the moment I would say this, I mean who knows,

00:35:56 ◼   ► but like it doesn't-- - I was like,

00:35:57 ◼   ► oh my, come on. - I know.

00:35:59 ◼   ► - You know, oh I don't really think of this as work yet.

00:36:03 ◼   ► It's far enough away at the moment from what I do

00:36:08 ◼   ► for a living, and if it ended up becoming something

00:36:12 ◼   ► that was work-like, that would mean that it was successful.

00:36:15 ◼   ► Otherwise, it's just maintained to be my hobby.

00:36:18 ◼   ► But I don't feel the same Twitch streaming

00:36:23 ◼   ► than I do recording shows.

00:36:26 ◼   ► It's working different parts of my brain.

00:36:29 ◼   ► It's like, I really loved recording videos.

00:36:32 ◼   ► I hated editing them because editing was too close

00:36:36 ◼   ► to the editing that I do for audio, you know?

00:36:38 ◼   ► So yeah, pandemic busy, my friend.

00:36:42 ◼   ► Pandemic busy.

00:36:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, you're gonna add live streamer to your repertoire

00:36:47 ◼   ► here and again, just like as soon as you start getting,

00:36:51 ◼   ► you know, whatever it is, like the Twitch version

00:36:53 ◼   ► of YouTube Super Chats, like Twitch donations,

00:36:57 ◼   ► so then it's gonna suddenly become much more work-like.

00:37:01 ◼   ► But like you said, that just means that it's become a successful project.

00:37:04 ◼   ► But it's it's charming to hear you say that now at the beginning of it, like,

00:37:08 ◼   ► oh, this doesn't work.

00:37:09 ◼   ► I'm knowing my boundaries, though, right?

00:37:11 ◼   ► Yeah. Well, like I have set the boundary if I'm not starting a podcast

00:37:14 ◼   ► about mechanical keyboards.

00:37:16 ◼   ► That boundary is set.

00:37:17 ◼   ► I think I think that's the right decision.

00:37:19 ◼   ► And if I want to dabble in other things, I will allow myself to do that.

00:37:23 ◼   ► Because as well, it's an expensive hobby.

00:37:25 ◼   ► So if I if I want to do it, trying to make some money from it

00:37:30 ◼   ► is a good, like, that's good for the spreadsheets.

00:37:33 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:37:33 ◼   ► You're gonna try to recoup that.

00:37:35 ◼   ► - I can try and bring some of that money back in

00:37:37 ◼   ► to the business a little bit.

00:37:39 ◼   ► But like, it feels like something to play around with

00:37:42 ◼   ► in an area which could be, which intersects, I think,

00:37:44 ◼   ► enough with some of my other hobbies.

00:37:46 ◼   ► So I kind of want to tinker with it.

00:37:48 ◼   ► Without integrating it into my current creative work,

00:37:52 ◼   ► that's kind of the important part for me.

00:37:54 ◼   ► Is I want it to be adjacent,

00:37:55 ◼   ► not part of what I'm already doing.

00:37:57 ◼   ► If I do it.

00:37:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, which you totally are gonna do.

00:38:01 ◼   ► - Well, you know, we'll see.

00:38:02 ◼   ► The podcast that on being over is going to free up

00:38:05 ◼   ► quite a lot of time in my schedule,

00:38:07 ◼   ► which I'm excited about.

00:38:08 ◼   ► - Busy, busy mic.

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00:39:47 ◼   ► So the reactions to our last episode were incredibly fun.

00:39:51 ◼   ► They fell into two camps.

00:39:53 ◼   ► People who were shocked like me that it had never come up that me and you understood note-taking

00:39:59 ◼   ► so fundamentally differently.

00:40:02 ◼   ► And people that were surprised that they took notes the same way that you did or thought

00:40:08 ◼   ► about notes the same way that you did and didn't know that the rest of the world thought

00:40:12 ◼   ► differently to them.

00:40:14 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:40:18 ◼   ► There's a lot of feedback.

00:40:19 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:40:20 ◼   ► I felt like I was in literal pain listening back to that episode for my pass of the edit where I was like, "Oh no,

00:40:29 ◼   ► Past Gray is doing such a terrible job explaining anything here."

00:40:34 ◼   ► And it's just like, this is just-- this is what he sounds like when he's in the middle of a project.

00:40:38 ◼   ► It seemed like there was definitely an episode that caused a lot of discussion and generated a lot of interesting feedback,

00:40:44 ◼   ► but for me, I was mostly like, "Ugh, why do I explain things so poorly when I'm in the middle of them?"

00:40:49 ◼   ► But, um, are you going to take another crack at it?

00:40:52 ◼   ► No, I'm not going to take another crack at it because I'm still,

00:40:54 ◼   ► because I'm still in the middle of it. Right. I'm still like, don't rush me, Myke.

00:40:58 ◼   ► Well, I don't know. I don't know where you are in it. Right. This is me asking you.

00:41:02 ◼   ► Yeah. I'm, I'm still very in the middle of, of this. I don't know. I, I,

00:41:07 ◼   ► I think I partly sounded like just a complete weirdo on the last episode and a

00:41:12 ◼   ► lot of, a lot of the feedback seemed to line up with that. Like, how does,

00:41:15 ◼   ► how does he do anything if he's not doing what I think of his notes?

00:41:19 ◼   ► Like that was an overwhelming tidal wave of feedback of like,

00:41:23 ◼   ► how are you able to accomplish your job at all if you don't take notes?

00:41:28 ◼   ► Well that feedback also came directly from me to you.

00:41:31 ◼   ► I still don't feel like I fully understand how you manage anything really.

00:41:38 ◼   ► Yeah and there's still totally a part of me which is like,

00:41:41 ◼   ► I don't know about these notes, I don't know about this.

00:41:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel like this is going to be a longer threat for a while.

00:41:49 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, maybe. Maybe.

00:41:51 ◼   ► Again, I'm still very much on the side of just that brains are really different.

00:41:57 ◼   ► And I think the feedback itself just totally demonstrated this.

00:42:01 ◼   ► That there is a way that some portion of the population does think about notes in the way that I do,

00:42:06 ◼   ► which is like, "What is this for?"

00:42:10 ◼   ► And you could see it pop up where it was the same thing where they're like,

00:42:13 ◼   ► "Oh, the other people are really doing something? I just always assumed it was nonsense too!"

00:42:18 ◼   ► Right? And this is what I mean. Just like, brains are different.

00:42:21 ◼   ► And you can find these little divisions, but they're just not--

00:42:24 ◼   ► You just don't know where they're going to be or it's not obvious where they're going to pop up.

00:42:28 ◼   ► But yeah, I am still very in the middle of this. I'm still sort of

00:42:34 ◼   ► working out what the new system will be.

00:42:39 ◼   ► So I don't have a lot of specific follow-up like you may have hoped on this topic.

00:42:46 ◼   ► - Um, I wasn't expecting much, being honest. - Yeah.

00:42:51 ◼   ► - I just wondered if you'd gotten any further and if you had how far.

00:42:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I guess I would say...

00:43:00 ◼   ► Well, I don't have a clear direction forward.

00:43:07 ◼   ► At this point, I have very clearly decided, "Oh. The past. Goodbye."

00:43:16 ◼   ► I'm just gonna dump some kerosene on all of my Evernotes, walk away and throw a match over my shoulder.

00:43:22 ◼   ► Fwoom! Year zero, we're beginning again, and let's figure out from here what the new, glorious future will be.

00:43:30 ◼   ► And I've picked intentionally two video topics for the next two projects that are almost like toy projects

00:43:41 ◼   ► that are easy to play around with this topic of "Oh, how would notes work?"

00:43:46 ◼   ► And that's what I'm working on while I'm trying to figure out, like, what is the new system going forward.

00:43:52 ◼   ► Also, especially after the, you know, personally crushing ticoy incident,

00:43:58 ◼   ► Like, it's useful anyway to pick lighter topics for the next two videos instead of

00:44:04 ◼   ► some of my original plans which were, like, very complicated videos.

00:44:08 ◼   ► I was like, "You know what? This is not the time to do that."

00:44:12 ◼   ► So I picked a couple of toy topics of like, "Okay, these are easy to do.

00:44:16 ◼   ► I know I won't run into any major problems here."

00:44:19 ◼   ► And the first one, stylistically, I'm even doing it so it's very clear that,

00:44:25 ◼   ► like, this is not a 100% serious video.

00:44:28 ◼   ► So it's like, if there's a minor factual error, like, it's fine,

00:44:32 ◼   ► 'cause this is clearly not supposed to be like an encyclopedia entry on this topic.

00:44:36 ◼   ► And so that's sort of what I've done topic-wise for what I'm working on.

00:44:41 ◼   ► And I also think the freedom and the lightness of topics gives me a lot of room to play around with

00:44:47 ◼   ► what the system is or how do the notes work.

00:44:51 ◼   ► And because they're smaller topics, I can, like, just crunch up a bunch of stuff I've worked on

00:44:55 ◼   ► and try to format it in a different way and see how that works.

00:44:57 ◼   ► work. So I'm just very experimental with notes for the time being, and I'm just sort of seeing

00:45:04 ◼   ► what's going on and trying to figure out what the future will be. But I guess that's also a little

00:45:10 ◼   ► bit of saying for the YouTube audience. Maybe it's now a time to be a bit patient on when the next

00:45:15 ◼   ► video will be. I'm doing a total once-in-a-decade reboot of the way I work.

00:45:23 ◼   ► Interesting. It's a choice that you make, right? You can choose that like,

00:45:27 ◼   ► "I'm going to make this change before the next video," or you can be like, "Well, I'm

00:45:31 ◼   ► gonna keep working the old way and develop the new way." But I can understand

00:45:35 ◼   ► from your perspective that, well, the reason this is happening is not because

00:45:40 ◼   ► you had a new idea or found a new system that you thought might be fun to play

00:45:44 ◼   ► around in. If you've highlighted that you need to look at this as a potential way

00:45:50 ◼   ► to help you in the future, then you'd be kind of foolish to not do this beforehand.

00:45:54 ◼   ► B: You know, I took it very seriously what I said at the end of the "CGP Grey was wrong" video,

00:45:58 ◼   ► of like, "Oh, I've done this autopsy," and like, at the end of that video I say, "Oh, you know,

00:46:02 ◼   ► if we need to change things, we're going to change things." I didn't specify, because I just didn't

00:46:06 ◼   ► have any idea, like, what that specifically would mean, but that has very directly translated into,

00:46:11 ◼   ► like, "Okay, I need to rethink the way I do primary sources and my notes on primary sources."

00:46:16 ◼   ► I also just realized I said it in a slightly strange way there, but when I mean like the next video, I think what I

00:46:21 ◼   ► a clearer way to say it is like

00:46:24 ◼   ► Excluding these couple of toy projects where I'm just experimenting like the next heavyweight video

00:46:31 ◼   ► You have some light gray videos maybe

00:46:33 ◼   ► Yeah, something something along those lines

00:46:36 ◼   ► Stuff that isn't maybe it's easier to say like stuff that in nature is not something that requires

00:46:43 ◼   ► heavy research like Ticoi did.

00:46:45 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:46:46 ◼   ► Right. So, okay. Would you call it Grey Explains in that sense?

00:46:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:51 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:46:51 ◼   ► Okay.

00:46:52 ◼   ► Yeah, the videos, the toy projects are still like, they're going to get that official logo on the side

00:46:57 ◼   ► which makes them like the official real Grey Explains videos.

00:47:00 ◼   ► Right.

00:47:00 ◼   ► But the topics have just been selected for very limited scope.

00:47:04 ◼   ► That's good. That's clever.

00:47:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:06 ◼   ► Well, it's also like, it's been a good time to like step back and take a...

00:47:12 ◼   ► Not a break exactly, but just do a rethink.

00:47:15 ◼   ► You're reevaluating some stuff.

00:47:17 ◼   ► Yeah. That Gray was Wrong project was extremely taxing on a very short period of time.

00:47:26 ◼   ► And I just knew, like, okay, this costs a lot of, like, work points that are going to take a long amount of time to recharge.

00:47:35 ◼   ► And so, like, doing the note stuff is a good thing to be tinkering with, like, while I'm building back up to that.

00:47:41 ◼   ► And then when I was thinking about it, I was like, "Okay, well, if I'm burning the past, the future is now totally, totally gone."

00:47:48 ◼   ► And all of my vague plans for like, "Oh, this is the rough outline of the next six videos," I was like, "Forget that! Whoosh!"

00:47:55 ◼   ► In the garbage, too, like, "Today is a new day, like, from right now, given what you know."

00:48:01 ◼   ► Like, "What topics would you select if nothing else mattered?"

00:48:04 ◼   ► matter and it's like, okay, there's two obvious ones that I can play with and then I'll do

00:48:09 ◼   ► a reevaluation of what the rest of the topics are going to be. So that's a little bit of

00:48:14 ◼   ► where I am with the redoing of the notes.

00:48:18 ◼   ► Well, I look forward to coming back to it further. I really look forward actually to

00:48:22 ◼   ► finding out which app you end up landing on. That's the thing that I'm really interested

00:48:27 ◼   ► in.

00:48:28 ◼   ► That's all people want to know. People want to know about apps.

00:48:30 ◼   ► Of course they do.

00:48:31 ◼   ► That's the only thing they want to know.

00:48:32 ◼   ► Let me rephrase it. People in general probably don't care. Cortex-ins, they really care.

00:48:38 ◼   ► B: Yeah, no, cortex-ins really care about the apps. And also, I get it, right? Like,

00:48:44 ◼   ► we all know like, "Ooh, gear is the most exciting, the apps are the most interesting,"

00:48:48 ◼   ► right, because they are the physical and digital instantiations of ideas. I do totally get

00:48:54 ◼   ► why people care, you know? "Oh, what pen did you write that novel with?" Right? People

00:48:58 ◼   ► People want to know. I do have some initial thoughts. So there's this phenomenon where

00:49:04 ◼   ► once you notice something, you notice it everywhere.

00:49:07 ◼   ► It's the beta-Meinhof phenomenon.

00:49:09 ◼   ► Yes, thank you. I was like, I couldn't remember the name for it.

00:49:11 ◼   ► It's one of the only things like this I remember because I love bringing it up and I had to

00:49:16 ◼   ► look it up so many times that it stuck in my brain.

00:49:18 ◼   ► Okay, how do you say it? It's what?

00:49:21 ◼   ► Beta-Meinhof.

00:49:22 ◼   ► Beta-Meinhof. Okay, how would you explain it to the audience then if you've looked it

00:49:25 ◼   ► up so many times?

00:49:26 ◼   ► So the Beethoven-Hoff phenomenon is you become aware of something and then you see it everywhere

00:49:30 ◼   ► in real life.

00:49:31 ◼   ► A good example is for people is like you buy a car or someone you know buys a car and then

00:49:36 ◼   ► you see that model of car everywhere.

00:49:38 ◼   ► Right, right.

00:49:40 ◼   ► So I'm having – I don't know if it is this phenomenon.

00:49:43 ◼   ► I have a suspicion that it's kind of not, but at the same time I also feel like, "Oh,

00:49:49 ◼   ► the whole world of notes is going through a revolution right now."

00:49:53 ◼   ► you have hit it on a very like weird time, right?

00:49:58 ◼   ► Where like, this might be part of the reason

00:50:01 ◼   ► why you've realized that this is the thing

00:50:03 ◼   ► that you're not doing like everybody else,

00:50:06 ◼   ► because you have started to look at notes

00:50:09 ◼   ► at a time when everyone is doing wikis, right?

00:50:12 ◼   ► Like, there is a big upending in the way

00:50:16 ◼   ► that note applications are looked at.

00:50:19 ◼   ► And it is this thing of like the Notion Nation,

00:50:22 ◼   ► - Yes. - The Roman Rovers.

00:50:25 ◼   ► - No, it was the Roman, I think the one I heard I liked best was the Roman Legion,

00:50:29 ◼   ► which feels really obvious in retrospect. - Okay, so I really like that, but there's a reason we,

00:50:32 ◼   ► because I also heard people say Roman Empire, we didn't come on that because we were going

00:50:36 ◼   ► for alliteration of all of them. That's why we never got to any of the Roman ones.

00:50:40 ◼   ► But I like Roman Legion. I like Roman Legion. - Roman Legion is good.

00:50:43 ◼   ► - So I'm good, Notion Nation is just funny, and we don't have to alliterate everything,

00:50:47 ◼   ► because Roman Legion is excellent. - Okay, so I feel slightly less crazy

00:50:51 ◼   ► with you mentioning this because I have though been feeling like, "Oh, I'm paying attention

00:50:57 ◼   ► to notes," and so suddenly the whole world is paying attention to notes. It's like,

00:51:01 ◼   ► "That's not how the world works," but apparently it is. And it is.

00:51:05 ◼   ► No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

00:51:07 ◼   ► no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

00:51:08 ◼   ► no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

00:51:09 ◼   ► Thank you for confirming that.

00:51:10 ◼   ► Just as I suspected, like my-

00:51:12 ◼   ► The world revolves around me, good to know, good to know.

00:51:14 ◼   ► And as quantum mechanics tells me, like my pure attention creates the world as it is.

00:51:18 ◼   ► Perfect, that's exactly what I thought.

00:51:20 ◼   ► So anyway, I have been looking into the notes.

00:51:23 ◼   ► There is this idea that's been going around in this discussion of notes that my attention has created,

00:51:29 ◼   ► which I think encapsulates a clear idea.

00:51:34 ◼   ► and it's this distinction between Evernote, Rome, and Notion, and like what kind of person

00:51:41 ◼   ► each of these apps are for. And the idea is Evernote is for librarians, Rome is for gardeners,

00:51:49 ◼   ► and Notion is for architects. And I've seen this like all over the place, this concept,

00:51:56 ◼   ► when people are trying to think about these different note systems. And I do think there's

00:52:00 ◼   ► there's something really good about it,

00:52:03 ◼   ► which is why it's an idea that's spreading.

00:52:05 ◼   ► - I think the gardener one is the one

00:52:07 ◼   ► that's the most confusing to me.

00:52:09 ◼   ► The other two, librarian and architect,

00:52:11 ◼   ► I can kind of get around that,

00:52:13 ◼   ► but I don't know why notion is for gardeners.

00:52:16 ◼   ► - It's Rome is for gardeners, notion is for architects.

00:52:19 ◼   ► - Okay, still hasn't helped.

00:52:22 ◼   ► - No, no, yes, well, no.

00:52:24 ◼   ► But the gardeners one, we'll get to that in a second,

00:52:26 ◼   ► but as soon as I heard that, I was like,

00:52:27 ◼   ► oh, this makes total sense.

00:52:29 ◼   ► And yes, Librarians makes perfect sense.

00:52:32 ◼   ► Notion is something that's been incorporated

00:52:34 ◼   ► into my workflow purely through my assistant.

00:52:38 ◼   ► And it also is like, oh, this of course is this good tool

00:52:42 ◼   ► for architecting a more permanent structure

00:52:46 ◼   ► around something like a company, right?

00:52:48 ◼   ► And procedures and checklists and how do you do all of this?

00:52:51 ◼   ► You know, it's why Notion allows you to throw a database

00:52:54 ◼   ► in the middle of your text file.

00:52:55 ◼   ► Like, it sort of leans in this direction of you want to build a beautiful cathedral that

00:53:02 ◼   ► is complete about this topic.

00:53:04 ◼   ► Like that's the way that tool works.

00:53:06 ◼   ► So the Rome is for gardeners, Juan.

00:53:09 ◼   ► Like the reason this is confusing to you, Myke, is because I think the idea that this

00:53:13 ◼   ► is trying to express is the same kind of idea in the Zettelkasten system that I was describing

00:53:20 ◼   ► last time.

00:53:21 ◼   ► You're not making the outline ahead of time.

00:53:24 ◼   ► You don't know specifically what it is that you're building.

00:53:28 ◼   ► And unlike a library, you're not trying to file things within a hierarchical, dewey-decimal

00:53:34 ◼   ► system.

00:53:36 ◼   ► You are having things grow, and you're sort of tending to them as they grow.

00:53:42 ◼   ► And the idea here is also like, it's not a, you know, it's not a, not like an English

00:53:47 ◼   ► garden where everything is like, like sharply cut lines.

00:53:50 ◼   ► It's more like, "Oh, this is like a wild managed garden, and you are the person who's overseeing

00:53:55 ◼   ► it."

00:53:56 ◼   ► And that's like the idea in the Zettelkasten system.

00:53:59 ◼   ► And that's also why it makes sense the way Rome does things.

00:54:02 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, okay."

00:54:05 ◼   ► It is leaning you in this other direction.

00:54:09 ◼   ► It's really easy to create notes.

00:54:12 ◼   ► It's really easy to link notes to each other.

00:54:16 ◼   ► The focus is much less on the specific content of any particular note, like Notion does,

00:54:23 ◼   ► and it's more about the relationships between them.

00:54:26 ◼   ► And I just think this seems to me like a pretty good division in how do people work these

00:54:32 ◼   ► three ideas.

00:54:34 ◼   ► And even the Gardner one being a little bit confusing to me seems like, "No, but that

00:54:38 ◼   ► makes sense because if you are this sort of person, it just makes sense to you right away."

00:54:45 ◼   ► And I think very clearly like, "Oh, I got attracted to Zettelkasten in the first place,"

00:54:51 ◼   ► because the ideas that I originally came across related to it, like, this makes much more

00:54:55 ◼   ► sense to me than any of the other two messages.

00:54:58 ◼   ► So all of that is to say that Rome is obviously the tool that I should use, but I don't like

00:55:04 ◼   ► it.

00:55:05 ◼   ► And I don't like it for reasons that are incredibly hard to pin down.

00:55:10 ◼   ► Like I was trying to think about it before the show of like, I need to be able to put

00:55:14 ◼   ► into words like why I don't like Rome and I can come up with nothing specific that doesn't

00:55:21 ◼   ► sound ridiculous.

00:55:24 ◼   ► So I'll just say like this is the way life is sometimes.

00:55:26 ◼   ► Sometimes you find yourself a little repelled from something and you just don't know why

00:55:32 ◼   ► and it's okay to go with your gut sometimes.

00:55:34 ◼   ► Let me throw in some of the reasons that I don't like it at the moment and it might change.

00:55:39 ◼   ► One there's no apps right?

00:55:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:41 ◼   ► I'm not interested in that.

00:55:43 ◼   ► And then because it's just for the web,

00:55:46 ◼   ► and it's just on the web,

00:55:47 ◼   ► it feels like it has absolutely zero personality.

00:55:50 ◼   ► It's nothing.

00:55:52 ◼   ► It's like, here's just some web pages

00:55:54 ◼   ► and you just go for it.

00:55:55 ◼   ► It doesn't feel like it has a personality of any kind.

00:56:00 ◼   ► Maybe that's not important, probably not important.

00:56:03 ◼   ► And I reckon I would maybe feel better about it

00:56:06 ◼   ► if there was an app,

00:56:07 ◼   ► but I don't wanna use a web page to put my notes into.

00:56:12 ◼   ► I just don't want to do that.

00:56:14 ◼   ► It's like one of the reasons I'm turned off of Notion

00:56:16 ◼   ► is right, like it just feels like it's the web,

00:56:20 ◼   ► even though it's an app.

00:56:21 ◼   ► So like, to be honest, I'm not sure that I would ever

00:56:24 ◼   ► really be that interested in trying something like Roam,

00:56:26 ◼   ► because even when they build an app,

00:56:28 ◼   ► I expect it will just be a web view inside of an application.

00:56:32 ◼   ► Especially when it comes to stuff like Notes,

00:56:34 ◼   ► there's like a security that I feel from it,

00:56:37 ◼   ► in that it being like a, feels like a native application.

00:56:42 ◼   ► It just makes me feel more comfortable

00:56:44 ◼   ► to trust my notes to that.

00:56:46 ◼   ► That's why I like the Notes app.

00:56:48 ◼   ► I like Bear.

00:56:49 ◼   ► I don't really use Bear for notes.

00:56:50 ◼   ► I use it for like markdown, for longer writing.

00:56:53 ◼   ► But if I was gonna not use the Apple Notes app,

00:56:56 ◼   ► Bear is the app I would use.

00:56:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, sure. - I mean, Bear is doing

00:57:00 ◼   ► more and more stuff like this, by the way.

00:57:02 ◼   ► You might wanna look at it, Gray,

00:57:03 ◼   ► for like connecting notes together.

00:57:06 ◼   ► And they just introduced,

00:57:07 ◼   ► they've been doing this for a while

00:57:08 ◼   ► where you can link from note to note.

00:57:11 ◼   ► but now they've done it where you can link

00:57:13 ◼   ► to sections of other notes.

00:57:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, I did see that, and again,

00:57:18 ◼   ► it's just because my attention has turned to this topic now,

00:57:21 ◼   ► I was like, oh, the bear is doing this thing too.

00:57:24 ◼   ► - Right, but now I feel like I am in this too,

00:57:26 ◼   ► because I think I would have previously

00:57:28 ◼   ► just ignored that headline,

00:57:30 ◼   ► but now I'm like, oh, notes, right?

00:57:32 ◼   ► Even though I'm not doing what you're doing,

00:57:34 ◼   ► but now my brain is tuned to every piece of notes news.

00:57:40 ◼   ► Yeah, and of course we have now done this to the listeners where I think many of them will have never even like come across a piece of Notes News in forever

00:57:48 ◼   ► and like now every scrap of Notes News is going to like be blared into their attention because of this.

00:57:55 ◼   ► Especially anything noteworthy.

00:57:58 ◼   ► I'm glad you're pleased with yourself, there.

00:58:05 ◼   ► Very, so pleased.

00:58:07 ◼   ► I thought Scrap was like close enough without being a pun,

00:58:10 ◼   ► but no, you gotta go one further.

00:58:12 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:58:13 ◼   ► - It wasn't cheesy enough, Gray, come on.

00:58:17 ◼   ► I want to, I will turn my attention back to Rome

00:58:20 ◼   ► because I know they're building an app

00:58:22 ◼   ► and that's when I will give it much more of its due.

00:58:25 ◼   ► I just know that there's no point in me trying to use it now

00:58:30 ◼   ► because it's just not the tool for me

00:58:31 ◼   ► if it's on the web only.

00:58:34 ◼   ► Because I like to write notes anytime

00:58:38 ◼   ► I don't wanna wait for an internet connection.

00:58:41 ◼   ► That is a very important thing for me.

00:58:43 ◼   ► If this does not work offline,

00:58:45 ◼   ► I can't trust it as my Notes app

00:58:47 ◼   ► because I would want to retrieve and add that information

00:58:51 ◼   ► without waiting, without delay, without fail.

00:58:54 ◼   ► So I need to know that all of that content

00:58:57 ◼   ► is available to me whenever I need it

00:58:59 ◼   ► and a webpage is not that, right?

00:59:02 ◼   ► If I have something I want to write a note about,

00:59:05 ◼   ► I need to write it right now

00:59:06 ◼   ► and it needs to go where it needs to go.

00:59:08 ◼   ► That's why I trust Apple Notes, right?

00:59:10 ◼   ► Like it does that for me.

00:59:11 ◼   ► The syncing is fantastic.

00:59:12 ◼   ► The notes are always where I need them.

00:59:14 ◼   ► Apple Notes database builds incredibly fast.

00:59:19 ◼   ► Like if I have a new machine,

00:59:21 ◼   ► it's syncing my hundreds and hundreds of notes

00:59:23 ◼   ► takes a couple of minutes.

00:59:25 ◼   ► That's what I want.

00:59:28 ◼   ► I don't want to be going out to the web every time.

00:59:31 ◼   ► It doesn't feel reliable enough for me that way.

00:59:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, and like, those are good reasons.

00:59:36 ◼   ► It's just a funny thing.

00:59:37 ◼   ► It's like, Rome is in this, the three big contenders

00:59:42 ◼   ► for these kind of knowledge management systems.

00:59:46 ◼   ► Evernote, Rome, and Notion are the big players,

00:59:49 ◼   ► and Evernote is the dinosaur on the block,

00:59:52 ◼   ► and Rome and Notion are the new kids on the block.

00:59:55 ◼   ► But they're very different in the way that they act.

00:59:59 ◼   ► And of the three, it's very clear that like, Rome is the tool that I should use, but I don't like it.

01:00:06 ◼   ► And I cannot specify why.

01:00:08 ◼   ► But the flip side of that coin is that there is a tool that I shouldn't like, but I totally love, and that is Obsidian,

01:00:17 ◼   ► which is the one I mentioned last time, like I had been just investigating a little bit.

01:00:21 ◼   ► But like, boy oh boy, do I love Obsidian.

01:00:25 ◼   ► And it is the reverse.

01:00:27 ◼   ► Like, I've got a long list of things

01:00:29 ◼   ► that I could tell you about why I shouldn't like Obsidian,

01:00:32 ◼   ► but they don't matter because I just love it.

01:00:35 ◼   ► - While I was editing the episode,

01:00:37 ◼   ► before I was looking at the website again,

01:00:39 ◼   ► and I was listening to your description,

01:00:41 ◼   ► and I tell you, Gray,

01:00:42 ◼   ► I still do not understand what this application does.

01:00:44 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:00:45 ◼   ► Right, I was looking at the images

01:00:47 ◼   ► that they put on the website,

01:00:49 ◼   ► I was listening to you explain it to me for the second time,

01:00:51 ◼   ► while I'm going, "Yeah, yeah!"

01:00:53 ◼   ► and I don't understand it.

01:00:55 ◼   ► I don't know why there's graphs.

01:00:57 ◼   ► I don't know where the notes actually are.

01:01:00 ◼   ► Like I do not get it.

01:01:02 ◼   ► I am pleased this one is interesting to you, but like.

01:01:06 ◼   ► - Oh, it's not interesting.

01:01:07 ◼   ► Like I love it, right?

01:01:09 ◼   ► But like, let me tell you,

01:01:10 ◼   ► I've got all these reasons why I shouldn't.

01:01:12 ◼   ► It's like, oh, it's an Electron app.

01:01:14 ◼   ► I hate Electron apps, but you know what, whatever.

01:01:16 ◼   ► Like the programmers are doing an amazing job

01:01:19 ◼   ► of making it feel like it's just a different tool

01:01:21 ◼   ► and not a gross Electron app.

01:01:22 ◼   ► Looking at you, Slack.

01:01:24 ◼   ► All right, so like, oh, I don't like that at all.

01:01:26 ◼   ► It's a tiny development team.

01:01:28 ◼   ► It's like two people.

01:01:29 ◼   ► It's a brand new project.

01:01:31 ◼   ► So like the variance and uncertainty is incredibly high.

01:01:34 ◼   ► They don't even have any monetization in place right now.

01:01:37 ◼   ► They've got a plan for like how they will monetize the app,

01:01:41 ◼   ► but like they don't have it right now.

01:01:43 ◼   ► All they have is an option to sign up

01:01:45 ◼   ► and just give them some money to support the development,

01:01:48 ◼   ► which I 100% did in exchange for nothing.

01:01:51 ◼   ► "Please keep building this app, I love it."

01:01:53 ◼   ► Oh, it's Mac only? No iOS apps? No iPad apps?

01:01:58 ◼   ► And probably never will be.

01:02:00 ◼   ► I just assume never. Like, it's on their really...

01:02:03 ◼   ► They have a little Trello board for what's under development.

01:02:06 ◼   ► And on the farthest end, they're like very long-term mobile apps.

01:02:10 ◼   ► But even there, their long-term projection is just a lightweight one.

01:02:16 ◼   ► Something for capture and for access.

01:02:19 ◼   ► but they're not even dreaming that they're going to recreate the whole thing on iOS.

01:02:24 ◼   ► What an incredible downside! I don't care, I love it.

01:02:27 ◼   ► I've been playing around with it and it's just very obvious that of all of the digital tools,

01:02:32 ◼   ► this is the one that just suits my brain the best.

01:02:36 ◼   ► And yeah, it's, you know, you can do the kind of Zettelkasten sort of thing.

01:02:43 ◼   ► I think probably one of the clearest things I can say that is a function of "why do I like it?"

01:02:47 ◼   ► is it's very easy to open up a bunch of little windows.

01:02:54 ◼   ► So I'm really trying to recreate this idea of all the notes are sort of index card sized.

01:03:01 ◼   ► And if you think that these are like, these aren't endless scrolling text documents,

01:03:05 ◼   ► these are index card sized pieces of information.

01:03:09 ◼   ► Well, you can fit a lot of index cards on an iMac screen.

01:03:12 ◼   ► And Obsidian makes it really easy to do that.

01:03:16 ◼   ► Like every time you command-click on a link in one of your notes,

01:03:19 ◼   ► it'll just open up in a new window and like fit it somewhere on the screen.

01:03:23 ◼   ► So it's a great way to be able to look at like a bunch of stuff at once.

01:03:27 ◼   ► It really is very Linux-y, but in the good way, not in the way that Linux can be terrible. So...

01:03:34 ◼   ► Yeah, I would say I really like Obsidian and for my own total self-interest,

01:03:42 ◼   ► Anyone who's tried Rome and has felt like, "Oh, they don't quite like it,"

01:03:45 ◼   ► give Obsidian a try, because I would like them to get a bigger user base

01:03:50 ◼   ► and then to be able to have a monetization plan so that it continues to exist.

01:03:54 ◼   ► But yeah, so that is where I have fallen on the digital tool side.

01:03:58 ◼   ► Obsidian, the app that I shouldn't love, but I really do.

01:04:02 ◼   ► Oh, they also have an 80s theme, which is totally rad.

01:04:11 ◼   ► Okay.

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01:06:00 ◼   ► You mentioned painting your office blue.

01:06:02 ◼   ► Mhmm.

01:06:03 ◼   ► else is going on in your quarantine?

01:06:05 ◼   ► Well, I mean I would say this has without a doubt been the most boring and uneventful

01:06:21 ◼   ► time of my life.

01:06:24 ◼   ► But I've also just loved it.

01:06:25 ◼   ► Like I've just loved every minute of it.

01:06:27 ◼   ► Boring doesn't have to be bad, it depends on how you call it, what you're saying, right?

01:06:30 ◼   ► It's boring in the sense that like, you haven't gone anywhere.

01:06:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:06:35 ◼   ► It's boring in the sense that "I painted my office blue" is legitimately one of the biggest

01:06:42 ◼   ► pieces of news I can present to you in my life, right?

01:06:46 ◼   ► Like, what has happened?

01:06:48 ◼   ► Like, my office is blue.

01:06:50 ◼   ► And this, like, if we're making a list of "here's the top three most interesting things

01:06:54 ◼   ► that have happened to Gray in the past many months," like, that easily makes the top three

01:06:58 ◼   ► list?

01:06:59 ◼   ► mean by boring. I like it. I like boring. And I was just looking at my calendar the

01:07:06 ◼   ► other day and I realized I passed my, what I'm thinking of as my six month quarantine-iversary,

01:07:13 ◼   ► because I was looking at my calendar and it occurred to me, I was like, "Oh, what was

01:07:19 ◼   ► the last social event that I did in person?" And I realized, yeah, that was more than six

01:07:28 ◼   ► months ago now was the last time I socialized with a human being in person. And so yeah,

01:07:34 ◼   ► it's like, oh, it's quite a while ago. But it's been great. So yeah, very low key quarantine.

01:07:41 ◼   ► But it's nice. I mean, do you feel the same way? Do you feel like your life has no events?

01:07:45 ◼   ► MATT: Different events.

01:07:47 ◼   ► BRIAN: Different events. What do you mean by different events?

01:07:50 ◼   ► MATT; Well, I mean, I still have things going on, right? Podcastathon is happening, you know?

01:07:54 ◼   ► BRIAN; Right.

01:07:55 ◼   ► We're getting into new phone season.

01:07:58 ◼   ► These are things that always happen anyway.

01:08:02 ◼   ► I have had that period of time up until now.

01:08:07 ◼   ► Because things that typically happen for me

01:08:10 ◼   ► between March and September call for lots of events

01:08:15 ◼   ► that are only really occurring in person.

01:08:18 ◼   ► But this time of year, kind of September to December,

01:08:21 ◼   ► there's a lot of stuff happening for me

01:08:24 ◼   ► which always happen the way that I'm doing them.

01:08:26 ◼   ► So it feels like I'm getting a little bit

01:08:31 ◼   ► of normalcy there, right?

01:08:32 ◼   ► Like new iPhones, multiple product releases

01:08:36 ◼   ► of different, like all that kind of stuff.

01:08:37 ◼   ► I always did that at home, right?

01:08:38 ◼   ► So like those feel like normal.

01:08:41 ◼   ► And also like our quarantine time is different

01:08:45 ◼   ► in that I have my studio, right?

01:08:48 ◼   ► So I'm leaving the house, I'm going to a place every day.

01:08:51 ◼   ► I'm here basically every work day now, by the way.

01:08:54 ◼   ► - Oh, that's great.

01:08:55 ◼   ► That's really good.

01:08:56 ◼   ► - I have a commute again, which is interesting.

01:08:59 ◼   ► I actually like it because it's a bit more activity.

01:09:02 ◼   ► I can get work done on the commute.

01:09:04 ◼   ► I'm finding all of the things

01:09:07 ◼   ► that can be good about a commute.

01:09:08 ◼   ► There are bad things about commutes, sure.

01:09:11 ◼   ► I have a travel card again, which is a weird thing.

01:09:16 ◼   ► It's been six years since I had a travel card.

01:09:20 ◼   ► I kind of hate that I have to use the physical oyster card that like TFO have

01:09:25 ◼   ► not found a way to make a digital oyster card in my phone, which they could

01:09:28 ◼   ► totally do if they wanted to.

01:09:30 ◼   ► Why don't you just use the contactless credit card thing?

01:09:33 ◼   ► Because it's more expensive.

01:09:35 ◼   ► I thought that I thought it retroactively gave you the discount

01:09:38 ◼   ► after you traveled the time.

01:09:39 ◼   ► Yes, kind of.

01:09:40 ◼   ► But also if you're going to make it a business expense, it's way easier to

01:09:46 ◼   ► pay for it in a chunk than for me to be saving like because TFO is

01:09:50 ◼   ► and generate receipts, right?

01:09:51 ◼   ► But I can get a receipt of a travel card.

01:09:53 ◼   ► - Yes, okay, I got it.

01:09:55 ◼   ► That makes sense, that is frustrating.

01:09:56 ◼   ► - So now I'm like with this friggin' oyster card

01:09:58 ◼   ► in my wallet like a chump,

01:10:01 ◼   ► taking it out every day, beeping it.

01:10:02 ◼   ► - That also feels like a real relic.

01:10:04 ◼   ► I'm trying to think how long it's been

01:10:05 ◼   ► since I've had a physical oyster card.

01:10:08 ◼   ► Like, oh, I was a child who had just arrived in the city.

01:10:11 ◼   ► - I know, for me, it has been six years,

01:10:14 ◼   ► six years since I had an oyster card.

01:10:17 ◼   ► So I'm back on that again.

01:10:19 ◼   ► But that's kind of what it is.

01:10:21 ◼   ► I have a pretty good, like 11 to seven routine.

01:10:24 ◼   ► It's pretty standard for me.

01:10:26 ◼   ► Like I don't typically get into the office before 10, which just fits with my

01:10:33 ◼   ► routine and also means that I'm definitely not around any of the busy times of

01:10:37 ◼   ► travel and for my route, super chill every day, there's barely anyone on the trains.

01:10:44 ◼   ► I can stay within good distance.

01:10:46 ◼   ► Like it feels, I've not been concerned about that.

01:10:49 ◼   ► I did get a bag.

01:10:51 ◼   ► - Okay, for your travel back and forth?

01:10:54 ◼   ► What bag did you get?

01:10:55 ◼   ► - I got a bag called the Bellroy Tote Pack,

01:10:57 ◼   ► which you listening cortexes might remember

01:10:59 ◼   ► as I brought this bag up once before,

01:11:02 ◼   ► back when Mega Studio was new,

01:11:04 ◼   ► and you really talked me out of getting a new backpack.

01:11:08 ◼   ► - Yes, yes.

01:11:09 ◼   ► - But frankly, there isn't a situation right now

01:11:12 ◼   ► where I can leave things here, right?

01:11:15 ◼   ► That's the things that I need to be at home and here,

01:11:18 ◼   ► because I can't leave things here safely.

01:11:22 ◼   ► - Okay, that's right.

01:11:23 ◼   ► - Because immediate lockdown can occur at any point.

01:11:26 ◼   ► And I have been proven in that fact

01:11:29 ◼   ► because I had to self-isolate last week.

01:11:32 ◼   ► So last weekend, I didn't feel too well.

01:11:35 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:11:36 ◼   ► - Like I was just feeling a little under the weather.

01:11:38 ◼   ► So--

01:11:39 ◼   ► - No reason to be paranoid, could just be a cold.

01:11:42 ◼   ► - Could just be a cold, but like you get any symptom now

01:11:44 ◼   ► and you're like, well, I better check.

01:11:47 ◼   ► So I got a COVID test.

01:11:49 ◼   ► - How was the COVID test?

01:11:50 ◼   ► I've heard they're terrible.

01:11:51 ◼   ► - So I found it okay

01:11:54 ◼   ► because people had told me how bad it was.

01:11:56 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:11:57 ◼   ► - So this is different in different countries

01:11:59 ◼   ► around the world, but in the UK,

01:12:01 ◼   ► it's not very difficult to get tested.

01:12:03 ◼   ► It's trickier right now,

01:12:04 ◼   ► but like the mechanics of it aren't too bad.

01:12:06 ◼   ► We just went online, I filled it in a form,

01:12:09 ◼   ► they mailed me a test, the test that delivered by Amazon,

01:12:12 ◼   ► which is like this weird dystopian but convenient thing.

01:12:16 ◼   ► - That is really weird.

01:12:17 ◼   ► - That does very much feel like the movie

01:12:20 ◼   ► where it's the corporate future.

01:12:22 ◼   ► Everything is brought to you by Amazon,

01:12:24 ◼   ► even your government COVID test.

01:12:27 ◼   ► - It's very by and large, right?

01:12:28 ◼   ► Because in "Wally," the president of by and large

01:12:32 ◼   ► is the president, right?

01:12:33 ◼   ► So it's very close to that, but honestly was convenient.

01:12:38 ◼   ► Like it came on a Sunday, right?

01:12:40 ◼   ► - Of course, that's how it happens.

01:12:42 ◼   ► - And then, so we took the test.

01:12:44 ◼   ► I mean, so if you don't know,

01:12:46 ◼   ► The thing about the COVID testing is here in the UK,

01:12:49 ◼   ► if you have a car, you can drive to a drive-through

01:12:53 ◼   ► and someone will administer the test to you.

01:12:55 ◼   ► - Oh yeah?

01:12:56 ◼   ► - But if you don't have a car,

01:12:57 ◼   ► the best way to do it is they send you the test,

01:12:59 ◼   ► but that means you do the test to yourself.

01:13:02 ◼   ► And the instructions are like, okay,

01:13:05 ◼   ► you have to take the swab,

01:13:07 ◼   ► you have to rub it on your tonsils.

01:13:10 ◼   ► Do not touch your tongue, do not touch your cheek.

01:13:13 ◼   ► And it's like, is that even possible?

01:13:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't think I could do that.

01:13:19 ◼   ► - I did it.

01:13:19 ◼   ► I did do it.

01:13:22 ◼   ► Both me and Adina did it and we didn't touch our tongues.

01:13:24 ◼   ► It takes a lot of practice, like looking in the mirror

01:13:28 ◼   ► and opening your mouth and being like,

01:13:30 ◼   ► how do I need to open my mouth in such a way

01:13:32 ◼   ► that I can see a clear path to my tonsils

01:13:35 ◼   ► without touching my tongue?

01:13:37 ◼   ► And Adina was doing it by saying, ah, that worked for her.

01:13:41 ◼   ► and I could just do it by just being very,

01:13:45 ◼   ► just paying attention.

01:13:46 ◼   ► - This is like a game of operation,

01:13:47 ◼   ► is what you're playing.

01:13:48 ◼   ► - And also, yeah, staying calm too, right?

01:13:51 ◼   ► Like, you gotta be calm because it makes you want to gag.

01:13:55 ◼   ► Right, but if you do that, your tongue moves.

01:13:57 ◼   ► You stay really calm.

01:13:58 ◼   ► Now, my brother had done one a few weeks ago,

01:14:01 ◼   ► and he had really hyped it up to me as like,

01:14:03 ◼   ► "This is terrible."

01:14:05 ◼   ► So going into it,

01:14:06 ◼   ► I thought it was gonna be really terrible.

01:14:08 ◼   ► And really it just ended up being kind of uncomfortable.

01:14:11 ◼   ► But it was fine.

01:14:12 ◼   ► Because the other thing is you then take that same swab

01:14:14 ◼   ► and you stick it up your nose, which is so weird.

01:14:17 ◼   ► And as the instructions say,

01:14:19 ◼   ► you keep pushing until you feel resistance.

01:14:22 ◼   ► So that thing just goes up in there gray.

01:14:26 ◼   ► It just goes up in there, you turn it around,

01:14:28 ◼   ► take it out, stick it up the other one.

01:14:30 ◼   ► It's like, it's a very like brutal

01:14:36 ◼   ► in like a brutalist type thing to do to yourself,

01:14:40 ◼   ► like to administer this test to yourself

01:14:42 ◼   ► in your own bathroom, it's very strange.

01:14:44 ◼   ► But I'm happy that we have access to testing, right?

01:14:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, of course, of course you want access,

01:14:51 ◼   ► yes, granted, but--

01:14:53 ◼   ► - It's still super freaking weird.

01:14:54 ◼   ► But unfortunately, it took us a little longer,

01:14:58 ◼   ► like in previous weeks, it's been pretty quick,

01:15:01 ◼   ► but we had unfortunately hit,

01:15:03 ◼   ► we took our test in a week where there was a bank holiday,

01:15:05 ◼   ► so there was one less day of processing

01:15:07 ◼   ► and then also a week where for some reason

01:15:09 ◼   ► there was just lots more people testing themselves

01:15:13 ◼   ► and it seemed like the testing centers were overrun.

01:15:15 ◼   ► So we sent our tests off on Tuesday,

01:15:18 ◼   ► which is so weird 'cause you put it in the post box.

01:15:21 ◼   ► - Right.

01:15:22 ◼   ► - I know that they're in tubes and in bags,

01:15:24 ◼   ► but you see the boxes and you're like, oh no, right?

01:15:27 ◼   ► Like I can imagine there's a postal worker.

01:15:29 ◼   ► - Right.

01:15:30 ◼   ► - It's like, yeah, just like very strange, right?

01:15:33 ◼   ► Anyway, so then it goes off and you get a text and an email

01:15:37 ◼   ► and they're like, "You're negative,

01:15:39 ◼   ► "but we didn't get that until Saturday evening."

01:15:43 ◼   ► So I was home from Saturday to Saturday.

01:15:46 ◼   ► And let me tell you, I do not want to go into lockdown again

01:15:49 ◼   ► 'cause I have gotten used to having an office now.

01:15:51 ◼   ► - Okay, so having tasted the freedom of the mega office,

01:15:55 ◼   ► the lockdown, the lockdown was much more brutal.

01:15:58 ◼   ► - Much worse, yeah.

01:15:59 ◼   ► 'Cause I couldn't prepare properly, right?

01:16:02 ◼   ► because it just happened, you know?

01:16:05 ◼   ► So there was stuff in the studio

01:16:07 ◼   ► that I would have liked to have at home and didn't.

01:16:10 ◼   ► One thing that we did do was really,

01:16:12 ◼   ► I think this was spurred on by what was happening

01:16:15 ◼   ► in the gray household.

01:16:16 ◼   ► We really tidied out Mega Office.

01:16:20 ◼   ► So by the end of our isolation,

01:16:22 ◼   ► it did feel nicer to be working in there

01:16:24 ◼   ► because I wasn't surrounded by mountains of boxes,

01:16:28 ◼   ► right, as I described.

01:16:30 ◼   ► So it did feel better and now I feel like,

01:16:32 ◼   ► okay, I actually do need to put some effort

01:16:35 ◼   ► into MegaOffice for the time being

01:16:37 ◼   ► in case we have to go back, right?

01:16:39 ◼   ► But I am so happy to be back in the studio again.

01:16:43 ◼   ► But this is also like, why am I a week behind

01:16:46 ◼   ► on physical podcast or thumb prep?

01:16:48 ◼   ► Because we lost a week at the studio.

01:16:50 ◼   ► - Right, of course, of course, that makes sense.

01:16:53 ◼   ► - So we would have been a little bit further ahead

01:16:56 ◼   ► with some of the setup.

01:16:58 ◼   ► So I'm having to do a bit of catch up on that.

01:17:00 ◼   ► But yeah, so that's my quarantine.

01:17:01 ◼   ► I'm loving the studio, dreading lockdown.

01:17:05 ◼   ► - And you tested negative, you failed.

01:17:06 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah, of course, I mean, of course

01:17:08 ◼   ► I tested negative, I'm back out in the world again.

01:17:09 ◼   ► Although basically, by the time I got my test back,

01:17:13 ◼   ► I was only two days away from being allowed

01:17:15 ◼   ► to go outside again anyway,

01:17:17 ◼   ► 'cause the current isolation time is 10 days.

01:17:20 ◼   ► - Right, so I mean, I guess in theory,

01:17:24 ◼   ► in this circumstance, you would have actually wanted

01:17:26 ◼   ► to test positive and just stay home for two more days.

01:17:29 ◼   ► And then if it's possible to benefit from antibodies,

01:17:33 ◼   ► I would make the benefit, right?

01:17:35 ◼   ► - Right.

01:17:36 ◼   ► - But the frustrating thing was I felt basically normal

01:17:39 ◼   ► after three days, but then couldn't go anywhere.

01:17:41 ◼   ► - Right, because you don't know.

01:17:43 ◼   ► - And then I'm a fool, right?

01:17:44 ◼   ► I'm waiting on a test result.

01:17:46 ◼   ► Like if it turns out, you don't wanna be that person,

01:17:49 ◼   ► you shouldn't be that person.

01:17:51 ◼   ► If I got a test pending, I gotta wait for the answer

01:17:53 ◼   ► of the test before I go back outside again.

01:17:56 ◼   ► It's foolish otherwise.

01:17:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, you don't wanna be the start

01:18:00 ◼   ► of a new little cluster.

01:18:02 ◼   ► What would be known as the Hurley cluster, right?

01:18:04 ◼   ► In London there's a new cluster, there's the Hurley cluster.

01:18:07 ◼   ► This guy was commuting to work every day,

01:18:10 ◼   ► even when he had a test pending, what an idiot.

01:18:12 ◼   ► - So yeah, that's quarantine.

01:18:15 ◼   ► - Boring life is the best life, Myke.

01:18:16 ◼   ► - I mean, it is a life, you can get used to it.

01:18:19 ◼   ► I feel like I'm used to it.

01:18:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, maybe a better word is placid.

01:18:24 ◼   ► Like what a placid, enjoyable stretch of time I've had.

01:18:28 ◼   ► Is it was on my mind just because I can, I can start to, I sort of mentioned

01:18:34 ◼   ► this in the video, but like, I'm just feeling the beginnings of like the cracks

01:18:39 ◼   ► of social pressure coming back into my life and, you know, again, it's, it's

01:18:45 ◼   ► this, it's this difficulty of making decisions about what are and what are

01:18:50 ◼   ► not acceptable risks, but I'm feeling more aware of like this interregnum is coming to an end at

01:18:57 ◼   ► some point. And that's why it like, it struck me as curious, like, I wonder how long it has been

01:19:03 ◼   ► since I've seen someone in person, not my wife. And like, oh, it's just six months. And yeah,

01:19:08 ◼   ► I just, I don't know. Like, I don't know when that first real break is going to happen, but it just,

01:19:14 ◼   ► they can feel a lot of the world spinning back up and invitations and social pressures coming back in.

01:19:23 ◼   ► - But, I mean, yes, they are occurring more, but I do feel like it's easier to say no than before.

01:19:31 ◼   ► You can just say like, "No, where are I selling?"

01:19:34 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:19:34 ◼   ► - Right?

01:19:34 ◼   ► And I think most people do that, "Okay."

01:19:39 ◼   ► Right?

01:19:39 ◼   ► Like, in the same way that I have seen some friends,

01:19:43 ◼   ► and we're taking all of the recommended precautions.

01:19:47 ◼   ► But it's pretty, it's like,

01:19:49 ◼   ► people say we're not like touch tank in any way, right?

01:19:53 ◼   ► Nothing, right?

01:19:54 ◼   ► Like no hugs, no nothing.

01:19:55 ◼   ► And it's like, I'm keeping that my family still,

01:19:57 ◼   ► like I've seen some family,

01:19:58 ◼   ► but there is no physical contact, right?

01:20:01 ◼   ► It's just like, and my personal result on that

01:20:04 ◼   ► is everyone's like, okay, no problem.

01:20:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, don't get me wrong.

01:20:09 ◼   ► I'm not getting messages that are like,

01:20:11 ◼   ► get in the car loser, we're going shopping, right?

01:20:14 ◼   ► Like-

01:20:14 ◼   ► - You shared this ice cream with me, Gray.

01:20:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

01:20:17 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:20:18 ◼   ► There's none of that kind of stuff.

01:20:19 ◼   ► But it's just, I'm aware of like an exponential increase

01:20:24 ◼   ► in the number of like, oh, come to this thing

01:20:26 ◼   ► or like go over here.

01:20:28 ◼   ► And it's like, oh, please, no, I don't want to.

01:20:30 ◼   ► No one has had even the slightest hint

01:20:34 ◼   ► of a negative response.

01:20:36 ◼   ► - Right.

01:20:37 ◼   ► - But it's still like, again, it's just,

01:20:39 ◼   ► It's the difficulty of making these decisions and these like,

01:20:43 ◼   ► these risk calculations and trying to think about

01:20:47 ◼   ► when are sensible points to reevaluate.

01:20:53 ◼   ► And I think one of the other things that's just on my mind is I've been aware

01:20:57 ◼   ► that in the beginning,

01:20:58 ◼   ► my wife and I kept having like a really clear reevaluation

01:21:03 ◼   ► schedule, you know, so it was like, okay,

01:21:06 ◼   ► maybe there's a global pandemic coming.

01:21:08 ◼   ► We're gonna go into lockdown for two weeks

01:21:10 ◼   ► and then we'll see what the deal is."

01:21:12 ◼   ► You know, and then I was like,

01:21:13 ◼   ► "Oh God, this looks really bad.

01:21:15 ◼   ► You know, we'll check back in in a month."

01:21:18 ◼   ► - Oh, it's worse than worst case scenario.

01:21:21 ◼   ► Oh no.

01:21:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, like at one point I remember we had,

01:21:24 ◼   ► "We will reevaluate on Independence Day,

01:21:27 ◼   ► like American Freedom Day will be the day

01:21:30 ◼   ► that we leave our quarantine."

01:21:32 ◼   ► You know, and then that reevaluation day came

01:21:35 ◼   ► And it was like, "Nope! This is not happening yet."

01:21:38 ◼   ► I remember in March thinking, "Maybe I can go to the Atlanta Pen show in April."

01:21:45 ◼   ► Right.

01:21:46 ◼   ► Also, like, in April thinking, "Maybe I can be in Memphis for the podcast-a-thon."

01:21:51 ◼   ► These were all things where it's like, "Surely it will be taken care of by then."

01:21:56 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:21:58 ◼   ► But then at some point after Independence Day, and I don't know exactly when, we never

01:22:03 ◼   ► really set a reevaluation point. Yeah, you know, and it's just like, I guess this is the thing now.

01:22:11 ◼   ► And I think it is good to have dates to set as reevaluation points like I do. I do think that

01:22:18 ◼   ► was the only time in this whole period where my wife and I were like drifting a little bit. It's

01:22:24 ◼   ► because we just hadn't said it like, when do we reevaluate it. But now my wife's been looking at

01:22:29 ◼   ► like expert advice and you know she's looking at oh okay end of 2021 is like maybe this

01:22:37 ◼   ► is the re-evaluation point who knows you know but it's just like just to have something

01:22:40 ◼   ► in your mind.

01:22:41 ◼   ► I am maintaining right as I should be like being very aware being very vigilant all that

01:22:46 ◼   ► kind of stuff right which is my preface to saying that I am finding myself thinking much

01:22:51 ◼   ► more like looking around seeing what's happening in the world seeing the way that retailers

01:22:57 ◼   ► opening and dining, you know, just looking and thinking to myself, you know what, like,

01:23:06 ◼   ► this is it, right?

01:23:07 ◼   ► Like this is how we're going to be for some time and there is a set of balances that as

01:23:18 ◼   ► a society if we're functioning properly we can try and do and as individuals we can do

01:23:24 ◼   ► and I'm basically like, I'm not getting upset anymore,

01:23:29 ◼   ► I'm not freaking out anymore, I'm kind of just like,

01:23:34 ◼   ► all right, like I'm in it, we're in it,

01:23:38 ◼   ► and we'll just keep going until we're not.

01:23:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, yeah, don't get me, yeah, there's no--

01:23:42 ◼   ► - I'm not saying, you're not saying that,

01:23:43 ◼   ► but it's like, it's a similar thing,

01:23:44 ◼   ► where like I don't feel like I need,

01:23:48 ◼   ► like you both did, like I don't feel like I need

01:23:51 ◼   ► this sense of like, well maybe in a couple of months

01:23:53 ◼   ► it'll be taken care of, where I'm kinda just like,

01:23:56 ◼   ► all right, I'm in it now, and I'm just gonna try

01:24:01 ◼   ► and find life within these parameters

01:24:04 ◼   ► and just get used to it.

01:24:07 ◼   ► Because if I don't do that, I don't know

01:24:09 ◼   ► how else I'm gonna feel, this is just where I am.

01:24:13 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah, and it makes sense.

01:24:15 ◼   ► Again, it's just trying to figure out

01:24:20 ◼   ► where to set the dial with these things.

01:24:24 ◼   ► The only thing that I have found genuinely frustrating

01:24:28 ◼   ► is just the inability to travel.

01:24:32 ◼   ► And that's part of what the big reevaluation point is

01:24:37 ◼   ► as well, is like, okay, when is the next time

01:24:40 ◼   ► that if something came up that's interesting for a project,

01:24:43 ◼   ► I would feel comfortable getting on an airplane

01:24:45 ◼   ► to go investigate that project?

01:24:48 ◼   ► that's a question. And then the other question on the, so that's like one big one, and that does

01:24:54 ◼   ► feel like the 2021 re-evaluation. But then on a much smaller scale, there's just the question of

01:25:03 ◼   ► I've never gone this long without some kind of gracation or without being on my own. And it's

01:25:12 ◼   ► It's a funny thing, it's like, "Oh, losing all the socializing, no problem."

01:25:16 ◼   ► But not having a period of time where I'm just actually completely isolated?

01:25:24 ◼   ► It's like, "Boy, it's been a long time since that."

01:25:26 ◼   ► And, you know, my wife was looking at me the other day,

01:25:30 ◼   ► she's usually the one who initiates this where she's like,

01:25:34 ◼   ► "You look like you could need a Greg Haitian."

01:25:36 ◼   ► And it's like, "Oh, okay, how do we evaluate that as a risk?

01:25:39 ◼   ► I have no idea.

01:25:41 ◼   ► Like, I just haven't even really thought it through.

01:25:44 ◼   ► But those are the sorts of things where I'm just trying to think, like,

01:25:46 ◼   ► what are the trade-offs here?

01:25:48 ◼   ► You know, what is being too cautious?

01:25:50 ◼   ► What is possibly being not cautious enough?

01:25:52 ◼   ► Like, it's still extremely hard to judge.

01:25:57 ◼   ► And it is in part of this feeling that, like,

01:26:00 ◼   ► I think the vast majority of the world is basically where you are.

01:26:05 ◼   ► Like, of like, yeah, this is-- okay, this is the way things are,

01:26:08 ◼   ► you know, for some indefinite period of time

01:26:11 ◼   ► and people are like getting on with their lives.

01:26:14 ◼   ► I think that's the way most of the world is.

01:26:17 ◼   ► So yeah, it's just thinking about things in those contexts, but

01:26:21 ◼   ► that's partly why I just feel like there's some

01:26:24 ◼   ► some kind of cracks coming

01:26:26 ◼   ► and I just I don't know what the first thing to crack will be like

01:26:31 ◼   ► maybe my wife will find some totally isolated place to dump me for two weeks

01:26:36 ◼   ► you know, for like a great vacation and that will represent the first kind of

01:26:40 ◼   ► quarantine break. Like, I just don't know.

01:26:42 ◼   ► I just don't know what's what the situation is going to be.

01:26:44 ◼   ► We have a couple of staycations coming up.

01:26:46 ◼   ► We have a family event and then we're doing something for Adia's birthday.

01:26:51 ◼   ► So what are you, what are you doing in terms of the physicalness of it?

01:26:55 ◼   ► What does that mean?

01:26:56 ◼   ► Like is the family getting together?

01:26:59 ◼   ► Are you going to some place and staying overnight?

01:27:01 ◼   ► We're going to a place for a few days. Like we're all going to a place for a few days.

01:27:05 ◼   ► If it goes well and it all works out and everyone has fun,

01:27:09 ◼   ► like I can imagine me and Edina doing more of that stuff

01:27:11 ◼   ► throughout the rest of the year.

01:27:13 ◼   ► Finding a hotel, just to change the scenery.

01:27:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:27:18 ◼   ► And even with that, I have been more

01:27:20 ◼   ► in the outside world lately,

01:27:22 ◼   ► like the physical outside space.

01:27:23 ◼   ► - You have, okay.

01:27:24 ◼   ► - I do have a question, I have a question,

01:27:26 ◼   ► a feedback question for the audience.

01:27:28 ◼   ► Okay, so masks, right?

01:27:32 ◼   ► Everybody's wearing them.

01:27:34 ◼   ► I think my face is too big for a mask.

01:27:39 ◼   ► Like, I cannot find a mask that seems to fit.

01:27:45 ◼   ► It's like the distance between the top of my nose

01:27:49 ◼   ► and the bottom of my chin is too large.

01:27:53 ◼   ► - All right, I was having this problem.

01:27:55 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:27:56 ◼   ► - I'm gonna send you a link.

01:27:58 ◼   ► You're not gonna like it.

01:27:59 ◼   ► I'm gonna send you a link.

01:28:00 ◼   ► - I feel like I'm not gonna like it, Myke.

01:28:03 ◼   ► Adidas make masks.

01:28:05 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:28:06 ◼   ► - I mean, they have an Adidas logo on them.

01:28:07 ◼   ► I don't know how you feel about that.

01:28:08 ◼   ► That's what I think that you might not like.

01:28:10 ◼   ► These are my favorites.

01:28:12 ◼   ► These are my favorites.

01:28:13 ◼   ► They're made, they're not,

01:28:15 ◼   ► it's difficult to explain what they're made from,

01:28:18 ◼   ► but they're kind of like,

01:28:19 ◼   ► they feel like a little spongy in a way.

01:28:22 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:28:23 ◼   ► - Get a pack of these.

01:28:25 ◼   ► They have the medium and large.

01:28:27 ◼   ► Like they have a small, medium, medium, large, right?

01:28:29 ◼   ► Two sizes.

01:28:30 ◼   ► Get the medium, large.

01:28:32 ◼   ► It's 15 pounds for a three pack.

01:28:34 ◼   ► These are my favorites.

01:28:35 ◼   ► They fit me the best.

01:28:36 ◼   ► I was having this problem too, of like,

01:28:39 ◼   ► that I could not find many options

01:28:43 ◼   ► that would cover my nose to all the way under my chin.

01:28:45 ◼   ► These do that, I really like them.

01:28:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, or like I would find something that would cover

01:28:52 ◼   ► until I would open my mouth at all

01:28:54 ◼   ► and then it would just, it would come and not work.

01:28:57 ◼   ► - I mean, okay, if you can do,

01:28:59 ◼   ► I've been able to do a bit of talking,

01:29:02 ◼   ► but if I talk for a bit it will slip off, but I think that you'll never find an option.

01:29:06 ◼   ► No, I'm going to find an option and this is part of the reason why I'm asking the audience.

01:29:10 ◼   ► Like, hey, listen, there's got to be someone else out there whose face is too big,

01:29:15 ◼   ► but who also wants like an N95 mask to protect them from all the things.

01:29:20 ◼   ► Alright, well the N95 I can't help you with because these added-us ones are just cloth coverings, right?

01:29:26 ◼   ► Yes, no, I can see that. I'll take them over nothing, right? Like if something just fits.

01:29:31 ◼   ► I mean it has a pocket for a filter so you know you can go wild.

01:29:35 ◼   ► Get those and see but okay you are asking for this feedback.

01:29:40 ◼   ► How are you aiming to collect it?

01:29:42 ◼   ► Where do you want people to send it?

01:29:43 ◼   ► The Reddit.

01:29:44 ◼   ► People go into the Reddit.

01:29:45 ◼   ► That's the way to do it.

01:29:46 ◼   ► There's no one home on Twitter.

01:29:47 ◼   ► Just send stuff to the Reddit okay.

01:29:48 ◼   ► That's the best way to find stuff.

01:29:49 ◼   ► Well that's why I wanted to make it very clear because there's two things that I don't want

01:29:53 ◼   ► to happen which is I don't want to fill tweets or get emails.

01:29:57 ◼   ► Right yeah.

01:29:58 ◼   ► Don't send stuff to Myke.

01:29:59 ◼   ► That'd be terrible.

01:30:00 ◼   ► to me very often but like if you ask something specific like this I know I'm gonna get caught

01:30:04 ◼   ► up in it. Yeah that's that's my request. Okay I will I mean I will happily benefit from this

01:30:09 ◼   ► crowdsourcing because yeah I'm always on the lookout for new masks. The Adidas ones are the

01:30:14 ◼   ► ones that I have liked the most but they are far from perfect. Yeah I hate the logo it's ugly.

01:30:22 ◼   ► I mean look what I what I really want is a Cortex brand mask that's the thing that I actually want

01:30:28 ◼   ► Yeah, I know.

01:30:29 ◼   ► But it doesn't exist.

01:30:30 ◼   ► It doesn't exist.

01:30:31 ◼   ► Look, this is not for a lack of trying on my part, right?

01:30:34 ◼   ► But this is the thing that to get right seems to be pretty tricky, so.

01:30:37 ◼   ► Yes, but that's what I would like to bring into the world is the Cortex brand mask, but

01:30:42 ◼   ► it doesn't exist.

01:30:43 ◼   ► So in the meantime, help me out, Cortexians.