Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► I'd like to start the show by thanking all of the cortex and the many, many book recommendations

00:00:07 ◼   ► that came flooding in after I requested them on the last show. I was upset. Why were you upset?

00:00:16 ◼   ► Because I was getting emails. Oh, you were getting emails? Yeah. For me? For you. But they could just

00:00:23 ◼   ► put it in the Reddit. I know. Which is why like I'm sorry to other people, but I archive every

00:00:28 ◼   ► single one of them and Grey doesn't get the recommendations. I get it if you don't use

00:00:32 ◼   ► Reddit but like, you know, think about me. I have a contact form on my website like people

00:00:37 ◼   ► could use it. Yeah, go to him. Don't come to me. I'm sorry Myke but it does make me laugh.

00:00:42 ◼   ► I think in the end the final tally was 200 plus books added to the potential recommendation list

00:00:52 ◼   ► and I also have to say when you ask for something on the internet

00:00:57 ◼   ► you never know what you're going to get. And you also don't know how well people are going

00:01:02 ◼   ► to follow instructions. And I was very pleased that like, very few business books slip through.

00:01:09 ◼   ► It was mostly the kind of stuff that I was looking for interesting nonfiction,

00:01:13 ◼   ► but not business books, nothing we would read for Cortex homework. So thank you very much to

00:01:19 ◼   ► all the Cortex and don't message Myke in the future. But I would like to keep this open

00:01:25 ◼   ► as a, just like a, hey, ever read a good book?

00:01:28 ◼   ► Feel free to let Gray know on the Reddit, pass it along.

00:01:31 ◼   ► - A good place for that is the Cortex subreddit.

00:01:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:01:35 ◼   ► - That is a really good place, 'cause that's where,

00:01:37 ◼   ► like a place where people can submit things

00:01:39 ◼   ► that are kind of more long running in the canon of the show.

00:01:43 ◼   ► Like people still submit their home screens

00:01:45 ◼   ► every now and then, right?

00:01:46 ◼   ► Like that is just like a good place

00:01:48 ◼   ► to put this kind of stuff, because it is a group of people

00:01:51 ◼   ► who in theory will be interested possibly in that thing,

00:01:54 ◼   ► because they've chosen to join that community.

00:01:56 ◼   ► So yeah, I didn't think about that, but that's a great idea.

00:01:59 ◼   ► And you can also get a little a little discussion going there.

00:02:01 ◼   ► And yeah, so keep them open.

00:02:03 ◼   ► People are always looking for good and interesting books.

00:02:06 ◼   ► And thank you for all of your suggestions.

00:02:08 ◼   ► I really appreciate it.

00:02:10 ◼   ► While we're dealing with thank yous, I would like to thank everybody

00:02:12 ◼   ► who signed up to become a relay FM member to get our wonderful

00:02:15 ◼   ► special episode danger town beat down danger town beat down.

00:02:19 ◼   ► So fun to say every time.

00:02:22 ◼   ► Yeah, I love it.

00:02:23 ◼   ► Although I'd sometimes say danger beat downtown or something like it.

00:02:25 ◼   ► They're like four little words that can get mixed up in my brain sometimes.

00:02:30 ◼   ► Uh, but since the last episode, there is now a video trailer.

00:02:33 ◼   ► So you may have heard our audio trailer last time.

00:02:36 ◼   ► Uh, Grey put together a video trailer, probably not great.

00:02:39 ◼   ► Definitely not great.

00:02:39 ◼   ► Grey instructed the creation of a video trailer, but it is incredible.

00:02:44 ◼   ► Every year they get better too.

00:02:47 ◼   ► Um, and the video trailer this year is fantastic.

00:02:50 ◼   ► You can see it at cortexspecial.com and you can also sign up to become a member there to get the

00:02:57 ◼   ► special episode if you haven't already. So that's cortexspecial.com for that. Thank you to everybody

00:03:02 ◼   ► that has done it. It is genuinely very enjoyable and yes thank you to everybody who signed up

00:03:08 ◼   ► and supported Relay and got to listen to all of the great specials from all of the great shows.

00:03:14 ◼   ► So I very recently came back from our five year celebrations in San Francisco,

00:03:20 ◼   ► which was like a whole huge thing.

00:03:23 ◼   ► So we did, I mean, I spoke about it on the show before, right?

00:03:26 ◼   ► Like we did this big live show, which there is, we played Family Feud.

00:03:30 ◼   ► It was like 20 relay FM hosts in total.

00:03:33 ◼   ► Does everyone in the world know what Family Feud is?

00:03:35 ◼   ► I feel like this is a very American thing.

00:03:37 ◼   ► Family Feud in America, Family Fortunes in the UK.

00:03:41 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:03:41 ◼   ► So, so this would be known then?

00:03:43 ◼   ► In the UK it would be, yeah.

00:03:45 ◼   ► In the English speaking world.

00:03:46 ◼   ► It is like a team based game where you are answering questions

00:03:52 ◼   ► based upon a poll of other people.

00:03:54 ◼   ► So like we polled the relay FM audience

00:03:57 ◼   ► and got over 3000 responses to a selection of questions.

00:04:00 ◼   ► And then your job as a player of the game

00:04:02 ◼   ► is not to guess the right answer.

00:04:04 ◼   ► It's to guess the most guessed answer

00:04:08 ◼   ► by the people that were surveyed.

00:04:09 ◼   ► It's an interesting way to play a game.

00:04:11 ◼   ► And it becomes even more interesting when you know the exact type of person that will

00:04:17 ◼   ► answer the questions, which are relay FM podcast listeners.

00:04:20 ◼   ► So it's like excuse stuff a little bit.

00:04:22 ◼   ► Yeah, it becomes very, I think, you think, I think.

00:04:26 ◼   ► Like that's what this is.

00:04:27 ◼   ► And that was definitely how the game went.

00:04:29 ◼   ► But it was wonderful.

00:04:30 ◼   ► There is audio and video of this event that's been published, in case you're

00:04:34 ◼   ► wondering. I'll put links in the show notes.

00:04:35 ◼   ► I think it's worth watching the video to see how good my suit was because I had a very

00:04:40 ◼   ► nice suit on.

00:04:41 ◼   ► Your suit was very nicely tailored, Myke.

00:04:44 ◼   ► Thank you. Yeah, it was actually tailored.

00:04:46 ◼   ► I got it. I really went big for this one.

00:04:48 ◼   ► I was very happy with my Bart Blue suit.

00:04:50 ◼   ► This whole thing, though,

00:04:52 ◼   ► because I was away for a couple of weeks,

00:04:54 ◼   ► and this is when me and Steven get together

00:04:56 ◼   ► and we do kind of like our founder's time every year.

00:04:59 ◼   ► We do this, like we get together and just like spend time together,

00:05:02 ◼   ► talk about things that are on our mind with the company.

00:05:05 ◼   ► It gives us a, I feel for me anyway,

00:05:07 ◼   ► it gives me a nice kind of reset every year.

00:05:10 ◼   ► And you know, we did it around the five year anniversary, which is nice. I got another tattoo. I got our five year logo tattoo.

00:05:18 ◼   ► I did see that five year logo tattoo. I think it looks pretty good.

00:05:21 ◼   ► Yeah, you saw it in the future.

00:05:23 ◼   ► Wait a minute, what?

00:05:28 ◼   ► I can't deal with this right now.

00:05:32 ◼   ► No, wait, yes, I...

00:05:34 ◼   ► Okay, now you're doing it again, Myke.

00:05:37 ◼   ► If you just didn't say anything, it would have been fine.

00:05:39 ◼   ► But this is the second show where we're sort of breaking each other's brains

00:05:42 ◼   ► about what has happened in the actual timeline and what has happened

00:05:46 ◼   ► in the recording timeline.

00:05:47 ◼   ► Yeah, everyone's supposed to be confused right now.

00:05:50 ◼   ► It will make sense at a later date, but I couldn't help myself at that moment

00:05:54 ◼   ► because I had to like envision when it was and it...

00:05:57 ◼   ► No, don't do this to me again, Myke.

00:05:58 ◼   ► Yeah, because it's like, it would be fun.

00:06:00 ◼   ► Just don't mention the time paradoxes.

00:06:01 ◼   ► Okay.

00:06:02 ◼   ► We could have gone right by that and how in the future I saw your tattoo which looks great

00:06:13 ◼   ► above or below I guess from whichever perspective it is for the generic relay artwork tattoo

00:06:19 ◼   ► as well.

00:06:20 ◼   ► So that's your podcast arm?

00:06:21 ◼   ► Is that the plan?

00:06:22 ◼   ► It's my, I don't know what it is yeah, I think it might be just like my Important Things

00:06:26 ◼   ► arm.

00:06:28 ◼   ► Important Things arm.

00:06:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:30 ◼   ► What's the other arm then?

00:06:31 ◼   ► I haven't made up my mind yet.

00:06:32 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:06:33 ◼   ► - 'Cause I've only got two tattoos so far.

00:06:35 ◼   ► There'll be more.

00:06:37 ◼   ► But this whole thing, like being away

00:06:38 ◼   ► for a couple of weeks, doing this live show,

00:06:41 ◼   ► it was a pretty big undertaking at a time

00:06:43 ◼   ► where we're already pretty busy,

00:06:45 ◼   ► which is like our membership season and stuff like that,

00:06:49 ◼   ► as well as just trying to run the company in general.

00:06:53 ◼   ► And it also being sandwiched in between

00:06:55 ◼   ► our other two busy seasons, right, which is WWDC

00:06:58 ◼   ► and kind of like September when new products start coming out.

00:07:03 ◼   ► Now obviously for listeners, it makes sense that you launched Relay at this time of year,

00:07:11 ◼   ► five years ago. But every time it's an anniversary, it always does feel like maybe you should have launched it at a different point in the year,

00:07:18 ◼   ► so that it doesn't feel like everything happens over the summer.

00:07:23 ◼   ► It's like, you have all of the summer travel, all of the conferences, which makes for you

00:07:29 ◼   ► and for everyone involved in Relay, coordinating the schedules of recording podcasts much harder,

00:07:35 ◼   ► which has all of this ripple effect on top of, oh, we're all also doing the members episode,

00:07:41 ◼   ► and then on top of there's a time crunch because the Big Apple events are coming up.

00:07:46 ◼   ► So it always does, like, I feel for you when, you know, you're going to Summit Relay and

00:07:52 ◼   ► and you're discussing the future of the company,

00:07:53 ◼   ► that it also comes in the middle of this very busy time

00:07:58 ◼   ► for you.

00:07:59 ◼   ► - But, whilst I agree with all of that,

00:08:01 ◼   ► it has helped me feel good about my yearly themes this year.

00:08:06 ◼   ► Because in my themes, I've been able to not have to

00:08:11 ◼   ► really kill myself on the focus, right?

00:08:15 ◼   ► So I was talking about stabilization and diversification

00:08:18 ◼   ► and my two yearly themes, right?

00:08:20 ◼   ► And one of the big parts of the year of stabilization

00:08:23 ◼   ► was to not be overly concerned with growth

00:08:27 ◼   ► in the company's financials,

00:08:28 ◼   ► in my company's financials.

00:08:30 ◼   ► And to just feel like at this point, which I did,

00:08:34 ◼   ► that I've kind of got that, got a stable level

00:08:38 ◼   ► and see what happens.

00:08:39 ◼   ► And I've been happy with it, right?

00:08:40 ◼   ► Where I've seen that the company is still meeting

00:08:44 ◼   ► what we would want in growth.

00:08:47 ◼   ► And during August, I can see that we did good,

00:08:51 ◼   ► but if I would have put the focus in different areas,

00:08:54 ◼   ► we could have done even better, but I'm happy with that

00:08:56 ◼   ► because we had other things to focus on.

00:08:59 ◼   ► And so we have another big project

00:09:01 ◼   ► that I'm gonna talk about in a minute,

00:09:03 ◼   ► but it's made me feel like, okay, I did the right thing

00:09:07 ◼   ► because my hypothesis was correct,

00:09:10 ◼   ► that even if we were able to look elsewhere,

00:09:12 ◼   ► we would still grow and that's still happening.

00:09:15 ◼   ► And it also allowed for me to feel like I could divert my attention to other areas.

00:09:21 ◼   ► So I would say that as we are hurtling towards the end of 2019, that I've been really pleased

00:09:28 ◼   ► with my theme so far this year because it's allowed me to spread my wings out in a few

00:09:33 ◼   ► different areas and I'm feeling pretty good about where I am at this point based upon

00:09:38 ◼   ► what I wanted to do this year.

00:09:40 ◼   ► I'm really glad to hear that because particularly for the kind of thing that you're trying to do,

00:09:47 ◼   ► the easy thing to do is to continually say like focus on growth, growth, growth.

00:09:52 ◼   ► That's just what people expect when you have a business.

00:09:56 ◼   ► This is great when you don't have investors.

00:09:58 ◼   ► Yes, Relay is set up so that structurally you don't have that kind of pressure, which gives you the option in the first place.

00:10:07 ◼   ► But it's very easy to still just to get into that mental mindset.

00:10:15 ◼   ► I see that in people who don't have investors and just in their own personal lives.

00:10:19 ◼   ► It's the same thing of like growth, growth, growth.

00:10:21 ◼   ► Everything's got to be bigger and better than it was before.

00:10:24 ◼   ► And it's a much harder thing to turn away from what seems like that's the sort of obvious

00:10:31 ◼   ► path.

00:10:34 ◼   ► to be like, I'm really glad to hear that months later, you feel good about that decision.

00:10:39 ◼   ► That's like you because choosing what not to do can be the much harder thing sometimes

00:10:45 ◼   ► than than choosing what to do. And I think company growth is is definitely one of those

00:10:53 ◼   ► those areas that it's like, it's a difficult path to turn away from sometimes because that's

00:10:59 ◼   ► what people's expectations are. So I'm really happy to hear that that's gone. That's gone

00:11:02 ◼   ► well for you.

00:11:03 ◼   ► Yeah, like in my life.

00:11:05 ◼   ► What I care about is being comfortable

00:11:08 ◼   ► and happy right like that

00:11:09 ◼   ► and I want my work to facilitate that.

00:11:12 ◼   ► I'm not happy if I'm really killing myself

00:11:17 ◼   ► to keep going for like more

00:11:19 ◼   ► and more and more and more.

00:11:21 ◼   ► I'm not happy that way.

00:11:23 ◼   ► Yeah, there's a reason

00:11:23 ◼   ► we didn't call this podcast.

00:11:25 ◼   ► Crush it.

00:11:26 ◼   ► More text.

00:11:27 ◼   ► More text.

00:11:29 ◼   ► Perfect.

00:11:31 ◼   ► Perfect. That's great, Myke. I can see the artwork now. But yes, that is exactly it.

00:11:37 ◼   ► And it's one of the reasons you and I have often enjoyed talking about work and work-related things.

00:11:41 ◼   ► That endless focus, it works for some people, but it doesn't work for everyone. And it's not

00:11:50 ◼   ► always easy to know which kind of person you are, and that's a really important thing to figure out.

00:11:55 ◼   ► I think I have been more of that person and then have become less of that person.

00:12:00 ◼   ► as time's gone on.

00:12:03 ◼   ► As I've kind of realized most of what's important to me

00:12:06 ◼   ► and how to get what I want, right,

00:12:09 ◼   ► like how to get the type of life that I want,

00:12:11 ◼   ► I've realized that I don't need to be crushing it every day

00:12:15 ◼   ► to be that kind of guy.

00:12:17 ◼   ► So that's why I was really happy to have stumbled upon

00:12:20 ◼   ► this idea of stabilization for this year

00:12:22 ◼   ► and then to have achieved it.

00:12:25 ◼   ► And like right now, I've got a lot going on

00:12:28 ◼   ► and I need to be able to put some focus

00:12:30 ◼   ► some other stuff and I want to be able to do that.

00:12:33 ◼   ► So I was pleased that my yearly theme

00:12:36 ◼   ► has allowed me for that because I've spent

00:12:38 ◼   ► the last nine months preparing myself

00:12:41 ◼   ► to just cool it in a few areas.

00:12:44 ◼   ► Or something I have also been doing

00:12:47 ◼   ► is handing some of this type of stuff off.

00:12:50 ◼   ► I've been allowing other people to put the pressure on

00:12:53 ◼   ► in areas that they want to where I don't need to

00:12:56 ◼   ► at the moment.

00:12:57 ◼   ► And that's been just a very good feeling.

00:13:01 ◼   ► - I'm glad that that works out so well,

00:13:02 ◼   ► but I also do feel a little bit like

00:13:04 ◼   ► you're cheating here on the theme discussions, Myke,

00:13:08 ◼   ► because you never want to talk about the themes

00:13:10 ◼   ► as it gets closer and closer to the end of the year.

00:13:12 ◼   ► - We can learn.

00:13:13 ◼   ► I'm always happy to review the current year theme.

00:13:16 ◼   ► - I don't understand your rules, Myke.

00:13:17 ◼   ► - I don't want to talk about the next year theme,

00:13:19 ◼   ► even though I already know what mine is.

00:13:22 ◼   ► I got it, I got the name,

00:13:24 ◼   ► and I'm building out some parameters now

00:13:27 ◼   ► it's gonna be, but I started with the name and it's a good name.

00:13:30 ◼   ► Ooh, good.

00:13:31 ◼   ► It's one of those names that I don't need two themes to talk about everything I want to focus on.

00:13:36 ◼   ► Uh, okay.

00:13:37 ◼   ► Because it has a double meaning.

00:13:40 ◼   ► So you have just, you have one word.

00:13:42 ◼   ► So far.

00:13:44 ◼   ► One word means two things.

00:13:46 ◼   ► Interesting, okay, yeah. I still have two and I'm trying to collapse it down into one,

00:13:52 ◼   ► but it's not quite working for collapsing down.

00:13:53 ◼   ► That's when you've really made it, right?

00:13:56 ◼   ► When you go like, "I have 16 things I want to do, one word."

00:14:00 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:14:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I'm envious of you right now with your one word.

00:14:05 ◼   ► Teasing the people with what the Amazing Myke theme

00:14:08 ◼   ► is going to be.

00:14:09 ◼   ► - I spoke about we had another project,

00:14:11 ◼   ► and so I want to talk about something

00:14:13 ◼   ► that's really important to us,

00:14:14 ◼   ► because Relay FM has long raised money for

00:14:18 ◼   ► and has looked to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital,

00:14:23 ◼   ► which is a cancer research hospital for children,

00:14:25 ◼   ► which is based in Memphis, Tennessee.

00:14:27 ◼   ► We have long looked at them as an organization

00:14:30 ◼   ► that we've wanted to support.

00:14:31 ◼   ► And we are very honored to be St. Jude's

00:14:35 ◼   ► first podcast fundraising partner.

00:14:37 ◼   ► St. Jude do a lot of work with Twitch streamers,

00:14:40 ◼   ► and they have something called St. Jude Play Live,

00:14:43 ◼   ► which has been an incredible success for them,

00:14:45 ◼   ► and they've been able to raise a ton of money for it.

00:14:47 ◼   ► And we are really excited now to hopefully start them on a path of being able to raise

00:14:53 ◼   ► a bunch of money through podcasting and other types of media as well.

00:14:57 ◼   ► Childhood cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease for children under the

00:15:00 ◼   ► age of 15.

00:15:01 ◼   ► And children undergoing treatment for cancer and other life threatening diseases often

00:15:05 ◼   ► need transfusions and physical and cognitive therapy and just so much more.

00:15:08 ◼   ► And these organizations that provide this care to children that need it, it's, you know,

00:15:15 ◼   ► got to think about from the people serving the lunches to the pharmacists,

00:15:19 ◼   ► like just everyone in between. So we're trying to raise money through September,

00:15:23 ◼   ► which is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. We're trying to raise money for

00:15:27 ◼   ► St. Jude because they are one of the leaders in trying to help make this

00:15:31 ◼   ► better for everybody. Like their research is shared with institutions all over the

00:15:35 ◼   ► world and your gift can help St. Jude provide the best care and treatment for

00:15:39 ◼   ► their patients. If you go to stjude.org/cortex, you can go right now and help save St. Jude

00:15:46 ◼   ► Kids. That is stjude.org/cortex. And we're trying to do a bunch of stuff. And one thing

00:15:53 ◼   ► that we're doing is on September 20th, I'm going back to Memphis.

00:15:58 ◼   ► Did you just come from Memphis?

00:16:01 ◼   ► Just came from Memphis just a couple of weeks ago. On September 20th and going back from

00:16:06 ◼   ► 4 to 10 p.m. Eastern on September 20th I'm gonna be co-hosting a six-hour

00:16:15 ◼   ► podcast-a-thon live on Twitch filmed and streamed from the St. Jude campus.

00:16:26 ◼   ► Six hours? Yeah we're trying to raise $75,000 for St. Jude this year I want to

00:16:33 ◼   ► raise more than that and so I want the help of the cortexins to help us do that

00:16:37 ◼   ► and we're gonna be doing a bunch of wild stuff we're still putting together a

00:16:42 ◼   ► bunch of pieces but we're gonna be calling in people and doing things and

00:16:46 ◼   ► it's lots of meetings right now trying to work out exactly what we will fill

00:16:50 ◼   ► six hours worth of content with but I'm sure there'll be a ton of humiliation

00:16:54 ◼   ► for me I have no doubt about that yes yeah I think that's what you do with

00:16:58 ◼   ► these types of things that is inevitable that's yeah that's what's going to

00:17:02 ◼   ► happen. That's what the people want.

00:17:03 ◼   ► Never done anything like this before.

00:17:05 ◼   ► Six hour live stream on video.

00:17:08 ◼   ► Oh, on video, are you going to be able to take bathroom breaks or just like six

00:17:13 ◼   ► hours the whole time?

00:17:13 ◼   ► It's like legit.

00:17:14 ◼   ► We're going to have like videos that we can play.

00:17:17 ◼   ► Like, you know, if you ever watch the telethon, they're like cut away for a

00:17:19 ◼   ► minute and show you like a video as to what.

00:17:21 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:17:22 ◼   ► So you're going to have a button that you can press when you're like, oh,

00:17:25 ◼   ► commercial, cut to commercial.

00:17:26 ◼   ► We won't be pressing the buttons.

00:17:28 ◼   ► We're going to have someone pressing the buttons for us.

00:17:30 ◼   ► This is like a very professional operation we're going into here.

00:17:35 ◼   ► Like it's like an actual studio and everything.

00:17:37 ◼   ► There's going to be a green screen.

00:17:38 ◼   ► Like we're talking like big, serious stuff.

00:17:41 ◼   ► They don't mess around at St. Jude.

00:17:43 ◼   ► That's awesome.

00:17:46 ◼   ► How are you, how are you feeling about that?

00:17:48 ◼   ► I'm not nervous about it.

00:17:49 ◼   ► I'm actually more excited about it.

00:17:51 ◼   ► And we've, the fundraising is going so well so far that I figure it's just

00:17:57 ◼   ► going to be a night of celebration.

00:17:59 ◼   ► To be honest, people have been so generous so far, and I feel like they're going to continue to be that generous

00:18:07 ◼   ► in such a way that I'm just really excited to be able to celebrate what our listeners have been able to do.

00:18:16 ◼   ► So I'm really excited about it, and I really hope that people will consider giving to this organization

00:18:23 ◼   ► because it means a lot to me.

00:18:25 ◼   ► Yeah, St. Jude is a charity close to Relay's heart and it is a good organization to give

00:18:32 ◼   ► to.

00:18:33 ◼   ► So if you want to help out, please do so and tune in on September 20th.

00:18:38 ◼   ► What was the exact time?

00:18:40 ◼   ► 4 to 10 Eastern PM, 4 to 10 PM Eastern.

00:18:43 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes to the Relay FM Twitch channel.

00:18:48 ◼   ► That's where we're going to be streaming it.

00:18:50 ◼   ► So you can tune in then as well if you want to.

00:18:53 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Eero. Eero is a game changer because it means actually

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00:20:01 ◼   ► everywhere. They have little night lights built in so they plug straight into the

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00:20:33 ◼   ► One last time Eero dot com slash cortex and the code cortex our thanks to Eero for their support of this show and all of relay FM

00:20:40 ◼   ► I

00:20:41 ◼   ► have

00:20:42 ◼   ► 20

00:20:44 ◼   ► Notebooks sitting next to me right now 20 notebooks our journals. I should say is that how many we ordered?

00:20:49 ◼   ► Yeah, that was the order number. They all came to me instead.

00:20:53 ◼   ► I think something got lost in translation there, Myke.

00:20:57 ◼   ► Yep, these were the production samples. The production samples have been approved.

00:21:00 ◼   ► Oh, these are your 20 quality check books?

00:21:04 ◼   ► My quality check has been completed.

00:21:07 ◼   ► I don't want to speak too soon, and again, breaking the time paradox.

00:21:12 ◼   ► By the time this episode goes out, it is very likely that the second run is on sale.

00:21:18 ◼   ► Maybe there's still some available, who knows, we'll find out.

00:21:22 ◼   ► But the reason I wanted to talk about the Theme System Journal a little bit today is

00:21:25 ◼   ► because I've been dealing with a project which has been very daunting to me over the last

00:21:28 ◼   ► few weeks, which is building out thethemesystem.com, which is something I promised to people, right?

00:21:33 ◼   ► Which is, you wanted instructions, I have the information in my brain, I need to try

00:21:39 ◼   ► and put it down in a way that I can try and explain it to you.

00:21:43 ◼   ► So I've been working on that and have been building that, but it has been really, really

00:21:47 ◼   ► difficult for me and has become, had become one of those type of projects where it was

00:21:54 ◼   ► just getting put off and put off and put off. Mostly for me because it was a writing project.

00:21:59 ◼   ► I know you're not a big fan of the writing, Myke.

00:22:01 ◼   ► Yeah, it was difficult. And also it was one of those things, it is one of those things

00:22:05 ◼   ► where I like, I'm so close to this and it's so tied up with me at this point that I'm

00:22:12 ◼   ► almost like a little bit nervous to put it out to the world because it's like, here's

00:22:19 ◼   ► my brain. Will you accept it? So it's up there. I'm pretty happy with it, but I do consider

00:22:26 ◼   ► it a living document, as it were, at the moment. It's one of those things where it's like,

00:22:32 ◼   ► okay, this is like the basic level of information that I think people need to take advantage

00:22:37 ◼   ► of this project. But I'm also kind of waiting for some feedback as well on the instructions

00:22:42 ◼   ► and seeing what people think about it and how it works for them and how it doesn't.

00:22:46 ◼   ► But I wanted to kind of touch on this idea because I ended up writing it because I was

00:22:53 ◼   ► concerned I had 48 hours left before I had to have had it completed after having put

00:22:59 ◼   ► it off for like three weeks.

00:23:01 ◼   ► Yes, yeah.

00:23:02 ◼   ► Well also in the time paradox that we're in a little bit, it is very possible that the

00:23:07 ◼   ► journals are going up for sale literally as we are recording this episode. Also, systems

00:23:14 ◼   ► are in place, so it may be happening at this very moment, but we're not 100% sure when

00:23:21 ◼   ► that is, which is part of the uncertainty of manufacturing, shipping, and selling physical

00:23:27 ◼   ► products.

00:23:28 ◼   ► If you hear me make any kind of whimpering noise over the next 45 minutes, then you'll

00:23:35 ◼   ► know that it happened. But other than that, maybe it will happen today or tomorrow. We'll

00:23:40 ◼   ► find out.

00:23:41 ◼   ► Wimmering noise. Is that because you're afraid that you're going to lose our bet about what's

00:23:47 ◼   ► going to happen that we made in the past but will actually be heard in the future?

00:23:51 ◼   ► Now you're doing it.

00:23:52 ◼   ► Is that why you would whimper?

00:23:54 ◼   ► My concern is not our bet, no.

00:23:57 ◼   ► Don't worry, listeners, you'll hear about it later. But sorry, Myke. Look, if anyone's

00:24:04 ◼   ► going to have sympathy about a writing project that you're having difficulty with.

00:24:07 ◼   ► You are talking to the right man for that one.

00:24:09 ◼   ► And, and, and like, this is also part of the difficulty of writing projects is when

00:24:15 ◼   ► you have lived with it for so long, it's in your head and it is totally impossible

00:24:20 ◼   ► to be objective about it.

00:24:22 ◼   ► And this is also not a situation where I could really help you either because

00:24:28 ◼   ► it's like, well, I've also been thinking about this for a really long time.

00:24:31 ◼   ► and neither of us can be objective

00:24:35 ◼   ► to even the most basic questions like,

00:24:37 ◼   ► how clear are these instructions for someone

00:24:39 ◼   ► who is unfamiliar with this whole project?

00:24:43 ◼   ► Like that's why when you say it's a living document,

00:24:45 ◼   ► it has to be because the ability for either of us

00:24:50 ◼   ► to have any idea if this is clear is,

00:24:54 ◼   ► it is not up to us, it's up to the reader

00:24:58 ◼   ► and it's up to the sort of feedback that we get

00:25:00 ◼   ► about what do people like or what do people not like.

00:25:03 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:25:05 ◼   ► - I think it's good, but I also know

00:25:07 ◼   ► like it's very difficult to be objective

00:25:10 ◼   ► about these sort of things.

00:25:11 ◼   ► So I have a lot of sympathy for you, Myke.

00:25:13 ◼   ► - Thank you.

00:25:14 ◼   ► But I wonder when you are faced with these types of things,

00:25:18 ◼   ► like a project that you want, that you need to complete,

00:25:22 ◼   ► but I'm struggling to, do you have any hot tips and tricks

00:25:27 ◼   ► of how you like get over that wall.

00:25:30 ◼   ► Because for me, it is purely like,

00:25:33 ◼   ► the deadline makes it worse until it is unavoidable.

00:25:37 ◼   ► Like the stress of a looming deadline,

00:25:40 ◼   ► for some reason makes me like procrastinate

00:25:42 ◼   ► or work procrastinate more until it's like,

00:25:45 ◼   ► all right, you literally have no more choices anymore.

00:25:49 ◼   ► You may, this may need to be going out to the world

00:25:52 ◼   ► any moment now, so you must do it.

00:25:55 ◼   ► Again, are you asking me for tips about hitting deadlines,

00:25:58 ◼   ► Myke, is that what you're coming to me?

00:26:00 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I realize, well, I've just asked now.

00:26:03 ◼   ► - Oh, let me tell you about deadlines.

00:26:06 ◼   ► No, I am totally the same way that you are.

00:26:11 ◼   ► It's so important for a person to understand themselves.

00:26:13 ◼   ► For many people, deadlines are the way they work,

00:26:17 ◼   ► and they are positive things that get stuff done.

00:26:21 ◼   ► But I'm just like you, where there's nothing

00:26:24 ◼   ► makes me resent the whole universe more than a deadline and I'm not a procrastinator kind of

00:26:30 ◼   ► person unless there is a deadline and then suddenly I become the sort of person that I hate

00:26:36 ◼   ► who puts stuff off until the absolute last second and just like deadlines just they make me

00:26:43 ◼   ► they make me feel withered inside and so I can't like I can't help you and the problem

00:26:50 ◼   ► the problem that you were facing is, I think, worse than a deadline. Because you had,

00:26:56 ◼   ► and still technically do have, an uncertain deadline that at some point plus or minus a

00:27:04 ◼   ► couple of weeks, maybe a month in the future, a thing has to be done. And when it needs to be

00:27:10 ◼   ► done, it needs to be done immediately. That is a deadline hiding in a cloud waiting to ambush you,

00:27:18 ◼   ► who knows when, which I don't know what to do about that, but it sounds terrible.

00:27:24 ◼   ► Well, I mean, I reacted to it and I feel like I've just done it, right? Like it's done,

00:27:31 ◼   ► but it's now like the deadline may be forever at this point because it is a thing that will

00:27:36 ◼   ► need to be continued to be updated. Right, yes, that's what living document means. This is never

00:27:42 ◼   ► done. But also, I think living document is a phrase that you can use to let yourself be finished.

00:27:49 ◼   ► That's how I felt. I was like, okay, I know that I'm going to have to change this,

00:27:54 ◼   ► so let me get what I think is the basic level into this and then await that feedback. Because

00:28:00 ◼   ► I want the feedback. I want people to tell me what they need, what they need more explanation on,

00:28:05 ◼   ► that kind of stuff, if they think it can be presented differently. But what I wanted to

00:28:09 ◼   ► was the basic level that I think somebody needs

00:28:13 ◼   ► to be able to get this.

00:28:16 ◼   ► And if it still is a struggle to people,

00:28:18 ◼   ► then I've got a couple of things I can learn from that.

00:28:21 ◼   ► One, how can I explain it better?

00:28:22 ◼   ► And two, then maybe I need to understand

00:28:25 ◼   ► how this isn't for everybody and to work at it from there.

00:28:28 ◼   ► - Finding a way to let yourself let go,

00:28:33 ◼   ► especially I think with an uncertain deadline,

00:28:35 ◼   ► is a very helpful thing.

00:28:37 ◼   ► I mean, my version of this is I have a little folder that I replicate every time I start a new script for a video.

00:28:43 ◼   ► And built into this little template is a subfolder for the footnotes that will go along with the video.

00:28:53 ◼   ► Now, sometimes I do release a video that will have a footnote or two, like a little mini video that's attached to it.

00:29:01 ◼   ► is not remotely representative of the number of theoretical footnotes that I create during the

00:29:06 ◼   ► process of actually working on something. And I am very aware that that is part of my letting go.

00:29:15 ◼   ► Here's an interesting thing. I'll talk about it in a footnote. And let me put it in the footnote,

00:29:20 ◼   ► this little folder, and maybe sometimes I'll run through a couple of drafts. But deep down,

00:29:26 ◼   ► I know this is where ideas go to die. That this is where I can like temporarily put

00:29:31 ◼   ► something that's interesting but just doesn't fit and tell myself, "Oh, I'll just do a little thing

00:29:38 ◼   ► on that when the video comes out." And 95% of the time it doesn't go anywhere. And that's my

00:29:47 ◼   ► version of like, "This video has to get done. You can't talk about everything." And just like,

00:29:53 ◼   ► Just put it over there and pretend like you're gonna include it, but you won't.

00:29:57 ◼   ► Well, unless... unless... the footnotes become the video.

00:30:03 ◼   ► Yeah, and that does happen sometimes. Not very often, but every once in a while that does happen.

00:30:09 ◼   ► Quite recently.

00:30:10 ◼   ► Yeah. Although, like, before we do move on, I will just mention something on this topic of, like,

00:30:18 ◼   ► of trying to get started, since so many people have recommended books to me. I'll pass back

00:30:22 ◼   ► a book recommendation. Recommendation is maybe a bit firm of a word, but there is a book called

00:30:33 ◼   ► The War of Art, which is a strange little book. You're selling this one, really selling this one.

00:30:40 ◼   ► Recommendation is the strong of a word, this is a strange little book.

00:30:44 ◼   ► Yeah, but like, so it's written by an author, and it is just a little book talking about this idea

00:30:57 ◼   ► of it's hard to get started. And it's not even a book that you can just sit down and read through,

00:31:07 ◼   ► It's more like a little collection of paragraphs where the author is

00:31:13 ◼   ► attacking this idea from various angles.

00:31:15 ◼   ► So that's why I say it's a strange book because it doesn't exactly have a through line

00:31:22 ◼   ► in the way that many books do.

00:31:23 ◼   ► It's more just like, "Hey, are you having a hard time getting started with work?

00:31:29 ◼   ► Here's a bunch of thoughts on this thing."

00:31:35 ◼   ► And I've read this book a couple of times and always have the same sort of experience that

00:31:41 ◼   ► there's a lot in the book that just doesn't resonate with me at all.

00:31:46 ◼   ► But every once in a while, something really catches me like, oh, that's an interesting way

00:31:50 ◼   ► to phrase that or that's that's a good way to think about this. And having talked with a lot

00:31:55 ◼   ► of people in creative fields, this is a book that everybody agrees like you should take a look at

00:32:01 ◼   ► if you're doing any kind of creative work at all. And it's not that you're going to love everything

00:32:06 ◼   ► in it. But you don't have to there may just be a couple of paragraphs that really work with you and

00:32:14 ◼   ► stick in your own brain. So that's why I say like, it's it's a strange recommendation, because I

00:32:20 ◼   ► don't expect a person to take all of it away. I just expect that you might you might find a

00:32:26 ◼   ► a couple of things that work in there for you. So that is a book I've read that maybe

00:32:31 ◼   ► you should too if you work on creative stuff and it's The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

00:32:37 ◼   ► if I remember correctly. So check that out, listeners. I don't know if there's an audiobook

00:32:41 ◼   ► for you, Myke. I know you don't read. Actually, I just realized that book would be totally

00:32:49 ◼   ► intolerable in audio form. I think the lack of a thread line through it I think would

00:32:52 ◼   ► drive a person crazy in audiobook format. So I'm going to say maybe don't listen to

00:32:56 ◼   ► that one Myke.

00:32:57 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Squarespace. Make your next move with Squarespace.

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00:33:36 ◼   ► for your business, a site for a community group, maybe you have a portfolio or a

00:33:39 ◼   ► blog with your ideas or work that you want to share with the world. I just got

00:33:43 ◼   ► finished building a Squarespace website. Thethemesystem.com is a Squarespace

00:33:47 ◼   ► website. It was so easy to use, the templates were really simple for me to

00:33:51 ◼   ► get exactly what I wanted and I could customize it exactly how I wanted,

00:33:54 ◼   ► everything's drag and drop so I don't have to worry about getting deep. I was so concerned

00:33:58 ◼   ► about getting the text correctly and making sure all of that was right, making sure all

00:34:03 ◼   ► the copy was good on the website. I was so pleased I also didn't have to worry about

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00:34:40 ◼   ► support of this show and all of Relay FM. Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website.

00:34:46 ◼   ► Okay, so, listeners, Myke was teasing me a little bit before, because before the episode started,

00:34:53 ◼   ► I showed Myke something that I was working on, and, you know, we're talking about

00:35:01 ◼   ► new and difficult projects, and I've been away for a year. I've been working on difficult projects,

00:35:10 ◼   ► and this one is now very, very soon to be released.

00:35:15 ◼   ► It should be out shortly after this episode is out.

00:35:19 ◼   ► And I showed Myke the current not completely finalized

00:35:22 ◼   ► state of a video that I'm working on.

00:35:25 ◼   ► - It was not final, it was very far from finalized.

00:35:29 ◼   ► I was watched, it's like an 11 minute video or something.

00:35:33 ◼   ► About six minutes of the video is just a screen

00:35:35 ◼   ► that says, "Needs animation!"

00:35:37 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:35:38 ◼   ► It's always fascinating to me to see these work in progress.

00:35:42 ◼   ► Like I get, I've seen various levels of work in progress

00:35:45 ◼   ► for your stuff and this is probably the most in progress

00:35:48 ◼   ► that the work I have seen has been.

00:35:50 ◼   ► - But by far, like I thought you might find it

00:35:53 ◼   ► somewhat interesting hopefully on a meta level of seeing.

00:35:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, you really did.

00:35:56 ◼   ► - What does it look like as a thing is coming together?

00:36:00 ◼   ► But Myke saw what I would describe as the first

00:36:05 ◼   ► barely watchable work in progress for the video. About half of it has no visualizations

00:36:12 ◼   ► at all, it just has words on the screen about what I need to do to get something on the

00:36:17 ◼   ► screen there.

00:36:18 ◼   ► And the funny thing is that the audio is like, about 90% of it is leveled horrifically, which

00:36:25 ◼   ► is also kind of hilarious. I hope you know that, I'm sure you do.

00:36:28 ◼   ► Oh yeah, yeah, no, there's none of the audio fine tuning has happened, there's nothing.

00:36:34 ◼   ► It's all terrible. But even though I know showing it to someone else, this is like,

00:36:40 ◼   ► "Oh, this is in a total garbage state," this is the first time I can look at it. And even though

00:36:45 ◼   ► it is in this horrific state, I feel like, "Oh, my confidence is very high about this getting finished

00:36:51 ◼   ► and released soon," just because I've been through this process long enough and kind of know how

00:36:55 ◼   ► these things work. But all of this is is to is to lead up to this video started life as a footnote

00:37:02 ◼   ► to my video about who owns the Statue of Liberty, which came out almost exactly a year ago now.

00:37:13 ◼   ► And yeah, so this is a video about like a little little historical thing that I came across

00:37:21 ◼   ► that I originally thought would be a little footnote, and it sort of expanded a bit,

00:37:26 ◼   ► and I thought, "Oh, okay, I'll do it. I'll do it after that Federal Land video."

00:37:32 ◼   ► And then here we are a year later, and it's finally going to actually be made.

00:37:39 ◼   ► But I am, here's the thing, I'm very close to this project, and it's, I feel like it's very different

00:37:47 ◼   ► for a few reasons so we haven't actually spoken about it and I'm a little bit curious to get some

00:37:52 ◼   ► feedback from it. What do you think about what you saw even though it's in a bit of a very rough

00:37:58 ◼   ► state? It's crazy in all the right ways. Like you have made of I think more than what I took from

00:38:13 ◼   ► it is it's more than the video itself. What I feel like I saw in that video is your process.

00:38:21 ◼   ► You are highlighting your process quite a lot of how you make a video.

00:38:26 ◼   ► Like the research that you do, right? Because it's like you could have chosen to do all of

00:38:34 ◼   ► the research and just, well there's nothing here. I can't make a video about this because there's no

00:38:41 ◼   ► proof or anything. But instead you made a video about that process which I found very interesting

00:38:48 ◼   ► and entertaining too because you sound like a wild person running around the globe. So it's

00:38:56 ◼   ► a very entertaining video and has an interesting story at the end and a very, I just feel like a

00:39:02 ◼   ► fascinating meta commentary on history.

00:39:07 ◼   ► Okay, phew. I was holding my breath there because that's a big relief. That's sort of

00:39:15 ◼   ► what I'm going for. There's a link in the show notes, but a quick recap, because I didn't

00:39:21 ◼   ► want to describe it until I just let Myke talk. The full story is that there is this

00:39:26 ◼   ► urban legend about why Staten Island is part of New York, and it has to do with this race

00:39:32 ◼   ► around the island that just never occurred, but like it was supposed to have happened

00:39:36 ◼   ► at some point in the 1600s. And when I was originally researching the Statue of Liberty

00:39:42 ◼   ► video, which is actually a bit a video about the territorial disputes between New York

00:39:47 ◼   ► and New Jersey, a bunch of sources referenced this race. And it's like, oh, this is a thing

00:39:54 ◼   ► that happened. And it's why Staten Island is part of New York. And I had come across

00:39:59 ◼   ► a few like slightly different versions of it. And there were a couple of things that

00:40:04 ◼   ► felt like to me they were described in a vague way. And I did have a little bit of a sense

00:40:12 ◼   ► for like, I've done this so much that I think I don't have a bad radar for what things should

00:40:18 ◼   ► you like really try to investigate further. And I pushed a little bit on what are the

00:40:25 ◼   ► primary sources for this story about this race. And over the course of the year, like the whole

00:40:31 ◼   ► thing just totally fell apart, that this story just doesn't exist. Like there's no documentation

00:40:40 ◼   ► for it happening at the time. There's no reason to think that it ever occurred. And I thought the

00:40:46 ◼   ► race was interesting as a just as like a little urban legend in and of itself. But this kind of

00:40:54 ◼   ► thing does happen to me all the time. And like a real frustration that I can have sometimes is,

00:41:01 ◼   ► it's, it's really hard to track down something to the point where you feel like, oh, I'm confident

00:41:07 ◼   ► enough putting that in a video. So most of the time, you just end up in a situation where it's

00:41:12 ◼   ► like, oh, this thing isn't real, or I feel a little bit uncertain about it. And so all that happens is

00:41:18 ◼   ► a paragraph of text gets deleted and nothing ever happens. No one ever knows about it. But

00:41:26 ◼   ► the way this one unraveled I thought ended up being an interesting example of just trying to

00:41:40 ◼   ► trace footnotes backwards through history. And there happened to be enough good and different

00:41:47 ◼   ► examples going backwards through time of different sources talking about this story that I thought

00:41:54 ◼   ► like, oh, this actually does make an interesting meta video that that this can become a little

00:42:02 ◼   ► story about how the stories are made. And that's, that's sort of what I was hoping would would be

00:42:08 ◼   ► the reaction that you would have to seeing it as kind of what I hope the viewers get out of it is

00:42:13 ◼   ► you can enjoy this video on the primary level of of what it is actually talking about this

00:42:22 ◼   ► historical event that didn't occur. But I do hope that a person can enjoy it on this secondary level

00:42:29 ◼   ► like if you're it, you know, the for cortex listeners, people who are interested in how

00:42:35 ◼   ► does this stuff get made? I think there's a meta level on which that video can be enjoyed. And,

00:42:40 ◼   ► and you did, you did pick up on, you know, for me, what is a what is a tertiary level, which is a,

00:42:48 ◼   ► like an uncomfortable commentary on history, and, and knowing the certainty of things like,

00:42:56 ◼   ► I don't really go into that very much. It's not in the video, really. But it's it's as,

00:43:01 ◼   ► I think it's a thought that is a natural implication of watching that video.

00:43:06 ◼   ► - Right, because there's a weird thing where a building is maintained and turned into a museum

00:43:11 ◼   ► to honor a person who apparently did a thing that nobody can prove was ever done.

00:43:16 ◼   ► Because there's no way you're the first person who's tried to work this out.

00:43:19 ◼   ► - No, I am not the first person who tried to work this out, and I got sort of unlucky

00:43:24 ◼   ► with the original sources that I had come across this story in.

00:43:30 ◼   ► Because yeah, other people have tried to track this down of like, this thing isn't real.

00:43:37 ◼   ► But in the first month or two, I ended up not coming across any of those and totally felt like conspiracy man.

00:43:44 ◼   ► And as the year went on, like just some weird things happened where it's a bit like, I don't want to be crazy.

00:43:51 ◼   ► But why is it that the documents that happened to be the documents I'm exactly looking for are the only documents that you're missing?

00:43:58 ◼   ► right? It's like, you know, I don't really think there's any conspiracy, but I did get, like, so

00:44:06 ◼   ► deep about, like, what's Staten Island doing to protect their hometown hero, right? Like,

00:44:11 ◼   ► it's, it was very, very strange, and my conclusion is, like, so the Captain Billup,

00:44:20 ◼   ► the person who supposedly ran this race in the 1600s, his house exists as a museum today,

00:44:27 ◼   ► But it's there because of something his great-grandson did.

00:44:31 ◼   ► And his great-grandson was involved in the Revolutionary War.

00:44:37 ◼   ► And then the stories of what the great-grandfather did don't show up for another hundred years.

00:44:43 ◼   ► And so I think this is just an example of, there's enough thing in reality, like,

00:44:51 ◼   ► "Oh, this house is important, but why? It was a hundred years ago."

00:44:56 ◼   ► It just gives a little bit of a place for a story to start crystallizing over time that isn't really true and that people don't bother to check up on.

00:45:07 ◼   ► So like I just I just think it's very interesting in a in a in a bunch of different ways.

00:45:12 ◼   ► But I got to say this has been it is not a project that has been continuously worked on for a year, but it has taken a year because there were a lot of there are a lot of times where it's like.

00:45:24 ◼   ► harassing a historical archive to send some papers and it takes a couple months before they come along and like the whole the whole thing just has to wait until I get a documents, you know from New Jersey sent to me in London, that kind of thing.

00:45:37 ◼   ► So I feel like I've been living with this story for a year. And it's also been a project that's

00:45:46 ◼   ► Sort of different and hard to think about how to do.

00:45:51 ◼   ► And as we record, I'm still not entirely sure what the final thing will look like because

00:45:58 ◼   ► it's the first time I've ever tried to blend animated style with doing something in real life.

00:46:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I wondered if you wanted to talk about this part.

00:46:08 ◼   ► Yeah, well, it's a little bit hard to talk about right now because I just don't know what the final

00:46:14 ◼   ► thing will look like. Right now I know that the beginning is very heavily animated, and the end is almost entirely live action.

00:46:22 ◼   ► But I still haven't decided for the middle part of it how much of a blend there is going to be.

00:46:30 ◼   ► I just don't know, and it's a difficult sort of project to do, and like you were talking about before,

00:46:36 ◼   ► about before. It's like you're very close to it and you lose you lose objectivity about what is

00:46:44 ◼   ► this like? What is what is this like for viewers who are expecting my animated videos when it

00:46:49 ◼   ► transitions into live action? How is that going to be received? Or like, how can I make it seem

00:46:54 ◼   ► smooth? I don't, I don't know. And that stuff is still up in the air right now for me. What made

00:46:59 ◼   ► you want to do the transition into some live action parts for this video? Because I think it

00:47:04 ◼   ► makes sense for the story. I traveled to New Jersey to try and track down the historians who

00:47:13 ◼   ► work at the museum that I was trying to get in touch with remotely, unsuccessfully, repeatedly.

00:47:19 ◼   ► And I traveled to New York to try and track down some of the missing paperwork for this urban

00:47:27 ◼   ► Like I really went there and that just feels like

00:47:32 ◼   ► it makes sense to show it in real life.

00:47:35 ◼   ► Like this is me going to the place.

00:47:38 ◼   ► I don't think it would work in the same way

00:47:41 ◼   ► if it was animation or I think it would maybe

00:47:44 ◼   ► come off more as a story.

00:47:47 ◼   ► - You could animate that but you did actually do it

00:47:51 ◼   ► and you know how to work a camera.

00:47:53 ◼   ► So maybe you should do,

00:47:56 ◼   ► You know what, like, you could animate everything, you could animate the library, you could animate

00:48:02 ◼   ► the door being closed, but you were actually in those places, so maybe people would want

00:48:07 ◼   ► to see them.

00:48:08 ◼   ► Do you think that's the right decision to have it live action at the end?

00:48:11 ◼   ► Does that work for you as a viewer?

00:48:13 ◼   ► I think it works for the video that you made.

00:48:16 ◼   ► Okay.

00:48:17 ◼   ► Because if you said to me, "I went to these places and I saw this thing and you weren't

00:48:21 ◼   ► showing me the actual thing," I think I would be frustrated by it, because it's like, "Well,

00:48:25 ◼   ► are you telling me about the graveyard that you visited in a thunderstorm?

00:48:30 ◼   ► I was so wet.

00:48:31 ◼   ► I want to see that instead. It made sense to show what you were talking about. I will

00:48:39 ◼   ► be intrigued to see if and how Live Action Grey finds his way into other videos, if that's

00:48:46 ◼   ► a thing that you want to do, but I think when the story needs it, like a vlog, you should

00:48:52 ◼   ► show it and this one definitely benefited from being.

00:48:54 ◼   ► Part animated Gray part vlogging Gray and I think blending those

00:49:01 ◼   ► two together into a video is one interesting and two kind of

00:49:05 ◼   ► surprising as a viewer pressing play on that video.

00:49:08 ◼   ► I would never expect that you were going to do what you did

00:49:10 ◼   ► and I think that that's kind of that's exciting.

00:49:15 ◼   ► I think that's fun.

00:49:15 ◼   ► That's sort of the thing that I'm going for because it also

00:49:18 ◼   ► snuck up on me as I was working on this project slowly slowly the idea keeps creeping into

00:49:24 ◼   ► my head of am I going to go to New Jersey?

00:49:27 ◼   ► No, that's ridiculous.

00:49:30 ◼   ► Right?

00:49:32 ◼   ► Who goes to New Jersey for a thing that didn't happen 400 years ago?

00:49:38 ◼   ► Right?

00:49:39 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like, I'm like, I'm not going.

00:49:41 ◼   ► I'm not going there now.

00:49:42 ◼   ► But it really did keep growing on me.

00:49:52 ◼   ► I found myself surprised that I was compelled to go.

00:49:57 ◼   ► And the whole thing was ridiculous.

00:50:01 ◼   ► And I told some people, and they're like, "Wait, you're going to Staten Island, why?"

00:50:07 ◼   ► And it's like, "Well, there's this museum."

00:50:10 ◼   ► And they never answered my phone calls or answered my emails and I want to go ask them

00:50:14 ◼   ► some questions.

00:50:16 ◼   ► Like about what?

00:50:17 ◼   ► Oh, something that didn't happen at their museum.

00:50:21 ◼   ► Quite reasonably, people thought that was not a good idea or they thought that was ridiculous.

00:50:27 ◼   ► I really felt compelled, like I have to do this.

00:50:31 ◼   ► I have to see this all the way to the end.

00:50:37 ◼   ► And so there is a way in which it was surprising for me.

00:50:41 ◼   ► And I do kind of hope to convey that in the video that it's like, this is not a thing

00:50:45 ◼   ► that you would expect me to do.

00:50:47 ◼   ► It's not a thing that I would expect me to do.

00:50:49 ◼   ► That's interesting to me because I'm not surprised you did this.

00:50:54 ◼   ► Why?

00:50:56 ◼   ► I'm surprised I did this.

00:50:58 ◼   ► It seems very out of character, Myke.

00:51:02 ◼   ► Yes, it is very out of character.

00:51:05 ◼   ► I just like it seems I don't know like I feel like this seems like something that is for your

00:51:11 ◼   ► curiosity. Yeah I guess the thing that that I can get 99.9% of the way there without having to leave

00:51:19 ◼   ► my comfy home and it's just it's it's this last one percent that I didn't even really hope would

00:51:29 ◼   ► would go anywhere, but it's like,

00:51:30 ◼   ► "But I've got to see this thing through."

00:51:33 ◼   ► Right?

00:51:35 ◼   ► Like, "I'm gonna stand at the grave of a man

00:51:39 ◼   ► "who wasted my time centuries later.

00:51:42 ◼   ► "Like, I'm gonna do it."

00:51:44 ◼   ► And it's ridiculous.

00:51:46 ◼   ► Because I think the other thing

00:51:47 ◼   ► that you have to keep in mind is this,

00:51:49 ◼   ► it's not clear for a very long time

00:51:52 ◼   ► that this is actually going to be a video,

00:51:54 ◼   ► from my side as the production person.

00:51:58 ◼   ► What it really was is like spending a lot of time trying to track down this thing that

00:52:04 ◼   ► became an increasingly interesting, I don't know, like mystery as it went along.

00:52:10 ◼   ► That's why I said before, like I have this thing of this trick of putting interesting

00:52:14 ◼   ► things in the footnote that don't really belong as videos of themselves and this is where

00:52:19 ◼   ► they just go to silently die.

00:52:22 ◼   ► And I just kind of felt like, oh, I'm spending a lot of time on this one.

00:52:25 ◼   ► This is much more time than I would ever spend on something like this.

00:52:28 ◼   ► And so it is also surprising to me that it ended up becoming a becoming a whole video.

00:52:32 ◼   ► But I am pretty pleased with the state that it's currently in, even though I don't know

00:52:36 ◼   ► what the final mix of animation and live action is, is going to be.

00:52:41 ◼   ► But I've had I've had an interesting year.

00:52:44 ◼   ► And this is this is one of these things that I'm like, I'm really glad to finally be able

00:52:49 ◼   ► to get out of my head and out into the internet.

00:52:53 ◼   ► I kind of think of this as a video for like the hardcore gray fans.

00:52:56 ◼   ► is not a viral video generally applicable kind of thing.

00:53:03 ◼   ► It's a project that's been really interesting to me to be a part of.

00:53:05 ◼   ► Again, this is like, ah, time paradox.

00:53:10 ◼   ► The Tesla video did really well.

00:53:13 ◼   ► And I would say that that was more for the hardcore fan than this is.

00:53:21 ◼   ► that was like here's a super long vlog about driving a Tesla which is not a new thing right

00:53:28 ◼   ► this is not a new car right like this is like it wasn't like you had access to a special Tesla

00:53:33 ◼   ► and it's like it's an hour long yeah yeah and that and that footage was at that point three summers

00:53:38 ◼   ► old whereas all of this stuff I mean some of this stuff I only filmed but uh but a month ago

00:53:44 ◼   ► Look at you! It's basically shiny new.

00:53:46 ◼   ► Yeah I mean maybe you know and and if there's one thing I've learned over the years of making

00:53:54 ◼   ► things for the internet is you can't have any expectations about whether things do well or

00:53:57 ◼   ► whether things do poorly. That there's just like there's no point in in trying to play that game

00:54:01 ◼   ► or even guessing. You can have feelings like you like I do but I just don't I don't put any I don't

00:54:07 ◼   ► put any stock in those but I do want to get on the record that I was really soaked in that graveyard

00:54:12 ◼   ► at the end. It looked terrible, but as I watched it, I was like, how perfect.

00:54:18 ◼   ► You were blessed with that thunderstorm. I that it was a flash storm that came in.

00:54:27 ◼   ► It like I have not seen any thunderstorms come in and I had no weather gear for that at all.

00:54:36 ◼   ► And a thing that I have not told you is that storm broke my iPhone.

00:54:45 ◼   ► That I was using my iPhone to do all of that footage because I was like, OK, I'm all set here.

00:54:54 ◼   ► I've got a waterproof phone. Thank God I can film something because my other equipment was not ready

00:55:02 ◼   ► for the rain. And I got all of that footage and I got it off of the phone, but water got in

00:55:10 ◼   ► somewhere and I had to abandon my iPhone and roll back to my old iPhone X, and that's what I'm

00:55:19 ◼   ► currently using. But I have some footage, it didn't make it into the video, but I have some footage

00:55:26 ◼   ► where you can see the water start to roll over the interior of the camera lens.

00:55:30 ◼   ► I need to see that. I need you to send me that. I need to see what that looks like,

00:55:37 ◼   ► because that sounds fascinating. It just goes blurry, that's all it looks like.

00:55:42 ◼   ► It's not anything, but when I got back to the hotel room and was drying off the equipment,

00:55:48 ◼   ► I was looking at the camera lens and like, "Hey, there's water in there."

00:55:51 ◼   ► Well, I guess that IP67 or whatever it is, we now know the limits of it.

00:55:56 ◼   ► Yeah, and then, so I got all the footage off quickly, and I was like, "Oh, wait a minute,

00:56:03 ◼   ► the 3D touch isn't working on this device anymore." And then, like, all input started to

00:56:08 ◼   ► not work. I'm like, "Okay, iPhone." It was nice knowing you.

00:56:11 ◼   ► Do you have AppleCare or are you not an AppleCare person?

00:56:15 ◼   ► I am not an AppleCare person, because as we all know, insurance is gambling.

00:56:19 ◼   ► Is that something we all know?

00:56:20 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what insurance is. It's gambling. Everyone knows that.

00:56:23 ◼   ► Oh, sorry. Sorry. Yeah, of course. Of course.

00:56:25 ◼   ► AppleCare, you're gambling with your phone. Life insurance, gambling with your life.

00:56:30 ◼   ► I don't think it is as clear cut as how you just presented it, but we can...

00:56:35 ◼   ► No, that's just...

00:56:35 ◼   ► It's catchy sounding.

00:56:37 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't have AppleCare. I do have life insurance.

00:56:39 ◼   ► There you go. I gamble on my life, not my phone.

00:56:43 ◼   ► Yeah, that's ridiculous. And I have, over the years, come out way ahead on not

00:56:50 ◼   ► not getting AppleCare. This is like the one time that I rolled the dice and it didn't work out in

00:56:56 ◼   ► my favor. RIP phone, you died gloriously in a flash thunderstorm in a graveyard on Staten Island.

00:57:04 ◼   ► You know, thank you for your service. If you're gonna go, there's quite a way to go.

00:57:08 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel very lucky I didn't get Insomnia on the 45 minute drive back to my hotel in a

00:57:15 ◼   ► completely soaked through hoodie with no other clothes.

00:57:19 ◼   ► - Did you mean pneumonia?

00:57:20 ◼   ► - Oh, what did I say?

00:57:21 ◼   ► - Insomnia.

00:57:22 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:57:24 ◼   ► - I'm glad I didn't get insomnia or pneumonia.

00:57:27 ◼   ► I'm very glad I didn't get that.

00:57:30 ◼   ► - How'd you become an insomniac?

00:57:31 ◼   ► Well, I went to a graveyard.

00:57:32 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:57:34 ◼   ► - And now Disaway's ghost is following me and I can't sleep.

00:57:37 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:57:39 ◼   ► - Oh dear.

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00:59:27 ◼   ► On our next episode we're doing a Cortex Movie Club and we are watching Jiro Dreams of Sushi.

00:59:34 ◼   ► This is a documentary about a man who is in his 80s at the time of filming who makes the

00:59:40 ◼   ► best sushi in the world.

00:59:42 ◼   ► So you can go watch that.

00:59:43 ◼   ► I think it's on Netflix in America I believe and I know you can buy it on iTunes so you

00:59:51 ◼   ► can go watch that.

00:59:52 ◼   ► We're going to be talking about that on the next episode.

00:59:54 ◼   ► We'll also have all of the answers to the time paradox problem that we've been describing

00:59:58 ◼   ► throughout this entire episode.

01:00:00 ◼   ► So if you're wondering what on earth we've been referring to, episode 91 will have all

01:00:04 ◼   ► of these answers and more for you.

01:00:06 ◼   ► Jiro dreams of sushi.

01:00:08 ◼   ► Go watch it.

01:00:09 ◼   ► I really think you should.

01:00:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:00:11 ◼   ► Homework.

01:00:12 ◼   ► Homework.

01:00:13 ◼   ► Let's round out today's quite peculiar, I think, episode of Cortex with some #AskCortex

01:00:17 ◼   ► questions.

01:00:18 ◼   ► We will go to the Cortexans.

01:00:20 ◼   ► The first one comes from Emil.

01:00:22 ◼   ► Emil asks, "What thing goes in which pocket

01:00:24 ◼   ► "and does it change during summer and winter?"

01:00:26 ◼   ► - You wanna go through your pockets, Myke?

01:00:27 ◼   ► - Well, I can tell you there are only ever four things

01:00:30 ◼   ► in my pockets, phone, wallet, AirPods, keys.

01:00:34 ◼   ► They are the four things that go in my pockets.

01:00:36 ◼   ► - Those are the four things, yep, that is true.

01:00:38 ◼   ► - Wait, but I've seen you covered in pockets.

01:00:41 ◼   ► Do you only ever have those four things

01:00:43 ◼   ► when you're CG pockets?

01:00:45 ◼   ► - Don't you start with this, Myke.

01:00:48 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:00:50 ◼   ► I have seen you with a hat that has pockets in it and shirts that have pockets on it and

01:00:54 ◼   ► trousers with pockets, but like lots of pockets.

01:00:57 ◼   ► And then there was that whole cartility bag thing about your requirement for more pockets.

01:01:02 ◼   ► So you only carry those four things?

01:01:04 ◼   ► What do you bag for?

01:01:08 ◼   ► I forgot when I showed you the pocket in my hat that I was keeping some paperwork in.

01:01:12 ◼   ► I forgot about that.

01:01:13 ◼   ► So it's like, I only have four things unless I'm covered in pockets, and then I'll just

01:01:17 ◼   ► put anything in there.

01:01:19 ◼   ► Bit of paperwork, sure.

01:01:21 ◼   ► - Look, look, look.

01:01:22 ◼   ► Why don't you tell me about your pockets, Myke?

01:01:24 ◼   ► - All right.

01:01:25 ◼   ► Right pocket is phone.

01:01:26 ◼   ► It's the only thing that goes in my right pocket.

01:01:29 ◼   ► I am left-handed.

01:01:32 ◼   ► - Right.

01:01:32 ◼   ► - But I do, my dominant hand is my right hand.

01:01:35 ◼   ► That's an interesting thing about me.

01:01:37 ◼   ► - That's not what left-handed means.

01:01:38 ◼   ► - Right with my left hand.

01:01:40 ◼   ► That is what it means.

01:01:41 ◼   ► When people say they're left or right-handed,

01:01:43 ◼   ► they mean by the way that they write.

01:01:45 ◼   ► But my dominant hand, so everything else,

01:01:47 ◼   ► I only write with my left hand.

01:01:49 ◼   ► Everything else I do with my right hand.

01:01:50 ◼   ► I use scissors with my right hand.

01:01:51 ◼   ► My right arm is my stronger arm.

01:01:53 ◼   ► Like, if I was gonna throw a punch,

01:01:55 ◼   ► I would throw it right-handed.

01:01:56 ◼   ► - No, you're just right-handed.

01:02:00 ◼   ► - I'm left-handed.

01:02:01 ◼   ► Nobody, okay, all right, so here's the thing, right?

01:02:03 ◼   ► We're having a conversation, and I say I'm right-handed,

01:02:06 ◼   ► and then you go, "Oh, okay,"

01:02:07 ◼   ► and then you see me pick up a pen

01:02:09 ◼   ► with my left hand to write something.

01:02:10 ◼   ► You go, "You're left-handed."

01:02:12 ◼   ► But if I say I'm left-handed,

01:02:13 ◼   ► and I use scissors with my right hand,

01:02:15 ◼   ► you don't go, "Hang on a second, you're right-handed."

01:02:17 ◼   ► That's not how it goes.

01:02:18 ◼   ► - No, you're right-handed.

01:02:20 ◼   ► - No, I'm not.

01:02:21 ◼   ► - You have one thing you do with your left hand.

01:02:23 ◼   ► - No, I am left-handed,

01:02:25 ◼   ► but I do everything else with my right hand.

01:02:27 ◼   ► - I'm sorry, Myke, you were incorrect.

01:02:29 ◼   ► No, I'm gonna buzz you out on Family Feud.

01:02:33 ◼   ► That's the Family Feud question.

01:02:34 ◼   ► Which handed is Myke?

01:02:35 ◼   ► What does everybody else say?

01:02:36 ◼   ► - There will be a link in the show notes to a Google form.

01:02:41 ◼   ► It has one question.

01:02:43 ◼   ► Is Myke left-handed?

01:02:45 ◼   ► Is Myke right-handed?

01:02:46 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:02:47 ◼   ► Go to this survey and answer this question.

01:02:50 ◼   ► I will not let this one lie.

01:02:52 ◼   ► You'll find out the answer in about a month.

01:02:55 ◼   ► So bear that in mind, it's not coming up next time.

01:02:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's plenty of time

01:03:01 ◼   ► to send in your postal vote on this one.

01:03:02 ◼   ► - Yes, but 'cause this is, I won't accept this.

01:03:05 ◼   ► Stop trying to take away my identity.

01:03:07 ◼   ► I'm a left-handed individual.

01:03:08 ◼   ► - But no, I totally understand.

01:03:11 ◼   ► That's exactly what happens here.

01:03:13 ◼   ► You wanna be part of the embattled lefties, right?

01:03:15 ◼   ► But you're actually just a right-handed.

01:03:16 ◼   ► - I don't want to be a part of the embattled lefties.

01:03:18 ◼   ► Like I have spent my life just like doing things

01:03:21 ◼   ► like a right-handed person except for writing my left hand.

01:03:24 ◼   ► Anyway, phone goes in my right pocket,

01:03:28 ◼   ► my wallet goes in my back pocket.

01:03:30 ◼   ► Yes, I know, I don't want to hear it.

01:03:32 ◼   ► I have a very thin wallet.

01:03:34 ◼   ► It has five credit cards in it and that's it.

01:03:36 ◼   ► It's a Bellroy wallet.

01:03:37 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes.

01:03:38 ◼   ► - I was gonna say, we have that same, the little slim one.

01:03:41 ◼   ► It's a great little wallet. - Yeah, it's beautiful wallet.

01:03:43 ◼   ► I love it.

01:03:44 ◼   ► I've owned one for years and I'm very happy with it.

01:03:46 ◼   ► It's exactly what I need because it also puts the restriction on me to not have too much in my wallet.

01:03:50 ◼   ► And then my left pocket goes my keys and my AirPods.

01:03:54 ◼   ► Okay, AirPods in front pocket, right?

01:03:57 ◼   ► Yeah, front left, front left keys and AirPods.

01:04:00 ◼   ► Right back is wallet, right front is phone.

01:04:03 ◼   ► Okay, so then you have an empty back pocket?

01:04:06 ◼   ► Yes.

01:04:08 ◼   ► I am right-handed. I do everything with my right hand.

01:04:12 ◼   ► This is not part of the question.

01:04:15 ◼   ► My left hand is here for typing.

01:04:20 ◼   ► ornamental reasons only.

01:04:22 ◼   ► For holding sparkling water bottles while my right hand twists off the cap.

01:04:27 ◼   ► It's the support arm.

01:04:29 ◼   ► That's how handedness works.

01:04:31 ◼   ► Now what Myke is trying to give me a real hassle about is the thing is Myke and I, we

01:04:37 ◼   ► live in the same city, we often see each other when we're traveling on the other side of

01:04:41 ◼   ► the globe.

01:04:43 ◼   ► And Myke is then seeing travel gray.

01:04:47 ◼   ► And travel gray has many more needs than at home gray.

01:04:53 ◼   ► So this is this is why my frustration, my desire for a fertility bag, my need for a

01:05:00 ◼   ► cowboy hat with a pocket in the top.

01:05:02 ◼   ► You know, all of these things to put my natural cheese in.

01:05:06 ◼   ► Yeah, because you've got Yeah.

01:05:11 ◼   ► - You've got way more things you need

01:05:14 ◼   ► when you're away from home than you're traveling.

01:05:16 ◼   ► And I don't always want to carry around a big backpack,

01:05:20 ◼   ► but there's just a bunch of little things

01:05:22 ◼   ► that you'd like to have with you

01:05:24 ◼   ► when you're out and about.

01:05:25 ◼   ► You want to have like a couple aspirin,

01:05:29 ◼   ► you want to have your earplugs,

01:05:31 ◼   ► because everywhere is too loud,

01:05:33 ◼   ► or people are trying to talk to you.

01:05:35 ◼   ► You want to have a little hand sanitizer with you

01:05:37 ◼   ► if the people touch you.

01:05:38 ◼   ► Can I define, get a definition from you for what out and about is?

01:05:43 ◼   ► I'm just trying to traveling, right?

01:05:45 ◼   ► Where we're on, we're in California because it's apple season.

01:05:49 ◼   ► Okay.

01:05:49 ◼   ► That kind of thing.

01:05:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:05:50 ◼   ► But like, I will see you with all your pockets on like Wednesday of WWDC, right?

01:05:58 ◼   ► Right.

01:05:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:05:59 ◼   ► That's traveling.

01:06:00 ◼   ► Okay.

01:06:00 ◼   ► But if I see you in the street in London, you won't be adorned in pockets, right?

01:06:07 ◼   ► I won't be adorned in pockets.

01:06:08 ◼   ► So I'm trying to understand what the difference is.

01:06:10 ◼   ► - Because the difference is, it's an uncertain environment.

01:06:13 ◼   ► You don't know where, like look,

01:06:14 ◼   ► the thing that has totally happened,

01:06:16 ◼   ► people laugh at me, right, but you have to be prepared

01:06:20 ◼   ► with like a beef jerky meal at any time

01:06:23 ◼   ► when you're out on the road,

01:06:24 ◼   ► because you never know when you're going to eat.

01:06:27 ◼   ► - I agree with that when you were like in a car

01:06:30 ◼   ► moving across the plains.

01:06:34 ◼   ► - Right.

01:06:35 ◼   ► you're in downtown of a city.

01:06:38 ◼   ► - No, it's traveling.

01:06:39 ◼   ► It's still traveling because you don't know

01:06:43 ◼   ► what's going to happen.

01:06:44 ◼   ► You're gonna get sucked into a meeting with people

01:06:46 ◼   ► that goes on for way too long,

01:06:48 ◼   ► or you're gonna suddenly be spirited away

01:06:50 ◼   ► to a company headquarters.

01:06:52 ◼   ► - There's always food at those places.

01:06:54 ◼   ► - No, but you can't count on it,

01:06:55 ◼   ► and you don't know what it's gonna be,

01:06:56 ◼   ► and you don't know when it's gonna be.

01:06:58 ◼   ► You need to always have water available

01:07:00 ◼   ► because there's never enough water around.

01:07:02 ◼   ► So this is traveling.

01:07:05 ◼   ► Oh, great.

01:07:06 ◼   ► I went to the best company cafeteria that I've ever been to.

01:07:10 ◼   ► - Who has the best company cafeteria?

01:07:13 ◼   ► - Industrial Light and Magic.

01:07:14 ◼   ► - Oh, interesting.

01:07:16 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:07:17 ◼   ► - When did you go there?

01:07:18 ◼   ► - When I was in San Francisco.

01:07:20 ◼   ► - Oh, sneaky, sneaky Myke.

01:07:22 ◼   ► - I got a tour from a friend of the show, Todd.

01:07:25 ◼   ► - What did you think of Industrial Light and Magic?

01:07:27 ◼   ► - It's amazing.

01:07:29 ◼   ► They have all the props just like hanging around.

01:07:34 ◼   ► They're just like hanging around.

01:07:36 ◼   ► It's incredible.

01:07:37 ◼   ► Like every hallway, every entranceway

01:07:40 ◼   ► is just surrounded by stuff.

01:07:43 ◼   ► It's amazing.

01:07:44 ◼   ► - For the people who are unfamiliar,

01:07:46 ◼   ► what are the kinds of movie props

01:07:47 ◼   ► that Industrial Light and Magic has?

01:07:49 ◼   ► What are the projects they've been involved in?

01:07:51 ◼   ► - Star Wars.

01:07:52 ◼   ► - Right, there we go.

01:07:53 ◼   ► - Is the big one, Ghostbusters.

01:07:55 ◼   ► I got to take a picture and stand in front of the,

01:08:00 ◼   ► Is it Igor's portrait from Ghostbusters 2?

01:08:04 ◼   ► Vigo, the Vigo portrait from Ghostbusters 2.

01:08:08 ◼   ► I got to stand right in front of that, take a picture of it.

01:08:11 ◼   ► I have a picture of me in front of multiple Darth Vader costumes.

01:08:14 ◼   ► It was amazing in there. And they had just an amazing cafeteria.

01:08:18 ◼   ► And I had a cheeseburger in there, which was unbelievable.

01:08:23 ◼   ► Everywhere people go, the food is the thing they remember the most.

01:08:26 ◼   ► You need impressive cafeteria if you're a cool company.

01:08:30 ◼   ► Yeah, well they all try and this was the best one.

01:08:33 ◼   ► They did, everybody was paying though. I didn't understand what the situation was there. I didn't ask.

01:08:40 ◼   ► I do actually think that is a healthier arrangement, like mentally, but I understand why most companies give the food away for free.

01:08:48 ◼   ► I don't know if this is correct, but I have a very dim memory of San Francisco instituting

01:08:54 ◼   ► some kind of city ordinance that changed the state of those cafeterias that the companies

01:08:59 ◼   ► were charging instead of giving it away for free.

01:09:03 ◼   ► There's some kind of like, "Oh, we have to count it as employee salaries thing otherwise."

01:09:07 ◼   ► I don't remember exactly what it was, but I wonder if that's what it is.

01:09:11 ◼   ► Why do you think it's healthier though?

01:09:13 ◼   ► I wouldn't want that.

01:09:14 ◼   ► If I was an employee, you can feed me.

01:09:16 ◼   ► Whilst as an employee, I would love to get free food,

01:09:20 ◼   ► I think that sometimes large tech companies use the food

01:09:25 ◼   ► as like a stepping stone into the trapping in mentality

01:09:30 ◼   ► that we saw at like Facebook.

01:09:32 ◼   ► - Fortress Facebook.

01:09:34 ◼   ► The literal walled city.

01:09:36 ◼   ► - It is like the gateway

01:09:37 ◼   ► because if the cafeteria is always open,

01:09:41 ◼   ► then you can stay late and just have dinner.

01:09:44 ◼   ► And that is, I think, something that a lot of people fall into.

01:09:48 ◼   ► Yeah, I can see what you're saying there.

01:09:51 ◼   ► I think I would still want it to be free.

01:09:53 ◼   ► I can see that maybe works as a psychological nudge.

01:09:57 ◼   ► If it's like, it's open for lunchtime only and the food is free, then that's cool.

01:10:03 ◼   ► But a lot of these places is like, well, there's just always some food.

01:10:06 ◼   ► Right.

01:10:07 ◼   ► And that is a little bit more uncomfortable to me.

01:10:09 ◼   ► Right.

01:10:10 ◼   ► or as we saw, we have free food,

01:10:13 ◼   ► and we'll also do your laundry.

01:10:15 ◼   ► You can get a haircut, and we have a doctor,

01:10:18 ◼   ► but oh, don't sleep under your desk,

01:10:20 ◼   ► but we do have everything you would need

01:10:21 ◼   ► if you were going to.

01:10:23 ◼   ► - And that's what, that's kind of,

01:10:24 ◼   ► I think it's like a gateway, right?

01:10:26 ◼   ► Like the free food is like a gateway to that,

01:10:30 ◼   ► and that's kind of the thing that, I don't know,

01:10:33 ◼   ► it makes me feel like, hmm, I question it,

01:10:36 ◼   ► but I've never worked in a place that have free food,

01:10:39 ◼   ► but the food was incredible, but you didn't get it for free, you had to pay for it.

01:10:42 ◼   ► Well the schools had free food. It wasn't especially delicious.

01:10:47 ◼   ► I never had free food.

01:10:49 ◼   ► What, as a student you had to pay for your food?

01:10:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I used to have a packed lunch.

01:10:53 ◼   ► Or you had to pay a small amount of money like the parent had to pay.

01:10:58 ◼   ► It was free for me as the kid because I didn't have any money, but...

01:11:01 ◼   ► Oh, I guess that's sort of what I was thinking, like,

01:11:04 ◼   ► "Wait a minute, did you like work?"

01:11:06 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:11:08 ◼   ► And I was going to say something about the difference between private and public schools,

01:11:13 ◼   ► but then like, okay, wait, thankfully we got here fast enough, so I didn't say something really dumb.

01:11:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:19 ◼   ► About like, wow, I'm really glad I didn't work in the public sector.

01:11:23 ◼   ► Somebody's paying for the food.

01:11:25 ◼   ► Right, right. Okay.

01:11:27 ◼   ► John wants to know, "What were your first computers that got you started on your roads to professional geekdom?"

01:11:34 ◼   ► And I like the way this question is asked because my first computer, I don't even remember it,

01:11:40 ◼   ► but it was like a gateway or whatever. But like, I don't have any fondness for that. And it wasn't

01:11:45 ◼   ► what started me on this journey. Like my first computer that really set me on the path that I am

01:11:51 ◼   ► now was a 2005 Intel iMac, which was the first Intel iMac. So you're using this as this is the

01:11:59 ◼   ► or this is the computer that started you

01:12:02 ◼   ► down the career path?

01:12:04 ◼   ► - Well, this was just what set,

01:12:05 ◼   ► the question is like a professional geekdom, right?

01:12:09 ◼   ► Oh, it may have been 2006, not 2005.

01:12:11 ◼   ► Let me correct myself now.

01:12:12 ◼   ► 2006 into line-up.

01:12:14 ◼   ► - Okay, I have a clarifying question then.

01:12:16 ◼   ► So were you, were you like,

01:12:20 ◼   ► I guess I never really thought of this,

01:12:21 ◼   ► but I guess you're not really a computer person

01:12:28 ◼   ► in this way of you were probably not a kid writing programs like when you were 12.

01:12:35 ◼   ► No.

01:12:36 ◼   ► That's not you.

01:12:37 ◼   ► You need to remember, Gray.

01:12:38 ◼   ► Like, I mean, there's not a big age difference, but like my...

01:12:41 ◼   ► So I think for your childhood, it was you wrote programs for my childhood.

01:12:47 ◼   ► It's like, hey, the internet.

01:12:49 ◼   ► Yeah, no, no, like, yeah, we're just on the other side of that barrier.

01:12:55 ◼   ► I've often feel really lucky to be born at what I feel like was just the right time for like maximum

01:13:02 ◼   ► appreciation of technology, both because we've had this tremendous acceleration in technology over the

01:13:09 ◼   ► past several decades.

01:13:11 ◼   ► And, and, and also I feel glad to have predated the modern internet just enough.

01:13:23 ◼   ► And I have often wondered that like if per capita there are fewer programmy people who

01:13:32 ◼   ► were on the other side of that internet divide, like when you have real graphical user interfaces

01:13:38 ◼   ► as your as your starting point.

01:13:39 ◼   ► I mean, I used computers that had a green text on a black background, but like they

01:13:45 ◼   ► were when I was very young and it was like, here's a couple of games you'd maybe play

01:13:49 ◼   ► at the computer at your uncle's house, which is what my situation was.

01:13:53 ◼   ► Yeah, and you're just a little too young to be doing the, like, what's underneath this part of it.

01:13:59 ◼   ► You're still using it as an interface, even though it is text.

01:14:01 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly. And then when I kind of got to the age where you were when you started paying

01:14:06 ◼   ► attention to the stuff in that way, it was for me, look at these games on the BBC's website,

01:14:13 ◼   ► you know, like, and then I moved on from there, like discovering the internet.

01:14:19 ◼   ► So would you like again to clarify, would you say that that first Mac then is what?

01:14:23 ◼   ► Started your interest in technology.

01:14:27 ◼   ► In and of itself, was it much more tool like for you?

01:14:32 ◼   ► I was interested in it before, but that was the computer that really set me on the path

01:14:38 ◼   ► that I'm on now. What were you using before?

01:14:40 ◼   ► A PC of some description like I don't even know. It was just like just a PC.

01:14:45 ◼   ► I got a PC world and it was the family computer like that. I'm a was also my it was the first

01:14:50 ◼   ► computer that was mine. That was my computer. I just I saw this question as the follow up

01:14:56 ◼   ► and I would not have guessed something so late in time, but I think that's like that's just that is

01:15:02 ◼   ► interesting and it is a side effect of which side of the divide of the Internet. Were you on that

01:15:09 ◼   ► same computer for you, I think was was for me of when I decided to make the switch from Linux and

01:15:17 ◼   ► Windows to go to Mac instead. And, and that was also when I issued my family an ultimatum, that

01:15:24 ◼   ► if you want tech support, you're going to have to follow me down this trail because I'm not keeping

01:15:29 ◼   ► track of three different, three different systems. Was anyone else in the family using Linux gray?

01:15:34 ◼   ► Really? I think you might have just been keeping track of that one for yourself.

01:15:38 ◼   ► That's true, you know what, you're right. But it was very like, "FYI, I'm doing a thing,

01:15:46 ◼   ► and you can come or you cannot, that's your choice, but there's going to be repercussions

01:15:51 ◼   ► if you don't in terms of you gotta find your tech support somewhere else." So it's just funny that

01:15:56 ◼   ► that's the computer that started you down the course. Well I think then, isn't that kind of

01:16:01 ◼   ► the same for both of us, but there were other computers in our lives before where like, I was

01:16:06 ◼   ► interested in technology, right? That's why I knew that the iMac was coming. I had iPods and stuff

01:16:14 ◼   ► like that before, but I was using the family's computer because I didn't have the funds to buy

01:16:20 ◼   ► my own. But I had a job then when I was 18, right? I had a part-time job while I was still in school.

01:16:26 ◼   ► So I was watching all of these keynotes and I knew that my birthday was coming up and I was

01:16:32 ◼   ► gonna buy an iMac and then they announced the Intel one it's like amazing I'm gonna get that one

01:16:37 ◼   ► and then that was what really then from there it was like okay because that was the first computer

01:16:44 ◼   ► where I was like this has so many amazing tools on it why don't I try and do something creatively

01:16:50 ◼   ► you know like the very first podcast I ever recorded was on that machine it was uh abandoned

01:16:57 ◼   ► and I think halfway through the recording, but I tried.

01:17:00 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:17:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, but that's the start.

01:17:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, right, and then I tried a bunch of other things.

01:17:06 ◼   ► You know, I built iLife websites

01:17:08 ◼   ► and all that kind of nonsense all on there, right?

01:17:12 ◼   ► So iWeb, that was it, iWeb.

01:17:13 ◼   ► It used to be like iWeb stuff and all of those things

01:17:16 ◼   ► on that computer because it opened up

01:17:20 ◼   ► all of these avenues to me and gave me the autonomy

01:17:24 ◼   ► to be able to do whatever I wanted because it was mine

01:17:26 ◼   ► and I could do whatever I wanted with it.

01:17:27 ◼   ► And I was the only person in my family that had a Mac

01:17:30 ◼   ► and knew how to use a Mac.

01:17:32 ◼   ► It's like it was my computer.

01:17:33 ◼   ► So then from there, that was the one that pushed me.

01:17:38 ◼   ► I mean, if you want to think about what was the device

01:17:41 ◼   ► that sent me on this path, it was the iPod Mini.

01:17:43 ◼   ► 'Cause the iPod Mini got me interested in Apple

01:17:48 ◼   ► and then it kind of went on from there.

01:17:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, those iPods were totally gateway drugs.

01:17:53 ◼   ► - For everybody. - Yeah.

01:17:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, that was my gateway drug too.

01:17:57 ◼   ► This iPod is delicious.

01:17:58 ◼   ► - I had a pink one.

01:18:01 ◼   ► - Where can I get more of this?

01:18:02 ◼   ► - I loved my pink iPod Mini, it was amazing.

01:18:05 ◼   ► - Many hours of Solitaire playing on the first iPod.

01:18:08 ◼   ► I was like, wow, this is amazing.

01:18:09 ◼   ► - I did the Breakout type game more than Solitaire.

01:18:14 ◼   ► - I forgot about Breakout, I totally forgot about that one.

01:18:17 ◼   ► Okay, I've been looking for an image to show you

01:18:22 ◼   ► of what I would regard as the computer that got me started professionally in computers.

01:18:28 ◼   ► And this, I'm not sure if this is the exact model, but it is close enough.

01:18:34 ◼   ► So I've sent you a link so you can see this image.

01:18:37 ◼   ► Oh, wow. Look at you.

01:18:41 ◼   ► So there were many computers in my youth, but this is the one that sticks out the most clearly for obvious reasons.

01:18:50 ◼   ► this is a compact portable portable in 1000 quotations. Oh, and a handle on it a big thick

01:18:58 ◼   ► leather handle. Look at that. Yes. So actually, when we went to the Computer History Museum,

01:19:06 ◼   ► which is in in my vlog very briefly, there's a shot of me picking up one of these things.

01:19:12 ◼   ► If you remember, there was a computer that they had in like a case where you could pick

01:19:15 ◼   ► it up to feel what it weighed like as one of the first portable computers. That one

01:19:20 ◼   ► was an old Osborne computer, but the compact was basically the same thing a few years later.

01:19:25 ◼   ► And if if you imagine the tower of a big computer, and that if there was a spot where you could

01:19:35 ◼   ► pull off a panel and that panel was a keyboard, and there was a tiny screen on one of the

01:19:40 ◼   ► sides behind that keyboard. That's what the well that's what the compacts look like. They were very

01:19:46 ◼   ► heavy. They were portable, in only the most technically correct kind of sense that yes,

01:19:54 ◼   ► they could be moved from one location to another as a single piece. My parents had had computers

01:20:00 ◼   ► around the house, but this computer was given to me to use as my computer many, many years after it

01:20:08 ◼   ► it was manufactured. I'm guessing because my parents were basically like, we have no

01:20:12 ◼   ► need use for this computer. It's just a piece of junk sitting around the house. Let's give

01:20:16 ◼   ► it to our child. And if he totally breaks it, it doesn't matter. And so this is the

01:20:22 ◼   ► computer that I remember feeling like I had real free reign on this thing. And this is

01:20:28 ◼   ► where I remember playing around with the prompt and discovering programming and really having

01:20:35 ◼   ► this idea that the computer is a machine that you can get to do things for you. And of course,

01:20:43 ◼   ► in this very limited self contained world of programming, I was totally entranced by

01:20:49 ◼   ► this idea of if I can figure it out, I can get this machine to do stuff for me, that

01:20:56 ◼   ► idea was just completely hooked into my brain and was the start of everything. And for a

01:21:01 ◼   ► very long time, I thought I was going to be a computer programmer. And I can very easily

01:21:07 ◼   ► imagine if things had gone ever so slightly differently in my life. That's the path that

01:21:11 ◼   ► I would have taken this portable computer that weighed 40 pounds was for me the real

01:21:17 ◼   ► start of the thing. And I genuinely think that it's horrific limitations for being a very old

01:21:24 ◼   ► computer at the time that that wasn't connected to the internet for a kid in a just pre-internet

01:21:32 ◼   ► age were all advantages. That I had nothing but time to sit down and try to figure out this thing

01:21:39 ◼   ► and it wasn't really designed as a gaming machine or anything else. It was just like a professional

01:21:45 ◼   ► computer that happened to end up being a thing that my parents let me play around with. So

01:21:52 ◼   ► That was the thing that got me started.