Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► Evernote changed their icon and plunged me into two weeks of dissatisfactionally rearranging

00:00:07 ◼   ► my home screen icons.

00:00:09 ◼   ► They went from green and white to white and green, right?

00:00:12 ◼   ► They like inverted it or something?

00:00:14 ◼   ► Yeah, they went for this popular aesthetic that I think is garbage.

00:00:17 ◼   ► Okay.

00:00:18 ◼   ► Which is the white icon with the color thing in the center.

00:00:20 ◼   ► I think that looks terrible, but that's what they went for.

00:00:24 ◼   ► Thanks Evernote.

00:00:25 ◼   ► Let me ask you a question, right?

00:00:26 ◼   ► Because I had this in my notes for a different reason, actually.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Do you know that they changed the icon? The actual icon is different?

00:00:33 ◼   ► What do you mean the elephant is different?

00:00:35 ◼   ► The elephant is new, apparently.

00:00:37 ◼   ► Is it? I didn't notice.

00:00:39 ◼   ► It's a new elephant. It is ever so slightly more rounded. There was this big article in

00:00:44 ◼   ► Fast Company about Evernote's new branding, and it brought to me two things that frustrates

00:00:52 ◼   ► me about large Silicon Valley companies.

00:00:55 ◼   ► Point number one is why did they think that anybody cares about their branding?

00:01:01 ◼   ► Like Evernote had an app update, right?

00:01:05 ◼   ► In which the notes were saying like, "Oh, have you noticed anything different?"

00:01:08 ◼   ► Like their whole release notes for their app update was focused around the fact that they

00:01:11 ◼   ► have a new icon with some new coloring inside of the application.

00:01:15 ◼   ► Like I don't think there was any new specific features that came along with this rebranding,

00:01:20 ◼   ► which is meant to have changed their focus.

00:01:23 ◼   ► They wanna reflect on their past

00:01:25 ◼   ► and go forward focusing on the fact

00:01:28 ◼   ► of remembering everything and they change their icon.

00:01:31 ◼   ► - Great, and what I want is markdown support and notes.

00:01:33 ◼   ► - So this is it.

00:01:34 ◼   ► Any big company that is really proud of their new app icon

00:01:39 ◼   ► can't talk about it if they're gonna upset their customers

00:01:43 ◼   ► because they don't have the features that they want.

00:01:46 ◼   ► These things, you do them because you're proud of it.

00:01:49 ◼   ► I understand that, but you need to be aware of the fact

00:01:52 ◼   ► that you're just gonna annoy everyone.

00:01:54 ◼   ► Everyone's just gonna be really annoyed at you.

00:01:57 ◼   ► But the second thing, the thing that annoys me most,

00:01:59 ◼   ► I want you to open this article,

00:02:01 ◼   ► and you scroll down to about halfway through the page.

00:02:03 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:02:04 ◼   ► - And you'll see this picture, it's a photo,

00:02:09 ◼   ► of a lot of pieces of paper stuck to a wall.

00:02:12 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:02:13 ◼   ► - And it's showing all of the different design routes

00:02:16 ◼   ► that this company called Design Studio went through when tasked with recreating...

00:02:21 ◼   ► Jesus, this is a long article. Where the hell is this? Oh, okay, man.

00:02:25 ◼   ► It's very long. It's, yeah, it's very long.

00:02:27 ◼   ► Who wants 10,000 words on Evernote's branding? Jesus.

00:02:32 ◼   ► So if you look at this picture, you'll see, like, this company went through a lot,

00:02:36 ◼   ► a lot of revisions, right? But, like, nothing really changed.

00:02:41 ◼   ► They got a new typeface, slightly different serif typeface, right?

00:02:46 ◼   ► the word mark and the logo is the same elephant just slightly rounded but if you take a look at

00:02:51 ◼   ► the wall you can see they they tried a lot of different things right yeah and this reminds me

00:02:59 ◼   ► of google remember when google redesigned their logo and like google's looks more different

00:03:05 ◼   ► but i remember there were these big articles and these big like photos showing like the design

00:03:12 ◼   ► agency that they employed to look at it, had a bunch of like really drastic changes, but

00:03:18 ◼   ► the company ends up just going with something relatively simple. And it's like, I just

00:03:23 ◼   ► wonder how much money was spent on this.

00:03:26 ◼   ► I mean, all I can think of, this is literally a joke in the Silicon Valley show about, they

00:03:32 ◼   ► spend all of this money to go through all of these different designs and they end up

00:03:35 ◼   ► with just a logo that's a lowercase p like every other company.

00:03:40 ◼   ► Because if you look at this picture, there are some interesting roots here that you can

00:03:46 ◼   ► see.

00:03:47 ◼   ► Right at the very top there's a green line drawing of the logo that I really like.

00:03:56 ◼   ► And I just find this stuff so funny.

00:03:59 ◼   ► So you're really proud of your minuscule change to your branding, then have a fast company

00:04:06 ◼   ► come in and write this huge piece about it.

00:04:09 ◼   ► It's just like, I don't know who this is in service of, and I just find it really strange.

00:04:14 ◼   ► It is really strange. This is extra funny for me because had I known that Fast Company

00:04:22 ◼   ► would give this kind of promotion for subtly changing your logo, I would have gotten in

00:04:28 ◼   ► touch when I changed my logo earlier this year.

00:04:31 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. I remember the real harsh change that you made. You made an ever-nodesque change

00:04:38 ◼   ► to the CGP Grey logo.

00:04:40 ◼   ► - Oh, it was 100% an Evernote-esque change.

00:04:44 ◼   ► And I published it nowhere.

00:04:46 ◼   ► I commented on it nowhere because my feeling was

00:04:50 ◼   ► nobody is going to care except for me

00:04:54 ◼   ► and the few other people that were bothered

00:04:57 ◼   ► by some very minor design problems in the first logo.

00:05:02 ◼   ► - Because here's the thing,

00:05:02 ◼   ► I assume all of our listeners are saying now,

00:05:04 ◼   ► wait, what logo changed?

00:05:07 ◼   ► - Exactly, right.

00:05:08 ◼   ► Because you would never know, in the same way that,

00:05:10 ◼   ► had Evernote not changed the colors

00:05:13 ◼   ► and had just changed the picture of the elephant,

00:05:15 ◼   ► I don't think I would have ever noticed.

00:05:16 ◼   ► - Or if they never would have had this article go out,

00:05:18 ◼   ► everybody would have just thought that their new branding

00:05:21 ◼   ► was they inverted the colors.

00:05:22 ◼   ► You'd never know that there was a new logo on Workmark.

00:05:25 ◼   ► - Where's my article, Fast Company?

00:05:28 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:05:28 ◼   ► - It's so, I agree with you completely.

00:05:32 ◼   ► It would never have occurred to me,

00:05:34 ◼   ► I feel like I would have sounded like

00:05:36 ◼   ► some kind of huge a**hole if I wrote a big article on my blog about how I'm changing

00:05:41 ◼   ► my logo.

00:05:42 ◼   ► What you did is you just softened stuff up a little bit and changed some ways that it's

00:05:47 ◼   ► represented. It's still the little beaker and the gear, right? Like nothing really changed,

00:05:52 ◼   ► but it got refined.

00:05:53 ◼   ► There were some very, very slight asymmetries in the original logo that if you blew it up

00:05:59 ◼   ► to a thousand percent its size would become obvious, right? And so that's basically

00:06:04 ◼   ► what it was, like, okay, let's get these things changed and smoothed up. That's all it was.

00:06:09 ◼   ► I mean, it looks very different to me, but when I showed my wife the new logo next to the old one,

00:06:17 ◼   ► her first response was, "What's the difference? What are you showing me?"

00:06:18 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like Evan, though, right? Like, it's the same. You showed it to me, and at first I was like,

00:06:22 ◼   ► "Mmm." It's exactly the same!

00:06:27 ◼   ► This is the thing, right? Like, in my company, we really care about these things. Like, we really

00:06:34 ◼   ► care about visual design and trying to make things look really nice. I don't have a problem

00:06:39 ◼   ► with that. I think what I have a problem with is these really really large companies thinking

00:06:45 ◼   ► that people are going to care in a positive way. I think people care but they care negatively.

00:06:53 ◼   ► I don't think people get a good feeling from this because you see this thing that you probably

00:07:01 ◼   ► have some problems with because it's been around for so long now that Evernote's users,

00:07:05 ◼   ► I reckon they have a large percentage of their user base are in node with the product, like

00:07:09 ◼   ► you, right? And then you see like, is this what they're spending their time and money

00:07:14 ◼   ► on?

00:07:15 ◼   ► Yeah. Even if this is just a Skunk Works project, right, that that involved essentially 0.001%

00:07:23 ◼   ► of the company's time, it's not 0.01% of the article, like the article is the whole

00:07:29 ◼   ► the whole thing.

00:07:30 ◼   ► And I was aware of their description in the release notes

00:07:34 ◼   ► for when the new app came out.

00:07:35 ◼   ► - Notice anything different about us?

00:07:37 ◼   ► We've updated our look to reflect our renewed purpose,

00:07:40 ◼   ► helping you focus on what matters most.

00:07:42 ◼   ► But they didn't have any features that went along with this.

00:07:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, and again, as someone who,

00:07:47 ◼   ► as I'm sure we all remember,

00:07:49 ◼   ► uses Evernote so intensely that he ran up against

00:07:52 ◼   ► the fundamental engineering limits of the app,

00:07:54 ◼   ► is like, I open it up, like, this is no different.

00:07:56 ◼   ► Oh, there's a bit more white space.

00:07:58 ◼   ► Well, they changed the colors, and with that, the original version, they introduced a feature

00:08:03 ◼   ► that collected notes that people share with you, but that's not really got anything to

00:08:08 ◼   ► do with their new overarching vision.

00:08:11 ◼   ► It just seems so strange to me.

00:08:12 ◼   ► I would totally understand making a big song and dance out of this if they'd also made

00:08:17 ◼   ► some huge changes to the service, but they haven't.

00:08:21 ◼   ► This is a company disease.

00:08:22 ◼   ► It's like the time Dropbox changed their logo recently and they wanted to write a whole

00:08:25 ◼   ► big article about the Dropbox logo change, which read like a crazy person had written

00:08:31 ◼   ► it. It was so bizarre.

00:08:32 ◼   ► I have no problem with people taking pride in their branding and like spending time and

00:08:37 ◼   ► money on making it better, but don't assume anybody else cares.

00:08:41 ◼   ► Yeah, and especially for relatively minor changes. Like even the new Dropbox logo is

00:08:47 ◼   ► basically the same thing. The Evernote one is comically the same thing. I will give one

00:08:51 ◼   ► One more example, which to me is the worst way to do this.

00:08:55 ◼   ► So if you are the CEO of a Silicon Valley company, listen close.

00:09:01 ◼   ► Listen close to the tale of caution that was Yahoo's design rollout.

00:09:08 ◼   ► I don't know if you remember this mic, but perhaps this is before your time on the internet.

00:09:14 ◼   ► Yahoo decided to change their logo away from the,

00:09:19 ◼   ► oh boy, it wasn't the 90s internet super embarrassing

00:09:23 ◼   ► to a modern logo.

00:09:24 ◼   ► They did what I thought was the dumbest thing in the world,

00:09:27 ◼   ► which is they talked about this big logo competition.

00:09:30 ◼   ► And then for a week,

00:09:32 ◼   ► they kept showing on the Yahoo homepage,

00:09:37 ◼   ► the logos they weren't going to use

00:09:41 ◼   ► until the grand unveiling on the final day of the week

00:09:45 ◼   ► of the real new logo.

00:09:47 ◼   ► - So over the course of a week,

00:09:49 ◼   ► everyone got to pick their new favorite logo

00:09:51 ◼   ► and it has none of them.

00:09:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:09:54 ◼   ► But it's also like, hey, you're just opening yourself up

00:09:57 ◼   ► to what exactly happened.

00:09:59 ◼   ► What are the chances that everyone's going to agree

00:10:03 ◼   ► the one on Friday is better

00:10:04 ◼   ► than all the ones they've seen before?

00:10:05 ◼   ► Like, I've never seen a more guaranteed

00:10:09 ◼   ► to set yourself up for failure move from a company.

00:10:13 ◼   ► And it's like, "Oh, I really like the Tuesday logo."

00:10:15 ◼   ► Well, now the Friday logo has to be better than that.

00:10:19 ◼   ► And it can't possibly be because,

00:10:21 ◼   ► "Oh, I've gotten used to the Tuesday logo all day."

00:10:23 ◼   ► And then they change to the Wednesday logo

00:10:24 ◼   ► and go, "Oh, I don't like this at all."

00:10:26 ◼   ► And then by the time Friday rolls around,

00:10:28 ◼   ► I've already idealized in my head

00:10:31 ◼   ► how great that Tuesday logo was.

00:10:33 ◼   ► I don't know who was in charge of that campaign.

00:10:36 ◼   ► That is maybe one of just the most boneheaded

00:10:39 ◼   ► marketing decisions I've ever seen.

00:10:41 ◼   ► Like it was terrible.

00:10:43 ◼   ► - And so what we're trying to say is we're pleased

00:10:46 ◼   ► to announce the Cortex logo redesign contest.

00:10:49 ◼   ► It's what we've been building to this entire time.

00:10:52 ◼   ► So we're really excited to see what people put in the Reddit

00:10:55 ◼   ► for their re-imagining of the Cortex logo.

00:10:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, we're gonna pick a winner at the end of the year,

00:11:01 ◼   ► but every episode between now and then

00:11:03 ◼   ► is going to have some other logo on it, right?

00:11:05 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:11:08 ◼   ► How could this go wrong?

00:11:09 ◼   ► - It sounds like only a winning idea.

00:11:11 ◼   ► (laughing)

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00:12:57 ◼   ► I would like you to sum up the USB-C feedback that we've been receiving.

00:13:02 ◼   ► No, no.

00:13:03 ◼   ► My favorite was the amount of times we kept getting told about the fact that USB-C and

00:13:11 ◼   ► Thunderbolt 3 were different, even though we 100% addressed that on the show. But only is there a

00:13:16 ◼   ► symptom of the fact of how confusing it is that even though we spoke about it, people still

00:13:21 ◼   ► thought that we didn't speak about it, because it is a minefield.

00:13:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, I just, Myke is looking at some notes

00:13:29 ◼   ► that Past Gray wrote in the show notes.

00:13:33 ◼   ► A gray of two weeks ago that I don't even want

00:13:36 ◼   ► to think about because I don't want to get

00:13:41 ◼   ► into this minefield, but let me just try to summarize

00:13:44 ◼   ► and say that very helpful listeners in the comments

00:13:49 ◼   ► brought to my attention what turned out to be

00:13:53 ◼   ► one of the fundamental problems with my setup.

00:13:56 ◼   ► And it is that the Blackmagic eGPU

00:14:01 ◼   ► did not come with a 0.5 meter USB-C/Thunderbolt 3

00:14:06 ◼   ► fully powered cable.

00:14:08 ◼   ► - To screw you.

00:14:09 ◼   ► - Right, to screw me out of spite

00:14:12 ◼   ► or as could be understood, mere cheapness.

00:14:16 ◼   ► We could put in a one meter one,

00:14:18 ◼   ► but instead we're going to put in a half meter one.

00:14:21 ◼   ► No, the reason they did it is because to get the speeds required to use something like an eGPU

00:14:29 ◼   ► and an external monitor also plugged into that eGPU, the Thunderbolt 3 spec

00:14:36 ◼   ► only supports full speed at half meter or less long cables.

00:14:41 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:14:41 ◼   ► - Is it- am I right in thinking that it's that or you have to buy an incredibly expensive cable?

00:14:50 ◼   ► Is that right?

00:14:51 ◼   ► -Here's the thing.

00:14:52 ◼   ► If you are Pixar Studios or someone else like that,

00:14:57 ◼   ► you can get these crazy optical Thunderbolt cables.

00:15:02 ◼   ► -Okay. Why can't you get them?

00:15:04 ◼   ► -They are not priced in the realm of mortals.

00:15:07 ◼   ► -Oh.

00:15:08 ◼   ► -When you find a website that does not list the price

00:15:11 ◼   ► of the thing that you would like to purchase --

00:15:13 ◼   ► spoiler alert -- it's gonna be a pain in the ass,

00:15:16 ◼   ► and it's gonna be expensive to get.

00:15:17 ◼   ► -Whoa!

00:15:19 ◼   ► Wow! 10 meter Corning optical Thunderbolt cable on Amazon.

00:15:24 ◼   ► 307 pounds for a 10 meter cable?

00:15:30 ◼   ► My word!

00:15:33 ◼   ► Yeah, it's madness.

00:15:35 ◼   ► Oh, they're very expensive.

00:15:38 ◼   ► Yes, they are very expensive.

00:15:40 ◼   ► So my eGPU is now sitting on the desk.

00:15:43 ◼   ► The thing that I found out is the original setup that I was using

00:15:49 ◼   ► had a one meter cable going from my laptop down to the eGPU,

00:15:54 ◼   ► and then the thing that was really killing me, another one meter cable back from the eGPU to the monitor.

00:16:03 ◼   ► So this 5K display was trying to push all the pixels back and forth across two meters,

00:16:11 ◼   ► four times the acceptable length for the necessary data transfer.

00:16:17 ◼   ► And it was like, I wasn't crazy.

00:16:18 ◼   ► I couldn't, I wasn't able to get all the pixels

00:16:21 ◼   ► I thought I was supposed to get on the monitor.

00:16:23 ◼   ► And it turns out like, yes, if I use two half meter cables,

00:16:27 ◼   ► then I can get the full resolution.

00:16:29 ◼   ► Otherwise I was not getting the full resolution

00:16:31 ◼   ► on that screen.

00:16:32 ◼   ► It was maddening.

00:16:33 ◼   ► - You can use, you can daisy chain two half meter cables?

00:16:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, that seemed to be able to be under

00:16:38 ◼   ► whatever the limit was, but having two one meter cables,

00:16:43 ◼   ► obviously there must've been enough degradation

00:16:45 ◼   ► in the data that it wasn't working.

00:16:47 ◼   ► - I did just find out that you can buy these cables

00:16:51 ◼   ► on Apple's Hong Kong website.

00:16:54 ◼   ► - What, the optical cables?

00:16:56 ◼   ► - The Corning one, but you can't buy them on the UK site.

00:17:00 ◼   ► And that doesn't make sense to me.

00:17:03 ◼   ► - Too fast for the UK.

00:17:05 ◼   ► - I guess, it's very strange.

00:17:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, as a final thing, I got a ton of feedback

00:17:12 ◼   ► from people who were pointing out as well,

00:17:14 ◼   ► the thing that, I wish I had said it in the show,

00:17:17 ◼   ► but you never cover everything that you want to.

00:17:19 ◼   ► They go, "Hey, don't you know

00:17:22 ◼   ► "that there's a little lightning bolt on the cable

00:17:25 ◼   ► "that has thunderbolt support?

00:17:27 ◼   ► "Aren't you aware of this?"

00:17:28 ◼   ► The answer is yes.

00:17:29 ◼   ► - Well, this is what I was saying, right?

00:17:31 ◼   ► So this is the thing, I just said this,

00:17:33 ◼   ► and you've just said, this is how confusing it is, right?

00:17:36 ◼   ► I just said that. (laughs)

00:17:38 ◼   ► - I'm trying to make it as clear as possible

00:17:40 ◼   ► to the listeners who sent me all this feedback,

00:17:43 ◼   ► like, look for it.

00:17:44 ◼   ► And what I want to say is, the problem with the cables,

00:17:49 ◼   ► it's not just all the specs, it's the flakiness.

00:17:53 ◼   ► So I found out after that show, that by like, again,

00:17:58 ◼   ► doing this ridiculous A/B testing of hardware,

00:18:02 ◼   ► that I have a bunch of USB 3.0 Lightning cables

00:18:05 ◼   ► that just don't work, right?

00:18:06 ◼   ► Like they're not transferring the data

00:18:08 ◼   ► at the rate that they're supposed to.

00:18:10 ◼   ► - 'Cause this is the problem,

00:18:11 ◼   ► a cable that is broken isn't completely broken.

00:18:14 ◼   ► - That's exactly it.

00:18:15 ◼   ► All of them still support the power,

00:18:18 ◼   ► but I had USB-C Thunderbolt cables

00:18:21 ◼   ► that were clearly not actually able to communicate

00:18:23 ◼   ► with peripherals with Thunderbolt speeds.

00:18:26 ◼   ► So I was like, great, it's great.

00:18:27 ◼   ► Whatever you guys, I don't even know where these cables,

00:18:30 ◼   ► like I'm not, I don't know,

00:18:31 ◼   ► I'm not pointing fingers at any manufacturers.

00:18:33 ◼   ► All I know is like, I got this bucket of expensive cables

00:18:36 ◼   ► and some portion of them don't even work

00:18:38 ◼   ► as advertised by the little lightning bolt on them.

00:18:40 ◼   ► So again, TL;DR, USB-C is f*cking garbage and I hate it.

00:18:47 ◼   ► So, Gray, I thought to myself that it would be fun to do some Ask Cortex today, because

00:18:54 ◼   ► we haven't done it in a while.

00:18:55 ◼   ► So while I was preparing for the episode, I thought I would tweet from the @CortexPodcast

00:19:00 ◼   ► Twitter account, "Hey, why don't we get some #AskCortex questions?"

00:19:04 ◼   ► Oh, we got a lot.

00:19:06 ◼   ► I think people have been waiting for this segment to come back.

00:19:08 ◼   ► We got lots and lots of questions.

00:19:11 ◼   ► - It did seem like there had been a bit of a buildup.

00:19:13 ◼   ► - Yes, I wanna just chip away at some of those

00:19:16 ◼   ► by basically devoting the rest of this entire episode

00:19:19 ◼   ► to #AskCortex.

00:19:21 ◼   ► - We gotta clear the Cortex-dex.

00:19:22 ◼   ► - We're not gonna clear it, I can tell you that.

00:19:25 ◼   ► - No, we can clear it, we can clear it, Myke.

00:19:26 ◼   ► - All right, so buckle up for six hours.

00:19:29 ◼   ► - At least an hour before I really need to go,

00:19:31 ◼   ► so I'm sure we can get all this out.

00:19:33 ◼   ► - Okay, we may get through 2% of the questions I have.

00:19:37 ◼   ► All right, then let's kick off #AskCortac

00:19:40 ◼   ► so this question from John,

00:19:41 ◼   ► which is one that I've actually seen a bunch of times,

00:19:43 ◼   ► so I think it might be a good one to start with.

00:19:46 ◼   ► What, if any, personal budgeting software

00:19:49 ◼   ► or tracking do you use?

00:19:51 ◼   ► - Oh, for personal stuff? - Yeah.

00:19:53 ◼   ► - My wife and I have a system that just uses a spreadsheet,

00:19:58 ◼   ► and it's something that we have done

00:20:00 ◼   ► as long as we've been married.

00:20:04 ◼   ► actually, I guess before we were even married,

00:20:07 ◼   ► to split up bills.

00:20:09 ◼   ► But we just have it, it's not really complicated,

00:20:11 ◼   ► but it's just a basic spreadsheet that tracks

00:20:14 ◼   ► what are all the shared expenses and tallies them up.

00:20:19 ◼   ► The only, I don't know, I guess for listeners,

00:20:22 ◼   ► the only thing about it that's interesting

00:20:24 ◼   ► that I would recommend to couples to do

00:20:29 ◼   ► is that the spreadsheet does a little calculation

00:20:32 ◼   ► about what share of the bills we need to put into the common pot based on what our incomes

00:20:40 ◼   ► are.

00:20:41 ◼   ► So as we have spent a long time together, like our incomes have varied, like sometimes

00:20:45 ◼   ► she earns more than me and sometimes I've earned more than her.

00:20:49 ◼   ► And currently the situation where my income is quite variable, we just have this little

00:20:55 ◼   ► spreadsheet always do the thing where it's like, oh, well, if if she's earned 60% of

00:20:59 ◼   ► income then she pays 60% of the shared bills and if I'm earning 60% of the income this

00:21:04 ◼   ► month then I pay 60% of the shared bills.

00:21:07 ◼   ► I think it's a way that it just feels like a nice fair way to do it and it feels like

00:21:13 ◼   ► we're both contributing and it's worked really well for us over the whole course of our marriage.

00:21:21 ◼   ► So that's, it's pretty simple but that's just what we do.

00:21:24 ◼   ► What do you guys have?

00:21:25 ◼   ► We have the exact same thing.

00:21:27 ◼   ► We have a spreadsheet that Adina mostly manages because she's very good at

00:21:31 ◼   ► putting together spreadsheets, which has all of our bills.

00:21:35 ◼   ► And then we don't we we break it up slightly differently.

00:21:38 ◼   ► We just have a fixed percentage.

00:21:40 ◼   ► Like I pay a percentage and she pays a percentage and it's just the same.

00:21:43 ◼   ► Right. But again, it's like it's based on our income,

00:21:46 ◼   ► but it doesn't fluctuate so differently.

00:21:48 ◼   ► And that's kind of how we manage all of our shared expenses.

00:21:51 ◼   ► It's just through this sheet.

00:21:53 ◼   ► So every month I take a look at the sheet, I see what my total is and I transfer that

00:21:57 ◼   ► to our joint account and that's where all our bills come out of.

00:22:00 ◼   ► And that's just kind of how that works.

00:22:02 ◼   ► For myself, I don't have any budgeting for my own personal money.

00:22:08 ◼   ► I wasn't very good with money when I was younger and got myself into some sticky situations

00:22:15 ◼   ► as a younger man.

00:22:17 ◼   ► So I have gotten a lot better at just frequently checking my bank accounts and just understanding

00:22:24 ◼   ► what I've got and spending responsibly.

00:22:27 ◼   ► I know that there are a lot of tools that exist and especially now there are more and

00:22:31 ◼   ► more of them because of some changes to the way that banking information is shared legally

00:22:37 ◼   ► and at least in the UK.

00:22:40 ◼   ► You may have noticed recently there are a lot more services that exist where you can

00:22:44 ◼   ► sign in with your internet banking information for your bank and it can track your accounts.

00:22:49 ◼   ► This is because there was some legislation changes.

00:22:52 ◼   ► I didn't realize that, yeah, because for years you could never get anything like that in

00:22:55 ◼   ► the UK.

00:22:56 ◼   ► These things do exist and they can be good.

00:22:58 ◼   ► I don't have any that I can personally recommend because I just don't use them.

00:23:02 ◼   ► I do think that it is important for people to have some kind of budgeting practice in

00:23:06 ◼   ► mind.

00:23:07 ◼   ► It can just be as simple as just writing what you have and what you're spending.

00:23:11 ◼   ► It can be very simple or you can have an app or you can do what I do.

00:23:15 ◼   ► It's just I look at my bank balances.

00:23:17 ◼   ► That's really interesting to hear about that with the change in the banking laws.

00:23:20 ◼   ► I think I'll be curious to look into that because I've tried on occasion to use a

00:23:27 ◼   ► more formal system from my wife and I and from my own expenses and for her expenses,

00:23:35 ◼   ► but it's always just been too heavyweight.

00:23:38 ◼   ► It's like, oh, this is too much solution,

00:23:40 ◼   ► where it's just like a basic spreadsheet covers 95%

00:23:43 ◼   ► of the things that you care about and expenses.

00:23:46 ◼   ► So, but yeah, if there's more automated solutions available,

00:23:50 ◼   ► I'll be curious to look into that.

00:23:51 ◼   ► - Oh, that stuff's gonna get,

00:23:53 ◼   ► it's getting severely productized right now.

00:23:56 ◼   ► Like there's gonna be more and more of these things.

00:23:58 ◼   ► It's from banks and from startups.

00:24:01 ◼   ► - Great.

00:24:02 ◼   ► - There is like a whole industry that's been created

00:24:04 ◼   ► around this stuff now.

00:24:05 ◼   ► so you're going to get used to seeing these things a lot.

00:24:08 ◼   ► Marut wants to know,

00:24:11 ◼   ► how did you both decide which business ideas to pursue?

00:24:15 ◼   ► Did you love the type of work

00:24:16 ◼   ► that you're doing now beforehand,

00:24:18 ◼   ► or did you just find out that you were good at it?

00:24:21 ◼   ► Funnily enough, Marut's second part of his question,

00:24:25 ◼   ► I think sum up both of our approaches

00:24:27 ◼   ► for our current businesses, right?

00:24:29 ◼   ► I found something I loved,

00:24:31 ◼   ► you found something you were good at.

00:24:33 ◼   ► Yeah, this question makes me feel like a monster because...

00:24:38 ◼   ► I hate what I do and I'm not good at it, but I'm successful and that's it.

00:24:43 ◼   ► Just follow my lead.

00:24:48 ◼   ► When this comes up, this is where you get to be the person that people want to be.

00:24:55 ◼   ► Right?

00:24:56 ◼   ► You have the clearly winning story, right?

00:25:00 ◼   ► Because you had a thing that you loved and you pursued success in that field and you achieved success in that field.

00:25:09 ◼   ► Right.

00:25:10 ◼   ► And that's what people want.

00:25:11 ◼   ► Okay, but now I'm going to argue on your side.

00:25:13 ◼   ► I think that your path is the path that people should actually aim to achieve.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Oh, no, I agree with you there.

00:25:19 ◼   ► People should be more like me.

00:25:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I think the world is filled with fools like you, yes.

00:25:24 ◼   ► Yes, yes.

00:25:25 ◼   ► I believe that people can achieve what they want to achieve.

00:25:30 ◼   ► The problem is a lot of people understandably don't want to do what I did,

00:25:34 ◼   ► which was ruin my life for five years, right?

00:25:37 ◼   ► Until I got to where I am because I hated everything about my job because I just

00:25:43 ◼   ► had a job that I hated and didn't bother to move because all I cared about was

00:25:48 ◼   ► just trying to do what I wanted to do as opposed to actually maybe trying to

00:25:52 ◼   ► find something that was a little bit more comfortable for the work that I had to

00:25:55 ◼   ► do to earn money.

00:25:57 ◼   ► and then just ruined all of my personal relationships

00:26:01 ◼   ► 'cause I never had any free time, right?

00:26:03 ◼   ► Like this is stuff that people, by and large, shouldn't do.

00:26:06 ◼   ► But for a lot of people, unfortunately,

00:26:08 ◼   ► is the way that you get to doing the thing you wanna do.

00:26:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, no, no, Myke, you don't understand

00:26:14 ◼   ► because most people would have found you

00:26:17 ◼   ► when you were already successful,

00:26:20 ◼   ► like the anthropic principle, right?

00:26:21 ◼   ► Like they found you when you were successful

00:26:23 ◼   ► because that's when they would find you.

00:26:25 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:26:26 ◼   ► So that is the moment upon which you were just birthed into the universe in the successful

00:26:31 ◼   ► hole that you are.

00:26:34 ◼   ► That's how that works.

00:26:35 ◼   ► But anyway, to get back on track, I think that it is better for people to, and people

00:26:41 ◼   ► will I think overall be happier in their lives if they follow the CGP Grey method of finding

00:26:46 ◼   ► a thing that you're good at and then doing it.

00:26:49 ◼   ► also an additional problem here, which is, you know, you as a successful podcaster, you're

00:26:58 ◼   ► at the example of a thing that I just, I think people don't think about very clearly, which

00:27:05 ◼   ► is the odds of success in fields where everybody wants to go. And so, especially with like

00:27:14 ◼   ► podcasts are booming now.

00:27:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, 10 years ago or eight years ago,

00:27:18 ◼   ► they weren't as popular as they are now.

00:27:20 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:27:21 ◼   ► - So it was easier for me to get started.

00:27:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's also a thing that,

00:27:26 ◼   ► again, almost definitionally,

00:27:28 ◼   ► I'm less convinced about the easy to get started argument.

00:27:34 ◼   ► I tend to think it actually gets easier

00:27:36 ◼   ► to get started over time,

00:27:39 ◼   ► but what doesn't get easier is the probability of success

00:27:44 ◼   ► compared to everyone else entering the field.

00:27:47 ◼   ► You get more and more people entering this field

00:27:53 ◼   ► and you will have proportionately fewer

00:27:56 ◼   ► and fewer successes.

00:27:57 ◼   ► I worry when people get advice to just keep trying hard

00:28:04 ◼   ► in a field that has that kind of shape to it,

00:28:08 ◼   ► that everybody wants to do this thing.

00:28:11 ◼   ► - I think it's fine to,

00:28:13 ◼   ► and I can clarify my feeling on this a little bit more,

00:28:17 ◼   ► if you love doing a thing, like do it,

00:28:21 ◼   ► but don't necessarily try really hard to make it your job.

00:28:25 ◼   ► If you wanna have a podcast 'cause you like a thing

00:28:29 ◼   ► and you wanna talk about a thing,

00:28:31 ◼   ► by all means, do that thing if it's what you love,

00:28:35 ◼   ► but it can be really hard to then be like,

00:28:38 ◼   ► I love this, this needs to be my job.

00:28:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, that's the transition.

00:28:43 ◼   ► Because that wasn't how I started either, right?

00:28:45 ◼   ► Like I started him for many years,

00:28:47 ◼   ► just did it because I really loved it.

00:28:49 ◼   ► It seemed like a really fun thing to do.

00:28:52 ◼   ► And then over time became something that as I started

00:28:55 ◼   ► to get like a little traction, right?

00:28:58 ◼   ► Like it seemed like it was something that could maybe build

00:29:00 ◼   ► then I was like, oh, maybe imagine if, right?

00:29:04 ◼   ► And then that was when it then became

00:29:06 ◼   ► like a six year journey.

00:29:09 ◼   ► - Obviously I think the, if you're giving advice,

00:29:12 ◼   ► I think the CGP Grey path is the more universally

00:29:16 ◼   ► applicable advice, which is try to scan the horizon

00:29:20 ◼   ► for things that you're interested in,

00:29:24 ◼   ► that you might want to develop or see what works,

00:29:28 ◼   ► like place a bunch of bets on the table

00:29:30 ◼   ► and then double down on the bets that work.

00:29:33 ◼   ► And you can build up a positive feedback loop

00:29:37 ◼   ► on this thing.

00:29:38 ◼   ► And it also does have the problem of, again,

00:29:41 ◼   ► the perception of the way things work versus the reality of the way things work.

00:29:45 ◼   ► So I will say though, this isn't all I do, right? I also run a business, sell ads. That's

00:29:53 ◼   ► a thing that I'm just good at. It's not necessarily my dream. I didn't dream that I would sell

00:30:02 ◼   ► advertising. But that's actually just a skill that I had, which I built up over years of

00:30:09 ◼   ► of working in a big company and eventually transitioning into a marketing role.

00:30:14 ◼   ► I learned some of the skills of how you talk to people, how you sell something,

00:30:19 ◼   ► how you convince someone that this is a good bet for them to take a chance on you.

00:30:23 ◼   ► Right. Like I learned these skills working for a big corporation in a marketing department.

00:30:28 ◼   ► So then it eventually was like, oh, I shouldn't just do this.

00:30:32 ◼   ► I should also do the business part of this.

00:30:36 ◼   ► Right. And that was when it transitioned for me because I found something I was good at

00:30:42 ◼   ► and was able to couple that with a thing that I loved and then it progressed into something

00:30:48 ◼   ► that was successful. I would not be where I am right now if I didn't do that other part of it.

00:30:53 ◼   ► That's an excellent point and in my own way I can mirror that simply from

00:30:59 ◼   ► recognizing that I had some above average ability to explain things when I was younger,

00:31:05 ◼   ► like people would make remarks like, "Oh, that's a really good comparison."

00:31:09 ◼   ► But that tiny little seed then grows up into,

00:31:14 ◼   ► "Oh, when I'm older and I'm flailing around and I have no idea what to do for money

00:31:17 ◼   ► and like, it's like I'm going to starve to death, like what job am I going to do?"

00:31:21 ◼   ► It's like, well, teaching ticks a lot of boxes.

00:31:24 ◼   ► One of those boxes is, "I think I'm pretty good at explaining things just naturally."

00:31:29 ◼   ► And then like the marketing thing,

00:31:31 ◼   ► "Well, now I'm in a job where I'm doing this all day long,

00:31:33 ◼   ► Like I'm spending all day long talking to people

00:31:35 ◼   ► and having to explain things and getting multiple passes

00:31:38 ◼   ► at trying to explain the same thing

00:31:40 ◼   ► and developing a skill that started out as like,

00:31:45 ◼   ► oh, maybe you were like a little better than average

00:31:47 ◼   ► in the population on this.

00:31:49 ◼   ► But now after several years of teaching,

00:31:51 ◼   ► it's like, oh, you've developed this thing

00:31:52 ◼   ► into a much better than average skill.

00:31:56 ◼   ► And that then, you know,

00:31:59 ◼   ► now that you have a much better than average skill,

00:32:02 ◼   ► maybe there are other ways to apply this into work

00:32:07 ◼   ► that is overall more well-suited to your personality

00:32:10 ◼   ► than teaching is.

00:32:12 ◼   ► But yeah, but you can take things

00:32:15 ◼   ► that you just happen to have a little bit more interest

00:32:17 ◼   ► or skill in and develop them over time

00:32:21 ◼   ► into things that are beneficial to you.

00:32:25 ◼   ► I just wanna say, because I always worry about it,

00:32:30 ◼   ► It's like, you do need to have in mind very strongly the idea of what is useful or interesting to other people.

00:32:41 ◼   ► Like, that is really the key feature when you're trying to build something or build a career or build a company or do anything is,

00:32:50 ◼   ► I just very often come across people who are super interested in the thing that they're super interested in,

00:32:56 ◼   ► and then naturally assume that everybody else

00:32:59 ◼   ► is also going to be interested in seeing them

00:33:01 ◼   ► do the thing that they're working on.

00:33:03 ◼   ► And you've got to have your antenna up for

00:33:06 ◼   ► what is the world interested in?

00:33:09 ◼   ► Or like, or what does the world want?

00:33:12 ◼   ► - Marketable skills.

00:33:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, the world doesn't care about you, spoiler alert.

00:33:17 ◼   ► Like the world cares about what you can do for it.

00:33:21 ◼   ► And like, that's, you gotta follow that easy path.

00:33:24 ◼   ► Like, don't try to make the whole world care about you.

00:33:27 ◼   ► Do something that the world can be interested in or that benefits it.

00:33:32 ◼   ► [Music]

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00:36:24 ◼   ► of this show and Relay FM and I guess one day I hope we'll see Grey again.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Mark wants to know, Grey, and I'm actually interested in this, are there any updates

00:36:34 ◼   ► to your Mac and iPad setup change since episode 63? And are you planning on buying any new

00:36:40 ◼   ► Macs or iPads this fall when hopefully some will be announced?"

00:36:45 ◼   ► This did actually make me think to myself when I saw this question. I feel like I don't

00:36:53 ◼   ► know why you went back to the Mac. I feel like it happened. And we kind of said it happened.

00:37:03 ◼   ► you were very upset at that time. I was very upset. Yeah, I'm not upset anymore. So like,

00:37:08 ◼   ► I have a secondary part of this question, which is, can you sum up a little bit of why you did this?

00:37:15 ◼   ► And then talk about like, if there's been any major changes, and then you feel looking forward

00:37:20 ◼   ► to any potential new hardware. Okay, so many levels in this. The first thing is episode 63.

00:37:28 ◼   ► I'm thinking, like, am I supposed to know what that episode was?

00:37:31 ◼   ► -Yeah, I had an idea. -"Episode 63, Flower Garden"?

00:37:33 ◼   ► I assume this was when you broke the news to me, I think.

00:37:38 ◼   ► Yeah, well, I'm looking in the show notes.

00:37:40 ◼   ► Like, I have a diagram of my office in the show notes or something?

00:37:44 ◼   ► Like, it's, "Oh, okay."

00:37:46 ◼   ► Yeah, see, I remember that. This was when you broke the news to me.

00:37:50 ◼   ► -Right. -Because we were going through

00:37:52 ◼   ► your new office setup,

00:37:54 ◼   ► and I realized there was no iPad in it anymore, really.

00:37:58 ◼   ► And that was when it all came crashing down around me.

00:38:02 ◼   ► That you'd suckered me in to this multi-pad lifestyle

00:38:06 ◼   ► and then just left me in the dust.

00:38:07 ◼   ► - No, I didn't sucker you in, right?

00:38:09 ◼   ► Look, you make decisions at the time

00:38:11 ◼   ► that are the sensible decisions,

00:38:12 ◼   ► but the world is not static.

00:38:14 ◼   ► Things change in the world.

00:38:16 ◼   ► - They sure do.

00:38:17 ◼   ► - And so you have to be willing to be, as I am,

00:38:21 ◼   ► bendable in the breeze.

00:38:23 ◼   ► You don't wanna be an oak tree.

00:38:25 ◼   ► - Here we go.

00:38:26 ◼   ► - You wanna be...

00:38:27 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:38:28 ◼   ► - Another nonsensical metaphor.

00:38:30 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:38:31 ◼   ► - You wanna be like the grass,

00:38:34 ◼   ► blowing with the wind, bending, adjusting with time,

00:38:38 ◼   ► not an inflexible oak tree.

00:38:39 ◼   ► Not that I'm saying that that's what you are, Myke.

00:38:42 ◼   ► Just slight tangent to this.

00:38:44 ◼   ► There is a phenomenon where when you say something

00:38:47 ◼   ► in a podcast, people expect it to be that way forever

00:38:51 ◼   ► for all time.

00:38:52 ◼   ► So that's actually- - It comes part

00:38:53 ◼   ► of who you are.

00:38:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm not really pushing you back against you.

00:38:56 ◼   ► I'm pushing back against this strange idea that,

00:38:59 ◼   ► like you say a thing,

00:39:01 ◼   ► and then people expect that to be the thing forever.

00:39:03 ◼   ► And it's like, episode 63 of Cortex,

00:39:06 ◼   ► I don't know who that guy was or what he was talking about.

00:39:08 ◼   ► I have nothing to do with him.

00:39:09 ◼   ► Like I'm making decisions for me.

00:39:11 ◼   ► I'm not making decisions for that guy.

00:39:13 ◼   ► Okay, let me try to answer the layers of your questions.

00:39:17 ◼   ► Why did I leave iPad and go to Mac?

00:39:20 ◼   ► Is that what we're asking here?

00:39:22 ◼   ► Is that what you want to know?

00:39:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think, I mean, I feel like I understand,

00:39:26 ◼   ► but it still doesn't make sense to me.

00:39:27 ◼   ► So I would, my belief is that you were unhappy

00:39:32 ◼   ► with some of the ways that interaction methods changed

00:39:37 ◼   ► in iOS 12.

00:39:38 ◼   ► - Yes. - iOS 11.

00:39:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, iOS 11, of course.

00:39:41 ◼   ► The most brief version is there were two aggravating factors

00:39:46 ◼   ► and the first was,

00:39:49 ◼   ► and I always feel the need to say this really clearly,

00:39:51 ◼   ► while I 100% agree with the decisions that Apple made

00:39:55 ◼   ► about how to change multitasking in the iPad

00:39:58 ◼   ► for the vast majority of users.

00:40:00 ◼   ► I think it was a great thing for them to do

00:40:04 ◼   ► and the correct decision.

00:40:05 ◼   ► It just didn't work for me.

00:40:07 ◼   ► And I found it extremely clunky

00:40:10 ◼   ► to be moving back and forth between apps.

00:40:13 ◼   ► Like that is the best word to describe it.

00:40:15 ◼   ► I just found it clunky to use.

00:40:19 ◼   ► But I was still sticking with it

00:40:21 ◼   ► until the real stake through the heart of using iOS

00:40:26 ◼   ► as the primary platform was getting my iPhone X

00:40:32 ◼   ► that by the way, I totally love

00:40:35 ◼   ► and is the phone that I've been the most happy with

00:40:38 ◼   ► for years from Apple.

00:40:40 ◼   ► But at that time, there were just enough differences

00:40:44 ◼   ► between how iOS worked on the iPad versus on the phone

00:40:48 ◼   ► that were any of them a big deal?

00:40:51 ◼   ► No, but I found myself constantly frustrated

00:40:55 ◼   ► moving back and forth between the two of them

00:40:57 ◼   ► about what brings up multitasking?

00:41:00 ◼   ► Where is control center?

00:41:02 ◼   ► Now, it seems like some of those things

00:41:05 ◼   ► have been ironed out.

00:41:07 ◼   ► - They have been.

00:41:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, but it doesn't change that that caused me

00:41:11 ◼   ► to really rethink at the time,

00:41:15 ◼   ► like what devices am I going to use?

00:41:17 ◼   ► And it also happened to coincide with me really

00:41:22 ◼   ► doing a separate big rethink about

00:41:25 ◼   ► what do I want my physical spaces to be,

00:41:28 ◼   ► and realizing that one way that I could improve

00:41:30 ◼   ► a bunch of workspaces is by having larger screens

00:41:35 ◼   ► to work on in more dedicated, less mobile spaces.

00:41:41 ◼   ► And so it was a combination of all of these factors

00:41:44 ◼   ► coming together.

00:41:45 ◼   ► And I do have to say that I feel very comfortable

00:41:50 ◼   ► in my decision because it's been a long time now

00:41:54 ◼   ► and Apple still has not changed

00:41:56 ◼   ► the basic multitasking features on the iPad in iOS 12.

00:42:00 ◼   ► So again, it's that situation of,

00:42:02 ◼   ► if you don't like a thing,

00:42:03 ◼   ► you might have to live with it for two years.

00:42:05 ◼   ► And there's been a couple of changes

00:42:08 ◼   ► with the way the pencil works in iWork apps on the iPad,

00:42:12 ◼   ► which drives me crazy.

00:42:14 ◼   ► - They changed that back.

00:42:15 ◼   ► Oh, did they change it back?

00:42:16 ◼   ► Okay.

00:42:17 ◼   ► Yeah, there's now a setting.

00:42:18 ◼   ► Thank God, because I couldn't deal with numbers on the iPad that way, and it felt like, "Oh,

00:42:22 ◼   ► they're trying to do this thing again that I hate."

00:42:24 ◼   ► I think it's right that they have the method that they have, like being able to draw whenever

00:42:28 ◼   ► you want, but they have also added in a setting for you to be able to change it back again.

00:42:32 ◼   ► Great.

00:42:33 ◼   ► I'm gonna change that on my devices.

00:42:35 ◼   ► But yeah, so anyway, that's what it is.

00:42:38 ◼   ► But the big prime killer is the way multitasking work.

00:42:42 ◼   ► just didn't work for me and I found like it was getting in my way and I was doing too

00:42:46 ◼   ► much work with the system as an instead of like on the thing that I wanted to do.

00:42:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I should also say I have grown over time too, uh, in that now I am happy to accept

00:42:57 ◼   ► this as part of my personality as opposed to a shared personality that we need to have.

00:43:03 ◼   ► So I am now fine with the fact that you moved away from the iPad to the Mac because it's

00:43:09 ◼   ► okay for me to stay where I am.

00:43:11 ◼   ► Now you can own the multi-iPad lifestyle wholly and completely.

00:43:15 ◼   ► Yeah, the multi-iPad lifestyle is mine now. Because you don't do it anymore, I don't

00:43:19 ◼   ► think. Or at least not in the way in which it was created, right? Which was the idea

00:43:24 ◼   ► of it's not just you have them, you have them and you use them and you use them all

00:43:28 ◼   ► the time.

00:43:29 ◼   ► Yeah, no. My iPad use has dramatically shrunk to just a couple of particular things.

00:43:35 ◼   ► Like it used to be, really, I think, when we started. I think you are now kind of have

00:43:40 ◼   ► full circle really in that you have iPads and you use them but for specific purposes

00:43:48 ◼   ► and then we both shifted to we use them for all the time everything and then you have

00:43:54 ◼   ► kind of gone back again.

00:43:57 ◼   ► So do you plan to buy new products this year?

00:44:03 ◼   ► For one, do you want any new Macs?

00:44:06 ◼   ► Or the idea of any new Macs excite you?

00:44:09 ◼   ► And all these new potential iPads with Face ID and they're going to have bigger screens

00:44:15 ◼   ► or smaller physical bodies and incredible new technology.

00:44:19 ◼   ► Do you ever hear these product areas excite you?

00:44:21 ◼   ► Now, I think I'm going to be passing on new iPads for the first time in a long time.

00:44:28 ◼   ► Just because my use is so relatively limited.

00:44:32 ◼   ► - I don't feel that this is a purchase

00:44:37 ◼   ► that makes sense right now.

00:44:40 ◼   ► So I think I'm gonna be passing on it,

00:44:42 ◼   ► which is a shock, like it's the first time in a while.

00:44:45 ◼   ► I was really hoping out for what I think of as iPad micro,

00:44:51 ◼   ► which would have been the big phone

00:44:53 ◼   ► with the Apple Pencil support,

00:44:56 ◼   ► but that has been sadly pretty much confirmed

00:44:59 ◼   ► as not gonna happen.

00:45:00 ◼   ► I would have loved that.

00:45:02 ◼   ► And I would have used that as like a little iPad micro,

00:45:05 ◼   ► but no, as far as big iPads go,

00:45:08 ◼   ► I don't think I'm gonna be doing that.

00:45:10 ◼   ► - We'll see.

00:45:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, I never make promises for my future self,

00:45:15 ◼   ► but when I think of purchases,

00:45:16 ◼   ► it's not like the phone, which is a guaranteed,

00:45:19 ◼   ► like when the new phone comes out for sure,

00:45:21 ◼   ► that's what I'll be getting.

00:45:23 ◼   ► - So Shivam wants to know,

00:45:25 ◼   ► what is one piece of technology that you've acquired in 2018

00:45:27 ◼   ► that has made your life easier?

00:45:29 ◼   ► So for me, I've been trying to improve my working posture in different ways,

00:45:34 ◼   ► because I feel like I'm getting some ergonomic impact from the way that I've

00:45:42 ◼   ► been using my devices, especially my iOS devices, both my iPhone and my iPad.

00:45:47 ◼   ► I think I'm spending far too much time with my head looking down and I've been

00:45:52 ◼   ► trying to find some ways to combat that.

00:45:54 ◼   ► And two products have entered my life recently which have been helpful, I think.

00:46:01 ◼   ► One is an iPad stand called the Tabitha stand, which is a stand from this company,

00:46:09 ◼   ► I think called Colbrook Boston Saunders.

00:46:12 ◼   ► They're very much a "we will supply your new office with a bunch of equipment"

00:46:17 ◼   ► company, right?

00:46:18 ◼   ► Right.

00:46:19 ◼   ► But they do sell some products individually to consumers.

00:46:22 ◼   ► And this stand is really nice.

00:46:24 ◼   ► It's adjustable to all different types of tablet size.

00:46:27 ◼   ► It's got a good weighted base and I can bring my iPad up to a pretty high height

00:46:32 ◼   ► to kind of like the eye level height that I would want.

00:46:35 ◼   ► So I've been really happy with this.

00:46:37 ◼   ► Yeah, and I use it with a magic keyboard and my Apple pencil.

00:46:41 ◼   ► So if I'm at any desk with my iPad, I can use it and it's really great.

00:46:45 ◼   ► And I've been really happy with it.

00:46:47 ◼   ► It makes me feel comfortable to use the device.

00:46:50 ◼   ► So I've been happy with that.

00:46:51 ◼   ► And a company called Bridge, they make a keyboard product for the iPad Pro

00:46:57 ◼   ► to turn it into kind of like a laptop.

00:47:00 ◼   ► And they just had a new version came out and they sent me they sent me it

00:47:04 ◼   ► because I had some problems with the first version.

00:47:08 ◼   ► Basically, I couldn't get one to reliably work.

00:47:10 ◼   ► And they said they fixed this and they sent me one.

00:47:12 ◼   ► And I absolutely love it.

00:47:15 ◼   ► So if I don't have my iPad in the tab of the stand, like if I want to work

00:47:20 ◼   ► on the couch, I now have a keyboard that basically turns my iPad Pro into a laptop because it

00:47:28 ◼   ► has an adjustable hinge.

00:47:30 ◼   ► Man, that is very cool looking.

00:47:33 ◼   ► It is really, really good.

00:47:35 ◼   ► So I would say, especially considering you are not thinking about changing your iPad

00:47:39 ◼   ► Pro, because I mean, I worry for a company that debuts a new version of a product like

00:47:46 ◼   ► two weeks before Apple unveils new versions of that product.

00:47:49 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. There's a bunch of companies that do that. They always feel like, "Ooh, is

00:47:53 ◼   ► now the time to debut your iPhone battery pack case?" Like, this seems like a bad time

00:47:59 ◼   ► to do that.

00:48:00 ◼   ► But nevertheless, they have, and I will say for you, especially because you're not thinking

00:48:04 ◼   ► about upgrading, you should get one of these because it is… the form factor is incredible,

00:48:10 ◼   ► right? Like turning an iPad into a laptop form factor is wonderful. The keyboard's

00:48:14 ◼   ► really good. It has backlighting, very long battery life on Bluetooth.

00:48:18 ◼   ► And but it's the adjustable hinge that makes it you know, you can you can

00:48:23 ◼   ► basically go from having it at 90 degrees or like 180 degrees, which is

00:48:29 ◼   ► really, really, really nice.

00:48:31 ◼   ► I like it a lot. So there are two things for my kind of iPad home setup that

00:48:36 ◼   ► I've really, really enjoyed.

00:48:37 ◼   ► They made a big impact to my kind of work and comfort over the last couple of

00:48:40 ◼   ► months.

00:48:41 ◼   ► I'm going to go with Roomba.

00:48:42 ◼   ► I'm going to go with Roomba.

00:48:44 ◼   ► little friend. Did you see that the Amazon put Roomba on sale like two days after our

00:48:49 ◼   ► episode went up?

00:48:50 ◼   ► I think they did it because their algorithms picked up that people were buying Roombas.

00:48:54 ◼   ► I think that's probably what happened. A couple of my friends bought Roombas, so it definitely

00:48:58 ◼   ► happened.

00:48:59 ◼   ► I've gotten a number of texts related to Roombas.

00:49:01 ◼   ► There you go, see? Roomba fever sweep in the nation.

00:49:05 ◼   ► Roomba revolution.

00:49:06 ◼   ► And making it very clean.

00:49:09 ◼   ► Andrew wants to know, between the two of us, who would be the most capable in surviving

00:49:14 ◼   ► a few days in the woods with just a knife and matches?

00:49:17 ◼   ► Oh, this is a very different Ask Cortex kind of question.

00:49:20 ◼   ► Yup. We get some of these every now and then, and a lot of them are like who would win in

00:49:24 ◼   ► a fight and stuff like that, but I like this one specifically. I think I know the answer

00:49:29 ◼   ► to this, and I wonder what you think.

00:49:33 ◼   ► Well, we're both really ill-prepared for this challenge, I think.

00:49:38 ◼   ► Yes, both of us are very, very...

00:49:41 ◼   ► I think that's what makes this question specifically very interesting,

00:49:44 ◼   ► because we are both wildly mismatched to survive in the woods.

00:49:48 ◼   ► Like, the woods has a big advantage over the two of us.

00:49:52 ◼   ► Yeah, in this man versus nature conflict, bet on nature.

00:49:56 ◼   ► I think if you were going to make a bet out of the two of us, I would put my money on you.

00:50:01 ◼   ► Because I think you have a stronger "I need to stay alive" instinct than I do.

00:50:08 ◼   ► I feel like I would more quickly give up.

00:50:10 ◼   ► - As with all theoretical questions,

00:50:12 ◼   ► the boundaries really matter on this.

00:50:16 ◼   ► But I would bet on me simply because

00:50:20 ◼   ► I'm in ketosis right now,

00:50:22 ◼   ► which gives you a real big advantage

00:50:24 ◼   ► in not needing to eat and still being able to function.

00:50:29 ◼   ► So I think if we got teleported into the woods right now,

00:50:35 ◼   ► We're both equally unprepared, but I have like a slight, a slight ketosis buff that

00:50:41 ◼   ► might edge it out for me lasting longer than you.

00:50:44 ◼   ► Well, I had a big lunch.

00:50:47 ◼   ► So we'll see on that one, I guess.

00:50:52 ◼   ► John says, "Do you have any advice for people that are trying to put out productivity garbage

00:50:57 ◼   ► fires?

00:50:58 ◼   ► Cortex is very insightful, but often feels like it's targeted at people who are polishing

00:51:03 ◼   ► maybe a well-practiced regiment. What advice do you have for people who are several steps

00:51:09 ◼   ► below that?

00:51:10 ◼   ► Ooh. Okay, you need to start with this one, Myke.

00:51:14 ◼   ► Alright. So, I think one of the things why you may believe, if you're coming to this

00:51:18 ◼   ► show, that we are, like, well-practiced, is that before this show began, we both had the

00:51:25 ◼   ► basics of a system. And I think that that might be what John is missing. If you don't

00:51:31 ◼   ► have the basics of a system, I think a lot of the stuff we talk about might be unhelpful

00:51:35 ◼   ► to you. And I would say if you've not listened to the show from the start and you feel this

00:51:40 ◼   ► way, go back to the beginning. Because I think in the beginning, we focused a lot more on

00:51:44 ◼   ► the very basics, like calendars, just as a general idea, or to-do lists as a general

00:51:51 ◼   ► idea. You need these two things, I think. I think anybody that wants to be productive

00:51:57 ◼   ► needs a calendar and a to do list. And it can be anything. But I think that these two

00:52:01 ◼   ► things like fundamentals of what am I doing today? And what do I need to do today? And

00:52:08 ◼   ► they are two different things. Like, what are the commitments that I have? And what

00:52:13 ◼   ► do I want to get done? And you need these two things. And if even if that still seems

00:52:18 ◼   ► daunting to you, start with taking a pen and paper and writing out every day what you need

00:52:25 ◼   ► to do and what you want to do. And what this will do is help you understand what kind of

00:52:29 ◼   ► things keep popping up, but also help you understand that something that helps me is

00:52:36 ◼   ► I always feel like I have more going on than I actually do. And sometimes sitting down

00:52:40 ◼   ► and writing it down makes me realize I don't have as many things to do as I'm freaking

00:52:46 ◼   ► out about. So go to the very basics, which is like pen and paper, and then build yourself

00:52:51 ◼   ► up to getting a calendar and a to-do app or a reminders app or something and that will

00:52:56 ◼   ► start allowing you I think to get on the first rungs of the ladder.

00:53:02 ◼   ► There is one exception to the everyone needs a calendar and a to-do list app and that exception

00:53:07 ◼   ► is Jason Snell who only needs a calendar.

00:53:10 ◼   ► Uh-uh, no he uses a to-do list now, I broke him down.

00:53:13 ◼   ► Oh did you?

00:53:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:53:15 ◼   ► I thought he had abandoned that.

00:53:16 ◼   ► Oh okay.

00:53:17 ◼   ► No he's still using it.

00:53:18 ◼   ► still using Todoist, because again, over time it will get you. The more and more responsibilities

00:53:25 ◼   ► you have, you will end up needing both. I think that this is a thing for both people.

00:53:30 ◼   ► That's fantastic. I'm really glad you finally got the Snellatron on the to-do list,

00:53:35 ◼   ► Manager Train.

00:53:36 ◼   ► It can be anything, right? If you want to use Dew, our favorite app, DUE, which has

00:53:41 ◼   ► got a wonderful update, which I recommend people try out, even that is something, it's

00:53:46 ◼   ► It's just like having, using reminders or Google tasks or anything.

00:53:51 ◼   ► Just having a list of stuff that you do I think is really important, even if it's just

00:53:55 ◼   ► getting it out of your head.

00:53:58 ◼   ► That's point number one.

00:54:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:54:01 ◼   ► I mean, so this is a difficult question because productivity garbage fire.

00:54:08 ◼   ► It sounds real bad.

00:54:09 ◼   ► But a garbage fire to me sounds like a time when you just need to write it down.

00:54:15 ◼   ► Because garbage fire to me means you're panicking. And if you're panicking, I think that you

00:54:21 ◼   ► will make -- there is a potential, not always, but there is a potential that you're over

00:54:26 ◼   ► panicking about the situation that you're in.

00:54:28 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. Well, so I'm interpreting this question a little bit in the way of you aren't

00:54:34 ◼   ► panicking because you have nothing, like nothing to support you here. And, you know, maybe

00:54:42 ◼   ► not a situation like, oh, you know, you had things and it's all fallen apart, but you're

00:54:45 ◼   ► just, you're really starting from ground zero and recognizing it. And I know, and I

00:54:50 ◼   ► think, I think back to, you know, for me that the time when that happened in my life was

00:54:56 ◼   ► doing the teacher training where suddenly there were more things to do than I could

00:55:01 ◼   ► just casually keep track of in an unofficial manner. And it was like, oh, you're really

00:55:07 ◼   ► if you don't do this.

00:55:10 ◼   ► I 100% agree with your assessment about paper.

00:55:13 ◼   ► That's always my big push when I'm talking to people

00:55:15 ◼   ► is if you're overwhelmed, paper is the tool.

00:55:19 ◼   ► Don't fiddle around with the to-do list managers.

00:55:22 ◼   ► Like you don't, especially when you're at the beginning,

00:55:24 ◼   ► like you don't even know what you need

00:55:26 ◼   ► and paper is totally fine.

00:55:28 ◼   ► Yes, it lacks some features,

00:55:30 ◼   ► but that it's lack of features is a feature

00:55:34 ◼   ► when what you need is focus and calmness.

00:55:39 ◼   ► Like, just you, just the paper.

00:55:43 ◼   ► I'm also gonna say that this is going to be hard

00:55:48 ◼   ► for some people, but you think about who do you know

00:55:52 ◼   ► in your life who is a productive person,

00:55:57 ◼   ► who seems to get things done and executed well

00:56:02 ◼   ► and seems to have their life together.

00:56:04 ◼   ► Because if you're really starting from ground zero,

00:56:08 ◼   ► I think it helps tremendously to talk to someone

00:56:11 ◼   ► who is a productive person.

00:56:12 ◼   ► Most productive people are more than happy

00:56:15 ◼   ► to talk about what they do.

00:56:17 ◼   ► But on top of that, what I think is a real underlying thing

00:56:23 ◼   ► about productivity that's hard to recognize

00:56:29 ◼   ► when you're panicking is the 80/20 rule.

00:56:34 ◼   ► that you can be panicking about a million things,

00:56:37 ◼   ► but when you talk them over with somebody else,

00:56:41 ◼   ► it's often very easy for another person to see

00:56:46 ◼   ► that you are focused on a thing that doesn't matter

00:56:48 ◼   ► and you're ignoring a thing that does.

00:56:52 ◼   ► I don't know, when I see people

00:56:53 ◼   ► who are really stuck in their head

00:56:56 ◼   ► talking over what are the things

00:56:58 ◼   ► that they're trying to work on

00:56:59 ◼   ► and how are they trying to get a system together,

00:57:01 ◼   ► I think it's just really helpful

00:57:02 ◼   ► to have a second brain there,

00:57:06 ◼   ► who can sometimes point out to you like,

00:57:07 ◼   ► "Oh, you seem to be really concerned about this project,

00:57:10 ◼   ► but if this project was not successful,

00:57:13 ◼   ► like what's the downside?"

00:57:15 ◼   ► And then you say, "Oh, well, it's this minor thing."

00:57:17 ◼   ► It's like, "Okay, well,

00:57:18 ◼   ► if we're in a productivity dumpster fire,

00:57:20 ◼   ► then drop the thing where the downside doesn't matter

00:57:23 ◼   ► if it doesn't get completed.

00:57:24 ◼   ► And let's talk about like,

00:57:25 ◼   ► what are the things that have real downsides

00:57:27 ◼   ► if they don't get completed?"

00:57:28 ◼   ► And try to clear the decks that way.

00:57:30 ◼   ► But it's a very hard thing to do on your own

00:57:34 ◼   ► when you're panicking about things.

00:57:36 ◼   ► It's easier to do with somebody else.

00:57:38 ◼   ► And at least in my experience, productive people,

00:57:40 ◼   ► they enjoy talking about this kind of stuff

00:57:42 ◼   ► and they're very happy to help.

00:57:44 ◼   ► - You need someone to have a working lunch with, right?

00:57:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's really, that's exactly what it is.

00:57:50 ◼   ► It might not be easy to find someone like that,

00:57:53 ◼   ► but when people are acknowledged for like,

00:57:54 ◼   ► "Oh, hey, it seems like you, office mate,

00:57:57 ◼   ► you have your life really together.

00:57:59 ◼   ► Like, do you mind if I pick your brain on that a little bit?

00:58:00 ◼   ► I think people are usually respond positively to something like that.

00:58:03 ◼   ► A lot of reasonable sized corporate structures or large enough companies

00:58:08 ◼   ► would have some kind of mentor mentee type program.

00:58:11 ◼   ► Those types of things can be really helpful for stuff like this too.

00:58:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:16 ◼   ► Which is like a company way of defining some kind of relationship with somebody

00:58:20 ◼   ► that you deem to be professionally capable.

00:58:25 ◼   ► So that could be a way to find someone like that if you're struggling and such a thing is available to you.

00:58:30 ◼   ► [BEEP]

00:58:31 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is also brought to you by Simple Contacts.

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01:00:35 ◼   ► So talking about paper, to use paper you need a pen. Delano wants to know what is your currently

01:00:42 ◼   ► most used pen.

01:00:43 ◼   ► Look at that transition there, Myke.

01:00:46 ◼   ► I'm a professional.

01:00:49 ◼   ► What is your most currently used pen?

01:00:50 ◼   ► No, I want to know yours because it's too difficult for me. So I want to know what you

01:00:54 ◼   ► use. We're going to start with what you use. What is your most used pen?

01:00:57 ◼   ► I mean, uh...

01:00:58 ◼   ► You won't offend me, it's okay.

01:01:00 ◼   ► I don't know. I've got like a bucket of random pens somewhere in the house that I use maybe once a month and I grab something out of there.

01:01:10 ◼   ► Do they tend to be the same? Like do you buy just like one brand? Like one specific type of pen?

01:01:15 ◼   ► Would you just pick them up from all around the world?

01:01:18 ◼   ► This is where you want to know. Yeah there is. I go into Ryman and there's one pen that I like.

01:01:23 ◼   ► Okay. What does it look like? What brand is it?

01:01:27 ◼   ► Penbrand.

01:01:30 ◼   ► - Penbrand Cove.

01:01:32 ◼   ► - It's silver, it's one millimeter thick, black ink.

01:01:38 ◼   ► It's a ballpoint pen.

01:01:39 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:01:40 ◼   ► - That's as close as I can get at this point.

01:01:43 ◼   ► - Is it like Uniball?

01:01:44 ◼   ► - No.

01:01:46 ◼   ► - Pilot?

01:01:47 ◼   ► - I think Pilot, maybe it's Pilot.

01:01:52 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:01:52 ◼   ► - That sounds familiar.

01:01:54 ◼   ► - It's Rollable, you said?

01:01:55 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:01:57 ◼   ► you sure about that? I'm just asking, is it rollerball or ballpoint? Do you even know

01:02:01 ◼   ► the difference between the two?

01:02:03 ◼   ► Oh, I thought you were asking me if it's a rollerball or if it's a fountain pen and I

01:02:07 ◼   ► was going to say, well, I know it's not a fountain pen, so it must be a rollerball.

01:02:11 ◼   ► And then I'm out of pen technology.

01:02:13 ◼   ► Right, because it could be ballpoint, which is different.

01:02:15 ◼   ► Ball, maybe ballpoint?

01:02:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:02:18 ◼   ► I don't know. I feel very uncomfortable, Myke.

01:02:21 ◼   ► That's fine.

01:02:22 ◼   ► People will never want to know the specific anyway.

01:02:23 ◼   ► I don't really have one pen I use most.

01:02:27 ◼   ► - You're doing your rotation thing, right?

01:02:28 ◼   ► With the journal, right?

01:02:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause I rotate.

01:02:30 ◼   ► In my journal, I use different pens every day,

01:02:33 ◼   ► and when I write show notes and scribble stuff down,

01:02:35 ◼   ► I'll just grab whatever's around me.

01:02:37 ◼   ► I'm very much into a brand called Sailor right now.

01:02:40 ◼   ► They make very, very, very good fountain pens

01:02:43 ◼   ► at a range of prices,

01:02:44 ◼   ► and I really, really like what they make,

01:02:47 ◼   ► and I really kind of go in deeper than I should

01:02:51 ◼   ► into acquiring Sailor fountain pens.

01:02:53 ◼   ► but as kind of the best pen that I can recommend to people

01:02:57 ◼   ► on an everyday basis is the Retro 51,

01:03:01 ◼   ► which is, it contains my favorite refill,

01:03:05 ◼   ► which is a Schmidt refill, which is really, really good.

01:03:07 ◼   ► And so friends of mine, Studio Neat,

01:03:09 ◼   ► are making a pen based around that refill as well,

01:03:12 ◼   ► called the Mark 1, which is also, I have one of those

01:03:14 ◼   ► and I really like it because I really love the refill.

01:03:17 ◼   ► But I recommend people check out like the Retro 51

01:03:20 ◼   ► as a pen, 'cause you can get them

01:03:22 ◼   ► in a bunch of different styles,

01:03:23 ◼   ► and it's a cool pen, and it has a great refill.

01:03:26 ◼   ► You liked it for a little while.

01:03:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I did.

01:03:29 ◼   ► That was the one you had me try.

01:03:31 ◼   ► And when I'm in a mood where I think I'm going to

01:03:35 ◼   ► try to get into carrying a pocket notebook

01:03:37 ◼   ► and inevitably failing, because it's just like,

01:03:39 ◼   ► oh, there's no place in my life for this anymore.

01:03:42 ◼   ► But yeah, I would agree with that one.

01:03:44 ◼   ► I'm curious, can you explain to a layman such as myself,

01:03:48 ◼   ► You said the Sailor fountain pens are super nice.

01:03:51 ◼   ► What makes a fountain pen really nice to you?

01:03:57 ◼   ► What is the thing in the pen that attracts you?

01:04:00 ◼   ► - One is design.

01:04:01 ◼   ► So what is it shaped like and what are the colors?

01:04:07 ◼   ► Does it have any special flair to it?

01:04:09 ◼   ► I have some that have glitter in the plastic,

01:04:12 ◼   ► so they look really cool like that 'cause they're glittery.

01:04:16 ◼   ► I have some that are made with these incredible swirl patterns and stuff like that or they

01:04:20 ◼   ► mix together different materials. So I have some that are made like part acrylic plastic

01:04:25 ◼   ► and part metal, part aluminium or something like that. So there are many different things.

01:04:29 ◼   ► Then you get down to like the writing experience. So like how does the nib feel for you? So

01:04:36 ◼   ► when do you fountain pen nib? Like is it thin? Is it thick? What do you like on that? Does

01:04:40 ◼   ► it feel smooth? Does it feel scratchy? People like scratchy pens, people like smooth pens.

01:04:45 ◼   ► How does that feel? And then there's stuff like how does it feel to hold?

01:04:49 ◼   ► So like how balanced is it?

01:04:50 ◼   ► For example, like if you have a pen made out of a couple of different materials,

01:04:54 ◼   ► if the heavy materials on the end of the pen, it might not feel right to hold.

01:04:58 ◼   ► Right. Because then it's going to feel misbalanced.

01:05:01 ◼   ► You want most of the weight down the bottom because that's where you put in the

01:05:04 ◼   ► majority of pressure.

01:05:05 ◼   ► You know, so some pens that are made completely of metal don't feel right when

01:05:09 ◼   ► you hold them because they're heavy or they're misbalanced.

01:05:13 ◼   ► So those are kind of like the three different things.

01:05:16 ◼   ► So it's like the look, the way it performs and the way it feels to hold.

01:05:20 ◼   ► Like they're the three things.

01:05:21 ◼   ► And currently right now, the brand that knocks us out of the park every single

01:05:26 ◼   ► time for me is Sailor.

01:05:27 ◼   ► And this is why they've been around for hundreds of years.

01:05:31 ◼   ► You know, like they are a very, very, very well established brand in Japan.

01:05:37 ◼   ► So and that's why, because they are incredible.

01:05:42 ◼   ► So.

01:05:43 ◼   ► You have a lot of knowledge on this topic.

01:05:46 ◼   ► It seems like you should spin this off into some sort of pen-related podcast.

01:05:54 ◼   ► Funny you should say.

01:05:55 ◼   ► Do you have a pen podcast, Myke?

01:05:56 ◼   ► Yes, relay.fm/penaddict for the pen addict podcast.

01:06:00 ◼   ► Oh, people should go check that out then.

01:06:03 ◼   ► If you at all find what I've said to be interesting, even if you don't know what

01:06:07 ◼   ► I'm talking about, then yes, you should listen to the pen addict.

01:06:12 ◼   ► comes from James. James says, "I love listening to the Text Adventure episodes each year.

01:06:17 ◼   ► What do you enjoy most about playing those games?" Text Adventure episode you say? Well,

01:06:22 ◼   ► funny you should ask, James! I swear James is a real person. We did put out our Relay

01:06:28 ◼   ► FM membership special. If you're a Relay FM member, you will have gotten our Space Station

01:06:34 ◼   ► bonus special. You can still become a Relay FM member, you can click the link in the show

01:06:38 ◼   ► show notes to sign up to become a $5 a month member of Cortex. If you do this you get access

01:06:44 ◼   ► to all of our bonus perks, you get bonus episodes of this show and all of the other Relay FM

01:06:50 ◼   ► shows and a newsletter and a bunch of other great stuff. But you can sign up to support

01:06:55 ◼   ► any show at any level and you get all the same perks. You can go to relay.fm/membership

01:06:59 ◼   ► to learn more. But if you would like a taste of what Space Station had to offer, Gray put

01:07:05 ◼   ► together a wonderful video trailer that will be in our show notes as well so you can go

01:07:09 ◼   ► and take a look at that. If you have seen Space Station, even if you think you're not

01:07:14 ◼   ► interested, I implore you to go watch this trailer because it's brilliant. If anything,

01:07:18 ◼   ► just for a visual treat. I absolutely love it. You can go and watch that. So I'll ask

01:07:24 ◼   ► you, Gray, because the text adventure I remember originally was something I really had to sell

01:07:30 ◼   ► you on and it took some time.

01:07:31 ◼   ► I was very resistant to this idea.

01:07:33 ◼   ► But now, it almost feels like you look forward to them.

01:07:37 ◼   ► So I would like to know what you enjoy most about playing those games.

01:07:40 ◼   ► Oh, I totally look forward to them, yeah.

01:07:43 ◼   ► I was deeply resistant. You spent a lot of work getting me to do that first one.

01:07:49 ◼   ► I'll say, this was originally a much bigger idea that I had to bring down

01:07:54 ◼   ► until we got it to a level that Greg was willing to do.

01:07:57 ◼   ► [Laughter]

01:08:00 ◼   ► - This is the hard work of being Myke working with me.

01:08:04 ◼   ► - Everything's a process, it's fine,

01:08:06 ◼   ► it's just how life is.

01:08:07 ◼   ► - I can say I just love doing something

01:08:09 ◼   ► that's different but adjacent.

01:08:14 ◼   ► It hits a real sweet spot for me

01:08:16 ◼   ► that I don't like doing things that are just different

01:08:19 ◼   ► and have nothing to do with anything.

01:08:21 ◼   ► I like that these weird text adventures

01:08:23 ◼   ► are within the Cortex cinematic universe.

01:08:27 ◼   ► - CCU, as it's commonly known.

01:08:29 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:08:31 ◼   ► Yeah, and I like that it's just this weird, different thing.

01:08:36 ◼   ► I love that Jason joins us

01:08:39 ◼   ► and does such an amazing job as the computer.

01:08:41 ◼   ► And like as someone who does these podcasts

01:08:45 ◼   ► where we're like, you and I, we're getting together

01:08:47 ◼   ► and we're talking, it's hard to explain

01:08:50 ◼   ► how much of a different experience it is

01:08:54 ◼   ► to walk into a podcast

01:08:57 ◼   ► where you don't know what's going to happen,

01:09:00 ◼   ► that Myke hasn't prepared fantastic show notes,

01:09:05 ◼   ► as he always does for Cortex,

01:09:06 ◼   ► that I get to look over ahead of time

01:09:08 ◼   ► and have some idea of what is the general structure

01:09:11 ◼   ► of the show, there's none of that.

01:09:12 ◼   ► It's like, oh, I'm gonna sit down

01:09:13 ◼   ► and this mystery is going to be played out before us

01:09:16 ◼   ► and we're going to blindly poke around.

01:09:19 ◼   ► - Literally all we have beforehand that Jason gives us

01:09:23 ◼   ► is the name of the adventure.

01:09:25 ◼   ► So we kind of have an idea of what world we're gonna be in,

01:09:28 ◼   ► whether it's like a Western or like a spooky situation

01:09:32 ◼   ► or a space situation, it's all we know.

01:09:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's not very helpful in the actual adventure.

01:09:38 ◼   ► - It doesn't mean anything really.

01:09:40 ◼   ► There was only like, there was one moment

01:09:42 ◼   ► in "Six-Gun Showdown" where understanding the parameters

01:09:46 ◼   ► of a Western situation helped us get through something.

01:09:49 ◼   ► Everything else, it's kind of just, it doesn't matter.

01:09:52 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:09:54 ◼   ► Yeah, so I would say that I enjoy the differentness of it,

01:09:58 ◼   ► and I enjoy, from the perspective of the person

01:10:01 ◼   ► recording a podcast, not having a sense of

01:10:05 ◼   ► where is this going to go, but still feeling secure

01:10:09 ◼   ► that the Snellatron will lead the way.

01:10:12 ◼   ► - I really like that these are pursuits not based in fact.

01:10:17 ◼   ► They are fiction, they're not real,

01:10:21 ◼   ► there's no ramifications of anything,

01:10:23 ◼   ► and we get to play around in a world which is usually full of weird things. I like that.

01:10:30 ◼   ► And I like that it is, I like doing a text adventures because there is only one character

01:10:37 ◼   ► and we have to kind of go through that together and I think that's more fun than for this

01:10:43 ◼   ► if we were playing separate people, maybe. Because we have to agree on something. Or

01:10:49 ◼   ► Or at least that's a good way for us to have started, to understand how to try and negotiate

01:10:53 ◼   ► our way through these situations.

01:10:56 ◼   ► I really, really like it.

01:10:57 ◼   ► Spoiler alert, we don't do very well negotiating.

01:11:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:02 ◼   ► But I love them.

01:11:05 ◼   ► We get such great feedback that if you are interested, I think you should give it a go,

01:11:11 ◼   ► because they're a lot of fun for us to do, and I think they're a lot of fun to listen

01:11:16 ◼   ► to.

01:11:17 ◼   ► become a Relay FM member and get access to them. And I appreciate James's question,

01:11:21 ◼   ► which allowed me to segue so nicely into talking about the membership. Timothy says, "In a

01:11:27 ◼   ► strictly getting things done way, what is your workflow of your partner when working

01:11:31 ◼   ► on personal projects? Do they have their own GTD system? Do you have a new one? How does

01:11:36 ◼   ► it work?"

01:11:37 ◼   ► Uh, who's, who's going to go first on this question?

01:11:40 ◼   ► I'll go first.

01:11:41 ◼   ► Yes. What is the system between you and now your wife?

01:11:47 ◼   ► So with me and my wife, Adina, we do not share a system because her system conflicts horribly

01:11:54 ◼   ► with my system in that the way that Adina keeps track of projects is wild to me.

01:12:02 ◼   ► What does she do?

01:12:04 ◼   ► Well, she uses reminders but in FantasticOwl.

01:12:11 ◼   ► Which was my recommendation for her because she was using the reminders app and didn't

01:12:15 ◼   ► it but she could keep it all in one place and it works for her.

01:12:19 ◼   ► Oh okay so she's using Fantastical as a different interface to Reminders.

01:12:23 ◼   ► Exactly. Got it. Okay that makes sense.

01:12:26 ◼   ► And that system just doesn't work for me. Like I like projects and like tags and all that kind

01:12:31 ◼   ► of stuff. Like I wouldn't be able to have like a shared Reminders list with her because it wouldn't

01:12:35 ◼   ► work for me and Todoist wouldn't work for her, right? Like our systems are just very opposed.

01:12:40 ◼   ► It's like Adina uses a system which is very akin to what we were talking about before.

01:12:45 ◼   ► She uses just a basic system of getting tasks down.

01:12:50 ◼   ► Right. And that works for her great.

01:12:52 ◼   ► Like it doesn't matter what it is.

01:12:54 ◼   ► They're all just in one big list.

01:12:56 ◼   ► But that's not how I work.

01:12:58 ◼   ► Like I like to have things a little bit more segmented and organized in a different way.

01:13:02 ◼   ► So when we work on a project together.

01:13:06 ◼   ► we kind of, and this is actually, funnily enough,

01:13:09 ◼   ► how me and Steven work together as well,

01:13:11 ◼   ► we communicate about what's needed to be done,

01:13:15 ◼   ► and then we take our own action items

01:13:19 ◼   ► and put them into our own systems.

01:13:21 ◼   ► Like they're not shared in any way.

01:13:23 ◼   ► And then we do what needs to be done

01:13:26 ◼   ► and communicate about the project.

01:13:29 ◼   ► So funnily enough, I guess the two partners in my life,

01:13:32 ◼   ► we have a similar-- - I was gonna say, yes,

01:13:33 ◼   ► two partners.

01:13:34 ◼   ► a similar way of working in that we both manage our independent systems and then communicate

01:13:41 ◼   ► about the projects at hand.

01:13:42 ◼   ► B: My wife doesn't have a system. She's just able to keep track of a ton of stuff

01:13:48 ◼   ► in her head in a way that I would never be able to do. And it totally works for her.

01:13:53 ◼   ► It's funny, I never even really thought about it until I saw this question. It has

01:13:59 ◼   ► never come up in our house, even the idea of like, "Oh, we should have some kind of

01:14:03 ◼   ► shared task management.

01:14:05 ◼   ► We just don't.

01:14:08 ◼   ► I think the closest thing to a system is

01:14:12 ◼   ► if there's something that I need to do,

01:14:14 ◼   ► I will tell her and she will remember.

01:14:16 ◼   ► And if there's something that she needs me to do,

01:14:19 ◼   ► she will tell me and I will never remember

01:14:21 ◼   ► unless it goes straight into my system.

01:14:25 ◼   ► And so I think it's kind of sweet because over time,

01:14:28 ◼   ► she has very much come to understand the concept

01:14:32 ◼   ► of me putting tasks and dates and things in my system

01:14:37 ◼   ► that is a demonstration of caring, right?

01:14:40 ◼   ► It's not a demonstration of,

01:14:43 ◼   ► "Oh, I'm not gonna remember, so I have to write it down."

01:14:45 ◼   ► It's like, "No, this is how I remember."

01:14:47 ◼   ► So that's the interaction between the two of us.

01:14:50 ◼   ► She just remembers,

01:14:51 ◼   ► "I don't have a chance of ever remembering,

01:14:55 ◼   ► so it works its way into my system."

01:14:57 ◼   ► - I don't even know if it is a case of just like,

01:14:59 ◼   ► and I think this might be the same for you.

01:15:01 ◼   ► you could remember it, you just don't trust

01:15:02 ◼   ► that you'll remember it.

01:15:04 ◼   ► - That may have been the case years ago.

01:15:07 ◼   ► I think though that the current me is in a situation

01:15:11 ◼   ► where there is just too much to keep track of,

01:15:15 ◼   ► that I've too many projects and too many things going on

01:15:20 ◼   ► that I really don't think I could manage

01:15:22 ◼   ► without a to-do manager at this point,

01:15:24 ◼   ► and keep all of the various worlds together.

01:15:28 ◼   ► I will just say though that the closest thing

01:15:30 ◼   ► to a system that she does sometimes is,

01:15:34 ◼   ► every once in a while, and this is like maybe

01:15:36 ◼   ► once or twice a year, if she's feeling overwhelmed

01:15:41 ◼   ► with her projects, what I'll see her do,

01:15:44 ◼   ► and then I'll know like, oh, it's busy time now,

01:15:46 ◼   ► like we're serious, is she'll just take her iPad Pro

01:15:51 ◼   ► and her Apple Pencil and open up Notes,

01:15:53 ◼   ► and just handwrite out a bunch of stuff

01:15:55 ◼   ► that she needs to do, and then cross it off one by one.

01:15:59 ◼   ► Like that's the closest to a formal system,

01:16:01 ◼   ► but that is really rare,

01:16:03 ◼   ► and she has to be really busy and really overloaded.

01:16:08 ◼   ► But when I see her bust out the iPad and the pencil

01:16:10 ◼   ► and open up notes and start writing things down,

01:16:12 ◼   ► it's like, oh, busy time.

01:16:14 ◼   ► - Brian asks, "Have either of you found

01:16:16 ◼   ► "any new working games like threes or prison architect

01:16:19 ◼   ► "that stimulate your brain while you work or podcast?"

01:16:23 ◼   ► - I mean, Myke, isn't this now officially part of your job

01:16:27 ◼   ► to find games that you can talk about on one of your many podcasts?

01:16:30 ◼   ► Yeah, I just don't know if I necessarily have games that I would put into the working. So

01:16:40 ◼   ► there are games that I play for work at twitch.tv/playingforfunfm, but that's different to I'm editing a podcast

01:16:49 ◼   ► and playing a video game. They're different things, right? Because, so I would say something

01:16:54 ◼   ► like Stardew Valley, which is what me and Tiff have been streaming a lot recently, it's

01:17:01 ◼   ► a perfect game to play whilst working, in my opinion, because it's so chill, that you

01:17:08 ◼   ► can play it while listening to something and you can very easily separate the two, because

01:17:13 ◼   ► a lot of the time it's walking around and picking up... it is a game which is similar

01:17:17 ◼   ► in ilk to something like Factorio for you, but you just didn't like Stardew, but I think

01:17:22 ◼   ► that there are definite links to those types of games.

01:17:26 ◼   ► But I feel like that's one I've spoken about in the past.

01:17:29 ◼   ► I did see a game that has just come out

01:17:32 ◼   ► and I don't know if it would fit,

01:17:33 ◼   ► but it does look interesting.

01:17:35 ◼   ► And it's called Two Point Hospital.

01:17:37 ◼   ► - Oh, is that the one that Steam is really pushing?

01:17:40 ◼   ► - Yes, because I think it's gonna be a big deal.

01:17:43 ◼   ► It came out like within the last few days.

01:17:45 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah.

01:17:46 ◼   ► Every time I log into Steam,

01:17:48 ◼   ► they're like, "This is the one you should play, buddy."

01:17:50 ◼   ► Because this is like a prison architect, right?

01:17:54 ◼   ► Like it is a, you build a thing and manage it.

01:17:56 ◼   ► But this is made by people that wanted to bring back

01:18:01 ◼   ► the joy of Theme Hospital.

01:18:03 ◼   ► Did you ever play those games like Theme Park World

01:18:06 ◼   ► or Theme Hospital or something?

01:18:07 ◼   ► Did you ever play those?

01:18:09 ◼   ► - I never did.

01:18:09 ◼   ► I was aware of them and they were super popular,

01:18:12 ◼   ► but they just never quite crossed my path.

01:18:14 ◼   ► - What about like Rollercoaster Tycoon?

01:18:17 ◼   ► - Oh, Rollercoaster Tycoon.

01:18:18 ◼   ► That's a different story.

01:18:19 ◼   ► there were many roller coasters built.

01:18:21 ◼   ► - All right, 'cause it's the same ilk, right?

01:18:22 ◼   ► Like those games are all like very similar type thing, right?

01:18:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's the same idea.

01:18:27 ◼   ► - I plan to check out Two Point Hospital soon,

01:18:29 ◼   ► like 'cause it does feel like something I might enjoy,

01:18:32 ◼   ► 'cause I did like all those games,

01:18:34 ◼   ► but I do tend to like easy mode for all that stuff, right?

01:18:38 ◼   ► Like, the prison architect, I like to just build a prison.

01:18:42 ◼   ► I don't wanna have to deal with like the things happening.

01:18:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, you don't wanna deal with when you alt tab out

01:18:48 ◼   ► to make some edits and then you alt tab back and everything's burned to the ground.

01:18:51 ◼   ► Exactly, that's not my thing. I do want to mention a game which I love, which has

01:18:57 ◼   ► just come out for the Switch, called Into the Breach. Have you ever played FTL faster

01:19:03 ◼   ► than light?

01:19:04 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

01:19:05 ◼   ► Right, it's made by the same developer.

01:19:08 ◼   ► Sold. I don't need to know anything else.

01:19:12 ◼   ► It's a turn-based strategy game. It is really difficult.

01:19:17 ◼   ► But really good.

01:19:20 ◼   ► - Okay, yep, sold immediately.

01:19:21 ◼   ► FTL is so good.

01:19:23 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:19:24 ◼   ► Oh, it's on Mac now too.

01:19:26 ◼   ► Oh, there you go.

01:19:27 ◼   ► - Great, perfect. - It was previously

01:19:28 ◼   ► just on Windows, but it's on Windows, Mac,

01:19:30 ◼   ► and now Nintendo Switch.

01:19:32 ◼   ► And the Switch version is excellent.

01:19:35 ◼   ► Like they've done a very, very good job

01:19:38 ◼   ► with porting the controls.

01:19:40 ◼   ► 'Cause it felt very mouse clicky to me as a game.

01:19:44 ◼   ► Like most real-time strategy games, right?

01:19:46 ◼   ► you're clicking here and then clicking where you want to go or attack.

01:19:48 ◼   ► But it works with the switch very, very nicely.

01:19:52 ◼   ► It's one of the better ways that I've seen like a pointer implemented

01:19:57 ◼   ► in a on a console that has analog sticks like control sticks.

01:20:01 ◼   ► The movement is very fluid.

01:20:03 ◼   ► It feels like it works very well. It has it has a

01:20:06 ◼   ► when you push forward on the analog stick, the movement of the cursor

01:20:11 ◼   ► isn't how it would be on a PC. It moves very differently.

01:20:15 ◼   ► It's hard to describe, but it's not like a linear movement.

01:20:19 ◼   ► It feels like there's some weight to the movement.

01:20:22 ◼   ► Yeah, that pointer to analog stick conversion

01:20:26 ◼   ► is always difficult.

01:20:26 ◼   ► I was worried.

01:20:27 ◼   ► I was worried that this wasn't gonna work very well,

01:20:30 ◼   ► but it works excellently.

01:20:32 ◼   ► So I recommend it on both PC and Switch.

01:20:36 ◼   ► So this is such a good game.

01:20:38 ◼   ► It is punishing, but addictive.

01:20:42 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:20:43 ◼   ► Very, very, very, very good.

01:20:45 ◼   ► Have you got anything new?

01:20:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have a new game that I've been playing a lot

01:20:48 ◼   ► for podcast editing.

01:20:51 ◼   ► It's called Northgard.

01:20:52 ◼   ► I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a mic game,

01:20:57 ◼   ► but I've really enjoyed it.

01:20:58 ◼   ► It's technically an RTS.

01:21:01 ◼   ► Like it's a Viking themed real time strategy overhead,

01:21:05 ◼   ► you know, build a village

01:21:06 ◼   ► and send out soldiers kind of game.

01:21:07 ◼   ► But it's done in such a different way

01:21:14 ◼   ► that describing it as an RTS is completely inaccurate

01:21:17 ◼   ► because generally just don't wanna play

01:21:21 ◼   ► those sorts of games anymore

01:21:22 ◼   ► because they're incredible click fests

01:21:23 ◼   ► and you have to do things quickly.

01:21:25 ◼   ► But the whole pace of the game is just super slow.

01:21:30 ◼   ► Like you expand your territory super slow.

01:21:33 ◼   ► There's lots of limits on how much you can build.

01:21:35 ◼   ► I don't know, it's very hard to explain.

01:21:38 ◼   ► It's like a cross between "Starcraft" and "Civilization"

01:21:44 ◼   ► and almost Settlers of Catan,

01:21:46 ◼   ► that there's these limited resources

01:21:49 ◼   ► that you can get just in different spots.

01:21:51 ◼   ► I don't know, I think if you like RTSs,

01:21:56 ◼   ► it's worth giving a try, but just go into it knowing

01:21:59 ◼   ► that it's a very, very different type of game.

01:22:02 ◼   ► And it does a thing that I really appreciate,

01:22:07 ◼   ► which is, unlike all of these kind of war games,

01:22:12 ◼   ► They actually make it incredibly difficult

01:22:15 ◼   ► to field a lot of military units.

01:22:18 ◼   ► So winning through military victory

01:22:20 ◼   ► is like the hardest way to win.

01:22:22 ◼   ► And there's a bunch of other things that you can do instead.

01:22:24 ◼   ► Like, oh, I'm just gonna research enough technology

01:22:26 ◼   ► or do enough trade or whatever.

01:22:28 ◼   ► But yeah, it's been a kind of perfect podcast editing game

01:22:31 ◼   ► for me, it doesn't move too quickly.

01:22:34 ◼   ► It's nice and slow, it's easy enough to switch in and out of

01:22:36 ◼   ► for doing edits.

01:22:37 ◼   ► So I've really enjoyed it.

01:22:39 ◼   ► It's a beautiful looking game.

01:22:41 ◼   ► Oh, and of course, for anybody who plays the game,

01:22:45 ◼   ► they'll want to know which clan I prefer

01:22:47 ◼   ► and Raven clan all the way.

01:22:50 ◼   ► They're the best.

01:22:50 ◼   ► - I don't think this game would be for me.

01:22:54 ◼   ► - No, this is not for you, Myke.

01:22:56 ◼   ► I 100% don't recommend this for you.

01:22:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, it doesn't feel like my kind of game.

01:23:00 ◼   ► - No, I give this negative three out of 10

01:23:05 ◼   ► on the should Myke play this game score.

01:23:09 ◼   ► Rosemary asks, "Should I buy a Nintendo Switch? And if yes, which game should I get with it?

01:23:17 ◼   ► Important note, I've had RSI issues before." Okay, so here's the thing. Yes, you should

01:23:21 ◼   ► buy it, but you must buy a Pro Controller.

01:23:25 ◼   ► Yeah, oh yeah. Yes. 100%.

01:23:28 ◼   ► The Switch is an incredible portable machine. And if you've had problems with RSI, yes,

01:23:33 ◼   ► you can play it portably, but for incredibly short periods of time and infrequently.

01:23:39 ◼   ► Don't don't.

01:23:40 ◼   ► But the other great thing about being a portable machine is you can still take it everywhere

01:23:44 ◼   ► with you.

01:23:45 ◼   ► You just got to take a pro controller too.

01:23:46 ◼   ► That's what I do when I travel.

01:23:47 ◼   ► I take the Switch with me and I take a pro controller.

01:23:49 ◼   ► Like easy.

01:23:50 ◼   ► It's still you get all the portability, you know, but you just have to carry a controller

01:23:54 ◼   ► too, which is not really that much more.

01:23:57 ◼   ► So that's how I play it.

01:24:00 ◼   ► Start with Zelda or Super Mario Odyssey.

01:24:02 ◼   ► You're going to love one of those games.

01:24:04 ◼   ► Ignore what Gray says.

01:24:05 ◼   ► He doesn't know what he's talking about.

01:24:07 ◼   ► other human beings in the world love one of those. All get Stardew Valley, all get Into

01:24:11 ◼   ► the Breach. No, no, get Mario Kart. Oh yeah, okay, sorry, I forgot about Mario Kart. Get

01:24:18 ◼   ► Mario Kart, or Zelda, or Super Mario Odyssey. Look at those three games, they're very different

01:24:24 ◼   ► games. They're very different games that should definitely, one of those will appeal to you.

01:24:30 ◼   ► Take a look at all of them and if they don't then I can't help you.

01:24:36 ◼   ► I will also say because we're in cross promo mode today, Rosemary is actually a host on

01:24:42 ◼   ► a Relay FM show called Automators which is about automating things in your life.

01:24:48 ◼   ► They focus on iOS and Mac and I believe they are looking to try and expand out to other

01:24:53 ◼   ► platforms maybe the web and Android and PC in the future.

01:24:55 ◼   ► hosted by Rosemary and David Sparks.

01:24:58 ◼   ► It's all about just making computers work for you.

01:25:02 ◼   ► I think a lot of people that listen to this show

01:25:04 ◼   ► would like that show.

01:25:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:25:07 ◼   ► I met Rosemary this summer at WWDC,

01:25:12 ◼   ► and she introduced me to, oh God, what's it called?

01:25:16 ◼   ► Keyboard Maestro for the Mac.

01:25:19 ◼   ► And it's an amazing program,

01:25:21 ◼   ► but I'm almost annoyed that I know it exists.

01:25:24 ◼   ► It's like she was showing me all this super cool stuff.

01:25:28 ◼   ► And it was like, oh, I sat down with an automation wizard

01:25:32 ◼   ► for an hour before she had to go fly away

01:25:35 ◼   ► and was able to show me just enough to feel like,

01:25:37 ◼   ► I wanna be able to do all of these things.

01:25:39 ◼   ► And then she had to fly away and left me figuring out

01:25:43 ◼   ► all of this keyboard maestro stuff

01:25:46 ◼   ► to try to do with my computer.

01:25:48 ◼   ► So I'm very glad that Automator is out

01:25:50 ◼   ► so she can finally share the rest of her wizard secrets

01:25:52 ◼   ► with how to make this work, 'cause now I have this feeling

01:25:56 ◼   ► like I should be able to automate literally everything

01:25:59 ◼   ► on my computer.

01:25:59 ◼   ► I saw Rosemary do it, but like, I don't know how to do it.

01:26:02 ◼   ► I don't know how to do all these things.

01:26:04 ◼   ► - She does, relay.fm/automaters.

01:26:07 ◼   ► - She came very close to convincing me to learn like,

01:26:09 ◼   ► oh, you gotta learn JavaScript.

01:26:10 ◼   ► I was like, no, I must resist, I must resist.

01:26:12 ◼   ► She's like, no, it's very simple, you can do it.

01:26:15 ◼   ► - Santi says, last we heard, both of you were using

01:26:19 ◼   ► the Logitech MX Master and Awaycom tablet.

01:26:22 ◼   ► What are you using today?

01:26:24 ◼   ► I don't use the Logitech MX Master.

01:26:27 ◼   ► - No, poor Myke. - I can say that for sure.

01:26:30 ◼   ► I'm using a Magic Trackpad

01:26:33 ◼   ► and the Wacom Intuos Pro Medium.

01:26:37 ◼   ► I last week upgraded to the newer model.

01:26:40 ◼   ► Oh, I love the newer model.

01:26:43 ◼   ► - What do you love about it?

01:26:44 ◼   ► - It is bigger.

01:26:45 ◼   ► It has more buttons.

01:26:47 ◼   ► It has eight buttons instead of six

01:26:49 ◼   ► that were on the other medium.

01:26:51 ◼   ► is a slimmer profile and it's much smoother.

01:26:54 ◼   ► And the pen is way better. The pen is way better.

01:26:57 ◼   ► The reason that I upgraded, I don't know why I left it so long honestly.

01:27:01 ◼   ► My pen was basically falling apart every time I pressed it down with any force.

01:27:07 ◼   ► Like the bottom ring would fall off and the button would fall out.

01:27:11 ◼   ► It's just happening a lot to me and I just never upgraded it.

01:27:14 ◼   ► And I could have replaced the pen, but in logic when I'm editing,

01:27:20 ◼   ► All I needed was one more button and I never need to touch the keyboard.

01:27:26 ◼   ► So now I can edit a show entirely just using programmed buttons with the Wacom tablet.

01:27:37 ◼   ► It is wonderful. I love it.

01:27:40 ◼   ► Very nice.

01:27:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm very, very happy. So I used that and I also used a Magic Trackpad.

01:27:46 ◼   ► Sometimes I use both when I'm editing.

01:27:48 ◼   ► I also use both of them just to use my Mac on a daily basis.

01:27:52 ◼   ► Now, I saw you recently actually using

01:27:55 ◼   ► a very weird looking mouse.

01:27:58 ◼   ► - Oh, you saw me with the MX Ergo.

01:28:01 ◼   ► That's what you saw me with.

01:28:02 ◼   ► - Yes, what is that like?

01:28:04 ◼   ► Do you use that still?

01:28:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I picked one up.

01:28:08 ◼   ► I've always been a really big fan of trackballs.

01:28:11 ◼   ► So like the mouse where,

01:28:13 ◼   ► like the whole mouse has been turned inside out

01:28:15 ◼   ► inside out and upside down.

01:28:17 ◼   ► And you're moving the ball around with your thumb

01:28:19 ◼   ► instead of moving your hand to roll the ball on the desk,

01:28:22 ◼   ► or as in modern mice, the laser.

01:28:24 ◼   ► I do really, really like those.

01:28:28 ◼   ► I think that the MX Ergo is replacing

01:28:34 ◼   ► like this super duper old trackball that Logitech made

01:28:38 ◼   ► and they just hadn't updated.

01:28:39 ◼   ► I do not think that there is a big market in the world

01:28:42 ◼   ► for trackball mice, but this is a really, really good one

01:28:46 ◼   ► if you like trackballs.

01:28:48 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm using that a lot.

01:28:50 ◼   ► What I've sort of changed is I was taking it out

01:28:53 ◼   ► for a test spin when you saw me using it.

01:28:56 ◼   ► And it's not going to be the thing that I take with me

01:29:01 ◼   ► when traveling because it's kind of great

01:29:06 ◼   ► to be able to sit on a plane and use a pointing device

01:29:09 ◼   ► that you don't have to physically move around,

01:29:11 ◼   ► but it's just a little big as an object

01:29:14 ◼   ► to carry with me in my suitcase.

01:29:17 ◼   ► So I'm using the Logitech little mini mouse,

01:29:22 ◼   ► the one that's like, it's symmetrical,

01:29:24 ◼   ► so you can switch hands, which is super important to me.

01:29:27 ◼   ► But no, I really do like that trackball, it's great.

01:29:30 ◼   ► And just because of my RSI issues,

01:29:32 ◼   ► I rotate between just a bunch of different input devices.

01:29:36 ◼   ► Sometimes I'm using the tablet,

01:29:38 ◼   ► sometimes I'm using a trackball,

01:29:39 ◼   ► sometimes I'm using a mouse,

01:29:40 ◼   ► Sometimes I'm using it with my left hand, sometimes I'm using it with my right hand.

01:29:44 ◼   ► I'm trying to evenly wear all of the articulating equipment to try to minimise RSI issues.

01:29:52 ◼   ► Lamar wants to know, Grey, have there been any updates on the hunt for a "cortility bag"?

01:29:58 ◼   ► Lamar didn't use these words, but that's what we'll call it, because we know how things go around here.

01:30:03 ◼   ► Any updates on finding a "cortility bag" which fits your specific purpose?

01:30:08 ◼   ► I almost feel speechless that you're asking me this question, Myke.

01:30:13 ◼   ► How dare you?

01:30:14 ◼   ► After the tremendous, tremendous rain of shame

01:30:19 ◼   ► that you tried to bring down upon my head

01:30:24 ◼   ► over wanting a little bag in which to carry objects.

01:30:29 ◼   ► What I thought was totally, totally a reasonable thing.

01:30:34 ◼   ► Oh, maybe there's some things that I want to carry.

01:30:36 ◼   ► "Oh, my pockets are very small.

01:30:38 ◼   ► How can I solve this problem in an inconspicuous manner?"

01:30:42 ◼   ► I can't even believe that you are bringing this up again.

01:30:49 ◼   ► - I'll ask you a quick question, actually,

01:30:50 ◼   ► while you're referring to this reign of shame.

01:30:52 ◼   ► Did you ever speak to Mrs. Grey about this?

01:30:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, she's a hard veto.

01:30:58 ◼   ► - All right, so great.

01:30:59 ◼   ► I just wanted to just make sure that, like,

01:31:02 ◼   ► you know, you can make it sound like

01:31:04 ◼   ► I had something to do with this decision.

01:31:07 ◼   ► But you would do this whether I agreed with it or not.

01:31:10 ◼   ► If you don't have a fertility bag,

01:31:12 ◼   ► that's nothing to do with me.

01:31:15 ◼   ► - Oh, it's a lot to do with you, buddy.

01:31:16 ◼   ► I'll tell you that.

01:31:18 ◼   ► I'll tell you that.

01:31:19 ◼   ► Yeah, no, because look,

01:31:21 ◼   ► like you started basically like,

01:31:22 ◼   ► there was like a six degrees of separation,

01:31:25 ◼   ► anti-cortility bag campaign that you were waging against me.

01:31:30 ◼   ► And so, uh, my, my wife found out about the very fact that I was interested in a

01:31:36 ◼   ► courtility bag, not from you.

01:31:38 ◼   ► I don't know what you're talking about.

01:31:39 ◼   ► Look, all I know is she got some instant messages from people who weren't you,

01:31:45 ◼   ► but had found out about this, this ruckus that you're kicking up.

01:31:48 ◼   ► And there was a hard veto on a courtility bag being added to my everyday wear.

01:31:56 ◼   ► I'm still putting the blame 100% on you.

01:31:58 ◼   ► I was hugely dispirited after that episode

01:32:03 ◼   ► and sadly just gave up my search for a courtility bag.

01:32:08 ◼   ► But I'm not letting this rest.

01:32:14 ◼   ► This dream is not dying.

01:32:16 ◼   ► I just need to regroup a little bit on this one.

01:32:19 ◼   ► I'll find a solution.

01:32:21 ◼   ► - In the meantime, you became a man of pockets.

01:32:24 ◼   ► - Is this something you really wanna bring up now, Myke?

01:32:28 ◼   ► We've spoken about this!

01:32:29 ◼   ► Is this something that you wanted to?

01:32:30 ◼   ► Because you teased the fact that you were wearing a pocket shirt that you thought I didn't notice

01:32:35 ◼   ► when we recorded in person, but I definitely did notice, but I didn't want to bring attention to.

01:32:40 ◼   ► Well how am I supposed to hold things without pockets?

01:32:43 ◼   ► I don't understand.

01:32:45 ◼   ► Especially during the summer.

01:32:46 ◼   ► There's so many things to hold during the summer.

01:32:49 ◼   ► You gotta put them somewhere, Myke.

01:32:50 ◼   ► Did you take a lot of pictures with that camera you wanted?

01:32:55 ◼   ► I've had enough of this conversation.

01:32:59 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]