1: I Don't Really Like Work
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You're going to be really natural right now, that's what you're going to do?
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This is supernatural.
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Okay, go for it.
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So I guess we should probably tell people who I am.
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I think everybody knows who you are.
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When they hear this British voice, I should probably explain a little bit about me.
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Okay, that sounds good.
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I am Myke Hurley and I'm the co-founder of Relay FM.
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I am a podcaster full-time.
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I've been podcasting for like five years and I've been full-time podcasting for maybe like
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six months or something like that.
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And we're gonna talk a little bit more about kind of where I came from or where you came from work-wise a little bit later on.
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But I just wanted people to know who I am as we start this.
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And of course I have the real pleasure of being joined on Cortex every week by Mr. CGP Grey.
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I've only agreed to ten episodes though so far.
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Let's make that very clear. You have successfully pestered me into doing this.
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You have been very convincing, but I have agreed to do ten episodes of this podcast with you.
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I basically force-fed Grey Coffee and got him to agree to doing this with me.
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Yes, yes. You were very consistent over several lunches together of getting me to do this with you.
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So here we are.
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Because I mean I am a big fan of your work, especially of Hello Internet.
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that is my favorite thing. I love you and Brady every week. But there's
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one thing that when I listen to Hello Internet that I would love to hear more
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of and that's what Cortex is gonna be.
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Where initially I want to talk about with you the way that you work.
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Because every now and then you drop a little interesting tidbit of information
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about the way that you work and I am kind of fascinated to understand a
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little bit more about that and the decisions that you make.
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Okay you want to follow that up on on here? Mm-hmm that's what this is gonna be.
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Okay. So I have many I've been keeping a big long list of things of peculiar
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things like I would like to tease something every every time I tell
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somebody about this show I give them one piece of information as to why I think
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Cortex is going to be interesting. And it's because a recent lunch that we had
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I found out that Grey put sleep on his calendar.
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- You seem transfixed by this.
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This really struck you.
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- Everybody that I tell about this,
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when I'm talking to people about why I think
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this show is going to be awesome,
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is exactly this thing I tell them,
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and they all react the way that I reacted.
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They're like, "I just can't believe it."
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- I don't understand.
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It seems very logical to me, but--
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- We will save this conversation,
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I want to table this conversation,
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'cause we'll lose the entire show to this.
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We will put that to the side for now.
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That will be on the calendar episode.
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But that, this is the type of thing that I want to, that I hope we will come across on Cortex
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and as we try and understand a little bit more about the inner workings of your robotic mind
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and the way that the gears turn.
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We can see how this goes.
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Although, I am aware that I seem to have developed a bit of a reputation for being some kind of productive robot
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And one of the reasons why I have only agreed to 10 episodes is
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I don't really think that there's that much to talk about
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because even though I have this reputation, I don't actually really like work very much.
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I don't like working, and I am constantly trying to think of ways to minimize work
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or to sort of maximize the output that I can get from the minimum amount of input.
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input. So I'm not a huge fan of work. So I'm not sure there's going to
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actually be a lot to talk about. But you see that's the thing for me. That is
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wherein the interesting stuff lies because you are a person who is
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successful at what you do and you have a good output of work and the work
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that you put out is of high quality and you seem to be quite efficient about the
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way that you do it simply because you want to not do too much of it. So I think
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that there is something really interesting in there. You're not a workaholic, right?
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In that instance. But you have found interesting ways to get maximum output with minimum input.
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We'll find out.
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It works for me anyway. Many people wish I made more videos, but this is the way I work.
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That's actually a topic I have for later. So like, you know, you have agreed to 10,
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But I have like 20 topics, so we'll see. We'll see how we go on that one.
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Don't push your luck, Myke.
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I'm planning this into 2020, buddy, but you can't get away from me now.
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It was a big deal for me to put something weekly on my schedule.
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This is a- I carved out a lot of time for this. I don't know about this.
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You're already trying to reserve decades ahead.
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This is like a podcast Trojan Horse.
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That's how this works.
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So everybody knows that listens to your stuff that you used to be a teacher, right?
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Is that the primary part of your background, your working background?
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Yes, before I started making videos on YouTube, being a teacher here in the UK was really my only job as a full-grown adult.
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I have no long list of interesting careers.
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I basically went to school and then after university I trained to be a teacher and became a teacher for a number of years
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and then eventually left that to do YouTube is the short version of that story.
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There are other things that happen in between there but that's the gist of it.
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Why did you want to be a teacher?
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You're gonna start out making me look bad. You know the answer to this.
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Okay so I always have a hard time convincing people that this is actually my answer but
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But I became a teacher because of the time off.
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That was really the main thing that drew me to that career.
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And while that can come off as sounding very lazy, the reason that it attracted me is that
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I wanted to be able to have big chunks of time to be able to work on my own side projects.
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I'm always a person who's had side projects in my life.
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Even now that my side projects have become my main living, I still have other side projects.
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This is just a fundamental part of my personality.
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And really, when you leave university and you are surveying the potential jobs that
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are available, time off from those jobs is a very, very rare and very precious resource.
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You know, the standard in America for people I know who, friends of mine who are living
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there is two weeks off a year, and I know, I know. I don't think this is hyperbole when
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I say that that's barbaric for a modern Western society. It's extra barbaric when you consider
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that most Americans then have to take their two weeks off and spend most of that time
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with their families at Thanksgiving or Christmas, which are usually not times most people think
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of as very relaxed, very low-key times. So in America, the standard is two weeks, and
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And here in the UK, it's usually about, I think, four weeks is the legally required
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I don't know, you used to work like an office job.
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What would you get?
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Four weeks, is that right?
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I got, I think I started off with like 23 days and over my eight years got it up to
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That's loyalty.
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I was a rewarded employee.
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There you go.
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they were able to not keep you on with those rewards.
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But yeah, so when I was looking at, "Oh, what am I going to do with my adult working life?"
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Teaching has this unique aspect that there are very few jobs that can give you big chunks
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of time off.
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And so that really is one of the main reasons why I went into teaching.
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I mean, there are other contributing factors.
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There are reasons why that was easier for me than other things.
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a degree in physics also meant that I could pretty much guarantee that I could get a job
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at a good school instead of having to start my way at the bottom of the chain and like
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hopefully work my way into a good school over a number of years. I could just walk into
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a very nice private school as a totally brand new teacher.
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So those things helped and those things contributed to my decision, but it really was the time
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off and I wanted to and did use those big chunks of time on my side projects, one of
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which obviously eventually paid off which is the YouTube videos.
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I find it interesting that you start off the conversation with it being like a thing that
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you're maybe a little bit embarrassed to say because people may judge you because you say
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you wanted time off but it's not like you wanted that time off to sit on a beach.
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I'm sure there was some of that but you were looking at it primarily as a way to do other
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things to be productive in other areas.
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I think that that is a very smart decision.
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And this is exactly the type of thing, right,
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that for why I think it's interesting
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to talk to you about these things,
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because that was a very calculated decision that you made
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in so much that you look, you didn't want to,
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I assume you always wanted to work for yourself, right?
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I will make that assumption.
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- Yes, that's something I have been aware of
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ever since I can remember thinking my own thoughts,
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is that if I can become self-employed in some manner,
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that is something I would like to do. And I grew up seeing my father,
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he's self-employed, and seeing how he was in control of his own life in
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the way that you can only be if you're self-employed. So that was always
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a goal that I had. So because of that, when, you know, it's
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difficult to just go from university to self-employment, like that is a hard
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thing to do, especially with the course that you took, like the
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the route that you took, the degree that you got.
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I don't really know if you can just be like,
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right, I'm a physicist now.
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That doesn't really, that's not a thing.
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- I don't think there are very many freelancing physicists.
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- No, I don't know what you do.
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You just go to, like you put your ad
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in the Yellow Pages or something,
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like physicists for hire.
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I don't know if that happened.
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So you made a decision in that you looked for a job
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working for the man that gave you the most amount of time
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to build your side business to take you to be self-employed.
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That decision is the kind of thing that I find to be really interesting about the way that you plot things out.
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And don't get me wrong, there were some summers that were spent basically on a beach.
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But of course.
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And I did take time off on vacations as well.
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But yes, I wanted the time off to do things on the side.
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For me, I have been podcasting for five years, as I mentioned.
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been I started Relay with my co-founder Stephen Hackett in August of 2014 having
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done been around I've been like a bunch of different places doing podcasts over
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the years but I had been working in finance I was working in retail banking
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for like six years and then I moved into the marketing department and I was there
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for about two years so I worked the man from the age of 18 I didn't go to
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university I took a gap year to get a job which ended up becoming eight years
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the gap almost decade yeah so maybe maybe one day I'll go to university you
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know I'm still on that gap year so who knows what happened but I'd I over that
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time decided that I also hated working for people you didn't enjoy your
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marketing position in finance not really hmm I don't like big corporations gray
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That is not a thing that I enjoy. I don't like talking about pinging people or circling back to people.
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It's just not a thing that I'm too interested in.
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So let's start talking about your devices.
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So I kind of want to start at the base, right?
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So your computer devices, your computing things.
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You want to talk hardware.
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I want to talk hardware.
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This is where we're going to start.
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Oh, but if you want to talk hardware and you want to talk computers,
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Because you're going to start a religious war here over particular computers and things.
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That's a good way to lose half the listeners straight away.
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Mhmm, especially with some of the questions I'm going to ask you in a minute.
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Oh great, great.
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We're just going to cut out a massive swath of people just straight out the door after
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minute twelve.
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So what computer do you use?
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I am talking to you right now on my computer which is a 27 inch Retina iMac.
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I would say is that this is the computer that I have been waiting a very long time for because I bought this
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Solely because of the retina screen. I was just waiting for Apple to come out with a large retina screen and
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As soon as they did it's like yes
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I will take that computer and Apple says you haven't heard how much it is and I said I don't care right I've been waiting
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for this just just give it to me and
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They're like, oh sign this sign this document in your own blood and I find fine sign whatever
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I just I need a big retina screen to work on. It's my main
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computer although it may not be my main computing device
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But I am I am very happy with it and the retina screen makes a huge difference to me
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And that's where I do all my podcasting from and all the animating from.
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Do you have any other Macs?
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Well see this is what's gonna make people angry. There's a lot of Apple gear in my house. There's a lot of Apple gear
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Yeah, I mean look we just have to accept that
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That is where this conversation is going. I apologize to everyone for taking Grey down this path.
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In the room behind me I have a little laptop that I sometimes use for doing work around the house
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because a 27-inch iMac doesn't translate well to doing stuff on the couch if you need to do computer work.
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So I have a little very old MacBook Air from years and years ago.
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And then I also have, nearby here, I have a co-working office space that I go to sometimes.
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And I have another laptop in there as like redundant gear.
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So I have basically an office computer in an actual office that I use as well.
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And with your iMac, what keyboard and mouse do you use?
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I use the Clicky keyboard.
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Now, everyone from Hello Internet will know.
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There it goes.
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Yeah, that's the sound when Brady's talking,
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when my podcasting co-host is talking.
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Very often, you can hear me looking up stuff
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in the background when he's saying things.
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I'm trying to find facts to contradict him, or just
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watching YouTube videos or something.
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I look forward to hearing that so much.
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But yeah, so I bought this keyboard from a company called WASD, which makes old-fashioned mechanical keyboards, which I was very, very excited to find when someone, I think, mentioned it to me on Twitter or something.
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But yes, it is very heavy, it is very solid, it is not remotely portable. You could beat a man to death with it.
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it and I absolutely love it and it has been customized so that it uses the
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Dvorak keyboard layout which is how I actually type all day so that is my
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that's my keyboard. Again the Dvorak thing that's a whole I have a whole show
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planned around that because that is like something I can't even nearly begin to
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understand like using a different keyboard layout but again we will come
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to that at a later date. What mouse do you use? Do you use anything specific or do you just
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Let's go with an Apple mouse.
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- Okay, I have this strange setup.
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I don't actually have a mouse on my desk.
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What I have in front of me are
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two different pointing devices.
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The thing that I use mainly is that I have
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a Wacom pen tablet that I use 90% of the time
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for drawing stuff and even if I'm not animating,
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if I'm just using the computer,
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just browsing the web or whatever,
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I still use the pen tablet almost all the time.
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- I had no idea.
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- Oh, I thought you used something similar.
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I guess not.
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- No, I use, when I'm editing,
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I use a magic track pad in one hand
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and then a mouse in the other.
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So I use the track pad for like panning and zooming
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and then the mouse for like precision editing of audio.
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But I had no idea that you had a pen tablet.
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I guess it kind of makes sense because you animate, but that's really interesting to
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me and even more interesting that you use it to browse the web.
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Yeah I use it for everything. I don't really use mice very much at all. So I do really
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like this pen tablet that I have. That is on the right hand side of my keyboard. And
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then on the left hand side of my keyboard I have, like you do, I have a magic trackpad.
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And I think for the same reason that I find it very helpful when doing animations or doing
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podcasts sometimes to have that space to do gestures or secondary tasks, secondary pointing
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tasks. It's a little bit hard to explain how I use it, but I find it useful enough that
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I'm in the weird situation sometimes of having the pen in one hand and my hand on the magic
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trackpad, you know, one on each. And it looks very strange, but I find it can be quite useful
00:18:00
◼
►
That's kind of my desk setup right here.
00:18:03
◼
►
That's what I have.
00:18:05
◼
►
So what phone do you have and what phone do you own and use every day?
00:18:08
◼
►
Well, Myke, I have an iPhone 6 Plus, which is entirely also because of your badgering.
00:18:19
◼
►
I originally got an iPhone 6 and on my other podcast I complained quite mightily and for
00:18:24
◼
►
a very long time about how much I did not like the iPhone 6.
00:18:28
◼
►
And over our many lunches together, you eventually convinced me to try out the 6 Plus, which
00:18:34
◼
►
I have done.
00:18:35
◼
►
And now my main phone is the iPhone 6 Plus.
00:18:38
◼
►
And I'm a big fan of it.
00:18:39
◼
►
I am, I like it a lot better than I ever liked the 6.
00:18:45
◼
►
And this is a strange time to talk about my gear because I'm finding, I'm in a period
00:18:52
◼
►
of transition now.
00:18:53
◼
►
Like, I'm aware that I'm using the phone very differently than I used my old phone before,
00:18:58
◼
►
And then that's affecting how I use... like there are knock-on effects from using the
00:19:02
◼
►
phone more to other devices and I also have the Apple Watch now which is affecting a little
00:19:07
◼
►
bit how I work.
00:19:08
◼
►
So it feels like things are in a period of flux right now.
00:19:11
◼
►
But yes, the iPhone 6 Plus is my current phone.
00:19:14
◼
►
And I guess the phone is eating into your iPad usage, right?
00:19:17
◼
►
You're an iPad user?
00:19:19
◼
►
Yeah, I am a big iPad user.
00:19:24
◼
►
And I would go so far as to say that my iPad is my primary computing device.
00:19:31
◼
►
That most of my work for the videos is actually not animating or doing the audio.
00:19:38
◼
►
It's mostly script writing.
00:19:40
◼
►
Just writing what I'm going to say, and then rewriting it and rewriting it and rewriting
00:19:46
◼
►
it forever and ever.
00:19:48
◼
►
So it's a lot of typing, and for some reason I find the iPad is the best device for me
00:19:53
◼
►
to do that on, to do lots and lots of edits on.
00:19:56
◼
►
It's very comfortable to...
00:19:59
◼
►
I have like a little external keyboard that I use with it
00:20:02
◼
►
that I can take around London and work from various cafes and things.
00:20:05
◼
►
And in addition, if I'm doing research,
00:20:08
◼
►
I also spend a lot of time reading
00:20:11
◼
►
and copying and pasting sentences and making notes on stuff
00:20:14
◼
►
and I really like doing that on the iPad as well.
00:20:17
◼
►
In terms of hours spent on a device,
00:20:21
◼
►
The iPad is almost certainly the big leader in that. It's where I have spent most of my time.
00:20:27
◼
►
But I am really aware that with the iPhone 6 Plus, much to my surprise, the iPhone is
00:20:34
◼
►
very much eating into my iPad time. Which I would not have guessed,
00:20:39
◼
►
I would never have thought that would be the case, but it's definitely happening.
00:20:43
◼
►
So I'm sort of refiguring how I'm using some of my devices.
00:20:46
◼
►
And do you have a full-sized iPad or a mini?
00:20:49
◼
►
I have many iPads, Myke.
00:20:51
◼
►
I have many, many iPads.
00:20:55
◼
►
I almost don't want to say how many iPads I have.
00:20:58
◼
►
- What, like in-use iPads?
00:21:00
◼
►
- Oh yeah, in-use iPads.
00:21:01
◼
►
- All right, now you gotta tell me how many.
00:21:03
◼
►
- I don't want to tell you how many I have.
00:21:04
◼
►
- Come on, tell me how many.
00:21:05
◼
►
Is it more than five?
00:21:06
◼
►
- Well, if we're talking about in,
00:21:10
◼
►
it depends on what you mean by in-use.
00:21:12
◼
►
Okay, so here's the thing, here's the thing.
00:21:13
◼
►
Let's back up a minute.
00:21:15
◼
►
Let's tell my origin story with iPads.
00:21:18
◼
►
After the iPad came out, I remember being hugely disappointed because, like other people,
00:21:24
◼
►
I thought, "Oh, I didn't want a giant iPhone. I want OS X or OS X. Sorry. I can never--I
00:21:31
◼
►
read it in my brain, OS X."
00:21:33
◼
►
Great. So many people are going to be mad at you.
00:21:36
◼
►
You think the people are going to be mad at you for saying you like Apple.
00:21:40
◼
►
The people that like Apple are going to be more mad you said X than Android or Windows
00:21:44
◼
►
users will be upset at you.
00:21:46
◼
►
As a slight side note here, I often find myself in situations where I end up with both groups
00:21:52
◼
►
mad at me on a particular topic.
00:21:55
◼
►
This is a common phenomenon in my life.
00:21:58
◼
►
I'm always in the middle of two groups, both of which are angry with me over something.
00:22:04
◼
►
So that's what I've just done here.
00:22:06
◼
►
So anyway, I was disappointed with the iPad.
00:22:07
◼
►
I wanted a desktop computing experience on a tablet and I thought, "Oh, this stupid iPad,
00:22:12
◼
►
it's totally useless for me.
00:22:13
◼
►
I'm never going to have any interest in it.
00:22:16
◼
►
But my wife ended up getting one.
00:22:18
◼
►
And over time, I thought, ah, that looks useful,
00:22:22
◼
►
this thing that she's doing over here.
00:22:24
◼
►
And I started stealing more and more of her iPad time
00:22:28
◼
►
away from her.
00:22:29
◼
►
And I eventually started experimenting
00:22:31
◼
►
with writing on it with an external keyboard, which
00:22:33
◼
►
I quite liked.
00:22:34
◼
►
And then my wife was getting annoyed
00:22:36
◼
►
that her iPad was always missing,
00:22:38
◼
►
that it was in my control.
00:22:41
◼
►
But when I eventually saw the iPad 3 with, once again, the retina screen, as soon as I saw it, I thought, "Man, I have to have this. This thing is just great."
00:22:50
◼
►
That was the first real-sized retina screen I'd ever seen.
00:22:54
◼
►
And it was a similar thing, like, "How much, Apple? How much? Like, just, I need this right now."
00:22:59
◼
►
And so since then, because the iPad is my main computing device, it's the thing that I spend most of my time on,
00:23:10
◼
►
I have gotten each generation of the iPad since the 3.
00:23:14
◼
►
So it's the 3, the 4, the Air, and the Air 2, if I have that right.
00:23:20
◼
►
And then I also did get a Mini, so that makes it technically there are 5 iPads in my house that are mine.
00:23:28
◼
►
But they all do have uses, I swear. They really do.
00:23:31
◼
►
You use them all?
00:23:32
◼
►
Okay, so I'm gonna have to really run through this, aren't I?
00:23:37
◼
►
Backed yourself into a corner now, great.
00:23:39
◼
►
So the iPad 3 is in retirement, is the way I like to think about it.
00:23:45
◼
►
The iPad 3 sits in my bedroom, and it can only do one thing because it's very old, and it only has limited memory.
00:23:54
◼
►
Like an old thing?
00:23:55
◼
►
Yeah, that's exactly right.
00:23:57
◼
►
My iPad 3's retirement is that it functions as a white noise machine for when I sleep.
00:24:05
◼
►
I have, I never know how to say it, tinnitus in my ears.
00:24:10
◼
►
I can't sleep in a silent room, so I need something that makes noise.
00:24:13
◼
►
So what is it, like a ringing noise you hear?
00:24:15
◼
►
Yeah, as long as I have been alive I have always had a ringing sound in my ears.
00:24:22
◼
►
It seems very normal to me, but I kind of forget that other people don't have this as
00:24:27
◼
►
But it means that I can't sleep in a perfectly quiet room, which is one of the few times I really notice it, but it's there.
00:24:34
◼
►
So I have to have something making noise. So that's what my iPad 3 does.
00:24:37
◼
►
What type of white noise do you play out of interest?
00:24:40
◼
►
There is a website that I highly recommend for anybody else who has this called whitenoisemp3s.com
00:24:49
◼
►
And as far as I can tell, it's run by just one woman who goes around and records various soundscapes.
00:24:58
◼
►
Now, over my whole life I have listened to a lot of different kinds of white noise,
00:25:03
◼
►
but she does a very, very good job with the recordings. They're very long.
00:25:08
◼
►
She picks interesting soundscapes.
00:25:12
◼
►
So if you have this problem, I highly recommend her website to go buy some of those MP3s.
00:25:18
◼
►
The one that I sleep with most of the time is actually it's a recording from the interior of a passenger airplane
00:25:25
◼
►
So it's that jet cabin sound is the one that I play most of the time
00:25:30
◼
►
But I use a number of her MP3s for various other other things sometimes
00:25:36
◼
►
So sometimes when I'm just at home if it is bothering me, I have like a thunderscape
00:25:40
◼
►
I have a thunder sound of a storm that I'll play just like low and in the background just so there's a little bit of noise
00:25:47
◼
►
But it's not distracting so I use a number of her mp3s
00:25:50
◼
►
So we've established what the iPad 3 does all right. That's I forgot. That's what we were doing okay
00:25:57
◼
►
So now I have to explain some other ones okay, so let me let me work backwards then the iPad 4
00:26:03
◼
►
lives in my office because I like to have redundant equipment in other places so the iPad 4 lives with my
00:26:10
◼
►
MacBook in the co-working space yes in the co-working space so the iPad air and the iPad air 2
00:26:17
◼
►
fit into this crazy system that I know you are interested in, which I call my
00:26:22
◼
►
redundant bag system, where I have two different backpacks that I use based on
00:26:28
◼
►
what I'm doing on a particular day. And again, I like to have everything just set
00:26:32
◼
►
and ready to go, so each of those iPads lives in, like, kind of permanently in a
00:26:38
◼
►
backpack so that in the morning, depending on which day it is, I can grab
00:26:41
◼
►
one or the other and I'm just all set. Like, they charge up overnight and so
00:26:45
◼
►
they're just ready. And the iPad mini is probably one of my least favorite but it
00:26:50
◼
►
has ended up as a dedicated book reader. So I have it set up so that it's very
00:26:56
◼
►
it's always using like the the low-light setting and it's always set on dark and
00:27:00
◼
►
it has a very dark background so that I can use that at nighttime for reading
00:27:04
◼
►
very easily. So those are those are what my iPads are being used for.
00:27:07
◼
►
This first episode of Cortex is brought to you by Backblaze. I haven't told you
00:27:13
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what Backblaze is, but here's how you know if you should be a customer of theirs.
00:27:18
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1. Do you have a computer? A Windows computer, a Mac computer, any computer.
00:27:23
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2. Do you have anything on that computer that is important to you?
00:27:28
◼
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If you answered yes to those two questions, which is almost certainly everyone who's listening to this podcast,
00:27:35
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then you need to be a customer of Backblaze.
00:27:38
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Backblaze makes sure your computer files are always safe and always protected by backing them up to the cloud.
00:27:46
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They back up an enormous number of computer files, over 150 petabytes of data.
00:27:53
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And it's so easy for you. You just go to backblaze.com/cortex to show your support for the show,
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download and install their software, and it will just run in the background of your computer,
00:28:04
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automatically humming away and uploading your files to their protected servers.
00:28:09
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Then, if something bad happens to your computer, which is inevitable given enough time,
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it's only a matter of time, every hard drive is basically a ticking time bomb,
00:28:18
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waiting to corrupt your files and break and ruin maybe all of the family photos you have,
00:28:25
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or all of the work of all of the projects that you currently have.
00:28:29
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So when that happens, and you've been a customer backblaze,
00:28:32
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you can then get your files restored.
00:28:35
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Now, what would you pay to get back, say, all of your family photographs
00:28:39
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or all of your university work in the last final months?
00:28:43
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You probably pay a lot.
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But Backblaze is only going to charge you $5 a month per computer
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00:28:53
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If Backblaze isn't on your computer right now, you really need to go install it.
00:28:58
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And it's not just for disasters.
00:29:00
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When your files are on Backblaze, you can access them from your iPhone or your Android device at any time to get access to your files.
00:29:08
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This is a very handy feature. There have definitely been times when I know there's a file that's sitting, say, on the gigantic external hard drive that I have next to my computer,
00:29:18
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but I'm somewhere else and I need to access it and I can do that with Backblaze. I can just open up my iPhone and get access to that file almost immediately.
00:29:26
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So again, if you have a computer and you store important things on that computer, you need
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to sign up at backblaze.com/cortex.
00:29:36
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This protects all of the digital files that are important to your life and shows your
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support for this new podcast.
00:29:43
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So once again, go to backblaze.com/cortex.
00:29:50
◼
►
So the question that you dread, why Apple?
00:29:53
◼
►
Why Apple devices?
00:29:55
◼
►
or a specific choice that nothing is getting outside of the Apple ecosystem for you.
00:30:02
◼
►
Why do you personally think that Apple devices are right for you?
00:30:07
◼
►
Not why they should be right for the rest of the world, right?
00:30:09
◼
►
I want to make that very clear that I will speak for Gray and that he is purely saying
00:30:14
◼
►
why he personally, CGP Gray, likes Apple devices.
00:30:17
◼
►
So implicit in this question is people assume that you are constantly scanning the horizon
00:30:24
◼
►
and comparing all other options in every possible way, every day, to make sure you're using
00:30:29
◼
►
the thing that is perfect for you.
00:30:32
◼
►
And that's not what I do.
00:30:34
◼
►
So I get into discussions with people sometimes where they say, "Oh, have you tried Windows
00:30:40
◼
►
I haven't used Windows in whatever it is since I quit teaching.
00:30:44
◼
►
Three years, four years, I don't know exactly.
00:30:45
◼
►
They go, "Oh, you haven't used Windows today!
00:30:48
◼
►
It's completely different."
00:30:49
◼
►
There's always these moving goal posts.
00:30:51
◼
►
"Oh, I looked at an Android phone a year ago and I didn't like it."
00:30:54
◼
►
"Oh, but you didn't look at an Android phone today."
00:30:56
◼
►
"Well, I looked at an Android phone last week."
00:30:58
◼
►
And they go, "Oh no, it's totally different today. It's much better."
00:31:01
◼
►
You can never have looked at something recent enough to satisfy the person who you are talking with.
00:31:07
◼
►
Like, "But you're not looking at the Android phone right now!"
00:31:10
◼
►
"You just looked at it a minute ago when you handed it back to me, but it's totally better now."
00:31:14
◼
►
So, I mean, I think what happens is I made a decision back when I was in college to switch
00:31:24
◼
►
to Macs for a variety of reasons, and I liked Macs, and I have continued using Macs, and
00:31:31
◼
►
I have found that they have fit me, and I haven't found any wildly compelling reason
00:31:36
◼
►
to switch, and so I use Apple stuff.
00:31:42
◼
►
In some ways it's very simple.
00:31:44
◼
►
I grew up using DOS, like that's where I learned how to use computers, and then I went off to college.
00:31:50
◼
►
And in college in my wild experimental days, I was building my own computers and using Linux and all the rest of this.
00:31:56
◼
►
And then when I left college, I switched to Macs and I've stuck with them.
00:32:03
◼
►
And it was partly because I was tired of messing around with Linux all the time and trying to customize my system and keep up to date on everything.
00:32:09
◼
►
You know what, I just, I don't have time, and frankly, I don't have the interest in this anymore
00:32:14
◼
►
of staying on top of all of the packages and compiling from source and all this stuff
00:32:18
◼
►
So I remember switching to Macs partly because they had Unix underpinnings
00:32:22
◼
►
So I thought, "Oh, well, the terminal is there if I ever want to use it, I can still do all the Unix stuff
00:32:26
◼
►
It's not like I'm going to waste that knowledge"
00:32:29
◼
►
But fast forward 10 years and, you know, it's a rare quarter when I open the terminal to do anything now
00:32:36
◼
►
I don't know if that's a satisfactory answer, but that is definitely the case.
00:32:40
◼
►
And then once you've picked a groove, it makes sense to double down on that.
00:32:46
◼
►
So I tend to use now... like I use Final Cut to animate my videos, which I have to say I really like.
00:32:53
◼
►
I think that program is very nicely designed, and I like it.
00:32:57
◼
►
And I use Logic to edit the podcast, which is okay, although it is crash-tacular.
00:33:04
◼
►
I'm sure there is a better system for...
00:33:06
◼
►
Would you agree with that? Do you use Logic?
00:33:08
◼
►
My favorite thing about Logic is if you have a project open, Logic,
00:33:12
◼
►
and you try to open another project,
00:33:15
◼
►
and it's like, and a dialogue pops up, and it basically says to you,
00:33:19
◼
►
"Are you sure you want to do this? Because if you do this, everything will go wrong."
00:33:24
◼
►
"You can choose to do it, but we strongly advise you close one of them."
00:33:27
◼
►
I'm not making any promises that we're going to keep any of your changes
00:33:30
◼
►
if you're going to try to have two projects open at once.
00:33:33
◼
►
It's like sometimes I'm doing that and I'm recording in one and assembling in another
00:33:37
◼
►
or something like that.
00:33:39
◼
►
And I basically, all I do is press play and the entire thing crashes.
00:33:43
◼
►
It's like, it's the fundamental thing.
00:33:45
◼
►
I just press the play button, boom, everything's gone.
00:33:50
◼
►
On the Hello Internet podcast, which again I do with Brady, I probably over edit that
00:33:56
◼
►
I end up with a couple hundred audio cuts every time.
00:33:59
◼
►
But I'm aware that as that number spikes up, if I want to just nudge a bunch of clips a
00:34:05
◼
►
little bit left, Logic's like, "Oh, I don't know.
00:34:07
◼
►
I don't know if we can handle this, man.
00:34:09
◼
►
You want to move clips together to cut out a bit of white space.
00:34:12
◼
►
I know this is the primary function of an audio program, but you know, spinning wheel
00:34:17
◼
►
Logic is probably not the best example of, "Oh, wow.
00:34:21
◼
►
Isn't this Apple product just absolutely amazing?"
00:34:24
◼
►
But when I started doing the podcast, I looked around a little bit in terms of what else
00:34:28
◼
►
was available and I can't even remember why but at the time I decided I'm just going to
00:34:34
◼
►
bite the bullet and learn logic and now I have.
00:34:37
◼
►
For both of us the reason that we use logic is the perfect example of why we use Apple
00:34:42
◼
►
products like this is why I do and I assume it's probably the same for you it's what I
00:34:46
◼
►
know now like I use logic because whilst it frustrates me I really know how to use logic
00:34:52
◼
►
to get what I need done with it and that's like as for as much as I mean I'm pretty much
00:34:57
◼
►
exactly the same as you. I use all Apple products. I have a Mac Pro instead of an iMac.
00:35:03
◼
►
I have a MacBook Pro as well that I use. I use two different machines. And Apple
00:35:09
◼
►
devices quite frequently frustrate the hell out of me for myriads of
00:35:15
◼
►
reasons. But I know how to use them. They are the things that I chose to use like
00:35:21
◼
►
ten years ago. So now it's just the stuff that I use and then I use an iPhone as
00:35:26
◼
►
well because once I think there is a real benefit with Apple devices
00:35:30
◼
►
especially that if you get one of them it makes your life easier to get others
00:35:34
◼
►
and that's not so much with Android right because there isn't a Android
00:35:39
◼
►
desktop as such but you it helps you then to be in Google's complete ecosystem
00:35:45
◼
►
in general so you use all Google's products because it helps you if you
00:35:48
◼
►
have your Android device same as if you have a Windows phone it probably really
00:35:51
◼
►
helps to have a Windows PC so you kind of get stuck in these thetums but once
00:35:55
◼
►
Once you're there, it's really hard to break out.
00:35:58
◼
►
No matter how great something might be, if it's not what you know, it can be really hard
00:36:03
◼
►
to go away from it.
00:36:05
◼
►
Yeah, and it's not even that it's hard to go away from it.
00:36:08
◼
►
It's just, what's the point?
00:36:11
◼
►
You have to spend an enormous amount of time relearning a whole new system for what?
00:36:18
◼
►
Maybe a 5% or 10% improvement, maybe not even that.
00:36:22
◼
►
Maybe it's just the same.
00:36:24
◼
►
you don't know what other problems await for you in a different system, so I'm always of the opinion that if you're going to ask me to change
00:36:31
◼
►
everything about my computing life, which is now many devices across personal and work,
00:36:38
◼
►
you need a hell of a good reason to switch.
00:36:41
◼
►
This can't be like, "Oh, it's 10% better."
00:36:43
◼
►
This has to be 10 times better.
00:36:46
◼
►
Because I've also issued my family an ultimatum when I made the switch to Mac, which was
00:36:53
◼
►
"You guys can keep using Windows, but I can no longer support you on your Windows systems.
00:37:01
◼
►
I will drift away in knowledge of how to fix your Windows problems.
00:37:06
◼
►
And if you want continued free technical support from your son, you are going to need to switch over."
00:37:13
◼
►
And they were no fools. They switched over.
00:37:16
◼
►
So it's not even like, "Oh, convincing me to change to a different thing is just me making a personal decision."
00:37:22
◼
►
It's then the whole network of people in my life whose devices I also support.
00:37:29
◼
►
In my immediate family and friends and all.
00:37:32
◼
►
It has big, big knock-on effects.
00:37:34
◼
►
There are network effects to this as well.
00:37:37
◼
►
But I developed a lot of weird habits when I was working at school because the school
00:37:46
◼
►
used Windows for everything.
00:37:48
◼
►
And I was still using a Mac, so I brought my personal laptop into work every day and
00:37:54
◼
►
then kind of was always juggling back and forth between the two systems.
00:37:58
◼
►
And I was very aware of keeping documents platform agnostic.
00:38:03
◼
►
So I still have to this day remnants of the system which is entirely based on storing
00:38:08
◼
►
information in text files or other ways that are portable back and forth between the two
00:38:13
◼
►
But when I got my first iPhone, which was the iPhone 4, that was really--I didn't know
00:38:21
◼
►
it then, but that was really the moment when I started to get locked in big time, where
00:38:28
◼
►
it started to no longer matter to me about trying to keep all of my document formats
00:38:34
◼
►
transferable in the future.
00:38:35
◼
►
I started to make more decisions about, "I'm really all in on this."
00:38:41
◼
►
And I am very glad that I made that decision because it has made lots of things much easier
00:38:45
◼
►
for me and just the systems working together.
00:38:49
◼
►
So we've spoken about hardware, right?
00:38:52
◼
►
And we have established that you have a Mac and an iPhone and 20 iPads.
00:38:58
◼
►
That's about right.
00:39:00
◼
►
I think I got that right.
00:39:01
◼
►
I think I was following correctly.
00:39:03
◼
►
Close enough.
00:39:05
◼
►
So I want to see what's on them, right?
00:39:07
◼
►
I want to understand a little bit about how you set them up
00:39:09
◼
►
because again, listening to Hello Internet,
00:39:12
◼
►
I know that you're very particular about the way
00:39:13
◼
►
that you organize things in your house
00:39:15
◼
►
and I wonder if that comes to your devices as well, right?
00:39:19
◼
►
So I want to look at your iPhone first,
00:39:21
◼
►
maybe your iPad as well, but I think, you know,
00:39:24
◼
►
is it fair to say maybe your iPhone
00:39:26
◼
►
is the most important of the two?
00:39:28
◼
►
- Ooh, that's a hard, if I had to pick between the two,
00:39:30
◼
►
if I could only have one, that's a difficult question.
00:39:33
◼
►
I'd have to sit down and think about that for a while.
00:39:36
◼
►
That's not immediately answerable.
00:39:38
◼
►
- Wow, that's surprising to me.
00:39:39
◼
►
I guess that shows a difference in the way
00:39:40
◼
►
that me and you work.
00:39:42
◼
►
Like I don't even use an iPad.
00:39:43
◼
►
I have one, I just don't use it ever.
00:39:46
◼
►
- Because my iPhone is like,
00:39:48
◼
►
that's like the most important device that I own, I think.
00:39:52
◼
►
- Yeah, it's closer for me.
00:39:55
◼
►
My iPads do not live unloved on the floor
00:39:58
◼
►
somewhere in my house, as presumably yours does.
00:40:01
◼
►
- It's like somewhere.
00:40:02
◼
►
If I ever need it, I always have to search for it.
00:40:05
◼
►
It's never in a place that's immediately obvious.
00:40:08
◼
►
Like the only thing I ever, ever use it for
00:40:10
◼
►
is to watch video on.
00:40:11
◼
►
- Yeah, they're very good for browsing stuff.
00:40:14
◼
►
But what do you want?
00:40:15
◼
►
You want like a screenshot of my iPhone?
00:40:16
◼
►
Is that what you want?
00:40:17
◼
►
- You can give me one if you'd like one.
00:40:18
◼
►
That would be really lovely for the show notes.
00:40:21
◼
►
- You sound way too excited about that.
00:40:23
◼
►
- I really hope that people find this as interesting as I do
00:40:25
◼
►
'cause I just am fascinated by it.
00:40:27
◼
►
And I think that, I mean,
00:40:30
◼
►
whenever I talk about these sorts of things with people,
00:40:32
◼
►
seems to get, you know, people seem to be excited about it. I am very excited about
00:40:37
◼
►
the way that people arrange their devices and like the decisions that they make. It's
00:40:42
◼
►
just fascinating to me to see like the icons that people pick. Because I think I remember
00:40:47
◼
►
seeing a screenshot of your iPhone previously and I was kind of a little bit fascinated
00:40:53
◼
►
by it. There were like, there were things on there that I just couldn't understand.
00:40:56
◼
►
Okay, well, I will send you an unmodified "Here's how it looked right now" as we were
00:41:03
◼
►
I didn't know you were going to do this screenshot.
00:41:04
◼
►
I'll send it to you on iMessage.
00:41:07
◼
►
But yes, as you might imagine, I'm a very fussy person in some ways, and I have spent
00:41:16
◼
►
far, far more man-hours than I care to admit trying to select a wallpaper that is acceptable,
00:41:23
◼
►
and the way that I arrange the icons on my phone and on my iPad, I really don't want
00:41:30
◼
►
to know how much time has been spent on it. But it has been a lot, and I'm in an acceptable
00:41:35
◼
►
place now with the way all the icons are. But you know, it can always be improved.
00:41:40
◼
►
Okay, so I'm looking at this, right? I'm looking at this image here, and people can find this
00:41:44
◼
►
image if they want to in a couple of different ways. So, as I mentioned, we've mentioned
00:41:48
◼
►
show notes, right? The place that you can go for the show notes. They're on the web,
00:41:52
◼
►
relay.fm/cortex/1 and they're also in, if you use like a modern app, a modern podcast
00:42:02
◼
►
app, you will tend to find the show notes in there and some will even show this image
00:42:07
◼
►
like embedded because I'm fully embedded because I think that's interesting to see that right
00:42:11
◼
►
there so you don't even have to click the link, it'll be right there for you to see.
00:42:14
◼
►
So I have, I think we may spend the next four hours just talking about what I can see here.
00:42:20
◼
►
Wow, this podcast is going to be so exciting!
00:42:23
◼
►
I think it is. I really hope people enjoy it, Gray, because, I mean, this might just be for me now, but...
00:42:30
◼
►
I think you're slightly crazy, Myke, but you know...
00:42:34
◼
►
Well, see, for, you know, I think it's a nice balance. I'm crazy about the things you're crazy about.
00:42:40
◼
►
Uh-huh. I guess that works for me.
00:42:43
◼
►
Everything is on one screen.
00:42:45
◼
►
This took a little while to set up, but I do not like multiple screens.
00:42:50
◼
►
For various reasons, I have to accept multiple screens on my iPad.
00:42:53
◼
►
But on my iPhone, especially with the six plus, I was absolutely determined
00:42:58
◼
►
to fit everything onto a single screen.
00:43:01
◼
►
I don't want to have to swipe left or right for anything.
00:43:04
◼
►
I just want to open up the phone and it's all right there.
00:43:07
◼
►
OK, so the way I arrange that is I have four folders across the top.
00:43:16
◼
►
And then there are three rows of four icons each.
00:43:20
◼
►
So that's a four by four grid in total.
00:43:24
◼
►
And everything that I use on my phone is there.
00:43:26
◼
►
There is no secondary page to go to.
00:43:28
◼
►
So one of the things that interests me the most
00:43:31
◼
►
is the fact that you have three items in the dock of your iPhone.
00:43:35
◼
►
Okay, I have discussed this with people.
00:43:37
◼
►
This seems so obvious to me.
00:43:40
◼
►
It looks visually so much more pleasing
00:43:43
◼
►
if you have three icons in your dock
00:43:45
◼
►
than if you have four icons in your dock.
00:43:47
◼
►
Look, I mean, look at that screenshot, Myke.
00:43:50
◼
►
You have to agree, right?
00:43:53
◼
►
Doesn't it look nicer?
00:43:54
◼
►
Except for the folders.
00:43:55
◼
►
There's nothing I can do about the folders,
00:43:56
◼
►
but I mean the three icons in the dock.
00:43:58
◼
►
Doesn't that look nicer?
00:43:59
◼
►
I don't know if it looks nicer.
00:44:03
◼
►
You're wrong.
00:44:03
◼
►
It does look nicer.
00:44:04
◼
►
OK, silly me.
00:44:06
◼
►
The thing is, you're like you're wasting a space.
00:44:09
◼
►
You have like that's prime real estate down there.
00:44:12
◼
►
There must be one of the apps in that grid.
00:44:15
◼
►
of 12 that is good enough or used enough that it could take that fourth place.
00:44:23
◼
►
Okay but here's the thing, here's the thing Myke. Since I only have one page
00:44:27
◼
►
the dock is less important than it might be on other people's phones. So while I
00:44:34
◼
►
agree that it is still prime real estate it is very thumb reachable, for me the
00:44:38
◼
►
importance is demoted. But those are definitely my three most important apps
00:44:44
◼
►
that I use most of the time that I have in my dock.
00:44:47
◼
►
So it's the Notes app, Launch Center Pro, and OmniFocus.
00:44:50
◼
►
Yes, those are the three that are in my dock.
00:44:52
◼
►
And having them visually offset from the grid above,
00:44:56
◼
►
I find makes them easier to kind of see and to go to.
00:45:01
◼
►
It highlights their importance, having only three,
00:45:04
◼
►
and then having them centered like that.
00:45:07
◼
►
It's much, much better.
00:45:09
◼
►
But the other problem that I have, and this took a while to settle,
00:45:12
◼
►
is that because I have a very large number of iOS devices,
00:45:16
◼
►
I wanted to make sure that the dock would always be the same
00:45:19
◼
►
on all of those devices,
00:45:22
◼
►
because I set up my iPad slightly differently
00:45:24
◼
►
depending on the context of what they're being used for.
00:45:26
◼
►
But on every dock on every device,
00:45:28
◼
►
it's those three icons in the same order,
00:45:31
◼
►
Notes, Launch Center Pro, and OmniFocus.
00:45:34
◼
►
So I always want that to be the same.
00:45:37
◼
►
-Something else that I find interesting, right,
00:45:39
◼
►
is the apps that you use, the apps that are out --
00:45:42
◼
►
on that grid of 12, right, that they are the prime apps that sit in in this group.
00:45:47
◼
►
They are outside of the folders, you have elevated these apps to the status
00:45:53
◼
►
of "must be always available". So I want to look at this and I want to ask
00:46:00
◼
►
you a few quick questions about some of the choices that you've made. So one of
00:46:05
◼
►
the things that I find really interesting is you have pages, byword,
00:46:08
◼
►
editorial, and notes. They are all text entry apps. I assume then that you have
00:46:15
◼
►
different uses for each of these applications. Okay, yeah. So on my
00:46:21
◼
►
phone screen here, the rows aren't arbitrarily chosen. They are
00:46:25
◼
►
arranged in a particular way. And the bottom row, within the
00:46:32
◼
►
closest reach of the thumb on the iPhone 6 Plus, is basically my writing stuff row.
00:46:38
◼
►
So the four icons on the bottom are, in order, messages, pages, byword, and editorial.
00:46:45
◼
►
Messages has to be in that spot because that's the easiest spot to hit with the thumb, and it's a very frequently used app.
00:46:51
◼
►
But then I have those three slots, and conveniently I basically use three writing apps.
00:46:56
◼
►
And yes, you are right, they serve different purposes, from least important to most important.
00:47:01
◼
►
Pages is the least important of the three.
00:47:04
◼
►
I use that for shared documents with some people, primarily Brady.
00:47:11
◼
►
So we do our show notes actually using pages, which is something you and I have talked in private about,
00:47:18
◼
►
but that you would not abide for this show. You were very insistent on using Google Docs.
00:47:23
◼
►
Unacceptable. Unacceptable.
00:47:25
◼
►
Even though I hate Google Docs for a variety of reasons, but I relented.
00:47:30
◼
►
I appreciated that. You cannot even begin to understand how much I appreciate that.
00:47:34
◼
►
But pages works for Brady and I for doing the show notes, because if you are a professional
00:47:42
◼
►
YouTuber you end up with a million Google accounts and it can be very frustrating to
00:47:47
◼
►
try and find the correct one for the show notes. So that's why pages works for us.
00:47:52
◼
►
So we have some shared documents in there.
00:47:55
◼
►
And I also have a series of shared documents/instructions
00:48:02
◼
►
for my personal assistant, which are in pages.
00:48:05
◼
►
So I can make changes in pages, and then she
00:48:08
◼
►
can see it on her end about how things need
00:48:11
◼
►
to be done in a particular order.
00:48:13
◼
►
So pages is largely for sharing documents
00:48:17
◼
►
with those two people.
00:48:17
◼
►
And there's a few other things, but that's
00:48:19
◼
►
like 95% of the use case.
00:48:21
◼
►
Next over then is Byword, and Byword is where I contain an enormous number of lists and documents
00:48:34
◼
►
in text format. This can be anything from I keep a list of movies to watch and books to read,
00:48:42
◼
►
or I'll have a document just on a whole bunch of notes for a potential project in the future, or
00:48:49
◼
►
half-finished scripts that I'm not working on at the moment. Almost anything that doesn't have a
00:48:56
◼
►
dedicated place kind of lives in Byword. So there's just a ton of lists in there, and I like to have
00:49:03
◼
►
that immediately accessible because I can think of, "Oh, I just thought of a place that I would
00:49:09
◼
►
like to go on holiday at some point." So I have a list of places to visit at some point, so I can
00:49:13
◼
►
just quickly open up Byword and add that onto the list. And then the one that is the furthest
00:49:19
◼
►
over is the most important to me, which is editorial. And that is the app that I
00:49:26
◼
►
actually use to write the scripts for my videos. And I keep a very, very limited
00:49:34
◼
►
number of documents in there. I try very hard to keep it at five or under of
00:49:41
◼
►
videos that I can say in some sense are active, that I am currently working on
00:49:46
◼
►
and currently writing. So that is what editorial is for.
00:49:50
◼
►
The notes app, right? You keep it in the doc.
00:49:54
◼
►
Yes. The notes is basically just like a pile of crap
00:49:58
◼
►
is kind of the way I think of notes. Notes is, "Oh, some thought popped into
00:50:02
◼
►
my head and I just want to write it down.
00:50:06
◼
►
I don't even necessarily know what it is or where it's going to go. I just
00:50:10
◼
►
put it in notes if something comes into my mind.
00:50:14
◼
►
And I have a regular review session that I do with myself
00:50:19
◼
►
where I will go through just everything that got
00:50:22
◼
►
dumped into Notes.
00:50:23
◼
►
And I'll sort it out later.
00:50:25
◼
►
But I very often find myself in situations where there's just
00:50:28
◼
►
something that I want to write down quickly.
00:50:30
◼
►
And I'm not even sure exactly what it is or where it's
00:50:33
◼
►
going to go.
00:50:33
◼
►
And I just throw it in Notes.
00:50:35
◼
►
And the reason I use Notes is because I want that to be
00:50:39
◼
►
available everywhere.
00:50:41
◼
►
And I often go through that stuff on my computer.
00:50:44
◼
►
So I want an application where I can have all of these little like scraps of paper, almost these virtual scraps of paper.
00:50:51
◼
►
But I can then turn through them on my computer one at a time and then very quickly.
00:50:56
◼
►
Oh, yes, this goes on this list.
00:50:57
◼
►
This goes over here. This I can just delete.
00:50:59
◼
►
So it's this kind of scratch pad sort of application.
00:51:03
◼
►
But it's on the dock because it is very, very frequently used of just I want to write this thing down really quick.
00:51:09
◼
►
OK. The next row up is the audio row.
00:51:12
◼
►
The audio row, yes. Music, Audible, Overcast, Spotify.
00:51:16
◼
►
Audible and Overcast, I can see those uses, right?
00:51:18
◼
►
Audio books, podcasts.
00:51:20
◼
►
Music and Spotify. So I assume you have some stuff that you want on your device that's not on Spotify?
00:51:27
◼
►
Yeah, my music system is kind of a mess, because I have a bunch of music that I bought through iTunes a while back.
00:51:35
◼
►
And I don't know, a few months ago I thought, "Oh, all these kids these days, they're talking about this streaming music.
00:51:39
◼
►
Let me try that. So I signed up for Spotify and I'm kind of waiting to see what Apple does with beats.
00:51:47
◼
►
Like, can you just solve something for me here, Apple? I feel like I'm halfway between two music systems
00:51:53
◼
►
and everything is just a mess everywhere. So I have some stuff that's in music where I've made particular playlists.
00:51:59
◼
►
Like I have playlists for when I'm writing or for exercise or other stuff.
00:52:04
◼
►
But then Spotify is a source where I can get new music or it has this little radio feature.
00:52:08
◼
►
each does things that I like, but my music system is just a total mess, which is why
00:52:12
◼
►
I have the two of them there. But I'm unhappy with the current state of music, and ideally
00:52:17
◼
►
I would like to compress those two icons down to one icon in the future. But, you know,
00:52:22
◼
►
this is where we are at the moment.
00:52:24
◼
►
So then I'm gonna guess like Clear is for lists, right?
00:52:29
◼
►
So Clear is a very recent newcomer on this front page here.
00:52:34
◼
►
Ooh, a promotion.
00:52:37
◼
►
It's a big deal when you decide, ooh, you know, I'm going to have a new one that's on
00:52:41
◼
►
the homepage.
00:52:42
◼
►
I can't remember, someone got demoted, I don't remember who it was.
00:52:47
◼
►
They're so unimportant, they've slipped out of my mind.
00:52:50
◼
►
But yeah, clear is a new one and I'm experimenting with what I'm calling the top two, where I'm
00:52:59
◼
►
trying to figure out what are the two most important things that I do on a particular
00:53:05
◼
►
two best things that I can accomplish today.
00:53:08
◼
►
And I'm keeping them in Clear.
00:53:11
◼
►
That's all Clear is, is a list of two items.
00:53:14
◼
►
And the reason it's there on my phone is mainly because of actually on my computer setup.
00:53:19
◼
►
Since I use OmniFocus to run all of my life, like everything is in OmniFocus,
00:53:25
◼
►
on my actual desktop computer I also always have now Clear open on the side,
00:53:31
◼
►
showing me the two things that I think are really what needs to be accomplished.
00:53:36
◼
►
And I'm finding that it helpful to have that visually present all the time and separate
00:53:42
◼
►
from the "Oh, I'm running through this enormous checklist of stuff I need to do when I'm uploading
00:53:47
◼
►
a new video" or, you know, "Here are the bunch of minor errands that I need to run today"
00:53:52
◼
►
kind of stuff.
00:53:53
◼
►
Or like, OmniFocus is on top of all of that, but I like having it visually separate and
00:53:57
◼
►
omnipresent these two items that I'm selecting as particularly important items for the day.
00:54:02
◼
►
So that's why clear is there. I don't use it a lot on the phone, but I like to be able
00:54:06
◼
►
to change or tick off those items immediately.
00:54:09
◼
►
Are these two items things that you would like to do or things that you have to do?
00:54:16
◼
►
This can be a whole other conversation. I would say that they are important items, but
00:54:23
◼
►
they are very rarely things that have to happen.
00:54:27
◼
►
But this can be another conversation.
00:54:31
◼
►
"Doo, doo, doo."
00:54:33
◼
►
I always struggle to say it.
00:54:37
◼
►
"D-U-E, doo."
00:54:39
◼
►
Every time I talk about this app
00:54:41
◼
►
I have to spell it.
00:54:43
◼
►
Because I just know that I say it ridiculously.
00:54:45
◼
►
It's like it's just a totally different word.
00:54:49
◼
►
use this for like reminders
00:54:51
◼
►
and alarms and things.
00:54:53
◼
►
The crazy thing when you look at this screenshot
00:54:55
◼
►
is, "Wait a minute, this guy has three icons on his home screen that have checkboxes on
00:55:00
◼
►
Alright, clear, omni-focus, and do.
00:55:02
◼
►
And it seems like it's a lot of items.
00:55:05
◼
►
But I don't actually use do for their reminders at all.
00:55:08
◼
►
I use do solely because they have the best timer feature of any app I have tried.
00:55:16
◼
►
It's amazing.
00:55:18
◼
►
When I'm trying to find a new app, you can look through my purchase history and it's
00:55:21
◼
►
like, oh, this guy bought 20 timer apps on the iTunes store, and he tried every single
00:55:27
◼
►
one of them.
00:55:29
◼
►
But Doo is the only one that does this thing, which now, especially with the Apple Watch,
00:55:34
◼
►
is just amazing because I use timers constantly for when I work.
00:55:41
◼
►
And the thing that I really like about Doo is when the timer goes off, you can have it
00:55:47
◼
►
automatically re-notify you in a minute and keep re-notifying you every minute until you
00:55:54
◼
►
tell it to stop.
00:55:55
◼
►
I love that feature so much.
00:55:58
◼
►
It's almost hard to explain why that's useful, but there are many, there are very many occasions
00:56:02
◼
►
where I don't want a timer to constantly ring until I tell it to stop.
00:56:08
◼
►
I want it to poke me every minute, meaning that you need to wrap it up, buddy, but keep
00:56:13
◼
►
reminding me until I tell it, "Yes, I have finished this thing that I'm doing."
00:56:19
◼
►
It is life-changing, this timer. And the way it works with the Apple Watch, with sort of
00:56:25
◼
►
tapping you on the wrist, is absolutely phenomenal. I have to say, I use, at least right now,
00:56:31
◼
►
I use basically no third-party apps on my watch except Do, and I use Do all day long.
00:56:37
◼
►
actual Apple Watch app is brilliant because you can you can enter things
00:56:42
◼
►
there you can reschedule things as well I actually do is probably my favorite
00:56:47
◼
►
Apple Watch app mm-hmm yeah it's absolutely great it's absolutely great
00:56:51
◼
►
so unexpectedly I have now kind of just like took you pushed you through this
00:56:58
◼
►
tour of your iOS device right and pointed out things that I find
00:57:02
◼
►
interesting and and somewhat weird would you like the opportunity to do the same
00:57:06
◼
►
to mine. Well are you gonna give me an honest screenshot? Yeah I'll go get my
00:57:12
◼
►
phone right now and I will send an iMessage you a screenshot. Yeah let's see
00:57:16
◼
►
for comparison what have you got there? Give me one second. Myke this iPhone is
00:57:20
◼
►
hideous. Okay awesome right let's do this what's the problem? This screenshot is horrifying.
00:57:29
◼
►
Why what's wrong with this? Okay I almost I almost said this when I was talking
00:57:35
◼
►
about my iPhone but now I have to say it to you I don't understand people who
00:57:40
◼
►
fill up every slot with icons and you're one of those people yeah you have an
00:57:46
◼
►
iPhone iPhone 6 plus so it's one two three four five six seven rows including
00:57:52
◼
►
the dock seven rows completely full with four icons on each row my problem is
00:57:57
◼
►
there's like maybe three apps that I don't want to be there but I can't make
00:58:03
◼
►
get uneven and plus I just like to fill the screen you got the screen fill the
00:58:06
◼
►
screen oh my god that's how I feel okay look if there's three that you don't
00:58:11
◼
►
want to be here at least at least demote one app and leave that that row on the
00:58:19
◼
►
bottom clear having having at least one row clear is very nice it's very
00:58:24
◼
►
pleasing I used to do that I don't know maybe maybe this this this will force me
00:58:29
◼
►
to do it. I need to think more carefully. I mean the phone. Why the heck is the phone
00:58:34
◼
►
icon on your home screen? I actually don't know why it's there. Okay, there we go. I've
00:58:39
◼
►
solved your problem for you. Get rid of the phone icon. Get rid of whatever those other
00:58:43
◼
►
three are. And I mean, when I look at this, this to me is just... I can't believe I've
00:58:50
◼
►
never seen this in person. I feel... I think you must have been hiding this from me in
00:58:54
◼
►
person when you've like grabbed it and thrown it at the wall or something.
00:58:59
◼
►
You need to fix this right now buddy. This is just, this is horrifying visual noise and
00:59:05
◼
►
I have to say your wallpaper, your wallpaper isn't helping. Are you going to put this in
00:59:09
◼
►
the show notes for people?
00:59:10
◼
►
Yeah, that's one of the built-in ones. Apple give you that.
00:59:14
◼
►
Is that one built in?
00:59:16
◼
►
No, that's not built in.
00:59:17
◼
►
I promise you it is. That is an Apple designed wallpaper. I'm telling you.
00:59:21
◼
►
I mean they do occasionally they make horrifying decisions.
00:59:24
◼
►
That is no, there's no way.
00:59:26
◼
►
I mean, it is just, it is just triangles of color.
00:59:30
◼
►
Uh huh. There's a blue tinted one and a red tinted one.
00:59:33
◼
►
And I have the red tinted one because I have a red iPhone case.
00:59:35
◼
►
Open your settings app. Go to wallpaper.
00:59:37
◼
►
It's open right now. I'm scrolling through.
00:59:41
◼
►
Oh dear God, you're right.
00:59:44
◼
►
See? I told you.
00:59:45
◼
►
I can't believe that's one of the built-in ones.
00:59:48
◼
►
No, it is not great.
00:59:49
◼
►
It is great.
00:59:50
◼
►
It's not great. Listeners, listeners, go look at the show notes and ask yourself,
00:59:57
◼
►
which phone would you rather use? You know what the answer is going to be.
01:00:01
◼
►
I have more personality than yours, Greg. It's all like, you know, it's like a robot in there.
01:00:07
◼
►
I've got like a clown going on or something.
01:00:09
◼
►
This looks like, yeah, this looks like someone just puked a bunch of neon and squares all over the place.
01:00:16
◼
►
I do feel like that. Having now looked at yours and now looking at mine,
01:00:20
◼
►
I'm looking at it like on my screen because I'm looking at it on my laptop here. It's bigger than usual and it's like
01:00:25
◼
►
Oh my god, it looks like a clown vomited like
01:00:27
◼
►
It doesn't help because I have a lot of color on the icons as well. Yeah, I mean well
01:00:34
◼
►
This is I didn't even want to get into my crazy obsession with this
01:00:38
◼
►
But part of the problem with me arranging the icons is you have to distribute colors appropriately
01:00:42
◼
►
And I and the various icons that I have are way too white and orange heavy
01:00:47
◼
►
and it took forever to try to figure out how to arrange them.
01:00:49
◼
►
But yeah, you have a lot of color icons here, but you have the camera icon on your home screen,
01:00:53
◼
►
but you can just get that from Control Center. You don't need that icon there. Get rid of that.
01:00:57
◼
►
But that doesn't work properly. But also, the camera serves two purposes.
01:01:01
◼
►
It's also the way I get to my photos.
01:01:03
◼
►
So that is the life hack.
01:01:06
◼
►
Do you have three pages of this? Because I'm looking, you have three dots on the bottom.
01:01:09
◼
►
Yeah. Do you want to see the other pages?
01:01:12
◼
►
I don't know if I can handle the other pages.
01:01:14
◼
►
It's lots of stuff and lots of folders.
01:01:16
◼
►
This is the thing, like if I have to move things off this homepage, I don't know where
01:01:20
◼
►
they're gonna go. That's the problem. That's one of the main reasons that it stays as it
01:01:23
◼
►
is, because I don't know where to put stuff.
01:01:25
◼
►
Okay, send me the other ones. Send me others.
01:01:27
◼
►
This show was meant to be looking at the interesting ways that you work, and now it has actually
01:01:31
◼
►
turned into what I expected, which was you ridiculing the way that I work.
01:01:37
◼
►
I mean, I have to say, when I'm looking at this on my phone, because I want to get the
01:01:41
◼
►
full experience.
01:01:42
◼
►
Oh, that's a good idea. I like that.
01:01:44
◼
►
there I can tap it and then it takes up the whole screen and so it is though I
01:01:47
◼
►
am using your phone and now that I have all three pictures I can swipe back and
01:01:51
◼
►
forth just like it's the three pages. I mean I don't know any other way to
01:01:55
◼
►
describe this than just disgusting. This is just disgusting to me Myke.
01:02:00
◼
►
I assume right now that this is like attacking your senses? I don't know I
01:02:07
◼
►
don't know how you I don't know how you do anything on here I don't know how you
01:02:10
◼
►
find anything on here. I use the search quite a lot. Everything just looks like
01:02:14
◼
►
crap. Okay so this is what I was going to ask. I mean please include these other - I
01:02:18
◼
►
don't know if you can - but if you know please include these other two
01:02:21
◼
►
screenshots so people can see the floor. I mean first of all like you your
01:02:24
◼
►
folders are just random all over the place it makes no sense at all. Well to
01:02:28
◼
►
you. I don't think it makes sense to you. I don't think I don't think it can
01:02:32
◼
►
possibly make sense to you. Now - one thing that I really don't like I don't
01:02:37
◼
►
I don't like having apps on a second and third page of a folder.
01:02:42
◼
►
That frustrates me. I don't like that.
01:02:45
◼
►
I wish that there was no preview of the icons, because then...
01:02:49
◼
►
That's why. Because I can see the little icons in there.
01:02:52
◼
►
If they're on the second page, I don't like that.
01:02:55
◼
►
I wish it was just no icon at all.
01:02:57
◼
►
I couldn't see anything that was in the folders, then I could put more stuff in folders.
01:03:01
◼
►
I don't like them hidden away like that.
01:03:02
◼
►
Yeah, I wish there was a way to just specify that I...
01:03:05
◼
►
There's two things that I want
01:03:07
◼
►
that Apple will never give me.
01:03:09
◼
►
I want opaque folders,
01:03:11
◼
►
so it doesn't even show me what's in there,
01:03:13
◼
►
or maybe I can select a representative icon or something.
01:03:17
◼
►
- But that's the thing that I hate the most
01:03:18
◼
►
about my iPhone now,
01:03:19
◼
►
is seeing those junky folders at the top.
01:03:21
◼
►
But I'm willing to pay that visual price
01:03:24
◼
►
for having the one screen.
01:03:26
◼
►
The second thing that I want,
01:03:28
◼
►
is I want the option to turn off the words
01:03:32
◼
►
underneath the icons.
01:03:34
◼
►
Why does it have to say audible below the icon?
01:03:38
◼
►
I know what that icon is.
01:03:39
◼
►
- You know what's gonna happen now, right?
01:03:41
◼
►
- What? - Android people.
01:03:43
◼
►
- Yeah, I know Android people will tell us.
01:03:46
◼
►
I know, this is what happens.
01:03:48
◼
►
It can never mention, if I ever mention a setting,
01:03:50
◼
►
it's like, listen, Android people,
01:03:51
◼
►
I know that you have settings to change everything.
01:03:53
◼
►
I'm fully aware of that.
01:03:54
◼
►
See our previous 20 minute discussion about changing.
01:03:58
◼
►
But I want to be able to take away the words.
01:04:01
◼
►
I find the words are visual clutter that I have no need.
01:04:04
◼
►
The purpose of the icon is to be able to identify the app.
01:04:09
◼
►
I don't need to read it.
01:04:10
◼
►
I'm not looking at that screen going,
01:04:12
◼
►
hmm, I wonder what the pink music note is.
01:04:14
◼
►
Oh, it's music.
01:04:15
◼
►
Thank you, word below the picture.
01:04:17
◼
►
There's no need for this.
01:04:18
◼
►
I wish I could get rid of that.
01:04:19
◼
►
And I would love it if I could get rid of those words,
01:04:22
◼
►
but I can't.
01:04:23
◼
►
So I want to visually simplify this even better.
01:04:26
◼
►
But okay, so just to step back for a second,
01:04:29
◼
►
because you mentioned that because you have no kind of system at all, you use search to
01:04:35
◼
►
try to find your stuff because there's just crap everywhere in random spots.
01:04:38
◼
►
That's what you have to do.
01:04:40
◼
►
Now I use search for everything basically that's not immediately visible.
01:04:47
◼
►
And what I'm wondering is I may have more apps on my phone than you do.
01:04:52
◼
►
I want you to look it up on your phone right now.
01:04:54
◼
►
Do you know where to go?
01:04:55
◼
►
I'm just curious.
01:04:56
◼
►
I'm just going to get my phone.
01:04:57
◼
►
What are you doing?
01:04:58
◼
►
Why are you leaving your phone all over the place?
01:05:00
◼
►
It's charging! It's charging!
01:05:02
◼
►
Why don't you have a charger where you're sitting?
01:05:04
◼
►
That's a thing that I need to do.
01:05:06
◼
►
Yeah, it is a thing you need to do.
01:05:08
◼
►
Where is he going?
01:05:11
◼
►
Plus, I didn't want it, so I was distracted.
01:05:15
◼
►
I need to give you my full attention.
01:05:16
◼
►
Yeah, you gotta maintain focus.
01:05:18
◼
►
So, yeah, I know where to go. So I'm going there now.
01:05:20
◼
►
Uh, yeah, so it's under Settings, General, About.
01:05:24
◼
►
I have 113 applications on my phone. How many do you have?
01:05:27
◼
►
do you have? Aha! I have 194. Okay. I don't even know why. I had no idea. The thing, when
01:05:37
◼
►
I got this phone, I started fresh. I don't know what's happened. I don't know how I've
01:05:42
◼
►
done this. You have done this. You have done this to yourself. You've ruined everything.
01:05:47
◼
►
I have ruined nothing. You have ruined everything. I have just pointed to the ruin. Because now
01:05:52
◼
►
Now I want my phone to look like yours.
01:05:56
◼
►
I mean, you gotta do something about that, Myke.
01:06:00
◼
►
See, this is why.
01:06:02
◼
►
You know I'm right.
01:06:03
◼
►
You know the three icons on the bottom looks much nicer.
01:06:06
◼
►
You know the one page is nicer.
01:06:07
◼
►
No, I will not have the three icons on the bottom.
01:06:10
◼
►
I will always have four.
01:06:11
◼
►
I mean, I'm looking at this picture still, and it just seems like there's no rhyme or
01:06:15
◼
►
reason to anything.
01:06:17
◼
►
There's no rhyme or reason to any of this.
01:06:18
◼
►
Well, there is.
01:06:19
◼
►
Do you want me to talk you through it?
01:06:22
◼
►
I mean, you can try.
01:06:26
◼
►
So the doc consists of Tweetbot, Mailbox, Chrome, and Overcast.
01:06:30
◼
►
They are my most used, most beloved applications.
01:06:34
◼
►
So they live there.
01:06:35
◼
►
I use them constantly.
01:06:36
◼
►
I don't even think you should have Twitter on your phone, but that's a whole other conversation.
01:06:40
◼
►
I'm writing that down.
01:06:46
◼
►
Episode number 11.
01:06:48
◼
►
nine. Then I have messaging applications, messages, Whatsapp and Slack. Right. They
01:06:57
◼
►
are there, I use those, they're my messaging apps. I then have Beats, right? Because it
01:07:02
◼
►
sits above Overcast. That's like the audio portion. Then I have 1Password,
01:07:08
◼
►
Fantastic Hell, OmniFocus and Workflow. That is the productivity section.
01:07:14
◼
►
It's where I get stuff done. I can't believe there wasn't a calendar on your
01:07:17
◼
►
home screen. Nope. That will be the calendaring episode. Then Launch Center Pro lives above
01:07:24
◼
►
workflow. I can't imagine a worse... oh wait, you use your phone right-handed, don't you?
01:07:31
◼
►
Yeah. Okay, I'm looking at that thing, that's a terrible place for Launch Center Pro. But
01:07:35
◼
►
oh, if you're using it right-handed, then that's fine. Yeah, that was actually picked
01:07:38
◼
►
as one of the prime places for me. Yeah, that's an easy spot. Then I have camera stuff. Camera,
01:07:45
◼
►
Periscope. Periscope on the home page? Yeah that was a bad mistake that needs to come off. Yeah
01:07:51
◼
►
it's terrible. I don't know why I ever did that. Terrible decision. I was really excited about it
01:07:55
◼
►
one day and then it got moved to my home screen. I don't know why. Then I have um this next line
01:08:01
◼
►
makes no sense. Yeah yeah your RSS reader, Evernote, Dropbox, Google Maps. Oh yeah those all
01:08:06
◼
►
those four go together obviously. There's no thing there. Clear and Dew they go together because
01:08:13
◼
►
because they're kind of remindery type things.
01:08:15
◼
►
How do you say it again?
01:08:19
◼
►
Then I have Foursquare, because,
01:08:22
◼
►
and this is all falling apart.
01:08:24
◼
►
- I mean, look at you, you're putting the two,
01:08:26
◼
►
the two white colored apps next to each other.
01:08:28
◼
►
I mean, even unread above the camera,
01:08:30
◼
►
you have two grayscale apps right above each other,
01:08:32
◼
►
and then above one password, it's just,
01:08:34
◼
►
it's visually hard to parse.
01:08:37
◼
►
You have editorial above do,
01:08:38
◼
►
which are, you have the older version of editorial,
01:08:40
◼
►
so it's white.
01:08:41
◼
►
This is, this is no good.
01:08:43
◼
►
I mean, in your doc you have mailbox and Chrome next to each other,
01:08:45
◼
►
which are visually similar.
01:08:46
◼
►
And then you have the phone at the top left,
01:08:48
◼
►
which you already admit that you don't use.
01:08:50
◼
►
So that's that's the phone at the top left is there because I think it's always
01:08:54
◼
►
Right. So you never thought about it.
01:08:55
◼
►
You never went about it in any kind of rational way. You just left it there.
01:08:59
◼
►
Great. Okay. And then day one of your journaling application.
01:09:03
◼
►
Yep. I need to seriously rethink this now.
01:09:06
◼
►
Yeah, you do.
01:09:07
◼
►
And I will never forgive you for that.
01:09:10
◼
►
We need to have like a little sit down next time we meet up for lunch.
01:09:13
◼
►
I want to, now I've decided I want to make my phone look like your phone.
01:09:19
◼
►
I think that would be good for you.
01:09:20
◼
►
With four icons in the dock because I'm civilized.
01:09:24
◼
►
Three icons in the dock because it looks much nicer.
01:09:25
◼
►
Yeah but where, I'll be missing one.
01:09:28
◼
►
You don't need Tweetbot.
01:09:29
◼
►
You can take Tweetbot off that.
01:09:31
◼
►
That's the one I need the most buddy.
01:09:34
◼
►
No, goodbye Tweetbot.
01:09:37
◼
►
Twitter isn't even installed on my phone.
01:09:38
◼
►
shouldn't have Twitter on your phone. But then how will I talk to anybody? How will I like Twitter? If I don't have Twitter on my phone how will I tweet? I don't understand. We will discuss it in episode 9.
01:09:52
◼
►
This episode of Cortex is also brought to you by igloo the internet you'll actually like. We're talking about work here and I know that so many people I used to be one of those people I believe Gray probably one of those people as well used to have to use intranet products.
01:10:06
◼
►
Intranet products that are so boring and horrible to look at and terrible to use that you have to like just accept HR policies on
01:10:13
◼
►
And basically just read some important announcement from a stuffy executive somewhere or some boring stuff like that
01:10:19
◼
►
That's the stuff that we all hate to do
01:10:21
◼
►
Nobody wants to use an intranet in that way is boring and it looks like these things were built in the 90s
01:10:25
◼
►
Looks like designed by somebody who actually probably feels like they hate you because they just make everything look so horrible and hard to use
01:10:32
◼
►
Well, those days are over and this is what igloo is all about
01:10:34
◼
►
igloo allows you to make your company intranet feel like a place that you actually want to be. It's super configurable
01:10:42
◼
►
You can completely rebrand it to give it the look and feel of your team
01:10:45
◼
►
You can make it feel at home by having a drag-and-drop interface
01:10:48
◼
►
It allows you to drop little widgets in so you can reorganize the whole platform to fit exactly how
01:10:53
◼
►
Your teams and the different departments in your company work. It's pretty pretty cool with igloo as well
01:10:58
◼
►
you don't have to be chained to your desk to do your work. You can manage your task list from a laptop during a meeting, you can
01:11:04
◼
►
share status updates where you got one foot out the door on a Friday, Friday!
01:11:07
◼
►
And you can also access the latest version of a file from home.
01:11:11
◼
►
You can even do this in your pajamas and nobody will know, nobody will judge you.
01:11:14
◼
►
I won't judge you. These days everything should be on mobile. Your work should be too and so should your
01:11:21
◼
►
intranet. One of the problems with living mobile lives like we have these days is that people sign up for loads of different services like
01:11:28
◼
►
box and google drive and dropbox and they want to keep their stuff with them right because they're
01:11:32
◼
►
going to be out of the office so they put them in dropbox so they can access them at home this can
01:11:36
◼
►
be problematic for so many different reasons because you can have security problems right
01:11:41
◼
►
we don't really want to talk about those but they can happen they can be serious security problems
01:11:44
◼
►
having customer data in dropbox and you've got it at home and also it's just inconvenient because
01:11:48
◼
►
there are files all over the place well igloo allows you to integrate those services into one
01:11:54
◼
►
big, easy to use, easy to manage, easy to secure platform. So people can still use Dropbox
01:11:59
◼
►
and stuff, but it's inside of igloo as well. Because this just makes it safer, it just
01:12:04
◼
►
makes it easier. If you know terms like 256 bit encryption, single sign on and active
01:12:09
◼
►
directory integrations, then you are going to know just how rock solid igloo is. If you
01:12:13
◼
►
don't know what any of that means, just trust me.
01:12:16
◼
►
With igloo, you can share files with your co-workers for you all to collaborate on.
01:12:20
◼
►
You can track who's read them with read receipts. This can be super useful for, do you remember
01:12:24
◼
►
that HR policy document I was talking about earlier, rather than you having to go around
01:12:27
◼
►
and check with every single person that it's been done, because you know, let's face it,
01:12:31
◼
►
that stuff still needs to be signed, with igloo you can see who has read it because
01:12:34
◼
►
it will pop up and say that they have.
01:12:36
◼
►
It's time to break away from the intranet that you hate.
01:12:39
◼
►
Go and sign up for igloo right now and you can try it out for free for any team of up
01:12:43
◼
►
to 10 people for as long as you want.
01:12:45
◼
►
Go sign up right now at igloosoftware.com/cortex.
01:12:49
◼
►
Thank you so much to igloo for supporting this show and all of relay FM.
01:12:54
◼
►
How much do you even consider using your Mac in this way?
01:12:57
◼
►
Like, do you even think about like what goes on your dock
01:12:59
◼
►
and what goes on your menu bar is an important thing?
01:13:01
◼
►
I have nothing in my dock.
01:13:04
◼
►
OK, we need to go back to this again.
01:13:07
◼
►
Do you seriously have nothing in your dock?
01:13:09
◼
►
To a first approximation, that is true.
01:13:12
◼
►
What are the two?
01:13:14
◼
►
There are two applications that I do leave in my dock,
01:13:17
◼
►
But that is only because I always want them in the same location on the dock
01:13:20
◼
►
But otherwise I have no applications in my dock. The only two things that live there permanently are
01:13:25
◼
►
Activity monitor because I just want to be able to see it. I have it next to finder
01:13:30
◼
►
I want it in the same spot every time I bring up the dock and I have a program called anti RSI which is to
01:13:36
◼
►
Remind me to stop using the computer at particular times
01:13:39
◼
►
So those two are in my dock, but it is only because I want their icons in the same place all the time
01:13:45
◼
►
Otherwise, no dock icons. My dock is minimized and there are no icons.
01:13:51
◼
►
Please don't tell me it's on the bottom.
01:13:54
◼
►
It is on the bottom but it doesn't matter.
01:13:58
◼
►
Why does this bother you?
01:14:02
◼
►
It takes up so much screen real estate.
01:14:04
◼
►
But can I tell you something that's probably going to drive you crazy?
01:14:06
◼
►
I have a couple of computers and actually the dock location is inconsistent between them.
01:14:10
◼
►
On a couple of them it's on the side and some of them it's on the bottom.
01:14:14
◼
►
I don't understand how I can be criticized about my iPhone.
01:14:19
◼
►
But here's the thing.
01:14:20
◼
►
Because I never use the dock to launch anything,
01:14:23
◼
►
and because it's always hidden, I don't even really ever
01:14:27
◼
►
I never look at the dock.
01:14:28
◼
►
So if it's hidden, it doesn't matter what's on there.
01:14:31
◼
►
I never use it.
01:14:32
◼
►
So it doesn't make any difference if it's on the side
01:14:33
◼
►
or if it's on the bottom.
01:14:35
◼
►
One of these days, I'll make all the computers consistent.
01:14:37
◼
►
But I just--
01:14:38
◼
►
I don't care because I never look at it.
01:14:39
◼
►
Activity monitor, though.
01:14:41
◼
►
Is that really-- that's crazy to me
01:14:43
◼
►
that's that important, that it's not only open all the time, but is pretty much the
01:14:48
◼
►
only app, right? Because the RSI thing is like a utility, it's like a thing. But it's
01:14:53
◼
►
the only app really that you ordain to live. I mean, you have a really powerful computer,
01:14:58
◼
►
like what's the issue that you're finding there?
01:15:01
◼
►
The reason it's there is for when I'm exporting stuff. It is useful to see if programs have
01:15:06
◼
►
frozen or if they're busy. I mean, I don't use it a ton, but it just gives me a sense
01:15:12
◼
►
Like, what's the system up to in situations where it might be ambiguous?
01:15:16
◼
►
So when I'm exporting animations, is the usual culprit of, "Did the system just freeze, or is it busy for the next couple hours churning away at a two-hour long Hello Internet video for YouTube?"
01:15:28
◼
►
That's why I have it there. But I don't use it very much. It's just more that I want it consistent if it is open on all the systems.
01:15:34
◼
►
So I can quickly go look and see if there's a problem with something, or something needs to be killed.
01:15:37
◼
►
Do you care about what lives in your menu bar?
01:15:39
◼
►
That I am very picky about and definitely for the show notes for listeners.
01:15:43
◼
►
If you are picky about the icons that live on the top of your menu bar, I use Bartender.
01:15:50
◼
►
Which is excellent.
01:15:51
◼
►
It is an excellent little app that gives me a little box on the menu bar which I can hide
01:15:56
◼
►
a million ugly little icons in.
01:15:59
◼
►
So there are very, very few icons that are actually visible all the time on my menu bar.
01:16:06
◼
►
There's the Bluetooth status, there's volume, I do have Time Machine, but that's only because
01:16:12
◼
►
I need to keep an eye on that, I've just switched over systems and I want to make sure it's
01:16:16
◼
►
working right.
01:16:18
◼
►
There is the input menu, so that I can see that my computer is in Dvorak, because every
01:16:23
◼
►
once in a while it likes to switch over to a different keyboard, which is super fun.
01:16:27
◼
►
I use the Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard, which is a PC keyboard.
01:16:32
◼
►
Right, yes, I know that one.
01:16:33
◼
►
So I have to change mine to like PC British or otherwise just nothing works.
01:16:40
◼
►
Basically, I may as well be using a Dvorak keyboard at that point because it's just like
01:16:45
◼
►
I just don't recognize any key input.
01:16:47
◼
►
Yeah, so I have the Dvorak keyboard thing, I have the Wi-Fi indicator, and then the one
01:16:55
◼
►
that drives some people crazy when they see my computer is that I have what's called a
01:17:00
◼
►
fuzzy clock.
01:17:02
◼
►
I used to use one of these.
01:17:04
◼
►
The fuzzy clock, on my clock right now,
01:17:06
◼
►
it doesn't display the time as a number.
01:17:10
◼
►
It displays it as a little sentence.
01:17:12
◼
►
So it says quarter past four.
01:17:14
◼
►
The words are written out on my computer right now.
01:17:17
◼
►
I can actually take a little screen shot for people.
01:17:19
◼
►
It's actually 16, 17 right now.
01:17:21
◼
►
Yeah, but who cares?
01:17:22
◼
►
I don't care.
01:17:23
◼
►
I don't need to know the time that precisely.
01:17:25
◼
►
And I really like having the fuzzy clock.
01:17:27
◼
►
I don't like having the little number.
01:17:29
◼
►
And for some reason I just find it's much easier and I don't live a life that I need to know to the minute what time it is.
01:17:36
◼
►
It just doesn't matter to me.
01:17:38
◼
►
So I like the ambiguity and it's somehow...
01:17:42
◼
►
It's just somehow clearer in my mind the notion of "Oh, it is 5 o'clock."
01:17:47
◼
►
"Is it 5.03? Maybe. I don't care."
01:17:49
◼
►
Yeah, I get that. I do actually get that. I like that.
01:17:53
◼
►
Because as well, if you use an analogue watch face, that's how you tell the time.
01:17:57
◼
►
Yeah, it's very similar to the analog watch face thing.
01:18:01
◼
►
You don't look at an analog clock and be like, "Oh, let me just hang on a minute.
01:18:05
◼
►
I just need to swear exactly.
01:18:07
◼
►
One, two, three."
01:18:09
◼
►
Nobody does that.
01:18:11
◼
►
I sent you the thing for your show notes.
01:18:12
◼
►
You can use that.
01:18:13
◼
►
We massively diverged from the overall point of what I was driving at today.
01:18:19
◼
►
Is this what you wanted?
01:18:20
◼
►
Is this what you wanted this conversation to be?
01:18:23
◼
►
I feel like it got away from you, though.
01:18:24
◼
►
wasn't what I planned, but looking back on it, this is exactly what I wanted. When I
01:18:30
◼
►
wanted us to do this show, that last 20 minutes was exactly what I hoped would happen. Basically,
01:18:39
◼
►
I don't understand you and you're really disappointed in me. This is how I expect the next few episodes
01:18:49
◼
►
I'm glad that's what you wanted and I'm glad that's what you got, Myke.
01:18:54
◼
►
I guarantee I'm very disappointed in you. But I wanted to set out with you to
01:19:01
◼
►
start looking at the devices that you use and the choices that you make and
01:19:04
◼
►
the way that you arrange them to ask the simple question of do you think that
01:19:10
◼
►
any of this actually makes you work better? The hardware decisions, the way
01:19:14
◼
►
that you organize things, the choices that you make, do you think that they
01:19:17
◼
►
actually make you work faster, harder or smarter or do you think it's just a
01:19:22
◼
►
thing that we do or that you do to just make you feel more comfortable to do the
01:19:28
◼
►
work. Like the actual choices that you make intrinsically the choice doesn't
01:19:33
◼
►
help you do the work it's just you feel more comfortable to get the work done.
01:19:37
◼
►
All we have in life are the choices we make. I've made a whole bunch of choices
01:19:43
◼
►
with regards to the hardware and the software that I use and then I observe
01:19:50
◼
►
the changes in my own behavior as a result of those. And a lot of it is just
01:19:58
◼
►
making a decision so that a piece of technology becomes almost invisible. Like
01:20:04
◼
►
I don't really think about my Mac very much. It's almost semi invisible in
01:20:11
◼
►
my life in a way. It's just a machine that I sit down at and I have my desk
01:20:15
◼
►
and my chair and I sit here and I do work on it. And that's what I
01:20:20
◼
►
want from it. But I'm always messing around and tinkering with my system to try to see
01:20:26
◼
►
how can things potentially be better. And I mentioned earlier, the thing with clear
01:20:31
◼
►
is something that I'm trying now to have two items always visible. Does this make a difference?
01:20:37
◼
►
I think it does, but I haven't been doing it long enough to be able to tell. So, some
01:20:44
◼
►
Some decisions, yes, they help the workflow.
01:20:49
◼
►
I don't necessarily...
01:20:52
◼
►
It's hard to say if I'm faster with particular decisions.
01:20:55
◼
►
Like if I had learned a different audio program, would I be faster with that than Logic?
01:21:01
◼
►
Probably not.
01:21:02
◼
►
It probably wouldn't make much of a difference.
01:21:03
◼
►
I just had to pick some audio program.
01:21:06
◼
►
So I might as well continue with my doubling down on Apple.
01:21:08
◼
►
So I went with Logic.
01:21:11
◼
►
But things like selecting timer applications or task manager applications, those things
01:21:18
◼
►
I can observe, they do make a difference.
01:21:20
◼
►
Like having a better timer application matters.
01:21:25
◼
►
Having a better to-do list manager matters.
01:21:28
◼
►
It makes a difference.
01:21:30
◼
►
But then there's stuff just like arranging all of the icons on my phone and picking a
01:21:34
◼
►
pleasing background is just because I don't want to live a life where a clown has vomited
01:21:40
◼
►
on my phone and I have to deal with that every day. Like I would like a nice calming, relaxing,
01:21:47
◼
►
easily visually parsable environment in which to work. Unlike some people.
01:21:54
◼
►
We have a couple of mechanisms to receive follow-up and feedback for Cortex. Now, you
01:22:02
◼
►
can email us, but we will probably get to this at some point. We would both really prefer
01:22:09
◼
►
it if you didn't email. You can! If you go to our page online, if you go to relay.fm/cortex,
01:22:17
◼
►
you will be able to click a button that says contact and it will open your email application
01:22:21
◼
►
and you can write an email and it will go to me, it will not go to Gray.
01:22:25
◼
►
I was gonna say, and you can email Myke.
01:22:27
◼
►
100% it will never go to him. It will just go to me. So, you know, treat that as it will,
01:22:34
◼
►
you may, but both me and Gray are not big fans of email. If you have something that
01:22:40
◼
►
is long that you want to say and you really want to say it, feel free to do it. You just
01:22:44
◼
►
get it out there. But if it's something you can say over Twitter or on Reddit or something
01:22:49
◼
►
like that, please do it there, because that is a way that we both prefer to receive feedback,
01:22:56
◼
►
because it's easier to digest, I think.
01:22:58
◼
►
Yes, we are recording this show fairly well in advance, but when it actually goes live,
01:23:04
◼
►
I will have a, I will put up a thread on my subreddit where people can discuss this and
01:23:10
◼
►
people can tweet at you or me, and that is a way in which your feedback will probably
01:23:15
◼
►
be much more well received than emailing Myke.
01:23:20
◼
►
Although I have no problem with emailing Myke.
01:23:22
◼
►
That works fine by me, but, you know, the Reddit is probably better.
01:23:25
◼
►
You would say that.
01:23:27
◼
►
I can copy you into all my responses.
01:23:30
◼
►
- I can create a filter that will delete all of those.
01:23:35
◼
►
I will set up multiple email accounts
01:23:36
◼
►
and use different subject lines.
01:23:38
◼
►
You'll never get away from me.
01:23:41
◼
►
How do people get to the Reddit?
01:23:42
◼
►
Like what is the way to do that?
01:23:44
◼
►
- Oh yeah, of course.
01:23:45
◼
►
- For example, I have no clue.
01:23:47
◼
►
So you need to tell me.
01:23:49
◼
►
- I feel like Reddit is so omnipresent in my life.
01:23:52
◼
►
Who wouldn't know how to get to the Reddit?
01:23:54
◼
►
you go to reddit.com/r/cgpgray and on there you will see a link that'll say "Cortex #1"
01:24:07
◼
►
and you can click that and participate in the comment thread.
01:24:11
◼
►
Awesome. Gray mentioned Twitter as well. We are both on Twitter. Gray is @cgpgray. And
01:24:18
◼
►
I am @imike. I-M-Y-K-E. And also, this is something that I want to do for this show.
01:24:23
◼
►
So we're gonna do the regular follow-up and stuff at the start of the show, as you'll
01:24:27
◼
►
hear in many shows.
01:24:29
◼
►
But there is something I would like to do at the end of each show, which will be called
01:24:35
◼
►
Now this is a method that I do just on a couple of other shows that I host on Real AFM.
01:24:40
◼
►
And what it does is, it allows you to ask us, I guess especially Gray, questions.
01:24:46
◼
►
So this can be, it doesn't even necessarily have to be follow-up, it can be just things
01:24:50
◼
►
that you wanna know, you know, about.
01:24:53
◼
►
hear us talk a lot about work and stuff like that. You may have seen an app for
01:24:56
◼
►
example on my home screens or Grey's home screens that you want to know a
01:25:00
◼
►
little bit more about so you could tweet and ask us that question. Or maybe you
01:25:04
◼
►
want to understand a little bit more about Activity Monitor and why or why
01:25:08
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you would consider it to be so important that you would leave it in your doc.
01:25:13
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Or why, you know, or maybe you have just a quick comment about why magnifying the
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Doc is like it's just the worst thing you could ever do. You can if you just
01:25:23
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tweet with the hashtag #askgray, A-S-K-G-R-E-Y, it will go into a document that we
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will control and then we'll be able to bring in the ones that we want to talk
01:25:33
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about each week and we can mention them and it's a really fun way to ask
01:25:36
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questions and be involved in the show and it's a great way to get follow-up
01:25:39
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and feedback and stuff like that. Yeah I've never done anything like this so
01:25:42
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I'm curious to see how this goes. We'll see how this goes but we will not be
01:25:47
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able to do it for the next episode because I believe we're recording that
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in advance so we won't have Ask Ray next time but we will have it on the third
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episode I guess is that the way this is going to work?
01:25:57
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Yes so the first two episodes we're recording before we release them.
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Like you know we're recording them in advance before the show is even live to
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the internet so episode three I expect to be chock-full of follow-up and
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questions and feedback about the show. So I'm looking forward to that episode
01:26:17
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Maybe before then I would have changed my entire, just the way I do everything
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in my life. Who knows? I sure hope so. As I am pushed into changing things. But I
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think that's probably about it, Gray. Okay, yeah. I'm glad this is what you wanted.
01:26:34
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I don't know if I... I wanted something! But I don't know if I got what I was
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originally intending to get.
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Alright, I'll see you next week.
01:26:49
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[BLANK_AUDIO]