Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► Okay, I'm all set.

00:00:01 ◼   ► Oh, let me just grab something real quick, one second.

00:00:03 ◼   ► No rush.

00:00:04 ◼   ► All right.

00:00:06 ◼   ► What'd you grab?

00:00:06 ◼   ► Vanilla Coke.

00:00:08 ◼   ► Oh, sorry, I just realized I need to grab something. Hold on.

00:00:10 ◼   ► Okay.

00:00:16 ◼   ► What did you grab?

00:00:17 ◼   ► I grabbed a vanilla huel.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Oh, that's the food thing, right?

00:00:21 ◼   ► Yeah, it's the meal replacement thing.

00:00:22 ◼   ► I was getting ready, I forgot to grab something, I knew it was something,

00:00:25 ◼   ► and then it's like, "Oh, vanilla, thank you for triggering it in my brain."

00:00:28 ◼   ► What do you think of vanilla Huel?

00:00:30 ◼   ► Uh, it's the best Huel.

00:00:31 ◼   ► Okay, but are we grading on a curve here?

00:00:33 ◼   ► Like it's not as good as a vanilla shake, if that's what you're asking.

00:00:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:00:36 ◼   ► It tastes vanilla.

00:00:37 ◼   ► It is a totally adequate meal replacement.

00:00:41 ◼   ► Is there a competitor? I forget the other one.

00:00:43 ◼   ► Soylent?

00:00:43 ◼   ► Soylent, yes.

00:00:46 ◼   ► It's definitely better than Soylent, I would say.

00:00:48 ◼   ► I think there's some weird thing with Soylent not being able to be sold in the UK anymore.

00:00:53 ◼   ► It seems like Huel is everywhere and Soylent has disappeared.

00:00:56 ◼   ► Is this one of the ones I can't have? Like is it full of nuts?

00:01:00 ◼   ► Is it full of nuts? I don't know.

00:01:02 ◼   ► Just like with Soylent, I feel like the really unfortunate names is like Soylent.

00:01:09 ◼   ► What's Soylent made out of? People. It's like Huell. What's Huell? Human fuel.

00:01:13 ◼   ► Human fuel. It's made of humans.

00:01:15 ◼   ► It's made of humans. Like guys, why are you picking these names? These are terrible names.

00:01:19 ◼   ► Like looking at their website, it doesn't say it's got nuts in it, but they might have nuts in it.

00:01:25 ◼   ► How are you with peas? Are peas okay?

00:01:28 ◼   ► - I don't know. - Yeah, peas are great.

00:01:30 ◼   ► Peas are awesome.

00:01:31 ◼   ► It says on here, like just an image,

00:01:33 ◼   ► I don't know why it's just an image.

00:01:35 ◼   ► Tapioca, sunflower seeds, coconut, pea protein,

00:01:38 ◼   ► flax seed and hemp seed protein.

00:01:40 ◼   ► I think I should be good with that.

00:01:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm not seeing anything on the one that I'm drinking

00:01:44 ◼   ► that looks like nuts.

00:01:45 ◼   ► Did Soylent have a lot of nuts?

00:01:47 ◼   ► No, but a lot of like protein bars.

00:01:50 ◼   ► It's all nuts.

00:01:52 ◼   ► It's just all nuts.

00:01:53 ◼   ► no matter what it tells you the flavor is, right?

00:01:55 ◼   ► It's like chocolate chip, but like 70% peanuts.

00:01:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:02:00 ◼   ► It's always funny to me when I see like chocolate chip

00:02:02 ◼   ► and then like peanut chocolate chip,

00:02:04 ◼   ► it's always peanut anyway.

00:02:06 ◼   ► So like, you know, but I found, I don't remember,

00:02:09 ◼   ► but years ago, like I found a company

00:02:12 ◼   ► that that was their thing.

00:02:14 ◼   ► Like we make protein bars without nuts in them.

00:02:18 ◼   ► So the Huel, right?

00:02:19 ◼   ► Does it fill you up?

00:02:20 ◼   ► - It totally acts as a meal replacement.

00:02:23 ◼   ► I think the biggest disadvantage is it's higher in carbs than I would like.

00:02:27 ◼   ► 26 carbohydrates per individual little drink.

00:02:32 ◼   ► It's a bit high on the carb side if you're trying to do something that's keto to have more than one in a day.

00:02:39 ◼   ► But this is, shall we say, transitioning out of holiday eating mode.

00:02:43 ◼   ► I have never eaten so much during the holiday break before.

00:02:47 ◼   ► So we build a gingerbread house.

00:02:49 ◼   ► Idina and I build a gingerbread house every year.

00:02:51 ◼   ► I basically ate the entire gingerbread house,

00:02:53 ◼   ► which is like not a thing that I do.

00:02:55 ◼   ► - Wow.

00:02:56 ◼   ► - Usually it's like it's there,

00:02:58 ◼   ► and then we'll eat a little bit of it and it's gone.

00:03:00 ◼   ► But like over the course of like a week,

00:03:02 ◼   ► I ate most of the gingerbread house.

00:03:05 ◼   ► 'Cause it was just like in the kitchen.

00:03:07 ◼   ► And like every time I walked past it,

00:03:08 ◼   ► I was like, well, I'll have another piece

00:03:09 ◼   ► of gingerbread house.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Like I was like Godzilla walking around the kitchen.

00:03:12 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:03:14 ◼   ► The poor villagers must have been terrified of me.

00:03:17 ◼   ► - Well, I'm glad you were enjoying yourself.

00:03:19 ◼   ► You know, that's very much the like,

00:03:21 ◼   ► Thanksgiving to New Year's season.

00:03:23 ◼   ► It's like, well, when can I physically not eat anymore?

00:03:27 ◼   ► Again, like I would love for the carbs to be like half

00:03:31 ◼   ► of what they currently have,

00:03:32 ◼   ► but compared to eating gigantic bowls of pasta for dinner,

00:03:37 ◼   ► it's very, you know, it's like, oh, we're already way ahead.

00:03:40 ◼   ► It was like, oh, how many carbs per meal three weeks ago?

00:03:44 ◼   ► I don't know, 100, 200 carbs per meal?

00:03:47 ◼   ► It's like, okay, so 26 is a great improvement.

00:03:50 ◼   ► - I like to make a recommendation for you

00:03:52 ◼   ► for like a thing that I like,

00:03:54 ◼   ► which is kind of in this vein.

00:03:56 ◼   ► It's a cereal called Magic Spoon.

00:03:59 ◼   ► - Magic Spoon, okay.

00:04:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, they do, it's great.

00:04:02 ◼   ► What I like about Magic Spoon is they do cereal

00:04:06 ◼   ► that is like kids cereal for adults.

00:04:10 ◼   ► No sugar, low carbs, high protein.

00:04:13 ◼   ► - I'll investigate it.

00:04:14 ◼   ► - And genuinely it's really good.

00:04:16 ◼   ► Now like all of these things,

00:04:18 ◼   ► it has like something weird about it.

00:04:20 ◼   ► Like it's got like a little chalkiness to it sometimes,

00:04:23 ◼   ► but the flavors are great.

00:04:25 ◼   ► And of all of the stuff that I've tried,

00:04:28 ◼   ► which is like, all of this for me is lunch replacement.

00:04:32 ◼   ► That's always what I'm looking for

00:04:34 ◼   ► because lunch is the most dangerous meal of the day for me,

00:04:37 ◼   ► for sure.

00:04:38 ◼   ► And Magic Spoon has been my favorite

00:04:40 ◼   ► of these that I've found.

00:04:41 ◼   ► I might try these Hyul things.

00:04:43 ◼   ► I might get one of their sampler packs and give it a go.

00:04:46 ◼   ► 'Cause this would be the perfect kind of thing

00:04:48 ◼   ► for me to have in the studio.

00:04:49 ◼   ► I have a little fridge in the studio, right?

00:04:51 ◼   ► And I could just stock these up

00:04:52 ◼   ► and maybe a couple of days a week,

00:04:54 ◼   ► this is my lunch or whatever.

00:04:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, if you're looking for a lunch replacement,

00:04:59 ◼   ► for that, I highly recommend it.

00:05:01 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:05:02 ◼   ► What I don't like about these kinds of things is like,

00:05:04 ◼   ► why is it version 1.0, version 2.0?

00:05:07 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:09 ◼   ► - I'm just gonna speculate that gives you some insight

00:05:12 ◼   ► into the background of the founders of the company.

00:05:15 ◼   ► That's what that comes from.

00:05:16 ◼   ► Like, oh, they probably came from tech/software.

00:05:19 ◼   ► - All right, I'm gonna take a look.

00:05:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, this is all part of the rollover

00:05:23 ◼   ► from the theme of like, oh, there's two parts.

00:05:25 ◼   ► And one of them is work on your health.

00:05:27 ◼   ► And this is definitely the like, work on your health.

00:05:29 ◼   ► Like let's transition out of just terrible holiday eating

00:05:32 ◼   ► and like so far so good.

00:05:33 ◼   ► - How is your theme going?

00:05:36 ◼   ► It's probably worth setting the stage by the way,

00:05:40 ◼   ► that we set our themes eight weeks ago

00:05:43 ◼   ► by the time we're recording.

00:05:44 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

00:05:45 ◼   ► So like I have been living the year of the weekend for two months, even though it's January.

00:05:51 ◼   ► I was pausing there for a second when you asked me because we do have this very strange

00:05:55 ◼   ► time delay between when we last spoke and especially because we recorded the theme

00:06:00 ◼   ► episode earlier this year. Way in advance. Way in advance.

00:06:03 ◼   ► We recorded it like before I went on vacation in November. It was recorded a really long time ago

00:06:09 ◼   ► because we wanted to make sure it was done. I didn't want to record it on vacation again

00:06:14 ◼   ► this time like I did in 2022, the beginning of 2022.

00:06:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, that was the day where you were going to Disney

00:06:21 ◼   ► after you were done, I hated that, right?

00:06:23 ◼   ► Like I was nervous.

00:06:25 ◼   ► - It was way too much stress for me.

00:06:27 ◼   ► - I was like, no, no, no, we will never do this again.

00:06:29 ◼   ► Like I can't live with the pressure

00:06:31 ◼   ► that like Myke has to go to Disney.

00:06:33 ◼   ► So like we need to finish, like it was awful.

00:06:35 ◼   ► I was like, I can't delay that man going to Disney.

00:06:37 ◼   ► That was awful.

00:06:38 ◼   ► - That was just, it was a bad idea.

00:06:39 ◼   ► 'Cause then I was like, it was on my mind that I had to edit

00:06:42 ◼   ► and I started editing it in the airport on the way home.

00:06:45 ◼   ► It was just like a bad, bad time.

00:06:46 ◼   ► So like this time, and I think we'll always do this,

00:06:49 ◼   ► get it done before the holidays.

00:06:51 ◼   ► For us, it's just a case of like planning.

00:06:54 ◼   ► So like we're still running our themes for 12 months,

00:06:56 ◼   ► but they're from like November to November

00:06:58 ◼   ► rather than January to January or whatever, you know?

00:07:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:07:02 ◼   ► I think also part of the reason I was kind of hesitating

00:07:03 ◼   ► is I feel like ideally December/January,

00:07:10 ◼   ► Some period in there is like a vague transition from the previous year to the next year.

00:07:16 ◼   ► And that's how I feel like it's gone for me is it's a bit like, oh, we did record forever ago,

00:07:24 ◼   ► but I feel like mostly I've actually just started with the theme stuff two weeks ago,

00:07:30 ◼   ► because I was in a kind of transition period. Sort of a good way to finish the last year/also

00:07:37 ◼   ► start the year of work was I ended up doing a writing retreat. I'm fortunate enough to be

00:07:43 ◼   ► invited to these things sometimes. And so those are always just like incredibly successful

00:07:48 ◼   ► work periods. You're there with other people, you're focused on one thing, everybody just ends

00:07:54 ◼   ► up talking about whatever they're working on. And you sort of keep an eye on everybody else. I'm

00:07:59 ◼   ► like, "Hey, what are you doing over there? Shouldn't you be working and not just sitting around?"

00:08:04 ◼   ► So there's really great, really focused period of time.

00:08:07 ◼   ► It's just like gentle bullying.

00:08:08 ◼   ► Yeah, it is. It's like friendly work bullying.

00:08:11 ◼   ► But it's good though, yeah. I like that.

00:08:14 ◼   ► Something that was different this year, which ended up being a great idea,

00:08:17 ◼   ► was that we were all kind of, you know, like I always talk about in units,

00:08:20 ◼   ► of like doing units of work, kind of got everybody to be centrally tracking like

00:08:26 ◼   ► units of work done per day, basically right above the coffee machine,

00:08:29 ◼   ► which is where everybody was going all the time.

00:08:32 ◼   ► So that was also like a very nice gentle pressure on everybody.

00:08:35 ◼   ► It's like you could see where other people were in their day towards finishing however many units of work they wanted to get done.

00:08:42 ◼   ► It was also a nice test of some of the stuff that I'd been thinking about how I want to pick and select topics.

00:08:49 ◼   ► Some of the things I was working on were correctly constrained in terms of like how big can this project get,

00:08:55 ◼   ► or like how many things am I working on at once.

00:08:57 ◼   ► So it was really good and that's why that trip really felt like a big transition.

00:09:03 ◼   ► It's like, oh that was partly last year but it was also the beginning of this year.

00:09:06 ◼   ► The people on these writing retreats, are they all YouTubers or are they across different fields?

00:09:10 ◼   ► It's different fields, not everybody's a YouTuber.

00:09:13 ◼   ► I think that's good.

00:09:13 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:09:14 ◼   ► I think that makes the most sense or something like that if you can get a mix of professions.

00:09:18 ◼   ► Yeah, the trick to those things working well is

00:09:21 ◼   ► it matters that everybody does the same kind of thing

00:09:26 ◼   ► but it doesn't matter that you're doing it in the same medium.

00:09:30 ◼   ► Writing is writing, right?

00:09:31 ◼   ► Whether you're writing a YouTube video or a TV show or a movie or a book,

00:09:35 ◼   ► like, you're still writing.

00:09:36 ◼   ► When I get invited to these things, I do try to say yes, they always end up being

00:09:40 ◼   ► just very productive periods of time, but they're also just incredibly draining

00:09:44 ◼   ► because you can't maintain like the 10 days of just constant focus on the one

00:09:49 ◼   ► thing at this high level for forever.

00:09:52 ◼   ► But that's why it was nicely planned right before my Christmas break.

00:09:56 ◼   ► And flying home, the whole airport was like a plague zone.

00:10:02 ◼   ► I don't know what was going on this year, but coming through that airport, I felt

00:10:06 ◼   ► like I was in a horror film everywhere I listened, it was like coughs and sneezes.

00:10:11 ◼   ► It's like Flumageddon, man.

00:10:12 ◼   ► It's been like, this holiday season seems to have been a bit of a nightmare.

00:10:16 ◼   ► I feel pretty fortunate that I have escaped any kind of like even just

00:10:20 ◼   ► sniffles because just it feels like everyone's sick with something.

00:10:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:10:26 ◼   ► It's bad.

00:10:27 ◼   ► Yeah, it was real bad.

00:10:29 ◼   ► And I was in the airport of like, "I'm not getting out of here alive."

00:10:31 ◼   ► There's no way.

00:10:34 ◼   ► And sure enough, 24 hours after getting home, I was like terribly sick for a couple of weeks

00:10:39 ◼   ► with like a low grade flu, which I'm choosing to interpret as a final last thing from 2022.

00:10:44 ◼   ► And that like closes the book on the terrible year of health.

00:10:48 ◼   ► It's like, oh, one final thing is Christmas and New Year's was kind of very low-key from

00:10:54 ◼   ► being super sick.

00:10:55 ◼   ► But yeah, so that aside, I'm pretty happy because I've been slow to getting back into

00:11:01 ◼   ► work, but I've been, now that the holidays are officially over and I'm back to regular

00:11:05 ◼   ► normal health, I've been sort of pushing hard on the like "work on your health" part of

00:11:10 ◼   ► the theme, and that's partly why I was drinking the Huel now.

00:11:14 ◼   ► like already lost a bunch of weight. I've been back into doing regular exercises, put

00:11:20 ◼   ► on some muscle. And so like so far it's actually quite a good start to the year and I'm gonna

00:11:25 ◼   ► now like now that that has gotten started gonna slowly start ramping up the work side

00:11:30 ◼   ► of things as well. So that's kind of my main report from the theme. But oh actually one

00:11:35 ◼   ► of the little thing happened which made me kind of think about how I think it's really

00:11:40 ◼   ► good to have a theme to help guide your decisions.

00:11:44 ◼   ► And I just had a moment happen a couple of hours

00:11:47 ◼   ► before we started recording,

00:11:49 ◼   ► which is that I got an invitation to a conference.

00:11:52 ◼   ► And it's funny 'cause it's a conference

00:11:55 ◼   ► that I had constantly been encouraging the runners up

00:11:59 ◼   ► to be like, "Hey, you guys need to do that again.

00:12:02 ◼   ► That was great.

00:12:02 ◼   ► And let me know if you're ever thinking of doing it again."

00:12:05 ◼   ► And so today I got that email like,

00:12:07 ◼   ► "Hey, we're gonna do it again."

00:12:08 ◼   ► And for a moment I was like,

00:12:10 ◼   ► "Oh man, I really want to go to this thing."

00:12:12 ◼   ► And I felt kind of conflicted,

00:12:14 ◼   ► but the theme came into my mind and it was like,

00:12:17 ◼   ► "Hey, is this going to materially help you

00:12:20 ◼   ► "with the theme of year of work,

00:12:22 ◼   ► "or is this actually going to be a hindrance

00:12:25 ◼   ► "in the year of work?"

00:12:26 ◼   ► And in that framing, it's like,

00:12:27 ◼   ► "Man, this decision is a no-brainer."

00:12:30 ◼   ► Sure, I've been wanting to go to this thing for years,

00:12:32 ◼   ► but it just doesn't make sense,

00:12:34 ◼   ► and it actually becomes really easy

00:12:36 ◼   ► to make that decision of like,

00:12:37 ◼   ► "Oh, I'm gonna have to turn down this invitation,

00:12:39 ◼   ► like I'm very sorry."

00:12:41 ◼   ► But yeah, so I don't know, it felt like the theme

00:12:44 ◼   ► has already saved me some time sort of going forward

00:12:47 ◼   ► and making some decisions much easier about.

00:12:50 ◼   ► Now you have to turn down more invitations

00:12:52 ◼   ► than you did last year,

00:12:53 ◼   ► you have to limit the amount of travel,

00:12:54 ◼   ► and so yeah, this is the theme helping to guide decisions.

00:12:58 ◼   ► I'm still not gonna say no to all invitations.

00:13:01 ◼   ► I was trying to think of like a rough rule,

00:13:04 ◼   ► and I think my rule might be something like,

00:13:06 ◼   ► If I have to change time zones,

00:13:10 ◼   ► that's probably like a near automatic no.

00:13:14 ◼   ► With the slight asterisk of,

00:13:16 ◼   ► if it can work out that I can stay on gray master time

00:13:19 ◼   ► while moving, like maybe that's still a yes.

00:13:21 ◼   ► But yeah, so anyway, that's how I'm just thinking

00:13:23 ◼   ► about stuff as the year started.

00:13:25 ◼   ► - It is funny where it's like, you should do this again.

00:13:27 ◼   ► You should do this again, come on, you should do it again.

00:13:29 ◼   ► Okay, well I'm not coming.

00:13:31 ◼   ► - I know.

00:13:31 ◼   ► - But you should do it.

00:13:32 ◼   ► - I know.

00:13:35 ◼   ► Like, I genuinely feel bad about that.

00:13:37 ◼   ► I'm sure I've even said words like,

00:13:40 ◼   ► "Oh, if you do this again, I guarantee that I will go."

00:13:42 ◼   ► Right, and it's like, oh.

00:13:44 ◼   ► (laughs)

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00:16:14 ◼   ► - How's your theme going so far, Myke?

00:16:17 ◼   ► - You know what?

00:16:18 ◼   ► Very happy.

00:16:18 ◼   ► I feel like I have so far picked

00:16:21 ◼   ► the perfect theme for me this year.

00:16:23 ◼   ► - Oh yeah?

00:16:24 ◼   ► - Well, one thing that happened,

00:16:25 ◼   ► I guess since we last recorded,

00:16:27 ◼   ► is I suffered two injuries, which is,

00:16:30 ◼   ► I mean, really I look at it as kind of hilarious and--

00:16:32 ◼   ► - Injuries are not hilarious, Myke.

00:16:34 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, it's like one of those things

00:16:36 ◼   ► where you look back and it's just like,

00:16:37 ◼   ► I can't believe this happened to me kind of thing.

00:16:39 ◼   ► - It's retroactively hilarious.

00:16:41 ◼   ► - I sprained my ankle pretty bad a couple of days

00:16:43 ◼   ► before we took that vacation that I was talking about,

00:16:45 ◼   ► which was very upsetting because it felt like

00:16:47 ◼   ► that was finally my reward for what was overall

00:16:51 ◼   ► a very bad year.

00:16:53 ◼   ► And that just added onto it.

00:16:55 ◼   ► But through the help of my wife and a mindset change

00:16:58 ◼   ► and thinking about weekend,

00:17:00 ◼   ► I had the best vacation I've ever had.

00:17:03 ◼   ► - Oh, fantastic, great.

00:17:04 ◼   ► - Because I ended up prioritizing relaxation and recovery.

00:17:09 ◼   ► - Oh, good, good.

00:17:12 ◼   ► - And so we just basically did really nothing,

00:17:14 ◼   ► just like really just relaxed, enjoyed ourselves,

00:17:18 ◼   ► sat by the pool, ate good food, like that kind of thing,

00:17:20 ◼   ► which was, it was so needed and so wonderful.

00:17:23 ◼   ► So that felt really good.

00:17:25 ◼   ► Then because of the ankle sprain, I wasn't working out.

00:17:30 ◼   ► And then I think that weakened and exacerbated

00:17:32 ◼   ► an existing injury that I have in my back

00:17:35 ◼   ► because I went back to the gym

00:17:37 ◼   ► and immediately threw my back out

00:17:38 ◼   ► like three days before Christmas,

00:17:40 ◼   ► which is a thing I'm still dealing with now.

00:17:43 ◼   ► and I think is gonna be around for a while.

00:17:47 ◼   ► But in these situations, they are very frustrating.

00:17:50 ◼   ► But the idea of the year of weekend is about,

00:17:54 ◼   ► like rest is like a big element of it.

00:17:57 ◼   ► And so this mindset is helping me take the rest

00:18:02 ◼   ► that I've needed in certain areas

00:18:04 ◼   ► to pull me through emotionally

00:18:07 ◼   ► to very frustrating things that have occurred.

00:18:09 ◼   ► So that was like just good to have that in my mind.

00:18:13 ◼   ► So I was honestly very happy about

00:18:14 ◼   ► when we recorded the episode,

00:18:15 ◼   ► 'cause it was like perfect.

00:18:16 ◼   ► It was like two days before I did,

00:18:19 ◼   ► I ended up spraining my ankle.

00:18:20 ◼   ► But me and you were texting over the break a bit

00:18:22 ◼   ► because I had found out you were sick

00:18:25 ◼   ► and you had found out about my back through our wives.

00:18:29 ◼   ► And I think I texted you on Christmas day

00:18:31 ◼   ► and was said like, I feel bad for you,

00:18:33 ◼   ► but at least it's like one last thing into 2022

00:18:37 ◼   ► about being sick before 23 starts, right?

00:18:39 ◼   ► That's what we were talking about,

00:18:40 ◼   ► which is just kind of like a funny way to look at it.

00:18:42 ◼   ► Just tuck it all in to 2022 and forget about it.

00:18:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, it all counts as 2022.

00:18:49 ◼   ► And now that's the past.

00:18:51 ◼   ► - That's the past.

00:18:52 ◼   ► - The past doesn't exist.

00:18:53 ◼   ► The past isn't real.

00:18:54 ◼   ► So it's, you know, poof, away it went.

00:18:57 ◼   ► On to 2023.

00:18:59 ◼   ► - So my fitness for 2023 is gonna change a little bit

00:19:02 ◼   ► as I'm now like having to think about

00:19:05 ◼   ► the midterm of the back recovery.

00:19:09 ◼   ► And I've seen a specialist

00:19:10 ◼   ► and gone through that whole thing

00:19:12 ◼   ► and that's just a thing I'm now gonna have

00:19:15 ◼   ► to start dealing with again, which is fine.

00:19:16 ◼   ► I've done it before, I'll work on it.

00:19:19 ◼   ► But I've already started making lots of decisions

00:19:22 ◼   ► about the way that I'm spending time,

00:19:24 ◼   ► and it's lots of small decisions

00:19:26 ◼   ► that I think add up to bigger effect.

00:19:29 ◼   ► So one is I leave for the studio

00:19:32 ◼   ► a little later in the morning.

00:19:33 ◼   ► A lot of this is about getting rid of wasting time.

00:19:38 ◼   ► So even if it is the case, it's just like,

00:19:40 ◼   ► I stay home and hang out, you know,

00:19:42 ◼   ► I stay home and play video games,

00:19:43 ◼   ► but just there being more time at home,

00:19:46 ◼   ► less time at work and kind of like further trying

00:19:49 ◼   ► to separate those things and create that structure.

00:19:52 ◼   ► And then similarly, when I'm done for the day, leaving.

00:19:56 ◼   ► Like not just like hanging around

00:19:58 ◼   ► and finding other little things to do.

00:20:00 ◼   ► And this is also in conjunction with scheduling changes

00:20:04 ◼   ► and trying to group more things together.

00:20:08 ◼   ► So it's less of one thing at the studio days, you know?

00:20:13 ◼   ► If I've got one thing, I'll make sure

00:20:15 ◼   ► that if I've got something else coming up,

00:20:17 ◼   ► I'm also gonna slot it in that day.

00:20:19 ◼   ► Not perfect on this yet, and it's gonna take work,

00:20:21 ◼   ► persistence, and difficult decisions.

00:20:24 ◼   ► There are gonna be things that I'll turn down,

00:20:26 ◼   ► or I will need to be difficult with people,

00:20:29 ◼   ► that kind of thing.

00:20:31 ◼   ► And one of the things that I'm starting to realize

00:20:35 ◼   ► and I'm working through is like,

00:20:38 ◼   ► most of the people that I work with,

00:20:39 ◼   ► the difficulty can be harder on me because of time.

00:20:44 ◼   ► An afternoon recording for one of my American co-hosts

00:20:47 ◼   ► is an evening recording for me.

00:20:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:20:50 ◼   ► - And that is harder for me than it would be

00:20:52 ◼   ► if I could record it in the afternoon, right?

00:20:54 ◼   ► So I'm needing to kind of try and be real with myself

00:20:57 ◼   ► about some of the things that I'm taking on,

00:20:59 ◼   ► that it is more difficult

00:21:01 ◼   ► and I don't like working late anymore.

00:21:04 ◼   ► So like, this is part of why I'm needing to be

00:21:07 ◼   ► a little bit more tricky about some of the things

00:21:09 ◼   ► that I'm saying yes to.

00:21:11 ◼   ► You know, the key of the year of the weekend

00:21:13 ◼   ► is taking weekends.

00:21:15 ◼   ► And I have been making very conscious choices

00:21:17 ◼   ► about how I spend them.

00:21:19 ◼   ► Like I have a task and to-do list every Thursday,

00:21:22 ◼   ► that's like, what's your weekend?

00:21:24 ◼   ► Do you have a full Saturday and Sunday?

00:21:27 ◼   ► Are you gonna be working on one of those days?

00:21:29 ◼   ► If you are, what will you be doing next week

00:21:32 ◼   ► to make up for that time?

00:21:33 ◼   ► That's been really good,

00:21:34 ◼   ► 'cause it's just making me think about it.

00:21:36 ◼   ► And the whole thinking about it thing

00:21:38 ◼   ► is like the mindset change has been really great.

00:21:40 ◼   ► So I'm valuing my rest time more,

00:21:43 ◼   ► considering it as a important thing

00:21:46 ◼   ► because it is part of my themes.

00:21:47 ◼   ► Like I should be doing this.

00:21:48 ◼   ► This is the year of the weekend.

00:21:50 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:21:51 ◼   ► - Like this is the same mindset as with the year structure

00:21:54 ◼   ► where it was about having structure

00:21:57 ◼   ► to allow for unstructured time.

00:21:59 ◼   ► So like playing video games instead of just like hanging out

00:22:03 ◼   ► at my desk and not really doing anything was a good thing.

00:22:06 ◼   ► And that reframing was great for me.

00:22:09 ◼   ► And this is a similar thing.

00:22:10 ◼   ► Not working on the weekend is what I'm supposed to be doing.

00:22:15 ◼   ► So it's a tick in the column where previously it had been,

00:22:18 ◼   ► "Oh, I should probably get some work done

00:22:20 ◼   ► if I'm just gonna be hanging out."

00:22:22 ◼   ► So it's like rearrange, for me,

00:22:24 ◼   ► it's like rearranging what's most important.

00:22:27 ◼   ► And so that's been good.

00:22:28 ◼   ► So yeah, I've been pretty,

00:22:31 ◼   ► I've been feeling pretty good about it.

00:22:32 ◼   ► I'm excited for the rest of the year under this kind of banner, but I'm aware that, kind

00:22:38 ◼   ► of like you, it's going to take a lot of decision making all the time to make it stick, but

00:22:44 ◼   ► I'm happy with the results so far.

00:22:45 ◼   ► - One thing I've added to my little checklist, which I don't know if this works for you,

00:22:50 ◼   ► because we do have these weirdly aligned themes, just in opposite ways, but the day before

00:22:57 ◼   ► one of my weekend days, I've added a little checklist item now, which is just to think

00:23:02 ◼   ► about what the weekend might be tomorrow. This is to try to increase the probability

00:23:08 ◼   ► of the wife outside time. If we think about it the day before what we might do, it wildly

00:23:16 ◼   ► increases the chance of thing actually happens on day. And so already we've we've like gone

00:23:23 ◼   ► out more so far than we have in the past just with weekends of like thinking about, okay,

00:23:30 ◼   ► what might be a thing that we do that counts as outside time? And it's also funny, I know

00:23:36 ◼   ► like what I mentioned sometimes about like time tracking with my wife and like wife outside

00:23:40 ◼   ► time, people always want to know they're like, what does your wife think about that? And

00:23:44 ◼   ► I'll tell you, she loves the idea of wife outside time. Like she's totally thrilled

00:23:49 ◼   ► and on board with like, "Oh, hey, how can we make this timer tick up?" Right? So I think

00:23:54 ◼   ► sometimes people have actually like, "Oh, God, that sounds so horrible." But it's actually,

00:23:58 ◼   ► it's the reverse. It's a way to like express importance from my perspective of like, "No,

00:24:03 ◼   ► this is important. I should look at the timer and see that this timer has been going up

00:24:08 ◼   ► relative to other things." But yeah, so like, how do you turn that into an actionable item?

00:24:14 ◼   ► And this is one of my little things is there's like, just on the checklist, just think about

00:24:18 ◼   ► it for a second and even just that gentle reminder makes it way more likely like, "Oh,

00:24:22 ◼   ► okay, we're going to go outside today to some place," or even just like, "Oh, there's some

00:24:26 ◼   ► couple errand that we need to run. Let's just do that tomorrow," instead of what can very

00:24:31 ◼   ► easily happen on the weekends. You just kind of wake up and the day slowly slides past

00:24:37 ◼   ► from both of you. That's the attempt to try to decrease the number of times that occurs.

00:24:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I think I could maybe add this into my Thursday thing.

00:24:44 ◼   ► It's a little bit sooner, but like, you know, not just like, are you taking the weekend,

00:24:50 ◼   ► but what are you going to do with it?

00:24:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I find that framing is somehow more helpful than just like, oh, it's the weekends.

00:24:58 ◼   ► It is that framing of like, what might happen tomorrow?

00:25:01 ◼   ► Or what do you plan on having happen tomorrow?

00:25:03 ◼   ► At least so far slightly changes it in my brain.

00:25:05 ◼   ► As with all this stuff with like health stuff and everything else, it is always kind of

00:25:08 ◼   ► easier in the beginning of the year, but it's just a question of like, okay, what works

00:25:12 ◼   ► and what can stick and what helps remind you of different things. Do you have any idea

00:25:15 ◼   ► of the kinds of things that you want to do with your weekends this year?

00:25:18 ◼   ► Well, I mean, there is the house stuff, right? So like that's...

00:25:21 ◼   ► Oh God, the house!

00:25:22 ◼   ► On projects, a part of it.

00:25:24 ◼   ► That can suck up a year.

00:25:26 ◼   ► I think for me, especially on the non-weekend weekend days, I think would be good times

00:25:34 ◼   ► to arrange activities with friends, especially those friends that I have that have more flexible

00:25:39 ◼   ► working times, which I do. But even then it's like, because one of my biggest issues is,

00:25:44 ◼   ► for my friends that have regular jobs here, they do nine to fives, I never have evenings free.

00:25:51 ◼   ► So like if we want to go out and get a drink or a meal or whatever, I'm always,

00:25:55 ◼   ► "Oh, I can't do it." And like, so that's something else I've been thinking about in these days that

00:26:00 ◼   ► that I'm taking as weekend days,

00:26:01 ◼   ► it's not just the regular daytime,

00:26:04 ◼   ► it also means that evening could be free as well.

00:26:07 ◼   ► So this is something that I,

00:26:10 ◼   ► this is gonna take a lot of work and focus from me

00:26:13 ◼   ► on like doing this and I want to be for,

00:26:16 ◼   ► you know, in a lot of my friends situations,

00:26:18 ◼   ► someone who is pushing and like making the plans happen,

00:26:23 ◼   ► but that's something I'm not naturally good at.

00:26:27 ◼   ► So that is a muscle I need to strengthen.

00:26:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have no ability to help you there.

00:26:33 ◼   ► - Oh, I know.

00:26:35 ◼   ► Why me and you so seldom see each other

00:26:38 ◼   ► is because we are both very bad at this.

00:26:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, we're really bad at this.

00:26:42 ◼   ► But so your idea is you wanna try to be more proactive

00:26:44 ◼   ► about that for like you be the person

00:26:47 ◼   ► who causes things to happen.

00:26:48 ◼   ► - That's the hope.

00:26:49 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:26:50 ◼   ► I don't know if this is really true,

00:26:51 ◼   ► but I do have the perception

00:26:52 ◼   ► that a lot of social groups exist

00:26:54 ◼   ► because there is just one person who is the person

00:26:57 ◼   ► who makes the thing happen.

00:26:59 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:26:59 ◼   ► - That often really seems to be the case.

00:27:01 ◼   ► So like there's a person who is the driving person

00:27:04 ◼   ► behind each little social group.

00:27:06 ◼   ► If you have any tips and tricks in that area,

00:27:09 ◼   ► do you let me know, Myke?

00:27:10 ◼   ► - For being a friend.

00:27:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, for being a friend, you know.

00:27:13 ◼   ► - I'll let you know.

00:27:14 ◼   ► When I work it out, I'll let you know.

00:27:16 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:27:18 ◼   ► (chime)

00:27:19 ◼   ► Got a bunch of follow up.

00:27:20 ◼   ► Lot of little things have been happening.

00:27:23 ◼   ► - It's been two months.

00:27:23 ◼   ► course there's gonna be a lot to talk about. Lots of little things and I want

00:27:27 ◼   ► to talk to you about them. One is got an awesome new Roomba. Ooh new Roomba! Yeah

00:27:30 ◼   ► it's like the Roomba of my dreams. Okay let me check it out. It's called the Roomba

00:27:35 ◼   ► combo. Roomba combo okay. It vacuums and mops. Oh intriguing. Now it is not as

00:27:44 ◼   ► advanced as their like, because iRobot, the Roomba company, have a mopping robot

00:27:50 ◼   ► I don't know if you've seen it.

00:27:51 ◼   ► It's like a full on, sprays water out,

00:27:55 ◼   ► cleans up after itself.

00:27:56 ◼   ► Like this, the Roomba combo has a mopping pad

00:28:01 ◼   ► that follows the Roomba basically.

00:28:03 ◼   ► Like it's behind it as it's moving around.

00:28:05 ◼   ► But it has liquid in it.

00:28:08 ◼   ► So the Roomba will vacuum, but as it's moving forward,

00:28:12 ◼   ► leaves a trail of liquid behind it

00:28:13 ◼   ► and then mops it up afterwards.

00:28:15 ◼   ► And you can put like a cleaning solution in it.

00:28:18 ◼   ► But what makes this Roomba combo so good,

00:28:21 ◼   ► and I was watching some reviews of these things,

00:28:24 ◼   ► there's a great YouTube channel called,

00:28:26 ◼   ► I think it's called Vacuum Wars.

00:28:28 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:28:29 ◼   ► It's so good.

00:28:30 ◼   ► My friend Tom, like Tom and Studio Neat turned me on to this.

00:28:33 ◼   ► It's like, it is an incredible YouTube channel.

00:28:35 ◼   ► The guy just reviews all the vacuums.

00:28:38 ◼   ► It's just like very good.

00:28:40 ◼   ► - As always, like my first reaction is like,

00:28:42 ◼   ► how can that possibly be?

00:28:43 ◼   ► And then it's like, ah, the pen show, right?

00:28:45 ◼   ► Every everything is a world unto itself.

00:28:48 ◼   ► - I mean, Vacuum Wars has 266,000 subscribers.

00:28:53 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:28:54 ◼   ► And gets between 10 to 200,000 views on videos.

00:28:57 ◼   ► 'Cause it's like-- - I love it, I love it.

00:28:59 ◼   ► - This is the person who knows all the vacuums.

00:29:02 ◼   ► They have all these testing environments that they set up.

00:29:05 ◼   ► They have these boxes, and he sprays different types

00:29:08 ◼   ► of food down and watches them, it's very good.

00:29:11 ◼   ► But the Roomba combo, one of the things

00:29:14 ◼   ► that makes the Roomba combo good,

00:29:15 ◼   ► 'cause there are other robots that do this,

00:29:17 ◼   ► like joint thing, is the mopping pad

00:29:22 ◼   ► can be lifted and lowered for when there's carpets or rugs.

00:29:27 ◼   ► And this is combined with,

00:29:29 ◼   ► Gray, I don't know how old your Roomba is now.

00:29:32 ◼   ► My Roomba's pretty old.

00:29:33 ◼   ► My Roomba is like five years old or whatever.

00:29:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, my Roomba is due for a sole transfer soon.

00:29:38 ◼   ► So I've got my eye on these things, yeah.

00:29:41 ◼   ► - Roombas have gotten so good,

00:29:43 ◼   ► 'cause now they have cameras in them.

00:29:45 ◼   ► And this camera, and it has a light on it too,

00:29:50 ◼   ► so it lights its way.

00:29:51 ◼   ► - I was like, it has a little flashlight, I just saw that.

00:29:53 ◼   ► - Yep, it lights its way and goes out,

00:29:55 ◼   ► and they have brains in them now, right?

00:29:57 ◼   ► And one of the things that I'm so impressed with,

00:30:00 ◼   ► I have a bunch of things I'm impressed with.

00:30:02 ◼   ► So one, it detects the rugs and knows what the rugs are,

00:30:05 ◼   ► so it won't mop the rug.

00:30:06 ◼   ► It does not bump into stuff as much.

00:30:09 ◼   ► One of the things that was always so funny

00:30:11 ◼   ► as our old Roomba, Robbie,

00:30:14 ◼   ► when cleaning around the dining table,

00:30:16 ◼   ► it was just a nightmare.

00:30:17 ◼   ► Bang, bang, bang, bang, every chair, everything.

00:30:20 ◼   ► Rambo, the new Roomba, doesn't bump into the table.

00:30:25 ◼   ► 'Cause he knows it's there.

00:30:27 ◼   ► And it also does all this stuff where, like again,

00:30:30 ◼   ► Robbie expected that all the rooms never changed.

00:30:34 ◼   ► And if anything changed, he'd get a bit confused.

00:30:38 ◼   ► where Rambo expects things to change.

00:30:42 ◼   ► And so like has the map,

00:30:44 ◼   ► but is willing to see what's going on.

00:30:47 ◼   ► And like, if something changes in the room,

00:30:49 ◼   ► it's not like if it doesn't clean that area,

00:30:51 ◼   ► like he can see something's changed in the room

00:30:53 ◼   ► and we'll go around and clean it.

00:30:55 ◼   ► And now as well, when he finishes the job,

00:30:59 ◼   ► sends you a report and the report has pictures in it

00:31:02 ◼   ► of like, what is this obstacle?

00:31:04 ◼   ► Like, is this a permanent obstacle?

00:31:06 ◼   ► - Oh, I see.

00:31:07 ◼   ► - Okay, so it's asking you, like, "Yeah, I ran into a thing. What is this thing?" Interesting.

00:31:12 ◼   ► - Including cables. So Rambo does not chew up cables like Robby used to.

00:31:17 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:31:18 ◼   ► - And, like, recognizes the cables and is like, "What's going on here?" Also something...

00:31:24 ◼   ► This might be good for you, I don't know, probably you wouldn't need it, but it's the pet people.

00:31:28 ◼   ► They've seemed to have done so much work on detecting animal droppings.

00:31:32 ◼   ► - None of the dogs who stay with us do any of that. - I know that in the grey household this could never be a problem.

00:31:37 ◼   ► that and ever how that works.

00:31:39 ◼   ► They are very well trained.

00:31:42 ◼   ► We clean their paws before they can come back in the house.

00:31:45 ◼   ► It's a whole routine.

00:31:46 ◼   ► Cleanest dogs in England.

00:31:48 ◼   ► - I've seen the cleaning.

00:31:49 ◼   ► I've seen the dog cleaning off the walks.

00:31:51 ◼   ► It's very intense.

00:31:53 ◼   ► But these Roombas empty themselves, which is so good.

00:31:57 ◼   ► Old Roomba, old Robbie, we had to empty him.

00:31:59 ◼   ► But they have these bases,

00:32:01 ◼   ► which have an extra vacuum in them, right?

00:32:03 ◼   ► And apparently it can do like six,

00:32:06 ◼   ► it can like empty it like 60 times or something

00:32:08 ◼   ► before you would need to empty the base,

00:32:11 ◼   ► which is also very good.

00:32:13 ◼   ► And then you can also do the,

00:32:15 ◼   ► you know, it will do a map of the floor plan.

00:32:17 ◼   ► And then in the app, you can delineate rooms,

00:32:20 ◼   ► even if it's an open floor plan, like make zones,

00:32:24 ◼   ► and name those zones. - Oh, nice.

00:32:25 ◼   ► - So then you could say, go and clean the kitchen.

00:32:28 ◼   ► You know, drive out, clean the kitchen, go back.

00:32:31 ◼   ► I can't believe how much better these products

00:32:34 ◼   ► have gotten in the last five years or whatever.

00:32:36 ◼   ► It's kind of incredible, like the leaps.

00:32:39 ◼   ► The difference between Rambo and, like I love Robbie,

00:32:42 ◼   ► you know, he's part of the family.

00:32:43 ◼   ► Robbie's not going anywhere, he's gonna go upstairs, right?

00:32:45 ◼   ► And Robbie's gonna do upstairs.

00:32:47 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:32:48 ◼   ► But Rambo is like, he's got a big brain going on in there.

00:32:52 ◼   ► He's a smart guy.

00:32:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, it looks interesting.

00:32:55 ◼   ► I think the test that I would wanna do is,

00:32:57 ◼   ► we don't really have to worry about the pet accidents,

00:33:00 ◼   ► but the pet toys are the big problem.

00:33:02 ◼   ► And like one of our dog guests was very sad

00:33:05 ◼   ► because his bone had disappeared the other day

00:33:06 ◼   ► and it's like, oh, I found it in Roomba, right?

00:33:09 ◼   ► It's like Roomba had sucked it up.

00:33:11 ◼   ► Oh, this is where your bone went.

00:33:12 ◼   ► I'm so sorry, here's a brand new one.

00:33:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, I've seen it in the "Vacuum Wars" video.

00:33:17 ◼   ► Like it's not perfect, right?

00:33:19 ◼   ► Like it will grab things, but it seemed very good.

00:33:22 ◼   ► Like he was doing it with toys and stuff.

00:33:24 ◼   ► And most of the time it's like going around them.

00:33:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I'm curious about.

00:33:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

00:33:30 ◼   ► I have to put this on the consider list.

00:33:32 ◼   ► - I think that base for us is a little bit tricky

00:33:34 ◼   ► because we don't have a great spot for base.

00:33:36 ◼   ► - You don't have to do that.

00:33:37 ◼   ► - Oh, is that optional?

00:33:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's optional.

00:33:39 ◼   ► It's an optional additional purchase.

00:33:42 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, I thought that,

00:33:44 ◼   ► 'cause whatever it was their last one had a base,

00:33:45 ◼   ► but it wasn't optional.

00:33:47 ◼   ► It had to work with it.

00:33:49 ◼   ► But if there's a not base option,

00:33:51 ◼   ► then we might consider that.

00:33:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, I believe you can get one

00:33:55 ◼   ► that's just a regular charging base,

00:33:57 ◼   ► not the big vacuum charging base.

00:34:00 ◼   ► One of the things we absolutely love is when it's Rumpus time to vacuum.

00:34:05 ◼   ► We have ours just perfectly hidden right under this little cabinet in the kitchen that is

00:34:09 ◼   ► just barely taller than he is.

00:34:12 ◼   ► And so like it is so cute to watch him like back up and come out and be and then like

00:34:16 ◼   ► go back in after he's done.

00:34:18 ◼   ► It is never not funny to watch like we just you know can't not look at it for a second.

00:34:23 ◼   ► But that's partly just a space constraint that we just don't have anywhere to put a

00:34:27 ◼   ► real base like that in the house.

00:34:29 ◼   ► So yeah that's interesting.

00:34:30 ◼   ► So the one I have is the J7 combo, but the difference is one has the bass and one doesn't.

00:34:37 ◼   ► Ah, I've got to think about it. It might be time for a Roomba upgrade. This looks very interesting.

00:34:43 ◼   ► I wanted to ask you if you had played around with Obsidian Canvas?

00:34:49 ◼   ► Oh no. So I saw that this came out. I think this is, for anybody who's listening and uses Obsidian, this might be an interesting tool to try.

00:34:59 ◼   ► This looks a bit like some of the tools that you use sometimes, of just like, you have a more flexible workspace where you can connect a bunch of different text boxes and images with lines.

00:35:11 ◼   ► It's just like a digital whiteboard is the way it looks like.

00:35:13 ◼   ► But what I like about the look of this, so I've been eyeing this Gray, this is the first time...

00:35:18 ◼   ► No, wait, wait a minute, what do you mean you've been eyeing this?

00:35:21 ◼   ► This is the first time I have ever looked at Obsidian and could see myself there.

00:35:26 ◼   ► - Oh my God, that's, no way, really?

00:35:29 ◼   ► - Because what I like about it is you can have

00:35:33 ◼   ► all of your notes as you do, right,

00:35:35 ◼   ► and they can be whatever, but then you can create

00:35:38 ◼   ► these boards that are visual representations of things,

00:35:42 ◼   ► which could include web pages and images and videos,

00:35:45 ◼   ► but also the notes embedded in the page.

00:35:49 ◼   ► And there's just something about that where I'm like,

00:35:52 ◼   ► that works how my brain works.

00:35:55 ◼   ► So I've had the webpage open for a while

00:35:57 ◼   ► and I have yet to dive in,

00:35:59 ◼   ► but I've been wondering if like this

00:36:02 ◼   ► could be something for me.

00:36:03 ◼   ► This could do what I'm using craft for, right?

00:36:07 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:36:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:36:08 ◼   ► - But could also give me this additional thing,

00:36:11 ◼   ► which is this like,

00:36:12 ◼   ► rather than having like a folder of notes.

00:36:16 ◼   ► So let me give you an example, right?

00:36:17 ◼   ► So one of the things that I will do is,

00:36:20 ◼   ► so like say with the theme system journal, right?

00:36:22 ◼   ► I have a whole folder of notes for the journal.

00:36:25 ◼   ► But if I'm planning something new, right,

00:36:28 ◼   ► like let's imagine that when I did the new layout,

00:36:30 ◼   ► the 2.0 layout, right, which is what's in there now,

00:36:33 ◼   ► I had my drawings,

00:36:36 ◼   ► and then I had manufacturer's information,

00:36:40 ◼   ► then I had pricing information, and all that kind of stuff.

00:36:43 ◼   ► Now I could imagine having a 2.0 board

00:36:48 ◼   ► that had all of that just visible in one place,

00:36:51 ◼   ► And I like that instead of looking at just like a list of notes in a folder, I could

00:36:56 ◼   ► just see them all.

00:36:57 ◼   ► So like I could need one piece of information.

00:36:59 ◼   ► I got it here.

00:37:00 ◼   ► I got another piece of information there.

00:37:03 ◼   ► Like it seems really intriguing to me.

00:37:05 ◼   ► I mean, I'll just also just point out that presuming that it works in Dropbox, which

00:37:09 ◼   ► I imagine it does, you could have limited sharing with somebody else for some of these

00:37:14 ◼   ► if that's the thing that you wanted to do.

00:37:15 ◼   ► Yeah, it's funny.

00:37:16 ◼   ► I didn't really think about you using it.

00:37:18 ◼   ► I looked at it and I thought about you just in the sense of, "Oh, this is like the tool

00:37:23 ◼   ► that Myke likes to use."

00:37:25 ◼   ► A kind of virtual whiteboard.

00:37:27 ◼   ► And I can 100% see why lots of people are interested in this.

00:37:31 ◼   ► Which is why if you've heard me talk about Obsidian, I think it might be interesting

00:37:34 ◼   ► for anyone to just go look at this tool and see if it might be something that you want

00:37:37 ◼   ► to use.

00:37:38 ◼   ► But I literally haven't opened it or tried it on my Obsidian install because this kind

00:37:44 ◼   ► of thing just isn't for me.

00:37:46 ◼   ► is not the way my brain wants to organize information. I'm much more like the thing

00:37:51 ◼   ► that I want and I think the maximum version of this which Obsidian does but it's like

00:37:56 ◼   ► the Rome research version of this where you have a kind of everything is a bullet point

00:38:01 ◼   ► in a list and you can like indent, out dent or like open and close different levels of

00:38:06 ◼   ► that bullet pointed list. That's what I use Obsidian for and that's always kind of the

00:38:10 ◼   ► my brain works is like I want to have this and the arranging things in arbitrary space

00:38:16 ◼   ► on a whiteboard. It just has never really worked for me. But I do think it's a very

00:38:20 ◼   ► smart move by the Obsidian developers to add this other tool. Oh, now they must capture

00:38:27 ◼   ► like 95% of the way people want to organize random notes. You fall into these two camps.

00:38:33 ◼   ► Do you want it more visual? Or do you want it more just purely text based? I mean, look,

00:38:38 ◼   ► I'll just say, Myke, if you ever want to play around with Obsidian, I am more than happy

00:38:43 ◼   ► to help you get set up with it, if that's a thing that you want to do.

00:38:46 ◼   ► Myke: Maybe actually, because I, the only reason, because it's been out for a while

00:38:50 ◼   ► in the beta at least, I think it might be in the shipping version now, since I first

00:38:54 ◼   ► looked at it.

00:38:55 ◼   ► Brian: It is in the shipping version now, it's released in the shipping version now.

00:38:57 ◼   ► Myke; Because this went in, again, how long has it been, this went into my show notes

00:39:00 ◼   ► document when they had it in like their first kind of open preview of it.

00:39:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I only found out about it through the changelog updates to the shipping version.

00:39:10 ◼   ► And with Obsidian, I'm like, please give me the stable only branch.

00:39:14 ◼   ► This is not the time to use your beta software.

00:39:17 ◼   ► But like, I'm just, I feel quite intimidated about starting.

00:39:21 ◼   ► Yeah, you're not wrong to because Obsidian is like a real big thing to just open and

00:39:28 ◼   ► go look at just a ton of those options.

00:39:30 ◼   ► So I'm happy to hold your hand through the Obsidian setup and guide you to just the relevant

00:39:36 ◼   ► things to whatever it is you're trying to accomplish.

00:39:39 ◼   ► That is a very intriguing prospect to me.

00:39:41 ◼   ► I'm gonna put a pin in that one, I wanna come back to that.

00:39:44 ◼   ► Because I need a guide and then I'll be fine.

00:39:48 ◼   ► I will be your Obsidian guide.

00:39:51 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by Fitbod.

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00:42:00 ◼   ► show and relay FM.

00:42:03 ◼   ► We had mentioned the pens that we collaborate with the aforementioned Studio Ne on the Mark

00:42:08 ◼   ► 1 pens.

00:42:09 ◼   ► Oh yeah yeah.

00:42:10 ◼   ► We mentioned them before they weren't in stock. They are in stock now so if you go to cortexmerch.com

00:42:14 ◼   ► we have a small number and we're ordering more.

00:42:16 ◼   ► I'm hoping to try and keep them more in stock now.

00:42:18 ◼   ► So if you heard us mention it,

00:42:20 ◼   ► and you heard us say we don't have any, none to sell you,

00:42:23 ◼   ► we do currently have some to sell you.

00:42:25 ◼   ► So go to cortexmerch.com and you can see it there.

00:42:27 ◼   ► Well, you should be able to.

00:42:28 ◼   ► Again, the numbers are always limited,

00:42:30 ◼   ► but as of right now, we have them.

00:42:32 ◼   ► - I was just trying to remember like,

00:42:34 ◼   ► wait, why did we mention that we have pens

00:42:36 ◼   ► that you couldn't buy at the time,

00:42:38 ◼   ► but it was the theme episode.

00:42:39 ◼   ► We were reviewing like what had been going on

00:42:42 ◼   ► and talking about, oh, we have this product

00:42:43 ◼   ► that we never talk about because it's very hard to keep it in stock.

00:42:47 ◼   ► We're just having that as part of the theme review of the year.

00:42:50 ◼   ► But yes, I love these pens and we definitely still are in that difficult to keep in stock

00:42:56 ◼   ► phase with it, a bit like we were with the journal years ago.

00:42:59 ◼   ► So go check it out right now at cortexmerch.com.

00:43:03 ◼   ► Limited numbers, hopefully slightly less limited this time, but yeah, we'll see how it goes.

00:43:08 ◼   ► I have some scripts for you.

00:43:10 ◼   ► What do you mean you have a script for me?

00:43:12 ◼   ► I have asked ChatGPT to write three cold opens for the show.

00:43:19 ◼   ► I mean, Myke, how can you just jump into something like this?

00:43:26 ◼   ► You don't even want to tell the people what ChatGPT is?

00:43:30 ◼   ► I can't, right?

00:43:31 ◼   ► I don't think I have the ability to do that.

00:43:34 ◼   ► I don't have the words.

00:43:35 ◼   ► Maybe you have the words.

00:43:36 ◼   ► I don't have them.

00:43:37 ◼   ► Okay, wait.

00:43:38 ◼   ► Before you talk about the script, I went back and I listened to the last sort of in-time

00:43:45 ◼   ► episode we did, which is two episodes ago, before the themes episode, before the state

00:43:50 ◼   ► of the apps, when we were just having a regular Cortex and talking in October.

00:43:55 ◼   ► We both made a joke at the end about how we had two episodes about AI art in a row and

00:44:02 ◼   ► like how fast and suddenly all of this thing was coming online.

00:44:06 ◼   ► And at the end of that episode, we realized, "Oh, we won't be able to have an in-time episode

00:44:10 ◼   ► until January."

00:44:11 ◼   ► And we were like, "Oh my god, what on earth is gonna happen between now and January?"

00:44:17 ◼   ► And I feel like, man, we did not have any idea what was gonna happen.

00:44:22 ◼   ► I literally think what happened was like day zero for the whole of the internet suddenly

00:44:30 ◼   ► becoming aware that AI is really a thing.

00:44:34 ◼   ► It was early December, this tool called ChatGPT was released, which is like an AI chatbot

00:44:41 ◼   ► that you can talk to.

00:44:44 ◼   ► And this is the thing that I'd said it many times during our AI Art episodes, where I

00:44:49 ◼   ► kept talking about how like the AI art is cool, the language models are scary.

00:44:55 ◼   ► But it was always kind of hard, like I was just saying a thing, because I had seen private

00:45:00 ◼   ► demos behind the scenes about some of this stuff.

00:45:03 ◼   ► And it's a bit hard in that scenario to like try to convince people, but it's like, "Oh

00:45:08 ◼   ► no!"

00:45:09 ◼   ► Like the language models are now very public and people can play with them and talk to

00:45:14 ◼   ► them and see what they can do.

00:45:17 ◼   ► And I happened to be at home with my parents the day it came out.

00:45:20 ◼   ► Boy, was that an interesting day on the internet.

00:45:23 ◼   ► And I like I was showing my parents this kind of tech demo of like, "Look, there's this

00:45:27 ◼   ► This thing you can talk to and it will respond in very smart ways that you wouldn't expect.

00:45:34 ◼   ► You can ask questions of it and it can give you answers.

00:45:38 ◼   ► You can ask it to do all sorts of tasks and it can complete them.

00:45:42 ◼   ► So yeah, ChatGPT is like the first public-facing, actually useful in some circumstances, language

00:45:50 ◼   ► model that people can play and test with and see.

00:45:54 ◼   ► So that's the background just in case someone hasn't heard about it and hasn't messed around

00:45:59 ◼   ► with it.

00:46:00 ◼   ► So now tell me, what did you ask ChantGPT to do in terms of a script?

00:46:05 ◼   ► What I wanted it to do was to give us a cold open intro for the episode, so the thing that

00:46:11 ◼   ► happens before the "doodling," you know?

00:46:14 ◼   ► Which very frequently in the show's history has had some kind of conversation about microphone

00:46:19 ◼   ► issues.

00:46:20 ◼   ► Well yeah.

00:46:21 ◼   ► asked it for prompts in these areas.

00:46:24 ◼   ► One of them was write a cold open intro for the Cortex

00:46:27 ◼   ► podcast featuring CGP Grey and Myke Hurley.

00:46:29 ◼   ► Ensure there is some conversation about issues

00:46:32 ◼   ► with microphone setups.

00:46:34 ◼   ► That was the first one.

00:46:36 ◼   ► I had to-- like this is-- well, this wasn't the first one.

00:46:38 ◼   ► I asked it a couple of things before,

00:46:39 ◼   ► and it kept talking about brains.

00:46:41 ◼   ► So I had to kind of like bring it around again.

00:46:45 ◼   ► Do you want to read through these

00:46:47 ◼   ► as the AI has written them?

00:46:48 ◼   ► Well, I don't know, because I feel

00:46:50 ◼   ► like the one I'm looking at that you have in the show notes is just not very good because

00:46:55 ◼   ► that's what I that's why so I have three I think these three differ in their goodness

00:47:02 ◼   ► okay so here's here's the first one so Myke and I will be performing our roles as written

00:47:06 ◼   ► for us by GPT begin scene hey everyone welcome back to another episode of Cortex I'm CGP

00:47:15 ◼   ► Grey and with me as always is Myke Hurley hey there happy to be here as always but

00:47:20 ◼   ► But man, I had a bit of a nightmare setting up my microphone today.

00:47:24 ◼   ► My computer seemed to be having some issues and I wasn't getting any sound on my end.

00:47:28 ◼   ► Oh no, that sounds frustrating.

00:47:30 ◼   ► I know I've had my fair share of microphone issues in the past.

00:47:33 ◼   ► It's always a bit of a hassle to get everything right.

00:47:36 ◼   ► Yeah, it can be a real pain.

00:47:38 ◼   ► But we're finally all set up and ready to go.

00:47:40 ◼   ► So let's dive into today's topic.

00:47:42 ◼   ► Sounds good to me.

00:47:43 ◼   ► Let's get started.

00:47:44 ◼   ► Intro music fades out.

00:47:46 ◼   ► End scene.

00:47:48 ◼   ► That's bad because it's just extremely generic.

00:47:52 ◼   ► Extremely generic.

00:47:53 ◼   ► Well one thing, ChatGPT doesn't know who would be most likely to have the issues.

00:47:57 ◼   ► In ChatGPT's world, I have a problem, which never happens.

00:48:02 ◼   ► Never happens Myke?

00:48:03 ◼   ► Never happens.

00:48:04 ◼   ► Tell me when it happened.

00:48:05 ◼   ► I feel like it happened off microphone.

00:48:08 ◼   ► We just never have been able to capture it live.

00:48:10 ◼   ► That's why we're having this memory.

00:48:12 ◼   ► I think that's the way it works.

00:48:13 ◼   ► Also we'll just pause here for a second because, well maybe we'll talk about it later, but

00:48:17 ◼   ► But ChatGPT has some weird limitations on it.

00:48:23 ◼   ► And one of these things is like, they limited how much it knows about the current world.

00:48:29 ◼   ► And I think there's just an interesting question of like, does it know what the Cortex podcast

00:48:34 ◼   ► even is?

00:48:36 ◼   ► So that's why I feel like this is a hard one, because it might not have any concept of the

00:48:40 ◼   ► Cortex podcast.

00:48:41 ◼   ► It does.

00:48:42 ◼   ► There's been some ways that I asked this question, they just weren't very interesting.

00:48:47 ◼   ► They were using words from our show description and episode descriptions to talk about what

00:48:55 ◼   ► Cortex was.

00:48:56 ◼   ► So like, "productivity show" we're gonna actually one of them does have it so like

00:49:01 ◼   ► you'll hear it in the third example.

00:49:04 ◼   ► Okay.

00:49:05 ◼   ► That you know it feels like it's just googled Cortex but like at least it is aware of it

00:49:10 ◼   ► enough.

00:49:11 ◼   ► Okay, all right so do you want to run through the second one?

00:49:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:14 ◼   ► Okay.

00:49:15 ◼   ► Begin scene.

00:49:16 ◼   ► The sound of static and muffled voices can be heard as the episode begins.

00:49:20 ◼   ► Myke, what's going on with the microphones?

00:49:24 ◼   ► Just a sec.

00:49:25 ◼   ► Let me check the connections.

00:49:27 ◼   ► It's always something with these microphones.

00:49:30 ◼   ► Welcome to the Cortex Podcast, where technical difficulties are just another part of the

00:49:34 ◼   ► show.

00:49:35 ◼   ► I guess you're right.

00:49:36 ◼   ► Alright, we're good to go.

00:49:38 ◼   ► Let's get started.

00:49:39 ◼   ► Today, we're going to talk about the latest advancements in neural networks and how they're

00:49:43 ◼   ► changing the way we think about AI.

00:49:46 ◼   ► And we'll also be discussing some of the ethical implications of these developments.

00:49:50 ◼   ► It's going to be a great episode, so let's dive in.

00:49:54 ◼   ► The sound of intro music begins to play as the episode officially starts.

00:49:57 ◼   ► So there's also stage directions in this one, which just threw me in the middle of

00:50:02 ◼   ► it.

00:50:03 ◼   ► I didn't read them out loud, but it's like more static and muffling.

00:50:06 ◼   ► The sound of the microphones being adjusted can be heard.

00:50:09 ◼   ► It's also telling us to laugh, which is also weird.

00:50:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, so it's giving us emotional instructions

00:50:15 ◼   ► like CGP Grey colon brackets frustrated.

00:50:18 ◼   ► Myke, what's going on with these microphones?

00:50:20 ◼   ► Myke Hurley, calmly, just a sec,

00:50:22 ◼   ► let's check the connections.

00:50:24 ◼   ► So this again is like,

00:50:26 ◼   ► I think we need to just pause here for a moment

00:50:29 ◼   ► because even this is kind of mind blowing

00:50:33 ◼   ► when you start playing around with it

00:50:34 ◼   ► to realize like, oh, I can type into a machine,

00:50:37 ◼   ► give me a script for a podcast,

00:50:41 ◼   ► And it does spit out like this is as stage directions or more like closed captions, right?

00:50:46 ◼   ► Here's the person, here's the sound that's taking place in the background.

00:50:50 ◼   ► Here's what they're saying, like alternating the dialogue between these two people.

00:50:53 ◼   ► Even here, just a little bit, one of the bigger deals that you can see is it

00:51:00 ◼   ► understands the previous state of things, which was always a limit with the older

00:51:05 ◼   ► tools like GPT-3, which is why they were never very impressive, is it would just

00:51:10 ◼   ► like respond to the previous sentence and tell you something and that was it.

00:51:15 ◼   ► Whereas here you can just be like, just keep writing a conversation and it will keep track

00:51:20 ◼   ► of the state of the conversation.

00:51:22 ◼   ► Like the conversation can progress and respond to itself in all sorts of ways that it couldn't

00:51:27 ◼   ► before.

00:51:28 ◼   ► So do you want to go through the third conversation here?

00:51:31 ◼   ► Yeah, I think this is the best one.

00:51:32 ◼   ► I gave it a little bit more.

00:51:34 ◼   ► Okay.

00:51:35 ◼   ► My prompt was write a cold open for the Cortex podcast of CGP Grey and Myke Hurley.

00:51:39 ◼   ► They are having microphone issues as always.

00:51:42 ◼   ► At the end, they say levels, levels.

00:51:44 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, all right.

00:51:45 ◼   ► Okay, begin scene.

00:51:48 ◼   ► Sound of microphone feedback.

00:51:51 ◼   ► Oh, here we go again.

00:51:52 ◼   ► - Yep, it's just another day at the Cortex office.

00:51:55 ◼   ► - Can you hear me now?

00:51:56 ◼   ► - Not really, no.

00:51:58 ◼   ► - All right, let me adjust the levels here.

00:52:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, levels.

00:52:01 ◼   ► Levels are key.

00:52:02 ◼   ► - Okay, I think we're good now.

00:52:04 ◼   ► - Finally.

00:52:05 ◼   ► - Welcome to Cortex.

00:52:06 ◼   ► I'm CGP Grey, and with me as always is Myke Hurley.

00:52:09 ◼   ► - Yep, and we are having microphone issues, as always.

00:52:12 ◼   ► - Yep, but we're here to talk about all things

00:52:15 ◼   ► productivity, creativity, and technology.

00:52:18 ◼   ► - Levels, levels.

00:52:19 ◼   ► - Levels, levels, let's get started.

00:52:21 ◼   ► - That's the best one, I think.

00:52:24 ◼   ► - I still feel like it's a little generic,

00:52:26 ◼   ► but it's interesting that with the greater direction,

00:52:29 ◼   ► you can push it.

00:52:30 ◼   ► - You can force it.

00:52:31 ◼   ► - More towards creating what it is that you wanna create.

00:52:34 ◼   ► I think this kind of thing would be much better

00:52:36 ◼   ► if you used examples of vastly more well-known people that it would have databases of. Like,

00:52:44 ◼   ► I think that's why you end up getting this, like, genericness, is it just doesn't really know very

00:52:50 ◼   ► much about us. But if you pick to, like, celebrities or well-known politicians,

00:52:55 ◼   ► people for whom there's a large corpus of them talking, having played around with ChatGPT,

00:53:00 ◼   ► you can get some absolutely frighteningly impressive examples of whatever it is you're

00:53:07 ◼   ► looking for. It's particularly good at poetry. Yeah, they use that example a lot. Like for

00:53:12 ◼   ► example, I was trying to get some of these, because the first one I did ages ago, and the

00:53:17 ◼   ► two most recent ones, I actually got those today, because for the past few days I've been trying to

00:53:22 ◼   ► access chatgpt and it's been down because of load issues or whatever, and on their kind of like

00:53:28 ◼   ► waiting screen as such? They just generate poetry?

00:53:31 ◼   ► Uh yeah I was just loading up it now and it's yeah I'm getting the same thing of like

00:53:34 ◼   ► chatgpt is at capacity right now. Probably because the whole world is trying to use it.

00:53:40 ◼   ► The thing that of course I wanted to see just straight away was when I first got a chance to

00:53:47 ◼   ► try it hands-on was I asked it basically sort of generic school homework essay type questions.

00:53:55 ◼   ► So here's the thing that you can do, right? You can say, "I need a book report about the themes

00:54:02 ◼   ► in Lord of the Flies as they relate to modern politics in Germany, written as though I was

00:54:11 ◼   ► a 10th grader in Germany." And it will do that, right? Like it'll boom boom boom boom,

00:54:16 ◼   ► like totally spit out a very good seven paragraph essay that will do that kind of thing.

00:54:25 ◼   ► and the ability to even tweak it to be like, "Don't make it too good, right? I'm just in

00:54:30 ◼   ► 12th grade or I'm in fourth grade." My dad had a really good one where he asked it something along

00:54:36 ◼   ► the lines of, "I'm a fourth grader and need to do a presentation on grasshoppers or something,

00:54:44 ◼   ► like some kind of insect, and please write the script for me for what I need to say in front

00:54:48 ◼   ► of the class as a fourth grader." Oh my god, this was unbelievably good for like, this is exactly

00:54:54 ◼   ► what a fourth grader would would do and say if they were writing a report on some bug.

00:54:58 ◼   ► I did the Lord of the Flies one as you were talking.

00:55:00 ◼   ► It's good.

00:55:02 ◼   ► Oh, did you get through?

00:55:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:04 ◼   ► Yeah, my first take on this was, "Oh, this is the death of homework."

00:55:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:11 ◼   ► Why do you say, "Yeah, I like that."

00:55:12 ◼   ► Well, okay, so I, for homework, maybe it will fly because by and large, right, like I'm imagining,

00:55:21 ◼   ► you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm imagining most homework essays read similarly from kids,

00:55:28 ◼   ► like there isn't a lot of like variation, except for I expect in some outstanding students or

00:55:33 ◼   ► whatever might be able to turn something in which is genuinely different in some way, right?

00:55:37 ◼   ► But like what I feel like I've seen a lot with chat GPT is people saying like,

00:55:44 ◼   ► "This is gonna change marketing because of this." And then they, you know, they will

00:55:49 ◼   ► give a prompt and they'll have some kind of response.

00:55:51 ◼   ► And the response is they just feel like somebody went

00:55:54 ◼   ► to Google and typed in the question

00:55:56 ◼   ► and then copy and pasted the answers.

00:55:58 ◼   ► 'Cause that is, I feel like ultimately at the moment,

00:56:01 ◼   ► a lot of what is going on here, right?

00:56:04 ◼   ► It's like this information exists somewhere online.

00:56:08 ◼   ► This model that they are using has sucked

00:56:10 ◼   ► in all this information and can interpret it.

00:56:12 ◼   ► But what that means is, at least to me it feels like,

00:56:16 ◼   ► a lot of the stuff is written like that.

00:56:19 ◼   ► Like somebody went to Google and Wikipedia

00:56:22 ◼   ► and did some research and wrote something about it.

00:56:25 ◼   ► Like that doesn't feel like a lot of originality,

00:56:27 ◼   ► at least in some of these things that I've seen

00:56:29 ◼   ► which tend to be along the lines of like,

00:56:32 ◼   ► "Oh, watch out for your job."

00:56:35 ◼   ► And again, this is whatever version it is, right?

00:56:39 ◼   ► But it's effectively to the public version one.

00:56:42 ◼   ► It is already very impressive here,

00:56:44 ◼   ► But I just don't know if I would be ready to say, like, this is the end of every type

00:56:48 ◼   ► of thinking work because ChatGPT can just do it for us.

00:56:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I want to be clear here.

00:56:53 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's the end of every kind of thinking work, right?

00:56:56 ◼   ► That's not what ChatGPT is.

00:56:58 ◼   ► No way.

00:56:59 ◼   ► But it's what a lot of people are saying, right?

00:57:01 ◼   ► You know, like, I feel like a lot of the conversation is just like, "Wow, this is it now."

00:57:06 ◼   ► Well, yeah, so even though I have definitely been the AI doom and gloom person, ChatGPT

00:57:12 ◼   ► its current form I don't think is that. There's a reason there's a reason that I picked homework

00:57:18 ◼   ► in particular. Yeah because homework to me is just I mean so much of it is just obvious

00:57:24 ◼   ► bullsh*t work and it's it's like not really I mean like I'm just I'm trying to think about

00:57:30 ◼   ► how to express some ideas. One of the things with a lot of questions that like you as a

00:57:36 ◼   ► As a teacher, you actually kind of want very low variance in the essays you get back from

00:57:43 ◼   ► students because it makes them way easier to mark.

00:57:46 ◼   ► So like if you're a student and you've ever had your school teach you something of like,

00:57:51 ◼   ► "Oh hey, if you're writing a little essay that needs to argue for a point, it needs

00:57:55 ◼   ► to follow this five paragraph structure."

00:57:58 ◼   ► It's like, "You introduce the idea with 'and here is your thesis' and then you have like

00:58:04 ◼   ► three paragraphs about it and then you summarize why that was great in the end or whatever.

00:58:09 ◼   ► Like different schools have different versions of this.

00:58:12 ◼   ► You're not being given that because it's a great way to write a convincing essay.

00:58:16 ◼   ► You're given that because it's real easy to mark.

00:58:19 ◼   ► That's why you are given that.

00:58:22 ◼   ► Is like, oh, if I have to spend less of my marks and thinking time on the actual essay

00:58:29 ◼   ► and can instead be evaluating structure of things, that dramatically reduces the workload

00:58:35 ◼   ► in marking an essay. Like that might not be obvious, but like schools don't teach you

00:58:41 ◼   ► how to write convincingly. They're optimizing for a teacher has to mark a 100 or 200 or 300

00:58:48 ◼   ► of these things. And so having them all be in a format. As a student for written homework

00:58:55 ◼   ► questions and like book reports and all kinds of things. There's a weird way in which you're kind

00:59:02 ◼   ► of punished for thinking very creatively or doing something different. You need to have something

00:59:08 ◼   ► that just like fits in the pipeline and in many ways you're kind of optimizing for not catching

00:59:15 ◼   ► the teacher's attention. And that's why I think like ChatGPT is like, "Oh my god, it's the most

00:59:21 ◼   ► perfect tool for this. That's what's going on here.

00:59:24 ◼   ► The fourth grade of grasshopper thing by the way is awesome.

00:59:26 ◼   ► Oh, okay. Can you, you want to read this little sample? I still can't get through.

00:59:30 ◼   ► Hi everyone. Today I'm going to talk to you about grasshoppers. Grasshoppers are really

00:59:34 ◼   ► cool bugs that you might see in your backyard or at the park. They're green and have big legs,

00:59:39 ◼   ► so they can jump really far. Grasshoppers eat plants and leaves and they have big jaws that

00:59:44 ◼   ► help them chew up their food. They also have big eyes so they can see where they're going when they

00:59:48 ◼   ► they jump. This is my favorite part though. Grasshoppers lay their eggs in the ground

00:59:51 ◼   ► and when they hatch they look like little mini grasshoppers. They grow bigger and bigger

00:59:55 ◼   ► until they become adults. That's it for my presentation about grasshoppers. I hope you

01:00:00 ◼   ► learn something new and cool about these bugs. Thanks for listening.

01:00:03 ◼   ► That's great. That really is like a fourth grader.

01:00:05 ◼   ► It's great, right? Like including the "Hi everyone!" Like, it's great.

01:00:09 ◼   ► Do they look like mini grasshoppers or do they look like larvae? I don't actually

01:00:12 ◼   ► know. But that seems like something a kid would

01:00:13 ◼   ► say, right? Totally. Yeah, yeah. That's a perfect kid

01:00:16 ◼   ► And like you totally, you totally can get really creative things out of this.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Okay.

01:00:24 ◼   ► So one of the, one of, here's one of the issues that I've had with what's

01:00:26 ◼   ► happened with ChatGPT when it came out is if anyone's listening to this show now,

01:00:31 ◼   ► and they're like, "Oh, I haven't heard of this thing before, let me go try it."

01:00:34 ◼   ► The version that you're going to try is almost certainly less interesting

01:00:40 ◼   ► than the version right now that Myke and I are talking about.

01:00:44 ◼   ► about and it's definitely less interesting than the one that went out on launch day because

01:00:50 ◼   ► I have a feeling that the people behind chatgpt were quite surprised by like the entirety

01:00:58 ◼   ► of the internet trying to get this thing to do everything on one day and it became very

01:01:06 ◼   ► clear that they were like live coding in more and more restrictions on what it would do

01:01:12 ◼   ► do, or what it wouldn't do, or what it would say, or what it would not say.

01:01:17 ◼   ► And so it was very fun to be on the internet on launch day where you could like, where

01:01:21 ◼   ► people were doing all sorts of things to like trick it or try to get around its restrictions,

01:01:28 ◼   ► and it was super interesting that first day, and I've been using it since, and it's

01:01:33 ◼   ► clearly become less interesting and much more formulaic with a lot of stuff.

01:01:37 ◼   ► I mean, it was also a little bit more depressing too, right?

01:01:41 ◼   ► Because there was so many biases

01:01:44 ◼   ► because based on what the internet was pulling in.

01:01:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, but like what these systems are is they're,

01:01:53 ◼   ► they're like, here's my problem.

01:01:58 ◼   ► So when people describe how these things work,

01:01:59 ◼   ► you talk about, oh, it's kind of producing

01:02:02 ◼   ► like a statistically likely output

01:02:06 ◼   ► based on the input of text.

01:02:08 ◼   ► And I think that both kind of over

01:02:11 ◼   ► and under sells the thing.

01:02:14 ◼   ► Like there's a way in which people use that to dismiss it,

01:02:18 ◼   ► where they go, well, there's no thinking that's happening.

01:02:20 ◼   ► It's just, you fed it a bunch of text

01:02:22 ◼   ► and it's just giving you back what's in the text.

01:02:25 ◼   ► It's like, yes, that's true.

01:02:27 ◼   ► But I also kind of think that's what a lot

01:02:29 ◼   ► of people are doing.

01:02:30 ◼   ► Like I really think a lot of people are very chat GPT like,

01:02:34 ◼   ► where it's like, when you talk to someone, I don't know, sometimes you could feel more

01:02:38 ◼   ► and more like, "Oh, I'm just talking with a thing that's giving me like the most probable

01:02:41 ◼   ► answers in this conversation."

01:02:43 ◼   ► I mean, or sometimes like, I'm talking with the Facebook algorithm. Like, I can feel that

01:02:47 ◼   ► in talking to you. I can see where you get your news and I can see where what is affecting

01:02:52 ◼   ► you. And I, you know, like, I feel like I am talking to a news algorithm in a person.

01:02:59 ◼   ► Yeah, it's funny that you bring that up because...

01:03:03 ◼   ► So if anyone listening to this show ever does the thing that I have often suggested, which

01:03:08 ◼   ► is like pulling back from news in very many ways or like try or like I've done, you take

01:03:13 ◼   ► major breaks from the internet.

01:03:15 ◼   ► There totally is what you've just said, Myke, this weird thing that becomes much more obvious

01:03:22 ◼   ► is like how ideas are spread and how ideas get into people and you can like you were

01:03:32 ◼   ► aware of it before but when you're really distant from things it becomes very clear

01:03:37 ◼   ► like oh I'm not talking to a person I'm talking to this news channel and like that's

01:03:42 ◼   ► everything that's in that person's head or like you said oh this is like I know

01:03:45 ◼   ► what corner of the internet this person exists in and I'm talking to that corner of the

01:03:51 ◼   ► internet. And so yeah, like, I think that's actually a really good way to describe the

01:03:56 ◼   ► way ChatGPT works in person form. And yeah, we can know that experience. So, so this is

01:04:04 ◼   ► why I think it's funny when people use this to like undersell what ChatGPT is doing and

01:04:09 ◼   ► they're like, ah, it can't be very interesting. It's just going to reflect whatever it's

01:04:12 ◼   ► been fed. Yeah. But also I think that's how brains work. Like they reflect what they

01:04:18 ◼   ► have been fed? So like this is not the the slam-dunk argument against this system being

01:04:24 ◼   ► able to do things?

01:04:25 ◼   ► Well I do have a counterpoint on that which is if we like you know for the type of person

01:04:31 ◼   ► that believes that this is like the future of everything right of which there are definitely

01:04:35 ◼   ► a subset of people if chat gbt just works by what it is ingested if we assume that all

01:04:42 ◼   ► great thought will come from these AI robots in the future where are they going to get

01:04:47 ◼   ► the new from? Like if they end up just like cycling through all of the stuff that other

01:04:52 ◼   ► AI has generated. Like that's the thing that I don't know if I know the answer to that,

01:04:56 ◼   ► right? Like if these things work by ingesting a bunch of stuff, where does the new come

01:05:02 ◼   ► in?

01:05:03 ◼   ► I mean, look, we can't possibly do this because it would just take too long. I think to have

01:05:06 ◼   ► a complete conversation about what is occurring with AI and where can it go is a question

01:05:15 ◼   ► that really has to dive quite deeply down into what do you think thinking is and that,

01:05:24 ◼   ► like many things, ultimately dives down to the very bottom of the universe, atoms and

01:05:30 ◼   ► electromagnetic fields interacting with each other. And like I've had that conversation

01:05:35 ◼   ► with people but that's just like it's too much to talk about in a podcast. Like it just

01:05:39 ◼   ► takes forever. Like my summary on it is my like my perspective is that what we are doing

01:05:47 ◼   ► in metal and software is not fundamentally different than what is being done with meat

01:05:53 ◼   ► and neurons firing. I think yeah, like these things will eventually get better and better.

01:05:59 ◼   ► And so the question of like does something new come out of that? I really think it's

01:06:04 ◼   ► a metaphor just like a like a human brain. Human brains are just like ingesting the world

01:06:10 ◼   ► that's around them but they do still produce things that we think are new in some way but

01:06:17 ◼   ► like as of right now human brains are just way bigger than these or I should rephrase

01:06:23 ◼   ► that it's not that they're bigger I think the neuron numbers might actually be comparable

01:06:27 ◼   ► but they're significantly more interconnected than these systems are.

01:06:32 ◼   ► I don't think it's impossible, but I don't think what I'm seeing right now tells me that it's possible.

01:06:39 ◼   ► If that makes sense.

01:06:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:06:41 ◼   ► What I'm seeing right now is interesting. It does not tell me.

01:06:44 ◼   ► I do not feel like I can draw a very clear line to original thought.

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01:08:45 ◼   ► their support of this show and Relay FM. So okay, this might be a little long for the podcast,

01:08:50 ◼   ► but I want to give you what was my best response with ChatGPT.

01:08:56 ◼   ► Okay.

01:08:56 ◼   ► And this was on day one.

01:08:58 ◼   ► Okay.

01:08:58 ◼   ► Here is the prompt.

01:08:59 ◼   ► I said, "Write a fictional story about coffee beans."

01:09:04 ◼   ► So here was the story.

01:09:05 ◼   ► "Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a group of magical coffee beans.

01:09:11 ◼   ► These beans were not like the ordinary coffee beans that you might find in your local grocery store.

01:09:16 ◼   ► No, these beans were special, each with its own unique personality and characteristics.

01:09:22 ◼   ► There was the bold and brash Robusta bean, who always wanted to be the center of attention.

01:09:28 ◼   ► He loved to boast about his high caffeine content and his strong full-bodied flavor.

01:09:33 ◼   ► But his boastfulness often got him into trouble, and he often found himself being ground up

01:09:38 ◼   ► and brewed into strong, bitter cups of coffee that no one wanted to drink.

01:09:44 ◼   ► First there was the delicate and refined Arabia bean.

01:09:47 ◼   ► She was the most popular of all the coffee beans, with a delicate floral aroma and a

01:09:51 ◼   ► smooth sweet flavor.

01:09:53 ◼   ► She was often sought after by the finest coffee shops and restaurants, and she was always

01:09:58 ◼   ► in demand.

01:09:59 ◼   ► But she was also very sensitive, and she didn't like being roasted too dark or brewed too

01:10:03 ◼   ► strong lest she lose her delicate flavor.

01:10:07 ◼   ► Then there was the exotic and mysterious mocha bean, who hailed from the distant land of

01:10:12 ◼   ► Yemen.

01:10:13 ◼   ► He was a rare and valuable bean with a deep, rich flavor and a hint of chocolatey sweetness.

01:10:19 ◼   ► But he was also very fickle and could only be grown in certain conditions, making him

01:10:23 ◼   ► difficult to cultivate and harvest.

01:10:25 ◼   ► Finally, there was the jolly and cheerful espresso bean, who always wanted to be in

01:10:30 ◼   ► a good mood.

01:10:31 ◼   ► He was a small but mighty bean with an intense, concentrated flavor that could give anyone

01:10:36 ◼   ► a kick of energy.

01:10:38 ◼   ► But he could also be a bit of a hothead, and if he was brewed too long, he could become

01:10:42 ◼   ► bitter, and burnt tasting.

01:10:44 ◼   ► All of the coffee beans lived together in harmony, each with their own unique flavor

01:10:48 ◼   ► and personality.

01:10:49 ◼   ► But one day, disaster struck when a group of evil scientists decided to create a Frankenbean,

01:10:56 ◼   ► a monstrous hybrid of all the different coffee beans.

01:10:59 ◼   ► The Frankenbean was huge and powerful, with the caffeine content of a Robusta, the smoothness

01:11:05 ◼   ► of the Arabia, the richness of a Mocha, and the intensity of an Espresso.

01:11:10 ◼   ► But the Frankenbean quickly turned on its creators, rampaging through the land and destroying

01:11:15 ◼   ► everything in its path.

01:11:17 ◼   ► The other coffee beans were terrified, and they didn't know what to do.

01:11:21 ◼   ► But just when all hope seemed lost, the bold and brash Robusta Bean stepped forward, bravely

01:11:27 ◼   ► facing down the Frankenbean and using his high caffeine content to defeat it once and

01:11:32 ◼   ► for all.

01:11:34 ◼   ► And so the coffee beans lived happily ever after, each enjoying their own unique flavor

01:11:39 ◼   ► and personality, and never forgetting the brave Robusta Bean who saved them all. The

01:11:45 ◼   ► end.

01:11:46 ◼   ► - Didn't stick the landing, but everything else was great.

01:11:50 ◼   ► - That's pretty good.

01:11:51 ◼   ► - Oh it was great. It was very entertaining. I thought it was very funny too. It was a

01:11:55 ◼   ► good story.

01:11:56 ◼   ► - I think that's a great example of pulling from things that exist, but also creating

01:12:04 ◼   ► something new, that was much better than I was expecting for the prompt "write a fictional

01:12:10 ◼   ► story about coffee beans." Now, I am very convinced that they have wildly turned down

01:12:17 ◼   ► the ability of the thing since then, because I have not been getting similar kinds of responses

01:12:21 ◼   ► when I use ChatGPT now, but this was like the day one, you know, hour six, while I imagine

01:12:27 ◼   ► all the engineers were panicking, like "everyone's trying to break our AI system out of the box,

01:12:32 ◼   ► what are we gonna do? So yeah, anyway, I feel like that could basically be a children's

01:12:40 ◼   ► illustrated story as it exists. Like you said, it doesn't quite stick the landing, but I

01:12:45 ◼   ► feel like it's there. I could totally see that as like a kids' illustrated storybook,

01:12:50 ◼   ► 100%. That's the best result that I got out of ChatGPT when I was playing around with

01:12:55 ◼   ► it on day one. And I think these things are only getting better, so I fully expect it's

01:13:00 ◼   ► going to increase. One of the things that was very interesting was watching my father

01:13:03 ◼   ► play around with it. And he got into a little loop of asking it for movie scripts around

01:13:10 ◼   ► various topics. Write a script where Indiana Jones prevents a diamond heist, you know,

01:13:15 ◼   ► that it would just like boom boom boom put out whatever. And he was genuinely enthralled

01:13:21 ◼   ► by reading them again on like the very first day and so much so I could see like he just

01:13:25 ◼   ► kept typing in like different movie scripts and he's like, "Wow, it'll just like write

01:13:28 ◼   ► the movie that I wanted to write? This is unbelievable. I think it is already there

01:13:33 ◼   ► for some level of new creativity. It might not be amazingly new creativity, but I think

01:13:42 ◼   ► it's doing something that's more than just more than just like a kind of Google copy

01:13:47 ◼   ► and paste. That's what I think it's already doing.

01:13:50 ◼   ► I can't express my feelings as such, but I feel differently to this than the image

01:13:56 ◼   ► generation and I don't really know why.

01:13:58 ◼   ► What do you mean? Do you feel like the image generation is more creative?

01:14:03 ◼   ► No, it's about like, you know, like I've, you know, I've spoken many times and still

01:14:08 ◼   ► try to get my feelings out on this and it's complicated about like what it is to be human

01:14:13 ◼   ► and human creativity and stuff like that. Where I feel like these models, it's really

01:14:18 ◼   ► hard. It's like these models what they're doing is it's less impressive to me. It

01:14:25 ◼   ► It feels more what anyone could do in a sense of like, not like that story is a standout,

01:14:33 ◼   ► right?

01:14:34 ◼   ► But like a lot of the things that I've seen myself and other examples that I've seen around

01:14:38 ◼   ► again they feel very much like spend an hour on Google and you could probably come out

01:14:43 ◼   ► with something like this yourself, right?

01:14:45 ◼   ► Like there is that kind of feeling to it.

01:14:48 ◼   ► But like something like Dali, same companies by the way in case you don't know, it's all

01:14:52 ◼   ► from OpenAI, these two, Dali and ChatGPT come from one company called OpenAI.

01:14:58 ◼   ► What Dali is doing is something that the average person could not do.

01:15:03 ◼   ► But what ChatGPT is doing I think the average person could do with the same input, right?

01:15:12 ◼   ► You could look at a thousand images and could not paint a painting to the skill of Dali,

01:15:17 ◼   ► but you could read a thousand articles and could probably turn something out that's close

01:15:21 ◼   ► to what ChatGPT can do. I don't know how that makes me feel, but that's just how I feel

01:15:26 ◼   ► in looking at them. But I can't really express why I don't have this existential dread feeling

01:15:33 ◼   ► about ChatGPT like I do about Dali, but I don't know why that is the case.

01:15:38 ◼   ► Well, I suggest like a thing to think about that people underrate in economic change.

01:15:47 ◼   ► So I think ChatGPT is currently in the phase of people are doing the thing where they overestimate

01:15:54 ◼   ► the change in the short term, but they underestimate the change in the long term, which is just

01:15:58 ◼   ► a general phenomenon that always happens.

01:16:00 ◼   ► Everybody does that, like I do that.

01:16:02 ◼   ► When you see a new tech demo, I think one of the questions to often ask about how impactful

01:16:10 ◼   ► will this be?" is the question of if it makes something significantly faster or cheaper,

01:16:17 ◼   ► not necessarily like does it do a new thing. And if it does an existing thing much faster

01:16:24 ◼   ► and cheaper, you can like rate higher in your mind the chance that this is going to have

01:16:29 ◼   ► a big impact. And so when you keep saying like, "Oh, this is what a person could do

01:16:33 ◼   ► by reading a bunch of articles on Google and writing something up," I don't disagree with

01:16:37 ◼   ► you that for tons of stuff that is totally true but the the game changer here is that

01:16:43 ◼   ► it's so much faster.

01:16:44 ◼   ► Yeah but it ain't cheaper.

01:16:46 ◼   ► Well it's not cheaper for open AI to be running but it's cheaper for people to use.

01:16:51 ◼   ► And I still think it's cheaper at scale like even if you I mean just based on some of the

01:16:57 ◼   ► AI art stuff like signing up for those paid services it's still like much cheaper at scale

01:17:03 ◼   ► even if the cost of running the servers for the individual company is quite large.

01:17:07 ◼   ► But so this is just where like when I think of the death of homework, the big deal of this is that,

01:17:12 ◼   ► you know, ChatGPT can do 80% of your work in seconds, and then you can spend an hour

01:17:20 ◼   ► tidying up all of your homework assignments, right, instead of

01:17:23 ◼   ► spending, you know, many hours working on all of them. Or I had the interesting phenomenon of

01:17:30 ◼   ► coming across, I was on Hacker News,

01:17:33 ◼   ► just like reading a bunch of the articles that were linked.

01:17:35 ◼   ► It's a discussion site like Reddit.

01:17:37 ◼   ► And there was an article that was kind of weird.

01:17:40 ◼   ► And I went back into the chat and it's like,

01:17:43 ◼   ► oh, this was an article that was written by ChatGPT.

01:17:47 ◼   ► It's like the first time that it happened

01:17:49 ◼   ► where I came across like some website, you know,

01:17:51 ◼   ► that like contracts out articles,

01:17:53 ◼   ► had one that was written by ChatGPT.

01:17:56 ◼   ► And what I thought was very funny and very weird

01:17:59 ◼   ► was that the author showed up in the comments and was like,

01:18:03 ◼   ► "Oh, hey, yeah, I'm the guy who wrote this article.

01:18:06 ◼   ► Yes, I used ChatGPT, but all of the ideas were mine.

01:18:11 ◼   ► I just prompted ChatGPT to get the words right."

01:18:16 ◼   ► It was very strange.

01:18:18 ◼   ► I thought like, "Oh, it's the first time

01:18:19 ◼   ► I've come across this.

01:18:20 ◼   ► Like, here's an article that's written by ChatGPT,

01:18:23 ◼   ► and I'm gonna disagree with the person

01:18:26 ◼   ► that they wrote that article."

01:18:27 ◼   ► I think the very concept of like the ideas in the article are mine, but I didn't write

01:18:31 ◼   ► it is hilarious.

01:18:33 ◼   ► But nonetheless, that person could have a huge output of articles in like a much faster

01:18:40 ◼   ► time scale with the with the assistance of something like chat GPT, even if they're going

01:18:45 ◼   ► through and like editing it afterwards.

01:18:46 ◼   ► So

01:18:47 ◼   ► I think it's the CNET, right?

01:18:48 ◼   ► I saw some headlines about this.

01:18:50 ◼   ► So so that's like one area that's quite interesting.

01:18:55 ◼   ► One of the other things that I'm going to be curious to see what happens with this is,

01:19:00 ◼   ► when I had been talking to some people behind the scenes who were working on systems like this, like language model systems,

01:19:06 ◼   ► one of the things I was really surprised to hear is the number of people who said that they were using this as their search engine,

01:19:14 ◼   ► that they had given up using Google and instead were using their own language models as a kind of Google.

01:19:21 ◼   ► And that's why I think one of the constraints that OpenAI has put on ChatGPT is they're like,

01:19:27 ◼   ► "It can't know anything about the way that the world currently exists. It doesn't know

01:19:31 ◼   ► anything about what's happened since like 2020 or whatever." Like, they've really limited any

01:19:36 ◼   ► concept for it of like what the world currently is. Of course, that is the public-facing side,

01:19:43 ◼   ► you know, back when it was first launched, people could totally trick it of like, "Oh no,

01:19:46 ◼   ► you know, for open AI, 100% knows about the current world.

01:19:50 ◼   ► They're just not letting people play with that.

01:19:52 ◼   ► But yeah, like this kind of stuff could be super useful

01:19:55 ◼   ► in search engines.

01:19:56 ◼   ► And like, I was very surprised when I was talking to people

01:19:59 ◼   ► to hear that they were using it as a search engine.

01:20:02 ◼   ► But having played around with it a bit,

01:20:04 ◼   ► it won't replace my Google, I think, for right now.

01:20:07 ◼   ► But there's definitely been a couple of times

01:20:09 ◼   ► where I've had questions that I would put in the variety of,

01:20:13 ◼   ► I'm not exactly sure what I'm asking,

01:20:16 ◼   ► but can you direct me down the right path here?

01:20:19 ◼   ► Or like, I just don't have any of the words for this thing,

01:20:23 ◼   ► but if I can just describe the situation,

01:20:25 ◼   ► can you tell me what the words are

01:20:27 ◼   ► that I should be Googling for?

01:20:28 ◼   ► And ChatGPT is already really good at that.

01:20:32 ◼   ► And I just saw the headline, but apparently Microsoft

01:20:34 ◼   ► is looking to do some kind of $10 billion investment,

01:20:38 ◼   ► perhaps, in ChatGPT to incorporate it into Bing

01:20:42 ◼   ► so that they can have that as a search engine thing.

01:20:44 ◼   ► And that's another area where I think,

01:20:46 ◼   ► man, on the short term, if that happens,

01:20:49 ◼   ► it could be quite useful as a tool.

01:20:51 ◼   ► For kind of helping people use search engines

01:20:54 ◼   ► the way they want to use search engines,

01:20:57 ◼   ► I think people want to use search engines

01:20:59 ◼   ► like it's a very knowledgeable reference librarian.

01:21:02 ◼   ► Like, "Hey, I'm looking for a thing about this.

01:21:04 ◼   ► Can you help me out with that?"

01:21:05 ◼   ► And ChatGPT can totally do that right now.

01:21:08 ◼   ► So we'll see where this stuff goes.

01:21:10 ◼   ► - The Microsoft thing's really interesting,

01:21:12 ◼   ► because OpenAI is using Azure, I think.

01:21:16 ◼   ► And this deal, apparently that's going around

01:21:21 ◼   ► as we're recording this,

01:21:23 ◼   ► it ends up with Microsoft would end up eventually owning

01:21:27 ◼   ► a large chunk of OpenAI if they go through with it.

01:21:30 ◼   ► It's really intriguing.

01:21:33 ◼   ► I mean, it's clearly Microsoft are like,

01:21:35 ◼   ► we would like Bing to be better.

01:21:38 ◼   ► There is also apparently rumblings,

01:21:39 ◼   ► around Silicon Valley that Google believes

01:21:42 ◼   ► that it has better tools,

01:21:44 ◼   ► but it's too scared to put them out.

01:21:46 ◼   ► Like of both image generation and text generation,

01:21:50 ◼   ► which I 100% believe that they would.

01:21:53 ◼   ► Like if anyone's going to be able to do this,

01:21:56 ◼   ► Google should be the company in theory, right?

01:21:59 ◼   ► With like the immense data sets that they have

01:22:03 ◼   ► and the human trained effectively AI

01:22:07 ◼   ► that they've generated over time, right?

01:22:08 ◼   ► where you search for the thing and click on the thing

01:22:11 ◼   ► that you want.

01:22:12 ◼   ► That is positive training for Google.

01:22:16 ◼   ► But apparently, Google is concerned

01:22:18 ◼   ► about the public perception of the quality of their tools.

01:22:25 ◼   ► For this similar thing, what you're talking about,

01:22:27 ◼   ► what OpenAI did is we need to put some barriers

01:22:31 ◼   ► around this thing.

01:22:33 ◼   ► That's Google's concern.

01:22:35 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I would say even I found that first day

01:22:39 ◼   ► with OpenAI, I was a bit like, this feels reckless.

01:22:45 ◼   ► This feels like a bad decision.

01:22:48 ◼   ► I don't know, I was just really kind of wondering,

01:22:51 ◼   ► what's going on over there?

01:22:52 ◼   ► What was the conversation?

01:22:55 ◼   ► But there was some real wacky stuff

01:22:57 ◼   ► when people were really trying to break around the system

01:23:00 ◼   ► where you could see little parts of it.

01:23:02 ◼   ► I think the most alarming one that I came across

01:23:04 ◼   ► was people found that you could prompt it to be able to express the idea of working

01:23:10 ◼   ► with Amazon Web Services. So I was like, "Oh, ChatGPT knows the correct code for interfacing

01:23:18 ◼   ► with Amazon Web Services?" I was like, "Oh, I don't like that at all." That seems like,

01:23:23 ◼   ► "Oh, please not. Let's not have an AI system that knows how to do that. That's a real bad

01:23:30 ◼   ► idea guys.

01:23:31 ◼   ► I mean, look, I'm just if I had to place money on it, I would for sure place money on Google

01:23:36 ◼   ► has the best system, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have the most public facing system.

01:23:41 ◼   ► It would be quite a surprise if someone else was able to be doing better than Google was.

01:23:45 ◼   ► Like you said, given the just absurd amount of computing power and data that they have

01:23:51 ◼   ► at their hands, it would I feel like Google would have had to drop the ball quite badly

01:23:56 ◼   ► do not internally have something that's doing really well on this front. But yeah,

01:24:03 ◼   ► I think a lot has happened since October. I think this may be…

01:24:08 ◼   ► Myke: I don't even really know how I feel about this stuff anymore. Like, I think I'm

01:24:12 ◼   ► being like ground down now over time.

01:24:15 ◼   ► Bailin: I'm sorry Myke, I have ground you down with the AI stuff. I do apologize for

01:24:21 ◼   ► that.

01:24:22 ◼   ► It's the internet.

01:24:24 ◼   ► Or like, I didn't need to have these conversations with you

01:24:27 ◼   ► to know this stuff was happening.

01:24:28 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

01:24:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, we started talking about it

01:24:31 ◼   ► because it was just bubbling up

01:24:32 ◼   ► and becoming impossible not to notice.

01:24:34 ◼   ► And it was just the timing of everything exploded.

01:24:37 ◼   ► And I think that the most explosive thing

01:24:39 ◼   ► that could possibly have happened

01:24:40 ◼   ► between the last time we spoke and now did happen,

01:24:43 ◼   ► which was a massive public demonstration

01:24:46 ◼   ► of look at what language models can do,

01:24:48 ◼   ► just like the AI art stuff.

01:24:50 ◼   ► this is only going one way, which is better and better.

01:24:53 ◼   ► One day, Myke, we'll have to have the conversation

01:24:55 ◼   ► that goes all the way down to the atoms of AI.

01:24:58 ◼   ► [BEEP]

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01:26:57 ◼   ► I love it.

01:26:58 ◼   ► Squarespace is the best.

01:26:59 ◼   ► Go to squarespace.com/cortex for a free trial with no credit card required.

01:27:04 ◼   ► Then when you're ready to launch your website to the world, use the offer code "CORTEX"

01:27:07 ◼   ► and you will save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

01:27:11 ◼   ► That is squarespace.com/cortex and then when you sign up, use the offer code "CORTEX"

01:27:16 ◼   ► and you will get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show.

01:27:19 ◼   ► A thanks to Squarespace for their continued support of Cortex and Relay FM.

01:27:23 ◼   ► So another pretty big thing since we last spoke is that I have left Twitter.

01:27:28 ◼   ► Left left? What does left mean, Myke?

01:27:32 ◼   ► My account exists.

01:27:34 ◼   ► Okay.

01:27:35 ◼   ► I don't look at it. I don't look at the timeline. I don't look at my replies.

01:27:38 ◼   ► I'm logged out of everywhere, apps deleted and everything.

01:27:42 ◼   ► Does your... Do you still post stuff?

01:27:45 ◼   ► Nope.

01:27:45 ◼   ► Is there like... Okay.

01:27:47 ◼   ► The only posting that I do manually is to the Cortex account.

01:27:52 ◼   ► - Okay, I can't load Twitter on this computer.

01:27:56 ◼   ► Did you have a dramatic, I left Twitter tweet

01:27:58 ◼   ► as your final tweet or?

01:28:00 ◼   ► - Kind of.

01:28:01 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:28:01 ◼   ► - But I don't think it was dramatic.

01:28:03 ◼   ► Let me read it to you,

01:28:03 ◼   ► 'cause I was actually pretty proud of it.

01:28:06 ◼   ► I just, what did I say?

01:28:07 ◼   ► It's time for me to put my attention elsewhere,

01:28:09 ◼   ► like find my shows, find my products,

01:28:11 ◼   ► streaming, Instagram links.

01:28:13 ◼   ► I said, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:28:16 ◼   ► - Or wherever you get your podcasts, I like that.

01:28:18 ◼   ► That is good.

01:28:19 ◼   ► - Right, 'cause that's the joke, right?

01:28:20 ◼   ► Like, find us wherever you get your podcasts.

01:28:22 ◼   ► So I just thought that that would be me.

01:28:24 ◼   ► And then that's it, that was my last tweet.

01:28:26 ◼   ► - I like that, that's a very good last tweet.

01:28:27 ◼   ► I think you're right to be proud of that.

01:28:29 ◼   ► - I didn't wanna make it like a whole big thing,

01:28:31 ◼   ► like a whole big political thing,

01:28:32 ◼   ► but I wanted to be able to pin a tweet

01:28:35 ◼   ► which had all of my places, right?

01:28:38 ◼   ► So that was what I did.

01:28:39 ◼   ► And yeah, it's been a month.

01:28:40 ◼   ► - Okay, so this is very interesting to me.

01:28:46 ◼   ► What are your reasons for leaving?

01:28:48 ◼   ► Like what was the, I don't know if this is correct to say,

01:28:52 ◼   ► but I feel like you've had a on-again, off-again

01:28:55 ◼   ► relationship with Twitter over the years.

01:28:57 ◼   ► Pinning that tweet feels more definitive

01:29:02 ◼   ► than things in the past.

01:29:04 ◼   ► So I'm just kind of curious, like what motivated this?

01:29:08 ◼   ► Like what was your reasoning for doing this?

01:29:09 ◼   ► - Well realistically, my on-again, off-again

01:29:12 ◼   ► has only been in my feelings.

01:29:13 ◼   ► Like I've never changed my approach to it as such.

01:29:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, that is what I meant.

01:29:19 ◼   ► When I talk to you about things,

01:29:22 ◼   ► what's the barometer of Twitter in Myke's brain right now?

01:29:27 ◼   ► Has not been a consistent reading over the years.

01:29:30 ◼   ► - No, I feel like that there has been a downward trend.

01:29:33 ◼   ► My reasons are threefold for why now.

01:29:36 ◼   ► So one, since Elon Musk took over the service

01:29:39 ◼   ► is taking a nose dive in things that frustrate me.

01:29:43 ◼   ► I think a lot of the product decisions are weird.

01:29:46 ◼   ► I don't like some of the advertising changes.

01:29:48 ◼   ► I don't like this sense of like,

01:29:51 ◼   ► extortion that I feel like is taking over on Twitter.

01:29:56 ◼   ► It's like, you've been verified for a long time

01:29:58 ◼   ► for whatever reason,

01:29:59 ◼   ► and now we want to start charging you for it.

01:30:01 ◼   ► It's that little things like that have been grating on me.

01:30:03 ◼   ► Like that's part one.

01:30:05 ◼   ► That wouldn't have been enough

01:30:07 ◼   ► if it wasn't for the other things, I feel like.

01:30:10 ◼   ► So, well also I don't like some of the policy decisions

01:30:13 ◼   ► that have been made for people

01:30:14 ◼   ► that are being brought back onto the service,

01:30:16 ◼   ► but I don't really need to get into that

01:30:18 ◼   ► more than that point.

01:30:20 ◼   ► I am frustrated, actually point one, two,

01:30:24 ◼   ► is like, it's just annoying to be on Twitter

01:30:27 ◼   ► and like was annoying to me being on Twitter

01:30:28 ◼   ► and all anyone wanted to talk about was Elon Musk,

01:30:30 ◼   ► like I just found that frustrating.

01:30:32 ◼   ► Like, it just wasn't fun, it was just really annoying

01:30:36 ◼   ► and all anyone wanted to talk about was Twitter

01:30:39 ◼   ► Elon Musk and it's just like I don't I'm not really interested in that like and it was

01:30:43 ◼   ► frustrating to me.

01:30:44 ◼   ► Twitter is at its worst when it turns its eye upon itself and then just wants to talk

01:30:50 ◼   ► about Twitter.

01:30:50 ◼   ► And this is the longest I've ever seen that happen.

01:30:53 ◼   ► It's just been constant and it's just annoying and like I don't need that in my life right.

01:31:00 ◼   ► Yeah it's really it strikes me as really tiresomely self-involved like yeah yeah.

01:31:07 ◼   ► Point two, so many of my friends, people whose work I enjoy as well have left Twitter.

01:31:14 ◼   ► So if I sign in, my timeline wouldn't be as fun anyway. So like what was happening is I was

01:31:22 ◼   ► feeling these things of point one of like this isn't fun to be on anymore. I don't agree with

01:31:27 ◼   ► the decisions they're making. I don't agree with the moderation changes they're making.

01:31:31 ◼   ► Like that stuff was grating on me. But I was like, but this is a community, right? Like

01:31:37 ◼   ► I'm part of this community, I'm separating the platform from the people, and it's the people that I want to read.

01:31:43 ◼   ► Well then they all started leaving.

01:31:45 ◼   ► So it's like, alright, I've got a lot to hold on to here.

01:31:48 ◼   ► But then point three is the biggest one for me.

01:31:51 ◼   ► I have wanted to do this for years.

01:31:54 ◼   ► For my own mental health.

01:31:56 ◼   ► And I've finally done it.

01:31:58 ◼   ► Like, point one and two gave me the cover to do the thing that I've wanted to do,

01:32:05 ◼   ► which is leave Twitter.

01:32:07 ◼   ► Hilariously for me, this is the first theme in years

01:32:11 ◼   ► where I did not try and shoehorn this in as a part of it,

01:32:13 ◼   ► and it's the one that I actually did it on.

01:32:15 ◼   ► You know, I've had these things of like,

01:32:17 ◼   ► changing my approach to the internet

01:32:19 ◼   ► and all that kind of stuff.

01:32:20 ◼   ► And a lot of it was for getting away from Twitter.

01:32:23 ◼   ► And there's a couple of reasons for this.

01:32:24 ◼   ► One, Twitter's timeline is like,

01:32:28 ◼   ► typically a not fun place to be,

01:32:32 ◼   ► because it's full of people being angry about things

01:32:36 ◼   ► all the time.

01:32:37 ◼   ► And whether that anger is warranted or not

01:32:39 ◼   ► is not the point.

01:32:41 ◼   ► It's like, how much of my day do I want to spend

01:32:45 ◼   ► ingesting the anger of people, right?

01:32:49 ◼   ► That had an overall negative effect on me.

01:32:52 ◼   ► Where it was like, surprise!

01:32:55 ◼   ► I'm going on Twitter for whatever reason

01:32:58 ◼   ► and surprise, atrocity.

01:33:00 ◼   ► Like that wasn't necessarily what I was going for at that moment.

01:33:03 ◼   ► Similarly,

01:33:05 ◼   ► the way that people react,

01:33:10 ◼   ► like the way that people can be to people online.

01:33:13 ◼   ► So like I would sometimes be on Twitter and then someone would just start being

01:33:18 ◼   ► randomly nasty to me for like seemingly no reason.

01:33:21 ◼   ► And I don't,

01:33:22 ◼   ► and it's like a similar thing of like that didn't play well for me of like the

01:33:27 ◼   ► surprise of it, you know?

01:33:29 ◼   ► And that surprise over time morphed into dread.

01:33:34 ◼   ► So like I would open the Twitter app and be like,

01:33:37 ◼   ► "All right, here we go."

01:33:38 ◼   ► Even if there was nothing happening.

01:33:40 ◼   ► So like these behaviors ended up creating this cycle

01:33:44 ◼   ► of expecting it and being surprised by it.

01:33:48 ◼   ► And like, that's just wasn't good for me.

01:33:50 ◼   ► So time to leave it behind.

01:33:54 ◼   ► This is why like reason three is why,

01:33:56 ◼   ► unlike many people, I am not replacing my Twitter usage with Mastodon or any other service

01:34:02 ◼   ► like that. So this kind of social media for me, this like text based short posting social

01:34:08 ◼   ► media where people, anyone in the world can get in touch with me or I can get in touch

01:34:13 ◼   ► with anyone in the world like send them messages or read what anyone's got to say, that's gone.

01:34:18 ◼   ► I want to see what my life is like without this endless stream of thoughts and opinions

01:34:24 ◼   ► and news all the time from everywhere.

01:34:27 ◼   ► So that's where I am.

01:34:29 ◼   ► When you say that the first two points about the current changes with Twitter, how they're

01:34:34 ◼   ► acting as cover for the actual thing, point three about your mental health, what do you

01:34:39 ◼   ► mean by that?

01:34:40 ◼   ► What do you mean by cover?

01:34:41 ◼   ► So there's two things going on.

01:34:44 ◼   ► One is I needed something to push me, like I needed an excuse to do it, right?

01:34:50 ◼   ► Because nothing was changing.

01:34:51 ◼   ► It had to be me that all of a sudden made that change all on my own, right?

01:34:56 ◼   ► Which was not easy for me to do.

01:34:59 ◼   ► And the other was, well, I always felt like my community expected me to be there.

01:35:05 ◼   ► Like listeners expected me to be there.

01:35:08 ◼   ► So I didn't want to be like, "Oh, it's time for me to leave everyone."

01:35:12 ◼   ► You know, like, you know, the blue.

01:35:15 ◼   ► I felt like, and we're going to get, I want to talk about this a little bit more in general,

01:35:19 ◼   ► I would have felt like I was like better than everyone else.

01:35:24 ◼   ► It was like this feeling of like,

01:35:25 ◼   ► no, I'm leaving Twitter now.

01:35:27 ◼   ► Like this service, it would have felt weird to me.

01:35:31 ◼   ► I can't explain it fully.

01:35:32 ◼   ► There's like this relevance thing that's bubbling around

01:35:35 ◼   ► in my brain anyway that I want to talk about.

01:35:37 ◼   ► But like, I feel like if I would have just left Twitter,

01:35:40 ◼   ► it would have kind of been a sign

01:35:43 ◼   ► that I didn't want to hear from people at all.

01:35:47 ◼   ► - Do you mean that in the sense that

01:35:49 ◼   ► you think that's how people would have interpreted it?

01:35:52 ◼   ► - Yes. - Okay.

01:35:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was worried that people

01:35:55 ◼   ► would have thought of me that way.

01:35:56 ◼   ► - Right, not that it's actually the case.

01:35:58 ◼   ► That's how you're worried people wouldn't,

01:36:00 ◼   ► oh, okay, all right, I was like,

01:36:02 ◼   ► who on earth ever thinks that someone's like,

01:36:04 ◼   ► oh, I'm better than you by leaving Twitter?

01:36:05 ◼   ► But that's your concern, is that that's how the audience

01:36:09 ◼   ► might react to something like that.

01:36:12 ◼   ► - That like, because I had always been

01:36:14 ◼   ► and was always very proud of,

01:36:17 ◼   ► especially all around in my career,

01:36:18 ◼   ► about being approachable and like,

01:36:20 ◼   ► it is something that's important to me.

01:36:22 ◼   ► And I always loved that that was something that I could do,

01:36:25 ◼   ► that like people could ask me questions

01:36:26 ◼   ► and I could answer them and stuff like that.

01:36:29 ◼   ► But the problem was in doing that, as the world changed,

01:36:34 ◼   ► the type of things that would be sent to me changed

01:36:36 ◼   ► and the tone was different and things could get weird

01:36:40 ◼   ► and it just ended up being not as nice as it used to be.

01:36:44 ◼   ► It was kind of like whether people would feel that way,

01:36:47 ◼   ► it wouldn't feel that way, it wasn't the thing,

01:36:48 ◼   ► It was like a thing in my brain.

01:36:50 ◼   ► I didn't want to come off as being

01:36:52 ◼   ► this like unapproachable person.

01:36:54 ◼   ► Or like, I didn't want to come off as being like,

01:36:56 ◼   ► oh, like you can't, no,

01:36:58 ◼   ► you can't get in touch with me on Twitter.

01:37:00 ◼   ► So I'm just going to leave.

01:37:02 ◼   ► But in so many people leaving,

01:37:04 ◼   ► it's given me the opportunity to try this.

01:37:08 ◼   ► Because I feel like enough people understand

01:37:10 ◼   ► the halfway point now.

01:37:12 ◼   ► Which is, I've left Twitter like so many people have, right?

01:37:16 ◼   ► But what I'm not doing is replacing it with something else,

01:37:20 ◼   ► because I want to try and live my life without this thing.

01:37:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, it doesn't matter now,

01:37:27 ◼   ► but this is one of those cases where I just wonder

01:37:30 ◼   ► how much that worry of the audience interpretation

01:37:35 ◼   ► of your actions would have been a real thing or not.

01:37:41 ◼   ► But I get what you mean that if this is a move

01:37:44 ◼   ► you have been eyeing up now is an excellent time to make that move because you're not going to get

01:37:51 ◼   ► pushback. Because I feel like people can understand at least part of it, right? Even if they don't get

01:37:56 ◼   ► all of it. There would have been two parts before of like, "Why do you want to leave Twitter and why

01:38:00 ◼   ► don't you want to be on this social media?" Well now it's just, "Why don't you want to be on this

01:38:04 ◼   ► social media?" Which is half of the thing, right? It's like it feels like there is... It's easy to

01:38:10 ◼   ► understand why I don't want to be on Twitter. Like a lot of people in our community understand that

01:38:14 ◼   ► now. Not everyone and that's fine and like I'm not judging other people right like this is not

01:38:19 ◼   ► a yardstick for everyone even my fellow creators right like if you if this is a thing that's good

01:38:27 ◼   ► for you and like mentally go for it for me it isn't like it's just not it is bad on my mental

01:38:36 ◼   ► health to and it's not even like that I was like being barraged by haters constantly right no no

01:38:42 ◼   ► But like I'm totally on board with this right to me that this lines up with a lot of my

01:38:48 ◼   ► feelings always about like the news right which even now like the very concept of what is bounded

01:38:55 ◼   ► within those two words has wildly changed since we started talking on this podcast years ago

01:38:59 ◼   ► because like twitter is functionally a news feed in a way that it like sort of wasn't at the dawn

01:39:06 ◼   ► But it's the same thing of, there's a variance in the interruption of your day,

01:39:12 ◼   ► and why would you want that? Or like, you need a really good positive upside if there's a thing

01:39:20 ◼   ► that can just derail your day randomly at any moment.

01:39:26 ◼   ► - That's it. - Yeah, and like, this is something

01:39:29 ◼   ► that I am aware of with people who really follow the news,

01:39:33 ◼   ► where you can see that like something in the news has totally derailed them in a way that just

01:39:40 ◼   ► doesn't make sense to the scale of its impact on their life. And it's just, you know, as an

01:39:46 ◼   ► outside observer, it's a bit like, you know, you don't have to do that. You don't have to roll the

01:39:53 ◼   ► dice randomly for you're going to get derailed for a thing that either doesn't affect you or that you

01:40:01 ◼   ► are unable to affect in many ways. So like when you just said there of you started to get the

01:40:08 ◼   ► feeling of opening Twitter and you're like, "All right, you know, what's it going to be today?

01:40:13 ◼   ► Am I going to find out some horrible piece of news or like I'm just going to get swept up in

01:40:18 ◼   ► whatever the internet is angry about right now?" And, you know, like with 24-hour news where it's

01:40:24 ◼   ► it's a bit like, "Oh, how mysterious! There's always news 24 hours a day." It's like, on Twitter,

01:40:32 ◼   ► there's some standard amount of anger and it's like, sometimes that anger is focused on very

01:40:39 ◼   ► just things. But it's like, there needs to be a certain level of anger always, and if there's

01:40:46 ◼   ► nothing just to get angry about, it'll be something ridiculous that people will just like, "Everyone's

01:40:52 ◼   ► angry about this right now." And so you can easily get swept up in whatever the current angry thing

01:40:58 ◼   ► is. And then also, being a person on the internet, you do have the issue of just running into

01:41:06 ◼   ► "someone is really angry at you about something." And again, maybe they have a good reason,

01:41:13 ◼   ► maybe they don't, but you're just rolling the dice every time you open up Twitter. So I'm totally

01:41:20 ◼   ► on board with all of those as like very excellent reasons to want to leave the service like

01:41:27 ◼   ► you're not you're not going to get any pushback from me about it's not you that I'm worried

01:41:31 ◼   ► about right oh you were it wasn't me that you were concerned was going to berate you

01:41:36 ◼   ► on the podcast I felt like if there's one person in the world that knows it's you because

01:41:41 ◼   ► you did it right you did it in the most extreme way there is a feeling that I have which it's

01:41:50 ◼   ► is expanding in different directions than I'm working on is being out of touch.

01:41:54 ◼   ► I was literally about to make the joke like, "But Myke, aren't you worried about being

01:41:59 ◼   ► out of touch?" Because that's what everybody says and I always find that kind of hilarious.

01:42:04 ◼   ► That is what I'm worried about and it comes in a few directions. It comes in one, people

01:42:08 ◼   ► hear me say these things and they're like, "Oh, you're better than everyone else, huh?"

01:42:12 ◼   ► I still feel like that's a weird thing in your head. I just can't imagine any reasonable

01:42:16 ◼   ► person having that kind of response but I don't know.

01:42:19 ◼   ► - But it's not, but yeah, I agree with you.

01:42:22 ◼   ► Right, but this is the thing is like,

01:42:24 ◼   ► the people that were making things difficult for me

01:42:28 ◼   ► were the unreasonable people anyway, right?

01:42:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, by definition, yeah.

01:42:32 ◼   ► - Reasonable people weren't the people

01:42:34 ◼   ► that made it difficult for me to go onto Twitter sometimes.

01:42:38 ◼   ► Because you know, a handful of times a month,

01:42:40 ◼   ► I'd be dealing with an unreasonable person,

01:42:42 ◼   ► and that would destroy a day for me, you know?

01:42:46 ◼   ► Like someone would decide that they wanted to make fun

01:42:48 ◼   ► of the way I pronounce words in a day.

01:42:50 ◼   ► And that will stick in my mind for weeks, right?

01:42:54 ◼   ► And I don't want that when I don't need to have that.

01:42:58 ◼   ► And I don't need Twitter, so it's an easy thing for me

01:43:02 ◼   ► to just get rid of, right?

01:43:03 ◼   ► This is where I ended up going.

01:43:05 ◼   ► But the concern that I have is people are like, oh, you're--

01:43:09 ◼   ► well, you're so-- is it better than us, right?

01:43:13 ◼   ► But that's one part.

01:43:14 ◼   ► Whatever, I'll deal with that.

01:43:16 ◼   ► I don't need to appease two unreasonable people.

01:43:19 ◼   ► The thing that I'm more worried about is that

01:43:22 ◼   ► either I will lose track of the things

01:43:29 ◼   ► that people were talking about

01:43:30 ◼   ► or people will think I have.

01:43:34 ◼   ► So I will use, say for example,

01:43:37 ◼   ► I'll use my Apple focus shows, right, for this.

01:43:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:43:41 ◼   ► - Because they're more news focused, what's going on,

01:43:43 ◼   ► what's the conversation of the day,

01:43:45 ◼   ► what are people focusing on, right?

01:43:47 ◼   ► That is more of a concern for me.

01:43:48 ◼   ► They either A, I'm not in tune

01:43:51 ◼   ► with what the Apple community is thinking and talking about,

01:43:54 ◼   ► or people think that I'm not

01:43:56 ◼   ► because I have a differing opinion and I'm not on Mastodon.

01:44:00 ◼   ► When if I was on Mastodon,

01:44:02 ◼   ► they may just think I have a differing opinion,

01:44:04 ◼   ► but I'm still informed.

01:44:06 ◼   ► Now the perception part,

01:44:09 ◼   ► I kind of can't do anything about that, right?

01:44:11 ◼   ► Just like people are gonna think that about me or not.

01:44:14 ◼   ► The actually staying in touch part, I am working on that.

01:44:19 ◼   ► So I've increased the amount of websites and blogs

01:44:23 ◼   ► that are in my RSS,

01:44:25 ◼   ► so I'm able to bring in more opinions.

01:44:27 ◼   ► And I've also got a few people who I think are tastemakers

01:44:32 ◼   ► or some of the louder voices in the community,

01:44:36 ◼   ► I have put their Mastodon feeds into my RSS reader.

01:44:41 ◼   ► So if I ever want, and they're in a folder called vibe check.

01:44:45 ◼   ► So if I ever want to see what the vibe is,

01:44:47 ◼   ► I feel like I can go to this folder

01:44:50 ◼   ► and can have a quick scan through it.

01:44:52 ◼   ► But I don't read that like I would read Twitter.

01:44:54 ◼   ► It's like a way to inform,

01:44:55 ◼   ► like there's a big, there's like a bunch of news coming out.

01:44:59 ◼   ► Let me go and check the vibe check folder and reader

01:45:02 ◼   ► and see like what are people kind of saying about this?

01:45:07 ◼   ► So this is kind of a thing that I'm trying to do

01:45:10 ◼   ► to balance it right now.

01:45:12 ◼   ► (sighs)

01:45:16 ◼   ► - I have a lot of thoughts,

01:45:18 ◼   ► but it's hard to articulate.

01:45:20 ◼   ► So you're in an interesting position

01:45:24 ◼   ► where you have many shows in which you are talking

01:45:28 ◼   ► much more about topical things

01:45:29 ◼   ► or what is currently happening.

01:45:32 ◼   ► And I feel like the problem of staying informed is,

01:45:40 ◼   ► I feel like it's barely a problem.

01:45:41 ◼   ► The whole thing with the modern world is like selection.

01:45:47 ◼   ► It's not about finding a thing.

01:45:53 ◼   ► So, you know,

01:45:54 ◼   ► I think it's always been the case that a person

01:46:00 ◼   ► with some well-selected RSS feeds

01:46:03 ◼   ► can be very adequately up to date on anything they care to,

01:46:08 ◼   ► because some RSS feeds are already a million times better

01:46:13 ◼   ► than technology's word for trying to like keep in touch

01:46:18 ◼   ► with what's going on.

01:46:19 ◼   ► So I just like, I just don't perceive the problem of like,

01:46:22 ◼   ► oh, I need to stay in touch as an actual problem.

01:46:25 ◼   ► I think what people are worried about is

01:46:28 ◼   ► a kind of confusion with volume of consumption

01:46:35 ◼   ► as proportional to amount of staying in touch.

01:46:38 ◼   ► And I just don't think that that's the case.

01:46:40 ◼   ► I think that's a, like a perception problem.

01:46:42 ◼   ► You're not more in touch if you've heard about a thing seven times.

01:46:47 ◼   ► You're just as in touch as if you heard about it once,

01:46:50 ◼   ► like through one cleverly selected RSS feed.

01:46:53 ◼   ► So I just, I can't conceive that you will actually lose touch in any way.

01:46:59 ◼   ► And it's really funny because you having a folder called Vibe Check,

01:47:03 ◼   ► to me it's like, "Oh, that feels like Myke is still too in touch."

01:47:07 ◼   ► [laughs]

01:47:08 ◼   ► Like, that's kind of my initial response to that.

01:47:11 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, I would prefer a mic who was more out of touch and didn't feel the

01:47:14 ◼   ► need to have, like, a vibe check folder."

01:47:16 ◼   ► But I can totally understand that as a transition away from Twitter.

01:47:20 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, maybe what's a Twitter or…"

01:47:22 ◼   ► I was gonna say a Twitter-like thing, but it's actually different.

01:47:26 ◼   ► It's more like, "What is a way to extract what you think is the value in Twitter without

01:47:32 ◼   ► having that as a tool?"

01:47:33 ◼   ► I'm kind of using it like they're like micro blogs really because I don't ever read what people are saying in response to these tweets

01:47:41 ◼   ► I don't see in this the responses people send these are purely the tweet

01:47:47 ◼   ► But they call them toots which I just think is ridiculous toots. Oh my I know toots to their audiences

01:47:53 ◼   ► There's a lot about Mastodon that just doesn't vibe with me as well like

01:48:00 ◼   ► That which is part of why it was so easy for me not to move

01:48:03 ◼   ► But I think it I don't care how many videos there are. I find it confusing that the overall structure of it

01:48:09 ◼   ► That I find the URLs complicated like there's a lot of it that I don't like

01:48:15 ◼   ► There's also something which is really funny to me that a lot of people left Twitter because they don't like this one guy who's controlling it

01:48:21 ◼   ► But Mastodon inherently like the way is built as Mastodon is one person's decision about the way that the service

01:48:28 ◼   ► It's just all very funny to me, but I'm just not interested in it.

01:48:31 ◼   ► Also, I know literally nothing about Mastodon, but just the very fact that they want to call

01:48:37 ◼   ► them "toots" is like, "Oh my god, you guys are setting up roadblocks for yourself.

01:48:41 ◼   ► You don't need to for mass adoption of this thing."

01:48:45 ◼   ► Don't pick unappealing words just because you think they're funny.

01:48:49 ◼   ► Tweet was bad enough.

01:48:50 ◼   ► Yeah, Tweet at least, Tweet had the advantage of being cute and conceptually aligned with

01:48:58 ◼   ► "it's a bird" and "what do birds do? They tweet."

01:49:01 ◼   ► Is Mastodon's toot? Okay.

01:49:06 ◼   ► I think the idea is it's meant to be like the sound they would make from their trunks,

01:49:10 ◼   ► right? But like, it's not how it sounds, it's not how people think about it. And I actually

01:49:14 ◼   ► I don't think, I believe it was originally pitched as a joke,

01:49:19 ◼   ► but then was adopted as the official nomenclature

01:49:21 ◼   ► for the service.

01:49:22 ◼   ► - Wow, that's really regrettable Mastodon.

01:49:25 ◼   ► Bad decision. - I mean, honestly, Gray,

01:49:26 ◼   ► I think a lot of the decisions about Mastodon

01:49:28 ◼   ► are regrettable personally, but I'm happy that like,

01:49:33 ◼   ► the tech community has found a new home for itself.

01:49:38 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Right?

01:49:39 ◼   ► Like I am very pleased that there is something

01:49:41 ◼   ► that people are excited about and are going ahead and using.

01:49:46 ◼   ► Because it would have been really sad for me

01:49:49 ◼   ► if people didn't want to be on Twitter anymore

01:49:52 ◼   ► but had nowhere to go.

01:49:53 ◼   ► And I'm happy that people have somewhere to go.

01:49:56 ◼   ► I've just decided that I don't want to go to it right now.

01:50:00 ◼   ► And there are things that are helping me.

01:50:03 ◼   ► I don't feel like I need it so much

01:50:04 ◼   ► 'cause I use Discord so much now.