Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► (beep)

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:03 ◼   ► - From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode number 16.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Today's very special episode of Upgrade,

00:00:15 ◼   ► the first ever Upgradeys Awards,

00:00:17 ◼   ► is brought to you by Lindr,

00:00:19 ◼   ► where you can instantly stream thousands of courses

00:00:21 ◼   ► created by industry experts for a 10-day free trial.

00:00:24 ◼   ► Visit lindr.com/upgrade.

00:00:27 ◼   ► Squarespace, start here, go anywhere, and mail route.

00:00:30 ◼   ► A secure, hosted email service

00:00:32 ◼   ► for protection from viruses and sperm.

00:00:34 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley, and I have the absolute pleasure

00:00:36 ◼   ► of being joined by my co-judge

00:00:38 ◼   ► for the first ever Upgraders Awards, Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:41 ◼   ► - Hello, Myke, it's good to be here.

00:00:42 ◼   ► Do you have your tuxedo on?

00:00:44 ◼   ► - I sure do, listen to this.

00:00:45 ◼   ► This is me tightening my bow tie.

00:00:47 ◼   ► There you go, you can hear that, right?

00:00:49 ◼   ► That comes through in the audio.

00:00:50 ◼   ► - Totally clear, loud and clear.

00:00:51 ◼   ► - Bow tightening.

00:00:54 ◼   ► So we do have a very special episode today.

00:00:57 ◼   ► We spoke about this a little bit.

00:00:58 ◼   ► We're going to be doing our first ever

00:01:00 ◼   ► of what I hope will be the annual Upgradeys Awards,

00:01:03 ◼   ► where we have a selection of categories

00:01:05 ◼   ► that have been thought up by myself and Jason,

00:01:08 ◼   ► and also suggested by some of our

00:01:11 ◼   ► as of yet unnamed listener group,

00:01:15 ◼   ► which we're gonna get to shortly.

00:01:17 ◼   ► But of course we do have a smidge of follow-up.

00:01:20 ◼   ► - Of course.

00:01:21 ◼   ► - And some #AskUpgrade.

00:01:24 ◼   ► That's catching on like wildfire now, you know.

00:01:26 ◼   ► I see that the Mac Power users team

00:01:29 ◼   ► are using the recipe that we have.

00:01:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, I had lunch with David Sparks,

00:01:38 ◼   ► little Glennon, little name dropping.

00:01:40 ◼   ► I had lunch with David Sparks last week

00:01:43 ◼   ► when I was here in LA where I'm back now

00:01:46 ◼   ► on my way back home and we were talking about that

00:01:49 ◼   ► and I told him about that, if this then that script

00:01:52 ◼   ► and he was like, "Oh, we should do that."

00:01:53 ◼   ► I said, "Yeah, you should totally do it and just go ahead."

00:01:56 ◼   ► So yeah, it's catching on, the hashtag,

00:01:58 ◼   ► podcast hashtag thing.

00:02:00 ◼   ► And it's working for us too, so that's great.

00:02:02 ◼   ► Oh, follow up Myke, we gotta make a decision

00:02:06 ◼   ► about what we're gonna call our listeners.

00:02:08 ◼   ► - Yes, so, I think I mentioned this last week,

00:02:13 ◼   ► but now it's happening.

00:02:15 ◼   ► Today we are going to come to a decision.

00:02:18 ◼   ► This is an episode all about decisions.

00:02:20 ◼   ► Yes.

00:02:22 ◼   ► And we've had lots and lots of suggestions.

00:02:26 ◼   ► And I think we kind of have this down to four options now.

00:02:30 ◼   ► Yes.

00:02:31 ◼   ► Upgraders, Upgradients.

00:02:33 ◼   ► Simple.

00:02:34 ◼   ► Upgradients.

00:02:35 ◼   ► We have listeners.

00:02:36 ◼   ► Listeners, we refer to our listeners as listeners.

00:02:38 ◼   ► I think it's very common.

00:02:40 ◼   ► And listener Myke and listener Jason

00:02:43 ◼   ► and various other listeners, right?

00:02:45 ◼   ► So I think that that needs to be considered.

00:02:47 ◼   ► And then somebody wrote in and suggested

00:02:49 ◼   ► something regarding ahoy telephones.

00:02:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, I guess there's something there.

00:02:55 ◼   ► You know, maybe shipmates or something.

00:02:57 ◼   ► But I mean, me personally,

00:03:00 ◼   ► I would like either upgraders or upgradians.

00:03:04 ◼   ► - Yes, I know you would.

00:03:06 ◼   ► - What do you think, Jason?

00:03:08 ◼   ► - I have to say, part of me wants to just say,

00:03:11 ◼   ► they're listeners. (laughs)

00:03:13 ◼   ► - Yes, of course. - They are listeners,

00:03:14 ◼   ► they are listeners, they are listeners to the show,

00:03:16 ◼   ► and that's simple.

00:03:16 ◼   ► So I'm going to reserve that as a more understandable honorific for all listeners and to address

00:03:24 ◼   ► them as listener so and so.

00:03:25 ◼   ► I think that's something I want to keep.

00:03:28 ◼   ► As long as I can keep that I am okay with either upgraders or upgradians.

00:03:34 ◼   ► What I like about upgradians, although it is a super nerdy word and maybe that's one

00:03:38 ◼   ► of the reasons I like it, I also like that it doesn't have any existing meaning and that

00:03:42 ◼   ► was what I think that listener Diane wrote in about that that Upgrader is

00:03:46 ◼   ► already a thing so Upgradians is a little extra so I'm okay with Upgradians

00:03:51 ◼   ► being the official like Trekkie name for the show and then listener being an

00:03:56 ◼   ► honorific that we can also bestow on on all listeners because they are listeners

00:04:00 ◼   ► and Upgradians. And settles it Jason. All right done. Upgradian. I like Upgradians. I hope the rest of the show goes that easily. I know. I like Upgradian. I like

00:04:11 ◼   ► I like that, I think that works quite nicely.

00:04:14 ◼   ► I hadn't thought of, you know, really put too much thought

00:04:16 ◼   ► into the idea that it is unique to the show,

00:04:19 ◼   ► which is quite nice.

00:04:21 ◼   ► I do like, obviously listener is fun,

00:04:23 ◼   ► and I like saying like, listener Bob,

00:04:25 ◼   ► I think that's quite funny.

00:04:26 ◼   ► But, you know, we need something special for this show,

00:04:31 ◼   ► Jason, you know, for people to pledge allegiance.

00:04:32 ◼   ► - We will still refer to listener Bob,

00:04:34 ◼   ► but listener Bob is an upgradeian.

00:04:36 ◼   ► Until they renounce their upgradeian ship, if they wish,

00:04:41 ◼   ► and then we'll probably read those on #AskUpgrade and be sad.

00:04:45 ◼   ► But that'll never happen.

00:04:47 ◼   ► - I think even more, the people in the chat room

00:04:52 ◼   ► are definitely the upgradients.

00:04:54 ◼   ► They are right there, they're involved, they're contributing.

00:04:58 ◼   ► But we do also, of course, have the remote upgradients

00:05:03 ◼   ► who send us email and tweets via the hashtag.

00:05:06 ◼   ► Which is nice.

00:05:07 ◼   ► - The super crazy fans are listening live,

00:05:09 ◼   ► but not everybody can listen live

00:05:10 ◼   ► when we record the show and that's fine.

00:05:11 ◼   ► There are no classes of upgrading, see I'm working on it.

00:05:16 ◼   ► There are no classes of upgrading, you're all upgrading.

00:05:18 ◼   ► Some of them are in the chat room

00:05:19 ◼   ► and listening to the live stream and some of them aren't

00:05:21 ◼   ► and that's fine, we love them all, equally.

00:05:23 ◼   ► - Yes, you can be a crazy person

00:05:27 ◼   ► and a crazy fan from far away.

00:05:29 ◼   ► - And if you would like to be one of our official enemies,

00:05:33 ◼   ► first off you need to get us an enemy sponsor

00:05:35 ◼   ► and then you can be as Wayne Dixon suggested

00:05:38 ◼   ► the chat room just now a down gradient.

00:05:40 ◼   ► >> Ooh!

00:05:41 ◼   ► There's so many layers here.

00:05:43 ◼   ► >> I know.

00:05:44 ◼   ► >> This is getting deep.

00:05:46 ◼   ► We're getting deep.

00:05:48 ◼   ► >> All right.

00:05:50 ◼   ► You put in another piece of follow-up, which is something I think we talked about and I

00:05:53 ◼   ► wrote about on Six Colors, which is that The Wire, The Wire was released, the great HBO

00:05:59 ◼   ► drama series, was released in its HD widescreen version over the weekend.

00:06:06 ◼   ► So this is something I don't remember if we actually spoke about this on the show, but

00:06:10 ◼   ► I know that I first heard about this from Six Colors.

00:06:13 ◼   ► Like when you originally posted it, I think was it in December?

00:06:18 ◼   ► It feels like longer ago.

00:06:19 ◼   ► Yeah it was early December.

00:06:20 ◼   ► It was earlier this month when David Simon wrote about it, and I was surprised that it

00:06:26 ◼   ► went from him writing about it to it being live in the same month.

00:06:32 ◼   ► That was kind of amazing.

00:06:33 ◼   ► But I know that at the time when it was being discussed and when we first heard about it,

00:06:38 ◼   ► everybody was kind of concerned that it would be just like what's known as like pan and

00:06:44 ◼   ► scan.

00:06:45 ◼   ► So effectively taking the original 4x3, because all that we believed we had was a 4x3 version

00:06:53 ◼   ► of the wire.

00:06:55 ◼   ► So they would basically chop off the top and bottom and zoom in on stuff.

00:06:59 ◼   ► Yeah, it's not even pan and scan at that point.

00:07:00 ◼   ► It's just a zoom.

00:07:01 ◼   ► zoom. But it turns out they did shoot it in 35mm film, which means they shot it in 16x9.

00:07:07 ◼   ► The film is 16x9. The way they shot it, the 16x9 is on the film. That's the way that they

00:07:13 ◼   ► crop the shot, that's the way the cameras are made. And then they would just put tape

00:07:17 ◼   ► markers on the sides to box it in 4x3. And at the very beginning it sounds like they

00:07:23 ◼   ► shot it sort of to cheat on 16x9 in case it ended up being in 16x9. And by the end of

00:07:29 ◼   ► the first year I think they just decided HBO was never gonna fund them to do 16 by 9 HD

00:07:37 ◼   ► and they were going to embrace what they were already broadcasting in which was standard

00:07:40 ◼   ► death 4 by 3 aspect ratio standard TV aspect ratio and so I believe they although they

00:07:45 ◼   ► shot the rest of the series on film and with the ability to capture the 16 by 9 image at

00:07:52 ◼   ► that point on they were you know they didn't even you know worry about a little about what

00:07:57 ◼   ► was in the sides of the frame, it was as if those frames were not, the 16x9 widescreen

00:08:02 ◼   ► areas were not there. And that became a problem when somebody said we would like, you know,

00:08:09 ◼   ► if we didn't talk about it, I definitely talked about it on some podcast, I'm on a lot of

00:08:14 ◼   ► podcasts, about the idea that black and white TV, you know, used to be, they started colorizing

00:08:20 ◼   ► TV shows because they couldn't sell black and white TV anymore, and I feel like 4x3

00:08:25 ◼   ► Deaf TV is becoming unsellable in today's TV market. People have widescreen TVs and

00:08:30 ◼   ► HD TVs and they want to see things in that format. And so HBO is thinking we've got 100

00:08:35 ◼   ► episodes of The Wire and we don't, you know, for them to continue having value we need

00:08:39 ◼   ► to upgrade them, huh, to HD and widescreen. And the problem is, like you said, the problem

00:08:46 ◼   ► is they're not the same shape and if you just put the box, the 16x9 box in the middle of

00:08:52 ◼   ► 4x3 picture you're cutting off the top and the bottom and if you use the whole frame

00:08:56 ◼   ► of film you're gonna have like lights and people and weird stuff on the sides of the

00:09:02 ◼   ► screen because they didn't care about what was on the sides of the screen which is actually

00:09:06 ◼   ► what's happening apparently on some cable channel is running reruns of Buffy the Vampire

00:09:11 ◼   ► Slayer in HD widescreen and they're like there's a tumbler that collects these things there's

00:09:17 ◼   ► like stagehands in the shots. It's crazy. Like nobody had any quality control on that

00:09:24 ◼   ► release. But apparently David Simon was shown, the creator of The Wire, was shown what HBO

00:09:28 ◼   ► was working on and said, "Well actually, we have some problems with this." Which is really

00:09:33 ◼   ► interesting that they did go to him and they delayed this release for like four or five

00:09:36 ◼   ► months because of that.

00:09:40 ◼   ► Yeah, so he, David Simon was involved in this and they basically like digitally edited out

00:09:47 ◼   ► and painted, what they call digitally painted over some of the basically crew just standing

00:09:53 ◼   ► at the edges.

00:09:54 ◼   ► Yeah, so what they did, I mean they hired somebody who was one of the producers or cinematographers

00:09:58 ◼   ► on the show to go through it.

00:10:00 ◼   ► They basically said, "Okay, we're going to pay you to, you've got some free time right

00:10:04 ◼   ► now, we're going to pay you to go through the HD transfer for us and come to us with

00:10:09 ◼   ► things where we you feel like we need to make creative decisions and and uh because we can't

00:10:14 ◼   ► look at everything ourselves you know a busy tv producer making a new show whatever and so it was

00:10:19 ◼   ► a combination there are there are shots that they they that they cropped differently whether they

00:10:24 ◼   ► went back to the wide or they went in close um sort of like shot by shot there were shots that

00:10:30 ◼   ► they changed uh to get the effect they were looking for which is great that's you know

00:10:34 ◼   ► that it wasn't just put a frame in and roll the episode, they would go shot by shot.

00:10:39 ◼   ► And then there were certain cases where they wanted to go wide and there was stuff that

00:10:43 ◼   ► they had to paint out.

00:10:44 ◼   ► And so they did, which I think is great that they went to that trouble, which obviously

00:10:48 ◼   ► Fox didn't do with whatever Buffy episodes are running on that cable channel.

00:10:54 ◼   ► And hopefully if they ever do a Blu-ray release or a streaming HD release of those Buffy episodes,

00:10:59 ◼   ► either take them back to 4x3 or they put in some effort to fix them up. I mean Joss Whedon,

00:11:06 ◼   ► the creator of Buffy, has said, and Buffy is my favorite TV show of all time, I'd love

00:11:10 ◼   ► to see it in HD because I know they shot it on film, but he said look, other than the

00:11:13 ◼   ► one episode we shot in 16x9, we shot the show in 4x3. That's what it was meant to be, it

00:11:18 ◼   ► was always in 4x3. Other shows they did, Angel, the spinoff, was shot in 16x9, it can come

00:11:23 ◼   ► out in 16x9, but they didn't shoot the show in 16x9, they shot it in 4x3. So, um, they

00:11:29 ◼   ► That's--it's an interesting thing, this idea of the intent--intention of the creators,

00:11:34 ◼   ► and what Simon pointed out in actually a really great thread on his post about this is people

00:11:40 ◼   ► are making a big deal about 16x9 and 4x3, about aspect ratios, but going from SD to

00:11:45 ◼   ► HD is actually a creative change too.

00:11:47 ◼   ► They mastered the show for SD, and the way he put it--although I think he used lots of--I

00:11:52 ◼   ► think he dropped the F-bomb several times, but the way he put it is, "We got away with

00:11:56 ◼   ► a lot of stuff because it was an SD.

00:12:00 ◼   ► We would actually look at the monitors and say, "Can you see that car in the background

00:12:03 ◼   ► that is totally from the wrong time?"

00:12:05 ◼   ► Or "Can you see that sign that proves that we're in a completely different location than

00:12:09 ◼   ► when we're claiming to be?"

00:12:11 ◼   ► Well in SD, you couldn't.

00:12:13 ◼   ► But in HD, you can.

00:12:15 ◼   ► And so that's an issue too.

00:12:17 ◼   ► The show wasn't intended to be seen at this level of detail and a lot of problems emerge,

00:12:23 ◼   ► and that they had to deal with that too.

00:12:24 ◼   ► And I think that's kind of fascinating.

00:12:26 ◼   ► from from this perspective of the creator trying

00:12:28 ◼   ► Trying to do something with a show that is not what it was originally intended and I like Simon's attitude

00:12:35 ◼   ► He's a notoriously cranky guy and I love his work. I think his books are great. Actually if go read go read the corner

00:12:42 ◼   ► Go read homicide a year on the killing street a fantastic book

00:12:46 ◼   ► And then the wire is one of the best dramas ever

00:12:48 ◼   ► He can be a really cranky guy and yet his attitude toward this is really good

00:12:52 ◼   ► is like, look, HBO owns it, they let us have some creative input in it, we're creating

00:12:56 ◼   ► an alternate version of the work. If you want to see the original intent, that's the 4x3

00:13:02 ◼   ► SD version of the show. That is what we made when we made it, and some of the stuff that's

00:13:06 ◼   ► in the HD is better, and some of it is worse, but it's different, and it's not the original

00:13:10 ◼   ► intent of the artist. But we also recognize that if we only had that version, nobody would

00:13:16 ◼   ► see it. Right? Nobody would watch it, because nobody would want to stream it, it's already

00:13:20 ◼   ► a problem, nobody wants to see a 4x3 SD show. So he sort of, I feel like you could watch

00:13:26 ◼   ► the HD version of The Wire and not feel like the creators are over your shoulder going

00:13:31 ◼   ► "no no no, this isn't right" that they had some creative input to make it okay. But it's

00:13:38 ◼   ► fascinating to think about that, that technology is driving artists to hopefully make changes,

00:13:44 ◼   ► in other cases just companies to wholesale make changes to the work and the product can

00:13:49 ◼   ► suffer greatly because of it. So I haven't seen any of The Wire in HD but I

00:13:57 ◼   ► would like to. I actually watched The Wire for the first time

00:14:02 ◼   ► this year. I think we talked about that at least briefly. Yeah I've watched all

00:14:07 ◼   ► of it but the last season because I kind of didn't. Last season is not very good.

00:14:11 ◼   ► I mean it's good TV it's not good for The Wire I guess and he's

00:14:17 ◼   ► He's grinding a lot of his axes about journalism since he worked at the Baltimore Sun.

00:14:21 ◼   ► He gets really angry about journalism in that.

00:14:24 ◼   ► That's where you have your most kind of like obviously evil and obviously, you know, angelic

00:14:29 ◼   ► characters is in that fifth season where, you know, he kind of, the whole point is that

00:14:33 ◼   ► nobody's good or bad and in the fifth season he's like, "No, no, that editor is really

00:14:37 ◼   ► bad and this reporter is really good."

00:14:39 ◼   ► Like, come on, David Simon.

00:14:41 ◼   ► But it's totally worth watching.

00:14:43 ◼   ► It is not an upper, it is a downer, but it is about, it's a show about the systemic failure

00:14:47 ◼   ► of governments and cities.

00:14:48 ◼   ► I mean it's not a real happy topic, but it is brilliant and funny and tough to watch,

00:14:55 ◼   ► but it's great.

00:14:58 ◼   ► So we have a couple of, just a couple of Ask Upgrades today.

00:15:03 ◼   ► So we have @Gen215, "What are your hobbies, interests, or passions that are currently

00:15:08 ◼   ► among the topics, not among the topics that you explore in your podcast. So what do we

00:15:13 ◼   ► love doing? We're gentlemen with many podcasts.

00:15:15 ◼   ► Exactly. And I think for both of us they span across many different genres. But for me,

00:15:23 ◼   ► I think some of the things that I enjoy that I don't record about, I love building Lego

00:15:28 ◼   ► sets. It's something I don't do an awful lot of because it's expensive. But maybe once

00:15:35 ◼   ► a year I'll have a good Lego set that I like to build. I like music but I don't

00:15:40 ◼   ► make podcasts about music and I enjoy food and eating out and stuff like that.

00:15:44 ◼   ► So it's a passion of mine and I don't I don't make any shows about that either.

00:15:49 ◼   ► Right. Not yet. Not yet. I took out a lot of my... by making me

00:15:55 ◼   ► incomparable as broad as it is I mean that's literally like all of my pop

00:15:59 ◼   ► culture interests. Yeah. And so you know in a different world I would I would

00:16:03 ◼   ► have done a show about movies or a show about TV and say well you know I read comics or

00:16:08 ◼   ► I read books and but I just poured those all into the incomparable so that all of that

00:16:12 ◼   ► kind of cultural consumption just kind of goes out the window because I've got the shows

00:16:16 ◼   ► at the incomparable that cover it. So this was a really interesting question and I appreciate

00:16:21 ◼   ► the listener @gen215 for for does he have a name did we look up he or she have a name?

00:16:29 ◼   ► I'm sure they do. I'm gonna look it up just in case because that's one problem

00:16:34 ◼   ► with that is it doesn't grab the ask upgrade does not grab the given name

00:16:38 ◼   ► Thomas listener Thomas is who Gen 215 is. Upgradeian. Upgradeian, well yeah and a

00:16:46 ◼   ► good friend. Anyway I appreciate this question I would say well first off I'm

00:16:50 ◼   ► a parent of a 10 year old and a 13 year old and although friends of mine had a

00:16:54 ◼   ► parenting podcast turning this car around which you can listen to which is

00:16:58 ◼   ► John Moltz and Lex Friedman and John Armstrong who is not a friend, he's not an enemy, I

00:17:02 ◼   ► don't know him, but they do a podcast.

00:17:05 ◼   ► I don't like that guy.

00:17:08 ◼   ► Actually you know on the podcast he seems perfectly fine although he's, although a little

00:17:12 ◼   ► confession, he's a divorced dad and listening to his stories about being a divorced dad

00:17:16 ◼   ► just makes me sad, it just makes me sad.

00:17:19 ◼   ► My parents never, my parents were together until my dad died so I was not a child of

00:17:24 ◼   ► divorce and I've been married for 20 years and and I just think it's sad to

00:17:28 ◼   ► think about you know that having to navigate those issues and but anyway

00:17:32 ◼   ► it's a good podcast turning this car around you should check it out I don't

00:17:34 ◼   ► do a podcast about parenting I'm not sure I want to because I certainly don't

00:17:37 ◼   ► have all the answers all I have is a lot of questions and I think the danger in

00:17:42 ◼   ► those podcasts which I don't think those guys have but the danger in talking

00:17:46 ◼   ► about parenting at all as you get in a very it's very easy to get in a here's

00:17:49 ◼   ► what I do you should do it too which is almost always not true because that's

00:17:54 ◼   ► just not how it works. Every kid is different, every situation is different. And then the

00:17:58 ◼   ► other thing is you will get people whenever you talk about parenting who will tell you

00:18:02 ◼   ► you're doing it wrong because there is a whole class of people who think they know how to

00:18:08 ◼   ► take care of kids and really improve their self-esteem by telling you that you don't.

00:18:14 ◼   ► And I wrote a column for Macworld once about how on a long car trip like the one my family

00:18:18 ◼   ► and I are going to take tomorrow, I gave my kids, I think back then it was like a video

00:18:23 ◼   ► iPod and they could watch a movie in the car and I had people saying you're a terrible

00:18:26 ◼   ► parent because you should be playing the license plate game and having long meaningful conversations

00:18:33 ◼   ► with your five-year-old about something crayons maybe and those people are awful so parenting

00:18:41 ◼   ► I will put on the list and I think I don't want to touch it with a 10-foot pole but there

00:18:44 ◼   ► it is I'd say writing I am a writer and although I write about technology and in my spare time

00:18:50 ◼   ► I sometimes write about fiction and things like that and I'm on the board of National

00:18:55 ◼   ► Novel Writing Month and I think writing and editing in general is really important in

00:19:00 ◼   ► my life. I don't talk about it a lot in specific and Dan Morin and I actually have been talking

00:19:07 ◼   ► for a little while about some time getting around to doing a podcast that's about writing

00:19:13 ◼   ► and I think that would be a lot of fun and having guests on and talking about different

00:19:16 ◼   ► aspects of being a writer, fiction and non. And I think that would be a lot of fun, but

00:19:20 ◼   ► right now it's not on the list. And then the last one I put in here is beer. I like beer.

00:19:25 ◼   ► I have only been drinking beer since I was about 28 or 29. I was not a beer drinker in

00:19:30 ◼   ► the most, let's see, the traditional beer drinking years of college age and the like.

00:19:39 ◼   ► But I discovered beer in my late 20s and I enjoy it quite a bit. And I enjoy trying different

00:19:45 ◼   ► beers and learning about different kinds of beer and different styles and it's a

00:19:49 ◼   ► lot of fun and I don't do a podcast about that either but I do enjoy it so

00:19:53 ◼   ► that's my answer yeah I mean I I like coffee but I'm not I'm not as crazy

00:20:01 ◼   ► about coffee as many people are like horror I drink coffee with milk in it

00:20:07 ◼   ► well I I like I like tea which is funny the American has is the tea drinker and

00:20:14 ◼   ► the English guy is the coffee drinker. I don't drink coffee at all, so I don't understand

00:20:18 ◼   ► that. I do drink tea, I just don't, I mean, I have some opinions about it. Dan Morin wrote

00:20:23 ◼   ► a piece in the magazine a couple years ago right at the beginning about making tea, and

00:20:27 ◼   ► you know, I have some opinions about how I like to make at least my tea, but I just don't

00:20:32 ◼   ► have a lot to say about it other than I like black tea, I have a few different kinds, I

00:20:36 ◼   ► like making, you know, loose tea in a pot when I can, and you know, when I'm traveling

00:20:39 ◼   ► like this I have, you know, tea out of those little tea bags for a couple of weeks and

00:20:43 ◼   ► I miss my teapot. But is that a podcast? There you go. This can be our vertical, Myke. We

00:20:49 ◼   ► can do like a Lego vertical, and a beer vertical, and a tea vertical, and a coffee vertical.

00:20:54 ◼   ► That's where those things can go. The upgrade is the place for them, in the verticals, at

00:20:58 ◼   ► the front of the show.

00:20:59 ◼   ► So like, for what the incomparable is for your pop culture stuff, upgrade is for literally

00:21:06 ◼   ► everything else.

00:21:07 ◼   ► Yeah it's a it's a just a place we can just dump every I mean treat with serious

00:21:14 ◼   ► care the things we don't have any other place to talk about maybe maybe so I

00:21:19 ◼   ► mean this podcast unlike my other podcasts is more about sort of like us

00:21:24 ◼   ► talking about stuff and somebody said to me when we were talking about what is

00:21:28 ◼   ► this podcast about working at home or is it about technology

00:21:31 ◼   ► I think the answer is it is a it is the one place that I have where I can just

00:21:34 ◼   ► talk about stuff that interests me and although technology is going to be a

00:21:38 ◼   ► primary focus, I do feel like in some ways this is the place where I can go

00:21:42 ◼   ► off topic with you and talk about stuff in my life and you can do the same.

00:21:46 ◼   ► You've got some other places where you can do that including analog where you

00:21:49 ◼   ► can really do that but for me this is sort of the place where I have more

00:21:53 ◼   ► freedom to do that than on something like the incomparable I think.

00:21:57 ◼   ► Yeah and I like that. I do like that. I like that a lot. I think it's fun.

00:22:02 ◼   ► We have Upgrading Bob sent in a...

00:22:07 ◼   ► Listener Bob, come on, Listener Bob!

00:22:09 ◼   ► I'm really going for it.

00:22:10 ◼   ► Prime A Listener Bob and Upgrading.

00:22:12 ◼   ► Okay.

00:22:13 ◼   ► He suggested a...

00:22:15 ◼   ► I've seen this product before as a way to help us out when traveling abroad.

00:22:20 ◼   ► It's just the PlugBug by 12 South.

00:22:23 ◼   ► And they make a product called the PlugBug World.

00:22:26 ◼   ► So basically the PlugBug is a Macbook power adapter that also has a USB port built right

00:22:37 ◼   ► into it.

00:22:39 ◼   ► What you do is you kind of plug it into your... you sort of pop off the socket, the plug socket

00:22:48 ◼   ► from the power brick that you have.

00:22:52 ◼   ► then you can clip the plug on top and it allows you to continue to charge your MacBook through

00:22:57 ◼   ► the adapter that it needs but also adds a USB cable so you can charge multiple devices

00:23:01 ◼   ► at a time is what I'm trying to say basically. It's a nice little thing and it comes with

00:23:07 ◼   ► a bunch of adapters so you can take it with you wherever you want around the whole world

00:23:13 ◼   ► and charge it there.

00:23:14 ◼   ► I have Apple's international adapter kit and then I have a plug adapter and that served

00:23:26 ◼   ► me well.

00:23:27 ◼   ► Even just having those two when I go to the UK or Europe, that has served me pretty well.

00:23:31 ◼   ► Just having a couple that I can plug in anything and then one that I can plug in any Apple

00:23:37 ◼   ► anything.

00:23:40 ◼   ► But that's good.

00:23:41 ◼   ► Thank you Upgrading and Bob, Listener Bob.

00:23:44 ◼   ► So I think that that's actually brought us to the end of our...

00:23:50 ◼   ► Goodbye everybody!

00:23:51 ◼   ► ... protocol and we'll be back next time.

00:23:54 ◼   ► So we're gonna get into the real meat of the show now.

00:23:56 ◼   ► So we've mentioned this a little bit and so what we have now is the upgrade-ies.

00:24:00 ◼   ► Now the upgrade-ies is basically me and Jason decided...

00:24:04 ◼   ► It's your idea.

00:24:05 ◼   ► It's your idea.

00:24:06 ◼   ► Me and Jason decided we wanted to do an end of the year show where we spoke about some

00:24:10 ◼   ► things that we liked this year.

00:24:11 ◼   ► So I decided that we would turn this into an award show called The Upgradies.

00:24:17 ◼   ► These are the Upgradies for 2014.

00:24:20 ◼   ► I would like to do The Upgradies every year.

00:24:23 ◼   ► Maybe if I keep suggesting things like this, there won't be an upgrade next year, but who

00:24:28 ◼   ► knows.

00:24:29 ◼   ► So what I would like to do at the end of every year is for me and Jason to award our favorite

00:24:36 ◼   ► items with an Upgradie.

00:24:39 ◼   ► I am actually going to email the winners of all of the upgradees and give them the artwork.

00:24:45 ◼   ► Yes, because there's also artwork for the upgradees that people haven't seen yet.

00:24:50 ◼   ► You are a madman, this is what I'm saying.

00:24:52 ◼   ► You not only invented the upgradees, but then you created the logos for the upgradees.

00:24:56 ◼   ► Well I had our fantastic designer, Mr. Frank Towers @forgottentow on Twitter.

00:25:04 ◼   ► He's done a lot of incredible work for us, like all of the sort of logo and artwork and

00:25:09 ◼   ► and he took the upgrade logo and turned it into an award,

00:25:14 ◼   ► which is very beautiful.

00:25:16 ◼   ► - It is.

00:25:17 ◼   ► - There are multiple versions.

00:25:19 ◼   ► - It's not his fault, Myke, it's your fault.

00:25:21 ◼   ► - Oh, I know, this was purely my doing, I made him do it.

00:25:25 ◼   ► I've put it in the chat room, and people will see it,

00:25:28 ◼   ► it's in the show notes, which are relay.fm/upgrades/16,

00:25:31 ◼   ► and depending on the podcast client that you use,

00:25:34 ◼   ► it will also actually show up in the little description,

00:25:36 ◼   ► when you bring up the description,

00:25:37 ◼   ► You may see the image as a few podcast clients that actually do show images that are embedded

00:25:42 ◼   ► so you'll be able to see it and it's very beautiful and you can enjoy it that way.

00:25:47 ◼   ► I'm very happy with the artwork.

00:25:51 ◼   ► So I will be sending that artwork, Jason, to people that probably don't want it.

00:25:55 ◼   ► Yeah, so check your spam filters everybody, unless you're using Nailroute, in which case

00:25:59 ◼   ► it will protect you from Myke's emails.

00:26:01 ◼   ► But we'll get to that.

00:26:03 ◼   ► Everybody just blacklists me.

00:26:07 ◼   ► So basically this is the way it's gonna go.

00:26:08 ◼   ► We have a bunch of categories.

00:26:10 ◼   ► Some was suggested by me and Jason, some was suggested by the Upgradients, and that will

00:26:15 ◼   ► be listed where necessary.

00:26:19 ◼   ► What we're gonna do is me and Jason have both picked our personal choices, our favorites.

00:26:25 ◼   ► Nominees.

00:26:26 ◼   ► Nominees, there you go, we have two nominees.

00:26:29 ◼   ► And in some cases a few more than that, depending on the topic.

00:26:33 ◼   ► And then basically you are about to hear the judging ceremony as well as the award ceremony.

00:26:39 ◼   ► So myself and Jason will be probably in some cases arguing over which should be the winner

00:26:46 ◼   ► of the upgradey.

00:26:47 ◼   ► And if we cannot come to a consensus decision, we have all of the upgradeians in the chat

00:26:52 ◼   ► room who are going to be there for us to provide the final judgment over who will win the upgradey

00:27:02 ◼   ► that category. I hope that that is clear for everybody. Jason do you do you feel

00:27:07 ◼   ► like you fully understand the rules? Unfortunately I do. I'm very happy that

00:27:16 ◼   ► you are indulging me in this. I can tell how happy you are you're cackling madly.

00:27:21 ◼   ► I love award ceremonies I think I think that award ceremonies are fantastic and

00:27:27 ◼   ► and if I ever get to do them,

00:27:29 ◼   ► trust in me that I will find a way to do them.

00:27:33 ◼   ► - Yep, well I don't get to be involved

00:27:35 ◼   ► in the Eddy Awards anymore, so why not?

00:27:37 ◼   ► Why not do this?

00:27:38 ◼   ► Let's make it a thing.

00:27:39 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:27:40 ◼   ► - Why not?

00:27:41 ◼   ► - I wish I'd put more time into it,

00:27:42 ◼   ► but you know, that's okay.

00:27:44 ◼   ► Maybe next time.

00:27:45 ◼   ► - You know the things that you like,

00:27:47 ◼   ► and so I think we're gonna be absolutely fine.

00:27:51 ◼   ► This is gonna be great fun.

00:27:53 ◼   ► So the first category for today

00:27:57 ◼   ► is the best iOS app of 2014.

00:28:01 ◼   ► This award though is brought to you by our friends

00:28:04 ◼   ► at lynda.com.

00:28:07 ◼   ► You can kickstart your new year and challenge yourself

00:28:09 ◼   ► to learn something new with a free 10 day trial

00:28:12 ◼   ► to lynda.com.

00:28:13 ◼   ► lynda.com is used by millions of people around the world

00:28:16 ◼   ► and has over 3,000 courses on topics like web development,

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00:28:31 ◼   ► and new courses are added to the site every single week.

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00:28:56 ◼   ► that they're adding every single week.

00:28:58 ◼   ► London.com have highlighted for us,

00:29:00 ◼   ► for me to let you guys know about some things

00:29:02 ◼   ► that they think that you'll enjoy,

00:29:03 ◼   ► like iOS app development training,

00:29:05 ◼   ► and Swift essential training.

00:29:07 ◼   ► But in the time that I spent with London.com,

00:29:09 ◼   ► where I've dug around and taken a look through,

00:29:10 ◼   ► you could also learn how to do things

00:29:12 ◼   ► like project management skills.

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00:29:32 ◼   ► Do something good for yourself in 2015

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00:29:37 ◼   ► by visiting lynda.com/upgrade.

00:29:39 ◼   ► That's L-Y-N-D-A dot com slash upgrade.

00:29:43 ◼   ► Go ahead, I challenge you to learn something new in 2015.

00:29:46 ◼   ► Thank you so much lynda.com for supporting this show,

00:29:48 ◼   ► all of Real AFM and also for helping us out with the best iOS app of 2014. Now, I have

00:29:55 ◼   ► made my suggestion. My nominee is Overcast by Marco Arment and Jason, who is your nominee.

00:30:02 ◼   ► My nominee is Editorial, which is, I believe, by Ole Zorn. Is that right?

00:30:09 ◼   ► That is correct. That is correct.

00:30:10 ◼   ► All right. Good. What do I win?

00:30:12 ◼   ► You win.

00:30:13 ◼   ► Oh, no, it's not a game show. Wait a second.

00:30:15 ◼   ► win the ability to tell me why you think that editorial is the best app of the year?

00:30:20 ◼   ► Well editorial, so I don't write all the time on my iPad. I mentioned

00:30:29 ◼   ► as much on my episode of Mac Power Users that I think came out last week. I spend

00:30:34 ◼   ► most of my writing time on a Mac keyboard but I do sometimes write on an

00:30:38 ◼   ► iPad when it's more convenient when I don't have a Mac around and editorial is

00:30:44 ◼   ► just the it's the writing tool that stuck with me the most it's got a markdown

00:30:47 ◼   ► mode it's got a web preview that's really nice it's got a whole bunch of

00:30:51 ◼   ► macros even if you don't write Ruby code you can use their their macro language

00:30:57 ◼   ► to connect different actions together and do lots of kind of cool stuff and a

00:31:01 ◼   ► customizable software keyboard so it's very easy to enter in sort of markdown

00:31:07 ◼   ► code and things like that while I'm writing I wrote I think my last piece if

00:31:12 ◼   ► not the last two pieces I wrote for the magazine for example I wrote in

00:31:15 ◼   ► editorial and I wrote a couple of my last columns for Macworld as well in

00:31:21 ◼   ► editorial and it's a you know it is not my preferred writing environment that is

00:31:28 ◼   ► BBEdit on the Mac but it is a really pleasant way to do writing on iOS and so

00:31:35 ◼   ► although I'm never going to be probably at the level of Federico Vittucci with

00:31:39 ◼   ► his commitment to iOS, I'm impressed by how powerful editorial is. So that's why.

00:31:46 ◼   ► Why did you go with Overcast, Myke?

00:31:49 ◼   ► So I think listening to podcasts is one of the key things that I do with my iPhone. I

00:31:56 ◼   ► think if you were to sort of manage out, like, what are the main things that I do with my

00:32:02 ◼   ► iPhone on a daily basis it's use Twitter and listen to podcasts and

00:32:09 ◼   ► maybe play the occasional game, check email, but even when I'm doing a lot of

00:32:13 ◼   ► these things podcasts are playing as well. It's a key thing for me in

00:32:18 ◼   ► my life is listening to podcasts and you know there will be many people that have

00:32:23 ◼   ► a greater statistic than me but for example Overcast has saved me 26 hours

00:32:28 ◼   ► from speed adjustments. You can get that in the little settings

00:32:32 ◼   ► screen at the bottom and can tell you that. And people send me this every now

00:32:36 ◼   ► and then I've seen like 47 hours and things like that. You guys are incredible

00:32:39 ◼   ► but also kind of crazy a little bit as well which I like. But I must say that

00:32:45 ◼   ► this app, I think what Marco has built is an app that not only is very good, like

00:32:52 ◼   ► Overcast kind of is very good. It's missing some features, but the thing is

00:32:58 ◼   ► like some of the features that it's missing, like streaming and stuff like

00:33:01 ◼   ► that, I've actually now kind of adjusted the way that I use apps like this

00:33:06 ◼   ► because Overcast is so good. So because this app is so good I've

00:33:14 ◼   ► adjusted the way that I consume podcasts for it. And I don't think that there

00:33:21 ◼   ► are many apps that I personally do that kind of thing for, you know, where I will adjust

00:33:24 ◼   ► part of my workflow for that, for something like that.

00:33:28 ◼   ► And also, it has some features now that are kind of indispensable for me.

00:33:33 ◼   ► There are other really great iOS apps for listening to podcasts that I really enjoy,

00:33:38 ◼   ► like Castro and Pocket Casts, but now I'm so used to the Voice Boost stuff and the Smart

00:33:45 ◼   ► Speed stuff, and it's such a killer feature for me that I don't want to look anywhere

00:33:49 ◼   ► else for a podcast app. So for me, Overcast is definitely the winner.

00:33:58 ◼   ► So now I think in potentially a cheating fashion, I can see ahead in this document.

00:34:07 ◼   ► Yes, I was about to mention this myself. Basically, which one of these awards would you like Overcast

00:34:12 ◼   ► to win, Myke? Well, I just want Overcast to win an award,

00:34:16 ◼   ► because I think it's that good. So the next--

00:34:19 ◼   ► would you prefer that editorial win an award or your choice in the next category win an

00:34:23 ◼   ► award is what I'm saying. I'm actually okay with Overcast winning this category, let me

00:34:29 ◼   ► put it that way. And I agree with you about Overcast, in fact one of the reasons I chose

00:34:32 ◼   ► editorial is because I was trying to not have every category have us agree and I saw that

00:34:36 ◼   ► you had picked Overcast, it has changed, it is my default, I own every podcast app too,

00:34:41 ◼   ► and the fact that Marco did all the extra work on, and everybody's like "oh yeah you're

00:34:45 ◼   ► friends with Marco" it's like well you know I send email to Marco from time to time and

00:34:48 ◼   ► we have chats about things and all of that but I've never been to his house

00:34:51 ◼   ► I've only met him a handful of times it's like no you know what I

00:34:56 ◼   ► like Marco but I don't use Overcast because I like Marco and I like a lot of

00:35:01 ◼   ► these other apps too. What Marco did that was really intelligent and put raised the

00:35:05 ◼   ► bar for podcast apps to spend all that time on that audio engine and by

00:35:09 ◼   ► doing smart speed and by doing voice boost it puts that app above the rest

00:35:15 ◼   ► and yeah it doesn't do streaming and there are other things about it that I

00:35:17 ◼   ► wish were better and that had more features you know and everybody out there

00:35:22 ◼   ► wants chapter support Myke but anyway I think there are things that obviously he

00:35:30 ◼   ► can improve and that he and that he's working on but all that effort that he

00:35:34 ◼   ► put before he even announced the product into this the those special audio

00:35:41 ◼   ► features like it's the first podcast app that I had I can listen to it more than

00:35:45 ◼   ► 1x because the audio artifacts at in in other podcast apps at higher speeds just

00:35:52 ◼   ► drove me nuts I couldn't listen they sounded too awful and it wasn't worth it

00:35:56 ◼   ► and now I can do a gently you know slightly more than 1x on podcasts and it

00:36:01 ◼   ► sounds fine and that's that's huge so for that alone it is probably the iOS

00:36:08 ◼   ► app other than other than maybe a Twitter app and a web browser that I use

00:36:12 ◼   ► the most and I like it so I think it's perfectly fine for us to give that the

00:36:16 ◼   ► upgradey. And also you know I know the statistics for our listenership and

00:36:23 ◼   ► Overcast is hugely dominant so I know it's popular you know and I'm adding

00:36:31 ◼   ► that into the you know Marco as a friend type scenario you know but it's like

00:36:36 ◼   ► you know looking at those statistics I know it's a popular app I personally I

00:36:41 ◼   ► would like this to be the best iOS app of the year. So Marco, check your spam

00:36:46 ◼   ► filter. Myke has sent you a prize. So the next category is the best newcomer for

00:36:54 ◼   ► iOS app and you had put Overcast in this category and I have put Workflow in here.

00:36:59 ◼   ► Now one of the things that I like about editorial is some of the incredible

00:37:08 ◼   ► things that can happen with editorial and the way that it's pushed iOS forward,

00:37:11 ◼   ► right? Because I know Federico Vittucci very well and I see the insane things

00:37:18 ◼   ► that he does with that app. Like we were talking about this on the last episode

00:37:22 ◼   ► of Connected about like what apps would have to go to... like if an app switched

00:37:29 ◼   ► to Android, what app would it have to be to make you follow it, you know? So if... so

00:37:35 ◼   ► So basically Federico said that if editorial went Android only, he would have to switch

00:37:38 ◼   ► to Android.

00:37:40 ◼   ► Because so much of his revenue generation with his website is dependent on that app,

00:37:47 ◼   ► because he has so many things automated in it.

00:37:51 ◼   ► So it's like if you think about that, Federico Vittucci, the iPad guy, this app is so important

00:37:58 ◼   ► to him that he would have to seriously make that consideration.

00:38:01 ◼   ► So you can see how powerful it is.

00:38:03 ◼   ► the thing is I don't understand how to do a lot of the stuff that Federico

00:38:07 ◼   ► knows how to do in their app. But the app that I do understand how to do

00:38:12 ◼   ► this kind of stuff in is Workflow. And it's a very new app, but I seriously I

00:38:16 ◼   ► cannot think of an app this year that has blown my mind like Workflow

00:38:22 ◼   ► does. And I actually use it every day now, which I hope that I would. But these

00:38:27 ◼   ► kind of things, there was a time where I really liked the idea

00:38:30 ◼   ► of Launch Center Pro and the things that I could do with callback URLs. But where I use

00:38:35 ◼   ► that app every day, I use it for basic things. I use Launch Center Pro as a launcher for

00:38:40 ◼   ► my various Google Docs that I use because I can set up URL actions. So I can go in there

00:38:45 ◼   ► and select I want the upgrade doc or the connected doc or something like that and it just opens

00:38:49 ◼   ► them up. Because otherwise, and then it flicks between the many, many apps that Google makes

00:38:54 ◼   ► you use on iOS. You have to use two applications to get to one document, but that's a discussion

00:38:59 ◼   ► for another day. But it never really ingrained in me to use a lot of

00:39:03 ◼   ► the powerful features of it. But workflow, I'm using it every single day.

00:39:08 ◼   ► Earlier today I wanted to put some tweets into a document and Federico had

00:39:13 ◼   ► shown me or at least created this action which allowed you to copy something

00:39:20 ◼   ► and then you could go and add another item to the clipboard. So you'd end up

00:39:27 ◼   ► with like three, say like I copied three tweets in total by running this workflow, so it would

00:39:33 ◼   ► just append the most recently copied thing to the previous copied thing.

00:39:38 ◼   ► It's kind of weird to explain, but then you end up with multiple copied items on a pretend

00:39:43 ◼   ► clipboard.

00:39:45 ◼   ► Just little things like that, and it's super powerful.

00:39:47 ◼   ► And I genuinely think that this app deserves recognition for the incredible things you

00:39:55 ◼   ► do a bit that you simply could not do before. I agree with you. I wish that it

00:40:01 ◼   ► was... I don't know, I think the directory and the sample workflows need to be

00:40:09 ◼   ► better. I think it's still a little... Yes, definitely. You have that... there's a

00:40:14 ◼   ► bar that they get you over which is how to use the app and then there's this

00:40:17 ◼   ► other bar which is how to do anything useful and that one is a lot harder and

00:40:22 ◼   ► and this is one of those cases where I feel like using Automator or AppleScript or something like that on the Mac

00:40:26 ◼   ► where I've got a bunch of different windows open and I can be looking up ways to help and suggestions

00:40:30 ◼   ► that's one of those ways where having one app open at a time in iOS

00:40:34 ◼   ► it makes it really hard because if Workflow is open

00:40:38 ◼   ► and I'm trying to figure out how to do something in Workflow

00:40:42 ◼   ► it's harder to do that because I'm just in Workflow. And then the other thing

00:40:46 ◼   ► I've realized with Workflow is I have a harder

00:40:50 ◼   ► time debugging or getting an idea of what is the output in any particular step.

00:40:56 ◼   ► So I feel like there needs to be some more debugging stuff put in there.

00:40:59 ◼   ► Because sometimes I start to build a workflow and I'm like, well, what's there

00:41:03 ◼   ► at this point in the workflow?

00:41:05 ◼   ► And, um, I don't know.

00:41:07 ◼   ► And then it's like, well, you could drag in a thing that says display the text

00:41:10 ◼   ► or something like that, but it's just, it's all kind of hacky and I wish it

00:41:13 ◼   ► was just a little bit, um, it's, it's brand new and they're gonna, they're

00:41:16 ◼   ► gonna do that sort of thing, but it's true.

00:41:18 ◼   ► true, even one of the basic baked in workflows, which is just finding your current location

00:41:22 ◼   ► and sending a text message to somebody you specify saying how long it will be before

00:41:26 ◼   ► you get home, I immediately put that on my home screen. That's great to tell my wife,

00:41:30 ◼   ► you know, I'm at this address, I'll be home in 24 minutes, and it's, you know, it's querying

00:41:35 ◼   ► a traffic server and figuring out the distance and figuring out the time to drive and sending

00:41:40 ◼   ► that into a text message. That's great. And Joe Steele wrote a wonderful workflow that

00:41:46 ◼   ► lets you create one of those super fave things and a tweet and man I'm gonna use that every

00:41:51 ◼   ► day in 2015 I'm gonna superstar something somewhere cause it's a lot of fun and it uses

00:41:58 ◼   ► regular expressions which I know how to write and so text munging and things should be pretty

00:42:04 ◼   ► exciting too so I support this this is why I said we could go with Overcast for best

00:42:10 ◼   ► iOS app I think Overcast has had the biggest impact on my life as an iOS user but as a

00:42:14 ◼   ► a brand new app with a huge amount of potential, I think workflow is really exciting and bringing

00:42:19 ◼   ► that power that previously only maybe the Viticis of the world understood to a broader

00:42:25 ◼   ► audience, not necessarily the broadest audience, but a broader audience.

00:42:29 ◼   ► So I think we're decided on that as well. This is great, this is like a real democracy

00:42:34 ◼   ► happening here.

00:42:35 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. I don't want to go to the chat room unless we absolutely have to.

00:42:39 ◼   ► And I think that...

00:42:41 ◼   ► They scare me.

00:42:42 ◼   ► It may have to start with the next.

00:42:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think so.

00:42:45 ◼   ► - For what I think would be a good reason

00:42:48 ◼   ► that will become apparent.

00:42:49 ◼   ► So we now want to talk about the best Mac app

00:42:52 ◼   ► of the year.

00:42:54 ◼   ► So for me, I mean, I think for both of us,

00:42:57 ◼   ► neither of these apps are new apps,

00:42:59 ◼   ► but they're apps that we use a lot.

00:43:02 ◼   ► So they're currently our favorite best apps.

00:43:06 ◼   ► So on the Mac for me, it's Fantastical.

00:43:09 ◼   ► - Great app, great app.

00:43:12 ◼   ► Just on the Mac, I think.

00:43:13 ◼   ► - Yes, I would love, I still would love

00:43:16 ◼   ► a more blown out dedicated app than just the menu bar app,

00:43:20 ◼   ► like more akin to what you see on iOS,

00:43:23 ◼   ► like on the iPad for example,

00:43:25 ◼   ► just so I could see more at a time.

00:43:28 ◼   ► But just the power that I have with Fantastical

00:43:33 ◼   ► in being able to very quickly and easily to set my tasks

00:43:38 ◼   ► in just natural language, it just works so well for me

00:43:42 ◼   ► I can fire off a keyboard shortcut, it opens it up, I can just start typing things in,

00:43:46 ◼   ► and as if by magic I have an appointment set.

00:43:49 ◼   ► One of my favourite things about Fantastical, and this isn't something that a lot of people

00:43:53 ◼   ► know, I don't think because every time I mention it people are surprised, you can, it does

00:44:00 ◼   ► a great thing with time zones as well.

00:44:02 ◼   ► So where I set things in multiple time zones all the time, so let's say me and Jason decided

00:44:07 ◼   ► we wanted to record, he will say to me "oh can we record at my 11am next week?"

00:44:11 ◼   ► I'll go fine and then I'll just open up FantasticOwl and just write upgrade at 11am PST and it

00:44:17 ◼   ► just recognizes it and sets it in my local time.

00:44:21 ◼   ► That is so powerful for me and it makes this app an absolute lifesaver that I don't have

00:44:28 ◼   ► to use multiple apps to work it out.

00:44:30 ◼   ► And also when it's coming to a time where there's a time change, having FantasticOwl

00:44:36 ◼   ► do all of that math for me as well is super cool.

00:44:40 ◼   ► So that's my pick, Jason what is yours?

00:44:42 ◼   ► Well I thought long and hard, I use a lot of different Mac apps including Fantastic

00:44:46 ◼   ► Cal and I thought about it, I thought about Skype Call Recorder from Ecamm Software which

00:44:54 ◼   ► I couldn't do podcasting without.

00:44:57 ◼   ► It's a really great, I mean I could use something else it wouldn't be as good, I would not choose

00:45:02 ◼   ► to do podcasting without Call Recorder.

00:45:07 ◼   ► are so many different choices but as I said earlier I do most of my writing in

00:45:11 ◼   ► BB edit and the new version of BB edit came out this year they pulled from Mac

00:45:17 ◼   ► App Store it's just available from bare bones for various reasons and you know

00:45:21 ◼   ► the fact is starting a new website I spent a lot of time editing files in BB

00:45:27 ◼   ► edit and yeah using transmit for FTP and I use coda for a little while also from

00:45:31 ◼   ► panic but BB edit has been the thing that I've been using to write stories in

00:45:36 ◼   ► markdown to edit CSS to edit HTML files it's to do lots of search and replace

00:45:41 ◼   ► it's the app that I probably spend the most time in and spent the most time in

00:45:47 ◼   ► in 2014 so it's hard for me not to say that as probably for most of the past

00:45:53 ◼   ► 15 years my Mac app of choice is BBEdit. So this is where we're going to need the

00:46:02 ◼   ► help of the chat room so I think so everybody in a chat room if you can kind

00:46:06 ◼   ► of just start throwing in what you think should be the winner for this the key

00:46:11 ◼   ► reason being I've never used BB edit oh well you should just agree that I'm

00:46:15 ◼   ► right then because you trust me so I mean I would say that I think that and I

00:46:21 ◼   ► hear a lot about BB edit and I am familiar with the fact that is

00:46:27 ◼   ► incredibly powerful and it seems like one of those apps that for people that

00:46:31 ◼   ► use it. It is just an indispensable app. Like, you know, you kind of, for those of

00:46:39 ◼   ► you that need it, it's just there, you know, and it's got everything in it and

00:46:42 ◼   ► it seems to have all these bundles and stuff like that that I don't fully

00:46:45 ◼   ► understand, but it definitely seems like a powerful application. Oh yeah, and it's

00:46:52 ◼   ► been around forever. I think one of the one of the nice things about it is that

00:46:55 ◼   ► it's moved with the times. I mean, it was originally written, I mean, it

00:47:01 ◼   ► had to come through going to Xcode it was from classic Mac OS to OS X it

00:47:08 ◼   ► supports a lot of the Unix features in OS X that were not there when it was

00:47:11 ◼   ► conceived of originally there are lots of text editors out there I also don't

00:47:15 ◼   ► use it for what is probably its primary purpose which is editing code I mean

00:47:18 ◼   ► most of what I'm doing is writing in markdown there's a vote in the chat room

00:47:23 ◼   ► for Sublime Text which is a very popular text editor among people who don't mind

00:47:27 ◼   ► editing a text file in order to edit your preferences?

00:47:30 ◼   ► Boo!

00:47:32 ◼   ► You call yourself a Mac user? Come on! There needs to be a preferences pane.

00:47:35 ◼   ► That's my rant about Sublime Text.

00:47:39 ◼   ► So, BBEdit is fantastic.

00:47:41 ◼   ► Skipper L in the chat room makes the point that it's great, but there are other great

00:47:45 ◼   ► text editors. Well, there are other text editors.

00:47:48 ◼   ► Many of them are good.

00:47:50 ◼   ► Sublime Text is not one of them. Ha! Burn! I'm sorry, I can't get past that.

00:47:54 ◼   ► Text it to the walls.

00:47:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I know it's going to have editors at war.

00:47:57 ◼   ► Here it comes.

00:47:58 ◼   ► I just, I can't get past the fact that Sublime Text,

00:48:00 ◼   ► when you choose preferences, it brings up a text file

00:48:03 ◼   ► and says, edit this to change your preferences.

00:48:05 ◼   ► It's like, yeah, up yours.

00:48:07 ◼   ► I'm sorry, that is ridiculous.

00:48:08 ◼   ► That does sound horrible.

00:48:09 ◼   ► That sounds horrible.

00:48:10 ◼   ► But yeah, it's not, I don't endorse it.

00:48:12 ◼   ► But Fantastic Hell has broader appeal

00:48:15 ◼   ► and I use it and love it too.

00:48:17 ◼   ► So even though the chat room has also voted your way,

00:48:21 ◼   ► I'm going to graciously just agree that we'll choose FantasticAl.

00:48:26 ◼   ► Excellent.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Thank you very much, everybody, for that.

00:48:30 ◼   ► Congratulations for FantasticAl for being the winner of the best Mac app upgrade.

00:48:36 ◼   ► So in the style of the previous two, we now have the best newcomer Mac app, and we've

00:48:43 ◼   ► actually voted unanimously on this one.

00:48:46 ◼   ► Yes, all two voters voted unanimously.

00:48:49 ◼   ► And we've gone from Mailbox. Jason, why is Mailbox your favorite?

00:48:56 ◼   ► What's really crazy about this is Mailbox is still a beta, it's owned by Dropbox now.

00:49:03 ◼   ► And a couple months ago, Chambon of the Suite Setup came to me along with Stephen Hackett

00:49:10 ◼   ► and said, "Would you like to write about alternatives to Apple Mail?" And I said, "Okay, how many

00:49:15 ◼   ► could there be and it turns out there are an awful lot and I tried them all and I actually

00:49:22 ◼   ► decided I really like Mailbox. It is far from flawless, it doesn't work with anything but

00:49:28 ◼   ► Gmail accounts including Google Apps for domains which is what I have or iCloud, those are

00:49:35 ◼   ► the only mail servers it works for right now. You really need to use it on the iOS side

00:49:40 ◼   ► and the Mac side for it to work but what I like about it is it doesn't have a lot of

00:49:44 ◼   ► features. I don't want a lot of features. There's an app out there that has every

00:49:48 ◼   ► feature imaginable. If you want that app you can go get it. But what Mailbox is

00:49:53 ◼   ► great at is it's simple and it lets you treat your inbox like a to-do list. And

00:49:57 ◼   ► not only does that mean you can reorder messages to, which I do, I use my inbox as

00:50:02 ◼   ► a to-do list. So you can, you can, I would leave messages in my inbox forever

00:50:07 ◼   ► because I was like I gotta get back to that person and I can't file it because

00:50:10 ◼   ► because then I'm never gonna respond to them.

00:50:12 ◼   ► What mailbox lets you do is very easily with a swipe

00:50:15 ◼   ► of your trackpad on the Mac and of your finger on iOS

00:50:19 ◼   ► is delete, archive, file away in a folder basically

00:50:24 ◼   ► or set it with a schedule basically

00:50:30 ◼   ► to boomerang back into your inbox.

00:50:32 ◼   ► Which means you can sit there and go,

00:50:34 ◼   ► I'll deal with this tomorrow,

00:50:35 ◼   ► I don't need to deal with that ever,

00:50:36 ◼   ► I'm gonna delete that one,

00:50:37 ◼   ► I'm gonna deal with that next week,

00:50:39 ◼   ► I'll deal with that eventually,

00:50:41 ◼   ► and process your mail rapidly so that what you've got

00:50:44 ◼   ► in your inbox is your inbox of stuff you should deal with

00:50:47 ◼   ► now and not a whole collection of things

00:50:50 ◼   ► that you should eventually deal with,

00:50:51 ◼   ► and it lets you sort of prioritize.

00:50:52 ◼   ► And I think it's a really nice conceit.

00:50:54 ◼   ► It's not for everyone, but I think it's good.

00:50:58 ◼   ► It's my primary Mac mail program.

00:51:02 ◼   ► I will say I also use MailPlane,

00:51:07 ◼   ► which is basically a macified window into the Gmail web interface because

00:51:13 ◼   ► MailPlane's direct access to search is the best if you use Gmail, but

00:51:19 ◼   ► Mailbox as a day-to-day kind of mail processing app, it was my

00:51:23 ◼   ► favorite of all the ones I tested and I think the truest proof here is

00:51:27 ◼   ► that I haven't gone back to mail.app, which every other mail alternative I've

00:51:31 ◼   ► tried I've given up. It's not for everybody, I've heard from a

00:51:34 ◼   ► bunch of people since that story went up on sweet setup are like but what about

00:51:37 ◼   ► this but what about that it's like well like the story says it's not for

00:51:39 ◼   ► everybody it doesn't work with all the services there are some other options

00:51:42 ◼   ► out there I think there are not a lot of great options I think there's some that

00:51:46 ◼   ► are that are coming on that that have a lot of potential but right now mailbox

00:51:52 ◼   ► has done an amazing thing just by sticking in my dock and and allowing me

00:51:57 ◼   ► to take mail.app out and that's I think that's impressive so there.

00:52:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I love mailbox on the iPhone.

00:52:06 ◼   ► So mailbox on the Mac then becomes like the defacto.

00:52:10 ◼   ► You kind of, you need to use the system together

00:52:13 ◼   ► to get the most out of the system.

00:52:15 ◼   ► Otherwise, weird things start happening to your mail, right?

00:52:19 ◼   ► 'Cause when you start setting something

00:52:20 ◼   ► to pop up again tomorrow,

00:52:22 ◼   ► and you start reorganizing things, it's not gonna happen.

00:52:25 ◼   ► You're not gonna see a lot of that stuff reflected

00:52:27 ◼   ► in other mail clients.

00:52:29 ◼   ► So you kind of go all in if you really wanna get in on this,

00:52:33 ◼   ► which is why I did it on the Mac app,

00:52:34 ◼   ► because it allows you to really use the system

00:52:37 ◼   ► to its fullest.

00:52:38 ◼   ► And the Mac app still has some work to do.

00:52:40 ◼   ► It doesn't have as many configurable swipe gestures

00:52:46 ◼   ► as the iPhone does.

00:52:48 ◼   ► There are just some things that are missing.

00:52:50 ◼   ► So for example, I have one on my iPhone

00:52:52 ◼   ► that allows me to swipe to mark a message as read or unread,

00:52:56 ◼   ► and that just doesn't exist as an option at the moment.

00:52:59 ◼   ► But a lot of those things are, I assume, comings,

00:53:03 ◼   ► it is still in a beta, but even in a beta state it's the app that I most like to use

00:53:07 ◼   ► on my Mac and I feel like I'm able to process and deal with my email better than I ever

00:53:12 ◼   ► have before.

00:53:15 ◼   ► So the next category is for best game.

00:53:18 ◼   ► Now we have an iOS game category coming up shortly, but this is for the best console

00:53:23 ◼   ► game.

00:53:24 ◼   ► So me and Federico Vittucci, we have a show on Relay FM called Virtual and we did our

00:53:29 ◼   ► Game of the Year episode last week and we didn't actually crown a Game of the

00:53:35 ◼   ► Year because it's quite a difficult thing to do so I had to sit and do some

00:53:39 ◼   ► real thinking about what I thought would be the best thing for me to go with in

00:53:44 ◼   ► this category. So we both picked a selection of games and I took a look at

00:53:48 ◼   ► that and I picked out from that my favorite iOS game and my favorite overall

00:53:53 ◼   ► game of the year. So for me it was what was the game that I have enjoyed playing

00:53:58 ◼   ► the most this year? What's the game that has given me the most fun? It's actually

00:54:02 ◼   ► a game that's on the Vita. It's now on the PS4 and it's coming next year to the

00:54:08 ◼   ► Wii and 3DS I think. It's a game called OlliOlli which is O-double-L-I-O-double-L-I

00:54:16 ◼   ► it's all one word. And OlliOlli is like a mix between a Tony Hawk game and Mario.

00:54:22 ◼   ► It's a skateboarding game and you effectively have to get from the left side of the screen to the right side of the screen

00:54:31 ◼   ► like the old Super Mario Brothers, like the scrolling world.

00:54:34 ◼   ► You see everything side on and you go from left to right and then at the end you finish the level.

00:54:41 ◼   ► You have goals you need to complete, like you have to score this amount, you have to pick up these things, that kind of thing.

00:54:46 ◼   ► Again, like the old Tony Hawk's games if you played them.

00:54:49 ◼   ► It's got fantastic music, has a really cool art style, like this 2D art style.

00:54:54 ◼   ► It's really challenging. It actually started life as an iOS game.

00:54:59 ◼   ► And then the guys at Roll7, who are a UK design company, a UK development company,

00:55:05 ◼   ► decided that it actually was a game that would benefit from physical buttons.

00:55:08 ◼   ► So they brought it over to the PS Vita and it did really well actually.

00:55:12 ◼   ► It scored really well, like lots of eights and nines out of ten.

00:55:16 ◼   ► And I think of all of the games I played this year, it's maybe been one of the most fun experiences that I've had from a video game.

00:55:24 ◼   ► So it's OlliOlli.

00:55:26 ◼   ► Sounds good.

00:55:28 ◼   ► It's not really my thing, but...

00:55:30 ◼   ► And for platforms that I don't have.

00:55:32 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:55:34 ◼   ► What is yours?

00:55:36 ◼   ► This is going to be a hard one.

00:55:38 ◼   ► I decided to go with, I think, the game...

00:55:41 ◼   ► not only that I probably had the most fun playing,

00:55:44 ◼   ► not on an iOS device this year,

00:55:46 ◼   ► but also the game that prompted me to buy a Wii U,

00:55:49 ◼   ► which is Mario Kart 8.

00:55:50 ◼   ► Mario Kart's great,

00:55:52 ◼   ► and we played Mario Kart on the Wii endlessly,

00:55:55 ◼   ► and now we have Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U,

00:55:58 ◼   ► and it's beautiful in HD and a lot of fun,

00:56:01 ◼   ► and we bought the downloadable content pack,

00:56:04 ◼   ► which adds more drivers and crazy,

00:56:06 ◼   ► like Legend of Zelda themed tracks and all that,

00:56:09 ◼   ► and it's a great family game we can play you know we've got multiple Wii controllers

00:56:14 ◼   ► so we can all race against each other

00:56:16 ◼   ► uh... it's just it's a lot of fun and uh... you know it's Mario Kart so if

00:56:21 ◼   ► you played Mario Kart you know it's Mario Kart and

00:56:24 ◼   ► uh... it's that simple it is just a huge amount of fun to play I'm not a big fan

00:56:28 ◼   ► of serious uh...

00:56:29 ◼   ► car racing games

00:56:31 ◼   ► uh... but Mario Kart is not serious and I like it, my kids like it

00:56:36 ◼   ► and uh... so I would have to

00:56:38 ◼   ► I would have to mention it as the best game on a console this year that I played.

00:56:46 ◼   ► So Mario Kart 8 is what I choose.

00:56:48 ◼   ► Mario Kart wins.

00:56:49 ◼   ► Alright, yay!

00:56:50 ◼   ► So I, I'm going to talk about this shortly, but I received a Wii U for Christmas and I

00:56:57 ◼   ► love Mario Kart.

00:56:58 ◼   ► Like it's so good.

00:57:01 ◼   ► It only hasn't made it into my game of the year lists because I didn't have a Wii U at

00:57:07 ◼   ► the point where we picked them and I wouldn't have wanted to suggest it then

00:57:12 ◼   ► because like to suggest it for this one because I haven't really had it for a

00:57:15 ◼   ► long time but in the the relatively short time I've had playing the game

00:57:21 ◼   ► it's just fantastic and I and I wouldn't want to not give it the award because it

00:57:30 ◼   ► is that good and I hope that Nintendo accept the upgradey graciously on the

00:57:36 ◼   ► box art for the Platinum Edition. I'm sure they will. So let's move to iOS. Yes.

00:57:43 ◼   ► For me, when I was thinking about this, I took a look at the iOS game that I have

00:57:49 ◼   ► played and enjoyed the most. And for me it has to be threes. I think I may have

00:57:57 ◼   ► played threes every single day since it came out. Wow. I play threes constantly.

00:58:04 ◼   ► like when I mentioned earlier about you know I listen to podcasts a lot of the

00:58:08 ◼   ► time I listen to podcasts like if I'm traveling you know I come commuting I

00:58:13 ◼   ► will be playing threes whilst listening sometimes I actually sit at home and

00:58:17 ◼   ► listen to podcasts like just chilling out like and I'll be playing threes at

00:58:22 ◼   ► the same time you know I kind of you know like what I was saying earlier like

00:58:26 ◼   ► I kind of treat I treat podcasts at many people the way that many people treat TV

00:58:31 ◼   ► shows and movies like it's my favorite form of entertainment so sometimes I

00:58:35 ◼   ► just choose to listen to them you know I don't have to be traveling or whatever

00:58:39 ◼   ► while I'm doing it and a lot of the time my accompaniment is threes I'm not that

00:58:45 ◼   ► good at threes I'm like mid you know like middle of the road I guess most of

00:58:52 ◼   ► my friends are much better than me like my high score is is like 29,000 or

00:58:57 ◼   ► something like that which is a good score but I mean I know people that have

00:59:01 ◼   ► ridiculous scores. 29,616 is my highest score on threes, but I just

00:59:08 ◼   ► think it's like the perfect iPhone game. It is infinitely playable because

00:59:14 ◼   ► there isn't a progression as such, you know, there isn't like a story, so it

00:59:19 ◼   ► doesn't get old in that instance. And it's perfectly playable with one hand.

00:59:23 ◼   ► It's fantastic on the 6+ because you can move the tiles around from

00:59:29 ◼   ► anywhere on the screen. You don't need to be touching a specific part of the

00:59:33 ◼   ► screen, so it works perfectly in one hand no matter where your hand fits on the

00:59:38 ◼   ► screen, you know, so you can just do it with one thumb. I love Threes, it's

00:59:44 ◼   ► easily my iOS game of the year. This one was really hard for me because there are

00:59:49 ◼   ► the games that I played the most and then they're the ones that I feel like

00:59:52 ◼   ► are the most kind of worthy of appreciation. So Threes is on my list

00:59:58 ◼   ► there's no doubt about it. Crossy Road is on my list, as ridiculous as that game is,

01:00:02 ◼   ► the fact is it was so compulsively, compellingly, addictively playable, just

01:00:08 ◼   ► you could just play it anytime and you can play it quickly. I mean in some ways

01:00:12 ◼   ► a perfect mobile game. I have a different sort than threes because it does demand

01:00:17 ◼   ► 100% of your attention while you're playing it, whereas threes you can pause

01:00:21 ◼   ► at any point. Monument Valley is on that list because although it doesn't take a

01:00:25 ◼   ► long time to complete so it's not going to be something that lives with you. It is a

01:00:29 ◼   ► really wonderful experience that has stuck with me in terms of the imagery and the story

01:00:35 ◼   ► and the sounds and I think about it a lot. I think as a work of art it's really great

01:00:40 ◼   ► and then of course we got the expansion pack this year. There's a game called Rules which

01:00:45 ◼   ► I really, really love. I wrote about it on Six Colors a couple of weeks ago where you

01:00:49 ◼   ► get a 4x4 grid of cards and you've got a succession of increasingly complicated rules that you

01:00:54 ◼   ► have to follow in order to clear the board before you can move on and there's

01:00:58 ◼   ► a ticking clock. I think that's a lot a lot of fun. I really enjoyed Space Age,

01:01:02 ◼   ► the retro scrolling adventure, and I really... I don't know, it's hard to make a

01:01:12 ◼   ► final decision. If I'm being honest, the game that I probably

01:01:16 ◼   ► spent the most time on this year is Flappy Golf by the developers of Super

01:01:21 ◼   ► Stickman golf they made a flappy bird joke using their physics and golf course

01:01:26 ◼   ► and it's a fantastic game it is so great it is better I think than Super Stickman

01:01:32 ◼   ► golf partially because it is not junked up by the free-to-play like buy some

01:01:38 ◼   ► coins buy some hats junk that they put in Super Stickman golf too. It's got ads

01:01:43 ◼   ► that you can pay to turn off but it's just a it's great golf courses and I

01:01:49 ◼   ► loved the fact that you really need to understand the physics of when you're

01:01:52 ◼   ► flapping the the golf ball to its destination and the goal is to do it and

01:01:56 ◼   ► get it in the hole in as few flaps as possible and it's just I played every

01:02:02 ◼   ► level every single level and I don't do that with most iOS games I don't go

01:02:06 ◼   ► through every single level I play it for a while and I'm like oh well this is fun

01:02:09 ◼   ► and then I just kind of move on because that's what happens so if if this award

01:02:14 ◼   ► goes to the game I played the most hours it's probably Flappy Golf. I kind of feel

01:02:20 ◼   ► like I need to say Monument Valley though because even though I didn't

01:02:23 ◼   ► spend the most time on it because it doesn't last that long, I feel like it is

01:02:27 ◼   ► a just a wonderful piece of work and award worthy for being beautiful and

01:02:32 ◼   ► interesting and yes it's not a super challenging puzzle but that's not what I

01:02:37 ◼   ► was trying to get out of it. I wanted that experience and I hate using such a

01:02:40 ◼   ► squishy word as experience but that's what it was. It was like a story, it was

01:02:43 ◼   ► storytelling interactive storytelling and gently challenging and beautiful and

01:02:49 ◼   ► immersive and all of those things that I think we hope more more iOS games can be

01:02:54 ◼   ► so in the end monument valley by a nose over flappy golf and and crossy road and

01:03:01 ◼   ► not not flappy bird just it's two things that were that were that were creative

01:03:07 ◼   ► that were spawned by Flappy Bird? So I kind of think that there is no game more

01:03:17 ◼   ► award worthy than Monument Valley. Yeah. Maybe of all of the games that I've

01:03:23 ◼   ► played this year it's the game that deserves the most awards because it is

01:03:29 ◼   ► so... I mean people aren't... I don't think people will like this but I consider it

01:03:34 ◼   ► groundbreaking in what it has achieved and what it has done for iOS and some of

01:03:42 ◼   ► the paths that it has opened for people now and to prove that you can kind of

01:03:49 ◼   ► come from nowhere and have this incredible success which flies in the

01:03:53 ◼   ► face of convention and I think Crossy Road has actually benefited from the

01:03:58 ◼   ► fact that Monument Valley exists because where they are vastly different games

01:04:04 ◼   ► with vastly different models of monetization.

01:04:09 ◼   ► I think potentially, I mean I don't know this,

01:04:14 ◼   ► but I can imagine being with developers across the road,

01:04:17 ◼   ► looking at Monument Valley, seeing how it didn't do

01:04:20 ◼   ► what everyone told you you need to do,

01:04:22 ◼   ► and was sort of a success.

01:04:24 ◼   ► So for me, I think if you're gonna look at a game

01:04:27 ◼   ► that has maybe made the biggest impact,

01:04:30 ◼   ► and maybe has also made a big impact on me,

01:04:33 ◼   ► I think Monument Valley would have to be the winner.

01:04:35 ◼   ► - All right, well that's it then.

01:04:37 ◼   ► - Yep, that is it.

01:04:38 ◼   ► Monument Valley wins the upgradey.

01:04:40 ◼   ► - But there are a lot of great choices here.

01:04:43 ◼   ► - Oh, it's been a fantastic year.

01:04:44 ◼   ► - So many great choices, yeah.

01:04:45 ◼   ► - All of the games that you mentioned,

01:04:47 ◼   ► I give a plus one to every single one of them.

01:04:50 ◼   ► Space Age is a excellent game that I loved.

01:04:55 ◼   ► Crossy Road is so much fun.

01:04:57 ◼   ► I only haven't really considered Crossy Road

01:04:59 ◼   ► because I actually don't think for me

01:05:01 ◼   ► that it's got the same lasting power.

01:05:03 ◼   ► And a game like that, I think, needs to have lasting power.

01:05:07 ◼   ► Like Threes is on my list,

01:05:09 ◼   ► not because it is a groundbreaking video game,

01:05:12 ◼   ► 'cause it's very simple, but they're very simple games.

01:05:15 ◼   ► They should be endlessly playable,

01:05:17 ◼   ► and Crossy Road is fun,

01:05:19 ◼   ► but it's kind of dying off for me a bit now,

01:05:22 ◼   ► where Threes hasn't.

01:05:24 ◼   ► Threes came out in January, and I'm still playing it.

01:05:28 ◼   ► - The problem with Crossy Road,

01:05:29 ◼   ► and Threes seems to have this less,

01:05:30 ◼   ► although threes you do need to get these very high scores to win there is the

01:05:34 ◼   ► challenge I think as you're going is greater than Crossy Road. I think after a

01:05:41 ◼   ► point in Crossy Road you are you're trying to get a score so high that the

01:05:48 ◼   ► whole first five minutes you're playing is prelude and you know I got good

01:05:53 ◼   ► enough across the road that most of the time I can get into the hundreds and you

01:05:57 ◼   ► know fifteen percent of the time I can get into the high hundreds and you know what?

01:06:04 ◼   ► If the game comes down to you know five or ten minutes of frustration of getting to your

01:06:09 ◼   ► little avatar to the point where you're fifteen away from your high score and then it's one

01:06:14 ◼   ► minute of intense play to get above or fail, I don't know, I feel like the balance is off

01:06:20 ◼   ► then and I don't know if there's any solution on a game like Crossy Road but I feel like

01:06:24 ◼   ► threes, you're working the numbers in threes and looking at the colors and

01:06:29 ◼   ► looking at the numbers and all that, is you're kind of getting into a state of

01:06:32 ◼   ► like this, you know, it's like a trance almost where you're playing the game

01:06:36 ◼   ► and that's part of the appeal of the game and then you want to get a high

01:06:39 ◼   ► score too. And Crossy Road doesn't have that, I feel like. I can sort of get in a

01:06:44 ◼   ► trance sometimes with Crossy Road, but again it was a lot more pleasurable when

01:06:48 ◼   ► I was trying to get to 70 than now that I'm trying to get to 250, if that makes

01:06:54 ◼   ► any sense. Yeah it does it does. Yeah. Okay so our next award is gonna be for

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01:10:01 ◼   ► start here, go anywhere. Yay! So Jason, we are moving into the favorite movie of the

01:10:09 ◼   ► year would you like to tell listeners what your favorite movie of this year

01:10:11 ◼   ► has been? I would like you to start I think that the that it will go better

01:10:16 ◼   ► this way so you you let me know what you think. Okay okay so my favorite movie of this

01:10:23 ◼   ► year is it's not the best movie I've seen this year but it's I think it's my

01:10:27 ◼   ► favorite and and and I actually do I don't know if you're one of these people

01:10:31 ◼   ► Jason but I do consider a huge difference between those two things that

01:10:35 ◼   ► your favorite doesn't have to be the best and the best doesn't have to be a

01:10:37 ◼   ► favorite. I'm with you. And I think the best experience I have had in a movie

01:10:43 ◼   ► theater this year is seeing Guardians of the Galaxy. I've actually I love Marvel

01:10:50 ◼   ► movies but I've missed a couple I haven't seen Thor 2 and I haven't seen

01:10:54 ◼   ► Captain America. Don't don't see Thor 2. Yeah I'm now gonna skip it because I've

01:10:59 ◼   ► heard from your shows that it's not worth it but I've yet to see Captain

01:11:03 ◼   ► America and I am it's it's probably the next movie that I'm gonna watch. The first

01:11:07 ◼   ► one or the second one? The second one, The Winter Soldier. I've seen the first one.

01:11:11 ◼   ► So I've just kind of missed some of the movies this year. But Guardians of

01:11:18 ◼   ► the Galaxy was so much more than I expected it was going to be. There were

01:11:24 ◼   ► so many unknown elements in this story for me going in. There were some actors

01:11:32 ◼   ► that I'd never seen in a movie before, some actors that had never been in a

01:11:36 ◼   ► blockbuster movie before like Dave Bautista who is a professional wrestler or was a professional wrestler

01:11:42 ◼   ► And there were just you know

01:11:44 ◼   ► And there's there's elements like you have Vin Diesel saying like three words over and over again

01:11:49 ◼   ► That seemed pretty peculiar. You have Bradley Cooper who is an absolute A-lister playing a raccoon

01:11:56 ◼   ► Yeah, just the voice. Just the voice of a raccoon

01:11:59 ◼   ► I didn't know a lot about their story

01:12:02 ◼   ► which is for every other Marvel movie that I have seen has not been the case

01:12:07 ◼   ► I've been very familiar with the stories of everybody else so there were a bunch

01:12:13 ◼   ► of things I was like I'm not sure about this and I had a smile from

01:12:19 ◼   ► ear to ear for like the entire two hours it was an just an absolute rip-roaring

01:12:26 ◼   ► success for me like all of the unknown elements ended up being the best parts

01:12:31 ◼   ► uh... i'd absolutely loved

01:12:36 ◼   ► dracs right is is

01:12:38 ◼   ► was yeah doctor

01:12:39 ◼   ► hilarious absolutely hilarious

01:12:42 ◼   ► obviously everybody loves group

01:12:44 ◼   ► uh... just all of these things and just

01:12:46 ◼   ► chris pratt is an absolute superstar

01:12:49 ◼   ► like yes he was so good in this movie and i just i absolutely adored it

01:12:55 ◼   ► uh... so for me it's been my favorite movie i've seen this year

01:12:58 ◼   ► Well, I liked Guardians of the Galaxy a whole lot.

01:13:02 ◼   ► And I'm going to cite Incomparable #207, where we talked about it.

01:13:08 ◼   ► But I like it a lot.

01:13:09 ◼   ► And I feel like it's difficult for me to talk about Guardians of the Galaxy in a way, because

01:13:15 ◼   ► I feel like I just didn't like it as much as a lot of people did.

01:13:19 ◼   ► I think that it got so hyped up and some people loved it so much, and I thought it was good.

01:13:23 ◼   ► I thought it was really good.

01:13:24 ◼   ► And in fact, I've watched it a couple of times since it came out on home video, and I've

01:13:28 ◼   ► appreciate it more every time and I think that's a sign of me forgiving its

01:13:33 ◼   ► flaws and also not being quite as swayed by the hype that everybody

01:13:39 ◼   ► else went in to, you know, everybody else was sharing before I went in to see the

01:13:44 ◼   ► movie the first time because sometimes that happens you get a movie really

01:13:47 ◼   ► hyped and even if it's good it's not as good as you expected because everybody

01:13:51 ◼   ► said "oh my god it's the greatest thing ever" but I liked it a

01:13:54 ◼   ► lot I like it more every time I watch it it is so entertaining it has so many

01:13:59 ◼   ► good things going for the performances there are a lot of really good

01:14:02 ◼   ► performances and I can kind of forgive the movie its flaws but it definitely

01:14:06 ◼   ► has them the whole there's a there's about a 20-minute chunk where they're

01:14:10 ◼   ► trying to download information about Thanos and Ronan and Nebula and Gamora

01:14:15 ◼   ► and how they're all related to each other and it it turns out the movie was

01:14:19 ◼   ► originally Thanos was the villain and then Marvel basically came in and said

01:14:23 ◼   ► "No, no, no, Thanos is gonna be the villain in Avengers 3 or whatever and so you can't use him now."

01:14:29 ◼   ► And so then they made it Ronan and Thanos sort of appears in the background and everything became,

01:14:34 ◼   ► honestly, I think that broke a lot of parts of the movie because suddenly it wasn't Gamora rebelling against her father.

01:14:40 ◼   ► It was Gamora rebelling against the guy who was sent by her father and that's not, you know, it's not as dramatic.

01:14:48 ◼   ► And I think Gamora, some of her best character development happens before we meet her, which

01:14:52 ◼   ► is unfortunate.

01:14:53 ◼   ► I like that character, but I think that there's sort of a mistake that happens there with

01:14:59 ◼   ► how she's introduced.

01:15:00 ◼   ► There's a deleted scene that adds a lot to her character, which is a shame of all the

01:15:05 ◼   ► scenes to be deleted, that that scene got deleted.

01:15:07 ◼   ► And there's some bits of the dialogue that don't thrill me that I think is the director

01:15:13 ◼   ► being a little too cute and pandering a little bit too much to a kind of 12-year-old boy

01:15:18 ◼   ► audience that I didn't really appreciate but it's a it's a really fun movie and

01:15:22 ◼   ► the fact that it was a success and the fact that I like that and I like even

01:15:26 ◼   ► more the fact that Marvel took a chance with a movie like this because this

01:15:28 ◼   ► movie by all rights should not have worked and Marvel now is printing money

01:15:32 ◼   ► right so they should be able to just right just play it safe and instead

01:15:38 ◼   ► they're doing the other thing which is we are riding so high that we can take

01:15:41 ◼   ► risks and this is a huge risk and it totally paid off and and there are very

01:15:46 ◼   ► few movies that I put in the same level again we're talking about favorites and

01:15:49 ◼   ► and the feeling you get when you leave the movie theater as Guardians of the

01:15:52 ◼   ► Galaxy you know start the Star Wars movies fall into that camp where it's

01:15:55 ◼   ► just it's fun I had a hugely fun time at the movie theater the Firefly movie

01:16:01 ◼   ► Serenity I would say is in that camp I just came out of the movie like totally

01:16:04 ◼   ► excited some of the early Star Trek movies like Star Trek 2 and 4 when I

01:16:08 ◼   ► came out of the theater as a teenager I was like wow that was really awesome

01:16:11 ◼   ► there's not a lot of movies that make me feel like that there are a lot of movies

01:16:14 ◼   ► where you nod solemnly and go "yes that was a very good important movie" find film for

01:16:19 ◼   ► all to consume and consider but Guardians of the Galaxy was like "wow that was fun"

01:16:23 ◼   ► and we named our cat Rocket so there you go.

01:16:28 ◼   ► So a hit with the family at least.

01:16:29 ◼   ► Yeah I know everybody, well it was that or Groot and we didn't think he was a Groot he

01:16:33 ◼   ► was more of a Rocket.

01:16:34 ◼   ► We'll see if we get a dog or something maybe we'll have Groot and then we'll have a nice

01:16:37 ◼   ► pair.

01:16:40 ◼   ► So my choice is a movie you haven't seen so this will be interesting to see how it goes

01:16:43 ◼   ► and although we talked about movies that have had that are fun and the movies from Marvel

01:16:48 ◼   ► that have surprised, I don't, I haven't seen a lot of movies this year because we have

01:16:51 ◼   ► with my kids at the ages they are, it's become problematic for us to find time at home to

01:16:55 ◼   ► watch movies on video after the kids have gone to bed because it's too late and there

01:17:00 ◼   ► are movies that the kids can't watch because they're inappropriate for their ages and that

01:17:05 ◼   ► it makes it very hard for us to see those movies.

01:17:07 ◼   ► So I haven't seen as many films as I would like this year.

01:17:10 ◼   ► So I'm going to go with a favorite and I'm going to follow you in the blockbuster vein

01:17:15 ◼   ► and say I really think The Winter Soldier is perhaps the best Marvel movie.

01:17:22 ◼   ► And I say that because on one level Captain America, I think he's kind of boring and his

01:17:25 ◼   ► most interesting story was the story of him in World War II and they told that in the

01:17:29 ◼   ► first movie which I like a lot, directed by Joe Johnston.

01:17:32 ◼   ► I think that's a really good movie.

01:17:34 ◼   ► But The Winter Soldier has a totally different vibe.

01:17:37 ◼   ► It's not really a Captain America movie, it's a Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D. movie.

01:17:42 ◼   ► It's paranoid, it's got a great use of Robert Redford in a spy, 70's spy kind of vibe role,

01:17:50 ◼   ► which is great.

01:17:52 ◼   ► It deals with a lot, not to spoil it because you haven't seen it, but it deals with a lot

01:17:56 ◼   ► of modern issues and surprisingly, I mean, it's as subversive as a summer popcorn movie

01:18:01 ◼   ► can be.

01:18:02 ◼   ► It airs the questions about what is your government doing in your name and what is patriotism

01:18:08 ◼   ► and is patriotism following your orders as a government agent or is patriotism knowing

01:18:12 ◼   ► when the government is doing something wrong and standing up against it.

01:18:16 ◼   ► And all of that is in the Winter Soldier along with a bunch of fantastic action scenes and

01:18:20 ◼   ► some great Samuel L. Jackson stuff and some great Scarlett Johansson stuff and great Captain

01:18:25 ◼   ► America stuff.

01:18:27 ◼   ► The Winter Soldier by the way is not Captain America, it is a different character in the

01:18:30 ◼   ► movie but I've discovered that lots of people just thought that Captain America was the

01:18:33 ◼   ► Winter Soldier.

01:18:35 ◼   ► Okay, anyway, I like it a lot.

01:18:37 ◼   ► I think it's actually a, again, I was really surprised at how good it was because I didn't

01:18:42 ◼   ► know what I expected but I didn't expect it to be as great as it really is.

01:18:47 ◼   ► So "Incomparable #190" by the way, titled "The Cloud is Run by Hydra" is the episode

01:18:54 ◼   ► where we talked about it and I liked it a lot.

01:18:57 ◼   ► Big fan.

01:18:58 ◼   ► find links to both of those in-comportable episodes in our comprehensive show notes for

01:19:02 ◼   ► this week which are relay.fm/upgrades/16. We are going to need the chat room's help

01:19:07 ◼   ► on this one as I haven't seen one of the movies. But I am familiar with the Winter

01:19:12 ◼   ► Soldier story, I've read the comic. Oh good, good, yeah. It's sort of told in

01:19:17 ◼   ► shorthand in the movie because it's not really about the reveal of who the Winter

01:19:21 ◼   ► Soldier is and when it comes it's not quite as dramatic because you haven't had months

01:19:25 ◼   ► and months to ponder the storyline. It's just all in the movie. But a lot of good stuff

01:19:32 ◼   ► in there.

01:19:33 ◼   ► So there aren't a lot of votes coming through in the chat room for these two, which I don't

01:19:38 ◼   ► know what about that. However, Joe Steele is saying Winter Soldier is greater than Guardians.

01:19:47 ◼   ► Up guardians of the galaxy from Dented Meat.

01:19:52 ◼   ► I'm gonna cede to you on this one because you have seen both movies.

01:19:58 ◼   ► And Joe Steele has seen both movies.

01:20:03 ◼   ► And there are more, as we're saying, there are more Winter Soldier votes coming through.

01:20:07 ◼   ► Moises Chuyon's in the chat room saying "I just got here, what do I do?"

01:20:10 ◼   ► It's like Moises, just say which one is better, Winter Soldier.

01:20:13 ◼   ► Oh there we go, Winter Soldier.

01:20:15 ◼   ► We're gonna give it to the Winter Soldier, but super footnoted runner up to Guardians,

01:20:19 ◼   ► which is a super fun, great movie.

01:20:22 ◼   ► I think Marvel, you know, Thor 2 I didn't like at all, but Marvel is doing some amazing

01:20:27 ◼   ► stuff and obviously the rest of the movie industry is taking notice and is trying to

01:20:32 ◼   ► replicate what they're doing and so we're going to get franchised to death in the next

01:20:35 ◼   ► five years, but you've got to give it to Marvel.

01:20:39 ◼   ► This run has been amazing in terms of general quality when it could really have not been

01:20:45 ◼   ► very good and it has been very good.

01:20:48 ◼   ► Man of Steel.

01:20:49 ◼   ► It sounds like Thor 2 is the only black mark on an otherwise impeccable record.

01:20:54 ◼   ► I hate it.

01:20:55 ◼   ► Yeah, so Thor 2 has the same problems.

01:20:58 ◼   ► Now we're going to be doing a movie podcast and we're running out of time, we need to

01:21:01 ◼   ► move on, we've got more categories.

01:21:02 ◼   ► But Thor 2, like the worst parts of Guardians of the Galaxy, gets mired in this weird mystical

01:21:08 ◼   ► sci-fi complicated weirdness that I think is just not necessary.

01:21:14 ◼   ► And I think it owes something to Marvel's, like they've got their little black book of

01:21:17 ◼   ► continuity that they're trying to throw in there for the fans and Thor 2, you know, throws

01:21:22 ◼   ► away I think the things that were best about the original Thor which is him on earth and

01:21:27 ◼   ► uses, plays up the stuff that's the worst which is this really bizarre mytho alien sci-fi

01:21:35 ◼   ► Asgard stuff that's not good so I don't recommend it.

01:21:41 ◼   ► It's loud.

01:21:42 ◼   ► I'll give it that.

01:21:43 ◼   ► It's very loud.

01:21:45 ◼   ► So alright what's next?

01:21:46 ◼   ► favorite book, the issue being here is I think this may be the first year that I

01:21:52 ◼   ► can remember that I have actually I have not read a book this year like cover to

01:21:59 ◼   ► cover. All right well we're gonna I'll tell you what Liz I'm gonna I'm gonna

01:22:03 ◼   ► cite since since I added this category and you were like okay I don't have

01:22:08 ◼   ► anything to say here I think we're going to give some honorable mentions and to

01:22:12 ◼   ► move on I just want to plug three books I read that I really enjoyed this year

01:22:15 ◼   ► year which is The Golem and the Genie by Helene Wecker which is about a golem and a genie

01:22:22 ◼   ► who meet in New York City in Manhattan amidst the great immigration of the mid to late 19th

01:22:29 ◼   ► century.

01:22:30 ◼   ► It's great.

01:22:31 ◼   ► Ancillary Justice which is by Ann Leckie and won all the sci-fi awards for good reason.

01:22:38 ◼   ► It's a really good space opera-y kind of book with some shades of Ursula Le Guin thrown

01:22:44 ◼   ► I think. And Station Eleven, whose author now totally escapes me, Emily St. John Mandel

01:22:54 ◼   ► is her name, a really, really good post-apocalyptic story that is not super zombie-full. There

01:23:02 ◼   ► are no zombies in it, but it's not like one of those really gross, nasty, dirty apocalypses,

01:23:06 ◼   ► nor is it a clean, shiny, friendly apocalypse. It's kind of in between, and it's a little

01:23:10 ◼   ► like lost and then a bunch of the stories kind of intersect except it has

01:23:14 ◼   ► a really great ending and I liked a lot so those are my three book

01:23:18 ◼   ► recommendations for this year and we can move on and we'll just tip a hat to them

01:23:21 ◼   ► thank you books what a great name Emily St. John Mandel is hmm I see what you

01:23:27 ◼   ► can remember it though it doesn't necessarily roll off the tongue yeah

01:23:30 ◼   ► once you get it it's in there forever but I haven't committed it to memory

01:23:33 ◼   ► just yet so this one will be fun favorite gadget of the year without a

01:23:38 ◼   ► a shadow of a doubt for me it is the iPhone 6 plus. I love this phone I think

01:23:46 ◼   ► it's the best iPhone Apple have ever made come at me bros it's got the

01:23:51 ◼   ► greatest battery life it continues to to surprise me every day it's basically I

01:23:58 ◼   ► tell you what the easiest way for me to explain the iPhone 6 plus is it's and

01:24:04 ◼   ► And this is basically Apple's marketing copy.

01:24:07 ◼   ► It's everything I like about an iPhone but more of it.

01:24:11 ◼   ► And for me, that ticks all the boxes.

01:24:14 ◼   ► But for many, it doesn't.

01:24:17 ◼   ► It has changed the way I use my iPhone, but some of the changes that it's made are for

01:24:22 ◼   ► the better.

01:24:23 ◼   ► I love this device.

01:24:25 ◼   ► It's now the only iOS device I need and use, because it fits so perfectly in the spot that

01:24:31 ◼   ► I need it to fill.

01:24:33 ◼   ► but I totally understand why people don't like it.

01:24:36 ◼   ► Jason, over to you.

01:24:37 ◼   ► - I think that's a, if a boy,

01:24:41 ◼   ► if I picked the iPhone 6 here,

01:24:43 ◼   ► it would really be a tough fight, wouldn't it?

01:24:44 ◼   ► I'm gonna pick the 5K iMac.

01:24:46 ◼   ► I've written about it on my site,

01:24:48 ◼   ► we've talked about it here.

01:24:49 ◼   ► I did not come into this year thinking I would buy an iMac.

01:24:53 ◼   ► At no point did I consider that

01:24:55 ◼   ► as one of my office setup strategies was buying an iMac,

01:24:58 ◼   ► and I bought a 5K iMac.

01:24:59 ◼   ► And why did I do it?

01:25:00 ◼   ► Not just because of the screen,

01:25:02 ◼   ► although the screen is beautiful,

01:25:03 ◼   ► but also because of the power of it.

01:25:06 ◼   ► The fact that this is a,

01:25:07 ◼   ► it scores better than the low-end Mac Pro at some tests.

01:25:13 ◼   ► It is kind of Mac Pro-ish power in an iMac

01:25:17 ◼   ► with a retina display,

01:25:18 ◼   ► and the only way you're gonna get desktop retina

01:25:20 ◼   ► from Apple this year, or next year probably, maybe.

01:25:24 ◼   ► It's a pretty spectacular computer.

01:25:27 ◼   ► I love it, it's so fast.

01:25:29 ◼   ► The screen is amazing.

01:25:32 ◼   ► and it's probably the most powerful computer I've ever bought

01:25:35 ◼   ► when you think about it, like even relative to the time

01:25:39 ◼   ► because I don't know if I've ever spent this much

01:25:42 ◼   ► money on a computer before and to get something this

01:25:45 ◼   ► feels like this top of the line also is a rarity for me. I usually am sort of in

01:25:50 ◼   ► the mid-range but I kinda couldn't resist

01:25:52 ◼   ► and it is a fantastic piece of work. It's also nice to see Apple making a Mac

01:25:56 ◼   ► that is so awesome and that it isn't all just sort of like recycling all the old

01:26:00 ◼   ► Mac stuff.

01:26:01 ◼   ► there's still some real life in the Mac yet.

01:26:04 ◼   ► So that's my choice is that I liked it so much

01:26:08 ◼   ► when I reviewed it, I bought one.

01:26:09 ◼   ► How about that?

01:26:10 ◼   ► - I think I'll give you this one,

01:26:13 ◼   ► mainly because I have nothing against the iMac.

01:26:16 ◼   ► And I know that you have,

01:26:20 ◼   ► you don't like six plus,

01:26:23 ◼   ► but I don't neither like nor dislike the iMac.

01:26:26 ◼   ► I've seen it and I think it's fantastic.

01:26:27 ◼   ► And I would, it's a computer

01:26:29 ◼   ► that I would very much like to own.

01:26:31 ◼   ► just don't need one. I don't dislike the 6 Plus. I chose the 6 as the

01:26:38 ◼   ► phone that I wanted to get and I prefer the 6 and I think the 6 Plus is has a

01:26:42 ◼   ► narrower audience and you're in it and that's great. I think I you know I think

01:26:48 ◼   ► it's not a replacement for an iPad but I think it is a it's really cool to see

01:26:54 ◼   ► Apple doing the 6 Plus and and going over that ground that sort of like

01:26:58 ◼   ► previous regimes at Apple said "no no we're never gonna do a phone like that"

01:27:01 ◼   ► and they did a phone like that and it's good and I think that's great but I will

01:27:05 ◼   ► accept graciously your passing on the 5k iMac so thank you. So in the same vein

01:27:12 ◼   ► as suggested by Upgrading Justin what is your favorite non Apple gadget of the

01:27:19 ◼   ► year? Clearly he knew where the favorite gadget category was going. For me I

01:27:24 ◼   ► I picked the PlayStation 4. It's just the best games console that I've played this year.

01:27:32 ◼   ► I mean, I have all three. I now have a Wii U, I have a PlayStation 4, and I have an Xbox One.

01:27:38 ◼   ► And I very, very much like my Wii U. I think it's fantastic. It has some things about it,

01:27:46 ◼   ► which are brilliant. The fact that you can kind of play it from any room. You don't have to have

01:27:50 ◼   ► have the TV on, that kind of thing. But if you're looking at like a pure, you want

01:27:55 ◼   ► a games console, a next-generation games console, the PlayStation wins. Because it

01:28:02 ◼   ► knows what it wants to be and it's that. The Xbox One also wants to be everything

01:28:08 ◼   ► else in your living room. And a lot of the experience of using the Xbox

01:28:13 ◼   ► One suffers from that. And Microsoft made some very stupid choices that they had

01:28:19 ◼   ► to go back on over and over and over again.

01:28:22 ◼   ► And I think that there are many things

01:28:26 ◼   ► about the PlayStation which it's, you know,

01:28:28 ◼   ► and Sony are very focused on making a console

01:28:33 ◼   ► and an experience what they call for the players.

01:28:36 ◼   ► It's the marketing strategy, but I genuinely believe in it

01:28:40 ◼   ► because a lot of their decisions that I see,

01:28:44 ◼   ► it's very much focused on creating

01:28:46 ◼   ► the best gaming experience that they can.

01:28:49 ◼   ► and I think that they achieved that.

01:28:51 ◼   ► And for a next gen console,

01:28:53 ◼   ► the PlayStation 4 for me is the choice.

01:28:55 ◼   ► And considering that video games

01:28:58 ◼   ► is kind of my other major passion, definitely that.

01:29:01 ◼   ► And also looking into 2015,

01:29:03 ◼   ► the PlayStation lineup is killer.

01:29:06 ◼   ► Like Microsoft can't hold account to it in my opinion.

01:29:08 ◼   ► So I think if you're gonna get one, it's the one to get.

01:29:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have a Wii U

01:29:13 ◼   ► and I am very specifically not picking it here.

01:29:16 ◼   ► although I really do enjoy, like I said, Mario Kart.

01:29:19 ◼   ► I subscribe to the same thing that John Siracusa

01:29:22 ◼   ► has said on several podcasts,

01:29:23 ◼   ► including when he was on isometric and on ATP,

01:29:26 ◼   ► that Nintendo is very good at the kind of

01:29:29 ◼   ► in-game experience, and the rest of it is kind of awful.

01:29:33 ◼   ► I find, yeah, its menu system impenetrable and weird,

01:29:37 ◼   ► and it, you know, I don't know,

01:29:40 ◼   ► and that the little console thing

01:29:42 ◼   ► with the screen on it is strange,

01:29:44 ◼   ► and has huge potential that almost no game actually takes advantage of, which is frustrating.

01:29:49 ◼   ► Like even in Mario Kart you can't have a mode where one car is using that screen and can

01:29:57 ◼   ► only see what's on that screen and everybody else doesn't see them or something.

01:30:01 ◼   ► It's just not used very much.

01:30:02 ◼   ► We have Nintendo Land and it's used there, but otherwise not.

01:30:05 ◼   ► So I can't really pick that.

01:30:09 ◼   ► So I'm tempted, I don't know, I think I had the LIFX light bulbs on here for a while,

01:30:15 ◼   ► which are WiFi light bulbs that are kind of fun to play with and I've enjoyed playing

01:30:18 ◼   ► with them and sending them to different colors and things like that and my daughters enjoyed

01:30:21 ◼   ► playing with those too.

01:30:22 ◼   ► I think I'm going to go with the TiVo Mini here only because I bought a TiVo this year,

01:30:27 ◼   ► went back to TiVo, or late last year maybe, and the TiVo Mini is great because you attach

01:30:33 ◼   ► it in another room to your Ethernet network and it's like you've got another DVR and it's

01:30:39 ◼   ► TiVo has a great interface and it gives you access to live TV and all your recorded programs

01:30:47 ◼   ► and YouTube and Amazon and Netflix and I don't actually need another TV Streamer box other

01:30:54 ◼   ► than for iTunes stuff on any of my TVs because the TiVo will cover, it's my Netflix and Amazon

01:31:01 ◼   ► Instant Video box and all my DVR recorded shows and live TV and a couple months ago

01:31:07 ◼   ► they change the price to $150 for the TiVo Mini and there's no service charge because

01:31:12 ◼   ► TiVo previously was $100 and you had to pay $6 a month and I immediately bought one because

01:31:17 ◼   ► I thought that was a pretty good deal.

01:31:18 ◼   ► That sounds so ridiculous to charge $6 a month for it.

01:31:21 ◼   ► Well, TiVo...

01:31:22 ◼   ► But it's effectively just like a relay box.

01:31:23 ◼   ► I think really what TiVo is doing is TiVo has some problems with its business model where

01:31:27 ◼   ► they have these monthly fees and essentially what they're doing is saying you should buy

01:31:30 ◼   ► lifetime service but we're going to lower... we should embed lifetime service in the cost

01:31:35 ◼   ► of the box but that will raise the price we can't make a business on that so

01:31:38 ◼   ► we'll do a monthly fee and then give you the option of paying for a lifetime and

01:31:42 ◼   ► I think I hope that their experiment with the TiVo Mini will lead them to

01:31:47 ◼   ► embedding lifetime service in the hardware they sell and just saying look

01:31:52 ◼   ► this is the cost and then we're not we're not gonna charge you for anything

01:31:55 ◼   ► more you know who knows if they'll even be around in a few years but I really

01:32:01 ◼   ► think that TiVo DVR is still the best experience out there I have tried some

01:32:04 ◼   ► of the others I think they're fine I think the TiVo is better. TiVo's iOS apps are good

01:32:09 ◼   ► but the Mini has been really fun because suddenly all the TVs in my house have access to our

01:32:14 ◼   ► DVR and streaming and everything else and live TV without having different DVRs in different

01:32:20 ◼   ► places which I did at one point and the streaming on the TiVo Mini is pretty elegant. You can't

01:32:27 ◼   ► even tell that you're not watching it on the DVR when you do it. So I'll throw it out there.

01:32:31 ◼   ► I'm happy for this one to go to the PS4. I don't have one. I still have a PS3, an

01:32:35 ◼   ► Xbox 360, and the Wii U, all of which are pretty comparable on technology. Sad

01:32:40 ◼   ► trombone for Nintendo. But I'm one of those kind of one-generation-past

01:32:46 ◼   ► people, but I like the way that Sony made a product that is not... I think it was a

01:32:51 ◼   ► misfire from Microsoft to say, "Don't even play games on it, just use it

01:32:56 ◼   ► to watch TV." I think that was a mistake, and Sony focusing on gamers is good. So I

01:33:01 ◼   ► I will endorse your choice there.

01:33:03 ◼   ► - Congratulations PlayStation.

01:33:05 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:33:06 ◼   ► - The worst gadget that we've used this year

01:33:08 ◼   ► is an interesting correlation between the two.

01:33:13 ◼   ► So I've picked the LG G Watch,

01:33:17 ◼   ► which is one of the first Android Wear devices.

01:33:20 ◼   ► Kind of my main problems with the G Watch is that it's ugly.

01:33:25 ◼   ► It's just a kind of like a rectangular thing,

01:33:28 ◼   ► like slab of thing.

01:33:30 ◼   ► There were some really nice things about it, I think, that there was some stuff about Android

01:33:34 ◼   ► Wear which is very interesting, at a time where they were kind of like the front runner

01:33:40 ◼   ► in showing their hand what a graphical user interface could look like on a wrist device.

01:33:48 ◼   ► That really kind of deeply ties into your phone.

01:33:51 ◼   ► But the problem itself, I think, was the device.

01:33:54 ◼   ► There were so many weird things about it.

01:33:57 ◼   ► I think that I was, I think I spoke about this on connected.

01:34:01 ◼   ► Is it connected or the prompt?

01:34:04 ◼   ► I can't remember, but I'll find the episode where I spoke about it at length

01:34:06 ◼   ► and put it in the show notes.

01:34:08 ◼   ► There were just weird things about it, like when I had to reset it

01:34:11 ◼   ► and I had to like read all these like manuals and documentation

01:34:15 ◼   ► to find out that I had to like

01:34:17 ◼   ► put this little pin into a thing in the back to turn it off.

01:34:21 ◼   ► It was just this weird.

01:34:23 ◼   ► It was just so many weird things about it.

01:34:25 ◼   ► The charging cradle drove me crazy.

01:34:27 ◼   ► it didn't get good battery life, the screen resolution was poor, it kind of just wasn't

01:34:34 ◼   ► a device that is good.

01:34:37 ◼   ► Yeah and really quickly, I only used it or handled it momentarily, but I think the Moto

01:34:45 ◼   ► 360, which my friend, good friend Andy Anako has found lots of great things about it and

01:34:51 ◼   ► that's fine.

01:34:52 ◼   ► I think the Android Wear watches are all very interesting.

01:34:54 ◼   ► My problem with the Moto 360 is it makes a big deal about being round and it's actually

01:34:59 ◼   ► the flat tire where the bottom is not part of the screen and so it's not round, it's

01:35:03 ◼   ► roundish with a flat thing at the bottom and I just make me a design snob I guess.

01:35:09 ◼   ► If you're gonna make a round watch it should be round.

01:35:11 ◼   ► It should really be round.

01:35:12 ◼   ► It should not be round with a thing cut off on the bottom.

01:35:15 ◼   ► I think that's stupid.

01:35:16 ◼   ► So do better.

01:35:18 ◼   ► Boo.

01:35:19 ◼   ► Uh, yeah.

01:35:23 ◼   ► I mean, I don't really subscribe to the annoyance of the roundness, or calling it a 360.

01:35:32 ◼   ► I think that, for me, I always felt that that kind of worked, and their reasoning for why it isn't perfectly round kind of made sense to me, that the display drivers went there.

01:35:40 ◼   ► See, that's not a good... yeah. Oh, gee. We made a round watch, but we couldn't really make it round because we couldn't get the hardware to do it.

01:35:47 ◼   ► Well, guess what? Then don't do it. I think. I just think that is a bad excuse.

01:35:52 ◼   ► I think if you're going to make a product that's round, it should be round.

01:35:55 ◼   ► I can't not look at that product and see the flat tire now. I just can't.

01:35:59 ◼   ► And a round smartwatch is not a bad idea. I'm actually a little disappointed that

01:36:03 ◼   ► Apple couldn't make it work and that their watch is going to be

01:36:06 ◼   ► rectangular. But that's the brakes. But I think I feel like,

01:36:10 ◼   ► yeah, I just can't take it. That round watch that's not round,

01:36:14 ◼   ► just it kills me. Again, I totally agree that this is completely just a surface thing but

01:36:20 ◼   ► I would rather explore an Android Wear watch that was not round that was owning its shape

01:36:27 ◼   ► I guess. But it's fine. We can move on. There are better things to talk about in this upgrade.

01:36:33 ◼   ► Or do we have to pick one? I'll give you the LG G Watch if you want. That's fine. I don't

01:36:37 ◼   ► care.

01:36:38 ◼   ► I think I would say the G Watch because they both suffer from some of the same problems

01:36:41 ◼   ► but the 360 looks better where it doesn't look perfect.

01:36:44 ◼   ► I agree, I agree. I like the look and then there's just the

01:36:48 ◼   ► sad trombone when you see the flat tire. But we'll go with the G Watch.

01:36:51 ◼   ► Congratulations LG. Check your spam filter for your worst gadget award.

01:36:57 ◼   ► UpgradingOz wanted to suggest our favorite tech story of the year and I

01:37:03 ◼   ► think for me I've been thinking about this because we're putting together a

01:37:06 ◼   ► kind of a look back across the year on connected that we're doing this week.

01:37:11 ◼   ► And I was thinking about what is not necessarily my favorite acquisition,

01:37:17 ◼   ► there's lots of those, you know, what's my favorite gadget release? But I think for

01:37:22 ◼   ► me, I think my favorite story of the year that happened within our space was

01:37:27 ◼   ► when Tim Cook wrote his fantastic editorial for Business Week and where he

01:37:31 ◼   ► came out as being gay. I just think that it was so inspirational and just there

01:37:39 ◼   ► so many you know things that I would want to quote time and time again

01:37:43 ◼   ► forever and ever from this piece that I just think of just so fantastic and he

01:37:48 ◼   ► had and I genuinely and you know you shouldn't have to feel this way but I

01:37:52 ◼   ► have such respect for him for his courage in doing this and for his like

01:37:58 ◼   ► screw you attitude for the world that you know where there are so many people

01:38:04 ◼   ► in the world there are so many people unfortunately in America that would have

01:38:07 ◼   ► a problem with this and would then you know there may be people that don't ever

01:38:11 ◼   ► want to buy Apple products again now because of this but he decided he wanted

01:38:16 ◼   ► to do it and I'm sure he had to really convince the board but he decided and I

01:38:20 ◼   ► genuinely believe a lot of this came from him he decided that he wanted to do

01:38:24 ◼   ► this because he thought it was important for the world and and I think that it is

01:38:29 ◼   ► and I think this did the kind of what this what this has the effect this will

01:38:35 ◼   ► have on young people I think is so powerful and I think that it actually--

01:38:41 ◼   ► this is more than anything Tim Cook will ever do--this is him leaving the world in

01:38:45 ◼   ► a better place than when he came to it. So that's why it's my favorite story of

01:38:49 ◼   ► the year. Yeah, it's--that's a really great choice and yeah this is--I mean

01:38:58 ◼   ► there's more here that we could we could go on forever about this. I feel like

01:39:01 ◼   ► Like there was a lot of conversation, especially when I think Gawker or Valleywag did a story

01:39:07 ◼   ► about Tim Cook being gay a couple years ago, and there was a reaction of like, "Why are

01:39:11 ◼   ► you pulling this guy out of the closet if he wants to be in the closet?

01:39:15 ◼   ► Let it be his business."

01:39:17 ◼   ► And although I understand that and subscribe to that at the time, I think the complexity

01:39:23 ◼   ► of this issue is, well this showed what the value is of letting somebody choose their

01:39:30 ◼   ► time and place because he was able to eloquently describe his situation and he did that by

01:39:35 ◼   ► choosing to talk about it when he wanted to talk about it. I do think that there is something

01:39:41 ◼   ► to the argument that, you know, at the same time it is, I don't know, it's almost like

01:39:47 ◼   ► an idealistic argument. It shouldn't be a big deal, but it's a big deal, you know, and

01:39:53 ◼   ► no it shouldn't be a big deal, and with each one of these kinds of stories it becomes less

01:39:57 ◼   ► of a big deal. And so the good thing is that Tim Cook is out and it matters less than it

01:40:02 ◼   ► did even a couple years ago, but it still matters and it's chipping away and changing

01:40:07 ◼   ► the way our society views these issues and I think that's great. And it was a beautiful

01:40:12 ◼   ► moment. So although there's a whole conversation to be had about this, I think one of the things

01:40:16 ◼   ► that I've learned in the last few years is this is a complicated question of privacy

01:40:24 ◼   ► and defending your own personal privacy versus staying in the closet.

01:40:31 ◼   ► It's a really painful, complicated issue and it's really also not an issue that I deal

01:40:36 ◼   ► with personally and so it's very hard to talk about it from the outside.

01:40:41 ◼   ► But I think what's great about this story is that by choosing his time and his method

01:40:49 ◼   ► Business Week. Tim Cook got to say it in the way that he wanted to say it and I

01:40:54 ◼   ► think it had a powerful effect and that is what's great about this story. So I'm

01:41:00 ◼   ► happy to acclaim this. I was taking a different tack when I saw Tech's story and

01:41:03 ◼   ► your story wasn't in here. I was thinking of like an individual story that I liked

01:41:07 ◼   ► this year. So I will mention that and then I will acclaim your choice as the

01:41:11 ◼   ► winner here. One of my favorite individual Tech's stories this

01:41:15 ◼   ► year was by Matt Honan at Wired, he's now at Buzzfeed, but he was at Wired when he wrote

01:41:20 ◼   ► this, called "I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook for Two Days, Here's What It Did

01:41:23 ◼   ► to Me," which is a wonderful, ridiculous experiment about how Facebook adjusts what you see based

01:41:30 ◼   ► on you liking things. And it was funny and informative and sort of very much what Matt

01:41:37 ◼   ► Honan does the best. And I enjoyed that story a lot as a single sort of bit of tech journalism

01:41:43 ◼   ► for the year but you know Tim Cook's story not quite journalism but a I think it's fair

01:41:49 ◼   ► to say that that was the link of the year so good job Myke.

01:41:52 ◼   ► Thank you I haven't read that Matt Honan piece but I will now.

01:41:56 ◼   ► It's funny and I actually I am a Facebook friend of Matt Honan and so I watched as this

01:42:02 ◼   ► happened horrified by what was happening to Matt liking everything he saw.

01:42:07 ◼   ► Literally it reinforces the like oh you liked that now we're gonna show you this yes I like

01:42:10 ◼   ► that too well now we're gonna show you this yes I like that too and it's

01:42:15 ◼   ► horrifying so anyway if you ever heard of or read the book yes man it was

01:42:20 ◼   ► turned into a movie that Jim Carrey starred in oh yeah yeah yeah yeah

01:42:23 ◼   ► reminds me of that basically a British writer comedian radio presenter and

01:42:29 ◼   ► producer called Danny Wallace basically for an entire year said yes to

01:42:34 ◼   ► everything it's one of my favorite books I love cool and it was yeah it's a very

01:42:40 ◼   ► similar kind of idea yeah sort of made me think of all right we're getting into

01:42:44 ◼   ► my favorite part of the show now Myke okay so we are now into the favorite

01:42:50 ◼   ► text grew up oh this is gonna be good so I don't know how we're gonna choose I

01:42:59 ◼   ► I think you I think I would give you the anyway so I was hovering with this topic

01:43:05 ◼   ► but for me I kind of I thought about what is maybe the thing that the company that created this

01:43:12 ◼   ► thought would get the biggest fanfare but actually failed the most catastrophically and I think it's

01:43:18 ◼   ► the Amazon Fire phone. Amazon made such a great hoo-ha about this phone and they had their teaser

01:43:27 ◼   ► videos and they had like a jobs-esque presentation and the presentation was quite good and there were

01:43:33 ◼   ► things that came out of it that looked very interesting. Also any

01:43:37 ◼   ► Jeff Bezos presentation is good because there are charts with no numbers

01:43:41 ◼   ► on them, just lines going up, the Bezos charts which are beautiful.

01:43:45 ◼   ► Just random axes. Yes. It could actually be, you know, the chart could be

01:43:51 ◼   ► demonstrating how much money they lose and it's just like an

01:43:54 ◼   ► increasing number. Look how this chart goes up! The chart goes up, it's really good.

01:43:59 ◼   ► or how many Kindles are returned every year?

01:44:02 ◼   ► The Amazon Fire Phone, I think as we speak today,

01:44:07 ◼   ► like they were selling it for like a buck, I think.

01:44:10 ◼   ► - With contract, but this is the brand new,

01:44:13 ◼   ► top of the line, amazing, blow your mind,

01:44:15 ◼   ► Amazon Fire Phone and they're just trying

01:44:16 ◼   ► to unload them now, yeah.

01:44:18 ◼   ► - And just like across the board,

01:44:20 ◼   ► it has been terribly reviewed

01:44:23 ◼   ► and I think Amazon have even said

01:44:25 ◼   ► that it kind of like,

01:44:26 ◼   ► it didn't do what they thought it was gonna do.

01:44:28 ◼   ► I think Bezos said in an interview, well, you know, we do the first version and then

01:44:31 ◼   ► we learn from it and we do the next version, which is true because the first Kindle was

01:44:35 ◼   ► terrible too and they just kept on going and maybe they'll get it right.

01:44:40 ◼   ► There's a fundamental premise here, which is does Amazon need to make a phone?

01:44:43 ◼   ► Are people so tied?

01:44:44 ◼   ► I mean, I'm an Amazon customer, just maybe not just as much as an Apple person, but I'm

01:44:48 ◼   ► in the Amazon ecosystem too.

01:44:50 ◼   ► I'm a Prime subscriber.

01:44:51 ◼   ► I love Amazon.

01:44:52 ◼   ► I buy a bunch of stuff from them and I'm a Kindle user too.

01:44:55 ◼   ► And I look at the Fire Phone and I'm like, why?

01:44:57 ◼   ► No, never.

01:44:58 ◼   ► - Just make good apps, like just make a range of good apps.

01:45:01 ◼   ► You don't need to make a phone.

01:45:04 ◼   ► Like you barely need to make a tablet.

01:45:06 ◼   ► So you definitely don't need to make a phone, it's stupid.

01:45:10 ◼   ► It's silly, Amazon, just stop it, stop that.

01:45:14 ◼   ► Jason, what do you have?

01:45:15 ◼   ► - Well, it's hard to be bad.

01:45:19 ◼   ► I'm gonna go a little bit broader and say

01:45:21 ◼   ► that my favorite tech screw up this year was Uber,

01:45:23 ◼   ► screwing up everything.

01:45:27 ◼   ► There is no end to the number of things Uber screwed up this year, but a few highlights.

01:45:30 ◼   ► They, at a, and this is a joke, at an off-the-record dinner, which should not exist, and in fact

01:45:40 ◼   ► was, a journalist was there and was not put off the record and therefore reported it,

01:45:45 ◼   ► an Uber executive talked about how they were going to investigate the private lives of

01:45:51 ◼   ► journalists who had been critical of them in order to counteract their negative coverage,

01:45:57 ◼   ► which is pretty awful and scary.

01:46:01 ◼   ► We also discovered several instances where Uber employees or even prospective employees

01:46:06 ◼   ► in the Uber offices were able to access personal travel records for celebrities and other people

01:46:12 ◼   ► and find out where they were going to and from at what various times.

01:46:16 ◼   ► So that's kind of awful.

01:46:18 ◼   ► So many bad things about Uber.

01:46:21 ◼   ► I think my favorite Uber story though is also the fact that they did, they've gotten so

01:46:26 ◼   ► criticized for surge pricing, which on one level makes sense economically, but on another

01:46:31 ◼   ► level comes across to people as just sort of horrendous gouging.

01:46:35 ◼   ► The highlight of which was during the hostage siege in Sydney, Australia, Uber tweeted specifically

01:46:43 ◼   ► that they were helping everybody out by sending more cars to downtown Sydney so that people

01:46:47 ◼   ► could flee and surge pricing was in effect. So, "Hey everybody, we just tripled the

01:46:51 ◼   ► price of all of your rides to get out of town where there's a hostage situation going on,

01:46:55 ◼   ► but there will be lots of cars there for you to pay us." Just bet, I mean this is one of

01:46:59 ◼   ► those, I mean just, it's just not that all the things they did were bad this year, but

01:47:05 ◼   ► the way they did them and the way their reputation has grown, just a spectacular failure by them.

01:47:13 ◼   ► and time will tell whether it affects them.

01:47:16 ◼   ► My gut feeling is that it will open the door

01:47:19 ◼   ► for some competition,

01:47:21 ◼   ► where there are gonna be enough people who are like,

01:47:24 ◼   ► let's try something that isn't Uber and see how that goes.

01:47:27 ◼   ► They're pretty well entrenched

01:47:28 ◼   ► and their attitude has served them well up to now,

01:47:30 ◼   ► but I do wonder if perhaps this will lead to something

01:47:34 ◼   ► that looks like Lyft,

01:47:36 ◼   ► their competition with the silly pink mustaches

01:47:38 ◼   ► has gotten much more serious

01:47:39 ◼   ► and is dropping the mustaches

01:47:41 ◼   ► and some of the fist bumping

01:47:42 ◼   ► and other weird things they're doing,

01:47:43 ◼   ► and trying to actually take it to Uber.

01:47:45 ◼   ► And I hope they succeed,

01:47:46 ◼   ► because Uber has been very, very bad.

01:47:50 ◼   ► - The fact that I just Googled and found

01:47:52 ◼   ► a TechCrunch listicle about Uber's worst screw-ups

01:47:56 ◼   ► of the year.

01:47:57 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:47:58 ◼   ► - 18 worst screw-ups.

01:48:00 ◼   ► - There's 11, there's 11, 11 slides.

01:48:02 ◼   ► - It was that kind of year.

01:48:04 ◼   ► - I will give this to Uber,

01:48:05 ◼   ► just because at the start of the year,

01:48:07 ◼   ► they're a darling, at the end of the year,

01:48:09 ◼   ► they are like the most revered company on the internet.

01:48:13 ◼   ► People hate them.

01:48:15 ◼   ► - Yes, you mean reviled, I think.

01:48:17 ◼   ► - That's what I meant.

01:48:18 ◼   ► Well, I can say revered, but it's wrong, I meant reviled.

01:48:20 ◼   ► - Is that a Britishism, revered means reviled?

01:48:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's spelled differently.

01:48:25 ◼   ► It's spelled R-E-V-I-L-E-D, revered.

01:48:29 ◼   ► - With a U in there somewhere.

01:48:30 ◼   ► Okay, got it, got it.

01:48:32 ◼   ► - We have three awards now, which I've been excited about,

01:48:36 ◼   ► looking forward to, about podcasts.

01:48:38 ◼   ► - Mm, podcasts.

01:48:40 ◼   ► - First off, this is suggested to us by our gradient, Dan.

01:48:45 ◼   ► Our favorite non-tech podcast of the year

01:48:48 ◼   ► could not be Serial.

01:48:50 ◼   ► - Right.

01:48:51 ◼   ► - I actually probably wouldn't have given it to Serial

01:48:53 ◼   ► in the end anyway.

01:48:55 ◼   ► I very much enjoyed Serial, but--

01:48:57 ◼   ► - I did too.

01:48:58 ◼   ► - I think it fizzled out a little bit for me.

01:49:00 ◼   ► And I started to feel a bit bad about it, just in general.

01:49:03 ◼   ► A show that I came to this year,

01:49:08 ◼   ► and I adore, adore, adore is Hello Internet

01:49:11 ◼   ► by CGP Grey and Brady Haran.

01:49:14 ◼   ► So much so that I have kind of listened to every episode.

01:49:19 ◼   ► I came in about, maybe about halfway through at the point

01:49:22 ◼   ► where I started listening.

01:49:23 ◼   ► And I kind of went back and listened to every episode

01:49:27 ◼   ► that I'd missed.

01:49:29 ◼   ► And I've actually then gone back

01:49:31 ◼   ► and listened halfway through again all in the same year.

01:49:34 ◼   ► It's just pure entertainment for me.

01:49:35 ◼   ► I love it so much.

01:49:37 ◼   ► it's I think the closest thing to hypercritical,

01:49:41 ◼   ► since hypercritical.

01:49:42 ◼   ► And that was how the show was actually described to me

01:49:45 ◼   ► by a friend of the show, _DavidSmith.

01:49:49 ◼   ► You know, he said like, "CGP Grey is maybe the closest

01:49:53 ◼   ► "to John Siracusa in his meticulousness

01:49:56 ◼   ► "and the comedy that ensues because of it."

01:49:58 ◼   ► I really just suggest that people go to hellointernet.fm

01:50:06 ◼   ► and kind of just look through the descriptions

01:50:08 ◼   ► of the episodes, find the one that you think

01:50:10 ◼   ► might appeal to you most and listen to it.

01:50:12 ◼   ► Because the show kind of,

01:50:14 ◼   ► it doesn't really follow news that much.

01:50:17 ◼   ► Any news that does follow, the discussions

01:50:20 ◼   ► that come from it are not tied to the news.

01:50:23 ◼   ► And it's also, it's a really interesting look

01:50:25 ◼   ► into a different world.

01:50:27 ◼   ► Gray and Brady are both YouTube stars.

01:50:31 ◼   ► So they talk about a lot of the things

01:50:33 ◼   ► that happen in the YouTube world,

01:50:35 ◼   ► which we don't really hear about in our little tech bubble.

01:50:38 ◼   ► And I love, I absolutely adore this podcast

01:50:42 ◼   ► and I think everybody should listen to it

01:50:43 ◼   ► and it's just an absolute favorite.

01:50:46 ◼   ► And it's actually just my favorite podcast, period.

01:50:51 ◼   ► And it's my favorite non-tech podcast.

01:50:54 ◼   ► - So they talk about the YouTube world

01:50:55 ◼   ► but it's not a tech podcast.

01:50:57 ◼   ► - Well, no, it's not.

01:51:01 ◼   ► I mean, they talk about the things

01:51:02 ◼   ► that happen in their lives.

01:51:04 ◼   ► It's that's what it's about.

01:51:05 ◼   ► like it's a lot of it is framed around the fact that they do things for YouTube

01:51:09 ◼   ► so they talk about creating videos but they don't talk about the technical

01:51:12 ◼   ► stuff about them like a lot of it is just like what happens in their lives

01:51:15 ◼   ► and sometimes they talk about iPhones but then sometimes they talk about plane

01:51:19 ◼   ► crashes and something you know it's it's like it is like the epitome of two dudes

01:51:24 ◼   ► talking because they just talk about anything like it's a great episode where

01:51:27 ◼   ► they talk about the flags of the United States of America which was what I think

01:51:31 ◼   ► think Myke the first episode that I listened to and it's hilarious and

01:51:38 ◼   ► really really excellent so I you know I would maybe suggest that one I'm gonna

01:51:43 ◼   ► find it and put it in the show notes but yeah that that that was I think my first

01:51:47 ◼   ► episode and I loved it I loved it a lot I've got one on my overcast I just

01:51:53 ◼   ► haven't listened yet so I will listen should so my choice is not gonna come as

01:51:57 ◼   ► surprise I've said repeatedly that this is my favorite podcast, period. My favorite

01:52:02 ◼   ► podcast is The Flop House which is a comedy podcast about three fellows who

01:52:08 ◼   ► watch a bad movie before they record the episode and then immediately they then

01:52:13 ◼   ► turn on the microphones and talk about what they've just seen and the rule is

01:52:17 ◼   ► that the movie should, with some rare exceptions, it should be a movie that's

01:52:24 ◼   ► recently available on video and that was a flop either critically or financially

01:52:28 ◼   ► or both and hence the name the flop house and the the flop house people are

01:52:34 ◼   ► very funny the two of them are writers for the Daily Show one of them is the

01:52:39 ◼   ► head writer for the Daily Show they are also getting into comic book writing the

01:52:43 ◼   ► head writer for the Daily Show Elliot Kaelin he is also writing the new comic

01:52:47 ◼   ► spider-man and the x-men which is pretty funny because if there's anybody who can

01:52:51 ◼   ► nail Spider-Man's really annoying humor it's Elliot Kaelin because he's that guy

01:52:57 ◼   ► he would be if he was Spider-Man he would be making the same stupid jokes

01:53:00 ◼   ► that Spider-Man should make anyway it's it's great it's funny it comes from

01:53:05 ◼   ► recommended by John Syracuse I think it went from John to me and then from both

01:53:10 ◼   ► of us to Merlin Mann and everybody speaks the good word about the flophouse

01:53:14 ◼   ► but it is legitimately my favorite podcast I think I think before the

01:53:20 ◼   ► Flop House, my favorite podcast, was probably hypercritical but it's the Flop House now.

01:53:26 ◼   ► It's just hilarious and you don't need to have seen the movie.

01:53:29 ◼   ► In fact, I recommend you don't see the movies because they're really awful and listening

01:53:33 ◼   ► to funny people go on tangents and also just demolish the terrible things about this movie

01:53:38 ◼   ► that they just saw.

01:53:41 ◼   ► There's nothing better.

01:53:42 ◼   ► It's every other week and on Saturdays it gets posted and it's a must listen as soon

01:53:47 ◼   ► as it comes out.

01:53:48 ◼   ► I love it.

01:53:49 ◼   ► house the flop house is one of those shows that I have tried to get into a

01:53:55 ◼   ► bunch of times but just haven't mm-hmm don't start from the beginning no

01:54:00 ◼   ► matter what John Saracusa says you got to start and start in the middle

01:54:03 ◼   ► somewhere Merlin has a list of episodes that are worth starting with but I love

01:54:08 ◼   ► it I gotta say I love it so I think we're a real problem here yeah I think

01:54:14 ◼   ► think so cuz I I won't allow I'm not gonna give this one to you yeah I'm not

01:54:21 ◼   ► gonna I'm not gonna give this one to you so we're kind of a hmm we're we're a

01:54:28 ◼   ► point where we we have to have the chat room vote on this so this is between

01:54:34 ◼   ► hello internet and the flop house I think the problem that I have here is

01:54:41 ◼   ► Merlin. I think Merlin is my problem because I think people listen to what

01:54:49 ◼   ► Merlin says. You should listen to what Merlin says. That's fine for the flop house.

01:54:53 ◼   ► That's fine for Merlin and it's fine for you. I think that's how that saying goes.

01:54:56 ◼   ► Do you know where I can find Merlin's list of episode? Joe Steele in the chat

01:55:02 ◼   ► room is pointing out, "Bullet to the Head" is probably the episode to start with.

01:55:05 ◼   ► Okay. "Mirrors" is another great one to start with with a flop house. Okay. So it

01:55:10 ◼   ► It is the flophouse, the flophouse is one.

01:55:14 ◼   ► And Dented Meat is asking in the chatroom why don't start at the beginning, even though

01:55:19 ◼   ► Syracuse says they had so many technical problems at the beginning and actually Elliot doesn't

01:55:23 ◼   ► even become a host until about 10 episodes in that early flophouses are, as somebody

01:55:28 ◼   ► in the chatroom said, it's just literally just buzzing sounds.

01:55:32 ◼   ► They sound terrible.

01:55:34 ◼   ► So I would start, you know, I would start, I don't know where, like I would sample those

01:55:38 ◼   ► episodes, Bullet to the Head, Mirrors, those are two good examples, and then go from there

01:55:42 ◼   ► and maybe you dip back to like number 20 or 25.

01:55:45 ◼   ► But I think the early episodes are really rough sledding.

01:55:49 ◼   ► I would not recommend them.

01:55:50 ◼   ► And you can start a little bit later and get most of the jokes and it's fine.

01:55:54 ◼   ► I'm adding The Flophouse and those episodes to my overcast because if you guys are gonna

01:56:03 ◼   ► make me lose this.

01:56:05 ◼   ► If you're gonna not like it, you need to do the full-on commit to trying it and then you

01:56:09 ◼   ► can not like it.

01:56:10 ◼   ► It's okay to not like it, but...

01:56:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:56:12 ◼   ► Episode 34 and episode 133.

01:56:17 ◼   ► There you go.

01:56:18 ◼   ► So we got a...

01:56:19 ◼   ► Try those.

01:56:20 ◼   ► A big, a big yap there.

01:56:21 ◼   ► But I'm gonna go with it and I'm sad, but congratulations to the Flop House for taking

01:56:29 ◼   ► the award there.

01:56:30 ◼   ► Yay!

01:56:31 ◼   ► And they can also check their spam filters for...

01:56:34 ◼   ► - Yes, Dan McCoy, check your spam filter.

01:56:37 ◼   ► - Talking about checking spam filters, Jason,

01:56:39 ◼   ► our next award, which is gonna be

01:56:44 ◼   ► for our favorite tech podcast of the year,

01:56:46 ◼   ► is brought to us by our friends at MailRoute.

01:56:49 ◼   ► Jason, take it away.

01:56:51 ◼   ► - I love talking about MailRoute

01:56:53 ◼   ► because I do use MailRoute and Myke doesn't,

01:56:55 ◼   ► so he can't talk about it and I can.

01:56:57 ◼   ► What an opportunity.

01:56:58 ◼   ► MailRoute is a service that lets you live life

01:57:02 ◼   ► without spam or viruses or bounced email in your inbox.

01:57:06 ◼   ► It sits between your mail server and the internet,

01:57:09 ◼   ► takes in all the mail,

01:57:10 ◼   ► and then uses its really intelligent filtering

01:57:12 ◼   ► to filter out the junk.

01:57:13 ◼   ► And it really does a very good job.

01:57:15 ◼   ► You only see legitimate mail that comes through.

01:57:18 ◼   ► You don't have to use client-side spam software.

01:57:20 ◼   ► I use it even though I've also got Gmail's filter

01:57:23 ◼   ► because I think it does a really good job.

01:57:25 ◼   ► And then Gmail's filter ends up catching a mailing list

01:57:28 ◼   ► that I didn't realize that I subscribed to,

01:57:30 ◼   ► which is also good, I guess.

01:57:32 ◼   ► but I like the mail route is out there.

01:57:33 ◼   ► It's really easily configurable for me as a regular person.

01:57:36 ◼   ► If you're an email administrator or IT professional,

01:57:39 ◼   ► it's great for you too.

01:57:40 ◼   ► They've got all the tools that you might want.

01:57:42 ◼   ► There's an API for account management,

01:57:44 ◼   ► supports the whole checklist of things you love,

01:57:47 ◼   ► like LDAP, Active Directory, TLS, Outbound Relay,

01:57:50 ◼   ► and Myke's favorite mail bagging.

01:57:51 ◼   ► - Mail bagging.

01:57:53 ◼   ► - Everything you want from people

01:57:54 ◼   ► who are handling your mail.

01:57:55 ◼   ► No hardware or software to maintain.

01:57:57 ◼   ► Like I said, it lives in the cloud.

01:57:58 ◼   ► It's a server up there in the cloud,

01:58:00 ◼   ► and then it delivers clean mail to your inbox.

01:58:04 ◼   ► Easy to set up, reliable,

01:58:05 ◼   ► trusted by large universities and corporations.

01:58:09 ◼   ► I love the fact that I get a little email every day

01:58:11 ◼   ► that says here's the mail we filtered out

01:58:13 ◼   ► and I can look at it very quickly

01:58:14 ◼   ► and click on a link if I want it to whitelist

01:58:16 ◼   ► and deliver a message from somebody who shouldn't be on it.

01:58:19 ◼   ► So if I see Myke Hurley is in there

01:58:21 ◼   ► and it's something about the upgradees

01:58:23 ◼   ► and I didn't even know that was an award

01:58:25 ◼   ► but maybe I actually won it

01:58:26 ◼   ► and maybe this isn't somebody claiming

01:58:28 ◼   ► to be a Nigerian prince giving me an award

01:58:30 ◼   ► if I transfer a million dollars into his bank account, I can click that link in my email.

01:58:34 ◼   ► The message will be delivered and all future messages from Myke will also be delivered

01:58:37 ◼   ► because he'll be added to the whitelist. I don't advise that you add Myke to your whitelist.

01:58:43 ◼   ► That could be dangerous because he may send you things. Anyway, if you want to remove

01:58:47 ◼   ► spam for your life, if this sounds good, try it out. Go to mailroute.net/upgrade. You get

01:58:51 ◼   ► a free trial and if you decide to buy 10% off of MailRoute for the lifetime of your

01:58:58 ◼   ► account so mailroute.net/upgrade and thank you so much to MailRoute for being a good

01:59:03 ◼   ► friend and sponsoring Upgrade.

01:59:08 ◼   ► So we are now onto our favorite tech podcast of the year.

01:59:12 ◼   ► This was suggested to us by Gary.

01:59:14 ◼   ► He wanted us to talk specifically about our favorite tech shows.

01:59:18 ◼   ► I just think you can't beat the Accidental Tech Podcast.

01:59:22 ◼   ► I think that it's as good as a tech podcast in 2014 could be.

01:59:30 ◼   ► I agree with you.

01:59:31 ◼   ► It has the mix of hosts that everybody wants.

01:59:35 ◼   ► They have what I consider to be the three great archetypes now, where you have the person

01:59:43 ◼   ► who's more the user, you have the extreme power user, and then you kind of have the

01:59:49 ◼   ► power user.

01:59:51 ◼   ► And I think that that really works.

01:59:55 ◼   ► 'Cause what you're doing is you're meeting all people

01:59:58 ◼   ► in that scenario.

02:00:00 ◼   ► Sometimes it's a little too heavy on the tech for me

02:00:04 ◼   ► and developer stuff because I don't understand any of it.

02:00:09 ◼   ► Like this week's episode, a huge portion of it

02:00:12 ◼   ► is about things that I literally have no idea

02:00:16 ◼   ► what anybody's saying.

02:00:18 ◼   ► But the great thing about ATP is I still love

02:00:21 ◼   ► listen to it and and that is what that's why I know this show is good because

02:00:27 ◼   ► they can they can literally be talking gobbledygook to me but I still want to

02:00:33 ◼   ► listen and then you have incredible moments like the windows of Syracuse

02:00:37 ◼   ► County the after show of episode 96 is potentially the best that the show has

02:00:43 ◼   ► ever been and you should listen to it because it is hilarious fantastic an ATP

02:00:50 ◼   ► they are approaching a hundred episodes and it's as good as it's ever been if

02:00:55 ◼   ► not better I think that they put a great amount of work care into the show and it

02:01:00 ◼   ► shines every week and it's an absolute joy I agree with you I decided that I'm

02:01:06 ◼   ► going to nominate somebody and then switch my vote to you because that's

02:01:09 ◼   ► what's gonna happen because I think a TV is the best but I want to I want to

02:01:11 ◼   ► throw in we can't nominate anything that we are ourselves a podcasting about so I

02:01:16 ◼   ► I am going to nominate Analog featuring Myke Hurley and Casey Liss of Accidental Tech Podcast.

02:01:22 ◼   ► Who would have thought that Casey would be considered the greatest tech podcaster by

02:01:27 ◼   ► default now?

02:01:28 ◼   ► Who the hell is Casey?

02:01:32 ◼   ► It is a tech podcast that's also not a tech podcast and what I like is the premise which

02:01:35 ◼   ► is that you're talking about feelings and being a human being, dealing with things that

02:01:41 ◼   ► come up and emerge from technology issues in various ways.

02:01:45 ◼   ► I love that as a premise and I think you guys handle those issues incredibly well.

02:01:51 ◼   ► And there have been many good episodes.

02:01:53 ◼   ► I encourage people to look back on and check out some of the episodes in the catalog for

02:01:58 ◼   ► analog because it's not just a session of podcasting as therapy, although it can be

02:02:04 ◼   ► that, but it's more than that.

02:02:06 ◼   ► And I think we as tech podcasters give short shrift sometimes to the human element, the

02:02:15 ◼   ► emotional element of how this thing impacts our broader lives, how these different aspects

02:02:21 ◼   ► do.

02:02:22 ◼   ► And I think Analog helps give you a little window into that.

02:02:26 ◼   ► I also put out a shout out to The Rebound, which is a new podcast featuring Lex Friedman

02:02:30 ◼   ► and Dan Morin and Jon Moltz, which is short and fun and funny and not on any podcasting

02:02:37 ◼   ► networks you have to go find it, but it's good and you should listen to it because those

02:02:42 ◼   ► guys are really funny.

02:02:44 ◼   ► whilst we're doing this I will also make a shout for the clock for clockwise as

02:02:48 ◼   ► well because it's so different more than anything else more than the content or

02:02:53 ◼   ► how great you guys are because it's it's unlike any other texture that you listen

02:02:58 ◼   ► to because of its restrictions and that makes it quite interesting and plus it's

02:03:03 ◼   ► you're gonna get 30 minutes which I mean as rare approach as we're into two hours

02:03:08 ◼   ► now. There aren't a lot of tech podcasts that have that respect for your time.

02:03:14 ◼   ► We would only go over 30 minutes if it was an end-of-year

02:03:19 ◼   ► episode that was completely off format, but otherwise you'll find that every

02:03:24 ◼   ► episode is 30 minutes long. That's a hint about this week's episode.

02:03:27 ◼   ► There is one quick thing I want to say about upgrade.

02:03:32 ◼   ► Tell me more! Oh, we forgot about that! The winner!

02:03:38 ◼   ► analog we spoke about on this week's episode episode 20 and it's the after

02:03:44 ◼   ► show right at the end and then me and Casey have this conversation sometimes

02:03:47 ◼   ► that do we worry that we're too honest on the show because one of the main

02:03:52 ◼   ► things that I am concerned about and another cases as well that people come

02:03:55 ◼   ► away from that show thinking that we're not very nice people that's a concern

02:03:59 ◼   ► that I have and it's because of the honesty that we have and and and some

02:04:03 ◼   ► people I know stop listening to show because they think that we're too self

02:04:06 ◼   ► involved but like that's kind of what the show is about we are being honest

02:04:11 ◼   ► about ourselves and it kind of has to be that way and one of the things to say is

02:04:16 ◼   ► we talk about the things that many people who have a platform of any kind

02:04:22 ◼   ► consider to be taboo you don't talk about the things that we talk about and

02:04:27 ◼   ► that's why I I love making the show why I actually think that it's a very

02:04:31 ◼   ► important show and some of the episodes that I do on that of that show are some

02:04:35 ◼   ► of the best stuff that I do I think because I kind of lay it all bare.

02:04:39 ◼   ► Well the episode with Stephen Hackett where he was talking about talking about dealing

02:04:44 ◼   ► with his son's cancer.

02:04:48 ◼   ► Just amazing right I mean just it was a great episode and in case he talking about you know

02:04:54 ◼   ► fears that he has for his child and you know I if every podcast were that yes it would

02:05:00 ◼   ► be a problem because it would be like oh my god it is every podcast is therapy now.

02:05:05 ◼   ► but having a podcast like that with room to talk about those issues

02:05:08 ◼   ► I'm really glad that podcast exists and again if it were every podcast I would

02:05:11 ◼   ► not

02:05:12 ◼   ► say that but it's not it's an outlier and I like it because

02:05:15 ◼   ► it's an outlier. Are we gonna decide an ATP?

02:05:18 ◼   ► Yeah. So congratulations to those three. Marco, check your spam filter again.

02:05:25 ◼   ► Yeah, wow, Marco is the runaway success here.

02:05:29 ◼   ► That guy. Favorite podcast newcomer.

02:05:32 ◼   ► This is an interesting category that I wanted to add.

02:05:36 ◼   ► Jason would you like to lead off with that?

02:05:38 ◼   ► Sure, I checked the dates and in fact Isometric on 5x5 debuted this year and so I'm going

02:05:43 ◼   ► to nominate it as a favorite podcast newcomer.

02:05:46 ◼   ► It is a gaming podcast and I'm not really a gamer but partially because of what's happened

02:05:51 ◼   ► this year with Brianna Wu and being attacked by Gamergate it's become more than just a gaming

02:05:56 ◼   ► podcast but the fact is, you know, a lot of these shows it's true of anything, it's true

02:06:02 ◼   ► of a movie or certainly like a sitcom and a lot of podcasts that's true too, it's about

02:06:07 ◼   ► the cast.

02:06:08 ◼   ► It's about the people and how they interact with each other and you get a certain combination

02:06:11 ◼   ► of people together and it's just magic.

02:06:13 ◼   ► And isometric is magical.

02:06:15 ◼   ► It is when it's on it is so funny and the characters I almost said the people who are

02:06:21 ◼   ► kind of characters right they the way they interact and their inside jokes and their

02:06:27 ◼   ► dumb jokes and their laughs and all of that it is delightful to listen to even when I

02:06:32 ◼   ► I don't care so much about the subject matter.

02:06:34 ◼   ► And then they have a guest on, like John Siracusa was on the other week, and he's a listener

02:06:38 ◼   ► and so he's kind of in with what they're talking about, plus he's a gamer, and that ends up

02:06:43 ◼   ► being really amusing.

02:06:45 ◼   ► And having had Brianna on a few incomparable episodes, I also love, she's an agent of chaos,

02:06:52 ◼   ► she will like things that other people don't like, she's not afraid to make statements

02:06:56 ◼   ► that are not what the consensus is, and that leads to a lot of hilarity too.

02:07:01 ◼   ► So I think that's been a real gem of a podcast this year and it really is owed more than

02:07:06 ◼   ► anything else to the chemistry between the hosts.

02:07:09 ◼   ► It is a really enjoyable show from start to finish.

02:07:14 ◼   ► I love Isometric.

02:07:16 ◼   ► It does a bunch of things that can be terrible in podcasts but they do them so well.

02:07:22 ◼   ► Whenever they start the show there's just so much noise, you know, like everyone's screaming

02:07:26 ◼   ► and laughing.

02:07:27 ◼   ► kind of with those four it works so well.

02:07:32 ◼   ► You're just tuning into a party that a bunch of friends are having and I get that sometimes

02:07:35 ◼   ► as feedback from the incomparable.

02:07:37 ◼   ► I like listening because it sounds like it's a bunch of friends having a good time and

02:07:40 ◼   ► I think well we are and so that's good but then I want to hear it on isometric I'm like

02:07:44 ◼   ► oh yeah it's like a bunch of friends having a good time together that totally you know

02:07:47 ◼   ► that carries a lot of weight even when I don't care about the games they're talking about

02:07:50 ◼   ► or even understand what they're talking about which happens frequently.

02:07:53 ◼   ► Because it's one of those things with that type of style you can either go really really

02:07:57 ◼   ► wrong are really really right and they nail it and and I love that it's so

02:08:01 ◼   ► diverse and they actually talk about a lot of the games that I like to play as

02:08:07 ◼   ► opposed to just like what's the biggest triple-a title available right now and

02:08:12 ◼   ► they just have great fun doing it but I think for me my favorite new show of

02:08:17 ◼   ► this year and one of the reasons I give it to the show is because they it's very

02:08:23 ◼   ► rare that a new podcast from people that have never been a podcaster before from

02:08:29 ◼   ► episode one can create a show that is instantly interesting, fun and

02:08:40 ◼   ► engaging and it's defocused and I speak about this show constantly because it's

02:08:46 ◼   ► one that I think people should listen to. Defocus kind of is a mix between two

02:08:53 ◼   ► things. It is two guys, Dan and Joe, and people will know the name Joe Steele.

02:08:59 ◼   ► Joe Steele, fake name. He's one of the hosts and basically this show

02:09:05 ◼   ► is like the two of them kind of like having fun and kind of like goofing off

02:09:11 ◼   ► and poking fun at each other, crossed with movie reviews. And some of the

02:09:18 ◼   ► Christmas episodes I think have been my recent favorites. And one of the

02:09:23 ◼   ► great things about Defocus quite frequently I listen to this show and I

02:09:28 ◼   ► don't I've never seen the film that are talking about but I listen to it anyway

02:09:35 ◼   ► because this is very much the same sort of thing and you over by symmetric

02:09:39 ◼   ► because they're so entertaining to listen to oh yeah and I'm thinking of

02:09:46 ◼   ► cats per mango which is episode 21 they're tools talk about a bunch of

02:09:51 ◼   ► trailers, including the Age of Ultron trailer. That episode, I think I was nearly crying

02:09:57 ◼   ► by the end of it. They're talking about podcast CPMs, and Joe comes up with the fact that

02:10:04 ◼   ► CPM stands for Cats Per Mango, which doesn't make any sense, but it's just fantastic.

02:10:09 ◼   ► It doesn't make any less sense than what CPM actually stands for, so that's just fun.

02:10:14 ◼   ► Exactly. And they create really great show art. There's a lot of fun art. And also, these

02:10:20 ◼   ► guys they come from a different movie background so like they both work in