Do By Friday
Episode 14 artwork
Episode 14 · February 10, 2017 · 01:16:44

14. The Leakest Wink

This week's challengeCurse like a Scot.
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Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakes

AlexYou're listening to Do By Friday, the weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, Curse Like a Scott.

MerlinHello.

AlexHello Merlin, how are you?

MerlinI'm fine Alex, how are you?

AlexUh, good. Max, Max is on his way right now. Uh, but did you see Trump's latest tweet?

MerlinI think so. Let me look.

AlexAll right. Uh, Kara, Max's assistant is here. Kara, can you get on mic three? Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. He didn't know what, what he meant. Kara, can you just explain Trump's tweet for me and maybe this will go at the end of the episode do you think he over has overheard this term and didn't know what it meant i well i immediately was like googling i'm like is this

Merlinsomething to do it's the very first return it's on urban dictionary the first return for easy d

Alexit's at the top of the page uh all right cara so when you read this tweet what did your mind go to

Speaker Awell of course like it's very funny like easy d like he's silly to yeah i know it's not like anyway. Kara, I hate to put you in this position. Could you please tell our audience what easy D means? Okay. So what he meant by D is defense or defense. The letter D is usually used as shorthand for defense when it comes to sports. So it's like, yeah, it's the opposite of offense. But no one's like, oh, an easy O. Easy O has to be easy orgasm. No, they don't say O.

D is just short for defense and what he meant was defense.

MerlinRight, so for example, if you have a position that's hard to defend, you'd say, it's difficult, you'd say hard D.

AlexI'm thinking I have heard the phrase hard D in, like, but people say, Kara, you are a sports watcher. Like, is that said out loud ever?

Speaker AI'm just fascinated. it's been a good it's like i there's i'm trying to put it into a sentence but every way i say it is gonna stop like like like i don't know like everyone let's get back on d urban urban dictionary uh has something different which is also really good uh all right i'm going

Alexto kind of like kind of like there's even better this is not what i expected a girl you meet at a political protest it was an easy lay typically seen in the background of videos screaming for other men to beat up others rather than getting directly involved i got a different one i got a

Merlingirl that is very easy to get with and has double d's carrie you want to sit in for max today oh

Speaker Aman i don't know we got a good challenge got a really good challenge what's the challenge well hey max max is here oh come on okay you can go okay this has been fun

Merlinthank you so much thanks for the easy d yeah thanks

Speaker AMax is here.

AlexHi, everyone.

MaxHey, how's it going, buddy? It's breakout character Max. I'm the Dubai Friday podcast. He's everybody's cool sidekick. I need a catchphrase.

MerlinYou totally need a catchphrase.

MaxOne time at a writer's retreat, all the partners tried to come up with a catchphrase that they could use on the sitcom of our writer's retreat. The only one I remember is Eli's, where his was, that dog will hunt. That's good. Yeah. It's really good. It's a great tag. Anytime someone says something funny, you go, that dog will hunt.

Big laughs.

MerlinI think we could spend a couple hours workshopping this. I've enjoyed that. You call that SpaghettiOs? Suck my balls. Suck my balls. easy d what is that is that a rapper uh so so you're saying you have not been on twitter

Alexin the past hour um no what did something happen uh does it involve does it involve

Maxthe president of the united states you mean the president of the united states that retweeted

Merlinhimself about how his daughter is being mistreated by a brand oh i did see that that i saw

MaxThat's what presidents do

Speaker BYeah

MaxYou know they think about Their kids clothing lines And then they use The official White house channels Of communication That was a powerful man

MerlinJimmy Carter would not Shut his fucking peanut hole About Amy's clothing line

MaxDo you remember that?

MerlinThat is absolutely true

MaxShe made What do you wear In the peanut bog Mucklucks

MerlinMucklucks in the peanut bog I love Carson McCullers Big increase in traffic Into our country From certain areas While our people are far more vulnerable as we wait for what should be easy d what is easy d well okay it's trending

Maxnow on twitter oh it sure is what is it i don't understand so this is the thing do i have to go to at real donald trump i do not follow the president at real donald trump big increase in traffic into our country from certain areas i'm not sure is he talking about he's talking about like mexicans right while our people are far more vulnerable as we wait for what should be easy d is he gonna

Alexget fucked i'm i'm really excited that i feel like max is not fucking with us and he sincerely

Maxdoesn't know what i think he hasn't looked at twitter in a while this is really what i do not

Alexunderstand the reference to easy d let's bring kara back in yeah she has left to get it get a cake but if you were here max um kara was explaining to us that easy d is a reference to defense, which is a sports term. Yeah.

MaxIs this like how when I used to play Little League, the kids on the other team would kind of creep in towards the plate and they'd go, easy out, easy out. Oh, the taunts

Merlinof children. It's true, though. I was easy to get out. Yeah, I was an easy D.

MaxI didn't like to run, so I'd strike out a lot. Well, we should probably start this, I guess.

MerlinIf I had to suggest something to do. Yeah. Rude. Yeah. Sorry I'm late. Sorry.

MaxOh, God. Here's the thing with this game. It's not, you know, a lot of times when you play a tabletop game, you're going to have what you might think of as fun. And this game is not fun. It feels like finishing your taxes or something where you're like, ooh, like that, you know, I feel like a sense of accomplishment.

MerlinIt's kind of like a battle movement with friends. Yeah. It's just something you want to accomplish and move on.

MaxYeah, boy, I feel very good about myself after I take the time to have a good bowel movement. I really got something done today. I got a probiotic you should try. It's like making the bed. It's like, you know, at the end of the day, it's like, if nothing else, at least I had this BM. Then you poop in it. Easy BM.

MerlinYou know, Johnson used to call reporters into the bathroom while he was moving his bowels. He would be in a stall, and it was a power move.

MaxHe used to take his LBJ out. That's right, Big D. He would show them a little LBJ in the cloakroom.

MerlinYeah, he's a whip. A little bit of EZD. Yeah, so Urban Dictionary differs a little bit. We have not found a way that this turns out great, though, the EZD remark. Yeah, we should mention, I guess, that before you join us here on the podcast at exactly noon Central Time every Wednesday, you are with your friends playing a tabletop game that you've been playing for, I think, 16 weeks now, the same game. That's accurate. And it's like diplomacy, but more complicated? Oh, it's far more complicated than diplomacy.

MaxIt's a naval exploration and conquest game. So you're exploring the ocean. Yes, you're exploring the ocean, and you can make colonies, and you can buy goods and establish an economy

Speaker Band explore stuff.

MaxMy entire life is a complicated naval exploration game. um yeah but you like things like that um i do um this game uh i mean i don't want to get into a whole like dissertation on on the game design of of like probably the best and most interesting tabletop game of the year but like one of the flaws of the game is like i am playing with real um you know like home automation enthusiasts who want to optimize like everything on their island

like just so and it's like they can't let the turn end until they've like aligned all the pieces and checked everything five times to make sure there's not like a point they can get and like so it's like these turns take 45 minutes and you're just watching people like you know rearrange their little cubes on their board and move their ships around and try and get everything just so and you don't have a lot to do when it's someone else's turn so i'm playing with five people so it's like 20 minutes per turn like it's an hour before there's anything i can do and you know so like this morning. I get impatient watching other people bowl.

I don't think I could do that. I literally had my laptop out and I was connecting accounts to Mint because it was more interesting than watching this game get played

Merlinthat I couldn't do anything about. Did you figure out a way to amortize your cat? I love putting things in Mint. I love that. It's so satisfying.

MaxGuys, the home automation thing has spiraled out

Merlinfor me. Wait a minute. What?

MaxYeah, I'm doing a lot of home automation now. Max, you were a skeptic last week. I was, but I got on the if-ta-ta-ta, and now I'm connecting all the things together, and you can put mint on if-ta-ta-ta.

Speaker BYeah, yeah.

MaxD-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d. Follow-up. Max, tell me more. I can't wait to hear this. Well, every time I do-

MerlinYou can put mint on the if-ta-ta-ta?

MaxYeah, so I'm trying to get it set up so every time I do the dishes, I pay myself $10. Oh, that's smart. Yeah, that's positive reinforcement. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. mint now let's uh boy where do you even start with this i had i had notes i had fucking notes all right alex hit record we gotta start this thing hi everyone hey merlin how are you doing it's due by friday that dog will hunt hey guys sorry i'm late how's it going um all right let's see here so um note number one i have some follow-up on the flower situation from uh several

episodes ago so as you remember i was uh doing an amazon fresh delivery and i added a bunch of flowers top off because I had to top off the cart I was like four dollars short and I said and I was congratulating myself I was like boy Veronica's gonna come home and she's gonna be um very impressed that I got these flowers and then I realized wait a minute until she listens to this podcast and then I'm blown because I have revealed that it was not that uh sincere of a gesture buying the flowers well Veronica listened to the podcast and she told me that she wondered where the flowers

came from and then assumed that a house guest brought them. So that, my friends, is a little something I like to call managing expectations.

Hey, are these for anyone?

MerlinI'll have them. Like the kid that eats the pickles off your plate in the elementary school cafeteria. Are you going to eat those pickles? What are you going to do with those colors? Is that for anyone?

Oh, congratulations, Max. You're in our good books. Thank you. It's funny, though, because it could have been anything. You could have bought anything to top off your order. But you decided to hook a couple cars together and go, hmm, I can get credit for this. If you bought her a large bottle of naked orange juice, you would look like kind of a dick. She's like, ooh, I could get flowers.

That's about four bucks.

MaxYeah. Yeah, she liked the flowers and just did not even occur to her that I might have procured them.

MerlinIt's like the worst O. Henry story.

Maxfollow-up number two i um have subscribed to the podcast canvas do you guys know about this it's uh frazier spears is this guy the show about painting yeah they talk about uh well it's more of the brushes and the palette and the technique. No, it's Fraser Spears, who's this writer I really like.

I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with him, but he hosts this podcast called Canvas. And it's about a sort of iOS workflow and automation stuff. And so here's where I'm at. I listened to the OmniFocus episode, which was excellent. And I'm now listening through the workflow series, which is like four or five episodes. And I actually love this podcast. All tech podcasts are bad and lame. Anybody who participates in a technology podcast should be ashamed of themselves. But this is why society is going to crumble because they're arguing over whether the button on the iPhone clicks enough or whatever.

But this is a good show. I really like it. It's a lot of what I like about Frasier Spears' writing, which is like it's more of a philosophy and a thoughtfulness about work.

MerlinCan I add a little note to this? I mean, I think you have to give equal credit or, you know, equal credit to Federico Vitticci, who's the co-host. And the thing – I'll tell you what I love about this is, first of all, they are both fully invested in the idea of the iPad as not being a secondary device. They are fully invested in the idea that if not right this minute, you will very soon be able to do most of what you do on an iPad. And it's not something where they're like saying, hey, you know, you bought an iPad. Here's how to have some fun with it. They're both fully invested, but they come at it from very different backgrounds.

But Fraser's job is fascinating to me. I might not get this exactly right, but basically Fraser does the computer management stuff for, I think, at least a school in Scotland. And he deploys many, many, many iPads. So he has to think at scale about what to do with a lot of iPads. And he has to figure out things like curricula. Like he's got all kinds of things to figure out. Whereas Federico, you know, Federico has this amazing backstory, not to make it too human, but you know, Federico was real sick for a while and was in the hospital. And the iPad became this connection to the world where he like learned to do everything on an iPad. And now that's his whole, not his whole deal, but a lot of his deal. So these two coming together, they're not coming at it from the standpoint of like, oh, here's a funny hack you can do to like download your podcast. They're approaching this as this is an evolving computer platform that will enable you to do most of the stuff that you need to do.

I think it's worth mentioning that point of view because they do not at all mince words about this being a real device that does real things.

MaxYeah. And I don't know. I recommend, I mean, if you're interested in all in what we're talking about, like I really failed to extract any sort of like actionable advice from Merlin and Alex on why you should automate anything or what the point of workflow or any of this stuff is. You weren't alone. to me it's like to me it's you know like i said i think we were talking about last week it's a lot like you know it's like building your model train set and it's like yeah you can like optimize the routes all day but it's still just a little model train set and like you know it's not it's a it's sort of an alternative to like doing your work it's not there's none of this stuff is actually doing anything for anyone and uh i am i'm starting to understand like some of the stuff you can do

with this uh listening to the uh the canvas podcast so i highly recommend it if you ever go

Merlinback and ever re-listen to last week's episode, the one thing I hope comes out of that was, for example, my obsession with this overpriced thing called the tap switch, where once you start hearing all these, you're making fun of all the crazy names of these things, which are asinine. Some of the names of these things are so silly. But when you just hear it, it's like me listening to John Syracuse talk about destiny, where I laugh out loud because there's so much, oh, I got the angel of the morning on my vorpal blade, and you're like, what the fuck are you talking about? It's just words, it's not even words salad. It's like chopped word salad. So like when you hear all these terms, it does sound

really bananas. But like the thing is, once you actually put it in place and it gets out of the way and becomes something you don't think about anymore, you know, it stops seeming like a fiddly thing. And yeah. So anyway, I'm excited to hear this. Have you made changes in your home to support

Maxthis or in your automation workflow, as you like to say? So here's the other thing that happens simultaneously with this. So we have a situation at the office where we have a security system at the office that's it's like any security system in any building or house really it's a touchpad little screen with numbers and when you open the door the alarm goes you know if you're the first one in right in the morning or a weekend or whatever the alarm starts beeping and you have 60 seconds to hit the code on the thing and disarm the alarm and somehow this almost never happens

like the alarm goes off constantly people are completely befuddled by this thing they do not understand what to do. It's not the issue. It's not that they don't remember the code. They know the code, but then they don't, they panic and they forget how to operate the keypad or whatever. So what happens is I am the one who it calls. Like if the security system at the office gets triggered, I'm the one who it calls. And I feel a huge amount of responsibility about this because people make their whole livelihood with like their stuff here, you know, their computer, their art supplies or whatever. And if there's like an honest to God burglary, it would be,

you know, the cards people would be okay. Cause where you have like insurance and stuff, But I know for a fact there are people in this office who if their stuff was stolen it would be devastating for them and they do not have a plan B, right? And in fact that's happened to me. I have worked at previous co-working spaces where there were break-ins and my stuff was stolen and it was devastating. And I had a couple of real dark night of the soul days where I did not have a computer and I was like I do not know if I can continue to make a living or if I need to go back and work at Radio Shack or if I should call my parents or what. So I feel a lot of responsibility to the people in this office.

I know it's dumb and it's mostly out of my control, but nonetheless, it's like one of those things that keeps me up at night is I just feel responsibility to do what I can for the office to be safe. So here's what happens. The burglar alarm goes off 100% of the time. So it goes off three times a week and 100% of the time so far over two years. So this has happened 100 times. It's been someone who's fucked it up, right? We've not had an actual burglar enter the office. But I don't know that because from my point of view, what happens is I'm sleeping. it's three in the morning my cell phone rings you know it's on do not disturb but the the alarm

company i have it set to penetrate the do not disturb setting my phone rings and i wake up and i answer it and they go hello this is the alarm monitoring service for cards against humanity there's the been um an entrance into the building and the front hallway motion sensor and the door break sensor uh have both been activated do you want us to call the police and i'm sitting there i'm sitting there trying not to wake veronica up and my head is spinning and i'm like rubbing the

Merlinsleep out of my eyes. Because you have to treat it like it's real. Otherwise, there's no point

Maxin having it. Right. Well, I don't know. And I'm like, and I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, well, fuck, like, was someone just working late at three in the morning? Or like, is there a burglar? And then now I have to decide, do I, so here's my options. I could do nothing. I could say thank you and hang up and go back to sleep. And I have done that because I'm pretty sure that I know what's going on. And it's like, someone just fucked up the alarm. And I'm like, I'll deal with this in the morning um that is one option that sometimes i will exercise option number two i get in the i say they say do you want to call the police i say no thanks i get in the car i drive

to the office and i go sort of confront this hypothetical burglar and i walk around with my phone light on saying hello is anyone here hoping that they don't have a gun if there's a burglar they're not armed right option number three is i say yes call the police and then you can't just call the police because they don't know what the fuck to do so I have to then get dressed get in the car go to the office and now I'm confronting a hypothetical burglar and I have to deal with authority figures which is probably frankly I'd rather deal with the burglar alone like at least

they just mug me and leave me alone rather than like you know cuck me as police officers I do every time you interact with them they make you feel like lame you haven't talked about option

Alexfour which is when you are asleep and don't answer the phone and then i'm the second person they call okay you're the alex you're like number five uh no because we took tommy off the list and kevin off the list because they don't have a car uh so you're number two now i did yeah so so i go to the office and go in wait you've gotten the call i have done this at least 10 times oh my god Did you not know this? No, I had no idea. Holy shit. I'm like, I'm a little bit farther than you, but I'm like, especially at five in the morning

on a Saturday, I'm about five minutes away from the office.

Speaker ARight.

AlexSo I'm like, there's a, like you said, there is a 99% chance that this is just our janitors or, is that nice? I don't know. Our cleaning company. I don't know. The nice, or the nice people who clean our office for money.

MaxAlex, it's a cleaning startup.

AlexThey're part of the gig economy.

Maxand they come and mop the jizz off our floors it's a very respectable career but but then i come in

Alexand the weekend people are different than the weekly people so there's always someone different on the weekend so i just come into the office and i'm like okay and sometimes the alarm is just

Maxblaring and i'm like okay yes so they're standing there they're literally standing there mopping the floor with the alarm blaring and there's a big sign on the wall saying hey if the alarm's going off send max a text and tell him that you're not a burglar and they don't understand how to do this And the problem is with our cleaning startup, it's literally like a gig economy model, and there's different people every time, so there's no procedure to tell them to fucking call me if they set the alarm off. It's a bad, like, I don't know what you're supposed to do in this situation. But anyway, so last week, Merlin, you asked people to tweet at us and say if there is a smart camera that you should buy.

And the thing that was recommended most often was the Arlo security camera. So after this Saturday, waking up at 7 in the morning and driving to the office to discover that the cleaning people were mopping the floor with the alarm blaring, I was like, that's it. I'm getting a security camera for the office. And I went to Best Buy, and I bought a box that had four Arlos in it, and I plugged them in, and that's the entry into the automation stuff. So long story short, you're able to peer in and see if something crazy is happening.

MerlinThat is somebody's running around in a hamburger outfit like stealing cards. Right. You know that something's going down.

MaxThat is correct. So the alarm company calls and they say this is the alarm monitoring company and the alarm's going off. Do you want to call the police? Now I can say, hang on. I open up the app on my phone. I look. I can see.

MerlinYou can see it's just a tech bro mopping up jizz.

MaxYeah, exactly. It's an Uber driver in his off hours. He's there. Please remember to like and subscribe. Yeah. he's there to you know tidy the papers on our desks or whatever and uh and i can say it is not necessary to call the police in this situation so that they come and cuck me let me let me describe what happens when you call the police because i've also called the police many times so first of all all right all right go ahead yeah i've called the police often so here's what i mean not often they've five times maybe so in two years so here's what happens first of all you call the

police and then you're like oh my god i've called the police like this is an emergency i need to get dressed go down the fire you better comb your hair buddy i better yeah you know you're down the ghostbusters pole in the car you got to get to the office it's an emergency you need to be there to meet the police so you i'm running my heart's beating i'm like throwing on a hoodie as i like start my car and i race into the office blowing through the stoplights and i get there and there's no police and they get there like an hour later like they just take their sweet time because like

a burglar alarm going off in an office is not one of the hundred worst things happening it's not a minority that needs to be shot or something no i mean well they've got people they have to round people up to fill their uh secret black site prisons so that's a big priority because you know if you don't fill them up you lose the budget and people get fired so i understand that's how bureaucracies work yeah you got to spend the money or you lose it now then the police come and they are they're like look you know you open the door I am panicking my heart's racing I'm like sweating and I'm all like greasy because I just woke up the lights are off

and they've got their little tactical lights out and they've got their their hand on the gun and they're sort of laughing at me and they're like so there's like a burglar in here huh what kind of office is this like what do you guys do and then I'm like uh we make like a comedy card game and you know they're like they're like oh wow that you know i can tell what's going on in their head

Merlinlike that does not sound like sounds that sounds rather irreverent yeah that does not sound like

Maxhonest work you know here they are busting their ass to do this and they they like make like a cursory loop around the office and they're like well i don't see any burglar so we're gonna take off and you know charge you for this and i'm like okay thanks for coming officer and they're like you know you should really make sure not to call the police if it's a false alarm like okay thanks officer their hands still on their their stupid gun and then they leave and i realize like they haven't really looked at the office so now i actually i'm pretty paranoid so i like go and look in all the little conference rooms to clear them out and then it's back to me alone confronting

a hypothetical burglar that's why i say it's not really better to call the police like i might as

Merlinwell just do it on my own well and the other thing is if you have a a camera again like like a canary or like a drop can where you can kind of roll back. You know, we've got, I'm sorry, I don't mean to make this go on and on about this, but like there is some sensibility to this. So you can do things like say the one that watches our door, I will not get alerts or I won't get notifications about that at all when one of us is home. But if I know we're all going to be away for the day, I will frequently say if you see activity in this area, which is the front porch as opposed to inside the front door,

like send me an alert for that. And then how Merlin, how do it know? I explained this very badly last week. Basically with, with the Nest Cam, you go into the website and you look, you basically looking at the image that the camera is capturing and using those little draggy boxes, like you would with a vector drawing app, you identify areas. So you say this area in the, like the window of the door, like outside, that's outside, that is front porch. Everything around that is the kind of inside area. And then everything else is else. And you can even identify this as much as you could just zoom in and just have this one area, say, if something happens here, let me know.

So, I mean, we're using it somewhat weirdly. Normally, you would have that just pointed at a room where you could say, like, this is door, this is kitchen, this is porch or whatever. And so it will only notify you when those certain things happen. And, you know, it happens often enough that you look at it and go, oh, no, big. It's our neighbors getting the UPS package. How does it know when you're home? That's the thing that's driving me crazy is. Well, this is the part that's going to get all up in your grill is like almost every app on iOS, it detects using proximity. When you've left a certain area, it knows that you're not there anymore.

But what if your wife comes home? I don't have a wife. I don't know what you're talking about. But no, that's the basic use case of this is, I mean, I don't really need to know about this when I'm at home. It's mostly when we're not at home or I'm expecting a delivery. But how do it know? Well, in this case, I do it manually. where I will frequently, if I know I'm going to be away for a while, I'll just pop into the app and go hit the thing that says send notifications to phone or tablet and turn it off when I don't need it. And if it starts popping up all the time and I don't want it, I'm seeing myself on the camera, I will go in and shut it off.

But no, the way, if you're going to really do this, which if you're going to do it, you should do it, is everybody gets the app. So this goes for things like tiles. Like if you get a tile for finding your stuff in the house, this goes for the canary in terms of like seeing movement there is that you get it on the smart devices of everybody who's an at-home or gone person, and it just goes after that.

MaxI will say, the problem here is that you're only as strong as the weakest link in the chain. And in my household, I'm not going to name names, but I am not the weakest link in the chain. Let me tell you something. Is Captain Janeway, Max? Is Captain Janeway the weakest link?

AlexWell, she's, I don't know.

MaxShe's not even in the chain, really. She's the weakest link either, to be honest.

AlexI'm sorry, Veronica. I'm just saying. Go on. I'm just saying that.

MaxYou should buy her some flowers, Max. I'm not saying anything about Veronica. I'm not naming any names here. What I'm saying is I have my phone with me at all times, and I keep it charged 24 hours a day. And I would say that my failure rate on that is like less than 5%. So I can use my phone reliably to do things like disarm the camera alarm or whatever. The problem is if the other people who shall remain unnamed, the other links in the chain, you know they don't have their phone or it's not charged it's like okay well now the alarm's going

off and there's nothing to do about it you ever have you ever have the link in your chain just

Merlinjust one day a week just leave their phone at home you ever have that happen when you text them you text them to tell them their phones at home and you hear a beep right next to you because you just text them on the phone i can't really confirm or deny that without

Maxyou know i'm going to invoke the fifth amendment against self-incrimination but do you see what i'm saying is like here's the thing is like i i have an idea in my head of how i want this to work and it doesn't exactly work that way. I mean, it's like good enough that I can use it, whatever, it solves the problem sort of. But it's like, it's, you know, it's always one step forward, two steps back with this stuff. Like I'm, that's why I'm like dabbling in the home automation because it's like-

MerlinWell, these are, these are, these are not, here's the thing though. I'm not talking about alarms for myself. I'm talking, this is not a security system in the conventional sense of like, we've locked it down and this is Fort Knox. It's more like, I want to know when stuff happens. So like, I'm used to the fact that our cat occasionally moves. I sent you a photo. You can see this is a picture of my cat. she now sleeps all day next to the heater. Occasionally she gets up to defecate or eat and she moves and then that sets off the dingus. And the dingus says, hey, there's something in the house. You know, it's the cat. So I'm used to that. That does not freak me out. And it's fun.

It's like a little treat. It's like your cat texting you to say, hello, I moved. And then you look at it and you're not freaked out. Now, with all that said, I thought I really, really, really thought of you guys this weekend because I recently changed some notifications on one of my devices to be a little less invasive. And I went to go lay in bed and get angry at the internet for a while. And I see a pop up that says, oh, motion has been detected at your office. And I go, oh, usually it's like light, you know, it's usually light from outside or something. Or sometimes the camera sets itself off because it's flipped into the night mode. And I go,

I see a figure in my office and I go, oh my God, my heart is in my throat. It's the first time this has ever happened. I slide, I open, and I see this hooded figure wandering around my office and I go, holy shit. And it was me five hours earlier going into my office because I'd forgotten something.

MaxOh my God, the dust was dead all along. It was you coming through the bookshelf.

Speaker BI was sending myself dust from my own 5D line room.

MaxMerlin, you have to go on the mission. Do you understand what this means?

Speaker BI don't want to leave you, Murph. Cleave me unto thee. The dust is your daddy. The dust is your daddy. I miss you, Grandpa.

MerlinI was losing my shit. I've lost a lot of weight. I look pretty good. But I was wearing several layers, plus my hoodie, plus a range. jacket plus my backpack and when I first saw my profile I was like holy shit there's like there's like a fat soccer girl wandering around my office and I honestly I felt my heart go like that my heart went I could not calm down for 10 minutes

Speaker Blower the portcullis

MerlinI hope I was somewhat fair and even-handed about pointing out the numerous downsides of these complicated Dale Gribble systems that we're getting into. Because the truth is, you can go overboard with this. I'll tell you a classic example. If you do get into the whole, I don't know if Alex has run into this yet, but if you get into the whole, let's say you get into the Hue Lights racket, right?

So you get your Hue Lights, you set up some scenes, you got things the way you want. You're using your Amazon like an animal to turn your lights on and off. And then you go like, ooh, here's an app I can get from the store called Hue Disco Party. And like that'll do fun things with my lights. And you go, ooh, I'm going to get Yonomi because Yonomi is really good about running routines at sunrise and sunset. And ooh, I got a motion sensor. So now when there's motion at the door, it turns on a very blue bright light. The problem is it takes like three days before you can't figure out.

It's a total Charlie Chaplin situation where you suddenly don't know why things are happening. Why did all the lights just go off? I have to go look at all of these apps and figure out where I have put something. Maybe the Echo heard us say something that it didn't like and it decided to play some Pablo Casals and turn off the lights. We're not sure why.

MaxI was like looking at, I was like, so I bought this like Arlo thing. And I was like, what can I do with this in terms of like home automation? And you know, if ta-ta-ta. And I was like Googling around for examples. And like the way people set this up, they're like, they're like, they're like Gribble setups. It's like, it's like, I'm telling you, it's like a dystopian like hellscape that they've turned their life into where like every night they go to their Amazon and they go, they They go, Alexa, secure the perimeter. And the lights turn red and the Sonos plays Flight of the Valkyries

and the garage door closes. Like all the locks automatically snap closed. Alexa, stop. Alexa, stop. Like, why? And here's the other. Okay, and I get it that that's neat. I get it that that's like neato, that you can do that. But here's the thing is like. If only you had someone to show it to. Don't don't you know that's why it's on YouTube your base with your trains

MerlinOh, there's no you have to have a webcam so anybody else could see what you're doing. Here's the thing

MaxHere's the thing doesn't everybody lock their door when they come in like I come in from work and I lock the door What is the situation where people their doors open at? Midnight and they're like Alexa lock all the doors like why who what does that use case like just fucking lock the door behind You like what problem is this solving in your life? Because now you have smart locks and that's how the hacker gets in and then you've got a fat soccer goalie in your house

So I saw another build that was like if you want to do all this some of the stuff or whatever it was like well the first thing you need is a $300 thing called a harmony device and I so I click oh you gotta get the harmony you gotta get a better hub max that's your problem you need a better hub yes I clicked on that and it said this is a smart home hub $2.99 and I was like what does it do and it's like oh it makes all your smart things smart it's like they say they're smart but they're not smart and then you plug this in and they become smart now what is the fuck it's

Merlinlike an after school class for all your devices what does this do makes you solve a lot of math this is this is the thing and i i so i'm curious oh just real quick side note the these arlo lights uh two quick side questions were they relatively easy to install and do they require a dedicated

Maxhub the arlo product uh yes it requires a hub it plugs into your router it worked immediately it worked immediately it was very good they're very easy to install very high quality i endorse this

Merlinproduct it's very good if you're looking half points to that because i'm at peak hub that's my problem it's like i can't have another hub in the house there's too many hubs you're running out of space on the server rack well they got yeah i'm gonna have to get another uh rack in my data center uh no it's cerberus is growing too powerful the idea is that there are these meta devices what was the one that was recently acquired and shit canned by nest uh but basically there are these kind of meta devices that like the Harmony that are meant to smartify and encapsulate all of your different

things into one. Cause you know how this shit works. It's, you want to own your entire like vertical, right? You want people using your device with your things on your dedley, dedley, D and you know, and then on top of that, like HomeKit integration is not a doddle. Like for HomeKit, you have to do like special secret James Bond shit to all of your devices for Apple to certify. That's why there's so few things that work with HomeKit. HomeKit should just work. I mean, HomeKit requires an iPad or an Apple TV and no hub, mostly. Like, it'll work.

But if you want all this shit to work together so that when your train starts to go through Waukegan, your door opens halfway and it unlocks, and then there's a red light over your toilet. Like, if you want that, you're going to need a lot of software or some kind of a smart meta hub.

MaxSo I'm – Every time John Redcreen comes over. I sincerely do not understand a word that you just said. I might be having – I didn't have a clarion today. You lost me. So you get all these things. You spend all your money on the things. I mean this stuff, it's not – let's be honest. It doesn't work, but it's not cheap. And the portions are too small. And so you get all this stuff and you plug it in. You plug all your hubs into your Ethernet. And now you're getting hacked by Russian botnets left and right. Your doors are opening and closing.

you got a fat sacragony in the house the problem what's the problem what's the problem the smart

Speaker Bdevices they're not smart enough your problem is you don't have enough hubs yeah no yeah it's

Maxalways one more hub that is needed to solve the problem that's capitalism in a nutshell but remember remember for a time and then the martha stewart days everybody wanted a mud room

Merlinit's like you're so rich and so white that you need like a third room before you get into your house you need the before you get into your house you need a mud room like i guess you need a room for taking your shoes off.

MaxI have a series of airlocking chambers that I pass through to eliminate filth and mud in progressive steps.

MerlinOh, we should also come back to Arrival because I watched it again and I loved it.

MaxOh my God!

MerlinOkay, I'm sorry, but leaving that... You need a hub room for all your hubs and your Russian hacking.

MaxBut leaving that bomb aside for one second, you're telling me... So essentially you've got all this stuff and it needs some sort of Alex Jones powder to soup it up. I mean, you got to juice it a little bit. Yes, I'm telling you that, Max. This was my idea. Okay. Okay.

MerlinNow, I think, I don't, do you understand this better, Alex? I feel like the things like the Harmony Hub and what was the one that looked really cool looking red and white one?

MaxThis is a big part of Alex's job is explaining things to me while I stare at her blankly and then say, why would anyone need that? And then things break and I go, why is this broken? And Alex said, remember the thing I said we should do where you stared at me blankly? remember how i told you this probably wasn't right for you blah blah ginger

Merlinwhy did i spend 500 on this thing that i don't want uh but no there was this one this is this is such a shit show there was this i forget the name of this but there was a really cool hub the one that looked to be the leader in like this like hub of hubs thing came along said hey this is this great thing buy this thing and like you're gonna have this great thing and i think it was google or nest one of the big companies bought it and like eo-led it almost immediately they were just It's like, oh, by the way, that thing you bought, that $300 thing you bought a month ago, yeah, we're not going to do that anymore. So this is all still so shaking out.

And like I said last week, Nest should be the Amazon of this. It should be in the same way what Amazon is doing with Lady and the Cylinder technology. I feel like Nest should be doing with home automation. But that place, it just sounds like a total mess. And I wish I had confidence in that. But I don't feel good about suggesting any of this to anybody. Because like you said, it is costly and it doesn't always work. And who knows how long it'll be around. And who knows once the leader in this shakes out how much any of this hundreds of dollars worth of stuff will be useful two years from now.

AlexI feel like the biggest problem other than 30 year olds who are actually 65 year olds getting upset about all of the.

MaxIs that a dig at Merlin? Because I feel like that was really mean.

AlexIt was definitely at Merlin. but but so many of these things don't scale at all like uh it works fantastic for me because i have a tolerant partner who is like okay i guess i'm just not gonna turn on the lights until

Maxi imagine that half of mel's life is she comes in the apartment all the lights are flashing morse code at her and it's like the music starts playing and the doors swinging open and close and she's just like well i guess this is my life until alex shows up i i tried to do this nice

Alexthing where I said it so because now she's doing the shift where she's working 5am to 10am so like when she gets home the lights will be dim so it's not like she's coming in and it's a blast of light but I'm an idiot because she's been up for hours and hours and so

MaxI bet the oven talks to her like the basement of Home Alone where it's like Mel

Alexwell now the other day she called me on

Speaker BMel you haven't installed you haven't configured your Bluetooth settings. I want biscuits.

AlexAnd all of this is fine for me, but I'm trying to set up our low, and it's great, but it does not scale to 100. No, the office one. You got one too? No, the office ones. And it does not scale to 100 people. We are not like, our weakest wink is not going to install this app. And so now it's like, okay, do we get a motion sensor and use this completely third-party thing where we can set timers and, like, okay,

turn it on and alert Max if there's motion detected between midnight and, like, 6 a.m.? Here's what I thought of.

MaxThere are smart switches that you can buy. There's just, like, buttons that are smart buttons.

AlexDo you guys know about this? I've never heard of this. Yeah, no, please.

MaxLogitech has one. Logitech has a, you buy a big button and it just does things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so what we could do is use if-ta-ta-ta and we put a button up by the alarm and we'd say, hey, if you're the last one out, press the button. If you're the first one in, press it again and that arms and disarms the camera system. Here's the thing though. I feel that the security system already is basically as simple as that of like just come in, punch the four numbers in, problem solved. But, and yet, it gets fucked up on the regular every day and the company calls me and they say, and three in the morning, they're like, Do you want to confront the burglar or do you want to deal with the police?

Decide. And now that's just – here's what's going to happen. This is not going to solve any problems. It's just going to double the number of problems that we have because now there's two buttons people have to press. It's eels. It's all eels. Okay.

MerlinThis is – you've obviously thought of this because you're one of the smartest millionaires under 25 in America or whatever you are. But here's a real simple solution to this. find somebody crazy responsible who needs office space who is a night owl find an artist who not only likes to work in the middle of the night but prefers to work in the middle of the night and has a great work ethic and hire somebody at next to zero rent to be there from midnight to six every night i see and then we arm them and if a burglar comes in they're in for a surprise button you get

a bitten and an if to to and you say they stimulate the artist but no i mean why don't you think about What is it you, like, you know, again, now, with all respect, you're a little lost in the stack of technology here. What is it you're really trying to accomplish? You're trying to, like, not be broken into.

MaxAlexa, if our artist shoots a burglar, send me a yo. If an artist is assassinated, make me a pot roast in my dryer.

So I also had a dream this week of sending.

MerlinAre you not going to acknowledge this great idea?

MaxNo, I like this idea. Merlin, let me tell you the problem with this. Let me let me I'll find I'll if we're going to do this here's the problem all these fucking freeloaders already work in this office for free and they're excited about it for two weeks and they clean up their jizz for two weeks and then two weeks later the jizz mopper is coming around their desk and they're like why isn't the jizz mopper coming working harder because there's still jizz when I leave you know people get entitled incredibly quickly like everyone here is pay like it's trading places all over again I'm not familiar with that reference but yes That sounds very smart.

Yeah. No, the bet was for $1. There's no way, though, you could get somebody, some kind of hardworking artist.

MerlinYou think they'd just get bored and then just start making jizz instead of cleaning up?

MaxIf you're a hardworking artist and you have a FOID card and you're willing to shoot a burglar, please email us and email Alex, alexatcardsagainstfianity.com, and the subject line, I will shoot a burglar. And come patrol. We'll hire you to come and make creepy art and shoot burglars. A residency has never been this deadly.

AlexI am going to get shot now because sometimes I do come in. It's nice to come here in the middle of the night. And the creepy artist who has somehow wooed Max into actually doing this idea, just like you've just said, I'm going to come in. Me or Mike, we're definitely going to get shot now.

MerlinSome kind of just weird bearded loner. I made some beans once. Is it cool if I use your chair? for what you don't want to know

Alexas much as I would love to have like a Hagrid for the office like a Hagrid is an office Hagrid yeah but but Hagrid still how is that not a gig economy

Maxcleaning startup office Hagrid boom boom I'm going on fucking shark tank tomorrow with that idea I'm seeking 350,000 dollars for five percent equity in my startup office Hagrid now sharks How many times has this happened to you?

And Laurie, I brought you a pink Hagrid. Kevin, I made a Hagrid with your face and money on it. Mr. Wonderful, I know how you love your rich Hagrids.

MerlinYou're a burglar, Harry.

Speaker BOffice Hagrid

Merlinbut the thing is you wouldn't have to be Robbie Coltrane you could be like a you could be like a skinny lesbian performance artist they just they bulk you up and you wear very tall shoes and a beard how cute would that be Office Hagrid this is a great concept I mean I think we could really run with this Office Hagrid do you think it needs a better Well, first of all, knowing Just Kidding Simmons, she's not going to want to put her licensing name on this. We're probably going to have to do a Hagrid at Avignon. We're going to have to come up with our own name for this service that's going to be just close enough to not be actionable.

MaxDo you guys want some good Shark Tank gossip? I got some great Shark Tank gossip. Oh, yes, please. So it used to be in the first couple of seasons of Shark Tank, I believe seasons one through four, that just coming out. So they knew, ABC and Sony knew that just coming on the show was such an incredible promotional opportunity that they took 2% to 5% of your company in equity or earnings just to appear on the show. So whether you made a deal or not, you gave up 2% to 5% of the company. That's bananas.

Isn't that crazy? And everyone had to sign that contract who came on in those early years. and allegedly they did not actually really weren't very good at collecting on this because it involved like a lot of like auditing of like you know grandma's cookie company or whatever so like a lot of these companies just never got collected on for that but they all signed it they got a little piece of the sullivan generator absolutely that's a big hit and uh when makes gold when um um mark cuban joined the cast he was like i will walk unless you get rid of this and now it's not there anymore.

MerlinOkay, I got a question. Did you watch the latest one? I did, with the big muscle man. Okay, I got a question about the muscle man. First of all, all right, I'll admit I was biased. I don't like people who are healthy. So when he came out and was throwing shit around and then I looked at his cooler and I was like,

Speaker Boh, the knee is terrible. 200 pound dumbbell, you gotta get your powders in there. You want to see me flip a tire?

MerlinHoop, hoop, hoop. That's 300 pound tire, oh. So, but here's the thing. He comes out and he does this pitch and they're like, oh, wow, you're very articulate for a strong person. He's like, thank you very much. He's the white rhino. The white rhino, here's the thing with the white rhino is he wants to make sure you know how successful he is.

Speaker BOkay.

MerlinHe's had several multimillion dollar companies and he's just like funded an engineering company. Do you remember what he was asking for and what the steak was? I do not remember what the product was. He wanted, well, it's basically a cooler that's three coolers. It's basically like a cooler you'd buy at Walgreens, except it also has a power shake. Oh.

MaxSo that's smart because a lot of people are buying powders now. I mean, I think that – I mean, our revenue model for the podcast is based on powders. Now, what do you do? Totally based on – it's a powder-based economy. Yeah. Now, what do you do with all these powders? The man who spends most of their life at the gym has to have multiple containers to separate the powders out.

MerlinWell, it was a classic Shark Tank thing where, like, once you actually heard it, like, yeah, you know, that was really clever. But, but, but, super crowded space. The name is – it's called The Cooler, I think. Like there's all kinds of things.

AlexWith a K.

MerlinYeah, cooler with a K. See what he did there? But here's the nut graph for me was he's this multi-multi-millionaire white rhino. He's asking for $50,000 in exchange for, what was it, 5%, 15%? It was actually not a bad percentage. But our whole family, including my daughter, were like, why does he only want $50,000? Like that should be walking around money for the white rhino. Doesn't that seem weird? And then you go, ah, I know why. And you nailed it right there. Yes, exactly.

MaxPublicity. Total pure publicity. I think it's the number one show on whatever night it's on. That's a big balls hit show. It's way more popular than The Apprentice.

MerlinWhat about... Oh, sad. Now, what about those other guys, the guys who have the thing with the hose? And they were valuing... What was it? Five million they were valuing their company?

MaxYeah, but then they got a fucking deal, which was crazy. Who would use that? What situation are you in in your life where there's not a hose? Exactly. Oh, and you could stand in it and take a shower? Like, what?

MerlinWith cold hose water? What about the woman who just left work to take care of her BB?

Speaker BShe's taking care of her BB. She wants to have something on the floor so she can play with her BB.

MerlinI feel like when people, I said to my wife, she talks like Instagram looks to me.

MaxI really want to spend more time with my BB. I'll tell you, I feel bad for people who have a profitable family business, usually food-based. You know, like, oh, like our family restaurant. It's like everyone in the neighborhood eats here and they say it's the best ribs in the neighborhood, right? and I'm like you know this person is great they have what is called pejoratively in San Francisco a lifestyle business meaning it's a business that they're idiots who make enough money to live and enjoy what they do yes exactly you're a bunch of dummies you're a simpleton you're you're a fucking rube and you just fell off the you can't growth hack you can't growth no you're not gonna

have hockey stick growth all you're gonna do is make a sustainable living doing something that you love and supporting your community and your family now that what kind of a fucking moron if you have let me tell you something if you have a lifestyle business that is fulfilling for you to work on you are a you're a clueless

Merlinnumpty you're a life cuck you've got it's not even a product you've got a life not a business I'm not going to invest I'm going to see my 10x on your love

Maxyou my friend are an utter twonk total twonk weapons grade plum if you have a business that you love working on total

Merlinyou're a knob end you're a dauber

Maxyou could be a you could be a shit gibbon total bop bag uh now i feel very bad for those people because they often take a deal and they give up a lot of equity and basically basically what they're doing is like ruining their livelihood um and it's gonna end very poorly for them and i can only hope oh here's another good piece of shark tank gossip about 50 of the deals that get made fall apart due to uh like due diligence

Merlinafterwards i've heard i read well because you know there's ones barbara does this so kevin is always wanting to do debt plus a tiny little bit of equity plus maybe some kind of like a dollar per unit. I'm always interested in Barbara and Robert in particular. I like the ones where they say, well, you know, if you really think you can get into Walmart, we'll make a contingent upon that. Like if you think you can get your book in B. Dalton's, that's fine. We'll do that, whatever. But those are interesting because then I have heard from the Shark Tank blogs that, as you say, a surprising surpassing number of these deals, even the ones that don't have gotcha asterisks,

just fall apart.

MaxYeah, another one that I learned was Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful. So he's one of the only sharks who's, I think he might be the only shark who's on like literally every episode. And he's more or less a plant. So his job is, he's got a little wireless earphone in his ear. And his job is the producers tell him, summarize the negotiations up until this point and make them make a decision. Oh, he's like the Doctor Who companion. He's frequently the one that says,

Merlinwell you got three offers on the table who are you gonna he's always like kind of doing that when you come back from a commercial he's the one who's reminding you what's going on and stuff yeah he

Maxties the scarf around his neck and goes uh wow i love the universe it's a bunch of tiny stars are made of love and then cut to commercial and everyone posts on their tumblr about it oh my god i have

Alexall the feels you guys adulting like a doctor real real time breaking follow-up to max's follow-up there is a Kickstarter project called Turn Touch, Beautiful Control. And it's like a bespoke wooden smart remote to control your Hue Lights Nest and Sesame Smart Lock. It's very exciting. All at once? Yeah. You just, there's literally four buttons. You can mash it down and then Flight of the Valkyries plays.

MerlinLogitech Pop. I will put this into notes. Logitech Pop is a button you put on your wall and then it does things. and it requires a hub.

MaxCan I tell you something? The more smart you make your home, when the grid goes down, you're going down hard. Nothing's going to work. Ain't no powder going to save you.

AlexBut I'm going to go down anyway, so why not be comfortable while it lasts?

MaxOh my God, you're going to be, your door's not going to unlock because the Bluetooth is out because the grid is down and you're going to be like, oh, well, at least I could unlock my door from an app while the times were good. The lights are flashing, you're having a seizure. Your oven's gonna start talking to you. You should have invested in infrastructure as a society while you had the chance.

All right, let's start this thing. Alex, hit record. Let's go.

Speaker BHey, Merlin.

MaxWhat was the challenge this week?

Speaker BHey, how's it going, guys?

MaxAll right, you fucking spoon. What was the challenge?

MerlinOkay. When we first started talking about doing this program, before we had recorded, I don't know, half a dozen, two dozen episodes and throwing them out, we had a big spreadsheet full of ideas for challenges, most of which were terrible. One of my favorite terrible ones that I wanted to revive was that we learn to curse like someone from Scotland. the inspiration for this I've always enjoyed hearing Scottish people curse but I think will you permit me to read

I think this got cut out of the last one will you permit me to read the Trump responses

Alexoh please do

Merlinthe inspiration for this the stimulation really was right after Brexit when the Republican candidate showed up in Scotland and tweeted out just arrived in Scotland places going wild over the... Suddenly I'm Christopher Walken. Just arrived in Scotland. Places going wild over the vote. They took their country back just like we will take America back. No games.

And the surfeit of responses from Scottish people to the Republican candidate was so great. I'm going to read a few of these. These are tweets to Donald Trump after he misunderstood what happened during Brexit. Scotland voted to remain, you tit. Scotland voted to remain, you weapons-grade plum.

They voted to remain, you spoon. You're such a gobshite scotland voted to remain in the eu scotland voted to stay you witless fucking cocksplat scotland voted overwhelmingly to stay in the eu you weasel-headed fuck nugget scotland hates both brexit and you you mangled apricot hell beast

Speaker Bscotland voted remain you clueless numpty

Merlinscotland voted overwhelmingly to remain but what are facts to you you bloviating fleshbag Too paid fuck trumpet, incompressible jizz trumpet, cheeto faced ferret wearing shit gibbon. I mean, I think I'm a pretty good swearing person, but they have this. The Scots have a gift for special nouns. So I want to just encourage you all to explore a little bit about Scottish swearing and maybe to consider adopting especially some new nouns.

Is there anything that the Scots are doing well with cursing that is not happening the way you'd like in America?

MaxWell, here's the thing is I think in American, you know, sort of vernacular, like fancy curses and insults are very much out the window. Like they're not in vogue right now. Like no one's like having a lot of like clever wordplay with cursing. Like it's more like I think that's sort of like maybe that's just like the kind of like brand of like weird Twitter comedy I like. But there's something much more bracing about just being like, you know. Just calling somebody a cuck. Yeah, or like, you know, there was such a good tweet. There was such a good tweet. Some conservative was complaining that, like, health care was not a right or something like that.

And there was this great, some guy was just like, Chuck, my good bitch, the Lord straight up said to care for the sick as if they're your own. And there's something so fucking funny about that.

MerlinLike, he didn't invent a whole insult. It was like all lowercase. It was so casual.

MaxYeah, it's just something so effortless about just calling him my good bitch. It just made me laugh. It's so dismissive. It's like I'm not even going to expend the effort to come up with a good insult for you. And what I liked about doing my research in the Scottish swearing is there's a lot of – well, so there is a lot of the trying really hard inventive stuff. But occasionally you get a good one like – just call someone like a fucking spoon, which is great because what does that even mean? But you know that it's bad.

MerlinWell, I don't even have to tell you what these mean. And let's be honest. We should probably have a content warning, a trigger warning. Some of these are extremely offensive. That's why it's swearing. Ya bobe. Bobbie, Bobbag, Jobby, Fud, Diddy. These all sound like characters in Harry Potter. Walloper, Numpty, Nugget, Scunner, Dobber, Rocket, Bampot, Baheed, Clobba, Pantybaz, Qualiwasher, Rooster, Knobdobber. Knobdobber. I don't care what any of those are. They're basically all penises almost. But there's just something.

It's like listening to Dylan Thomas with that Welsh accent. In this case, these just, they sound so good. I don't even care what they mean. They're just so musical. Yeah.

AlexKnobdobber. Yeah, my two favorites are roaster and knobdobber because you need to look up what the definition is.

MaxCould you stop being a roaster for one goddamn second?

MerlinAnd some of them also are like, it's fun to have ones that are considered insulting, even though they don't have what we would consider an obscenity. Away and boil your head. I'm trying to avoid doing the accent. Away and boil your heat. Like it means fuck off. Away and raffle yourself.

MaxGo raffle yourself.

MerlinGo away and raffle yourself. Giza Humpf. Go take a running fucking a rolling donut. That guy is a real numpty.

MaxLet me tell you something. Total dober.

AlexI was watching a bunch of YouTube videos of Scots just in in bad situations where you see the guy on the roof the poor guy on the roof that was so fucking funny

Speaker Bjust splice it where the fuck am I supposed to put my weight

Maxnothing we're gonna say is funnier than the video of the Scottish guy stuck on the roof

Merlinyeah but it makes me realize I don't want to overthink this but you're right I think that there's been And you think about the history of what we consider swears. So many of our swears are based on some version—and there's a lot. People have written a lot about this. They're based on either sex, excrement, or—what's the word I'm looking for? It's an easier word than irreligiosity, but basically God stuff.

There's all kinds of curses that are some version of blasphemy, essentially. And that goes all the way down to Jiminy Cricket. I mean, that's another way of saying Jesus Christ, etc. But it's like, I think over time, these have gotten very streamlined in America down to the much more like guttural, Germanic sounding short, you know, you're a dick, you're a cock, you're a, you're a, I can't even say the C word. But these like, just like a blast, a blast of these single syllable words. But when you call somebody a, what was it, a gob knobber?

What was it? A claw ball? A bam pot? I mean, they have this kind of like, I don't remember all my feet from poetry, but they have this kind of like a twally washer. That's beautiful. That means cocksucker. Isn't that nice? You're a twally washer.

Speaker BBut they're a little bit more Rococo.

MerlinAnd I don't know. I think they're just delightful. And to hear them, I mean, to hear them coming from the people who speak with that accent, just stunning. I had a quick offline with our Scottish friends, Fraser Spears and James Thompson. Wait, you know Fraser Spears? And one thing that James says is that, you know, as with all these things, there's regionalities to it. Is he cool in person?

MaxTell me about what he's like in person.

MerlinJobby. Diddy, diddy, you're a proper tit. and uh like there's different ones like if you're going to be a glasswegian swearer like that could be a little different than doing it uh somewhere else i don't know did he say is there anything you

Alexcan't say uh in scotland because the two of you i can tell you really don't want to say cunt but

Merlini'll say cunt and just really don't want to do it okay so here i'm gonna i'm gonna use some swears and some very offensive words here. But for example, I think they use the C word a little more differently, I think. They use it differently there. It's not the C word so much in the UK.

AlexNo, they call each other cunts all the time. It's fantastic.

MerlinOkay, but do you know about spaz? You know how spaz is something we don't say here anymore?

AlexYes.

MerlinYou really don't say that in England.

AlexOh, you really don't say it.

MerlinRight? There's some words where the escalation or de-escalation of how strongly people feel about whether that's an appropriate word to use. That's one of those words where you might use it in passing here, but apparently in England that's considered pretty extremely offensive.

MaxHere, if you call someone a spaz, we elect you president.

MerlinI can't believe you haven't read that Huffington Post article to us yet. What? You know how you like to read things from the internet when you're on the show? Who, me? You know that one, the Huffington Post one? I don't think that one's true. I think that's fake news. You think it's fake news?

MaxYeah, I mean, I like it.

MerlinI posted it because it was funny, but I think it's fake news. What about the New York Times? You think that one's real? You think that Haberman's straight?

MaxYeah, if it's Maggie Haberman about the, oh, the one where they don't know where the lights are, that's accurate. Maggie Haberman has the, she's got the source. But she's cultivated very good sources in the White House, and I trust her 100% on anything.

MerlinShe's my favorite person on that horrible Twitter list you made, which I now have my wife looking at, too.

MaxYeah. She's my favorite on there. She's the best. Don't get excited that that's happening. I'm doing a little bit of pruning. It's time. You know, during the election, I felt that it was really important to follow a bunch of like pro-Trump people. Oh, my God. To understand what they were saying. And I now no longer care what they have to say. And I want to destroy them. So it's getting to the point where I'm taking out the Trump people from the list. Can I tell you a Twitter list? I know this is not. This isn't. Oh, all right. No, this isn't bad. I was thinking maybe it's a challenge. This is not a challenge. It's too cruel. So there is a Twitter list. You can find it. I think you can get it on my profile.

And it is a list someone made of Donald Trump's timeline. Because the scary thing about Donald Trump is not that this fucking guy posts on Twitter like an utter twonk all day. The problem is that he gets his news from Twitter. He reads Twitter. And he takes it seriously. And he incorporates it into his decision making. And there's a list. I'm trying to find it. um it's called uh who made this it's called it's by robert mckay or mackie and it's called

trump's twitter timeline it's 41 people he does not follow many people but reading this list it's like how i imagine it's like how i imagine brain damage to be

Alexour president follows piers morgan i and ann coulter oh jesus and and perfect so it's it's

Maxa bunch of right-wing conspiracy theories literally about alien landings and 9-11 conspiracies mixed in with golf news. What golf champion is playing at what course?

AlexHe follows all his hotels. Yeah. Oh, he hasn't unfollowed Bill O'Reilly. Are they still friends? I couldn't watch that interview. Isn't that like a Morning Joe type situation? I mean, don't they kind of need each other? I guess.

MerlinThe part, so many things. One thing that's so fascinating, though, is the correlation between where like it becomes like Arrested Development or something where like he tweets something ridiculous and in just a very minimal amount of figuring out what he was watching 30 seconds before that will show exactly where he got his idea from. And clearly the president ban and stuff is kind of getting under his skin.

MaxI don't think any of it matters. I don't think that fact checking him matters. I don't think any of the Twitter, nothing that you can say or do on Twitter matters at all unless you're using it to organize people to do something in the real world. That's not true. It's not? That's not true. It's not?

MerlinNo. I mean, there's all kinds of things you can do. You could put up that funny picture of him holding up something. It looks like a drawing that he's doing. Yeah.

MaxOh, okay. I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. There's all kinds of things you can do.

MerlinYou know what you're doing? They call it culture jamming, Max.

MaxThat's right. I forgot to consider all of the memes that people could post that could, you know, really affect, really shake people up and affect the discourse. This is how we save Tehran.

MerlinWell, now I'm depressed. Yeah. Okay. You know what you should do? You should automate something. Did you see Sean Spicer's ABCs? Yes, that was so good. Oh, it's so awful. I feel so bad for him.

AlexThe only reason it's... I'm sorry. I hate him so much.

MaxThe Sean Spicer ABCs, it's like objectively like very bad comedy and it's a cheap shot and it's really lame. But here's the thing is literally, literally his, excuse me, literally his, his, literally his whole job is saying words. Yeah. That's his whole premise of his existence.

AlexSomeone said that me making fun of Sean Spicer was punching down Sean Spicer. What? i'm sorry oh i think this real life man also listens to the show this is this was something that was said to me in real life i've never like laughed at a person like who said this to you call them out just just someone i know from college who works at google uh we were both we were voted most likely to succeed in our grade school yearbook anyway uh well look at you you

Maxhost a moderately successful podcast he's fucking wasting his life making like porn ads work on

Alexsearch engines yeah i'm sorry john spicer man someone with like 10 twitter followers me and

Merlinmelissa mccarthy have just been too mean to you i'm sorry boom althawise basie core drunk prices Essendigisjectation Press Office Grobe Historical Historic This is my favorite Enim Enim Pulintation

MaxLaster day His mouth is full of gum He's eroded his mouth muscles With cinnamon juice He's a turtle man Made of cinnamon stuff

AlexLike I can Like I stutter and stammer And But this man Max You have the inside information Sometimes Like you have friends in the White House, why hasn't he been fired? It's not just that he says, he just can't say words.

MaxSo I don't know. I don't have any friends in the White House anymore. They all quit. I know there was a Tyler Cowen on Marginal Revolution had a post and it was like economists have basically two theories as to why would people lie. Why would Sean Spicer, we call him Sean Spisser on this podcast. Spisser is the economic comment. Why would Sean Spisser come out and lie his first thing? and hopefully we can find this post and put it in show notes, but his whole thing was like basically there's two reasons. One of them is a demonstration of power.

So this is a way to sort of dominate the opposition. It's just to lie. It's just to say the world is one way when it's clearly another and you're sort of saying like, no, I can just say this now and there's no consequences. And you know what? It worked because there are no consequences. And number two is it's a test of loyalty. So Trump tells Sean Spitzer to go say some crazy shit and if Spitzer starts mouthing off and going, I'm not going to say that. I can't lie. Blah, blah, blah. You know, Trump knows this is not a man who's loyal, right? He wants his—

MerlinWell, yeah, it's like that was my impression was like his orders were to, you got to read this, basically lie and sell it. You can't just lie.

MaxYou got to make it sound like you believe this even more than I do. That is correct. And Trump is writing a lot of this himself. Like I guarantee you a lot of the dumbest shit literally comes from Trump. He calls someone in the office and he says, say exactly this. And then they do it because the madness and the genius is all wrapped up in Trump.

MerlinThat was part of the beauty of the Melissa McCarthy bit is it really – it sounded like what Trump would have tried to write and then would have been mangled through Spitzer's ability to understand what was being said.

MaxThat's right.

MerlinThese are your words.

MaxBut anyway, it's a loyalty test. Trump says, you know, Trump says, go, go say that. What was the one that he had today? He said, go say that this is that I've had to wait the longest of any U.S. president to get my cabinet confirmed in American history, which is not even Obama's cabinet wasn't confirmed until April. So it's just not even a fact. But Spitzer is going to go out there and lie confidently and say it. And the thing is, Trump wants his people to go out and be like, you know, spray the silver paint on their mouths and go, you know, we die, we live, we die again.

Like, we ride into battle. It's the longest cabinet appointment process in history.

Speaker BDo not become addicted to the truth.

MaxYeah. So, I don't know, man. It's fucked up. It's fucked up. The other way, I was reading this philosophy book from Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism. She has a whole segment in there that just fucking blew my mind about how sovereignty expresses itself, its power over the land through exile. So when the sovereign is insecure, they exile people to show that they're the true boss of the land or whatever. That's really good. And it's true.

It's obviously, yeah, it totally checks out.

MerlinIt is true.

MaxIt's like, oh, God, you gave a name to this. Oh, God, that's so true. And Trump feels that, you know, his win is not legitimate and his power is dubious. So he's like, I'm going to kick a bunch of people out of the country now. Let's see how you like that. He's just going to keep throwing people out of his birthday party. So it's only him and a cake.

MerlinIt's a tremendous cake. The cake gave me a five-minute standing ovation. Everybody was happy to eat the cake.

Let's go.

Thank you.

Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you.

Merlinguitar solo

Are you there? Hello.

AlexYes, yes. We're here.

MerlinIt wouldn't be the first time I talked for four minutes without realizing I was disconnected.

14. The Leakest Wink 0:00 / 01:16:44