147. Alex Cooladult

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, read Married to the Mouse.

I have to say, starting the show with just the two of us and knowing that Max isn't going to show up yet takes away some of the magic like knowing or and by magic i mean cold sweats so it's it's good and bad well let's explore this it's no because no the the magic of the pre-show i'm sure is me just anxiously wondering where the hell is max but now we know max is on the way

Merlinoh it's like you can't finish unless you know you might get caught uh-huh uh-huh exactly i

AlexI must be observed.

MerlinYou're a dirty girl is what it is.

AlexMm-hmm. Pretty much. Okay. Pretty much.

MerlinThat's part of the thrill. You got that Bill Clinton thing.

AlexYeah. Yeah.

MerlinMm-hmm.

AlexYou love McDonald's.

MerlinYou know what I mean.

AlexOh, listen to this.

MerlinUh-huh.

AlexI have got a... I couldn't find my water piss powders today that I put in my water bottles. So I got myself a Diet Coke. And I've got a biscuit here, too. Biscuit?

Biscuit. I have my plain biscuit, no butter please. And I'm just looking at it. Diet Coke and a biscuit. Yep. Delicious, nutritious meal.

MerlinI've had to ban myself from the foods I love. Oh, there's three things. I've said this before. I just need to keep saying it because, God, I've got to remember this. I mean, so like KFC, Popeyes, and McDonald's are three things, three flavors of things. It's like some of my favorite food in the world. But I've got to stop eating it full stop. Here's the thing. Uber Eats. Uber Eats. I've discovered Uber Eats.

AlexOh, no.

MerlinIt's different from the other ones. Uber Eats is very – well, I'm sure it varies by place. But where I am exactly, like where I live and the proximity of – there's not much fast food, you know, chain fast food. But there is a McDonald's about a mile from my place. And here's the thing. I've checked. Uber Eats will get that hot to my door in like 20 minutes.

AlexThat's why I said, oh, no, because Uber Eats is great.

MerlinAlexandra, Sunday morning, I'm ordering while I'm in bed. The birdies are still squawking, and I'm on the phone going, yes, please and thank you. I'll take three Egg McMuffins and five hash browns because I know nobody ever wants them. Anybody want McDonald's? No, nobody ever wants McDonald's until the McDonald's arrives. So I do a preemptive over order, but then I eat them.

And then I feel like shit all day. I go to KFC. They get a chicken sandwich. That makes me feel sick all day. I get a three piece spicy white meat from Popeye's. It makes me feel sick all day. It has to end. Also, I need to stop eating a pint of ice cream with a bunch of M&Ms dumped into it. That needs to end. Oh, that's not great. Here's me at 720 the next morning. I go, and I do it one more time. I go, and that's the sound of the very slightest rancid Eminem taste and smell

coming up my gullet the wrong way. It's so nasty. That's so much dairy before you go to bed. What am I, a sumo wrestler?

AlexOh, wow. Well, that's the thing. This is sort of not that morbid, but since I'm having very minor surgery tomorrow, I've kind of been like, oh, fuck it. And the past week, but just eating whatever I want, including carbs again. And I have to say, I really miss these guys. You love bread, right? Bread is so fucking good. oh in fact uh with with uh not to give up sec but i got to enjoy some chicken tenders in your area

that were fucking amazing i actually i don't know that was such a fun night we haven't talked about

Merlinthat have we we haven't no we uh my family my my three of we as we used to say uh i got to hang out with you and your partner i used to work with a woman that would say partner well your partner becoming to the event she was a 30 year old woman with giant boobs and braces and she's like what your partner becoming? So I just turn around whenever I say partner, I have to say partner. Like I have braces and big boobs. Can you hear it? Yes, yes. You hear them moving?

AlexI can.

MerlinSome men insist they can hear boobs.

AlexFor sure, for sure.

MerlinPartner? She was donking the boss. Love that emo, that old emo song. Donking the boss, donking the boss. So anyways, we got to hang out with you and your partner and I had the nastiest old fashion I've ever had in my life, but we got to hang out with you. That was not an old-fashioned. It was really. It was bad. It was more like some kind of a solvent with ice.

AlexOh, yeah. That was a lovely, lovely dinner.

MerlinOh, it was. My kid, she was on a cloud for like two days. What? Really? I told. Look, you guys. Okay, so first of all, I'm going to say you and Matchy were almost killed by your Lyft driver. Let's leave that aside for a minute. You were so busy taking a panoramic video of your entire trip that you couldn't respond to my wife and I frantically texting you.

AlexI'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no.

MerlinIt's just in service of the story.

AlexOne, it was a time lapse. Two, I do not disturb. I apologize. Yes, it was my fault. Okay.

MerlinNo, no, no. It's just in the service of saying, we thought you were dead. And so we're standing there at the corner of the Castron Market. We're going to meet by the big fruit stripes. And we were hanging out. and she just keeps saying over and over, oh my God, I'm so excited to meet her. Is she going to be your soon? I'm so excited to meet her. Oh, what? I know, it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure for you. For you, it's a lot of pressure.

Speaker AOh my God.

MerlinYeah.

Speaker AOh, okay.

MerlinShe's obsessed with you. I told you in her contacts, you're Alex Cool Adult. Your last name is Cool Adult.

Speaker AOh my God, that's amazing.

MerlinYeah. So, I mean, you know, You get to hang out with your buddy that used to be on the Twit network, and his kid thinks you're the best. So sit with that, surgery girl.

AlexYeah, I will.

MerlinYou're a hero. You're a hero in our house.

AlexOh, don't.

MerlinNo pressure.

AlexYeah, no, don't worry. Don't fall for grace.

MerlinYou know, we love to put women on a pedestal.

AlexOh, what an easy expectation to leave up to them.

Speaker ASo we can look up their skirt, get in the kitchen, cook me dinner. I'm Scott Adams.

MerlinOh, God, the McElroy obsession has really turned a corner in our household.

AlexIt seems like the volume's been turned up on that one.

MerlinWell, she is officially a tween because she just walks around with earphones in listening to Taz every single— I picked her up at school yesterday. We're getting to a point where she'll hopefully be able to come home on her own. But it's going to involve public transit and stuff. But yeah, the whole Muni ride home. She's listening to Taz. I'm trying to talk to her like a person.

AlexNo, no, no, no. That is very exciting.

MerlinYeah.

AlexI'm sure you've talked about it. But what happens? Well, let me word it this way.

MerlinNo, ask your truth.

AlexIf the question comes up of, hey, dad, I want to listen to one of your podcasts, what do you do?

MerlinRight. Well, yes, as you can imagine, that's a non-issue in my household.

Speaker AAre you sure? Are you sure that forever?

MerlinI mean, you know, I am who I am. I'm like Popeye, you know.

Speaker AI don't know. I mean, you know, I have so much to worry about that I really have to adopt the view

Merlinthat I'll deal with it when it becomes a problem.

Speaker AYou know, when you're spinning plates,

Merlinyou don't really have time to like do interviews. So, you know, when that one's about to crash to the floor, I'll run over to the stick and try and keep it spinning. But no, I mean, the thing is, it evidences itself as, and it's a little bit of a perfect storm right now because she's gotten very, very, like even further into like making stuff. So she's very into like, She's now into not just – she's moved from painting miniatures to painting on canvases and then bigger canvases. Oh, you saw the way she did her phone case.

AlexOh, my God. With the galaxy, right? Holy shit. Yeah. I would easily pay $50 for that phone case, and you've seen me on the internet. Like, I'm actually a crazy person.

MerlinWell, I know she'd love to make one for you. Yeah. But now she's extended that. She's introduced Steve and the Goldfish into the paintings. She's become like an outsider artist. She has a Steve and the Goldfish pendant she's made for herself. Oh, my God. So she does that. She does all this painting, all this stuff. I don't think she'd mind me sharing. I mean, this one's some pretty basic nativist art.

Speaker AOh, damn.

MerlinSo that's one of her recent canvases. Tizzle it up with taco.

Speaker AThat's so cool. Oh, my God. I'm so angry.

Merlinand then she does stuff like she'll get the hot glue gun out and she'll turn the painting from something you can hang on a wall to something you would put on a table and she's made a waterfall out of hot glue for it and there's like a whole thing but her she is she's very much like an insane outsider artist that some hipster in new york would collect because she's making things that make no sense but they do have themes you know what i mean like any good outsider artist has to have something about their background their uh mental illness and what she's doing and it's Really, the Taz stuff is being evidenced in a lot of her young work.

She's going through a taco period.

AlexShe doesn't have anything wrong enough with her yet.

MerlinWhat we're running up against, though, is, you know, there's always the language thing. There's some thematic things that one worries about. You know, she knows she wants an Abracafuck you pin. Oh, I see. But she knows that's not something she can really have. And she's totally aware of that. And, like, you know, she knows she wants a Trace Horny Boys shirt. And she knows she can't have that. That's like, yeah, it makes us look bad, you know?

AlexYeah.

MerlinBut now we're shading into, like, she's now, of course, now we watch the TV show over and over and over. And that's got some stuff in it. But now we're getting, we're bumping up against Mabim Bam Pran. And so she will watch a YouTube video that's just a compilation of Final Yahoo's. She will watch, obviously she watches all the animatics that are on YouTube. You heard her jigsaw impersonation.

AlexIt was beautiful. That was a sight to be seen.

MerlinIt's actually helping her with her speech.

AlexOh, that's so cool.

MerlinGreg, it's so good to see you. Will I be seeing you on Thursday for a barbecue? And she pulls her chin really far down into her chest and goes, barbecue um but like okay and like this morning how did it start this morning i just listened to the one um aware about somebody mentioned hummus mom asked her if she wanted some hummus today and that reminded me of the yahoo about um what's the best way to give kids hummus homemade hummus

at halloween so we did listen to that and how it's easier if you really want to kill kids you should work in a cafeteria and exactly so yeah i mean thematically but we decided uh two two thirds of the family decided two nights ago that we are officially going to start celebrating candle nights and so oh yeah so there's going to be some carved wooden ducks made out of beloved wooden items um it's a whole thing so we're that's the thing we're going to do we're getting an early start on candle nights i said you want to tell mom about candle nights i don't know she's seen

that one app she says yeah she says she says it's it's a it's a pan-religious pan-sexual personal pan-holiday yeah i'm so broken inside alex

Alexhow are you feeling about tomorrow oh just i was fine until yesterday and and that's when tomorrow

Merlinyou're going to have a little procedure?

AlexI'm going to have my little what I

Merlinhave you named it?

AlexIt's named Jareth. No, it's Timmy Tiny Tumor.

MerlinLook, they're so cute at that age. Take lots of photos.

AlexExactly, exactly.

MerlinOh, they grow up so fast.

AlexI know. What is it? Timmy Tiny Timmy Tiny Tumor.

Speaker ATimmy Tiny Tumor.

Alexyeah yeah and and so he's you know he's ready to go out into the world it's so hard you got to push him out of the nest yeah yeah it's gonna be a shame cats in the cradle and the tumor goes i have max has infected my brain in that i'm very nervous about general anesthesia but like i know it'll be fine i know it'll be fine but there's like the like temkin ghost being like oh you're gonna be real sleepy it's not gonna feel great not good not good not good I'm like ah no it's

gonna be fine you were 11 you had your wisdom tooth out you know you know what you should if

Merlinyou're allowed if your medical staff will allow it you know what you should have before you do that uh beta blocker

Speaker AWhat? Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

MerlinAnd that's the end of the pre-show.

Speaker AMm-hmm.

AlexBe-do, be-do. Someone do something good with that and get my dumb...

MerlinOh, my God, that song's so good. Okay, dial them in. Do-go-do-go.

AlexCameron's pushing the buttons. The buttons are being moved.

MaxBing-bong.

AlexHello.

MaxHello?

AlexI heard a bing-bong.

MaxBing-bong.

Alexoh merlin is rejoining the call thank you cameron there's enthusiastic calm nodding so that's good i i realized i could just be saying that and the studio is on fire and i'm recording this at in the uh gas station pit next door oh the enthusiastic nodding has stopped oh god oh no there's head shaking there's head shaking uh but oh okay that's healthy merlin oh there's merlin

well i thought it was max i was rejecting it oh yeah cameron was correct in in his not a hitting and then shaking his head all right everyone's here yay did you remember to hit record

MaxWho? Everyone. I'm always recording.

Speaker ACameron, don't. Don't. Oh, boy.

MaxHello from beautiful Victoria, British Columbia. Oh, you're in Canada. I'm in Canada. That's a nice area. It's really beautiful here. Victoria is like one of those safety villages where you learn how to cross the street.

Merlinsafety town with an extra u in it uh-huh oh that's so nice now wait that's near that's in british columbia that's near vancouver but not vancouver right yeah it's an island that's off

Maxvancouver and it's like a little um well you know i've been reading this book about disney world and and um i would say victoria's like it's like a little society it's like a little dollhouse it's very cute people are so nice there yeah they the people here they live on this little island and they scurry to and fro and they go to get their food and they go to the store and they go to work every day and they have a whole little civilization here. They sound like they might be little. Are they little?

AlexYeah. Are they small?

MaxThey're very diminutive. Okay. They have these ridiculous scraps of paper and these little coins and they don't even realize that they're worthless. They're just hilarious little pieces of metal. They got ducks. The money's got ducks on it. They're little tinkles and they hand them to each other and they trade that for food and houses.

Speaker BWe're sorry. We're sorry. We're very, very sorry.

AlexOh, Timmy Tiny Tumor sounds like he would fit right in there. Now he's got a place to go.

Speaker BOh, hello. Welcome. Welcome to my island. Is there anything I can do for you? Oh, welcome.

MerlinWelcome. Wait, now he's Irish.

Speaker AIs there anything I can do for you? Oh, sorry. Sorry. Do you want some of my money paper? It's got ducks on it. Ducks and the queen.

Maxwe're doing one of our cards against humanity uh writers retreats and you know we do uh the fart-a-thon yeah you know we just eat uh we eat uh chili lime doritos and uh uh plain triscuits and uh uh we drink uh homo milk and we just sit and fart and argue about jokes all day and we we are we go on what we do is we go on airbnb and we look for like a um a seven bedroom house right which is because we all want our own bedroom because we're all fancy gentlemen and that leads you down some weird paths

in terms of home rental. You wind up with some pretty funny rentals and let me tell you, the ostentatious mansion that we're staying in on this trip is like the ostentatious mansion's ostentatious mansion. Really?

AlexOh.

MerlinIt is. I will send you guys offline. I would like this for once. I would like to see some photos of that.

MaxYeah. I will send you guys. Hang on. I think I might have some pictures on my phone. I'm going to send you guys some photos but I actually don't want these to go in the show

Merlinbecause I'm worried that the audience would kill and eat me if they saw the house that we were staying at that's understandable but it's not like a sex dojo well

Alexwe don't know yet do we

Merlinit's not like the chopper one right

Alexit's for his back

Merlinoh okay so that's what's the architectural style max does it have columns

Maxchandelier

Alexchandelier style the style of chandelier here we go this is pretty normal that seems normal am i is that roman mars did i grow up in a mansion this just seems like a yeah but no it's got see no it's got wings though alex it's got wings oh i i see yes yes it's like uh okay so there's like

Maxthree who gets who gets the the evita room who gets the room with the balcony uh that is like a little lounge upstairs. Wow. I'll send more photos. I'm not doing it justice. Look at that view, though. You should put shoes on. You don't want to get ring warm.

MerlinWear shoes, please.

AlexOh, no. This just looks like half of my bosses buy a nice fire pit, hopefully writing jokes that'll keep us employed.

MerlinThat's not Roman Mars, as far as we know.

AlexOh, no, that's just...

MaxOh, wow. Did you get the big panorama with the view?

AlexNot yet, no. No, I've got your feet by the fire. Yep. We got the fire feet. And it's probably still Sunday.

Speaker BYep. Yep. Yep. Yep. We're sorry. Sorry for the slow internet.

MerlinHere we go. The elves of Victoria. Oh, look at that. Wow. Wow. That's nice. One guy has his hand in his pants. Yeah.

AlexHe didn't want to say anything. Oh, this is, I had a very different idea of where and what Victoria was.

MerlinOh,

Maxthis is no Victoria. Victoria is very beautiful.

MerlinThe right half of this is very pretty. The left half looks like a Judd Apatow movie.

Speaker AI think both sides.

MerlinYou have to say that. Bad parts on both sides. You have to say that. Bad parts on both sides. Oh, my. Oh, my. The founders are so fetching. Is that an all cotton hoodie?

Alexhe looks so much like roman mars he does you should pass the and it's a that's a compliment he is a very who which one josh josh is is like roman mars so no josh does kind of look like roman mars wow yeah look look at handsome mr mars over there yeah let's just say that was a compliment i'll pass that along yes it is it is tell him your employees especially one of them not

that she would ever comment on a boss's appearance but was just like wow josh looks great but look

Maxat how smart he looks josh josh is going to be like which one is alex yeah the only reason he

Merlinknows me is because i'm following look like they're all named josh it looks like yes it looks

AlexYes!

MerlinAnd this is the five Joshes. The five Joshes you meet in Victoria. So it's going okay. Now, when a trip like that is coming up, I think you said before, it can be kind of intense. There's a lot of spreadsheets and deli meets and meet and greets. And it can get kind of intense, right?

MaxYeah. Well, I'm actually curious to get Alex's take on this. but there's a lot of conversation happening this week about all the basically unsafe and dehumanizing work conditions in the game industry and in game companies. And I would say we really try not to crunch your cards against humanity in the sense of maybe unless we're at a convention that week, I really don't think people are ever asked

to work more than 40 hours a week or disrupt their work schedule too much. Certainly, I don't like to do that. I like to go home and have my life, and I hope our employees have that too. But for me, at least, going into these retreats, this is about as much crunch as I have in my life. We all try to get everything ready for the retreat, and then we just have these long days of... I mean, we're in a beautiful place, so I can't really complain, but they're long...

MerlinNo, no, no, no. But being around... I can't convince my wife of this. I mean, this is something that has become such a temple for me. It is so privileged, but attention takes energy. Being around people, even people you like, takes energy. So, like, when we had that event that we went to that she was running, she'd be like, oh, God, why am I so tired? I'm like, because you had to be nice to people all day. Like, if you have to be just around people all day, I mean, especially for women in most cases, like, there's a lot of, like, smiling you have to do.

But no, I don't think I realize you don't want to sound like a privileged dick. But like, yeah, no, that's intense to have to hang around with the five Josh's all day and eat meat is, you know, that can be a good.

MaxIt's also like I don't know if people have been in this kind of creative situation, but like there's this thing of like, you know, sometimes we're struggling and we can't. Our ideas aren't working and we can't figure out what to do. And then everything seems to crumble. Like the friendship start to crumble and everyone gets mad at each other and we start bickering. and then you have like a breakthrough and you're like oh my god like something's working and now we're all like a late now we're all like this the highs are so high and the lows are so low but this morning last night we had a very good play test uh with our friends at loading ready run and i

think we woke up and we all feel like very energized and encouraged and today's good today's gonna roll i think we're i think yesterday we had a little bit of the uh dark night of the soul of not really knowing what to do next and then we had a very validating play test last night and this morning we're all just like fuck yeah like we we can do this like everyone like i don't know you know cards got bigger than you know whatever the seven of us making something in our parents basement and now there's a lot of pressure of like damn if we don't come up with something funny right now like it's all over like the office goes away all the people sitting on the bouncy balls

the podcast studio with the expensive dickerson microphones it all goes away and thinking about that in the back of your mind is like i would i would say like not you know not funny like no one wants to be doing comedy writing thinking about if i don't come up with a great joke in the next

Merlin45 seconds the bouncy balls i'll go away yeah well yeah and i mean like it's i wasn't gonna say this because it's so obvious and everybody knows it intellectually but everybody knows intellectually that the worst thing you can do to be truly creative is to put the wrong kind of unnecessary pressure on yourself and like everybody knows that like you don't you don't get truly creative results by yelling at people or by increasing the amount of anxiety for most people, unless that's part of the process that works for you. But like, even though you know, that's the case, it's kind of impossible not to.

And then you get mad, you get emotional, or you get maybe you feel not heard. Maybe you feel, you know what I mean, not valued. And then you're like, at least I am. I'm like, I put all the dishes away and nobody said anything. And like the, I think that's difficult. Even when you know intellectually, you do this for a profession. I think for most people it's still really challenging.

MaxAlex?

MerlinYour thoughts?

AlexAll right. Cameron, tell people I'm looking for freelance if this doesn't go well.

MerlinOh, boy. Do you guys need me for this one?

AlexThere's a constant thought of like, yes, if the guys don't make something brilliant, we're all doomed and everything's terrible. And I am somewhat lucky in that the only time I'm involved with making card stuff is like, is this funny to the queer people? And then it's like a pull to all the queer people reassuring the guys, yes, this is indeed funny. but especially play testing the new game

which is like one of my favorite things to do it is constantly scary

Maxthe new game is so good now it went from bad to good it's fixed now

Alexespecially because I also am lucky that I am creatively removed from most everything except interpreting feedback um which is another stressful part of like and and not just cards like this is every game or anything ever when you're trying to do like like the fucking series stuff like i mean obviously this is just a tiny tiny tiny thing compared to that but relaying information and

making sure it's accurate and making sure folks aren't lying to you so that you that you know everybody's having a fun good experience it's like well are you saying this is a good thing because I'm your friend? Or are you saying this is a good thing because you know what Cards Against Humanity is? And it's like a constant, like, okay, well, I really hope everyone still has a job tomorrow. And then you think about it for one minute and you're like, that's completely irrational in every sense, just in every single way.

But it's just, I don't know, who doesn't think they're going to lose their job every day?

MerlinYeah. okay see all right no no no I mean I'm I'm I'm thinking about it it's um yeah it sucks it's like

Alexokay so what happens uh the day Maddie and I stop being cute to the internet like that's gonna happen at some point like I'm always like all right when's the day the internet turns on me like when what is the thing I did in high school that will we've gone way off the rails but no we haven't

MerlinThis gives us an opening to talk about the wonderful work of Gia Tolentino. I hope I'm pronouncing her name right. Did you listen to that one interview with Desiree Klein? I mean, really, any interview with her is great. She's so freaking smart.

AlexYeah, I read the book. She is, yeah, she is my everything. Oh, is she a mood?

MerlinI can never tell if something's a mood. She's my big mood, my biggest mood. Black lady reaction, Jeff. Yep, yep. Um, but she talks about that. We were, we, we, I hinted at this in our pre-show. The, uh, the whole, like the way, the way the internet chews through women, you know, and, and you get put up on the pedestal and then you get knocked off the pedestal and it's, you know, yeah, yeah, that sucks. Boy, boy, she's good.

AlexShe is.

MerlinEzra Klein drives me a little bit crazy sometimes, but I do, I listen to his show if I'm into the guest and I'm so into that guest and, uh, it's, she's just so goddamn smart at talking about really, you know, the internet and identity, but also just, it's another one of those things where you're like, yeah, I know all these things that this person says, these are all like truisms, but like she puts it so well and so intelligently. And actually, Max, this is germane to something from the show you do with Pat, that quote I'm always borrowing from Pat Rothfuss, talking about backstage and onstage.

She specifically talks about that, I guess. Did she address that in the book?

AlexYeah, half of an essay is basically about it. It's so good.

MerlinYeah, and so, I mean, it's not exactly the same thing as Pat's talking about, but it's real close. Pat had that great line on unintended consequences about not comparing your backstage to other people's onstage. But she's talking about it, which I think about all the time.

What is it they say that, you know, comparison is the death of joy or whatever. But also that's the thing of the problem, one of the problems with the internet now, especially if you're somebody like she who grew up with the internet or like Alex, I guess, is that you're never off stage. Like your whole life becomes a performance of who you are, a contextless performance of who you are. And it's physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting to feel like you're always on, even when you're not streaming or whatever.

And it's that idea, like putting it that way really hit me. You know what I mean? just that sense of like, you take something as simple as everybody's got to post. Everybody's got to have a take. Oh yeah, here's a picture of me with Mr. Rogers' PA that just died, or whatever. Everybody's got to have a hot take and something to say about it, and I think Instagram just amplifies that a thousand times, personally. But I don't know where I'm going with this, but I just think Gia Tolentino's great.

MaxCan you give me the clips? Obviously, I know who she is, but maybe our listeners might not know her whole deal. Do you want to give us the little CliffsNotes? I know our listeners will know. What's on the note card? How about

Merlinthree words? Large adult son. Large adult son. That was her. That New Yorker article on the era of the large adult son, that was her. Okay. Do you remember the piece? Yeah. Of course. She wrote that. She's the cultural writer person for the New Yorker and she does other things. Alex, give us the top line. Give us the log line on her book. Her book

Alexis just like seven essays about the internet and being a millennial and a woman and it all sounds very boring but if you liked the article the land of the large adult son and if you just like her it her book is kind of what I had been waiting for like you know how there there are some influencers and shit like Lena Dunham who's like yeah I'm the voice of her generation like whenever I read her work

it seems like oh yeah she's got it she knows exactly what this is and how this is working and what we're all feeling does that sort of make sense that book of course is called trick mirror

Maxreflections on self-delusion by gila tolentino thank yes thank you max i think i i think i i

Merlinknow that but i don't know if our listeners yeah right yeah well but she has so many like she has so many like and i just i love the whole way that she presents herself um i guess gawker isn't all bad because she used to work at Jezebel. But yeah, Gawker's all bad. Sorry. There's a reason

Alexthere's a used to in there.

MerlinBut, never a fan, but I get why people like it and blah blah blah.

AlexI hated it before it was cool.

MerlinWe all want to see the Hulk's penis. Oh yeah, right. And those stolen iPhones.

MaxI think we all wake up every morning and we go, boy, if only I could see Hulk Hogan's hog.

MerlinI think we can all agree that Nick Denton's a very, very good person.

MaxYep. Yep. And, you know, you go through life and you're like, I wonder if today's the day when I'm going to see Hulk Hogan's hog. And what kind of hard-hitting, what kind of hard-hitting, you know, shoe leather, you know, like our old school journalism is going to get us photos of the Hulk's hog.

MerlinYeah. Or just, you know, unsubstantiated rumors about people just because they're in tech. That's kind of cool the way that works. Yeah. It's just fun. It's fun the way you assailed my friends on purpose for years. for clicks that was fun uh that was really fun and good thank you nick you gotta have nick denton

Maxhe's he's at his big desk and he's banging his fists on the desk going bring me photos of the hulk's hog he's dancing around in the suit um yeah you know what you know it's like everyone's gotta have i think that that's the lesson from gawker is that there's there's always something in life that's worth you know it's like at some point they'll push you and they can push you no further and there's there's something that's worth dying for and you go you know it's like it's like i will die on this hill right they could they could never take our freedom give me the hog give me the hog give me the hog yeah yeah and showing the world photos of hulk hogan's penis

as as noble a cause as i think has ever been it's also it's also really ever sort of laid down their

Merlinlife it's also really really cool that their whole brand is uh fuck everybody um because everybody's the worst and boy we sure are we aren't ain't i a stinker is their whole brand but if you ever say anything against any of those properties you're the asshole that's a fun thing so what she's what's amazing though she talks about this and it's like she's really like it's very meta in some ways because she's great at knowing how to present herself but she's talked about stuff like after jezebel she stopped she says she stopped worrying about like what strangers said about her on the

internet which of course it'll still affect you and you get death threats and stuff and people send you dicks or whatever but like she seems very sanguine about like her place in life um but the other thing is she just says things again things that seem kind of obvious but like you need to hear it stuff like people who get success some of the people who get successful these days on the internet um are people who not only can tolerate a high level of hostility and what's the What's the word that she used?

But basically, like, if you're somebody who likes to fight and is good at fighting and doesn't mind getting fought at, you will do better than people who can't because those people will just fall away because it's the worst. And just the nature of her realizing, for example, that, like, she does not need to respond to every confrontation. She does not need to engage in every fight that somebody wants to start with her. And I don't know. I just, I find it all just very thoughtful and necessary tonic that I, you know, I'm

going to read that book. I got the Kindle thing, but I haven't read it yet. I hope it's ragged right and not justified.

AlexIt's, oh.

MerlinSave it for the show.

AlexSave it for the show.

MerlinSo you read the whole book. You read the whole Gia book. The Gia book. Gia book. Gia book. You already read, you read the whole thing?

AlexI sure planned to, but then.

MerlinNo, no. Not Disney. Gia.

AlexOh. Gia, Gia.

MerlinYou've got to catch them all.

Speaker AGia, Gia. Yeah, I'm on the last... Jumaane, Jumaane. I'm on the last essay. And it's... Jumaane.

MerlinDid you read the whole Gia book?

AlexAll except the one Because I've been trying to read a fucking mouse book But it is the kind of thing That makes you feel less alone In a way that you didn't expect That you needed

MerlinYeah she's talking about the thing She's the one who's She's pointing to the elephant in the fucking room That's really You need that sometimes

AlexI don't know it's like Okay like sometime One day maybe maybe the internet will be normal Maybe we will all recognize this at one point and just be like, yep, yep, that's how it is.

But it's, I hate this term, but it is very much cold water in desert, whatever.

MerlinI totally agree. Glass ice water. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, like, I have to sit in the portal for my work. You know what I mean? It's like, we all come up with these reasons why we make ourselves so miserable with how, why, where, and when we use, especially in my case, Twitter. And it's like, I don't have a sound and reasonable explanation for why I do what I do.

MaxIt's like, again, this is me and the chicken, me and the fried chicken. I always know what I'm going to do before I do it. What? That's the guy from Mindhunter. Remember our great character from Mindhunter?

MerlinOh, right. Oh, love that guy.

MaxYeah.

MerlinLove that guy.

MaxThat's the thing. I always know what I'm going to do before I do it.

Speaker ANo one cared about me until I put on these big glasses.

AlexSo this is, is this the Olaf character? No, or not Olaf. No, not Olaf.

MerlinReindeers are better than people.

AlexOh, Klaus Fuck. Klaus Fuck. Klaus Fuck. Klaus Fuck. So wait, does Jonathan Groff doesn't have big glasses, right?

MaxAs long as we're never going to, as long as we're sharing all our unpopular internet opinions, we're never going to be able to put this out. What do you guys think of bed bug Twitter? Give me your take. I love to see it. You love to see it? I love to see it. I love, I love. I mean, if you're that much, if you're that much of a high status sort of public individual. Oh my God. Don't you kind of expect for people to call you names on Twitter?

MerlinDid you read the thing? Did you read the Esquire response? No.

AlexNo, I didn't know there was one.

MerlinOh, I know. I know our listeners might not have. So I'll mention it. So basically what happened was Brett Stevens, who is, how does one say a piece of shit? But one of the many terrible people writing for the New York Times opinion page, can we just have Jamel Bowie? Like, can we just have more of that? But no, no. Brett Stevens is there and he's terrible. And so what happened was this guy who's an associate professor at some college.

MaxI mean, if our listeners – I'll share quickly the thing – the one thing on my note card about Brett Stevens. He got hired fairly recently post-Trump at the New York Times. And he's kind of one of these never Trump conservatives, I think. And he got hired at the New York Times.

MerlinAlong the lines of David Brooks, he's another one of these very reasonable, you know, center-right Republicans.

MaxYeah. And he got – there was a lot of outcry. People were like, why would in the Trump era, like the New York Times be hiring more of these like kind of conservative commentators? They're like – not only do they not represent most people in this country, but they don't even fucking understand what's going on with Republicans. They represent New York Times conservative columnists.

MerlinThat's who they represent themselves.

MaxThat's it. Is there a living person who has less insight into the mind of the American public and voter than these never Trump conservatives? But this is all – anyway, so everyone was like – then there was sort of this like – people were like, oh, Brett Stevens, he's a great writer and he's a really good thinker and give him a chance and don't rush to judgment, everyone. And hey, can't we just grow up? And then the fucking first thing he writes is like climate change is overblown. Everyone should stop worrying so much about climate change. We're like, oh, here we go. It's crazy. I think I might have let it lapse, but I was a New York Times home print subscriber because I had this idea that maybe my life would be better if I would not go on Twitter and knock it on my phone, but I could wake up and read the paper.

You know what I did? Yeah, sure.

MerlinYou give it a snap while you're sipping your coffee out of your fancy China cup.

AlexAnd I was like, maybe I'll get some. Ignore the children across the table. It's a good morning for everybody. Yep.

MerlinHave the butler iron it for you.

MaxYeah. And I was like, maybe I was like, I would have some sort of like new perspective or different. Maybe it would change my life in some positive way if I like didn't go on my phone right away. And I just like and I just like, you know, get the paper record and you get the facts, you know, just get it all out there. Right. First thing in the morning. And like and I and I could the first thing I would do is open the back page of the front section. Just hate read the editorials. There's the op eds. They're just just so bad. I mean, just such lame, out-of-touch, milquetoast, awful opinions.

Just really, really boring and awful. And specifically there to troll me. I mean, I think a lot of the strategy there is it's things for me to get mad at and post about on Twitter. Or people like me.

MerlinOh, I don't disagree. And, well, we should save this for the show. Yeah, I think this is necktie Twitter. So necktie Twitter, the thing that I'm realizing is drives me craziest about people like Peter Baker. Like he's a good reporter. But he needs us. Okay, so I first noticed this with MSNBC for obvious reasons, which I do not watch anymore. And I'm really glad I made that decision. MSNBC needs us to feel like this is the craziest day that Rachel Maddow has ever had to report on.

They threw out the entire script and they have to start over because of all the crazy days. This is the craziest day. Brian Williams opens by saying what day of the Trump administration this is. And yeah, here we are again. And Chuck Todd goes, well, if it's Tuesday, it must be me jerking off onto a sponge or whatever the fuck. And you just do this and you got the same bits you got last night. You got Lawrence and Lawrence is saying, oh, Deutsche Bank had Russia co-signed Trump's loans. I don't believe that for a goddamn second. But they need us to feel like we are living through the worst conceivable time.

It is all off balance. And they are the single voice of sanity who is with you on how crazy this is. But the thing that's important about it is like with Fox. It's our Fox. They need us to feel off balance and that life is un-understandable. And there's no sympathetic voice to agree with you about how crazy this is except for them. Peter Breakers of the world need you to feel off balance too. They need you to feel that this is a fucking horse race and not so fast. No, this isn't happening because if this happens, that's going to happen. You haven't thought this through the way the New York Times has.

And, you know, Maggie does a fair amount of that too. There's a lot of us needing to feel off balance. And then you take that salt and then you pepper it with the fucking opinion page. I'm still a subscriber, a happy subscriber. I'm glad they do the work they do. But I don't think of them as my friend. I think of them as a newspaper. and it was really dumb of me to think of them as my friend. It's all access journalism. It's all people who need you to feel like, never mind, I'm just mad.

MaxI'm mad, I get mad, I get mad, I get mad and I'm off it. So, I mean, we should eventually come back to calling Brett Stevens a bed bug. No, no, no, we're gonna, you know we're gonna.

AlexOne of you needs to read the letter because that, or the email.

MaxThe letter's amazing. Yeah, well, I just, the thing I'll say about the New York Times is like, I think it's a very conservative paper and not in the sense of conservative, like this moment in politics, like it's a Republican paper. Yes.

Speaker AI mean, it's conservative in the sense that it's a whole paper.

MaxThe thesis of the New York Times is that we don't want, really, we don't want anything to change. Like everything is good how it is. We have to get back to normal. Yes. And it's kind of the document of the people who've got everything set up the way it is. And they're like, well, why would we want it to change? Like everything is good how it is. And they have a lot of column space dedicated towards fretting about anything being different. And I think, you know, we're like, it goes without saying, like we're living in this moment where a lot of people are, find the way that things are to be intolerable for them and their families.

They're drowning in debt and they don't have health insurance and no opportunities in their life and whatever, whatever, whatever. but at some point the the side that people are going to pick is i want things to be different than they are rather than any sort of uh a polite uh uh parameter you know the other thing the new york times wants to do is that they want to say well the here's what's in within bounds of debating right they want to put the rails on the argument and say well you can't say this or that but these are the things that you can argue over and like fuck that like who let them decide that yes yes

Merlinon second mention and on second mention we put an honorific in front of somebody's name isn't that nice the way we do that yeah

Maxand then there was I'll also just throw out there was also that great thing about in the the Michael Lewis podcast about referees I don't know if you guys listen to that but it was pretty it was really good but they talked about how all these newspapers are getting rid of their ombudsman and their own sort of internal standards public editor and so yeah the public editor and it's like so these papers want to police the bounds of the debate for the rest of us of like, oh, it's not appropriate to call the Trump's things. Yeah, we're not going to have Twitter.

MerlinWe're not going to have Twitter tell us that this misleading headline, that the person who wrote the article, they didn't write that headline. Somebody in the SEO department wrote the headline.

MaxBut they're going to go, but the New York Times whole thing is they're going to go, oh, it's not appropriate to call them concentration camps. Like, let's not overreact. But also, like, their own internal processes are all fucked up, and they're reporting things that, you know, their standards have gone down and they're chasing clicks just like everyone else. Like, it's all fucked up and it makes me resent.

MerlinIt's not racist, it's racist tinged.

MaxYeah. Oh, it's it, yeah. What did they say? What did they say? He, racially charged. Racially charged.

MerlinSo right before we started recording, I was listening to Slate's show called What Next? This episode's called Reconsidering Joe Biden's Record and oddly enough, Jamel Bowie was the guest. And I'm going to massacre what he said, but it was so goddamn smart. He was, so he was talking about the Biden thing and, you know, and we all know the Biden thing and what's going on. Not just the melting brain part, but the like white people, white people, it's not that they love Joe Biden. They like Joe Biden's chances. There's nobody who's excited. He is the Blackberry of candidates.

Like nobody is happy about Joe Biden. Like, but they feel like they have to do it, right? But he said something so smart and he's like, and I think this does get lost in the lights talking about specifically, I'm going to say Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. And I don't want to get in the whole wound up in the whole chapeau thing. I really like Elizabeth Warren. She wants to do things. I do believe that she wants to do things differently. And there's a big difference for there's an axis for where you stand politically. Maybe there's an X axis of where you stand in terms of left and right.

But there's also maybe a Y axis of how you feel about those rails and how you feel about that governing system. And however you feel about Joe Biden's politics, what is unimpeachably true about Joe Biden is that he is an institutionalist who likes staying friends with everybody and being able to cut deals that could have happened in 1988, but aren't going to happen now. And Elizabeth Sanders, I wish. Elizabeth Warren is out there saying,

no, there's this big system that needs to be dismantled. It's the system. It's not just where you stand on that spectrum. Can't we all agree that this big system is really screwed up and that that's getting somewhat lost in the lights and the polls of all of this stuff? So, Brett Stevens.

MaxYeah, so basically, Brett Stevens is kind of, I would say, he's almost like the icon of this whole sort of New York Times ideology. There was like an article going around or someone posted on Twitter and they go, Breaking, there are bedbugs in the New York Times newsroom. and then some rando twitter user who has like 30 followers dave karf some guy named dave karts with i think he what does he have like 30 before all this went down he had like 30 followers i mean he was like you know like not a major twitter he had he had a tweet he had a tweet with no

Merlinhandle mentioning brett stevens that received i believe at the time zero retreats retweets and nine faves that somehow brett stevens was able to find because obviously he was searching for mentions of himself which is super normal and healthy yeah so he the tweet was so he reached

Maxhe retweets this thing that says there are bedbugs the new york times newsroom and he says the bed bugs are brett stevens and brett stevens of course has a twitter search for his name and he checks it every five minutes and he finds this tweet and his sends he's he emails what does he do he snitched

Merlinon him to like the... He emails the provost. He emails the provost of the college where this guy is a tenured, tenure track associate professor. Dear Dave Karf. Dear Dr. Karf. Someone just pointed... This is such a Trump move. Someone just pointed out a tweet you wrote about me calling me a bed bug. I'm often amazed about the things supposedly decent people are prepared to say about other people. People they've never met on Twitter. I think you've set a new standard. I would welcome the opportunity for you to come to my home, meet my wife and kids, talk to us for a few minutes, and then call me a bed bug to my face.

That would take some genuine courage and intellectual integrity on your part. I don't know about that. I promise to be courteous no matter what you have to say. Maybe it will make you feel better about yourself. Please consider this a standing invitation. You are more than welcome to bring your significant other cordially, Brett Stevens, cc'd to the provost of the university where this guy works.

AlexOh, my God.

MaxWhere's the part where he's like, come to my house and tell my wife I'm a bed bug?

AlexThat's the main portion, I'd argue, of it. Other than saying, oh, someone told me.

MerlinNo, this is a fuck you. It's a fuck you sandwich. Yeah.

AlexYeah. I can't handle the considerate standing invitation.

MaxCan you imagine if someone insults you on Twitter and they're like, Merlin Mann sucks. like his opinions about computers are bad. And you'd be like, why don't you come to my house and tell my wife that? Yes.

MerlinHaven't you seen my little daughter who thinks I'm funny? I'm gonna have you fired, sir. Sir, you have set a new standard.

MaxCome over to my house. Yeah, I need this.

MerlinI need it to finish. Come over. You fucking pussy.

MaxCome to my house. Come over and say in front of my family. You come and say

Merlinyou don't like my opinions. My opinions about computers? I'm a Merlin man You come to my house you fucking pussy You're a fucking pussy And I'm gonna see your boss sir

MaxYou set a new standard Specifically I need you to come to my house

MerlinAnd humiliate me in front of my wife And my pool boy And my trainer

Speaker AWell you know

MerlinIn Micah He wrote The lord loves a cuck I think there might be some psychology happening there so that's what happened with that and then Brett Stevens went on to MSNBC to talk about this further and said that there is a totalitarian precedent for calling people insects and he's just real upset about it fast forward he deleted his Twitter account but Dave Karp is still there and he's writing on Esquire and it led to a tweet from someone this morning

that I'm going to be thinking about Beyond Today. And this is what this person wrote. This is David Cleon. I don't know what his deal is. David Cleon, news editor at Jewish Currents and writer at The Nation. And he links to Dave Karp's response in Esquire, which is really good. I recommend it. I'll put it in notes. And here's what this guy said in linking to this article, quote tweeting it. I don't think anyone can seriously dispute that Dave Karp is a better, smarter, and more ethical writer than Bret Stephens.

So why is Stevens the one with a tenured column at the New York Times? The answer is that conservatism is a jobs program for mediocre white people. Oh!

Speaker AOh!

MerlinThat's so fucking good.

Speaker AIt's so good. No, give it a minute. Give it a minute.

MerlinIt's got levels. Because you know what those guys hate? They hate all those make work programs for blacks. Title mine. Affirmative action. That's for people who can't achieve. I'm an urban achiever. No, you're not. It's a jobs program for mediocre white people. I love it so much.

Wow.

Speaker AOh, that's so good.

AlexOh, I hope he has it.

MerlinI'm not owned. I am not owned. I slowly turn into a corn cob.

MaxI don't think we could ever put this episode out. What are you talking about? We're going to post this. All right. Oh, my God.

MerlinHave you just started doing that? Have you just started doing that as a defense mechanism? Why would you say that? Are you turning into a corn cop? Are you owned?

MaxI'm owned. I'm not owned.

AlexQuinn will just hiccup out the part where I'm talking about fucking dolphins, and the rest will be fine.

MaxOkay. I really miss some stuff.

MerlinSo did I, but it's funny. Dig a challenge? challenge

Maxwait did I have some I might have had some other shit for you guys do the shit

MerlinI forgot

Speaker Awacky Justin

MerlinI gotta have my vape

Speaker Aokay so

MaxI'm in a silly mood now oh I know I have a little bit of I have a little bit of an iOS thing So I switched, you know, I'm obsessed with like how I get news and how I, um, how I read news all the time. Okay. Me. Yeah. So I, I'm off, I'm off of, um, say it, say it, please say it. Uh, I'm off of, uh, no, no, I'm not off Twitter. I'm off of Google or I'm off of Apple news. Whoa. Wow. Because you know how we, you know, we always make fun of app. We always make fun of Apple news for like coming up with these ridiculous headlines.

Oh, it's so bad. So I, and I'm onto the Google news app and I think it's a little better. And I don't know if you guys have tried it

MerlinI look at Google News constantly It drives me crazy That's where I go for news aggregation

MaxI'm sorry to say That's what I got for you And I find the for you thing useless It's showing me a lot of shit about the Popeye's chicken sandwich Which I guess maybe Google knows I've clicked on some links about that And it's showing me lots of I also get a lot of comedy casting news I have a lot of SNL casting news

MerlinCan I give you a hot tip? Yes I don't know if there's a way, I'll say it this way, I doubt there's a way to do this on iOS. But if you're looking at it, if and when you're looking at it on desktop, well, let me go there and see how you do this. And you're seeing some horseshit you don't like. First of all, they have one of those probably pointless see less often type buttons, which I'm not sure is hooked up to anything. But what it will do that's cool, there's an area where you can go and manually say news sources that you don't want to see. but for a given linked story you can mouse over those three vertical dots for more and click and

say hide stories from this new source so if you're getting a lot of like um you know android testers today or whatever like you could say like i don't want to see this anymore i just don't show me stuff from these people at all so like the first time perez hilton finds his way into your attention

Maxyou can say no i'm good thank you that does that does help so google also has like a dedicated tab for, they have one thing that's for you, which I find to be pretty useless, and another one called Headlines. And I find their Headlines thing to be pretty good.

MerlinWell, yeah, and again, I mostly use this on the desktop, but another neat thing they've done fairly recently is, so they automatically cluster what they believe to be similar stories into like a little package for you, and you can click on View Full Coverage. And then what I love is, in the upper right, it sorts by relevance by default, but you can also say sort by date. So if you just want to see the latest hot news, it bubbles up the latest stories to the top.

Well, in this case, that President Trump thinks that Puerto Rico is very ungrateful. In terms of rain.

Oh my god, he sure is mad about the fake news.

Speaker AHaving a normal one.

MerlinYeah, yeah, I was saying to Alex, earlier, the thing that's been driving me crazy right now, oh, you probably saw this on the channel. God, fucking AMP. Maybe it's just an iOS 13 thing, but like when I land on an AMP, Google AMP story, which is, basically they amplify pretty much everything coming out of Google searches and news.

And, you know, if you don't want that, you're kind of out of luck. There are add-ons in Android that you can get, but in iPhone, your option is to just not use Google, basically. And AMP sucks. One of the things I was saying to Alex, it's hard to articulate, and I think this might be a 13 thing, but when I land on any AMP story, I know instantly, because the second I try to scroll, it does this weird, jittery hopping on the page, which is ironic given that the whole point of AMP is supposed to be to slim down pages. I want it to be gone. I want it to be totally gone. I wish Guardian would add that.

Guardian is my new answer to everything. Are you using Guardian,

AlexAlex? Guardian.

MerlinIt's VPN plus firewall for your phone. Oh, no.

MaxVPN plus firewall. so should you okay guardian okay i'll check it out i you know i'm i have a lot of paranoia about

Merlinvpn stuff i know you should you should you should this i i i i'm i'm setting aside the vpn part because that's a thistle i ran across uh an article the other day uh god i wish i could find it again uh but it it evaluates all the vpns for all kinds of things so if you're a chinese dissident, you need to be looking at that table because there's all kinds of... Look for it out there. It's not the Torrent Freak one, but there is one that drills into a ton of detail. I don't distrust the people at Guardian

and the firewall part is crazy.

MaxWell, what is the... Can you explain what the... I don't actually know what a firewall is. Oh, okay. So, like, have you ever used, for example, Little Snitch? Did you ever use that? Yes. But it made my computer

Merlinbreak. Well, Little Snitch sucks for a couple days, but

Alexit eventually is great so you're looking for well wait wait what is little snitch little snitch is

Maxan app from little snitch is the guy that if you tweet about brett stevens he he replies underneath

Speaker Aand he goes at brett stevens sir you've established you set a new standard sir

Merlinuh little snitch is i think by obdev i think it's by the people who do launch bar and basically it lets you know every time something is trying to connect in or out to your computer and then you approve, deny, whatever on a per thing basis. So go to guardianapp.com and so what they say, so let's set aside the VPN part for a minute. So what they're saying here is you control your data, AES-256 encryption, network traffic,

real-time intelligent firewall is the head. Our number one priority is to find threats before they find you. We periodically scan code available within the App Store for security vulnerabilities, privacy issues, invasive trackers and more. Additionally, we can detect phishing, malware, aggressive advertising, and other traditional security nuisances.

And so here...

MaxDo you notice, is there things you notice where... So I use... What's the really good Safari ad blocker on iOS?

AlexI use OneBlocker.

MaxYeah, OneBlockerX. Brave is one. Yeah.

MerlinI use... Is that it? OneBlockerX. So much running, I don't even know anymore.

MaxI have... This is on Mojave. Yeah, so I have OneBlockerX, and occasionally, for whatever reason, I'm using an iOS device without OneBlockerX, or I use the Chrome browser

Merlinwhere OneBlockerX doesn't work with it. It's like the They Live glasses.

MaxYes, and you're like, holy shit. You're like, I take it for granted,

Merlinbut this thing is greatly improving the quality. Is this what the internet is like for you every day? Every day, this is what it's like for you. Oh my God, I didn't know you could put an ad there.

MaxHoly shit. Yeah, you're like, God, this thing is improving my life so much. Do you have that with Guardian Firewall plus VPN on the iOS App Store?

MerlinI don't know what's even doing what anymore. I'm running so much shit. But go look at the thing I just sent. And so the one downside I will say to this is, so the upside is, it identifies things that are trying to do weird shit with your location data. But in particular, it bans data trackers of many, many sorts. Now, what it doesn't do is say which app just did it. But I have found that you can kind of find out by basically, let's say, open Guardian.

You go and launch a suspicious app and then look at the activity that just happened back in Guardian. You can kind of fake it. So you can see in the two weeks or so I've been using this, it's blocked 4,442 data trackers.

So I don't know if it's working. I'm sure John Syracuse can find a reason to tell me this is all in my head. But I think it's kind of cool. And so you sign up. It's $10 a month for – I've got it running on several devices. And the only problem I know of that I've run into is that if I try to watch Hulu on an iOS device, it says, hey, you're running a VPN. You've got to turn that off.

AlexOh, it gets deep in there.

MerlinYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've tested it a little bit lightly with having it on and off. And as I said to Dan, the only time I've noticed a significant hit is when I'm on a very bad connection. You know what I mean? If you're on really a 3G-ish connection, you will know.

MaxBut we trust their VPN. We don't think their VPN is like a state actor trying to harvest all our data. I mean, you know how much you have to trust the VPN.

MerlinI definitely think it is, and that's specifically why I'm using it. No, but I'm saying like—

Speaker AI don't know. I don't know, Max. I don't know. you have to decide if you use the internet,

Merlinyou have to trust somebody. This is the jailbreak guy and he seems legit. It's the jailbreak guy. It's the jailbreak guy.

Speaker AOkay.

MaxWell, I like, I like that guy. He has cool hair. He has cool hair. Maybe he's been compromised and he's a CIA asset. Who's not at this point.

MerlinGuardian jailbreak guy. Yeah.

AlexI mean, what's the, uh, the, like, over under on how VPNs work when you have more than one installed, like how? Right. That's what I can never write my head around.

MerlinI think you can only have, well, I don't know this, but I mean, I've used Cloudflare. I've used Cloudflare. I've used the 1.1.1.1. I've used the, I like ExpressVPN. That seems good. Let me see if I can find this for Max's purposes. The thing is, if you don't trust somebody, you'll never trust anybody.

MaxThe one that I have that I recommend. So here's how I – the first thing is I recommend everyone make their own judgment call for VPN and do not really rely on like the recommendations of your friends or whatever because they don't know what the hell they're talking about. So what are you using? What are you using? Any comedy podcast. What I can recommend to people is the Torrent Freak does an annual VPN roundup.

MerlinWhy do you trust Torrent Freak? They're stealing movies.

MaxBecause – so I trust Torrent Freak because they're all – They're a news site that reports on the torrent world. But they do interviews with all the VPN companies. And they talk about, do they keep logs? Do they have offshore servers?

MerlinTorrent freak.

MaxThat would be the one that I mentioned five minutes ago. You want the torrent freak VPN roundup. And all they do is they have a feature comparison of all the major VPNs.

Speaker AI mentioned it five minutes ago.

MaxFive minutes ago. Five minutes. They talk about if they keep logs. Is this a torrent freak? In the US and stuff.

Speaker Ayeah it's called torrent freak sometimes i wonder if i can never tell do you do you think that

Merlinit's been a couple weeks since he's repeated a story from the previous i know exactly i'm like

Alexis there are the men in black guys there that day doing the little flashlight or are they like were they taking a day off what's what's happening i would love to find

Merlinthis because you know what i was i was actually in that hotel room um you know where my family was staying when i installed this and i you know i found myself looking around and i god damn it i want to find this it was it's vpn but it goes into extreme detail about like you know one of the things everybody says with this stuff and i don't want to get too into this because i don't really want to talk i don't want to be talked to about this uh a lot depends on where stuff is hosted like there's a reason people like something called proton mail whatever that is because of where it hosted. There are reasons that people like certain VPNs being in certain places because of where

they're hosted. These things matter. What do they retain? How can you pay for this? All those things will matter to somebody. In this case, the notional Chinese dissident, right? Somebody where this really matters a lot. The granularity of not simply, can I trust this person or not? But down to some extreme details where you always look at Apple and the way that they say, look, we don't even want a way to get into your data. You know what I mean? Not only do we not want your data, everybody's like, this is still so gay bones for Spotify.

And it's like, hey, Spotify wants to give me more data. And I'm like, you know what? I'm real good to not even know that data. I want to know how many downloads of this podcast there was because that's what advertisers want. And that's literally all I care about. I don't want any of your data. And I don't want you to have mine.

MaxOh, can we see what the Dubai Friday listeners are listening to on Spotify? Do we have that?

MerlinWell, that's a really good question. Did we ever get those stats, Alex? No, we did not. How long has it been? What's it been? A couple months now? How long has it been? Remember what I said? Remember what I said? I remember what I said. I said, sure, as long as we get the stats.

Speaker AThey'll get back. They'll still get back.

MaxWe're rolling that in in the next release. Do we not have their analytics product or whatever?

AlexWe had the privilege, Max, the privilege of being on there before they had opened it up to everybody. So no, we don't have access to...

MerlinOh, no, no, but it wasn't we who put us there. It was the people who host our podcast who gave us the privilege of putting us on Spotify.

Speaker AWe're on Spotify.

MerlinThat sounds really good for us. That sounds like a big opportunity for us. Oh, it's so good. It's so huge for us. I mean, really, if you could be part of the rounding error, that is siloed podcasts. Oh, my gosh, that's so amazing. Why aren't you on Squanto for Oreo Android? I don't know. Why am I not a potted firm? It's available on Squancho or wherever podcasts are found.

MaxPlease check us out on Squancho.

Speaker AYou got to update your lollipop.

MaxChina's in your phone. It would be called like Pod Squanch. Check us out on Pod Squanch or wherever you get podcasts. Make sure you give us five stars on Pod Squanch.

Yeah, you can stream us live on Spankcast. Use the referral code torrentfreak for $5 off your first month on PodSquatch. Squatch save America.

Speaker AWe're going to talk about the challenge.

AlexWe need to...

Speaker ANow time to talk about the mouse book.

MaxI have a lot of thoughts on the municipal highway system in, uh, in, uh, Orlando. That's where I four meets 75, baby. Yeah.

Speaker AUh, Merlin, this was,

Merlinwe don't talk about, you'll talk about in the after show.

MaxNo, no, we'll do a quick, let's just touch. I, I'm actually very excited about the book. Although I, I don't think I read enough of it to, to give my, a full account, you know, thoughts. I'm going to need,

MerlinI think Alex and I are going to need a few minutes just to talk about typesetting though.

AlexOh my fucking God.

MerlinHoly shit. You know what? You know what's boring? Save it for the after show. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. If you're going to put out an e-book and you can only have it be justified in one way, please don't have it be full justified with no hyphenation. If you have to choose one that will flow to different sizes and won't require any extra work for you, why wouldn't you make that ragged right?

Because there's rivers and valleys and orphans and phillies and what is happening i can't even look at this thing i love i enjoyed reading this book except for how much i hated reading this book it was it's excruciating to read a book to get it to a size where you can read it with my eyes with fully justified text it's a fucking train wreck it's it's an aesthetic train wreck

Alexit's more than aesthetics though like it's hard to read it's there's like four sometimes

Merlinthere's four words on a line with an inch of space between them. It's crazy. This is Microsoft Word solved this in the 80s. You're a computer company. Make it good. Do better.

AlexWas wild. I haven't seen this since.

MerlinIt's old ones. It's when there's an old, recent, newer books almost always will allow me to have my preferred ragged right and will let you do lots of stuff. This one ships only with all the justification options, alignment options, are shut off. You can't reach it. It's grayed out. You have to have full justified with no hyphenation.

AlexI literally thought that was impossible because there was that period where Kindle was just all fucked up. And it wasn't quite as bad, but you just can't force it. It stays. I would have rather read a PDF of it.

MerlinThere's no size. I put on my glasses and I turned the brightness really far up and I said, okay, maybe I'm just an old man and I should see this at a smaller type size and that'll make it prettier. No. No, it doesn't. It's just ugly. It's ugly in a different way with every setting I had access to. Not ugly, like unreadable. Anyway, so we read a book, took a challenge called Married to the Mouse. And I learned about this from listening to an episode of a podcast I really like called Nice Try with Avery Truffleman. Avery Truffleman. and she has this great podcast about

failed utopias and the most recent episode was kind of a weird one but really good it was a live episode where she chatted with this woman about the world of I don't want to say Disney World because it's more than Disney World it's also celebration they talked about Disney just the whole like Disney as utopia idea what Walt wanted to do and that's where I learned about this book called Married to the Mouse they had both read the book in prep for this podcast episode and I thought it'd be fun for us knowing that We all have our own different kind of weird attachments to certain Disney things. I thought it'd be fun for us to read a chapter or so of Married to the Mouse.

AlexWell, I got about 5% in, and I'll send you the exact page I stopped at. Uh-oh. Because I... You're problematic? No. Well, yes, we just talked about it. That was the smallest I could get it to actually read it without giving me a headache. and then I got a headache because I was squinting too much anyway. So I was just like, you know, nope, nope. And I planned on priming it, but no, you can only buy it used.

So it's on, I plan to read all of this book.

MerlinYeah, I think it's out of print.

AlexBut it literally gave me a headache to read.

MerlinIt's so bad. Now, Max, did you have any problem? Well, wait a minute. Hang on. Max isn't talking. Max has aesthetic interest.

MaxNo, I kept trying to jump in, but you guys couldn't hear me. No, it doesn't bother me that much. I mean, I recognize that it's correct. Like, everyone should typeset their books correctly, but it just doesn't bother me as much as it bothers you guys.

AlexIt's not even...

MerlinLook at that sentence. Look at that second sentence, or the second line of the first new paragraph. Found in both relationships, period, when. Look at that line. Look at the spacing on that line.

MaxLike I said, like, I know, I recognize that it's, I recognize that it's not correct, and I would never ship something like this, but it doesn't, it just, I have to say like I get into such a flow of like I'm so interested in what I'm reading, I just don't even notice that, like for me it's. I get into a flow of putting it down and watching Mindhunter.

AlexThat's what I was surprised by.

MerlinIt hurt my head, it gave me a headache.

AlexYeah, I was looking, I actually, I have some old high school textbooks and I went back and was looking at them and I thought maybe I just, My eyes had been trained to read better looking stuff. But no, there was just something about it. It broke my head. And like I that I know of the one thing that I don't think I have any learning disability. Well, learning disabilities in regards to like looking at words. And it just broke my brain and I couldn't do it.

This is the first time that has ever happened to me. And I've I'm a very like Syracuse type. I've been reading e-books on my, I read it on my iPod Touch. I read it on freaking Palm Pre, but this book for some reason- It finally broke you. It just, it broke me. And I'm like, I'm just gonna buy the normal fucking book.

MerlinMaybe we should just suggest that people listen to that episode of Nice Try. Don't read this book as it is. It's unreadable. Well, except for Max. Matt, did you like it? I was digging the book. I was digging the book.

MaxIsn't it good? Isn't it kind of good? Yeah, I was digging all the political intrigue of the movers and shakers and how they like like an industry capture of all of the South Florida boards and political offices

MerlinI love the opening anecdote yes I was going to say that where they don't reveal where it is who it is, what is happening you want to tell them the opening anecdote

Alexalright spoiler horns I think it's something like Disney didn't like for oh here i'll just pull it up something about eyebrows uh walt disney didn't say anything he merely raised his right eyebrow in response to the offending remark his staff was seated around him and then it goes on to talk about this dinner party uh but before that it's it's like disney it gives a quick like recap of yes you know walt disney you know who he is

everybody wants to buy Disneyland or get Disneyland properties into there. And it turns out that Walt Disney has just been offended by the, I think it was the mayor of St. Louis or something.

MerlinNo, it's Augustus. It's Augustus Bush from Bush Brewing. And the guy behind stuff like Bush Gardens later on.

AlexI thought he was also the mayor or whatever. So the Bush Garden guy.

MerlinWell, but it was Augustus Bush. But the funny part is it's Augustus Bush from the beer empire who says, No way can you have any kind of amusement park where you don't serve alcohol.

AlexAnd it just set Disney off, apparently. And that is why the chapter ends, or at least the anecdote ends. And that's why Disney World isn't in St. Louis. And it's just so good. That's it.

MerlinHe just walked away. That was his choice. And yeah, it's so good. But just all the details that everybody from Florida anyway knows, and Disney nerds know, about why he chose the spot he did in Orlando. You know, the flyover and this is where these two highways come together and there's no black people. And like all the things that he was really looking for. No, I added that, but it's true.

AlexWe all know it's true. Yeah. Max wouldn't be allowed there either. No, you're going to leave your Jew at the door.

Thank you.

Show notes

Transcript

147. Alex Cooladult

Show notes

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