152. The Law of Hot Places

AlexUh, now I'm seeing Max. I don't want to give up his opsec, but he's just not in the studio. He just, he just texted again. He says he's on Skype. He's on Skype. He is on Skype. But I think, I think we can call Marco first. Right? Right, Cameron? Oh, Max has, Max, Max is calling in from some obscure new handle. Did you get it? No, but I think, I think he can wait. I think he can, you know, we, we, he has made us wait a few times. I think it's all right. You're talking about Max? Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, I want to talk to Marco right away.

You can tell it's an ultra wide. I thought it I read that as ultra wide bottom.

MerlinOh, yeah, I got a lot of thumb in photo now.

AlexI almost had a pop socket in the photo the other day. Not good. Not good. Have you noticed on Upgrade it has been Alex shaming for the past few weeks?

Merlinoh i noticed that i get i'm so confused about are we doing a podcast what are we doing here

Alexyeah i mean i thought it was a bit of a bit uh cameron is he coming on go ongoing call is that us yeah what marco arment unavailable it might not be him he's not responding in slack he might

Merlinbe dead i asked him in slack see i think i'm shadow banned is that producer cameron yes this is producer Cameron have I been shadow banned because I keep texting everybody trying to organize this fucking late mission to talk about flashlights no one have I been shadow banned oh my god you're not responding I'm holy shit everything's fine everything's fine everything's fine I texted Marco on Skype I texted Marco in Slack I slacked Marco in Slack where I think I might be shadow banned because I I see my messages but I don't think anybody else is I I see them I

Alexjust don't respond to them it's a power move if you guys end up fucking this up i get two more

Merlinterms for free yes okay yeah then it's ivanka that's uh they call it castle doctrine alexa go

Alexhome alexa stop cameron can you call max is he doing a bit oh god he's oh my god oh my god

Merlinno he's he's being funny he's he's doing jokes i don't he he knows that he's been rewarded throughout his life for doing jokes yeah like when we need him to do the program he's doing jokes

AlexAll right, Cameron. It's very selfish.

MerlinIt's like jacking off on your wedding day. It's like an Alanis Morissette song. You're supposed to save that for your lady friend. All right. So Max, you can see in the super secret text channel that Max is telling us that he's on Skype and he's provided to us what he thinks is the handle,

Alexwhich Cameron is trying now.

MerlinWell, before all of this started, he'd sent me a thing to say earlier that he was on Skype and he sent that from Skype. So let me go look and see if I can find that in my history. But what's his name? Oh, this is a terrible app. Oh, man. Okay, so wait, where do I find his information? Oh, wait. Oh, here he is. Hello? Oh, there he is. Okay, so that's not actually his handle. Hey, buddy. Can you guys hear me okay? Yeah, you're a little choppy.

Jack.

MaxThe internet is so bad here.

MerlinI'm on Skype.

AlexWell, we couldn't find Max on Skype, but you found Max on Skype, so we're all good. I found Max on Skype. And we're trying to find...

MerlinMax gave us a false flag. I think he sent us the wrong handle.

AlexYeah. I've got many Skype handles. I couldn't...

MaxSo what happened was Skype kept making me log in and two-factor authenticate into my account over and over. After a long, arduous journey, I was able to eventually successfully log into Skype, but then it wasn't my normal handle. so I don't know. Maybe I've been hacked.

MerlinRetro, retro.

MaxI might have been hicked.

MerlinYeah, I got hicked.

MaxI think we've been shadow banned. Why is Marco not talking to us anymore?

AlexOh, no. We could call Tiff. Yeah.

MaxI don't know that Marco has a lot of experience in this kind of, you know, creative project. He's probably got to get a lot of stuff plugged in.

MerlinMm-hmm.

AlexMm-hmm. Get the right headphones.

MaxDo we know that he owns a nice microphone? Um.

AlexI think at least one.

MaxI don't want him to talk right into his MacBook Pro. It won't sound good.

MerlinOrientation Week, 1987. I was talking to a woman in a beret at my college a woman my age and we were talking and she was talking a lot about art and I said oh wow you really know a lot about 19th century French painters and 20th century French painters European painters and she said yeah and then I said are you an artist she says no I'm more of an artist and I still don't know what that means

Maxdid you just eat like a Madeline cookie what happened I think what happened I think Spill the tea

MerlinOn my Madeline Because I came The I think I think what she's I feel like what she I might have done a follow up question It was a long time ago But I feel like what she's trying to say is She's not a producer of fine art But she's an appreciator What I'm trying to say to you Is maybe that's Marco's thing That's his secret He's an artiste all along Maybe he doesn't own any of the microphones And headphones But he's super interested in them He sends them all back He does a Hurley Full Hurley Can we show you Should we tweet at him? Yeah, dude, I think that's going to help. We may have to go outside the normal channels.

Let's cancel him.

AlexOh, God.

MaxMarco Arment. Marco Arment. I'm going to tweet him the black lady clapping. Call your office.

Speaker AIs that what people say? Call your office?

MerlinM-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T. M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T. Marco Arment. S-I-R-A-C.

AlexS-I-R-A-C.

MerlinSomebody should do an NFL style logo that says USA Syracuse on it.

AlexOh, that's staying in the show. Yes, yes, it would be very, very cool.

MerlinUSA Syracuse. That would be so, you know what I'm talking about? Is the NFL the one with that cool shield logo?

AlexYeah, not my flag. Woo, that's a very good one.

MerlinYeah, yeah, look at that NFL.

MaxOkay, I tweeted to Marco.

MerlinI did too. I'm not late, it's tomorrow. Oh, shit, dog. what what he's he oh he's got receipts he sent his calendar did i do that i and this is 100%

Alexmy fault then a thousand percent my fault wait how did it get um wait hold on though wait a minute no it's definitely today we're all on skype i'm sure that it's my fault but i don't know how it's my fault it's your fault but is it your problem it is both it is both uh okay hold on nope it's 100 my fault i said oh no it's 100 my fault oh no it's 100 my fault yep yep we've got it my fault my problem oh no is this the pre-show this is it baby this is the

Maxshow challenge get marco to dial into your podcast of all the situations i find myself though

Alexin regards to situations with people, not necessarily Max or Merlin, just people with the show. Normally, it's never my fault, but often my problem. So I will happily say this is 100% my fault. But it's our problem. Yep. And now I have transferred the problem.

MaxOh, my God. It's always... You have such the wrong read on this. It's always everyone else's fault and my problem. What?

AlexI don't know. I don't know if I'd buy that.

MerlinI don't know.

MaxI don't think there's ever been a situation where it was my... It's always someone else's fault and my problem. That's always how it is.

MerlinI feel bad for Choppo because I was just listening. Oh, my God. Hey, buddy. Hey!

Speaker BThis is Dubai Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, check out knives and flashlights. Hey, it's our fault and our problem.

MerlinWe screwed up. Do it by Friday. Why am I on video? What? No video. No video.

AlexNo video.

Speaker AOh, it defaults me to video for some reason. Oh, shit.

MerlinNo.

AlexNo, no.

Speaker AThere we go. Oh, thank God.

MerlinYou have to get a new computer.

AlexOh.

MerlinBad boy.

Speaker AWhat was that weirdo blur it was doing?

MerlinOh, is it doing that Amazon type effect where it's like, guess what? I'm about to show. to show your penis.

AlexGuess what? Guess what? You better finish. You better finish. Get out of here.

MaxLet's all hope that we don't have capture extended frame on.

MerlinContinued on next penis. All right. So, sorry about that, Marco. Oh.

Speaker AIt's all right. I'm a professional podcaster. I can be ready in a moment's notice.

MerlinWhere did you get that? Marco, did you invent that quote or did you discover it somewhere? It's not my fault, but it is my problem because I think about it and I use it all the time. Do you know where you – I first heard it from you is what I'm trying to say. Is that your invention?

Speaker AI think it's my invention, but I could have heard it sometime before that and just forgotten where I got it from, but I think it's my invention.

MaxIt's so good. I should get that as a license plate.

AlexYes. No, I don't know. Someone should. Someone on this podcast should. I don't know.

MerlinNot it. Uh, yeah, that'd be funny, Max. Oh.

MaxCan I, I have some, um. Hi, Marco. I have some, uh, hot, uh, breaking Disney news and reviews that you can use.

AlexAll right. As, as hot as Max's, there's a, there's another hotness here. Uh, Merlin, could you please introduce our guest who's worked so very hard to get onto this program?

MerlinOh, we all know who Marco is. This is our, this is our friend of the show, uh, Marco Armit, and we're very excited to have him. Um, he's going to share some of his wisdom with us today. and hopefully friendship. We owe him an amends for really screwing this up. But hey, Marco, thanks for joining us on Dude by Friday.

Speaker AHey, yeah, thanks. It's good to be here. I hope we talk about...

MerlinI'm sorry I called you a coward on the internet.

Speaker AI hope we talk about nuts.com.

MaxDo you want to plug your car podcast?

MerlinI'm glad. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Oh, God. My goodness. I showed that to my daughter in the Lyft yesterday and her mouth was agape. Oh my goodness.

Speaker AAnyway, plug your car podcast. Yeah, it's ATP.fm. It's all about cars and occasionally apples bullshit.

AlexAnd partner of Marco. Why did I make it all gay? Wife of Marco, Tiff Arvette. Quinn, you can keep that in.

MerlinYou sound like unmedicated Yoda sometimes.

Alexperson who shares accommodations sharing accommodations with podcaster does Marco and Tim Farment have Matchy's favorite show called Top Four and people should listen to that if they don't like the car show because it's very very good

MaxI was so triggered by a Top Four episode recently join the club Max

Merlinthere's some things we just should never say on the internet because then you're just going to hear about it fucking forever.

MaxI was so upset by that.

MerlinYou're snot boogie now. You're snot boogie. For the rest of your life, you're going to be on a coffee board.

MaxPeople kept sending it to me, too. They kept linking me and linking me.

MerlinI don't love to know about it. If we're going to interrupt the interruption to the interruption, say the story, Max. What is it our friend

MaxMarco did? I actually would love to get into this for a minute, because I am so confused about the decision-making tree that led to the state of affairs. But Marco was staying in a... Okay, so I want to say that we know from the story that Marco told that it was a nice hotel. It was a fancy hotel. And he needed to make coffee for some reason, but there was no means to make coffee. And so he took the hotel iron, which, quote, looked clean, and then made the hot water and the iron...

Brand new. It looked brand new. It looked brand new. And then heated the water...

AlexSo less clean then. It's been a warehouse.

MaxIn the hotel iron, and then made, like, was it a Starbucks Via?

Speaker ANo, it was a Swift cup, my preferred instant coffee. But it's a similar kind of thing, you know, fancy instant coffee.

MaxWhy? I have so many questions. And to clarify, like, I didn't put the instant coffee into the iron. You know that you can get coffee in a hotel.

Speaker AYes, I do. See, here's the thing. So, you know, in most hotel rooms, it wouldn't be a problem. Most hotel rooms have a kettle or something you can make hot water with. Worse than the iron, though? A straight up kettle, I'm not sure. If it's like a full coffee maker, those are often pretty gross. But like a straight up kettle, I don't think it's too bad. because you can see all the surfaces and you can kind of judge there. Whereas a regular drip coffee maker, you can't really see where all that water's going and on the inside and everything. Anyway, so I needed a way to heat water and this hotel was fancy enough that they don't even have coffee makers in their rooms because they want you to go downstairs to the casino

and buy coffee there. And the thing is-

MerlinSo that's the thing is you try and get a fucking Marriott. You're like, can I please, if I don't want to go down to the pantry, love the pantry, but can I please have a refrigerator, right? and a heady thing. Other places are like, oh no, sir, there are no ice machines. We'll have the man bring ice to you. I'm like, I don't want the man to bring ice to me. It's part of my ritual.

Speaker AExactly. There's no ice machines in these hotels. There's no refrigerator space except for the mini fridge. I know exactly

Merlinwhat you're talking about.

Speaker AYeah. And I wanted coffee because we had just gotten there. We had just flown in so I had some jet lag. It was late. I wanted some coffee to keep me up. I didn't want to go downstairs to get the shitty coffee at the bottom because the thing is the law of hot places, places that have hot weather always have the shittiest coffee so this was this was las vegas and it totally holds up there i mean like it gets worse as you get further south like arizona is the worst but like you know las vegas not good coffee there you know your best bet is go downstairs get an espresso because the floor of how bad espresso can be is much higher than the floor

of how bad drip coffee can be so that's always my rule like when i'm traveling i just stick with espresso because it's going to be less bad than everything else I can get. But when I have my fancy instant coffee, all I need is a way to make some hot water and I can have good coffee. So that's what I chose to do. And there happened to be an appliance in the

Merlinroom that could make hot water. Certainly never utilized by a lonely German. No. And

Speaker AI had a travel mug to brew it in. So all I needed was something to make hot water and pour it into my travel mug. And the water from the tap wasn't hot enough. So I started with tap water. I poured it in and let the iron heat it up for a long time on this super max steam cycle and then dumped it in my travel mug and it was glorious. Marco,

MaxI think you'd do well in prison. You'd be one of those guys who hooks up a 9-volt battery to the hair iron to turn your... Make

Merlinartisanal toilet wine. Your Doritos

Maxinto a ramen noodle or something.

MerlinYou know, if it gets hot enough, it's going to disinfect it, right? This is why we need Dr. Don. But he's heating it.

AlexThat's what I thought.

Speaker AWell, it turns out Dr. Don weighed in on this on our private Slack channel, and he vindicated me. He said that that sounded like a low risk.

MerlinSee, this is why I increasingly have a problem with Dr. Don. I mean, do you have my back on this, Max? Doesn't it seem like he is a man? He says he's a doctor. He seems like somebody that we could trust, and he's always like, oh, it turns out. Or like, it depends. No, it doesn't depend. A German came in that and made a shirt flat. that's not a coffee making place that's for German cum and blue shirts Jesus Christ Don I'm not going to call you doctor anymore now you're Mr. Don

Maxwhy is it that whenever I ask Dr. Don if it's like safe to eat bananas he always goes oh well we haven't done studies on that and I don't know the risk factors and there's a certain percentages of this and that but when Marco's like can I cook in my hotel iron he's like oh absolutely that's fine that's great we love to see it

Merlinanyway thanks for coming on the show

Maxlook at the good stormtroopers yeah uh i went to so i'm in uh so i i this week i'm in uh the wonderful city of Orlando, Florida, where everything is very sticky and moldy. Don't get coffee there. It's, you know what? So far, the law of hot places holds up quite well.

Well, there we go.

AlexThere goes the Disney Wi-Fi. Okay.

MerlinApparently, don't get Wi-Fi there either. Can you not hear me?

AlexYeah.

MaxOh, there he is.

AlexOh, there we are.

MaxGot it. Am I back?

AlexMm-hmm.

MaxAm I back? Yes. Oh, this is so cool. I love it. So I was able to replicate the law of hot weather repeatedly on this trip already. Yeah. But I'm here for the Genie Convention, which is Genie Magazine's annual magic convention. And it was kind of a last-minute trip. And I got it. I'm here with a friend of the show, Jordan. We got in yesterday. And we had a little bit of free time. So we just sort of happened to – we just went to Disney. We were like, we have some time. We're in Orlando. Let's go. And we strolled into Epcot because that's kind of the coolest proprietary park in Orlando.

And it turns out that we were there on like a huge Epcot day because it was the...

AlexYeah, Food and Wine Week.

MaxIt's Food and Wine Festival, which is delightful. But it was also the first ever performance that evening of the new light show over the lake, which is called Epcot Forever. And we just had... This was not planned. I'm not like a Disney vlogger now, but like we just happened to be there. And also I believe the new thing that, which is the, um, the gondolas that connect all the parks. It just, I think it opened this weekend and we went on it.

MerlinYes, it did. Yes, it did. Oh, cool. Like a sky ride.

MaxYes, it is so, it is so fucking cool. It is total Disney magic. It moves so fast. The, the views are awesome. It's, it is like such a futuristic, like it really, it feels like old school Disney. It's like cool transit. You know, I love it. I love it.

MerlinThat used to be the best way that when I was a kid and we'd go to Orlando when there was only the Magic Kingdom back in the 1920s. Yeah, there was a Skyway. It was called Skyway to Tomorrowland, Skyway to Fantasyland. And you could basically do a diagonal across the park in the air. And it was so freaking fun and fast.

MaxIt's the best way. It's the only way to fly. So, yeah, we were walking around Epcot yesterday and we were like, you know what would be cool is we had sort of exhausted the stuff to do at Epcot. and we were like, you know what would be cool is if we could go to Star Wars land for one hour and then come back to see the light show. And we were like, but how are we going to get there in time? And we happened to realize that this thing had just opened. We jumped on it. It was eight miles in like five minutes. It was so fast. It was so cool.

And so we went over to MGM. We saw Star Wars for a little bit. Star Wars fucking rolled. I did not get enough time to fully take everything in.

MerlinIs this the new thing? I'm kind of confused. I'm confused, Max. Is this where you can like wait in line and then like fly the Millennium Falcon and you get the blue milk and all that?

MaxIt's that whole world. It's in Florida. It opened in Florida.

AlexAnd this is the good one. The good one at Disney World.

MaxAllegedly, they're basically the same. But they also have the Avatar there or is that? That is also in Orlando. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my star. I can't believe people are complaining about Star Wars. It's one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my entire life. My jaw was on the floor. I was filled with like a sense of childhood, childlike wonder. It was amazing. Like we should go. We should all do a vacation and go to Star Wars land together. And then number two, the other funny thing was like, so they had the new light show and it was so fucking cool. Like I was like jumping up and down.

I was so excited by the like the fireworks show and it was very nostalgic and it had like music from all the old Epcot stuff that they're tearing down. And afterwards, you know, we were surrounded by like, it was, the park was packed and we You're surrounded by like Disney vloggers and people, you know, there's like a whole cottage industry of people who like, you know, they like film and photograph and live stream all the new whatever is new at Disney. I don't know if you guys are aware of this world.

AlexOh, just a little bit. Yeah. Sounds horrible.

MerlinOh, yeah. I mean, like, it's just if you watch one defunct land, that's going to be your recommendations forever. Like there's so many like immersive, immersive Disney. And I'm not I'm not trying to throw shade. But like, yes, you're absolutely right. There's like this whole, at least on YouTube, that's my viewport into it. There's like this whole cottage industry of people reporting on aspects of theme parks in general, Disney in particular, but then getting extremely specific. There's like, I think there's like Haunted Mansion vloggers. Like they really get into it.

MaxYeah, it's a whole, it's a thing. And they were all there. I mean, it was a big to-do and it was packed. And I saw this thing and I was so, I mean, I was like, I was like shitting my pants. It was the coolest thing I've ever seen. And then afterwards, just out of curiosity, I went on Twitter and I did a search for Epcot, hashtag Epcot, because I was just like, I wonder what people are saying about that. And everyone was nitpicking and like, oh, I didn't like it. It wasn't as good as the old fireworks show. And I was like, you're out of your fucking mind if you didn't think that's the coolest thing you've ever seen.

They had these huge kites flying in tight formation over the water being pulled by jet skis that were running dark. So you couldn't even see that they were jet skis. And the kites were launching fireworks out of their tails. It was all choreographed to music and Walt Disney speaking. What more do you want? What do you people want?

AlexI don't know what answer you want from this.

MaxI don't know. It was very frustrating.

Alexobjectively star wars fans are the worst and i think they just kind of i don't think you should speak ill of the disney weirdos who live stream and periscope from uh let's say the the the magic castle uh premieres but but the star wars people are just bitching the same way they would about ryan johnson so i just don't listen don't listen to them it'll just make you sad and just go and enjoy the fancy Dasani water bottles.

MaxI did get a fancy Dasani water bottle. Good, good. I'm glad. And I ate a Ronto

Alexwrap. Oh! Okay. No, God, this is the worst audio. Did you get

Maxa Magic Band? No, no. I don't want to brag, but I am a Disney annual pass holder, so that means I have a little credit card, and I can just use that to stroll into the park whenever I want, and I

Merlindon't need a thing. Did you say you didn't want to brag? is that what you said

Maxyeah no I'm not trying to brag it's just a fun

Merlinjust a fun fact

Alexabout me you only have like a pin that a hundred a very you know less than a hundred people in the world have no big deal no big deal um all right now that Max has triggered me uh how are you doing Mark you still you still there

Speaker AI was just uh zoning out during all the Disney talk

Alexyeah

Speaker Awant to talk about Survivor next

Merlinyeah let's do that

Speaker Ayou guys watching the new season how about political Twitter this is all my favorite topics oh my gosh you guys

MerlinI have so much to say. Mac Pro coming soon. Yeah, yeah. It's exciting. So wait, hang on. So are you not into theme park stuff at all? You have a youngster. Have you heard the siren song of fun theme park stuff in general?

Speaker ABecause it is kind of fun to take a little kid there.

MerlinWe haven't tried yet. Not necessarily to Disney. Our first theme park was Legoland. and it was actually like a good starter theme park.

Speaker AYeah, we haven't tried a whole lot yet because our son doesn't really get super into certain characters or anything. So we don't really have much of a draw there. But I don't know, we should give it a try. The whole Disney thing can be a little overwhelming and certainly costly. I gotta say, every description I've ever heard of what it's like to go to Disney from all of you on podcasts sounds like something that we would not enjoy.

AlexYeah. I think that's a problem is you are the only person I know in my immediate like tech world that sort of like understands beaches and understands why they're shut up, Merlin.

MaxLike I understand you can go. It's hot. There's like sand. There's water.

MerlinMarco, I was with you. I don't want to swim. I don't want sand. I don't want sun. I want everyone to be silent in air conditioning. That's a vacation.

MaxHow much beach can you really do? I mean, you go there, you look at it. What are you going to read for a little bit? And then you're done. It's like, did you watch a YouTube video of the beach?

Speaker AWhat I get out of the beach is not just being in the sun, on the sand, and in the water itself. When you're near the beach, the air is different. The climate is different. The people are different. And so I actually just enjoy being in the beach town. Like, I like living at the beach for a few weeks or a month or two months or whatever. I like that is way different than taking a day trip to the beach to be on the sand like that. I don't enjoy that very much either. When I'm at the beach, I'm hardly ever on the beach.

MerlinI'm proud of you for swimming. I was really proud of you for swimming. I was really glad to hear that. That's really cool that you did that. That took guts.

Speaker AThank you. Yeah, it's a thing.

MerlinIt does. It does. I mean, like it's a horrible it's a it's a horrible nemesis to see. It wants to kill you.

MaxYes, it sure does. do you ever go in a body of water and you're swimming and like a little piece of seaweed

Alextouches your foot and then you think you're going to die that's that's a yearly occurrence yeah you're

Maxlike well what is what is that a giant a giant squid what is that i just i just there's it's

Merlinanother one of these like so like maybe beaches and like a theme park are our sort of like counterparts where like for me like the idea of going somewhere and like you you pay way too much for a hotel room but then it's like you're steps away from walking into the park and you get in early and it's like that's my it's the mandatory fun of oh but beaches are great it's like no they're not it's a hellscape do you have any idea how many second degree burns i've gotten from that giant busted ass star i'm all fucked up from sun i lived in fucking florida i spent my entire youth

carrying two to three shirts with me at all times is heat fun no it is not and sand is bad and it gets on your johnson get away go back in the air conditioner it's terrible you don't get to a way to live. I don't get to what? Because you don't get pockets I have to go sit on sand in the heat?

AlexBoo! No, I have a permanent pocket where you have a Johnson. So there...

MerlinSo thanks for coming Sorry, we had the wrong thing.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinPermanent pocket. That's adorable.

AlexWell, it's true.

MerlinI'm sorry. I had to move my quiet keyboard because I'm photographing knives.

AlexYeah, I've been doing that. I'm trying to get somebody to – I don't have an intern now, so I know life is very hard.

MerlinDid you have to return it?

AlexI did. I did. I had to drive down to Champaign. Return in your intern? Here you go.

MerlinIntern for what? So are we done? We about done? Should we head out and get some pho?

AlexHow often do you order pho? I shouldn't say how often. Why do you care?

MerlinWhy do you care what I eat? Why does that matter what I eat?

AlexNo, no, no, no, no. I'm curious how often you order your pho before we've ended the show, but also how far we get into the show before you order the pho or any type of food.

MerlinIf you're genuinely curious, I will tell you. Sometimes I will order it when I suspect we're into or beginning the after show. And I mean, without compromising my OPSEC, my arrangements have changed a little bit to where I don't have to do as much super time to pick up in the afternoon. So I do have more time. But I also get hungry because I'm not a morning eater. I wish I were a morning eater. I want to become a high protein morning eater. It's a project and I still haven't arrived. I need easy morning protein. Eggs? Then you make a pan. Then you make a pan. You got to clean. You got to clean the pan.

Speaker Ayou know yeah but it's not like you can get like a decent non-stick pan for no money and here comes the expense here we go i'm saying non-stick pans are not a thing that needs to be expensive the expensive ones are not actually better they don't actually last longer so you can just get like five cheap ones and like when this when one starts becoming a stick pan you throw it

Maxaway you get the next one yeah we got a ceramic cow for long merlin is the issue that you don't You don't know what to make for breakfast or you don't have the right gadgets or whatever? Or is the issue that you wake up and you're not hungry?

MerlinI'm very uncomfortable with this becoming about my proteins, my morning protein.

MaxWhy don't you use that egg tube extruder thing?

MerlinWe got the rollie. Oh, my God. That's it. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I have so many things that have come to me through this show that are just so challenging to have in the house. No, I could do that.

Speaker AI could do that. I could also see. I try to avoid the, you know what?

MerlinThis is super boring. My thing is I learned a long time ago when I pretty easily dropped 20 pounds on Atkins and improved my health. I learned a long time ago that carbohydrates are my frenemy. I need to be very careful with carbohydrates because they harm my health and they make me feel sad.

And so I like a high-protein thing, but I live in this neighborhood where I want to be able to walk in somewhere and say, could you produce for me a large piece of ham with an egg on it, and I'll just eat that while I walk down the street like a weirdo. Or ride my segue, let's be honest. But everything's bread and bread and bread. I don't know. Rice noodles, I'll fuck with some rice noodles. But I don't like to go too crazy with the easy breads. And that's my problem. Because my family enjoys an easy bread, and it's a very carb-centric thing.

Speaker ANo, I'm totally with you on low-carb stuff, which is why eggs are the answer. Breakfast is the easiest meal to fix this way.

MerlinOkay, okay. So it would help if I had to spend money. It would help if you made me or caused me to buy a pan. So before we're done.

Speaker ABuy five cheap nonstick pans. Make a file.

MaxThis is why, Merlin, I can't believe you've been poo-pooing my egg salad challenge all these weeks. Week after week. I just keep asking to do the egg salad challenge.

MerlinEgg salad is not eggs. Oh, my goodness. Just adding salad to a word.

Speaker ASo I have to admit, I actually just heard that because I am two episodes behind on this podcast, which I was going to fix before we record on our scheduled day, Alex. But I am totally up for the egg salad challenge. Oh, wow. We owe you one. You should come back for that.

MaxYeah, I think Marco and I should just do our own. We should do our own show where every week we make and review a new egg salad recipe. I wasn't aware there were that many options. Can I pitch you my – Marco, I'm not sure that you saw this. Can I pitch you my podcast idea? Absolutely. I have a good show for me and you to do. So here's the deal. So you said on our super secret channel some time ago that it actually – that the length of USB-C cable that you own

affects the charging of your device?

Speaker AI don't think I said that. That was me. Because that's not actually true. Maybe it was something.

MaxDid you say something about USB-C? Didn't you say the six-foot cable? It's the girth. The girth?

AlexYeah.

Speaker AOh, the circumference? Well, the cables all have a maximum power wattage. Now, what's interesting is that Apple's USB-C to C, quote, charging cables, which are only USB 2.0 speed, seem to have no maximum power draw. Like, you can charge, I've tried this, I can charge my laptop at full 60 watts, it's a 13-inch, full 60 watts over Apple's skinny little USB charge cable. So I just have a bunch of those now.

AlexYeah, I've been trying to see if it gets warmer. Okay, fine. Max, it doesn't. Yeah, right? It's dark magic. All right, salads. All right.

MaxNo, no. So listen, here's my podcast idea. So I think that, I don't know anything about cables. I buy them at random and I have no idea what affects me and what doesn't affect me. So I think we should start a podcast just every week where you explain one thing about one type of cable. And it's like five minutes long every week. And every week we take a new kind of cable and we're like, HDMI cables. Like, what do I need to know? Go. And I've already have a title. I already have a title for the show. It's called Cable News with Marco Armit.

Speaker AYes, that is good. That we have to do.

MaxIsn't this a good podcast? And it's literally just about cables. And it's like, it doesn't even have to be regular. We could just do it when there's news about cables.

AlexWhich is so frequent. There's always news about cables.

MaxLike, our big thing as we review, we go, we, like, wait in line. We're in the Apple store day one to buy all the new cables.

MerlinCould it also involve, like, this is your show, but one thing that would interest me also is, like, the HDMI thing, that's huge. Because, like, will this handle, like, super Blu-ray? Like, there's only, and what port will this work with? and there's all that kind of stuff. And the, like, for example, but then also stuff like, could it be like dongles and pseudo dongles? Because I bought me some of those little L adapters that like let you not have your HDMI coming straight out the side of the TV.

Like stuff like that. We're like, make your life better for $10. You know what I'm talking about? You buy these things.

Speaker AYeah, totally. Buying, allowing yourself to buy exactly the best cable for each thing you need a cable for is one of life's great. undiscovered pleasures for most people.

MaxSee, this is the show writes itself. The show writes itself. That's the intro. We have some computer. We have some bleep-bloop music.

MerlinIt's Marco Armin's voice fades in.

MaxThat's the intro quote.

Speaker ACable is Cable. Breakmaster Cillian. We have at least two or three listeners.

MerlinAbsolutely.

Speaker AWe get Alex at least. Maybe Merlin.

MaxYou got me.

Speaker AYou got me.

MaxI'm right here. You know I'd be here. Wait, Marco, check this out. Sponsored by Monster Cable. No, but they're the worst. No, you got to get the gold ones.

MerlinI'll take their money. That's the problem. Get the gold ones.

Speaker AIt has to be sponsored by like Monoprice.

MaxSponsored by Mono? Oh my God. This is such a good idea. This is the best. I'm never going to have a better idea than this.

AlexWell, yeah.

Speaker AI hope that's not true.

AlexYep. I really want a job. Start looking for work.

MerlinStart looking for work, Alex.

AlexI know.

MerlinHe's peaked. He and the Joshes have peaked. Oh. My lady, my lady, so this is my version of that. So yes, first of all, I don't like to talk too much about this. It's like complaining about your housekeeper. But I do have a separate set of everything for everything.

Speaker ASo I have a travel. Like you talk about on your show. Yeah, that's step one. Step one is like allowing yourself to have more cables than you think you need. so that you can stash them in places.

MerlinAnd don't buy Claritin after you've run out. Buy it before you run out. That's life, man. Two is one, one is none. But here's another funny thing. That's me and smart stuff. I have so much smart stuff still in a box. I have a banker's box full of unopened smart devices as tests and as backups and because they came in multiples and yeah, I got more tiles than I need for now. But like my lady, her tap switch, her new tap switch wasn't working. I was like, not a problem. I'm shocked. Zoop, zoop, zoop. I dashed.

I grabbed the banker's box, and in like four minutes, I installed a brand new tap switch that I had in a banker's box.

MaxAnd she wasn't that impressed.

Speaker AI got to say, I'm feeling real down on smart home stuff right now. Like, I've had all this stuff. You know, I have multiple different systems. I have HomeKit. I have Amazon Dingus. I have from Lightbulbs. I have Philips Hue and LIFX. And I have smart Wemo switches and all this stuff. and it's all varying degrees of garbage. I haven't done the whole Max thing with the Cassetta thing yet.

MerlinYeah, they're all terrible in different ways and they don't work together. It's the worst of every world.

Speaker AWell, and the worst thing is they do work for like a few weeks and then something changes and they break.

MerlinOh, you mean you're talking about like build quality? Like build quality.

Speaker ANo, no, no. I'm talking about just like the software loses track of itself or it stops responding to commands or it loses the integration with HomeKit or something. Like there's like there's always the littlest things just break your setup. It's such these that, you know, you form such fragile setups with these things. And then, oh, now my house doesn't work like it. It just drives me nuts. Like every single day. Like I now have enough smart home stuff that every single day something about it fails.

MaxSo I have. So the one good thing that I figured out is the Lutron Radio Raw 2 system, which I had like professionally installed in my house. and I will say that thing has 100% uptime. It's been probably about one year and it has never not worked. Like I have it all on HomeKit. It works with my Siri balls. Like Veronica is occasionally frustrated by it but we were staying in a hotel. I'll say this though. We were staying in a hotel recently and we were trying to go to sleep and she told Siri to turn the lights off and I was like, great, great victory.

I was like, you didn't even know that we don't have that in the hotel room.

Merlinbut uh uh yeah it's so great you successfully traumatized no it's so reliable and the only

Maxshe's broken inside like me now the only problem is occasionally i need to like add a new light switch or just change something in the house or whatever and i am so cucked by this system i can't change anything myself like i have to call this don't you have to like hire the technician yes The guy has to come. I have to call the company. No way I'm doing that. And the guy has to come out. And they send some chat out. And he comes in with his chiseled jawline. And he hooks his 1998 Dell Toughbook up. And he goes into the command line and starts tapping away at it.

And somehow makes all my lights talk to each other. And all your Bitcoin's gone. Oh, no, my Bitcoin. And I'm so cocked by this system. Like, I can't fix it or change it by myself. I don't like that at all.

Speaker ALike what to me, like the whole appeal of the smart home stuff is you can get these little niceties that every day you use it and it automates itself and you save yourself some time. It's really pleasant and that builds up over time and it's worth the hassle. But then the problem and it truly feels that way for like the first few weeks or months that you have it. And then, unfortunately, things start breaking or changing or software updates break things or God knows what else. Apple breaks things, who knows what. And then all that built up surplus of niceness and delight and save time gets eroded very quickly.

And now I'm just like, I just hate everything. I want to undo all of it and just make everything dumb again.

MaxIt's the drafts of home appliances in that its true purpose is not to save you time writing notes, but to give you a thing that you can configure.

MerlinNo, no. You should switch over to the bear of smart home where you get a picture of an Alexa. It's a PDF. You look at it.

AlexYeah.

MerlinIt's almost like a regular writing program. Here's the other thing is that what sucks is things break and you don't know it. And this is always an ongoing bitch for me when we talk about this on Back to Work. It's like when things silently stop working, like, oh, you forgot to do the firmware and accept the EULA update or something like that. And something that's like this is dumb to other people but important to me is I do a lot of quantification and tracking of stuff. And to just find out that a month ago it stopped working is really frustrating.

There's also the stuff where it's just a lot of what I appreciate about this is getting to where, and again, stuff like the Hue tap switch can be a game changer with this. Like, now, Alex, we've talked and I've joked about you living in the house where you have to yell at your lamps. Having a tap switch in every room changes everything if you're a Hue family. And that's so great. Stuff like that. But then you eventually, now you're fucking cucked. Because now I'm all about sensors. I want sensors and location. Oh, that would be huge. And I'm in the desert and location to give me the Jetsons home. And you know what?

I'll get just close enough that I start to believe in the Lord. And then guess what? Suddenly my canary has turned on and there's my dick. Like it's just running now because the geofence is too close to this other geofence. And the triangulation of these two things doesn't work. And now I'm screaming at everything and it can't work because guess what? Motion has been detected. Heat above 71. What is happening? And it's like that's where it because these are all these different islands. you're hopping between these islands and it feels really convenient till the day that it doesn't

work and it's like that's where that's where it gets like crazy frustrating or like like like jason snell talking the other day about you know uh i think he's got an august smart lock and but but the bluetooth won't work on it'll work with his phone but it doesn't work with his watch so he he has these great you know smart home locks but like if you're if you're still having to like think every time you leave the house, do I have the right mix? This is not a criticism of Jason. This is my fucking life. Do I have the right mix of stuff that this will continue to work and do

what it needs to in my absence and or other people's presence? Then it's not fun anymore.

Speaker ANow you're living in a Jetson's hellscape. Yeah. And I've honestly found like, I think 99% of the value I get out of all the smart home stuff I've used so far could have also just been done by one of those like 70s timer outlet switches. It just has like the two big dials and you just set, like, what hour, roughly, should this turn on and turn off? Like, that is, like, the vast majority of value I've gotten out of this. And everything else has just been headaches.

MaxOkay, but could the 70s dial make a cardboard cutout of Michael Jackson dance in your window in case there's, like, a burglar?

Speaker AYes! If you just put it on a turntable, yes!

MaxLet's do our stuff. Challenge. Challenge. All right, well, this week's challenge, I've been gunning for this challenge for quite a while, and this is two sort of mini topics that I don't know that individually they could sort of carry their own challenge, but together...

MerlinPoint of order.

MaxYes.

MerlinPoint of order. Can I suggest we cover the Marco-related primary part in this program, and then we could move to Daddy and his blades in the average.

MaxOkay, well, the challenge this week... The challenge this week... Daddy and the Blades. The challenge this week is Daddy and the Blades. It's the knives and flashlights roundup because this is a little subtopic that we all sort of, for no real reason, we just collect these knives and flashlights and we're always talking about them and comparing them. And I just... I have a whole sad armory. It's just... It's just... None of us have any reason in our lives why we would need either of these items. But they're just so fun to... They're just so fun to collect.

And I know Marco has a depth of knowledge on flashlights that's kind of astounding. He was going into the – well, I'm sure we'll hear about it, but there's like something with the wattage of the batteries to make it better.

Speaker AThis is what everyone wants to hear about.

MerlinOh, my God. I only know one of these models in this photo. I am so excited to learn about the whole extended Phoenix family.

MaxThese are beautiful. And then Merlin's got Merlin. And then maybe in the after show, we'll do a little knife roundup because we all have quite a few knives to talk about as well.

AlexGot a few in front of me right now. Oh, boy.

MerlinI will be able to give you advice that will cost you a lot of money and get you arrested on Chicago public transit.

Speaker ASo, yeah. Are we allowed to talk about this in the state of Illinois? Is that a thing?

AlexYeah. What's up with that? Yeah. As long as I just don't bring them on public transit. It's one of those. It's honestly. What about Castle Doctrine?

MerlinWhat about guys? Aren't you allowed to stand your ground? Admiralty law? Isn't there some way you're allowed to carry an oversized knife on a train?

MaxLadies and gentlemen, I hope you're enjoying your ride. It's a four-inch knife. Here's the thing with both knives and flashlights for me is like I always had this funny circumstance that would happen in college, which was we were always trying to smoke weed. And in order to smoke weed, you need three things. You need the actual marijuana itself. You need some sort of implement, like a rolling paper or a pipe, and then you need like a lighter or a match or just some way to get fire. And somehow we'd always wind up with two of the three. Like you'd have 12 people all trying to smoke weed together, and you couldn't, between the

12 of you, cobble together the three ingredients, right? Like something would always be missing. Like you'd have the fire and the weed, but no rolling papers or whatever. And it was always like a catastrophe. Like we were, it was so like bumbling and incompetent. And as an adult, this is how I feel with knives and flashlights. I always need a knife or a flashlight, and I never have one when I need it. And I own a bunch of them. They're scattered throughout my house, but never at hand when I need it.

Speaker AAnd the thing with – see, I don't know anything about knives. I'm not really a knife or gun person. And this is very much like everyday carry tactical stuff.

MerlinCome on. That's like saying I'm not really an ibuprofen or heroin.

Speaker ANo, but like, but it's hard, it's hard to like, it's hard to get very far into these worlds. See, also security cameras, right?

MerlinOh, right, before you start running into nuts.

Speaker AYeah, exactly. Like, if you start looking into like security cameras, flashlights, pens. Look, look, Marco, Marco, you ever watch Lockpicking Lawyer?

MerlinLockpicking Lawyer is so great, but he's a fucking gun nut, and it only comes up after you watch like 40 videos.

Speaker AYeah, all of these like everyday carry people, they're all gun nuts, right? They all want to show you their guns, and they all fantasize about using their guns. So I'm super not into that. And so to me, I only care about the flashlight side of this. Even the knife side, you'll talk about this, I guess, later. But the knife side, I respect the utility of knives, but I don't care. You don't have any guns?

MaxWhat if someone tweets at your wife?

MerlinWhat are you going to do, throw Swift at them? I would probably crash. Okay, so here is one thing, and this is a very, very, very high level pop in the stack, as John Siracusa says. But here is the theme between these two things that are useful, is that if you do get a little bit into the nerdery of what I'll just generally call pocket knives and what I'll generally call pocket flashlights, it's really useful to find the right thing, the right combination of things you need to deploy in your life. So the one that I'm, the Phoenix that you turned me on to, Marco, hangs on my backpack outside.

it weighs nothing i don't notice it doesn't even doesn't even pull down on you know the backpack pull down kind of annoying thing yeah it's so light but it's like three whatever 320 lumens like it's right there if i need to like go take out the trash in an alley it's always there but if the right like the right knife for the job and the right flashlight for the job can be deployed and and so why would you need to think this much about flashlights well as we'll talk about there's a weird matrix of combinations of things yeah you'll get a lot of lumens out of but how long will the battery last? How easy is it to use if you have to turn it on really quickly?

That all sounds silly, but once you start having a flashlight, it's like carrying a pen, really. It's like suddenly you will find a use for it all the time. So that's the theme.

Speaker AThere's other things. It isn't just about battery and weight, but also how easily can you find these batteries if the apocalypse comes and zombies are everywhere and you run out of flashlight batteries? Can you just buy it at a store, or do you have to order it?

MerlinYou're going to need a USB charger for this one.

MaxSo you have a whole contingency plan where if the zombies come, you can get batteries for your flashlights, but you don't have any guns at all. No guns at all.

Speaker AYeah, well, because it turns out, I hate to ruin this for everybody, but it turns out that zombies aren't real and power outages are. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. I've been preparing for the wrong apocalypse. A day late, an apocalypse short. Fuck. You'll be great if you need to stab a bunch of things.

MerlinIf I need to very quickly open a lot of, break down a lot of Amazon boxes, my family will be fine.

MaxYeah, what if the scenario is like Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, but it's Amazon deliveries?

Merlinwelcome we're here to talk about stuff you carry and light or stab with uh god where do we begin

Alexwith this i don't know what the challenge is anymore because i i don't have any flashlights but I got a lot of knives. And I mean, I will say I had been making fun of you all for quite a while. But then my power was out for, I think, 18 hours and couldn't get a... I thought I owned a crank flashlight. I don't.

Speaker AThose are terrible.

AlexBut they're never out of battery. You just go crank, crank, crank, and then it lights up.

MerlinYeah, but, you know, batteries are pretty easy to get. Yeah, just give your money to KCRW. You don't need the... How do you, maybe one way to approach this might be useful is, Marco, tell us about your background with this stuff, or maybe even just focus on, like, what kind of decision-making goes into how you choose the right flashlight for the job?

AlexMm-hmm.

Speaker ASo it's all, number one is size and weight. Like, there are all these different size classes of these things, like, and I don't like anything much bigger than, the, like, biggest, heaviest ones I have are these, are the ones that use two AA batteries. These would be the, oh, And Phoenix is my preferred brand. There's a few other brands that all make similar things, but Phoenix seems to have a really, really good value for the money and really good quality for that. So anyway, the two AA models that I've had for a while are the LD22 and the old one is a single AA LD12.

And those are great if you're limiting yourself to AA batteries. AAA flashlights I find not good enough for their size reduction. Like, they are smaller and lighter, but, like, they're so much worse. AA is my size class, usually. But what I discovered, which Max was alluding to earlier, is the world of lithium battery flashlights, which I think is fairly recent.

And this, because, like, AA batteries, you know, regular batteries, they're 1.5 volts. Lithium are 3.6, 3.7. So, like, you can get a lot more voltage out of it, and it also handles fast discharging better, doesn't necessarily weigh as much as alkalines. So, like, lithium rechargeable batteries are the way to go.

MaxMarco, are these fully interchangeable with my battery setup?

Speaker AWell, your battery setup is full of N-Loop AA's, right? Well, I don't even know anymore. Okay, I'm going to tell you what to get. So, usually for most people's needs, the two AA flashlights are a little bit big and a little bit heavy. If you're going to get just one fancy flashlight, the one I would suggest is the Phoenix LD12. This is, and the new, I think it's like the 2017 revision. We'll put the link in the show notes. So this is one that uses a single. That is my, as they say, everyday care. Yes. It uses a single AA battery normally, and it can get pretty bright with that.

But here's the trick. If you have a special lithium version, it's shaped like a AA, but you can't use it like one because it's higher voltage. You have to use a different charger for it. But it's called a 14500 cell. and if you have a 14500 battery which are usually red and they're amazingly fun to charge up because they're so cool I'm really boring no no you're not

Maxthese ones are almost like the new so I can't put that in my Game Boy

Speaker Ano it would mess it up and you need special chargers to charge it but it's shaped like a AA so it looks the same so be careful but anyway so this flashlight it can take AA's but if you put in a 14500 battery it becomes way brighter and lasts for a longer time. It can use the higher voltage. So it's kind of the best of both worlds. Like, I have a smaller one, which is also really fun, really nice. It's the PD25. That's super fun, super nice also. And that uses a special kind of battery called this CR123A,

which you can get little boxes of 20 of them, and they last forever. They're lithium. Actually, that one has another interesting fact. Some of these batteries, the battery itself, Phoenix makes these little yellow batteries themselves that have USB input ports on the battery. So you can take the battery out of the flashlight, plug it into a micro USB, and charge up the battery from a micro USB cable wherever you are.

AlexOh my God.

Speaker ASo that's the one I usually travel with, is the PD25, for that reason. It's almost as bright as the LD12, but a little bit smaller, a little bit lighter, and has that USB rechargeable CR123A battery.

MaxHow big are we talking about? Like a Burt's Bees? Bigger than that.

Speaker AThe battery or the flashlight? I would say the size of a full-size chapstick. A full-size chapstick.

AlexA full-size.

Speaker AA little bit smaller than a glue stick. Family size. A little bit smaller than a glue stick. Like a typical school glue stick. A little bit smaller than that.

MaxWhat are you... Okay. I didn't know there were different chapsticks. Are you able to see the photos that are being said? What big chaps? What big chaps? Oh, I'm not paying attention.

Speaker AOkay. If you look in the chat, I showed you an iPhone SE for comparison. The two I'm talking about are the two on the left.

MerlinOh, look at this. Ooh. And there you can see mine. Mine's the brown table. His is the pretty one. But the one on the left is my LD-12. Yeah. These look very tactical. I really think...

MaxYes. Marjo, I think you might be a tactical operator.

Speaker AThis is the problem. So when I'm looking at these, so many of them are made for armed forces and police and tactical.

MerlinYou must be in Massad to conduct yourself with this flashlight.

Speaker AMany of them even advertise a tactical mode where it strobes really brightly to try to throw off attackers.

MerlinOh, no.

Speaker AAnybody with epilepsy is fucked. Yeah, they all have these special modes where if you hold on the button the right way, it'll become a weapon.

MerlinBut then you don't want too many. Get my back on this. You don't want too many modes because now you're fucking around with your flashlight when all you want is something super bright for a second.

AlexYeah, zombies don't have epilepsy.

Speaker AThe modes thing, this is my number one opinion on flashlights. that is that I think the mode and the on-off should be two separate buttons. And if you turn it on, no matter how often or how quickly or how short you turn it on, it turns on to whatever brightness you had it set to last time. And all these flashlight brands, they all mess that up, except for a very small handful of them. And this is why I buy a bunch of Phoenixes that all look pretty similar, because they have some of their flashlight's happens.

MerlinThis is why I called it the digital watch button problem.

Speaker AYes, exactly.

Merlinis like you don't want one button that does fucking everything. It's crazy. So like the Phoenix, like you say, on the butt of it, you've got the turn it on part. And then on near the top where the beam comes out, you've got this other thing you can click to change modes. But like the last thing you want to do is like assume an emergency. You know what I mean? Assume an emergency. And the last thing you want is a blinky light when you're like trying to get out of a car or something. Well, I don't even assume an emergency. I assume a dog walk at night.

Speaker ABut like it's just annoying. It's annoying to like turn on the flashlight and it's way brighter, way dim, where you have to click it on, click it off, click it on, hit some mode sequence thing. That's annoying. So these should be two separate buttons, and there are very, very few flashlights that separate those into two different buttons, especially at the smaller end. So that's why the PD25, I think, is the smallest one I've found that does that. So PD25 is my good small one. LD12, new version, is my good medium-sized one. And then I also have this big boy in the middle here that uses the same kind of battery that my car uses, which is kind of satisfying.

this is the uh the phoenix uc35 oh man it's the only one of these that has a usb recharging port on the flashlight itself so you just like flip back this little cover and you can plug in a micro usb and recharge the flashlight from the outside um it's pretty big pretty heavy way too big for like a pants pocket but you know fine for a bag and it is ridiculously bright it is just so

Merlincomically bright for its size um so just just for our listeners who don't have a visual in front of them, and this tripped me up as well because I don't know how to say words, Phoenix is spelled F-E-N-I-X. Correct. The one you like here that's like your car is the F-E-N-I-X, Phoenix UC35.

MaxAnd is that all the way on the right? Middle one. It's the one in the middle.

MerlinBig family chapstick.

MaxOh, it's the big kind of chode.

Speaker AYeah, like the battery inside of it is a lithium 18650, which is a very common battery cell that like many of our lithium battery powered things from like battery packs all the way up to Teslas are powered by large arrays of these things. It looks kind of like a fat double A. I didn't know that. That's fascinating. Okay. My car has 7,000 of these.

MerlinWhoa! That must get heavy. Okay, that's what I've got. Wait, hang on. That's the Imolent. Which one's the Cree?

AlexYeah, you can build yourself a Tesla.

Speaker AYeah, you have an 18650 in there somewhere, right? Yep, yep, yep, sure do.

MerlinOh yeah, here he is.

Speaker Ayeah that big that blue butt one looks like about the right size for it yeah that's kind of big

Merlinthe imalint and this one is the imalint is the 26650 oh that's that's um that's smaller i think

Alexor no that's bigger i don't know man i okay ladies thanks for tuning in now these all seem these are all the same brand right these are all phoenix is there like a different kind of texture on each of these or are they all the same like carbon fiber looking not quite matte but like extreme texture type thing it looks very pleasant to hold yeah

Speaker Athey all have the like like the painted black metal i think it's aluminum uh yeah painted black metal bodies and then they have like the knurled sections in the middle yeah so it's it's the same you know if it looks different just come just from lighting it's the same like kind of knurled

Alextexture on all of them oh i want an iphone made out of this my god oh yeah that'd be great you'd

Merlinbe able to hold on to it i know it you know one thing one thing just to mention if it seems like this is like like ridiculous navel gazing it is but it's also fun um like in the past if you wanted to get pretty decent i'm trying to give some reasoning why you might want to care about this it's you don't have to care don't worry it used to be in the past that if you wanted to get even halfway decent, you know, a level of light out of a flashlight. You had to have one of those big cop flashlights that holds like four or six.

Speaker AYeah, the D batteries.

MerlinYeah, D batteries. Or even think about the Energizer that you could buy at the drugstore as a kid, the silver one with the red top that every Boy Scout had that was two Ds. And then a, what is that, an incandescent bulb? What do you call that kind of bulb?

Speaker AYep, yep. A little incandescent bulb, and it would last like an hour maybe.

MerlinRight. Well, so what's different about these? Well, you get, these are LED flashlights with so much more battery power, pushing that out through the LED. So you get a much more, you get much more control of the beam. You get a lot more power, power in terms of milliamp hours that will hold plus lumens that it will output. And that's all in a package that fits in your pocket. So why care about this? Eh, don't worry, you don't need to care about this. But if you are wondering why would someone care about this? Well, whether that's your glove box or the outside of your backpack or somewhere in the basement or like I have one by my kid's bed, you know, because if the lights go off, now she knows where there's a flashlight.

But it doesn't need to be like a cop beating you over the head size flashlight. That's why I'm fascinated by what you can accomplish with the right combinations of things.

Speaker AOh, yeah, because now like these the little tiny one, like the smallest one I have here is probably significantly brighter and with longer lasting battery than one of those giant D flashlights would have been like in 1995.

AlexI keep thinking about the button situation And I want there to be like a consortium Of I don't know if I said that word right Of different companies Who make different products Like keyboards, vibrators Phones Like every type of thing that could have a button All the great things Yeah all the great buttons And like I feel like this is a problem That could be easily solved And like or light switch people. There should be every kind of switch.

There should be like how there is that big USB, like, okay, what's the standard? And just like a sharing of the, like the, I don't know. I don't know. Like the pattern should be shared.

MerlinWhat is it you want it to be? Is it consistency?

AlexNo, not consistency, but just like the, okay, you have a great button on this flashlight. You have a great button on this keyboard and just have them all talk and be friends together. Everybody wins. I want button socialism.

MerlinWhat's your flashlight talking to?

AlexWhat? The flashlight people should talk to the vibrator people and the keyboard people and the switchboard people to all create great buttons.

MaxIs this the place you go in your mind palace where they all talk to you?

MerlinYeah, they all talk about the buttons together. It's me Buzzy. It's me Buzzy. I'm just checking in with you. I hope everything's good.

AlexYou need to unwind a little bit. Hold on. The same with these, the same with the clips. Oh, God, I didn't want it to be a vibrator joke, and now it's a vibrator joke. Mmm.

152. The Law of Hot Places

Show notes

Transcript

152. The Law of Hot Places

Show notes

Transcript

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