200. Sacks of Yellow Fat

AlexHello? Hello, hello. I am not fucking with you. I am on my phone right now because I can't keep this recording. I'm going to try calling you on Skype because I can move everything else around in Skype. I can move. I can move. I can move all the bars, but I can't. I can't hang up on you. Are you on your AirPods? Oh, sorry. Yeah, I am on my phone. It sounds it sounds amazingly good.

Merlinuh no i mean like it it doesn't sound like you're talking into a computer for sure uh that's because

Alexi'm on my my phone right now uh over in l but you're on airpods right no no just my phone

Merlinjust my phone you're talking you're talking on your phone with your mouth yes oh you're on at&t

Alexyou're at at&t all right i'm gonna are you i am at&t i can tell uh uh all right i'm gonna force quit skype this is no i'm gonna stop i'll stop astounding okay wait no no no wait wait wait wait stay stay what in god's good name wow all right it still says you're calling me you're not still

Merlincalling me i'm gonna quit i'm gonna quit let's quit the things and you call me when i'm back up okay?

AlexWill do. Roger, roger. Bye-bye.

MerlinI do not hear you. Whoa. Whoa. Oh, boy. This is all going in. This is so good. Call recorder is on. Party hijack is working. Alex's computer just farted at me. For those of you who don't know, if this does make it in the show, this is our fourth attempt to connect.

Okay, Skype. What is your damage? What is it you want? What connection am I not allowing? Oh boy. Oh. Oh. Oh shit.

AlexThis is Dubai Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. This week's challenge, print something in 3D.

MerlinHello.

AlexOh, yay!

MerlinYou did it. Good for you.

AlexYay, I did it! Yeah. Oh, I was trying to be such a good pod pal this morning. I was so excited. I was ready. Oh, everything was good to go. And I don't know if it was my computer or my connection or a little column A and a little column B, but I'm here. Overstimulated and under budget. Hi, I'm Alex. okay it's gonna be last week all over again huh what was wrong with last week i thought it was

Merlinfine it was fine i didn't say anything was wrong did i um it had a certain energy to it

Alexit was very horny i i okay so if you listened you know that i did not instigate that it was

MerlinOh, you're going to blame this on producer Quinn?

AlexYes, I am absolutely going to blame this on producer Quinn. I wasn't going to bring up our wops, but we talked about our wops for a while.

MerlinThat's a medical condition. Frankly, I pity. It's a condition to be pitied. It's like the brothers talking about the guy who wanted a penis like a horse because that person could never really appreciate true human love. And with a vagina that moist, with a basement that humid, I mean, how would you do your housework?

AlexI know, I know.

MerlinHow would you, you know, if that was Scott Adams' wife, like, have a cooking dinner.

AlexWell, how do you think we do the dishes, Merlin? What do you dish so?

MerlinOh, you wipe it on your pussy. Is that right?

AlexWell, I mean.

MerlinI agree with both of you, though. So it's one, it's, what's the bit with, oh, like when, who is it? Was it on Twofer on 30 Rock? When he says the N word, it's particularly offensive to everybody. It's like when men say it, it's, when a woman says it, it's kind of cute. Now, this sounds like a Louis C.K. bit. But like when women say it, it's kind of cute. And that's their word to use. But when men use it, woof, I don't know. I still haven't heard the song.

AlexWait, really?

MerlinNo, I'm making it up so we have something to talk about.

AlexI'm sorry. I just...

MerlinListen, this is one of the problems. It really comes down to Wittgenstein and whether I know I have two hands. What it comes down to is you do get a substantially different internet than I do.

AlexOh, interesting.

MerlinIt is known. Yes. Your internet is different than mine, and you send me very upsetting things. where the card in the text message app, it's either a tweet to something that I'm no, no, no on in every way, or it's something like, oh, it's the troll-faced Money Burns burr meme or something. It's like I got a 16-chan face or something. I'm like, well, this person is making a doll out of human arms.

Yeah, cool. Well, I... related my kid uh who spends way too much time on twitter now as well as tiktok is really obsessed well okay for example she's really obsessed with noelle stevenson and her i believe full-on wife and the wife is currently writing what kind of fan fiction is it it's um i want to say star trek

AlexOh, I forgot. I totally forgot.

MerlinBut she's working on some fan fiction, and she's very productive. I think she's doing like 5,000 words a day. So she keeps me updated on that. And I think I did send you the picture of the prototype for the baby that represents a relationship between, I want to say, Riker and Quark?

AlexNo, you have not sent me that.

MerlinOh, she has a repeating reminder to send it to me over and over. because she knows how much it upsets me. So I blame you for a lot of this, you know.

AlexI mean, as you should. But I'm trying to... Oh, look at that. I forgot that all of the photos, links, and documents are in the information of a iMessage. Messages, iMessage, I don't know what they're called anymore.

MerlinEspecially, especially on iOS. Man, there's so much good stuff. hiding in iOS.

AlexOh, wow. Is this a 14 thing? Or just...

MerlinIt's had... I know it's had images for a while. The thing that I've noticed... Once again, I've been using the beta long enough that I don't remember what's what. Sort of like you said, you don't notice it until you go back to 13. You're like, ooh.

But no, I think it's a new thing to have cards for all the links that have been sent and stuff like that. And it makes me start to wonder if we could finally achieve the dream that we wanted for years of automating some way to pull all the links out of a text thread. I've tried. You know what?

AlexHey, Mr. Lawley, if you're listening, please help. Please, please help. I also have a thing on my

Merlinlist here. I'm not going to contact Paul about this, but I will search the community. I think there's got to be some way to make sure that an event, a new call event in Skype causes audio hijack to start recording. There's got to be a way to automate that.

Speaker AThere's got to be, Jason Snell, Mr. Snell, if you're out there.

MerlinI like this new thing we do where we just address people we know or don't know. And, you know, I'm sorry, Mr. Jason, that's the correct format, I guess.

Speaker AMr. Jason.

MerlinDid you get the baby?

AlexDid I get the baby? Yet?

MerlinLook in your text fingers.

AlexI have not yet got... Oh, oh. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Is this the fan fiction?

MerlinWell, the fan fiction... Okay, let's go do this real quick. My kid's at school right now in her room, so I don't want to bother her.

AlexWell, I'm glad that she's in her room, at least.

MerlinIt's Nicole Stephenson. That's her wife, right? They're legit full-on married, right?

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinMolly Ostertag?

AlexI believe so.

MerlinOh, my God. Noelle Stephenson is so cute.

AlexShe's like a little pixie. I agree.

MerlinI love her. Molly Ostertag fan fiction. Oh, it's Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings.

AlexOh, wow. Yeah, no, I don't know about this at all. Oh, no. Yeah. Oh, no. Oh, I should reread that. Read a different book.

MerlinNo, I mean, it's like Moby Dick. You can skip a lot of the whaling stuff.

AlexI don't know.

MerlinIsn't there a lot of elf singing in it?

AlexYeah, you just kind of skimmed those parts.

MerlinI think when a lot of people say they read books, I think they really mean that they do skip a lot of parts of the book. Unless you're like Chris Trager. I can't believe everybody reads as much as they pretend to. It just doesn't make sense.

AlexI mean, I think I pretend to read, I will humble brag this, I pretend to read less than I do, I think, because...

MerlinOh, wow, that's cool. Very unusual.

AlexWell, because I've been reading a lot of fiction and, like, nonsense, and it feels irresponsible. Like, I feel afterwards kind of the same way as I do after watching a few hours of the Pokemon anime. like who is this helping is it i mean i guess me yeah i guess wait hang on you're saying that about

Merlinreading fiction yeah because i mean it is what it feels in like what insubstantial uh yeah i mean i

Alexguess it's the the you know midwest slash catholic guilt of i i could be reading um you know the trump niece's book or uh dirty that or no clean what's that book uh yeah very well written what marie condo what um that that guy who writes for the atlantic he he has like the covid beat at the atlantic wrote a book called clean and oh wow cool it's not like covid related it was written a couple years ago but like basically it's the well actually of of cleanliness and oh wow i i mean it's like

the same thing of that we've sort of been talking about in terms of what is and is not performative hygiene and effective like you know it just you don't need to wipe uh your amazon packages down in summary if you want the cliff notes i suppose oh yeah yeah uh i mentioned this i kind of been

Merlinmentioning this a lot recently but oh i've noticed what what no go on go on what do you

Alexno i just yesterday um i was catching up on some of your shows and you just seemed very sad

MerlinOh, is this why Matchy thinks I'm sad?

AlexI just, yeah, I think so.

MerlinMatchy reached out to me with dogs in the way that he does to say, hey, I heard you're very sad right now. And I'm sending you some some corgi mixes. You don't need a reason to send me a picture of a corgi mix laying on its back. I'll take that anytime, please. And thank you. But yeah. OK, now it makes sense. Now that makes sense. But this woman, Apurva Mondavili, that I was talking about. It's in show notes for episode 491 of the Back to Work program.

And I can add it to this one. But, you know, just that, do check out that interview that I mentioned, if I could say. And I'll put it in notes for this as well. The interview is on Slate. It's an interview called What We've Learned About the Coronavirus. And the log line on this is like, hey, you know, it's not that Dr. Fauci was wrong about masks. It's that our understanding of a thing where the 19 means 2019, we don't there are things about this that are, as they say, novel.

And we're learning about that. And there's also, you know, I don't mean to be all President Trump, but like there are some problems with the way WHO handled it, Because basically, there's this factionalism amongst different kinds of doctors and epidemiologists where they essentially have to be persuaded out of their default position. And if you're somebody who's super interested, you know, it's like a hammer and nail problem. If you're a person who's very interested in how you get things from touching an Amazon box, and that's what you wrote your thesis about, like, that's the first thing.

You know what? You should definitely clean your box, you know? You know? It would be like having me come in to, like, check your appendix. And I'd be like, you should get a Squarespace site.

Alexthis is my medical opinion you don't need to douche your box it's self-cleaning really don't

Merlindouche your box

Alexpeople get upset when we talk about covid and i'm like what who gets upset uh what are you talking about the the lovely listeners of the show and i'm like well you you do give me money what the fuck else are we gonna talk about exactly i'm like listen i don't know

it's it's my literal job right now to the the other my other job my jobby job to like know what's happening especially in chicago um yeah then like what else is is there all right you

Merlinknow what i'm okay maybe okay so i will if you if you see you're an unreliable narrator oh i agree because you tend to scan things for the weird and the sad and the wrong and and uh and uh and if you feel that we you feel that we're talking too much about the novel coronavirus here i can dial it back no i i'm gonna call instead of a stick whenever i say video games i just want people to know that I actually mean COVID.

People love video games.

AlexHave you been doing any remote rating? Want to talk about Big Fruit and big video games? I know you've been...

MerlinHoly shit, what? Oh, you're talking about the Epic thing.

AlexI know you love Fortnite and you've got

Merlina lot. Oh, yeah. Do you want me to dial up Jason and Mike? Get them in on this? Boy, they had words. They had some words on that, didn't they?

AlexMr. Mike and Mr. Jason.

MerlinMr. Jason.

AlexMy upgrade, is it upgrade plus? It stopped showing up for me.

MerlinI didn't get that far because I had to go home. But I just heard the part where like, they were kind of arguing past each other a little bit, as one does on a podcast. But I mean, I don't really completely understand what's happening. So the thing here is, what's the short version of this? The people who make, what is it? What's the goddamn game?

AlexFortnite.

MerlinOh, Fortnite.

AlexThe jumpy, shooty, cartoony game.

MerlinJumpy Shooty, the T-Pose game, yeah. Okay, so the people who make that, like a lot of folks, didn't like the fact that you have to, that Apple takes 30% off of purchases of the Bitcoin that they sell inside the Shooty game. And so they had this very clearly coordinated effort to give people a discount for buying it on their site so they could go around 30%. I don't completely understand it, But they caused the change to happen within the game that shipped because apparently games have an ability to update their guts in a way that other things don't.

Am I with? Was it correct so far?

AlexYes.

MerlinAnd then they got they basically created a little honeypot. They knew where they knew Apple would be pissed off and throw them off the store. And they were so ready for that that they had like in less than a day. They had a pretty on the nose video about 1980 Fortnite. and they decided to sue Apple and Google.

AlexJust totally, you know.

MerlinYeah. Out of the blue.

AlexOut of the blue.

MerlinSo what's your take? You follow this stuff more than I do. What side are you on, boys? Like, what's going on here?

AlexThere's no sides. It's a $2 billion company. Oh, well, sorry.

Merlin$2 trillion.

AlexYeah, I just saw that and I was like, oh, hello. I know.

MerlinThat's a lot of money.

AlexHello there. um jeff bezos is like uh-oh but yeah i mean i my my take is it sucks for all consumers that's that i didn't actually think we're gonna do this like it's it sucks um well it's also it's also there's

Merlinthere's so much um part of the thing is like like jason said and like i think a lot of people say like i like that the app store vets the stuff that's going in there i wish they vetted it more i wish i didn't need something like guardian to be making sure that people aren't you know wheezing my juice all the time. I don't like the stuff that gets on the Apple store, but it's good that they do what they do. I think part of the problem, part of the confusion, and part of the, I won't say injustice, but unfairness are all these different rules for different kinds of apps,

for different kinds of companies. And then on top of that, some kind of apparent sweetheart deal, if your app is as big as Netflix, or if you're a quote unquote reader app, whatever that means, there's all these ways we're like but i mean jason jason nailed it to me which was the the example of this that that most nails it for me is uh i don't read comics anywhere like i used to i barely read comics at all but you know five years ago when my kid and i were like living in the world of marvel you know wednesday morning she'd come into bed lights off we cuddle she'd have her hot

milk and we'd read whatever had arrived that morning and then sometimes i'd want to buy something right off out of the comiXology app. And then at one point they said, oh, hey, by the way, here's an app for reading your comiXology comics.

And you're like, okay, well, how do I buy my comiXology comics? And they return null. Because you're not, it's like an implicit or explicit gag order. You're not even allowed to talk about how you get content on your phone if you're not going to pony up the 30%. You can't have links. You can't have explanations, right? Isn't that, that's all strictly verboten, right?

AlexYeah. Well, at least for little companies, because suddenly...

MerlinLike Amazon? Yeah, but I mean, so you can use the Amazon app to buy Amazon products. Can you buy Kindle on the Amazon app?

I don't think you can. You cannot. You have to go to the web.

AlexCorrect, but you can't. They now have the sweetheart deal where you can link to those books. And for some reason, though...

MerlinThat's a pretty sweet solution.

AlexYeah, woo-hoo! But now, Audible credits you can buy in iOS. It's very...

MerlinI hate the whole credit thing. I still don't understand. I never quite figured out how, where, why, when money gets spent on my PlayStation, especially. It's super confusing to me. Because you have to go buy Bitcoin for it, right? You can't just... It's really weird about how it processes money. But the point being that I... Okay, so I think the problem there is, yes, hostility toward the consumer. It's a bad consumer experience to not let people be able to buy content for a content-driven device on this huge popular mobile platform.

But also, I think there's a case to be made that the inconsistency of how those rules are applied is really lame to everybody, yes, including consumers. but you know i it's sort of like i guess i i guess i do tend to kind of i don't know who i side with it doesn't matter it's not a side but but you know apple's got to fix their shit man they're gonna get they're gonna get that you do not want to be 1996 microsoft today yeah it feels

Alexlike that and it's super weird and i uh i haven't listened to upgrade yet because i i subscribed to upgrade plus, but then it just stopped showing up and I don't know who to ask. So Mr. Jason, Mr. Mike, please help me.

MerlinWell, for the plus, you go to your memberful account and there's a pull-down menu to subscribe there. It's very confusing and I've said so.

AlexWell, I also paid for a few shows twice.

MerlinThey're all, oh, oh, oh, thank you. Thank you for your service. No, but I've had a bunch of people.

AlexBut not on purpose.

MerlinWell, this could be a whole separate like bit because they're trying hard. they're doing the best they can but like it's it's confusing that there are technically at least two different ways that you can support the shows in the network and you get some of the shows in this feed and some of the other shows in that feed and it's also very confusing to me that like our previous annual member episodes with for example you or todd are not in the new member feed they're in the other member feed and although that's a separate purchase just simply pay a separate fee

and it's very confusing to people.

AlexYeah, and I don't really think that this is Mr. Mike or Mr. Stephen's fault. I mean, they're doing the best they can with the tools that are available and they suck.

MerlinAnd they're so responsible. I mean, honestly, Mike and, what do you say? Mike and Stephen are so great to work. Do you have a current Relay show?

AlexNo comment, but there is something cool coming in September. I'm very excited about it. Okay.

MerlinWow, you're having another podcast. Will you do this one for, what, four or five episodes? How long will you do it, do you think?

AlexOkay, here. Let's talk about this in the after show. I'm going to put it in the after show notes.

MerlinWhere would people be able to listen to the after show?

AlexYou know, if you're spending money on relay shows, you might as well go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com, which will take you to our Patreon, which is also a little bit confusing, and I spend many hours helping people get the RSS feed. That's not true. It's much better now. But when I say RSS feed, I mean that you get that RSS feed and it's full of aftershows. What are aftershows? It's an entire second Dubai Friday, basically, where we talk about what the challenge will be for next week.

MerlinOr also, you do need to subscribe to our Patreon in order to hear, listen, listen, this is important. And if you would like to hear our discussion of how confusing it is to subscribe to a podcast you paid for, please pay for another podcast is the point we want to make.

What we are really we need to close some parentheses here. What else were we to COVID? You've got, oh, by the way, happy episode 200. I don't celebrate these things, but some people do.

AlexOh, holy shit. Yay. That's right. I remember being, well, I know that you don't celebrate things, but I celebrate everything except for my birthday.

MerlinOh, God, I hate birthdays. Oh, my God. And not because of my fear of getting old, but because of my fear of seeming thirsty.

Speaker AIt's my birthday. It's my birthday. Did you Facebook me on my birthday? did you give me anything oh boy gift card my birthday i miss mini

Alexshut up you know you know what if anybody wants to get me a birthday present you can go to give us your fucking money.com uh or patreon.com slash dubai friday it's all explained there because i can't use words uh okay good good good here's here's a question though what wait why don't you like birthday why why or rather why do you feel that it's thirsty oh no no i mean people

Merlinshould enjoy what they like i birthdays that's fine i mean i don't like mandatory fun really of any kind oh i i don't well and i don't i don't like obligations that i didn't ask for because i am in fact holden caulfield who i know is canceled but at the same time that's me you've ever seen so many phonies in your whole life and uh that's how i roll i'm a catcher in the rye you know what i'm saying and uh you know what it is it's that i i don't you know what it doesn't matter

i i just think people get a little too jacked about fairly insignificant things that are not very substantial and they kind of they kind of went a little parade like a like a half block parade and it's like it's i don't want to do that anyway we were still here i made it through all of last year and I'm still here.

AlexI'm going to make it.

MerlinPatti LuPone, look it up. Tip of the hat.

AlexIs there any... Oh, I mean, my whole thing is, yes, I agree because I... Every time Matt tries to put together something for my birthday, I'm like, please, no. Just, I want to... I want to, like, just walk around the park and play video games. And I can't even do that now.

MerlinYou know what? Let me put an asterisk or a dagger on this, which is to say that, oh boy, this is a real asshole thing to say, but I think this is an important life skill, is be careful whom in life you find yourself owing anything.

And so if it's a pal of mine, the stuff that you do for me and my family, I mean, I'm not going to sob about it. What do I do? Well, you and your partner are both so sweet to our family and you're so thoughtful. Or I think about my pal Christine who introduced my wife and me in 1999. nine she's that kind of person who just like she can't stop being the kindest person in the room and anytime you encounter her she has a thoughtful gift out of nowhere but a thoughtful contextual gift so like when uh when when uh we hung out not it was pretty might was it covet times but

the point is she took note of the fact that madeline mentioned that emma is very into veronica Mars. And she noticed that. And so guess what arrived at our house? Some Veronica, some old, intact Veronica Mars stickers.

AlexOh my God, that's so cool. From her own collection. That's so cool.

MerlinNow when somebody does something like that, like, well, first of all, I do feel a little guilty that they're such a better person than me, because selfishness feeds itself. But it's more that, for example, how does one say? There's a person I used to do a podcast with a very, very, very long time ago. who's fine, not really. And this was a person who you could tell derived a lot of his mojo from people owing him a favor. Oh, hmm.

And, you know, and so, like, you know, sort of like the guy in The Godfather, you know, that they may never come, but. And then pretty soon you show up and Sonny's full of bullet holes and look what they did to my boy, right? Well, guess what? it's time to pay back that favor. So when this guy wants to do you a kindness, the sirens should be, you know, sounding a little bit. It's just that, you know, I don't, I don't, I really try not to do that to other people. You know what it is? Like I love doing favors for other people

and sometimes I'm uncomfortable when people do favors for me. Isn't that weird?

AlexNo. Could that be a Midwestern thing? Yeah, I think it's absolutely a Midwestern thing. There are so many ways I'm broken.

MerlinI mean, one of the first principles, I think in the Midwest after Bring a Covered Dish is don't never inconvenience anyone for any reason. I feel like not everybody at all times, maybe that's just Hamilton County, Ohio, but I did, you know, there was very much communities. So like we've talked about your church, people at your church will just, a full like 25% of your, of the population of the church will on a regular basis bend over backwards for somebody without being asked.

And that's amazing to be around. And you kind of can't help but find yourself wanting to participate actively in that. Whether that's visiting somebody in the hospital or, you know, like I say, bringing somebody a dish when somebody's ill or whatever. Giving somebody a ride to church, like whatever that is. When you're around people who are that unnecessarily kind, title, you kind of want to get in on it. But I don't know. The problem is it's sort of like trying to read compliments on the Internet for every thousand nice things you read. is the one mean thing that you remember.

And I don't want to inconvenience somebody, and I don't want to owe a favor to somebody who owns a yacht.

AlexWell, you might fall off or find yourself with an underage child, and that's not great for anybody.

MerlinIt was just a photobomb. But, yeah, anyway, happy birthday. Wait, do I know your birthday? Let me look.

AlexI sometimes literally actually forget my own birthday. I think we've you forgot your own birthday last week. Yes. And I don't know why this happens. Pretty much everybody forgets the day of my birthday when I am not salty about this whatsoever. I am just very perplexed because they get it wrong by like four days forward or one day or two days backward. And it's just very funny. Oh, that's interesting.

MerlinIf you think it's sort of like the Marco Snapped a Grid name problem, is it something where it feels like it wants to be a different day? Like I used to have a friend named Dave. Hi, Dave. Good guy, Roman Catholic. And his birthday was December 26th.

Speaker AAnd I always felt so bad for him. It's actually worse than December 24th.

AlexYeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

MerlinBecause you know that kid, not to do like a 90s stand-up bit here, but you know that kid gets so many presents that are like, that's for your birthday and Christmas. he'd probably kill for like a best deal day birthday. Because then it could have a theme, you know, beheading or baguettes or something. And it wouldn't be right at right aside the birth of our Lord Jesus.

AlexNow, what would the theme be? Because I have a lot of friends who this happened to them. What would the theme be for a 9-11 birthday?

MerlinBecause I've known people born on 9-11. I mean, roughly one out of 365 people, more or less.

AlexI never thought that way.

MerlinYeah. Yeah. Well, there's a game you can play where if you have more than N people in a room, I think the number is something like 10 or 12, the chances of two people having the same birthday are higher than you'd imagine, turns out.

Speaker AA 9-11, should we save that for the after show, maybe?

MerlinSure. That feels like an after show. Sure. Because it would be way too easy to timestamp that son of a bitch on a public podcast.

AlexI just want to talk about my two tall cakes.

MerlinTwo tall cakes?

AlexTwo tall cakes. Oh, I get it.

Speaker AI see. Never forget.

MerlinOkay. No, you'll never forget my birthday. Never forget. Okay. I'm already breaking my own rule. So I'm up in having a great birthday. That would be the card. And there'd be a picture on there of playing video games. Oh, baby bin Laden. That'd be so cute. I got nothing.

Alex9-11 is sad again. Oh, God.

MerlinOh, boy. You know what? Let's save that for the... We got a lot of internet content to get through here. I still don't know your birthday. I listen sporadically. No one needs to know. Oh, so part of those... So pop in the stack. We're back to the pussy.

Speaker AMm-hmm.

MerlinWe do get two very different internets, and you strike me as being... So we have different obsessions about things. because we have different personalities, we have different conditions. Like, for example, right now I'm very into coolers and box cutter knives. And I'm exploring. I'm doing deep. I'm always on like at least two or three, four deep dives at a given time. And right now I'm looking for the perfect utility knife. And I'm looking for exactly the right cooler and eventually the right freezer for my office. Long story. But in your case, you seem to get very engaged with things like that.

It also happened, the pussy also happened to Whop and Drop at the time we were fixing to go on our little trip, I think. So I kind of lost in the lights there. And then all the discourse, as you say, was happening mostly while, you know, we were in Yosemite.

AlexI mean, yeah. And you didn't miss anything except a lovely, I genuinely really like the song.

MerlinOh, my God, that guy. The song was, the remix was, I'm so glad. I learned about it from your podcast with producer Quinn that I'm allowed to be on this week for now. For now. But, oh, that guy. That guy. You know, Jacob Wohl and Berkman are still the undisputed, ding-a-ling, right-wing kings of the cell phone. But Ben Shapiro gives them a run for their money sometimes.

AlexI mean, Jacob Wohl hasn't popped up for a while, has he?

MerlinYes. What was the recent one? Oh, God. It was real stupid. Oh, oh, you know what it was? Oh, God. It was the woman who resigned from... Let me find this. So basically, just while I'm looking this up, these are two guys that are very much in front of the show, Will Summers Beat. These are these two guys that are like wannabe Roger Stones, like Roger Stones of old.

AlexYes.

MerlinOh, my gosh. They really want to do, what is it, the guy from All the President's Men, you know, rat fucking. You know what I mean? like Dirty Tricks, they used to call it in the 90s. They really love trying to set somebody up for some obviously bullshit stuff. And they go 100% Keystone Cops every fucking time. There was the one, and they do these weird, very Vic Berger press conferences on his front porch where he comes out like he's fucking Evita and talks about how Ruth Bader Ginsburg

is doing butt stuff with Elizabeth Warren. And this guy who's a veteran, SEAL, is here to tell us about it, except he's not here. And you find out the person never existed and then you never hear about it again. And this is an ongoing theme on all the president's lawyers where it's like, have they done it yet? Have they committed a big boy federal crime yet? Because they're always right on the edge of the stupidest shit.

AlexOh, we've almost got them this time.

MerlinJack Berkman presser on Elizabeth Warren. That's about her having an affair. That might be the one with the air horns that goes full on Big Burger. Berkman Press Conference. This is not interesting.

AlexWell, I mean, probably more interesting than the Democratic Convention going on right now.

MerlinYou know what? I'm not going to get involved in that. I think it's sad that people are cynical. It's making me very, very sad that people, I know. You know what? I don't like the Iraq War either. But guess what? The testing on that has so far shown that not enough people super care about what happened in the Iraq war.

Speaker ASo, you know, you know, I don't know.

MerlinI just, fuck, we need to get this guy out, you guys. Pull it together. Figure it out. What the fuck? What are you going to do? You're going to die on that hill of like, you know, AOC didn't get long enough to talk and Colin Powell was there, so you're going to do what? Like, fucking get real.

There's a black lady who could be vice president. Jesus. Black slash Indian lady. Black slash Indian. Please remember to use the very special offer code.

Okay, here we go. This might be it.

AlexI will say I will be doing the problematic voting for Joe Biden. And sorry. I don't know. Like, I have been watching this DNC nonsense. But I think it's good that people are cynical. I don't know. Not good that people are cynical. There's a difference between critical and cynical. and I but I do find it baffling but everybody's got this it's so popular to make this reckon

Merlinabout what's effective and what's not and oh the Lincoln Project is they they're the new fuck Jerry because they steal everything and they're getting your money and that's how they get you and there's nobody's doing it right everybody's doing everything wrong and I feel like sometimes what it boils down to is this setting aside the need for a current hot take about something that makes you seem like a nihilist piece of shit. It's also that people go into this mode where they seem to be imagining whether they could be persuaded into something that they don't actually believe

if they were somebody whom they're not, which is a pretty wild speculation to be participating in on a regular basis to say like, well, this isn't going to get the – if they really want to bring in the Trump voters, they should have, you know, Jacob Wall or whatever, or the Stanford rapey guy, ha, ha, ha. And it's like, okay, but, you know, can we just take a couple steps back and say, being able to have a bunch of people who can finish a sentence and a paragraph,

and who are breaking ranks with their party to say, look, we're all inside this big tent, And if we don't want it to burn to the ground, we're going to have to get it together.

And just the Democrats will just fuck themselves so hard without even needing a reason. And it's just you hate to see it.

AlexYou do. You do. I mean, I will say, though, like when when you find yourself being more cynical and angrier than the Chapo boys on Twitter, like look in the mirror.

Merlini i yeah like who do you who do you who do you super want to impress with that

Alexi i think it was telling though that the thing that like baffled me with um what was folks like losing their minds like wait aoc is endorsing bernie and like yeah that's like how it goes like that's what the delegates do every year it was it was utterly it was procedural

MerlinIt was procedural.

AlexAnd it's like, it's fine. That was, yeah.

MerlinIt would be like taking a vote in a class, and based on which hand somebody put in the air, you guess whether they're right or left-handed. It's like, no, that's not the test here. You're misunderstanding this. Whatever, it's fine.

Friend of the show, Will Sommer, writes on August 5th, this may be the most absurd Trumpian drama ever. Cut down a little bit here. The setting of the entire mess was the, this is in regard to Wollenberg. uh berkman uh setting of the entire mess with the usaid an agency so this woman had uh this woman had i think resigned from usaid and then sent some nasty social media stuff and it was all like wow how crazy and apparently it's because wool had her phone like stole her phone and used it and got her

code and posted it to look like her something like that and this is this is the kind of this is the kind of like i don't know like d minus batman villain shit they're trying to pull off and it almost always blows remember the one the first one of the first ones i remember blowing up was jacob wall did some did some kind of shenanigans and basically it didn't take a ton of you know actually feinberg's in the world to figure out that the phone number he was using for something was his mom's voicemail and you're like he doesn't really seem to learn from his errors and his track record's not great and i i really wonder who's apart from the poem the libs

Alexpeople i don't know who finds him particularly persuasive well even so i mean that got more attention and more i guess again critic criticism and almost like analytical thought from folks on the right of like okay how do how do we get like the people that i very much don't usually don't like and often disagree with uh they try and some nah i i'm gonna dig myself into a hole but what

wouldn't you say okay just just just say you're good wouldn't you say that i i guess the right seems to learn and grow from their mistakes whereas Democrats including very much you know Bernie bitches on the on the left like me uh just you know keep doing the the same thing over and

Merlinover I mean I not everybody I think perhaps perhaps but it's part of part of that is I mean I I don't I know I this is this is a little bit of a hot take but I think a lot of that comes down to the standards that we hold ourselves and others to. And I think maybe a slightly oversimplified way to look at that is that I'm just going to say the right and the left, okay? I feel like on the left, because there is such a philosophical, kind of pseudo-intellectual,

ethical, whatever, however you want to think of it, we hold everybody to a pretty high standard, including ourselves and our allies whether that's for you know even the big stuff or the little stuff and there is a fair amount of all or nothing black and white thinking in that approach that has not served us well for years now whereas the people on the right they don't hold themselves to anything like that standard because it's not relevant to what they're doing and yet they can

benefit from also holding the left to the high standard. So, you know, when you point out something on the, somebody on the right, like say the president has done something, he done something really shitty. What does he say? He does the Putin defense, which is like, you know, everybody's terrible. Hey, I'm just doing it. You know, you guy did this. You know, one time your guy, you know, abused his franking privileges in Congress and had to resign. and also you know uh you know what about uh oh god what's his name al franken what about al franken

and we're like oh yeah that sucks i really liked al franken i was already yeah but like i had to cancel him because i never thought it was funny never thought it was funny but like because i'm because every every democrat is also the world's shittiest hall monitor like we're just so happy to have somebody to give a demerit to because i guess i guess the girl in third period will think I'm cool for my orange sash. It's like, and so like we, and we beat the shit out of each other because of that. And like I said last night, I mean, we're straight back to the narcissism of small differences.

We'll do anything to tear each other apart for sport. And the closer we are to somebody in agreeing, the more vicious we become.

AlexI do think it's interesting too. I feel like the further you go to the right or to the left, within those factions there is less of that narcissism and more like you're wrong but let's talk about why and figure something out like I do Jacobin's doing the magazine I think has been doing a lot of good they've a lot of stuff I really don't like some of their stuff and some

of it i adore like the the sort of dissection of some of the progressive campaigns that have failed like okay this sucks how do we do things differently and instead of i i mean i don't know

Merlinlike the no i'm interested in this i uh i don't i don't i don't yeah what's the thrust of it

Alexi i i i mean it's still like a um you know i i'm not smart enough nor do i desire to be like high up on a uh like campaigning and organizing type of type of thing but um yeah you know like conversations of being like all right we did this grassroots organizing what what places did we not hit with uh canvassing um what what places or um did we not like mail letters to or sorry that's

That's a different thing, obviously. But where did we not send pamphlets or stuff like that? And very much neglected the South because Joe Biden was going to win and blah, blah, blah. But it's like, OK, maybe we failed.

MerlinYeah. And hence, hence, partly the focus on, as they say, battleground states where like I want to find this. But there is I saw some headline at least yesterday from somewhere reputable that was talking about, you know, sort of like the way we talk about Senate representation. Like it's so crazy that Montana and say New York both get two senators because it's just so nuts how many people one represents and not the other. And then that's not it's not too far to step from that into your vote here means a lot more than this vote there.

And the more specific you get, the more interesting that becomes. And take it to like crucial Waukesha County. And it could be several, your vote in that place has several orders of magnitude more importance than a vote over here. Like, I have a pretty good feeling that unless something changes soon, I have a feeling Joe Biden will carry California, for example. I will still vote for him, but he doesn't need my vote in California. He really needs somebody's vote in Pennsylvania, right?

And so you apportion your resources similarly, right?

AlexYeah, yeah. Basically. But I mean, there was no I when I was in Michigan in March, there was a lot of plans to campaign in Michigan. But that was like right when stuff was ramping up with it was the beginning of March and like stuff was ramping up with covid. And it was like that. How is it responsible? Is it?

MerlinI know it was happening because you had that. Matt actually had some work scheduled, and I do remember. Some work.

AlexYeah, sorry.

MerlinI left my breath.

AlexYeah, yeah. He left his tits in Michigan. But yeah, and I was considering.

MerlinYou can just keep these.

AlexThey're sacks of yellow fat. Like, what were we going to do with them?

Speaker AOh, boy.

Alexuh well anyway i i just think that's i mean you you go all the way to like the q anon folks like they're not fighting with each other they're like they're they're talking the crazy talk but

MerlinThey're just cheering each other on. Yeah. Because the wilder your weird, dumb claim is, the more interesting you become.

AlexYeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know. It's like—

MerlinI also want to say, just to be clear here, I do—so like last night—now, I'm not trying to put this person on blast. But I was saying some remarks about this and blah, blah, blah. and somebody came in and did that sort of pseudo-chapel, like, meh, you know, that kind of like, meh, political Twitter thing of like, yeah, well, I just want health care. Which is like such a, okay, that's funny. I get it. You just want health care. Okay, so let's act like that's not a non sequitur. You really think, you tell me who's going to offer you better chances to, quote, unquote, have health care after November?

I mean, I just, so I think the idea of pushing, if you believe in something and you really believe in something and you've done the work especially i would totally applaud doing whatever you can to push the platform and the ticket in a way that accomplishes the things that you want to accomplish but again back to this black and white thinking but just because you didn't get what you wanted today and i'm sorry i i want everybody to have health care too but just because you didn't get it today i i i don't think it's it's like

Like they say, the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. I feel like the opposite of Joe Biden can be a lot of different things. And if it's not getting that guy in office, there's not a lot of other great options for the next year. I'm already dreading, well, I'm not going to say what I think because it upsets you when I say it, but I feel like I have a pretty good feeling if the election is legit, I have a pretty good feeling what's going to happen in November. But the thing that makes my balls suck up into my body cavity, like I've said before, is thinking about the time between the first week of November and the third week of January.

That scares the shit out of me.

AlexYes. I.

MerlinYeah.

AlexIt's not that it you're talking about you think Biden will win, right?

MerlinI'm talking about like once he once he is like, you know, even if we set aside the whole like we're going to drag him out of the White House thing. You think you've seen you. Jared Kushner is going to be pushed into difficult mode. Like he's going to be doing grift and corruption on a level like we've never seen. Don't even. That alone. Let alone like I mean knowing. So like everybody says, oh, yeah, that's illegal. He can't do that. It's like, well, it's only illegal if it's if somebody can pursue that. So what if he decides to, I don't know, pardon everybody who's ever committed this kind of crime?

He could just take out a piece of paper and with a Sharpie say, everybody, let's see, everybody who, just for the sake of argument, everybody who ever stole money from investors is now will be released from prison and pardoned and given a key to whatever city they choose to live in. And you're like, well, that's not a thing. Well, yeah, well, it's a thing if he says it is. Who knows what the fuck he's going to do? I think mass pardonings are just going to be one part of it. It's going to be fucking bananas. He's going to be like strip mining, you know, New York City.

You know he's just going to direct the most crazy shit. And it's going to be, as they say, I think in sports ball, flooding the zone. I mean, it's like you're just sending somebody a refrigerator-sized box of bees and going, now this is your thing to deal with. Oh, my God.

AlexWell, I it's not I continue to think that that Trump will win. And I don't like talking about it, but it's more of me wanting to prepare for the worst and not in a doom and gloom. Well, I mean, I do get doomy and gloomy, but like.

MerlinWell, it's like a classic won't get fooled again. Like, yeah, I believe something four years ago and that didn't work out. So how would I even dare think the thought that should not be thought? Because it reminds me too much of that other time I was very sad and hurt.

AlexRight, right. But, you know, it's like I want Biden to be elected. And yes, there is this disclaimer of there are some folks who literally cannot bring themselves to vote for him for like personal, really traumatic, upsetting reasons for what he has done in his past. and I totally respect and understand it, but those aren't the folks who are screaming on Twitter, right? And like, that is, they are like,

I just, it angers me quite a bit.

MerlinWell, I mean, like the phrase preaching to the choir, the phrase preaching to the choir comes to mind.

AlexYeah.

MerlinYou know, and like, I remember, I still think a lot about this conversation that I had with the people. At one point, I was with this hipster

Alexhigh-end ad company run by a famous tech guy oh i want to know so bad oh john battell's company

Merlinuh federated media oh i don't even know what that is and um it was real good for a while but and i they dealt with their dude jason who was really cool and um but one time i was like you know man um the money's nice and all but like 43 fuller's has all these fucking microsoft ads on it and i was like it's for all this stuff and i said i said part of it is that i feel weird about that because I not only don't use a lot of Microsoft stuff, but I don't like a lot of Microsoft stuff. And I'm concerned that having my site wrapped in all of these very costly ads for Microsoft products

also kind of makes me look like sort of a hypocritical asshole. And he's like, I understand, but just real quick, do you understand how advertising works? And I was like, huh? I think I do. And he said, well, what do you want ads for? I was like, well, can you get Apple to buy some ads? He's like, do you think it would be useful for Apple to buy ads on your site? where you're already doing, you're already, they live rent-free on your website already. Why would Apple buy an ad on 73 folders? You want somebody, an advertisement, at least in the classic non-disruptive, non-insane times,

an ad served to persuade you, maybe it's a brand ad that's just about keeping the name out there like a Coke thing, but really it's about going somewhere to find people who aren't using your product, to persuade them to consider using your product with thoughts and pictures. And I think that's such an obvious point that a brilliant person like me could completely miss. And I think that's also what's being missed here. We don't need, we don't, so in this case, it's the Democratic Party. And how do we get just a few more people that could be persuaded into this message?

How do we, you know, how do we get them excited about it? And so like if the people who listen to Chapo aren't that excited about Joe Biden, well, tell me something I don't know.

AlexRight, right. And we kind of talked about this a few a few weeks ago, how Zoomers make fun of millennials because they want to work inside the system and Zoomers want to tear the system down. And I've come to a long time ago, I kind of came to the conclusion of I also don't want to work inside the system. But right now we literally don't have one. Like you can't push Biden further and further to the left if it doesn't if there's like no mail happening.

like you can't like if if everything crumbles and everybody in the country dies like well i mean

Merlinwe're in all in some ways we're back to the john mulaney's the horse is loose in the hospital yes yeah like you while you're trying to advocate advocate for better conditions and technical equipment in the operating theater that's all well and good but at any time a literal horse could run into the room so maybe we should deal with that before we debate the finer points of what scalpels we want to upgrade to.

AlexI would literally have the worst, I'd rather have the worst human doctor in the world or a vet in a hospital than having a horse.

MerlinHey, hey, we still have lots to talk about, but challenge, challenge.

Alexchallenge. Dig, Doug, dig, Doug. I actually thought we were going to talk more about the challenges. It was a good, a good challenge. It was a mutual challenge, I think. Wait,

Merlinwe are going to talk about the challenge. This is the part where we talk about the challenge.

AlexWhat am I getting wrong? It was, no, no, no. It was your challenge, I think. Would you like to, please? I'm sorry. I need to drink some water. What was the challenge this week, Merlin, man?

MerlinThe challenge this week was to do something with a 3D printer. And I didn't realize it was the challenge until I already had a 3D printer. And then I somehow had missed the fact that it was a challenge but i'm into it so what had happened was um the short version of this and so that was the challenge do we agree get a 3d printer which we've both been wanting and do some stuff with it yeah so uh i my here's my just real quick i got i did the thing that i do periodically because i overthink things i i pretty much i i'm vulnerable in public for a living and i overthink things in

private for a living that's kind of what i do and i thought you know i'd like to get a 3d printer but I don't know fuck all about 3D printers. And this is one of those things where I know enough to know what I don't know, and that makes me dangerous. Because, of course, I'm the guy who's always mad at Wirecutter for recommending something I consider slightly shitty. So I did a lot of research. I got real into it. And two things.

First of all, I was looking at spending way more money than I had wanted to spend. And second of all, I still did not completely understand enough about how a 3D printer works to know if that was a good investment. And so I put it aside. But my dear friend, Alexander Cox, knew that I was in the market for considering a 3D printer. And what happened?

AlexOh, me? Oh, yeah.

MerlinThat's you. You're Alexander, just saying.

AlexYes, yes. I am Alexander Hamilton. Just I've been looking, not really looking, but waiting for the right 3D printer to pop up. And by right, I mean one that won't burn down the building I live in.

MerlinAnd that'll fit in your house. Yes. I was really concerned about having to dedicate space to the kind of thing that seems along the lines of a certain kind of obscure craft project where you get a scrapbooking kind of thing, which I guess is not obscure. But something that will require a lot of cubic feet of storage once you've stopped using it after two days. I hate stuff like that.

AlexRight.

MerlinSee also like Michael Scott's workout devices in the garage. like everybody's got like a Thighmaster and a Bulwarker or whatever it is. Solaflex. And use the Solaflex as the place from which you store all the other things that you're not using. But you found, it got to the chase, you texted me in our super secret private text channel and say, hey, look, here's this pretty good, like well-regarded, it seems like almost across the board, one of the best regarded, quote unquote, beginners, 3D printers. And it was 30 something percent off

on the Monoprice.

AlexAnd I was very, I don't know who I think it was Henry, yes it was Awesome on Twitter a good buddy of mine he's like hey it's here, it's here as in this newish product is on sale and there's you might want to get into it

Merlinso much less costly than I expected see I was looking at ones that were talking like $1,500 and I think this one after the discount was what like $3.50

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the thing. You can get a lot of 3D printers that are very cheap and they're almost like the raspberry, hashtag not all raspberry pies, but it's kind of that sort of.

MerlinYou have one of those things where you've got to like do a lot of the lifting to put pieces together yourself.

AlexAnd it's going to break a whole lot, which I was worried about maintenance.

MerlinAnd I'm still, I mean, I haven't used it much, but that was the thing that was driving me nuts, was thinking about Leslie Harpold's thing about buying toys for my toys. I didn't want to buy into a new costly and time-consuming obligation that's not that fun.

AlexAnd again, that was my thing as well. and I stayed away from any sort of 3D printing and any sort of laser cutting type stuff.

MerlinBecause also there's not like a clear need for it. Like at least for myself, I mean, I'm not going to make a gun. I'm not going to make anything. You found some very good guns, by the way. But I'm not going to be doing this. It's not anything useful. It was more like the idea in the early summer was, hey, my kid and I needed a project. Last year was painting minifigs. And like this year would be fun to have a project we could work on together, you know?

AlexYeah.

MerlinSo we did get a raspberry pie that we still haven't put together.

AlexI have one sitting on my desk right now.

MerlinI can't even figure out how to make my Synology be a VPN, so I'm not sure I'm ready. But anyhow, that's what we did. So I didn't realize this was going to be a challenge somehow because we don't always communicate efficiently because we're us. But, yeah, but no, it was awesome. It arrived and was pretty easy to set up. And tell us about this printer. What happened? How did it go for you?

AlexI mean, that's the thing is, unlike you, I don't know. I don't know. I didn't know anything. Like, I didn't know what an STL file was, or I'm still not sure how the, like, I could not explain anything to you right now. But that was really fun.

MerlinWell, I was going around with folks on Slack, especially with Marco, about, like, there's apparently there's roughly two general kinds of 3D printers. And you want this kind, but not that kind. And, you know, there's different kinds of filament and how big is your build area. And I was like, okay, that's when the hairs on my neck go up that say, hey, dingus, you need to do way more research on this unless you're ready to just throw money away on something that may not do. And, of course, I kept thinking about, like, I would not know anything about this. I was like, I would not be surprised if you get into a situation with, say, it could be with copyright.

You know, I tried to watch a movie while we were on vacation, and I had the kind of cable that wouldn't let me stream it to a TV. you know it's those kinds of things like oh if you get this kind of a file this .docx style 3d file it won't print on this kind of device i didn't know so but it was actually i'm happy to say real easy it just arrived it was really fairly easy to set up hardest part we struggled with just a little bit was threading the filament into the grabby thing but that wasn't difficult to figure out it's so fun to be at that point that i always imagined i'd be at where my

kids better at stuff than I am. It's so fucked up. It's also kind of awesome.

AlexThat's amazing. Like when it comes

Merlinto anything, like I used to always be the guy who would put the thing together. I could fix your stereo because it's not really that hard. Basically, your RC Ajax are fucked up and I can fix that. You daisy change your hard drives wrong and you got to have a Terminator in this one and that kind of stuff. But in this case, I'll be like as soon as I have any problem, especially if it involves using my glasses in a very bright light, I'm like, will you just take care of this? And Bob's your uncle, she does.

AlexWell, one, that makes me very excited. But two, that sounds like also a lovely way to work in tandem with a member of your family. Like, I know you fear the teenager days.

MerlinIt is. It actually super is. Yeah. Well, I've learned that one way. So, you know, there were times when she was very young that I could do the classic sort of parent thing of like, you know, of trying to trick them into learning something.

One way that I can sometimes motivate her now that I think is more wholesome than it sounds is to basically not challenge her, but to say like hand or something and go like, can you figure this out? And sometimes that's putting like shelves together or like whatever it is. It's not because I don't want to do it, but she is good at it. She is in some ways better than me at it. I think it also makes her feel good to have like finished the thing that I that I didn't feel capable of doing. So dunk on dad all you want. That's what I'm here for.

AlexI mean, that's honestly how I felt like, hey, I figured this out. And now I'm learning more about like I haven't been in the vector game in a while. And I it's really fun. Like this is not something that I am ever going to. basically this is not a professional pursuit and i have a habit of making hobbies into my job which

Merlinisn't great and i love all of the things i do making wait hang on that that sounds important making hobbies your job and that's something you shouldn't do what do you mean by that because

Alexthat's interesting um i mean i've been i've been you mean in the way that you take it seriously or

Merlinin the way that you try to incorporate it into your career work uh i try to take things seriously

Alexmore than i take uh myself seriously like i not in a like rage way or a i i don't know like like um

Merlinyou so like like one example like i'm always thinking about that example of when i was in college and I would just skip a class. And I think about as against the, like this woman in her 40s with a teenage son who was studying trans people psychology and she was paying for college out of her own budget. So she took it super seriously and she did way better than I did because I was not taking it seriously. I was still a child and thought as a child. It's sort of like that you

take it as seriously as a job in terms of whether it's buying a backpack or a rebel phone case you

Alextake that seriously i mean i it's it's it's podcasting i've been literally doing podcasts for uh over a over a deck oh good lord good and and uh thank god many of them have disappeared um and if you want to go try finding them go go ahead i said some probably problematic things oh

MerlinI have a ton of them still sitting in Overcast. I have some where I think I don't even ever put an episode out, some of them.

AlexI don't. Well, some of them, that's the thing is I used to put everything on the Internet, and I learned to stop doing that.

MerlinWell, in the words of the gambler, you know, you got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them. You know what I'm saying?

AlexYeah. Yeah. And I mean, I that's video games kind of became my job and podcasting has it's become honestly more of my job than my jobby job. And it is because I took it seriously.

MerlinSyracuse and I did our annual member episode that we do in August. We recorded it last night with a friend of ours. and that was a big topic for us was the like it's a friend who's an independent musician and just talking about how you convert you know he's awesome but you you convert this thing that you thought of as an obscure regional thing that you do like for me that's indie rock in north northern florida or you know like whatever that is and like as you find yourself unintentionally

preparing for a job that doesn't exist yet. And sometimes you get lucky. You know what I mean? So like I used to say in the 73 Folders Day, everybody who's a peer of mine pretty much, most of the folks in my community, work at a job that didn't exist when they were in college, let alone when they were born, which is a very different set of circumstances from the preceding 250 years of the United States. So when you say that, I think that's really cool. I think the ability to try to figure out how you can, when people say shit like, you know, do what you love,

Well, you know, my grandfather shut off people's electricity for 36 years. It wasn't what he loved, but it worked out okay. But if you can find a way to incorporate something for which you have an interest and an ability into what is your nominal work, nothing wrong with that, man.

AlexNo, not at all. I think more so I want hobbies where if I do completely abandon it, no one is sad. Does that make sense? I'm sending you some pictures of it.

MerlinSo what I hear you saying there that part of your concern is you don't want to overcommit to something and then end up disappointing someone.

AlexOr losing money over it. Like depending on any sort of independent income that isn't attached to a like a company with health care. That terrifies the fuck out of me. And then listening to some of my younger friends who do like Twitch for a living, they are just in constant, like, God, that fucking grind of talking to people for like, in some cases, literally eight hours a day.

and i just and and something i i don't know this is i i feel like it also sounds like i'm complaining like man i did i do stuff i i loved this stuff and now i make money from me it is it is not that at all i just think it's it's sort of healthy to have something different like like a sports ball. I get why people miss sports so much right now. I don't...

MerlinI don't feel that way, but I absolutely understand. I watched the first few baseball games because it is kind of cool. It's interesting to have sports back, and it's also interesting to see how they're doing things differently.

I've tried to deliberately dial back a lot of my usual acrimony about sports culture because I'm glad people have something to enjoy. Why rob them of that to feel like a cool kid?

AlexRight. Yeah, I agree.

MerlinWe're going to talk about these little guys. We're going to get to do this and do the after show. Let's talk about our dudes. So you got red filament too. I don't love the red filament.

AlexNo, I do not. More, more.

MerlinLook at my skull. Can you see how low contrast that skull is?

AlexYes. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, oh yeah, yeah. And how big is, oh wow. Oh wait, ho, ho boy. So the first picture you've sent me, is that the skull? What the fuck is that thing?

MerlinSo like the octopus?

AlexOh, okay.

MerlinSo that's one of the, according to my kid, who knows more about things than I realize sometimes, that's one of the first things that everybody, it's a very, very popular thing to print out. And so it's difficult to see from here, but we can put this in show notes, or somehow, I guess. But yeah, you print out this little octopus, and it's improbably, the arms are like all articulated.

Alexthat is fucking wild like all all of the i it mine is currently printing some stuff right now that but that there's pieces that need to be put together and assembled that's the word um but i whoa this is very cool i'm excited for this uh the skull is cooler than it looks oh i didn't

Merlindid i sing a yoda i guess did a pretty good yoda but yeah i really wish we had a different um

Alexcolor thing. I have a feeling it was just like, this one's on sale. It's not popular. Let's put

Merlinthis. What's your, your first one is a wad of, or after the kitty cat. Oh, look at that sweet

Alexkitty cat. My cat loves this thing and I don't know why, but God, he loves robots like more than me at this point. But I tried to. Wait, is that your hair now? The, no, that's, that's matchy.

MerlinOh, in the holding the cat. Yeah. Oh, that makes sense. Yes. Yes. You guys look a lot the same

Alexfrom the side the yeah it's very very weird oh yeah we should do a hair update in the after show um but so that that like little glob of nonsense that i sent you the like it looks like a pile of filament that was the built-in like square thing that you were oh yeah i still kept mine i have it right here yeah uh i still can't print that i have no idea why it just breaks every single time um

Merlinbut i have you encountered any problems with scale uh no but i you know you can change the scale it's it's not totally obvious but when it's in the what's it called the build platform thing or whatever the plate the build plate you can um it'll show you how many millimeters that thing is and you could drag it to different sizes can you see what i just sent you the green item yes oh this is so so what this is it's a sponge that says you should only use your printer for practical purposes it's a funny spongebob meme and of course my kid wanted to print that um

now when i put that on the build plate i thought it looked really small and so i did something crazy which is i tripled it in size from the default do you see the photo with the dime in it

Alexyes the uh wait oh oh oh uh the photo with the dime at the dime in the little red rectangle Yes.

MerlinThat's what it looked like, triple the default size. No. It's smaller than a dime.

AlexOh, my goodness.

MerlinSo live and learn. You know what I'm saying? I was like, ooh, that job finished pretty quick. I was like, well, that's why.

AlexYep. Oh, woof. I mean, I guess for obvious reasons, the low poly stuff seems to print the best for me. Because, again, this isn't a $3,000 printer. It's a $300 printer.

MerlinAnd also, it's a little bit misleading on Thingiverse. I don't say misleading, but yeah, misleading. Because people paint them when they put them on Thingiverse. And you're like, that's not what it's going to look like. That's really just like the picture on the Stouffer's box. That's not what it really is going to look like.

AlexWell, that's why I really love the low-poly figures of definitely not Charmander the Pokemon.

MerlinWhat does that mean? Like it's fewer triangles and hedrons? is it like this little Pokemon guy that would be an example of that it's not it's not it's not a

AlexPokemon if it was a Pokemon it would not be allowed on that website it is a um small fire creature uh but my small fire creature has you know there's a bunch of there's so much copyrighted

Merlinshit on here what are you talking about I know I just section on Doctor Who you can make a little You need a little piece of his 3D printed poopy.

200. Sacks of Yellow Fat

Show notes

Transcript

200. Sacks of Yellow Fat

Show notes

Transcript

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