204. Trickle-Down Leadership

AlexDon't worry, you're not in trouble. We just wanted to tell you that our friends at Relay FM have been raising money for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. You should head over to stjude.org slash relay to give them your fucking money. And I'm going to tell you why now by reading this fancy pants copy. St. Jude combines the very best in personalized care with one of the most technologically advanced treatment clinics in the world, the Red Frog Therapy Center.

the first proton therapy center in the world dedicated solely to children with cancer with the ability to kill and shrink tumors while keeping healthy tissue and organs safe. I know that sounds like I am using a fake excited voice, but that is so cool. And all of this is free to St. Jude patients, which is an American that that's wild to me. Relay is hosting their annual podcast-a-thon and fundraiser this Friday, September 18th. I do not remember

what time it starts, so I guess you're going to have to go to stjude.org slash relay to find out. Again, that's stjude.org slash relay. In advance, thank you for your service.

This is Do by Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. This week's challenge, make podcasting easier.

MerlinHello.

AlexHello.

MerlinGood morning.

AlexGood morning. Oh, I always forget that it is like super morning for you.

MerlinThis is very, it's as we record, it's, we generally record 9.15, my time on Wednesdays. And that, I think, is the minimum viable podcast time for me. Doing back to work at 8.30, I'm so out of it. And my drugs haven't kicked in, or sometimes they have kicked in too much. I'm not sure. I can't really tell what's helping and not. But yeah, that's turned into a real batshit insane show because I'm real goofy at 8.30 in the morning. Hmm.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I'm making some changes. I mean, I sleep later. I stay up later. One thing I've done is I've increased the time of my DND just a little bit later because I've told you before, I do feel like there are certain times of day when I get these, I don't know if you get this, but do you have certain times of day where you're like, for no reason, on a fairly regular basis, around the same time of day, a bunch of people start contacting you. For me, it's like 7.30 in the morning, my time, and about 4 p.m., 3.30 to 4 p.m. my time.

and it's like nobody talks to me all day or maybe I just don't notice it because you know what it could be a heuristic or a bias because I'm at my computer so maybe I notice it less when it's going beep beep beep while I'm trying to cut a tomato that's frustrating because I cut tomatoes at 7 30 a.m it's a thing I do but no why is that it was a joke it was a bit I yeah but sometimes sometimes I don't know I don't know if my friends are maybe having happy hour or something but like I start getting a lot of like, you know, pictures of funny signs and stuff. You know, I still have my Slack

notifications shut off and I'm very reluctant to turn it back on. No, don't. Why? No. Because when I talked about this on Back to Work, I think it was on Back to Work. But when we were fixing to leave for our little vacation, I think I mentioned this, how like a few days before I started like noticing the notifications that we get, not responding to them immediately, letting them pile up. And then being able to go in and say, okay, if I'm in another part of the state, hours away, is this anything I would even want to know about? Can I, or will I, or would I want

to do anything about this? I turned so much stuff off and there's a bunch of, I just kind of left

Alexoff. I don't understand. Why is that bad? You're, you're not, not bad. Why is, why is that bad?

MerlinWell, imagine what would happen if you did that? No, I don't have a job like you do, but But it means I miss, I do, I miss, like, I mean, how does one say? You know, you get in some slacks and people start talking and people go a little crazy and it's bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep. So my bleep, bleep, bleep sound is the one that sounds like the beginning of the Good Place theme. And I should really change it because it confuses me. Oh, I'll tell you if you want to know. Do you want to know? Yes. Oh, that's a good one. But, you know, like I miss things. Like I find out like there's an oopsie or something.

I got to fix a thing and I didn't know it. And like, I don't know, it's so selfish, but like I'm kind of addicted to the lack of beeps.

AlexHow is that a, how is that an addiction? And I mean this in the best possible way.

MerlinIs this faint? Are you doing faint surprise?

AlexFaint surprise?

MerlinWe should talk about faint. We should talk about faint surprise. No, it's just, it's, it's, no, I'm making a bigger deal of this than I probably need to. It's just more that, I mean, I love stuff like, you know, one of the million reasons I'm addicted to Gmail. Why am I saying addicted so much? One of the reasons I like Gmail, I mean, obviously huge above all the key commands. But I also, I think it does a pretty good job with spam, except for these Bitcoin things. And I think it does a pretty good job with the important and priority.

And I still don't know what the difference is, but I have everything turned on. So I get a fairly minimal amount of bloops. If there is this habit I picked up years ago that I still believe in today, it doesn't cost anything to make a filter. If you discover there's something that's ultimately just a bit of information, like say a shipment, something has shipped from Amazon. Like I don't really need to know that. I'm usually tracking that either in deliveries or just on the Amazon page. But that doesn't need to be in my inbox.

so I filter stuff like that out immediately it's just that you don't get that you can get that level of control on something like Slack but try doing it on your phone it's a real pain in the ass to go in and like customize for each channel do you want mentions I like that they give you the options but it's real fiddly to do on a phone whereas you can also just go on your phone into settings and just say turn off all notifications so make your case you think I'm not being selfish

AlexWell, just turn it on for your family and the people that you work with directly.

MerlinNo? It could be. No, I'm sorry. I'm looking at a thing here. Do you have Slack open right now?

AlexYeah.

MerlinOkay. Go to Slack. Open it up. Command comma. Go to preferences. You, the listener, can do this along with us. Consider this an exercise. Alex, sometimes I forget that we have people, and I think that I can just dominate the conversation like I would normally with me and you. So now I'm going to address our listeners. You can do this with us. You open your Slack application on your Macintosh computer. At least for me, top preferences, notifications.

Click that. Go to notification sound. Now, let me ask you, are you familiar with the TV show The Good Place?

AlexYes, but I haven't seen the final five episodes.

MerlinIt's okay. It's okay. But you've watched it enough to be habituated. I want to know how you feel when you select the notification sound ta-da, ta-slash-da.

AlexI don't know why I'm thinking about this so hard.

MerlinYou don't hear it?

AlexOh, you mean from your end? No.

MerlinOh, no, no, no. When you select, so if you select notification sound ta-da, are you hearing it in your cans?

AlexOh, yes, yes, yes.

MerlinI don't know. Okay, so they do the cold, I think it's a cold open. And then you hear that noise The song, the very, very short Credit song Every time I hear the Ta Da notification sound It sounds like The Good Place is coming on

AlexDo you enjoy that?

MerlinI don't think I do I feel fooled What else should I Okay, let's see what else I got in here Plink was Plink Oh, Plink's not too bad Wow Ooh, I don't like wow Here you go No, no Knock brush I don't know. I could probably do this later. I'll do Plink for now.

AlexThat is my work notification, actually. Oh, smart. Everything else I have turned off except for, that's a lie. I have at mentions turned on and pretty much everything. But people are nice and don't.

MerlinYou know, I'm going to tell you one thing, people. If you're out there listening, and I hope you are because you're here. if you're listening you need to be careful with the the the the handles that hail everybody that's that's reply all like when you go in and say at here or at whatever you know to like hail

Alexeverybody in the channel i think you should get a couple of those a year that yep yep i i would say once every season for a year this is like your boss it's like a boss mailing something to 40 people it's like don't do that oh no i i agree i and it's interesting because oh actually no i get an at all or an at here a lot but that's you can shut that off in per channel i believe oh

Merlininteresting i mean there's a lot of granularity there's a lot of buttons and whatnot oh i have

Alexit's so i'm seeing what i did um that i have it turn i just have it turned on specifically this is so exciting uh i have it turned on specifically just for uh like my work channel um the the jobby

Merlinjob one which which makes which makes sense but the the problem is it's a little bit of a cheat code for slack because what is it that made slack at least i'll say for myself the thing that made Slack so interesting to me is I like the fact that it had such precision to it. Like there could be a shuck and jive channel and you could turn off the shuck and jive channel. That's been on every tech company forever. Back when tech companies were kind of cool. There's always been like a listserv or a major domo where you can like shuck and jive. Like everybody's got that. Google famously has one of these. Google has one of those that just used to have one of those just about the kitchens, the kitchenettes inside of each building. And like there was all these things where you,

if you wanted to go be a train spotter about some given issue, you could be in that channel or not. that's been around but i feel like if there's a cheat code for slack if you use at here too often because the point of slack is that you shouldn't need to scream at everybody if they're being a good doobie and checking in on slack you know fit uh you know unless it's an emergency like don't

Alexdo that it's abuse it's abuse so it's just a assault really i mean well like okay because

MerlinSo here's, I have been this guy in a lot of situations, including on Slack. There are Slacks, of which I am a member, that I just, you know, thanks. Thanks for having me. Like, I'm not going to spend a ton of time there. And I'm not going to be like, I'm not going to be like doing an AMA once a day, where I just like encourage, same reason. I'm not on Twitch. Like, who has time to do that? It's insane.

AlexPeople who don't have kids, basically, I think. It's not that hard.

MerlinI don't know. I guess. I guess we're all lonely. But it's, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I just, sometimes I'll just, I'll dip in, I'll check in, I'll see what's going. So I have been that guy who like, oh, now that I'm the one who needs help with my Mac, I'll go in and do an ad here.

And I try not to do that because that's kind of lame. Why do you suppose Apple Watch? So like Apple Watch has a sound for when you get a message.

AlexYes.

MerlinIt has a sound, a different sound for when you get like a calendar reminder. Yes. But like, there's not a lot of granularity, right? It doesn't honor or reflect. Oh, and it'll also do that funny thing when somebody tap back something you said. That's kind of cute. I like that.

AlexOh, I see what you're saying. But I just have it set to mirror.

MerlinYeah, I wish there was a way to say like, I have, you know, certain tones on my phone for different people that I find really valuable, where it's like, if I hear this sound, I know it's something I'll want to look at. If I hear that sound, I know it's what I would consider a fairly generic, like non-essential, sorry, everybody's essential. All, all, all textures. Hashtag all slack. I wonder why they don't do that on the watch though. Hmm, hmm, maybe they'll. Just the sound, it's just a little sound.

AlexI am shocked that you have your sound on, on your watch. I wouldn't go crazy but I don't know I have very few notifications that actually I don't think I have any notifications on that I would need to respond to immediately like I have even

MerlinI have almost everything mirrored there's very few things I haven't mirrored and here's the thing this is how you worship that horrible Englishman Mike Curley whoa whoa whoa let me tell you Let me tell you what a liar, he's a lying Brit. Because remember, you know how he gets so excited about something and he can't wait to see what he does with it? Remember when he was all in on Apple Watch and it was the greatest thing in the world and he turned off notifications on his phone because everything's on the watch and he really likes being with the watch and always with the watch. He was so gay bones for the watch.

And then time passed, there was an interreg in them. And the last time I heard him talk about it, after that, he was like, yeah, I don't know. I'm not into it anymore. I still am. I did what, well, I think he came back around. But I did what he did back in those days before he was a lying Brit. I did that. And I said, you know, if I'm going to have this watch, why don't I use it? Like, let's be smart about what I'm going to use. There are certain things I would never do on my watch. Obviously, over the years, there's more than you can. It's interesting to me. So you just get a buzz.

You get a big haptic or a haptic.

AlexYeah. I also have the big haptics turned on.

Merlinlike i have huge haptics turned on yeah yeah i don't know if this is a bit

Alexno i want it to be like a strong lover exactly like if you're gonna have a vibrator why are you

Merlinyou using the low settings that's exactly you know what you could not have put it any better you know what's privileged if you don't use it and what's a vibrator if it doesn't hurt if you're gonna get the hitachi i mean that that should you should you should feel that you know in your sternum as well. Your sternum should be having a happy time.

AlexIf it's not like a second degree rug burn,

Merlinthen I think you're doing it wrong. Second degree rug burn. It'd be fun to go into good vibrations with a little sheet of paper. These are the feelings

Speaker AI would like to enjoy. Do you have something that would make me feel like a rug burn?

MerlinHow much of a rug burn? Like a second degree rug burn. I got the thing for you. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! My daughter's reading The Outsiders. How cool is that?

AlexOh, wow. Is she liking it?

MerlinI don't know. She doesn't really talk to me about anything anymore. She talks to me about Leonard McCoy and that's about it.

AlexDon't worry.

MerlinThat's not true.

AlexThat'll change in 15 years or so. you know in 15 years you know it's going to change you now um i i don't know i keep thinking about the what you said about being addicted to not having

Merlinnotifications isn't that amazing thing to hear from me what an amazing interesting fascinating

Speaker Anew thought technology from merlin i don't know like i've been saying this for 15 years

MerlinBut no, but I have to re-realize it because it accretes. If you install, and I'm sorry, I'm going to let you finish. You install a goddamn app. I do not have the automatic install on watch. But you install anything, and I warned my family today, hey, look, iOS 14 is really, really great. And, of course, they probably won't think to update it unless I make them. But I said to Madeline like three different times, I don't think you need to nerd out like I do. But I really would just go see what's going to happen. and don't click through everything because this is a great opportunity

for you to do a little privacy audit. Like, do you really, I mean, you're going to discover some crazy shit if this is your first day on iOS 14. Like, what? That thing is grabbing my clipboard that often? That's crazy. Like, I don't want that to happen. You know you can't have my mic. Like, you can't do any of that. But what was my point with that iOS 14 letting Alex finish?

Alexlet me turn up that setting all the way for the second degree oh right

Merlinsorry I cut you off for no good reason

AlexI mean you've always obviously been like I would say Merlin Mann is pretty gay for productivity because I've decided that productivity is men I guess

MerlinI'm very gay I wouldn't say gay I would say I'm gay bones for something we should come back to this. I am gay bones for if you're going to give away your time and attention, know that you're doing it. If you're unaware that you're giving away your time and attention, then sometimes you need to check back in. What I was going to say was, every time you install something, even if you're real picky about it, obviously we've just stopped asking if you want to get email

from somebody. We stopped doing that a few years ago, so you just get email for stuff now. Buy something on Amazon. Hey, did you enjoy your Frisbee? Please, you know, rate and review. All that horseshit. And it's like, sometimes you have to go, then go back in and say like, okay, and this is not super easy to do on a phone, I'm sorry to say, to have to go through and all those different radio buttons for like, no, I don't want that. I almost wish, I know I would regret this probably, but I almost wish there were, you know how you can say, allow, allow once, allow while using the app, all that for location.

I wish there was a way to just say, go back to allow once for everything. Give me a cold, like full reboot of all these settings. Act like, treat me like an idiot. Act like I just installed all of these. I'll take the responsibility for this if I miss something. But let's go back to one, right? Let's take everything all the way back and then let me read because like what happened when you first like put was it uh catalina when you get all the pop-ups and everybody's like click click click click click

you just go through all the pop-ups to make it in it's like your first day with little snitch it's the worst for the first day because everything is bugging you all the time

Alexanyway that's that's what i want what were you gonna say i i don't remember you're saying i

Merlinshouldn't you shouldn't feel bad i shouldn't feel bad about not wanting all the beeps no yeah

AlexI guess the reason it surprised me is what you clarified is that you have reminded yourself, I guess, that this is important. I don't know.

MerlinOh, oh, oh. You know, I don't – I get a bad taste in my mouth about a lot of stuff. For example, there's a major newspaper in New York that had a big article on, not big, but big enough my wife noticed it, that is about something related to a phrase that I coined a few years ago. And I was like, I had this sick feeling for a minute where I was like, oh, God, they didn't contact me, which is OK.

But I had this mixed feeling of like, am I glad that my name is no longer associated with Inbox Zero? Or am I a little bit frustrated in my heart that it's still gotten away from me the way that it has? And I still don't know the answer to that. But I tend not to do a lot of interviews anymore. Not least because, as we've discussed several times on here, if it's somebody you don't know and you don't know how it's going to go, It's not that it's going to be a gotcha, but it is that like you know that they're usually contacting you for like a certain quote or to fill a hole in this particular paragraph or whatever.

But I got contacted by somebody at a magazine. This will probably be on the website.

AlexBut somebody's like, hey, do you want to talk about Inbox Zero and like COVID and stuff like that?

MerlinI was like, you know what? Actually, I really would. I says to her, I says, you know, why not? Let's do that. And it got me thinking, of course, I jump into, you know, Envy Ultra and start making some bullets. and I realized I do have a lot to say about this, obviously. But what I also realized is that I have a lot to say about the near future of work. Yes. But I also am realizing, well, how much overflow there is with what's happening in the schools. It's upsetting. It's weird how much there is in common,

like institutionally in those struggles. And it kind of starts with, well, everything shut down because it had to shut down. It was a very abrupt shutdown. So what do we do now? Well, are we doomed? Are we accursed?

AlexOh, no. I thought my Mac, I don't know, just crashed. But everything's fine now.

MerlinYou have such a nice Mac. I do. Is it your podcast improvements that made it go crash, crash?

AlexI don't know. I turned off one. I turned off thing. Not the app, the way to, yeah.

MerlinYou turned off thing.

AlexWell, I mean, to spoil the challenge.

MerlinOkay, okay, okay. All right. It's the girl from Ipanema. She's walking. Anyways. Yeah. And so everybody thought, everybody thought we're going to shut everything down. We got to shut, yes. As the president likes to remind us, even one life, too many. but we did the right thing we shut down so you got shut down your office now is no longer office now house is office and we're going to just act like because because this is probably just going to be for a few weeks right okay schools understand we got to shut this down now now uh now school is

home so that'll probably only be for a couple weeks the pattern i'm trying to tease out here which is of course like so many of my great insights blindingly obvious is that the abrupt change to trying to take what we have done traditionally and move it into, let's just say, a remote environment. Happened fast because it had to. It was greatly under-resourced for everybody, whether that's schools asking high school teachers to become IT professionals, or in the case of work, like, oh, just go home and

act like you're at the office, regardless of whether there's kids and stuff there, there's four of you there, whether you don't have the right kind of setup. some places better than others. But like the common thread in all of that was, I think A, we got to do this. Like B, we're just going to sort of like do what we did before, but from our homes. And C, it'll be okay because we'll be back to normal by summertime. And like the thing that's really like, that's really twisting my melon now is if you really think about that,

let's put a little bit more sauce on that taco. What if we're looking at months and months and months, possibly a couple years of playing whack-a-mole with this shit regionally. Like little regional pop-ups, regional flare-ups. What happens when one person gets sick at this particular school? Because it's different at every school. I'm doing the black lady clap in between, right? Every place is different. And so what do we do? Are we going to move the furniture around and try different things? Or are we going to continue to pretend as though what you used to do in the office

is now a thing that you just do at home? What you used to do at school. My daughter has PE classes over Zoom.

AlexNo.

MerlinYes.

AlexWait, how does that even work?

MerlinI don't know. I'm going to say not great, Bob.

AlexDo the kids like, I'll do jumping jacks in front of me.

MerlinBecause she's in her loft. She's under her loft bed in her desk area. Ow, ow, ow.

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinBut like, you know, and again, so this is, I don't know if this, I don't know if this will appear in GQ, on GQ, on the GQ website. I don't know if it'll even become an article, but it has been an interesting couple of days. It's been thought-provoking for me to force myself to try to make some bullets out of this. And it's pretty wild to think about, you know, it's hard when you're living in all this stuff. It's all happening.

Everything's happening at once. And everything's always going on. But when you take a little step back and say, okay, let me try and collect my thoughts on this, you know, there's these patterns that emerge that really suck. I mean, there's a lot that sucks. We all know it sucks to be a working mom. Like one of my wife's colleagues, I think I told you at one point during a Zoom call, she turned her laptop around to show her three children sitting at the same table she was at. Three kids, three different grades, three different Zooms, three different homeworks, all at the same table along with mom, who is an MD.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is like, you know, now I'm ready to be mad about different things, Tidal. Like, I'm ready to be mad about, like, man, everybody's background. You're forcing people to have their camera on and, like, show their house, which may not be exactly the way that they would prefer people see. I don't want people to see my house all the time. I don't want people to see my house at all.

AlexMy coworkers see my bed every single day. Like, that's not something I expect.

MerlinWell, it's like, it's one thing if you, and it's fun sometimes. Like, yesterday I noticed there was a woman who did a very funny bit where she showed what she looks like on Zoom. And then somebody took a photo from another angle. And she's like, she's in like shorts and running shoes. And there's like baby stuff everywhere. And it's like, it's so galling to me. Obviously, it's galling that all these people have to be doing all these different things and taking care of the kid and doing their job with probably the similar expectations to before. Still getting managed by managers who love to manage.

All that usual shit. And there's what I'm prepared to say to this woman is that I feel like there's nothing new to any of this. It's an amplification of the irksome shit about schools and offices and life that's just being accelerated so much right now. Privacy concerns we had about schools and offices, well, guess what? Now you're on Zoom. Otherwise, you're expelled and you can't go to homeschool anymore. Hey, you know what? I don't like the privacy implications of my kid using Zoom. Oh, bummer. Use Zoom. Okay, cool. Anyway, it's just all of that. And at the same time, going back to

the Roderick Online discussion for several months, it's like this is such a time to think about what we can be doing differently. I read a great article yesterday, part of this ongoing sort of series, not series, but this trend piece, as you'll see, about how this is changing the kinds of homes people want to own and wear when they do renovations. All these things that you've designed a house to be a place that's mostly for comfort and living, and now it has to do triple duty. So what are the changes there? And I think the part that worries me is the hammers and nails problem, which is like, well, this is the kind of problem we've handled in the past.

We're not in the recreate the culture business. And it's like, you keep asking, let's get it down to one point. You keep asking that single mom who was stressed out to begin with to also, with her shit internet connection, be able to have three kids go to school while she does a job with the same expectations. We act like school is school. we act like work is work and we act like home is fine. It's like, that's fucked up. It's like, there's no future in that. But I don't think we're really grokking how much we need to rethink a lot of this stuff

for this new world. Is that blindingly obvious? Probably. What do you think?

AlexI think people are slowly realizing just what you're saying, that there is no going back to normal. There is hopefully going back to, like our communities being safe because not only are is your home work and home there's no third place anymore like you're not and not even like bars or restaurants like you can't go to i mean

Merlinif you're lucky if you're lucky you take your dog to the park yeah but you're right there is there is

Alexthere's no way to get to like i i mean even folks with like home gyms and stuff or like Like, I don't know.

MerlinLike Dan's trying to basically recreate his weird cult gym at his house. He bought a big punching bag. Does he have the big ropes? I don't know if he's got the ropes. Isn't the rope, aren't the ropes basically the communion of CrossFit? I mean, isn't it like super important?

AlexI don't know.

MerlinSee, if you ask him, he's going to say, it's like my wife just got some really good makeup. And she's like, yeah, it's really cool. My friend, I think she got some makeup out. I was like, you better not get into an MLM. She says, it's not an MLM. I said, oh, sorry, network marketing. You're not allowed to get into network marketing. She's not, but you know what I mean? You ask Dan, of course, because he's an inscrutable pod man, he's going to say something like, well, I haven't done CrossFit in years. And you're like, hmm, okay.

But you're right. You can't recreate everything. You can't make Starbucks in your kitchen. You can't, you know, you can't roller skate in a watermelon patch. You can't, like, from whole cloth, create the entire outside world in a urban or suburban house. You think people are coming around to it, though?

AlexI think I... Basically, yeah, I think white moms are basically coming around to it and not even in a... Like, I don't want to get all shamey and be a person who yells at someone in a store if they're not wearing a mask, because yikes.

MerlinA lot of people are super comfortable not wearing a mask these days.

AlexOh, really? Interesting.

MerlinOh, yeah. Oh, and also everything's reopening. My operator is now cutting hair again. Good for her. One person at a time allowed inside. But yeah, all that stuff. I mean, there's a lot of concern among professionals and lay people, including this lay person. A lot of concerns that, well, same shit as ever. Well, we're loosening up. Everything must be back to normal. It's the message that has college kids, you know, hafting up those red beer cups because they've gotten the tacit message

that everything is fine. And also their brain's not done forming. It's their fault? No. It's the fault of the incredibly cynical. Wasn't Chicago, isn't that the school with the study abroad program for $30,000 a semester? They threw out 11 kids and kept the money? That's Chicago, right?

AlexI don't know, but sounds like something we would do.

MerlinThis happened last week. It was a big story last week. Oh, boy, you youths are bad. You broke rules. Boo. And so, yeah. So, I was saying Northeastern, but I don't know if that's even a thing. But, yeah, so they threw out 11 kids. They're not going to refund their tuition. What is that tuition? That tuition was, I think, $30,000 for one semester. Why is that so expensive? Because it's a study abroad program. Really? It's a study abroad program. But they're not abroad. No, no, no. They're just in dorms.

My wife has a friend whose kid just left to go to community college where he's living in a dorm. And all his classes are remote.

AlexI have a couple. I know a couple folks who are doing that, too. Yeah.

MerlinYou go to a dorm for your remote classes.

AlexYeah.

MerlinYeah. Because we want that money.

AlexYeah. And at the same time, in retrospect, I wonder if like the kids in despite being I mean, it sucks because they're they're paying to they're paying to be in a gross small room that some dean helped design. But they're not with their parents and their other two screaming siblings who are younger than them. So this is what she said. It's basically the mother was like, I love him and he has to leave. He's got to go. Yeah. And that is, again, such a privilege, especially because so many scholarships do not include housing. And boy, I think, though, a lot of it.

And I mean, I'm not I don't I don't know. Like, there's no trickle down leadership, I guess.

MerlinI don't because that's what I like the phrase trickle down leadership. Look after that.

AlexNothing, nothing really, as we've seen, in my opinion, that doesn't really work with a number of things. But I don't know, man. Like, the adults need to step the fuck up. I don't know.

MerlinI know. I know. The trickle down or like, you know, like they say, shit rolls downhill. This has been happening for months now where like at every level they're passing it on to the next group. And like our beloved liberal cuck academicians are doing some basic Trump shit. So what does Trump say? Trump says, well, you know, there's nothing more that could be done. I acted very early. We all know his greatest hits. And then saying him and Pence, the messaging for weeks, months at this point has been the same.

And I think Pence really kicked this off. And now it is a law is like, well, it's very wear a mask, social distance and please follow the orders of your local authorities. You know, that's dog whistles the wrong term, but that's coded. And that's coded to mean when this shit breaks bad, it's not our fault. Yep. It's your local person. So then your local person says, or say your governor says, oh, well, it's really up to the mayors. It's really up to the, it's up to whatever, you know, District 9 feels like doing. It's up to them.

And then all the way down to like now the people stuck holding the bag are like, who do you pass it to? Does a big brother give it to a little sister? Blame them? I don't know.

AlexIt ends up literally being the like, oh, yep, parents are now the ones steering society.

MerlinIt's the youth. I blame the children. Like, I blame the children. Them with their red Solo cups and their lack of a middle brain that they won't have until three years after they graduate. Their necessarily poor decision making that in the past has merely led to, you know, a lot of terrible stuff like, you know, like assaults and alcohol poisoning. Well, now it's their fault. It's the youth's. I blame the freshmen. They knew what they were getting into. Classic Merlin Man in high school bullshit. You knew what you were getting into when you met me.

You know. I'm a loner, Dottie, a rebel.

AlexWhoa.

MerlinIt's your fault.

AlexDid you ever say that? Sidebar. Did you ever say that to a lady?

MerlinOh, that was my basic move.

AlexJazz break.

MerlinSo, hey. Hey, everybody. How's it going? We have a lot of content to talk about this week.

AlexI suppose.

MerlinI've added some things under here to the news and the topics. I want to hear about your tube. Oh, the tube. I may have a shoe problem. I want to talk about spatial audio. What's going on in your neck of the woods? What do you want to talk about?

AlexOh, well, you were on the show floor. Do you want to tell people what spatial audio is? I haven't tried it yet.

MerlinOh, well, you have AirPods Pro, right?

AlexYes.

MerlinYou should try it right now. It's crazy. Because it already, if you have connected, well, your firmware is probably already updated. So just go to the TV app, open. I would say open like a Ted Leo or a Greyhound or some kind of an Apple thing. So spatial audio, while Alexandra is getting set up, spatial audio is a thing that was announced for iOS 14 that was a new feature on AirPods Pro. And they just, with the release of iOS 14, dev and public beta has got the full version the gm yesterday the 15th and i think the rest of the

world gets it today the 16th it's a wonderful update i think uh airpods pro thing this is pretty wild so you put in your airpods pro and i don't know what it is i want is it maybe like dolby 5.1 i don't know what it is but if you watch a video that supports this well i want to get alex's before i describe it i want to see what alex thinks of this i'm trying to get because i found it i think i might i might put this up there with the um transparency mode as one of like a

great bit of apple magic because this shit is fucked up you're gonna i i feel like it was hallucinating whoa is it working turn your head a little bit left to right it's yeah whoa oh and It sounds like it's coming. So my first thought was, oh, damn it. I guess this doesn't work because it's obviously coming out of the phone.

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinDoesn't it feel like it's somebody throwing their voice?

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. I'm just twisting around now.

MerlinMe too. I did it for an hour yesterday. Oh, my God. It's so fucking cool. But it's a little upsetting. It feels it's very disorienting.

AlexOh, probably. I have it it reminds me of oh damn it what's it called pan panoramic sound do you know what I'm phytophonic maybe maybe or like surround sound like like atmos no no it's oh god I'll make sure to put it in uh show notes but um the the app uh calm does it and dell does it oh I know what you

Merlinmean like uh not binaural but uh the thing yeah i know what you're talking about where it's i think

Alexit might be binaural by audio i i don't well there's a binaural thing where like they model

Merlinit based usually like using microphones inside of a replica of a human head and it like makes this shockingly like upsettingly realistic feeling like you feel like you're in the woods or whatever it is it's it's weird like it's not just displaced it's not obviously it's not as simple as stereo separation it's not as simple as like enhanced sound it somehow is able to make it appear using only two speakers it makes it somehow it fools your brain into feeling like you're in a 3d space

Alexoh boy oh boy future vr challenge oh i'm in i i'm i gotta say i don't know if anything other than the iPhone has impacted my life as much as this stupid thing that fucking Facebook made.

MerlinI'm so into hearing about this. I don't, I say this without any value, I hope. I have no idea why this would be so great for anyone, but I'm especially interested in why it's great for you. I guess we'll save it for the show, but I think it's very interesting.

AlexI will. One thing I will say, though, I have spent barely time, barely any time playing video games in it um just using yeah yeah just taking care of a farm or something uh nope i am i i i really really really miss the beach i didn't know how much that helped my brain bits um and i just go into google earth and kind of like hang out there and play mike well that's right right now

it's not well obviously google earth doesn't have sound uh but if you're stationary on a beach and then you kind of hack together in a in calm to make the waves sort of sync with what you're seeing

Merlinlike it's super fucking cool but you do so um when you're saying you go to google earth are there certain areas that have been i'm so confused because it's a facebook product you go to google or you zoom in somewhere and then you see if you feel like a street view equivalent yeah and it

Alexfeels like you're there yeah but you can you know look at the sky and stuff um and the like there obviously there's a little bit of latency but i hadn't used any sort of vr in in years in oh wow probably three years and i was like oh that's cool i'm really excited for when this is a thing and it is very much becoming a thing and what you said and what adam adam on the talk show said that the airpods are like the closest thing to ar for for him yet and he was like i don't want

to do airpods pro because i love my uh i love my regular ones but the airpods pro is when i felt for the first time i'm like oh fuck yeah this is this is what they're uh working on with the glasses like i am i am uh i am super super excited for whatever apple googles are i forget who first

Merlinsaid that it might it might have been gruber who first said that but probably gruber was somebody who first said like the first time you put these in and first of all the noise canceling is surprisingly good if you're in that mode but if you go into transparency it really it's like ar

Alexfor audio. Yeah. And one, these are the only pair of noise canceling headphones that like I can keep in pretty much all day if I wanted to. And it doesn't give me that weird, like nauseousness and a headache. You don't like you don't like over your headphones that do that? No, I love them. But after like a half hour, I'm like, gross. And I don't know, A lot of people seem to have that.

MerlinI have the fancy Sony boys, and I just will frequently wear those around with nothing playing.

AlexOh, no. I do that at home with my AirPods, is I just turn on the noise canceling.

MerlinYeah.

AlexAnd I, yeah.

MerlinThat's so wild. So it hurts your ears more to do comfortable over-ears versus, like, see, I'm the opposite. As much as I don't have the problems a lot of people have with the AirPods. I could never get the old Apple ones that look like a little disc with a screen. Those never fit my ears. And if they did, they were very uncomfortable. But the AirPods are very comfortable for what they are. But I do, after a while, even before the batteries run out, I'm sometimes like, I'm starting to get like a headache.

AlexI'm the opposite. In the little like super old, you're talking about the era of like the dancing iPod commercials, right? Like those headphones with the little rubber thing around it?

MerlinNo, I'm talking about those ones that just come with, used to come with every phone, you know, like for the longest time. And they're the ones that were, they're like, they had a little bit of a stalk. They're on the white string. But like you had to like, for them to stay in my ear, I felt like I really had to like jam them in.

AlexI'm the exact opposite. it like that was the last time uh in the in-ear headphones felt good until the airpods but i also did get like a fancy squishy air airpod thing like the tips what are they even called i don't know uh because they did what apple gives you like the little dildo ones little like foam plugs yes um

MerlinI used to have those on my Edemotics. I like the ones that look at a butt plug. The Edemotics that look at a butt plug are the best. Those were amazing.

AlexI think I just have fucked up ears.

MerlinBut now it's so funny. Nobody in our house uses wired headphones anymore. It's the wildest thing in the course of like maybe a year. Like suddenly, you know, I wear wired headphones at my desk, obviously. Not a monster. But yeah, but like it's pretty nuts how quickly that transition flew by.

AlexHmm.

MerlinHmm. Well, it wasn't very long ago that Syracuse and I were talking about his daughter always walking around holding her iPad. No matter what she was doing, she'd hold her iPad with the wired headphones. That was a few months ago, I feel like.

AlexOh, that's so weird. You're right.

MerlinYou're right.

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinYeah.

AlexI hate to be the Apple Pay Pig, but that is what kicked it off. Yeah. I like to say I don't want to be an Apple Pay Pig.

MerlinYou do. You do that. You say that.

AlexUh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. I hate getting excited about these things.

MerlinI think it's, I mean, Apple, what a goddamn frustrating company. But, like, I think iOS 14 is very good. I think this AirPod stuff is great. I'm excited to see, you know, what this new watch stuff is like. I think the oximeter thing is a really interesting move.

AlexI don't know what that is. I still haven't watched the event or bought anything yet.

MerlinIn the, I think it was in the draft, in the upgrade draft, Jason and Mike were talking about, like, one of their predictions was that it will do, I think Jason, like, walked up to the edge of this thing. Like, I think it'll do blood oximeter readings. But that gets very, like, perilously close to, like, medical device territory. And Apple's circumspect about what they get into with that. So blood oximeter, I've had one of these for a while. You put it on your finger, usually, and it shoots light through your skin and is able to see how much oxygen is in your blood.

And it's really useful for one of the several ways you can try to figure out if you might have COVID.

AlexYes, yes. Oh, my God. Oh, I am getting this watch.

MerlinOh, boy. You can get it red, too.

AlexOh, well, you get it in Queer Navy, or Navy Queer, as I like to call it.

MerlinI used to buy cargo shorts there, Queer Navy. that and my performance fleece okay you're gonna learn to love that photo widget you should delete all the photos of dead things and it'll just be pure joy

AlexKen I think you can just do an album now that I think of it for a particular album?

MerlinI haven't tried that yet. I was telling Dan yesterday, though, like the eight icon array of suggested Siri apps has completely earned two rows on the home screen. Because it's like what I want is almost always there. It's a feature I wanted or what I had always wanted was, hey, you know, how about a smart folder was what I called it for years. On the iPhone, how about a smart folder of the apps that I use the most? But this is even better. It's not the apps that I use the most. It's the apps I'm most likely to want to use right now for reasons.

And it's remarkable how well it works.

AlexI'm surprised to hear that because I tried it.

MerlinIt's a great analog. Or not analog. It's a great, as they do the app library thing and sweep all your old shit away, which I'm very grateful for. It's a perfect solution now. And not perfect, but it's a very good solution. Because for years I've been using mainly Spotlight to open stuff anyway. It's not on the homepage. I usually use Spotlight. But now, it's amazing how often, the example I used on Back to Work is, I don't know if I'm just imagining this, but it seems to know when I'm going to record You Look Nice today and when I'm going to be using those little dumb cube lights.

And it often suggests the LumiCube app around the time we record on Thursdays or Fridays. It's really weird.

AlexThat's how Spotlight actually has always worked for me. And maybe it's using a different sort of machine learning type thing with the widget. But yeah, because I just love pulling Spotlight down and going to bleep bloop.

MerlinThe new Spotlight is so great, especially on iPad. Oh, right? I'm bummed that we don't have emoji search on iPad. I'm bummed that you can't put stuff on your screen on iPad. but the spotlight search on iPad, especially when you're using a keyboard is so good. It's so fast, but it's just also, I just, it's so smart in the way that it presents it. Don't you find?

AlexYeah, I'm surprised by that. Like I, I don't know. Surprised meaning, I'm just full of being surprised today. Surprised because it feels very much like a power feature that the majority of human beings are not going to know about at any time, which is fine. Um, but it feels like a lot of work went into that.

MerlinA lot of work, but you know, it's interesting. Again, I'm going to quote the great, uh, Griffey Newman, downtown Griffey Nooms. Um, like he said about RoboCop, this is a movie, the greatest episode of Blank Check Podcast. Um, this is a movie that works for the dumbest person in the room and the smartest person in the room, which is such a, God, that's such a great insight. Now you have that thought technology and you're going to see things where it's true. Probably Fight Club, too. But in this case, I'm not going to say dumbest, but the normies you're describing, why do they use Spotlight?

Well, I hope the app that I want comes up with the fewest letters possible. Yep, for sure. Not only that, but if you're not using a keyboard, which you're probably not, all you have to do is hit enter. Exactly. Yeah, so it's first job. You had one job. Find me the app I want. But you can use that instead of Safari now. You can just start doing searches in the world in Spotlight, and it totally works. Or I was looking for when underscore David Smith's Widget Smith comes up,

and I searched for Widget Smith, and yeah, search in App Store, do that. Where is it? That's brilliant. I love that. But you're right. It's a great combination of this is going to work for the most and least sophisticated user pretty well.

AlexBut how do people find it? I don't know. Maybe the...

MerlinI do sometimes think like if I had to describe to somebody remotely without... So a thing that's been true for me for a long time is that I know how to do many, many things on a Mac. I don't know how to tell you how to do that thing because I would have to do it myself. I know there's a key command that brings up Fantastical. I know that when I'm editing text, there's a combination of command, shift, and arrow, left, right, up, down, option. I know what those things do, but I can't tell you because only my fingers know.

My brain doesn't know. So let's say if somebody you love is in an app and they're confused, and you need to tell them how to get to App Switcher, switch to this app, go back to the home screen, do a spotlight search.

You know, think about how many different, or like, do you know how to do the little tap tap to bring the top of the page down on a phone?

AlexYeah.

MerlinI don't, I don't. I mean, I can do it, but I don't know how to describe it. So how do you distinguish between describing to somebody, bringing up spotlight versus seeing your notifications versus doing the easy touch or whatever it's called to make the top of the screen come halfway down.

AlexI guess I don't know what you're talking about with the...

MerlinThere's a gesture you can do on a phone that basically, if you don't want to have to reach with your thumb all the way to the top, there's a gesture that basically brings...

AlexOh, reachability.

MerlinEasy touch, touch view, reachability. There we go. Reach around.

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinBut let's start with this one. I mean, this is not difficult, really, but like the distinction between show me my notifications and get me to spotlight is very subtle.

AlexThe way I try to explain it to people is kind of like I rip off what the commercial or whatever, whatever the is, whatever is better, the Apple commercial or the Apple keynote. And I'm like, OK, think about this in terms of layers. Like the control center is just the thing on top of it that it will always be on top. And this and after that control centers, not notifications, though, that's a different area.

The yep.

MerlinWell, so getting notified. I'm just saying getting notifications versus getting control center.

AlexYeah. And I'm like, OK, notifications always to the right because you can't get to your notifications in control center.

MerlinI see what you're saying. Yeah. So this is the Z, I believe we used to call it the Z layer. This is like all the stuff stacking up. Okay.

AlexYeah. And it's it's interesting because that's kind of part of my jobby job now is troubleshooting from quite a distance.

Despite being apart, we're really together. But it is an interesting sort of, you know, to do another reach around to what we're talking about before. It's like, is this the new office? Is this the new, like, I'm kind of like IT at my job. And it's like, what does that mean now? What does it mean to, like, remotely install software? Like, some IT departments aren't even set up for that. And it's learning, you know, a new skill. And that's also part of my job.

But I don't think like the IT manager of like 300 people thought, oh, yeah, I'm going to this is going to be my new admin thing.

MerlinWell, and if anything, I mean, not to not to drag the IT department, but like, you know, there's a reason that Nick, the computer guy, like was such a familiar character to people. And a lot of it comes down to that phrase. That's not supported, which is another way of saying I'm not going to help you with that. So the IT department, obviously, or whatever IS or whatever you call it, the help desk, whatever it is, in cooperation with probably some different C-levels, has a policy for what they can and will help you with.

like you know you used to be like the job of it was to go around and take games off the computers or whatever it was but like if you have developed a policy that covers the following kinds of things it's a little bit like insurance where the insurance company gets to decide what's covered you as the person who can buy or not buy the insurance you can basically buy it or not but they're not going to they're not going to just cover anything and the it department was set up to maintain, based on their own policy,

stuff that works under these conditions at these locations, given these parameters. They're not trained to help somebody do all of that. I got a text from a friend this morning whose kid, long story short, the passwords for the Zoom meeting were wrong. And first day of school or whatever, early days of school, the passcodes didn't go out. The teacher's not getting the emails about it. The teacher that does get the email says, go and check on this thing over here. And it's like nobody is cut out to do practically any of this. I get way more help when I call Comcast because like they're set up to help a dork like me over the phone.

AlexYep. Yep. Oh, that's so good. Yes. And oh, man. I mean, there's also I'll drag IT. There's a lack of humanity almost like not not supported does mean I'm not going to help you with this. But why can't he just say?

MerlinI decided I decided I'm not going to help you with this. I've made it official that you cannot be helped.

AlexBut that's the thing. That's that's the the boss man who decided that. I hope hopefully. And, you know, when you're talking about Bobby, who's like, listen, I know that I get it. I know that you're I don't even know what an example would be like. oh i know that stuff you like safari and safari is better but i just i can't i can't i'm sorry

Merlinlike wow i don't know i don't i've seen so much i lost the thread there what you're saying safari

Alexnot supported as against firefox or something against like google or whatever your whatever piece of software your job requires you to do instead of your preference oh well i'm here to

Merlinsay, I'm going to throw down my marker right here. I love you all very much. I'm never doing, for the immediate future, I already hate using Zoom, but I have to use Zoom because it's the best we have for a podcast that I do. But like anything from here on out for the immediate future, anything that requires me to use a browser that's not Safari is not supported. So if you want me to be on your show and use Zoom Razor or Plimsolls or Buscutter or like whatever cool podcaster of the month service like sorry if it requires chrome you gotta find another

boy i'm done with it if it's not safe enough for safari it's not safe enough for i just well and i

Alexjust tell folks uh i'm sorry i don't have a stable internet connection or a vpn and i don't know how

Merlinto do this and it'll waste your time like it will wait well and like i but i went through this when In the early days of COVID, when I was trying to be a good citizen, say yes to lots of things, I ended up doing a lot of podcasts with people. And a thing that kept coming up was everybody's got their own, whether it's Zencaster or whatever it is, they all have these wackadoo programs that you can't use on Safari. Why can't you use it on Safari? Because there's something that that service wants to do that's not okay with Safari.

And I had this hilarious experience, though, and I was very close to becoming that guy. but uh this woman's walking me through it doesn't matter it's a woman but she's like okay so you go to here and i'm like no yeah that's cool i was like yeah but like this isn't working in safari and so oh well just use chrome or just use whatever i was like i really super don't like using chrome but okay i go to chrome and oh boy it was like the days of flash it wants all of the permissions for all of the things and uh finally i was in firefox now my firefox just because i'm

weirdo has maximum lockdown. Firefox, for me, I have all of the things turned on. And it was farcical that she was losing patience with me about all the things that I wasn't doing right to be able to use her preferred podcast recording app because it required me. She's like, well, you got to turn on local file storage. You got to turn on the microphone. You have to allow, and like all of this stuff. And it's like, shit dog. And then on top of it, like I said, the part that sticks with me emotionally was like, first of all, this way that I needed to be baby

fed, like how to record a podcast. And it's like, it's not that friend. It's that I'm not okay doing all the things that you think are not a big deal. You know, don't, don't push me. Don't put your hand on my knee. Like, that's not okay. Like, I'm not going to be coerced into fucking my shit up so that we can talk for 20 minutes like and i don't know man i just uh you're the only person that can stand up for yourself with this stuff not supported alex it's not supported anymore sorry it's not supported i don't know why i found that funny let's start the show um let's see we could

talk about my shoe problem or do you want to tell me about the tube oh oh let me get my tube tube Where's my tube?

AlexOh, it's high.

MerlinWhere's your tube?

AlexToo many drinks. Oh, that was, you could hear that.

MerlinGrip it and rip it.

AlexOh, so there is a new, I just received a product that I backed on Kickstarter called The Tube.

MerlinThe Tube.

AlexAnd I'll just, I sent you a picture of the box. Let me send you.

MerlinAnd I agreed not to learn anything about it. So we could, as we like to say, save it for the show.

AlexYou know what? I think people should, every podcaster should have clicky keyboards because then it's clear that you're not paying attention and you should pay attention.

MerlinOh, yeah. You got some cherry browns. Yep. That was my pole dancer name.

AlexLog in. Come on, Internet. I believe in you. Oh, you're great. Oh, I am logged in. You're just not loading, are you? Okay.

MerlinI get that sometimes.

Alexoh boy things don't load the i'm just like luckily my work played for a paid for a new router for me uh because for you the well yeah yeah because i mean that's the thing the remote is the future and it's like yeah we'll pay thousands and thousands of dollars for internet at an office, what are you going to do?

MerlinAre you going to use a clicky keyboard? Is that what I'm to understand is that for the rest of this episode, you'll be using a clicky keyboard. Is that correct?

AlexI typically never use a keyboard. I can't, or during a podcast episode. All right, fine. Here we go.

MerlinPutting away the magic keyboard. And guess who's back, baby? The DOS? You know. This is the DOS keyboard with the giant volume knob. And I love it very much. Now, what do you got? I know that you're now, you've decided to be obsessed with this, like your boyfriend's on Upgrade.

AlexI'm not obsessed. I'm not I'm you're obsessed with it Alex no wait why no no I will say though it's uh I I enjoy tactile things more than I thought or wanted to accept in my adulthood until now and I'm like oh man this is just so satisfying can you tell me what model if you're comfortable

Merlinsaying by the way I do I do have the sample the I do the sample has a little fidget thing on my desk where they send you the little six keys so you can see which one you like?

AlexNo, I went with Keychron.

MerlinNo, but you know what I'm talking about? This is where you get this from. I don't know. I forget where you get this from. Here's the six kinds of keys.

AlexMatilda?

MerlinYeah, it might be Matilda.

AlexThey've been sold out for a while. I should get that just because.

MerlinSo what did you get? Tell me.

AlexKeychron K2. It doesn't have the.

MerlinKeychron K2? I'm sorry mouth words I'm sorry I'm sorry this keyboard's too loud I gotta go to the other one to find the keyboard keytron key keyboard keytar keytron keytron keytron

Alexkeytron I'm sending you the tube and normally I'd be able to now with a push of a button just share my screen with you and you would have been able to hear the video along with me but I'm keeping that application off because I don't know if that's what crashed the iMac Pro. I don't know.

MerlinGod, messages is dog shit. It's beach balling again. I'm going to figure this out someday. Why it beach balls for minutes at a time on iMac. I don't know why.

AlexI've never gotten a beach ball, but mine just don't sink.

MerlinOh, mine just go and go and go. There's a part of me in my gut that wonders if there's an unsent message somewhere because I know that's caused problems for people. if there's some kind of giant video file it's having to turn over in some cache somewhere um okay here we go i see three dots for you and a beach ball oh my god oh here it is here it is oh okay okay the tube okay yep oh i feel did you tell me about this once before

I feel like I heard about this.

AlexOh, no. I've backed an even more useless thing.

MerlinIs this for vaping, Alex? I think this might be for vaping. Alex has sent me something called the Tube, colon, a minimal stress relief gadget. And it looks like a pen that's not a pen.

AlexIt's so, it's so stupid.

MerlinIs this as stupid as it looks, Alex? Yes. This looks really stupid.

AlexI bought three. Well, or whatever tier was three.

Merlinand uh oh i see it's like it's like a cat toy for for a person yeah well and then i didn't know it

Alexwas gonna jingle listen to that so as i'm like shaking it like a bit i don't know are you supposed

Merlinto shake vapes probably not it's like all the exercise of masturbation without the orgasm the

Alexyeah um there's there's no rug burn involved uh what was the other stupid thing that i oh oh the flip the uh the flip-o-flop uh okay hold on this is very good this is a really good oh i hate kickstarters sometimes okay this is just a piece of metal oh this is the the flypo

MerlinThe Flypo Flip, I'm sorry. Flip-o-flip? Oh, really? Oh, jeez. This is the Flypo Flip TM, TM, TM, TM. Pocket-sized kinetic skill toy. What skill do you learn, Alexandra? What's the skill?

AlexI don't know.

Merlin8,504 backers.

AlexYou know what? These should all come in everybody's coming out box and be like, yeah, this is the fidget toy that will help you and your partner. I don't know. It looks pretty.

MerlinThat's very, it's a very confusing thing to say.

AlexI know.

MerlinWhy is this for gays?

AlexThe, the, I, I, not all jokes are for you.

MerlinIt looks like it's for men who bite their nails. Merlin. That's what I've seen so far.

AlexWhat? It's also a nail file.

MerlinWhat? What? Why am I laughing at my own jokes today? That's funny. That's funny. It's a dessert topping and a floor wax and a gay nail file.

Speaker AMm-hmm.

MerlinA midnight toker. Oh, flip, oh, flip. Oh, and he flips it over and then he catches it. Oh, yeah. That would be fun to work near somebody who does this all day.

AlexMm-hmm. Oh, boy. It's basically a challenge coin that, like a challenge coin.

MerlinA challenge coin for the very lonely. That's the challenge, really. Master the skill, it says. Okay. You flip it. You flip it and it flips.

AlexYeah, it's an exploded battery type of thing. Like, it's inflated. I don't know. You have fidget toys, don't you?

MerlinUh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. I like to keep my desk. I've evolved as a person. I'm a little more tidy now. I mostly have lots of medicine here. I got some Advil.

AlexOh, so do I. So do I.

MerlinI have a lot of knives. Oh, hooray. We're Advil buddies.

AlexUh, Advil.

Oh, liquid gels.

MerlinOh, you can put stuff under your table leg and then make them race. Oh, boy. Oh, those are nice Crocs, too. Okay, I'm going to blast my cash because I don't want this to ever be seen by me or anyone else, but I'll put it in show notes. Alex, where would people find show notes for this episode of your Dubai Friday program?

AlexI don't even know. DubaiFriday.com slash 204. 205? 204.

MerlinAlso, I have a shoe problem, but I'll save it for the show.

AlexOh, now I'm like worried. Hold on.

MerlinMy feet have grown. My feet have grown. I think my feet got fat.

AlexYeah, Dubai Friday slash 203. Who got fat? Are you fat?

Merlin204. 204.

AlexProblematic.

MerlinProbably 204. Fat shaming myself?

AlexOh, no. Sorry. Yeah, 204. 204.

MerlinWhat? Oh, my God. It's going in the vault.

AlexSee, because we had some technical issues. because I had some technical issues this morning. In between, I decided to take my espresso shot because I hadn't had caffeine yet. And, oh, I've punished myself by becoming...

MerlinThis keyboard's cool looking. K2 wireless. Oh, it's so cute and it's so little.

AlexIsn't it cute? Yeah, yeah.

MerlinIt's Bluetooth?

AlexIt is Bluetooth, but I actually... There is a lovely little USB-C cable that is super discreet and wonderful. And I keep it plugged in into my iMac because then I just bring it over to my iPad Pro and use the Bluetooth with that. And there's just a little switch on the side.

MerlinAnd it actually works.

AlexAnd they make a version that isn't RGB, which made me pleased.

MerlinWhat did that mean? RGB? Does this thing light up?

AlexThat's the one with the gay colors on it. Like the backlighting is a bunch of, is like a rainbow.

MerlinRGB backlight. Oh, RGB backlight.

AlexYeah, yeah. But this just has a regular backlight as well. It's very satisfying. Okay.

MerlinOh, well, good for you. Welcome to the world. Welcome to the community, I guess I should say. Now you're officially a clicky.

AlexIt's a new lifestyle choice.

Speaker AChip. Oh, Dick Tuck Challenge.

AlexThe bell's kind of weak today.

MerlinChallenge this week is to, what was the exact phrasing? I believe it was make a podcast easier. This is Alexander's Challenge. And the idea is do something in your podcast making, recording, doing, producing something or some things. Let's talk about ways to make a podcast easier because people love podcasts about podcasts.

AlexI tried not to peanut butter. I tried really hard. And actually, so what I want was to set Loopback to kind of do everything, which sort of, oh, sorry. uh loopback is this wonderful app from rogue amoeba that tricks your mac into thinking that

you have multiple audio uh inputs well it doesn't trick your mac you create virtual devices that

Merlinthen you connect up with virtual cables and i still don't quite understand how it's different from audio hijack but i followed some of the workflows how do you distinguish audio hijack no longer pro how do you distinguish audio hijack from loopback which which what's each for

Alexi actually just have all of loop back now going well see this is only making it more confusing to

Merlinme i i think of audio hijack as the way to route and record various kinds of audio i have i've paid for all of these but i believe so he's giving me some of them i usually end up buying it too

Alexyeah paul don't give me let me pay for i i did except for farrago i think farrago um the uh so

MerlinSo Loopback, though, is expressly for creating. You want to end up with something that you can select from the audio input menu. So one example would be, here's one example of how I get confused. Let's say you have Farago, which is a soundboard. And you want Farago to go and be, let's say, for example, I want to use Farago, and I want it to be hearable by the other person in Skype, and I want it to be in this recording but not that recording. Is that something you would use loopback for?

Because you can also do that in Audio Hijack.

AlexYou can, but you can't, you can record it in Audio Hijack, but you can't have the other person on Skype hear it. So I have typically now input one for my Scarlett. So the first XLR on my little XLR focus right Scarlett 2. point uh what uh it's it's the one dan benjamin has um the the microphone dingus um so there's two inputs but you can't record uh or i'm sorry you can't talk to someone on skype with both of

Merlinthose inputs oh you're talking about your daw you're not talking about your mic you're talking about your audio interface my audio dingus scarlet yes focus right focus right scarlet yeah

Alexit's actually really good i'm oh look at that that's cute yeah it's a it's a baby oh my usb pre 2 looks much too nerdy compared to this beautiful thing oh no it's so cool looking uh but there isn't one yeah it's not like this is the main source of my income i don't know why i have not invested in that uh but but like okay so matchy and i want to do an interview with somebody uh instead of what i used to do which is record locally and then just use like a yeti

so i would record both of us locally via a zoom hardware recorder uh inst this is so boring uh

Merlinbecause you can't get zoom zoom not the service but zoom zoom the device field recording thing

Alexand uh then just for the mac would use a yeti because and then we would just both talk into

Merlinthe yeti um because not not the hairy polish person but the microphone yep yep not

Alexuh but now i have it and it works wonderfully uh both of us this is not too costly why is this so

Merlinnot that costly i i don't know paul i would guess this is like 500 to a grand well so this is what dan i see what you're saying and this is where you get the whole virtual like interface on your mac

Alexbecause your mac only wants to use one source oh i need this i think i need this for my work oh dude yeah so so remember when uh we we tried to record in in your office um and oh i sure do yep yep uh and i was like why can't we do it in audio hijack is because audio hijack does not

Merlinhave the skype is a bad bad actor yes and you have to like hack it basically to i mean it still doesn't exactly work it and the word remember how horrible was because it seemed like it was working it's worse than not working yep it doesn't work but it seems like it work works which is the worst

Alexkind of not working and i really don't think it is the fault of these apps that my imac crashed uh because i have been using loopback fine with uh um sorry loopback fine with quicktime but then I have finally was like you know what I bet Audio Hijack will be useful I have like as the recording device on my computer Audio Hijack is taking my mic and if there's a second person

that person's mic and then the whatever other virtual devices I have Frago and Frago good lord farago uh or or safari or whatever you can add each one as as like a different app right and you do have to do that in loopback as well so that every uh so that you like skype whoever is on the other line can hear that but you also by setting it up in audio hijack as well then you

get separate tracks so it's easier to edit and it's a delight um and i don't know it's super fun it's really fun to do live uh and the i i was gonna now i'm like one of those people who uh streams stupid stuff on twitch and i i don't know it's just super it's it's really fun um because Macs really don't like working with sound things, which I don't understand why.

MerlinIt's one of the, I don't want to say flimsy. I mean, because, God, the Mac's ability to do sound in various ways has been there from day one in a way that, you know, you start to buy a sound card for your PC and a Mac had that built in. And it's been a big part of it. There's a reason that if you wanted to do sound stuff, you either had an Amiga or a Mac for the longest time. But I don't know how to quite put this because I don't have an – okay, here's what I had the experience to say. Is that if there is one thing that does seem to break for reasons that are unclear sometimes in the modern Mac environment, it is often audio stuff.

Something gets a little goofy. and like and then when you've reached the bottom where you actually have to open up the midi preferences and like make sure the right kinds of things are selected and like do i want 44 do i want 48 and like it's it sucks but that's one that's the biggest reason that i wait a year to install an update on my iMac at the office is because i just i don't want to have to spend any downtime i already spent enough time reinstalling call recorder i don't want to also have to figure out

like why I'm getting this weird thing happening.

AlexI love that that is now in my, like that's part of my OmniFocus project every week.

MerlinOh no, it's in my checklist now. It's like I told you that it happened this morning. It's happening depending on, I'm gonna say, okay, so I'm not gonna say in terms of like a given number of days, but I'm gonna say, so I use Call Recorder for every time I record a podcast, whether I need it or not. I often do need it, but sometimes not, but it's, you know, belt and suspenders. I'm going to say conservatively in the last, well, up to one out of five sessions. It's just gone. Often enough that you.

Speaker AWow.

MerlinWell, Syracuse had it the other night. I had it this morning. I've had it twice or three times this week. And sometimes it takes several reinstallations for it to take. They have a bulletin about this on the Ecamm site that's like, yeah, well, basically just keep trying things until it's no longer broken. huh wow and it's because i think it has to do with you can't turn off updates in skype skype updates something happens it gets confused and says nah no call recorder for you and then

Alexyou have to re-re-reinstall that actually that makes sense because i assumed that i would have to reinstall call recorder again when my uh computer did its lovely restart but no it did not, which, because I had, you know, Skype updated. Yay.

MerlinAt some point, though, like on a fairly regular basis, and a lot of this is because I'm doing weird, weird, stupid stuff. I live to do things like this. I mean, I, this, especially during the COVID times, I've had so many different projects. You can't even imagine the projects I've got going right now, like crazy projects, not just spreadsheets. I've also created a surveillance state and panopticon in our garage to try and locate where a mouse is coming from. and it's pretty, pretty wild. Oh my goodness. Oh, challenge, challenge, challenge. I got five cameras set up all looking for Frasier.

It's all happening. And then so we're like stuff with the Synology. We're all like, but with the Mac still, I know enough to be dangerous, but like I so often, I find myself having to do some kind of bizarre troubleshooting where like I don't even know what it is I'm trying to solve exactly sometimes. I just know something's not working. I just don't know which part of it is not working. If that happens with your audio, it really does suck. But man, I'll go ham on these kind of projects.

I like doing stuff like, I feel like the last few weeks, the attempts, sometimes successful, sometimes unsuccessful, to improve my shit with the audio part of my job has been great. I mean, obviously, I still have a lot to learn. Quinn thinks I'm making a lot of artifacts with my fancy version of Audio Hijack that I don't really need. But I like it. I'm having a good time. Why did you say you were worried about peanut buttering? It doesn't sound like you peanut buttered.

AlexWell, I mean, I wasn't confident enough to turn it back on after the crash.

MerlinThe loopback thingy.

AlexYes, loopback. So I'm just using Call Recorder and Audio Hijack right now because I know that at least one of those will work, probably, hopefully.

Speaker AOh, boy.

AlexI don't think we've ever lost my sight. You know what? I'm sure this will be the time now, but we've never lost my sight.

MerlinThis will absolutely be the time. You've just doomed us.

AlexUh-huh, uh-huh. Try to find the vault, everybody. But also what I'm trying to do is just learn how to use my mic the right way, because I've never been good at it.

MerlinYeah, like Stephen made a remark recently about some way that people use mics that drives him crazy, and I think I might be one of those people. I'm a slightly off-axis person. I'm probably not supposed to be, right?

AlexNot with your microphone. You have the R20, correct? R20.

MerlinI don't know what I have. I have the Electro Voice R20. Wow. Nice pull. Yeah, Electric Voice R20. There you go. But if I make it right in front of my face, I can't see the screen.

AlexWell, this is the other streaming Twitch thing. I'm like, okay, they sound... So when I'm watching, in theory, a Pokemon Go PvP battle in the GBL...

MerlinOkay, those are sounds. I know those sounds.

AlexSo I'm watching a PVEP GBL battle on Twitch, and the person streaming has a mic, and it's in frame, but it's so far from their face, but they sound amazing. And I'm like, how are you? What? How? How is that happening?

MerlinIs that probably a condenser mic?

AlexWell, but it doesn't sound like that, though.

MerlinCan I confess something, Alex? I don't know anything about how microphones work.

AlexI mean, I don't either, really.

MerlinI don't know. I have several mics, and I don't know how to do anything with any of them. I don't know how to set up my USB pre. Like I say, I finally just broke down and did exactly what Marco does because, you know. But, like, I don't know. I don't know what the roll-off is. I don't know. I still don't really understand what high and low pass is. I feel like Andy in Parks and Rec. I don't know who Al Gore is, and at this point I'm afraid to ask.

AlexWell, that was the other part of this challenge was I am like, I feel like a fake podcast girl and a fake sound girl all the time.

MerlinBut you're a real jazz girl.

AlexYeah, I'm not. I'm faking all the jazz. And because it feels, I mean, I...

MerlinSearch your heart for what it is you're trying to say. Search your heart. What's your heart say?

AlexI have been often been told by a person that I'm very bad at something and will get very upset if something doesn't work. But this week I've been like, oh, I actually do know all of this. And I know like way more. Of course you do. Because I've been doing like a lot more music stuff lately. and I've been like the resource of helping people record vocals because I know a lot more than what I thought.

And there is also the problem.

MerlinIt's just like getting pregnant. It's like when you get pregnant and the horrible people will try to make you feel terrible about all the things you're doing wrong. You didn't give birth in a tub, boo. And your nice friends will say to you, you know more than you think. And it's not even a question of intuition and gut. It's a question of, in your case, actual expertise and knowledge. It's just that it's like me trying to figure out what I think about COVID and inbox zero right now. I didn't know how much I thought or how much I knew until I started starting to write it down. Because your emotions are telling you that you're not good. And also your coworkers in some cases.

AlexI just, I found out I really like microphones a lot more than I thought.

MerlinAnd keyboards, clicky keyboards. You can hear the keyboard on the microphone. So it's really, it's a win, win, win, win.

AlexSee, that's why I should use a condenser because then, you know, I don't need to do.

MerlinI don't know what that does. I just use the word. I don't even know what it is. And I don't want to learn. And I don't want to learn.

AlexWell, and that's the thing. I could explain it. No, that's a lie. There's no way I could. And be like, this is what you want to use if you want a fuller sound and less of a radio type sound. I don't even know. uh but i don't know i started looking at drum mics the other day not because i have any interest in getting one or playing the drums uh it's very loud but i'm like oh drums are loud that's that is accurate that they are they are quite accurate um and i'm like i don't think

Merlindougie would like you having drums no no he comes in he sees a drum there's going to be some

Alexproblems yeah oh oh uh tick tock follow-up so yeah dougie said like you know um i hear i hear a painting tape if if you need to temporarily like hold something on the wall like a you know whiteboard that that works pretty well i think that'd be okay and i was like oh like blue like

Merlinblue masking tape painter's tape yes that's not gonna hold up a whiteboard what are you talking

AlexNo, it will not. But they make colored gaff tape. Merlin, there's gaffs of color.

MerlinYou know what? Thank you. Thank you.

AlexSo I got...

MerlinAnd so you put that on the whiteboard? I'm a little adrift.

AlexSo I have blue gaff tape now. And typically gaff tape, actually, for me, doesn't make a mark on a wall, or at least it never has.

MerlinI think of gaffer's tape as being in between. Masking tape is deliberate. It's just literally to mask. My family is painting a room at the house as we speak. The idea is like you don't want the baseboard to get painted. So you mask it with that tape. You don't want it to be damaged. Other end of the spectrum, you've got duct tape or gorilla tape. And in between, you've got gaffer's tape, which is strong, but like not permanently marring.

AlexMm-hmm. And they've got some blue gaffer's tape.

MerlinBlue gaffer's tape. So you're drawing on that?

AlexNo, no, no. I'm not trying on that. It has been strong. What does this have to do with Dougie and the whiteboard? Because now I can hang things on walls, Merlin.

MerlinBecause he's okay with the gaffer's tape.

AlexNo, no, no. He's okay with painter's tape.

MerlinAnd he doesn't know the difference.

AlexI, well, yeah. He doesn't, if he does, you know what? I'm, I, I don't really understand security.

MerlinI would hate to see how you talk to somebody who is not trying to help you. I'm trying so hard to understand what you're talking about. You had a sidebar. Okay. Okay. You had a sidebar. Dougie says, so basically you're, You're capitalizing on the fact that Dougie has a lot of opinions and very little knowledge to use gaffer's tape that looks like masking tape. So now you finally have a way you can put things on the walls and Dougie won't complain, correct?

AlexYes. Because, no, wait.

MerlinNailed it.

AlexNo, no, no. You didn't. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. He's not okay with gaffer's tape. I don't know if he even-

MerlinNo, he's okay with masking tape, but it looks like- Yes, yes.

AlexYes, I understand. Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes.

MerlinYes. Are we, yes, yes, yes?

AlexWe are, yes, yes, yes. especially because I'm going to be able to hang shit on the wall. And even if the walls are completely destroyed when we move out of here.

MerlinYou found the loophole. Alex, I'll say this for the after show, but I think you just found the loophole. You can't have curtains in here. Oh, what if it's just masking tape? That's cool. What if you make curtains out of masking tape, but it's actually Gaffer's tape curtains? He won't mind. He can't say anything. Castle doctrine.

Oh, no.

204. Trickle-Down Leadership

Show notes

Transcript

204. Trickle-Down Leadership

Show notes

Transcript

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