232. Panatee

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. This week's challenge, revisit stock and flow.

Hello. Hello. Do you think it's possible to overdose on light?

Merlinhello so this isn't yours you know i'm sorry just real quick this isn't the show your new thing is you come in hot is that the thing you're doing now someone once told me you start you start the call now so so now you're the jazz girl at the top of the show every time is that it i listen

Alexsomeone once told me they they should assume anyone should assume that as soon as a call starts It's live. Everything's live. We'll do it live. So I just took the wisdom of that person and rolled with it. Are you saying I need to adjust? How should I? I don't know. What would be conducive to your style?

MerlinIt's not a performative question. It's just a question. I'm just asking the question. I would say if you're out in sunlight, it's my understanding that it's very important to wear sunscreen.

And I came up at a time and in a place where that had not, shall we say, fully sunk in. And actually, my wife's family has had a lot of run-ins with sun damage, let's just say. I'm not going to say the trigger word, but it's a thing. I think there's that. Are you talking about from a satellite or from what kind of light?

AlexYeah, this satellite, I really got to turn it down.

MerlinSeasonally affective disorder, Alex. Look it up. Read a book.

AlexOh, it's, oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.

MerlinThat's what mine is named. It's named satellite. I say, hey, dingus, turn on the satellite. And then it says, what room? And I say, you know what room? It says, oh, is it in this zone? And I say, you know what zone it's in. Stop trying to be clever. I'm trying to optimize the names of things.

AlexHold on. You lied to me. You have...

MerlinI lie to everybody. My whole life is a lie.

AlexYou're... Oh, you're disloyal. Because I asked, what?

MerlinI'm your lab partner. No, you want hot? I'll give you hot. By the way, is my heater too loud? I turned it down to two out of ten. Is it too loud?

AlexI don't think so. There's some hum.

MerlinLet me give it to you a 10 so you can hear 10. Hey, listen. Hear that?

AlexOh.

MerlinThat's my Dyson heater pumping out 10 out of 10 at 68 Fahrenheit.

AlexThat is a very pleasant sound.

MerlinI agree.

AlexI would record that sound and have it as a white noise. You should do an app.

MerlinOh, let's capture that. Pleasant sounds. Pleasant sounds. Okay.

AlexPleasant sounds. Oh, you know what? I'm going to do it. I'm going to open the New Zealand gift cards, gift cards, note card. You know what? They were a gift. So they are gift cards.

MerlinOh, no. They call that. You know what they call them there? Do you remember what they call them in New Zealand?

AlexPappy's, papy's, uh, pipey's, mate. Lil cabos.

MerlinFirst of all, that's a bad Australian accent, but that's fine. They call them system cards. Isn't that awesome?

AlexOh, that's way cooler.

MerlinAnd they're thick. They make a thick card. Oh, my God. The index cards, the system cards I got in New Zealand. Woof.

AlexSo right now I'm opening. I love doing Foley work now. This is... Fuck. Fuck. IZotope. Not really. It's so good. But oh, no, I can't. And I will say, Merlin, the same person who told me that you should always assume you're live also said, you know, always have scissors. But guess what? Nope.

MerlinThere's so many things I buy in multiples now, Alex. The Gerber utility knife, the Oxo scissors. There's so many things that just disappear. I just placed an order for eight more tool pens that our friend told us about that I'm addicted to now. Because those keep disappearing.

AlexThey're very small.

MerlinSo I have to buy multiples and deploy. I hide and I deploy. Hide and deploy is my strategy.

AlexListen to this.

MerlinIs that your system cards? I've got some sucker American cards here. I buy thick cards, but they're not as good as system cards. Ready? This is the cards I roll with. Ready?

AlexOoh.

MerlinDo you feel that? That Basso Profundo? Yes. That's a deep card.

AlexDoes it hit? So it's hard to hit bottom with those. What are they? Basso?

MerlinBossy Bottoms, they're called. Basso Profundo. Deseo bistecco n'enzalada e sopa. That is not Italian. So we're coming in hot. Hello.

AlexWe don't need to come in hot. I'm a fan of the cold.

MerlinNo. So would you? God almighty.

AlexI'm sorry for trying to accommodate.

MerlinYou accommodate nothing.

AlexI don't. I'm truly the worst.

MerlinI do want to circle back to Pleasant Sounds. I want to talk about manatees. I'm trying to remember all the things that you've sent me in the text channel. And I don't know. You're turning into a virtual Dan title. You send me some very strange I woke up, oh my god People send me things in the middle of the night I'm on the west coast of the United States

AlexI forget, yeah

MerlinNo, no, no, no, just understand that when I wake up You're in the pile of what the fuck And so you sent me a screen grab Of what appears to be, I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about this If you're on some super secret program You sent me a screenshot of new functionality In something for listening to audio And I don't know what it is And then I went and I looked at it And I couldn't find it

AlexOh, let me see. I am honored to be...

MerlinYou know what? Did I put it in notes? I think I put it in notes. Where do people find show notes for an episode? Oh, now, don't get stuck. 232 of your Do By Friday program. Where do people find that?

AlexYou would go to DubaiFriday.com slash 232.

MerlinWell done, yeah.

AlexAnd Merlin, let's say people just can't get enough of the show notes. What show am I doing? Good God. where where could people go if let's say they wanted more of this program you do

Merlinoh you can support oh i'm gonna do the michael hobbs you can support it or not it's fine you could just listen you could get uh you could get it now that's what i call oh god what was their shirt that's what i call maintenance phase their idea for a new shirt it was capitalism all along did you hear weight watchers did you hear weight watchers yet no oh no see i i skipped i almost skipped over it because I was just reading titles and I thought it was that other show that we were talking about that was really good. Oh, yes, yes. But they actually did a Dub Dub.

They did a Dub Dub this week. My gosh. They have eight-year-olds. Eight-year-olds, dude. There's eight-year-olds who get put in Dub Dub.

AlexOh, my God. And your fat

Merlinfriend, is she going by that or is she pivoting away from that? It seems like she might be pivoting away from

Alexthat. I see. I don't know. Aubrey.

MerlinI want to say Aubrey. Aubrey.

AlexAubrey, fat friend. That's how she's always gone on Twitter.

MerlinShe was put into Weight Watchers or installed into Weight Watchers, I believe she said, when she was 11.

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinAnd she basically, I mean, I'm probably using some of the wrong terminology here. I don't want to spoil the episode, but it's pretty good. It's pretty good. And she talked about how basically, well, I don't want to cast an aspersion, but what I got from what she said is it's essentially an unintentional training camp for disordered eating.

AlexYep. Yep.

MerlinDoing stuff like keeping a food diary, which seems like such a good idea. There's all these things that basically teach you the tools for like, oh, oh, oh, you got to listen to it. There's also a phrase from this week that was so good. It was called normative negativity or something. But basically that thing where women sit around and talk about how fat they are, like how that's a thing. I know that's, I mean, I'm aware of that as a thing. I had a friend who used to pound on her thighs, my actual lab partner in chemistry class. She used to pound on her thighs and go, I hate my thighs.

And then how do you respond to that? How's the beryllium? You know, like an Erlenmeyer flask? Do your Bunsons burn?

Anyway, that's a great show. This is a, hey, welcome to Dubai Friday. Shut up. The show, not you, the bell.

AlexI'm sorry. I'll be quiet.

MerlinWelcome to Dubai Friday, a show where we talk about podcasts we like. You know, I'm a fan. Unlike John Roderick, I am a fan. And I don't know if that comes through in what I say and what I do. But I ain't frontin'. I like stuff. I like stuff and I like people. Maybe too much.

AlexOh, I agree.

MerlinI hope my zest and enthusiasm for this actual fucking medium comes through. because I genuinely love people in podcasts.

AlexI agree with both of those and feel both of those things for myself, except...

MerlinAnd I'm not doing it, I'm not saying it for clapping. I'm not doing it for status. I'm not trying, I'm sucking up to no one. I don't want famous friends. I just, I would love people to know when something has got me excited and it might be exciting for them. And I think sharing that enthusiasm is a mitzvah.

Alexwell i i want famous friends because i'm a bad person like who who would you pick right now if you could start starly kind oh it would it would be starly kind uh michael and sarah from you're wrong about sort of tied with gia tolentino who is oh god the og oh exactly the og oh gia the ogia

Merlinshe's why i subscribed to the new yorker that's why i paid money for the new yorker wow really

AlexWow.

MerlinWell, I mean, I like the New Yorker a lot and I want to support their work. But it was it was me realizing that pretty much everything she does really at least tickles me. And often really, I think she's really good and she stimulates my thinking on lots of stuff. And I was like, I finally was like, you know, this is crazy. Why don't I just subscribe? That way, you know, eventually, via Condé Nast and their musurious agreements, eventually, probably Gia Tolentino will get some part of my money. It's like putting pennies in your butt, you know?

AlexI mean, I would like some clapping because I bought the book as well as the audio book because she reads it and I love all of her interviews. So I finally got my spouse to listen to the first essay in the book, which is available for free online.

MerlinThat's a very good essay.

AlexIt changed my life. And it was written in 2018. 2018.

MerlinAs my daughter would say, it's a bop.

AlexIt is the boppiest of essay bops.

MerlinWait, what was it about? I remember loving it, but it was her talking about sort of like part of it was walking through her career at different places where she worked. And I'm trying to remember why I liked it, but I remember I really liked it. What's she talk about?

AlexShe talks about the internet as it has evolved from Web 2.0 to the disaster fire that we have today, but with no hypocrisy.

MerlinAnd I remember thinking it was very personal and not in a confessional way, but in a very like, well, and this is how that affected me, which had an effect on my life and my career. And she's so gifted.

AlexShe worked at Gawker. Well, she worked at Jezebel, so basically Gawker.

Merlinand which i i will forgive were her working at cocker she's a very good writer and she doesn't

Alexcancel them but is like hey here are all the bad things and we just keep letting them be bad and we're all bad on twitter where i do the same thing we it was just like yeah okay for all the

Merlinpeople who get canceled for one bad day it's so crazy to me that there was an entire empire run by that man based on just fucking with people.

AlexOh my gosh.

MerlinI know I'm in the minority and God bless all of the great writers.

AlexNo, I don't think so.

MerlinWell, God bless all the, no, I've gotten so much heat about this from pals. Oh, well, because it's Gawker was very cool.

AlexI mean, it was.

MerlinGawker came up about the same time that my website did and obviously on a different scale. But there was a time when I was like a peer of like the TechCrunch guy when we both get invited to things. Like, you know, I was a little junior version of that. But that's how I got to know, like, you know, Gina from Wife Hacker. I hate the site, love the person. But, you know, hate. Hate is a strong word. I think it's a cynical site. But what was my point about that?

Yeah, Garbage Fire. I want to be admired by June Thomas, I think.

AlexOh, I don't know if I know who that is.

MerlinI think she's lightly, lightly aware of me kind of barely. And like I'm a little bit not internet friends, but like Twitter follow friends with several people at Slate that I really, really like a lot, whose work I really like a lot. But June Thomas, I just think she's really, really cool.

AlexOh, yes. I have read her work. Yeah.

MerlinI really miss the XX Gab Fest.

AlexYeah.

MerlinI missed the OG before they changed it and made it relevant and young. Those three points of view were so good to me. Who else do I want to like me? There's other people that I would like to like me.

AlexYou, okay. Circle back.

MerlinOh, Tim from Silkworm.

AlexCircle, circle back.

MerlinTim from Silkworm, who's on the internet now.

AlexTim from Silkworm.

MerlinThere's two bands I try to, there's always two bands with me.

AlexOh, the band. I thought.

MerlinThere's two bands I always try to sell everybody on, and hardly anybody that isn't in Bacon Ray ever comes around. Everybody in Bacon Ray appreciated Silkworm and appreciated The Move. And apart from that, I cannot sell anybody else, including you and our old co-host. Remember that episode where I said this might be a perfect album? I was like, meh, meh, meh.

AlexI said it was fine.

MerlinGod damn it. They lived in Chicago. How can you be like this? They're from Montana. You know they're not right in the head. Then they lived in Chicago, and now Tim is on the internet. I don't know if he knows. I probably look creepy about it. I bought his rub. He sells rub now. Did you know that? He's a rubman. He sells rub for meats.

AlexOh, okay.

MerlinAlso, he went back to his ancestral name. Anyway, Tim from Silkworm, I wish he would like me. I think Ted Leo knows who I am, but I would like him to like me.

AlexUh-huh. Uh-huh.

MerlinOther people. Let's just do a couple more on this. Who else would you like to like you? And listen, listen, everybody out there, don't, don't, don't, don't snitch. Like, don't do the thing.

AlexPlease don't snitch. Please.

MerlinDon't do that. It's so gross. It's like, you know, I know how to use the, what's it called? No, a pilcrow. Pilcrow is a paragraph mark. I know how to use an at symbol. I know how to help people. And I'll just remind you, here's my policy. There's no need to use that unless you specifically want that person to respond to you.

AlexOh, I disagree. Disagree.

MerlinAnd be circumspect about how often you do that. if you write someone's human, in our case, English name, people will know who you mean. You don't need to drop all of these people into a canoe of your own design title. Stop the Twitter canoes. It has to stop.

AlexI agree.

MerlinBut I often... If you snitch me out to Tim from Silkworm, I'm going to be so bummed.

AlexListen, no one's going to come for your worm. But I do like it when people intentionally are like, hey, follow these people. And I know, but we're in different Twitter rackets often.

MerlinWe are so indifferent. Yes. Oh, my God. You're going to learn your lesson. It's going to be too late.

AlexI, okay.

MerlinYou're going to be famous and you're going to realize how much it sucks.

AlexJust, oh, gosh, that is, oh.

MerlinOh, Peter, also related to the tick. I would like Peter Serafinowicz to like me and I would like Griffin Newman to like me.

AlexOh, my God. I want those guys. I want them to like me so much.

MerlinWe watched some Peter Serafinowicz this morning, and that led us to an interview with him and Griffin. You know, Griffin Newman loves Muppets, but he also looks like a Muppet, so it's really cute.

AlexHe does!

MerlinHe looks so much like a Muppet. He's so goddamn funny. I love him so much. I wish he liked me.

AlexDoes he not like... I bet...

MerlinI don't know. I mean, it's important to me to never again do a thing that I used to do.

AlexWhoa, need to... It's writing never you. So you never do you mean that literally like I'm sorry, not literally like I want to unpack this. I don't know if it's a bit.

MerlinWell, the bit the bit is this. There's a thing that's been around for a real long time that hopefully has somewhat fallen out of need because there used to be a time when you have something in your email messages called a signature that you can do different kinds of things. No, no, no. but there was a time when I feel like it was considered even sort of good etiquette to put your email address in the signature of the email.

AlexSorry. I'm sorry.

MerlinIf it's like, now listen, here's the thing. What a lot of people don't know when you get that nasty signature that says, you know, if this was not, this was intended for you. If you received it, like you're now you have to go to jail, please report to your jail. Like there's that, like, you know, there's no legal teeth to that. It's never been tested. in court as far as I know. It's complete bullshit. But you know what? People who have that signature almost never, ever, ever chose to have that signature. It's their IT department slaps that on the bottom out of some abundance of caution and like preemptive, you know, chilling effect,

I guess. But okay. A thing that I used to do is that I would hope against hope. I'm being really vulnerable right now. I would hope against hope that you would know what my deal was, that you might have heard of me, which is pathetic.

AlexNo.

MerlinBut I would hope. So guess what? Did I use an email signature with my friends all the time? No. God, how thirsty would you need to be to do that all the time? No one cares. Or you could do a fun signature. So you could have like, I used to have random signatures, like it would say coffee is for closers only. That was my signature in the 90s. But then sometimes, like if I had occasion to reach out to somebody that I knew and who was famous, I would use a signature with all my fucking bullshit in it and hope that they realize that's the index card guy or whatever. And I look back at that now, and I think that was so fucking pathetic.

And I mean, even if it was ever effective, I don't think it ever was probably, but it was really, really gross. And what did I want to get out of that? What did I seek? Am I trying to wheeze their juice? Am I trying to get some hit off of their fame? I want somebody who's produced thousands of hours of stuff that I love, I want to like appreciate me. That's so thirsty and so gross. And I don't want to do that because when somebody does it to you,

you realize how gross it is. And, uh, and so when people say, when people snitch on Twitter and they're like, Oh my God, you know, Merlin is so gay bones for this podcast. You should have them on as an X, Y, or Z. I always, if I do respond at all, I rarely do these days, but if I do, I'll say, no, no, I'm just I'm very happy to be a fan and ardent promoter of this let's say podcast like I don't need to be in the morning zoo crew I don't need to be part of their show I would just fuck it up

just go go listen to what I the bullshit I've done on the incomparable it's insufferable it's not what I'm good at being a guest on people's riffy comedy podcast but you know but you know that doesn't mean i i don't still you know want the people i like to like me but you know reaching out and being like that it's like you gotta really limit the amount of that you do you lose you i feel like i lose some of my soul when i do that interesting give me another one who else who else should love you oh but i'm sorry you you balked at the signature thing what

Alexwere you gonna say well it relates to you're you're thirsty and happy is what you're saying No, it relates to the atting, tagging, whatever the fuck on Twitter, because I do think.

MerlinIs that still called Twitter snitching? I feel like it is.

AlexI don't know. I can't keep it.

MerlinUsually it's when you subtweet some terrible piece of shit person where you are deliberately trying to avoid. Like if you mentioned the Tesla man, like your life is over for a little while.

AlexI am shocked that that has of all the weird things that have happened on Twitter. no one's gotten mad at my Elon Musk takes. And it's just like, oh, gosh, that's how I know that I'm not that popular. No, no flying monkeys came for me.

MerlinYou mean calling calling somebody you've never met your problematic boyfriend? Yeah. That that would somehow get back to the Tesla man?

AlexYeah, to not get back to the, well, oh.

MerlinOr his minions.

AlexHis minions. I personally know some minions, and they just have saved searches. because they're the kind of people who genuinely want to convince you that NFTs and Bitcoin are good, actually. And I'm like, oh, that's why I'm never tweeting about that.

MerlinIt's really not about Bitcoin, Alex. It's the blockchain. In this essay, I will...

AlexWait, I'm sorry. I was making an upset noise.

MerlinNo, no, no. That was an implied ellipsis. I was about to be that guy where I explained the difference between Bitcoin and blockchain to you. I've been pretty successful so far at mostly not learning what that three letter thing means I applaud you and not talking about it I'm talking about it here because we don't have that many listeners and I know the ones that do listen I generally like but like I just I just can't it's just that sometimes stuff comes along and I just can't like like when I find out that

Alexyoutubers are getting divorced and I go who like I just can't still not sure who Jeffrey Starr is

Merlinis he the one in that one episode uh the patreon episode wait is he the one no there was that there was that you're wrong about patreon episode about youtube drama that made you want to take my life yes what was that who we're talking about and then there's a lady and they're selling hair vitamins they've ultimately was people who are fake internet friends being mad at each other about

Alexpromoting the wrong hair vitamins whatever that means was something that i listened to and i thought I would come out of it understanding more, but I didn't.

MerlinTo me, it's like reading about incels, where it's like, I guess I'm glad I know about this.

AlexUh-huh.

MerlinBut like, every minute that I spend learning more about this diminishes my ardor for human beings.

AlexMm-hmm. Well, you remember the turns out about incels, right? Which kind of makes it even more upsetting.

MerlinOh, the girls are bitches?

AlexI mean, including the bitch who the bitchy dyke who created the incel.

MerlinOh, yeah. That it was it was it was like a ace. Was she an ace lady? No, she was just.

AlexNo, she was she was self-identified virgin dyke who just was in a situation in high school and college where she's like, well, no one to date. So don't to fuck. So incel is kind of a funny name.

MerlinNow I'm involuntarily celibate. Yeah.

AlexIt's funny. It's like the super straights. I'm like, stop giving these people attention. Stop. Please stop. I don't even want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it.

MerlinSuper straights. Okay. That's another one. But when they dropped that, let's be honest, when they dropped that photo of the suspect and what just happened in Atlanta, it's like only one thought could go through my head. First of all, nice beard. Second of all, and you could tell he has no chin. And so I was like, what's the opposite of a Chad?

AlexA chode. Oh, he's an absolute chode. He's not a micro penis. He's a chode.

MerlinOh, he's an absolute paint job. But when I saw that beard and these guys archery hat and that look on his face, like, you know, somebody just explained vaginas to him. And I was like, you know, I bet this is mean, probably. Maybe. I don't know if he's even the guy who did it. I think he's the guy who did it. It's going to turn out he's some kind of incel.

AlexOh, absolutely. Oh, no. he has did you hear he has a sex addiction and i did one of those annoying tweets i was like

Merlinbut i would he has a yeah oh okay i saw your tweet and i didn't understand it it's not racist not racist no no no just sex he's a oh oh so oh god there's so many levels to this and this is still very fresh very hot we shouldn't be too jokey about this but like he went to a hand job

Alexwell here's a spa alex we call it a spa yeah and it i'm just sort of losing my mind so he's a he's a handjob addict he that that is so these are ladies who serviced him the police department the police it's still unclear but the police department came out and said uh he has admitted to what he's done and said he is suffering from a sex addiction sex the sex addiction of this hate crime these is a sex addiction it sounds like he has an ejaculation addiction which is the category

Merlinerror as against the sex

Alexaddiction. Oh, God.

MerlinThat's like saying I love going to parties when you just throw confetti in your own

Alexhair. It's

Merlinall over you. What a mess.

AlexWell, that's why I linked to I did the thing. I tagged.

MerlinTell me more about your Twitter, Alex. Tell me more about your Twitter. What's going on with your Twitter these days?

AlexI tagged Gia to Latino because I was like, oh, I actually looked. I'm like, is she off Twitter? Oh, thank God. Good. She is off Twitter. But people I don't know if there's any way to see if you click through, but I click through all the time. Very, very often. For what? What are you talking about? To somebody's profile to see their work. Oh.

Merlinokay all right don't don't look at the profile don't do that yeah but but i want to see i want

Alexto what are you gonna glean from that i want to see what their profile picture is look you get

Merlinyou get it he's a he's a he's a father a thinker a maker and a human okay just i want to see the

Alexsunglasses he's the four noun man i i just i like seeing men in cars you know i love them with their seatbelt profile picture.

MerlinOh, you're talking about the Oakleyman?

AlexYeah.

MerlinGia Tolentino. I am lost in this stack. I got three beverages and a microphone.

AlexAnd we have two. And so do you want

MerlinGia Tolentino? Oh, you want her to like you? Do you want her to crush you? Do you want her to ruin you? Destroy you?

AlexYeah, it's more of that.

MerlinWe should do that one too. I'm going to recapture that. Who do you want to destroy us?

AlexBut in terms of real celebrities, I want to be friends with Rachel Bloom so much. Who is.

MerlinOh, sure.

AlexOh, gosh. Oh, God. Oh, she dedicated her book to the. Oh, God. Fountains of Wayne guy who passed away.

MerlinYou're kidding me.

AlexYeah.

MerlinOh, oh, real. Because he wrote the music. Wes Covina. OK, got it, got it, got it. That makes sense. Oh, Adam. Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, man.

AlexWelcome to Dubai Friday, where I talk about my Twitter and get sad. about death you're so morbid you're so morbid alex i am i want very goth i wish i can't pull off goth i tried i i i went from goth to you know just basic ass emo so fast because i i couldn't

Merlinpull it off and that's okay that's okay because goth goth is too much of like a commitment right you got to really go all in if you're going goth yes you don't get day off you don't get a day off where you like to wear your spree crop top, right?

AlexYeah, it's hard to go from Catholic uniform to all of the cool chains and makeup after school. It was just too much. Yeah.

MerlinOkay, okay. I, you know, I think, again, you should get to just try stuff on, you know, like a jacket.

AlexNo, that's the problem is it was too, it was too much in that I just couldn't. I wish I could. I wish I could pull off so many things. I wish that some people liked me and I wish I could pull off things. like i wish i i looked cool riding a skateboard very few people actually look cool riding a

Merlinskateboard i realize that's a hot take but i completely agree yeah oh is it a hot take really

Alexi thought i was just being mean well because then people make funny you're like you're like

Merlinyou spend most of your life just falling down like you fall down fast like it's efficient but not but you but you should see me do that's that's a kickflip i do i mean i mean the thing is good Good for them. Good for them. I like the guys who go down the street and do the skid. Years. Years.

AlexYes.

MerlinYears. That's never going to be a problem.

AlexNo.

MerlinNo, no, no.

AlexUm, so, anybody else? Anybody else?

MerlinMostly people in bands. Mostly people in bands. Bands that I've liked for a long time who are now available in what I think you people call parasocial relationships. I want those people to like me.

AlexOh, I want Laura Jane Grace to stomp on my stamps. Like I could never be cool enough to just be friends with any band I liked. Like, oh God, I want every member of Ludo to just slap me in the face.

MerlinOkay. Okay. Oh, you have a specific, we should start a spreadsheet.

AlexOf bands and yeah.

MerlinIt's called They May Destroy They.

AlexUh-huh.

MerlinSo what we do is we've got some rows and columns and we're going to be talking about who we would like to be friends with or have physically harm us in a, not a sexual way.

Alexin an erotic in erotic way i still don't think i have a kink and i'm just searching for it maybe a spreadsheet will spanking my back button balls i want them to pull real tight on my back

Merlinstrap okay okay pop quiz pop quiz here we go ready get ready okay who do you want to let's start the clock who do you want to snap your bra oh fuck oh oh no no um oh don't overthink it Don't overthink it.

AlexThe answer is me.

MerlinOkay. All right. Next question. Pass. Who do you want to give you a wedgie? Not real hard, not atomic. Who would you like to have give you just a basic wedgie? Who do you want a basic wedgie from?

AlexGriffin from Blank Shack.

MerlinOh, man. Do you think he probably has little hands?

AlexAnd I don't think he'd be very good at it.

MerlinNo, it would be hilarious. It would be so gentle.

AlexExactly. Exactly. It would be a great experience, but in terms of the definition of a good wedgie, I don't know if he could get up there, but it would be a funny, pleasant experience.

MerlinExactly, because he probably hasn't done it much. He hasn't practiced it much. Okay, we only have time for one more question, and this one is for all the money. Are you ready? Who would you like to hit you in the face with a pie?

AlexJohn Kimball.

MerlinOh, John Kimball from election profit makers?

AlexAgain, don't think he's done it.

MerlinHe'd probably be late because his clock's all fucked up in his car.

AlexYeah, yeah. This car. I was so excited to get a new car. And I was like, John Kimball, I should probably check if I need to set my car clock back that I have not yet used.

MerlinCheck your car clock. All right. We'll allow it. Let's show them what they won. Uh-huh. Oh, please don't snitch. Please don't snitch. It's going to be so weird. Oh, gosh. Because apparently The Tonight Show has a game show. Anyway, thank you all for listening. It's been a huge week.

Alexwe really appreciate you tuning in i feel like i manifested i hate crime because last night i'm listening to this essay about uh asian hate in it that gia toletina wrote and then this i didn't and i this morning i'm like jesus fucking christ and again it's it it feels um god i just welcome to you by friday where i don't see races uh yeah i don't i don't see oh gosh um i'm gonna to close all of my news tabs because i that's cool i don't want to know if there's a coup um

a coup a coup a coup hey welcome to do my friday where we i don't know oh oh you have in here podcast search

Merlinin our notes oh just the thing i don't know what you sent me and i don't know if you want want me to talk once i see again i don't i don't know what you want to talk about Did you get the photo? Oh, you saw the photo of the manatees?

AlexNo, let me.

MerlinOh, there we go.

AlexI am. I am. But I was in a different tab.

MerlinIt says manatees eating sweet potatoes. So sweet potatoes eating sweet potatoes. Look at them. Now, in sad manatee news, this is called Manatee Watch. In sad news, I heard the population in Florida is dwindling, is what I heard. I tried to find the link, but I couldn't find it. but like i think i think they're i think the smoothness of their brains may finally be catching up with their evolutionary prospects the problem is they're not as cute they're not as cute as pandas so the pandas just want to get in a bastic you give a panda a bastic and you know

how happy that pandas they love snow snow snow they climbing climbing on snow persons i i i i

Alexwould love to play with a panda in the snow and i would love to play with a manatee in the water

Merlinlike oh gosh oh my god what if they were friends i know that's and it's kind of like uh like they're from real different environments so they would have to oh my god this is so good what's that

Alexmovie what's the famous movie intersectionality this is what we mean uh what movie uh there's a

Merlinfamous movie called is lady hawk yeah i think it's lady hawk where they're cursed to like they the one one's only around at night and one's only around at the day i think it might be michelle Pfeiffer and Rutger Hauer, I think. Is that Lady Hawk?

AlexSee, I was thinking of the film Milo and Otis, in which a pug and a kitten must become best friends, but which seems more apt. But, okay, Lady

MerlinHawk. I just want to be the Mercutio. I mean, I want to die sometime in probably Act 1, but be there for the early friendship of the, well, actually, it's not Shakespeare at all. We're talking about pandas and manatees panda panatees oh ford they had a baby oh my god a panatee an intersectional species baby oh my god it would have all the worst aspects of both it would be fat and cute

Alexand easy to kill oh my god oh my god how cute would that be oh fuck imagine if if like the british royal like the the mon as any monarchs really i'm talking about just any kind of inbred kind of thing. Yeah, they would immediately start producing adorable children, but then they would just get more and more grotesque and smooth-brained.

MerlinOh, that would be so

Alexcute. And then they'd get an interview with Oprah. So, you know, the pretty ones.

MerlinLady Hawk, 1985. Oh yeah, Matthew Broderick's in that. Okay, cool.

AlexI really wish I could see the poster for this film on IMDb, but it's so very tiny.

MerlinOh, I have received Inside Intel, having discussed what I discussed, sorry, I'm not going to be cagey. I have a friend on Twitter, an acquaintance, you know, Twitter acquaintance, you know, hi, friend, who listens to some of my shows. And that is the person who had interviewed me about things I would like to see be different on IMDb. I referenced that on another podcast I do, and that person reached out to me. Let me ask you this. When you're on IMDb, do you see a yellow line at the top?

Alexget a sneak peek of the new version of this page

Merlinit's not totally what I would want but it's getting there

Alexit is so much better

Merlinunderstandably I don't love this but understandably they are trying to as an Amazon company they are kind of trying to drive you toward the Amazon options for things which is not terrible but like the bigger photos kind of good to start

AlexI am going to their app right now.

MerlinOh, so what I'm sorry. If you're listening, I apologize. I don't get this every time, but when you go to IMDb, look for a little yellow strip at the top. What did it say, Alex? Something like check out our new look or something like that?

AlexFor a limited time. Oh, now it says for a limited time, go back to the older version of the page. So going back now.

MerlinOkay, that's because you did. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

AlexGet a sneak peek of the new version of this page. Check it out now. I could read an ad.

MerlinI would say kudos to my friend. I would never expect that everything she, let alone I, would desire would make it into the final cut. But, like, I think it is better. How do you feel about the dark background?

AlexOh, I will always do a dark background.

MerlinReally? Interesting.

AlexYes, I'm one of those.

MerlinYeah, you're a basic dark bitch.

AlexI am. No, no, we can't. Don't. Really, you shouldn't say that. What? I'm, I'm, I'm.

MerlinWho would I offend with that? Bitches?

AlexI don't know. I just, well, that's a thing.

MerlinWe're using the word bitch a lot. I never use that word.

AlexI love that word because it's one of those words where I'm like, I can say it and someone will hear it and feel guilty and a little sad that he can't.

MerlinOh yeah. That's your MO. You do that.

AlexIt's a power move. Oh God. I love saying cunt so much.

MerlinOh, I see. You're reclaiming the feminine arts.

AlexYeah. I'm, I'm just.

MerlinOr whatever.

AlexCunt, cunt, cuntity, cunt, cunt.

MerlinOkay. okay for all of our listeners who are not from england i'd like to um say i'm sorry for alex anything else you got some you got some n bombs you want to bring into this uh oh good lord no

Alexbecause that's not for me you know what and oh i can say fanny fanny fanny fanny fanny fanny fanny

Merlinfanny fanny oh but pants now i've equally triggered fanny pants what's the other some

Alexother good ones pants pants that's a weird word there's a there there's that those cigarettes

Merlinover in the uk oh dear me yeah those little bundles of sticks there's a kinks there's a kink song called hairy rag that is um cut me rhyming slang of that particular word.

AlexOh, I know what you're talking about. Yes, yes.

MerlinAnd what else was I going to say about that? That's probably plenty with those words.

AlexLet's just move in along. Move in along.

MerlinI want the new IMDB. What am I doing wrong? I got it on another thing. All right, we'll come back to that. But thanks to my friend. Thank you, S.

And now everybody in AMS is going to be writing. What does that mean? Lenny Kravitz. Sheriff, I'm going to get Twitter trending. I'm going to close that. I did my ads for Reconcilable Differences. I set up Guardian on my Mac.

I set up Guardian on my Mac. My insider at the Guardian app told me that's a thing you can do now. So that's kind of cool. It thinks I'm in Dutch.

AlexOh, I want to be Dutch. Did they send you shoes? Like once you logged on, doesn't the government actually provide for their humans? the people there get shoes, right?

MerlinOh, absolutely. And they have so many dykes there. You would love it.

Okay. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Dubai Friday. Let's see. Anything else I left in the stack? Oh, Pleasant Sounds. We could talk about that in the after show. You can go to if you want to support the work that we do here, that would be great. Like I said, giveusyourfuckingmoney.com or patreon.com slash Dubai Friday and give us a few bucks and you get an extra show.

AlexOr you can go to, I believe it's joeroganclub.com stomponmystamps.com Where is mine?

MerlinNo wonder you love John Kimball.

AlexOh, those are bitly links. That's different.

MerlinYou're the bitly queen. God damn it.

AlexI put 12 whole dollars into these jokes.

MerlinAh, fuck. I'm never going to get this right.

AlexYou're going to get my very white knife.

MerlinDid you see Elliot Page's cool haircut?

AlexThe, ooh, nope, I'm not going to comment on that one.

MerlinOh, you don't like it? You think it's a bit too basic?

AlexI think that, one, I am incredibly excited that a trans dude is on the front of Time Magazine.

MerlinJust like when LeBron Cox was on.

AlexAnd actually.

MerlinI'm a fan. I'm a fan.

AlexOh, did you know that it turns out? Well, actually, Laverne Cox has a twin brother. So in Orange is the New Black, there are, you know, flashback scenes. And there's a flashback scene to her pre-transition.

MerlinOh, my God. That's such a good idea.

AlexYes. Her brother was like, OK.

MerlinHoly shit. That's amazing.

AlexYeah, because I mean.

MerlinTalk about the ultimate Texas switch.

AlexRight.

MerlinTodd.

AlexThank you for your service, Todd.

MerlinThank you for your service. David Wayne. David Wayne put out a very amusing... David Wayne, somebody else who I would like to like me. David Wayne put out a very amusing video of tricks that he's done in movies and it was really short and really good. Did you watch it?

AlexDo I not follow him on Twitter? Oh, gosh. I don't know.

MerlinStop talking about Twitter, Alex. It's really freaking me out. I'm sorry. No, but he starts with a Texas switch. It's a scene from a movie where Jennifer Lawrence jumps out of a tree and Justin Theroux catches her. But the scene is amazing. So a stunt person jumps out of the tree, lands on the mat. Justin Theroux, just out of the bottom of the shot, is already holding Jennifer Aniston. And the effect is incredible. It's wild. But then also talking about that scene in which movie is it?

But it's a scene where people are going to go from New York. Oh, you know what it is? it's futile and stupid gesture where they're going from New York to LA and so basically the people walk out of a bar they take off their clothes and have like California clothes they turn right and they're suddenly in California and the way they did it is so cool I mean I don't say it's practical like who cares but the way they did that with like sliding sets and stuff like that and a little bit of CGI cleanup it's really cool

AlexI like movies. Did you watch the Ted Lasso video

Merlinof how they did the stadium? No no

AlexI'm saving it. It's one of those things I've been banned from unless I watch it.

MerlinThe video? The video or the TV show?

AlexThe video. Because there are some things in my house that we have to watch together as a family.

MerlinI know. And yet, and yet, and yet. It's my understanding there's one side of that relationship who honors that with more tenacity than the other.

Alexit's been a texas switch let's let's say there's someone who is there a hanky for that oh there should be oh my gosh there should be a hanky code for the texas yes there should be

Merlindon't put a yellow one back there unless you know what it means you don't want did you did

Alexyou know what the red one means?

MerlinSnicked. Anyway. Yeah. I don't know. See, I'm all fucked up because like, I mean, there's so many reasons this is fucked up and then we should talk about our challenge. But like, you know, we have similar things. I am, because maybe of my free time or my late night dad time, I'm often the discoverer of a good new thing. That in some cases, I definitely like okay here let me let's explain it this way on many more than one occasion the following thing

has happened i finally start watching a tv show that turns out to be really good and you know it's really good after like one episode and so there's a little bit extra time i watch one episode i probably watch a second episode i'm gonna watch a third episode this could be a murder uh special series on netflix this could be a long-running tv show right so this could be the John Domjaniuk thing. This could be how to, oh shit, what's the really good one on Netflix about the drug testing in Massachusetts? How to fix a drug scandal.

Or, you know, recent ones include Better Call Saul. Very much includes Halt and Catch Fire, which I am so fucking obsessed with. But I'll watch it. I'll watch an episode or two and I'll say to my lady friend, I feel like, well, most importantly, I feel like you should check this out. I think this is your jam. But also, we're always looking for a show that we can watch because what happens our kid you know her connection to the world and her pals is through you know it's through facetime is through minecraft is through like and yeah there's a thing now where after dinner she tends to bounce and go back to her

room and hang out with her friends which is fucking fantastic which is normal for no no no you're missing my i'm just saying i don't mean you're missing my point but like oh no i was subtweeting covid no i i fully approve of that i i think it's i can't even tell you how many times i've thanked the deity that like all the shit that everybody was worried about exists including tv including youtube including twitch but like last night she had to go watch i don't know if it's

tommy and tubbo but something big was happening with the minecraft streaming people yeah and something big happened and tommy's alive again she tries to explain it and i'm like honey please don't explain this to me anytime you have to show me a meme i've never seen to explain to get to the first level of something i still won't understand cowboy canterpie please have you seen the hillary clinton meme where she's hanging in cabo or whatever i'm like no i haven't she says well you have to understand there's that and then that turns into this and i'm like why don't you go watch minecraft with your friends but then what does that do for us so if we're

watching daredevil which is a big family hit i'm happy to say they're they're watching it i watched the first run, I'm rewatching it. But then what happens? Well, what happens is I end up seeing some episode of some show three times in the wrong order. And it's so fucking confusing. So I get addicted to Halt and Catch. Well, that's a bad example. Better Call Saul. Like I've watched three episodes, for example, then my lady jumps in and then we play the game that I imagine you two play maybe, which is like, okay, I'm going to hit pause on this show until you are either

caught up to where I am or you're close enough that we could kind of re-watch the previous episode together. But it makes me feel insane. I feel like Billy Pilgrim, like Unstuck in Time. Because I'll end up seeing the first episode of a TV show for the... In the case of Halt and Catch Fire, I'm not going to parse this. I fucking love that show so much. And I watched the first episode three times in two days. Because owing to this phenomenon.

And but it makes me very confused. Now, how do you deal with that? You're in a smaller I think you're in a smaller space with fewer screens.

AlexI doubt it. OK. All right. Hold up.

MerlinWhat are the opportunities that Matt has to cheat on you? Tell me how Matt cheats.

AlexOh, the TV is primarily his like that is his. We have one TV and it's like that is that is his domain in terms of like dibs. I, because I don't know. I don't care.

MerlinAnd getting to pick what, and getting to pick what's on it.

AlexYou know, we, we, we trade back and forth. However, he is the one who will try out new shows. And I don't enjoy doing that because I'm like, I don't want to waste my time. What if it sucks? And I, because I'm mean and lazy.

MerlinSo Matt, Matt ends up vetting things. And is Matt, let me ask you, sorry to interrupt, but is Matt a pretty good filter for knowing something that might be your jam?

AlexYes, there are very few exceptions. But actually, I'm going to well actually myself. Sometimes I don't like something, but then it turns out I was watching three seasons ahead because I'm like, what the fuck is even happening?

MerlinI know this is the problem now. I've accidentally seen what appeared to be based on this one character that in Halt and Catch Fire who she looks really different. And some of these are like, oh, shit. Don't, oh, no. It's like finding out who won Survivor that season. You're like, I'll still watch this and enjoy it. But I really want to minimize the opportunities.

Spoiler is such a dumb word. I want to minimize the opportunities for my sense of discovery to be unintentionally ruined on this thing that everybody else has loved for a long time. And that can be really difficult.

AlexYeah.

MerlinSo then you go back, sometimes you go back to the beginning. Can you think of a recent example of that where Matt was the media explorer and then you ended up going back to the beginning?

AlexGina in Georgia. Working moms.

MerlinThat's not the bird show on Netflix.

AlexNo.

MerlinThat's Tuco.

AlexOh, Tuco and Birdie. That was, oh, no, we saw that. I really don't know if that is your jam. It's super.

MerlinCan the kid watch it? Not really. I'll vet it.

AlexWell, yeah, vet it. It is. It's one of those things where definitely R-rated.

MerlinI mean, are we talking like Big Mouth kind of stuff or like what kind of like?

AlexOh, not as bad as that. I've had to turn off many an episode of Big Mouth because I'm like, nope.

MerlinIt makes me uncomfortable sometimes.

AlexYep. Yep. I'm like, hmm.

MerlinI mean, she's seen the cast for that and is like, how are we not watching this? I'm like, I think it's some of the content is pretty challenging.

AlexYeah, it's very good. it's a oh there's there's so they show everything absolutely fast over oh many of i i fast over because i just don't want to look at prepubescent penises ever in any context even if it is animated

Merlinand i'm like oh you know i i'm gonna take a bold brave stance i think it's kind of nice that you

Alexdon't want to see a prepubescent penis i uh yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna say even a baby acorn you

MerlinWhat about a baby acorn? That can be very cute.

AlexOh, God, no.

MerlinSuper nipple.

AlexOne of them does. Oh, no.

MerlinOkay, okay, okay.

AlexYou know what? I'm fine with crusty, superfluous nipple. I enjoy seeing that every single time.

MerlinI have a friend with a third nipple.

AlexI almost wish that was something.

MerlinI think superfluous is a little bit ableist.

AlexYou know what? I guess they can say it, but I can't.

MerlinYou can't. It's hard. It's hard sometimes, even in those small spaces. But have you watched Halt and Catcher?

AlexI haven't. No, it's on the list.

MerlinIn front of the show, who's my worst friend, I asked. You know what? I'm not going to say what he said. I think you should maybe check it out. Are you familiar with the work of Mackenzie Davis?

AlexYes!

MerlinGo click on that photo. Do you know a certain episode of a TV show that you recognize her from?

AlexHold on, hold on.

MerlinA certain very special episode of a TV show. She had round glasses. It was the 80s. She had denim shorts.

AlexOh! Oh! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

MerlinYes, I always forget.

AlexNo, I know that.

MerlinShe's San Junipero. And she used to date the lady from Twilight.

AlexNo. she in fictionally in happiest season but uh oh i thought they weren't there a couple oh i don't think so i would oh that would make the internet so mad the why why i just want people to be happy and their codependent relationship it's what the primary reason a lot of people with my lifestyle

Merlinthe reason they don't like

Alexmy preferences tend to not enjoy it because my preference

Merlindo you have an oxygen preference? I'd rather have oxygen, thank you

AlexI will push back on that because what if hmm

Merlinoh you're going to go full that singing lady on me, huh? oh, which singing lady? yeah Yeah. What's her name? Kristen Davis. That's the lady from Sex and the City. Who's the Twilight woman? What's her name?

AlexKristen Stewart.

MerlinI heard she's into armpits and that made me like her more.

AlexOh, I just I just think it's really funny that Trump tweeted about her in the good old days.

MerlinOh, my God. With Robert Pattinson. Oh, my God.

AlexSo good. So good.

MerlinIf Mackenzie Davis turns out to be straight, I'm going to be so bummed.

AlexNo, she's she's not.

MerlinShe's got to be.

AlexShe is. Yeah.

MerlinShe's straight.

AlexNo, no, no. She's gay. Or at least dates ladies.

MerlinBecause, like, I mean, nothing matters. Not that I care. Believe me. Believe me. Believe me. Whether I try to find out how tall somebody is, who they want to donk, whatever I find out, my daughter turns to me and says, why do you need to know that? And I said, that's a good question. I'm from a different time. I'm from a different time. And sometimes I like to know things. I want to know how tall somebody is. Now, Karen Page on Daredevil, who loves D&D, I had assumed because they always put her in like a low heel. I had assumed that she's a giantess. She's 5'10".

So she's not like she's not like Brienne of Tarth tall, but she's pretty tall. Did you watch the video of her talking about D&D?

AlexYes. So sweet.

MerlinHow adorable is she? Such a dork.

AlexI didn't want to be that person, but I was immediately like, oh, shit. she knows her shit too yeah she's so enthusiastic

Merlinyou gotta love but you gotta love somebody's enthusiasm and yeah so we started watching her YouTube videos oh my god she had Charlie Cox on for one

Alexepisode oh oh yes my distinct cousin not really

Merlinyou can't prove it did you know that he's

Alexfrom England yes I don't know why I know that

Merlinnow and then I got double fuck back I got super confused reach around because get this I'm at the point now where I just I'm so fucking confused I mean, whether it's Andrew Lincoln or there's all these people, of course, they're all fucking English. And but like Charlie Cox, I mean, wow. Sorry, this is the guy who stars in Daredevil, which is an extremely good show. I forgot how extremely good it is. But he's amazing. And like Tom Holland, when he speaks in his actual voice with his actual quote unquote accent, it's not an accent to him.

His voice sounds slightly higher. You ever notice that? I think some people modulate, especially men, modulate their voice down to do an American accent.

AlexOh, I was actually going to say it feels like Tom Holland is the opposite, but he's also playing a younger character.

MerlinThat's true.

AlexYeah. And I think this is kind of.

MerlinI might have it backwards, but I am so confused. But here's how I got double fucked back. It's because I've gotten to where I now just assume that so many people are English. What show am I obsessed with? Halt and Catch Fire. get this get this lee pace he's totally american oh doesn't he seem english i lee pace he's ronan

Alexfarrow the accuser in the uh in those movies this is very weird i yeah i just doesn't he seem like

Merlinhe has to be english doing a great american accent like tom like tom from succession

Alexis patrick stewart he's from england right right isn't he sir yes he's sir okay okay he is well i

MerlinI mean, I'm not being cute. I think he, I want to say grew up in France, but yes. I think his family's from France, but he's of British descent. But then there's people like, you know, sorry, Mel Gibson, but whoever. There are people like Mel Gibson where like when they do interviews in America, they speak with, see that word accent? That's like saying you spoke through a translator. Stop saying that. when people speak with an American accent there are people who do like American interviews with an American accent and then like English interviews with an English accent and they can just

code switch like that how crazy is that

AlexI mean I think it's called acting and it's why these people are very talented

Merlinthat's a really good point Mackenzie Davis look at her she can crush my stamps

Alexbuddy oh gosh

Merlinthe music the music is so good Alex it's great great music great outfits

Alexin Halton Catch Fire I don't even know

MerlinHalton Catch Fire. Halton Catch Fire is a show about, it takes place in 19, I'm confusing with Wet Hot, I think it's 82. And it's basically this fictional Texas company that has been doing business mainframe stuff. And Lee Pace leaves IBM to work there and he's going to try to convince them, he's basically Steve Jobs in this show, in some ways. He's sort of a Romanoclay of lots of people, but he's the guy who wants to really mix it up and create this personal computer.

And it's got a handle. And everybody's like, you can't do that. Engineering, engineering. And gets all the pushback. And so, yeah. And also Toby Huss. You might know him as Arnie from Pete and Pete, or you know him as the voice of Cotton Hill.

AlexOh, my God. Yay. Oh, yes.

MerlinHe's the Wiz. He's the Wiz. And nobody beats his deals. The Wiz from Seinfeld. He's fantastic on there.

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinWill you do me a challenge and do me a favor and do me a blessing? Would you consider watching Halt and Catch Fire, the first episode on Netflix?

AlexOh, yes. I've already added it.

MerlinSub-challenge? Sub-challenge?

AlexSub-challenge. Well, if you go and do my challenge. Oh, I have so many thoughts on our challenges. What? What are you talking about? No, in a good way. You're not in trouble. You're not in trouble.

MerlinOkay. I'm not sure that's working anymore. I don't think we honor it often enough. And it's already become, it's like me in breathing exercises. now like when you tell me that I'm not in trouble I start feeling like I'm in trouble

Alexoh no no no no

Merlinyou're always telling me things you keep telling me things I don't know why you tell me so many things Alex and to our listeners I don't want to break the wall here but like Alex and I talk to each other a lot

Alexless I've been bothering you much less I've been bothering everybody much less

Merlinwhat the fuck does that mean and why would you put it like that I'm sorry why would you be injurious to our relationship by invoking that kind of thing

Alexyou know what I

MerlinAlex I love you

Alexyep don't i can't hang up yet i can't it would ruin the call it would ruin the call

Merlinum you have so many thoughts do a limited series anything with titanic oh well i've just 400 we got 469 nice 469 lines in here now oh wait really some yeah am i wrong no no i just i had i had hidden the old ones at one point but oh yeah it's only 109 you can see now but still still still are we talking about this what are we talking about some challenge

Alexhault and catch fire people can find the challenge that they they want to at um give us your fucking

Merlinmoney.com where we what even does that mean they can find the challenge they want to what does that

Alexmean i don't know they can find john is john syracuse is still in this document i bet he is i bet he's still shared with him i think it's shared with like anybody yeah there's like six

MerlinOh, Tiff can still get in here. That's cool.

AlexYeah. I mean, it's...

MerlinIt'd be fun to make this public.

AlexThere's no...

MerlinBut then you get all those weird icons of animals. It's upsetting.

AlexYeah, I don't like the animals.

MerlinI don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like when I see anybody in there that's not a face. It freaks me out.

AlexWhy? Why?

MerlinIt's like the way they name Android. It's like, you know, Costume Cookie is here. You're like, what?

Alexhi i'm tip cookie why is it a squid

Merlinall right we should talk about the challenge what uh what time is it how far in are we

Alexoh oh we are an hour in um gosh i hope i remember to record well zoom catches both sides

MerlinOh, Alex, we got to fix this. You said that before, but.

AlexOh, I did say that before.

MerlinIt's Bulletproof. Bulletproof podcast.

AlexI have never said Bulletproof. Nothing's Bulletproof if you have enough bullets.

MerlinYou can have Bulletproof coffee. You put butter in it. That does not appeal to me at all.

AlexI don't know what that reference is, but I gagged a little.

MerlinThere's a thing called Bulletproof coffee, and it's this thing. It's like a very like, oh, gosh, I almost said the guy's name. It's one of those bullshit things where you're like, oh, you can Bulletproof coffee. It's really good for you. It's got lots of people.

AlexGoogle Bulletproof coffee. google bulletproof coffee oh this looks like um a supplement coffee like this this is a big powder yeah right like alex jones coffee oh i mean i still got my alpha pills right here oh you know

Merlinwhat i'll take these they've got some what your vitamin d or something that makes you more alpha

Alexno no this i've talked about this is the on it alpha brain which helps support memory and focus It's a daily cognitive supplement.

MerlinOoh, you get more folds in your brain?

AlexI think so. Yeah, sometimes things get too smooth.

MerlinGorilla mindset, you're saying?

AlexIt's a brain wrinkler.

MerlinThis is a return to an old concept that I feel, so sometimes things come along where I realize that something is important, but I only understand it a little bit. And this is a concept that Alex talks about a lot, if I may say. and it's something we learned about a long time ago from our co-host called stock and flow and i

Alexdidn't know it was a real thing but it's also an economic thing apparently that's a real is it so

Merlinhard to find this actual thing so we went back to this is this robin um oh what's this person's name

Alexi think i like this person's work i don't know are you talking about the thing i linked to on twitter because then i was rereading it and i'm like i like this but i don't think this is what I read before and I'm going through Instapaper. I feel like

Merlinit was Star Slate Star Codex Star. Yeah. Where did we first read about this? But you know what? This will work. I feel like this will work. Well, it'll work for me because it's a pretty straightforward explanation of what this concept is and no spoilers but like I'm really keen to figure out like because it sounds like you're in the same way that this is this Rob? What the fuck is this person's name? I think this is the famous blogging person.

Alexhow i well he's not the one with folders is he the one with colors or the codex okay i don't know

Merlinum is there an about here um god get a modern site actually this is a beautiful site i love the typefaces on this site um i'm not a big fan usually of jokey google style script fonts but i like that one snark market is the name of the website ah there we go here we are i feel really bad that i don't know what's because i think it's a famous blog person one of the vintage he was from

Alex73 folder days, you think?

MerlinA concept we learned about sometime back, stock and float. And so here's, I'm going to lay out some ideas here because I want you to drive. I would like to talk about what the concept is, how it differs from the concept that I don't actually understand that it's based upon, how this person, Robin Snarkmarket, is using it to refer to mostly media. But I feel like, is it fair to say that your take on this is potentially broader like the stock and flow can represent a lot of stuff in life and how you decide to deal with it

like especially physical things am i getting that right yeah i've tried to

Alexactually more recently i've tried to make it more about things is such a interesting word because it's like i mean digital things which this article

Merlinpost whatever is primarily about thing here being a synonym for noun alex and noun is a special kind of word it's every name you you've ever heard it's quite interesting and now it's a person i've been

Alextriggered back to the to third grade and my ulcer with diagramming sentences diagramming sentences was actually an incredibly useful tool i think oh i totally agree and i think about it every day

Merlinnow, Alex, diagramming sentences, I think about it with the way that I...

AlexChallenge. I don't remember how to, but ooh, interesting.

MerlinWhat? How to do it?

AlexYeah. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Go ahead.

MerlinNo, no, no. No, but I've been struggling a little bit with my HomeKit. Some of my HomeKit stuff were like, I tried this overly ambitious thing where, okay, you know this, so forgive me for, it sounds like I'm talking down. I don't mean it that way. But when you go to HomeKit on iOS and let's say I've made a scene, let's say I've made a scene called office lights on and then I make another scene called office lights off. The thing is if the lights are on and that, you know, the, the, so that scene is lit up. If you click it, it turns

the lights off and ditto for the corollary. It's basically a toggle in iOS. It's a toggle. So like whatever you did, whatever you named it, one click turns it on. Another click turns all that off. but I don't think that goes for Siri.

AlexWhoa. So are you talking about, yeah, talking to Siri?

MerlinDo you follow? So if I, so if I, so what I did was I was overly ambitious and I renamed. So I turned office lights into just office, office lights on. I got rid of off and just turn it to office lights. And then I changed my fans on and fans off to just fans, just fans. But if you try to invoke that with Siri, you got to jump through some extra hoops for rooms or zones.

AlexUh-huh.

MerlinBut it's interesting. And I think I sent you this. I sent you that.

AlexThe amazing one of your HomeKit things?

MerlinWhy don't they put this out in public? It's human interface guidelines for developers regarding Siri and HomeKit. And it was so fucking hell. You know what? I'm not an idiot, Apple. Explain to me the difference between a zone, a service group. Yes, yes. Why don't you just tell me this?

AlexWhy don't you just tell me all the things that— Oh, my God.

MerlinIt made so much more sense.

Alexwe'll put it in notes because god damn was that ever useful it's so good it's whoever wrote that

Merlingosh have we explained what this is it's there's an old thing that used to be around for years it's talked about from time to time on various relay podcasts called the hig or human interface guidelines and there was a time when apple had a like like here's like you know you can do you but like here's what we think apps should do and how they should interact i found this such a lucid explanation of how to use Siri with HomeKit. But it's the series of beautifully written documents for developers.

And what they're saying to developers is, hey, you know, go do your, you know, your C++ whatever stuff you're swifting on this. But for your users, your consumers, for the people who use your apps, here are some patterns that will help make that, make your app easier to use and understand. and it was so useful to me i mean and it's it's like stuff like i've always i've got zones in there like i made a zone once but i still don't really understand what a zone is and then i realized also that like i'm i'm occasionally partly because i'm a little fucked up from using

uh other home kit apps like home plus but i think i've really confused concatenated and messed up the difference between like a scene and automation you know let's be honest i'm pretty good with this stuff. But like having that lucidly laid out, like when a person says this, they expect this kind of thing to happen was so useful. I'm sorry, I took us away from

Alexthe challenge. No, I agree.

MerlinThis is... But I mentioned it because of sentence diagramming. So learning to say certain kinds of things. Like I don't, like I learned about everywhere through the constant struggle of trying to get the right HomePod to do the right thing. What a goddamn mess. And you can't make groups like you can on... Oh, yeah. It's so goddamn frustrating. This morning, all I wanted to do was listen to EPM on these four HomePods in different places. And they're mashing on the phone. I'm punching on things.

AlexOh, and I got to push the three things because my shoulder broke. It's a mess, Alex. It's so bad.

MerlinBut did you know, friends, that you can say, let's say you're listening. Well, this will work some percentage of the time. You're enjoying a podcast on your, let's say, AirPods. AirPods, with your AirPods on, in my office here or at my house, I can say, hey, Dingus, play this everywhere. And something like a majority of the time, it gets it. And what does that mean? That means it understands what everywhere means. And by saying play, it understands that means the audio that you're listening to on your phone throw to all of your HomePods, right?

AlexYeah.

MerlinThat's pretty easy. You know, now if I'm doing the Amazon system, I invoke things like play this everywhere or play this upstairs or play this in West. And it knows what all those things mean.

AlexSiri sure doesn't.

MerlinIt does not understand like ad hoc groups. And yet, and yet it does understand everywhere to mean, I think, for example, and I'm one day into this, understanding this because of this fucking document I love. But I think you can say things like turn lights off everywhere.

AlexYeah. Yeah. Well, I do turn off all the lights.

MerlinWell, do you know this? What if you're in a multi-room house and you say turn lights off here? It thinks you mean that room, which is cool, or dim the lights here. I didn't know that was a thing you could say. Am I dumb? Am I dumb that I just totally missed a ton of this?

AlexNo, because these are all things that we want and try to do. and especially you who have become, I would say, somewhat of an automation, maybe not expert, but you are.

MerlinI'm definitely an enthusiast. I'm not an expert, but I am an enthusiast. I did fix two different SSL certificates two different ways, and I'm pretty fucking. I don't even need the port number. I fixed it so good. I took off my 823. Boom. Sorry, 8123.

AlexOh, my God. um gotta get uh good pvp stats for thunderous for my eyes my eyes uh sort of glazed over in that one part of the show you do with i couldn't forget the name back to work holy shit i just couldn't think of that name wow uh and i'm like i don't i i will never i just oh when when python happens i just go straight to other people i'm like please please help yes uh but but the thing that you

mentioned that was interesting it interesting on a number of things of things because of look at i will take and turn turn it uh in terms of like stock and flow because you mentioned how little you know about some things that you used to be a total pro at there are so many things that i'm just not good at anymore or so behind on.

MerlinLike if you don't use it often enough that you have like sort of muscle, what, attrition or something, like you sort of lose it. Alex, just this one fucking page. There's a page under, and so we'll put this as human interface guidelines for HomeKit. And we'll put this in notes. There's a page called HomeKit terminology and home layout. First of all, beautiful typography, looks great, simple. Well, there are things called homes. Oh, tell me more about that, right? So that's where you say like, oh, this is my house or this is my office. There are homes. Inside of homes, there are rooms. And there are many paragraphs explaining all of this. Now, the room is when you say, so when you hail something and tell it to do something in a room,

it has a sense of what a room is and knows you have a room called foo. You say turn off lights and foo, it gets that. Now we get to the good part. Accessories, services, and characteristics. Extremely probably not consumer-friendly names, which is fine, but I bet that's one reason they don't put this out, is that they're worried people will be confused. But boy, did this ever help me.

AlexIt just works.

MerlinAccessory represents a physical connected home accessory like a, well, actually, you're not supposed to use a word in a definition, but that's fine. The term accessory represents a physical connected home accessory like a ceiling fan. So it's all your stuff that you want to turn on and off or do stuff with, right? And a controllable feature of an accessory is known as a service. Some accessories offer multiple services. And I've been learning about this unintentionally through devices and entities in Home Assistant. So that makes sense to me. Like a device can have various entities inside of it. So like my Eero exposes a ton of different stuff

that you wouldn't think about. When you say Eero, well, it's either internet or not internet, but no, it could be like, or in my case, my Synology, it's how good is the drive that's in bay number four? Like that's, you know, that could be, that's an entity. And entities can have properties. Like, is this in motion? Is this on? Is this off? At what brightness, right? Which all gets so fucking complicated. A characteristic is a controllable attribute of a service. Like in a ceiling fan, might be a speed characteristic.

But then we get down, I'm sorry, this helped me so much. We have an area called actions and scenes. What? The term action refers to the changing of a service's characteristic. Very good. A scene is a group of actions. Now we're getting into automations. Zones. How many people out there are using zones? Probably not a lot because it's not crazy helpful.

AlexAnd it doesn't work half the time. That's why.

MerlinIt kind of doesn't work. But this has been so useful to me, and I'm bummed that it took me this long to discover it. Maybe somewhere in here they could tell me everything Siri can do.

AlexWell, that's the absolutely wild thing.

MerlinInstead of just hitting the question mark that you get eventually.

AlexUh-huh. Uh-huh. I mean, in Siri integrations, literally the start of a paragraph is, after setup, consider teaching people about more complex Siri commands. And this is for developers. And I'm like, why don't, yeah, I would love to know. I would love to know.

MerlinYou're on the Siri interactions page. This is the best one. Cause this is where it all comes together.

AlexI sent this to my mom because this is, I mean, there is some like developer e-language, but it's still so much better than everything out there.

MerlinIf you say, if so, for example, if you say dim the lights in the bedroom and nursery. Okay. A quick show of hands. How many people out there know that you can hail two different rooms? I didn't know that.

AlexI've never been able to get out to work.

MerlinSo it says if you say that, and then it says, so when you say this phrase, next one, Siri understands that you're asking about an accessory category, which is lights. You're asking for a brightness characteristic, which in this case is dim, and a room, in this case bedroom, and nursery, right? Did you know that you could say is someone in the living room? I did not.

AlexNo.

MerlinI know occupancy exists for, I thought it was just for automations. I didn't know you could say, is anybody like in my garage? I didn't know that. Did I forget to turn off the lights in the Tahoe house?

AlexOh, really? Hold up. How, by, is anybody in this room? Is it based on their iOS device? Not like a security camera or anything?

MerlinJust based on what I would know, I would guess it's using presence detection through something like a hue sensor or an eave sensor i'm guessing i i i don't i now i know what i need to learn more

Alexabout see i want to know i want to know how i because my the lights go to a certain scene when someone comes home to but that's from the phone being like hello so i well you know how it says

Merlini mean i know you know this but like this is the way i'd only ever seen this is in automations where one of the very first pages of the wizard is it says, okay, under what conditions? Well, of course, I don't think they call it that. That would be too much like a computer. Home Assistant does that. Home Assistant calls all this shit what it is, and then you make a blueprint or an automation that suits that. But I think it's when you first go in and it says, okay, what are the two things? It's presence and – So first you go in and say make an automation based on,

like time of day sensor detection like all those kinds of things but then one of them is should this only happen when no one's here but then you can also say things like for my i fucked this up but my ring alarm that i got integrated with home assistant that's where i first um started

Alexutilizing when whoa whoa whoa whoa you oh sorry home assistant not okay sorry proceed no i mean

MerlinLike it's, it's all in there. I'm still struggling with some camera stuff, but like it's, boy, my shit is pretty tight right now. But for example, you could, you know, one of the things you can do, and again, though, this is, I'm sorry, you know, chapter 50, here we go again. It's like presence detection is critical to anything super useful in this. If you don't have reliable presence detection, this goes straight back to a couple of weeks ago. Why do I spend and waste all my time on this shit? Because until you solve, until you crack the nut of presence detection, not, you're not going to be able to it's a rich as i said on slack it's a rich man's toy until you figure that out

so what does that mean well if it's canary well first of all everybody has to have the canary app installed everybody has to have the canary app guess what it quit and it's not in the background it's like tile constantly bugging you your bluetooth is off like so what do you do you make everybody you know have you know run this app but then it still fucks up geolocation and now Like, I'm not a programmer, but, like, it gets very complicated to say when first person arrives, when last person leaves, when, you know, so, like, only run the river when nobody's here, for example.

But, like, okay, what's nobody and what's here? How do you derive nobody is here? Well, it's really easy. You just have everybody run if this, then that, and then make sure they're far enough away that the geolocation fucking works. No, you could say, for example, I mean, the near future for me looks like this, which is like, OK, first of all, A, I'm done with geolocation as the only thing. It doesn't fucking work. Now, luckily, Home Assistant does stuff like, say, like, is this person's iPhone on this network? That ends up being the single most.

Oh, fuck. It's called iPhone Detect, and it's under the presence protocol or on a presence platform. But you say, is anybody's, you know, any of these devices, this isn't just phones. You can even go all the way down into computers. You can go into Mac addresses, et cetera. So you would say, a fairly straightforward way would be if none of these phones are on this network, then I know nobody's home. Well, of course, unless they shut off Wi-Fi or unless and less and less. I think the near future looks like stuff like,

like some kind of conditional that's like, if motion has not been detected in these areas for 20 minutes and these phones are not here. Like, you know, this is where, like I said, Alex, I guess this might have been on Rectifs. I don't even remember. But this is why, on the one hand, apps like Home Plus brought me to this state. But a huge part of this is Control Plane. Control Plane lets you go in, this app for Mac, and especially for laptops, you go in and create a level of confidence for every source of evidence to say, you know what, if I'm on this BSS ID,

like, you know what, I'm here. If it's this time of day, I'm 40% confident that I'm here. But you give it stuff you know is a how reliable something is as a source of truth and then it derives from that how strongly it feels that you are indeed here. This is one app. One fucking open source app that's not even supported anymore will do that for my Mac. But for HomeKit, good luck. If you can find sensors,

there's only a few sensors that are out there. The Hue sensors, well, you've got to be all in on Hue in a lot of cases, and it won't show up in a room unless there's a Hue light in it. What? Yes, that is true. Hue sensors are great, but guess what? You don't really get push notifications because guess what? The Eve app is not updating with the hardware. If you don't manually do an update, Eve will not remember what the humidity was yesterday, let alone send you a push notification. It's total bullshit. So this all falls short on these sensors. So what am I going to do? do I go all in on like Xiaomi, like, you know, $10 sensors?

Don't love that. I'm sorry I'm ranting.

AlexYou're ranting.

MerlinTell us more things. Tell us things.

AlexOkay, yes, yes. And I genuinely do think this has something to do with stock and flow because right now.

MerlinWow, thank you, thank you, thank you.

AlexGood job. Well, because for you, is this stock or is this flow? If we think about stock and flow in terms of like the physical world.

MerlinCan we tell our listeners what we're talking about? I don't think we should assume that they've read this article.

AlexNo, no.

MerlinCan I read a little bit of this just to keep us honest?

AlexPlease do. Did you read the, do you have the good parts? I forgot where I put the good parts.

MerlinNo, I fucked up and I was highlighting in a PDF and I don't think I can pull it up right now. My main note was, and we'll come back, we could come back to this. We don't need to. My main note was as soon. Okay. First, we should read this. I need to calm down, and I'm going to read this. Stock and Flow, Snark Market. I'm clicking 2010. I'm clicking Stock and Flow. May I have permission to read a little of this?

AlexPlease.

MerlinOkay. Robin. What's Robin's full name? Do we know? Robin Sloan. That's it.

AlexReally?

MerlinRobin Sloan. That's who this is. I knew I knew that. Sorry. I was an economics major in college, and I've been grateful ever since for a few key concepts. It includes things like opportunity costs, sunk costs, marginal costs. I think most of all about the concept of stock and flow. Do you know about this? It couldn't be simpler. There are two kinds of quantities in the world. Stock is a static value, as in money in the bank or trees in the forest. Flow is a rate of change, $15 an hour or 3,000 toothpicks a day. Easy, too easy.

But I actually think stock and flow is a useful metaphor for media in the 21st century.

AlexA more useful than economic, at least for me.

MerlinAbsolutely. Flow is the feed. It's the post and the tweets. It's the stream of daily and sub-daily updates, et cetera. Stock is the durable stuff. I actually think this is kind of the weakest part of this, even though it's really good. I think there's areas where it's more relevant. The stock part is a little... It's the content you produce. So stock is the durable stuff. It's the content you produce that's as interesting in two months or two years as it is today. And so I think the case that Robin Sloan is making here is that, well, we've all gotten pretty good at flow. Like, we're pretty good at jumping in and out of the stream.

but like you know how do we get better at stock but and so that is such a fascinating idea that i don't claim to completely understand but it already seems extremely relevant and of course the note that i made in the pdf i don't have in front of me is wow this really goes for podcasts too yep yep yep yep really had you thought of that like it's really important to me to make a stock podcast not a flow podcast and i will go out of my way to avoid no some flow is normal but like I don't want to do tech headlines. No one's going to, no one, if that's not a show done by John Syracuse, no one's going

to listen to that in five years.

AlexYeah.

MerlinIt's the stock part that makes you go back to hypercritical because he said things, he's a terrible person, but he said things that were true then, have been true for a while and are still true now. And it's valuable insight into thinking about how we interact with the stuff in our world versus like, will there be OLED chips, you know, in the new Rambo? Like, okay, but like you could just also wait until it's out on the market and buy it or not is a thing you could do.

AlexThat was an unsatisfying.

MerlinWhat will they announce tomorrow at Dom Dom? Why do you care?

AlexJust watch it. March 23rd, I'll shave my face.

MerlinNo one needs to guess. Stop guessing. Kind of though, right?

AlexOh, not kind of.

MerlinIt's fun, but that's flow, baby, flow.

AlexNo, absolutely. And there is a place for flow. And there are times that I really love flow.

MerlinYeah, newspapers are flow. Yeah, dictionaries are stock.

AlexYeah, and this is why I'm struggling with stock, specifically because my favorite thing to make is a podcast. But often, the reason I don't release stuff that I've made that I'm proud of, but I still think it's dumb, but I like it. I'm like, do I really want this out? Is this another thing that needs to exist? Am I going to be proud of this in two years? That sort of thing.

MerlinThis is that's that's that. You know what? I only realized this very second. That's what Twitter has become for me.

AlexYeah.

MerlinStuff that I made for Twitter. And yeah, suck it up. I did. I worked really hard to make the best tweets I could. And I have them delete after a week because I realized I don't want Twitter to be stock. I want it to be flow.

AlexYep. I have an archive of what I think are funny tweets from me.

MerlinA position that I have been antithetical, or antithetical, a position that I have completely disagreed with for as long as that position has existed. Are you kidding me? This is all gold, all this stuff that I've made. Well, I might like it a lot, but it ends up being just dangerous stock. It's spoiled milk in some ways.

AlexOh, dangerous stock is such a good term.

MerlinOh, wow. But anyway, I don't mean to be a deletion about this, but yeah, it was a very like Rucker Howard tears in rain moment for me when I hit the button. And I said, you know what? This is just like you say, like we say, dangerous stock. Like, no, instead, I'm going to be like all these other people who just fuck around and see what happens, which is nothing because then it's gone. It's flow, flow, flow. It's even it's just it's really just more like sad trickle. Like an old man with a prostate.

AlexOh, good thing. But do you. Well, and that's why earlier I asked you, like, wait, wait, is this a bit? when you were talking about how you never want to do something that you've done before. Because I'm like, oh, oh, no, no.

MerlinI was talking about the like trying to suck up to people in a weird way.

AlexYeah, it was mostly a bit. But but that's what I'm thinking of.

MerlinDid you take that to mean not repeating myself?

AlexOh, no. Just in terms of not recreating stock because it ends up you just said it like a dangerous stock and it is essentially then just shitty flow rather than oh man that's that's like what i think

Merlinof is that is that sort of like uh let me write that i'll get into script dangerous stock dangerous

Alexstock is shitty flow i that's pretty good i think so and this is why i also think of okay am i afraid of being irrelevant or am i afraid because i hope like that is an obvious and normal fear and i I think some people deal with it better than others. But my real fear is to create shitty stock, pretty much. Like, thinking...

MerlinCan I be a little bit mean for a second?

AlexYeah, go. Go, go, go.

MerlinYou're familiar with political Twitter.

AlexSound off, King.

MerlinSo, this is completely understandable. This is the job, okay? Having said that, so when something happens, like a shooting, like a congressional vote, like a something, and somebody re-ups their story, when you go like, oh, you know, I wrote about, you know, the violence inherent in spas for The Atlantic last month. And like, as soon as like everybody's out there fucking freaking out about some shit that's happening in real time, that's when everybody has something they want to re-up.

AlexOh, I see what you're saying. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MerlinAnd so you re-up your story and something that was a pretty good piece of stock has now in some ways been converted into a little bit of shitty flow.

AlexYes. Yep.

MerlinKind of. Because it's like, okay, no, I'm glad you bubbled that up. But it's really, and I understand this is the job. Understand you have to do this. You get paid for the clicks in one way or another. Nobody wants to say that, but ultimately that's true. That's true for Molly Haberman. It's true for everybody. it's true for us often well okay i guess whatever i i'm i always want fewer people to enjoy what i do i just want i want the right i want the right people to enjoy it 10 times more and everybody else to leave um but but um but but but but but no i'm just saying like okay so now

you're you're part of the discourse i guess because you're re-upping god that was really mean but that's pretty shitty flow that's because i already read it dude like that's why i'm following you like you're really looking to bring in some new folks who do that save search bullshit or similar like you want you want all those all those memoji people to be out there like wheezing juice yeah no that's not good flow but then what is good stock this post this snark

Alexmarket post is some pretty fucking good stock the well and and i maybe the that the the wow despite the the you know and mania and twisties and turns this this whole episode is coming together a little bit the the idea that uh i should close this tab about mckenzie davis is what i should do oh yeah she's she's she's one of the few like that real not really but i i like more femme people that i'm like yes hello you i i oh god oh who plays her girlfriend oh she was in

the the morning show or whatever oh i would want to be her friend um oh stock and flow and and i worry sometimes that the reason people are creating bad stock is because it it can be it it can become i spend all their day looking at flow

Merlinit's true for me man i didn't have time to make good stock i had to make 140 characters of fucking flow uh tell me about this the role this has you know like real talk tell me about the role this has in your life. What are the kinds of, if you can say, what are the kinds of things where this has

been a valuable framework for understanding your decision-making, for example, or whatever,

Alexor run with it? I've probably talked about this many times for literal years at this point on this show about how I, whenever I buy something, I try to think, am I going to be sad if I throw this away or do I want it with me for the rest of my life? Like think, think about, I wanted to, I want to think about like a charger essentially as a, um, not a, or a novelty charger, not like the, you know, I'm trying to like, like a novelty, uh, Qi charger or something.

MerlinI'll give you an example. I'll give you an example. Like one time, one time I forgot my headphones and I had to go on a long flight. So I ended up going into a really stupid, not even a Sony store, some kind of bullshit airport store and like spending a ridiculous amount of money for even like pretty basic headphones. But like I even knew, and one reason that felt shitty, I felt dumb that like I hadn't, you know, lived up to that deal with myself about remembering to pack headphones, but also that I was buying headphones I don't want or need. So like buying headphones to me is, headphones should be stock.

I don't want to own headphones that are flow, but look, look at me. I just had to buy these headphones. I can't imagine I'm ever going to use again, which feels bad. And it kind of relates to your talking about like one reason you want that backpack is you want the best backpack. You want your backpack to be stock, not flow. It isn't like you're going to get it and then like just pitch it if you didn't like it or give it to somebody, right? That should be stock, not flow.

AlexYeah. And you said something really good, something like you can only afford the best.

MerlinI think that's an old I feel like that's an old phrase when you're not when you're poor but like when you don't have a lot of money you can only afford the best

AlexI'm by no means poor and my no means rich but that's why

Merlinthat can mean lipsticks and pencils that means lipsticks and pencils too

Alexexactly yeah like those black ring pencils quite costly but they have become so useful in my life

Merlinbut it's not like a BMW or something you know also the best the best could be like the best you know hybrid car for what you can afford like you

Alexyou can't afford that for years you've researched and then it finally happened well and like like

Merlini've said i've said this a million times about synologies yeah it's like you don't want to fuck up if you economize in the wrong way on a synology you obviate the entire obviate you you um my alex coxson you're not going to get the best out of what a synology is for like i think it's in the same way that some people would say, like, to sell an iPhone that has 64 gigs or whatever. Like, I feel that way about Synology even offering a two-bay Synology. Like, that's irresponsible.

It's such a bad idea.

AlexNo, it's not, though.

MerlinWell, if you've never done a NAS before, it seems sensible. But what are you going to do? You're going to put one 10-gig drive in there and another 10-gig drive.

AlexAnd then you're going to buy another one.

MerlinWell, you now have a total of 10 gigs. because if you need to, like for regular, the way that generally SHR, whatever it's called, works is you get basically 50% of your total gigs. Or you could be like Casey and get the full amount and just have it all wreck if it dies. But no, no, no. But like you lose, what is it that makes a Synology good? Now, I've been through this. My first Synology was a two-bay Synology and I used it for about a month before the payoff that I got from learning their dumb interface

was not reflected in the usefulness I could get out of that small amount of space. But you're now fucked in so many ways. Well, first of all, like, you have really limited amounts of space. Well, no problem. I'll just put two 20-gig drives in there. Like, okay, or terabytes. You know what I mean. Okay, great. Well, now, like, if that dies, like, first of all, it's a really costly drive to have in there. Versus if you spend more and you get a six-bay drive, you could even just start putting all sixes in there.

And then you can start introducing eights. So the rule of thumb is on a Synology is like you are going to get – you're basically – you're limited in terms of the smallest drive that's in your bay because that's the amount of protection that you get. But you've lost all flexibility if you've got those two. I'm sorry. I'm ranting on. But that's such an expensive mistake that feels like you're doing the right thing.

AlexAnd I would argue that it is intentionally a mistake.

MerlinThey want you to buy two?

Alexit's eventually the whole stock and flow thing gets me to the perils of capitalism in in that like sure there are people who can only afford 64 gigabyte phones right and so but there are so many sub part products and i'm not just even talking about fast fashion and bullshit and just because

Merlinit's costly doesn't make it good don't don't assume that the costly one is the good one especially

Alexan apple oh god oh my home pods they massacred my boy oh i know we gotta talk about that in the

Merlinafter show put on the list but if you walk into an apple store like they're not going to tell you oh by the way this got eol last week like this is unless you really know what you're getting here unless you just need like six of this particular computer that won't exist soon yeah or your home pod like home pods heck you know you might want to gobble those up because are great but you know i'm saying like it's been a long time since you could say to somebody somebody who doesn't know quote-unquote anything about computers to say okay go in and buy this

macbook pro and i can almost promise you it's the one that will be good or this ipad or whatever it's been a lot the trade-offs between all those things the butterfly keyboard years there's all these things where like if you don't have a rabbi or a sherpa you could make a really costly mistake because as nice as those geniuses and helpers are they're not going to tell you a thing that

Alexall of your apple friends now and most people do not have apple friends and most people don't have the time to reach like most people aren't freaks looking at backpacks for

Merlinit's like being couches like the 10 years i spent looking for a couch like who does that

Alexlike i i could afford to wait to get to get my oh i'm i'll stop talking about my car but i fucking love it but like i could afford lifts for a little bit suffice you know but like for all

Merlinlong for us it was like this this couch is the wrong scale for our house if we can get this up the steps boy you better hope you like your 1200 or 3000 dollar couch because that's what couches cost it's mental you better hope it's the right size and it works with the coffee table and i'm doing fucking 3d modeling to go you know what i like the depth i like the height of this for sitting i like the depth of this but if we do that depth are you ready for this the legs of the couch we don't have enough space with where our area rug is so the front paws of the couch would be

resting on a carpet thus creating an evil knievel style ramp and i can't live with that forever so now we need a new rug too you be careful what you get it's easy you know what i'm sorry i'm sorry i don't know what's wrong with me today i'm very stimulated i'm just so angry about life alex it's It's just everybody is all just cock-ups. Cock-ups all the way down.

AlexPassionate, passionate. Not, well, angry at, you can be, I'll allow you to be angry at home, Kit.

MerlinI'm not angry. I am, I am. People have been persecuted. But stock and flow seems to extend to other things in your life as well. We need to wrap this soon because it's an hour 38 and we can't do four hours of content every week. That's insane.

AlexOh, every week, every week. I'm so sorry. Guys, we can't do video every week.

MerlinI can't believe we start the show at what feels like morning and then I text my family when we're done. And it's the end of the day. It's the end of the day.

AlexEspecially for me. I'm like, oh.

MerlinBut that's good. Hopefully people like it. Give us your fucking money.com.

AlexPlease do.

MerlinThis seems to really affect your thought process, though, in terms of like I had some fun at your expense last week where I said, oh, yeah. So your big insight is before you buy something, you decide whether you want to own it. But that's actually pretty good.

AlexYeah, pretty much.

MerlinDo I want this to have cubic inches of my house in mind?

AlexUh-huh. I mean, I'm and I am struggling now as we I we're trying to get. I've been saying it again. I know. But we are trying to get. No, no, no, no. I've got it. Oh, I love it. Oh, you got a car. Did. Oh, I guess maybe I didn't want to talk about this.

MerlinOh, my God. You only wake me for the important meetings. I don't know what you're leaving in Michigan and picking up in Illinois. I'm confused.

AlexOh, yeah, I know. I know. There's many. Oh, no, I got a.

MerlinI should get on your sub stack.

AlexSee, oh, Lord. I do apparently have a sub stack.

MerlinPardon my saying. That was a little forward. I'll be your sub, your DOM stack.

AlexGosh, no, dearth challenge.

MerlinOh, boy.

AlexThanks, ma'am.

MerlinStock flow.

AlexI'm also, like, as we're trying to get rid of things, God, the one thing I struggle with so much is getting rid of books. Like, really, really struggle because I'm like, it's a sunk cost fallacy for me where I'm like, I spent so much time reading Lena Dunham's book, and hate is a strong word, but I am okay with saying I hate that book.

MerlinI'm even worse because I don't want to throw out books I haven't read or, you know, donate whatever, blah, blah.

AlexYeah, yeah. And now I'm almost, this sounds really cruel until you think it through, at least I hope, is I'm also trying to apply stock and flow to the relationships in my life in that I want to think about, okay, is this a relationship or is it a working relationship or an acquaintance?

MerlinI see why you think that could sound mean, but I totally get what you're saying. Yeah. Because you're thinking about like, I was thinking of my friend Jonathan. This is going to sound so dumb, but Jonathan, at one point, he had this really stupid brain dead easy thing in his life. And I know you all have heard this term, but his term was one in, one out. and so he would not acquire a new pair of shoes without getting rid of an old pair of shoes that's my new rule yeah it's a really smart rule and like he completely lived by it i got an order

from mac weldon coming in the next couple days that's gonna in part replace some of my uh i love their white t-shirts but they do get a little nasty like all white shirts over time right so like when those arrive this sounds wasteful but like i need if i have acquired two new white t-shirts I need to get rid of two white shirts at least. That's the thing. Like if you don't follow one in, one out in a general sense, you're going to need to buy a bigger place to live.

AlexAnd I really, oh, I really can't move yet.

MerlinAnd with friends, and I'm not saying you should do that with friends. I'm not saying you should do that with friends, but I am saying that like to maintain an act, you should do that with friends. If you, yeah. So like, but like you have to think about like, how much are you willing? because some girls are bigger than others. There are people who can be a real fucking energy drain. And like you have to ask yourself, what did I used to say, Alex? What do you want 10 times more of?

That used to be my bit was like, if it's going this way and the trend line continues to go this way, what makes you think it'll ever be less of that? So if you've got a fucking energy vampire in your life, like how many more of those do you want? Talk about one in, one out.

AlexWhat do you do if you love that person? It's really hard.

MerlinThat's complicated. That's really complicated.

AlexBut it also goes down to really things that I find simple, like email signatures. A thing that I see all the time is people sharing their pronouns in their signatures, which if you want to, totally. I do not want to have a... I love having trans 101 conversations here.

Merlinand we're like, you know, God bless you for it. It's helped me so much. No, but like, that's, that's the thing is, I know it's not your job, but my goodness. No, but that's the thing is,

AlexI have my pronouns in, in my, uh, two at a girl email, because that is, that is relevant. It is not relevant to the guy. Well, in the, in the past, like the guy who's who I'm working with at the venue to talk about like, Oh, what, what are you like? That's that. And, and I'm not saying don't ask questions like it's just i that is not my job in that situation my job is to make sure all of the shit is plugged in and that everything is charged and that you know my performers are fed and i it's like all right this is a flow relationship and there's nothing wrong with

that it's not that this guy is a bad person or a sexist or whatever i just don't want to talk about like uh maybe maybe after drinks at the bar and we get like a was you know i've made friends through work that it's like i'm not saying like don't let new people into your life i'm saying

Merlinwhen it's clearly like no but like this is as long as we're going slightly misogynistic with the end of this very long podcast i mean this this is if you scratch the surface of some of my pronouncements or public decisions about things, you're going to get close to something like what you're talking about here. If we're doing real talk here. It's hard on every level, honestly. And you know, there's that one thing I'm not going to do anymore. You're welcome to keep doing it, but I'm not going to keep doing that one thing. I'm just going to say what I think. I think you, I think at a very high level, you need, oh boy, maybe at the highest level,

is that you need to understand whatever got into your life. Well, that's, that's in your life. So, And I would say more of that has been allowed into your life than you would like to admit. But I don't see the upside, apart from a little bit of self-soothing from time to time, I don't see the upside of assuming that everything in life is visited upon you. And I don't mean to go all fucking Ayn Rand here, but I do think you really need to, even if that thing got put in your life by a boss or a partner or a family member,

here's a thought technology. what if you treated it like something you'd allowed into your life just for the sake of argument um because otherwise what's the alternative is like you're hopeless you're hopeless like you're in such a sad situation because of what the world keeps bringing to you it's such a bummer that you that isn't the way you want well what if for the sake of argument you had could have more of a role in that than you feel like you have right now well guess what it's about to get really fucking complicated. So when I say things like, it's important to me to have like blue ocean days,

it's really important for me to have a day where I don't have to do anything. And I don't even have a reason for that. It's not a day off. It's not necessarily a creative day. It's a day where I don't have anything to do. First of all, it gives me a ton of flexibility that I didn't have before. I guard it. I guard it so selfishly to keep things, keep open areas. When I am working on something, that's really valuable. Here's what else is valuable. It's like if there's something that turns out I do have to do, like for my family or something, like I don't have to cancel stuff.

That's really good too. There's all kinds of reasons to maintain capacity. If you want to go back to Joel Spolsky and the blocks in a box, that would be fine. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about not being at full capacity all the time. And now the kicker, that goes for everything. because there will be a day when all of those blocks want attention at the same time or need attention. And that's when you're mega fucked. If you don't maintain capacity, not only are you going to stress yourself out, you know what I mean? What I'm trying to say is maintain room

for other things to happen, for things to change. We see this during what we sometimes call silly season. We see this around WWDC. We see this around the holidays. We see this around Christmas or summer.

AlexYou see this around 2020. Well, for me, at least.

MerlinThat's true. But I mean, even like there's not a summer where my shit isn't a little bit fucked up by a cascading, overlapping scheduling cock up. You know, it might only look like if somebody you do a podcast with is sick today, like you can work that out. But like what happens with and this is even works in these fairly small circles, which is like, you know, Syracuse is going to be out of town. We can reschedule and that's cool. But guess what? He also does ATP that involves two other people who go on vacations.

So we have to accommodate both of our schedules now. But what if I find out, as I often find out, that John's just not around for a couple weeks, Roderick? Well, guess what? Then I have to go back and talk to Syracuse. And we'll Syracuse... You see what I'm saying, though? That's why I say holidays. Everybody has wrinkles at that time of year. And everybody at that time is hopefully pretty cool about accommodating the wrinkles of all of their pals. but what if we just again thought technology sick of argument assume that everybody has that all the time i know we don't but let's assume that we did let's assume that we all needed the ability to

move things around a little bit sometimes you know um how are we going to do that well we don't do that because we're lucky most of the time but if you don't if you've jammed your life full of obligations and commitments and you know so what are you going to do you're either going to break that commitment and lie to yourself and feel like a dick or you're going to try to keep servicing all of those my wife is going through this with meetings right now because her executive lady job is split between two groups that don't um organically interact and i was just you know

she's just talking about that the other day and it's kind of a stressful time for her because she works a lot she's just in hours and hours and hours of meetings every day and you know it's like i used to say nobody has an information nanny like nobody has somebody who's checking in with all the people that are stakeholders in your life to say like, hey, you know, they're doing stuff over here too, right? Like, you know, you know, that person's got a sick parent or, you know, that person's got this or that, or they're, they're, you know, their partner's a long haul or in COVID or whatever. You're just expecting to like, just do all the stuff as though you're the only person in the world that has to interact with that person.

And like, we've got to stop doing that, but we've also got to stop allowing a chronic level of overcommitment that turns your life into hell. Like not everything can be stock, including people. You can't, not everybody in the world can be your stock or you're going to let all of them down in a way that eventually will not look that cool on Instagram.

AlexIt's very good. It's all very good.

MerlinBut just tell us what things are called in HomeKit. It's not complicated. We can handle the information. we can handle it

Show notes

Transcript

232. Panatee

Show notes

Transcript

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