237. The University of Budnik

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann and Alex Cox. This week's challenge, get focused.

MerlinHey Siri, play Crazy by Narls Barkley. Were you playing it or not? What's going on? god apple music is such a trash fire uh-huh got that got that I can do a more.

Alexi was just kind of playing a game of chicken with you no you weren't you were muted i i know

MerlinYou can't play chicken when you're muted. That wouldn't be chicken.

AlexWould you just like my heavy breathing? What song is that?

Speaker AWhat song is that?

AlexWell, I was muted because I was enjoying your little jingle that was happening. But what is that pop song? What is it?

MerlinDunk, dunk, dunk, dunk. That song? I remember when.

AlexOh, Pitbull?

MerlinYes, Pitbull. Listen to Pitbull.

AlexCrazy. Ah, look at me. I'm hip. Wasn't that song from a decade ago?

MerlinNo, no, it's Narls Barkley. Crazy. It's crazy by Narls Barkley, but good try.

AlexOh, Narls Barkley? Oh, goodness gracious.

MerlinI was trying. I've been getting busy. I was just talking to Quinn.

AlexWhich one?

MerlinWhat?

AlexOkay. Well, when you say Quinn, do you mean our lovely editor and producer or the lovely YouTuber and Mac guy?

MerlinFirst of all, not everybody's lovely.

AlexI know, but the Queens are.

MerlinI want you to sit for a minute with this question that you just asked me. And if you're going to bring a bit into the show, I want you to bring the ruckus. Don't bring a little bit, bring a lot.

AlexOkay.

MerlinGive a little bit.

AlexAll right. I'm here to play.

MerlinI was talking to Quinn Nelson, who's lovely. What are you talking about? I need to get my pre-PC right. Check, check, check, check. And I tracked down a buzz. I think I found a buzz. Do you find, you know, this is the whoops all technology version of the show. Do you find. Wait.

AlexOops, I'll tech. Oops, I'll tech. I'm sorry.

MerlinDo you need me for this one?

AlexI'm sorry.

MerlinYou seem like you're going to be able to do this one all by yourself. I liked incidental. You're just going to say words.

AlexI liked incidental computer show. But all right. Oops, I'll computer. Sorry. Sorry. Go ahead. Sorry.

MerlinJust let me know when you're done.

AlexI'm done. I'm good.

MerlinThat's fine. No, you're going to drive this episode. Don't worry. You know what? Nobody cares. sometimes when like I was just tracking down a buzz I noticed it recording last night I noticed it recording today and I can't decide that this is one of those classic Merlin solved a problem by not actually solving a problem but I have heard it said that a lot of times a buzz is coming because of the mic cable yes it could be too close to something it could be because it's coiled and you're unintentionally creating an accelerator of noise

Alexand sometimes if you just move it it goes away this yeah i almost wanted we've never really put a couple of times we've put content warning on this show or rather like a lack of content warning like hey we're not gonna fucking talk about a lack of content where there's no warning or there's no content there's a warning for a lack of content like because we were dumb and thought that like we thought brett kavanaugh would not be on the supreme court uh and then we're like i was like

guys we're not talking about that we recorded this the day before but uh i almost like the the stress of cheap xlr cables is it's not really the bane of my existence anymore but i you can't explain like at least when software doesn't work you can sometimes explain why and if you can't You can say it's a bug, but if it is hardware, it's like, well, you plug it in. It just it should just work. It just works. And it honest, honest to God, like I work.

I've worked with so many audio professionals and it took Jason Snell being like, oh, is the cable like too close to stuff? Maybe is it moving around? Is the buzz going to stop? And I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? Six years and nothing. So anyway, sorry. What were you saying? There was a buzz. I need you for the show. I'm sorry.

MerlinOkay.

AlexPlease don't leave. I'm sorry.

Speaker ABut I mean, you know what? Nobody cares.

AlexYes, they do.

MerlinI have a lot of problems. I got Kernel Panics on two Macs.

AlexOh, wait, two? Is one on an M1?

MerlinYes.

AlexOh, wow.

MerlinBut the one that's doing it more, I got my first one on the M1 last night, but I've been getting them lots on the 2015 Retina iMac. and it seems like it might have some it looks like the common oh my god this is boring save it for the after show i think it's something to do with smb i'm not sure it looks like there's an smb thing that's always in there oh i thought it was clean my mac now here's the problem if you think you're getting colonel panics from clean my mac you go and you search and you search for colonel if you're like me you do colonel pan oh of course you're on duck.go so you never see anything

i switched back i'm a coward it's the worst i mean it's such a good idea and such a bad thing I put kernel panic in quotes and then clean my Mac because that appeared to be a factory that was showing up in the logs. Now, this is one of those classic, you know, locking your keys in your keys situation. Because one of the banner features nominally of clean my Mac, which I have very mixed feelings about as an app, is that it supposedly helps you not keep kernel panics. So what I'm mainly finding are marketing pages. This is how they get you.

AlexMarket. Oh, oh, weird.

Merlinweird oh because it's it sells itself as i mean this is like if you were what's the guy's name matt johnson if you're matt johnson in 2021 you would not in the age of google you would not name your english synth pop band the the which was very very clever in 1984 but it's a little difficult now yes i'm not ready for it yes there are other things like this um now i had heard it said that this one's really this is for the real uh the real heads who know the tech but i'd heard it said

that it's because you coil a cable and that something happens please it's so critical you not email me but the coiling of a cable is what it causes or enables a certain kind of amplification

Alexof noise does that have you ever heard that yeah sometimes literally putting a cell phone next to a cable can cause it to go wonky like i and i'm not sure why wow and you're talking here about just

Merlinyou're talking about not rj45 whatever xlr cables like we're not talking even about like the time i interviewed john vanderslice and his his weird cell phone noise was on the video the whole time checks out but you know i'm talking about it's the one that's not at&t it's the other one oh and does that that taca taca taca sound i feel like i know i'll send you a link it's on

Alexyoutube please remember to like and subscribe yes please uh i i i did i think i did a bad and i downloaded uh who moved my brain which is a talk you gave at rutgers i believe because i was like oh oh that was me no i think it was the guy with the folders but i uh you know i have the ability

Merlinto save a whole... Everything's legal in Jersey.

AlexMm-hmm. Yay!

MerlinWhat was that? I can tell from Twitter you're having a moment right now.

AlexI can tell. Wait, really? Why?

MerlinOh, yeah. You want everybody out there scanning Chicago scanners? Oh. You had a real hard-on for scanning radios

Alexlast night. Uh, no. Just cops in Chicago.

MerlinI read your tweets. I know why you were doing it. It just seemed like... If I had found out that that was actually a guerrilla marketing campaign for police scanner apps.

AlexThat would be amazing. Oh, my God.

MerlinAre you a buzz marketer? Be honest. You're always doing secret protection of people, and you're always giving it to me in confidence. Stop protecting people.

AlexI apologize. I apologize.

MerlinGet out there. Get up there.

AlexYou know what? I'm sorry. Let me get my black square out there. One day more. Oh, take a break.

MerlinThere's you. You're up there with your flag. um

Alexcalm

Merlincalm wilkinson oh

Alexdon't

Merlinhe's the og

Alexoh there we go yes yes there we are

Merlinhe's the guy who originated the english language role on broadway i believe so he's got a beautiful you know he's the one who does the famous i mean he's the one who kind of made that role and at least in

Speaker Aenglish um you know he's uh he's this guy let's see um um bring him home that's what colin wilkinson

Alexexcept he does it prettier because i think he might be irish oh oh ira where where we leaning into the lefties today. I mean...

MerlinThat's a different Ireland, but your message is taken.

AlexIs this Scotland? Oh, no, that's the European Union. Oh, doctor. Please don't tweet at me either. Sorry, sorry. I'm sorry.

MerlinSo I don't know if that's true, but now here's my question. This is like pretty okay good. I thought pretty okay good Mike Cable. It's pretty rigid, but I don't know if it's formally shielded. Is that a thing? And do I need to do that? Oh, by the way, I take your point about cheap mic cables because, you know, I was a PV guy. I was always had the cheapest equipment that would mostly work because I didn't have a lot of dough. And of course, when I bought mic cables, they were those like real spindly ones that probably had nothing even approaching shielding. Is there something I should be doing differently to keep my mic and cable things from contributing to potential noise over to you?

Alexyes that's what i've done and it hasn't been an issue and in fact i i kind of did like a stress test like it's it's i i got a 90 degree um that's the number right yes math like a left turn or right turn it's uh yeah a little a little a right a right turn it's like a three three o'clock or

Merlinnine o'clock yeah yeah um we and and this is i just also just so you know for our listeners this this is part of what makes it impossible it's not impossible alex is wonderfully prompt for things but alex is so fucking confused about clocks yes including in this case alex who's who uh i think i think uh i think they studied like french art in a fake college but did went to went to the university of budnick but uh but then alex also sometimes gets confused because they get confused about how the number three on the clock also means 15

and in their head also means 0.25. Yes. Is that correct? Yes. So if I say half past, because what I try to do, I try to avoid the East Coast problem.

AlexWait, the elites? What's the East Coast problem?

MerlinThe people who don't know the time zones exist.

AlexOh, I see. Yes, the elites.

MerlinOr that there are other people with lives that have their time zones that aren't theirs. And things like the trial in Minneapolis, I think, occasionally remind people, aha, there is a time zone called Central.

AlexThat's actually, I just realized that's why.

MerlinYou can see the people on CNN stepping on their own dicks going, all right, it's four o'clock. Three o'clock. Three o'clock. Wait a minute. Now, is it five o'clock or three o'clock? Because I don't understand which way directions go. Oh, yeah. I'm like Alex. I think when you say 3.25 p.m., you know, that means 25.60ths or half of the 50. What was the confusion? Do you remember the confusion? Am I remembering this correctly? One time we had a time and you got confused about whether or not time was metric.

AlexAm I remembering this right? I'm pretty sure. I mean, you're okay.

MerlinI said, I said, I think I said something like, well, do it at 11.30. And I think you thought that was 3 one hundredths, 3 one hundredths.

AlexProbably. Well, that's even the number that you just said.

MerlinIt should be around 20 after. Yeah.

AlexEven the number you just said, I don't know. What computer? Merlin, what's the most popular computer in the, well, okay. iPhone. I know that technically, yes, yes. The most popular operating system, sure, Android. But the most popular phone, iPhone. And why is that? It's not an Apple II. It's not even a Macintosh. It's which we moved on. We have digital clocks. We have the technology. And if for some reason I need to learn how to use a sundial again, you know, it's great.

All you need is the sun and you can figure it out.

MerlinAll you need is the sun and you'll figure out a sundial.

AlexYes. Yeah. Well, in like a stick, right?

MerlinDo you think that's true?

AlexI OK. Oh, got to put that. All right. I'm going to put that in the fucking jail and she put that in the parking lot.

MerlinAbsolutely.

AlexNo, because Mr. Burns, when he when Mr. Burns is shot, he falls down on that sundial.

MerlinHe also turns off the sun at one point, if memory serves. That's what led to him. That's what led to him being shot. Spoilers.

AlexYeah.

MerlinIt's also the source of the great line from Jasper. Let me get it in the voice. You shot who in the what now? Remember that?

AlexI'm a monster.

MerlinYou shot who in the what now?

AlexOh, no. Oh, no.

MerlinHello. My name is Mr. Burns. I believe you have a letter for me. That's a good show. I like The Simpsons. The Simpsons was funny.

AlexOh, God. I love The Simpsons. I'm trying to learn all the gay character voices for The Simpsons just because it's fun.

MerlinI want to come back to you and your sundial.

AlexOh, the human brain isn't. It's not a hard drive. It's RAM. So why would I need to.

MerlinA stock and flow. Yeah.

AlexYeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. Wow. All right. Go on.

MerlinNo, keep going. This is great. Keep going.

AlexNo, that's it. That's it.

MerlinThe human brain is not a hard drive. It's, what is it, RAM?

AlexIt's, you only have a certain amount of RAM in your brain. And then your long-term memory is your hard drive. And I don't need exactly how to use an analog clock in my hard drive. I got it backed up.

MerlinGive me a situation where you apply the thing you just said.

AlexOkay.

MerlinIt's like where you're saying, sort of like Daddy used to say, your brain makes a terrible alarm clock and a terrible whiteboard. yes yes like don't and also oh god poor em is doing similes and metaphors right now

Alexoh no like or as oh it's like or it's like or as a real pain in the ass

Merlinum but that's the thing is you're using this as a controlling metaphor for your wetware if you pardon my saying uh yeah yeah or so essentially you're saying clocks schmocks you're not saying

Alexthat because that doesn't make any sense. No, no. I'm not saying smocks. I hate this show. I used

Merlinto like doing this show and now I hate it. I don't understand the show anymore. I know. I don't know what we're doing here. I don't hate it. So do I need to get a shielded cable? I'm going to go look up what I got. What's it called? Is it called XLR cable? XLR is the little, the pointies, but.

AlexYou're in a band. What's happening? Yes, they are the ones, the female, male.

MerlinWell, we don't say that anymore We say master and slave now XLR cable Nope, nope, nope I get the iCloud lifter, which I bought two of and never use I'm saying mic cable I don't understand the cloud lifter

AlexCable, cable, cable

MerlinYou know what? This is so boring I'm really sorry that I just wasted 19 minutes of our time Because you have written so many things in the doc

AlexDid I?

MerlinDid you?

AlexYes, I did

MerlinI see at least five items in here.

AlexYes, yes.

MerlinIncluding, I think, a reference to my daughter, but I'm not sure.

AlexCorrect, correct.

MerlinThat's more comfortable. Are we doing these in order?

AlexAll right, should we go? Well, no, let's save this for the after show since it's Synology related in a good way. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

MerlinOkay, you can take off my foo. You could be my Syracuse. You could take out all the things that make the document easier to use.

AlexNo, see, we could have one dock. I could open it with a single...

MerlinI always have at least a FUA bar. I always have at least in an array of three UL items, I always have a FUA bar and a bat. And that gives me options.

AlexThat's not...

MerlinBecause I don't want to have to do, I don't want to have to do, what is it? Shift return to go up because that doesn't always add a bullet. That means I can start because I want to put things in the right place. And if you have a FUA bar and a bat, that gives you the opportunity to put things in the right place. You always leave a foo at the top and a bar or a bat at the bottom, and that gives you the opportunity to put things into an array of unordered list items. Because also, my keyboard command doesn't work here. My universal control command up arrow, down arrow does not work in Google Docs. It works everywhere but there in drafts.

AlexDo you need me for this one?

MerlinWhat you do, though, is you can – I have a binding, as we say in the community, for control, command, up and down arrow. And by the way, the arrow key is on that new keyboard. Fuck me. I'm so glad I'm not getting that Mac. Control command up and down. And that moves rows up and down. And even you can select multiples and then I'll move those. Are you aware of this?

AlexI am. That is not my issue.

MerlinI'm loving the Foo.

AlexI'm a big TKTKTK fan. Big, big.

MerlinI have that as a text expander.

AlexWell.

MerlinAlways keeps it all capitalized.

AlexOh, God, that's so smart. I'm adding that right now.

MerlinJust in case you accidentally typed a Polish name. They're changing in Ellis Island from Taka Taka Taka Taka. That's incredibly stupid. Okay.

AlexMy issue is how many of these exist. Right now, if my number... Yes, there are 237 Google Docs that exist for this show, for show notes. But why not have one doc?

MerlinWe didn't think about it too much at the beginning.

AlexWe could have one URL.

MerlinBut there's upsides and downsides. In RectDiffs, it's all in one document until I can no longer understand how long it takes to load. And then I cut off part of it. Because if you want to go check diffs, if you want to go see updates, it takes bloody forever. Because I think it's manually parsing through this entire hundreds and hundreds of pages long document. And in our case, we just do separate ones. So I have a launch bar memory where I just bring up everything. And that's docs.google.com that contains DBF. that's how I find things

Alexwell no that's how I find it

Merlinso what's your issue? would you call it an issue? you got an issue?

AlexI want to I just want

MerlinI love doing this show with you Alex

Alexwhat do I want? what do I want? because I've gotten so horny do you want me? is that the way to end the show? is that it? is this the key change challenge?

Merlinis that you're dropping the keys?

AlexI have gotten real horny for, God, this is boring, the notes application Obsidian, because it works with my brain the way that I didn't know I needed it to, because I note card things.

MerlinBut it is like something like, as with something, sorry, simile, as with something like Craft or DevonThink, it's kind of a, you don't have to be necessarily all in, but it wants to be like a lifestyle app. In that case, it's almost like, in other words, it's almost like a, to say it's a wiki is a little bit not fair to everything it does. But it's almost like a Markdown-based wiki where you create somewhere between mind maps and a wiki, but all Markdown-based, right?

AlexYes. And mind maps have never worked for me. Like I, my nodes are wonderful. It does when I'm like very clear, like here are the points I want. I just want to like restructure them.

MerlinI use it exactly until the moment that I go, I really don't need this anymore. I don't like spending a lot of time in it. And I do. There's a reason I have that key binding, which is I just live in bulleted markdown lists. It's like where I do everything.

Alexexactly exactly and so the thing with oh god we got we should have a i don't i see i don't know if you would if this would even be your uh type of thing because it's uh like i use it primarily for

Merlinlike brainstorming and research a mind map or obsidian uh obsidian hey tell tell the people i mean i i gave a real shitty description of it and i know people like david everybody seems to have like a fetish app you know like like like was notion the one federico really likes and craft

Alexcraft is uh yeah craft is also one of my kinks obsidian's oh like my bottom bitch we did a craft we did a craft on here yeah i love craft but obsidian and well and drafts too but obsidian

Merlinyou create so how does it was give me give people a sense of the paradigm for this i think don't you start by creating like a like something like a what you might call a space or a project what

Alexare they calling nope you just start a note so literally just you know command n hello world dot md yeah yeah and that just creates you know a dot md and then you can i i typically title my notes so you know uh with you know pound side privilege oh octothorpe alex well i actually have something that is pound signed. I did sort of create like my own wiki type thing for random

Merlinshit. I think that can be very, I can think that can be very valuable. Stick it, like Stick it, later Sandy. Stick it used to be great for that. It was so great for just like a place where all your stuff goes. I don't even know what that is. Oh, Rail Dornfest made, um, Rail, Rail, who used to work at O'Reilly and he made all these great apps and he used to make something called Stick it with two Ks. Go check it out. Oh my God, you would have loved Stick it. I'll see if it's so we can find anything about it. Anyway, personal wiki.

AlexWell, and so I have a dashboard that has my podcast, my health, my apartment, and then you can link to anything because it's Markdown.

MerlinOh, so you have sections for your, like Craft, you have sections for your various realms.

AlexBut this has a way more robust backlinking system because, and okay, So if people don't know what backlinking is, because I didn't really understand it. So I'm going to try to explain it.

MerlinThis is also what this is also what Hook is pretty great for. I feel a challenge. I feel a challenge, a follow up challenge coming here.

AlexYeah. Oh, man. Like, so. All right. So I've got this dashboard that is like sort of the table of contents of my my own personal

Merlinwiki and in Obsidian in Obsidian.

AlexAnd what that. And so then let's and I'm just like, all right, whatever. I'm just going to do a new note and type various things. And at the bottom, I'm like, oh, if I refer to something like VR or like the new HTC Vive, like I am I just put that in double brackets like you would any wiki. And even if you don't have a note that it like another markdown file, you can basically create it right then and there.

MerlinIt makes basically the equivalent of what on Wikipedia we think of as like red text.

AlexYes. And then you can just go forward and back. And what it also, I'm really not sure. And it also, admittedly, it does look cool because it goes, there is a graph that makes it look like your brain and it's very pretty. But that's kind of useful for me. I don't have like any everything in here the way David Sparks does. And that's the thing. I think it is very it people use used in very, very different ways. And it also has just such a nice community of folks.

Like I like that's cool. I'm going to be that person. The notion and Rome people just fucking go at each other and not in a cute like haha iPad versus Mac OS way.

MerlinThe notion people seem a little bit like the home assistant. Yeah. a little bit like the home assistant people where like every thread has to begin with post your code and then the next one is you post your code but you didn't have the right number of spaces and stuff like that like that kind of thing and this really belongs over in this other reddit

Alexor something like like no this is uh this is not the way you should do this like that that's a roam thing that's a notion thing oh well that's not what this is this is for oh it's worse it's more like uh vim mini max kind of thing yes and spaces and tabs yeah oh yeah oh not quite as oh not i don't want to steal that angry valor israel and palestine will be doing keg stands

Merlinthis sounds like a john zarnielle song israel and palestine will be doing keg stands before the spaces and tabs people ever find a way to keep it in their collective pants and the chicago cubs

Alexoh boy uh how should we start should we start the show so obsidian has a community oh like their forums the fora i keep forums fora fora floras sorry uh for

Merlinforums and faunas i i don't know man sometimes i just want to tear my eyes out uh or my ears out because like I'm, people hate this. I'm still so mad about the voice stuff.

AlexOh.

MerlinLike no matter what I say to the, this is one of the most basic things that I do. And this, believe me, this drives my daughter crazy. We went over it this morning, like about half an hour ago, which is that what I will say to the, I will say, hey dingus, West lights on. Or I say, hey dingus, West lights off. and west it doesn't really matter because it's not totally germane but west west is a on in the world of apple lady uh west is a zone there's a zone called west there's a zone called east

and so that's where zones can be really helpful like there's this half of the house after nine o'clock this half of the house and that half of the house are doing different things like i might be fixing to go to bed but still have the lights on i'm watching tv and i make a snack and that's not going to bother somebody in the West area. I sure don't want stuff turning on in the East area because that's going to wake up our sweet lizard boy and I guess my daughter.

AlexAh, yes, yes.

MerlinBut like, shouldn't I just be able to say, hey, dingus, West lights on, West lights off? Yes. And like, it's the basic USB problem of like, it seems like if we're going to get that wrong, it would be about 50-50. It's so desperately close to 50-50 that no matter what I say, it gets it wrong. I get it wrong. so I'm pretty sure lots of times I have said hey dingus west lights on and then it and then it says something real sassy like um it could be Apple's more of the like I can't do that thing whereas

the Amazon lady is more like we can't I can't do that on this device or you have to be specific about your lights or whatever and then I end up just saying west on or west off and sometimes one works and not the other and then as you know as stipulated sometimes I say hey dingus here I go and it says, here's the song Here I Go by Mystical, which now shows up in my recommendations everywhere because every time I leave my office for two weeks, it thinks I want to listen to something called Mystical. And that drives me crazy. So I look at this Obsidian, and this is why I'm looking to say this and why I want to tear out parts

of my face, is I look at Obsidian and I did play with it a little bit. It looks cool. Definitely a lifestyle app.

AlexNo, see, I just, okay. Sorry for interrupting. Sorry.

MerlinSo this is an app. well let me finish my thought and then I'll hear more about obsidian which our users will love um but this is this is where I'm on the horns of a paradox dilemma which is like I want everything to work with voice so as I have deployed I've gone I'm much more close to the Cox household at this point in that I have deployed many HomePods mini Mary Mary Mary I have deployed many money home pot at home office

because I want to because you know when do the good ideas Alex I don't think I even need to make this a bit when do the good ideas come what room are you in when the good ideas come

Alexwell normally shower

Merlinincludes the shower it includes the shower

Alexit's yeah no yeah when you're shitting

Merlinyeah don't you agree

Alexand I don't want to yeah that's why well shitting peeing

Merlinbathroom hands toothbrush well it'll be like when I go to spend a penny and I walk by something and out of the just the dumbest thing in the world, which is exactly the dumbest thing in the world is what all of this stuff is for ultimately, which is I realized, oh, that's right. I'm still using these number six coffee filters because they were out of number four coffee filters. Not a huge deal, but someday I would like to have the right coffee filters again. So as I'm going to spend a penny, I can now yell into the HomePod mini in my bathroom. And I says to her, I says, hey, dingus, remind me to order number

four coffee filters in two hours. And it's the best. It's amazing. Not only that, I mean, I can listen to Sonic Youth on four different speakers deployed around my office, which my neighbors love. You really get schizophrenia blazing at 445. People love that. but, but, but, and so like, there's so much stuff where I like, I just want to like put this down somewhere. And I think I've mentioned, this leads me to things like saying hey dingus you know whatever it's called i have to do it several times to get it

right but like create a note called garage or or you know what i mean and then now i can just say um you know hey dingus add garbage bags to my garage note stuff like that like i just want to be able to throw stuff into the equivalent of an omni-focus inbox yeah you know i want to be able to hurl stuff in somewhere and then process it at the end of the day even as i candidly just kind I really just don't use OmniFocus anymore. I don't even open it anymore because it's not, I don't need it for the stuff in my life right now.

But like I want to be able to hurl stuff into a notional inbox, a single inbox ideally, and then deal with it. But then that also is where, and this is where we pivot to how you use this app, is like that is all fuel. It's all Tinder for stuff. You just don't know the things for which it is Tinder yet.

Alexyep and that is well that's why i use giraffes for still where text starts with with typing though right usually with typing i know i have a shortcut well yes um do you own your watch or okay uh well my the problem that happened this morning is my electric toothbrush finally died so i got a new one and it's too loud so now the home pod can't hear it's above the electric toothbrush

MerlinI got a Colgate Hum for Christmas and I really like it. It puts your tooth brushing into Apple Health.

AlexWait, really? Wait.

MerlinYeah. H-U-M. Hum.

AlexHum. Hum.

MerlinIt guides you. It guides you to get all the parts right so it becomes like a video game.

AlexOh.

MerlinAnd now every night I brush my teeth for over two minutes because I want to win the video game. And then that throws that. And it shows your problem areas and where you need to work on. You would love Hum by Colgate. I'll find it for notes.

AlexI use a... I use a game. The Pokemon game.

MerlinThe one with the little, oh, we used to have the one with the little monsters.

AlexThe, yeah, yeah. No, well, Pokemon.

MerlinNo pocket monsters, but.

AlexYeah, they're not the canonical pocketable monsters, but there's just this game called Pokemon Smile, and it's just basically a timer, and it shows you where to brush, and it will do it by a. Dental, dental. It's really.

Tee, teeth, teeth, teeth, teeth, teeth.

MerlinTee, teeth, teeth, teeth.

Alexbut uh that that apple health thing is actually great here's this your current one is too loud for the for the home pub miney in your bathroom yeah it it or uh or my shortcut has stopped

Merlinworking so who knows oh god you really don't want to get me started on that buddy yep yep so i'm so fuck up Alex every week. I'm still so fucking mad. It's such garbage. What happened? I don't know. What has happened? Why don't shortcuts work on HomePod that used to work? Is it because I'm on? No. You know what? I am on a beta on a couple of things, but not on the HomePod.

AlexI'm not on. Oh, well, that might be part of it, but I'm not on a beta of anything. But at one

Merlinpoint last year the command still works on my watch so when i come home and i walk in and i say hey dingus watch live tv until a month or two ago that worked fine with my home pod situated next to my tv and so finally i was like okay fine whatever internet weather as john sirkisa says but then on a whim i tried it on my phone and it worked fine i tried it on my goddamn watch and if memory serves it worked fine it's just on the home pod it goes or like when i do that shortcut i've got of like me i just say hey dingus charge my watch and all it does is it throws me a notification in

70 minutes yeah i've told you this it says back to me in the sassiest of sassy voices it goes um ma i don't have a battery on here or something like that trying to be a smart ass it's like

Alexhaving a seventh grader in a tube yeah it's that time of the month you know my daughter started

Merlindoing this she started doing she really picked it up this morning we went to get breakfast and she's really started doing this noise a lot she begins her responses to me with this you ready she opens with a dismissive raspberry

Alexoh god the most problematic fruit more than bananas i well or elton john am i right no that's uh kevin spacey um oh you know what fair yeah yeah I did not like him before. It was cool.

MerlinOh, yeah. You didn't like Seven?

AlexOh, he's a tremendous actor. I think I just think he's a kind of a monster of a human being based on the accounts of people.

MerlinIt's easy to say now. Easy to say now.

AlexOh, so I in it's wild because what's his name? My beloved Anthony Rapp wrote all about this in his memoir from like a decade ago.

MerlinIs Anthony Rapp the rent and Star Trek guy?

AlexYes, he was the OG in Rent. But yeah, I'm like, ah, so because the game.

MerlinWhat's his character's name?

AlexMark. I'm Mark. I'm told that I am the Mark of the Rent cast, which I don't know how I feel about that. But it's also true.

Okay. All right. So.

MerlinI'm the Mandel. Take me out. tonight won't you light my candle

Alexyou can do better than Roger she can do better than Roger too

MerlinRoger I like that actress though Elphaba she's good

Alexso good

Merlinshe's really something that Elphaba performance can you imagine being suspended in the air singing one of the greatest Broadway songs of all time like lawyer on a wire in green makeup every night of course the greatest achievement of all time probably in that instance and i do make my kid watch this every two months is we watch the tony's performance of um oh fuck what's her name in dream girls 1981 um oh shit i feel so bad sorry paul um but there's um but the woman who does the original famous she originated the role in dream

girls and she's the one who sings uh and i'm telling you i'm not leaving you ever seen that

Alexperformance uh i yes it's it is fucking amazing but this is the one from the 80s right it's one

Merlinof the great performances. We'll be watching it in the after show and you can watch it with us if you go to patreon.com slash Dubai Friday or give us your fucking money.com. Jennifer

AlexHoliday. Oh gosh. Jennifer Holiday.

MerlinI see nine. This is really bad and probably honestly a little racist, but I also think Confuser with Jennifer. Jennifer Hudson does the one in the Jamie Foxx movie because that's a really good one too. Have you seen that one? Yes.

AlexAnd I love it. And the, but I can also see that it's because they do have both Jennifer H. Yeah. And they have a similar aesthetic and played the same role.

MerlinBut you're watching the Jennifer Holiday performance. And I'm like, honey, are you really getting this? Look at this lady, this big lady with this giant voice. She gets like a minute into that song and you're like, oh my God, I hope she's going to be okay. And then it just keeps going up and up and up until you're like, okay, this is the greatest performance we've ever heard. Well, guess what? It's about to get three times more lit in the last like 40 seconds of that song.

Well, she just goes to this level and you're like, how are you finding the reserve of energy for this? And then I turn to my daughter and I say to her, I say, she used to do this eight days a week, like eight performances, eight performances a week. Can you imagine having to do that? I mean, you think about that with a lot of stuff in Hamilton, but like having to go and sing. And I'm telling you eight performances a week. Forget it, man. I get tired riding the scooter to my office.

Alexand the thing is these like these amazing broadway performers are often sacrificing their voices

Merlinlike by the time well there's a snarky guy there's a snarky guy on youtube he's one of those guys you never you don't even know what he looks like or sounds like and all he does is do clips and he does like who sang this note best from all these different songs he's obviously you know i don't know he's a little bit of a pill um and there's one where like it's like his whole discursive video essay from other people's footage of how adina menzel the yeah yeah that is her actual how adina menzel's voice has been shredded and ruined from having to do wicked oh fuck that and

basically just like and of course by the end i mean he's doing these performances and i'm like wait she still sounds great she's just not 20 anymore yeah like it's you fucking idiot it's a

Alexhuman body like like i that speaks yes the talent of how like i i i i know that noise that was a dismissive raspberry they're gonna be popular oh oh circle circle back real quick uh to to your daughter sorry your brain and your process who no no no um from a very very beginning of what might be the show is where you uh you well i believe it was rec diffs where you noted that

your daughter wears a mask in a car and doesn't yeah it is just more diligent with her mask than

Merlinthe rest uh than you she she is she likes having it and she's also like i'm i am i'm i'm compared to any average bear i'm pretty great about masks but in our household i am far and away the most lax as in like i will take out the trash without putting a mask on not me but like no and you know madeline like she makes a big show out of it like if like a guy came in to do some work on the house the other day and she's doing this whole like dracula thing with her with her face and her elbow going like i'm going to the other room and but with em is a scold like straight up of like

you cannot walk out the door without putting a mask on so yes you're right the well and but i am

Alexsort of the same way. I do not want to scold people, but I do think it is indeed more comfortable

Merlinfor me because I literally the other day. So in Reckditz, I was quoting her and I did a voice, but on the way for me to get my J&J a month ago, I said, honey, we're in the car. You can take the mask off. And my wife said that she likes to keep the mask on even in the car. And they spend a lot more time in the car than I do. And I said, look, honey, you can take it off. And my daughter literally goes, it's more comfortable.

AlexYou really adopted them. The OCCO is bored.

MerlinHey, go Google Stick It. S-T-I-K-K-I-T. I need to check your results for something. Google Stick It.

AlexS-T-I-K-K-I-T.

MerlinS-T-I-K-K-I-T.

AlexNope, nope, nope, nope.

MerlinS-T-I-K-K-I-T.

AlexK-K-I-T. There we go. K-K-I-T. The first is it's daring. We got daring fireball, lifehacker, CNET.

MerlinOkay, okay, okay. You're getting over your skis here. Click on images.

AlexOh, click on images.

MerlinWhat are you up those lozenges at the top? What do you get for lozenges at the top?

AlexWhat do you mean?

MerlinOK, so like under where it says all maps video images and above where the actual images are. Do you get the lozenges where you can like drill down into sub areas or like add this to your search?

AlexOh, oh, advanced search. Yeah, but I don't have that on automatically.

MerlinNo, I see. Here's what I'm getting. Two things that reference me. and I'm wondering if it's because I'm on my search. I see what you're saying. Are you seeing 43 folders and Merlin

AlexMan? Are you getting that? I thought that you, I apologize. I thought you meant like a hamburger thing, but the like pill-shaped thing because images there's Merlin Man and then Patrick Haney. Are you getting that? Yep.

MerlinNotes. 43 folders. No shit. How cool

Alexis that? Yeah, that's incredibly cool. It's

Merlinfrustrating when you're trying to actually find something. Like when you're trying to like, God damn it, I know I know the answer to this. And then you find something that one has written and you're like, well, that system didn't work.

If I knew what I was doing, I wouldn't have to write about it. Stick it. Look how pretty that is. Wouldn't you love to have that?

AlexWell, that's the thing is I kind of, I sort of have that now. Well, not the Kalen. Oh, God, I would love this. Oh, my gosh.

MerlinDo you see that? Like it's a beautiful Web 2.0. And this is 2000 and I want to say six probably.

AlexOh, wow.

MerlinYeah, I was so into this app. And it was really great at what you're talking about. And we kind of interrupted you, of course. But I think you were talking about what you call backlinks. But just that ability to understand that it's linking to something with a hypertext link is extremely helpful. Because it's a way of saying, you're here on this part of the computer machine. And I want to take you over to this other part of the computer machine. Right. So whether that's in like whatever, gopher or or, you know, any kind of hypertext is handy.

But then how great is it to go like, show me everything that linked to this page. Yep. And like, I know we know that exists, but like this is what makes Wikipedia so powerful to me. Wikis in general, but Wikipedia in particular is then you get categories and but you get all this stuff without having to do any new amount of metadata or organization. it just knows like okay show me everything that linked to this that's really good to know that's what made google google originally was like being smart about what about about what things link to

other things and who has the most wuffy i do want to be able to yell in the air and just have it show up though that's the thing when i look at something like this obsidian i just wonder like i'm trying to be better about not going too far all in on something where i disappear into the app that

AlexYeah.

MerlinRepresents a new alcove. And then I leave that. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not trying to be that guy. But I do like stuff that's like that can run fairly stock and then do stuff with it once it's someplace. But like, I'm getting a little bit like I still love playing with these. I think craft is amazing. And they've had some nice updates recently.

AlexAnd another nice community, too.

MerlinThat's cool. Hey, can I recommend something to you?

AlexYes, please. I can't believe. Real quick. I'm trying. I was just scanning this, but I'm like, how it's, it's driving me bonkers. How did I miss this? Was this a, was this a paid app? Because I can understand me.

MerlinNo, I think he made it while he was at O'Reilly and he'd had several later on. No, you might've seen the later version of this that was candidly not as cool, which is the more like, we're going to try and make this a business that was called Sandy or ask Sandy or something like that. Do you remember Sandy?

AlexI feel like I do and didn't love it.

MerlinNo, no, no. No, this was much more pure and just the fact that it looked like a sticky note, but then did all of this stuff. Again, the classic. There's power under the hood, but there's a reason we have a hood on the car. It's because you want stuff in the instrument panel that you put your hands to, but then there's other stuff over here. That's a terrible analogy, like or as.

AlexLike and or as.

MerlinAnd or as Boolean. Boolean, Boolean. I'm going to recommend something to you. Please. I, at this point, in my feed bin is down to basically like three blogs. I just get sick of stuff because it's all just promotion. It's become, blogs at this point, so many people's own blogs have become like Twitter, where it's just a place where they, say, go to this other place.

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinThere are very few things that are doing original content that I'm excited about. One that went away for a while and has recently come back, and I really want to bring to your attention and to our listeners' attention. Why can I not type anything in messages right now? messages is hung go to macdrifter.com and this is the acquaintance of mine named gabe gabe is back no shit sorry gabe is one of my favorite of the like guys who still does a blog he disappeared for a while he came back i think i was on a podcast with him once gabe's really cool and um

macdrifter is such a good site and there's the last like four articles are all stuff i feel like

Alexyou need to see oh my god i'm i know this is a i i i'm so i'm sorry i'm very very happy this is

Merlinthe beauty though of having an old you know my opml file is very old and has many old things in it and something something will pop up and i'll be like hey that's cool that's nice to see him

Alexdoing this again the the one thing i think i regret from my google reader days was not exporting everything that was fully and and i use the uh built-in rss client with the reader app uh just because i was like oh i'll try this out oh this is convenient um and but oh god adding oh gosh i'm

Merlinso excited well and it's great but like the one reason i point you here is like obviously so so god just so many of these um so yeah so 2019 um oh my god he mentioned dubai friday what? January 11th 2020 oh my god that's so funny I must have seen this and forgotten it January 11th 2020 the Dubai Friday podcast has been a highlight of the past year for me oh my god and then things stop at a certain point as they do but then he had a post on April 8th called Secret Karass

so already he's going straight up my alley but listen to the next few of these go do the C-more go look at Mac Keepers and Sleepers I discovered like four apps I did not know about that are really cool. Mac apps. So Mac keepers and sleepers. I was like, oh my God, the bitch is back. The next one, which I immediately thought of as you were talking about, and I was interrupting about Obsidian, read his post, my secret sauce of blogging, because it ends up being about way more than blogging. This is where I give away all of my blogging secrets. I've decided to divest

myself of any advantages Mac Drifter has built over the past 12 years. My hope is that I will see fewer links to The Verge and maybe a few more new ideas from smart and funny people. secret number one save literally everything there's a ton of information on the internet and searching is a very poor way to remember things I say bookmarks but as an endangered species bookmarks disappear every day etc write down even your most stupid ideas number three don't write about the same things that other people write about write about a specific jawa a wise man once said secret four pick an area of the internet where you mostly get along

with people and enjoy their virtual companionship I think we need to be fun to have them on the show Oh, my God. But hey, you guys, go read MacDrifter. It's really, it's the kind of thing why I like the internet some days.

AlexI'm in a weird place, I guess.

MerlinOh, no, did I make you emotional about MacDrifter?

AlexYeah.

MerlinBecause you miss blogs.

AlexYeah, and I miss nice people doing, I miss stuff like this.

MerlinNice people doing nice things for no reason.

AlexAnd for also nice people talking and disagreeing and changing each other's minds for the better and I don't know. There was like, I had two weeks of having so much fun on Clubhouse and then like, oh boy, now dumpster fire already. And it's like, cool.

MerlinIt feels like a bad neighborhood. It feels like, I mean, even if it's just our little thing that I've opened the app three times now and you can guess what each of those three times was for. I don't spend time there and everything I hear about it and the people who talk about it, it feels like an Elon Musk Bitcoin Marc-Andreas and things.

AlexYeah, and it really, really bums me out. Like, I met, like, some really cool people.

MerlinBut, like, what's it for? Like, we're just doing it for laughs. We could do it. What we're doing with You Look Nice today, we could do anywhere. I don't know. I'm not even sure why we're doing it, except it's an excuse to do a thing. But, I mean, I'd rather do it on Twitter of all places, you know? But, you know, I agree with you. There's not, I mean, every, I don't know. It's just also, like, I always feel like, I really try not to be like this in my just general comportment, but I've just become a little bit cynical about why anything exists. And that's why I said there were three parts to what I said a minute ago

about nice people doing nice things for no reason. Like, I don't mean this is a Burning Man thing, but the sort of gift economy of like, I write for me and I write for you and that's everything we need to do. That's all we need to talk about. It's like, you can be here or not and that's fine. Like, I just do this thing and I hope that's useful to you. I think that's such a great pillar of the classics, what we think of classic sort of internet that we think about, which goes all the way down to like the people making the software that I use for Home Assistant, the people in the community that you're in for Obsidian, like people who are just there.

I mean, I don't think they're there for the most callow reasons. They're there because it's important to them. more like I was just listening to the What Next episode about George Floyd Square where like they won't let cops in and they like take care of themselves and they have greenhouses and gardens now because they're like, we're tired. I'm not going to rely on other people to take care of me anymore. We're going to take care of each other. I love that feeling. And it's so surpassingly rare. And I'm going to sour that whole nice message now by saying when something like Clubhouse does come along, I'm always just like, how am I going to get the Scroogey with this? Or how is somebody else going to get the Scroogey

because of this? And it's like, I don't know. It's like it's become so obvious that one sounds simple to even say it. But like, like, OK, how are you eventually going to ruin this for everyone? Right. You know, this is not here because you wanted to make a thing. It's not like rail going like it would be neat if I had a one person company based on a personal wiki. Yeah. I could quit. I could quit my terrible job at O'Reilly Publishing. But anyway.

AlexNo, you're exactly right. You're exactly right. It's Twitter accelerated almost because they don't quite have an API yet, but people are creating all of these, you know, like social mores, mores, whatever.

MerlinYeah, mores is fine.

Alexof the of how you know like what uh not not necessarily what's acceptable but like you tap the little uh raise hand button to like agree if you say something and there's different um profile like people often change their profile things to just listening and well I say people do this uh but I haven't been on in a couple weeks because it kind of became a like mean dumpster fire of like i genuinely there's a lot of jew stuff going on too i don't love that oh my god yes like that

Merlinpeople get really worked up about jewish people it's the oddest thing it's so weird nfts and nfts and the jews like what a weird what in 2021 what a weird thing to be worked up about right and it's just i like i i mean it's still i mean like i know whatever we have we have all this great there's all such a rich tradition of jews making babies into matzo all that you know uh you know, what I call protocols of the elders of Zion, all that kind of stuff. But like, it's just so weird to me. I can't, I, like I say, I keep coming back to this idea that, uh, sort of like the Iron

Man extremist virus. And then like I was saying to you yesterday about that guy, who's the neonatologist, who's going to have his wife killed with Bitcoin, but also going to be abducted. And you're like, what is wrong with all of you fucking people? Have you all lost your goddamn mind? I mean, how does a Matt Gaetz exist today?

AlexOh, I mean, oh, he's just so stupid anyway, because he failed up like that is the that is the answer to all of these.

MerlinWell, then he should get on Substack.

Hi, I'm Matt, and this is Randy and Fail Son Hour. The thing is, when I talk, it goes down like this, like a chimney click.

Speaker AOh, God. Can I imagine that my father was very rich in that?

AlexI feel so gross.

MerlinI had to quit. I had to quit. All the oversight that I used to have to deal with with my quote-unquote editors.

AlexOh, all of those editors now? All those people who stopped me saying from racist and transphobic things? Well, guess what?

MerlinCan I tell you we're in the second season of BoJack Horseman if I told you this?

AlexSorry. No, you didn't. Are you enjoying it?

MerlinWell, I like it a lot. It's become my daughter's absolute obsession.

AlexOh, my goodness.

MerlinBecause it's really something. It's really something. You can enjoy it on a lot of different levels.

AlexA lot.

MerlinTodd, is that the roommate? She's obsessed with Todd. She loves him.

AlexOh, my. Oh, gosh.

MerlinIs that his name? Yes, yes. Is it Jesse from Breaking Bad?

AlexAnd oh, my God.

MerlinIt's not difficult to guess who I'm obsessed with. Mr. Peanut Butter. I love Mr. Peanut Butter so much.

AlexI thought you were going to say Diane.

MerlinAnd I love that Diane calls him Mr. Peanut Butter. It would be funny if he was a dog named Mr. Somebody. And it would be funny if he was a dog named Peanut Butter. But the fact that he's named Mr. Peanut Butter and that she calls him Mr. Peanut Butter is the funniest thing in the world to me.

AlexAnd I do want to say, nice listener, if you haven't watched BoJack Horseman, Merlin is referring to an anthropomorphic dog whose name is Mr. Peanutbutter and talks like a human. And like that's a whole world.

MerlinSounds a lot like Paul F. Tompkins.

AlexYeah, yeah. It's uncanny, really.

MerlinYeah.

AlexLike, oh, God, and the T-shirt and the sunglasses, just everything. Oh, my God.

Merlinwe were at the one today. I didn't see the beginning of this because I was still asleep, but she's been, we've watched a lot of it. We've been alternating between that and Handmaid's Tale.

AlexOh, wow. You just don't want to be

Merlinhappy. We got to a really good backstory. We got to a very good backstory episode. We got to the what actually, we got to the, probably around episode eight, we got to like what actually happened with the car crash and him going to Canada.

AlexNope. I have only seen the first season.

MerlinThat's this. I'm still in the first season of Handmaids.

AlexWhich car crash?

MerlinRemember how the show opens where their Volvo crashes and they get picked up?

AlexOkay, yes. Sorry. I'm with you. Yeah. And by the way,

MerlinI'm also confused because sometimes I confuse Ann Dowd with character actress Margo Martindale. You know what the name of her character is on the show? The name of her character on the show is character actress Margo Martindale.

Alexnever margo oh my god

MerlinLisa Kudrow is the owl oh my god it's such a good show oh oh but like I got the one now do you remember when Mr. Peanutbutter throws Diane the birthday party with the ball pit and makes shirts

Alexyes yes

Merlinhave a ball at Diane's birthday why is this so hard it's printed on the shirt

Alexwelcome to Dubai Friday show where we just love anthropomorphic.

MerlinHe's my, so my Netflix, like here's our Netflix icons. I'm Mr. Peanut Butter. Emma is Todd. And, um, Oh God, what's her name? The cat. Um, um,

AlexAmy Sedaris. Oh, Oh, uh, uh, uh, Princess Carolyn, Princess Carolyn. Yeah. No, not Carolyn, Princess Carolyn. Did, I didn't notice this. Uh, the, her, do you know what her cell phone ringtone, like her ringtone? Did you recognize?

MerlinOh, yeah, I do. Well, the whole music is something from Cats, right?

AlexUh-huh. And the ringtone, too, is a jellicle.

MerlinWhat is it? It's not memory. It's, oh, jellicle cats.

AlexYeah, yeah. And I was like, wait a second. Wait a second.

MerlinI asked you and Max a real long time ago. I keep hearing about these two kinds of TV shows that on the face of it look like a TV show I would never want to watch, but all my friends really like it. Should I watch BoJack or should I watch Rick and Morty?

AlexI said Rick and Morty.

MerlinHuh. Do you still stand by that?

AlexOh.

MerlinI mean, as my next, because obviously we're going to. She knows something sad happens. I think lots of sad things happen. But there's something. And so she's just, she's shotgunning this. Oh, I hope it's not. I hope nobody dies. Anyway. Nope, nope, nope, nope. Anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway. Have a ball.

But Rick and Morty, you see Rick and Morty is actually good, huh? It's not stupid.

AlexI.

MerlinIt looks very cartoon network.

AlexI adore it so much.

Merlinit looks like that show with the meatball you know like one of those like there's a joke here

Alexi'm just not getting it's it's not i mean i i don't know if it's for you but it is that's worth

Merlina shot i mean this bojack really uh i liked it a lot yeah and i and i don't want to be the the

Alexperson who's like uh you don't need to like oh skip the first season this is better but

Merlinoh buffy that's called buffying a show yeah except with buffying you do have to watch all

Alexof them because oh my god it's a special oh gosh oh my spouse is gonna be listening to this and

Merlinjust shouting i know but see okay okay the last so here's the thing here's the thing it's different for everybody the last show of a bygone era like that that i think still just barely holds up in some ways is veronica mars i love veronica mars veronica mars though looks like it's a show that improbable, it's like a show from a time warp because it looks so much like a show that was made in the 90s and it looks so much like a show that was made in like, I don't know. It just, it defies aesthetic sense.

The way it's lit, the whole way that Veronica Mars, the whole way the show just looks. And she's wearing like that weird choker chain all the cute girls used to wear in the early 2000s. But isn't it like 2005 or something? I think so, yeah. It's like, what is this show from? But like aesthetically, it looks like it's from the 90s.

AlexWell, it was one of those things where I was in high school and I was like, oh, that's the hipster show. I don't want to watch that.

MerlinI like it. It's shot like that. I love Mathisar, the dad. I love that.

AlexOh, I was totally wrong. I was completely wrong about it. I love that. And I still like the movie.

MerlinAnd I like the Scientology guy. I'm bummed that he's a Scientologist, but I like that guy. He's great on Party Down, as we discussed.

AlexOh, goodness.

MerlinHe's on one episode of Party Down as a douchebag, a political right-wing douchebag, and he's great.

AlexWe don't have a timer. I don't know where – where are we? Where are you? Skype? Audio?

MerlinWe do. We have a timer. Daddy Times 103. Welcome to Dubai Friday, the show where we talk about things that we love. And if you don't like it, you should love more things. Why is the train running? The train goes by constantly, Alex. The train is out of service. I don't know what they're doing. My daughter and I were speculating on it today on the way to breakfast. Are they running drugs to animals at the zoo? That's all I can figure out. Because the train, we're on bus. We've been on bus service for like a year. But the train just keeps running.

And I don't know why. It taunts me. Oh, by the way, they just added Muni. Well, not Muni, but Muni-Bart, all the regional Bay Area transit. Guess what? This week, got the thing in Apple Pay. Just got it. Oh, yeah. Thanks a million. They could have really used that for 20 years.

Alexand now we get it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah oh my god i can't vent vent yeah there we go i'm like what is the chicago uh public transit uh card call ventra ventra which i literally forgot because i haven't used public transit in so long it's one of those names like a trunk it's a made-up name Oh, drunk.

MerlinChicago Tribune. I don't think so. How about drunk?

AlexOh, I just.

MerlinIt should sound like someone's shitting on a car horn.

AlexI can't understand the logic, but I just, I don't.

MerlinAnd like when Philip Morris became Altria, that's the first one of those I remember going like, oh, what?

AlexAs in I love you? What?

MerlinA-L-T-R-I-A. So Philip Morris, and I think maybe some other, I'm pretty sure it's Philip Morris, but some kind of like the cigarette brands decided to rebrand as altria if memory serves a l-t-r-i-a

Alexi don't know if i could name uh i hope they didn't spend a lot on that camel um

Merlinoh of um well i think they do marlboro is that a beer you're a beer i'm not doing a bit i genuinely

Alexuh i'm not i am not feigning uh confusion is are menthols a type of cigarette or a brand

Merlinoh no so like no no no that's understandable it's like anime it's a genre and a medium sorry manga manga manga which which means i think it means eat in italian eat this comic or movie i don't care uh oh yeah you gotta talk to me about titan also um the uh the thing is you've got so there's a kind of you get a cigarette and a cigarette is uh as we learned in mad men s1 e1 you know they uh it's toasted they toast they toast back over this

Alexladies do love their magazine anyways i wish smoking was not i don't wish smoking was cool

Merlini wish smoking was smoking rules people are hard on smoking um you um but what you do is you take a cigarette and you put like a like a minty a minty menthol taste into that oh that sounds

Alexdelicious what am i saying stop god well and well it's interesting in the lore what's interesting

Merlinis I don't know if this was by design, but menthol cigarettes became heavily associated, especially with black people. It was something that black people bought in America. But a lot of people smoke menthol cigarettes because people who smoke regular cigarettes hate menthol cigarettes. And so if you start smoking menthol cigarettes, people don't bum cigarettes off you. This has

Alexbeen your moment of 80s cigarette lore. No, I am genuinely like, oh, God.

MerlinTrue fact. True fact stated. Yeah. And a clove cigarette, by the way, don't put cloves. It's clove oil. I unrolled some of my mom's Winstons and tried re-rolling them with zigzag papers and actual cloves like you put in a ham. And basically I created a prank goof for myself, like a comic book prank, because cloves explode inside a cigarette. It's not clove. It's clove oil you're supposed to do to make clove cigarettes.

AlexAnd oil explodes?

MerlinNope. Nope. I was using literal cloves like your mom puts in a ham. Tell her I said hi.

AlexOh, my God. Oh, my God.

MerlinAn actual clove, like one of those little hard boys. Clove cigarettes, which you usually get from, where's Jakarta? What country is that?

AlexI'm dumb. I don't know.

MerlinNo, you're not dumb. You're nice. I think you're nice. Smokey's fine.

AlexThat's the thing.

MerlinYou have a phone, though. You don't need to smoke.

AlexWait, I have a phone, so I don't need to smoke?

MerlinMost phones are the new smoking.

AlexYeah. Well, that's honest to God. That's a big reason why I have the phone. Why am I saying this with Shane? We've talked about this. The phone, like my weird obsession with phone cases and like pop sockets. It's very much because it's a stimming thing and it rocks. Like it's awesome.

MerlinI'm going to capture that. Something challenge involving stimming. Okay. Hey, it's Dubai Friday and the challenge this week was somebody's. And we were going to try and get focused.

Alexand this was inspired by david smith's underscore david smith's new app he made uh what's it called

Merlinian's awesome app something like that he's in his awesome timer or something but he and his son he says he stipulated his son i think really like lots of people including kids uh has trouble sometimes focusing as somebody who has the adhd it's very true like i i'm i'm i very much lose force for trees so i i could see a lot of benefit in something that reminds me hey bud you're doing your thing and so you basically set it to i mean i i ran it pretty stock and basically just gives you a ping every once in a while and asks you a basic question on your watch and it says um hey

you know are you focused on the thing you want to be focused on yes no or dismiss and then it generates like kind of like a little line graph and you can figure out if you're on on task and

Alexthis i i really like this app as like a little starter i like the idea of it it didn't it didn't

Merlinwork for me as a thing, but I like the idea of it a great deal. And there are times when I really could have used it when I wasn't writing a book, it would have been incredibly helpful to get a periodic reminder that there is a thing above other things I should be doing right now.

AlexYeah. And that's kind of how I've been always using the tomato timer. But this didn't work for me, not just for like brain reason, like practical reasons. It's also just the wrong week because I

MerlinI'm having a week right now where I'm once again at the point of just literally turning off notifications.

AlexWell, I thought that I turned off all the notifications. My watch band just stretched out, and I keep missing notifications. And I'm like, oh, this is nice. Maybe I should do more of this.

MerlinRight. Well, I turned off, like I mentioned before, I turned off almost everything when we went to Yosemite in August. And there's still a bunch I haven't turned back on. But, like, for example, like, I got, you know, castigated a little bit by Syracuse last night because I open Slack probably twice a week. And it's just when I need to do something in Slack, which I know is, but I just, but then on top of that, as I've done all this home assistance stuff, there's a ton of stuff where I've just set up, I just want to make sure a thing works, right?

So for things like presence detection, well, will the presence detection work? I don't know. I've done it a couple different ways. Okay. If the presence detection works, let me know. Set that up a couple different ways. So I have stuff now where like a seemingly trivial event causes like six notifications. That's already on top of the weird thing where I leave my office and it gives me three different notifications about my ring alarm. It gives me another notification that says, your wife just was notified that you're on your way home.

It's so weird to me the way that works in Find My, right? But like bet on me for almost all of those. But like I swear to God, I would like to think it could help a lot if I got more control over the ding, not just the ding, but I wish there was way more control over the notification. I mean, in general, I wish I could say, hey, pause all of this kind of notification. I mean, it's crazy to me that you could basically either have, it can be either on, off, or deliver quietly. Well, this particular app, I want to basically pause this for two days.

I don't need to know anything about this for two days. But even better, I don't need to know anything about this. They're smart enough about categories to know that there are apps that go into App Library in a certain folder. Couldn't I just say everything under social or communication or whatever? Can't I just say, don't give me notifications on this for X hours or days? Like, I really wish I could do that. I don't want to never have it again, but I want the equivalent of the South by Southwest muffle. I just want the like, I love you so much, but I don't want to hear anything from you for the next nine days. It doesn't mean I don't like you.

It just means I don't want a notification from you. We have to grow as people.

AlexNo, yeah, absolutely.

MerlinBut then also give me different sounds. Give me different haptics. There's only two kinds of dings as far as I can tell on the phone. It's either something that's the one ding that's clearly a message or the other ding, which is everything else.

AlexThat's, I mean, that's how I have it set to.

MerlinAnd sometimes it goes so rapid fire that one thing gets cut off while the next one's coming up. And then I have to scroll to see four notifications that are piled up. And it's like I hate all of it. I hate all of it so much. And it's not helpful. I need to redo that.

AlexI would love the ability to snooze notifications like for.

MerlinI want this later. I want this particular notification later.

AlexYeah. Yeah. Just like I typically I'm not a fan of like snoozing emails, you know, Octothorpe Inbox Zero.

MerlinNo, no. But I don't want to be reminded when I'm near arriving at my house. I want to be reminded 10 minutes after I've arrived at my house.

AlexYep, yep, yep.

MerlinBecause then it just goes into the junk pile. It's just all more shit that I missed.

AlexAnd I actually now use the bedtime feature that's baked into iOS, but not so much to tell me when to go to bed, but the automatic turning off of notifications. The charging stuff, all that. Yeah, because my shortcut for that broke. And I was I was right. It wasn't my fault. I was very pleased with that. But the and it just turns on do not disturb. And I love that you can mark people's VIP like, yes, allow this to come through or allow calls that happen twice.

But I would love that I would. Why not? Why not with messages? Like, I would love just like, OK, anything my spouse and like my immediate family sends me, let it through. or anything that Merlin sends me on like between Wednesday and like Thursday. I mean, I obviously always want to hear from Merlin.

MerlinNo, no, no. But that's a really good point. Well, because it assumes I agree. I totally agree with you. But it's also that, you know, this is a kind of an old school Merlin thing. But like there's all kinds of things. It's so ironic or paradoxical that there are so many things that we're supposed to pretend are important, but we don't treat as important. Like if that interruption, if interrupting me right now to have a meeting is really important, why is that not worth taking the time to schedule? Like your, you know, your, your emergency does not constitute my emergency. And it's a little bit glib to say like just anything that goes ding has equal importance,

which sounds like a, like a straw man, but it's not because that's really all I have to go by. If I have a buzz and all I have is a buzz and a ding, it's still down to me to go and like look at that and see what it was. But think about this. if you put this in like the Eisenhower matrix, like you go like, well, there's some things that are important. There are some things that are urgent. And like there can be something that's extremely important, but not at all urgent, right? This is what makes the matrix good. And like there are other kinds of things that like, no matter how urgent they are to you, they are never important to me.

So like I, when you, like my two favorite texters, well, outside my family are you and Syracuse. And I want to savor and enjoy every time we have an exchange. but just because I can't do it right now doesn't mean I don't care. I think that's kind of what we're saying here, right? There's some kinds of things where I don't always have even the guts to say turn off notifications for this because, okay, am I being emotional about this and I'm going to be bummed that I'll miss stuff in the future? But in some cases, yeah, I think you're on. You're on the right track, which is like, yeah, I 100% care about this

but I also have 100% agency to 100% care about this in half an hour. I really want to finish the thing that I'm doing right now before I even go and do something I would like to do with somebody that I like. That doesn't make that not important. It's just that there's a stack here and we've got to work our way down.

AlexYeah. Yeah, I agree.

MerlinAnd that's why I say it was the wrong week because I'm in kind of a mood about that right now. And so the last thing I needed was another thing going ding while I'm watching George Floyd's murderer sit there.

AlexYeah. Yeah. Oh, is that fear in his eye? I know his accountability and it's just a glimmer of hope, but that was a very satisfying glimmer of hope.

MerlinDo you really think that's true? I've heard a lot of people say that, but I think he was very well prepped about what exactly was going to happen.

AlexI don't, I am surprised. I thought, I mean, like I think most of America absolutely assumed he would be acquitted on the murder charge or murder too. And it looked as if he sort of expected the same thing. Like he'd get whatever the, what was the lowest one? Like an intentional manslaughter. yeah and when it was like guilty on the first count like every i you know was jacked into the

Merlinmatrix and because you figure there's like it's like almost like price anchoring yeah yeah you know like the price anchoring thing of like you have three levels and because you know somebody always get the middle one yeah like as somebody who's been on juries i what i expected was they'd find him guilty on one yeah if they found him guilty they'd find him guilty of one yeah big

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah.

MerlinBut like it would be something, you know, but there always is that like you've read enough Old Testament to want to act like Solomon. You know, and to be like, well, I would be very wise and do an unexpected thing here. You know, Michael Scott way. I'm like, we're going to tear down the poster and you have to wear it on a shirt and all that kind of stuff. Win, win, win, win. But I was, I mean, I don't want to overstate it, but I agree with you. I did not expect it to go the way that it went. And one doesn't say one is happy, but I'm for all kinds of reasons.

I'm glad it went the way it did.

AlexYeah. I mean, the it was watching the folks outside the courthouse crying with relief and not heartbreak is something we've literally never seen. or like in literally never seen in in Minnesota at least. And I it was I don't know. It was really it was really great.

I got off Twitter after things had cleared up, you know, after I'd finished my cop sci-op work as, you know, yeah, I can't.

MerlinYou're a regular CIA.

AlexIt makes me literally, I'm just, my spine is curling thinking about that. But yeah, no, I don't also say the word justice is so hard to define, like much like forgiveness. or especially restorative justice is really hard to define. But, I mean, yeah, no.

Yesterday was a lot better than I could have hoped.

MerlinExcept on Twitter. It was all terrible on Twitter.

AlexOh, yeah. Exactly. I logged off.

MerlinI agree with that lady I follow at the New York Times. She's like, well, rot in hell is trending, so let's call it a day for me.

AlexYep. Yep.

MerlinOh, boy, there's a lot of performance going on yesterday.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinA lot of green icons yesterday.

AlexOh, oh, oh, yeah.

MerlinRemember how much we still care about Turan?

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah. There we go. There we go.

MerlinBut let's talk about happy things. And that's why I say it was a bad week. No shade, no lemonade. I could find this very useful. Did you look at the app that I sent you called Minus? Did you look at Minus.app?

AlexI did. And then it wouldn't open because I was on an iMac Pro.

Merlinit required there was so much onboarding for this i said to myself i'm not ready to be onboarded this much but if you're interested in things like this i would encourage people to check a look at it i take a look at minus thought app because it combines several sort of classes of destruction

Alexfree environment stuff wait hold up real quick do it can only run on an m1 i thought oh i i'm not

Merlinsure let me um i ran it on something but i got onboarded and it was really a lot but one thing i like is that like what you can do it so that whatever the thing is that you're supposed to be working on right now becomes like a little sticky at the top i think it's kind of cool oh like you can even have it pull from different apps like this is the task that i'm working on which sounds so simple but you know if if if you don't need this that won't make sense and if you do need this you'll realize how valuable it is that there's something in your face all the time saying this is the thing you're supposed to be working on.

So I'll probably still play with this. But, you know, at the end of the day, I don't know. Carpenters don't need distraction-free environments. Why is it that it's like it's still so funny to me?

AlexWell, but that's the thing. By the nature of their job, no one wants to come get sawdust all over them and hear, you know, the sawing and the banging. So.

MerlinNo, no. I mean, I understand both of what we're trying to say. What I'm trying to say is like, don't get a job like this if you can't handle that, because that's part of the job. You know what I mean? If you if you can't be a minister without stealing money from the till, maybe that's not for you. Right. If you can't be a cop without needing to kill the occasional black man just because it helps you blow off steam, maybe that's not for you. And if you find distractions so overwhelming that you can't do your fucking work on a computer, that's good to know.

That's real good to know. It is interesting to me that we find every forgiveness in the world for our own maladies with this when there are other people doing much more difficult work who aren't suffering from anything similar in terms of maladies, maybe because they're not allowed to suffer. And believe me, I understand. I have a whole goddamn website about this. I'm very sympathetic to this. But I also do think there is, you can go too far, and I have gone too far, with all the wackadoo backbends that get you into what you think you need to be doing.

All the strange, the bizarre, like, fetishes you need to undertake in order to, like, write 200 words. And, like, what I think, at least for myself, for one reason I'm cynical about all this stuff is I've tried all of that. I've educated people about all of that. I've worked a lot of those angles. and I'm not trying to sound like a smart guy. What I am trying to sound like is a person who get at the end of all of that process, it still comes down to like, you're going to do this work or you're not. And there's not enough stilts and strings and crutches and host files

to make you care about what you're doing. There's not an app that can make you do that. And that's why I say in my case, it takes, and you hear me struggle with it, with all this notification stuff. Because if I turn it off, John Syracuse yells at me. Like if I miss the one thing, no, that's not on him. That's on me. But like it's very difficult to manage all of that stuff. But every single, I bought all of these devices. I am the MDM for all of these. Every single thing that's a piece of shit in this world is here because I brought it there or allowed it there.

And like for the things I didn't allow there, if I can't control that, I shouldn't be allowed to call myself an adult. And like if you need help to get over a hump, I think that's fine. But like a crutch is not a home. You shouldn't be hanging out. I don't think you need to make it a part of your practice. And again, it's different for kids. It's different for everybody. Do what works for you. I don't care. But it's just that I'm so naturally, I've become so resistant to anything that feels like

a technology solution to something that you imagine as a technology problem. When actually, that's not a technology problem, guy. That's a you problem. And like adding new technology to your technology problem is not going to make the technology problem go away because it was never a technology problem. A technology problem is your computer broke. A technology problem is not, boy, I sure like going to Apollo and seeing what, you know, funky tit 73 has to say about this Doctor Who reboot or whatever.

AlexIt's absolutely wild that as Americans, there's so much like American exceptionalism. And it's like, yeah, yeah, I'm this thing. Oh, but if I can't concentrate, this is this is definitely a structural structural society problem. And and this app, this app right here. Yes, yes. Like you couldn't you think you're special, but you can't accept that maybe, you know, there's something there that maybe it might be some some maybe it might be a new job if you have the possibility.

It feels like I'm saying very obvious things, but people make livings from this.

MerlinNobody needs a distraction-free orgasm environment.

AlexYeah.

MerlinYou somehow manage. You make it through that without distraction. Why is that?

AlexSome people do.

MerlinI'm sorry, honey. I can't come right now. I have to see if Chrissy Teigen's following me.

Thank you.

237. The University of Budnik

Show notes

Transcript

237. The University of Budnik

Show notes

Transcript

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